blonde poker forum

Been tinkering with the idea of starting up a blog for quite sometime now after a few people keep mentioning it to me, and after reading quite a few of the other blogs on here, I thought it would be quite fun.


Well, where do I start. My name is Liam Batey, i'm 29 years old and I live just on the outskirts of Sherwood Forest which is pretty good for me as DTD is only 25 miles away and Sheffield is 25 miles the other way so smack bang in the middle of 2 nice spots to go play some live pokerzz.


The BMX years.....


I had a pretty different childhood to most kids. I had a fascination of bikes from a very early age, learning to ride a BMX without stabilisers at only 2 years old, and by the age of 4, I was racing BMX against boys 2 years older than myself in the 6 years and under category at national races all around the country along with my older brother, Kelvin who started racing in the 7 year old's.


So while most kids couldn't wait to get home from school to watch tv, play on their commodore 64's or go play football with their mates, me and my brother couldn't wait to get home so we could go ride our bikes! My dad would be waiting at the school gates with our bikes and kit in the car, and we would get changed on the journey to the track and we would do hours and hours of training, which paid off because after only a year me and my brother were the number one riders in Britain for our age, and were training for the 1991 European Championships which luckily for us were being held in England. I went onto win the 6 year old expert category and my brother finished 2nd place in the 9 year old experts.


2 weeks later and we travelled to Norway for the World Championships, and we both made the final of our first ever world championships. Unfortunately, it wouldn't end well for either of us, as in my race, I was battling for the lead into the first turn with my main competitor from Columbia and I crashed out and finished 8th place, my brother was actually winning the final but got past by the defending world champion from France to finish 2nd place for the Silver medal.  

There was some joy though as the team who sponsored me and my brother entered the world team championships which collaborated the results of the top 6 riders from each team and our team won the overall which was nice.


So after travelling on the road to races all round the uk and europe most weekends for the next 10 years, winning 9 British championships, and 2 European championships along the way, i'm at a cross roads in life.... do I try to make a living from cycling or go down the route most of my mates from school were going down with A-Levels and uni.  It was the year 2000 at this point and there were no Olympic games for BMX racers, and the bmx boom of the 90's where the pro's were making close to half a million dollars a year were gone, so the only way to make money was to make the trip across the pond to America.


I had got really good GCSE results even though I missed a lot of school due to travelling and training getting in the way, so I decided to take my A Levels and continue training and racing and make my mind up after. I completed my first year of A levels and my racing was failing, I had finished 4th overall in England and was feeling burnt out. I was going out abit more with my mates and I wasn't training as intensely as I did in the previous years, and there was a new type of pedal that had come onto the scene from mountain bikes, where you could clip your shoe into the pedal which dramatically increased your power output and sustainable speed as you had an upstroke on the pedal as well as a down stroke which you couldn't do with a normal pedal. Very little was known about this pedal at the time, and the 3 guys who had beat me that year were all using them, and I wasn't. They were thought to be quite dangerous as you were attached to your bike and couldn't eject yourself away from your bike if you crashed which put a few people off, myself included, but the off season of 2001 would change my mind about things as I went on a road riding training camp in Ibiza (good road rides due to the hilly terrain and sunny climate). I used the pedals for the first time on the road bikes and as soon as I got home, I got some BMX specific ones, and the results blew my mind, I felt so strong and trained my ass off that winter and signed my first professional contract at 17 years old.


The start of the 2002 season, I was racing Men for the first time as I competed in the Masterclass category ( which in football terms is kinda like the championship, with ex professionals who have dropped down and up and coming youngsters battling to get into the premier league of English bmx - The Elite class)


I had a good solid first year, highlights were a silver medal in the under 18 European indoor championships which went to a photo finish, a top 8 overall finish in the national masterclass rankings and a 6th place in the annual pro-am open which was an open event to any rider from the uk. Elite, Masterclass and expert riders all competed. I was the youngest rider in the final, so was really pleased to get 6th place, and a nice pay check to go with it as it was the biggest prize payout race of the year.


With my A Levels done, my grades were good, not all A's or A*'s like I had been predicted 2 years earlier, but solid results good enough to get me in most uni's I wished to go. However there were rumours of BMX being including in future Olympic Games, and my brother was racing in the Elite class in Europe and was one of the top riders outside of USA, and we could train full time together and just get faster and faster, so I decided I wouldn't go to uni and I moved into the Elite class and raced all around Europe going on some crazy trips, and making friends with people all over the world, but the results wasn't showing yet as the talent was so deep.


Fast-forward to 2005, BMX had been confirmed for the Beijing Olympics and my brother was making his annual trip to California for his 12 week winter training ahead of the upcoming season, and last minute, I decided to fly out a week after him and I lived and trained with some of the top riders in the world, on some of the best tracks in the world, in sunshine 7 days a week. I came back a different rider, winning finals in the Elite class in England, started beating my brother for the first time too. We even placed 1st and 2nd in the none official World Championships race where the use of clip pedals was banned, which was pretty incredible.

I spent my 21st Birthday in Paris, France competing at the official world championships in the famous Bercy Indoor stadium where I was eliminated at the 1/4 final stage, but my brother went on to win the Silver Medal for 2nd place.


British Cycling armed with a money pot of funding due to the Olympic announcement, pumped money into an Olympic Academy for 8 of the top men and women from the uk to get lottery funding, and have access to train at top facilities around the country with some of the top sports men and women from different sports and top coaches, nutritionist and psychologists on hand for your every need. I was one of the 8 chosen to be on the programme.


 However...things wouldn't go to plan....


I had discovered POKER in 2002 after investing in some shares on the stock market in a gaming company, and one of their business interests was poker which I then had a go, and loved it. I was playing it whenever I had some spare time. It was having a negative effect on my BMX but more about that later.......


The next few years went by and the pressure of the Olympics on the horizon and the seriousness of the whole lottery funding, the fun had been taken out of BMX for me, and it was a tough few years slogging it out racing below what I and my coaches expected. I didn't qualify for the 2008 Olympics and after they were over, it was kind of a relief that the pressure would subside for a while.


I was spending many of the cold winter months each year in Southern California, and making some amazing memories and friends over there, but in 2009 I decided to base myself in England full time and try to concentrate on the uk bmx scene. Over the next couple of years my passion and drive for bmx was dwindling, culminating with my uk sport lottery funding being cut and took off the Olympic Academy. I had one last shot at making a go at the Olympics 2012 with qualification ongoing, a training crash resulting in a dislocated shoulder and hand injury ended my slim hopes, so I decided to hang up my bike and unofficially retire in 2012.


I had a brief stint as the Rep of Ireland Team Coach for my brothers shot at the London Olympics but he missed out by just one qualifying place. (he would redeem himself this year by getting 1st place at the world championships in New Zealand).


Pokerzzzz...


As I briefly said earlier, I started out waaaay back in 2002, and before I knew it, I was playing 1000nl and 2000nl on 888's Pacific Poker skin. I have no idea how but I was making money. Looking back now, I was horrendous. I think the fact that most people were pretty bad back then, and that site was full of gambling whale's / shot takers, I managed to escape my whirlwind introduction to poker unscathed.


Poker was like a backdrop to my BMX, playing in hotels during downtime at races, and at home inbetween training sessions. I had built up a nice roll online and heard about a new poker venue opening up in Nottingham called Dusk Till Dawn. I made my first trip there during a £300 deepstack weekend, and I played the £75 side event...I had no idea how live poker worked, pretty funny that during the first break, I picked up all my chips and walked round the club with them in my pocket for the whole break then went back to the table and put them back LOOOOL, nobody told me you could just leave them there hahaha, anyway I stone cold bubbled in 10th. I was gutted, it was 3am and I had wasted a whole night playing just one tournament to finish with nothing.


I didn't go back till the next deep stack month and played the same £75 comp..... guess what... I stone cold bubbled AGAIN!! What the hell was going on, this live poker must not have been for me I thought, stick to the computer my dad said. I took his advice and won a nice amount at the start of 2010 and I put down a large deposit on a house, luckily for me I had withdrew it from my Full Tilt Account, however I still left a large sum in there to play with and this unfortunately was seized along with a lot of other peoples money. I felt sick! All my money was tied up in my house, and the rest had gone! Poker took a break for awhile, and along came Frankie with a live staking deal to get me back into it. I didn't do well for Frankie admittedly but he was brilliant with me, something I'll never forget. A friend for life.


At the back end of 2012, I was thinking of giving up on poker, however that just wasn't in my nature. I took a break and just watched training video after training video, had an early Christmas present with my money back from full tilt, and I was armed with knowledge ready for 2013.


This year has been amazing for me, I have travelled all around the country playing the uk festivals UKIPT's GPS GUKPT's and the bigger DTD comps. I had an amazing 5 weeks in Las Vegas with the Django guys for the world series, even luck box shipping a tournament over there for my biggest live result to date. I've met so many new friends and even though ive had so many deep runs in England recently, even rivalling mincashmitch for his title, I am still yet to have that big result in the uk.

My game of choice is live cash in either the 1/2 or 2/5 variety. However, I have played in 5/10 and 10/20 games this year, although these games are pretty rare.
I am more of a cash game player, which is prob why I can build so many huge stacks on day 1's yet stumble and fall into a min cash when we get short, but I still have a love/hate relationship with tournies.

Hopefully you didn't fall asleep during my OP and I'll try to keep it interesting over the coming months.


I have a day 2 of the DTD Big Game coming up tomorrow after qualifying online on Thursday coming back with 50 bigs, then its the GPS grand final in Sheffield which is kind of like my home club at the moment and have a pretty sick winning rate in that place, so hopefully continue that next week.


Thanks for reading and feel free to contribute or ask me anything.


Liam

Good stuff, nice to see this start....

good luck tomorrow

Regards

Your "please do not sprew it off again" mentor

enjoyed.

