blonde poker forum

Making a thread for the 2014 grind, aiming for my biggest year yet in terms of online volume. Since the traffic died off on iPoker to the point where I couldn't keep all of my volume there (about 18 months ago) I've been exclusively playing on stars, all heads up SNGs until about a week ago. Volume in 2013 was fairly poor and my roll suffered accordingly which is why I haven't really been around much on Blonde or on the live circuit, just been getting my head down and grinding away. I barely posted on blonde last year so this thread should provide some good motivation to a) post more and b) play lots.

Since they launched a couple of weeks ago I've been dabbling in some of the heads up zoom CAP games. They fit in perfectly to top of tables while grinding HUSNGs and playing zoom too I've really boosted my VPPs/hr that used to suffer with downtime between games when I was just playing SNGs. With zoom mixed in as well I've really got no excuse not to hammer the hours out and reap the rewards. Last year I logged 230k VPPs which sounds ok-ish but looking a bit deeper into the numbers, 121k of that was from the 9th of September to the end of the year and I didn't go to Vegas so there isn't a six week online hiatus either, so there is plenty of potential to put up big numbers in 2014. Last year I was exclusively playing $/€60 and $/€100 games but starting in January it'll be just 100s and 200s with some 100CAP and 200CAP mixed in.

My main poker goal this this year is 400k VPPs. I'm not really into setting profit goals because its just not something that I can control, if I stay the course and reach my volume goal I'll be doing fine for $$. My other goal is to play fewer than 5 live tourmanets this year. Over the past few months I've been thinking a lot about what my general goals are and how to achieve them. For the last few years the plan has pretty much just been make money online > play live tournaments > win a live tourmanent > live happily ever after. That strategy got me stuck approximately a house and a bunch of near miss sob stories that nobody gives a shit about. It still obviously a lol sample size of probably 100ish live £1k+ tournaments but I haven't really studied any MTT stuff at all since I quit playing the live MTT circuit regularly so my profitability in those events has eroded. In my mind it has got to the point where for the money, time and effort of playing a live tourmanent I'm just way better off grinding online.

I'm sure I'll get cabin fever or someone will make a ridiculous splurge with an unattainable guarantee eventually and i'll spur of the moment get on a plane for a live shindig so I've given myself some wiggle room with five. I'm probably going to post daily updates with some graphs too cos people seem to love a good giraffe. Will be posting a decent amount of music since in the last couple of years I've developed a pretty big addiction to drum n bass & deep house music. I probably listen to a good 80 hours of music a week so will be sharing some gems. Doubt there are many people on Blonde with the same musical taste but you never know, spread the love and all.

I only have a database from September 9th to the end of the year, first two are HUSNG graphs from my PC and laptop, not going to import everything across to one because it always majorly screws up the results in HEM when they get re-imported

PC - 1766 games

(http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/6538/xs15.png)

Laptop - 4566 games

(http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/6325/w13w.png)

Heads Up Zoom CAP experiment so far

(http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/5311/iiy4.png)

First music offering - my favourite house track of 2013 by a mile

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwsXuwt5ktg

Best of luck in 2014, lets gettttttt

Ooh, this should be an interesting read Dan, good luck with it.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years time, as to poker & life?

No Vegas this year?

Is there alot of recs in the games, or is it just a case of your one of the better regs out the bunch? Always assumed HUSNGs was a sort of dead game on stars especially.

GL will be reading with interest.

Went to dinner tonight with one of the better regs, he is Portuguese guy I'm sure you'll know him but I can't remember his name.

Big gls here mate, one for the good guys.

gl dude.

I didn't realise there was zoom HU cap. What stakes you playing? Any clue on VPP/hr?

GL in reaching 400k vpps and winning lots of $'s.

In 5 years time I hope not to be grinding online poker but its certainly a possibility. I still really enjoy it so it wouldn't be the end of the world still being an online grinder at 29. A couple of years ago I would definitely have said 'I want to have won x major tournament' but a little older and (hopefully) a little wiser that seems like such a silly goal. Looking back at the five years I've been playing full time I don't think I could have predicted what has happened in the proceeding year so as for five years time? I have no idea. One thing I definitely want to do is a whole lot more travelling, but I'd want to do it properly ie take a year off playing poker. I'm a pretty big bankroll nit so I would imagine I'd need a nice chunk of money in the bank before I'd do that. Ask me next year if I clear $100k in 2014!

No plans for Vegas at the moment, definitely not doing 8 weeks again. I'm pretty over punting a chunky %age of my roll in big tournament packages and with all the expenses involved it is essentially just a holiday. If I do go this year it'd probably be just for a couple of weeks to see some of the people I got to know playing the Bellagio 5/10 games in the summer of 2011 and 2012.


I've been playing $100s on stars for the last year or so, most of the regs backed off pretty quick but there was one guy that always sat me and he quit a couple of weeks ago after we had played about 300 games so once I've got the lobbies its pretty much exclusively fish sitting me with the odd MTT/cash reg blowing off steam. Playing SNGs alone I could pretty easily get 50-60 games/day against recs.

I doubt it would be possible to get anything close to that volume anywhere besides stars. All of the euro site regs I know play across iPoker/Party/888 and a couple of other skins. This actually leads to some really interesting wars going on when you're battling someone because they're sitting 12 or more lobbies across sites and if you know peoples screen names on sites where they don't know you, then you can sit them in like six games at once and it not be too hectic because you know that you're playing against the same guy.

Whoever you're sitting gets pretty tilted pretty quickly when they think that they've been unlucky enough to be sat by 4 or 5 different people on all of their sites at once which is a pretty profitable spot.


Thanks mate, can't think of any Portuguese regs off the top of my head, if he sits 100s though we've definitely played a few games. Is his location on stars is Hungary or Portugal?

Before rakeback what ROI did you achieve at 50's and 100's last year? I imagine it must still be decent if you're playing a lot of recs now, or have the fish got better at HU as a whole? I'm not taking any glory from you playing fish btw, you've earned that if regs no longer play with you.

I played HU sngs for a living a very long time ago, I remember I used to get tons of action at €500 HU sngs from fish but the poker economy has certainly changed. It sounds dirty but there was one really good reg on there that would always play me, so I used to time down on everything to frustrate him and make it even more turbo-ey.

the guy is called "janekaaa"

Playing 200CAP at the moment when it runs, sitting that and playing 100CAP if there isn't any action. It doesn't usually take long though to get some action when you're open sitting.

With the data I have at the moment its looking like around ~160 VPPs/hr with zoom alone. Add in the HUSNGs and its about 330 VPPs/hr

 

From the data for Sept 9th to the end of the year it was 4.3% with an ABI of $94. I actually used to play $500s too on iPoker about 3 years ago, but I would certainly have been eaten alive at those stakes on stars and it was one of the big rakeback deals that kept me afloat. I didn't really do any studying at all for ages and my complacency came back to bite me in the first few months of 2012. I followed that up with some pretty poor punting decisions in Vegas and ended up back grinding the $30s.

I haven't actually had anyone time down on me in a while but whenever I was battling other regs that'd just make me sit them even more. I have always seemed to play more tables that most HUSNG regs so I'd just fire up another couple of tables and it wouldn't bother me at all.

Damn Dan that sounds exactly like my musical tastes the last few years, knew I couldn't be alone ha!

Your top 3 favourite sets?!

Yeah at 4.3% the recs are most certainly better at HU! 10-20% was doable 5 years ago but most of the opponents played weak passive and adopted a very poor push fold strat.

have played a lot of the HU zoom since it has been available, alot this week, and purely the capped games. seems very soft, you think a lot of the regs are put off by it being capped per hand and play the uncapped version?

