The Worst Winner

I've realised that I have now been playing poker for 20 years!  How do you go about recapping twenty years of poker? Well, let's start with some cold hard facts:  Wins vs Losses: The blue line is cold harsh money spent on poker versus money back into my bank account. Orange line includes the less tangible value of live packages won. The graph paints a pretty accurate picture of my poker "career"; after a few losing years, I started studying, got to grips with the game and have been in profit ever since. After those initial losing years, I was very proud to become a winning player. Year after year, it was a huge source of pride to know I was beating the game but as time moved on, I became frustrated. Was I really beating the game? It didn't feel like it. The angle on that blue line is dissapointmentingly shallow. Introducing bankroll management helped transform me from a losing player to a winning one but I have felt trapped at the  lower stakes. I have tried takin...

Unlike last year, I didn't have any grand plans for this year's World Championship Of Online Poker Badugi (WCOOB). I've had a series of health issues this year, which ultimately don't appear to be too serious but, perhaps then more so mentality than physically, I've just been trying to survive 2025. With that said, this year's WCOOB boasts double the days of badugi, with three buyin levels of limit badugi events on the 9th and pot limit events on the 30th. Sky's The Limit The limit event buyins were $22, $109 and $1050, and I should have played the $22 but as ever my ambition exceeds my bankroll so I signed up for a satellite to the $109.  Just the TWO WCOOP champions and one SCOOP winner to contend with. Despite the COOP badge ridden tables, I fared well. I played well and I ran well, all the way to the final table. The bubble was a bit cagey, as you'd expect, but I emerged victorious! The momentum did not carry through to the $109 event itself though....

The newest stop on the Irish Poker Tour is... Glasgow? Perhaps my geography isn't as good as it once was. Or perhaps they've just taken a leaf out of the EPT's book and added a glamorous overseas locale to the tour. Either way, I'm here for it. With a week of tournaments to choose from, me and some friends settled on Friday for a big day of poker, with the option to carry on into the weekend depending on our potential successes. For many many years, I longed for some live omaha tournaments and would bang on about it no end but they have always been few and far between. So while there's a fair old range of tournaments on offer, I felt obliged to take part in the omaha events.  Alas, the Omaha Championship is a £500 buyin and that goes well beyond my bankroll, so my first taste of the Irish Poker Tour was to be the £70 PLO satellite.  Obligatory chipstack photo showing THE WORST designed chips I've ever seen. "The Monster" design looks like they've b...

Oh my sweet valentine Do you think you'll have the time To spend an evening with me? And I can tell by your glances You think that there are chances You will be appeasing me … soon afterwards we drop onto our comfy little couch And have a drink or two. And then I go and spoil it all By playing something stupid like, badugi I can see it in your eyes That you despise the same old cries You heard the night before And though it's just a game to you For me it's true And never seemed so right before … I practice every day To find some clever lines to play To make our dreams come true But then you think you'll wait Until the evening gets late And I'm alone with you ... The time seems right, it's time to make a move  But you go red, and oh you see through me Because I go and spoil it all By playing somethin' stupid like, badugi ... The time seems right, it's time to make a move  But you go red, and oh you see through me Because I go and spoil it all By playing s...

" Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance "  ~ The military, apparently.  I have been planning and preparing for this day for weeks, months even. Since becoming a ardent badugi player I knew today would be a big day before it was even announced. I researched previous WCOOPs, I played the WCOOP Bootcamp warm up series, I tagged literally every player in every badugi tournament I played, all to enable the best possible chance at a deep run in one of the few big money badugi tournaments of the year. " The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men g ang aft agley, a n' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, f or promis'd joy! "   ~ Rabbie Burns Despite all my planning and preparation, the fates had other ideas. Having been unsuccessful in the pursuit of a Power Pass package, I was going to have to play the satellites which take place on the day of the WCOOP events and, if following the Bootcamp format, would be 1/10th of the event buy...

Yes, that's right, the biggest online poker event of the year is here, the World Championship Of Online Badugi (WCOOB)! Pokerstars have announced the schedule for this year's greatest tournament series and it looks like this: My intention, or rather hope, is to play all the events. The $22 low is a given, b uying directly into the $109 medium event is just throwing bankroll management out the window, however, as it's such a special event I will make an exception if I can't satellite in. And, given that most of my poker playing currently revolves around playing $4.40 or less badugi tournaments, I should be able to carry on should it all go horribly wrong. The trouble lies with the two bigger events, the $530 high and the $1050k championship event. I'm not begrudging the existence of these two events but looking at the guarantees and buy-ins, isn't it just going to be the same 40 players in both?  Anyways, I have been trying in vain to win a Power Pass package of ...

My foray into Badugi continues.  For a long time I thought I was going to have to satisfy myself with being the fourth best badugi player after finishing fourth or thereabouts time after time in 80-100 fields.  Yet, I persisted.  Then it was runnerup again and again.  On my first attempt at headsup badugi, I was crushed. With little idea of what adjustments to make my opponent pummelled me with aggression and by the time I decided to make a stand, it was too late. My second heads-up battle was also short-lived but while I didn't win, I think I was just unlucky to be outdrawn a few times, so I left more hopeful. My third heads-up experience was a 40 minute epic back and forth battle, alas, I came up short again. But I persevered and at long last won the nightly badugi tournament outright! I have discovered another couple of badugi tournaments on Pokerstars but they are still maxing out at a $4.40 buyin. Until...  Pokerstars announced a WCOOP warm up series called...

For the best part of the last ten years, poker legend Daniel Negreanu has been documenting his annual WSOP grind through a series of daily vlogs. I have watched bits and pieces over the years but never really followed it fully. But this year, one of my friends was buying a piece of Dnegs world series action through the 'Pokerstake' site. A few of our poker grouped chipped in £50 each, having initially been sold the idea (by my friend) that a big win would equate to a five figure return for us. Alas, after a second look at the numbers, the decimal point moved a couple of places and actually it was highly unlikely we could win more the a couple of hundred pounds, realistically.  Unperturbed, I was invested and decided to follow along with Negreanu's world series vlogs for the summer. It's kind of amazing that not only does Daniel churn out these videos giving an real insight into the world of a top poker pro on a daily basis but also that he's been doing it for so lon...

I had a new favourite game: Badugi.  I discovered the game last year, and after playing just three tournaments, I came up with the following sticky note guide to Badugi to keep myself on the straight and narrow: You get dealt 4 cards, a 'badugi' is when you have one of each suit. The lower the cards the better. Pairs count against you. You get three rounds of drawing and betting. Got a badugi? BET BIG! Drawing to a good badugi? Try get there cheap. Someone else betting big? They have a badugi already. Don't waste chips chasing a poor draw. Obviously there's more to it than that but that was my initial strategic observations and seemed to be enough to make the money about half the time on the nightly pot limit badugi tournament on Pokerstars. It is almost the perfect tournament for me, since becoming a parent I'm very much time restricted in what poker I can play, but this tournament; begins around 9pm which is ideal, it gets 80-100 players meaning it finishes around...