Is your bro still going strong then? What sort of money is still in the game? I see a lot of once super-popular sports which had a lot of money in drop out of fashion with the money also leaving, and people are kind of stuck in some kind of time-warp...

Love that you have set this up. Hope the market is alive for this kind of thing ;)

Your dad sounds really supportive in regards to the whole poker situation. Was this always the case? Took me a good 3/4 years to convince my parents that poker could become a profitable lifestyle for me, even though I've always been more interested in working than playing for a living. They still disapprove now when they see my laptop glued to my arm for hours each day.

Madness that you were investing in shares at the age of 2002. I suppose you have always had some sort of entrepreneurial streak inside of you? How did the shares end up, relatively well since I presume it was a time of boom for the market?

Biggest winning and losing cash pots?

How many tattoos do you have?

Favourite fast food?

Yeah so when I was between 18-22 the riders who were at the top of the sport were the 28-35 year olds... but the Olympics totally changed our sport.

Once the governing bodies got hold of all the Olympic funding and started up teams the younger riders were trained properly at a high level so now these riders are the 18-22 year olds and they are the ones winning now, and the older riders are a dying breed. However my brother at 32 is still hanging with the youngsters, but hes had some ready bad injuries which are creeping up on him so I imagine he will be retiring once the whole world championship buzz has calmed down, and hes tried to defend the title next year.

Most of the money in BMX is in the freestyle element, like the X Games and all that. The Olympics pumped loads of money back into the sport which gave it a huge boost. People were able to make a good living out of BMX without having to move to the USA. The top guys are making chunks through sponsorship deals, but the main source of income for the Pro's is the coaching sessions and training clinics they hold. 

Inspired by blogs like yours Gilly ;)

My dad has been super supportive throughout my life, well both parents really. You don't realise when your a kid just how much effort it must take for your parents to go to work all week then pack up the car to take their sons all over England and Europe most weekends to races/training, not to mention the costs of everything. Cant thank them enough.
They were against it at first, but once I showed them that I wasn't losing they have been ok with it. They always watch the live streams, but still don't understand varience yet no matter how many times I explain it to them. The first 2 questions I get asked whenever I go visit them is, did you play today? and how much did you win? Can get quite annoying if I had a losing session.

I've always had a business brain to be honest, always hustling in the play ground buying American sweets in bulk, and bringing them back home from my travels and selling them for huge profits at break time and on the school bus haha. I was blessed enough to have a pretty big monthly retainer each month from my sponsors so tried to invest it wisely which has worked out pretty good. The shares in question worked out pretty good, I got out just as their trial of mobile gaming fell on its ass so made some money, but it could have boomed, they were just unlucky.

Winning.
Online - KJ against AA on AQT for over $5k back in the day on pacific
Live - AA all in pre and made a set :) other guy mucked for over £6k

Losing.
Online - Don't know tbh, only remember the good times :P
Live - Not too much, think I've only lost like about 3 or 4 pots over £4k lifetime.

Fav fast food: Chipotle Mexican Grill. Just amazing.

Tattoos... just my right arm and shoulder is done, however plans are in my mind for my other arm to be done, just finding the time.

Legend, this will be a great diary I'm sure :) Liam's gotta be one of the nicest guys I've come across, and also one of the few that can pull off a tattoo sleeve and not look like a twat. Biggest bluff you've ever made? What is it you do in the shower that takes so long? ;)

Have been looking forward to a diary from you. Great opening.

Why do BMXers wear baseball caps like that? Do you have a rivalry with mountain bikers?

jesus matt. you worry me at times!

:) too kind.

Biggest bluff... not quite sure but the scariest bluff I have made had to be in the £1m UKIPT last year... only about 5 mins left of day 2, and I have a top 10 stack, and get into a pre flop war with an Australian chap who also has a big stack and was pretty aggressive, anyway hes 5 bet about 35% of his stack, but just had some rastafish moment and book poker went out the window and I rammed my JTss into his eye 6b all in.... he tanked for almost 5 mins and folded wiiiiii. Pretty intense.

Hahaha I take ages in the shower because I am a tall person and it takes a long time to wash myself thoroughly lol. I try to keep myself as clean as possible lol.

Hahaha I think its just a Californian thing that I adopted.

No rivalry with mountain bikers, because the top mountain bikers are all former or current bmx riders. BMX is just perfect to develop all the core aspects in cycling to succeed at any discipline. Speed, Power, bike handling and Endurance all rolled into one. 

And some more...Tal questions:

1. Favourite word to hear someone else say?

2. One thing you would change about BMX racing to make it better?

3. Guilty pleasure (film or music only, please)?

1 - FOLD, when im bluffing or CALL when I have it :)

2 - Get rid of the SuperHill...the 8m high starting ramp was only brought into BMX for the Olympics. It takes away some of the close passing and excitement from the normal bmx tracks.

3 - Miley Cyrus haha

Nice start, Liam, well-presented, too, hope you keep it up.

How did you & Thewy first get to hook up?

Gl with this! #hero

Looking forward to this Liam, hoody pics over the face are the best

Talk us through the tattoo's plz, what do you have, why do you have it?

Is being tall an advantage at all for BMX?

Haha you maybe confusing me with my twilight looking twin brother Thomas Bingham ;)

Thanks Tony :)

I think me and Julian became friends a couple of years ago just by meeting at DTD. We have a similar background and have a few things in common. Namely being a professional sportsman in a minority sport (not sure if many people know about Thewy's past as a professional kayak racer) having Irish connections and obviously the pokerz. He helped me a lot a few years ago and even though he will be modest as ever and just brush it off, I really looked up to him and to have his belief in my abilities to invest his own money into some of my tournaments really gave me confidence. Even having sweats in each other in the Sunday million was fun. One of the nicest guys in poker. Just can't beat him in flips hahaha

Ok so working my way down from my shoulder we have a star with angel wings flying in the clouds because I always wanted to aim for the stars, the angel wings on the star to represent the people in my life guiding and helping me along the way.
I have the 4 smoking aces, a 4 leaf clover for my Irish heritage, a pair of dice which add up to my date of birth, a swallow to represent my grandad's time in the Navy, a banner with the words 'self control' just a reminder to always keep onto of my life and not to get too carried away, especially in an industry like ours, you need a lot of self control to survive.
A Japanese koi fish swimming in water which is lucky in Japanese culture and also reminds me of home no matter where I am in the world because my parents have a huge Koi pond the back yard.
The words 'stay strong' is in tribute for my friend Stephen Murray, who while performing a double backflip at a big Mountain Dew tour competition landed on his neck and is paralysed from the neck down now and the phrase 'stay strong' was his kind of slogan during his recovery. Spare a few mins to watch this video. Very inspirational stuff.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2zh2UMK8xf0&sns=fb&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D2zh2UMK8xf0%26sns%3Dfb

I wouldn't bet against him getting out of that chair.

What are the 4 legs in the title?

Nah, ur better looking

Inspiring Video

4 legs of a chair at a poker table :)

Today has been a pretty relaxing one, after the stress of last night turning my house upside down till 2am looking for my iPhone. So going to bed all stressed out thinking I had lost it, turns out it fell out my pocket while in my friends car and down the side of the seat. So had to pick it up in Sheffield today on the way to watch the Leeds United game.

Amazing game with Leeds going down 2-0 at halftime but they have won 4 of the last 5 and the last 5 in a row at home so they wasnt gonna roll over. Fought back to make it 3-2 with five mins left!! Amazing...but Watford made it 3-3 near the end to ruin the party.

I've been kindly given the first 5 seasons of '24' on DVD and have been getting hooked on that recently, so gonna watch a couple more episodes before I go to bed to get a good nights sleep to try and min cash the crap out of the big game tomorrow then race home and late reg all the Sunday fun day majors on stars for the first time for a while but the juicy beefed up gtd's make it unmissable.

Don't read many diarys will deffo read this though :)

How's puppy training going?

How much do you think you have spent in hollister this year? Lol

A WHAT?

Please. Mr T likes to refer to himself as a being a "paddler", which much better describes his previous skill.

As an aside, & no doubt because of his years of paddling, have you ever noticed the size of his hands? Monsters, absolute monsters.

At one time, his 'Stars avatar was a photo of him in his Pro-Paddling days, but that was before he became more of a GIQ type.

I agree, though, he is a bit of a special sort.

I had not been aware until reading this that Frankie had been looking after you, too. Good choice, Frankie is quite a guy.

Will you be gracing the UK Poker Championships with your most handsome presence?

My puppy is the best thing in my life right now, no matter how bad the day has gone, she always cheers me up. She sleeps downstairs without howling now which is good lol.

I may have spent a small fortune in Hollister this year but I comfort myself in the knowledge that most of it was in the sale lol

Yeah could count the people on one hand who have had an impact on my poker career and Julian and Frankie are two of them.

Frankie looked after me after the Sky poker 6 max that I finished 10th in back in 2011 I think and we parted ways just before the sky poker grand final of 2012. I admit that I had a terrible run during that time but he stuck with me and I'll be ever grateful.
Just a shame that I have been on this amazing run this year and it wasnt for him because I really would have liked to have blinked a couple of comps for him.

I'm sure it's only just a matter of time until he himself wins a big tournament. Hopefully me and him can get heads up today in the big game :)

Yeah, can't wait for the uk championships. Always wondered why there were never offical title's in uk poker, like the British champion who holds the title for a year. Sounds good and hopefully with the time you have to promote and qualify people in, it will be a success.

Great stuffs n good blog . Defo reading this . Thanks for all the compliments. Good luck in poker n life .

Well the big game Didnt go well. Just sat in the car now ready to drive home.

Basically a few levels of winning a pot losing a pot, ending with jamming 23 bigs from the small blind over a 2.5x raise and call with KsJs. Raiser folded and other guy calls with 99. Window card 9.

