Well another long time since my last post and even longer time since I done any sort of personal update and since it’s pretty much the end of summer it seemed worthy of update. I’ve mentioned this previously that I probably wasn’t going to update often because i’ve stopped playing poker and so don’t really have a focus for this blog anymore.

From the end of last year I planned a trip across the U.S.A travelling from NY to LA on a bus with an organised tour group of 13 people i’d never met before for 3 weeks in the summer. Then i’d be topping it off with a  week in Vegas meeting up with my parents and the rest of the NPF crew. It’s been ages since i’ve been back and was planning on doing a proper trip report but fell into the trap of couldn’t be arsed territory so instead i’ll just give a brief overview.

Some of the places I managed to go to:

• New York
• Washington DC
• Tennessee
• New Orleans
• Houston and San Antonio Texas
• Colorado
• Monument Valley
• Grand Canyon
• Zion National Park
• Vegas was also on the trip which meant I had an extended stay there as I decided not to finish off in LA.

There were some other stop offs and a some other national parks but were more of a stop off point along the way and not really any decent time spent there. Some of the highlights included:

Whitewater rafting on the Ocoee River in Tennessee. Going up to class 4 rapids which is very rough. For the record I can’t actually swim but thought fuck it and did it anyway. Did not fall out but someone pulled me in on the still bit not knowing I couldn’t swim. Nearly didn’t get back in the boat like. Then after doing it I find out someone died on that river a month before hand. This was quite an amazing experience and would recommend it to anyone seeking a thrill ride and has an opportunity to do it somewhere decent.

New Orleans. An amazing place and defo a must place to visit when in the U.S. Really cool and chilled out place and great to just walk about there’s just a good atmosphere about the place. Probably couldn’t spend more than 3 days there though unless you are an uber party person. The famous bourbon street not really too my taste but can see why people love it. Loads of music type bars instead of clubs so much more friendly and intimate. Loads of tramps and got a bit too seedy late on. You could not really tell it had been hit by a hurricane just a few years ago with the main city not really being affected and still having that New Orleans vibe that it is famous for. There’s a Harrah’s casino there as well which is just like Vegas, $12/hour rake on $1/$2 though and managed to win $100 for a couple of hours.

Mountain Biking in Colorado. Basically drove to the top of a massive mountain which took half an hour then biked down a dirt road. Loads of fun despite not being confident on a bike and there were some amazing views. The not fun bit was riding a bike with the suspension not working. I run so bad.

Monument Valley was amazing and done a jeep tour round the monuments. Met some Navajo people but was not really authentic because it’s still very touristy.

Hiked 12 miles into the Grand Canyon and helicopter tour. We were camping in the park for 2 days so that meant we got to see sunset and sunrise. We done a thing where we had bags over our heads before we saw the canyon and didn’t take them off until we were at the edge so that was a really cool way to see the canyon for the first time. Other than that it was just ‘hmm Grand Canyon, nice’. The next day we were doing a hike into the canyon at 5am to a place called plateau point which is in the middle but not at the bottom near the river. This was pretty fucking intense since the gradient is ridiculously steep, stupidly uneven terrain and 100°F+ when the sun comes out. I was completely fucked after doing it and wanted to die towards the end but in the end it was worth it just because of the achievement and was an experience that so few people will do.

On the 2nd day I did a helicopter tour over the Canyon. Was not really arsed about seeing the canyon but I just wanted to go in a helicopter and since I was there the Grand Canyon seemed like a good place to fly a helicopter over. If you’re in Vegas and want to see the Grand Canyon then you might aswell just do the helicopter tour. It’s a bit pointless to just go there and see it from a cliff edge since there is only so much rocks you can see before it all looks the same and gets boring. So you might aswell get an extra experience out of if you’re not staying overnight in the park to enjoy it more.

Then went onto Zion National Park which is apparently amazing but did not do the morning hike because too fucked and then the 2nd day was raining so didn’t see any of the park so bit gutted. Then onto Vegas for 2 days where I did a limo tour which was cool and then we got pissed in O’Sheas.

I was supposed to finish off the tour in LA but since I was staying in Vegas for another week it seemed pointless to go and come back and I did not make any really good friends to say goodbye too properly. This turned into a bit of a regret as I was a bit bored at the start and ended up having too much time in Vegas where it would have been good to have a break up and seeing a little bit of LA.

