Blog by Alex

Update: October

Oct. 25, 2011

Apologies for lack of update, been a little lazy lately. Look at what can happen in such a short period of time! The online poker world appears to be a landscape undergoing some serious change right now, more about that in a moment.

Poker for me is going ok, moved back to micro gaming under instruction from David and Azza, seems like a good idea to go back to the old stomping ground after the highstakes merge EV debacle and the fact we were having some issues with Willhill $. Games are actually good, but liquidity is very low owing ...

Post Vegas and a change of scenery

Aug. 26, 2011

Well vegas this year was decent, I played 5 events, cashed in 2, and made a final in a 1k Sunday to finish 5th. Ontop of that I had my first ever successful stake and had nice live cash sessions. Sadly I find vegas incredibly draining (getting too old for this partying malarkey :P) and elected not to play the main because it would have been a pretty bad waste of $10k. I feel it really takes experience to know how to perform well in the series, mainly just looking after yourself and getting into decent shape before the start. ...

June Update

June 5, 2011

To say 2011 has been trying would be an understatement. The game is the game and i wouldn't enjoy it half as much (or have such a sick addiction) if there was any set formula or defined edge every time you sit down. I like the fact there is a gamble involved. That said, this year im on an alltime record EV downswing of just under 100k. About 5% of that is above 1knl. I feel sick just thinking about it. But on the other hand, bothered, get a violin out; definitely some of those losses led to much bigger ...

April Update

April 29, 2011

Poker is a shit game at times. A lot of the time. At present im incredibly frustrated with the game and having some serious issues with how to bridge the gap. Im under consistent pressure to perform it feels (it is a results business afterall, and I am staked by the farm) and this last month has been a slap. At the start of the month I played in some big games against some top opposition. I will be the first to admit I was thoroughly outclassed. Since making a pact with myself to only play 400-1k on merge, I ...

April, year/merge so far

April 7, 2011

Im not one to whinge, infact i think in order to actually survive/not go insane/keep earning i think its pretty important to not take yourself too seriously and to just try and play your absolute best at all times. But the last 2 months on merge have been fun, painful and at times had me looking at the tables wondering where all the value has gone. The games appear of late to either be seriously lacking what i consider true value, or, if you catch it at the right time, incredible. I will post the all hands graph at the ...

March Blog

March 22, 2011

Manchester UKIPT trip report.

Thought id go for a slightly different post this time. Year is going decently so far so I decided to play a few small live events. Off the back of a pretty deep run in the Luton deepstack £500 (33/180 odd) I felt pretty good about parting with another 550 whilst on my tour of cultural cities of GB. The Manchester G is relatively close and with the guaranteed monster field full of stars satellite qualifiers looked like one not to miss. I recently played the Nottingham leg of this and the overall ...

Feb update

Feb. 8, 2011

Well things are going well at the moment, im playing with real clarity, picking the right games, taking apart the games of reg’s I was previously losing to and playing a much more balanced game. Balance in itself is worthy of a book in my opinion. A big problem I see is players thinking about balancing ranges where there is absolutely no bloody point. It takes a given set of circumstances to ever worry about balance. Firstly, you need to be playing that guy regularly, by that I mean daily. Secondly that player needs to be a very good thinking ...

January, plus new year hopes, goals and expectations.

Jan. 23, 2011

Well 2010 was an interesting year. I had a huge upheaval in my personal life, split-up with my long-term partner and moved house. I went to vegas twice, did my balls both times, generally doing stupid things, but had fun. My game went all over the shop, I lost a lot of focus and drive, plus in this ever-changing game I stopped working so hard- watching vids/posting/talking about hands with a handful of people who play in the games I do who’s opinion I genuinely rate. The year was sub-par in terms of results.

My wsop was a ...

December Donks are coming

Dec. 8, 2010

Well thank god November is over. In truth is was a terrible month in terms of bottom-line, but on the plus side I felt I played well and had some shots in the bigger games gone better it could have been all smiles.

This month I decided to drop and get some confidence back at 200nl, got the confidence back but im now running close to 40buyins under ev in the last 3 weeks. Its marginally distressing because as we all know, variance never “owes” you anything, but I’m very hopeful. I won a small tournament last night to ...