Pokerstars

I have been playing on Pokerstars for one month and one week and in that time I have played around 3,000 super turbo sit and goes and have managed to get myself on a few of Sharkscope's leader boards.

It is also pretty amazing to be on the biggest leader board for the year under both my alias'. Something I never thought would happen. 

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Also going to be in Vegas for 10days from the 16th Aug. So won't be grinding in them 10days but will try do an update with some pics and stuff on how the trips going.

OKAYY I WILL STOP BEING SO LAZY AND UPDATE THIS THING

Romania was amazingggggg.
I had one of the best times of my life there and would like to give a big thank you to Niceiq25 for making this all happen. 

The first night I arrived in Bucharest I bought with me 2 bottles of the finest to give as a gesture to Niceiq for allowing me to stay at his. He also made jokes that we would have to pay him 10% of all winnings in the time we stayed at his apartment, the entire apartment together would have sealed him a pretty sick cheque.
After some initial introductions I had around 45minutes to shower and get out to a night club. The club was really good and our table was meters away from famous Romanian rapper 'Guess Who' and although I didn't have a clue what he was rapping about, he certainly knew how to entertain a crowd.
Click here to listen to a sample track of his 
The night ended up of us getting really really wasted, wowkaa and myself trying to break things and some drunken high stakes action, no more said. 

After some really successful grind sessions we decided to go to the beach over the weekend. The beach was very different to what I expected. The entire beach was having a party and chilling at the same time, it was something I had never seen before. Whilst at the beach we went to another club and ran up a pretty sick bill which obviously niceiq and myself ended up splitting after using a dice game to decide who paid the bill, I wish I hadn't already used my 1time in the Sunday brawl last year.

Throughout the week we chilled a lot and grinded quite a bit. I was putting in smaller sessions than I usually do but was still managing to play a lot of games. I didn't play so well in the first few days of the next week. I feel I was playing more aggressive than usual and maybe a bit more fancy, this sometimes happens when playing in front of people, I got over it soon enough and was back in the zone in no time.

Towards the end of the week we went to the mountains and visited some Castles. The journey was really cool and very scary with the way Alex (one of Niceiq's friend's) drove.

Towards the end of the trip we met up with some close friends of Niceiq's one of whom was the son of the ex Prime minister's son. He took us to a pretty baller night club where we ran up yet another big tab, not only did I again loose the flip along with Wowkaa but I also lost $500 to Serkules rolling dice for $100 and $200 a roll, oh the things you do when your drunk. I have a pretty big history of flipping with Serkules, he has some special powers so don't waste your time or money getting hustled by him lol. Well played fish well played. (For those who don't understand the term to 'flip' for something; it is when you use something that is always going to be even chance of winning for each person involved ie: rolling a dice or drawing straws, it's a fun way to pay for things between friends without anyone having an advantage. Well unless your Serkules that is. :) ) Again the night ended with us all really wasted and Wowkaa and myself trying to break things, this time the plant's in Niceiq's building were our victims. :)

A lot happened in the 10 days I was in Romania, and words probably wouldn't describe everything as a lot of the happiness came from things I probably couldn't describe, but I will leave the post with a bunch of pictures from Serkules' camera to get a better feel for the trip.

Some final thoughts on the trip. I would like to give a shout out to everyone I met on the trip:
Alexandra, thanks for letting us steal your boyfriend away from you for so long even if wowkaa got jealous when you were around :).
Andrei, was good to meet you. You have definitely changed my opinion on 'fish.' ><>
Alexandru, thanks for all the effort you put in whilst we were there and showing me some good stuff from Romania.
Oana, well you thought me McDonald's don't use real eggs in their breakfast :).
Dragos aka Ronaldo was good to meet you, I still want those shoes you had on.
Adela, wierd to meet a Romanian person who can speak better English than me.
Stefania, thanks for being such a good tour guide was good times even if you are white and nerdy ;).
Mihnea, Enjoy Paris, 18 FML life hasn't even begun yet bro. 
Niceiq24 (Johnny), thanks for the ray ban's your gonna regret swapping them with me.
Wowkaa (Garik), if you just didn't eat for one day then a lot of lives would be saved in Africa.
Serkules (Serkan), are you stupid or are you stupid? ^^
Jacktheshipper (Jan), I hope all works out with rebuilding, if not you can always hustle people at bowling.