Up to this point I had not played any poker for months (apart from a tiny bit of cash in New Orleans) so despite being in Vegas I still had no desire to play any poker. It was not until halfway where a lot of the NPF crew said they were playing the Binnions Poker Classic $200 on the Sunday so thought i’d have a crack at it since the tourney suited me with a 30 min clock and 15k stack.

I was really not enjoying the start of this tourney and started wishing I hadn’t played it. Did not like the naff surroundings and then there were some turd dealers which I had to stop myself from tilting. Then I just couldn’t get a hand despite a ton of fish to pick up chips. Managed to grind out my normal tight game until I see i’m the last NPF left out of like 15 of us and by this point i’m feeling really comfy and actually quietly confident about winning this tourney.

The NPF rail had been getting drunk at the bar and went for some food before coming back seeing me with a massive stack and looking cert for FT. I lose a big flip after a good call for a huge chip lead but manage to keep with it and make a Binnions final table. I was still very confident about winning with a big NPF rail behind me I get to heads up and somehow manage to bink a decent tourney for just shy of $5k. I played well and ran normal winning flips when I needed to and loosing flips when I had the chips. My biggest score to date and took home a trophy left the fucking trophy in my room which Aria could not locate so some Mexican cleaner has it on her mantlepiece. Proper gutted and is just something I never do.

For most people after a big score they’d have a big confidence boost and want to play more but not for me. Played just 1 Aria tournament then the Newcastle Club Championships at home and that’s it, the last game I have played. No more desire to play anything else and quitting while i’m ahead with a nice wedge of USD.

Before I left for my trip I was in the middle of a big project at work with a new computer system which was planned to be finished before I left and have the trip as a reward. Of course things don’t go exactly to plan and have ended up 3 months behind and just now we have gone live with things starting to settle into place and I can start to make progress with the things I want to do.

During this time I was busy doing this project the forum had taken bit of a back seat although still taking up a lot of time and big distraction. There’s been quite a few conflicts this year and numerous times i’ve been so close to closing the thing down completely and actually had some serious conversations about doing it.

The most recent conflict was between Pads and the admin which had actually built up over a much longer period of time. At first I had never had any problems with him and infact had staked him more than once in the past. The second time was a chance for him to prove his ability in poker and to show how he appeared to be on the forum. Turns out he messed this up. Then he had a run in with a new person on the forum and ended up calling him low life scum which he is now appears to be bezzie mates with. Then there was that thing about people wanting a big pat on the back for genuine hard work. Over time with numerous comments i’d come to the conclusion that he was a complete faker and hated reading his total bollocks and arrogant attitude. Eventually he left the forum. Whether this was down to my pressure or because of a cushty new job I don’t know and don’t care but him leaving was the best outcome and a huge weight off my shoulders. Of course it’s a totally selfish point of view as many people still got on with him and liked him. I could have just banned him but truth was he didn’t really do anything bad enough to be banned. He was just a really annoying itch that wouldn’t fuck off and the more you scratched it the worse it got.

Work is now a big priority with some big things happening in the next 2 years. I don’t know if the forum has reached some sort of plateau right now but finding it harder all the time to move it forward. I know I still really have to develop the blog on the home page by writing loads of new and useful articles but just waste too much time and never seem to get anything done. I really want to target more new players because since starting the forum, all the decent tournaments are so tough now because of all the good players. That is one of reasons for the blog home page because a lot of new players are put off by forums so i’m hoping to attract a much larger audience. I’d like to get a regular tournament organised by NPF but so much competition out there right now it’s hard to tell if it would be a success or not and sometimes the work/reward ratio does not pay off.

For my personal life i’ve still been stuck in a bit of a rut and lack motivation in areas. I’ve managed to gain over 2 stone since June 09 (intentionally) because I was so skinny and have been doing a strength training program but have skipped so many workouts and been lazy with my diet i’ve not reached my goals. I’m nearly 22, have some clear paths ahead of me but i’m really going to have to stop waiting for things to happen.