Yeah he's an absolute crushbot vs fish, he was a 90k winner last year before rakeback with an ABI of $84. We've played a little bit, his style is kinda tight and pretty tilting to play against and he's too busy crushing for us to want to play each other really. He plays mostly regspeed games so we're rarely after the same lobbies. Massive respect for putting up those numbers, really sick work.


That I've seen live I'd have to say Loadstar at Global Gathering last year, Shy FX at the first Hospitality gig I ever went to in Sheffield are my standout two. Third is pretty close between TC at Leeds Hospitality last October, Ben UFO at a little warehouse thing in Sheffield a few months back and Camo & Krooked at Warehouse Project in 2011. Honourable mention for Laidback Luke at EDC 2011.

Same question to you?

Dan, as a house music fan myself, you listened much to Steve bug? Matthias tanzmann?

Its pretty nasty variance-wise but fish absolutely love it, its really fast action and you're all in a lot so its perfect for people to tilt off a few buyins. The variance would probably put a lot of people off, its the same with hyper turbo SNGs really. A lot of regs won't go near it because they believe its a luck-driven shove-fest but if you've got your 20bb game pretty nailed on theres plenty of money to be made imo.

 

I can't say that I've heard of either of those producers but I'm only really starting to get back into house after about 3 years of mainly just listening to DnB. Back in school I was a bit of an indie kid, standard opinionated 18 year old that firmly believed that music that wasn't made my 'proper instruments' (sounds so cringe now) was crap. Then in first year of uni I lived with a couple of amateur DJs and really got into house/electro. This was the song that started it all for me.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4BI7Dp7Uxc

Good luck dan.

tyty Celtic

Not much to report on the poker front for the first three days, breakeven in CAP and sngs, decent volume though putting in 5.5k hands of CAP and 97 husngs for 5.8k VPPs including the free 1k January Jumpstart freebie.

Feeling really good about playing a ton of CAP this year, my results so far have been less than stellar but my biggest losses have all been against big fish and my biggest wins have been against the other regs so all looking good. One guy in particular managed to god mode me pretty hard while raise/calling any two cards for 350 hands but he's cooled off since:

(http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/7967/ug39.png)

Hand(s) of the day comes courtesy of a very confident villain

*********** # 1 **************
PokerStars Hand #109532431052: Tournament #843310633, $96.32+$3.68 USD Hold'em No Limit - Match Round I, Level I (10/20) - 2014/01/03 20:15:27 WET [2014/01/03 15:15:27 ET]
Table '843310633 1' 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: stonecoldkaf (1500 in chips)
Seat 2: Raziel2689 (1500 in chips)
stonecoldkaf: posts small blind 10
Raziel2689: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Raziel2689 [4s 7s]
stonecoldkaf said, "i gonna just crush u with ease"
stonecoldkaf: raises 40 to 60
Raziel2689 said, "gl"
stonecoldkaf said, "sooo easy"
Raziel2689: folds
Uncalled bet (40) returned to stonecoldkaf
stonecoldkaf collected 40 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 40 | Rake 0
Seat 1: stonecoldkaf (button) (small blind) collected (40)
Seat 2: Raziel2689 (big blind) folded before Flop


*********** # 2 **************
PokerStars Hand #109532446811: Tournament #843310633, $96.32+$3.68 USD Hold'em No Limit - Match Round I, Level I (10/20) - 2014/01/03 20:15:41 WET [2014/01/03 15:15:41 ET]
Table '843310633 1' 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: stonecoldkaf (1520 in chips)
Seat 2: Raziel2689 (1480 in chips)
Raziel2689: posts small blind 10
stonecoldkaf: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Raziel2689 [Ks Kh]
Raziel2689: raises 20 to 40
stonecoldkaf said, "bro im a pro"
stonecoldkaf: raises 80 to 120
Raziel2689: calls 80
*** FLOP *** [Qd 4d 3s]
stonecoldkaf said, "and this is what i do best . crush"
stonecoldkaf: bets 240
Raziel2689: calls 240
*** TURN *** [Qd 4d 3s] [9s]
stonecoldkaf: checks
Raziel2689: bets 225
stonecoldkaf: calls 225
*** RIVER *** [Qd 4d 3s 9s] [7d]
stonecoldkaf said, "crush like slush"
stonecoldkaf: bets 935 and is all-in
Raziel2689: calls 895 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (40) returned to stonecoldkaf
*** SHOW DOWN ***
stonecoldkaf: shows [8d Tc] (high card Queen)
Raziel2689: shows [Ks Kh] (a pair of Kings)
Raziel2689 collected 2960 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2960 | Rake 0
Board [Qd 4d 3s 9s 7d]
Seat 1: stonecoldkaf (big blind) showed [8d Tc] and lost with high card Queen
Seat 2: Raziel2689 (button) (small blind) showed [Ks Kh] and won (2960) with a pair of Kings


*********** # 3 **************
PokerStars Hand #109532508217: Tournament #843310633, $96.32+$3.68 USD Hold'em No Limit - Match Round I, Level I (10/20) - 2014/01/03 20:16:37 WET [2014/01/03 15:16:37 ET]
Table '843310633 1' 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: stonecoldkaf (40 in chips)
Seat 2: Raziel2689 (2960 in chips)
stonecoldkaf: posts small blind 10
Raziel2689: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Raziel2689 [Kd Qs]
stonecoldkaf: raises 20 to 40 and is all-in
Raziel2689: calls 20
stonecoldkaf said, "nh"
*** FLOP *** [3s 7d 9c]
Raziel2689 said, "ty"
*** TURN *** [3s 7d 9c] [4h]
stonecoldkaf said, "gg"
*** RIVER *** [3s 7d 9c 4h] [7s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Raziel2689: shows [Kd Qs] (a pair of Sevens)
stonecoldkaf: shows [td 8s] (a pair of Sevens - lower kicker)
Raziel2689 collected 80 from pot
stonecoldkaf finished the tournament in 2nd place
Raziel2689 wins the tournament and receives $192.64 - congratulations!
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 80 | Rake 0
Board [3s 7d 9c 4h 7s]
Seat 1: stonecoldkaf (button) (small blind) showed [td 8s] and lost with a pair of Sevens
Seat 2: Raziel2689 (big blind) showed [Kd Qs] and won (80) with a pair of Sevens

Day 4

VPPs Today - 1623
VPPs This Month - 7468

HUSNGs Today - -$395
CAP Today - -$915

January Profit - -$1527
January Rakeback - $456

Tough day today, struggled to find any momentum at CAP and the games weren't all that good which was pretty surprising for a Saturday. Target for the month is 40k VPPs so i'm pretty happy with being on pace for >50k. Getting a bit of a baptism of fire at CAP but pushing on. EV is running at 2.5bb/100 over 11k hands played so far which is a pretty negligible sample size but I'm not really sure what sort of winrate I should be aiming for, I guess I'll just have to see where I am in 90k hands time and go from there.

lol @ that chat. Nice grinding so far just run betterrrr!

Hey Dan.

Love you x

Days 5 & 6

VPPs  - 3272
VPPs This Month - 10740

HUSNGs  - -$305
CAP  - -$186

January Profit - -$2018
January Rakeback - $700

Sick diary rungood

Boring posting losing days innit. Keep at it, maybe post a fun HH or two :-)

Day 7

VPPs - 385
VPPs This Month - 11,126

HUSNGs Today - -$335
CAP Today - $270

January Profit - -$2623
January Rakeback - $728


Quit after an hour today, running bad and playing worse. Going to cut out the CAP games for now since I think playing HUSNGs and CAP at the same time is dividing my attention too much and I'm not sure I'm even +EV in those games so losing chunks in them is just too tilting. Just playing HUSNGs means I'm almost certainly going to have to revise down my VPP goals but I've always managed to bounce back from bad downswings at HUSNGs so I'll just be concentrating on that for at least the rest of this month. I've dug myself a bit of a hole in the first week but theres nothing quite like getting out of a hole to boost morale.

