tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43094613994754778932024-03-08T16:34:28.472+00:00Joe blogsjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-41249902171425272282012-05-21T17:00:00.000+01:002012-05-21T17:00:51.387+01:00Summer!I’m writing this blog very merrily (perhaps with the help of a mixed fruit Kopparberg or three) today to celebrate having finished my last exam! I wanted to look back on what’s been a pretty awesome 8 months as well as looking ahead to what’s probably going to be the most epic summer of my life.<br />
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As this is the first blog of 2012, I should probably look at the resolutions I set in January of last year. Having dug up that post I found this sentence, ‘I hope when I look back on it, I can say that I used the next 6 months well and am now settled in to a lovely Pol & Phil course somewhere’. Obviously those months went pretty well with a strong showing at the World Series of Poker and World Championship of Online Poker, I had an amazing summer, making loads of new friends and I am indeed now settled in to a course that I’m really enjoying. Being able to look back and reflect on things like that really highlight just how lucky I’ve been in pretty much all my endeavours in the last few years.<br />
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2012 has already got off to a great start, with my brother tying the knot with my now sister-in-law Cat. They managed the enviable task of creating a wedding that was both really emotional and beautiful but also personalised and fun. I wish them both all the luck and happiness in the world, not that they’ll need any of either. The music has started even better than last year did, and that’s no small accomplishment. Already I’ve managed to see Above & Beyond, Armin van Buuren, Gareth Emery, Arty among countless others. A lovely little cherry on top was my friend Lizzie and I getting the chance to meet Sister Bliss from Faithless before her set at Ministry, who was really cool (and super hot).<br />
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Summer is looking absolutely rammed at the moment. I’m coming home on Friday (and heading straight to Ministry of Sound obviously), heading back up north the following weekend for my end of year ball, followed the next day by FullOnFerry in Leeds, a few weeks later I’m going to visit the lovely Louise Duffy at her house in Marbella (thanks so much Lou!) and the weekend after that I’m going to the Netherlands for Luminosity Beach Festival, and the weekend after THAT I’m heading to Vegas for 3 weeks for the world series. July and August hold Global Gathering and Creamfields respectively and I’m just in talks with friends about 4 days in Ibiza for closing parties in September as well as hopefully being able to get away for France to visit my Gran for a while. Pretty packed! Hopefully I’ll have some time to grind a bit of poker and will actually have some money when I come back to uni next year.<br />
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That’s about it from me. Thanks so much to you guys who take the time to read this when I (infrequently) update it. I’m sure I’ll be seeing many of you over summer so here’s to some good times.<br />
Joe xjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-41377224270445132292011-12-07T00:14:00.005+00:002011-12-07T01:01:09.053+00:00First term at UniEllo ello ello, long time no speak ^.^<br /><br />In keeping with my life goal of being the world's worst blogger, I've not managed to get anything down for over 4 months now, which is a shame because so much has happened and I'm not particularly sure where to start, but I guess I'll go with university.<br /><br />To be honest, it's been awesome so far. A good combination of absurdly drunk nights out with loads of really cool new people and challenging work. I really wasn't prepared for the fact that because I had never studied philosophy before, my brain wasn't trained philosophically, nor did I have a lot of the knowledge that the students who studied the subject at A-level have. For the first time I feel like I'm starting to find my feet in the subject; helped by the fact that I got my first essay of the semester back and I got a first (with some extremely generous first year marking I'm sure). Politics has been a lot easier to just get on with and I'm really enjoying getting stuck in to tutorials. I should get the mark for the first essay in Politics soon, but judging by our tutor's remarks about the group in general I'd be ecstatic with a 2-1.<br /><br />The only society that I joined at uni is Crystal Clear, the DJ society. I've always wanted to learn how to mix and the nights that the society puts on have been excellent for an EDM nutcase such as myself. My friends Amex, Liv and Matt convinced me to finally take the plunge so two days ago I got a Pioneer DDJ-T1 through the post and I don't think I've stopped playing with it since (bye bye degree!). Right now I suck something awful but I'm having loads of fun with it. I did try out for the American Football team but unfortunately half an hour into the tryouts I broke my finger and did some considerable ligament damage to the point it's not even properly healed now. Luckily it's only my pinky!<br /><br />The poker front has obviously been very empty in the last few months, which makes me very happy in a lot of ways. I was really worrying that I was going to struggle making the transition from professional 40+ hour weeks to stopping almost entirely. When I have played it's either been making a weekly donation to the PCA satellite community or playing the deep PLO50 games on stars (I'm playing this small because I've never consistently beaten a online 6max game before and I'm eager to move my way up through the stakes). Since September I've played about 20k hands and I'm running at the very sustainable 21.49 bb/100, which is conveniently about as much money as I've done off either buying pieces or playing sattys over that time. To be honest I don't even see myself playing too much over Christmas, except the obvious exceptions of the absurd 10th anniversary Sunday, or as I'm calling it: server-crash Sunday.<br /><br />I won't be playing much over Christmas because there's simply too much to do! Too many friends I've missed, too much reading and too many amazing nights out to be had. The one I'm looking forward to the most is on New Years Eve and we're going to see Ferry Corsten at Brixton Academy. Ferry blew me away the four times I saw him this year and I'm expecting nothing different on the 31st. Obviously I'm excited for Christmas and my birthday between now and then too =)<br /><br />Thanks to all you guys who take the time to read this and pester me to update it more often (I will someday be a good blogger). <br />joejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-63325652018082992152011-08-01T17:40:00.002+01:002011-08-01T17:41:31.626+01:00Has it been 7 months already?In keeping with my usual fashion, I’m terribly sorry for being the world’s worst blogger (I think my last 5 or 6 blog entries have begun with an apology of this kind). It means a lot that you guys take the time out of your day to read about my life and I’m sorry that I’m too lazy to update on a regular basis.<br /><br />The good news is that I’ve been far too busy having the best summer of my life to date since I last blogged. In March/April/May poker went really well, I won a live £400 tournament for £15k at the International, and I cashed for about $33k in the Spring Championship of Online Poker on Pokerstars, including a $20k score in the $109 Turbo and as well as a few close misses; 12th in the $215 6 max on a Sunday and 32nd in one of the $1k Turbos; all in all a very good few months and one of my best years to date so far. In the middle of June I went to Las Vegas for 5 weeks for the World Series of Poker, and despite having a horrid first 3 weeks poker-wise, I recovered by cashing for $18k in the $1500 event #54 (32nd place) and $40k in the Main Event (278th place) for about a breakeven trip after expenses. Obviously I didn’t have much of my own action in the world series events since I’m not bankrolled for them, but it still ended up as two very nice cashes for me.