Ok you whining mules, im done with all these chores. Iv been a busy boy today, finally got my hands on PT3 to trial for insidepoker and finished a table selection article (well, 90% of it) so woop woop there. Iv tweaked all the links so you should all be good by now, if now, stuf ya, i cannot be arsed with any more. Paul (UKgatsby) , alphebetical listing goes against my my nature m8, its random chaos ftw baby!

Well done to those northern monkeys on the double, lucky bastards, not jealous at all.
I watched game @ Luton G, where we (me and rob) played the £100fo. I chopped it hu in a small field after having 90k of 140k in play with 11 left. Why couldnt i save some of that luck for a major event instead :(

Tbh i wouldnt have chopped if i was in his shoes, he had me outchipped 2/1 so fair play there Dan m8, ty for that.

BlueSQ 10k challenge again next month, i have to try and retain my title so will be playing a shit load in June while all the decent poker players are playing in Vegas. Im still grieving as im sure u can tell.

With regard to large lumps of money, its the ECOOP festival for the next 10 days, get involved ppl, sign up to bluesq and stick a couple of quid in. The satellites are really really soft and if u run good (equates to go allin a lot on the ipoker network) you might have a score at a huge lump. Im gonna try and have a shot at one or two, and qualify for the ME (shouldnt be toooooo hard) as a kind of last gasp attempt at getting a big vegas kitty together. Thats the real fun in these kind of things imo, thinking about what you would do with the money. I mean, if i won the lottery, swell, but DREAMING about what ud do with the money oddly might be more fun.

Oh, minor brag too, won tickets to all the bluesqGUKPT festival events other night. Ship, hehe. Now all i need to do is have a huge weekend and ill be moderately happy with myself.

Second night of MTT madness. Pretty good show tbh, played 5 comps, final tabled 2, won 1 and lost the chip lead on the bubble in two others. Still had a few situations where i imagined half decent players could fold, but thats a dangerous assumption. In future i treat them all as morons until they show me differently.

ScoopTroop, iv already added you you drunken nut ;)
Barry, done, dunno why i forgot to do you but as said im pretty crap with that stuff.
Simon, you cant be serious? I was hoping to see you at the next Luton fessie as my no.1 backer! Darn!

Off to Luton or watching footy tomoz, not sure as im desperate to play live and iv promised my m8, but then again im a bit tight atm and footy+ beers with the lads is a nice cheap one. Hmmmm, ill flip a coin tomoz afternoon.

Oh, someone sent me this.



the commentator got the chips bit wrong (was a 50k pot) but here's my crippling hand from last months GUKPT in Manchester. The funny bit is when maldini says "you might get a call here just because its you", love that image baby. Oh well, so close to a decent shot at a decent score, as usual it doesnt pan out. Meh.

Oh, forgot to say, putting up a few more links to blogs i like. If you want a link swap comment asap. Also, tyvm for all the comments lately and special thanks to Simon "limit-donk" Gallaway for the link help. Ill try and get that name in the Luton DB Si ;)

If i forgot to add you its because i have the memory of a goldfish on superskunk.

Tournament time.

After a bit of thought and discussion with a few ppl iv decided to play MTT's during the week and then only play cash on Fri/Sat nights, with possible sessions on thursday and sunday. Im hoping that it will keep me fresh, but mainly i just hope to break even and occassionally get a touch. With enough of a touch Vegas could still be on the cards.

Ill talk a bit of shite just to wind down for my evening.
Played my first full evening of mtts today in a Loooooong time. I remember now why they say mtt pro's are on suicide watch for about 1/2 of their playing hours. WOW!
I played low-mid stakes all on bluesq and the value was absolutely immense. The $50 rebuy looks to be a real steal but i reckon you need to spend about $300 in the rebuy and get a biiig stack to give a bit of insurance later. The smaller deepstack freezeouts (the $100 and $50 jobbies) were equally enlightening, with literally lol moments every 10 hands. Infact if it wasnt for the sheer volume of idiotic plays id have slapped myself.
In truth i was absolutely flabbergasted at the standard of play in the 8 comps i played. I didnt make any great shakes and thats pretty standard, obv huge variance in these things, but i did do a few things that were a little silly. I made a poor button jam in a satellite to the 50khighroller which was terrible if im honest with myself. I also hugely overestimated my opponents ability to fold a mediocre hand. In future, if their tag says France or Italy, im not making any kind of move.

