we're there from 4th june til 9th July. There's a double room available, can have it yourself or could share (and obv would be cheaper) pm me if you're interested and we can have a chat!
haven't played a whole lot recently, but i played today and finally got my 1st Royal flush! It's only taken like 320k hands
$5/$10 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com
I'll get round to writing a proper blog post soon, I know it's been a while! But I thought this was funny. All against the same reg in the space of about 30 minutes.
$10/$20 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com
Did you miss me? Been on a break for a bit over a month now as I've been busy moving. Never thought it would be so much hassle! There's always something else that needs sorting out. Plus it doesn't help that I'm an expert procrastinator. I've finally got everything sorted though, and I'm writing this from my new setup in my new flat with my new car parked outside.
I'll start off with the fllat.. it's a nice place, nothing too fancy. Unfortunately I can't show you any pictures because I don't own a camera, sorry! The place does need some decorating though; bare walls everywhere except an awesome picture of new york in my room which was already in the flat. I don't know much about art, but I'll have to go shoppping sometime and hopefully something will catch my eye. Any ideas about some cool pictures/paintings or w/e to have will be much appreciated! It has a good location, I'm only about 5 mins drive from my parents house so am still close to my friends and family which is nice. It's in a quiet area situated about 5 mins walk away from a village. I've got an elderly couple living accross from me, and I've already managed to piss them off... oops! I was caught by surprise when Maureen came out at 12am when I was opening my door "what do you think you're playing at slamming doors at this time of night?!!!?!?!!" Took me by surprise as I didn't think I was! It turns out that the guy who was living here before me was drunk a lot of the time and wasn't very neighbourly. So I think they were just a bit aprehensive about a 21 year old moving in. I went round and apologised the next day and we're best mates now so it's all good.
the new setup... I couldn't really be bothered putting a pc together so I just went to pc world and got one that looked decent. It's a packard bell one. Intel quad Q8200 2.34 Ghz w/e that means, 4gm ram, 1TB hard drive I think. But most importantly, I got a dell 30" screen. I still can't believe how big it is and at the same time wonder how I ever played without it!
the new car... ford focus, 3 years old and about 20k miles on it. Here's a pic of one..
I'm not too big on cars/driving. I only use it if i have to walk for more than about 20 mins. I like it though, and it's useful to have. I'm not the best driver either, the car was in the body shop on the 2nd day of having it! Was driving way to fast into my parking space at my flat, and scraped the passenger side on a concrete pilar, smooooth. £500 lesson learned anyway.. slow down!
Got some videos coming out soon, sorry it's been a while. I wanted to get a load of hands in to dust away the cobwebs in my game before I did my next video. I've got about an hour long 4 tabling 5/10 vid on ipoker recorded, just have to do the audio and it's good to go!
I've been playing a bit recently and it's insane. I've had tilt problems in the past and playing hu plo seems like a great cure. The swings are like nothing I've ever seen and my theory is the more i expose myself to variance, the better I'll be able to handle it. I have been tilting a bit, but I think I had to expect that. Here's a great hand..
$1/$2 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
2 players
Converted at weaktight.com
Stacks: BTN ($709.90) Hero (BB) ($202.00)
Pre-flop: ($3, 2 players) Hero is BB J 3 8 T
BTN calls $1, Hero raises to $6, BTN calls $4
Flop: A A 3 ($14, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $6, Hero raises to $30, BTN raises to $102, Hero goes all-in $196, BTN calls $94
Turn: K ($442, 2 players)
River: 9 ($442, 2 players)
Final Pot: $403
BTN shows: 8 6 A T
Hero shows: J 3 8 T
BTN wins $403 ( won +$201 )
Hero lost -$202
hmm so yeah, better stop doing that if I want to still have money!
I'm breakeven for the month so far at plo. I've only played about 10k hands though. I ran reeeaaallly bad at the start and am coming back now. I'd post a graph, but I can't get poker grapher to recognize my plo database, only the nl one comes up (any ideas anyone?) I think I've improved q. a bit as well which is good. Hopefully in a couple of months I'll be able to play high stakes plo, adding another dimension to game selection.
Oh yeah, got dealt my 1st ever royal flush yesterday!!
