A 3rd attempt

I have returned from the summer and thought I'd give Poker another go. I made some money at the back end of 2009 but nothing really since and have often been too busy to play. However I have made another effort to take things seriously since the begining of October.

I have kept a record of my Pocketfives sliding PLB score. You can find me here.

I have set myself to target of improving my PLB and trying to climb my local and regional rankings. To begin with I had a sliding score: 387.79 leaving me in 8741st place of online players, just inside the top 30%. A complete nobody. In fact some way off being even a nobody.

I have been keeping a weekly record of my ranking score and position and can happily report that I have steadily climbed. Much faster than I expected.

Now on Xmas eve I sit on 826.07 points and in 4827th place comfortable in the top 20%. This represents rapid progress I feel.

I have also been trying to improve my UK ranking which is broken down into National / London regional / London City.

There are some good players in the UK and London represents a tougher field than the global one representatively. At the begining of November I sat in the following positions

UK - 448 / 1336
London Region - 54 / 151
London City - 41 / 126

As of today this has improved to

UK - 282 / 1390
London Region - 38 / 160
London City - 23 / 129


Good progress I feel. I hope to squeeze in some more points before the end of December and maybe move up a bit more. We shall see.

Grinding the day job...

Things have been tough lately. I have not had much luck in rebuilding my bankroll. I have moved house to rather posh Hampstead and i plan to leave teaching (i hope) come this summer but i have little idea of what to do next.

Anyway keeping the job going and trying to pay the bills has made it difficult to play much poker. When i do i have been tired and not performed to my best. I have been watching some of BeL0WaB0Ve's videos on pokerxfactor and they are instructive but it needs concentration to put the lessons he shows you into a coherant pattern. Not the thing to do when tired. i have even fallen asleep during some games.

It's not the way i'm going to rebuild my bankroll but i am so frustrated at being back down at low levels that i feel i must play every waking moment in an effort to get back to levels quickly. This is obviously not working as a month later i am still languishing.

Hey ho...

I hope to be able to report some progress soon. I have been making progress through Sklansky's - The Theory of Poker'; an excellent book with lots of lessons to absorb. Consequently i have been making some progress this weekend and have only failed a big cash ( i think ) because of a few long shot suckouts. In one particular tourney myself and the other big stack at the table clashed for about 60,000 in chips each. I held AA and flop came 9-6-4 rainbow. I checked knowing he'd stab at it. when he did i re riased him all in and he called. He showed KK naturally the turn was a King and i was out and he was tournament chip leader with about 70 players left. Ahhhh well. you get the idea.

Still i'll get there i know i will.