Italian Vegas

Yo Guys. FTP associates Daniel and Mark had their usual busy start to the month;

Sunday 5th October: Circus £20 (+£2) +1 Rebuy “£2,000 Guaranteed”
Monday 6th October: Aspers £50 (+£5) “£500 Added”
Tuesday 7th October: Circus £50 (+£5) “£500 Added”

Sunday is pencilled into our weekly schedule and the two £500 added tournaments are monthly affairs which we frequent for the value, unfortunately we don’t cash between us and take a few days off before the CBMPT visit’s Teesside.

The opening event is a £200 freezeout on Friday 10th which I travel down to play alone, Mark opts to miss this to ensure he remains fresh for the main event the following day. I bust around level four after losing a flip for an average stack (77 vs. AKo), before losing another £100 over at the 100NL twice losing big pots holding AK. So a relatively early night meant I was also well rested ready for the £500 main event on Saturday 11th, a familiar face in almost every seat meant this would be an awesome tournament. It didn’t disappoint as at one point I was on a table with the following characters;

1) Myself
2) Unknown
3) Khadir “I call” Khoshawy
4) Rizgar “Borat” Qadir
5) Lee Danaher
6) Dave Collins
7) Mark Trett
Craig Newton
9) Ross Johnson

All with the exception of Lee and the two seat were regular Newcastle players, we all joked how it resembled a Circus £20 +1 Rebuy tournament on a Sunday.

I bust on the final level of day one after being comfortable throughout the day I began to struggle to keep my head above water after dropping to half chip average, eventually shoving suited connectors into AQo in an attempted to gather some fire power to bring back for day two. Mark put in yet another first class performance and managed to finish 2nd for £10,010, beating to 1st by none other than Dom Mahoney the guy he beat heads up in this exact tournament the previous year. Bitter sweet I guess for Mark but once the dust settled he was absolutely delighted with what can only be described as a quite remarkable achievement, I understand he has done a tournament synopsis but is having teething problems with his laptop so stay tuned for that all.

The following Friday (17th) I was flying to Las Vegas for my annual visit, I won’t go into any details as I’m in the process of writing my Las Vegas 2010 Trip Report which should be live by the middle of next week. I had a fantastic trip though as usual with a minor incident involving my passport, all will be revealed and I’m sure you’ll find the trip report very interesting and funny.

Since being back in the UK I’ve played once over at Circus on Tuesday 28th September, no luck there either as I bust shortly after the break with 1010 vs. JJ. Looking forward to October and although back to my usual light poker schedule, I have some ace nights out and weekends ahead;

Dawn Wills 40th Birthday Party “Saturday 2nd October”
Steve & Alison’s Engagement Night Out “Saturday 16th October”
NPF Blackpool Jolly “Friday 29th October – Sunday 31st October”

Finally I’d like to close by congratulating a few friends on successful months;

Gary Ramsay – The former Circus card room manager has left to assume the same role over at Aspers, Gary is a very enthusiastic guy who will grab this opportunity with both hands. Congratulations and good luck, here’s to some awesome tournaments imminent over Aspers.

Marc Mulhern – My very good friend has had a career change and is bound for Gibraltar, working for PokerStrategy.com in what capacity I’m not entirely sure. Although I’m going to miss the unbelievably messy nights out, I can’t help but wish this young lad the best of luck in his new appointment. Awaiting my invite to Gibraltar

Jack Ellwood – March ‘In The Tank With…’ guest Jack notched up yet another top score after finishing fifth in the WCOOP main event for $509,976.25, taking his annual tournament earnings to somewhere north of one million this year. Absolute phenomenal 2010 for this guy, take a bow sir.

Dom Mahoney – After his second place finish in the Teesside 2009 event, he went one further this year and won the Teesside CBMPT main event for £14,000. Dom is a Teesside local and a really nice guy, although I would have loved to seen Mark go back to back at Teesside it’s still good to see one of the nice guys in poker take it down.

That’s about a wrap up as I’m rushing out to hit it up on the vodka red bulls with an old school friend in town, it’s fresher’s week so should be awesome. Anybody out and about in town give me a call if you want the night to get messy, first one’s on me.

Cheerio Folks

Is the Shizzle, album of the year IMHO.

Ends.

Not a goodbye, just a pre-emptive message so I don’t get “update comments” after I miss posting for a few weeks. I have a rather important but very time fulfilling “real job” coming up for the next 2 months and by the looks of the workload I’ll be playing barley any poker at all. Perhaps this 2 month break will rejuvenate me? But this is defiantly a +EV life move for me so I’ll see you all in December.

