Mid month checks

Had an average nights sleep last night and then woke up this morning to the sound of Formula 1 cars. I thought the garage next door to our house must of had it on tv but when I got out of bed realised it was the cars getting ready for the Melbourne Grand Prix just down the road in Albert Park. Looks like there will be a few early morning wake ups the next few days!

I checked my balance after my session yesterday to find out how I'm doing for the month and it wasn't good news. I'm down $3000 for March so far. I'm running $6500 below EV (expected value). It's frustrating because I should be up $3500 for the month according to how I have played and got the money in. Poker is a game of skill and luck. The luck is what brings the bad players back as they can beat anyone on any day which is great. However the downside means as a good winning player you can have losing days, weeks and even months. It just means that I just have to keep up the hard work and keep playing winning poker and the results should work out. I normally run well over EV so I can't cry about it as I have been due a bad patch in the long run.

I'm currently on a $9000 down swing from my peak. I'm down 35 buy ins from a combination of 200NL and 400NL. I think this has got to be up there as my biggest down swing. It's annoying as I have finally reached a point in my poker career where I have started to work hard. I'm learning so much though and hopefully I will be a better player for this. Yes I have tilted a bit and spewed off some money but I feel I have dealt with it quite well and could have been much worse. I have probably said this before but I was chatting to the White Knight the other day and he reminded me of a good point. It is how you deal with the bad times as a professional that is most important, anyone can win but not everyone can handle losing correctly. I took my break and I am now back into a good daily routine for poker.

I get up and play my 3 or 4 hours in the morning and then quit and stick to this everyday. I have watched a ton of good bluefire poker videos and I am working very hard to improve my game. I still have ups an downs everyday which you will always get with poker but I'm feeling really good about things now. I have a very positive attitude to each session and look forward to try and play my very best each day now. Today I played a solid session of poker. I made a few mistakes towards the end of the day making some marginal calls not giving people credit but I played much better on average the whole session which I'm really pleased about. I have played 60 hours so far this month. I'm going to try and get around 100 hours of play in by the end of the month, which should be easy.

I also find the music I listen to during my sessions has definitely had an influence on my mood while I play. I've been getting into Muse in a big way, always seem to be crushing when I'm listening to them. I'm currently downloading Annie Mac presents now so I will have plenty of good listening over the next few sessions. I'm going to do some downloading over the next few days so if anyone has some good grind music suggestions please send them my way. Big fan of this tune at the moment: Garden by Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39BirET8OIg

I will be absolutely clucking if I can turn this month around and make it into profit. There's a fair way still to go and I'm playing well so I've got a good feeling about things. I'm Castor Troy.....wahhhhhooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Follow me on twitter @thebigjpizzle

Blog Voy Primus

So I hit a bad spell this month and to be honest things haven't got much better. I haven't checked my HEM yet but I'm pretty sure this is one of my worst ever down swings, maybe around the $10,000 mark from my peak. I put my bankroll strategy together that I posted about last time but after speaking to Dan he advised a more appropriate plan of dropping to 200NL and grinding it out until I'm well bankrolled enough to move back up again. I'm very glad I have done this because as exciting as my plan was it would have involved a lot more stress which is what I don't need right now. So I started playing 200NL again and putting the volume in but I have still been running really bad. I have been losing loads of my coin flips and running hands into better hands in very standard spots. This has in turn lead to some bad play too. I decided to take a few days off poker to relax. Sometimes you can just play too much that you end up not playing your best and this is especially true when you are on a losing spell. We went out on the piss Friday night and I took the day off Saturday too. I wasn't even that hungover for a change but it was nice to just give my mind a break from poker.

This was me down at the Pier in St Kilda over looking Melbourne city on Sunday.

I played a short session Sunday morning where I did get unlucky a fair bit but I noticed myself playing some bad poker. I only played a few hours and then got out and played some frisbee in the sun. The weather has been really nice here recently, it had been raining for days previously! So I took Monday off also and got out with the boys again and relaxed and had some fun. Whilst taking time off the tables I have watched some videos by Alan Jackson the last few days at bluefirepoker.com and found some good advice in there. It made me realise that I do have to find a healthy balance to be successful in poker. My enthusiasm has been good but poker isn't just about smashing out a load of hours out on the tables. You need to make sure when you are playing that you are playing the best you can and that you keep up with an ever changing game. I think my problem has been that I play a session early and then end up getting bored later in the day and play another session. Quite often I can be tired when I playing later or tilted from the first session and this impacts massively on my results. It doesn't help that the television in Australia isn't the best, you know you're in trouble when you're actually looking forward to Two and a half men coming on, sigh. Hence I have got bored and played more poker. Now I will just get out of the house for a bit or watch a film and resist playing poker again when I'm not in the right mind set for it. I can remember last month playing some really good solid sessions when I get up and then many of my evening sessions were quite destructive and I tilted off buy ins.

This is the laptop I'm playing on while I'm here. I usually play six tables at one time but if the games are really good and I'm well focused then I can play up to eight. It's nowhere near as good as my desktop and two monitors at home but I'm used to it now.

Today I have found the best balance for good poker. I got up, had a shower and then ate breakfast. I got the laptop on and played three hours of good quality poker while I was fresh. I took a five minute break away from the laptop every hour. After playing my session I then quit and had some lunch and headed down to the beach with Garfy. The weather is going to be good again this week and it was close to thirty degrees today. I'm even starting to get a sweet tan voy primus going now. Jezza came back from work today and actually thought me and Garf were black (slight exaggeration). We caught some sun today and played football on the beach. Then we took a stroll back and had a drink out in the sun before heading back to the house. In a minute we are off to the gym and then I will chill for the evening and maybe watch another bluefire video later. Doing things this way I can get up and play my very best poker first thing while I'm fresh and then enjoy myself for the rest of the day. I think playing three to four hours a day is optimum. If I do this most days then I should hit around one hundred hours a month which is decent volume. But this volume should mostly be high quality poker which should improve my win rate and how much I make. i can take a few days off a month if I'm tilted or hungover or whatever. I don't think I'm doing too great so far this month but there's still a long way to go so lots of time to put the hard work in and I will remember it's important to relax too!

Fianlly we we have a possum that lives on our roof called Paul. Jezza caught the little dogger pottering one night and took a photo of him:

Time to shake things up

I have been losing, looking at my balance and tilting. The last two days have been ridiculous. I saw my balance while loading up a table and knew I was having a terrible day. I checked my HEM and saw that I was running $4000 below EV for that day. It's time for things to change. Things aren't working out for me at the moment so I'm going try something new. It may work out for me or may not but I always learn things the hard way. I have been running bad at 400NL and good at 200NL and I know the only way to get through it is to keep playing it but it is tilting me loads and stressing me out. I hate being stressed, hardly anything in life stresses me out accept money and poker. I always make sure I have enough money to live off, I have been broke a few times and learnt the hard way. Poker is annoying me right now. Running bad at 400NL is just tilting me, the losing days are big. Not just a few hundred but a few thousand dollars. Not looking at your balance is fine when you are relaxed and comfortable with how much you win and lose each day but I'm not feeling comfortable with the downswings at 400NL at the moment and need to control tilt.