<br /><br />Away from poker, I still intend to go to university in autumn. I’ve accepted a place at the University of Hull to study Philosophy and Politics starting on September 26th (1 day after the WCOOP ends!). I’m really excited for this new beginning and I’m really planning on making it count this time. Poker has been a great living for the last two and a half years and it may still be my future but I’m really looking forward to learning other things and giving myself the option of doing something else.<br /><br />Part of the reason this has been such a great summer has been the amazing parties going on in the last few months. In that time I’ve seen (to name only a few); Deadmau5, Markus Schulz doing a 7 hour set, Carl Cox and Adam Beyer tear up Fabric and Gabriel & Dresden make their glorious return to the Gallery. On top of those great nights I managed to get to two music festivals; the 3 day Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas and Global Gathering in Stratford upon Avon. Both of them were fantastic weekends with the absolute best in electronic music. Over the two festivals I saw Swedish House Mafia, Above & Beyond (twice!), Ferry Corsten, Richie Hawtin, Andy C and Wolfgang Gartner. I probably saw about 35 different sets over the two festivals and at the moment my favourite was Gareth Emery’s set on the Group Therapy stage on Friday night at Global, I’ll still be having dreams about that one for months.<br /><br />As well as those dreams, the next few months will be pretty busy too. It seems that there is a great club night at Ministry or Fabric every week in August, SW4 festival in Clapham Common on the bank holiday weekend, a trip to France to visit my Gran and I’m still trying to squeeze in a trip to Edinburgh for a bit of comedy sometime in the next few weeks, all while trying to get enough poker in that I can take my first few months of uni off and still be Supernova in January. As soon as all that jazz is over, the World Championship of Online poker starts in September, and then I’ll be off to Hull to start my new life. Thank you very much for sticking with me through this, I will try and be a better blogger in future xxxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-52885269508558927802011-01-04T01:25:00.002+00:002011-01-04T01:51:33.482+00:00A December to rememberI would imagine that it's now beyond the stage in which I need to apologise for being the worlds worst blogger (I am sorry though!). I feel very embarrassed that so many of you take the time to read it and give me feedback and I can't manage to put out more than one every 2 months.<br /><br />In essence, everything and not a lot has happened since I last blogged. I managed to get my application off and currently have received two responses; a yes from Hull and a no from Belfast. The other three universities I applied to are Sussex, Kent and Reading, studying Philosophy and Politics at all of them.<br /><br />I also decided that I was going to grind my little behind off to try and earn some money for university, as opposed to just wasting it away like I do on a regular basis. Obviously that hasn't worked out and am currently on a $15k downswing since the second week off November. Ah well, plenty of time until September I suppose! The good news is that I managed to put in enough volume in November to retain Supernova VIP status on pokerstars, and with it will make a lot of solid bonuses some time in early 2011 ($4k bonus, I'm looking at you).<br /><br />I pretty much decided to take almost all of December off, mostly to get my party hat on and feel a lot fresher for it. My birthday (long) weekend was amazing. On the 18th I went with a group of friends to see Deadmau5 at Earl's court followed by a drum and bass night, after which I returned home the next morning in the snow at 10am. It was my birthday two days after and I went for a lovely family meal to my favourite resteraunt Matsuri and a few days after that I made my way up to Cambridge to see my lovely friends and get outrageously drunk drinking chilli vodka. Add that to the mandatory other going out nights around Christmas and new year and you have one happy joejoe.<br /><br />I suppose now is the time to look forward to 2011. I hope when I look back on it at this time next year that I can say that I used the next 6 months well and am now settled in a lovely Pol&Phil course somewhere. As long as those two things happen I don't think I need to worry about resolutions, although my fat, out of shape ass could definitely stand to lose a few pounds.<br /><br />Thank you all for reading my lovelies xoxojoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-22366682144313475162010-10-25T14:39:00.000+01:002010-10-25T14:40:38.713+01:00The Beginning of the EndFor the first time I’m starting to look towards the end of poker. I’m sure every poker player that frequents this blog will either have thought of quitting or had to suffer their friends threatening to quit during nasty downswings. I suppose the way I know this is for real is that it’s coming in the middle of a decent winning run. At 21 I feel I have to make a life choice soon, decide to play poker for ever or start to look at college applications (as I’m qualified for absolutely nothing right now). <br /><br />Although poker can be a fun way to earn a decent living, I can’t consider it a future. I still have a desire to be the best player I possibly can but I find myself depressed way too often. Depressed that I’m essentially nocturnal, depressed that I never get to see the people that I love (or meet new ones), and certainly depressed that I can’t handle the insane monetary swings as well as I would like.<br /><br />I had been loosely planning to go to uni next September, and have been completing my application in the last few weeks, but I’ve firmly decided that I won’t play poker in the time I’m at there. If four years down the line I decide I want to play again for a living then so be it.<br /><br />My plan is to grind hard online until the end March, earning 10k VPPs per month, which should be enough to make supernova and the $4k Bonus with the FPPs I already have as well as hopefully $20k+ in expectation (which as I’ve hopefully explained in my blog over the past 2 years is not a sure thing). After March I’ll find something to do for a few months (probably travelling) and then likely do Vegas, festivals and more travelling in the summer before hopefully going off to a uni in September 2011. Obviously this could all be scuppered if nowhere accepts me (a possibility looking at the current situation), but if that’s the case I’ll have to reassess my plans.<br />With that said, my plan in the next five months is to stick to only online poker, as live poker is both a colossal waste of time and energy and is part of the reason my sleeping pattern is so messed up (and I’m sure partly contributing to my increased mood swings). I’ll try to spend my extra time in this time doing productive things, be it exercising, learning or simply having fun with my friends.<br /><br />I’m sorry I’ve been a bit of an awful blogger, but I am truly thankful that so many people take the time to read it give me feedback or encouragement. I hope you’ll all see that this isn’t meant in a moaning nature, but an excited one; in fact I’m getting quite excited at the thought of life after poker having just written it down.joejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-21159196425464591332010-09-13T02:39:00.002+01:002010-09-13T03:34:01.395+01:00Tough timesObviously no-one wants to hear a poker player bitching and moaning about how bad he's running, so I won't bore you with that. What I do think is worthy of discussion is how we, as poker players actually manage to function under these extreme swings. Online I've lost around $6k playing tournaments in the last two weeks. I understand that considering my average buy in (around $50) this is a natural swing and I can expect this downswing to get much much worse before it gets better.<br /><br />The main problems with living off playing multi-table tournaments is;<br />a) You have no idea when your current downswing will end. Obviously it would be good if Stars could pay each reg their tournament equity at the end of each month, but for the most part it's something everyone has to deal with.