NutzBlog

Oi oi! First blog should be fun.

So I’m relatively new to the poker scene, only 7 months old and 1 month professionally but id like to think im fairly well educated for my poker age. Some would say I rushed into playing poker professionally after quitting my 9 till 5 in a kitchen & on a bad day I would agree, but hell for the most part of it, its AWESOME! I’m not going to lie though there is a little man on my shoulder telling me to get a part time job at least for now in case things go tits up. When I first got embarked on the road of a poker pro I got myself some pretty cool mentors, Jamie “TheGrooouuuch” Sykes and Ash “Il0v£mymummy” Mason. Little did I know that was only the start, I was quickly introduced to some of the best online players in the whole entire world! My network then included the EPT Deauville winner Jake “neverbluff67″ Cody, top 100 ranked player of pocket fives Tom “hitthehole” Middleton and Leggo Poker pro Rob “patonius2000″ Woodcock alongside an assortment of other ridiculous players.

For all the people that are reading this that are seriously considering going down the line of playing poker properly here are some lessons from me. They might sound silly but at the time it seems like a good idea. Mistake number one, after I binked the 42K GTD on Full Tilt for $8K I decided to have a $3k roll and withdraw the rest, at this point in my career that’s not such a bad move considering I was playing solely on Full Tilt . The bad choice was buying a 2k laptop with the money I withdrew leaving me with a couple of hundred to love on. There was me thinking well if I can bink this ill bink everything consistently, how Naïve was I to think that, sure id win the odd tournament live for a couple of hundred quid to keep me afloat, it just wasn’t enough for the comfortable “do what I wanna do” lifestyle I was after. After this bink I then went on a down-swing and with no liquid real life cash, I found myself struggling to do things but still managing to spend what money I had on nights out and trips around the country to do silly things to an extent. My second mistake was TAKING SHOTS! As fun as it sounds to enter a tourney with like 10% of your bankroll to hope you bink and get an instant bankroll it isn’t fun when you bust and realise that your bankroll is dwindling at an alarming rate, its much better to stay fluid for a longer period of time because when you go busto your fucked. Bankroll Management is so important and it is stressed to me all the time, and believe me, I have been punched in the neck for going outside of the guidelines, cheers Jamie.

OK so here’s the results for the prop bet running from the 1st of April until the 20th.

	Me	Murf12309
Games Played	558	802
Wins	0	0
Final Tables	10	8
Cashes	95 (36+59)	111 (77+34)
ROI %	28%	15%
ITM % Full TIlt	16%	13%
ITM% Stars	18%	16%

Let’s have a look at these stats, the one the jumps out the most to me is 10/8 finals and 0 wins. We must really suck. I can’t speak for murf but I know that I’ve had a real hard time HU, resulting in 5 2nds, which really does suck. I feel I’ve played well for the best part, and run below expectation but I know that two of them were at the end of heavy sessions, and I definitely just got it in and gambled. The latest one was the most brutal as the prize jump was $7000, and I had the guy in for the win AJ<KQ and A7<Jt. He kept falling into my traps and shoving it in but luckily for him he just kept getting there.

I’m ahead in ROI, but I am potentially a lot further ahead because my stars account is doomswitched at the minute, and is currently rocking a  -29% ROI. One decent result on there and I will scream into the lead.

As expected, I’m getting my head kicked in in terms of volume, but fear not, this was my plan all along. I haven’t played any sit n go’s yet, so my plan is to spam $12 180 man sng’s in the last week during the day to catch up with volume and hopefully increase my Stars ROI a bit.

As far as cashes go, it’s pretty close and could be anyones game I feel, and I’m not sure how much the ITM% stats will change.

I know that Murf is having a rough time of it as well, so we’ve both chosen a pretty sketchy month to do this it would appear, but we’re both going to just keep on going and try to get some solid results in. I’m not going to work out how much I’m ahead by in terms of money, because it’ll just tilt me too much if I end up losing. That being said I’m happy to be ahead at all considering up until this sunday I’ve been slowly but surely knocking it in despite countless deep runs and finals. It appears I just couldn’t win the big EV flips deep in tourneys, but hopefully my recent 2nd in the $75 on sunday for $12k is a start of a delicious upswing.

Keep following (if anybody actually is), I’ll make sure to post the final update on May 1st.

Stay classy internet.

HERRRO EVERYONE

 

This year I have been playing poker as my only source of income, “professionally” if you will..

I’ve been playing mostly online and multi table tournaments (MTTs) only, but with a few decent buy-in live tourneys here and there too.

