My blog fell off the radar again as it often does when I don’t play any poker for a prolonged time period. I stopped playing just before Christmas and didn’t start playing again until the last week in January. Since I started playing for a living I have been to PCA and/or Aussie millions every January but 2011 would break that trend. I tried a couple of sats for the PCA to no avail but wasn’t really that bothered really. I didn’t fancy the long journey to Australia just for the Aussie millions since in previous years I had always spent some time in aus before or after the event making the trip worthwhile. Instead a few friends of mine had rented a house in Thailand on the island of koh samui for the best part of 2 months so decided to head over there for a couple of weeks and put poker to the back of my mind.
The trip to Thailand turned out to be a really good idea as I was able to relax completely and just enjoy myself for 2 weeks with good friends. The house was situated in chaweng beach on koh samui which is a really popular spot for backpackers. It was a really cool place and going out was great but the only downside was the weather as due to some freak anomaly in south east Asia, all the weather patterns were messed up and it was overcast most days but was still hot making it 10x better than UK weather in January…. The main reason I only stayed for 2 weeks instead of 6-7 weeks like the rest of my friends was the shitty timezone for grinding mtts and the start of February would see the 19th (fml) instalment of full tilts FTOPS series.
So after catching up with family/friends at home it was time to start the 2 week FTOPS grind, which in the past hasn’t been too kind to me but it’s got to turn sometime right…. Well unfortunately this FTOPS was not to be my series either so my full tilt avatar will not be sporting a gold jersey anytime soon. I had 3 deep runs, finishing 18th in the $100r 6m, 26th in the $200FL rush event and 16th in the $200 HA event. The $100r was by far the toughest to take as 1st place paid almost $300k and I’ve had several close calls in past FTOPS series but have yet to close a mammoth score. I was doing ok overall though putting up some decent results and came close to a big score again this past Sunday when I finished 6th in the big stars $100r for $19k losing AQ vs AJ when it was over $80k ftw, blah! Even though I bemoan my luck in FTOPS, the fields are massive so being a realist it’s no great surprise I’ve not had a big result there but will be trying again next time :-)
I’ve tried to play one session online this week since FTOPS ended but unregged pretty quickly as I had no motivation at all and still felt burnt out from the previous fortnights exploits. On Tuesday I went to the Leeds/Barnsley game at eland road and thoroughly enjoyed it despite us drawing 3-3 in a game I expected us to win. It was the first game I’ve been too in quite a while, one of the downsides of playing poker for a living and constantly travelling around. I’m also going to Leeds/Doncaster game in little over one weeks time for one of my friends birthday so hoping for a better result.
Plan on taking it easy for the next couple of weeks as far as poker goes, playing online but a much reduced schedule. Then all being well I’ll be heading to London to play the GUKPT closely followed by a trip to Vienna to play EPT snowfest and maybe try my hand at skiing…. Early April is EPT berlin then I’m going to Canada to stay with a friend of mine and we have tickets for the UFC there :-) Going to Vegas at the start of may this year for the WSOP in order to grind the pokerstars SCOOP festival there in a much more accommodating timezone. Will add a couple of photos which sum up the trip to Thailand...
