Do bear in mind that my regular blog is at http://razorsharppro.wordpress.com

Greetings poker fans, and let me welcome you to another exciting instalment of the happenings of the UK poker scene.

It’s been a busy last couple of weeks for me both on and off the
tables and continuing where I left off on Sunday let’s get right back
into the think of the action:

Congratulations are in order for Birmingham’s Vincent Price on taking down the  GUKPT Walsall leg of the Summer Series.

After seeing off a tough field featuring the odd poker professional
that included Mickey Wernick and Liam ‘the gentleman’ Flood, Vincent
also saw off challenges from seasoned UK tournament circuit players
like Maria Demetriou and GUKPT Champion of Champion’s winner Ash
Hussain.

Several Cardiff players were in attendance including 6-card PLO
sickos Marco Clarke and Rana Gurnham and Neil Channing and Nik
Persaud’s stable of  Blackbeltpoker.comqualifiers in the form of Henry Griffiths (another South Wales boy)
John Lundy and Toby Lewis were also on hand to give Mr Price a run for
his money.

The price it seemed, was right for 21-year-old Birmingham native and
Broadway casino regular Vincent, who was playing in his first big
buy-in live tournament (note, not his first live tournament just his
first tourney with a buy-in over £100).

After eliminating four of the nine players on the final table,
crushing each in quick succession Vince found himself heads-up with
19-year-old Blackbeltpoker.com bluebelt Toby Lewis after Toby
dispatched third place finisher Simon Wickenden with the mighty Ace
King; which beat Simon’s Pocket Sixes in an all-in pre-flop race.

An epic hour-and-a-half heads-up battle ensued where the chip lead
changed hands several times, but it was victory for Vincent when his
turned full house on a 6-4-9-4-8 board proved too strong for Toby’s
King Nine when all the money went in on the river.

“I’m over the moon, shocked still really, it still hasn’t sunk in
yet and I can’t believe it. This is the first big tournament that I’ve
ever played in and the first big tournament that I’ve ever bought into
before for £500. This is the first real big cash that I’ve ever won,’
confirmed an ecstatic Mr Price, who has been a regular on the
Birmingham live circuit for the last three years.

GUKPT Walsall leg winner Vincent Price. Image courtesy of the GUKPT/BlueSquare

“My heads-up opponent Toby [Blackbeltpoker.com blue belt Toby Lewis]
was solid and was the one player going on to the final table that I
didn’t want to get involved in many pots with. He was a very solid
player and heads-up went on for an hour and a half – it was a brilliant
match against him and all credit to him he was very persistent and he
raised my blinds like 90% of the time. He’s played in almost all of the
GUKPT’s and I’m sure he’ll win one later on down the line; he’s
definitely got the talent for it.”

Both Vincent and Toby agreed to a deal where both took around
£16,000 for there troubles and played out for the prestige of the
trophy and a seat in the £100,000 Champion of Champion’s tournament
held at the end of the year in the Vic.

“I’m really looking forward to December, the Champion of Champion’s
event. Funnily enough, when I actually bought into the tournament I
didn’t even know that there was a seat for that tournament. It will be
a very tough event with all the winners of the other events so it won’t
be a walk in the park at all,’ confirmed Vince.

MBN…

Needless to say, while I played in the £200 side event (where I
managed to run my Pocket Kings into Pocket Aces in a blind v blind
battle on level three… doh!) my cash return for the weekend was
somewhat less than £16,000.

I did however manage to make £300 playing in the casino’s local £50
triple-chance deep-stack on Sunday after we all agreed to a 12-way chop.

What? A twelve way chop… Now while deals are part and parcel of
tournament poker, I usually like to play them out to a conclusion, but…
well being as the tourney didn’t start until 21:30 (after I had
finished all my work, obviously…) by the time 03:30 came around with 12
very evenly stacked players left, and still facing a two hour drive
back to Cardiff, when someone mentioned some quick, easy money the
mercenary in me jumped at the opportunity.

Working nine till five

Well, more like twelve till six by the time I crawled out of bed
after arriving home at 05:30am, but I have been cranking out the
features this week.

I’ve just sent off my tourney report to Poker News UK so you can read in more detail about the GUKPT’s fine Summer Series.

On a juicy gossip note, after chatting to Jonathan Rabb, the GUKPT
tour manager it seems that we might not have seen the last of the
Summer Series:

“We have recently bought the Isle of Capri casino, which is in the
Rico Stadium in Coventry, that’s now going to be turned into a G-casino
and we will be hoping to have a GUKPT event there soon… it’s quite
possible that there may well be a Summer Series event 4 in there in
September, but we have yet to finalise those details,” teased Jonathan.

He also hinted that the GUKPT maybe Europe bound next year, with a
possibility of a leg or two in Belgium as the Rank Group own two
casinos out there that have recently started spreading poker games.

Remember folks, you read it here first

SCOOOOOOOOOP!!

VisitPoker News UK for the full low-down.

Right well, I’ve got me some feature to write for Poker Pro Europe
as well (I’ll let you know more details closer to the time) and still
have to put some work into my Micro-stakes Mission as well as conquer
the world of online poker.

Super-stardom here we come…

While
Walsall may be a long way from the poker Mecca known as Las Vegas (5137
miles to be exact), poker is a universal game and fortune, glory and
the small matter of the £60,500 prize pool at the last leg of the  GUKPT Summer Series is enough to inspire any poker player to great deeds at the felt.

While the £19,520 on offer for first place is not quite as mouth
wateringly juicy as say, $9 million for winning the ‘Big One’ it’s
still a pretty good payday for two days of ‘work’.

