I forgot just how good this was..........

Spurs at home tomorrow, haven't been able to get to this game for a while but i've got tickets for tomorrow. They've got most of their defenders out, they're fucking shite anyway, we're coming off the back of a huge win and we're at home. Hopefully we'll destroy those scummy cunts once again.

On Target:

Looking good for my target atm. Not sure this DB includes all the hands but its pretty close. According to this im winning $98.50/100 hands, but i think in really its quite a bit higher than that currently, this database includes a lot of hands from a) when i was shitter b) from 1/2, 2/4, 3/6. These are my stats since the 1st August, i'm pretty proud of this, but I still think i'm not playing brilliantly, still making tons of mistakes and can definitely increase my winrate - lots of work still to do!

Been a long time.......

Haven't really had anything spectacular to update this with for a while, but i didn't want to disappoint my regular readers [hi to both of you] so i thought i better make a post.

Poker has been pretty up and down so far, been playing on Ladbrokes a lot, the games are totally different to i'm used to, but they're still great. The average player is like 43/32 though. I sat on a table yesterday, played 27/22 and was the tightest raiser at the table by some margin. Probably now up for December but not by a great deal, been winning consistently on Laddies and been on a crazy rollercoaster on Pacific, i've had a ~13 buyin swing on 10/20 in about 24hrs. There's still tons of time though, December could still turn out great.

Went to see Arsenal v. Bucharest on Wednesday with BobboFitos as he was over filming a poker DVD. He's a great guy, it was really good meeting him and just talking poker and life. We talked about the future of poker and how people are going to be learning. It seems to me that one of the reasons why games will continue to be profitable is that the high end thinking will all be done privately instead of on public forums as has happened up until now. When money or connections is the only way to access this, I imagine a lot of players will not be making substantial progress. The games will change, yes, but only the number of players able to make good money will decrease. I want to be in that group, i'm working, and thinking a ton about my game at the moment. I'm putting a lot of effort in and I can feel myself playing waaaaaaaaaaaay better. There's still tons of work to do though and i'm determined to plug some leaks.

Something i worked on today was playing ultra-positionally, for a 4hr session, i played 55/45ish on the button and ~16/16 UTG. That's pretty different to how i normally play but it was pretty good, definitely made me realise i could open up on the button tons.

When i've been playing poker this week, for some unknown reason, i've kept this picture open all the time [4 tables makes one of my screens somewhat redundant]. I can't tell you why but I find it really funny:

November results

This is my November results, 2nd best month ever, i'm pretty happy [and there's a few hours of November left, so we may still crack it]. The huge downswing was HU at 10/20, the rest of it grinding mainly 5/10. I think i'll be avoiding HU from now on.

Now that i've looked at it again, this bet was pretty daft, but at the time i felt like the bollocks when i shoved here and got snap called. Fwiw, im 100% sure both villains snap call Ah+ here, so maybe it wasnt too daft.

***** Pacific Hand History for Game 146991349 *****
$5/$10 Blinds No Limit Hold'em - *** 11 26 05:21:16 2007
Table Starry Night (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 10: adamratv ( $1756 )
Seat 1: dollaGes ( $1000 )
Seat 4: rossini3 ( $332.4 )
Seat 5: Hoooooof ( $1896.75 )
Seat 6: Yougef ( $985 )
Hoooooof posts small blind [$5].
Yougef posts big blind [$10].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hoooooof [ 9d 10d ]
adamratv calls [$10].
dollaGes folds.
rossini3 calls [$10].
Hoooooof calls [$5].
Yougef checks.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9s, 10h, 2h ]
Hoooooof bets [$35].
Yougef folds.
adamratv calls [$35].
rossini3 calls [$35].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qh ]
Hoooooof checks.
adamratv checks.
rossini3 bets [$70].
Hoooooof calls [$70].
adamratv calls [$70].
** Dealing River ** [ 9h ]
Hoooooof bets [$1781.75].
adamratv calls [$1641].
rossini3 folds.
** Summary **
adamratv shows [ 8h Jh ].
Hoooooof shows [ 9d 10d ].
Hoooooof shows [ 9d 10d ].
adamratv shows [ 8h Jh ].
adamratv collected [$3633].
Hoooooof collected [$140.75].

adamratv >> oh my
adamratv >> sorry gotta take that pot and walk
dollaGes >> nh
Hoooooof >> gg
dollaGes >> sick

How can a company be run this badly?