Bucharest

I'm on the plane to Bucharest to meet Niceiq2, Serkules, Wowkaa and Jacktheshipper. I am really excited to meet the 3 guys I have never met and to reunite with my very good friend Serkules the fish ><>.
I expect the guys to be very cool and down to earth from what I have heard from them, plus they are all so positive I think it would be hard not to get along with them. I am looking forward to hearing these other successful theories on poker and how they approach situations. I obviously am very confident and have worked very hard on my individual game. I think my game is pretty unique for the fact I have learned something and taken a little bit out of many successful players in my time, combining styles and taking the best aspects of each players game and adapting it into my own game has a lot to do with how successful I have become.
Seen as one of the reasons in meeting poker players is to exchange information and to get the brain working, I feel it's a good time to post my thoughts on poker and working on your game.
I hear a lot of talk about the games getting harder in online poker and that poker just isn't as profitable as it was a year or two ago. Well it is pretty clear that taking 'standard' lines has become less profitable because of so many people doing it so well especially in the high stakes games. I personally think poker has got a lot harder compared to 2 years ago when I started building my roll. I knew enough to make me good money back then and if you knew today's 'standard' things you were at very high level back then. It's where you go beyond standard is what will take u to from being a 'standard' player into being an 'incredible' player. I once read a quote, 'a poker player who stops working on his game and learning new things is like a man driving a car up a hill and taking his foot of the acceleration; the car will slow down pretty quickly and begin to slowly move back down the hill and gradually pick up speed until it comes crashing down at the bottom of the hill again.' This can definitely be seen in some of the big winners in poker from the last few years who have the attitude of, 'well this is how I made my money, why should I do anything different now?' errmmmm let me think, because the game has evolved and your not a big cut above the rest anymore. Not to be biast, I definitely have seen a rise in more players who play the game by feel oppose to playing the game solely on maths as if a lot of people learn the maths your edge will decrease on each other. But learning the basic maths as a fundamental and developing feel like skills based on instincts and adaptions there is no limit to what level you can be above an opponent. Being un-exploitable in poker doesn't mean your making money in poker, if your opponent is also playing un-exploitable then where is the money going to be? I do understand the fact of the matter is most recreational and regs out there are playing exploitable poker but the gap is closing on what people are learning with all the learning resources online. Realizing what your opponents level is and adapting to just one or more level above them is always what winning poker is going to come down too.
A quick thought into online resources.
I do want these resources to slow down the information they are giving people from a selfish point of view, but my real opinion is I am happy these resources existed when I needed them. If new people are going to come into the winning world of poker these sites need to exist. I owe a lot to the people who have made tutorial videos online and am glad I was part of it from the early stages. I feel the videos from in order: Beanmo, Jackal, Braminc, Brian Townsend, Caby Taylor, Daniel Benningfield, Pimpindonks (congrats on the bracelet btw), Fulltip, Azntracker, Tigerbalm, Croix, Xscwx, Skates, Hokiegreg, Primo, Rdcrsm, (a couple of other MTT regs I can't quite remember) were the foundation of my game and Mersenneary, Aejones, Lucky chewy and Nickachu helped put it all together to make more sense (sorry if I forgotten anyone I am sure I have). A range of different styles and different structures in poker is what it took for me, along with all the personal friends which I don't need to go into because their resources aren't available to the public, to come to where I am. The only way I felt myself going beyond what these videos thought me is taking it into my own hands and developing further as a poker player. This is a big reason why I like networking with different successful regs and seeing what works for them and questioning why does something so different seem to work so well and coming up with the answer. It's called NO LIMIT HOLDEM because there is NO LIMIT to what you can do in it, if you limit yourself then your poker life will become a lot harder a lot quicker.

Enough of the rant, my primary reasons to network with these poker players is to really meet like minded people, enjoy myself and to part some of my knowledge on to them to help them further themselves as players.

From Aug 16th I will be going to Vegas for 10days and from then onwards I will be relocating to Costa Rica initially but will be traveling around different parts of South America and around to the Eastern side of the World if it goes to plan. I will be doing it with fellow heads up grinder and very good friend Oopa11 but plan to meet up with other friends a long the way.

