Prague Days 2 & 3

It was the main event yesterday, sadly i crashed out in 59th out of 253, but it was a pretty fun day. I won't go into hand details again as they've nearly all been posted on the forum..

http://www.gutshot.com/bforum/showthread.php?t=35181

Luckily i have 20% of JJ in the main event, and as i write this he's still in with 16 left. Fingers crossed he can win this event! Obviously it'd be nice for me to get 20% of maybe €30k, but JJ has been on top of his game and it would be nice to see a Brit take the whole event down.

I caught up with him during the first break today and after winning a 200k pot after flopping a set first hand, he lost a massive hand to go back to 80k, then won two hands to get back up to near the chip lead... One time!

During the break JJ took a little time out to recharge the batteries, hence the photo below.. The cat that's got the cream!!

I bought into the final event of the festival, a €100 event, and lasted maybe 25 mins. First hand at the table resulted in us losing 2 players when the dealer dealt KK, KK and AA to 3 players. All the cash went in pre and AA held. I lost when i 3 bet shoved with AKs only to be called by a guy with pocket 7's... he said he either wanted to double up or go drink at the bar. Ok. Fair enough.

I'm back in my room now, obv blogging this. Can't decide whether to play online STT's and the Turbo Takedown, live cash or just go and rail the Final Table if JJ makes it... If i can get my dongle to work playing the Turbo Takedown whilst watching JJ win the event is my preferred choice! :-)

Either way we're flying back tomorrow morning so i wouldn't mind getting an early night so i can play the £200 at the LPM Festival tomorrow evening.... Really can't wait after reading the blog updates from the first event yesterday.

I've been feeling a bit rubbish since yesterday afternoon with stomach pains so it looks like it'll be a pretty tame visit to Prague. After speaking to some Scandies earlier Prague strip clubs now are pretty bloody expensive, so i'm not too fussed...

I played 10 STT's earlier on my Netbook. Not ideal for multi-tabling, but i finished the session $200 so not too bad. Although the damage to my eyes trying to play them will prob cost more to fix!

Prague Day 1

I arrived in Prague yesterday pretty shattered. After grabbing a few hours kip i popped next door to find JJ deep in a PLO MTT sitting there in his pants having downed a bottle of whisky. I'll let JJ report how the MTT turned out for him... With me stone cold sober we ducked out and found a lovely little place for some food and had a couple of pints, before heading back to the Hotel/Casino where the Paradise events are being held. We both sat down in 1/2 NLH cash games to kill some time. I played on a table with 3 of the biggest fish i've played in my life and 3 pretty solid gents. After seeing bugger all for 2 hours i left the table +£100. JJ meanwhile had dropped a buyin, bought back in and i found out this morning ended the session +£400 after hitting some tres sexy cards. He even got 1000 of the local $$ for hitting quads. MBN.

I got a pretty good night sleep, and after a wander around town sat down in the €200+20 side event. With a starting stack of 10,000, 65 entries and a clock very similar to the £100 at the International it looked like a pretty good structure. JJ was also playing and roared to 15k, whilst i played no hands for 90 mins and my chips dwindled to 8k. After 3 levels the dinner break and up to that point i'd played one. The best i'd seen was KQ suited. I lost. After the break JJ got knocked out in 40th, and it seemed i wouldn't be too far behind him. I successfully managed to double up when i 3 bet shoved on the button with 77 and got called by AQ.

After that i managed to play a little more aggressively and chipped my way up to 30k without showdown. Then this hand came up. Blinds are 800/400 with a 50 ante and i'm sitting on 33k. The British guy to my right had about 28k and had been playing relatively passively. I'm UTG and raise with AKos to 1850. I'd not been playing many hands so my image was pretty solid. It fold all the way to the BB who makes some comment about wanting to get rid of his last two 25 chips and throws in a call. The flop comes a nice AK3 with two spades. He now leads into me for an over pot sized bet of around 5500. Now he's not doing that with a set so i have him on a ace too. Maybe the same hand, hopefully AQ or lower. I decided to call and see if he leads again on the turn and raise him then. The turn bring a 7h and he checks. Now i think maybe he's got a flush draw or a Ace little. I decide to bet big to price out a flush draw and put a 12,000 out there. He dwells before calling. Mmmm maybe no flush draw then. Unless he's hit the 7 then i still don't have him on a set and more likely the Ace or some random two pair. The river brings a spade. I'm not over joyed, but i think the chance of him calling the big turn bet with that isn't likely. He now leads into me with nearly all his remaining chips. I go into the tank for an age and eventually call. He flips Q8 of spades for a rivered flush. Fair play to him, but this surely has to be -ve calling the turn!!

