Latest update

I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet really as I'm still at work - and it doesn't look like I'll be leaving for a good few hours yet - (FML)!

So what's happened since the last post. I haven't played any more poker. I've decided to have a few months off. Something I've never done before. I wanna see if the break does me good and refocus 10x harder on my work, gym and social life.

I've also bought Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo thanks to a recommendation from Barry Carter and will be reading it during my break. I'm also organising a poker coach/mentor for when I hit the tables again in April which I think will be a really big help for me.

I just want to address one of the comments from my last blog:

"Follewed this blog as u seem to be always on blonde. You need to just quit , u will never ba winner. It is as simple as that! You talk a good game and are quick to put down certain pros on blonde, thats all u are.

QUIT before u go busto.

Ian"


Ian, what's your nickname on blonde? I can hazard a very good guess by your spelling and construction of sentences but I wouldn't want to make a rash assumption.

I'm guessing I must have offended you with a contrary opinion to you on the PHA or something to evoke a post which has such a bitter tone to put it nicely. Your opinion seems a little harsh but you're entitled to it and I respect it.

Though I would like you to name a few instances where I'm quick to put down certain pros? Seems like this is just a comment randomly plucked from the air. If you see my comments on tournament updates etc I think you'll find the opposite is true. I publicly support the blonde contingent in live events (whether I know them or not) and have staked 5 blondes too. My posts on PHA are also always constructive where possible and I try to help. If you're responding to a post I made today about someone folding Kings being bad then I guess that does equate to me 'being quick to put down certain pros'(*sigh*). I'm always polite and courteous but will not compromise giving my honest opinion too.

Saying that I talk a good game implies I know what I'm doing, which I agree with. I have tilt and bankroll management issues which I need to address moreso than my knowledge of the game and the way I apply it. Just because I have failed a few times it doesn't mean I should quit - I'm determined to overcome the issues I have. Not that you know my personal finances either, but I am no-where near busto. Did you think this because I lost £1k? hmm, lol.

I partially appreciate your sentiment, I just would appreciate you were a little more constuctive, particularly as I don't even know you.

Regards,

Greekstein

gg wp nh BUSTO

Title pretty self explanatory really.

Roll was at £1000 on friday night and I sat in some £1/2 games as someone told me about a complete spewmonkey who was donating to the whole table. 5 minutes later and he'd doubled up from me twice. Obv his 4-bet jam with QJ sooted got there vs my AK and then I lost a really sick pot With QQ vs his 25ss on a 778ss flop when we put £170 each in to a £50 pot on the 2 turn for him to duly bink the Jack of spades on the river. I opened A5 hearts on the button and was flatted in the BB by a decent reg to see a Q55 flop. After leading and flatting his raise we got it in on the turn. No prizes for guessing I was drawing to one out vs Villains QQ.

I finished the night with my roll at about £100. marvellous.

I went to the gym for a few hours on saturday morning and came back home and put the remainder on 2 £50NL tables. A few hours later and I had a £320 stack on one table and £190 odd on the other. Decent semi recovery but I wasn't content to stop there and I don't know what got into me but I sat in a £2/5 omaha where I did my stack check raising all in on the river of an unpaired 3 heart board with the bare ace to get called by a 10 high flush. I sent the HH to a few friends on msn after as I don't know how he called me there when I lead out flop and turn and both felt my line was super strong and had they been in villain's seat wouldn't have called there. More I think about it more I like my line but oh well shit happens.

Question is...what to do now?

I could re-deposit but what the fuck is the point? Things are becoming more evident but I'm still not learning. I crush £50NL, I beat £100 and £200 nl fairly comfortably too but don't give myself a chance to win when I constantly jump up and tilt etc. Ok I just ran bad this time rather than tilting but it would have been the same result, whether in a week or two months.

Two of the comments from my last blog were pretty spot on and are what have kept me from redepositing another £k to rinse and repeat.

1)'BRM is mostly about discipline.

If you can't be disciplined and win with 1k against the donks how do you expect to suddenly find that discipline by depositing more?'

2)'As for the tilt thing if you cannot control it you have to ask yourself should you be playing the game?'


Both very valid points and it's got me thinking about whether or not to actually quit the game. I just don't think I can because I love it so much but I need to find a formula to help me work my round my problems with tilt and bankroll management. Whether this means taking a 3 month break, finding a mentor, using a staking site (really don't want to do this as I have the money to play and if winning don't wanna give half my profits away) I'm not sure yet.

Comments appreciated!

gl all

'Oh my god I'm coming night and day'

I've Played under 100 hands of pokay this week and it doesn't look like that will increase til the weekend. One thing I always found difficult when playing poker was a balance, or should I say the lack of it. When I was emmersed in the poker world so to speak, it became all I did. If I was on the internet it was poker related (or porn obv - who am I to kid?). If I was watching TV it was High Stakes Poker/Poker After Dark/Wsop etc (or porn obv)and even anything I talked about had a gambling slant to it. With Poker I think its hard to not fall into that trap, especially as you're often surrounded by people who do exactly the same.