The start of January went well with a win or two in the bag to get things rolling.  But alas, as comes with the territory of playing large amounts of MTTs regularly, a downswing was imminent. As I’m sure you are all aware, in the short term, poker is a game of chance. And, no matter what equity advantage (%) I had when I went all-in in a tourney, I was consistently on the wrong end of the game of chance and it was very hard to cope with. I remember a couple of instances in Sunday majors where I got all my money in as a huge favourite and was spectacularly outdrawn.

                      – 66 vs J9 on a flop of 26J for a monster pot in one tourney | and A2 vs KQ on a flop of A23 with 30 people remaining out of a few thousand runners and $50k for the win . Runner runners were dealt both times to crack my 95% chance of winning and needless to say it was very tilting.

 

Anyway, the story goes that this sort of shit just would not let up for over 2 months, at the cost of about $25k to me. I was not playing perfectly during this time, but i was certainly playing a style which beats online MTTs so profit would be expected.

I talked to people who had been in similar situations and had similar swings in the past. The advice i was given was to just keep playing and keep playing well and it would pass. And it did. Towards the end of march my bad luck ceased and indeed good fortune kicked in for me to win a tourney. This filled me with confidence and was the start of a string of good scores which is still going on now and hopefully will continue.

Although it wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences at the time, I am REALLY REALLY glad that this period of playing well yet losing happened to me. It might sound strange but it really helped me improve my game and look at things in a much more positive light.

Which brings me onto the point of this blog really..  Whether you play recreationlyor are aspiring, as i am, to become a top pro, you should be looking to improve your game and stop making mistakes. When you get it all-in with aces, you should be happy whether you win or lose. There’s nothing more you can do than get it in good. Whether it be with aces or whatever manner you get your money in and lose, it really doesn’t matter as long as you’ve made the correct play given the table dynamic and your opponent and all the rest of it.

It has taken me a couple of months of misfortune and replaying the what ifs in my head to realise that getting a bad beat or running bad is no reason to tilt.

Busting out of a tourney, or losing a buy-in in cash games is no reason to get frustrated. If you plan to play poker regularly then its not going to do you any good and your not going to enjoy the game. Instead, get angry, get really angry when you make mistakes in the game. Tilt your tits off. This will help you remember what your mistakes were and help you to avoid them in the future.

If anyone reading this plans to play poker at all regularly in the future, whether that be at the nutz, online, dtd, vegas, home-games whatever, I URGUE YOU to think of  poker as a game where you need to make the fewest mistakes possible. Don’t worry about whether your winning or not at that particular time. Play well and enjoy. The rest will follow.

 

Good luck all. Ash Mason  – il0v£mYmUmMy (pokerstars)  |  Ashthedonkey (fulltilt)

hello evvverrrrrybody!

Had a really interesting last week. In fact, it hasn’t been that interesting at all, and that in essence is why it’s been interesting lol

So last week I had big plans for week, wanted to play 3 sessions at Gala cos the games had been sick good, wanted to play UKIPT coventry, had a haircut booked for thursday, hadnt done any washing for about 3 weeks so needed to sort my life out there as well. Now irritatingly, as all my plans seem to do I hit a couple of stumbling blocks, firstly the games at Gala were  not good, they were actually terrible, as a result I lost because I am such a whale in really tight, short nitty games – well I’m fine as long as nobody else makes too much of a hand at any point lol

As a result of this, I elect to tilt off $2300 at dominoes, return to the stupid nitty gala game where i LOST more money, stayed there all night as a result missed my haircut, and overslept thus couldn’t get to coventry in time, meaning that I had to stay in Leeds, play more at gala, loose more and wake up the following day to find my washing machine is broken…

So despite my best intentions, I had achieved zero and reduced my wealth by over £1000! but not at all disheartened by this I went to bed early on friday (albeit by accident – I had intended to out drinking lol) and woke up on Saturday bright and breezy as I had a “business meeting” at 11am. I got there looking fresh, feeling super awake and rearing to go! felt incredible

So decided that as I was feeling so good, wasting it by playing poker would be criminal, phonecall from Franky who had been playing in coventry courtesy of dominoes winnings – only to get schooled by Marc Goodwin of all the embarrassing people to get schooled by! He said he was on route home for a night out so crazy times lets gogogogo. Me, Franky and Salfi went for steaks at River Plate then went out drinking and I still for the life of me cant remember where the hell we went throughout the whole night lol only thing i remember is drinking everything and salfi loosing every flip that it got to the point where I was embarrassed to win!

