Get This Party Started

I thought I'd write a blog on how I did one thing that would change my life forever and brought me to where I am today. This is going to be a bit long winded and kind of like a life story but hey ho let's go! I've had poker pop up in my life a few times before I actually came to understand the rules. There were many times we stayed up late watching whatever game was on TV and then one Christmas Day, my dad bought a poker set and tried to explain the rules to us but no, we just weren't getting it!

I went to Weymouth to study Music Technology with Bournemouth University. I made some awesome friends and had a load of fun. I then made a decision very early on that I was going to do something that I don't believe in and I wouldn't do it again as it was the most diabolical experience of my life. So the one thing that I did was very simple; I went on a dating site. I don't think I've ever told anyone so here it is. I, Antonia Smith, went on a fricking dating site. And people ask me why I don't go on Tinder or POF, well I'm not looking. Someone will find me or I will find them.

So, this dating site. I met a guy called Aaron, we talked every day on MSN. I was 19, so this was 5 years ago and he was 27. I agreed to meet him one day at the William Henry, one of Weymouth's finest Weatherspoons of course! I don't remember the whole evening apart from drinking a lot of Tyskie, but what I do remember was walking along the seafront to meet him and I saw him and almost turned round to go back home. Instead I walked straight into one of those seafront shops that sells lots of touristy stuff. I bought 20 Marlboro Reds, smoked one then got the guts to go and meet him at the bar. After that night, we were inseparable, but he didn't care about me. He'd tell me to come out every night and sometimes leave me by myself, sometimes I'd wake up at his and sit in the back garden with a black coffee thinking about what a shithole this was. I am a complete snob and I knew this wasn't my life yet I was living it. I made a lot of friends through him and finally, after 3 months, I stopped talking to him. My new friend Jess invited me to this metal pub called Finns and it was that night that I met Lee.

I don't know what I ever saw in him, still, to this day. But without him I wouldn't be writing this. He wasn't attractive, but I didn't care, I just liked him. He didn't have a job and made loads of awful racist jokes which he knew I couldn't stand but I still became his girlfriend and it lasted a year and a half until I couldn't put up with his shit anymore. He was the one who taught me how to play poker and got me hooked on zynga. Bloody zynga. I even got an iPhone and played it on there constantly until one day, I decided to sign up to Full Tilt poker.

Be Aggressive, Be Be Aggressive!!

Last week I had a migraine running from Saturday to Wednesday so I ended up playing a little and losing a lot. Sunday was particularly bad, I went from my $11 down to $5.96. I took the hit and have tried not to get too ate up about it.

 

Tonight I put all that money out there on my 4 cash tables, played my 200 hands and I'm now on $6.94, just short of a dollar up. It wasn't going well from the start though, I noticed just past the half way point I was playing 27% of hands which is too much and also I was being a complete softy. It was then that I realised I still had another 60 hands where I could still change my game. That I did. I started folding a lot more, finishing my game on 24% of hands played and took to a more aggressive tune to start raking in some stacks.

 

If I had played like that from the start then I probably would have done better, I think my tiredness effected my play and from Sunday, I was too afraid of putting too much out there. Every time someone through a load of chips in, I melted down and budged back into my corner. I need to remind myself each time I play that 1c/2c is pretty simple, the people who play are usually beginners or in general not very strong.

 

@AntoniaChigurh

Getting Somewhere

Day 3: I played a lot today, it's a Saturday, had only a couple of things to do and some quality time with my lovely male friend :).

I started this morning, had some breakfast and got right into it with 4 full ring tables, played my 200 hands and went from $9.49 to $10.29. I then decided I'd do a little 6 max forgetting how quick it was, I was over 200 hands before I knew it and made it up to $11. At such a flat number and a whole dollar more than my $10 start, I got the fear, the fear of losing any of it! So I stopped there and went about my day.

I go back from my boyfriend's at about 10:15pm and watched a tiny bit of TV with my sister, thought I'd go to bed and there it was, the itch, I haven't felt it in some time. So I scratched it, another 4 full ring games, went down to 0 on 2 of them, but still profited. I am going to bed on $11.29. Slowly but surely creeping up, I'm happy with it and that's what matters, it's super micro stakes, playing for less than pennies!

