January Goals Review

It's that time of the month! Hmm, maybe that wasn't the best choice of words for the intro..... Anyway, it's time to review my January goals. No point in messing around, let's just get into it!

1, $2.5k Profit

In a nutshell, this goal got crushed! Not only did I hit the $2.5k goal that I set myself, but I almost doubled it. Even without the TCOOP score which in itself was almost enough to make the goal, I would have hit it, just through solid grinding. That in itself is a great mental boost as it tells me that it wasn't just by luck that I managed to surpass my profit target for the month.

2. Two Red Label Final Tables

Huge success, solely due to the morning $16.50 PLO8 Omania. In total this month I final tabled the tournament three times, one outright win, one chop and a ninth. I think the Omania is the softest tournament on PokerStars right now due to it's start time and, obviously, the fact that it's a game very little of the field have experience with. It plays relatively deep in the early and middle stages which gives me the opportunity to apply pressure to weaker players and consistently build large stacks to take into the shallower late stages. Hopefully I can continue my great run in this tournament in February.

3. At least one four-figure score

Another success! I wrote a post a few days ago about my deep run in the TCOOP PLO8 event on the blog so I won't go into too much detail on it. If you'd like to read about the run you can find my post here. The score was for $2,163, which definitely qualifies as a four-figure score. The two Omania ships just managed to scrape under the four-figure threshold, both scores were for around $990 so if I didn't make the TCOOP run then this paragraph would probably be trying to convince you that they count!

4. Have developed an organised system of what to do with tips

I'm not sure whether to quantify this as a success or not. I keep tips and spare cash in a pot on my window sill, and although I don't simply dip in whenever I fancy a drink or something, I have tended to use it every time I need to top up my Oyster Card when I'm going somewhere. So although it's not an organised system, I'm counting "used as emergency on-hand" cash as an acceptable use. Recently the pot has never had more than about £20 in it but should it build up the goal may have to be revisited.

5. Have a full clean out of my flat and throw away as much as possible

Well, not everything can't go to plan, this was a massive bust. As I write this I'm staring at a pile of empty suitcases which we had pulled out because we went away for the weekend, and now I have no idea where they're going to go. Why would two people need seven suitcases? It's a  wonder. I definitely need to get around to achieving this goal in the next few days.


So there you have it, a pretty successful January wrapped up in a nutshell. Just putting the finishing touches on February's goals so they should be up, probably by tomorrow. I've also got a fair bit of travelling to do in the next few days so chances are I'll use the opportunity to write a few posts. Until then, good luck and the tables and I'll speak to you all soon!

Deep TCOOP Run : $109 PLO8

So sometimes, when it comes to PLO8 MTTs, you can go months without any sort of interesting big buy-in tournament, and yet somehow I managed to play two in the space of three days! With the NLO8 offerings being a $82R and a $109 Hyper, this was the optimal O8 tournament of the series for me.

The day started perfectly. PokerStars set a brilliant satellite schedule with tons of $11 FOs and $5r's which were just beyond soft. I only managed to play 11 satellites in the afternoon as I was busy for most of the day but I still managed to ship four seats and truly free roll the event and start the week with a ton of T$.

In the actual event, much like the £220 PLO8, I managed to chip up a lot early on while the blinds were small and double my stack without having to play an all-in pot. The field was a lot more passive than expected from a mid-stake buy-in online tournament but sometimes that's what these xCOOPs are like and I was definitely thankful for that. I flopped well, ran good in all-in pots and and consistently managed to increase my stack over the first hour and a half.

The first problem I encountered was this hand. Like I said, I'd run really well in all-in pots beforehand and built up my stack nicely, but this guy took the biscuit, he was running like Usain Bolt. This pot was just before the bubble so it was a bit disheartening to watch but thankfully I had enough chips left to recover.

Because this pot was just before the bubble, it actually forced me to calm down, and stall a little bit unless the money, which thankfully meant I didn't punt off my stack which usually happens after spots like this. A min cash in this event would still be a decent chunk of money so taking a flip here would have been quite silly, especially with the pace at which people were busting and the average stack which was around 8BBs.

