blonde poker forum

Hey Blonde, my name is Adam Picken and I've thought about writing a diary for a long time. At first it was going to be in The Rail, but I didn't quite have the confidence to get it going then. So i started a blog, called Emerging from the Shadows. I'd classify it as a small failure, the posts were quite personal and probably overstepped the mark in terms of what I would want on the internet. After I stopped posting on there I just went quiet on the blogging front, which was a bit of a shame as I really enjoy writing. Hopefully starting this will lead to me forcing myself to write a little bit more. I nearly started one write before Scoop, but fortunately decided against it.

Scoop was a lot of fun and somewhat disastrous at the same time. One of my horses lives with me, and one came out after the first sunday for two weeks. The stress of 17 days play in a row, so many buyins and soooo many close misses was quite frustrating, and overall I lost a chunk of money. This was a somewhat expected result, despite the amount of games played across the three of us. I actually managed to place in the top 30 of both the low and medium leaderboards which means i get 2x 109 wcoop tickets (28th in both :(). Halfway through the week I kind of expected a little bit more, but unfortunately I largely ran horrific on the f2ts and got a bunch of ft bubbles.  (12th in Horse-H, 9th in NLSD 2-7-L, 11th LHE-M) being a few of the more annoying results. I did manage a 6th in the FLO8-M event and a 7th in the NLO8-L but both were small scores. Luckily one of my horses managed to win overall, and the other won enough early on that it didn't feel too bad of a series. Also fortunately, one of the horses I share with Pads and a couple of others guy managed a bink on Tuesday to clear almost all of his makeup, so its felt like a pretty good end to the month. I''m definitely looking forward to next years already, even though I think i averaged over 10 hours of play per day, and only missed one event at all tiers.


Currently, I live in Budapest, close to Pads. I lived here last year for 6 months, and decided to come back in March for a more permanent stay. Budapest is such an amazing city, the place we have found is absolutely massive for the price and the community of poker players around the city constantly changing, old friends return and new friends are made with regularity. The food/restaurant scene is also pretty amazing in my opinion. The city itself is cheap so most places feel like pretty good value, and there is a wide range of both high end and low end, good quality food. I also appreciate the range of takeaway restaurants here, they are an important part of a mtters life! They have a decent amount of variety, and there are also a bunch of "fast food" places nearby that you can order and eat within 20 minutes quite comfortably.

I'm not quite sure what I will write about over the next few months, I'm just planning to write when I feel like it. I've cut down a lot on blonde recently, and am quite enjoying not keeping so up to date with it. I'm almost certainly skipping all of Vegas to grind online. The WSOP will always be there and I don't think this year was the year to take a shot. I've been downswinging for 7/9 months in the last year, but had a pretty nice heater before then. Hopefully the juicy six weeks will prove fruitful and WCOOP won't be anywhere near as big as Scoop. I play a whole host of sites and games so tend to keep my screen names hidden, I'm pretty sure a good chunk of people know most, but if there are any too specific questions that might affect future play I probably won't answer. This might be a bit of a balancing act as it won't be much fun to say won x on x eurosite for x amount, but I'll try to figure something out.

Heading for some beers tonight with European and the grinders he is stopping with atm. That house of four are heading home for a month soon, and my parents are coming over to visit next week, so it will probably be a bit of a messy one tonight before the saturday/sunday grind. European won the hu and fted the 2k cubed, and I think his house overall did pretty well over the series. Really excited to show my parents Budapest, hopefully the Sunday gods shine on me and I can manage to win a heap of money and wake up relatively early to meet them for lunch.

(http://www.impawards.com/2006/posters/scoop_ver2_xlg.jpg)

1st!!!

Standard Nando's order?

Have you ever bought Vinny dinner?

Your best and worst qualities? in life and poker

What who is your largest live score? ;)

Feel free to not answer ;)

2nd.

gl with the blog. long way to catch up on pads and mine as the finest 2 blogs on the forum

Standard!

I really liked your blog so happy to see you start up here.
May the long road lead to riches.

Well as Adams dad I'm obv gonna be subscribed.
If you cash in the Milly, lunch is on you.

Tal's customary, randomly generated, patent pending, new blog questions:

1. Favourite dinosaur?



2. Best sports or prop bet?



3. How do you have your steak (you live near pleno, after all)?



4. WSOP Main Event Final Table walk-on song (YouTube insertion preferable)?



5. Would you rather spend a day fishing with Piers Morgan (who knows there are cameras watching him, so he's "on full Piers Morgan form" with his banter) or miss a penalty at halftime at Wembley in front of all your friends and family?

Hey mate. Really glad you've decided to blog.

Can u tell us about your journey up to the stakes your playing?

Fave mixed game to play?

Have you ever been to Vegas?

If you weren't playing poker what would u be doing full time do u think?

Fave food/meal?

<3 IN

GLGLGL.

why did Budapest develop a community of poker players to start with?

did Pleno start this off?

I'll answer the questions tomorrow or over the next few days, pretty shattered tonight. Played about a big a schedule as saturday will allow with 888, Party, .fr and Stars covered, 4 fts in big 100, 265 ko, 215 plo8 and 82 plo, no 4 figure cashes though so a bit disappointing. Cash was pretty insane tonight, 8 game on Stars was good and omaha/nlhe kicked off on an unknown site. Played 20/40 8game and flopped some sets/made some hands and 2-4-5/10 omaha/nlhe, with 5 hands of 10/20 plo for fun. Got a reg really tilted and managed to vb the 3rd nuts on qt65J, getting called by a653 :P Probably covered any losses today and tomorrows buyins so a pretty sweet session overall. My American housemate got back from Dubai at 1am and went out for a few drinks, and I battled until he got back. Some stud has been running too and managed a decent win there too and some extra vpps for Stud/Draw week on PS.

Really looking forward to tomorrow, I've had some close calls the last few sundays and sessions and despite not having the most profitable last month, I am really confident in my game again. Going to play pretty big I think so fingers crossed someone can crush something.

(http://archives.deccanchronicle.com/sites/default/files/mediaimages/gallery/2013/Jul/Hungarian_2007_1.jpg)

Took the least time consuming questions to the answer sword because I'm meeting my parents in about an hour for a beer then a meal. Yesterday was a funny day, i doubled in 7/8 of my starting comps, but only managed to cash one and at about 8 o'clock this hadn't really changed. I had a decent amount of tables up until 1am, but the cashes and really deep runs weren't coming. Disaster struck at about this time, I bust Le Triomphe in 10th, this tournament is a 30e deepstack on .fr, and a grinders dream. Unfortunately, despite having final table average with 27 left, I lost an annoying flip to bubble the lights. I got 6th in the 82 weekly NLO8 having been relatively decent position, and managed to lose 7 out of 8 allins just after 2am. I had 50k in the sunday 530 and 30k in the Party 500 and couldn't win a big flip in the s530 before getting coolered JJ vs KK and QQ vs AA in the space of 2 mins. Luckily I managed to regroup and stagger to the ft of the 55 40k. About 8k for the win and I sat 7/9 with 13 big blinds, having not been above 30bb since the money. A grinders dream.

Ft went well, a few guys got koed, I doubled again with aces (third time in the final 45 :P) and sat 3/6 or so. Wizwizo, Ole Schemion was on my left, making life difficult. I found 9s on the button and opened into him and a 8bb stack. He and jammed the sb for 25bb eff or so effective. I called and saw an AdQsTd and saw 55% next to my name, I could only see the Kd hole card due to my hud! Unfortunately, he hit the King and I exited in 6th for 1.8k. I scraped a small loss in tournaments and won a few buyins vs the previously mentioned omaha reg, who might just be a fish, he didn't play well again. 20/40 8 game was running with Jungleman, Fresh o OD, and 2 unknowns, so i hopped in and managed to scrape a 1.5bi win which was pretty nice. I'd like to claim it was all skill but the majority came from a 4 way omaha allin lol. Good game though, and it was a lot of fun playing vs Jungle. I think I played pretty well yesterday, the cards didn't quite fall for me and I really did grind it out where I had to. Some regs made some horrific plays too, so that always breeds some confidence. A personal highlight was 3b calling AQs from the big blind vs an under the gun open, who had 55 and won. Felt like a pretty big theoretical win for me. Just goes to show how quickly the game is moving at the moment, a month or so ago my 3b would have looked ridiculously strong, but now that is being exploited and hence rexploited. Hard to find the right level sometimes though and I definitely misplayed a similar spot later on in Le Triomphe. Really looking forward to tonight, its been a while since I saw my parents and we are really close. I might fade the questions tonight as presumably I'll have a few beers but I will slowly get through them!

Awesome pick for the walk on. Would have to have the video for playing in the background!!!

Afaik a bunch of Americans moved here after Black Friday and the community here has built up enough now that it survives long term, even when there are just a few poker players here. The group is almost entirely expats with a few Hungarians thrown in. There are some Hungarian mtters who live in and around Budapest who a few guys know through others or who come to the occasional dinner, but there is a group of 10-20 people who are almost constantly here and provide a strong social group. A bunch of the Americans who largely play HU head to South Africa during the winter for the last few years and a mix of guys live in Budapest all year round. I think it is coincidental thats Pads's gf comes from Hungary, and is largely the reason Pads and then myself came to Budapest. The two aligning so conveniently probably has something to do with it though, I was looking at living in Leeds post university, partly for the cash games and partly to be around some poker players I knew. 

I know there is always another World Series, but do you now worry that the game might just pass you by?

As somebody who has played you more than most, you seem to be right on top of your game right now, and the WSOP fields are still pretty large.  Next year or the year after that may not be true anymore.  The game isn't going to get any easier over time.  Even the average players can learn ranges, and even if they don't have charts, Stars is giving them the percentages so they can see their worst mistakes.  

I guess it is too late for this year, it would be a shame to not give it a go when you are near the top.  And I say this as someone who is definitely not up from my trips to Vegas.  

Picken is GOAT <3

Would love to go some mix game work with you. Much respect.

I miss you <3

Looking forward to following through this diary.

P.S i still have staking money of your's I have not forgotten and will invest it wisely one Sunday when I have chance!

but how much did you lose? xx

I still have a lot of fire in my belly and I think relative to the competition I will definitely improve quicker than most other people will. We have a group of 7-8 people from Budapest who talk a bunch of mixed game/plo/o8 strategy, with a sprinkling of nlhe. Many people have expressed an interest in learning more and more games, and due to the high level we have of understanding game theory then we can apply this across many different game types. We also have a lot of information on other players and cover a huge range of the games played on Stars. Many people have similar ideas on how to play poker, no matter what the game is, the lags tend to be really laggy and the nits tend to be nitty, no matter the difference in game mechanics. I see plenty of fundamental misplays in certain games, even from good players (and I'm sure I make the occasional one myself too fwiw) so poker certainly isn't going to become unbeatable for the next few years, particularly tournaments and mixed games. NLHE will certainly struggle in the future just because of the sheer amount of people  working on solutions for situations, and the game is a lot more simple in terms of ranking hands and defining ranges than many other games. This is pretty different to a game like Stud, and I imagine the gto solution for Stud to be pretty dam complex, especially with so many betting streets, although I guess the fixed bet sizes will make this easier than any big bet game. But very few people are working on solving spots in Stud, and until the sort of endgame is in sight I think games will always remain pretty good. Especially whilst many of the older live pros still want to play a bunch of mixed games at the series. The 10k 2-7 TD got a 110 runners and I wonder just how many have sat down and really down the nitty gritty when it comes to this game. Not that I have done all of this myself yet, but I'm on the way.

I would like to go next year, I really did think long and hard about going this year, and I probably would have had this year not been fairly poor for me. I did consider selling a huge package but I just can't see selling for a 1.5k, how the hourly is justifiable, when I can play 3k buyins a day across 40 tournaments instead of one live comp. I also don't enjoy live poker as much as I used to, and whilst the WSOP factor would probably keep me motivated for a while, being trapped in Vegas would be an absolute nightmare. I'm not particularly nitty when it comes to spending, but I do really hate wasting money. I really can't imagine missing a flight or doing some of the other crazy things I've heard about other poker players. I think ultimately the riskiness of Vegas to my overall survival in the game is too big of a factor. I'd rather go and play a bunch when I am at my most comfortable, instead of worrying about having to move down and really grind it out.


<3 to TL and B2B

,.!.. to Wayman.

In, gl mate!

Bit of a quiet week on the poker front between my parents being in town and some slight illness. I played Thursday/Friday but no mtt success. I made a really big fold last night in a very strange spot and I'm not sure if it was really really bad. I think I might make a mistake on both the turn when I call and on the river when I fold. AJ on J255A, but it was vs a weird opponent who never bets AK ott and wouldn't go for thin. However, I'm a bit concerned he just randomly blew up, and obviously if I'm folding this hand, I'm folding everything. Saturdays are a really fun day to play and I feel like today could be the day mtts turn around.

Cash has been excellent, I'm finding great games and feeling very confident. I found a new site to play on which I hadn't even heard anyone mention rumors of it before. My contact said games are unbelievable on there, so hopefully I can get something going on there, apparently its more nlhe than plo but you never know what can happen, and whilst nlhe cash isn't my strongest, I'm looking forward to seeing whats happening on there.

I really do need to get into studying draw more though, just a bit too much napkin math currently and as soon as I start to get something going then it should be easier to adjust for some of the other games. I played the 530 8 game last night and it was pretty ridiculous, I went on break as the only one registered, then spent an hour battling with two of the better regs. In the 10 minute Razz level we managed to play 35 hands. Insane. Never really got going but stabilized around 3.8k from 5k when two newcomers joined the party. Unfortunately, I bricked two really clean draws in Stud8, and that was that :(

Saturday: Saturday started off reasonably well, i built up a few stacks and managed to get a few cashes. Managed to come 4th in the 215 PLO8 weekly on .com for 1k losing a few annoying pots. A few bits and pieces emerged but bubbling the 54ko regspeed was an unfortunate highlight from the early nlhe stuff. Kind of expected a bit more. I got a bunch of kos in the SKO 320 and was looking pretty set, I had a decent amount of reg speed stacks and the Hot 100 ft after the 1am break but most of these came crashing down as I luckboxed a 2nd in the Hot. Bit disappointed to lose the headsup going in as 2/1 chiplead. Pretty big jump too as I got 1.3k and he got a bit over 2k ftw. Despite having one of my worst cash sessions in a while, being down 5 buyins on one table in 120 hands didn't help, I managed to grind it back out and overall I think I won across all the sites I played.

Sunday: Sunday started off well, I got going in the NLO8 215 weekly again and quickly built up some stacks apart from the standard early bust in the 265 ko. Throughout the whole session I had stacks and deep runs going and the hours were just flying by. The 215 weekly FT was really long, but the table was good and I felt like a win was on the cards. I got HU 3:2 cl although we were quite short, and quickly lost KK65 vs AA** when he 3bet me pre, I called and then we got it in. I wasn't particularly happy but I wasn't sure what else to do. After losing this I tried to play as small ball as possible, my opponent wasn't defending/stabbing enough, and just wanted to flop something and get it in vs me. I managed to win something like 18/20 hands before opening AT73cchh and being 3bet. I called and we saw a J64cch runout. In the chips go with our nut flush draw, gutshot and 2nd nut lowdraw. Unfortunately, our opponent has AK82 with the 2nd nut flush draw for an exact 50/50 and wins. Doh!

The next deep run was the 54ko regspeed, I ran up a bit of a stack just before the money and the field seemed pretty great. Wotrthechances (forgot his real name) from blonde was about, and that added a little bit of extra focus. We made the ft as 1/9 but couldn't manage to keep the pressure on, losing a few allins before busting in 4th. I didn't get too many hands on the ft, and probably messed up one spot where I did have it, so I was a bit disappointed but it didn't feel disastrous. I also bubbled the warmup during this time, having coasted to 100k (10x starting) pretty easily. Next thing I know, I've tripled off 70k and then jam AJo over a cutoff open and a button call losing to AT :( I also managed a third in the NLSD 2-7 weekly, although this was only 3 paid. 362$ mincash from an 82 though :D This was sometime around the 54 ko and the weekly, but I'm not 100%. (P.S I also managed to come 10th in the 82 NLO8, pretty frustrating as I've not fted this one yet!)