With 121 runners turning up to pit wits on the baize, including
GUKPT Champion of Champion’s champion (that’s a lot of champions ) Ash Hussain, Black belt pokerblue belts Henry Griffiths, John Lundy and Toby Lewis, Liam ‘the
gentleman’ Flood, Maria Demetriou and UK poker stalwart Mickey Wernick
it was a pretty tough field duking it out for the title.

Also in attendance and hoping to topple the  Hit Squad’sSunny Chattha from the GUKPT leaderboard top spot was the winner of the
Newcastle leg Tony Phillips, fresh from winning the £300 event
yesterday [Saturday 28 June] for a cool £9,400. With this win he moves
into 3rd place on 190 points, just behind Irishman Martin Silke (winner
of the GUKPT Vic leg) on 225 points and Sunny Chattha on 230. If the
likable ex-poker dealer finished in 3rd place or better he will top the
GUKPT leaderboard.

29 players made their way back for Day 2 including all the Black
belt qualifiers, although Henry and John were eliminated before the
bubble burst as was Ash Hussain and Maria Demetriou.

After a 3-player bust out in one hand the money bubble burst and the final table was underway:

Seat 1 – Tony Phillips with 92,400 in chips

Seat 2 – Gordon Gainford 59,700 in chips

Seat 3 – Simon Wickenden 41,800 in chips

Seat 4 – Jeffery Buffenburger 26,800 in chips

Seat 5 – Mickey Wernick 35,000 in chips

Seat 6 – Abed Eid 123,300 in chips

Seat 7 – Richard Connolly 126,100 in chips

Seat 8 – Toby Lewis 181,900 in chips

Seat 9 – Vincent Price 315,500 in chip

With blinds at the final starting at 3,000/6,000 with a running ante
of 400 action has been thick an fast and likable Brummie Mickey Wernick
was first to fall; his all-in shove for 26,100 over the top of a Toby
Lewis raise of 16,000 found two callers in the form of Toby and fellow
Birmingham native and chip leader Vincent Price.

An 8h-8d-Jh flop saw Toby check-fold to Vincent’s bet to take the
pot heads-up. Mr Price’s Pocket Nine’s were in front of Mr Wernick’s
Ace King and stayed that way as the 3c and Qd hit the turn and river to
see Mickey eliminated in 9th with £1,210 for his troubles.

Blackbelt busts Buffenburger

Next to fall at the hands of Blackbeltpoker.com blue belt Toby Lewis
was Jeffery Buffenburger, whose Ace Ten of diamonds was well behind to
Toby’s Pocket Jacks.

The 5d-10s-7d flop made things interesting, but with no diamonds forthcoming Mr Buffenburger was eliminated in 8th for £1,820.

Next up on the chopping block was Isle of Mann based Poker Stars
business analyst Richard Connelly. You’d think working for the world’s
largest poker room would guarantee you a good run, but in true live
poker style Richard’s Ace King was no match for the Pocket Jacks of
Vincent Price (obviously if this was the internet Mr Connolly would
have pinged his Ace on the river ;-) ) who is currently on a bit of a heater.

Just a scant 15 minutes later and Tony Phillip’s dreams of a GUKPT
leaderboard top spot were dashed when his button shove with Pocket
Fours lost out to the Ace Nine of clubs of Brighton (well Bognor Regis
really) native Simon Wickenden who turned a flush to see Tony out in
6th for £3,020.

While young Mr Phillips looked disappointed to finish his tournament
prematurely his weekend has seen him net a tasty £12,420 and he
currently sits on 206 points on the GUKPT leaderboard.

The Price is Right…

Players began to fall thick and fast and 25 minutes after Tony hit
the rail Gordon Gainford shoved all-in for 97,000 over the top of
another Vincent Price raise.

Vincent duly made the call flipping over Pocket Threes, which were
racing against the Queen Nine of Gordon. Young Mr Price (who is just
21) is in the zone at the moment and true to form won the race in
style; flopping a set on the 5-2-3-10-2 board, eliminating Gordon in
5th for £3,930.

Just four minutes later (and on the last hand before the dinner
break no less) Vince put Manchester based building consultant Abed Eid
to bed after calling Abed’s 132,400 shove. Abed’s Pocket Seven’s were
in front for all of about 30 seconds until the 10c-6s-Kd flop put
Vincent’s Ace King miles in front. With no Seven rearing its ugly head
My Eid’s tournament dream was over and he bit the dust in 4th with
£5,440 as a consolation prize.

So with three players left we go on dinner break.

Current chip counts:

Vincent Price         630,000

Toby Lewis             430,000

Simon Wickenden     160,000

Right, I’m off to grab some munch but will update you all tomorrow
with the results and a link to the feature I’m currently writing on the
tournament for  Poker News UK.

In the summertime
when the weather is high, you can stretch right up and touch the sky.
When the weather’s fine – you got poker, you got poker on your mind….

While the worlds attention maybe focused on some small town poker
tournament called the World Poker Series or something held in the
depths of the Nevada desert (it’ll never catch on if you ask me…) there
is still plenty of poker out there in the UK for you discerning poker
junkies to sate your urges.

Both Grosvenor Casinos and Coral are keeping Britain as the land of
poker hope and glory with their GUKPT Summer Series and the Coral
British Masters Poker Tour for those of you not flush enough to pony up
$10,000 or just plain not lucky enough to win a WSOP seat online.

With the events ranging from £100 freeze-outs (at the CBMPT), £200
Freeze-outs (GUKPT & CBMPT), £300 freeze-outs (GUKPT) and the £500
main events (both the GUKPT & CBMPT) this summer is a pretty good
one for you British poker players.

