I was hoping for a nice quiet January, keep my head down, work hard, save money, go to the gym, watch TV and that's about it. But its been hectic from the start, thankfully mostly for the good.
The Car - sorted. The part cost me 70 quid in the end (Rather than the quoted £800) because I bought it online, a refurbished electric steering column with a 3 month guarantee, not bad. The labour cost me £180 (Not the quoted £400) from my Dad's mate Speedy. So all in all, I forked out £250 instead of the quoted £1200 and would once again reiterate that nobody use the Waggon & Horses Garage on Chesterfield Road in Sheffield. I now realise that the slimey gets were planning on either making a small fortune on the part or, more likely, wanting to buy my car on the cheap and do it up. I have since heard from a friend that they charged them £500 to fix a wire, which they still didn't fix and charged for anyway, and the wire itself seemed to do nothing.
Had a real shock the other day when the Tax Office told me I hadn't filed my tax return, which I submitted last April. That was a day spent panicking, frantically trying to knock a new one together online then at the last minute finding out my accountant (poker player Paul 'M3Boy' Garnham) did them at the last minute in January and I had nowt to worry about. That was a wasted day, but obviously a relief at the end.
One way to guarantee January wont be a quiet month is to move house and get a dog, but thats also on the menu. We've seen a new place that's almost perfect (No drive to park on, which is the only bummer) that we put a holding deposit on yesterday. We are moving (Renting) because we want to get a dog and this place is perfect: nice house, big garden and a stones throw from the local (Massive) park. Being self employed and a significant portion of my income from playing poker, the chances of me getting a good mortgage is slim in the current economic climate, which is a real shame because I have plenty of savings and I earn more than I ever have (and of course its a good time to buy) - hopefully they will loosen up lending in a year or two, by which time I'd like to have a massive deposit anyway.
No clue yet to what sort of dog, but probably a Black Labrador as they tick all the boxes. I have grown up with Old English Sheepdogs, which really are the friendliest dogs in the world but a little too big for our first dog, my girlfriend wants a Bassett Hound but they are a bit too lazy for my liking. Black Labradors are cute, medium sized, tame, well behaved, intelligent and hopefully just big enough to put off burgers.
I'm loving my work with UK Pokernews at the moment and was really surprised when I got a call up from the Big Leagues, the main Pokernews.com website. When Tony G asks you to do something you don't really say no and although I'm not sure what I will be doing yet, I love the site and will be pleased with a new writing challenge. I'm also going to be sticking around at UK Pokernews, which has become a little baby of mine, and will probably reduce the magazine side of things to accomodate it.
And finally, I have still barely played poker in 2009, currently a marginal winner over the few thousand hands Ive played. Hopefully ram a load in the next two weeks before I go to Dublin for the European Deepstack Championships.
Car Troubles
2009, the year of the run good, hasnt quite got off to the best start, nothing to do with bad luck or downswings, simply because I havent really played yet. I've been really busy writing and been having some car troubles, so that has been taking up most of my time. Whats more, I havent really wanted to play poker that much, largely because I've been busy but also a certain feeling of not wanting to throw myself back into the lions den again just yet. I played my first session yesterday and ended it two buy-ins down, mainly down to a few hero calls on my part rather than any big coolers, so 2009 can only get better at the tables.
Car trouble - I take my car into the nearest garage for its MOT, fully aware that I had a problem with the steering (veering to the left ever so slightly) - I get a call from them later saying 'you are in for a shock' and they proceed to tell me it will cost me £1200 for the parts and labour, new steering rack apparantly. I choose to mull it over for a few days and the guy tells me when I pick it up "I know someone that would buy this off you if you didnt want to get it fixed". Then my Dad kindly swings the car round to his mechanic friend and my girlfriend starts looking at parts on the internet. Turns out I actually just need a Steering Column, which cost about £60 and my Dads mate is going to fix it, for we reckon less than £200.
