so I got to Hong Kong a few days ago, and will be flying to Bangkok on Tuesday before making my way through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia over the course of 6months. May go to a couple of parts of Indonesia too. for the most part I will be trying to live on as little money as possible, but if internet is grindable and I find time to play then maybe that will change. My plans kind of changed a lot, I was planning to stay in Thailand and set up/ join a poker house, but now I have to be back in UK for new year-ish so I have a limited time frame to travel in.

I\'ve met a few people on the plane and in the hostel who have been to some or all of the places I listed and they said they had an amazing time, so I\'m really looking forward to it. Sounds like it will definitely make for some wild experiences. Don\'t have any plans made for Bangkok, I just have 3 nights at a hostel booked. And as for where I\'m heading after that, I have absolutely no idea yet.

I will be keeping this blog updated with trip reports/ pictures etc. Going to head to Macau tonight and try to ship some funds for a few week\'s expenses.

So, its 1 month and 1 day until I board my flight to Hong Kong from London Heathrow. I can't wait - its going to be super awesome, although it might not end up being as spontaneous as I hoped because it seems like I need return, or onward, tickets booked before I am allowed into a country. Makes sense obviously - Maybe I was a noob for not realising this :p

With that in mind, I have booked my flight out of Hong Kong on the 12th July to Bangkok, catching a connection onto Phuket the same day. I think 9 days in HK should be enough (24 hour flight from UK), I will definitely hit Macau at some point during that time for a few nights, and hopefully I will get to experience some cool stuff like the night time food markets. If any cr members are in HK around that time and want to meet up that would be sweet, let me know :)

In Phuket, all I have set up so far is a couple of nights in a hostel in Patong. I have heard Patong is a crazy degen part of the island so not totally sure what to expect, but whatever it should make for some fun times. I have applied for my Thai visa and fingers crossed I will get the triple entry one with 60 days each time. I am a bit worried because on the form it said occupation to which I had to put 'unemployed' :( not sure if they will care about it too much though...

Would be really cool to meet up with some cr members in Phuket for sure, I know there is a big 2p2 community there so I assume there are a few cr members around too. Especially if you have, or know someone, with space in a house to rent, either pm me here, or on 2p2 (my sn there is jackwilcox all 1 word).

Finally, I have been getting into HU PLO recently. I have been trying on and off to break into PLO and I played a bit of HU and 6max with much more success coming from HU. I think its combination of weaker players + its obviously easier to work out what one player is doing than 5. So far my results have been incredible, although clearly running way above EV and probably running hot with coolers etc too though idk how to judge that. results so far are 19k hands and +44bb/100. long may it continue!

Have been meaning to update this blog for a while, but I have been super busy recently, and also every time I post any sort of graph/ stats I seem to go on a huge downswing. However I have had a huge build-up of events that I wanted to talk about to those who are willing to read them.

Firstly I am extremely happy to have got my poker site off the ground. It is a micro and small-stakes training site, which focuses specifically on helping players improve who are around the nl25-nl100 level and is priced with the target market in mind at $9.99/month for premium. We have had some amazing feedback which I believe has led to the creation of a site that can offer a lot more of a personal feel than others in my opinion, as anything that is/was suggested has been taken on board. I have also been extremely lucky in getting the team of coaches that I have been able to (if you go to the link and check out their profiles in the coach listings you will see what i mean), as well as a developer that was dedicated enough to put a sick amount of time into it.

here is an obligatory link¯»¿ http://www.higherlevelpoker.com/ and for anyone who signs up as free member and emails jack@higherlevelpoker.com I will give you 1 month free premium. For the 1st 5 who sign up for free, I will also get a video of yours reviewed for free by one of the coaches.

secondly, I have been able to get into staking with a group of other backers, all of whom are playing 1/2+. We have got a great group of players to stake so far with really promising results. if you are looking for staking at nl50-nl200 then shoot me a pm or email me at the above address and maybe we can sort something out.

Finally, I have finally booked my plane tickets to go travelling!! super excited because I was 95% sure I was going travelling this time last year but pussied out of booking the flights. Now I have got my one-way ticket to Hong Kong booked and after (hopefully) tearing up Macau's live scene I will be heading onto Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and down into Australia over the course of a year starting on July 3rd. I have a poker house set up in Phuket which I am really looking forward to joining. Will be amazing just to live with people who actually understand what being a full time poker player is like and not just thinking I am a layabout bum who plays video games all day clicking buttons to make a living!

Not going to post stats because although I have been doing really well lately in the 1/2 regular games on ftp I know I will just insta-doomswitch myself if I do post them.

