First $10k month

Just had my best month ever. Online cash went pretty well with $5.3k in winnings from that and also the €3.7k profit from the Cork tournament means a total profit of $10.6k for the month. June was also really good but I ended up playing the WSOP in June so can't really count the $10k for that.

I did put in a decent amount of hands from Tuesday to Friday and made $1.5k over those 4 days so that helped things, that week was pretty swingy with me being in the hole for $2k at one stage but winning $2.5k on Friday turned it all around for me.

Goals for September would be to remain disiplined with my bankroll and just take shots at 400nl when the games are good. I would also like to play more 200nl HU as well, but will probably play most of my games at 100nl HU and 200nl 6max. I would also like to play some more tournaments so will try and make some time for them over the month. Poker Stars have a their big tournament series on in Septemeber so will try and satellite into a few of them. Graph for the month below:

Good weekend in Cork

Was down in Cork last weekend for the Macau Club Irish Poker Classic. I played the 2nd starting day and it got 158 players in total. My first couple of tables were ok, however I played pretty badly on the first 2 tables. I was playing 2 loose and just calling down bets the whole time, they were mostly situations were they either had the nuts or air, like I run AJ into K9 on a KKJ2K baord and such rubbish. My third table settled me down a bit as I had bigMickG on my direct left with a very loose guy to his left. Rob Taylor was on my right but there were no hassles there as he plays very tight. This table was pretty good to me and I finished the day on about 51k AFAIK.

Day 2 my starting table was ok again, no big names on it really until later in the day. I was a card rack for the first level of the day. I open AA utg and everyone folds even though I have probably been the most active at the table and I show the table. Very next hand its folded to the SB and this guy was a middle aged Cork guy who just wanted to see a cheap flop. He was asking me will I check if he calls and had being doing this the round before also. I was never ever checking to him and I was thinking this guy might be setting up a trap by calling. I look down at AA for the 2nd hand in a row and of course he instant folds when I raise it up. So AA back to back and I just take the blinds. I run so good yet so bad!! I do make a full house later on with A7 when I check back the A68 baord, turn is a 7 and I bet about 2/5 pot and get a call, river is the A and he leads out for 5k and I stick him in. He calls and shows 45 for the straight. He should know better than to be calling me with that rubbish!!!

Same story again a few hands later. UTG limps and I raise it up with AcKc, one guy folds and another guy calls. I put him on a decent hand here, a good pocket pair or maybe AQ. The flop comes down 89x with 2 clubs giving me the nut flush draw. I bet out and he calls. Turn (Jc) is the only card in the deck were all the money was going to go in. I bet and he raises allin over my bet, hes got QhTh and is drawing dead. My stack is now up to almost 100k and I am one of the chip leaders at this stage. The rest of the day I play snug enough, made a few moves that got picked off but played solid enough and laid down a few hands now and again which turned out to be good folds.

Next big hand, the button limps and the SB calls, I raise it up from the BB with KJs, the button goes allin and SB folds. It is about 35k more for me to call and there is about 15k in the pot. I really can't put this guy on a big hand here. I just kept thinking this guy wanted to see a cheap flop with a small pocket pair which I would be flipping against. I just never see him playing AJ, AK, AQ or JJ+ like this so I make the call and my read was correct, he had 88 but I failed to hit. Later on the same guy again raises UTG and I reraise him with QQ, his stack is short enough so I don't mind getting it in vs him here. Of course hes got the AA and I failed to spike a Q. so I've being allin twice so far with all 5 cards to come and lose both. Near the end of the day my table gets quite a bit tougher, Smoothcall from boards gets moved 2 to my left and we have a few buttons vs BB battles which I won!!! Then the overall winner gets moved to my direct left who was no fun to play with either. And to make matters worse the chip leader at the time gets moved into my right. We end up playing down to 16 players that night so I go back to Day 3 with €2k in the bag.

Day 3 my table draw is really crap, I am the shortstack at the table with all the big stacks, I fold and shove my way to the final table which wasn't the best draw either. I have John O Shea to my direct left where it will be very tough for me to shove into him as he will know exactly what my range is and will make the correct call on me most of the time. I end up going out in 8th with a short enough stack, I see 99 and go allin after the eventual winner raised preflop. He made an easy call with KQ as my stack was 9bb at the time I think. K on the flop and I was 3/3 loses for allin situations.

