I managed to pick up some form, played decent, won 4 buy-ins so my account was back to $1k and moved up to 0.5-1 again. After a frustrating 1,000 hands and average flopping set % of 1.9% looooooooooool I took my couple of buy-in profit and gambled at 1-2. My plan was that if I ever hit the $800 mark I would stop and drop to 0.25-0.5 again. Luckily, I used my brain and wasn't too unlucky and managed to bank a very profitable 8.5 buy-ins.

What a sick day, however, I have now got the start I need and hopefully the next week I can continue to build the foundation of my roll before moving up firmly to 1-2.

Bankroll currently at $3,000.

Not sure if I mentioned previously, but I also have a bet on my win rate bb/100 at the 0.5-1 level. The bet is that I must beat 10bb/100 over 20k hands.

Also, I wanted to share something quite disturbing that happened to me in Portugal. On one of my evenings off I decided to pamper myself with a well deserved massage at the hotel's spa. Upon being shown the changing rooms, I was then instructed that the robe I must wear was in the locker as well as the underwear. It didn't occur to me until after the attendant left that I was being given special underwear to wear for a massage?? I've been to many different spas across the world and have never encountered such a thing. Anyway, there aren't many words to describe what it was that I was suppose to wear, so I thought I would appropriate it to show non-believers the Portuguese male equivalent of an odd g-string / thong / massage thingy majig...

I'm not sure even how you wear it? I guess if you wear the big bit at front to cover the sausage and mash then you get the small bit going up your rectum...and if you wear it the other way then your bangers won't be fully covered. Sometimes things in Portugal are quite funny!

Check out the pics here and make up your own mind.

Play John at the Betfair cash tables

This leg has been hosted in Espinho, north of Portugal, approximately 30mins from Porto. What a beautiful place it is and they have some pretty cool local food dishes. The first day I tried a local specialty called Francesinha; I believe that is how it's spelt. The dish is basically a carnivores dream sandwich with a twist. It is a toasty of sorts, with multiple layers of steak, sliced ham and chorizo covered with melted cheese. This toasty-like dish is placed in middle of the bowl surrounded like a moat by some type of tomato sauce with chips (fries) in the moat. On top of the sandwich in some places they put a shrimp!

Random hey! Very filling at least.

The tournament itself for me wasn't as much fun as the last one in Estoril, I got no cards throughout the first day and hardly any moves went through. On the plus side I had a very fun table with some crazy Portuguese players who loved to bluff me and show what turned out most of the time to be very, very thin value bets; nonetheless everyone seemed to have fun.

I finished the day with a dwindled stack of approximately 8k. The next day the blinds started at 150-300 with antes of 25, plenty of time for my stack. I waited for a couple of hours until the blinds rose to 200-400 with 50 ante. The table was 7 handed as a couple of players just bust and given it was quite a weak table I opened utg with A-10cc for 2200. There were a couple of players in LP who were seemingly inexperienced and were willing to make huge calls preflop regardless of their stack sizes with any 2 suited. So I thought id rase 1/3 of my stack so they can't bluff me and just give me the 950 in middle. Anyway, one of the stations described above called my raise. The flop came QQJ with one club, over 5k in middle and I had 5k left. Apart from hitting I can't really ask for a better flop so I just shoved my last 5k expecting the majority of his preflop calling range to have missed this flop and correctly fold (so perhaps I shouldn't shove, if he is correctly folding?? Anyway, discussion for another time) and he snap called me with 33. Unfortunately I didn't have enough outs and I was busto. Finito.

Away from the tables, I was explaining to Annette why I had been playing a lot of 0.5-1nl lately which is because I had a bet to start with $1k and see how long it would take to get to $100k. Annette then said it would be very difficult to do it in 2 months, and I can't remember how it happened but I think it involved quite a lot of tequila and somehow I ended up making numerous bets with her and members of the Portuguese contingency that I can't turn $1k into $100k in 2 months on Betfair.

In hindsight, I don't think it's a smart bet on my behalf, it's going to be very difficult especially with the given time frame. The first and last week I imagine will be the hardest. I'm allowed to play anything I want, cash, stt, MTT, even Betfair Sports Betting or Casino but I won't do any of those. Keep it strictly poker. On the plus side, rakeback counts so you will be seeing a lot of me at various limits over the next couple of months so please, please feel free to donate!

