$100k Badge on PocketFives and the road to $250k!

Very much like it says on the tin, this weekend I hit the milestone of $100,000 in prizes cashed for as tracked by PocketFives.

In actuality, I've cashed for a lot more than this, in fact OPR has my total winnings on PokerStars alone at around $140k, but it's still a nice accolade to have. PocketFives is one of the premier ranking sites for online MTTs and many people in the poker industry use the site to characterize players and search for information so having this badge by your profile can really solidify your place as a skilled and respected player.

The journey to $100k cashes hasn't exactly been linear. For the first half of my poker career I barely played tournaments, and it was until around 2011 that I started notching up the cashes. At that time I was lucky enough to be picked up by a Turbo 180 stable run by brad2002tj called Team LAGtard. It was here that I learnt most of what I know about tournament poker including the fundamentals of aggression and pot odds. I can honestly say without Brad and the team I wouldn't be at this point today where I can make a living off this game so for that I thank them.

After that I broke into small stakes MTTs and that's where I've been for the past two years where I imagine the majority of my cashes have come from. With small stakes MTTs, it's pretty simple to steadily accrue a large number of cashes thanks to the great volume you can achieve, even if you just stick to PokerStars.

Moving forward on the road to $250k, I expect to move up in stakes and get there much quicker than I did $100k but I'll never rack up the big time cashes like the NLHE sickos do, even though it would be nice. I'll stick to what I know which is grinding out the profits slowly playing my games, hopefully with the odd turbo here and there. I'd like to give you guys a time estimate of when I think I'd making it but honestly I'd just be throwing out numbers. I think by the end of the year would be very optimistic but not all together impossible. If I'm still playing pro by this time next year though, I'd expect to have hit it. If there's a site out there, or even an option on SharkScope that can show a graph of cumulative cashes over time please let me know in the comments because that would be pretty darn interesting to have a look at.

Even though I'm now more profitable than ever thanks to the switch from primarily NLHE to where I am now where the majority of my volume is in PLO8 and PLO, the payouts are normally much less because of the drastically reduced field sizes meaning that I may be accumulating cashes at a slower rate. In the end though this game is all about the bottom line, so even though having the accolade of a huge amount of prizes won is nice to have, I'd still rather take the larger profit margin. I feel very blessed that I can subside on the money I make playing a game I love so it would be wrong to bemoan the fact that I don't make more. It could be worse, I could be grinding 50 hours a week at MaccyDs (Yes, the term "grind" is necessary).

Anyway, I'll leave it here for now. I have a few ideas for more posts coming, and people seemed to react well to the "Top ___" lists that I've made in the past so I'll be putting out so more of those. Tomorrow I'm back off to the South Coast to visit my family which normally leaves me a bit of time to knock out some writing so hopefully there should be so nice content to read soon. Good luck to all you grinders over the weekend and special wishes to all the UK players taking part in the WCOAP at Stratford. Speak to you all soon!

2014 Goals - Quarterly Update!

So we've just arrived here in April and that means we're official a quarter of the way through 2014, damn that went quickly! That does mean though, that it's time for a quarterly update of the year's goals so far. Here's hoping I've actually made some progress this year!

Poker:

1. $30,000 online profit as recorded on Official Poker Rankings

OPR currently has me running at just over $5k in profit while my tracking software has me closer to $6k. Even though it'd be a little better for my ego to use the $6k figure, I did after all specify that it had to be on OPR, besides, even that figure wouldn't have me on track. To be on pace for a $30k year I'd need to be at around the $7.5k mark so I'm behind pace using either tracking method. I had a really good start to the year in January but then after that I went into a pretty long break even stretch and am now just coming out the other side. I am still working hard on my game and putting in good amounts of volume so I hope to catch up very soon.

2. £5,000 live profit

So I set a goal of £5k profit, so far I'm throwing up a bagel, £0. On the bright side though, I'm not actually lose either so I suppose I can't complain. So far the only live poker I've managed to play has been the Coral 30/30 that I got into for free last month and seeing as I didn't manage to cash the tournament, it leaves my yearly total at nothing. I am looking to put this right though as a friend of mine is constantly bugging me to play some live tournaments here in London and I'll definitely be taking him up on the offer very soon. I may even get around to it this weekend.

3. To become a regular at the $55 level

Now here's a goal I'm actually making great steps towards. Since my TCOOP score in January, I've been speaking with my backer about slowly increasing the stakes of our backing agreement. So far I've been increasing my average buy in, and actually satelliting in to the $55 PLO8 regularly on a Saturday, so I definitely feel like I'm making progress. I'd like to keep up the success I'm having in the $33s and $11r's for now such that I'm on a solid footing when I do finally make the move up.