I have been well over rolled for 200NL for a long time. I have definitely been burning money by not moving up. My problem recently has been that I have had pretty much had my whole net worth in my bankroll instead of in the bank. So today I have withdrawn a load of money from my bankroll into my bank to balance things out. I'm going to take a more aggressive approach with my bankroll now. I'm going to take the Cole South bankroll route. Basically you move up when you have 30 buy ins for the next level up and move back down when you hit 25 buy ins. For example if you play 100NL then you need $6000 to play $1/$2 and drop back down if your bankroll goes below $5000. This will allow me to take shots but if I run bad then I can drop down without losing too much, rebuild and try again. I think this will be the best way for me to deal with moving up. It may be swingy but I can look at things as a bit of a challenge now and hopefully a bit of fun.

I have run so bad at 400NL and 200NL, the last two days have been a joke. Been getting AA in v's KK deep and getting spiked, then KK into AA and no dice. Take a break and start again, the first hand I play sees JJ v QQ sb v bb. I got TT in v's K8 on the turn for over a $1000 pot on KKTx today to see an 8 hit the river. Had QJ on Q3x3Q v's 33 in a 3 bet pot. I didn't even tilt today but got bashed up. Anyway enough bad beat stories. The fact i'm even listing bad beats is a sign of tilt but this is officially the worst 'short-term' run of luck I have had. Downswings are part of poker. Since I got to Australia I went on a downswing and turned it around so it's not unusual. If you are a poker player you will understand how it feels. It can make you question your ability and you can see no end to the run of bad cards but it's very standard. It takes a very strong mind to deal with the swings playing poker at all, let alone full time.

At the start of this month I ran really good and went up a load real quick but then I have hit a bad period. I know the best thing to do is take a break and play through it but I am excited about my new bankroll strategy. If I have some run good then I can be at 1000NL very quickly and if not then I shouldn't do my plumbs. I'm going to bring a five buy in stop loss back to control my tilt and I will try and keep taking breaks. I will need to be very disciplined in quitting with this approach as it may involve moving up and down stakes very quickly. The last few days have been very tough but I'm excited about mixing things up. At the end of the day I know I can crush 200NL, I have over a huge sample of hands so I always have that to fall back on. I just hope I can get a bit of run good going from the start now. You need to do what works for you. Some people need 100 buy ins and some can work off 20. The key with poker is finding a balance. If you are a cash game player yourself then I would be keen for you to let me know what you think about this.

Back to it then...

First week of March

It's five days into the new month and I feel it has started well. I have been playing everyday and my approach has been so much more professional. Last month I made massive progress and I played a huge amount of volume. I learnt a lot about myself in terms of how I deal with poker and my approach to the game. Some of my play last month was high quality solid poker and some sessions were destructive and I tilted off a fair amount not playing my best and being frustrated. I am doing as much as I can to control or reduce my tilt now. I am playing much better in general now and taking breaks every hour. After watching a poker video, I learnt how taking regular breaks can help me detach myself from the games. This can keep you sharp so your play doesn't start to slide from your a game to your b or even c game. Keeping sessions short helps my concentration so I feel like I'm fresh. It also helps me to quit which is an important part of poker. Many times I have had days where I was stuck a load of money and I would try and play until I won it back. This is terrible, you play more hands than you should and feel like you are in a rush to win your money back. By forcing myself to take breaks whether I am winning or losing I then stop that from happening. Also in every hand I make decisions and I am prepared for what my opponents will do. I don't just bet the river and then get jammed on and get annoyed. Before I take an action in a hand now I stop and think. For example, I may think, right the correct play here is to bet and fold if my opponent raises me. So when I bet and get raised I know I can fold. Obviously there is way more to it than that, for example they may go all in and its a snap fold or they may half pot the river and this may affect my decision because of bet sizing tells. But the main point is that I feel more prepared about situations and instead of getting annoyed I just make what I believe to be the right decisions and that's it. I don't get tilted about whether they are correct or not. Obviously I still make mistakes and still feel tilted during sessions but I have been dealing with it better which is great progress especially at 400NL where the swings are bigger.

I'm now playing 400NL and 200NL when there's not enough traffic. I'm trying not to set goals as such and instead focus on each session and each hand at a time and play my best. However I do have a long term goal that I have had since I started playing poker full time. I want to become a regular in the 1000NL games. The only way I'm going to achieve this is to work hard, be disciplined and keep taking shots to move up. I'm going to keep grinding away at 400NL this month and hope the hard work and volume pays off. There's a long way to go but I really do think if I work hard enough there is no reason why I can't be regging the 1000NL games by the end of the year. I will need to play across a few sites possibly in the near future because their isn't enough traffic on the site I play to just play 400NL which I would like to do now.

I was bored the other day and decided to go back and read the start of my blog and it's crazy to think a few years ago I had dreams of turning pro and now it's just normal for me. It may be stressful sometimes and that's why they say it's the hardest way to make an easy living. However I would take playing poker over having a boss any day. Because I have to do it it can be easy to not want to but I need to remember how much I loved poker and that I would have done anything to be playing poker and not working in a job. It's just another reason why I need to keep working hard at it. If you like reading this blog and haven't seen the early posts it may be worth a look. My first post talks about all the years of playing and making no money before I was finally able to start winning. Was hilarious to see I wrote "Hopefully by the time anyone ever reads this I will have made it and be a successful professional player" on Friday, August 7, 2009. Then on Thursday, December 17, 2009 my post title was "First weeks as a "pro"". Go's to show that if you want something enough you can do it.

I have played 18 hours now in March and feeling good about how the month has been going so far. I'm still eating well and have been getting up, playing a few one hour sessions then going to the gym, taking a shower and having some food and then playing another couple of sessions. It seems to be a good healthy routine so I'm going to keep it going. We did go out on Saturday night and I was hungover all day Sunday so didn't get to play when the games are normally the best as Sunday day here is saturday night in europe. I hate playing hungover because I'm useless and can't think straight. I soent the whole day sleeping, eating sushi and muffins and drinking green tea. The three of us had a bottle of vodka between us an then went out to a new area called Chapel Street and hit the bars there. The weather has been rubbish this last week and it's been raining loads. It was really hot the last few weeks with temperatures regularly over 30 degrees. Hopefully the Melbs weather will sort itself out again soon so we can hit the beach again.

Don't forget to follow me on twitter @TheBIgJPizzle and GL at the tables!

I love a happy ending

Was great to see someone actually reads my blog! I had about 200 hits since my last post, so it's nice to know I haven't bored everyone to death yet! Big love!

The last period of the month has been very swingy. I was crushing again at 200NL after dropping back down and then I started to mix in 400NL again when I saw a few good games. The problem was as I lost a few big pots or got unlucky I would find myself getting tilted. This was so annoying because I didn't tilt at all the week before while I was just playing 200NL. I had a crazy day where I had a few set under sets and then sat at 1000NL and lost a $2,000 pot. Taking shots is fine if there is a really good game but you need to be playing your best and not sit because you are losing or tilted, which I admit I did. So that didn't work out for me and I took a break. I then sat down to play later in the day and ended up losing a $1,200 pot all in pre flop with AA v's KK where he smashed a king off on the river.

So this all sounds like doom and gloom but I managed to still play fairly well and won a fair bit back that day. The problem was that you get bad beats all day every day when you play thousands of hands but it tilted me and it shouldn't. I had a tough day, but that happens in poker. I finally quit for the day, without losing too much and relaxed. I got back to it the next few days and started crushing the games again. I was playing 200NL mostly and sitting at 400NL when the games were good. Still without looking at my balance I played until the end of the month. I was focusing really hard on making correct decisions and not on whether I was winning or losing hands or $. The last few days I have felt like I have been in the zone, focusing really hard on every decision and making correct decisions most of the time even if they didn't work out. Today was the last day of the month and it was good, really good! The games were amazing, I was table selecting well, being very aggressive and running well. I think it was one of my best ever days in terms of the quality of poker I played.