I began to fall into that trap to a much lesser extent (but still too much) the last two months and playing online particularly during the week was detracting from my gym routine to the point where I stopped going. Playing so much has a knock on effect on your social life and even work.

I'm now well and truly back into the gym and while I'm still a little weaker than I was two months ago I come home from work and go straight to the gym instead of logging on as fast as possible and loading tables up. When I get home I have a shake, some food and a shower before going to bed at about 11-pm-midnight. Having a good night's sleep is making the week's go faster (even though I'm not really enjoying my job atm- but that's something I'll discuss in another post) and generally I feel a lot more positive. It's no easier coming in to work after winning or losing £2k the night before so I'm keeping poker to an absolute minimum during the week and just going to play at weekends now. I'm gonna gym so hard for the next few months! (The title of this blog was inspired by a legendary gym related quote from the great Arnie himself in Pumping Iron - if you haven't seen it - watch it it's so fucking funny, though not meant to be).

Thanks for the comments in the last post too - I'm gonna follow their advice and stay playing really low and grind up because that's a necessary quality of a poker player. Just because I have the resources to play higher, it doesn't mean I should - even if it's boring I gotta learn some discipline and patience and grind it out. I'm sure it'll feel like an accomplishment in a month or two's time when I've won enough buy ins to move up.

I realise this entry probably isn't particularly well written but I'm wrting in rather a hurry during my lunch break at work and just getting things off my chest as they come in to my head. I'd love to know who the anon comments are from too - whether insulting or helpful I honestly appreciate every one.

In the meantime I'll leave you with a photo (at the top of the blog as I'm too noobish to know how to put it below) that was sent round the office today. Its from the Ozzie Telegraph. A brilliant piece of creative media buying!

Laters

New plan

Last few days have been shit. Ive put in a few hours, though not many as its been the smallest stakes I've ever played, $25c-50c and playing with complete donkeys, while it can and should be extremely profitable it makes u lose any desire you have to play the game. Most of the fun with poker is the challenge and the money in some senses can be secondary but playing with these donks is so annoying. I've broken even over about 700 hands after initially donking off buyins as if for fun when refusing to not win every pot as my opponents didn't deserve to win a single one.

I just can't play with only £1k so I will deposit 2k more and start playing $1/2. $1/2 is still really easy to beat but its probably the smallest I can play whilst still playing my game. If I didnt have that one lapse I would probably be on £5k now and motoring but one of my failings as a poker player is losing my head when things arent going my way.

I remember one time in Nottingham, I was staying in my house alone as I was up before the start of term doing resits. I had about 6 to do as I didn't even turn up to exams in the second semester and shoulda been working my butt off. After doing the first two I had a 3 day break before my next exam and convinced myself (I took fuck all convincing) that one night off to play poker at gala would make me more productive as studying too much is counter productive etc. So I go along and win the £50 rebuy for something like £1800. It's only 3am and I've only been playing non stop since 7.30 so I decide to jump into the emtpy seat in the cash game. After catching a rich bloke who'd come in pissed for another £600 quid I finally went home when the game broke at 5am. Getting up late the next day and feeling invincible I wasn't gonna study some Portuguese bloke who died 600 years ago for the night I was gonna go and win some more fucking moolah! Another successful night turned into too many and I had missed more of my resits, thinking it would all be ok with some lame calls to the doctors in the morning complaining of sickness before rolling over and getting some more sleep.

I made my last two exams and thought getting a doctors note would suffice. I didn't even bother doing that in time as it had to be done within a week. On the last night before I was due back to London I went to gala again and after losing £300 quid of the best part of £4k that I won that week I cashed in the rest for chips and began playing roulette. My cap that I was wearing was full of £100, £25 and £5 chips as I had too many by far to carry in my hands. This was about 5am. By 6am I had done my last £50 on blackjack and was walking home in the freezing cold as I literally didn't even have a fiver for a taxi. May give anyone reading an idea of what my bankroll management has been like.

Having just read that back myself, I can't believe what a degen dickhead I was.

I'll try and put in a post of how I turned things around when I came back to London.

In the meantime I've got a bet on Hoivold to win the GUKPT so I'm sweating that now its 4-handed. Wd to my mate Richard 'Loser18' Lewindon who finished 6th for about £9k. Also watching the Snooker final, Ronnie vs Selby. Want Ronnie to win this one big time.

gl

The most Evil Creation in all the Universe....

...PIGEONS!

and not only are they the most evil fucking things ever, and ugly twats too but they have something in particular against me.

More annoying is that they are currently on top in our battles. Just today at lunch time I was walking back to the office, lunch in hand when this pigeon takes off from about 30 metres away and decides to fly directly at my face. Obviously it never hit but I'm always the bellend who is ducking and flailing about to move out of their way. Never happens when I'm walkin down a quiet road either, always when 30000 people are walking the opposite direction to me to witness these misbehaving winged wankers making me look a complete tool.