So after giving me my comp points back the other day [another reg i was speaking to, RKrystal, also had his reinstated]. Pacific poker, in their infinite wisdom have taken the ability for me to conver my comp points away. I really hope they never intended to give it back to me and i've done them for $7k. According to PT, i've paid $53k in rake total at Pacific [more like $60k considering how many hands PT has missed]. Never in my life, will a company get that much money out of me in such a short amount of time for such a bad service. If i paid £30k for any
service in 5months in the real world, i'd go sick if they treated me like they do. I suppose though, that it allows me to derive a very good income, and for that I should be happy.

Went for a meal with my parents tonight because they were passing down the motorway, it was really nice, I had sardines on toast [7/10, good nothing spectacular] Seabass w/fennel, cherry tomatoes, olives [9/10, fish and olives were cooked to perfection] and panna cotta with blackberries to finish [9/10, it really was fantastic]. I love eating out in decent restaurants so much, but especially in ones that aren't up their own arse, the waiters don't try to look down on you and the atmosphere is way more chilled out.

Poker has been a little swingy the last few days, and I haven't been playing great. Been making some strange calls, and been playing a wee bit too loose PF i think. I'm well up but thats only through running great at 10/20. I'm breakeven at 5/10 over the last 4 or so days but up nearly $20k at 10/20. I'm at about $45k for the month so far, so with any luck, I might break $50k again.

I'm constantly messing with my ranges at the moment, i played ridic tight yesterday to see if it had any effect, but it didn't at all. My image with the regs is seemingly entirely based on historical stuff. My UTG opens were getting 3bet all over the place which is pretty interesting to know, def something I might do in the future, they seemingly see my stats as like 26/22 or whatever they've got me as and take no more notice than that. In fact i probably played 12/8 for 4hrs yesterday [and admittedly i was almost suicidal at the end of that experiment, being a nit sucks]. Kinda made me realise how few players are paying attention which is pretty awesome to know, perhaps switching gears, which is something i've never given much credit to as a concept [apart from slowing down when your image is bad] could definitely be a very lucrative move. Having a player think im raising 19% UTG and 35% on the button can only be good when its 5 and 15 for periods of time. Definitely something i'll give some thought so, but i'm not sure it is entirely +EV because most of the hands i play are generating a profit [or should be!] in a vaccuum anyway.

Hopefully i'll get some hands in tonight, i'm v. close to hitting 200k hands in my DB, so that's a fairly big milestone, my big [pointless] aim is for $250k in 250k hands which i think is def doable, just need to run at >$1.15 or so a hand for the next 50k hands, which might just be doable. I've done that for the last 150k hands buts i suspect ive been running hot at the higher stakes, so its a pretty big ask.

I just found $6875 [woooooooooooo!]

A long time ago, I exchanged several emails with Pacific poker regarding their comp point reward system.

It basically went like this:

Pacific: We're taking your loyalty bonus away because you've won money here.
Me: Wtf? You stingy bastards, do you realise how much rake i've paid?
Pacific: Yes and we apologise but the decision is final.
Me: If i start losing, can I have my loyalty bonus back?
Pacific: No, now fuck off before we doomswitch you.
Me: Ok, please don't do that, i'm very sorry.

Today, I was nosing around the cashier section, and went into the comp points section to see how much money i would have if they hadn't taken my bonus away. It said something like you have 339k points, click here to convert. I clicked and $6.7k was credited to my account!!!!!!!

Although this is obviously great, it does concern me that Pacific may now consider me a fish that is simply having a lucky run.

In other poker news, today was pretty good, made a few buyins, the games were pretty tight and taggy at times but i think im dealing with it pretty well.

Coaching & being coached

I've always been a fan of coaching, i've always found huge benefit from getting a v. good player to look at your game. I've had 5 or 6 coaches so far and had my first lesson with a new one today - MDMA managed to fit me in for a sesh. This guy has his rep for a reason, jeeez he's clever. I've still got to finish my lessons with BobboFitos, so i'll have him to talk theory with and MDMA to sweat me. I'm hoping that this will allow me to a) beat the games for a higher winrate and b) be able to make a living player poker for a longer time. I see it as an investment - though $8k is a lot a month, perhaps 4 lessons/month would be better.