$1/$2 Pot Limit Omaha Hi
2 players
Converted at weaktight.com
Stacks: BTN ($314.40) Hero (BB) ($252.60)
Pre-flop: ($3, 2 players) Hero is BB T 3 Q J BTN raises to $6, Hero calls $4
River: A ($37, 2 players) Hero bets $36, BTN folds
Final Pot: $71
Hero wins $71 ( won +$17 )
BTN lost -$18
outside of poker...
Passed my driving test the other day, was so relieved. After failing 5 (may even be 6) times i felt like i was never gonna pass. Wanted to give the examiner a big kiss when she told me, but i restrained myself. So I'm looking to get a car now. I don't want anything too fancy, even if i wanted a "balla" car i doubt anyone's gonna give me insurance for it. Problem is I don't know too much about cars so gonna have to do some research.
But before I do that, I'd like to get my apartment sorted. Can't remember how much I've talked about this in previous entries, but basically I found one I liked, but I didn't like some of the furniture/carpets etc. Well I have been waiting for the landlord to get back to me about that, but she didn't seem too keen about changing anything. I'm having 2nd thoughts about it myself tbh. It has a great location, but it seems q. posh and that's not really me. I did find another one i like though. The location isn't as good, but it still has a very good location. It's a nice place and I like the decor. Think I'm just gonna go with that, seems like a lot less hassle.
It's alright when I'm winning, but as soon as i start to lose i just think to myself "I'm really bored with this". Now this could be a serious problem since poker's my job! But I'm not too worried actually. I think it's largely because I'm sick of still living at home. I play cooped up in a small room, playing on a 17" laptop. I need a change of scenery, and some variation! It's all gotten a bit monotonous.
I had this realization a couple of days ago, but was sure when i was playing yesterday. The session started out ok, got up a few k then made some dumb decisions in a decent 25/50 hu game. I got stuck like 10/15k, i was a little annoyed, but i didn't seem to care too much. It was a weird feeling and I'm not articulate enough to describe it. I usually kick myself if i do something stupid, but this time I wasn't too bothered and just felt bored with it all!
I carried on playing though and ended up 1 tabling a shorthanded 10/20 game. Was a lot of fun. I was playing like 60/50 and doing weird stuff like open raising to 120 every hand. Or sometimes limping or w/e. Then over betting the flop. Like I'd limp in with Q7o then bet 300 into a 50 pot on a 642 flop or something. Obviously a form of tilt, but i honestly believed (and still do) that i was +ev in the game. I was playing against 4 regs too! It made me realize just how bad these players were. Poker is all about adapting to different conditions. As soon as they played a thinking player who doesn't play 28/22, raise to 70 and cbet 3/4 pot on the flop then they had no idea what to do! They all just nitted up an insane amount. They probably got the impression i was tilted or drunk, but if they had been paying attention they would have noticed I wasn't actually doing anything too dumb, was folding to 3b a lot and rarely played a big pot w/o a hand. So against a player who open raises to 6/7 bb every hand and doesn't play a big pot w/o a hand then 3b them relentlessly! They didn't though, they sat back and let me win every pot.
I was sat there in amazement at how bad at poker these players were. I'm talking about 10/20 online pros! These are supposed to be the top 1% of players in the world, right? Now I know what aejones is talking about when he says all these high stakes players are just awful at poker. I always thought these guys were somewhat decent, but turns out they're just blindly following a set strategy that they have probably learned from 2p2 and training sites. I'd expect that from an average 200nl reg, but not a 10/20 one! So don't be that person! Think outside the box and think for yourself, instead of blindly listening to what we say, and following what we do on our videos. Because if you don't you'll end up losing to a guy that plays 60/50 at a 5max table!
Towards the end of my tilt session one of the better regs sat down and joined in with what i was doing instead of being a massive nit like the other players at the table. We had min raising wars pf and stuff like that. Was a good laugh and my respect for him (was already high) went up. I brought this up because I thought I'd share another little observation that I've had. In general, the nicest guys are the best players and the complete twats at the table are the tagfish. You noticed this? Wonder why. Guess it's because the tagfish spend all their time grinding out 1ptbb, aren't intelligent and let their emotions get the better of them. They're bitter about it all and because of their complete lack of character take it out on other people. So the next time you get berated by one of these guys or they laugh at you if they win a pot against you, don't get annoyed, feel sorry for them!
Back to the boredom problem...
