lil dave's lil life

[titaniumbean]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5egeltq9eb40xh9/vegaswedding.flv?dl=0

TOP OF THE PAGE SALT


Stus face throughout, the salt chant at the end, all so good 

lucky I accidentally didn't delete it 

[BorntoBubble]

Best 7 minutes of my day

[Karabiner]

That was excellent. But...

I'm sure I saw a different version on LilDave's original blog although I might well have been three sheets to the wind at the time with my imagination in full flow.

Despite that, I'm sure there was headbanging.

[titaniumbean]

That was excellent. But...

I'm sure I saw a different version on LilDave's original blog although I might well have been three sheets to the wind at the time with my imagination in full flow.

Despite that, I'm sure there was headbanging.

this is THE version! 

[DMorgan]

Stu's face on every dramatic pause after the word '(w)hole'....

[tikay]

So, TV Star, how did it go last night, in front of the TV cameras?

I'm told you were telling a yarn or two....hope you kept them clean & non-degen.

[SuuPRlim]

Hello!

Yes, i really enjoyed Sky. Pretty gutted how pathetic my attempts to win were, never above £100, never won a pot, just wimpered out, not down in a blaze of glory as I would have liked

Had a lot of fun with Rich, Neil and Fraser though, took the chances to have dinner with Jake and JP on the evening and catch up with them which was great and have lunch with Mose next day, along with a bit of shopping for me and Laura in the afternoon, had a very nice couple of days, TY Sky can't wait to come back.

Right, I've been MIa for a while, taken a pause from my nostalgic roam down memory lane to focus on the here and now... here's what I've been doing...

A while ago, my parents house was selected along with loads of other houses to be part of a site for a development estate in Harrogate, great news as the price of the house was set to multiply handsomely, 5 long years of working through the planning, during which time my parents had to close their business and virtually cease to earn as their health got a bit worse, leaving me to invest very heavily (a substantial % of my net worth currently invested into the house) in the project. A few months back the planning was granted which makes the big payday a case of when, not if. There is a still a huge amount of work to be done to see this through to the end and maximise returns, Iv had to sacrifice a lot of EV over the past 5 years to get here and I'm not going to let it fall short of my expectations! This is currently taking up a good 50% of my time, as I'm keen to keep my parents workload to a minimum.

Its actually starting to become a bit fun now, prior to the planning being accepted it was so incredibly stressful that there was no way to enjoy it, now its a process that I can actually see an end too, and I have something actually worth something in exchange for all my money (lol) I'm finding it quite good fun This has taken up the vast majority of my time.

Outside of this Ive been really ill again, still a carry on from the problems I had in Cyprus and that's been hindering my progress on every front

When I've not been moping about feeling sorry for myself or dealing with property guys Ive been playing a decent amount of poker, had a few live poker sessions which have been really good and doing OK online, a few years ago I really did feel like I was on top of the world in terms of mid and mid-high stakes online, but since coming back from my semi retirement I just don't know what the hell is going on, I've been playing mostly on an unknown foreign site and doing ok.

I'm also getting back involved with another fish and chip project which excites me like nothing else, this time it's a little bigger but im way less financially involved and dealing with some very experienced people so that is exciting me...

Booked a few hoilidays, crushing on football manager in my spare time and generally speaking life is excellent!

Just need to make some bloody money somewhere!!!

[SuuPRlim]

Winter 2011

The Making of lil Dave

After my Vegas shenanigans in the Autumn of '11, high stakes games, impromptu weddings and degenerate gambling sessions (8 hour spells playing $1k /box BJ in the "Club Prive" Bellagio blackjack suite desperately trying to impress Natalia this eastern european waitress) I came back home and something happened that drastically changed my career in gambling. I'd been really good friends with Stu Barnett (Honeybadger) prior to going out to Vegas and for those of you who don't know Stu he is an absolute gambling machine, I was a kid with too much money throwing it in the air trying to see how much of it would come back, Stu was a proper PRO and he took me under his wing and taught me pretty much everything about how to make it stick at poker. If it wasn't for Stu then there is a >10% chance id be playing poker now, or that I would have had any of success I enjoyed in the following years, there's about 5 people who I owe huge for my progression and Stu is comfortably number 1. It was also about this time he introduced me to number 2...