I feel sorry for the next pigeon I see with a damaged wing or leg or whatever. Cos next time I see one fucker that can't fly I'm gonna paint my Nike trainers red giving it one mother****** of a boot. Maybe even a rockbottom.

I feel better now.

One step forward 8574362 back

Fuck sake I'm such a dick sometimes.....

So the roll was at around £3k. Pretty good for one week of part time play. Then on Friday night I was due to go and see Slumdog Millionaire with a mate. He comes round and I've just got in from work and I have to hate a nice bath so give him my laptop and log in to my hills. I've got over £2k in the account at this point but I'd trust this mate with my life so no problem there. He wants to play some 25p50p cash but I want in on the action. Can't be going out in an hour whilst he's chirping about winning and I've had no action on the day so I tell him to buy into a £50p£1 game for £100 and we'll go halves.

So I'm in the bath thinking about how well things have been going when he shouts 'I've got Kings'. It's been raised to £4 and called, so he reraised to £16. (I'm getting a fucking commentary from outside the bathroom door at this point). Another guy makes it £35 from no-where and my mate wanted to pass. He knew the other guy had aces but I don't think I've ever folded Kings pre in a cash game and I especially don't intend to start doing it when I'm in for £50 quid in a £100NL game. My mate shoves and obv KK < AA. This shouldnt bother us but we didnt wanna go out losing so when I got out the bath he said let's get it back.

The film starts at 8.30 and its 7 now....we're meant to be going to grab some food before the film too. He wants to get our money back and I can't say I was arguing lol. The quickest way to do it was to start 3-betting the fuck out of everyone. Would only need one or two nice moves or a big hand to get out of it. Instead we get no big hands and I'm 3-betting like a donkey in the worst spots possible. After donking off a few hundred we lost a big pot with J10ss on a QsKs3d board to AK.

Less than half an hour later and -£100 is now -£430. We decide not to lose more than £250 each so the last 70 goes on blackjack First hand we get 83 vs 7. No choice but to double. Coulda got a better card than an 8 but we'll take it. Until the dealer puts the 410 in our eye. Now I know how James Akenhead feels. Almost... Anyway, 104 is the nuts.

So we go and eat and have obviously missed the film. We go and play some live poker and are halves. Never going to get our money back in this game though where the average buy in is 100 quid. I'm boring myself now but needless to say I decided to start playing online.

I'm playing 4 £200NL tables and first hand get dealt 99. One raise to £8 and it's called in 2 spots. I look down at 99 and decide to 3-bet to 38 as this reg raises loads of hands and I'm probably the only player on our limits on Crypto who's looser. Needless to say we have a lot of history and where I bluff him a lot and get called down he stacks off super light vs me. When he makes it £200 I know he has AK. I've never ever seen him play a big pair like that. My mate is telling me to fold but I tell him this buy in is my one then and call. The 9 on the flop was only insurance vs his AK. I'm now out of it for the day but my mate is still in the hole. Eventually I win a bit more and knock £100 off what my mate owes me.

On the way home I tell him not to panic and that I'd play small the next day to get him out of it. Instead I can't be arsed and cockily decide to play £200nl until his money was back and then at evens I could do my thing again. I got stuck £600 within 90 minutes after missing an open ended straight flush draw with one over vs an overpair and getting four flushed. I was pretty angry as there was no way I was gonna ask my mate for half when it was my fault anyway. I keep playing and by 6am I'm almost back to level. Then we get some drunk nutter join the table with £200 and his standard open was between £32 and £176. Brilliant. Until his £46 open insta calls my AQ shove and binks two pair with J7. 10 mins later he made it £100 in the cut off and I was in the BB with 1010. I almost fistpumped this one and couldnt hold vs his K6.

He proceeded to fck off after donating most of the monkey he luckboxed off me back round the table and then both £1/2 games still running at that time insta-broke. I jumped in a £2/5 game with 3 regs, not only completely ignoring my supposed new bankroll rules but I was clearly tilted too and way off playing even my C-game. I lose a bit more and fire a few shells on the Will Hill live casino to lose another £400. I can't see out of my windows now because so much steam has come out my ears.

The next day I go to the gym in the morning and knock out a good session though I'm still a pussy compared with a few months before. Then I spent the rest of the day in the pub with the lads as one of my mates is joining the Army.

Sunday I met my mate Figo at the Vic to watch the Man Utd Chelsea game (more about this and the degenerate bastard cunt that is Figo in the next post - fuck knows why I still like that kid) and lost £500 more in a £1/3 game with QQ vs KK. I don't think me or my opponent played this hand at all well. This post has gone on way to long and is a bit boring I think, but mainly doing it to get off my chest.