So 4am we find ourselves in the casino where I REFUSE to gamble (new responsible David) luckily no shortage of potential entertainment as a cash game including AJAY RAMESH was brewing so I figured what could be more fun than anti-railing AJAY agressivley for the remainder of the evening! FUN TIMES!

/sidenote/ VERY FUNNY STORY, railing roulette, franky anounces before the spin he feels 16 is coming in, 2 guys playing both cleary doing their bollocks in have +£1k on the wheel but nothing touching 16…franky calls for 16, 16 comes in and Franky FISTPUMPS and celebrates. very funny. very very funny

Leaving the casino we find ourselves in a tesco’s at 7am, and despite the intial plan to buy some red wine, we decided that it would be an incredibly shrewd idea to buy £300 worth of scratch cards! we get home, and it seems we have turned our £300 into £72 and flip to see who has to return to our friendly shop assistant Becky and get another £72 worth of scratch cards! I loose and on my trip back to tesco i figured id use my manly charms and the fact i have £300 of scratch cards to try and seduce Becky into accepting a date with me…

I really turned on the charms, and here is a snippet of the conversation

Me: “How much would I have to win for you to go out with me?”

HER: “errrm, £10,o00,000″

Me: “Really, I have £8,000,000 is that enough?”

HER: “no”

sigh, gg

as im walking home in my slightly wobbly morning state when i come across a grooup of people, who asked me why i had all my scratchcards, I responded in saying that I wanted them…then me and 2 women ended up wrestling over a handful of scratch cards on a bridge over the river, I lost 2-5 cards, but escaped un harmed and without any sexual assault taking place (kinda sigh) so I merrily classed that as a victory and moved on happily!

After another session of frantic scratching, we had £60 to collect, and Franky lost the flip and off he went, as we were waiting I cracked open a bottle of wine and Schooled AJAY pretty hard on a game of “world record lines” simply the game is, Martin (Merrion Centre cardroom manager) reads out a world record, whilst me and Ajay take it in turns to set lines on the record. playing £20 a time I spun up to +£240 and then well and truly took leveled everyone at rock,paper,scissors…

Leveled AJAY hard new he was going rock, so took a £20 evens bet with Martin that the first spin would be a push, first up both go rock, then he switches to scissors and I stick….OOOWWWWNNNAAAAGGGGEE

So i woke up on sunday feeling 1) very hungover, 2) very hungry and 3) surrounded by used scratchcards, good times!

After a really nice roast dinner in the town centre, which of course i loose the flip for me and Franky return to my flat for a sunday of grinding, we played a ton of 3/6 full ring NLHE and all the big online MTTs. the MTTS all went terribly and we ended up with zero cashes, but luckily we won about $3500 playing full ring so finished the day with a healthy profit ! wiiiiiiiiiiiiii a profitable sunday doubt that ever happens! some really cool hands from our 3/6 full ring sessions. (playing as Matfrankland)

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/1781493 ULTIMATE FREEROLL

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/1781492 absolute madness this hand!

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/1781490 – ship it with 6high LOL

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/1781495 – like the line, just sigh at this hand

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/1781496 – tough cooler, but loose from him imo

Following this session went to play live at gala and had a pretty sigh evening again another – £600, got into an interesting debate about “young vs old” – this is a pretty common debate in the world of pokers these days, for those who are interested allow me to shed my thoughts on the matter….

Firstly before I say anything controversial a good point to remember, which i do agree with, is one my old pal Garry Fitzpatrick who i play with on a very regular basis made, he says that to be “successful” at poker the only test that defines this is TIME, some incredibly good players who made tons of money (Jake Cody, Matt Perrins, Rob Woodcock) all really good mates of mine – but like he says “If they still winning in 25 years time then they are successful” and fair enough @ this point. Also I have a lot of respect for the “old school guys” who have made tons of money and are still going now, Garry, Goerge Wynberg, Chris Johnson all super nice guys who I play with often and I have a LOT OF TIME for – they might have made most of their money in a different time but they still here making it today. So really there is success as a poker player right there.

In my opinion though, most of the “old school” guys have really had their day – not because they aren’t good at poker, but because poker has changed and they haven’t been prepared to change with it. There are exceptions to this rule and they come mainly in the form of the SUPER high stakes tournaments (WPTs and $10ks etc, where I think the standard was always exceptional and everything else has now caught up!)