Players seem to be in general (compared to my old mtt days of tribeca)..


a) plain bad at fundamentals. the standard in some of the rebuy comps late in the day was truly shocking. lack of starting hands/positional awareness, stack management. The list is endless.

b) willingness to gamble in traditionally exploitable stages. bubble play was incredible. Cold call 3/4 of your stack off with KJ. Yep sireeee, insta call that puppy.

c) incapable of folding. Fold equity is something that i use heavily (like anyone with half a brain cell does) and the resteal late in the day is a staple for stack building. But these gibbons cannot fold hands. In both the 20k rebuy and the 7.5k fo i busted on the bubble trying aggressive moves against late position raises when i had a healthy stack. Both times i was called very light without any thought on villains behalf (once with A7 v my junk for 3/4 of his stack and once with KJ v QQ which failed to hold miserably for the chip lead).


So in order to adjust to shite fields i will.....

a) get big stacks in the rebuy period by taking lots of calculated risks.

b) tighten up and bet heavier post rebuy. Cant play JJ aggressively v 4 callers on a K high board :(

c) completely eradicate the resteal with poor showdown potential hands. Unless i know opponent has a clue and is not just a standard batfuck donk i wint make marginal moves preflop v these guys. Its not smart

d) Value jam lighter preflop waaay more A9+/KQ+ hands gonna make up my rr range along with all 1/2 decent pairs. These donks want to keep calling with dominated junk, thats cool.

Lets see how we do tomorrow. I fancy this could be a big week :)

Muhahahahahahah, a win is a win is a win. Logged a decent score tonight, hopefully a good stint tomoz on the soft 2/4 and 3/6 tables tomorrow night should get me out of my $3.5k hole for the week. Still lost some huge pots, one trying an unneccessary bluff on the river. I mean, the guy either had a missed flush draw or a monster made hand, so a small 1/3 pot bet on the river lets me take it when he's missed and end of hand. Simple right. Not a $275 shove into a $250 pot. You eeeeedjut martin. In my defence it was at the end of a long shift and concentration had dipped.

I also had this situation come up in a HU pot 250BB deep. I wont tell you the results till later and i have put it on the HA board on blondepoker (incidentally the best poker forum out there by a mile) to try and get some feedback. Iv kind of had enough of 2+2 atm, the feedback is so shite and just appears to be $.10/.20 players talking absolute BS. Its a bit like TKMAX, you have to sift through a lot of crap to find any real gems. And tbh, i cant be arsed with investing the time. Anyhow, here's the link, was a fun hand :)

blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=33730.0


Jesus im so dumb i cant even get the freaking link to work. For some reason when i use the link button and add the url it just disappears when i publish it. Any blogger that recognises the problem let me know. For those of you just interested in the hand (i want your views) you'll have to go back to good old copy and paste baby :)

Srsly wtf is going on atm. I sound like a whining old mare but hey, its my party and ill do what i want to. I cannot win a big pot atm, no matter what. I filter out the last big pots and its a fucking joke. I sucked out once with KK v Needlekings AA, which did feel unbelieveably good, but im doubting poker atm. The stress is hurting, i might play some live soon just to get away from the monotony.

WRT the comments before, read more of my posts tinca, already on the coaching bandwagon. Cheers Nakor, always nice to get some feedback. Amatay, coach me please :)I know i have some identifiable leaks, like waaaay too spewy when deep. The main leak i have is not knowing when to stop and just log a small win, rather than always going for gold and a 15bi day. Session length is way too long too so im working on cutting that down. It doesnt help that im just getting pounded by the cards atm, please swing round soon oh fickle variance monster.

KK v AK, ai pre, -400
KKvAQ on Q high board ai, Q river. -500.
555 v NFD , flush hits, -800
1010v AA ai on 10 high board, ace on river -600
Flop nuts w J10 v KJ on KQ9d board, q run run flush -400
1010 3b (32 from 8) pre from BB, villain calls, flop 1045monotone, allin, mateyboy has 3 high flush, yup, 23FTW!!!!!-400
3b AQ from button to 38 after utg opens to 10, mp calls, utg calls. Flop 5AQ, aiai, utg has 55.-400
999 v 45 on 923r board, -500

Seriously im giving up the will to live. I feel like a fucking punchbag.

OK, iv been in the sun and sea for a week and feel good. Come home raring to go and obv play a little online. Drop 1k in about 4 hours after losing perhaps 6/7 $500 pots sometimes going in good, sometimes bad, but whatever. I dont feel confident playing 400 or 600 NL atm so im playing 200nl and might even drop down to 100nl if this ds continues. It does feel like 1 step forward 3 steps back for me atm, but im reminded by my peers that your results catch up with you in the end. Im still a baby in poker terms (im not swayed by the seemingly weekly arrival of another 21yo millionaire, iv known two personally that have won and lost enormous bankrolls in tiny amounts of time) so ill just carry on grinding until i hit that sweet spot that lets me get back on track. Failing that a donkament touch would be nice in the ecoop coming up.