Good luck to everyone at the tables.

Custo

love greenday

so whats been going on since my last very close MTT scores, well not to much I have played like no volume for me at all.

Literally just got back from a 9 day (maybe it was 10 day lost all track) trip to Hong Kong and China with work.

Sounds pretty glamorous but its not its bloody hard work. 12 hours at a minimum most of the time in a Car or plane. Visiting factories in god forsaken provinces of china, bad food (well not in HK but everywhere else).
Hell we even got offered snake at one of our factories and its kinda rude to decline as you are guest of honour as the buyer.

Oh for those who don’t know in my real job I am a buyer and essentially its my job to source and buy the products that the retailer i work for sells. We happen to be the largest ‘mass merchandise’ (means general products outside of food) in the UK. So its a pretty big deal for alot of the suppliers and factories when we visit.

So to get round this I always maintain I am a vegetarian so I just get fried rice at the factory…. I learnt the hard way on my first trip a few years ago now when I was given roast dog and expected to eat it!

Anyways all in the trip was ok and I saved the company some $700k in negotiating new prices etc. Sounds impressive but its not really, the previous buyer was pretty rubbish to be honest so it was easy to get some improvements.

One thing the trip did hit home to me is just how lucky I am, I have a beautiful little girl, a fantastic wife (who is pretty hot imo) and good job and financially secure.

Walking round some of these places seeing guys (and women) literally who work 12 hours a day 6 days a week for around 900-1000 RMB a month. Which is about £90-£100 a month or $150 ish if your US

The jobs they do are pretty mind numbing, one guys job was to walk around with a watering can watering the floor of the factory as it served as a cheap way to prevent dust (from sawing) blowing all over the factory (there is alot of saw dust in wood factories obv)

Well onto poker, I did manage to play one day out there and I must say playing on Asia time is awesome. not only were there overlays on a ton of MTTs but the standard of play is a lot weaker. Far more passive and less reshipping, lots more calling down OOP etc and over valuing marginal hands.

The other great thing was the size of the mtts, for example I played a 5r which I came like 14th in (went out reshipping to light and was pissed off but w/e) which had approx 1300 runners. To put in to context the 3r which I normally play gets around 6k runners.

Obviously you need to run far less well in a MTT like this, and I played a bunch of mid stakes with less than 500 runners and went super deep a ton, coming 3rd in one. Which I pretty much crushed until 3 hands the SB limped re shoved 30bb with J5o!!! And of course got there

What this has hit home to me (obviously I should know this) is that I need to play a ton more MTTs with under 500 players to help in those lean spots, so in the coming weeks I am going to be having another look at smaller sites. FTP seems to have smaller fields with a better payout structure so i have a few $$ on there and may try a night just grinding everything in my range on that site….

In other news the other main reason I have been going so deep so often is that I am playing more and more 6 max cash. I have watched a few vids and plugged a few fundamental leaks I had playing 100bb poker, and I really an enjoying it and on the whole crushing at 25NL.

I hope to move up to 50NL shortly I just want to log 50k hands at 25NL first to make sure I am really crushing. It’s still prob to small a sample but I am beating 25NL for 18bb/100 over (I am actually like $500 below ev as well) about 20k hands so I am pretty sure I am a winning player, even if not to the extent of 18bb/100.

One thing that may hold me back is that I have discovered that in cash free online games I can tilt! Its so weird I can lose thousands in equity in a MTT on a beat or flip and just carry on fine on other tables. But, when a tard at 25NL limp calls and then ch/calls 3 pot size bets with 3rd pair and trips up on the river I lose it!

Reading Tommy Angelo‘s book at the moment and he has a series on deuces cracked I am going to watch which is starting to help. The other good thing about cash is I can reload and win it back from the fish…..

Anyways this has been a huge update so gl at the tables

buffy

Its been a while so i’ll give you all a quick round up on whats been going on with Da Jakattack. Poker wise ive had some incred results in the past 3/4 weeks in some mmts, since Amatay has told to me to stop f-ing about with Mircos ive been getting in some good results in, now i hopefully keep getting more regular results and stay on that winning road

Twitter = Jakattackuk

Don’t normally post this kind of stuff on here, but got sent this from Blackaz and nearly p’d myself laughing
http://www.virginmedia.com/funny-videos/?bclid=600424035001

well since my last post I was very unlucky not to bink a 12/180 came 2nd instead still a great return but would of been nice to say I actually won one. As the swings are Ive still been taking shots at the 12′s but not even cashed in my last 10 fre online games.

