Almost had an absolute mare today. I drove down to Nai Harn beach for a chill out and run round a nearby lake. Parked my scootay up and got changed out of my long shorts and flip flops into running shorts, socks and trainers. Whilst im getting changed im packing all my gear underneath the seat of my scootay. Im down to my sexy boxer shorts when somehow the fookin seat slams shuts and locks the keys

in with it! fuckkkkk!

So im left standing there by the beach wearing just these horrendous skin tight boxers and have just my iphone lol. fuck fuck fuck. Really, didnt know what do to? My thai mob, wallet, clothes everything locked in the bike, FML.

After about 10 mins panic and wondering wtf to do i remembered i had the scooters owners (european guy) number in my iphone. So i approached some random Thai bloke who was obv pissing himself at the sight of me in just my gay boxers and borrowed his mob and rang the owner. He werent happy and had to come out and pick my bike up in his truck to take to the garage because there was no spare keys plus he was gonna be at least an hour. fml fml fml. This was obviously gonna cost me money plus further embarrassment, sighhhh.

About 5 mins later in one last desperate measure to get myself out of this predicament i was somehow able to squeeze my fat fingers under the seat and hook the keys out!!! Weeeeeeee! Rang bk owner, assured him that i hadnt damaged his bike etc and all was well again.

In other news everything is good atm, starting to play sports and do more exercise again and obv the weather is incred providing that extra feel good factor. Been back in Phuket a week now and won some money on cash tarbs plus a bit extra from stakes etc. Nothing massive but enough to keep me ticking over. Got a Thai mtt grind sorted but it really is tough out here because the timezone is the abs worst. The grind is regging between 5-12 which is 10am-5pm UK time so obv most tourns are tez with small gtd's etc. The better ones are nearer midnight which is again kinda shit because it means staying up late. Got a really nice sleep pattern here atm where i crash at about midnight and wake between 7 and 9am ideal unless you're an mtt player in Thailand lol sigh.

I'm off again. Flying back to Phuket on 25th Nov and coming back on 20th Feb. Won't stay whole 3 months in Phuket thou. I have a nice 1 bed apartment sorted for 2 months for only 300 quid pm and will use this as a base. Its 2 mins from my old place where Cos is staying atm. Rough plan is... chill there, play some poker, do loadsa sports/get fit, meet people etc and just enjoy life. Got friends there plus other people coming over. I'm gonna explore more of Thai and probs Cambodia (love it there), returning to places i've been to before and checking out new places. Might go Vietnam and a poss trip to Burma (Myanmar) could be on cards, who knows, should be fun!

Feel really sluggish atm and turning into a fat unhealthy slob so the trip should do be good. I ran a half marathon 2 wks ago and climbed Mount Snowdon with 10 other mates last week, (epic wkend) and both activities killed me. I was running on a reg basis over 2 months ago but since a change in weather i kinda fked it off. Gonna get bk on running, go swimming plus get bk in the gym and play footy and tennis (maybe Squash) with poker lads in Phuket.

Been a idiot poker wise recently. Instead of just focusing on the mtt grind which is something i consider myself good at, proven and deffo +ev i have been fkin about playing PLO zoom and rush as well getting into matched betting (ffs Snake). The matched betting has gone ok and i understand a lot more about it now and will continue to pursue it alongside an mtt grind, its easy to make a few grand initially anyways. PLO can fuck right off thou. I'm not very good at it tbh, grrrr. I haven't taken time to really learn the game and i'm probs a fish even at PLO $50. The swings are fucking reeeeeeedic!

After the 3 months is up i'll be returning to my old 2 bed flat in Watford on what will hopefully be a temp basis living with Scotch like the old times :) I plan to sell it and buy a house a short while after that. I may get a PT or even FT job too because i have issues getting another mortgage. Its something i have will be considering anyways and cross that bridge when it comes. I need to either take a real shot at playing poker i.e play 40+ ish mtts a day 5x a wk with bigger buyins) or get a PT/FT job with poker, mb and other bits and pieces on side. Not sure i have the discipline or bollocks thou. I can continue to make a living from the game but its not very rewarding is it. Its been good to me but meh i can't keep on doing it like this. Either work harder, play bigger and earn more or just fk it off and do it as a hobby/part of income. We'll see what the next 3-6 months hold anyways.

