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!