Im playing the Monte Carlo £1k at DTD this weekend. I am feeling really good about game live game at the moment, especially after my deep run in the £300 last time round.

I guess the field is going to be a little tougher, but the deepstack really suits my game, as I prefer to play some post flop poker.

I probably wont have too much time to update my blog during the tourney, so it will have to be a post game analysis.

Be nice to have a bit of run good before xmas, and even better before my wedding in early January!

There are plenty Blondites playing as well, so if nothing else it should be a good atmosphere!

1 timeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Sickest Hand Ever

This was from the DTD 300 deepstack mentioned above

So............. there is always a key hand...............

i have 21k
villain 1 has 9k
villain 2 21k

My image is still super solid (not played too loose - or not that the table would know)

I raise 8To utg @ 150/300 to 850
Called by V1 (who I am convinced has a monster - prob AA - he has wanted me all day since i bluffed his mate off a big pot)
Called by V2 in the BB who i presume is calling for value

Flop - 88T

I know.............. it must be nice

checks around

turn 2 ................bringing a 2nd spade

I lead for 1500
V1 calls (i now 100% have him on AA)
V2 tanks and raises to 4500!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldnt put him on anything other than a flush draw but he thought i was "at it" or he could take me off a hand. I did think waht beats me - figured he never makes that bet with TT so...........

I reassess. If V1 reshoves behind he doesnt reopen the betting, so i tank.............. and flat call

V1 flat calls....................WTF - worse played AA ever I think. - he has 2k behind

River 8 (weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee "now how do I gett pai......................."

V2 "im all in"

he shoves like 15k into a 15k pot

I snap call so not to be seen to be slow rolling.................

V1 laughable calls with his KK

Anyway - i know the villain - he rolls his hand and says - unlucky fella and rolls TT!!!!!!!!!!!!

My hand is already face up and I say ............"erm chris........... i have quads" - proper devastated

Its been a while......................

Ok – well it feels like forever since I posted – not had the greatest of years. A poker/life summary since Ireland:

April ran OK – break even
May – got made redundant
May – ran like death – see the graph in next post.
June – Won a tourney on stars (annual occasion)
June – contuined to run like death on I poker (see graph)
July – stopped playing (totally – even cancelled my PXF subscription)
Aug – 1 live tourney in London – [ ] I ran well
Sept – Got a job offer
Oct – Started to grind my online rolls back up
Nov – Played my first live tourney in anger and came 10th at DTD deepstacks – very happy with my game
Nov -2 live tourneys in Birmingham,
Dec - Up to date! I have been ‘backed’ to play the super deepstack “Monte Carlo” weekend at DTD. I am sooooooooooo excited about this event. It really suits my game, I have a good track record at DTD, and by the look of it there will be plenty satty entries, so value in the room. That said the great and good of the UK poker scene will no doubt be around too! I really feel like a deserve to finish off one of these deep runs and this would be very timely!

That’s it you are up to speed – more in depth stuff below!

WSOP status and Poker stars VIP

OK. The wsop sattys aren’t going that well! I played the 1st one 2 weeks ago after watching ricky hatton. It paid 1 seat and 25 people got their buy in back ($475). Well this is a short story – i played 1 hand! Got it in great – came out with no chips.

The second attempt was on Sunday. I had a very tough table but was well and truly in command. However – i managed to stuff a big chip lead loosing with AA KK and AK in 20 hands – all in pre flop mostly as 80% favourites! What can you do – another day and I am guaranteed a seat!

I am currently playing .50/1 cash games on stars to try and achieve supernova status with their May offer! Going great so far. I am easily on for 7500 by End of May which means I will get the 80,000 VPP top up! Then just press on in June for 12,500 more VPP’s and we are there! Got my eyes set on grinding enough FPP’s to get a free I pod touch. Then we can get back to tournies!

I will keep this updated – next shot on Sunday!

Ireland Report

Ok well the more observant will notice this report isn’t exactly straight after the event like usual!

Well Ireland was just the sickness – everything about it sucked.
In short – the ME – my table was amazing – me and some Skandie kid had game. Unfortunately, we got into a bit of a cock swinging contest and we should have concentrated on everyone else. That said it worked great for me – I 5 bet all in pre with KK and got snap called by A10o. Good call buddy – good call!

Anyway, obv there was an A in the window GG me. The only thing more surprising was that Tom Middleton was out before me – his demise being with AA! Wasn’t a run good weekend for Leeds!

AS for the cash – well i lost 3 1500+ pots with 2nd nuts – so that was nice!. All in all – it was a painful weekend and one to be forgotten about quickly.

