Poker's a funny old game. Spent a couple of weeks online suffering all manner of beats, but last night I managed to take down the iPoker (on Blonde $10k for a lovely $2.2k. Blonde organise the 'get together' on Wednesdays and usually have a much coveted polo shirt up for whoever lasts longest out of the blondes taking part. In the past I've made two top 20 finishes and also a top 50 but still failed to win the shirt, but last night I sailed past 906 other people (yes, small overlay too!) and claim the top spot and also my biggest win to date.



I think I'll just stick with mtt's. Trying to build a bankroll from hard graft in cash or stt's is certainly for some people, but I don't think it's for me.

Happy Days.

I think I have to come to the conclusion that I'm not only poor at cash games, I'm pretty awful at sit and go's too. I tried playing the turbos on Stars again and I was really enjoying them to start with. Couldn't do a think wrong at the start and soon made a $100 profit with an ROI of 50% but then somethings happened and I can't catch a break. Where I was cashing about 50% of the time, I'm lucky if I'm cashing 20% of the time at the moment. I'm not quite sure what to do about it, I'm running so bad it's beyond belief and playing 9 tables at a time, you only have to guess at the number of beats I'm taking each session.

So far I've managed to lose about $200. It's not that much I appreciate, but it's only playing the $6.50's so that's a lot of non-cashes. 114 games so far this month - that's a lot for me!

Stats so far

Tourneys 114
ITM 39
ITM% 34.2%
ROI -8.2%
$ per T -$0.53
Bubble survival%60.0%

1st 11 9.6%
2nd 15 13.2%
3rd 13 11.4%
4th 26 22.8%
5th 18 15.8%
6th 12 10.5%
7th 11 9.6%
8th 5 4.4%
9th 3 2.6%
Profit -$60.60

Not sure if I can face more of this for a bit, may take a break and either play some mtt's or take time off.

Managed a second final table in a row at The Western last night. Until we got to 10 handed, I ran so well. Had aces twice, kings and hit a set, queens, AK and didn't really need to do anything dramatic and for the first time ever, I not only made the break in good shape, but also had a 5000 chip when they changed up during it. Down to the bubble and I've been pretty card dead for a bit and with only 5 on the table it wasn't good news, but I picked up AKs UTG and raised 3xBB to 4800. One caller which I wasn't too happy about but the flop came a harmless 6 T 5 rainbow and I figured that I was either in good shape still or behind to a monster. The caller had less chips than me so I put him in and he obliged my call and flipped over aces! The only 'wrong' move I made all night and it cost me most of my stack. In fairness, he'd called preflop raises before and lead out and didn't show so I thought he may have been at it, but certainly wasn't in this case. Anyway, I was down to 3200 and it was my big blind for 1600 and the small blind put me in and obviously called but had J7 which thankfully was ahead and held up. Shortly after the bubble burst and we were on the final table.

I was definitely the shorty at the final having 6000 with blinds of 1000/2000 and imagine my joy at picking seat 3 out of the draw so I was in the big blind straight away. Ended up folding the blinds, but put my last 3k in from the button, obv the big blind called but only had 72s and I won. Another round nearly came and from UTG +3 I shoved (LOL) with JT and got 4 callers, managed to hit two pair and took the pot and quadrupled up! With only 150,000 chips in play and the heavy blinds, there were quite a few all ins and my immediate goal was to just not go out first. I thought I was doomed at one point when there were 3 all in's in one hand and no one was knocked out, but people started dropping, I started picking up a few more pots and all of a sudden I was in really good shape. One nice pot I picked up was after I'd just doubled up again, folded to a short stack who shoved for 5.5k (2k/4k blinds) from the button, I called from the small blind and checked it down with the big blind and my 4's held. There were a a few pots like this which really made a difference to my stack. Eventually, we were down to 3, then the other two clashed and it was heads up. The other guy had a huge chip lead of about 110k to my 40k and we eventually were all in with his K8 v my AQ, but he hit an 8 and that was that.

No complaints, in fact I'm really pleased to have gone from less than two big blinds and in 9th spot to 2nd in got outdrawn for a pot that would have given me the chip lead. I certainly picked up my game last week and my final table performance certainly improved so all in all I was very pleased.

The dream of playing in the WSOP is over for another year. I didn't really have a proper bash at it, but earlier in the year I managed to win a sat to a $650 event so I unregistered and took the W$ with the intention of playing the 200 seat guaranteed. I also qualified for Moneymake tourney for $39. I had a bash at a $80 freezeout sat to the 200 but failed so decided to just buy in. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I failed to make the grade so sadly will be staying in the UK this July. My final hand on both tables was AK and rather annoyingly, they were at exactly the same time so I managed to go out of both tourneys in the space of about 5 seconds! I doubt I'll bother with any of the remaining WSOP events though. I've just taken out most of my bankroll to put towards our trip to SA later in the year so I'm feeling poker skint at he moment!

So it's back to grinding results out for a while now. I need to rebuild my roll and will concentrate on that. I've found a few good horses on Neverbeg or whatever it's called now so I'm hoping they'll add to my profits with sit and go series's. I've also started playing the turbo 1 table sng's on Stars again recently. I haven't done many, but I haven't had a losing session yet. I know it's coming, but maybe I'll play them for a while.........again lol. I was even 9 tabling the other day and it went pretty good I think. It's amazing the number of sets/AA/KK you get when you 9 table, I know it's the same as normal, but getting all those hands in in a short period is mental. I never thought I'd be a 9 tabler sit and go pushbot, but if it's going to show a profit, I'll see what I can do. I'll stick to sng's on Stars and play mtt's on mainly blonde I think. I've cashed quite nicely recently and salvaged my $80 and turned it in to just under $600 recently, all by playing mtt's so it's a no brainer I stick with them for now and leave the cash tables alone.

Must also take a couple of days off work soon, I've realised that there are some great tourneys starting around midnight for me and I fancy a few of them.

Right that's it. Best concentrate on this stupid PLH tourney I started an hour ago. Sort of wish I hadn't now, but at least the golf is on.

I have a small dilemma. Sunday is the 200 seat gtd WSOP ME qualifier on Stars, I played it last year and missed out by a few hundred (there were thousands in it!) but I was going to give it a bash this year too. However, I've managed to satellite in to the Moneymaker WSOP thingy too which is a $215 comp, but only 15 seats gtd and there are already nearly 600 people in it. It's only going to work out at about 1 seat for every 63 people so it's quite a hard task.

I'll obviously try and satellite in to 200 seat, but if I don't manage to do that, should I a) buy in direct and play both, b) unregister from the Moneymaker one and buy in to the 200 seat to save me $215 c) just play the Moneymaker one or d) just take the W$ and feel like I've actually made something this month!

D isn't really the option, I have to have a bash at it one way or another, but given that it's a long shot either way, should I buy in direct? That's what W$ are for I guess.

It's a nice dilemma, but I'll have think about it for now. I don't even know anyone that's going to Vegas!

It's been nice not playing cash recently. The rakeback, sorry, loyalty bonus came through from blonde today and it was just over $70 which was about $20 more than I expected - topped up my account a bit, it was running low!

Made a couple more cashes in mtt's recently. I made 647th out of 22.5k in the Sunday $100k donkathon on Stars on Sunday, and last night came 50th out of 1722 in FT's MSOP #3 so I'm almost there.

Happy not playing cash for now.