I'm Back I promise!

Apologies for not blogging for so long but I will be back blogging about the WSOP and Vegoose (plus after its all done I will go back and update the old stuff, just too busy right now though). I'm also going to be using twitter from now on for live updates on the events I'm playing and you can follow that either on here or www.twitter.com/moorman1

Tomorrow is the $5k and with around 700 runners and a sick strucure of 15k stacks at 25/50 to start represents a good chance at going deep and getting a shot at a bracelet, gl me and once again sincere apologies for being a lazy bastard before. Now lets go and win a bracelet!

2009 So Far (Part 1 PCA)

Ok my fault for being so lazy and not updating at the time so I'm going to try and roundup the first 2 months of 2009 for me and then I promise to get back to more regular updates (at least once a week) Ok here's part 1 of 3 updates, PCA, enjoy!


I didn't wait long to have my first crack at live poker in 2009 when I made the trip to the PCA (Poker Carribean Adventure) on 4th January. The PCA is one of the most prestigious events of the year due to its amazing location http://www.atlantis.com/ and the minimum age being 18. As a result pretty much the whole online community flocks to the Bahamas for a week. This was my first time playing the event due to having no passport last year so I was eager to put up a good showing. It would also be cool to meet some more of the online regs who I play against all the time.


Me and Allinstevie made the marathon trip over the atlantic ocean stopping off at Miami along the way and finally arrived at about 10pm Sunday night. With us playing the very next day this wasn't ideal but I'm sure most of the time I play online I'm in a far worse state of sleep deprivation. Over the two starting days there ended up being 1347 entrants which equated to $3million ftw, kinda sick! My starting table seemed decent with mostly middle aged recreational players and a couple of young internet players but no big names.


I started off kind of quiet with a few well placed moves and a few bad ones and got upto 25k from the original starting stack of 20k. Unfortunately hand details escape me now as its not fresh in the memory (I promised no more lapse updates in future blog updates). The fast structure of the tournament (50/100, 100/200, 100/200/25, 200/400/50 etc) meant there was little time to be waiting around so after the first break I began to up the aggression and try to accumulate, one hand which I do remember that was particularly interesting occured at the 100/200/25 level.


A loosish opener opened in middle to early position to 600 and the french guy to my immediate right flat called. I looked down at q9 offsuit and elected to squeeze to 2400 as I felt neither of my opponents was particularly strong and I had position and a playable hand. The action folded around to the original raiser who after some thought chucked in a few higher value chips. The frenchman quickly passed and the action was back to me, obviously I briefly considered the ridiculous 5 bet shove but this wasn't really a serious option so I essentially was going to hollywood fold when all of a sudden the dealer dealt out the flop!


No one blinked an eyelid so I assumed that he must just be getting change from the pot after the hand. The flop came a pretty useless 347 with 2 clubs and my opponent surprisingly led into me... I really sensed weakness but the stack sizes were pretty awkward (I didn't have enough to float his flop bet, but a shove might be pretty spewy as I could be drawing dead). In the end I grew some balls and stuck it all in with just my 2 shitty overs and queen of clubs runner runner draw. Much to my relief he quickly folded and I took down a nice pot. After the hand was completed there was a lot of fuss though as it turns out my opponent had actually 4 bet me pre flop, in the end I ended up giving him back the extra money he had put in pre flop. At least I was on my way to a nice stack and feeling good about my chances for the rest of the day.

Daniel Negreanau moved to my table soon after and seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Obviously he was pretty much in every pot so it was inevitable we were going to clash pretty soon :). I called a raise with 44 and Negreanau and another player also called. I binked a set on the flop but it was pretty raggy 942 rainbow or something. All of us checked to Daniel who obviously bet which I felt he would do with any two cards, back to the pre flop raiser who tank folded which really helped for me to sell a bluff with a check raise. I had been really aggressive at the table previously and Daniel had picked up on this even calling me the craziest English guy he had ever played! lol so when I checkraised here I felt it was gonna look like I was full of shit. Anyway Daniel called and the other player folds and the turn comes a jack. Now I didn't actually think he was floating me here but just had some weak 9 or something and if I checked he would check behind and then a river bluff from me would look just dumb and he would probably give me credit. Therefore I decided to fire again but unfortunately he didn't take the bate and folded, someone later asked him if he folded a 9, he laughed pretty hard and said he'd be straight in there with a 9!, oh well nevermind I had over 50k now and was flying. That was until......

