^ but you have sydney!!! casino there is awesome no? played there a bit and thought it was awesome. Its just very hard for a foreigner to get resident visa in AUS so I cant settle up shop there.

All casinos in Australia, especially Star casino, are rake traps. I've not played at Star but I wouldn't want to grind professionally in Australia unless I had to.

Back to Business

So a forewarning, I'm sat in Philadelphia airport and about to head back to London in an hour or so, therefore I'm using some of this free time to type, it pretty much won't be poker related.

Thanksgiving - Aight, so this week I've been out here in the USofA hanging out and splitting my time between Washington DC and Philly. Last few days I've been in Philadelphia at my GF's parents house and on Thursday we had a huge Thanksgiving with a ton of her family, it was great, and then on the Friday they had their annual 'Hobstock' party (Hobstock being a combination of their family surname + woodstock), which was really cool too. Both events were essentially eating too much and drinking too much so it was awesome!!

Politics, politics, politics.. - Throughout the week I've chatting to many different friends, brothers, parents and other extended family of my GF and what I've noticed is that American folk love to spit it about politics. Granted a huge event in American politics has just happened with the election of Trump, so this fuelled it more than usual but these guys can yap politics all day every day, on all different kinds of bills and debates. It made me laugh because this doesnt really happen much in the UK. There was that brief spell this year where everyone became a political genius in and around Brexit but in our day to day lives we don't really vibe off politics a great deal. Over here I kinda felt pretty dumb because I was so uninformed about our own politics and particularly American politics. A bunch of the people we spoke to held government positions of some kind, either in Washington or elsewhere so I rapped with them a little about the state of poker bills over here and whether there was a realistic chance online poker would rise again over here. Turns out it doesn't seem like much of a deal here - which I guess isn't good news - so I wouldn't expect any whole scale changes in the near future - gg online poker???

Raring to Go... - before I came over for this trip I'd been in some good heat with regards to poker. I think I'd put up a £35k spell in the week or two leading to the holiday so naturally after an enjoyable break I'm feeling refreshed and hoping for some big action games that I can crush in. I'd love to have the opportunity to clear another £50k before the end of the year. Poker vibes feel good at the moment with myself and some of my closest poker buddies having strong ends to the year.

Across the Void

I've been speaking a lot with a close friend lately who hasn't been having it easy lately and it reminded me how isolating and depressing high stakes live can get when it's not going your way. As we chatted the other night he was giving me a speech I'd recited myself several times and it made me feel for the guy a lot. In live poker the long pain can be really long. I mean realistically we're getting 1k hands in a week - LOL - albeit in colossal edge games but you can be playing solid and good and have several months of just dumping money and leaving the games feeling really crappy. I think this is something that really flies beneath the radar in live poker. I know so many guys in London who have been printing consistently who are far from the most fundamentally sound players in the game. They massively don't appreciate how good they're running and I think that's what makes live poker really great with regards to how much people are overvaluing their edge. I said to my buddy that when I get back we can get to work this week plugging some leaks that might be there and just focus on mindset (something I've for sure struggled with in the past). Right now he just wants to give it all up and head back home, buy hey...we've all been there right?!

In response to Meale - Most of the casino's will run a 2/5 game. Vic, Empire, Hippo, Palm, Aspers all run a £2/5 daily I believe.

Vic and Palm are for higher games.

I played for a while in Sydney (6 months) and played in some huge games over there. Great city and great action. The boys I chat to now say it's slowed down a lot. I gotta say I didn't think the rake at the higher games was bad at all when I was there. Think it was a table charge of like $25 for the hour or something like that.

Aight, be good all, next update will probably be a month recap, hoping to avoid any huge down sessions to ruin my pretty stats for this month.

This whole paragraph resonates deeply with what me and my closest poker friend have been thinking.
For me this year it has caused this monstrous resentment tilt and it gets worse when i'm not running very well.

Anyways gl boss!