<br /><br />b) Confidence. Those of you who know me well will know that I am not someone who suffers from confidence issues. I also pride myself on being level-headed and not delusional; something that turns out to be something of a two-edged sword. I naturally question every negative (and positive) result I have. Are you + EV in these tournaments or cash games? Was that the correct play? I know deep down that I'm a winning player in these games, but each losing session slowly chips away at that.<br /><br />c) The extra high variance towards the end of tournaments. Let's face it, not everyone runs as well in the end-game, as none of us have a meaningful sample size. No matter how many flips, coolers or suckouts I win in a session, all of my equity will eventually come down to a range flip. In the last week I've come 9th in the fuper; cashed for $2k, first was $25k, I came 11th in the $20r; cashed for $450, first was 9k, and 18th in the $50r for $400, first was 8k. As well as this I've had all manner of deep runs in other tournaments. The point I'm trying to make is that if we're not Shaun Deeb, we only have a certain amount of end games to actually leave our mark.<br /><br />I'm not exactly sure what me writing this will do, perhaps the honesty of publicly admitting that I'm struggling will do me good, perhaps I'm just wasting my time writing when I should be studying the game itself (something everyone should always be doing no matter how good they are). Hopefully it may give someone who's just starting MTTs an accurate portrayal into what playing them for a living is actually like.<br /><br />All I know is to keep on grinding, keep a level head and try to play well. There are a lot of WCOOPs left and I'm not going to win any of them if I sit around feeling sorry for myself.<br /><br />Away from poker my post-vegas summer was amazing. France was blissfully peaceful, Edinburgh was hilarious and great fun and Creamfields rekindled one of my favourite types of music with some amazing people.<br /><br />Love all of you lots<br />xoxojoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-46457640015587202302010-07-03T18:34:00.001+01:002010-07-03T18:34:47.200+01:00Vegas part 1I've just woken up at 11:22, and I'm sitting next to an absolute legend. But we'll have more on that later.<br /><br />Vegas has been so fun, despite the fact that I've managed less than 7 hours of poker in 5 days. The weather has been over 100 every day, so it's either been a day of lazing by the pool and playing playstation or going into the strip and tasting each casino's range of strawberry daiquiris (Ed is quite the connoisseur unsurprisingly). I'll try to paint some kind of a picture of what's happening, but seeing as I have to keep this blog somewhat safe for work (and believe me, there's a lot of NSFW content), i'll have to tell a lot of stories in person.<br /><br />Thursday night was pretty insane, we got a limo from our place to Stoney's, which is a modern country and western club, so we all got our line dancing on while chilling out in the VIP section with the county sheriff (who sung and danced every word to Baby Got Back flawlessly). One of our number who shall remain nameless managed to get with a woman who could well have been 3 times his age and as such as earned legendary status.<br /><br />Cashgames have been going ok, I lost $600 on the first day and had been posting small winners up until last night where I was up about $600 in a 2/5 PLO game and lost a $1500 pot with 5432 vs T764ddxx on 853ddx. It was kind of sick, after he made a huge repot, he showed his hand to the guy next to him which seems like it can just never ever be a made hand so I made a light call hoping to see a wheel wrap with a flushdraw rather than the hand he had. We ran it twice and he obviously got there both times.<br /><br />I'm about to head off to the 2p2 party which should be a lot of fun, then watch the UFC with the guys in the evening. I will try and blog again in a few days.<br /><br />Later taters xxxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-54533980041511704072010-06-24T01:07:00.003+01:002010-06-24T01:39:17.022+01:00Some binkage, boredom and goodbye to lovely BrightonI had some minor shippage last week! I chopped the £250 ISSOP in London last week for a smidgen over £6k. Thank you to everyone who railed on the gutshot site and for saying such nice things on facebook/forums. <br /><br />I was talking to Sam G about it a few nights ago, and it really seemed that as long as I ran halfway decent there was a really good chance I was going do well. The bubble was very interesting; there were 100 runners, paying 9 places, 9th receiving £1000 which is a pretty huge bubble. Obviously I dropped a few subtle comments like 'wow that's a huge bubble' and proceeded to be the most active player 10 handed. It's a pretty interesting ICM spot, because the bubble was so huge, but the next 4 payouts were all less than £1k extra so taking a bunch of stupid risks to try and win the tourney certainly seemed to be the order of the day, everything from there was basically me running pretty good. As soon as I got heads up with Demetri, we decided quickly to chop it. He seemed pretty good and if I had any edge on him heads up it certainly seemed negligible. We decided to leave a tiny bit of cash and the trophy to play for; which I won in about 4 hands, getting it in with A5o on a T3T5 board in a 3bet pot when he check raised all in on the turn against his A7o. It feels pretty great to win something, and definitely gives me some breathing room just before Vegas.<br /><br />Lizzie was away for the last four or so days leaving me in Brighton pretty much on my own, which was cool but I certainly have noticed a few things that occur when you live on your own;<br /><br />1)I have absolutely no need to actually get dressed. I did flirt with the idea of throwing a dressing gown on to walk to the shop to buy some wine gums, but decided it was too much effort.<br />2)I go absolutely insane and start talking to myself<br />3)My music taste becomes much more outgoing and unashamed. I'm pretty sure that I legitimately like Taylor Swift at the moment (see my second point).<br />4)Listening to The Who on full volume while doing Townsend-esq guitar swings around the house is totally acceptable.<br /><br />To be honest, I have actually appreciated some time alone, especially as I'm going to be in a guys house in Vegas from Monday for about 3 weeks. I'm planning to take it pretty easy to start with; play some 2/5 and a few tourneys and see where things go from there. I'm so stoked for the trip, i'm roughly as excited as 12 year old fat Joe got when you mentioned ice cream. I don't want to jinx anything but I feel so confident in my game at the moment, and my ability to play live more than ever. I'll try and keep my blog much more regular while I'm in Vegas and post my wins and losses.<br /><br />I suppose that's about it from me, I'm going to run back to Watford on Friday and that'll be all she wrote from lovely Brighton for now. It's a really lovely place and I could certainly live here later in life. If anyone is around London on Friday/Saturday/Sunday then give me a shout if you want a drink.<br /><br />Later taters xoxojoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-28164508817095538812010-05-28T15:36:00.002+01:002010-05-28T15:57:15.023+01:00A May without a lot of pokerSorry about my hiatus from the world of blogging; my excuses this time are twofold. Firstly I've had such little time for poker in the last few weeks (other than a trip up to Nottingham for the UKIPT which i'll touch on later). The second reason is that May was one long breakeven month, I'm writing this on the 28th up approximately $2.5k online and up about £1k live. Apart from bricking a lot of SCOOPs, there isn't really much to report on.<br /><br />I did manage a trip up the M1 to Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham two weeks ago for the fourth leg of the UKIPT, managing to brick the £560, £330, £150 and £55. Despite not doing well in tournaments I feel that my play was very good over the weekend, and I feel very aggrieved at how tough my main event table was when I was hearing about an incredibly soft field from my friends. Although the poker was disappointing, I caught up with Steph and went out drinking and had an awesome time, which is certainly more fun than slowly losing money to lots of bad live poker players.