The Real World Called

Hey guys, it's been a while. As I'm guessing most regular readers, or anyone who follows me on Twitter, would have guessed, the blog had to take a back seat for a while because I finally managed to get a real job! Pretty soon after I made my last post I got a call from a large online gaming firm in the city offering me the position of a marketing analyst. The company focuses mainly on online Slots and Casino sites with a little bit of Poker and Bingo thrown in, so I'm still in the general industry not far away from the eventual dream. We're even looking to get into real money Poker in the U.S., which is pretty exciting, so you never know, I could still make it in.

Needless to say, grinding has had to take a bit of a back seat for the past two months. I started the job fully with the intention of continuing to play at evenings and weekends but it soon because apparent that it wasn't going to happen. On a regular day I'm working 9am-7pm, occasionally longer, so by the time I get back to my place at around 8pm, I've missed basically the whole evening MTT schedule, not to mention the fact that I'm constantly shattered.

I have managed to play every now and again though, but not seriously. Recently I've been enjoying jumping into 8-game cash games, purely for enjoyment sake. Now that I don't have to rely on poker to make a living, I've felt that sticking to one game can get a bit monotonous really quick. My first thought when getting back to the games was, naturally, to just into PLO8 cash games as O8 is still my best game by far and I've pretty been successful at micro stakes. I managed to beat NL10 O8 Zoom for a pretty substantial win rate but after a week or so I found the games tedious and uninteresting. It also felt a bit strange playing for such small stakes again after playing low/mid stakes MTTs for so long. With 8-game cash, I've yet to become bored because the games are constantly switching and every time I sit down, it feels fresh. I think I'm also liking it at the moment because I know I'm not very good at most of the games, and the thought of getting better at the likes of Razz and 2-7TD excites me. I've been reading a lot on the games and watching a few videos online on how to improve and so everything feels new again.

In terms of blogging, obviously I haven't had anything much to write about recently so I felt like it would be a waste of everyone's time to read articles that had no substance and we're literally just my random musings, even more so than before. Now that I'm learning games and thinking about Poker a bit differently, I thought it would be a good time to get back into the swing of things and give writing another go. I've had some good conversations with players recently exploring hands and talking strategy about mixed games so maybe you guys would like to hear some things too. Don't worry though, O8 is still part of the mix, so I won't be abandoning the old girl just yet!

For now though, it's Sunday evening, so methinks I should be hitting the tables. I hope all you grinders out there are doing well and maybe I'll catch you at the tables sometime! Good luck for now and I'll speak to you all soon! Take care.

SCOOP is here!

It's finally that time of year that every MTT grinder waits for, it's SCOOP! With $40 Million up for grabs over two weeks and 45 events, I'll be looking to get my hands on as much cash as possible. Granted a huge chunk of that will be reserved for the high buyin tournaments that I won't be touching with a barge pole, but nevertheless I'll be doing my best. And the greatest thing about this SCOOP series, I actually get to play it!

Regular readers of the blog will know that I've been a student for the past 5 years, so come SCOOP time, without fail, I am smack bang in the middle of exam period, so I don't have the time to invest in 12 hour long tournament, let alone two day events.  I'd normally attempt to make a bit of money in the satellites during the day when I'm building up to the hardcore revision evenings but generally they haven't gone so well, mainly because I'm trying to split my focus too much. This year I can give the festival my full attention and put together some solid runs.

Obviously the O8 events will get the focus of my attention. This year we have more events than ever thanks to the inclusion of 5-card events. Needless to say, I'll be playing all of the low buy in events but also I'll be attempting to play as many of the medium events as possible whether it be by satelliting in or buying in directly. Traditionally the satellites have been pretty soft so I'll be hoping to secure a few seats in advance and also giving the great value deadline satellites a shot. In the last couple of years I've managed to satellite into SCOOP and WCOOP events pretty successfully so hopefully I'll be repeating that this year.

With so much money up for grabs I wish you guys the best of luck with your SCOOP schedules, just so long as I run better! It's always great to see hard working grinders from the community make big scores in festivals like these so I hope to be throwing some well earned shout outs in future blog posts.  I wish you all the best of luck at the tables and I'll speak to you all soon!