Ive been finding it hard to find the time to fit the 180 mans in on stars, So Ive withdrawn $150 and deposited it into fulltilt to give me 15 buyins to play 10nl rush. Dont think I could play 25nl rush yet id be far too tilty. Ive played about 1300 hands so far and half a buyin down but feels pretty easy to make some $$$.

Just a short update cos the missus wants to go shopping…bye

I arrive in Varanasi slightly dazed from the 12hr train ride and find lodgings at the Shanti Guest House. Not easily, I hasten to add – it’s down near the ghats; the steps down to the Ganges used for a variety of activities, from washing and bathing to burning the dead. Shanti GH is near Manikarnika Ghat, the biggest of the cremation ghats, and getting there requires navigation through a labyrinth of markets and side streets that are teaming with cockroaches, touts, stray dogs, cows and shops; littered with rubbish, paan splotches, various animals’ crap and an ominous, viscous black sludge that slides down the gutters. Corpses pass by on the streets, carried on stretchers by small, chanting processions.

After a much needed shower I head to the rooftop restaurant. The view is incredible and the atmosphere charged – great boulders of thunder roll over the Ganges and around the ghats, eyes stinging from the pyres’ smoke. I go for a wander around the backstreets and see some of the ghats. Then I’m directed to a music shop and school by a friendly drug dealer (‘I sell everything‘), and end up taking a tabla lesson right there and then, and book a bunch more.

Munshi Ghat

The Jolly Music House is run by the genial Jolly, who seems to spend most of his time sitting drinking chai, getting jolly, and generally smiling a lot. He also has a nice turn of phrase and puts things in ways that only non-native English speakers can, and we have some interesting conversations. Also play a few times with him and my teacher Om, in which I’m hilariously out-drummed but that are fun nonetheless.

It’s a very Indian city, and despite the superficial reservations it’s easy to have about the place, it has a great atmosphere and I like it here, as do most visitors. After a few weeks of pleasant sameyness, I head back to Delhi to catch some of the madness that is The Commonwealth Games.

Rant time! The metro system in Delhi during The Games would’ve been better organised had it been designed by a one-year-old going nuts with some crayons. At the entrance to the New Delhi metro station, there’s ONE body scanner and ONE bag scanner. This is one of the busiest metro stations in Delhi, next to the biggest and busiest train station, and the way into the city from the airport. And the hundreds of thousands who use the metro daily are let in one at a time. I just saw (and promptly left) a queue about 300m long and 4 people wide – so perhaps 2000 people – and the queue was getting longer. One at a time. The incompetence involved in designing such a system is staggering. Then there’s the free metro tickets that come with the event tickets. Each one has a code that has to be manually recorded every time you enter or exit the metro station. So come the end of an event – thousands of people trying to get home – not only are they let in or out one at a time, but everyone’s shouting numbers and thrusting tickets slips all over the place, one guy frantically trying to write down long strings of numbers in a huge ledger. Complete mayhem. I can’t fathom how anyone in the world, ever, would think this was a good idea. Or even a vaguely passable idea.

Ok, rant over. In comparison to the other methods of city travel it’s actually a pretty good service (or at least a much needed one), despite all its faults – it’s just that seeing a system that a moderately intelligent monkey could improve upon annoys the hell out of me.

The Games themselves are great (again, the infrastructural elements are woefully inadequate and under prepared, but I’ll refrain from more ranting) and the events that have Indian competitors inevitably lead to the crowd going completely bonkers which can be very entertaining.

I’d meant to head to Mumbai next, but the trains are booked up for weeks in advance, so instead I book a ticket to Ahmedabad, and intend to head to Diu. It’s a seaside resort-type town on the southern tip of the Gujarat peninsula, and I figure possibly a nice base to head off for some biking around the bulbous coastline. Looks like my plan to head down the western coast and end up in Kerala may not come off as planned. But plans in India are made to be broken it seems…

Over the course of four days in London I managed to final table the English Poker Open eventually finishing 5th for £40,750.

Friday:

Traveled down to London on the train, checked into hotel, showered and shirts ironed myself and Ben made our way across Mayfair, past the Palm Beach Online Casino where I’d be playing the following day, and on towards Movida nightclub. First impressions were pretty ridiculous with the six of the biggest men alive managing the door, and a lingerie model as hostess. Making our way down into the club we were delighted to find it was a completely free bar for the night, which Ben definitely made good use of. After seeing umpteen poker celebs, including Durrr, Kara Scott and Liv Boeree I point out to Ben that that’s Mike Sexton over there. “Oh yeah, yeah it is!”

