The Worst Winner

I've been prompted to write this after accidentally regging a €10 satellite and winning a €100 ticket to the Unibet Supernova tournament. I  didn't intend to play the Supernova, so have I lost my €10 stake or made a profit of €90? Could this be a Schrödinger success? I have both won and not won, only opening the box and playing the game reveals its true nature.  As with all poker players, the dream is to go to Vegas and play in the World Series of Poker. Each year I would commit a month or two and a chunk of my bankroll to grinding the WSOP satellites. After 3 "years" of trying,  I was fortunate enough to win a package to the WSOP in 2012. For a while now, I have reassured myself that if I just keep plugging away, keep getting to these bigger target events, then eventually one will coincide with some rungood and success will be mine, at last! A while back someone, probably my wife, suggested I would be better off winning money, instead of tickets. I fobbed it of...

Long before the demise of PKR (RIP) there have been community organised meet-ups far and wide. The PKR community spirit has outlived the ghost of PKR and continues even now. One such weekend of punts and pints took place at the Manchester 235 Casino, where I made many mistakes. Mistake #1 After making the now long standing mistake of drinking far too much on the Friday night and suffering the effects the following day, the £50 buy-in Main Event was scheduled to start Saturday lunchtime. Or at least it was supposed to but there were not enough dealers on hand for our 60+ strong contingent. We were offered a small discount on food and drink to compensate us as we waited for over an hour before the casino staff finally readied themselves but that gesture was quickly forgotten when the tournament director changed the blind structure to reduce the tournament length to offset the time lost. Suffice to say people weren’t happy, the general consensus was it was bad and no-one wanted this...

During a recent interview with Joey Ingram, Barry Greenstein spoke about asking a bunch of recreational players why they play poker and despite all being clearly losing players, everyone says they're in it to win money. Absurd isn't it? But hang on, why do I play poker? To win money, of course. Do I?  A little but at a very poor hourly rate. So why bother? If I really wanted to win, I would do 200% more studying, I would have at the very least tried using a HUD at some point in the last decade and I would certainly be all over solvers right now. But I am not. I read free strategy pieces, some hand histories and occasionally go old school with some good old fashioned book reading, just enough to keep the pocket money coming in but not enough to win serious cash. And yet, I want to win serious cash, so what am I waiting for?  People are always asking pros "what do I need to do to become a great player?" like there's some quick "oh you should be 3betting ev...

"Oh my god, what's wrong?" b ooms a beautiful bubbly blonde.  Confused by the grim scene she finds in front of her.  She turns to her friend but he doesn't know either, so she approaches the poker table. "What's wrong?" she asks.  Her question is met with silent stares. "I just saw your face as I came in, you look really angry." she says to me.  Bemused, I shrug, not sure what to say, I manage to raise a little smile in her direction.   "Oh my god,  why does everyone look so serious?" I look around me, and she's right. After a night of solid poker, we're one player away from making the final table an yet we look more like we belong in the dentists waiting room.  "You all look pretty sad" I laugh. No-one else joins in though.   "Why does no-one look happy?" Her effervescence is failing to spread.  The line of questioning isn't doing much to lighten the mood.  She watches on, tr...