Diary of a Poker addict

Stanley Casino - Deep Stacked Sunday Poker Tournament

2008-04-28T19:50:00.004+01:00

Gaffer sent me an unexpected and welcome text message on Saturday afternoon to let me know that the Stanley Mint Casino in Glasgow were running a £30 Deep Stack poker tournament on Sunday afternoon. I was in the midst of some DIY hell at the time and dreading the thought that it was probably going to take all weekend to complete. The thought of a good, deep stack tourney provided me with all the motivation I needed to beast into the DIY and by 11:55pm it was done.

We set off for the big smoke in glorious sunshine around lunch time and it wasn't long before we were supping a beer and watching the old firm game on TV whilst waiting for the tournament to start. The offer of 4 import beers for a tenner was too good to pass on and we would ultimately sink quite a few more before the afernoon was over.

This was the first week that the Stanley had run the deep stacked Sunday afternoon game and it coincided with an old firm match so the turnout was un-surprisingly a bit low with only 9 players registered.

The game commenced with 15,000 chips, 20 minute blind levels starting at 25/50, yum, delicious...

Within about 20 minutes we had the first drama of the afternoon when one player pushed all in on the river and the player on the button flipped over his cards to reveal a full house, thinking the shove was merely a call of his earlier bet. Drama ensued...

We settled back into play but there was quite an atmosphere at the table for a while after that. The play was good though, the deepstacks giving plenty of room for some fun and games. I setup a pretty tight image after donking off some chips with pocket queens on a straightening board. Just before the first break I picked up Kings and raised pre-flop. The flop brought an Ace and I made a big mistake not putting in a continuation bet to represent the Ace, at the time I thought a slow deliberated check might look more menacing, like I was trying to trap the other player who had position on me. He naturally raised and I went into the tank. My instinct told me he didn't have the Ace and his body language confirmed this but I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger and risk my tournament life this early. So I folded and he revealed pocket 10's, more chips donked off. At least my table image was now tighter than a tight thing and this would come in handy a few times later on.

The first hand back after the break I got a good opportunity to put in a nice big raise and pick up 3 or 4 sets of blinds pre flop, which made up for some of the chips lost with the Kings in the previous hand. Play continued and a few players dropped out. Gaffer had a narrow escape against another short stacked player sucking out runner runner Kings to make a set on the river and bust his opponent. However it wasn't to be Gaffer's day when he picked up pocket 10's and feeling the pressure of the escalating blinds shoved his stack into play only to run into me with pocket Kings again, sorry bud.

Three handed and things got interesting. I was about equal in chips with another player who had been playing good solid poker but the chip leader had a big advantage over us and had been playing super wild and aggressive, but we know how to take advantage of that don't we children. So I was reasonably confident that pressurising the solid player and trapping the maniac should get me into the money, and the plan was working, I gradually eased out a slight advantage on the solid player and the maniac was still at it. But then it all went horribly wrong. Perhaps I can blame the 6 continental beers I had quaffed by this point, perhaps not. Either way I made a complete arse of things. I didn't think things through and got punished for it. I picked up King 5 suited and called maniac boy's preflop raise, which by now meant absolutely nothing. The flop came down Ace, 5, 6 and when he put in his standard oversized continuation bet I shoved only to discover that this time our little friend didn't just have an Ace, he had the six as well. Ho Hum, bubbled. What a tosser, I had things under control, knew how to play both the players and was reasonably confident I could eat into the wild man's stack enough to get the better of him and take down the game.

So it was in a beer blurred state of frustration that I stepped back outside into the bright afternoon sunshine with Gaffer to mosey back home and persuade 'er indoors that she should actually be delighted that I was going straight back out to play some more poker in the pub. Well I did, and I won the first game of the night with some devastating heads up play, to come back against a chip leader with a monster stack, and more or less recover my buy-in from the afternoon event. A couple more beers and a curry on the way home, Deep Joy.

This Sunday afternoon poker is an excellent lark and I'd like to make it a regular occurence, all I've got to do is try get 'er indoors to see the light.

I am Iron Man

2008-02-26T16:40:00.002+00:00

Last night I finally completed enough games to achieve Iron Man status on Full Tilt poker.

The challenge involved collecting at least 50 iron man points per day for at least 20 days during February. Each $10 Sit and Go that I played equated to 7 points so I effectively had to play 8 x $ 10 Sit & Goes each day.

So what do I get in return for this relentless grinding, well I get a nice little Iron Man icon next to my avatar when I sit down at the virtual felt and I can spend my Iron Man medals on tournament entries or exchange them for free stuff in the Iron Man store.

More importantly though the Iron Man challenge has driven me to play a higher volume of games than I would have normally, and this in turn has led to more profit.... muhahahhaaa.

As is always the case, when I blog about completing a challenge my results go into freefall and last night was no exception. The old bankroll took a bit of a knock and I'm back down to $517. I'm not mad about it though, I made the correct plays and was just the victim of some nasty bad beats. It must be someting like the dreaded cash-out curse that I'm experiencing, lets call it the bloggers curse.

