Didnt play so as per last post +£2,128.  Was -£2,500 at worst and didnt play as high after that much but grinded it back to a decent “average” type month overall.  Volume a bit less then i might have liked but 1 or 2 things got in the way and wound right down at end so, fingers crossed, im up for 8-9hrs nearly every day of Feb (not sure how long the promo will last estimate 25 days). Gross
January was a fucking epic month on the poker front. I ran super hot and got in a record 31,000 hands for $2,400 profit (plus bonuses etc.). Unquestionably I ran like Usain Bolt, but I thought that towards the end of the month I played my best poker, experimenting with the fold button with a fair degree of success. Even fucking Wonderflop won some money towards the end of the month, that’s how good it was (fu if you’re reading, obv).
There seems to be some movement at Full Tilt, with Rico charges being dismissed and a forfeiture agreement ready to be executed. They’re taking their time but it would be nice to see the cash I have on there again, I’d basically written it off.
West Ham got a 5-1 spanking at Ipswich tonight. Obviously I’m not happy but the scum come to town on Saturday and we need to put those cunts in their place. Talented ‘orrible cunt Ravel Morrison has arrived from Manchester United, and it appears Vaz Te and probably Nicky Maynard will sign before the night is out. Jim White is getting excited over not that much on my TV right now, so I should probably turn over.
There is some talk of a www.raisetheriver.com meet-up/No Cash poker stag do later in the year. With the baby on the way I’m not sure if I will make it, but I’ll try and sneak away for one night if I can to, er, lend moral support.
We had a bit of trauma with the baby waiting on some test results. Without going into details it was probably the worst few days of my life, anyway it turns out everything is fine so there’s no need to worry. Thank fuck for that.
Godspeed.
After an awesome first set today amounting to $800+ over 2.2 hours I decided that’ll do for the month, ending it on a high to publish the results. Only I noticed something. 
269pts in Earth low orbit after just 6 free online games into the 3rd block! Ok, I’ll load up just 14 $15′s and see if I can’t get an immense score. It’s easy to see why low orbit is so damn fucking hard to pwn. Here’s what happened next:
The session was 60k chips below EV without getting a single virtual online games past the bb200 level. Go figure.
Bill Rini offers us a good read today with a post titled âThe Death of Poker Media?â There Bill comments at length about how poker publications like Card Player have clearly been affected significantly by Black Friday and the sudden down-sizing of online poker in the U.S. that happened in its wake.
Billâs post reminded me of one I wrote last May titled âOn Spines, or the Lack Thereofâ in which I noticed how Card Player had swiftly reduced in size after losing PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and UltimateBet/Absolute Poker as advertisers.
In that post I remarked on how it had taken a few issues of Card Player for there to be any comment whatsoever on Black Friday, and when they finally did get around to mentioning it — only briefly, in the issue dated May 24, 2011 — it just so happened that was the issue in which the advertising from the indicted sites had stopped. (The fact that the new issue didnât have a spine but was stapled together encouraged the pun in the title.)
Bill noted in his post that heâd picked up a recent issue of Card Player (dated January 25, 2012) and saw it was a mere 68 pages long, less than half of which contained actual content (i.e., features, strategy articles, etc.). In fact, that issue from last May — the first one without a spine — was also just 68 pages, so CP in particular has been scaled down for quite a while.
Having also noticed how the content being provided had slowed to a trickle, it was late last year I finally let my subscription to Card Player run out after many years. Actually the slimming down of the magazine had been happening pretty much over that entire stretch, starting with the signing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.
I still have all of my old issues of CP and so can quickly confirm what Bill is noting in his post about the lack of heft in the new Card Player compared to the good old days. The first issue of 2006 was 164 pages long, more than twice the number of pages of todayâs Card Player. And observing the number of pages in the first issue of each year since further reveals the trend: 2007 (156 pages), 2008 (148), 2009 (112), 2010 (100), and 2011 (84).
Other poker-related print publications are struggling, too, of course, and Bill does a good job outlining how too great of a reliance on online sitesâ ad revenue and the affiliate free online game help explain a lot of the wasting away that has occurred. As Bill points out, all poker media outlets are necessarily having to adapt to new circumstances in order to survive, let alone thrive.
I donât think poker mediaâs âdeathâ is necessarily imminent, although the future of print publications is understandably highly uncertain. Such is the case for much of print media, generally speaking.