I made it into the money with around an average stack and got to work. I got a ton of steals through and used my above average knowledge of pre-flop equities to get into favorable situations and build my stack. In tournaments like these, fold equity is everything, so sometimes it's worth passing up on a near flip when being shoved into in order to preserve a large enough stack size to win blinds uncontested. It's a concept well documented in NLHE turbo tournaments but is definitely under utilized in PLO8.

I carried on chipping up and up until there were only nine players left. I was definitely getting nervous and a little excited about possibly final tabling a major tournament. Then came this hand.

It was definitely a spot to get it in, even if I were deeper than 6BBs. I was pretty happy with the flop and still quietly confident on the turn but the river was truly gut wrenching, needless to say, a few things on my desk took flight. I wouldn't call it a bad beat considering the equities pre-flop, near enough 50/50, so although it's a bit disappointing to miss out on the big money, I can't be too upset.

It's my biggest score in O8 and even though it's tough to be only 8 players away from $24k, I'm still very happy with a $2k score and TCOOP isn't even over yet, I still may have a shot at a big one! I'm planning to take a long weekend off poker so I don't get burnt out and thankfully this bink affords me some room to do that, however I'll be back on the grind next week, ready to make even bigger and better scores! I hope I'll have more posts like this for you guys in the future, but until next then I wish you all good luck at the tables and speak to you all soon!

P.S. Big shout outs to some of the O8 heroes having great TCOOP scores! Congrats to bokkie87, trelskig and Giffordonian who all had big five-figure scores in the past week! Good job lads!

I did it again!

OK, this is going to be a little bit of a brag post, but for the second time in four days, I shipped the morning $16.50 PLO8 Omania! The score again was just under $1k so for the second time in under a week, I came within a whisker of hitting one of my January goals of making some four figure scores, but the month still has over a week left so hopefully there will be some more shots at it.

Like I mentioned in posts before, the Omania's do get really shallow in the end stages so I won't pretend that I didn't run exceedingly hot. I managed to scoop almost all of the important all-in flips that you inevitably encounter and heads up I managed to hit a fair few important cards when short. I actually made it to heads up with a large chip disadvantage against a decent opponent so again I got lucky to win two or three flips to get back to even and from then on could use my edge to grind him down. Eventually I managed to induce him into shoving his weak flush into my flopped quads and ship the tournament.

And luckily for you guys I remembered to take screenshots this time so enjoy!

It hasn't all been roses this week though. Apart from this major score it's actually gone pretty badly, but this is only talking about the last two days so as they say on 2p2, "[  ] sample size".

Just want to take the chance to again remind all you Omaha grinders about the UK Omaha Series starting tomorrow at the Vic in London so make sure you at least get down to one event! And also be sure to follow me on Twitter for live updates. Until next time, good luck at the tables and speak to you all soon!

The Red Label Roller Coaster!

Wow what a week it has been! There's been success, there's been heartbreak, it's had it all. Overall I managed to put in a ton of volume and showed a pretty decent ROI so all in all it's been a great week results wise but how it could have been so much better!

So we start our roller coaster of a story on Wednesday for my first grind session of the week, thank you very much real life, with the $5.50 PLO Omania. I'd flipped like a hero for the whole tournament and from the final four or five tables down I'd played very aggressively and managed to take the chip lead. From there I may have taken a few spewy lines and looking back I may have reigned in the aggression a little bit. Going into the final two tables I was 2nd but the blinds were high and I only had a 25BB stack. I then got myself into a few awkward situations where I had to raise/call off the short stacks given correct pot odds and got short myself. Eventually I ran AQQ2ds into AAxx and busted in 15th. I was furious with myself because I definitely could have been a lot more discerning with my spots to get aggressive and easily made the final table. $25 was not much of a consolation for getting that deep. But we battled on.

We then move onto Friday. During the day I'm normally busy running errands and completingy job applications but I like to load up the $16.50 PLO8 Omania and the $13.50 PLO8 KO on the side to keep me entertained. I regularly make deep runs in this Omania because the start time is so early that almost no regs like to play it. I managed to ninja stack my way to the final two tables but once could not finish the job, finally busting in 14th shoving 3BBs UTG. Like the $5 PLO, the stacks get very shallow towards the end of the tournament so running well is very important.