The button put in a fake mini raise and loose passive french guy flats in the small blind, I looked down at 59s in the bb but felt a squeeze would earn no respect plus the button had a perfect 4 bet all in stack. I probably should of just folded cos my hand is such a suckers hand in a 3 way pot and things were gonna get really awkward if I was to flop a flush draw (because they had 2 many chips to just check raise and get it in) but seeing Negreanau playing every soooted connector going convinced me into calling. The flop came j62 with 2 of my suit.... uh oh! Both check to the button who continuation bets and now I'm think I have to just check call here because he had to much to re raise and call a shove but then the small blind flats and he looked real weak and I was pretty sure he'd fold to a raise so I decided to gamble and just hope the button doesnt have a jack,overpair or set. I raise and the button much to my annoyance jams. I obviously have to call and pretty much throw up when he says he needs a spade (oh great nut flush draw I think, I need a offsuit 5 or 9 1 time lo) but even better he has kj spades so I'm virtually drawing dead and no miracle comes. Way to play a 150bb pot with less than 1% equity Chris!

That massive pot really set me back and I had to sit back as my reputation was in tatters at this point, fortunately/unfortunately I found two kings in the cutoff on Daniel's Big blind I raised and before he even looked at his cards he assured me he was at least going to call lol. He called and the flop came aq4, not ideal but with the way I had been playing I figured I could get two streets of value from kq or or qj and if I checked the flop behind it would actually look stronger than betting. He check called my bet like I full expected and I planned to check the turn and either call his river bet or bet when checked too. The turn came a 5, check check and the river a 2 and now he bet wtf!. Obviously any 3 makes a straight but also a ton of things missed such as kj jt etc. Also a flush draw on the flop bricked, the deciding factor which ended up in me calling was his betsize which looked like either a nut type hand like a set or straight or an airballl, obviously I got owned tho and he had a3 :(.

Now down to just 20bbs I really had to tighten up, however, it wasn't long before I was exiting to the rail. I raise two tens in early position and got two callers. The flop came down 534 2 spades and I really didn't have enough to get away if I was beat. I decided to just jam because I look pretty tilted and I would def get called by 6s-9s plus there was a fd etc and I didn't have enough to be bet folding the flop or giving free cards. Unfortunately the 2nd caller had called with 54 sooted and he managed to hold and that was that. 55k chips at 300/600 and I didn't make 400/800 welcome to the life of Moorman1 lol.

I decide to just chill and have a good time at the resort rather than playing a bunch and skipped the hi roller event and the 1k but I had the bug back enough to play the 5k side event. I didn't get the ideal preparation as a drunk allinstevie managed to keep me awake all night with his constant whinging of being 'all red bulled up' and i actually overslept and missed the first hour!

Once I arrived at my table I saw a few familiar faces, Randallin, Stamdogg and Rizen but the rest of the tables seemed pretty soft. I decided that not only would I get there late I would also bluff off half of my 10k starting stack, so with half a stack in level 2 I decided to start trying and managed to get jacks in versus queens on a low flop...... no problem jack river, Stamdogg later said he had passed qj, 1 outers thatss how we roll!

From here things went really well and I built upto around 30k before my table broke and I moved to a somewhat table of death. This table had 6 really good aggro players in a row, Tufat, Chronic420, RubenRVT, Me, Kadabra and some German guy. The rest of the table pretty much blinded away as we took it in turns to go to war with each other. Kadabra pretty much owned my soul on this table and I was never really able to get going. However, I did almost fold to cash and finished the day about 24 out of 27 and ITM ship the min cash $11.2k not bad for stars payouts.

Day 2 I came back knowing if I could double I was very much still in the game. There was still a very strong field left including ZeeJustin, Randallin, Mendieta, Peter Eastgate etc etc. First hand though I found Jacks and a raise infront I shipped in and he was priced in with a4 sooted and bricked out, back in the game!. I obviously immediately lost my chips as fast as I got them but managed to double up again when I found queens versus ace jack, right time to hold onto them this time!

Table break and we are down to two tables and upto $16k payday (oh and my biggest ever live cash lol). On my new table I had just started to open up a bit and take down a few pots when I get jacks but unfortunately the most aggressive guy on the table found kings and that was that 16th or whatever. Oh well another deep run/near miss but a bit of a confidence boost live and almost broke me even on buyins for the trip. Plus bahamas was great fun and I met so many of the online pro's who I hadn't met before. I'll leave you with some prop bet videos of DJK, Antonio Esfandiari, his hot gf and the whole pca lobby.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20hhYMiN57I (race1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm89Kq6Kpjg (rerun of race1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvu6S4BYAYs&feature=related (push up contest, DJK gets owned by a girl :P)

Think he lost 3k in all... wtg dan

2008 review/2009 aims

These were my 10 goals for 2008:

1. Top 5 ranking
2. A significant Live Result
3. Roi on all 3 main sites (Stars, Tilt, Party) above 50%
4. 100k cash hands on ipoker/full tilt ($3/$6-$10-$20) with over 5bb/100
5. Top 10 of OPOY on cardplayer
6. Top 10 on internetpokerankings.com
7. $500k profit
8. Top 5 in p5s yearly plb
9. Win a Sunday Major
10. Win the Janurary Monthly Plb on p5s (any month would do actually)

and here is my critique of each one

1. Made number1 for 2 weeks, and was top 5 from march onwards
2. A lot of near misses but still a negative on this one.
3. Tilt:- 111.3% Stars:- 64.4% Party:- 88.1% A nice late rush on stars at the end of the year sealed this one
4. Managed about 10k hands although I beat the win rate by a mile.
5. 18th, must run better in the big ones in 2009
6. 2nd in USA race and won the International race pretty convincingly
7. Beat this despite being down $90k live on the year lol
8. Won it by a decent margin :)
9. Still can't do it ithhrthbitrierjrtbhikgb
10. many 2nds, no firsts grrrr