I am also happy as my stars coins are going up well too. I am very close to completing 2 steps today, so if I keep it up, I should be on chrome star by the end of the month which would be good, I used to be on it, then gave up for a while and lost it. I've been on bronze ever since. Would be nice to be able to cash some more coins in though. It was only recently I took $25 out.

Starting Afresh

My boyfriend has bought a house, he's spending lots of time on his paperwork and I'm sitting watching whatever's on Netflix. It's rubbish. I forgot how much I love poker and how I used to spend so much time on it, how I used to get so excited when I learned something new I could use the next time I played and when that new tactic succeeded.

 

A month or so ago, I started at $30, played roulette, blackjack and dare I say it...slots. All online, I got up to $240 and decided to keep going until I made it to $500. I never made it that far, I got back down to $100 then rather than doing the normal thing of withdrawing, I spiralled even further. That gambling ship also sunk my love of poker, I don't love gambling, I know that the casino always wins, I have read my way through www.gambleaware.co.uk many a time to make sure I know I am in the right, but this was bad. I felt like a dogs bottom and seemed to have moved poker into that same category, even though poker had done nothing wrong!

 

So cutting to the chase, I have forgiven myself, done my yearly visit to www.gambleaware.co.uk and have turned a new page. I am starting a new challenge, a pretty common challenge, but nonetheless, a challenge! I have already started, I have done 3 days so far or around 4 hours. It started on Wednesday 6th April 2016. I put $10 on PokerStars, I will try to get in a minimum of 8 hours a week (It's not compulsory, keeping it fun and all that), starting on the 1c/2c cash tables. I play 4 tables at once and the rules are as follows:

• Play a table to wins of no more that $4 then leave
• Play a table until loss of all $ then leave
• Play tables until 1 hour has lapsed or 200 hands, whichever is preferred at the time
• Move up to the next level when I hit $50
• At $50 for every $10 made, £1 (yes British pound) will be donated to a charity of my choice, and this will be started monthly (at the end of the month, check how many $10 have been made and go from there)
• If I do wish to play some sit and go's or MTT's etc, I can deposit extra cash and keep an eye on my dollar from there
• I can play Zoom tables, only 1 at a time and again if I wish to play above the relative stake, I will deposit money to do this
• Any wins on extra deposited cash can either be added to my challenge money, or move to my fun fund

Hopefully that's everything. But how am I doing now?

 

Day 1: Played 4 full ring tables then 4 short handed and made 61c

Day 2: Played 4 full ring tables and lost $1.12

Day 3 (still playing however stats so far): Played 4 full ring and gained $1.25 on 200 hands

 

My balance currently sits at $10.74. Yay for micro stakes!

True Happiness.

What does happiness mean to you? It is a state of mind and can be determined and changed by enviromental factors. My step mother inspired me when I met her a few years ago to just become a more positive person. With this I have been a lot less shy and more comfortable in myself but yet still there are people and conditions that will bring me down. But that's the same for everyone. But is it bad that I block certain people out because I cannot be doing with their negativity? Since Tuesday last week I have been in such an odd mood, talking about things I wouldn't normally, not feeling completely certain about myself and generally just a little insecure. This has then led me to some weird madness about trying to change loads of tiny insignificant little things that wouldn't normally matter. It's like I am literally just stressing about myself. Just myself, nothing else. The last time I did this my best friend was suffering from depression and I was 17 years old, feeling extremely shy and ugly. I needed to escape so I chose to move to Weymouth to do my degree, to be far a away in a completely different environment. It was there that I found poker and building on that over the past few years along with the friendships I have made I have been able to become a much greater person.

So this week, this god damn week where I have been acting just plain odd, I hope to close off today. I think my friend Reece has picked up on it a bit and has generally just been really nice like the fantastic person he is. And I just got back on the poker because even though online isn't as much fun, my pub game isn't running :(. But this is it, I'm going to stop nit picking at myself just because of one person. Everything is brilliant once more. Though there's something missing; a real game of poker must be arranged. Love you all :)

I admit it, I over did it.

