Summer is over and I ended it with a bang…well a binge to be more accurate.

I spent 10 or so days in Edinburgh and re-discovered the student within me.

Not sure how many reading this will have been to the Edinburgh festival or to Edinburgh full stop but if you haven’t then do! I haven’t been everywhere but of the towns/cities I’ve visited in the UK and Ireland it’s by far my favourite  - if we could move it a couple of hundred miles south I’d be there in a shot.

I was there for the latest leg of the UKIPT and then for some quality comedy festival time. The tournament went very well especially considering it was a brand new event for Scotland – next year I think it’ll be even bigger.

The festival was great except for deciding to torture my liver by drinking every night. I’m a complete lightweight and never really ‘drank’ when I was the age you’re supposed to drink so it was all a bit silly but a lot of fun. The comedy was very mixed – there are a lot of comics around these days who clearly belong in rock bands (as in they just want to be famous) and don’t actually have any material. But then there are also geniuses like Emo Phillips and the God that is Tim Vine. When Tim was told he’d won the best joke at the festival award he replied ‘I’m so excited I’m going to Sooty’s barbecue to have a sweep stake’…genius.

I have ‘a lot on’ at the moment. Lots of big poker tournaments are coming to London this month and the WCOOP is happening on line so there’s plenty of poker work . Also I’m working on some comedy projects and probably a couple of TV shows so it’s all a bit full. With all of that there isn’t much time for poker at the moment and I’ve reached a plateau with Omaha so I’m taking a break until I have time to focus on it properly. Will be playing a couple of live events in the next 6 weeks so I’ll let you know how those go.

Think that’s about it…..hope summer isn’t over for you and you can cling onto it for a few weeks to come!

Apparently it takes a day for every time zone you travel through to recover from jet lag. Well I must have popped around the world a couple of times because this trip back from Vegas kicked my butt. I don’t think it helped I went straight to the UKIPT in Brighton and managed not to sleep for more than about  5 hours for 2 weeks but still….. Several times I’ve been up before 830 and that just wont do!!

Brighton was great - the Rendezvous is a great place to play and did the tour proud. It’s also a cool place to be generally although it’s many times cooler during the week than the weekend when the hordes from London descend.

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Final WSOP fantasy game standings….Kara 45pts / Matt 37 pts / Nick 17 pts

I suck. I’ve been let down. Kathy Liebert needs to have a serious word with herself frankly it’s the last time she lets me down…

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I’ve had a shocking month on the playing poker side of things. It involved a couple of weeks of barely winning a significant pot and then some time where variance kicked my arse. The last few days I’ve been playing well though and my PLO game is looking better so we’ll see. Still running horribly on the year making  small profit online when it should be a decent one; thank goodness for live tourneys…never thought I’d say that.

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Did you see Inception yet? It’s basically a very well done heist thriller covering up a story about the lead character’s love and loss and it demands to be seen it’s just so well done. Amazing Nolan isn’t lauded here – we’ve produced a Steve Spielberg equivalent and you barely see anything on him.

That’s all my bits for now…later skater

This time tomorrow I’ll be playing the main event of the World Series of Poker. As a poker fan and player it simply doesn’t get any better than this. The anticipation is amazing and every single player of the 7000+ feels the same thing that maybe just maybe it could be them this year.

I need to point out it’s thanks to the lovely people at pokerstars. I’m super super lucky to be put in to the event and I’ll try and do it justice. I have to be honest in future years if I don’t have a sponsor I’ll be spending money to play; it’s that much fun!

Last year I was so excited after a 15 year wait to play it and ridiculously the reality didn’t let me down. Day 2 when I quickly cashed out was disappointing but day 1 was unreal. The buzz in the room is unique in poker and I won’t try and do it justice by writing about it – you just have to do it once in your life some how some way. Suffice to say it’s the only time I’ve been nervous at a poker table – or at least for 15 years!

This year I’ll be excited but not nervous and I don’t think I’ll have any problem playing well from the start. The key to day 1 is table draw. The series is so random because the field is so huge – you can get 2 tough players to your left and have an impossible day or get a field of first time casual players and have lots of lovely free money to pick up…I’ll know how well I’m running from the line up just a few days into tomorrow!