Talking of traveling, a friend who has been traveling quite a bit and just started a blog, it's pretty cool and sure it will come up with a lot of information on different countries as she continues to travel so check it out if your into traveling: sjourneys.blogspot.com

GRIND TIME

So after Full Tilts license being revoked, I found myself in a spot where many young online players found themselves, my online roll being seized and left wondering will I ever get it back. I feel mentally I handled this serious stress I was lumbered with very well considering $30,000+ is a lot of money at my age to have taken away from you and maybe never given back. I thought either way the outcome is out of my control and I can easily bury my head in the sand and mope around the house doing nothing all day! or I accept that it is part of life that shit things will happen and to just get on with it. In a weird way I have really enjoyed the last week, working hard like I used to back in the days with only 3 things on my mind and that's GRIND GRIND GRIND.

The week started out with me only being able to deposit $600ish on Pokerstars, I increased this to $1k after emailing Pokerstars and decided to take VERY aggressive bankroll management, as I felt busting this roll wasn't important as I could always reload it, but doing well could mean going robusto on stars really quick and after seeing just how weak the players were in the $100 super turbo games I never looked back from the get go. On day 2 or 3, I can't remember exactly which day it was, I found myself with a roll of $6,500 and waking up to a call from an excited Serkules telling me they had introduced $200-$1,000 super turbo games on poker stars. I added another $1,000 of my own money onto my account and with a little under 40 buyins I took some shots at $200 games, I again ran overly good in these games too and was soon playing $300games and AGAIN ran overly good, I find myself at the end of the week with a roll of $19,539.11 which is a pretty sick start to my time on stars. I obviously admit I have ran reallyyyyy well and have been getting some really good cooler spots in my favor, but I have also been playing some of the worst players in super turbo history and my style of playing seems to suit these fish really well. So after the week I am over excited about poker again, my stress with the money seized is minimal considering and if I am to get it back I predict it will be one of the happiest days of my life, but if not I am sure it will be no way near one of the saddest days of my life so I have a lot to gain in terms of happiness so pleaseeeeeeeeee Full Tilt pull through one time.

(Above graph says I won around 1.5k more than I did because I chopped with some other players when we both sat at the same time, so was sent back to them)

Also in the week I played a live tournament, it was a £300+30 main event at the Fox Poker club in London. I feel I played day 1 close to the best I have played a live event and came back to day 2 with 80bbs (5th in chips) and due to being not focused and not getting myself prepared, I played probably the worst I have ever played in a live event. I don't want to think too much into it as what ever it's in the past but if I am going to continue playing live poker I am going to take it more seriously and with a bit more professionalism. These buyins are beginning to add up quite a bit lol.

Biggest bad beat I ever gave

Ok, I was looking over some poker forums and came accross this hand I played on the final table of the Sunday brawl last year, and just reminded me of how beautiful it was, unlucky to M_Hawk_1. The reason this is such a bad beat is because it was the final table of a Sunday Major not like I haven't given worse ones in my time ;).


Full Tilt Poker Game #22424481988: The Sunday Brawl Rush (169523900), Table 10 - 14000/28000 Ante 3500 - No Limit Hold'em - 19:51:40 ET - 2010/07/18
Seat 1: m_hawk_1 (945,205)
Seat 2: demonseed14 (678,159)
Seat 6: cmdnst (3,292,073)
Seat 8: MOCA CHOCA (1,393,563)
m_hawk_1 antes 3,500
demonseed14 antes 3,500
cmdnst antes 3,500
MOCA CHOCA antes 3,500
MOCA CHOCA posts the small blind of 14,000
m_hawk_1 posts the big blind of 28,000
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to m_hawk_1 [Ah Ac]
demonseed14 folds
cmdnst folds
MOCA CHOCA has 15 seconds left to act
MOCA CHOCA raises to 56,000
m_hawk_1 has 15 seconds left to act
m_hawk_1 raises to 157,766
MOCA CHOCA has 15 seconds left to act
MOCA CHOCA raises to 1,390,063, and is all in
m_hawk_1 calls 783,939, and is all in
MOCA CHOCA shows [Td Ad]
m_hawk_1 shows [Ah Ac]
Uncalled bet of 448,358 returned to MOCA CHOCA
*** FLOP *** [6d 9s 3s]
*** TURN *** [6d 9s 3s] [Jd]
*** RIVER *** [6d 9s 3s Jd] [3d]
MOCA CHOCA shows a flush, Ace high
m_hawk_1 shows two pair, Aces and Threes
MOCA CHOCA wins the pot (1,897,410) with a flush, Ace high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1,897,410 | Rake 0
Board: [6d 9s 3s Jd 3d]
Seat 1: m_hawk_1 (big blind) showed [Ah Ac] and lost with two pair, Aces and Threes
Seat 2: demonseed14 folded before the Flop
Seat 6: cmdnst (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 8: MOCA CHOCA (small blind) showed [Td Ad] and won (1,897,410) with a flush, Ace high

