If you don't know bout me

[tikay]

Yes yes yes.

That's three.

[Marky147]

Yes yes yes.

That's three.

That's 6.

[Longines]

yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes

That's 1030.

[booder]

aye

[POWWWWWWWW]

1031 was slightly larger than the figure I had in mind so here goes..

Hey guys,

Long time no update. Had a bit mixed year last year. Poker volume and results weren't great. The world cup and great summer meant I took a lot of time off, I had a great time but not the best decision in the current poker climate. Me and the missus also bought a house. Absolutely over the moon with it. We'd really struggled to find a mortgage lender who would lend me any money. We'd nearly given up when we found, I think, the only lender in the whole country that would give us a mortgage based on her wage and have me on the house deeds as a dependent. Had to put a 60% deposit down as they'd class me as a dependent and minus avg living expenses from what they would lend Leah. We've been renting in a little village for a couple of years and have really settled here, so after a couple of possible houses had fallen through we were very lucky for this one to pop up round the corner, and to find the mortgage at the same time.
My poker roll obv took a pretty large hit, and the back end of last year I ran pretty bad. Not in the sense of running way under ev, or dropping tons of money quickly, but just not getting hands or making hands. I think it was prob around 100k hands, and honestly towards the end I was really fed up. I wasn't looking forward to playing, i'd cut sessions short, I'd find excuses to not play. I was just flat out bored. Not with poker as a whole, as if I wasn't playing I'd be studying, but just with having to play, having to just take shit day after day. I started playing NL again to try reignite the passion, and I even started playing tournaments for a couple of weeks, going so far as to fully apply for BitB.  I withdrew the application at the final stage as I didn't want to tied down for a full year with no way out.
Thankfully Party decided to in essence bring back a form of Supernove Elite. Their own version and this has been a great boost for me and my motivation. Knowing I can play 5k hands a day of 1/2, 5 days a week for 10 months of the year and be guaranteed $120k at the end lifts a big weight off my shoulders, esp with what happened the end of last year. I've been 9-12 tabling 1/2 and have been loving it. Haven't checked my results in ages, really feel in the zone playing that many tables. I'm really really enjoying playing again. I'm still comfortably rolled for higher but I'm trying to get this focus and mindset ingrained into me before moving back up. There's still a few bots knocking around but there's a decent chat group set up between regs to try and regulate it, and Party have actually been fairly decent at investigating and banning the botters. Fair play to them, they've kept to their promises they made last year.

I've also been really getting into golf recently. A few guys from the village played casually the end of last year and after a few beverages at the put I made the bold statement that I reckon I could hit 80 within 4 months of taking it seriously. Wagers were taken and I am firmly in the shit. I started having lessons at the end of Jan, so have until the beginning of May to get it done. I got a membership at the local club, which has two great courses. However they at the minute have only one proper coach, so I've been limited to a lesson a week as he is so busy. Originally I had a very wide take away that really opened up the club face, as you can see on the pic (top one is now, btm one is at the start). This would also cause me to come over the top of the swing plane, and my natural shot was a tad slicey. We've changed my grip, take away and got me shallowing the club out more so I come under the swing plane, causing a nice draw. Gotta work on being less handsy in the downswing now. I tend to release the club way too early in the downswing, and despite having long arms and generating tons of power, I'm losing it all by flipping the club out. This is also causing me to thin the ball sometimes, and my ball striking is way off.
You can see it here with my driver. The club is flipping out half way down, and even on a good day, I'm only hitting it 250 yards max.
http://www.hudl.com/technique/video/view/VHDcYGEU
The tail is wagging the dog as they say.

This coming week should be one of the best of the year. We've got The Masters, starting on my birthday, and the WSOP-C at DTD. Going to be watching and betting on every second of the golf, while hopefully winning some money. Let me know if anyone is going to be at DTD and you can buy me a birthday beer

[titaniumbean]

250 yards straight >  any other distance not straight.

to hit something like 80 you have to play every hole well and not have any blows up. so just focus on 200 < x < 250 straight a high % and then work on short game around the greens and that will be the biggest improvement to cut shots out.

[typhoon13]

The range looks like Woodhall Spa but i believe they have three coaches

Too much daylight between your legs, so your losing upper leg power

[tonytats]

Nice to see the blog restarting they are all interesting reading for me thanks

[Karabiner]

Have you thought of getting an impact-bag?

