So I originally had a PGC about my journey in MTTs. Whilst I enjoyed writing about sites/player pools/ecosystem etc. I feel I'd gain much more enjoyment from sharing my more general thoughts from both past, present and (hopefully) future (with the occasional bit of poker added in from time to time).

Since this is my first post on HoB I'm going to (rightly?) assume that the large amount of you reading this know nothing about me. As a result here's some stuff about me.

I'm currently 19, I start a Mechanical Engineering degree in the UK in September.

"You looking forward to it?"

I suppose, I'm looking forward to the independence part and to finally spend some time away from the family. I love my family but I'm sure many of us have had that feeling in our late teens where we just want to get away and experience life (especially in my case since I went to boarding school).

The work itself should be pretty interesting, I'm looking forward to learning some new maths and physics. I've never been the most naturally talented at sciences/maths and as a result have always had to put in a fair bit more work than others may of had to. But I enjoy it, it's a challenge etc. Let's see if I'll be saying all this a month into the course but for now, all smiles.

Slight downfall is that I'll be studying in London, which for those of you that don't k-

Let's face it we all know it's ****ing expensive.

I've heard from many that being poor in a big city is pretty awful. Whilst I'm working a bit this summer (more about that later) chances are (you guessed it) I'm going to be effectively broke/skint/not quite busto etc.

"What are you up to currently?"

Currently I'm working at a lot of catering events which I'd love to talk about right now but I have to be up for one in 8 hours so that'll be for another time. I should be doing more work on the side but it's hard to find decent work, I live in Dorset and a lot of the people working at places like cafe's etc have been since the age of 16 so it's hard for me to filter in since I was at a boarding school (not even in this area) till I was 18. I have done some restaurant work so I'm not here saying it's impossible it's just at this time of the year it's especially hard.

I'm also backed for micro MTTs on stars and am currently grinding out a lot of MTTSNGs for a 3 month prop bet (don't get too excited, only $30 has been wagered) which ends whilst I'm starting university. The effective dream is to be able to play these whilst at university to grind out some extra income on the side as I feel it will be hard for me to find time for a part time job with the work load attached to engineering courses.

I also post a fair bit on 2+2, mainly in MTTSNG, NVG, BBV (I love to troll, I'm reserved enough to just limit myself to BBV so don't worry about the potential state of this thread) as well as a bit of PGC (although I find a bunch of the relatively active threads on there pretty boring so I'm not on that forum as much as I used to be). I hope to be on here a lot more too, I've flicked through a few threads on here as well as LVL and love a lot of the TRs and blogs you guys have made.

I plan to post a lot more about things like how I started out in poker, what it was like to live in NYC for 3 years as a teenager, why I want to leave the UK after university and work abroad etc, what's it like being a twin. There is literally so much to talk about. If you guys have any specific things you'd like to know about me feel free to say and I'll try and write about those before I go into detail about any other aspects of my life.

One thing I really want to do on this blog is post a lot of pictures, I think it really adds to the stories people on here tell and there's something about photography which I find quite intriguing (even though I have no experience taking photo's).

For now I'll leave you one of my dog Daisy. She's a red fox labrador and is 18 months old (in about 16 minutes). My parents got a dog after my dad left the city so that they were able to look after it "properly" and not just have my dad come home late at night and for it to just be a small fragment of his life (at least that's the story they tell me).

It's funny, part of him was always (and still is) this stressed city worker getting angry other things he really shouldn't be angry about but the dog diffuses all of that. It's pure, unconditional love in between her and my Dad. She's so good for our family as well. Since we live in Dorset we're surrounded by fields where she goes on walks, here's a photo of her on a walk.



Any questions fire away!

gorgeous dog

Subbed, gl bud. Always happy to rail on the UK crew! More dog pics too please


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So in my opening post I listed a little bit about myself and where I'm at currently.

I feel it's appropriate to do a bit of a flashback back to when I first started poker (don't worry not every post is going to be about poker, most of them aren't but hey, the title of this thread is "my life" and currently poker occupies a fair bit of it so don't shoot me down just yet).

Slight side note before I start off, one thing I've noticed a lot whilst being on 2+2 is how many of us have different views on what even is a "poker player". Is Liv Boeree one for example?

She doesn't really get any kind of relevant sample, you could say she's fallen behind the curve a fair bit. But hey she's sponsored by stars, she won an EPT (maybe one day I'll go off on another rant about tournament variance and why the view of so many out there is (in my opinion) terribly flawed), she recently played in the 111k One Drop. She did some university talk about the science of poker etc.

Is that local guy at your casino who wears creased Hawaiian shirts and talks about how he just busted a £7 UKIPT Rd.1 sat on his iPad (you know when they've got the chrome star showing alongside the mobile icon they're true sicko's am I right guys?) whilst playing a live donkament a poker player?

He tilts a lot, he kind of knows what position is, he's results orientated, he says sick way too many times, he has an unhealthy obsession for wanting change (not in the progressive form, more like the ****ing annoying form), but hey! Hey plays poker right? Is he a poker player?

Whilst I could get into this in more depth (I might in the future) the main point I'm trying to make is that everyone views a lot of general groups in poker differently, so to hopefully get all of you on the same page about me I'm going to start from the very beginning. Some of this may be nostalgic for you, other parts you may be completely blank faced, that's fine, but anyway enough of the rambling and let's wind back the clocks.

Question. Do we wind back clocks or turn them back. Maybe it's the same thing, I just associate winding a clock with moving it forward, maybe I'm just an idiot, maybe it's been a long day, maybe I've listened to that "turn back time" song too much. Regardless where was I..

I started in a place which many have likely come across with most of us only staying for limited (often very short) periods of time.

"What is this place you speak of?"

Zynga poker, what else.

I can already sense the eye rolls, I don't have fond memories of it either. I remember playing for hours during time away from school. How I was so entertained clicking buttons with no idea about what was going on I'll never know.

For those of you who are like "Oh **** I remember this" you might remember a certain format called the shootout. Basically it's 3 round shootout format where you buy in for the tiny amount. When doing some research for this I actually went back on the site for the first time in years and it's still there!



I remember making a Round 3 once, I was on holiday in California and we just came back for PF Changs.

Again just going to cut in, I've been to some nice restaurants in my time (Chinese included) but PF Changs is always going to be one of those places I enjoy just because it's always good, there's consistency oh and also they do some lettuce wraps which are amazing.

Anyway we came back home, I knew that I could register to the round 3 whenever I wanted. But as you'd expect I wanted to take this seriously so I spent some time in the lab.

The lab back when I was 14 consisted of me watching some half cropped out video of some guy playing the round 3 shootout in which he was constantly saying to play tight.

That's what I did and I think I came 3rd.

"Boringgg.."

Skip ahead to when I was 16 and I thought it would be a great idea to make an account on FTP. I was playing a lot of freerolls, my favourite one being the freeroll to the daily dollar. I managed to get in a few times and somehow I built up a roll.

I continued to run things up, I remember playing a $100 Heads Up Hyper and winning it vs a shark avatar. I got silver edge status, I got the rush badge, in my mind, I had made it.

There was one thing holding me back though, that FTOPs badge.

FTOPs was fast approaching and even though most of the buy ins were super high I felt compelled to play one.

I think I remember it being something like a $175 buy in. I managed to donk up a stack and get to the bubble. I remember this bit clearly.

I had around 17bbs (have I even knew what BBs were back then is surprising to say the least) and it was the stone bubble and I remember rejamming AQ and the guy had 77 and beat me and I went out with no cash. I didn't really know how to feel, I didn't even feel that tilted. At that time I deposited nothing, I couldn't withdraw it otherwise FTP would obviously give me the old "gg wp, nice funds ty" treatment so I just sat there with a few dollars left in my account.

But you know what made it all okay? Me having the holy rectangle of FTP, all the badges, I sat down at some 50c 9 Man Sit N Go and felt like a boss.

As you could probably predict poker was something I knew I would eventually come back to at a later date. Even at the time I found it funny how that even though stars bought out FTP and it was a sister company the age restrictions and security checks when signing up were way more rigorous on stars. There's no way of would of been able to play any real money games on stars at the time without age verification but on FTP it was all okay.

So I turn 18, I have my provisional drivers licence, I get on stars and boom, I can legally play.

"In b4 kid deposits 10 dollars and hasn't looked back since"

Far from it, also, lol at anyone doing that with the rake where it is currently (even back in '14).

So I play a bit, I dabble around at SNGs, 2nl, MTTs all of the usual stuff a rec does when he starts. The 27c turbo's etc.

I watch a few gripsed video's, I've always watched a bunch of youtube poker hands but I doubt that's helped me much at all.

Around this time twitch was starting to gain some traction and I watched some streamers, poker was still in the background.

I still think poker is just this game with a bunch of layers/epiphany's/learning curves. This is what the chain has been like for me as of late.

