MoreTBC

Playing cards on the internet (and occasionally live) - The 2020-2023 edition I played some poker between 2020 and 2023 but I didn't do a great job of recording it and don't remember a lot of it. I do have a folder on my desktop where I save win screens and deep runs but it doesn't give a true indication of volume and P/L. I also purged my HM3 DB to only keep hands from the last year or two to speed it up so I'd need to re-import them to find out more, and ultimately it's not that important. 2020 and 2023 are also muddied by transitions to and from .eu. Most sites required a 2nd account to be created so Sharkscope results are across two usernames and there were also forced username changes on some sites during that time period too. Here are the biggest results I could find in the win screens folder per year:- 2020: 3rd in the Hotter $2.20 on .com Stars for $389 2021: 2nd in €5 Micromillions-60 on .es Stars for €1299 2022: 1st in $22 McLaren Turbo Series #12-M on Party for $1963 (this was from a $3 sat probably, I don't make a habit of direct buying 22s. 2023: 22nd in $11 MB on 888 for $196 There is definitely some stuff missing from the folder, especially for 2023 :). I remember winning another Party series $22, again from a $3 sat, on my phone while feeding my youngest some milk at 1am or something and there are was at least one live seat win for €550 somewhere during the time period, as I played the MPF when Party were sponsoring it. I also had a 4 figure score on Winamax as well, but didn't save that either, what a lazy bum I was... [goes off to Sharkscope] 3rd in the Pour La Daronne for €1270 in 2022. At some point in 2022 I think I felt like I was turning a corner a little bit in regards to playing at a level that could at least break even at the micros. I started to put a little effort into study off the table, paying a bit more attention to training content and reading more than just the acknowledgments in Dara's book to see if I made it in. Playing cards on the internet - 2024 and beyond Hopefully here, there will be a screenshot of my active accounts from Sharkscope. GG is missing, because they stopped tracking (but I'm also putting no volume in there), but other than that it's some data that's kinda relevant. I say kinda because it's only scheduled stuff so it's missing on-demand SNGs/MTTs on Stars for example. I looked at HM3 for the year and it has my tournament count at just over 1300, but that's going to include all spins, battle royales and everything else... and I've not imported any Party data, so it's missing those too 🙂 It's hard work tracking properly everything these days. This is the sheet I use to track my BR now. It converts non-$ amounts into $ using whatever rates Google decides is right so I end up with a $ total. I'll update it at the end of each session and then add that to a column with the date so I can see progress over time. ... and this is said progress over time. BR was $636ish when I started recording everything at the start of Feb, peaked at $1800 and change, and is currently at a comfortable $1660 (give or take). Back to back +$300 days at the start of April and then a 3rd in the 4.4k runner $3.30 Bounty Bilder on Stars for $550 have pushed the BR into a level that makes play the games I'm playing very comfortable. I've been utilising site specific BRM because I don't think you should treat playing a site where the fields are 4 figures and tougher and a site where the fields are much smaller and softer the same. For Stars I've been using an around 250bi rule for buy-ins and for 888 it was more in the 100-150bi region. 