With a bit of luck my new Iron Man status will result in the bullets just bouncing off me and my opponents folding in fear of my elevated status.

Full Tilt Poker - Bankroll Challenge 1 completed

2008-02-24T19:15:00.005+00:00

It's been a while since I last posted but I haven't given up on my bankroll building challenge. Since my last post at the beginning of January I played a few more games on Party Poker with little success so my Party bankroll is currently sitting between $500 & $600.

I then discovered I had an unclaimed deposit bonus sitting on Poker Stars so I played a bunch of games over there with mixed results and cleared my bonus. account on Stars is now sitting at just over $100 so it's ripe for a bit of bankroll building in the future.

The good news is that during February I really skrewed the nut and got back to some serious bankroll building activities. I had been itching to get building on my Full Tilt account as my initial impressions of the site were good and the competition reasonably easy. So when I discovered at the begining of February that my initial deposit bonus was due to expire at the end of February I descided it was time to really start busting a gut on Full Tilt. Around this time I also found out about there Ironman challenge and it has proved another good incentive to make sure I play a reasonable number of games each day.

It's been a busy and successfull month. I have had a few ups and downs but have been running really hot recently as you'll see from the graph. At the start of the month I was playing mainly $5 games with the odd $10 mixed in but recently it has been all $10 SNG's with the odd $20 mixed in for good measure.

Running Total: Played 252 / ITM 41% / ROI 17% / Profit $413

That means I've managed to complete my Full Tilt challenge in 65 games less than it took me to achieve the same on Party, and I've done it much more quickly, less than a month this time.

The stats I've just quoted are slightly out because there is $80 of deposit bonuses in there, but there is also a loss of $55 from a player transfer to a friend that I was staking, so the bonuses and the stake almost cancel each other out.

I can thank the Ironman challenge for helping achieve my goal so much more quickly this time as it has forced me to play 8 x $10 SNG's each day. There have been a few missing days when I have had other commitments but I've never managed a month with more than 250 SNG's before. At the start of February I was multi tabling with two tables reasonably comfortably but things tended to take a nosedive when I increased beyond that. Now I am happily multi tabling three tables and the lovely steep section at the end of the graph was achieved running three tables.

What comes next is more work on Full Tilt. I still have one more day of playing to get under my belt before I get my February Iron man medal . My target for March is to go for Iron Man again but by the end of the month to be running $20 tables as the norm and dipping my toe into the odd £30. My bankroll target is to be up to $1,200 by then. And.... I'm going to try and get back into the habit of blogging a bit more regularly again.

Happy New Year

2008-01-08T20:39:00.000+00:00

Happy New Year Poker Peeps.

Contrary to popular belief, I am still alive and playing online poker. The euphoria of completing phase one of my Bankroll Boosting challenge didn't result in me jetting off to Vegas, blowing my bankroll and getting a job as a rent boy just to survive, my hourly rate at that would probably be even less than at Poker! Nor did I drown in a lake of Tennants Lager over the Festive period despite giving it a pretty good shot. All the same, I do feel dirty, nasty and riddled with feelings of guilt and inadequacy for not posting in so long. So New Year, new resolutions and at last a new posting...

Since I last posted I have been pursuing my ongoing bankroll challenges and I'll fill you in on all the gory details in a moment. But first a shameless plug for the other activity that has been consuming a large proportion of my time, my new web design business Weblomania. I've been busy with my first comissions and have been really enjoying working for myself. I'm currently busy with a couple of new client sites and working hard marketing the business and trying to fill up the order book. Needless to say if you are looking for a good web designer / developer, give me a shout.

Apologies for the shameless plug, back to the poker...

Party Challenge 2:

Well it had to happen! As soon as I hit the $600 bankroll target things started going a bit Pete Tong. I managed to quickly build up to $655 then proceeded to gradually fritter my way back down to a lowly $438. Since then I've been plugging away at the $5's and $10's gradually working my way back up. So here I am, 87 games into phase 2 of the challenge and I've only actually played three $20's. The bankroll is currently sitting at $587 so I'm nearly back to where I was 5 weeks ago!

Full Tilt Challenge 1:

Slightly better news on the Full Tilt front. I haven't played an awful lot of games on there yet but my results have been very promisng. I've worked my bankroll on FT from $200 up to $298 playing mostly $5.00 games without any drama. That gives me an ITM of 49% and a very respectable ROI of 39%. I'm going to have to crank up the pace on Full Tilt though as I have a bonus to work off and I don't want it expiring on me.

Other Stuff:

I enjoy playing MTT's and have had a little success in them in the past, but hadn't played many recently due to my SNG focus.

During the holidays I spent some time treating myself to a few MTTs and cashed in 2 of the 3 ~850 player $10 tourneys I played and managed a 12th in a 146 man $50 MTT.

I really enjoyed the $50, it's the only MTT at that level that I've played online, I played it as a bit of a Xmas bonus to myself. I felt I played well, was feeling very comfortable going into the last 20 places with an average stack and a good read on quite a few of the players. But I made a bad judgement on a player I thought I had a really good read on and busted just before the final table. Ho Hum, it was fun and slightly profitable.