*Think that you're decent*
*Realise how bad you are*
*Improve*
*Think that you're decent*
*Realise how bad you are*
*Improve*
*Think that you're decent*
*Realise how bad you are*
*Improve*

Rinse and repeat.

Something I've got quite a bit better at over the past months is entitlement, I used to get tilted a lot by getting sucked out on by fish and seeing people on massive heaters but if anything playing a bunch of MTTSNGs has really helped my mental game.

I plan to play thousands upon thousands of SNGs, I'm going to see beats, I'm going to go on massive downswings and huge heaters and you know, that's what it's all about if you want to get any kind of sample nowadays. I've got a lot better at not giving a **** about how I've ran over the day/week/month and instead dedicating that mental energy to other things in life.

Everyday I see things I should be improving on, I know I'm generally pretty bad relative to some of the regs I see in the SNGs and I want to try and get as good as them. I need to keep working hard and looking at stops and maybe one day I'll get there.

Whilst I don't want a career out of poker (I think the stress of playing full time would be nuts) I still find it enjoyable and stimulating and want to hopefully allow it to supplement my income during university. If I take a back seat in regards to improvement and be fine where I'm at I'm just going to lose money, or stagnate and lose money soon after. To stay ahead in 2016 with all the cut backs being made I need to invest a lot of time into poker which is one of the main reasons as to why I've stopped playing any video games.

I'll be the first one to admit I often form unhealthy addictions to certain games and that just isn't good for poker and for where I'm at right now.

I hope to be in a place over the next few months where instead of..

*Think that you're decent*
*Realise how bad you are*
*Improve*

This is happening instead..

*Improve*
*Improve*
*Improve*

So it turns out that you guys like my dog, I'm happy to post some more pictures. It's always a funny thing since everyone thinks their dog/kids/spouse etc. is beautiful/stunning etc. but with my dog whilst I do think that, I genuinely think she is one of the best looking dogs out there.

You know what's awesome about dogs, they don't even know or care, there's no vanity, there's no smugness, she's just a dog out there enjoying herself.

Every so often we take he to the beach on the south coast and she goes swimming. We often get fish and chips and she gets some batter and some chips which she's grateful for. When I was younger I always used to either have fish and chips at a pub/restaurant/tennis club or when I went down to the coast when I was younger to see my grandparents (every friday was fish and chips day )

Whilst those moments are always special there's something about eating fish and chips outside by the sea which is just so much better. There's salt in the air, it's kind of cold, you're with friends/family. I always put a bunch of salt/vinegar on my chips and fish and it just tastes so good outside, it almost doesn't even matter where it comes from it's just the overall experience.

Here she is by the sea, as you can probably tell she's been in and out a few times already.

So one thing I've been trying to improve in as of late (which I may of mentioned before) is life balance (as well as perspective).

I try and do a variety of things and I'm trying to make the most of the free time I have at the moment, well I'm not really, maybe I'm just telling myself that I'm trying to make the most of it anyway..

I try and watch a lot of documentaries, I'm trying to read more (this is something I neglected for ages (bar newspapers)).

I'm trying to exercise more this year, I went from running many miles a week to not doing any running at all. I'm looking towards taking up squash again at university too.

I'm trying to be more social, try and laugh a bit more too. I used to be (and still am a bit) very cynical and tried to find faults in pretty much anything from a tv advert to some random streamer who's playing a tournament he doesn't have an edge in, it doesn't affect me and I should just stop caring (again I've gotten a lot better).

I still manage to find darker humor entertaining. You know I watch Fail Army every week, I used to watch a lot of Come Dine With Me, if I want a really good laugh there are some great jokes on the Selling Live Shares Marketplace which always keep me entertained. Maybe that's just a part of me anyway, I guess we all have different senses of humour.

Going back to reading I actually stumbled upon a book about science and religion. Whenever I'm up in London I play chess at this place called the Casual Chess Club (it takes place in a bar underneath a Waterstones at Tottenham Court Road, as you'd guess it's pretty laid back and I'd recommend it to any of you that enjoy chess, skill level doesn't matter and the people there are really nice.

Anyway I stumbled upon a book called "A Universe From Nothing" and read the blurb, it brought up an argument in regards to God which I had not yet addressed yet so I decided to buy it, I've only started reading it a couple of days ago.

I don't want this thread to become about religion but I thought it would be appropriate to leave my cliffs on my journey through religion so far.

-Goes to christian school as a child (never interested in faith)
-Nothing really chances, I don't get confirmed etc
-I'm around 15 and at boarding school, here a lot of "religion is for the weak minded" comments from people who haven't even looked into it and have no reasoning beyond that statement.
-As a result I invest some of my free time into wanting to learn more.
-I attend some christian study thing, talk to some of the people there, talk to some of my teachers who are both religious and non religious.
-Eventually after a while I make the conclusion that I feel there is a god but the religion people choose is largely determined by upbringing or what they feel most comfortable with and/or connected to at the time.
-Long story short I couldn't make a definitive decision as to why I should become a member of religion beyond giving me some form of self comfort, I didn't feel a calling to join a specific one etc.
-I believed in a god because I felt there had to be an initial catalyst which ignited the start of whatever we're in now, a first creator of sorts, a god-like figure.
-I stumbled across the book whilst waiting for other members of the club to join.
-It poses an argument about how something can come from nothing.
-I buy the book.

My balance has been a bit disrupted over the past couple of days though, I've always had this compulsive attitude to a lot of things and as a result I've managed to watch the entire first series of Fargo on Netflix over the past 2-3 days, I enjoyed it but I could of spent time doing other things to. Saying that though I'm not even sure what I should be doing and this is a point I want to get to...

Where I live right now nothing really goes on, it's mainly old people and all the local people my age who I've spoken to only enjoy drinking and drugs (something I'm not really a fan of). I'm working to, I'm doing some catering events and working this Saturday for 10 hours so that's so money but I feel like I'm not satisfied where I am currently, I'm living with my parents, I need to save money etc. I mean I plan to go up to London once more before uni but apart from that I guess I'm stuck here.

Yes life could be worse but I'm in this weird limbo at the moment and I'm not sure I like it that much.

I guess a trend of this blog could be for me to try and post a picture of my dog every post. Yeah let's do that.

So this one was from a while back, pretty much dead on a year ago (she was around 6 months at the time). I took it on my iPhone, did some cropping made it black and white and blew it up into a photo which now sits in a frame on my dads desk. She looks pretty regal here, she always does though..

Tomorrow morning I'm heading up to London to see some friends for a few days.

I'll likely chill out for a bit, play some speed chess, grind MTTSNG's in the evening, chill out with friends and on the Tuesday.... play a couple of donkaments.

I'll be at Aspers in Stratford this coming Tuesday (26th July). If any of you wanna come down and say hi and chat or something that would be cool.

I'll be posting a trip report of the pokers as well as other stuff too so stay tuned.

I feel pretty decent about life in general at the moment too, having a lot more balance, being more proactive and generally happier.

Best of luck with the liveamenta buddy, lookingn forward to the trip review! I dont know much about the mtt live scene, but from what I've played they're fantastic value. Hopefully you do well enough in one of then to spin up a decent roll



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So I'm actually in London for one more night but since I won't be up to much tomorrow and I have some free time this evening, I thought I'd write the trip report for my first day (Monday) in London. I might combine some of the future days but for now one day at a time works well.

In the past with these kind of things I've often taken a pretty comical line but I think for this trip in particular I'll try and give the most realistic perspective of my time here and how I'm feeling currently. They'll likely be some vaguely humourous stuff in here but I feel that's just part and parcel of my writing whenever I review stuff.

The Trip Report (Monday)

So it's just before midday and I'm pretty happy, I feel a bit tired due to lack of sleep but overall I'm excited.

I've been cooped up at home for a while and it feels pretty good to get out and have some time away from the family.

Due to my tiredness I go and buy a coffee at the station, I sit down at the platform, take a sip and..

****

In all my 19 (soon to be 20) years this has got to be the hottest coffee I have ever drunk in my life. The only thing that can compare is that watery hot chocolate I got at 7 a side games on Sunday mornings in the winter.

I use the world drunk lightly, as soon as the liquid touched my tongue I knew. You know, that slightly fuzzy feeling you get on the tip of your tongue when you know you've burnt it. I had no way to know how much damage had been done, I just had to wait and see.

However as of late I've been trying to generally be a happier and more positive person so I looked on the bright side of the situation.

1) It could always be worse, I could of spilled it all over myself or on someone else. Plus, worse stuff in the world is happening, it's just a tongue burn, it may not be that bad anyway.

2) I have a hand warmer, yes I might be in shorts and it's pretty pleasant weather but hey, positives, trust me I know how much I'm scrapping the barrel here.

The train soon arrives and I already know what I plan to do on the two hour journey to London.

For those of you that don't know I'm currently (attempting) to grind MTTSNGs on stars. I'm trying to improve my game and I thought a constructive thing to do would be to write some notes on a more optimal tagging system I could use.

