2010

In early 2010 I was starting to get more deep finishes and was winning smaller MTTs, at that time PKR had a $25 6 seater MTT that started around 5.30pm and this suited me perfectly and I had quite a bit of success in it, I was starting to read players and take notes, whereas before I would rarely bother doing anything more than using a symbol to classify them. I had also discovered PokerStove, this is a small useful application that allows the user to input hands or hand ranges and it will calculate the various equities. If you have never used PokerStove it is certainly worth downloading and spending sometime exploring a range of hands and learning the various equities of hands, this helped me to clarify shoving ranges.

This new knowledge again moved my game up a notch, I was starting to open shove a wider range and I picked up a 3rd in the PKR Open Bounty for over $1,300 but that first major MTT win was still eluding me. I didn't have to wait too long as in March 2010 I took down the Sunday Open, a $25 buyin MTT which had 841 runners, I picked up $4,400 for my efforts and a few days later I got a 2nd place in a $55 Prime Time for $2,500. I was no longer letting my stack dwindle into oblivion, I was shoving in spots with weaker hands that I would have auto folded before. The next couple of months were relatively uneventful, a handful of minor cashes then in May I won the Sunday Grand Prix, which was then a $100 buyin 6 seater MTT, I picked up another $2,500 score for it, I then cashed again in the Masters and had a couple of final tables in the Open and my confidence was high.

July 3rd 2010 and its Masters day, I already have a ticket in my account but I registered for a $2 lotto and picked up the only ticket (these lottos had no rake and sometimes had an overlay, so they were lottos with neutral or even +EV). I registered for the Masters, I won't go into it in detail here as I could (and probably will) write an entire entry on it but I feel I played well and got some luck in the right spots and ended up winning, it was 6.30am when all the chips went my way and it was a great feeling, I had wanted to win the Masters ever since it first started and there my avatar was, arms aloft and the message on the screen came up telling me I had finished 1/456 and had won $27,360. It was an amazing feeling and the adrenaline had been flowing and buliding for some time and there was no way I was going to get any sleep that day!

Soon after I got heads up in the $100 grand prix, ironically against Tsuga who I had beaten HU in the Masters, he won this time but I was pleased with 2nd for another $1,500 and 2 days later I got another 4 figure score for winning a $12 deep and steep game, things in my poker world were going great and seemingly on the up, but the inevitable happened and I got over confident and went on a downswing. All of a sudden the cards weren't going in my favour and I believed I could outplay anyone and so was playing poor hands, this combined with trying to qualify for PKR Live V saw a big downswing. French players had also been excluded from PKR and this meant that prizepools were smaller and the overall standard had improved, not all French players are bad but generally a lot of them were of a worse standard than the average player I was playing against. This was my first major downswing and I was not handling it at all well, I wanted to continue to get results to try and prove that the masters win was not just a fluke, but the more I was losing the more I began to think maybe it was. In time and with the helped of friends I came to realise that I should just focus on playing the best poker I could and let the cards fall how they fall, and not be concerned with what others thought of my game.

I finally managed to qualify for PKR Live V in the last chance qualifier; I was really excited but also terribly nervous. I had not met any of the PKR Community before, nor had I played anything closely resembling a live game. I headed off to London and soon got lost trying to walk to the hotel, the GPS on my phone was playing up but I gradually got close to the Travelodge when I hear a Dutch lady calling my name, I turned around and there was Tigerrr with other friendly Dutch faces and they made me feel welcome, soon after others started to arrive and the drinks were flowing, I was struggling with nerves, both because I don't like crowds particularly and also I was worried about having to play live for the first time, I didn't get any sleep at all. When the time came and the cards were dealt I played pretty poorly, didn't have too many hands and never made any real impression on the tournament, I was pretty disgusted with the way I played my exit hand, I just got moved to a new table and was fairly short and got dealt AJs, I ended up calling pre and on the flop (as a float) and shoved the turn when I got a flush draw but my opponent had Aces and he deservedly held and that was me out. I managed to final table the terminator side event, but once again I didn't play that good, I just managed to get some luck at the right time and ended up a respectable 9th, which I was pleased with for my first live poker weekend.

PKR had changed their MTT schedule and introduced a $77 8 seater MTT which they call the Monte Carlo, this starts at 6.30pm and has a 10k starting stack with 15 minute blinds, it is without doubt the best structured daily MTT on PKR and it doesn't finish too late so it suits me well. I cashed in it 6 times in 2010, 4 of these were wins and the others were a 3rd and 6th, in truth I ran pretty good in this particular MTT but to start with there weren't many of the site's top players playing in it so when I was getting deep I was able to control the action quite a lot of the time, undoubtedly (and unfortunately!) the field has got a lot tougher since.

I made almost as much profit from poker in 2010 than I had earned in my full time job that year, but this doesn't mean I was ever seriously considering turning professional. MTT poker is full of massive levels of variance and there are just not enough quality MTTs on PKR for someone to be able to make a consistent and decent living from PKR MTTs alone. I never really played on multiple sites, poker was a profitable hobby for me and I was enjoying life on PKR. I was happy spending the money I was making, looking back now I wish I had saved a larger proportion for my bankroll as I could have begun to play some bigger events, life is full of regrets, we simply have to accept the fact that we can't change the past, only use it as a lesson in the school of life. On reviewing 2010 it was clearly a great year for me pokerwise, despite suffering my first major downswing I had achieved more than I could have hoped for at the beginning of the year. I was beginning to think about starting to play more live poker and although I knew it wouldn't top 2010, I was looking forward to what 2011 would have in store for me.....