I've been a professional poker player for the last 3 and a half years. Or, more specifically, I've made enough money to live off poker during that time. I've probably been the most unprofessional pro poker player out there.

Well, enough is enough. My results have been, well, poor. I talk a great game but I don't play one. I'm beating the games, for sure, and more than well enough to make a decent living. But I'm not in this game for mediocrity. I'm in the game for money and maybe a little fame on the side. Money on its own would be fine.

So I need to buck up my ideas. Beat the midstakes for > 5ptbb/100. Put in 40k hands/month. Blah blah blah. All the things that so many people 'worse' than me at poker have been doing for a while.

I need to become the best poker player I can be.

I'm going to make a lot of small changes to my game and my mentality. Some are small, some a major, some will take a while to come into force. Some I will make public, some will be kept private.

The first that I'll make public is a really simple, easy, small thing.

I will not check my cashier balance or profit for the day in HEM while playing. I will not have mozilla, msn, aim or skype open while playing.

That is all. Simple, right?

I feel like I'm playing my best poker in a long, long time. My non-showdown losses have decreased, and I can feel it in my play. Hence the 80 buyin upswing. This hand is fun:

http://weaktight.com/1461173

Flop thoughts: I can't fold top pair

Turn thoughts: I've picked up a flush draw to go with my top pair and gutshot, I'm not folding now.

River thoughts: YOU HAVE COMPLETE AIR I'M GONNA OWN YOUR SOUL (super-double-fistpump) I CAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL

Couple of other one pair river calls that are always fun, as well as nice and thin river value. So my instincts are good and my technique is coming along quite nicely.

Ed Millers new book, Small Stakes No-limit Holdem, is really, really good, for a number of reasons. It's designed for 6-max nlhe, which I don't play at all (I only play nlhe cash live), and it goes into a lot of detail about the different player types, who are all present at PLO. It goes into masses of details about the theory behind preflop play, who and when to flat in position or 3bet, who to 3bet, 4bet and 5bet, with what, and why. It also goes into river play. My belief is that, in the current state of games, preflop is by far the most important street, followed by the river. In fact, preflop is probably the most important street in any game on the basis that it's the only street you're guaranteed to have every hand. The river becomes unimportant when we're all-in, of course, which does happen a lot these days - but the more we get all-in, the deeper the stacks, and next hand we're getting to the river and with stacks left. The flop and turn are obviously significant but they're also when we often have the clearest decisions. Play aggressively with big draws and big made hands most of the time, sometimes play them slow when we have good reason to; sometimes play marginal draws and marginal made hands and play them both ways, according to who we're playing; mostly fold bad hands. Most of the advice out there is designed around flop and turn play, as well - that's where the largest range of decisions crop up, but in my opinion, not the most important ones.

Aside from the fact it's the only street we always play, all of our postflop decisions depend on the size of the pot and are coloured by our preflop play. In the current aggro games there will be more people 3betting us, leading to more decisions as to whether we're raise-folding this hand, raise-calling, raise-4betting, or flatting QQxxds with the intention of shoving over a 3bet. Under what circumstances should we flat? If an aggro shortstack is behind us, if we've got weak aces, if we've shown down aces recently when we've 3bet? What about stack sizes? What about, if we have answers to all that information but it's still close, do we do one thing 40% of the time and the other 60%, closer, further away, or does it not make a tangible $ difference? If they think we're on tilt, should we still 3bet hands like QQJ9ss? If we do, are we planning on 3bet-folding when the guy's got 80bbs, but we've seen that he is 4betting wider than AA and KK? What about the superfish with 400bbs and we cover, should we be 3betting any playable hands, even out of position? Do we even play marginal hands that deep against a superfish if he's aggro? Doesn't it make sense to flat or even fold strong hands, when we've got a good stack in position to a fish but a good player has position on us and is 3betting?

I'm not even getting tired of this; preflop play has always fascinated me, and I think it's the source of most peoples leaks. The pot may be bigger on later streets, but if the mistakes start early, they influence the size of the pot, meaning we might be minimizing our winnings and maximizing our losses if we're not aggro enough. However, in loose-passive games where people are getting all the money (400bbs) into unraised pots with bare top two on a board with a made straight on it and a flush draw, just because he's seen me semibluff before, doesn't it make sense to keep the pots small preflop, minimizing my investment when I know my payoff will be massive? The reasons to vary our play preflop are many and varied, and the reasons behind this are many, varied and generally obscure. It may be that some concept only makes a small difference - who am I to put a $ amount on a concept? However, they may be very valuable, and considering I'm playing 40k hands plus per month of $1/2, $2/4 and $3/6, focussing on preflop edges is surely the way forward.

Maybe the river isn't that important, but again, there are a lot of mistakes to be made and thin edges to be gained. As previously mentioned, the pots are bigger; it's also different to all the other streets in that we are calling to get to showdown rather than see another card. Check-folding the river may be a really tough task with a lot of hands but a lot of good players generally don't want to let go of hands where it's a clear decision to check-fold. Out of position we should also be looking to check-raise a bunch, both as a bluff and for value, but mostly for value. The beauty of exploitative play is that if you're more honed in on correct strategy than they are and know where along the line they lie, you know how to take maximum advantage in the balance game. Sometimes you can bluff for no other tanglble reason other than that you think it's a good time to randomize your play. Sometimes you can make weird thin calls for reasons other than value: you want to slow down a bluffer, for example.

How much to bet is also a potential minefield. I think I've been betting too little but it does mean I've been called more when I've had the goods and I've got folds just as often as I've been betting bigger, due to picking my spots well. But maybe I should be betting bigger when I've got great hands just because I very occasionally bet big as a bluff. This is no longer a thin edge; it may only come about every x hands but the pot is big, and every $ in expectation counts.

