Week in Review

It's been nearly a week since I last posted so I feel as though I owe the blog a bit of effort. However, I don't think 01:30 am will be the time for me to write in detail about everything that's just been happening - I'll just start a few bullet points per day and see how it goes....

Thursday 16th

Brenos arrives and we play the Aspers £30 freezeout. I make it to last 14 before having my QQ busted by 44 all in pre flop to just miss out on final table. Most luckboxes I know with blogs never mention they're good beats, but as I had KQ beat AA for close to all my chips 2 rounds earlier I'm not going to complain too much. I win it back on cash tables afterwards but a 3 am finish means it wasn't going to be an early morning on Friday. (Congrats to Toward who showed us 'pros' how it should be done, taking down 4th I think in the tournament)

Friday 17th

I continue to run good on 6max winning another £100 then just getting the better of Brenos on Mario Kart before being thrashed at bowling. You can definitely tell he hasn't had a job in the past 4 years...

Saturday 18th

I run K to the station so she can catch her hen party bus to Liverpool at 7 am in the morning - it might have been later but still felt too early!! Rolled back in to bed before lucboxing some more online wins (£150) and then hosted the lads poker game. I used to play the home games very tight and therefore if I didn't win money, I didn't lose much either. Since I've moved to 6max online though I've loosened up - and it costs me in every game! Went through 3 buy ins and busted out first in the first game, my AJ clearly no good vs Brennan's 69 offsuit in a raised pot - flop A69.

Second game is even more blurry but I do last longer than Brenos, but duly follow him to the losers Wii shortly afterwards. Briggs continues to batter all before him in home games, winning one of the 2 games for what feels like the 5th poker night in a row. I'm just pleased he doesn't want to put money in to Ladbrokes as I have a feeling I'd be broke if I played against him there too!

Sunday 19th

Sleep, then one late freeroll on Laddies where 88 loses all in pre flop versus hoodoo 44.

Monday 20th

A losing day at poker!!! What the fuck?!?! Have 3 losing sessions out of 4 but actually count myself fortunate to only lose £100 - it could have been a lot more.

Tuesday 21st

Another disappointing day, although a slightly winning one - making about £50. I was a lot more up but lost £200 in the late night session tonight, calling off a bit lightly where I think I'm being 'outplayed' by regulars. This I think is my new problem, where I don't believe anyone has a hand therefore call down a lot with 2nd pair. I'm perfect for value towning at the moment by anyone who appears to be stealing from late position. I'll watch a couple of videos tomorrow on blind defence and tighten up my game - an annoying leak.

I also played football tonight and any fitness I thought I had has been shot to pieces. I'm overweight, slower than normal and all my muscles ache. Even if I didn't have K reminding me every day, I can tell I'm on my way to 30....

Right - that was more than I thought I'd write. I'm going to be a bit more disciplined and keep this updated more regularly. At least I'll try.

Just for Azz - good luck to everyone at the tables!!

Luckbox Holmes

Oh yes, I'm a happy man tonight. At one stage I was over £200 down for the day but some 'inspired' play - along with a boat load of luck - means that I finished the day just under £500 in profit. A few set ups in my favour - for example KK vs QQ all in pre flop - and a couple of nut flush draws hitting and it's amazing how quick things can turn around.

I know one of the key principles of being pro is to take the wins and the losses in equal measure, i.e. not to get too happy when you win and not too disappointed when you lose, but I can't help but be pleased that I've made a good start. I know that if I had run bad this week and got myself in a deficit in my first week I would have been depressed as hell, so it's clearly something I still need to work on.

In the meantime I'll update my master finance spreadsheet and thank Budha (my poker god) for blessing me tonight - long may it continue :-)

Up and running

I have finally managed to end my internet access hell by buying a dongle (spelling??) for £35 and can use it as a pay as you go from now on if I need to. I have £15 on it at the moment which I hope will last me through to July 22nd when Sky finally get round to turning my broadband on. Lazy bastards. Plan is now to play a gazillion hands in the next 2 weeks to earn some rakeback and hopefully finish in a decent position on the RTR leaderboard. So far I have managed 830 hands for a grand total of £10 profit today over two sessions. I'm a poker god me :-)

In non poker news, I had a mint weekend with K to celebrate her 24th birthday - going out for a couple of mealks and quad biking for 2 hours on a farm in Otterburn. For anyone that hasn't done it I'd thoroughly recommend it. Funniest moment for me was seeing K's face when she got stuck in a swamp, then in a ditch, then after she broke the back light of another quad bike after driving in to the back of it! Luckily the quad bike owner didn't notice and we did a runner before he checked the vehicles - it's nice to run good at life :-)

Right - time for me to see if there are any decent tables running at this hour. I'm a bit knackered after football but reckon I've got just enough energy for one more hour of poker. This working life can get tough sometimes!!

How stressful and tiring is moving house???

'Very' is the answer to this rhetorical question. Me and K have spent the last 2 days ferrying clothes, furniture, DVD's, crockery and iron man suits (amongst other things) from our old place in Wallsend to our new luxurious pad on the quayside. 2 bedrooms, decent sized open plan front room / dining room / kitchen and 4th floor view balcony doors opening up to a view of the Tyne. Much better than living above a shop with scally kids throwing rubbish in to our front garden.

All this moving has meant my first week of pro has meant very little poker. I did manage to get a few hours in on Sunday night and also played for about 3 hours today - and doing OK. Just over £500 up this month so far, but as I'm not going to be able to play now until internet gets installed in our new place next Monday, the chances of me beating Brenos in the RTR rake race are slim. Shame like as I know he's a lazy bastard and I could have taken him!!!

Anyway - time to play football. I hope year end has finished for all those stuck in the office in my old work - I can't begin to explain how happy I was on Sunday night when I turned OFF my alarm to STOP me waking up on Monday morning :-)

Freedom!!!

At last, work is over and I'm a free man!! A free man with a ridiculously large hangover, therefore no poker or anything else today other than trying to recover sufficiently to start moving again.

Packing up house things tomorrow for move on Monday, so not expecting to play much poker until Tuesday. At the moment I'm still just happy that I won't need to be setting my alarm anymore for Monday mornings :-)

26 hours to go....

... nearly there!! :-)

June P&L

This month has been a very strange one, with my decision to quit work and concentrate on poker full time obviously overshadowing everything else poker wise. Knowing that I will be playing A LOT from July onwards, plus flat hunting and various other commitments (Epsom etc) mean that I haven’t put in the hours that I would normally. Here are my final figures for June:

NL Cash: £72
STT: £35
MTT: -£12
Rakeback / Bonus: £362
Live Cash: £142
Total: £599
(8.5k hands 0.0000000000000001 BB / 100)


This is clearly not enough money to live on full time, especially with an upgraded accommodation to pay for, but I’m still optimistic that I’ll make it. Even if I don’t, I’m still 110% certain that I’ve made the right decision to leave work and give it a shot – if I hadn’t done it I’d live the rest of my life regretting not having the cahoonas to try.

Here’s hoping that poker god Buddha II appreciates the sacrifice I've made under his name and rewards me by helping me run good next month!!

ps - congrats to Brenos and Soap for awesome June figures - I've got something to aim for now :-)