£1200! What a fucking shark, thats a GUKPT and travel expenses, I'm pretty certain he wanted to buy my car on the cheap because its in great condition, so I wont be using the Waggon & Horses in Chesterfield Road in Sheffield again, other than possibly for the MOT retest just to see the dodgy smirk on his face when I tell him I got it sorted for 1/6 of what he quoted. The part hasnt been fixed yet, so I cant help but think that the whole drama aint over yet. I hate cars.
I'm a writing machine at the moment, I sometimes get in these moods where I cant stop writing and I have loads of ideas running round my head and now is one of them, probably because one is being introspective after the end of the year. The durrrr challenge has been the only thing we have been writing about on Pokernews and yesterday I had to vet and rewrite a formula a chap called Sam Glasson made for us on how big his earn rate has to be for his challenge to be at least break even, my job was to make it sound simple enough for anyone to understand it. Hopefully I've done that but my god, my head is pounding, havent done that much maths since ever. The feature is here and I hope its correct.
Hopefully will start playing in some significant volume this coming week, as long as my car doesn't cause me anymore grief, and let the year of running good commence.
Car trouble - I take my car into the nearest garage for its MOT, fully aware that I had a problem with the steering (veering to the left ever so slightly) - I get a call from them later saying 'you are in for a shock' and they proceed to tell me it will cost me £1200 for the parts and labour, new steering rack apparantly. I choose to mull it over for a few days and the guy tells me when I pick it up "I know someone that would buy this off you if you didnt want to get it fixed". Then my Dad kindly swings the car round to his mechanic friend and my girlfriend starts looking at parts on the internet. Turns out I actually just need a Steering Column, which cost about £60 and my Dads mate is going to fix it, for we reckon less than £200.
£1200! What a fucking shark, thats a GUKPT and travel expenses, I'm pretty certain he wanted to buy my car on the cheap because its in great condition, so I wont be using the Waggon & Horses in Chesterfield Road in Sheffield again, other than possibly for the MOT retest just to see the dodgy smirk on his face when I tell him I got it sorted for 1/6 of what he quoted. The part hasnt been fixed yet, so I cant help but think that the whole drama aint over yet. I hate cars.
I'm a writing machine at the moment, I sometimes get in these moods where I cant stop writing and I have loads of ideas running round my head and now is one of them, probably because one is being introspective after the end of the year. The durrrr challenge has been the only thing we have been writing about on Pokernews and yesterday I had to vet and rewrite a formula a chap called Sam Glasson made for us on how big his earn rate has to be for his challenge to be at least break even, my job was to make it sound simple enough for anyone to understand it. Hopefully I've done that but my god, my head is pounding, havent done that much maths since ever. The feature is here and I hope its correct.
Hopefully will start playing in some significant volume this coming week, as long as my car doesn't cause me anymore grief, and let the year of running good commence.
2009: The Year of Running Good
I cant believe its been almost a month since I last updated this thing.
Just about to get ready for a New Years party and I cannot wait to get 2008 done and dusted. I know tomorrow will be the same as any other day but we humans do think of things in terms of months and years and, while by no means an awful year, 2008 is one I will be glad to see the back of.
The dog died, my old man was ill for a bit, my missuses grandparents the same and even my missus was worryingly ill for a while (all more than fine now thankfully). Most of my mates had some form of bad news or other in 2008, in the case of a few some very grim news indeed, so generally it wasn't the best year. I did have plenty of fun too, went to Vegas which was amazing, had a really good year with the girlfriend in general so it wasn't all that bad.
As a writer I had a truly fantastic year. I really love the stuff I do with Pokernews and wrote some stuff for magazines I really truly deemed 'proper writing n that'. I also got a lot of kudos in the industry and have even started a regular stint on Sky Poker as a guest, which panders to my ego very nicely indeed. If 2009 can be anything like 2008 in this regard, I will be a happy man.
As a player, its been a bad year. A winning year, a nice winning year I guess (I have more in the bank now than ever before), but way below expectation and had lots of long frustrating break even spells. I only had one bad losing month (which might have actually been break even when you add rakeback) but the 2nd half of the year contained too many just-better-than-break-even months, which was frustrating but again, thank god for rakeback.