So overall I managed to achieve most of my goals and had a really succesful year but I still have a lot of things to aim for so here is my list of aims for 2009

• Live final table
• Winning Live player in 2009
• Get sponsored
• Make at least 12 videos for pokervt
• Update blog a lot more regularly
• $500k profit
• Pass Driving test
• Get back into shape
• Top 5 cardplayer opoy
• Win the Stars 1k

Pab aka the 'Aggro Animal' GUKPT final win/ Moorman1 Hero to Zero (3 months late)

The Grovesenor United Kingdom Poker Tour (GUKPT) is a series of events held throughout the year across the UK in different towns with a £1k buyin. It culminates with the grand final held in London in November for a 3k buyin. I played a few of the events throughout the year (Brighton, London,Luton and Manchester) and found them to be decent events, with good turnouts and a lot of value. Unfortunately my results were pretty poor with only a near miss 16th in Luton to prove that I wasn't a total fish. Anyway I was determined to put my live hoodoos behind me and finally take 1 down, or at least final table!

I was unorganised as usual so ended up getting down to the hotel on Wednesday (night before I played) and met up with Pab, Allinstevie, Johne147, Gregior and Clarkatroid. Managed not to lose the credit card roulette for the first dinner and just had a quiet 1 with a few beers before playing on day1a. I had a fun table draw for my starting table with a good friend of mine JP Kelly on my direct left, Ross Boatman on his direct left 2 (who I had briefly played with at the WSOPE) and a couple of Scandi's who'd made the trip over. The rest of the players didn't seem to look like they would cause too much trouble which was obv good. I managed to get paid off on a few nice hands early on against Ross (I'm pretty sure my cold four bet with k3 off in the WSOPE helped this) and I also managed to get 3 barrels of value versus JP after he flatted my pre flop opening raise with 66 and called all 3 barrels on a 5778a board (to be fair it was the perfect 3 barrel spot.

Writing this 3 months after the event its pretty hard to remember exact details but basically the rest of the day went really well for me, especially the last level and I ended up going from 50k to the crazy heights of 138k to end the day as the chipleader. Unfortunately out of the others playing that we were there with only Gregior made it through, although Pab and Stevie were playing on Day1b, I jokingly said to Pab at the end of the day that if he came back with more chips than me after his day1 then I would quit poker, 24 hours later and I almost had to eat my words as he came back with 100k after day1 which also included a big pot he had lost near the end of the day. Unfortunately Stevie didn't fare so well.

With me and Pab 1st and 3rd in chips going into the day and Gregior still in the hunt and just over 50 players making it into day2, there was a great chance of one of us taking this down. I came into the day feeling confident but a few unavoidable hands early on cut my stack in half and I had to grind out most of the day although I felt I did this pretty well, picking my spots at the right time.

With 27 players left and 18 getting paid the action was beginning to hot up. Erik Svanes got moved to my table with a monster stack and immediately became pretty active. Unfortunately I got in a 80bb pot race (would of put me cl if I won it) with him pre flop holding 66 versus his ak. The flop was 99t giving him some more outs, the turn brought him a flush draw, gutshot and another counterfit card with a jack and he binked the river with an offsuit king sending me to the rail just with it, just shy of the money once again. It was obviously really disappointing to go out once again so deep and get fuck all for it, but in poker in order to be successful you have to handle the lows as well as the highs and thats just a part and parcel of the game. I was happy with how I played on the whole on day2 from what I remember although to the naked eye it had looked like I had blew it once again. I'd be the first to admit that if it was the case.

Anyway the real story here was a certain Paul Foltyn aka Pab the 'Aggro Animal' who ended up taking it down for around 140k sterling mbfn. For a full report on that check out his blog http://bobvance.blogspot.com/. I'm really happy for him on such a quality result as he's a great friend and has helped me so much with my game. The downside is obviously that he has been giving me stick ever since and now has the last word in every argument.

Good End To The Year

With continued live failings it felt pretty good to get back to playing online again. I obviously didn't play much over the Christmas period but still managed to post a few results before and after the festive period. I also managed to ship a 7th blue peter badge (triple crown) with three very good wins.

1st Stars 100r $36k
1st FTP $300 6 max $28k
1st Ongame $50r $18k

The FTP 300 6max win involved some pretty crazy hands and this will be my first poker vt video and should be out within the next few weeks. I was unable to record it live at the time as I didn't have all the software set up but the hand replayer version should allow me to go into more detail about individual hands and my reasoning behind the plays I made, it should be interesting to see how it comes out anyway.

