Break from poker for a bit

Date: Sat, Jul 19, 2008

Bit of a lull poker-wise just now, I'm taking a break from poker for a little while post-LV. It's real nice to have a week or two away from the tables. Will get back to poker once I've sorted a bunch of stuff out.

Bankroll is now $8k, down from $13k pre-Vegas. So I'll be grinding $200nl upon return.

Been thinking about playing styles a bit too, listened to a really good interview with Leatherass on a Cash Plays podcast. He talks about being deceptive with postflop play, rather than being deceptive by playing loose preflop. I think playing a tighter (more 20/17) kind of style would suit me more preflop and allow me to play more tables and get more volume in.

I'll book a session with Brian in a week or two and work on the new style, then start really focussing on getting a lot of hands in, and working on my postflop play.

But now, it's off out to enjoy the sun. :)

P.S. Cheers to everyone who read and commented on the Vegas posts and stuff, glad some people found it interesting. Was a lot of fun.

Vegas #9

Date: Fri, Jul 11, 2008

My flight back is tomorrow morning so this is my last post from Las Vegas.

Spent the last few days being extremely lazy, eating unheathly (but awesome) american fast food, drinking and hanging out at the house. Speaking of which here are some pics of our pad...

Had a couple of Pete's friends around last night and collectively drunk all of the beer that remained in the house. We got thunder/lightening at about 2am which was pretty bizzare as it was the only time it's ever rained since I've been here. Played a bunch of chinese, pool, blackjack and hung out in the pool. Actually I've probably played chinese more than poker in the last few days, it's completely addictive.

Went out for a meal tonight with some of Dan's family, did some tourism, went up Stratosphere. Although the taxi ride to and from Stratosphere was probably more frightening than the rides I went on at the top! Initially I thought it was pretty cool that the taxi was a Ford Mustang, until he took off breakneck down the strip randomly swerving between busy lanes, frightening stuff. Stratosphere rocked, choppers flew around it at the top which was pretty wierd and I saw some lightening in the distance which was cool also. Oh, and a plane flew over which had an illuminated message on the underside congratulating Dario Mineri for winning his first bracelet!

Not really sure if I'm looking forward to heading home, but I am looking forward to leaving Vegas. Ideally I'd really like to head somewhere else, like California or NY or something. Still, looking forward to getting back and seeing family & friends.

To summarise how poker's went here, one word will do. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiite. I've played poker seriously for around 2-3 years now and I hadn't clocked a losing month until Vegas. I ran terribly live, both in tourneys and cash. Online I was doing pretty well until the last few days where I dropped around $2k. Had a session last night where I lost 5 buy-ins in 45 mins taking cooler after cooler. I misplayed one hand, but other than that played fine. Just ran terrrribly here.

So final totals...
Live cash -$315
Online cash -$800
Live tourneys -$3000
Overall -$4,115

Pretty frustrating to come out here and not book a win, but I don't really mind. Online/live cash is just variance, I'm a large favourite in the games I'm playing. Live tourneys I took shots at and they didn't come off this time despite being big favourites in those spots too. Not much more to say really, I came here to take shots and didn't get lucky this time.

I think my poker bankroll sat at around $13,000 when I left for Vegas. I'll likely revise that when I get home to around $8,000 and move down to $200nl. Will sort all of that out later.


Some random thoughts before I leave...

• Spending money in Vegas is infinitely easy and incredibly fun
• In Vegas it's always 1 hour later than you think it is
• The heat in Vegas isn't as unbearable, I really like it

• The food and fine dining here is fantastic, particularly steak and seafood/sushi
  
• Blue Moon beer is awesome, and Mountain Dew is the best soft drink ever created
  

• There are a huge amount of stunningly attractive women in Vegas
  
• People find the Scottish accent and british phrases amusing to no end
• Overweight people DO actually ride around on motorised karts

• Professional poker stars are either small or big, none of them are medium sized
  
• Live poker is rigged

Vegas #8

Date: Wed, Jul 9, 2008

It was my Bday yesterday, I'm 25... don't feel old yet!

The night before we went out to see Cirque Du Soleil "O" at the Bellagio. It was fantastic, far and away the best circus/theatre type show I've ever seen. I guess the best description of it is a modern stylish circus/theatre production with a huge stage which transformed between water and land as thhe show was taking place. The acts themselves were top class, the fire and diving stunts were really breathtaking. I'd definately go see more of the Cirque Du Soleil shows.

Checked out Bobbys Room at the Bellagio where all of the high stakes games take place. Minimum buy-in within the room is $50,000, there have been known to be cash games taking place with $2,000/$4,000 blinds! The Bellagio card room was much smaller and congested that I expected it to be, and Bobbys Room itself is actually really small. You can walk up to it and look in through the windows. Spotted a bunch of big players including Sammy Farha, Greenstein, Devilfish, Phil Galfond, Urindangers, etc.

