Italian Vegas

No posts for a month then two posts in one day.

This weekend has been disappointing in terms of table time. I’ve got plenty of excuses for today, starting with catching up on paperwork, followed by a church service during which a friends baby was christened and then a party afterwards. Then stuff I had to do in the garden followed by a trip to Tescos. By 8pm I was falling asleep so I am writing this and then going to bed.

November Poker Goals:

I believe its customary to state your goals for the coming month and actually I think it’s a good idea. If you don’t set goals how do you know where you are going or how to get there? Without goals how do you measure progress?

In October I played a very modest 10419 hands and played on 25 days. By recent standards October was an exceptional month. In November I plan to build on progress made.

- Play a minimum of 6 days each week – ideally 7 days unless I am not focused enough to play. I’m not setting hand volume goals as that won’t necessarily translate into quality time at the tables
- At least 5-6 hours study each week to include hand reviews. Table time is probably more important but I think quality study time really helps me. I have a specific area that I have started to work on and really want to continue focusing on this. At the end of November it shouldn’t be difficult to work out if I have made progress
- 1 coaching session each week

Been a while hasn’t it ?

My abstaining of online poker was going very well until Betfair kindly put $50 into my poker with the ultimatium that I spent it within a week.I played for one evening, turned it into approx $500 and then logged off. The next time I played was 2 weeks later, today. So far have played for around 4 hours and I’m a quid up, thankfully I don’t have to rely on this online game to pay by bills.

This month I’ve spent around 3 weeks working away in Athens, last month my weekends were either spent watching the Mighty Morecambe or in Belfast with a group from the Ace of Clubs. Weekday nights have been filled by working, reading ( 8 books or so completed in last couple of months ) or watching movies with Lou. Maybe I overdid it before when every free minute was previously spent playing online, but these days I’m finding more and more things to do and I’m not really missing the free online game at all, although a couple of tourney wins would come in handy for Christmas.

Below are links to our monthly recaps/digest posts, beginning in July 2010 and working chronologically towards the present. These detail all FTP affiliates monthly/regular exploits both on and off the felt, giving a brilliant insight into our day to day affairs.

July 2010 “FTP crowned Grosvenor world cup tag team champions”
August 2010 “Dan Trett leaves Cubs after 13 months service”
September 2010 “Gary Ramsay leaves Circus to join Aspers”
October 2010 “Marc Mulhern leaves Newcastle emigrating to Gibraltar”
November 2010 “Rob ‘BSQ’ Charlton crowned 2010 NPF champion”
December 2010 “Dan Trett’s Christmas festivities”

Note: As of 2011 the monthly recaps were replaced with the less regular Trett digest series, see links below.

Trett Digest Volume 01 “Team FTP flew to Tenerife for some winter sun”
Trett Digest Volume 02 “Joe Peel died March 13th 2011″
Trett Digest Volume 03 “David Atkinson wins 2011 NPF anniversary cup”
Trett Digest Volume 04 “NPF closes indefinitely/NEPF opens for business”
Trett Digest Volume 05 “UKIPT Report/Las Vegas Schedule”
Trett Digest Volume 06 “Ibiza 2011 build up”

Note: The smaller red italic text is just the highlight (or interesting story) of the month, for full monthly synopsis follow the links.

These are for all FTP followers to read at their leisure, we do hope you’ve had a pleasant visit so far here at FTP and enjoy your chosen monthly recap/digest volume.

After approx 6 weeks of coaching I definitely feel more positive about poker. I switched to 25c, FR virtual games. This month, after a rocky first few weeks I went on a run of mainly winning sessions by playing a fairly nitty (weak tight) virtual game. The last week wasn’t so great but most of the damage was done in a few spectacularly badly played hands. Most profit came from playing decent hands strongly versus the weakest players and not surprisingly most of my losses were at the hands of the stronger regs. Usually committing too much money and folding before showdown when I lost confidence in my hand.