I've also been doing some coaching myself, our lodger [he has many names, any from Vulture/Bellick/Cunt/Squatter/Liberty Taker/Splitting Headache/Joe Hutton is fine] has been playing $50nl on pacific and i'm pretty proud of his progress, he's thinking about the game, and putting a lot of effort in. I've also been coaching a guy named Chris [Milky on 2+2] from the uNL forums. He's a nice guy, has a drive to succeed and is receptive to my ramblings, so that's pretty cool. He also helps a lot of people out in uNL, so it's nice to try to help a helper out.

Something that i'm a little peeved about [not really lol, i'm still pretty stoked] is that, without a pretty sick next 112 hands, i'm not going to hit $100k at 100k hands of 5/10:

Heads up poker can crawl off and suffer somewhere

Lol, i lost $20k to a fucking terrible player on friday night at 10/20. This is something i'm pretty ashamed about. I'm going to take a week off i think, catch up with my uni work, buy some stuff, eat sushi and then come back and play 5k hands of 2/4 as punishment. I should be able to jump back into the bigger games fully prepared.


This is November so far:

I'm not going to make any excuses about my play heads up, I wasn't good enough, and I need to rethink my game. I've decided i'm going to be really hard on myself about my losses from now on, I spoke to some random dude on AIM today and he told me about all his theories that FTP is rigged against him. It is my opinion that thinking that you are unlucky or that the site is rigged, or that you ran badly is all an external factor that you can't control, but it gives you an excuse not to work on your game. I don't want this to happen to me, I lost a lot of money because I didn't adjust my stupid fucking bluff happy, straightforward bullshit identikit strategy to a guy playing a very different game. I carried on playing when I was tilted, tired, dehydrated and pissed off, i'm annoyed at myself for that, I need to give myself the very best chances of winning big. I want to crush the games this year and losses like this will make me get to a stage where I can compete with the best players about. I'm not going to be lazy about my game or make excuses any more.

I thought this was quite a cool idea. I'm studying corporate social responsibility at the moment and it's got me thinking about companies and what they can do environmentally and socially. I'm not sure if all companies [and innocent in this case] have entirely the best intentions with these campaigns but it does mean there's another couple of trees out there after i've lapped down their awesome smoothies, so that's pretty cool. I also like being able to plant trees without getting muddy [or indeed out of my chair]

In other news:

Holy fucking shit, today was crazy:

The last few weeks have been ridic:

[this is lifetime but you see my point]

Shots for a friend, Gaucho grill and fkn ridic poker players

Yesterday was a great day, didn't go to lectures because I didn't go to sleep the night before, just bummmed about all day and did a load of reading i needed to get done. In the evening I played on my friend's account at .25/.5. He joked about me playing on 5/10-10/20 on his account, i fancied the idea so offered 50% profits and i'll cover all losses [a fkn sick deal for him obv]. I didn't let him down:


I decided with my £500 that i wanted to take my housemates out for dinner. We left pretty much straight away and went to the Gaucho grill in hampstead. This place is awesome, one of my favourite restaurants, best steaks i've ever had [go for the ribeye if you ever go, it's unreal]

This is what it looks like:


We all had a great feed and a few glasses of wine [pretty cultured for this household tbh, beats noodles and eating dinner in a stinking, filthy hold of a kitchen], it was a lot of fun.

I've been looking through this thread today:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12733477&an=0&page=0&gonew=1#UNREAD

Some of these guys are fucking sick, i was fucking proud of my graph this month but it got shit all over. It's motivated me to put hands in though, the problem isn't my winrate or stakes, it's the amount of time i play for. I really need to put some more hands in, with the eventual aim of a $100k month . If i could do 50k in a month and still get a decent amount of work done, that'd be amazing.[thats a big aim, pretty much 5ptbb at 10/20 to reach $100k, maybe with shots at 25/50 its possible though]

Anyone wanna buy some Ugg Boots?

