Mayday mayday mayday!!

So I had a pretty terrible stretch a few weeks back, taking shots at the new euro-only 100rs and things on stars which went horribly despite numerous near misses and ended up losing about 3/4 of my roll (bankroll management ftw!) so decided to get backed again by Dave.


Like what happened last time Dave started backing me I instantly had some nice results; 5th in 2 $162s on tilt and managed to bink a 4th in the $1.6k ante up SCOOP event which I satellited into, so those netted Dave and I about $12k each which was very welcome. Think I'm going to continue being backed for the foreseeable, I'm liking the idea of not worrying about having any money online at all, and just cashing out whenever I get above zero makeup! Of course it sucks when deep in makeup and I might change my mind, but now that I've got spending money to keep me ticking over (and enough for travelling this winter) I think it's best like this for now. Less pressure is good.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Cork with Luke and Dan for the UKIPT which will be great - events in Ireland are always great fun, lots of drinking and soft games. Got the live itch too so hoping I can do some work at the tables, although some big SCOOP events are overlapping, especially on the sunday for me so that will limit the amount of live games I play. Also big congrats to Luke for winning the FTOPS multi-entry brawl, and then degening it up at 25/50 HU PLO and just winning all the money. Just saw him finish a ~$120k+ session, so there should be some fun rails in Ireland too.

Anyways, next post will clearly be me detailing my UKIPT win and the SCOOP main event win that immediately followed. Please?

Monte Carlo and April

So I'd meant to do a trip report of the 1k Monte Carlo event at DTD, but kinda didn't feel like writing it up after I bust... I'll put a few of the key hands for fun anyways.

200/400/50, tight lady opens UTG to 1k, UTG+1 flats, aggro young guy flats button, I flat SB with JJh, BB calls.

Flops: 3h 7h 9h,

checks around.

Turn 5o, I bet 3200, UTG+1 calls, button calls.

River 7. Check, check, button bets 10k, I call, UTG+1 calls.

I called the river pretty quickly, I'd planned to c/c almost always on blank rivers and c/reevaluate on less blank rivers. I'm not sure if this is spew though, button showed 55 and utg+1 showed AQhh, so I felt pretty silly. Might be one of those spots where I convince myself of all the draws button can have but he actually just always checks them behind because it's live and no one folds and he knows this.



1200/2400/300, 90k effec.
EP limps, MP limps, I limp T6dd in the CO, button limps, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop: 6h 8d Jd

Checks to me, I bet 8500. Button raises to 21 (and covers). Everyone folds, I make it 65, button tanks and shoves, I call.

Pre is definitely debateable... but I was bored and it's live and I can 'do stuff' post. Or just flop the world. Button was a fairly tight lady who I'd spent a lot of the 2 days playing with, she knew I was active but she could also mix it up a bit herself and I'd seen here make a multi-barrel bluff. She was also maybe the type to raise AJ here 'for info' and then fold to the shove so I was happy getting it in here. Of course I was fairly surprised when she opened...7h9h.

Turn Ah for the sweat...

River Ac.


1500/3000/300, 240k effec.

MP opens 7500, button flats, I make it 27000 from the BB with AKo and a very laggy image. MP flats, button folds.

Flop: Ac 5h 2h

I bet 33, MP goes 70, I shove, MP calls.

Villain is Wadey, a familiar face in the UK live poker scene, and though I don't have many hands against him I'm told that my line is absolutely fine/standard here , especially given my image at the time. Super sigh when he opens 55, then, and rockets to a huge chiplead with 40 left.

I sigh and wish everyone good luck, etc, and then go get drunk.



Online, April has been fairly similar to the last few months. Lots and lots of near misses (I'm restraining myself from a very prolonged rant here!), although not a great deal of volume. Stayed pretty well clear of the cash tables, though did do a post-sunday spinup from a loose $200 on ipoker to $7.2k in about 20 minutes... frankly I was due.

I'm now thinking of relearning sngs to reduce variance a bit and so I can put in shorter sessions, but my enthousiasm for them might easily disappear once I remember what grinding sngs is like...

March is the third month of the year in the Gregorian calendar, and one of the seven months which are 31 days long.

Sooo March was a weird one. Put in about the same volume as February (ie I was lazy), didn't play great, had an absolute shedload of 10-18ths in tournaments with $15k+ to 1st, and tilted off $4k playing cash games. That last one is by far the worst; haven't touched online cash games in maybe 2 years (for very good and self-apparent reasons!) and pretty much promised myself I wouldn't ever again, unless it was in some learning to play properly/grinding out lowstakes/etc capacity. So a disappointing lapse.

Despite all of the above I managed to win a fair amount - not entirely sure how much as there's some discrepancies in my spreadsheet and real-life balances but pretty sure I made back roughly what I lost in February - about $9k, maybe a little less. So yeah, I feel like I had a pretty terrible month but clearly I didn't!

Still, not feeling particularly motivated at the moment. Wish there was something I was motivated by - time is crawling at the moment, each day feels like a week and I'm just permanently exhausted.