The MegaKo on 888 is one of my favourite comps of the week. It has an oldschool reasonably bad structure and has a 100+100+9 format. Flopping a set early got things going, and a bunch of guys were just splashing about. I made the final with 3 kos and was sitting 4/9 with 7 paid. The bubble took long enough that play after that was pretty short. I managed one ko, and one guy went on a huge tear, koing 5 of the other guys, leaving myself and him headsup with him as a somewhat significant 10:1 chiplead. I wasn't too upset to lose the inevitable k6s vs A2o shortly into the match.

The rest of the night was pretty much all nlhe, I came 11th in the 100$ Party 25k, having fted it a few weeks ago and had 3x starting in the Party 500, the Sunday 530 and the 300e Highroller on .fr, all reasonable sweats, with a bunch of turbos and hypers for backup coming into 2am again. I saw a horse lose a 35x startign stack pot to bubble the Whale, I think I worked out it was FT average at the time which was a bit gutting. I ended up flipping out of the s530 in a weird spot, where I jammed for 34bb from the SB with 99, when a big stack has opened the button into a 4bb stack. I think this is better than 3b calling as I don't particularly want to induce overs and 99 is probably a decent amount stronger than hands he might expect me to jam. Sunday Highroller on party went a bit weird, not really sure what to make of it. I think I made a mistake picking off a timing tell, which probably means the exact opposite of what I thought. Quite interesting though and I'll be looking into it in the future. .fr HR was stupid, I was 1/68 with 36 paid and really cooking on gas. A reg made a ridiculous 3bet oop vs my button raise when I had 64ss (2.08x) from the sb and I called with 18bb back or so. T86hh flop and he bet/calls A8o. Not really sure what happened, I don't think I can fold getting such a crazy price, and I think the hand he showed down proves this. Jamming the flop might have been bad though, I just couldn't see what he had that could call apart from aces. Two orbits and a table change later we jam T4s into AQ and flop a 4 but lose. 5 hands later we 3bet jam AK and run into AQ and lose. Marv.

Luckily I hand the Sunday 2nd chance to keep me going. I'd chipped up again really well, and held a top 5 stack for a long time. Just after the bubble I lost a few and had to start grinding it out again. 90 mins later and winning 10k in chips but down to 13bb. At this point I found a bunch of jams and resteals and managed to slowly chip up and koing a shorter stack. I came into the 27th fairly short, but went into the final 2 tables as 7/17. The final two tables lasted forever. I think we played with 12-9 over a 2 hour period. I was feeling relatively good, my table had all the short stacks on it and it played out very cautiously. I think perhaps I could have taken a few more spots here, just because chipping up would have been so big, my table really was ripe for the taking in some parts and when the final table began it would be a lot tougher. Not that I ever really got to the stack size where I could play pretty loose, it was more about survival at that point.


PokerStars Hand #136420605900: Tournament #1235790576, $200+$15 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXIX (10000/20000) - 2015/06/08 6:36:08 CET [2015/06/08 0:36:08 ET]
Table '1235790576 25' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 2: Demonic16 (309237 in chips)
Seat 4: noirduck (391829 in chips)
Seat 5: random_chu (880599 in chips)
Seat 6: ekziter (520611 in chips)
Seat 8: tnapoleao (266076 in chips)
Demonic16: posts the ante 2000
noirduck: posts the ante 2000
random_chu: posts the ante 2000
ekziter: posts the ante 2000
tnapoleao: posts the ante 2000
tnapoleao: posts small blind 10000
Demonic16: posts big blind 20000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Demonic16 [Qc Qd]
noirduck: folds
random_chu: folds
ekziter: raises 498611 to 518611 and is all-in
tnapoleao: folds
Demonic16: calls 287237 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (211374) returned to ekziter
*** FLOP *** [8s Ks 2c]
*** TURN *** [8s Ks 2c] [7d]
*** RIVER *** [8s Ks 2c 7d] [9s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Demonic16: shows [Qc Qd] (a pair of Queens)
ekziter: shows [7c 7s] (three of a kind, Sevens)
ekziter collected 634474 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 634474 | Rake 0
Board [8s Ks 2c 7d 9s]
Seat 2: Demonic16 (big blind) showed [Qc Qd] and lost with a pair of Queens
Seat 4: noirduck folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: random_chu folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: ekziter (button) showed [7c 7s] and won (634474) with three of a kind, Sevens
Seat 8: tnapoleao (small blind) folded before Flop

6:36am for 10th place and 2.1k$. Fun. Around 17 hours of poker for that. Lovely.


Party, $90.91 Buy-in (1,500/3,000 blinds, 300 ante) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

SB: 53,573 (17.9 bb)
BB: 39,308 (13.1 bb)
Hero (UTG): 56,486 (18.8 bb)
MP: 131,801 (43.9 bb)
CO: 26,725 (8.9 bb)
BTN: 26,798 (8.9 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 9c Jc
Hero raises to 6,000, MP calls 6,000, 3 folds, BB calls 3,000

Flop: (21,300) 6h Ad 3s (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 6,000, MP raises to 12,000, BB folds, Hero raises to 18,000, MP folds

Results: 45,300 pot
Final Board: 6h Ad 3s
BB mucked and lost (-6,300 net)
Hero mucked 9c Jc and won 45,300 (27,000 net)
MP mucked and lost (-18,300 net)

Hand from the Party 100 f2ts, pulling shit like this and cant make the FT! It had gotten crazy short as you can see from the stack sizes.


http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/14677156_252F22235C regs gonna reg lol

Also managed to pull a bluff on a flop of q22 when he c/r, i click, he raises, i click and he folds in a .fr comp. Fun stuff.

Had a slow monday and just played the 530 Omaha. Cruised to 40k going into the money, down to 15 left and raise 7659ds blind vs blind get 3bet and find a   Aspades 7h Qh Bit gross but couldn't fold blind vs blind when bb started with 25bb, find a flush turn but an ace river. Doh! Couldn't spin up the 15bb remaining over the next level. Very annoying pot to lose as it would have set me up nicely to make the ft. Luckily one of my horses fted the big 109 and got 5th, so I made some $ there, he is one of the guys with low makeup at the moment, so cash straight into the pocket! oioi. He receives a better profit chop when he gets x amount in front on the stake, and is closing in, so thats a nice problem. He could have definitely made it too, if he managed the win. I thought he played really well apart from maybe one hand where he 3bet, perhaps a little big, but going to go back through the hands later this week I think.

Tuesday was a disaster, bust everything good, flipped out of the b109 in 15th and bust the NOS (.fr 100), in 17th or so. Pretty big cash game ran that was mediocre, probably worth playing but I immediately started to get hammered, quit then rejoined after a long wait. Still wasn't playing my best and quit again, figuring its best to fight another day. Few bad sessions of cash undid most of last weeks good work, and it does look very depressing, but if I think in terms of hourly I'm still doing pretty well, even if it wasn't as ridiculous as before!

Pretty concerning news about the plo bot ring. I don't think it will have affected but it is very scary, and I have played bits so maybe. Worrying stuff.

Full session today starting fairly shortly. Looking forward to it!

Great last two days, finally hit a bit of form, shipped the 54tko yesterday and the big 22 today, as well as a decent cash in the thrill (66<a8o for a stack, 21st, get the moan out quickly) and a chop in the hot 100, 4th in the Hot 30. One of my biggest winning days of the year, came at a great time too. I went to bed late last night and was a bit annoyed to miss a full grind today as my girlfriend arrives on saturday for 5 days and I will only play Sunday whilst she is here. I was messing about a bit today having got up late, but talked myself into sitting down and grinding out a run it once video and running some HRC stuff. I spent about 2 hours doing this and then hopped in around b109 time, intending to reg the standard early reg speed and turbos up to midnight. I felt really good throughout and focused really hard today, I didn't play music, open fb or do anything that would switch my mind off poker. In most breaks I made tea and spoke about hands in the last hour. I played some pretty cool hands today, and definitely had my share of run good. I won AQ > AK and AA in the big 22, but did manage to chip up massively on the ft bubble, with one orbit containing 2x 3b and a cold 5b, and the next containing a cold 4bet. The ft didn't quite go as planned, I maintained a stack fairly well, but was a little bit more handicapped than I liked, and I also probably misplayed a hand vs a weak player that lost me some much needed chips I thought I could afford to lose. I lost AJo vs QTo when a battling reg jammed over my button open, which seemed pretty dam questionable on the QQ3 flop. I did bink a flush with AKs vs JJ and beat aces with KQs in a hand I will look into tomorrow. It might be closer than I thought. Shame to lose the thrill flip, I'd been largely card dead since we made the money, but having got a ko in a 55/45 itm, its hard to moan too much about losing the flip, even if it is a 1k. Really nice to get some confidence for the next few months, the end to poker countdown seems to be speeding up as time goes on so fingers crossed I can catch some heat sooner rather than later.

Congrats on the heat.

What would your perfect grind day online look like schedule wise ? Eg when would you start/finish, how much study would you do, what prep would you do etc etc, peak table amount etc etc.

Ideal would be to reg 4-11 but in reality it is 4-11 saturday and sunday and 6-11 or 6-10 midweek depending on whether i look for cash games or reg late turbos. I reg 3 sites mostly, being Stars, 888 and .fr with Party/Tilt being mixed in. I used to grind iPoker and may reintroduce it, but I'm having issues making a euro wallet and can find enough games elsewhere atm. My ideal table count is probably 16 in terms of hourly. I probably play slightly worse than I would on 10-12 but I can certainly get by. I've certainly played more and it is possible to hit 24 on sundays if the right things go well. I've certainly gotten better at managing my tables a bit, and cutting out the right tournaments. I generally study only on days off, but I have started to get into running more HRC calcs. I do spend a lot of time railing horses and just thinking a lot about each hand that goes on, and building good reads on people. Generally I start my sessions slowly and try to build into it a bit, I'll sometimes look at any annoying hands from the previous day, sometimes just start registering. I'm playing almost everyday at the moment, occasionally it will just be a few table grind, focusing on a 530 or the tuesday HS stuff. My time off comes when I visit my gf or she comes here. She was here from Saturday to Thursday and I only played on sunday and didn't really think much about poker, but spent a lot of time relaxing, eating and doing some touristy stuff.

Last sunday was a lot of fun, I had a bunch of runs but no real cashes. I had the trifecta of Highrollers again and then lost a ridiculous pot in the S500, where one of the biggest whales I've ever seen, 3xed from utg and called a 32bb shove with A9, soundly crushing my Tens. Lol. Luckily I built up a big stack in the Party 500, pulling off a pretty sexy bluff on the bubble and went itm with a healthy stack. We bounced around a bit, and a rather fun player handicapped me a bit, but we managed to maintain some sort of a stack and go into the FT 5/9 or so. JJ > 88 vs the whale, who'd gotten in some delightful jams on the bubble, punting off a 3x average stack bless his heart to come 8th. I managed to get some 3bets through and put a few guys in. The long ft bubble meant everyone was quite short and the competition was pretty dam tough. Won a flip a little later on and chopped in a comfy 2nd place (15k$) . Party just snap end the tournament which was a tad tilting, I might have played a while for the belt.

At the same time I was going deep in the mil. Comfortably the deepest I've gone before. I was pretty nervous about this, but having the 500 go well alongside was a big confidence boost. Unfortunately, I crashed out 26th, losing J9o vs KQ, 77 vs TT and KQo vs 22. Kinda regret the J9 hand, I opened in a good spot, but I think I'm a bit too short and conserving my stack is too important. He jamme for 6bb total anyway and I couldn't fold. Ben Jones also came in the double digits, and a horse I had 50% of, so it felt like a pretty big crossbar, despite a solid day. Another horse got 23rd in the Warmup, so a really big score should be on the way.

Scoop was pretty bad, I think I lost a decent chunk of money, Ben got some back with the ST win, and one horse has been doing well, close to increasing his chop %. One got 8th in the 320 SKO today, quite tilting as he got pretty crazily coolered. SB mr, horse calls. KQ9sss, SB bets 2bb, horse calls. 3c SB checks, horse bets 4.5bb and SB shoves for 18 total with 3s3h. Horse has JTo and 56% but that just wasn't enough. Pretty shitty. Had a good day myself, won the 82 plo8 weekly, 5th in the 55 o8 weekly 6m and 3rd in the 33 Omania. I did direct bubble 2 party 215s, one for 1.3k!! Where I probably butcher a hand, in a super weird spot again. Sometimes mistakes happen though, and having recovered about half of my personal scoop losses, I'm relatively happy.

P.S Anyone want any Party?  ;booder; ;booder; ;booder;

Also, I'm having a really annoying issue with Blonde, where around half the time I use it, the pages just don't load and I have to faff about refreshing and hitting back to get things to work.

Good luck tomorrow mate <3

Lots of grinding and not a tremendous amount to talk about. Games are excellent at the moment and I'm playing about as big as possible at the moment without a festival going on. I've kept ticking over but not had any major scores, had 50% of another 2 deep mil runs and came 9th in the supersonic losing QQ<AK for a chunky 2nd place stack. I've been having a lot of runs, bunch of fts and wins but not much for over 5k. Today went well and I binked an ept barcelona seat, which is a big relief as I really want to go and make amends for my performance last year, where i played somewhat poorly and then got kings into aces in about level 5. Its the biggest comp I've played before so I've often thought about whether the stakes got to me a bit. Its funny how one tournament out of thousands can stick out in your mind. Binked a wcoop main seat too a few weeks back, so its nice to have some shots in the bank as I will probably be playing fairly small between now and the start of wcoop, this mainly consists of dropping anything consider relatively tough such as the 1ks, but I do have the desire to prove myself at those stakes so perhaps I will look into just selling much more than usual. I have a feeling grinding early on Tuesday and Thursday would probably be the lower variance/higher hourly option.

I'm also battling a poker playing sleep schedule of heading to bed at 6-8am and waking up after 3, which often means I can't do much before I grind and just get into a really dull routine of eating worse and going out and doing less. I made sure to go out last friday and had a really good time at Meat Boutique (http://Meat Boutique) then having a steady wander over the bridge and into a few bars along the river. The weather was outrageous and the beer was pretty good too. Not having any girls in the party I don't any pictures, so hopefully the review place will do. Bit of a joke it is only 700th in Budapest really, it is a touch expensive compared to some places but the location and decor are way above average too.

I do intend to post more but I need something more to write about, been a bit bummed out about poker after the bot scandal and Noel Hayestings thing, both of which cost me somewhere between 1k and lots at a guess. The PLO bots were extremely good and I had some shots in games around the Noel Hayes stuff, and played many tournament hands with him. I don't really know how many hands I've played with the bots across networks, it could be as little as 1k it could be as many as 50k which is pretty dirty. I've been playing more cash on the underground sites to reasonable success and I may just end up playing a bunch across these in future, as much as I love mtts. They simply can't be around for long and the $ involved is in a very solid situation (both places I know someone who knows the owner/skin owner) and both are reasonably difficult/impossible to find for other regulars.

After next tuesday or so I'll be doing a lot less playing and a bunch more studying, I think having a couple of weeks at 50:50 studying to playing time will be very beneficial. As fun as it is attempting to win money, taking some time out to try and win more money quicker in the future sounds like a good idea too! I've been doing more and more but its time to ramp it up for a while.

Gl at the tables.