I literally couldn't agree with this anymore - because of the glacial pace of poker and the fact it plays silly-deep its easy to overlook the fact that you've been on a massive heater recently.

A ton of these "super-sessions" (at least from my experience) revolve around getting in the money versus a recreational player in these type of silly-deep NLH spots:

1. Straight/set over 2-pair.
2. Guys who just cant fold an OP in a 3bet pot with a drawy run out.
3. Someone massively overplaying AK preflop.
4. Flopped nut flush on paired board run-outs.

These spots are rarely self-explanatory, and even if you butcher your bet-sizing somehow or another the money's pretty much guarenteed to go all-in.

This is actually kinda why i quit the game. Figuring out when to continue and when to end is ultimately so hard. I always believed that the game passes everyone by eventually and its virtually impossible to say when that is. Its easy to suggest its just a temporary downswing and when your doing it for these stakes 30k becomes 100k becomes 500k so quickly and before you know it you're at zero with few prospects left.

I stopped by the vic a couple weeks ago (or was it months, cant remember?) and there were 2 to 3 new players who were better than the average vic 10/25 reg and its easy to see how their presence would start consuming other players and cutting off profits of some of the long time regs. The hierarchy is always evolving and its scary how quickly you can drop off into losing territory, that combined with variance and its brutal.

I do believe i know who you are talking about and its a good moment for you to be supportive and get them through it, i know you, being someone, who has been through every type of poker cycle will be able to provide some wise advice and hopefully steer them clear of any impending explosions.

Could be good for both of you.

Great post Jman

Put Your Motherfc*ing hands up...It's monthly recap time

So it's time for a month recap for November. Let's start with the good:



Results wise November was a solid month. I started off treading water in the first few sessions but managed to to find some fire in some really good games towards the middle of the month.

The Bad though...

Once again my volume was pretty laughable. I do have the solid excuse of being away for a week but even with that the volume was exceedingly low. That said once again I let me health issues and concerns really override my work ethic this month and I think unless I start putting in a ton more hours it's not really worth my while to stay somewhere as expensive as London. December will be the long struggle to try and improve my number of sessions and hours played, will see how I go with xmas and the social events that'll accompany xmas that'll likely pop up and get in the way.

Life and Health

To some degree November was somewhat of a breakout month health wise. I started the CBT which I believe has been the best treatment yet that I've experienced this year. I'm viewing panic and anxiety disorder differently now and believe that I will come back better and stronger eventually and that my physical health isn't under threat.

I managed to get away to America for a holiday and enjoyed meeting my GF's parents and family as well as enjoyed doing Thanksgiving properly. I think I definitely don't enjoy these events and moments in life as much as I should but I really did have a great time and having the break from both poker and London was priceless. I had to deal with a lot of situations that were great exposure for my panic and anxiety and although I had a few spills along the way on the whole I was proud of the way I tackled feeling unwell in spots and how I just managed to get involved and get on with it.

Dec Goals

I think I've brushed over it mainly but for December I want to try and improve my volume, get back to playing 5 days a week and hope that it'll allow me to end the year strongly (I went -£5k today so uphill battle!).

Outside of that I'm gonna try and eat healthily because I've been having some gut and digestion issues so I'm hoping a change in diet will improve that. I'll have a bunch of social events on the horizon too, I intend to go to all of them and focus and concentrate on having a good time rather than worrying about if i'm healthy enough to attend etc.

Alright that'll do for now, grind hard and print away guys!

Can we see a graph since start of thread? Sick month btw.

Graph since beginning of thread would be sick - I also wanna see some chip porn

Unfortunately I changed phone in August and lost my stats from Jan until then #ProfessionalismIs....

I do have my graphs from August onwards but I'll wait until end of Dec for a year recap and will put that graph in here.

As for chip porn I dunno, I'm a 29yo man, feels a little lame. I'll dig through my phone tho and see if anything is there albeit I feel it's unlikely.