I love to know people thoughts on this hand. Maybe i should have just shoved the turn? Anyway, i went out a short time afterwards 3 betting a MP raiser with Q10 suited. I get snapped off with AA and i'm out in 20th. I didn't see any pair above 88 all day, didn't make anything better than a pair until the AK hand above. Although i fall short of cash i'm happy with the way i played... Sadly that doesn't pay the bills.

Tomorrow the €500+50. I'll save my hands for then!!

Ewan and some of the Paradise boys have just headed out so i'm debating whether to join them for some drinks, totally ignoring Ed's advice :-), or have a boring early night in. God i live a boring live at the moment!! When i feel better i have to get out for drinks more! It's been 6 months since i've been on a date too... far too long!

Laters db x

Finally & off to Prague & 2010 Goals...

After Sunday night/morning i was pretty flat on Monday, also very tired. I woke earlyish with only a couple of hours sleep with my Crohns causing me a lot of pain and discomfort, but as the day dragged on i felt better and decided I would jump back in the saddle so to speak and play a few more MTT's.

I entered 5 on Full Tilt and Pokerstars. I made sure they were only early starts as i didn't want to be playing much after midnight and got under way. Again i was staked by Howard and he was railing via IM. I tend to find having people railing me helps my play.. less chance of making a foolish move! That said i still crashed out of 3 of the comps in the first few hours. I was left in the $109 on Pokerstars and the $20 rebuy on Full Tilt that i chopped last week. I was building decent stacks in both, but bubbled the $20 rebuy. In the other comp however i was catching card after card, and not having too many tough decisions, unlike the million and $20 rebuy last week where every hand was pretty tough to play.

I winged my way to the final table by about midnight, and although i lost a few pots early on i managed to run over the final table and finally made my first 5 figure win. I got cards in nice spots and ended up in the final 3 against the two weak players on the table so it really all fell my way. First paid $12,650 which nearly made up for the night before. It also means that my total winnings for Feb now exceed the $30k mark. A pretty good start to the year!!

After that i've decided to set myself some poker goals for the year... I'd be interested to know what people think?

1) 3 x $10k+ MTT cashes during 2010
2) 10 x $5k + MTT cashes during 2010
3) 1 major final table online during 2010 (Million, Warmup, SCOOP, WCOOP, FTOPS, Brawl etc)
4) Make $10k+ from STT's during 2010 (This was going to be higher, but my focus will be on MTT's now)
5) Play 1 EPT event
6) Play 2 GUKPT and UKIPT events each.
7) Cash in one of the above events.
8) NOT LOSE MONEY PLAYING CASH GAMES

Any advice would be appreciated either here or on the forum. I really appreciate the posts people have made so far giving their thoughts on turning pro etc etc.

Finally, I'm off to Prague tomorrow morning to play the Prague leg of the Paradise tour with JJ. I'm playing the €200 event on Friday and then the main event on Saturday. I'll try and post updates as much as possible to keep people up to date.

I'm also looking to start doing some video posts... do people think this is worthwhile?

All the best
db xx

It Never Rains, but it Pours

Since last week I've been on a bit of a roller-coaster, except I have yet to reach the top yet...

Last week I entered a test backing period with Howard Smith the kind gent to donate the funds. As i'm having to use a decent percentage of the winnings i'd made to support myself my poker bank roll wasn't growing at the rate i'd like. Howard suggested backing me over a few nights online up to a certain value of MTT's, my performances have been good for sometime now, after winning several comps on Gutshot during November and December i was pretty confident i could get a good return on Howards investment. I guess you never really know though. It's quite possible to go three days without cashing in a single event, although i can't remember this happening for sometime now.

Night one i played 5-6 MTT's on Full Tilt, which i only started playing on 3 weeks ago and have so far one final table a week. I crashed out of 3 MTT's pretty early, but when deepish in one and in the $20 rebuy i ended up reaching the final table. It was a bit of a yoyo affair, but when we reached 3 left we did a deal and i took away 2nd and over $5k. This made for a pretty good start, and also meant i reached the target i set a few weeks ago!

Friday night my daughter stayed over and we had our usual takeaway and film night, so this means poker stops for the day. Aside from the fact i love having my little girl over, i also quite like having days off without any poker. It's too easy to get sucked into playing 24/7. Normally during the week i also try and keep one day aside for learning, whether it be PokerVT or Cardrunners there's sooo much information out there on how to improve your game. I really can't stress this enough, but the more you put in the more you get out of the game.

