Nice pot!

Glad you've updated the thread, I followed it closely when you started it up.

Personal Qs now (forgive me) but what's your net profit and current roll looking like after all this time playing? Whereabouts/what games are you focusing on now?

Looking forward to your updates, keep crushing

TY massivetime

I'm going to start updating this thread more often. I stopped for a long while because I've become more and more involved in private games and it isn't necessarily wise to share too much about them. Really though, this is a fairly quiet corner of the Internet and I'm sure I can get away with telling a few stories without mentioning any names.

I've put a bunch of hours in at two private games, one mostly NL, the other exclusively PLO. When I'm not playing there I'm either at the empire playing 5/5 PLO/DC or 2/5 NL, at the Palm Beach or randomly in a good game I've heard about elsewhere. I rarely go to the Vic because the big NL always looks fairly bad and I'd rather take my big PLO shots in private games where I'm generally in a much softer lineup.

I'm not going to disclose details about roll/net worth I'm afraid. Hope you understand.

I'm in a private game. It's that time of night where no one is playing well anymore - if they even were in the first place. The game is 4/5/6 PLO, but the mere idea of anyone not picking 6 is laughable. The blinds are 5/5, and the 20 double straddle has been on for hours.

We're down to 4 handed. One player goes to the bathroom while the other steps away to make a call, so we're down to heads up between me and George (not his real name).

George might just be the biggest action junky I've ever met. In the previous game he shipped his stack in blind and went to the toilet to do a line of coke before the flop was even dealt. We get on pretty well.

"Do you wanna make it 25/50 while it's heads up?" He asks. I tell him that we shouldn't go too crazy, and suggest 10/25. He accepts.

First hand I'm on the button. He asks me to put on the 50 straddle, which of course I do. He snap re-straddles to 100. 50/100 it is then!

The thought occurs to me that I've never played 50/100 of anything in my life. Not for the first time in this game, which plays exceptionally big, I start to feel a little nervous.

I'm dealt AKQ332. I raise, he 3bets and I call.

Flop T53fd. He pots, I ship it in, he calls.

We agree to run it twice, as is standard in that game. The first turn brings a T. I shoot him a look, hoping that he's dead on that board.

"Quads" he announces.

****. I sit there contemplating the foolishness of playing 50/100 6 card PLO, and barely get my wits about me in time to see a 3 arrive on the second river.

Thank **** for that

These are some awesome update, please keep on posting. Especially about the private games! Have had some London poker trips myself, though only 1/2 at the time. Best of luck!

great read, update plz

Thanks guys. Sorry (again) for the lack of updates.

Update

I've taken a step back from 6card PLO. A monumental downswing struck shortly after my last post and so I've decided to play more NL, for the sake of my sanity. Either I'm not as mentally robust as I thought I was or 6card is just the sickest variance game in the world (probably both).

The PLO downswing was very brutal and definitely affected me mentally. I lost a £35k pot, which is my biggest to date. Also around this time I played in a private £25/£50/£100/£200 game and lost £20k, and have been told by several people that they are sure that the game is rigged (several others are sure that it is isn't, so who knows).

Fortunately though, the summer is here and that means that the bigger NL that runs is sure to be good. My main game for the rest of the summer is £5/£10 NL at the Palm Beach, with a fair smattering of bigger games when they pop up. Like everywhere else, the games there aren't what they used to be, but there's still a lot of money to be made in the room.

Recent bigger games have included £25/£50 PLO (-£6k) and £25/£50/£100/£100otb NL (+£13k).

I'm still enjoying poker. I don't see myself doing anything else anytime soon. I feel like I can improve a lot as a player and I find this hugely motivating. Looking back at myself even in the relatively recent past I feel like I've made big strides and this brings me a lot of confidence. I'm still not where I want to be as a player, but I'm enjoying the process of getting there.

My life is fairly quiet, which is mainly how I like it. Living with the gf gives me a lot of stability on the personal side of my life, which is important to me while my 'professional' life swings around so hard. Beyond a crazy weekend at Glastonbury I've managed to stay on the straight and narrow.

I'm not in Vegas. I didn't get the itch so hard this time. Part of me still wants to be someone who goes around binking tournaments left and right (who doesn't I guess). I can see myself going for the whole series next year.

When I started this thread, I was worried that poker is unfulfilling. I didn't know if I wanted to make a career out of something that is fundamentally unproductive for society. Ultimately, I think I have been able to gain some fulfilment from dedicating myself to improving my poker game. I'm sure that would sound sad or crazy to a lot of people outside the poker world (and maybe within it too), but I guess that's just how it is.

Ha rerember reading this thread years ago and thought it was really good but don’t think as many people saw it in the blogs forum, was just going to ask for an update 5 years later ... how did it all go? Was thinking of trying to play some 1/2 games these days and rerembered this blog