Also would like to take this opportunity to say a shout out to all the hating fish who talked trash either behind my back (more commonly), or to my face about this/or any hand I have played in poker. Instead of concentrating so much on mine/or ne of my crews hands we play, why don't you take a look at the hands you play for once or are you too scared to open that door ;). But to the supporters, the genuine ones who actually like to see hard work being paid off, thanks for the support and wish you the best of luck in life.

Not going newhere

Just on the train with the man himself, 'Notgoingnewhere.' Chilling, sipping some beers and talking about shit.

I love when I get a chance to speak to Notgoingnewhere one on one about poker, we share many similar views and if we don't always agree we can generally appreciate the others opinion and agree that many things have more than one way of working out. I guess when we think about a situation, we both can put our minds in the bigger picture and see how each view could possibly work out equivalent or very similarly in the long term.

The foundation of our friendship comes from back in the beginning of poker. We were two fish with a dream of being baller poker stars. We both played some live poker in a poker club called 'the western' which also has computers their so you can play online poker if you bust their daily donkaments. I remember 'Notgoingnewhere' being somewhat popular amongst the regulars at the club but being a shy kid I never really had any interactions with him for a good few months. One day we both were playing online sitting on computers next to each other, and at this time playing 4tables at the club was deemed pretty sick I think we had both mastered 9 tabling at home by this point and was playing quite a few mtt sngs and stts and as fish do were talking about hands with each other. I noticed Notgoingnewhere had a very different/interesting view on hands to the regular fish at the club. Throughout our conversations we both mentioned we had joined online coaching sites, we shared information with each other about the sites we had learnt from and the main videos he had been watching were 'Jackals' sng videos on CardRunners and I had learnt from 'Beanmo's' videos on Sharkscope.com (now sharkscopers.com), this automatically explained why our thinking was on another level to the average fish. We both took each other with us on the next 3year Journey of being the mid/high stake heads up sng players from that day forth. We would ring each other up for months on end, saying how we busted yet another roll each couple of months, at times we both felt like quitting, the strain was a lot and the pressure from people around us was also becoming a lot we didn't know if we were just two deluded fish or if we had something unique and special. Then the day came where we both busted our rolls at the same time and this would be for the last time. I took a month away from poker, I don't think I played a single hand of poker in this month, but maybe some home games with friends, overnight I came home from a 9-5 shift in the office and got reading, watching and learning poker for about 4hours a night for the entire month. The quote from 'Pimpingdonks' which said something along the lines of, 'win the war before the battle begins.' This basically meant: learn everything you need to know about poker before you begin the grind. I came back with a plan and when meeting up with Notgoingnewhere it appeared he had almost given up on this poker success thing, I had some quiet words with him and told him to keep his chin up and that we were going to do it properly this time. I made my deposit of $130 and within 1month I had grinded the $5 $10 $24 sngs and my roll was around $3.5k I was in a very good mindset and decided in a 16tabling session I would also play $50 1r+1a tournament and a bunch of other smaller stake ones, I used to play the max amount FTP would allow me too which was 20games I think in total with mtts and sngs. I dominated the field massively in the $50 1r+1a to take the first place prize of $6k, this is what you call going robusto :). Notgoingnewhere had regained his confidence whilst watching this happen, he was really eager to rebuild his roll and do it properly, he had come across a site 'Husng.com' which was going to change our lives and make us more money than we could imagine. After his first deposit of $400 Notgoingnewhere had a robusto roll similar to mine in a month. Cutting to the chase… We have spoken strategy ever since that day 3years ago when we were 2 fishes swimming in shark invested waters, I have seen how both our minds have wondered since that initial day where our thoughts on situations were so basic but still so effective to now where our brains are commonly thinking a very high level of thought in every situation we are faced with and tend to come up with the same/if not an equally profitable lines in most situations faced with in poker.