<br /><br />Although I've not blogged about it, I'm sure most of you are aware that my Mum did not win Watford, but came a close second (increasing her vote from the last election) to the Conservative Richard Harrington. I've certainly lost a lot of faith in UK politics after May 6th (despite predicting the election result some time ago). I suppose it's now down to Mr Cameron and Clegg to show us all that they can make positive change that they were both promising on the campaign trail.<br /><br />My last week has been a lot of fun, without playing much poker. Steph decided to take a revision break and come and visit for a few days which was very cool, we distracted Lizzie from her last exam (which she has literally just come home from and I hear went well). For my guilt I played about 110 tournaments last night and won about £2.2k-which is pretty much May's entire profit-playing 180s. I just sharkscoped myself for yesterday and I was running at an incredibly sustainable 269% ROI in 12/180s.<br /><br />I'm going to Watford tomorrow to see Elton John with my parents (which I am so freaking stoaked for!) and then hitting up Cambridge for some Monday night fezzage. Be there or be square!<br /><br />later taters<br />xoxoxojoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-70963355171874155372010-05-03T14:58:00.002+01:002010-05-03T15:15:52.962+01:00I feel that apologising for the punctuality of my weekly blog has become a regular occurrence; and lord knows I hate to be inconsistent. I don't have much of an excuse this time except that I've been busy settling in Brighton and have obviously been playing a lot of poker with the FTOPS and SCOOP well underway.<br /><br />April is well and truly in the books, it was a very good month for me both live and online, although it did get off to a great start and started to turn sour towards the end, which so far has carried over to the first two days of may. I've turned in 5 losing 180 man sessions in a row now, and I've had deep runs in numerous tournaments in which I've finished in very disappointing positions. I'm currently on a 2k downswing at 180s (that's 166 buyins), over about 600 games. Although I'm mentally tough when it comes to downers, it certainly starts to eat at you when you play 600 tourneys and cannot come top2 in any of them (with about a zillion 10th places as well). Obviously the answer is to put in a good amount of volume to turn this rut around; which is exactly what I'm going to do. Expect to see this run turned around in the near future!<br /><br />Aside from poker the last few weeks have been really fun, I've gone out in Brighton a few times, as well as a few trips up to London. I'm going to be going back to Watford for a few days to vote (and celebrate with Mum) this week. The good thing about downswings in poker is that it helps you realise what's really important in life.<br /><br />Well that's all from me, got to hit the 180 tables and turn this bad boy around.<br /><br />xoxojoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-37730295522829286042010-04-15T02:26:00.004+01:002010-04-15T03:07:29.867+01:00A great start to April and live poker trip reportI should start by apologising for the extremely annoyed rants in my last blog. Although I obviously have a very opinionated view of music, it's not my place to bash artists who are out there doing their thing (even if it is completely shit).<br /><br />April has been really great poker-wise, I'm up about about $8k playing 180 mans on stars. It's not just the winning that feels great, but playing well (while maintaining supernova pace) and being rewarded by running well really helps to get you out of bed in the morning instead of living my usual lazy lifestyle. <br /><br />On top of that I'm up about £5k playing live poker from 2 visits to the International. The slight sour note is that I came 13th in the Cash Race final for £750 having had the chiplead with 13 left (cue standard JoeJoe tournament blowup story). I did however swap 10% with Mike Piper who won the whole thing for £15k. The Saturday after I decided to play the £150 (or the Guper as I'm christening it) and ended up chopping it heads up for £2.6k. <br /><br />Despite running really well live over the last two visits, my taste for it was very much spoiled and I don't know if I'll be playing many live tourneys with less than a £300 buyin in the foreseeable future. Firstly, upon my arrival on Saturday a friend told me that someone who I considered at the very least a well wisher had gone around telling people that I had intentionally dumped chips to Mike P in the Cash Race final. Despite how absurd the idea of me dumping my chips to someone who I have 10% of is, it's also a very serious allegation to be making and even entertaining the idea is highly insulting.<br /><br />The other situation came up at the final table of the Guper (I'm going to keep on calling it the Guper until it sticks by the way), in which I was berated by 4 players for completely nonsensical things. Firstly, when I refused the ridiculous 'let's do a deal for 10th place' notion, 4 middle aged men started having a go at me. The pick of the insults was, 'You look like the sort of person that wouldn't give a starving man food!'. The second instance was from one of these middle aged guys, who seemed to be really upset after I raised 22 in MP1 then called his 8bb HJ shove. Apparently deuces is not a 'calling all in hand'. I tried to calm myself, try my Angelo-Esq breathing exercises, but he kept on berating. Eventually I couldn't help myself and said in my nicest possible voice, 'You know sir, it's very bad business of you to educate the fish. I'd carry on letting me make these terrible mistakes if I were you.' Obviously that didn't stop him, and in retrospect I should have kept my mouth shut, I don't want to be the sort of person who takes satisfaction from making someone else look a fool.<br /><br />The fact that they didn't let their points go and kept on having a go really irked me but I've learned in my 5 years of poker to deal with the fact that people cannot think logically when it comes to money. However unpleasant the situation was, it truly means that if I want to, I'll be able to make a living from these kinds of people for the rest of my days.<br /><br />Life is pretty great away from poker at the moment. I'm moving to Brighton on Monday (I had to push it back a week because I got ill and Hannah offered me a lift) for about 3 months before Vegas. Although I'm really grateful that my parents put me up; or put up with me for so long, I'm really grateful that I am getting out on my own.<br /><br />I'm probably going to take tomorrow off poker, as I've got Chess with Tautvydas at 5 then Mum is having loads of Lib Dem friends and colleagues over to watch the Prime Minister's debate.<br /><br />Laters tater<br />xoxoxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-14839425109827075282010-04-05T02:14:00.003+01:002010-04-05T02:53:53.385+01:00A completely non poker related rantSo I just watched 'the greatest songs of the noughties' and I can't help feeling incredibly disappointed. Apart from it obviously being a very poor decade musically, the list of songs that the channel 4 viewers decided topped the last ten years left a very sour taste. For those of you who missed it;<br /><br />20. Leave Right Now- Will Young <br />19. Ruby- Kaiser Chiefs <br />18. Valerie- Mark Ronson feat. Amy Winehouse <br />17. Viva La Vida- Coldplay <br />16. Take Me Out- Franz Ferdinand <br />15. Mercy- Duffy <br />14. Patience- Take That <br />13. Stan- Eminem <br />12. I Don't Feel Like Dancing- Scissor Sisters <br />11. Hey Ya!- Outkast <br />10. You're Beautiful- James Blunt <br />9. Can't Get You Out Of My Head- Kylie Minouge <br />8. Crazy In Love- Beyonce <br />7. Rule The World- Take That <br />6. Crazy- Gnarls Barkley <br />5. Rehab- Amy Winehouse <br />4. Sex On Fire- Kings Of Leon <br />3. I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor- Arctic Monkeys <br />2. Mr. Brightside- The Killers <br />1. Chasing Cars- Snow Patrol <br /><br />To be fair I completely agree with songs 9, 6,4, 3 and 2 being included in the list because apart from all being decent songs in my humble (lol) opinion, they were huge in the charts (especially Kylie, Gnarls Barkley and the Arctic Monkeys).