Post WSOP, Olympics and whats coming up..

Not a lot has been going on since getting back from Vegas really. My poker playing has been pretty sparse post WSOP and that is almost completely the fault of the Olympics. I have been literally glued to my sofa utilising my TV/ipad/laptop to watch as many of the events as possible. The games in general have been great but this past weekend was absolutely incredible with special mentions to the performances of Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah, simply amazing!

As I’m sure everyone is aware the heavily rumoured Pokerstars takeover of Full tilt became official last week and was a historic and incredible day for online poker players worldwide. I won’t go on too much as the story has been dominating the poker media and rightly so. On a personal note I’m very relieved that we will be getting paid back as I had a decent lump of money tied up on there that I had written off a while back so that will be a welcome bonus later this year. In general this deal great for poker, restoring faith and rebuilding the image of online poker as well as releasing $180m into the online poker economy that can only be good for the games in general. Pokerstars are also planning to re-launch the FTP platform so once again after winning a big pot I can make my panda avatar smile :-)

I am planning to go the V festival on the 18/19^th August and I am very excited about this. I have never been to any kind of music festival and the group of friends I am going with went last year and had a blast so this should be great, will try and get a bunch of photos etc… to put up on the blog. Not really got a lot planned in the way of live poker, got to miss EPT Barcelona as it clashes with the V festival but will be hoping to attend San Remo later in the year. I am also interested in the Asia Championship of Poker that will be held in Macau in November. I have played the APPT event in Macau a few times and always thought it was an amazing value tournament despite the long way to travel. This festival looks really good though with a variety of events culminating in a $13kUSD buy in main event so could well justify the journey, will decide nearer the time and if I can persuade some other people to make the trek.

As I said because of the distraction of the Olympics I won’t be playing that much poker but I still can’t help but play on Sundays due to the size of the prizepools. I played the last 2 Sundays without any great success and will likely stick to Sundays only until the WCOOP starts in September. I am now a proud member of the Feltstars pro team and their Sunday line up of tournaments is decent and is well worth checking out. I am playing there as much as possible under the screename pFoltyn and you will find me in these tournaments every Sunday

$109 buy in - $125k guaranteed

$215 buy in - $70k guaranteed

$60 buy in - $40k guaranteed

$500 buy in $85k guaranteed

These are obviously the higher buy in tournaments but there are a wide variety available at all buy in levels so download here and check out Feltstars

http://record.feltstars.eu/_vSAboovQr6nUOsjNOfgKeWNd7ZgqdRLk/1

use bonus code PF150 for a deposit bonus of 150% up to $750

I can help people getting money on/off the site if you are having problems, contact me on twitter/facebook

That’s about all for now; I will be trying my best to keep the blog updated regular, but for now I have some athletics to watch :-)

Pab

Feltstars deal, SCOOP and WSOP 2012

At the end of my last blog post I announced that I had signed a deal with bet24 and was genuinely excited about this opportunity, but unfortunately, about 6 weeks after that they were bought out by Unibet that decided to curtail the whole idea of having a pro team thus leaving me without a sponsor.

Luckily for me I was presented with another opportunity to become part of the pro team with Feltstars, an emerging site on the merge network. I was initially apprehensive given the fact they are still servicing US customers but after lengthy discussions with the owners of the site, they assured me that all player funds are kept segregated from operational funds so players money would not be in jeopardy at any point.

There is a wide range of tournaments, cash games and SnG’s running 24/7 and from my limited experience so far have found the games to be pretty profitable :-) The Sunday tournaments are especially juicy with a $125k guaranteed comp for a mere $109. I will be playing there a lot under the screename pFoltyn , and am very excited about the project and the excellent team of pros they have managed to assemble.

In order to sign up through me for a feltstars account please click one of the banners on my blog or the following link –

http://record.feltstars.eu/_vSAboovQr6mVAv0U_Fv2nWNd7ZgqdRLk/1

Once signed up if you use the code PF150 on your initial deposit you can receive a 150% bonus up to $750 as an added bonus that works in conjunction with the VIP program

OK so back to what’s been going on with me actually on the felt. SOOP was pretty meh overall, had a few close calls, the main one being a 10^th place in the $1k rebuys turbo for $18k when it was $237k ftw, puke. One of my favourite people in poker did win huge though, Sammy Grafton who chopped one of the $2k events for a cheeky $200k+ score. Check out this interview he did at this year’s WSOP :-)

