Day: 0/61. Profit: $0

It all kicks off in a few minutes then...

Here are my first-day plans:

Saturday 1st August

1. Sleep for a number of hours.

2. Get up bright and early (midday at the earliest) for a trip to the gym.

3. Sleep for four or five hours.

4. Win the Supernova freeroll, cashout $10,000 of the prize money and book a two month long holiday to PORTUGAL without my Dad.

5. Sleep.

I'll let you know how it pans out.

Ps. Hannes, I'll happily teach you O8. My lessons are free of charge due to the fact that I may or may not know what I'm talking about.

PPs. Stodgy, I'll answer your questions soon, mate.

A $4 Bathmat, $200s worth of Prop Bets and an impossible $10,000 Penthouse Challenge

Yesssssss, another blog post title without a swear word in it! FUCK ME, I'M CLASSY. Well, that’s what I’m posting to talk about, so I guess I’ll just tick them off in order.

Mitchell Street Masters, which was held this year at Dickie’s house in Norwich, turned out to be well worth the trip. I lost a bit of dosh in the two events I played, and made some dosh at cash, but the big winner of the weekend was the banter. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much as I did this weekend (especially at Sunday’s cash game). I had a fucking great time, cheers Dickie.

To explain the 'Bathmat' bit in my title, my pokering highlight from the weekend was the £2.99 bathmat I sh1pped for winning a pot with J2. It doesn’t matter that I risked £10 worth of chips to win it, it’s mine now, the nutter folded.

A couple of prop bets with Keysie:

1. Nothing fucks up my health on a day-to-day basis more than alcohol. So, when Keys expressed his wish to quit drinking for a while, it was always going to be prop-bet time. It’s a $100 bet that we can go without booze until the start of October. First one to crack ships the other $100. I fancy my chances of getting through this one and really hope I can.

2. Nothing fucks up my health on a day-to-day basis more than lack of exercise. So, when Keys expressed his wish to exercise more often, we both snapped up another prop bet. We must go to the gym at least three days a week for at least an hour a time until the start of October. Keys will be getting a personal trainer so he’s offered me 2:1 on the bet - $200:$100. Again, first to break the rules ships to the other. Seriously don’t fancy my chances here. WP Keys.

The Penthouse Challenge is certain to be my toughest and most time consuming challenge to date. It came from an alcoholly conversation I had with my mate Ben who was trying to convince me to move into the same block of apartments as him.

Ever since I spent a week on my own in Evesham earlier this month, all I’ve talked about is moving out of my shared house in Bearwood and into a place of my own. The house I’m at in Bearwood is filling up rapidly with only one of the seven bedrooms now unoccupied so this place is now far too crowded for my liking. Having never had a place of my own, that’s what I want to do next.

The only ‘must’ for my new home is for it to have a nice outside bit, either a garden or a massive balcony. We quickly decided that the only suitable apartments in his block are the penthouses on the top floor which have a big outside bit to waltz about in. Unfortunately, at £1150 pm, this 20hr a week 10c/25c grinder simply cannot afford it.

Not playing less than 20 hours a week anyway…

Earlier that day, I had been looking back over my year playing O8 and my lack of volume depressed me a bit. I had made notes at the start of the year, writing down how much I could make if I played 100k hands a month, or 125k hands per month running at so many ptbbs/100. Some of the regs I know find the time to play 100k a month so I was horrified when I looked back through my poker tracker to see that I haven’t managed to play a single 50k hand month yet this year.

Between April 1st and May 11th I played less than 7k hands, ffs!

I’ve managed to play over 40k hands in each of May, June and July, playing a lot better and feeling much happier than at any time in the year. But, the truth is, 40k hands a month is less than 20hrs a week. I can hardly claim to be working my bollocks off at the moment. And, obviously, my laziness is costing me a lot money.

So, with plans of a serious grind in mind, I decided to finish the conversation with:

“But if I make $5k in both of the next two months, I’ll live in one of those penthouses for six months.”

And the fucker’s holding me to it.

If I stick to playing 10c/25c for the next two months, this is going to take a hell of a lot of hard work. In fact, barring another result in a freeroll, it may be impossible, but I’m giving myself the option of moving up if I feel like it.

This could be my most embarrassing challenge failure of all time but, to summarise my plans:

If I make $10,000 profit by the end of September, I’ll piss it all up the wall living in a ridiculously expensive penthouse.

And everyone’s welcome to the massive pissup I’ll be holding on October 1st!

I hope to be blogging regularly over the next two months,

Sorted.

I’ve found my spiritual home - Evesham

Okay, so I’ve got no idea what that means. And even if it does mean something like what I think it means it certainly isn’t true. I just thought it would make a change to have a nice title for one of my blog posts. Some of my past efforts, including ‘CUNT’, ‘Fuck me, I run like a cunt’, and ‘Tanni Grey-Thompson’, are just ugly, ugly, and ugly.

Not that I’m saying that I think Dame Tanni is ugly, you understand.

In fact, I’m sure I remember watching the Olympics or a marathon one time, when I was much younger, and feeling a little attracted to a young Tanni. Erm, actually, thinking about it, I was probably a bit too young to have fancied her but I definitely felt something.

