Indonesians are the best

nice update!

All Quiet on the Western Front

God damn it's a baron wasteland out here in London at the moment.

I mean is it so hard to ask that in the 2nd biggest city in the world we could muster some 5/10 or 10/25+ action on a daily basis. Like 5/10 is legit bowl and we can't even fire that off everyday.

It's got bad man, it's got to the point where I'm messaging my friends who play NL and asking them if they can message London regs to see if anyone would be happy to fire £10/25+ NL vs an old withered PLO veteran. I believe they likely wouldn't though .

The poker I have been playing live has mainly been of the £2/5 PLO variety. I've adopted a hugely douche strategy of sitting with £10k. My theory is this though, me sitting so deep makes a lot of the other weak regs sit a little deeper out of fear of looking like huge pigeons, thusly this makes the game a little deeper, makes the game play out a little bigger. Also people in live poker are stupid and only like to put a straddle on when 'stacks are deep' so stacks getting deeper allows for a stronger possibility of 2/5/10 etc or the game being converted to 5/10.

From a positive stand point is that hourlies can still be strong, even @ 2/5, so it's not completely doom and gloom.

Are there any solutions out there?

The issue with PLO is that there still aren't as many games globally as NL. For instance, it'd be easy to travel to several places and be able to play 10/20+ but for PLO this isn't the case.

I'll try and tap into the 2p2 megabrain and ask 'does anyone know of any PLO action out there in the world right now?'.

The main possibilities are looking like a return to Macau, where apparently they get 50/100 HKD each day, this wouldn't be ideal but it's bigger than what we're getting in London right now. Possibly Vegas, a friend tells me that the Wynn is running 25/50 most weekends, that'd be cool cos the hourly should hopefully be big enough to allow just lying in the sun/playing some 5/10 @ the aria in the week to make up for the lack of action. My friends in Sydney suggest 5/10/20 is back for the time being, it's just a little too far to travel though.

Outside of Poker

So I hadn't been feeling great lately. Feeling a little empty, had some trials and tribulations and some stresses this past few months that have beaten me down a little. That mixed with my poker/life balance being horribly skewed has led to me not really being myself; prescription meds could also be playing a role here.

I was getting a massage at the Vic the other night and started chatting about this in depth with the masseuse about how I'd been feeling. She is into what she can feel, studies EFT stuff etc and said she could 'feel' the discomfort in me. We discussed things that could be manifesting this empty feeling and what I could do to change. One of the main things was writing, this partially being behind me writing in the blog again. However, I think it has to be something outside of poker writing.

Therefore my new 'goal' is to seek out a writing course in London, preferably something relating to comedy writing, sitcom writing etc. If anyone knows of any particularly good ones, or on the off chance any poker loving actual writers read this and would like to bounce ideas around I would be happy to offer some PLO coaching in return as a thank you.

Outside of that not much to add. I'm off to Barcelona for a quick vacation this week and might pop into the casino there; Not to play but just to enquire if they have a regular PLO game that runs there, another potential possibility.

Otherwise expect to see my sat douchely deep in a £2/5 game near you soon.

Glad this blog is back.

I'd stay away from Barca & Spain in general for that matter - I play quite abit in Marbella, on & off season as I have a place there so get to play when no other tourists are around - not PLO but NL - & generally floor decisions go the way of the Spanish regs and its overal quite a biased situation. Ive heard the same for most Spanish casinos. I've even been in games where the regs have been blatantly whatsapping each other and floor ignore it and I then have to deal with an extremely unpleasant atmosphere.

What about Miami or LA?

I mean hardly my place to chime in but every Spanish casino story I've heard revolved around Spanish regs angling/bending rules and getting away with it due to floor. Let's also not forget the amount of chips that have been stolen year after year at ept Barca, idk there's likely way safer and better places to play and I know you're only vacationing but just my two cents.

I know there's lots of stories like that from Barcelona but have you heard any from anywhere else in Spain?

Stay strong and hang in there

Erm read my post above - happens all over Spain. Probably worse in more discreet locations.

Oh sorry I missed that!

Cheers for the responses. Like I say I was just sort of going to pop my head in and see what they had regularly. No real yearning to move to Spain and play PLO and less so after some of those dodgy stories.


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Venture into 2 card living started seemlessly

spoke with a guy in the vic recently who had just been gambling it up in panama/central america in large PLO games, maybe check that out

ps: how is london the second biggest city in the world

Maybe he meant second biggest where poker is legal?

