Winter Heat!

I played my last hand of poker for 2014 on Sunday evening and thought it was about time I updated this blog as it's been almost 2 months since the last one.

Since then I've spent 3 weeks in England for the WPT, 2 weeks in Prague for the WPTN/Eureka/EPT and a surprise Christmas treat for Victoria - a few days in Paris. 

It's been absolutely incredible. I've ran absolutely golden. And had so much fun. Remarkable coincidence...

In Nottingham I won the WPT Second Chance and came 4th in the 8-max side. I also picked up my first online piece of silverware, shipping the ESCOOP 4-max on Stars.es. In Prague I won the WPTN Main Event for my biggest score of the year. 

It was so good being back in England. Seeing my friends every day again and actually enjoying playing poker. I can grind a 10 hour cash session in DTD and have the time fly by win or lose. In Barcelona I'm checking my watch and phone between hands and putting in a 3 hour session is a struggle. I spent 5 days in London for the Unibet open and really enjoyed it there for once. I usually hate London, but I think living around the outskirts might be the next step for us. 

In essence, the trip made me realise that England is my home, where I belong, so that's where I want to settle. 

Prague is always an absolute blast win or lose. I love the food, I love the buildings, the markets, I even love the winter chill. We had a apartment which the following group of renegades came and went: Stato, Steve Warbs, Thigh, Mitch, Fat Scott, Ben Dobson and of course Fred Wise. There was numerous other members of the British poker playing community out there and everyone seemed to come together on two big night outs during the trip. Still remains in my top 3 stops on the calendar, up there with Vegas and Barcelona. 

The Poker is just immense, a 1k or larger tournament every day for 2 weeks, record breaking fields, so many chances for a big score - I love it. And I'm not the only one...

I like to recognise big wins and heaters by doing something immediately that'll be a tangible memory to that success in the future. Treating friends to a big meal or night out, going on a holiday, splashing out on something. I feel that variance is so sick in this game that if you don't enjoy the good times as much as is sensible (or more!), then it makes the bad times so much worse. In 2013 I didn't cash a tournament £1k or larger. That could happen in 2015, and I won't feel like I deserve a new laptop or a holiday in Egypt! That's how my mind works - I am pretty nitty in downswings! I really feel like if I don't do things like this then what's the point? 

In this case the main thing was whisking Victoria away at a moments notice on a plane to Paris. I haven't been there since a school trip over 10 years ago, and I guess I had faint memories of indifference which is why I've never bothered to return. How wrong they were. 

What an awesome city. Some not very original photos below, but has to done right?

Back in England now for Christmas, having a long overdue extended break from poker. 

Merry Christmas Everybody! 

Settled and Unsettled

So life in Barcelona has been a bit different to how I imagined.

I imagined myself playing 40 hours a week of live cash games, getting stuck into some big splashy games, becoming fluent at Spanish and eating tapas everyday.

I've actually barely played 40 hours since I've been here. I haven't noticed much improved in my Spanish despite putting in some decent work and only really eat tapas when we go out. Games are OK, certainly better than anything I could get in England, but I've found I've just lost my motivation to grind them. They are tight and passive, rather than loose and splashy so it's a case of grinding out xbb/hour and I've just lost interest in that.

I feel like I've been there done that with live cash now and I'm looking for something more challenging and fulfilling to do with my life. I still get a massive rush from playing big live tournaments, and love the cash game banter at DTD where I know everyone and can play with some of my best mates. But I just don't enjoy playing here at all really.

Instead I've been playing loads online! I thought moving to Spain would be the end of my online career but I've been playing more than ever. Really like the Spanish sites and it means I can play from home and spend more time with Victoria instead of leaving her alone every night which is nice.

I had some nice success at a recent WPT National festival here, chopping the hiroller heads up so it's nice to hit a some (more!) form coming into all the upcoming tournaments I've got planned. Been sat still here in Barcelona for way too long, I skipped EPT london and aside from a weekend in Andorra, haven't been anywhere for ages!

Next week I head back to England for the WPT at DTD. Spending about 3 weeks there. Then I might head to Amsterdam for the MCOP. Then in December it's Prague which is always huge. It'll be my 5th time there, always love it. Yet to have a big result though, surely it's coming this year!

So there's some really exciting things coming up and plenty of chances to finish the year off with a bang.

I love living here, it's such a sick city in so many ways. I've been keeping fit and eating well, definitely in the best shape of my life at the moment. I love the feel of the place, the atmosphere in the street, beach, squares etc. I love the food and the weather and I'm getting better at Spanish.

However I don't think it's a long term solution. I think I'll be back in England in February. Where and for what? Now that's the question...I do think though, that my days as a professional poker player are numbered.

Barcelona - the adventure begins!

So I've moved to Barcelona! I've finally done it. Been homeless since March, so had 4 months of living out of a suitcase going from hotel to hotel, apartment to apartment and now I've finally "settled" somewhere.