My roll is back to square 1 at £1000 and I'm having a few days off. Not because I want to but I think I have to be more mature in my decisions and few days off will hopefully make me come back playing well again. So fucking annoying to have got off to such a quick and good start which tbh I should be banging out most weeks as it isnt hard and to blow it in the space of a 24 hour tilt-fest. I'm a dick. I think I need some sort of mentor to help me address these issues so feel free to pm me if you're interested!

In the meantime I think there is some massive massive value on Blue Square for the GUKPT Brighton. I will be spreading £100 between 3 of the guys from the blonde poker forum. James Dempsey at 80/1, Chris Moorman at 100/1 (this is sick huge I think) and Alex Martin at 125/1. I will be wishing my old mate from Notts Neil Blatchly good luck in this one too but would be happy to see any of the 'blondes' as such, do well but if I had to pick one it would be Alex. I've never met him but like me he is predominantly a cash player but always helpful on the hand analysis board - a resource which is very useful.

I also bought 10% of James Atkin via the blonde staking board for the £300 and £150 at DTD in feb so glglgl ship me some dollars.

I've Linked Alex 'I always win 45999535 big blinds in cash' Martin and Barry 'my real name is Dave but thats too boring so I'll call myself Barry' Carter and James 'about to make me rich' Atkin's blogs up too.

I'll try and fill in the many gaps this post has left up tomorrow. There are loads.

gl in the meantime.

So far so good....

Played for a quick half an hour when I got home from work about 7 last night. Lost £100ish. Couldn't put in a longer session as I had just booked 10 sessions with a personal trainer who I used to work out with and my first session began at 8pm. Just can't motivate myself at the moment so it had to be done. It was £300 quid for 10 sessions and I don't normally like spending money on this kind of thing even though I'm the opposite of a nit with money, especially as I know the routines in the gym and correct form and technique etc. Its just a case of needing the help with motivation and someone standing over me making sure I do those last few reps and not giving up. My mate Andy who I was going to the gym with is now travelling for 4 months so I don't have a spotter or training partner either which doesnt help. Add that to xmas which is just like a festive one month binge...

So I went, did 10 minutes on the bike before our session started and then did 10 mins on the treadmill before heading into the weights room. The session was absolutely brutal. We did chest back and abs, one set of each in different exercises and constantly rotating. I was allowed virtually 0 break inbetween sets. Fcking exhausted afterwards but at least feeling a bit motivated again. I knew Xmas was gonna mess my routine up. I was struggling to rep 80kgs on the bench last night when I was pumping out 100kgs less than 2 months ago. ffs! Completely revamped the diet again too to what I was eating like a few months ago. Plain porridge for breakfast. Banana at 11. Pasta salad with cottage cheese, pine nuts, sweet corn, broccoli and cottage cheese at lunch. A pot of edamame (if you haven't tried this - do!) at 4 and small pasta salad again at 5 before leaving work. Did some weights when I got home before starting the pokay....

Had a look around the tables at 7.30pm and literally all the £1/2 games were all non-regs. Really unusual but too good an opportunity to pass up even though I should only be playing £.50-1 at the moment. I got up a few buy ins fairly quickly when I won a 3 way all in pot for circa £800. I dont have HH but it went something like this....

Both Villains playing around £250-280. I cover.

Villain 1 raise to £8
Villain 2 calls £8
I call in sb with 45spades
Flop was 234 (2 spades)
I lead for £16
Villain 1 makes it £55
Villain 2 flats the £55 (hmm...wtf!)
I move all in.
Villain 1 instacalls
Villain 2 tanks and calls (hmm wtf!!)
Villain 1 has AK spades
Villain 2 has QQ (hmm wtf!!!)

Turn 6 of clubs (weeeeeeeeee!)

River Q of clubs (in Villain 2's eye! - terrible play anyway imo)

This put me up about 4 buy ins at which point I stopped for a quick break to have something to eat. I logged back on and ran QQ into KK and managed to lose the absolute minimum. Then I got AA all in pre against a reg who just never believes I have any kind of hand. There was a raise to £8. He made it £24. I made it £56. QQ not good in this spot. He gets it in and I instacall. The flop brings 3 diamonds, of which he has the queen and I don't. Obv the river rolls off a diamond and I was set back a bit. I didn't tilt at all and just kept playing my game. Finishing the session up around £900 or so. Pretty pleased as I was on the wrong side of 2 coolers aswell. Managed to watch Poker after Dark whilst 4 tabling too! I only played 1 hand really badly tonight and I paid for it.

Need to keep up this level of focus and I should surpass my goal of £15k by a big margin.No harm in taking it one step at a time. If I reach the goal I can always reasses.

Roll @ £2662 for a profit of £1662.

Will try and put in some random stories from my gala days soon as and when they come to mind. Plenty of mad degennaments to report!

If anyone wants me to link them up just let me know in the comment box. This sounds like some sort of dating request but I really do wanna put some more links up as I think feedback from fellow players is gonna help me a lot.

Off to get some shuteye. gl!