Hey Guys. Awesome opening weekend of the month so FTP affiliates Mark and Dan head to Chester-le-Street on Saturday 2nd October for our good friend Dawn Wills 40th birthday party, the drink was flowing and the banter was great with exceptional company. Here’s some photo’s courtesy of Alison McAree which are worth 1,000 words;

On the tail of that night our usual busy start to the month ensued with the Circus £2,000 guaranteed (Sunday 3rd), Aspers £500 added (Monday 4th), and finally the Circus £1,000 added (Tuesday 5th). A collective total outlay of £304 between Mark and I, fortunately I split the £2,000 guaranteed with the adorable Rachael Costa for £525 each which gave us a modest individual profit of £110 across the three events. Quick mention to both Jimmy of Circus and Gary of Aspers who did brilliantly to have two fantastic back to back tournaments with Circus generating 167 runners and Aspers 102, like I said over the NPF Gary’s transfer can only be good news for players. To my knowledge 167 entrants over at Circus is the biggest £50 event to have been held in Newcastle;

After a couple of rest days I was back out in Newcastle for a friends birthday on Friday 8th October, another unbelievably messy night but the upshot of this was I had a bouncing head for the £50 freezeout at Circus on Saturday afternoon. Their is normally £500 added to this tournament, however for a one off Jimmy had decided to add a £1,300 package which included;

£1,000 (+£80) The Big Game
£220 Travel & Accommodation

The event is to be held in The Palm Beach Free Online Casino down London and is scheduled for Monday 1st November, so in the event I’m successful in winning this seat I’d be travelling directly from my ‘NPF Blackpool Jolly’ to London. Which albeit is not the best preparation, but whatever guess I’ll be ok. Unfortunately I didn’t have this problem as I bust in level four before heading home for a Chinese takeaway and an early night, the following day (Sunday 10th October) I had the same fate as I again bust level four and was home pretty sharp.

I had my usual Tuesday evening visit to Circus for there evening tournament (this is an identical tournament to what they have on a Sunday but without the unrestricted guarantee, in order for Circus to guarantee the Tuesday game online at £2,000 they require 50 players). They did manage to gather the 50 players in order to generate the £2,000 guarantee but neither Mark or I were in on the spoils as I bust in the twenties and Mark was the final table bubble in eleventh. I was back out a couple of days later on Thursday 14th for one of the Circus dealers birthday celebrations, I have a vague memory of this due to stupid amounts of vodka red bull so we’ll go with cliff notes;

- Vodka red bulls during happy hour at Osborne’s with Mark Brewis
- Spy bar with Circus dealers and friends
- More drinks in town “I actually have no idea which bar(s)”
- £30 (+£3) Circus Tournament

Then enjoyed some rest days before Saturday 16th which was the date for our friends Steve and Alison’s engagement night out, I headed out to meet Steve & Alison (AKA Mr. & Mrs. Fatfish) as well as Steve & Dawn (AKA Mr. & Mrs. CGK) and other friends at Pitcher and Piano on the Quayside. Another awesome drunken night with little to zero memory, cliff notes;

- Heinekens at Pitcher and Piano
- Tapas at La Tasca
- Vodka red bulls at Pitcher and Piano
- Blackjack and cocktails at Grosvenor

I would have accompanied this engagement recap with some ace photos but unfortunately Alison had her bag stolen in the Grosvenor at the end of the night, which had the camera in with all the photos.

Saturday 16th was also the third Saturday of the month which meant it was FTP’s monthly trip to Teesside for the £100 freezeout, however after I had said I was off out in town Mark decided not to travel alone so unfortunately no member of FTP was in the October field. As things stand neither of us have anything planned for Saturday 20th November, so we’ll both be looking to get back to business as usual and back down there for this fantastic value event.

Things went quite during the backend of the month whilst we reverted to our normal light weekly schedule over at Circus, however on Tuesday 26th I ended up having a random night out to send off Marc Mulhern who flew to Gibraltar on (Thursday 28th) for a career change as mentioned in my September recap. Marc, Scotty (Hocking) and I all played the weekly Circus tournament and as is likely given all our style we were bust before level four, however not looking to waste the evening we hit it up out in town on the treble vodka redbulls. Needless to say this evening turned very messy very quickly, I have vague recollection of the night which holds both sweet and sour memories but M’EH.