So I have finally checked my balance at the end of the month. After losing $5,000 at the start of the month I am really pleased with how it has gone. My HEM is missing a few hands so the total on there isn't correct but after checking my lobby I finished up a little over $4,000 plus bonuses on top of that. That means I went on a $9,000 upswing in the last few weeks. It makes me realise that if I took a load of the tilt and bad play out of my game I could have had a massive month. It's all part of learning though and I'm a person that likes to learn things the hard way. I ended up playing 53,000 hands in 121 hours. The most I have ever played in a month is 100 hours so I have smashed it this month. I feel really good about my game, I'm playing every single day so my poker mind is fresh and I have a good feel for the game at the moment. Plus I am watching poker videos and reading articles in the evening to help me improve. I'm going to work really hard this year. Although I didn't make loads of money this month I feel I have made some fantastic progress and still booked a solid win. Also now I'm eating really well and after my successful operation on my groin I'm back running in the evenings, going to the gym and getting fit again. I have been a fat boy over the last few months as I haven't been able to train but now I'm back baby!

Here's this years graph for the first two months, swings and all:

For the first time in two years of playing poker for a living I actually get up and want to play and enjoy it. More importantly for the first time I am starting to feel like a professional, not just a waste man that plays the odd session to make some money because I have to. I realise that if I work hard and treat poker seriously I can make good money and work my way up to make even more. Poker may not be around forever so I need to make as much money from the games now as possible. About five or ten years ago people said there used to be one professional in each six max game and five recreational players. Professionals would leave a game to find a better one if another professional joined. Most of the time now there are five professionals and one recreational player in each game. The games are getting tougher everyday but there is still lots of money to be made, you just have to be one step ahead of everyone else.

I'm excited about March now. I will keep the same work ethic as I have this month but work on the things that have cost me. I will try to reduce my tilt. I understand it's very tough to play your 'A' game 100% of the time but I want to improve my 'C' game so I lose less money. Also I won't be setting any goals this month. I won't be trying to hit a certain amount of hours or profit. Instead I have a target of playing my best every session. I have a target of not stacking off because I'm tilted. I also have a target of finding the best games an quitting when I'm not playing my best. I will try and keep the volume up and I will be playing everyday but with no pressure. I will not look at my balance until the 15th, then I will have a check and then have a final check at the end of the month. Let's hope I don't do a blog post next week saying I have tilted off a load of money and checked my balance then, one time please!

I have finally worked out how to do paragraphs on here too after the the site changed things. I'm not much of a computer guy but I found a way so there's no need to squint at this post guys, sorry Lil Dave! If you like this blog you may want to check out David Nicholson's blog at http://lildaveslife.blogspot.com.au/ He plays in the big boy games so it makes for a real good read and good inspiration for us small time grinders :)

Also everyone's favourite guy and online tournament grinder Martin or 'The Beaver' as he is now known is shaving his head for charity. I have always told him I love a shaved beaver so I am glad he has finally listened to me. He's out in Canada at the moment with his lovely girlfriend Nicky, miss you guys! If anyone wants to donate some cash to a good cause here's the link, he's a legend: http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/mypage/530510/2012

I will leave you with this. This is what happened last time I was in Australia a few years ago. We thought it would be banter to shoot a music video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl1Nu0d51Mc

Feel free to give me any feedback on my faceboook page http://www.facebook.com/jonny.badboy ...that's feedback and not abuse ;) Also Moe Jullan asked me why he didn't get a mention in the last post, that's because you're a waste man. Get to Aus!!! Good luck at the tables, JP

Well well well...

I am basically a new man. Firstly I'm actually posting regularly now, this means I will be talking absolute bollocks on here every week for all those intersted. Secondly, I have been putting in massive volume and working really hard on my game.

Let's start with February, I began the month losing about $5,000 very quickly running bad at $2/$4. I then knew I was down and had some big tilt sessions. I knew I was losing and felt like the world was against me. I would get unlucky and then make a bad call or a bad three barrel bluff and think I was getting unlucky but I was being my own worst enemy. You cannot let emotion effect your decisions while playing poker. That's why you shouldn't play if you are annoyed about something, even something off the table like if you have an argument with someone or have a bad day. You have to make the correct play for each player and each situation on its own merit. Lot's of players fail online not because of their ability playing poker. Lot's of intelligent poker players fail because they cannot control tilt or because they don't have enough of a bankroll. Therefore, they feel the pressure of needing to win when poker is a game of skill and luck and you cannot win all the time. This is very important, I always make sure I have enough money in the bank and online so it doesn't matter if I have a few losing months. I can still do the things I want to do and not worry about finding money for rent. My advice to any players thinking about playing full time would be to have a minimum of six months expenses in the bank and minimum of fifty buy ins for the level you play at. So for example if you plan on playing $1/$2 six max online you would need six months rent money and living expenses in the bank and $10,000 online (50 x $200). You can then focus on playing and if you have a few bad days or go on a down swing then it won't matter. It's perfectly normal for a winning player to go on a twenty buy in down swing or more, quite often. I have had several down swings and they can be stressful and kill your confidence. So many times I have thought to myself "am I even a winning player?" even though I have only had two losing months in over two years. I felt like that at the start of this month! Taking these points into account, I think I had a tough start online in Australia partly because of bad luck but also money and emotional issues. I spent a load of money upfront on my house for rent and deposits and although I had a large bankroll online I left myself shorter than I would have liked in the bank. The good news is that I have turned things around. I covered my balance and took emotion and tilt out of my game. I did drop to playing $1/$2 for a bit instead of $2/$4 so I wouldn't worry about losing massive pots and also because I know I can crush the games so I could get my confidence back. I started running better but stopped tilting when I lost a few pots because it didn't matter to me whether I was winning or losing. I knew that I am very well bankrolled for $1/$2 and so several bad losing days wouldn't affect me. I felt like I started to play really well and got my confidence back again. The last week I have played really solid, picked my games well and felt like I have been crushing. I decided after a week I felt comfortable to check my balance again and found out that over the last week I won back the money I was down plus some. Here's my graph for the month so far, some hands are missing and I think I'm actually up about $1,000 more than this. There's still 8 days to go but here it is so far:

Since moving into our new house in Melbourne I have been able to get into a good routine. Anyone that knows me well will understand that I am a creature of habit. Now I can get up, eat, shower, then grind online, take a break, grind some more, then hit the gym and chill in the evening. I'm able to play small sessions every day which keeps my poker mind fresh and this should result in me playing my best poker most of the time. Some heart breaking news though this month. Sometimes I play the jackpot tables on pacific. Each hand you get the chance to post 50c towards a jackpot fund and eventually someone scoops the jackpot with a royal flush. I didn't post the 50c and got a royal flush, yes it was in spades with JT spades in my hand, the jack pot was $60,000 and I got $0. The chances of this happening are over 600,000 to 1. The best thing to come out of this was that it made me think how sweet it would be to win $60,000. It motivated me so much to play online and that is what I have been doing since and crushing. So every cloud and all that. I'm a positive person and don't like to dwell on things which I think is a personality trait that has helped me become a successful poker player. Still, sixty bags would have been nice, lol! Also conrgrats to Morgan in his second place finish in the £300 at the Fox club in London for £8k. Aparently he got owned by some old guy heads up though. It's not like Morgan is a heads up online pro or anything ;) Better luck next time Morgs ;) If you want more gold like this then keep an eye on the blog because I will be back soon and better than ever. Oh and how could I forget, anyone that knows the White Knight will find this gold:

Any questions you can find me on twitter @TheBIgJPizzle Peace up...A town down!