“Mike! Mike! Where’s Vince?!? Where’s Vince Mike??!”

At this point Mike was getting well into some 18 year old golddigga (yo!) but took it awesomely and was a complete legend chatting and taking the piss with us for a bit. He was obviously completely shit faced but must have seen a twinkle in my eye as he predicted I would final table. Now I’m obviously gutted he didn’t predict I’d win it!

The RTR staff did an absolutely superb job on the night, granted mainly because the CEO is borderline alcoholic and complete social magnet, but still they did so well in helping people mingle and meet what little girls there were floating around. As you know we’d have probably all sat in the corner texting. Online poker social retardedness ftl.

After more beer than I’d planned but less than half of what Ben had consumed, we attempted to walk home but ended up at Trafalgar Square and flagging a taxi. Should have done that an hour ago because we were back at the hotel in 5 mins flat nipping through the empty side streets.

Saturday Day 1A:

Was seated with Freddie Deeb and after the first break was moved to the TV table. I had already chipped up a bit but missed out on a huge early chance to double on a technicality. I flopped a set versus the table soft spot and donked out, he threw in a 1k chip aggressively meaning to raise but it was unfortunately correctly ruled as a call. I am then kind of forced to check the turn and couldn’t get many chips in the pot. Once moved to the webcast I can’t remember but I think I was barely involved at all, maybe stealing a few times and taking a few small pots to stay around average. Actually I’ve just come back and remembered I 3b right before the dinner break OOP to tournament chip leader. I cbet an Axx flop and check folded the turn. I had QQ and just didn’t want to do anything marginal for a hefty proportion of my chips versus someone who can afford it. Towards the end of the day I’d been getting floated behind quite a lot by Freddie, and when he did it again in a 3b pots I twice maneuvered for ~80% of his stack. After this he played quite frankly horrible poker, limp folding 4bbs and other things that may be justifiable only in a 50k HORSE champions mind. Finished the day right around average.

Day off Sunday:

Slept in. Went to the Science Museum, which is totally awesome and I could easily spend a week on each floor. So much knowledge to soak up and some superb exhibits. Feet were knackered by tea time so sacked off more sightseeing and just ate and moped around rest of the day.

Day 2 Monday:

Some ridiculous seat moving from other tables saw me sandwiched inbetween horrible spots for pretty much the whole day. Was gradually chipped away down to around 8bbs with Fabian Quoss impressing me early on day 2 with some great poker but even more so seriously impressive table presence.

I played the TV table for most of the day again, with Liv Boeree but before her I had sat with Brandon Cantu and Sebastien Krul. After I’d moved to the TV table the two of them played a huuuuge pot for ~20% of chips in play with AA vs KK, Sebastien making a straight I think with KK, though my information could be wrong here. 

News was also filtering back to me that some “mates” had been emailing in a load of dirt about me to the webcast. Like tons of stupid nicknames, my car being shite (true) and some that I have no idea about – I have never been afraid of spiders and as far as I can recall never sick down the side of a chair! It seems I amassed a great following though so thanks to all my mates (and their mates) for watching. Also a huge special mention to the NPF for a great rail and support throughout, and a very special “fuck you” “thank you” to TeamDobb for posting ‘that’ photo!

Then in the final two hours I went on a mini heater shoving AJ but finding QQ behind, but I make a  four flush on the river to stay in it. The bubble bursts shortly afterwards in no time at all really. Soon after I’m getting AK in preflop twice in super happy spots only to find I was unfortunately racing – but hell that doesn’t matter I don’t lose races in this tournament! My AK beats 99 and QQ in two spots for some decent chips. Then right at the end of the end of the night I find a near treble up in what turned out to be an awesome spot with JJ vs 42o and TT. I finish the day above average and am clearly quite pleased about it.

Day 3 Tuesday:

After not getting as much sleep as I’d have liked (about 36 hours would have done it) it’s final table day. Ideal for some embarrassing press photo poses where I had to stare down the camera in a ‘poker face’ type moment. Anyone who has played live with me before knows this is not at all my style. When involved in any kind of pot I have a habit of just grinning ridiculously, whether I be bluffing or crushing.

After a few inane early orbits of little activity, suddenly we’re down to five players, with myself claiming one scalp. I had a pretty solid bet sizing tell where I deduce he has made it a jillion BBs preflop because he has AK or JJ, and with QQ in the BB I crush this range so I make a small 3b and insta call his jam. Unfortunately it’s AK but I’ve already said I don’t lose these spots and a Q is the first flop card. Followed by a brick and then an Ace. Then a Ten on the turn gives my opponent four outs. Despite him still calling out for an Ace on the river I dodge a Jack and have a healthy amount of chips.

