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!

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!

3rd in $33 Omania - Biggest PLO cash to date!

As you know, the Omanias are always on my daily schedule, be it the $5 PLO, the $8.80 NLO8 or the $33 PLO, and they are some of the softest tournaments all day. Along with the smaller rebuys, like the $3r PLO and the $5r PLO8, they seem to attract the largest amount of recreational players, mainly due to their large prizepools compared to the rest of the schedule, thus it's pretty simple to go deep, and even win these tournaments without ever having to play tricky. Simple ABC poker and playing a slightly more aggressive style than your average fish will show a healthy ROI.

I've had a fair bit of success in the Omanias, most notably shipping the morning $16.50 PLO8 twice and the NLO8 once as well as numerous other final tables but this one was by far the biggest. In fact, the top three prizes for this tournament were bigger than the first place pays out normally in any of the other Omanias I normally play. I would get into a discussion around this point that the Omania prize pools are slipping but that's something for another post. All I'll say here though is that unfortunately many at the moment are not hitting their guarantees during the week, especially the $5 PLO which seems to be missing it daily.

As for the actual tournament, like I discussed before, I didn't get up to anything fancy. Chipping up in the early and middle stages seemed to be a breeze as people seem very happy to call off with very little equity quite regularly. By the time we hit the bubble I'd managed to grind my stack up to a healthy 30k, approximately 25BBs. It's around here that the field seems to massively tighten up, with good reason sometimes as the min cash tends to be around $70. For the more experienced big stacks like myself, it's a great opportunity to put some pressure on the weaker players and the short stacks. I tend to take advantage of my HUD stats at this point because they can instantly tell me what my plan of action is against certain players. Against the loose passive fish which have lucked their way to this point by limping any four cards and smashing the flop, I can raise to isolate them into heads up pots and simply bet out small on all flops expect to get a fold a very large percentage of the time. Against tight players in the blind I can simply raise any unopened pot to steal the blinds and against better players I can tighten up and play solid poker.

By the time the bubble burst, the average stack was around 10BBs and we lost half the field within two orbits. Due to the fast structure and the general tight nature of PLO MTTs, the stacks never really consolidated and even up to the final two tables, average stacks remained short. I manage to keep a top 5-10 for the majority of the late stages by playing tight aggressive poker against the weaker players and managing to get AAxx in a fair few times preflop and holding. In fact, I manage to burst the final table bubble by doubling up through one of the bigger stacks while holding AAxx, and finishing him off the next hand with KKxx.

Nothing particularly special happened for the first part of the final table. The big stacks kept piling on the pressure and one by one the short stacks fell. By the time we got to four handed play I was the short stack myself but once again I managed to double holding AAxx and the chip leader finished the villain off to set up three handed play. Now here's where things got interesting.

The chip leader was a solid reg that unfortunately I didn't have many hands with but luckily a fellow grinder had, so he was able to give me some good reads that I felt I could use. I was second in chips by around 6-7BBs and the short stack, who was only around 5BBs behind me, was a weaker player who was probably a recreational poker player at best, and probably had very little experience playing PLO MTTs. The short stack immediately suggested a chop and as the money on the line was getting pretty big, I agreed to have a look at the numbers. The moderated posted the chip chop figures of $1.9k for the chip leader, $1.8k for me and $1.7k for the short stack. The other players quickly agreed but I hesitated. The original payout figures stood at $2.3k for the winner, $1.8k for 2nd and $1.3k for third. Although the deal would guarantee me a 2nd place payout, I believed I had a huge edge against the short stack, and between myself and the chip leader, we could apply a lot of pressure on him, grind him down and eventually bust him. At that point I could deal with the solid reg for a figure around $2.1k. It seemed a bit risky to pass up possibly $500 for a chance to win an extra $300, but I felt confident in my short handed PLO game and so believed it was right to turn down the deal. I still do.

Unfortunately for me, the best laid plans don't always turn out the way you want them to. A few hands later the weaker player opened from the SB, I 3-bet with KK87s and called his 4-bet jam. He flipped over AJ87ds which made me a small favourite but he managed to river a straight to take the pot and leave me crippled. The next hand I got it in with the reg with some decent equity but he held to send me home in 3rd for $1.3k.

I've gone over the deal discussion in my mind time and time again and even talked about it with some other MTT regulars who had more deal making experience than me, but the general consensus is that rejecting the deal was fine and that I shouldn't be disappointed that the risk didn't pay off. I'd probably do the same if I was put in the same position again and who knows, it may work out better for me that time. For now though, I'm pretty happy to get my biggest PLO cash to date, and first four-figure PLO cash, and look forward to possibly racking up a few more. My confidence at the game has shot up now that I'm winning at it again, and I genuinely feel like another big score could be just around the corner. Of course, should that happen, I'll let you folks know straight away! Until then though, I wish you all 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!

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!

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!

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.