I've also been playing some short handed Sit and Gos on one of the other poker rooms. The blinds are quite fast and the starting stacks quite shallow so I've been really enjoying the fast, wild pace of them but I've not really won or lost anything on them, they've just been an amusing distraction.

So now it's the New Year and time to knuckle down to the challenge again, wish me luck...

My hourly rate playing poker online sucks

2007-11-24T10:56:00.000+00:00

It's not exactly a huge surprise that my hourly rate playing poker online sucks, but at least I can measure it and try and improve it as I work through my next two challenges, and that's a start I guess.

In this post I'll start delving into some of the statistics relating to my 1st Bankroll Boosting challenge on Party Poker, watch out for a few more postings on stats coming in the next few days too.

The eagle eyed among you may spot some slight discrepancies in my stats, this is due to a difference of 5 games between my two information sources, poker tracker and my Excel bankroll spreadsheet. This has been caused by playing the odd game on my laptop and not capturing the hand historys results for poker traker. The difference equates to 5 games and a profit variation of just $10, so the stats are close enough for me not to worry about trying to correct them.

I've been using an excel spreadsheet to track my results more or less since I started playing poker online and I continue to use it even though I now use Poker Tracker to record everything and am reasonably comfortable finding my way around it. I log every game in my spreadsheet and it gives me a really nice snapshot of where I am at. I start a new page in the spreadsheet each month, or with each new challenge and have a summary page at the front that errr... summarises everything. If you don't alreaqdy use a spreadsheet or Poker Tracker to track your game, you should. Feel free to download a copy of my poker spreadsheet and use it yourself. I'll post a video tutorial on Poker Tracker sometime soon as it is a bit daunting at first, but the data it can give you is just awesome.

The challenge took approximately 2.6 months, during which I played for 163 hours. That equates to approximately 1 month's work in a 9-5 job. After all that effort my hourly rate equates to $2.48. To put that in perspective the national minimum wage in the UK, expressed in dollars is $11.38. To feel comfortable enough to become a professional poker player I would want to be earning £75,000 a year which would equate to an hourly rate of approximately $75. For my next two challenges I need to be looking to increase my hourly rate rather dramatically, lets set a target of say $4.00 per hour on my Full Tilt Challenge and $7.50 on phase 2 of my Party challenge. In short I need to play more hours, with more simultaneous tables, at higher levels and achieve better results. Should be easy then!!!!!

That's it for this quick post but I'll post some more statistics on phase 1 of my challenge soon, so we can drill into the profitability of different game types and start looking at hand ranges, positional play etc..

Till next time..

Poker Bankroll Building - New Challenge Commences

2007-11-23T18:27:00.000+00:00

Now that I have completed stage 1 of my bankroll building challenge and boosted my bankroll on Part Poker from $200 to $600 I am ready to progress to my next challenge. However for the next stage I am going to run two seperate challenges.

My initial challenge was inspired by Alex Martin's excellent "Bankroll Boosters" article in the September 2007 edition of Inside Poker magazine. The first half of my new challenges is to move onto the second phase of this and boost my Party Poker bankroll from $600 to $1,200. The second half of my challenge is to repeat phase one on another poker site.

The rules are as follows...

Full Tilt Challenge 1
I have deposited $200 on Full Tilt Poker and am going to work it up to $600 playing $5 and $10, 9 man Sit and Go tables. There are various reasons why I've decided to do this on Full Tilt including.

Great 100% deposit bonus (could be worth $200 to me as that's what I initially deposited)
Site is always busy
The software is really nice
The games I've tried so far seem reasonably good, the players are more preictable and passive than the loonies I keep encountering on Party
The blind structure is a bit slower than Party which will favour skillfull play more then luck

I have already started playing a few $5 games on Full Tilt and my bankroll is already up to about $240 with an ROI of around 40%, when I get it to $250 I'll start testing out the $10 tables.

My goal is to maintain a better ROI than my initial Party Challenge and reach my profit target in significantly fewer games than the 316 it took me on Party.

Party Challenge 2
My target on Party Poker is to boost my $600 bankroll there up to $1200 by playing $20, 10 man Sit and Go tables. The target timescale is 2 months and 300 games with an ROI of 10% (which will be tough if I'm running two challenges concurrently)

I will provide a little more detail on both challeges as I start posting about my progress in them. I will also be posting a review of Full Tilt and some detailed stats, analysis and strategy articles over the coming days and weeks.

In the meantime if you have any questions, suggestions, comments or abuse... just leave a comment below. If anyone wants to join me in my challenge and try it too I would be delighted to accept the challenge, although I won't be going for a Tank vs Dale mental endurance marathon. If you haven't tried Full Tilt or want to Join me click the Full Tilt banner at the top right of my Blog and claim your 100% deposit bonus.

Wish me luck, Here goes....

