‘I’m not done by any stretch of the imagination, I will handle this loss like a champion, I will not shy away from it, I will not make excuses for it…we can either run from our adversity or we can face our adversity head on and conquer it, and that’s what I plan to do’

After arriving at the Star I picked up my chips and made my way to the 2/3 table looking to continue my recent solid run of live results. Looking down at my rack of chips I began pointlessly counting my $5 reds ensuring they were in fact in stacks of 20 as I’d requested, but before I could finish my OCD driven due diligence I clattered my foot on something and buckled head first towards the Omaha 5/5 table with the 8 seats drinks table breaking the fall. As I dusted myself down I realised I’d just fallen over 6 time bracelet winner, Jeff Lisandro’s foot! I gave him an embarrassed *nod* *handraise* apology and scuttled off towards my table wishing I’d taken the opportunity to make light of the situation and have more of a chat with the tourney legend. Little did I know this fall would be reflective of my next few weeks of poker which involved plummeting nose dives and a determined ability to stay on my feet.

The aforementioned downswing has been the key reason for my delay in updating the blog as I was expecting to play more live poker and document some interesting hands. Unfortunately, a soul destroying session that finished with my essentially chip dumping my third bullet of the day with QQ on a AAT board in a squeeze pot where an older nitty gent shoved his last $240 into the $180 pot and I check tank called despite having the Q. A very bad decision which was a product of hours of patient poker, cold cards and run bad. An hour before this monstrosity I saw my golden opportunity with Kings making it $20 in MP and getting called by two deep stacked whales only to have the floor manager rule a misdeal for reasons that I still don’t quite fully understand but believe was something to do with a new player at the table not being able to come in on the BTN. Things were obviously not going well and getting to a point where it affects your game is clearly time to leave. Note to self. After the Queens meltdown I was left with this poultry remains from my third bullet and decided to live to fight another day.



Although the session ended up being down only 2.5x buyins, the financial sting of the larger buyin feels like a -10 BI down online at least, perhaps more annoying though due to the poor standard of play. This was always going to be a risk when taking a shot at the live games when you’re severely under rolled and having to withdraw rent and living expenses each week. The prior two lives sessions weren’t much better either dropping a combined 2+ buyins. Much like my fall as I entered the cardroom, I found myself down $600 in the hole just 10 minutes later, firstly I make a river value shove after I’m sure the fish is blocking bet his $60 into $180 on the end only for him to show 43 on a 62J 9 5 and scoop a juicy pot vs my AJ. Then just 3 hands later my AK can’t hold against 9s when all the money went in pre after I popped the straddle and called a large overbet 100 bb effective shove. About an hour later I find myself in a river spot facing another perceived blocker bet. EP makes it $10, I come along with 97 on the button with 6 of us taking an A66 flop which is checked round. The turn comes an 8 and I fire $35 with my open ender after it’s checked around to me again. The SB, a thicker set 40 something man with an suspiciously attractive spouse, lets call him Hugh after the promiscuous mansion owner, makes the call and everyone else folds. The river comes a 4 and Hugh donks $40 into me with another $140 behind. I’m pretty confident in my read, both in terms of his weakness and his ability to fold, along with my a belief that he will see my line as a credible boat so decide to set him in and he quickly folds. Despite chipping my way back up to even I finish a buy in or so down and the feeling of an epic comeback slowly dripped away before calling it a day on another losing session.

Due to the financial demolition of my extremely lean live bankroll the Queens hand was the last I’ve played at the casino and the online grind has been ever tougher to contend with. Luckily it’s my birthday today and it seems the awesome vibes around this time of year sent some delicious run good in terms of all in equity although I still feel as though the coolers and bad spots that I’ve found myself in over the past 25k hands has pivotal in shaping my results (along with, to some extent some poor play resulting from accumulated tilt).

Live:



Online:



For financial reasons, I may need to take a leaf out of my mates book and supplement the micro grinding with a part time job one or two days a week to help alleviate some pressure. I’m still a little unsure on this aspect but will make a firm decision over the next few weeks as the crystal polishing analogy from the Alchamist has been running over in my head. Times are tough but life is great and most importantly, as always, a tough run of results has lead to a significant amount of work on my overall strategy. I’ve thrown myself into multiple weekly sweat sessions, in depth hand review analysis of sweat session videos and daily goals to focus on areas of improvement. I feel ten times the player I was last month and as long as I keep the consistent positive improvement then I’m confident the results will come.

As a self confessed McGregor fanatic, I’ve been watching this video through for inspiration before each session or anytime I need a word with myself to put in those extra inches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-idijgzSSA4

After a solid session online the remainder of my birthday will be spent down at the casino doing what I love and building ‘stacks and towers of checks I can’t even see over’ followed by a swanky meal at Sokyo paid for by my sugar momma and then a pub crawl with friends in the city tomorrow. Good living.

My goal for April is 45k hands which I’m going to work relentlessly towards, If I don’t have any more casino session I’ll be pushing for 50k.

Gl at the tables

I skimmed, good start and GL!