Somewhat quiet week this week. Not played as much poker but I did play a full session yesterday and some cash midweek. Played 5/10 5c o8 for 5 hours or so on Wednesday, it was a pretty swings game hu and 3 handed but a lot of fun. I definitely felt like I had a big edge but four hours of winning 66+% of pots and not really winning much of note. I played a full schedule yesterday, 2 bowl ft finals and 2 slightly bigger ones for a small winning day. I also won the most in big blinds on cash in question session, despite losing a 1k bb pot I absolutely butchered, piling far too much in top boat into quads vs a regular.

Last Sunday was good, I blinked an ept package and had some other cashes for a good day. 3 handed was a long battle between myself €uropean and another regular, and it really showed me some of the differences between myself and him, and some of the other regulars. I'm trying to go through every spot and just play a little slower in the big hands. 36th supersonic again!!

We went out for a huge dinner on Thursday, 16 of us went to one of the best steak places in town. The meal took forever and was one of the weaker steaks I've had there. It was great to see everyone and I enjoyed going to a bar and seeing a few people who'd been way down the other end. A nightclub visit was mentioned for Friday night but I decided to stay in and cook some meals for the weekend. It's been nice relaxing a bit more.

What are "underground sites" Adam?

Not read this diary before - interesting read. Won't be so remiss in future.

Sites you might not be able to find through Google. Some might make it on to pokerscout some day. Think of Adjarabet (Georgian site) for example, or winpoker365 (Italian). these are two that I can think of that have emerged from the shadows in the last few years (and disappeared again).

One of the sites I play is invite only and the poker is pretty much like a live casino. I have to screenshot announcements and forward them to my agent.

Suppose it sounds a daft rhetorical question, but the security of your account balance must be a worry?

Presumably these sites have adequate liquidity, or you would not play there, are they standalones or networks?

Yeah it is, but I give up a portion of my action on one of the sites as insurance with my "agent" and I'm staked on one of the sites due to the difficulty of getting the currency. Its a risk but one I think I have minimized and I think the risk is worth the increased hourly if you keep the account balance low enough for it not to be too painful. Keeping a few buyins in the account is the way forward.

7th in the Megadeep for 3.2 today, played 90 mins 7 handed and eventually get QQ into KK in a weird spot. I went from 6/7 to 1/7 then that took place when I was 4/7 and i bust shortly afterwards QJ<A3o (we started off with an average of 50bb! After 10 hours 30 mins of the comp!)

12th in the Hot 44 and 16th in the 55t reentry for a few more moans. One horse got 13th in the Big 109 for a small loss and one had a really solid day. Got a bit more to write about this stake but I will take some time and write up a proper post.

I did bink another EPT package so it looks like I'm going to play a lot of HS comps this year. Definitely nice to have got another, definitely going to provide some motivation to grind so I can play more comps whilst out there, or enjoy the city rather than being forced to grind online or something depressing. Poker is a lot of fun at the moment, and I'm feeling good about my game but I can also see a lot of room for improvement. So hungry for this, and there might not be long left unless I can reach the top. Listened to a relaxing mix of classical music today and it made the session fly by. As stressful as sundays can be, losing as only annoying me because I'm not winning. I didn't get too upset about any beats until the megadeep, and I didn't let it affect my play then. I feel pretty relaxed about everything, although my mental approach does swing a little bit, I'm confident I can have a great rest of the year. 17 hour work day just flying by, and I look forward to tomorrow.


*(edit: when I say bink, I mean bink!!!!! A4<AK and j7s<AK 3 handed. Got to balance out the moans)

Appreciate the reply, thank you. Not entirely sure I understand it, or what your "agent" does, (& why) but if it works, I'll not knock it.

Good to hear you don't keep much money on these underground sites. I was reminded of this thread last night when reading a book by Mad Frankie Fraser, back in the day, when LF ("Long Firm" frauds) were all the rage. Essentially, build up trust, then do a runner. Anyway, you seem to be aware & ahead of the game, but do be careful. 

I was going to write "keep your money on established sites, they'll never do a runner" but then I thought back to Full Tilt, & Black Friday. I know it all ended well, but only by the most peculiar set of circumstances.

I was unable to keep up with all the Diaries, & blonde generally, whilst in Vegas, but I'm subscribed to this one now.

Bit of heat this week with a win in the hot 55 for 8k plus change on wednesday and 4th b162 (5k), 2nd 55r (2.1k) 1st 109 o8 (1.3k).

Ran pretty good everywhere of course which was nice for a change. In both the hot 55 and Big I pretty much heatered my way to an ft stack. Really happy with my play today, I didnt bottle any spots and played some really good poker. I felt a bit fatigued at 1am but feel relatively good now despite 2 hours more play. Bit of a shame in the b162, losing QJs < TT and AA < AJs to bust. The final was pretty tough and whilst I felt comfortable I ran ok with my seat draw and card distribution. The 55r hu was a slog, and I feel like he got the better of me, so I certainly have some work to do there. I have quite a few friends to ask about the spots I felt a bit exposed in so it will be interesting to see what they say.

Always nice to get some heat before sunday, and I've managed to get a decent balance of life/playing/studying this week. I've got a lot of travelling in August and EPT Barcelona coming up, which should have an exciting lineup both in the card room and at the bar. Nice to get some $ instead of the hero. Its been a bit brutal for me with recent swings but I guess I'm somewhat hedged through having accounts in different currencies. I've not played much cash this week, small winner overall I think.

You have a diary!
Sick.

Don't wanna blow smoke up you but you really have become one of the strongest professional players out there this last 2 years.

Hard work and belief, and then a lil luck at a few useful moments, thats what it takes. You're a great example for anyone trying to start out in poker.

As I sit outside the gate of Dusseldorf airport, on my way back to the UK after a relaxing week at my girlfriends, I pick up one of my favourite books by one of my favourite authors. Elements of poker  by Tommy Angelo

To give you an idea of how big of an effect poker has had on my life, I will mention that my first copy of the book was paid for by my school. I went to a private school which had an end of the year commemoration day. This Saturday was one of the worst as a young adult. When my parents let me look at prospectuses for schools age 10, I looked for two things. Church and Saturday school. Commen day had both. A long ceremony in church in the morning followed by a lunchtime of mayhem. The school teachers had to make appearances in the headmasters garden. So we were largely left to our own devices but under the threat of real punishment for being caught on the grass or playing sport. Certain areas of grass were banned for an unknown reason,  it was a definite area of contention for my year group. We collectively scored very well on the midyis  tests that predict gcse grades but our actual results were somewhat poor including my own. Luckily I managed to turn this around at a level but we shall leave this for another day. Commen day speeches in the afternoon involved prize giving for various achievements throughout the school year. I was away when  the kids got to choose so I was given a voucher, which went towards my first copy of Elements of poker. I'm fairly sure the front cover was inscribed, I'm not sure if by my mum or whether it was actually given to the headmaster.

Anyway, after a longwinded diversion, I picked up EoP for the first time in a year or so, and even just reading the blurb, it spoke to me.

I've been somewhat down about poker lately. My results for this year haven't met my expectations and this has been something that has played on my mind, as I'm sure I have mentioned previously. Fortunately, I have been struck by an inspirational bolt of lightening and have finally realised that unless I start to modify my behaviour then I cannot become the best in the world. I have largely stopped smoking in the last week and I intend to get back to doing more exercise when  possible. This might be tough during Barcelona as the climate won't lend itself to exercise and the drinking won't lend itself to not smoking but as long as I can keep up the desire to change then I won't let the short term affect me. I'm going to have to drop down a touch. The more I analyse my database and results, the more I realise perhaps I'm not as good as I thought. I have about 12 days before Barcelona begins and I thoroughly intend to spend this time enjoying life with my family, but also doing some real hard work on my game, as I alluded to previously. My volume has been pretty good this year and my results would look quite good if I hadn't played as many hs tournaments. This is just an unfortunate part of mtts and instead of moaning about bad luck this year, I should probably be thankful that they went so well last year. Instead of bemoaning the manufactured streak (the EoP blurb was about streaks) in my head, I need to focus on what I can control and that involves being the healthiest person I am. Smoking is an extremely selfish habit and whilst I was never prolific, it wasn't until I admitted I was actually addicted that quitting could begin as a process. I'm aware it won't be easy and I'm probably choosing a poor time to do so with Barcelona and wcoop coming up.

If someone came to me and detailed my own life, I have a pretty good idea of what I would say to them. Sometimes it is hard to see clearly, but when you look over your own shoulder it can become much clearer. The condensation is wiped  Drop down a bit, knuckle down and study more. My work ethic is good, I've played 4.5k games this year as well as a bunch of cash hands and done some mix game studying. I need to keep this up and just work that bit harder and that bit smarter. I still want to reach the highest stakes. I'm not going to let poker become a grind. It is hard to make a living at this game and many careers reward service and experience. Grinding out my accountancy exams would probably make more long term sense than poker financially but almost certainly not in terms of my own happiness.

I have a lot to be thankful for and sometimes it is hard to remember that. After all, "downswing" itself implies bad luck is to blame. But when I look back I can see the mistakes I have made in many areas. As one of my dad's friends told me after my very first poker session (1/2 limit on party age 15, won 50$) 'as soon as you think you've cracked it, you haven't'

I'm on the plane now with Tommy's words between my fingers. I can feel the excitement in my stomach. I love poker, I love how it's a mental battle. I love the challenge and the competition. It's time to seek out every edge I can and try to make sure I am, and the people i care about are as happy as possible.

As a small aside blonde has become more of a negative to me as time has gone on. I find myself making silly posts I regret. So to Doobs I would like to make an apology. I am doing this here instead of PM as I don't think it would be right to hide away. I chastised in public so I think it's right to apologise in public too. My posts last week were out  of order, and whilst I think some of my points had some merit, a lot of unnecessary anger and vitrol was in those posts so I'm sorry.

I wrote this post from my phone and I did try and proof read it. It's not really my style. Had a good Sunday si I might detail that more later. Grandma's are both coming over though so vino might be involved!

"Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds" Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers. (Talking about how long different cultures are willing to tackle math problems for)

Nice post man, keep up the good work

I don't know you personally at all but I know doobs reasonably well and I was really surprised at your recent ruck,  it made no sense to me.

His attitude towards some posters is just not on. I suppose it's all about your friendship with someone, then perhaps you're not going to see it in a light others do.

Friendship with whom? I only know doobs to say hi to. Neither of them are remotely close friends, I just thought the ruck was strange from two of blondes very shrewd minds.

I thought he didn't like me from pretty early on in my posting career and I feel like hes made a lot of small remarks about it. For example in the charity thread he brought up WCOOP, and when doing so mentioned losing 2k. Now perhaps it bothered me a bit more than it should have, because I've been losing, but it just seemed to be a little dig at me. I first just highlighted it and then put the wcoop stuff in bold and a question mark, but then I figured this was silly and to just leave it, but when I saw the post to Pads I didn't feel like leaving it anymore. Whilst Pads can obviously protect himself, I didn't feel the post should be ignored, its just not what blondes about imo. I've been in two minds about this for a while and I'm fairly sure if Doobs doesn't like me then he has his reasons for that and I'm not desperate to be liked by everyone. I think I'm probably right that he doesn't like me, as his comments about me posting something in TFT when I don't really do any sportsbetting at all. I used to be a beard for someone and I still follow what I can on the thread despite not being able to get on, but I'm not just taking info and having my own bets, I just don't really have anything to contribute. I do/did post in nearly every PHA thread since I've been a member, so I feel like its fair to say I do give as well as take from the forum. I'm not sure if that was what Doobs was saying or whether he was just upset at some of the more OOL things I said.


Doobs implied in an early PHA thread about o8, i tried looking for it briefly, that I was perhaps overestimating my ability. And looking back at some of the hands (I open KK64ss utg in one, 9 handed lol) there was perhaps some undeserved ego there.


edit: It could also just be nonsense in my head, or just doobs style. Perhaps he thought it was a friendly needle, but I've always respected him as a poster and been cautious because of what I thought his opinion on me was. I doubt we will ever be best of friends now but I felt bad about it so here we are.

Hey j always assume this is a sky poker Reg and not you when I see it in unread topics! It's good reading.

Downswings are amazing. So many regs quit/play worse or let it effect them. The fact you can downswing and still play a lot, study and want to do well the right way means that downswings are absolutely amazing for you and you're really lucky they exist.

A lot of guys will go drinking for the week, you started studying more, a lot of regs will start unregging after the Sunday million, you kept on regging and won 30k

<3 downswing.

Good things happen to good grinders.

I arrived in England last Friday and had a relaxing evening talking with my parents and sister, having a good catchup about life. I found it quite interesting we all just stood in the kitchen and spoke for about 2 and a half hours. No tv, no electronics, just good old fashioned talking. Saturday was a family friends 21st, a young man who feels like a younger brother to me. Or it was the case until about 4 years ago when he managed to shoot past me in height. We don't talk a tremendous amount but it is nice to know someone is there for you and you are there for them. I had a really enjoyable evening having a few beers and a few ill advised tequila shots, a drink I find hard to stomach having drank it by the bottle with an ex girlfriend. Lots of family friends about and one of my mates turned up on his way into town, having been at another friends do. It was great to see him and we are really close, again we don't talk as much as we possibly should but I think we are both content with our own lives and just happy to grab a beer and enjoy things when our paths align. We tried to meet up a further 3-4 times this week but have really struggled due to him working and my poker play, despite me not playing a tremendous amount. Sunday I woke up fairly early with a bit of a sore head, and despite planning on getting some more sleep, I just ended up messing about in the morning doing a variety of things like reading, talking to horses, catching up on the news and so forth.

Poker is a funny game. I don't really think I played my best overall on Sunday. I got in a stupid argument with a horse who had played very little recently, but I went about it in the wrong way. I meant to just make a little joke about it but I did it in a chat with my other horse and a friend of ours and that caused a much bigger kerfuffle than necessary. I did managed to clear this up Monday morning, and I think we are in a much better shape because of it. I feel like I'm one of the less overbearing backers around and you do hear about some absolute horror stories, but both horses are friends of mine and I think we struggle to compartmentalize things a bit. It does have the added bonus of meaning I don't worry about being scammed at all. If I was scammed, losing a friend would probably hurt more than the actual $ involved.

I struggled to concentrate and kept finding myself reading facebook or 2+2 and not maintaining focus. This was partly due to focusing on lowering table count, an epiphany both Pads and I had at somewhat similar times. I had a few deep runs and managed to go from 13/14 in the Crocodile to 2/9 for the FT. Unfortunately, as per in this tournament I had a rather brutal exit. Having induced a reg to raise my potsized river bet with Q3 on a2934 in a limped pot bvb having rivered the straight, I was feeling really good about things. The next hand the sb (q3o guy) 3/5bs 88 into my AK, despite a guy being sat with 6 big blinds and he wins a sizable (god this word looks wrong)  flip. Very next hand I get AKo in vs AKs, where i probably make a similar mistake to the guy in the previous hand by not 3bet shoving and 3bet calling. My reason for this was losing the previous hand might make it look like I was tilting but particularly vs the player in question its probably still a decent mistake. I got 9th for 960 or something, a rather painful exit when there is 10k up top.

