An Ape and a notebook, how long will it take?

[jgcblack]

Big News..
So as some people have guessed already, I was in discussion with Pleno after he approached me offering a staking deal.    

 

And we have agreed on a sponsorship of 6max cash beginning at 25NL and moving up as soon as we're comfy.
Plan is to grind 4 tables on Party poker 25NL 6max. 
Grinding 20bi's with a daily stop loss, and putting in 20k hands minimum per month.

He will be my personal coach, with us doing teamviewer, hand history review and one to one discussions and strategy.
The people, resources and insight that Pleno can provide will far outweigh his % im sure.. and imo this is by far the strongest way for me to improve quickly.

I can't thank him enough and will be beginning the deal on 1st March, so I've got a little while to spin up my $$ on stars then that'll be kept for satelliting into bigger live comps and some mtt/ hu cash on the side.


Todays grind
Decided to try some micro MTT's today.. and played a bunch of $1, $2, $3 big field MTT's.  We've been watching MTT videos for the last two weeks and felt super comfortable, only making two small mistakes.

We went deep and cashed in a $1 and $3.. pretty brutal exits in both. ($1 aiotf with AQ vs KQ on 1062r .... 9 J then.... sigh!)

And bust all the rest in 70/30 fashion, the only mistake we made was in the sunday storm when we cr A5 on an AxxA board and when he 3bt it we knew we were screw but called it off just in case - shown Aj obv.  (Think we might have had a straight draw as well as our 5 as an out)

We also played the DTD500 mini satellites and bust one.. then won the second - hu vs James Tomlin.  We started the DTD500 Main sat at 9pm and have just finished.. getting our 2nd seat this month already, out of 2 chances! 

We haven't even gotten to the last week when they have one on every night!!! Lets ship some more ££'s please!


I don't know what else to say except thanks to all that read, and that hopefully this diary will take on quite a boost with the sponsorship and DTD satellite grinding going well.  In 6 months it would be really nice to have hit most if not all of my yearly goals and to be working on setting up a decent live and online calendar on a regular basis.




In a small side note.. I've obviously been working on my game a lot recently... and I've been trying to help and advise some 'poker mates' about some leaks in their game.. but all I get from them is 'but i already win a lot' blah blah and saying 'am I bringing a book out soon?'

Do you guys bother with people that are nice, fun people but have big leaks and don't seem to listen or care???   

[jgcblack]

So I don't think I put this in black and white properly from the weekend...

We won two DTD150 seats the week previous, used one to enter and cashed the other in for some satellite ££'s!

Got to DTD on saturday and couldnt win, so used the first entry and decided to re-enter... couldnt win there and busto.  So, instead of play the soft cash games at DTD when not really rolled for them, and being too far away from Harrow, London to see Charlene we decided to go home.  On the way, thought why not play the Aspers northampton £25 tourny... can probably win a hand in that one.. and if we binked it, it would almost certainly pay for the weekends hassle.
Played well and didn't bluff, managed to get lots of chippies and see some crazy stuff (Standard live pokerz).


Aspers £25 tourny Sat night
Craziest thing we saw was this..
7 handed blinds @ 150/300 I think.. we have 7.8k or something..
Super Nit (Leo MClean) opens for 675 (playing 5.2k), I call with  (knowing how he plays and that we don't need to hit a flop to win vs him), Chinese villain calls from bb (8k-ish).

Pot (2175)
Flop
 
Villain Checks, Leo cbets 725, I fold, Villain craises to 1550, Leo takes some time and calls (playing 3k left).

Pot (5275)
Turn
 

Villain bets 1500, Leo takes some time and shoves for 3175..... Villain takes 10 seconds and with a stack of 5k left says "I guess I'm pot committed".... and calls
We see Leo has the respectable  ...
And Villain has.... the old  - Errr excuse me WTF???
At this Leo says "what are you doing?" - "don't even dare dealer...."

Pot (11625)
River
 

For a miracle rivered flush... Leo does not take it with class and goes abso-f**king mental!  Jesting - "I ought to glass him, what a ****ing joke!"
As I do my best to calm him down and try to tell him to take it with class, just laugh it up... etc... This does not work.

I can't help but laugh at the whole situation as the Villlain tries to justify it with some ridiculous comments.. And I tell him "well they're definitely easier to get off of you."

Anyways, we end up going busto in this tournament a level or two later when we snap call our  aipf vs same Villain who has open shoved 30bb's with the old  and we joke about how this might run out.  The rest of the table don't look too happy that I'm about to get a sexy old double up...
Until the board runs out:-
 

c'est la vie, nvm.


Aspers £1/1 game Sat night
Then we get on the cash table and decide to fire up a little £125 bullet and give some live a go... Cliffs
- First hand have our flopped two pair counterfeit so that A high wins the first £60 pot

- Second hand have our Tptk hand counterfeit when 2nd pair, trips up on river and we check fold

- Make a creative check shove with  after opening utg and seeing a 5 way flop of 852 we are up to £95.