Since my last post criticising helping PokerStars’ search enginge marketing I could not be bothered to think of anything to write about or anything more original for the next stage so i’m going to delve into the marketing again.  Last time they wanted to rank for the keyword ‘poker’ and by the looks of it they have moved up in the rankings and are now on the first page (8th) in google.com and the 2nd page in google.co.uk. Looks like just the power of links alone is pretty much guaranteed to get you better rankings which is fairly obvious. Still wondering if varying the anchor text more would help but i’m not advanced enough to know this.

So the next phrase looks like PokerStars want to rank for the term online poker tournament in order to support their new mini site for the SCOOP series of online poker tournaments. This strategy confuses me since if they are really wanting to rank their mini site for this term I can’t believe that they would be able to rank high enough in such a short space of time. Yes it can be a long term thing for future years but people searching for this term in the future renders it pointless since it is only running for a short period of time. PokerStars already rank 2nd in Google for this term so why not just concentrate on trying to get this to number 1? That way you’ve got the long term power of that term and even the SCOOP pages ranks high i’m sure it will not stay there and probably drift back to page 3 like where it is now doing nothing.

Another thing that confuses me is that if they want to rank for a certain term, why the hell do they not have online poker tournament in their page title? Right now, they just have SCOOP – PokerStars which is about as useful as a chocolate toaster. Personally I would suggest a title something a long the lines of SCOOP – Online Poker Tournament Championship or even atleast the full name of the championship.

Now that my slight rant is out the way time for answers to the title. Yes I do think it is the best online poker tournament purely down to the estimated number of entrants for it giving it a huge prizepool and titles worth winning. Eventhough most of the events (in particular the low series) are just like any other poker tournament on PokerStars it’s somehow worth more when it has a fancy title attached to it.

I was disapponted to see that the structure for the lowest buy in main event is still only 200 starting bbs, 15 min levels and the standard high increase in levels like the Sunday Million. There is also no difference in structure between the main event and a regular $22 event which is a bit crazy. For it being such a big and special event I thought it would be great to give 20 minutes blind levels for the more affordable blind level giving chance for more players to play a better strucured tournament. Comparing it to the $70 FTOPS main event, I think is slightly better as you get 375 starting bbs a few more blind levels and also the blinds increase to 20 minutes at the end.

Anyhow, it’s still a great series and may play a couple eventhough I hate online poker and overall it probably is the best online poker tournament to win.

PokerStars has always been so far ahead of the competition because basically they get their marketing right and provide a better solution for online poker players. No matter what guarantee they put on for their tournaments, they are always smashed because they know what works and have so many players.

As an internet marketer myself I always try to look at what the big boys do and try to emulate some of the things they do in some of my own projects. One thing that has particularly sparked my attention is their WBCOOP which is basically a championship just for poker bloggers and there are a lot of them out there i’m so surprised no other site has caught onto this and atleast tried to copy it. What they do is make you add a link and banner for the event and then you get a free ticket to the tournaments. This gets PokerStars thousands of basically free links and also plenty of branding because of the banners.

I received an e-mail the other day (which is what has brought this article on) where they are now asking for bloggers to write an article containing the text which is why playing poker is clearly a game of skill with the poker being a link to their site. In exchange for this, bloggers get some goodies.

Now my question to the PokerStars marketing team is this. Why are you making bloggers write the same phrase for the text you are targeting? Does this not scream a paid text link to the search engines because all of a sudden you have hundreds of bloggers writing articles with the exact same link and surrounding text all being published at the same time. This means you will be penalised in the search engines if they detect this. Why don’t you just let the bloggers place the link themselves, then you have different surrounding text for every article? This will seem so much more natural.

When I checked the rankings for PokerStars.com in google.com I noticed you were on the first page but now you are on the 2nd page. It concerns me that you have already been penalised for this and your rankings have dropped with your top competitor Full Tilt Poker now ranking much higher than you. You are also on the 3rd page in google.co.uk which is worth practically nothing for such a competitive term.

This is my first post in 2010 and i’ve had this post written in my head  2 weeks ago but just getting it written down now.  Since coming back from holiday I have noticed a problem with my reading where I constantly have to re read lines because I did not take it in the first time.  This is really pissing me off because it’s taking me ages just to read stuff and is actually putting me off from reading. My typing has also got a lot worse where I just missed complete words out my sentences or just don’t finish a word before hitting space. That is the reason for my post title because I don’t if it’s just my mind full of other shit that I can’t concentrate or i’m suffering from some sort of slowness.  I sort of noticed it before my holiday but as I had been reading a lot on holiday it became more noticeable.

