Baz for the win

Taking a few days off

2009-11-23T10:21:00.000-08:00

I've decided to take a couple of days off and chill out. I don't feel like I have a good poker/life balance at the moment and this bad streak is getting me down way too much. The repeated losing sessions are crushing me - The last 5 days have felt brutal, relentlessly running terrible in good games.

It's pissing me off working/concentrating super hard each day and feeling like I'm getting hit with a stick for each correct decision I make. I know that some months you run good, some months you run bad but when bad variance keeps going over an extended period of time it's just crushing. The last 3-4 months have sucked ass.

Graph since leaving London for Japan...

EV doesn't cover half of the shit. Kick the trip off with $10k worth of ridiculous coolers and it never picked up from there. It's just been brutal.

So I do feel some faults creeping into my mindset at the moment...
I was hoping to get a lot of volume in and make a bunch of money to hopefully run up to my end of year goal. I feel frustrated at being down so much in EV. I'm pissed off my bankroll was $Xk and is now $Yk because of fucking variance. I'm pissed off that poker is making me pissed off. Shit I'm just gonna go kick a baby.

I know this whole post is full of terrible mindset and that's why I'm not playing right now. I won't play another hand of poker until I've blogged back about how I've fixed all of the leaks. Headed to Taco Bell then gonna pick go up a hire car. Peace.

Go suck a bag of dicks November

2009-11-21T01:38:00.000-08:00

$10k down in all-in EV this month... goes nicely with the $10k of EV I was down over the previous 2 months in Australia. 100k hands breakeven but still surprisingly confident with my game and playing well. I know I'm not entitled to the sklansky bucks, I'm just frustrated and unhappy.

Tomorrow's a new day. Zero C-game.

Booking the win

2009-11-19T21:41:00.000-08:00

When you've had a rough few days there's nothing like booking a green session in HM to bring back your confidence.

There was one sexy hand where I shoved T6o on 997 200bb deep, dude calls with Ahi (lolimage) and I 8ball the river. So dirty. Shoving every hand pre for the first 5 orbits gets you a pretty bad rep.

Vegas #1 - Partying, the Game of Life and Cada wins!

2009-11-12T14:43:00.000-08:00

Australia was beginning to get a bit boring and wasn't really working out like Chris/Martin/I had planned. Staying in hostels/hotels just gets old after a while. So Martin/Chris are in Surfer Paradise at the Gold Coast right now while I opted to fly on to LA early and connect to Vegas for a month until Martin arrives.

Caught Vinny from Entourage at LAX while waiting for Vegas flight which was cool!

Been in Vegas for a week now and very settled in around here now. Got a room at the Rockin' Seville House and the place is real sweet... HUGE 9 bedroom place set up for partying! Hot tub, 2 beer pong tables, 3 poker tables, massive living room with plasmas and wrap around couches, etc. Nice big back yard where I'm chilling in the hammock right now. Everyone staying here is real cool and have sick Vegas hook ups to get us into clubs, parties, etc.

Arrived at the house around midday, dumped my stuff and was immediately introduced to the "Game Of Life". The deal is that if you answer a question from someone else in the game with the word "mine" at any point... you have to do 10 push ups on the spot (10 jumping jacks for girls). You've got to do them WHEREVER you are, with no hesitation. Once you've joined, you can't quit, you're in for life. So obviously I get owned within like 30 seconds of joining and am doing pushups on the kitchen floor. I still suck ass at this game and haven't got anyone yet despite being done in the carpark at Harrah's, at after hours dinner last night at Double Plate and at a Mexican restaurant this afternoon while eating a burrito. Sweet fun but not for the easily embarrassed!

So I crashed out in the afternoon after arriving with all the jetlag and was awoken at 9pm by people BBQ'ing and playing beer pong downstairs. Headed down to join the fun and hung out with a ton of cool people, was a blast. Getting initiated with beer bongs Hank Da Tank style was pretty sweet fun we wound up partying til real late. A couple of vids Adam took... girls making out and beer bong.

Flip cup!

Following night a bunch of us went out to rail Joe Cada at the WSOP ME final table heads up. He used to live here for a bit so a few of the guys know him. We managed to get great seats to rail the HU final the following night at the Rio to watch Joe take down the $8.5mil. Ended up playing a bunch of beer pong with his crew the night after at O'Sheas.

Me, Adam and Dan at the Rio

Played a bunch of live poker - mostly at Venetian and MGM - and have remembered why I hate it so much. It's just too slow and the variance seems too high due to the lack of hands being played. Vowed not to play lower than 5/10 live for the rest of the trip. Played online MSNL/HSNL tonight and it felt so damn awesome... good to be back to the grind.

Been going out quite a lot here... the bars/clubs are fantastic and everyone is out to party which is a ton of fun. A ton of us were out at a bar called Stoneys last night where we had a table, driving back at around 5am our car tyre blew out on the freeway. We changed it over, got back in the car then realised that we'd left the lights on while changing it and the battery was now dead lol. Was like 6am. Had to get the AAA out, we all dozed a bunch in the car as the sun came up and the AAA guy finally arrived on the scene. He managed to get us going at around 8am after which we all felt the need to head to the nearest bar and have a bunch more drinks.