Still, it is interesting to consider how the physicality of the magazines covering our favorite fre online game — not even their content, but how they feel in our hands — can be said to provide a kind of literal marker of the virtual online gamesâs currently embattled status.
A welcome to start to 2012 so me flying out to Las Vegas on the 4th January, this was a fantastic trip shared with great company. If you haven’t already check out my report for the trip;
Las Vegas 2012 Trip Report âJanauryâ
My first weekend (Saturday 14th) back I took the two hour drive south to Leeds, which altogether was a miserable experience. The tournament was £161 (including registration and add-on) with a £15,000 guarantee, so kind of worth the travel I guess. I couldn’t really be arsed with the drive on the morning of the event, but I had preregistered so if I didn’t attend this would have been forfeited. The service from the staff was predictably awful, taking all most two hours before being served with drinks. I also don’t like getting caught up in the conversations and ego that goes along with almost 200 poker players being in one place, but whatever I’ll stop moaning. I eventually bust the final hand of day one, when I ran AK into AA for a 220,000 chip pot.
On the other end of the spectrum, a fortnight later (Saturday 28th) I played the CGK cup over at the Grosvenor which needless to say was a brilliant day. I started off getting on it at around 11:00 at Scotty Hocking’s, joined by Adam Capon and Dave Atkinson from my team. We headed to the Grosvenor for around 13:45, to join a very jovial group of people. I bust the tournament after like 15 minutes or something, which was the least of my worries as I wished the table good luck and headed into town with Dan Oliver. After a few drinks and a bite to eat around town we headed back around 18:00, playing some 50NL and watching Newcastle vs. Brighton online game with Marc Mulhern and Rob Dunbar. Then I went back out with Sean McGuigan around 20:00 and started to hit the vodka redbulls, several drinks later and we were back at Grosvenor around 23:00. Played some more 50NL, a few blackjack hands, got some more pints at the bar, before finally settling down to play 50PLO with Peter Newton, Aryan Virabi, Mark Nichols, Dave Atkinson, and Darren Knaggs amongst others. Staying until the free online game broke around 03:00 Sunday morning, before taking a taxi home after sixteen hours of hitting it. Congratulations to Hetton Mob and Keith Ridley who were team and individual winners respectively, and finally to Steve Willis and all the staff at the Grosvenor for putting on such a fantastic day/event.
Hetton Mob CGK Cup 2012 ChampionsI’ve recently added a Travel Map to FTP, this is linked in LABELS & SECTIONS to the right. I’ve launched it in association with tripadvisor, it’s just a bit of fun and pin points where in the world I’ve been. I love to travel so hope over the forthcoming years to add several pins to the map, experiencing new cultures and seeing new things. On the subject of travelling I’m fortunate enough to be back over Las Vegas on 22nd February for a week, again travelling Newcastle > Heathrow > Las Vegas in British Airways Club World. I’ve booked a suite over at Rio All-Suite Hotel & Online Casino which I know is off the strip, but whatever they have a regular complimentary shuttle to Ballys and Harrahs. I’ll be in town for the Caesars Palace Winter Poker Classic, so I’m for sure playing the $500 (+$60) championship event on Saturday 25th February.
Away from the felt I’ve reserved a table at Fix, Bellagio to have dinner on my first evening, I’ve read some good reviews so I’m looking forward to trying some of there mouth watering dishes. Then on Friday (24th) morning I’ve booked myself to do a skydive, this includes a return stretched limousine from Ballys Resort & Free Online Casino to Jean Sport Aviation Airport. This will be an experience of a lifetime, so I’m both well excited and a little nervous. Back to business locally and not much happening throughout February poker wise in Newcastle, but I’ll be over Circus for there monthly £5,000 guarantee next Tuesday (7th) so maybe see a few of you guys there.
Catch you all later
January 22nd – 28th
I only put in a low volume week this week in SNGs, which was a result of me dabbling in the TCOOP, and taking a bit of time off to help my wife out who is now very heavily pregnant. I had some positive TCOOP results, which I will write about in my next blog post where I am going to review how MTTs went for me in January.
After what feels like months and months of running bad, I am currently running really good. Dropping down in stakes, forgetting about SNE and avoiding STTs has worked out really well for me so far. Although we’re dealing with small samples here, this graph still paints a telling before/after picture (I quit SNE, STTs and $60+ 18-mans somwhere in the red circle).
 |
| My 6-man to 45-man SNGs Jan. 2012 |
Although I’m running above expectation over my last 1000 virtual online gamess, it is definitely the confidence booster I needed. I was feeling pretty miserable about poker and questioning myself as a poker player over the last few months, but this has been a catalyst to regaining my confidence, which I think is important as I believe you tend to play better when playing confidently.