I chose Barcelona because it made sense from almost every angle. I love the city. I love the language and always wanted to be fluent. I love the weather. I love the food. And crucially, Victoria loves all those things about it too. It has very good access to everywhere major, especially to England and there is a decent enough live poker scene. 

It's not without it's downsides of course. No major online poker sites can be played there, the Catalunians make it difficult for foreigners to settle, and the language barrier is a short-term obstacle to getting involved fully, making friends etc. 

But when cash games in England are as dead as they are, and I had such a strong desire to make a change, Barcelona just ticked every box. 

A group of us spent 2 weeks there for the Estrella/EPT week.It was an absolutely mental festival, with every event breaking attendence records and the place buzzing every day. Poker went fairly disastrously until the most unlikely get-out occurred and turned into my 2nd biggest ever score! the 5k main went terrible, as did various 2k and 1k sides. And then it came down to a 1k re-entry. It started terribly, I lost half my stack and then blinded out for a few hours, shoved a bowl with A5 and got called by AJ. I got there, made day 2 with 16bbs and my some status on fb about what a sorry state of affairs it was that given all the sick tournaments I'd played that trip and all my hopes were resting on 16bbs in this! And then just ran like absolute god and came 2nd for €80k! What a silly game this is. 

The rail that didn't get kicked out

2013 was such a terrible year for tournaments I don't think I even cashed a £1k+ buyin comp! Whereas this year I've had tons of deep runs, cashes, 10-30th place finishes in huge field £1k+ comps so I feel like I've been knocking on the door of something like this. It felt amazing and I was just so lucky that day, I can't grumble about my luck for a while after that! 

We had a pretty sick night in Opium, Sebastian Ingrosso was playing and there was a good group of us all out till the small hours. Several people misses their flights home as a result! Victoria and I didn't even have a flight home, we just stayed out here! 

We have an apartment 60 seconds walk from the beach in a lovely authentic Catalan street in the Barceloneta region. 

My walk to "work" is a lovely 10-15minute stroll along the beach, with the beach on the right and some of Barca's coolest clubs, bars and restaurants on the left. It's hard to feel bad about life with that commute. 

I'm playing live cash most nights, a mixture of €3/6 holdem and €5/5 PLO! Ive never played much PLO before but decided that most of the money in live cash games is in PLO these days rather than Holdem and I'd like a new challenge. I'm definitely at that stage where we all were once with Holdem - just starting out and running like god so we think we're amazing but we're definitely really shit! Yeh that's me. I'm basically trying to play really tight whilst learning, but applying holdem principles and being aggressive when ranges are capped etc. Also by playing hands that make nut flushes, or nut straights you end up being on the right end of "coolers" much more often that those playing looser pre. That's the idea anyway, and I'm getting some tips from some seasoned plo pros which is very useful indeed. Really enjoying it anyway! 

Coming up: 

I'm currently in the Dordogne, in France on a family holiday, then there's a big night out in Nottingham to celebrate everyones recent success (so many people who've been due binks / heaters have got there lately, esp shout out to Jack and Thigh, both were "due" for so long!) so that'll be awesome to celebrate. Then I'm staying in England for a week because a) can grind WCOOP in England not in Spain, and b) Mitch is getting married! Then back to Barcelona for a few weeks until I guess EPT London. 

Goals:

I rarely make poker goals, but I have some fitness goals at the moment. One is the 100 pressup challenge - where you have 6 weeks to build up and by week 7 the idea is that you can do 100 pressups. October 1st is the date I aim to do the 100!

Good luck everyone!

Summertime

The last two weeks have been filled with so many happy times I could write for hours.

My girlfriend Victoria flew in from Latvia on the 17th, and we were kept busy with preparations for my Mum's wedding blessing on the 19th. I had a one key responsibility, to play the ORGAN for one of the hymns! I used to do loads of this kind of thing when I was 14-18ish, but haven't played for years, and although I still play the piano a lot, the organ is a completely different instrument really. So I was pretty nervous and made sure I prepared thoroughly and thankfully it went well.

The day was just so magical. The weather had been forecast for thunder during the whole day, which was obviously pretty disastrous, but miraculously it was beaming sunshine all day. Bobby did a very moving performance of Let It Be, drawing plenty of tears! And his a capella group from Oxford "Out Of The Blue" did a set during the reception.

It was just one of those perfect days where everything goes so well and everyone was so happy throughout. Many Congratulations guys! 

Two days later Victoria, Mark, Bobby and I flew to Italy to join my Dad and his partner in Tuscany, in a villa we've rented for 2 weeks every year for the last 6 years. 

We always have a great time there, it's so peaceful and relaxing. Time is just spent by the pool, enjoying the amazing Italian food, playing family games, table tennis, perudo, cards etc. Never an argument, never a stress. Bliss. 