I took a week off poker and feel better for it! I managed 3rd in the 10k G 30r on Ultimate Bet for 1.4k which was nice. I have been a huge critic of UB – but i joined in order to try and hit a WSOP seat. So we now have a mini roll to get going with – lets see what we can do. I have a step 7 & 8 in the bag too!

What with my impending wedding – i have decided that the first seat will go towards paying for that – so I am now needing 4 seats to realistically go! That said Ireland has slightly put me off the one big hit approach so we will have to see!

I am feeling positive about my game at the minute. Lots of FT’s in sub 300 runner fields. I would love to bink a big one again soon – feels like its been a while!

175/1

Thats my odds to be bringing home the goods this weekend!

They are actually quite flattering putting me in the same bracket as Rutter/Akenhead/Marenholz and Thew along with many others!

I am feeling good - so if you fancy a long shot punt this weekend - stick it on me (id go each way thou ;0) )

Wish me the luck of the Irish!

Insta Recovery

Talk about Bi-Polar! Im feeling great this morning.

I played 2 games last night, the 500 and the 109 on I poker. The 500 didnt go too well – I flopped middle pair and up and down and decided it was good enough to go with given I had shown pre flop strength! I unfortunately ran into top set (which i figure is the only hand who can realistically call me).

I then played the 109 which is a game I have played alot and been successful in. Well I was card dead for 2 hours, but decided to keep it tight. Then someone obviously changed the deck and started hitting me in the face with it! I took my 4k starting stack to 21k. I then managed to work on my image and get a great stack for the bubble.

On the bubble I turned into ‘super lag’ and ended up with 71k stack, which was nice. The final table was playing quite deep-stacked and I just kept the pressure right on. It was without exception the most aggressive final table I have ever played, and it paid off. I had a 2:1 chip lead by the time we got Heads-up but lost it when my KQ got all in against K6cc on a 2 club board! Rather annoyingly he binked the 6!

There was a 5 minute break, which in all fairness saved me from tilting off the lot. I woke up with AA and when he 4 bet me all in with A6cc i didn’t fancy passing. Having regained the CL, i had 910 hh on a 3 T J board. He check raised me all in, a move which he had tried several times so I couldn’t put him just on a J. I called, he showed J5. Turn brought a lovely 8, and the river a 9!

So I finally broke my I poker duck. 7 second places, countless final tables, and finally a win! It felt very very sweet. More importantly I really do feel like I am playing my A game and am in the right frame of mind for Ireland. I am really looking forward to the experience of playing the Irish Open and will keep this updated over the weekend.

V bad Weekend!

Ug! Thats all. My weekend sucked. I played event #8 in the SCOOP and sucked. $320 well spent!

I have also found out that apparently 5 card draw is my best game! I finished 48/4,500 runners in the Low buy in event – 9 hours to win (ahem) <$100. Joy!

I kinda wish I hadn’t played at all as my confidence is wrecked. A week of PMA required before Friday me thinks. I am probably gonna play the 200 rebuy on the Thursday to get my live game back in check! That is providing they are paying the seats in cash! It has to be a distinct advantage to know you have your seat wrapped on the bubble. Would be nice to bink 3.5k the day before a big event – again – it resolves and bubble issues you may have!

Speaking of the bubble, I heard that Sorrel Mizzi doubled his chipstack on the bubble in the IO a few years ago. Please let me get there with a big stack and watch me go. For me, the best live player at this is Sunny Chatta. The guy is brutal. Totally pwned my soul in Blackpool – and i thought i was going to be fine on the bubble! He 4 bet me with 93o and I showed my AQ fold *puke*.

Anyway back to chanting ‘pocket aces’ for the next 4 days!

3rd time lucky in Ireland?

Well all I can say is that the feeling was dead on! I played a great game last night and finally shipped my seat for Ireland! All things told it has probably cost me $750 to get in but for a €3400 seat that seems like a great investment!
I am really looking forward to Ireland. My game is flying high at the moment, I seem to be pulling out the A game more and more. I ‘live recorded’ my session last night and I am really looking forward to reviewing it all – seeing if there were any mistakes and also seeing how my emotions were! I felt really in check all night. Ok I was lucky to build a good stack for the bubble – but my play on the bubble was ‘pure abuse’. It was sick! I took my stack from 25k to 61k (getting slightly lucky in the final bubble hand), but then my AK did lose to KQ for a 40k pot later on- the reality is, my chips were at risk 3 times all night! I will be uploading the live recordings and I am happy to share links if anyone wants to see it.