Off home to late reg the warm up, watch football and play the million and a few others.

Peace

Tonight reminded me why I shouldn't get excited for Sundays online.

Cashed in the Sunday warm up, bigger 8.80 and Sunday storm and bust the rest to break even. Just lolz. Done and dusted before 11pm. Robin Hood prince of thieves and abit of homeland before bed

Been playing zoom all afternoon, pretty fun session making lots of sets which is nice.

Tonight I've travelled up to Sheffield Genting to see a few friends and play in the nightly comp with Mr Rob Yong as a bounty for a GPS seat to DTD's leg next year. We're 10 handed and already seen a guy pile 250 bigs in on the turn of the 248J board with TT and get called by QQ which was pretty impressive :)

Robs already doubled up and folding top pair top kicker like a boss.

Just read this, excellent opening, looking forward to more posts..

Good read keep it going Sir,

Look at you rebranding it after 3 pages of posts ;)

which zoom limit do you play?

how do you study poker?

will be checking here fo sho.

Well I'm relatively new to zoom, so I've just been playing 4 tables of 50nl 6 max. Also I'm not quite sure of optimal strategy for this yet so kinda experimenting with a couple of styles.

I'm a member of run it once and find the training videos very helpful, however I haven't put much volume in online lately due to travelling to the last few festivals and being burnt out so think they are good for fundamentals but not as realative to the live arena. I also try to learn from people / friends by asking them about certain situations and try to get as many people's points of view as I can. I'm quite lucky that I can get to chat to some of the top live and online players from the uk about hands which I think is very important as you just learn off each other for free.

It's funny how different groups of friends I have, think about certain situations very differently than others, and having a full picture really can make the difference instead of having one mindset that this is how a certain hand 'should' be played.

Come the new year I think I will be putting in a lot more volume online so will defo be watching some of your videos ;)

Why not watch my videos ? Can translate it to English if u can't  understand Chinese ! " Run It Once " is  a very good video ( defo better than Pleno1 ) in my opinion . :-)

Haha Nemo your videos are all far too advanced for me to understand. You need to do me a PLO for beginners video series. I'll buy $$$$$$

wug

(http://resources.pokerstrategy.com/2013/12/06/ps-infographic-final-en.png)

Wanted to share a thought I had about how easily you could get scammed by somebody in poker.

I received a Facebook message from a player selling 25% of himself for the then upcoming GUKPT main event. He is in the top tier of uk players who are world class so was selling at a 1.3 mark up and I agreed to buy 5% of him and he sent me his bank details and as it was a last min sale he needed it quick so I sent it straight away via my bank account on my phone which was done in a matter of minutes.

Anyway, it's the start of the tournamanet and I don't see his name on the start list so I message him asking if he's playing and he replies due to unforeseen circumstances he is unable to play now.
I received a refund no problem soon after, but it got me thinking how easily I had sent the money without even thinking or talking to him in person, because I had been messaged by this person on his real Facebook account and I know him to be genuine however what if his Facebook had been hacked or he left it open on somebody else's laptop or whatever and an untrustworthy individual had sent messages to people selling %'s to tournaments that don't actually exist and used a fake bank account to receive funds which you would never see again.

Anyway just sharing my thoughts about how easily it could happen to you, so just always double check before you send anybody money by speaking to them in person to confirm if they are actually selling or over the phone or whatever.

Sometime, buying action or staking or both can cause problems, even though u knew the person involved . I had numerous encounter with players either staking or buying % . I m fedup of it already but some time people will let u quarrel with someone over the named player and at the end they will make up  with them and let u FUCK urself hard . Just have to be carefull to who u dealing with . Like buying % or swapping . I only buy % of Simon and Mitch only now it swapping % with my Pakistani mates . Is so annoying if u treated someone nice and u get shit in return . I m learning my lessons each day but buying action always cause problems . U were scank in Vegas when do wine try to freeroll u in the WSOP ME . Don't trust anyone if they don't trust u . Tell us more about the Vegas scam that guy do it u.

I hope this diary isn't shit!!!  If you spend as much time here as you do in the shower I'm sure it stands a chance.

what do you mean fake bank account?

If I buy a piece of Mitch Johnson having chatted on facebook, no way I'm sending to the bank of Billy Scammer.

I mean if for example Mr Joe Bloggs who has won a WSOP bracelet, and a GUKPT and loads of big comps online ect ect who you knew but wouldn't really class as a close friend messages you on fb saying he's selling 20% for EPT Barcalona at 1.2 and you agree to buy 10% and he says ok cool can you bank transfer it me. This is the first time you have bought a piece of this guy and he gives you said bank details and you send him the money thinking your sending it to joe Bloggs... However turns out Joe Bloggs's Facebook account had been hacked and you have just sent £700 to an unknown bank account and joe Bloggs has no idea somebody was on his account selling %'s of him.

God forbid, Joe Bloggs goes onto win said EPT and then he's got 10 angry guys wanting their share when he had no idea about it. You have to be so careful with your social media passwords in an industry like ours where people are more trusting of their peers with huge sums of money than most members of public.

The guy in Vegas has contacted me and has sent $400 so that's a start. Hopefully get the rest in bits and bobs I hope!

What's this ?

Still owed 10% of my main event staking package from Vegas this summer lol

Sat here at the Genting Poker Series Grand final. There's super straddles, people shipping 5x pots on river with 1 pairs. Seems good lol

I still dont really get your reasoning behind this stuff, but you seem to make it work so good on you.

I never get your twisted sense of humour sometimes either lol

Liam you should tell them all about your little fan club in Sheffield!

Sorry, it still doesn't make sense to me.

Let's say I get a pm from Toby Lewis wanting to sell 10% of something. I agree to buy. I wouldn't send to a bank account that wasn't in the name of Toby Lewis.

How is that an easy way to scam someone? :S

Liam , when u do this diary u are expecting some good n bad responds . Just ignore the people that trying to wind u up or keep on asking silly questions. U don't have to answer them .  They are clueless n don't know what they fucking talking about about . They just trolls and trolls . They so gay !! xx

Was that a reference to my post?

I wasn't trolling at all if it was.

U are too sensitive mate . Just to remind Liam

I don't know how you do your internet banking but on my LLOYDS , you just put the account number and sort code in and hit send money, it doesn't come up with the name of the persons bank account.

So I played the GPS grand final yesterday and for once it didn't go well....

First bullet, just couldn't win a showdown, big pots lost AQ<KK to double a shorty up, KQ<89 bvb on Q88. Then lost a flip to bust.
Second bullet, starting with 50 bigs, first hand have to fold river when I r/b/b AJ on KJJhh 7xTh. So we do chunks there, then we re-jam iso over what I thought to be a worse draw than mine, turns out it was just King high beating my QJcc, and then a guy calls both our shoves with 2nd pair no kicker and incredibly holds.... as I was walking away he told me to "stick that in my documentary" which was rather uncalled for seen as I've never even spoke to him before. One of the drunk Geordie crowd. Thanks for rubbing salt in the wounds.

So were down 2 bullets feeling sorry for myself and no battery on my phone, I decide to find the nearest plug socket to charge my phone and play the most golden guy to ever play OFC against, Mr Pleno. He runs well, winning like 50 points off me or something.

We then find ourselves in the 1/2 cash game, bluff off 1 buy in with 6d 7d check raising flop of A 4d 9x  then jamming 5d turn for the straight flush draw, get called by Ad Qd so half my outs are dead and he holds... I thought it was against some random, then snap find out its one of my friends Tim's cash horses.
 
So we reload, and get our grinding head on and grind back the first bullet to be winning a couple hundred then cooler Tim's other horse...
5 handed theres a straddle, fold, Ken makes it £12. I call 6d 8d from BB. Straddle makes up .
Flop 4s 5h 7h . I ck, straddle bets £15. Ken calls £15. I make it £51 to make my line look more weighted towards draw type hands. first guy folds, Ken calls.
Turn 3s I bet £62 he calls river Jd. I check and he bets £157 with about £380 behind, I think for a while and bet enough to put him all in to call. He tank calls it off with 56. So we book a 1k win to lighten my mood.

Ahh ok! That makes sense now!

On both my internet banking accounts (both completely different banks and banking groups) you need to input the name which links to the sort code and acct number.

Yeh you can write a name in, but it doesn't matter what name you type in, all it matters is sort code and account number

On mine, when I input the numbers, it searches the persons name automatically so the numbers are linked to an account which you are shown the name of the owner. Seems like the best way to do it!

<3 Thai banks.

Had a long day yesterday, my backer had made day 3 of the GPS grand final so after getting to sleep at 6am, I was up at 11am to get ready and go pick him up from the hotel and rail the final day.
Unfortunately for him, and possibly me, Ben Vinson 3b jammed QT vs his AKcc and got there leaving him short. Think he finished 13th or 14th. Pretty disappointed.

So, with 2 of the local Sheffield lads still in, a couple of the locals had come to rail and we got an OFC game going for £2 a point with 2 jokers added to the deck and fantasy land in play, Osh (Sheffield cash game player) was running in super god mode, pulling both jokers almost each hand and making straight flushes or quads almost every other hand.

I was getting further and further into the hole when no matter what I did, he would usually beat my holdings and then I was gambling more and more for fantasy land to get myself out of it, and he was just scooping with loads of royalties each hand.
After Danny bust the main in 6th, I was down £197 and Osh wanted a break so me and James Bolly Conway went to the awesome Mexican Burrito place round the corner from Genting to get some munch and possibly go to G for a cash game.
Got back to Genting and Osh wanted to playa again. Anyway he picks up where he left off crushing!!!
So we play for awhile and wanting to go play a cash game somewhere, we high card to see how many hands we will play. I pull an ace and make it 13 hands...on the final hand £380 down, I make Fantasy Land!!! Yesssss.
I make a straight flush to stay in fantasy, then make quads to stay in, then house in the middle, then quads, and finally a house, trips and Kings at the top to get myself out of the massive hole to end up only £20 down! Felt like a win! Lol.

