Hello World

I've massively overlooked this space over the past couple of months. Really this blog has been ever so slowly dying a death for the last few years.

Even now, I'm being distracted from blogging - I'd written two lines before someone joined one of my heads up tables and I found something to do other than blogging. It's very easy not to blog. Also it's seemingly easy to rid a fish of its money playing heads up no-limit Hold'em. I busted the chap within five hands when he slow played trip aces and let me hit a boat on the turn.

So what have I been up to since Vegas in the Summer (yes - I know - I also spotted the fact that I only got one blog post into my Vegas trip report)? I've mostly been working and playing poker. Not a lot else has been going on. I've jumped back into fitness again and am running a fair bit. I reached the 100kg mark for the first time in my life over the Summer and was looking pretty round. I'm a little less round now.

So a recap of the last few months of poker: I plugged away at the 6 handed NL Hold'em tables for a while, but - as has been the case all year - I was only breaking even thanks to rakeback. My A game continues to improve but perhaps not as quickly as many of those around me. My biggest failing, though, was how often I'd lose focus and donk off a random buyin when it was totally unnecessary. When you're struggling to beat the game for 2 big blinds per 100 hands, even the occasional donk off will wipe out any potential profits. It was time for a change.

So, for the last two months I've been playing exclusively heads up cash games and things are going pretty well. Having the sole access to your fish makes SO much difference. I'm still donking off occasionally, but the standard of opponents if you game select well is terrible, which makes up for the donking. I'm playing a mixure of $100 and $200 tables and I see myself sticking to those limits for a while yet. The swings in heads up are massive so it will be a while before I'm tempted to go higher.

I'm not setting any goals for the time being. I'm just going to grind while the games are good. I'd like to be able to play some decent sized live tournaments. I'm eyeing up PokerStars new UK and Ireland Poker Tour as they have qualifiers via their Step Sit and Gos that served me so well for the WSOP.

Speaking of the WSOP - Commiserations and congratulations in equal measure to James Akenhead who came in 9th for almost $1.3m. I was disappointed to see Phil Ivey go out in 7th, but I was immensely relieved when Darvin "monster whale" Moon could only come in second to Joe Cada, the youngest ever main event winner at only 21.

That's about all I've got to report for now. Mrs. Pink and I are off to Marcus Wareing's restaurant tonight to celebrate (slightly belatedly) my birthday. I can't wait. That place is supposed to be amazing.