Moving from London to Galashiels must of been a shock to the system :-)

nice new blog! london have really good live games , but it think for you, your hourly should be better at HUhyper as you are top reg!

i will be following! thanks for blogging!

Thanks mate!

Thanks! I agree that raising turn does narrow down my range greatly as I'm not going to be C/Ring Ax hands on the turn, so in theory there's very few hands I can have.

I disagree that his river range is split into hands that beat me by the river or fold......There are definitely some worse hands in both his turn and river range that CAN call a bet....my worry was that I've played my hand so face up that a good thinking player may well be able to make some hero folds with Ax hands in this spot.

It was indeed, however as much as I am London at I've really enjoyed living in Gala, met some really nice people, had some fun times and in many ways see the world from an enhanced perspective......also had a few fun Indigo Rooms nights as well haha!

Cheers pal! I think for the moment you're probably right.

I do think though for the longevity of a poker players career it is very important he has more than one string to his bow. The reality is for pretty much every Hyper Player their hourly is less than what it was a few years ago and there has been/will continue to be more HUSNG players transitioning to Spin and Gos and to live cash.........there's also a select few who seem to pretty much be semi-retired!

Online poker sites are also thinking of new ways to freshen up their site/entice new players to the game so the future profitability of any niche type of game can waiver, whereas the live brick and mortar grind is a lot less prone to unpredictability.........saying that I'll still be putting in most of my hours in at the virtual felt for the foreseeable future!






SECOND SCOOP CASH!!

TECHNICALLY, I came 11th in the $700 High Heads up SCOOP yesterday for $6,868.18 this morning, but since there's no monetary difference between ninth to sixteenth place I'm going to claim 9th!

I had some really epic +1 hour games along the way and played some poker I'm really happy with although our tournament ended in pretty brutal fashion.

Exit Hand

PokerStars - $665+$35|60/120 NL (2 max) - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 55.83 BB
Hero (SB): 27.5 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A 4

Hero raises to 2 BB, BB raises to 4.17 BB, Hero calls 2.17 BB

Preflop is very standard. Only way that this hand should be a 4 bet jam preflop is if villain has a ridiculously high 3 bet % from the BB which wasn't the case.

Flop: (8.33 BB, 2 players) A 2 J
BB bets 2.75 BB, Hero calls 2.75 BB

Flop to me here is standard also.

As far as I recollect villain had been increasing his 3bet frequency from the BB over the past dozen or so hands. Obviously this could just be due to him having hands, although there definitely did feel like an increased level of aggression from him.

The fact that I feel has air here so often, coupled with the fact he had shown a propensity to follow up Flop C Bets on the turn irrespective of the change of texture of the board albeit these weren't in 3 bet pots) meant this flop was a clear call to me.

There's also obviously certain hands that in theory aren't in my preflop flatting to a 3bet range at this stack depth here that are in his, which IMO makes it even more likely he'd be putting pressure on me in this spot.

Turn: (13.83 BB, 2 players) 4
BB bets 6 BB, Hero calls 6 BB

Pretty much have the nuts here, again I'm trying to Keep flush draws/ Jx hands in my range expecting him to barrel river here a bunch of the time.

River: (25.83 BB, 2 players) 5
BB bets 20.67 BB, Hero calls 14.58 BB and is all-in

Okay cool, but this would be so sic....fml!!! !!!!



BB shows 7 3 (Straight, Five High) (Pre 38%, Flop 2%, Turn 7%)
Hero shows A 4 (Two Pair, Aces and Fours) (Pre 62%, Flop 98%, Turn 93%)
BB wins 55 BB



Was a fun tournament, rode my luck along the way and super happy with how I played...shout out to BJL90's railbirds.....stay classy lads!! I have a bit of the SCOOP buzz now so expect to see me in a few other events!

