Had a great weekend away with some friends from university this weekend. One of us is from the Channel Islands has been living on Guernsey since graduating and had a white collar boxing match so we used this as an excuse to get together and drink too much. He put up a great fight but at the end of the day he was giving away a fair few pounds to the guy and couldn't shake him enough despite seemingly being a better technical boxer.

I didn't get any photos of the fight as I was a bit busy shouting/drinking but I have a few from the weekend.

Obligatory 7:30am morning drinks because, hey, airports.



Guernsey:


More Guernsey:


My friend is actually from a tiny island called Sark about an hour from Guernsey with only a few hundred inhabitants so we were making sure to fly the flag!


The most inconvenient raffle prize ever when you've flown over with a small overnight bag and you're about to go for a night out.


I did manage to get back to London in time for the 5th Anniversary Sunday Storm and ended up coming around 1600th of 122k runners. I really feel I'm on the verge of a decent score, a few weeks of studying ICM and <20bb stack play and I know I'm making much better decisions than before. String that together with some run good and I'm sure we'll have a decent score soon! I will try get some full graphs up at some point but I've switched computers so my database is now split. I'm trying to import tournament histories from Googlemail but I'm having issues getting PT4 to link to it, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Obv more stories expected about how Henry's night out went!

Unfortunately Henry didn't have any ID on him so he had to go home for the rest of the night. He did however make it back to London thanks to a lovely check in girl finding it funny.

what a boss

If you'd like to meet Henry he is moving to London soon, he's just got the keys for a new house. I'm sure he will join in all the fun!

I just wanted to put up a quick post about one of the UK's great poker exports, Patrick Leonard (Pads1161). He's recently signed a deal with Party Poker and I think he'll be able to do fantastic things for them. If you don't know him you should absolutely get over and read his PGC thread, it's got llamas in it, what more could you want?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...nting-1508230/

subbed!

Thanks, welcome along!

I wanted today to write a quick piece about an organisation I volunteered for called Making The Leap (MTL). They're an organisation based in London that reaches out to school leavers, graduates and young adults who are both from an underprivileged background and unemployed. through a three week intensive program they aim to give each individual the tools to succeed in job hunting. They are expected to turn up every day, on time in business attire, phones off and focused on the task for the day. For many this could be the first time they've had any kind of authority in their lives. Day long sessions include presentation skills, interview skills, handshaking exercises and CV/Cover Letter writing skills (the session we had on Monday). These are skills that I'm sure many of us take for granted but for a lot of people who haven't had the opportunities to learn and implement them they are completely foreign. The program has had some fantastic success stories and some of them sit on the board of the program today as role models for those going through the process currently.

I had a great day working with two of the people on the course, one hoping to go into admin or HR based positions and the other looking at opportunities in marketing or PR. Both had degrees and done work placements but for whatever reason they had failed to secure full time employment in the last 2-4 years. Over the course of the day we reworked their CVs, cover letters and speculative letters to help them get their foot in the door. I really hope that the work we did will help them on the road to finding something fulfilling for them.

CVs and cover letters are only the first step in finding a job, I'm signed up to do more sessions on Interview and Presentation skills and hopefully to give a talk on the job hunting and recruitment process in general. Having working in recruitment there is definitely an expectation gap between how people think the process works and how it actually works.

Even though there have been time when I've hated my job I've always taken for granted that whatever happens, I'm unlikely to be unemployed for any length of time if set my mind to it. Of all the voluntary work I've done in the past this was up there with the most fulfilling. That sense of self worth that you get when someone believes in you to the extent where they give you a job is a huge boost to a young persons confidence and if I can make that a reality for even one of the people I work with then I'll consider it time well spent.

If you ever have the time and opportunity to volunteer in a scheme like this I absolutely recommend you do it. Employment is crucial to an individuals ability to be self sufficient and confident in the world we live in and I think a lot of us have a lot to offer people.

Thinking about taking some time off this summer to go somewhere warm, sunbathe, swim and play poker in the evenings. I'm not too worried about having the nightlife as it would be great to have some proper time off and time to focus on relaxing and things I enjoy. Anyone have any suggestions for somewhere a bit like that where I can do the above and play on my UK Pokerstars account? I'm pretty sure Spain, France and Italy are out of the question and they would be my usual go to places.

I also had someone reach out today about my post above asking for help with CVs, cover letters, general recruitment queries. Hopefully we're going to get a Skype session going and go over his stuff and help him get on the right path!

I'm also going to change my weekly routine. So far I've been trying to fit in poker sessions in the evening and it just isn't practical. Ideally now I'm going to try get up around 5-5:30, run, shower and get to the office for 7:30 for a couple hours of revision for my exams. I'll try to spend evenings just relaxing, maybe studying poker or playing video games but sleeping before 22:00. Fridays and the weekends will be dedicated to poker for the time being, trying to cut down on the partying for a bit and have some more time for myself. Hopefully this will be a positive change for all aspects of my life including poker.

If you're going to get into the office early, this view isn't so bad to have to look at.

Such a great view!

Perfect view for a grind station?!

I'd love to be employed here as a poker consultant, grinding MTTs all day with the facilities we have here.

Do you work in the PWC offices in some jazzed up wharf on the South Bank...thought I saw somewhere you said you worked for PWC???

I walked passed there a few week back and remember thinking..."cool place to work".

Yup, I'm in the offices by London Bridge. Love working here, great location, good facilities and a few really good gyms close by. If I sell a few of my organs I might be able to afford joining one.