Oh, in other news, the hammers are flying, staking has gone well ish recently, i've had a few deece sports bet come in for a few grand plus i got laid last wk, weee. Laters!

I think this blog is about 95% dead tbh. I just can't be bothered to put in any amount of effort into writing it and adding pic's etc. I've been close to writing a hilar (imo) post a few times in the last week or so but i've just put it off. I might just use it to write small sporadic posts now and again so my hardcore fanboy(s), i.e. Cogs, knows i'm still alive and well. I might properly make a comeback, who knows? However, atm its looks unlikely.

In my last post i said i was gonna grind etc and i kinda have been, playing what for me is a decent bunch of tourns. The results have been mixed. In week one i quickly made $4.3k and was flying, shipping a 20r and a 100f and chopping a small 50f. However, in the two weeks since then i've lost a few grand and combined with a couple of hundo jizzed off playing small stakes plo i'm 'only' up $1.6k in profit in the last 3 wks. Nevertheless, i've had a couple of nice little results elsewhere. Firstly, i won $1.1k on a sports bet (i don't bet that big or very often) and last week Chris 'NigDawg' Brammer came 5th in the WSOPE Main and i had a little mincy 1% which netted me a further $2.7k ish, happy days!

Its funny. Having written them two little gay paragraphs above i can feel my blogging juices starting to flow again. I used to love writing this thing :) Its like before sitting down to play poker. I put it off and off and off, but once i'm sat in front of the monitor, with the tables fired up etc, i'm into it. Maybe i will continue writing this shit again...

Alright blog, i'm back, hopefully for a while :) The reasons i temporarily shut down this blog are mainly personal, i just felt a bit uncomfortable with some of my 'stupid' albeit hilariously funny (imo) posts and antics in the past for people to read and judge, ghey anno. I just didn't and still don't really like the idea of people outside of the poker world reading this stuff, it's got me into a few spots of bother :) It's all just a bit of light-hearted fun anyways and what made my blog popular and separated it from the countless other zzzzzz poker blogs available to the online masses. I didn't just write about poker and the bad beats, HH's, strategy etc and nor did stick up boring graphs and stats and other shit, i also wrote about my life in my own kinda quirky unique way. The ups n downs, when i was feeling great, good, and a bit indifferent and tied this in with the poker, sometimes using stupid nonsensical words. I'd discuss what i had been up to outside of poker and tried to make it funny and interesting, and lets face it my loyal supportays, it was pretty com back in the day ;)

The other main reasons i stopped posting was partly due to laziness i guess (who'd of thought). The thing is, whilst i was living in South East Asia for 8 months and even a few months before the trip i was writing for Poker Encore. That was cool, but i wasn't receiving the same level of interaction there as i did when writing on this blogspot addy. I had to tone my writing style down on Encore, which made it, imo, slightly less interesting. The main affect upon my lack of motivation to write stemmed from the lack of visits and comments which most bloggers thrive on. It's nice to know people are reading, I missed the banter, the random remarks and abuse i used to receive, which ultimately resulted in a lack of desire to blog.

I do miss this blog, it was fun. I've got a few cracking stories to tell, some real corkers ;) One of my biggest regrets is not writing as much as i could have about all the places i have traveled to since quitting the day job back in Jan 2008. Its my biggest achievement in poker tbh, being able to maintain a lifestyle with money in my pocket which has given me the freedom to travel to many different places in the world. I could write at least 25 mammoth blog posts packed full of quality photos and tales of some of the places i've seen and things i've done. I've kept a record of all the places i have visited, i'll spare you the details and brags but in short, since joining the darkside of poker i've been to 70 different places around the globe and to about 10 of those on more than one occasion. The longest trips have i been on include 2 months of backpacking the east coast of Oz, 6 amazing weeks in New Zealand and the most recent trip being the 8-9 months I've spent living and traveling around South East Asia. Its something i'm really proud of and my love of travel is something i will continue to maintain and enjoy. I get such a buzz from visiting a new place, i fucking love it, it gives me such a great feeling of freeeeeeeeedom!

Couple of scenic pics that i love that came out quite well using my rather modest shitty little camera. The first is a sick value Long Tail boat trip i went on from Phi Phi Island to a bunch of cool places that cost about $5 and the second is one of many incred sunsets i saw on my travels during a 3 day visit to Koh Lanta.