This weekend gonna watch a bunch of american sports on TV with the guys - I've still never watched a game on NFL yet. All of the NBA coverage rocks though, I'm loving it. Really need to get a ton of grind in too as my "crunch time" is going brutally badly so far with hardly any pokers being played!

So here 'til whenever Martin arrives then might check out Cali for a bit before heading to NY just before Christmas. Pretty sure that I'm going to try to get a yearlong US tourist visa next year, buy a car out here and travel around a bit... really liking the sound of Miami, Hawaii, Cali and Vegas, maybe Canada too will see what happens. Will prob post about setting up a house in Miami soon.

If you're reading this and you're from the Seville house... you rock! Also there's a box of donuts I just picked up from Walmart in the kitchen, go get'em.

Pic Katelin took of Dan, Mike, Lois, Dave, Magen and I playing online on one of the tables in the poker room at 5am last night...

Australia

2009-11-06T07:17:00.000-08:00

... is overrated, time for a change.

NZ Pics

2009-10-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

New Zealand is absolutely stunning, beautiful scenery... even if you're not much into that type of thing (like me) you can't help but go WOW.

The people are the friendliest I've ever met anywhere. We step off the plane and the kiwis have a desk at the airport while you're waiting on our baggage where two little old ladies serve you free tea and coffee... legendary!

In Christchurch we parked up our car in the town center after a stressful drive and the traffic warden was checking out the meter next to us. There was an hour left 'til 6pm when parking was free but she smiled and said "don't worry about getting a ticket, I'm the last attendant to come past this way, I'll let you off with it". WTF!? That never happens.

Stayed in a converted jail for a couple of nights in Queenstown which I loved it but dodgy/chris not so much. Martin found out that his cell had previously committed suicide in the cell he got to sleep in... The woman then proceeded to bring up bloody pictures of the cell post-suicide. nothing like making you feel at home and comfortable :D

Other stuff... uhh, you can't skydive when there are fucking CLOUDS in the sky... that sucks. Everyone pussied out of bungee jumping, myself included. We did go caving though, that was pretty cool and got to do some abseiling too.

Wellington posing

Rappelling into pitch black caves in Waitamo

Knocked out 2,500km in this bad boy

Lake Aviemore, it's raspberry ice pole flavoured

Waterfront at Queenstown

Facebook album linky

Crunch time

2009-10-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

This is less of a blog post and more of a journal/plan to myself of my goals, plan and motivations for the rest of the year. So don't be shocked if it's long and boring :P

First pro poker year so far

It's been up and down. I broke even for the first few months while I was in Asia, did ok in April/May back in Scotland, KILLED June/July for a ton of monies, meh August/Sept and now October is looking to be a losing/breakeven month too.

3 poor months in a row is depressing and incredibly frustrating, something needs to be done to get back on track. I'm around 2/3 of my way to my 2009 $X target, the minimum I wanted to make this year. If I don't make it then I'll feel like I haven't worked hard enough to achieve what I'm capable of. I'd really hate to feel that I've been lazy and not made the most of the situation I'm in.

Rest of 2009

I've only got 2 months left but am still confident that the target is achievable if I get down to some hard work. So to use a games industry term, this is the crunch time of my poker year. 7 weeks of grind, then a holiday in the US as a reward... that's the plan.

From this point on my previous results and how hot/cold I've run don't matter, they're in the past. My bankroll and situation are what they are right now and that's what I'm going to focus on. So, the future...

Volume
One of the main reasons I don't think I've had as good results as I was hoping this year is simply because I've not put in enough volume. Since the start of the year I've played 215k hands. That's only around 22k/month which isn't enough, I should be aiming for around 35k/month.

I only have around 7 weeks of play left this year, I want to get as close to 300k hands for the year as possible. This means for the rest of the Aus trip I likely won't be roadtripping around, probably won't visit Sydney (been already a few years ago anyways) and won't be shifting around accommodation a lot.

Game Selection

To get the best games I'll have to be up at 9am Aus time, without a hangover! So no heavy drinking the nights before play days. I'll be playing across 2/4-5/10, with play at lower limits due to lack of games running. I've split money across 2 sites now so there should never be a reason to have to play 1/2 tables.

The increased variance of playing in higher games when they're soft is worthwhile for me so I will keep playing in them. However before sitting at any 10/20+ game I will make a rule that I need to take a minute to assess my mindset and make a stoploss based on what $loss would cause me to tilt. If I think losing a buy-in would cause me to tilt then I won't play, regardless of how good the game is.

A-game

If I keep my poker play to 9am-5pm then it will be easier to have a good light diet while playing then a heavy meal in the evening (this shit really does make a difference). Will use 8am for student coaching sessions and evenings for other poker work like hand review, etc.

I'll make sure I hit the gym at least 3 times a week, running is going well... doing 4 mile runs in under 40mins which I think is decent. Need to start weights to increase the amount of days per week I can exercise, maybe get some tennis on the go with Martin/Chris too.