My Top 3 Scores

As a little celebration of hitting my $100k badge on PocketFives, I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane and share with you guys my best scores online. All three tournaments were a fair while ago so I may have forgotten a few of the small details but in general I think I can remember the interesting points as, with good reason, all three were pretty big moments in my poker career. I'd love to hear some of your reactions in the comments below as I know some readers who aren't tournament grinders may think that these numbers are huge and others who have been around the block may laugh at me being proud of these modest scores. So without further ado, let's get to it.

1. $11,586 - 3rd Hotter 11 NLHE Turbo

So by far and away my biggest score ever was this Hotter 11 score just over one year ago. I actually chopped the tournament three-handed as the chip leader but soon after I 3-bet jammed over the BTNs min open with A5s and called off with TT and held to cripple me. The next hand I got in whatever random two cards I had and busted.

Obviously I ran absurdly well to make it through the almost 10,000 runner field and nothing summed the run up better than a hand on the final table bubble. As you do in turbos, I ran a little card dead with about 18 left and by the time we were down to 10 players, I only had about 6-7BBs. I picked up QJo in the small blind which is normally an any two shove so I was very happy to pick up a real hand. I was less happy though when the big blind snap called and tabled AQs. I bricked the flop and turn but binked the beautiful Jack on the river. That pot gave me a solid stack for the final table which I managed to ride all the way to the final three.

I remember sitting in my front room on the sofa next to my girlfriend, one-tabling the tournament as I'd become uber focused and nervous about the possibility of this big cash. Every time I played a pot I practically held my breath until the hand was over. When I finally busted after we made the deal I just sat back in shock and disbelief. My girlfriend, who'd been railing the whole time, asked me over and over if I was sure that I'd just won real money!

It was a truly great moment in my poker career and I really will have to go some to eclipse that feeling in the future, but I definitely hope I get the chance to.

2. $3,977 - 1st $11 NLHE Turbo 


Unlike the Hotter 11 which I one-tabled for hours and really did sweat, this score sort of came by surprise. Most Euro grinders will be very aware of the late night $11 $18k GTD turbo which comes near the end of most peoples schedules. It does tend to be a bit reg heavy, or at least heavier than the average turbo, but there's still more than enough recreational players to make it profitable.

On this particular night I remember having a pretty miserable evening's grind and my table count was pretty low by the time the tournament actually started. About an hour into the tournament I'd busted everything else and I didn't actually have a big stack so I took the laptop to bed and watched a bit of TV. If I'm brutally honest with myself I'd say I definitely didn't pay full attention to the tournament until we were down to about the final 100. 

I caught a wonderful heater and rode it all the way to heads up. Normally in a tournament like this I'd be begging for a deal but for some reason this time I just carried on playing without thinking about it. Maybe I was a bit tired or possibly I'd focused so much on not letting the money get to me that I'd completely forgotten about it. Afterwards I noticed that the difference between first and second was over $1k so I'm definitely glad I managed to take it down. A few grinders railed the final table and pointed out a few mistakes I made, including the final hand which I didn't particularly play well, but my opponent played worse. It involved me three-betting the flop with top pair weak kicker and the villain calling down with second pair. I was happy nonetheless.


3. $3,296 - 1st $5 NLHE 2R1A 

Now this tournament was memorable in two ways. Firstly, it was a big score in a non-turbo NLHE tournament, which traditionally aren't my forte, even though I do actually do a lot of work to improve in them. Secondly. I didn't actually want to play it!

The tournament started pretty late on in the schedule and by the end of the rebuy period, the average stack was somewhere near 200BBs, so I knew that going deep would require a LONG night. Thus I decided to go big or go home. I played near enough every hand, making wild three-bets and overbet jamming flops left and right, in an attempt to either build a huge stack or bust. Fortunately for me, it turned out to be the former. My stack rarely dipped under 100BBs for the whole tournament, even at the final table. I tightened up a bit towards the late stages but once I still tried to maintain the hyper-aggressive tactics that had got me that far.

The tournament eventually finished at around 5am, so even though usually I can't sleep after a big score, or even anything exciting poker-wise, I fell right to sleep and celebrated the next afternoon.

