Back in Notts...

[Derbylad]

gratz. where did u get the graph to record results from?

Looks like excel.

Grats on the heater Lad. Come and give me a spin one time?

Confirmed Excel, PM me your email if you want the template.

Alex FYP.... Being GHolden vs being Goulden.... Could be interesting

[BangBang]

Great results...

A few questions...?
1. You sticking to NLH this month or are you dabbling in some PLO action too?
2. What are you buying in for at the Vic, Empire, Hippodrome? Is it game dependent or do you have a set amount?
3. When are we gonna hear some stories about moving to London and general life...?
4. You've some how luck boxed your way to a £20k stack from 1k, playing £2-5 NLH you're in the BB, UTG (£22k Stack) raises to 70, MP shoves for £13k Cut off shoves for £8k and BTN shoves for £15k SB folds, you have AA. WWYD?

[Derbylad]

Great results...

A few questions...?
1. You sticking to NLH this month or are you dabbling in some PLO action too?
I've been dabbling in both, however i'm much prefering the reduced swings of NLH at the minute and i'd say my games pretty sharp

2. What are you buying in for at the Vic, Empire, Hippodrome? Is it game dependent or do you have a set amount?
my standard BI at 1/2 is around £200 and chip up to 200 if we lose any small pots. Although this is definitely game dependent, i.e. huge whale = sit down with the max

3. When are we gonna hear some stories about moving to London and general life...?
Soon, very soon
 
4. You've some how luck boxed your way to a £20k stack from 1k, playing £2-5 NLH you're in the BB, UTG (£22k Stack) raises to 70, MP shoves for £13k Cut off shoves for £8k and BTN shoves for £15k SB folds, you have AA. WWYD?
I elect to play all of my chips, close my eyes and wait to hear if anyone else starts celebrating on the river....
Also MP shove from £70 -> £13k.... get me in whatever games your playing =)

[Derbylad]

Last nights TR...
Played a lot of hands [X]
Got out of a hole [X]

So last night i went to the Vic, where what appeared to be half of London were, along with some Nottingham heroes with the likes of Mitch, Stato, Deadman and Keith.
After free rolling dinner from the richest mondeoman man in Poker we all went our separate ways.

The night started pretty shockingly with me losing a BI at 1/2 PLO in the first orbit with 78910 double suited to a 5 way all in preflop. Last to act with £12 already in their and about 8-900 to win, fairly easy call. Surprisingly AA held up after a board of      .... and to see a hilarious guy slam down KK on the turn and then see his face melt as the 2 outer fell on the river :')

Anyway to reduce variance i went to play some 1/2 NLH as the PLO was that splashy and it was too much of a lottery.

Clearly gamblers anonymous were having a meeting in the Vic last night as   was beat by   after he cold calls my £30 3 bet and flats my £54 c bet on the flop for him to then donk shove the board of   ....when his starting stack was £190... and the OR had a bowl stack of £100
The river the  .... i turn over Trip Kings..... oh you have   .... Well played Sir..... NOT.... EVER....

He later did a similar thing and got there after calling £10 pre with   . We did not get any money back off this free willy and he left in God mode to take away a sizable chunk from the table. I may have berated his play a tiny bit though and I should definitely try and find some self restraint at berating the fish's play sometimes, or they are unlikely to come back to the aquarium.

Anyway £400 in the hole, but pretty unphased, we finally got out of it, after a solid 4 hour grind and some of the best poker i've played. I found a couple of correct hero calls, got max value from pretty much all of my holdings, and held KK > AKs on a flopped flush draw for a BI back. We got out of the nights hole by hero calling...   on a....
  board, after we'd called both streets and he then bombs the river. I asked how much he had behind to which he then said "enough for you to double me up".... After a dwell i then said "but is it enough for you to try and bluff me".... more dwelling... and call to scoop the £300+ pot with Top pair No Kicker.

One of my highlights of the night was also calling out the guys set of 10's on      .... when i had   .... in a 3 way pot.... when he check calls the flop to OR and then donk leads the turn for like 70%..... for some reason i tabled my hand and called out his pocket 10's to which he then showed... asking how did you know.