Some other Fun hands

PokerStars - $665+$35|80/160 NL (2 max) - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 27.63 BB (VPIP: 70.34, PFR: 35.74, 3Bet Preflop: 8.00, Hands: 264)
Hero (BB): 34.88 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 7 Q

SB calls 0.5 BB, Hero checks

Flop: (2 BB, 2 players) 4 2 Q
Hero checks, SB bets 1.5 BB, Hero calls 1.5 BB

Turn: (5 BB, 2 players) 8
Hero checks, SB bets 3.5 BB, Hero calls 3.5 BB

River: (12 BB, 2 players) 4
Hero checks, SB bets 3.96 BB, Hero raises to 10 BB, SB calls 6.04 BB

Hero shows 7 Q (Flush, Queen High) (Pre 63%, Flop 29%, Turn 36%)
SB shows 4 2 (Full House, Fours full of Twos) (Pre 37%, Flop 71%, Turn 64%)
SB wins 32 BB





PokerStars - $665+$35|50/100 NL (2 max) - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 38.23 BB (VPIP: 69.08, PFR: 46.71, 3Bet Preflop: 13.73, Hands: 156)
Hero (SB): 61.77 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A A

Hero raises to 2 BB, BB calls 1 BB

Flop: (4 BB, 2 players) 6 9 3
BB checks, Hero bets 2 BB, BB calls 2 BB

Turn: (8 BB, 2 players) J
BB checks, Hero bets 5.4 BB, BB calls 5.4 BB

River: (18.8 BB, 2 players) 4
BB checks, Hero bets 13.5 BB, BB calls 13.5 BB

Hero shows A A (One Pair, Aces) (Pre 84%, Flop 75%, Turn 89%)
BB shows 9 4 (Two Pair, Nines and Fours) (Pre 16%, Flop 25%, Turn 11%)
BB wins 45.8 BB






PokerStars - $665+$35|60/120 NL (2 max) - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 53.97 BB (VPIP: 71.49, PFR: 37.56, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 222)
Hero (BB): 29.37 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q 9

SB raises to 2 BB, Hero calls 1 BB

Flop: (4 BB, 2 players) 5 2 Q
Hero checks, SB bets 2 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

Turn: (8 BB, 2 players) K
Hero checks, SB bets 5.36 BB, Hero calls 5.36 BB

River: (18.72 BB, 2 players) 9
Hero checks, SB bets 5.98 BB, Hero raises to 20.01 BB and is all-in, SB calls 14.03 BB

Hero shows Q 9 (Two Pair, Queens and Nines) (Pre 66%, Flop 17%, Turn 14%)
SB shows Q 5 (Two Pair, Queens and Fives) (Pre 34%, Flop 83%, Turn 86%)
Hero wins 58.73 BB





Had Reads

PokerStars - $665+$35|80/160 NL (2 max) - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 47.59 BB (VPIP: 68.64, PFR: 35.92, 3Bet Preflop: 8.00, Hands: 288)
Hero (BB): 14.91 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A A

SB calls 0.5 BB, Hero checks

Flop: (2 BB, 2 players) 3 T T
Hero checks, SB bets 1 BB, Hero calls 1 BB

Turn: (4 BB, 2 players) 8
Hero checks, SB bets 2.68 BB, Hero calls 2.68 BB

River: (9.35 BB, 2 players) 5
Hero checks, SB bets 4.39 BB, fold

SB wins 9.35 BB

hEY Nice blog )

Exit hand on scoop , not commenting the flop i would say turn is always a raise due to the stak u have , unless u have 5k 10k hands on opp and are sure he barrels rvr anyway, its always a raise imo
that bet sizin on turn screams weak draw or air if u raise hes calling with all fdws+sdws + 1 pair hands so u lose some value (not sure u do cuz we dont know if he barrels rvr)
to bluffs on the rvr but that is compensated by the times he calls and is crushed or with 20% eq

gl

ew at busto hand, seeing villain turn over 73s on river would tilt me

that turn bet with 73s :S

Hey man

I've seen a few of those high stakes final tables on YouTube but I think your one always stuck out the most due to the succession of bad lost you got and also your Neasden pic haha. I'm a fellow North Londoner so can bet I was cheering you on!

I'm looking for some people who when I'm about in London can enjoy a game of cards with down the casino, but also to occasionally talk and analyse play from online tour ones as it is something I've never really done and feel it would be a big benefit to me and maybe even yourself (wouldn't bank on it) drop me a pm if your interested

Cheers pal, always up for hearing different perspectives, understand your argument just felt that that in that particular situation so much of his range was weighted towards air + my turn raising range there looks insanely strange so felt flatting was best.

I had a 2-3 minute 7:30 am rant to myself at home don't you worry!

Haha have to fly the flag for Neasden..If I don't nobody else will!

Yeah sure...I'm going to be grinding cash at the Vic quite a lot in the future so you should see me around...feel free to shoot me a PM whenever!