What's up guys! I have now moved to Melbourne for a few months with two of the boys Jezza (The Muscle Shark) and Garf Crooks Private Eye. We had an amazing send off the weekend before we went. Thanks to all the boys who made it:

We got to Australia on the 27th January and spent the first week or so going out in the evenings and house hunting during the day. It was an absolute nightmare to find a place but we finally managed to find a nice three bed house in St Kilda, ten minutes walk from the beach. The boys are spending the days job hunting and I have started getting back into the routine of grinding poker every day and starting to put some good volume in online. This is me, Garf and Jezza having our first night in the new house:

January went really well poker wise. After some advice from legend Dan 'The Ruddssssster' Rudd I covered my balance and started grinding $1/$2 and $2/$4 to take a shot at moving up. Dan is an extremely successful online cash game player and a very good professional so any advice he gives I take on board. I took a good shot at $2/$4 and started to put some good volume in at the start of the month. But then I got real slack towards the end of the month and poker took a back seat again. I ended up finishing up $4.5k in 20k hands winning $4.9k at $2/$4 and losing a bit a $1/$2. This was amazing as all of my shots at $2/$4 previously have ended in disaster with me tilting off money. I chilled for the rest of the month and sorted out stuff for going away and finally headed out to Australia. Since I got here I started to play a few sessions and was getting back into it. I started grinding $1/$2 and $2/$4 and things just started real bad. I hit a load of variance at $2/$4 with flips not going my way and standard run bad. After shelling out a load of $$ on rent and deposits I checked my balance to see I was down $5k after 6k hands, probably shouldn't have checked. It was frustrating seeing I was down but no surprise. Anyway I decided to cover my balance again, drop back down to $1/$2 and grind till the end of the month without checking my balance. Things have started to go better. I'm more relaxed at $1/$2 as I'm well bankrolled for it. I am 100% going to put in some good volume this month now and aiming for at least 100 hours. I have played 27 hours so far and have no idea how I'm doing and I'm not going to check until the month end but still not running great. The last hand of the session today ended up with me cold 4 betting AA from the big blind v's under the gun and then getting all the money in on an 8 high flop against KK for a $1,300 pot only to see a king pop up on the turn. I snap quit there and then and probably saved myself a load of dollar in tilt. So the plan now is to soldier on and get the volume going and hope my fortune turns around. I'm used to periods of running bad so it's all good. Just gets very frustrating at times and can be stressful but I never take forgranted that poker is much better than having a job so I'll just suck it up! Here's a picture of St Kilda beach, when I'm not being a hermit grinding I will head down here an try and get some sort of a tan so I don't look too much like a pastey tourist:

It's back to the tables for now. I will be posting much more regularly now. Also will try and post updates and bad beats on twitter ;) My name is @TheBIgJPizzle. Just remember this...if you don't use it...you lose it. JP

This is all...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpMYNxkCsFg Gl at the tables...

Year 2011 Summary and Targets for 2012

As always apologies for the delay in this post! I have had a few requests recently so finally got on it today! So... 2011 has come to an end and it's been a fun year. I've had an amazing year and met some amazing people. I have had some good holidays to Thailand, Marbella and Furteventura. I have played lot's of golf and basically almost got good enough to go on the PGA tour according to my instructor Ben (maybe a little white lie). 2011 also saw a fair few boozy Tuesday nights out with Dinesy and the boys.

After reviewing my years results it seems my poker may have suffered from the partying and socializing! The time has come to step up now though. I'm going to work really hard in 2012 and actually try and become a baller! I took a few shots at $2/$4 in 2011 but kept giving up which makes me a massive pussssaaay. If I want to make serious money then I need to step up time and time again until I crush it! I hit a big downswing at the end of 2011 which dented my profits and my confidence. I had my first ever losing month since playing full time followed by another losing month. It was a good thing though as it got me used to losing which is a part of poker but I clawed it back with a few more winning months. I have definitely improved as a poker player last year and my game has come on loads. So here's my results for 2011:

I'm disappointed with the volume and results. I played 447,000 hands of poker in 727 hours and ran $6,000 above EV. I was averaging 60 hours p/month which is well below my 100 hours p/month target. That works out that I was playing around 15 hours p/week.

So I made just over $30k profit and $20k in rakeback and bonuses. This is a wake up call for me playing only 15 hours p/week, I should be smashing this. So to 2012, I plan to play 100 hours p/month minimum. That would mean I would play 1,200 hours in the year. Playing the same stakes as before that would mean I would clear well over $30,000 just in bonuses before even looking at profit which is decent. 2012 goals: - 100 hours p/month - Reg $1/$2 up to $5/$10 - Watch a poker video everyday - Cover my balance and check at the end of each month - Post in the blog weekly - Build my bankroll over several sites

Here's a future photo of the 31st Dec 2012...BALLING OUTTA CONTROL with my home boys (absolutely no photoshop work from Uncle Fez). As always good luuck at the tables and I wish everyone the best for 2012.

I predict an earthquake up in here!

After posting a losing month in September it brings a tear to my eye to inform you that October has been much worse. I have got into bad habits and not been playing great but the deck has seemed to be stone cold this month. With only a few days of the month to go I have found myself on a 40 buy in down swing. Luckily this is a time where it pays to be a bankroll nit as it means I don't have to drop down stakes. I went from being up nearly $4k this month to now being down $4k and on for my biggest losing month to date. It's a big hit considering i'm playing 200NL. I have been lucky enough to not have suffered a downswing this big before but variance has to hit you sometime I suppose. I went through some hands with Bobs and he pointed out a few things that need changing and since then the last few sessions have been much better, I just need to stay positive now and try and play through it and focus on playing solid and hopefully the results will come. I did find that I was 3 betting and squeezing far too much and calling both in and out of position with hands too loose preflop. I have tightened my game back up now and just need to not tilt or play long sessions tired or with my b game. Here's a graph showing this month's downswing:

On a more positive note I got granted a one year tourist visa for Australia. I plan on moving to Melbourne in January 2012 with the muscle shark Fez Jishlock. I have a groin injury which is stopping me from running or playing sports so I have an appointment at the end of the month to find out when I can get an operation to fix this. Hopefully I can get that sorted and be out to Australia as planned in January otherwise I may have to delay the trip a little bit or fly back for the operation depending on how long the waiting list is for it. I lived in Sydney for a year before and it was amazing so I'm excited about heading back down under! I've still been playing loads of golf and I seem to be getting better all the time but just like poker it can be very frustrating some days. My golf instructor Ben is a legend and I keep learning new stuff every lesson to help improve the different aspects of my game. My short game is improved so much, I just need to work on getting my irons more consistent and I will be on the PGA tour in no time. Was sad times for the boys five a side team SPB this month. After winning the 5 a side tournament at goals Southampton they went to Bristol to compete in a regional tournament that would see the top 2 teams go through to a national tournament. It proved too much for SPB in the end and they went out in the semi finals to a team that had a player that looked like Malfoy from Harry Potter, bad times. We did have a boozy night out in Bristol after with some big names attending. This was the team sheet:

Just remember you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink...

Time to step up my game

The month of September has seen me go absolutely wild for golf. I think I played 4 times this week alone! I'm improving loads and love playing but as a result of this my volume of poker playing has been really low. I'm gonna find a good mix this week and have made myself a schedule and I'm gonna try and get my volume back and hopefully get some good results with it. Following my tough start to the month I covered my balances and played a few sessions and have pulled back to almost break even after being stuck about 14 buy ins! The come back has been good and I hope I can run good when I put more volume in. I'm gonna play until the end of the month without looking at my balances and just try and play good poker and see how I get on! Here's the month so far, poor volume:

Time to grind I think...