Chris "Jesus" Ferguson did a similar challenge of $1 into $10k which he did in around 6 months. Hopefully I can join the ranks of accomplished challenges.

Good luck all and see you at the tables.

J

Kunku

Play John now at the Betfair cash tables

Anyway, it has been fun going back to basics and I've decided to set myself a challenge. The challenge is to start with $500 on Betfair and with some sort of bankroll management see how high and quickly I can run it up by playing volume. What I mean by volume is playing A LOT. I have already started at 0.5-1 and played a few thousand hands and it's been very interesting. I'd forgotten how funny some of the lower stakes games are, I lost a pretty funny pot when some guy called my 4bet when we were only 100bb deep with J2s and obv cracked my overpair. Lots of funny stuff.

Anyway, I think when you are going through a tough patch it is important to stay motivated and positive in such a difficult game and a great way to do that is to set yourself personal challenges. Perhaps not financial goals, because if you don't reach them it could demoralise you or send you into a spiral of tilt hell. Just a challenge. Like I have set for myself here, $500 bankroll, and see where we go. I did have a great start until I exploded and for some reason thought it would be reasonable to play 25-50 limit, a game which I am terrible at and clearly way too big for my mediocre bankroll at the time. I will probably start posting some interesting hands and my results from my tracking software if anyone is actually interested.

On other news, I played my 888 heat recently and had one of the easiest heats I've personally ever played with only Nik Persuad and Richard Wheatley to worry about. Ray Parlour the ex-footballer and a couple of internet qualifiers were also in the heat. As things go, Annette and Sorel have taken all the luck for Team Betfair and left me with a golden bread (pretty useless when you are hungry) so my exit hand was standard. I'll share it anyway, as I like to reminisce.

Blinds 2-4k, I had 62k left due to donkings. 5 players left, Aqo utg - the nuts. I make it 12k, SB who is one of the internet qualifiers has been eyeing me up all day and itching to play back at me, not sure if it's because of my banter or because he wants to prove a poitn and take down a "pro". Anyway he flat calls with what I consider to be quite a wide range. BB folds. Flop A-5-3 rainbow. He checks, now I decided with approx 44k in the pot and me having 40k behind, if I bet he will think I am committed so I can get extra value by checking and letting him bluff his missed range into me. As it happens the turn was a J he bet20k, I went all-in, he called with A8. Gg. River 8.

Obv.

Portuguese league here we come!! HOLD UP!!

Gl all

Find John at the Betfair cash tables

I get moved to another table with a lot of younger players, generally not a good sign but luckily most of them seemed to be just having fun not online whiz kids. However, one interesting hand developed when blinds were 300-600 with 100 ante. I opened in early position with J8dd for 1800 and only the SB called. The flop came Q-2-4 2 clubs 1 diamond, he checked, i cbet 3k, he instantly called. Turn was 6d giving me a fl dr. The young guy looks at me, and checks. Ive sensed he is pretty weak and he doesn't know what to do, so i decide to put pressure on him as he has a good stack too and cant see him wanting to mess with me oop with a weak hand. How wrong i was... He insta called my 9k bet. River was the Kc. A curious card indeed, completes the flop fl dr and brings an overcard. The question is what kind of holdings does my opponent have, he called from the SB, insta called the flop and turn...and now a huge scare card has come. If i don't believe he had the Q, then is it possible he was calling with mid PP or A-4 A-2 or flush draw? If he checked to me i wasn't sure what i was going to do. Normally an overbet all in is enough to ensure an incredibly high sucess rate as even if i am mistaken and he has a Q he can't proceed to call now. However in this case i think i would have just given up as there were many other weak spots to pick on, no need to risk everything on a crazy bluff against an unknown opponent of unknown ability or inability. In either event, my forward thinking turned out to be irrelevant as the guy bet out 25k leaving himself with only 10k. I had nothing to think about as i cant make a move and shove, not that i would and i only have J hi. So i fold and he proudly turns over and shows me pocket 55. He then proceeds to tell me that he thought i was bluffing both flop and turn so i asked "was the 25k bet on the river a value bet with 55?".