SCOOP

So despite my mantra of ignoring SCOOP events and focusing predominantly on Heads up, the lure of SCOOP Events has proved too strong and I've pressed the register button for MTTs a lot more than I probably should have.


To be fair overall I'm pretty happy with how things are going(making little profit) so far....I would have done even better if I hadn't regged and bricked/bubbled satelittes for 2K events, but sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate. In all honesty as far as tournaments online have gone part of me has never taken them THAT seriously because I've always had a '' Okay well if I don't do well in this tournament, Heads Up is still gonna be there attitude''.....I've been taking these tournaments pretty seriously and I'm confident of bringing home some serious bacon in the next 7 days.

I've played what I think is the best tournament poker I've ever played online, put my thinking cap on and had some deep runs. I've managed to make it through to day 2 of the $215 Sunday Warm Up Event, currently 71/164 and feeling very refreshed for the day, so hopefully have a few hours of run good+ play good and we can go for the gold!

Had this semi interesting spot in the Sunday Million yesterday....I personally think personally it's an absolutely no brainer call but would like to hear the reasoning behind someone with a different opinion. In my mind pretty much all the hands that are beating me preflop minraise call to induce as opposed to just open shoving so I figured that villains shoving range here consists of so many small PP's and tonnes of Ax's that I'm absolutely smashing (potentially he has A9?) so I'm absolutely obliterating him here.

Can someone more refined in MTT play than me tell me what the population tendencies open shoving range is here?

Villain Had K7o and I lost the hand which was a bit meh as I wanted to try and make it two day 2's for today but we still have a chance!

PokerStars - $200+$15|2000/4000 Ante 500 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 46.42 BB (VPIP: 32.22, PFR: 25.86, 3Bet Preflop: 13.01, Hands: 278)
SB: 7.57 BB (VPIP: 17.39, PFR: 10.48, 3Bet Preflop: 5.41, Hands: 254)
Hero (BB): 22.92 BB


9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.63 BB) Hero has 8 A

fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 46.29 BB and is all-in, SB calls 6.94 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 21.79 BB and is all-in

Flop: (54.16 BB, 3 players) J 6 Q

Turn: (54.16 BB, 3 players) 7

River: (54.16 BB, 3 players) 9

Hero shows 8 A (High Card, Ace)

Sorry for the lack of updates over the past week or so, I played a bunch more SCOOP Events which ended up pretty underwhelming

:-( Hindsight is a wonderful thing but maybe I should be more like a lot of my HUSNG counterparts and just grind exclusively heads up and not spend too much of my time chasing dreams..........On that note...........

.............Made a pretty impromptu last minute decision to head to Vegas for 10 days with a few friends :-D Really looking forward to meeting up with some of my heroes out there and having a good time :-)

The Crazy thing is over the past few years I've started the year planning to go to Vegas but for one reason or another I've never gone. I actually have a lot more reasons to NOT go this year than any other year but it's something on the bucket list that needs to get ticked off!

There's a $1k satellite for the $10K WSOP Heads up Event that starts a few hours after I arrive In Vegas as well as the $1Million Venetian Deepstack event/Millionaire Maker and the 500k GTD PHamous event.

I don't just want Vegas to be strictly about poker so hoping to see a couple of shows/sample the Vegas nightlife and probably go shooting the days before and after I'm trying to go for the gold!

killer production:



kill vegas.

Woah bones x asap

First few days of Vegas

We landed about 1:30 pm local time after a very smooth ten hour flight, and after sampling some local chinese food/doing a bit of shopping I headed to the RIO to play the $1k Mega satelitte for the $10k HU Event.

One of the first people I saw was ''Thesaurus'' who for anyone interested in battle rap will know, is pretty much the Doyle Brunson of the art, but as he was in midst conversation with someone so didn't bother to ask him for a picture which I regret!

Busted the satellite in the second round after a lot of administrative problems meant there was a lot of waiting around for the second round which meant there was a lot of unhappy players, but all in all enjoyed being the whole ambiance/feeling of being in a prestigious room and I'm super excited to play some more RIO events....it was a little bit tilting having dealers trying to have conversations with me about non poker stuff whilst I'm in difficult turn spots heads up but they were super (maybe too) friendly and meant well.

Also played the Venetian $1,000 $1 Million Guarantee where I get drew on a very aggro table so my strategy was pretty much to play solid ABC poker, play positionally and try to make the most of the fact that people were playing so crazy....unfortunately couldn't really going and busted in the 300/600 level after running pretty unlucky in a few moderate sized pots.

