WHY

Are the poker gods punishing me for changing to live play.

I'm down 9 buyins after 3 nights playing :(

But at least i'm not at uni anymore, so i'm happy.


Does anyone even read this blog anymore?

PLEASE COMMENT AND LET US KNOW YOUR ALIVE, ANYONEE

I hads a dream

Random poker game: BTN minraises mai BB, I click it back with AA. BTN timebank folds KK and shows. What a soul read!!!

Also me and Gill have been talking about playing another 24 hour session. It will prolly go down between the 23rd-27th of March. Holla if you wanna join us. We'll poast moar updates when we know the date fo sho

Fun times

So my mates convinced me to play live poker for a change, because i never do due to insane bordom, which obv leads to spew.

So i play the £100NL game for 5 hours, and apart from the first hour which consisted of playing 100/0, i played really well. I finished down 700. Funny thing is, it's the most fun i've had playing live poker in a long time.

Got a job interview next week for a dealing job, wish me luck!


I have time to burn during the day now though, any ideas for a good day trip?

Life Update and various TRs.

So this blog update has been a long time coming. And after months and months of gill pestering me to do an update here it is!

LIFE UPDATE

So I have officially graduated from school with a bachelors in engineering and am completely done! The last 2 years or so were a real struggle for me and I sorta crawled across the finish line, but I did manage to squeak by and get my degree :). Unfortunately the economy has gone to shit and I have yet to find a real job, but in the meantime I am still working at the local bar fulltime during the nights and I'm enjoying that. Although the money isn't very g00t. I pretty much stopped playing online poker the last few months, although in the past couple of weeks i have started playing a little bit once again. Also I will be moving out of my apartment at the end of this month or the next and moving into a house with 4 of my friends from highschool, so I'm sort of excited about that. It's a really nice house, and actually cheaper than the apartment I'm living in right now. Other than that not much is going on, I'll be going to BC to snowboard this weekend with the university snowboard club and also going to cancun in May. The rest of this blog is just going to be a short TR on my first 2 weeks of january, where I went on a road trip to Vegas and then lived at the school for a week after that and partied during 'engg week' (explained below). I didn't gamble in vegas, (except for a little bit of drunken craps) so if you're looking for poker content just skip this post.


Vegas TR

So I should really explain why I was going to Vegas in the first place. There's a non-academic tradition for engineering students at the university of calgary called engg week. It occurs during the 1st week of classes of the winter semester every year. Basically all 5 of the engineering departments (chem, mech, geo, civil, electrical) compete with each other in various events throughout the week (most events involve drinking). There is one judge chosen from each department, as well as a head judge and 1st/2nd year judge who organize all of these events. Anyways, I was chosen as the chem judge.

One event occurs the week before school and that is the roadtrip. Basically we go on a roadtrip a day before everyone else and send them messages about where to go and what to do. The location is a secret for them, but naturally we chose to go to vegas. So the 4 of us judges that went on the roadtrip were leading about 40 people who left the day after us. I'm just going to post some random pics I took on the roadtrip.

Shotgunning beers at every boarder crossing (there were 5). Arizona was iffy cuz there was a state trooper on the other side of the highway.

Our 1st night in vegas, one of the teams of people follwing us showed up early, but they weren't really with a deparement. Everyone else showed up the next day. Ended up going to the strippers that night...I spent a lot of money. (It's 100$ for 15 minutes in private room lol). Beers also cost like 15$ there and cover was 30$.

This is from the 2nd night in vegas, everyone else showed up this day. This is most of chemical engineering team. Their theme was sasquatch, taken off the kokenee beer comercials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGcGhgMvD1Y&feature=related
The ranger is missing in this photo taken.
On this night we went to dueling pianos in treasure island and racked up a $2k tab woohoo! I was mostly drinking these concauctions:


This pic is from the last day in vegas, we went up to the stratosphere, where they have amusement park rides on the top of the building. I was ready to shit my pants, as I don't like heights very much.

This blog is getting long so maybe I'll add some pics from the rest of engg week at a later point, which was probably twice the shit show that vegas was.

Lol gillaments

So we played the live donkament last nite. Was a pretty good nite, I got pretty drunk imo iirc.