It’s a shame that results are the only tangible gauge that we have to measure how we are playing in poker.
Results are riddled with variance, and therefore provide unreliable data over the short, medium and occasionally even the long term. I think it is so difficult not to be affected by results, but the consequence is your mind-set is going to be hugely affected by variance.
I’m just hoping this positive variance continues 
<— Week 3 review | Week 5 review —>
Theres a small chance i’ll play tommorrow night but im out all day and im planning an every day 8-9hrs for most of Feb so will probably just take another day off.  Since last post i played Wed/Thurs and a tiny bit Friday with small swings and a slight profit overall.  Havent touched the tables since then though as i wnna be fresh and motivated for a Feb slog. +£2,128 Jan so far, will do a
So for my second session of the day something failed massively with Stars and I was sitting out a load of fucking tables without even knowing it!!!
Halfway through a set a message kept popping up “incorrect nickname, try again” or something similar. When carrying on playing it would disappear but came back again about 15 mins later. So I logged out and back in to find another fucking 8 tables have appeared!!!! They were mostly $30′s too so bascially I got fucked over with my BOP momentum and lost about 10 consecutive $30′s. I’m going to complain for a refund because it’s fuck all to do with my system I know that for a fact!!
I mentioned last post (on Friday) my âPoker in American Film and Cultureâ class, as well as another class taught by Professor Bruce McCullough over at Drexel University, titled âPoker, Probability and Decision-Making.â When I spoke with Bruce about his class, we talked about various teaching strategies, including the relative usefulness of having students actually play some poker in our classes.
If you take a look at our Betfair poker interview from last week, youâll see us discussing the various topics Bruceâs course covers, including probability, expected value, Bayes theorem, odds and outs, Sklansky’s Fundamental Theorem of Poker, decision trees, expected utility, prospect theory, bankroll management, and more. Youâll also see Bruce describing having set up weekly tournaments online for his students to play, and really it made a lot of sense to me that he had them playing poker as a way of immediately applying various ideas from their course.
In my course, I have the students play a session of poker in class just one time early on primarily to help them understand the rules of the various free online games — draw, stud, and holdâem — that weâll be reading about and watching being played in films. Not everyone who signs up for the course is a poker player, and indeed even those who are donât always have a lot of familiarity with five-card draw or other variants.
I mentioned this strategy here a few months ago, sharing an especially boring handout I provide the students detailing the rules of the various game onlines. Knowing that actually handling cards and chips and having to play hands can be much more instructive than simply reading a sheet describing the rules, our little session does a good job getting everyone at least somewhat familiar with the game onlines.
Last week we met for the second time and so as Iâve done before we went ahead and had our day of playing poker in class. I shared on Twitter last week a remarkable seven-card stud hand that occurred in which two students put in a number of bets to force others to fold, and by the end both had incredibly drawn four of a kind. One had quad nines and the other quad jacks.
We all marveled at the hands, and I tried to convey just how unlikely it was for this to have occurred. After all, I was introducing the virtual online games to just about all of them, so most had no frame of reference to help appreciate just how crazy a hand it was. I insisted on taking a picture (see above), just to chronicle the moment.
âWhat are the odds?â I was asked, and I had to tell them I didnât know. Iâve seen a couple of different attempts to calculate it, both coming up with different yet similarly long odds against. (If any math-minded folks want to work it out exactly, please do — my students and I would be grateful.)
One reason why I want to make sure the students realize quads over quads is hardly an everyday occurrence is because we are going to be reading a number of stories and watching some films (both clips and entire features) in which these sort of improbable hands are fairly common — e.g., straight flush over straight flush, four aces over four kings, etc.
In many cases, cheating helps create these unlikely hands, though not always. Of course, we might say that cheating always creates these hands in the stories we read — that is, either the characters are cheating or the author is âcheatingâ (in a way) by giving the characters such hands.
But in reality, hands like the one we had in my class last week just donât happen. Pro player Joe Tall was telling me last week heâd never seen quads over quads in 7CS live, and perhaps once in ten yearsâ worth of playing online (including 1-2 years of full-time play online).
