Thanks Ray, great to hear from you. I remember good times together in Marbella 2011! Do you still play yourself?

I'm not sure whether it's soothing to know it may all be variance, or frightening to know it could go on for a good while yet!

Hence my plan to balance out tournaments this year with as much cash as I can during the tournament stops, and play less side events.

Actually I may have understated things, I forgot that I actually did pretty well on winamax back when Brits were allowed to feast on the froggies

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If it turns out that I am in fact a winning player, then disregard everything I said about variance and I'll put online crusher in my twitter bio.

Well played Alex, keep it up.

I have a question if I may, you said you've never been a winner online, why do you think that is.

So the answer could plausibly be simply variance.

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Excluding the HU sng stretch at the beginning, I've played around 2500 tournaments lifetime on stars which is the volume a fulltime player might put in in a year. Top players have downswings way bigger and longer than this. I actually won on other sites like winamax and stars.es but lost on partypoker, GG, stars.fr - all quite small volume back in the day. I've never played any serious volume at cash. If I had a 10% ROI, my chance of losing over a 2500 sample of tournaments is 31%.

However, I won't cop out of the question like that...

I basically have never focussed on playing online. It was a side hustle alongside my live volume playing sundays, scoop, wcoop etc from 2011 to 2015 - and then literally 6 years off until May 2022 I played scoop again. So when I did play, I was likely not a winning player in the fields. Looking back, it was complacent to just think I could show up and apply my live game to online, go on autopilot, think that my exploits that I'd learned playing live were appropriate and my fundamentals sufficient for online. They almost definitely weren't. I never properly studied, I never got coaching - I just hoped that I was good enough and the sample size and variance masked the fact that I wasn't.

It was a reality check coming back from covid and playing EPT Prague in March of last year - boy did I feel out of my depth. Everyone had gotten way better, having already been better than me to begin with...Now I feel competitive in $100-$200 online fields, and €5k european fields, $10k US fields.

I still don't have any interest in battling the variance of online tournaments, for <10% ROIs, with possibilities of ghosting, RTA, stable collusion etc. I will probably dabble in scoop and wcoop again this year though depending on my schedule

I have been attempting to dust off my £11k 4th place cash by busting 5 tournaments since then - 2700*2 + 560*3. Got really close in the main event last night - after a lightning start, all my moves stopped working and then I fell card dead at the wrong time and succumbed once again to the unstopabble force that is Waheed Ashraf, 8 off the money.

I've been sitting down on a 2/5 game after each day to wind down a bit - and even though I know I can't play my A game at those stakes, especially after 6-10 hours of tournament play (especially especially directly after a near bubble) - I enjoy playing so much in that moment. I'm thriving playing 300-500bb poker vs people typically shot-taking. Obviously I play way too many hands and too aggressive but it seems to be working, and I've got a good sense of when to apply the brakes.

It helps when you hit miracle gutshots, also.

So tournament buyins all reclaimed now - we have one more event the £1k 6max today, but we've locked in a £10k minimum winning trip - which is a nice start to the year.

4th! Decent start to the year

Just made the final table of 7! The blog run good is real! Short tho.

Ian is fully focused on the £200 now…

Ian and I both getting it in bad multiple times and winning.

Itm with average. Mitch also hanging around like a bad smell.

I think theres a stream of High Roller today?

Good Luck Ali G!

I think the FT yes

22 left 17 paid. 15bbs for me. Gazza got the lot

Gazza on my right! He’s already doubled up to 5m in the £200 AK > KK of Tim Chung and is now focussing on the £1k.

With the way he’s playing, I can’t quite work out whether I want him here or not!

I had a quick look online for live updates last night but couldn't find any - anyone know where they might be found?

Best of luck Alex

Now that you mention it, I didn’t see Tighty walking around with his notepad…

Always great to be back at DTD.

Met up with Stato, Mitch and Keith for a bit of Giggling Squid before the £1k "hiroller". Keith paid. Morale was high. I was very excited to play. Tournaments get me every time. £1k with a 30 minute clock where you know everyone in the field - it's a fun format - and winnable without having to be disgustingly lucky. Bring it on.

I was one of the first out.

vs Boz blind vs blind on a runout - vs . Very cold sure, but can I fold to the river 120k check jam when I bet 40k into 30k? You're not supposed to but feels like I've never not been shown 76 in that spot!

Better luck on the second bullet - early double up vs Mad Turk, the cooler nicely in my favour this time where we both turn two pair and get it in.

Some time later, my man Stato opens to 12k in the hijack off around 150k at 3/6k, Mad Turk calls cutoff and the button and sb call, and I look down at the lovely As . I have 270k and only Turk covers me. Given that I'm around 25bb effective with Stato (and would dearly love to knock him out) I shove, thinking Mad Turk's never calling (I hear he's not so mad these days?). Anyway, obviously he does call - though to be fair he had which I thought he would 3bet to get it in vs Stato with.

I don't lose big flips in DTD though.

Didn't win many other pots. I tried to bluff Wadey foolishly (who hasn't?) and bagged up 415k going back to 20k bb. 32 players out of 130 remain. Restart 1pm today. Ian Gazza also made day 2, with 700k, and has 3m in day 2 of the £200 warmup also. They start an hour apart...what's his plan?! The stacks are worth similar amounts I'd imagine (3-4k each?) Jog between tables he says. I heard you can't multitable in DTD tournaments though. I might have to call a ruling if he's on my table and I need to nick a few blinds...

Alex!!

Remember visiting our cottage in Wimbledon? I told you that London would be a good move 😃

Great to see you posting again.

I do indeed! May I hazard a guess that family life has trumped poker in the last few years for you?

Best of luck in those Alex.

Thanks Ralph. Will you or any other blondes for that matter be playing any events this week? Be good to say hi.

We're more or less up to date I suppose, I just had a brief look back and I made a few posts about being back on the tournament circuit from March of last year following our exciting adventure round Chile.

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Click to see full-size image.

I put my heart and soul into tournaments last year - studied so hard and grinded everything - no joy. It was disheartening at points and tough emotionally - I've never actually grinded tournaments fulltime, always been somewhere between 50 and 100% cash volume, so subjecting myself to the variance fulltime was going to be a challenge if I didn't hit the ground running. I really enjoyed the studying process and learning new things. I felt so prepared but there's just so little you can do to affect the outcomes it's quite hopeless at times!

By the end of the year I felt I needed to get some cash hours under my belt for my sanity so explored the scene in LA. I think I'll have to wait to write more about that since it's ongoing. I'm going back there mid February for the LAPC.

I'm certainly glad to see the back of 2022, very nearly my first losing year in poker - and certainly a losing year overall what with cyrpto, the markets etc.

Feeling positive about 2023 though. It's been good to "zoom out" during the break, and remind myself of my WSOP main 37th end of 2021, remind myself it's only 8 months of live tournaments etc etc.

Plan for the next month is
-DTD UKPC 12-16th
-Cyprus Merit Poker Western Series 20-26th
Paris WPT Prime 31-5th

Will do updates here when I can - I feel the diary rungood will return with a venegance!

2023 - The Year of Blonde Poker

Gogogo Ian.