Pity? Perhaps.

Or maybe I was just gagging for a go on her ‘little bicycle thing’. But, either way, I was far from repulsed by Tanni Grey-Thompson back in her hayday and, as far as female athletes go, if she could stand, she would definitely have been up there with them. Literally.

What the fuck am I on about? This is not what this post is supposed to be about at all. But, while I’m on the subject, I might as well tell you that, back in my marathon-watching days, I was also partial to a bit of Paula Radcliffe (only OBE btw?). When I was that age, the London marathon was just a 7hr porno as far as I was concerned. Ahh, to be eight again…

Zwei words for you Joanne Pavey, nein danke.

FML, who am I kidding? I love you Jo. And your socks.

After deciding that factor 50 sun block was, let’s say, a little too safe for my tanning needs, I made the trek into Evesham town centre in search of something less sensible. The only thing steeper than the price of the bus fares into town here, I’ve discovered, are the hills the bus has to climb to get there. So you get what you pay for, I suppose, fuck walking it.

£3.90 though? Come on, really?

I got into Evesham and the first thing I noticed was that the place was full of birds. Women, I mean, town was swarming with them… Brilliant.

And butterflies as well (actual butterflies), there were millions of them.

Yep.

I’d say that they were pretty much my only two noteworthy observations of Evesham town centre but, quite frankly, what more do you need to know? Nice women AND butterflies. In the Midlands. Who knew?

I snapped up some factor 25 on ‘buy one, get one free’ in boots, window-shopped an iphone and got the bus back home through the mountains. I added the newly acquired sun block to the already unnecessarily large collection I’d started two days earlier on the kitchen side and sat and waited for it to stop raining!

And waited. And waited. And waited.

Today is the last day of my little ‘holiday’ in the country and I’d say there’s been an average of one hour of sun a day. At an average time of 7.30pm on the night. All four bottles of sun block have remained untouched and I haven’t bothered to sit out in the garden at all. My skin is still as white as the snow that rests on the garden this morning. (Okay, okay, I’ve exaggerated there…it’s just frost.) Seriously, though, I’ve been so unlucky with the weather and it’s been by far the second most depressing thing about this ‘holiday’.

The most depressing thing about the ‘holiday’ (which, despite how I come across, I’ve really enjoyed by the way) was the book I decided to read on Friday while I sat and waited for the sun to come out. My dad and his lovely partner have an impressive collection of books here in the house and I had a lot of greats to choose from. There’s some Conan-Doyle up there, a bit of Tolkien. There’s even some Dickens I could have opted for. But what does this bright spark decide would make a suitable Friday afternoon holiday read?

The Diary of Anne Frank.

Great choice, son. I was pretty much in tears from about page four onwards. It really affected me. I read it all in one sitting and I was still not feeling myself come Saturday afternoon. It reminded me of watching Titanic years ago. Except Titanic wasn’t a book. And is completely different, but you know what I mean. Relentlessly fucking depressing.

Luckily, I found ‘How to lose a guy in 10 days’ on DVD late Saturday afternoon and I laughed my bollocks off watching that so I’m back to normal again now. But it was touch and go as to whether I would ever smile, or even enjoy anything, ever again for a while.

If you know someone that’s going on holiday any time soon and fancy playing a little practical joke on them to completely ruin their fun, buy them a copy of Annie F for the plane. IT WILL FUCK THEM UP. But you’ll probably all laugh about it in years to come.

It’s looking more and more like I’ve really got nothing to say in this post actually, this is just blogging for the sake of blogging so I’ll bring this weirdness to an end. But I might as well take the chance to wish Keysie good luck on day 5 and beyond in the main event in Vegas. He in the money and still has a stack to do some damage with.

So run good, mate.

Grass and fields and that.

“Is factor 50 sun block good or bad?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the highest they do, mate, you’re not getting tanned with that shit.”

Well, I wish some fucker had told me this before I went out and bought two litres of the stuff. I’m going to end the day whiter than I started it walking around wearing this greasy layer of concrete all day.

So, I’m in the lovely Midland countryside this week, looking after my Dad’s house in Evesham while he’s away. Okay, it’s no Portugal, but I’m looking forward to having a nice house to myself for a week or so. And, provided the sun stays out (and I buy some sensibly factored sun block), the spaciousish (try saying that word out loud) garden should provide the perfect place for me to top up my tan. (Though by ‘top up my tan’ this reclusive grinder, of course, means ‘start a tan from scratch’).

This week has turned out to be great timing for me to get away because I’ve put myself in the nice position of not feeling under any pressure to play cards. A few of you know already that I had a nice run in the weekly Supernova $75k freeroll on Saturday night, scoring my biggest ever tournament win of $5,437.50 for a 4th place finish.

I was an ‘orrendous nit literally all the way through the tourn because that’s the only way I know how to play hold em nowadays but it did the trick. I was lucky enough to get it in good AND HOLD in almost all of my all ins.

It was an outdraw that got me going:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4437421

But after that, I'm no expert, but it seemed like a fairly standard run to the final table:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4437433
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4437475
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4437517
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4437551
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4437625

where everyone was guaranteed $1k.