Anyway this monthly recap appears to be more focused on my nights out, so lets get back on track and discuss some poker (afterall it’s Full Trett Poker) which came in the form of the sixth and final leg of the CBMPT so both Mark and I travelled up to Edinburgh on Friday 29th October. I was actually scheduled to head north to Blackpool for Halloween weekend with a few of the NPF lads, but the trip never came to fruition so I made provisions to join Mark in Edinburgh. The schedule included an opening £200, a £500 main event, and a closing £100 and it was our intention to play both the opening and main together leaving scope for one of us to play the closing if the they other was still grinding day two of the main so as to be in the casino for the sweat and morale support. I was a little behind schedule leaving Newcastle, so I tried to get in touch with Mark in order to buy me into the opening event on Friday but he was having trouble with his phone network signal. I ended up arriving about 19:45 and missing the cut off for late registrations, I wasn’t too bothered though but in order to give me some incentive for the evening I bought 25% of Mark’s action. After having a quick bite to eat over at the buffet I wished Mark good luck and went to hit it up over at the 100NL, this was a rather fascinating table in that I was sat with five Newcastle (Whitley Bay to be exact) based poker players non of which I had ever met. They were all really nice guys and knew Tommy Dunwoodie quite well through their local snooker club, anyway just goes to show exactly how many poker players we actually have here in the North East.

I really enjoyed the craic on this table and it was made even better when I cashed out for £280 profit to sweat Mark win the £200 side event for £5,650, of which I got £1,410 for my 25%. By now it was like 5:00am so we headed back to our hotel looking to get some rest ahead of the main event the following day, staying at Edinburgh Capital Hotel which was about a 10 minute drive from the casino. We slept through until approximately 11:00am on Saturday 30th October, below are our cliff notes for the day;

- All you can eat breakfast buffet in hotel restaurant (11:00)
- Swim and sauna at hotel health and fitness club (11:45)
- Cards in the air (14:00)
- Dan bust level two (15:30)
- All you can eat lunch buffet in casino restaurant (16:00)
- Mark bust level three (16:30)
- On the road home to Newcastle (18:00)

So a relatively short stay but all the same a profitable and enjoyable weekend. That pretty much wraps things up for October (all though both Mark and I are playing the £2,000 guaranteed over Circus this afternoon but M’EH I‘ll cover that if anything exciting happens), and that’s followed by a busy start to November;

Monday 1st November: Aspers £50 (+£5) “£500 Added”
Tuesday 2nd November: Circus £50 (+£5) “£1,000 Added”
Saturday 6th November: £50 (+£5) NPF Championships 2010 “Circus”
Monday 8th November: CBMPT 2011 Sponsorship Play-Off “Mark”
Friday 12th November: £1000 (+£70) GUKPT “Mark back in Blackpool”
Saturday 13th November: Circus £50 (+£5) “£1,300 MTT package added”
Saturday 20th November: Gala, Teesside £100 (+£10) “£1,000 Added”

Note: The CBMPT 2011 Sponsorship Play-Off is assuming Tom Fielding doesn’t cash enough to over take Mark as the tours top money winner going into day two of the Edinburgh main event this afternoon, he has 35,500 so I’m sure Mark will be monitoring AWOP updates with interest today.

So yeah pretty hectic start to the month before a quite period in the backend of the month, especially for Mark who will clock some miles as he makes two trips to Blackpool within five days.

Thanks for visiting guys, good luck at the tables.

Finishing work at 7am, a few hours kip and then out on the lash/pull (anyone know any good lines?? Fucked if I know what I’m doing after 11 years out of the fre online game and relying on my wit, charm and sense of humour after x pints of Stella might not work).
Then home to bed clutching the inevitable bottle of whatever I end up drinking last and go again from half 10 Sunday for the Villa – Blues virtual game. SOTV for those that are wondering stands for Shit On The Villa.
TBH having lost the last 6 game onlines to the Vile I’ll settle for a point as it would stop the rot and save alot of earache from the claret and blue half of my mates and I think we have a chance. Aghbonlahor, who has scored 3 goals in 4 free online games against us, is out. Albrighton, who I rate, is suspended, their Captain, Petrov is injured and they’ve got Heskey (need I say more).
Here’s hoping anyways . . . . .

On the poker front I’m plodding along and the roll is currently at $1.8k but I’m not making much progress as I seem too tight (without a drink) and too aggressive (with a drink) and need to find some MTT with between 100-200 players as opposed to the 90 manners on FT so will probably have to look for a new site to try out.