Gill won, I got 2nd, we'll poast moar details later. Gonna get drunk again pretty soon and head back to the casino

Sup guys

Alreet guys, Friday's here and Gill just arrived at my gaff. We're drinking Stella right now and soon heading out to toon to drink and gamboool.

Gill promises to out-do himself with crazy embaressing antics just for the purpose of having something to write about.

Look forward to a TR, i'm sure it'l be here before fitz's vegas one! But i found out he's not dead at least for all you canadian lovers, if you exist.

So, what do you do?

Hey i'm Chris, nice to meet you.. so what do you do?

Oh your at uni, that's great... what do i do?

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Standard?

Which sounds better, professional poker player or professional gambler. Comments please guys!


Also, if you are female, stop bringing out a bitchy friend who's just gonna end up cockblocking me!

Thanks

alreet

gill's been nagging for a proper update from me, so i guess it's time. Here goes:

Seeing as I didn't play much poker at all between september and december, going home for Christmas really motivated me to get some volume in. Played approx a month while I was home and made about 3k$, which i'm quite alreet with. All profits were on ftp tho, since i facepalmed 2nl while drunk and openshoved 100 ++ hands, for a total loss of 300$ lol. Also didn't feel like playing much on stars, since i was bronze status and the rakeback would be much better for that period on FTP. Started 9-tabling which went surprisingly smooth and I think i can add a couple more tables when i get back to poker again in May/June. My goal is to get in atleast 1,000 games per month and make 2k$ + rakeback, which will be moar than enough to support my drinking habits while i'm still at uni :patrik:

Gill and I are going to play a live event next weekend, which should be fun imo. The money isn't that important, it's mostly for the lulz and getting some drinks. I've mainly sucked when playing live at the casino, but maybe i'll play better in a donkament idk.

Also, hoping to get a new VISA card by then, cause I had a mate from Norway visit me last weekend and I managed to lose it while i was withdrawing money so we could go to a stripclub lozl. We were both insanely shitfaced so we went there anyways, and some stripper asked me if i wanted to have some fun later on for 200£, but seeing as I didn't even get hard by the lapdance I figured I was in no shape to perform that night and I got asked to leave later on anyways for being too drunk. Standard.

Umm yeah i guess that's it for now imo, maybe include some recent trip reports of drinking absinthe or a trip I had to York a couple weeks ago that generated some lulz. Also we'll definitely write a TR w/pics after the live event.

Here Goes.

Gonna commit to my group coursework and get that finished. After that, i'm out of uni for sure. Already asking around and sorting out a dealing job.

I can always do a degree later if i get bored of poker :)

I'm in trouble. Well..

It depends how you look at it.

I can't get out of bed before 11.. and i've been pretty ill for the past 2 weeks so naturally i've missed a lot of lessons at uni- they arn't happy.

But the best part is, i just found out if i don't pass this year 1st time around, i can't re-take it, which is really giving me food for thought. Most of the guys i hang around with play for a living and are happy, so why can't i be?

If i actually get through the boredom of this year and scrape a pass, ill have a work placement year to do. If i dislike that, i still have another year at uni, whilst realizing i probably don't even want to do accounting after i finish.

So why not save time and quit now?

I mean, at the moment, i'd love to deal poker part-time, and play professionally part-time. Wake up when i want, work nights which is when i'm actually awake, have no more accounts to draw up, have much more freedom and free time in life.

Blahh, thinking away from a poker table makes my brain hurt :\

Oh the bright side, driving lessons are going well and i'm putting weight on slowly. Broke even at poker for the past 2 weeks, bankroll still around 25k.

Any life advice folks?

To the poaster below:

tl;dr

Bump!

That is all.

Blah

Started uni again and after 1 week i'm bored already. Waking up at 7 never gets any easier. Fact.

Past my driving theory test and got a few lessons done so hopefully won't take me too long so i don't have to spend 1000 hours a week on a cold miserable bus :\

Hit a mini-downswing for almost $7k which has been pretty fun actually but still enough to make me sigh occasionally. Running shitty, playing worse. FPS at it's finest.

Fitz told me he'd update when he got back from vegas so you guys have that to look forward to :)

Oh wait, $8k :\

I'm the man

Seriously. Apparently i have the "X-Factor".