This massive hold early on at the ft:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4437756

sent me on my way to four handed second in chips. But then this flop, sadly, spelt the end of my tournament:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4437857

Obv.

I’ve played four of those tournaments since I was gifted Supernova status, and had two top 40 finishes. Easy game! So, with 52 of them a year (on top of the 12 $100k freerolls), I should be able to add a few hundred thousand $$ a year to what I grind out at cash.

A couple of people have asked me whether I’ll be moving up in stakes with this win, but the answer is no.

Firstly, I need most of that money offline for now so I’ve cashed out over $5k of it, leaving myself a comfortable $1k bankroll to continue playing $25 O8, completely worry-free.

And, secondly, I don’t actually want to move up yet. I’m still learning things about O8, and getting better, and learning more and earning quicker with every month I play. Until I feel completely happy that I know everything about every situation Vs every type of player, I’d rather carry on playing low stakes. See you at $2/$4 in the year 2147, folks.

I’m currently running at over 12ptBB/100 at 10c/25c, with over $700 coming in per month from Supernova bonuses. So, Dstar and Jeesus and co, you'll be happy to hear that I'll be sticking around until I’m winning at at least 20ptbbs!

I hate to be the kind of blogger that only posts a serious post when he’s running well… but that’s the way it is, I guess. Sorry.

Well, I’d better get going, I’ve got to go and look for the nearest shop that sells factor 0.0000005 sun block. And, by the look of the endless sea of grass surrounding me for miles in every direction, I could easily be traipsing around in the sun for days.

Luckily, I’ve got three or four pints of factor 50 to keep me safe.

See you later.

Could 'PG' stand for PortuGal?

POKERSTARS GAME #29809812312: OMAHA HI/LO NO LIMIT ($0.10/$0.25) - 2009/06/26 20:56:19 WET [2009/06/26 15:56:19 ET]
Table 'Henyey V' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: vegas60 ($25.15 in chips)
Seat 2: djp94 ($13.50 in chips)
Seat 3: N@T@LI ($75.55 in chips)
Seat 4: rattus63 ($10.25 in chips)
Seat 5: pgchips ($25 in chips)
Seat 6: assis_poker ($9.85 in chips)
Seat 7: ctepashka ($20.75 in chips)
Seat 8: Jsleezey ($20.55 in chips)
vegas60: posts small blind $0.10
djp94: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to pgchips [2c Ad Jd Ts]
N@T@LI: folds
tpatusa leaves the table
rattus63: folds
pgchips: raises $0.75 to $1
Dean Griffin joins the table at seat #9
assis_poker: folds
ctepashka: folds
Jsleezey: folds
vegas60: calls $0.90
djp94: folds
*** FLOP *** [Js Qc Kd]
vegas60: bets $1.50
pgchips: raises $22.50 to $24 and is all-in
vegas60: calls $22.50
*** TURN *** [Js Qc Kd] [Jc]
*** RIVER *** [Js Qc Kd Jc] [Td]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
vegas60: shows [Ac 5h Jh Kh] (HI: a full house, Jacks full of Kings)
pgchips: mucks hand
vegas60 collected $47.75 from pot
No low hand qualified
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $50.25 Rake $2.50
Board [Js Qc Kd Jc Td]
Seat 1: vegas60 (small blind) showed [Ac 5h Jh Kh] and won ($47.75) with HI: a full house, Jacks full of Kings
Seat 2: djp94 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: N@T@LI folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: rattus63 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: pgchips mucked [2c Ad Jd Ts]
Seat 6: assis_poker folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: ctepashka folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: Jsleezey (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)



POKERSTARS GAME #29523339364: OMAHA HI/LO NO LIMIT ($0.10/$0.25) - 2009/06/18 19:05:37 ET
Table 'Avior VI' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: PROF SURF ($24.50 in chips)
Seat 2: jarydjaybe ($10.45 in chips)
Seat 3: pgchips ($25 in chips)
Seat 4: chilnwiteboy ($23.75 in chips)
Seat 5: JohnC531 ($27.10 in chips)
Seat 6: Jason_Lebt ($36.55 in chips)
Seat 7: moneyisnice ($21.30 in chips)
Seat 8: Fla-Mt ($45.50 in chips)
Seat 9: Mrs. Rafael ($8.30 in chips)
jarydjaybe: posts small blind $0.10
pgchips: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to pgchips [Qs Qc 2s Js]
chilnwiteboy: folds
JohnC531: calls $0.25
Jason_Lebt: calls $0.25
moneyisnice: folds
Fla-Mt said, "lol...my first win of the day"
Fla-Mt: raises $0.75 to $1
Mrs. Rafael: folds
pgchips said, "well done"
PROF SURF: folds
jarydjaybe: folds
Fla-Mt said, "lucky catch....ty"
pgchips: calls $0.75
JohnC531: folds
Jason_Lebt: folds
*** FLOP *** [Tc Kd Ah]
pgchips: checks
Fla-Mt: bets $1
pgchips: raises $23 to $24 and is all-in
Fla-Mt: calls $23
*** TURN *** [Tc Kd Ah] [Kc]
*** RIVER *** [Tc Kd Ah Kc] [8d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
pgchips: shows [Qs Qc 2s Js] (HI: a straight, Ten to Ace)
Fla-Mt: shows [Kh 4h 2d Ad] (HI: a full house, Kings full of Aces)
Fla-Mt collected $48.10 from pot
No low hand qualified
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $50.60 Rake $2.50
Board [Tc Kd Ah Kc 8d]
Seat 1: PROF SURF (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: jarydjaybe (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: pgchips (big blind) showed [Qs Qc 2s Js] and lost with HI: a straight, Ten to Ace
Seat 4: chilnwiteboy folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: JohnC531 folded before Flop
Seat 6: Jason_Lebt folded before Flop
Seat 7: moneyisnice folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: Fla-Mt showed [Kh 4h 2d Ad] and won ($48.10) with HI: a full house, Kings full of Aces
Seat 9: Mrs. Rafael folded before Flop (didn't bet)



