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Alright, so I basically was able to spend as much time in London as possible without the trip being a financial success.

As stated in my previous entry, I got 2nd in my heat in the Poker Million which put me through to a turbo consolation round against other 2nd place finishers where the winner went on with the winners of other heats.

I changed my flights and played the Unibet Poker Open. I was expecting the field to be a lot like WPT Venice since the vast majority of the players would be online qualifiers. Unfortunately, Unibet isn't on Ongame(not sure why I thought that) but is actually on Prima, so the field was filled with crazy-euro-swedes. The structure was to my knowledge the exact same as the old EPT structure but played more levels per day and had a field of only 270 so they could run it in 3 days rather than 4. My starting table was definitely the toughest in the room, I had cardrunners members on my left and right(both of whom have watched my videos so they probably have a good idea about how straightforward I am), Albert Iversen 2 to my left(definitely one of the best players in the field) and Mikael Norrinder across the table. Some of the randoms at the table sucked pretty bad but it was still nowhere near what I was hoping for.

I honestly had a very uninteresting day, as I try to remember hands I realize there were very few interesting spots.

In the first like 30 minutes I managed to lose like 500 chips a hand like 3-4 times in an orbit and got down to like 8k from my 10k starting stack, then decided to hit the nuts when a player in mid position raised, 2 people called, I called T9o out of the SB(not sure whether this is good/bad, I basically make up my mind here based on how pissed off I am and after losing every pot I played I was sufficiently pissed off to make the call).

Anyways, the flop came 998cc, its checked to the button(CR member who plays mostly like 2/4 -5/10 on Prima) who bet like 500 at 650, I checkraised to 1400, he called
Turn: T I bet like 1800 at 3450(my sizing for the hand might be slightly off, this was like 5-6 days ago), he calls
River: Tc, this card seems to really hurt my chances of making money, I jam my last like 5.5k(think I had won one pot recently), villain thinks and folds

I then don't do much until like 75/150 when there is a raised pot, about 3 callers, I call red 7's in the BB

Flop: AJ7cc, checked to button who says like "hold on" or something after villain thinks its checked through, he bets 1200 at 2k, I make it 3k, he jams, I have about 13.5k and call and hold against AJ to get up to like 29k good for 2nd place at the moment.

I then don't do much but hover from until about 25-30k for a while then play a weird hand at 150/300/25
I raise the CO or HJ(think CO) and Mikael Norrinder calls the BB

Flop: KK6dd, check check
Turn: 3, check, I bet like 1100 at 1950, he calls
River: K, check I bet like 2200 or something, he thinks and calls, I expect to be good here virtually always and flip my cards over, he waits a little bit before showing TT and my head asplodes(he had like 8-9k at the start of the hand and for anyone whose played with him they'll understand why my head asploded, hes super loose/agro/tries to own people usually by erring on the side of putting as many chips in the pot as possible)

Anyways, I do very little for a while before getting moved to a new table with Skier_5(also definitely one of the best players on the field) 2 to my left, but the guy between us soon busts and hes on my direct left.

Shortly after getting to the table he raises UTG to 1600 at 300/600/75(hes told me how tight everyone at his table was at breaks so I won't give this much credability, would probably 3bet call AQo here)

1 guys calls, I call 66 in the BB

Flop: J76r
Check, Skier bets 3600 at like 5600, fold, I make it 8600 with like 21k back. I'm undecided between whether this is better or whether check-calling 3 streets is better, but I figured skier could decide he wants to own me/would certainly realize how narrow of a range I'm repping/spaz out since we've played and talked a bunch together. He thought for quite some time before folding and when I asked what he had it went something like this
"you fold something legitimate?"
"I had at least a couple outs"
"T8 with a bdfd or something?"
"way way worse"

I'm still not sure whether I like my checkraise, I feel like sometimes he'll fold overpairs, but other times he'll jam the 53 no bdfd that he actually had.

I then win another decent pot where I raise ATss UTG to 1600 and get called by Willie Tann(who I used to play against at Tribeca 20/40 a while back, he was a nit but likely beat the game since no one folded) in the SB. He just doubled through Skier I believe and has maybe 17k

Flop: J72ss or something similar(I really suck at remembering hands exactly today, sorry about that), he checks I bet like 2600 at 4500, he calls
Turn: 6 putting out 2 clubs, he bets 5k at 9700 leaving like ~10k back, I raise to 13.5k, he folds and I'm up to my high point of about 46k.

I then get moved again but my new table has some crazies, in my like hour at the table, I got 3bet 3 times and cold 4bet once, and I wasn't playing *that* agressively.

I had one hand with about 30 minutes left in the day, it folds around to me in the SB, I raise to 2100 with ATo(like I would have with any 2 against the villain in the BB) he shoves like 17k, I fold and get told he had KT. After the day ended he revealed he actually had KK

Other than that I didn't do much during the day, I ended with 39k which was slightly below average of day 1a finishers but above average for all people entering day 2.

That night me, Tufat and Skier went to China town to get some wicked food. I got super tired part way through(it was like 3 and I hadn't slept much the previous night) and had to leave before our last course got there.

I cabbed back to my hotel and slept for like 10 or 11 hours.

The next day I had to play my turbo qualifying heat, I read through the live updates on all the other heats to get an idea about who could play short stacked poker and who couldn't.