My plan for December is to exclusively play plo. I've been lazy about playing plo and it's a game i really want to get good at. It's mainly because I'm playing small stakes and so I'm not winning too much. But since it would be a bad idea for me to play high stakes nl atm it seems like a perfect time to work on my plo game. I'll still be making and watching nl videos, and I'll still coach and be active in the forums to keep up with my game, I'm just not gonna play for the rest of the year.
Now I'd be very naive to think that the novelty of a new apartment/setup will completely solve the boredom problem. It won't of course so I need to have some sort of variation. Playing plo is one, but more importantly is that I plan to do some traveling and play some live events. It seems like a huge waste being a pro poker player and staying in one place because I have the freedom to travel. I think if i do that then I'll be ok and I'll go back to really enjoying playing again. it is a great game after all.
November was a lazy month for me, didn't get too much done. My main goal was to move out before the end of the month. That hasn't happened yet, but I have chosen an apartment, I just need to do some negotiations with the landlord. I'm trying to get him to change some of the furniture and the carpets because they aren't very nice. I like the apartment though and it has a great location.
Here's my nl graph..
16k hands is a really poor effort even for me! wasn't too motivated to grind. Think I'm just getting a bit sick of playing on my laptop and just can't wait to move out and get a proper setup! I've also been really lazy about working on my game. I've hardly watched any videos and haven't reviewed my sessions much, so I'll be looking for that to change in Dec. I always said to myself that I'll never have the "i'm number 1 so why try harder" attitude. Not saying I'm the best or anything, far from it. But I've been having decent results at the high stakes games for a while and it's too easy to get complacent when that happens. Things are going well so why change, right? It's a terrible attitude to have. This video is all about what I'm talking about and is an insight to why great players stay great.
I'm just glad he decided to play chess instead of poker, because there would be less money for all of us otherwise!
The downswing in the middle is me running bad at 25/50 and good at 10/20. I think at the lowest point i was still like 7ptbb/100 for the month. Solid month $ wise nonetheless.
I'll finish off with some fun hands from the month..
against an agro reg, i was really excited on the flop. Probably the sickest river card, but i felt he would bluff it enough plus i had the Qh.
$10/$20 No Limit Holdem
2 players
Stacks: BTN ($4148.50) Hero (BB) ($2108.50)
Pre-flop: ($30, 2 players) Hero is BB Q Q BTN raises to $60, Hero raises to $220, BTN calls $160
Flop: 7 A 4 ($470, 2 players) Hero bets $260, BTN raises to $640, Hero calls $380
Turn: K ($1750, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks
BTN wins $2040 ( lost -$2108.50 )
Hero wins $4216 ( won +$2107.50 )
vs another agro reg, figured he'd float this flop a lot so went for a turn cr. Whiffed that and figured a river cr was mandatory. I don't think I could have called his shove faster!
Hero wins $10048 ( won +$5048 )
BTN lost -$5000.00
biggest pot I've ever won. guy was a pretty big donator (obv) still a pretty sick spot, but he 3b a lot and i just knew he wouldn't take that line with 2pr+ so i shrugged and called, and luckily i held!
$25/$50 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com
biggest pot I've ever played. One of those hands where I just wish I had folded pf! He tanked all the way down on the river, so i guess it was a good bluff! I'd like it a lot more if river blanked though.
BTN wins $18445 ( won +$9257.50 )
Hero wins $3030 ( lost -$9187.50 )
Vs the same guy. I was a bit tilted and accused him of slow rolling the last hand (which i don't think he did tbh), we had a few back and fourths in chat. All really unnecessary and not something i usually do, but i was tired and pissed off that i had just lost...
plo is such a tilting game, tilted off like 1k today at $1/$2. I kept losing flips and not making hands etc, well you know how it goes. That got me annoyed, and the fact that I'm used to playing 10x+ the stakes (so the money didn't mean a great deal to me) I decided to pot pretty much every street for about 10 mins on 4 tables, luckily the players were so bad and I didn't lose more. I'm very annoyed at myself and as punishment I'm not gonna play 1/2 until I've made the back 1k at 50c/1. I've always had discipline problems, and I'm going to need to sort myself out if I want to play plo successfully!