Which was all funny, because this was the first year I had a coach, Stuart 'Balloo' Menzies, which coincided with the bad run when you think it would do the opposite. Stuart has really massively helped my game, and made me realise that I wasn't as good as I thought I was and a lot of my success in the past has been a result of raw aggression (Which ain't a terrible thing). Its good to have the wind knocked out of your sails like this and I think I am a much better player this year than I was 12 months ago for it.
But unfortunately, the coaching has also coincided with some real bad luck at the cash tables. The last 6 months I have ran really bad at the cash tables, not getting massively outdrawn all the time (Although that did happen plenty and I am about significantly up on my 'Sklansky Bucks' graph, though not on my real bucks graph lol) but simply constantly running big hands into bigger hands. I get queens, they get kings, I get kings, they get aces, I get aces, they hit a set, I get a set, they hit their flush etc etc.
I hate moaning about it, I hate people that moan about bad luck, but apart from occasional weeks where I would run like god, this was the story of May to December for me. My coach, who sweats my sessions, made the comment to me that he has never seen anyone run big hands into bigger hands as much as me and I must say, his support has been what has stopped me from quitting the game this year.
But, one big leak of mine that I cant blame luck on (though it is a catalyst for) is that when I am tilted, I play very defensively and don't value bet enough. As much as I moan about bad luck, I'm pretty certain the tilt factor amplified the bad luck and I could have got myself out of these runs had I played better.
Live tournaments were a huge flop for me too, which was lucky in a way as I was sponsored for the vast majority of the events I played and didnt lose much of my own money at all. I didn't cash in a single ranking event and only got my money back in one saver deal. I cant really blame luck on this, every tournament I played went like this:
Build a big stack early
Go card dead when the blinds start to get big
Blind away and shove with rags at the end of day 1, get called, lose.
Obviously I say there that I went card dead every time in the middle stages, but the leak is mine because I clearly have no clue what to do in that scenario and better tournament players will have emerged from those spells better than I did. Thankfully, I did do really well in the small handful of Online MTTs I played, I reckon I only played about 15 MTTs online this year and I won 4, which is a great return I should probably think more about making the most of next year.
So 2009 looks pretty simple for me. I want to carry on my writing work and any other poker opportunities that come along. I want to get a dog with my girlfriend, that should be easy enough. And in 2009 I want to run well and play well. Obviously I cant control the luck element, but I can constantly improve as a player and I think that if I have a positive attitude and stop whining about running bad, then it will only have a positive affect on my winnings. (Cashing in a live event would be nice too).
So happy new year and may 2009 be the year of the run good!
Just about to get ready for a New Years party and I cannot wait to get 2008 done and dusted. I know tomorrow will be the same as any other day but we humans do think of things in terms of months and years and, while by no means an awful year, 2008 is one I will be glad to see the back of.
The dog died, my old man was ill for a bit, my missuses grandparents the same and even my missus was worryingly ill for a while (all more than fine now thankfully). Most of my mates had some form of bad news or other in 2008, in the case of a few some very grim news indeed, so generally it wasn't the best year. I did have plenty of fun too, went to Vegas which was amazing, had a really good year with the girlfriend in general so it wasn't all that bad.
As a writer I had a truly fantastic year. I really love the stuff I do with Pokernews and wrote some stuff for magazines I really truly deemed 'proper writing n that'. I also got a lot of kudos in the industry and have even started a regular stint on Sky Poker as a guest, which panders to my ego very nicely indeed. If 2009 can be anything like 2008 in this regard, I will be a happy man.
As a player, its been a bad year. A winning year, a nice winning year I guess (I have more in the bank now than ever before), but way below expectation and had lots of long frustrating break even spells. I only had one bad losing month (which might have actually been break even when you add rakeback) but the 2nd half of the year contained too many just-better-than-break-even months, which was frustrating but again, thank god for rakeback.