I moved up to $5/10 on a controlled shot - and it went a little pear-shaped, unfortunately. No matter, I actually think this was my best session since I got back from France.

I could talk for hours. Let's be honest - poker is not an easy game. There is a lot to think about. I get very excited thinking about how much I've improved since I started out over three years ago; to think that I'm probably still gonna have to be playing for a living when I'm 30 means that I expect I'll know quite a lot about the game then.

And I'm shooting for 300k vpps (milestone bonuses are a lot of money).
Ok, well I've already been to Paris. Well, not even Paris this time (that was earlier this year), I went for three nights to a small town called Aymet, like 50 miles from Bordeaux or something, and stayed in a villa that my friends parents rent every year. I didn't pay for a single thing - that's how my friend sold it to me, other than the sun and the pool, of course - and I made it known that my intention was to drink every waking hour that I was there, and I did. I probably got through 30-40 bottles of beer as well as a couple of bottles of wine, but wasn't really binging, just drinking slowly, and being mildly drunk all day. My only responsibilities were to eat well, swim, get a tan (burn, really - might upload the amusing pictures of my back), and make the odd fruit salad, and I fulfilled them, despite my drunkenness.

Amsterdam will be my friends stag do, just going for the weekend. That's in two weeks, after I go to Notting Hill Carnival next weekend. Then I move, to a place unknown, probably a friends place, for three weeks to a month, preferably near Leicester Square so I can play WSOPE conveniently.

After that it's up north to Manchester for a friends birthday. I'll probably fly straight from there to Tel Aviv, where my friend is getting married, and stay for a couple of weeks to see family and other friends.

When I get back, I think I'm moving to Buenos Aires. I've been thinking about a move out of London for a while. Financially it makes a lot of sense - even though London dropped down the list of most expensive cities in the world, I'm still not doing much more than breaking even after living expenses and my stupidly lavish lifestyle. If I could just resist spending money for any of the three years I've been playing this game, I would have a pretty big bankroll. But I'm stuck at $3/6. So I'd like to relocate to a city that fulfils the following criteria: cultured, civilized, cheap living costs, nice climate, lots of young people, hot girls. From what I've heard, Buenos Aires is all of that and more. I've always been scared of the unknown and have backed out of a few similar ideas, so I'm determined to do this. And if there's any time of my life to do it, why not when I'm young, single, with no responsibilities or dependents, and a job I can do anywhere in the world? It would be silly of me not to do this, in fact.

The sick thing is, this month I think I'm on 40k hands or thereabouts, which is the most I've ever played in a month. I've been playing 10-12 tables like 4 hours a day on average or something, and I'm winning more than 80 buyins from $50PLO to $600PLO since I got back from Vegas, which is cool. My goal is to make 300k vpps by christmas to get the $2k milestone bonus from stars, on top of the $1k bonus at 200k vpps (I'm at ~170k now) as well as the regular bonus money. That's feasible if I can get in 40k hands per month from now until the end of the year, but with all this shiznit going on, I might not be able to get there save for a massive end-of-year push. Yeah, playing 10 hours a day during the festive season while it's summer outside seems like an attractive idea.....

As an aside, I'm excited for the new season of Mad Men, Entourage has been good so far this season, Californication season three starts in about a month, and the last season of Lost beckons at the dawn of 2010. The Premier League has restarted. I have the first two episodes of 2 Months 2 Million queued up and I expect that to be good. Meanwhile, female singer-songwriters dominate my playlists, topped by Lykke Li, Regina Spektor, Laura Marling, Nelly Furtado, and Ida Maria. Tai-chi and the gym have stopped and I've started smoking again since about a month ago.

This has probably been my best summer ever. I'm looking forward to the second half of 2009.

Eh, I'm bad at keeping my blog updated on a regular basis. Deal with it, I have!

What's happened since my last entry? I've been to Vegas and had a fantastic time, making the final table in one tournament (of course, the smallest buyin out of five!). I had a really good time out there and felt I brought my A game to the table 95% of the time, maybe two or three tangible mistakes during my 11 days and roughly 70 hours of play. I had enough action sold that my cashing for $4k in the $500 deepstack PLO at the venetian meant all my expenses were covered, and Vegas is a really cool place, meaning I had a free holiday, which was pretty cool. Dave and Mike, both 2+2ers, told me on the saturday night various things about Vegas and the Strip, including some details about rows of Mexicans in bright t-shirts with words like 'GIRLS DIRECT 2 U' emblazoned on them, handing out flyers to all and sundry, including men with their wives and young daughters. I didn't believe them, and I found it hard to believe my eyes when I actually saw it going down!

I stayed at the Gold Coast, because I was out there to be a pro, not gambling on table games, saving money ($40/night and vaguely acceptable), and walking or taking shuttles where possible. It's also five minutes walk from the Rio, where my WSOP events were taking place. I saw Berry Johnstone walking through the pit in the Gold Coast and can only assume that even WSOP main event winners aren't above taking the cheap option, so that made me feel pretty good about my choice. My first room was pretty horrible but I got them to move me to a recently-refurbished room which felt like it could be mistaken for vaguely balla, with a view of most of Vegas.

Colin and Dave and I gambled amongst ourselves, starting with straight chinese and moving onto some real degeneracy. Big two (or big deuce) is like a cross between bridge, chinese and hearts, and definitely has more of a skill edge than chinese, though it's marketed as straight-up gambling. It's really not - how often you win is more than anything down to the hand you're dealt, but there's a massive skill edge in getting paid the most when you do win. I'm definitely the fish in this game, unfortunately, though I also ran bad. I found weird ways to run bad, including losing every time we played credit card roulette.