<br /><br />I wasn't exactly expecting a spectacle of all the songs I like released by far and away the best and most interesting artists of the decade simply because most of those bands haven't had much success in the singles department. I was shocked to see a list this bad though.<br /><br />If you're a pop fan, would you not have expected something more like Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis, or Do They Know It's Christmas? by Band Aid20, perhaps Where Is The Love by the Black Eyed Peas?<br /><br />Possibly you're a hip hop fan, and while I'm the first to admit that I don't know my Puff from my Diddy, one Eminem song probably does not fit your description of a fully musically representative poll. From the more commercial side of things perhaps 99 Problems by Jay Z would have fit in this list nicely or maybe you liked Dry Your Eyes by The Streets.<br /><br />I think the biggest injustice in this poll is that somehow very average bands like Franz Ferdinand and the Kaiser Chiefs as well as a simply awful contribution from James Blunt when Jonny Cash's cover of Hurt lies in no-mans-land.<br /><br />It strikes me that unless you're a Snow Patrol fan(and let's face it, who really is?)you're unlikely to be satisfied with the contribution that the great British public has provided us. Instead of mourning this list, lets remember that this decade wasn't a complete waste of time; Radiohead released four world class records, as did Muse. Pink Floyd reunited for an amazing gig at Live8 and music lovers in the UK showed Simon Cowell that he can't buy the Christmas number one anymore, he has to actually put out decent artists from now on.<br /><br />Thank you for listening to my rant. All feedback is appreciated.<br />xoxoxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-20313419964608603082010-04-01T02:30:00.004+01:002010-04-01T02:45:54.052+01:00Failure and new oppertunities...Well it's certainly been a bit of a hectic month, and not all for good reasons I'm afraid. I'm very sorry I haven't been able to blog to update my challenge, but to be honest it's because it's been so far from my mind.<br /><br />Basically the challenge was going swimmingly, I was up to $1200 after about 10 days, which is more than on course to reach my target, then I had a personal issue (which i'm afraid I can't really discuss on the internets), and I had to take a week off, essentially making the challenge impossible. In the time since then I've made about $3k playing sngs but I'm still well short of the 10k. Obviously i'm upset that I decided to put my mind to something and I couldn't complete it, but occasionally life throws banana skins. To be honest when push comes to shove, we play poker so we can live our lives more easily, we don't live simply to play poker. All of my bets have been payed and I hope you'll give me the pleasure of booking some action the next time I try something this crazy.<br /><br />For those of you who don't know about my family, my Mum (who literally just turned 55, happy birthday Ma!) is standing as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Watford in the UK general election in just over a month, so it's safe to say that things have been manic for her and my Dad. I'm trying to remain as non politically affiliated for as long as possible, not because I don't think the Lib Dems are the best of the three major parties but because I have issues with the populist ways all three do business. <br /><br />The only other major piece of news is that I'm going to be moving out of Watford in about 2 weeks to go and live with Lizzie in Brighton for a few months until Vegas. It's primarily to help one of her flatmates out, but I think it'll be a super fun experience, that is if Lizzie doesn't kill me in her pre-exam hysteria or I don't TC myself to death in the haze of post-exam celebration.<br /><br />That's just about it for now, sorry for being such a shit blogger.<br /><br />Loves and hugs <br />xoxoxojoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-51773833136314350652010-03-02T23:32:00.002+00:002010-03-02T23:49:08.307+00:00Bet update 02/03I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you another quickie (another reason you can call me Joejoe 'quicker than the speed of light' Whittaker...)<br /><br />It's been a really good 5 days (even though I've only actually played for four), I'm currently at $726 and feeling very good about having this bad boy done by the end of March. I've played about 1036 sngs in that time and I'm not really feeling the burnout yet; perhaps because I've only had one losing day. I suspect that the real test of character will come in when I have a few losing days in a row.<br /><br />I've played 3 London Poker masters events, the £300 NL, £200 NL and £100 HORSE, not cashing in any of them. I was pretty happy with my play in all 3, except my exit hand from the £300 in which I had completely misread the situation and tried to squeeze in a spot where I had much less fold equity than I thought.<br /><br />Bet update;<br />Sngs played; 1036<br />Roll; 726.26<br />Profit; 526.26<br /><br /><a href="http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx76/joejoe1337/Challenge_02_03.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 870px; height: 558px;" src="http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx76/joejoe1337/Challenge_02_03.png" border="0" alt="" /></a>joejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-64596024768697217402010-02-26T00:26:00.002+00:002010-02-26T00:33:10.846+00:00Quick updateOkie dokie, it's been tiring and frustrating but things have started to fall into place (I hope).<br /><br />Sngs played; 573<br />Account balance; 265.61<br /><br />59.6 buyins up from 573 sngs, comes to about 9.71 roi which is obviously well below expectation, I have started to hit a bit of a boomswitch after 2 days of breaking even. Hopefully I won't be at this level for more than 4/5 more days of grinding. I feel that the land of the 2/180 will be a utopia. <br /><br /><a href="http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx76/joejoe1337/Challenge_25_02.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 1023px; height: 676px;" src="http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx76/joejoe1337/Challenge_25_02.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Hopefully I'll get a good 250 in tomorrow before playing the £300 on Saturday.<br /><br />Love you all and good luck to me xoxojoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-24772191219057708612010-02-23T15:16:00.005+00:002010-02-23T15:39:40.419+00:00Time to get my grind onShort blog post coming up. I've decided that Feb was a complete shambles on my part in terms of volume. I'm at 3300 VPP with little hope of getting to 7500 before the end of the month. So I've decided on a decent punishment/motivational challenge that certainly fits the crime. I've withdrawn all but $200 from my stars account and I'm going to try and Boku it up to $10k. I'm not planning on doing this as a prop bet (although if anyone wants to put any money on this then I'd be glad to take up to $5k's worth of action). If I manage to keep myself busy and determined I should be at 10k about a month from tomorrow 24th March.<br /><br />The kicker for me is that aside from the 4 live tournaments at the London Poker masters which I've already committed myself to, I shan't be playing any other form of poker until this is completed. If I do, I'm going to instantly ship $1k to charity.<br /><br />Here's a screenshot of my cashier now with the bankroll guidelines I've set myself. I'm going to be starting tomorrow so good luck me.<br /><br /><a href="http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx76/joejoe1337/Challenge_Jing-1.