For those of you that have any familiarity with South-West Trains you'll know the "two seater" fold down tables are beyond on joke, somehow I was able to write (albeit scruffily) some notes for part of the journey.

Luckily a "four seater" area became free which has a much bigger table so I decided to sit there and continue writing. Two older women were also on the table with me and one of them seemed interested in what I was writing.

She kept on peering over but you know British people gonna British and she never even quizzed me on it. People are so glum and shy on transport in the UK, it's like no one can talk to each other and we all just have to mind our own business.

I would of been happy to explain to her what I'm doing but I felt me saying something along the lines of "you seem interested in what I'm doing" to be quite a hostile thing to say.

I know we all don't want to be "that guy", you know, the person who decides to talk to you during the first 20 minutes of a 5+ hour flight. (I'm sure a lot of us have been on the receiving end of those conversations) But still, it doesn't hurt to ask a few questions if you're intrigued by something.



"Weird note making style Tom, all the quotations and stuff"

Don't worry it's fine, you can admit you tried to squint and read what I was writing, I'm more than happy to explain.

First off I've always preferred taking notes on paper, I could use a laptop but I quite like writing (even on a jittery train) and I feel I retain more information too.

In regards to the style I like making notes which are quite open, I often pretend that someone else is reading them and I think of remarks they would make whilst reading (hence the quotation marks). It helps me solidify points and increases the chances of me understanding general idea's.



We eventually get to Waterloo and before we get to the station we suddenly stop. (Picture isn't of exact location but pretty close).

I used to live 30 minutes on the train from Waterloo before we moved to Dorset so I think somethings up. I know we've never stopped in this place either. Have we broken down? Wh-

"Ladies and gentlemen we will be briefly stopping whilst we are assigned a platform since we have arrived before our scheduled time".

**** me I've seen it all now, I'm on a train, in the UK which is early.

Early!

For those of you thinking wtf is this kid on you may not know how bad a lot of British transport is. The amount of times I've heard from friends that they were delayed at Clapham Junction for 3+ hours is crazy.

Again maybe I'm in the wrong and you guys can correct me but this is the first time ever I've turned up to something before the scheduled time.

Regardless I get off the train, take the tube to Angel (where I'm staying) and dump my stuff at my friends (Rob) place.

What Rob and I end up doing a fair bit is playing a lot of chess. We actually met whilst playing online chess. We played a few games, started skyping more, playing more and as of now it's been over a year now since we both first met in person and we get on really well. I'm so grateful that he's allowed me to stay in his place and he (alongside the people he lives with) really make me feel welcome. I've met a lot of his friends too who are all great.

Isn't the internet amazing.

Anyway the day continues and we end up where many a young chess player has ended up. At a bar/pub playing speed chess.



After a couple of pints and many a game we return back to his and have a bit more to drink and play some chess in his patio/garden area. I wish I had a picture to show but it was still great fun.

The day draws to a close and I feel pretty tired. It's been a pretty great day.

I look ahead to the next day in which I plan to play a Live Donkament at Aspers in Stratford. I've played at Aspers before but not for a long time. Maybe they'll be some nostalgia, maybe I'll get the same headache I've got the two or three previous times I've been there. However, they'll definitely be some things which are certainties...

1) They'll be degens.

2) I'll get ID'd.

3) Gambol.

The Trip Report (Tuesday)

I wake up the next day and to my surprise I’m not hungover. I don’t know if this is just me but I’ve only ever been hungover once or twice in my life.

Maybe it’s because I tend not to drink in excess or maybe I’m just lucky.

It’s about 10am and I’m thinking about what to do in the morning. I go out to get some fresh air and grab some fruit from the supermarket to eat.

I always feel like cupped fruit is a pretty big rip off but for me this trip was more of a holiday, I was more than happy to make some -ev finance decisions.

I have that, make some tea, play some more chess and then I head off to Aspers.

So as I stated in my last post I’ve been to Aspers a few times, mainly in the evenings, the Friday nights etc.

One thing I’ve yet to have much experience with is the afternoon crowd. What do they even do for a living, where do they come from, how many fish actually are there going to be etc.

Anyway I rock up, make sure I have my water and banana’s with me, get ID’d and walk over to the poker area.

I had plans to play in some £30 afternoon bounty tourney they run which is normally fun, I checked the site, it’s all up there and..

“Sorry sir we are running only satellites for the 888 tournament in the afternoon and evening”

I ask if I can roll the potential seat over to when I’m here at university, he said it will just stay in your wallet and it’s fine.

I decide to play it, it was a rebuy thing but I was happy just to take one bullet, in all honesty I had a bit of an itch to play live.

I sit down and it’s one of those where the table has just started, I look around, pretty much a lot of young/middle aged people, some know each other, seems like a friendly atmosphere.

Some guy just lost his job and was laughing about it, another was saying how he just plays for fun now etc.

My initial assumption was obviously a bit misguided. About 30 seconds in this guy who is a twenty something white guy who seems local starts talking in this annoying put on Russian accent saying stuff like..

“Fish fish what are you doing here fish” in some awful Russian accent to some players at the table.

I thought he’d stop a minute or two after no one even laughed at it but he just kept going.

He seemed like one of those players who had a vague idea of the game but was probably pretty terrible..

"Just like you OP!"

Ikr

He was making comments like..

“Why are you checking top pair here”

He spoke a lot about other poker rooms, about how he loves 25hh..

(“Why not 25s Tom?”…Idk probs lololive, some of them have favourite suits.)

because he was at the "Hippo" last week and he was playing 1-2 with a
straddle and he peeled and flopped the nuts and kinda got paid off.

Pretty mind numbing stuff I know.

If this guy is legitimately a re-..

(I'm sorry I can't bring myself to say that this guy is a reg, he was talking about how Kassouf was an idiot and that if he was in that spot he would of just folded his way to the final table, easy money)

..he’s probably doing so much damage to the games.

I’m pretty sure that might be the worst “fish catering” I’ll ever see, this guy just didn’t shut up, he was annoying, pretty arrogant and it was a relief when he got moved.

Once he left I actually was enjoying the table talk, I’ve always had a pretty dim view of live but I was actually having a pretty good time, there was this Irish guy to my right who seemed pretty good and whilst we didn’t talk much we always winked or smiled at each other when someone at the table was saying stupid stuff.

Even the guy watching White Collar on his iPad next to me made some decent conversation, I think I’ve bumped into him before too like a year ago. Don’t ask me how I remember him.

Yeah I was grilling the guy above for having annoying table talk but I’m going to be open and admit that mine is pretty terrible. I’m generally pretty social and have definitely got over the first nerves you get whilst playing live but at the table I’m pretty awful table talk wise.

Some guy was complaining about how cold it was in the casino and how stupid it was and I make one of the least funny and-

Urgh I’m just going to cut myself off and say it was ****ing terrible, it doesn’t even make any sense.

I responded with something like..

“they should sell jumpers outside”

This is just bad on so many levels, the only reason I said it is because I know how the RIO trolls everyone by making it a freezer which leads people to buy a $80 WSOP Hoodie.

However even with that given context it still makes no sense.

In the casino area there is no outside of the poker room bit, it’s just a bunch of slots and a bar, even worse than that, we’re in a Westfield where there are probably thousands of jumpers being sold.

It’s just awful but let’s just move on.

Of course the tournament structure is absolute aids and before I know it I have like 20bbs.

Before I go into the game itself I’m kind of wary about turning this into a hand review thread, I don’t want that, I’d rather this just be for reflection and people asking general questions instead of..

“Yeah OP in H1 you definitely need to raise a bigger sizing, you can check turn btw”

If you want to see my hands and comment I post a bunch in MTTSNG and have posted some live hands in Midstakes MTT or whatever it’s called.
Long story short I run pretty well at the start.

Get in 79dd on 8T2dxx vs AQsc

I turn 5d which gives me some outs and on the river bink.

“Nice one Tom you got there big deal”



Tables erupts people say sick a bunch of times the guy with the AQ seems super ****ing tilted haha. He immediately orders another diet coke and whiskey and double rebuys. It's like 3:30pm.

Good start so far.

I continue to run pretty well, my bluffs get through and a bunch of people keep rebuying but sadly I run my AQs into AK and A4.

I see a 4 on the flop and consider rebuying, structure is already ****ed though so I think I’m just going to head back home.

Turn Q

Okay then.

Table again says sick and the other usual stuff.

I have about 4-5x starting stack at the first break and still decide to add on for 6k, table seemed really good and spewy so I thought it would give me a much more decent shot of actually winning a seat.

I see a couple people chatting and they look over at me and ask what I had in this spot etc, what did I fold call, how card dead they’ve been etc.

They seem like nice people and we chat for a bit etc.

They ask me if I play online.

This may just be a coincidence but every time I’ve been to play live poker I’ve been asked if I play online.

This could be for a few reasons which I’d actually like to consider.

