#Standard

#prayforMG

As far as I can see the leaderboard is fully up to date. 2nd place is still up for grabs and things are so close in the top 10 as we approach the final weekend. I'm taking a few days off poker before playing my last tournament Saturday night. It's on Sky where I've had 2 wins so hoping I can take this one down and steal 2nd.

I can tie 2nd if no one elses points change and I win Sky tomorrow.........said I wanted top 5 so aim is to at least break that.

Best of luck tomorrow bud!

And you Jon, GL. If you final table you should fire up twitch, surely got to get one in this season!

Ha I don't have a rig setup for it sadly!

Time for a monthly roundup.

Off the tables:

Bought a new car so I can drive without feeling like I'm in a deathtrap. Mazda 6 2.0 diesel sport. It's quick, solid and has good MPG so spending less on fuel. It's also old enough to be cheap. BUT, I didn't sell the bike (oops) so debt is up. Oh well.

Found a place to live. Moving in 11 days. Loads to do and since we are downsizing we need to clear out a tonne of stuff. Busy busy busy. Can't wait to have it all done, be unpacked and settled. Plus I'll have my own little office for poker and work. Nice!

Decided I'm going to have to move on from my place of work (hope no one there sees this!). There's just not enough work coming in so either I find something else or eventually I'll be let go. Shame as I've only been there a year but it is what it is. I'm going to try and hold out til next year. By then I should have enough knowledge and experience to go for contract work. It will mean working in London but for more than double the money.

To keep myself motivated to do and learn more in my field I've setup a blog BlogMyBI where I'll post things all sorts to do with Business Intelligence, SSRS reports etc (don't worry if you have no idea what that is, it's pretty dull!). Only an intro on there right now but once the move is done I'm aiming for a weekly post.

Back at the gym. And running. And eating better. Fat is falling off steadily. Running is hard to get back into at this age, everything hurts! I'm feeling good (but sore) and motivated. Thinking of joining a Krav Maga class in a few weeks. I've done Tae Kwon Do and boxing so want to try something different.

So poker...

3rd in the OPL whoop whoop!

That's a nice $775 boost to the bankroll, look forward to seeing that pop in my skrill account. Part of me is disappointed I couldn't take it down, I was top of the leaderboard with 2 weeks to go but couldn't get a decent result in the last dozen tournaments. I'm torn as to whether or not I'll play in season 3. It's such good value but I find it really takes over everything for 2 months. If I do join in then I'll probably go all out on MTTs for the duration of it.

Without the OPL payment my current balance across all poker accounts and skrill is $2596. I started the year with $1408 so that's a nice profit. And with the OPL that'll be $1960 made so far in 2016. My original target for the year was to make $1000 so I'm very happy. Now hoping I can reach $4k by the end of the year.

On Sky specifically I'm up from £93 on Jan 1st, to £600 today.

Plans for May...

Move house.

Read lots.

Get back on the bike.

Keep lifting and running and losing weight. And start Krav Maga. Need to watch it though. Multiple hernias threatening to pop again. Not too fussed if one does though (apart from the pain of course) as it will mean I've a chance at actually getting surgery and fixing it once and for all.

Have an epic night out next weekend. Heading to London for Captain America: Civil War. Then it's bars and food before stepping into the Hippodrome Casino for a gamble and to watch Khan v Canelo. Breakfast then home for some sleep.

Take my first shot at 10NL. Excited and nervous about this. Been such a long time coming. I've observed the tables on Sky and a lot of the terrible 4NL regs also play 8 and 10NL so I've no doubt I can make some money there. And I'm bankrolled plenty for it so I'm not playing with scared money.

Get my BI blog going. And also a poker blog FlashAhahhh Not sure why as I post everything on here, but I was feeling blog happy so set this up. Hoping it will at least just give me some additional motivation. Going to record all my sessions (once I sort out issues with my laptop) so expect to see plenty of videos on the blog and in this journey thread. I'll also use them to do hand reviews, something that's been really lacking.

And finally, near the end of the month, do something special for the mrs' birthday.

Should be a good month!

Inspiring buddy. Nicely played for the month and year. Taking down all sites and formats.

Sweet.

Siiiiiick.


Wp wp.

What a sick month man so wp in the OPL and a great result. Season 3 is going to be awesome as well

That bankroll looks super healthy man...where is your head at - cash or tournaments?

I'm determined to move up the stakes in cash games so that's the main focus. Plus I find cash the best way to actually improve my game. But eventually I think tournaments will take over as I'd like to play in some big ones regularly and get that big score!

I look forward to seeing what season 3 will bring.

Not quite the end of the month but with so little to report I thought I'd get it done early.

May has been an almost entirely poker free month. Moving house has dominated my time and left little room for anything else. My local dump has become a 2nd home since we were downsizing and had to clear out so much stuff. Honestly I think we have gotten rid of more than we kept.

But anyways the move is done, everything is unpacked and in it's place. My office (see Mancave) is setup and I'm ready to crush the rest of the year. I have played a couple of quick sessions at 10NL and there is very little difference from 4NL. The regs are still terrible and the recreationals still throwing their money away. I think I'm up a buy in or so after a few hundred hands. The only difference I've noticed so far is that while there is still loads of limp-calling going on, there isn't so much limp-folding. Fine by me I've no doubt I can crush 10NL and get up to 25NL fairly quickly.

Only issue now is bankroll. Financial difficulties this month mean I've had to empty almost all my accounts, including OPL payout, leaving me with just over £600 in my Sky account. That's plenty for 10NL but I'll have to win my way up to 25NL. This also means I will most definitely be taking part in the OPL season 3, determined to take it down and boost the bankroll. Bring it on!!