Aside from these wins I had a number of other big cashes. The most notable of these being two 3rd places in Sunday majors on the same night (ub 200k and ongame big deal 300k). Ub was good for $18k and ongame $15k, was definetly annoying to come so close in both though, ub being particularly frustrating as I had my 2 opponents (Shawn Rice and Cmoney) down to the felt numerous times but just couldn't get over the finish line. That 3 handed match was probably the craziest one I have ever played with each one of us down and out so many times only for them to come back, I think it went on for over an hour and a half in all, before it became the biggest crapshoot ever obviously. Ongame was a laddering process after I lost aa to kk with 11 left to send me short, however I did a good job of getting up the payscale and securing a very nice Sunday all in all.

Notable other mentions include a 5th in the ipoker $150k $100r for $8.5k (kind of messed this up but the blinds were so high it was a hughe crapshoot anyway with little skill involved, nearly 40k ftw so was a little disappointing), also managed a 3rd in the early 100r on Stars for just over $8k which means I finished nicely up on the tournament over the course of the year, which is a nice improvement compared to 2007.

So what now for 2009? How successful was 2008? and will I ever crush live souls?

Pab the 'Aggro Animal' Foltyn and Moorman the day1 cl donk (long awaited gukpt final update)

The Grovesenor United Kingdom Poker Tour (GUKPT) is a series of events held throughout the year across the UK in different towns with a £1k buyin. It culminates with the grand final held in London in November for a 3k buyin.

I played a few of the events throughout the year (Brighton, London,Luton and Manchester) and found them to be decent events, with good turnouts and a lot of value. Unfortunately my results were pretty poor with only a near miss 16th in Luton to prove that I wasn't a total fish. Anyway I was determined to put my live hoodoos behind me and finally take 1 down, or at least final table!

Was unorganised as usual so ended up getting down to the hotel on Wednesday (night before I played) and met up with Pab, Allinstevie, Johne147, Gregior and Clarkatroid. Managed not to lose the credit card roullete for the first dinner and just had a quiet 1 with a few beers before playing on day1a. I had a fun table draw for my starting table with a good friend of mine JP Kelly on my direct left, Ross Boatman on his direct left 2 (who I had briefly played with at the WSOPE) and a couple of Scandi's who'd made the trip over. The rest of the players didn't seem to look like they would cause too much trouble. I managed to get paid off on a few nice hands early on against Ross (I'm pretty sure my cold four bet with k3 off in the WSOPE helped this) and I also managed to get 3 barrels of value versus JP after he flatted my pre flop opening raise with 66 and called all 3 barrels on a 5778a board (to be fair it was the perfect 3 barrel spot.

Writing this 3 months after the event its pretty hard to remember exact details but basically the rest of the day went really well for me, especially the last level and I ended up going from 50k to the crazy heights of 138k to end the day as the chipleader. Unfortunately out of the others playing that we were there with only Gregior made it through, although Pab and Stevie were playing on Day1b, I jokingly said to Pab at the end of the day that if he came back with more chips than me after his day1 then I would quit poker, 24 hours later and I almost had to eat my words as he came back with 100k after day1 which also included a big pot he had lost near the end of the day. Unfortunately Stevie didn't fare so well.

With me and Pab 1st and 3rd in chips going into the day and Gregior still in the hunt and just over 50 players making it into day2, there was a great chance of one of us taking this down. I came into the day feeling confident but a few unavoidable hands early on cut my stack in half and I had to grind out most of the day althought I felt I did this pretty well, picking my spots at the right time.

With 27 players left and 18 getting paid the action was beginning to hot up. Erik Svanes got moved to my table with a monster stack and immediatly became pretty active. Unfortunately I got in a 80bb pot race (would of put me cl if I won it) with him pre flop holding 66 versus his ak. The flop was 99t giving him some more outs, the turn brought him a flush draw, gutshot and another counterfit card with a jack and he binked the river with an offsuit king sending me to the rail just with it, just shy of the money once again. It was obviously really dissapointing to go out once again so deep and get fuck all for it, but in poker in order to be succesfull you have to handle the lows as well as the highs and thats just a part and parcel of the game. I was happy with how I played on the whole on day2 from what I remember although to the naked eye it had looked like I had blew it once again. I'd be the first to admit that if it was the case.

Anyway the real story here was a certain Paul Foltyn aka Pab the 'Aggro Animal' who ended up taking it down for around 140k sterling mbfn. For a full report on that check out his blog on my bloglinks. Really happy on him on such a quality result, although obviously he has been giving me stick ever since and now has the last word in every argument.

After Ross busted out pretty early his seat was ta

Prague Part 2...

So 1500 chips a few hours in.... not ideal obviously but at least we get to just push it in now... Somehow I managed to open fold some horrible hand on the button and then the next hand found a4 off after a weak cutoff limp. I shipped in obviously knowing he would be pretty much priced in with his junk and i managed to hold versus kj shippppp, and now I'm back in the game!