Which was all funny, because this was the first year I had a coach, Stuart 'Balloo' Menzies, which coincided with the bad run when you think it would do the opposite. Stuart has really massively helped my game, and made me realise that I wasn't as good as I thought I was and a lot of my success in the past has been a result of raw aggression (Which ain't a terrible thing). Its good to have the wind knocked out of your sails like this and I think I am a much better player this year than I was 12 months ago for it.
But unfortunately, the coaching has also coincided with some real bad luck at the cash tables. The last 6 months I have ran really bad at the cash tables, not getting massively outdrawn all the time (Although that did happen plenty and I am about significantly up on my 'Sklansky Bucks' graph, though not on my real bucks graph lol) but simply constantly running big hands into bigger hands. I get queens, they get kings, I get kings, they get aces, I get aces, they hit a set, I get a set, they hit their flush etc etc.
I hate moaning about it, I hate people that moan about bad luck, but apart from occasional weeks where I would run like god, this was the story of May to December for me. My coach, who sweats my sessions, made the comment to me that he has never seen anyone run big hands into bigger hands as much as me and I must say, his support has been what has stopped me from quitting the game this year.
But, one big leak of mine that I cant blame luck on (though it is a catalyst for) is that when I am tilted, I play very defensively and don't value bet enough. As much as I moan about bad luck, I'm pretty certain the tilt factor amplified the bad luck and I could have got myself out of these runs had I played better.
Live tournaments were a huge flop for me too, which was lucky in a way as I was sponsored for the vast majority of the events I played and didnt lose much of my own money at all. I didn't cash in a single ranking event and only got my money back in one saver deal. I cant really blame luck on this, every tournament I played went like this:
Build a big stack early
Go card dead when the blinds start to get big
Blind away and shove with rags at the end of day 1, get called, lose.
Obviously I say there that I went card dead every time in the middle stages, but the leak is mine because I clearly have no clue what to do in that scenario and better tournament players will have emerged from those spells better than I did. Thankfully, I did do really well in the small handful of Online MTTs I played, I reckon I only played about 15 MTTs online this year and I won 4, which is a great return I should probably think more about making the most of next year.
So 2009 looks pretty simple for me. I want to carry on my writing work and any other poker opportunities that come along. I want to get a dog with my girlfriend, that should be easy enough. And in 2009 I want to run well and play well. Obviously I cant control the luck element, but I can constantly improve as a player and I think that if I have a positive attitude and stop whining about running bad, then it will only have a positive affect on my winnings. (Cashing in a live event would be nice too).
So happy new year and may 2009 be the year of the run good!
DTD £300 Deepstack
Whenever I play live these days, I always jinx myself by having a really good session playing online cash just before I leave the house, and this was no different. The £300er at DTD was lots of fun though and I had a nice soft table to begin with for most of day 1. No complaints about how I never got a big stack for 2 days because I ran pretty well but picked the wrong street to start bluffing every time I did that, really mis timed the rare occassions I was trying to nick pots and the more I think of it, there is no real reason to do anything than value bet when the structure is as good as it was. I was even able to fold pocket queens very easily with just under 30 big blinds to someone with the worlds most polarised hand range without worrying about getting too short.
I stopped in a travel lodge near by because of the early start to day 2, which was awful. First off I forgot my toothpaste and travel lodges are so shit they dont have any to buy or give away, so ended up cleaning my teeth with soap. Then I had a rotten nights sleep and woke up to find I actually didnt have a shower, just a hole in the wall where the shower heads should be. I couldnt really complain, because there was nobody there to complain to, the cleaning lady said the reception staff didnt start till 3. Eventually she let me into a disused room with a proper shower, which saved them one of my overwritten complaint letters.