Poker Bankroll Building - Phase 1 Completed

2007-11-23T00:33:00.000+00:00

Woohoo...

I've just got time for a really quick posting before I head off to bed. As you can see from the title I've just completed phase 1 of my bankroll building challenge. I haven't had a chance to play online much over the last week but tonight I managed to squeeze in 6 x $6 SNG's and finished in the money in 4 of them with 2 x 1st and 2 x 2nd.

Running Total: Played 316 / ITM 41% / ROI 15% / Profit $415.40

That concludes phase 1 of my challenge, tomorrow I will start two new challenges.

Check back over the next few days for a flurry of postings containing statistics, analysis, strategy, advice and the low down on my next two poker challenges. If there is anything you particularly want me to post about leave me a comment.

Holla

High Stakes Poker - Sammy Farha vs Jamie Gold

2007-11-20T14:40:00.000+00:00

Oh my god, this show is just so awesome, each new episode sets a new standard in TV poker. This episode should be re-named the Sammy Farha show as we see lots of action between Sammy and 2006 World Series of Poker winner, Jamie Gold.

Both these players love to gamble and like to talk a lot during the hand to get reads on their opponents, well you'll see a mastercalass in this episode. Raisy Daisy...

If the video panel below doesn't show up properly use the links below to watch the videos on PokerTube.

High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 13 - Part 1/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 13 - Part 2/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 13 - Part 3/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 13 - Part 4/4

High Stakes Poker - Jamie Gold gets it All in

2007-11-15T23:48:00.000+00:00

The latest episode of High Stakes Poker certainly lives up to its name with an all in confrontation between WSOP (World Series of Poker) 2006 winner Jamie Gold and regular Big Game player Patrick Antonius.

The buy in for this series of High Stakes is $500,000 per player so these guys are playing with seriously life changing sums of money, yet Patrick looks as cool as cucumber as he casually calls Jamie's All In creating the largest pot in televised poker history.

This episode also sees the tensions rise as Sammy Farha starts to needle the other players a bit. One thing is for sure, this show is just going from strength to strength. I can't wait to see next week's episode. The sparks are surely going to fly...

High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 12 - Part 1/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 12 - Part 2/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 12 - Part 3/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 12 - Part 4/4

Pub Poker League - Weblomaniac takes it down

2007-11-15T10:50:00.000+00:00

No online poker yesterday as it was local pub tournament night. I was sitting in second place in the Bishopton Poker League, just one point behind the leader so I went into last night's game determined to play well and try as hard as I could to win the game and move up to the top spot in the leaderboard. I would have to play a good game against the current leader though as he's a good player.
We had 11 players last night, so both our beautiful home made tables were in use and the standard of play was great. It's been getting stronger every week to be honest and you can see changes in individual players games as they introduce new moves into their repetoir.

Early on I played tight and tried not to get into too many dangerous pots. I picked up pocket kings quite early on and upgraded them to a set when a third one came down on the flop so that boosted my stack a bit.

Gradually the players got whittled down and we merged onto one table. With a couple of players quite short stacked I was sitting slightly below average with 4,500 chips when the average stack was 5,500. I luckily picked up pocket kings again, raised it pre-flop, hit another king on the flop to make a set and bet it. I checked the turn hoping my opponent would read that as wekenss and bet in to me on the river, which he obligingly did, only for me to re-raise him. Bingo, I sent a player to the rail, took down a nice big pot and nearly doubled my stack. With a bit of monetum and some chips behind me I took down the next two pots with marginal hands that came good and was now sitting on a perfectly respectable stack, enough to take me deep into the final table.

The field thinned and I took out the bubble player and went into the heads up battle with a significant chip lead against a strong player with lots of casino and poker club experience. I was reasonably confident because my heads up play isn't usually too shabby and I had a great chip advantage. But my opponent played really well he seemed to always manage to get out of the way of my genuine raises or significantly re-raise my opportunistic raises. He made a great comeback, took the chip lead and had me starting to wonder if I had a tell that he had spotted. I then lucked out on him re-raising all in on a flop that he had bet at. I was pretty sure his bet no the flop was a bluff so it was sickening when he flipped over middle pair to my unpaired A-x. But like the donkey that I am, I rivered an Ace and inflicted a rather sickening bad beat on him.

A little while later I limped into a pot from the big blind with 7-4 off suit only for a 7 to come down on the flop, which I bet, then another 7 on the turn. I get some more chips in and am reluctantly called. I now have a massive chip lead and I know my opponent is going to be shoving at every opportunity so I need to be careful not to double him up, but the blinds are big enough that I can't let him steal the blinds with impunity either.

The final hand was a toughy, I can't remember the exact hands but the flop was something like 4-5-J. I had paired my 5 and was last to act. My opponent shoved and I went into the tank. I knew he could be shoving with pretty much anything but he had actually had the goods on some of the earlier shoves that I had stood up to. I finally decided there was a chance my 5 might be good, I had a King as well so I had a strong kicker and an overcard. If I win the hand I take down the game, If I lose the hand I double him up but still have the chip advantage. I call and he reveals his cards, he's paired the 4 and doesn't improve his hand on the turn or river.

