Lazy as usual

For anyone that has followed my blog over a decent period of time will be used these rediculously long periods without me posting due to the fact im a lazy git. It also has to do with the fact ive not been playing much poker over the past 6 weeks or so. After brighton I returned home for 2 weeks and was catching up with family n friends and didnt fancy grinding online. Quite a few weeks previous I had won a seat on stars to APPT cebu in the phillipines and was looking forward to this despite being so far away for a couple of reasons. Firstly the place looked abs stunning and it was a chance to escape the british weather for a few weeks and partake in one of the few actual hobbies i have besides poker, scuba diving.

A long flight to singapore and a short flight to cebu and I arrived at the shangri-la resort and the pics on the stars website didnt do it justice as the place was incredible. I had purposely gone a week early to have a holiday of sorts and do some diving. Managed to get 3 days of diving in which was great despite not seeing anything too spectacular (sharks etc..) The stars party before the main event was held on the shangri-la private beach, pretty fkin ballin tbf, and was a blast and managed to meet a few drinking buddies for the rest of the trip.

Onto the tournament and day 1 was almost a non event as we started with 20k chips and i bagged up 19650 or something at the end of the day, lol. Day 2 would be more eventful and I doubled up almost straight away 99 > 77 and then went to work chipping up without showdown and the standard was woefully low. I think over half of the players were qualifiers for the metro card club in manila providing tons of value imo. I ended day 2 on 120k with the blinds starting at 1.5k/3k on day 3 but we weren't in the money yet. On days 2/3 of big tournaments i think i open the first hand of the day like 100% of the time unless I'm mega short but this time it folds to the BB who just piles 40bbs right in my eye, nh sir.

Won a good pot with AA at the start of day 3 and then I had a pretty easy ride until 2 tables out because of 1 guy on my right. He would sometimes open fro like 3.5x and show his strong hands once everyone folded but then sometimes he would open for like 2.5x after a little think. Everytime he did this i 3b him and he snap folded. He didn't seem to cotton on what was happening and kept on with this pattern for like 6hrs with him never 4b or even calling me :-). We redraw tables with 16 left as we were playing 8 handed and my meal ticket is separated from me but I had like 419k at 4k/8k so was in pretty good shape. New table was a disaster right off the bat as I 3b some guy with AJ and then some1 found QQ cold when i was getting even money on the call and bricked. Lost another big pot soon after when a guy raises LP and I call from Bb with AT, flop is ATx one heart and I c/c 3 streets but his 93hh hit running hearts to take the pot and I was now short with 13 left. Jammed the button with 97s and lost to KJ to bust 13th for $6k, was $135k ftw, asdfghjsdfg. Received the usual tilting congratulations from the cashier and headed back to my room to geeg the mini-bar....

Was meant to flying to Barcelona for the EPT but after the 13th I was pretty deflated and decided to hang around Cebu for a few more days before heading back to London for GUKPT grand final. Touched down in London at 7pm Wednesday night but since I change timezones on such a regular basis I'm pretty much an expert at dodging jet lag. Hardly slept on the flight from Singapore to London and therefor crashed for a good 12hrs Wednesday night and was good to go on day1a of grand final 2pm yesterday...

I busted the GUKPT at around midnight last night after a pretty frustrating day. I was seated next to stuart rutter which was cool as stuart is one of the good guys on the tour, always a pleasure to talk to at the table and ready to instingate a night out at the drop of a hat once the poker is over and done with. During the first couple of hours I ran KK into AA and 67 into QJ on 89T flop as well as losing with KK again and TT 2x and missing every other flop.. Never got going and never won a meaningful pot and clung on as well as i could until the very last hand of 4/800 when it folded to me in the cutoff and I jammed 11.5k with A9 and found the button holding AJ and I was a gonner. Don't felt I played bad at all, just ran into shitty situations all over the place which can happen pretty easily in tournament poker. My only complaint was having to play 10 handed all day in a £2500 tournament which is something I hope they can address for next years comp. Made a swift exit from London and am currently on the train back to Doncaster after the 2 nights in my London hotel cost more than a months rent for my 3bed semi house, lol.

After my break I'm motivated to grind online again so will be trying to put in some good volume as well as playing champion of champions in Coventry next weekend and then the £1k monte carlo event at DTD later in december. Could be be tempted to throw EPT prague in as well but I'm a bit sick of travelling atm and wanna just stay at home for a few weeks including xmas. January throws up a few options with PCA, aussie millions as well as few friends of mine getting a house in thailand to grind online for a while... Need to formulate a plan as well as setting myself some goals and aspirations for 2011. Sorry for the long post, as usual ill promise to try n update more regular but the chances of me doing so are slim/none so look forward to another essay in 6 weeks time :-) Ill attach a few pics i took on my phone of shangri-la...