100bi would be a hard limit to move down but in general I've been pretty fluid about it and actually being nittier than I probably need to be most of the time. I'll occasionally shot take up to $11, but they're few and far between just now. I also am very unsure if I'd be beating $11 just now. For Stars, I'm playing up to $5.50 normally, although the Bounty Builder that is running when I start my session normally is a $7.50, so I treat myself with that one 🙂. On 888/Party it's up to $8.80, although I sometimes play the $11 MB on 888 as it's pretty soft and starts at 5pm, so I can jump 2 hours into it and still get 20bb or something. I've also removed sats from Stars as well for the most part, as they tend to be a bit of a BR vacuum and take up table space for regular games, although they still sneak in now and again 🙂 In terms of volume, as you can see from the SS output, it's mostly on 888 and Stars. The games on 888 are very lively and I basically chose Stars over GG because their tournaments finish quicker and I just don't feel like giving GG money. I'll happily take their daily freebie, but they've not getting a deposit 😄. The only upside to not working for Unibet was that I got to keep the laptop Relax sent me. My old laptop had the processing power of a potato and couldn't handle multiple table and sites at all, which was frustrating, because it's hard to get enough games on almost any site in the micros, especially if you want to dodge the big two so you'd need to play for 8 hours. Now I have a functioning device, I can play all the sites at the same time, but I find it can be a bit overwhelming having too many options, so I'm trying to limit it to 3 sites. I did play iPoker for a little while, but they're lobby is painful to look at and it can be hard to find what you want easily as the filtering is not great. Party also just added a 100% deposit bonus to my account, so I'm moving volume to there for the foreseeable future. I do have 2x Day 2s to play on iPoker this weekend but will just withdraw if I make a good run in either. As far as improving goes, I'm still doing terribly at that but not quite as terrible as in past years. I tend to at least drill some hands each day, I am in an active study group now and I'm doing a little more learning when I can. Once I find a job and have a steady income again I think I'll get a DB review done so that I can target my study to my biggest leaks and have actually tangible targets to try and achieve. At the moment it's a bit "I'm rubbish at everything" and me just dotting about topics with no real purpose. Goals for the year:- Don't go broke Learn something Play live somewhere (DSO or IPO probably the target for this one) Fairly generic goals just now but I think that's ok. I don't think "Have x in my BR" is a good goal to have and my actual goal for that one would be to be a confirmed winning player at up to $22 games. That's a long-term goal and requires me to do the 2nd goal of learning something first as I'd be 99.9% I'm not winning in $22s and don't even have a big enough sample to check. I don't have an aspirations to be running around Europe on the EPT circuit or anything like that but I really like the idea of playing in Ireland and Alex has done amazing work with the DSO so I'd love to finally be able to experience one of his stops from the players side. There are probably some UK stops I could get to through 888 but I've not really looked into it yet. Another point on the to-do list after getting a job 🙂. What's next for the blog? I don't know really. Didn't really plan much beyond doing 1 update post, that turned into 3 so it's a bit of an open book now. I don't think daily or session updates are going to be particularly interesting so I think weekly or bi-weekly general update. I have got some ideas for actual "content" but as with everything, it'll depend if I can be bothered putting the time and effort in, rather than just watching Youtube videos and having a sandwich. Anyhoo, enough words for one day.

