Training Day

I saw Senna yesterday. What an amazing film. Despite being force-fed Formula One every Sunday afternoon by my car-obsessed Dad throughout my childhood (or, come to think of it, because) I've never actually been interested in cars or racing at all. However, that didn't stop me thinking this was one of the best films I have seen in a long time. I'd highly recommend that people go to see it - it's funny, dramatic, exciting and incredibly moving also. Everything that Formula One usually isn't. Here's a trailer if you need more convincing...

The rise of feature documentaries is a fascinating development in Hollywood/cinema over the past fifteen years. Due to their relative scarcity almost every doc that is released in cinemas is great. Just over the past few years there's been Man On Wire, Inside Job, The September Issue and now Senna to name a few great examples. This also looks amazing, out next month or so;





I hired a poker coach this past week. It's something I've been meaning to do for the past six months but as they're quite expensive - $750 for 5x80min sessions - I wanted to make sure I got the right coach first. I eventually settled on Alan Jackson who makes training videos for BlueFirePoker.com and plays the same stakes as me. He's a very technical, stats-based player/coach which should be ideal for me as those are areas I'm pretty weak in. We had our introductory session last week and it went really well so I'm very excited to get started tomorrow.

Ironically, despite currently being in the midst of a great run, I think now is probably the best time to get coaching. Even when you're playing (and running) well it can never be a bad thing to have somebody from outside come and give an objective look at your game. As anyone who has played a lot of poker knows, it can be quite easy to grow a big ego regarding the game, which in turn can obviously lead to playing badly and not actually analysing or reviewing your own play. All of our sessions are conducted via Skype and cool software that allows Alan to see my screen and vice versa. I'm sure it will more than pay for itself over time.

A big shout out to Sam Grafton over in Vegas who finished 14th in the $2,500 Six Max WSOP event for about $24k. I'm sure he'll be gutted to come so close - 1st paid over $600k! - but he's an awesome player and a cool guy so he'll have plenty of other chances to do well soon. If poker were definitively defined as a sport (which it isn't really) then it would probably be the UK's best all-round sport. Certainly better than our amazing football team...and, in about two day's time when Andy Murray is the only Brit standing, our tennis team too....

Last time out I said I'd post a few interesting $5/$10 hands and in the interests of retaining a cohesive narrative, here we go.

Seat 1: khalidzahoor16 ($980)
Seat 2: Zilog ($1,000)

Seat 3: MrStarch ($1,286.44) (BTN)

Seat 5: vakostar ($391) (SB)

Seat 6: japete ($2,763.81) (BB)

Dealt to MrStarch

Preflop: (Pot: $15)

RAISE khalidzahoor16, to $30
FOLD Zilog
RAISE MrStarch, to $95
FOLD vakostar
FOLD japete
CALL khalidzahoor16, $65

Flatting or 3-betting this hand on the button is fine. Khalid is one of the worst players at $2/$4 and $5/$10 so there's no way that I can ever fold and avoid playing a hand in position vs him. He calls 3-bets a massively high % of the time so I think that makes just calling marginally the better option actually.

Flop: (Pot: $205)

CHECK khalidzahoor16
BET MrStarch, $95
RAISE khalidzahoor16, to $210
CALL MrStarch, $115

Nice flop! I don't think that there is too much point reraising his check-raise. A lot of the time Khalid will just have Ace-high type hands (for a gutshot) or something like 77-99 which he may be able to fold if I jam on him. His actual hand was definitely at the very top of his range I think.

Turn: (Pot: $625)

BET khalidzahoor16, $275
RAISE MrStarch, to $981.44
CALL khalidzahoor16, $400

Awesome turn and he's pretty much committed to the hand at this point so it's an easy shove and he's drawing to just two outs. Woohoo!

River: (Pot: $2,281.44)

Showdown:

SHOWS khalidzahoor16

SHOWS MrStarch

MrStarch wins the pot of $2,278.44

The swings in $5/$10 can be pretty gruesome though and it's a main reason why I only play when the tables are pretty soft. A few minutes later a steaming Khalid got his revenge by playing abysmally in this hand;

Seat 1: khalidzahoor16 ($1,003) (BB)
Seat 2: Zilog ($1,046)

Seat 3: MrStarch ($2,224.77) (BTN)

Seat 6: japete ($2,746.48) (SB)

Dealt to MrStarch

Preflop: (Pot: $15)

RAISE MrStarch, to $30
FOLD japete
RAISE khalidzahoor16, to $90
RAISE MrStarch, to $200
CALL khalidzahoor16, $130

I raise TT on the button and Khalid 3-bets from the small blind. Given his frail mental state and all-round spewiness I'm quite happy to get this all-in right here so make a small 4-bet which hopefully he'll either fold or jam over. Anyway he does the unexpected thing instead and just calls. No matter what hand he holds that can't be a good play ever, especially out of position. Miserable.

