lucky_scrote's (b)log/diary

[booder]

Good work Dan

[bergeroo]

Hey Dan, having known a few people coming off anti-depressants I know it is tough. Just wanted to say hang in there, keep playing good and keep writing! See you at the tables, hopefully not on my left.

[lucky_scrote]

Massive thanks to all support people have been offering. I think it's about 10 days I stopped taking my medication and at the beginning it was tough. After the first few days I thought it was going to be a lot tougher than it was. I am definitely very snappy at the moment. I find stress quite overwhelming and as a result I seem to take a lot of this out on my girlfriend. It's not all that bad though, I'd say on the happiness scale I'm about an 7-8 at the moment which is fairly solid I guess. I've really noticed myself being less jolly if you like, a little less exuberant with my day to day activities. My brain has to get used creating it's own serotonin from now on as well as coping without a fairly strong medication that I was relying on for 18 months.

On the tables I've been performing well. I have played Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday since my last post and even though the first three sessions were not succesful I managed to have a 1st and a 2nd for 3k and 2k to just push me in to profit for these sessions. I've had a pretty good start to the year (Currently +13k) and I don't see why this doesn't have to continue providing I strive to be the best. I think in onlime poker at mid and high stakes mtt's I am currently the fastest improving/improved player in the past 6 months. I've not really climbed in stakes TOO much in that time but next month my backers have agreed to add new games to my schedule. This is probably a pretty arrogant to say, but my results back it up and I am now looking at poker players who I used to really look up to before now looking at them noticing how many flaws in their game they have and how I can exploit them. Considering poker is quite tough now, there aren't that many great poker players in the online mtt circle.

I expect to make around $150k this year. Last year I made $130k profit and for the first 6-7 months of the year I wasn't really that good, just trying to keep up with the game rather than staying ahead of it. My ambition is to make $200k this year in online mtt's, I'll need a little help with a decent bink somewhere along the line because I can't expect a steady $17k a month every month.

I just booked Dublin for next month. I'm going for a pretty long time for me- flying there on the evening of the 9th and leaving on the 18th. I've planned a schedule that includes a lot of nice mtt's including the ukipt main, ept main and a 1 and 2k side event. I've not gone away to play such an array of large poker tournaments for a very long time for one main reason- I just couldn't afford it. Another reason that I just couldn't handle the pressure nor was I really good enough. It's definitely hard work going away for such a long period for intensive live poker at quite reasonable stakes because in such a short time I have around €10k in buy-ins ahead of me. The backers have agreed to buy quite a chunk of my buy-ins but naturally they have bought the smallest percentage of the EPT main event. I'm gonna do this! I am going to go and play an EPT, I've not played one since Prague 2011. Dublin is definitely a good festival to go for too, there is a great recreational pool there.

I booked a nice house on airbnb last night and I'm staying with airdraken (Thomas Clack) for the duration. We can play online if need be and maybe even have a day off or two .

Naturally, I have to sell some of myself. I can't afford to whip up the rest of the action since it's including a €5k. Hopefully this time next year I don't need to this, hell maybe I won't need to do this after Dublin if I'm really lucky .

Here is my schedule: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tZ-15VHMlY0h_Zo6Bf5Yo47CjdIHYeCCyfKVGAnET2c/edit#gid=0

I will be selling the four tournaments as a package. To sell out I need to sell 100%, the relative % of each tournament I am selling is in the spreadsheet. For example, I am selling 25% of the €1k on the 14th. If you buy 10% here then you have 2.5% of that tournament and so on.

5%: €257
10%: €514
25%: €1284

I will post this officially in the staking forums tomorrow with fancy graphs to show off, but for now if people want to buy a piece then feel free to post.

[Eso Kral]

I will take 5% pls Dan

[DMorgan]

5 please Dan, good to hear its working out for you

gl in Dublin

[lucky_scrote]

Took Thursday and Friday off this week. I normally just take Tuesdays and Thursdays off since they are the toughest days online but the stable I am a part of has gotten so busy that I realised I had to get some work there done. They have a "development" stable that I posted about a couple of months ago and I doing the coaching with another chap.

Yesterday I had an absolutely absurd heater. Two wins a third and a fourth. One of the victories came in the saturday 50cubed on 888 which I came 2nd in last week so that was nice to close that one out. Another was in a tourney in the bottom of my buyin range but its a turbo and has 1500+ runners every day. Very happy.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

I decided to scrap the package I made for Dublin. I think it was too complicated. A few loyal buyers in me offered to buy pieces but that was about it. I've decided I'm just going to sell for the EPT Main for now at the previously advertised price and sell a slightly less % because I feel pretty good about punting at this event.

Absolutley crushing this year already and have been for the past 6-12 months.

This year:

Click to see full-size image.