Anyway I know how lucky I am and for one of the few times in life tomorrow there really won’t be anywhere else on earth I’d rather be.

There won’t be much sleep tonight!

I’ve been watching two amazing sporting events this week – the NBA finals and the World Cup and I’ve been startled by how similar the sports are starting to look.

The level of skill in the NBA games has staggered me. Also the evenness of the teams – the Lakers and Celtics – and their long standing hatred of each other has made it an awesome series. I’ve loved watching Kobe Bryant who, in ability terms (although not accomplishment yet), might be the best player of all time. And Rondo of the Celtics a new superstar whose smoooootttthhhhhh! The games have been close, exciting and beautiful to watch.

Watching the world cup has been a different experience. The occasion is amazing, as is the atmosphere but the football (whisper is quietly) is absolutely dire.

Hopefully it will pick up but I’m worried for ‘the beautiful game’. The problem is two fold – first the athleticism of the players has massively improved in the last 20 years and secondly the tactical awareness of teams has come on enormously. Coaches have discovered that if you have two rows of 4 (or one of 4 and one of 5) that fall back without the ball and the players are athletic and disciplined it’s possible to make it incredibly hard for the opposing team to break you down.

This is why football is starting to look like basketball with teams immediately withdrawing when they don’t have the ball and relying on fast break counter attacks and set plays for their goals.

The only antidote to this seems to be the fast ball movement of exceptionally gifted teams like Barcelona and Spain. But as Inter showed this season and Chelsea last – athleticism and organization nullifies it.

I think a new innovation is needed. People want to watch skill, attacking play and goals. If the trend to athleticism and organization continues football will become less popular. It may need a rule change – something radical like 10 men a team or bigger pitches – I don’t know. But watching well drilled long distance runners restricting space is not why football became the world’s favourite game.

 So two live tournaments this year and I have one win (did I mention that?) and now a 9^th. Which is the definition of running hot. I should probably quit for the year claiming the most awesome ROI in tourney history.

Played the GUKPT Coventry this weekend – courtesy of Stars; I looked on it as a UKIPT raid on their territory! It was my first event on the tour and the structure is similar to the UKIPT. You get plenty of chips and an hour clock which is pretty cool. As an aside I don’t think I’d recommend playing a live tournament seriously (for fun is a different story) with less than an hour clock. You’re probably still only getting 30 hands per hour – in this case per level – which really isn’t huge.

I ended up having a really weird tournament. I below the average after 2 hours and never at any point got back to the average until busting 2 days later in 9^th. Which just goes to show that in a tournament although plan A is to accumulate chips and aim for the top 3 positions you really have to focus on stacks and blinds and not worry about the tourney overall.

Having said that being short for that long is bizarre and stressful. All day 2 I was waiting for a hand that would double up or bust me and it never came. I must have been all in close to 15 times and was never called (sometimes I wanted it sometimes not!) so effectively survived almost entirely on antes and blinds. Obviously I was pretty lucky to survive however it was good practice and reminder never to quit on a tournament.

The final table was fun and decent practice of a final of a big live event. Although the miracles I wanted didn’t come 9^th and just under 3k was a good result.

I also have to mention the tourney contained one of the funnier hands I’ve played recently. On day 1 I was ground down to just under 10 bbs. On the button with tight blinds I’d decided I was shoving if it was folded to me with any two. That’s what happened and I pretended to look at my cards before pushing. Small blind folds and the big blind announces ‘I’m calling you with 8s or better Ak or AQ’ (did I mention he was tight?). He looks down and instantly calls! So I have to turn over my two random cards against a guy who is only calling me with big hands. He flips up 99 and I turn over Ace King suited?!?!?!? King on the flop and I double up. How does that happen? Dunno I found it pretty funny – apologies to the big blind who almost certainly didn’t!

A few days ago I wrote a blog about the struggles I was having with a downswing online. I didn’t post it because I got distracted (I’m easily distracted) and then simply forgot.

In it I wrote about the horrendous 6 weeks I’ve had and how although I’ve been playing for a long time and know downswings are part of the game it was still super hard. The fact that I’ve been running super horribly (confirmed by my Omaha manager not just my own persecution complex) while feeling like I’ve been working pretty hard and playing decently only made it feel worse.