Regrouping after this was pretty hard, I felt kinda flat. I had a few stacks but morale was pretty low. We'd just about gotten into the money in the bigger 162 and I managed to make a few hands. I possibly butchered one vs a reg, getting K4o in over his bvb 2.5x, but it just didn't make sense to me for him to open to that size. He had Jacks though, one of the most reasonable hands to do this with, but I flopped a King and held. Not too long after I found AA, called a jam and a rejam and held vs KTo and Jacks again to go 1/130 or something like that. I managed to maintain this sort of stack until the f2ts, with about 36 left I had close to FT average due to an above average set of cards and winning 5 allins in a row. I was feeling really good, I pulled off somewhat of a weird bluff with a bluffcatcher that I thought was really good, but then sent it to a few people and Pads immediately got back to me to say it was horrible.  ;oopsy;

I felt much more aggressive than my previous sunday runs and definitely made a few "yolo" moves as the field was extremely tough when we got into the final 50 or so. In the final 27 I counted about 23 regs, 2 ok players and 2 unknowns! A huge contrast to the week I came 17th when the field looked absolutely amazing. I came into the ft as 3/9 or so I think and kept up the battling. With 6 left, I pulled a really silly bluff where I felt like my opponents bet size was fairly strong but never actually nutted, and I went for the big play. I'm sure I picked both a bad hand in my range to do this with and a very bad river size, especially on one of the cards I should maybe check. This was annoying and I felt like I'd blown up a bit. Luckily, I won J8hh vs A6hh on kh822h to survive, and then won AQs vs JJ to put myself in a decent position. Not long after a HS reg made a fairly questionable play for the 3rd time at the final and jammed KJs from the big for 24bb into my open when there was a tiny stack about. I held with AK and had a great stack to continue the pressure. I managed to keep chipping up from this excellent position to be in, but when we got down to 3 handed my run of cards slowed, and the guy who came into the ft 1/9 and held onto his stack won a few pots off me and koed the 3rd place guy. It was about 6am and we quickly did a chop with myself holding the slight cl, so I'm counting it as a win despite losing the flipfest afterwards. Somewhat surreal to have your biggest winning day of the year on a day when I would rate my performance early in my session as fairly weak. Lol mtts.

I've spent most of this week reviewing hands and watching some coaching videos. I played a session on Wednesday and decided to not reg all my schedule at the start and I actually decided not to reg more as I was going to have a coaching session with Elliot Roe (the mental game coach) if I'd finished at around midnight. I again struggled a bit with concentration but I turned this around by verbalising my thought process outloud for an hour or so. Anyone watching over my shoulder would have thought I'd gone off my rocker! Its obviously something I'm going to have to battle through, having been a 20+ tabler and then dropping to 8-12 or so it is only natural I find my mind wandering a bit. With 20 tables you don't really give yourself time to think about much else other than the hands you are in but with 8 you sometimes can find gaps. Hopefully I can improve on this and I moved my session with Elliot to today in a little while. Its something I'm really looking forward to. Wednesday went fairly well, I managed a bunch of cashes and deepish runs. I came 10th in the Crocodile again, losing a pot for 2x 2nd place with 86cc into Ac5x on Q2c4c3c when a weaker player min 3bet my open. I managed to just lol this one off however and I certainly had my share of luck in the day later on.

A bunch of o8 cash has been running recently so I played some 10/20 4c and 5/10 5c. The games weren't that special and two regs actually said at the table that the Russian whale (who i thought had just improved a lot) was actually a shared account with two obviously different playing styles. Bit of a weird situation. I won on the 4c and lost small on the 5c but it was an interesting experience nonetheless and good practice for the 5k 5c o8 in Barcelona that I'm probably playing. I did get lucky late on, as I was checking the lobbies, managing to spot a rare white whale on PS at 75/150 LO8. This is not a game I'd normally play but I grabbed a seat and watched a few hands before joining in and running outrageously good. Twice I won pots at showdown when I felt like I had missed and was expecting the $ to go the other way in pots vs shortstacks. Pretty hilarious and although a second table was running, the one I'd gotten on broke when he bust so I just booked the 20BB win, in a game I'm not sure I should be in. Pretty fun though and its always weird playing against the HS legends you see in the lobby everyday. I can take most off the poker bucket list now, although playing Isildur in 6m LO8 probably wasn't quite what I had in mind!

I did a review with Vernon the other day and had a lot of fun. We spent a couple of hours reviewing one of his deep runs and I think we both got a lot out of it. I'm quite happy to have spent this time preparing off the table and although I'm a touch concerned I haven't played much online this month, and won't do with being in Barcelona, its not like I have been wasting my time. The stopping smoking has got a lot easier, I rarely feel any desire to smoke at all apart from right before I go to bed. It is tough after a few beers though I must say. Went to watch Doncaster Rovers vs Leeds last night and I really enjoyed the game. Football fans are fairly tilting people though and I'm just not sure if they genuinely believe what they say. Leeds had a red card in the first half and it was an absolutely awful challenge that ticks every box for a red card. 2 footed, over the ball and completely out of control, but Leeds fans were still complaining after the game about it! Crazy. The biggest tell should have been the complete lack of protest from all their players and manager. I also heard Paul Robinson said Leeds were the better side. He may be correct in terms of actual ability but after the red card they barely managed to string 5 passes together and I don't think they managed more than 2 shots in the 90 minutes after the Red (including extra time). We did struggle to break them down and we weren't exactly amazing, but its amazing to hear a commentator could say such a thing. *Disclaimer* This is something that got shouted down by a fan sat just behind the gantry where they were filming the pundits, so it is a little hearsay.

http://www.skysports.com/football/doncaster-vs-leeds/stats/339504

lol.

The session with Elliot was predictably very good. We addressed some of the things I mentioned in my post on August 10th and delved a bit more into everything. I really enjoyed the experience and I expected things to be a bit more awkward, particularly for a first time session, but I found myself being very honest and relaxed even before we got to the hypnotherapy stuff. I pretty much snapped his hand off booking 9 more sessions and I'm having another on Tuesday to discuss live poker as it wasn't something we particularly touched on this session. I found out a lot of interesting things about myself and I'm looking forward to see just how big of a change this will make both to my poker and my life as a whole. I couldn't recommend him highly enough. 

really enjoying this picken and think it will be something good for you to look back on over the years also1

If you ever read this Dan, don't put me in the sharerers freeroll. Poker in the northeast will always have a place in my heart. I was at a good friends wedding on Saturday and it was so great to see everyone and have a couple of beers. Such a good bunch of lads and lasses.

Drive home earlyish, got some sleep and then had a great tea with the family and some friends. Yesterday's poker went pretty well, won nlo8 weekly, 5th in 82 o8 pko and 2nd in the megako on 888 with the lions share of the prize pool. Had a fairly deep run in the Sunday Challenge on 888 after rivering a 2 outter. I thought it was a sign and kept chipping up but lost a very weird flip late on where I should perhaps fold.

I kept my table count low as previously spoken about and it just meant I felt so comfortable all session. I think I made a few mistakes but I made what I thought was the correct decision in the moment so I'd rate my performance fairly highly. I didn't play very big for a Sunday really but I don't mind doing that when I'm not in the mood. I don't really know why this is, maybe being close to out of it on sharkscope is having a detrimental effect. I might be winning on there for the year, not 100% but it is larger irrelevant of course. Streaks are self manufactured. I was on skype a bit too much but it's not like wasting energy on facebook, it's more discussing poker but that can be done post session. Something to work on. Interestingly, €uropean and I spoke briefly and he just said, gtg gonna focus fairly quickly. I'm sure Elliot would have been pleased.

Pads setup teanviewer yesterday so I spent a long time railing that, learnt some things and its always fascinating to watch him at work and be able to ask different questions. I was feeling shattered about 3am but I decided to man up and keep railing/discussing as it really is a great position to be in that a lot of regs would kill for. I also railed the 215r and 109r to completion and took some notes on future opponents. Not sure on the plan for today, dog bloody woke me up so I'm feeling tired. I will definitely get a run in though and maybe do some 5card h/l work. Think I'm sold up for Barcelona now and the excitement is building!

Thanks Callum, it a nice to get some feedback, I do feel like I'm talking to myself sometimes and I thought it means get just be the content of online poker being dull. Perhaps it was.

Hi Adam,

No, you are not talking to yourself - I read every word.

I had planned to reply to a couple of your long posts last week, but I never quite got round to it.  I've been trying to re-start my Diary too, but so little time, & so much to do.

Congrats on the deep runs & win yesterday.

What is your dog's name, & what make is it? You don't strike me as a dog person.

This hypnotherapy stuff, Adam.

I'm not dissing it, because I have no knowledge or understanding of it, but in what way do you think it helps you?

I know some folks were better able to quit smoking thanks to hypnotherapy, but until the last week or two I've not heard much as to how it can help us play better poker.

I DO get how cutting down the number of tables we play, & cutting out all the distractions (Facebook etc) helps, that's just plain common sense, and even at my level I'm conscious that if I start surfing or chatting on Message during a session, my concentration level dips alarmingly.

The hypnotherapy title is probably more misleading than useful. One of the early questions I asked Mr. Roe about was whether Hypnotherapists disliked the stage performing Hypnotists, and his answer was a resounding yes. The hypnotherapy part of the lesson and lesson might be the wrong term here, perhaps session would be a better description, was the last thing we touched upon. It is largely used as a relaxation technique that helps people be honest about why they feel the way they do about things, whether this is anxiety at higher stakes, anger at being 3bet or some other emotional issue that directly affects their game play. The best example would be many people who feel upset at being 3bet find they often have unresolved issues of bullying at some point in their life. The hypnotherapy allows Elliot to delve a bit deeper into the mind whilst allowing you to be more comfortable. I didn't or don't have any issues quite like that but after we spent a long time talking about my career, family life and health etc, but certainly was useful to feel so relaxed when we spoke more about the issues. I think the more relaxed you are, the more open and honest you will be. The image of a pocket watch swaying side to side could not be further from what actually happens. I may be wrong in what I say here as it is simply my take on it having spoke to Elliot for two hours once, but I think this is the general idea. We also did some visualization type things which then led to questions about how I feel in those moments. It is something that is hard to replicate and not something you can always share with friends or family, some things can be a bit too personal to share.

The family dog is called Buddy, hes a rescue dog and a Scoodle. He does have much curlier fur than most of the pictures I found online so I won't link you to a photo and will try and take a photo tomorrow. We have had a dog in the house throughout most of my childhood and I've always absolutely loved them to bits. I'm a huge dog person Tikay so your read was definitely wrong there. They are such amazing animals and I love the companionship they provide. Its hard to leave him for most of the year and dogsitting the other week certainly made me consider getting one in Budapest even though I know it isn't really compatible with my lifestyle or a place I'd particularly want to house a dog, despite it having quite a few dog friendly places.

I didn't manage to get any off the table 5c H/L done. I did manage to play some big pots at 10/20 and get it in largely good for the most part. The o8 action is really big at the moment and I'm not really sure where its come from. The games play pretty big and there is a decent pool of players so it might last for a while as its not particularly obvious who the fish in the game is. I tend to sit with the minimum though and think this provides me with a decent advantage. Quite a lot of my opponents seem to be playing far too loose but perhaps they will have the last laugh. Think I won enough to cover my 530 omaha buyin so I can't really complain. I'm not having a good run in that at the moment, and seem to be busting at the first hurdle. I had kinda blamed previous sundays in my head but I felt pretty good today so that is a touch worrying. Probably just variance.

I never used to struggle with looking at facebook or even skype during sessions, its something I thought I did pretty well but I think being unable to because of table count had some effect. I did notice an improvement from last Wednesday compared to both Sunday and today so that is something to be pleased with, although I only played a couple of hours today.

Ahh, gotcha Adam, thanks.

It sounds more like psychiatry than hypnotherapy to me, but it makes sense now. I'm a bit wary of what I would call "passing fads", but now it all makes sense to me.

Good to hear about the dog, don't forget to post the photo.  

I adore dogs, & it was always part of my retirement plan 12 years ago to get me a dog & fade away slowly into the sunset, just me & the dog, but I've kinda buggered that plan up one way & another. I will still get one though, once it becomes practical. As an odd aside, which will make no sense to a living soul, I live quite near the Windsor branch of Battersea Dogs Home, and about once a month Gill & I drive across & spend an hour or two there, fantasising about which dog we will choose when the time is right. She's as daft as a brush with animals, & we take along a bag of "dog treats" & sneakily feed the ones we like.

PLO8 traffic. Well I don't frequent 'Stars & the like, but I've been doing a personal challenge Next Door to increase interest in PLO8, & it's remarkable how much interest there is now in PLO8. Obviously it's very small compared to 'Stars etc, but I think you'd be surprised to know that in PLO8 DYM's, well in excess of 150 run every evening between 7pm & Midnight. I stick to the "bigger ones" (lol) at £3.30, £5.50, & £11, but I can regularly & easily play 50 of them any evening, & I play 5 or 6 at a time. The traffic at the lower levels is even greater.

I actually heard a bunch of good things about Unibet recently, so I had a look the other day to see what PLO8 SNG traffic they had. As far as I could see (I only looked on the Browser version) they don't even run them.  

I looked on Party, too, mainly to give Rob a bit of tangible support, but the PLO8 SNG traffic did not appear to exist.

More & more players are slowly realising that edges in NLH are very hard to find these days, everyone (well a lot) play so well, especially with all the software aids available. However, there are still a whole bunch of players who don't have a Scooby about the correct logic of PLO8, (guess it applies to NLO8 too), so there's plenty of value to be had. And if I can turn a profit in these games, with my nitty ranges, (I am WAYYYYY too nitty) anyone with half a clue ought to be able to do OK in them. It never ceases to amaze me how players will happily risk their entire stack with a low simply to get back what they put in, without realising they are potentially being freerolled.  But I had the low.   Yup, YBA sunshine.

Table looks fun! Good luck this avo!

Hey guys, I took a somewhat intentional break with updating here, I had a death in my family that I wasn't really sure if I wanted to discuss. It never quite felt like the right time and then wcoop began and its felt really busy. Been an ok month so far ft bubbled the nl sd 2-7 which was a shame. Deepish run in the mil last sunday/monday and 22/30 in the 320 6m going into today. 95k ftw. Been bricky with horses and none coop stuff, not been playing that many as concentrating on the mixed games seems better than jumping in some of the tougher comps, and I don't want to play too many small freezeouts or turbos for no reason. Did ping the .fr supersonic on Sunday for 6.5k Euro, and had a bit of a heater on cash. Games were insane yesterday with 20k+ on 2 5/10 tables. Luckily only 2.4k was mine so I booked a decent win. The fish left with a chunk too so might be game on fairly soon. He wasn't the worst and people played terribly against him imo and then at the end of the session he just called off 600bbs in 3 pots with underfulls. And after all that his even adjusted was a small winner!

I know I wrote fish above but he was an exciting gambler and didn't really tilt at all unlike some of the regs! I'd definitely buy him a pint if I could, he must have some stories. I don't mean to be disrespectful

Sorry to hear about your family member that passed.

BOL today, and for rest of WCOOP.

Did i see on FBook that it was your birthday this week?

Belated wishes if so and hope you can be rewarded for a shitty time with some binks in wcoop.

Sorry to hear of your bereavement, Adam.

Sounds like you are doing OK on the tables though, especially at those Mixed Games. If I had the ability, I'd only play Mixed Games these days, I find them so much more interesting than NLH, which feels so flat to me these days. (Mainly, I guess, because I made no effort to keep up with the game). If only I could better grasp how to play Limit, I'd be in my element.

When you are playing WCOOP Mixed Games, do you come up against, or know, a lad named Adam Owen?


http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=336344

I got to know him quite well this year in Vegas, we spent a lot of time chatting, & he impressed me greatly, partly because he is so young, but plays the Limit games with such instinctive fluency. Quite unusual for a young English guy.

Yeah it was my birthday yesterday Callum.

Thank you all for the condolences. I didn't really realise I skipped over the topic so much in the post. RIP Grandma. 89 years is a good innings and whilst I will always miss her, her health was declining and I do think she was worried a bit about the effect of her health on the family if she continued to deteriorate. She had some great stories and always seemed happy and put a smile on my face. There's a chance I write a bit more on this topic as I think it could be quite interesting but I'd need some photos from home and some time to do some googling.

3rd in 2nd chance 8 game. Won big 50 on .fr. 22nd in 320 which was a bit disappointing, especially as i doubled a7s vs AA but a few levels later I cold4bet jammed AQs for 25 or so and lost to AK. Next time. Cash went well again, same guy was back and moved up. After tonight we might not see him again :P

 Just had another deep run through a horse who got 8xth in the thrill busting AJ<J9o when he jammed for 17bb from utg and the button called it off. Speechless really. Bounties make people do weird things.