On my bday we went out with a bunch of the guys from Martin/Steve's house to The Gun Store to shoot some guns. We went for a deal where got to fire off a clip with 4 different machine guns, then did a competition at the end. We went for the MP5, Uzi, Grease Gun and Swedish-K machine guns, then 2 shots each with the Desert Eagle.

Pick a gun!Hostage targets, mexican Ron Jeremy with child ftw
Signed a sheet of paper, they had a quick look at our drivers lisences, a couple of minutes of instruction and it's shooting time. Tried some burst firing at first, then with the last couple of guns opted for unload the whole clip in one burst rambo style. Uzi seemed incredibly difficult to control... it was everywhere! Swedish-K was probably my fav to shoot, it had a slower rate than the others and felt more punchy. It was a bit easier to fight against the kickback and drill a bunch of holes in the target.

Desert Eagle challenge was insane. We took 2 shots each one by one, apparently it would be difficult to shoot more than 2 shots as the kickback put so much pressure on your wrist. The kick was huge and really difficult to control, was pretty nerve-wracking before pulling the trigger for the first time! Martin took down the challenge, pretty unbelievably sticking 2 bullets right in the center of his target, pics on Martin's blog. Wear the hat while checking in for the flight home imo.

My only regret was forgetting to fire the RPG, which was only $35 lol. Need to go back.

The Desert Eagle
Tons of gun store pics as this place was sick. MP5 we shotShotguns :PYou can just buy an RPG?!
Sick $5,000 Halo style sniper riflesHeaded out for dinner at N9ne at the Palms. I'd been told beforehand that they served some of the best steaks out there and the steak I had was definately the best I'd ever eaten, delicious. The waiter informed us that they were also serving Kobe steak priced at $32/oz! Vegas wins at eating out. N9ne raised the level on hot hostesses (again) too. Also, David Blaine was sat at a table next to us with a bunch of his friends. Food, service, restaurant all 10/10.

Afterwards we headed to the Stars party at at Rain nightclub. We had VIP tickets so could access all areas of the party and all of the free bars. There were loads of poker faces there, and some random celebrities too, think we got a pic with Chuck Liddell. They put on a few different shows in the club, all burlesque style, stripping/dancing/acrobatics/etc, they were sweet and a lot of them were performed above the dancefloor.

A few of us headed to the Rhino afterwards, place is just awesome, must be one of the best strip clubs in the world if not the best. There must have been 80+ girls, and one of them told us that they had over 2,000 on their roster! 2,000 strippers! I managed to leave (at 5am) spending more money than I took with me which was pretty impressive, but also completely standard for the Rhino.

Overall a great Bday!

Today I slept 'til about 5pm through most of the hangover which was sweet and spent the day just hanging out at the house revering really. Played a bunch of chinese poker tonight and some pool, etc.

Dan's still in the WSOP Main Event, he plays his 2nd day tomorrow and is pretty short with 12k chips. Pete drew the TV table on his first day and was sat next to Mike "The Mouth" Matusow. We headed over to rail him, drinking beers and making a ton of noise whenever he took down a pot. He ended up getting busted (by Matusow) shortly before the end of the day.

Nothing planned for the rest of the week. So will need to plan some stuff to do. Only 4 days left in Vegas. Pretty much stopped playing live poker now so goodbye to the $$$ tracker that was at the left hand side of the page. I'll recap on the $$$ final totals before I leave. Playing a bit online, up around $1k over the last few days.

Vegas #7

Date: Fri, Jul 4, 2008

Kind of been a bit lazy lately in updating with stuff that's going on, it's 3am and I can't sleep so here's a megapost of what's been happening for the past week.

Had a few hours free at The Wynn so went to the Fashion Show Mall across the street, ended up buying a ton of stuff. I don't like clothes shopping but the clothes here are fantastic and really cheap compared to back home. Sweet Levi jeans were like $36, got a Quiksilver hoody for $10, some cool stuff from the Lucky Brand shop, some shorts, and about 7-8 T-shirts. Will probably need to wear it all on the flight back home, it wont fit in my luggage!

Had a -$1100 session at the Rio the night before the $1.5k. Ran really cold the whole time and lost 2 big (over $1k) pots, one set over set and one AK vs set on an ATx flop against an aggro player. Frustrating, but unavoidable. Spotted Shannon Elizabeth playing in a $2-5 PLO game, bet the waiting list on that was big!

After busting the $1.5k event and being on a bit of a downer the obvious thing to do was get drunk. Two of Pete's buddies are staying with us right now, Jared and Scott (McLovin and AngleShooter). We had drinks and ate at Hooters - exactly as trashy and awesome as I expected. Played beer pong at O'Sheas 'til late went through 15 pitchers of beer, bet cash monies on all of the games and got lots of random people to play. Fun times. Wandered around on the strip messing about for a while ended up at Bellagio, I think MGM, and other random places.