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 1022px; height: 717px;" src="http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx76/joejoe1337/Challenge_Jing-1.png" border="0" alt="" /></a>joejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-18562459932552872702010-02-19T12:49:00.005+00:002010-02-19T13:03:53.903+00:00I'm a lazy lazy manGood afternoon, I'm joejoe, the guy that pretends to blog here on a weekly basis.<br /><br />If it makes any difference, I've been really lazy in every aspect of my life this month, let alone blogging. I'm currently sitting at 2100 VPPs for the month, which means if I want to maintain Supernova then I'll have to put a major volume push through next week. I really don't feel like it, but I think future Joe will be really mad if I undo all the good work I did last year and forfeit a lot of money in rakeback just because i'm feeling lazy now.<br /><br />Poker is going pretty well in general since we last spoke, I won the £300 freeze at the international for £7k, then came 2nd in the £100 the week after for £1500 and on Wednesday came 5th in the new £100 for £500. Cash has been so so, I won about 1k on Wednesday before and after the tourney, but had a nightmare -2k session Monday.<br /><br />I was taking an online pummelling at the start of the month; which is obviously part of the reason I was avoiding playing. I didn't cash in a 12/180 in about 3 sessions (which is about 150 $12s, 20 $36s and 5 $60s) but luckily on monday I managed to win and come 2nd in two $36s to reverse most of that bad run.<br /><br />Life has been very good away from poker, have been going out a lot and just chilling when not playing. I imagine that I'll probably make it up to Cambridge sometime in March to party on down.<br /><br />Currently just browsing Vegas flights for summer, I'll probably book all that jazz soon because the prices seem to be going up a lot.<br /><br />loves and hugs xxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-84932459995669060412010-01-15T21:01:00.002+00:002010-01-15T21:13:04.717+00:00Can't grind. Won't GrindI think I made one fatal error in my last blog post about how I'm going to be an amazing SNG and MTT grinder this year. I failed to take into account that the very reason I am who I am is because I am in the front running for the laziest man in the world competition. At about the 2 week mark I've played about 5 days, although to be fair I've put in a lot of volume those days and am sitting at about 5500 VPP (which is on pace with my targets). I think of up somewhere in the region of $2k, although it's hard to break down properly at the moment because I played some cash game and MTT sessions to help mix it up.<br /><br />Speaking of cash sessions I just returned from a nightmare of a cash session live, dropped £2k at £1/3 9max. I'm actually fairly mad at myself for how badly I played, it wasn't so much that I was tilting out of my mind (which I used to do and learned to either remedy it or quit the game), but because I was at a table of droolers I thought I'd be the durrrr-esq big man, playing every hand, finding 3bet and river raises that really didn't merit it, and got myself into some really stupid spots. I suppose I've got to learn that the only way you can beat 9max holdem is by playing somewhere close to 10/8; which is obviously really boring.<br /><br />The flip side is that after the game broke, 6 of us played the most epic game of Legs I've ever been a part of. We had a £1 running ante and the biggest game ended with a £78 pot. It really cheered my spirits up despite being stuck £300-500 for most of the game, just because of the sheer enjoyment of the awesome game. For those of you who don't know the game (which I'd expect would be just about everyone) I'm going to try and get Simon H to write an official Wiki for the rules, because it's without a doubt the best gambling game i've ever seen.<br /><br />Not too much non-pokering news this week, except the fact that I'm really missing going out and having the amazing times I had in December. If you guys could all finish your exams quicker, that'd be dandy.<br /><br />Loves and hugs xxxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-21222665729777306432010-01-06T02:07:00.003+00:002010-01-06T02:37:29.912+00:00I love all of you very muchI should start off by apologising yet again for being such a terrible blogger, I do appreciate that you guys take an active interest in what I do and I shall try and post more (and hopefully more interesting things).<br /><br />The first and most important thing I should get into is that I made the top 200 of the Pokerstars December tournament leader board, meaning I won a seat into a very juicy freeroll with 5, 3 and 2 stamp passports as top three prizes (as well as cash prizes for 4-18 as well). For the non poker literate of you (and the cash game players), a Passport is essentially entry to the number of Pokerstars sponsored live tournaments that the 'stamp' is equivalent to. A 5 stamp is worth roughly 70k, a 3 stamp 42k and a 2 stamp 28k. I suppose the hard part is already done, as December was a very sick grind. Now all I need to do is win a tournament with 200 of the best players in the world, just looking at the Lobby with all the players registered, its choc-a-block with superstars (and D1rtyR1v3r lol). I suppose I should also give a huge shout out and well done to Aprilsfool, who at the start of 2009 I was grinding Hyper Turbos with, who put in a monster grind in the second half of the year to win the Yearly TLB and take down a 6 Stamp for himself. Well done kiddo, you're a sicko.<br /><br />Part of the reason I've been such a terrible blogger is that my birthday, Christmas and New years were 11 days apart, so aside from the insane grind I spent a long time getting heavily intoxicated. I really enjoyed my birthday celebrations in the bridge with all of my lovely friends, followed by a quiet family Christmas in Watford, then an awesome night out with Lizzie in Brighton with her uni friends. Part of the beginnings of the new year is remembering how awesome you have it, and how much you complain about everything because you have a stressful job. This holiday period I really remembered how amazing my friends and family are, and how nothing would really be worth it without them.<br /><br />To the future! The short term goals are mostly poker related. I've set myself the task of 10k VPP/month for every month this year, which is fairly easy if I dedicate myself. In fact, Ken and I have a $500 failure-to-grind penalty for each month, so I'll have to make sure I'm as dedicated as I know I can be. I've started off January by playing MTT Sit and Goes, mostly the $12/180 mans and whatever $36/180s that run. Two days in and the grind is firmly on, and I'm actually enjoying myself (something must be wrong?!) My current stats look something like this;<br /><blockquote><br />$12/180s; 338<br />$38/180s; 35<br />$60/90s; 2<br />About 25 MTTs ranging from $11 to $55<br /><br />net; +$1045<br />2349.41 VPPs<br />8222.93 FPPs</blockquote><br /><br />All very pleasing so far, but I'll admit that I did win a $36/180 about an hour ago for $1700, so my stats would look much more soul-crushing without that. My other goal is Vegas related, which I'm about 90% sure I'm going to do. All I need to do now is take the plunge and actually buy the plane ticket.<br /><br />My non poker goals seem to be going well too. Firstly, I want to swim 3 times a week. Since I've swum both yesterday and today, I'm one day away from freerolling the rest of the week. I'm not sure how long this will last, but we can't keep all our resolutions can we? The second is to be up and awake by 11AM each day. I've decided to keep this one quite lax, since I should probably be allowed a lay-in if I go deep in a tournament, or stay up to watch the playoffs that start on Saturday (which I am STOKED about by the way).<br /><br />Aside from being a boring online geek, I managed to sample some fine live poker already, road tripping up to Nottingham on Saturday/Sunday for Dusk Till Dawn's monthly £300 with Dave, Phil, Ric and Luc. Although I only lasted until level 3 of the tournament, I had a few decent cash game sessions and ended a small winner for the weekend (although I did remember how much I hate full ring cash holdem). I do really love the venue and will certainly be heading up next month for the same tournament, hopefully it can sort out it's financial problems and stay afloat because it really is the center of live poker in the UK.