My name's Joe and I'm 27 years old and after quitting my job to play full time, I'll be blogging experiences with graphs, hands and life updates. I appreciate this is a lengthy intro but I felt it would be beneficial to write everything down and really commit to this blog to give me the best chance of success.

I was ten years old the first time I played poker. For reasons I can't remember, my older brother missed the trip so it was just my parents and I that flew off from London to Colorado on a skiing trip. One evening at the hotel there were a group of guys playing cards for cash and I hovered around them intrigued by the betting actions and cash pots moving between players on the table. I pestered them relentlessly, in a way only a child could get away with, until they taught me the rule and let me pull up a chair. 'It's $5 sit down' one of the lads said, on reflection, asking a ten year old to contribute money to a poker game was perhaps a little cold but as I've come to understand, poker is ruthless! I can't remember exactly what happened during that game but I'll never forget the buzz and excitement I felt as the cards were being turned and growing piles of dollar coins in the middle.

Fast forward ten years, I was travelling in Australia and picked up a series of nasty virus that left me in bed for a few weeks. I had family living in Aus so went to stay with them while I focused on getting healthy which was needed but extremely boring given that I couldn't leave the house and there was no internet. This lead me to a local library which is where I got my first proper introduction to poker through Phil Gordon's 'Little Green Book'. When I got my health back I sniffed out a local tourney, a $10 freezeout with 50 runners and placed third. The following week I played the same tournament and placed 2nd when I ran my AQ into AK HU - I was getting a taste of, as Paulo Coehlo put it, 'the principle of favorability, beginners luck'.

The following week, in September 2007, flew back to the UK to start my degree at the University of Southampton which is where I really developed my passion for the game. A friend of mine suggested we go to the local casino where they were hosting a freeroll paying 100 pounds to the winner and 50 for second. This would be my third ever tournament and somehow I managed to manouvre my way to HU from a field of 42 and this time going one further when my A9o held against his Ace duece to take it down.

From there it was all things poker, which mainly consisted of severely underolled live cash games, tournaments and highly profitable online sit n gos. I did manage to run up a cash game roll on PKR to $6,500 before clicking the blackjack icon after a night out on the beers and proceeded to churn through the entire roll in 2 lenghty and rather soul destroying degen sessions.

After finishing Uni I returned to Australia where my parents were living and they staked me $800 of my grandmother's inheritance to go after my poker dream. After running it up to $5,500, the pressures of mates seemingly doing very well in their jobs and the awkward conversations with strangers, friends and family around playing poker full time I crumbled and made the decision to use the money to go travelling with a mate and essentially join the rat race and give up the dream.

I started my IT recruitment career with an extremely naive view of the reality of a tough hire and fire sales job and spent the next 15 months working 12 hour days, often 6 days a week, chasing commission cheques and unattainable job security. During this entire period I played poker maybe 3 times in total and had completely fallen out of touch with what was going on in the poker world, this was until a trip to Vegas was planned for the summer of 2012 to see my older brother who now lives in California.

We were only in Vegas for 2 weeks and I couldn't really spend all my time at the poker tables so there was minimal opportunities to play poker. Despite having 3 more days in LA before we flew back to the UK, myself and my girlfriend Katie were penniless and disgustingly hungover. As we were wandering around Planet Hollywood wandering what the hell we were going to do, I noticed a $75 buy in tournament was due to start 15 minutes later and already had 35 runners confirmed. I was desperate to play!

Kate checked her UK bank account and, although this was supposed to be for our travel back from the airport in the UK, had just enough to make the buy in. I felt in the zone as soon as I sat down at the table and depsite having my kings crushed AIP in a 3 way monster pot vs AJ and AQ with 4 left, I managed to rebuild with some timely shoving and got myself HU. We agreed to chop $1000 each and play for the extra $200 which was shipped my way when my suited A8 held vs his KTclubs on a dry run out. BOOM. $1100 felt like the world that day! The money was spent on a night out and hotel in Hollywood with Kate and a drunken vegas tattoo of the Ace 8 of spades positioned wonkily on my chest with the words 'Never give up the dream' engraved under.

When we arrived back to the UK we both quit our jobs and decided to move to Sydney Australia and get out of England's drizzly and economically scrambled existance. Poker was definitely on my mind but I didn't have the courage or the belief in myself to have a proper crack at it.