Moving on to Saturday, now this was one hell of a day. I made the decision to grind the whole day as I wouldn't be able to play Sunday and I needed to take advantage of the weekend MTT softness while I could. Again I started out with my usual PLO8 tournaments and again I made a deep run in the Omania. I built a pretty huge chip lead with around 40 remaining and wielded my stack like a weapon all the way to the final table.  With only 8 left between myself and victory I could only see one player who I could see causing me any issues. He played the final table very well and eventually we went into heads up with around even chip stacks. I think I may have had an edge heads up but with fairly shallow stacks and a fair amount of money on the line, making a deal seemed like the best play. He actually asked to look at the numbers with three left but I felt the odd man out was so much weaker than us that dealing then would be throwing away too much equity. We chopped for aroun $1k each. A fantastic start to the day and it wasn't even 4pm!

And sure enough, Saturday didn't end there. I then went on a very deep run in the Hot 16.50! Turbos have been truly heartbreaking for me in the past but the bink potential is just so huge that I can never pass them up. Of course, I ran amazingly well to get deep but I just couldn't keep it going. I ended up 15th out of almost 5k runners after my 9BB shove from MP with AQo lost a flip against 99. I even flopped trip Aces but my opponent went runner runner for the four card flush. The $300 was a little more of a consolation than the PLO but with over $10k up top, I just can't help thinking of what could have been! Thinking about it now, even a final table spot would have put me in a great position to move up in stakes and cash out a fair chunk for the live roll that I'm building, but there's no use crying over spilled milk. There will always be other turbo runs.

So there's my exciting week. I finished up posting a solid four figure win and putting myself well on track for achieving my January goals. I don't have any shifts lined up for the next week so hopefully I can put in a huge amount of volume and really push the profit for this month. Remember to follow me on Twitter (@Grimiscool) for the live updates on how my grind is going and definitely watch it on Sunday as I attend the £220 PLO8 at the Vic! I will posting chip counts, interesting hands and maybe even some pics with some of the UK regs I hope to meet there! If any of you guys are reading this then be sure to give me a shout and maybe we can go grab a drink after! Until next time everybody, have a great week and good luck at the tables!

Back on the Grind!

Hey everybody! As you probably guessed from the lack of blog posts over the last week or so I haven't been around much. Real life kind of took over in the form of temporary work and visiting my "in laws" (quotes used as I'm not actually married). Even though it was nice to get out from behind my computer screen and see the outside world for a little bit I am back at it now and raring to go!

Poker went very well either side of the break. Just before I left on Friday I shipped the $11 NLO 6m for around $280 and the yesterday, the first day back grinding, I took down the $8.80 PLO 6m for $340. Not huge scores but it keeps the scoreboard ticking over nicely and profit is good no matter how much. Also it's really good for my confidence levels to actually have won these tournaments outright. I obviously ran well in both tournaments but I did feel like I was playing my A game and making the correct plays. Especially in yesterday's PLO, I really stepped up the aggression on the final table when possibly in previous months I would have sat back a little more and picked my spots, maybe costing me the tournament win.

I'm also showing good results with my higher buy in shots, in fact my highest ROIs are in the games with buy ins of $11+. I've been slowly increasing my average buy in over the last couple of weeks and it's now creeping up to around the $15 range. I'm hoping within a few months this rise further and buy the end of the year it can be closer to the $30 mark. It may mean having to diversify my games over different sites but I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it. Currently PokerStars offers more than enough games at my buy in level, but more couldn't hurt!

I haven't got anything pressing to do until Sunday so hopefully that means a solid few days of grinding with a ton of volume and great results. With a bit of luck and run good I can start cashing out enough by the end of the month to comfortably afford the vast majority of my action in the £220 PLO8 at the Vic at the end of the month. I don't particularly want to completely raid the small live roll I've started to put aside in the first month of 2014 but if I can pad it a little before that time then I'll feel a little more comfortable. I'll be sure to keep you all updated with how the week goes, and if you want more current updates then be sure to follow me on Twitter (@Grimiscool). Good luck at the tables everybody and I'll speak to you all soon!