I think it's really important to have a bunch of stuff going on outside poker to give life balance as well. So with the non-poker time I really want to be spending it doing other things, touristy shit around here, sports, meeting people, anything. This is definitely something I need to work on a bunch. Been a bit lazy in varying stuff we do over here and tend to just go drinking instead.

Improvement
Gonna minimise the amount of training videos I watch and increase the amount of hand review and postflop study of villains. This is by far the most effective way to beat high stakes regs, not spending time watching a training video. Looking at players shown down hands, finding out their betting tenancies and figuring out how to exploit them is very important. We've all got different leaks and imbalances, just gotta find them.

Going try to get as much feedback on my play as possible. I do my own hand reviews and note-taking after each session and will store all tough hands to go over with Martin/Chris or forum post. I've been doing this already, but the more focus I put on getting feedback the better. Looking forward to getting started on the group coaching with Bobbofitos too.

Gonna hit the gym, grab some dinner then head out to watch the Man U v Liverpool game. The midday sunday games are the only ones that are really on at a decent time (midnight) over here!

Frustration

2009-10-24T03:10:00.000-07:00

a.k.a. poker is a whore

I'm really frustrated with my results over here to the point where it's heavily affecting my daily mood. All I feel like I want to do each day is grind to get out of this piece of shit downswing and whenever I seem to get going I get screwed.

The frustration is mostly down to getting raped every time I play 2000nl. I just can't help myself when there's a juicy game running, I know I'm like 10ptbb in it and can't pass it up. I think I'm gonna have to start passing it up in future as spending all day grinding out the bucks at midstakes to lose $Xk in a matter of minutes is too fucking infuriating.

I'm gonna take tomorrow off, try to chill out and enjoy life, read some Tommy Angelo and figure shit out. My goals, mindset and plan from here to the end of the year.

Sigh... gonna go drink some beers and watch a movie. You deserve a hot girl for reading this shit.

Poker content

2009-10-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

New Coach
I've signed up for group coaching with Bobbofitos after Chris's glowing recommendation. Got a pretty cool group set up (think it's going to be Me, Dodgy, Klink, Grogheadflow and MattUK) and we're starting in around a week. I think there's one spot still left in the group so if you're interested contact Bobbo.

Each session lasts around 2 hours and consists of a chapter of book discussion, a couple of hand reviews, then a sweat (or video sweat) of a group member. Each group member gets 2 sweats. I've heard that Bobbo also tries to get guest pros to lend a hand, mynameisgreg and aejones both guest pro'd in sweats last year. Real eager to get started.

Rest of month
Need to griiiiiiiind. Got unbusto for the month just before leaving for NZ so I got a clean slate for the next week. Gonna play as much as possible at 2/4-5/10 and lay off the 10/20 'til the end of the month.

New Slowhabit book
Exploiting Regulars - is available now for a pre-order price of $99 (regular price $199) until the end of the month. I'll save you some time even reading my gabble on it, if you're a 1/2 or 2/4 reg just go buy it and read it.

The first half of the book alone is easily worth the money, it offers an in depth look into the mind of a strong mid-stakes player. Focussing on topics that are super relevant in the way games are played at mid-stakes today.

In this book more so than Let There Be Range he distinguishes spots where you should play things differently vs a low stakes reg than a high stakes reg which is both accurate and very useful.

I wasn't a huge fan of the exam part of the book, I don't feel like I learned all that much from the hand examples although Tri's thought process and ranges are explained well. I thought quite a few of the hands were debatable but the bulk of them are solid.

Overall the book is great and like I said a snap purchase for any 1/2 or 2/4 reg. Good job Tri.

Will do a NZ post over the next few days.

Early 2010 House Planning

2009-10-20T03:38:00.000-07:00

Last day in NZ tomorrow, we're staying at a converted jail tonight... place rocks and is super authentic! Twitpic of it on the leftbar thing. Will do a NZ trip report in a couple of days when we're back in Aus and got some poker related stuff to blog about too. But for now...

I've been thinking about setting up a house abroad early next year, looking at mid-January for 3 months, maybe more. Got a good response when I posted here last time, so it'd be cool again if any folks interested and playing similar stakes could give me a shout back.

Here's my shortlist of places, mostly based on climate...

Buenos Aires, Argentina - 28/18 (temp hi/low in degrees)
Sao Paulo, Brazil - 27/19
San Jose, Costa Rica - 26/14
Honolulu, Hawaii - 27/19
Manila, Phillipines - 30/20
Miami, Florida, USA - 22/17
San Deigo, USA - 19/15

2p2/Leggo crossposts.

If you're interested, know anyone interested, know anyone setting up a house, or even just have any input/tips on locations please drop me a comment. Thanks!

New Zealand

2009-10-11T07:17:00.000-07:00

It's 2am, just enjoyed a few beers in Melbourne and some world class pool skillz in the Lion to win the day. Up in 4 hours for our flight to New Zealand, decide to have a change of plans. We were gonna just head to Auckland for a week to play in the APPT but we've decided to do a NZ roadtrip instead.