Only other news is that I’m looking at buying a flat sharpish as I hate renting as it’s dead money. I need to get my name taken off the mortgage I had with the ex and she doesn’t fancy playing ball at the moment so I’ll have to keep trying without putting undue pressure on her. We’ve sorted out the finances and most of the separation agreement and I want to avoid sniping and arguing if at all possible as that has cost me in the past with regard to seeing my kids and financially when the solicitors get more out of it than you do.

Thats it for now. Hope everyone is winning and . . . . . . . SOTV.

Jokes –

“Give it here”
“No, it’s mine”
“Let me have it”
“Its my turn!”
“You had it last”
“Fuck off!!”
“Come on gimme it”
“No way!”
“But it’s my go!!!”

. . . . . . .Siamese twins having a wank


Cheryl Cole, Louis Walsh & Simon Cowell are walking along the street when Cheryl trips, falls forward and jams her head in some railings. Simon, quick as a flash, pulls her knickers down and bangs her senseless from behind. Slapping her tight little arse he turns to Louis and says “Your turn”.
Louis starts crying.
“Whats wrong?” says Simon.
Louis sobs “My head won’t fit in the railings!!”

well thats pretty much me fucked for life haha. only joking rach (if you secretly read my blog):P dont really think I should write much about it, because it would go on for ages and I dont think anyone is interested about what happened in great detail anyway!

Basically it all went without a hitch, She looked amazing and the next day we fooked off to marmaris, turkey for 2 weeks which was great id recommend it to anyone!

On the poker front its still going pretty well, Ive been working on my volume since I got back. I just need to use my day’s off from work better. Too bad the 180 men on stars are slow at 8am to midday to fill. Makes me less motivated when I bust to reload because of the wait time!

Binked my 1st 3r/180 yesterday for $570, highest Ive seen the prizepool in them too which made it even more sweeter. Actually had a great day yesterday got deep in the $3 $3k gtd on stars came 11th/1500+ for a measly $43. Wish they would payout to a lesser field in these donkaments. who the fuck wants to play for 5 hours and min cash for $5.

I’ll post a sharkscope graph for the 2,12s and 3r/180s together. Im losing at the 12′s atm but its only over a very small sample. one decent cash should sort that out.

bankroll: $2500

bye 4 now

I’m back. Vegas was the poker peak for me this summer and since I got back I was too busy or just not feeling in the mood to play online. A trip writeup will follow. Now winters here, the clocks go back this weekend and there’s little to do on my island when it’s wet n rainy I expect I’ll get back to playing pretty soon.

Watch this space, the wheels are turning again.

welcome back.

after playing this tourney for what seemed an eternity, yes it was a turbo !, I get this “dude” heads up. but I’m outchipped by 3:1 …. ugh …. then it appears in the chat box .. “deal ?” surely this guy thinks I’m Doyle-in-disguise …. or does he just have a fucking nosebleed ….

i thought he was taking the piss but then i noticed the “deal” box in the corner of the table has “1 player interested” ticked ….

so of course i say “sure” and tick the box …. a “make deal” window opens .. I did not seem to be able to input any figures in this window but another window pops open telling me how much he gets and how much I get …. its not an even split, so I decline …. and type in the chat “split ?”
he gets all antsy, “no way”, “i’m 3:1 up” …. yada yada yada
he offers 60:40 and I tell him 8:6 …. not exactly sure what happened but, another window pops open saying he gets 8 and I get 6.4 …. not really wanting to waste any more time fannying about, I just click the “accept” button ….
all the “deal” windows close …. the tourney shows finished, the positions and cash payouts appear in the normal chat box.

wheeee ! just cut my first deal ! nay, accepted my first deal ! awesome, just fucking awesome !

oh, btw, did I mention this was a $2 buy-in …. btw, did I mention this was a 9-man stt …. btw, did I mention the standard payout is $9 and $5.40 …. btw, did I mention I walked away with $6.40 ….

awesome, just fucking awesome !

pleasant dreams.

After doing some standard touristy things in Delhi, such as bumping into cool people from Bath that I met in Varanasi (only, what, 12-14 million people in Delhi? Pretty likely really) and being attacked by small children, I got my train to Ahmedabad.