These things have caused me a whole world of problems this week. I went into an email account of mine yesterday so find several messages from ebay buyers wishing to ask me various details on the ugg boots i was selling there. Nothing too out of the ordinary, except that i'm not selling ugg boots on ebay. Some little bastard has got into my account somehow [through my email possibly or perhaps through a dictionary attack] and listed 6 pairs of ugg boots for sale. Not only did they not gain access to any other accounts but they didnt change the password for my ebay account or email account. Either they're fucking stupid or this is all part of a grander scheme to con me and im the fucking stupid one. All seems to be secure now though.

Because of this, I probably won't get any hands in until the end of the month - my poker account is locked. So here's my final graph for October [still, irritatingly, missing $7.5k at 10/20, so the final total is a shade over $60k]

Best Day Ever:

My first over $20k, i'm pretty stoked:


That also makes my best month ever. PT says $47k, but there's at least $7.5k missing so it's $54.5k at least.

These are my biggest hands from today [the big one posted below is also from today]:


$10/$20 Blinds No Limit Hold'em - *** 10 27 04:10:13 2007
Table Premium Blonde (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 2: Hoooooof ( $11490 )
Seat 4: lureli ( $1950 )
Seat 6: mwt5 ( $1919.22 )
Seat 7: DOCCOD ( $4154.77 )
Hoooooof posts small blind [$10].
lureli posts big blind [$20].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hoooooof [ Js Jc ]
mwt5 folds.
DOCCOD raises [$88].
Hoooooof raises [$280].
lureli folds.
DOCCOD raises [$777].
Hoooooof calls [$575].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5d, 6d, 9c ]
Hoooooof checks.
DOCCOD bets [$888].
Hoooooof raises [$10625].
DOCCOD calls [$2401.77].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4c ]
** Dealing River ** [ Kc ]
** Summary **
Hoooooof shows [ Js Jc ].
DOCCOD shows [ Kd As ].
DOCCOD shows [ Kd As ].
DOCCOD collected [$8325.54].
Hoooooof collected [$7335.23].

Here i figure i'm ahead of a 4betting range, and because we're so deep i've got a few options, i decide to call and get it in on a low flop. Turned out ok [apart from the result] tho i'm really not certain on my play here.


$10/$20 Blinds No Limit Hold'em - *** 10 27 02:40:33 2007
Table Le Hoyo des Dieux (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 1: fishu55 ( $1186.88 )
Seat 2: Hoooooof ( $2216 )
Seat 6: llms ( $2039 )
Seat 7: DOCCOD ( $4655 )
llms posts small blind [$10].
DOCCOD posts big blind [$20].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hoooooof [ Ad As ]
fishu55 folds.
Hoooooof raises [$80].
llms folds.
DOCCOD raises [$222].
Hoooooof raises [$540].
DOCCOD raises [$4413].
Hoooooof calls [$1596].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8c, Kd, 10c ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Kc ]
** Dealing River ** [ 8h ]
** Summary **
Hoooooof shows [ Ad As ].
DOCCOD shows [ Kh 10h ].
Hoooooof shows [ Ad As ].
DOCCOD shows [ Kh 10h ].
DOCCOD collected [$4438].
DOCCOD collected [$2439].


Standard...........


$10/$20 Blinds No Limit Hold'em - *** 10 27 02:53:07 2007
Table Caonao (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 10: thbzz ( $2389.39 )
Seat 1: stinkyb ( $2403.2 )
Seat 2: Hoooooof ( $2026 )
Seat 6: lexie116 ( $3297.5 )
Seat 8: APAT ( $2286 )
lexie116 posts small blind [$10].
APAT posts big blind [$20].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hoooooof [ 9h 9c ]
thbzz calls [$20].
stinkyb folds.
Hoooooof raises [$100].
lexie116 folds.
APAT folds.
thbzz calls [$80].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 10s, Kc, 5h ]
thbzz checks.
Hoooooof checks.
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9s ]
thbzz bets [$76.03].
Hoooooof raises [$360].
thbzz calls [$283.97].
** Dealing River ** [ Ks ]
thbzz bets [$538.6].
Hoooooof raises [$1566].
thbzz calls [$1027.4].
** Summary **
thbzz shows [ 10d 10c ].
Hoooooof shows [ 9h 9c ].
Hoooooof shows [ 9h 9c ].
thbzz shows [ 10d 10c ].
thbzz collected [$4078].



