Eat a Dick Make Up....

Firstly, for all the non-poker people reading this:

Makeup

1. A negative (or "red") figure that exists as a condition of staking arrangements, especially common for tournament staking.

How it Works

A typical tournament backing deal might be outlined as "50/50 with makeup."

What this means is that the backer, who puts up the money for a player's buyins, agrees to split 50% of the backee's tournament profits but only after previous buyins have been recouped. The amount that needs to be recouped is makeup.

After being roughly 35k in the red a month ago; I have run insanely hot and dug my way out. The graph below shows my overall results for the year as a total of all my accounts, it highlights the downswing and subsequent upswing quite nicely (sum of all accounts is the red line)



On the way down, I will concede that I definitely wasn't playing my 'A' game, it's very easy to show up to play, register, and just go through the motions somewhat; blaming flips/coolers/variance on your results. I am very grateful to all the guys who have looked at hands for me (u know who you are). Also amazing what a little bit of confidence does for your game!

Anyway, would not be a Watto post is it didn't include a bit of brag, so the obligatory screen shot of 109/50k win is below



Also got my 1st game of the footy season today, fairly pumped! I have been doing a fair bit more work/training than usual (i am generally very fucking lazy) but I have recruited a mate of mine to personal train me, as well as doing sessions at footy training. As a result I am a decent whack fitter than usual at this stage of the year, and looking forward to booting a few extra goals from full forward this season. Unfortunately with it comes the earliest flare up of my shin splints (had them for the last 4 years). Been to see the podiatrist though, and got myself new runners/new footy boots/orthotics as well as some "Skins" for my calves which has made a noticeable difference already :)

New Years Shippage

Went to Dobscene's last night for New Years, obv I was a lightweight and bailed at 2.30am; too many nude men in the spa obviously!

Came home a bit seedy and proceeded to grind through it with a couple of wins (also got 8th in the turbo hundo and 7th in the 75/23k)

2010 results/reflections, and 2011 goals

Posted this on pokernetwork, pretty good quick summary of my year.

I think it's safe to say I got a pretty good taste of the highs and lows of grinding MTTs this year. I had always dabbled in MTTs online, though only made the transition to trying to play them full time at the start of this year. I was lucky enough to breakeven for the 1st few months of the year while learning, and had a breakout month in May grabbing something like 40k profit, followed by a 2nd in ANZPT Queenstown in July for 55k $NZD (of which I had 35% of myself).

Sky high in confidence, I was brought pretty quickly back to earth with a -20k downswing almost straight down. Took me the best part of 5 months to get that figure close to even, by this time living expenses/livaments etc had caught up with me and the pressure on my roll became a little too much. Fortunately I was lucky enough to get backed by the baza/RAWKS conglomerate at the start of this month, and have been playing a shitload better since then.

I think the best thing to take from all this is that while is it very easy to blame losing money on tournaments on variance/run bad, you can still stay pro-active in improving your game, something I definitely neglected for a while. With that in mind, goals for 2011:

1) Make enough bank to get unbacked, and successfully keep it that way
2) Multiple 5 figure scores online (or 1 6 figure)
3) Lose 20kg, play 1st grade footy (AFL) again
4) Finish the remaining subjects on my degree, hang it on the wall

Bring on 2011!

PS: also got a nice Christmas present from FTP

METALLICA ----> Cebu

The majority of this blog post will be dedicated to one of the hoffest bands in the world, METALLICA. I've been a huge fan of theirs since about 2000, have every CD on my Itunes and have very fond memories seeing them live @ Big Day Out 2004; where they came on in the middle of a hectic storm complete with (Ride the) lightning! So understandably I was stoked when I got tickets earlier in the year, and got more and more keen as the date approached, fueled by trip reports from other people I know and coupled with the amazing reviews the shows were getting.

Thursday night rolls around and Casey, Wayne "Malleebull" Dever and I were off to Acer Arena. We sat through the lead up band 'Lamb of God' who were way too heavy for my taste - I ran bad as Fear Factory supported some of the earlier shows, would have been great to see them again. Anyway the stage is set up as a massive rectangle shape, and the whole of Acer Arena is filled with 360 degrees of fans. Then after all the waiting, the arena goes black, 'The Ecstasy of Gold' starts pumping through the speakers, and the crowd goes skitz. The setlist that they played was:

*That Was Just Your Life
*Cyanide
*Creeping Death
*Harvester Of Sorrow
*Fade To Black
*The Memory Remains
*No Remorse
*Sad But True
*No Leaf Clover
*Orion
*One
*Master Of Puppets
*Battery
*Nothing Else Matters
*Enter Sandman
Encore:
*Stone Cold Crazy
(Queen cover)
*Whiplash
*Seek & Destroy

All in all, you couldn't really ask for much more from a show, although I was a touch disappointed they didn't play my favourite song 'Blackened'. Highlights were definetely 'Orion' 'Sad but True' 'Master of Puppets' and 'Whiplash'. It was an Amazing show from an amazing band. The sick thing is they could play a completely different setlist and still leave the crown screaming for more.