I decided to take a week off and then have a change of scene by playing a live event. Thanks to the good people at Poker Stars I’m playing a few live events in the UK this year as part of my role as UKIPT host and I’ve been very tardy in getting going.

My first event was the main event of the Sussex masters festival at the Rendezvous casino in Brighton…. And I won it. Woot!

It was a two day event with a great structure. The poker room there is great and the staff did a great job – although I may be very biased as I luck boxed the thing. The UKIPT is there in July and it should be a great event.

I might talk about some of the hands I played in the event in a later blog or podcast as there were a few interesting ones when I have more time.

The main thing about the tournament was that it underlined to me just how much luck there is in winning an event. Frankly on the second day it was just my day. It was surreal it seemed like every time I was bluffing or stealing I got folds and everytime I had a hand I got action…just one of those days. I also got big hands at the right time – like coolering a really good player 5 handed with AK when he had AQ after I’d 3 bet him a couple of times in non showndown hands before.

Don’t get me wrong I feel like I played well and I was pleased with my focus and decisions in the main. I was also proud of the way I really ground a medium to short stack for most of day 1. However I also recognize you just have to get lucky at the end to win a tournament.

One final thought I do consider this a monkey off my back. It’s my first significant tournament win in the UK. I’ve won other tournaments but they are either small, or in the US or online. The fact is in the last five years I’ve played very few tournaments so it’s not surprising I don’t have results. I made it a goal for this year to reach a live final table of a decent event so to have done that is satisfying.

I’ve become increasingly aware that a lot of people I the wider world judge you as a player on your tournament record. I think this is wrong but that’s how it works and my tournament record has been non-existent until now – hopefully I can build on this over the next couple of years. Obviously I don’t think I’m any better a player because I’ve got lucky and won a medium sized event….but then I wouldn’t think I was a worse player if I’d lost either of the two flips I won on day 1 to stay in!

Of course all of this is irrelevant the main point is that it was a great experience. I’ll always be more interested in being as good a cash player as I can be but I can’t deny that nothing is more exciting or fun than going deep in a live tournament…. Oh and winning a big chunk of money is very cool too!

I’m on a plane. I’ve been on a plane a lot this year. I can remember being younger and getting super excited going anywhere on a plane now it’s become almost routine. Still get childishly excited by watching the movies – every movie is about 30% better than it actually is when you’re flying.

Just done EPT Berlin – as I’m sure you all know (given the world wide news coverage) it wasn’t a standard poker tournament as some armed robbers decided to try and freeroll it. I think I’ve filed the experience under ‘interesting’ and ‘different’. It was scary for a bout two minutes and then it was interesting!

Two things struck me about it. The first is when it happened live on air and people were running, the set fell down and the camera went wobbly. People where guessing what it was –some thought a fight, some a protest of some kind…All that happened in my head was that it was definitely a monster and it would be emerging from the set tossing tables aside like matchsticks. Little bit worried about myself sometimes….
The second thing is that I found the final table poker – which was truly excellent – much more exciting than the robbery. Again little bit worried about myself.

I’m off on holiday to see Kara and Brian and hang out. I’m not supposed to do any work. I haven’t been on a pure holiday for 18 months although I’ve done things like Vegas trips which are a combination of “work” (heavy quote marks) and holiday so I’m not complaining.

Just noting that I don’t often completely switch off from whatever work projects are going on. I think it comes from working for myself and trying to do things and make things happen I’m passionate about.. Part of the reason I used to get so excited going on planes years ago is that I was escaping work that I didn’t want to do; I don’t have that feeling any more. It’s kind of nice to be honest and I feel very lucky.

Just finished the Manchester UKIPT. It was the second leg of the tour but the first in England and it looks like this tour is going to be a full on ride. Originally we’d thought about 300 players for the event but ended up with 520 with poker tables spilling onto the gaming floor and everyone struggling to keep up. Not only that the atmosphere was great – already the tour has a great mix of serious poker and people looking to have a great time. I’m seriously excited by the potential of this tour – I think it’s going to set records on a regular basis and discover lots of new playing talent. More than that I think anyone that comes to an event is going to have a really fun experience. On the first morning of the weekend I hosted a poker tutorial where online qualifiers could attend for free and discuss some tournament hands and share their ideas – Julian Thew (just signed to Stars) was there to lend his expertise. Doing this sort of thing and when people get together to talk poker new ideas always emerge – they’ll be one at each UKIPT event so hope you can catch one.