It's a great tool for getting rid of that flip at the bottom of the swing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl3sh_00lXY

[Doobs]

Good to see the blog back and pleased you are enjoying the game again.  Can't help you on golf, but good luck with it.   Suspect I could play for years and never hit 80.

I am quite shocked I didn't realise it was the WSOP-C event this week.  I was going to play the big Sunday million on stars, but might have to reschedule to the Omaha.   Any livd tournament will be good practice for the WSOP, but I shouldn't duck an omaha one.   I could always play the million if I crash and burn early.   Can't see me playing any others, as the missus is away until Wednesday and am doing something on Thursday.

[POWWWWWWWW]

Have you thought of getting an impact-bag?

It's a great tool for getting rid of that flip at the bottom of the swing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl3sh_00lXY

Yeh my coach said he didn't like using them, but has some different drills that generate the same results. The vid below is one of them. Changed grip and feels waaaay better. Right hand stronger, more finger grip. Didn't mention it in my original post but I had developed a shooting pain down my left thumb when using driver. This was caused by the grip, and you can see in the first vid when I get to the top of the back swing as the club keeps going it was pushing my thumb back and kinda hyper extending it. Really hard to figure out the root cause in real time but very obvious with the slow motion (the vids I've linked are from an app that records in super slow motion, not sure why the website links are only half speed max).

The range looks like Woodhall Spa but i believe they have three coaches

Too much daylight between your legs, so your losing upper leg power

It's Gainsborough (now renamed Thanock Park)
Struggled a lot with the lower body stuff. Right leg tends to get very lazy on the back swing, and I get way too much knee flex.

So this was from the first session of grip change.
http://www.hudl.com/technique/video/view/VrSWdeYq

Second session beginning of this week so will post and hopefully see some progress.

Good to see the blog back and pleased you are enjoying the game again.  Can't help you on golf, but good luck with it.   Suspect I could play for years and never hit 80.

I am quite shocked I didn't realise it was the WSOP-C event this week.  I was going to play the big Sunday million on stars, but might have to reschedule to the Omaha.   Any livd tournament will be good practice for the WSOP, but I shouldn't duck an omaha one.   I could always play the million if I crash and burn early.   Can't see me playing any others, as the missus is away until Wednesday and am doing something on Thursday.

I'll def be there for the plo with the milly on an iPad, unless the Masters is shaping up to be too good to move away from.

[typhoon13]

Do you still get an excellent carvery at Gainsborough?

[POWWWWWWWW]

I haven't tried it yet, but you're the third person to say this so it's definitely on my list.

Ran the Lincoln 10k yesterday. I by no means at all a runner, and I don't really enjoy running. It seems fairly boring and repetitive, but there's a few guys from the village who run it for charity so I've tagged along for the last couple of years. It seems like a fairly good litmus test of how generally fit I am, and if age is starting to catch up on me. So I hardly did any training last year and went for only one test run this year of 7km. I've had the sniffles all week as well so wan't expecting big things. I ran 53:56 last year and a surprising 48:27 this year. One of the guys who also ran was going for sub 40 mins so I set off with him at the start and tried to keep pace for as long as possible. Needless to say after 2km I was gassed. Had to slow right down and the 45min marker runners passed me by. I was determined to beat last year so tried to stay at a steady pace where I could see the 45 mins marker up ahead in the distance and not be able to see 50mins behind me at all. Around 7km all the phlegm from my cold has loosened and I coughed/spluttered up a huge ball of gunk right in front of some cheering kids and parents. This really knocked me out of my rhythm  and a few hundred meters further I did the old pretend there was something in my shoe trick. Took a knee and pretended to mess around with my trainers and socks to give me a breather for a few seconds. Really struggled for the last 2km and the last kilometer up to the cathedral is on a steady incline which was a killer. Still fairly happy with the result though. The other guys were on a bit of a high afterwards and talks of half and full marathons were in full flow. Don't really think it's for me, but the missus did the Great North Run a couple of years ago and she's keen to get back into it after foot surgery last year, so I maybe convinced.

[tonytats]

Forget the carvery
Have you ever been here ?
http://www.uptonchippy.co.uk/

[POWWWWWWWW]

Nope, but any eatery that is only open 6 hours week has my attention!