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Monday, June 4th, 2007

Monday June 4th.

Posted 4:04 pm in Categories: Poker

Monday June 4th.

Okay so its been a week now of my new routine, that is eating well and doing weight training 4 times a week. Its certainly brought a me to a nice routine. I say nice because I thrive on routine. Some people prefer to be carefree and without commitments – this is me down to a tee, which is why I need routine all the more.. My default setting is v v. laid back, take it easy and more or less only do what I want to at any given exact moment. My daddy once said if I was any more laid back I would fall over, lol he really did. Anyway it’s for those reasons I need to force a routine upon myself or things get totally out of control. So far I’ve stuck to it 100%, this is without alcohol though, if I go out on the piss one night it ruins anything I been trying to achieve for about 3 days. But eh, I defo not gonna stop drinking so yanno.

Poker has been a bitch to me of late, in cash games I experienced my first 4 buy in loss since my Ali like return to the ring....games. To which my response was to promptly withdraw all my money from the site lol. In Mtts I’m prolly playing my best I have ever, and I’m regularly going deep, but for every mtt I do well in there is at least 1 that I enter with no real interest in or desire to even mildly focus on. This has to stop… I mean why enter if I’m not going to try my best to win? Haven’t played any cash since last Wednesday, I don’t really ever seem to last long playing cash games, I tend to freak and withdraw everything. It just scares me when u can lose so much in a single hand… if I put my mind to It I think I could learn to cope with the swings and become better at them, but I don’t believe this is what I will do. IMO the big money is in mtts unless you have a huge enormous bankroll and can play and sustain the beats of v high buy in cash games. As far as not playing shit in mtts and playing them and not trying goes I have one solution that seemingly is working for the last 2 days. Only play them if I really want to, otherwise do a sng. So I’ve been playing more sng’s recently , mainly the $109 non turbo’s on stars… there is a fair amount of play in these and I think I can expect a roi above 10%. But time will tell.

I did another entry about a week ago but when I posted it it was deleted so I could not be fecked writing it all over again. Now I am gonna play a few sngs, and if im feeling it I may do the nighly later on. Congrats to Craig, or crack as he is known on thp, who won a seat to the wsop….

Thanks for reading and gl.

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Thursday, May 24th, 2007

Back in black

Posted 11:01 am in Categories: Poker

Ok finally got the internet at my rents new house so i will be playing alot as my roll has been burnimng over the last month without the world wild web.

I have some good things to show for it tho, Xbox 360 with alot of aweseom games, HD LCD 24" tv. Loads of new clothes, Ipod nano 8GB and some new trainers.
Without poker i spent alot of money to fill the gap lol.

I am gonna be putting in a sick amount of hours over the next few weeks, so all you irc'ers expect some bragging over mtt results cos im fucking back.

Congrats to ciso on a great result in the nightly, its been coming for a while.

Peace out homes xxx

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Wednesday, March 21st, 2007

bellissimo

Posted 7:26 am in Categories: Poker

Hey everybody, welcome to another edition of my blog. THATS RIGHT! I made another decent mtt result so i did a blog lol... i never seem to post unless i have some good news to report.

I will write a little about whats been going on up till last night.

After the 2nd place in the crypto mtt ive tried my hand at cash games - with mixed results. I began playing poker as a limit cash player and moved on to NL ring games with more success than failure. For the past year i have devoted almost all my poker reading, revising and thought to tournaments while still playing ring games or sng's to keep the roll on an even keel while the final tables i so love to reach were not happening. Often i would - and still do:- play the ring games so that i dont have to keep depositing to enter mtts, then i would lose a buy in or 2 from a cooler or bad luck.. then lose another one or 2 from bad play... then as a measure to stop me losing alot of money i withdraw most of what i have on the site re-focus on mtts again.