You're right, I did. For over the hill relics that can't beat Hold'em anymore, rely on the highest variance formats and only like buyin types that give an edge purely on time of registration, yes I've ruined it. For everyone else...

No. Thank you for your question.

Why I'll probably not play on Unibet Look at that clickbait title, perfect for a YouTube video or affiliate article... but luckily this post is neither of them, and not nearly as dramatic as it sounds either. It's also not going to be some bitter rant about my ex employer. The product is multiple times better than it was 4 years ago before I joined Unibet and I liked it back then, so a scathing demolition of the client this is not. What it will be about is how my profile as a player, and how I go about playing sessions has changed a lot in the last 4 years and that rather minor and 1st world issues are the only difference between one site or another getting my rake. Issue 1 - The missions I used to complete the missions pretty religiously back in the day, completely unaware of just how valuable they were compared to the rake I paid completing them. Having been on the other side of the wall I now know how much value I, and everyone else was getting, and understand that it needed to reduced and I have no problem with that. Infact, I think the reward for the 1st step in this months missions is way too high and the requirements for each step are in a wonky order relative to the time/rake required to complete them, but that's a tangent I'm not going to go down today. Needless to say, the reduction in rewards is not my issue. When I got access to my account, the first thing I did was try to complete the 1st mission step and instantly started regretting it. The banzai mission was a time and money sink and I did not enjoy it at all. Time management is something that I've prioritised in the last few years given that, with two kids and one of them liking to wake up early, I don't have nearly as much of it now to spend on poker so when I do get the chance to play, I'm not looking to play formats that I don't like. I'm also way more sensitive to how playing formats I'm not likely to win in has a negative impact on my BR for things I have a much better chance in. It's the same reason I rarely complete spins/cash promos on other sites. Now I could get over it if the rewards felt like good value but the much bigger issue for me now is that I can't access a much bigger part of the mission rewards. If you're a regular reader to the blog, you'll know that I dusted a massive chunk of my BR back in the day drunkenly playing slots one night, and as a result, requested that casino (and bingo, just out of spite because it's rubbish:D) be permanently blocked on my account. That block still stands today and means that I can't utilise the free spins that make up a much bigger portion of the missions rewards than they did previously and in turn makes the missions much less appealing to me personally. The tickets to multi-stack a freeroll also seem like they provide no additional value either so they just don't seem like a good time investment anymore. Given my lack of interest in cash/Hex promos there isn't really any promo Unibet has the functionality to run I think would appeal to me anymore. I don't have the time for LBs so MTT promos are out and I don't rake enough for the loyalty system to be relevant either. Now that's not to say I won't/wouldn't play purely on the idea that the games are good and I could win money the good ol' fashioned way but there are obviously other places I can put volume in where the games are similar and I'll get better promotional incentives on top. Issue 2 - Custom bet buttons I'm at a point now where I can comfortably have 8-12 tables on screen during a session. Part of the reason I can do that is because I have all the clients configured with my most frequent bet sizes so I can bet quickly and move onto the next decision. It took me seeing 50% pot as the min bet option post-flop one time for me to instantly dislike playing tournaments on Unibet. It's a 1st world problem, I know, but I'm lazy and I like my comforts. I like being able to open my laptop, load up HM3, Jurojin and then the clients and then just know I'll never have to worry about moving tables or tweaking anything during a session. Having Unibet in the rotation is only going to slow my sessions down and I don't really need or want to do that. Getting volume in has been another variable I've been focusing on over the last year or two and I've bounced around sites trying to find the right balance of number of games to play and games that'll finish at a reasonable time so I can play them, sleep, and still feel like a human at 6am the next morning. Now I know the Unibet schedule was designed to fit that exact plan but I can't get over not having custom bet buttons and I've found a mix of sites and games I like now. It might be one of those things I get over over time but right now I just don't see a reason to move any volume from the other sites I play on when I have everything configured the way I like it and everything is being tracked in HM so I can review it once every never and moan about the orange line being higher than the green on in my bb/100 graph. There is definitely a part of me that wants to play the schedule just to see what it's like. I built the thing, would be nice to know if it's as good as I think it is :D. I'm also aware that I'm playing in tougher games by putting volume on a site like Stars and I know there is lots of overlay value to be had but I'm not sure if any extra possible ROI would balance out sessions feeling "harder" with all the manual typing. So, yeah... that's it really. Some really minor things that make me want to stay where I play and not move back. I'm focusing on building my online BR just now but I do still want to experience a DSO so I'll likely play some live qualifiers at some point and it would be nice to say I've played the Supermoon or some of the daily majors but for the time being, the streets are safe! Next time, I'll actually do an update on poker and what I've been up to... Promise!

When flips first started running players worked out the could register them after the tables had formed just before the flip started and be sat on a new table by themselves, skipping the first flip. The first solution used to mitigate it was to close reg 5 mins early. It's obviously not the best experience for players so was replaced with caps so no additional tables could be formed. This flip looks like it still has the early reg closure on it. Not a bug, just a missed template that needs an update

Definitely wasn't related to the team, just felt like I was wasting my time not doing anything and found it incredibly frustrating not being able to help with various things that came up especially when, realistically, the work can be done from anywhere in the world and I was pretty good at it 😎. You're doing the job of 3 or 4 people just now so I'll let you off for not throwing me a farewell party. I'll just bink a DSO package or two and the Long Islands can flow again. Ok, population didn't ask, just my top fans 😋