Im actually feeling really positive atm, im a much tougher opponent than i was a year ago without a shadow of a doubt, but iv made very little money since January. Infact, i think iv made about $5k overall in about 300k hands. Simply not good enough. So im going to start pulling my finger out and playing my heart out, i really wanted to go to vegas but i cant warrant it atm. I always said when i 1st go Id like to go with a big chunk of change ($30k+ really) and i dont have anywhere near that kind of liquidity atm, so i guess that will be on the back burner till next year. Im happy with my understanding that sometimes you can play well and not get the expected results, but it still gripes me that im not playing in the big games and not progressing as fast as i would like. Getting drunk with "the mole" in Manchester was about as heartbraking as it gets for a cash game player. This guys regular game is 200/400nl and 300/600nl. Disgustingly overrolled too. And there i am working my socks off in the 200nl games, i wouldnt have it any other way. I like the fact that im a grinder, pure and simple, not some kid that won 200k in a tournament and was instantly rolled for 5knl. Ill get success the way that feels best, hard graft and monstrous amounts of effort.

But the sick ones still hurt. Got battered today in some of the most donktastic displays of stupidity iv seen for a while. Ill drop in some random tips that are pretty useful atm. Betting orphan pots is obv a main source of your income in shorthanded games. For ex in a limped pot preflop on low rainbow paired boards you bet 100% of your range if given the chance. EG you complete from SB after a donk button limps and BB checks. Flop comes 337r and you should bet 100% of your range here until a reg catches on to what ur doing. They just give up too easily as we all know. This is pretty basic but there are so many other flops that are pretty much the same. Disconnected rainbow flops are like printing money if you get the oppo to bet 1st from the blinds.

Another useful titbit that is kind of a timing tell but is pretty well 100% reliable with 15/12 nitbots is the AA timedown 5bet. You 4b QQ deep ip, they pretend they have a deicision and then shove. I fold QQ/AK pretty quick to these from some regs now. Other things im improving on is getting better at selecting who to float. There is almost a recipe for success for floating TAGS, which is there has to be little history between you, he should view you as taggy (if ur 28/26 is aint gonna work, they know ur fos), the board should be dryish and he should preferably have opened from MP/CO and you are (obv) on button. UTG opens from these guys are a bit too dodgy to mess with. The boards im talking about are of course the non A/K boards, which good tags will slap you about on b/c they know fellow TAGS dont hit these very often so ur range descends to sets/draws/air which isnt good. Rainbow flops, low connected flops, paired boards, these are the ones you look for.


Cutting down to 4 tables allows you to know who's doing what and there are about 4/5 guys that i have totally mapped out. I mean 100%. One Donk leading into me on say Q24 is almost always 55-99. Another guy only lead sets. But some of the guys who give me probs (HIERKOMMT, HULIOS@400, Venereal) were giving me info i didnt see until recently. Venereal in particular has got this sexy habit of never double barreling or C/Ring the turn w/o a big hand. How exploitable is that? So we just sit to his left and call all his opens before taking him off it on the turn. In theory (obv i never bother seeking these guys out as the donkeys are just plain softer).


So despite my lack of form im gonna keep ploughing forward, regardless of the proper poker players flying off round the world to take part in the real poker game.
Ill swallow my pride and grind it out, so expect to see dirtloads of nikinblinds on BlueSQ poker in the coming months.

what a load of absolute bollox. Ok i know Friday night are like the cash game players payday but tonight was unreal. Fuck poker. And i say that knowing my good mother read this. Luckily im managing my sessions and feel pretty stable at the moment despite some horrific outdraws and some even uglier call downs. I posted a (somewhat ridiculous) thread on blonde about the fact i was getting concerned about some of the plays players were making against me. It happened on perhaps 7 or eight occasions tonight. I guess usually a really odd hand happens about once a week for me (50k hands).