Moving onto the WSOP I had bad memories of 2011 going into it this year as I didn’t cash a single tournament the previous one so was looking to get that monkey off my back early doors then kick on for a big series. The first part went to plan with a $4k cash in my very first event of the summer, one of the huge field $1500’s. This would unfortunately be the story of my summer, continually min cashing which resulted in another losing series overall but a fair amount of damage limitation compared to 2011. My baron run in the main event also continued, extending my record to 0/7 in the softest live tournament ever :-(. The much talked about British rails at the wsop were few and far between this year but one of my friends Craig McCorkell managed to harness the energy from the sometimes over-exuberant crowd in the $3k shootout and close the deal for a much deserved bracelet and heavy bean:

Perennial UK hero Chris Brammer came very close to a bracelet as well, making a stellar run in arguably one of the toughest tournaments of the series the $10k 6 max but just fell short coming in 5^th place for a not too shabby $200k.

Once the main event was done for another year, most people living in our house were pretty downbeat so we went a morale boosting trip to six-flags magic mountain and San Diego. If you are ever In the California area I could not recommend a better theme park than Magic Mountain, the place is just absurd with the largest collection of adrenaline rides in one place I’ve ever seen. San Diego is such a nice change of pace after 7 weeks in Vegas, relaxing on the beach and drinking in regular bars without having to tip some clown with an earpiece just to get a seat. As far as next year’s WSOP goes I’m unlikely to go for the full series as it’s just too taxing, mentally and financially and given my lack of success in recent years it’s time to approach it in a different way I think.

That’s about everything caught up on for the time being, will be taking a break from live poker for a while, mainly grinding online. After hearing about how bleak the British summer has been the sun has been shining pretty much non-stop since I got home so will be also looking to make the most of that and play as much golf as possible!

Canada in February

FML, I had written up a lengthy blog post before the weekend about my trip to Canada in February, but try to find the file now to add the finishing touches and post and it appears to have vanished into thin air. I am going to do a much shorter round up of the trip as if i don't do it ill just get way too far behind again with so much happening in the coming months and my blog will once again remain dormant for 6 months +

So here goes, me and Dave Jones flew to niagra to meet up with Nicky Evans and Tom Middleton to play the fallsview series of poker tournaments, )$1k, $2.5k and $5k. On a personal note the three tournaments for me were a washout with one semi deep run in the $5k before getting coolered late on day 1, blah

The story of the trip was how my friends absolutely bashed it up and for me the next best thing to winning is seeing my friends do well so in that respect it was a resounding success!! Dave Jones got the ball rolling with a 3rd place finish the in the $1k for $40k and was unlucky the tournament was designed with a joke top heavy payout structure for PR purposes that he didn't get more ( 2nd was $75k and 1st was $150k)

Next up in the $2.5k, Nicky Evans finally got what he deserved after lots of near misses in the past by chopping this comp but going on to get the official win for mad bean, oioi

On to the main event and one of my good friends Tom 'hithtehole' Middleton was quick to steal some of nicks limelight by chopping the $5k but once again going on to get the official win!


Drinking heavily also became a reoccurring theme of this trip and that continued as me, nick and Dave travelled to where he is living currently in moncton via Toronto and Montreal stopping 1 night in each. I went to watch my first ever ice hockey game in Montreal and thought the atmosphere was pretty sick and despite not fully understanding the rules, really enjoyed the experience..



In order to get to Montreal to moncton we had a 45 min flight, or in our case since nick is a little girl a 15 hour train dfghjdfghjkgh. In all fairness it wasn't that bad as we shelled out for sleeper cabins that were quite cool and did sleep a lot of the way due to been exhausted from 10 days of drinking/celebrating!

We stayed with nick and his fiance Barbara for around 10 days or so and they were fabulous hosts. We mainly grinded online as the weather there was pretty restrictive, deep snow and -15 degrees, I ain't built for that shit! Online in general has gone pretty well for me with no real massive scores but consistently winning to keep my stress levels at a minimum.

Since returning home I am very happy to announce that I signed a sponsorship deal with bet24 which is a skin on the ongame network and I will be found playing there under the alias of B24Foltyn. I will be representing them online and in live tournaments around the world, the next of which is the huge UKIPT Nottingham starting on Wednesday with a sick £1m guarantee!!