I took first place in the game, moved up to first position in the league table and took home a few quid into the bargain, Happy Days...

I need to be careful next week though, only two more league games to play and my main opponent, The Silver Fox is within easy striking distance.

Party Poker - Bankroll Building Update

2007-11-13T22:08:00.000+00:00

It seems that everytime I post an update on my Party Poker bankroll building challenge the poker gods decide to pull the rug from under me. Last time I posted I had just worked my way back up from a bit of a bad run and no sooner had I posted than it happened again!

To be fair, it wasn't all luck or variance, I don't think I was playing my "A" game. So a bit of adjustment to my agression levels and a bit more grinding and I'm nearly back to where I was last time.

It feels like the challenge is taking forever, but I keep telling myself I'm nearly there. I can't wait to hit the $400 profit as I want to move onto stage 2 of the challenge and I also have a new challenge that I want to get started on. I'll reveal more about the new challenge once I get this one cracked.

Stay on target....nearly there.

Running Total: Played 300 / ITM 40% / ROI 12% / Profit $331.40

$500,000 Buy In on High Stakes Poker

2007-11-11T13:55:00.000+00:00

The stakes have risen to a staggering $500,000 buy in on my favourite Poker TV show, High Stakes Poker. This show has always been entertaining and exciting to watch because of the high stakes and the atmosphere at the table. The atmosphere and chat at the table is usually pretty friendly, often amusing and always insightful, some of the moments I enjoy the most are when Phil Hellmuth or MIke Matasou lose it at the table.

In this particular episode the buy in has been increased to $500,000 so we are promised pots in excess of $1 Million dollars getting contested by the familiar faces including Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein, Sammy Farha, Jamie Gold, Patrick Antonius, David Benyamine, Antonio Esfandiari and Guy La Lauberte founder of Cirque de Soliel.

Fascinating viewing, watch episode 11 from series 4 of High Stakes poker below. I'll post links to the next episode the minute it comes online as it alledgedly contains an all-in confrontation between Jamie Gold and an insta call from Patrick Antonius.

High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 11 - Part 1/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 11 - Part 2/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 11 - Part 3/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 11 - Part 4/4

Getting Closer

2007-11-04T19:09:00.000+00:00

It's about 3 weeks since I last posted and despite my silence I've still been grinding away at the $10 Sit & Go tables on Party Poker, it's just that I haven't really had anything terribly exciting to blog about.

When I last posted I was quite upbeat because I felt I had finally broken free of the $200 profit plateaux that I seemed to be stuck at. Well it turns out that my optimism was to be short lived as I slid back down to the $200 barrier and then went slightly through it in the games that followed my last post.

Since then it's been up and down a couple of times so I decided to just keep my head down. 75 games further on and I feel I better update the blog or it will look like I've given up!

The profits are now up to $356 so I think I've finally shaken off the curse of the $200 barrier and I'm getting tantalisingly close to my $400 profit target. If my next session or two go well I will hopefully be able to cruise up to and through the $400 mark and then I can start dipping my toe into the $20 SNGs

Most of my play over the last few weeks has been on two tables simultaneously and I now feel pretty cmofortable playing two at once. I've even tried running 4 x $5.00 tables at once to get a feel for that.

I have also opened up an account on Full Tilt and deposited $200 in there. I'll post a bit more info on my decision to open a Full Tilt account and a little review and comparisson with Party Poker in the coming days. Suffice to say though, my main reason for opening an account there was so I could start enjoying the benefits of a bit of rakeback. More on that next time though.

Running Total: Played 254 / ITM 41% / ROI 15% / Profit $356.90

Multi Table Novice

2007-10-12T15:25:00.000+01:00

Since my last posting I have been cautiously multi tabling. I had previously felt reasonably comfortable playing a couple of tables simultaneously but my results had not been good. Whether that was down to variance or because I wasn't able to focus on the other player's styles and betting patterns, I'm not sure.

When things are running smoothly at the $10 games I can cash in about 50% of the games I play so I set myself some rules, a stop loss if you will. I would play 2 tables at once and if I didn't cash in one of the games I would revert to single tabling until I had recovered the two lost buy ins. If I cashed in at least one of the games I would continue playing 2 tables.

I also mentioned last time that I seemed to be stuck on a plateau at around $200 profit and was going to try and be even more patient at the tables as I felt I had perhaps been a little impatient.

Well the batch of games I've played over the last few days have seen me consistently cashing whilst multi tabling and I've broken away from my £200 plateau, so I'm a happy boy. Of the 2 x 2 table sessions I played last night I picked up 2 x 1st out of the 4 games. So I'm delighted, that's another little mental hurdle cleared.

Running Total: Played 170 / ITM 45% / ROI 18% / Profit $287.40

Life is Good

2007-10-12T14:29:00.000+01:00

It's now 2 weeks since I left the grind of the rat race and I have to say I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Today is an excellent case in point. I had an excellent sleep last night, got up felling refreshed then walked my youngest daughter to nursery. I then sauntered at a leisurely pace towards the train station and hopped on the first available train into Glasgow.