What I hate about poker and latest update

In so many blogs I see people complaining about not enjoying the game etc. Don't play it then! The only thing that annoys me about poker is that I can't play it more. Working full time means I can only play about 40 hours a week, logging big sessions at weekends and some weeknights til pretty late not getting as much sleep as I really need. Don't really know how to balance this properly - another thing I'll have to work on. I'm pretty glad that winning or losing I'll still wake up the next day and know I enjoy it.

The challenge I've set myself has seen mixed success to far. For those who don't know I deposited £1k and after a frustrating start trying to destroy opponents and not let anyone at 25p50p win a single hand I revised my strategy and decided to move up. I just wasnt playing well at those limits. Luckily most players, including regs at those limits are so terrible it wasn't hard to not lose.

They were equally terrible at £.50-1 and I ran up four or five buy ins with ease before taking some shots a little higher. Even though I ran out a winner, it involved a few swings that with my new bankroll, I shouldn't be dealing with. I was playing £1/2 NL, which isnt as easy as it once was, especially as all the tables now seem like 5 regs and 1 fish. I was playing in a $2/5 dollar omaha game too where I justified sitting because I had such an edge over the lineup. Regardless, I will just have to resist. Being pretty card dead and on the wrong side of two coolers I ran up my $500 to $1600 dollars when I was reraised pre by villain playing $800. I just called with 5678 and the flop rolled off 2 5 7 with 2 spades. Villain instabet pot for $150 or so and I made repopped him for 3/4 of his stack. Apparently AQJ9 with the J9 of spades is a monster in that spot. Needless to say he got there.

I jumped into 2 £2/5 NL games to try and make back the money I'd just lost. I wasn't tilting or playing bad - I just didn't fancy going to bed down on a night when I felt by and large I had played well. For half an hour I was in control of both tables and after 3-betting the same guy twice with nothing I made a nice call down when he thought I was full of shit again on a 226JK board when he raised my flop bet and fired the turn before shutting down on the river where I checked behind. My 88 was better than his 77. oops wrong spot to play back at me. Ul though I guess with my image.

Also played with Pete Shag-a-lamppost (Charalambous) and Sam 'I win absolutely everything in sight' Trickett for a while. Sam is a good bud from my Notts days but so random the way he plays any limit - logging some sick sick winning sessions on full tilt this week in 25/50 and 100/200 on full tilt before playing a little 2/5 omaha on Crytpo before jumping back into full tilt games again. Maybe he saw me sitting and the value was just too good to pass up. I'll get Pete Chara back for calling me a Turk though!

I did have some tilty sessions on blackjack after losing a few buy ins earlier in the week and recouped my losses but this was just luck. Today I'm ringing Will Hill and getting myself banned from these games so that the temptation isn't even there.

I will also not be playing any 2/5 whatsoever until my bankroll is ready. I'll be playing predominantly £.5-1 and some mtts (at the weekend) and only taking shots at £1/2 when there are plenty of fish in the games - most commonly on friday nights and weekends.

Roll is currently at £1918 so a profit so far of £918.

Thanks for comments on last post guys. It's really nice to receive feedback.

One other thing is - I must stop writing these blog posts whilst at work!

From Gala and beyond....

I'll start this post with something I've been saying to women all around the globe. Sorry this is gonna be so long. lol i wish.

As I mentioned before my bad beat post (I won't be posting too many of them hopefully), I really got into the casino when everyone began to knuckle down for exams. It was just doing a bit of blackjack and roulette, never really for much money at all. I would often call it quits after losing like £80. God bless being a nit. I miss those days. It wasn't til one night when I was in the casino and loads of my mates had come in for some free drinks and to generally mess about after a night out that I decided to show off so I maxed the withdrawal on my card and put it all on one spin like I didn't care. (I was fcking shitting it). I think I hit number 34, a number I don't think I actually ever put a penny on again. Pretending it was a standard bet, I collected my winnings - put my chips in my pocket and bought a round of drinks. Everyone was kinda shocked but I loved the buzz and from that moment kind of lost my fear and respect for money. Coincidentally I remember the first time I lost £200 at a casino. At the time I couldn't comprehend this and didn't sleep that night. Every time I shut my eyes all I could see was a roulette wheel where the ball never landed but just kept spinning round the wheel. A few months later and losing £200 was a good night of table games.

I played a few tournaments at gala, which was an intimidating place if you were an 'outsider' to the card room. In my first one I literally hadn't played a single hand until raising with queens and finding two callers. wtf- did they not know how tight I was?! Got it all in against both after an AQ6 flop to be shown AQ and 66. This live poker shit was a piece of piss. I'll just do this every night and clean everyone out. hmm.... I ended up making the final table of the £20 rebuy without a single rebuy. Once again, god bless my nit days. We were down to seven players when everyone started shaking hands and the guy in 8th looked gutted. wtf? Was I part of some sort of collusion that I didn't know about? well no, but I HAD entered a satellite tourney. oops. This gave me a £250 seat to a gala tourney but being aware that I still needed to learn so much about poker (beating my mates more often than not in £5 home games and uni games hardly qualified me to expect any sort of a result in this tourney) I started going to play the tournaments every night to practice.