I mean, am i really going to call with anything that can't beat 55 especially as his hand looks so much like a made flush. lol. completely illogical, anyway, i persued to ask more questions as I was curious as to what else was lurking up there in the land of nod. He later then said he thought i had him beat with 77 or 88. Which explains why he called OOP both flop and turn, hoping another overcard and fl could come so he could bluff me out. lol. More likely he was just chatting breeze about the aftermath to confuse me like i do to others. Who knows,i thought it was funny.

What really is funny though is what happened next. The table broke again, my chips have dwindled since 5 hours previously when the day started and im sitting on 40k still with blinds 500-1000. The new table had Annette and a couple of the portuguese team betfair players. From such a soft field, pretty sick to end up on this table. Before i have time to settle on this new table this player with cap, sunglasses and ipod is all in against Annettes mini shove. K7 Annette, guy 10-10. She was short so had to shove, anyway, needless to say Annette hits a King, doubles up then this guy proceeds to keep going all in or what seemed to me to keep going all in. Must have been at least twice a round. Whenever his hands were shown though they were good quality. He shoves again from LP and i was on the button with JJ. blinds 500-1000 100 ante and its 14k for me to call. Standard shove, get the blinds out and to my surrpise he had KK. Ah well, down to 26k, by the time blinds come to me i got about 24k left. Meanwhile, this guy reraised a button raiser all in and the BB snap cold called the all in with 30x BB with QJ lol. Hilarious. Play 2 days to snap call an all in with QJo. I don't get it. I guess the all in guy must have tilted him, but still, to call an all in with a playable stack is pretty donkville. The interesting scenario develops now that this player has a largeish stack of approx 70k. He raises for once, now that he has a playable stack to 3k on the cutoff. Im in the BB with J-10ss. I don't really know what he knwos of me, or if he will call a big shove from me with mid PP mid weak AJ A-10 type hands It wasn't a big raise either so i elect to call. The flop comes A space K spade K club. Gutshot royal fl dr. niiice but bit dangerous as board is paired with cards that are easily in his range. I was going to simply ch r all in as my stack plays itself. Surprisingly he checked behind me. Turn was a blank 3d. With about 7k in the pot i bet out 4500 and my opponent insta called. Now, it seemed to me that he checked the flop for pot control, and his insta call on turn seemed weak. I couldnt get any physical reads or tells off him as he wouldn't speak to me in English nor would he move an inch. AK i ruled out as a possibility or any King as he would have to have at least thought about what to do with it on the flop or turn, think of my possible holdings and think how to extract the most. The insta checks and calls seemed like a mid PP, wanting to get to showdown and trying to scare me from further betting. My plan was to just shove the river if i missed my million outs and it would be pretty hard call for him. The river came another Ace! How interesting. If he did indeed have a PP as i thought, my J is now good, so no point of me betting or going AI as i can't get called by worse and only by beaten hands. I can't see him having a King and an ace is seemingly unlikely though possible. For some reason i just felt like he had a PP. I check and he pretty quickly goes all in. Would a king be able to do a value bet all in? To make it look like a bluff and hope i call with worse? Does he think i am capable of calling with worse? I can't see him holding a king under any scenario. An ace, possible but is it likely? What does he put me on? If he has an ace wouldn't be make a value bet? Does he think i have the king and i am unable to fold the king? What about a Queen, would he bet a Q on a AAKK3 board? Clearly not, nearly impossible to value bet Q hi especially with so much already in the pot. He would check that down.

It made perfect sense to me that he had a mid PP, and although possible for him to have an ace, the fact that blinds were going up in a few mins, my stack was well below average and the steep structure increase from now on in made me decide that it was correct to take a chance and call with Jack high. After a few minutes of deliberation i did indeed make the call only to find my opponent instantly turn over A-10. Great. I callwith jack hi, he shows nut full house. As i got up from the table and walked away disgusted with myself for over complicating the situation i had so many people come up to me and say "unlucky man, sick river." If only they knew why it was a sick river, naturally they thought i got rivered and had a King. They didn't quite realise at the time that it was a sick river as it made me call with J hi under circumstances i wouldn't have unless the sick ace came!! lol.

Quite funny i thought.

Next portuguese leg watch out, im going to make a hero call with 10 hi and bust.