The table draw was

1 Gavin Smith
2 Joao Barbosa
3 Mike McDonald
4 John Duthie
5 Peter Vasiliou
6 Adam Carey

Gavin plays pretty well, but this structure is probably less suited to him than just about anyone else, he plays way too passively/soulready for turbo SNGs, Duthie didn't last long but has probably played this format more than the rest of the table combined and Joao despite being from Portugal seemed like probably the player who would play the best in this Ultra-Turbo structure. Adam was too tight, and Peter was wayyyy too tight.

Play begins with 100k starting stacks, 7 hand levels, 20 seconds to act, and a blind structure of 1/2, 2/4, 3/6, 5/10, 7/15, 10/20, 15/30, 42 hands until there are 20 bets in play.

I felt like Duthie would want to own me so I said I'd open a little tighter than usual and basically just not fold to his 3bets in the first 2 levels(assuming stack/bet sizes are such that there is any fold equity)

On like the 5th hand, I am too much of a lag to fold 86s in the CO so I raise to 5k, Duthie 3bets me to 16k, I jam and Duthie folds the worst hand.

Duthie busts to Gavin (they both called raises ~25BB deep with 87o and 65s) and Gavin holds on a 765 flop and Joao runs AQ into Peter's AK to get down to 36k at 5k/10k

I shove UTG the next hand with AJo, Joao calls from the BB with K3s, I hold and we're 4 handed where I have about ~160k.

Gavin eliminates the Adan by him shoving 4 or 5 BB on the button and Gavin reshoving pretty quickly with what I remembered as being AJ, but the (not so reliable updates) say AK.

Blinds hop to 10k/20k and Peter is playing very tight, blinded down since his AK>AQ double up. He eventually gets to 78k, folds the SB and Gavin shows J9s and says like "I wouldn't have been too happy but I'd have called"
Next hand Adam shoves the button for 68k, Gavin uses most of his 20 seconds(maybe 12-13 seconds) before calling, I have 188k total in the BB with A2s and hate my life. I think that while Gavin could trap big pairs here, hes rarely trapping like TT or AK or something and usually reshoving most playable hands. I really felt like he probably had a similar strength hand to mine the majority of the time and I have 10% of my stack invested. I haven't looked at numbers since I feel like with the 20 second clock and whatnot theres probably no hand he plays/times this way 100% of the time but I do feel like of hands he isn't folding, the way he played it is about as weak as he possibly could have played it. I end up jamming, he thinks his whole time bank and calls A8s, I chop with Gavin and we both lose to Peter's AKo

I keep jamming every SB and at 15k/30k I jam 74o for 120k, Adam uses most of his time bank before calling A9o, holding and going on to win the heat(despite only winning 4 or 5 pots going into HU play)

I then went back to the hotel, had dinner with Juha Helpi whose actually a really nice guy and went to sleep looking forward to binking Unibet.

I wake up after only sleeping like 4 hours and after getting breakfast and whatnot checked out of the hotel(FTP offered to extend it, but I figured I'd be fine crashing on Tufat's couch which was much closer to the Vic Casino). I got to his place, went for a jog with his room mate Damien in Regent's park and then went down to the casino.

I went down to the subway station, realized I left my pass upstairs(they live just above a subway station) then decided I'd pay the extra like $8 to save time since I was running late anyways. I ended up getting there right as play started and would have certainly missed 2-3 hands if I had have gotten it. I'm always happy when I can fight the inner nit to do something that is short-term -EV but long term +EV.

Anyways, day 2 sucked, like 5 hands in I raised ATdd to 2500, got called by this French guy(I believe) who had already made it pretty clear he didn't play that well

Flop: Q76dd, I bet like 4100 at 7300, he jams for just over a PSB, I call and lose to AQ to get down to like 16k.

I blind down for a while and get down to about 11k in the BB at the end of the level, I have a few laggy kids 2 and 3 to my right, and one of them opens the button, I jam QJ expecting to get called but to be ahead of his range, he folds, and after jamming the SB with like T3s I'm back up to like 16BB territory.

3-4 hands later I get KTs HJ-1 which is like my favorite pushbotting hand, I shove, the guy to my left calls QQ and holds and I'm out in the first level.

After that I headed back to Andy/Damiens after only being gone about 2 hours and got some dinner at the Hare & Tortoise(not sure if I mentioned it last entry but its one of my favorite restaurants despite being only a step up from fast food and only located in London), then went out to a bar for a bit before coming back to watch Inbetweeners.

The next day I flew back to Waterloo, I slept pretty well on the flight(was Business class again, thanks FTP) and now that I'm back in Waterloo and had only run like once in ten days am getting back to being serious about running. I ran last night and then today played soccer(our team scored twice as many goals as our other 4 games combined) and then volleyball before running home from volleyball. We have our last playoff games for soccer again tomorrow and the next day and volleyball likely ends in a few weeks so after that I'll be able to just focus all my athletic efforts to finishing my marathon in what is hopefully not to embarressing of a time.

Oh ya, part 2 of 2 of my Video series went up a few days ago. It seems like comments have been mostly positive(lots of people I respect have messaged me saying they really liked watching the series or that people like me really need to stop making videos so thats always pretty flattering) maybe I'll do something similar again in the future.

I've been looking at all the fall tournaments and there are like 16 good tournament series(that 18 year olds are eligible to play) between mid august and the end of October. I'm trying to figure out how much to play/which ones to play and am beginning to get a pretty good idea. This has to be like the most busy couple months ever for live tournaments outside of the states.

Thats it for now, I feel like this is probably packed with typos, but I'm feeling too tired/lazy to proofread it