British Master Class

After being fortunate enough to win myself a seat online at  www.eurobetpoker.netfor the princely sum of $75+5 (well, technically nothing as this was
just a small fraction of my online profit this month after a successful
assault on the Pot-Limit Omaha tables courtesy of Rolf Slotboom’s
short-stack PLO strategy ;-) ) I was in sunny Leeds last weekend (19–21 June) for the Coral British Masters.

While I was unable to convert my online success into a cash – I
busted in 50th out of the main event when my short-stacked shove for
6,500 at the 300/600 level with Pocket Kings ran into the mighty
Ace-Jack with all the money in the middle pre-flop (guess the first
card out…) – another Welshman in the form of Carl Williams managed to
cash.

Admittedly it was only for £250, but being as Carl had qualified
online for next-to-nothing (around $10 I believe) this was still a
pretty decent ROI, and being as I had 10% of him I managed to earn
myself £25 as well. Granted that’s not quite as impressive as winning a
World Series bracelet, but money won is still twice as sweet as money
earned.

CBMPT Leeds Champion Tom MacDonald. Image courtesy of A World of Poker.

Congratulations go to 18-year-old Tom MacDonald who saw off 93 other
players to reach heads-up with over a 3–1 chip lead. After seeing off a
spirited challenge from runner-up Jamie Sykes he bagged a bankroll
boosting £15,400 for his troubles, with Mr Sykes earning himself a cool
£10,000 in the process for second place.

My disastrous run of tournament form continued in the £100
freeze-out and after getting down to the final 20 with around 35k in
chips at the 800/1,600 level the wheels fell off…

I managed to lose two massive back-to-back pots, both while holding
Ace Queen; the first was pretty standard, a guy with around 20k shoved
my blind from the button and being as he had looked eager to get his
chips in the middle for a while, when I looked down to see Ace Queen of
spades in the Big Blind I was pretty sure I was in front.

Sure enough after making the call my big chick was dominating the gentleman’s Ace Four of diamonds, until he flopped a Four…

Running Ten’s and Seven’s saw me chop the pot (apparently I’m the lucky
bastard here…) so one 72% v 23% (the other 5% is a chop) down, one more
to go…

Just a scant two hands later I find myself on the Button with… Ace
Queen. I raise to 4,000 the Big Blind glances at his cards and
instantly moves all-in. Now personally, I don’t think that he’s doing
this with a hand here, maybe a rag Ace or small pocket pair at best so
it doesn’t take long for me to make the call.

‘Fucking hell, I’m in bad shape’ mumbles the gent in question as I
call and he’s sees my Ace Queen, and he turns over Ace Nine off…

Blank, blank, blank, blank… Nine on the river sees me left with just
one Big Blind and a bad taste in my mouth and I’m out in 19th on the
next hand when my bag of spanners fails to connect with the flop.

But then, that’s tournament poker for you…

You can read all about the action and adventure at uk.pokernews.com as I’ve just submitted a feature for their website.

On the plus side I managed to come away with a £500 profit from my
escapades on the cash tables (£350 of which I made in 10 minutes at one
table…) so life’s not all bad.

The atmosphere surrounding the Tour is as friendly as the Gala Tour,
and with a lot of the same faces and the fact that you can play in all
three tournaments and pay for your hotel for the price of just one
GUKPT, it is a pretty good value poker weekend.

The next leg is 24–26 July in Teeside, followed by the Nottingham leg on 14–16 August. Qualify online at www.coralpoker.com,  www.galapoker.co.uk and www.eurobetpoker.netfor as little as nothing as they are running a series of freerolls from
6pm every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday or visit  www.britishmasterspokertour.co.ukfor more details.

GUKPT Summer Series

GUKPT Aberdeen Summer Series Champion John Angus. Image courtesy of BlueSquare/GUKPT

Not to be outdone, Grosvenor Casino’s are also running their Summer
Series. Their second event was held up in Aberdeen last weekend (yes,
an unfortunate schedule clash with the CBMPT which probably explained
the low number of runners) where retired accountant John Angus (insert
Burger King joke here…) saw off the 41 other runners to win himself
£7,870. Congratulations to Black Belt Poker blue belt and Poker Player
Strategy Editor Nick Wright on his third place finish for £3,780. It’s
always nice to see a fellow poker journo win some glory, and Nick is an
all round nice guy anyway.

The last event of the Summer Series will be running this coming
weekend (25–18 June) in Walsall so you can still get your Summer of
Shove tournament fix here.

Needless to say I and several other members of Cardiff’s poker mafia (the Tafia ) will be attending and will be writing an article on it for Poker News.

The quality of play and the value at these tournaments is immense,
so while the majority of the poker world focuses on Las Vegas, don’t
forget there is still poker to be played and money to be made on this
side of the pond as well.

Visit  http://www.grosvenorukpokertour.com/summer_series.shtml

for more info or qualify online at  BlueSquare.com.

Micro-stakes madness…

Unfortunately as my focus both online and live has been on the above
I have not had a chance to play any poker relating to my Micro-stakes
Mission, but as this is a work in progress, rest assured I will be
grinding it out at the lower levels in an attempt to win fortune and
glory in the coming weeks. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Well I’ve got me a few features to write before the weekend so I’ll
sign off until Monday where I’ll let you know all about the GUKPT
Summer Series in Walsall and probably bitch about my bad beats

Keep it real folks, and if all else fails… try Wales.

Tidy.

Well we’re off
and running with the micro-stakes challenge. Check out my progress by
selecting Back to the Future: The Micro-stakes Mission in the side bar.

After grinding all week with my free time I have made around a 36% increase to my roll.