Patience was still the order of the day and I was lucky enough to get aces a couple of orbits later at 150/300 and an utg raise infront. He felt priced in with kq sooted and a king high flop provided a bit of a sweat but the board bricked out and things were looking up. Two table changes later and a lot of grinding and I had made the antes! I was still only sitting on around 6k at 150/300/25 but managed to double up after raising ace ten sooted in early position and receiving 2 calls... I manged to flop the nut flush and get hero called down on the turn and river (after the flop got checked through). The very next hand I got pocket kings and got squeezed by a guy with 20bbs and 77, the king on the flop pretty much sealing it, easy game huh!

So now things were looking promising as I had over 20k and was finally above average again :) I managed to chip up a little bit more as I became more aggressive and then Allinstevie moved to my table, what are the chances!

Being good mates and rooming for the trip obviously meant we were going to try and own each other hard so it was no surprise that we got in a pretty significant pot early on. Stevie raised in mid position and I looked down at q9 sooted on the button, knowing that a 3 bet here would get no respect I elected to flat call and play a flop in position with deepish stacks. The flop came qt7 and I just called his bet in position, the turn came a brick 3 and when checked to I elected to pot control and check behind. The river was another 7 and Stevie fired a value type looking bet and i really expected to be shown qj or kq a decent % of the time but obviously I wasn't folding, after some thought I called and he mucked ace ten for a thin value bet and I had semi slowrolled him and strike first blood.

I made a conscious effort to tighten up for a little while as I felt Stevie would play back at me a lot and not let me run the table. A5 sooted though with a big stack utg could not be folded tho after 30 straight folds and when it folded to Stevie on the button I really felt he was going to 3 bet me with close to any two cards as a bluff as it would be difficult to play against with the stack sizes plus he knew I had been itching to raise a marginal hand. When he raised my 1200 to 3600 in position at 200/400/50 and it was folded back to me I considered my options....

Obviously the correct option here would be to muck as he is representing a very strong hand. However, I saw he had another 14-15k back after his raise so with us being this deep the only hands he can do this for value with imo are jj+ and ak, stuff like 99/tt and aq he would just flat in position because he wouldn't want to 3 bet call these hands or 3 bet fold them. Therefore I thought his range was very much waited towards air.... I had also chipped up to 30kish so if the worst came to the worse I would still have a workable stack if i was to 4 bet shove and lose, also against his calling range i have 30% equity which is not a disaster and if I was to suckout I would have a monster stack and be in prime position and have eliminated the strongest player at the table (altho I probably would have to buy a new wardrobe after he burnt all my clothes). Anyway I 4 bet and unfortunately he beat me into the pot with two black kings. The flop provided me with a ton of help being 578 and 2 of my suit but it ultimately bricked off and I was back to the grind.... yawn

The rest of the day was just grinding and getting reshoves through etc until 1 of the last hands of the day came up. Raise utg from tight old guy for potish to 2025 at 300/600/75 and a flat call from another tight guy and I managed to find kk with my 11k and shipped it in praying for a call obv (well not really with my kk track record in the past). The first guy makes a pretty horrendous call for most of his stack with aj and the other guy passes aq, the board bricks out and I get to go into day 2 with 25k which is slightly below average but obviously I'm happy overall after a crazy rollercoaster of a day what with being nearly down and out and then being 1 card away from a monster stack, lol donkaments

My day 2 table draw was pretty tasty with me being on the direct left of Dario Mineri and his tower of 65,000 chips. With blinds at 400/800/1000 I had approximately 30bbs so my plan at the start of the day was to pretty much stay out of Dario's way because I didn't want to 3 bet fold this stack size and obviously he 4 bets pretty light and I didn't have enough to flat call in positon profitably and mess around post flop but I had to much to just reship over his open. Therefore the plan was pretty simple, open whenever possible when Dario folded infront of me as therest of the table looked pretty weak. This worked pretty well for a few hands as I took down pots on the flop with nothing and I was upto just over 30k and moving in the right direction when it all went tits up....

Dario folds utg and its pretty much my duty to make it 2300 with 96 sooted, the button elected to flat call with around 25k but I wasn't too worried that he was trapping with a big hand, more likely some kq/aj or mid pocket pair type hand. The big blind also came along (I had played with him for a lot of day1 and he was honestly one of the worst players I have played against, the highlight hand was where he called a check raise on a t79 2 clubs flop with aq with the queen of clubs and then called a pot turn shove when a baby club turned for just a naked queen high flush draw and proceeded to bink on the river versus the other guys flopped straight of j8 spades!). Anyway back to my bust hand, my feelings b4 the flop were I was pretty much giving up unless a really favourable flop to c bet came such as a82 rainbow etc, obviously I was going to go with heart draws and open enders etc but I really felt that they were going to play back at me pretty light just because I had been pretty aggro so far and hadn't had to show down a hand. The flop came down perfect 976 2 diamonds.... hopefully one of them will shove a draw or go broke with a pair and straight draw etc. The big blind checks to me and I fire 4400, button quickly folds, and donk big blind quickly shoves for another 30k, I obviously quickly call and am shown a8 offsuit.... uh oh. The turn is a total blank but the river is a painful 10, it takes me a few seconds to realise he has me covered and once again its another brick on the live front. A quick punch of the pokerstars sign nxt to me and a respectful handshake for Dario and I'm heading out to the rail to rail Stevie. Unfortunately he bubbles later on in the day and then a mad drinking session ensues so we can let off steam, Lawrence (Rivermanl) somehow manages to spin up 200 euros into 16,000 at the casino on roulette!