Our home game turned into a six-game mix. None of the games involved betting, just scoring and calling. One round of chinese; one round of chinese with 2-7 hands in the middle (meaning you get stronger hands on the front and back more often - royalties need to change and it does involve more skill, IMO). Then a round of big deuce.

After that came the calling games. In 9-card omaha, you discard two preflop, two on the flop and one on the turn, leaving you with a 4-card hand on the river. We wanted to eliminate the possibility of bluffing, though, and keep it as gambly as possible, so instead of betting or calling, everyone antes up before the flop, then on the flop everyone decides whether or not to call, holds out both hands with a chip in one of them, and simultaneously releases a the hand with the chip in if they want to see the next street or drop nothing if they want to fold. If everyone folds, the pot is chopped; if only one person calls, he obviously gets the pot. No-one ever folds the turn.

The next game we tentatively called 'Irish Split', a descendant of straight-up irish holdem. The same betting model as above, though we go straight to the flop after antes; 6 cards dealt, hi/lo, discard one on the flop and one on the turn.

The last game was, well, silly, but probably gave potentially the biggest skill edge: chip-tossing. Everyone takes turns to throw a chip against the wall, closest wins all three.

There's no doubt, though, that the highlight of my time in the US (first time in > 12 years!) was New York. My connecting flight back was via Newark, and just as the gate opened for the flight to London, they announced that they needed five passengers to accept $400 in vouchers to take a later flight. I'm sorta interested at this point as I've got no commitments back in London to make, but decide that I'll be spending money in New York and it wouldn't really be worth it for $400. Half an hour before the gate closes they announce they're upping it to $600; now I need to observe everyone else, because I think the gate is getting desperate and they'll up the offer again if no-one accepts. The plan goes perfectly, and ten minutes before the gate closes they make it $900, and I snap-call.

As I'm at the desk, closing out the deal, the gate is closing, just as this pretty young english girl runs up to the desk and wants to get on board, but she can't get on. It was the same airline's fault she was late, so she got the same deal. We start chatting, and after ten minutes I tell her we're going to do the tourist thing in New York for the day.

We get to Penn Station (on like 29th? I think) and walk all the way to Times Square, and sit and chat for a while, thinking about taking in a matinee but we decide not to. We walk, slowly, to Central Park and find a big rock to sit on, with a good view, people-watching, sharing anecdotes and comfortable silences. After half an hour, we decide to find another big rock, and do the same. Not long after, it started to rain, heavily - but it was mid-june rain, nice and refreshing, so we find some shelter. Once the rain calms down a bit, we decide to start walking back to the station - we only had four hours until our flight, after all!

It took us a while to get back, passing the Empire State, but again we decide we don't have enough time to do it properly as there's a long line of people waiting for it. At this point, it starts raining really heavily, and as you can imagine, the working stiffs of New York were going absolutely crazy, while we were walking slowly, getting soaked, and enjoying it

We didn't get to sit next to each other on the flight back, as other people are selfish, but we'd planned to go for coffee and breakfast in London. As we parted ways, we shared a kiss, and for fear of sounding like a schmaltzy hollywood romantic comedy, this has to have been the best vacation day of my life. I spent the day with a complete stranger and spontaneously, unexpectedly did the tourist thing in New York, which I'd never seen before. She lives in Devon, unfortunately, but I expect I'll see her again. Whatever happens, this is the sort of thing you remember your whole life.

After the emotional turmoil that was Paris, I played a couple of the events at the london poker masters at the gutshot, as I reported last episode. Not much of note came out of that. I was asked to do an interview for gutshot.tv but I'd really rather not have any media attention on me before I do anything of note, even if I am a regular at the club. Keeping my egotism in check; can't be a bad thing.

The following week I stayed with my parents to go to hospital every day. Don't worry, I'm fine - I was in a classroom from 9-5, learning about the diabeetus, and how to manage it better. Not really the most exciting way to spend my time but it was pretty important, even though I appear to have forgotten a lot of it already. Having said that, my blood sugar levels have been nice and under control since then, despite the occasional oopsy. The combination of the return to the classroom setting (they really treated us all like idiots) and the 9-5 routine was rather confusing, given I've been living the last few years without anything remotely resembling regular routine.

On the saturday following I went to Israel for about a week and had a damn good time, possibly one of my best holidays in my life. A week of relaxing on the beach, walking lots, getting drunk, spending time with my family and people I haven't seen in a long time. I intend to go back in september and spend six weeks relaxing on the beach, getting fit, getting a tan and seeing lots of people, maybe occasionally playing some mtts on a sunday. A friend is getting married out there as well. Maybe I'll find some ex-pats or underground plo games with the wealthy businessmen.

My third article has now been published, if you're in the UK check out Poker Player, otherwise the first two are available here and here. The fourth was a real slog but I got it in in the end. I'm currently starting the fifth.

That seems it for now. My 25th birthday is next week, I guess I'm looking forward to that. Should be fun.

Oh, my next two videos will be HH reviews, going through some tournament hand histories. Expect them by the end of the month.

TTYL

Last time I blogged was before Paris, before Tel Aviv, before a week in hospital - in a classroom, it's all good - and March has been by far and away the busiest month ever for me.

So let's start at the beginning. I met Supersnort, who was significantly quieter than I expected (I'm continually surprised when people in real life turn out to behave differently from their internet persona - how weird!). He's got an interesting table manner - basically, he doesn't talk unless someone talks to him, and despite his interesting gangly teen rocker appearance, manages to stay underneath everyone's radar. His hair is pretty long (and unwashed, I think, in quite a while), and that works better than any sunglasses, hat or hoodie - he just sweeps his hair across his brow, so that he can see out, but no-one can see his facial expression.

He refused to take part in any of the poker discussion, which in my opinion is to his detriment, as he seems to play a pretty solid, tight-aggressive game and understand poker to some extent. There was lots of good poker discussion through the week - the other three of us all had some decent level of experience and skill and were very forthright in our views. For the most part we agreed but there were some sticking points, mostly about preflop style.