Poker is going well, life is going pretty well. I'm on a strange weight gain diet- sort of.

The only downside is uni starts again in a week.

Also, i tip £10 for £8 worth of drinks holla.

It is time.

For me to make a massive update. I haven't been updating in a while cause I have been majorly busy. What have I been doing? I have been moving. That's right bitches, I'm out of the major iceberg that they chose to call Norway, IM IN MALTA!
I can't explain what level of awesomeness it is to live here compared to Norway.

Pokerwise things are abit tougher though. I grinded my 2.5k roll up to 4k before I decided to take the plunge and move down here. I decided that proffesional poker life wasn't for me though, I admit I was underrolled but I was doing more then ok. But it isn't really about the money at all. You sit on your fucking ass all day playing a game that's not really fun after you've seen it all, you don't see any new people during that time and it's the most boring thing ever. Poker might be alot of money, but I'll be keeping it as a separate source of income and just enjoy the extra money it gives me. Not play too much but play whenever I have the chance and don't really have anything else to do.

So anyways I was up at 4k when I decided to make the move down here. I didn't have a job as I went, cashed out some of my roll to get down here, got this really awesome place with some other random Norwegian guy that I knew through some pokerfriends down here. We pay about €1200 and it's pretty ballin. So I was pretty much just waiting for my computer to arrive so I could play some poker, LO AND BEHOLD when the computer arrived it was completely smashed. Motherboard dead and everything, I was terrified cause now I had to cash out even more to get a frikin laptop, and the electronics down here are incredibly expensive.

Luckily though I got a job at betsson as support where I make about €2000 a month, which is very decent for maltese standards. Our apartment has 3 bedrooms, 2 balconies, 2 bathrooms(one with jacuzi), dining room, kitchen, living room with a bigass TV and surround system etc etc. We have the sickest view ever, and most important of all, walking distance to Paceville or "Drunkenville" as it is more commonly known as.
It's kind of like the center for partying in Malta. Every day is a fucking party down here, the parties are sick because all the poker people know eachother, and affiliates who has their asses full of cash putting several bottles of champagne and vodka on the table, drinking half of it then moves on to the next club/bar without a care in the world. So yeah, it's pretty crazy down here and I have met some awesome people in the few weeks I have been here.

One was this crazy 25yr old tunisian karate champ that I fucked for a while, and also a russian chick(will poast pic at bottom of this installment imo), and lots of other crazy party people. And some balla pokerplayers.

Back to the pokers, I decided that since I now only have a $2k roll I would apply for a stake. I was thinking about it for a long time but thought "nah it's prolly not worth the risk ending up with someone who might not coach that well" cause I'm doing it alot for the coaching aswell.
But when i saw WCGrider from twoplustwo looking for stakees I had to apply cause I knew there would be some quality coaching involved. And obviously he knew brandysbich(my last coach) IRL so he took me on right away.

I'm running so well at life right now it's completely sick.

Anyways there is really way too much to write about these last few weeks but I think I'll cut it here cause if I continue any longer I'll end up writing a 10k word essay.

I will upload more pics later as I get my computer setup, right now I need some sleep cause I'm going to work again in like 8 hours.

Pic of russian girl imo:


(the one on the left ldo)

Xmas

Sighhh, where do i start.

5 years ago i loved Christmas. No better feeling than waking up at 7am to see a huge pile of presents under a tree in the living room. Knowing that you'll get your playstation complete with 10 games which should just about keep you occupied throughout the holidays. Knowing that you don't have to spend anything and get everything you could possibly want without having to ask twice.

How i wish i was a kid again :\

Now it's just a case of forking out wads of money and expecting pairs of socks, and possibly a shirt in return (if your lucky). Now it's a case of trailing around in women's sections of clothes shops to buy presents for women you don't even know the correct size for. Now it's a case of going out into town drinking and listening to mindless repeats of depressing Christmas songs while complaining that hot girls are expecting you to dance to them?!?.

Plus i'm stuck 2500 this session.