I kind of know Adam Owen Tikay, we have a mutual friend who he stakes and have swapped skype details/facebook but we have both been busy playing. He has had a pretty good wcoop so far!

8th in the 5card Omaha yesterday. Bit disappointing as I wasn't all in after the rebuy period until I bust. Happy with my play though, just a lack of cards/run good at the end. It was quite tilting as we disconnected when I had 8 big blinds and I somehow managed to miss 3 hands despite getting my phone tethering going. Doh! 8th in the 265ko KK<AA and KQ<KK. Really happy with how I played in this and I think it was my first FT in this comp. Managed a small win in a turbo on .fr and a few other bits and bobs to round off a solid day. Skipped the 2k plo with being deep in the 5c and it might not have been good value to fire anyway, despite my cash game heater.

Pinged the Hot 55 for 13k on Monday, which certainly helped to boost morale. I was in a really bad mood though and barely cracked a smile. Fortunately I read the signs and took Tuesday off and I felt much better playing yesterday. Shows you just how much variance is in this game, I can't imagine I was playing at all my best on Monday, but came out looking fairly rosy. 2k Thrill tonight and probably the event I've been looking forward to the most. I'd like a bit more from Wcoop. I've had so many runs and close calls. 99th in the 1k 6max on sunday, losing 62o vs QJ on 66Q for a big stack on the bubble. Instead I limp into the money and get flipped out shortly afterwards. I'm definitely enjoying playing less tables. My sessions aren't as rushed and feel a lot less frantic. Its hard not to write a post moaning when you play mtts and all things considered I've ran fairly well this month. Who doesn't want to play with the lights and for a bracelet though?

Keep writing mate, know it's tough at times but looking back you'll wish you kept it up.

I thought I had written about the last sunday and what I was up to in October tbh. I didn't plan on writing much this last week as I mostly spent it with my gf. It was a gluttonous week and I had a great time as always.

Been playing more cash this week and its been pretty fun. Housemates had some family over for a couple of days so I did some stuff with them, and fit a review on Tuesday afternoon that I will probably finish tomorrow. Came 9th in the Thrill tonight, just played that and the 400e .fr 6max. Lots of cash action tonight and I did very well on the site I am established on and slightly poorer on a site I'm breaking into. 6.5k for the thrill, so it will help a bit for the month but nothing really to shout about. I don't think I could do much different, small regrets on one hand where I bluffcaught vs an obvious value size but it was someone who I expected to be bluffing way more than the average population. QTss< 66 first 6 hands of ft. I've recovered a lot of my confidence, I was struggling a bit worrying too much about the players that I know are better than me rather than using it as motivation to build on. I've been forcing myself to get to bed a bit earlier this week and I feel a lot better for it even if I did kind of ruin it by waking up after 5 hours and playing a session!

I will try to write more, I don't think blonde is particularly enamoured and I don't just want to be here moaning.

I don't think that's true at all, Adam, you write extremely well & with refreshing honesty, but much of it does not sort of encourage interaction.

It's a big problem for poker forums - people like to be entertained (by reading the writings of others) but don't always want to contribute themselves. Quite the freeroll, really.

Anyway, I hope you keep writing here.

Are you playing much PLO & PLO8 these days?

I agree with Tikay about the interaction, a bit like asking open questions to get more response. But it's tough to kind of open your life up more on a public forum.
Will be in touch shortly, bout time I rang you for a catch up.

I play a lot of 4 card plo. It probably makes up 70% of my cash volume. Then I play o8 in all forms, 5 card runs more than 4 nowadays but I will check the lobby for both. I'm playing a bit more flo8 too atm, man's got to eat.

I have saved some interesting hands and the like. I will try and add a bit more dynamism (interactiveness?) too.

I enjoy reading your stuff, Adam.

Don't post much, as I haven't really got anything to offer in the way of advice etc.

Guess the lurkers like myself should make ourselves known, even if it's just so you don't feel like you're talking to yourself :D

I read the diary regularly and enjoy it. More real life stuff too pls!

Yeah, keep writing please.

Keep winning too

Another lurker who enjoys your writing, as a 4-or-more card fan yours is one of the first names I look for when railing.

Thanks a lot guys.

I wasn't really in the mood to play on Friday, there wasn't much action so I mostly played some video games (Blood Bowl 2 and Hearthstone) and then watched some more Fargo. At about 3am I was ready for bed and I saw a guy who is a must join at 3/6 5c o8. I decided to hop in for a while, he normally plays bigger so I was expecting a loose and quick game. I won a buyin or so and the game broke down, so I played a semi reg for a while. I sat 10/20 5c o8 which is the marks usual poison and a game got started there fairly quickly. I span 40bb to 400 or so and he eventually left to play someone he accused of collusion (almost certainly false, it wouldn't even make sense if they were) so I won't repeat it. This went on to 8am or so and I get some sporadic action elsewhere to book a decent win, including beating a reg for a while who tried to join me on a second table.

Saturday I woke up kinda late and missed the 215 plo. I regged from 5ish to 10pm and my only real run saved the day, with a chop in the 55 challenge on 888 for 3.6k, for what I imagine was a reasonably small win as I didn't do much elsewhere. Quite excited for tomorrow, feeling good and I've had a decent amount of sweats on sundays lately including 3 fts in the o8 and omaha pkos. A huge score would be nice. No real cash tonight and I'm going to close the lobbies whilst I watch a Fargo episode. It is hard to not be checking sometimes, especially with the amount of action that has been going on lately. Lets hope the action continues.

As an aside I saw both Wales vs South Africa and NZ vs France this week, both very enjoyable games and I'm really looking forward to the semis. I've been trying to find a bet for a sweat but I guess I'll sit it out. Listen to both the ChicagoJoey Ben86 Podcast and Ansky's this week, very interesting overall and something I think can be useful to listen to as you try to develop in poker. Some casual remarks can really help you realise certain things or crystallize a concept in your mind. Gl to everyone playing and punting tomorrow.

heading over to the uk anytime soon? WPT?

I also read the diary, and think you should post more.

plus this comment made me chuckle..


i mean... no sh!t Sherlock ;)

gl tomorrow

Good luck tonight, Adam.

If it's not off-limits, what are the main sites you play on ('Stars apart) & why?

What does this mean - has O8 action increased?

especially with the amount of action that has been going on lately. Lets hope the action continues

Stars, .fr, 888, Party, a skin in acr (America's cardroom or black chip) and intertops. 3 lesser known sites I'll keep quiet too. They are places with the highest value tournaments/places to wait for cash.

O8 action is sporadic, it doesn't appeal quite as much as some games but there are some weaker players that enjoy a game now and again. The main 5card guy has been around for a couple of months now, but little will run without him.

No to Wpt. I like dtd a lot but it's just time away from online. If I had a better reason to go home I might have, but I've been fairly recently. Cheers Vern giving it a spin yourself?

Might head up for the weekend of the main for some beers. Would have played the 500 but I think DTDs decision to have day 2/3 on a Monday and Tuesday is pretty silly, surely will lose a lot of guys who can't take 2 days potentially of work?

4th Mega ko 888, 34th Challenge 90 1r on there and shipped .fr supersonic again for 4.2. Decent session, got beat up a bit on a cash game which was a touch annoying. Decent session, kinda got my stack handed to me in supersonic. I won a big flip then managed to maneuver on the ft putting a lot of pressure on the medium stacks who opened. Few annoying bubbles and mincashes but happy overall and nice to book a winning Sunday. Going to play a lot early in November with Fcoop on. Few shots I'm looking forward too and lots of good reasons to grind. I think I'll play some this week too with some guys playing live in Malta.

I didn't play too much in the last week. I just ended up not feeling like it when it came to game time. Saturday I played a decent schedule, fted both omaha and o8 weekly 215s but didnt cash and had a smattering of runs/cashes. Sunday was much the same, the previously mentioned FCOOP started on Sunday. Originally I planned to play the 2.5k HR, 3 big recs were in the first 6 regged and .fr is a pain to get $ off. However, in the morning I saw Pads selling 30% and decided it would probably be skipped if he didn't fancy it. I ended up meeting halfway and playing the sats which were amazing value. I won a seat in the 300 and bricked the 200/500. I kept to the high value stuff after getting in and managed quite a few runs. I came 6th in a 109 6m on 888 for 1k which had 6k ftw, I had a decent stack but really got crippled by the board on the way down to the ft. Apart from that and a few other cashes the main highlight was 52nd in the ACR 500k Major losing a flip for a top 5 stack :( Luckily with a few decent allins and table draws I managed to make day 2 of the 2.5k with 38k from 15k start. We came back to t700 so there was plenty of play, and I was relatively happy with my stack despite having hit 60k.

Day 2 went really well, I thought I could write a bit more tbh but the last paragraph took it out of me. Came in 1/6 on the FT and managed 2nd for 46k euro+change, it was 70 ftw. Feels a little bit like a blow, it would feel like a great title to have won and I had 800k out of 1.6m with 6 left so it will probably always feel like a bit of a missed opportunity. Overall, I'm a touch relieved and pretty happy. This year hadn't been great but the $ and the fact that I'm relatively happy with my performance. 3 handed was extremely tough and my icm edge disappeared around here, so not to be too disappointed. I could have made a bad call to ko the guy who won when I opened TT, utg+1 shoved for 17 and he reshoved for 35bb. Too much discipline perhaps lol. I'll try and post a few hands etc over the next few days. Gonna grab a beer and pass out.

Oioiiii, nice one, congrats

Nice bink mate!

That's great news to wake up to, wp.

Great score , gratz

Oioi sick result mate

Superb stuff, congrats!

5th Big 55 Thursday with a few cashes. Won one of my biggest pots in bb with set>set>set in Omaha where the world pinged in on the turn and I was still 91%. Saturday went well too and I won the 82 nlo8 weekly for 2.8 and a few nlhe runs but no highlights. Just finished 8th in the 500e PKO on .fr for about 4k. Probably puts me in the plus for the day, lost a flip 11 left to have 500k instead of 1.1m and struggled from there. I found some hands after 40 mins or so and got some reshoves through. A while later I play the hand below. I don't think I have too many bluffs here and I feel like I have a significant range advantage as he shoves a lot of the 7x/2prs/fds. He might not have enough of a call twice and fold range but he tanked this hand so I think I'll forget about it.

Poker Stars €235+€235+€30 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t12500/t25000 Blinds + t3125 - 8 players - View hand 2814747 (http://www.handconverter.com/hands/2814747)
DeucesCracked Poker Videos (http://www.deucescracked.com/?referrer=converter_dc) Hand History Converter (http://www.handconverter.com)

UTG: t594196       M = 9.51
UTG+1: t820847       M = 13.13
MP1: t929560       M = 14.87
MP2: t424379       M = 6.79
CO: t665080       M = 10.64
BTN: t627221       M = 10.04
SB: t964551       M = 15.43
Hero (BB): t584166       M = 9.35

Pre Flop: (t62500) Hero is BB with K :heart: 4 :heart:
6 folds, SB raises to t55000, Hero calls t30000

Flop: (t135000) 7 :heart: 6 :diamond: 5 :diamond: (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t59400, SB calls t59400

Turn: (t253800) 7 :diamond: (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t111672, SB calls t111672

River: (t477144) Q :club: (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t354969 all in, SB calls t354969


He calls with AdAs.

Satted into the 2k on Party for 109$ but lost j6ss on j98ss vs 98 which was a shame. It might have been a mistake to play the sat as it took up a decent amount of concentration at the end and I had plenty of tables. One of those things I guess.

Hoping for a big week this week and thanks a lot for the congratulation messages, it means a lot. Gl guys.

Really lazy week playing wise but I did do a fair bit of studying. FCOOP leaderboard was a .1% shot by Tuesday and I arranged a session with a Horse on Thursday and he missed it. Today went well, 5th 109t psko, 2nd 109 on 888 and 4th in 55r. Played 1k cash hands too across 3 sites and despite having some big swings in bb terms I managed a win. 1 table left but I'm probably quitting soon, games ran round an unknown guy who was just a bit tight, if I hadn't fancied playing I probably would have quit. Got some action on a fairly quiet site too and the games were crazy. Didn't last too long but its certainly reminded me that the Stars changes aren't the end of the world. Bit more of a standard Sunday tomorrow, FCOOP 1k Main should be excellent and a lot of fun.

Quick hand from the 109 turbo ft. I had a big bounty and hadn't done much 25 hands into the ft apart from peel the cl twice and check multiple streets before folding and winning a flip vs a small stack. The bounty on my head was 1500 so my opponent is kind of inclined to bluff and there can be a lot of levelling in these spots. I 3b to a similar size from the BB the previous hand and I certainly wasn't in love with 3b/calling, it seemed like it would be fine vs his level of aggression. Might be an ICM disaster, but this is kind of a top heavy tournament and I probably have 60+% equity when we get it in.

PokerStars Hand #143831923578: Tournament #1372128000, $50+$50+$9 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXX (6000/12000) - 2015/11/14 22:42:32 CET [2015/11/14 16:42:32 ET]
Table '1372128000 33' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 2: RyderRock (232905 in chips)
Seat 4: diplimatao (110539 in chips)
Seat 5: Hoelle1 (872022 in chips)
Seat 7: bRe3za (136760 in chips)
Seat 8: Demonic16 (477774 in chips)
RyderRock: posts the ante 1500
diplimatao: posts the ante 1500
Hoelle1: posts the ante 1500
bRe3za: posts the ante 1500
Demonic16: posts the ante 1500
Demonic16: posts small blind 6000
RyderRock: posts big blind 12000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Demonic16 [Kd Ad]
diplimatao: folds
Hoelle1: raises 15900 to 27900
bRe3za: folds
Demonic16: raises 62890 to 90790
RyderRock: folds
Hoelle1: raises 779732 to 870522 and is all-in
Demonic16: calls 385484 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (394248) returned to Hoelle1
*** FLOP *** [Qd 5s Ts]
*** TURN *** [Qd 5s Ts] [Js]
*** RIVER *** [Qd 5s Ts Js] [Jd]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Demonic16: shows [Kd Ad] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
Hoelle1: shows [As 2s] (a flush, Ace high)
Hoelle1 collected 972048 from pot
Hoelle1 wins $797.26 for eliminating Demonic16 and their own bounty increases by $797.25 to $2219.09
Demonic16 finished the tournament in 5th place and received $1647.00.
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 972048 | Rake 0
Board [Qd 5s Ts Js Jd]
Seat 2: RyderRock (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: diplimatao folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Hoelle1 showed [As 2s] and won (972048) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 7: bRe3za (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: Demonic16 (small blind) showed [Kd Ad] and lost with a straight, Ten to Ace

A2  must be the new pre nuts   :(   Given your correct read on the aggro opponent I don't think it was an ICM disaster

Well Done with the 42k bink though  :)

Keep it Up Adam

Cheers Fraser, thanks mate. Well done, on 3rd btw another great run. What a feeling you must get walking into DTD


Sunday was the Yin to Saturdays Yang. I hope that is correct. There isn't a tremendous amount to say when sessions go like that. It wasn't the outright bludgeoning you sometimes get as an mtter but everything just petered out. I was desperately trying to save the day at 2am and just lost my next five allins. What can you do.

Monday I woke up quite late and felt groggy. I've been reading the internet/books a lot in bed when I wake up lately and I think it just makes things a bit lethargic. I woke up at 11am today and felt much better despite sleeping for 5 hours instead of the usual 8. I didn't play at all yesterday, I waited with some lobbies open and railed a horse to an fcoop main cash and another got 3rd in a decent comp. I don't want to say too much as I think they want anonymity but it was good to see and there were enough strategic differences to discuss throughout. We spent some time discussing some pretty out there gto concepts about equilibrium strategies and that was extremely interesting but probably not terribly useful.