Overall in Prague I had a great time just like in the previous year, it really is a great place to go to and I highly recommend it to anyone. Obviously its disappointing to brick again and I sound like a broken record here but on the whole I felt I played well and was just missing that bit of luck and hey at least I held with pocket kings twice things are looking up! Everytime its getting more frustrating but I'll keep coming back for more and donating to the live circuit I guess, next live stop is the PCA in January, here's to more live luck in 2009 :)

Prague 2009 (part1)

Well unfortunately the reason I didn't update from day 2 wasn't because I shipped the whole thing and have been on a massive bender since lol but here's a quick EPT Prague trip report....

Ok so the plan was to get a flight on Monday at 6 from Gatwick (30 mins on the train easy enough) and get to Prague by 10 ish (with the hours time difference) and then get fucked seeing as both me and Allinstevie ( my roommate for the trip ) were both playing on the Wednesday aka day1b. I managed to get a few hours sleep after Sunday Donkaments (near misses in ECOOP main event 50th when it was 315k ftw and 14th in the Party 300k when the win was $60k) and woke up and got all my shit ready as I was completely unorganised as usual. Managed to leave on time and things were running smoothly for once.... wtf. Anyway this was all about to change as when I went to check in they said I wasn't on the system, after scrambling through tons of junk emails looking for my reference code I finally found it and it quickly became apparent that I had booked my flight for Tuesday instead... sigh.

Another plane fare had to be paid for so now I had to ship the EPT! We managed to get to Prague on time and quickly made it to the skycafe on the top floor of the Hilton. The hotel was pretty sweet (stayed there last year but there was no sky cafe back then) and the Sky Cafe was a decent place to just chill and have a few beers..... Obviously a few beers is never just a few beers and after drinking with a few of the updater's I know (Rod and Mike) and them departing early things only got messier. We managed to run into Busto_Soon (Johann), Assasinato (Alex), Rivermanl (lawrence) and his mate Sam, Imalucsac (Kevin) and others and it just turned into a quality but very messy night. Lawrence and Kevin had to play the next day but only Kevin managed to make it, fortunately Lawrence got to play the next day.

Tuesday was pretty much a write off after the night before. Met up with Alex and Young Supremacy (Jeff) and watched the champions league and just chilled (the beer wasn't going down too well) and then regrettably went out again later on with Randallin (Randal) Lawrence and Sam when I was so tired I should of just gone to bed but oh well only in Prague once a year.

On Wednesday I finally got to play the main event and arrived at my starting table to see the only player I recognised being Noah Boeken. Me and Noah have played on a couple of starting tables in previous EPT's/WSOP side events and on the whole I think he plays pretty good so I was looking to stay out of his way on the whole. As far as the rest of the table was concerned there seemed to be a couple of Internet players and a few middle aged French/Italian players so wasn't too bad on the whole... (I later found out 1 of the players was David Katei, yeah I'm shit with recognising big live players).

Early on not a lot happened as I was pretty card dead. I made a squeeze with t8 sooted and flopped a flush draw but just took it down on the flop and most of my other pots were just taken down pre flop or on the flop. The guy in the seat next to me was 1 of RubenVt's mates and we got chatting until he was sickly busted out with top set versus middle set all in on the turn only for Katei to hit quads and then JJ v KJ all in pre for like 40 bbs, so fucking sick.

In the newly vacant seat came Karl Mahrenholz so at least we could have a bit of banter in the boring early levels. Unfortunately Karl bust pretty quickly too (I finished him off with ak v at when he was short and I raised in late position) I then proceeded to donk a big chunk of my 14k stack when I raised to 575 in ep at 100/200 with qj sooted and an aggressive scandi flat called my raise in the big blind. The flop came 877 and he check raised my 800 c bet to 2500.... I had seen him do this before on an ajj flop (so similar spot) and give up on the turn so I elected to float... Anyway the turn came a ten (so now I had a gutshot) and he checked.. I could of elected to check the turn behind and value bet bluffed the river but I decided to just bet 3200 here and now and take it down against his air...... until he put me all in for 6k more, puke and back to the drawing board (I later found out he had 97).

