Thought I'd best post a monthly update, last month was pretty dreadful for me, At a guess I would say after the first 26 days of the month i was about £2000 down, the more worrying thing was i had no idea if I was playing well/badly or varience was just being brutal. It does get you down after a while, 4 weeks of slowly bleeding away money definitely isn't good for your mental well being. Just when it was needed though I managed to pull it back with one of my best weeks of poker so far with 5x £1000+ binks in 4 days across various sites. That was a huge relief for me as my confidence was probably at the lowest point of the year beforehand.
Aside from poker I treated myself to a rare weekend off, I debated going to watch West Ham at Sunderland as they were putting on coaches for all away fans, but the 14hour round trip was enough to put me off eventually, but I have booked a few tickets to make sure I get to see us a few last times at the Boleyn Ground. I'm still not completely sold on the new manager but the players we have bought in have been great and even though we have been very unpredictable we are at least a lot better to watch than we have been at any other time in the last 10 years.
Back to something poker related, does anyone else ever wonder how they are perceived by other poker players?? It's obvious when you show a bluff or two that you are seen as a player whos never got it, and if you only play a few hands an hour people will have you down as a nit etc, but I was asked what type of Poker player I was by a friend of mine and i had no idea myself, I asked a few people who I play with regularly and the opinions ranged from tight-agro through to loose-unpredictable. Its strange how you can play hundreds of poker tournaments with the same people day in and day out yet we still have different opinions on most of our opponents. Anyway down to the numbers...
Last Year £23,225
This Year £17,452
In terms of my target for Sky Poker, I'm not on course to beat last years numbers, I think it will all come down to UKOPS, one decent bink could hit my target with over a month spare, and a bad UKOPS could pretty much end all hope I have of hitting last years mark.
Didn't know you played much on other sites. I assume most of them were non-Sky cos there's pretty much only 1 comp per night on here where u can win 4 figures, what were the (non Sky) binks if you don't mind me asking/what comps?
Cheers bud, yeah only one of them was a Sky MTT bink (rebuy main) But i did include a spin up session which i managed to leave with just shy of 1k.... I do play a majority on Skybut i just started playing on more sites in the daytime.. I had a 2nd and a 1st on Stars in $5.50 rebuy that runs during the day, not sure on the guarantee but i guess it would have been 10kish and the other on stars was one of the big 22, not sure if i came 4th or 5th in that one though, I have been playing on 888 and full tilt as well but so far had no real sucess except the odd min cash here and there, My only issue with playing othersites is I cant seem to multi-table sky Mtts with other Mtts, i guess its because of the antes and 9 handed tables that I find it too hard to adjust.
Nice one. Yeah it's tough at first especially if you're so used to just playing all 6max (and no antes), then on top of that (as bates keeps telling me), 6max takes so much more focus so it's a lot easier to play 10tables of fullring than it is to play 10tables of 6max. So like in terms of table count, you can almost add 2 fullring games for every 6max game you drop (tha's why I've dropped the smaller £11bhs on here now, so i can play more fullring games on other sites).
I keep meaning to give Fulltilt a go, is there much running on there these days in the way of MTTs?
It's good to see the Sky regs doing well over on stars, what's your alias and I'll keep an eye out and rail etc if I see any deep runs? You on pcket5s?
Yeah I can definitely agree with that, 8 tables is pretty much my maximum at the minute, but I will drop down to 6 if i am mixing 6 and 9 handed, I definitely prefer 6 handed games, I feel like there is more of an edge. Yeah I dont play too much on full tilt, there isnt that many big Mtts these days but I find the software good and the level is pretty similar to sky imo. My record on stars was pretty bad until 2 weeks ago, I dont enjoy Mtts with long structures and huge fields at all, but I'm always tempted in by the big cash up top. My alias on every site are all different but a variation on my sky one, Jordz then a random number etc so if you see a jordz its probably me! and I will be honest i had to google pocket5s to even know what it was, so I think you have your answer there!