You know what?, Fuck the credit crunch Christmas. Long live the Grinch.

wtf am i doing

I don't want to be an accountant, there's too much written and excel work and i enjoy going out 4 nights a week too much to have to stop that just so i can be awake at 7am. It just seems like a waste of time putting so much effort into something i dislike, so i can get a job that i dislike even more...

Ideally i'd love to deal poker 3 nights a week for fixed income then just grind out 2-4 for $60-80 an hour. Bit stuck what to do really, i'm too much of a pussy to quit uni and join the professional poker playing bandwagon that several of my friends have chosen.

On the bright side though, driving is going well, had an awesome night out yesterday, and still running well at poker.

Here's a fun hand ill talk you guys through.

Blinds $3/$6 NL Hold'em - 2008/11/25 - 16:35:49
Table Avalon
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players: 5

Built up my stack a bit obv and am slightly deeper vs opp which i am obv happy about

Seat 1: UTG ( $ 844 USD )
Seat 2: Gill ( $ 900 USD )
Seat 3: BTN ( $ 591 USD )
Seat 5: SB ( $ 300 USD )
Seat 6: BB ( $ 725.30 USD )
SB: posts small blind [$ 3 USD]
BB: posts big blind [$ 6 USD]

57os is obv a raising hand from the CO, seems super standard

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Gill [ 5d, 7s ]
UTG folds
Gill raises [$ 18 USD]
BTN folds
SB folds
BB calls [$ 12 USD]

BB calls, no big deal ill just c-bet most boards and take it down, opp is fairly taggy ABC player and basically bets his hands face-up.

** Dealing Flop ** [ 2d, Jd, 9c ]
BB checks
Gill: bets [$ 32 USD]
BB calls [$ 32 USD]

Standard C bet and i get snap called which made me insta think TJ/QJ. I can have any pair here with my CO open range as well as overpairs/draws etc but i think his call isn't terrible because i love to double barrell and he can check raise a lot of safe turns.

** Dealing Turn ** [ 9h ]
BB checks
Gill: bets [$ 70 USD]
BB calls [$ 70 USD]

I fire again repping that i have trips/boat and am trying to get value from TJ+, Also this is a very bad turn for him to CR as i fold anything he beats and call/shove everything he doesn't, although the call isn't horrible vs me.

** Dealing River ** [ 2s ]
BB: bets [$ 106 USD]
Gill raises [$ 780 USD]
BB folds
Gill does not show cards
Gill wins $ 452 USD from main pot

River is the most interesting street obv as basically when he bets so small, he's announcing he has JQ or something here and is hoping i had a draw or a worse J and flat call/fold, so obv i shove because i know he can't call with QJ and iv'e hardly ever shown down hands in these types of spots so i still get a ton of respect.

Any comments appreciated, in regards to the hand.. and life in general :)

Brum Brum...

Been out driving a few times and really getting the hang of mirror, signal, wait, turn.

Bankroll hit the milestone of $25k, so very pleased about that obv, but still hardly play.

Uni work is really piling up and the combination of coursework, exam revision and just general uni time is killing me.. waking up at 7 doesn't get any easier for sure.

But saying that, life is ok at the moment, although i'm spending too much time doing work and dealing and not enough time drinking and looking nervous around women.

Hopefully ill have some poker content next time!

An update! (Finally)

Nothing really new though. Spent a while searching for a job in canada, but to no avail so naturally i'm giving up and searching for one within walking distance from my house.
Got car insurance sorted a week ago, still not practiced once. Took my driving theory test. Failed. Played some poker. Won. Got drunk lots. All is good.

Wore a suit the other night for the first time ever, and drank wine to add a bit of class to my life. Felt kinda good, so at least that's one part of working a 9-5 i don't have to worry about hating :)

Deffo have to update more often, i think fitz could be dead/incapacitated. I dunno.

I'll leave it to others to complain about poker imo

So i can complain about how bad I've been running at physical health since i came here to Newcastle :(

Got a cold the first week, alreet no biggie. Then the fuckin flu that knocked me out for a couple days and now the sorest throat i've ever had which is making it very hard to eat and drink. All within a month! My immune system must be destroyed or summit, this can't be normal and i don't even usually get sick..

This is interfering with drinking/social events/school and i feel handicapped aorn. Yes i'm a hudge baby when i'm sick, just f'in hate it

/rant