Get back on mate, I can add you to a Skype group if you like 25/50 peoples

Much appreciated


Hey bud, yeah been grinding solid this week after a heavy birthday weekend and its been encouraging.

The group sounds awesome, definitely add me in.

The Happy Wanderer

After finishing up my previous post last Friday I made my way to The Star for a mini 2/3 session before meeting Kate for my birthday meal. Strong birthday vibes meant I was bouncing into the card room on arrival as I nodded at any semi recognizable faces with a big grin on my face. Tony Soprano labelled anyone with this kind of annoying contentedness for life as ‘happy wanderers’ and I chuckled to myself as this thought popped into my head while collecting my chips.

As I pulled up in the 8 seat I saw a lot of deep stacks and an array of bad players as I looked around the table and sized up my competition for the day. Although I only had a few hours before having to rack up I felt confident that there would be plenty of opportunities to grow a tidy chip stack. Not much happened for the first half hour before a wild chinese degen (WCD) took the seat to my left as he waited to be called for the 5/5 Omaha game. He 3bet his first 2 hands at the table taking them both down with pot sized cbets before entering his third pot in a row, raising my EP limp to $15. I wouldn’t normally limp but given how wild he’d been I got a feel that he wasn’t going to slow down, particularly on the button, and figured I’d see the flop cheaper. Against the standard player pool I like the ‘preflop blocker bets’ with these kind of hands to control the size of the pot making it like $8-$9. The players aren’t savvy enough to catch on to what you’re doing and it prevents you having to make it 4 or 5x, receiving 6 callers and then being powerless in an inflated pot with a speculative hand.

So anyway, WCD makes it $15, and an older tight passive ‘regular’ completes in the CO, and we see a J46 which is surprisingly checked around. When the 2 rolls off on the turn I decide to bet my hand for some thin value and protection flicking five $5 red chips into the middle. My new ultra aggressive friend stares me down and announces ‘raise’ then mashes in a handful of reds which the dealer counts as $75 total. At this point I’m extremely suspicious and putting his value range on basically deuces or jacks with the rest of his range consisting of a shed load of Ax clubs or other more ambitious draws, so I make the call for $50 more. I watch my opponents reaction as the disappointing Ace of Spades hits the river and check to him, which he responds to with an instant all in for his final $230 making it a slightly bigger than pot sized shove. My gut was telling me he was weak and I think there’s a lot to be said for making instinctive decisions in these spots but logically going through all the combinations I’d assigned to his turn range, with so many Ax club combos, and I couldn’t justify the call.

I take a deep breath and remind myself to be patient and keep making good decisions. About ten minutes later I squeeze out the A UTG, followed swifty by the A. Boom. Is there any sweeter feeling than squeezing out Aces in a live game? I make it $15 and WCD doesn’t disappoint with an insta repop to $50. It folds around to the button, an older regfish with a love of the call button, who decides to come along and in turn prompts the BB to chuck his $50 into the middle. I’m sat on $370, WCD is around $350 deep, the button fish is $300 deep and the BB has another $150 behind. I contain my excitement as I find myself in possibly the best preflop live cash game setup that I’ve experienced and 4bet it to $130. Before I can barely finish my action, WCD shoves his stack in and bizarrely the button fish wastes no time calling as well! The BB tanks for about a minute before claiming that he was gambling and tossed his final $150 and of course, I get my stack into the middle and even the players not involved in the hand are on their feet.

With $1,200 in the pot, I quickly turned over my aces and was met with the following:



Obviously I was disappointed to see another pair of Aces, particularly given the action, but still in a great position to win a nice pot as I also had a little extra from the side pot. With the only person to have a club, the turn 8c on a Tc4c8h gave me an awesome chance to scoop the world but the 3d bricked off and saved the button for what seemed like was going to be a full on public meltdown!

The next 45 minutes were relatively dull having been forced to lay down some strong one pair hands when passive players were raising or just bricking off flops with strong broadway opens. I’ve only got around 20 minutes before I’m due to meet Kate for drinks when I pick up the pretty KJ in MP making it $10 to go. Despite my reasonably snug play since sitting down, this commanded zero respect and was met with 6 calls and we took a J83 flop. One key adjustment I’ve made both against the fish online and against pretty much everyone at the casino is being confident gaining significantly thinner value. At the 2/3 game this is a very clear healthy sized value bet, even 7way. I make it $50 It’s folded round to 'button fish' from the previous big hand (who is now in the BB) who makes the call before the dealer turns a Q. Again, this is a definite value bet when you think about how wide the live players are calling pre. They can be in there with any J, any 8, low end unclean gutshots etc etc and given the lack of bluffing success you’ll have against these guys unless they literally have no pair hands, it’s imperative to get super thin value from top pairs or strong second pairs otherwise you’re really wasting opportunities to maximise your profits. With all this in mind, I make it $125 on the turn and he thinks for a while and makes the call. At this point, I’m pretty much done with the hand unless I improve on the river. The 8 hits the river I quickly check back and turn over my hand. He looks at my cards, shakes his head and hits the table before tabling T8 for a rivered winning trips. In my head I want to throttle this man for his slowroll but instead offer a smile and ‘nice hand’ and annoyingly see ‘my’ chips make their way over the other side of the felt.