We spent 5 days there and then Victoria and I travelled up north to Lake Como, somewhere I've wanted to go for ages. It involved 3 trains, 3 car journeys and a bus, but we got there, and had a car hired to travel about there. 

We only had one full day there, so the weather being good was crucial. The weather had been very on/off all week, there had been a thunderstorm the day before, and just like the wedding day - thunder was forecast. And just like the wedding day, against the forecast, the weather was absolutely perfect. 

At the risk of repeating myself, and running out of superlatives, we had the most incredible day there. It's probably the most beautiful place in the world I've ever been. My words can't do it justice, I'll post a few of the hundreds of pictures we took! 

Italy is such an awesome country, could be my number 1 actually...

Anyway, back in England now for a week or so, Probably should play some form of poker soon! 

One last bit of news, the aforementioned a capella group, which Bobby is musical director of, have released a video of their song "Hips Don't Lie" (Bobby's arrangement of three Shakira songs) which has been tweeted by Shakira herself, got in the Guardian, Times, and numerous big papers, and online news pages - and in 7 days, received 1.4 million views on youtube! Here's the link.

See you all at the UKPC at DTD I hope! 

Vegas!!!

Just returned from one of the best trips ever. I bloody love Las Vegas. Definitely gonna go for longer next year, maybe even the whole series. I just love the whole life there. Amazing tournaments every day - you bust early, you get to enjoy the awesome heat by the pool, or shop in the huge great value malls. You bust late, you go to an world class restaurant, you go out to a sick club. You don't bust - you win loads of money! It's so good. Everyone is there. Friends from the online world, friends from the EPT circuit, UK circuit, the biggest names in poker, the biggest stages, the biggest prizes. Numerous opportunities to win huge sums of money, and even more opportunities to spunk it all!

My trip involved lots of deep runs in tournaments! Yay! No big result alas, but got 5 cashes out of 10 decent events ($1100-$2500 buyins), all finishing in the top 2-5% of the field, which doesn't pay much, and I had nasty busts in most of them, but made it a winning trip on a personal level. However my big "score" came from swapping 10% with Deadman who won the Hollywood Poker Open. Thank you Simon!

I think this montage sums up the trip far better than any words could.



Some highlights then...

Best Day

Deadman wins the HPO. I also made the final day of this, but bust in 21st or something, very early on. I then spent a lovely day by the pool in the gorgeous M Resort, while Deadman navigated his way to the final. By this time there was a squad gathered on the rail and we all had dinner together and then got to the rail and the drinks were flowing thick and fast. Group morale when someone wins something is just always absolutely incredible - it's what we live for, and having a financial sweat just makes it even more sweeter. Awesome day.

Best Night

I really can't decide between Calvin Harris at Hakassan or Deadman's celebration night at Drais. For the latter, I had a day two the next day so wasn't drinking, and went home at 230, so the fact it's even close is a testament to how good that night was. Calvin Harris was predictably incredible, and I love Hakkasan - I have amazing memories from that night last year with Laidback Luke which will probably never be topped. Nights out in Vegas this year were all really sick.

Awkward moment

Crippling stato getting the AJ vs AQ in the money of a Venentian comp with $180k ftw! It was horrible! He had 7 antes left then had to go on break, and then he sat there and stalled for a $300 payjump by tank folding the next 4 hands, then I finished the job with AJ again > 52! He didn't even make the payjump! Ouch...

Funny moment

Did a big river bluff on day two of the HPO. Whilst tanking the guy got out a $100 bill and said "I'll literally pay you $100 if you can show me a bluff" He folded, I showed, scooped the pot and the $100!

Sickest spot  

Getting raised from 3k to 11k in the main event, having lead into 2 players, holding the Ace of hearts on a Q95J all heart board. Who bluffs there? But who folds there?!

Worst moments

Missing EDC which I flew out for especially, because of Tonsillitis and general fever etc.

Taken from our Palms Place suite after a nightout

I'm gutted it's all over, it was so so so good. Can't wait for next year. 

Back in England for a week, my Mum is getting married in 5 days! I'm playing the organ for a hymn in the service! And singing in the choir for an item too! Then I'm off to Tuscany for a week with Victoria and my Dad & brothers. Always an awesome holiday, such a beautiful part of the world. 

Until next time, see ya...

Marrakech & Marbella Madness

As amazing as the summer in Nottingham has been last month, I couldn't turn down a couple of little trips before Vegas.

Both I would classify as "half & half" poker and holiday - The events weren't huge, and I wasn't grinding sides or cash much so probs slightly -EV long term given all the expenses and partying etc but it's all about Life EV and I always make up for these things by putting in the hours afterwards.