Arriving in the city my first priority was to find a nice comfy couch at Starbucks and read some more of this month's particularly interesting Poker Pro Europe magazine, whilst enjoying a coffee and a muffin. Bliss, no dashing to an office or endless meetings for me today.

Then it was off to Borders where I picked up a my highly anticipated copy of Des Wilson's new book Ghosts at the Table and a few other interesting looking new poker titles. A few more errands and it was back home in time for lunch.

This week I have been working on a website for a wedding photographer, the site looks great and the effort I put into the Search Engine Optimisation is already starting to pay off with the site ranking 26th out of 1.3 million.

I have also found some time to work on my secret poker site this week and am gettign a good feeling of acomplishment and satisfaction as it starts coming together. I can't wait to share more info with you and start enrolling some beta testers.

Next week I have another website to build for a new client. It's quite a simple one and should only take a couple of days but it's going to look good, the design concept I've got is really sweet.

At the moment life is good and I'm really enjoying the freedom of being at home and in control of my own destiny. I guess the honeymoon period is nearly over though. I'm feeling reasonably chilled and refreshed and I need to start focusing building some revenue streams over the coming weeks.

$200 Barrier

2007-10-07T11:37:00.000+01:00

It's been all quiet on the blog for a few days but I've still been plodding away. As always not getting through as many games as I would like to. It's difficult to find the time with a family, young kids and the pre-occupation of trying to make a living.

I've played another 12 games since my last post and seem to have found myself stuck at around the $200 profit mark. I arrived at this point with great momentum and hoped to power through it onto $300 and beyond. But I seem to be stuck, one step forward, two steps back. From the last 12 games I've picked up 3 x 3rd, 1 x 1st, 1 x 2nd.

Running Total: Played 152 / ITM 42% / ROI 15% / Profit $205.40

I think a little lack of patience has crept into my game. I'm going to tighten up a bit over the next few games and see if that improves things again.

Humorous Disconnections

2007-10-03T11:41:00.000+01:00

I played 5 games on Tuesday and even had a bash at multi tabling again. The multitable experience was a bit frantic as I am currently focusing hard on making really good notes on all the players, capturing all cards that get shown along with level, position, hand result and how it was played. I guess a lot of better players can just watch the game and remember all these details for each player but I find the act of making the note and the fact I have all the players notes open simultaneously while I play helps me get a great read on my opponents. The multi-tabling was frantic because I was struggling to keep up to speed with my note taking. I managed a 3rd and a 5th playing two tables simultaneously so not bad.

The most notable thing about yesterdays games though was the last Sit and Go of the night. The first player to bust out did so on the second hand. I picked up a nice hand a few hands later and won a few chips boosting my stack to 2640 chips, about a 32% gain on my stack. Then my connection went down. This didn't worry me at first as we were only about half way through level one and I now had an above average stack. My connection has been going down intermittantly recently but usually for never more than a minute or two, but last night it went down and didn't show any signs of coming back. I settled back and started reading a magazine whilst waiting for it to come back.

After an hour my connection came back and I logged in to see what had happened, fully expecting to have been blinded away in 5th or 6th place. I requested a hand history email of the last 12 hands and started to read it. Wow four players left, but I only had 140 chips and am all in on the Small Blind for 140 chips the blinds were 200/400. So I was going to get blinded out in 4th, hang on, Dealing Hole Cards [6d,6c] and they held up, now up to 280 chips. The next interesting hand happened when the Big Blind got back to me, I'm all in for 280 chips and get 2 callers. Dealing Hole Cards [5d, 7d], Flop [3c, Jh, 5c], Turn [5s] River [2c] and I triple up to 840 with a set of 5's.

Compared with the other stacks (7400, 8260, 3500) I'm hideously short and the other players, particularly the guy with 3,500 chips, must surely have the sense to just wait until I get blinded out as the blinds are just about to go to 400/800, but no, a fight ensues, the 3,500 chip dude busts and I pick up 3rd in a game that I was only present in for the first 5 hands. You gotta laugh.

I was going to try and post a nice pretty hand history but none of the hand history viewers would do what I wanted them to and the format of the e-mail histories from Party aren't compatible with a lot of them, so you've had to put up with my narrative description. This has however got the cogs in the entrepreneurial corner of my brain twirling a bit and I've just gone and purchased 3 new domains that would be ideal for a rather special new kind of hand history viewer. I feel some rampant scribbling and thinking coming on :-)

Back to the challenge, Tuesday was OK but not great. Played 5 got 3 x 3rd.

Running Total: Played 140 / ITM 42% / ROI 16% / Profit 197.40

Longest Sit & Go yet

2007-10-02T10:33:00.000+01:00

I only played two games on Monday night and one of them turned into a bit of a marathon. The game went to 163 hands, that's the longest $10 Sit & Go I've played, I had to take a little break after it as it left me a bit frazzled. Unluckily I went card dead heads up and only managed to take second.