This is a call that I certainly wouldn't make when I'm playing well, its pretty tilting that he has one out to get called when he donk jams the turn but I'm just never ever good here, definitely highlights a lack of concentration on my part

PokerStars Hand #109749329370: Tournament #845439005, €96.32+€3.68 EUR Hold'em No Limit - Match Round I, Level IV (25/50) - 2014/01/07 18:06:06 WET [2014/01/07 13:06:06 ET]
Table '845439005 1' 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: ESGPro (1610 in chips)
Seat 2: Raziel2689 (1390 in chips)
Raziel2689: posts small blind 25
ESGPro: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Raziel2689 [ Td Ks]
Raziel2689: raises 50 to 100
ESGPro: calls 50
*** FLOP *** [ Aspades 4s  Ahrt]
ESGPro: checks
Raziel2689: bets 100
ESGPro: calls 100
*** TURN *** [ Aspades 4s  Ahrt] [Ts]
ESGPro: bets 1410 and is all-in
Raziel2689: calls 1190 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (220) returned to ESGPro
*** RIVER ***[ Aspades 4s  Ahrt Ts Jc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ESGPro: shows [9s 6s] (a flush, Ace high)
Raziel2689: shows [ Td Ks] (two pair, Aces and Tens)
ESGPro collected 2780 from pot
Raziel2689 finished the tournament in 2nd place
ESGPro wins the tournament and receives €192.64 - congratulations!
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2780 | Rake 0
Board [ Aspades 4s  Ahrt Ts Jc]
Seat 1: ESGPro (big blind) showed [9s 6s] and won (2780) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 2: Raziel2689 (button) (small blind) showed [ Td Ks] and lost with two pair, Aces and Tens

Put in a big hand review session and noted a few adjustments to make for tomorrow. I think I've been guilty of getting wrapped up in the whole VPP race thing and I've just been playing too many tables and been playing at break neck speed. I've played 19,417 hands of heads up poker this week and how many hands can I honestly say that I've taken more than a couple of seconds to think about? Not many at all.

Looking forward to getting back on it tomorrow. For now, something chill

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHXM62tb_MY

Day 9

VPPs - 2442
VPPs This Month - 14,118

HUSNGs Today - $1551

January Profit - -$857
January Rakeback - $1016

Took a couple of days off, my sleeping pattern was drifting pretty close to being nocturnal waking up at 2pm every day which needed fixing so didn't sleep Tuesday night, had a couple of hours Wednesday afternoon and a 12 sleep to be up fresh at 10am this morning (Thursday) and ready to make up some hours. Rather than having the CAP cash games fill in the gaps between the action at $100 turbo and regspeed SNGs I've decided to go with with $60 hyper turbos instead after looking at some coaching material on hypers while I was too tired to play.

Started a little slow but found some rungood to get out and log a big day to go most of the way to righting the ship for January. Put in 9 hours which is probably the most I've played in a day for a good couple of years so happy with that and ready to grind the rest of the way out and hopefully book a decent January to get the year rolling. There was a bit of a strange half hour where I was three-tabling against different guys and everyone decided to just go berserk while I flopped the joint so there are lots of candidates for hand of the day, but I think this was my favourite:

***** Hand History for Game 109873678420 ***** (Poker Stars)
Tourney Hand NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, January 09, 05:43:25 ET 2014
Table 846693082 1 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 1: t1tom ( $1810.00 USD )
Seat 2: Raziel2689 ( $1190.00 USD )
Raziel2689 posts small blind [$10.00 USD].
t1tom posts big blind [$20.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Raziel2689 [  8s 6s ]
Raziel2689 raises [$30.00 USD]
t1tom calls [$20.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9s, 5d, 7h ]
t1tom bets [$40.00 USD]
Raziel2689 raises [$120.00 USD]
t1tom calls [$80.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 7d ]
t1tom bets [$120.00 USD]
Raziel2689 raises [$285.00 USD]
t1tom calls [$165.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Ks ]
t1tom bets [$960.00 USD]
Raziel2689 calls [$745.00 USD]
t1tom wins $215.00 USD
t1tom shows [Qc, 5s ]
Raziel2689 shows [8s, 6s ]
Raziel2689 wins $2380.00 USD from main pot

Musical offering today started out as a reggae tune originally released by Dawn Penn in 1994 that had decent chart success making it to #3 in the UK. Then Deekline & Ed Solo got hold of it and made it into more of a dubstep track that wasn't all that true to the original. Enter Serial Killaz though, stripped it right back to still have that dubby, electronic edge but its much closer to the songs dancehall/ragga roots.

Such a high morale song, linky:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUAu59kVEEs

not really what you've been posting but i'd presume you'd like it. best of luck with the HU grind this year!
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aktMiVaTFMY

tyty, liked the track a lot, will definitely checkout some more dark0 stuff!

Day 10

VPPs - 1975
VPPs This Month - 16,093

HUSNGs Today - $827

January Profit - -$30
January Rakeback - $1171

God moded pretty hard towards the end of today, another good volume day with 7 hours played. Pretty knackered, will do a bigger update tomorrow. For now time to chilllllll

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzc7h_823Ts

Sunday! :)

Starting a bit late but putting in plenty of volume today, got some pieces of a few people too so hopefully get some sweatssss

Must have listened to this mix from MC Harry Shotta about 20 times since it came out in mid December, perfect for the chaaaaarge

https://soundcloud.com/harry-shotta-music/space-jump-2-harry-shotta-dj

Days 11 & 12

VPPs - 2514
VPPs This Month - 18,607

HUSNGs Today - $383

January Profit - -$353
January Rakeback - $1370

Wasn't really feeling it on Saturday, only played 3 hours and broke even, put up 800ish VPPs, decided I'd just make up the volume on Sunday. Ended up finding some serious heat to finish off the week on a high and be a decent clip ahead of pace for my 35k VPPs goal for the month after getting in a bit of a hole early.

Hand of the day, a value bet:

***** Hand History for Game 110050892672 ***** (Poker Stars)
Tourney Hand NL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, January 12, 09:52:05 ET 2014
Table 848461782 1 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 1: realpatient ( $1520.00 USD )
Seat 2: Raziel2689 ( $1480.00 USD )
Raziel2689 posts small blind [$10.00 USD].
realpatient posts big blind [$20.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Raziel2689 [  3h 6c ]
Raziel2689 raises [$30.00 USD]
realpatient calls [$20.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4s, 4h,  Ahrt ]
realpatient bets [$40.00 USD]
Raziel2689 raises [$100.00 USD]
realpatient calls [$60.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 7d ]
realpatient checks
Raziel2689 checks
** Dealing River ** [ 5d ]
realpatient bets [$200.00 USD]
Raziel2689 raises [$1340.00 USD]
realpatient calls [$1140.00 USD]
Raziel2689 shows [3h, 6c ]
realpatient shows [Ac, 5h ]
Raziel2689 wins $2960.00 USD from main pot

Day 13

VPPs - 1583
VPPs This Month - 20,190

HUSNGs Today - $-133

January Profit - $200
January Rakeback - $1497

Missed my VPP target of 2k today, didn't start till 5pm so no being a lazy little shite tomorrow. Had a 'get in a hole and get out again' day today which feels as good as a win. Really pleased that I didn't lose focus, just kept on grinding through it despite one pretty budget hyper turbo reg going 9-0 against me.