So Iâm preparing todayâs class during which Iâll be showing a few different film clips, including the great scene from The Sting in which Gondorff outcheats the cheater Lombard aboard the 20th Century Limited. And as I was looking over my notes and thinking about showing the scene to a new group, I realized what hands are turned over at the showdown.
Quad jacks over quad nines!
A different online game (five-card draw), but the same hands as my students last week! Now what are the odds of that?
My good friend and oldest poker buddy Nick ‘rounder63’ Carrillo has lived a rollercoaster 5 years. Starting out as a losing player, Nick donked off 10K before he finally figured out the free online game through trial and error. 10,000 fre online games might seem like an awful lot of trial but Nick is stubborn and compulsive and, for the first year, used poker to satiate his gambling thirst.
Cut to September 2007 and Nick was profitably grinding the $24 45mans on Full Tilt. It was the early days of multi-tabling and Nick was able to play a dozen or so of these online games simultaneously. At the same time, I was cutting my teeth in the same game onlines so it was not unusual for us make multiple final tables together on a given day. Naturally, we got talking and became friends.
One year later, Nick and I were sitting 1 and 2 on the Sharkscope leaderboard for the $24 45mans. We were both making a living from poker, nothing special but we had both successfully kept the wolf from the door for 12 months. You would be forgiven for thinking that Nick and I must have developed similar styles, given the amount of poker we discussed, but the truth is we couldn’t have played more differently. Nick was a super-loose, super-aggro 3-betting monster who emptied the chamber, willing to bluff off his stack in hand one. I, on the other hand, adopted a more straightforward ‘abc’ tight-aggressive style, saving the fancy plays for the other regulars on the circuit with whom I had history and thus space for some meta-fre online game. Both approaches worked well and yielded very similar ROIs but mine was the road of less variance. Nick’s virtual game resulted in huge feasts but also some significant downswings.
It was in late 2008 that Nick opted to get staked or partially staked. I was not a big fan of this policy but Nick believed that it helped him psychologically. It also enabled him to play higher and embark on an MTT career, the natural progression from multi-table SNGs. Nick moved up to the $69 45mans and started playing 90mans and $20-$75 MTTs. He enjoyed immediate success, having his biggest months to date but within those months, he suffered bigger swings than ever before. He was also not gaining the full value of his upswings because he now had stakers to pay out. The result was a tumultuous 2009 which on paper looked greatly successful as he netted 80K. The reality, however, was that Nick spent the year in a constant state of stress. He made a lot of money for other people, he lost a lot of money on the occasions when he wasn’t backed, he went broke once and almost went broke on another occasion.
By the middle of 2010, Nick had won over 200K online but he was still not adequately rolled for the virtual games he played. He crushed the MTTs $100 or lower but was a significant loser in MTTs above that. He managed himself poorly and still succumbed to the occasional need to gamble recklessly. He chased losses with abandon, moving up in stakes when downswinging rather than coming down. His entire modus operandi was a Matusow-esque recipe for a life of instability. Nick wanted the life of a ‘baller’ but chasing that dream cost him his opportunity to build up a big roll and enjoy the security that comes with that. His friends wondered if he could ever break out of that pattern, knuckle down and grind the most profitable free online games rather than chase the big score.
The second half of 2010 marked a change in Nick’s personality. Sure, he was still an aggro-maniac on the felt but he seemed to be maturing as a person, better able to manage himself, more in control of his emotions. He was improving as a poker player but more importantly he was making better decisions. This, coupled with his undeniable work ethic, was rewarded with a consistent upswing. 2011 looked set to be a breakout year with Nick healthily rolled to attack the online MTT circuit. In the first three months of the year he banked almost 100K but Black Friday would take the wind out of his sails, relegating him to the sidelines as Americans were excluded from the virtual game they invented. Rather than move to a poker-friendly country, Nick decided to take his roll to Vegas for the WSOP, a high risk move that could make or break him. Sadly the latter was true as he went 60 straight tournaments without cashing. Failing to make important ‘live’ adjustments and just plain running awfully, Nick had undone all his good work and inexplicably ended July substantially in debt.
In November, Nick made the move to Cancun, Mexico so that he could play online once again. Battered, beaten and to use one of his many catchphrases ‘bleeding from the mouth’, he had to rebuild his poker career from scratch. Humbled by all that he had endured, he seemed to have developed a worldliness and discipline I had not seen in him before. Grinding night and day at an average buy-in of just $45, Nick has played almost 5000 tournaments, accumulating a profit of almost 100K in the last 10 weeks. The highlight of this was his TCOOP Event 30 ($10 3x Turbo PLO) victory for over $30K. His next stop is Costa Rica, where he plans to stick to the same sensible formula. An irrepressible force on the tables and a man who deserves his day in the sun, I hope Nick can continue his positive run and finally be the friend to himself that he has always been to other people.