Marrakesh

Winamax hosted an Electro Music + Poker festival for 5 days at the end of May which seemed to me such a cool combo and I went out there to just play the main and spend the rest of the time by the pool and going to the electro festival. I just went there with Fred, who unfortunately needed plenty of sleep and early nights and I didn't bust the main till late on day two so we didn't do much partying at all. That was limited to the tournament breaks, where I'd step outside for some fresh air and find this scene!

The main event was one of the most fun live tournaments I've played for ages - 6max (see picture of the 6max tables below) and Winamax just seems to attract so many players that just love the game and actually HAVE FUN playing it. There's almost no tanking at all, so it's very quick, and everyone is just really friendly and enjoys it. I got 21st/670 so a nice little run which got me a niche flag, 5figure score (in Moroccon Dinham!) covered expenses for the trip and a few rounds of poolside cocktails so no complaints here  :) 

Free straw hats and sunglasses #standard

 Marbella

This was one of the best trips I've been on in ages. It's my third consecutive trip there and it's always a blast there. It's got everything- the weather, the nightlife, the beach, the food, the people, even some Poker. Add the World Cup to that and you can't really go wrong.

Not many of the usual crowd I go abroad with were there this time but it was cool to mingle with some new people.

Me, Leo, Rich, Victoria, Dan

Victoria, Matt, Fred, #UKPOKERCHAMPION Alex Spencer, Me

Me, Grafton, Middy, Victoria, Keith

Poker didn't go well, I busted the main in level 5 in pretty absurd fashion, then played the hiroller which was sick value, but busted 5 off the money on day two :( 

Another thing that didn't go well was the service! In all but one restaurant we received absolutely shocking service. Not just service without a smile, but the most rude, most incompetent service I've ever come across! We all got so tilted, on so many occasions, especially me who I'm ashamed to admit may have slightly blown about an incident involving butter... Buttergate shall not be blogged about however, it's all in the past...

World Cup Party on the beach!

Pokerstars hosted their party on the beach on the evening of the England game, with a huge screen, open bar, and many many heroes everywhere. Even though we lost, I really enjoyed the game (I usually find watching us so depressing) and think we will still get out of the groups with 6 points having watched Uruguay's dismal performance before. 

We went to a sick club, Aqua, afterwards and had the best night out I've had in ages. Absolutely loving life the whole night and didn't get back till 930am!

VEGAS

I'm back in England now for 3 days, then off to Vegas for the last 3 weeks of the WSOP. Planning to play mainly tournaments, a bit of cash, but also a bit of Open Face Chinese if the games are good! Can't wait to get out there and make some deep runs and big cashes! Will blog with all the gory details when I'm back!

Good luck everyone out there and everyone back home too! 

RunGood - things heating up!

Hello everyone!



Sorry it's been a while since the last blog, it's been an absolutely hectic period, but I'm alive and well, and still loving the game of course!



During March and April I put in more volume than I ever have before, entirely live cash, playing almost 400 hours of live cash in that period with almost no days off at all. I took a break from online poker, and that has continued well into May, missing SCOOP entirely, something I haven't done for 2/3 years.



I returned to life in Nottingham for the UKIPT two weeks ago and played a lot then too, and since then been pretty much on holiday. The weather has been amazing, and this past week or so has been some of the best times I've ever had in England.



On Saturday I had the absolute perfect day in the Peak District, the hottest day of the year so far, and the scenery around there is just spectacular.

We did some walking for a couple of hours, through some hugely varied landscapes, had a picnic, chilled with the sheep, played games - it was so perfect.



In the evening I met  up with some of the boys for a night out in Derby!



Last week I'd been in Cambridge with my Mum for a lovely dinner with her and her fiance (getting married in July!) then went to Oxford for my cousins 21st, and had a huge dinner / night out with all the Nottingham Crew.

Just every day has been so so good, I've loved being back in England.



Now, alas all this stuff hasn't exactly been paying for itself on the felt, I've been running bad for the past 4/5 weeks, but some heat during March has made up for that, and all the stuff above really takes the sting off a downswing so I've been very happy.



Speaking of Run Good, I met a lovely guy recently who's built what I think is a really sick app for tracking Live poker results. I think the ones on the market are so so poor in comparison and this guy felt the same and built his own app, calling it "RunGood".

I'd thoroughly recommend it if you play a lot of live poker, cash or tournaments. It's just on iphone/ipad at the moment, but will be on android soon I'm told. You can try it for free here http://itunes.apple.com/app/rungood/id625738400 or pay £6.99 for the full version here http://itunes.apple.com/app/rungood/id556317356



Tomorrow I'm off to Morocco for some hilarious poker festival plus electro music festival for a 4/5 day holiday / business trip! Pretty random but can't wait! Then my plans are pretty up in the air, but Vegas is all booked for 19th June! This Summer is gonna be awesome!

Let's keep passion in fashion!

Nothing like a cheesy lame title to draw in readers eh?

