Time for a change

Not written for a few weeks… I guess I’ve been suffering from bad beat blues. The first few days in April were ok but since then it’s been pretty abysmal. I’ve not lost massive amounts as I had reduced the stakes well down. But the beats had been fairly shocking, it seemed like almost every day I would be taking a massive hit or two and struggling to recover. I would be getting it in on a 554 flop holding 54 only to be called by an over pair and end up losing. When I have QQ and the flop comes QJJ the guy has jacks. When I hit middle set he rivers a higher set, it goes in on a AK flop holding AK and he’s been slow rolling AA etc etc etc.

Now taking hits like this day after day, week after week is bearable if you pick up the odd pot as well. But it seems that the gods were not for letting this happen. I’d hold AA vs his AK and flop would come As Ks Js 2s Tc !! This has happened 3 times in a week!

The trouble with a run like this is that it impacts your ability to play normally. After a while you start to see ghosts and become worried about playing the nuts on the turn in case the river does you. You become a calling station, and still end up getting your money in, but on the opponents terms and not your own. As things start to spiral the cards dry up and you can’t find your way into a pot, when you do pick up AKs on a King high flop you cling to it and overplay it walking slap bang into matey boy with bottom two pair. It short you end up playing like a total twat and this simply compounds the miserable run even further.

Things came to a head this week when after a brief resurgence I managed to blow 5 buy ins at £ 1 / 2 NL … It does not get much worse than this, if you are doing your nuts at this level then something is wrong! Afterwards I sat down and reflected. I came across a recent post on Dpommos blog where he quotes someone else’s mantra about recovering from a downward spiral and being a profitable poker player. At the end of the piece there is a sentence that resonated with me.

From time to time I will check my play and if I’m playing badly I will stop playing.

I’m playing badly… so I’ve decided to stop playing. I could go on but I’m sure in this frame of mind I’d dump the rest. So I’m banking it in the baby fund for security, Shell has just finished work for 9 months and now’s not the time to be living on the edge. I’m probably going to go back to work full time.

Poker has always been fun, but the past two months have been no fun at all. To compound this I’ve been playing more and more for the WSOP promo (shame cos I’m not far off on course for it… if anyone fancies taking over the account mail me and we can maybe talk) , over the past few years it’s gradually taken more and more of my time up, ive put on a few pounds and let my social life slip a little. Considering I’m going to be a dad in the next few weeks, now seems as good a time as any to claim my life back.

You could say that but for a small loosing run I’d still be happy playing every waking hour and I guess you would be right, but things have a funny way of working out and in some ways I’m glad to have made this decision. Poker has been good to me, I’ve made a lot of money over the past few years, I guess that’s more than most can say. It was good while it lasted and while I have more discipline than most it obviously is not enough.

I may well continue playing some casual poker for fun… With FUN being the operative word. I’ll probably keep the blog updated once every few weeks of so as well.

Do you really want to be playing full time when you are 80?

March is over, and I don’t mind admitting I’m glad to see the back of it. It’s the 1st losing month I’ve had for a while, so I suppose one was due sooner or later. I’ve been playing more $2/5 in the last week and so far so good, I’ve yet to post a losing day in April. The end of March was quite half decent as well, a nice little run and some good news from Mr William Hill in the form of a $1k consolation for hitting the bubble in Tallinn… very generous and again a big pat on the back for Hills for looking after their clients.

I used some of the money from Hills to enter the $600K on Crypto on Sunday, I was feeling a degree under the weather and should have stayed in bed. I never really got going in all honesty and pushed all in pre flop for my last 1000 chips with AKs, a 5k stack made a call with 99 and that was me heading for an early bath. I was really glad to see Hawko make the final table, I know he’s been having a tough time the last few months and $30k payout is just what he needed!

I’ve been keeping a little graph on my progress towards the Betfair WSOP rake promo. So far so good, up to the 31st March I’d generated about £9k… quite scary when you think about it! This just about puts me on track for the full $15k WSOP package (need £28k rake required by 25th June) however with me playing more $2/5 and the baby due in May I may well have to lower my sights to one of the lesser packages that BF are offering… £20k rake gets you a $4k package and £24k rake gets a $8k package. We’ll see how it goes.


Pensions seem to be in the news a lot at the moment, so I thought it apt to do a little piece. I can see you all stretching for the link to Pommo's blog already!!

If you are playing poker for fun or side by side with a full time job then hopefully you do not need to worry about providing a pension from your poker funds because you will already have a great one sorted out with your work?? Yes??

If however you are working as a poker professional then it is something you really, really need to be concerned about. We’ve all seen the figures on the TV, most people with a normal job can not be arsed sorting out a decent pension so how can a poker pro sort one out?

It’s more a case of how can a poker pro (or anyone else for that matter) not afford to sort one out!! Poker = job, and while I enjoy the work and I will probably always play to some extent until my last days, but I really don’t want to be sat there multitabling 8hrs a day when I’m 75.

With poker earnings not being subject to UK income tax , the tax implications of pensions skew things a little. It probably does not make any sense to set up a traditional pension. The whole advantage of a traditional pension is that you don’t pay tax on the funds when you pay into the pension. If you are not paying tax on the income anyway the advantage is lost. Plus you are restricted in how you can spend the fund, you have to buy an annuity with the option to take a lump sum tax free.

If you are still working part time then it makes sense to put as much of your taxable pay from the job into a pension scheme, this maximises the tax benefits and allows you to retire at a half decent age! This is currently what I do.

If you are full time poker then there are a number of options, you can do worse than stick it all into an equity ISA, you can put several thousand pounds per annum into an equity ISA and all earnings from them are TAX free and not subject to capital gains tax. You also have the freedom to do exactly what you want with the money, although this could be disadvantage if you go through a bit of a lean streak and are tempted to dip in! You need to pick your funds with care as they are subject to the ups and down of the stock exchanges…. but then so is your run of the mill company pension.

These are just my musings, please don’t take them as gospel!! I hope they have given some of you food for thought though. Please feel free to comment if you have any ideas or have been looking at some of the points I’ve covered. Before you take any action I would also recommend seeking the advice of personal financial advisor/ accountant.

For all you 20 somethings who keep putting thinking about things like this off, I’ll leave you with this passing thought.....


If you are 30 years old and wish to retire at 65 with a pension of £23000 per annum (todays prices) then you need to be saving £1000 per month from now on in a private pension!