Day 2 lasted exactly one hand for me. I had about 15k with blinds at 600/1200 and an ante of 100. A taggy player I had heard moan about being card day on day 1 raised to 2800, called by a laggy player who has been running like god and I find 78 of diamonds. Excellent spot for a squeeze in my opinion, I had enough to make them fold a lot of crap and the right hand if I get caught out by a monster. The original raiser postures for ages, asks me if I had AJ (meaning he has AT or AQ) and folds. In hindsight I wish I had made more of this, because it didnt stop mr running like god to insta call me with A2, which he hit aces up with right away. Not the best call from him, but being as I mentioned he had been running like god, I cant exactly be suprised when he calls me. He was a nice bloke so who cares.
But was all good fun, as DTD usually is. I got interviwed by Poker Tour Radio who launched last week and showing some real signs of potential. We are going to have a little crack at making the pilot of the Pokernews podcast this week to see just how out of depth we really are.
I stopped in a travel lodge near by because of the early start to day 2, which was awful. First off I forgot my toothpaste and travel lodges are so shit they dont have any to buy or give away, so ended up cleaning my teeth with soap. Then I had a rotten nights sleep and woke up to find I actually didnt have a shower, just a hole in the wall where the shower heads should be. I couldnt really complain, because there was nobody there to complain to, the cleaning lady said the reception staff didnt start till 3. Eventually she let me into a disused room with a proper shower, which saved them one of my overwritten complaint letters.
Day 2 lasted exactly one hand for me. I had about 15k with blinds at 600/1200 and an ante of 100. A taggy player I had heard moan about being card day on day 1 raised to 2800, called by a laggy player who has been running like god and I find 78 of diamonds. Excellent spot for a squeeze in my opinion, I had enough to make them fold a lot of crap and the right hand if I get caught out by a monster. The original raiser postures for ages, asks me if I had AJ (meaning he has AT or AQ) and folds. In hindsight I wish I had made more of this, because it didnt stop mr running like god to insta call me with A2, which he hit aces up with right away. Not the best call from him, but being as I mentioned he had been running like god, I cant exactly be suprised when he calls me. He was a nice bloke so who cares.
But was all good fun, as DTD usually is. I got interviwed by Poker Tour Radio who launched last week and showing some real signs of potential. We are going to have a little crack at making the pilot of the Pokernews podcast this week to see just how out of depth we really are.
European Deepstack Poker Championships
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
In years of poker I have only ever really entered a satelitte about 5 times, and never had any success at all. However last night I entered a satelitte for the European Deepstack Championships on Winamax and came 1st, so an all expenses trip to Dublin it is for me. So glad too, because its one of three events I really want to play next year (That and the WSOP main event, obv, and the Irish Open)and its always a good laugh.
Its funny, Ive played much bigger events and been lucky enough to have been sponsored into much bigger, but for some reason winning my seat is all that more satisfactory. Maybe because Im going to get about a grand in travel expenses for what will essentially be a £400 round trip to Dublin.
Anyway, minor brag over.
In years of poker I have only ever really entered a satelitte about 5 times, and never had any success at all. However last night I entered a satelitte for the European Deepstack Championships on Winamax and came 1st, so an all expenses trip to Dublin it is for me. So glad too, because its one of three events I really want to play next year (That and the WSOP main event, obv, and the Irish Open)and its always a good laugh.
Its funny, Ive played much bigger events and been lucky enough to have been sponsored into much bigger, but for some reason winning my seat is all that more satisfactory. Maybe because Im going to get about a grand in travel expenses for what will essentially be a £400 round trip to Dublin.
Anyway, minor brag over.
Im a proper radio bloke me
Long time no post eh? Laziness mainly, also my girlfriend has been pretty ill but I am pleased to say she is slowly on the mend and thankfully just in time for us to really enjoy Christmas (Thanks btw to those who gave get well messages) so I havent really played much in November, but we'll make up for that in December.
I've got more appearances on Sky Poker lined up and rather excitingly (for me) Im going to be dipping my toes and having a crack at poker podcasting. I love the 2+2 and Pokerroad podcasts and now a fully fledged UK poker radio station launches tommorow and it looks great, so I'll be making a few 'pilots' (thats a telly word that is) to see if I really do have the soothing voice that this gay turkish bloke said I once had at my old job. Radio probably suits me a tad more than TV, I have the face for it a bit more.