Saturday i woke feeling pretty rotten with my Crohns again and ended up sleeping most of the day. I got up in time to go to the International to play the £100 Freezeout. I didn't play any hands at all for the first 90 minutes and then moved table where i got some pretty good hands straight away and moved on from there really. One hand on that table raised a few eyebrows, and i'm pretty sure no one believed what i folded at the table, but too me it seemed like a standard fold. I might be wrong, but i lost the minimum.

The hand played out roughly like this. There's a limp in early position which causes two further limpers before me. I look down and see 22 and chuck in a call. The player behind dwells for a second and i think he's maybe going to raise, but he eventually calls. The player in the BB then raises as what looks like an obvious squeeze. Everyone calls. In this situation when everyone calls a raise i automatically often have some of them on pairs. People know when they hit the flop and make a set they're often in very good shape against other hands. The flop comes down J72 with 2 spades. Bottom set. Sexy. There's a bet in early position which i put a small raise in. The guy to my left who i though maybe was going to raise preflop then raises me by a decent chunk. It folds around to the guy in early position who then pushes all in. and comes back to me. Now it's unlikely anyone has an over pair considering the preflop play, so i narrow the range of hands these guys have got to something like KJ/J10, a bigger set or a flush draw. The guy on my left is counting his chips which is generally not a sign he's going to fold. Do i really want to be all in against the other two players, i feel i'd rather find a better spot and muck my hand. The guy to my left flips over 77 for a bigger set, and the other guy has a flush draw. No one believed i had 22, but i was more concerned whether it's right to fold there? At the time i thought it was easy, but how often does either of them have a bigger set?

I finished on the final table again of the comp and eventually crashed out in 6th losing another coin flip for £400 quid profit. I also won the last longer bet for another £280 so it was a pretty good evening all in all.

I didn't sleep very well again and felt pretty ropey on Sunday so relaxed most of the day to prepare for my second evening of being staked into MTT's. I played the comps below and had an excellent, if exhausting night.

Pokerstars
Sunday Warmup $215
Sunday Million $215
$60k Gtee $109
$80k Gtee $55
Full Tilt
$150k Gtee $163

By midnight i'd crashed out of the Warm-up and $150k on Full Tilt, but was moving along slowly in the rest. I eventually cashed in two of the comps for around $300 and was just left in the Sunday Million. This particular Sunday Million actually had a guaranteed prize pool of $4 million in line with the promotion they were running for the 40 billionth hand being dealt on their site that week. There's normally a large field in the MTT as it always has a first prize in excess of $240k, but this week with a minimum of $1 million for 1st place the field was huge!! Over 36,000 people entered making it one of the biggest online MTT's of all time. After nearly getting blinding away by midnight i started to hoover up chips and for a brief time i actually was in the top 10. Eventually i crashed out physically, mentally and finished in 99th for a cash of just over $4k. I guess you should feel happy after beating 36,000 people, but i was very disappointed. I got great support throughout the night from many of the night owls at the International, which really kept me going and helped me focus. Even so it felt like i'd missed out.

So far so good for the staking anyway. Two nights and over 4k profit each. I've got quite a lot of things to add at the moment so the blog will be updated again tomorrow...

laters xx

SOLD OUT

I've got all the backing i need now for the poker festival. I sold 45% which hopefully i can repay by winning one of the trophies!

Could be worse

After yesterdays daytime escapades i managed to drag myself out the flat for a few hours to the International for the £75 comp in the evening. I felt pretty rubbish, but managed to come 6th out of 86 starters for a £415 cash. A satisfying end to the day, and then for the first time in a week i managed a decent nights sleep so feel a bit better today.

I've now managed to find backers to cover 25% of the entries to the upcoming festival (London Poker Masters). I ideally I'd like to sell between 40-50% of myself so a little way to go yet.

http://www.gutshot.com/bforum/showthread.php?t=34971

Click above for more info on that.

Variance is a bitch.

After a pretty successful week last week this weekend was just dismal. Saying i'm running bad would be an understatement. I'm not even getting cold decks, just being outdrawn in the sickest manor time after time. I'm not too bothered about this as long as my game doesn't fall apart. This kind off stuff happens all the time, and after running at a 41% ROI last week playing STT's it was only a matter of time.