Todays graph:

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/541/qvke.png)

Can't wait to hear this one at a gig, pretty dark and certain to set the place offff

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ckyH3oIzlU

most of his stuff isn't as on point as this is! phaeleh is another sick producer.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2OCSWF7sAw

i've gotta say i really like how you grind/crush the husng scene, i really wanted to get on hyper plo games but just cant handle any kind of brutal losing streak.
I always enjoyed reading your posts around 2012 on pha you always seemed to nail it and make it sound so simple! i can imagine spending your whole time playing HU makes for sick reads naturally, do you ever factor in 'timing tells' and an instinctive judgement when making decisions?
do you have it easy as to say where you are now instead of changing up to playing hypers?

just a random one, if you had to play a variant of poker that didn't have community cards what would you play?

Phaeleh is one of those producers that I've heard lots about but haven't really listened to a lot of his stuff. I actually saw him on NYE and his set was really chill. I've definitely heard Afterglow before and I'm sure there he has a few more that I'd recognise, definiltely on the list as one to get around to. It'll probably be one of those days that there aren't any new podcasts or radio 1 shows I'm interested in. I usually just find an artist I don't know much about and play everything they have on their soundcloud during a session.

Timing tells I think are pretty important when you're playing against recs in heads up sngs, less so against regs. A lot of people play pretty fast so when for example they check/call the turn and then tank before checking the river they're more likely to have rivered a big hand and don't know whether to lead or check. In the same spot a lot of people give away the fact that they're excited to have rivered a big hand and snap lead with a huge sizing. Very few people are capable of bluffing so fast in that spot so you can make some snug folds. This tends to lead to people getting a bit tilted that they didn't get value from a big hand and they start to spew.

My overall ROI would certainly be higher if I just played turbos and regspeeds but adding in hypers is much better for my hourly rate even though is exposes me to quite a bit more variance, but I do play smaller buyin hypers, so in my usual session I'll be playing $100 and €100 turbos and regspeeds with $60 hypers. Without the hypers it'd be a struggle to make 400k VPPs and with them I'm on pace for 550k. Even taking just a 0.5% ROI at $60 hypers thats ~18k in profit and rakeback, so playing the extra tables would have to be taking a pretty decent chunk out of my turbo/regspeed ROI and I don't think it really makes that much of a difference so I'm happy to play those on the side when turbo/regspeed action is slow.

My choice of non-flop game would have to be NL 2-7 just because it looks like a great action game and it runs at most limits. I've barely played it at all but if NLHE disappeared tomorrow that would be my game of choice.

Day 14

VPPs - 1469
VPPs This Month - 21,674

HUSNGs Today - $939

January Profit - $1139
January Rakeback - $1615

Played better than I have done so far this year, had the A game running most of the day and booked decent wins in both turbos and hypers. Also pulled the trigger on something that I've been considering taking part in for a while now which is volunteer work. Found a perfect project starting in a couple of weeks in Sheffield that has been given lottery funding and is right up my street, but more about that in another update later this week

Absolutely loved this tune the first time I heard it which doesn't happen very often. The audio samples match up perfectly with the hook. If anyone can turn anything he touches to gold its Christopher Walken. The sample are taken from the film King Of New York which is a modern take on Robin Hood, a drug lord that comes out of prison to reclaim his territory and distribute the proceeds to New York's poorest. Definitely worth a watch.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTeJ3LGNV4w

(http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjA5OTA3NDMxOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDY3MjUyMQ@@._V1_SY317_CR12,0,214,317_.jpg)

Days 15-17

VPPs - 3948
VPPs This Month - 25,604

HUSNGs Today - $397

January Profit - $1536
January Rakeback - $1931

Had a swingy few days but been doing some more hypers studying and really feeling it at the moment. I'm a pretty big bankroll nit these days but a decent result for the rest of the month should set me up for a go at moving up at the beginning of February. I'd be battling $200 turbo regs for a decent while so it'd be a good idea to run with the assumption that I'll be largely breakeven before rakeback during that time but who knows, I might run well and play my way to getting some lobbies ;)

Stumbled across a cool house track from Richy Ahmed, been playing this a lot today. He seems to be signed to Hot Creations which is a pretty awesome label headed up by Jamie Jones and Lee Foss. Those two release their collaboration material under the name Hot Natured and they had one of the biggest house albums of 2013 with Different Sides Of The Sun. Definitely worth picking up if house is your thing :)

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePBTWS1TB7s

(http://www.residentadvisor.net/images/reviews/2013/hnlp001.jpg)

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDW32uvJH6U

What's standard brm for husng guys?

I've seen people advocate so many different strategies that I don't think theres really a consensus. I personally go for 200 buyins but I pay all my life expenses from that so while it sounds like a lot I think its about right. Plus I don't really rate myself when it comes to dealing with downswings so being comfortably rolled for the games I'm in helps a lot with that. I've also run hilair bad every time I've taken any sort of shot or moving up attempt in poker so next time I move up its gunna be with a lot of buyins behind me so I don't have to quit playing higher when I snap lose 10 buyins on day 1.

Day 18

VPPs - 1574
VPPs This Month - 27,178

HUSNGs Today - -$1453

January Profit - $83
January Rakeback - $2039

Today we run lol. EV line looking very health though for the month so far at hypers which is nice

Oh wow I thought husng guys used like 50 maximum. Pretty sick.

Keep up the good work bro x

Day 19

VPPs - 1796
VPPs This Month - 29,000

HUSNGs Today - $2413

January Profit - $2496
January Rakeback - $2183

Moaned it in pretty well, god moded ridic hard today for my most profitable day of the last 6 months or so. Volume wasn't all that great for a Sunday but the games are always pretty slow in the early hours of Monday. I assume thats because everyone does their money at MTTs and tilt quits?

Oioiiiiiiiiiii, grats.

nice

Nice comeback Dan, you were in a bit of a hole a week ago, well done.

wiiiiiiii morrrrrrrrrre

Keep it up mate! Hopefully I can also get myself out of the hole I'm in also.

Day 20

VPPs - 2761
VPPs This Month - 31,743

HUSNGs Today - $524

January Profit - $3020
January Rakeback - $2404

First day attempting to get lobbies at 200s which was fun since I spent most of the day battling regs although I did get about 20% of my games at 200s against recs. An 80/20 split was a lot better than I was hoping for but for at least the next couple of weeks I'd expect a solid 95% of my games to be against regs. Smashed the VPPs today and hit 8 hours play for the first time in a long time.

Musical highlight of the day was itunes firing up a bit of High Contrast.

(http://www.kmag.co.uk/assets/images/latestfeatures/2012/03/HighContrast430.jpg)

He's a pretty interesting guy - started out as a film producer and kinda fell into drum and bass music. He has been releasing albums since 2003 and his Radio 1 Essential Mix was selected as Pete Tong's mix of the year in 2007. Danny Boyle is one of his biggest fans and decided to look to his unique mix of film and musical experience to help to compile the official soundtrack to the London Olympics. He has some pedigree too, his dad used to manage Shakin' Stevens!

His remix of Strong by London Grammar is tearing it up in the clubs at the moment:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u4MYHE_cIk

The video to this 2004 release features a Jason Mercier cameo at 2:47

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elv-Egyp_To

This one should probably come with an epilepsy warning:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTKmxBtaMF4

if you can hit 2700 u still going for 400k vpps?

going to uk poker champs?