<br /><br />Sorry for the long ramble this week, but I had a lot to say.<br /><br />Loves and hugs xxxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-28053709280678453482009-12-14T15:25:00.002+00:002009-12-14T15:47:21.236+00:00Getting my December grind onAh! Another weekend of tournament poker in the books and shock horror, I somehow booked a winner winning both the $22 6max (for $2k) and the $27.50 360 cap (for 1.7k). Obviously not the big scores I'm looking for, but it certainly feels good to win two tourneys. I also made another deep run in the million last night, eventually finishing 250th or something. I'm afraid there's no interested hand history for this one, simply lost AK to QQ for all of the cheese. Despite 2 deep runs in majors in consecutive weeks, I'm brimming with confidence and feel that the big score is just around the corner.<br /><br />For those of you who are not poker players, or just not tournament players, Stars is doing a really sick promotion for the December Tournament Leader Board (http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/promotions/passport/december/?utm_id=6), which in a nutshell means that if you finish in the top200 at the end of the month, you win a ticket to freeroll with 3 Stars Passports and cash prizes are up for grabs. I currently am sitting in 236th place with 3633 points. I figure if I max out on 12/180s for the rest of the month I should be close to a lock for top 200, but just to make sure, i'm going to play a ton of big field tournaments over the next few weeks just in case. Don't be surprised to see me playing a load of $1 freezeouts!<br /><br />I suppose that's about it, I'd like to give a very loving shout out to Marty who is celebrating his 21st in Tally today, I wish I could be there to get wrecked with you sir. As for my birthday, obviously anyone who is around Cambridge next Monday is more than welcome to join, just hit me up on facebook/aim/skype for details.<br /><br />Love you all <br /><br />xxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-82234491314963112032009-12-12T14:48:00.003+00:002009-12-12T15:27:15.516+00:00The morning after the night beforeYesterday was a messy one, just like the last time I went out with Ed and ended up with a huge cut on my gum from trying to drink out of a smashed Corona bottle (that really impressed the girls we were talking to) before getting kicked out of a cab for chundering. Last night was the 'GOSCARS' and as per usual it was just an excuse for everyone; especially me, Ed, Sam, Nico and India to get absolutely hammered. For those of you who aren't aware, the Goscars evening is the annual award ceremony for performances at the Gutshot, followed by a fun £50 KO tourney. All seemingly nice and fun, well that was until Ed and I came up with the idea of 'the tournament poker drinking game'. The rules are simple, all the players in the game have their chip counts taken at the end of each level and the player with the fewest chips has to buy the round of everyone else (the tournament had 15 minute levels by the way). There was an extra added bonus that if you busted out, upon leaving the game you buy a round of shots too. Despite never having to buy a round and lasting longest in the tourney, India was the first to go for a TC (tactical chunder), and I certainly wasn't far behind.<br /><br />Apparently the tournament poker drinking game wasn't quite enough and Ed and I (who were tablemates) started on the double vodka/cokes and also managed to sink a few sporadic shots of Samuel Buca with Dhaam, JJ and Barry.<br /><br />After I busted the tourney at about 11:45; which coincidentally was the last point I remember knowing the time, I went to the bar with Ed and Lou-Lou and as far as I can tell, in mid conversation with Ed, simply stopped talking and walked outside for my first TC. The wall to the side of the club was my first victim, swiftly followed by me trying to walk to old street underground only to stop 20 meters down the road to settle for about 10 minutes (this is where Phil saw me 'laying in my own pool of vomit').<br /><br />As I slowly stumbled on, my next resting place was waiting for a tube to Euston, where I expertly found a good hiding spot to throw up in (especially sorry for whoever have to clean that one up) and I think some poor girl even came up to me and asked if I needed any help; to which I very politely declined. I managed to hold everything in when I was actually on the tube (which I think took almost all of my tactical knowhow), and the next place I remember being after that was Euston station toilets which funnily was the first time of the night I actually managed to throw up in a toilet or sink all night. After that I stumbled on the last train home and parked myself in the train toilet for the 20 minute journey to Watford; no prizes for guessing what I got up to. All in all, having left the club at 11:45, it took me well over 90 minutes to make the 7 minute journey from the club to Euston, and there are several things that are currently unexplained-like why I have a fairly deep cut on my thumb and bruises all over my body-that I'm sure will come to me in time. When I got to Watford, I stumbled home, threw up once more in my toilet before falling happily asleep in front of Eddie Izzard.<br /><br />All in all, thanks very much to Barry for putting on such a fun evening, I look forward to making an even bigger dick out of myself next year. <br /><br />Other than last night it had been a fairly quiet week. I had an awesome time out with Lizzie and Sarah on Monday, having dinner and predrinking and Sarah's before going to some club in Soho. I also managed to put in a winning live session on Wednesday to the tune of about £750. Im looking forward to putting in some MTT volume this weekend, hopefully that 6 figure score is around the corner.<br /><br />Love and hugs to you all <br />xxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-20389299839583612932009-12-07T03:50:00.002+00:002009-12-07T04:12:53.955+00:00Soul crushing weekend, but certainly taking positivesI'm blogging at 3:50 GMT, which means I've abandoned hope of Favre and his Vikings making a comeback and giving me 5 correct Sunday Night Football picks in a row, I suppose the run had to end at some point. I've also drunk quite a lot of beer in the last 90 minutes so forgive me if my blog isn't up to it's usual grammatical standards. <br /><br />Basically this weekend reminded me why I quit playing tournament poker for a living and moved towards cash games, on each day I had a sick deep run in two huge field tournaments; on Saturday the $11/30 Guaranteed (with 6000 players) and on Sunday the $215 Sunday Warmup (with 4700 players) coming 18th and 25th respectively. Although retrospectively I can't really fault the way I played it's is extremely hard to go so deep in these tournaments and live with winning a few buyins.<br /><br />Saturday's deep run was a bit of a joke (as you'd expect with such a low buyin), as the chipleader was a complete maniac (and not the good kind), the first spot I realised this was when he 3b/called my 30bb shove with 35 left HJ vs btn with K9s (and luckily my 77 held) but my AQo was not so lucky vs his K6s when I r/shipped UTG vs UTG+1 with 18 left 50bb deep. Having such a novice in the tournament really creates a strange dynamic, and I thought AQo was basically good to go with considering he'd 3b 7/8 of my opens since he'd been on my left and there was a decent chance I was at least a 70% favourite (with a small chance he may fold).<br /><br />The Warm Up was effectively decided by one; what I think is a very marginal spot with JJ in MP2;<br /><br />Poker Stars $200+$15 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t20000/t40000 Blinds + t4000 - 8 players<br />The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com<br /><br />BB: t1553562 M = 16.89<br />UTG: t1105280 M = 12.01<br />UTG+1: t769303 M = 8.36<br />MP1: t1717114 M = 18.66<br />Hero (MP2): t1761736 M = 19.15<br />CO: t701846 M = 7.63<br />BTN: t1523630 M = 16.56<br />SB: t1285372 M = 13.97<br /><br />Pre Flop: (t92000) Hero is MP2 with J J<br />1 fold, UTG+1 raises to t99779, MP1 raises to t560000, Hero???