Been a long long time since my last post! And well the reasons are pretty bloody obvious! Ive been losing and don’t want to write about it!!! Positive though positive results don’t happen by talking and re running my badbeats, my hard luck stories and of course the crap play stories! But I can keep silent for ever!!! So lets start at the beginning of April and the Irish open. After a hugely swingy month I decided to go play the open for two reasons, firstly I was playing great and secondly im just so over due a big live result!!!!

I arrive in Ireland on the Thursday, the day before the main event, I was staying a couple of miles away in the Herbert Park hotel, this had huge advantages in that it kept me away from the free flowing beer at the Burlington and also kept me away from the free flowing drinking poker players who were all staying at the Burlington. So on Thursday night instead of getting sh1t faced with skalie,punk tim Blake, kimber and co I went for a run around Herbert park, went for some sushi then retired back to my room for a very good nights kip.

Next day I felt great, over the past 3 months ive been on a bit a fitness spree losing the not so small sum of 28lb as well as substantially reducing my alcohol intake, all in all im about as fit as I have been in the last 5 years , and well I could feel it! So I join my table and to my left its my old labrokes pal Ian Frazier. The great thing about Ian is that he really believes hes the best player on the table and will try and out play you in every pot he plays, I like playing Ian. After I lose 1/3 of my stack in the first hand I bluff at, I settle down and slowly get myself back to level, then I find KK v Ians AK, and after a floor ruling (Ian tried pulling a moody) I get myself up to 15k. At no stage during the first day did I have any real tough decisions to make, it was just nice and easy small pot poker.  With about 2 hours too go I was sat on a very healthy 40k, and was feeling and playing great. A huge pot later when my AK lost to 1010 I was back to 20k (ish) still above average and still playing and feeling good. By the end of day one I finished on 19k, under average but what I thought was a playable stack, out of the 720 runners we had managed to loss over 400 of them!

So to day two, I had a great nights sleep and again had a run around the park before making my way back to the Burlington. It was only when I sat down that I realised that even though I was returning with nearly average stack I still only had 15BB!! FFS day two of the first major of the year, the last 1/3 of the field with average stack and im playing push or fold poker! Needless to say it was good cards or good spots to push that I was looking for, but neither of them seemed like finding me. Finally I get dealt 22 in the big blind, the most active player on the table raise from the button and I push, he wishes me good luck before calling with AK……………first card out was the A. Cant complain, I got the spot I was looking for, just really disappointed to have played so well on day one only to return on day two  to a structure that left no room to play………………………….such is life. To compound matters I then went back to my room and did my bollocks in online……………….this was to continue for the next 3 weeks. Now I don’t want to go in to detail about the online downswing, it contained its fair share of badbeats, but it was mainly made up of cooler hands, just me getting it in second best most of the time, this naturally lead to a number of crap spew plays, this of course lead to the zeroing of my account!!! During the month of April I swung on more than one occasion from 20 buy ins down to level only to finsh back down 20 buy ins, that a big swing, that’s a big losing month and that’s what I really didn’t want to be talking about in my blog!!!! To make matters worse it was my home town leg of the GUKPT in Manchester, to get a seat I had to go and beg for a seat from badbeat, “im playing great, let me play pleeeeeeeeeeeeease”! And play I did……………………..for four hours. I had a great table, very loose with lots of play, and the guy with all the chips due to that rare skill of being able to hit with any two cards added to the ability to get paid off every hand………….still it couldn’t last and I KNEW he was just keeping them warm for me. So the first real hand I play is against the said player. I find AhKh on the button, blinds (I think) where 50/100 and he opens for something like 600 from very early position???! All fold to me and I call. Flop is king high with two spades. He then bets 2500 into the 1200 pot…….ffs whats going on here? Turn is a Q, and he again bets big, this time 3,000 into the 6,000 pot, I call. River is a 9s, he checks and I check sure im good, he flips over AA……….o well. I then spend the next hour grinding the stack back up, im then dealt AK again, this time under the gun, the hitting machine calls then its folded to the big blind. This fella had just won his fist hand after folding for 3 hours, he looks at his cards and says “well I might as well ride my rush”. The flop K A 2 rainbow looked good so I bet pot, hitting machine folds and the big blind calls. The river is a complete blank, again its checked to me and I bet pot, he calls. The river is 3, he now bets into me????!!! Im unsure if his bet is a blocker bet and he has a weak ace, but I also have a nagging feeling he holds 22 for the flopped set, but I make the call, too much in the pot to fold……………he says “sorry I was fishing” before flipping over 45!!!!!! This man had folded all but 2 hands in 3 hours and then decides to go chasing a belly buster from out of position again the second tightest play on the table!!!!!! Blahhhhh. This left me pretty short and I exited 30 mins later when I shoved all in to two limpers with A8, how I was able to get in that pot I don’t know as they then go on to get  the  money in with AK and JJ! To make matters worse I go on to hit the A on the flop! So another bad day at the office……………….i then went home and did my bollocks in online…………I didn’t really I actually had already got my account zeroed!!!

So to this month and im trying to build a roll for Vegas, so far its been a winning month but I seem to be taking two steps forward followed by two steps back! Still im not complaining, im defo running well below EV and im defo suffering more than my fair share of coolers, but that’s the game, it happens! Over all im happy with where im at, family life is great, im in great physical shape and im playing pretty well, and from what I know about me and my game if I have those three things well im pretty sure a good P&L upswing is soon to follow!!! Heres to a huge winning May and more blog posts.