Despite my birthday buzz and successful online session in the morning, I couldn’t book up a live win and finished up $175 in the hole. After four attempts, since their refelting of the tables, I am yet to book a winning session at the star and beginning to wonder if the ugly green is some form of run good kryptonite. Regardless of the result I couldn’t have been happier with how my birthday had gone and felt pleased that I’d kept to my A game both online and in the live setting. What followed the poker grind was undoubtedly the best meal I’ve had in Australia at ‘Sokyo’ Japanese fusion restaurant. I was absolutely blown away with everything from start to finish. The food was unbelievable, the service was excellent and everything just screamed quality! I would potentially actually say it was the best meal I’ve ever had!

Sokyo morsels…:





The following day a big group of us went on a ‘pub crawl’ in Sydney’s ‘The Rocks’ which was an awesome time. It basically ended in the second pub where everyone got completely out of control and refused to let the bouncer kick me out for showing ‘signs of intoxication’. Sensing our general rampage-esque behaviour I guess he figured he couldn’t be bothered dealing with a bunch of boozed up brits and let us continue drinking.

A few mates also chipped in to get me this as well which is pretty off the chain! Working out where I’m going to invest but thinking a nice deep stacked live tourney:



With such an awesome celebratory weekend I felt really positive about my online grind for the week. Each day I felt great and the results started to flood in. 90% of the volume was at 50nl but I played 1,000 or so hands at 100nl to cap the week off as I was really feeling my A game. I stay strong on the cashier checking until Friday when I knew I was crushing and had to sneak a little peak before wrapping up the grind until Sunday. HEATER.

Weekly graph:




My mate Tommy’s girlfriend had just moved over from the UK in January and we all went out on Friday to celebrate her first job on Aussie soil. We kicked on the night back at theirs with a few glasses of wine and a couple of joints and ended up getting onto the topic of stupid relationship arguments that can be blown out of control. When we really thought about it though, me and Kate realized that we hadn’t had a proper argument for months. This is coming from a past whereby completely out of control arguments would flare from seemingly nothing on a not-so-irregular basis. When we really thought about it, we haven’t actually had a proper argument since I made the decision to play poker.

There are many challenges of playing poker and a lot of tough times to endure as you submit yourself as a slave to variance and compete with an increasingly progressive and skilled population of players online but you become a different type of person when you wake up everyday chasing your passion. You become a better person. ****, I literally am a happy wanderer these days!

Anyway, my plan moving forward is to try and find a balance that will allow me to really invest in poker without so many financial limitations that prevent a smoother run to the top. I feel one or two days a week work will give me so much more freedom to invest more aggressively with my poker bankroll without having to withdraw life expenses each week and with hard work, I believe I can maintain similar volume and continue to improve at the same rate. I’m confident I’ll be able to find something that can offer me this and take the next level with my poker journey so this will be a key focus for the coming weeks.

I’m on track to hit my volume goals for the month and am going to write up some clear and concise poker and life goals for May to ensure I ride the wave and give myself the best shot at crushing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoLaFe3JZ1Q

Gl at the tables,
Joe

Really enjoyed the OP. You seem like a really genuine and down to earth guy. Best of luck and will be following!

Great update and solid results. Keep crushing, mate.

Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

Thanks for the kind words Bena, it’s hugely appreciated.

I've just spent some time going through your blog... pretty inspirational stuff to say the least!!

Means a lot that you've taken the time to comment. I hope to emulate the successes you’ve achieved at the tables and admire the work ethic, persistence and mental focus that you’ve applied to make it happen.

Keep up the great work!

Cheers mate…. We are getting there slowly but surely!! ‘This time next year Rodney’…

Nice one man, good to see you post a couple hands in the group too hopefully it can be beneficial for all of us. Happy belated birthdaay and glad to see online is turning itself around for you

Cheers pal, hitting a nice purple patch at the mo. Feeling good.

Yeah the group is quality, thanks for adding me in

Looks really interesting, will follow

Riding the heat wave

It was Friday afternoon the topic of conversation at the pub was dominated by all things poker as Ken and I discussed overall strategy, interesting hands and a general round up of the weeks online grind before heading down to the Star.

After arriving at the casino and putting our names down, the excited feeling of anticipation was drawn out significantly longer than the typical 15-30 minutes that you’d normally wait before a text informs you a seat is available. After an hour passed and noticing our names were still not at the top of the list we decided to follow up and make sure there wasn’t any issues. We were then told we had both been called already and after much back and forth discussing the failings of the system due to the absence of supposedly sent text messages, we were assured we’d be put at the top of the list and called in as a priority as the seats became available. Roll the clock forward another hour and the exact same thing has happened, this time removing us from the list completely! We escalated the issue to the floor manager and thankfully he found us both a table to join within minutes. After so much poker strategy talk, a couple more beers going down and the 2 hours+ that we waited for a table, I literally couldn’t wait to play!