Ask and you shall receive! UK Omaha Series 2014 confirmed!

So literally hours after I published my post yesterday, the Victoria Casino finally confirmed their UK Omaha Series 2014 later this month! Far be in from me to question the PR department at Grosvenor Casinos only advertising a tournament series two weeks in advance of it's kick off event but nevertheless here it is. Here are the highlights:

Thursday 23rd - 7.45pm - £100+10 - PLO - 1 re-entry - 10k Starting Stack - 30 minute levels

Friday 24th - 7.45pm - £150+15 - PLO 4/5/6 - 1 level of each - 15k Starting Stack - 30 minute levels

Saturday 25th - 4.00pm - £250+25 - PLO - 1 re-entry - 20k Starting Stack - 40 minute levels

Saturday 25th - 7.45pm - £100+10 - ROE - 1 re-entry - 10k Starting Stack - 30 minute levels

Sunday 26th - 4.00pm - £200+20 - PLO8 - 1 re-entry - 15k Starting Stack - 30 minute levels

Needless to say, I will be doing my utmost to attend the PLO8 event, work and real life commitments being the only excuses, and I really want to encourage anyone and everyone who reads this blog to attend as many events as you can. With a nice spread of buyins there should be an affordable tournament for any bankroll. Even if a £100 is a bit outside of your normal buyin, consider it a once in a while treat. I will try to get down there for as many events as possible and expect a trip report for the PLO8. Thank you to the Victoria Casino and Grosvenor Casinos for putting on this series and hopefully we can get enough numbers out to convince them to run these kind of events more often.

Link to full schedule here.

January Goals

What's up everybody! I hope you all enjoyed reading my 2014 goals post. If you haven't yet had a look then you can find it here! A lot of my monthly goals this year will relate to those yearly goals so be sure to check it out should anything I say here be a little confusing! So without further ado, let's get stuck in!

1, $2.5k Profit

Hoping to get 2014 off to a good start. Around $500 per week I think is a very attainable target given my stakes, volume and ROI. If I play smart and grind hard I should hit this no problem. Recently I've had a few deep turbo runs only to falter towards the end so I hope to put those near misses behind me, learn from them and finally take one down sometime this month.

2. Two Red Label Final Tables

I'm using this goal to refocus my efforts on the Red Label tournaments. Recently I've been busting these too cheaply in my opinion, either by getting it in on a flip way to early or wasting away a decent chip stack towards the bubble or soon after. I usually play 6 of these a day and with the Omania's only having small fields, I believe a solid player should be making the Final Tables of these fairly regularly.

3. At least one four-figure score

This definitely ties in with the points I made above about deep turbo runs and Red Label final tables. Although I've had some great results in the past few months, I've had no scores over $1k. The closest I came was a $950 score in the PLO8 $16t 2x Chance. I play so many tournaments a day where four-figure scores are available so if I can ride the variance and play well, a $1k+ score shouldn't be too far away. I'd say my best chances for this would be said $16t, the morning PLO8 Omania or possible a random micro stake turbo.

4. Have developed an organised system of what to do with tips

I pick up a couple of waiter shifts during the week and normally I make about the same from tips as I do from my wage. Unfortunately, while my wages go straight into my account, my tips normally stay in my pocket ready to be spent on whatever I fancy walking home. Even today, I've counted out the exact change to order some Chinese as soon as it opens! Goal starts tomorrow lol.

5. Have a full clean out of my flat and throw away as much as possible

I had my boiler fixed today and the plumber needed the closet completely cleared out so he could get to it. I have far too much junk. Correction, my girlfriend has far too much junk! I actually hate having too much stuff. I moved to London with just a backpack, that's genuinely all I needed. I need to spend one day this month having a total clean out of all the excess in this flat and actually make it look nice again.



So there you have it. A couple of Poker goals and a couple of Non-Poker related goals too! Who said Tales of a PLO8 Grinder had to be solely about PLO8 grinding! Let's make sure 2014 gets off to a great start! Hope January goes equally well for all of you too! Til next time, later y'all.