$10/$20 Blinds No Limit Hold'em - *** 10 27 05:20:15 2007
Table Cohiba Lanceros (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 10: llms ( $2628 )
Seat 1: mwt5 ( $4252.54 )
Seat 4: MrHugo1 ( $3045.21 )
Seat 6: Hoooooof ( $3153.5 )
Seat 8: SHEAF ( $2557 )
llms posts small blind [$10].
mwt5 posts big blind [$20].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hoooooof [ Ac As ]
MrHugo1 raises [$100].
Hoooooof raises [$380].
SHEAF folds.
llms folds.
mwt5 folds.
MrHugo1 calls [$280].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2h, 6d, 3d ]
MrHugo1 bets [$200].
Hoooooof raises [$750].
MrHugo1 raises [$1100].
Hoooooof raises [$2023.5].
MrHugo1 calls [$1365.21].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8c ]
** Dealing River ** [ 9h ]
** Summary **
MrHugo1 shows [ Jd Kd ].
Hoooooof shows [ Ac As ].
MrHugo1 shows [ Jd Kd ].
Hoooooof shows [ Ac As ].
Hoooooof collected [$6116.42].
Hoooooof collected [$108.29].


$10/$20 Blinds No Limit Hold'em - *** 10 27 04:01:56 2007
Table Le Hoyo des Dieux (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 2: Hoooooof ( $2223 )
Seat 5: SHEAF ( $2715 )
Seat 7: DOCCOD ( $4537.5 )
Seat 9: mwt5 ( $3974 )
mwt5 posts small blind [$10].
Hoooooof posts big blind [$20].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hoooooof [ As Qc ]
SHEAF folds.
DOCCOD raises [$77].
mwt5 folds.
Hoooooof raises [$260].
DOCCOD calls [$203].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qs, 5s, 7d ]
Hoooooof bets [$420].
DOCCOD raises [$840].
Hoooooof raises [$1523].
DOCCOD calls [$1103].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3s ]
** Dealing River ** [ 3h ]
** Summary **
Hoooooof shows [ As Qc ].
DOCCOD shows [ Ah 5h ].
DOCCOD shows [ Ah 5h ].
Hoooooof shows [ As Qc ].
Hoooooof collected [$4452].

Radiator

The last few days have been seriously good to me:


This is also missing about $7.5k that i won at 10/20 a couple of days ago too. I'd been breakeven for prob 35k hands before this, so this is such a nice result.

I also played my biggest ever pot today [which was my biggest day ever too]:


$10/$20 Blinds No Limit Hold'em - *** 10 27 04:36:41 2007
Table Premium Blonde (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 3
Seat 2: Hoooooof ( $6354.23 )
Seat 6: mwt5 ( $2096 )
Seat 7: DOCCOD ( $8739.54 )
Hoooooof posts small blind [$10].
mwt5 posts big blind [$20].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hoooooof [ 3d 3h ]
DOCCOD raises [$77].
Hoooooof calls [$67].
mwt5 folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3s, 2s, 7h ]
Hoooooof checks.
DOCCOD bets [$111].
Hoooooof raises [$440].
DOCCOD raises [$798].
Hoooooof raises [$5837.23].
DOCCOD calls [$5368.23].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2c ]
** Dealing River ** [ 8d ]
** Summary **
Hoooooof shows [ 3d 3h ].
DOCCOD shows [ 7s 9s ].
DOCCOD shows [ 7s 9s ].
Hoooooof shows [ 3d 3h ].
Hoooooof collected [$12724.46].

A pretty sick hand. Pretty surprised he called my shove here tbh, i think my range is basically sets and possibly huge draws.

In other news I hate marketing, i've been working quite hard for my uni degree [which is in marketing for those that don't know] but i'm so disillusioned with the subject as a whole. I don't really agree with a lot of the things that go on under the guise of marketing, and the subject [one that is supposed to be highly dynamic] is taught in such a boring way from turgid old textbooks. I'm def going to carry on though because I haven't got that long left, it's a degree and it's great fun up here.

Sorry Mike............