It doesn’t take long to get into the action and I find myself involved in 2 of the first 3 pots, firstly a pair plus straight draw in a bvb situation which I call flop and turned a weak pair into a bluff when a big scare card hit the turn by betting the last two streets and getting it through. This was followed by a light call down after checking back another pair plus oesd on a JQK broadway flop with QT and calling turn and river barrels from V who turns over A9o high. Around 5 minutes later I open 3 3 in the CO to $10 and get 2 callers as we take the AA3 flop. ZING. I cbet $20 and and am met with an insta check min raise by an older gent on the button. The BB folds and I opt to call which I’m still unsure if I like as much as getting it in given that a spade might slow him down a little. The turn comes the 9 and I check call $40 and then check call his $200 shove on the river when the T comes and he stares at the board a few times before mucking his hand without showing. A little later I’m in a reasonably close spot when I bump it to $15 with KJ on the button after a couple of early position limpers. Both the SB and BB make the call and the first EP limper, a wildly loose young chinese regfish shoves his $100 shortstack into the middle. Given my equity against his shoving range plus the bloated existing potsize, I decide to shove in my stack over the top in a tournament esque move with the view of squeezing the SB and BB out of the pot and investering $85 to win an additional $150+. As I’d hoped the SB and BB fold their hands and somehow my K high was good on an A raggy runout to scoop a nice pot before dinner.

My post dinner break session didn’t start as swimmingly despite picking up two premiums in my first two hands. The first hand in I pick up AK and punish the limpers to the tune of $20 before receiving 7 callers and bricking the flop forcing me to check fold. The very next hand I pick up big slick again, this time the beautiful AK and in similar fashion, make it $20 to go after a few limpers, receive 5 callers to a J37r. I make a somewhat questionable cbet, get three callers and check give up turn. My luck preflop didn’t show any sign of slowing down though, as the next hand I again pick up a solid hand with 87 on the button. I make it $15 and this time 4 of us take a K 4 2 before it’s checked around to me. In my experience, these boards are great to stab at down the casino, even multiway because although the general player pool is sticky they tend to play very abc when the texture is so dry. With backdoor clubs and some ambitious backdoor straight connectivity i fire a little under half pot and the Rebel Wilson clone sat in the SB makes the call and the others fold. I’d never seen Rebel down the casino before so not entirely sure what to make of her range but basically decided to give her credit for a king and give up on the turn unless I hit a nutted turn card for my hand. As luck would have it the 6 rolls off on the turn giving me a turned gutshot and flushdraw and of course fire in as it’s checked over to me. Not overly keen on my sizing though as I bet near the size of the pot when she won’t be folding a king and a smaller bet would likely have the same fold equity vs a weaker paired hand. Miss Wilson casually slides her chips into the pot and I begin shouting for clubs and 5 in my head! River 2. ****. I figure there is zero point in shoving my stack in and she confidently flips over AK after I check back and I find myself down a few hundred just 3 hands in.

Despite the disappointing result of my betting and raising spree, my perceived image at the table was loose to say the least. Perception can have such a massive effect on gameflow, particularly in a live setting, so I knew that staying reasonably active but deceivingly solid would help continue to shape a wilder image that I could use to my advantage. It’s half an hour into the new table and I’ve been involved in a lot of pots now and remain around a buyin down before picking up AJss in EP. I raise the UTG limp to $20 which commands minimal respect and is followed in by 6 players as the dealer spreads a 834 flop and its checked back to me. Given the SPR and the possibility that many players in the pot were bad enough to get in hands like 9s, 10s and A8, I decide to bet $80 with the intention of calling a shove. A chain reaction of folds like a mexican wave quickly makes its way around the table before reaching the Button, a 40 something rugby league fanatic who started the hand with $280, announces ‘all in’. There’s no way I’m folding given the price and hope his range is lighter than the sets or two pairs so the ace and jack can give some additional outs. The A falls on the turn and I try to gauge a reaction from him as he still hasn’t turned over his hand. Then the heaven sent 7 hits the river to put it beyond any doubt and I thank the poker gods and scoop a healthy $680 pot. The table seems amazed that I was happy to put in $300 with A high which does wonders for my increasingly spewy table image.