Meh, assumed it'd be biggest or 2nd biggest.

in the words of the pres of the US: CHY-NAH

One Year on from Hell

So about a year ago I was basically unable to leave my front door. I was in the grips of such terrible anxiety that I had developed full blown agoraphobia. It was, for use of a better term, hell on earth.

Now a year later I was out with some of the poker lads watching a well known London poker player called David Capon in a white collar boxing match. The event was everything I'd learnt to fear in my mind last year. Crowded venue, boistrous crowd and having to socialise with those that were outside of my inner circle. I attended last night a) with good feelings and fearless but b) under the grips of daily medication that I can still feel ruling my existence. Unsurprisingly that's good and bad. I have a much more balanced life but I am under medication that I'd like to be free of in order to really feel like I've bounced back.

Wasn't your financial life in the bin as well as the health issues?

Battling back from the anxiety coincided with financial problems that had mounted to a fairly insurmountable level. I think at peak destruction in the 18months I was sat at £100k in debt with little to no liquidity and nobody willing to back me. Those who have read this thread no that assistance came and that I was able to start building liquidity and repaying my debts. I still have a few debts with friends here and there, as well as I few owed to me but all in all I was able to take my net worth from -£100k back into a fairly solid black figure.

I would argue, albeit I'm sure others would protest, that I am within the best of the omaha regs in London. I currently have myself at #3 on the biggest winners in the Vic this year with earning exceeding 6 figures and I think that I've worked hard enough on my game to have me a good spot or two ahead in game progression than most of the regs. I'm sure I'll get flamed for this in the Vic by my fellow warriors, we're all grappling with our own ego's.

Enough bragging, you shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place, will you be there again?

This is the forever worry, something that toils my mind day and night and something that I battle with on a daily basis.

In trying to diversify my action and income revenues I have looked at several avenues this year from crypto currencies to agency for PokerMaster. I think with investing I'm well out of my depth currently and don't put money near anything that isn't recommended to me by the people I respect most.

PokerMaster has been a disaster for me this year, it's the worst platform for me to play on. In live poker, being able to have something real in my hand that reminds me of the money we're playing for at high stakes means that I never lose my cool or spew off. I think mentally I'm one of the strongest regs in the live game. However, on PokerMaster my old demons seem to be at their worst. The app graphics etc remind me of a slot machine and I find myself losing my cool and tilting on there at an alarming rate. I think I'm probably down close to £115k on the app, which is a scary amount and something I'm embarrassed about. I've made some money back from the app by being an agent for it in the UK and putting players in on the app. I was in charge of some infant accountancy for many of the accounts and made some accountancy errors that have meant I've almost certainly overpaid some accounts, leaving me £30-40k out of pocket. Again, all we can do in life is learn but as one of my good friends in life mentioned to me, 'you're always learning Phil but you need to keep doing so and fast to get up amongst the best of the best' - he's not wrong. I hate that app with a burning passion but I have to take the weight of that on my own shoulders.

Wrapping up when I've promptly bared all...(get it?)

So I guess the reason I've written this piece late on a Sunday night is that I've felt myself wobble today. I'm noticing myself fall into my old mistakes and my old degenerate demons nibbling at my shoulder. I've been betting golf, successfully, lately, using tips from my friend who has had excellent golf betting result this past year. I don't mind it, the outlay is low and the returns are big, albeit with big variance in between if im not hedging and laying against in certain spots. Today I was letting it 'ride' in a spot where I have the leader to win in this RBC invitational in Canada. It seems now and has appeared throughout the day that the bet is slipping away, it shouldn't mean anything the result would be a small loss.

I think however my mindset has been poor, I have started backing a friend in Manchester on Party Poker whilst he is laid off work with a broken leg. The friend is a good/solid NL player and I trust him but he's not a pro. I found myself firing him into a lot of higher buyin Sunday stuff today just cranking the variance. This is fairly silly, there is no way for me to say with certainty that my friend has a an edge and punting MTTs is a variance overload. I found myself then also playing a bunch of high variance/low edge stuff like 5/10+ HU PLO on Party all day and have taken a day where I was in a good spot to be +£5k and at worst -£700, into a day where I'm probably going to end £8-10k down.

Bad days happen, whatever, this isn't a cry for help over a probably losing day. This is, however, just a gentle reminder to myself. I have a good life, good money, good prospects, good skills. I have come a long way in a year after being on the cusp and teetering over into actual hell. I have gone from contemplating suicide to living for and enjoying everyday.

Sometimes it just takes a little writing and sharing to remind myself that it's all one long journey and to keep going.

Happy grinding y'all.