Love it. True though

While chip porn is a bit overrated, will confirm you stack chips like an absolute fish.

My stacking style goes with me overall bearded and homeless look. It sets up a well thought out and genius image that has been sculpted over years of pain/success.

Why you so lazy Cuz?!

Last week was a classically poor week in regards to volume and I don't really have much of an excuse. I had a poor stomach for a lot of the week so I guess that's half an excuse and it just kinda gave me the nudge I needed to stay inside.

I played 2 sessions, booking a cheeky £7000 win one night and then and afternoon session where I dropped £4600 to this guy:



Aaahhh good old Freddy. Freddy likes to stick large sums of money in with small cards, I think the strategy belief is that being a full ring game everyone will have a high card weighted range and he can sneak in there with the small stuff (this could be flawed thinking leading to pointless variance). I only got love for Freddy though, he's a cool guy to play with a lot, he's still a boss in my eyes for his High Stakes Poker appearances and he brings a good vibe and good attitude to the tables. He definitely gets people gambling, which is a great thing.

Jake cuz, I can't agree...

During my classical period of procrastination this morning I checked out Jake's new vlog (check it out if you haven't been watching - Jake Cody Vlog...). In it he gives some props to playing at the Palm Beach. I've only sparingly played at the Palm to be fair, probably 20 times or so in the past 2 years, usually for big PLO action that occasionally goes there. I gotta say, I kinda view the Palm service different to Jake...

1) Turning up to play if you're not a reg - so if you're not a day in, day out grinder at the Palm I think the way they treat you is pretty shabby. A recent example would be an Aussie friend of mine was over last month visiting his GF in London and planned on playing some poker whilst he was here. He turned up one night early to Palm with £15k in cash and spoke with the poker room manager about depositing, just asking what games ran etc. He said that she basically told him to go away, offered up no assistance and he felt like she was kinda angry that he was trying to get her to help or work because she didn't know who he was. I've felt similar in the past when I've turned up to play there.

2) Dealers aren't that professional - this will probably have me sounding like a grumpy old man, to be fair I kinda am by poker standards, however I think this is a fair point. Dealers joking around etc is great in general, if that's their vibe it makes for a much better game and makes for a much better atmosphere, I would never argue this. However, when the games are big and decisions are for a lot of money they should also be self aware of when to be a clown and when to chill out. I had an example of this last year. We were playing a £25/50 PLO game and the vibe was pretty chill and fun. I'd overlooked some things already that night like the fact this dealer kept miscalculating the pots and stuff and when she was brought up on it she'd laugh as if it didn't matter, like having to call £1000 more than you should have to pre isn't a big deal etc...erm, it is. Anyway I ended up in a really big pot and faced a £15k bet on the river when I had a weakish bluff catcher vs a tricky opponent. I was tanking for like 30 seconds and all I could see out the corner of my eye was this dealer doing some little dance...yes, literally some weird little dance mid hand, chatting on about how she was a South London girl. When someone is tanking a decision that big I think it's reasonable to expect the dealer to not be a total moron.

3) Dodgy List Stuff - I've been at the Palm waiting for games and stuff where people (favourites) just mysteriously either appear near the top of waiting lists even though they're no where near the building etc. Shady stuff like this in a casino game just seems so annoying to me. The whole point most of us play casino games compared to home games is that we accept worse line ups to avoid these shenanigans.

So yeah...I'm not a huge Palm fan and figured I'd use this post to vent that a bit. I do agree with some things Jake said tho, for instance it is, for the most part, more comfortable to play at the Palm than say the Vic. The seats are nicer and it's less of a zoo with there being less tables etc. The food at the Palm is really, really good. Pretty much exceptional for a poker room/casino.

Cuz...you gonna play some poker this week

As it's becoming reasonably embarrassing for me to set out some number of hours I'll play whilst having little to no chance of actually playing those hours I'll refrain from doing so.