A few orbits later of folding and I opened ak utg to 575 and Noah shipped in 4400 in mp, obv I made the call but I put his range at aq+ and 88+ so I figured I'd be flipping more often than not. he turned over 99 and I didn't get there and found myself with a 1500 stack at 100/200, the end was near or was it?

Quick Prague Update.....

Had a Rollercoaster day1 but am still in on 23,300 at 400/800 tomorrow. There are 172 left out of 580 odd entrants and first pays just under 800k euros! there should be regular updates on both Pokernews and Pokerlistings so you can follow my progress. Anyways best get some sleep and try and run good tomorrow, for now good night.

Online Round Up (Shippage Left,Right and Centre)

So the last online action I spoke about was at the end of October!! now its December so I'll try and sum up my results (unlike live I win online so at least I can talk more positively in this blog lol)

Here's a list of all my final tables worth a 4 figure cash or greater in November and December so far

1/11/2008 1st in FTP $60k 100r for $ 18,434.00
2/11/2008 6th in Stars Sunday $300k 100r for $ 15,767.50
2/11/2008 5th in FTP $17.5k 6 max for $ 2,053.09
2/11/2008 1st in FTP $33k 1ra 6 max for $ 18,528.00
3/11/2008 6th in Stars $70k 100r for $ 3,834.00
3/11/2008 5th in Ongame $50k 50r for $ 2,433.20
4/11/2008 2nd in Stars $40k 50r for $ 8,407.50
4/11/2008 4th in Party Super Tuesday for $ 1,497.00
4/11/2008 3rd in FTP $40k 100r for $ 6,744.75
4/11/2008 2nd in LEOCOP Daddy 300 for $ 16,560.00
7/11/2008 8th in Titan £30k for $ 1,200.00
8/11/2008 3rd in Ongame 35k 30r for $ 3,842.10
8/11/2008 3rd in FTP $22.5k for $ 4,478.96
9/11/2008 2nd in Stars Sunday $150k 100r for $ 27,498.90
13/11/2008 1st in FTP $30k 6 max for $ 7,464.00
17/11/2008 1st in FTP $22.5k for $ 5,882.25
18/11/2008 3rd in Stars $33r 6max for $ 2,075.63
18/11/2008 8th in FTP $33k 1ra for $ 1,385.10
18/11/2008 6th in Titan $50k 50r for $ 3,000.00
23/11/2008 1st in Stars Sunday $150k 100r for $ 34,226.50
23/11/2008 4th in FTP $22k 30r for $ 2,766.68
24/11/2008 2nd in Stars $20k 501ra for $ 4,076.50
24/11/2008 1st in FTP $22k 30r for $ 8,055.00
28/11/2008 7th in Party Friday Special for $ 1,717.00
01/12/2008 3rd in ECOOP 8 2500 for $ 50,000.00
02/12/2008 1st in FTP $30k ko for $ 8,825.00
03/12/2008 1st in Stars $20k 22r for $ 5,706.00

All in all a pretty sick month of action. The last month or so has been pretty poker orientated with a lot of online volume and a few different live trips; Budapest, Amsterdam and the GUKPT Final. On Monday I leave for EPT Prague and after that I'll pretty much be chilling over Christmas, catching up with friends and family and taking a well earned break. The Ipoker score was great as I'd had a hard time the night before totally bricking the Sundays and bubbling the GUKPT final a few days earlier. LEOCOP was soft as fuck and I'm still embarrassed at the guy who beat me headsup who's standard opening raise was 10x lol. I've also been doing really well in the $100r on Stars lately and have finally become a winning player in it lol. Overall stars is definitely treating me much better now :). Unfortunately had no luck in the little of the FTOPS that I played but oh well theres always another one around the corner.

8 wins in total in just over a month shows I'm really closing well and I'm confident in my game atm. I've also improved in heads up play at the end of tourneys a lot and have now won 27 out of 36 heads up on FTP this year. In other news I recently signed with Poker VT and will be releasing some poker training videos in the very near future (hopefully get to record something big on Sunday night)

P.S GUKPT report to come..... Pab you fucking sicko!!!

The Dam

The masters classic in Amsterdam was my one of my first ever live donkaments 2 years ago and I was eager to go back there as It's such a great place to go out in that you don't even care when you get knocked out of the tournament lol. Stevie couldn't make it because of a wedding/ he was 2 scared that I'd own him if we get on the same table, but this time Pab managed to make it out of Northern Monkeyland and take the trip, Jack also managed to tear himself away from Pkr cash game antics and make the trip with recent GUKPT winner Andrew Teng aka Tufat. Upon arrival I managed to buyin with no problems for once but that wasn't the case for everyone obviously. Jack had some problems with his bank card so only had half the buyin and unfortunately nobody had any spare cash to lend him so in order to play the main event we suggested he put 3k on black or red on the roulette. After some gentle persuasion ( a joint and a few beers) he went for the idea and stuck it all on red, obviously karma meant he won and got to play/donate in the main event.