Also looking forward to the Virgin Vegas tourney tomorrow night. Winning that would be nice way to win the month. Got to say also that the signup process on Virgin was super slick so hoping the software is just as good.

In other news... Work is busy which makes a very nice change. Gym and running is going well. Thinking of getting a bike so I can ride to work (alternating journeys with the motorbike) which would burn 500-600 calories each journey - that should help shift the gut. Not joining a Krav Maga class just yet. The aforementioned financial difficulties mean I'm totally focused on reducing spend, maximising income, clearing debt and eventually somewhere down the line, getting rich (gotta keep dreaming!).

Bank holiday weekend to come and then I'm making June my bitch!

Was wondering where you had been! Congrats on the house - any pics of the man cave?

Yeh the Virgin game is sick right?!?! All signed up and registered?

I feel you really understand value and seem to get in some incredible spots even including the fact you grind cash on Sky.

Smart moves all round and hope you bink the holiday

Cheers @Jon-PokerVIP The man cave isn't much but I'll take some pics.

Signed up but looks like registration isn't until 8.45pm. I might be drunk before it starts!

Bring on the 3 day weekend!!

@Jon-PokerVIP Any news on OPL season 3?

Came 6th out of 156 in the Virgin Vegas tourney. Was chip leader for a long time but the final table everyone was short stacked so it was pot luck all ins. Finally lost A5s v Q9o all in pre. Not going to Vegas but it's £40 profit.

Copied from my blog...

So with very little poker played in May due to moving house, the Vegas Experience tournament on Virgin Poker seemed like a great way to get back into the action and perhaps bink a 4 night stay in sin city. Having never played on the relatively new site I thought I'd give my take on the software as well as a rundown of how the tournament went.



Firstly, the sign up process was perhaps the quickest and easiest of any site I've joined. The software is run via your web browser so there is no client to download and install. Just fill in your details, make a deposit and you're on the tables in a couple of minutes.

I sign up to almost all sites via PokerVIP.com, here's a link to their Virgin deal: https://www.pokervip.com/deals/independent/virgin-poker. A quick Skype chat with the PokerVIP admin and I was good to go. There's no rake deal to be had but they are offering a 200% cash bonus. I only deposited £20 as I wasn't sure I'd be playing there too much, but that was instantly tripled to £60. Good deal, kinda wish I'd deposited more!

One thing you'll notice pretty quickly on Virgin is that the poker lobby doesn't look like most other sites. It's a little difficult to get an idea of exactly what games are available. There's no list of cash tables to choose from, because there aren't any. This site is all about fun tournaments and their version of spin-n-go games they call "Wild Seat Poker". That might put off a lot of regs and cash game players, but that's the great thing about it. This is a site designed to attract recreational players. There's no hud or tracking, and as far as I could tell no way to take notes or even colour code players. The player pool is soft!

The Vegas tournament (called Royal Flush in the lobby) was a £4 buy in event that I assumed would have a fairly low number of entrants, especially since registration didn't start until 15 minutes before the tournament start time of 9pm. But there ended up being 156 players by the time registration closed. While playing there is a dealer and player chat going on which gave the whole thing a fin vibe, with Virgin admin staff very much involved in the banter. And from what I could see the chat wasn't restricted to players on your table, in fact I think it is site wide i.e. one chat for all games.

Once the first hand was dealt I instantly took a dislike to the betting buttons. I need to check if they can be messed with in the settings but there was no 2x, 3x, pot bet options. And perhaps it was just mine but I couldn't type in an amount either. However the default amount was fairly intuitive and often had the right bet size for the street you are playing. Plus the increase/decrease buttons altered the bet by good sizings.

Play started with 10,000 in chips and blinds of just 10/20, so one of the deepest starting stacks I've seen in MTTs. So action was fairly slow to start, especially with all the recreational players limping every hand. I soon found isolation bets were overcalled by 1 or 2 players every time. I adjusted by playing speculative hands passively, and raising big when I hit hard or had a really strong starting hand. With a run of good cards (AKs, AK, KK in 3 consecutive hands) I increased my stack by 150% and jumped from mid table to top 5. Run good continued and I couldn't miss a flop, I kept raising big when I had it and players kept paying me off with even 2nd pair or total junk.

With around 40 players left I had a massive chip lead and I used it to bully the shorter stacks a little bit. The blinds rose quickly and payers dropped like flies. Aside from a big pot loss where I dropped a place then quickly regained it, I kept my chip lead until the final table which came at around the 2 hour mark, that's fast going for 156 players. I lost a few hands but held in as we got to the last 6. At this point every player was short, with even the chip leader having just 13 big blinds. It became fit-or-fold for everyone. My turn came with A5s which I jammed preflop and was called by Q9o. The flop came 765 giving me bottom pair vs villain's gutshot and overcards. The turn came a 9 and I bricked the river. Game over, out in 6th for £44.



I won't be heading to Vegas any time soon, but I did turn £20 into £100 with just a couple of hours playing cards and eating pizza. As for Virgin Poker it obviously won't be part of my daily grind, but I can see myself playing some fun value added tournaments there regularly, especially when there are big prizes up for grabs.

Run good

Nice post man and sums it all up perfectly imo. I came 23rd I believe and cashed for like £17 i think....

No doubt it is the softest poker game online and is actually pretty fun! Got some videos coming out for it on Monday

Question: Would you like to see Virgin in OPL S03?

Definitely. And I look forward to your videos, I've learned so much from all your microstakes series!

Quick Monday lunchtime session