I didn’t need to wait long to get involved in another pot opening QT to $15 from MP before the CO 3bets to $45. I would consider this particular villain one of the few more capable ‘regulars’ that I’ve encountered at the Star. It’s always hard to know when you have limited history but he’s somebody that I feel would be quite profitable in live cash games. I’m a little surprised at his sizing given that we’re over 200 bb deep and of course am more than happy to make the call. The dreamy TT3 peals off and I do a couple of backflips and fist pumps in my head before checking. The young seemingly capable regular makes it $60 and I consider my options. Firstly, I know this hand is going to give a raise very little credit on this flop given my image at the table and I’m also worried he’ll work out that this is likely a 2 street hand that he’ll be getting paid off on and will check back turn to value bet river if I decide to just call. The other train of thought is that he may not necessarily be nutted and can be 3betting light given how loose I’ve been and by raising I just fold out his massively air heavy range and stop him from barreling off and making mistakes on future streets. Weighing it all up I decide for the more standard check call route and we see a 5 OTT as I again check to him. This time he thinks for the a little and makes it $140 to go. Although there aren’t many draws that I can be check shoving the turn with I’m too concerned that he will check back river, believing I either have a ten or I won’t pay off a bet with worse, and I’m also reasonably confident that he’ll still view my play as an elaborate bluff and call it off anyway. So with all this in mind I shove it in for a total of $670 and the joyous slight delay followed by a call lets me know I’m way ahead. The dealer confirms the call and dishes out the ugly K river but thankfully it was no help to him and he mumbled a lot of profanities before literally chucking his stack towards the middle and I ship my biggest live pot in Australia for a little over $1,300. Clean.

Another few hours of play involved a lot of poor starting hands and disciplined poker that helped maintain my stack before deciding to call it a day after 8 hours of thoroughly enjoyable poker ‘grind’. The old school 90s vibes of CeCe Peniston ‘Finally’ rang out through the casino as I coloured up my chips and walked out booking a $1,220 session and ‘finally’ breaking my curse on the Star’s newly green felt.

Finishing stack:



Unfortunately my online grind volume this week has been relatively minimal. Along with the volume lost with the day at the casino, I’ve also been victim of an annoying but subtle type of flu that is making its way around our house and friends. Normally I’d attribute this type of annoying sickness to Ken and his infamous ‘Ken Strain’ of virus that flattened everybody in its path throughout last winter, rearing its ugly head on a vicious monthly basis, but he seems in good health at the moment so will give him the benefit of the doubt.

Although I could have powered through and played more volume this week I’ve learnt the hard way forcing hours in when not completely in the zone and feeling sharp. I find this a great aspect of poker, in the sense that you need to take care of yourself and ensure you are in a positive state of mind every time you sit down and play and in turn this has a very beneficial on your overall life. On the flip side though, you can’t always be feeling 100%, fit, healthy and positive yet choosing to play when you’re not is literally burning cash so it’s definitely hard to strike that right balance. I think understanding how to strategize your work based on how you’re feeling, things like shot taking / more volume when in the zone and feeling fresh, playing lower stakes and / or a more solid style when feeling average will help in working smart and getting the best results in the long term.

The volume I did get in was solid though finishing up $380 and I feel my game has been at a really good level for the 5/6 weeks which I credit largely to work off the tables and understanding how to think about and study the game more effectively.

Weekly graph:



May goals:

- Listen to how I’m feeling and strategize my day accordingly each morning
- Hitting 40k of volume with a focus on shot taking a lot at 100nl when feeling good
- Make a video each day to help me get in the zone
- Come to an agreement with my old employer or a new company

I met with my old boss today to discuss the potential of working two days a week which would be an ideal result for me to help me focus on building my bankroll without having to worry about living expenses. Although there’s a few areas to iron out exactly how I could operate doing just two days a week and trying to work out if this could be mutually beneficial and profitable for both parties so will need to see how it all plays out in the coming weeks. Until then, I’ll continue to ride the heat wave and appreciate the fruits of my labour as I push to take my journey to the next level.

Gl at the tables

Going to follow along OP, good luck to you.

Glad you enjoyed my thread too! It looks like you'll be just fine at emulating your own success. Enjoyed the last post. fwiw, i think calling the QT ott is by far your best option. It's waaay more likely he bet folds a hand that he would triple and obviously even more likely he bluffs it off if you just call the turn. I can definitely see some merit in shoving but yeah, with your loose image, a call works a lot better

gl!

Thanks for the support fellas

If this same scenario occurred online I would 100% x every street with the QT. I just feel like pretty much all the young regulars down at the casino are severely under rolled for the games so although he will likely get to river thinking I’m ahead here, whether or not he would shove in his final $300 (his only cash for the night) with a strong but not nutted hand over a more passive check back is why I feel it’s not as cut and dry as normal. In terms of bet folding turn, although it’s definitely correct to do so, waiting for hours live before squeezing out those Aces can also force more tilt calling.

There’s a lot of assumptions there but I feel they are factors that need to be considered in the live games. I certainly don’t like the x shove line from a technical standpoint given that we have basically zero bluffs but felt it would be more likely to get his money in. Still not 100% sure which line I prefer tbh.

Cheers for the insight and gl

"Doubt is only removed by action, If you're not working then that's where doubt comes in" tl;dr

Here I am. Sat back in my old chair, at my old desk, doing the same demanding old job. It's been 4 weeks' since I agreed a 'part time' arrangement with my old employer in order to keep me afloat and allow me to invest more aggressively with my bankroll.

I think it's fair to say it's been a tough adjustment. I figured I'd write this blog entry at the office while I'm relatively fresh because by the time I'm back at home, if I'm fresh I want to grind and if I'm nackered I either don't want to do anything or won't be capable of doing it to the standard required.

