How you became good at poker... a LOL Donkaments tale

I've been playing poker for over 5 years now. it's strange, it still seems like a fairly new addition to my life, I'm sure it does for most people, it would be even weirder to imagine what I'd of been doing during the time I spent playing it. But what I pondered to myself today as I reflected upon the things that I've done in poker was... 'when did I become good?'

Before Kev B can get in and say "what do you mean, when? You're still shite!" let's call it 'when did I become significantly better?' then. I tried to pinpoint to a single instance than made me change the way I thought and played the game, but this isn't true. I can say with certainty that there were certain things that positively influenced me more than others for certain, i'll touch on those later though.

So, I guess to try and piece together this little poker journey I have to go right back to the beginning. December 2004 and Mr Matt Aguilera is chilling at my place and we're bored of playing Pro Evolution Soccer for the night and he is channel hopping, skips to I believe it was channel 123 on Sky Digital at the time and put on Challenge TV... "whats this shit?" I asked. I got a long story about how good Poker was and how he'd been playing it in secret for a little while and going to a local game (Stoke Poker).

I immediately dismissed him, labelled him a degenerate scum-bag as i've never approved of gambling. At this stage in my life I hadn't been to a casino in my life so I surprised myself by how drawn in to the TV I was. It was the 2003 WSOP final, I sat there watched Moneymaker win it and I was hooked. I arranged with Matt to go to Stoke Poker the following week, I guess it all changed for me after that, I became a 'social gambler'. Stoke Poker quickly became a Friday/saturday night weekly event to look forward to each and every week, the worst thing for me I think was doing rather well in my 1st game there, I came 3rd and cashed... last time I did for a while though LOL!

So my instant success had me believing I was considerably better than I could have realised at the time, I think it was a really long time before I cashed again at Stoke Poker and for a friendly little game there were a hell of a lot of good players there now I look back at it. I got very annoyed with it at one point, I used to sit there and try to figure out why I wasn't winning, blaming everyone but me, I recall one week I really layed into Steve when he made a bit of a hero river call against me and caught my bluff, I was a right mard arse but i guess that's the competitive nature in me, i hate to lose at anything, this made me a bit of a twat at the time but served me well later on.

So gradually I grew out of the bad habits I had at the start, like playing K9 and Q10 every time I was dealt them without fail and really tightened up.... it was really needed though to be fair, I can remember thinking Rob Ho was one of the tightest players on the planet at the time.... oh how wrong I was LOL. So I read a few books, particulary the 1st two Harrington books and that really altered my game tremendously. A stand out memory for me was in the event that was organised by Danny Gelboy that saw a number of preliminary single table games at his house and a final table to be played at Stoke Poker. I qualified for the final table and was doing quite well, although it wasn't to be, but the stand out memory for me was in a hand with Claire Ward... now anyone who has played Claire will know she is textbook solid, so he raises have to be respected. Well i somehow found it in myself to lay down AK preflop to Claire in a particular hand and I showed it....

OK, big deal.... but at the time it was. I'd never layed a hand like that down before in a tournament, her face was of shock and I never got to see her hand, but whether I was beaten or not I think i got a bit of respect for that, it had shown some progression in my game, a deeper thought process, I often recall that hand for some reason, it seemed pivotal. Soon after that I started to cash a little more often, including a couple of wins at Stoke Poker and I was feeling a hell of alot more in control of a game. It wasn't long after this that a few Stoke Poker folks decided to step into something bigger and we started to attend the £10 rebuy Friday night at Stoke Stanley's. Sadly for reasons I won't go into on a blog, this venture led to a downfall at Stoke Poker which was very sad and a great game was lost, but it opened a door to a more lucartive game.

I think our little team which consisted of myself, Matt A, Rob Ho, Kev, Jue and Rob Ho, really slided into that game very quickly, i think we the 1st of alot of the new breed there that really gave the old-guard a headache, i think we were all pretty successful there off the bat, I remember Matt and Rob particularly getting some good results there almost immediately. I made many final tables at Stanley's including a 3-way chop at final for a £1000 a piece almost, that was a night with 130 runners! Those were the days, it was the best game in town for sure but sadly I never won a £10 rebuy tournament outright, but did win a couple at the new Stanley's that were freezeouts but for smaller prizes.