Lincoln Barrett in the thread, abs class act. Definitely my favourite producer alongside Calibre when I was loving the bass and drum.

I FKING LOVE HIGH CONTRAST


just lolz at the mercier clip wondered what you meant  <3

Do mixes even get better than this?


YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozV_vWXZgZY

+1 to high contrast. Loved this stuff for years and now will be listening all night after ive not heard it in a bit!

Remember last time I did an RSQ?!?!

You won!

So have a go at this one and try and defend your crown:

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=63088.0 (http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=63088.0)

GL with the grind

Days 20-23

VPPs - 3527
VPPs This Month - 35,270

HUSNGs - -$584

January Profit - $2436
January Rakeback - $2907

Cooled off a bit in the last few days but happy with how I've played bar a couple of sessions. Unfortunately the sessions where I didn't play well were playing higher so cost a bit but nothing too bad. Haven't played a ton - 20 hours in 4 days but going to be stepping it up for the last week of January to make sure I'm a good chunk ahead of 400k VPP pace which is 33.3k VPPs. Looking at finishing the month with around 45k. Lots of stuff going on in February so won't be able to put in as much volume.

Picked up the new Eminem album today, always enjoyed his stuff and not for the first time I think this is his best album yet. He just manages to keep raising the bar, very impressive imo. As per with Eminem pulling any single track from the album would be an injustice to the finished product so not gunna post any links but definitely worth a listen.

(http://cdn.hiphopdx.com/images/eminem-mm2.jpg)

Day 24

VPPs - 3527
VPPs This Month - 35,270

HUSNGs - -$973

January Profit - $3409
January Rakeback - $3013

What could have been a huge day ended up just being a good one because I couldn't quit. Pretty disappointed, I'm usually really good at quitting when I feel like I'm not playing well but this guy was just the nut worst and managed to get there on the most tilting board runs. I ended up playing him for another three games after I decided I'd definitely quit and ended up going 0-6 against him to finish the day. Still on track to hit 45k VPPs for the month but wasn't helped by a connection issue this morning that meant I couldn't put in a proper session until 10.30pm.

The TCOOP heads up event is tomorrow so that should be fun. I have a lolbad record in these heads up MTTs despite running pretty golden with the opponent draws so maybe this time it all comes together.

Yeah still sticking with 400 but keeping an eye on 500k pace and unless I end up taking a chunk of time off for whatever reason that'll probably be what I go for.

Skipping the UKPC, got a big team out in Leeds for the missus' birthday:

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/t31/883274_640309176007101_1693127777_o.jpg)

I did actually play a few sats for it though, this absolute gem was on the bubble, 5 seats

***** Hand History for Game 5282376973 ***** (IPoker)
Tourney Hand NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, November 26, 11:38:04 ET 2013
Table Dusk Mega Sat  815564402 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 2: frikandelftw ( $122901.00 USD )
Seat 4: PocketHal ( $86977.00 USD )
Seat 6: DoubtItMate ( $61655.00 USD )
Seat 7: Vinodh1980 ( $64981.00 USD )
Seat 9: FrankJunior19 ( $73974.00 USD )
Seat 10: andrew194777 ( $159512.00 USD )
DoubtItMate posts ante of [$400.00 USD].
Vinodh1980 posts ante of [$400.00 USD].
FrankJunior19 posts ante of [$400.00 USD].
andrew194777 posts ante of [$400.00 USD].
frikandelftw posts ante of [$400.00 USD].
PocketHal posts ante of [$400.00 USD].
DoubtItMate posts small blind [$2000.00 USD].
Vinodh1980 posts big blind [$4000.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to DoubtItMate [   Ahrt 4d ]
FrankJunior19 folds
andrew194777 folds
frikandelftw folds
PocketHal folds
DoubtItMate raises [$59255.00 USD]
Vinodh1980 calls [$57255.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2h, Ts, 2c ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3d ]
** Dealing River ** [ Js ]
Vinodh1980 wins $124910.00 USD from main pot
Vinodh1980 shows [Jc, 9c ]

lulz

Can you confirm/deny the rumour (that I may possibly have just made up) that your sole reason for creating this diary was to post that HH :P

Lol

Best of luck with the grind pal!

I'm a huge fan of the music you are posting too, keep it coming :)

haha its one of my favourite for sure, was definitely going to go up at some point :P

Day 25

VPPs - 1280
VPPs This Month - 37,923

HUSNGs - -$1160

January Profit - $2249
January Rakeback - $3115

A thoroughly deserved loss, I played like shit today. The connection issues with BT Infinity customers continued today, apparently a fibre optic cable under the sea between the UK and the Isle of Mann is down and traffic is being rerouted via satellite. Unfortunately said satellite can't handle peak traffic which explains why its been unplayable during the daytime but fine after around 9pm. Ended up having to skip the TCOOP heads up which was disappointing but hey ho, SCOOP isn't far away.

Day 26

VPPs - 844
VPPs This Month - 38,767

HUSNGs - $565

January Profit - $2814
January Rakeback - $3182

Still having connection issues stopping me from playing before 10pm so poor volume again but decent results.

Decided to put up a few tracks by Sigma, one of the hottest production duos at the moment. They've been around since '08 but had a really big last 6 months of 2013 and seem to have plenty more in the pipeline. This first track in particular is an example of the funny crossovers that can happen when dnb producers have a go at tracks that are getting big radio airplay. The only radio shows I listen to are Friction, Crissy Criss, Annie Mac and Annie Nightingale (all Radio 1/1xtra) so when it comes to top 40 stuff I don't really have a clue whats up there at any given time. This one isn't set for release until March so not sure how much love its getting on commercial radio just yet but its looking like being one of the bigger tracks of the year already. Can definitely see this being a big festival anthem this year. Sigma did really well with Rudeboy last year and Summer Days was featured in a ton of festival sets last summer too so they're gaining momentum and are definitely one to watch. Enjoy :)

(http://media.lessthan3.com/2010/08/Sigma_pic.jpg)

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk9kfx4W2MA

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZfgppIH3rQ

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY5dKL7aMCo

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY_7vXg8KBc

sigma remix of route 94 is incred!!

check these out if you aint already!


YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qo7ozrf7LI


another i'd like to share

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-Ff4TYLPT0

Day 27

VPPs - 1438
VPPs This Month - 40,205

HUSNGs - $590

January Profit - $3404
January Rakeback - $3296

First day of battling against the newly formed 'cartel' at $60 hypers on stars. Basically a group of the best regs getting entering an agreement to sit anyone outside the group if they're in a lobby. If you're in then you get all the fish you want and if you're out you're playing 100% of your games against regs. I'm not really into the whole heads up SNG community so I don't know who's orchestrating the deal which means I'm out by default and will have to play my way in. It has caused a lot of controversy, Stars have made a statement saying that people can do what they want and if people want to group together to control the lobbies at a particular game/stake then thats fine which I agree with. I think its just a natural evolution of the game but we'll see what happens.

Everyone in the cartel agrees to sit anyone and everyone thats out if they appear in the lobbies which means that the weakest members of the cartel are bound to sit anyone outside even if they don't think that they're +EV against them. Apparently anyone that refuses to sit people outside of the group will be booted out since the other members won't appreciate the weaker members freerolling lobbies without putting in the games against outsiders. In theory this should work out great with all the best players getting all the recs and the weaker players being forced to move down in stakes. There will always be politics involved though with friendships and staking arrangements within and outside the group, so we'll see what happens. I've already have a few of the cartel regs quit me which they're not supposed to be doing so the group will probably all fall apart as these have done many times in the past.