I do wanna try and get in some good hours before Xmas so I'll leave this post saying that I intend to wake up every week day and grind some poker. If I do that it's a good chance I'll make some dollar .

Peace and love people.!

I've heard that you can get banned from the cardroom if you don't comply with certain rules as well

i.e. not straddling, hitnrunning

I mean I think there was a 'team' of Spaniards they banned for being too predatory and bum hunting, buying in shallow etc. At the time I think it was generally considered welcomed by most in the community as a positive step so id be remiss in blaming the Palm for this. However it is fairly silly I guess to be in a situation where it's like 'you can play poker but it has to be like this'!

As we step into the valley of Darkness...

HERO FOLDS- we've all been there, they hurt, you have to up the chance of taking the pot in the middle and that doesn't feel good. Hero calls can make you look like a genius but they can also make you look very silly and so our story begins....

Time and Situation - The Vic, night time, 10pm, hero feeling content with a good session winning big thinking he's playing his A game..

It's a limped pot, Hero has completely from the SB in a classic £5/£10/£25 PLO game with the strong AAQ8hh.

THE FLOP: AJTr with one heart. Check, check and now first villain leads full pot £125, a reg fish who is tight-ish but semi tilted now jams his modest £340 stack into the middle. I call and the other villain calls.

Background Info on Villain who led for 125 - I would consider him top 3 reg, has excellent results and plays solid. Doesn't spew much, if ever, a very solid winner in the games.

TURN: J. BOARD: AJTJr. We've turned the nut full house. We check and now Villain builds a side pot betting £450. We call, we have the nut full house.

River: 9Board: AJTJ9 with no straight flush possibilties. We check again, to be honest expecting this to go check check a lot. Now villain bombs into the side pot betting £1400. We scratch our head, looks like an easy call. This villain is super solid though. He wouldn't bet this size to get me off KQ right? What AJ does he have where he leads pot flop I think, there are some, does he have JJ though? Have we walked into quads. My hand leaves my hand and flies into the muck. Villain betting into side annouces Straight - showing KQTx. Short stack nit shows JJ for quads.

So what do we learn? - this isn't a good fold. Results aside, fundamentally we're too strong here to fold. Q: Phil, you're meant to be a talented high stakes poker player, why did you fold? A: I'm probably not that good and my mind over works. On the brightside the villain who had the KQ I had him earmarked as a top 3 reg. He might cling onto the top 3 but he drops down a position as his bluff and play lacked a fundamental understanding that you'd assume the best would have. So there it is, out on the interwebs, I lie broken and beaten up, embarrassed by my play and £1850 less rich. ****** poker .

Night Result - I can't complain, first session back at it since my last post and booked a nice £8k win.

Online Escapades

So in a few of my recent live sessions I'd felt a little off top form. I hadn't been playing badly but my understanding of the spots wasn't as razor sharp as I'd like. Therefore I've been grinding out a few hours and a bit of volume on BetSafe recently.

Q: Does anyone who reads this know a) why I can't get my pokertracker to sync with the software and track my play (use a Mac and PT4).

Q: If yes, can you tell me how I can or if it's not possible?

Playing without a HUD and not being able to track my results is tilting me a little. However, I've been playing pretty good on there and the additional hands have got my game confidence back up to a good level. So far i've been winning a few buy ins but given the open nature of my blog as it is I'd rather keep my stakes/username under wraps for a little while.

Brief Review of Betsafe: My sample hasn't really been big enough to get a full feel for the games thus far. At some stakes the action seems reasonable, chopping between stakes I can usually 4-6 table quite easily. Honestly most of the regs on there seem pretty good. Most of them are extremely solid. You can a few more random punters pop up than say on Stars but I wouldn't like to be making my living playing these euro sites to be honest.

Book Recommendation

I've been reading a book on American Pop Culture by this author/journalist called Chuck Klosterman and the book is called IV.

