Online grinding and live blogging

Pud's Poker Progress / Matthew Pitt / 04 October 2010 / 2

Since my last post a week ago my playing volume has dropped off somewhat and I have only managed to play an extra 2,491 hands from the 4,028 I had played the previous week. Not only was the number of hands much less, so was my profits, which were so low they were actually in negative figures for the first time in what seems an age.

Maybe I was getting too confident with winning at a ridiculous rate and trying things that should only be reserved for higher stakes games or maybe I was just a donk on a winning streak. One thing is for sure I have played like a complete donkey since the start of October, so badly that I would not look out of place in Liverpool's starting eleven!

In those 2,491 hands I managed to get myself stacked no less than seven times and lost five hands that were between 50-85 big blinds. Pathetic really. Admittedly some of them were cooler hands such as getting it all in with QhQc against Jc9c on a 2s-5s-Jh-6h board only for the fish to river a third jack, or flopping the nut flush and getting your money in only to lose to a set that turned a full house, those sort of hands.

But some hands were awful and even now I haven't a clue WTF I was thinking as they played out. Strangely, three of the hands where I stacked off like a retard were blind-versus-blind situations, something I thought I was pretty good at. I shouldn't really moan though as I'm still up more than nine buy-ins after 6.5k hands so I am obviously doing something right, I just need to concentrate more and listen to what the betting etc is telling me.

I also had a massive stroke of luck since my last post after Barry Carter, editor of the UK branch of PokerNews, contacted me and asked if I was interested in doing some live blogging for the PokerNews team at European Poker Tour events. Obviously I bit his hand off and he gave my details to the team and after meeting them at the WSOPE Main Event final table, I got to work with them over the weekend!

The trip down was a little bit of a nightmare as it was absolutely bucketing it down with rain, the car kept steaming up and I was knackered after a really poor night's sleep. When I arrived at the London Hilton Metropole, where the EPT was being played, I discovered there was no on-site parking so had to drive around London like a loon to find some. I eventually parked in a nearby NCP which ended up costing me £24 to park, FML.

When I finally got to the EPT venue, up at least three million stairs, I was shown to the media room, which folks is not as glamorous as it sounds. Dozens of poker journalists, thousands of meters of wires and notepads aplenty, its all go behind the scenes! I spoke with the other trialist, Lee Davy, who wrote some great updates during his shift though it looks like he also had a lot to report on as when he started 24 players remained but when I got there only 12 were left and eight made it to the final table so play was very tight and most hands settled preflop. Nevertheless, I think we both gave good accounts of ourselves and I hope that we both get to work with the PokerNews team again in the near future. The editor-in-chief said he would let us know sometime this week, so fingers crossed for me guys!

Well I think I'll leave it there for now as this is one of the bigger posts I've made recently and I'm not sure my fingers can cope! As always, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

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Rossi | 04 October 2010

Good luck with that mate,

I stayed at the Hilton Metropole two years ago and its really posh, (i played in the Vic both nights leaving a pregnant Mrs R in the room lol).

The underground parking at the Metropole is even more expensive than that.

Keeping my fingers crossed for ya
Yorkshire Pud | 05 October 2010

Cheers mate, would be awesome if I got the gig!

Yeah the hotel was immense, never been somewhere so big and grand throughout. I got lost going for a wazz!

I didn't realise how close The Vic was until I was driving home and I saw it all lit up otherwise I'd have gone in and watched some of the cash games taking place