Given the nature of the recruitment role, it's become an all encompassing dominance of my time and energy with the days out of the office disrupted with admin and unavoidable client management. Inevitably, poker suffers.

I'm not at home at the moment but will post up my graphs for the past month and would estimate that I've played maybe 15k hands at most which is basically a waste of time.

Results wise, I was actually pretty lucky to run deep in the Sunday marathon a few weeks ago and turned a $40 buy into a $2.6k score finishing up in 6th. ZING. Started at 9:15pm, finished 10:30am, there's a reason they call it ****ing marathon! Loved every second of it though obviously!

Poker is such a mentally challenging game that you need to be on point, you need to be sharp and you need to be motivated consistently which has become a serious issue this last month.

I'd mentioned previously how chasing my dream had shaped me into a better person along with that 'happy wanderer' mentality. It'd taught me discipline, made me feel great and improved relationships with everybody around me. Yet, I find myself here, completely and utterly off the wagon. A slight slip in focus with some additional pressure has transpired into spending impulsively, arguing with people close to me, becoming lazy and indulging negativity in times of weakness.

I believe just writing this down and posting it plays a key role in expressing where I'm at with everything and initiating some positive action.

Although I've taken a really consuming job that is clearly having a negative impact, part of me just feels that is an excuse. I feel this because I've now got the perfect platform to achieve great things with poker. I have the financial security to focus on improving my game, to take shots when I feel good and have a well rounded game winning strategy for low stakes.

Although ridiculous, on reflection, this mental state resonates with me in other areas of life where I've worked hard to get to a favourable position and haven't capitalized. For whatever reason I've got to that point in the past and first gotten comfortable before falling behind and eventually given up and moving onto something else. Am I just attracted to the struggle or is this fear of success? Either way, I'm not going to let this mental block stop me from achieving what I know that I am capable of at a game that I love.

If people can run multiple multi-million dollar successful businesses along with raising families, running marathons, climbing Everest or whatever the **** these crazy inspirational people are doing, I am definitely capable of excelling at poker whilst managing a demanding job. This is simple common sense but it's easy to be overwhelmed and take the easy way out.

Without throwing out too many cliches, there needs to be a lot of failure, a lot of discipline and a lot of hard work to make success a reality and it feels like time to suck it up, roll with the punches and put some clean work in.



I head back to the UK at the end of July and my focus before then is to focus on improvement. I'm going to measure this purely through hours spent on my poker game whether that be hours at the table or hours of study with weekly goals.

I've switched to zoom in order to get as many different situations as possible and ensure I give myself the best opportunity to improve.

Once I return from holiday I'll be looking to load up 888 or a similar soft site setup to build a serious bankroll.

My long term plan is to get to January 2017 with a crushing ability and a 20k+ bankroll + 3 months living expenses behind me so that I can quit the job (for real this time!) and make a genuine run at this game.

I've also taken the opportunity to compete in a boxing fight in October that I'll need to put some serious gym grind in to be ready for which is also exciting and will help mental focus at the tables. It's a lot to take on but I feel these are all positive goals and setting a high standard will give me a hunger and drive that I need to get myself back on track.

Looking forward to a Vegas style weekend as of tomorrow. The missis has got a free room in the new Star Casino hotel rooms to 'trial' them and make sure there aren't any problems with them. So it's live poker grind in the day, followed by fine dining and free 5* accommodation. Sounds absolutely ideal right now.

It feels good to get all this down in writing and remind myself what I'm trying to achieve. I look forward to rereading this post a year from now as I'm looking out over the Vegas strip with a fat bankroll and a belief that anything is achievable.

Gl at the tables

The highs and lows of an unconditional English football fan

I've never been a morning person. In fact, I've always been the type to repeatedly hit the 'snooze' button until the latest possible point where I invariably have to rush to get ready, miss breakfast, run to make the train and arrive a few minutes late to where I need to be.

After finishing my last post I've spent a lot of work commutes and other free thought time to strategise how to make my new work / poker situation a success and ultimately my poker dreams and ambitions a reality. It basically always comes down to this; hours in the day vs quality of output. Due to the time zones here, I have the English football team to thank for my eureka moment (let's be clear, that's all I have to thank them for though the ****ing useless overpaid tossers), when I had to get up for the 5am KO vs Slovakia as our third and final group game of the Euro group stages. After grinding out the frustrating 0-0 draw I had an hour and a half before I needed to leave the house for work and given that I was feeling surprisingly fresh, I decided to fire up stars for some zoomidge.

During the session I felt incredibly sharp and played some of the best poker I've played. On the way to work I had a massive ‘aha’ moment when I realised that I feel groggy and tired whenever I get up so I may as well set my alarm a couple of hours earlier and put in some morning grind before work. The simple process of setting my alarm earlier has had such a positive effect on my schedule and actually leaves me with a lot more energy and drive than crawling out of bed after an hours snooze session. It’s clear that the early bird does in fact catch the worm.