In general, Paris was quite stressful, turbulent, emotional, etc. I had several large lapses in discipline, including my first ever occurrence of dealer abuse. I was hovering just above a thin film of permatilt all week, which I fell through a couple of times when put in high pressure situations - and the Frenchies love to stick you right in them. They're not afraid to use the rules to their advantage - I guess that's a polite way of saying 'they enjoy slowrolling', and that really gets my back up. In any case, after a few beats, slowrolls, and stroppy waiters, everyone limps on my big blind in a a‚¬2/4 PLO game. As I'm looking at my cards - A K A K - the dealer just deals out the flop. There's probably something wrong if this doesn't annoy you - but I screamed and shouted at the dealer. For the most part, the dealers in the Aviation were top-notch, really well-trained and courteous, and this guy had made a small mistake, but I really let him have it. The flop came out all s, I bet about half the pot, everyone folded, and I showed my cards and got even angrier as I flipped my hand, presumably in search of sympathy. The next day I apologised to the dealer in question and felt quite bad, but I've (in theory) massively improved my self-control in the last few years, so this was quite a disappointment. I also loudly called someone a donk after he raised pre from UTG in a tournament and called my reraise with QJo, no then failed to fold on an AQT board - I had JJ no . Turns out a few frenchies speak english and understand 'donk'.

I entirely failed to bink any tournaments, coming 19th in one a‚¬500 tournament with top 18 paying - again, very disappointing given I played quite well throughout. The French are generally pretty damn bad at poker, and I'm formulating a plan to commute there from London every once in a while. My thoughts are that it won't be particularly expensive, and with the Eurostar, I can travel over for a decent-sized tournament every once in a while, in the afternoon, for an 8PM start, and if I bust, play cash until a mid-morning train back. If you also live in london and are interested, get in touch.

Cash was pretty fun. The more live PLO I play, the fewer decisions I find that are tough - though lots are still interesting. I'm still relatively bad at NLHE, though I know the fundamentals and play a reasonably solid game. I dropped a decent amount playing a‚¬5/10 PLO, made most of it back at a‚¬2/4, and ran massively hot (and played pretty well) at a‚¬5/5 NLHE, where I spent most of my time. My best session was on the wednesday night - I sat in with the minimum, a‚¬250, as I normally do - with a view to reassessing usually after an hour or so - but this time I had a‚¬3300 in front of me an hour later, only having shown down five hands. The first was QQ all-in on a J98 flush draw flop, three-way, holding against JQ and KQ - the guy with KQ thinking he had a flush draw but his cards were both black on the heart draw board, which amused me. I then opened from early position with 56, got a small reraise from late position and an overcall from the button, so with something like 5-1 odds I had to call, despite both other players being quite short. The flop was 478, which I sorta liked, so checked to the raiser, who went all-in. The coldcaller dwelled up for a while and was obviously a little worried about me, so I tried to give off my best impression of someone who was going to pass instantly and had no interest in this flop. He seemed to believe me and shoved all-in over the top, I turbocalled and tabled as the turn and river blanked and I binked the pot.

The next big coup was an elaborate, fancy-play-ridden multi street bluff against what looked like a resident pro. I'd played with him a little in a tournament and he was quite tight and straightforward, but it really looked to me like he was bluffing occasionally, in good spots - in general, I afforded him a decent amount of respect, and it looked like he was returning the favour, but he must have been on a little bit of tilt, as he reraised me a couple of times in a row. The first time I just folded as I had A9o and no-one else was in the pot, but the second time I had QJ and there was another coldcaller in the middle, and felt that I could play reasonably well on a lot of flops, and even though I didn't really have a clear idea of his range, we were something like 250BBs deep, and I had good relative position. The flop came down T74 rainbow (with one heart), I check, first to speak, the original raiser bet something like a‚¬100 into a‚¬180. I decided right there that he was capable of c-betting this flop with a bunch of ace and maybe even king-high hands and that I could push him off those, and if he had actually flopped a pair, he would find it difficult to call with all this money left to play. If he had an overpair I should be able to push him off on the turn or river, and if worst comes to worst, I still have a three-straight, a three-flush, and two possibly live overcards, so I made it a‚¬300. He thought for a short time and called. The turn paired the T, which I thought was a great card for me, so I bet a‚¬550 - perhaps a little big, but I just wanted him off the pot there and then. He called, I just couldn't put him on a ten. The river was an 8, but by this point I felt his range was narrowed to KK or AA, maaaaybe QQ. I only had a‚¬400 left at this point, with the pot standing at a‚¬1800. At this point, shoving makes me look like a massive genius when he folds, and enforces the image of a bluffy spewtard when he calls, which he should do - how bad is it to put that much money into the pot and then fold getting 5.5-1? I mucked my hand when he folded and immediately wondered just how lucky I got, though as played, I still feel the river shove was right - it's the rest of the hand that is probably marginal/spewy, mostly my bet-size on the turn, but there were at least semi-solid reasons for everything I did.

The reverse situation came up less than a round later. The same guy opened UTG and got three callers, and the earlier-mentioned fish who thought he had a flush draw with KQ made it a‚¬120. I find pocket jacks in the big blind and decide to overcall, though I could happily have 4-bet then and there as I felt I was well ahead of everyone's range. In retrospect it probably should have been a 4-bet but that wouldn't have won me as much money . Everyone behind me calls, so we've got a good a‚¬700 in the pot before the flop, which comes out KK8 rainbow. With six of us in there I figure someone's got a king so check it, probably intending to pass to any bet, really - if they have an eight and are value-bluffing, I don't really mind that much. Everyone checks, though, and the T on the turn puts out a flush draw. I'm too much of a pussy to bet like a man and only make it a‚¬200, original opener calls, everyone else folds. The river is some low blank and he shoves his last a‚¬350 into the a‚¬1100 pot and I delight the table by turbocalling and instatabling. He shakes his head, gets a little annoyed by the speed with which I called, and mucks his hand.