There’s something I really enjoy about the actual act of travelling. Sure it can be stressful – missed flights, delayed trains, psychotic bus drivers – but just watching the world go by can be immensely… satisfying somehow.

Take the Ahmedabad-Diu trip – I woke about an hour before we arrived. And, all passing by in fleeting seconds: thousands of steel tubes, big enough to walk through, hundreds of metres long in an enormous field; an entire school of uniformed children doing star jumps to the beat of a gigantic drum; intricately detailed psychedelic Enfield-rickshaw hybrids roaring past; a large ring of men dancing to an audience. Cows, oxen and buffalo pulling carts, pigs and hogs snuffling in the debris. The old man lying on the street with nothing but bones and a beard.

No reliving it, no going back to visit, no phone numbers, no emails addresses, no photos, no names. Just image after image washing past, rolling out of reach. But in a good way. Life going on.

Well that was pretty wiffley and airy fairy, back to reality. Brief review of Ahmedabad: I kinda liked it but I have no idea why. There was nothing to do, or see, no other travellers to socialise with and the place smelt funny. But I still sort of liked it – the casual confidence that is characteristic of Indians has settled upon the place in a type of airy, easy grace. Not a place I’d want to spend much time in though.

Anyways, now I’m in Diu, and it is FRIGGIN’ AWESOME. It’s a tiny island less than 10 miles across that was under Portuguese rule until ’61, and it really shows. The Indo-Mediterranean vibe is bizarre, and lovely. Perhaps it’s just that it’s an oasis in the desert of chaos that is India, but it seems like a mini paradise – after nearly 2 weeks in Delhi anyhow.

I’m staying at the top of an old church that you can scramble around and explore, my view every morning is brilliant sun shining on a scattering of eccentrically multicoloured Mediterranean-style houses, the odd church, some palm trees, and then the Arabian sea. It’s sunny and hot every day but with a nice ocean breeze, there are sandy, empty beaches and the sea is warm. It’s quiet, barely any people, no touts, no rickshaws, no cars, no horns, no rubbish. Beer is very cheap and plentiful. They even take siestas here. Basically, if the church I’m staying in had wifi – nothing personal guys, but I wouldn’t be coming back.

My daily routine at the moment is: wake up mid-morning, have breakfast somewhere, trundle along on the bike I’ve hired to a beach, swim and read in the sun, trundle along again to a nice restaurant, eat some awesome food, trundle some more, maybe explore the island a bit, trundle home, drink 60p beers and eat freshly caught shark (gorgeous), then pass out in the wee hours after talking a lot of nonsense usually with a nice/interesting group of people. Rinse and repeat.

Talking of the people one meets – one of the brilliant things about hitch-hiking is that you tend to meet a glorious mix of the great and the eccentric (such as the Polish guy in Belgium who hadn’t slept in 48 hrs, had a penchant for going the wrong way around roundabouts or skipping red lights – both at once on one memorable occasion – and fell asleep doing 120 km/hr on a motorway). Backpacking – especially in a place like India – although not quite so polarised, is similar. Meeting relaxed, friendly people that I genuinely enjoy spending time with is, if not common, at least a lot less rare than average. Also, the number of… ‘interesting characters’ you meet rises dramatically, which can vary from entertaining to frightening.

Take a fellow guest house resident; a smiley, down-to-earth, beer-loving Jordie in her late 30s. Or so I thought – last night she told me, in no uncertain terms, that she was an angel. ‘I am God. I am here to save humanity.’

Delusions of grandeur, anyone? They were drunken ramblings perhaps (well, no perhaps about it actually) but still, I’d need something significantly stronger than beer to make me think I’m God. She was literally yelling ‘Shut the FUCK UP, I don’t care what any of you think, you’re all inferior, I’m a celestial being.’ Shouting at people mid-conversation to proclaim she was The Saviour. Certainly an interesting evening.

I think I had a point when I started writing about that but I’ve forgotten what it was, so I’ll just leave you with some words spoken by Guillaume, a really nice French guy who was staying here in Diu the last week or so. Imagine the thick French accent.

“I am not religious, I do not believe in God but life, life is… is fucking strange, non?