Moving house

I've decided to move my blog to my Poker Heaven one:

http://www.pokerangel.blogspot.com/

At least, whilst I'm sponored by them.

So please change your links, bookmarks, etc.

Delightful Dublin

No joy in Barcelona. Great city, very warm.

I returned from Dublin yesterday. I was close in the last side event, 15th with 9 paid but I lost a race with a small pocket pair vrs AQ.

Ireland was great. Very friendly players and a nice location at City West Hotel. I felt some form returning in the last side event - I'm certainly due a run of good results!

Lots of Irish Poker Tour news on UK Poker News - http://uk.pokernews.com

Hola!

Greetings from Barcelona.

It was very hot here yesterday, about 27C. I haven't really been on a sunshine holiday for years now. The whole experience of arriving in Spain, going through the airport, travelling to the hotel, etc really felt like the tacky package deal holidays I used to go on as a kid. Of course, I'm not here for a break. There is a tournament at Casino de Barcelona starting in 3 hours + change.

So, I'm sat here in my hotel room in limbo really. There isn't much time to go out and see anything plus I haven't eaten yet and I'm starving! The restaurant opens in 40 mins, until then I will chew on the desk in my room.

A 4pm tournament start time is a little unusual. I note on the schedule the heads-up draw takes place at 9pm. It'll be interesting to see how that goes, assuming I'm still in after 5 hours, that is! I'd really like to cash in this one. I'd like to cash in every one, but I don't often play buy-ins that are €1000+. It would be great to leave the sunshine for rainy England tomorrow with a few extra Euros in my pocket.

Enjoy your weekends.

Sorry, it's been a while...

...since the last update.

I haven't had a great deal to write about on the poker front. I haven't really played a great deal either. Until, that is, this last weekend.

I had a pretty lengthy session on Cryptologic which finished in me hitting a straight flush and getting paid from a guy holding a flopped set. I had the flush on the flop, it got better from there with the SF on the turn. It was one of those moments where you pray the board won't pair! That gave me a healthy profit for my efforts on Saturday.

On Sunday, after watching Top Gear - one of the few TV shows I like to watch, I had a crack at the $1,000,000 guaranteed on Stars. 5200 played with 750 paid. Good match practise, you might say, for the WSOP main event. For the first 2 1/2 hrs I was running pretty well. I had double the average and never really felt any pressure to gamble any chips. After midnight the deck turned against me. I was 220th when player 750 went out. It was good to cash in such a big event. Cards and position made it impossible to play without gambling from here on in. At 2am I was out in 260th. An $830 pay day. I really felt that even if I saw the occasional hand I would progress much deeper. They just never came, my stats read 11% of hands played.

If I finish in 260th in Vegas, you can expect a very happy bunny.

Next stop on the B&M tour is Barcelona on May 20th. €1000 buy-in. Hope I can take some tournament form into it.

Ohh Bo***cks

I didn't quite hit my $4k target, infact I dropped a good chunk of my roll and withdrew whilst I still had a healthy profit. Hence the title of the post. It hurt more at the time than it does now in the cold light of day, as I still made a large amount of money in 5 days of play.

I moved a few hundred into a new poker room called Poker770. It's one of the Playtech sites, so I thought I'd give it a shot for the review on UK Poker News.

I managed to get $500 ahead after 1hr and 4mins and that eased the pain of the $4k chase going Pete Tong.

I'm off to sunny Vilnius tomorrow for the Lithuanian Open. One or two Brits are already there and it should be a sell out. Fingers crossed for a good result.

Almost a ten bagger!

Had a good session today and finished up on $3680. Almost at my $4000 target.

I made the $400 deposit last Wednesday. I played that evening and the following day. Then again on Sunday, Monday and finally today. It would be nice to collect the last $320 in the next two days to cover $4k in a week.

Now I'm off to the dentist to almost complete the work started on my teeth 3 months ago. It's been costly but not too painful. Today is root canal day and I'm not overjoyed at the prospect. One root canal and a couple of small fillings. After that the really expensive cosmetic stuff starts.

At least I'll have a healthy mouth to go with my healthy bank roll.

Brighton bubble

To follow on neatly from the 'Horse bubble' post, I conveniently bubbled in Brighton too. With 12 paid I managed to go out in 14th. I have put up a full report on my website - link on the left.

My guard slipped, I lost my aggression and it cost me at least £250 in winnings (12th), maybe 6 grand (1st). Who knows? One thing is for sure, I've chewed the tournament over in my head ever since Saturday night and when I get to Lithuania later this week, I will not give an inch, I will pressure everyone I feel I can. I'm going to Vilnius to win this tournament, anything less will not be satisfactory.

As is the norm, after a festival event, I ran over everybody online. I'm trying to turn a small-ish $400 deposit into $4,000. So far I'm up to $2,600 after 4 days of play. Most of this came yesterday. As I was running very hot, I took a crack at a $300 heads-up game, beating some chancer called DPommo with T,4 (second pair) after he committed with AK (A high) on the turn of a scary flushy board. (Just joking Mr Pomroy)

It's been a so-so Easter at Chateau Moves. Had I cashed in Brighton it would of been a great weekend. I had three sports bets with two winning, the third losing out due to poor goal kicking by the rugby league team I backed. Online poker has been very kind to me. Over the 4 day long weekend I am well ahead money wise. I guess I'm just greedy, there is no such thing as "enough".

I do feel my tournament game is very good right now but not as fearless as it was in mid-2005. Players have improved, in general, in the last 12 months. The first time I played live poker I could not believe how poor players were, I felt I could make serious money by taking them on regulary. I must step up my game now and rediscover that feeling.

My goal for the rest of 2006 is to cash in the WSOP and win another Euro ranking event. I don't think I'm too far away from achieving those.

Horse bubble

I took part of the Roy "the boy" Brindley invitational last night on Ladbrokes.

It was a mix of sports people, celebs and journalists. 52 runners in all, 12 paid (with lumps for charidee). The first two won satellite entries to the Poker Million. 3rd and 4th a $1,000 share in a race horse.

Naturally, I was 5th. It was a nice event though, lots of chat with the odd stupid railbird. You can read more about it at UK Poker News

I've had a pretty steady week all in all. I played like a complete muppet at Broadway in the £250 dc freezeout. Online made up for that though with a couple of K from various sources.

I'm working hard on my tournament game, analysing everything post-event, I want to get to Vegas in July and feel like I'm playing the best poker of my life. I have the cash games cracked. I can play X amount of hours and know over the course of a year I will have X amount of profit. I accept the losses, which simply have to occur from time to time, because I know I am a long term profitable cash game player. I'm not satisfied with that.

My tournament record is not as impressive. In 2005 I made a profit from B&M and online tournaments. In 2006 I am behind in B&M and only a recent spate of results on Poker Stars have put me very slightly ahead online. So, until Vegas I will be playing every MTT or B&M tournament that time and bank roll will allow.

Tonight I'll start with the $55 PLO on Party. I really hate this platform but the Omaha players are terrible.