I continued doing recruitment when I arrived to Sydney, this time in a much more relaxed environment. I was able to develop my skills to a highly competent level and began to earn some real money but every time I heard or thought about poker I got a strong feeling that I could really make a go of it. During the 3 years in Sydney, the first 2 years we lived in a house without internet so any poker I played consisted of taking my laptop down to the local pub with wifi or drunken vists to the 1/2 cash games. Despite only playing an average of once a month, I always felt comfortable and alive at the poker table. I did manage one decent score when taking my laptop down to the local bar. After arriving at 11 when the pub opened, me and my mate Joe who had also moved out from the UK, fired up the tables at 11am and grabbed a couple of beers. 6 hours and 8 beers later we were down to the final table for the stars nightly $55 and drones of drunken locals oggled the screen as we steamed (literally) through the final few players and shipped a tidy $6.2k.

It was another trip to vegas this year that really got me going. Walking down the corridor of the Rio past all the poker legends on the wall while everyone made there way to start their main event journey and the thousands of rustling chips as the play commenced. Awesome.

It was a culmination of all of the above along with a developing confidence in myself and what I want out of life that gave me the courage to go after the life that I want to live and chase my passion.

I'm now two months into life as a full time grinder and have been loving and appreciating every minute of life. My results have been somewhat humbling but given how little I'd played over the last few years I knew it was going to take some time. With the help of my coach and my buddy Ken who's also quit his job to grind up from the Micros, my game has improved dramatically. My focus will be on continually learning and improving and I'm happy with my progress in knowledge so far, although there is a long long way to go!

In two weeks time I'll have no money left outside poker and rent, living expenses, life in general will need to be covered by poker along with building the roll. It's going to be tight but I'm up to the challenge.

My plan is to do weekly updates around poker with some general life goals that are important for me to achieve in 2016.

Poker & Life Goals:

15k volume p/week min

7bb/100 over 100k hands

Get skilled at using a HUD

50%+ volume at 100nl by mid Feb

400nl reg before end of 2016

Get down to a fighting weight of 81kg for boxing

$3k+ tourney ship either live or online before April

Train sausage dog 'Omar' (named after the Wire character) to improve recall and obedience


I've had a total of 4 boxing bouts with a record of 3-1 but the last one was 2 1/2 years ago and the one before that was 4 years prior to getting fit and competing again is a big goal. My grind companion Omar needs a lot of training too, anyone that has owned a daschund previously will know what I'm talking about.

This entry has already gone on so I'll post a quick graph for this week and summary.

I currently play 50nl on Stars with some shots at 100nl.

Current bankroll: $3,797

http://imgur.com/RP8xrKO


Online play felt like 2 steps forward 1 step back but still happy with how I played. Luckily I took at shot at the 2/3 live games at the Star and and went on a serious heater building my $300 stack to $1,150 before taking a shot at a $220 tournament. Unfortunately it wasn't to be after calling off 60% of my stack incorrectly with KQ high then after some successful reshoving, ran A9s into Queens and that was all she wrote but still a very successful day.

Thanks for taking the time to read, good luck at the tables

Joe

In! GL Joe

**Last weeks graph

Thanks bandin - Is that graph showing up? I'm having trouble working out how to post pictures directly...

No its not working.

GL, are you still living in Aus?

GL, bruv. See you at the tables.

yes - living in Sydney - you?

cheers mate

GL Joe!

Subbed, I also want to ''micro from macau''

See you there, maybe.

You only swing when you're winning....?

A wise degenerate once said;

'There's no other game in which fortunes can change so much from hand to hand.

A brilliant player can get a strong hand cracked, go on tilt and lose his mind along with every single chip in front of him.This is why the World Series of Poker is decided over a No-Limit Hold 'Em table.

Some people, pros even, won't play No-Limit.They can't handle the swings'

This week consisted of an exhilarating ride of emotions with a serious heater mid week which was promptly followed by a catastrophic downturn. I was both playing and running well towards the start of the week so thought it would be a good time to take a shot at a couple of online tournies along side the cash table grind.