Amusingly though in an attempt to blow off some steam after playing
‘proper’ bankroll management all week, I sat down on Saturday for a
good old fashioned spin-up rampage on Eurobet’s PLO tables.

Having just recently finished reading Rolf Slotboom’s Secrets of Professional Pot-Limit Omaha  I was intrigued by his short-stack approach to the game, which I decided to try out as part of my spin-up.

The tactic involves sitting in for to a game with the minimum buy-in
(yes, I’ve joined the irritating hit-and-run short-stackers society),
preferably with a strong aggressive player to your left (yes, you want
them to have position on you).

Patience is the key here, you are waiting for a fairly decent hand
like double-suited Aces or Kings where all four cards work well
together.

Double-suited run-down hands are also good here.

You usually want to just call knowing the aggressive player will
usually raise and get called in a couple of spots so you can re-raise
all-in. Obviously you need to mix this up with some Button raises and
re-raises when you have the goods as well so you don’t become too
predictable.

Hopefully the obliging LAG should re-raise giving you some
protection and taking the hand heads-up so you are getting around 3-1
on your money while being around a 60/40 favourite in the hand.

Obviously this is not an exact science and the key to success is
picking your spots carefully. Occasionally you’ll be against two other
players in the pot and while your win percentage may drop here you are
still getting a pretty good return on your money for taking a
favourable gamble.

The trick is not to get too greedy, as soon as you have doubled up
and have enough to buy in for the minimum for the next level you leave
the table and jump up stakes.

You can experiment with this strategy a little if you find a level
you are comfortable playing at and I did just that at the $1/$1 tables
running my $20 into around $160 in about half an hour before I
hit-and-ran to buy into the $2/$2 game for $40.

The best part about this approach is the fact you are risking a
little to win a lot in a short space of time, while still using some
semblance of bankroll management: While you are effectively playing
higher than your roll allows you should still only be risking around 5%
of your total net worth.

The best way to ensure success is to give yourself a total you are
happy reaching and then calling it quits and banking the money.

Poker is a game of swings and roundabouts – sometimes I spin around so fast I get dizzy…

I pulled the plug after working my way up to the $5/$5 level where I
had a quick double-up and finished $390 in profit for around three and
a half hours work.

So effectively I managed to spin $10 into $400 – not bad work if you
can get it. Kind of the anti-thesis to my micro-stakes approach, but
then I had to play a game where I was free of the stringent constraints
I had been playing under all week. I think that it’s important to mix
it up online to stop you from going stir crazy, burning out and driving
yourself insane grinding it out at the lower levels.

Going Live

While I have been enjoying moderate success online this month, my live game on the other hand has been a disaster.

While I enjoyed a fairly sizable win at Bristol’s £1/£2 ROE (round
of each Pot-Limit Texas and Pot-Limit Omaha) I have had several back to
back losing sessions where my sets have been outdrawn by gutshots, or
people have just plain been refusing to fold for all their chips when
the draw card fails to materialise on the turn, calling off and then
pinging the river… Sick.

I’m enjoying (not sure if this is quite the right word…) my first
losing month since January and only my third ever losing month since
I’ve been keeping records. Unfortunately it’s also my biggest losing
month to date as well. Not so good.

I’m off to Leeds on Friday to cover and play in the  Coral British Masters Poker Tour so I can only pray for a reversal in fortune and an end to my losing live streak. Time will tell.

It’s odd, whenever I win online I seem to break even or lose live
and when I am winning live my online game suffers. I will have to work
to fix this strange correlation between cyber-space and
bricks-and-mortar. Fingers crossed…

Being as I seem to be running ok on the old intermaweb I will also
be attempting to satellite in to the Coral Tour £500+50 main event via
the freerolls, $5 re-buy and $10 freeze-out. I’ll keep you posted.

As I will be working and gambling with reckless abandon on Friday
and over the weekend I probably won’t be posting until next Monday
where I will also be updating my micro-stakes challenge results as well.

Until that day folks…

08.06.09

Starting account balance: £10

14.06.09

Closing account balance: £13.67

Word of the week is grind…

A good start to the challenge where I have managed a 36% increase to my micro roll.

Things we learnt this week:

Tight, solid ABC poker is what wins the money at these low levels.

Value bet your opponents to death.

When someone donk-bets into you and you have it, re-raise you WILL get paid.

Lots of micro-grinding makes you go stir crazy…

It will be a couple of months (hopefully) before I will be playing
any ‘proper’ poker at these levels; and by proper poker I mean six-max
cash.

As I am playing within strict bankroll management parameters and
quite frankly can’t bring myself to grind it out in the $0.01/$0.02
cash games (I just don’t have it in me, I’d rather watch endless Big
Brother re-runs while strapped into the Clockwork Orange social
rehabilitation chair…) I have been playing a shed-load of $1.20 SNG’s.
Some six-max, some full ten-handed, some of the Double or Nothings just
to mix it up a little and have a little variety.

Now while the Double or Nothings don’t offer you a great return on your money (as you are paying 1/5 of your profits in rake ) they are great for growing a roll with minimum risk and play slightly
differently to your standard SNG, being more like an online
qualifier/satellite.

As I’m in the middle of writing a feature on this very topic I’m not
going to go into too much detail here but will let you guys know when
and where the feature will be published so you can see for yourselves.

I won’t be playing cash until I have $200 (around £120 at current
exchange rates) in my account, then I can start playing the $0.05/$0.10
six-max games. Now while this might not be the giddy high-rolling
heights that some players enjoy I am quite looking forward to it as I’m
sure by the time I have earned enough to play these stakes I will be
thoroughly sick of SNG’s.