The remaining main event finalists were on dinner break and Genting bossman Raf White treats me and Bolly to some Christmas Turkey dinner which goes down a treat. Cheers Raf.

So debating on what to do as no cash game had got off the ground in Genting, Bolly fires up his laptop to play some 2/5 online, I jump in the £40 evening comp for a laugh and chill out. We chip up nicely and get a text off Bolly that a guy is donating huge in the cash games online so I go over to watch for awhile and he literally gifted him over £2000 in 2 hands calling it off with only 4th pair both times for over £1k pots when Bolly had a straight and a set. The guy was a proper Father Christmas even calling £50 river value bets with only 8 high!
So I forget about the tournament I'm in and furiously start to download *insert annonamous poker site here* to jump into this cash game, however I'm too late as a hige waiting list had formed as word got around.
The guy busts his last £700 after doing a total of almost £8000 in a matter of minutes then leaves and suddenly the regs all sit out and waiting list empties and I get a seat. I don't play on this site so they must have thought I was just another rec jumping on for a bash and the game gets going again with everybody thinking I was the spot lol. I play for about 30 mins and the game is ridiculously nitty so we leave booking a small win, bust the tournament with 77<QQ and make the short trip to G for the 1/2 cash game with Bolly.

Session goes well, more notable pots was peeling off my straddle to a £12 raise with Jd 2d and flop 2h 5h 2c I check raise a £14 c bet to £47 which villan calls. Turn 6h I continue for £67. River Jc to boat up and I bet £157. The lad moves all in covering me ( started the hand with about £550) I call and he says flush so I win a nice pot.

Next one was more satisfying. In the straddle again, this time with 9h 9c and see a raise to £14 and 4 callers. I squeeze to £51 and just get 1 caller.

Flop 2h 5c Qs

I lead for £56 he quickly calls.
Turn Jd and I decide to check and he quickly checks behind. I'm pretty sure I have the best hand now as he checked pretty quickly. River was the 8s and I decided to check and get to showdown.
He bets £140. This is quite strange for him as I had seen him miss 3 value bets on the river earlier in the night with trip aces on a really dry board and being checked to on turn and river and he checked behind then seen him check behind with top pair top kicker on a dry board vs a station so this seemed very unusual for him to now want to bet river with just a 1 pair hand, and I would certainly expect him to bet turn with QJ or a flopped set. So the only hand that makes any sense that I'm losing to after the previous betting action is exactly pocket 8's and I'm getting just shy of 3/1 to call river which is also strange as he had £250 behind which is almost a pot bet shove but he chose to bet £140 so I call and he shows As 4s for a missed wheel draw and my 9's were good.

I later fold AK on KJ2 to a single c bet and was shown a set of deuces so felt my reads were spot on all night and after a horrible time in the GPS, we end up £2k after the weekends two cash sessions and put December firmly into the black.

Hi there

Enjoying the diary (well I read the brilliant OP and the last few pages) didn't realise you had been playing poker so long.

One Q. I watched SPOTY last night and they mentioned a Liam Phillips as the world BMX champ. Surely this isn't your Bro? Was it a different type of BMX world title that your Bro won?

Hey thanks for the good feedback :) sometimes feels like I'm writing replies to myself sometimes lol

No mention for my brother as he was riding for Ireland at the world Championships. My brother won the world Masters championships. Liam won the world elite championships

On Tuesday I took my friend to Genting and as a treat put her in the £25 comp for her to sample abit of live poker as she hasn't played before, only on some app on her phone and she wanted to try it out. Anyway she actually did alright 4b calling off with AA v KK only for the window card to be a King! Ffs lol. So after that I dumped off all my chips and took her home, so me and Sheffield Wedneaday captain Ant Gardner went to Grosvenor to play 1/2. He's out for the season with an Achilles injury so he mostly spends each evening playing cash. He's gone from being the spot with loads of cash at the table to being one of the regs who is pretty decent. We both booked solid wins which has capped off a nice week for me on cash. Little help being my Ah Jh busted Aces :)

Last night played a just a couple of comps on pokerstars, the big 55, 162 and the hot 55 and hot 44.

Ended up sweating the big 55 and big 162 running deep(ish) in both. Losing QQvKK for a top 5 chip stack in the big 55 to bust in 160th for $137 and then busting the 162 when it's folded to me on the button with Jh Th and jam 15 bigs only for the blinds to both call with QQ and KQ to bust in 57th for $325. It was $17k and $19k up top for them both so pretty gross to bust for peanuts. I should definetly try to pencil in a proper online mtt schedual in the near future. I withdrew my roll from pokerstars.fr and will now play mostly on the main stars site.

In none poker related news this week, I've managed to finish off all my Christmas shopping pretty uneventfully. It's been hard to get out and about when I've been getting home at almost 6am then waking up mid afternoon but hauled myself out of bed earlyish yesterday to get it all done.

I also got round to finishing off season 2 of '24'. Can't get enough of Jack Bauer saving the world. Haven't watched any of season 3 yet as I'm afraid once I put the DVD in, I will be hooked again so think I'll save that till after Christmas.

Did anybody catch the great train robbery drama on bbc these last 2 days? I really enjoyed it. Very interesting.

Haven't got much planned over the weekend except heading up to Leeds with a few friends tomorrow to watch the Yorkshire derby between Leeds United and Barnsley. A big 30,000+ crowd has been predicted and Leeds are on a bit of a roll at the moment on and off the pitch so hopefully we can do them over and cement our top 6 place.
Also put quite a few bets on for the premier league. It seems there will be a lot of draws this weekend with only Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal looking odds on to win, however possibly wins for Southampton, West Brom, Everton and Sunderland could happen. GL punters!

I've watched the first part of the great train robbery. Missed the 2nd part, but will catch up with it over the weekend probably. Thought it was brilliant. Great unintentional scheduling by the BBC, I thought.

remember watching Buster a few years back, that's quite good too, if you haven't seen it.

The scene where Mason appears in the plane so that Jack can parachute out!

The scene where jack says goodbye to Kim while flying the plane. Choked me up.

Celtic, you have to catch up on bbc iplayer. Really good. Think the Reynolds character is tipped to be the new bond.

Celtic nails it.

Buster was a classic film. Better soundtrack:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDO6_R_7S0Q

Enjoyed the finale, but saw that bit coming a mile off.

Yeah same...Mason was off camera for quite sometime before they took off so quickly realised he would be hiding on the plane.

I'm currently top of the Blonde Fantasy Football head to head league and this week I'm against Pleno's team.

It all comes down to tonight's game, I'm 3 points ahead and it will be decided by my John Terry vs his Ivanovic as these are the only arsenal and Chelsea players we have that differ. Holllllddddddddd

bro i lost 8 on xfers, u got it

Yeah I lost 4 too so it's still pretty close. If Ivanovic scores or gets an assist you may win

Hey Liam,

Thanks a lot for doing this, it has made for interesting reading so far and I hope that this allows you to have a focus to return to if you find yourself slipping.

Keep up the good work and I hope to see you at DTD this week.  Please keep the Fantasy Football updates coming too!

Take care and run well.

Sorry been slacking this week on updates. Been so busy with Christmas and family stuff and been playing long live cash sessions and sleeping a lot.

Christmas was okay, but just doesn't feel special anymore, don't get that excited for it tbh. It's a bit boring when your single I guess. My Christmas dinner was amazing though so always nice to have turkey as we don't have it all that often.

Had a fun night on cash on Boxing Day. Mostly 5 handed with super super straddles making the game effectively 1/2/4/8/16 and everybody was deep and one guy who as he put it 'normally plays roulette' wanted to gamble so made for interesting hands.

Key hand won - 77>AA vs roulette guy.

It was heads up as some guys were smoking away from table ect...
Roulette guy playing £2000+, I got £1,100.

He raises to 8, I make it 35 from BB. He makes it £85 I call.
Flop K73. I c/c £120. Turn 3 I check raise all in over his £386 bet he snaps me off with the bullets. I win that.

Key hand lost - AK<66

Vs roulette guy again who's playing £700 I'm playing £2,500

Only 4 handed at this point, He raises to £16 with me in the £4 straddle with AK make it £52. He then jams £700. I call. Board runs out KTQQ.....6. Ouch.

He then later loses most of it with top 2 on a 4 card straight board and then dumps the rest down roulette sigh.
I ended up winning still but a really long session ending at 10am.

OFC:
Played other night till late against Pleno, actually ran pretty good for once to make me a decent winner overall in our games now.

Tournaments:
Played the DTD £500 today...didn't get there till middle of level 3 but by the time we were halfway through level 4 I had 120,000 loooool. Turned 2 straights to fully double up vs a bluff and ten bust a full stack who had flopped top set...then won most pots I played, but became really card dead and ended on 81,500. Still alright I guess.

Football bets / Fantasy Football:

Got a massive 6400/1 sweat tomorrow needing spurs and arsenal to win and chelseavLiverpool to end in a draw to win. Also bet other random combo's of those 3 matches to hopefully almost GTD a nice win :)

Fantasy football went terrible today...most of my team was either injured or benched and ended on 2 points. Thankfully my vice captain is Suarez so hopefully he gets me out of it as my Capt Rooney was out with an injury. I now realise everybody messed up today though so could have been worse.


Just watching the UFC 168 prelims right now trying to keep my eyes open writing this... Excited for Tate v Rousey and Silva v Weidman II.

Got a triple bet on which looks pretty decent if you read this in time...

Travis Brown to beat Josh Barnett via TKO in rd 2
Ronda Rousey to beat Misha Tate via Arm Bar Submission in rd 1
Chris Weidman to beat Anderson Silva via points decision

Gl punters and heroes tomorrow in the DTD 500.