I'm not going to go into all the hands, because i'd just bore myself writing them. The only one that sticks in the mind was in the Sunday Warm up. I had AQ in mid position and 3x bet. I've been slowly acquiring chips and up to about 18k. The BB who's played nearly every hand 3 bets me and i flat call. Flop comes A42. I bet he calls. Turn bring a Q and i bet again, he shoves and i snap call with top two. He flips 99??!! River... 9. oh hum. I got knocked out of everything else fairly early on and started playing the F40 promotion STT's on stars. I played about 9 i think, 3 at each level and won 2 and cashed in another 3. This meant after bombing out every MTT losing $ in every set of STT's i played i actually broke even on the day. Over all for the weekend I'm still $300 down tho'.

With only one taker for the prop bet i'm pretty sure it's not worth doing. I was hoping to get at least $1k which would motivate me a little more.

I felt pretty rubbish last night and was only kept awake whist at the club by Mr Anthony Tsang who sat next to me whilst playing his Sunday MTTfest. I picked up a lot of good stuff watching him and although we didn't chat too much he pointed out a couple of leaks in my online MTT game straight away. After getting home i had a pretty rubish night with my Crohns yet again and as a result haven't slept much. I played a few sets of STT's a while ago and my dismal luck continues so i'm stopping playing online now for the day. $425 down just on the day.

If i get some sleep i'll go and play the £75 at the International tonight... fortunately my awful luck doesn't seem to have forced it's way into my live game. Thank god.

Props!!

It's been an average day today. I've played volume today and managed 112 $16 turbos on Pokerstars. I really need to try and achieve this everyday, but the motivation when i feel shite is not entirely there just yet. I managed a profit so far of $148, which is poor. I played 2-3 of the sets whist feeling pretty off and they dragged down the profit for the day. This means $1650 to hit my target and still weeks to do it. It's looking pretty set that i'll achieve this easily so i've been toying with the idea of setting a new target. Any ideas?

On that note i was talking to a friend earlier today. He plays a little poker and so has a grasp of the different types of games and potential profit that can be made. I said that i reckon i can make $5,000 profit from just playing $10-16 turbo STT's. He thinks i wouldn't stand a chance, and to be fair just at that level i've not gone too close to that before. I think maybe i'll set this up as a prop on the Gutshot forum and see if anyone fancies betting against it...

I saw the doctor again today who has signed me off sick with my Crohns for the whole of next week. This is bad and good news in equal measure. It's half term so i'll be able to look after my daughter for a few days and also play poker to get closer to my goals. On the down side i'll not be getting any money from work again.

Downs, Up's and Up's

So, the first update. I'd love to say that i've been grinding out 100's of STT's a day, but I've been feeling pretty awful over the last couple of days so haven't achieved the volume I'm looking to hit on a daily basis.

Pretty much straight after my first post earlier in the week i played Rush poker on Full Tilt, which i've been doing every day to reach 'Iron Man' status. As I've mentioned previously cash games are currently the worst part of my game. Whilst I want to improve this isn't going to happen over night. I played for 2-3 hours and dropped $400. I played pretty poorly and paid off made hands trying to make hero calls that i just didn't need to make. Pretty pissed off with myself i took a time out for a hour or two before opening Stars and grinding STT's. I played my A game and stuck to a set formula that i've been playing STT's to for the last few months. I made $450 in about 2 hours, so i finished the day in profit, but could have been sooooo much better if i'd spent my time just playing STT's, rather than cash.

Yesterday i slept until nearly 1pm and woke feeling rotten still, and so the good intents of playing 100 STT's (around 6 sets) went down the toilet. I felt a little better by the evening and so went to the International to play the new £100 freeze out and have a chat with Anthony Tsang about how i can best make money from poker moving forward. The comp was full of very good regulars, and the standard at the International has been getting better and better over the last 18 months or so. There's very little easy money in the games now and picking your spots well to accumulate chips is very important. Also moving up and down the gears is very important in my view. I can think of distinct phases last night where i shut up shop and went maybe an hour without playing a hand, and at other times i might play 3 or more back to back.

In future i'll try and post more hands, but the only major hand i recall last night was this one. I apologise in advance as i can't remember the chip counts or even the blinds, but the action roughly went like this. I'm in MP and the action is folded to me. The blinds are 150/300 with an ante or maybe the next blind level. I peek at my cards and see KK, tres sexy. I raise to roughly 1000 (I have 16k at this point). My image is pretty solid and i've only shown down solid hands and i've been playing very few. It's folding to a guy called Phil in the SB who dwell raises to maybe 3.8k. Miriam is in the BB and pretty quickly shoves over the top for her whole stack. Both players have me just covered. I go into the tank and Miriam is as vocal as ever about not wanting to be outdrawn. I'm pretty sure i have her beat and think whilst she has a decent hand it could easily be anything from JJ+ to AK and i'm beat all but AA. I then take a look at Phil who's only shown down big hands too and he looks ready to snap call. I fold. Now regardless of what happens next is this right? I've put KK down pre-flop only a couple of times in the past, once was right and once wrong. As it turns out Phil had AA and Miriam QQ. Cold deck or what!!?