For example, last 2 years we have had a MAIN EVENT winner under 23.  there have been 14 EPT winners under the age of 25, James Mitchell just won the irish open, 20yrs old, Pez, the only Englishman to win an IPT at 21, John Eames ranked 2 in europe last year 21yrs old. Now obviously plently of “old schoolers” are still winning, Barry Shulman vs Negraenu HU for WSOPE last year (a final that inlcuded Akenhead, Saout and Mercier mind you) Joe Grech Just finalled the UKIPT conventry, Colin Young seems to win the DTD £300 every other month and players like Ali Mallu who still crush live tournaments on a regular basis (well played to Mr Mallu as well for just winning another 2 GUKPT side events, he is hurtling up the leader board now! gogogo MALLU!) but a lot of older player who still call them selves professionals, even though they seem to have lost enthusiasm to beat the game, and are not even making any money continue to be dead money in both tourneys and cash games, and I for one hope their sponsorship deals don’t expire any time soon

On that note as well, well playeds to my good friend Dave “leKnave” Jones who took second in UKIPT coventry last week for a healthy £29,000 ! veeerrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy nice hand sir my favourite part of the final table reported by team pokerstars outstandingly

“Paul Rigg opened to 67,000 from the hijack and Jones flicked in the extra 37,000 from the big blind.”

epic.!

Well thats pretty much all form me, another week of underachievements but had a ton of fun so once again find myself lying in bed, eating 16hour old dominoes pizza reporting in my blog of all that didnt happen, and wondering where to eat tonight as I watch the people of Leeds going about thier business from the 6th floor heaven! arrrrrr its ok really

Plans for this week dont really involve too much pokers meeting an old friend tonight for dinner, then got business stuff to do tomorrow, might sneak a few online sessions in thursday/friday before I have more IRL stuff to do this saturday, followed I imagine by a night out on saturday, then -$2,000 trying to win it all on sunday cooooomooooon WORLD!

Thats all from me guys GL see you about !

lilD

fml

actually fml

DOMINOES HOLE becomes $2,395

here is an example. franky opens with dbl zero

i have no zeros and draw 8 extras trying to hit it.

these include the 6/6 the 5/6 5/5 the 6/4 and just about every dominoe over 6….

+77.

DIE

DIE

DIE

Just finished a dominoes Session with franky which started at 20cents a spot and ended in me $600 down FML

I ran about as terribly as anyone could run at dominoes as well, was 38-2 then he pulls two incrdible scoops on me and wins it 101-38 at $5 a spot that is like a $495 swing in 2 games absolutlely  golden. After getting scooped for 71 he opens with the dbl 4 and obv i have no 4s and snap draw 5 new dominoes.

FUCK

MY

LIFE

About time i gave up stupid gambling!  Gonna go get a subway and tilt my face off on the pacman machine at elbow rooms

Forgot to mention.

WELL PLAYED. NICE HAND. GOOD GAME Mr. James Mitchell, pround owner of the irish open trophy but more importantly 600,000 euros…

Incredible life, well played mate really really sick performance – THE YOUNG UK TEAM ARE ROCKING 2010! wiiiiiiiiiiii

and more importantly NEWCASTLE ARE BACK IN THE PREM!!!! TOON TOON TOON!

sigh at going back to loosing every weekend though! but still wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Hello again. Yesterdays blog was mainly intended to vent my anguish at NOT winning the DTD £300 which no way to hide it SUCKED I mean i had all the chips one minute and then none the next siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh O WELL! Played some more MTTs online today and despite building some stacks flipped bad when it mattered – seems to me like i NEVER LOOSE over card vs pair flips, and NEVER WIN pair vs overcards flips, make me wanna fold TT/JJ whenever i get it in the antes now (obv i dont that would be carnage lol)

So yesterday I got persuaded to play tournaments in the evening. Now i say persuaded like some serious pressure was applied to me and after struggling against peer pressure I caved in and played tournaments. In reality what actually happened was rob asked me if i was playing tournaments, i said NO. 20minutes later Rob says again “you have to play tournaments today” I then said ok i’ll play tournaments and that was that. Small schedule for me I dont have much $$$ on the internet at the moment, I played the BRAWL, The $150k gtd a $26, a $75, the $100k gtd on stars, the DN speacial, the million and the weekly HU on stars.

Had a pretty poor session no real stacks but the main excitement came in the shape of the Weekly HU. I love HU and always perform really really well in any HU tourney i play and i always say i’m gonna make a concerted effort to play more however I end up just never being bothered lol anyway after cruising through my first 3 rounds Im into the money and playing someone truly terrible. SNAP doing everything calling every street down and 3betting like a monkey. Soon have in down to 15bbs. when we get it in 88 vs 5T and he dbls back, then we get it in KQ vs 97 on QT9 and he makes a 7. Grind him back and get it in 99 vs 55 he makes a five and then finally i shove my 8bbs with 96blue he calls A7blue and flops me completly dead. Ar well one day one day…

SO figured today what i would do is analyse my year so far as we are 1/4 of the way through 2010. Now when business people do these quarterly updates i think (obv this is speculation)  they don’t just analyse the financial performance because that would be far too results orientated they analyse all kinds of external contributors as well, like development, investments, and projections for the future, as these might not be putting moneys in the bank, but are essential in being rounded and forward moving – important for any concern.