<br /><br />I had no specific reads, but the table had been fairly active and there had been a decent amount of 3betting going on (even if most of it was from me and one other player). It's a fairly complicated hand just to 'run' on stove because of the possible side pots and overlays created, but it seems that if MP1 is raising a hand he's willing to go with for 19bb but folding all but AK, QQ+ then we're making a decent profit, but if he's not 3betting much more than AK and QQ+ then it's kind of spewy. Retrospectively it seems to be somewhere exactly in the middle of those two, probably folding out AQ (which is awesome) and TT/99 (which is to be expected). It still seems really close and i'll run the numbers properly tomrorow.<br /><br />Despite the feeling of shock directly after busting both tourneys, I'm feeling pretty awesome now. I've made money in the last month or so away from tourneys so it seems that every time I get deep in a tournament it's some kind of a bonus. I'm really happy I decided to focus on cash games, and as well as improving my game it's generally just made me a happier person.<br /><br />I'm thinking I'm going to put a ton of cash game volume in over the next few weeks, up until my birthday weekend, where I'll go out with my family on the Saturday, maybe play MTTs on the sunday and hopefully do something in Cambridge on the monday. I love you all lots for following my blog and the constant support you all give me.<br /><br />Loves and hugs xxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-70490026102978602422009-12-05T02:55:00.002+00:002009-12-05T03:21:21.206+00:00Live heaters, Parties...oh yeah and one of the greatest bands of the decadeWell it's been an interesting week to say the very least. Just over a week ago I essentially had a bit of a whine about not running well in November and apparently that's all I needed to give me a kick up the backside, actually play some hands and start making money. As well as being up 25 buyins in 7k hands online, I managed to come 5th in the £300 freezeout at the international on Saturday, and have two very profitable live 1/2 Omaha sessions where I really felt I was playing close to my A-game (as well as obviously running hotter than Usain Bolt).<br /><br />Aside from poker I went to Nel's 21st Birthday shindig on Wednesday which apart from being the best girl-to-guy ratio I've ever seen (about 40 girls; most of whom were very attractive, to 4 guys; with me being the only one for about 2 hours) it was also generally a really fun night in which I made some new friends and happily drunk until I had to stumble on the last train home.<br /><br />On my way home I just happened to get a text from Charlie T to the tune of, 'Joejoe, I happen to have 2 guest passes to go and see a Doves set in Leicester square tomorrow', to which I responded with an appropriate 'hell yeahz'. The venue itself; a small Church in Soho was quite strange but the band certainly didn't disappoint. The set was rather short but very enjoyable and I can tick one extra band of my 'top ten bands to see before they break up' (Blur and U2 still topping that last at the moment).<br /><br />One funny situation I got myself in this week was being told to quit my job by a complete stranger. Well actually that one happens on something close to a daily basis but the strange part about this one is that I didn't even mention the fact that I play poker for a living. The Chinese Herbal medicine woman who I sought advice on how to cure my insomnia from was so distraught that I thought it was an early night to be getting to bed at 5am that she advised that I quit my job immediately. I thought her head may have exploded if I had told her I gamble for thousands of pounds each day.<br /><br />Despite having a what is essentially a +£5k week playing live, I'm still pretty over live poker. I'd probably make the trip into London for an especially juicy live 1/2 Omaha game (perhaps when Wayra returns to London), but the prospect of sitting at a poker table all night playing 20 hands an hour really doesn't appeal to me (especially as i'm not getting as many FPPs as I do on stars).<br /><br />Hears to hoping all you beautiful people had as much fun this week as I did<br /><br />Later taters<br />xxxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-72056094641887520382009-11-26T21:30:00.002+00:002009-11-26T21:57:21.095+00:00Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the mostWell that's it, I feel I've crossed the threshold into actual madness. The idea of winning money at poker for a sustainable period of time just seems a foreign concept right now. I'm aware that I don't do myself any favours by choosing games that are so high variance (traditionally turbo MTTs and now 6max and heads up PLO), but eventually the mental strain of the long losing streaks just tear your mind apart. Since the middle of October i'm winning something of the tune of $1600 (and that's including an $800 supernova milestone bonus). Considering the amount of time and effort I've put in during this period, it equates somewhere close to flipping burgers. Worst of all, I've begun severely doubting myself in terms of both raw talent and my ability to concentrate and play my A game for long periods of time. It seems that those are attributes aren't just something a player can work on, but is something someone is stuck with. I'm going to have a real think about how able I am to actually win enough at poker to sustain myself in the manner i've grown accustomed to.<br /><br />As well as doubting myself, it's just about put out the faint flicker of enjoyment I once had for poker. I suppose the thing that most people don't understand about me is that doing anything that I can't defend as 100% perfect is nothing but a failure in my eyes and I end up beating myself up over plays that will still arguably make me money if in hindsight I can anticipate better lines. The only thing that still drives me to play poker is firstly my desire to be the absolute best version of me, and secondly my huge ego which won't allow me to stop playing before I'm rich enough and have accomplished enough to consider all this time a success.<br /><br />Hopefully the second paragraph makes how tough this last month has been easier to understand; it's like every time I load up pokerstars I'm losing be it making the right play and getting unlucky or making bad choices and still losing. <br /><br />It seems that right now there isn't much I can do but bite the bullet and keep grinding hard. I'm probably going to play the monthly £300 at the international on Saturday, then I'm going to have to put in a ton of volume in December and try and stop the rut.<br /><br />Sorry for all the non poker players that read this, I love you all very much but this has been the major highlight of the last month (the only highlight in reality). Next time I blog i'll have something non-pokery to say.<br /><br />Loves and hugs xxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309461399475477893.post-53625577472019472632009-11-18T04:40:00.002+00:002009-11-18T05:00:19.621+00:00I may be the worst blogger on earthApologies to all of you guys who humour me by reading my blog. I have been absolutely terrible at updating despite some of you riding me about it (Ken and Lizzie, that counts as a shout out). <br /><br />In short I suppose I've just been having a lot of fun relaxing and going out mixed with an insane amount of volume in the last few weeks (I finally got supernova on friday for my efforts). My last 3 consecutive Fridays have been house parties (with another this Friday), after the best part of a year feeling slightly old and out of place it feels good to hang with old friends in London (as well as the awesome ones who traveled from afar for Sarah's 21st).<br /><br />In my poker life everything is going pretty well since the end of the EPT, just been grinding away at small stakes and im up like 2k in the last week or so. It's long work for not a huge reward, but it feels pretty good to be working hard and getting something out of it.<br /><br />Sorry for the short update, but I will be a better blogger!<br />loves and hugs to you all xxjoejoe1337http://www.blogger.com/profile/13120312930716482700noreply@blogger.com2