Right, I'm gonna leave it there for now, will have another blog coming up soon about my trip to the Irish open which was so much fun as well as report on the UKIPT. Lots of stuff to look forward too soon with the SCOOP starting in may and then 5 days after that finished I'm heading to Vegas for the WSOP! thanks for reading

Pab

Charity, TCOOP and Travelling

I grinded for 10 days straight over the TCOOP period and it really didn't go as planned. I didn't run deep in any of the TCOOP events but that could be expected as they were huge fields for the most part. It did boost all the prizepools in all the other daily mtts I was playing but couldn't muster any significant score with my biggest cash being for $6kish and only booking 1 victory :-(

That being said I did make 14 final tables and converted one of those into a small victory so the total I'm donating to charity is $700 for the 14 finals and $701 for 5% of my 1st place = $1401 (£886) I have decided to split this as £386 to sponsor Chris hall for his tough mudder challenge and the other £500 to the Cancer research UK

http://www.justgiving.com/ChrisKPHall
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/

Been grinding hard online all of January so decided for a change of scenery in February. I'm flying to Toronto early Tuesday morning with my friend Dave Jones to meet up with one of our mates who now lives in Canada, Nicky Evans. We plan to travel to Niagara falls in order to play a couple of live tournaments ($2.5k and $5k) and then travel back across Canada stopping at Toronto and Montreal. We have tickets for a Ice hockey game and a basketball game and despite not knowing very much about these sports I have been assured it will be good fun :-)

After that we are going to crash at nicks place in moncton (lol) for a while and possibly try my hand at skiing/snowboarding before heading back home towards the end of the month. I'm still gonna try and play online mtts on the bigger days, Sunday/Tuesday, but really looking forward to break from the monotony of the online grind for a while. Will try and blog a couple of times while I'm on the road with com stories/photos of the trip,

Pab

Charity Update

Grinding most of my waking hours at the moment so don't really have time to do a detailed post, will do that once TCOOP is over. I have made 10 final tables since Friday but only managed to close out 1 win and that was in a relatively small tournament for $4021.

so, 10 finals = $500 + (5% of $4021) is $701 to be donated so far. I'm exactly halfway through the allocated time period atm so hoping to push that total past the $2k mark come the end of this Sunday!

Pab

Blog Revival (part deux)

After a failed attempt at bringing my blog back to life last year I am going to give it another try after been inspired whilst reading probably the best poker blog out there, lil daves. If you have never read it, find the link in my blog list and enjoy :-)

2011 was a pretty mixed year for me overall, online went well and I won a SCOOP for $188k which was my biggest score online by some margin. On the flip side live poker went terrible and I bricked the whole WSOP as well as 6 bet/folding on TV deep in EPT London main event, sigh. The whole full tilt saga has left me about $50k out of pocket as well if that never comes back. Sill a good year overall tho so cant complain too much.

Not really got any goals as such for the year ahead but I'm trying to make a real effort to grind more. many of my peers put me to shame with their work ethic so its time to put that right! If I have a few decent results I become super lazy and just stop grinding for weeks at a time and do nothing constructive whatsoever, usually a mixture of going out drinking and playing COD online :-)

Grinded quite hard in January so far and looking to put in some more sustained volume over the next 10 days as its the inaugural TCOOP (Turbo championship of online poker) on stars. Even though some of the buy ins are a little smaller than I anticipated, one of the main benefits of a festival like this is a spike in traffic throughout the rest of the daily schedule producing bumper prize pools all over the place, oioi

I have done this in the past and always made me feel good about myself so will be donating money to charity based on my results over the TCOOP period (friday 20th - sunday 29th inclusive) I will donate $50 for every final table I make as well as 5% of any tournament I mange to close out and win.

I am going to use some of the money to sponsor my friend Chris Hall who seems to have lost his mind and is doing the Tough mudder challenge later this year. Chris is raising money for the national eczema society, if you like to sponsor him find all the info here : http://www.justgiving.com/chriskphall

I am going to donate to breast cancer care and maybe some other charities depending on what total I end up with, just hit 9 tables and counting so gonna end this post and concentrate on clicking buttons!

Pab

Blog revival......

Soooooooo

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 19^th (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 18^th in the $100r 6m, 26^th in the $200FL rush event and 16^th in the $200 HA event. The $100r was by far the toughest to take as 1^st 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 6^th 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...