I'm going to book in for some sessions with Elliot this week, as he is probably feeling somewhat neglected and I have a decent amount on my mind at the moment which isn't affecting my in game confidence but may be part of my reluctance to start sessions. I'm also really considering hiring a coach for some hours. This is a reasonably big decision as I think I would need to spend a reasonable amount for someone I really respect and that could help elevate my game. It'd also be pretty cool to have someone like Fedor as a coach from an experience stand point. I have a couple of other ideas that are a touch wackier involving giving out action in return for coaching and this might be the way to go but before I undertake a commitment that big I would have to discuss a lot with several friends. Shoutout to Pads here, I think many people on the forum know we are good friends and I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way. I think a slight change in direction from the strategy we discuss could be beneficial and that actually paying someone might be more motivating. I owe a lot to many of my friends for the help they have given me and I don't want them to feel like I'm not grateful. I do find it a touch embarrassing to make mistakes in front of friends, particularly in poker, so I think I might find it easier to be examined so closely by someone who I am not friends with.  It might also turn out that I send off a bunch of pms to friends and try to work that way as it might be significantly cheaper and equally as worthwhile but I thought I'd express a bit more and see what people thought.

Not 100% I'll play tonight as Tuesday is probably one of my lower hourly nights to play mtts as the average fields in everything become tougher but I do quite fancy something.

Gonna say goodbye for now but I'll try to post again later in the week.

Good evening from Lanzarote Adam, watching England nudge n nurdle to another ODI win.
Last night we ate here, bloody marvellous fresh pasta with a nice Italian red.

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g652121-d5933877-Reviews-Ninen_Lanzarote-Playa_Blanca_Lanzarote_Canary_Islands.html

I don't really know where last week went. I played Wednesday and Thursday, got a touch drunk Friday and wrote Saturday off as a bad job. I had to get up to be sick at 6am, and continued to be sick for the next 5 hours or so. I felt ok later on but having struggled to eat and being quite tired I decided to not play. Sunday was pretty fun if not profitable. I cashed something like 25% of my comps, played some really good poker I think but unfortunately couldn't push on once in the money. I had 50% of a friend who got 12th in the Daily55 double too, which really hurt as I knew it would mean so much to him. He lost 88 vs AKs/AKo when a heart hit the river. I think he would be 3/10 if he'd held and I quite fancy him to take it down if that happens.

Pads did a bunch of work with me last night, he went through a lot of my stats and basically told me where he thought the optimal line was, what mine was and the possible areas I need to improve on. Fortunately, there were a few trends across the streets that help bring everything together and I think I'd been working on a few of these spots in my head without checking to see if it was changing. A few months ago I thought my cbet was too low and had tried to up it, Pads said it was a touch lower than he'd like currently which felt kinda nice because its something I'd already looked into a bit. I'm going to copy everything he said into a document so I can compare my hud stats in another 50k hands or so.

Didn't do much yesterday apart from sort out some minor housing problems like changing lightbulbs, doing life things like shopping and hopefully today I'll get sorted with a euro bank account. Had a bit of a hassle doing most of my winning on .fr as it is a pain to get money out, but I think I will have found the best/cheapest route. A week on Wednesday I head over to my girlfriends for 5 days, then over to EPT Prague and then home for Christmas before I join my girlfriend back in Budapest at New Year. A really exciting month and hopefully a big one.

Plans for this week mostly involve in studying, a few cash game session, maybe 2x midweek tourney sessions and a possible live excursion to the Budapest Poker Open. I think its a 750e comp with 3 day1s weds-fri and day 2 Saturday. We shall see anyway. Peace guys and gl.

I spent the last hour or so thinking about the best way to improve my game with the information Pads gave me and I think I thought of two pretty obvious things that I've been doing bits and bobs of but not really enough. Review previous tournaments played, and find examples of where I did something wrong and use software to examine spots to find the types of hands I should perhaps check over betting on the river (for example). I have been  a little reluctant to review my own play on my own before, as I always felt that looking back over decisions I examined in the moment would be bad, but I think reviewing more average tournaments compared to one you did particularly well in (/ran well in) will be more useful to find the hands that have slipped through the cracks, and trying to find any patterns that relate to what Pads told me to look for and improve on. I think this will completely wipe video watching out of my range of study activities, and it has felt like some of the less useful time I have spent, watching some has enabled me to see how others think and that is something I should continue to look at, but at a lower proportion of my time then it is now.

Wednesday I started lateish but played a decent schedule, never really got going. Went from having 1/2 the chips in play going into the money of the Hot 100, to coming 4th for the daysaver. Doh! Thursday went out for Thanksgiving, it was a buffet at a hotel and the value/quality was excellent. It was good to get such a big group of us out again and nice to see everyone. We headed out to Pads's bar after and it was great fun and very cheap, as Pads covered the bar tab. What a life! I didn't think I'd taken too much advantage of this, but again 9am I woke up and just had to be sick. I think I'd managed approximately 7 pints over 7(+) hours. I'm feeling fairly old and feeble and alcohol has never been a particular strong suit of mine but this is getting a bit ridiculous.
(https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/12308705_10204177390069919_7153724387968245006_n.jpg?oh=490816a80dc4fed1f6c3fcb7d16c2132&oe=56FAB21F)

This meant I didn't go and play in the BPO. My housemate went and had a really good time playing with some of the locals and guys we know. I'm a touch annoyed to miss it now, I think it would have been pretty fun and fun is something that can go missing in poker sometimes. I do feel like the variance of enjoyment in live poker is fairly high and it was a bit of a pain to buyin and get sorted so its no big deal I guess. I had a session with Elliot Roe again last night. I think we had both let it go on a bit longer between sessions than either of us want. I think it was a really productive session again and I have a fair amount to work on. I think sometimes I put somewhat irrational expectations on myself because I "know" something is possible. Judging yourself fairly for the situation you have been put in is an important issue, and this becomes even more clear if your goals are difficult to achieve.

Today was shit, I got really beat up in mtts and didn't really hit the standards I want to. I was pretty card dead everywhere and although I managed to keep the podcasts off and the ambient music going, there is very little you can do when you run terribly.  I don't want to make too many excuses, I ran bad and its one of those things. I'm not sure what I can do about a reg calling with 7d7c on 6s5h2h6h and hitting a 7 vs my KQhh. I saw regs do some of the dumbest shit ever today, and that has given me a bit more belief in the longevity of poker. I'm trying not to worry too much about it, but one of the sites I used closed down Hi/Lo above .25/.5 today. They only got rid of my rakeback a month or so ago lol. I suppose I should be patting these shrewd business operators for their excellent decision making skills, as I probably wasn't a profitable customer. I wonder how they expect to differentiate themselves from every other online casino in the world after their poker room closes. At least the manager spoke to me about it, as one of the only people that sit the lobbies, you might have thought he would email me to talk about it or apologize, or at least tell me about it. But as everyone knows, the sheer scumbaggery of a professional poker player who doesn't meet the deliciousness of a losing customer profile lol. The evil men sat behind their laptops using their gto software and trickery to scam players who want to gamble.

edit: I did manage to talk to an operator, the first one didn't understand the term Omaha 8, and the second said she would have to email their software provider, but she would email me what she received within five minutes. That was an hour ago...

Amaya's business model is so stupid. Leverage your finances to buy an extremely profitable company before deciding to change everything about the business model. I really hope they understand that Stars customer acquisition costs are going to treble and any good will the consumers had has been totally destroyed. I think their business model is a very greedy gamble and whilst I guess I hope Stars sticks around, so I can make a living, I'd much prefer someone to do something to take the fight to them. I have no idea why they would spend money on pros, when they are effectively turning it into a game where making a living is impossible. I honestly believe that is a really important piece of  product differentiation for poker and one of the few things that makes it so different and enjoyable. It blows my mind they are so willing to give this aspect of poker away, in the pursuit of short term profits, whilst paying Ronaldo millions a year to do absolutely nothing for the company. Although, I think being surprised at a company's actual decision making when they can't handle a press release is probably silly of me.

Why is everyone so willing to publish some ludicrous statements from Antonious about not being able to beat the game due to software but aren't willing to publish something against PokerStars. I feel really bad for anyone who is trying to play like plo10 and move up, because it is virtually impossible for EVERYONE. I think its awful they are going to steal from customers in the new year, by changing vip systems in order to "simplify". If that truly was the reason then they wouldn't have to take so much from the value of stars coins. I think it is unbelievable that a public company can just arbitrarily decide to change the value of something they offer like this. Their current fpp debt is 105m. They are stealing from the unaware and uneducated, from the same customers they bullshit us and say the rake changes will help. It is a pack of lies, and I wonder why the poker media isn't saying more about this.

Some people seem to forget that a decrease in rakeback is an increase in rake and they allow this to blind them because everyone hates rakeback "pros". I'm convinced this is bad for everyone involved in poker in any way shape or form.

fucking first thing I see on Stars is them promoting some shit stars pros twitch stream. How will that work when poker is no longer beatable? Do they have any understanding of the twitch market at all? Targeting young gamers with no money and telling them to play something with a huge cost in comparison to their actual games, with long and protracted losses is honestly the most idiotic thing I've seen. I guess they have to keep trying this or it would be obvious their previous statements about improving the quality of the games is just self serving bullshit. They really are clicking buttons thinking they can hide the games becoming unbeatable.

Enjoying this Diary, Adam, & the "self-examination".

Hope you keep it going.

 :)

Hallelujah Brother  , so so true

they have implemented a " strategy " with their eyes closed to the true poker world

Like so may others I've stopped playing there , in fact I don't play that much on line any more other than satellites

Over in Budapest for 4 days on The 13th of December if you're around Adam ?

Regardless ,keep the faith mate

Go to my gfs tomorrow and back after Christmas, sorry Fraser.

Sunday was a bit frustrating, mtts didn't go too well, I had a few cashes but it wasn't until the last 3 that I got much in the form of cashes. I did stop regging a bit earlier than normal as it didn't feel like I was playing my best, but I went and found some cash games that were amazing. I saw multiple 500bb pots and several 4 way all ins at 2/4 hi/lo lol. Ran meh, and lost small but it was a really fun table. I then had a long hu match at courcheval 2/4, for about 300 hands vs an insane laggy fruitcake. I managed to win 3 buyins early and be winning 5 after two hours before letting him double and then he held in a 600bb pot. Fairly weird one, he got it in with 668 kj ss and I had at845 nut spades on 7s (up card for preflop) Ts 6x 2x.

Pretty weird one and we had become experienced lovers compared to backseat teenagers after the explosive start but I couldn't find the motivation to keep battling him 4 hours in. I did scrape a small win in 5c Omaha to cover my losses in a more normal game. I chopped the flo8 weekly and got 25th in the Party major to round off Sunday's review.

Yesterday I didn't fancy playing but with the strike on from today, I thought I would just play the 530 Omaha and just check for some cash games whilst watching a bit of Shark Tank. Shark Tank is America's dragons den and its really enjoyable to watch, I'm really addicted at the moment. 11th in the plo, which was a shame, 3/20 with 18 paid before I lost a spot where I allowed someone to limp/jam by potting a976 1 ns and had the other 20bb stack decide to put it in with kkq2 ss from the sb before the limped out it in. Lost 2x more all ins post bubble burst to round off the comp, pretty happy with my play to say I'd skipped Mondays out of fear out weekend fatigue.

I also played about 5 hours of 5/10 Omaha on an unknown site. After 200 hands I was winning 200bb and after 250 I was losing 200. I wasn't ready to give in this time despite having the fish on my direct left. Managed to recover to pretty much even and then the fish left. It was a real grind and I was shattered after sitting out, I think I slept 10 hours straight since. Think we played 400 hands total.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150225-unexpected-downside-for-cheaters

I think this relates a lot to poker, form and downswings.

I arrived in Prague yesterday after a lovely week at my girlfriends. Sometimes I play Sunday, or fit another session in but she had problems with work meaning Monday could be taken off and Tuesday couldn't. We did go for Tapas though, and its a really nice place to go and we always enjoy it there. I had to get up at 4.30 yesterday to get the train and then flight to Prague. This seemed really short, so I think I need to do some work on my European geography.

After I got here I tried to check in before jumping straight into the 2k and fairly swiftly being eliminated. I don't think I won any pots of note and on my last hand I get it in with tens for 16bb, over a utg open and utg+1 3bet from a very active guy. I wasn't super happy, but the 3 bettor has enough scrap here with his style, although it probably isn't loads. He'd 3 bet the guy several times, despite him being fairly tight. I think he thought he was too fit or fold, and he proved that point by having kings here. The aaa flop put a swift end to that dream.

I then went straight back to the cash desk to join the sextuplet Omaha. A round of 4/5/6 Omaha and o8, probably my dream tournament. At 550 buy-in just was expecting 40 runners, but I was number r80 and it eventually hit 91. They tournament played out 6 handed and everyone was pretty relaxed. My first table was quite quiet, see guy did google my name he'd spied from the receipt and told me he knew I was Demonic. Not quite sure why you'd work so hard for that info and then tell me that means something to you before refusing to divulge your name, I'd be keeping stum in that spot if I cared enough to really do that.

On my second table the action was much more wild and the guy on my left seemed insane. He asked where I was from and I said England, a guy from my first table had been moved to, and he called me 'adam' and my new neighbour popped up to say he was 'Trelskig' a regular opponent and friend of mine. It's been 3 years of sporadic friendship on Skype but he was a really nice guy and so much fun to play with. The whole tournament had a relaxed atmosphere and I bought a few beers and tried to crack a few jokes along the way. I span from starting stack which was 20k to 60 winning a 3 way all in with aces vs aces vs kkq76t of trelskig, who instantly cold called my pot. After this slice of luck I steadily chipped up to 135k or so before the table broke and we were down to 18 with 13 paid.

I played a conservative e style with some limping and lots of stabbing in the 5/6 card games. I did peel a 3bet with aces in 5card Omaha early on as I was sure my opponent had aces as well and I felt like I could do better than getting it in with aajj3ss.  He potted kt7 hh despite me having the ace of hearts and I fold. He showed aakq5 one suit too, so I was fairly happy with my play. The other interesting hand I played was opening 998754 treble suit and flopping t98ss. I had the sfd, but check back the flop and fold a queen of diamonds turn. It felt nasty but I think it's pretty good/std.

We 18 left I got the best table and managed to win a few pots. I lost a silly silly hand with 15 left. I have about 170k @t2.4k and utg limps 5 handed and I find aaq93x ds and  Make it 5k more. He calls. T83hh, and he has about 80k back. Honestly I think checking pre has some merit, he seemed reasonable, definitely the second best player at the table, but the allure got to me. I tried to check pot which may not be great either and he checked back. Qd on the turn and I check again and call a 15k bet. I don't think I can fold here although it might be close due to my lack of visibility.
Th on the river and somehow I call a 21k bet. I think I felt like he knows I have a flush so he might bluff some hands but honestly in 6 card Omaha it's pretty much nonsense and he has to have j9 with no flush that wants to bluff. This hand makes some sense from the flop action but not enough to call despite the price. Luckily the dinner break came after this hand (my opponent called the clock anyway after one min)  so I shot off to my room and had a bath to loosen up and forget about poker for a while. I think this worked well and I felt really good going back.

Early on post dinner with 15 or 16 left and 13 paid two people limp in 6c Omaha and I find aa7tk4 ds with nut clubs and pot to 16.5 off about 100k. The first fishy guy who limps most of the 6c hands folds and the second guy who seemed reasonable calls. 762ccs and he leads for 20k. I shove fairly quickly for 90, and this is pretty much his stack too.  He tanks for 2mins and folds, whilst telling everyone he has a monster the whole time, much to the amusement of the table as everyone believed him the first time. Obviously I was chuffed to get this through and he showed kk85cc for maybe one of the only hands I want him to go with. Probably not with his price though.