- get slow rolled when aipf with  vs a tilted maniac who shoves over our £10 open for £60 - he shows  and I say "you'll need to hit unless you have two of those..." he says nothing until the river and tables  .... wpwpwp sir, nh, don't trip over the stairs and break your jaw on the way out much.

- then he calls our creative 4 way 2 street float and river bluff when the flush and straight both come in.... >>>>>  with bottom pair.... nice call sir!

[X] Still couldn't win in a super fishy live £1/1 game.
[X] Will win one day...

[cambridgealex]

don't bother trying to help people who don't wanna be helped ldo. discussing hands with your peers and improving together is immensely important so if they're not interested in that then that's their choice.

still trying the old multiway pot/double float/river bluffs eh? a very underused tactic at £1/1 it's a wonder more people don't try this sort of stuff...

[jgcblack]

don't bother trying to help people who don't wanna be helped ldo. discussing hands with your peers and improving together is immensely important so if they're not interested in that then that's their choice.

still trying the old multiway pot/double float/river bluffs eh? a very underused tactic at £1/1 it's a wonder more people don't try this sort of stuff...

No, I rarely do this kind of thing any more.. but when somone who's heavily tilting donks £5 into 22 from sb on an 884 flop... call me crazy for thinking they have a 4 almost always!  This dude would have crain with an 8 im 100%... I was right, and when he cc the straightening turn I had all the intention of giving up if the river bricked.. but the perfect river fell and I was sure he had bottom pair.  So with my good line, image and hand reading I went with the bluff!

He sigh called and the whole table sigh'd at my obvious double up... for me to say K high and he chuckled like a boy and turned over the 4.
Then I announce, two cards to win... and he then gets the 10 over. WP sir..... very WP!  Next time this slow rolling **** ******** * ** * * * ****** is in a pot with me im just going to announce the 'nuts' every hand until he gets fed up mucking his better hands.  First time i've felt like this in poker but the SR was so gross.

[jgcblack]

Too harsh???

[WotRTheChances]

don't bother trying to help people who don't wanna be helped ldo. discussing hands with your peers and improving together is immensely important so if they're not interested in that then that's their choice.

still trying the old multiway pot/double float/river bluffs eh? a very underused tactic at £1/1 it's a wonder more people don't try this sort of stuff...

No, I rarely do this kind of thing any more..

Not since that  hand a few days ago. I don't know anyone who profitably makes these regular floats and/or 'creative' bluff lines. Just stop them all together for a period of time imo... see how it effects your results.

[jgcblack]

You have to realise that this is two occurrences in the space of 4days and about 1200 hands. This is a tiny % compared to in the past.

Further reduction is happenning.

[Leatherman]

 

[jgcblack]

Ty Leatherman.... he's not repping much and can't take the risk @ that stage of the tournament..


Todays Grind
We played a bunch of satellites today..

DTD 'minis'
nothing... no feeder seats.

DTD mains -
DTD150
- got 1 of the 2 seats on offer..

DTD250
- misclicked while going to the toilet.
- misclick raised 1/3 stack off with  then folded on  when sb open shoved.
- misclicked next hand folding QQ.
- then went out couple of levels later.. shoving  13bb's into bb's KK.

DTD500
- got 1 of the 2 seats on offer..
- played really good the whole way through, picking spots very well and not getting too out of line
- made awesome read and move 3 handed to take CL then bossed it, got A8 vs Q8 aipf n he binks a Q... then bossed some more till i won!



big day really.. nother £550 in the bank! + dtd150 seat.

[jgcblack]

So, a quick update..

Thursday 23rd Feb
We played all three DTD satellites and managed to 'do' the following

DTD150
CL the whole way and ran AJ into AQ 4 handed... sigh  - only 2 seats on offer... [ ] We hit a J.

DTD250
We played really well, CL or close most of the way.. then made a bad call 8 handed with  vs Sunny Mistri's UTG shove with  and Caroline Cougars reshove in SB with  . Down to half our stack and then shortstack shoved A5s into 99, despite flopping a 5 and turning a flush draw we bricked the river!

DTD500
Made a mistake vs Ceri Rees where he made a shove over my turn cbet with  on  , we called with  . gg us.


Friday 24th Feb
DTD250 - decided I will only play the 'mega sats' unless i satellite into it.. when there is only 2 seats its hard to ride the variance when 4/5handed.
But as it was a mega sat, we managed to get a seat! CL or 2nd most of the way and managed to wangle our way through to a seat with a massive CL then we called aipf with AKo vs btn shove of 20bb's and he has AQo.... we hold and tyvm.


Charlene (gf) is up so we're going to be chilling tomorrow and I'll bank the seat.

GL all blondes in the DTD250 tomorrow, today.... !