I had a good relaxing holiday where I basically did fuck all as usual so had some good time to do some thinking and read the books i’ve been wanting to read. It turned out I ended up taking my laptop because there was going to be a 10 hour delay so thought it would help pass the time away in the airport eventhough I did not end up using it.  It was really good just to turn off and not have to worry about what was going on at home.

There was plenty of sun to be had which really makes a different to your mood to get away from the shitty constant greyness in England. I’m not much of a sun worshipper so i’m usually content in just staying in bed to miss the heat and then have a lounge later on. Eventhough it was an all inclusive resort I managed to lose about 5lbs as I just never feel like eating on holiday plus I had the shits for 5 days which didn’t help like.  I tried to get in the gym but they didn’t even have any sort of squat rack and not even a barbell with more than 20kg so it was a complete waste of time. So now i’ve lost about 6 weeks of training and it’s really hard to get back into it when your gym is like 0 degrees.

For those that know me will know that I really have lost all interest in playing poker and the last game I played was the NPF Championships at end of October and even then I only lasted 5 hands and had not played for 2 months before that so i’m pretty serious about it. (About an hour before writing this I donked out the WBCOOP because it reminded me how much I just didn’t want to play). So it’s unlikely you will see me write about myself playing poker and will probably turn this blog into more personal stuff and posts will probably be random as the poker articles I planned to write will be written for the coming soon new NPF site.

That brings me to another point and expanding from my mental overload/slowness is that I have developed an uncanny ability to scan posts for where it talks about playing a particular hand, I can just see where it begins and ends and just skip it completely because I just can’t bear to read it. It usually contains something like ‘I picked up KK and there’s a raise so I re raise to 1500 and he flats…He turns over fucking AJ for the straight…what did he think I had like on the king high flop and the big re raise pre flop?’.

I really think 2010 is going to be the year for me as i’ve got a much clear goal of what I want to do and looking at the goals in my 2009 wrap up post I can really see myself having done all of those things and more by the time i’m 23. But it in order for that to happen I can’t just sit around and wait for things to happen which is what i’ve done all my life. I’m getting there slowly but surely.

As 2009 is drawing to a close and i’m off on a sunny holiday in a few days I thought i’d write a wrap up post of 2009 as no doubt i’ll just not end up doing writing it.

At the start of 2009 I made some resolutions for the upcoming year. Just looking back at those now realise how quickly a year can fly by and how things can change along the way.

One of my big goals was to get some strength and I can proudly say that I achieved this as if you read my previous post you will know that I have gained loads of weight and i’m getting comments that i’m looking a lot more healthy. I can currently squat 85KG which is a canny bit of weight on your back for a lightweight like me.

I did eventually get my room sort of tidied but this has since gotten bad again and have piles and piles of shit on my desk which makes being productive more difficult.  I’ve still been wasting a lot of time by getting up late on weekends, too much TV and a lot of idle internet browsing.  However, although I have not been doing a lot, I have probably learned more this year than I ever have and I plan on taking this knowledge into 2010 to actually do stuff.

I really wanted to get some big things planned for Newcastle Poker Forum this year but they just didn’t happen so are now planned for next year. The organic growth of the community has just been phenomenal and i’m really proud of what I created.  It is great that I have allowed people to make new friends, some who would probably have never even talked to each other if it wasn’t for the forum. I’ve been reading some articles on what makes a successful community and I can say that it ticks all those boxes.

With my earlier reference to how things can change I was specifically referring to my poker. I had goals of building a bankroll and keeping proper records but instead this has turned on its head and now I have so little interest in actually playing poker.  I don’t know the cause but the growth of Newcastle Poker Forum this year has probably had a big influence on my passion.

In 2009 I played a few big events including Liverpool Winter Festival, Virgin festival and the Sky Poker Tour Main Event which I got half staked for.  I gained a lot of experience playing in these and in the Sky Poker game I had just regained a bit of love for the game after being staked to then go out with a bad beat after making a great call.

Then for my 21st birthday I was fortunate to have been able to go to Las Vegas and got to stay in The Palazzo which is now the most luxurious hotel in Las Vegas. I had a great time as I recently posted and now plan on going back at least once a year.