Catching up with everything....

Ok, firstly ill wrap up the end of the WCOOP with Friday 24th September being another very good day for me online as I made 3 more final tables, all on FTP (burn stars lol). They were the $20 rebuy (7th) $500 Friday fight night (5th) and the $200 turbo where i managed to luckbox the win for $16564 :-) Unfortunately I was unable to muster any finals over the weekend but one of my horses managed to get 3rd place in the brawl for $54k so we had truly broken out of the slump and was back in high spirits again about poker just in time for EPT London!

As far as the charity goes the total was at $1788 so add 3 finals and 5% of the win and I finish on a grand total of: $2916 to be donated. After some suggestions from people that read this blog I have decided to split the money evenly between MIND (http://www.mind.org.uk/) and a homeless shelter in my home town of Doncaster (http://www.m25group.org.uk/) The donate link on their site isn't working at the moment so will try to contact them but if that fails ill choose another charity.

Right, a quick recap of EPT London saw lots of drinking as well as me losing a 300k pot at 1k/2k on day 2 of the main event which was pretty frustrating especially after villamoura. I had AKs and had been caught 3 betting light on 2 separate occasions where a short stack found a hand behind and I had to call and failed to hit either time. So since my rep was in tatters I had found the immortal nuts vs an aggressive player who i later discovered was Femi Fakinle who won a UKIPT earlier in the year. A short stack sandwiched between us with KK and my AKs was against Femi's QQ for a bigger side pot but not only did we not spike an A for all the gold, QQ flopped us all dead on Q33, lol gg EPT! Quick commiserations to matt perrins who busted in like 12th place which was pretty gay, but I'm sure he will bounce back soon and put up a huge result.

Played 2 side events in London and was going quite well in the £1500 freeze but eventually busted in 20th position for 80k pot at 1200/2400 when JJ
Onto the £1k main event and it was split into 2 flights starting and 12pm and 6pm. Since the night before I had welcomed in the sunrise with a full english on brigton seafront after a night on the booze it was an easy choice to play the 6pm flight. Had a pretty soft starting table and didn't get any tough spots early and then was on the right side of a cold deck to double up with AA vs AKs :-) Rest of day 1 was pretty uneventful and I finished on 55k and blinds would be 500/1000 when we returned.

Day 2 also started with a pretty soft table apart from 1 seat two my left which happened to be Flushy and he had more chips than me. He bashed me up pretty hard for most of the day and really put me in shitty situation. I wasn't getting any spots and when I did, people took them before me or if I was raise/calling vs some1, someone else would cold4 all in behind etc... Toby Lewis moved to the table later in the day and some good banter was flying around, mainly at my absolute bowl of a stack. I got really short at one point and jammed 18k otb at 1200/2400 after looking at just a J, Toby called me int he BB with K4 and things looked bleak after AKQ flop and Toby stood up with his hand in the air (fatal mistake) as a T snap rolled off on the turn to seal the lucky double up I needed. After this I started re-shoving on some of the guys to my right and managed to get all the way up to 100k with no showdowns. Despite being my friends I was glad to see Toby and James get knocked out just before the bubble as they were both on my left and 2 of the better players left in the tournament.

The stacks were really short on our table at this time but I was going ok until I lost QQ vs KQ for 160k at 4/8k leaving me with around 85k. I managed to shove the button and then the next orbit I found KK in the SB and everyone who folded to the button who jammed all in covering both of us in the blinds. I call, BB folds and I hold vs J5s to get to 200k. The J5 guy then loses another decent size all in and only has like 48k left when it folds to him on the button next orbit and he jams K8, I call with A9 and hold in order to set the 10 handed final :-)

Ok, this post is starting to go on a bit now so will try and rap up the final pretty quickly. I had position on John eames (I thought me and him were the best players on the final) as well as position on 2 other people with big stacks. I won flip early vs a guy with 10bigs and then prob the most crucial hand of the final for me took place. A guy i played with a decent amount on day 1 opens the hi-jack to 16500 (4/8k) and I make it 40k otb with AQ. Back to him and he quickly jams like 340k total. I was almost certain I had the best hand but purely from an ICM standpoint I should be folding since I would be left with 9bbs if losing. However since it wasn't the biggest tournament in the world and the relatively quick structure I decided to call and try to pretty much secure a top 3 spot if i won making this a £20k hand. He rolled over 67cc and after the flop of 9c8cx I was the underdog but as is usually the case when u have so many outs he couldn't find one on the turn or river and I hold to become the big chipleader with over 700k. I managed to get to 1m chips without showdown and things were in cruise control at the first break. The 3rd level of the day was pretty bad one for me though and didn't win a pot throughout and soon found myself back with around 700k going on dinner with 6 players left.