Some vids:
Master of Puppets Live (should give you a fair idea of how the stage was set up)


Orion Live


One


In other news, I'm currently in Cebu with the one and only Wennie Shhhhteeel, took a mammoth flight to get here: 9.5 hrs Sydney ---> Hong Kong then 2.5hrs ---> Cebu. Had an awesome time at the players party which was held at the beach with a shitload of food and free beers which I very much indulged in. The following day I busted last level of Day 1, I never got much going all day being pretty card dead, then raise/called pocket Tens for 20ish bbs vs one of the more active players at the table, and lost a big flip to his AQ. Then bustoed shoving 14bbs in the CO with A5o with the Ace of Clubs, called by AJ flop T86ccc and brick out.

Yesterday all the boys decided they were going to stack off during the course of Day 2, and as a result they are all available to go paintballing this afternoon which should be hof. My future victims include Lolgate, Jackovich and Weygang - Rennie is being a cat and piking. TR to come.

Perspective...

So I had been struggling along at the online pokers, tilting over getting deep and not closing and generally in a pretty foul mood (4 month breakeven/downswing can do that to you!). Then for some stupid reason I decide to actually to do a couple of days real work as a removalist... My mate Dixon has already made a hof blog post describing it (keep in mind he did 5 hrs with me on Thursday, and I backed up with another 12 hours on Friday).

CROSS-Posted from http://thelifeofapone.blogspot.com/:
I woke up at 7 and walked to Watson's as we had arranged to do some work for this lady that lives behind the Big GSV. Watson warned me not to go out because the work we would be doing was strenuous, obv didn't listen.

Alright so we get to this ladies house with the plan of moving all her shit to another house, for $80 an hour all up. I'm still covered in spew, my mind is fucked and I walk into one of the biggest secs pits I have ever seen; it was seriously like something off A Current Affair, this lady (the craziest hoarder of all time) must have kept every belonging she had ever owned. There were boxes of shit everywhere, old newspapers, baskets of shells, the place was fucked. Not to mention that it stunk of cat shit and cigarettes. This first observation made me absolutely tilt, I couldn't believe what we were in for. To make matters worse the lady was completely tapped, like a proper head case. Talking so much random shit, pizzling my life and I was just being a bit of a cunt.

She believed that we could have the whole house moved in one day and I had to give her a not juuuuance because of the abundance of shit she had. To put things into perspective; it took us one truck load to clean out half an average sized living room, which was only filled with boxes and a few shelves and cupboards. I'm still blind and the first thing me and Watson grab is this big cupboard. Watson is walking up the ramp for the truck and he slips and I watch as a big ass cupboard is about to squash him, bang moves out of the way and is safe. Tapped lady is still pizzling our souls so I start to have a bit of fun.

Lady: "Make sure there are four bricks under each wheel of the truck"
Me: "Yep I have three here"
Lady: "NO FOUR!"
Me: "Easy..."

We unload that truck at her new house and I inform Watson that I'm only doing one more load cos this shit is fucked. Mini Moan has tagged along with us and he has a car and all I can think about is how pure it would be to just jump in his car and bail. Maccas run and I'm crumbling, finally sobering up and realising to the full extent just how messed I really was. Watson is driving this truck and at one stage bunny hops the shit out of it, it was as if we were on a roller coaster. Second run and I'm dead, I just can't do this anymore. We decide that we will find all the biggest shit we can and stack them in the truck so it looks like there is heaps of shit in there, we do that then go back to the house. Tapped lady is killing my soul and I drop something.

Lady: "Watch out!"
Me: "Fuck, beats"
Lady: "...yeah"

I do the best thing ever and claim that I just got called into work and we all pull the pin. Made $125 for only a few hours work and I still don't believe it was worth it, just so happy I never have to see this lady again.

Anyway to avoid future forays into the labour market I actually won money at poker today.. BINK! 3rd in 55/25k for $4.3k and won the late 5 quad for $2.9k. Also like to mention Kiel "Irish Lights" Cram's efforts in winning the $26/18k superstack for 5.5k and a 6th in $26/28k gtd for another $1.4k; obv I run good in staking! (in b4 mbn etc) So again, I find myself (almost) out and am super keen to keep up the good work.

TOTAL: -$2,194.78

Some numbers, Melbourne

So I've arrived back in the gong after a week away in Melbourne; overall it was a great trip!

