Grrr

Just played that $120 tournament on PKR. Just over 6 hours and I bust in 12/245 for $382.20. My KQo losing to JQo AIPF with a lovely Jack on the river- piss off! It was $7.3k FTW, ah well it only cost me $16 to get in so not bad I guess. Withdrew another $580 leaving me with a $400 roll, got work at 8 tomorrow and I so can't be fucked, but I leave in 2 weeks, oh how I can't wait! Good night.

Sick day

So yesterday morning I woke up and after a few too many late nights etc I was just not gonna make it in to work so I took a sickie. Obviously played poker; a couple of multis on stars to no avail and of course some PKR. Well I won about $900 in cash games on PKR, the vast majority coming from some guy heads up. Compare this to what I earn working a boring job all day and it really is just laughable. I also won a $16 satellite for a $120 tournament ticket. Also went to Chiquitos for the first time and it was lush and we even got 50% off the entire bill because they took so long to bring us our mains - result!

I withdrew about $670 but with Stars deposits this came to $602.42, leaving myself with a $500 roll.

So a sick day in more than one sense, I think I should take them more often!

100th Post!

I noticed that this is the 100th post of my blog, it's hard to believe I have been writing this thing on and off now for over 2 years, but I'm happy that I have it and it's always good to have for poker memories and whatever. It is with great pleasure therefore that my 100th post is a positive one!

Ok so in my last post I had a PKR roll of $1007. Well, this now stands at about $200... but only because I have withdrawn $2109.47! I was playing just cash games for about a week then last Friday I got home from work to a relaxing free house and thought I would settle down for a joint and the $5 rebuy. Now this was probably about the 3rd or 4th multi I had played on PKR since my recent win and a couple of hours later and with a $10 investment, this was the result -

- another first! Ok so the money wasn't massive but it really is the winning that is important and feels so good. I played a very different game to my usual, I had been chatting about poker with my mate all week at work and tried a lot more moves which basically came down to being a lot more aggressive, I guess it worked! I played a few more MTTs on PKR over the weekend but failed to even cash, often building a big stack but then losing a big coin flip or whatever. I'm happy with my game at the moment though and my confidence is high so I feel more decent results are on the horizon.

Which leads me to talk about the WCOOP on Stars, because lets face it where else do you want a sick deep run/decent result than in one of these bad boys. Most people who read this will be aware of these tournaments, last year I managed to qualify for 2 events via step satellites, the $530 two day event and the $215 4-max event. So I thought I would have a go this year, played various formats and in a $530 qualifier where I was in for $10 I lost a huge pot near the bubble with JJ against K6 AIPF to guarantee a seat, and in one for a $215 event the same thing happened with my AKd against J7o AIPF for again a huge pot to guarantee a seat. The guy who decided to shove with J7 and won the pot was about 2nd in chips after this point, 19 got a seat and with about 27 left he still manages to bust out in 22nd or something, he just kept shoving pretty much every hand, what a twat!

So after getting seriously pissed off with satellites I just thought fuck it and decided to buy in direct to the $215 event last night - only 11,000+ runners, why not! I bought in late towards the end of the first hour and was playing solidly then after about another hour I lose a biggish pot with AKo to 1010 AIPF, this leaves me with about 2500 and shortly after this goes when my AQc fails to get there against JJ AIPF, waste of £130 that was!

One satellite that I did however manage to win was the $10 buy in to the $77 final on Sundays for UK players only. The final basically awards a $600 package to a side event in the EPT London later this month with a £330 tourney buy in and expenses etc. It's a great value tournament because there is 18 guaranteed packages and only had about 55 runners in last night! Despite this however, you only get a 1500 starting stack and with blinds at 100/200 I shove my 1500 or so chips with 88 in late position when it's folded to me, I get an insta call from a guy in the blinds with about 1000 more than me and he shows AJs and I know already that I'm gonna lose another race so I bust in like 30th! It's a great value tournament though with so few runners so this Sunday I think I'm gonna just buy in direct because it would be really fun to play a side event at the EPT I didn't even know they did them. Just let me win next time dammit! I'm pretty confident in my satellite game so fingers crossed.

So what with depositing on stars over the weekend and that stupid $215 buy in waste my withdrawings since last post total $1664.17, still pretty good for me, actually having something to show for playing poker rather than losing all my profit like I used to usually do. I hope I can keep this up; win a bit, withdraw a bit etc etc.