Last night I came to my computer, played Sofia Lovgren's Birthday freeroll on PKR and then retreated to pokerstars for some cash games. I hate cash games. But without cash games my bankroll doesn't go very far. I'm really good at Sit and Gos and find Tournaments the most fun, but no, I'm sitting there with a timer on my phone and 4 cash tables sitting infront of me. I feel dull, so so dull.

Gambling is a form of entertainment which is why you are only to put in an amount of money you have set aside for entertainment. This should go in the same line as when you go out drinking, go to Alton Towers, the cinema, anything that constitutes the idea that your mind is being entertained. So when I'm playing poker and I am unexcited and tired and desperately trying to bring back up the money that I set aside for entertainment and feeling dull about it, does this put me in line with people who have a problem? I like to think not as I haven't scraped up all the money that I have left to feed and clothe myself for this month from the deepest darkest barrells of my bank account. However I'm literally just playing for the sake of it, and that's not fun.

On this tired note, I'm going to take some time off, a week maybe. I will be finishing my VPP mission first as I have less than 10VPPs to make before completing it. It is then that I will take some time to watch some TV, read my book 'The Education of a Modern Poker Player' and I have a subscription to PokerPlayer magazine aswell so I can read that too. I have some writing to do as well and I will blog about how this is going and will go back to the game with a fresh thinking mind.


Read more: I admit it, I over did it. (Toniommi) – Poker School Online: Learn Poker Strategy, Odds and Tells http://www.pokerschoolonline.com/blogs/Toniommi/i-admit-it-i-over-did-it#ixzz2vD7xTEZ4

Stake It to Make It!!

I confess, I don't read many more blogs than my own. And when reading mine, it's proof reading. However I did just skim through the 'staking 102' blog found in the 'popular' section. This came to my attention as I have had a staking experience myself recently, how exciting! Well, it was, so here's how it came about and how it went.

I was sitting at my computer playing a microstakes tournament, it was going really well, my whole poker night was going really well and I was talking to someone on twitter. We have spoken before but on this particular night he asked if I would be willing for him to stake me into a tournament with the aim of him getting his buy-in back plus 50% of my winnings. I have never heard of this before and the idea of gambling with someone else's money made me think 'is this guy crazy? He's never seen me play, nor does he know me that well.' After a few moments of thought, I decided to go along with this and give it a go. We decided on the $13.50 KO that was already 30 minutes in.

There I went, divng in at level 3, the water's cold. I sat tight, I had such a fear of losing the money that wasn't mine to lose. My starting game plan was to keep tight aggressive and learn the games my opponents where playing against me I became very aggressive, especially against shorter stacks as I know from experience; if you watch carefully you will see the gaps that you can fill in.

The tournament goes on, I didn't knock anyone out but my stack got very healthy, but then I didn't loosen up in time. At an early stage an 8k stack looks awesome, but later on you feel like a melon because you can't really make a move when the blinds are big enough to swallow you whole. You can't be aggressive because everyone else wants a shot at eating you up. So you wait, I missed many opportunities and I could have passed it up, I was 21 off the bubble and went all in with AJo and did not hit.

I felt bad that I couldn't give back what I had used and I didn't know this staking business was...a business. It was enjoyable though, I don't think I played brilliantly and made some mistakes because I had the fear of not making the money back. I had never been in this position before so I really had no idea how it would turn out. It made me nervous to say the least.


Read more: Stake it to make it! (Toniommi) – Poker School Online: Learn Poker Strategy, Odds and Tells http://www.pokerschoolonline.com/blogs/Toniommi/stake-it-to-make-it#ixzz2uBtOuyxh

The Deal

Everyone has made their poker goals for 2014 with great explanations of how they're going to get there. Well, I haven't, or hadn't until now. It's no secret that I want to go to a PSLive event this year but I wanted to do it with money I earned online, so I decided to steal an idea. It's an idea That Chris Ferguson once went through with and now xflixx is doing something very similar with his #GrindingitUp feed on twitter and youtube channel. I like this idea. Chris turned nothing into $10,000 starting with freerolls, I'm an odd one, I don't like freerolls. Felix is turning $80 into $8000. PKRs Sofia Lovgren claims that she turned $1 into $5,000 in one year. I deposited $50 a few days ago and I have (later) decided (now with only $33) that I am going to turn that into $5000, I have already dropped down to 5NL. I'm just praying that I can do this. I need more discipline and to keep reading strategy as it is my only hope. But hopefully now I have a goal, I can get something out of it! I'll keep you up to date.