[SuuPRlim]

you know, you don't have to win EVERY pot you play

props for trying though

[jgcblack]

you know, you don't have to win EVERY pot you play

props for trying though

When I saw the potripper videos I literally went off on one for about 3 weeks trying to win EVERY pot because you 'can' if you know how.....

Doing well on the sat's front though Dave, hope PLO is being kind.  I'll be heading over to your diary tomorrow!

[jgcblack]

Hey everybody, just chilling at the moment.. awaiting the 1st and looking forward to beginning to work with Pleno.

Going to get some roast dinner at a pub lunch thingy - nom nom nom! then come back for a 'regular' sunday DTD mega sat grind!!! Get us another dtd150 + 500 seat pls!

Back in a bit..
Anyone that knows a little about computers or is a grinder and has anything specific in their grinding PC setup, please head over to here and give me your advice, tips, ideas that work for you - http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=56866.0

[jgcblack]

Todays DTD satellite grind
One big SIGH!!!...

We registered for all the evening mega sats as usual to make sure that we don't forget to.

Then play a couple of mini sat's around 4-ish while Charlene isn't feeling too good.  Get a seat into the Devilfish 9pm thingy.. DTD are valuing each seat @ £1200 in order to freeroll the Devilfish, Rob Yong and Simon Trumper into a SNG where 8 players play a turbo and have a 5,2 and £1k prizes up for grabs.  So it could be fun and obv well worth £25 to get into it for a shot at the £5k prize.

Think we got a seat into the DTD150 Mega sat that has 10 seats gtd and was looking forward to that tournament as I've been performing well in it, but with very few runners it 'magically' had technical problems around 1hr before it was due to start and then changed to a normal 1seat gtd DTD150 satellite.  A little bit annoyed by this as I can't see how this can be a technical issue from what I understand of servers, software and client programming.  However obviously I could be completely wrong and apologise if this was truely the case, seemed a little co-incidental to me.


DTD Bust the Devilfish
Got an instant double up a few hands in where some guy goes mental wanting to get his whole stack in on    with  vs my  .  GG him and we start with a double stack. tyty.

Few levels later we're still top 3 as we have been all the way when we reluctantly get it in on a board with  vs obv  .  That takes us back into the
pack and we carry on playing solid until we bust in a pretty standard fashion we ran  into  and couldnt find some help.


DTD500 Mega Sat
Now this has been our bread and butter over the last few weeks and we will be grinding these every night this wk as our record in them is pretty awesome (something like 6 seats from 8 tries).
We play really solid poker until it gets short and then play pretty good short stack poker, reshoving in good spots, inducing bluffs and shoves from certain people and generally playing pretty tight.
Same same today, although we're pretty card dead the entire time and make one mistake where we peel a min 3bt with  , call a cbet on a good board and it runs out really well for our hand to be good, we call his small cbet and small river bet and are shown the  , wp sir.
Get back on the horse and play really well for the rest, getting back into the pack and after reshoving twice over his opens we get into a pretty interesting flip where 'Elderdan' decides to raise, call-off  CO vs BTN.. we have  and hold for a nicely timed double up! ty sir

This battle is to be our downfall....
We are 7/14 and by no means have a seat locked up when Elderdan decides to shove CO for around 12bb's... we find  and instantly know we're ahead.  But looking at the stack sizes and how our 22bb stack is not locked for a seat we decide this is too good an opportunity to get another double up and almsot certainly lock up a seat.

We call and we're up against the mighty  .. so we just have to HOLD!
Flop 
    (thats a ridiculous flop for him and he's still at like 36% now)
Turn
   (booom... there goes my seat. - oh well we've got a few free hands to shove)
River
Meh... don't even remember! dont care, it wasn't a 9 or A.

We shove  x next hand and it gets through and then a few hands later the BTN limps into our BB and he completes the SB (this is so bad on so many levels!) and we find the old  .  This isn't the best spot but I think that Elderdan is weak enough that he's completing any SC, probably any suited hand and raising all 'short stack premiums' so despite knowing that he can't be calling enough I think maybe he might call here more than he should (even though it would be for 60% of his stack).

We ship and the BTN predictably folds and Elderdan snaps with the mighty  .  I know this is a possibility but even if he has a hand like this he shouldn't be 'trapping' with it, imo this is a terrible play that puts him maybe 60/40 but he is just risking too much.

No pairs for us and we go out 13th with 10 getting a seat.

I don't love the  call but i think when i haven't got a seat locked up and I have 10bb's if i lose and the CO next hand its too good a spot to 'lock a seat'.  But the  isn't a great spot either, probably better to just check, find a pair and then ship it in.  Shame we couldnt get another £550 tonight but we will be back every night this week and today we were card dead the entire time and still came 13th, so I'm really confident I can win 3 or 4 more seats this week!

[X] Win 3 more seats and I'm buying the Super Grind PC this wk!

[cambridgealex]

   move is incredible. When will that badboy do a win?!