So after my 14k score on crypto i dabbled in cash games there NL 200 and 400 then had a bad run and withdrew nearly all of the $4k i left in there to the bank. Played alot of mtts on crypto and kept getting deep - often to the last 18 people then busting out from pretty sound mtt play just running into monsters or losing the vital all ins. Then it was my freinds birthday, me and a few of the boys were going to Amsterdam to celebrate. This was great fun and i'd recommednt the city to anybody... the weather was awful though so we mostly stayed inside (the hash bars). That provided a much welcome break from poker and last night i came back with a fresh attitude and a whole new slate ready to fill up with bad beats and sad/unfortunate situations. I played a few good mtts - $150 on full tilt, $109 freezeout on stars and the nighlty $162 on stars. Tried my hardest in all of them - which in intself is a great improvement and in the $109 i made the final and lost out like this: i got about 12X the BB and i find JJ on the dolly, the BB is a bit defensive so i hoped i could set up a re raise from him... i raised it about 2.5X the bb and sure enough he pushed it all in i called obviosly his range is wide here... he had QK - not in as bad shape as i was hoping he would be... he outflopped me and i lost out in 9th. In the Full tilt i made it pretty far down to the last 120 out of about 450 or so... lost all my chips when my AhQh was unable to win against 99 - fair enough really. Then the stars nightly i came into the final 3 tables in v bad shape often with 4 - 7 X the bb... But i was patient and seized as many chips as i could where i felt my opponents would fold and also managed to win a couple of races, and a 60 40 . I came onto the final with about 200k 3rd in chips... Table was v v active and i saw no reason at all to get involved when any hand i would play could take off about half my chips and i had above 20 bbs. I let them knock heads making the rare re raise all in where i thought i would get respect and they;d fold unless they had a monster... thise worked and we were down to 4 players after not too long. Then the button raised and the loose aggresive - (and fairly bad) chip leader called out of the sb... about 70k in the pot and im in teh BB with 99 and still around 200k in chips - i decide to move all in and take the 70k preflop.... i dont rate the chip leader to be getting cute with AA or KK and if the initial raiser has a monster then power to him - cos he riases my bb every round. I went all in and to my surprised the chip leader called off about 2/3 of his chips with QK , i dont like his play here at all, its like he has trapped me with his QK... but i dont mind about that... his QK managed to beat my 99 so i was out in 4th for a very reasonable 8.9k. I could have won that race there, took teh chip lead and hopefully came 1st for 30k. It wasnt to be...

So i have a few things to consider over the next few days, how i am going to approach earning an income from poker? I also want to isolate any reasons i can possible divine as to why i was able to try my very hardest last night, when very often i think i will try my best then end up doing a v bad move and not even caring.

Anyway thanks for reading and GL

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Monday, March 5th, 2007

mi chiamo aelred sono inglese

Posted 7:28 am in Categories: Poker

Been a while since my last blog. A fair bit has changed, was trying to play at university but internet connection was basically too shoddy and kept disconnecting at important moments, so i made the decision and headed home so i could build my roll and start a nice routine away from the distractions of student debauchery.

Had a terrible february, mtt wise at least. Lost every all in late in in mtts for an astounding amount of tourneys. mostly going deep then losing all in with by far teh best hand or losing about 5 races and 60 40s to die. On thursday in the casino i bubbled losing KQ to 78 then A6 to QJ, i win either of them i probably finish in the top 3. The mtt entry fee's were taking their toll , i must have burnt about £2k in february on tourney entries. so i deposited $2k on crypto and playing NL $100 on their. V easy money, but not easy to grind for a high roller like me, up about 6 buy ins on that, could be alot more, soon as i hit the $4k mark i will return to my favoured level of NL $200.

Sunday mtts i played last night - Crypto 40k gtd, and the mansion 100k and the sunday million.

Got bad beated in the mansion losing KK to QJ then AK to 88.
Sunday million i didnt play that great, i was down to the last 20 in the crypto and had top pair in the million. Couldnt really be bothered making that laydown with a decent kicker so i pushed with top pair after sum1 bet pot he had AA and i was out of the million, which allowed me to focus on the 40k.

I made the final table after getting beated with by QJ to my QQ. Dont want to come off sounding like a cunt, but i was easily the best on the final table. Or i was playing the best at that time. Seemed like a table of people who hadnt reached that stage v often b4 so they were either playing too tight or totally over the top aggression. Got it heads up and he had a 2 - 1 lead on me. This did not worry me at all though, i had been observing closely and i was pretty confident he would make an error of overplaying his hand while i would happily get doubled up and chip away at the pots he didnt get attatched to. Strategy worked perfectly really, i was winning majority of pots taken post flop then i trapped him with AQ, limping it on the button then re raising all in preflop to his raise. He made the mistake of calling with A9 and he flopped the 9 and i came in 2nd. £6.88k or $13.4k in dollars is a good prize, though i do feel a little peeved that i didnt take first place.

Hopefully this marks a beggning of a nice run in mtts, as i didnt do anything different from how id been playing up till that point. I guess my timing was better and i didnt get totally raped for all my chips at any point.

I'm not going to move up stakes at this point though, i left the £1300 in there and will grind away at nl £50 until i reach the 2k mark from cash games and then move up to £100 nl. My aim is to have a roll of £20k by september to start my poker career properly when i move back to notts.

about half way there now

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Thursday, January 25th, 2007

it doesnt seem fair and its not right

Posted 10:28 pm in Categories: Poker

Got back to uni on monday and missed 2 exams due to doing no revision then staying up all night watching films so i wouldnt have to worry bout not revising. Basically done with that degree, its not going anywhere even if i completed the next 2 and a half years... so i decided to play poker for the mean time and see how far i get with it. Tried continuing on crypto where i left off but kept disconnecting, university halls network is just shit. Then i remembered from last term the only site that had never disconnectted on me - full tilt.. So i depostied $2000 in there to play NL 200 and have a swing at some mtts too.