The Future

Instead of doing goals for 2010, i’m looking at things I want to achieve in the future which are in no particular order.

• To build a blog style homepage for Newcastle Poker Forum so will be additional content to the user driven content of the forum. This should attract a new base of visitors into the Newcastle Poker community that are overwhelmed with the forum.
• Speak fluent Spanish.
• Live in another country for atleast 6 months.
• Learn to swim. I’m one of the millions that can’t do this essential life skill and has stopped me from doing the things that I really want to do and has brought fear in my life.
• Make friends with people that are more successful than I am.
• Build a sustainable income from the internet.
• Build my personal brand.
• Travel across America (planned for May/June 2010)
• Visit Australia and New Zealand.
• Find something i’m really passionate about to turn into a business.
• Be more confident and social.

This is all I can think of right now and I may add to it at another time. This may or may not be the last post of 2009 so i’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Do the things you love and if you are doing something you hate then stop doing it now!

If you also have some goals for the future, let me know in the comments.

Before I went to Vegas in September I had reached a point where I had lost all interest in poker and had only played 1 game in about 3 months before. With the trip to Vegas booked and being the mecca of poker I would have thought that i’d get some sort of buzz back. It turns out that that I run exactly the same in Vegas as I do at home and that I that I think I could be somewhere else doing something else more productive instead of just folding 80% of hands.

So since i’ve been back i’ve only played a handful of games including the Circus £75 Freezeout, the NPF championships and an NPF online deepstack tournament. So the Circus game, you sit there putting up with shit hands and then when you decide that you need to make a move you do it at a terrible time or run a good hand into a slightly better hand. The online game where eventhough I played brilliantly and came 2nd there is just no buzz.  Then when you enter the NPF Championships without the desire to play because your mind is on other things.  To make it worse the first 2 hands I get I fold AJ and AQ because i’m early position and then the next hand I lose with JJ after someone hitting trips then the next hand I go bust with aces after I put a big re raise in pre from the sb only for the same person to turn a straight that I couldn’t possibly put him on.  I was never in the right from of mind to fold so I busted and was the first person to exit after 5 hands despite being one of the tightest players in the tournament so it made me wonder why I play.

So after those games I just decided that I simply don’t have what it takes to play poker very often as the desire to win is just completely gone so wasting time basically doing nothing is not very productive. I don’t know how people keep so passionate about playing the game. I’m still massively passionate about poker tough and I still love reading about it and also I enjoy seeing the success of other people which has been happening a lot recently on NPF. It is a pleasure to know that I have a small contribution to those successes because of the forum I created.

I’ve had loads of ideas for some more websites I want to make, some gambling related, some not. One idea is a site about poker tournament structures because i’m somehow really passionate about them and have developed a great understanding of them when organising tournaments for NPF. I was originally going to do posts on this blog but decided that it would work out better on a dedicated website. I also still have plans for a load of unique articles and hope to post once a week once I get them written.

Outside of poker I’ve had plenty of stuff going on but still being really limited by how lazy I am and struggling to make the changes I want. Anyone that knows me will know how skinny I am so since June i’ve been eating more and doing a strength training program in the gym I set up in my garage.  Since then i’ve gained 25lbs and now have to walk around without the button fastened because I can’t be bothered to buy some new pants that fit. Although, I see this as a bit of a mini achievement I’m still disappointed because i’ve started slacking off a lot since the weights have got heavy and can’t be bothered to eat when i’m supposed to.

I’m going away to Punta Cana in Domincan Republic again for Christmas and New year again with my parents so very much looking forward to that to relax. At first I wasn’t really bothered about going away as I was satisfied with the Vegas trip and was going to use the time off to maybe get some work done that i’ve put off for ages.  But now i’m glad we’re going away as I think I just need some and to relax.  I don’t think i’m going to take the laptop so will probably get the chance to read some books that I haven’t got round to reading yet.

I’m also planning on doing a 3 week trek across America in May/June next year and then do Vegas again for a week where a lot of the NPF crew are going out for the WSOP. I fancied doing something different, something to take me out of my comfort zone where i’ve always had things done for me and sometimes handed on a plate. I should be making most of the time I have while i’m still young because you never know what is round the corner. Hopefully, it will be a massive learning curve/personal development for me so something i’m really looking forward to.