No one believed I had KK and I asked the dealer to turn my cards over as they were visible still, but he said they were in the muck now and wouldn't. I'm never that bothered what people think, but it would have been nice to prove that I was telling the truth in this spot. After that I went card dead for 90 minutes of so, but picked the odd spot to steel and made the final table. This started about midnight with me as the short stack. I thought I played the FT pretty well and ended up coming second for £850, roughly $1300 and $1200 profit on the night.


A good night all in all. That just leaves $1800 to hit my target and 3 weeks to do it in. Should be easy right?

I'm going to take a day off today as i feel rubbish still, and hopefully put in a few sets tomorrow.
Thanks to everyone who's read my blog and posted on the forum. Your support is much appreciated.

The Challenge

As some of you know, I have Crohns disease. I suffered with for nearly 20 years now and so am pretty used to the side effects, and have had 3 bowel resections to help the problem over the years. Over the last couple of years it’s been getting progressively worse and I’m now taking immu-suppressants along with anti-TNF treatment to help. These treatments present other problems, namely my immune system is tremendously weakened and I’m prone to catching anything that’s going around. Since last September I’ve been off work nearly 3 months in total, and work now only pay me SSP contributions as I only started with this company in June which don’t amount to much. To supplement my income and provide money for everything else i’ve been making money from poker.

Whilst i’m still a loser playing online cash i now win money playing MTT’s and STT’s. I did alot of work on my game during the first half of 2009 registering and watching training videos on sites like PokerVT, SNGgrinders and our very own Gutshots Gzone. Once i started playing again regularly last summer i noticed a massive difference in both my live and online games. From August to December i played 16 live MTT’s and final tabled 8 of them for a £5,790 profit. Online i regularly won MTT’s and made final tables on the Gutshot skin of Cake Poker and made a decent amount of cash from $16 turbos on Pokerstars. Whist this is all positive i still lost money playing online cash, something i’ve now cut to a minimum. I’ve also been doing a lot of work to improve my cash game, and am seeing early promising signs playing ‘Rush poker’ on Full Tilt. I started playing MTT’s on FTP 2 weeks ago and have made a $6,277 profit over that period. All in all it’s been a goodish start to 2010.

Now with my Crohns showing no signs of improvement i’ve made a decision that i would like to give playing poker a try for 6-12 months. If it works out, then i’ll continue. If it doesn’t then i can go back to working in online media. I’m currently Head of International Client Sales for Orange and have a good track record in the industry, therefore shouldn’t be too hard to find a job after this should things not work out.

The upsides will be that i can live a very flexible life; I’ve always been a night owl and often have trouble sleeping. This will mean i can sleep when i need rather than worrying about having to get to sleep when i’m in pain and worrying how I’ll feel the next day. I will be free to spend more time with my daughter picking her up from school when I want, which when I’m working is impossible. I will be able to ‘work’ from home which is something i can’t do normally. Therefore even when i feel unwell i’ll be able to put in hours at home to generate income.

The downsides are pretty obvious too. If I fail to make money i will have not be able to pay the rent for food etc. I will start with enough money to pay for things during the first few months, but once that goes poker will be the only income. I guess if this doesn’t work then i’ll have to start looking for a new job sooner. The monotony of playing 1000’s of STT’s a month could be the next problem. Personally I’ve never found this a problem, and in a strange way quite enjoy those grinding days. The lack of human contact is probably the final downside. I enjoy working around people. I guess i’ll play more live poker at the international which will help. Then it’ll be up to me to ensure i get off my arse and go out to meet people regularly, and don’t live like a hermit!

Before i make a final decision that this is what i want to do i’ve set myself a challenge. Originally this was to earn $10,000 during January, February and March, but with us just into Feb i’m already on $6,900 profit. Whilst this is a good start i’ve not been playing anywhere as much as i should do, and to make it more of a challenge considering the start I’ve had I’ve changed the end date to first week in March. 4 weeks, $3,100 to hit the target. I would love to say i’m running red hot, but playing the STT’s i’m losing so many flips and running in AA v KK cold decks so often that i’m surprised the my profit is that good.

Anyway before i drivel on any longer i will end there. I’m off work all week, and will try and update the blog 3-4 times a week with my progress towards the $3,100 target. In the meantime it would be great to get people thoughts either posting here, or on the thread i’ve started on the Gutshot forum...