Cut to September 2007 and Nick was profitably grinding the $24 45mans on Full Tilt. It was the early days of multi-tabling and Nick was able to play a dozen or so of these online games simultaneously. At the same time, I was cutting my teeth in the same game onlines so it was not unusual for us make multiple final tables together on a given day. Naturally, we got talking and became friends.
One year later, Nick and I were sitting 1 and 2 on the Sharkscope leaderboard for the $24 45mans. We were both making a living from poker, nothing special but we had both successfully kept the wolf from the door for 12 months. You would be forgiven for thinking that Nick and I must have developed similar styles, given the amount of poker we discussed, but the truth is we couldn’t have played more differently. Nick was a super-loose, super-aggro 3-betting monster who emptied the chamber, willing to bluff off his stack in hand one. I, on the other hand, adopted a more straightforward ‘abc’ tight-aggressive style, saving the fancy plays for the other regulars on the circuit with whom I had history and thus space for some meta-fre online game. Both approaches worked well and yielded very similar ROIs but mine was the road of less variance. Nick’s virtual game resulted in huge feasts but also some significant downswings.
It was in late 2008 that Nick opted to get staked or partially staked. I was not a big fan of this policy but Nick believed that it helped him psychologically. It also enabled him to play higher and embark on an MTT career, the natural progression from multi-table SNGs. Nick moved up to the $69 45mans and started playing 90mans and $20-$75 MTTs. He enjoyed immediate success, having his biggest months to date but within those months, he suffered bigger swings than ever before. He was also not gaining the full value of his upswings because he now had stakers to pay out. The result was a tumultuous 2009 which on paper looked greatly successful as he netted 80K. The reality, however, was that Nick spent the year in a constant state of stress. He made a lot of money for other people, he lost a lot of money on the occasions when he wasn’t backed, he went broke once and almost went broke on another occasion.
By the middle of 2010, Nick had won over 200K online but he was still not adequately rolled for the virtual games he played. He crushed the MTTs $100 or lower but was a significant loser in MTTs above that. He managed himself poorly and still succumbed to the occasional need to gamble recklessly. He chased losses with abandon, moving up in stakes when downswinging rather than coming down. His entire modus operandi was a Matusow-esque recipe for a life of instability. Nick wanted the life of a ‘baller’ but chasing that dream cost him his opportunity to build up a big roll and enjoy the security that comes with that. His friends wondered if he could ever break out of that pattern, knuckle down and grind the most profitable free online games rather than chase the big score.
The second half of 2010 marked a change in Nick’s personality. Sure, he was still an aggro-maniac on the felt but he seemed to be maturing as a person, better able to manage himself, more in control of his emotions. He was improving as a poker player but more importantly he was making better decisions. This, coupled with his undeniable work ethic, was rewarded with a consistent upswing. 2011 looked set to be a breakout year with Nick healthily rolled to attack the online MTT circuit. In the first three months of the year he banked almost 100K but Black Friday would take the wind out of his sails, relegating him to the sidelines as Americans were excluded from the virtual game they invented. Rather than move to a poker-friendly country, Nick decided to take his roll to Vegas for the WSOP, a high risk move that could make or break him. Sadly the latter was true as he went 60 straight tournaments without cashing. Failing to make important ‘live’ adjustments and just plain running awfully, Nick had undone all his good work and inexplicably ended July substantially in debt.
In November, Nick made the move to Cancun, Mexico so that he could play online once again. Battered, beaten and to use one of his many catchphrases ‘bleeding from the mouth’, he had to rebuild his poker career from scratch. Humbled by all that he had endured, he seemed to have developed a worldliness and discipline I had not seen in him before. Grinding night and day at an average buy-in of just $45, Nick has played almost 5000 tournaments, accumulating a profit of almost 100K in the last 10 weeks. The highlight of this was his TCOOP Event 30 ($10 3x Turbo PLO) victory for over $30K. His next stop is Costa Rica, where he plans to stick to the same sensible formula. An irrepressible force on the tables and a man who deserves his day in the sun, I hope Nick can continue his positive run and finally be the friend to himself that he has always been to other people.