Call me Pon Mickleson

So much has happened since my last post, I have been taking golf lessons and quit poker to join the PA tour...well not quite but hopefully that will be my next blog post in a few weeks! Firstly some bad news, I have indeed posted my first losing month since January 2010. I lost just under $800 in July but it was expected as I was doing a large amount of shot taking and challenging myself whilst working on my game. The good news is that I believe this month helped me massively and improved my game and made me a much better player. Also I had a fantastic month in August to make up for it and get me and my bankroll back on track! I put some money on micro-gaming and now play on there as well as pacific. I started playing 0.50/1 euros and slowly worked my way into 1/2 as i got used to the site and the new software. It took time but eventually I got consistent results and was able to withdraw all the money i initially deposited and leave myself well rolled for 1/2. My plan is to get lots of volume in and build my roll further and start to shot take again at moving up as I will have much better purchase in terms of game selection with two sites now at my disposal. While on micro-gaming I have been entered into 2 monthly freerolls, basically a sit n go normally with 5-9 players. Obviously I won both of them as I'm a boss ;) So on the whole things are going well poker wise. I have had a tough start to September online and can't seem to get consistent winning days going but i'm sure if I can get more volume in then the results will come. It seems like every session I lose like 5 buy ins straight away and then grind it back over a few hours. Got to keep playing and I'm sure things will improve. Here is a graph of my year to date in big blinds:

In other news a young gentleman we all know and love did a big win. Bobs won the UKIPT Brighton and top prize of £70,000, the tournament started with 603 runners. He's almost as big a baller as me now! I was on holiday at the time and gutted I couldn't be there for a boozy rail. Many people have seen a big improvement in his game since he moved in with me and the results are now proof. Jokes aside, my pokering mentor bobs is a very intelligent poker player and I it was only a matter of time before he took something down (and won a comp). I was absolutely buzzing to hear about this result....what an absolute boss! Here's a link: http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/ukipt/2011/chris-odonnell-wins-ukipt-brighton-and-a-085190.html

Congrats to Wayne (AKA mini J Bug) on the birth of his beautiful daughter Ruby-Rose, we are all looking forward to meeting her in the future, newbabyLAD! It's unfortunately sad times as we say good bye to the beaver and Nicky. They are off travelling and then going to Canada to live afterwards. We will miss the nights out that never end and the beavers lovely little face! We are all off out tonight for his leaving do, expect it will be a kind of low key event and we will all be tucked up in bed by 11pm.....NOT! I'm expecting carnage, there's even some big names on the way down to Southampton for it tonight...and Edgy, oh James...LOL!

So my new golfing career is in it's early stages but i'm starting to make big improvements. I'm really getting into it and have been hitting the range hard, I want to start playing on the course a few times a week and keep improving. I have been going to the gym everyday with the muscle shark Fez Jishlock and we are doing some decent training at the moment with 5 sets of 5 reps on everything and seeing some big strength gains. The frustrating thing is that I haven't played football since the end of last season. I've been to see 3 physios and turns out I have a sportsman's hernia and need to have an operation before I can play again. I'm gonna get on the NHS waiting list and see how long it will be before I can get an op!

Finally, twitter has gone into shock recently with the arrival of @TheBIgJPizzle. If you're not already following me then you are missing out, get me on there! You might not want to follow wastemen such as @jjmullan1 who has been known for such tweets as 'Double espresso please mam... let's get these blue eyes open' and well...we will leave it at that, that's enough for one day. Also if you haven't seen the film other guys it's worth a butchers 'Thanks for the f-shack, love dirty mike and the boys!' Until next time, so long gay boys!

On route for my first losing month...

This month has been an absolute journey for me. I decided not to go to Vegas to save some $$ this year and focus hard on my online game. I've been trying to beak into $2/$4 and put in a ton of volume. My game has been improving, I've been watching loads of blue-fire videos and working extremely hard on improving my overall game. I've been battling away at $2/$4 and it just hasn't gone well for me. I seem to pick up KK and run it into AA or AA into KK only to see a king pop up on the flop, thanks for having me. I'm not dealing with these beats well enough and find myself making bad decisions in pots after this which has been destroying any kind of win rate I'm trying to achieve. So it's mid month and i'm down about 10 buy ins at $2/$4. I've also put some money on another euro site. Things started OK and I was playing 0.50/1 euros, I moved up to 1/2 euros after seeing some good profit but had a massive blow up one night and ended up losing a load. After this I took a little break covered my balance and played lot's of volume back at 0.50/1. I managed to run a bit better and and started to do really well. I'm hoping to continue my good run on that site now and steadily move up through the limits. I won't be rushing anything as that seems to be the route of my tilt/blow up problems! So plan for now is drop back to $1/$2 on my regular site and grind some, build the confidence again and carry on whilst building my new roll on the new site. I don't know if I will be able to turn it round and have a winning month, we'll see. I'm off on holiday for a week on Sunday so there's only one working week of the month left to grind. I can't stress the importance of good bankroll management enough to anyone that wants to take poker seriously in anyway. The fact i'm very strict with my bankroll means I can afford bad days, weeks and months without ever having to worry about going broke. I might be annoyed to lose money one evening but the next day I can wake up and get back to it.

I have started to love poker again this month which is a great thing for me. Since I have had to do it to provide an income I have fallen out of love with poker. Over the last few weeks since I have been working hard at it I have started to find myself enjoying the game more again and just wanting to get better, hope I can see some good results from it.

Let's hope to see some run good and get back to profit again. Thank you very much let's have a coffee!

Had my first $10,000 cash money month, thank you very much let's have a coffee!

Let's get double boozy!

Hey guys, it's been ages since i've posted. As usual, I've been lazy on the blog but I have had a few requests for a new post so here I am! So, let's get down to business...I had a good month in January and then went on holiday to Thailand for nearly 3 weeks and didn't get chance to play in February. In March I played 77 hours and won just under $4k. I lost over $3k at $2/$4 and $3/$6 and won $6.5k at $1/$2 and some at $0.50/$1. It was a solid winning month winning at 5 bb/100 over 43,000 hands, but I knew I could do better.


(ThaiLADs, Martin 'Badger boy' Malone, me, Bobs and Dom)

April came along and things changed. After talking to my parents I realised how little poker I play. I understand poker can be quite stressful at times but I rarely get anywhere near 100 hours in a month which started to tilt me. I really wanted to work hard on my game and put the hours in and start seeing some proper results. The result of this was that I made $10,009 in April. Saying I'm really pleased with the month is an understatement. I played 60,000 hands in 91 hours, the majority of my play being at $1/$2 and some at $2/$4. I ran really good at $2/$4 which was a big help but my discipline and game selection was really good. I want to say a big thank you to the legend Danny Rudd 'aka' the Rudddssssttterrr for helping me set up a HUD. This has helped my game no end and no doubt helped me have my biggest month. I really appreciate his time helping me, I know he is a busy man and while he's not dominating at the poker tables he is out standing his ground with the Cleethorpes Beach Patrol and sometimes the Grimsby hit squad! Anyways, having a HUD has really helped my game in general, now I can think much deeper about certain situations, mainly preflop at the moment as I'm still a HUD novice.