Selling around 20% (reserving 20% for original investors) @ 1.19

€315 = 5%
€630 = 10%

Will take in euros on pokerstars, in person or via Sterling bank transfer.

[lucky_scrote]

Becoming a habit updating on a Saturday since I crushed again yesterday.

Struggled a little bit with myself and poker this week. My motivation was slightly hindered and the killing instinct just wan't there. What I mean by that, is when I had a decent sweat a few tables out I didn't really pay attention or care. I've also been struggling with sleep a bit this week, and when I'm low on sleep I get grumpy and feel quite sad. I've never had problems with sleep in my life. Go to bed, head hit pillow, sleep for 8 hours. I took it for granted. Well, it was coming to the point where it was 1am (1 hour before bed time) and I was feeling extremely alert and end up lying in bed until 4-5am feeling bored. Equally in the morning I feel super lethargic and don't want to get up. Turns out, it's another common side effect of coming off the pills. This blog seems a bloody broken record regarding these meds but every week something new is happening. Glad that it feels this is almost behind me though, the dizziness has almost completely gone and that was the worst part.

TCOOP has just started and the backers have been generous with what I am allowed to play. Normally they are a bit on the nitty side (I understand) but this time they have happily thrown me in the TCOOP $700's without me asking. 888 series also on and there are some great value tournaments for sure.

TCOOP is a pretty shit series really. Edges still decent enough especially with a lot of dead money about but ROI is obviously lower since I have less opportunities to exploit my opponents. It also feels higher variance because everything is so fast. Still, you won't hear me moaning if I bink something. Skill game I tell ya!

So early hours this morning I made the final table of the Saturday $320SKO on stars. It's a very good value tournament that has plenty of fish, but the line up of the final 2 tables was pretty reggy, predominantly full of winning players. I couldn't get a great feel of their abilities since I was a little hand tied 3 tables out with 20 big blinds but once it got down to 2 tables and was much deeper I noticed that I had a great shot at this tournament since I was definitely the best player remaining.

Click to see full-size image.

So I went in to the final table with a fairly comfortable chip lead. It wouldn't be the easiest final since I knew 2 of the finalists were prepared to come 9th if need be which meant it was harder for me to put pressure on them and control the table. I still played pretty mental though. At four handed the 3 remaining players requested for a deal, we were fairly even in chips at this point, and I declined. I stick firmly by my beliefs that I won't deal in MTT's (and haven't for 18 months) since my results are much better this way. I fucking love winning and once a deal has been made I feel my thirst for victory diminish as a win would feel somewhat hollow. It was about 530am at this point but I didn't care.

I got it to heads up around 6:45am with a slight chip lead. I stretched this lead to 2-1 when I got it in with 5's vs AJ for victory but he rivered a Jack. I think the villain played quite well despite making a few of the same mistakes. I felt like I made a lot of really really big folds to him vs the tournament. Of course I could be wrong but we will never know, it felt right at the time.

Click to see full-size image.

It really has been an outrageous start to the year with profits pushing $42k now. There is zero pressure on me to perform during these expensive series and there will be even less pressure on me to perform in EPT Dublin in a couple of weeks.

[tikay]

Lovely job Dan, well done.

[stribling]

Enjoy reading this. Hope the hot streak continues!

[lucky_scrote]

It's been a while since my last update but for once I haven't been playing much poker.

At the end of January I went to the  APAT team event. It might be something that people wouldn't expect me to visit but for a long time I posted on a forum owned by Matt Dale and made a lot of friends. About 3 months ago I was drunk one night and booked flights over to go. I met a lot of people there and I always forget how nice of a community it can be sometimes. A few people mentioned they enjoyed reading my blog which I really like to hear. Our team did not win this year but where we lacked in chip accumulation we made up in beers.

I had a problem with my stars account so I didn't get a chance to play immediately on return so I have actually only played one session in two weeks.

I'm now in Dublin for 10 days to play the UKIPT/EPT and side events. I've not played an EPT in four years because I was just nowhere near bankrolled nor good enough. Yesterday I played day 1a of the UKIPT and I managed to have the chip lead on a couple of occasions, a really swingy day! I was up to 60k within four levels (25k starting) and within the next two levels I lost a flip to get me from 80k to 100k to being knocked down to 10k in chips at 300/600. I've not posted any hands in this blog for a very long time so I will share a good one.

A guy two to my left who is youngish and has the demeanour of a good player was anything but. He was giving me a bit of a headache because he was trying to be a hero all the time and putting people in really tough spots. You might say that this is a good strategy but he didn't understand the game too well. There was a hand where someone raised to 600 at 150/300 and a shortstack off 4k peeled, he then proceeded to squeeze the button with 68o to 2.8k (dumb, little fold equity).