1st hand that was a real wtf moment. Almost identical situation (different suits but just the same) occured barely a minute later. I raise from button with KdQd $300 stack @ 200nl and get 3bet by a tag from the blinds. I flat. Flop comes 9high with two diamonds. He leads out small, i flat. Turn is an offsuit 9. He makes a weak bet, i move in. He has me slightly covered. He calls, with AK. Same table but a little bit later i cr a guy allin on the turn with a huge 15out draw. HE time down calls off $150 of his remaining stack on a 56910 two tone board with AK no draw. WTF?

the best shall be saved till last. I raise with Jc8c and flop comes 5c6cK. I cbet, he flats. Turn is a pretty 9h. I check (coz he said something in Norwegian to his buddy like "flotsa nikin" which i assumed meant "float nikinblinds" so im expecting a bet on the turn when i check. He obliges, i make a large raise, so like pot is 50 on turn, he makes 35, i rr the pot+ to like 125 and he calls. River is an offsuit jack so i bet and he calls. His hand, Q10o. Im punching the computer screen. Literally. Got that lump well up in my throat which is like my que to logoff before i tilt and i do the good thing and shut it down. But im getting really frustrated with all the absolute BS im seeing atm, i guess im prolly getting para after all the hacking scares but sometimes it just feels like ur on your own in this fucking minefield. -$600 for the night which is the worst friday iv ever had. Properly pissed.

Manchester GUKPT


Ok went up to Manchester last friday to play the monthly donkament. Decided to play Friday to keep expenses down and also to meet up with a few mates. Felt really good going into the tournament, despite very lacklustre results online of late. Not sure why but im getting coaching from a top top player for a bit (for free :)) in an effort to plug the leaks.

Sit down at table and it looks like its gonna be fun. Iv got Jeff Burke on my left and i know a lot about his game and his philosophy on poker. What he taught me during the brief period i was trading for DTD was "represent, represent, represent" which is fairly good fun to play against. Instantly i thought the table was soft, i had about 6 40-55yo men on my table who are my ideal opponents in these jobbies. After about 5 minutes it looked a lot tougher with Priyam de Mel (sp?) and some absolute lunatic i called "convict" who sat opposite me. I found out of Clamfish that the legend Gregior was on my table too, guessed who it was before he told me, WOW tight greg!

Started out fairly brash, as i stated before im there to win these things and that means playing lots of pots, using image to the max and getting under peoples skin. I know i can make day two's in these things (3/6) but i never get there with the mountain i need to play my style of poker (bad, loose). Time to teach these waps to play i thought.

Early on i got check raised by the nit to my right and recieved a load of earache from Mr.Burke, felt like the table bitch for a moment or two especially when Priyam check called me all the way after limping utg w Ac10c and hitting A Jd 8d 6 7d board. Momentarily tilting and not best pleased with the line people were taking with me i played out probably the worst big bluff ever. Raising in LP w Ac9c (9k stack, 50/100 blinds) i get flatted by Priyam on the button. It just instantly felt like he was trying to school me ip. The flop came JhKh6c and i check raise him from 350 to 850. He calls. Turn is interesting, he isnt even looking at the turn as it drops and is more interested in the valet. Turn drops the 5h i think and i check again. He bets so fast it just reeks of bs so i ponder a mo then move in. He thinks for what seems like ages, tells me if it was in london he would call, then folds. Obv i show coz thats what the plan is right.

I then win a couple more pots, working my way up to about 16k nice and steady. Next hand involves two ep limpers and i look down at the wonderful Jc4c on the hijack. Raise elicits an utg fold (predictable given patterns) and a tight guy in a purple shirt calling. Flop comes J104 and he moves allin for 5k....nope im good i decide, call, he has K10 and J on turn cements it. I then lose a chunk to this convict bloke opposite, had been showing so many bluffs and being such an ass that 3barrel bluffing him was never a good idea, especially a needlessly large river bet (if he was drawing and missed a small bet was fine and he was such a station that if he thought a made hand was good he would call anything anyway). Lost about 7k there.

Level 3 was a real fun hand early on. Limp utg and utg+1, button calls, sb folds and i check 107 from bb. Flop Ks10s3d. I check, Jeff bets small from utg, utg+1 dwells then calls, i call coz i have a lot of chips (22kish, ave 14k). Turn is happy days with a perfect 7h. I check, Jeff fires again, but smallish again and utg+1 bad TAG calls. I cr from 1k to 2.8k and jeff folds whilst utg+1 calls again. Meh not liking this but he doesnt seem necessarily tricky and more of the scared "protect agaisnt draws" sort of player. Im thinking this guy either has a mediocre hand that he has married like KJ or KQ a or (heavily weighted range of) QJ/Flush draw. Turn is an ugly K counterfeiting my two pair. I check (because obv we make more money from bluffs and this old man is a tellbox) and he moves all-in for his last 4.5k. Pot is 8kish. Hmmmmmmmmm, i love poker. It was lucky he couldnt keep still because when he said "got to go out sometime" as he shoved i instantly thought "fuck, the speech and the shove". I can take my time here and the longer he sat the more uncomfortable he got, i get him talking and he is not a happy bunny. The real clincher is how he is holding his cards.....like he desperately wants to turn them over! Im no Caro lover but this was ripe, CALL! He mucked and for £1000 i got to feel like a half decent player. On the break went for some munch with Clamfish, Gregior, some guy i have played a lot and forgotten his name (John i think), Moorman and Tom.