Regained my composure after dinner break and got a light 4b through almost immediately and the confidence came flooding back, as did the chips :-). Quick mention about how sick bad John eames ran on the final though, losing two 80/20s to the same guy and then iso'd a short stack all in with A6s only for the same guy again to find AA behind. Again was happy to see him leave as he is a v.good player but he will making many more finals and will not run so bad everytime...
After that we were 4 handed and one guy was short and bust quickly and the stacks were like me 1.1m, and the other guys had like 600 and 700k respectively. I was winning most pots 3 handed and had taken significant pots off both of them when I flopped a set vs a guy who i had been getting the better off and he jammed 2nd pair on be for a fairly large pot. This left me HU with a 4:1 chiplead, nothing silly happened and when he was down to like 12bbs i set him in with QJs and he called with QT and since I had ran golden all final it was no surprise I held again to take the title and the £46k, Boom!

Really pleased with how I played on the final, and was nice to run good and have hands hold up at the right times since tournament poker is such a fine line. Right time to stop rambling for now. Got like 2 weeks back in the mighty DN5 then its off on the road for another month again with EPT Vienna, APPT Cebu (won seat on stars so will be staying an extra week or so in Philippines to do some diving and have a much needed break from poker) the EPT Barcelona and GUKPT grand final in London......

Finally won a tournament....

finally had a good day on Monday in what felt like forever on Monday and made 4 final tables in total as well as taking down a tournament :-) I finalled on stars the $100 1r1a turbo (4th - $8152) the $109 turbo (5th - $4394) the $50 1r1a (2nd - $7643) and won the $100 1r1a on FTP for $17758.

This is also a good boost for the charity pool which was looking pretty bleak after 2 weeks of WCOOP! 4 finals is $400 added and then 5% of $17758 is $888. Not decide what I'm going to donate too yet and I am open to suggestions if any one who reads this has any...

Current total - $1788

Got 3 more full days of playing so hopefully can rack up a few more finals and another big win!

Feels like its never gonna end

Probably in the middle of my worst ever downswing online and truth be told its starting to get to me. Played a full session of tournaments yesterday and was flying in the WCOOP $200r from a long way out and was near the top of the leaderboard from around 400 ppl out. I was playing great and not making any mistakes but as so often has been the story in the past few months as soon as we got to the last 40 ppl I snap lost 2 big all ins 77 < AQ and then AJ < KQ. I never fully recovered from these hits and was surviving with between 15-20bbs until I busted in 27th with AK < TT.

Unfortunately no more final tables to add $$ to the charity pool and it feels as though id actually have more chance of shagging Jessica Alba than actually winning a poker tournament.... There is one more week of WCOOP left which despite this soul destroying run I feel obliged to play followed up straight after by EPT London. I won a seat on stars to APPT Cebu in the Philippines in November so will use that to have a holiday of some sorts and much needed time away from the tables....

Really Struggling

So frustrated with poker at the moment and even the smallest things going wrong seem to send me off in a rage at the computer screen. Played on Sunday and had a few deep runs but fell short of any final tables which was pretty meh. Did have one big sweat though when one of my horses was on the last 2 tables of the $215 WCOOP event which had a $300k first prize. After playing for close to 16hrs he got all in with 88 vs 77 for a 7.5m chip pot at 70/140k blinds only for a 7 to peel off on the river. It was horrible to watch and at the time we had around 10 ppl in a skype conversation railing but after that river hit everyone just went silent and was utterly speechless. Really felt for the guy as he has been playing great and had some ridiculous bad luck deep in big tournaments and hopefully he will get what he deserves soon enough..