After a week I have played 26 SNG’s broken down into:

6 Turbo six-max Double or Nothings for 0 profit

I tried these out and found that they get too crap-shooty on the money
bubble with the fast escalating blinds and probably won’t be playing
any more of these.

1 20-man $1.20 SNG for a loss of $1.20

See below.

2 30-man $1.20 SNG’s for a loss of $2.40

While I came close I bubbled both of these but was just taking a
bankroll boosting shot with the profits from my six-max SNG’s. I would
imagine I will take a shot with one or two of these a week depending on
how I run as you have a slightly greater variance against more players.
The return of $12 for first place makes them worthwhile I think.

1 ten-handed SNG for a profit of $3.80

The only reason I didn’t bother with more of these is that the six-max
versions are quicker and you have to fight through less players to make
the money, though I might mix it up and play a couple more this week.

16 six-max SNG’s some Double or Nothings, some standard SNG’s for a profit of $6.20

I found these the easiest to play and they gave me the best return. Now
while my ROI for the whole week was only 17% (this will need to improve
drastically) I am happy that I have finished up after the first week. I
had to change my game up from my usual aggressive cash style and lost a
couple of key hands at bubble time by not adapting to the micro-stakes
styles (i.e. don’t bluff, you will get called…).

Hopefully now I have changed my game up we should see some better results next week.

Until then poker fans…

If
you had a time travelling DeLorean what would you do and where would
you go? Aside from the obvious ‘back in time to last week so I could
pick the winning lottery numbers’ that is…

Unlike Marty McFly and friends I’d forget 1885 and the old West – it
might look cool but riding a horse gives you a sore arse and makes you
walk like John Wayne, plus you stood a great chance of catching TB.

As a poker player I often wonder what it would have been like to
play in the old West where cheating was rife and you were as likely to
be outdrawn by a headcase with a Colt as by a fish with a flush
(interestingly flushes were a late edition to the game of poker and
were introduced around 1850 along with the British 52-card deck which
is used today). Just ask Wild Bill about getting outdrawn… There’s a
reason Aces and Eights is called the ‘Dead man’s hand’.

No, fuck that for a game of Cowboys and Indians. Myself, I’d go back in time nine years to early 2000 before the ‘Moneymaker effect’ happened  – where people were still all rubbish at poker and it was easy to win online.

Runner,
runner flush… Damn it Marty! That\’s the third time I\’ve had my Aces
cracked this week. I thought this whole online poker nonsense was
supposed to be easy…

It’s fair to say that the modern game of poker, especially online
moves slightly faster than the 88mph needed to send the DeLorean back
to the future and some of the outdraws you see on the old intermaweb
leave you muttering more than just ‘Great Scott!’ under your breath.

But is it still possible to win consistently online? I think yes,
it’s just the edge is getting smaller and the margins become narrower
as everyone three/four-bets and seems to want to get it in so light.

The online game must be beatable as the new generation of
up-and-coming professionals like Tom Dwan, Luke ‘FullFlush1’ Schwartz,
Andrew Feldman and an army of others spin $50 into six-figure
bankrolls, seemingly in a matter of minutes…

Well ok that’s a slight exaggeration but it got me wondering, being
as Chris Ferguson and Daniel Negreanu managed to turn nothing into
$10,000 and $10 into $100,000 respectively, is it still possible to
spin up something from nothing – or more accurately a lot from a little?

Well in true Doc Brown style I’ve decided to conduct a little
experiment – a micro-stakes experiment to be exact; here on my blog
with a view to writing a couple of features on it for a few of the
poker titles I write for.

So first of all I’ll let you folks know the rules and parameters
I’ll be setting myself, but the general goal is to prove that online
poker is still beatable. That and it’s a pretty good challenge to set
yourself to prevent you from becoming bored and your game from becoming
stale. After all if I can beat $1/$2 and $2/$4 six-max cash games how
hard can $1.20 SNG’s and $0.05/$0.10 cash games be to beat?

Now I haven’t actually set myself a timeframe for this little jaunt
into the microcosm of small stakes poker. Rather, I was just conducting
it to see how long it would take me, more to prove to myself and others
that the whole poker dream of rags to riches is still possible even in
today’s highly aggressive game where your average player now actually
knows a bit about pot odds, will have read a variety of poker books and
is probably signed up to an online training site and is a member of
poker forums like2 plus 2 or  Pocket Fives.

The Rules

The goal:

Phase 1 – Turn £10 into £1000

Phase 2 – Turn £1000 into £100,000

I will be starting with a bankroll of £10 (around $16 US dollars).

I am only allowed to buy in for a maximum of 5% of my roll for SNG’s and cash games.

No more than 15% of my roll can be in play at any one time up to a maximum of 5% per table.

If my stack is more than 10% of my total bankroll during a cash game I must cash out and find a new table.

I can only buy into MTT’s for a maximum of 3% of my bankroll.

The moment I have enough in my roll to move up to the next level I HAVE to move up.

The moment I don’t have enough in my roll to play the level I’m playing at I MUST drop back down.

Rakeback counts towards the challenge (bearing in mind that I am
using only one of my online poker accounts for this experiment and will
be playing only games directly related to the challenge/experiment with
this account). After all in today’s online game where someone is
effectively offering you a money-back guarantee you’d have to be crazy
not to take it, right?

Feedback Frenzy

So there you have it folks, feel free to chip in with any thoughts,
ideas, other weird things that can make the experiment/challenge more
interesting, or just give me your opinion on what I’m doing.

I’ll be keeping you posted with regular updates in a sub-section of
my blog (see the right hand side column under the tab marked ‘Back To
The Future:The Micro-stakes Mission’) this will be separate to my
regular blog where I will still be posting what articles I’ve been
writing, where they’ll be published and also any other random topics I
feel like talking about.