A recent channel 4 EPT episode contained a hand between Timothy Adams and Eric Seidel in a super hiroller where they get it all in preflop with KK and AA respectively. A cooler in any situation, and especially nasty in a tournament with €100,000 buyin. The board bricks until the river which is a King. 
 

A hand that makes for great TV, or it should have done. Without the commentary, it would've been barely possible to notice who was involved in the hand, let alone who won and lost! 

Not a hint of a reaction from either player when the cards were revealed, nor as the board was dealt out. 

Whilst I admire their coolness and professionalism under the circumstances, and this is absolutely not a rant about how players should "entertain" on these TV shows - I want to see more emotion in the game! 

Bring back the fistpumps, the cries, the cheers! We all do it in our homes whilst playing online and everyone feels the highs and the lows inside, so why is everybody so concerned with bottling it all up now!?  

I understand why it's not the done thing to celebrate in front of people, and of course it's "cool" to not care about a suckout - but I'd much rather that people were allowed to ENJOY winning off me and didn't feel pressured by current etiquette guidelines. I genuinely enjoy seeing someone be made happy by winning at cards, even if it is at my expense. Because if people are made to feel bad for enjoying their good fortunes, they're not going to stick around too long. 

This is what I'm talking about! You have to at least crack a smile at this, even as the loser.

And believe it or not, I really don't mind if it makes my opponent happy to slowroll me on the river (unless the pot is really big!). I play so much live poker that I'm more or less immune now. I've been slow rolled countless times, and 95% of them have not been in the slightest bit malicious. Mainly in places like Spain France or Italy - they love it - it's just part of the game to them, they have fun revealing their cards how they want. They play the game with passion and emotion at every corner, and showdowns are no different. In most cases they aren't trying to piss you off at all. It's not even an issue there, just part of the game.  

So if you're happy that you've rivered me in a big hand, I really won't mind you showing that emotion however you wish. We want our opponents to enjoy playing the game don't we? So let's stop being so sensitive and self conscious and have a bit of fun ourselves.  

The TV shows are for the most part useless at attracting people into the game. They sure make poker look boring to someone channel flicking. Imagine if Adams and Seidel were replaced with Teddy KGB and Havad Khan? Or Rastafish and Phil Hellmuth? Then it would look fun! "Wow what a sick hand, look how happy that guy is and how pissed the other guy is! This looks fun".  

Instead it's like "who won? Oh the young guy, well he doesn't look very happy about it". That's what my mum would say!  

Joe Stapleton (who is a cut above the rest by a million miles in terms of appealing to the masses and making the best out of some pretty lame material) hit the nail on the head with his commentary. 

"Seidel, would it kill you to berate the guy?". Tongue in cheek, but got me and my good friend and first class DTD Dealer George thinking. 

The fro got me thinking

Hence this blog in fact.

Pros are never going to act differently towards each other, I understand that. But let the recreational players have their fun at the table. Get befuddled by an Ian Gascoigne check raise and enjoy his "boom shackalaka" celebration. Get rivered by Rastafish and enjoy the moment with him as he sings and shouts about it! 

Pokers a horrible game sometimes but can be made that little bit easier if you ease up, relax, enjoy your wins and even enjoy your opponents joy at your losses. 

Goodbye Nottingham!

This week marks my last few days as a resident in Nottingham. I moved here in 2008 to attend University and have lived here ever since, but it's time for a change so come Friday, I'll be officially homeless and just living out of a suitcase for the next 6 months! My rough plans for the next 6 months are Macau, Vegas, Barcelona, with various stoppages elsewhere depending on what I fancy. Where I live after that depends on how things go...

It seems right that my last few days have been spent hanging out with my friends and playing live cash games. It's been so much fun. The guys in Gala/ Alea really feel like my Nottingham family. I love going down there and catching up with all of them - they've been there since the start for me and I've shared some great times in cash games there over the past 5/6 years. Probably my favourite guy from there is Ali Ayub, he cracks me up no end and on Monday I had one of the funniest nights of poker I've ever had, getting drunk in a 50/1 cash game with a load of heroes, including Ali who had me in stitches all night.

Living in Nottingham has been a blast. I guess I don't really love it as a city, I'm not particularly attracted to any house / street / restaurant or anything like that. But I love the community in DTD, Gala and Alea that I feel part of and I've met all my closest friends here. I've lived with Stato, Thigh, PJ, Fred travelled all over the world with people I've met here and will certainly continue to do so and this isn't goodbye to any of them.

Last night Keith had us all round for pancakes and then watched / coached as we all grinded online. He decided to play himself and obviously got the lot and was the only winner! I went to Alea and made a bit playing DC. Unfortunately lost chunks tonight at DTD but I feel a good one is on the way in tonight's game...

It's just been a really fun time playing cash games these last couple of weeks, the games have picked up again and I'm definitely leaving hoping to be back soon, rather than leaving happily, which is a really nice feeling.

