2015 Goals/Targets Update

2015 GoalsLets set some goals.I want my goals to be realistic but not too easy. I want to try and find the right amount of motivation to make me grind more and improve my lifestyle. 

Live MTT: Play 8 x £250-£1000 BI events.
Online MTT: Play more Satellites and small MTT to build on my online MTT game.
Live Cash Games: Play 1000 hours.
Study: Watch streams, talk with other players, read strategy and develop my game.
Travel: Visit 4 Countries.
Exercise: 2 hours a weak by running, swimming, biking, and weights. Any other sports welcome.
Social Life: Try to meet a non related poker friend once a week. 
Increase Blog Updates: Each year my content has dropped. 2014 x 3, 2013 x 2, 2012 x 3, 2011 x 29, 2010 x 34, 2009 x 31 and when i started on here in 2008 x 56 posts after lots of previous Myspace poker blog posts. Sure when i was an online pro i could chat dribble all day long with some occasional splashes of gold. You see the pattern that has emerged over the years. I have had so much to blog about the last 3 years but so little motivation to write. So i will pump myself up to write more, watch this space.
Lets have a great 2015 :)

Above was a post setting out some Goals/Targets for me to achieve this year. I'm doing really well this year and I've just had my biggest ever live month since transitioning from online at the end of 2011.

Live MTT: So far this year in backwards order I've played;
September: Sheffield £220 25/25 Series,
August: Barcelona 1100EUR Estrellas Main Event,
April: Nottingham £110 Mini UKIPT,
February: Nottingham Sky £110 Mini UKPC
As you can see I'm behind my 8 MTT target. I plan to play  Nottingham £500 WPT500, maybe Nottingham £2200 WPT Main Event and Prague 1100EUR Eureka Main Event in December to finish the year out. So this will leave me 1 or 2 events short as I'll only play WPT Main Event if i satellite in. I'm sure i could play a DTD Nottingham £300 Deepstack event to meet my target though.
Online MTT: I've not played anything since the UKIPT Main Event Satellites. I plan on playing a lot on Party Poker to acquire DTD Nottingham WPT Main, WPT500 and £300 Deepstack seats through the Satellites that will be running. Also for GUKPT and 25/25 Series Events, the satellites on Grosvenor Online are pretty soft.
Live Cash Games: I'm playing really well with only a few sessions this year that deviated away from my A game. I have a great mental ability to block out negative thoughts and i'm able to gather lots of energy to grind out longer hours. I'm 153 hours away from my target of 1000 hours for the year. This is 97 hours above my quota. My hourly rate is still above last years rate. I'm still doing great for a small sample size at£2/£5, 66 hours/14 sessions with only 2 losing sessions. One was -£80 the other -£800. I  played lots of 3/6EUR and some 5/10EUR sessions in Barcelona which was shorty lived as my biggest live stakes played. Upon my return in a £2/£5 game we had a mandatory £10 then £20 straddles which obviously played bigger than £5/£10 then bigger than £10/£20. This game was mental! We all ended up agreeing to play £5/£10 as it was way too big for most of us. Anyone could have gone broke in this game as the stack depth was not great. By the end of next year my roll will be big enough to play £10/£20, the only problem is in the UK i think it just goes straight to £25/£50. Plenty of time to get hours in at £5/£10. I've played well over 3000 hours now of live poker and just over 2000 of those hours are at £1/£2. I'm very hungry to play higher stakes and I'm always scouting out bigger games.
Study: I'm still studying lots about the game. I'm always thinking about spots now and it's becoming like 2nd nature which is great. I don't discuss that many spots with other players but recently I've opened up with a few others.
Travel: Barcelona was great! Lots of sunshine and poker. The trip was highly profitable. I was very upset with my table draw in the 1100EUR Estrellas Main Event, but believe i put in a notable performance before busting out in a flip spot for a 90BB pot JJ v AK aipf. My friend is going to Berlin for Octoberfest WSOPE Festival. It's tempting but I'm not sure if it would be a profitable trip so I'll probably miss it. I plan to travel to Prague in December for the Eureka/EPT Festival. My target was travel to 4 countries. This would only make it 2 so i'll need to improve my planning skills for next year.
Exercise: I've done lots of weights but my cardio has slipped a little since my return from Barcelona. My runs are scary quick now. I ran 12 days ago and felt really bad, tired, weak and unmotivated. Half way around the run i just wanted to stop, then i got over these feelings and carried the run out only 2 secouds from a PB. This makes me smile so much feeling like that, then almost a PB. I ran yesterday and felt strong and quick. There was a slight headwind but i managed to beat my PB by 6 seconds. Great end to the month for me. Really motivated.
Social Life: I went out drinking last Bank Holiday which was fun. I've started regularly seeing an old friend who doesn't live far from me. I try to drop in on her for a chat every week. We have been drinking a few times and have a few social events lined up for the future.
Increasing Blog Updates: Two in the space of the month, what more do you want Internet people :)