Not being results orientated is important in poker for sure, but I also think it is important to be quite results orientated because at the end of the day poker is about results. LOOSING whereas often justifiable is not really good enough. Its about winning and at the end of the day if your not winning something is wrong and you gotta sort it OUT!

OK, so my year so far….

Projections.

At the start of the year I had set out my goals for the year.

#1 was to play 500,000 of HU PLO on full tilt, cake and pokerstars and average a winrate of 9bb/100 (4.5 BB/100)

#2 Play 3 nights a week live poker at Gala/Napoleons Maintain winrate of £20 p/hour.

#3 Build a $20,000 Bankroll specifically for LAS VEGAS (wiiiiiiiiii)

#4 Look to start my own business

#5 Do something/ANYTHING in a live tourney!

Tbh we havent really gotten anywhere near achieving most of these but had a few setbacks. The biggest setback of all came when i had to use all my spare capital to invest in my parents house. This was a non-option for me as when your parents are in trouble you have to help however you can. This left me with a net roll of under £5,000 which is obviously a disaster for anyone trying to play the game full time at decent stakes. Luckily though a really good friend of mine was on hand for some light financial relief and pretty much saved my year as a result meaning I was able to maintain my stakes albeit a touch under-rolled. If you are reading mystery loanee then thank you very much once again I really appriciate your help. As they say when the ship starts to sink it’s interesting to see who sticks around!

Online has been a big dissapointment this year. played 48,000 hands of 1/2 PLO HU, and resulted in loosing a little over $3.4k which tbh is dust. $3.4k swings in HU plo are neither here nor there so certainly wont be worried about it. Unfortunatly I started the yr loosing 2.8k on PTR so despite breifly being a winner on the tracker seems now im at career valley of -$6.7k only a stat (a stat which has 400k untracked hands and a Net of +$60k) but still….sigh…. promising kinda that the ADV EV for the year is over 6k positive so running nearly 50buyins below EV. Easy to get sidetracked by this stat but what i should really ask myself is have i played my best? DEFINATLEY not, briefly in early Jan i was playing incredibly well, then lost a bit of focus and had some external life things go on then started to loose more all-ins than i should have and got a bit tilted, played a little above average this year if we’re being honest.

However i plan to get back into the swing as soon as possible and with any luck will get 25k+ hands in april/may time.

LIVE POKERS has been the saviour this year. started off poor loosing for the year but as the games got good round leeds I started to run exceptionally well and played really really good. Don’t think I could have played much better these last 2 months live and have worked really really hard. Had some incredibly deep games which I really enjoy and the action really has been very very good. I think so far this year Im winning about £19,000 from the leeds games in what i think is about 315 hours. averaging £60 an hour – this is obviously incredible and I doubt its sustainable, if it was then doubt ud see lildavefish again lol not all good news though as in three trips to DTD i have managed to dust off over £3k playing cash games there. Man some of those have been INSANELY brutal as well lol Nottingham hates me!

Tournaments. Despite having a big live score on my to do list for the year I really cudnt be arsed playing many big tourneys only played 3 as it happens 2x DTD £300s and the £1.5k GUKPT. failed to cash in any of them despite feeling like i might win the £300 this time round. UKIPTs coventry/DTD then GUKPT manc and surely JUST surely il win one of them! chances are il try raise some backing for them dont wanna knock it all in trying to win a live tourney lol. online has been a disaster and despite some epic nearlys im loosing $4k this year.

SO. so far so decent. aproaching 5figs of profit for the year, and that isnt at all chabby for 3 months work. However all the ridic nights out and stupid purchases and Im still perillessly poorer than i was when the year began. But in more positives i now have over £4k worth of shares in Nostra Terra which if i sold today would be worth a touch under £3k lol. I have 25% of a restaurant that is opening hopefully if the fine print of the deal can be agreed and some awesome future prospects on the horizon for my re-entry into the real world. SO all in all A good year!