Starting out in Auckland, heading down the west coast via some sick glaciers to the extreme sports town of Queenstown, then back up the east coast to Christchurch in 10-days. 1,300 miles? Easy game.

That looks pretty. So the itinerarararary is...

Mon 12th
Arrive in Auckland, check it out and have a few beers.

Tue 13
Pick up the car in Auckland and drive to Rotorua for Mauri(sp!?) shit. Whakarewarewa tour in the day. Hangi dinner at night.

Wed 14
Drive to Wellington hopefully checking out some LOTR stuff on the way.

Thur 15
Ferry to Picton. Then drive down the west coast to Greymouth. Drive takes you through valleys through mountains and stuff, looks totally sick. Greymouth honestly sounds like the most boring town in the world so just stay there one night.

Fri 16
Drive to Pancake rocks, then Westland National Park. Arrive early afternoon and spend a day there - find out what we should do, etc. Spending the night at Glow Worm Cottages, free vegetable soup in the evenings ftw.

Sat 17
Half-day glacier hike in the day at Franz Josef Glacier. Drive to Queenstown and arrive there in the evening.

Sun 18 and Mon 19
In Queenstown. Basically an extreme sports town. Looking to do some skydiving, maybe bungee jumping, snowboarding and general partying.

Tue 20
Drive to Christchurch, spend the night in a converted jail hostel.

Wed 21
Day in Christchurch, fly home early next morning.

Planned out this entire thing yesterday evening and still haven't booked the car or flights back yet... so hopefully it works out!

After that we're flying back to Melbourne for a week, staying with our man Amar. Then planning on roadtripping up the east coast of Aus through Sydney, etc to the Gold Coast then getting a place at Brisbane/Surfers Paradise for a month.

Thems the plans, they might change... they seem to pretty frequently.

Pokernews Cup Main Event

2009-10-06T22:12:00.000-07:00

We started 400bb deep with slow incrementing 1hour blind levels, great structure. I bust the first guy out of Day1b in a 740bb pot in the first level.
Hand is at the bottom of this page. Pocket aces no good sir! 38k.

There were quite a few notable pros in the event, spotted Tony Hachem, Tony G, Mel Judha, Mark Vos and Tony Dunst amongst others not at WSOPE. Clonie Gowen got moved to our table in place of the dude I bust. She was real friendly and has a fantastic ass, live poker ftw, anyways...

I played a hand against her which I think was my only mistake of the tourney. She opened to 2.5x UTG+1 (with antes), we're ~100deep, I flat A2s OTB and the loose/passive BB called. Flop came K74ss, she cbet 3/4pot, I called, BB folds. Turn is another K, she checks, I bet just over 1/2pot, she check/raised pretty big and I had to muck which was gay. Should have checked behind and bet river if checked to. She played real taggy for the next few hours any only ever showed up with the nuts so I think she mostly just had a K there anyways.

Uh so I basically fold for the 2 levels after the dinner break and watch people do stupid things with their chips. My ipod runs out of charge and I have to listen to live players talk strategy which is probably the most frustrating thing ever.

Showed a couple of bluffs for Pokernews but none got upped... lame! One was UTG shortstack limps, loose SB completes, I check Q3o in the BB. Flop K74s, check, check, UTG checks. Turn 7s, check, I bet 2/3, UTG calls, SB folds. River 6s, I bet 1/2-2/3pot (1/2 of the guys remaining stack), he mucks.

I get moved to a new table for the final level of the day (500/1000~100). There's a crazy dude there with a huge stack opening and 3betting like nuts and putting a ton of pressure on people. I pick up a few pots and get up to 26k. Get AK in the CO and open to 2.5x, crazy dude 3bets me from SB, e z ship. He has KK. He asks the table if anyone folded an Ace... silence. Board AAJxx. Lucksaqed up to 52k, 38k average on the last level of the day.

Get QQ UTG+1, raise, BTN shoves for 14k, I obv call. Lose vs his AJ.

10mins to end of day1, crazy dude raises from MP, folds to me in SB, I have AA. He's been calling 3bets a lot and shoving flops so I decide to 3bet to 7.5k leaving 28k behind so I can bet 8k on the flop and make him feel like he's got fold equity. If he calls stacks are set up to shove turn.

I 3b, he flats. Flop KT5s, I bet 8k, he calls. Turn 9s, I shove, he says "I called you as a float but now I've got a draw... you're not gonna be happy if I hit" and calls. River 4s. Booface. Obv he plays the hand terribly, but whatever I sucked out on him AKvKK earlier.

No $250k this time!

We're headed to NZ in a week for the APPT, will likely play at least the 6-max event there.

Pokernews Cup 6-max Event

2009-10-01T22:24:00.000-07:00

Finished 12th in Event 6 of the Pokernews Cup (the $550 6max) yesterday for 2.1k buckaroos. Pretty good fun to get semi-deep in the first live event I've played here. Played very aggressively at the bubble to try to run chips up for the final table rather than just making the money. Scraped into the final 2 tables pay-jump with 2.6bbs after losing almost all of my stack QQvKJ AIPF. Ran it up a bit then lost JJvQQ AIPF on a KJxTA board.