I'm gonna be playing a lighter schedule for the next few days then taking thurs/friday and possibly Saturday off to try and stabilise my mental state. I think Ive been in this position only once before where every time I lose a big all in I'm raging at the computer and feel like the world is about to end. This mentality is no way gonna be good for some1 grinding online mtt's for a living so its pretty clear I need a few days off even though the WCOOP is ongoing. I do plan to take and extended break in November but for now a few days will have to do...

sat 12th september

Played a pretty full session on saturday and ran so so bad agaain but managed to final table the $215 six max comp on stars. Got in a really awkawrd spot with AT on the final and made a bad call on the river i think to leave me with 20 bbs. Soon after I ran QQ into KK (fml) and couldnt hit a Q so was on the rail in 5th place. Really frustrating how I am running at the moment, especially deep in tournaments but not a lot i can do about that, anyway another $100 in the charity pool on onto another mega wcoop sunday today.......

current charity total $500

wed/thurs wcoop

I didnt play any wcoop events on wednesday but was going to play the late tournaments anyway since there are several good high stakes events. However in my first tournament after about 2 mins i had KQ on AJT flop and some guy got his QQ in for 4000 chips at 15/30 and proceeded to make a full house. Was so tilted str8 away I unregged my schedule and just had a few beers and played fifa with my housemate.

PLayed a pretty full schedule on thursday and made one final table in the FTP $50 f/o but could only manage 3rd place for $4400 after AA went down to QJ. Finished 10th and 12th in two good size tournaments on stars which was pretty frustrating. Despite been on of the worst runs of my career im starting to a fw signs of turning it round and am hopeful of putting up some bigger results over the next few weeks..

1 final so another $100 in the kitty

running charity total - $400

wcoop day 3

managed to make 2 finals, $100 turbo stars and UB $50r but only finished 4th and 9th respectively. Had several other deep runs and hoping that a bi result is just around the corner....

Charity total - $300

2 days of wcoop in the books

No early sucess for me in the WCOOP and only one final table to boast for 2 full sessions. I final tabled the $500 high roller on Ipoker last night and took 2nd for $8800. Would have been nice to get the win and my first 5 figure score online since 6th may but gotta wait a little longer to get that monkey off my back.. Managed to chip up really easy in this tournaemnt around the bubble and this showed by the fact that 3 people were under 10 big blinds when the final table started. One guy basically won every all in and when we got to HU he outchipped me massibvely and I jammed A3 from the button with 11bb's and ran into his 77 and lost, sigh. So the first final means the charity pool is up and running with $100. As far as updating getting the blog up to date regarding the wsop etc, that will probably have to wait until friday as that will be only day off from the WCOOP grind....

Running charity total - $100

Charity time again

Obv still need to update loads of stuff from world series and the time inbetween and will aiming to complete that before the week is out....

WCOOP starts again tomorrow and ill be putting in redic volume so planning to use karma and get some run good in the bank by donating to charity again. I will use the same system I used last year which was $100 for every final table I make and 5% of first place for any tournament I manage to take down. Over the same period last year this resulted in me donating around $6500 to charity.

Thats about all for now and will do doing my best to get this blig up to date asap but will be keeping track of the charity donations in the meantime as well. Just a quick congratulations to Toby Lewis and Jake Cody who both won big live events over hte past few days. Toby shipped EPT Vilamoura and Jake won the first ever WPT in London, 2 sickos who both deserve the success imo

WSOP 2010 part 1

Ok, since I was super lazy with updating as I went during this WSOP, now that it’s over I’m going to try and recap as best I can how this year went for me. Firstly I would like to explain why I travel to Las Vegas every year to play the World Series of poker. For me I’m just taking a shot to make a crazy amount of money as there is no other time when so many big money tournaments are packed together over such a short period of time. I am not backed and am far from bankrolled to play these events on a regular basis so when it goes badly it’s very disappointing. The way I look at is that I’m grinding online all year round with a moderate amount of live events thrown making a pretty good living. Then when the WSOP rolls around I take a $50k shot at playing around 20 tournaments hoping to hit a big 6 figure score and set myself up financially well into the future. For anyone that has read my blog previously you will know I completely bricked out at last year’s WSOP which proved to be an expensive and confidence draining experience. Heading into this year’s series I was keen to make amends for 2009 and make some deep runs, a final table and with a slice of good fortune a gold bracelet.

For the third year running I would be renting a house with a few good friends of mine, David ‘geeforce1’ gent, Chris ‘moorman1’ moorman and Stevie ‘allinstevie’ devlin. This year we also had stain ‘johnnybelow’ stabell and Marius ‘danksaman’ olsvik sharing the same house. I know all these guys pretty well and know they are good people to have around you when things inevitably get tough as the series progresses. Our house was located around 10 mins from the Rio and provided a safe haven from the chaos of the Las Vegas strip. On the first weekend in Vegas we had tickets for the UFC which featured the main event of rampage Jackson vs rashad evans. The event was incredible and the night out that followed would provide a blueprint that most other nights out would follow. Dinner out, nightclub with bottle service (gg $3k) craps (gg $1k) then a taxi home as the sun rises stopping off for McDonalds breakfast on the way :-)

OK that’s about all for now will be posting another part shortly where we get into the poker and business of winning bracelets......