Overall I was pretty happy with how I played and I think the experience I got from the WSOP helped me a lot in this. €5.5k was also a good result even though I had sold 20% of myself before it started I still made €3.7k profit from the weekend after tipping the dealers and settling up with my investers. In October there are a few good tournaments coming up that I would like to play. I have already registered for the Boyle Sports Irish Poker Open and would like to play the Killarney event but there is no option to buy directly into this event without getting ripped off so I may just leave this one. Killarney is a bit far away and might just leave it out this year. The PPP Irish Winter Festival is on in October so I may play that and sell some % again.

Since I last posted up I have played 5k hands online and won about $250 from that, if only I hadn't of played like a donk in the last 20minutes of my session this morning that would have been 1.4k. :(

Yesterday I went playing pitch and putt with one of the lads from work out in Liffey Valley. I am shocking bad at golf but with a handicap we done some gambling on it. After the first 5 holes I asked for a handicap of 5 which was pretty bad deal for me!! We had €20 for the winner and also for every hole under I won by I got €6 and Kevin got €5 for everyone he done better in. There were also €10 for Kevin if he got a par and €18 for me. €60 I got a birdie and €25 for Kevin!! Very interesting prices. We also done a lot of side bets like giving odds for hitting the green and putting it. In the end I came up €27 in front, mainly due to pulling off a wonder shot on the 17th to leave me a 4ft put for the birdie. I sinked it and this put me up nicely for the day as I was getting destroyed by Kevin on the main bet. Kevin ended up winning by 8 shots so my 5 handicap wasn't the best deal for me.

This week I am working on Monday and have the rest of the week off. I am going to book my helicopter lesson that I got for my 24th birthday, it is almost out of date as I turn 25 on Thursday!! I also have 4 golf lessons to take which I got last Xmas, I am a bit slow at getting around to these things, so plan to take these lessons this week and kick Kevins ass at golf next time we play. Poker wise I will try and play 10-15k hands this week and also a few tournaments some nights as I won't have work in the morning. A few trips to the gym is also on the agenda.

Thats enough written now, will probably post up on Saturday with how the week went.

August going ok

August has been ok so far I guess, I've had a $3.7k downswing so far which was 21 buyings between 100nl and 200nl games. I did play pretty badly during these 3k hands and these swings do happen especially when most if it is at HU. 6max games have been going really well with some very good games on Full Tilt especially with the new ante tables that they have there, it makes the game a lot bigger than normal and pots can spin out of control easily enough. I am running pretty well overall this month so hopefully than can continue.

On Friday I am heading to Cork to play in the Macau Main Event, its a €1.1k buyin. I have sold 20% of myself which I think is a good idea as €1k is a lot for a tournament buyin. I did try a couple of satellites for this online but they didnt go well to say the least. I'm looking forward to playing it as it will be my first tournament since the WSOP. Upon reflection of the WSOP, I have thought about the way I played and some of the things I should do differently to give me a better chance of winning so hoping to put that into practice this weekend.

Graph of the month so far below:

July was good

July was a really good month for poker. Was in Vegas to play the WSOP, won a decent amount online. My heads up game is improving a lot and my 6max game is still very sharp. My online bankroll is in really good shape as I have plenty on 2 seperate sites to play 100nl heads up and also 200nl 6max.

My main goal for August which is to keep playing the above games and be ready in September to take shots at 200nl HU and 400nl 6max. I think the way I will do my roll for future games is to have 70BI for HU and 35BI for 6max at 400nl so I would need about $14k before I play these games regularly. Due to higher swings at higher limits I will add 10BI extra for HU and 5BI extra for 6max if I can move up to 3/6 or 5/10. I would really like to be within touching distance of 5/10 by the end of the year. This will take a lot of work between now and then as I only have 5 months and would need to improve my game a lot to reach these stakes as that is were the real money is in poker. A bankroll of about $45-50k woud be required to get there so its probably not realistic to be there by the end of the year especially if I cash out a lot.

Graph is below for July, up over $3k when I include bonus and rakeback with approx 25-30 hours played during the month. Had very little time for poker due to work commitments and also being in vegas for a week. This month I would like to be able to play 40-50 hours for the month.