Newport (Ymerodraeth State of Mind)

A remix of Alicia Keys' Empire State of Mind song about my home town - Quite amusing and seems to have caught on around the UK pretty quickly. Unless you're local theres probably bits you won't understand but its very true... lol Enjoy :)

Back due to popular demand

Apologies for the lack of updating the last few weeks. I've had countless requests for me to update my blog (well... one request then :) Thanks Alex) so I've finally caved into the pressure :)

I've really not been in the zone for playing poker this month. Infact, its been my quietest month of the year by far! I've only played 2 days so far and only low volume then! Basically a few mtts and a few 180 mans on the side bringing my total games to a rather laughable 11 games for the month! Managed to continue my hot run even over that low volume with two 180 man FTs making me +$346.75 for the month.

So... time for the excuses i guess! I was ill at the start of the month which took me about a week to shake off and have spent most of the past week down in Cornwall on a mini holiday type trip. It was quite a enjoyable. Just a shame that the British weather had to play up as usual and give me a good drenching! The main reason for the trip was to go to the Minack theatre. I knew someone acting in the play there and it seemed like a novelty to go and see it in an outdoor setting. The pictures really dont do the place justice though. It's basically and old open air theatre build right on the cliffside overlooking the English Channel. Its pretty spectacular and mildly amusing watching the shows when the weather closes in with high winds and torrential rain! lol Pics to follow soon once i get around to uploading them off the iphone.

Ive been playing quite a lot of golf this past month. Had a couple of lessons which have gone well and i've definately felt improvements in my game. Infact... You often hear stories about the big boys of poker (Ivey & co) getting distracted from poker by golf - I can now see how. It does have a strange appeal!
I was meant to play when i went to Cornwall but the weather put a stop to that!

Not sure how much poker i'll play this month. No point in forcing myself to play when i dont really feel like it as it doesn't lead to me playing too well. I think i'll have quite a relaxed month then hopefully get back into it next month... I'll keep you up to date on any interesting developments though :)

Thanks for reading x

Busy

I've not played for 6 days straight up until this evening. Just haven't been in the house to put any games in.
The next week is looking pretty congested too! Ice hockey (my teams playing in the summer cup), shows at the theatre, gym, tennis lesson, football (even if i do hate it i still watch the England games with my mates - and support whoever the opposition is!) and i have my first ever golf lesson with the local club pro on Tuesday. I'm sure there's plenty more that'll manage to crop up to prevent me playing much!
Despite my very busy social life, i managed to squeeze in a small session tonight which was going truly awfully until i spiked another 180 win! :) I played pretty well most the tourney and got a little help from picking up nice hands at the right time but also played a couple hands very strongly when i had air to win a couple nice pots which always feels nice when your soul read reship works! lol

I will admit i got super lucky HU. I felt like i was totally outplayed to be fair! The player in question was 'MakeMeMaster'. He was probably the best player at the final table but luckily i had position on him so was able to pick my spots well. He did run well HU mind - i got it in twice with weaker A's than him and twice i outdrew him! The second time was for stacks with my A5 suited flopping a flush draw against his AJ. I got there on the turn luckily.
Not to sure if i played badly or was just a bit cold decked once we were HU but i certainly felt like i didn't have any advantage which is quite unfamiliar to me! :)

Other than the win, i managed another 180 Final Table but got a bit unlucky and busted in 9th which was quite frustrating. Also min cashed in an $11 short handed MTT on Poker Idol.

Anyone know if 'MakeMeMaster' keeps a blog? I'd be interested in following his results if he did!
Sure i was going to say something else but I'm too tired to think straight so am going to make my way to bed now! Got an engagement party tomorrow evening. And NO... it's not mine! :) so not sure if I'll get any time to play. Hopefully i can squeeze some games in either before or after if i don't drink too much! I'm not planning on drinking much so it should be OK!

Ciao

Upswing

I knew it was a mistake to have that hour nap at midnight... Its now 8.15am GMT and im still yet to go to bed. My sleep patterns a nightmare!

Refreshed after my nap last night I set up tableninja to open up the 180 mans on auto and entered a few mtts. Played a 3 and half hour session yet only managed to play 19 tournies in that time (how on earth do people put in the volume they manage - the games dont start up quick enough! lol). They started off pretty poorly with me losing everything. 1st hand of the 1st tourney i run A's into a flopped set of 3's then have a succession of overpairs getting outdrawn by underpairs. All the tournies i entered i quite quickly busted out of well before the cash. Luckily i went deep in 3 $12 180 mans though. One i bubbled the FT when i shoved A9 into KQ sb v bb and the bb spiked a Q to knock me out.