So I'm not sure if I will play any more WCOOP events, I'm certain I won't be buying in again, despite the lure of big scores I have to accept that I can't afford it, and playing satellites sometimes you feel like you may as well have bought in anyway because of the amount you can spend on them especially rebuys!

Goal for 200th post - to have a 5 figure score in a tournament!

Update

Well I haven't exactly been very active on the blog front recently, the main reason being that I just can't be arsed! However I'm in good spirits poker wise so I thought it's high time for an update.

Let's see what I can remember. Firstly - The Challenge. Now I did my very very best in order to stick to $50NL, honest I did, but I can say, without exaggeration, that I ran the worst I have ever done in my entire life. I lost buy in after buy in despite being a huge favourite, I saw some incredibly disgusting beats. One outers for a straight flush to beat my made one? No problem. Runner runner straights to bust my sets? Of course! I guess this is what they call 'variance'. Well bah, I call it the withdrawal curse! So I inevitably moved up levels and eventually bust my account. This led to me re-depositing, spinning up in a big room, withdrawing what I had deposited, getting a roll again, then losing it. This whole process repeated about 3 times 'til I thought 'enough is enough'. I guess I have finally come to terms with the fact that I will probably never be a bankroll managed winning player, I can't cope with the ridiculous beat after beat, but hey at least I tried!

I was feeling shitty, I had to pay out over £400 on my car which sucked, I had a holiday to France coming up and my money was dwindling rapidly. I was also smoking too much weed which is something I haven't done since my school days, call it boredom with my job and the fact that it is so readily available from my co-workers, it doesn't take long to get back in the habit. Being stoned can help with poker sometimes however, thinking on another deeper level or something...

So anyway a couple of weeks ago I had popped over to see my Dad after work then back home, I knew I was staying in that night so fancied playing the Daily $17K on PKR. I registered for it, then took my dog out for a walk to have a joint before getting back just in time to see my first hand dealt. Well as my previous post showed, I went on to take 1st place and I was over the moon, I withdrew the lot, my money issues were sorted just like that! It was funny cos I was telling my mate at work that very day that 'I think I might take down the $17K tonight', I might have to start positive thinking more often! I even made it to work the next day despite me telling myself that I would bunk if I took it down, I'm glad I did, money is money after all!

So that Saturday I went to stay in my Dad's place in France. Really really needed the break especially from the boring job, and I had a fantastic time. There is even a new casino literally a 2 minute bike ride from my Dad's place in Lacanau-Océan. We went there a couple of times, it's a pretty small affair, but upstairs they had live cash games! The only problem was the stakes were €2/€4 and despite my recent win, and the fact that French players are often huge donks, I resisted the urge to sit, I'm so un-degenerate!

The break did me the world of good, Lacanau is a nice place, and the waves in the evening get fucking mental right up to the shore I lost count of the amount of times I got taken clean out and slammed into the sand, span upside down with water all around me, shooting up my nose (I hate that) thinking I was gonna drown, it's kinda scary especially the first time! No wonder my step-mum has seen a body being taken out of the sea there once! I have drunk far too much as well, every day for over 2 weeks! I think I need a detox!

On a side note, I finished watching Prison Break season 4 whilst I was away, I love Prison Break it's such a great show and they ended it perfectly in my opinion, although really sad! Also, I read The Time Traveler's Wife, I used to love reading but really don't read anything these days. However I'm glad I read this book 'cos it's fucking brilliant. I strongly urge anyone to read it no matter what your taste in fiction is, it deals with a very complex subject matter so well you just have to go and read it, it's in my top 5 books definitely. I know the film is out right now but it looks gash and lets face it what films are ever as good as the book?

I digress, so back to the poker. Last Tuesday I decided to play again so deposited $500 on to PKR and played some $100NL. I have since withdrawn that $500 and the roll now sits at $1,007. So I've made $1000 in a week, woo! I'm very tempted to just withdraw this because it's not like this is the first time I've won a decent amount, only usually I go on to lose it. This amount 'should' probably be in the region of about $2K owing to some of the horrible fucking dirty beats I've had; one that springs to mind today is me with A10 against some donkey with A4 on an A104 flop, all the money in on the flop and the 4 hits the turn with ease, bye bye $250. You have to laugh really, I've done well not to tilt, toooooooo much... However I know that if i go on a bad run and lose 4-5 buy in's the rest will probably follow, so withdrawing the lot does seem like a good option right now, only I will want to play again, and so the circle continues.