Not much else has been happening since the UKPC but I felt it'd be remiss of me to not blog about me leaving the country! So it's short and sweet today, I'll leave you with this one meme which just keeps making me chuckle.

SKY UK Poker Championships

The UK Poker Championships, hosted by Sky Poker and Dusk Till Dawn last week, could be the single best development in UK Poker since DTD itself opened. 

Alex Spencer, who won it, can now call himself the UK Poker Champion! How cool is that?! He can legitimately tell his friends and family, that he is the UK Poker Champion! God I'm jealous! That sounds better than EPT Champion! People from outside of the poker world can relate to a UK Poker Champion, they don't know what an EPT or WPT is. They can tune in to Sky Sports and watch the Championships of UK Poker being played out and that means something to them. 

They can watch the story of Deborah O'Connell from Stoke who spent £1 on a satellite on DTD and turn that into a seat into the main event, and turned that into £16,000 for coming 7th. 

They can watch Allan Graham from Leicester turn £2.80 into £12,500 for 8th. 

James Rimmer was just coming up to Nottingham with his mates who'd all won seats. He wasn't going to play but was there for the craic, and didn't mind spending £50 on a satellite just to see what happened. He won a seat and got 4th for £37,500. 

These guys battled it out with the biggest names in UK Poker - professionals who've won millions in their careers. So many great stories came out of this week. The club was absolutely buzzing all week, side events were booming, cash games non-stop, plenty of socialising at the bar, everyone having a good time - It was a fantastic week. 

On a personal note my week was financially not too bad- I played the hiroller, 6max and the turbo and didn't cash, but got 24th in the main event which got me out of it and did OK in the cash games so it's been alright. I was chip leader in the main event for the last few hours of day two and the first level or two of day three. So I'm pretty disappointed to come 24th. 

Yes I've put on weight :(

Everyone says the worst day of the year is the day you bust the WSOP Main. The better the event, the more painful the bust-out. That's why 's why it hurt so much to bust this. I so wanted to be on the final table, to have that bracelet, to be the Champion! GUKPT, UKIPT, GPS doesn't even come close to that feeling. The prestige can't even compare. 

I think there could be a boom in the UK poker scene when this airs on TV next month. It's so good for poker. I really hope the UKPC is here to stay and will be an annual event on the calendar. I think it'd be a massive shame if it wasn't. Thank you DTD and Sky Poker! 

Deauville!

On the face of it, the Deauville leg of the tour should rank pretty low amongst the others. It is out classed by almost every stop in almost every category. Its a massive hassle to get there, there's nothing to do and the weather is shite! 

After an 8 hour ferry, crazy golf in the rain
seemed like the natural choice of activity

Yet it keeps dragging me back and will definitely be the first date in the diary for 2015. 

Because there isn't anything else to do you end up grinding every day and the trip ends up being an actual serious poker trip! Prague, Barcelona, Vegas etc all carry numerous distractions so Deauville has that "appeal" of probably being the most +EV stop of the year (if you're into that kind of thing....) 

Bracelet hunting - the French way

Deadman, Stato, Keith, Mitch and I made the trip this year and as a group we all felt we were due a trip where we got the lot. We kicked things off with a 300 turbo in which I got my first ever French flag in style by chopping the bubble for €265! A winning start...sort of! Enjoyed it a lot (especially stalling antics near the bubble!) and Mitch got another 8th place finish on his hendon mob! 

The FPS main went pretty good, built up a big stack on day two, then lost a key hand to leave me short and having to grind into the money. Never recovered and although I kept my stack alive - I grinded 10-20 bbs for about 8 hours, well into day 3, but lost the first time I was all-in with 88 vs QTs and finished 44th for €3300. It felt great to run deep, get another cash/flag and was great for the confidence. However, in such a soft field it was an amazing chance at a huge score (€175k ftw) and it was kind of demoralising to think that it had been a year since my last cash in a 1k+ comp, I really didn't want to wait another year for a shot again.  

Luckily I didn't even have to wait a week... 

The EPT main was the next day and I was raring to go. In between these events Keith had shipped a €500 PLO turbo side for €15k and a trophy! Skill game!  

I busted EPT Prague in level one and had a nightmare start in this one too - down to 7.5k from my 30k starting stack. I grinded it back though and finished the day nicely on 71k.

At this point Deadman was on the final of the FPS hiroller (wait a minute, I thought he had 4bbs a couple of hours ago?!) so we went straight to the bar and got in a few rounds of €8/pint beer and got on it! Some excellent ladder and flip tekkers saw Deadman into 4 handed play where we were confident he was gonna smash it. Unfortunately our dreams of seeing our hero ship the trophy were dashed by the lame French laws that said we had to leave the casino at 4am. We weren't happy about this and, led by stato, protested that we should be allowed to stay and watch. Security man-handled us out and I snapped a selfie of me being evicted (for the blog ldo)! Alas, he caught me and made me delete it, then took my picture! I was sweating whether I'd be allowed back in to play my day two!