Read more: The Deal... (Toniommi) – Poker School Online: Learn Poker Strategy, Odds and Tells http://www.pokerschoolonline.com/blogs/Toniommi/the-deal#ixzz2r922qDNs

Good Starts and Troubled Parts

I began today by reading from the 'Poker Basic Course', I didn't read it all as I know how to play poker, I just don't know HOW to play. Starting from the beginning and going over the tight aggressive play I got all full of myself taking my thoughts elsewhere with 'yeah yeah I know!!'. It became very obvious to me quite soon on that I didn't know. It's been quite some time since I have refreshed myself on the basic rules of position, cards, players and what I should do with all of these things as a collective...besides getting on with it. I took myself down a couple of levels to 2c/5c; as I think any good player should when trying out some new moves. I came to the table with $5.20, looking at my opponents stacks this seemed to be a good amount not to look out of place.

Beginning My Game

I sat with the 'Wait for Big Blind' box ticked, I normally hate this but I thought I would take what I learnt from 'Internet Poker for Dummies' which is to watch the players at your table before making any moves. I sat, I watched, I turned my music on...wait, where does it say that?? I couldn't bare the silence. It finally came round to the big blind and many of the players seemed to have switched out with others and this worried me looking from a new perspective. Real life eh? So I just went with it and there I was sitting with my first shiny golden hand. AKh, pretty little things. I raised only 4BB from the big blind and found a participant from a much earlier position. The flop drew a K, my new friend checked and I placed another 20 cents down on the table, a pause followed then a call, the turn drew a card insignificant to myself. No straights, no flushes, they check, I bet half the pot and my happy little caller friends shys away and there I am realising this could work out quite alright.

Midway

The game is going well, I have $8.44, I did have just over $9 from collecting pocket rockets then had to spend a few moments sitting and staring at the board still paying much attention to the fact that many players don't seem to want to watch me keep going and head for the door, but no matter, many new players are up for a game. I seemed to have acquired 2 new players to sit next to after having no one sit either side of me for quite sometime. I can't possibly smell online can I?

To my right I have Mr 'I like to slow play every hand I have no matter how good' and to my left I have Mrs 'You are no match for me, here; have all my chips'. All this put me on my A-game.

The End of the Road

I made it up to a colossal $16 which I decided to dispose off of course when my AK saw the flop of A 6 Q, I liked this too much, I was UTG and my opponent was sitting smug on the button, we went through a reraising battle, the most fun I have had all evening. Eventually on the Turn they went all in to reveal 66 in their hand, nothing I could do could change my fate. I still had $11.07 and I sat on it for just over 5 mins before calling it a day. Wouldn't want to tilt!

What I Did Well and Not So Well

I kept with the tight aggressive structure but I did pull away from it a few times but always returned to bass. I did this because I didn't want the other guys and gals at the my table to have a definite read on me, who would? I made most of my looser plays from the button when there was very little action on the go which worked really well and managed to make my A4 at one point simulate full house Kings full of 8's, not bad. So all in all, a good start. (pun not intended)

5 Years and Counting!

I got myself a pokerschoolonline.com account and wrote this as my first blog to give a real introduction to how I started poker, I tried to keep it as brief as I could but interesting plus I like to ramble a lot. ENJOY!

I began playing on Zynga poker 5 years ago, like many I was a uni student, like few I studied music technology. It wasn't my friends who got me gaming, I met a guy, he was very unlike myself and loved to gamble though didn't have his own money. I know, so why did I stick around? He was kind of interesting, though annoying, clingy and my friends hated him. My dad more than anyone, as of these points you can tell the relationship with this boy didn't last long, though he did introduce to my poker and taught me how to play. From this moment all I wanted to do was go on facebook and play more free poker, I'd lose all my free chips and have to wait another day to reload, it was complete madness. It then came to a point where I knew this wasn't enough, I needed more, I needed something to make me really care about what I was putting into each game. Of course there was only one thing for it, real money.