Finally, I want to buy a laptop, always wanted one and I want to treat myself, budget of about £500-£600. I am leaning towards the Dell Studio 17, but have heard mixed reviews of Dell computers. Also I don't know if a 17" screen will be too big, there are so many out there I can't bloody decide! So if anyone has any good laptop advice I would be very grateful to hear it. That's about it for now I think, I'm gonna try and update more frequently if I can. Back to work tomorrow after 17 days off, I so don't wanna go back! Take care people.

SHIIIIIIIPPPP ITTTTTTTT!!! (Happiness is a poker tournament).

What better way to make a comeback to posting than with this little beauty! Man I have a lot I could blog about but for now I'll just say I'm so fucking happy to win this tourney on PKR, on about my 10th attempt which included one other final table finish.

Great tournament, I really played some of my best poker, made some imo great calls and was never all in behind the whole game (I think). I would like to do a report on this tournament if I can be arsed to find the hand histories cos there were some interesting hands.

I even got a brutal runner runner beat when I was 95% on the flop to make me short stack with 15 left, but I battled back.

When we got down to 3 handed on the final table the fucking batteries in my mouse went! This happened recently and I was only able to change one battery with a half used one so this time i thought the game's up, fml I thought as I had no other batteries. I fiddled them about however and thankfully they held up :) LOL.

This is my 2nd biggest tournament win ever, and I am really buzzing right now despite the fact that it is 02:30am. I'm supposed to be in work in 5 and a half hours but I think I might do a bunk :)

This couldn't have come at a better time as I had to spend bills on my car last week and I'm off to France on Saturday so the report might have to wait. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I love this feeling, 1st place one time whoooop!!!! Yessssssssssssssss!!!

1st target reached

I'm pleased to say that I have reached my first target of $1,600! So as I said I would do I have withdrawn the $600 original deposit so now it is all profit I am playing with. The next target is $3,000 when I can move up to $100NL...

It has been a topsy turvy week, after writing my last post I dropped nearly $200 that night which was not nice. The roll dropped to just under $1,000 but I battled back without tilting and without moving up levels despite running very bad at the beginning of the week. I just left 2 rooms on nearly $300 stacks in both which was really great to be doing so well.

I have been playing quite a bit of heads up too and beating most people, I left one room yesterday with a $430 stack :-). The only problem is a lot of players only sit with $10 or $16.48 or something so I request that they sit with at least $30 to play, is that wrong? But I'm not gonna risk $50+ to win $10 am I?

I will probably update on my little challenge once a week at the weekend, unless I take down a nice multi or something and want a brag post ;-)

Trying to work off this $600 bonus but it's taking a while, I need to up the volume as I haven't been playing much at all and I only have till the end of August to do it and am on about 20% now.

Oh yeah almost forgot I went to see Bruno on Friday and I thought it was fucking hilarious! That guy has some big cahunas that's for sure.

I guess my blog won't be too interesting for a while (has it ever been?!) but it's all about the challenge right now I need to prove that I can do this. I'm up over $1000 at $50NL in 2 weeks and 3 days so my confidence is high, I just hope I can maintain it.

Grinding FTW.

Bankroll - $1,051.91

So far so good...

I crossed the $1000 mark a couple of days ago so things are going well so far! This isn't with rakeback however as my deal was only activated on the 1st of July so I am only now starting to earn rakeback.

So I'm up just over $600 and all at $50NL! I haven't even been tempted to move up at all, although I did accidentally sit in $100NL once as I was choosing room based on average pot size but as soon as I realised my mistake I left straight away after like 2 hands lol.

I want to play the $100 Super Series $35K main event tonight as it's 6 max which I am far better at and deep stack too. Although obviously $100 is not in my bankroll I might try and sat in, whatever I dunno.

I'm really enjoying playing at the moment, there is a certain calmness in being bankrolled properly for a level, it's refreshing.

So just a short one, I hope I can keep up the winning and reach my first target of $1600!

Bankroll - $1,202