Bought in for $200 on two tables and was on the phone to a mate at the same time... big mistake, everybody knows that online poker and phonecall is a recipe for disaster, sure enough i check raised all in for about $180 with an open ended for a pot of like $15... he caled with KK and stacked me. Dumb move really but i know these things tend to happen when i am on the phone and try to play. I rebought and after about an hour i was even with about $100 profit.

Played the $150 $20k gtd double stack mtt about 2 hours later.. Managed to come 3rd for $3.7k which is a nice amount but i am a little dissapointed at not winning. I feel I played my absoulte best that mtt, i seriosly didnt make 1 wrong move and i picked up most of the pots that no1 seemed that intrested in. I even got short stacked right near the end from a bad beat and brought it back up.
Here are some hands;

http://www.pokerhand.org/?767512 nothing that special here, i raised it up from the cut off with a nice starting hand and flopped a monster. I played it as best i could to get value, on the turn i dwelled a while before i bet the 150 hoping he would see it as weakness and re raise or bet the river... which he did, perhaps he had a busted spade draw, dunno.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?767606
Now this hand is the most important of the whole mtt for me, ive built up to 6k from playing fairly creatively raising and continuating in position and a few bluffs on the river... In this hand there is a few limpers preflop, i decide to lead out with my paired 3 and see where every1 was at, i also had an inside straight draw to back me up. I get two callers here and they can have a range of hands, people call these bets on the flop with Just an Ace, two overs with one spade, a flush draw, even some people have misplayd a hand like A5,66 or 77 in this spot....when the 3s comes off on the turn it is a funny card for me, i now know im defo beating any1 calling with a pair but the flush draw is out there... i decided to bet fairly large to make anybody with only a single spade pay, perhaps the A of spades... When the chap re raises all in I know he has the flush, or as much as u can "know" in poker... Of course he could have the straigt or an allready made full house.. but everybit of instinct inside me (derived from playing thoussands of hands in hundreds of mtts) and his betting told me he had the flush....so i fold right? well i sized up the pot and if i called and won i would be on 10k or more, a stack like that and i should be able to final... Tehn i calculated my outs, any 5 = 3 outs.... any 2 = 3 outs... any A = 3 outs.. and of course the fourth 3 made 10 outs... so im roughly 5/1 to win the pot if he does indeed have a flush. The pot is laying me about 2.6/1 .. if i fold i am left with around 4k... if i call and lose i am left with about 2k in my mind there is not much difference in play between these two pretty short stacks. With the 4k u can play a little more but if they dont work out then u are short stakced anyway, and with the 2k u are simply ss. But should i manage to boat it up the change would be substantial - it would set me up for a mtt win. I decided to Gamble, the disadvantageous odds made up for by the potential cash earnings should i win the pot. Situations like these dont come along that often in mtts so if it appears a good gamble and u can play a good short stack game (should u lose the pot) i think its a +EV mtt move.. I won the pot and went on to make the top 3...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?767676
Now heres an example of simply calling when u are given the correct odds, i raised preflop and followd it up with a continuation bet.. he min reraised me so i assume he has hit the ace... but i can draw to my 6 so i call... he bets tiny again so i now can draw to 6 or diamond... i call again and i have flushed. pretty simple hand really he shud have re raised more on teh flop and turn bet more.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?767705
I chip leader on teh table and i have been largely in control... nothing to annoy anybody on the table but i was clearly dominating. WHen this player raised fairly small i smelt weakness... i min re raise here to keep others out of the pot - and if sum1 behind me does happen to wake up with a monster i have lost the least possible when i have to fold... when the initial raiser calls (as he prolly should with most hands) he is out of position against the preflop aggresor, so unless he hits sumthign nice i will win this most of the time... he checks and i put him all in - any bet i made would commit me to call his all in so i decided to put him all in myself.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?767752
this was a nice one, i called a small bet hoping to hit a set and i did, pretty astonished how much value i got from this guys weak weak hand .

http://www.pokerhand.org/?767907
Heres a bad beat i recieved near the eend of the mtt, about 15 people left and it was the 3rd and strongest hand id raised on the bounce, running quads lol pretty impressive way to lose.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?767965
another case where i bet my hand well and the opponent bet his poorly, if he made a proper bet at any point i would probably have to lay this hand down,... but i dont make the mistake of folding to tiny bets - because instances like this crop up more than u would think.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?768060 Ok heres how i busted, down to final 3 after the chip leader had KK AA QQ and KK within the last 10 hands or so, bit of a pisstake really. in fact u can even read at the top of the history i was allready calling him names about his card rackiness.
I trapped him pretty good dont u think? lol

Doing well at the moment thats about $10k this last week just from mtts, and over the last 2 months about $20k. Will continue to play at the local card room and NL200 on full tilt along with some online mtts.

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