Signing off.

Hopes you all read my UFC 168 predictions and had a cheeky bet as all 3 were correct, although the rounds were slightly off,
Brown beat Barnett via TKO in the 1st round, Rousey beat Tate via Arm Bar in the 3rd round and Weidman beat Silva due to Silva snapping his leg in half when Weidman blocked a leg kick. It was horrendous. Could be an all time great career over right there. Although Weidman dominated the first round taking silva down with ease and ground and pound just like I thought but another weird ending. Shame as we will prob never get to see a 3rd fight.

Football Accumalator:
Had a £1 bet on 9 premier league results plus Luton, Alfreton, Dundee and Hamilton and just sweating on the Liverpool Chelsea game to draw for £6,400 to agonisingly watch Chelsea win 2-1 :(
Laid some bets though to win £560 but still ffs! Still won another Accumalator as I was just waiting on a both teams to score in that match and the Leeds v forest match, plus my UFC treble. Was a good but could have been better day for me vs Paddy Power.

DTD 500:

Came back in high spirits with an average stack, went the usual way of winning a pot losing a pot. Folded a couple of spots where I could have called off if I wanted to gamble.
Missed an opportunity to almost double up with ButtonVbb I had AJvA3 board running out 85QA...8 to chop when he shipped river sighhh.
Got knocked out when down to around 18bbs, Iqbal Ahmed (ukipt Nottingham 2nd place guy) opened, I jammed A6ss from the sb and he tanked for a while and asked me questions which I ignored and he moved his cards towards to muck to fold then brought them back then moved his cards over to the muck again but brought them back then called with A9. Pretty dirty from him tbh....

DTD Cash game 1/2/4/8/16 :
Sat down with max of £500, lost a big pot first hand flopping a Q high flush draw vs a guy who flopped a king high Flush draw. We both get there on he turn, however board pairs on river so we don't lose the lot. I reload for another £300 then make a bad fold vs a middle aged guy with KK on Q887 so then I ask if we can uncap the game which they do and now everybody sits with chunks and we get super super straddles onto £16.

We win a big pot one with top pair which was good vs a draw who still called my check raise all in off on the turn but he missed for like £1500 then lose a £1300 pot with AQ in a super super straddled raise from the button who had QQ and it came Q2257.
Then win 2 big ones of Mitch.
First pot, theres a few limps then aggro guy raises to £40 (no straddle in this pot) we all call.
So with £200+ in the middle on the flop of Tc 9s 8c I lead for £135 with Jc Js Mitch calls raiser calls.
Turn 7c, I move all in for £557. Mitch asks me if I wanna gamble and I say yes lol he calls with 9x 9c and we hold.
The other hand we both called a £15 raise from bb and straddle seeing a flop of Ace high all diamonds.
I have K5dd he has J9dd he calls 2 streets (turn was another diamond)  then I check call river when board pairs up to bluff catch as he tries to blow me off a better diamond betting almost pot but we win almost a £1k pot there.

So there we have it, prob my last live poker session of the year goes well and puts December down as one of my best months this year which has just been amazing. Prob do a month by month short recap of my year when I get time.

Just want to end with a congratulations to my good friend and #TeamDjango captain Tim Chung who got 2nd in the 500 yesterday for £22,500. First hand of HU.... JJ<QQ lolz. Awesome result though :)
Also well done to super nice guys Frankie and Tom High who finished 7th and 4th too. Well deserved and about time.

Liam, enjoyed spending much of Day 1c on the same table as you (once you arrived and immediately set upon owning the table).  Me and Jack sat meekly at the other end folding for fun, until he got bent over after flopping top set and getting runner-runnered by 72-sooted.  That was a strange move by the 72...

Thought you used your chips well, and bullied the weak/passive players at the table - getting some to fold some very strong hands at times.

Sure you'll win won of these sooner or later.

Cheers dan. Don't have a problem on day 1's just can't seem to do well once were under 40 bigs on day 2. Hopefully will just get lucky as hell and bink one of these next year haha.

Yeah Jack's bust out was soooo dirty.

How did you do on day 2?

Talk us through one of your bullying hands. Feel free to omit anything personal, but perhaps you could include some or all of these:

- Basics (blinds, stacks, position)
- Did you target Villain for this hand? Why?
- When did you think Villain was going to fold? What gave you that impression?
- Was there anything in bet sizing that struck you as odd? Did you see anything physical as a change in Villain's demeanour (discomfort, eg)?
- Why did you size your bets as you did?
- Were you mentally committed to winning the hand, or would you have folded if, even at the last minute, you'd encountered resistance (say a c/r)?
- What makes the hand memorable for you?
- What would you have done differently with hindsight?

Lots of people post PHAs when they want other people's views on a hand. Not enough tell people what they thought during and after a hand.

Fancy sharing?

Would be interesting to hear, but I'm sure Liam wouldn't want to give too much of his game away.

There was one bloke at the table who was very willing to fold, and also quite willing to say what he'd folded. Liam die punish him several times after that.

I think people get too sensitive about this stuff tbh. There aren't many people who sit at tables in comps with a database of styles and players at their disposal. Nobody is playing, making perfect adjustments against you, based on the hand you told everyone about a little while ago. One hand where you give a little bit of info out is not, in my view, giving the game away.

Let me give a for instance:

"The chap in seat 5 hadn't played many hands but, when he had, he'd largely been aggressive pre and then pretty happy to keep the pot small after that. I've seen him about a few times but don't know his name. He opened in early position and I decided to isolate, so I three bet from the button to 2.5x. He was the only caller, which he did without any hesitation. The flop came Ace high (AT3), two hearts and he stared at the flop a little longer than I expected. He then opted to bet half the pot after a brief moment and I figured he'd probably missed that, maybe a pair under tens, and was taking a shot. Seemed like a great spot to float. I call. Turn card paired the three, so I have to be prepared to call another bet to bet a scare card if it comes on the end. He wasn't going to check, which is fine, but he bet the same amount again and I wasn't going to believe that. I called, although raising is probably better against him tbh. The river comes a queen and he check folds to my half pot bet with 64o."

You get the idea. It's hardly military intelligence.

Obviously, no pressure on Liam. You can choose a hand you played contrary to your normal style if you like (don't tell us whether you've done that, of course!)

I try to remember who I've told what hands to, but then I'm a bit weird. I also don't play the game very well, so exploiting me requires less rigour.

I think the table/tournament in question was a quite simple one really.

He raised QQ off the button and I watched his reaction as they dealt the flop which was 3AK. He seemed delighted pre flop, no reaction on the first card but when the ace and king peeled off he frowned and slumped in his chair. It got checked to him who insta frustrated checked, turn peeled, sb checked so I bet around a 1/3rd of the pot with 8 high and he lifts his cards up and says worst flop in the world for me and folded, so did the sb.

After that I just tried to play as many pots as I could against him as he was very abc.

Nothing special really, just smart poker. :)

Happy new year broseph

Thanks for sharing.

I expect good things for this thread in the year ahead. Hope it brings you what you want.

Cheers Tal :)

So the first live grind of 2014 went well. New Year's Day spontaneously produced a 2/5 game in Sheffield and heard about it on Facebook so jumped in the car and drove up to play. Turned out it was just a 2/2 game but still pretty decent. Ended up winning over £800 so a nice start to the year.

I'm going up to Blackpool for the 25/25 series today which 8 of the Sheffield crew. Should be fun. Full trip report upon my return :)

I'll do a month by month 2013 review soon.

Any questions you wanna ask, poker or none poker. Shoot :)

Which poker player levels you most consistently? (On both a poker and non-poker level)

Lol nobody really. I don't get levelled anymore.

So it's Friday afternoon and I was on my way to Grosvenor Casino Sheffield to meet up with a few of the lads for food before we set off to Blackpool for a weekend at the GUKPT 25 series.

Me, James Bolly Conway, Matt Eardley, Chris Canadine and Aaran Fletcher headed over to TGI's for food. I can't get enough of the TGI's steaks with that Jack Daniels sauce. So good!

3 hours later and we have checked into the B&B (bail hostel) and take a short walk over to the casino to check out any cash games or possibly jump in the 7pm flight.

Anyway once me and Bolly see the cash game line up, all thoughts of flicking in the 1st flight disappear and we settle in for the night to play 1/2. We both take down some nice pots, and I even called a rare Bolly bluff and we both win chunks off the Blackpool locals. Good start to the trip....

Back to the hotel and me, Matt and Aaran play OFC till 5am with 2 jokers and Fantasy Land. I end up winning 25 points and Aaran winning 8 points. All plans of getting up for the 12pm Saturday flight is pretty slim so we set the alarm for 2pm to try and get some good sleep in.

Wake up Saturday morning hearing My room-mate Bolly getting ready for the 12pm flight and the other 2 of our group, Tom 'GaggleofKings' Ambler and Stef Woodward have arrived make about as much noise as a 7ton lorry driving through our room so I wake up for abit but then go back to sleep and don't wake up till 3pm and watch one of the most embarrassing fA cup games of Leeds United's history, meakly going down 2-0 away to league 1 side Rochdale.

Head over to the casino to see how Bolly's doing and see him sat on what was defo the toughest table in the room with Richard kellet and a few of the only people I recognise in the whole room.

Me Matt Aaran meet up with Ant Gardner (Sheffield Wednesday football Captain) who has travelled up to play the comp, he just loves the game, for some 'breakfast' and watch the FA cup game on TV and play some Open Face while we wait for the comp to start which is now 7:45pm were told. It's okay though because we crushed open face again for 42 points :)

The comp goes hilariously wrong for me busting inside the first 2 levels, we re-enter and double up in a short space of time and play pretty well, until 'zippy' (dtd 300 deep stack winner) joins the table and opens most hands. We 3b him a few times and with 99 on a King high dry board we put him all in on the turn for the stack and he calls off with King Jack... Sigh. So we're back in the pack again and were joined by former UFC fighter Terry Etin. Super nice guy. He eventually went on to chop it as the chip leader so officially won the tournament. He played pretty good. He 3b me in position a lot and made some good calls. Well done to him. Anyway so with 25bbs we open button with KTss and get 3b by a random guy in the bb and then we pile it in his face to get the tank followed by the 'I'll gamble call' with A4. The flop of A66 didn't help matters lol and we bust with 1 level to go of day 1.

