.

.

2019 wasn't going to be my biggest winning year but I did have a chance of having my first ever "perfect" year - winning every month. October looked like spoiling it but a miracle last day kept the streak going. November was pain sailing. December started off amazing but then I had my biggest ever losing day, followed by some reasonable losses and I went into Christmas feeling a bit down in the dumps. It had become a real goal of mine. A little silly and meaningless I know but still, it meant something to me. I had 3 sessions left before flying to Riga and games between Christmas and NY are usually very small / don't last long / short handed / don't run at all. £22.5k was the target. Almost impossible.

Games turned out to be reasonable and I won £2k the first night, then £10k the second night. So I needed to win £10.5k on the final night. And it was a Sunday...So I decided to play a couple of tournaments on my phone whilst playing live. My first and last online "session" of 2019 Stars had a $1k winter series 6max and a $1k version of the supersonic - perfect for my purposes. Would be nice to rectify my shocking pokerstars graph too...

I know where you think this is going....and it would've been classic to get out of it that way. But alas no, the stars graph continues to veer off a cliff.

I won £2k in the poker and then the end of night flips began. I've always included all flips in my poker results as they're 0ev and that's the simplest way.

The flips we do these days have been carefully tweaked to provide the biggest sweat and enjoyment

9 cards each, 4 pots. The first pot is STUD, and then there's 3 flops and the other 3 pots are OMAHA. Stomaha we call it (clever). £200/player each pot, single, double, treble bonuses available for making houses/quads/straght flush, or for only having ace high/ king high/ queen high in the stud. Double bonus for scooping the omaha, quadruple for scooping the whole lot. Got it? Try it. It's incredibly fun.

We do 3 flips, and in the 3rd one I scoop all 3 omaha pots with Runner runner quads, jacks full, and another quads. It was ridic.

I count my stack...I'm up £10.7k! CLASSIC! BUT I lost $2k online! WHY did I play online?!?! So I'm £1300ish short. It's 6am. My flight to Riga is 3pm. Find a 1/2 game somewhere??? Nope. Bed.

Not giving up though and I take my laptop to Riga and Viktorija and I open a bottle of wine, and do a bit of online punting together. She's worried for me though. "You're so close, don't go chasing the last little bit. The online tournaments don't really count anyway...". Not having that. Tried some spin n goes on party and won a few hundred. Decided to switch to cash, deposited on stars and sat in a 10/20 game. The waiting list suddenly is in double digits.

Call a 3bet with 99. Flop is Q86, I check/call. Turn 7, check check. River 7, I check he bets, I jam. I thought this pot would get me over the line if he folded. But if I was called I'd be 2.5k off or something. Heart was genuinely pounding. He folded. I sat out. Did some sums. Still down $200. Fuuuuu. Lost my seat in the 10/20.

Joined a 5/10. Started losing a few small ones...then...Aces on the button...utg opens, I 3bet, he 4bets, I call. This could be it...AK9 flop.... he bets I call. Am very excited. Think I need the full double up though...Turn 9. He bets I call. River blank. He jams I call. He has KK. "RACK!" I did it by a whisker. £180 up for the month. BOOM!

https://twitter.com/Chase_Bianchi/status/1179525506829602816

This might seem a little silly, but if 10/25 is tedious as hell, and the way you describe it is making me think it will die soon due to lack of recs, is it worth looking at dropping down to 5/10 or whatever the level below is? Surely a higher winrate there is better in the long run?

Not worded this well at all I think but hopefully you'll understand the question I'm trying to ask rather than what I think it looks like I'm asking...

A fair question indeed!

The next smallest is 2/5 at the Vic and it doesn't run all that often. It's not an option for me. If the time comes where I should move that far down, it's time to move on and focus on something new. Not to sniff at those stakes, far from it, but I always want to feel like I'm progressing in life rather than regressing.

Lovely to hear from you Alex.

You really do seem to have good balance and to have got life sussed.

When I couldn't upload my holiday snaps I did think there's at least one person who'd be happy about that!

Are you well sir? I was hoping you'd pop up on my rail in your yoofful grey trackies at the wsop this summer! Was devasted to have lost my only fan!

Good morning all.

