So, it’s like 8am on Monday morning, I haven’t slept all night and am on the train to Heathrow in order to catch my flight to Hong Kong and eventually end up in Macau in about 2 days time with the bloody time difference. Pretty exhausted, hoping to pass out for the majority of the plane journey, however it may provide an incoherent blog post, so apologies in advance.
Online I’ve been playing cash again, mainly on bambampoker (ipoker) and usually at 5/10nl or 3/6nl. For the past 3 weeks I’ve been running way below expectation in nearly every session and it gets pretty demoralising tbh and makes me not want to sit down and play, for people that know me I slack a lot on the hours anyway considering its my ‘job’. I was $15k down playing no higher than 5/10 up until about 4 days ago, then things started to turn and I clawed it all back by Saturday just gone, ;-) $16.5k upswing in 3 days roughly. Doubt I’ll be playing much more this month because of the first event in Macau, the APT. This is then closely followed by the APPT Macau. I hope to make deep runs in both and finally get a 6 figure score I’ve been within touching distance of so many times over the last 3 years or so. Before the APPT even finishes the WCOOP will be underway, where I plan to play all of the NL events except the $10k hi roller and the $25k HU. If I have a touch in Macau ill probably play the $10k but no chance you will see me in the $25k HU. The prize pools will be immense for all the WCOOP events and once again i'll be chasing that 6 figure score, but as with the nature of tournaments it will likely be 18 days of heartbreak, lol.
Just a quick mention for all the GB team at the Olympics, was an absolute pleasure to watch and restored some national pride in sport once again. That’s about all for now, my train just pulling into kings cross so got to wrap this up. Anyone who has read my blog for a while will know I went to Macau last year but the trip was a disaster sorting money then getting food poisoning. This time I’m way more prepared and will hopefully to get experience Macau a lot more.
Luton is a fair trek from me, and I had planned to travel to a friend’s house in Milton kynes on the Wednesday to prevent having an early start, however that plan went to pot after a big night out Tuesday and feeling like death all day Wednesday. So Thursday started with a 7.15 alarm clock to catch the 8.30 train to London kings cross, short walk to st Pancras and another train to Luton see's us get to the hotel about 12pm. Meet up with allinstevie/moorman/flushy/geeforce at the casino and steam through a couple of red bulls to keep me going. I haven’t played many of these gukpt's, this was my 4th I think, but all I hear from the people who play it regular is the amount of value on offer from the vast number of bad players. However my first table there were 4 of us in a line, Sam trickett, mark goodwin, me and Jen mason, so where's the value? Well the rest of the people on my starting table were a combination of bad/rocky/predictable but I was struggling to take advantage of this due to the complete filth I was getting dealt. Meanwhile it took moorman about 4 hands to get a full double up with AA vs KK on another table, mbn etc.....
I don’t get involved in any big/interesting pots or situations until we reach the 150/300 level. I have a super tight image and about a 9k stack. I already know that if I get a big hand I can’t really re-raise anybody as it’s just going to get a ton of respect and more than likely win a small pot. Not long after the start of this level I pick up QQ and there is a raise to 1k in fairly EP, I call in the cut-off and the BB then squeezes to 3.5k total. The original raiser folds so it’s back to me and even though he is never squeezing light in this spot I’m still far enough ahead of his range to get it in here and hope I don’t here the 0.25 second call and him flip AA in my eye. He doesn’t snap which was good but does make the call with AK, standard and I win the race to get me to 18k just before the antes kick in, :-) Just to demonstrate how tight I had been playing, on the very next hand I pass, and the dealer says to me, 'no queens this time'. Pay £1000 and get abuse from dealer, nice, lol.
When the antes kicked in I started to use my tight image to build chips and started playing a lot more pots getting up around30k without much fuss. I then move tables and have to rock up again because there is a 10bb stack directly on my left, sigh. For most of the 300/600 level I am passing, taking 1 or 2 pots to keep me roughly around the 30k mark. Mid-way through the 400/800 level the short stack busts and unshackles me to a certain extent to open lighter without the fear of having to call his shove. I take a few pots uncontested and then I open AJhh to 2200 in the cut-off playing about 29k and the guy on the button makes it 5k total. I have no idea what to make of this raise, as I had never played his guy before but did later learn he is a circuit regular (plays a LOL pot on the last hand of the night but I’ll get to that). I have to call really and either flop a big draw or made hand or make some kind of move post flop. Anyway the flop comes T86 hh :-) and I have the perfect stack to check raise all in. I check he bets 6k, I count my stack up a few times and move in for 25k total, he instantly starts shaking his head talking at me, saying ' I know all you have got is a fucking flush draw'. In reality if he knew this he would have high-fived the dealer and called already. Once he made that comment I had a pretty good idea that he was just trying to save face and make out as though he was folding a big made hand. After about 1min 30 secs he sighs and passes and I’m up near 40k, and feeling good.
The blinds go up to 500/1k and this was to be the last level of the night. I open to 2800 a few times and take the pot uncontested, and then a short stack pushes on me with A9, I am obliged to call with my QTs, and get there, :-). My final confrontation of the day would come when raising the button to 2800 with KJs, and the guy from before makes it 6k total from the small blind. This raise looks a lot stronger than the last mini-3bet since he is OOP for the whole hand, but now way I can pass for 3200 more to see the flop making a 14k pot. Anyway the flop is A94 giving me absolutely nothing and he checks to me. Since I have almost no equity in this hand If I check I take a stab for about 7k (1/2 pot) and he folds pretty quickly, leaving me on 58.8k going into day 2.