1. They see that I’m pretty young and assume I grind online. I don’t even know what an “online grinder” is meant to look like (I’m not even an online grinder). I mean I wear glasses and hoodies sometimes so idk.

2. I sometimes calculate at the table with odds and stuff and run through my fingers and look up etc. Although surely this can’t just be associated with online, it’s not like every live player just plays on feel and doesn’t attempt to do any maths right?

3. I may play well, they see me bluff catching and c/c c/c a hand like AA on a dry board which I guess is something they may not see too often. Again maybe this is just my negligence on my part but people often say nh, wp etc but hey maybe in their eye’s I’m just a fish they want to cater to.

Like I don’t really care when people ask it, I often just reply with “yeah”. It’s just happened every time now so maybe I’m giving something off.

I’m thinking about replying “what’s online” but that could come across as a bit hostile and give off the wrong impression.

Eventually I get in a spot as the blinds get even more crackhead and UTG+1 opens 2x (who’s been super spewy as of late).

A guy who I’ve liked at the table who is two to UTG’s left flat calls with about 14bbs.

I wake up with ATs on the BTN with around 17bbs and jam.

UTG folds pretty quickly and this guy goes into the tank.

“I think you have a big pair, I don’t really want to flip though”

This is when I should just stfu and not reply to him because I have no idea what I’m really doing.

I keep quiet for a bit and he’s still tanking away.

He looks at his cards again, back at his chips etc.

I then end up saying something which might be stupid I have no idea tbh.

Scratch that, I know it's ****ing stupid.

“You seem like a good guy, I’ll show you if you fold”

Long story short 1-2 mins later he calls with AQo, in my eyes this is a massive nit roll but everyone else is saying “what a call” and “it’s not an easy call” etc. Idk online this is a snap even with my relative image transferred over.

The boards runs out I get up and say well played and it’s been fun.

It actually was a lot of fun.

One thing which wasn’t fun, was the structure.

Jesus it has to be one of the most ridiculous things ever, maybe one day I might play a donkament with a decent structure but for now I’m not even sure if I like settling for this kind of stuff.

The tournament itself was great value though, lots of people spewing off, lots of fun. I just felt it turned into a hyper pretty quick. Yeah sure I sat down for a few hours but hands/level wise it was pretty rough.

Anyway I stumble out, take the tube back, buy a kebab (pretty much always have one when I’m up here, I can’t help it) and crash back at Robs.

Nice trip report! Few thoughts:

1. Its great that you write poker ideas/stuff down. If you don't mind going digital, try evernote. Its great for keeping all that stuff you need to sort out in one place; I keep all my HH's, annotated strat articles there.

2. You will meet folk like the "why did you fold top pair, I won 1000 with 52hh at the hippo" guy all the time in these events. My advice to you is to not to overthink it, smile back at them and take it all on the chin, but most importantly ignore all of it. After 6hours with these folks its very easy to let go of your sharp preflop ranges, and go down the loosey-goosey route; do not succumb to this.

3. These £30 structures are all going to be heavily raked, and turn into a shovefest very early on. It can be disappointing to brick these especially if you only play 1/2 times a month, but hang in there! All you need is one good finish to spin up a decent roll for cash/mtts with better structures

glgl

1) Checking out, evernote, seems awesome. Will likely use.

2) And yeah I shouldn't be overthinking this, just gotta brush it off.

3) Yeah agreed! I'll keep working at it. Could build up a roll who knows

---

So this post was meant to include my Trip Report (Wednesday Post) but instead something happened today which I feel is more important to address.

I mean this blog is called "My Life" so it's only fair talk about the ups and downs of everything.

So for those of you that don't know I've been taking part in an MTTSNG challenge on stars in which I was backed for.

Unfortunately today that ended, largely due to a misunderstanding with my backer.

Just to cut in, I didn't scam him, I didn't break any rules etc.

For general privacy I'm not going to go into the exact details right now, I don't think I come off as a terrible person at all and I'm not trying to hide anything. Maybe in the future I'll release the details but for now I'm not going to.

So I'm not in a financial situation where I can be rolled for the games I was playing, 2.5 ABI stars (I'd want like 400-500 ABI's, probs more tbh).

All in all this isn't coming at a terrible time for me. Maybe I need a break, also, I've been against a lot of the changes stars have made for a long time and I feel the way they are dealing with a lot of things currently is extremely unprofessional and unethical.

As a result I don't plan to play anymore on Pokerstars, even though it's likely one of the most constructive places to learn/play/improve as a player I don't want to give them anymore of my rake, I've had enough.

"So what are the plans now"

To actually take a break from playing and hopefully come back with a fresher, more stable and motivated mindset. I have no idea how long the break will be but I'll be studying poker during it.

I feel I'm likely going to switch to cash with university coming up too but again, who knows.

I've already talked about balance a bunch of times in this particular blog and even though I was only grinding MTTSNGs for maybe 2-3 hours a day and being able to work and fit other things in, I still wasn't really happy. It was just a chore to me.

I think if/when I do come back to poker I'll only be playing when I really feel like it and not force myself to meet volume goals and to put unnecessary pressure on myself, I'll likely have enough of that with my degree so I don't want poker to turn into this thing I "need" to do.

This is likely going to be pretty boring for a lot of you to read and you're going to roll your eyes but I thought it would be talk about how "My Life" is right now.

Right now I'm just a bit blurgh. I'm just floating through life and not in the good way. I feel pretty down and in all honesty I really can't wait to just go off to university.

I'm just stuck at home working on and off with no real goals. I'm not really excited by anything currently. A lot of the people in my area who are my age only really drink and do drugs which I'm not a fan of so I find myself spending a lot of time on my own.

Currently I just feel pretty bad at a lot of things. I'm likely not that great at poker even though I've invested a fair bit of time in it. I've just lost the last 5 games of chess I've played.

(I realise this is all stuff that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme but right now it's wearing me down).

I'm not really doing much with my free time as of now, I'm not even sure what I could be doing when I'm just in effective isolation in the countryside with my family (who are all stressed with all the building work, my sister is clinically depressed too so that's been a hard thing to take on too).

I'm doing an engineering degree in September but with no idea about if I'm actually good enough, I was pretty lazy this year with studying which I'm also regretting.

All in all I feel pretty worthless and that I'm not really or ever have been actually good at something. I've always been pretty average at most things I've done in life and that's never bothered me in the past but right now it really really does.

I don't know if formulating some kind of time table is a good idea but to me that just seems like I'd go back into this "forced to do things mindset" which leads to me being upset anyway.

I know I need to be more proactive about a lot of things in life but I don't have much ambition currently. I don't want the days to drift away but I'm letting it happen right in front of my eyes.

I know I have people around me who are happy to support me but I don't even know how they can be supportive.

Idk if any of you can relate to this or have any advice but it would be greatly appreciated.

One thing I think I'm going to do a lot more is go for more runs, it should hopefully help relieve some stress and make me feel better.

Frustration tolerance, ability to lose and still be OK is a lot more important than to win.

Have you tried to think BIG? I mean some GRAND goal, like finding a cancer cure or developing warp or something else from star trek? And then take small steps this direction.

edit: you have very articulate, thoughtful, interesting to read writing style for your age.

Yeah frustration tolerance is super important as you said. I'm normally okay I guess it was just at the time I writing I was in a pretty glum state of mind.

It's an interesting question you bring up, in regards to a grand goal I've never really had a massive grand goal.

Maybe this is just a flawed way of thinking on my part but even though I've been brought up in effective luxury, been able to go to a great school, have nice holidays etc. I pretty much just want a simple life.

I don't really want to do anything amazing, I just want to be happy, do a job I enjoy, have good friends and as long as I don't have to worry about how much desert costs, I'm all good.

I just really want balance, I've done the business competitions and a lot of the stuff a 19 year old can do in a bank but pretty much all the people I've shadowed seemed unhappy. Again "lol sample size".

Both my parents worked in finance and whilst a lot of people want to do what their parents did for me it's the opposite, I've seen the knock-on effects. The arguments, the stress, the environment. I know everyone's different but still, I'm not willing to make the sacrifices many make just for money.

So grand goal wise all I'm trying to achieve is happiness.

I'd like to learn the piano so that's something I could dedicate sometime to buying/learning. Maybe one day I post a video of myself playing piano on this blog.

Glad you like my writing style, I never go out wanting to write something in a certain way so it's nice that my unadulterated writing style is enjoyable for some.

I plan to write my Wednesday trip report some time today so stay tuned for that!