Yeah I can definitely agree with that, 8 tables is pretty much my maximum at the minute, but I will drop down to 6 if i am mixing 6 and 9 handed, I definitely prefer 6 handed games, I feel like there is more of an edge. Yeah I dont play too much on full tilt, there isnt that many big Mtts these days but I find the software good and the level is pretty similar to sky imo. My record on stars was pretty bad until 2 weeks ago, I dont enjoy Mtts with long structures and huge fields at all, but I'm always tempted in by the big cash up top. My alias on every site are all different but a variation on my sky one, Jordz then a random number etc so if you see a jordz its probably me! and I will be honest i had to google pocket5s to even know what it was, so I think you have your answer there!
I knew it was all going to come down to UKOPS, and thankfully i got pretty lucky and have had a few decent scores, I wouldnt say I have played any better but I have been a bit more consistant and put more effort in, I orginally was going to try and play every single UKOPS event (and managed it for the first 6 days) but after multi-tabling Omaha and Holdem for a few hours i realised that was probably a step to far. It is my birthday later on this week so I can now look forward to dramatically reducing my volume and getting some proper rest and enjoying myself. the only downside for UKOPS so far is that I couldnt get myself a bracelet despite a lot of close calls, but there is stkll time of course.
Last Year £23,225
This Year £23,480
P.S just realised i could easily run bad and drop back behind my goal but fingers crossed that doesnt happen.
I have been duly advised that if I am going to run any sort of diary on here that I should make myself more relateable, and include more about myself as a person instead of the occasional run bad moan and win post brag, so im going to do a kind of prelude of my life up to now and how i got into poker and how I owe poker a lot.
anyway here goes, Throughout my childhood and teenage years there was only one thing that mattered in my life and that was football, I had a good school/social life but football came before everything else, I wasnt naturally talented at all but I probabaly worked harder and ran further than anyone else so i could blag myself into a good level, By 16 I was captaining mylLocal team, my school team and occasionally the Essex youth team. I was lucky enough to play alongside a few guys who have gone on to play Premier League and International football. The big turning point for me was when I was 17, It was 30mins in to our last match of the season, I went up for a header and was knocked off balance, I landed awkwardly and was knocked out, I was airlifted to a local hospital and had broken a bone in my spine and neck, At the time I thought I was very lucky as i didnt spend too long in hospital and was told that with 3-6 months rehab I would make a full recovery, it was about 9 months later before i could play football and when i did I lasted about 20minutes before I had to come off with shooting pains in my back, I went to see a specialist and I think the technical term was my back was f*~#ed, i had the choice of having surgery every 5-8 years or giving up competitive sports... after consulting family it seemed that giving up sport was the obvious choice as surgery wasnt even going to be a guaranteed success...
By this time I had been kicked out of school, Kicked out of college and was doing an apprenticeship in micro-electronics, I had a huge whole in my life because all my friends were still playing football and my evenings and weekends were now spent out in town, drinking my boredom away, the drink was never a big issue, I have never been someone whos drunk that much and to this day I have never overly enjoyed it, but what it was, was a fuel to my anger issues that i used to release on a 3pm every Saturday afternoon on the football pitch.. So from 18-20 my life went completely off the rails, I was constantly in trouble with the law, I was involved with the kind of people you dont want to be involved with and I had made enemies with the people you didnt want to be enemies with. It got to the point where I had to leave Essex for my own safety. My dad owned a bar way up in Shropshire and I moved up there to keep my head down for a few months, All i was doing was working and I became pretty depressed and started suffering badly with anxiety and worry etc, My dad encouraged me to get back in touch with some of my friends who were now at uni and while i was up North(ish) I decided to visit a friend I had at Leeds uni, I arrived at his flat and as i walked in him as his mates were playing.... POKER
I'd never played poker before but i had always enjoyed card games as a kid so couldnt wait to give it a go, I spent an entire weekend up there playing poker and loved it, they also played some online poker too and the thought of being able to make money by playing a game on your laptop was like the best thing I had ever heard! as soon as i got back i started playing and fell in love with the online game, I spent probably 3 months playing poker all day and working all night, I wasnt making any money in fact i was a losing player but i was having fun and all my anxiety and depression had gone because i didnt have time to experience them feelings anymore.