Off to germany this weekend for some betfair WSOPE promotions, but the main exciting thing is going to be my HU rematch with Annette. I know she has been working on her HU game a lot so its going to be incredibly tough but i hope as long as betfair turns off their riggamented RNG it will be a good match. I'll see if i can get some software to record the session, will be interesting to get some feedback.

gl

kunku wap

After playing 0.5-1 for a couple of days its actually quite funny thinking how angry the players get at these stakes when i compare it to 5-10 and 10-20 which is still small compared to the bigger games. Makes you realise that money, whatever the amount is all relative and even if its only $6 that $6 may mean a lot to the opponent and your bet shouldn't be based on the fact that $6 is nothing and he'l' call with any 2 but more an analytical case just like when considering do i fire the third bullet of $2,400 as a bluff. You consider what the money means to him, if he thinks your bluffing, if he is willing to call it and the other 50 million factors. Same should go with playing these micro stakes. Took me a few hours to work that out, but should be interesting over the next couple of days how i fare.

Not much else been happening, so looking forward to portugal though. Its only 500euro buyin, all should play. 15k stack 90min clock. AMAZING ! Can't wait.

Not even had any interesting hands to discuss to be honest, everything been straight forward. Maybe in my next post ill put up some funny pictures of me dancing in my flat. Or videos of me trying to do rolypollys which inevitably end up twisting my neck even further and increasing my osteo costs. Standard.

Cheerio

john kunku wap

Not updated for longer than I normally do, i like to update once every few days unfortunately I've had nothing time worthy to write for you guys.

I'm also super excited about the $100,000 bonus Betfair is offering if you win 2 out of the 3 selected tournaments they have daily. The fields are only about 150 players i believe so im not sure what the exact odds of a good MTT player would be to win 2 in a day. In either event, $100k bonus will definitely be nice.

Also, soon as i get money into my account going to start playing some new games I haven't played before like omaha, so there will be lots of easy money for you guys to win off me. Nick is Kunku Wap in case you didn't know.

come and get it :)

good luck all

john kunku wap

Of all the heats I think I had one of the best ones, my biggest worry was Jon 'skalie' Kalmar who luckily drew his seat to my immediate right. The rest of the table included Sammy George, Harry Demetriou, Mikael Johanson and Tim Flanders.

From the onset, the table seemed pretty aggressive so my plan was just to sit back, and wait for opportune moments. I didn't think I'd be able to get away with many moves as the players knew me and are capable of calling me light. Given this, I stayed out of trouble, didn't really get involved in much until the blinds increased to 2-4k. Skalie raised on the cutoff as usual to 12k. Our stacks were both approx 140k. I had AK on the button and reraised to 35k. Flat calling here preflop to disguise my hand in a structure like this serves very little purpose, especially when there is already 18k in the pot plus my image from previous plays with skalie should mean I will get no respect here. Everyone folds back to him, he double checks his cards and says something sounding weak but equating to im all in and im strong.

Now, the problem I faced is the structure of the tournament, the blinds increase quickly, and only first place goes through to the final as well as in my opinion, skalie being the most dangerous person at the table. I had barely played a hand until this, and I felt as if he was strong i.e. 10-10 JJ QQ 99 or AK also. 5% chance he had AQ. I didn't think I was ahead but I really think it was the right decision to take this chance for a double up, get in a commanding lead and eliminate a dangerous person. In a slow structure tournament, esp if against a weaker player I would never call here as there would be no need to take a 50-50 when I can outplay them later on and win chips with less risk. Anyway, I elected to call, skalie flipped JJ and we went off to the races. I hit the ace on the river. Beautiful.

Now im in great shape. Mikael though only played 1 hand to date, had started raising a lot, whenever his hand was shown they were premium cards i.e. QQ. He raised again when it was my BB to 11k, I looked down and found 10-10. I had approx 280k at the time and Mikael's stack was approx 130k. What to do? Flat calling gives me no extra info as to his hand, and makes no statement for him to not attack my blinds later on AND 10-10 is a hard hand to play OOP. I made it 38k. He instantly double checks his cards, then counts his chips, thinks, goes to make a reraise and then nonchalantly states he is all in.

Now what? Does he think that I am just playing back because I am fed and I am chip leader? Can he be pushing here with 88 99 AQ AK ? He looked confident but then the tournament director, Marty Wilson put the clock on me, with 20 seconds to go Mikael said to me "do you have AQ?". This kind of chat is OBVIOUS that he is strong especially for a quiet player to start talking all of a sudden. I talk a lot at the tables and know all this. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason I wasn't feeling 100% during the heat and I just snapped and said call. If I had more time I would have made the right decision as I would have majority of time and folded. Of course he had AA. Stupid call.