I wish I had taken the first 2 weeks of the month off because i played really badly and spewed a ton. i was trying to 8 table rush by mixing 6max and full ring - it started off well but in the end it just wasnt working for me. cant put my finger on why i was losing but obviously i was doing something majorly wrong.

with the website I'm helping to launch nearing completion (end of febhopefully), it dawned on me that the first thing anyone will do when watching my vids/ reading my articles will be to check my ptr, and since rush isnt tracked it seems like i have barely done anything for the last 4 months or so poker wise. So I started playing some 2/4 6max again and its been going pretty well even though the games really suck most of the time and its hard to find tables.

anyways, not sure what happened on the 19th exactly - i know the past week i have figured i would take one more shot at rush and see how i do because there just HAS to be money there. been playing purely full ring, 4 tables 2/4, 4 tables 1/2. and throwing in a 6max 1/2 table too just to tile 9 windows.

results have been amazing but obviously running hot. still, i feel like im playing well and moreover i just feel really confident when i sit at the tables which i think helps significantly especially when i basically have to play every day since i otherwise have nothing to do.







taking the rest of the month off now, booked a trip to Prague today for the weekend. easyjet + hostel, pretty cheap deal. should be able to have a nice weekend for under $500/ 300 pounds.

been looking into houses for Vegas as well, as I want to go there for as much of summer as possible. seems theresa few people out to scam you on houses though so I'm going to have to be careful, might end up getting a hotel room and looking for a place when im actually there instead of doing it all online.

need to play some MTT's as well if i want to get backing and sell action when I'm there since no way can I afford to play many events especially the ones bigger than $1k buy in.

still, thanks for reading, hope you have a good weekend.

jack.

first of all i would like to say merry christmas and happy new year to anyone who happens to read this blog. i did not do anything special for christmas myself, although i did have a 2 week holiday in the middle of december to Hurghada, Egypt with my girlfriend which was pretty awesome. mainly because it meant i could escape the sub zero temperatures of the UK and get some sunshine.

this year has been overly unsuccessful for me. i graduated with a 2:2 from quite an average university, after pretty much giving up my degree during the 2nd year when i knew i was going to pursue poker fulltime. on graduation from uni, i fully anticipated making a shit ton of money in the 6 months that followed this year, but saying to myself the simple thinking of 'if i win at 8bb/100 and play 1000 hands/hour for 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week' ends up being so far from reality - i think i have averaged the grand total of 3 hours a day for the last 6 months which is quite shocking to say the least!

in 2011 that has to change. plain and simple. i am forcing my girlfriend to get me up when she leaves for work at 7am every morning just so that i end up having nothing to do except play poker. granted UK morning is like the nut worst time to play, but its still more +ev than sleeping.
definitally going to put in more hours because i just realised that over the last 2 years or so that i have been playing, relative to the stakes i play i should have a lot more money than i do. amurophil posted a graph on twoplustwo where he 8-tabled rush for 150 hours in a month and made basically what i have all year. he is a very good player, dont get me wrong, i play with him a lot in the rush games and respect him, but it puts into perspective just how little volume i have put in and its really starting to frustrate me.

i also need to lose weight desperately. i have put on about 20 pounds since the summer and my waist has ballooned over the last few years from 34 inches to 39. ridiculous. it totally sneaked up on me and i was genuinely shocked when i measured myself with a tape measure over xmas. so gym routine and radical diet change is coming into place with immediate effect!

business wise, i am helping to launch a new website which is going to be a poker site providing social networking and strategy advice for people from a beginner level to .5/1 stakes. im really enjoying it so far and the designer has made a pretty sick template. we are going to have a coach listing on the site (it was originally going to be a coaching directory but we have since decided to add to that), so if anyone wants to volunteer themselves to list as a coach for free then you will be more than welcome. that should be launching february time and im going to be writing a ton of articles and making videos for it. really exciting stuff, i hope it can take off.

i hope that those of you who have read this far have a wicked new years eve and good luck for 2011 in whatever you chose to do :)

jack.

have been wanting to start my blog for quite a while, but was waiting for some decent results so that i could post a deceptive brag within it. i have given it 4 months and those results i was waiting for havent come... so screw it, here goes.


so i finished my finals in early June and graduated from Swansea University with a Bsc in Business management, and after taking a 3 week break in Costa Rica with couple of friends, set up camp in my new flat on July 1st to pursue a career as a poker pro. i had been playing cash games seriously since Jan 09 when i deposited $600 on full tilt and played under the sn jackwilcox1, working my way up to 2/4 within 5 months or so. had issues with my rakeback provider who was terrible... switched screen names to hoodlincs and continued playing mid-stakes. continued to play mid-stakes and ran my roll up enough that i could take some shots at 5/10. after xmas 2009, the games seemed to die a bit of a death in the new year, coinciding with rush poker being launched, and that coupled with last few months of my degree meant that i just didnt play much at all.