I got your PM Tom & thank you for the prompt settling of the bet. In return I'd like to give you some value for your $10 loss by investing more than $10 of my time in responding to this open invitation of yours: So I'll start with ironing out some creases in this here: RATIONALISATIONS
If you & your backer were on good terms you'd still be giving PokerStars your rake until at least September while you continue to play on a site that you view as "unprofessional & unethical". Your ethical standards are adjustable - you move the ethical threshold slider to 'low' when it's in your interest to do so. This is of course normal human post hoc rationalisation, but it is a moral slippery slope. ALL poker sites are money making machines for the operators, owners and/or shareholders & no one site has a claim to a higher moral ground over other sites. The unexpected early cut off of advertised following year SN/SNE rakeback is a notable breach of customer trust by PokerStars & I'd have some respect for your position IF you'd pulled the plug on playing NINE months ago when they revealed their Judas move! That said I'm glad they dropped the hammer on the rakeback grinders - just handled badly.

Your search for a more ethical poker site will be fruitless - they all are cut from the same cloth & any semblance of concern for the customer is part of the public face of all for-profit businesses, just watch British TV adverts & note the high numbers of healthcare, insurance, supermarket, banking ads that unethically fail to mention that they're in it for the dosh & your grandma going to that loving care home displayed on screen is manipulative doublethink - that's a PRODUCT being packaged & lubricated to slip past your critical faculties painlessly.

Bookmakers routinely limit the bets of winning bettors & often eventually close their accounts ~ not for cheating you understand - just for winning, with ZERO notice. This is routine in the betting environment. Think about that & compare with PokerStars & what they did to SN/SNE status.

Think about banks buying other banks & the treatment of the suddenly surplus staff. If you're going to walk away from PokerStars on ethical grounds, then cut up your credit cards, close your bank account[s], give away your slave labour footwear & sweatshop manufactured leisure clothing. Also go to war on wealthy people buying up second homes & retirement property in idyllic villages forcing prices up beyond the reach of poor locals who lose their heritage in a generation. Boom!

MORAL FRAMEWORK: WHAT'S YOURS?
I don't have a belief in moral order ordained from 'above' somehow - thus I'm not allowed the luxury of playing the rationalisation game so popular among our politicians, leaders, opinion formers & now Labax the MTTer. A good way to convincingly do whatever suits you the best at any time is to quote a holy book - everything & anything is possible with such manuals of deceit [for that is what those books are for]. I prefer to take a utilitarian stance as per Jeremy Bentham [long dead], Peter Singer or Sam Harris, these people are worth studying if you're interested in developing a consistent moral outlook that doesn't rely on dubious edicts from supernatural ghosts to justify self-interested actions. I urgue you to look at utilitarianism as a moral philosophy & embrace your self-interest instincts more openly too.

MechEng is study intensive - it's a course where self-starter, motivated young scholars do well, but the more 'relaxed' students fall behind the front runners by a huge margin. If you don't have the love of the subject then don't even start. University is no longer an environment where scholars are well supported - all of these establishments are now money driven & the safety net has large holes in it. I don't recommend university for anyone these days who hasn't got a map in their mind of broadly where they're going - not when it's as subject specific as MechEng.

If you want to use university correctly & fruitfully then picture it as a place where you think about how to think. Then it's being introduced to other world views. Then at the back of the queue is some vocational element if that's your gig. Philosophy is fun & your mental floor will wobble - MechEng not so much unless that is your passion. Maybe one day you'll reinvent the pianoforte on new engineering, acoustic & ergonomic principles or maybe you'll be a drone at BAE

[1] There's no shame in delaying university for a year while you consider the financial millstone & the level of certainty you possess re the correct courses of study & the locale
[2] You have 75% of your life in front of you yet to happen. That is an exciting prospect & it's good to not jump into anything that will echo down the years.
[3] A good measuring stick is to avoid what is fashionable NOW because it's usually empty nonsense. In a poker context that would be believing in the doom & gloom poker ecosystem predictions, Burning Man, ethical giving, Choice Center, "giving back" etc. Those are examples of that ad hoc thing again...
[4] Dump the SNGs & get into cash. You'll thank me
[5] Don't use backers. Ever. Never!

Is the name "Labax" dog-related as in Labrador?

I'm looking forward to my Labax-provided Johnnie Walker Black Label triple measure tonight

Is that $10 of value?

Yeah agree with this, my standards were pretty adjustable based on my interests at the time. It was always the plan to quit stars after the challenge but again something could crop up and I could make allowances etc.


This to an extent, I still feel from my perspective that some sites are being run a bit better than others and take the consumers needs into account more. Although those methods are likely done in order to increase brand loyalty which in turn can lead to higher profits in the long run etc.


Whilst this is a logical conclusion I feel it only carries the full weight if my views on the SNE situation were the same back in Nov/Dec as they are now.

I didn't really look into the SNE changes that much until more recently. If I felt how I feel about it now way back last year I would of likely been quitting stars a lot earlier or at that time (easier said than done I know).

Interested to hear your thoughts about why you hate rakeback grinders that much.


Yeah for sure, I'm sure part of my reasoning comes from the irrational stance that stars had the gold standard and no it's going downhill. The inconvenient truth is that poker is declining industry and these kind of these were eventually going to happen anyway.


I'll give it a look!

Yeah it's a pretty hefty course, I know I gave off this rather glum impression and that I was lazy this year but I do really like maths and physics and find it really interesting. I can't wait to learn more about it and extend my knowledge in maths especially.

Whilst you don't recommend that I think you'd be surprised at how many people jump into STEM degrees having no idea what they want to do. I think you learn a lot about what you like and dislike in the degree and can make more informed decisions from there.

I think one reason people like engineering degrees is because it keeps your options open. You don't just have to want to be an engineer, there are a bunch of fields you can go into.


Sound advice.

Ditto

Yeah good advice, I wouldn't be going into engineering if I didn't enjoy it but I know a lot of friends who are doing it just for a stamp, this may be an error down the line.

I plan to

I don't plan to

Nope

Enjoy it!

I think many will agree far more than $10. I made sure to read your post multiple times and I'm really grateful you took some time out of your day to help me out.

So before I get into the trip report Wednesday I just want to note that one thing I really want to do more of is add more pictures.

I know for me pictures really help cement memories as well as jog them too.

"Nice range merge Tom"

Tyty

Anyway my main point is that in x months/years time when I likely look back at this in some hour of the early morning I feel that pictures will make make the reflective period far more special.

I'll cut the sap and get to the trip report.

The Trip Report (Wednesday)

I wake up with no real plans for the early morning, seems like an ideal time to grind some online.



Whilst I don't have that many readers currently I'm still going to address some potential comments/thoughts some of you might have.

The above is basically a half-hearted excuse to pose questions to myself in my own post.



"Nice setup "

Trust me I know it's pretty rough, I haven't even had the laptop for long but it's already been through a lot. That line you see on the screen doesn't go away either.

You know how your eyes have like natural blind spots, well let's just say I hope this line somehow joins that category (my A in GCSE Biology obviously serving me well..). It's pretty tilting to say the least.

What I do plan on doing is buying a monitor which I can attach to the laptop and pretty much do everything off that. I'll likely get one in September, it'll also make me play at my desk more which is definitely +ev and something I've been slacking with a lot.

Some of you may be curious about the session and how it went. I could go into some detail but cliffs are probably easier.

-It did not go well

"Want to give us any more detail"

Yeah fine, basically the traffic was awful, I don't know what I was expecting but barely anything was running (believe it was around 10-11am UK time).

I ran pretty bad and busted things pretty quickly. By the time it was around midday I decided to end the session.

"Hang on a second are you not going to even mention the banana and stuff?"

So I eat a lot of banana's, they're portable, easy to eat, tasty, give you energy. One of the most GTO fruits imo.

The eagle eyed among you might of also noticed a glass mug which was at one point full of tea.

I drink tea a lot too, this may sound pretty sad but after drinking tea for countless years in the usual ceramic mugs I found it quite mesmerizing to watch the various shades of brown/beige swirl around when I poured the milk in. I'm considering buying a see through/glass mug for that very reason, I'm obviously still a child at heart... Again this is something I should be taking pictures of but I'll work on it.

I look ahead and I'm thinking about playing some more live, I had a good experience the day before, the people were pretty nice and hey, maybe I liked the feeling of shuffling chips and raking in a pot and even mucking hands.

Basically all my live poker playing has been at Aspers in Stratford up to this point. I enjoy playing there, it's pretty close by but I feel like I want to play somewhere else and get some new experiences.

I look at a fair few places and eventually decide on The Vic in/on Edgware Road.

They have a tournament in the evening which is a £50+7

LOL Juiceaments

I know, I know..

I wasn't going for the purely +ev viewpoint, more just to have fun and play some live poker so I was fine paying the rake on this occasion.

Just as a disclaimer, my experience with casino's is pretty limited so lol sample size but I still think this is a fairly interesting point to bring up.

I know when I signed up at Aspers over a year ago the lady at the desk gave me classic smiley faced "Are you going to win lot's of money today? (trololol)" statement and was interested in getting me signed up as quick as possible. We all like saving time so I was happy but I also had knew that this is probably the GTO impression casino's want to give off when you first go there so you feel comfortable.

Fast forward around a year ahead when I'm at the registration desk of The Vic.