We came back on the thursday with the intention of playing the rest of the festival at the gutshot/international, but again, none of us binked - twelve tournaments blanked between Joe and I over seven frustrating days, and I lost a bit at the cash, but it was mostly uneventful.

We did get this fantastic picture on the eurostar back.



That's it for now - I'm going to split March up into a couple more blog posts, I think. I've an article to finish writing before I can spare any more time - part of the purpose of this particular post is to get me back into the swing of writing.

I'd desperately welcome some form of comment from holdem players on my play - specifically live, full ring players than six-max online.

I couldn't say when my next videos will be made, I'm behind on what I promised, but would expect at least to get two more uploaded by the end of April.

Wazz

Whooooooaah. I just recorded two back-to-back videos for CR; much less prepared material than previous videos, this was two consecutive hours six-tabling $2/4 with a view to getting into interesting turn and river spots against tough players. It turned out to be more about interesting preflop spots, or, rather, stupid preflop spots, as I got 3-bet by everyone at the table, all the time, and when I chose to 4-bet light I happened to be up against aces every time. I made a couple of bad mistakes during the video and some high-variance low EV moves, but I'm ok with the way I played. I made a point of ignoring game selection for the purposes of the video, and it shows.

Looking forward to Paris - we leave on saturday morning. My live game is coming along quite nicely, and I'm anticipating roughing up these frenchies quite badly in all games.

For anyone who watches, the latest episode of Flight of the Conchords is pretty funny. This season has been very hit and miss, and it's very deadpan (not the kind of humour I expect many yanks to get), but on the whole, very enjoyable.

On poker. I don't think it's amazingly interesting or insightful, and it doesn't really have any significant impact on how we play, but I found it interesting that, if we're playing well, we're more likely to get lucky, and if we're playing badly, we're more likely to get unlucky. That's not to say that you win more all-in preflop 50/50s because you're reading the other guy - try as you might, maths just doesn't work that way. To show you why this is the case, though, consider a standard six-sided die. We'll say that I'm playing well, and you're playing badly, and my edge is roughly 1/3 per spin, which means that I win if we roll 1-4, and you win if we roll 5 or 6, and it's for even money, so my expectation for every individual roll is to make 1/3 a bet, and yours is to lose 1/3. However we never win a fraction of a bet, we either win a bet or lose a bet; 2/3 of the time, I win one bet which is above my expectation of 2/3. Conversely, 2/3 of the time, you lose one bet, which is running below your expectation of 1/3. Edges are smaller in poker, especially when you talk of the 'long run' (up there with 'fold equity' in the echelon of massively misunderstood terms in poker), but the same concept applies, in that, the better you play, the better your range fares against your opponents, and vice-versa. Therefore, the better you play, the more likely you are to perform above expectation, and the worse you play, the more likely you are to run bad, which then leads to tilt, which leads to more bad play, etc etc.... in this context, it doesn't seem that difficult to understand why a lot of players (me included) have gone on very long breakeven stretches, in my case, more than 55k hands last year.

On CR, again. Apparently people liked my last PokerEV hand review video! I don't understand what you people want, lol. I guess you want me to churn through each hand pretty quickly, as opposed to my preferred method of uberdetail, presenting all the possible reasons I might choose to make each play, and how much each factor affected my decision. As mentioned, it takes roughly 10 hours of preparation for each hour of pokerev video, so it's not something I'm going to be doing that often, but I have a bunch of interesting tournament HHs provided by a CR member so I'll probably be doing that at some point.

This is Wazz, signing off for cardrunners.com. Oh, wait, this isn't a video.

Fly, you fools!

I have lots of poker content to blog about, including another decent win at the International in PLO cash - £1500 at £1/2 PLO in six hours - but I wanted to get some personal stuff in there.

In eleven days I'm going on my first poker trip of the year, which I'm massively looking forward to. Cmyr, Joe, Supersnort and I are all going to Paris for the Paris Open of Poker, at which I 'won' (favourable chop, then played it out and I won the trophy) a round-of-each event. It's held at the Aviation Club de Paris, which is a beautiful, old building on the Champs Elys©e. Isabelle Mercier used to run it. When I was last there, it looked like it was hectic, mad, disorganized, French, but in fact it was run pretty smoothly. The French are also, on the whole, rather donky - any French out there reading this blog, don't take offence. I remember a hand of a‚¬2-2 holdem, with a raise preflop and a call, checked round on flop and turn, and the preflop raiser shoves all-in for something like a‚¬250 into the a‚¬20 pot and gets called reasonably quickly by ace-high, which was good. They love their small pocket pairs, their flopped middle pairs, their draws on paired boards in PLO, and tilt very Gallicly. Which is to say, loudly and with flair. When quizzed on why he didn't want to come, a friend explained that he didn't like the french - jokingly, of course (I actually really like the french, on the whole, and would love to live in Paris for a year or so). My response was standard: they make bad poker players and good cheese, and I'm a massive fan of both. That line of argument almost convinced him to come!

So it's the cash games over there that really appeal to me, though I do intend to play a couple of their a‚¬500 tournaments. If the structures are good, and I remember them being so, and the opposition is as donky as in previous years, my expectation is probably near enough a‚¬1500 if I'm playing well.