Until next time people. Good luck :)

ESTRELLAS/EPT 12 Barcelona Trip Report

August: Estrellas/EPT Barcelona
I flew out on the 19th and came back on the 28th. I managed to play 35.25 cash game hours at 3/6 EUR and 5/10 EUR games. I logged around 8 hours playing 5/10 EUR which was the highest I've played live before. The skill level difference was much higher as you can imagine.

Apartment Tour

August 20th: First Barcelona Cash Session

If you didn't get to the Casino before 11am you were toast as far as the waiting lists are concerned. I arrived at 11:20am on one of the days. I was 60th ish on the list for 3/6 EUR so i played 5/10 EUR for 4 hours before I was called up for 3/6 EUR. I was at the Casino before 10am every day after that!

August 21st: Estrellas 1,100 EUR Main Event Day 1C
On the way to play the Estrellas Main

I got a horrible table draw. I lost 80% of my chips to the same player. My bust out hand was JJ v AKo for 45BB (16,000 of my 25k starting stack). UTG opens 2.5BB, CO and BTTN peel. I 3B my SB to 10BB, UTG snap folds, CO tank folds and BTTN snap ships which was an easy call off for me. Best hand he shows here is Ts but his range is basically 8s-Js/AJs+AQo/AK. Really annoying to lose my chips to the same player who was really good, like he needed any help winning a flips! The Event made around 5 Million EUR which was crazy. I think is was around 556,000 for the winner, Great value for a 1100 for sure.

August 24th: Estrellas 2,200 EUR High Roller Final Day
My friend Kiat ran deep in the HR and bust out Panka BvB in the HR final day before the bubble. Unfortunately he bubbled too.

I did not get chance to do much other than play poker and sunbath. The Beach is 45 seconds walk from the Casino door. As the trip went on I got into a routine of playing from 9:30am-2/3pm and then chilling on the Beach for a few hours after.

Really good looking Asian girl playing 5/10 PLO. All table had maybe 2500 average. She had just over 7000 in that picture. Beautiful girls with poker skills. I don't find anything else more attractive :)

I found out who this girl was later and added her on Facebook. All these hours spent on Facebook make you a highly skilled stalker ;)

Great Seafood Bar on the Beach Front made for some tasty lunch times

Bad day at the tables. No problem, Beach and Beers :)

 Come on, I'm a guy! My job is to constantly check women out :)

Monste, one of my flatmates. Really nice lady. Miss you guys :)

After a few days I went a chilled at my friends Hotel Sky Pool/Bar area which was cool. Kiat bet me 50 EUR he could beat me 2 lenths(2 x 5metres) in the pool.

The race was uploaded onto Facebook by Danny, sorry guys :)

Guy gets upset when a young German pro tank value bet the river. Maybe 90 seconds thinking. He bet really thin on the river. This guy stated before i started to roll the camera, that he was going to tank every hand. This was his 2nd of tanking. I'm needling him so hard to play UTG when I'm BTTN :)

It was really fun being forced to live a normal life because of the wait list situation. This is only the case around festivals though. Normal Barcelona Casino/cash game action starts from either 4/5PM and ends at either 4/5AM when the Casino opens and shuts. I'm afraid Poker will always be a nocturnal lifestyle.

Overall a profitable trip even including  the 1,100 EUR Estrellas Main Event brick. This has been my 3rd year travelling to Barcelona now for this festival. I will make better plans next year. I got an apartment for 200 Euros but my flight cost £360. If I booked the flight around March it would have been almost £200 less. So I'm learning to plan better and try to save as much ££££ as possible. Travelling is not cheap if you don't plan well. Next year I will go out for the whole festival and either a few days before and after or for some time before or after the festival ends to ensure I actually get a break to relax and enjoy some tourist stuff.

Adios :)

Few Pictures & Mid-Year Goal Update

UKIPT Mini £200k gtd

Friday 10th April

Guys huge stack in Tricketts room. £2/£5 game.

Always in the casino waiting for action :)

Buy In £££

Lets go to war :)

Table snacks

Bad Idea this one. Super messy. Finger food a big 'no no' whilst playing.