Im really looking forward to re-entering the real world. I say the real world like its a dirt word most of the time, and to be honest its a scary word, form the prospective of a poker player the real world is full of the 3 things we try to activley avoid, THE THREE R’s

RESPONSIBILTY

ROUTINE

REALLY EARLY STARTS (9am)

having been in the bubble now for a while its pretty hard to leave – and i wouldnt ever leave for no reason like to get a random job somewhere. However if the opportunity to do something fun crops up then I really have no plans to miss out. SO when i heard that a very shrewd contact of mine wanted to storm the fish and chip world, and that he wanted me at the helm with him, well I leaped at the chance! I never really wanted to be a proffessional poker player. Still don’t really, I love playing, i LOVE winning and the freedom/adventures/Friends I have gained through it have been INCREDIBLE i mean seriously incredible. I’m defo still going to be hevily involved in poker for sure after this year – but wont have to relay on it to pay the rent and that is going to be fun and might even make me enjoy poker even more than i do! (although i’m defo not one of those guys who plays cos he has to – i play all the time cos im a insane degen and LOVE IT!) I am really hoping as well that this new oppurtunity will give me scope to make some real moneys! I feel iv always had serious flair for business and in the right circumstances with the right people next to me I really think I can conquer!

I think this kinda proves my point – i have never held any aspirations to conquer the poker world like that, I am seriously content with enjoying myself and making enough money to ball about aimlessly! maybe i could have been miles miles better – maybe I could have wasted all the good times Iv had trying to find out – WHO KNOWS! As for the exact details of my new life chapter Im still not enirely sure of the details as everytime I meet with the 2 guys the goal posts seem to shift, I really hope Graham my old boss at GRAVELEY’S in harrogate is involved like initial plans though, me and Graham go waaaaay back and conquering the fish and chip world without him would seem kind of dirty – but he might wanna sell it all and go live in trinidad for the rest of time, cant say id blame him!

Anyways an underachiving, yet contented and excited David ends this blog and hits the shower before another night grinding Gala. ON IT GOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!

Experimented with colouring my paragraphs last few blogs but CBA now, sorry they all so long and boring!

Also hey ups to my old buddy AVERAGE DAVE was sick to see him at DTD this weekend – sigh niether of us could bring it home

ANYONE going to DTD/COVENTRY for the UKIPTs next 2 months? seems like a sick value and structure tour so will defo be attending!

GL everyone see you aroooooounnnnnnnd

Yo.

I swear to god if i got a phonecall tomorrow and someone said to me “Dave, give me a kidney and il give you 50p for every £1 you’ve lost at DTD”

what i’d do is snap them up and just go on holiday forever! SIGH

However this time was pretty different because i thought i was gonna win it all this weekend! normally when i play the £300 at DTD I think how cool it would be to win, but then dont really expect to – not this weekend genuinely thought i was going to win every penny! I’l recount the tournament briefly!

Main reaosn for going this month was due to IRISH open I figured the field would be stupid soft and there’d probs be an overlay.  Was right £10k overlay and I find myself on the softest opening table everyone is stupid and nitty got myself to 20dimes with no sweat….then this hand came along…

I open A3hh MP and a super nit peels the btn and an unknown peels from the 1. Flop comes AK8 1 heart and it goes check check check, turn is the 2c bet 150 into 600 i call super nit on the btn makes it 1250. I refuse to believe this is a hand ever but at the same time struggle to believe he is bluffing ever….I call the 1100 then check 8 river he bets 2700 leaving him 5k behind and elect to completley disregard my instincts and fold he triumphantly revels the 63 offsuit and once again live poker completly baffles me – I mean this is so terrible from him Im still so angry with myself for folding. anyways by 100/200/25 I was still in and ad 25k which is ridic exciting!

went back and immediately started to open every single hand had the softest table iv ever played at and chipped up to 35k and had 3bet this loose french guy twice in a row when he opens again and i have AA ! WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII we get it in for 21k each total he has JJ and hits a Jack on the river, which was pretty sigh cos im fairly sure that pot was for the chip lead at the time and if id have had 60k on that table at that point id have just crushed it!  Luckily thought there was a guy on my table who was a sponsered player and comfortably the worst experienced player i have ever played. He was insanely bad – thanks to him exclusively i managed to get back to 30k without showdown. Then had another really horrible spot. There is a limp from terrible guy at 200/400/50 and loose french guy opens to 1100 and this really spazzy guy who i didnt have too much info on 3bets to 3k playing 15k total. I find myself in the cutoff with QQ with 30k total, french guy has a touch under 20k. pretty tough spot really espcially as i dont really have any solid info on the 3better. Had seen him play a few really really spewy hands, one in particular when he 3bets 87o in a terrible spot then peels the 4bet leaving the 3bteer with under a pot sized bet left and calls it off on a T84 board guy has AA suprise suprise. SO with this info I think I have to 4bet call here to either the raiser or the 3better. I dont want to shove i want to give them as much freedom to spazz off as I can. so i make it 7150 intending to call either off. life becomes terrible when the mega it in the BB finds a cold 5bet to 15k, fold fold and im left staring at a Queen and a Queen and calling 8k to win 22k. its so close that he only needs to have JJ/AK a few times to make it a profitable call. However the thing is he just never ever has anything but AA/KK so I had to sigh very hard and fold.