So there was a little fun post for you guys. I've been told that the "Top x" lists I've done in the past were pretty interesting and the reader numbers seem to back that up, and most of all I quite like writing them, so it's a win all round. It's been fun to take a trip down memory lane but I think now it's time to get back to the grind and start adding to the next "Top 3 Scores" list, and with SCOOP just about to begin, I'll have many chances to do just that. Good luck to all my fellow grinders for the next few weeks and I hope not too many bankrolls are destroyed. Speak to you all soon!

$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!

My Favourite Poker Goals and Challenges Threads

Poker Goals and Challenges is a sub-forum on the popular TwoPlusTwo Poker forums where players can create a thread and discuss their poker related ambitions and dreams. Essentially it works as a blogging platform with an extremely large readership and much better interaction with those interested. I enjoy reading these threads almost as much as I enjoy writing this blog myself and as such have become a pretty avid lurker on the forum, weighing in wherever I feel I can be of help or just leaving messages of support for those players whose thread I have enjoy reading. I thought I'd share a few of the most interesting ones, or at least in my opinion, to help these amateur bloggers and maybe even get them a few more subscribers.

1. Flixxx - Grinding It Up

Many of you may already be familiar with xflixx's Grinding It Up series of videos on YouTube as their very well promoted by PokerStars due to Felix being a Team PokerStars Pro. The videos themselves provide great strategies for the beginning player while being presented in an engaging and humorous manner. However, while the videos are a great draw to the thread, its the post themselves that I actually find the most interesting. Many beginner players that view the thread take the opportunity to post questions to the author, some of which he answers in forthcoming video, which provoke some pretty interesting discussion, much better than the average garbage you tend to find in the strategy forums. Id genuinely suggest to any players new to the game to check the thread out as you'll get some very clear and concise answers to your questions.

2. Nikachu - I AM A BUM PLAYING BUM STAKES

I first came across the Nikachu a couple of years ago when he produced a video for CardRunners as part of their promotion to find new video producers. The guy is crazy, truly crazy, but he's hilarious. He's actually a very solid player, so you do find some decent strategy content in the thread but the thread is meant to be more humorous than anything, which it delivers. My favourite part of the thread? The paint-drawn pictures of bunnies scattered across graphs and hand histories. Trust me, they grow on you.

3. Yazzx and Izzit - Broke Brothers Grinding and Partying in Cambodia

This is by far my favourite thread in the forum. The thread follows two brothers from the UK who moved out to Cambodia for the women and crazy partying lifestyle. Now you may say that a thread about kids getting drunk out in South-East Asia isn't exactly new, but what makes this thread stand out is that these guys are living on, and comfortably mind you, the money they make from grinding 2NL! Where they're living in Cambodia is so cheap that they've worked out they can live on around $10 a day, which includes rent, bills and partying! It's a brilliant story and the two authors are great at posting interesting and regular updates, along with pictures of hot Asian girls. And of course, there's the odd discussion about whether they are ladyboys or not. Don't be fooled though, these guys are serious grinders and continually put in 8hr + sessions while 24 tabling. The thread delivers from a poker playing point of view as well as being a great story so I'd definitely give it a read if I were you.

So there's a few interesting threads I reckon you guys should check out. I also want to give an honorable mention to another thread written by skele701 where he blogs about his own O8 MTT grind so if you're here for the mixed game content then you'll definitely enjoy that too. While you're on the forum check out some of the other threads too, there's usually something to fit everyone, whether it be someone playing you're particular games and stakes or maybe it's someone local to you. I hope you enjoyed my little summaries and I'll be writing again soon with some more poker stuff. Good luck at the tables!

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!

The Week of the Turnaround. Possible Heater?

I'm sure you're all getting a bit sick of me moaning about results not going well, or at least those of you who follow me on Twitter are. So here you are, a blog post where I'm happy, cheerful and not banging on about how bad I'm running!

Of course, I'm only considering the short term and essentially the 150 tournaments in the past week is nothing in the long run, but from a mindset point of view, it's really great to start putting up some numbers. In the past 7 days I've manage to ship the early $22 PLO8 twice and the $11 6max PLO once, all for scores of near enough $500 each. I've also managed to final table the $5r PLO8, possibly the softest tournament on my daily schedule.

I can't exactly put my finger on why I'm suddenly winning again but even while I was breaking even/downswinging, I felt like I was still playing a solid game and that the dead money was still there. All I needed to do was win the important flips down at the business end, and as we all know, poker still has that element of luck. Building stacks in tournaments doesn't seem to be an issue, early on the fish will always give up their chips easily before possibly tightening up later on, but towards the end, especially in red labels, luck becomes a pretty huge factor.