POKERSTARS GAME #29523283783: OMAHA HI/LO NO LIMIT ($0.10/$0.25) - 2009/06/18 19:04:00 ET
Table 'Avior VI' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: PROF SURF ($24.85 in chips)
Seat 2: jarydjaybe ($10.70 in chips)
Seat 3: pgchips ($25.05 in chips)
Seat 4: chilnwiteboy ($23.75 in chips)
Seat 5: JohnC531 ($28.35 in chips)
Seat 6: Jason_Lebt ($35.05 in chips)
Seat 7: moneyisnice ($21.30 in chips)
Seat 8: Fla-Mt ($23.75 in chips)
Seat 9: Mrs. Rafael ($8.40 in chips)
Mrs. Rafael: posts small blind $0.10
PROF SURF: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to pgchips [Ks Ad Ts 2d]
jarydjaybe: folds
pgchips: raises $0.75 to $1
chilnwiteboy: folds
JohnC531: folds
Jason_Lebt: folds
moneyisnice: folds
Fla-Mt: calls $1
Mrs. Rafael: folds
PROF SURF: folds
*** FLOP *** [Qc Kh Jd]
pgchips: bets $1.75
Fla-Mt: raises $21 to $22.75 and is all-in
pgchips: calls $21
*** TURN *** [Qc Kh Jd] [3s]
*** RIVER *** [Qc Kh Jd 3s] [Js]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
pgchips: shows [Ks Ad Ts 2d] (HI: a straight, Ten to Ace)
Fla-Mt: shows [3c As Kc Jc] (HI: a full house, Jacks full of Kings)
Fla-Mt collected $45.50 from pot
No low hand qualified
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $47.85 Rake $2.35
Board [Qc Kh Jd 3s Js]
Seat 1: PROF SURF (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: jarydjaybe folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: pgchips showed [Ks Ad Ts 2d] and lost with HI: a straight, Ten to Ace
Seat 4: chilnwiteboy folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: JohnC531 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Jason_Lebt folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: moneyisnice folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: Fla-Mt (button) showed [3c As Kc Jc] and won ($45.50) with HI: a full house, Jacks full of Kings
Seat 9: Mrs. Rafael (small blind) folded before Flop



I’ve had a great couple of months playing cards but these hands are a fair reflection of how I’ve been running over the last couple of weeks. Mildly amusing, I’m sure you’ll agree, if not particularly interesting.

But, fear not, this isn’t just a Gambon skin blog post.

I got a phone call earlier where it finally looked as though the pain of the last two weeks was all behind me…

I heard my phone ringing while I was still sleeping this morning. Usually I ignore it, but it was my dad, so I answered. And from very early on in the conversation I knew it was a phone call I’d never forget. : - )


“You alright Dad? Happy Father’s Day… from… ages ago, you get my card?”

I was guessing he hadn’t given that I didn’t post it until well after last collection on the Tuesday after Father’s Day.

“No.”

“Oh, there must have been a fuck up.”

There was, me.

“Anyway, listen, I’m thinking about going to Portugal for seven days, starting a week on Monday, and I was wondering whether you had any plans for that week?”

WTF, where did that come from? Usually when my Dad calls it’s just to check on me, to make sure I’m still alive or to make sure I’m getting regular blood tests so I stay alive for longer or to see that I’m keeping my eyes in good nick so I can see myself staying alive for longer. Or he’s calling to make me do something like check on my sister and my nephew or to make sure my brother hasn’t killed himself or been killed. Or some equally pointless and annoying reason like that.

But, no, not this time, thank God. A FUCKING HOLIDAY!! IN FUCKING PORTUGAL!! FUCKING SH1P 1T!!!

Karma certainly does work in fucked up ways. If all it takes is a couple of flopped broadways to be outdrawn for me to earn a holiday-offering phone call from my Dad, then I’ll be snapping them off and praying for the board to pair for years to come. Full house, yes please, it’s all yours, thank you very much.

Pair the board as much as you want Stars, you cunts, I’m off.