If you have any interest in rock music/pop culture and just enjoy witty and intelligent journalism then it's the book for you. Any of you that know me in the poker community and wish to borrow it then feel free to just come up to me and ask.

Other News

I randomly decided to shave my head in the week. I usually have fairly long-ish hair and it was starting to become an annoyance. Many belief my panic/anxiety disorder is behind it with them thinking I didn't want to go and get a public hair cut. Being honest with myself, it wasn't this, I just kinda wanted a shaved hair for a while to scare people at the table into folding :P.

Grind away and enjoy your weekend y'all.

Not sure how AA isn't a value raise on the river let alone a fold. It's 1 combo dude...

Yes Meale. You're correct it's not a fold, it's also not a raise though. It was just a simple call. Pure and simple, a classic call and win.

Just 1 combo after all

Beware of the Bumhunter...

So, a lot of people have come to me and told me that they enjoy the honesty in this blog. Sometimes that honesty is going to come back and make me look like a jackass....

This month I've been mainly bumhunting..

It's December 16th and I've currently posted a whopping 25hours of live poker hours this month and am winning a modest £7600.

Why the no volume?

Basically it's a few things:

1) Health - The truth is with my anxiety/panic disorder a lot of days I wake up not feeling great. I feel nauseous a lot and over the year the panic disorder has made me somewhat agoraphobic - this is fairly common. Therefore, realistically, if I don't think there is a very good reason to go in, i.e there being a top 5 fun player around, I quite often just fade it - not a recommended practice for those with anxiety and panic disorders.

2) Games are boring as damn hell - Live poker, it's boring man. Live poker players, they're possibly even more boring man.

3) Just lacking a general buzz for poker - with live poker being not intellectually stimulating and online poker being so tough it's somewhat unbeatable at any meaningful stakes my buzz for poker has gone down greatly. To be honest as many say if you're not feeling it, don't play.

I did go in last night, caught the feeder game and it was pretty reasonable for the most part. Eventually got moved to the main game and it was just really dry. I was playing particularly badly and ended up getting it in real bad for a £15k pot and was fortunate enough to score a chop. After that I knew I was way off my A game and decided to quit and book a totally breakeven night.

Big A.

Preach. Brb 13 hour session.

The All Exciting End of Year Review

So bad news, I'm not allowed to post my yearly results as my backers don't want the info being put out there. That kinda sucks for this post but I think it's only fair I respect there wishes.

All in all I had an ok year at the Vic. My hourly was a good amount £ wise but my volume was poor so I kind of think my hourly is fairly non important.

What did I learn this year - Was it a success?

So I started the year on my lowest ebb, I'd completely screwed up and was totally at the bottom of the pile. I had to eat a massive slice of humble pie.

Everyone basically wrote me off, nobody wanted to lend any assistance and that kinda sucked, that's poker though and more importantly that's going to be life.

I managed to get some assistance from a poster in this thread (ooooo drrammmaa) and that got me back on the straight and narrow somewhat. I banked some money through grinding hard at the start of the year and made my way back to high stakes. I have since pretty much remained at high stakes since about March and I guess that's something to be proud of? Perhaps not.

I've degened in general far less this year. In the pit certainly. I have sports bet a lot but with info from millionnaire sports bettors and will continue to do so as that's one of my best outlets and a source of income and information I'm very lucky to be a part of.

Future in Poker

My future in poker at the end of this year is uncertain. I will, for sure, continue to play poker for the foreseeable in some way, shape or form. I think my days of grinding it out 40hr+ a week are over though. My thoughts on the poker world:

1) Poker is dying. We can all try and be as positive as we want but it's plain and simple poker is dying. Online poker is slowly being destroyed from within as well as from external factors such as scripting and bots.

