March 2012
Hi, I promised something so here we go. First attempt at any kind of personel blog, so bear with me, not really sure of the direction this is going. I’m seriously hoping this will help me focus my thoughts. Poker as you will read has been a huge part of my life for the last 6 or 7 years, and I’ve seen some ups and a few downs.
[Edited by Matt]
Thanks for reading.
Matt
About me
I’m from the UK, where I’ve spent the last 6 years running all level’s of poker games both cash and tournaments. The big cash game at the Barracuda Casino in Mayfair, MTT live events for Pokerstars, Ladbrokes, Betfair, Bodog, Victory, Boyle Poker, Bettson, Full Tilt and many more.
I currently run music events at nightclubs here during the summer, which leaves me a huge amount of spare time, which I’ve decided to give over to poker again.
My Poker Background
I’ve been playing poker for the last 7 years, well always played card games with friends and family, but 8 years ago was when I first got online, and played in casino’s. At the time it was just for fun, but about a year after I started playing had an accident, well I vehicle I was in crashed, I ended up with an almost totally numb left arm, and was unable to do my day job whilst it recovered, nerve damage, I recovered after a few years, and a little operation.
This left me with one good arm, and what else is there to do, online poker fitted perfectly. I won enough to make it look like a possibility, the first 3 months, I won over $5k, mainly through a in hindsight very luck rebuy, but I thought I was good enough (sigh). Anyway, my brother got married in Aus, my arm was getting better, so a round the world trip, spending a most of my winnings, and a month later I got home and had a decent bankroll, or so I though. I promptly lost over £4k in cash games online, and a few trips to a local card room, all in the space of 3 weeks, super tilt!
So seeing busto on the horizon what to do, well like lots of nearly busto poker players, I got asked to deal a game, total joke at first, I even put the flop out the wrong way (cheers Kaito for putting me straight there). Well, I was a quick learner, started dealing just for tips, in the old Gutshot, and that was that. Fast forward 6 years and I’ve dealt some of the biggest games in the world, travelled Europe, spent some great summers in Ireland, and basically loved the tournament dealer circuit, but all that travelling was a little crazy, and the degenerate behaviour amongst poker dealers some of the worst I’ve seen (and been involved in). One story that comes to mind was a friendly 10p/10p PLO session, where 5 handed we had a £900 pot, seeing as we started buying in for £10 each that was pretty sick.
So 5 years of that, and London card rooms, where I had some amazing times, and made some great friends, it couldn’t go on, and I was itching to get back into my previous work. That bought me to Barcelona last year, where I only played poker with friends for fun. A year later and I get online, play a little and take home a $7k score in late Jan. This combined with a fair bit of spare time put me back in a place where poker could fit nicely.
Where I’m at Now!
So basically I’m giving it another shot, I’ve done this before, made decent money but always gone busto trying to climb the stakes too quickly.
I’ve had $3k losing days, with a $4k bankroll, and done other similar bankroll destruction exercises live. So this time, it’s different, well I hope so.
I’m going to grind up the stakes from $.05/.10 PLO (lower if BR requires it), and play $1r-$5 NLH tournaments as that’s where I had the best results and studied the most, moving up the stakes with sensible BRM, take the odd small shot, and look to qualify for some larger live events.
I will play about 15-20 days a month, 4-8 hours a day, try not to repeat any of my previous leaks, and spend another 2 hours a day studying.
I’ve read the 2+2 forums for a long time, and have now discovered Poker Strategy, which I have and will continue to learn from.
I don’t have any specific goals at the moment, apart from winning, and developing my game online, along with some live events. I’m sure I’ll set some as I go on, and will set mini goals to drive myself along.
The first one of these is to play 1k hands PLO per day, for 20 days in March.
Here’s a graph to start with:
This is PLO cash on 24h poker, just got Hold Em manager so still working it out. Have some old details from cake, and Stars, but I’ll keep the graphs to what I’m playing, which to start with is PLO on 24h poker, and Mtt’s on Poker Stars.
Screen names are sonicmatte on 24h, and sonicmatter on pokerstars.
here's a link to my OPR for stars.
sonicmatter official poker rankings
Will post graphs when I learn how too, but I'll tell you I've not had the best start on paper, still I’m happy, had some decent runs on MTT’s and cash is only just getting started. Thanks for reading so far, I will try and update this at least every Month, maybe less. All comments and criticism however useless is always appreciated.
Nobody born to be a blog pro, so don't worry about it too much. 
![:]](https://www.pokerstrategy.com/_forum-runtime/wp-content/uploads/wpforo/emoticons/pokerstrategy-legacy/basics/pleased.gif ":]")
to you