So so lazy

Apologies for no updates during the wsop, just kept putting it off after the first week or so then seemed too much to catch up on so just gave up... I will do a post giving a full wsop trip report with some pictures pretty soon. Playing day 1B of the main event tomorrow and will be hoping to cash for the first time in 5 attempts, fml....

WSOP 2010

Well, its finally that time again to play day after day of live tournaments in the elusive quest for a bracelet and a place in the history books. Ill be trying to update pretty regular throughout the series with mini-tournament reports as well as using twitter for real-time tournament progress. As Ive mentioned in some of my previous posts I'm looking to put a dreadful wsop 2009 behind me and make some deep runs... Arrived in Vegas last Tuesday and will be putting up some pics of our house as well as UFC 114 which we went to watch on Saturday night :-) That's all Ive got time for now, need to sleep in preparation for tomorrows event, run good plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Back on the Horse....

OK, apologies for the lack of updates but since this is a blog about playing poker it didn't seem relevant to post about my daily life during my break. I had intentionally planned for a month away from the virtual felt starting with the APPT event in manila followed by 3 weeks of scuba diving around the Philippines. This was all going to plan until the ash cloud erupted a few days before my flight home, forcing me to reschedule and not being able to get on a flight until 1st may. I was on a standby list for an earlier flight but that never materialised so I spent a boring 10 days or so stranded in manila.

So finally I returned home on Sunday 2nd may and that also was day 1 of the SCOOP festival so I had no time at all to settle in or get re-adjusted before it was time to grind. As far as the SCOOP events go themselves I have pretty much bricked the whole thing apart from a min cash in the $1k freezeout. Ive had some pretty sick beats and set ups in the high buy in events including this 1 outer in the $2500 KO event :

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5434245

Then in the $1k rebuy last night I was going pretty well before this redic cooler :

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5434249

Despite my lack of success in the SCOOP events I did manage to win a WSOP package on stars as well as a few decent results on FTP. I got 2nd place in the $1k Monday for $56k, won the $100r for $20k, 2nd in a $75 f/o for $11.5k and 2nd in the $117 superturbo for $7k. I was glad to get some results under my belt pretty soon after coming back since I was on a terrible run in feb/march and half of April.

Will be playing the rest of the SCOOP events on fri/sat/sun and then its a little over a week until I head to Vegas :-) We have got tickets for UFC events 114 (rampage/evans) and 116 (Lesnar/carwin) both should be sick and really looking forward to those... As I have mentioned in previous posts I am looking forward to the WSOP and putting the nightmare of last year behind me (0 cashes) and with a bit of luck making a run at a bracelet......

Still on break

Still on my break from mtt's and the last time I played a online tournament (except the odd superturbo) was the 7th march so 4 weeks today. Not been playing any poker at all really, just enjoying the time off and relaxing without getting stressed out at poker everyday. Got a few diving trips planned around the phillipines the next couple of weeks so wont be getting back into the mtt grind just yet but will probably play a little bit of cash on the side when I get a chance. Im going be back home in time for GUKPT manchester so ill be playing that but probably gonna skip EPT san remo and monte carlo with the WSOP being so close. Once im home ill be diving straight back in the deep end online as ftops starts pretty much the day I land and that runs straight into the start of the SCOOP series, lol. So expect more posts about how much I hate poker/tournaments/life again...

Pab

super tilted

just bust manila main event about 90th with 52 spots paying. Bust in 170k pot at 1k/2k with KQss on AK4ss flop, all in vs TJ off, seriously fml at the moment. Gonna destroy the mini bar and pass out and try to forget that exit hand actually happened.

Whats going on

Firstly id like to thank the people for the kind comments on my last post :-) Its pretty hard to articulate a blog post when things are going bad without sounding too much like a moaning bastard but think I did an OK job lol. Been off donkaments and poker altogether since that post which has been a welcome break. I am currently in manila, Philippines and will be playing the APPT event tomorrow after winning a seat so hopefully Ive recharged my run good account.... Manila seems like a cool place although not done a lot of exploring yet, will save that for when I'm out of the main event. Planning to do a little travelling around the Philippines as Ive heard its a stunning place once you get out to the islands etc.. and should be able to squeeze in some scuba diving which is always a bonus. I intend to keep off the tournaments until I get back to the UK in mid-April apart from an odd Sunday session if I'm feeling in the mood.