Thankfully I've been working hard on my short handed game and I think it's paying off. I noticed that I was particularly busting a lot of PLO MTTs in short handed spots, i.e. FT bubbles and final 2/3 tables etc, so I did a lot of HH reviewing on it and changed up a few things in my game. Luckily for me I have a great group of players around me to give me advice on certain spots as well as posting their own hands, allowing me to learn with them. I've specifically spent a lot of time looking at how to play draws out of position, but that's a discussion for another post.

So there's a little update as to what's been going on recently. Make sure to stay tuned though because I'm going to make another post today about something particularly exciting which happened this week. My followers will already know what I'm talking about. I'm just starting my Sunday session now so hopefully I'll have even more good news for you very soon, although we all know how fickle Sunday's can be. I hope Sunday goes well for you guys too 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!

Playing a little more NLHE. And enjoying it!

Forgive me readers who are die hard four-card fans and cringe at the thought of Hold'em but it's true, I am really enjoying playing a little bit of NLHE recently.

My evening MTT schedule is made up of pretty much every PLO and O8 tournament starting on PokerStars up to around 10pm, with the exceptions of the high stakes games and 3x-Turbos. However, I also add in the Big 5, 8, 22 and 11 as well as the Hot 11 and 16 because these tournaments are just insane value. Obviously the value is more long term than regular tournaments but the bink potential is too much to give up, and as you all know my biggest score comes in the Hot 11. Even though these crazy scores may only come once in a blue moon, there's still enough of a draw to pull you back in. I was lucky enough to win the Hot 11 once in the hundreds of times I've entered it and likewise in the Big 5, I've managed to make one final table, but those two scores were enough to completely reshape my year.

Recently I took the decision to add in two $2 rebuys to my early schedule. I played these tournaments regularly when I was solely grinding NLHE last year and they are packed with value, for reasons not too dissimilar to the $3 rebuy PLO that we grinders love so much. What's changed in my mindset though is that I'm starting to enjoy playing with deeper stacks. Almost all of my NLHE experience and knowledge comes from turbo tournaments and as such I've become used to, and adept at, wielder a short stack but I've been far too ineffective with anything bigger. That sounded a bit dirty....

I think it might have something to do with the fact that my average buy in has been higher recently and in the low to mid stakes tournaments you tend to get a bit more play when it gets to the final stages. In micro stakes MTTs, players are so tight around the bubble and in the money that stacks never consolidate and the average stack tends to remain around 10-20BBs. Because I've been playing deeper than normal recently, I've had to think more about my opening ranges, about value betting correctly and generally just about playing better poker. This has translated over to NLHE where thinking about ranges is slightly easier and value betting becomes a bit more of an art than simply "I have 2 pair or better, I must bet".

Don't fret though Omaha afficionados, I won't be hanging up my four card boots yet. I still feel much more comfortable playing PLO and O8 and, to be honest, I don't see that ever changing. Besides, that'd mean giving up my little niche of having a PLO8 Blog rather than just a general Poker Blog, and I gotta keep you guys happy! That's enough random musings for now, I better get back to work! So for now, good luck at the tables and I'll speak to you all soon!

Live O8 Events, or lack there of.

I'm a big advocate of trying to get as many live O8 MTTs scheduled as possible, especially ones that I could possibly attend! Over in the States, PLO8 is spread pretty wide which is understandable given how many more card rooms and live players they have. However, over here in Europe the game is pretty much bound to the big festivals and recently, we haven't even being seeing those!

Around two/three years ago when the Fox Poker Club opened here in London, they a schedule that included a monthly £45 PLO8 event. Personally, I couldn't have been more thrilled and I tried to get down to as many of these tournaments as I could. Unfortunately, over the months numbers dwindled compared to their NLHE counterparts and it was changed to a bi-monthly event. Eventually it was dropped all together. In the UK, nothing has even come close to this since. 