I was tied between firing another bullet at the Venetian comp since it seemed pretty soft/it's going to smash the guarantee....but my heart is slightly ruling my head and I'm going to play my first ever WSOP event today the $1500 6 max....super pumped and focussed for this one, had a super 12-13 hour sleep, about to head to have some breakfast now and relax for a few hours and then head to the RIO :-D

P.s Strip clubs here are crazy!! ;-)

I busted the $1500 6max the last hand before the dinner break yesterday.

I stayed on the same pretty amazing table for the whole day, getting something short of a full double pretty early on with AA on AQ5J5 vs AQ and pretty much dominated the table throughout with controlled and timely aggression.

I flatted J5ss off 18.5k at 150/300 after an UTG+1 raise and the CO call.

The flop came J 10 5 hh and I check raised the CO's pot sized bet to 5100 and he snap makes it 15k, I shove and he has A3hh which gets there. In all honesty I felt a lot more annoyed than I should as it being my first WSOP I invested a lot of emotional energy into it/ I feel if I win that pot on that table I would have been able to continue my domination and chip up relatively easily.

That being said my table was very friendly/chatty there was a really funny moment between two other players when the following happened.

It's folded round to the SB who without wanting to sound arrogant was the only other competent player at the table and he politely asks the BB how much chips he has left (he had 10 BBS).

The BB who has been getting increasingly riled over the past half an hour, muttering away to himself how I'm raising EVERY HAND etc, shouts out '' LOOK here's how much I have'' and slams his stack near the middle of the table......without hearing that the SB announced all in lol

Everyone at the table obviously thinks the guy has called so the SB turns over J10o and the BB then says fold loL!

With it being forward motion it's quite clearly a call but the guy protests his innocence and after 30 or so seconds of shouting back and forth the floor is called and the ruling is correctly given that it goes as a call and it turns out the BB was winning anyway with Q4o lol.....

The board comes out 9 K 4 5 Q giving the SB the win, cue the BB effing and blinding, scowling '' I hope you ****ing bust soon'' lol...


I only came out here with the intention of playing 4 tournaments and doing a lot of non poker stuff but since I've been here I definitely have the WSOP/Vegas bug and I'm going to invest most of my energies out here into going for the gold! I don't really fancy playing the WSOP shootout today however, so I'm going to play the RIO daily at 3pm and bring the same focus that I brought to the table yesterday.

I haven't really updated over the past few weeks partially due to a lack of motivation, and also due to there not being much to update.

Vegas didn't go great from a poker perspective.....I mincashed two WSOP events that I sold action for, busting in 120th or so place in a $1500 event with KK to Timoshenko's A6dd and it bothered me a lot more emotionally than it should have. Me and one of my good friends discussed the different types of tilt you experience in different forms of poker and we agreed that for most mere mortals there's a feeling of sadness when busting live tournaments, compared to the feeling of anger you can get when having horrible runs in Heads Up Hypers.


I played a bunch of small events at the Aria/Planet Hollywood/and the Venetian with nothing really going in any of them, getting pretty unlucky in a few big pots that would have seen me have a stack approaching the bubble in a few events.

I had a great time though, was nice spending time with a bunch of the English poker heroes outside of the cardroom, got hooked to a house game where the house probably have the smallest edge ( ultimate texas hold em) and enjoyed the competitive spirit of the WSOP.

That being said I've been told there' been really good action at HUSNG's recently, so looking forward to flying home to Scotland from London tomorrow and getting on the grind....I've had a real problem with having a consistent grinding schedule/work ethic over the past 3 years or so ....I thought this thread would help to be the remedy for that but it doesn't seem to be working thus far

Outside of poker I'm going on a date this week with my next door neighbour which I hope goes at least OKAY if not well because it could make for some pretty awkward post date good morning greetings if it goes terribly!

She's pretty insistent on going to the cinema for a first date which I usually steer clear That being said I have something upward of a 95% success rate for first time dates, it's usually after a few months when things go to **** lol.

I u dont mind me suggesting i would take that neighbour date has going out with a friend
etc if something happens fine if not its always a friend some1 nice 1 can chat
i feel this way and it wont get awkard later regardless

GL

+1. I think it stems from the inability of getting to the same spot that you were when deep in a tournament. There is no way to immediately make up for it. Of course over the long run you can put yourself in good spots deep over and over, but the moment I bust something meaningful it feels relatively helpless.