I set myself up a real money account on Full Tilt, I played for the tiniest stakes imaginable and found that everyone played a much smarter game. I was in awe at how we only only playing for just a few cents at a time but there wasn't a player at my table playing every single hand like I did. (My strategy at the time being; play every hand as you may hit something.) Of course people even at the micro stakes really do care about their hard earned cash. I would play the odd Sit and Go, then maybe a micro stakes tournament but mainly 1c/2c cash games. Then the unthinkable happened; Full Tilt Poker was shut down and I didn't know what to do with myself, I couldn't possibly join Pokerstars as I heard the game was much harder with players participating from all countries where online gambling was legal. I plodded on.

I went to PKR and carried on as I was with full tilt, I loved it, the animation was great, the game was easy and no one from the US there to outsmart me. Not to mention that of course every game was well timed to the UK, I felt right at home. But there wasn't enough going on, there weren't enough games for me to choose from and not enough players filling up Sit and Go's as fast as I would have liked. It took me a year but I finally conformed and listened to everyone else. 'Play on Pokerstars' they said, after 3 years, I finally listened.

This then brings me to where I am now, I have been playing on Pokerstars since some time in 2011, I haven't really improved, I play 5c/10c cash games, $1.50-$3.50 Sit and Go's and any tournament going up to a $5 with my current thing being the Sunday Storm. I got a twitter account to keep up to date with all poker happenings (@AntoniaChigurh) and have another blog of the same name. This time I am serious, I am going to start right from the beginning and use this site to my advantage and hopefully build myself a healthy bankroll not to mention fall in  love with the game all over again. I promise my next one wont be this long! So, back to 1c/2c? Naaaahhh.


Read more: 5 Years and Counting! (Toniommi) – Poker School Online: Learn Poker Strategy, Odds and Tells http://www.pokerschoolonline.com/blogs/Toniommi/5-years-and-counting#ixzz2qDr0Wob8

My love affair with the game.

This is going to be a very boring blog for guys just so you know. Also I will add it have very little to do with poker.

I met a man called Paul, Paul is very attractive, built, tall, well dressed. Paul is not my type at all. If I invited Paul round to my house he would not fit in with my décor. However Paul is an aerospace engineer, seems to think of himself as better than me but still seems to think I'm incredible. Strange. This same Paul I find terrifying, he has some small cut on his head from a fight, I don't associate myself with the fighting types. He also seems strangely clingy with a frightening fire in his eyes like he could snap in a second and I may end up like that beautiful girl in twilight with the claw scar across her face. Thus when he text me an hour after I left the pub this new year and then called me at 11am, I knew that I did not want to set foot outside my house again...though I will be going to the gym later, new years resolution and all.

I have a fear of attractive men. I am only attracted to one person at this moment, he just a little taller than me, wears glasses with a thin frame, a small build and wears a fleece to be sensibly dressed in these cold times. It was love at first sight. One of our managers died at work and then he came in as the replacement. So with that in mind does that make him off limits? Well, he's not my manager and assuming that everyone has a personal life, doesn't he? It just makes him hard to grab hold of so for now we can stick with our 'hellos' and 'good mornings' and maybe one day we will ask 'how are you?'

Lets make this more triangular then. Are things more interesting with more angles and sides? Well if only someone had told me sooner. I have a secret admirer I am told, though it's not so secret though I don't know if he knows that I know which is what makes it so 'secret'. He's a lovely boy, and totally my type however the fear of no conversation springs to mind. I need conversation, when I have no conversation I blog, I am home alone at the moment...blogging. So that is that on that one for now, unless I want to say 'that' again.

To conclude, as something of this size could do with a conclusion. We bring ourselves back to the beginning and why this blog existed in the first place. My love for the game, many girls can go out there, find someone, build on that and not go 'no I only want this person even if I can never have them or ever have the courage to go and speak with them'. Most will simply take what they are given. But I have poker and I don't want anyone unless their love for poker outweighs mine because then maybe they would understand if I didn't want to see them every night because they would have the same thing to do as me with their spare time. And it would be fun to play against each other and so as this as my conclusion, knowing that I have met many people in this last year, if I do finally find someone I will call my boyfriend they will be a poker player like myself.