Congrats on the progression of your agoraphobia!

Do you have a diverse crypto portfolio? if so what's your fav altcoin that you think has huge potential in the future.

As usual, a very interesting and candid post.

I've gone back and read through the thread a number of times now, and it really is incredible how you've bounced back from £200 in your first post to, well, all the insane things you've mentioned in your above post!

I think it takes a lot of courage to post the things you said, especially when your games revolve around playing with the same staff and regs who also probably read this blog.

In the short time I saw you in The Vic I found you to be very personable, friendly and sociable as a relative stranger. I also get rather anxious/scatty/weird from time to time myself; I do get days where I get agoraphobic, dread going into work/making coffee/going to seminars/making small talk etc,.

That being said what I do find that helps me is realising the world isn't such a scary place once you're out there and getting on with your daily grind. As someone in their late twenties (30 next year :I ), I gain motivation in that I'm not going to be young forever which has helped cure some of the lethargy and agoraphobia I've experienced in my earlier years; I've been to LA, and will be done with 2 Solo/yolo Europe trips in about a weeks time and probably going back to LA in September. This isn't very impressive to a lot of people but is a pretty big accomplishment for me personally; embrace the changes you've made like you've basically done.

Keep up the posts man, also

Really interesting read as always bigA - always admire your openness and honesty, it's really something I'm trying more and more too. It takes a LOT of self awareness to have the insights that you have, so i wouldn't be toooo worried about slipping back into old habits - I kinda feel that slipping back into those habits is due to a lack of self awareness which doesn't come across in your posts.

Those swings are so sick, dunno how the hell you deal with them

FOMO

Urban dictionary describes the term FOMO as the Fear of Missing Out.

This is what I'm currently feeling right now with regards to the big poker events and the big poker festivals. I missed the WSOP in the summer primarily due to social events, stags etc, and now I'm missing Barca (WSOP and Barca been the only two events I'd earmarked going to) because of friend's wedding (had one Saturday and travel to Italy for one on Friday.

I mean at the end of the day it's one of those things, at my age these things are all going to clash a lot and as much as I love the GREAT GAAMMMEEEEE I like to think I'm someone in life where friendships and activities and events outside of poker take precedent.

From the reports I've heard I'm not missing a huge deal cash game wise in Barca anyway and a lot of the bigger/juicier stuff has been incredibly hard to weasel into anyway (surprise, surprise).

I mean the truth is my live grind this year has been as tedious and unexciting as possible - it could also coincide with the fact that I've been crushing super hard live this year also however :P.

With that in mind let's get into some results from London since my last update (there's some good, bad and down right ugly:

July 31st - Mix Game 100/200 Result: -£11825 - bad result, will probably be the end of my mix game adventures for a while until I get online and get better. Ended the night playing Drawmaha (a split game where where you get 5 cards and try and make a 5card draw hand and a 5 card omaha hand). I really got bashed in this and probably didn't need to be playing that big in a game I've never played. Line up was rough too with Schwartz (he was beasting everything), Mafews, CHUFTY, Flong and Benny Glaser. Choose. Easier. Line ups.

Aug 1st - 5/10/25 PLO Result: +£2950

Aug 2nd - 5/10/25 PLO Result: -£3200

Aug 3rd - 5/10/25 PLO Result: +£5750

Aug 4th - 5/10/25 PLO Result: -£8275

Aug 7th - 5/10/25 PLO Result: +£7800

Aug 10th - 5/10/25 PLO Result: +£9400

Aug 11th - 5/10/25 PLO Result: +£2450

Aug 15th - 5/10/25 Result: +£5600

Aug 16th - 5/10/25 Result: +£8775

Many will know I'm not a massive fan on public results but it appears that's what the majority of PG&C readers enjoy so will give it a whirl for a while

On the whole results have been pretty good, particularly in my favourite discipline. I've been mixing in a little Hold'em at the end of my PLO sessions so those results are a mix of PLO/NLH but all the sessions have started as PLO.

I guess the downer is the mixed games bashing. Luke kinda did what he's a master at and talked me into getting involved and in reality that was clever by him and pretty ill disciplined by me. The other night a really boring PLO was running and they had a fairly good fun (at least it seemed to be) big mix running and I managed to decline the seat this time, so there's a little improvement at least.

Random

Outside of poker my time has been spent primarily hanging with family in friends. My friend Jon (an amazingly good and successful poker player back in the day) got married on the weekend and it was an amazing day, really good job organising such an event from him and his now wife Hannah. It was a who's who of British poker there with Jake Cody, JP Kelly, Matt Moss, Tom Macdonald, Matt Perrins to name a few. All these guys are the guys I've either grown up with or become great friends with as a result of us all being poker players so it was really nice to catch up and have a good old knees up with all of them.