We wait for a seat of what looks like a really nice cash game for what seemed like ages, a seat opened and within 30 seconds, the 10 handed game just broke with people leaving all over the place leaving us 3 handed!?! Wtf... I would like to think it was because I now have a reputation of being a good live cash game player, however it's more than likely it was just bad timing.

After playing 3 handed for 10 mins, the other 2 decide they don't wanna play anymore so the game just breaks completely :(

I head back to the hotel and we all pile in matt's room for some pizza and Open Face which I just run golden in, making fantasy about 8 times and winning another 50 points :)

Didn't run good with the pizza, I ordered a BBQ chicken and received a beef meat feast of some sorts. Rang up to complain and got 'but it is chicken sir' to then 'sorry about that' to then ' well you ordered just before we closed so goodbye' haha.

Didn't sleep till 7am so the scheduled 10:30pm checkout was never gonna happen.

Woke up at 5pm lol...felt like shit and not looking forward to the long drive home but was cheered up by the double news that Aaran was already in a cash game and our mate Tom Ambler was still in the comp, so we got up and headed over to the casino to see how Tom was doing.

Not sure if many people would know who Tom is, as he doesnt play many live comps but hes been on a huge heater online recently winning ipokers major for $35k and 12th in the $2k WCOOP thing few weeks ago for $10k to go on the back of a SCOOP win last year. He lost a big flip on the final table eventually busting out in 8th place.

After getting breakfast me and Bolly jump in the cash game which is looking pretty good from the start. We decide to leave no later than 9:30pm so I could try to aim on being back for around 11pm but didn't end up leaving the casino till 3am! Lol.

We held with AAvQQ, lost chunks with KQv22 on Q52QA to the table fish. Won chunks with AKvJJ on 59Kxx. Pulled off some nicely timed bluffs and got many a value bet paid off to end up winning another £600 so put me up on the trip for cash games almost 1.5k which is a deece start on the first trip to the year's live travels.

We still get time to fit another couple of hours Chinese poker in playing £5 a point heads up against Aaran and we win another 19 points to make it worthwhile. Arriving home at 7am.... Very tired but a profitable and enjoyable trip.

Apologies if some of my spelling is off, as I typed all this on my phone.

GPS at DTD on Friday, should be hugeeee. Can't wait.

Occasional poster on here as well, although I'm not sure how many people take any notice! ;)

Was a great trip mate, slightly disappointing FT but still profitable - the cash games were pretty good too!

Didn't realise you blogged on here mate, in from now on! May play some live cash tomorrow night if we can get a similar game to last week. If I don't catch you there will possibly see you at the GPS on Friday!

(http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/44/448b42b7327785fe7528fb558f41554ccd324b20cbdb6466ed3d4288c5f9732e.jpg)

Too fkin good!

ROFL ^^^^ you should have strolled up to the final table and said this Tom haha

If only I could rewind time! Hahahaha

Liam I just wanted to wish you all the best after the nasty incident last night at DTD, and I am sure everyone will join me in that

Good luck with the MRI on Monday

I know the matter is now in police hands, so I have been requested to ask for all your assistance if specifics are kept off the forum until that is resolved, please

thanks

Hope you are soon fit & well again Liam, sorry to hear about the do.

MRI?!?!

This

Heard about what happened... Hope you're well and on the mend... Get well soon mate... And if this goes to court TID...

Get better soon buddy, good job boosting your diary by a page or two ;)

I just hope they didn't touch your face!!!

Get well dude.  It's taken a lot for me to resist a pun in this message.

What he says.

Get well soon Liam.

To be fair should of just sent a PM rather than posting on the forum at all.

I think Tighty's request was to others, rather than Liam. Liam knows the score.

Yeh but now nosey (easy tee up for you there) like me wanna know what happened

Well THAT is what needs to be on PM. ;)

conk-conk

Thats my point a handfull knew now the whole forum knows and will be enquiring and the last thing hes going to want (i presume) is a load of PMs

Exactly this.

I know how these things can go, and put us in an awkward spot.

The matter was raised & answered yesterday on the Live Update by others. Tighty's request was subsequent, & as a result, of that.

Ok still could of been better do tell him by PM.

However you have enough to deal with doing those great updates and its done now.

I wasn't telling Liam, Liam didn't need to be told

I was asking everyone who was speculating overnight on here, posting on facebook to keep things cool on here, as they have done

and also sending my best wishes, as others have done

He was not asking Liam - he was asking others. See the enboldenment in my earlier reply.

As you might say, let's move on.

After last nights drama... I totally forgot about these 2 bets!

This first 11 match accumulator priced at 21/1 with £50 on it...


Result: Win
Football Matches
English Conference North Boston v Workington
19:45 07/01
Win-Draw-Win
Boston @ 1/5

Result: Win
Football Matches
Spanish Copa Del Rey Real Madrid v Osasuna
20:30 09/01
Win-Draw-Win
Real Madrid @ 1/8

Result: Win
Football Matches
French Ligue 1 Ajaccio v PSG
16:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
PSG @ 1/4

Result: Win
Football Matches
English Southern Premier League Stourbridge v Bedford Town
19:45 07/01
Win-Draw-Win
Stourbridge @ 1/7

Result: Win
Football Matches
Premier League Matches Everton v Norwich
15:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Everton @ 2/5

Result: Win
Football Matches
English League 1 Matches Brentford v Port Vale
15:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Brentford @ 1/2

Result: Win
Football Matches
English League 2 Matches Chesterfield v Bury
15:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Chesterfield @ 7/10

Result: Win
Football Matches
Scottish League One Matches Rangers v East Fife
15:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Rangers @ 1/14

Result: Pending
Football Matches
Premier League Matches Aston Villa v Arsenal
20:00 13/01
Win-Draw-Win
Arsenal @ 4/7

Result: Pending
Football Matches
Premier League Matches Stoke v Liverpool
16:10 12/01
Win-Draw-Win
Liverpool @ 4/6

Result: Win
Football Matches
Spanish Copa Del Rey Barcelona v Getafe
21:00 08/01
Win-Draw-Win
Barcelona @ 1/8
Stake and Return Details
Bet Placed at: 16:19 07/01
Bet type: Single (to Win)
Number of Lines: 1
Stake per Line: £50.00

Number of win Lines: 0
Total Stake: £50.00
Tax: £0.00
Freebets Redeemed: £0.00

And this 16 match accumalator at 233/1 with £10 on it

Result: Win
Football Matches
English Conference North Boston v Workington
19:45 07/01
Win-Draw-Win
Boston @ 1/5

Result: Win
Football Matches
Scottish League One Matches Rangers v East Fife
15:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Rangers @ 1/14

Result: Pending
Football Matches
Premier League Matches Aston Villa v Arsenal
20:00 13/01
Win-Draw-Win
Arsenal @ 4/7

Result: Pending
Football Matches
Premier League Matches Stoke v Liverpool
16:10 12/01
Win-Draw-Win
Liverpool @ 4/6

Result: Win
Football Matches
Spanish Copa Del Rey Barcelona v Getafe
21:00 08/01
Win-Draw-Win
Barcelona @ 1/8

Result: Win
Football Matches
Spanish Copa Del Rey Real Madrid v Osasuna
20:30 09/01
Win-Draw-Win
Real Madrid @ 1/8

Result: Win
Football Matches
French Ligue 1 Ajaccio v PSG
16:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
PSG @ 1/4

Result: Win
Football Matches
French Ligue 1 Lyon v Sochaux
19:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Lyon @ 2/5

Result: Win
Football Matches
English Southern Premier League Stourbridge v Bedford Town
19:45 07/01
Win-Draw-Win
Stourbridge @ 1/7

Result: Win
Football Matches
Premier League Matches Everton v Norwich
15:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Everton @ 2/5

Result: Win
Football Matches
Premier League Matches Southampton v West Brom
15:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Southampton @ 8/11

Result: Win
Football Matches
Premier League Matches Tottenham v Crystal Palace
15:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Tottenham @ 4/11

Result: Win
Football Matches
English League 1 Matches Brentford v Port Vale
15:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Brentford @ 1/2

Result: Win
Football Matches
English League 1 Matches Leyton Orient v Carlisle
15:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Leyton Orient @ 8/13

Result: Win
Football Matches
English League 1 Matches Rotherham v Crewe
15:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Rotherham @ 4/7

Result: Win
Football Matches
English League 2 Matches Chesterfield v Bury
15:00 11/01
Win-Draw-Win
Chesterfield @ 7/10
Stake and Return Details
Bet Placed at: 16:17 07/01
Bet type: Single (to Win)
Number of Lines: 1
Stake per Line: £10.00

Number of win Lines: 0
Total Stake: £10.00
Tax: £0.00
Freebets Redeemed: £0.00

GL with Arsenal and Liverpool sir.

WP on the diary hits.

This Liverpool game is like hitting top set on the flop vs two random suited cards, then then guy just turns a flush draw...hold ffs!!!

Let's hope Arsenal don't let you down tomorrow! :D

You may be interested to know that yesterday, the bookies had one of their worst football days in many a year, with losses running into 8 figures. 16 of the 17 most popular selections won, & punters were winning accas for fun. I think Cardiff losing to West Ham must have saved them fortunes.