The bubble burst 7 hands later and I won 4 of them and so we moved onto the main stage with 12 left. This table was fairly tough and I didn't get too much going. I did suck out on a youngish guy on 66257 with 89 in 6o. I was bombing every blank so his angry show of 43 made me chuckle. He got ran over by another guy in 6c h/l to create a big stack on our table, which meant I was a bit more handicapped then I'd have liked. With ten left I save a guys tournament, getting him a quarter when the dealer was about to ship the other guy the pot. He span this into an actual stack (insert foreshadowing) and eventually we make the ft of 7.

I was in third with 270k with two guys having about 450 and 550 between them. There was only 1.82m in play so you can see how short the other 4 were. The ft was really tight and I just had to play quite snug with the icm. I dribbled down to 230 or so over 3 fairly uneventful levels, but was still in a closeish third. I won a small pot to be back to where I started before losing with double suited aces twice in 6c. I think aa526k hhss vs kjt754 dd hhhh vs a regular who I lost a prop bet with in Barcelona, which he was happy to remind me about lol. It came q 93hhd 3d 6d I think. Literally the next hand I get aa2q7x double and get it in again, this time potting and calling off vs 5th place who had kkj26x treble. We find a kt4j4 run out here, when winning would put me back to third.

This left me 5bb or so, similar to 7th but I used my ninja skills to chip up (saying pot and people folding in 6c h/l) to chip up without showdown, with 7th place doubling in between. Eventually in 5c Omaha it folds to me with t7642 double vs 6th place, the man I saved. He's stacking off absurdly tight here with 7th having 3bb so I was really happy. I'd gotten back to 120k (bb gone from 12 to 16k during the 4c rounds) but he found aces and we can't even find a sweat. I had 1bb left but couldn't spin. Pretty gutted to go out from this position, I'd definitely had a few thoughts about the trophy and it sucked not to ladder at least once. 7th guy just outright doubles 3 times on the ft!! Got 2.1k and I had an absolute blast. The format was so much fun and everyone seemed to have a great time. The guy I saved offered me a beer and 3 people on the ft said it was fun playing with me so I went to bed happy. Everyone was looking at me after losing the two aces hands and I think they were surprised to see me relatively cheerful still. I was talking with one of the dealers afterwards and he agreed with my sentiments about the field and format. It was a different world to the silence of my 2k table.

 Maybe some day ill win something more prestigious than the big 22. I want something for the mantelpiece! No real comps I fancy today, maybe some turbo stuff. Just going to read for a while and then head down for some cash and maybe a couple of beers before the main tomorrow. Peace.

Great report ,good luck in the main.

Love that Report of the 4/5/6/O8 MTT Adam, made me insanely jealous.

And I've seen you recover from dust before, one of my most enjoyable memories in many a year.  

Think I was on the next table  to you with about 36 left, if it was you talking about a poker site removing plo 8 from its lobby without any explanation?  Was a fun tournament,  well done on the FT

Yeah I was, still bitter about it. How long are you in town for?

Sextuplet Omaha, Tikay, what a name. That spin will always be a fond memory, I was thinking it was my first ft in a year plus but that was 2014. I've been really paranoid about checking my hand ever since.

Cheers Booder.

Great update vbol for the rest of the festival

Played the Main today and unfortunately bust in the second to last hand. I wrote up most of the interesting hands on my phone but it died so I can't update it at the moment. I was pretty dam tilted when I bust for a few reasons I'll discuss when I post, but I'm pretty happy with how I played. Not sure on my plans for tomorrow, possibly the 5k plo, but I might just go hunt in the cash games instead. I know some plo regs travel the circuit and I don't want to play if my edge is less than 25% or so. Hopefully I either wake up feeling great and jump into a biggish field (27+ would be sweet). If not I might just play a small session online in the afternoon and have a nice dinner before the 5k plo8. I do expect the plo8 to be much smaller but it is definitely more correct for me to take a bigger piece in that then to play the plo, so I'll just have to play it by ear. Thursday consisted of sleeping in late and not doing too much, before going for a nice meal in the hotel and a few beers afterwards. I felt really good today, slept well and got up in time for a nice breakfast so that is definitely a positive. Games seem really good here, although not quite Barcelona esque. After busting the main I had a few beers with European and one of Pads and cos horses called Mysto whosea top bloke. The tilt quickly dissipated and I'll go to sleep with a smile on my face.

Adam currently HU in 5k plo8 in EPT. gglglglglglglglg

That's great news. GL Adam.

<3 glgl

gl Adam

Cheers guys. Got 2nd for 29 after forever Hu. There was 30bb in play at the end. Lost to a lovely English gentleman who was a pleasure to play with. Ran good before final 3 so really can't complain.  I would like a trophy some day though. Really happy with my play. I joked to a good German reg during the main that it must take a lot to not have a pulse and I don't think my heart rate got above resting for the whole tournament. Not sure what il be doing for the rest of prague. Got a good sweat in the main too so things are looking good.

Not so bad then - well done. Who was the "lovely English gentleman" who won it?

grats!  monies > trophies

http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=76

And Wayman,  I'm turning into a deadman esque bridesmaid! And you get more cash too with the trophy.

Ahh, Jeff Duval - now your "lovely English gent" comment makes sense, though he can't have tell a "life" tale or two, as he's lived a wonderfully degenerate life & is a smashing guy.

Sorry you never got the win, but if anyone was going to beat you, I'm glad it was Jeff. Hope he was wearing one of his crucial hats. He's pretty cool for a near 70 year old white guy.   

He can play a bit too. I thought he was going to let me run him over heads up but he certainly had the momentum for ages. He was rocking a flat cap too. It's some hendon mob he has.

Yes, he has some game, & it's not his first EPT PLO8 Trophy either.

He used to do Vegas annually - he has or had a house there - but not so much these days.

He's tremendous company, on & off the table, & I love him to bits.

I would have thought you'd have crossed swords with him before. Until recently - probably still so - he polled up at the Vic every afternoon, & sat in the big game, equally happy in NLH or PLO, though he prefers the latter. He plays very comfortably, if you get my drift, & seems to know exactly when to apply pressure & when to fold.

Got a real "butter would not melt in my mouth" look about him when he dons his OAP hat.


 

depends how you structure a deal  ;whistle;

Congrats!

Ha, did a deal with Mr Duvall in my big cash.  He was leading the deal negotiations from memory. Did he make an offer? Was a pleasure to play with him.  Plays hold em pretty well too. 

When we got heads up we were pretty close in chips and nothing was mentioned. We had about 10 mins to the break and in one of the lat hands Jeff minraised  and I called jqk3ss . 338 flop and he bets I call. Turn q. He bets big I call. River 9. He bets 100k, there was 480k in play. I called fairly quick. It occurred to me on the turn he would be unlikely to have 88 as he raised and he had been very tight on the final  giving me a lot of walks from the small to my big  (once we were in that situation). He had 88 at with a nut suit and I was down to about 100k at 4k 8k. Then we played about an hour of very small ball poker. I wanted to drag the match out as I felt he would let me steal enough down the streets but this didn't work out too well and I didn't really get anything going. I eventually doubled with att2 on t58 vs 5536 and got to about 180k. He chipped me down again to 90k and I started to open a little more instead of limping and found a few decent hands. An hour after the break I'd gotten a very small chip lead and opened ajt3 1ns. And he 3bet for the first time. I'd made a lot of pretty big folds to him and there was only 30bb in play at this point. I called and got a k95 hh flop. He potted and in it went nut unfortunately I couldn't find a heart queen or bd low.

I don't think he wanted to deal straight away and after that he had momentum for so long that it probably didn't occur. I was thinking of asking to chop 10k of the 13 when blinds went up but I was feeling pretty good and he seemed a touch defeated having had me on the ropes for so long. A deal would have made sense for sure as we are playing roughly 200/400e at that point. Im a bit unsure regarding the deal rules etc and I was trying to play really fast to get the hands in. Might have been a mistake but it's possible he wasn't interested as we were chatting enough that he might have offered if he wanted one so I'm not going to sweat it too much. It's not a situation I'd want to walk into but I probably had a small edge so no regrets. A deal might have changed his style too and I think I was doing well enough against it


Still got 5 of a guy in the main, don't think his rl name is attached to his sn so I won't say. Someone Googled my name earlier in the week and delighted in telling me I'm demonic16 before refusing to reveal their sn, so I'm a bit paranoid about that now. Gonna play the 2k sko turbo as my drinking partner in Rob Tinnion is making his token tournament appearance.

I dont know whats more pathetic;

a) telling someone you know who they are but not saying who you are.

b) thinking that a) makes the slightest fucking difference.

Had loads of people tell me they know who I am and have play 6max 100bb cash games with me on the internet and brag about this super information advantage they have over me in an 8 handed 500bb deep live game...

I'm pretty confident that in this exchange I've come away with the most useful information :)

oh wp on the score too Adam :)

such a new schooler to not know who Jeff Duvall is!

Congrats on the score!

Booked a small win on Wednesday after fting the Crocodile on 888 and getting 4th with a few other cashes. Battled one of the h/l regs for a while as we won't be doing much in the future and it was a lot of fun. We played quite contrasting styles, he minraises and I was 3xing pre and we play pretty different postflop too, hes a bit more "gto" and I'm a touch more unbalanced with some unorthodox lines. He's not someone I would choose to play but I managed a small win over 200 hands. Came 13th in the Big 55 and ~50th in the 109 bounty builder thing. QQ<AK in the b55 after having chips for ages but what can you do.

Sunday was decent, just got 5th in the 100e Sunday Special on .fr having come 10th in it twice this year. Pads was going deep too so we had some fun and interesting hands. I made one fairly big mistake which was a touch annoying but I played really well today in general. I think I cashed approximately 7k euros and not many $$$ but I was struggling at one point so no complaints. I was a river away from being 2/5 too with a cheeky 22 < AKs but couldn't find a hold. I've seen lots of guys making some pretty big mistakes imo, really looking forward to grinding next year, I think it will be a big one.

I fly back to Budapest tomorrow having had a great period at home over the Christmas period. I've still got some hands saved from the EPT Main and a little bit from the 5k o8 too. My gf and her family/friends are in Budapest at the moment so I probably won't play at all until early in the new year. I'm not going to post any graphs or anything like that but I will write a bit more of a summary at some point. Hopefully Pads can close this out. Gl to anyone who plays and have a great end to the year. Peace

On the annual Boxing Day walk into Old Leigh Town for some sea food and a guinness I could have sworn you were there mate even though it looked like Christmas had treated you a bit too well  ;)

(http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j327/esokral/Mobile%20Uploads/image_93.jpg)

Hope you have a great end to the year bud and you crush in 2016!

Cheeky bloody git Eso. Jealous I still have some on top? I'll have to work on your doppleganger.

Sunday kinda went well. It was about as brutal as it gets though. Lots of close runs and a few small fts. Ran pretty bad to not close out the horse and if I could turn the overall run good from a variety of comps to one then that would have been sweet, and an easy win. One of my friends lost AA < KJo with 15 or so left in the mil to show me what a really bad beat looks like. I felt some sympathy there. It was for the same amount the two shorter stacks had when the deal occurred.

13th big 55
16th 2nd chance
95th warmup
238th mil
80th sun 2nd chance
35th 44 bounty hunter
3rd sunday plo .fr
12th ACR plo
3rd weekly horse
4th big 100.fr
5th Megako
15th big 82 hyper

Haha brilliant, good spot that Eso. Looks like he's been having a few too many fosters at the blackjack tables ;)

Quick update regarding Dublin I might write some more tonight as my gf has just landed but said she felt tired so I might have some free time tonight.

Bricked the 5k 5c h/l field was small when I regged but I expected it to get bigger ala prague but it ended up with ten runners including 7 online regs and a live pro an unknown drench guy who I didn't see much of and a texan guy who came to play. 3b aqk34 ds vs bedias 4 handed and flop a26r and we get it in. He has a2347 and finds the 5/8 to 3/4 me and I couldn't spin. Main was pretty meh. I have a few interesting hands but cliffs are 33k at end of day one.  Chipped up to 50k and jammed 22 over a 3b late on and lost to jacks.

Day 2 was dull, not much going on and then active Israeli reg looks at my stack and limps the button, reg completes small and I jam 27bb with a3o. Not 100% on this but vs the first limp it will be profitable imo. Sb sigh called ato and won.

Cash has been poor. Games ranged from meh to omg the best game ever but results have been poor. I will write about one crazy cash game session which involved the game turning to omaha dc with a mix of h/l courcheval both high and low and some double flop omaha. Lost my biggest pot with the nuts and a fd redraw that was no good ott and a few silly ones like the original raiser potting off after a short stack 3b for his stack with ak42ss with the suit I covered but couldn't win either pot. Fun times.

Missed 550 plo8 as the app showed 5 runners so I decided to stay in bed, turned out it got 75 somehow, perhaps this was a mistake. Cash was good that night though. I feel like I ran terrible with flops but it's hard to know really. Probably only played 700 hands roughly so w/e.

Excited for a week of relaxation and no poker. Going to hammer March and April to try and set myself up nicely for scoop and wsop.

Cash has gone well this year and the same old story with tournaments lol. Had two swaps come 11th in the last two epts too. I don't even have to be involved to hit the crossbar. Sorry for the lack of updates it's just not too appealing to moan all the time. I do have an idea for a none poker piece I want to write but it might have to wait a while yet.

Peace

Glad when you update as i enjoy the games you play. So more often would be good.

How big is the Omaha DC? How often does courcheval / h/l get thrown in at stops? Thanks

Cracking read, Adam, post more.

It started off as 5/10 omaha and then an action player lost a pot and asked for h/l to be thrown in. All but one guy agreed and he went to dinner so it kicked off from there. Soon we were asking for 5 cards and on it went. It played much bigger than a typical 5/10 (perhaps not compared to these ept stops, but I don't know for sure) I think there was 3 10k+ pots and the average pot was probably 600+.

Regarding courcheval it can't be too common as we had to explain it to a few of the dealers. There was a very strange moment in the game when Mr. Action asked for double flop omaha. He plays a biggish pot with a reg and shows down Aa on a84j7 and kq652 and his opponent shows kq xxx. Mr. Action says max and starts trying to scoop.  Apparently his version of double flop is the best hand across one board! There was a tense thirty seconds whilst the players looked at each other and a debate went on in french but he conceded to chop fairly quickly in this 3k pot or so. Pretty good of him. I'm somewhat curious as to what the floor would have ruled as I'm not sure they can spread such a crazy game. Good to see him go down the honest route as I've no doubt he wasn't trying to pull an angle here but it was obvious to me/the table that the reg wouldn't have called down if he thought these were the rules.

I booked a small loss in this game which felt fine. I was stuck a reasonable amount and after doubling late on, a lovely irish fella said I think that's the first pot I've seen you win! He span 2k to close to 20k which was sick. There was a 15k pot (5c o8) or so where he had jj53x, cold called a 3b and flopped a jack 3 ways on j96 in h/l. Mr action and IF gii on a 2h turn bringing the fd. It goes pot from IF and pot from action who has ak487 with king high hearts. The reg in the pot is a friend of mine who was kinda shot taking and had akqt2 with 2 of the flopped back doors.  So he was pretty heart broken at the turn and even more so on the queen river.

Not sure how many of these stops il be travelling too. Games are good but the games tend to be multiway variance fests and I think my hourly might be higher online, which is a shame. Barcelona is definitely worth it for the holiday aspect but I don't think il be desperate to come to Dublin again.

Keep writing!!

Not been sure what to say with the real life issues tbh mate. When I'm playing a bit more poker I will.