Ill be playing GUKPT Manchester once I get back home and then EPT Monte Carlo (seat bink permitting) before doing my bollocks on the SCOOP. Will be posting twitter updates from the APPT,

Pab

Struggling

The heading on my blog says about dealing with the trials and tribulations of playing poker for a living. Its easy to post when all is well and you are winning tournaments and since a lot of people don't write blogs or talk about it when things are going tits up a lot of people are left with the impression that playing poker for a living is a piece of piss. Around this time last year I was on a pretty big downswing that ran into the SCOOP festival causing me to miss some of the higher buy in events because my confidence was so low. It was off to to the WSOP after that where things didn't improve and I bricked the whole trip and I was seriously doubting my ability and continuation of playing poker. All it took was a few decent scores online and my confidence came flooding back, as did the big results on a consistent basis.

At the moment I'm on another pretty big downswing that has started to affect my confidence and my ability as a poker player. Since I won the $1k on full tilt back in mid January I have had almost no scores of note and given the fact I have been playing a lot higher volume than normal due to the FTOPS then it all adds up to a pretty bleak period. I said the other day that after this week I wasn't gonna play any more tournaments apart from Sundays until the SCOOP starts again in may. I'm pretty sure this comment was just born out of frustration and time will tell if I'm able to stick to it since despite getting shit on every day in tournaments I still love them......

I'm a little worried that if I keep playing high volume and keep running bad then a similar thing will happen as last year when it just keeps snowballing and my confidence is super low heading into the SCOOP/WSOP which is far from ideal. By taking a step back now for an extended period I'm hoping that I can come back for the SCOOP feeling confident again since I wont have been playing and losing for weeks on end.

That's probably about enough of me feeling sorry for myself and moaning about poker so ill wrap it up there. Just to confirm that me and Chris donated $9500 to the American red cross as a result of the FTOPS bet and Chris is gonna donate another $500 to a charity he chose personally. We were able to pick on the website that our donation be used for international disaster relief so it should go towards helping the people of Haiti as well as those in Chile after another devastating earthquake.

GG FTOPS....

And another ftops comes to a close and once again I’ve drawn a big old blank without even a sniff of a gold jersey. I had a really negative attitude heading into the ftops since I’ve never managed to do anything in the past 15 series or however many there has been. I think this probably had a detrimental effect to my play over the last 2 weeks and my results showed. Not really sure how to change this for the next one apart from trying to remain more positive and not get as easily frustrated when things are not going my way on the tables.

I am planning to stay in Australia with my friends for about another month so that should be good. I will be playing my normal weekly schedule instead of the ridiculous 14hr sessions every single day that ftops demanded. Looking forward to playing again without the burden of ftops hanging over me and getting back to winning ways, but that will be once I’ve had a lengthy break .......

The one good thing out of ftops was the charity bet I devised with Chris (moorman). Over the last couple of days I busted 2 of Chris’ horses and I busted to two of them. Chris also managed to knock me out of a tournament himself (sucked out obv) to force another $1k on to my total, sigh. I will be sorting out the donations later this week but we will be giving $10’000USD between us which is a pretty good result,

Me - $5’500 (£3543)

Chris $4500 (£2899)

As far as I’m aware the best charity to donate to in order to help the people of Haiti is the American red cross but if anyone knows otherwise please leave me a comment in the next few days, thanks

Pab

Quick friday update

Just finished another full schedule and looks like i might be coming into form at the right time as I took down the $50 rebuy on stars for $16k and change. Blanked out in the ftops again but made some deep runs elsewhere that eventaully came to nothing. Tomorrow is a huge day with the $2500 buy in event so fingers crossed for some run good...

also, I bust one of moormans horses and one of them bust me during the session so we are set to donate $3500 each heading into the last 2 days....

Finally Won a tournament..

Today is my first day off since ftops started over a week ago and I finally managed to get a winning day under my belt on Tuesday. The Sunday and Monday tournaments were a complete waste of time and money and left me frustrated at the end of both days. On Tuesday though I managed to final table the early $163 on full tilt and eventually came 3rd for around $11k. I had several deep runs on the day coming 12th in tilt $100r as well as stone cold bubbling 2 other tournaments. At the end of my session I had good stacks in two tournaments, the $30 rebuy on tilt and the UB $120 deepstack. I came 11th in the 30 rebuy but made the final table of the deepstack with the chiplead. After a shaky start i got heads up with johnnybelow who is currently living it the same house with us in Melbourne so that was pretty fun. We started HU very even in chips but I was able to get a 680k to 320k lead when I flopped 2 pair and johnny flopped a flush and I held for the win :-) 1st place was $6400 so not the greatest win of my career but it rounded off a pretty good day and hopefully a sign that my fortunes are changing for the rest of the ftops period.