@AntoniaChigurh

El Busto.

A pretty normal day, a 4 hour dash at work then home in the horrid weather casing the north west at the mo with sprinkles of rain, hale and blasting winds with the bitter cold of a frosted lemon. This kind of maniac outdoors and no days off I think has effected my brain. Well, it's either that or I just cannot win.

Once at home I look at my PokerStars account. On Monday I made $25 before going to poker at the pub where I turned £10 into £75, Tuesday, that online number went from $42 down to $20 and Wednesday, even further down to a mere $10, tonight I kept going and eventually went to deposit $20 which then, overplayed down to $7. At this moment I then decided to play on my iPad to improve concentration, I entered a $1.50 Sit & Go. Whilst playing this SNG I wasn't failing, nor was I winning, however that stupid phone mass went down down my street AGAIN. This happens so often that of course I have a back up plan, my T-Mobile dongle so within 15mins at the price of £2 I was back online...but...what...what's happening??...why am I not being reunited with my game??? At some point during my internet failure I seem to have lost my place in my SNG, so short of bankroll and I have lost my SNG without even having a say!! Poker is supposed to be about decision making and this was not my decision. That was plain unlucky.

I decided that since I had spent £2 on the internet and even though by this point the last thing I wanted to do was play poker, I played poker. I thought it would be an awful idea. I kept to a 5c/10c cash game with the thought that the worst thing is I'll lose $4 but could get a milestone hand. Neither of those things happened, I made it up to $9 giving me my $10 bankroll back :) and Sexy Socialite by Chromeo is on the radio, so I can go to bed not ecstatic, but not losing the will to live! Which is good enough for me. I think that should be good enough for too.

@AntoniaChigurh

Sunday flipday

It doesn't matter what I do, Sundays are just bad news for me. I tried my first Sunday Storm today on PokerStars and I was up and down like a yoyo until I eventually hit the floor. Granted I did have a migraine and joined 40 minutes late and lasted quite some time, longer than Felix Schneiders, but still got caught out, in such a silly way too. I help AJ hearts and my opponent held Q7 hearts, I had a 6k stack which was well under average so decided all in was in order, only to find a bleeding 7 on the flop!! How many bad beat stories is that now?

Round 2, a $2.20 5k GTD, lasted a couple of hours, then again AK catching on the crown of QQ, bust!

Round 3, $1.10 2.5k GTD, notice how I get lower each time and didn't last as long in this one. Despite all of this, my play is actually getting much better, I'm noticing a lot more things, taking notes and vids and learning from my mistakes which is what I was meant to be doing this year. Like I said, I won't ever give up on poker ever again, sometimes breaks, this learning curve is great. It's just breaking the luck barrier that's a little harder. As I now like mentioning Isaac Haxton, he said he got lucky once and then everything seemed to set off.

So maybe I'll have to sit out for now (good idea since I have work in 7 hours and only 5 hours to sleep) but tomorrow I'll get up and try again...harder.

@AntoniaChigurh

Top to the bottom.

I get up this morning, get the blender out and mix some oats, soya and raspberries, a breakfast of some fit athlete or something. Or in my case just an avid poker player. I get all my things out: iPad, phone, note pad, poker for dummies book and get to I work on the 'the hot $3.30 (turbo) 6k guarantee' I went up managed to double my chips then having a player to my right with a wide calling and betting range, I decided to sit a lot of hands out and then an hour and 20minutes in we have 4 new players to our table, one with 38k in chips, by this point I have managed to make my way up just about average again to 9k. I didn't have much idea about this guy as he'd just sat down minutes before which makes me about as smart as a tea cup on this one. The stakes are 250/500 and I'm in the small blind with Q7spades, and he is just over half way round. The player bets 3BB, I had a good feeling so I called. The flop showed Q J Q, I bet 4BB, the player then raises to 6BB pushing me to make a fairly quick decision to put the other few hundred chips I had in too, so I'm all in, he shows T8c, there are no clubs just a straight draw. I thought he would have had at least a jack, but to my shock and horror he gets a 9 on the river, a flipping 9!! I couldn't help thinking I hadn't summoned this as I kept saying 'NO 9!!' repeatedly. A horrible moment, I had that awful awful stress feeling straight after, if you lose and it literally is 'I might get this' then it's kind of okay, but with a hand like that UUURRRGGHH!!