A couple of worries went through my mind: would I be able to get my passport sorted by then? I think it can be done in a week but it’s a bit of a fuck about if I’ve remembered Keys’ tales of woe correctly. My other worry was whether it would clash with the Mitchell Street Masters and/or The Ashes. They’re both just around the corner and I really wanted to have had Sky fitted in the house before then as well. That’ll no doubt take some organising and a holiday would leave me with very little time to get it all sorted…

But, as I haven’t had a holiday in such a long time, I finally had an answer for my Dad (who had presumably waited patiently on the other end of a silent phone for a few minutes while all of this went through my head):

“No plans, Dad.”

“Great, that’s a relief, because…”

And, with a sm1le, I waited for the offer.

“…I need someone to keep an eye on my business while I’m away.”

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

I went against my instincts and told him that it wouldn’t be a problem:

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, see you later.”

What a fucking joke. I hung up the phone and sat, with my head in my hands, feeling sorry for myself. The phone rang again a couple of seconds later and I answered, almost in tears, obviously:

“Yes?... What?... Yeah… Yeah, mate, you can come and fit the Sky a week on Monday. I’m not going anywhere.”

Well played, Dad, you’ll be getting your Father’s Day card three weeks early next year. Will that put an end to the torture?


Oh, and I take it all back Stars, you’re not cunts and I’d very much like broadway to hold at some point this year.

Ptevey Cabrera

Got nothing to write but Keysie says Ptevie wants something to read.

Been tilting massively of late and the latest bit has taken place on Full Tilt. I had $40 left on there from a bonus I failed to clear a while back and given that I can't cash out from Full Tilt and no one wants to swap with me, the only choice I had was to spin the fuck out of the roll until I lose it.

Well, I've tried my best...

I span it up to $109 somehow, hit and running all over the place and I sensibly gave 147_star $100.47 of it to keep safe for me until I want to lose some more. I then span the $8 I had left up to $41 hit and running again. I lost $21 of it spazzing it away at cash and so I was left with $20, which brings us to the start of tonight, where I decided to go on a tourny spin...

I one tabled a $1 buy in $10k guaranteed first of all, which only got 6500 runners. I had a top 10 stack at one point with a couple of hundred players left but I ran a pair into a higher pair twice going ftw ($1.6k) to finish out of the top 100. I've since tilted away on some knockout sngs, which have just finished (6.50am).

An interesting spot I want to talk about:

First hand of a 90-man knockout sng. I had KQhh on the button @ 15/30 with a 3k stack. Being the first hand, everyone limped and I made a fucking tremendous shove. IMO. Any thoughts on the hand in the comments please.

I figured that if I get called, I might get lucky to knock someone out and if I take the pot down then I'd have a stack to knock most people out with for a round or so instead of just falling short and leaving them with 30 chips or something and not getting a bounty. Anyway, one of the limpers snapped 88 and board ran out TJJhh 3s 2s to knock me out. No rewarding (truly) great play at Full Tilt tonight, apparently.

I tilted out of all of the other sngs except for one of the 90-player $3 knockouts. I final tabled it without knocking anyone out (obv, ffs). I then managed to get outdrawn (KQ aip vs Q9, battle of the blinds) in a chip lead pot 6 or 5 handed (can't remember exactly where I came) and went out to the same player very next hand WITHOUT KNOCKING OUT A SINGLE FUCKING PLAYER. I shoved the button with A7cc and he obv wakes up with 99 in the small, which holds despite a 568cc flop. So an eventful spinup night sees me left with $19 on Full Tilt (which I guess is what you get for 6th or 5th place in a 90 man $3 knockout), $1 less than what I started with.

Wasting my flipping time with this shit.

Only other thing I want to ask is, are we happy with this go-and-go at the ft of a $4 180-man tourn, or should it be a rr aip??
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4120855

$216 for 1st and $36 for 6th. Standard.

Anyone heard of 'Battle Of The Planets'?

"yo, pg..."
"soz, 9-tabling, sup?"
"getting raped"
"ul"
"you seen the leaderboard?"
"what?"
"the leaderboard"
"sharkscope?"
"na, on stars"
"oh, didn't know they had one"
"yeah, take a look at the venus one"
"venus... wtf you on about?"

I've grown tired of O8 cash recently and haven't been able to get much volume in this month, especially the second half of the month (I had made 4k VPP by the end of the first week and I'm currently on just over 7k). So, to make a bit of dosh I converted my 18k FPPs into $396 using the old 210 FPP sats and then decided to experiment with a few holdem sngs to try and make few more $$ to maybe make Platinum again. I settled on the 6-man turbos and dived straight into 9-tabling the $3.25s. I played 80 of those running at around 35% ROI for a small profit before moving up to the $6.50s. For the past two days I've been 9-tabling these running at just over 20% ROI. I tried 12-tabling but ran too good and couldn't cope with playing 5 heads up and 3 bubbles at the same time ffs, talk about running bad. So I think 9-tabling is my 6-man turbo limit. There's one guy that one tables these tourns that I always seem to bump into when he's just been outdrawn... He talks to me every time I'm in one of his sngs, telling me about his latest bad beat. But last night he brought me some good news. The conversation went as above, and the leaderboard he told me to look at is some Stars promotion called 'Battle of the planets', which I wasn't aware of. Apparently I've ran well enough 9-tabling the 6-man $6.50s to top the Venus high-orbit weekly leaderboard. If I'm still top at midnight on Saturday I get $500 cash sh1pped into my account. An unexpected surprise, tyvm.