GL with your Accas,, though I hope you don't do them regularly.

hi TK, this is only the 4th time ive done them this season so having 2 pretty big sweats out of 4 is pretty fun :)

Enjoy them Liam, & I hope you get the lot.

Good luck at the hossie tomorrow, too.

Thought I would jump in your roller and mini roller tonight for the first time. See if I can have a winning Sunday :)

Ooh, good luck, I'll look out for you. Try & win both, you'd get a £5,000 Bonus. Easier than an Acca. ;)

Win both or FT both?

win both for the 5 k lower amounts for ft both depending on finishing pos

Win both £5,000

6th in both £50.

And all stations in between.

Save the train talk for your own blog :-)

Ahhh never mind. Bust the super roller AKhh<JJ but chip leader in mini with 60 left :-)

19th, for a few quid, was not so bad. The guy in 21st, "mohican", also posts regularly on blonde.

Really surprised you allowed the extremely elderly & portly blonde who finished 3rd to outlast you. He is hopeless, completely. 

Liam, this Acca, & the other one - are they both just awaiting the Villa - Arsenal game tonight? If so, good luck, an incredible thing.

I Posted this elsewhere last night, and there are a lot of punters in the same boat as you.


"....Coral alone saw 50 customers win £2,000 or more on accumulators for which the stakes were between just £1 and £20. Sky Bet reported one 15-fold costing them £72,000.

Many accas ran through to Sunday when two more favourites - Manchester City and Liverpool - both came good for punters....."

All aboard the Arsenal tonight, woo-woo!

Hi TK, yes can't complain with 19th really. Was chippy for most of the comp but got 2 pair all in on the turn vs 1 pair and got counterfeited on the river when the board paired, then miss click called a Neil giblin value bet lol then bust my last ten bigs with a flip.
Does sky comps have no antes at all?

Yeah just waiting on the villa v arsenal game tonight. Common the arsenal!! :)

Just missed out on loads of others with the Cardiff v west ham result too. Would have been looking at over £30,000+ if Cardiff had won from an outlay of £80 in total over the weekend

Outplayed by Giblin? The ultimate shame.

Antes? Nope. Quite a controversial matter actually, which ignites much heat & passion from both sides of the debate.

Quite seperately, but sort of linked, there was a big debate on the Forum next Door last week about the structure of the UKPC Finals, on Sunday nights. (Another 8 qualifiers last night, btw). Some very good players, including at least one regular & respected blonde, said the structure was "crap, a total shambles". Which was balanced by some very good players, including at least one respected blonde, saying the structure was perfect. It's all about opinions, eh? Perfectly reasonable that we all see things in a different light, but peeps don't 'arf get uppity.

Anyway, good luck tonight!



(http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/o541/tikay2/tikay2085/Acca_zps96d8dd8c.png) (http://s1147.photobucket.com/user/tikay2/media/tikay2085/Acca_zps96d8dd8c.png.html)

Ahh, you late Edited the Cardiff bit.

Truly, that would have sent many small bookies to the wall, & would have been really painful even for the Big Bookies if that bugger went the other way. Cardiff looked a good thing, too. 

Good luck with the bet tonight. Are you laying any off in case the Gunners slip up?

BOOM!

Arsenal you beautyyyyyy. Didn't lay any off either. Might put £50 on the draw at H T. prob be like 30/1

Whoops.

Sweat on.

Always a bloody sweat huh! 8/1 on draw now. May flick in £200 ffs

Sweat over. Just put £250 on the draw. Sigh

Well done Liam

And Relax aahhhhh :-) cheers

Well done Liam.

Now invest some of those winnings.......


http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=63026.new#new

this is pretty cool...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/25741090

GET WELL SOON MATE . ALL THE BEST

Yeah I saw that on Facebook. Pretty scary, one mistake and he was heading for either a nasty spill onto the road or even death if he came off the other end.

Cheers Frankie. You been a great help.

Not being able to drive for at least a month is really making getting out and about quite difficult so ive been having to rely on people for lifts to get anywhere So the last couple of nights 2 of my live cash horses have kindly given me a lift to Sheffield to play 1/2 and 2/2. Both won me chunks this week which is nice and I contined my 100% winning session run since November forward which is pretty incredible. My longest winning streak on cash in my life, and last night was my smallest win at £150 up so January is firmly at the top of my all time best month playing cash in England, although need a lot more to surpass Vegas live cash in the summer but to constantly win each night is really self satisfying rather than my usual swingy sessions.

Hope things can continue.

Good luck to all the heroes left in the ukipt Edinburgh. I really wish I could have gone but things were just too awkward for me at this moment in time. Really love Edinburgh as a city so sad to be missing out. Prob another cash session for me tonight after a frustrating afternoon watching Leeds get beat by Leicester. Totally dominated the game but they scored with their first shot on target. Pretty joke ending. Gonna sweat my accy's now. Gl all

<3 Edinburgh, my fav city in the UK.

How many sessions is that then since Nov ? Nice life, grats.

You not posting your acca picks?

Too many accy's to post mate. Basically anybody you expect to win then I've prob got them in some sort of way :)

Winning streak is at 19 sessions, my last loosing session on 23rd November. Also have 9 winning streak playing Chinese too :-)

Do you grind more when you have monies and are crushing it or get lazy and want to rofl around ? This has always been one of my biggest leaks.

Similarly do you grind more when under it ?

Or are you just a confirmed true pro and it doesn't come into your decision making on whether to play or not.

Doesn't really change the way I approach a cash game to be honest. I just try to treat each session as a brand new one and just play my game.

Well my accumulator run good is officially over. Dunfermline have done me a treat getting turned over at home by the club at the bottom of the league. Haven't even got any sweats for tomorrow now. Sighhhhh

I didn't mean how you play, obv that would just be lol bad.

Just I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds they grind less when they have spare money to burn, go out drinking etc etc.

Anyways, glglgl with the grind.

oddly i think im the opposite, when im on a good steak i just want to keep playing and playing

+1

Ha!

Well done.........

(http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/happy/happy-dance-smiley-emoticon.gif) (http://www.sherv.net/emoticons.html)

Haha well all those millions you have spent, you gotta go up sometime I guess

Ahhh sorry misread it mate. Yeah pretty much grinding is all I do at the moment. Pretty boring lol, but just dedicating a lot of time to this as of Jan 1st 2013 and its paying off big time. In the past I was just happy to go to dtd at weekends for fun comps and stuff then play cash online but really found myself in live cash games these past 12 months so just wanna knuckle down and carry on riding the wave above my EV line for as long as possible :-)

Coming up for a few days next week to help you out with that :)

+1

Well and truly boked myself haha. The streak went last night in prob the most miserable cash session I've played in recent memory.

Has anybody got any Euros for sale? At spot? Might be going away for some sun recuperation.

January review.

Cash has gone well, I've had 24 winning sessions out of 27 which is an excellent start to the year.
Tournaments, well I have lost my backer now so I'm on my own which complicates things a little.
My hourly is pretty huge on cash so unless somebody comes along or I start selling for events then I prob be sat on the cash games at these festivals. 

Chinese poker. Haven't lost a session of Chinese this year to date, I don't know if I'm just running insanely good or I'm actually a good player now but 19 winning sessions out if 19 is pretty bloody good going.

Just wanna say a big congratulations to Simon deadman and Alex goulder. Huge January's for them. Well played sir's.

How much do you play chinese for?

Anything between a friendly £1 a point to £10

When you went to vegas recently, were you playing chinese or hold em? And what are your thoughts on potentially introducing chinese as cash games in english cardrooms, and including it on sites like stars?

The problem with Chinese as I see it is that is solved- you can write a computer program which can play perfectly. You can possibly write a computer program to play Hold 'em etc., but it's much harder and no one has successfully written one that can play perfectly so far. So online, you are just going to get bots, or people using bots. And in casinos, you are going to get people who have practised against computers, or have computer in their shoes.

Lets play chinese for a few quid at gukpt then!

I was first introduced to Chinese in vegas by Tim Chung and co. I was a massive fish at the beginning because I didn't really understand the strategies and just saw it as a bit of fun, however now I think ive played that many hands, my thoughts on setting the first 5 cards are totally different.

In Sheffield, we play Chinese rake free in the casinos. I think to introduce it as a raked game would be wrong. It seemed to be popular in Vegas but the rake just killed it. I played once in the Venetian and it was just too slow 4 handed, only getting a couple of hands in before the rake came around again.

Stato played OFC a lot in the summer so maybe he would be better to comment.

Also I think Skippy is correct, computer programmers would be able to play OFC 100% perfectly, and I think the enjoyment of OFC is playing with friends.

I'm not going mate. Who are ya? :)

Now that would be telling.

(http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/250x250/36373213.jpg)

Shhhhhhh...

oioi day2 with 200k+

Good luck Liam, gotta at least final table to make up for loss of earnings while you were away huh? ;)

Gl tomorrow mate, justice if you win it.

Cash good so we can play chinese

Thanks guys. Things have been a bit hectic lately so this blog has kinda taken the back burner.

Might do a report from the weekend.

Very disappointed obviously to get so near to some huge money jumps again but also so close to such a prestigious title stings a little. Basically lost a 1m pot JJ v AK all in pre vs Danny Blair to see a safe board run out till a king hit the river to leave me short then it was an uphill battle again from there.

Good news, one of our group from Sheffield Alex Spencer is chip leader so best of luck to him and also chaz would be a popular winner too. Super nice guy.

Lets now sweat Lazio and Napoli tomorrow for my football accumulators.

Didn't mention an 18 match accumulator that I won last weekend. Pretty sick to win 2 huge ones in the space of a couple of weeks. Paid for my loss at Chinese to "lolwutwasthat" haha

This Lazio game is nuts! I turned it on 15 mins ago looking safe at 1-0 then it went 1-1 then 2-1 lazio then 2-2 now 3-2 lazio within 11 minutes lol

Hey mate, unlucky not to run deeper this weekend. Dunno what you remember about this hand but its something like AT8dd and it goes bet/jam otf right? I really didnt like the call at the time, dunno what your thoughts are now.