So we left the night break even after they broke the table at around 4am. To be refreshed to play today i left with a morale high, and a lot more confidence in my game as late. Sticking to NLH for a while, and no graph dip yet wiii.

[NEWY]

Last nights TR...
Played a lot of hands [X]
Got out of a hole [X]

So last night i went to the Vic, where what appeared to be half of London were, along with some Nottingham heroes with the likes of Mitch, Stato, Deadman and Keith.
After free rolling dinner from the richest mondeoman man in Poker we all went our separate ways.

The night started pretty shockingly with me losing a BI at 1/2 PLO in the first orbit with 78910 double suited to a 5 way all in preflop. Last to act with £12 already in their and about 8-900 to win, fairly easy call. Surprisingly AA held up after a board of      .... and to see a hilarious guy slam down KK on the turn and then see his face melt as the 2 outer fell on the river :')

Anyway to reduce variance i went to play some 1/2 NLH as the PLO was that splashy and it was too much of a lottery.

Clearly gamblers anonymous were having a meeting in the Vic last night as   was beat by   after he cold calls my £30 3 bet and flats my £54 c bet on the flop for him to then donk shove the board of   ....when his starting stack was £190... and the OR had a bowl stack of £100
The river the  .... i turn over Trip Kings..... oh you have   .... Well played Sir..... NOT.... EVER....

He later did a similar thing and got there after calling £10 pre with   . We did not get any money back off this free willy and he left in God mode to take away a sizable chunk from the table. I may have berated his play a tiny bit though and I should definitely try and find some self restraint at berating the fish's play sometimes, or they are unlikely to come back to the aquarium.

Anyway £400 in the hole, but pretty unphased, we finally got out of it, after a solid 4 hour grind and some of the best poker i've played. I found a couple of correct hero calls, got max value from pretty much all of my holdings, and held KK > AKs on a flopped flush draw for a BI back. We got out of the nights hole by hero calling...   on a....
  board, after we'd called both streets and he then bombs the river. I asked how much he had behind to which he then said "enough for you to double me up".... After a dwell i then said "but is it enough for you to try and bluff me".... more dwelling... and call to scoop the £300+ pot with Top pair No Kicker.

One of my highlights of the night was also calling out the guys set of 10's on      .... when i had   .... in a 3 way pot.... when he check calls the flop to OR and then donk leads the turn for like 70%..... for some reason i tabled my hand and called out his pocket 10's to which he then showed... asking how did you know.

So we left the night break even after they broke the table at around 4am. To be refreshed to play today i left with a morale high, and a lot more confidence in my game as late. Sticking to NLH for a while, and no graph dip yet wiii.

How did u know?

[Derbylad]

Last nights TR...

Started at the Vic, lost a BI at 1/2 PLO. Despite saying i was going to stick to NLH this month, the list for the 1/2 NLH was about 40 deep so was the only game i could play.
Anyway after an hour and a half i went to go to the Empire.
Randomly as i walked off the tube two american interns were right behind me that i knew, and in an uncanny sense of "in all the places in London" moment ended up meeting up for a bit before finishing the grind.

We got out of the hole in a hand i pretty much detested...

We 4 bet   and get called by the OR (dealer at the vic, pretty solid) and MP (asian kid, seems okay but has been doing a bit for the past half an hour). First to act on a board of   we lead for 60%, we get called by the OR and then min raised by the MP playing £360 at the start of the hand with me covering.
He seemed solid but i'd been 3 betting a few of his opens and cold 4 betting light to some of his limps so it seemed like he might be pushing back. It was kind of a, fuck it moment and GG if you've limped KK, flat called 44 / 66 etc...

Anyway he dwell calls after about 3 minutes, with me still not liking it and expecting to be chopping. The board runs out and AKs scoops to get me out of the hole and into a profit.

March winnings are now just shy of ~2000.

[Derbylad]

So I've not done a background post in a while...