Let the games begin. Let’s see if these short-stackers can do 90…

Welcome
back poker fans, apologies for the long time no post. I’ve been up to
my eyeballs in work, some poker related, some not and have been
working, writing and networking like a trooper in a successful attempt
clear my workload before taking a well deserved working holiday to the
poker Mecca that is Las Vegas.

On a work related note I’ve got a couple of articles due for
publication soon. The first is a piece for WPT magazine on 6-card Pot
Limit Omaha. Yes that’s right folks, all the mischief and mayhem of its
4-card brother only harder, sicker, faster and more swingy with bigger
pots… While it may sound insane it’s also loads of fun and believe it
or not, there is some skill involved. Read the feature to find out
more; it’s in issue 43 out this month I believe.

I’ve just sold WPT a profile on Phil ‘Unabomber’ Laak, which should be out in issue 44.

Phil is an off-the-wall kinda guy, so we have an off-the-wall kind of
feature – it was a fun one to write so I hope you guys enjoy reading it.

I submitted a ‘Heads Up’ interview with Roland De Wolfe and Juha
Helppi to Poker Pro Europe, which should be out soon – I’ll let you
know the details just as soon as I find out when it’ll be in print.

Congratulations to Barry Carter who has just be made the new editor of the UK’s Poker News.
This can only be a good thing as Barry is one of the UK poker scene’s
more prolific writers and I’m sure the website will go from strength to
strength. Check out his ‘Get Carter’ poker blog.

Vegas Baby! Vegas!

Vegas Baby! Vegas!

On a slightly less work related note I just got back from Vegas this
week after a ‘working’ holiday, well actually that’s not strictly true,
more a holiday that I intended to combine with work but the interview I
had scheduled has been delayed to some other point in the (hopefully)
not to distant future.

This is not such a bad thing however as it gave me ample time to
indulge in second favourite pastime, playing poker (the first being
writing about poker obviously).

While I’m not going to go into details about bad beats and winnings,
I came back with more money than I went with and have a few interesting
statistics for you:

Out of the 8 Tafia members who went on the trip only four of us were
poker players, that being said we did alright for ourselves and learned
that the Yanks don’t like to fold middle pair much.

Welsh Busted: 5

Yanks Busted: 34

Brazilians Busted: 1 (I met two, one of whom was a professional pool
player who is friends with Maltese snooker pro Tony Drago whom I didn’t
bust, the other was called Hannibal – which I thought was quite a cool
name, unfortunately for him he didn’t eat me alive…)

Of course take note that ‘Busted’ means taken down to the felt, not just beaten in a pot.

Hours played: 37

So that’s nearly a Yank an hour, rest assured folks next time we’ll do better .

A big hello to some of the American guys I ended up playing with,
they were a friendly bunch. Most specifically Casey, a Vegas DJ who
looked like Seth Rogan and showed my brother and I a great time taking
us to an after-hours nightclub at 6am after a 7 hour poker session and
getting us in for free.

Casey, if you’re out there bud you’ve got my business card, drop me
a line as I managed to lose my wallet that night with your business
card in it. Any fan of Human Traffic is always welcome in Cardiff, and
yes, it’s just like it is in the film…

Also thanks to Boston Dan, a guy myself and Alan ‘Wheel Warrior’
Wicks ended up playing with all night. We got the whole table gambling
like crazies and drinking Jagerbombs – a truly tremendous evening,
especially as Alan and myself ended up with most of the money on the
table when we finished playing at around 6.30am.

It’s a tough job but someone’s gotta do it

One Way Poker

What goes up must come down. It took me three days to get over my
jetlag but I did manage to finish third in my local deep-stack
tournament (at the Grosvenor, Cardiff Bay – location of the August leg
of the GUKPT ) the day after getting home, which was nice.

I was in Swansea over the weekend at Aspers casino for the launch of
the Romanello family’s (yes Roberto and his brothers have decided to
make their mark on the world of online poker) new poker website launch.

OneWayPoker.comis an iPoker skin so not only can you play on one of the internets’
largest poker networks you can also find some of Wales’ finest butting
heads over the poker tables – and yes we do have some good players…

I spent most of the night ‘networking’ (a posh word for work-related
drinking) and had an entertaining evening hanging around with Jon
Kalmar who is a thoroughly nice guy. He’ll be hitting up Las Vegas from
next Wednesday hoping to repeat chance with another great finish in the
Main Event so I wish him the best of luck.

Aside from the Romanello family (including Roberto, obviously…) also
in attendance were some of Cardiff and Swansea’s finest including Rana
Gurnham, Marko Clarke and Neil ‘Six-card’ Shellard, Full-Tilt sponsored
red pro Andrew Feldman, Marc Goodwin, Mickey Wernick and many more who
I didn’t get a chance to chat to.

To Leeds and beyond…

Unless the poker gods smile on me in the next four weeks and grant
me a WSOP package I will unfortunately be UK grounded for the duration
of the Series.

I will however be keeping a close eye on the action and hope that the UK contingent do us proud.

We should have a fighting chance for bracelets this year what with Mr Channing and Mr Persaud’s  Blackbeltpoker.com qualifiers.

Congratulations to Cardiff (well Newport actually, but if I was from
there then I’d want people to say I was from Cardiff…) player Henry
Griffiths who qualified for blue belt. While he won’t be going to Vegas
(that was brown belt and above) he has got himself a nice deal for
playing in some of the UK poker tours fine side events so we wish him
the best of luck.

On a UK poker related note I’ll be heading up to Leeds next month to cover the  Coral British Masters Poker Tour where I will be hoping for a shot at fortune and glory myself.