Running Total: Played 135 / ITM 41% / ROI 16% / Profit $192.40

September Challenge Results

2007-10-01T10:03:00.000+01:00

I've reached the end of September and it's not a huge surprise that I haven't managed to hit the targets I set myself for my challenge. It's been pretty obvious for the last week or so that I was struggling to get enough games in and the bad run early in the challenge certainly didn't help things. I did finsh on a high though, check out the nice upward direction on the graph below.

Final Results: Played 133 Games / ITM 41% / ROI 16% / Profit $184.40

I am not disheartened though, the challenge has been good for me. I feel my game is a lot more disciplined now and because I am sticking predominantly to one game type and level on just one site I have been able to get into a consistant playing style and therefore get more of a feel for my own style, strategy and that of my opponenets. Happy Days.

I have learnt that it's difficult to grind out a high volume of games if only single tabling and only playing after a day at work which means I can't get started until the kids are in bed, usually about 9:30pm. I'm rearing to try multi-tabling again and I'll definatley give it a tentative shot again in the next few days, but if I'm not achieving > 30% ITM & > 10% ROI I will revert to single tabling again.

I certainly finished the challenge with a great run at the $11 x 10 player games on Party Poker and go forward feeling really comfortable at this level. I achieved 62% ITM / 93% ROI / $164 Profit in that last run of 16 games and am delighted, it certainly makes up for the frustration earlier in the month.

At the start of my challenge I said I was going to get stuck into the books and training videos but in truth I've found myself only really doing that when things haven't been going so well. I think they help to restore my confidence when it takes a dent and re-affirm things I already know. When things are going well the pressure to get more games in means I fire up another SNG rather than taking some time to study. I am aware that there are books I still want to read, books I want to go back over and a ton of great videos I want to watch so I need to try and put aside a bit more time to study even when things are going well.

I mentioned in an earlier post that there could be an argument for playing on until the 6th October as I didn't start my challenge right at the beginning of September. I am going to freeze my results there in my bankroll spreadsheet for September and start a new page to record October to keep my records consistent with previous months, however I am going to take a copy of the sheet and continue to update it, so I guess the challenge isn't strictly over. My challenge was inspired by an article by Alex Martin in Inside Poker magazine which suggested two months to grow to $600 bankroll in $10 games, so I'm going to keep going and follow the goals in the magazine. To be honest I was pushing it a bit by trying to do the whole challenge in one month, but you know what they say, shoot for the stars and all that.

So, onwards an upwards. How long will it take me to reach $400 profit? Can I do it by the 6th?

Time's Running Out

2007-09-30T10:15:00.000+01:00

Today is the last day of September, the time to complete my challenge is running out.

I played 7 games on Friday and Saturday, cashed in 4 of them. One of them was just a $3 game on PokerStars though for light relief.

Running Total: Played 130 / ITM 41% / ROI 13% / Profit $147.40

Not Playing Enough!

2007-09-28T10:46:00.000+01:00

Wednesday was my last day at work and Bishopton Poker League night so I didn't play any online Poker. I placed third in the poker league game tonight, and should have finished higher but I made a bad call, knowing I was almost certainly behind to bust out in 3rd. I did win a cheeky little cash game after the league game though.

I had hoped to get a good number of games in on Thursday and Friday but there is some work I need to get through first. I spent most of Thursday working away inside Second Life and only managed to play one online game in the evening. I did win it though so that's helped the ROI a bit more.

Running Total : Played 123 / ITM 40% / ROI 10% / Profit $107.80

It's unlikely I will get any games in on Friday until the evening so my 200 game / 20% / $400 profit target is looking in grave jeoperdy. There are a couple of things that could help.

1) My strike rate in the $11 games since I started playing them again is excellent, if I can maintain that kind of rate I may reach my $400 target without needing to play 200 games. I've played 7 games since I started back at the $11's and have picked up 2 x 3rd, 1 x 2nd, 2x 1st. That's 5 out 7 cashes which is an ITM of 71% and an ROI of 120%. That's a pretty exceptional rate, but it is a tiny sample size and I don't expect it to continue. Maybe it's things just balancing out after the terrible run I had a few weeks ago.

2) When an entrepreneur is challenged they will usually look to ways to bend or re-write the rules to their advantage in order to succeed. Well, although I called my challenge my "September Challenge" I didn't technically start until the 6th September so it could be argued that I can keep running until midnight on the 5th October.

NH - GG - GL - GFY

2007-09-26T00:43:00.000+01:00

What a slacker, I only managed two games tonight but I'm really pleased with my play. Everything felt totally in control and I took first place in one of the games, so another positive step forward for my ROI.

Running Total: Played 122 / ITM 39% / ROI 7%
/ Profit $68.80

No update tomorrow as it's Bishopton Poker League night and my last day at work so I might have a light libation to celebrate. I should manage to get a more respectable number of games in on Thursday, the first day of my new life, even though I've got a few things I need to do.

Onwards and Upwards...