In other news my own poker playing is suffering at the moment. I’m struggling to find time to play when I can be fresh and focused and it’s so tough to do well against good players when you’re not at your best. Having said that I’m running horribly in 2010 – way below expectation – and I’m only slightly down so I feel like I’m playing okay and it could be much worse! Had fun the other night where at one of my tables a reg was abusing a fish for his ‘bad play’. This is a massive pet hate of mine – first because he should be encouraging the bad player if he says anything – and second because its full on rude and borderline pathetic to do it behind the safety of an internet connection. Anyway this reg was already tilting and after I stuck my oar in he went off the deep end jamming away a couple of buy ins before quitting….it was something so see

Away from a frustrating run and aggression in the chat box I was reminded in Manchester of the charms of playing live. At the end of the tournament I sat down in a late night low stakes cash game with some locals. The emphasis was on fun and in the space of a couple of hours I was slow rolled with Aces, offered to be set up with a 24 year old Russian model and bought Don Perrignon… I swear the game was low stakes! Sometimes poker is just the most fun you can have in the world – even on Valentines day!

So I’m at the PCA which is pretty awesome.

Don’t know how many of you listen to the EPT live broadcasts but I just love doing them. One of my favourite work jobs of all the ones I’m lucky enough to do – hope that comes across. We’ve got 5 days of broadcasts out here and I enjoy them more than the days off…..which having just written in out loud probably makes me slightly odd.
Writing this as the final table goes on and I’m on a break from commentary and the play is spectacularly good. I’ve said this before but it’s great to watch and talk about players that are so much better than I am – it makes it super tough to analyse and makes you think about what they’re doing and I’m not. Hope it’s the same for you guys watching – I’ve got no doubt watching cards down poker either on ept live or railing high stakes on line can help your game.

Bizarrely – to make you feel better if you’re struggling through the long snowy winter – it’s cold here. Still a cool place to be but it’s literally cool. I went out for a walk last night and wore the same coat I wear at home in London. … I know boo hoo right?!
Anyway I’ve been thinking a lot about expected value and value generally. I heard this pod talk about value in life and pricing. And the guy was talking about how people are terrible at estimating the value and also estimating their odds of reward

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_gilbert_researches_happiness.html

Some of it is very basic for poker players but you might enjoy thinking about Value in real life
I’m going to write a column about it soon where I’ll rip off some of this talk – but don’t tell anyone….
I was thinking about this as I stood in the queue at Heathrow to check in.
I had a 9 hour flight to Miami and about a 16 or 17 hour journey in total ahead of me. I was also exhausted and wanted to sleep on the flight so I started thinking – upgrade. As the queue went down I decided to try and put a value on the ‘premium economy’ my high maintenance ass so desperately craved.

This dilemma backs up the problem we humans have with assessing value in our day to day lives. The main thing being I’ll only ever take the trip once. I can’t compare how I’ll feel taking it in economy vs taking it in premium economy.
I settled on a figure of £200 – which I figured is the price I’d pay for arriving with some sleep and stretched out legs. As I type this I realise that 22.50 an hour for a comfy seat is a bit much – maybe 150 is the number.
Anyway I got to the desk and asked and the number was £239. I knew I was going to do it as soon as I heard the number. Maybe it was worth more to me than I thought, maybe I was always going to do it regardless of the number, or maybe the cash desk assistant was just fit. The point is I didn’t abide by my initial value assessment.
After the event I still can’t say whether it was good value or not. I had a comfy flight – in economy I may have had a huge person or screaming baby next to me in which case I’d have paid 239 to get out but I also could have had 3 empty seats next to me in which case I wouldn’t.

I’m aware this might be the dullest blog I’ve ever written but the whole idea and challenge of assessing value in life fascinates me. It also fasicantes me how bad we are at removing emotion from decisions…. Anyway I’ve already started thinking about whether to do it on the way back…. My journey to geekdom is complete I think

I thought for my benefit and maybe for your interest I should analyse my poker playing in 2009.