It's just past 8 o'clock, I get to the desk ask to sign up, the standard reception woman is there but reluctantly looks at me.

"Huh, does she think I'm trolling and underage. I don't look that young, this is weird since last time I went to a casino they were eager to sign me up as quickly as possible"

After 20-30 seconds I ask if everything is okay as this woman looks around.

I hear her mutter to her colleague "my shift ends at 8pm".

It's like 8:01pm currently..

Another quiet 20 seconds occurs after this and I'm just there like LOL this has to be a pretty big joke.

She asks literally every other member of staff in the reception area if they can do it and they kind of look at her funny.

She ends up doing it eventually, the process is really quick as you'd expect, like one minute max. I get the card and head upstairs to the poker room.

The funny thing about this if she was proactive and just did mine straight away she would of finished her work about 2-3 minutes earlier.

LOL Shiftaments am I right? (I know I use this way too much, I'm still going to until I get really bored of it)

Anyway enough of the bs, let's get to the donkament action.

**** okay one more thing, I've always been apprehensive to use a camera in casino's, I'm trying to be respectful etc but every TR I see has chip porn and all that stuff so I think I'm going to try and do more of that stuff.

I sit down and a dealer who kind of looks like Firaldo is at our table, maybe it is Firaldo, I mean the games are getting tougher nowadays right, maybe he needs some low variance income.

We as a few people register late the table gets full (9 handed) and things kick off.

As you'd expect mainly older males at the table, there was one young guy who looked kind of like Fedor, (let's actually call him Fedor) who I chatted to after a couple of times happened. Fedor seemed pretty competent and likely one of the better players at the table.

There was this other guy who was talking a lot which was actually pretty nice to have. Better than everyone being in silence anyway.

This guy, (let's call him generic white male (GWM)) went on the biggest early stage heater I've since in any tournament I've played (online included). GWM must of flopped 3 or 4 sets in a row and got paid, got aces, kings all that stuff and got action every time.

Another guy, (let's call him kinda old guy (KOG)) was literally one of the biggest nits I've ever seen, I mean I've seen a few nits in my time but this guy was on another level. Actually let's rename him to massive ****ing nit (MFN).

MFN folded QQ on J52 to a small raise and said it's a must fold, that you just have to fold etc.

I also end up paying MFN off in a spot where I really shouldn't of, it's a spot where an unknown would be bluffing a fair bit but I should of just folded. I guessing at the time I didn't realise how much of a massive ****ing nit MFN actually was.

This was also some standard fishy all in with like K2s with 75s or whatever for pretty deep stacks and MFN just couldn't take it, he was like shuddering in disbelief, pretty funny to watch.

There were a few spew fish at the table as you'd expect, I always enjoy playing with them live, I think it makes the game/table more entertaining too. I'd hate to play with 8 other versions of me at the table. One thing I like about live is the variety of people you get to meet.

So as I continue to chip down Fedor has been doing pretty well and chipping up a lot. He gets into a spot vs a super old guy (SOG) where it's all in pre for about 30bbs each.

Fedor has AKs and SOG has AQ.

Fedor is looking pretty happy, why shouldn't he be he's in a good spot. I think Fedor was French but spoke good english.

Before the flop was dealt Fedor utters:

"Bon chance"

And smiles at SOG

"Click click click as the flop is dealt"

Bam queen in the window and SOG ends up winning a massive pot.

This sends Fedor into major astro-tilt. Smashing the table, banging his chips against the felt, swearing to himself.

This is something I've noticed a bunch especially live, a lot of players who seem decent just going into monkey tilt as soon as something happens. I now start to question if Fedor is actually good, I have no idea what to even think now.

So time passes and surprise surprise, everyone's getting shallow. I run super card dead for a long time and I eventually get it in with ATs for like 8bbs.

I'm called by TT and 88 but no worries as I bink the ace and triple up.

So I have around 25-30bbs now and it's nice to actually have some room to breath.

As you'd expect that also gets cut short and I soon get under 20bbs.

I'm in the BB, UTG jams for 4bbs, and UTG+2 (who we haven't and likely don't need to name) jams for 16bbs.

I have around the same as UTG+2, I check my cards and see QQ, snap call.

UTG has like 74o (he was a massive spew fish) and UTG+2 has 33.

I'm in a pretty good spot to chip up here on a pretty good table but a 3 in the window crushes that dream.

The guy who jammed with 33 is profusely apologizing and saying sorry and I just say it's fine man don't worry about it.

He says that it probably wasn't a jam with 33 and I'm nice and say don't worry it's fine (in regards to the play).

I'm not actually sure how fine it is (probably not that great on a pretty spewy table where he's going to get called off a fair bit) but whatever, I've already ran pretty well earlier on and hey, it's a tournament, not the end of the world.

I walk out and onto Edgware Road and whilst it's very cultural and imo a pretty cool place to walk around, I know I wouldn't feel comfortable walking around with money at this time of night. I knew I was sticking out so much. It was like 10-11pm at the time and I made a mental note that if I won anything considerable in the future an Uber would be on the cards.

I get back home and it's pretty late, I'm already tired so I crash. I'm not sure if I'll play much more live on the trip since I don't want to blow too much money.

So that's the end of the trip report for Wednesday but before I post this I'd just like to make some brief comments about my poker plans for the future.

I'm currently taking a break from actually playing and doing a lot more studying instead.

I also plan to switch to cash and whilst tournaments will always have a place in my heart I think the best thing to do for my game currently is to try and get good at cash.

Even when I'm at university I think a better thing to do than play live and potentially spew money every weekend or get lucky and run something up is to grind online cash instead and try and build a decent roll.

I'm still unsure about the exact direction I want to take at the moment but the good thing is you guys will be the first people to know about what my plans are so stay tuned.

I've been in a pretty reflective mood recently and have been listening to a lot of music when I've been on trains/tube etc.

Whilst posting dog pictures on every post is an okay idea I know I'm eventually going to be running out and it may get a bit samey.

I still plan to post pictures of my dog from time to time but I thought a cool thing to do would be post a song I currently like at the end of every "main" post I make.

There's so much variety in music and I think it's great that people like different types of music. One thing I've never really got is judging someone on their music taste. When I was at school I used to get **** for liking Top 40 songs.

1) Who even cares about what song someone else likes, it's one of many things that has next to no effect on your life.

2) It's pretty ironic (probs wrong word) that I got **** for liking something that is what the majority of people like. It's in the charts because it's popular etc. Idk I always found that funny that it's was/still kinda is more acceptable to like more indie music than chart hits. Music is such a personal thing in my opinion and I wish people (especially my age) would stop giving so much of a damn about what music people like.

All that aside this has been one of my favourite songs to listen to whilst reflecting on life over the past week or so.

Enjoying the updates!

Glad you checked out the Vic; their low stakes daily tournaments are great value. Whenever you save up a bit of cash I'd recommend sticking to those to spin up a roll. I don't know how much spare cash you have, but be careful to not overdo it at £50 a go; you should see it as a "treat" rather than a grind because of the high BI relative to your roll.

Like you I make the classic mistake of assuming a quiet white guy in their 20-30's is a good player; this is a mistake you will make time and time again...treat everyone playing these as a fish until they prove otherwise.

Send me a PM on skype if you go down another one, I'm going to play there on-and-off on weekdays if you want to meet up!

I'm a (structural) Engineer if you have any qns regarding a career in it(I think its great!)

glgl

1) Thanks for supporting the blog, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

2) I definitely see it as a treat. If anything I think it's worth while especially for the next few months to chuck any money I plan on using for live into an online roll. I'm definitely cautious and I doubt I'll play that many more £50 tournaments.

3) Yeah I should definitely not jump to conclusions, I guess treating everyone as a fish is a decent approach when playing live.

4) If I do plan on playing any live I'll let you know, I'm always open to meeting 2+2ers!

5) I don't have too many questions for now but I'm sure I will once I start my degree!

So first off I'd like to apologize for not posting for over a week. I've just had a pretty awful cold for the last few days and have been quite busy. Actually hold on a second...

I don't actually know why I'm apologizing, it's probably down to me just being British and apologizing about everything but being somewhat serious I've never felt any pressure to update this blog on a regular basis.

Whilst I could right down some kind of daily diary which I guess would be representative of "My Life" I feel a better way to do things would just be to only post things where at that time I'm just like...

"This definitely needs to be in the blog"

As of right now I may finish the Finale of The Trip Report some other time because the end of it was pretty boring.

Not in a bad way at all it's just not many interesting things happened, I didn't play any more live, I played online a bit and got crushed. It actually feels kind of weird that I'm reflecting on something which happened a few weeks ago and thinking about how much has changed since then.

Okay **** it I can't help myself now...

The Trip Report (Thursday->End?)

So I get up on a Thursday unsure about what to do with my day. I could play some more chess, I could go out somewhere.

I end up grabbing some breakfast and chatting to Rob a bit.