Exit hand one - Tourney: $55 buyin - Not much can be said here, had no real spots early on and maintained my starting stack over the first 8 levels. Then spewy villain who's playing a less than patient 50/36/40% 3bet style raises an EP open and I wake up with AK..




Then exit hand from tournament number 2: $27 knockout: This is not so standard.

I'd be interested to hear any opinions from tournament players around this hand.

Blinds are up at 250/500 with a 60 chip ante so each orbit is 1,290 chips which gives us just over 10 rounds. Is 4s an open here MP?

Villain 3bets us, he's got just over average stack, seems like a great spot for him to pop it up against what is probably a relatively weak opening range so I 4bet all in expecting to take it down a good portion of the time or be in a spot to flip for a double up. I think its pretty thin given that I don't have reads on V (his first hand at the table) and we still have a reasonable amount of play with our stack size but with antes and blinds increasing I figured it was time to gamble.

Here's the hand, as said any thoughts appreciated:



Here's my cash game graph for the week - as you can see, the line could easily represent a blueprint design for Universal Studios' new rollercoaster - SWINGGGGG:





Of the total volume, I played 3,000 hands at 100nl with some decent results overall but dropping from +$800 down to just over 3 by the end of the weeks shot taking.



Becoming less results orientated is definitely a key goal for me as I progress my skills. I am reasonably good at not checking the cashier until it comes to taking shots or going on heaters.

Brag of the week:

An aggressive dynamic with villain with a good amount of history. Given the hands we'd played against each other the K is at first sight not a great card to barrel as he's not folding his pairs ever on the the turn and rarely on the the river either. However, given that I know he knows I'm going to be barreling it becomes a great card for him to attack with his draw heavy range so I figured that I'd bet. I think its a pretty straight forward call OTT for reasons above with plans to call any brick rivers.

Interested to hear opinions on this too based on the reasoning I've given...




I hit Platinum level mid week too, not quite the benefit that it would have been last year but still happy to hit it quickly and work my way towards Supernova. The claps and cheers coming from the screen made me chuckle, much like the soundbite that plays when you hit your next step - to quote Ken 'it's sounds like you've just discovered Aladdin's
lamp doesn't it?'.

I've been recommended this program that removes borders and displays chips in terms of BB's rather than $ - Looks pretty awesome so going to give it a go. Does anybody have any experience with a program called tableoptimizer?

Improving my knowledge of technology and poker related software programs is another massive goal for me. This is somewhat ironic given my 5 years experience placing high calibre software engineers as a recruiter, particularly considering I was both partnering and being head hunted by some of worlds most prestigious engineering firms. When it comes to the actual 'doing' of IT, I'm a serious fish and I understand this is going to need to change pretty quickly to thrive in today's online games. *As a side note, to illustrate this point, it's taken me over a week to work out how to post in a photo link correctly. The last 40 mins sat at my grind station tilting away on imgur.

Sessions on my HUD have been extremely tilting, I still have no idea how to get stats for BB fold vs CO, Button and SB open along with x back flop fold turn stats. I watched a good video on Runitonce yesterday by James Hudson on using a HUD (would recommend highly) but despite now starting to understand some of these stats I first need to get them showing up on my HUD.

On Sunday, I needed to put in 1,600 hands to hit the 15k volume mark before midday as a group of us had arrange to go out. We booked a lane at local bowls club (outdoor lawn bowls, not ten pin) as an excuse to get lashed in the sun for the afternoon. Despite their borderline deluded optimism the girls were crushed by the guys team in a one sided drubbing. Drinks were a fraction of the price compared to the local pubs and playing some competitive 'sport' whilst getting drunk in the sun is a day out
I'd like to do again.

So with the winnings from cash + converting some stars coin to $ and taking away the tourney investments the bankroll now sits at $4,250.36

Here's a pic of us tearing up the bowling green - it's me holding the bowl and my gf Kate, the little shorty at the front with blond hair...

Gl at the tables

5,4,2,3,1 - Who's Katie?

GL!

#4 is damn hot

Haha is this your rating order

Kate is pink top far right. Thanks for sub

Hoping they're not scores /10...

Congratulations on Katie then, she wins. (Tiny-girl-bonus)

@Lonelybox can't tell, sunglasses to big & dress to wide.