Friday was supposed to be a quiet day, relaxing and coming back nice and fresh to play day 2. That didn’t quite go to plan with us all drinking until 5am playing 1/2nl cash in the casino (except moorman who went back early evening to play FTOPS, lol) finished up a bit down in the cash game but the banter was quality and some guy when faced with the statement 'nice call on the turn' in a sarcastic tone came back with this gem: "Well I was either going to hit or outplay you!' lol. Stumbled back to the hotel at around 6am and somehow managed to set my alarm for day 2 of the main event. Woke up Saturday obviously feeling pretty ill but after a shower and a subway sandwich I was feeling a little better and ready to make my assault on day 2.
The re-draw for my table was interesting with Alex martin on my direct right as well as Flushy 'James Dempsey' on the same table and the banter was flowing. I managed to win a big pot from flushy pretty early doors with AA vs TT on a 8 high board and I was up and running. I then eliminated Alex with AK vs AQ in a late position battle and things were looking rosy. I was then starting to take control of the table, opening a lot of pots mainly winning them uncontested or with little or no resistance post flop. I then got muffed by flushy who defended the BB with 68s to my LP raise and check called all in on a T 8 2 flop but was in trouble vs my AT, nothing a 6 on the turn wouldn’t solve though, 50k pot down at 1600 BB. Over the next couple of hours not a lot happened really, I had 2 races with short-stacks, lost both and also lost a QJ vs AQ off another short-stack. When the blinds reached 1.5k/3k I was down to about a 100k stack and was now seated on the same table as moorman. It folds to moorman in the cut-off and he shoves for 30k, and I call with 55 in the SB and he has A6o, unfortunately I lose the race and a lot of my flexibility around the bubble. My exit hand comes not long after the bubble bursts, pushing A5 on the button with around 8BB's but running into AQ in the big blind and getting no help, blah!
Moorman ran golden on/around the bubble and then built up a big stack which put him amongst the leaders with 2 tables left. However in a massive confrontation with another friend of mine Sam trickett, moorman lost a huge pot in a weird hand. The video clip of the hand is here:
Shame that this wasn’t to be moorman's live breakthrough but that is just a matter of time imo. On the other hand Congrats to Sam trickett who ended up taking the whole thing down for about £95k, great player and a nice guy!
On the Sunday I played online, and as far as Sundays go it was very successful. I won an APPT Macau package on Doyle’s room worth $9k taking place at the beginning of September. I am going to Macau a little earlier though to play the $5k APT event which is the week before, when in Rome...... Also on the same Sunday I won a gukpt package on blue square, saving me £1k for the Blackpool event as well as coming 3rd in the $100r 1 a 6 max event on full tilt for little over $10k.
I have played a few FTOPS events over the last week, coming close on a couple of occasions, finishing 53rd in the $1k 6 max for $3750 as well as a deep run in the $2500 event, finishing 65th for just over $5k. I was cruising the whole time in the $2500 until the last 2 hours when I got into a couple of sticky situations including getting cold 4 bet on the very last hand of day 1, sigh. I came back for day 2 short and eventually bust with AJ vs 88, flop Axx, turn 8 (ty f.tilt)
Was hoping to make it to DTD this week for the deep stack festival but with too much to sort out at home before Macau I have unfortunately had to cancel that trip and will keep my DTD virginity for the time being. Hopefully the next update will be about my 2 deep runs in the APT and APPT Macau, here’s hoping, gl at the tables
Not a lot been going on to be honest, lots of catching up with friends and family which has been cool, although nothing has changed since I left 15 months ago. Walking through the town centre there are a few new shops/bars n stuff but basically it seems as though time has stood still and I haven't missed an awful lot in my time away. Finally seem to be overcoming the jet-lag i was suffering from after my trip across the Atlantic which is helpful.
As far as poker goes I am severely lacking in motivation/drive to play at the moment and its pretty annoying. Weather it be cash or MTT I seem to lose all interest in less than 1 hour at the computer and get the feeling I'm burnt out after almost 2 months of solid poker in Vegas. Still going to Luton on Thursday to play in the GUKPT but should be lots of drinking/socialising to balance the trip out nicely. After that I'm thinking of taking a holiday somewhere for a week or 2 with no laptop and not play poker for the entire trip but we'll see what happens.
The little amount of poker I have played online has gone OK, made about $8k in cash games, been playing pretty small stakes on betfair trying to build a roll on there to play higher but i don't like depositing big chunks of money into sites. As far as mtt's go Ive had sever near misses, as always, getting 13th in the stars 1k, and 8th in the stars 300 the first tue/wed i was back. Then the following Wednesday I had a pretty disgusting day coming, 9th in tilt $75, KK < AQ, then 13th in stars 100r, QQ < A6, then 21st in tilt 100r 6 max, and 15th in tilt $100 1r 1a.
Gonna be a mug again and try to play a Sunday schedule but i probably will be too tilted/annoyed to even reach the stars million, sigh. That's all for now, will post a tournament/trip report after luton,