Nice smooth ride :)

£2/£5 going well :)

Cash that £££

Live MTT: I played the UKIPT Mini £200k gtd event April 10th. This was the last event I played, other than a live casino competition last month when cash games were not running. This was a £35 event. I came 3rd or 4th for £280 out of 80ish players. In the UKIPT Mini I got a really bad table draw. I'm not going to make excuses though as I should have adjusted better to the table. I think because of this my standard of play was poor. Probably my B game. I had planned to play Leeds 25/25 Series, which I got told by friends was really good. I missed this event because I chose to play a £2/£5 cash game in Tricketts room at DTD. The game was invite only and too good to miss. It was the same night as the Mayweather v Pacquiao fight. I'm 2 events behind my target. It's going to be really hard for me to play 6 more events now. I'm not going to give up though, just need to plan better.

Online MTT: I played a few UKIPT satellites and brought into one mega satellite directly. So I ended up taking £330(3 mega satellites)worth of shots at a £1100 seat seat which cost me something like £140, so despite not going far enough to win a seat I still saved money by satelliting. Yesterday I downloaded Grosvenor Poker to take advantage of the weak player pool satelliting for the £550 GUKPT's and the £225 25/25 Series. There is at least one weekly £550 GUKPT freezeout satellite which is £55. This week it got 32 runners when I last looked at it. It could have ended with more. So that's 3 seats a week for grabs assuming those are the average numbers. I've only played HUSNGS and other short handed MTTs online. Very little volume. I will fire some money into Grosvenor Poker and try to play a £550 GUKPT event before the years done. This should help me cover my Live MTT target.

Live Cash Games: I'm doing very well so far. I'm game selecting like a boss and playing really well. I've been so focused on high value lines and what's the most +EV decision against each player at any given point in the hand based upon what my perceived range is to them and what they think their perceived range is to me. I'm 43 hours over target at the half way point and my hourly rate is almost £1.50p greater than last year. That sounds small but if you compare an online win rate (BB/100) to a live win rate, you would need to multiply it by 3.333 as you only get 30 hands an hour live on average. So that £1.50p is 0.75BB in a £1/£2 cash game, multiply this by 3.333 and my win rate has increased by 2.5BB/100. Or £1500 a year extra. I've also played 8 or 9 sessions of £2/£5 this year. All of these were winning sessions. My hourly rate in these sessions alone is something ridiculous like £87 p/h(if only this were sustainable). I am hungry for bigger games now and am thinking about taking some one off shots at £5/£10. My roll now enables me to comfortably play £2/£5.

Study: I've studied a fair bit and I'm starting to add a lot more Game Theory into my game. I love thinking about spots were my SD is not good enough to call but based on how the hand might play out, some spots I can use my image and turn my hand into a bluff by balancing my river value raises with some river bluffs. I find this really interesting. Say we raise 10 rivers well not all of them have to be winners. As long as we don't have too many bluffs in our range the villain can never call us correctly.

Travel: Yikes, it's Barcelona next month and I've not booked a thing! Better get my skates on!

Exercise: I've just been for a run this evening. I did weights yesterday too. Even got in an hour Tennis session with a friend last month. My times are getting very quick each time I run. I always want to run that bit quicker each time. I'm sure I feel more energized whilst I'm training.

Social Life: The Mayweather v Pacquiao fight was on late one morning and I drove from DTD to a friends house early morning to watch it with a few of the lads. That hurt as I left a £2/£5 game in Tricketts room DTD with over £20,000 on the table. I was playing well but only up a measly £280. I've been for a few dinners with friends which has been nice and I've had a few family get together's but nothing else. I still need to maximize my downtime and fill it up with more social activities.

Increasing Blog Updates: What can I say, I suck! I think all my extra motivation to train, study and play more hours has made me less motivated to blog. This was a small update but it's taken some doing believe me!



My Friends £400 Balloon Kenya Fund
Laura/L.J works as a Valet at one of the casinos in Sheffield. I've got to know her whilst playing poker there. Currently she's trying to raise funds to help her on an adventure she recently decided to undertake. You can read all about that here: https://lauraballoonkenya.wordpress.com/
L.J has received £230 of donations so far and she's closing in on her £400 target. Just £170 away. If you want to boost your karma you could make a donation of any size you wish starting from £1 here:
http://www.gofundme.com/lauraballoonkenya



OK, I'm done for now. I'll leave you with a bonus picture.

I was traveling home after a late night/early morning finish around 7am and saw this beast on the streets of Sheffield UK.