Degenerate Diaries: The Chronicles Pt. 2

[George2Loose]

I didn't mean to insinuate that I was completely broke. I still have a little bit in each pot. I'm just losing an absolute bunch this month. I have a gig dealing the circuit in Birmingham this week, which is basically my contingency plan. Probably go back to 4-tabling deep 25PLO online for a while.

I would like to try and find a backer for 2012 unless circumstances improve. I'm not entirely sure how I would go about doing this, any thoughts?

K&K?

[PizzicatoXev]

Hows the gym sessions going?

[zerofive]

Hows the gym sessions going?

Pretty well actually. Nothing quite like cranking up the incline on the treadmill and running through the downswing.

[zerofive]

Getting away for a couple of days was just the tonic I needed. Watching some decent players take some interesting lines, super thin value bets, and some hero calls (see Dreenie) - watching how they cope with Birmingham's finest fishbowls playing some of the worst poker I've seen in a £500 buyin event - I guess it's given me some perspective. Not that I live and die over every hand of poker, but over a few weeks my soul feels like it has been absolutely destroyed. Clearly, as a "professional" I should just suck it up and carry on.

Also it's worth noting that I was dealing to the winner of the Goliath tournament held in Coventry. fig I:

Blinds are 4k/8k/1k. Our hero opens the gun to 18k playing 183k total. The station to his immediate left calls. It's folded round to the cutoff, who is a very competent player who recently lost a lot of chips in a flip and has tightened up a lot. He squeezes to 70k. Folded to our hero again, who thinks for 30 seconds or so and announces "raise" and makes up the 70k. Someone at the table jokes, "I wonder how much it's going to be." I'm not exaggerating when I say that five minutes later, our hero is still counting out his stack. He looks me dead in the eyes and says "another 93k." The 3bettor looks like he's eaten a plate of bad shrimp, "this was so easy until all that Hollywood... but I can't fold." Then he sighs and reluctantly calls. "If you're calling, then you're good," says our hero as he tables pocket 8's. What a true champion.

If a player like that can take down a huge competition, then what am I worrying for?! Just a matter of time and all that.

Dealing this gig gave me an opportunity to pick the brains of some good players, and assign ranges for what must have been around 1,000 hands. It was reassuring to see players tabling what I expected to see. A reminder that poker really is easy. Just need to work on keeping my brain in one piece (or two pieces connected by the corpus callosum) during the downswongs. Ready for a ridiculous session where I just cooler everyone and finish the night winning 8BI plsthx.

Updates of my foreseen 8BI win to come. Peace.

[zerofive]

Disregard that. Lost £360 instead.

I peaked early on at about £120, only showing down one hand. I was truly in the zone, and had a massive edge over the table. Enter Tim Chung. I flopped second set on and got it in versus on a turn. No pair up, of course. Two hands later I flopped bottom set on and got it all in versus top set. It paired up this time. Rubs. Then flopped bottom set on and got it in versus a flopped flush in a three way pot. Needless to say: no pair up.

At least I learned tonight that to be a good professional poker player, you just have to get a bunch of coolers in your favour; nothing to do with skill. Equity realises you and not vice versa. Also, I ascertained that I cannot book a win in September, so I'll be taking the rest of the month off and just spending four hours a day at the gym smelling of chlorine.

Next time I go set-mining, I'll send a canary down first. </wit>

[Mitch]

Pretty sick Mr. Beltonian!

Seems you flop more sets than Keith.... actually scrap that, no you dont, i was just being silly.

[cambridgealex]

Pretty sick Mr. Beltonian!

Seems you flop more sets than me.... actually scrap that, no you dont, i was just being silly.

fyp

[zerofive]

Pretty sick Mr. Beltonian!

Seems you flop more sets than me.... actually scrap that, no you dont, i was just being silly.

fyp

gg poker the day Mitchell complains about how frequently somebody else flops sets.

[smashedagain]

chin up sean. the diary is brilliant. needs some pictures of birds down the gym or in the pool if you can manage that. cheers

[zerofive]

chin up sean. the diary is brilliant. needs some pictures of birds down the gym or in the pool if you can manage that. cheers

I don't think they frown upon cameras in the gymnasium brb...

[zerofive]

I ended up playing the tournament at Alea last night just to kill some time with some friends. The only seat available was in position to Jamie Kay, with Andy Creasey dealing and - for the first time in ages - poker was actually fun. There were lots of 3bet/4bet levelling wars between Jamie and I, and I think we ended up locking a crossbook session over four tables of PLO, and a £50 heads up match. Granted this falls slightly short of the excitement levels reached by the news of Alex's heads up match versus Rob Yong, but it's approximately the most exciting thing happening in my life at the moment.

The comp was a £30+0 triple chance, each bullet worth 3k chips. I joined at the 100/200 level, so I only used the one bullet to begin with, and ended the first break winning 475. They call me the grinder. By the 200/400/25 level, I was almost busto. Notice the absence of gasps. Got AK in versus K8 for a 12k pot and couldn't hold, because it was September. Then I lost a flip versus the shortstack and was playing 4bb. I shoved blind the next hand and picked up a call from some Spanish nit to my left who hadn't moved for the last hour and a half, nevermind put chips in the pot. Fortunately for me, my blind shove was with JJ and the nit decided to bring his VP$IP to 1.5% with A4, and somehow I held. I borrowed PeeJay's iPad to check the weather channel and see if Hell had indeed frozen over...

I went on to dominate the comp along with Jamie, both making the money just like old times. Back when the Dusk tournaments had a structure, Jamie and I used to crush them for fun. We got accused of colluding once 'cause we both final tabled so frequently. I decided to take that as a compliment. Five of us ended up chopping the Alea tournament for £100 each, which is obviously a bowl and not worth writing home about were it not for the fact that I cheated fate and booked a win in September. Also worth noting is the fact that I flopped a set and won the pot (no, really.) Jamie Kay won a flip against lucky Jimmy; didn't get photos but can confirm this is not a level.

Sushi for breakfast. I've been looking forward to this for nine hours, mostly subconsciously. Peace.

[cambridgealex]

Whoop nice one. Upswing on the way...

[JK]

You forgot to mention you won an 80/20 against the luckbox

[zerofive]

You forgot to mention you won an 80/20 against the luckbox

Don't suppose you could stand behind me all night and call my cards in? Thanks in advance.

[smashedagain]

do  you eat quality sushi mate. abso love the stuff but scunny has nothing like that (other than the stuff tesco do and the tastiest thing in them packs is usually the ginger).