Anyways, like i said, i'm back for now, back in the UK and back to blogging. I actually returned home in mid May and I've done quite a lot of cool stuff since then. Highlights include going to Wembley and watching my beloved Hammers win the Play Off Final, just being in and around London and getting 3-4 experiences with friends at the Olympic Games (how fucking good was that!) and a recent 1 week mini trip to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam with Scotch, remember that legend? I'm actually enjoying myself in the UK atm and see no reason to jet off again just yet. The only concrete plans i have outside of this country atm is a trip with all the lads to Wales where we're just gonna get smashed for a few days and walk up Snowdon for lolz, GG life.




I'm not sure yet if i'm gonna post like the old Amatay thou, I might write some retrospective posts and fill in the gaps. I do have some absolute gems i could scribble down and there's more potential crackers in the pipeline that i know the Amatay fanboys would appreciate. Its mainly gonna be about poker in the short term i think, i know i know, yaaaawn, we'll see ;) I'll probs end up writing more of my bullshit again once i get going, won't be able to help myself! The main reason i've actually resurrected this blog, for now, is to help motivate myself in the poker world, yiiiip, that old chestnut again! I'm starting with $10k and i'll mainly be playing mtt's and that's all i've got to say about that really. I mean my roll is bigger than $10k but i'm gonna use this as my starting figure and see what happens. Also gonna use my current Pocket Five ranking (World 1992, UK 228) and push that up for added incentive, just watch this space, lolz.

I have played some poker in the last few months btw, its just my volume and motivation is, as per usual, an absolute fucking joke! I did kinda get my nut down a little bit in June i think it was and grinded a 'fair' amount making a $12.4k profit in my usual little faggot games but since then i've just been bumming around. Last month i made $2k but only played two fkin times! I blame the Olympics. So, i've probs ran pretty good because the roi i have since returning to the UK is deffo unsustainable. Maybe i'm just an incredible human? Probably.

Think i won 6-7 tourns during the mini heater in June, here's my best 3 results winning a $10r and $20r on Party and the $20r Ongame for an almost combined $10k total...




Last thing before i go. I am running a half marathon at the end of October (fml) and thus seeking some sponsorship money for my charity of choice. Please click this link below for more info. Send me a fiver, a tenner whatever you can please. Its obv for a good cause and will help push me with the training which has felt increasingly difficult to crack on with in the last week or so, cheers.

Lots been going on in my life travel wise since my last blog. Written a very short post summing it all up on POKER ENCORE! Will write some more detailed posts complete with pics and comedy stories/videos soon!

I've got sooo much to blog about but being really lazy atm but i am still alive and well and thought i'd post this up. Fkin hilar!!!

http://www.pokerencore.com/blogs/2011/11/the-most-depraved-place-on-the-planet/

Also been on a couple of wicked days out since Patong to Phuket Zoo and then on a Boat Trip to Phi Phi. Really good fun, will blog about them soon!

Thought i'd write a quick blog post complete with a few snaps as i had 10 mins to spare in my redic busy life today, check it....

I usually don't remember too many dreams/nightmares, its either that or i wake up in a small wet sticky patch with a stonking 12 inches :) Anyways, i had a strange one just after waking up today that i thought i'd quickly share....

I was playing in this years WSOP although this particular WSOP had a twist! Its was event no. 128 which at the time i thought to be the head up Blackjack event. I was drawn against Barry Greenstein in round one. It was best of three and Bazza comfortably beat me 2-0, sigh. However, it wasn't until the last hand of the 2nd game that i'd realised that it wasn't the HU Blackjack event but that it was in fact the HU mixed game event, mega sigh. The first game was called Raggy Doll and Baz pwned me real hard in that one and the 2nd game was limit holdem. I hazily remember sticking on K9 and Bazza somehow beat me with 88. I was like wtf? k9 is better than 88 in Blackjack? We had to get the tournament director over which was obviously Kathy Liebert?? wtfff? and she explained that it was the HU mixed game event and not Blackjack! ytrdgfkyugjkhjoiljk

Anyone got any random dreams they remember?

EDIT: LOL, just remembered another poker nightmare i had years ago that i posted on my blog about David Benaymine wanting sexual favours, check this out...

http://amatay.blogspot.com/2007/04/another-nightmare-but-not-at-tables.html

Everything ok ish in Thailand atm btw despite doing my back in. Just want the rain the fuck off!