$3/$6 Blinds No Limit Hold'em - *** 10 16 05:17:55 2007
Table Sancho Panza Coronas (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 3
Seat 5: MrVIP78 ( $623.04 )
Seat 6: Hoooooof ( $2209.15 )
Seat 8: miket007 ( $1447.73 )
miket007 posts small blind [$3].
MrVIP78 posts big blind [$6].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hoooooof [ 8h 10h ]
Hoooooof raises [$24].
miket007 raises [$87].
MrVIP78 folds.
Hoooooof calls [$66].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2h, As, Js ]
miket007 bets [$84].
Hoooooof calls [$84].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9h ]
miket007 bets [$222].
Hoooooof calls [$222].
** Dealing River ** [ Qd ]
miket007 bets [$300].
Hoooooof raises [$1813.15].
miket007 calls [$751.73].
** Summary **
Hoooooof shows [ 8h 10h ].
miket007 shows [ Jd Jc ].
Hoooooof shows [ 8h 10h ].
Hoooooof collected [$2897.46].
Hoooooof collected [$761.42].

I actually felt pretty bad for that one!

My thought process went something like:
Sweet! I've got the button, a straight, flush and a pair draw.
The fucker has reraised. I'll conceal my hand strength by calling. I might raise a flop or float, definitely not folding though.
Hmmmmmmmm A high, I reckon if i float him here, i might be able to fold out QQ or KK if i bet the turn and river. Lets give it a go.
Oh dear, well that didn't work, but at least i've turned the nuts. I'll trap again and call.
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR INNNNNNNNNNNN and SHIP IT.

On consideration, I think my play was pretty horrible on the flop. The rest of the hand seems ok though.

Big [meaningless] milestone

This is the first time i've ever had a PT screenshot of >>> 6 figures on a database. I deposited $3k at the end of May and have made $112,600 profit so there's a hell of a lot of hands missing from somewhere, I don't know why PT is so unreliable for me, but it's pretty annoying.

I'm still pretty proud though:


I'm looking for a new coach at the moment, but it's hard work, the availability of the best ones is just about nil. It's amazing how hard it is to find someone who'll take $350-500 an hour from you to write on AOL.

Dropping down

We've got a lodger staying with us at the moment, he's been here quite a while and it would be getting annoying but he performs football songs in the style of sinatra and traditional russian dances on demand so we put up with him.

Here's a pic of him fwiw:


Anyway, the lodger has been running really badly at poker today and asked me to play on his account while he's out. I'm pretty tired today so it makes sense for me to lose his money rather than my own. Moving down has given me something of an epiphany regarding playing against fish. It's made me realise that i'm still bluffing these morons and i need to play waaay more straightforward against them. The fish at higher levels are slightly trickier than at .12/.25 but it's still the same game and they're still making the same mistakes, i'm employing all kinds of metagame plays when i should just be betting strong and folding weak. I always think i play badly against really big fish [not badly, because that's alomst impossible but definitely sub-optimally] and hopefully playing tighter and more ABC is going to help me.


The last few days have been a bit of a rollercoaster, i'm probably breakeven on the week, i dropped $12k last night just before i was supposed to go out which put me in such a bad mood that i never made it out. I ended up even for the night though, and made some more today so i'm pretty happy.

Played against a huge fish today and had some pretty sick hands against him. This is one of the toughest spots i've been in for a long time


$10/$20 Blinds No Limit Hold'em - *** 10 05 16:20:23 2007
Table Whitbread (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 3: BigFish ( $4136.4 )
Seat 4: Kesssen ( $5942 )
Seat 5: JLS1979 ( $3145 )
Seat 6: don19 ( $1056 )
Seat 7: ltt187 ( $1910.91 )
Seat 8: Hoooooof ( $7178.63 )
Kesssen posts small blind [$10].
JLS1979 posts big blind [$20].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hoooooof [ 3h 3c ]
don19 raises [$78].
ltt187 folds.
Hoooooof calls [$78].
BigFish calls [$78].
Kesssen folds.
JLS1979 calls [$58].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2c, 3s, 8s ]
JLS1979 checks.
don19 bets [$221].
Hoooooof raises [$680].
BigFish calls [$680].
JLS1979 calls [$680].
don19 folds.
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5s ]
JLS1979 bets [$1250].
Hoooooof folds.
BigFish folds.
** Summary **
JLS1979 collected [$3829].

[his s/n isn't bigfish btw]

comments appreciated on this hand, i think the fold is pretty weak but i'm not sure if there's a better option.