HE took me to play a poker game in Manchester and introduced me to Julian Gardner, if any of you don;t know him he is most well known for coming second in the 2002 WSOP Main event, for a cool million dollars The second I met Jules I was pretty much in awe of him, the way he plays, the way he talks, the way he acts, this isn't an act either he's just a fucking lovely bloke who is exceptionally good at what he does. BEtween the two of them I learnt more in the next cpl of years than I would have learnt in 50 by myself, and I made a lot of money in the next 12 month, pretty steadily, I played in lots of different games, mostly private, all over the North of England and did great, I'm not sure how much I should post about those games exactly, but I will defo think of some fun stories from those games and share if anyone wants to hear

In Spring 2012 I went to L.A to play cash games, with the plan being to go L.A.P.C, a series of poker that I both love and hate in equal measure after a few trips there, then heading to Vegas the following month for cash games - if you're ever thinking about a trip to play cash games in LV then March/April is a great time for games there, generally not crazy big but plenty of action floating around the 10/20 and 25/50 sort of levels and pretty consistent too, nothing worse than a trip where you knock it in heavy in a HS game that will only run once then spend the next 2.5 weeks creeping out of it at 5/10.

My love/hate relationship with LAPC stems from my love/hate relationship with the commerce. Firstly, and this is a fairly well informed opinion, if the only consideration for a poker venue was the poker itself, the standard of play, the variations in games and stakes and the consistency of the action across the stakes then the commerce is very easily the best place to play poker. NLHE 1/2 - 25/50 runs pretty much around the clock, PLO 2/5 - 20/40 runs pretty much round the cock (20/40 is a great stake too) 50/100 - 100/200 runs very often, means its WORTH taking a shot at and the games are generally speaking pretty good, the rake is reasonable, defo could be lower but I've played in games where it's miles miles higher, the staff there are also pretty excellent and the card-room, despite being run on 1996 technology (white-board and marker pens) is very smoothly run...You do get a fair bit of reg-favor, but you get that everywhere and with only a little charm and a few generous tips you can win yourself the same favor easily and skip yourself up wait lists, or convince the guy to give your room a quick buzz if a game is starting etc. There is pretty much no amount he reasonably ask for in exchange for this that is not ridiculously +EV! The problem with the commerce though, is that there is not one single other thing about it that isn't absolutely dreadful, the hotel is awful, the location (downtown L.A) is horrible, the decor inside the casino is depressing, the food is disgusting and if you want to get out of the hellhole then its a good 45 minute drive, because this is L.A where everything is miles away from everything else. This particular trip I spent 32 days at the commerce and left the building once, to get dinner in hollywood with a friend of mine - every other second i spent stuck inside the casino and that might be ok in the wynn, but in this casino its seriously fucking depressing

Obviously a great counter to that would be to win! Winning will often bring a newfound sense of peace with troubles, i started this trip like a spitfire, and was winning a lot very quickly, however things as they tend to do took a pretty horrible downturn in fortune and ended up losing a lot in some huge games, obviously morale takes such an incredible downturn during a downswing such as this and being stuck in the worst place in the world caused some for some very dark moments. This had been a pretty weird trip for highs+lows, and that started right from the beginning of the trip, I decided to fly into Vegas first, mostly because I had money there which I needed for the trip, but also because you can fly to LV from Manchester and I had enough money at this point that I could decide that 3 days in LV at the wynn to avoid going to London was a life+EV move - arrrh those were the days, today I might be thinking about flying via Amsterdam and Detroit to knock a few £ of the fare

So I arrive at the wynn and immediately I get upgraded (for free!) to the Tower suites, as i'm only booked in for 3 nights, this is the first time I was to stay in a tower suite and they are fricking awesome - if you remember the "scandalous" photo of Prince Harry with some super-model naked on his pool table (the only scandal in my eyes was why there wasn't at least 5 of them! If you've ever had a british accent and a few quid in LV...), he was in a Wynn Tower suite! So this was a super run-good start to the trip, that night I had sushi for dinner, by myself and got food poisoning, and spent the next 3 days in the tower suite throwing up. Obviously food poisoning is real run-bad, but tower suite food poisoning is probably the luckiest food poisoning you can get, certainly the most I've ever enjoyed being ill!

