UKIPT and June review so far

UKIPT

After bubbling the big £50 rebuy satellite at Aspers last Sunday, I somehow managed to run good and get myself qualified the very next night in the £10 + £10 + £10 game, meaning I got to play the main event this week. Due to huge number of runners and the fact the buy in of £550 was a bit bigger than my normal game, I decided to sell some shares in me meaning I'd get back £190 ish even if I failed to make cash.

Was a bit nervous when I arrived but after a couple of rounds of blinds was pretty happy with the standard I was up against - a few decent players, a few average and some obvious internet qualifiers who were pretty naive. I managed to chip up fairly early from my starting 15k to a healthy 32k, with the biggest pot being my trip 2's holding versus a medium stack shoved flush draw. I was then card dead for the rest of the day, losing a few small pots and making one hero call that was wrong for 2k but basically not playing a hand for 3 hours - meaning I'd made it to day 2 but with only 18 big blinds and 15k.

I was still mildly optimistic going in to day 2, knowing that a double up would put me back in to average stack territory but also knowing I'd need some luck to get it. As I'd been so card dead I was sure I was due, so when I shoved over a raise with AK I was certain I'd win the pot - even after he tank called with TT. Alas, it was not to be and I bricked all the way to the river, sending me home after a mere 20 minutes of play on day 2. My woes were not as bad as Brenos though, and my 5% stake also sank when his KK ship pre ran in to the mighty 56 suited which made a miracle straight to send him home 7 places from the cash. Gutted for him obviously, but also for both our sets of investors who we let down without being able to show them a return! Loved the experience though and will be looking to qualify for some more of these as did feel comfortable and would like to test myself against some of the better players who play these...

June Review

As my laptop has been completely dead, I've been forced to grind the live 50:50 cash game at Aspers as my only source of income. I started like a house on fire, but had a couple of iffy nights to lower the unrealistic target I set myself for the month. I am still nicely in profit though, winning over £800 in the ten visits I've made so far this month. With my laptop now back I will probably play there a little bit less but as it's been going well I think I'll still head there 4 or 5 times a week, just for less than the 10 hour sessions I have been putting in so far this month.

May 2011 Results

Been unable to post on here for a while as my laptop has been dead for 3 weeks and not been able to see my May figures until now, as Brennan has thankfully managed to save all my vital files and I haven't had to buy a new laptop - thank fuck.

Here are my results anyway....

Online cash + rakeback ~£540

Live Tournaments -£55

Live Cash £555

TOTAL Profit £1,040

These are only rough estimate results, as I can't get concrete online cash results but I think this is a pretty close reflection. Pleased that live cash continues to go well and will continue to keep plugging away at this as still think the live games are softer than online at the moment...

Uncle Ben!

Again!

My sister managed to pop out her second child last week, this time a baby boy, and even managed to do so without being filmed for national television! Luckily for me my sister gave birth on Friday, meaning me and K were able to zoom down on Friday night and spend the first 3 days of his life with my folks. See cutie in pic below - and the baby :-)

Since we came back I've been informed that the baby boy has now been named - Jet Johnson. Although I personally think that he now sounds like a cartoon character from the future, my sister and her fella are angling for the 'rockstar' sound to his name - let's hope he prefers guitars then and not flying scooters! I'm just pleased I (i.e. Katrina is pleased) that we can now buy baby boys clothes (ie miniature spurs football kits).

On poker front, things have been quite good actually over the past couple of days. I was struggling at the beginning of the month but now up to a healthy 1k profit - including rakeback. This has been primarily due to 2 awesome sessions at Aspers playing 50p 50p - I followed up my £290 win with a £220 win and am thoroughly enjoying the live experience. I should try to get there more really but there's just too many other things to do in the evenings.....

Been blogging here while playing some Sunday freerolls and just busted out in 4/21 with top prize being an ipad - bit gutted as was leading going in to the last 4. Still hanging around though in the Full Tilt one though so hoping to sneak in to the cash to add $50 or so to my roll. Will no doubt bust just before the money but can always hope for that big score :-)

EDIT - just busted 3bet shoving with AQ only to run in to KK in the small blind - AND AA in the big blind!! I run so bad :-(

Rising from the dead....

I'm going to try and kick start my blog again. I've been a lazy bastard and it really only takes a few minutes to write an update so I figure I should really do it. Reasons are as follows:

1. I think I run better when I think about poker / write about it

2. It gives me an excuse to have a nosey at how well other poker players are doing through my following list

3. Main reason - I'm becoming more and more stupider, with my IQ actually dropping 8 points in a year since I've been full time pro. K (psychologist) says this is the rate of dementia, so I figure I need to do something quick as I'm only 31 and don't have too many IQ points to keep losing at this rate!

So how has May started poker wise? Shit. At least it was until yesterday. I ran terrible, trying to run up my Full Tilt balance to play NL100 rush again but as soon as I tried to play it I lost 3 buy ins in 20 minutes so been back grinding the NL50 again. I'm now £236 up for the month from online, and won £290 at Aspers yesterday playing 50p/50p - hitting EVERY draw and getting paid in every spot. Makes a change as I lost £64 at Aspers at the weekend, highlight being getting all in (bar £5) for a £140 pot with 93 on a 9935 board versus A9 - only for him to bink on river. Such is poker....