So that's the history of us, I began writing this last night on my way up to 'Nottingham' to play a £300 donkament which we both busted out on first day of, we are re-reging for the tournament today and give it one more bullet, we are going to make our way to the tournament now so I will give updates after the tournament. I really enjoy live tournaments and I am pretty excited about taking a lot more shots at live poker. In my next post I will also give an in site to how I feel about FullTilt having their License suspended and $30,000 of mine being seized, I will have a plan of action of what to do in this waiting time and a longer term plan for my poker future, It's a hard time but I want everyone to understand that stressing about this will only cause a negative effect, thinking of a positive direction to target towards will be key.

WEST SIDE WHATTTT

 Just got back from a trip to California and then to Vegas, 3 weeks long and what a great experience.

The trip began with quite a few slip ups, I was half way through the plane journey when I decided take my laptop out of my bag and write my first blog entry for the trip but to my surprise my laptop was not in my bag, oh yeah my stupid, forgetful, over used, warned out brain decided to leave my 2month old Mac in the airport at security, well played fish, well played. (My brother managed to get it from lost property, few!) But it was not a good start given I was in a another country with out internet, I felt screwed. A few other things went wrong in the first few hours of our trip but I won't go into the details too much, lets just say I got bad beaten for $700 the minute I got of the plane with the car I had pre paid for just because I was under 25 :(.

So anyways first stop San Fran, nice town didn't get to do too much because of the laptop situation and not really knowing where to go or what to do, I did however arrange to meet up with HUsng pro 'Mersenneary,' I was pretty nervous meeting Mers for the fact that I wanted to make a good impression after the horrible one I left him when I first got speaking to him. Anyways the night consisted of a very nice meal (thanks again buddy) and ALOT of drinks after, to say I was wasted would be a good way to describe it. I am real grateful for the effort Mers and his Girlfriend Meredith put in and was a great night.

 

I spent a quick night in Nappa valley which was beautiful and then headed down to San Luis where I stayed in a nice hotel and spa and treated ourselves to some massages to de-stress a little. Whilst in San Luis I hit up a local bar and met some really nice people.

Next destination was LA baby and let the fun times begin, I really enjoyed LA, the weather wasn't as great as I expected but none the less I still managed to get sun burnt. I hooked up with a couple of friends I had met the previous year on my stay with oopa11 'Johnny and Matt' thank you for all your help guys and the Dub club will definitely get hit up if I go again ;). 

Next I went back to LA to go to Universal Studios the tour was really amazing and The Simpsons ride is so good. After spilling tomato sauce ALL over me I headed to a Dodgers game which was a little boring after the initial excitement wore off but really good experience. The next day I had a quick hair cut in the a really cool barber shop in LA which is actually a graffiti shop for ConArt spray paint which also has a barber shop inside it too, the barber was really cool and just wanted to shout him out on here, so if you go its on fairfax avenue and ask for 'Jayar'. I then headed to Huntington beach where I previously stayed with heads up pro 'Oopa11.' Gutting he was not in town but still took the opportunity to meet his house mate and have lunch. Whilst in Huntington I rented a boat which only went 5mph but was a fun experience just chilling out drinking beers and eating Pizza, this to me was actually one of my favorite memories of the trip as it not only was the most stress free situation you can imagine.

I headed to Vegas the next day and str8 away got ready and went out to XS on Friday night, pretty sick night, miss that club I think it could possibly be the best night club I have ever been to. The weekend consisted of pool parties and pretty much memory loss and brain cell damage. After recovering from the weekend I realized I only had a couple of days left, on one I played a deepstack event at the Venetian which I didn't cash in but really enjoyed the game and on the last day I went to the grand canyon by plane (omg best thing I have seen with my eyes) and also went to see a show 'Jersey Boys' which was a very good show I highly recommend it.

So am back in London now, back to the grind although my first week back consisted of a -8k week. I am actually really happy with how I have played in the few sessions I have played I just ran pretty bad in $500 games I can't really complain about that and I entered the 1million guarantee 6 times which comes to nearly 4k so makes sense lol.