anyway, i digress. so i get back to Swansea, Wales from Costa Rica and move into my 2 bed flat with my girlfriend, Hayley. havent worked out what im gonna do with the 2nd room but whatever, 2 bed flats have much bigger kitchen/living room than 1 bed and since those 2 areas are where i spend all day every day, they have to be good. its a sick flat anyways, 4th floor directly overlooking Swansea bay, with the marina on the other side of the apartment block. fully furnished so the 40inch tv that comes with the flat goes nicely side by side the one i already had :)





one of the tv's is hooked up to sky satelitte tv + the blu-ray samsung home cinema system, the other is for nintendo wii/xbox. pretty cool set up imo.


being the life fish that i am, i thought setting up internet would only take a couple days. i go into town on 2nd july to get internet sorted and am told it will take 2 weeks for phone engineer to install a phone line in my flat then another week to install broadband. fml. 3 weeks with nothing to do, i go to the local casino and try to play live 50p/1pound but its literally sucking the life out of me after an hour of play. unbelieveable how bad live players are and then not only that but they feel the need to explain their retarded logic afterwards. i cant laugh at them obv, so i have to nod my head and say 'well played'.

after eventually getting internet set up i am really itching to get online again. i havent played much 2/4 this year because final year of uni and just everything was getting on top of me... but i feel like im playing quite well as soon as i sit. unfortunatley the 1st couple of weeks play immediately brings a 7 or 8k downswing and im really pissed. never ever had a downswing like that before, and it comes literally just as i had decided to turn pro. was definitally tough to take.

moved down to 1/2, and felt i was again playing well. played 1/2 for the whole of august as a 'punishment'. i dont strictly believe in true downswings, i feel most people use them as an excuse for playing bad. as u will see when i post graphs i ran so unreal it was sick. definitally wish i had ran under ev for a significant period of time before i had gone pro because it is hard to take and i felt like total shit pretty much all the time - being on my home all day alone in the flat didnt help either.

august finished with Reading Festival though - a big rock music festival in my hometown of Reading which i have been to the last 5 years. usually pretty awesome but for some reason i wasnt feeling it this year. maybe because i hadnt made any substantial money for 2 months, or maybe because everyone seemed to be 16 year old kids and i felt old at 21. maybe it was because of the wanky security whose job it seemed was literally just to stop any form of fun, im not sure. was good seeing friends who i hadnt seen since christmas though.

september i decided that i was going to experiment with rush. i can only play with 4 normal tables on my screen just because otherwise my eyes are everywhere and head starts to hurt. so rush allows me to play such a sick number of hands relative to what i usually do - i thought the worst case is i just log a ton of volume and get loads of experience. but, i was also like 'well if i can win at 10bb/100 playing 800 hands/hour, then my hourly at 1/2 cud be so awesome'. september ended up finishing about +10k which i was happy about. mostly from rush, but also from plo which i am being coached for by seek42 - ptr doesnt look impressive but he used to crush 5/10 and still would if he could control his tilt instead of busting rolls and having to grind micros for rent money.

october has been a shitty month. my isp was a company called Virgin media. made huge mistake going with them and decided to change isp to Sky. thought everything would be fine but again being the fish i am, got my phone line disconnected then found it takes Sky another 3 weeks to activate everything. wtf is going on with telecommunications, i mean seriously? when the engineer came it only took 10 minutes to set it up, how many people are getting phonelines installed that it takes 2 whole weeks for him to come round? after being disconnected for 1st 2 weeks (omg idk how i survived in a flat all day every day alone with no internet), had a little trip to Rimini, Italy - tenner for return flights and 15 euro for a hostel per night. bargain. had wicked time but unfortunately forgot my camera so cant share :(

after getting back i began the grind with fresh internet. its a sick connection, but still doesnt stop my running ridiculously below ev. its a shame because although the evbb is like 7/8, i definitally feel i have tilted at least a little bit being 35 buyins below ev and i would like to think the true bb/100 that i win at is closer to 10 or 11. rush is an easy game and if i cant achieve double figure bb/100 long term, i will be really unhappy with myself.

anyway, here are my results since about beginning of august (hem crashed and i had to get a new database, hence you dont get the full brunt of my initial downswing).




i have made a bit more money from rakeback (sigh i know actually count rakeback as winnings...), coaching which i am looking to do more of because i really really enjoy it, and staking. which probably takes my entire earnings in 4 months closer to about $15k. things really better pick up soon.



cliffs:

took up poker full time after finishing uni.
have played full time for 4 months this year and had 1 semi-decent month out of all of them.
advice to people thinking of going pro - make sure you have had at least 1 big downswing before because you always think it will never happen, but when it does it is really, really annoying and can make you feel like total shit for days if not weeks.

hope this was a fun read, 1st ever time making a blog :)

Jack.