I have learnt a lot this month and feel it's another positive turning point in my game. Key points are that I only went over stop loss once which is really good, the rest of the time I just quit and came back another day. Secondly, I won $6k in 15,000 hands and started to think 'wow, this month will be big' and 'will it be my first $10k boy!?' But then after that heater I broke even for about 30,000 hands. I started to get frustrated, however it made me realise varience is a big part of poker. I believe the most important thing is to play poker when you are playing your best, be patient and don't tilt. These points have made me a much better player and maybe...just maybe now I can become a grinder. I hope that being patient and working hard can help me grind more hours and in effect make more money at the tables! It's important to remember how tough it can be, I believe someone once said that 'Some people, pros even, won't play No-Limit. They can't handle the swings.'

Poker aside, I've being playing loads of football and getting back into the gym with Jez and now new recruit Magic man Marty V. It's been a swingy season for my saturday team Infinity FC, we bounced back from a few loses with a big win last week and hope we can build on that. Our 5 a side thurs night team SPB have been unbeaten and not drawn a game for a whole season but that came to an end and we lost a game last week. People were angry, Jez was livid and lot's of sleep was lost. Good news is that we came back this week and scraped an 18-4 win, we're back baby!

I want to give a shout to a true hero. One of my mates Big Dave Henson (BDH) was injured in Afghanistan in the line of duty and as a result had his legs amputated. He has come through this so strong and he has been such an inspiration to us all. I'm proud to know Dave and he recieved a gong last week when he was honoured for his bravery. What an absolute LAD, big love!


(The legend himself)

April also hosted my birthday, we had a classic LADs night out in Souathmpton, obviously got well out of control. Key points from the evening:

- Mikey climed a tree.
- Big boozy return to town for BDH, a true hero!
- Good level of booziness from all.
- Barl Passey was brilliant and got Section 27'd for giving the bouncer a cheeky slap. I think everyone would agree he was the king of the drinking game Grand National. Section 27 means he was ordered to leave town or get arressted, obviously he stayed out and got more boozy.
- There were more points but obviously can't put them on the blog for public viewing and muckey beuwing!

Think that's about all for now. Feel free to inbox me on facebook with feedback, I love to hear what people think of the blog.

Quote of the month comes from the Muscle shark Jez 'I'm close....close to perfection'....wow!

Let's all go to Thailand, let's all go to Thailand, la la la la!

I had my biggest cash game month ever in Jan 2011. It's a sign that all my hard work is being rewarded. I didn't quite make my first 5 figure month but it was really close. I played over 57k hands in 96 hours, 6k hands at a mix of $400NL and $600NL and the rest at $200NL. I was winning at 4.51 bb/100 (HEM) overall. It was a swingy month and I had my biggest ever winning and losing days of all time but that is bound to happen when putting in more volume at higher limits. Most of my profit came from $400NL which is a massive confidence boost for me because I had previously taken several shots at this limit and not had big success. Now I feel I have been playing way more solid and much more confident. My goal now for 2011 is to have the roll and the ability to play all stake levels from $200NL to $1000NL regularly, I feel this is very achievable and I hope this can happen soon and I can start to see some monster months coming up!

I have been playing loads of football this year and my fitness is at it's peak. I usually play football 4 times a week and go to the gym with Jezza most evenings and I'm feeling good for it, my diet hasn't been good enough but I'm working on it. It's time for a break though and tomorrow i'm off on holiday to Thailand for two and a half weeks with Bobby and Martin 'TheBadgerBoy' Malone. I'm a bit frustrated to go away when I feel like my online cash game is at it's best but at the same time it's gonna be so nice to relax for a bit and I'm hoping to come back feeling refreshed and ready to get back to the tables and stack some more papers! lol. We arrive into Bangkok on Friday and head straight down to Krabi and plan the rest of our trip from the islands and Phi Phi. I can't wait, I have been to Thailand a few times before on my travels and it's amazing!!



If anyone needs to get hold of me while I'm away just facebook me as I will be able to get to computers while I'm there but probs not gonna take my phone with me. Also if anyone happens to be travelling to Thailand in February then give me a shout, it's gonna be fresh! Let's get double boozy, let's get double boozey!

Peace and GL at the tables ;-)

It's a late boy but it's here!

Hey, hey, hey! Happy new year guys! As always it's been a while so time to update on how November and December went and make some targets for 2011. Since my last post I have seen loads of people who say they regularly read my blog, that's awesome, massive LAD's!

I played a huge 53 hours (27,913 hands) in November. I did have a nice end to the month and won $2k on the last day of the month all at $1/$2 and finished November with a total $5559 profit. It was another solid month and I learnt a lot about playing at the higher stakes and how important table selection is and that it can be far more profitable to play different stakes game selecting well rather than 'just' playing $2/$4 for example!

December went even better than November and I made $6742 in 49 hrs (29,465 hands) with a nice hourly rate of $137 p/hour. I cruised the month with only one losing day. The games were amazing but as usual I just put no volume in. I kind of wish I played more in December because it was my biggest cash month to date and could have been a five figure month with more volume! But the times I did play were high quality so I'm still very happy with the month, can't grumble at nearly $7k!

At the start of December I moved into my new flat with Bobby, a man known for that fact he is a poker genius and also a very destructive chef! It was sad leaving Nathan 'Plasters' Masters place and I miss his little face. I'm all settled in at the new place now and enjoying it. I have been talking through hands with Bobby and I'm starting to learn a huge amount from his analysis.

Here's a few pictures of the new pad as requested:











I had a good Christmas with my family and friends. Was great to see Dave who was back from Afghanistan for a few weeks for Christmas. We had a good few drinks Christmas eve and then a sweet random boozy night after Christmas too with Dave, the Magic Man, Jazzy Fizzle and Jezza! New Years eve was quality. Me, Jezza, Magic Man Matty V and Wilson went up to visit Langdown in London for his birthday and New Year. Langdown was the sickest host, we had a Nandos and then smashed a bottle of goose before meeting him at the club in Leicester Square where he had a table for us with two bottles of vodka and 2 bottles of Champagne and unlimited Jager bombs. We had an amazing night, well as much of it as I can remember! lol! If I'm right I think I ended up in the restaurant part of the nightclub and got 'escorted' out and then Magic Man was 'escorted' out too! We went to get the tube home but went the wrong way cos we were so boozy and then ended up getting a taxi back. I left my phone in the taxi and we had to drive an hour back to get it the next day, Wilson you're a hero for that...LAD!


(Me and Langdown NYE)

So, my first year playing poker full time came to an end. I have learnt a huge amount in 2010 and look forward to big things in 2011! I hit stop loss countless times, went over it even more times, had days were I wanted to cry and days where I was on top of the world but it's all worth it when you stack those papers ;-) Here's my final graph for all hands played online in 2010:



On to the new year 2011. I have some goals for January. I'm hoping to play 100 hrs this month, do lots of learning, talking through hands and watch lot's of bluefire videos. My daily schedule will involve going to the gym Monday to Friday with the muscle shark Jez, playing 5 a side football Monday, Thursday, Friday and 11 a side on Saturday. I am going to try and play 5 hours of poker every evening and I'm gonna flick in the odd weekend evening too as they can be very profitable. I need to work very hard this year. I want to get my head down and play lot's of hours and get some money saved. So far I have played 35 hours this month so I'm well on target for the 100! I did have a bad losing day going well over stop loss this month. I ran really bad but stop loss is there for a reason and could have saved me a few buy ins. I hadn't hit stop loss for a while and so got a bit complacent. Anyways, I won the next few days and won $3k last night cause I'm a massive geeza! lol. I'm up a little bit this month now but time to keep the volume going and grind out some big months.