Anyway - all in all I'm about £400 up now for the month - and hoping yesterday (and this blog post) will help me run good for the rest of the month. I definitely need it as have some wedding deposits to pay for. And I REALLY want to buy some new golf clubs too :-)

April 2011 Review

What a crazy month!

First and foremost, had a great 9 nights in Vegas with the mrs and booked up the wedding venue for next year - the Wynn. The chapel looks pretty good, but the main appeal was the terrace with open bar we've booked up for the reception that looks on to the 'lake of dreams' - proper swanky. Very much looking forward to that next year :-)

With the US government then fucking over the entire online poker population, my money has also been in and out of limbo all month. I withdrew the lot from Full Tilt on the day the shit hit the fan, but have since reloaded £300 to try and rebuild a roll there as now hoping everything is sorted legal wise. I'll not be keeping as much on there as have done in the past, that's for sure.

By about the 15th of the month, I'd been able to do fuck all work, bar a couple of live sessions in Vegas, and with online off limits I was forced to get out of the flat and play some local live poker. Went OK all in all, with only 2 losing sessions out of 7 and a tidy profit. Nice to know I have an alternative income possibility if online does die permanently.

Anyway, here's the final P&L:
Rush: £586
Rakeback / Bonus: £98
TOTAL ONLINE: £684

Live Tournaments: -£12
Live Cash: £657
TOTAL LIVE: £645

OVERALL PROFIT: £1,329

March 2011 P&L

At last - a good month. Rush Poker: £1,578 STT: -£4 MTT: -£3 Rakeback / Bonus / Freerolls: £294 Total Online Profit: £1,865 Live Cash: £170 Total Profit: £2,035 Online Review: I ran like god for the first few weeks, winning £1,000 at NL50 rush but being about £500 above EV, then took a shot at NL100 for the last week and played well / didn't get shafted to make over £500 there too. I feel a lot better about my poker life having moved back to NL100 as although it is definitely tougher than NL50, I think it's still beatable for me and can provide me with a livelihood that doesn't involve 50 hours a week and running awesome at NL50. I'll be starting April at the new level and hope to carry on where I left off. Live Review: Played 4 sober sessions of NL50 at Aspers and one highly intoxicated one. Profit for sober sessions was £330, loss for drunk session was £160. Lesson well and truly learned. On plus side I'm feeling miles more comfortable live and do enjoy (most of) the banter so will be heading there a fair bit more in the coming months. They have a NL200 game there which I'd love to have the bankroll to play in comfortably, as sure there is money to be made there, but until I get a roll I'll be grinding the lower level tables to iron out any live tells I'm still carrying. There's a £500 UKIPT game at Aspers in May so ideally I'd like to be a live expert by then and rolled to buy myself in to that one if I can't scrape a satellite seat. We'll see.... Life Review: Everything going well at the moment, happy with life. Off to Vegas on Sunday for 9 nights with mrs to sort out wedding plans for next year, so that should be a class holiday, and got 2 more long weekends away booked in for June / July. Would LOVE to qualify for a WSOP package in Vegas but with all my holidays I don't think I'm going to have time this year even if I did make it! Guess I'll have to wait until next summer to win the $9 million main event jackpot. One more thing - COYS!!!! (we're crocked with injury so expecting the worst but still can't wait to see us take on Real Madrid)

Feb 2011 Results

This has been a really weird month. I started it grinding the NL50 rush tables well, storming to a healthy £400 profit in a week, looking pretty for a good month and hopefully taking some shots at NL100.

Then things went tits up:
1. my internet crashes, leaving me without connection for 5 days
2. my HEM dies, leaving me HUDless for a week and effectively unable to play rush poker for a further week as I try to get it sorted
3. I get dreaded man flu, which mostly stopped me playing, but I couldn't stop myself as bored at home so logged on and lost a fair bit of my profit
4. Full Tilt spazzes out on me, leaving me without a site to play on for 3 days too!

I've also finally started to play a bit live and really enjoying it, however I'm not running the greatest, losing nigh on every race / 70:30 in cash when get it in with the short stacks. TT vs Q2, AJ vs 44, KK vs 99 etc etc etc - all for £40+ pots that would definitely help my P&L. I also had to ship £125 to share luckbox Brennan after we went halves on a cash session at Aspers after I won £175 and he lost £75. As if he needs the money!!!

With all that in mind, here are the final results:
Rush: £219
STT: £40
MTT: -£45
Rakeback / Bonus: £116

Total Online Profit: £330

Live Tournaments: -£12
Live Cash: £110

TOTAL PROFIT: £428


Now for the good news. With about 10 days to go of the month, in the middle of my slow death from man flu and bitching about my shitheap of a computer not working, I get 3 pieces of mail through the post that cheer me up. 2 decent wins on premium bonds (that I kind of forgotten that I had) and a well deserved tax rebate for OVERPAID tax in FY 2010. I definitely didn't know that was coming, but all three combined came in at close to £1300. Helps me through the low income month that's for sure!


Next month:
DEFINITELY get my black card status on Full Tilt - low volume means I'm further away than at the start of last month, but I hopefully will get there towards the end of March.
Keep on playing live cash at the casino.