Martin and Chris both had 10% of my buy-in each, and I had a $100 last longer bet with Chris who bust out in the first level after calling some guy down 3 streets with ace and king. Dude made a sick river valueshove with 72 for 4th pair lol livepoker. His version here. Hopefully there will be more last longer freerolls to come!

Main Event
Just played a bunch online and feel like my game is really sharp at the moment, confidence is high. The first day 1 of the Pokernews Cup main event is being played now and day 1 flight 2 is tomorrow. I may play that depending on mood/confidence/tolerance to being in a casino poker room for the day. It's a $2,200 deepstack event, from what I saw yesterday I'd expect the field to be real soft.

I'll take some more staking if I do end up playing it. 1/4 is already gone to Chris/Martin who enjoyed the 6max event from the poker room bar, drinking free beer while I did the tough work.

If you want any (in $100 blocks) drop me a mail or msg me before the 2nd day 1 begins. I'll confirm back to you if you booked the stake in time before I leave for the event. I'll only take stakes if I know who you are and you'll need to be able to pay by transfer on an online poker site. Pokernews are covering the event so you'll be able to follow live updates there.

Meh-lbourne

2009-09-28T02:28:00.000-07:00

There are 2 times I'm generally motivated to blog, when things are going real well and when things are going badly.

Emo day
This has been a pretty shitty day so far. We woke up a little hungover to find that the internet wasn't working so slept in a bit, got food then came back to the hostel for like midday. Still no internet and the soft Sunday games slipping away by the minute, went to the gym then grabbed a shower and the internet was back up by like 2pm, so around 1-2 hours of good games left. Lost $2k in 200 hands then the net died again. Sigh, super fucking frustrating.

Quit frustrated then decided to attempt unlocking my iphone so I can use it over here. Failed at that, leaving it in the unusable recovery mode and the internet here is too shit to download the 3.1 update to restore it. SIGH! Went into town for a bit to chill out, now back and not too much going down. Don't feel like doing much poker related at the moment so I'm here writing this whiney blog.

Poker is a piece of shit
I just don't feel like I can get my month going which is frustrating me greatly. Since the last post where I dropped a ton of money it's been: grind out $2-3k day, bust $3k the next day and quit, go for drinks, repeat step one.

I feel like I'm for the most part playing well and my results are good at 5/10 and below this month, but as you can see 10/20 has been killing me. I accept that my $$$ variance is obviously going to be way higher in higher limit games, but it's still not fun to take repeatedly.

Pretty depressed in general at how badly poker is going for me here so far, I'm down $14k since arriving in Aus 2 weeks ago. Guess I've just gotta keep telling myself that it's just down to variance at 10/20 but I'm unhappy at the prospect of having another losing month. Tough to get out of that mindset.

Poker is a pretty big part of day to day life here at the moment. Most of our chat is poker related, trying to spend a lot of time playing and working on our games. So to be running bad is really frustrating. Should probably insert something about positivity, mindset, learning, etc here... ahh well.

Pokernews Cup
We headed over to the Crown last night and checked out the Pokernews cup action. Lot of higher cash games running, some 5/10/20 and even a 10/20/40 game about to kick off. Thinking about playing a couple of the events. There's a 6-max $550 tourney in a couple of days I think we're all gonna play in, and tempted to try to get partially staked to play the $2,200 main event as I reckon it'll be real soft.

APPT Auckland
Booked up for New Zealand yesterday, flying over in 2 weeks time for the APPT. Don't know a whole lot about the rest of NZ... any stuff to do recommendations around Auckland?

Meeting people
I was hoping that staying around here we'd be meeting and socialising with people a lot more but it hasn't really worked out so far. It was kind of similar with Thailand, when your with a group of people you've got less of a need to socialise with other folk. Might give some online dating a shot over here, hit some clubs, etc. It'd be cool to meet new people and have some non-poker friends to hang out with.

In other news I've lost the last 4 CCRs for dinner in a row, that's a 1.2% chance, fml! Was 0 for 6 before that in fairness.

Just realised that I've not yet watched the last 4 episodes of Entourage... win.

Crikey

2009-09-21T23:05:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been pretty gay, lost a bunch of moneys and feel like is started affected my decision making yesterday so taking today off to chill out and study. September graph of moan for y'all...

Here's my list of awesome things to read when you're on a downswing or have lost a bunch of money and need to sort your head out.

Gigabet - Almost there with success and failure
Phil Galfond - You are BAD at poker
Internet Pokers - Poker is a whore
Wonderboy - 100k hands without a hud
Tommy Angelo - DC Series Ep 8, bankroll bits

Aus stuff...