After this, we shortly became 3 handed, Sammy, myself and Mikael Johanson. They were both playing pretty tight, cagey poker and doing a lot of ch c. I didn't see how with a short stack I could exploit this as they would call my PFR and if I wanted to cbet it would commit over 50% of my stack. The only thing that seemed right to do was wait till the blinds increased then start 3betting all in and picking up nice pots PF. So I stuck to this plan, I folded my run of J2o 95o etc until the blinds got to 3-6k. I was down to 140k and Sammy limped AGAIN on the button. I pick up A5cc in the SB. There is $15k in the pot and I have approx 140k. Sammy has a hard time folding anything PF, so if I raise to 20k he will call, the pot will be 40k, ill have 120k left, ill have to cbet 25k and he rarely folds. Ill be ina huge pot OOP against someone who can really have any 2. I didn't see why I needed to escalate the pot and create a tough situation. So I just called in the SB and BB checked. The flop came a seemingly perfect A-J-8 two diamonds. 80% of the time when I have checked to sammy he has bet and usually bets very strong, pot or a bit more. So, I tried to extract some money with my top pair and checked, BB ch, Sammy on button ch!!! Much to my surprise he checked. Now the plan was to bet out the turn and just take down the pot as my hand isn't strong enough for a double free card. The turn magically brought me a non diamond 5. I took a chance and checked again, BB checked, Sammy thought for a while and bet $8k which was a very weird bet for him. I've never seen him bet so small, but I haven't seen any of his hands only the amounts he has bet so far. All I know is the majority of the time he bets strong and now he has bet weak. In either event, I have 2pr Aces up, nearly impossible for me to be behind. My thinking was what does Sammy have, and depending on that I know what to raise to try and get more out of him. To me it seemed like he had nothing and was just taking a stab at the pot as we had both checked it twice. So I decided to make a small reraise to ensure he calls with any 1pr, any draw and also to entice him to bluff my seemingly bluff like move. BB out of the blue asked for a count of my chips, so I humoured him and talked and sounded confused and weak. He then folded as expected but another surprise occurred, Sammy went all in! I couldn't work out what I could possibly be behind to, so I called quite happily.

Of course he flipped over 888. flopped a set.. I don't think there was any way I could have got away from this hand. He limped on the button with 88 when the blinds are 3-6k. Very unorthodox. Board was rigged. 2pr v set. Ah well.

Oh ya, just to amuse yourselves, the following thread was brought to my attention on 2+2:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=236177

Apparently Americans like to abuse me !!!

Gl guys

I haven't played much poker since busting out the Main Event. My luck was pretty bad so I decided to relax and spend some time with poker magician, Antonio Esfandiari. One of the many things I learnt from him which I found both amusing and educational was that he stuck to his principles regardless of the situation. If someone tries to screw you over, separating you from your hard earnt cash dishonestly or deceptively, you should punish them.

The incident took place when we got a taxi from his flat to take us to the Venetian on the strip. The taxi took a right out of the apartment block, the conversation went as follows:

"doctor, where are you going?"
"to the Venetian"
"Venetian is the other way, stop the car and turn around"
"I was going to take the freeway!"

Now, I don't live in vegas and I am geographically challenged but from what I understand, taking a right out of the complex to get to the Venetian is the equivalent of folding AA preflop in a HU match. That big of an error. Anyway, Antonio whispered to me, "don't pay, just stay in the car, watch and learn kid." At this point, the only thing that excited me was the fact that we wouldn't have to play rock, paper, scissors for the taxi bill and that he was going to pay outright! First for everything. Naturally, when we pulled up outside the Venetian Antonio asked if I had any small bills as he only had 100's. lol. Badbeat. I gave him a $5 bill and 5 $1 bills. The taxi fare was $9.66. Antonio handed the guy the money, totalling $10 and we sat in the back. The taxi driver looked at him, in a manner which implied he was waiting for more money, his tip. Antonio then said, "I would like my change sir". "hehe, you want change?" exclaimed the taxi driver. "yes please sir, I gave you $10, the bill is $9.66, therefore I am owed 34cent." "You really want 34 cents change?" "Yes, I want my change, 34cents is a lot of money these days".