The exercise has actually been beneficial for my state of mind as it’s made me realise I’ve done a little better than I thought. Our perspectives often interfere with the truth and its important to see thing as they really are good and bad. At the end of October and the beginning of November I had a big downswing playing in games I know I can beat. Funnily enough this was the point at which the main tracking site started following Omaha so after 4 weeks of losing I was confronted by a big downward graph on this site and anyone who knew my screen name and looked me up would see me as a big loser in a game that’s relatively easy to beat. This was a low point in the year but I’m happy to say I took a week off refocused and won it all back by the end of December. The point is this downswing knocked my confidence and halted my moving up limits so I was feeling a little down about my year until I stepped back and remembered where I was.

At the start of the year I’d been playing Omaha seriously for 3 or 4 months and was just about breaking even at .5/1 – through luck rather than judgment. 12 months later I’m winning at 1/2 though I’ve yo-yoed between limits and endured some downswings I’m certain that when I play well and focussed I’m beating 1/ 2 and ready to seriously tackle higher.

In addition I’ve had an amazing year in PLO tournaments – running extremely hot in the few events I’ve played. I finished 10^th in an ftops, very deep in a wcoop, 13^th in one of only 2 live plo tourneys to date. Also – when playing for fun – I’ve final tabled 4 or 5 low stakes plo tourneys online and won one (the amount of dead money in these events is ludicrous).

In total this year I’ve won a little over $22k in cash and tournaments playing almost entirely PLO.

The truth is I have to be pleased with that result. Looking back I realise how little I understood the game at the beginning of the year and the exciting thing is there’s still a long way to go.

My frustration is that I thought I’d be playing 2 / 4 regularly by now but I have to recognise several things. First of all I simply don’t play enough. My other work and commitments mean I play on average 15k hands a month which is okay but nowhere near what a pro would play if he was trying to beat a new game.

The second thing is Omaha plays so much bigger than holdem. 1/2 or .5/1 with an ante are games where you can win or lose 2 or 3 thousand in a night on a lucky or unlucky day. It’s impossible to avoid big swings in your bankroll and it’s a mental and money management adjustment that takes a while to make. The biggest thing for me has been increasing my patience with the game and realising there are spells when you never make a hand or where you constantly run into the nuts and these are just a part of the game. Omaha is a much more enjoyable exciting game but it’s also a harder game because it’s a much bigger test of character. At times I’ve failed and losses have made me play worse and created big downswings – however I feel like I’m ending the year a much stronger player in terms of my self management and overall playing ability.

Out of interest you might like to know I now have a stop loss when I play a session of 5 buyins. I’ve never had one before believing the old mantra that if you have an edge in the games you should keep playing however you can lose so fast at Omaha and its so hard to play badly when you’re behind I think a stop loss limit for a session is essential.

I need to credit Brian for helping me so much this year. I know how lucky I am to have such a good player as a friend and someone I can talk to about the game and hands. If I took his advice and quit all my work and played plo with him as my coach I’m sure I’d be killing the 5/10 in no time. Sadly that’s not going to happen but I know I wouldn’t have made the money I made without his help so I am lucky. As a side note I should mention how awesome it’s been to watch him kill the big games this year – no one works harder at their game or deserves the success more.

I also played the main event this year. As I’m sure you know I had quite a dull event in terms of my play and the cards and result but the experience was great and I’m glad I won’t shuffle off this mortal chaffinch without having played it.

And so for this year I have a couple of clear goals.

Firstly I want to continue to improve my Omaha cash game. Its tough to set definitive targets as it’s dependent on how much time I have to play but by the end of the year I want to be a winning 2/4 player taking shots at higher. I think it will take most of the year to get my game to that point as I need to do the work – if I can do it faster I’ll be delighted. I hope to win more than this year but I’m not setting a target instead I’m going to set a target number of hands and hopefully the money will follow.

I’ll also be playing more live tournaments this year (which means more than the 3 I usually play each year). With the UKIPT job I’m playing some events Stars are kindly putting me into (which is super lucky for me) and I’ll also play a few more off my own back. Being sponsored for a few events is an opportunity for me to work on my tournament game and get the monkey off my back of not really having many live tourney results. It’ll be interesting to see how this goes and if I can keep my focus in the long live events!

Right longest blog ever so better end it.

Hope your poker was great in 2009 and 2010 is even better – if not I hope you run like the little baby Jesus.