Women cause so much tilt in general that I prefer not to deal with them during the poker career (except for maybe a one-off just for confidence). The things might change after I retire, but def not now.
Or at least the woman should be from a place where one can work / grind. If she's from a terrible country (and is not willing to provide a full living for the partner just to be with him 
), nothing else can be an excuse.
Over the next 1 and a half months I played any and everyone I was rolled for and managed to come out on top on most occasions.
I took great pleasure playing King of the hill style tables and by the end of this spell I didn't really have anyone that was willing to play heads up outside of Pokerstars. It felt good taking over the entire site and not letting anyone play 200nl or higher unless they were willing to start a table with me. In a perverse power trippy kind of way it was the only thing that kept me going.
In the meantime outside of poker the only other thing I did was see the doctors regarding my back and epilepsy.
Now that I had had a fit that caused such damage to myself, I decided to start taking medication for it in the hope that I would no longer have anymore fits.
Once I'd got the medication I decided to go back to Brighton to see all my friends I'd missed. Although my back wasn't exactly fixed, I thought as long as I took things easy it'd be OK.
When I got back things were different. I don't really feel that comfortable describing the feeling I got from this situation.
But basically I quickly realized who were my actual friends and who were not.
I stayed in Brighton for about 2 weeks before feeling so down that I wanted to leave. No one really wanted me around anymore and the bad air that was around made me feel the same.
I stayed at my friends house as I didn't want to disrupt my parents'/ brother's lives anymore and decided that I wanted to go travelling (in particular Thailand) as soon as my back had gotten better.
It was around this time that I noticed when I went back to playing poker again I wasn't winning anymore. At first I presumed it was variance, pure and simple. That changed to thinking my environment was no good, so I moved back with my parents. I went back and still didn't feel right.
I decided to take a break and go to a poker event in London called pkr live.
As for as the last song (famous indeed), a SSPLO reg, gifted piano and guitar player and songwriter Jaakko Kiuru, better known as Jabonator and FinnedFinn, once covered it:
Hey Mate
Great read and well written, looking forward to more:)
Adversity makes us stronger.
Keep crushing bud
A $500 event held in aspers casino with 20k starting stacks. Blinds at 25/50. 1hour levels. 3 day event.
Not exactly the type of event you would normally find me at. But this one was a little different as it is well known that the cashgame regulars on the site like to turn-up to such events to meet get drunk with and generally rub-down the other regulars.
After being asked several times on chat in cashgames online, I decided to turn up and meet all those players whose livelihoods i had been damaging in recent months. (LOL)
The tournament started and I couldn't find my seat, it'd turned out that they had given me a really bizarre name if i can recall it was something along the lines of Ackenjie James.
I busted all 400bb before the end of the first level making me first player out of the donkament. I could tell you the hands but they are very standard... Ok maybe they weren't that standard but they included the classic fish calling way too much not even being able to justify pot odds or implied odds. This kind of thing I don't deem worthy having a place in my blog unless it is for 1mil+ ♠_evil:
so with that I got up and made my way over to the cashgame tables.
Despite their being 8+ cashgame tables. The highest limit was 1/2 holdem 500bb max buy-in. I promptly sat down and after 1 hour found myself bored to tears. At how the game was going. (4 "regs" all sat covering the whales who were just giving away money) it was a highly profitable spot but my hourly was probably less than online so i wanted some more fun. Luckily that came a few mins later when a young(for live game) player sat down and asked who wanted to start an omaha game.
4 others wanted in and we moved tables.
It was your classic live omaha table. 3 old nit regs only betting the nuts 1 agressive loon and 1 hugely overplaying his holdings. The first few hours were up and down and by the first notable hand i was up around 5 bi sitting on a 2k stack. I got it in with the second largest stack at the table for a 3.5k or so pot. We both had the straight but i also was freerolling the flush draw. The other guy (young man who wanted to start the game in the first place) asked if we could run it twice and I was happy to do so. I won the first and drew the second pot and the money was split.
Collecting my winnings I quickly realized something was wrong with the amount I had been given. I questioned the dealer and called the floor over, but by that time the next hand had been dealt. The dealer had mistakenly given me 2/3rds of the pot rather than 3quarters. The cardroom manager asked the other player to hand over the approx £250 that I should have won and he declined. Because the next hand had started the card room manager said there was nothing he could do to get that money from him.
The atmosphere went pretty sour.
I let it go pretty quickly and decided from then on to just run it once (and be a boss like phil ivey 
) but the rest of the table was pretty angry.
Fastforward 2 hours and we are both sitting £3k deep when the second notable hand played out. He opens utg for pot (£7) and gets 2 callers before I look down at my 5 card omaha hand. I have double suited aces with all cards connected. I decided to flat as the player on the button has been buying in for 50bb and shoving the past hour looking to get a stack. He basically shoves and the sb also calls. Utg calls and the other 2 fold out. I realize that the sb has approx. £400 (200bb) stack and decide to raise to 195 allowing the sb to make an easy shove that would allow me to effectively get stacks in pre with the other big stack.
Unfortunately the sb had other ideas and decided to flat!?!! As did utg.
Flop came down q97 two hearts. I had the queen and nut flush draw and after sb donk shoves the flop and utg calls I over pot. Utg over flats and turn is 2 diamonds an absolute brick but giving me a low 2 pair. I pot for the remaining money and he calls and asks to run it four times. I say no just the once, miss my flushdraw and he scoops up the pot on a king river with q9xxx for 6.8k pot. (34 buy in pot).