We're at the festival from the 28th to the 5th - missing the main event, which would be a pretty big shot at a‚¬2k. Even if we hadn't prebooked the eurostar, I don't think any of us would even be trying the satellites. The reason being that we're actually missing what may be a similarly juicy festival in London at the same time, at the international. We're back in London on the 5th. The main event is much more affordable than Paris - £500. I've been playing tournaments pretty well recently but success has evaded me. It's entirely reasonable for me to hit a big score pretty soon, with the intention of breaking from both of my stakes in the next few months. That said, I've been running pretty good for the last six months or so, which means my comeuppance is due soon.....

So, for the miscellaneous part. My friend Stuart recently had his second child, another baby boy, called Freddie. Congratulations to Stuart - one or two of you may know him. He was telling me the other night about how his first boy, Max, had been incredibly naughty and generally difficult since finding out another was on the way. Apparently he asked his dad a couple of weeks ago 'when the new baby arrives, am I going to have to live with someone else?' When Stu told me this, I shed a tear and felt incredibly moved. Not much makes me cry - Of Mice And Men, The Kite Runner (which I just finished), and this, is all that comes to mind. Having previously thought of myself as emotionally sterile, albeit a good few years ago, it's nice to be reminded of the fact that I am capable of being deeply affected by these sorts of things. There was a certain sadness, empathic, I think, in considering how that child must feel - but at the same time, I was happy, but it's difficult to put my finger on exactly why.

Stuart has recommended a book to me, given our recent and lengthy discussions on poker psychology - Kill Tilt Now. He says that there's not much in there that, having read Tommy Angelo, I wouldn't know already, but that it reinforces what we already know in an effective way and introduces the practice of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). I already actually took a couple of hours of NLPish training about eight months ago, and it helped on a basic level, the idea of calm and taking everything in around me, rather than having a billion different thoughts rushing through my head and not having anything settle, not having any focus. Apparently this book will (with practice) help my tilt issue - and I still have one, as does everyone to some extent, whatever they tell you. Apart from the fact that, if there's anyone out there who doesn't tilt, they don't need to tell you, if someone claims they don't tilt, they've just been running good for a long while.

I'm currently reading a book that, to my shame, I've not read yet, despite having owned for almost a year while playing live lots - Joe Navarro, 'Read'em and reap'. I felt it important to make a commitment to myself, having burnt out on books for a few months at the end of last year: I will only ever read one book at a time; if I'm reading a book for any professional purposes, I will take notes. This way I can absorb and internalize ideas without having to reread the book; which means that the second time, I know the material, and am reading so that I truly understand the concepts and reasoning behind it, as opposed to my previous method, which was to read, think 'oh that's nice, I like that' and forget about it entirely and/or completely misapply the advice next time a situation requires. If these musings interest you, I'd advise you to read some Schoonmaker, specifically 'Your Best Poker Friend'.

That's enough uncoordinated ramblings for now, I feel. I'll sign off with the admission that my 'new poker video format!!!' appears to have failed, or simply requires more planning and effort that I'm prepared to put in at this stage, so will be shelving it for the time being. I've not quite done as much work as I've promised, which means that by the time I leave for Paris I intend to have recorded four videos for Cardrunners, all live sessions, as well as having written at least one more article for Poker Player UK.

GGWPNH, ttyl.

Last sunday I went to the gutshot (now known as the international) to watch the superbowl. To be honest I don't have much interest in american football but thought it would be a fun experience.

About halfway through I got bored (too many pauses!) and decided to take the empty seat on the £1/2 PLO table. As is my current strategy, I bought in for £100, with the intention of reassessing after an hour or so; the table was on average about £800 deep, and looked juicy. After a couple of seat changes the game settled down and I was happy to stay in my seat, especially when the target directly on my right, pretty loose-passive-unbluffable, won a big pot by getting very lucky, at which point two of us both called for chips.

I played about 11 hours in total and never lost when all-in. I was still in for £1k, though, just topping up for the first few hours until I started to win heavily. I didn't bluff very often, but kept on hitting big draws on the flop, nailing them on the turn after betting or raising, or just flopping top set on a drawy board and having it hold up in a multiway coup. With 8866ss, I raised preflop (in a straddled pot), had a caller before someone else 3bet. I have an obvious call, with the 3bettor having about a pot-sized bet behind, and the overcaller had a deep stack and was big value. The flop came K66 and the 3bettor shoved pretty quickly, there's no need for me to moody as I'm only getting paid off by the deep stack if he has kings full, I call reasonably quickly but the deep stack folds equally quickly.

Around this point I won a flurry of pots and was up to about £2,500. Joe raises in middle position in a straddled pot and I call with 6689ss, there are I believe three others in the pot, all value. The flop is K72r, and it gets checked through. The turn is the 6h putting a flush draw, and Joe bets near the full pot. Knowing that I'm repping a fairly narrow range, I raise, expecting to get action from a fairly wide range from him. My 89 straight redraw is important here - in the unlikely case I'm behind to a higher set, it gives me eight more outs to win the pot, but he has a few straight wraps in his range, and I'm not only blocking some of them, I'm now chopping when he hits his high or low end. He thinks about it for less than a minute or so, I recall, and then shoves for a total of about £1k. I snapcall, he has 789T no hearts, and blanks - the hand is discussed on 2+2 if you're interested.

Another interesting hand is when I 3bet AKJ5ss against Wilson, an overaggressive dealer, OOP. The flop comes K44r, I checkraise his roughly halfpot bet putting him all-in, and he moans and folds after thinking. Virtually impossible for him to have folded AA there but maybe he folded AK also, maybe KQ, or QQ - I'm not sure.

A hand I may have played badly: I can't remember the preflop action but I have AdKJ on a QdTx4d board and call a checkraise, intending to bluff diamonds and valuetown when I hit. The turn is an eight, villain goes all-in, and I have odds to call against anything but a flush draw. I call, he turns up JT92 with diamonds - ups! I hit a black jack on the river to scoop anyway. Good times.