The after-inevitable-downswing upswing

The last 2 days have been pretty crazy. This was Saturday:


My best day ever by some margin. I was happy just to get even for the past few days but it kept on going. Yesterday i saw a really soft 25/50 game running, i eventually decided to sit, i'm not rolled for it really, but i dedcided to take a $5k shot because i had a pretty big edge and was a little down when this beauty happened.

$25/$50 Blinds No Limit Hold'em - *** 09 23 23:35:50 2007
Table La Perla Habana Black Pearl (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 7
Seat 10: nLpOkeR ( $5000 )
Seat 2: Spa300 ( $750 )
Seat 3: MugOfAle ( $4925 )
Seat 6: DooSHCom ( $5994 )
Seat 7: tobba14 ( $5058 )
Seat 8: gyugyu ( $3239 )
Seat 9: Hoooooof ( $6371 )
DooSHCom posts small blind [$25].
tobba14 posts big blind [$50].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hoooooof [ Ad Ac ]
gyugyu folds.
Hoooooof raises [$200].
nLpOkeR folds.
Spa300 folds.
MugOfAle folds.
DooSHCom folds.
tobba14 raises [$400].
Hoooooof raises [$1200].
tobba14 calls [$950].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qh, Qc, 3c ]
tobba14 checks.
Hoooooof bets [$1600].
tobba14 raises [$3658].
Hoooooof calls [$2058].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Jd ]
** Dealing River ** [ Kd ]
** Summary **
tobba14 shows [ As Kh ].
Hoooooof shows [ Ad Ac ].
Hoooooof shows [ Ad Ac ].
Hoooooof collected [$10139].

It was pretty nice getting in with such high equity in my biggest ever pot:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 98.030% 97.98% 00.05% 970 0.50 { AhAs }
Hand 1: 01.970% 01.92% 00.05% 19 0.50 { AcKd }

The inevitable downswing

I've def been running pretty good lately, i knew i was due a downswing. For some reason, i was almost trying to stop myself playing yesterday cos i thought i'd lose. It was really strange, i've never had the feeling before. I'm not saying i'm psychic or anything but i definitely think a lack of PMA could have contributed to me losing $8.2k yesterday. Not a lot in terms of buyins [i lost at 5/10 so obv moved up to 10/20 and lost a buyin w/quads over nut boat] but i think its the most i've ever lost in a day.

Today is going better, had some nasty hands -77>QQ for a stack and Q high > straight flush draw, but i'm making money so i'm smiling.

I've moved up to uni now, i hadn't seen our house before but it's really nice. There was a fire next door so its been completely redecorated, feels like a new house inside. Got cable and broadband installed yesterday, we've got 20mb broadband which [fingers crossed] means i won't be timing out on pacific every 10 seconds.

Spurs away

Spurs away is always my favourite game of the season. Yesterday's game was the best game i've ever been to, the atmosphere was fucking incredible. The travelling fans were fucking amazing, the team was brilliant. Wenger v. Spurs:

Played - 25
Won - 13
Draw - 11
Lost - 1
GF - 45
GA - 24

Always in our shadow.


My mate has got some vids, i'll try and post some at some point.

No Poker but good times

Haven't played any poker at all since i got back from newcastle [on sunday], there's just been a ton going on and I haven't really got round to playing. I'm aiming to get a big sesh in tomorrow, although for some really strange reason i'm expecting a downswing.


Newcastle was awesome. Hardly played a hand of poker the entire time i was there, but had a great time. We were there for 3 nights, and there was 4 us, this was the fridge at the beginning of the trip. I spent a fortune on booze because i had the dream of becoming a Tom Cruise-like cocktail king by the end of the weekend. I only really got as far as Stella and rum and coke.



Bought this just before i left, i've been looking to get one for ages and after such a good month i decided now was the time. I'm really pleased with it, it was much smaller in real life than i'd expected from the pics i'd seen which i was really pleased with.



Tuesday night we went out for an Italian at a restaurant near my friend's house, we all stayed round, got pretty drunk and spent the next day at the beach. Went out last night to watch the football [England v. Russia, England played fairly well, a few good performances out there], i'm not the biggest England fan, i'm a gooner and go to a lot of games and i hate most of the England players and international weeks = no premiership which i hate. But it was all good after 5 pints of Kronenbourg and a good feed.

