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.

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!