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 :)

2015 Goals & January Update

January
January was really bad, but a good Saturday session to end the month and i broke even. I think I played really well all month through a downswing but then it started to get to me a little and i took more high variance lines than normal towards the end of the month. I think without this deviation from my A-Game i would have made a small profit. I'm happy to break even during a downswing but the goal is to always minimize what i lose in a downswing. Minimize losses, maximize wins.

2015 Goals
Lets 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 :)

Another long overdue update,where do I start?

August
Overall a pretty disgusting month!
I traveled out to Barcelona to take a holiday with my now ex-girlfriend.

We had visited last year and I wanted to go again around the time of the EPT. The plan was to bink a satellite for the main. Well I burnt a lot of £££ trying, so I gave up. I remember a £320 hyper sat I played, which was filled with online sickos and such as Tom Middleton, Toby Lewis and basically 17 other players who were beasts….then there was me :(  I ended up getting it in with 67s v 2s BB v BTTN for 14BB or something.

I ended up playing the side games in Barcelona, the action was sick! The wait-lists were like nothing I've ever seen before. I mean, I've played online years ago where the biggest loser on PartyPoker sits and the wait-lists go from 3 to 20-30 pretty quick at a 6m table. Well the lists at Barcelona blew my mind! We are talking 170-200+ and then I didn't bother checking after that so who knows what the max number was? I got 116th for 3/6 so felt lucky. I lost chunks, didn't play my best. I cannot blame anyone but myself. Me and my ex had fallen out the day I first played. I think that I had distanced myself from this and I’m sure that this didn't have any impact on my thought process whilst at the tables. I just made 3 really big mistakes in big pots and got toasted for it.

After I got back me and my ex both agreed it was time to part ways. I really respect her and I think that she really respects me. We have some nice memories and I’m sure it’s going to be really hard to meet a woman of her substance. I’ve dated some really good looking girls (don’t ask me how?), but this girl has been a cut above the rest. So why did we decide to end it? Maybe it was down to me not wanting to turn my hand face up(commit, go all in). I’m 34 now so I suppose marriage and children will soon be calling for me. I always thought I would be married off by 35 and be happy. I think I could have been happy with this one but there was something just not quite right for me. Also I think she felt the same, I’m just not quite right for her. We remain in touch and there are no bitter feelings, so I know we will both still be friends.

I ended the month on a positive note, I got unstuck and actually made a small profit.

September/October
I've had some huge days, which have turned into huge months since August has past. I have been running well and playing well. I remember a £1/£2 session last month where I joined against 5 Chinese. I got As 5 times in the space of 2.5 hours. It was the hottest session I've ever had. I got As back to back. Then another 3 times during this period of time. I got paid the full amount of my stack each time I had it apart from the 1st time where I got a guy to bluff the river on A8768r board and he was pissed after I bet half pot flop then he cib the turn and I c/r river.

Also I had allot of success in the PokerStars HU 25c/50c Zoom pool. I was crushing the pool, up over $2k until I ran like dirt at tilted a shit ton of money back into the pool. When you 1 table zoom your getting around 220 hands per hour, times this by 4(max tables allowed) and when your running bad and the results can be disastrous, utterly mind blowing! It's like a new kind of tilt you have never experienced before, 'Zoom Tilt'. I ended around £300 up and cashed out. This game was destroying my life, I was become addicted to action again. It was really tilting I've not played Zoom now for 3 weeks, I've had thoughts about it but I'm far too tired to compete in this pool. My mind is not in the right place for HU regulars and the negative impacts of the HU Zoom players life. I will post some hands in a later blog post. This blog is already turning into a monster today.

Pretty fun few months for sure :)

November
My run good has turned into a run bad. I’m maintaining my A game whilst getting unlucky, with a few blips here and there.

Had to buy a new TV as my old one died. I had been trying not to play throughout the week and was watching a show on Wednesday when it died.

Luckily I know of a spot where there would be a some decent action. I played at 2 places and won almost £500. I spent £350 the next day and a brand new TV.

WPT Nottingham.

First time ever the WPT has been held at Dusk Till Dawn.

I liked the thought of winning £140k for a £500 tournament, but 2100+ runners is just a lottery! Like most big fields I guess. Not a fan of variance so I've stuck to the cash side games so far, which have been pretty sick to say the least. Imagine Zinga Poker Live :) Yep, WPT500 was not for me. Lad I know won the 2nd chance WPT500  lastnight/this morning, so that's pretty sick for him. Congrats Alex.

Might look at binking a satellite into the £3k ME if I get some motivation from somewhere. Been pretty tired recently.

I'm not that big on big upping all the big names and glad handing and what not, but I ran into Dave Ulliott AKA the Devilfish on Saturday. Turns out one of my fellow live grinders used to live in Hull. Him and Dave used to play a ton at £1/£2 NLHE together whilst Dave was waiting for big Omaha games to start up. We were checking out an after party and bumped into him. He was smashed as usual, but seemed an decent guy. Some really good women around which was nice off the table but really distracting on the table. One thing i love/hate about DTD! They even have some nice pool tables and a chill out area for players to come and vent on breaks or after busting. Pretty nice.

What next?

I really want to use the next 6 months to travel. My ideas so far have been vast. Just to give you a taste;

Mexico, Columbia, Bolivia, Peru, Venice, Budapest and Macau are on my 'I'd like to travel here list'

I have been learning Spanish in preparation for any South American adventure i may undertake.

I'm still working on a zero hours contract, some months I had worked 30-40 hours a week but others hardly any hours per month. Really sucks because I really enjoy my job and would much prefer a normal life. I guess I am stuck in this poker life for some time to come. I can't complain, pretty good skills to fall back onto I guess.

I have been known as PartyScout for over 8 years now. The name came from a screen-name change under my PartyPoker account, previous to 25/10/06. I know this because I joined 2+2. Wish I'd trademarked my name, seems now even Microsoft want a piece of me for free. Last i heard they had developed a piece of software late November last year that places Xbox players into similar ability player pools. I'm going to look into this blog and any rights I have under my alias. Too many parties try to freeroll content off the internet, the same way they would try to use my posts and blog contents to drive traffic to their sites if they could!

I've met many people whilst playing poker and met a really nice freelance dealer in August last year. We have kept in touch as friends since. I bump into her maybe 3-4 times a year (would be more if I could be bothered to embrace tournament variance). We ended up having a few drinks last night at her hotel. Later we were drinking with all her fellow colleagues too. It was as a nice change of pace for me, considering it was the weekend when I'm always playing poker. I need to make more time for social life and people who I care about. Pretty funny evening. Veronkikka's not just a beautiful lady. Her speaking English with a Lithuanian accent and playfully joking around was really funny. Some of her stories and friends stories were pretty funny anyway, but with the accent i was in stitches :)

It's late here so I better end this blog, pretty tired after a crazy weekend too.

Take care

Mat 

AKA/PartyScout