I created a thread on the TwoPlusTwo O8 forum about the lack of O8 events at EPT Festivals and it caught the eye of NeilJ, the PokerStars representative for live events. He was actually quite keen to spread the game and at a few stops, most notably EPT Prague in seasons 9 and 10, an NLO8 event was added which proved to be a success. Prior to the recent EPT London, two O8 events were scheduled but unfortunately one of those was changed to a PLO event shortly before. The EPT Deauville schedule was released recently and zero O8 events would be taking place and, even more worringly, at the PCA currently ongoing in the Bahamas, which is supposedly the biggest poker festival outside of the WSOP, there is only one event which is a Big "O", a discipline the O8 community generally dislikes. I don't want to just single out PokerStars, they just happen to run the biggest festivals, the GUKPT, SPT, APAT etc all don't seem to want to give O8 events a chance. 

I know I come from a greatly biased standpoint but I can't see why O8 couldn't be a success in the live arena. If we take the example from online, the game is narrowly 3rd in popularity behind PLO and, of course, NLHE. There are three Red Label events per day, all of which garner huge numbers and three other Weekly Red Labels of differing stakes, which we very much thank PokerStars for. All online sites spread some form of O8 games and, in general, see good numbers. The game creates action, encourages a looser style preflop, which is good for the recreational player, and is very fun to play. 

Anyone reading this from the TwoPlusTwo Forum will know that I bring up the topic fairly often and probably am sounding like a broken record at the moment but I really want to see as much live O8 as a possibly can and will support the game whenever I can. Supposedly the Vic in London is running another Omaha Series as they did last year concluding with a £220 PLO8 event so if that is the case I will definitely be heading down to that. Aside from that I will keep campaigning for events at EPT festivals and other major tours and hopefully by the time EPT London comes around in October we could see multiple events, both PLO8 and NLO8. I urge the regs reading this to continue supporting the game, show the game to your friends and should there be a live event near you, to make your best efforts to play them. 

Thanks for reading my little rant guys, for those interested I will post the PCA and Deauville schedules below and should the Vic PLO8 event be going ahead I'll advertise it here. Til next time, good luck at the tables!

PCA

EPT Deauville

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.

2014 Goals - Wish me luck!

So first of all I'd like to apologize for this post being slightly late. I know goals posts and threads are usually put up before the year has started but I really wanted to get these right as I fully intend on maintaining and achieving everything I set out this year. So far in my poker career, barring my initial miracle bink the first time I played, my results have improved year on year and despite having a very good 2013, I fully intend on continuing this run into 2014. So without further ado, here are my goals for the year!

Poker:

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

Last year I unofficially set myself an approximate goal of $25k total profit. I ended up making just under $20k which I was actually very happy with. This year I feel I'm a much better player, I have a much better schedule and I am altogether much more focused on poker and thus $30k genuinely should be attainable

2. £5,000 live profit

Up until now I haven't really ventured too much into the live arena but recently the Hippodrome here in London announced a weekly £100 PLO tournament at their Pokerstars Poker Room so I'm hoping this will be a springboard into a better live poker career. I hope soon to separate some living funds to create a live bankroll which should also allow me to track my results better too.

3. To become a regular at the $55 level

I've always mentioned that I want to move up the levels and eventually become a mid-stakes MTT reg and this is the next step up. There's only one PLO8 and one PLO $55 that run during the schedule (two on Saturdays) but I'd like to play up to these games and show a profit on them long term.

4. Take 15 "shots" at Weekly Majors

This includes the Sunday Million, Weekly PLO8, Weekly PLO and possibly the Weekly NLO8. The satellite schedule for weeklies aren't great but there are still soft enough $3r's and maybe if I continue to progress through the levels then weekly shot taking could become part of my stake package. I know the games are tough and it's a long shot to become a long term winner in these but these tournament's have huge prize pools so bink potential is there.

5. Play one live "Main Event"

Building upon my earlier goal, I feel a good way to progress with my live career would be to play a tour main event. Obviously a £5k EPT Main is a little far fetched but the UKIPT run £700-£1ks, the GUKPT run £1ks. There's also the other small tours like the SPT which have £200-300s, APATs have £100-200s and other one's pop up continuously. I'll keep an eye out for events near to me and take appropriate shots based on the "live" bankroll.

Non Poker:

1. Maintain a running average of 100 readers per day

This might be a low number but on the days that I don't write a post or mention the blog on the forums or Twitter, the readership is actually very small. Granted this is a personal blog and the subject matter is a little niche but I still hope to increase the readership and hopefully make many more contacts within the poker community.