I may just be running ridiculously well but these tourns are a joke and appear to be incredibly profitable. I've played 225 of the $6.50s in two days, running at 21% ROI for an hourly rate of over $20. They're a small-stakes-multi-tabling-grinder's dream. I'm going to test the waters of the $13s and the $25s over the next few days, which should just about drag me over 7.5k VPP for Platinum, to see if they're not ruined by regs. I expect they are.

The O8 tables have dried up a lot. I was sitting at a 9-handed 10c/25c O8 cash table earlier this month with 8 Supernova regs, where the average pot size was $2. This really shouldn't be happening in a 4-card split-pot game but it's the way it seems to be heading. Grinding cash for hours on end knowing that most of my profit for the month will be made in FPP sats is just no fun any more, so next month I may be steering clear of O8 cash completely. If I can beat the $13 and $25 6-man turbos well, that may be where I'm heading next month to make my VPPs. If it turns out that they're too tough, then I may have a nice little prop bet involving me making Platinum star next month playing just $6.50 turbos... I'll let you know before the end of the month.

In the meantime, let's hope Venus holds. One time.

Game Over!

It's finally over and I've worked out the damage:
I lost $30 on FT, mainly at 10c/25c holdem despite being over $50 up after about 50 hands.
And I lost $85 on Stars, mainly at 10c/25c O8, though only two cashes in 40+ sngs helped.

Every session except the first one was a losing session and I've no doubt that I would have lost a lot more than I have done if I'd continued to play at the stakes I started at. I was horribly tilty at times and I probably deserved to come out as a loser.

When we decided to do this challenge we talked about doing the same again before I leave Nottingham at the end of the month. Well, that's not going to happen, but be on the lookout for Keys' 24-hour solo challenge!

Good luck.

Trouble at 39hrs 30mins

I slept for the whole of my last 3hr break, but I guess there is such a thing as too much sleep because I could barely see when I woke up. I jumped straight into a 24-tabling session of cash but I couldn't focus on my cards at all and tables just kept on popping up in my face forcing me to move my eyes and brain, so I dealt with this problem by falling asleep half an hour in. I guess you'd class that as a challenge failure but I needed to fucking sleep. Have been one tabling 1c/2c to Celine Dion obv since I woke back up. Time to pass onto Keys, nearly over now, thankfully. This challenge was such a fun idea on paper. Oh well.

5.42am

Again, instead of going to sleep last break, I found a DVD to watch. The entire first series of The Office. I made it to the start of the fourth episode before falling asleep ffs. It's one of my favourite episodes of anything ever, which shows how bad I'm running I guess. My ungrateful body didn't seem to appreciate the hour's sleep I allowed it either as I woke up with a horrible headache. SNGed it for an hour and a half to start this session, then lost two stacks in 13 hands on my return to cash, which I won't be playing again until I've had some proper rest. Ran top pair + nut fd + nut low draw into top set and missed everything, then I lost A2K7ds all in pre vs A2KQds, which may have been a bit tilty on my part but still, wtf?! So now I'm one-tabling capped 1c/2c holdem on FT. What a great challenge this is. I think my body's telling me to sleep after this session so that's what I'll probably do. Unless MacDonald's is open, then it's breakfast/lunch/dinner time depending on what time of day my confused sleep-deprived body thinks it is.

30

Beverly Hills Cop, the early Eddie Murphy film, was the film of choice for my last break. Good film but I probably should have slept. Still a long way to go in this challenge and I'm not coping very well. I couldn't face O8 cash once again and instead registered for every 180 man $2 sng running for the first hour. I'd busted them all by the end of the second hour. I must have played about 30 of them and only managed one cash, a 5th place, for an overall loss of some dollars. As I was explaining to Keys, the way I ran in the few hours of cash I have played during this challenge would probably have lead to a few days away from the laptop outside of this challenge and so I'm now finding it a bit tough. Well, back in 6hrs I guess after a film and some sngs probably.

23hrs 19mins ish

Cheers for the comments lads, appreciate it. Managed to squeeze two films in during my last break, The Kite Runner, which I was a little disappointed by, and Three And Out with Mackenzie Crook in. I really enjoyed the film but, as with the Nicholas Cage film, Next, that I lapped up a few nights ago, I'm a bit worried that the only reason I liked it is because I fancied the lead actress. Both films are probably absolutely shit but don't tell my shallow brain that, it's lapping them all up a treat. I'm currently two-tabling 45-player $3.25 turbos on Stars because my tilt has pretty much taken over now. Make that one-tabling, ffs. Na, actually just gone out of both but I registered for a $3.40 flhe stt in time. See how quickly I can bust that. Listening to the Take That Greatest Hits, or one of them at least, I thought, might go some way to cheering me up. It hasn't. I'll stick with it though, A Million Love Songs - Track 12 ftw. The reason I'm one/two-tabling tiny stakes now is because I bettered Keys' two outer bad beat story when I got one-outer-quadded all in on the turn for $55 about an hour into my last session and haven't played any O8 since. I had to replace my 16 $25 and $50 O8 tables for 24 $2 NLHE tables so I could tilt cheaply. Did a few more $$ for the last two hours of my session and was grateful to pass the stick over to Keys. With 50 minutes of this session left I'm about $50 down for the challenge having only got about half as much cash grinding in as I'd have hoped : ( Playing tired poker has never suited me, I might have to go back to playing drunk instead. Or maybe I should just stop watching shit films during my breaks and get some kip. Na, I'm gonna get some wine in and watch Dude, Where's My Car?