I am dyng trying not to laugh out loud, was amazing to see someone go through this much effort just to punish and hopefully educate the taxi driver, to not con people. Anyway, the taxi driver then got out of the cab, tried to get change from the Valet and other taxi drivers. Of course no one had any change. He came back into the car and said "I don't carry change, its $10 sir." Antonio, one to never give up said "Sir, the fare is $9.66, I need my change, I cannot lose money. I can give you either $10 and you give me my change or I can give you $9." This line of talk went back and forth a little bit and in the end we ended paying the taxi driver $9.

The irony is that by trying to cheat us into a longer route, the fare would only have increased by $2-3. That is what he would have got from us as a tip as a minimum, plus he would have had another fare much sooner instead of arguing with us for the extra 5mins. His play was definitely -EV loooooooool.

Lesson learnt for both myself and the taxi driver, stick to your principles and punish those who try to deceive you.

Last night was my first night of online poker in long time, played a bunch of the Sunday betfair tourneys and the only tourney I did good in was the $1,000 GTD. I think it was a $5 or $10 freezeout, final tabled. Was very tired, jet lagged etc etc. Played avg all night, but next Sunday I will hand out some punishings. Feel free to find me and chase me then guys. Question time too if you like 

I got my PokerMillion heat on Saturday, so hopefully will win my first heat and progress to round 2. Need to win to break even from Vegas. Oh dear.

Good luck all.

It gets checked round...and river was the inevitable club. Problem is, if I bet out now, it looks like I have a flush, and clearly no one has a King otherwise they would have bet by now. If I bet, I can only get called by rivered 2 pair. My only option is to check, and hope a worse hand value bets. I check, BB ch, first limper ch, cut off bets $300, button folds to me. Now...this spot I thought was interesting, do I just flat call the bet of $300 which looks weak but is dying for a call. Given this better had position on the turn, it makes sense that after all the weakness that has been shown he would bet the turn with his draws and take the pot down there and then. I guesss he is on either a very bad bluff or most likely rivered 2 pair, thus, there is more value to be had from this hand. I decided to make a small raise that the pair hands I beat have to call, and if I get reraised I easily fold my bottom set. I check raised to 700, the cutoff instantly flat called and showed 9-10cc. He flopped gutshot, turned fl dr, and rivered flush but at no stage ever bet. He also only flat called my min raise on the river. WEAK TABLE !!! Id like to know what you guys think about the hand, Sorel says I should bet the turn and check call the river. I don't think what I did was bad, love to hear others' comments.

The next 30mins or so I just chilled and watched the table, see who was up to what. It truly was a perfect table, the 2 players to my left seemed super tight, which I was going to punish in the later levels. There was a guy 4 seats to my left who for no apparent reason exploded and raised 7/10 hands every orbit and c bet 90%. Amazing.

Anyway, I play a few hands here and there, some draws, couple of small bluffs, missed everything, nothing seemed to work. Given the slow structure, its no problem at all. Plenty of time. Then this hand develops, the crazy guy, who seemed like a cash player as he had no sponsorship or logos, was young and couldn't bare folding a hand. I had to assume a cash player. Anyway, he raised from EP / MP and I was on the BB with QJo. He had raised to $300, blinds were 50-100. I called. Flop came 3-3-4. No fl dr.