On a positive note we got accepted for a sweet house that we applied for in a great area... then turned it down! The agents took a few days to get back to us about it, by which time we'd checked out a few hostels and found probably the most ballin' hostel ever. Place has a huge rooftop area for getting social, drinking, anti-tilting, it has a gym, games room and even a freaking cinema in it. It's in a perfect location just at the edge of the CBD too, 15min walk to the Crown. Check it out... www.vichall.com.au

House-hunting was just getting so god damn depressing and this place gives us a bunch more freedom, lets us move around move and also socialise with a bunch of new people. So planning on heading to NZ for a week or 2 for APPT, and to Sydney for a week for APPT and a week for beaches before USA. May also hit up somewhere on the north/east coast will see what happens.

Lots of cool stuff going on over the next few weeks though so we're pretty excited about it. The Melbourne Cup horse races are next weekend, Melbourne festival starts in a couple of weeks, Pokernews up is running at the Crown in a week, and we gots tickets for NOFX/Bad Religion tomorrow night. Just need it to get warmer here, it's not actually that hot!

3 months, 3 dudes, $300k.

2009-09-19T00:49:00.001-07:00

In the style of 2M2MM we have decided to set ourselves the lofty target of making $300,000 between the 3 of us us in the 3 months we're in Aus.

Naturally after creating said target we're all running like death. I had a really rough morning today losing over $8k in an hour, mostly at 10/20. Went 4k down through pretty standard cooler/flip situations then had a 8k hand where I flopped trips/topkicker vs a complete maniac's trips and he hit his kicker. Went over the hand with Chris/Martin and the river was probably a tight fold, but I reckon it was close to neutral seeing as the villain was so insanely aggro. The converting fucked up somewhere, but this is the hand.

That was a few hours ago, went out for food and checked out the Crown Casino and I don't feel too bad now. I'm trying to keep the mindset I chatted about a bit in the last post that the ups and downs just don't matter and you just need to focus on the games you're in, the bankroll you have and studying your play.

"If only we could just live our bankroll, every single second, no matter what it was, the amount of agony we would let go of is HUGE." ~ Tommy Angelo

It doesn't matter that I was up $X for the month then lost a large chunk of it. It just matters that I played in games that I was +EV in, was happy with my play (and analysed anything that I misplayed) and am comfortable playing the limits I'm playing with my current bankroll. It helps that I'm still up for the month. Will hopefully get back to the tables tonight to play some live at the Crown.

-- EDIT: Some good action, played another session, -$11k day... siiigh. New worst day ever.

Anyways, for those of you who aren't interested in my poker mindset ramblings... some trip updatery...

Still no house in Aus yet, we've been crashing at a hotel for the past 4 days and viewing and putting in applications for places.

Japan was awesome. Maybe I'll do some sort of trip report, but I really don't have any motivation to write about it. Cliffnotes: Sumo wrestling is the best live sport ever, Japanese girls are v pretty, sushi is good! There were some pretty funny stories and stuff, was a lot of fun, maybe I'll be more motivated to write about it later.

Some pics from the Japan trip. Or you can check them all out here.

Downtown Shinjuku, near our hotel, awesome for cool/weird bars

Ringside sumo action, 1st day of a big tourney in Tokyo
Maid cafe, where loads of cute Japanese girls get paid to dress up and serve dudes, mostly full of Japanese teenagers reading comics!
It's expensive to keep a pet in Tokyo, you can pay a visit to the Cat Cafe instead and pet a bunch of kittahs!
Workers slicing up a huge fresh fish for wholesale at Tsukiji market at 6am.

Do you live in Melbourne?

2009-09-02T20:03:00.000-07:00

If so, can we come gatecrash your house? We're having a nightmare at the moment trying to find a place to rent for 3 months. Everywhere seems to want 6-month minimum contracts, and the shorter contract places are RIDIC expensive. Oh yea and we're leaving here in like 4 days.

So far we've come up with... living in Aus for 6 months instead, hiring a motorhome(the GrindBus) to travel around Aus in, or I guess we could be high-stakes pokertramps living on McDonalds's wifi. Solution pleeeeeease?

Planning Tokyo, booking hotels, etc tonight and tomorrow. Should be hooking up Sumo tickets too, sweeeeeet! If anyone has bar/restaurant/club/etc suggestions please shoot them in comments.

August
Was my worst results month ever, finishing -$5k. The usual running badly, with some playing badly mixed in. I feel like I did a good job of not letting it bother me too much which is really important. Off to a good start so far on September already, which is nice.

Tommy Angelo's 8th DC vid
Fantastic penultimate video to the series. One point really hit home hard with me, I'll try to describe it without completely ripping off his content...

I have sessions where I win 5bi early then end up dropping 5bi just before the end of the session, they make me feel VERY angry. Why? Because according to Tommy the pain comes from the attachment to the money won. If there was no attachment to the money then there would be no anger/frustration.

It made me think for a few minutes about how graphs really don't matter. All that matters is your current focus/concentration (mental state), being able to beat the games you're sat in (game selection) and having enough money to not feel anxious about losing what you have on the table (bankroll management). If you can focus yourself on those things rather than how you're running (the past) or winning your money back (the future) then you'll play as optimally as possible.

To quote Tommy, "If we could just live our bankroll, every single second, no matter what it was, the amount of agony we'd let go of is huge".