Finished super late so didn't get a chance to check these out, will do in the morning :)

Really enjoying this blog, keep it up :)up

Day 28

VPPs - 1989
VPPs This Month - 42,194

HUSNGs - $26

January Profit - $3430
January Rakeback - $3454

Dug myself another hole and got out again today, plenty of VPPs and cruising towards my January goal of 45k which is pretty chill. Playing against the catel at hypers has been pretty fun.

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/703/scv6.png)

@Oxford, really like the Route 94 track, the Kahn one didn't really grab me, the vocal loops were kinda irritating actually! I stumbled across a mix that Route 94 put together for Skream & Benga's future stars show on Radio 1 that has been getting rave reviews. I haven't listened to it myself yet but it'll be first up tomorrow

https://soundcloud.com/route94/skream-bengas-2014-future


tyty, so so many artists I want to feature that they'll definitely take me to the end of the year probably even more!

Day 29

VPPs - 1574
VPPs This Month - 43,768

HUSNGs - -$171

January Profit - $3259
January Rakeback - $3576

Played ok today, not great but passable at any rate. I've been watching some heads up cash videos that are a little more balance/game theory based because I feel thats an area of my game that could be vastly improved upon. Standard heads up SNG strategy is really big on exploitative strategies that can really get you into trouble against better players if you're unable to reign it in a bit with a barrelling and start clicking the call button a lot more than you would against unknowns. Consequently I made a couple of horrendous river calls (:D) but lots of good information overall.

Posting a few tracks from one of my favourite producers on the scene at the moment, Etherwood. He has a really unique style of super chill dnb that is more piano-driven than well....drum and bass driven :) Kinda hard to explain but you'll know what I mean if you give it a listen. His debut album dropped on Med School Music (the sub label of the mighty Hospital Records that gives exposure to a lot of new and emerging artists) in November to near universal acclaim. For sure one of the best albums of 2013 imo.

The gig I'm off to in Leeds at the end of Feb will be my fifth attempt at seeing him live. Due to his really chill vibe he tends to be pretty far down the billing at a lot of events and even opening at like 8pm sometimes. I'm 0-5 at getting to any of these things before midnight but I shall be there for opening this time. Its not really even stuff that you'd really want to dance to, just beautiful sounds to sit and have a beer to!

(http://podcast.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Hospital_podcast.gif)

(http://www.medschoolmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/splatmed-1024px.png)

(https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/hos-static-shop/image/1474/medium)

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1-7oQpFbwg

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2kNP68Deqc

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9971qhDjUw

Days 30 & 31

Day 29

VPPs - 2482
VPPs This Month - 46,250

HUSNGs - -$430

January Profit - $2829
January Rakeback - $3781

Didn't play much the last couple of days, been getting into a really bad routine of being awake till 7am and not getting up until gone 2pm, definitely need to fix that. Played another 200s session, ended with a small loss but absolutely chunking off EV. Been running pretty hot all in but been regularly finding nut low board runs and having to make sigh folds in big pots a lot hence red line hitting the deck.

Not a bad start to the year by any means but could have been a lot better results-wise. February will be lower volume but I'm going to be adding in some volume on iPoker where all of the games are in Euros now so adding in some 100 euro games will up my average buyin a little. Lets gooooo.

Days 32 & 33

VPPs - 1979
VPPs This Month - 1979
VPPs - 48,229

HUSNGs - $959

Feb Profit - $959
Feb Rakeback - $174

Went to see Josh Butler last night at a smallish house night in Sheffield, he absolutely tore it up as expected. Definitely the real deal and has big things to come for sure.

Staying with the housey vibe I'm going with some Duke Dumont for today, another up and comer getting lots of airtime on Radio 1 with support from Annie Mac and Zane Lowe. His track 'Need You 100%' made number one on the UK singles chart and was nominated for Best Dance Record at the Grammys and his newest release coming in March, 'I Got U' is gunna be pretty big too I'm sure. Personally my favourites are some of the older ones that have a bit of a deeper, more rugged sound. 'The Giver' probably sticks out as my favourite Deep House tune although I've not really been into the genre for that long. Enjoy :)

(https://d2q0qd5iz04n9u.cloudfront.net/_ssl/proxy.php/http/gallery.mailchimp.com/e534cf36e750ca930bb712113/images/dukedumont_4505c3074.jpg)

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgTB1ay_nnA

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoyDZD7e6Us

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df7H-RSvcpE

Days 34-36

VPPs - 3931
VPPs This Month - 6226
VPPs - 52,160

HUSNGs - $1260

Feb Profit - $2216
Feb Rakeback - $487

Been putting in more volume at 200s, mostly against regs and I've been running better in the bigger games, all looking good. I've been asked to make a video for HUSNG.com to celebrate their 5th birthday so that should be going up some time this month, will link it here if anyone wants to take a look. Its a $100 turbo review against a reg with some interesting spots so should be worth a watch. I was asked by Patrick if I wanted to make some videos for PokerStrategy a few months ago when I was at a reasonably low ebb about my game and poker in general so I've just kinda left it and haven't said anything which I think was pretty poor form but I'll definitely be getting some content up on there if the offer is still open so watch this space I guess.

Really psyched for the next Hospital Records gig in Leeds in a few weeks. Friction is headlining, he is the label boss for Shogun Audio and he hosts the drum n bass show on Radio 1. Generally an all round legend so decided to throw a few of his tracks up.

(http://files.list.co.uk/images/2010/01/12/dj-friction-3-LST069010.jpg)

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-U_UWj56Ec

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r81-PzyuJnk

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wRQVaMmvrs

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ9czJkH2uM

Nice first month Dan and a nice amount of vpp's there. Playing mtt's I probably earn about 8 times less vpp's per hour making it impossible to be SNE and I still have to work hard to make SN.

tyty, yeah this if the first year where I've really been 100% settled on stars so I've never really been one for setting VPP goals before. I always used to go for volume targets in terms of number of games but often miss them mainly due to laziness. I never really used to play regs too much when I was grinding on ipoker because there were 4 lobbies for every stake so there wasn't really any need but I was getting max 40 games/day just bumhunting.

This year I've taken the advice of a lot of guys that play higher and just decided to study super hard and fight everyone for the lobbies and its showing good results so far. I'm getting in a ton more games/hour now that I'm sitting lots of regs and even though it ups my variance its good for my game in general and there is definitely money to be made being more aggro with your game selection. Gone are the days of sitting in a ton of lobbies waiting for action, there are just too many regs to be able to do that now, especially on stars where its one lobby per stake. I only wish I'd started doing this sooner! Feeling really good about generally upping my productivity and $/hr which at the end of the day is what its all about.

Congrats on the 8r bink btw, diary rungood on tap for the rest of the year ;)

Day 37

VPPs - 1557
VPPs This Month - 7783
VPPs - 53,717

HUSNGs - $290

Feb Profit - $2506
Feb Rakeback - $611

Lots of action against regs today, got in a bit of a hole early but kept at it and turned it around. Volume so far this month has been kinda shaky. So far this month my dinner break has been about 4 hours a day which really isn't going to cut it but results have been good so I can hide behind those at least for now. Definitely putting at 6+ hour day tomorrow to gain some ground. Definitely definitely. Maybe :)

Going with Wilkinson for todays musical offering. He had a massive year in 2013 with his debut album Lazers Not Included and the first single from that album 'Afterglow' made it to #8 on the UK Singles chart. Always nice to get the sound out there and charting top 10 means good exposure. So many tracks I could post, check out his Soundcloud to get the lot.