12

Celine Dion has let me down, and not for the first time. Got stacked very first hand of the session with top two and a fd vs a set and couldn't recover. I made the mistake of watching a film for the first two hours of my last break and could only manage 10 minutes of sleep afterwards. My alarm went off in my ear at 2.55am and I wasn't happy. It's the first time I've been forced to wake up for something for a long time, it actually reminded me of the days when I used to work in the Kerry Foods factory, where the day started at 6am, and the shifts were ironically 12 hours long. Anyway, good to see Keysie running well, I hope some hands start holding up for me in my next session, I'm off to sleep.

6hrs down

Coming up to the end of my first 3hrs and barring three or four disasters (I'm currently 1-tabling 10c/25c) I should be showing a profit. Elton John has helped to keep me calm during a session in which I got a full stack all in pre twice with AALx and another in a $40 pot and came out a loser. It's nice to take a break after a run like that but that is something that this challenge obviously doesn't allow. Took some serious Elton classics to help me through that without tilting.

I think I averaged around 18-tables at a time, mixing in both $25 and $50. I played 2230 hands for a small profit.

Okay, passing the baton onto Keys now,
Inabit.

I'm such a lazy blogger

Sorry about that, I'm still playing O8 and I promise to post a decent Supernova run update as soon as my new challenge is over!

I'm staying in Nottingham for a while in a quality flat with Keysie. My 'sleep' 'pattern' is all over the place and my lifestyle and diet have probably never been worse than they are at the moment, but I'd argue that good health and happiness are worth sacrificing for such a whales of a time.

We've (more specifically 'keys has') had a nightmare trying to sort out the wireless in the flat so, at the moment, we have to take it in turns with the T-Mobile internet stick. This, combined with our recent laziness when it comes to poker volume, has forced us to come up with
The 48-hour Challenge.

Starting at 6pm tonight we will be taking it in turns with the magic internet stick to play three-hour sessions of poker.. non-stop.. until 6pm on Saturday. 48 hours of solid poker between us! While one of us is playing, the other person can do whatever they like with their three hours. I can't speak for Keysie but I know I'll most probably be sleeping.

Reading that back, I realise I haven't explained the challenge as clearly as I could have. That probably has something to do with how much I had to drink trying to keep up with the T-total Keys last night. I'm going to pass the T-Mob twig over to him now so, hopefully, his pre-challenge post is a little clearer than mine. GL mate.

Keys is doing the first stint from 6-9pm and I think one of us will blog a general update every six hours until this ridiculous challenge is over.

So, until then, goodnight..

Supernova run

Since my last post I haven’t felt like blogging here at all. Blogging over the last few months has come to feel like a bit of a chore and I’m sure that that’s come through in some of the writing (or lack of it). Even the challenge I set myself in December failed to keep me entertained for the whole month. Even to the point where I was too bored to finish the blogging month off properly, with a summary.

But December went well overall and I haven’t been back to ‘work’ since I quit at the end of November. If it wasn’t for a little blow up cash-wise at the end of December, which led to a dramatic drop (it was pretty much a halt, actually) in volume, I would have easily reached Platinum star status for the month playing $5, $25 and $50 nl and pl O8.

O8 is the form of poker I most enjoy and I do enjoy it a lot. I consider myself lucky to have stumbled across it part way through last year and my success in the game over the year, and especially in December, finally proved to me that I can make a better living playing O8 cash than I can working. So I made the decision at the start of this year to stay off work and commit myself to a big push for Supernova VIP status playing O8 cash. I hope to be there by October, whilst making what I would consider to be a comfortable living at the same time.

So, as I’m playing more poker now than I ever have, I think it makes sense for me to bring the blog back and write a bit about my progress through the year. I’m bound to have problems along the way but I hope that keeping an honest account of my successes and failures, as well as how I’m coping with the challenges that a run for Supernova will bring, will be helpful to anyone planning a Supernova run of their own one day, as well as being something that anyone currently heading for Supernova can relate to.

It took me 62k hands of 10c/25c O8 cash to reach Platinum in January. I 12-tabled full ring for most of the month (which feels very comfortable now) until I started getting a little pushed for time towards the end of the month… I had some hilarious 6k hand sessions of 20-tabling. This was great fun, if a little tough to do on my laptop screen. I had some very good days and some horrible days over the month and did very well to keep my tilting to just a couple of days this month. A $200 loss was my worst session, which didn’t feel too bad at the time but, on reflection, an 8 buy-in losing session is quite horrific. The rest of the month was fairly smooth though. It seems that, as I have no actual work to fall back on at the moment, I am much more likely to stop playing after a bad session rather than carry on and play badly.