Guess I've been doing quite a lot of JuJitsu recently which has been good and meant I've stayed active, and I got my orange belt a week or two back. Also I've just uploaded 50 of the 130GB of music I got from Neil who I met in Diu. Was frankly a bit intimidated by that much new music but finally gotten around to it so for the foreseeable I'll be busy discovering gems!


Anyways I'm rambling, so instead here is a video of a pigeon on a train.

The Cheesies Recession - February Roundup

Sooo a less good month. If I could work out how to create reliable graphs on HEM 2011 would look something like this:


Dropped about $9k online which sucks, didn't put in enough volume (about 2/3 of January) and lots of the sessions were short or tilty, often both. I did end the month up a few £k live though, so not too disastrous.

More worrying is that I've just generally been feeling sporadically awful recently, winter's starting to get to me I think. Felt fine all of January but had some pretty rough days last month, and they definitely affected at least some of the sessions I played. Hopefully the start of Spring will help and I'll get back into a decent routine, not really feeling it at the moment though. Doing better than previous winters in some ways which is a positive I guess, although drinking/smoking quite a lot. Self-medication for the lose? I think coming back from travelling for Christmas might be something I have to reconsider this year.

Anyways, here's to a sunny March!


(yes I know it's green, but its also an ace picture)

UKIPT Nottingham trip report

Well I was planning to note down interesting hands throughout the tournament and give a little analysis on them and things, but frankly it was a dull, dull 7 hours of slow, steady declination before getting coolered. Bah.

However, I ended up playing a fair amount of £2/5 cash where there were some fun hands and I did pretty well, so cash hands it is! First a pretty standard one:

Hand 1: Effective stacks ~£1k.
I raise to 15 in MP2 with AxKd
1 call
CO 3bets to 55
I 4bet to ~155
1 fold
CO calls

Pot ~325, Flop 2d 8d 9d

I bet 215, CO tankshoves for ~800, I call.

Turn As, River 3h.

A pretty standard hand all round - would've sucked to get freerolled by AdKx, but he has queens and jacks lots here. Occasionally I have less outs when he has AA/KK but he seemed genuinely nervous throughout the hand and I didn't feel like he was trapping.

CO opens QQ no diamond. Always nice to win £2k flips!


Hand 2: Effective stacks £1k.
Habitual limper in MP limps, I make it 25 OTB with J9hh.
SB makes it 75, I peel.

Pot ~160, flop 8h Th 2x.

He leads 50, I raise to 125, he quickly shoves, I call.

Turn 5x.

River 9x.

He'd been eyeing me up for the last hour or so; the deck had been smashing me in the face so I'd been doing lots of raising/getting involved a lot and I think he expected me to get out of line a decent amount. Having said that, he was middle-aged and pretty snug - I don't think he was going to get out of line himself much, so I expected his 3bet to be fairly strong. Still, I have position with a hand that flops well and we're deep, and the timing of his 3bet suggested weighting towards AK/AQ. Not sure if the peel is spewy though... When he leads the flop tiny I really felt like he was trying to induce a raise from me. Although I'm never folding, I still want to get the last bet in if I can, and with these stacks I never have fold equity if I raise normally and he 3bets the flop (he's usually shoving if I make it like 200 anyway), which is why I went for the tiny raise. I was expecting him to 3bet, and was hoping I could get him to make it 300 or something, and then talk himself into folding queens when I shove. When he just jams it's kinda sigh, but mainly because I want to avoid another 2k flip. I can't fold though.

'One pair' I say.

He pauses for a few seconds. 'One pair?'

Another 5 second pause. I start to get annoyed thinking he's nitrolling me with queens/trying to get me to show my hand. 'One pair is good'.

I blink and table my hand, and he sighs and leaves his seat. Think I see the Kh as he mucks his cards.

Assuming he had AKhh I was in the worst shape possible and I'm still 42%, and flipping vs overpairs so a standard call.


Hand 3: Effective stacks ~£1.2k
I open QcKo in MP to 20
Folds to tilting old guy who defends his BB.

Pot ~40, Flop Qd 8c 2c

BB checks, I bet 35, BB checkraises to 85, I call.

Pot ~210, Turn Kd.

BB checks, I bet 155, BB calls.

Pot ~520, River As.

BB checks, I think for a bit and bet 325. He quickly calls.


I think the closest street is the river as he can have A8/A2/AQ/JTcc but given my image and that he was tilty going for value is definitely best; he didn't seem in the mood to fold pairs to me in general, and AcXc turns up quite a lot. Also I'm assuming he leads the river with lots of the hands that beat me.

He mucks when I show my hand.


Hand 4: Effective stacks £1.5k.
Young aggressive guy opens CO to 15, I defend my BB with KcJc.

Pot ~30, Flop Ad Ks Ts.

I check, CO bets 25, I call.

Pot ~80, Turn Kd.

I check, CO bets 65, I call.

Pot ~210, River 5h.

I bet 155, he raises to 425, I tank and call.