I always find that when I have a bad run one of the things I do to de-stress and make myself comfortable is to review my bankroll and long-term results. They always make me feel happier and more confident. I realise I have the skill required, the bankroll required and I just focus on my current mental state.

Anyways I rambled on a bit there, but it's something that really clicks with me. Watch the video, the 'grand delusion' non-attachment related part is fantastic too.

Twitter
Added this on the left bar you'll have noticed! I think it'll come in handy for posting tilted ASDKJASLDKJSALKDJSD updates, random travelling pics, recommendations on videos to watch, etc. So i'll be using it for poker related stuff... which might be weird for the people who already have me added for non-poker reasons, but whatever.

Round the world trip

2009-08-26T14:03:00.000-07:00

Flight are booked for my pre-xmas trip, leave in 2 weeks. Super excited! The itinerary is...

8th Sept
** Edinburgh -> London -> Tokyo **

Eat sushi, ride the bullet train, see some Sumo wrestling, get owned at streetfighter by 8 year olds.

13th Sept
** Tokyo -> Sydney -> Melbourne **

Living in Melbourne with Dodgy/Pureklas for 3 months, need to start looking at houses this week.

27th Sept - 5th Oct
Pokernews Cup Melbourne

14-18th Oct
New Zealand for APPT Auckland

1-6th Dec
APPT Sydney

13th Dec
** Melbourne -> Los Angeles **

14 freaking hour non-stop flight. Spend some time on the west coast, hopefully catch LA, SF, Southern Cali and Noel!

20th Dec
** San Fran(?) -> New York **

Do some xmas shopping in NY, eat all the amazing food people keep banging on about, fulfil my life purpose of seeing the Moscow Cat Theatre.

23rd Dec
** NY -> London -> Edinburgh **

Get back home 1pm on xmas eve, win!

I feel really lucky to be able to go on a trip like this... always wanted to go to Tokyo and NY. Def gonna make the most of it and do as much as possible. If you're around at any of the places we're going let me know and we can grab some beers.

Stuck quite a bit at poker this month, 5 days to un-busto my month... big shift for me tonight and got a VIP Aruba freeroll... one time? Gogogogo!

Back to Edinburgh for a few weeks

2009-08-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

Been busy a lot over the last 4-5 days; friend's wedding, festival night out'age, then down visiting family in Manchester. Managed to catch a lift up to Edinburgh tomorrow which is sweet even sweeter have shipped a room at a friends flat for the next couple of weeks.

So the plan is... back up to Edinburgh, move stuff over to new place, book Aus, last 2 weeks of the Edinburgh Festival party'age and lots of griiiind!

I've hardly got any poker in so far this month due to a lot going on - but I have done 6-7 coaching sessions. Tried to post a HM graph but it's not running as my internet here is broken, doh. I did unbusto the month (was down $7k now up $1k or something) so hopefully I can keep the upward trend and run up some profits.

Just got done watch the premiere of 2M2MM, it's real good imo... really looking forward to the rest. Krantz and co do a great job of showing all sides of the high-stakes internet poker pro lifestyle. I think it'd be pretty interesting viewing for non-poker players too. You can watch the whole first episode on Pokertube.

Also, another student shoutout... check out Scott's blog, DoggyStylePoker!

A hand with Phil Hellmuth

2009-08-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

At the new seven-deuce tables on Cereus...

This is my favourite hand of poker I've played in my life. There were a few others from the session but this one stands out the most. Surely it doesn't get any better than value check/raising Phil Hellmuth on the river? Oh baby! :)

$25/$50 No Limit Holdem
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG	BRANDONMIK	($3616.00)
UTG+1	UOFGSFINEST	($5137.00)
CO	PRELATE	($5036.00)
BTN	PHILHELLMUTH	($5901.00)
SB	SPIRIT ROCK	($12404.00)
BB	Hero	($4387.00)

Pre-flop: ($75, 6 players) Hero is BB

3 folds, PHILHELLMUTH raises to $100, 1 fold, Hero calls $50

Flop: ($285, 2 players)
Hero checks, PHILHELLMUTH checks

Turn: ($285, 2 players)
Hero checks, PHILHELLMUTH bets $285, Hero calls $285

River: ($855, 2 players)
Hero checks, PHILHELLMUTH bets $650, Hero raises to $1,950, PHILHELLMUTH calls $1,300

Final Pot: $4,755
PHILHELLMUTH shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $4,752 ( won +$2,417 )
PHILHELLMUTH lost -$2,335

PHILHELLMUTH: wow
SPIRIT ROCK wins ($185.00 chips).
PHILHELLMUTH: sick ****** ace
PHILHELLMUTH: especially against crazy guy loike U

Life is good :D

S'update

2009-08-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

Kicked off the month with 2 really shitty sessions, running terribly in soft high-stakes games and dropping ~$11k in like 2 hours play across 2 days. Didn't really feel much like playing after that and took a break for a while.