As for Ireland itself, well I love the venue! The city west hotel and its conference room make a great venue for such a big tournament. I played the Irish Winter Fesitval last October, and felt like I played great, both in the Main Event and the 200r. Infact my nemesis QQ put pay to my deep run in the 200r! Sigh. Then there was the recent Deepstack when I went from chip lead to busto in 40 horrible minutes! – yes 20 hands! So, the way I see it I am due some of that Irish Luck! The great thing about Ireland is. At least if you bust - there is plenty of craic ‘on tap’!

Keep it all, crossed!

One time!

Got a feeling...................

that is all - feeling good about sunday!

STEP to it!

The WSOP that is! I have decided to turn my focus to the World Series both as a bankroll builder and as a serious attempt to get out there to play.

I have decided that 3 seats will be enough to take 2 weeks unpaid off work and feel comfortable about doing it! As such I have started building up ‘steps’ on Poker Stars. I have already achieved 4 step 4’s and would like 10 in the bag before heading on up to the summit (and probably having to beat Stevie444 on the way!)

There is obviously the final Sunday game (650 or 320 buy in 200 seats guarantee). I have had good success with this in the past, but I want to have 1 or 2 in the bag by the final weekend! I am probably going to try on I poker as well due to the softer fields, and i also have to accept the package if I win it! It would be nice to be ‘forced’ to go

I’ll keep this updated

Someone applied the breaks!.....

Oh well – Sunday sucked! I was actually really happy with the way I played – my game reading is at an all time high.

The weekend started on Friday – I went to my local casino, only to find the usually 50 runners had turned into 10! I managed to convince people to stay and we had a £25 triple chance! I suggested a £50 freeze – but no, apparently that wasn’t a good idea. It was an amazing experience to go back to that level again. The play was soooooo bad. I decided to make it a personal test and make sure i won – or at least have no reason not to! One example is all you need – at 50/100 some kid moves all in for 4500 UTG! I relinquished my BB! Needless to say he was soon heading for the door! His justification.... “i didnt wanna see a flop with 8’s”! I suggested that he might not only have seen a flop but also the door – which he did get! Oh well – thats where the money comes from I suppose.

Infact, when it boils down to it, it is the millions of people like that who, at the end of the day, keep Phil Ivey and co’ in Penthouses and Helicopters! Poker has a strange eco system which if you think too hard about it would make you stop playing! Anyhow I digress! I ended up shipping the £295 for 1st. I contemplated a chop HU – but the kid clearly had no idea of push fold, so played it out and won!

So, as for yesterday, I pretty much played 14 hours of poker yesterday! Was playing cash, 3/6NLHE, and the pattern was fairly consistent in each set i played:

Sit down – get AA or KK – get AIPF – lose $600 to a 2 outer (ie $1200 pot), reload and grind up to $1200 - log off!

I do not joke when I say this happened 3 times! I am now open folding AA in cash games – it is the biggest ‘leak’ in my game!
So I played great – but broke even – meh! I also cant believe that people buy into a 3/6 game with $120! – Open to $18 and fold to a 3bet! – Very profitable for me!

Then onto the tourneys! To be honest – i was probably a bit tired to play my A game – but that said – I think I was on a really good auto pilot.

I poker 250k – ran it up to 9k in 1st hour – card dead in 2nd hour – although I managed to 3 bet the guy in seat 6, 5 times to maintain my stack! He was raising alot! The rot set in when AJ < J5 - aipf!!!! That pot would have put me right on track for a result. Instead i was left with 7k @ 300/600 (50). Found some spots and eventually my 99 was no good into BB with QQ!

Irish Open – I couldn’t get the stack moving in this one – but played great. All the money went in on a Qs 9s 7 board (3 way mine went in 1st). I had AQ, donkey had KQ (last in the pot) and the other guy had Asxs for the nut flush draw. Turn came a pretty A, river a very ugly spade! Was a 9.5 k pot and left the winner as chip lead! Still – you gotta win those hands!

Sunday Million – ended up in a Last Longer with 2 other pxf subs! Lost a big pot early got me down to 5k (i missed!). Built it back up to 9k before losing a race AIPF JJ < AK – rivered! 
So as you can see – it wasn’t my day – however – i didn’t exactly play bad!

Got 2 more weekends of shots at the Irish open – 1 timmeeeeee pls!
Focus now turning to the WSOP!

Part III...........?

Well I have been playing great of late – had a mishap on Tuesday night after getting very deep in the 109 12.5k nightly game on I poker. Despite the one off I am really happy with my game. I have been getting to the bubble with good stacks of late and abusing it senseless! I feel like I am having a mini on line renaissance!