Started the week well last week and then dropped all the profit and more by the end of Sunday.

[IMG][/IMG]

I was out for drinks on Friday night for a belated Christmas party / send off party from my old work which basically chewed up the weekend after a drunken rampage that spiraled into sofa ridden hangover.

Started to develop some accumulated tilt which is playing a key role in my current drop in form. Things that were eradicated from my game, like checking cashier and PT4 stats regularly has crept back in due to a consistent run of losing results.

Coolers and badbeats are now instantly annoying me and this poor mindset has no doubt been a significant contributor to my play of late.

This week has started with a 14 buy in+ downswing over the first two days so definitely in the trenches at the moment.



Key focus for this week:

Enjoy the process of learning
Clean up 3bet and opening ranges
Don't check cashier or PT results at all
4 table until back to A game then add more
Revisit 'The Mental Game of Poker' and develop new logic statements

Including the 14 buyins dropped over the last couple of days, the roll has now dropped down to $3,490.63

On the positive side its a beaut of a day here in Sydney and some jerk chicken has been marinating overnight ready to throw on the barby.

Few beers and indulgence then back fresh tomorrow.

Gl at the tables

[IMG][/IMG]

The start of my heater came outside the fish invested waters of 50nl but rather at home when a group of us decided to play some card games while the barby was heating.

This was right before I'd written my last entry and had started the week by dropping 14 bullets at 50nl which meant an accumulative downswing of around 20 buy ins over the prior 5 days (see below). Loving it.



Despite this though, the idea of Gin Rummy sounded appealing and the feeling of binking off straight flush gutters and leveling pickups didn't matter that there wasn't any money at stake.

I like the gambling aspect of poker but its the competition and the strategy behind it that really excites me. That feeling when you're really in tune at the table and quickly breakdown a problem through a combination of range analysis, maths and feel, and then having the balls to stick with your read, is why I love this game.

Anyway, went on a serious Gin Rummy heater winning all 4 games. A few drinks later we started playing bull**** AKA cheat and I shipped 3 of the games and coming runner up in the other. After everyone had left or gone to bed, me and Kate stayed up and played Omaha and Hold em flips for grey goose shots. Needless to say I continued to run like god and Kate spent most of the next day hugging the toilet.

The end of the night...



I was absolutely buzzing to play the next day but spent the first half of the day going through the database and really delving into any leaks. This was an invaluable task and through some basic tweaks I have already noticed a considerable difference in my game. Notably, continuing to attack strong ranges from the SB is burning money and building a more balanced and less nutted flop check raising range.

I've also implemented a new way to approach studying the game which has integrated into my daily routine where I can really learn the theory behind the information rather than take notes on videos and then forget 75% of the info by the following week.

Throughout the rest of the week I felt in the zone at the table and
the results started to fly in.

Feeling very positive and confident about the improvements in my game
and looking forward to tearing it up over the coming months.

Current bankroll: $4, 576.81

This weeks graph:




Gl at the tables

Interesting hand here against a confirmed spewy whale that is bizarrely close despite our relatively weak holding OTR.

Does anybody have an opinion on hero's river decision?

His fold to 3bet 17% (1/6) with 0% 4bet and playing 48/30/8 over 100 hands.

Only significant pot we've played he floated my UTG cbet on T34 flop with 85, barreled Q turn and barreled 5 river when checked to. Generally taking weird lines in other pots and showing down strange hands with betting lines that don't make a great deal of sense.

He's been opening 56% of hands from MP so far, I 3bet KQo with a plan to bet, bet shove for value assuming a King, 9 or Ace hits the river.

River; if V defends somewhere in the region of 20% of his opening hands from the CO, combined with our history, I think is a close river spot.

Getting a huge price to call, it's hard to find many combos that we can beat though....

Thoughts?

Against anyone half decent obviously folding, given reads its much closer. What was Vs sizing in that 85 spew hand?

Good story man, GLGL!!

Here's the hand...

Bets larger but the pot is much smaller so the bet sizing is reasonably similar...

https://www.weaktight.com/h/56b5bc44d3904344498b45cd

thanks mate, you too

Tourney blow ups, strip club poker and moving on up

Busy week on and off the tables. Started the week with some solid poker over the first few days playing my A game so on Thursday decided to fire up some 100nl.