Leading the river is pretty horrible by me. Standard is to check/call 3 streets vs this villain and I don't know why I didn't really, I vaguely thought that I can rep a lot of missed draws, but there really isn't anything in his range that can hero the river when I bet. Once he raised I came to my senses and realised he either folds or raises the river with nearly 100% of his range. I'd played with him for a long time the day before and he'd been very aggressive so I talked myself into thinking he can be bluffraising the river enough. Pretty sure he's not though, and although it's closer than it seems on paper (he's definitely bluffraising the river some %) the river's a fold. River was one big fail.

I lose to AK.


They're all the big hands I can remember. Don't think I played all that great, not well-versed at cash (and certainly not live cash) and there were a few spots where the money got to me - e.g nice light 4betting spots that I passed up because... well, betting TWO HUNDRED POUNDS or whatever is scary. But as long as I don't make any stupid mistakes other people tend to make me the money without me really needing to do anything fancy - there are a lot of soft spots in live cash games and I was definitely profitable whilst being full of leaks. Plus I ran good!

I ended up about £3k which is nice, although less after the tournament and expenses. I also had a TERRIBLE sunday online where I just went nuts and spewed everything. It was weird, the most severely tilted session I've had in years. So that's less good.

Nothing much planned for the rest of the month poker-wise. Going to carry on grinding online, aiming for jujitsu twice a week, hopefully some fun social things to make time go more quickly.

Sigh valentine's day. Beautiful, intelligent, tolerant, understanding girl to enter my life please?

Amsterdam/January roundup

So after a good start to 2011 I ended up heading to Amsterdam for a few days at the end of the month with Dan and Luke. Had a great time and it seems like an amazing capital city - definitely want to come back. We were staying at a very swish place called the 'Fashion Hotel'. You know when the first thing you see as you walk in are manikins with lampshades on their heads that its going to be arty! Really nice rooms, probably the nicest hotel I've stayed at.

I did pretty well out of the trip, winning ~€800 crushing the fishies dan and luke in various silly bets and card games (paaay!), won far more than my fair share of restaurant bill/cab fare flips and came 3rd in a live 100 euro 2nd chance tournament we played at the big Holland Casino in the centre for about 1600 euros. Highlight of the tournament was me live-misclick 3betting for like 10x pot for 1/2 my stack with 78s, siiiigh calling it off vs 2 shoves and getting there vs AJ and AT :D I also ran real good online, winnning an $82 hyperturbo for $4.5k and then...



ending up in a 5-figure trip win. weeeee! Didn't actually spend much time playing though, was cool just relaxing/going on the brewery tour/eating great (and usually free!) food. Dan also had a pretty huge sweat as he had 5% of British sicko James Keys in the Aussie Millions who ended up coming second for ~$1.2million, winning the luckbox nearly $60k for doing absolutely nothing. Aside from polishing his golden halo occasionally.

I managed a pretty impressive fail regarding the flights - booked my first return to come back 3 days late (I thought it was february. And so only 28 days long. And so I then booked my flight to come back ON FEBRUARY THE FIRST. ...I know, I know). Second flight I booked was in the morning. Two alarms? No good. Woke an hour before my plane was leaving, sigh.


It resulted in me playing the session in which that win ^^^ happened though, so maybe it was a good thing.

Anyways, January as a whole ended up being pretty huge for me considering where I was at the beginning of the year: +$23k, minus the money to dave to get out of makeup, but the rest goes to padding the roll. Pleased with my online volume; put in over 800 mtts with a $48 average buyin at a 51% roi which is pretty sweet, if I can keep those figures anything like that next month I'll be happy! Still playing kinda rusty but hoping to plug some leaks over the next month, and hopefully withdrawing some money for bills...

UKIPT nottingham starting on the 11th, looking forward to some live silliness!

Good beginnings...

Soooo a good start to the year. Dropping down to low-midstakes has began well, the play is hilarious and I am 100% sure I can grind out a decent winrate. I'm out of makeup thanks to my first 3 sessions which ended up +1.8, +800 and +4k, and had my first session on my own coin tonight...


chooo chooooo!

So that doubles my online roll which is an EXTREMELY timely addition. Not too worried about having to drop down further now, though will probably continue playing daytime sessions which tends to mean an average buyin of ~$50 but I'm happy playing smaller stuff, for now anyways. Dave, my backer previously, has agreed to stake me in some of the sunday majors so I'll get my weekly fill of high stakes action! :)

Was at DTD in nottingham for their monthly £336 deepstack this weekend - probably made it as far as I ever have, busting a few levels before the end of day 1 with QQ into KK for a large number of chips. Pleased with my play though, was down to 3k early on and ground it up well to over 40 with few showdowns. Still, bored with losing tons of money playing live; also managed to lose £250 in 6 hands on the cash tables (all standard, nothing interesting) and whilst my online roll is looking healthier, since looking at my real-life finances I've realised I can't really afford to spend nearly £700 on a speculative weekend so this will be my last live event until I'm a bit more robusto or I win a seat to something.

...I say this but I'm definitely playing the Nottingham leg of the UKIPT tour at
the beginning of next month. It'll be the first Team Superbink (me, Luke Fields, Dave Burn (Mrblond blog) and Dan Morgan (Captain Calldown blog)) outing in a while - pretty sure we're all going to final table.

Anyhoo, lets hope the rungood continues!