On my starting table was Dave Smith, Lee Rawson and some guy wearing sunglasses and a top with a sponsor on it. I was pretty nervous and before I had chipped up I passed pocket jacks pre flop to a single open from Dave Smith. LOL donkaments. I had about 20k in chips when I was dealt 44 in the Big Blind. A guy moved in for his last 2k and got 2 callers. I made up the 1600 more in the big blind and bet all 3 streets of the 949 flop being called by a flush draw and K9. I caught a set against another local when I called his small reraise with 55 to see a Q85 flop to which he massively ridiculously overbet all in with 99. tyty. Then Anthony Nicholls didn't like the fact I'd started to open up a little and jammed 45k over my initial open to 3200 with blinds at 600-1200. Mbn to have Aces in this spot and instacall. I was already biggest stack in the tournament about 40 out with 120k in chips so getting to 165k I was planning to coast my way to the 20k first prize. The deck seemed to agree with me when the door card was an Ace and Anthony had AJ off btw. The four clubs which followed fitted his his jack of clubs a little better than they did my set though. Wow I was gutted. My first truly sick beat in poker and I was gutted. I don't think Anthony lasted more than 4 more orbits with my chips too. :(.

We make it down to the last 11 and now I have about 120k. I can't remember what the blinds where but it must have been pretty crapshooty as six handed Julian Thew opened to about 45k and I jammed with AK. I was met by a short dwell but a reluctant 'I think I have to call' to see 88. Obv I brick and go out 11th as the bubble boy. The final table played 9 handed as someone went out on the other table at literally the same time to collect like £1k. I felt sick. Probably told everyone in the casino what happened that night, taking a little comfort in the fact that I was knocked out by William Hill's superstar pro Julian Thew. Only thing was, about 2 months later I was sat at a final table with Julian to realise the guy that knocked me out was actually Chris Bruce. oops.

As expected I didn't pass my year. I passed the few exams I attended but its hard to get 40% in the ones you don't turn up to. I basically went to the doctors in Nottingham for the 3 exams I missed and got illness letters. Faking ftw! However, I didn't realise that I had to submit them within 3 days of missing the exams so I had to resit. I couldn't resit for lectures I hadn't been to, with books I didn't have etc etc and I was booted. Oh shit. I came up to Nottingham from London when I got the letter home in the summer holidays and begged for like 3 straight days to be repeatedly told no. I used every excuse under the sun and basically got the bluff through. I was allowed back in as a first year on a slightly different course...

In my second first year I attended around half my lectures in the first term, submitted my courseworks and got my exams out the way. This was pretty good for me, expecially since I would have rather put my bellend through a cheese grater than listened to some of those lecturers drone on and on about shit I really had no interest in. But I did it and allowed myself a week of degenning it after exams. This week quickly became 8 months solid and I'd fucked up again. Lost all my dosh and was out of uni.

I thought I was happy playing the donkaments and cash games each day, whilst regularly doing my bollocks on house games. Wasn't like I had any bills to pay or children to clothe and feed. It just takes change to realise that it isn't a healthy lifestyle and whilst I love poker and am fascinated by gambling I couldn't be more happy that part of my life is over. In the end one of my housemates at uni rang my mum and told her I'd just got out of control. At first I was furious with him for not talking to me first but I realised that wouldn't have made the blindest bit of difference. Not like he had many chances either when I got in at 7.30am every morning, slept til 5pm and then jumped straight in the shower and headed straight for the casino. Pretty ashamed of what I had become back then.

Cut a long story a little short, my parents came and collected me from Nottingham and brought me back down to London. My dad nearly kicked me out and for a few months didn't really talk to me. I eventually got a work placement after temping and bumming around for the most part and then got kept on permanently after working really hard and making a good impression. I'm still playing lots of poker but online. My bankroll management has gotten loads better and hopefully with this blog the intention is for it to be 100% where it should be. My life is pretty normal again too after how mad it got in Notts. Going out, drinking, going to the gym, spending time with mates and family comes first and poker fills the gaps. Obviously I'm still playing a lot but you get the idea...

Before I finish I would like to indirectly thank Blondepoker. Posting and reading on there makes you realise that its possible to play poker and not be a degenerate. I've certainly learn't certain things from it. After ineveitably spending some 000's to learn the game I eventually became a winning player, even though more often than not in Nottingham I decided to play a gambling game rather than a proper poker game. There's a lot of guys on blonde with similar knowledge (and some who would pwn me I'm sure) of the game to myself who have conducted themselves properly enough to be very successful in poker. Something I'm now 100% I will be doing too. Just a shame I didn't start earlier but we all make mistakes. Anyway, it's a great site with a good community and great resources - free to sign up and I'd recommend to any poker player.

My next blog post will be a poker update hopefully, with a little story about a fish named Amatay who posted on his blog for all the world to see about my idea to merge pokertube and redtube to create the ultimate website of them all.