2. Have an actual grind setup

Currently I'm grinding on my 17" laptop, using the touch pad because my mouse is broken and sitting in a chair which if described as "uncomfortable" would be a great compliment. I don't particularly want an office to grind in as I'd never want to be completely shut off from my girlfriend in the apartment but I'd like to have a space for maybe a little desk with a purpose made grind PC. It wouldn't need to be spectacular or to cost very much but I really think it would help my game, especially multi-tabling.

3. Organise and structure my time more efficiently

I've never been much of an organised person, I've gotten a little better as I've aged and I'm far and away more organised than all of my Uni friends but compared to the rest of the planet, I'm pretty bad. My normal schedule is to wake up "whenever", shower "whenever", eat "whenever" and start grinding at 3.30, ish. Obviously sleep schedules have to be a little fluid when you play poker but I'd like to at least try to wake up before 9am every day and actually plan out days. Hopefully a little routine will improve my mental game.

4. Improve my writing skills

As many of you have probably guessed, I'm not much of a writer. I always took Maths and Science based subjects and throughout my time at Uni I only wrote 2 full papers, and even then, scientific writing is a completely different kettle of fish. Hopefully just writing here often will do a lot but I'd like to be a little more proactive about it, maybe read a few books and watch some videos.

5. Start "saving"

So after all the profit goals I've set out I should have some money floating about. As I'm getting older, I've become a little less frivolous with cash and I don't go out quite as often. That means I should have a little spare money to put away. I haven't got anything in particular on the horizon that I think I need to save for me if the few months after Uni without a job taught me anything it's that having a little extra cash tucked away can be a great help.

So there's my goals for the next year ahead. I hope reading these will inspire some of you guys to think about your own goals and I wish you all the best with them. There has to be a huge N.B. with this list though. I am still on the hunt for a full time career and should I begin one with absurd hours then poker will have to come second and I won't be able to put in my full time and effort. All the best for 2014 and feel free to leave a comment with your goals or even what you think about mine! Later everyone!

2013 - Year in Review!

Well what a year it's been! Honestly I can't believe how fast it's gone by, it only feels like yesterday that I was sat in my old flat frantically studying for the exam that I was about to have on January 6th and counting the seconds until I could get back to a serious grind. 2013 started pretty much as abysmally as it possibly could have been since then things have mainly gone well as far as general life has been concerned, but poker-wise I've gone from strength to strength and thankfully the year was my most profitable yet!

So this time last year I was pretty miserable. My apartment had been broken into and my laptop stolen so I wasn't able to play poker. I was just about to taken my first set of exams for a course that I hated and generally things weren't so great. In fact, after looking over an old 2p2 thread about people setting goals for 2013, my old goal was "To get a computer and play poker again". Well, I succeeded!

As far as results have been concerned, I'm pretty happy with the year. I made by far my biggest score in poker, chopping the Hotter 11 in April for $11k, I diversified into more games, most notably becoming a winner in PLO MTTs, and I had my biggest winning year so far, almost $20k profit according to OPR at a solid 50% ROI across at games.

What I'm most happy about is the great improvement to my mental game. In previous years and months I had been very prone to tilt and negative thoughts, so much so that I genuinely believed that I was going to have a losing session even before I'd loaded up a single table, and obviously the prediction would more often than not come true. I went on a pretty long downswing after my Hotter 11 score and there were times that I never thought I'd come out of it, that maybe my Poker career was over. But thankfully, I managed to snap out of it. I started talking to many more grinders and their success and drive encouraged me to refocus and work on my game. I changed the games I was playing, stuck to a solid schedule and cut out a lot of outside distractions while grinding. It paid off so much and I now feel really confident going into 2014.

I'm also excited about expanding into PLO MTTs. Although I love PLO8 MTTs and I'll never stop playing them, the game definitely has a shelf life, and the tournaments will never get to the kind of sizes we see all the time in NLHE. PLO, on the other hand, genuinely has the ability to become as popular and thus getting a head start on the rest of the field and becoming adept at the game is a must. There is a ton of value in the game currently and I know that it's popularity will only increase with time.