Flop: (Pot: $425)

CHECK khalidzahoor16
BET MrStarch, $260
RAISE khalidzahoor16, to $520
RAISE MrStarch, to $1,734.77
CALL khalidzahoor16, $253

Anyway I flop top set as usual, we get the money in and what does he have? The old 5-6 suited of course.

Turn: (Pot: $2,932.77)

River: (Pot: $2,932.77)

UGH!!!

Showdown:

SHOWS khalidzahoor16

SHOWS MrStarch


khalidzahoor16 wins the pot of $2,010


In general though poker is going pretty good this month. It's the 20th June today and I've already played about 45,000 hands so far. My aim for each month is 50,000 so I should smash that easily, hopefully have another good week (while watching Wimbledon in the background) and make a nice withdrawal in a few days.

Cheers for reading.

Movin' On Up Now

It's strange how quickly you get desensitised to money when you play online poker. The first few times I played $1/$2 cash games I remember feeling like I'd been punted down below every time I lost $200 in a hand. The standard of play wasn't much more advanced than it had been in my lower stakes games but getting used to potentially winning or losing a decent sum of cash in one hand was a mental challenge.

After a few weeks that feeling went and you just get on with the game and focus on playing well. It was the same pattern when I stepped up to $2/$4 and played my first pots of over $1,000. It was exciting - yet a little scary too - to think that one hand of poker (which might take thirty seconds to play out) could result in you winning more than some people get paid for a few week's work.

As a professional poker player however it's very counter-productive to actually think about these things and 'care' about the money. If you know that a $250 river bluff is going to be the sum total of a return train to Paris and a croissant then you'd never make it. While anyone can win good money at poker as long as they work hard, to do it for a living requires a natural mindset where losing (or winning) lots of money doesn't affect you so deeply. Experience at this definitely helps. When I first left my job at PokerPlayer magazine around a year ago to play poker I would question if I'd made the right decision constantly after losing days of $700, $1000, $450 over and over. Looking back, this constant focus on money was definitely hindering my play at the table and increasing the possibility that I would lose.

Nowadays I've turned a corner in this thinking. I don't get too upset when I have a huge losing day as long as I know it was mainly variance or coolers and not my own play. Conversely I don't get excited when I have a big winning day either. While I love my job (and the mental challenge of the game), it's there mainly for one reason - to make money. In that aspect, the day by day really is irrelevant and the only time I'll look back and be happy with how I've done is when it's the end of the year and I have achieved my goals. Hopefully I'll get there.

I was so happy to see that Jake Cody won his first WSOP bracelet in the $25,000 Heads-Up event over in Vegas. I only played with him once but he is by far and away the toughest player I ever played against - his skill and creativity at the table was incredible. There's a brilliant video here of his win:

http://www.thepokerfarm.com/online-poker-videos/jake-cody-wins-25k-wsop-heads-championship/

I'll stop talking about poker now and post some cool $5/$10 hands in a separate post later.  

My brother Matt in a staged masculine pose at Kensington Palace afternoon tea.

Great weekend last week. As a belated birthday present for my Mum she came down from Chesterfield and my brother and I took her around Kensington Palace before treating her to one of their famous afternoon teas. At the risk of sounding very gay, it was good fun.

Doing those occasional tourist days out really does make you appreciate how spectacular a city London is. While I love New York, Vegas and Barcelona as places to visit on holiday I wonder if any of them could truly compare to London if you were to live there.

I'm playing my first ever round of golf this Saturday at my mate Dave's near Cambridge. Looking forward to it but as my golf swing more resembles a rounders slug I fear for the group of golfers behind that will have to wait for me to navigate the myriad of sand traps. I think I'd probably do much better if I could just throw the ball down the course instead...

I Didn't Finish 9th!

The sun is shining in London, the Beach Boys are on and, best of all, I made a final table without finishing 9th - a-woohoo! After my PKR Live nearly-ness I played in the PKR $165 Double Chance High Roller tourney a few days later, made it to the final table in about 4th place....and finished 9th. That was good for about $500 or something when first paid out around $4.5k. My good friend Rick Dacey had been railing me since the final few tables and we'd been jokling that it was my destiny to always finish 9th on final tables from now on....not amusing.

Anyway, I finally broke the damn curse (of only a fortnight) by finishing second in PKR’s Primetime Turbo last night for $1400! I’ve literally no idea how I didn’t win as my opponent was bloody awful but to be fair I played pretty crap in the heads-up too. I was intent on just min-raising every pot when I should have been happy to play post-flop with him or just jam on him instead. As it was a turbo we never really had effective stacks of more than 15BBs, although somehow the HU went on for around 45 minutes.

Still, you can never moan about getting to HU in a turbo considering the amount of coinflips and suckouts you have to achieve in order to get there in the first place. As much as I’d like to claim it is, coming runner-up in a turbo is about as much to do with skill as Andy Gray is to sexual equality.