Be cool to get some comments on this blog too.

gL at the tables.

How it started....Part 1

Being Greek you're never far from a deck of cards and so as a kid I played various different games and it was always something I really enjoyed. My dad and uncles had always been keen gamblers. (Don't think the sort of gambler that spends all day every day in Ladbrokes or going to the casino once a week to donate on the tables but people who went on a night out once every three or four months together to play at the casino or their own home games). My dad and one uncle even managed different bookies for a while when I was a baby so betting of sorts has always been in the family.

My dad actually had a job in a computer company yonks ago and began playing a little bit of backgammon with his work mates at lunch times. He was in such demand for games that his co workers offered to manage his workload if he would stay in the staff room whilst they alternated with each other losing money to my old man. How could he refuse?! He was trippling his wages back then but when it came time for their systems to change he was the one who hadn't learn't how to use it.

One night, I must have been no older than 10 or 11 my dad was going to one of my uncles houses where 7 or 8 of my uncles would play cards all night. For some reason, I don't have a clue why now, I kicked up a massive fuss because I wanted to go with him. That night I remember being fascinated by the game. They were playing stud and each had about 500 quid in front of them on the table. I literally thought this was the coolest thing ever and even though I didn't have any idea of the rules of the game I was more than happy to try and figure it out myself whilst watching the psychological battling and the money moving around the table. At one point my dad got in a big hand and had to call a big bet on the river. I had no clue what my dad was holding nor my uncle, but I said 'Dad I think he's bluffing you'. Another one of my uncles promptly told me to shut up in the middle of a hand. My dad folded and my other uncle turned over the bluff...I was right.

In the sixth form of school I used to play a lot of killer pool in the common room which was only for pounds and 50p's but my money was always on the table ready to play anyone. Me and a few mates used to bunk off lessons a lot and go to our local snooker club to practice. By this time a few of my mates were driving and we had already started having a few home poker games, normally at my house. We started playing the £5 double knockout pool tournaments in 8-ball and 9-ball. We all won both tournaments a few times before our handicaps went up and things became a lot more difficult but it was still great fun nonetheless. I remember winning my first one and getting £50 quid to come home and wake my dad up to tell him about it! Lol donkaments. As it goes, Nick Persaud used to play that tournament most weeks and at the time I didn't even have a clue that he played poker or was an old boy from my school. Hopefully Potters Snooker and Pool club in Streatham is the breeding ground for poker success! Probably not judging by most of the Pikey retards who go in there...

They did have a roulette machine though which was my only access to gambling before I was 18 and I did do my burger on that fcker many times. It was around this time that my best mate Shan met another one of my now good mates David. David's brother had a website called casinobonusexpoits which involved wagering through thousands of blackjack scams on most online casinos to be able to cash out their bonuses. We began doing this and were making roughly £200 for every online casino, each one taking about 4-5 hours to wager through properly. Happy days when ur 18 and making that sort of money.

I already had a nice savings account of about 10k + all this money when I went to uni. Luckily I never needed a student loan the two years I was there. I went to Nottingham to do Spanish and Portuguese but wasn't enjoying my course at all. I loved languages (did Greek, Spanish, Italian and French at GCSE all A* and got two A's in French and Spanish A-levels) - shameless brag but I can't help it. I had no organisational skills and just slept, went out and got stoned for a while basically. Until the second term of uni hit and we had a lads night where we got suited up and went to the casino. Fck me it was so much fun - betting like 8 quid a spin on the touch screen roulette was such a buzz. We started going regularly and 40 quid was a standard 'call it quits session'. Fck knows how we used to make that little money last so long but beautiful were the days when money actually had value and meant something. As exams got closer everyone began going to lectures and the library more often whilst I couldn't be bothered with all that and just planted myself at gala.

I will finish off the Uni/Gala story in my next post(the brilliantly named part 2) . This one has taken me aaaaaaaages to write a load of shit that I already know and probably no-one else will even read. Maybe I should whack a whole load of porn links in here to guarantee some traffic.

In terms of Poker stuff today has been a bit of a rollercoaster with me dropping almost 800 in the early part of the day to claw back a few hundred odd profit by the end (now 6.45am fml). I ditched the 25p50p plan - I was just spewing playing that low trying to win every single pot I played. I'm going to be playing NL100 for the time being as it's just as soft but I put a bit more effort in there.

Had 33% of Snoopy in the Dusk Til Dawn £300 freezeout with £25k+ to the winner but after much grinding he was card dead and made it through half the field before a cutoff shove got snapped off by the blinds AK. ul m8. Let's just hope good bud Pete Linton can take it down from here. He's chip daddy going into day 2 and has a sick ability to run up a stack early in comps.

Laters

STEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAMING!

So the plan today was to write a blog about how I got into poker etc... but that plan backfired. I think I will delay that one til tomorrow.