The finishing touches are being put on my 2014 goals post and it should be posted very soon. I keep meaning to publish it but almost every day I manage to think of something else I want to add to the list. The January goals post will be out soon too, hopefully I lot earlier than I managed with the December post. It is a bit of a wonder how I managed to turn in every single one of my university assignments on time for 5 years! Until then, I hope 2013 was equally great for all of you and that 2014 brings you everything you hope for! Good luck all!

December Mini Goals - Round Up!

It's that time of the month folks, and no I'm not in a bad mood! For those of you who haven't yet read my December goals post you'll be able to find it here! This months goals post was a mini edition because I was a little busy for the first week or so, but nevertheless, they gave me something to work towards. So without further ado, here's how I got on!

1. 2.5k Profit

Well I slightly missed with this one. A few things got in the way, like Christmas and falling ill for the last week of the month as well, but I still managed to put up slightly under $2k profit for the month, however it's still the 31st so you never know, there could be one last 2013 bink to be had! I felt like I wasn't playing too well in certain places but thankfully after reviewing the offending hands, I know exactly what the faults were and so hopefully I've learnt my lessons and will put it right.

2. Ship either the $5r PLO8 or the $3r PLO

Success! This past Sunday I chopped the $5r for a touch under $700. Actually on the same day I had a deep run in the $3r as well but came agonizingly close to the final table after my Aces couldn't hold in a pretty big pot to finish in 9th spot. I actually had the chip in in the PLO with 2 tables left but took the bum end of a few set ups to lose a chunk of chips. I ran pretty well in a couple of key spots in the PLO8 but otherwise I really felt in the zone and thought I made some great reads and plays. These two tournaments really are the softest on my evening schedule and every time I load up either, I feel like I'm going to win it. I feel very comfortable in the chip accumulation stages regardless of whether I'm picking up hands or not so believe I'm putting myself in some great spots to take them down should I run well. I also had 2 other final table finishes in the $5r this month so overall my ROI in these tournaments have been incredible this month, let's hope it continues.

3. Satellite into a Weekend Major

Another success! Also this past Sunday, yes I had a very good day, I managed to satellite into the Sunday Million from the regular $11 turbo Mega Satellite that Stars run just prior to the start. I've started to play a few more satellites this month and I'm really learning some interesting strategies, especially in the turbos. Normally in the turbo games, I try to take all the +cEV spots I can take while only making ICM considerations at the final table or just before. In these, I'm having to completely rethink my process and continually adjust based on whether I think I'll make it in or not. Regularly the average stack when the bubble bursts is close to 2BBs or lower, so survival becomes everything. If you believe you have enough blinds and antes to make it in based on a quick prediction then you literally should be playing 0 hands. It may sound pretty obvious but this lesson cost me a few dollars to learn. I didn't manage to cash the Sunday Million this time unfortunately, I ran QQ into AA BB vs BTN, but hopefully I'll be able to satellite into some more events next year and make a go of it then. In fact TCOOP is just around the corner.

So overall, 2 out of 3 goals isn't bad and I didn't actually miss the first one by much so I'm actually very happy with how the month went. Every day I play I can feel my game improving and having these goals to work towards actively encourages me to work that much harder. January's goals will be written up shortly but, more importantly, my 2014 set of goals has been finalized and I hope to be uploading them very soon. I've been pretty ambitious with what I've set for the forthcoming year but I suppose that's the whole point! I hope December went equally well for everybody else and I hope to see many of you at the tables in January!

The Volume Question

It's an age old paradox among the grinders, "What is the right amount of volume?". Every player out there who's ever taken poker seriously or even considered playing the game for a living has at one point believed that the best way to increase the amount of money their making is to play more poker. After all, surely if a player is beating the games they're playing, then playing more should directly lead to more profits. But we all know that's not the case.

I've always spent a lot of time thinking about how much I should really be playing poker. It's not always been purely from the stand point of trying to increase my winnings, I've also considered about how I should play less to accommodate a more balanced life, i.e. spending a bit more time with the girlfriend or maybe taking the odd weekend off to chill out with friends. Especially after finishing university for good, I then had so much free time in which to play poker than I felt the need to organise when I was going to play as it now became feasible that I could play every day of the week. Luckily for me I'd been in similar positions before where I'd had nothing to do bar play poker and I'd learnt that playing all day, every day for a sustained period of time definitely didn't lead to a fat wallet.