Later on during the day we decide to go out to this chess shop on Baker Street. For those of you that are interested in chess this really is a great place to go and I highly recommend it.

I end up buying a really good travel chess board and some weighted pieces for a really good price. Both me and Rob chat to the store owner for a long time and ask about London's chess history etc.

This is where I should input a picture of the chess board and pieces, I don't know how many more times I'm going to remind myself to post pictures before I actually start doing it...

We get back home, play a bunch of the new board, it's so great and was definitely worth the purchase.

Later on in the evening since not much was going on I thought it would be a decent time to play some scheduled tournaments since I had a fair block of time ahead of me.



Yes that annoying line is still there, it's on my screen right now when I'm typing this too. FML FML FML, mark my words I'll be getting a side monitor one day and running everything off that.

Those of you with beadier eyes might be thinking..

"Ooh KK nice Tom!"

Cheers yeah, pretty much everything went to crap though. On that 3.30 2k where I actually have the KK I think I ended up getting something like 13th for $20 dollars, couldn't win the big fliperino's

I brick the large amount of the session and crash.

I wake up the next day and it's pretty similar to the last, a lot of chess, chilling out and chatting, poker in the evening, brick the session etc etc. (told you not much interesting stuff went on).

So it's Saturday and I've already got my ticket to leave from Waterloo or whatever. Before I go though I've made plans to meet up with an old school friend in Covent Garden. On a Saturday.

On a Saturday, on a fuc-

I don't actually know why either of us even decided let alone brought up this location. We get there, I walk up the 200 steps from the tube station (not joking, I'm sure some of you have been in that spot too) and walk outside.

I could just go on a rant about how busy it was but that's not really that interesting.

What was slightly more interesting is that the large amount of the people there were kids/teenagers from abroad on some kind of summer camp/school trip. I guess this is what happens when a currency tanks.

I'm not even exaggerating here I'd say that 60-70% of the people walking around Covent Garden were kids on trips.

So me and my friend from school walk around a bit, look for a place for lunch. After around 5-10 minutes of walking a similar loop we see this Italian place that advertises take-away pasta for £5.

Can't be that expensive we both thought.

Shoutout to the guy that came up with that idea, nh wp, you got me.

Surprise surprise, it turns out that restaurant basically "bluff catched" us. It's ****ing expensive.

We both kind of shrug and say we thought it would be cheap, we're mugs I know.

So whilst I sigh at the fact that I'm likely going to have to pay £15+ for a simple plate of pasta I try and reassure myself (positive Tom in action here)...

"Hey, the food could be okay"

Well more surprises are due, the food was pretty awful, just touristy mediocre spaghetti. Not even the meatballs we had were good, just really bad quality. Service was really bad too, you think if they were charging that much they'd actually care.

I'm going to stop before this turns into a Trip Advisor review but yeah, I don't plan to go to any unchained place in touristy area's again. <- Note to self.

So I get on the train, I get a seat.

"How did you get a seat at peak time it's always really busy??"

Tactics ladies and gents.

I rock up to the station pretty early, no big deal. I take a seat, take out my banana's and water and scout.

"Scout for what"

The boards of course, I sit there eagle eyed waiting for the platform update and suddenly...

I'm off.

I leg it to the platform, everything's going to plan. I swipe my ticket through, look behind me and smile as I strut up the platform, a pack of what I can only assume are ants are miles behind me.

I get on the train, get a good seat and relax. I reflect on the trip and was really happy that I decided to do it. I needed a break from home.

I arrive back home and the dog and family greets me at the door, I drop my bags in my room. Have some dinner and get an early night. Sleeping in your own bed after some time away is such a great feeling.

The End

So with that trip over I guess we should move onto current life.

As you'd expect with the Olympics on currently you get the usual family comments.

"Dafuq is a family comment"

You know the classic.

"I can't believe it's been 4 years since London!"

Okay well for a start I can because the Olympics is every four years.

For those of you who think I'm going to continue to be an ******* for the rest of this post you're wrong!

I look back to what I was doing four years ago, what I had ahead of me, what's changed all interesting.

It's funny how an occasion can help jog your memory and reflect on things you haven't thought about for ages.

Since I'm such a slick individual I thought this would be an appropriate time to make this posts song one which I haven't heard in years but suddenly remembered.



Anyway going back to the present I'm currently taking a break from playing poker. I know I've probably mentioned this a million times..

I'm still studying a lot though, watching a lot of MingTheMerciless' stuff on twitch and looking at a lot of hands posted on this site.

It does feel kind of weird commenting on a lot of hands and being on this forum and not even playing a single hand but I think this experience will help me a lot.

I think I'll become a lot more disciplined and when I do start playing again (early September) I feel I'll be in a better frame of mind and super motivated.

I actually really want to stream me playing cash games on twitch but I don't want to hype this idea up too much since I may end up getting to my flat at university and having god awful internet and gg.

Life wise one thing the cold has actually benefited is me sleeping a lot more. I'm getting to bed a lot earlier now and waking up earlier which I think is good for me.

I'm also working a fair bit, I'm doing a lot from this coming Monday, it's a super boring job but two weeks of it and suddenly I'll have a lot of money for university.

I feel in a better state of mind too, I still can't wait to go off to university and be surrounded by some new people. At least I can drive, I don't know what I'd do if I was just locked up at home all day.

Going back to the song quickly, it basically talks about relationships (the swings/fragility etc). I thought I'd bring up what I think is a relatively interesting view I have/had towards relationships.

So from the start the plan has always been to go off to university in London in September. As a result I've kind of put off a lot of potential relationships in the area I'm at currently.

"Why would you do that?"

I'll explain my viewpoint, which I'm still toying with.

So I put off a lot of "stuff" this year because I didn't really think it was constructive because nothing serious could really form due to me going away in September.

Probably a lot of "hmmm" and "wtf" being tossed about right now but hear me out.

Going into more detail I just feared that something would happen, the girl gets super attached but in my mind there was already this September mark in my mind. I don't think it was fair from my perspective to lead anyone on and hurt them, especially when they could find someone else in their area who had plans to stay/work in that area for longer than me.

I think this is maybe a flawed viewpoint of mine for quite a few reasons.

One, we could get on really well, tough it out through university, see each other every so often, deal with the distance etc. I just know that distance is super hard and it's caused me to lose things in the past which I never wanted to lose.

Secondly, maybe I could just inform the girl of the situation and she herself could make an informed decision. Maybe I shouldn't of being trying to protect someone from something they could make a decision about themselves.

It's just I know from past experience (lol sample size) that before you know it the girl is talking about what colour wallpaper she wants in the hypothetical master bedroom and I'm there thinking about what I'm going to have for dinner when originally we only agreed to just have some fun.

I'm kind of just afraid of hurting anyone (else?) at this point.

I don't what I should really do in these spots...

Anyone when I go off to university if something happens, cool, if something doesn't, also cool...

Did I mention I'm super looking forward to going to university

So I've never been one for massive drawn out plans for my posts but normally I have a vague idea of what I plan to talk about.

However for this post so much has gone on recently that I'm just going to start off somewhere and see where we end up. This is probably a super long post incoming but I know some of you are down for it so in the words of the generic Brazilian donk...

Vamooooooooooooooooooooo

So let's talk about poker, I've (even legally lol) been playing for a while and I've never really settled down and picked a format. This has without question held me back a lot. Even if I stuck to cash from the start of January (at 10z) until now I would likely be way better at poker and be in a better spot right now.

Whilst I can dwell on that (and the roll I had) I still think I gained some value and learnt a lot from grinding and losing some money on the MTT streets.

I learnt that poker is actually very hard, on so many levels. Especially especially especially in 2016.

It's such a deep game where mentality plays such an important part too, I think I'll always have a place in my life for poker since I do genuinely enjoy it but I know balance is so important and it's easy for poker to play a big part in your life.

The thing is now that if you want to be good poker has to be a big part in your life, which is why my attitude has changed a bit towards the game.

If I cast my mind back to when I was backed grinding MTTSNGs on stars, I was seriously motivated, I was working really hard, talking a lot of poker, grinding hard and learning a lot about myself and my game in a short space of time. However my life outside of poker wasn't that great (as much as I liked to tell myself at the time it was).

I was pretty depressed, pretty bored and I just wanted to get away from home.

I did what I think was one of the most sensible things at the time to do. I took a break.

I really think taking a break from playing is one of the most underrated things you can do. We constantly surround ourselves in grind heavy communities however within those communities there are always individuals who play themselves right down to the bone. They're already mentally broken, they're playing terribly etc.

I know how hard it is to just stop, earlier in the year there were definitely times where I should of just cooled down, but I was jumping back on the horse again and again.

Whilst going down the MTT route the way I did was likely -ev, I still learnt valuable things which I likely wouldn't of learnt grinding stars zoom for ages.

I could easily share my "everything and everyone can offer your life value" thoughts right now but I'm going to save that for another post.