Well, I suppose the idea is, try again, but not straight after, the risk of tilting is far too great. However, after this terrible mishap, I then got the fantastic news that I have passed my dental nursing exam that I took yesterday woo! Almost qualified and all of a sudden, the balance is restored :).

@AntoniaChigurh

Concentration counts! Tourney style.

I watched one of Felix Schneiders' grinding it up vids on YouTube with his oh so cute Christmas donkey. Oh course the man has Hold'em Manager, probably a good idea since I have my own Hold'em manager which consists of a thick hard back note pad and video recording on my phone. This kind of stone-age style date capture takes real concentration and yes makes me very dull, but we can't change that, I'm more fun than you think...I whittled down to very little and thought 'fine, I'll get my Hold'em manager material out!'. It works, trust me (and if you trust me remember to trust Isaac Haxton too ;)), all I do is as soon as anyone does anything remotely interesting, and I'm literally talking anything from raising 2BB, take no time over this jot down name- raise by "bb, name callers, flop, raises/checks, the whole deal and what is revealed if anything. On my hands where I do nanny thing like that I record it on my phone, no time for me to be writing whilst thinking!

The way this works for me is by writing everything down, it means I've taken it in and it's hard to get distracted. Obviously you can't do this if you're playing more than one table at a time. I found myself making some really good decision though like folding KAo preflop as it's all about what your fellow players have. Unfortunately I got lazy, got moved tables to have someone majorly bluff me big time, they then put a fish <'))X (something like that) in the chat box and there I sat, like some cross child when their parents take their favourite toy off then, no fair. Or another kid makes fun of them...that's a better example.

Officialpokerrankings.com says my last tourney win was $18 on 2nd December. This cash isn't up there yet so I can't say exactly how many runners there were this time but I think it was over 2k and I ended in 250th position for a tiny $5.88. Better than nothing. But I'll have to try harder at sucking the fun out of poker next time :) serious shit we got here!

Getting back on the text book too, this will do me no good as it's poker for dummies and published about 10 years ago :/ and we ALL know keeping current is key in poker. So it will be more of a reference. But I will be trying out new things.

@AntoniaChigurh

Haxton's the name, EPT's the game

After managing to rack up a small $120, I have been running bad, really bad. However thank you to the lovely PokerStars online pro Isaac Haxton, I don't feel like putting my head in my hands and selling off my computer to make way for a new hobby. No, in this months issue of PokerPlayer magazine, they have published a blog of his which should sends inspiration to us all! He reminds us that once he was in this pickle and everyone else who has made it to the top has also been in the same shoes. He says for us to keep the stakes low and keep it slow. It reads in PokerPlayer that 'he advices for new players' this, I've been playing for nearly 5 years, I haven't moved up many notches so, maybe this is it. Maybe I am not thinking about my actions as much as I should. I probably do before I think, that's generally what happens when life throws me things anyway so I can only imagine I apply this to my game as well.

The challenge is still on, I can't give you any figures as for my run bad.

My EPT blog will start tomorrow with Prague undergoing this second. So remember to check that too and keep up to date with all the action on PokerStars.tv it's really quite good even though you can't see the whole cards.

@AntoniaChigurh -twitter

Less than satisfactory some might say.

The challenge isn't quite out the window but I just love tournament playing so so much. I've been going with the super low stakes for over a week now in the cash games And it really has been one of those moment where you simply cannot win, I needed some fresh thinking so micro millions was of course the first thing that came to mind. So I entered a $4.40 rebuy tournament, fell just short of the maximum 4 rebuys and gave up. Then went for a $1 PCA satellite along with a $1.10 Courchevel tournament, just for a bit of fun. I am notoriously bad at courchevel so I promised myself I would just play for the smile it put on my face. Well frankly I lasted a lot longer than I intended to holding the top spot for a couple of hours. It really was by luck that I managed this, there was nothing about my play really keeping me there. It was only when I took my 4m+ chips to the final table that I met with my arch nemesis who swallowed me whole. I busted in 7th place for $54.49. I'm not massively happy as I could have lasted another couple of places, it was however a good few hours of fun :) and that was the idea. As for hold'em though, I really need to up my game.