(http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/304x171/p01dvwhy.jpg)

Bit of a minimal track, perfect end of the night tune

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs32tD6vXtU

Take You Higher appeared in too many sets during festival season but still a great tune

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=927lw0HBmHM

Need To Know from late 2012, really smooth

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUoIEtWgIhM

Automatic, bit of a darker one

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWZQhQnTpD0

Days 38 & 39

VPPs - 733
VPPs This Month - 8516
VPPs This Year - 54,450

HUSNGs - $734

Feb Profit - $3240
Feb Rakeback - $670

Oh dear oh dear, Friday ended up being an impromptu Mexican night and James Zabiela was playing at Plug last night which I couldn't say no to. Managed to play 2 and a half hours in the last 2 days but ran pretty hot and had a great weekend too so feeling good :)

view on plug?

Ive not been in years and keep refusing to go after having quite a few bad incidents in there in a row! Has it improved?!

Used to be a barman in plug lols

ha i used to sell tickets for events!

Best city centre club for sure, they've massively upped their game with what nights they've taken on and who they book etc.

It always used to be that on a Friday and Saturday the whole place was open as the main night. Now they close off room 2 for some sort of house/tech night and its usually a recognisable name. They never chuck out before 6 and you don't have to leave drinks inside to go to the smoking area which is so tilt. Can't really say much about their own nights, haven't been to one of those since Jump Around on a Thursday when I was a student but never seen any trouble in there. I still don't reckon I could stomach another cheeky vimto though.

Lollllllllllllll

Day 40

VPPs - 1262
VPPs This Month - 9779
VPPs This Year - 55,713

HUSNGs - $1508

Feb Profit - $4748
Feb Rakeback - $771

Didn't wake up till 3pm, managed to feel alive enough to flick in the $215 weekly heads up, bricked first round so just went back to bed. Felt suitably guilty at around 3am to play another session even though I was pretty much certain I was gunna get  soulcrushed. As it turns out I was getting good action from a couple of russian recs at 200s and ended up putting in a decent winner in a ~90 minute session.

James Zabiela's set was pretty awesome last night, switched it up a ton between his usual house stuff and some DnB/Garage/Electro thrown in. As soon as this bassline kicked in the place went mental, classic tune. Enjoy :)

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTOSvEX-YeY

congrats dan, awesome start to the year

Lets get together soon btw x

Enjoying the blog Dan.

I am so old that Plug didn't exist when I was at uni in Sheffield! In the same vein I do remember the Roots Manuva video from that era, one of my faves.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDWgtB_MD24

Day 41

VPPs - 1298
VPPs This Month - 11,077
VPPs This Year - 57,012

HUSNGs - -$1531

Feb Profit - $3217
Feb Rakeback - $875

Won 9 buyins at 100s, lost 12 at 200s continuing to run absolutely putrid in the higher games. Kicking a -14% ROI over 236 games at 200s with is absolutely rofl. Winning at 4.4% at 100s. Dat variance.

Days 42-44

VPPs - 2496
VPPs This Month - 13,573
VPPs This Year - 59,907

HUSNGs - -$1943

Feb Profit - $1274
Feb Rakeback - $1218

We can officially file this attempt at moving up under F for Fail. Overall I don't think that I played the greatest but equally I just never really got a chance to prove anything when the card distribution was just impossible to overcome. I was pretty disheartened when I finished my last 200s session a couple of hours ago but pretty over it now. 250 games is nothing.

(http://imageshack.com/a/img571/5526/qwte.png)

Still pretty frustrating that I'm comfortably the biggest winner at 100s on stars this year but just can't seem to gain any traction at 200s at all. There is definitely a step up in the standard of the regs playing 200s but its not a huge difference. Looking at my 100s results over a big sample theres just no way that my results to far at 200s can be close to accurate, but hey ho. On we plod.

(http://imageshack.com/a/img594/7573/aa4c.png)

I just finished watching all of Breaking Bad for the second time, definitely has excellent re-watch value once you've seen it through and know how everything comes together. There is so much stuff that you just don't notice at all until you know the whole story. I'm not sure how I feel about the upcoming spin-off series 'Better Call Saul' which is a prequel to Breaking Bad. Its from the same production team and they've got Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks back as Saul and Mike so it certianly has potential. They set the bar so high though with Breaking Bad so we'll have to wait see. It kicks off in November so plenty to come before that. Most notably the fourth series of Game of Thrones which is a lock to be amazing and the final series of Boardwalk Empire some time late this year too so looking forward to those.

I've just started watching Archer since Netflix has been pestering me about how much I'd like it. Only watched the first couple of episodes but loving it so far. Definitely appeals to my juvenile sense of humour! No time to be worrying about poker at the moment anyway, got a nasty little warehouse gig lined up for tomorrow night so probably just gunna take the day off and get a slice of the weekend warriors on Saturday.

Another slammer from Dimension that came out a couple of weeks ago:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SfJOTQ7T4s

Watched all of Breaking Bad twice except the 2nd half of the last season, abs confirmed rewatchable.

I think anyone expecting Better call Saul to be anywhere even close to as good as Breaking Bad is going to be left very disappointed. I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes since it's a lot of the same people involved but have no expectations of it being another classic.

Only played a couple of days since the last update. Was ill for most of this week which was entirely self induced burning the candle at both ends. Got three 'getting-battered-free' weeks coming up with a big one to look forward to, seeing probably my favourite deep house producers - Dusky.

Its also the coming home party for two of my best mates who went off travelling in October so will definitely be outrageously good. The two sessions I did put in this week though went pretty well, ended up running silly hot with separate 5, 7 and 15(!!) game win streaks over 70 games. That was all at 100s though, gotta work on shipping some of this rungood into the bigger games!

This Week

VPPs - 3389
VPPs This Month - 16,962
VPPs This Year - 62,896

HUSNGs - $1352

Feb Profit - $2626
Feb Rakeback - $1651

Duskyyyyyyyyy

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyjWrzMzJn0

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3RU8Y8ied8

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZvKDWaz934

some big swings in HU games. but a great read  Aspades Ad

Decided to change it up a bit with the blog and stop posting daily results. It gets kinda dull and honestly there just isn't that much interesting stuff to write about playing 50-odd heads up SNGs.

The last couple of days have been reasonably fun though.

Yesterday:

(http://i60.tinypic.com/2iifnrt.png)

Today:

(http://i57.tinypic.com/2146mu0.png)

Decent volume for the last two days of the month to put my VPP total for Feb to just under 26k which I'm pretty pleased with considering that between illness and hangover I had a week off. Results were pretty decent overall, going for a big volume month in March. Going for 40k VPPs which would be my biggest month VPPs-wise ever. It wouldn't be the end of the world if I missed it, even 30k would have me at 100k VPPs at the quarter mark which at the start of the year I'd definitely have been happy with.

Feb 2014:

(http://i58.tinypic.com/2yo4tty.png)

Two of my best mates come back from travelling next week and theres a big reunion planned with old uni mates which will be awesome. Also just picked up tickets for Global Gathering and Creamfields festivals. Already psyched for festival season and its only March! Last year my birthday fell on the first day of Global and its the same this year so my 25th (christ!!) will likely be a  contender for best birthday ever! Hopefully the weather holds like it did last year, theres nothing quite like an awesome festival in the sunshine, definitely something that everyone needs to experience at least once.