Don't PWC subsidise for one of the Gyms? We get a reduction from £150 p/m to £29

Hey, awesome blog! Will follow closely along as London is one of my favorite cities in the world.

Re: moving to a sunny place. Why not consider Malta? All sites are available there, weather in the summer will be awesome, short flight away from anywhere in central Europe. Nightlife is there just in case and not too expensive (esp. compared to LDN).

****, was this at your office? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...addiction.html

Tragic story.

Indeed a tragic story. I'm 100 percent certain had he posted on here he would received countless posters telling him to seek help.

Slightly hacked off that the online gambling gets a bad press in this case...as a parent, I would venture that there were other influences in play.

edit just read another article which gets into online poker and pokerstars specifically....don't think we've heard the last of this.

Yeah, it was horrible, right in the middle of the plaza area outside. They implemented loads more counselling policies etc in the wake of it.

EDIT: I didn't know him and it happened a couple of weeks before I joined.

Hi guys, been a long time since the last update so apologies if this is a long one!

Poker

I'm not going to shy away from my results, they haven't been great. I've been super busy off the tables so my volume is lacking but I'm still enjoying it as much as I was before. It's also SCOOP at the moment and I'll be playing as many of the $11 and under MTTs as I can.

I'm studying RunItOncce videos, trying for a couple a week with me making notes on them. I just watched a good one on stack size dynamics by John Daly and have a couple things I want to take away and bring into my game. I'm still far from a polished MTT player but I feel I'm playing better than I was 3 months ago, more willing to get my stack in when I think I have the more than my fair share of equity in the hand.

Here are my overall results for the stake (since I got my new laptop, I'll just take what I have on here from now on).



I am really happy about moving forward, I just want to start bringing in the results for my backer!

Work

Work is where the most of my time is at the moment, I'm 5/15 exams through my ACA exams and have my next two on the 6th June; needless to say revision is taking up a lot of time at the moment. I'm also back on my main cclient for the next 10 months, the stability is good but a lot is expected in terms of workload and time. I know it's going to be tough but I'll get some great experience and the team is great to work with.

Life

This is probably where I'm the most pleased with my recent progress. I've massively cut down on drinking and general unhealthy food, getting rid of as much sugar as I can and pretty much all fizzy drinks. I even for the first time in my life tried to cook something. It wasn't anything fancy or complicated but for me it's a big step!

Chicken stuffed with feta/mozzarella, sun dried tomatoes and basil taken part of the way through cooking:



I'm never going to be the next masterchef but if I can start putting together something healthier than ready meals I'll be happy.

I've also started working out again, now every day. I don't have loads of equipment and gyms are super expensive around here but I'm feeling great for it and beginning to see some results, however small! Like my poker I know this is a long path to walk but between improving my intake and exercising more I know I'm getting towards a better place.

Reading

If you've read the thread for a while you know I love to read and spent a lot of last year reading the Russian classics. At the end of last year I decided to pick up a book that many have heard of but probably haven't read. It's a little controversial but I'm a big believer of learning from history if we don't want to repeat it, therefore I got stuck into Mein Kampf.



It was not an easy read and is probably the book that took me the most time per page if you understand what I mean. Written before his rise to power Hitler outlines the beginnings of the National Socialist Party, his thoughts on history and how he envisions the future of the German State. Without reading the book it is clear to see he was an incredibly charismatic person, capable of convincing people to commit horrific acts through the power of his speeches. Whether he would have been able to channel that drive and energy into something positive is of course unknown but if he had, he could have been seen as a great unifying leader rather than what he is today.

It took me around 3 months to finish the book and there were definitely times I thought about just moving on. It is very heavy and the subject matter isn't exactly light reading, it took a fair amount of concentrating and re-reading of passages to follow the train of thought which can sometimes ramble on for a fair while. If you're interested in that period of history I do recommend picking it up as it frames a lot of his decisions and actions that he undertook while he was in power.

I have now moved on to something a lot lighter, a series of books with explosions, spies and fictional rather than real bad guys. I'll let you know what I think of them when I'm a few books in.

Voluntary Work

Finally I thought I'd just update on the voluntary work I do, and which I really recommend having a go at if you have the time!

We had a workshop yesterday where we ran mock interviews for unemployed homeless people. It was definitely a challenging afternoon, a lot of them struggle with English and don't have the experience in writing a CV or cover letter that will help them open the door. I'm obviously limited in what I can go into regarding specifics but there were people who were clearly experienced in their fields but due to sociopolitical/financial reasons have had to leave their own countries. They are competing against people with better verbal and written communication skills and it's really a tough battle.

We run these quarterly so hopefully I'll see them again if they aren't successful, although if I never see them again (for good reasons) I'll take it as a good thing!

So yeah.... Apologies for the long post, a lot has been going on. I will try and write these more often and keep them briefer, hopefully with some better poker results!

Hey guys, looking to sell for the $215 2-7TD SCOOP here:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/16...-7-td-1609564/

If you need any convincing of why it's a good investment, I hit a royal flush already today, I'm basically a pro.

hey mate are u using any software when playing online?

im thinking of putting 600 dollars on stars and starting to play mtts 11 dollars and under mixed with 5c/10c zoom.

been watching doug polk on twitch has given me the bug to play online again.

Sorry for the slow reply! I use Poker Tracker 4 and it does the job nicely!