So I was into the live poker scene, winning money, spoiling myself with big TV's, a 24 inch Monitor for my computer for some serious online action, a brand new Computer to boot and most importantly..... a trip to Las Vegas and the WSOP 06. So yeah, within 18 months I was going from playing a small but friendly and competitive local game to the biggest game in the world.... seems kinda stupid when you look at it like that, but really it wasn't, it was a fairly logical next step. I had originally intended to go with Matt A but he decided a new guitar, new Xbox 360 and a TV was better than a holiday of a lifetime... I however had my heart set so decided to go it alone anyway.

So I book at in Flamingo, put $1500 aside to buy-in for the cheapest NL event and also bought a $300 seat at mandalay bay for a UFC event that was on at the time, to really make the most of being there. 1st night there was memorable to say the least, I crashed in my room after unpacking for a few hours as I'd not slept for 2 days then proceeded to go to the Flamingo card room at around 6pm for a little bit of cash... a few hours then bed I said, uhuh, not to be. Next time I checked my watch it was 6am and I was a whopping $20 up but had more fun than I'd had in ages. I had the bug real fucking bad there and then.

So I had been there for 3 days and going well in cash games but had not really played any tournament poker prior to the WSOp event, perhaps a mistake but on day 4 it was the big day. Nervous as hell putting £750ish of my hard earned into what was in retrospect a massive gamble, whilst the clock was 60mins starting with 25/25 we only had 1500 in chips and one of the most memorable hands I ever played came on the very 1st hand. It folded round to the SB (how often does that happen in level 1 of a Stoke donkament folks?) and he 150 to go, I look down at JJ. I immediately didn't like this, I wanted better or a fold, something easy but I was on auto-pilot, I re-popped it to 450 and he flat called. So here I am in the biggest game of my life and I already have 1/3 of my chips in the pot on the 1st hand LOL. The flop comes Queen High and he checks and I check behind. The turn comes a blank and i bet 400 and he folds saying he had AK, seems reasonable and i was delighted to get some chips under my belt.

I was doing very well, whilst not felting anyone I got my stack up to around 4000ish and our table broke, I was moved to a table that contained 2 people I recognised. One was Paul Sexton, a guy I'd seen on the WSOP previously who has a famous poker playing brother and father... but also 2 seats to my right was none other than Phil 'The Unibomber' Laak. That was pretty awesome for me, whilst I didn't play a hand directly with Laak at any point he seemed very curious about what I was playing often asking to see my cards and what not. I ran a few bluffs that day and was often shown what they were folding, I couldn't believe it alot of the time, folding top pairs isn't really the norm in Stoke. I got eliminated after nearly (I say nearly in the loosest possible terms) getting someone to lay down AA to my Top pair in a 3 way hand but it wasn't to be. I was out 6 hours after, having beaten 2/3's of the biggest field in WSOP history at that point, I was pleased with how it went but kinda relieved in a way that it was over. I was emotionally and physically drained and wanted to go to my room sharpish LOL.

I came back from Vegas and I played at the Grosvenor the very same night, brimming with confidence, I felt invincible. Now, going to Vegas doesn't autotmatically make you better than the local crowd and that wasn't what I was trying to imply, but I felt my game had moved on, I'd seen a different way to play the game and I was forever changed by my attendence at the WSOP 06, no doubt that is the single biggest influence on my game ever. Shortly after coming back I had a very consistent string of Final Table appearances at Grosvenor and Stanleys and things were going exceptionally well. Sadly for me things got in the way, a mis-hap in poker with a group of friends, my work committments and a person relationship i had at the time put a stop to me playing so often and I almost fell out of the game completely.

I don't think i've ever really recovered from that period, shortly after that came the Grosvenor banning incident and that has really put an end to any aspirations of playing live tournament poker in the UK ever again. That said there is a positive, it made my online game stronger but I long to play in the big casinos again, I miss the interaction, the somewhat easier wins and the rush of live final-table poker. Maybe one day it will come good.

But folks, what experiences made you better at the game? Can you point to your development at one particular instance or was it a series of them. I'd love to know.

Ciao Ciao
Matt