Yesterday was Pete's Bday, 6 of us went to Benihana at the LV Hilton for dinner, actually the first Hibachi place I've been to. Started out with Japanese beer, warm sake, soup, salad and sushi... then the Hibachi chef came to the table and started cooking up the main courses, fried rice, lobster, swordfish, chicken, shrimp, etc. I went for a steak and we got shrimp, fried vegetables, rice and other stuff too. All of the food was prepared in front of us with the chef performing lots of cool tricks, awesome to watch and supremely delicious.
Then went to the Rio to see Penn and Teller who were really good. They messed with the audience a lot which was cool. I really liked the cold-reading, sawing woman in half, nailgun, and handgun segments. Some of the sleight of hand stuff was amazing too, good show overall.
Went out on the strip after and pretty much just got wasted drinking these crazy 46oz alcoholic slush drinks. Went to the bar in New York New York famous for it's duelling pianists. They kicked ass and played loads of covers including The Proclaimers, wooo!

Today went to see Rancid play at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay. They had a wicked ska band supporting called The Aquabats. Led by The MC Bat Commader they were basically 5 middle-aged dudes in superhero costumes rocking out and messing about on stage. Rancid punk-rocked it up hard and played like 20 songs, the crowd were insane, really good gig. Mandalay Bay is real nice, some cool clubs and live music, had some food there after.
No real urge to play poker just now. I'm probably about breakeven for the trip at live cash, down over $3k on stt/mtts, and up a bit online. Played a ton live but I've ran really badly, not a lot I can do about it! As a result of that I don't really feel like playing at the moment, it's a good opportunity to relax, see the sights, party and holiday it up.

It's the 4th of July tomorrow, the US independance day so we might do some sort of BBQ and probably head into the strip to check out the firework shows. It's my Bday on the 7th... wheeeee, currently planning some sweet stuff to do then.

$1.5k trip report

Date: Tue, Jul 1, 2008

No big pros on my first table. In fact the table was REALLY soft. Players were mostly awful.

2nd hand in I pick up QQ. Blinds 25/50. Young scandie makes it 150 from UTG, I raise to 450 from MP1, mid 40s guy in MP3 thinks for around 10 secs and shoves for 3,000 total. Scandie folds, I fold. The guy flatted a raise with AK a few hands later so he almost certainly had AA/KK when I mucked.

Chipped up a bit in a few spots picking up good cards early. Made about 1000 with AK on an AKx flop, and won a 1500 all-in AA vs AK. 1st break after the first 2 levels I had 5200 in chips.

Not too much action in levels 3-4 I don't think... won an all-in against a short stack KK vs JJ. Had 6200 chips at the 2nd break.

Got to level 5, about 1000 players left, moved to a new table with a bunch of bigger stacks and tougher players still a lot of weak spots though. A few hands in blinds are 150/300 with 25 antes, table's playing pretty passively, I limp 88 UTG with a 7k stack, 4 callers. Flop comes 8h9d3d, I lead for 1100, fold, SB calls, BB shoves for 4k, I shove for 7k, SB tanks then folds. BB has ThJh so I'm about 75/25, he hits the Q on the turn. Boooo.

Switched tables, still at level 5, down to 2.8k, folds around to SB who I know opens REALLY light from a previous table. He makes it 800, I shove A9s, he calls with A6s and rivers a 6. Boooo x2. The dealer thinks the 6 is a 9 and ships me the pot lol, but obv someone alerts her and it goes the other way. And that was all she wrote!

The play in the tourney was a lot worse that I expected, I'd put my equity higher than I imagined, probably at $3000ish.

Will update a bit on everything else that's been going tonight probably, heading out to the strip now.

Busto

Date: Tue, Jul 1, 2008

Just a quick update as it's late and I'm tired/drunk.

I bust about 900/2700.

Started with 3000 chips, got up to 5200 at 1st break, then 6500 at 2nd break. Then lost 4k with my flopped set all in against a straight draw (that hit), then bust 3k when A6 rivered a 6 on my A9s. Played really well, every time I put my money in I was a strong favourite... just gotta have it hold up when it matters to run deep!

Will post more of a trip report tomorrow. Cheers to everyone that staked me in the event, I was a good investment and had a blast, I just missed that final element required to do well... luck!

GL me

Date: Mon, Jun 30, 2008

I'm now 50% backed for the $1.5k WSOP event tomorrow. It kicks off midday Vegas time, that's 8pm UK time. Thankyou to everyone who bought a piece of me, I'll be playing my very best. We're looking at a likely 2,700 player field with over $600,000 to first place... so u can do the maths on your percentage ;)

You'll be able to get updates by clicking the following link and going to Event #52 once it's put up there. http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/

I think pokernews will be trying to keep track of the big name pros rather myself so unless I bust Doyle Brunson you might not hear much from me. I'll do some sort of write-up after the event anyways.

Here are a couple of pics I took from the $50k buy-in HORSE final table tonight. It was 3-handed Erick "E-Dog" Lindgren vs Scotty "It's all over baby" Winnn vs some 2p2er with a girls sounding name. All of the big names were out railing it and messing around drinking on the sidelines. Obv Phil Hellmuth tried to get in on the cameras as much as possible too...