So – part III – can I make it 3 Sundays on the bounce? Well, Ill be going for the Ireland satty, and i will also play the 250k on I poker, so to be honest I can only really concentrate on 3 big games. Therefore I will miss the Brawl and probably play the Sunday Million instead!

My concentration has definitely improved whilst playing on line, and I will let you all in on the secret – Peppermint Tea! I reviewed some games and noted a really high correlation between my ‘second break coffee’ and donking off chips early in level 3. So I have cut out the coffee and replaced it with my new Minty Infusion! What with my beverage alterations and people telling me to eat Low Carb/Low GI before big games – im starting to think that playing poker is becoming more akin to being a top athlete! ................ Erm well OK – maybe not!

weeeeeeeeee - Run good Sundays!

Weeeeeeeeeeeee – Run good Sundays

Well – its not the game a was hoping to hit – but I managed to come 2nd in the 109 30k guarantee on I poker on Sunday. TO be fair it should have been a win but AA < Q2hh AIPF (2 on flop, 2 on river – obv).

So thats the good news............ now for the Irish Open satty...... erm played really well – went card dead – got to the bubble – 3 bet AIPF against a raise from the cut off ....... my AA<910 – obv! To be fair I didn’t have to sweat it – he flopped the str8! MBN!

However after 2 weekends of results the bank roll is healthy for Ireland sattys. Surely I can get it wrapped up this week!

Shooting for Ireland

Shooting for Ireland

Well the next date in my ‘live poker’ calender is the Irish Open, with 1 minor snag – i haven’t qualified yet!!! I usually get my qualification for live events out of the way as early as possible, but I am having issues this year!
So, the flights are booked, the hotel is booked, but the seat isn’t! Im not too concerned, as the City West is a great venue and even if I don’t qualify I will go for the craic! However thats not the intention nor desire!

I have booked my flight for Thursday morning, so worst case I can go to City West and play the super sat the day before. Although given it is a 3 day tourney – i don’t really want to play 9 hours the night before trying to qualify!
I have some ghosts to put to rest in Ireland – so I am hoping that this will be my weekend -qualification updates to follow............................... (trying again on Sunday)

Right weekend, wrong game!

Right weekend wrong game

Oh well – calling my £300 win seems a little premature! I got to the last hour of DAY 1 with 15 Bb’s and ended up losing a race. I had been pretty card dead and couldn’t find any spots so when got 77 (with a raise ahead) i decided it was time to take a flip. The raiser has AK – and the A binks the river! Would have been nice to go back for Day 2 with 30 Bigs – but hey – you gotta win them flips!

I managed to play the I poker $2.5m guarantee on Sunday. Lots of study pre game and making sure I was feeling good about life before the 7pm sit down.

I played the best I have done for a while and managed 80th for 5k which was nice and has me break even for the year! Last year I wasn’t break even till May again having had a horror Jan-March! Lets hope that this gives me the same kick start as it did last time!

I am really looking forward to Ireland now. I haven’t qualified yet but with any luck will bink my seat before I go! Flights are booked so I will be going anyway – but it would be nice to be in before i get there. Otherwise it will be cash games – and that could lead to a crazy weekend!

"calling" out a result

OK – one of my poker mentors BeLOWaBOVe “called” his Sunday Second Chance win on stars several hours before he hit it – so Im going for the same feat!

I am playing the £300 at DTD this weekend which usually pulls some great fields especially since it now qualifies for European Ranking status! I have a reasonable record at DTD, so Im calling my own result – Guy Johnson is gonna be shipping the title on Sunday night/Monday morning!

I have some big targets for this year – one of which is to score some serious European ranking points, and...... well lets just say......... Q1 hasnt started too well! That said Q1 has been f@#kin horrible – i even bubbled my satty to the DTD 300 with KK AIPF! (ok so i ran into ACES again! – but wtf!)

So, ill obv update this on Saturday night – hopefully with a big chiplead and great table - but either way – it will be optimal poker all the way!

The New Me!

Well I have decided to start a blog for teh Pokah as a result of launching the new me in a live setting.

The old me was known for a bust up or 2 - and after the hell that was the European Deepstacks in Ireland (3rd to busto in 40 minutes without a misplayed hand in sight) I blew up pretty badly.

So after taking some time away from Live poker - getting engaged and removing some demons - i am going to present the new me at Dusk till Dawn tonight.

I have a great record at DTD and I am hoping to keep it up in the £75 freeze tonight.

I am now at one with the Poker Gods and lets hope they shine on me tonight!

GL all at the tables!

Guy