News / John Tabatabai / 29 June 2011 /

It seems like everyone is winning a World Series of Poker bracelet at the moment and I have been asked numerous times over the past couple of weeks why I haven't won one myself. The answer is simple, because I haven't played in any events yet!

My plans for this year's WSOP had to be drastically altered at the last minute due to my sister moving to London. She is going to be living in London for the next five years due to a course she is doing at St Guy's Hospital so we have been looking at flats and houses for her and unless we get gazumped at the last minute we have one that is 98% complete. This is the main reason for me not flying out to Vegas because I simply had to be here for all the paperwork and legal stuff that comes with buying a house.

I really wanted to play in the heads up event but they moved it to the very beginning of the series and it would be so tilting to fly out there, play the heads up, come back to sort the house out and then fly back so instead I'm flying out with a bunch of friends on Thursday. This means that I will only be able to play in the $1,500 side event before the Main Event but I'm also hoping to play some other tournaments and cash games at the Venetian and the Wynn. Speaking of the Wynn, this will be the first time I have not stopped there during the WSOP and it is a little sad due to it being my favourite hotel in Vegas. This year I'll be stopping with the rest of the Betfair players and staff at the Venetian, which is cool as I really like their rooms there, plus I'll probably be at the Wynn every day for dinner or clubbing anyway.

I've recently been grinding a ton of hands on Betfair Poker, 170,000 or so this month alone and despite running really badly I am enjoying it. I took a break from playing online and was playing quite a lot live, where I ran awful too. In one hand we were playing heads up Irish (a form of Texas Hold'em where the player starts with four cards and discards two on the flop - ed) and I'd called a grand preflop with 998T and the flop came down 9-7-3 rainbow. I obviously kept the set of nines . The turn is an ace but also puts a flush draw out there. Suddenly all the money starts flying in and it's like a £50k pot and I'm up against T8 with a flush draw. I don't want to lose this pot or I'll be super tilted so we agree to run it twice. Obviously the first time we run it he hits his flush so I am already tilted but at least half the pot should be coming to me right? The dealer puts out another ace on the river but the pit boss manager butts in and says the ace wasn't the actual river, it should have been the second burn card! I'm like FFS I have to sweat this out again and the river is a six! I'm steaming, so tilted and it lasted for a couple of days. I finished down a couple of grand but I was counting that £50k.

I was also invited to a great private game too, one where pros aren't usually invited but they were short so I got to play. Towards the back end of the night I was doing quite well and this hand happened. We're playing four-handed and I have king-jack and the flop comes down J-5-6, I bet £4,000, steaming guy makes it £10,000 and I call. Turn is a two and the guy shoves for £23,000, which is all my profit. I know I am ahead here and I ask if he wants to run it twice, which he says no to. I call and he shows ace-six and the £62,000 pot looks like it is going to be mine but the river was an ace and he wins! These particular live games are soft and can be very profitable but the variance is huge and because you only play maybe two hundred hands a night it can take a couple of years for things to turn around. Plus I am never going to get better at poker playing against these weak players, my game is only going to get worse, plus they generally play ten-handed too and I play short-handed online.

As mentioned I have started grinding a lot of hands on Betfair Poker and I'm not doing too badly considering. I only had a couple of grand in my account and rather than redeposit I decided to start playing some $1/$2 with the plan to have a winning month at each of the different stakes all the way back to $10/$20. After playing a min of 5k hands per day and doing well at $1/$2 I moved up to $2/$4 where it took me a short while to adjust to the standard of players there. There are more regs and less fish but I still know I have an edge in these games. Although it's tilting to be running 25 buy-ins under EV I'm really enjoying playing online again and I'm waking up wanting to try out new strategies and take different approaches at the tables, I'm like a little kid again!

Running bad is tilting but I'm finding lots of things to improve in my game and when you're winning nobody improves as you just think you're a genius, it's the way it is. But when you're losing you look at every aspect of your game in order to try and save some cash. I thought downswings only lasted 50,000 or so hands but this one seems to be 150,000 in size. I'm still up but I should be up a lot more considering the number of hands I've played. I'll keep working on improving and I'm going to have the sickest game possible!

So that's where I'm at right now. I'm planning on meeting Antonio Esfandiari for dinner when I land in Vegas and I've not reminded him of a long-running prop bet we have where we have to pay each other $100 for saying certain words in front of each other. Hopefully I'll make a few bucks off him before winning the Main Event!

Join John at Betfair Poker Now.

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