@AntoniaChigurh

Here we go again!

I'm now taking a page from Chris Ferguson's book. A while back he raised $10,000 from nothing, he played freerolls to start his bankroll and kept going up and up and up.
My idea is a little different as I am starting with $10 and going to try and make a near $10k amount and better my playing. I have started right back down on the ground floor. I will be playing mainly cash games (and the odd PCA sat here and there since I really want to go!!) and have just made $1.10 in the last hour. I sat myself at two 1c/2c tables, one of them for only 20mins near the end. I have to make $10, raising my bankroll to $20 before I can move on to 2c/5c. Other rules; I cannot make any particularly risky moves and I am only allowed to play for an hour at a time with at least a 30min break in between. I will record all my wins and losses on here each time that I play and I will aim to play at least 7 hours each week. So for now:

Day 1: 1c/2c, 2 tables, +$1.10

One move moves everything.

I have not blogged in a while as much as I love blogging something happened which changed everything. My work placed moved me from Crewe to stoking shifting my mornings completely, I started working a Monday and a Thursday, creating odd hours at my other work place and I started going to the gym then I met a boy then he met someone else and where does poker fit in all of this?

Somewhere in 'For Richer For Poorer, Confessions of a Player' by Victoria Coren she writes how poker will always be there for her. The only thing it can do is financially cripple you, otherwise it's a good time. It doesn't walk away from you, it doesn't change the way it feels about and when you change the way you feel about it, it sits there and waits patiently until you're happy to go back to it. It's like one of the best friends you ever had. The Monday rebuy game at the pub; brilliant. There is nothing better than that game to take my mind off anything and everything, just a groups of guys and a girl all there to have a laugh and play some cards.

Now that I have walked back onto my poker platform I have something much bigger to aim for. The PCA. That's right, you heard me, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure gracing the sunny shores at the Atlantis Resort from 7th January 2014. Just one small problem; I don't have $10,000, however I do have a PokerStars account, I also have $100 and to go along with it,  I have a good enough knowledge of the game. So it's been satellite time for a week now and I have got no further than round 2 on the satellites. Round 1 is a breeze but then Round 2 comes a long with its sharp even teeth and huge over betters like the talons of an evil eagle waiting to strike down on me and tear me go pieces. Then I go away, sit and think about what I did wrong then go straight back in the next day.

Watch this space, I will move into that number 1 position naturally. It's going to take days, it's going to take hours, it may even take the next few months but I can be there just like everyone else.

@AntoniaChigurh

Get down on it.

On Sunday I had a load of work to do for my portfolio and kept trying to find excuses to start later and later and later. Poker seemed like a good and friendly idea since I haven't played in a few weeks from my losing streak. When I have taken a break I always come back fresher and stronger. I seem to know when a good time to bluff is even without looking twice. I went back in on the complete micro stakes and cashed in two 50¢ 360 player sit & go events. The first time I finished 30th and the second 16th. There was an element of good luck to the extent of me using good cards to knock others out and those cards actually hitting this time. I also saw other players in my previous position where they were short stacked, playing good cards but just weren't getting anywhere with them.

Last night I couldn't help myself, it was late but I just had to play something to settle me down ready for bed. Perfect, a 9 player turbo sit & go at $1.50, at this point I didn't care too much if I won, it was a nice idea but just wanted a little wind down fun before hitting the sheets. I managed it, that moment when I became heads-up, it all came back to all the practice I had done in heads-up play since I used to dread it, my huge weak point; passing chips from one person to another until you agree to see some cards. But this time I felt strong, from practicing heads-up and reading an article on it you can kind of see some logic to this madness and you can pick up the odd bluff. I won my $5.95 first prize and it has to be said, I did feel a little smug after.

@AntoniaChigurh