Over an eleven hour period, I won £4,080. With breaks.

It happened to snow that evening, and I happen to believe that actually had a lot to do with it. A foot of snow fell on london over a 24-hour period (absolutely unheard of - and unlikely to happen again in my lifetime), but by the time many of these guys wanted to go home, the roads were too full of snow to drive on. So many people didn't actually go home and stayed at the club, and what's there to do at the club other than gamble? The result was that a lot of money that should have come off the table not only stayed on but was played by people far too tired and tilty for their own good.

I played pretty well, but I don't want to go on winners tilt, as I have done in the past after winning large sums. This was the largest win I've had in a single session before. To that end, I am A) refraining from spending too much money, and B) continually reminding myself that, while I played well, winning such a large amount was more a function of good game, session and stack selection, but mostly lucking out, with the right cards at the right times, the right bums on the right seats, and even the weather pitching in.

I'm going back tonight, leaving quite shortly. I must fear tilt, though. It's likely after you've had any big swing, even up: to be breaking even after a few hours is a much worse result in comparison to last sunday. To counter that, I must remind myself that I'm playing for an hourly expectation and I'm liable to lose some of the time.

Here is a picture I took on the way home on sunday afternoon. Given we get it so rarely, snow turns me into a little kid - I've been walking round London with a permanent smile on my face this week. :)

wazz

Hi guys,

It's been a while since my last blog post, so there's a lot to catch up on. Looking back, I never explained what happened with roulette. I posted about it on 2+2: the vic in edgware road, london, offered 40-1 on a 36-1 shot individual number on each roulette wheel for two hours each day throughout july, the number being the day of the month.... they cut it short about 6 days before the end, I think, but we got together a group of poker players to grind the tables and a roll of about £30k between us and made £55k profit, which was fun. My month as a 'professional roulette player'. Fun times.

Since then, I played Luton GUKPT, bust out at the end of the first day on a coinflip for the chiplead then misplaying a pair of 9s. I gave up cigarettes, which is a pretty solid brag. The week after I gave up, I was on my way to meet some friends in a bar, and was thinking 'this is my first real test, but at least people will be inside, and so can't smoke'. But when I got there everyone was outside in the beer garden, my friend Hugo lit a cigarette, said hi to me, and someone called him in, so he put the lit ciggie in my hand and walked off - but I resisted, and that's how I know I've given up for good.

Around October I made the decision to stick to stars. I liked the idea of getting to supernova, I couldn't manage it, as I was only generally playing 6-8 tables, and rarely more than 20 hours a week maximum, but stars was my choice on the basis of actually finding the games more than beatable (previously I had the idea that stars was a rock garden and short on value), but mostly as a response to the various scares that have been going on in the online poker community. Stars have a (justified, in my experience) reputation as the industry leaders when it comes to running a good, honest game, and I'm quite anal about this sort of thing. I'm sure I've been cheated on stars before somehow, but you get the feeling with other sites sometimes that things just aren't as kosher as they should be, and even when they are, support is never as classy or competent as stars. /pokercast

Considering I'd just been through a fairly extended (~4 months, 50k hands?) breakeven patch, my confidence was a little gone, also, so I decided to make a rather large adjustment to my play: tighten up. I also wanted to drop down in stakes, to beat games I knew I could destroy, and at a level that wouldn't stress me out if I ran bad, so I took $5k and played PLO$100 and using strict bankroll management, only moving up to PLO$200 when I got to $10k. I also intended to get myself playing more tables, and trained myself by pushing myself considerably harder than previously used to for a while, then dropping that down to get comfortable, and then pushing myself again - and now I'm comfortable playing 12 tables but consider that my normal (current) upper limit. In order to get comfortable there I have to push myself by playing 13 or even 14 - and I do that from time to time - but 12 is much more profitable.

So as well as playing higher volume, I was playing tighter, which meant that I ran smoother, which meant I tilted less, which meant I had a bigger edge, and I ended up running hot as well. I ran at something like 12 ptbb/100 at PLO$100 and $200 for 45kish hands (stats are posted somewhere on 2+2) making a nice healthy profit, and enjoying the process as well. That was over about two and a half months, so still I wasn't doing much volume in terms of hours - but with other commitments, such as coaching, cardrunners, live play and articles, I'm not too dissatisfied with the amount of time I worked, especially given I'd be likely to make supernova in June of this year if I continued at the pace I was at.

I had a few frustrating experiences with tournaments, though, and swore myself off them for a while - until christmas in fact. Definitely running bad, but also definitely playing bad early doors, seeing too many flops, running too many bluffs. My endgame was still fine, as was my composure, but technically I had a few big leaks.

About three weeks ago, I went to my usual cardroom in London, the Gutshot (now called the International), and while waiting for the regularly running and incredibly juicy PLO game, I took a seat in a NLHE game. As I sat down, I watched the guy to my right play a hand and said to him straight away afterwards 'you're 2+2 aren't you' - he laughed and said yeah, it turns out he's a high volume low stakes sng/mtt expert. I found him a staker, and have been informally coaching him some PLO cash, while getting the benefit of his tournament wisdom - much cheaper than paying for coaching as I was intending a few months ago. We started off on SNGs, and my game seemed to resemble his - I wasn't quite pushing early enough, and was raise-folding when I should have been folding or shoving - but the reasons behind my play and general strategy were sound.