Today was an awesome day. A friend of mine and I once tried to make a potato cannon in our youth. It was abject failure, we managed to fire a chip sized bit of potato about 10ft. Pathetic. A hefty dose of drunken reminiscing last night spurred us onto trying again. Cannon mk1 was a blight on our engineering heritage so cannon mk2 was born. After much fettling and tuning, we prob got the range up to the 500+ft mark. We think more is possible if we try different propellants and sealants. Pics and Vids to follow.

$10k DAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!

So stoked, hit $10k for the day, been waiting ages for this.

Stats:

Whey Aye Man

Played a solid session today, up about $4k. I think i played really well, played 1 hand i need to go through with my coach where i cold called a raise oop with JJ and called down 3 streets on 33829. I'm not sure if it was good, really don't know if he's bluffing there ever. Had some brutal hands too so if i'd run better it could have been a monumental session. I'm becoming more comfortable trading stacks in the 10/20 games now so hopefully i can be a bit more of a regular in the games, they seem pretty soft, not all that many all out fish but some of the regs are absolutely fucking horrendous.

Booked a trip to newcastle for the weekend with 3 pals, staying in a pretty sweet apartment, flying up there Friday night and coming back Monday afternoon. I'm looking forward to donking about in the microstakes games, newcastle is an awesome night out too so this is gonna be a messy one.

Nearly even for the day

Played another 1000 or so hands tonight and i'm pretty much back to even for the day, i played 5/10 and the tables weren't great but there were a few TAGfish about, so def worth playing. Didn't seem to play many big hands just won quite a few small ones. It's always a pretty awesome feeling to book a win before bed when you've been down all day.

Arghhhhhhhhhh so tilted

For anyone that's actually reading this - I'm Luke, 22, just about to start my 3rd year at Uni but currently playing poker for a living, and have been for the past year. This is probably going to be a really long post..................

I'm going to try and keep this updated fairly often, mainly with tales of my poker adventures but anything else cool I fancy writing about i'll chuck in too.

So August was my best month ever, I made just a little over $50k [I actually think it's more like $52-53k because pokertracker missed a tons of hands]. I hit $50k [my previous best was <$20k so this was a pretty big thing for me] at about 5pm on the 31st August, about 1/2 an hour before i went out for a few drinks. It was really nice to hit such a big milestone and then go out and celebrate straight away. Went for a nice Mexican with a couple of pals and got pretty pissed on passion fruit margaritas and cubans [i'm not gay, honest]. A pretty awesome day all round.

I missed half the day yesterday so only ended up doing about 1.5k hands, but still did about $4.5k which was awesome cos i don't think i was playing particularly well. Jumped back on today and titled my self so badly, i had AQ >KQ on KJ43 in a 3bet pot and then 910s > A10 on A10s77s. Which i'm pretty much fine with, +Sklansky [should i be using G-Bucks?] bucks, but then i played a ridic hand, sb limps my bb, i raise A10o [this is 5/10 btw], flop KhJhKs, he overbet leads the pot. I call [why????] turn A, he checks, i bet [again, check behind, call river seems like a way better idea], he instaminraises. I call [wtf??] which basically commits myself as his river shove lays me ~3:1 which again i call. He has K6o. I seem to play really solid and then go and do something spastic like that every week or so. This one has to be one of the worst hands i've ever played and really tilted me, I had to stop playing, I may not play for the rest of the day.

All round though, i'm pretty happy with my game at the moment, i'm not having too much trouble with the regs, there's only a few I really don't like playing against and i'm finding it much easier to exploit the weaker 20/8, 30/10 type ones. I think i'm 10x the player I was a couple of months ago and i'm sure I cause a lot of people some headaches. Hopefully I can have another good month for September. I'd like to play some more 10/20 when the games are good and really try to play as much as possible at 5/10, if i can do 50k hands i'll be thrilled.

Although I really want to get a load of hands in, it might not be possible, i've got to head back to Uni in a couple of weeks and there'll be a lot of work, so i'm going to aim to play about 15hours a week. That'll give me a good income but should also mean i'm able to get a decent grade in my degree. The course is Marketing, which i'm not thrilled about, it's not what I want to do as a career but i've decided that the degree itself is important so i'm really going to try and get a decent grade. That may be easier said than done, i'm not the greatest at doing things I don't really like doing.