I deposited my £1k as mentioned and loaded up five 25p50p cash tables. I quickly ran up two buy ins without any real big hands and stopped for a while to watch the new episodes of Poker After Dark.

So I loaded up my tables again and quickly dropped the buyins back flopping 3 undersets in about 30 minutes as well as a QQ vs AA blind on blind and flopped flush blind on blind. Pretty sick but to end up even after the cards really went against me was ok I guess - especially as if I was playing my normal limits I would expect to be down like 6 buy ins in such unavoidable coolers where im gonna stack off.

A bit dismayed by this start I decided to play MTTs as whenever I set my mind to a win I get a result in one of these. I just dont always have the patience/time to play them. I played the £6k GTD, £9K GTD and two smaller £1000 GTDs on Will Hill and ended up making the final table of the £9K. This guy The_Bstrd (or something like that) made my life more difficult in the mid and latter stages by telling everyone on my tables I nick the blinds every time I raise and always raise Ace rag just cos I was in position on his blind and had it almost every orbit. He's wasn't wrong but thanks for telling everyone..glad the wanker bust on the final table bubble. wahaha. After a few folds to reshoves because of his chatter I made a few calls lighter and players stopped playing back at me.

I made the final table as shortest stack and grind my way through, shoving in position and without showdown until we somehow get 4 handed. Me and another guy are shortest with him 90k, me 50k and the two big stacks like 250k each. I shoved almost any unraised pot to get myself back in contention with 120k with the blinds at 2k/4k and a running ante of 400. I pick up KK and raised 3x instead of my normal 2.5 and was met with a shove. The call any button was already clicked and I faded the two fives he needed for his set to become chipleader. I raise the button a few hands later and both blinds call. There is now 56k in the pot. (I have J5 off). Flop comes J28 2 spades and after both blinds check i bet just over half pot 30k and am met with an all in. for 130 odd in total. Wasn't really expecting that but I obv call and his 108 hits 2 pair on the river.

I didn't recover from there and with one guy laddering his ass off I wasn't gonna outwait him for 300 quid more. I wanted that £3k for the win and a few hands later jammed 99 after a min raise and a call with blinds at 4k/8k and unfortunately ran into the table donks JJ. I wish people weren't able to minraise - its so fcking gay. Not that the hand plays any differently anyway.

So got £851 for 4th though I'm still gutted. I had it locked and £3k win woulda been an awesome start to my years goals.

Two of my mates want railing now in a smaller comp so I'll get them to the final, make sure they ship it and get to bed. I've been playing so much recently that I've completely neglected the gym. I was doing weights like 4 times a week and making good progress but I've let that slip. I rang the guy who used to train me and I've booked 10 sessions with him to get me motivated and back into it again.

Roll now at £1651. +£651 for the day.

StaceySlaters

First Post

I'm new to this blogging shit so people will have to forgive my lame titles til I become a pro like that Amatay fish bloke.

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while now because I'm hoping it will help me manage a bankroll. The last year has been really disappointing on the poker front even tho on the tables I'm up about £15k. Why? Well, I've been a dick basically -I can win 10 or 20 buy ins in a short space of time and if I lose one or two back I'm instantly moving up limits looking for the quickest way to get A9 off all in pre or trying to blast away on Will Hill's Live casino. So I've basically had a breakeven year pokerwise. Marvellous.

On a side note, the Will Hill live casino is based in Latvia so its basically lots of fit female croupiers who you can wind up in the chatbox. Me and a mate thought it was hilarious playing on the first night when pretty drunk. Choosing screen names 'yourbellend' and 'Myhairyanus' is entertaining when some nice looking latvian bird (who looks like she got lost on her way to work at Spearmint Rhino's) asks 'Do you want to split your bellend?' or 'Would you like to insure YourHairyAnus?' Hmmm maybe I need to get out more.

Anyway, I've transferred most of my bankroll over to a mate and I'm starting again in the next few days with the £1k i just transferred into my Will Hill account. Not looking forward to playing 25p50p but if it helps me learn bankroll management then it'll be more than worth it. I will only put more money in my account and move up if I know 100% that I'm not going to touch sports betting, house games or play in any poker game in which I have less than 30 buy ins for. Of course 25p50p is an exception with 1k because if I lose 20 buy ins there I'd probably quit poker its so soft. I'm hoping it won't take me more than a few weeks to make 40BI and move up.

My targets for this year, which i posted on blondepoker (my nickname there is GreekStein):

To start a blog. (Think I'm on my way)

To go to a blonde bash.

To play the Greek Poker Championships again at Dusk Til Dawn.

To play the monthly £200 freezeout at the Big Slick Club more often and their £2/5 cash when it runs. (I swear to god this has to be the softest place to play poker in the world. Even the regs who play day in day out are completely clueless).

Play one leg of the GUKPT.

Have a +£15k year.

In my next post I'll write about how I got into poker and how it eventually got me kicked out of Nottingham uni. Few mad poker related stories to tell before my blog probably turns into another boring bad beat/brag blog.