I've been playing much more tournaments since then, and have a lot more confidence. No real success, but it's a high variance game, and feel like I'm playing well. Last night I played a £300 tournament at the gutshot, lost most of my 10k starting stack within the second hour (half an hour levels), but ran and played well later, only to bust cruelly about four hours in. With my 3k stack at blinds of 2/400, I was shoving any hand that I played, and ran it up to about 4.5k. Antes came in at that point to make it 200/400/25, so eight-handed I shoved my Q8o from the hijack, and the button found TT, I hit my Q on the river and survived. Blinds up to 3/600/50 and I find aces, making it 1500 to go from early position a few hands later. The button shoves all-in for 5k, and the big blind overcalls. I moody for a little (entirely unnecessary now, I realize) and shove all-in - he calls and shows AK, the button 66, I hold and now have a 26k stack. At some point during all this I won a coinflip, but it wasn't a crucial one. Next interesting hand - UTG has been playing fast and well, and is one of the four players who started on the table with me that I feared, but knew he was loose. Still at 3/600/50 he makes it 1500, folds to me in late position, I find KQs and make it 5500, with the intention of snapping any shove, as he only had another 3k behind. He says 'I think we're flipping' and shoves, I table my hand, he shows KQo and I turn a flush. A few hands later I'm chopped back down to 29k, and with blinds at 400/800/75, I find myself sitting in the cutoff with JT of diamonds, so make it 2k. The big blind appears to have been on the loose and passive side - having openlimped and folded to raises a few times - but I don't have much of a read on him. The flop is 2 5 8 all diamonds, which, obviously, I like. He checks and I bet 2k into about 5k, he calls. The turn is the T clubs he checks, and I decide that a small bet on the flop combined with a big bet on the turn makes it look like I'm FOS or semibluffing, so bet 7k into about 9. He moves all-in and I superturboinstasnapcall. He tables KQ diamonds, I'm left drawing dead, but I cover him by 2k. If I'd won that pot, I would have been chiplead, albeit with 60 remaining - no point dwelling on the past, though, and my task at hand was to play my last 2.5 big blinds perfectly. JTo was good enough with the likelihood of a 4-way pot and probably quintupling up, but AQs hits and I'm left drawing dead.

Leading up to this, I hadn't actually been playing at all for the last few weeks. I'm prone to depression from time to time, and at the start of the year, I just wasn't feeling myself. That lasted about a week. I then resolved to give up weed, but not 100%, not like cigarettes - I enjoy the social aspect of it, but really don't have the capability of having weed of my own and not smoking it. So essentially I'm just giving up buying my own - but that's a fairly big deal, I feel, spending at one point upwards of £100 (when it was worth something) per week for my own personal use. Now it's more like a joint once a week on average. Much healthier.

Afterwards, I had no real excuse not to be playing, but I just couldn't force myself, and instead spent much of my time playing and getting good at Call of Duty on my PS3. It's still a bona fide distraction, especially with deadlines looming. I've played live two nights on the trot, though, and feel like I played each better than I've played before. Obviously a small sample size, but I do feel that I understand poker better than I have done, ever. I put this down to the specific sequence of events of grinding hard for a couple of months, then taking a few weeks off, but discussing (posting on 2+2, coaching) poker on my downtime. I compare it to learning a musical instrument - if you practice a piece lots, say every day, after a while you feel you're getting worse at it, you get frustrated, and take some time off. When you come back a couple of weeks later and try that piece again, you find yourself playing it technically well and it sounds great to boot.

On live cash games: there are many little nuggets of reciprocal edge to be found in this game, whether it be by tilting less, having better sleeping patterns, being better-fed and generally more healthy, as well as the standard ideas of table/seat selection, technical ability and physically reading players. One aspect, though, which I feel can generate some serious profits, is stack management. I usually buy in for £100 or the minimum in any game I play, with ten times that in my pocket. The idea is that I choose the stakes I play for, not others. I'm least likely to be playing my A-game right at the beginning, so by reassessing after an hour or so I'm giving myself the option of buying in deep to cover some targets when I'm playing a little better. By continually assessing how I'm playing as well as the rest of the table, I can come up with some idea of optimal stack management. Out of position to some strong players, I'm either going to get up, or buy in short - but if I find a good seat where I've got position on some fish who are £500+ deep I'm at least going to stack up if not cover them. As explained in a video of mine, the idea is that my stack is in play in position more often than it is out. My feeling is that good understanding of this concept is crucial to exploiting not only the fish at the table but the otherwise good players also. In some areas my game lacks - so I must make up for it. On friday night I felt that edge was worth up to £10/hour on its' own - pretty substantial for a £1/2 game, even though it played completely out of proportion to the size of the blinds.

In other news, I've had a commission from Poker Player UK to write a few articles on pot-limit omaha. The first two are written already, the first of which published, the second will come at the end of this month, and the third is due to be finished by the end of this week. The commission is for eight articles in total, and is essentially an introduction to PLO. The first has been generally well-received, and I see this as my stepping stone into greater things. I don't want to be 30 and still grinding poker for a living - I love the game, of course, and see myself playing it for the rest of my life - but I'd be disappointed if I haven't made significant progress in my career by that time. Regardless of how successful I am in my poker career, I'd like a qualification - I dropped out of two different degrees, to my eternal shame, and journalism strikes me as a career choice that I can really get into. My intention is to start a part-time journalism course (very near to the gutshot, as it happens) in April. The long-term plan is to rock up to the Bluff Europe and Cardplayer Europe offices in 2010, saying 'Hi guys, here's what I've had published before, I've been playing poker professionally for a few years, maybe you know who I am, this is what I'd like: you send me to Macau, Monte Carlo and Vegas and a few other venues you want me to go to, pay my way, and I'll write you a few articles and columns every month.' Perhaps a little ambitious - but it strikes me as a pretty 'noble' ambition, to lead the jet-setting lifestyle, hobknobbing with all the big names, and playing poker for fun rather than with the pressure of rent-checks and bankroll-building.

That's all for now, I think - I have lots to say, having failed to make an entry in this blog for almost eight months. I just recorded another PokerEV video for you guys, which should be up next week, I believe.