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...