Couple of just-released tracks that have been getting some love this week:

Royalston - Jungle Gone Down. Taken from the album OCD. Definitely one of the best produced albums I've heard in a little while.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnMOFpahPnY

The Prototypes - Lights. This is the B side to the Pale Blue Dot EP which has been really big so far this year. The Prototypes are one of the hottest commodities in DnB at the moment and just signed to a new label with their debut album coming in a few months. Lots more to come from them for sure.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0-HicFSCxM

Nice one on a good couple of days, the start of a great March!

Is it just HU sit and go's you play? Or do you play HU cash also?

I was playing quite a lot of HU turbos, and then moved over to mostly playing hypers.

Over a sample size of 150, which i know is really small my roi was 20%.

That was at the back end of last week and this week's been pretty terrible. Just ran terrible, getting it in ahead getting sucked out on and struggling to win a flip.

If you  ever experience that, do you just take a break for a while or play through it?

Good luck with the rest of the month.

Yep just SNGs, haven't really even experimented much with HU cash. I've heard plenty of bad things about the state of heads up cash games, just not something I really want/need to get involved in at the moment. At the start of the year I was playing a fair bit of 20bb CAP heads up cash but the rake is absolutely savage and there hasn't been a shortage of action at HUSNGs so just grinding those atm with no plans to change.

Yep 150 games isn't really a sample. You should have a look at the variance simulator on HUSNG.com, its under free > software and tools. I think you need to make an account to view it but its free. Playing micros I'd assume that 10-15% is achievable, maybe higher so looking at a winrate of about 58-60%. Very difficult to know your true winrate, but 1k games is a good starting point.

For ages I was a big advocate of just grinding through it, now though I tend to take a day or two off and just study a ton if things are going especially badly. Theres nothing better for reducing the overall impact of negative variance on your bottom line than getting better.

If you haven't heard it yet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ot2l7SfGMQ

tyty, heard it on Frictions show on Sunday but I hadn't seen the video. I'm not really a fan of the minimix format since it usually just ends up being a never ending string of drops. Having said that, I liked Chase & Status' mix that they put together for Annic Mac a few years ago

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Zfz7Qhzhw

Loving some of the newer stuff on Soundcloud at the moment, especially a duo from Exeter called Submental. Crissy Criss has been playing a few of their tracks on his BBC 1Xtra show and its probably some of the best production work I've ever heard from an emerging artist.

https://soundcloud.com/submentaldnb

'My Side' has been in my head since its first play a couple of weeks ago. Their souldcloud only has a short clip but theres a longer version in the last 2 minutes of the Technique Records podcast #25 which was a mix put together by Criss Criss. I'd definitely put the Technique podcast in my top 3. Its no nonsense, a short intro and straight into an hour long mix unlike others where its just 40 minutes of talking and not a lot of music. I love their live events but the Hospital Records podcast is pretty unbearable. They spend half the time reading fan mail which is all very nice but do we really all need to hear about how the music got them through the upset from their hamsters colonoscopy?

if you into chase and status mate of a mate interviewed them not long ago

 http://www.soundcloud.com/uncledugs/dugschaseandstatus

Lighter !

March has kicked off pretty swingy, been playing 200s again this time with much improved results. Volume has been pretty lame though, 32 hours so far this month. Just under 9k VPPs and I'm probably gunna miss my 40k VPP target by a fair distance but my days off so far this month have been for impromptu nights out/hangovers rather than laziness so thats something.

Also had a little trip to DTD this morning. Played the online day 1 of the £500 and made day 2 with 20 bigs. Unfortunately thats about how many minutes I lasted but that was ample time for live poker to give me a smile. I open  Ks Qs UTG+1 and get two MP callers, I cbet 4s 4d 3h and get one caller. I jam for ~pot on a Kd turn and villain hits the tank, announcing that it 'could be a chop'. I guess he eventually convinced himself that it was definitely a chop so he called with the Ad Jd. Alas, villains soul read was wide of the mark and the river 6d is a not a chop out so back to Sheffield we go.

Friday night was supposed to be a relatively subdued affair for a mates birthday but at half 12 we were all too tanked up to go home. Flicked through the events for some of the local venues and it turned out that Infinity Ink were playing in Sheffield. Infinity Ink are another group associated with Jamie Jones and Lee Foss of Hot Creations Records. I put some of their stuff up a few posts back. Really wanted to see them at Global last year but ended up clashing with lots of other so good to have another one ticked off the list.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkzvSf9NLTY

In a bit of a different direction I had 'Profit In Peace' pop into my head earlier. I've no idea why but theres nothing wrong with a bit of Ocean Colour Scene. Not something I've listened to in quite a while but thought I'd put it up anyway along with my favourite OCS song.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OesTFysRzbc

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1IiywCsFbU

OCS itt!! and i thought your taste in music was terrible with all that dancy stuff!
spent so many hours listening to the scene and have probably seen them live 6-7 times.

Hehe plenty of love for OCS, I had my indie/rock phase when I was 16/17, firmly of the belief that anything that didn't use 'traditional' instruments wasn't real music and was terrible. How times change! I even had terrible hair to boot.

(http://i57.tinypic.com/of7er5.png)

Actually when it comes to music almost all of my favourite songs are from the indie/rock genre rather than anything electronic. Come to think of it I've only just realised that a lot of them are pretty downbeat and angsty but they're not associated with anything upsetting, I've haven't really had anything hugely upsetting happen in my life to this point, I just like them.

Athlete - Street Map
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo0n4DeLiD0

Embrace - Gravity
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBK5K145iIY

Paul Weller - English Rose
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omXvnvhclMw

that there looks like a new stars avatar.........

lol im in

Turns out that 40k really was a bridge too far. I didn't play a ton in March, only 90 hours played so plenty of room for improvement there but I didn't make it to 100k VPPs for the year so its not all doom and gloom on the volume front. I'm where I wanted to VPPs-wise and my average buyin is only going to increase throughout the year so should be racking up the VPPs plenty fast.

Results wise March went really well, the biggest breakthrough coming in the last couple of weeks where I've been solidifying my place as a 200s reg. Not completely there yet but the couple of guys that are playing hardball don't really play a whole lot so it isn't really much of an issue and I've been able to dig myself out of the big 200s hole that I created in Jan/Feb. Really happy to have turned it around at 200s and I'm picking up a ton of stuff from the regs that play 200s-500s when they want to play some too which is looking promising.

Graph for March:

(http://i62.tinypic.com/15me44k.png)

Obviously ran pretty hot but an EV ROI of 5.6% is doing alright.

Off to see Fred V & Grafix for their debut album launch at Tuesday Club tomorrow so thought I'd post a couple of tracks from one of the biggest producers to have a breakout 2013.

(http://music.bimus.ro/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fred-v-grafix1.jpg)

Fred V & Grafix - Just A Thought
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oKjVmVBuY0

Fred V & Grafix - Major Happy
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lekF7y4Am4U

A few others I've been listening to since the last update:

Some old:

Dub Phizix - Marka

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ydQ-qPD324

Massive Attack - Teardrop (Contra Remix)

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgL2btIRKvM

Desmond Dekker - The Israelites (Freear Remix)
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxNUx5_39Xo

Some new:

Fourward - Countdown
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QJgKe4Hxg0

Frankee - Away
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM1ak9adoP8

NC-17 & Soulculture - War Master
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QrHMwlfn-w

N3gus & Jakes - Walk The Walk - not usually my kind of thing but its been in my head since I first heard it so no escape just yet =/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stZ4nQqErMU

BOOM, good month brah.

player search stato_1 for those of you that want to see the new avatar in action :)

hahaha

yeh mines been in action in the 3r just now too <3

I thought sigh at where he's located in the photo as you cant center it but it allows really well for the note icon. :D