Onto the main event and with there being just 1 start day and approx 380 runners there was a high chance I'd end up on one of the same tables as someone I knew. Sure enough me and Jack ended up on the same table but I had position weeee. Jack was very active early on and I almost thought that he had come out of his nittyness shell but he assured me after the tourney that he had just been running hot. I on the otherhand was extremely card dead and failed with a few double barrels and continuation bets to drop down to around 9k of my original 12. However, a few hands later and a well timed bluff on Jack with 56 offsuit meant I recovered to 15k, then not long into level 2 our table broke.....


My new table was pretty much 70% french 20% scandi and 10% british (me), yes we were playing 10 handed wtf is this shit! Anyway nothing interesting of note happened for a while until a really weird hand occurred. Blinds were 100/200 and the table fish open limped again in early position, however, instead of being isolated like normal there were multiple limps behind and I took the opportunity to see a cheap flop with pocket fours. Obviously the flop came a golden ak4 with two clubs and the pre flop limper bet 600 of his 6k stack I decided to just flat and not scare him off his likely weak ace and get his stack in on later streets, it was then folded all the way round to the aggro Scandi in the big blind who pumped it upto 2150 wtf! surely he wouldn't just randomly bluff in a 6 way pot or whatever it was..... So his range must be A4,K4 or a pair + fd/fd + gutshot etc......


The donkey limper took 2 minutes to decide that his shit ace was no good and then I had to debate whether to put in another raise or just flat call and slowplay. I decided on the second option hoping he would put me on a club combo draw or something and that the turn would be a blank. Unfortunately the turn came the queen of clubs... pretty much the worst card in the deck, the scandi first to act checked and even though my live tells are pretty useless I really felt that it wasn't a trap check and with the pot being pretty substantial already I put in a small bet of 3000 so that he didn't just get there on the river with some random bluff containing a club; I'd of probably ended up calling my stack off if he put me all in and just of hoped to get there lol. He ended up check calling which really confused me because it meant he must have something ie a4 or k4. The oddest part of the hand though was probably the river. It came another king giving me a boat and he snap bet 7500 of my 8500 stack into me. I then proceeded to have a brain fart for 2 minutes because I thought I lost to both a4 and k4 now and was seriously considering laying it down because this had to be his range of hands, however, I finally came to my senses and relearnt the rules of the game and that a4 was in fact behind and called (left myself 1000 just incase he had k4 so I could mount a comeback). He showed a4 and calimed he was trying to bluff me off a flush which would of worked probably. All in all one of the most confusing hands I've ever played, If I had just 3 bet the flop we prob get it in and then its just a standard cooler, oh well it was more fun this way!

After this the rest of day1 was pretty uneventul altho Johann a good friend of mine who plays under the online allias Busto_Soon came to my table so there was some fun metagame there and it made the day go a little quicker. I finished on about 32,000 which was a little above average. Another day2 made could I finally turn it into something more?

For some reason there were no table changes for day2 and an early double up for Johann was definetly bad news for me as he now had a very playable stack a few seats to my left. I made a concious effort to play a little tighter as I knew he'd try to use his position against me, however, when I looked down at queen six sooted in the hijack on his big blind I couldn't help but raise. He elected to defned his bb playing about 30 big blinds and I assiged him a tightish range considering I know he won't be playing out of position too light on the whole. Anyway the flop came down q62 two of my suit so who cares about his range anymore lol lets just get money in to the pot! Then I realised I couldn't have 2 pair and a fd on this board and looked back at my cards to see q6 offsuit (both red... schoolboy error) before firing a standard continuation bet. Johann called the flop bet which I felt he would do with any 6, and pair between 6's and queens although I felt jacks tens and possibly 9's he would three bet and get it in pre flop. Also kq and jq were well within his range as well as maybe a slowplayed 22 or something. The turn came an ace which was obv a really good barreling card for me and when I bet the turn I could easily be bluffing, knowing this I hoped Johann didn't believe me and just check shoved a draw or something. I got my check raise as I hoped and beat him into the pot only to see a2 clubs... PUKE. This pot was pretty large and really set me back at the start of the day. I couldn't get anything going for a while and was grinding a 20bb stack when I looked down at pocket tens after a Johann early position raise and a cold caller. I squeezed only to be snapped off by Johann's queens and no help from the board meant another day2 exit.... yawn.

Johann didn't even go onto cash with all my chips (muppet). Hung out with Pab, Intervention, Gbecks and Hixx for most of the rest of the trip and grinded online and stuff which was cool. Even manged to ship the late night ftp $109 6 max tourney while pretty stones to pay for the trip. Amsterdam is such a great city and I'll definetly be back for next years trip if not before for a purely social trip. It was dissapointing to not cash again but I felt I played ok and just didn't get the run of the cards again, sucks to sound like a broken record here but oh well theres always another live tourney coming up pretty soon.... and infact there was and even closer to home this time.