Qualify online at www.coralpoker.com, www.galapoker.co.uk and  www.eurobetpoker.netfor as little as nothing as they are running a series of freerolls from 6pm every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

There are a whole host of other qualifiers and the main event itself is only £500+£50 for a two-day deep-stack.

There’s also a £200 and £100 side event so for those without the
bankroll to hit up Sin City, try Leeds. It might not be as glamorous
but for quality British poker they’ll be some good play and the chance
to win some cash… Show me a downside.

I’ll either be posting next on Friday or Monday (depending on my work schedule) so stay tuned poker fans.

And if all else fails, try Wales…

Greetings
poker fans and apologies for the lack of post on Friday – I did think,
however it would make more sense to post after the weekend’s poker
action at the GUKPT Manchester leg and the EPT San Remo.

So onto business:

First time’s a charm at the GUKPT

Unlike the 298 runners, I was unable to make it up to Manchester for
the forth leg of the GUKPT due to work and partying commitments (it was
my 30th birthday this weekend).

With £298,000 to play for and a seat in the £100,000 Champion of
Champion’s tournament up for grabs the competition was always going to
be fierce.

Some of the UK’s toughest pro’s were in attendance including:

Paul Jackson, Joe Grech, Dave Colclough, Surinder Sunar, Jeff Kimber,
the Hit Squad’s Karl Marenholtz & James Akenhead, Leg 3 winner
Martin Silke. Stuart Rutter, Ryan Fronda, Marc Goodwin. Ian Frazer and
online whiz kid Chris Moorman.

With a field as a tough as this it was always going to be a tricky one
to navigate, but in true tournament style – there can be only one…

And it was Simon Moorman (father of online tournament professional Chris Moorman) who walked away £88,630 richer.

GUKPT Manchester winner Simon Moorman. Images courtesy of GUKPT/Quentin Kozma

Playing in only his second ever live tournament and first ever
GUKPT, 52-year-old Simon from Essex defeated a final table featuring
Surinder Sunar and GCBPT serial final tablist Dave Maudlin before
triumphing over Finland’s Harri Isomaki (also playing in one of his
first live tournaments after qualifying via an online freeroll for a
50,000% ROI…) after a short heads-up battle.

The irony of this cannot be lost on Moorman junior (Chris) who has
so far been unable to translate his prolific online success to the live
tournament scene, especially as it was Chris who bought his father into
the tournament as a late birthday present.

“The only way I can top this is to win the main event of the World Series of Poker.” Chris commented afterwards.

The tour now moves on to Newcastle, where the 5th leg of this year
tour will take place from the 18th-24th May, with the 4-day main event
taking place from the 21st-24th.

Visit the GUKPT website for more details.

The Italian Job

On a more continental note, also on last week was the EPT San Remo
main event where 1,178 players ponied up the €5,300 buy-in to compete
in what has officially become the biggest major poker tournament ever
held in Europe.

With an eye-poppingly massive prize pool of € 5,713,300 to play for
and a star studded field to play through, this was always going to be a
high calibre tournament, hence the picturesque wealthy setting – San
Remo is just a 30-minute drive from Monte Carlo.

As well as the obligatory collection of ultra-aggressive Scandies
including EPT winner Andreas Hoivold, young Mr Albert Iversen (see my
forthcoming interview with him in Poker Pro Europe) fellow Dane Jesper
Hougaard and 2007 WSOPE winner Annette Obrestad there was also a
plethora of representatives from a multitude of countries.

Representing the US was last year’s winner Jason Mercier, Greg
‘Fossil Man’ Raymer and Chad Brown. Winner of the EPT Dortmund leg
Sandra Naujoks was in attendance as were fellow Germans Benjamin Kang,
Jan Heitmann and George Danzer.

EPT regulars such as Marcel Luske, Patrik Antonius were in
attendance on Day 1B as well as Bill ‘The Mathematics of Poker’ Chen,
WSOP champion Peter Eastgate, Ireland’s Marty Smyth, Liam Flood and
Tony Cascarino, Wales’ John Tabatabai and Roberto Romanello, online
super sicko Ben ‘Milkybar Kid’ Grundy, Richard Ashby, 2007 GUKPT champ
Mike Ellis and I believe that Richard Kellett told me he was planning
to play as well as many, many others.

In fact I could go on to list a whole host of different names from
many, many different countries but I’m not going to as it would take up
loads of space and not actually be that interesting, after all it is
the action and adventure that actually matters.

EPT San Remo winner Constant Rijkenberg

And it was Dutchman Constant Rijkenberg who bagged the €1,508,000
first prize beating Finland’s Kalle Niemi heads-up in just five hands.

The 20-year-old Dutchman from Amsterdam is an economics student so
I’m sure he will have plenty of plans to invest his winnings
productively, probably none of which will involve blowing the lot
playing ultra-high stakes.

The next leg the EPT Grand Final kicks off tomorrow (28th April) so
it’ll just be the small matter of relocating the 1,778 poker players up
the road to Monte Carlo for the €10,600 tournament and more fast and
furious action.

Visit theEPT homepage here  for more info.

No rest for the wicked

On a work related note I am busy with a Roland de Wolfe and Juha
Helppi interview which should be appearing in Poker Pro Europe at some
point in the next few months – I’ll keep you posted.

It looks like a busy couple of weeks for me as I attempt to clear my
current workload before heading off to Sin City (Las Vegas, not Frank
Miller’s black and white comic book dystopia) for a working holiday
involving poker… lots of poker.

Also, big thanks to UK poker pundit  Barry Carter for helping me sell some of my work and for all his invaluable advice on making it in the cut throat world of poker journalism.