The elephant in the room Seems like the best place to reboot this award winning (😎) blog would be to answer the question literally nobody is asking... "Why are you not working for Unibet anymore?" To answer this, we really have to go all the way back to the last blog post, when I joined Unibet. It was an incredibly exciting time for me personally, but it was also the start of a pretty miserable time for planet earth. We landed in Malta one or two days before they closed the airport in Malta and went into the first full Covid lockdown. Whisked off to the company apartment in the early hours, we were not allowed to set foot outside the door for 14 days. This caused a number of problems as Malta really wasn't ready for online shopping so getting fresh food and other items was a nightmare. My first face to face meeting with my boss, the head of poker, was at the apartment door with him handing me my laptop and 2 cartons of milk to feed my 18 month old. It was a rough two weeks locked up with an inquisitive toddler in an apartment with a glass dining table at her head height and multiple other dangers and breakables and a very limited number of food options and didn't really start the mediterranean adventure the way I hoped. Even after restrictions were lifted, we got an apartment, and settled in a bit, it was still a very isolating experience for my partner. I had the ability to go to the office now and again and mingle with the handful of people that were on the floor but for her it was very tough to find her place. Before we moved we had always said if she started getting homesick she could just hop on a cheap Ryanair flight and come back to the UK for a week but Covid also ruined that as flight prices soared and direct flights to my hometown stopped, adding extra expense to a return to the homeland. Our daughter also turned 2 which means she was now an "adult" in the eyes of airlines which also added to the cost. Fast forward to the start of 2022 and with our second child due in a couple of months, we made the decision that we wanted to return to the UK to be closer to family and friends and a better support system. I raised this in a meeting with the boss and was told there should be no issues so we started making arrangements. Around September 2022 there was a restructure of the gaming team (Poker, Bingo and Casino) so that the roles were aligned between the products. I moved from 3rd Line Product Expert to Operations Manager as a title, but almost nothing changed in my day to day. The big change came from the fact that they decided they want the whole gaming team (or at least everyone that had not already relocated) to be located in Malta, which obvious created a big problem for me. There wasn't really much of a decision for me to make, I was going to put my family and their happiness first so I informed the boss that I'd still be moving back to the UK in March 2023. To his credit, Kris did try everything he could to get them to make an exception for me and allow me to work from the UK but to no avail. The official line I was given was that it was a tax related issue (which I'm sceptical about given Kindred has an office in London and HMRC covers the whole of the UK, not just England) but there was no point dwelling on it and I continued prep to leave Malta. Luckily I hit a bit of a temporary one-outer when I was given the opportunity to continue working for the team in a reduced role by working for Relax and them hiring me through an agency in the UK that they've used previously. It was a 6 month contract and would mean I'd be able to train a replacement for the Operations Manager role. At this point, I was Content Manager (which is just a dumb name for poker room manager, basically looking after the tournament schedule and other "content" in the client (cash/SNG stakes etc)) so I could continue to do the tournament schedule but I just wouldn't have access to anything on the Unibet side (customer info to help with support queries and things like that). Replacing me took longer than expected and they extended my contract until Mar 2024 to ensure there would be someone that could take over the tournament scheduling and all the associated tasks and now that the contract is up, I'm a free agent. I'd be lying if I said the last year was fun because I actually hated it. I hated the job, I hated having nothing to do (after all the hard work of redesigning the schedule and making a years worth of series the day to day does not take long at all), I hated not having the ability to help or get involved with things outside of tournaments and I just felt like I was wasting my time. Relax made little effort to integrate me into any of their side of the product so I had almost nothing to do day-to-day. I was completely mentally checked out of the job about half way through the UOS last year and I almost didn't take the contract extension in Sept 2023 because I was so unhappy. Being able to say I created and ran the biggest series in Unibets history was the only thing that made me sign tbh. A completely useless personal goal but it was my goal and I was going to complete it. I don't want this all to be doom and gloom though, the time I spent in the poker product team was without doubt the best time I've had in any job I've done. I flippin' loved my job and it never ever felt like work. I'll be forever grateful to Kris for taking a chance on me and to Stubbe for campaigning so hard to get me on the other side of the wall. I might never find another job I enjoyed as much as the Unibet one. We must move on though... What about the poker I hear you ask! Well, I rambled on too long in this post to get into that so we'll save it for another day. I can say I've played some hands on Unibet now and I didn't like it :o. Tune in next time for some hot takes.

Yeah, first post was 2016 and I joined Unibet Mar 2020

You need a hall of fame for the bestestest community members throughout history

138% better than the current table UI.

I am struggling to start my new job. I'm struggling to leave the country at this point but flights permitting I'll be in self isolation in Malta in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Best blog on the forum IMO.