Deadman came back a few hours later and with tales of how this French guy had owned him heads up and how he only got 2nd. Just €87k. Pfff. What a trip this was turning into though! 

Luckily we had a days rest before day two to recover!

The days "rest" involved us playing some comedy €800+200+100 random bounty turbo where a randomly allocated 1/10 bounties were €1k and the rest €100. Pretty cool concept. Sadly bricks all round (including a Keith Johnson pure bubble!) except trusty min-cash Mitch holding up the fort with a strong 11th place finish.  

The next day, Mitch and Keith and I all made day three of the main, I had a healthy stack and I started well on day three, smashing every flop and that gave me a stack to abuse the bubble which was incredibly fun and useful! Mitch sadly busted 20 off the money but Keith cashed but bust soon after. I finished on 700k, and was to be on the TV table for day four. 

It was the toughest table in the room and I ended up getting involved in the biggest equity pot of my life (at the time...) in a huge AKs vs JJ classic coinflip. I'd be down to 10bbs if I lost, but winning it would send me to 1m - 100bbs. Ace in the window was so nice to see! It held up and I was top 3 stack now. Nice!

However probably the highlight hand of that table came an hour later, when I rivered quad nines and got a river raise to 475k paid off! Rivering quads, deep in an EPT, getting paid, on TV! I felt pretty blessed right then! 

I was chip leader for a while, chipped up to 2.5m, then ran QQ into AA to go down to 2m, chipped back up to 2.5m, then ran AQs into KK, back down to 2m. Then finished the day badly and bagged up 1.4m for day five.  

I'd struggled to sleep all week, but it was so hard to fall asleep that night. It was so exciting. I'd had problems during play of feeling really anxious and stressed. It's kind of hard to explain, during hands I was completely in the zone and played my best. But once I'd folded, every moment spent waiting around was so awful, I felt terrible. Like I wanted the next hand straight away, like I wanted whatever was going to happen to happen now- almost like i wanted it all to be over! It was strange. I went for walks during the breaks. I skyped people like Julian Thew who've had experience in these situations and that helped a lot. Having the boys all still around to chat to really helped too. I went for a beer with Deadman and Ben Jones that night and that really helped distract me, just chatting about anything except for poker- was really good. 

I had 2-3 hours sleep I guess. Not ideal but it was all I could manage. I went for a morning walk to the beach, listening to music that inspires me (don't ask!) and then did the morning ritual that we'd done every day of the trip at 1130. Walk to the same little shop and get une crepe with strawberry jam. 

As it turns out, all the preparation and advice in the world couldn't help me win the crucial flip I couldn't avoid. AQ vs 88 blind vs blind for 33bbs.

I came 11th out of 600+ players in an EPT for my 2nd biggest cash of my life. I'm proud of that. There's a lot of disappointment though too - I could never get this close to an EPT final / win ever again. This was the biggest sweat of my life by far. On days 3-5 I was involved in 7 allins and lost 6 of them. Of course the one I did win was absolutely massive, and I ran great in all other areas, but felt hard done by to come 11th. Especially when I saw 1m stacks on the final, a 2.5m stack 3 handed - a stack I had on day 4! 

It's weird how winning a side event for say €30k would feel so much better than 11th for €40k.  

I was very lucky to get there anyway, and enjoyed the run immensely - it gives me great confidence for the future, and great hunger to keep playing tournaments in search of more success.  

Just got back from a little break with Victoria in Riga. It's so gorgeous on the coast this time of year. 

Snow, Sea and Sand is an odd combination,
but makes for a nice photo!

I'm on the SKY Poker TV show on Tuesday being a guest analyst (!), then it's GPS in Birmingham then it's UKPC week in DTD with SKY Poker. Very exciting few weeks ahead!

Good luck everyone sorry this blog has dragged on so long!

When things fall apart!

For my birthday my Aunt bought me a book, pictured below. 

Maybe she'd been keeping an eye on pocket fives, or maybe she's friends with one of the cashier's at DTD who've been worried about my lack of visits to the cash desk lately. 

Either way, despite it being rather an unusual gift, she's bang on the money - it's been a bad time lately. Problems both personal and professional have made it a tough time. 

I try and keep my head down when going through a bad patch because that's generally the best way through it. Nobody likes reading about it, and it doesn't really help much at all to vent and moan - and you always regret it later and when you look at the bigger picture (and you look silly when you moan in a ridiculously lucky bink the week later!). Also the variance police are always about to tell you that you haven't actually been running bad, you ran well in x tournament or in x cash game, they run worse etc - it's just not very helpful all round.