Now, I know before ive done anything, if I bet out, he will give me 0 respect and will either float me or reraise me and bet the turn...I also think that the guy doesn't know me, so won't give me credit for anything too fancy. So I decide to play the hand like a normal avg player would, namely ch r the turn. I haven't played back at him and so far we have no real history. I check, he bets $450, I make it $1100 and as I was putting the chips in the pot he had called, before my chips even got there. Tell, any kind of hand needs to think about the situation, am I bluffing, do I have the hand, am I making a move. AK AQ, big pairs, must think before making a decision because hands like that are rarely going to be folded and the pot is going to escalate quickly. So he will need to think how much he wants to commit with the hand and is he willing to go broke with those big pairs. Anyway, he insta calls me. The turn brought a 10. I decided to bet out quite large, so he thinks I have something and get rid of him, so I bet $2200 into approx $2400. Most bets so far have been half pot bets or smaller...so this pot bet is quite large. As soon as I made the bet, within a few seconds he had reraised it to $6,000. I don't know what it is, but I picked up something, the betting patterns, the timing didn't make sense at all. I stared at him, it was very clear he was uncomfortable. However, I only have Q hi, my only option was to go all in. We hadn't even reached level 2 in a 10 day tournament and im already considering going all in on a stone cold bluff. Normally, I would follow my instincts, however, I have ran so bad the last few weeks, and now I am playing in arguably the biggest and most prestigious tournament in the world and I could be busted instantly if I am wrong. I just signed sponsorship deal with betfair, there are plenty of people watching and interested in my result, can it really be right to take such a huge risk so early on in the tournament? I stared the kid down for at least 4 minutes before chickening out and leaving myself with approx $12k in chips. Soon as I folded, he flipped over A9. I gracefully tapped the table and said, "I folded Jacks, well played." HE just confirmed for me that all my physical tells on him were right, and I assessed everything accurately but didn't act upon it. The key to successful poker is making the most of marginal situations and trusting your instinct. I was unable to follow my instinct here because of too many external factors, which was a huge mistake. When you play, you must have a clear head, must be able to focus exclusively on the game you are playing there and then, not about other things. AND FOLLOW YOUR GUTS. FFS!!

Not really much happened for the next 60-90mins, I made a few small moves and plays, as usual I missed everything and got caught the 2 times in the whole session I bluffed. The biggest hand being as follows. Agg kid limps utg, cutoff limps, I limp on button with 79o, SB complets and BB checks. The flop comes J-6-8 rainbow. Ch, ch, ch, ch to me, I bet 400 into $500 pot. Everyone folds bar the UTG kid limper. Now, if he had any sort of hand, he would have raised PF, in fact im very surprised he limped, he hasn't limped before, but now wants to ch c the flop. I guess he has some random hand with some small piece of it, or maybe just overcards. Given that I have assumed he is a cash player, I decide to make my betting pattern one that he can easily read as a set, just incase I miss my draw, and if I hit I was going to bet it the way he would interpret as a bluff. The turn brought a Q. he checks again, so I employ my plan, small bet on flop, small bet on turn to keep customer interested and a big bet on river once I know I have the best hand and want to extract as much as possible. He quickly called my turn bet of $1100. The river was another J. He checked again, now I am pretty damn sure he either had a draw, or some weak 3rd or 4th pair. The Jack is a great card, if I am willing to bet large here, it maens im not scared of the jack, and I either flopped a set, I've improved on the river to 3 jacks, or I turned the straight. All of which are highly plausible. There aren't many hands that I would 3 barrel here especially when he has shown this much interest in the hand. I bet $4000. Maybe 1/10 times I would be bluffing in this spot, unfortunately for me I chose the wrong person to bluff. The kid was incapable of thinking or processing any sort of logic and he called with 10-10. There was no reasoning or skill to his call, merely that he had a premium hand preflop and he wasn't going to let it go on the flop whatever happened. He is of the school of thought that you must win every pot to prove you are the best player. My mistake in this hand was not identifying sooner that he was a poor player without much mental capacity. Had I known that, I could have saved myself a lot of chips and hassle.

Anyway, after this hand I was down to $7,000 and blinds had just increased to $100-200. Still plenty of chips, but my image was destroyed, the only option was to play solid from now and get paid by the other players.

I chilled out for about 40mins before this hand developed. Folded round to button, who makes it $600, SB flat calls $600 and I pick up AA from the BB. FINALLY !! How do I play it though? If I reraise to $1800 its quite obvious, but they wont be able to decipher that. I opted to just shove all in and make it look like a steal. An overshove, hoping to run into any other PP or AK AQ AJ that was feeling frisky. Lucky for me, the button couldn't call quick enough with his AK.

Given how ive ran the last 6 weeks, I thought this is my tournament, things are going to turn from here. I thought waaaaaaaaaay tooooooooo quickly !!!

Flop, Q-J-7......2.....10. OBVIOUSLY !!!!

OF COURSE !! COME ON !!!!

Ah well...Onto the next tourney and hopefully some good cash games.