Let's take a look at my "schedule" right now. I normally know well in advance whether I'm going to play on any given day. I'll usually know what days I  have to go to work, or if I've organised with friends to go out etc, so if I know I'm playing poker on a day, I'm immediately in that mindset. Some of the worst days I have are when I've suddenly had a bit of time free and I jump straight into the games. I'm not prepared and not focused so surely enough the results reflect that. If I do play, I register from 3-4pm up until 9pm, the last being the $22 NLO, then play out. That should encompass around 20 scheduled MTTs plus however many 180s I load up depending on how many tables I have up. Even this isn't an exact science yet, I'm still undecided on how many 180s I should have going at any one time because my play style in them requires a bit more work than simply clicking buttons.

I'm comfortable with this schedule and rarely feel overwhelmed by the amount of tables I have going, if I ever do, it's a good sign that I'm not busting tournaments and I'm having a good day so far. Sometimes I get to the end of a days grinding and I think, especially when it's gone well, that I should continue playing and keep going so that I can put up a huge winning day. But it doesn't work like that. Without a doubt, if you were to pull up a record of all the tournaments I'd played after a session should have finished, I would be down tons. When you I set up my schedule and stick it, I am completely focused on the task at hand. I know what tournaments I'm playing, what I' m registered in and vaguely when I'm going to finish. After the window closes, all train of decent thought goes out the window and I'm doomed to lose. It took me a while to learn this important lesson but it's definitely been worth it, I no longer throw away money unnecessarily. It's always best after a session to draw a line under what you've accomplished for the day, good or bad, and start again tomorrow.

Always interested on what you guys have to say on the topic so feel free to leave a comment on the post. I've tinkered around with the page layout to make it easier for you guys to follow the blog. You can follow using your Google account which most of you should have if you made a Gmail or Google+ account, I think Youtube accounts are linked too. You can also sign up for Email updates which prompts you when I upload a new post. But until next time, take it easy everyone and good luck at the tables!

$11 180 man PKOs - The Goldmine

As promised, I'm just going to give you guys some of my thoughts about these new SnGs now spread on PokerStars. I won't go too deep into strategy because I'm still not too sure myself about what works the best, I'm still testing out push/folding ranges.

First off all, for those of you who haven't played a PKO yet, this is how it goes. The buy-in is split into the regular prize pool and a bounty, much like in regular bounty tournaments. In the case of the $11s, $5 goes toward the prize pool and $5 towards the bounty, and of course, $1 as rake. Now here comes the tricky part. When you knock a player out, you receive half their bounty value while the other half is added to your bounty. For example, if you were to knock a player out on the first hand, you would receive $2.50 straight into your account, and your own bounty will increase to $7.50. SkyPoker have actually used this system for a while for their own bounty tournaments.

The main reason why these tournaments are so profitable at the moment is because the regs seem to be avoiding them, but I can't understand why. As soon as you introduce the word "bounty" into a tournament, the fish just flock to it. And it's because of these fish that are so narrow minded and solely focused on taking bounties that their calling ranges are so well defined. Basically, if the fish has you covered, you can shove pretty much any marginally strong hand and expect to be called by near enough any 2 cards. In the past week I've seen over 50BB shoves snap called by hands such as Q2o, 65s and much much worse. You can tell who this kind of fish are within around 10 hands at the table, and better yet if you have HEM, you don't even have to pay attention, it'll flag them up for you.

Then all of a sudden the situation is completely reversed when the fish get short, they become absurdly passive. Especially around the bubble, the fish decide to call 80/90% of hands pre-flop only to play fit or fold poker on the flop, it makes for very each chip accumulation.

It's a combination of these two factors that have got me thinking that a loose aggressive small ball strategy, if that makes sense, is best. Even with a short stack, I believe that min-raises pre with a very wide range followed by 1/3rd pot flop c-bets are the best way to go around these tournaments. A decent push/fold game can still work but it needs to be altered to take into account the serious drop in fold equity, e.g. 98s and similar hands become less valuable when shoving but are worth opening, even with less than 15BB stacks.

Well there's a few of my thoughts on the games, it maybe wasn't the most structured post in the world but hopefully it gave you guys a little insight into what I'm thinking at the moment, which is kind of the point of a blog! But that's enough writing for now, it's time to jump in and crush the games. Good luck to all you grinders and I'll speak to you all soon!