So what's new? Well Daniel is a bit larger that my last post which I see was at 6 days old...He's 15 months now, charging around causing mayhem from 630am every morning, keeping us very busy. He's fast growing out of our modest 2 bedroom flat which is near Chigwell, about 45 minutes from both central london, and my folks just south of Cambridge. So it suits us very nicely but we're looking to upsize in the next year or two. No plans for number 2 yet though!

People say it turns your life upside down but I haven't found that at all. I love it so much. It's added huge joy and meaning to it and only replaced hours of the day and activities that now seem so easily replaceable. Things like studying poker....

Which brings me to a professional update. I'm still playing a ton of cash games, but a bit shorter sessions than before Daniel, and a few more family holidays instead of poker trips. I probably average 8pm-2am and then I'm always up before 10am to spend the day with V and D. I really love the routine we're in - I get to spend a ton of time with him, help out Viktorija and still put in reasonable volume. I've played one tournament this year - the WSOP main (380th I think) and less than 10 in 2018. Much the happier for it, for so many reasons. 2018 was by a big margin my best ever year and 2019 is going to slot in at number 2 unless something drastic happens either way.

Despite results (mainly down to rungood rather than quality of games, or quality of my play (!) I promise you), I am a bit gloomy on the future. I've fallen behind the curve recently and just don't have the hunger or time to study like the other pros I'm playing with. They are so damn good (and bloody tight!) it's just impossible to beat them. The game has become so robotic, memorising grid after grid, no room for creativity or outside of the box thinking. I know at the very very top they are animals and that's amazing to watch. But at my level (£10/25 no ante full ring holdem), average raise size preflop is 2.2x, so much deceptive checking, pot controlling, tiny bets etc. It's just so tedious. And makes for a terrible game for the recreational players who are just not bothering anymore. It's no fun for them and they have such a small chance of even booking a winning session these days.

I'm doing a bit of angel investing with a couple of businessmen friends who are showing me the ropes a bit and that's quite interesting, will be really fun to see how the projects play out - a possible way out of poker if needed / wanted.

I am heading to DTD end of the month for the WPT I think, so may be see some of you there.

The way I used to upload pictures here no longer works so I'll just have to post a link to my instagram, but if you don't like baby pictures - don't bother! Some snaps from nice trips to Umbria, Portugal and Vegas this year. Oh and one memorable trip to Anfield for a rather enjoyable visit from Barcelona...

https://www.instagram.com/justalexok/

Sure, Red. Will post one tomorrow.

arrboy do you know betfair exchange rule on match odds bets when game is decided by super over? Hearing different opinions. If anyone can quote or screenshot the betfair exchange rule that would help a lot. I can't find one that references super overs.

5% pls mate

[Night king should have been the final boss]

This season feels rushed
Night king should have been the final boss

this for me

More emotional connection with Cersei (which made her death by bricks all the more disappointing). Hopefully she survived it and gets killed by one of Sansa, Arya, or Dany.

Maybe the real final boss villain is Dany though...

Wow, big lump in the throat moment just listening to it again. Has Alan Shearer ever been so excited!

1 hour 58mins onwards. :-) Football is amazing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00050y0

What a night. Was lucky enough to be there. Goosebumps listening to that commentary back and watching this back.



Minimum €4200 on stub hub for the final 

I'll take 10 please Stu. Congrats on the little one!

Epic. Feels obvious now looking back, that the army of dead had to be defeated at winterfell (how could you there be survivors from both parties that both make their way down to kings landing?) And a 3 way battle between the dead, cersei and everyone else just wouldn't work would it? But I never saw that coming.

It needed a big ending otherwise you'd be left feeling a little disappointed as they killed off some predictable fringe characters like Ed, Beric and Lyanna M but it was done so damn well - loved it.

I was getting so frustrated with Bran though - do something ffs! Was expecting him to warg into Vyserion and save everyone - or at least use his powers for something! But he just sat there. What was the use of him warging into the ravens? Seems like he was just browsing the battle for his own interest! 

Now that the Night King is dead, will Bran still have a big part to play?

So presumably there's very little of the unsullied and dothraki left, so it's all the surviving main characters plus two dragons vs Cersei, the iron fleet and the golden company. Can't wait! And still all the big payoffs to come like Clegane bowl, Jamie/Tyrion/Cersei, Arya/Sansa/Cersei etc etc. What a show.

Only 1 dragon left.  Two of them died yesterday (1 good, 1 already dead)

Don't think the good one died yesterday. 95% sure.

Am I the only one that thought they were about to stab themselves?

No!