Next tricky spot i had was at 400/800/100 and a really loose player iso’s a limper to 1900 and Im behind him on the btn with 44 im playing 32k and he is about 18k deep. my plan is to 3bet kinda big leaving the stacks perfect for a shove and call it off. I make it 5350 of course another nit moves in from the BB for 12k, opener folds and i left to 6400 to win 21k and i have a pair. I searched for about 3.5 minutes for a way to fold couldnt find one so closed my eyes and put my chips in. He flips JJ and despite the board reading 235x at one point still managed to loose lol – i guess if it was actually my turn this weekend i would have won that pot. The nit then berates me for calling afterwards, i make a brief attempt to explain but the difference in our opinions is far too great and I leave that one well alone before im tilted into the next century!

Then a few orbits later i open AT in the sb and BB peels, i cbet airball flop check turn then full pot VB a A river he calls with AJ lol wp me!

then at 500/1k/100 i 3bet shove 13k over a loose LP open with Q9blue and he has KQ green and my magical adventure is over.

Really happy with my performance though, and heavily comforted by how I just relentlessly chipped up all tournament, slightly tilted by how the nits just sat and waited and got golden hands at golden minutes when i had spent the whole day fighting for my stack, sigh but still I really feel like a big live tourney score is round the corner and I am going to keep AT IT!

Afterwards played some cash there was a £2/£5 nlhe game running. this hand pretty much summed the session up lol

I open ATss and he peels, flop comes KQ2 1 black i lead he raises and I call because 1. I have some nut outs and 2. am expectig to have the best hand with Ahigh almost always. turn is 8 i check call £115. river is a 4 goes check check he has 45spades. WP SIR. sigh

Sunny Nagi a really cool young player was there aswel and we normally have some pretty cool battles. He kinda got the best of me this time round, i made a terrible river call with KT when he had AK one hand, then I had 74 vs QQ on Q74, and AQ vs KTdd on Qd Jd x T board and cudnt fade so that was the end of that adventure as well lol. Cant begrudge loosing to Sunny though he is defo one of the nice guys!

So back to the hotel feeling pretty tilted when Jones presents the epic plan of going for macdonalds….buy a shitload of chicken products and fall asleep watching the football berating everyone still left in that stupid fucking tourney. what a life lol

On the plus side though, manage to wake up in time for breakfast which is incredible and the roadworks outside sheffield have gone so the drive home was quick! Seriously this is the end for my poker trips, dunno why i ever leave leeds – leeds is incredible, in fact here is a UK based rating system analysing the best place for things that i like….

1. Sleeping

Leeds ranks 94/100 – I have my awesome flat in the city centre with a ridic comfy bed, would never sleep anywhere else ever!

London Ranks 7/100 – beds are shit, London smells funny and my hair ever straightens properly when im there…

Nottingham Ranks 23/100 – beds are decent but its nottingham so you never know when u might get stabbed…

2. Eating

Leeds Ranks 93/100 – Loads of good places to eat plus river plate is there which snaps makes it win.

London ranks 92.99/100 – Kudos London, this you can do eating is awesome in London

Nottingham ranks 1/100 – Everywhere is shit, nandos opposite DTD is the best place.

3. Going out

Leeds Ranks 99/100 – loads of cool bars plus call lane wins hands down

London Ranks 21/100 – far too big everyone talks funny and without a 6figure bankroll doubt any of us can really afford it

Nottingham Ranks 3/100 – Everywhere is terrible plus ur chances of dying are about 15x higher. Having said that thought there is a sick club in the middle of nottimgham which is up a loads of stairs…thats accounts for 2.8 of its score.

4. Poker

Leeds Ranks 100/100 – Games are sick plus casinos are nice and friendly

London Ranks 44/100 – lots of action but too many pros and atmosphere is terrible plus the cardroom at the vis is the most ridiculously tilting place ever cos they use such terrible chips

Nottingham ranks  69/100 – DTD is insanely sick only reason it keeps me coming back so well run and the games are incred, however rake is too high and too mnay good players about defo no better than leeds for action.