So what does the book say? What do you do when things fall apart? 

Well, I haven't read it yet. But my answer would be "Put them back together again!". Do whatever you can, or whatever you need to, to get back to winning ways.

Here's a few things that work for me-

• Having a HH review /coaching /sweat session with someone you respect and who understands you. Done quite a lot of that this year already. In fact a lot of the material of this blog is advice given to me by others! 
• Dropping down stakes, playing smaller field tournaments - more manageable and softer fields make it easier to win, and although 1st prize might not be what you're used to playing for, it's still a very nice feeling to actually win something, and very good for the confidence.
• Taking a break or choosing a different form of the game to play for a while. I switch regularly between tournaments and cash, live and online and generally find the low variance of say a £1/1 game where I feel really confident at any table is really good for confidence and just winning a few hundred quid in a fun live game feels really nice after knocking it in online. 
• I watched the PCA live stream for many hours this week and found listening to Ike Haxton talk extensively about hands and his constant reference to GTO play was really interesting and inspiring. And it's also nice to watch sickos battle it out and seeing all their hole cards and see that they're not doing anything massively out of the ordinary or different to what you would do.

What doesn't work

• Cursing, shouting, slamming the mouse down, telling your friends bad beat stories, whining, moaning and just generally feeling sorry for yourself! 

Since a coaching session on Monday, changing my schedule a bit, watching the PCA stream and doing some personal work on my game (and improvements on the personal front) - I've booked 3 winning MTT sessions in a row! Might be a personal record streak for online tournaments!

Now I'm not one for incorrectly linking correlation with causality and being results orientated - but the some of the results have come from tournaments I've never played before - a lower buyin or a site I don't usually play on. And although I could have easily lost every day this week and not done anything wrong - I feel like the things I've adjusted and the work I've done has definitely helped my confidence and I'm enjoying it a lot more. Playing with confidence and running well - a powerful combination - just ask Simon Deadman!

Another little thing I did today which I don't normally do - cook Vegetables! Now I'm not saying that they made me run well, but they might be the key ingredient...

In short, don't get mad at the things you can't change, look at the things you can. Good luck at the tables! 

Run better everyone!

Birthday shenanigans!

Funnily enough since my last blog post, there have actually been some amazing games at DTD! I've been a bit busy with other things so only played two sessions, but I understand from Thursday - Sunday of last week there was at least one incredibly deep and juicy 1/2 game every day, with 3k 4k stacks around and some huge swings.

I enjoy these games, because the banter is always great, the adrenaline rush very high, and the metagame wars between regs always very deep and complex - it's all very high octane. However it doesn't allow me to play my game, I would usually rather be table captain and be the one raising and 3betting rather than taking the passive options, but in these games it seems like the correct way to play, even though it feels a bit weak.

I've taken a bit of a back seat in the dick swinging wars and just spectated really as Mitch and Fred go at it every hand, every night. I've been the guy that's sat there waiting to find Aces and get caught up in the crossfire and luckbox a cheeky double up! I hate that guy!

It's not been intentional, I've just had aces two or three times and everytime I have either someone has gone nuts (Fred) or had a hand too and gone with it (Mitch). In the last session I actually doubled up three times but ended up winning about £100!

In between these sessions has been my birthday, a couple of nights out and Sunday bloody Sunday.

On my actual birthday I went down to London to see some family. My cousin Amy had a baby last year who is so awesome I love him!

I got back to Nottingham for the evening and had a very messy night out with Fred and Tom and loads of Fred's mates from Derby which was good. I unwisely mixed beer with wine with vodka with jaeger which proved to be a disaster combo for the hangover that followed. I don't usually get hangovers but this one was pretty horrific and it was on a sunday so had to man up and play a proper session with it too :(.

Last night I organised a meal for the birthdays of Sean, myself and Mitch - it was quite short notice but we got 10 people out to Iberico World Tapas in Nottingham, which is absolutely amazing, definitely my favourite restaurant in Nottingham now. The last time I went was when we celebrated PJ winning a live tournament. So it's been fucking ages! I had forgotten how good it was.

Yes that's Fred with the beard at the back. 

The banter at said meal was first class, a really really good time was had. The bill was £400 and 7 of us bought out for £40 (I know, everyone's too under it to degen flip for this like we used to!) leaving Fred, Stato and Linton to flip - first card out pays nothing, then it's a heads up flip, winner gets the £280 buyout money, and loser pays the entire £400! Against the run of form, Fred lost and Stato won!

I've played two online sessions in 2014 so far, both have been disastrous, not cashing a single tournament on Sunday (ouch) and cashing almost nothing in the other one. So the makeup is ever rising, but some good chances to get out with the GPS this weekend and a big trip to Deauville in a couple of weeks for the FPS and EPT. Hope to start the year off with a bang! 

Good luck everyone this weekend, it's going to be a sick tournament :)