As i said I'm taking the day off today and then back on it for full schedules fri/sat/sun for a titanic weekend of poker. The ftops has the $2500 buy in event as well as the $500 main event and stars has a $4m gtd tournament with at least $1m for 1st place.......

On the charity front I have busted 2 of moormans horses in the last couple of days and then got busted by one yesterday so the current running totals to be donated are

Me - $3000
Moorman - $3000

Hopefully I can bust a few more this weekend or the hero himself to push it up towards the $5k mark :-)

Also if anyone is a UFC fan don't miss UFC110 this weekend, looks like the sickest card in quite o long time, lets go bisping! (got a $1k bet with allinstevie)

Super frustrated

Since the half schedule on the first day I have played 3 full schedules (6pm-2am UK time) and have not even managed a final table yet. I have run insanely bad and got screwed deep time and time again leaving me wondering what I need to do to win... I have been really frustrated and if the ftops wasn't running there would be no way I would be carrying on playing all day everyday but needs and musts so ill be soldiering on.

After the flurry of bounty action with moorman on day 1 its been pretty quiet since then with me just busting one of his horses in a FTP $75 freezeout. Moorman did manage to bust me in the stars $109 6 max though calling my 28bb re-shove with AJ claiming he had a live read we were racing since we were sat across the table from each other. In reality he sat going 'wtf; for about 30 seconds then said fuck it, bink for charity.... I had 99 and he had AJ which as predicted, binked for charity, $1k in my eye.

The last 2 days have drawn blanks on the charity front so the current standings are

Me - $2000

Moorman - $2000

As i said there is no let up in the schedule so ill be back on the grind for the sunday tournaments tomorrow hopefully running good.... Time to sleep

pab

Day 1 over

So today was the first day of ftops with event number 1 being a $200 freezeout that had a crazy amount of runners and had a first prize of $193k. I never got going and eventually lost a race with AK vs 88 a few levels after the antes came in. All of the other daily tournaments had inflated prize pools as a knock on effect of the FTOPS been on but i was unable to register any significant scores today.

It was a pretty eventful start to the charity bet between me and moorman though with me busting the UB $50 rebuy to one of horses. A little later in the session I busted the $117 super turbo to another one of his horses so my side of the best was up to $1k. Before today started, me and Chris agreed that is was $500 bounty's and then double if either of us knocked the other one out. Well as luck would have it we were drawn against each other in the hyper-turbo heads up on stars late at night. For those unfamiliar with this tournament you start HU with 10bb's each and running antes so not a lot of room to move... I got lucky and knocked him out meaning he now had to stump up $1k for charity. Very late on in the session I managed to knock another one of his horses out of the $30 rebuy on full tilt for another $500 to charity, Boom! Despite being very deep in the tournament I couldn't manage better than a very frustrating 14th place finish when it was $16k ftw!

So after the first day, which was only a half session really we have to donate the following amounts

Pab - $1000

Moorman - $1500

If this pace was to be sustained I'm sure we would both hit the $10k cap pretty quickly! Gonna be playing a full schedule again tomorrow so hopefully will get a decent score under my belt

Ftops for charity

Over the course of the ftops schedule which starts in a few hours and runs through until 21st February, myself and moorman have agreed to raise some money for charity and make it fun in the process. Moorman backs quite a lot of high stakes regulars who will be grinding like hell over ftops as will I. Over this period if I bust one of moormans horses in any tournament he has to give $500 to charity and if one of his horses busts me, I have to give $500 to charity. Should be a good laugh with lots of banter and help raise some money for those less fortunate than us. I will be updating after every session I play and can hopefully share some of the hands that go down. Both me and Chris are liable for up to $10k each on this proposal. We will combine the money at the end and likely donate it to the American red cross to help the people of Haiti. That's about all for now, please anti-rail the moorman horses in pots vs me, :-)

Aussie Millions....