Accumulator come home? Everything ok after the dtd incident?

Yeah I dontt think I'm happy with it either....

My thought process during the hand was the guy who shipped first doesn't have a strong broadway combo that doesn't 3b pre. He had 15 bigs so I imagine he would be calling pre with some small suited connectors that he doesn't wanna be all in with unless he hits a combo draw of some sorts. I thought I would be ahead with my combo draw and overs. Something I looked back as a mistake that I learnt from. Was pretty tilted from my first bullet and the previous AJ hand too. Kinda felt exhausted and made a mistake.

Congrats on the PLO FT. How did you do?

Good read so far and pretty decent winning tekkers in live cash it seems. Unlucky in the UKPC was funking for you along with a cpl of others on final day... big live score (non-vegas) doesn't seem to be far away.

Got a feeling 2014 could be a big poker year for you ;)

Cheers mate! Yeah so close again but so far. I hope your right about this year!

I hope you get taller and better looking this year.

Only joking, not possible.

 :hello:

83% of the time I'm always right - unless I'm involved in a poker hand! ;)

Have you managed to find a different backer yet or are you playing off your own dime/selling action?

you gonna win this time or what?

Haha almost Tim.

So another tournament.... This time the £500 deepstack.

Day 1 went perfect as per... Haha. I just seem to do really well with more than 100bbs. Possibly due to all the live cash games I've been playing and didn't put a foot wrong and ended up 2nd in chips going into day 2. Felt something was different about this one than all the other chip leads/almost chip leads I've had over the past 2 years and managed a 4th place for £10,000 plus a ukipt seat wiiii.

One of my closest mates (some still think we're brothers) Tommy Bingham finished 3rd for £14,000 so was buzzing for him too.

Great support on the rail with Rastafish and co, who lent me his lucky medallion for the final table, something we have been planning for a while haha.

It's funny because every major final table I have made in England, I have managed to finish 8th each time! So yesterday we got down to 8 people, and doubts came creeping into my head, is it going to happen again...we were 8 handed for 90 minutes and the average was 15bbs so it was such a relief when the guy busted in 8th! Haha. Finally can put that to bed and move on now.


Had a great weekend, not even disappointed with the result, felt like I didn't do much wrong so can't complain. I've learn what will be will be and maybe next time will be my turn for a trophy, who knows, all I know is that if I continue to put myself in healthy situations near to the top spots week in week out then good things will happen.

GPS Sheffield in my home club this week will be fun. I've always said poker is a game of momentum and confidence in the live arena so after the deep run in the UKPC and now this 4th, I can keep it going for the GPS.
I final tabled last years GPS Sheffield so hopefully I can do it again!

Hi Liam. It was fun to share a table with you at the weekend. (Well, as fun as being out of position to you can be)

Congratulations on another great run. Might see you in Sheffield.

Pleasure was all mine Tom. We had a great table, full of local characters. Most pleasent and laid back comp I've played for sometime. It felt like hanging out with mates rather than a serious competition for me which was brilliant.

Well done Liam, nice result for you and tommy :)

Good work Liam (and your brother) :)up

Cheers Alex/Dan :)

So last Thursday me and UK poker champion Alex Spencer treated the gang to a slap up meal to celebrate mine and Alex's recent live scores. It was a star studded line up with Sheffield Wednesday football captain Anthony Gardner, Sky cash grinder James Bolly580 Conway and former Oxford University student Arran Fletcher joining me and Alex. Online beast Tom GaggleoLetdown Ambler had some trouble sorting out his car insurance so no showed. you missed out mate!

TGI Fridays was the venue and the 16oz Rump steak with veg and jack Daniels sauce went down a treat!

Afterwards we all took the short drive across town to Grosvenor. Alex wanted to play cash and me, Ant and Bolly brought the laptops to play on the decent casino wifi.

Bolly booked a win on sky, Ant booked a win on PKR and I late regged the £250 DTD 6max online day one and ended up with a decent stack for day 2. Only played for 2 hours as it went really quick, really nice to not have to slog through a live day 1 and enabled me to relax for the next few days before day 2.

Came back for day 2 and had a great table draw, I thought I played really well again, not making any mistakes and final tabled again for back to back FT's at DTD after the 4th place in the £500 2 weeks ago.

This time I went one better for 3rd which was slightly disappointing as I defo thought I had a huge edge once EPT champ Tom Middleton had busted in 4th. We looked at numbers 3 handed and would get £7000 but figured I would have to get really unlucky to bust 1st out the 3 so would like to play on and been working on my heads up game recently online so was co fire t I could win. It was t meant to be as I busted 3rd for £4,250 plus a £550 deepstack seat so not bad really.

The new DTD structure was great starting with antes from the beginning and shallower really paid off towards the business end of the comp with the final table average being well over 40 bigs and I was below a stage 3 handed and still had 25 bigs. In comparison to the £500 2 weeks ago, the average was 15 bigs with 9 left. Congrats to Simon and co.
pleno touched on this in a recent blog and I have always thought the same. Hopefully the success of this structure in the coming months will force other tours to rethink their structures too.

Best part about my recent tournament heater is for the £500 and this comp I didn't sell or swap with anybody so feels nice to win 100% of it :) and also only sold 20% of my 27th in the UKPC so I'm having a very good year so far :)

I wonder where they will put Liam's room?

Jesus mate times must be hard if your having to sponge wifi off G casino! You may have won countless thousands this year but the main question remains; how much did you lose?! (especially if you cant afford your own internet!) ;)

Gutted I missed the freebie TGIs, hopefully one of us wins something soon so I can experience this star studded lineup! Wp at the weekend man! Catch ya Wednesday at G / 2moro at Eardleys if your about?

Haha Internet does cost a fortune in the countryside you know!

Pretty close again in the recent £500 deepstack at DTD.

Qualified online again ( brilliant that you can get through to day 2 online in under 3 hours watching tv and hanging out with friends) with an average stack.

Day 2 didn't really go well in terms of making any hands. I didn't make a single hand better than a top pair hand which makes it almost impossible to gain chips other than scrapping and bluffing your way to small pots. So ended up 3 bet jamming all on over Neil Raine's open with  As  Qs  only for mike Cummings to find   Ad Ah  in the big blind and the board ran out with no sweats and I finished 17th for £1.4k. Quite disappointed really that I never really had a chance to run up decent stack.

Always another round the corner and I'll be giving the GPS Southend a miss and playing the fun 8 max at DTD instead.

Got another accumulator sweat on this week. I had a 12 game accumulator and 10 have won and the 2 remaining is Bayern to beat Man utd and Southampton to beat Cardiff which is worth £4000 so I said to myself I'll treat myself to a new car and the £4000 will be a nice little slice towards it.

Come on Bayernnnnn

Been playing a decent volume of zoom on stars last few weeks mainly playing 100nl and 200nl but been dipping into 500nl on occasion.

I don't know if I've been just running like god or what but I've only had 1 losing session and that was at 100nl so slowly building a nice stars roll, which makes a change.

So southamton lost at home to Cardiff which squashed my football bet and ive Had a bit of a rocky last few weeks at the tables too. Cash live and online hasn't gone well and was on a bit of a big downswing for the first time for a long time.
It's been tough to get through as it hasn't happened for so long to be losing session after session however tournaments have been my saving grace this year and yet again it has come to my rescue.

It started off a couple weeks ago with another chip lead which then lead to another big disappointment. In the DTD grandprix I came into day 2 from the online leg with over 1m chips. Which was a cool novelty. However blinds got outrageously huge and I ended up busting in 23rd for £300 which is exactly how much I spent on the 5 bullets I used.
It just seems wrong to have finished 23rd out of 2900 players and win £300 or in my case win nothing!

Anyway we took a couple of days off after that and hung out at my brothers house in Sheffield and soaked up the nice weather and played the £250 8Max online and ended up chip leader again.

It's pretty incredible that in the 9 major tournaments I've played this year, I've held the day 1 chip lead in 6 of these tournaments!....if only the prizes were given out after day 1 lol.

So up until now, I had never shipped a tournament that took place over more than 1 day however that changed this weekend when I took my chip lead and won the 8 max for over 8k plus 1k in dtd tournament credit.

Got lucky against Mitch bvb AJ>JJ with around 15 left which put me in a great position going into the final table bubble and I applied pressure when I needed to and took my foot off the gas when it was necessary and went onto the FT with a third of the chips in play.

I was quiet early on then when we got 7 handed I started becoming a lot more active by 3 betting certain people and targeting the blinds of people who wouldn't give me resistance.
My jacks held against AQ to take us 6 handed then we were 5 handed after a decent young player knocked mark smith out. Paul grummet open jammed 20 bigs from the button to my big and I had A9. He didn't look comfortable and i asked why such a big raise and he said he wanted a call but all the while showing the tells that he in fact didn't want a call. He seemed very nervous so I made the call. I was playing 125 bigs at this point so I went with my read and was correct. Ace high held up and I had half the chips in play 4 handed.

My jacks made quads against 99 to take us 3 handed.

Then button raised, I 3b 99 from sb. Button calls to see 833. I bet, button over jams. I call and held vs 89.

Heads up vs my friend willie tann didn't last long. I had 5.5m which was 200bbs! vs his 1m. I played aggressive from the beginning opening every button or raising each limp from him.

I ground him down to 250k and he jams 55 and I call with K9. His pair held up.

Then I ground him down again then he raised AT from button and I shipped 87hh which made trips and I won :)

Since my 27th in the UKPC I've made the money in every tournament I've played except for the first 250 8 max so hopefully take this run to the UKIPT and have another deep run.

First up though is the 250 deepstack online tonight. Good luck all.

Great read