Anyway the hand. A fish opens MP to 600 at 150/300 and I peel 88 otb. Sb also peels and the guy trying to be heroic makes it 2500 from the big blind. OR flats, I call and SB folds. Flop 778r. He leads for 3300 into 8300, OR folds and I think a bit and call. Turn is bringing a flush draw, he checks and I tank for a bit and check back. River is a 6. He checks and I go into the tank and eventually bet 2500 into 15,900. He takes a minute and jams for about 20k effective. I knew there was a chance he would erupt. I make him show AJo and take the big pot down. I honestly had to try very hard to not laugh and be professional, it still tickles me now.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I actually wrote this blog over a week ago, but since it wasn't finished I had to save it. Instead of re-writing the post and changing tenses and days I will just continue where I left off.

The next day was 1b which also meant Trampoline dodgeball. Jake Cody talked me into it but secretly I really wanted to go anyway. So in case the rules of dodgeball if anyone is not familiar with them. You have a team of say 5 people that stand on opposite sides of a room, in the middle is no mans land (very small area) where balls are placed. At the start of the round you must run to the middle, grab a ball and return to the back wall before you are allowed to throw. There is one ball for every two players on the field. If you get hit by a ball, you're out. If someone catches a ball you throw, you're out (and they get a player back). You can deflect balls with the use of other balls. The only difference between this game and normal dodgeball is that we are on trampolines, it made it very exhausting indeed. It was mostly the high roller guys that were playing for some reason, I remember Jake being there, Jason Mercier, Timex and some other high rollers I don't know the name of. To cut the story short, my team won and I got a mini pokerstars spade trophy to prove it .

I went in to day 2 of the tournament fairly confident, I had played really well day 1 and was up for the task. The day started well and I had played some hands pretty aggressively. The day seems a bit of a blur since it was such a long time ago, but I was yoyoing pretty hard without dropping too low. I remember getting moved to a new table once we had made the money and I felt that even though I thought I was playing well, I was unsure of myself at times since I was being put in lots of spots where I had to play passively and it just felt like I was bleeding chips. Without too much detail, I made one of the worst folds of my life which was a pretty large pot, and I managed to receive some great donations in the money as well. I ended up busting 50th right after Pads bust but wasn't too disappointed to the start of the trip.

Saturday was a day off for most people so I met up with €urop€an, pads, Adam Picken and Tom (airdraken). After a few drinks at a respectable bar called the Church we headed to the not so respectable Temple bar. At one point me and Pads walked in to a bar that was very crowded, we had in fact been turned away from there an hour previous. The guys attempted to follow us but didn't get let in. Apart from being like sardines it was fucking awesome. Me and Pads were forced to double park our beers since it was so busy. After getting to know Pads much better this trip I would say he is definitely say he's one of the good guys. Much fun to be around even if he does ask more questions than Socrates.

Something happened around 2am that might potentially change how I do things or think forever. Despite having the time of my life, at around 2am a switch flipped in my head and I felt awful. Not just too much to drink awful, but just awful. I rushed home and just cried my eyes out, I felt so depressed. Not this all over again for fuck sake. I had nothing to even cry about, but alcohol just doesn't seem to work well with me, certainly not in large quantities. I have decided to stop drinking for the time being. I have never drunk much, but I've always been partial to 2 or 3 beers after a session about 5 times a week. I think it definitely lowers my mood and energy levels. So, I've knocked drinking on the head until April when I go on a little golf break to Cyprus.

I barely played much more poker whilst in Dublin, I'm not going to go in to full rant mode since I have already gotten it off my chest a few times, but I had to share a house with someone who was the most inconsiderate and dirty person I have ever met. It ruined my mood and a lot of time was spent cleaning after said person.

Hopefully along with no alcohol for 6 weeks I am going to improve my fitness, my diet and my happiness. I am also planning to play a ton of golf as I have also had a couple of lessons. With a bit of luck I can play to 7 again.

[tikay]

Fascinating stuff Dan, some amazing insight there.

Good luck mate.

[lucky_scrote]

Poker has been slow going the past 6 weeks but I've made a lot of changes in that time.

I lost my mind in Dublin a little bit, I will never know what it was, but I do think that I have struggled a tiny bit coming off my meds at the start of the year. I had an "incident" in Dublin that I handled pretty poorly involving another poker player, to who I have apologised since.

Since my last blog update I've not drunk alcohol as a bit of a challenge to myself. I was drinking a bit too regularly after a session online even if it wasn't in copious amounts (2-3 bottles of beer 4-5 times a week). It's pretty addictive stuff! I've managed to join a gym too in hopes to give myself a better mindset. I have to say, just two weeks into quitting alcohol/beer I find myself a lot less bored and feeling fitter. I also need less sleep for some reason. I don't plan to keep this up though, I go to Cyprus in 10 days for a golf holiday and expect to increase my calorie count somewhat .