Played the Aussie millions main event last week but unfortunately I busted several hours into day 2. I had a really soft table on day 1 and was able to accumulate chips at will once the antes came in. I didn't really have any big confrontations until the last level on the day when TT lost to KJ for a sizable pot ending the day with around 60k. Coming into day 2 the blinds were 500/100 so i still had a lot of room to manoeuvre. My table was stronger than day 1 but still relatively weak for a big buy in event. I got to around 100k during the 600/1200 and then bluffed off a little to have about 80k when my exit hand happened. I was opening a lot of pots and didn't have a very good reputation so was pretty hopeful of action when I raised QQ to 3k. It folds to the small blind who makes the call and then the big stack in the BB who is relatively new to the table squeezes to 15k. I shoved for 80k instead of just 4 betting to try and make my hand look weaker than it was. The small blind folds quickly and the big blind doesn't snap so I'm pretty happy and he tanks for around 45 seconds and eventually makes the call with KK! I was pretty steamed at the slowroll and when no justice Q arrived I exited sharply. It was really annoying as I was starting to feel really good on day2 and was confident of a deep run. Pretty gross cooler in the end but made 10x worse by the slowroll, fk live poker!!!

I am going to be living in Melbourne for the next 6 weeks or so with moorman/geeforce/allinstevie and I intend to be grinding online for the most part. Played online a bit since busting the Aussie millions and its gone OK but could have gone a hell of a lot better. Made deep runs in lots of big tournaments been have been running really bad about 2 tables out so not posted any big scores yet.. I have won a couple of smaller tournaments though this week, one on cake and one on UB so I am on course for a pocketfives triple crown that i hope to close out before next Monday.

FTOPS starts on full tilt next Wednesday so it will be full schedules every day chasing the elusive gold jersey, but I envisage more full tilt heartbreak really. Going to be donating some money to charity as well over this period and have managed to get moorman involved for some fun. I will post the full details next week but basically over the ftops series, whenever I bust one of moormans horses or him, he is donating $500 to charity and when one of his horses busts me i have to donate $500 to charity. I will be updating daily on how its going and all mones will probably be going to help the people of haiti.

PCA trip report & online binkage

Really enjoyed the PCA, met loads of people who before now were just a screename I played against on a daily basis. The first night I arrived it was around 3am and while checking in I spotted moorman and a few others grinding the sundays in the lobby, lol. The next day we went for lunch and then got straight on the beer, that ran into the stars party with a free bar and then onto another bar on the resort. I was absoloutely blasted and somehow managed to run into a pole resulting in me going to hospital for a few stitches, sigh. Woke up the next day with a bandage on one side of my face, pretty good shiner, stonking hangover and 90 mins late for day 1 of the main event.....

Despite the less than stellar preperation I was going along comfortably in the main without a lot of incident and then all of a sudden I was out. Pretty standard exit really, guy opens in LP to 900 at 150/300 -25 and the button flats, I make it 3k from the SB with AK playing about 32k total. Both guys call and the flop is KT4 two clubs, i check as does original raiser and now the button bets 8k and I jam for my 30k. Original raiser passes and button now tanks for about 1 min before calling with KQ clubs, turn club, gg PCA.

If anyone was in doubt about how good moorman runs then look no further as his horse, ty reiman (puffinmypurp/gimmeda1time), finished 2nd in the main event for a cheeky $1.7m with moorman getting half.... Celebrations followed for the next few days and I manged to stay out of hospital which was a bonus. The weather was pretty shitty really and inbetween hospital/drinking/poker only managed one afternoon on the water slides so that was a little disapoointing.

I managed to ship the Full tilt $1k monday yesterday for my biggest online score, :-). The tournament panned out really well for me with a lot of strong players busting 50th-18th leaving the final two tables pretty weak. I won a decent size flip with AQ vs TT and then bust mr menlo with AK > AQ to get a stack and then chipped up really easy when it was short handed before the final. The final was really smooth, I hardly got 3bet, all my light 3bets got through and both 4bets were met with swift folds so near enough coasted to Heads up. At the start of heads up it was pretty even and not a lot happened, I had a feeling that the first time I 3bet his button open he would 4 bet me and that is exactly what went down. I responded by 5bet jamming my J4 clubs and running into TT, J on the turn soon sorts that out though, lol. After that hand I had a commanding chip lead and we got all in again on a AK9 flop with me holding A2 and him AT, bit of a cold deck HU when he is short but nothing a 2 on the turn wouldn't solve bink!

I am playing the Aussie millions main event next week so hoping the online run good transitions to live.... After that I am going to be living in Melbourne for a couple of months, enjoying the weather and grinding online with moorman/geeforce/allinsteve. Btw if you haven't tried rushpoker on full tilt yet do it, great fun!