I've not had a chance to play too much poker this month, played like 8k hands of nl and i dont wanna look at my pt plo atm, but prob around 3k hands there. I'm running at 10ptbb/100 at nl, but only up $15k, was up $40k after like 4k hands. Running bad at 25/50 and good at 10/20 isn't brilliant (but better than running bad at both i suppose!). Think I'll stay away from the tough-ish 25/50 games for a bit since i could do with some low variance winnings. I had been playing a few regs hu at 25/50, i def thought i had an edge, but it wasn't huge and varaince didn't swing my way, oh well. I also did a couple of dumb things.
This was a fun hand from one of the matches, the guy really had not been bluffing much either. Ship
The reason why I haven't been getting much poker in is that I have been busy looking for an apartment to move in to. It was my goal this month to move out. My plan was to do it right after I got back from uni, but I'm a lazy person and just put it off. I've seen a couple of nice ones and am going to come to a decision soon. I'm just going to rent for now, I know house prices are down and it's a good time to buy, but I don't want to invest too much of my money on something that I know very little about. I have also been told that house prices will still be down in a year or so anyway. I'm going to stay near where I live now, because I don't really see a reason not to.
I don't follow politics, never have, and it's doubtful i ever will, but I obviously have heard of this new UIGEA thing. I don't know too much about it, but it's not going to be good for online poker! There's a thread in high stakes on 2p2 with plans to form a lobby group to try and change things. I really hope those guys are successful, best of luck to them!
It's been a long time coming. I was unfortunate enough to start blogging right at the peak of my great run, and at the start of my bad stretch. I can't complain too much about this months results though.
There's one more day left, but I've been meaning to go to the estate agents for a while now. So I'm gonna try and finally do that tomorrow, and I'm pleased with booking October as it is.
Here's the nl graph..
and my sick plo results! (i ran 10bi above equity btw)
It's not too close to my best ever month, but it's nice to book a solid win after sept (1st ever losing month). I played pretty well for the most i think, but there was a day where i tilted off about 10k. It was really sickening and I'm still annoyed at myself for that. I haven't actually played a whole lot since then, just ran really hot and played some soft 25/50 games. I've also made q. a bit of money because the pound has gotten really weak, or dollar has become stronger, or both? I'm not too knowledgeable of the economic crisis atm. It seems to be coming back a bit now though. I cashed out q. a bit when it was about £1 = $1.55. Hasn't been that low in such a long time. So yeah good solid month for me
I'll finish with the obligatory A high call down..
$10/$20 No Limit Holdem
4 players
Stacks:
CO ($2167.00) Hero ($3036.00) SB ($2040.00)
BB ($2000.00)
I left it last time as me having to drop down stakes to 5/10 until I made 10 buy-ins. Well fortunately that only took me 2 days! Running hot was fun. I've not had to move back down which is nice (was literally $100 away from it at one point though!). However I've still been going through some rough patches and haven't completely recovered. Which meant that I had my first ever losing month which wasn't so great. I guess that's a brag seeing as I've been playing for about 2 years, but I always liked saying that I've never had a losing month, and now it's "I've only ever had one losing month!". Oh well, meaningless really. September has gotten off to a bright start, running so-so, and playing reasonably well, which is that main thing of course! So hopefully I can make a big brag post at the end of this month. Unfortunately no really exciting hands spring to mind, guess I'll have to increase my fps before my next blog post!
Been playing a little plo lately. Just some small stakes stuff, I started out at 25c/50c and have moved up to 50c/1. I don't want to play too high because I don't really know what I'm doing. It's been quite relaxing playing small stakes anyway. I've been tearing it up lately, 11 buy-ins in 1300 hands at 50c/1! plo is fun when you run hot! Top set, Quads, another set, nut flush, straight flush, straight etc. think I'm getting a feel for the game and I'm hoping to move up in stakes to where I can make some real money, but I'm gonna do it properly and work my way up just like I did for nl. Seems like it's where poker's headed and it's a nice break from playing nl all the time!
On an off-topic note, I finally got round to seeing The Dark Knight yesterday. I thought it was pretty boring :/. And I'm not just saying that to be different . I don't really get why everyone loves it so much, just seemed to be another action film. Shrug.
Got my driving test coming up this Wednesday. Having a green license is starting to get a little embarrassing! I've failed like 4 times already, I run bad at driving tests! Was doing it on and off at uni which didn't help either. But I'm gonna pass it this time!
J
J
6
($140, 2 players)
. I don't really get why everyone loves it so much, just seemed to be another action film. Shrug.