I have actually grown up a lot (as a poker player, at least) in the last couple of months and I feel like there’s no danger of a huge blow up similar to the one I had six months back when I lost half of my roll playing 10c/25c and won it all back playing 50c/$1! I really can’t see this happening at all at the moment and my head seems to be in the right place at the tables. Though if I did move up a couple of levels after each losing day I’d probably be Supernova by April. I’d just be a very, very poor one!

Looking back at how January went, one of my concerns about my plan to be putting in sick volume every month is not spending enough time with people. The hours of the day I play really don’t help matters here. A common complaint for British players playing on an American site must be the unsociablnessness of the peak times. And given that I played at least 22 days in January, it means that the few days I did have off I was usually too tired to do anything or was sleeping. So, my main aim in February is to manage my weeks a lot better so I have at least one full day a week of awakeness to spend time with people and do things. My sister and her young kid live very close to me and it’s wrong that I only saw them once in January.

Apart from that, I’d like to start earning a little bit quicker… 62k hands of 10c/25c and only $1.5k profit on the month (a chunk of which was made using the 20k fpps I earned). My game improved a lot over the last two weeks of the month and I hope that February will be a bit more financially rewarding as a result.

What I learned in January:

- Platinum star is reachable each month playing just 10c/25c cash.
- I can have an 8 buy-in loss one day and come back the next day playing properly.
- To play more than 12 tables at a time.
- Women can be an absolute nightmare.

So, my main aims for February:

- Plan my time away from the tables better so I feel awake enough to do things on my days off.
- See my sister and nephew more often.
- Maintain Platinum.
- Win more!

Will hopefully be back during the month to talk some more.
Later.

I am playing really really shit

Fucking sick of cards at the minute because I'm playing bad and losing lots but, as I've still got two tickets left, I might as well play the $2.5m guaranteed Million and the $1m guaranteed Sunday Warm-Up later today.

Fuck Omaha.

I strongly advise you all against buying but $21.50 for 10% in either if any crazy fucker fancies a piece. peace

Run well, one time...

I've been losing money at cash recently, which is something I'll worry a bit more about if I don't ship the $500k tonight. It kicks off in a few hours and I'm really looking forward to it. Before that is the Blogger Championship Final and I might as well play the $200k tonight as well as that was part of the package.

As my MSN personal message suggested briefly, my plan was to go to the gym for an hour or so to get my body and brain fit for tonight. I left for the gym fifteen minutes ago, and I've just got back. After about ten minutes I had to stop as I was suffering from stitch in just about every organ in my body that hasn't already been killed or desensitised by the abuse of the last few years.

One of my New Year's Resolutions will be to abuse my body soo much that my organs are left sufficiently feeling-free for me to be able to run, or at least move, for more than ten minutes relatively painlessly.

A couple of mistakes to learn from...

The first is, never sign up to over $500s worth of tournaments just before going to the gym for the first time in three months without leaving your account details with a close friend or a good player. There was about a 49% chance of a pgchips heart attack just now and that would have been a sad waste of a few hundred $$. I was literally racing for my tournament's life..

Arguably, the second mistake was going to the gym with an estimated 49% chance of a heart attack. But this is an O8 blog now, baby, you gots to be willing to take some slim edges.

Sorry, no cash in the O8 tourn last night, will be playing the same one next week though because imo there were some really bad things happening.

Well, blogger starts in 45mins, gl to all playing it.

Same shit, different day

For those of you who are backing me, there isn't a PL tournament tomorrow but they're letting me play the one tonight instead. It starts at 7.45pm. PLO8 $215, 25k guaranteed.

I will be playing the $500k tomorrow night, as planned.

Cheers.

PLO8 $50

Even though my BR is only slightly better off than it was this time last week, I finally made the move up to PL50 last night. Why didn't I just dive in last week ffs, before my downswing at $25? Anyway, it took me a while to settle into $50 and get used to the $100+ pots that were flying about. I'm not sure why but I played badly to start with, one really bad crying call on the river sticks in my mind. It was a turned one outer (sigh) but it's a snap fold I've been making at $25. My call annoyed me more than the outdraw, which is a positive thing imo.

I've not got anything interesting to say after today's session really so I might as well show you my biggest $50 hands to date. I've only played five pots of $100 or more so far and I've been on the wrong end of most of them.

One of the first hands I played at this level and it hurt a little bit:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3604063

These are more infuriating when the low doesn't go down at all and KK holds for the high but, again, could easily have scooped:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3606180

Opponent was bad, my worry on the flop was the solid Scarf left to act after me. Worked out okay though (interesting to see that his hand is favourite pre??):
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3605381

Favourite pre, on the flop and on the turn but scooped in a $140 pot:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3610143

Two hands later he does me again:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3610160

Looks like I've ran fairly badly in the big pots so far but, in a way, this little gem from earlier makes up for all them:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3610073
; -)

I've played 2217 hands at $50 so far for a $36.65 loss. Considering how I've ran in my five biggest pots, this loss is nothing to worry about.

I had C4's '100 greatest tearjerkers' on in the background as I was playing tonight and a couple of the films that were up there are on my computer, so I'm off to fall asleep to River Phoenix and the lads in Stand By Me.

Night night, bright eyes. xx
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=a502RejLz8s&feature=related