I had a cool night at the Commerce one night, I was playing 20/40 PLO and the game broke to me and Len, who is one of my favorite people in poker, this very tall Kentucky guy who is just fucking hilarious and we played a bit of chinese vs each other, we've played a lot and happy to gamble a bit vs each other (im sure he thinks he's a better chinese player and he's likely right but a few hours, what difference ) so we agreed to 2 hours chinese before bed to unwind. Then Phil Hellmuth strolls along and wants to join. Me and Len were playing $50p/p and Phil wanted to play $100p/p - remember this is regular chinese this was before the OFC craze kicked off***(very interesting side story to OFC!) so it's not as big as $100p/p OFC, but still fairly big,and im playing PH, the fan-boy in me is loving it. Len goes to bed after 2 hours as he said he would and we're left HU, we played for about 6 more hours and it was fucking awesome such a cool guy PH, his chinese play was no-where near as erratic as his behaviour, he kept mis-setting and then jumping in the air and screaming, it was genuinely so odd. In between random outbursts we chatted about poker, life, WSOPs and he's just such a cool, great, humble guy (sounds counter intuitive to his public persona) but I've rarely enjoyed an evening of gambling quite as much as that one, I won about $4k (40 points) just to add to the joy.

I ended up losing fairly big in L.A, then went to LV afterwards and lost a little more, it was a pretty disappointing trip at the end of a very nice upswing, brought me down to earth a little!

Present Day!

Just got back from a weekend away in Edinburgh with geeforce and zel (his wife) which was a fucking blast, first night we went to the Castle Terrace Restaurant which is one of the best meals I've had in a long time, went for the tasting menu's and wine pairings which as can be expected ended up with me being absolutely smashed and in bed by 12.30am! NExt day we went spa'ing with rooftop jacuuzi and afternoon tea along with gin mimosa's. Lots of relaxing, lots of eating, lots of drinking. Lovely weekend

Been playing loads of online poker and doing quite well, starting to believe once again I might not be the worst anymore!

I would defo be interested to hear people's top 3 meals off all time, if anyone can remember? I'm going to need a little time to construct mine...

[booder]

Julian Gardner is the original "getting it quietly" guy. Would love to hear some stories from those private games.

[POWWWWWWWW]

Winter 2011

The Making of lil Dave

 but I will defo think of some fun stories from those games and share if anyone wants to hear

(very interesting side story to OFC!)

yep

yep

[Honeybadger]

During one of Dave's poker trips to LA, I received a text from him whilst I was mid-session in the private game mentioned in his post above:

"Stu! I've been losing in the games here and my wire transfer from the UK has not arrived yet. So I only have $200 to my name till my money comes through, not even enough to cover my hotel. If Skalie is playing in the game with you then please ask him what he advises me to do"

I read the text out to the table, and without pausing for thought Skalie advised, "Only one way out of that predicament. Tell him to spin it up on the craps table".

And just as Skalie was saying this, I received a second text from Lil'Dave:

"Then, when Skalie gives his advice ... tell him I am already doing it!"

[shipitgood]

Stu is a top bloke, still haven't got a game of chess organised yet...

3 favourite foods ever, in no particular order...

Steak from a top restraunt in Leeds, owned by a Michelin star chef, French sounding name.
Barramundi, the Australian haddock, excellent fish.
Star fruit again from Aus, the folk I was staying with had some growing in their gar den the fruit was amazing, and apparently was v expensive from the shops, best fruit ever!

[SuuPRlim]

Oh yes.OFC story....actually this isn't all that interesting is just something that I take some pride in :-)

January 2011 me and Flushy were in Venice and got introduced to a game which we were playing, this game was structurally identical to OFC. This was long before all the craze around OFC started.

So I must have been one of the first ppl to play that game!

We both said that it was the game of the future and we should get sick at it and print! Needless to say we didn't do that.

[cambridgealex]

During one of Dave's poker trips to LA, I received a text from him whilst I was mid-session in the private game mentioned in his post above:

"Stu! I've been losing in the games here and my wire transfer from the UK has not arrived yet. So I only have $200 to my name till my money comes through, not even enough to cover my hotel. If Skalie is playing in the game with you then please ask him what he advises me to do"

I read the text out to the table, and without pausing for thought Skalie advised, "Only one way out of that predicament. Tell him to spin it up on the craps table".

And just as Skalie was saying this, I received a second text from Lil'Dave:

"Then, when Skalie gives his advice ... tell him I am already doing it!"

[BorntoBubble]

During one of Dave's poker trips to LA, I received a text from him whilst I was mid-session in the private game mentioned in his post above:

"Stu! I've been losing in the games here and my wire transfer from the UK has not arrived yet. So I only have $200 to my name till my money comes through, not even enough to cover my hotel. If Skalie is playing in the game with you then please ask him what he advises me to do"

I read the text out to the table, and without pausing for thought Skalie advised, "Only one way out of that predicament. Tell him to spin it up on the craps table".

And just as Skalie was saying this, I received a second text from Lil'Dave:

"Then, when Skalie gives his advice ... tell him I am already doing it!"

Made me Lol