5. Making Mad ones/Winning

Leeds Ranks 100/100 – winning is pretty easy in leeds tbf. spesh when u have mad skilz!

London Ranks 0/100 – seems impossible to me

Nottingham Ranks 0/100 – Again it hates me wants me too loose everything

6. Being Happy

Leeds Scores 100/100 – Can always smile when ur in leeds cos…well you;re in the sickest place ever!

London Scores 0 /100 – Such a horrible place and everyone is moody

Nottingham Scores 1/100 – DTD is so cool that when i think about how cool it is im happy….then i remember im in nottingham and GG that.

7. The People.

Leeds scores 99/100 – Everyone is sick in leeds you have a massive poker community surely as big as anywhere plus most people are yorkshire and simple so much easier to deal with

London Scores -1000/100 – everyone is moody and angry WTF guys lighten up!

NOttingham scores -340/100 – some nice guys, however seems like rather too many chavs for my likeing …

8. The Smell

Leeds Scores 100/100 – leeds smells incred

London scores 1/100 – the perfume shops smell ok

Nottingham scores 0/100 – smells horrible eveywhere

9. The Place

Leeds scores 89/100 – some terrible parts of leeds but most of it is green and heavenly and lushcois

London Scores 14/100 – concrete shit

Nottingham Scores  1/100 DTD looks cool but surrounded by shit and in a really shit place. FAIL

10. OVER ALL

Leeds Scores  874/900

London Scores  -841.01/900

Nottingham Scores  -242/900

SO there you go seems Leeds is sick and everywhere else sucks. This said il probs go Manc for the GUKPT cos im now desperate to win a live tourney plus I really feel my time is here!

but for now its off for a Matey bubblebath – got this bubble bath i used to have when i was a kid comes in a pirate shaped bottle and the water changes from blue to red when ur in the bath – INSANE! then go for lunch with rob probs and then to gala/naps for the grrrrrrrrrrrrrrind. Sigh

ARR WELL at least im still here hey!

In a bit guys!

Hey everyone, my name is Jamie Sykes, I appreciate some of you may not remember due to my ridiculous absence from the blogging community, and for that, I apologise. Honestly, I haven’t been keeping up with anything I need to be doing for the past two months but all of that is about to change. After reading this blog from Mike McDonald (http://blogs.cardrunners.com/Timex/where-to-go-from-here), I’ve realised that it is all too easy to get wrapped up in the poker community and lose connection with the things that make you who you are, and that is what I feel has happened to me in the last 4/5 months.  So I’m going to be doing a lot more reading/writing and other non-baller activities over the next few months, even though they are going to consist mainly of  poker, because I feel I have a lot to do in poker before I’m finished with it.

*Brief re-cap of the last few months*

Online grinding, went to the PCA, KO’d a WSOP champ in a live SnG, played coin against the wall with Scotty Nyguyen, travelled A LOT, drank far too much alcohol, stole Phil Ivey’s blinds, learned that I’m terrible at an Italian game called “Boce”, snorted a line of ground pepper for £250, had a sore face because of the latter, missed about a million flights and GRIMMED FRANKY!

Okay, back to the present. A friend of mine James Murphy is a micro stakes mtt grinder who is renowned for the ridiculous volume that the 18 year old full-time student puts in, so I decided he would be a good person to have a volume based prop bet with to motivate me to grind. I also managed to get some decent side action with one of our mutual friends who thinks (with good reason) that I am too lazy to match his volume.

So the bet is for the month of April on Full Tilt and Stars only as tracked by www.officialpokerrankings.com, and is split into categories which are as follows:

Most final table apearances, 181 runners+ ($50 with murf12309, $200 with chrispoker23)

Most tournament victories, 181 runners+ ($50 with murf12309, $200 with chrispoker23)

Most cashes, 45 runners+,  ($50 with murf12309, $200 with chrispoker23)

Highest ROI% ($20 with murf12309, $50 with chrispoker23 per 5% difference capped at 200%)

Most volume played ($20 with murf12309,  $50 with chrispoker23 per 25 games difference*)

Highest In The Money % ($25 per site with murf12309, $50 with chrispoker23)

*with chrispoker23 that bet is capped at 400 for a maximum swing of $800.

So this is basically what I’ll be spending this month doing, and in my limited spare time I’m going to try and see as many of my friends who are back from uni as is humanly possible. Not much sleep for me this month.

I’ll post graphs and results weekly, and kids, prepare for more Sykes blogging.

Peace yo.