So here I am, the last day of August, still effectively taking a break from the game. I'm still learning and watching streams and excited to get back on the grind soon-ish.

What do I plan on doing when I get back on, enjoying myself. I'm going to still try and work hard and improve my game but I'll think I'll be taking things a bit less seriously then I used to. My degree is pretty full time and I also want to join societies and play squash etc.

I think I'll likely play cash in the evenings if I have time and play MTTs on Sunday. I actually think I'd like to stream my playing on twitch too as that would really boost my enjoyment whilst playing, even if I lose some ev from answering chat.

It'll probably be on stars too, yes my moral compass was all over the place. Especially after seeing some of the changes other sites have made recently I'm likely just going to jump back on the stars train.

Again nothings written in stone yet but you'll be the first to know about any kind of changes.

So since that's poker mostly done with for now I thought we'd move onto talking about how my summer has been.

It's been pretty dull, again I live in the South of England in Dorset and it's pretty dead to say the least. I've worked a fair bit and saved some money up from university. I've actually worked a lot of really **** jobs.

Night shifts in food factories, 4 days straight in a laundry factory. Some of you may roll your eye's at me and think I'm just some kid who's never had to deal with any adversity.

You're probably right, I've had a pretty cushy/easy life up to now, the main crutch I wanted to get into in regards to the work is I feel that the experiences added way more value to my overall life then the money did. Of course earning a bit of money in the summer isn't bad as a student but I know I never want to do those jobs again.

This is actually a bit of a range merge which shows how flawed I am as a person right now. Let me explain...

So I never want to do these bs summer jobs again, but I don't want to take poker that seriously...

I need to get a ****ing grip *sigh*. What I really should be attempting to do is grinding cash, I think if I can get to the point where I'm comfortably rolled even for something like 10/16z I can work really hard, get tones of volume in and earn just as much as I would working a static schedule for agencies. I know I'd enjoy it a lot more too.

Maybe I should be taking poker seriously at university. Maybe I should be trying to grind in the evenings and on weekends when I have free time. Idk again nothing is set in stone but I'm 20 now and I know my views on things are going to change a lot more then they used to since I'm making way more of an active effort to improve myself as a person then I ever used to. Again like before I'll keep you guys updated on all this kind of stuff, this is "My Life" after all.

One thing I know I'd never do full time is grind MTTs. Again I may just be uneducated and an idiot in this area but let me explain myself.

If you're going to actually grind and start getting 2k/3k game months then fine I'm with you. One thing I never get is how people are mentally okay getting like 200 games/month and basically letting variance dictate their every move. It seems like hell and it seems pretty degeny.

Imagine relying on a 3-5k yearly sample with the fields stars are currently churning out, for a living. It literally makes no sense and you don't even know where you stand with that sample. You could have a winning year feel great, actually be a loser in the games, feel over confident, move up, lose etc.

Of course you can have a good mental place, drop the ego etc but how many actually do that. All I see from people who bink on forums nowadays are #turbo/hyper/sattyskills or whatever. Again, I've brought this up before and yes it's good to be happy and have a good time and no one is perfect but if that doesn't partially cloud your perspective and outlook I don't know what does.

I'll leave you with a quote from James Obst who's a coach from RIO.

"The inflated ego you get [from winning] can create mental turmoil when you're on a downswing. Try not to ride the highs & lows."

^ If more people did this tournaments would be so much tougher than they actually are.

Anyway this actually wasn't as long as I thought it would be but I'll be sure to check in here from time to time and post some updates.

I'm also up for answering any questions you have so feel free to fire away!

So the "break" from poker ended a couple of days ago. I feel motivated, and want to play better than I've ever played as well as grind a decent sample.

So I was playing some MTTs last night and we got a decent result.



So after this recent result I feel I'm in a position to advise you all on how to play optimally in these kind of tournaments.

There's some pretty interesting rebuy/add on strategy especially since 888 are raking rebuys. The large min cash is another big point which I felt I had a decent hold of ICM wise. The 888 population as always been an interesting one and I feel that the harhahaha I can't keep going guys sorry. It's a donkament, I ran well, I played alright, let's all keep our feet firmly on the ground where they belong.

"Why did I deal"

Now I wouldn't deal here 99 times out of 100 but I actually got on with the guy really well, he was from Romania and living in the UK. We decided to deal and spent the rest of HU chatting about our lives. Pretty insightful and he was a really great guy. Definitely worth the $x I gave up in ev by not playing for it all.

Now what does the future hold for me you ask so eagerly.

Well even with the tourney bink I'm switching to cash for the most part. If friends want to stick me in some tourney on a sunday I'll play it. But for now I'm getting really into cash and want to suceed.

I'm starting at 5nl snap an-

Don't worry, this isn't the usual PGC bs, I won't be posting a 1.5k hand graph or any hands (I'll post hands in micro NL with all likelihood).

Yeah so I'm starting at 5nl and hoping to grind a decent sample each month even during my degree.

I'd be happy with anything around 30-40k hands and up. I'll be two tabling but that's the estimate I have for now. I don't know my schedule or how busy I'll be but I should be able to set aside 2 hours a day for poker and if not I might have time on the weekend.

For those of you reading this I'll give the first 3 of you that respond a five dollar freeroll if I look at my graph or cashier for the rest of September.

"Wait, but, umm, how do we know you wont l-"

You don't, but where's the trust, you're freerolling anyway regardless.

So back to why I don't want to check my graph or balance for a long time. For me I don't really see the point in checking it, I'd rather try and detach myself mentally from the short term and just focus on making the best decisions I can. I feel this is a pretty decent habit to get into and if I can get into it this low in stakes then all the better.

So moving away from poker my time over the past week or so has been mainly taken up by shopping for stuff for university and running other errands. I'm actually working tomorrow at a catering event which should be pretty easy. It's pretty easy and it's money to add onto the university fund.

It's something I hope I don't have to do futher down the line, I'd love to have an income from poker which means I don't have to do temp work during the holidays. Anyway, it's far from the worst work I've done this summer and I'm getting paid £8/hr so easy game.

Life is actually going really well for me right now, for the first time in a long time I'd say I'm running relatively good, it feels really good.

So for those of you that didn't know I post this blog on two forums. 2+2 and Staking101.

Recently I was approached to be a writer for Staking101 based on my "work" (if you can call it that) on this blog. It's great to be a part of the team I've looked up to for a long time and I look forward to writing many articles and continuing the blog.

Whilst I'm effectively rewarded based on word count I still want to focus on quality. There aren't suddenly going to be three times the amount of blog posts than previously. I'd rather spend double the time and write half the amount and for it to be something I'd be proud of then just spew words down on a screen.

Well that's where I'm at for now, what you can expect in the near future are a fair amount of posts about how I'm doing at university (I start on the 17th) as well as the occasional poker update (again I don't really plan on posting a graph under 100k hands).

I hope you're all doing well!

So yesterday I moved into my room at university, it finally happened. After all the waiting I'm finally here, in London.

I'm living in Mile End which I'm super happy about. Maybe it's just because I lived in NYC for such a long time but it's just a melting pot with such a variety of people and places to see. I think this will be really good for me and I'm pumped (especially after being in Dorset for ages) to be in an environment where I can learn and experience new things.

Since I'm sitting at my desk at about 1pm, I thought it would be good to discuss my plans and goals for the year ahead. I'm really looking to crush life and not dedicate all my time on just one or two things like I have done in the past.

So how am I going to attempt to do it?

Focusing on my degree is at the top of the list. Of course I want to indulge in other things but I'm not paying 9k a year and rent to come out with a 2:2 and be left without a job for years once I graduate. I'm here to do as well as I can, I'm not that "naturally" good at physics or maths so it's going to likely take me more time to get to grips with things then others, but it's a challenge, I'm ready to take it on.

Broaden my interests, go to other academic societies, I'll likely start out by going to the economics society. Yes I'll still be playing chess and poker and other sport such as squash but in regards to education I'd rather not pigeon hole myself.

Budget well, there's no reason for me spending rediculous amounts of money on food. Shop, eat and cook smart and I'll even have some money left over for other things.

Have a decent sleep schedule, of course there are going to be those nights but generally I want to be getting at least 6-8 hours of sleep per night.

Keep in contact with friends who aren't at my university, be proactive and makes plans with them. I will have time.

Poker wise probably see how my overall schedule is then have a plan amount how much I can play.

I still want to write a lot and keep you posted on how I'm doing. I think it would be kind of cool for those of you that read regularly to follow me on my journey and see how I'm doing.

Chopped Aspers Friday Tourney for £1.7k. Trip report coming soon!

Well played bud!! Post some hand historys if youve got some. What are you gonna do with your big score? : ) Hope unis going well for you, pretty jelly loved it the whole time I was there.


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Hey acid,

I plan to go into more detail in the next post (haven't got round to it, made day two of mini main so couldn't do it last night).

Thanks for supporting the blog though! Been good to have you around.