So Dublin was a bit of a disaster. As soon as my girlfriend arrived in Dublin I felt like something was a bit off. She didn't quite welcome me out of the taxi how I expected and I just put it down to a long journey after a working day. After battling through these feelings for a few days, and after her denying any issues a few times, she finally confessed she'd been having doubts about us. This was absolutely devastating to me. I was shocked, I knew things had been hard at home for her but I thought we were great together. I decided to book flights letting us leave Dublin early, partly due to the fact we were supposed to stop with some her close family friends the next day, and I didn't want to be in that environment at all. A week or so later, I flew out to Germany, as she had told me she felt more certain about things and she wanted to continue. This week was horrible. She had to work loads, arranged things like babysitting a 3 year old and an 9 year old on one of the only free evenings we had, as well as just being generally snappy and miserable. I must say my own feelings probably didn't help and we did hash things out a few times later on in the week before I left back to Budapest. Just a week later I received a fb message saying "we need to talk" and after a horrible conversation later we had parted ways. I went to bed the following morning apart from a small hs mtt session (amazing timing lol, played well but got fked hard) and crashed out. On Friday we spoke and she decided to come to Budapest on the Saturday and we spent two nice days together trying not to talk about things and just enjoying each others time. My usual Sunday schedule was spent working on her personal statement for her Masters application! Early Sunday morning she told me she had cancelled her flight and wanted to get one in the evening instead and then after sleeping a bit longer she told me she wanted me to come too. So here I am sat at her family's kitchen table wondering what on earth has happened since the start of February. I honestly feel mentally fatigued by all this shit. I wanted to play poker this morning but having wrote this post I think I'll just end up having a hot bath instead. It has been an incredibly tough situation for both of us but hopefully we will make the right decision in the end. Currently our plans are to see how this week turns out as we were supposed to go to Berlin this weekend anyway. I'm not sure how much longer I can try and grind this out, its hard to know whether a relationship like this can ever fully recover but fingers crossed. Toni is an amazing girl who has made me incredibly happy in the prior 18-24 months to this mess.


Haven't played much in March. Managed back to back double digit finishes in the SWU again. I think thats 15 or so in the last 15 months ffs. They always seem to come in 3s too. Not played too many tournaments and cash is always a worry for me when my emotional guard is weakened. The tournament session Thursday felt pretty good actually, even though everything was raw. I felt very frustrated on the third bad beat or so though. Lost a 30k flip in the Thrill and a 120k pot in the 400 6m ko on .fr which might have been 4x average. 89hh into QTcc on  jt7ccQ. I'm going to try and put some hard work in away from the tables this week and that is something I have managed to do fairly well throughout all this mess. I do owe Verndog a session having missed one due to a really bad hangover that didn't stop till the next day. Peace out and I'll try to make a more exciting/positive update in the future. I just wanted to explain why I'd been fairly quiet (both for people here and for some of my friends who read this)

On the brightside this has gotten some of my more apathetic feelings (I wanted to write apatheticness) for life to diminish. I'm looking forward to Scoop and then I have a summer planned in Budapest. I think I'm reasonably likely to stay there unless I win a bunch of $ in which case I might punt some stuff in Vegas. I absolutely want to play the main at some point in my life, but going and coping with all that variance for a surprisingly low hourly (imo) just isn't worth it. I'm beginning to look at poker as more of a springboard to something more exciting and enjoyable again instead of worrying about its long term future. I'm going to try and plan some sort of holiday somewhere. I want to live by the beach for a while and be able to experience a quieter life than Budapest gives me, with a bit more clean air and easy access to the sun and the beach. Budapest in summer is always ridiculously nice though, so maybe I'll save all this until the autumn when my lease runs out. I just signed an extension until October so the timing of that post WCOOP (lol) might make it the best time to visit South America/SE Asia or South Africa where some of my friends are.


One of the sites I played on recently just changed software and its a huge step back imo. I've not spoke much to my contact about why but I really wonder who a)commissioned this and b) gave it the green light having saw it. Its like all the worst parts of the SWC/Ongame and its pretty frustrating. People give far too much credit to people in positions of "power". The world always confuses me and things like the Peter Principle just blow my mind. How many companies promote the best salesperson into a management role? Its so backwards it blows my mind. I have often felt the culture in Britain was that of mediocrity. Where being truly exceptional/different was something to be looked down upon. It was certainly the case during my school days when achieving good marks was looked down upon by your peers, but the school still insisted on ranking pupils in an order of merit on their reports (8/35 for example, not a list). The school tested us using Midyis (MidYIS (Middle Years Information System) is one of a series of monitoring systems written and administered by the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM) based at Durham University, England.) and found out we averaged one of the higher levels of intelligence it had seen in recent years. However, due to a failure in seeing the culture the school were promoting, or just failing to address the general behavior of teenagers, many people tanked their results including myself. Luckily I managed to sort myself out a bit when it came to A levels, particularly in my second year. In sport I was always decent. I played a fairly high standard of rugby both at university/school and at two different clubs. I played in many different teams with many different compositions and it is extremely hard to evaluate things like chemistry and culture within a sporting team or even a workforce. I think my recent relationship problems have helped me to develop as a person. I realise that my happiness shouldn't just be left in the hands of one person. I have truly tried in this relationship to put someone else in front of my own person as much as possible. I wanted to love someone and show to myself that I could be someone I considered a good person (my early love life was an absolute mess) and I think I have achieved that. I have relearnt that times of hardship are also times where we tend to improve the most, and I truly believe I will be a happier and better person no matter what the outcome, something that would have blown my mind if you told me this shortly after Dublin or even last week. I have often felt like my brain was just a bit different to others. Some things I just seemed to get and some things passed me by. I have often felt like I struggled with being a depressive person after my late teenage years but I am not sure that is necessarily true. I think it is often hard to feel positive after a long period of introspection and if you happen to introspect a lot then naturally you will struggle to have a happier mood. Their is a potent correlation between comedians and suicide and I often found myself feeling my social value because I made people laugh. As soon as I thought about the introspection stuff comedy came to mind, and that is a worry. However, worst comes to worst I can always hang up my folding boots and don my writers cap.

This article really hit things home for me; http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/comedians-depression-self-destructing-robin-williams-20140827?page=3

Peace.
These types of updates really put me off blogging last time, but I tried to avoid talking about anything that I find embarrassing and just stick to some life details and feelings.

Great honesty mate and that's what makes these blogs/diaries readable imo whether it's real life or people are winning chunks or knocking it in.

Keep it up and enjoy pal.

Great updates Picken.

See you in Vegas for the main. :)

Thanks a lot guys  <3. Just played some zoom yesterday after my posts. Lost a smallish amount across 1/2 and some 2/5 but after an hour I felt skype popping up and just started to discuss altruism amongst animals with a friend instead. I saw a video of a monkey resuscitating another and it was strange to see just how "human" it appeared. Not sure on the plan today. Probably somewhat similar with some studying instead.

I've been reading a bit more about relationships and the motivation side of things, as well as meditation for the 50th time. I will leave a post here that resonated with me. It will also serve as a reminder to exercise more too. I really enjoy getting out and walking the dogs while I'm here. Toni has 3 (!) Rottweilers so they are a bit of a handful but it's nice to see some grass and the stars.

https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1q96b5/i_just_dont_care_about_myself/cdah4af

PokerStars - $2 PL Hi FAST (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 265.12 BB (VPIP: 45.59, PFR: 26.47, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 69)
SB: 156.91 BB (VPIP: 20.93, PFR: 12.79, 3Bet Preflop: 5.56, Hands: 86)
BB: 45 BB (VPIP: 21.43, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 14)
Hero (UTG): 260.22 BB
MP: 491.8 BB (VPIP: 27.18, PFR: 16.50, 3Bet Preflop: 5.13, Hands: 104)
CO: 151.08 BB (VPIP: 30.00, PFR: 23.33, 3Bet Preflop: 15.38, Hands: 30)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Js Qh Td 8d
Hero raises to 3.5 BB, MP raises to 12 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 8.5 BB

Flop : (25.5 BB, 2 players) 7s 7h Th
Hero checks, MP bets 13.32 BB, Hero raises to 44.86 BB, MP calls 31.54 BB

Turn : (115.21 BB, 2 players) Qd
Hero bets 50 BB, MP calls 50 BB

River : (215.21 BB, 2 players) 5h
Hero bets 153.36 BB and is all-in, MP calls 153.36 BB

Hero shows Js Qh Td 8d (Two Pair, Queens and Tens)
 (Pre 45%, Flop 21%, Turn 20%)

MP shows 5c 7d 4c Ad (Full House, Sevens full of Fives)
 (Pre 55%, Flop 79%, Turn 80%)

MP wins 520.56 BB


PokerStars - $2 PL Hi FAST (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 177.62 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
SB: 106.55 BB (VPIP: 19.01, PFR: 11.57, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 124)
BB: 202.75 BB (VPIP: 26.67, PFR: 8.89, 3Bet Preflop: 4.17, Hands: 46)
UTG: 71.84 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 3.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 30)
Hero (MP): 248.65 BB
CO: 223.88 BB (VPIP: 68.75, PFR: 31.25, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 16)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Qs Th 8s Ah
fold, Hero raises to 3.5 BB, CO raises to 12 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 8.5 BB

Flop : (25.5 BB, 2 players) 2h Td 4h
Hero checks, CO bets 16 BB, Hero raises to 72.23 BB, CO calls 56.23 BB

Turn : (169.95 BB, 2 players) 5d
Hero bets 164.42 BB and is all-in, CO calls 139.65 BB and is all-in

River : (449.25 BB, 2 players) 3c

Hero shows Qs Th 8s Ah (One Pair, Tens)
 (Pre 36%, Flop 51%, Turn 33%)

CO shows Ad As 8h Kh (One Pair, Aces)
 (Pre 64%, Flop 49%, Turn 68%)

CO wins 447.88 BB

Both of these are vs regs

http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/18525005_EBF02B8B5F

vs a fairly unknown guy, think hes a fish tbh esp after that flop size.

PokerStars Zoom Hand #151161150503:  Omaha Pot Limit ($1/$2) - 2016/03/30 14:46:25 CET [2016/03/30 8:46:25 ET]
Table 'Diotima' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: NinoPino ($365.80 in chips)
Seat 2: grønnegrønn ($371.50 in chips)
Seat 3: fov110 ($245.11 in chips)
Seat 4: Demonic16 ($462.69 in chips)
Seat 5: lsjin ($231.19 in chips)
Seat 6: bitterjug ($159.86 in chips)
grønnegrønn: posts small blind $1
fov110: posts big blind $2
 HOLE CARDS
Dealt to Demonic16 [Ah 4c 7h Ad]
Demonic16: raises $5 to $7
lsjin: folds
bitterjug: raises $17 to $24
NinoPino: folds
grønnegrønn: folds
fov110: folds
Demonic16: calls $17
 FLOP  [5d 5c As]
Demonic16: checks
bitterjug: checks
 TURN  [5d 5c As] [Th]
Demonic16: checks
bitterjug: bets $36.33
Demonic16: calls $36.33
 RIVER  [5d 5c As Th] [Js]
Demonic16: checks
bitterjug: checks
 SHOW DOWN
Demonic16: shows [Ah 4c 7h Ad] (a full house, Aces full of Fives)
bitterjug: mucks hand
Demonic16 collected $120.91 from pot
 SUMMARY
Total pot $123.66 | Rake $2.75
Board [5d 5c As Th Js]
Seat 1: NinoPino (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: grønnegrønn (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: fov110 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: Demonic16 showed [Ah 4c 7h Ad] and won ($120.91) with a full house, Aces full of Fives
Seat 5: lsjin folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: bitterjug mucked [Jh Ac Qs Ts]

Pretty interesting one vs a reg. Spent quite a long time discussing pre/turn/river with a friend, pinging a few others now just to make sure. I probably won't post too many hands in future, I'm not planning on playing much zoom in the future though so I think its fine.

PokerStars Hand #157654719561: Tournament #1646743836, $100+$9 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXVIII (3000/6000) - 2016/08/23 23:09:53 CET [2016/08/23 17:09:53 ET]
Table '1646743836 14' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: Keep2p34Ch" (253842 in chips)
Seat 3: MD IACONI (315226 in chips)
Seat 4: Cr1s5t1 (98721 in chips)
Seat 5: n3xD (112787 in chips)
Seat 6: Demonic16 (62384 in chips)
Seat 7: IneedMassari (507342 in chips)
Seat 9: XxKaprelxX (412759 in chips)
Keep2p34Ch": posts the ante 750
MD IACONI: posts the ante 750
Cr1s5t1: posts the ante 750
n3xD: posts the ante 750
Demonic16: posts the ante 750
IneedMassari: posts the ante 750
XxKaprelxX: posts the ante 750
XxKaprelxX: posts small blind 3000
Keep2p34Ch": posts big blind 6000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Demonic16 [5s 4s]
MD IACONI: folds
Cr1s5t1: raises 7620 to 13620
n3xD: folds
Demonic16: folds
IneedMassari: raises 23268 to 36888
XxKaprelxX: folds
Keep2p34Ch": folds
Cr1s5t1: raises 61083 to 97971 and is all-in
IneedMassari: calls 61083
*** FLOP *** [Qs 3h 6s]
*** TURN *** [Qs 3h 6s] [2d]
*** RIVER *** [Qs 3h 6s 2d] [3s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Cr1s5t1: shows [5c Ac] (a pair of Threes)
IneedMassari: shows [Jh Th] (a pair of Threes - lower kicker)
Cr1s5t1 collected 210192 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 210192 | Rake 0
Board [Qs 3h 6s 2d 3s]
Seat 1: Keep2p34Ch" (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: MD IACONI folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Cr1s5t1 showed [5c Ac] and won (210192) with a pair of Threes
Seat 5: n3xD folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Demonic16 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: IneedMassari (button) showed [Jh Th] and lost with a pair of Threes
Seat 9: XxKaprelxX (small blind) folded before Flop

[22:16:09] Adam Picken: PokerStars Hand #157654922598: Tournament #1646743836, $100+$9 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXVIII (3000/6000) - 2016/08/23 23:14:07 CET [2016/08/23 17:14:07 ET]
Table '1646743836 14' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: Keep2p34Ch" (242592 in chips)
Seat 3: MD IACONI (303976 in chips)
Seat 4: Cr1s5t1 (202692 in chips)
Seat 5: n3xD (110537 in chips)
Seat 7: IneedMassari (426956 in chips)
Seat 9: XxKaprelxX (476308 in chips)
Keep2p34Ch": posts the ante 750
MD IACONI: posts the ante 750
Cr1s5t1: posts the ante 750
n3xD: posts the ante 750
IneedMassari: posts the ante 750
XxKaprelxX: posts the ante 750
Cr1s5t1: posts small blind 3000
n3xD: posts big blind 6000
 HOLE CARDS
IneedMassari: raises 6000 to 12000
XxKaprelxX: folds
Keep2p34Ch": folds
MD IACONI: folds
Cr1s5t1: raises 28517 to 40517
n3xD: folds
IneedMassari: raises 385689 to 426206 and is all-in
Cr1s5t1: calls 161425 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (224264) returned to IneedMassari
 FLOP  [5s 7s 8h]
 TURN  [5s 7s 8h] [9d]
 RIVER  [5s 7s 8h 9d] [5h]
 SHOW DOWN
Cr1s5t1: shows [Kd Ac] (a pair of Fives)
IneedMassari: shows [4c 4h] (two pair, Fives and Fours)
IneedMassari collected 414384 from pot
Cr1s5t1 finished the tournament in 12th place and received $535.34.
 SUMMARY
Total pot 414384 | Rake 0
Board [5s 7s 8h 9d 5h]
Seat 1: Keep2p34Ch" folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: MD IACONI (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Cr1s5t1 (small blind) showed [Kd Ac] and lost with a pair of Fives
Seat 5: n3xD (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: IneedMassari showed [4c 4h] and won (414384) with two pair, Fives and Fours
Seat 9: XxKaprelxX folded before Flop (didn't bet)

IneedMassari said, "keep studyin"

One day I'll be a top reg.