Italian Vegas

Only played ~1,000 hands at $100NL so far but I’m running pretty well. 18PTBB so far… but I don’t expect to be able to sustain that. I’m going to be taking shots at $200NL there too when the tables look soft. Ran my £250 deposit up to £450 so far, so possibly not the safest in bankroll management with my cash balance.

Books
Been reading the new Sklansky/Miller NLH book, it’s absolutely fantastic so far. Definately one of the best poker books I’ve read. Not many hand examples, but a lot of great fundementals about the fre online game.

More of the same for next month, will probably play in a couple more tourneys at the Berkley and hopefully both OP freezeouts. Tempted to play a few sats to the £1k Main Event of the Scottish Poker Championships at the Maybury too.

Live Play
Well live play straight up sucked ass this month. I played poorly live for the first half of the month, dropping about £100 at the Berkley, and another £30 at the OP tourney. Really got it together in the 2nd half of the month, and played great poker at the OP tourney. Got 2-outered early on crippling me to 1000 chips at 50/100 blinds, but fought back well chipping up to 5k before open-shoving my AJ into QQ and KK preflop with no ace arriving. Played in the £50NL cash online game for a few hours after the tourney, which was just mayhem. Definately one of the softest cash virtual games I’ve every played in, but still managed to come out £60 down despite playing fantastic poker. Another 2 outer in a big pot, 2 runner-runners, etc, etc.

SNGs
Running good, playing well. Still tearing up the $27s at Stars. Had a look at the $55s again and I’m still certain the $27s are more profitable. There are a lot of strong players multi-tabling the $55s, and only 1 or 2 at the $27s. Favouring the 45-mans a bit more now, they fill up about as quick as the 18-mans too. A couple of nice scores this month (last 20 tourneys) puts a nice little spike on my graph.

Watched about 10 hours worth of Green Plastic’s NL instructional videos from CardRunners so far. Wow, this stuff is fantastic, I’m finding a few of his moves and reads to be EXTREMELY profitable, might write some of my favourites up during the month. Thinking about subscribing to PXF or CR, SNGIcons looks interesting too.

Cash free online games
Got myself an account at BlondePoker, on the iPoker network, and I’m really happy there. The NL tables seem really loose and the general quality of play considerably worse than Stars. 30% rakeback is nice too, adding $30 to my bottom line for the month.

Numbers
+$400 on Stars (SNGs)
+$400 on BlondePoker (NL Cash)
-$450 live

Good month overall, started playing NL cash on iPoker and have been running well. Been trashing SNGs on Stars too, including 2 2nd places in the 45-man $27 turbos.

Numbers
Dropped about $300 online in SNGs.

“Your goal in life should not be to make money, but making money may help you achieve your goals. “

“When all is said and done, if I spent most of my time sitting at a poker table, I would feel that I was a loser in the online game of life.”

Finally
Shout out to my mate Tom at work, who’s tearing up the low stakes tables on Stars at the moment. Great to have someone to discuss hands with in the morning.

Cash game onlines
I’m pretty happy with my SNG game online at the moment, I could do a lot of work using SNGPT, etc but instead I’m going to move into NL cash for a while. Just feel like a change for a bit, improve my deep stacked virtual game and leave the push/fold poker for the Maybury/Berkley Stars is pretty hardcore just now for NL cash fre online games, so I’m gonna shift to some of the weaker sites. They have the benefit of not allowing US members (meaning the play is generally weaker), and rakeback! Giving me 30% of the rake I pay directly back into my account each month. After a fair bit of shopping around I’ve decided to go with…

• Purple Lounge (prima)
• Blondepoker (iPoker)
• Poker Heaven (boss)

Sun Poker/Littlewoods (Crypto) were tempting but apparently the game onlines aren’t that weak, Hollywood Poker (ononline game) looked pretty good too but didn’t accept Switch. Grrr.

News
Not gonna do the standard update this month, as I really can’t be bothered. Cut a long story short, pretty shitty month emotionally, split up with my girlfriend after a 5 year relationship. Managed to keep myself off of the tables over the last few weeks which I’m really happy with. The week before that however I dropped my profits on Party and cashed out my deposit amount, dropped about $100 on SNGs at Stars too. So all in all minimal bankroll damage really, if I’d kept playing it would have been a lot worse.

Cash: $1,000
SNG/MTT: $2,900
Live: $2,820 (+$200 stakes in Hilger’s WSOP)

“Where you spend your time is not nearly as important as what you do when you are there. “

Live Play
Hoping to play in 2 OfficePoker tourneys each month now, and another 3-4 live tourneys at Berkley/Maybury.

Lost $40 in a live fre online game at the Berkley.

So… enough of that shitty month, and on to the future… Next month!

Bankroll Cleanout
I’m pretty skint now. Double the outgoings until my lease is up in November. Sick. :S My PC blew up a few nights ago too which was a real pain, so I had to buy a (sweeeet) new laptop. Gonna cash out a lot of my bankroll and start again from here… not a problem though, I like the fresh challenge, and I’m happy that poker money is being used to benefit my life rather than being pissed away.
Online Cash: $1,000
Online SNG/MTT: $1,000
Live: $1,000 (+$200 Matt Hilger WSOP stakes)

Books
Finished reading Ace on the River by Barry Greenstein, which was fantastic. Greenstein’s ability to open up and share his experiences on life and poker is fantastic. I thought his honesty throughout the book was pretty amazing. He gives a great insight into how he got to where he is today, including his jobs, relationships, big losses and big wins. Here are a few of my favoutire quotes…