She then asked to have a quiet word with us, we went over to her and she said, verbatim, "I have spoken with the dealer and the pitboss, both said that the pit boss never swore." HOW STUPID CAN YOU BE?? You think the dealer is going to tell on his boss? You think the pitboss is going to admit to misconduct? You fucking idiot. Why not look at the CCTV like I suggested? I WONDER WHY. Never in my life have I been so incensed that such illogical, and clearly braindead people can be given such positions within society. Especially in the gambling industry, where they should be able to keep an eye on everything and understand the fine balance that the industry requires.

Lesson learnt, if you wish to play 3 card poker at Luxor be prepared to be dealt by grumpy, smile-less dealers, abused by management and show your cards to the ceiling without touching them!!

Truly amazing.

I love the Wynn. Thank you Steve.

The main event starts today, best of luck to everyone who started today and the remaining 3 day 1s.

lglglglglglgl

During this unfortunate negative period, a friend of mine had just landed from the UK and was fresh blood. He had just reread "The Secret" for the 40th time upon my recommendation and was full of the optimism that I had shown only a few weeks ago, non stop talking about cosmic ordering, karma, "the secret" etc. Funnily enough, the first tournament he played, a $330 in Caesars, he ended up chopping for $18,000. He then placed a few small bets on roulette, all of which came in and he followed it with hitting a straight flush in 3 card poker!! Though a very good player, a run of luck doesn't usually appear out of nowhere or for no reason. His persistent optimism and reasoning for bad news not only pays but also keeps you in a positive mindset. Staying positive is crucial. If you slip, or slide into negative thoughts it can really damage yourself, especially in such a tough, highly competitive industry. You need to keep a fine balance between being confident but not arrogant and also positive whilst not unrealistic, thus placing too much pressure on yourself. I took some of my friends attributes and decided not to play for a few days. Have some fun, relax and enjoy what Vegas has to offer. The days off has certainly helped, feeling a lot calmer than before and now ready to take on the main event. Deep stack poker is definitely my strongest game, being able to apply huge pressure on opponents' marginal hands and being able to identify well which ones will let their weaker hands go by the river and which ones are too stubborn to fold will ensure that all the bad luck this trip will culminate into a great run in the main event. I've also changed my starting day to day 1D for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the betfair party is on tonight and I didn't think it would be prudent of me to play the following day in such an important tournament. I want to be fresh, sleep well and be in the perfect frame of mind. Not with a hangover. The other reason was that last year was the first year I played the WSOP ME and I started on day 1D and had a great table. I finished the day around 8th in chips and am hoping to repeat last years first day success. Can't wait !!!

The betfair lounge will open tomorrow I believe, I can't wait for this year. We are the only lounge that has a crazy golf course, although only 1 hole, there are 2 routes you can go, both with obstacles, windmills, corners etc. Similar to the final scene of Happy Gilmore, but not as complicated! The massage chairs from WSOPE are also in the lounge and I promise you, they are the best massage chairs EVER !!! I think there are also the usual board games, chess, backgammon etc as well as a computerised HU table and some Wii sports fun. Fun times ahead!

Good luck,

John

Partied in the evening at Pure Nightclub, god knows how many bottles of Belvedere we went through and it certainly doesn't help when the Scandies drink the stuff like water. Ahhhh, hung over at the moment and don't really have anything interesting to write back on. Tomorrow is the $5k 6 handed which will be really good, so I will talk through some of my key hands and see what you guys think. Hopefully, ill keep my tournament form and play really good and get some cool scenarios.

Going back to the hot-tub!

Cheerio 

What else has gone wrong? Oh that's right, we decided to take a day off from losing money and go indoor skydiving. As usual, it took 3 hours to get ready to leave the house, then we went shooting indoors as a slight detour, and never made it to indoor skydiving which actually looked really good fun. Will have to do that before I leave vegas. I'm hoping to go see a few more cirque de soleil shows and see David Copperfield. The king of Magic.

What else has happened, just cant think right now. There are flies everywhere in our house, cockroaches on the sofa and as you would expect, the cable TV here sucks unless you like watching Spanish sales TV. So standard. Oh, I nearly forgot, when you step outside during the day your face falls off. 50oC with 0 humidity. Lovely.

Going to go see Penn n Teller tonight with my bodyguard and relax, move back to the strip and get back into playing the daily bellagio tournaments, get into the right frame of mind for the $5k 6 handed on Thursday. That is going to be the hardest tournament I think, I am really looking forward to it.

See you soon.

jt