Thursday I was chauffeured into crown by the one and only Julian Cohen to play the $1,100 six max lead up event of the ANZPT. The tournament got off to a dream start, managed to stack someone in the first level when my JTs backdoored a flush after being openended on the flop, we got stacks in on the river, top two no good sorry chief... Then proceeded to rollercoaster up and down, the table being pretty decent apart from Michael Egan who was luckily on my right, playing a very solid aggressive game.
Got moved tables holding roughly 40k @ 200/400 and promptly lost three quarters of my stack; defended 95ss on the button, flop K95r, old guy leads like full pot (3kish) which essentially screams "I have AK or AA!" I pop it small and he snap jams then starts berating me when I flip up my hand. Lucky old fuck catches another King on the turn tho, and suddenly I am short and hating life the blinds moving up to 300/600. Jam my last 10k with 77 over a CO raise and a call from the big blind, and win a flip vs ATs then very next hand stack the same guys remaining chips with AQ > his AT all in pre. Stack kind of hovers all the way to 600/1200, I have about 30k when the next hand goes down. Middle aged live guy who is playing really well and fairly aggro opens MP to 3k and the BTN flats, I 3bet to $8,500 with AJcc and he time-bank shoves which I sigh-call off and manage to 3-out his AQo on JKx x x.
My 65kish stack gets moved again, I manage to win a few more pots to chip up to 80k roughly @ 800/1600, then... old guy opens CO to 5k, I 3bet to 13.5k with KK and he shoves for 100k with the old Ace ten off and flops an Ace to send me walking with 30odd left. Luckily this allowed me to go and have dinner with an all-star lineup; baza, dave & lisa, benn (risk2dupside), ben (bazooka87), RAWKS, moffo, and of course Wennie Shhhhteeeeeel. Dinner was hof, a Chinese banquet with course after course being delivered to the table, accompanied of course by a dickload of drinks. After which risk took us to some pretty amazing drinking holes, none of which I will ever be able to find again due to their out of the way nature.

Unfortunately the main event on Saturday was a non-event, my stack went from 20k to busto over a few hours, pretty much lost every pot I played, good times. I was able to play a Monday session in the hotel room with Dave, and "saved" it good and proper monoing the $27.50/30k from 200 out to come 3rd for $3.1k, after which we cabbed it out to the 'Cohen Life' house for a BBQ. Got very very wasted while playing Fifa '11, me and Andy Hin schooling all would-be challengers. Tuesday morning was breakfast with Brad, Moffo and Dave followed by a trip to the Airport. I should mention that over the course of Monday night, and Tuesday morning everything was paid for by the person who lost the 4-way scissors, paper, rock - gg plebs as I freerolled everything BINK! Skill game obv...

Got 5th in today's session in $55 turbo rushament on FTP for 1.5k which pretty much saved it. Results below... (cue drumroll..) Really looking forward to getting that number back into a positive... *fingers crossed*

RESULTS:
Today: -$306.04
Melbourne Trip: +$10,447.02

OVERALL: $-$6,964.76

September recap, HELLLLLLLLLLO OCTOBER!!!

Been putting off making this post for a while, mostly due to the fact there has literally been nothing to report on the poker front... September contained lots of small ups and downs, I think I finished something like -3k overall from roughly 30k worth of buyins over 700odd MTTs. I got pretty frustrated with it at times for obvious reasons, tournaments are fucking gay when you don't win at them.

Luckily, life has been pretty fucking sweet lately in other areas (apart from the massive beats of losing both our grand final and Collingwood winning the AFL grand final replay..) Me and the footy boys had two massive three day benders, one after the grand final loss on Saturday into Silly Sunday into Mad Monday, followed a couple of weeks later by a very loose excursion to the Gold Coast for footy trip. In fact, I am still recovering almost two weeks later from the Gold Coast trip - mbn to get the flu.

Finally, I have managed to start October with a bang! Casey and I went up to Star City on the public holiday monday to play the $550 deepstack which I promptly busted out of TT < QT (hof raise/call from MP for 20ish bbs) Jumped on the 200-500 table and doubled up quickly to 1k, then moved that to play the 500-2k game for the first time. Doubled with QQ, made it $80 from the CO, get 4 callers, flop 743r and check shove on the button who made it very clear he was going to bet if checked to who promptly SNAP calls with 99 (COOLER_BRO) Kept winning pots here and there got up to a high of about 4k then lost a largish pot 3betting QQ and got it in on the turn for 1k on T942hh and lost to T9o. Still finished up 2.5k which was very nice as I flew down to Melbourne on Tuesday.

I've stayed with the Hugh & Julian Cohen, Tollgate and Weygang for a couple of days then checking into Crown today (love winning packages!!) Anyway so hanging/grinding with the boys has been very fun & profitable; I shipped a ANZPT seat on the Tuesday night which = $2.5k in $T then got up early to grind Wednesday morning with the non-so dedicated grinders joining me later in the morning. Anyway they say a picture tells a thousand words so..



All up managed to book about a 10k profit online since ive been down here, hopefully the upswing continues for the $1,100 6-max today and the ANZPT Melbourne main event this weekend! I'll update the total when I get home, but I'm proud to report it should be looking a lot more healthy! (or a lot less sick)