New Beginnings

2007-09-25T20:28:00.000+01:00

I've hinted a few times on my blog that there is something going on in my life that may change things a bit, well it's finally time to spill the beans.

Tomorrow is my last day in the corporate rat race. I decided back in January that I would make some pretty big changes in my life this year. I have been in the same job as Development Director for an Internet Entertainment company for the last twelve years and it's time to move on. In fact, more than move on, it's time for a whole new chapter in my life.

I have been offered a few jobs in London but to be honest I'm looking for a complete change, so three months ago I handed in my notice and started tentatively planning the my future.

Most normal people would make sure they had a new job all lined up before leaving a perfectly good, highly paid position. Well, I've never been one for doing things the conventional way so I don't have another job lined up and I don't have an absolutely concrete plan for what comes next. But somewhere between my dreams and my tentative plans lies my future. It's going to be fun seeing what it holds.

The dream...

Well I love the Internet/Technology and Poker. I'm very good at one of them and still a struggling student of the other, see if you can figure out which is which :-). If I could find a way to make a living on my own from one of these passions it would be great. If I could find something that combined both, then that would be the dream.

From now until Christmas I am going to chill out and let all the stress and hassle of my previous existence fade away whilst I try to figure out exactly what's next. If by Christmas I am getting signals that I can make my own way as an Internet Developer / Entrepreneur or start earning a reasonable amount from Poker (not necessarily just by playing) then I will be able to go into 2008 a happy man with some clear plans and targets. If on the other hand I can't, then I'll be starting to search for a new job in the New Year. Before anybody flames me, and before you ask, I am under no illusion that I could replace my previous salary with earnings from playing poker. I've a very long way to go before I could even consider that, and I suspect I may never be good enough.

With a family, kids and a pretty chunky motgage to support I know a lot of my friends have views of me that range from mild bemusment to thinking I'm being pretty irresponsible, but I have to do this. If I had continued as I was I would have gone completely round the bend sooner or later. If by Christmas I'm starting to pull in a the beginnings of an income from my own ventures then great, if not, I still have options, even if it means going back to the rat race again.

The Tentative Plan...

The logic behind the plan initially is to build up multiple revenue streams. In other words I'm going to try a few things that in isolation might not make a massive amount but combined could be enough. The broad areas I'll be covering are Internet Development / Second Life Development / Poker

As a developer I have some projects of my own that I will be pursuing but I will also be seeking to sell my services in order to pay the bills until I can get some of my own projects running.

The first of my personal projects is a very groovy new poker website that offers something pretty unique. It's already about half built and I will divulge more soon as I'll be needing some poker enthusiasts to give me feedback and help me shakeout any bugs. Watch this space.

I also plan to spend some time improving my poker game and learning more about the poker industry as I am sure there must be openings in this burgeoning industry that somebody with my business, technical and ahem.... playing skills could extract some +EV from.

The Reality...

It's been a while since I've really looked forward to something but I have to say I'm really looking forward to waking up on Thursday morning knowing it is the first day of my new life. Yes, it's scary. I have no job, no income and a family to support, but I've got everything covered for about 6 months so I can afford to spend the next 3 months experimenting and laying the foundations for the next chapter. I feel liberated...

Finally, it goes without saying, that if you need the assistance of a shit hot web developer and poker nut then gimme a yell. Or should that read a nutty web developer and shit poker player. I guess time will tell.

To be Continued...

Monday Night

2007-09-25T00:24:00.000+01:00

I only managed 4 games tonight but I was back at the $11 x 10 man SNGs and the results were pretty respectable. I picked up 3 cashes out of 4 games with 1 x 2nd and 2 x 3rd.

Running Total: Played 120 / ITM 39% / ROI 4% / Profit $40.80

I know I'm not getting through anywhere near enough games at the moment but my results have been more akin to normal over the last week so I'm reasonably happy to keep plodding away. I would like to crank up the number of games but my multi-tabling expereinces earlier in the challenge weren't good. At the time I didn't feel like I was giving away too much of an edge but the results would suggest different.

I know for a fact that my new note taking and player categorisation is working as I now have a far better feel for all the players at a table and can put them on tighter range of hands but that is taking a lot of concentration, and is leaving me a bit frazzled. I doubt I could focus that much multi-tabling. Pehaps after another few hundred games this level of focus on other player's habits will become more natural and will allow me to achieve the same results on multiple tables at once.

Table Construction

2007-09-24T15:57:00.000+01:00

No online poker on Sunday. I had a lazy Sunday morning, bliss! In the afternoon I got a text from poker buddy Andy and went round to help him finish off the first Bishopton Poker League poker table.

Andy had already cut out the pieces of wood but it only took us a couple of hours to finsh assembling the pieces and put on the foam, cloth and vinyl. We were following free plans from Home Poker Tourney and they worked a treat. We are delighted with the table which seats 6 very comfortably and should be fine for 8 too. It cost about £80 to build which is pretty reasonable and I can confirm that it's very plush and comfortable to play at as we christened it with a little home game on Sunday night.