I went to London Zoo on Thursday because my 64 year old mother was visiting London and that's where she wanted to go. I wasn't overly chuffed as we went through the enclosures and everyone else was a mother with their small children and then my mum and her lanky 30 year old son. Not ideal haha. The Zoo is actually pretty cool though and it kept my old Ma happy so was a good day overall.

Plan for this week is to get back on the live grind, hopefully continue my good form and continue to crush before flying to Lake Como on Friday.

Gl all.

Great PLO results bro!! What games were in the mix, and which do you prefer?

Hey Grim,

Tough to remember all from memory.

But there was PLO Hi/Lo, Lowball, A-5, Stud Hi/LO, 2-t TD, badeucy, limit holdem and a few more circulating. Often games will be taken in and out sporadically based on a group majority decision.

I had one fun lowball hand (a game I was playing for the first time haha) where Me and Glaser were in the blind and I had 7543J or something, he raised and I flatted. He drew one as did I and I drew a tilting 6x. He bet £600 (we were playing with a £2k CAP) and I jammed for £2k. He tanked off for a long time and ended up folding a 96xxx much to the hilarity of the table. I guess it was good heart but pretty lucky as he said he was calling with 95xxx and better and 96xxx was right on the cusp. Lucky me.

Ain't So pretty out here in the Wild Wild West...

So I wasn't planning to update so frequently but it's been an interesting few days.

Let's dive straight into a little bit of Results & Analysis

3 Live Sessions this week:

Aug 21st - £5/10/25 PLO +£1500

Aug 22nd - £5/10/25 PLO -£7500

Aug 23rd - £5/10/25 PLO +£1000

So stuck £5k on the week in the live arena, it happens. It's funny because the session I played the best was the -£7500. I just ran really cold that night, had a funny spot where I raise a very good reg on A965ddhh with AAKd2d and have him flat and then he lead into me for pot on a 9x river, super close spot but I decide to call instead of raise and get shown T997 . Rough spot but played it well I think so pretty happy with that one.

Return of the MTT King

Probably fairly unknown but I occasionally play on Party Poker in my spare time under the SN 'HopHobson'.

I had an interesting week where I lost $5k in a $25/50 PLO on there in a game with the DTD Mr Infamous Rob Yong. I ran a play in that game that was a little inaccurate and got punished for it and then in classic online style the game ended pretty sharpish.

Then on Tuesday after that bad Vic session I played the $530 High Roller Turbo on there and managed to bag the win for $10k + change. That's my 2nd $530 MTT win on Party in a few attempts so experiencing some really pleasant run good. The Party Mtt's seem incredibly soft atm with players in Barcelona, there also seems to be a few overlays also so tourney guys get on in there.

A Snake Amongst the Grass..

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...index1607.html

edit: Scroll to the bottom for drama.

It appears I may have fallen foul to a scammer, I'm hoping this isn't the case but the situation doesn't look good. I traded $1600 off ACR for Party. I sent first given I never really use the trade threads and Villain had a history of trades, albeit the majority of them being under this amount. Anyway, I sent first, he confirmed he'd received and I haven't received anything back yet . That's annoying, be careful out there guys and certainly don't do any trading with this 'BongFellow' until this is cleared up.

I think my poker playing will be done for the week, I fly to Italy tomorrow and I'm not back until the middle of next week.

For those of you who have read this for some health updates also I had the final stage of my heart tests at the hospital at the end of Westminster Bridge yesterday. It was quite strange, they made me do a stress test on this weird bed/bike thing that during the exercise they turn in a 45degree angle (you're heavily strapped in, whilst being hooked up to a bunch of stuff) as they do an ultrasound on your heart. It's pretty intense and on top of everything else the stress test is really, really hard. I was sweating more than I think I ever have at the end of it with 4 sets of eyes on me asking if I was ok, pretty damn strange. The good news however is that they say my heart is looking good and healthy and don't expect to need to do anything else heading into the near future. Delightful .

Really enjoy your updates and given I know a few of the people you play against its fun to rail it a little through here. glgl

Took me awhile, but read through your 2 PG&C threads on here. Really enjoyed reading them and your writing style. Congrats on the 2 $530 wins on Party and godspeed going forward!

yeah good updates BigAisa

nice to see your health and poker going well

big bloody A. He's not the hero we asked for, but goddamn, he's the one we needed