Stay tuned poker fans – there will be more blogage as I have many
more articles to sell. After all life (so I am told by my older
friends) begins at 30 – so today is the first day of the rest of my
life. I’ll let you know how it goes…

Well, just finished the first of my many Irish Open features and am part way through another… It’s a good thing I like writing

Unlike wrestling with the pros, you are unlikely to seriously hurt
yourself when wrestling with prose – although I have noticed a
disturbing tendency for my eyes to bleed if I squint too hard at the
screen… Looks like a career as a Bond villain is assured; now all I
have to do is call massive all-ins with Ace Six off-suit on the Button…

Just been reading the latest copy of  WPT mag– I did quite like their feature on classic poker film hands but
noticed a couple of omissions which I felt needed a mention (and
perhaps a slating…)

The Sting (1973)

Floyd: “Doyle, I KNOW I gave him four THREES. He had to make a switch. We can’t let him get away with that.”

Doyle: “What was I supposed to do – call him for cheating better than me, in front of the others?”

Eat your heart out \’The Real Hustle\’ Paul Newman did it first…

Any movie with Paul Newman in is always pretty classy, after all how
can a man who uttered the immortal line: “Money won is twice as sweet
as money earned…” do wrong?

(Bonus points for any who can name the film the above line comes from. Answers on a postcard )

This has to be one of my favourite poker scenes ever in a movie,
where Chicago conman Gondorff (Paul Newman) is setting up an elaborate
con against mob banker Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw – who also plays
Quint in Jaws).

After Gondorff sends his girlfriend to steal Lonnegan’s wallet on
the New York to Chicago train, he then proceeds to buy into Lonnegan’s
private poker game with the guy’s own money. Now that is what I call a
freeroll…

Being as Mr Newman’s character is a bit of a card sharp he proceeds
to rinse the game for some serious cash, also finding time to hand out
some classy rub-downs; a true professional

Obviously irritated by this flash, smug player, Lonnegan switches
decks (the old cold deck scam) to “bust that bastard bookie in one
play”.

This is where it gets really classy, heralding back to the ‘old
days’ of poker where cheating was as much a part of the game as card
sense. It’s always tough to cheat a cheater though as Lonnegan finds
much to his ire; Gondorff uses some slight of hand magic to win the
hand and sting Lonnegan for $15,000 – which Lonnegan obviously can’t
afford to pay as he’s had his wallet pinched…

Not being able to accuse Newman’s character of being an out and out
cheat without revealing himself to be an unscrupulous cheating son of a
bitch as well, Lonnegan is forced to bite the bullet, pay the debt, and
is now easily manipulated into getting stung in an elaborate scam…

This is classy old school draw poker and cheating at it’s finest,
and while I’m not in anyway advocating this as ok – it is a pretty damn
good movie.

Lucky You (2007)

L. C. Cheever: You and I both know what the book says you should do, Kid.

Huck Cheever: Is that what you do now? Just play by the book? You might as well play online.

Don\’t make me angry and crack my Aces – you wouldn\’t like me when I\’m angry…

Unlucky you if you wasted the two hours needed to watch this rather lacklustre romantic poker comedy.

That’s a whole two hours you’ll never see again folks… I don’t know
what your ROI and hourly rate at the cash tables is but I seriously
considered invoicing the production company for loss of earnings and a
severe cheese allergy.

The words romance, poker and comedy don’t really fit together that
well… ask any poker player, the only regulars I see at my poker tables
are overweight miserable old grinders – granted I don’t live in Vegas,
but still, not the best combination for a film.

While some of the poker in this film is pretty realistic (most to be
fair, though there is more than the odd ‘cheesy moment’) the final
scene…

***Spoiler Alert*** (although you will thank me for this in the long run, now you don’t have to watch the film.)

God, where to start… Not that I didn’t appreciate the cameo by John
Hennigan (aka ‘Johnny World’ because he will apparently bet on anything
in the world…) that was kinda cool.

No the worst bit, the absolute out and out ridiculous scream ‘fuck
off’ out loud in disbelief moment comes right near the end when our
hero Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) folds (yes folds…) Pocket Aces on the
least scary looking board… ever… to his father L.C Cheever who has…
Pocket Kings.

Load. Of. Shite.

Now obviously that’s not the most objective statement in the world
but surely even Doyle Brunson (who was the poker consultant) would give
his son Todd a clip around the ear if he did that at the final table of
the World Series of Poker.

Let me reiterate: the FINAL TABLE of the WSOP…

And the film says soft playing is okay…

Not cool, and not realistic…

Ok, rant over.

Razor Sharp Prose

On a work related and shameless self-publicity note – we have ignition!

Yes that’s right folks, my freelance website is now officially
online, slightly delayed due to some technical issues, but online
nevertheless.

Check it out:  www.RazorSharpProse.co.uk

(I also have  www.RazorSharpProse.combut that is giving me some grief at the moment, though it will all be working very soon.)

My shiny new freelance website

Feel free to check it out – all constructive criticism welcome, you
can also check out some of my past work for the various poker mags I’ve
written for…

Also, the latest copy of  WPTis out (issue 42 with the Devilfish on the front cover) and this has my
Pro on Pro feature with James Dempsey (aka ‘Flushy’) and Dave ‘El
Blondie’ Colclough.

I think they’ll be putting it up on their website soon so will post up a link if and when they do. Link through to the feature here.

Well, I’ve still got me a great deal of writing to do folks, though
a will be posting up a UK poker news update (nothing to do with the Poker News  website at all) on my blog here at the end of the week – most probably Friday.

Tune in for updates and the happenings of the UK poker scene.

And don’t fold Pocket Aces to your dad at the final table of the WSOP, ever…