4. Take 15 "shots" at Weekly Majors

Another quantitative goal which is easy to assess the success or failure of. I'm failing. Quarter of the way through the year I should have taken 3-4 weekly shots by now and unfortunately so far I've only managed to take two, bricking both. The weekly O8s are actually a bit tougher to satellite into than I had initially estimated so I haven't had too much success in them and I'm still not too comfortable punting the $11r turbo satellites, even if they are as soft as I've been told. Hopefully though, if I manage to make more progress with the previous goal of increasing my average buy in then I should be able to play some more satellites to these events and maybe take some more direct shots.

5. Play one live "Main Event"

Even though it's by default, I'm calling this a win. If you haven't read it by now, be sure to read my trip report of the Coral 30/30 held at Aspers Stratford last month. It was a £300 buyin and also the Casino's premiere monthly tournament, which definitely qualifies as a Main Event. I'm also heading back to Aspers later this month to play the WCOAP series and so I'll almost definitely be adding to the success of this goal.

Non Poker:

1. Maintain a running average of 100 readers per day

We're well on the way to hitting this figure. I'd like to say it's due to the quality content and great output of posts, but it's probably just because I'm spamming Twitter a bit more! In actual fact, recently a good friend of mine began a job working for a media company and has learnt a lot about how to increase the readership of websites and blogs through a technique called Search Engine Optimization. It works by improve the site's Google Pagerank through strategic use of key words and hyper links. He's taught me a lot about how to better utilize this blog and I hope to continue implementing new strategies in the future.

2. Have an actual grind setup

This has been a tough goal to achieve as it's hard to balance having an actual grind station or office and not completely shutting yourself off. What I have tried to do though is make the best of the situation by buying better peripherals. I've invested in a better quality wireless mouse, along with a ton of spare batteries so I'm never caught short, and purchased a set of noise cancelling headphones so that should I desire to be completely shut off in my own little world, all I need to do is flick a switch. I also invested some time into creating a mega long grind playlist, which while not contributing to a grind setup per se, helps me to focus better.

3. Organise and structure my time more efficiently

I feel like I've made some strides forward with this goal. I actually have my part time job to thank for this because, as you may have read before, I have been working far more hours than I had originally anticipated. This does however mean that I am getting up early most days which eventually becomes a habit, so even on my days off I'm managing to be awake, fresh and alert by 9am. I also tend to finish at around 3pm, which means I get home at the perfect time to put in a solid evening session. What I'm especially pleased about is that I've made great strides in making the correct decisions when I'm too tired or not in the correct frame of mind to grind. I can only the imagine the amount of money I've saved through only playing when I'm feeling 100%.

4. Improve my writing skills

I suppose this is one for you guys to decide. Much like poker, I can definitely get a feel of when I'm writing interesting content which actually makes sense, and when I'm writing complete garbage. The problem is that the garbage volume tends to outweigh the quality content and as such my delete key gets a good workout. I do still intend to working on my writing skills and this post has encouraged me to continue to improve and maybe even purchase some books on the subject.

5. Start "saving"


I haven't actually managed to do anything proactive about this goal, like open an ISA account or invest money somewhere, but I am managing to keep some money behind at the end of the month, which keeps me comfortable. The part time job helps to cover the rent and bills but I do still rely on poker to keep me afloat, which it manages to do quite nicely. I did especially well in January but had a very disappointing February so the two seemed to cancel each other out, but March got things back to normal so now the Poker and bank accounts are both very healthy. I'm also keeping my tips tucked away in a pot so if there's ever an emergency, I should have a little bit of cash handy to fall back on.

So there you have it, an update on my 2014. Like a report card from school at the end of term I think the summary of the last few months would be "Could do better". It's good for me to take stock of how my progress is going every few months because it gives me perspective, and encourages me to work harder. Even as I write this, I'm raring to get back to the grind and start raking in the money. If there's one thing I've learnt from all this grinding is that volume conquers all. If I'm a winner in the games, then the more I play, the more money I make, it's as simple as that. Speaking of which, I better get playing! I hope 2014 is going well for all of you guys too and if not, then it turns around soon. Good luck at the tables and I'll speak to you all soon!

Trip Report: Coral 30/30 at Aspers Stratford

Apologies about the lack of warning that I was going on a trip to a live tourney but in my defence, I only had about twelve hours notice myself!