I congratulate the player ( non sarcastically) and say goodbye to the rest of the table. Before I left the cardroom manager offered me £250 (the amount I had lost in the earlier pot) in casino comps (food, drink etc.) but not casino games. I said thanks and promptly found somewhere to stay for the night. I left london the next day with no desire to play live poker for quite some time.
At this point all I wanted to do was leave, to just run away and seek pastures new.
Unfortunately because of my recent broken back that wasn't an option. I had to stay till it was treated.
All I could do to while away the time was to play poker. But all I was doing was losing at a significant rate. Looking over my hands I started to realize I was making a number of questionable plays in pretty standard spots that i could only put down to a lack of concentration.
It then hit me.
There was a huge correlation between the date upon which I started taking my epilepsy meds and the day I started losing.
I went back to the doctor to explain my situation. He asked me if i had any major side affects which i did not and kindly persuaded me to keep taking the medication for the next 6 months atleast before trying different drugs.
I cut down my volume by only 1 tabling max and playing only when i felt alert. I seemed to be making some progress with ev so I kept some signs of encouragement.
The months rolled past and there was no real developments with what to do with my back. I went to scan after scan and was put on month+ long waitlists. Whenever I met with a doctor they were very reluctant to offer advice other than to rest up.
By this time it was late January (I broke my back in August) and I was really growing agitated.
Knowing that poker may well not be an option of income for me anymore I got intouch with a friend and we devised a pretty sweet business model for something along the lines of poker affiliation with a nice little twist.
We decided to head out to Thailand to start-up without distraction. For the first time in over 6months I felt happy and also exited for what was in-store.
Originally posted by TimoDee
Sick, sick blog!How is your back?
Thx! It's alright now aslong as I give it a lot of rest throughout the day and don't strain it.
Less than a day after touch-down my partner in crime got an offer he couldn't refuse (stake +coaching) and the business idea was put on hold.
I was kind of confused as to my next plan of action at that point. I got an office as well as a sweet serviced apartment that felt like a hotel. And after about a week I settled down to grind. I was solely bumhunting on the stake and whilst waiting for action I was playing 20nl euro speed on my own money.
(the office)
I really found the benefit of having an office and managed to get some solid hours of working in. Unfortunately it didn't seem enough on the poker front. I was winning but with the extreme makeup that i was already in the winnings were just not enough.
After 2 months out there I was really starting to run low on funds. And I wasn't particularly close to getting out of makeup. So, i got hold of my main backer and good friend to decide a plan of action, given that i was still winning just at a slower rate than previously.
The plan was to leave Thailand once my office lease was up and move to Slovenia where I was offered accommodation in return for coaching.
This would mean I would be able to survive for a number of months without needing another income source something that was becoming increasingly a concern of mine.
I arrived in Slovenia with just a skype contact and without internet preceded to spend the next 3 hours looking for an internet cafe. Getting there I was able to get in touch with the guy who was helping me out in exchange for coaching and he came and took me to my new place. I had a spacious basement flat for myself and it seemed great.
The next day I signed a bunch of forms with the landlady and got myself settled in to the flat. I was to start coaching in a few days and got down to business with the stake. It really didn't go to well as I found myself digging ever more into makeup.
Add to this that the guy who promised rent for coaching was no longer interested, leaving me to have to pay for rent, bills, etc. I was left in a really tough spot.
I decided to end the stake before the initial backers would actually be losing money on this stake. I offered a deal with any of the backers that were down money overall to pay back said money over a time period and looked for a way to cut out all my expenses.
Thank fully everyone involved was of great support and I didn't have any trouble sending back funds.
After all this I had about $2k to my name but with bills at around $1k+ per month I was not in the ideal situation.
Bizarrely enough though, I felt great. I guess it was because now I was free to do whatever I wanted, without feeling constraints because of being invested in by others.
I had almost a month away from poker, and whilst spending lots of time exploring a country (that before landing I knew nothing about,) I kept my expenses relatively low.
With no other options left open for me I decided to head back to the uk to my parents and stay with them until I was back on my feet with some form of income.
I was left with 2 options. Have one more crack at poker or get a job with my mum's friend at his bar.
You can guess what I went for.... ♠_evil:
I guess that not understanding the local language didn't let you make a full opinion of Slovenia, but still, how would you compare it to Thailand or any other country you've been to?
Originally posted by tonypmm
I guess that not understanding the local language didn't let you make a full opinion of Slovenia, but still, how would you compare it to Thailand or any other country you've been to?
I had a really good time there actually. Met lots of people and pretty much anyone under 25 can speak English.
Yeah, that's what I've heard of too. Slovenia has been the poshest and most westernised part of (former) Yugoslavia since day one.
Grinding in the same Ljubljana 'office' as the PLO boss Skodljivec would be truly awesome 
It depends on the immigration success, though: it's tough to get there nowadays, when Slovenia is in the Schengen zone (while Montenegro and Serbia still aren't).
Once all was said and done with almost all things paid, I was left with a little over $1k online and an overdraft twice that size.
I decided to bumhunt nl50 and if that didn't immediately start turning a profit of $10/hour+, then I'd get myself a job at the bar of my mums friend.
Luckily so far its been going well. I'm using a 30 bi rule for bumhunting and a 50bi rule to play anyone else.
My plan is pretty simple: To not spend a penny till I have a $10k bankroll.
I believe this will take between 1.5-4 months to hit my target. I may look into having a side income to be able to fund some socializing to keep my self sane, so possibly I will look to do some coaching. Would pokerstrategy be interested?
Till now I have been taking it easy, spending about 20-30 hours a week on poker.
This will Change for July. I hope to hit 30k hands, approx 130 hours play time. This is (I feel), a huge step up in terms of play time but not too much (I hope) to effect the quality of my play.
I guess only time will tell...