2) Live poker is dying. This is slightly different to the online spectrue. The truth is this, live poker from a perspective of being 'beatable' will be fine for a very long time. The guys who play at the top live are solid, good gamblers but amazingly unremarkable poker players. It'll get tougher, good online guys will start to infiltrate into these games as has happened recently (ie Flong playing the London games full time now, CrazyElior etc), however for the most part there are enough random punters that live games should be fine for a while. I have to say this though, the biggest cancer to live games is the attitudes of the players who play them. They're so short sighted. Donk's who probably drop 6 figures a year sit in to play and don't wanna straddle for a hand and every London pro barks their head of. Makes them feel as small and pathetic as possible. How is this a good environment? Many argue well it's about stealing EV - making this argument in a live poker setting is what will destroy live poker. People are constantly on their phones, no one is interacting. Pro's band together, soft playing, showing each other their cards in between every hand. This is stuff fish hate, they know they're hunted but to make that hunt so pain stakingly obvious is the recipe for destruction. People bring in laptops now, sometimes to play online (this is awful), sometimes to watch a film (go home and watch your stupid film) and some are playing ****** hearthstone and stuff (this is so stupid it doesn't deserve a blasting). Partly it's the casino's job, they should ban tablets and laptops at the tables and make phone use only be allowed when you're stood behind your chair and not in a hand. Sounds like it'd suck and perhaps it would a bit but it would do wonders for action and the state of the games. I'm not the be all and end all authority on these things but i've played poker for many years across many continents, I've seen what works and what kills environments.

3) It's just not worth it - with the games getting tougher it just really isn't worth it. You shouldn't be playing poker, breaking your back, grinding 40hrs+ at 1/2 etc to be making £30k a year. It really isn't worth it. Poker is seclusive, it's bad for your health, it's a depressing environment on the whole. Yes it does allow great freedom but it comes at a price. If you're not doubling what you'd earn in a national average salary job I think you're giving up too much to pursue poker. Play for fun, put 20 hours a week in after work, where you play good and subsidise your income whilst being able to relax and enjoy a beer etc.

Poker and it's Effect on Health

This will sound like hyperbole but there have been many times this year where I've genuinely believed that I might not make it through 2016. That's pretty ****** sad for a 29yo male to admit. All I can say is that hand on heart that's how bad my physical health has felt this year - however, it appears this is a mental illness problem.

It's true, being a poker player has greatly contributed to me suffering severe mental anguish this year. I've gone from someone who was always up to doing whatever, do someone who loved hanging our drinking, enjoying good times with friends to someone who at times this year suffered such bad agoraphobia that I couldn't leave the house somedays. Through CBT i'm getting better and have been improving in the past few weeks but it's a long road ahead. I'm not afraid to say that there have been times this year where my thoughts have been suicidal and that I've really struggled with depression.

I guess my warning is this, all mental issues are going to be worse being in environments where anxiety and stress is created. Poker, on the whole, is a pretty toxic environment. Don't get me wrong, there are some amazing and talented people in poker and generally in the outside public try to dump on poker players I'll often be the first to back up the good ones. However, I truly believe at the end of the day poker as an environment is toxic and you have to be very careful and look after yourself extremely well if you want to succeed healthily.

To Wrap Up

I'll try and bring some positivity back, I just wanted to get some of those things off my mind and off my chest.

2016 - It was OK. I made some money and I'm still alive and kicking with what should be a good future ahead.

I think the nature of this post won't make this a surprise but I'll be signing off 2p2 and ending this blog at the end of this post. 2p2 is a great forum and for the most part I find it shines a great light on poker. I'll still enjoy reading the other PG&Cs, some of which are really, really interesting from some cool characters:

My personal top 3: GazzyB, Benabadbeat and acidhauss.

My thoughts and views on poker nowadays however aren't going to be what people want to hear and I don't want to turn this into some blog that I just use to whine and vent on the internet.

Thanks for reading and have a good 2017 and beyond.

Much Love,

BigAisAOk.

tldr;

Cliffs: Wiley old fox plays poker and is quitting his blog.

gg wp