Three big tournaments coming up this week, Luton, DTD and the GCBPT - Ive been mulling over all three for ages and I have decided I am going to go the easy route and go to DTD. I have an other engagement that means Bristol was off the menu and the big value advantage of playing at DTD is that 70 odd GUKPT champions will be in Luton the same day.
It certainly would be nice to finish the year off by not making it a year I didnt cash in a live donkament.
I've got more appearances on Sky Poker lined up and rather excitingly (for me) Im going to be dipping my toes and having a crack at poker podcasting. I love the 2+2 and Pokerroad podcasts and now a fully fledged UK poker radio station launches tommorow and it looks great, so I'll be making a few 'pilots' (thats a telly word that is) to see if I really do have the soothing voice that this gay turkish bloke said I once had at my old job. Radio probably suits me a tad more than TV, I have the face for it a bit more.
Three big tournaments coming up this week, Luton, DTD and the GCBPT - Ive been mulling over all three for ages and I have decided I am going to go the easy route and go to DTD. I have an other engagement that means Bristol was off the menu and the big value advantage of playing at DTD is that 70 odd GUKPT champions will be in Luton the same day.
It certainly would be nice to finish the year off by not making it a year I didnt cash in a live donkament.
Im a proper telly bloke me
Not that much Pokery stuff to report at the moment, my missus has been ill for over a week which has took up plenty of my time (because Im a good boyfriend) and I havent been playing that much. At this juncture I would like to thank Tracey 'Dingdell' Dell from the Blondepoker forum for some nutritional advice she has given us to get her better, which she did free of charge (its her field of work) and was much appreciated.
I did shoot back down to Feltham this week for another appearance on The Club for Sky Poker. It went pretty well, I was there for Pokernews talking about the WSOP main event results, you can see it tonight at 8.30pm and repeated a few times after. At one point I started talking and this voice came into my head "you dont know how you are going to finish this sentance" and somehow I managed to warble my way through whatever question it was, the rest went fine I think.
It was an odd day, it took me nearly four hours in the car to get there (Delays on the road + rush hour) and I was on the show almost as soon as I arrive, so I was there for less than half an hour before I was back on the road for another 3 and a half hour journey. It felt like being a delivery driver or something, which I dont mind as I like driving on the motorway and listening to music (Except when I managed to get on the road for Tim Westwoods slot).
I do really like getting my mug on TV, even if I hate watching it back and spend most of the show thinking to myself "my god you look awful". The fact that I feel comfortable getting make-up does make me feel like a big shot even if I do drive to and from the studio in my milk float of a granny wagon car.
So hopefully the missus will be better soon, I think she is slowly on the mend, and I can start playing a bit more (Although she might have saved me a nasty losing week for all I know).
I did shoot back down to Feltham this week for another appearance on The Club for Sky Poker. It went pretty well, I was there for Pokernews talking about the WSOP main event results, you can see it tonight at 8.30pm and repeated a few times after. At one point I started talking and this voice came into my head "you dont know how you are going to finish this sentance" and somehow I managed to warble my way through whatever question it was, the rest went fine I think.
It was an odd day, it took me nearly four hours in the car to get there (Delays on the road + rush hour) and I was on the show almost as soon as I arrive, so I was there for less than half an hour before I was back on the road for another 3 and a half hour journey. It felt like being a delivery driver or something, which I dont mind as I like driving on the motorway and listening to music (Except when I managed to get on the road for Tim Westwoods slot).
I do really like getting my mug on TV, even if I hate watching it back and spend most of the show thinking to myself "my god you look awful". The fact that I feel comfortable getting make-up does make me feel like a big shot even if I do drive to and from the studio in my milk float of a granny wagon car.
So hopefully the missus will be better soon, I think she is slowly on the mend, and I can start playing a bit more (Although she might have saved me a nasty losing week for all I know).
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