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