Managed to salvage the session with a 180 win though and followed it up with a 2nd place - shouldve been another win expect Q's < JT hu AI pre then nothing else would hold so he managed to make a pretty big comeback to win it as I went into HU as a big chip leader. Certainly cant complain with the win though.

Im wondering if my lower volume in these games is helping me when i get deep in them as i have a pretty good conversion rate once i get in the $ of going pretty deep. I always have had since i began playing suddenly found an extra gear once i make the $.

Anyway, I'm without a doubt running hot but going to try to make the most of it!

Sharkscope graph for all my 180s below and a graphic showing this months super high profit for my super low volume :)

Ive got an Av. profit for $15.10 over 378 games... Thats insanely high i know! Compare it to the Sharkscope leaderboard Av profit for the $12 180 mans below. From my calculations I'm pretty much guaranteed a Sharkscope star in 122 games time (unless i fail to cash in a single 180 man game in the next 122 i play) which will be pretty cool. Should easily be there by the end of the month. Hopefully my overdue downswing doesnt kick in now!

Feel free to correct me if im wrongly getting excited about the prospect of picking up a Star! lol

Nearly 9am now so i guess i should get some sleep so im not in bed all day! I'll check this post for spelling errors later - im feeling too tired now!

New Blog set up

Opinions?

In other news, i bought xpadder yesterday and set it up so i could play poker using the controller off my Xbox.

I think i like it but cant really decide. Ive played a couple small sessions of fpp sats (i use them to turn my fpps into T$) and seem to get on ok with it. It certainly takes a bit of getting used to though. I'm a little worried to start a proper session of 180 mans using it as i was making more misclicks - inevitable i guess when learning a new layout.

I'll see what happens and how i feel over the next few days before i decide whether to stick with it or not.

Thanks to James Atkin for his prompt response to my last blog post. Excellent advice and has definately helped me make up mind as to the way forward with the 180 mans. Stacking all the way :)

Sadly, the last few days ive actually been busier than usual with work and generally out of the house so other than messing with Xbox controllers, blogs and the odd fpp sng, ive put in ZERO volume. I really need to find some motivation during the day. I always seem to find it at 3am when its too late to play cos i need to get to bed. I find my volume in the games quite embarrassing to be honest! Ive really got to get something going soon!

Grind much?

Another month comes to a close and I've got quite a mixed view on how it went. I managed to win a fairly big field mtt which was definitely a highlight. The rest of the month was something of a non event though! I ended up dabbling in loads of different games on different sites and generally put in some lacklustre volume.

Nothing changes... 324 games to be precise in an entire month! That's 2 days light work for most online pros. Why do I seem incapable of putting volume in?! May graph below.

A question for any sng grinders who read this... How do you put so much volume in?! I understand how you can do it playing super turbos like George 'Jorj95' Lind as they only last a few minutes each but playing the 180 mans on Stars for example? How many tables are people playing at a time in these? Are you stacking or tiling?  James Atkin is a 180 man player and seems to be putting in some good volume at the moment in his quest for Supernova so it'd be good to hear off you!

I personally tend to flick between the 2 options. Either tiling 6 tables per screen (I have a dual monitor setup) or stacking them all. I find stacking a lot easier and then pull tables aside if I go deep. I do find that I'm too curious as to the outcome of all ins though with this method so find myself pulling tables to one side far too often!

Looks like I'm getting nowhere with the single table turbos or super turbos. They're definitely profitable but I'm not putting in the volume to see worthwhile results. I've returned to the 180 mans on Stars this evening and played 14 sngs (wow - lots I know!) over 2 hours. Final tabled 2 of them and ended up +$226.02 in profit for the evening so I think it's a no brainer to give them another shot. Just going to have to find a way of forcing myself to do more volume. As soon as I play any volume I seem to end up with big losing sessions though which always knocks my confidence so I'm not really sure what to do for the best! No doubt i'll just end up doing my usual play a few, get bored and give up after 10 sngs or so! lol
We'll see how it goes!

As a closing note; Best of Luck to Jorj95 and Alexander 'msusyr24' Carr in the WSOP and anyone else who's going over who I may know or respect in the poker world!

Maybe one day ill have the roll to be able to join you guys if I ever figure out the meaning of 'Grind'

Weeee. Finally back on form

1st/592 runners

+$1420.96

About time i shipped a mtt. I was a shortstack for 95% of the tourney and tried on a few occassions to make a deal, including HU but no one was too interested which im quite glad about in hindsight :) Got quite lucky on a couple of occassions but i guess you have to to win these mtts. long overdue a nice cash though.

On a more negative note - the super turbo sngs really arent going too well still! Proper update to follow soon.