Hope everyone has a good 2011 and good luck to Toby down to last 48 of the PCA, $2.3 million ftw! I'm on the online rail, but would love a double boozy Bahamas rail though!

GL at the tables!

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink

The month of November started with a bit of shot taking at $2/$4. I was dominating and quickly won a few buy ins and went nearly $4k up in about 3000 hands. I was playing solid poker and running well also. But I soon reached a problem, I felt unbeatable and carried on played $2/$4 solidly as my main game and disregarded the good tables at $1/$2. The result was that I was playing in games that weren't optimal against mainly regs. I ended up losing back what I had won mainly due to variance. I got a bit unlucky but had an ear bashing from my mentor for playing in bad games. I was annoyed at myself because I pride myself in my game selection, I think it's so important. So, as you will have heard me say a million times in this blog, I have learned another lesson. This hand didn't help too much though! http://www.pokerhand.org/?5791615

As a result of this I had a bit of a frustrating dip in my graph but I dealt with things professionally. By professionally, I mean I decided to go out and get double boozey for a few nights on the trot and then when my hangover was gone I got back to the tables and crushed! I was back at $1/$2 dominating, it felt so much less after playing $2/$4 and I felt really confident. I'm a real confidence person, when I have it I'm unstoppable and when I don't I can be fairly useless. I played a few fruity hands flicking in 4 bets light but then I calmed down and worked hard again and have had a few decent solid sessions since. This was an interesting hand for you to take a look at: http://www.pokerhand.org/?5806371. So far for November I have played 40 hrs (20,500 hands) and made $3k profit. There's a few days left so will see if I can put some quality hours of volume in. My volume is pretty disgraceful considering that this is my only source of income. I need to be playing at least 100 hours a month.


(I was in the orange, what's a blog without random morph suit boozey mayhem)

I'm moving house on the 1st December with another poker player, my legendary mentor Christopher. We've got a sweet pad, I will hopefully post some photos when we get moved in. This move should be great for my poker career as Chris is a bit of a genius and what some might say a 6 max NLH legend. I have already learned a great deal from talking to him daily about hands and also getting help from other poker hero's such as Dan Rudd, Martin Malone and Seb Powell. Chatting to these guys had helped me improve far more than any other factor, so thanks! Hopefully Chris can help me not only with my game but with the hours I put in online. I want to be making $10,000 p/month and this won't happen unless I put volume in. Maybe we can have some volume prop bets or something?

I went on a night out in London on Saturday. Me and a few of the boys went to visit our mate Langdown. We went out for a meal in a really nice restaurant. Langdown had organised our own VIP table with unlimited beers and 2 bottles of champagne and we had some sweet steaks too 'bruv'! Then we went on to a club where we got a table. One of our mates had a bit too much too drink and was sick in the VIP area so me and Matty 'The Magic Man' Vanders had to deal with him. We had to get a cyclo thing across town while our mate was being sick out of the side of it. Then we managed to get a taxi to go to his place, we had to call his mate to find out where he lived because he was triple boozey and couldn't speak. Then we got to his place and me, Matty and the taxi driver had to carry him into his apartment past the concierge guy and eventually got him in. We put him in the recovery position and left him with his flat mate and went back out to the club. When we got there everyone had gone and we had had enough by then so went to get a taxi back home. No taxis would go from central London to Croydon where Langdown lives so we had to get some crazy guy to take us and a few stragglers that tagged along for free (i wasn't 100% happy) back to our mates house. We got back and no one was answering and Matty kicked the door mat in a fit of rage and a key flew out from under it and we were in...at 5.00am! I have had a few good sessions at the tables since then so I like to think that's karma!


(Here's the Magic Man on the right with broken man Thompo while I went to find a cyclo)

Toby continues to run incredibly bad making the semi finals of the world head's up championship in London (his horse won it by the way for £30k). He then he came 8th in FTOPS 6 max event #32 for $20k. Bit gay finishing just off the final table though and I know he will be gutted with that but I'm sure he will get a jersey soon. Toby you do have a really tough life so chin up ;-) lol.

Unfortunately I have to finish on a sad note, a friend that me and Jez met travelling passed away this week in an accident. He was only our age, we are yet to find out what happened exactly but it's devastating news. He was such a great character and a nice guy so RIP Ethan 'the legend' Chong, you will be missed bro, much love x


(Here's me the and legend himself back travelling in Laos)

October, the prop bet militant month!

Hey people! It's been a while since my last post but I do have a valid reason. I spent the whole of October helping Toby with his prop bet V's the infamous White Knight of White Knight Industries. They both had to lose 21 lbs in 3 months. Before my poker days I used to work in the fitness industry and did some personal training so I was drafted in by Toby to help him with 3 weeks of the prop to go... it was time to go militant. He started off finding it tough and the first cardio sessions weren't easy but as the days went on he got fitter and good progress was made. We went militant and said good bye to carbs and hello to chicken salads and bottles of water. I had Toby doing at least 45 mins of cardio every morning before breakfast and some light weights sessions in the afternoons. Calories were restricted and carbs cut right down. I joined in the regime in the spirit of things and to ensure there were no slip ups! The last week of the challenge we flew to Vienna as Toby was playing the 5k euro EPT main event and a few sides. He didn't have any joy poker wise but he had a great time eating tuna out of a tin and getting beasted in the gym with militant circuit sessions for the week!


Congrats to John Eames btw on winning the 2k euro side event for over 100k euros, mbn. At the end of the month the result of the weight loss prop was that Toby lost 23 lbs total and so beat the target by 2 lbs. However The White Knight managed to lose 26 lbs and therefore won half the prop money. Well done to both of you guys. I think Toby was really happy with the results, he worked really hard and I hope he keeps it up.

Poker wise, due to helping in the prop bet and being in London most of the month I didn't play much poker in October. I managed to play 37 hours (19,518 hands) and finished $2334 up for the month. It's still a good profit and another winning month which i'm pleased with.

Here is my full graph for the year with all in EV displayed:


Also this month, me and the Badger went to visit my good friend from uni Anton "The Cat84" in Swansea. I went to uni with Anton and me, him and James "The Wasp" Ash spent the last 2 years of uni solidly playing poker every day. We would have heads up games where the loser would have to do the washing up and these would last all night sometimes, lol. Me and Badger had a great weekend in Wales. We did some online MTT grinding on the Sat night and then played a 3 handed mini cash game where Anton cleared us both out, sigh. On the Sunday we went go karting, it was really good fun. I managed to win all four of my heats but then blew up in the final, where I started in poll position and crashed out to finish 6th i think. It was great to see Anton and his girlfiend Stacey and hopefully he will come down to visit us in the new year :-)

So onwards to November, after taking a back seat from playing in October it's time to get back to the tables. I really want to move up from $1/$2 in the next few months and be up regging $2/$4 and above by the end of the year which is very achievable. I had a session at $2/$4 tonight and the games were good and I finished a little up so fingers crossed. I want to keep improving my game, I have spent a lot of this month trying to get all the advise I can from my fellow poker friends and I feel I have learnt a great deal in both cash game and tourney play this month. I have been railing a lot of Bob's cash game playing online and Toby's tourney sessions and talked about hands and I'm sure it will all help my game. I now have a Bluefirepoker account and hope to learn from the videos on there over the coming weeks too.