This new lease of life has really been showing itself on and off the tables with consistent A game poker and dramatic improvements in my ability to read the game, problem solve quickly and effectively. With lots of study and online grind under my belt for the week I decided to join Katie on her commute to the casino. I can't remember a time when I've ever played live poker at 9am before so wasn't sure what to expect. As I walked into the card room there were two 2/3 tables and for the first time ever, there was no need to put my name down on the annoying unreliable and poorly organized list but instead pull up a seat and get straight into the action!

My first big hand happens about 15 minute in when I make it $20 after 2 limps from the BTN and the BB (a short stack - $60 ish) came along as did the two limpers. Flop comes out K93, the short stack shoves his $60 into a little over $80 which is met with a ponder followed by a raise to $200 by the UTG limper, a young sum41 esque character who looked like he'd been on a 4 day fear and loathing bender. The other limper folds and I decide I'm gonna be doing well enough to shove in my $320 stack. UTG tank calls the $120 more and tables AQo with two bricks leaving the short stack to muck his 'busted draw' and scoop me a nice $780 pot. Apart from that one short stack the tables were full of big stacked (300 bb+) whales that appeared to have been sat there all night and I decide I'm definitely making this a regular time to get down there, maybe even earlier!

With the generous Italian guy playing 100% vpip, 100% prf, 100% 3bet (this is no exaggeration), making it between $30-$70 as a standard pfr, I quickly grew my stack to over $1k and within 2 hours up to $1,800 (pic below). The afternoon wasn't as special after losing a couple of big flips in standard spots but I still finished a little over $1k up for the day, which is awesome.

Clean stack:




I didn't get to play as much last week as my brother was over with his girlfriend from California so it was lots of boozing / entertaining / catching up. Although I was really pumped to put in the poker work with my energised mindset, when your brother lives on the other side of the world you want to spend as much time as possible with him while he was in town. I felt like we covered a lot of Sydney's finest treats; wine country, Sokyo restaurant (cannot get over how good this place is!), clubbing, ghost tours, underground whisky bars and the ‘absinthe salon’. A busy but awesome week.

When I had the slump and was losing faith a couple of months back I didn't post any updates so below are screenshots of the little volume it did put in along with recent results too.

Solid volume :/



Results since my last post:



Although I don’t feel that is actually a fair reflection of my play considering that two very short 100nl sessions that I played, I ran horrendously. My plan was to just focus on 50z while I’ve been working so much on my overall strategy but given the improvements and how well I’ve been playing it was a no brainer to take a couple of shots at 100z again. Unfortunately, the very brief shot takes involved being completely card dead or hitting horrendous coolers so the graph above doesn’t really reflect my play.

Here’s the breakdown of the two lol:



I also bought and having been using a whiteboard to ensure I’m hitting my weekly ‘hours put in’ poker goals, gym goals with some uplifting quotes to keep me driven. Recently I’ve been watching Evan Carmichael’s ‘10 rules to success’ series on youtube where he studies interview footage of successful people and breaks down their key rules for success. I’ve been choosing one each week, writing the rules on the board and studying them for some extra buzz. This week it’s Idris Elba AKA Stringer ‘Nobody give a **** about 40’ Bell. Lord.

The board + my Vegas Wynn hotel card to remind me of where I’ll be calling home one day:




Despite all the sorrow they have caused me over the years, I am eternally grateful to the English football team for helping me make a simple adjustment that has put me back on track and made me reevaluate how to maximize productivity each day.

With a few weeks left before I head back to the UK the plan is to keep up the intensive off the tables study and improving as much as possible before the post holiday crushing.

Great times ahead.

In jeeh elle

Thanks... I think! ha

Thursday is the new Friday

Life is good when you run your own schedule and work to your own watch. That's how I feel every Thursday at 2pm when I finish my 'working week'. Although everyday feels just as satisfying as a previous Friday used to feel in the gloomy full time, dream killing, recruitment days. Feeling really good about the new work / poker / crystal polishing set up now I’m settled in. With the early morning wake ups to grind before work and a refreshed attitude about making **** happen, life is actually pretty damn sweet at the moment.

My mate gave me a shout yesterday to come over his today for a couple of beers and a smoke to catch up as he’s recently returned from a place he calls home and most of us would call heaven; Amsterdam. Anyway, he usually says come over on a Thursday as his missis works a shift in a bar Thursday night but it’s always a somewhat begrudging 'no' until the weekend for me because of wanting to commit to poker and put the hours into my game. But since I’ve had this epiphany of squeezing more into my day and a generally more proactive approach I realized when I thought about it that I can literally do it all. All I need to do is take my laptop to work, find a wifi place in the city for when I finish, get my grind in and then take a short train to his. Take the laptop to work. Easy.

As a result, my current grind location:



So I’m sat in the local pub at the moment, just finished my session and thought I’d smash out a quick update on my week.

Results wise, less than flattering for sure. But I’ve hit a real curve in my game at the moment since the ‘make things happen’ post a few weeks ago. The extra work on my game and a more 'get things done' attitude is all working together nicely.