Martin(Dodgyken) and Chris(Pureklas) came up to Edinburgh for a few days to hang out and chat about plans to go to Australia next month. If all goes to plan we're looking to head over to Melbourne early September and set up house there for the winter. I've been to Melbourne before and absolutely love it, so I'm psyched about going back to live for a while, it's an awesome city. Been checking out flights, thinking about buying a round the world ticket but got until my new passport arrives to decide.

Until then I'm currently flat-less which is kind of weird. It's grind time up north at the mo, just got set up at my Dad's where I'll be for a few days. There's nothing to do in this town (Auchtermuchty) so I'll finally get back to playing some poker. Put in a session tonight at lower-stakes finishing up around $1.3k. Actually, we do have a sweet electronic drum kit/guitars setup up here, so will be fun to get down to some much needed practise and do some jamming.

Headed back to Edinburgh this weekend for a wedding and more festival fun. The Edinburgh festival totally rocks, loads of great outdoor beergarden venues, tons of live comedy, and clubs have late licenses 'til 6am. Win! Headed down to Manchester on Sunday to catch up with my Mum and family for bit and will come back up for the end of the festival before heading to Aus.

Not taking any more applications for new students. I've started work with 4 guys which is going great, still in early stages but looking forward to seeing them move up stakes and crush!

Gonna go watch new Entourage and sleep. Oh and I know I'm like a month late to the party but The Hangover is freaking awesome.

Welcome to August

2009-08-01T04:25:00.000-07:00

When you lose $5,000 in under an hour you just know it's gonna be a good one!

$1,000 of that is due to a bad calldown by me, $4000 of that is due to spastic fucking monkey plays by my opponents who hit repeatedly. I know I should love you donkeys but tonight it has just made me want to break stuff.

There, that feels better. At least I didn't completely waste your time...

Taking on new students

2009-07-29T13:32:00.000-07:00

Gay inspirational pic, check! Competitive rate, check! Ability to teach you to CRUSH 50nl to 200nl, mega-check!

My game and mindset are in great shape right now and I'd really like to teach some new students the arts of crushing online poker! I figure the best way to gain attention as a coach is to post recent results and recommendations from students/friends. So here you go...

Last 2 Months Graph

HEM Database Graph (since going pro)

I'll coach anyone at 50nl or 100nl for $100/hour. $200nl (or moving up to $200nl) players for $150/hour. If you're interested in coaching drop me an email (bazclef at gmail dot com), or check out my coaching page for recommendations and more details.

Also, shout out to a new student Wonderflop, looking forward to getting started working with him. He's an SSNL player from Portadown (Northern Ireland), check out his blog and give him some love.

Wehhh!

2009-07-24T17:28:00.000-07:00

Played a session just now that really frustrated me. For the first time in a while I feel like I played a few hands badly due to a lack of focus and concentration. I was working on some stuff while 2-tabling, not cool. I really played them like a TAGfish, without putting enough thought into them and quit out really annoyed at myself.

EDIT: Decided to remove a bunch of vent hands that were pretty dull.

When I got back from Russia I felt really excited about getting back into poker and put in some great sessions, including an $11k day(ding!). I moved over to my Aunt's house where I'm at just now, house sitting here for a few weeks while they're all on holiday. Since then I've been pretty unhappy with my work-rate and play. I've played something ridic like 6k hands this month, and 1k of them was in a 4-tabling HU match vs a friend. Granted I was away for a couple of weeks but it's still not enough. I really need to sort my shit out here and get my head in the game, will start hitting the gym next week, hopefully that will help.

Some great poker videos out at the moment. Phil Galfond has put out a 2-tabling Railheaven series on Bluefire and DC are rightly giving NoahSD a ton of airtime. Reall tempted to renew CR too as they're putting out a bunch of DogIsHead. Studytown for me.

Thanks to everyone for responses to the previous travelling post. There has been some progress and I'm talking to a couple of players just now about setting up a house in Melbourne, Australia. Still in the early stages but I think it's really promising. The weather, location and time-zones for poker make it an awesome winter destination. It's possible to catch some APPT from there too, and the Aussie Millions is in January.

If you've not already, check out the 2M2MM trailers... looks sweet. Although Whitelime kind of looks like a serial killer in real life.

Where to?

2009-07-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

So I'm in Edinburgh for the next month, but come mid-August I'll have no long-term place to stay. Really just posting here to put my shit out there and see if anyone is in a similar situation, has something available, has some advice, etc.

I'm looking to set up something cool for Sept/Oct/Nov, would like to share a house/apartment with other poker players. Kind of like the 3 months in Thailand earlier this year, but somewhere else. Preferably not a cold country.

Gonna kind of hunt around for a week or so and if I can't find something that works out will try setting up a house somewhere via 2p2.

My shortlist of good places to live Sept-Nov based on climate/fun are currently...

Seoul (South Korea) ~ APPT in Sept
Metro Manila (Phillipines) ~ APPT in Nov
Melbourne (Australia)
Sao Paulo (Brazil)
Buenos Aires (Argentina)
San Sebastian (Spain)
California or NYC (USA)

Any ideas, toss them over. I'd be happy to stay anywhere with friendly/fun poker ppl.

Cross-posted in 2p2 travel thread.

Ty ♥