So it's Friday afternoon, I'm sitting in the waiting room of the doctors surgery waiting for an appointment, and I see this peach of a tweet:

I was absolutely gobsmacked! I then got contacted by a staff member at Bluff who went over all the details with me, confirmed that everything was above board and that I'd really won a £330 tournament entry just for retweeting Bluff Europe. Included in the deal was a little section in next month's issue of Bluff with my picture so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Onto the trip report. I arrived at the casino a little early to sign up for a membership, which considering it was possibly my tenth trip to Aspers was quite strange. I love the casino. It's located on the top floor of Westfield shopping centre, right next door to the Olympic Stadium and it really is incredible. I particularly love the sport betting area where there are rows of insanely comfortably leather chairs pointed at around 30 TV screens. I had a little chill out while watching the first half of the Hull-Man City game before we got down to business.

The tournament had a 30,000 chip starting stack and 40 minute levels beginning at 50/100. This allowed for tons of play in the opening levels and, what you might have thought, made it very difficult for people to bust early on, yet that didn't seem to bother some people. Within the first level, we'd already lost about three or four people, but thankfully they reached back into those deep pockets and bought in again. I'd normally be a proponent of late registering a tournament when the starting stacks are so deep, but in fields like this one, where players can honestly stack off 300BBs with marginal hands, you'd be missing out on so much value.

I proceeded to get stuck in, opening a ton of pots with a wide range of hands looking to get paid off. I managed to stay around even for the first two levels orso, winning and losing my fair share of small and medium sized pots, until my first decent sized pot of the tournament.

I open AQs from UTG+2 and am met my a 3-bet from MP. The villain seemed around his late twenties/early thirties and had a PartyPoker cap on, I'm assuming from playing some sponsored live event. He seemed like a solid player so I wasn't going to get too out of line against him. It's folded back around to me and I make the call. The flop comes 9 5 4, I check and he checks behind. The turn comes a Q and I lead out. I'd been pretty aggressive so far so maybe he could see this as a steal attempt and I can get two streets from a mid-pair, maybe 7s/8s. Tens and Jacks probably continue on the flop, likewise decent suited connectors. Villian then raises, but I'm still not too worried as he seemed competent enough to try and make a play for the pot like this. I called and the river bricked. I check and he bets big. Looking back on the hand, I think it's at this point where I can lay down the hand as it's early on in the tournament and we're now looking at a pretty big pot relative to the blinds. I called anyway hoping that he got carried away on a bluff with AK but he flipped over 5s for a flopped set. I think he played the hand really well and got paid the maximum, courtesy of this Omaha donk!

I wasn't deterred though, I kept up the aggression and got right back into the swing of things. My next big pot came about twenty minutes later. I raise 23s (LAG ALERT!) from LP and only the big blind calls. The villain is an older, very talkative gentlemen. He clearly had a lot of experience playing in a live setting but was definitely a recreational player. The flop magically comes 4 5 6 and I'm doing a little dance in my head. Even better, the villain leads out! My hand is still vulnerable though so I put out a small raise which he quickly calls. The turn is my worst nightmare, a 7. The villain checks to me and I have no choice but to check back and give him a little rope with which to bluff the river, which comes a 9. Villain bets just over half the pot and I call, after the appropriate amount of sighing and bemoan my luck when he flips over K8o. Solid flop bet/call.

From then on I tightened up a bit, found a copy of Bluff Magazine and settled in to wait for push/fold poker to start, my wheel house! I managed to bleed down to a low of about 6k before finding a sweet little double up with AQ over AJ which got me back up to around 25BBs. I managed to grind back up a little bit until I got coolered to bust, 3-bet jamming QQ into AA. Unfortunate, but nothing you can do about it. I was hoping to go a little bit deeper, or at least to have lasted until the end of late registration but I suppose I can't bemoan my luck when I got into the tournament for absolutely nothing.

I really enjoyed myself for the brief time I was there. The table was really friendly and chatty and the atmosphere in the room was really relaxed and laid back, more so than some £25 tournaments I've played before. As I've said before, the casino is fantastic and the dealers were fast, friendly and engaging. I'll definitely be heading back and the APAT WCOAP Series in April seems a perfect time to do so, not to mention the fact that they have a £55 PLO8 event!

I really want to thank Bluff Europe for buying me into the tournament and Aspers Stratford for running it. For sure I'll definitely be entering any future competitions but hopefully run a little bit better in the actual tournament.

Hopefully you guys enjoyed the trip report and I hope I have a few more for you to read in the near future, after all, I still a way to go to achieve my 2014 goal of £5k live profit. Normally I bit of a bad taste in my mouth about live poker after busting a decent tourney but this time all it's done is wet my appetite, I guess that's what happens when you don't spend anything to get in! Until next time though I wish you all good luck at the tables and I'll speak to you all soon!