I'm currently 21 and working in London but originate from Derby (, as you can probably grasp). I study at Loughborough University and moved down to London after getting a placement year as a Business Analyst at a large pharmaceutical company. As you can probably work out from some of my posts I've been accustomed to a lot of card games and play both PLO and NLH at live cash. I'm still pretty unaware of how i fully got into PLO, aside from winning a PLO tournament at the Ricoh G casino a couple of years ago and taking a fondness to it from then on in. It's actually getting quite annoying to see it's growing in popularity though, as it's normally one of the softest games when introduced to casinos and card rooms and i'd rather not have the competition =). Side note: I once described PLO as "that game you play when your in a hole in Holdem".

I think a lot of people have varied reasoning for playing poker, and i'd say mine has stuck pretty true to my word. In likeness with the poker economy there are only few reasons why a perfectly sane human being would continually come back to one place gambling at degenerate hours whether winning or losing, and this is because it is made enjoyable (most of all). Aside from the bad beats, the downswings, and the times when morale practically hits rock bottom we live for the sweats, the bragging rights, the banter, the self worth we get from making those hero calls or correct plays, the networks of friends we've created through late hours and shared memories, but mainly the underlying factor of having the ability to 'make' money tax free (, apart from maybe Ian Gascoine). So this is why we I play.

I'm currently still debating on goals for 2013 as my entire year will be pretty varied. I'm currently in London until ~ end of July in which i'll return to Derby if I don't partake in any Summer Internships. I'll then return to Loughborough in October. To say the least i'm going to have to evaluate some kind of mobility and sustainability to play with a temporary online transition in the pipeline. For now though i'll remain playing most weekends in London. I'm still waiting for (rbc_) Mike to finish at Imperial so we can get some proper degenerate stories in this diary, our grinds are normally pretty tale-worthy.

Can't really play this weekend as i've got some prior arrangements, however i'm planning to return to Notts for a weekend again soon.... DTD action.

[rbc_mike]

7 days till exams over mate, can't wait to get back on the grind!

[Derbylad]

Managed to get two mini sessions in this week, one on Wednesday and a little on Saturday. Somehow i'm still running pretty GHolden and continuing an 8 session in the green heater. This week was tiny profits, 85 and 127 respectively.

Saturdays was actually really tedious and one of the most swingy games i'd played. I managed to hit sets about 5 times and only won with one of them on pretty dead boards.
I think i was in big profits and then back down to winning a bowl so many time i lost momentum as well as some morale, when it's days like them you should be holding and winning 1k+.
Still i'm thankful to still be winning for March and it's without the luckaments that we wouldn't get paid in this economy at all.

The worst of the session was   vs   on as flop of   . I'd 3 bet preflop in position and we'd seen the flop 3 ways. Checked to me and I cbet 30 into 50 and get raised by the villain to 80 playing 180 total. The money all goes in after he gives a speech of do you only ever play clubs. I turn my hand and he's instantly disheartened. You know the rest.... Unfortunately the guys miracle came on the turn. If anyone's ever played in the Empire you'll know they have a pretty healthy bad beat jackpot and at this point the entire cardroom stopped dead while 15+ people were trying to moan in the ball for me, but it did not prevail. Sigh....

I celebrated St Patricks Day in Trafalgar and the rest of London today. Pretty good to see some faces and had a decent night out on Saturday to Movida.

March Graph so far...

Click to see full-size image.

[Sulphur man]

Blue line oh my days.

[cambridgealex]

X asis labels are a mess kid

[Derbylad]

X asis labels are a mess kid

Study Business & IT [ X ]

but yeah pretty tilting x-axis

[Ragz]

Interesting stuff, I'm thinking about getting in the live scene and am scouring blogs to see just what s people can make, if it's worth the grind etc. What is rake like where you play, hourly or %?

[Derbylad]

Interesting stuff, I'm thinking about getting in the live scene and am scouring blogs to see just what s people can make, if it's worth the grind etc. What is rake like where you play, hourly or %?

For most 1/2 you'll find that it's 5% capped at £10. There's reduced rake at the empire in the mornings and most clubs operate reduced rake or no rake at <4/5 players..
Anything above 2/5 is normally a table charge per half an hour, you see this a lot more at the Vic. Dusk till dawns a softer game but more rake, with their 1/1 being 10% capped at  £5, their 1/2 is the same 5%.

[zerofive]

lol can't help but notice that graph doesn't go in the wrong direction once