After last month’s cash game bonanza this month (all three days of it) has started off well too. I played a crazy session with Kresch at $2/$4 heads-up a few days ago. We’ve played long heads-up sessions probably three times before. The first was about nine months ago when I was only just starting to play $2/$4 and the thought of losing $400 in a hand still sent little shudders up my spine. I played poorly, he played well and beat me out of about $1,200. Then we had a rematch a few months later and I’d made lots of improvements in my HU game and beat him out of $2k – so I was pretty happy when he tweeted me saying he was absolutely wasted and wanting to play some HU. I was just about to quit for the evening as I’d been playing pretty bad and was down $2k for the day but thought if really was as drunk as he said then it was a good spot.

He was battered. Every hand he would 3-bet blind out of position and didn’t ever fold. Being a little slow on the uptake, it took me about 30 minutes to realise this but after that Kresch was just giving money away with some suicidal bluffs.

Table info:

Posts big blind $4,00

Seat 1:kresch ($523,40)

Dealer, Posts small blind $2,00

Seat 2:MrStarch ($745,60)

Dealt to MrStarch

I was pretty happy to get it all-in preflop here, as weak as KQ actually is. We’d played a hand a few minutes before where Kresch had 5-bet jammed A5  and I called with AT and won so I thought he might be tilting a bit.

Preflop: (Pot: $6)

RAISE MrStarch, to $10,00
RAISE kresch, to $32,00
RAISE MrStarch, to $88,00
CALL kresch, $64,00

Flop: (Pot: $186,00)

CHECK kresch
CHECK MrStarch

Turn: (Pot: $186,00)

CHECK kresch
CHECK MrStarch

Bingo!

River: (Pot: $186,00)

CHECK kresch
BET MrStarch, $108,00
RAISE kresch, to $423,40
CALL MrStarch, $315,40

Showdown:

SHOWS kresch

SHOWS MrStarch

MrStarch wins the pot of $1 045,80

It’s a pretty strong line ordinarily but there’s no way I can fold top pair here in this situation.

Kresch ended up giving me about $2k so I ended the day break-even which was nice. Anytime you want to get drunk and play again mate, just give me a call :)

Just one more hand from last night which I played – with all modesty intact – AWESOMELY.

Team PKR pro (and very good player and cool guy) Sascha ‘Locodice’ Walter, Dunder (PLO aggro mega-station) and I were all nearly 200BBs deep when this hand come up. It’s not a line I’d take especially often but I think when you are deeper there are so many more options available for creative play. I channelled my inner Muzone for this one.

Table info:

Seat 1: cevzy ($464,90)
Seat 2: r123456a ($375,66)

Dealer

Seat 3: locodice ($740,70)

Posts small blind $2,00

Seat 4: MrStarch ($803,30)

Posts big blind $4,00

Seat 5: Dunder101 ($1 035,09)
Seat 6: BritAbroad ($572,64)

Dealt to MrStarch

Preflop: (Pot: $6)

FOLD BritAbroad
FOLD cevzy
FOLD r123456a
RAISE locodice, to $10,00
CALL MrStarch, $8,00
RAISE Dunder101, to $40,00
CALL locodice, $34,00
CALL MrStarch, $34,00

It’s not ideal as I’m out of position against two competent players but I think I am getting the right implied odds to set-mine here with my 88 this deep. Plus, I can win the pot sometimes on good boards even if I don’t hit an 8. So I call.

Flop: (Pot: $124,00)

CHECK MrStarch
BET Dunder101, $64,00
CALL locodice, $64,00
RAISE MrStarch, to $180,00
FOLD Dunder101
FOLD locodice

Showdown:

SHOWS MrStarch


MrStarch wins the pot of $437,00

Dunder can be (and should be) c-betting his whole range here. That includes some overpairs but also a ton of hands like AQ-AK that missed, or even AJ etc (though unlikely) that will find it hard to continue versus a check-raise. Loco’s flat call could be a slow-played set but besides that there just isn’t a hand strong enough in his range that can call me either.

Check-raising two players like this just looks so strong. As Dunder was tanking I could hear him screaming out loud ‘I can’t believe he has a set of fives!’ – in the words of Tony G, ‘I played it like a set’. Locodice tanked forever and folded too, he told me that he had QQ. Go Starchy!

There have been a few cool non-poker things going off. First, we had to postpone the eagerly awaited Hawksmoor steak visit due to Hattie getting ill. That’s sad but we are booked in again for three week’s time so it’s all good. The highlight of the Bank Holiday weekend was the new incredible ice cream shop that’s opened a few minutes from our flat. Mmmmm.

  

We also saw a brilliant Belle & Sebastian gig in Camden at the Roundhouse. I’ve always liked B&S but live they were superb, really getting the crowd into it and performing with a ton of energy. I highly recommend. Here is one of their best songs to finish on.