Went back (casually late) and decided to smash it up. Started off ok, bluffing another big pot on the turn with a double barrel. If any of you have read fees 5k post on 2+2 you'll know that a J84 board when you cbet and they flat, a Q is a beauty of a card because so few hands in our opponents range can like it. Apart from 910 + QJ the Q is a horrid card as it completes the draw and adds more texture against a player they know can be playing any two. Then lose a big pot against a guy that was a terrible player. He made the money which is better than i have ever done but jesus. The times he raised preflop in 7 levels. Once. Seriously. The times he limp called in ep agaisnt a LP raiser, or cold called and ep raiser, infinite. So he limps in mp along with 2 other tags and im so ready to eat up his weakness. K9o, thatll do, make a chunky bet (1100)(stack sizes were delicious at this point, they know im liable to get them to a decision for tournie life as they were mostly on 6kish) and only Mr. WAP calls. Flop is semi dreamy. Kc9dQc. He checks (with a 8k stack), i bet 1.8k, he calls. Turn is pure meh, Jc. HE checks, i check. River is a red rag brick and he bets something aggravating, like 900. Call. Nice 6c7c sir! WELL PLAYED! Google implied odds, pot odds and fold equity when you get a moment of spare time.

I flip about for a little bit and get back up to 34k ish when the big pot arrives. My image is right where i want it, im getting called light by second pair (thanks convict ;) ) and generally beating the table up. On of the tight guys down the other end has also managed to accumulate a large stack. He is my target as i have position and i know he mainly plays turbo SnG's so is unused to playing so deep. He raises to 800 playing about 24k utg+1. I overflat nit in MP otb with J10ss. I have learnt (after about 3 million hands in the last 3 years) that position means a shite load more than cards. Flop is fistpumpworthy. Qs10c8s. Pair + Gutshot + gutter. He leads for 1.2k into 2.4kish, mp folds, i um an arr about what i want to achieve. Im happy playing small ball and do i really want to play a huge pot here. I think about it for about 3 mins and even against a very tight range i simple have to build the pot with my hand. Interestingly (and read into this what you like) a lot of the live pro's think i should have flat called, wheras every internet pro i have spoken to says yes we dance here). I make a weakish raise knowing how much he has left and knowing full well we want to get all the money in but i want to retain some fold equity. Ideally im hoping that i click it back (CIB for you newbs) and he makes it like 8k. Then i can jam and he'll have a genuinely tough decision with all of his hands (unless he has a set obv). So i raise to 2.4k and even better he makes it about 6k. I um and arr and jam and he goes into the tank for a long time. Then calls off with AQ. I actually sigh when he calls, probably the lack of positive thinking that cost me the insta 8 on the turn killing 3 of my outs and the red brick on the end. Down to 8k and despite knocking out gregior (he moved in with a double belly b!!!! Muust have been a misclick!! I felt terribly deflated. Im CL with that pot and felt i could really have crushed what is an immensely weak tight field. I then got moved table to the shadow of John Conroys stack (literally) and made a badly timed squeeze with Qc3c and found an ugly AQ in opponents calling range. So obviously sad and deflated i did what any self respecting poker player loves and had a drink.

So nice to meet up with all of the circuit guys, cant mention all of you but obv Mike, Dave ( new vip guy from Blusq), other Dave, Mole (plays 200/400nl as his standard game, WOW), The Legend, Dom, Clam, robby, Owston, jason etc. A whale of a time. Many congrats to Nick Persaud for coming second and also to Mark Goodwin (iv said bad things about him in the past(mainly because he (literally) looked down his nose at a mate of mine in a comp) but he is by all accounts a really nice guy so well done that man. 90k for three days work, yumm! Also a really good bet for a huge result in vegas this year is Pete Linton, arrogant as fuck but really nice guy.


Off on Holiday on Monday for a week or so, playing no poker will be fantastic so im exited about a break. Need to stop drinking so much as im turning into europe's no.1 prize prick and im now 25 so time to grow up i reckon. Ok, off to play some really good poker. Gl kids.