I should be able to post more this month so keep an eye out on the blog guys. Also congratulations again to Chris "NigDawg" Brammer cashing in I believe the $100R for over $50k, awesome result and I hope you keep dominating the MTTs sir. Good luck to everyone going to DTD this weekend for the £330 deep stack. I can't make it as I'm going to Bournemouth Saturday night for Nathan "PurchaseBOi" Plasters and Junior's birthdays, should be messy. Happy birthday to Nick "Turkey gobble" Guns too, what a massive geeza. I have a feeling there will be a win for Badger boy or Morgan at DTD, maybe they can both chop it ;-)

GL at the tables. JP

I gotta stop tilting

I started October winning $1k in the first few sessions and thought 'I'm back baby', however I lost a load today, sigh. I ran bad a fair bit but that's no excuse for tilting off a few stacks. It makes me think about how much I have lost due to tilt...many thousands. It's time to become a machine again, to not worry about winning or losing or getting 'unlucky'. I need to be consistent and let other regs and fish make the mistakes. I went over stop loss today but luckily managed to run like god for 5 mins and recover some of the losses. Mentor BH suggested a little bit of music might lift my mood during the session and it had an instant impact, thank goodness! I got lucky to win it back though. I think Durrr needs some music or something today cos he is doing his absolute brains getting owned by Zigmund at HU PLO on Tilt. Durr for you I suggest some Enrique - I like it ;-) (think he might have heard me and put it on cos he's winning some back now, lol)

I'm up a little bit for the month now but I can't afford to have anymore days like today. I'm better than this, but this blog post is a reminder that I will NOT TILT anymore. Let's gogogogogogo.

Sigh at Morgan's bubble in the HU £1k event at EPT btw, hope your one time comes soon.

JP

Toughest month of my poker career....but I like it!

September...where do I begin? Sorry I haven't posted in a while but I really wanted this post to be the one where I said I made it into profit for this month, read on to find out. This month I went on a 25 buy in downswing which saw me go from being $1k up to $4k down very quickly. I hit stop loss three days in a row. Things were awful and I felt really down for a few days. At one point I remember saying 'I have had enough of this, I might quit poker and go get a job'. I believe it was a combination of things that contributed to this. I wasn't going to the gym for one and wasn't eating great, also I wasn't doing any work on my poker game. Despite these factors, it's a fact that I did run VERY bad. I had set over set twice and managed to see both these hands get one outed by quads twice in the space of a few days, it was so gross! Check this out: http://www.pokerhand.org/?5690947. That was just the tip of the iceberg, I really couldn't win anything. I did tilt off a few stacks, which is really stupid but I was so frustrated. I had been running so good all year and I wasn't used to this, I had taken run good for granted.

I spoke to Mentor BH and he suggested I take a week off playing, which I did and I tried to relax. I came back and posted a few wins but it still seemed to be one step forward two steps back for me. I made some key lifestyle changes. I started going to the gym with the Muscle Shark (Jez) every day, he is an absolute legend and number one trainer. Going to the gym made me feel great and made me much more positive at the tables. It's also a great chance to get out and socialise mid week because playing poker online can be quiet anti social. It's not like a job where you meet people every day and have office banter and anyone that knows me will tell you that I am naturally a very social person. I covered my poker account balance during sessions so I could focus more on playing well and making the correct decisions instead of focusing on whether I was winning or stuck in the hole. I spent time with friends and tried relaxing in between sessions. I also watched some vids on deucescracked.com thanks to legend White Knight and they really helped me start thinking like a winning poker player again. I began constantly thinking about opponents hand ranges and my plan for each hand.

The result of all this was a slow and steady grind back. I still ran bad and couldn't seem to hold when I needed to but I did start to get a few breaks. Monday night of this week I played 6 a-side football for team Fatside and we won 5-1, it was an awesome team performance. I felt great, came home, had a protein shake and a banana and loaded up some tables. I played the best poker I have ever played in my life. Mondays session was one of the biggest turning points in my poker career. Mentor BH talked about me needing the hunger to play and succeed and it was there more than ever. I played so aggressively and felt so confident. Even when I suffered beats I carried on relentlessly three betting people and raising and dominating. I felt so in control of every hand. That session made me want to become as good a poker player as I can now. The hunger is there. Finally, I played a winning eight hour session last night and I made it into profit for September, it felt amazing and was worth all the hard work I have put in this month.

Final result for September is 71 hours played (37521 hands) and $146 profit. I ran $5000 under EV (expected value) this month at $1/$2 and I mixed in some $0.50/$1. This come back meant a lot to me as I have never had a losing month since starting to play full time in Dec 2009 and despite this being pretty much break even, it's still a win and I should get a sweet bonus this month too!

Here is my graph for September showing you my results with EV (green is my actual profit for month and red is EV.



I want to thank all my friends that have put up with me whinging on msn this month and for helping me with advice and support. You know who you are and I really appreciate it :-)

I want to list some of the things I have learned this month that I think everyone, both new to poker and those who have played for years can find useful. Bankroll management, I normally have at least 50 buy ins for the level that I play. I went on a 25 buy in downswing which meant that if I had less online I could have gone broke or would have had to move down. I saw a reg considered one of the best on Pacific playing $0.50/$1 and he said he cashed out his roll and went on a downswing so had to drop down. Therefore bankroll management is key, I wish him the best on his grind back...if it is really him and not someone else using his account ;-) A good healthy lifestyle with exercise, good food and socialising is also important. It will make you feel good and therefore give you a more positive outlook at the tables. Next, never think because you are a winning player that you can just keep on cruising without improving. Without trying to learn you will lose the sharpness and you can fall into bad habits. During my downswing I watched poker legend Martin Badger Boy play a session online. He played great poker and I was like, wow I'm calling with a small pair in that spot and I shouldn't be. I started realise my own mistakes while he was playing solid winning poker. I realised I have got complacent and my game had got stale. The point is to keep learning and ahead of the game, which is adapting everyday. Stop loss, tilt control and taking breaks are vital. I hit stop loss and 'felt' fine the next day but in fact I wasn't, I just didn't realise it. When you hit stop loss, take a few days off and relax, don't tilt. Think that is enough learnt from this month, I should be charging for this, it cost me thousands of dollars online and 71 hours of my life this month to learn this, lol.

Finally, if you have made it this far...congrats to Seb 'Genius' Powell on winning the links tourney at the grosvenor for £3k. Also legends Martin and Morgan both final tabled for nice scores. Morgan is a sick heads up (HU) sit n go player on Full Tilt and also a double boozy hero, already been banned from DTD, pokerLAD. Also, I'm going on the record now to say that Seb is not only a great guy but is a genius and an amazing poker player and it's only a matter of time before he dominates the world online or live in the poker world. You read it here first ;-)

So, now I'm taking the last few days off of playing to relax. Went to see the new film The Town tonight with Nathan 'PurchaseBOi' Masters, it was awesome. Seeing family tomorrow and then I will get back on the grind at the start next month. I have fingers crossed for a better month in October, $10k month one time please?

Last of all, I just got a call from the Bagder to inform me that Toby 'I run so bad I never win anything' Lewis just won the EPT £1k side event in London for another large sum of cash, around £60k I believe, congrats mate wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Toby is a top lad and he's winning the world, couldn't happen to a nicer guy and hope he keeps on going. That's back to back EPT wins for him, what a sicko. And I thought wining $146 this month was good, FML lol! I almost forgot, a big well done to Chris Brammer, the man they call NigDawg on coming 3rd in Sunday Brawl on Tilt for over $50k and then winning an EPT side turbo last night for £9k. I railed his FT on Tilt and it was a lesson in aggression, wp sir!

Good luck at the tables all and btw you need this song in your life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9_n8jakvWU.

JP