Proceeded to get 3 preflop coolers within the the first half hour and then took a couple of horrible beats in the same session. I stayed strong on the cashier checking but by the looks of the graph this was about 7 buy ins at 100nl in about 1,500 hands.

My mate Ken has been battling a lengthy downswing and the abyss continued to follow him at the tables this week. Over the weekend prior he had mentioned something about a strip club that had ran a weekly poker tournament. We agreed over a few beers that we'd check it out and when he messaged me on the Thursday it seemed like an ideal time to blow off some steam and play some live cards.

Coincidentally, the place turned out to be literally 5 minute walk from my house! When we arrived at the pub it looked like a pub that had recently shutdown with all the windows borded up or blacked out.

First impressions, think Tony Soprano's 'Bada Bing'. The clientele consisted of scaffolders, suspected drug dealers and poker players. An interesting combination.

Girls behind the bar were topless and taking orders from the poker tables which was a nice touch, other than that it was just your normal pub poker. Terrible players, effective stacks dropping from 1000 bb to 10 bb as quick before you can blink. For a limited period you'd get a 5k chip for buying a drink (this was half the starting stack!). As you can imagine, drinks orders poured in as the stacks shrunk. Despite all this, there was value there at the $500 gtd prizepool given the quality of players and I went on an early heater coolering Ken with my Kings vs AKs all in pre then fading the 2 diamond flop.

As the blinds increased, fold equity went through the roof and somehow a super passive fish folded his queens (20 bb eff.) after opening the button, sb calling and me shoving A6ss. 'Good fold'.

My exit hand was somewhat spewy although I was getting a huge return if he folded and still the OESD equity should he call. Which he did and I bricked off in 5th place. Luckily me and Ken swapped a piece and I still got my buy in back and had an awesome night.

The next morning I had the poker bug massively and couldn't wait to get on the tables. I was clucking for some more tournament poker so opened up a couple of spin and go's as soon as I got up with the view that if I profit from them I'll use the winnings to take a shot at a tourney. I lost a flip in the first and then shipped $180 from a $30 buy in on the 2nd one.

After going through normal morning routine and getting in the zone I entered two $27+ tourneys.

Exit hand of the first one:

https://www.weaktight.com/h/56b838fcd39043c7398b45c3

Felt like I was playing really well in the tournament and could feel a deep run coming.

The 2nd one was the big $27, around 1,000 entries with around $4,500 to the winner. I felt like I was playing perfect poker and then this absolute horror of a hand came as my demise with only 27 players left and sat on a pretty 118k stack. Need to remember these situations when I'm running deep in the main a couple of years from now!

I put him on a weak T, 9 77-88 or a draw when he donks the flop, I peal the gutter with bad intentions and then raise when the board pairs (praying he has a weak pair or draw that he'll fold). When the third 5 comes I know in my heart of hearts he very likely has a pair and trying to make a fish fold a full house is completely insanity.

There is very little excuse for this, a flat out blow up of epic proportions with a close your eyes and click the all in button on the turn knowing your goose is cooked. As Stu Ungar said 'fold, and live to fold again'.

Here's the hand https://www.weaktight.com/h/56b83a62d39043c7398b4609

Anyway, decided that I've been playing great poker and I'm confident of my ability to beat 100nl so made the decision to move up all my volume to 100nl. If I wake up and I'm not feeling good or not in the zone I'll play some 50nl or play less tables but the general focus will be on playing 4-6 tables of 100nl all the time. If the 50nl tables are off the chain I'll take a look at those along side the 100 but the core focus is moving up now and pushing my journey in the right direction.

I'm loving playing full time at 100 and put in some solid grind over the weekend, mostly 4 tabling and really focusing on staying present and making excellent decisions.

Here's the graph for the week, my red line outperformed my overall profit line but I ran $300 under EV for the week so would not have been the case under normal conditions.



Despite the coolers and beats I did manage to bink this little beauty haha - clearly a solid heater coming this week!!

Run good: https://www.weaktight.com/h/56b83d0ed39043c7398b465c

With a couple of spin 'n go successes, rakeback and the mini tourney bink my bankroll now sits at: $5,308.21

Gl at the tables

Good real and gl