After about a year i thought it was time to move back home to Essex and I got a boring, (but well paid for my age) factory job which i hated so much. I spent months despising this job and the people i worked for but i couldnt afford to give it up, it was at this point i decided Im going to dedicate the next 6 months of my life to playing and learning how to win at poker with the pipedream of being able to tell my boss to stuff it (or something along them lines). So I spent exactly 6 months going to work and playing poker and i literally didnt do anything else, Id managed to make about 3 grand in that time, and although looking back that was no-where near enough i decided Im gonna go pro. (i felt like such a baller when i first said that, but looking back thats pretty embarassing)
I stuck at it though, and did get myself an enjoyable part time job for a year to help ease the pressure of needing to make money, But for the last 18months or so Poker has been my sole income, Im now 23 and really really enjoying my life and my poker, and i cant even imagine what direction my life would have turned in if it wasnt for poker, It has taught me how to be disciplined, how to think properly before I act, how to manage money, and most importantly its given me a real focus within my life, Ive always had a burning desire to prove myself it started with wanting to do better at football than the guys who were so much better than me, then when i was 18 it was wanting to fight the biggest, hardest person i could find each weekend and now as ive matured its wanting to be able to beat the best poker players I come up against, I know I will never reach the levels of top online pros like Moorman etc but Im just going to try and enjoy the journey as much as i can and hopefully have as much fun and make as many friends as i can along the way.
Hope i havent rambled on and bored too many people out there!
now i have one last question, how do i post hands i have played onto here?? because im pretty sure thats the next most important thing I should be doing with this thread
Plans for the next few years is to keep playing MTTs, hopefully put in more volume and play some bigger events, I have told my friends and family id definitely like to give up full time poker by the time i am 30. I already own a stake in a local business and i think at some stage id like to have my own business.
I would like to play more live, but its not something im gonna obsess about, I will try and get to the UKPC's and may try to sat into a few more big comps but online is my main focus.
Yeah I'm going to stick at MTT's i only rarely play cash, and i dont think i would ever be good enough to beat the players at thighest levels, the buzz you get from going deep in a big MTT will never be able to be replicated on the cash tables.
Great read , you seem to be able to channel your weaknesses in the right direction. Why do u say u will never reach the level of the top pros? I would have thought that you were at the perfect age, already in the position of playing for a living as well, surely with enough dedication and hard work (like what you done when you were playing football) you would be able to achieve anything you want, of course it has to be something you commit a lot to, what's stopping you?
As an aside do you read Patrick Leonard's (Pleno) diary on Blonde? Shows what hard work and dedication can achieve.
Great read , you seem to be able to channel your weaknesses in the right direction. Why do u say u will never reach the level of the top pros? I would have thought that you were at the perfect age, already in the position of playing for a living as well, surely with enough dedication and hard work (like what you done when you were playing football) you would be able to achieve anything you want, of course it has to be something you commit a lot to, what's stopping you? As an aside do you read Patrick Leonard's (Pleno) diary on Blonde? Shows what hard work and dedication can achieve. Well done on the UKOPS results so far. Posted by omm
cheers mate, I think its best to be a realist, I'm still young but i started later than most top pros, i lack the same level of natural ability as most of them too, But of course i will still keep trying to do better and see where that takes me.. I already put in a lot of time and have had to make a lot of sacrafices with friends, family, relationships etc so i wouldnt want to dedicate myself to the point where i have no outside life at all. I guess the beauty of tournament poker is you are always one tournament away from a life changing amount of money so things can change very quickly but for now im happy enjoying where i am which is most important to me... No i cant say i have read that diary but as i have no plans for tomorrow i will put that on my to do list for the morning!
Good evening Jordz. Good read, nice to see you have turned your life around. One small bit of advice save money for a rainy day, and invest in property. All the best. Rainman397
Comments
P.S just realised i could easily run bad and drop back behind my goal but fingers crossed that doesnt happen.
Hope i havent rambled on and bored too many people out there!
Good read, nice to see you have turned your life around.
One small bit of advice save money for a rainy day, and invest in property.
All the best.
Rainman397