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...

Updates to follow

As of Feb 2010 i'm going to start blogging again and will be covering both live and online events that i play.

In Q4 2009 in live and online MTT's and STT's i was a modest $15k in profit, and this is something i want to improve on during Q1 2010. I'll be posting here a couple of times a week.