Five handed I then play the worst poker I’ve played the whole week. Fabian and Matt have tons of chips and are playing a huge levelling online game between themselves, fully expectant to crush the remaining internet qualifiers. My plan was to just stay out of it, and find a good spot where their sheer amount of chips and perceived table dynamic could work in my favour. I defended a few blinds to Fabian, c/c, c/f once. Then a c/r/f to a flop b3b. This spot was weird because it screamed out very little credit (742hh)  and I was hoping he’d see that as an opposite. He’d never seen me bluff though and I guess I outlevelled myself and then couldn’t shove air giving him 7/1 on a call on my biggest final table to date, with all my pals watching – when he has a lot of draws he has to call off with. Hated this hand so much. Shortly after I defend vs Fabian and c/c, c/f again when I miss a gutshot + overs. Shit. An orbit later I 3b squeeze shove from the sb vs Matt open and Fabian button flat and take it down.

Another orbit and I post my BB knowing that Fabian is going to open anything that’s folded to him and anything I do will reak of BS. Folded to Fabian and he opens, I look down at 99 in the BB and start dreaming of Vegas and think about how best to progress. I was hoping he would re-shove with a lot of Ax hands as well as smaller pairs perceiving my range to be very bluff heavy. Anyway the whole debacle turned out to be totally standard as he has AK and we just get it in pre. Obviously super happy anyway as I don’t lose races in the EPO. An Ace on the turn is a minor blip as I’m sure to hit my 9 on the river. Wait a sec. What’s that? I missed? Err don’t you keep dealing cards till I hit? I eventually stand up, shake hands and go to the bog to compose myself a bit for post match interviews.

I was immediately grabbed by Grub Smith for the webcast interview which I’ve not seen and can barely recall, all I know is the adrenaline was rushing around madly and with my voice was breaking up I was struggling to string a decent sentence together. As is evident in the interview I did immediately after that one with TheNutz.tv. Was obviously gutted with how the exit played out and felt a bit “floaty” for the rest of the evening. Got the last train back home and crashed out.

Now that some time has passed and my account shows that the £40k cheque I paid in has entered the clearing process, I can say I am pretty happy about things. My share portfolio also had a 15% day today! Delighted to have done something in a reasonably major tournament, delighted with how I played (barring two hours on the final table) and delighted to be able to give something back to my investors. I sold 28% of myself in this tournament so still a very nice pay day.

A huge heartfelt thanks to the following:

Ben for his support in person down in London.
All my investors showing their support pre-event.
All my mates and family for the kind texts I received and not-so-kind messages to the webcast
The NPF for an awesome virtual rail.
Karim, Glen and Jackie the RTR staff who did an absolute first class job.
All the staff and dealers at Palm Bach Free Online Casin, Mayfair. Top job.

Cheers all, still got some sleep to get caught up on….zzzzz

First off – congratulations to Brenos, taking 5th place in the English Poker Open over the weekend winning over £40,000 in the process. I know he was a bit disappointed on the day but pretty certain now that he has taken his cheque to the bank he’ll be smiling for the next week or so

I was privileged enough to join Brennan in London for the weekend and I thought he handled himself brilliantly both on the table and in the compulsory interviews he conducted for the live web feeds. Here’s his exit interview:
http://www.thenutz.tv/videodetail.php?video_id=70598

As for me, there were no side online games available due to the small venue at Palm Beach Online Casino, so I spent my time drinking free beers provided by the Rake The Rake staff while watching Brenos from the rail. All except Saturday that is, where I was suffering from an almighty hangover following the free bash on Friday in Movida nightclub. There were tonnes of poker celebs, including Tom Dwann, Jessie May, Kara Scott, James Akenhead etc etc. My favourite though was Mike Sexton, who I met after one too many free shots so rudely interrupted him chatting up a hostess girl to ask him where the hell Vince Van Patten was! He took it like a gent though and even predicted that Brenos – despite being pretty sozzled himself – would make the final table. Guess he does know a thing or two about poker after all.

Made it back very late Tuesday night and only got round to playing poker again today, breaking even after 1.3k hands. Good to sleep in own bed again (and see mrs of course!) and hoping to crush online over next week or so. I’m feeling proper motivated again and although I know I’m still a fair way behind Brennan in poker savvy at the moment, it does show what can be achieved.