This week’s graph:



Despite the 500 hand blip / cooler nightmare at 100nl, here's the 30k since that post:



I feel like I know where I am in a lot of spots now where I didn’t before due to the off the table range work and realised, even more so, the power of aggression in big bet poker. I’ve always had an agro style of course but I think learning a lot of theory and differing opinions can scramble you up sometimes and I think what I was doing when I was really raw at poker was actually solid and when too much knowledge game in I became a little overloaded it resulted in a little over cautious / over passive style in certain postflop situations. I now feel I’ve hit the groove though, and a combination of knowledge and selective and exploitative aggression is shining through in my game.

Unfortunately, the only trip to the casino this week was to change some chips up to fund my Uk trip so begrudgingly had to let go of one of these bad boys!



So couple of online hands I've plucked out:

Casual 7 bet bluff shove – V was super agry 30% 3bet pfr (although only 100 hands) and pfr was folding to 85% of 3bets over 700 hands so easy exploit 3bet.




This one seems reasonable, I think. Although I didn’t have a lot of info on V at all;



Anyway, feeling really pumped at the moment and putting in some solid graft. My work life is going well, although that is purely a means to an end, I know that poker and the power to deal with variance has been a big factor in my success since returning. For one, poker has been a key contributor because I’m working to use the money to help me focus on my building my role and supporting my dream. But also, the variance involved, the tough situations you’re put in makes business life easy. When a 10k deal falls at work you focus on the solution now and you expect and work with the situation rather than moan about how hard done by you’ve been.

So for anyone who feels they are wasting their life away at poker that has been doing it for a few years, straight out of school / uni or whatever, and worry about their future (if they haven’t already had solid employment), I’d say the life skills and discipline in poker will lead you to a very, very successful business life. The future is bright.

For me though, it’s all things poker until I reach the gold.

Gl at the tables

Staying away from results

I've set myself a target of not checking results until I go away on holiday, which is a week from today .

Just getting into this mindset can only breed good things and although I feel like I've been getting smashed to pieces online this week, the lack of results checking has kept me more focused.

No results to report so thought I'd share a few hands and keep it ticking over;

Zing;



Really don't like this river bet;




Villain relatively ABC and can fold;




Not sure I love this one at all tbh. V is overly agro hence the limp strat from SB. Postflop I rep basically nothing but he's so draw heavy. I think any strong player could look me up really light here but felt it was +ev against this player here:



Agrofish;



Running good;



I was gonna post a few more cool hands and some spew but the HH converter isn't working so I'll upload them when it's working again.

Gl the tables

Looking good man hopefully you're crushibg

yo, really interesting posts recently, keep it up.

with regard to your last post there are definitely some glaring leaks.

45ss - too loose of an open pre, especially with rake and not being able to realise enough equity

QQ - i like the river bet. doesn't make a lot of sense for him to be taking this line with AA or KK. Good bet fold otr though.

57dd - definitely player dependant. if you think he's capable of bet folding AK then obv good and you do have the nut bluffing hand - no hearts, blocking nuts etc

75cc - pre is fine. flop is fine (could definitely 3b this flop) but turn is just a check fold. I know you're drawing to the nuts but you have 7 high. you don't hit enough of the time + the times he decides to give up you simply cannot win. further, when he does bet and you shove this combo, you unblock all hands you want him to fold and are solely banking on him having some spew otf and ott (which he did )

A7hh - hard to comment cus fish is fish and you prob know the dynamics better than me.

99 - nh obv

Hope that helps. From what i read in your hands, you seem to take quite fancy lines when it's not necessary. Consider the highest EV line in all spots, not the line that puts the most pressure on your opponent.

glgl bro!

I really enjoyed your writing and style and how you combo life and poker together. I pretty much strictly play live but you are making me think I should mix in some online to keep me out of the poker room sun-wed. You guys are a good looking couple, props on finding a solid keeper. Keep up the good run!

Hey mate, thanks for posting your thoughts here again.

Yeah - these are a little non standard lines.

I think 54s is an open with a whale in the BB? It's not in my typical MP opening range. Keen to hear your thoughts on this as I change my opening and CC IP ranges significantly depending on who's in the BB / who the pfr is.

QQ - I think its right vs his range but he only realistically looks us up with jacks and 9s if he's 3bet them pre although there's a few 8s you could argue. Feels like our bet is rarely being called by worse with the T getting there and can be exploited but I guess the x x x r river bluff is probably pretty unlikely in this spot. Maybe being a little results orientated?

75s - yeah was very confident he could bet fold strong 1 pairs otr including AK

A7s - wild fish, pretty easy shove vs him

75cc bvb - Yeah, again, not a typical hand for me but felt really strongly about my read when it gets to river despite my lack of reppable hands. I definitely agree that calling flop and x calling turn OOP is not the best line. I quite like 3betting flop and getting initiative if he calls. I find spots where we have an oesd OOP OTT quite tough to play, particularly in 3bet pots where his range is pretty unlikely to bet fold so shoving seems bad. Any thoughts on those kind of spots?

99 - thanks, should just flop top set all the time. easy game!


Where do you play? I think mixing live and online is a good mix. Thanks