I know its been a while since my last blog entry and you will tend to find this with me i do take ages to get around to things :D

Anyhow since we last spoke i have had a few things change. Most notably i now have a PC up and running and i have a 19 inch monitor and have holdem manager as well so as you can guess i am now able to multi table. I continued playing the double or nohting sit and goes till about the 20th of March where i decided to end the stake and try and concentrate on my cash game. I made some prfoit out of this stake which was added to my roll.

The timing of Scoop was marginal lol as my time was kinda focused around a few events($33 freezeout+ the main event low) anyhows i managed to come a respectable 1850 outta over 20000 in the $33 freezeout for $73 total but the main event was a real card dead affair but i enjoyed it. So much so that i have put up a buy a piece advertisement over at part time poker which you can find here: http://forum.parttimepoker.com/showthread.php?t=517083 for 4 events at the mini FTOPS which i am hoping will sell out as my tourney game has improved alot over the last few months. On top of the Scoop tourney wise i have played two £10+3 live freezeouts near my house, its such a shame the rake is so killer otherwise i would play regular but obviously beating 30% rake is impossible, so just fun for now.

Back to the cash games. I have started watching verneers crushing the micros series and it has helped my game so far and i have only watched the first 3 episodes of season 1 so im hoping for good results from that. I have also joined a skype team review session all be it a bit hit and miss. I decided even though i am rolled for NL10 to play 10k of holdem manger recorded hands at NL5 just to see if i could beat it, more as a confidence booster than anything. Well i completed those 10k hands yesterday beating it for 9.3bb per 100 and as such i am now moving up to NL10 for my next session comfortably rolled and more confident than ever. Lets hope i can show a consistent profit and improvement in my game and be at NL25 as soon as possible.

What lies ahead? Well obvioulsy dipping my toe back in at NL10, hopefully watching the first 2 seasons of Crushing micros and i also intend to play a few live tourneys to find a good one and maybe even some live cash games. Oh and how can i forget hopefully the 4 events at Mini FTOPS, my first event will be may 10th so i will update how these go.

Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables

I have decided to utilise the Blogging software that i get with my membership lol and here it is. I have wrote an introduction that was done last year and i am gonna try and follow on from this so you guys can get an idea of the whole story. Of course my intro is very short and brief but gets the point across, If anyone is interested in the longer version or wants to read the entries from my previous blog the link is here: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendId=17646862 .

Ok well Been a bit strange last 3-4 months, I graduated in September after taking some resits unfortunatly and this meant my head was very University orientated obviously so the amount of poker played between July and Beggining of October was very minimal and due to me moving out of my University where i was sharing a friends PC. So this ended up with me being at home without a PC and obviously i cannot put anywhere near good hours in, but this will hopefully be sorted within the next week or so and i will have a nice big monitor so that i can 4-6 table. Also due to this lack of access to a PC i have paused the Cash game stake that i was running and have kinda been left in limbo, i must admit during the month of November poker was at the back of my mind and i kinda just ignored it as i no or little access.

Anyhows bring on early December and a friend convincing me to play a £33 freezeout 30 mins from where i live. Now i had no work and little cash but i had slept at his house the night before and we ended up driving there. So i play for the first time in a while and from a 75 live field which was pretty tough for live standards and a harder field than what i was expecting i felt very comfortable and ended up final tabling and finishing 5th when my A5 got outdrawn by A2. Anyhows the cash was about £160 and back comes the poker buzz that anyone who plays alot knows what im talking about, that feeling in your brain that says Poker,Poker,Poker all day long. So although my acess to the PC is limited i figured i could get maybe 3 hours a day until my new PC is sorted. Now all i had to do was sort out some kinda funding as i was and still am looking for work but this economy isnt the best for business :S and the jobs im looking for not to mention the lack of time i have to use the computer to search them have made it hard. Anyways back to sorting a bankroll.

Now i knew i could probably get staked as i have done a few staked deals on a private website and have been privately staked twice as well but i looked at my Pokerstars account and although i had no money on there i did have an awful lot of FPPs(reward points from playing on thier site) and on Pokerstars there are alot of satellites in which you can enter for FPPs and qualify for real cash tournaments, so thats what i did and managed to turn my points into $22 and since i wanted to play cash games again i decided thats where i would start and i started playing the 1/2c 6 max cash games. Obviously its pittance but i needed to warm my brain back to cash games and thought it would be good for me. I ran this into about 50 and then decided to take a stake from a private staker to play Double or nothing Sit and Gos at 50/50 which helped me make a few more bucks and on top of this i got a few MTT stakes from a private website and have been grinding ever since. Obviously since i have no HUD i can only 2-3 table and am making written notes, but i have read alot about making decisions without HUDs to help your hand reading skills so in some round about way i guess no stats is helping improve my game and hoepfully i will notice a difference in my game when i start to multi table with stats again.

Ok that about brings me up to date, as i write this my roll is just over $100 which has gave me 20 buy ins at NL5(2/5c), on top of this i am running a stake for double or nothing sit and gos at the 5$ level with no time limit and the room to move up as the roll grows, and as an extra bonus i have recently been excepted for another stake which is for MTTs where i have been given 20 buy ins at the $5.50 level($110) on the same kinda basis, no time limit and the room to move up as the roll grows. Of course i have my own cash game roll alongside these 2 stakes(both are 50/50 cut) so the future is looking bright and once i have my new PC i will be looking to apply for Jobs during the middle of the day with the morning and night dedicated to poker with 3 different types of games i can vary the games im playing and feel this will help develop me as a player quicker. I have already noticed an improvement in my tournament game so i am very exicted.

I would also like to branch into some more live games if i can. There is a twice weekly tournament where i live which is a £11 freezeout and i think its very soft and the few decent players it contains i have played with before and they are still exploitable and i know what to expect. I would like to get maybe £250 put aside purely for these i may ask for another stake for these through either a current or new staker but i will keep you updated as to any developments on this.

Anyhows thats it for now if anyone wants to add me on msn or aim or pm and talk poker or anything really feel free to get in touch.

Thanks for reading

Hey my name is Ben and i am currently 24 years of age and live in Essex, England and am originally from the outskirts of London.

I have been playing poker for around 6 years.Mostly NLHE although i have played a bit of every game. I would have to say my 2nd game if i have one is definetly 7 card stud high.

I have played poker semi seriously for probably about 3 years and i actually spent a year playing poker part time during a gap year at university. I have been staked for a period of time also by 2 sepearte private stakers both of which i made a profit for, and the second stakers where high limit professionals that also coached me a little. Both stakers have offered to stake me again at the the same 50/50 deal if i ever go busto. As you can tell i now play on my own money.

I spent most my serious time as a poker player playing full ring cash games(although i did play sit and goes for a while before hand and did quite well) but was persuaded by alot of players to move to 6 max and it took me a while to adjust but now i much prefer 6 max and i would reccomend it to any full ring players unsure about making the change.

I am currently playing NL50 on IPoker and am hoping to get in about 4000 hands a week whilst i complete the last year of my B.A. Administration Business Degree.

I will update this blog as often as i can with results and views on my game etc and goals i am setting myself for the future.

My current goals are 4000 hands a week where possible(as stated) and to be around the NL200 mark by Jan of next year.