Hoping for a bit of sympathy here but I had a wisdom tooth out last Friday. A 10 minute appointment to drain an abcess turned into a much longer one when they decided to remove the tooth. It took 9 injections and 2h10m as it was being stubborn. Tools used included a chisel and hammer. Shock ensued once I got home and a few days later I developed dry socket.

Slightly inspired by "TommyPlus" and his blog. I love culture and it's certainly interesting living in one other than your own. I will post up what life is like in the Netherlands in some of the following posts.

On the poker front I've been working fairly hard despite not earning much wonga. For those of you that read Patrick's blog we have a little competition within the stable involving points awarded for tournament wins and what not, but it has only been a curse- I've not closed a single tournament this month!

Hopefully some more exciting posts can follow shortly, an update was just long overdue

Dan

[bergeroo]

I am mildly obsessed with Dutch snack food.

There is a shop, which I think is only in Amsterdam but I could be wrong, called FEBO.
http://www.holland.com/global/tourism/article/febo-amsterdam-2.htm
This is a place where you have all these suspicious looking items of snackfood in little hot cupboards. A giant wall of vending machines. Then you put some money in the slot and you can get the food. A friend of mine who grew up in Amsterdam told me about 'The Race' where you each pick a row of these unhealthy mostly deep fried snacks and try and purchase and consume your row a fast as possible.

What is your view of Dutch food in general.

Have you eaten many/any of these?
http://netherlandsbynumbers.com/2013/10/31/10-things-to-eat-you-will-find-in-dutch-snack-bars/
(apologies if you are vegetarian!)

[hummuspie]

Hello mate, what is cost of living like there compared to the UK? I've done a few road trips to Rotterdam and have been thinking of the possibility of staying there a few months

[lucky_scrote]

I am mildly obsessed with Dutch snack food.

There is a shop, which I think is only in Amsterdam but I could be wrong, called FEBO.
http://www.holland.com/global/tourism/article/febo-amsterdam-2.htm
This is a place where you have all these suspicious looking items of snackfood in little hot cupboards. A giant wall of vending machines. Then you put some money in the slot and you can get the food. A friend of mine who grew up in Amsterdam told me about 'The Race' where you each pick a row of these unhealthy mostly deep fried snacks and try and purchase and consume your row a fast as possible.

What is your view of Dutch food in general.

Have you eaten many/any of these?
http://netherlandsbynumbers.com/2013/10/31/10-things-to-eat-you-will-find-in-dutch-snack-bars/
(apologies if you are vegetarian!)

I've eaten all of those haha. I was going to do a post about them myself, but you've ruined it! I will still do a post about dutch snack food though.

FEBO is all over the Netherlands and they are the McDonalds of Dutch snack food. They do the lowest quality food but it's still decent (and very cheap). You can get Dutch snack food wherever you go and IMO it's bloody brilliant. It's obviously unhealthy but it is just soooo good. My favourite of all time is something called "Frietje oorlog" which literally means "War fries". It's called something slightly different in that article however (4.Patatje oorlog/kernoorlog/open been). No idea why it's called Patatje (must resemble the English word for potato). Dutch language and dialect is really weird and changes from one town to another.

My second favourite is called the Frikandel. It's actually made of multiple meats (one that includes horse) stuck together with breadcrumbs. My favourite variant is "Frikandel speciaal" which just means it has speciaal sauce with it (Curry or ketchup with mayo and onions). They love their mayo here. It's very different to our Mayo since it is a lot sweeter (compared to our sour, vinegar rich mayo). Interestingly they have just launched Hellmans out here, we have some in the fridge but I've yet to try it.

I've not heard about those races, but I would definitely be up for that.

Hello mate, what is cost of living like there compared to the UK? I've done a few road trips to Rotterdam and have been thinking of the possibility of staying there a few months

I think overall the cost of living is no different to say, the South of England. Major cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht have fairly high rental prices but the fact that you don't need a car and that public transport is excellent means that you can forget about the running costs of a car. Parking is ludicrously expensive in city centres too. Expect to pay €35 a day in Amsterdam. Food and alcohol is a bit cheaper in the supermarkets but if you drink in the pub regularly it can get expensive since beer is considered more of a luxury there and therefore is more expensive (Expect €5-6 a pint). Dutch people are very nitty when it comes to spending money, they are actually very generous people but they always try to get a discount or find a cheaper way. Try to get paddy with some over here and you will find yourself saving money in various ways.

Out of interest, why Rotterdam? I have visited so many cities in the Netherlands and love them all, except Rotterdam. It's like when someone says they are visiting England but are going to stay in Birmingham for 3 months. The harbour is definitely fascinating but since Rotterdam got annihilated in the war, all the buildings are big and new. People are very Londonesque too and are generally quite rude. If I were to suggest places to spend some time I would say "Maastricht, Utrecht and Amsterdam".