The time has come. 3 and half years (roughly) this little thread has been going for and it's been quite the ride. Engagements, babies, new clients, MTT schedules, UO packages without playing poker, slots degeneracy.. it's had it all but there was always going to be a day when it would have to stop. With a heavy heart I have to announce that today is that day. For anyone actually still keeping track of the BR I did as expected and torched the majority of the remaining funds at the end of the UOS. Couldn't get a run together and bricked the remaining session I had. Normally I'd be sad about this sort of thing but this time I actually expected it to happen and didn't really mind if it did. There is a very good reason for this lack of respect for my BR and money and that's because.. I'M JOINING UNIBET!! Not as a poker soul crushing ambassador and pro but as a '3rd Line Poker Product Expert'. This is the job that Patric used to do (He's moved on to another department I believe). Now you might be asking yourself "What does a Poker Product expert actually do?". This is a question many of my friends and family has also asked me and I don't have a short or clean answer for you, or them, so I just show them (and now you) this screenshot from the vacancy post on the Kindred careers website :) Exactly what all that means, I'll find out later this month :) Obviously I won't be able to play on the site anymore so continuing the blog seems a little pointless. Don't worry though, we have some plans to make sure you can still keep up with my averageness, it just won't involve me punting off on Unibet :) If you've ever read, liked or commented on the rambling mess I want to say thank you. You've helped me stay accountable while playing and kept this blog going for as long as it has. This is your 2016 blogger of the year, signing out :Cool:

I'm still here. Played one more session in January after my last update and ended the month just under €36. Had one more FT on Stars, getting 3rd in the Hotter $1.10 for $150, to round off a pretty successful January. February I've played some UOS events, 13 to be exact, and it's been going rather well. I've made 3 FTs so far with a 6th and two 4ths to show for it. The first FT came in E11 which was a €2 something that I've forgotten about already format. €41 of profit is the part that really matter for that one. The other two both actually came last night, one in the €2 PLO re-entry and the other in the €25 PKO. Now I know what you're thinking and yes, I shouldn't have played the €25 when it was about 50% of my BR at the time. It was a terrible decision and I would not recommend it to anyone. Having said that, BRM is not sexy. Firing a big tourney, going deep and picking up chunks of bounties is 🆒. 9 bounties in total for around €140 plus the cash of €250 (and €90 from the PLO) meant a BR boost of about 1200%. Not a bad day in the office. Now I know I shouldn't complain after winning so much but I wouldn't be a poker player without sharing this.. This is how I busted on the FT :waterfall:. Everyone was all in pre-flop so RNGesus just decided it wasn't my time.I've had this silly goal to try and win a UOS event while using a UOS winners avatar and I think if I'd have won this hand I would have been in with a great chance. I think I'll have two more sessions before the end of the UOS to complete my silly goal so I don't expect it to happen, I'm top 100 in the Low league just now so the focus is on trying to get some good results in the remaining ones I can play and get a little leaderboard money. BR sits at €270.07 (I took £200 out) so it's the healthiest it's been since August 2018. I'll probably dust most of it off in the remaining UOS events screaming YOLO as I register but if you come back at the end of the month there is a small chance I haven't :D I'll hopefully also have some exciting news to share..

I'm such a part-timer these days :( This poor blog, a once bastion of hope that you don't need to be wired into a PIO matrix or spend a fortune on courses to make a little money playing cards on the Internet, has become a desolate wasteland. It's the Windows XP of blogs on the community, fondly remembered but never updated. I've been a busy bee though and have a box of excuses for you. The first, and most time consuming, of those excuses was moving flat in December. The flat, when we got the keys in November, was basically a shell. Bare walls/remains of previous tenants decorating and floorboards. This meant for about 6 week I was doing 9am-5pm at my job and then 6pm-10/11pm doing DIY. I also had to learn on the fly as I've spent my adult life living in furnished and rented properties and have never really had to do any kind of decorating or renovations before. I now have been to parts of Youtube I've never seen before :D. Luckily I had a few friends with much more knowledge of these things than me help out when they could and we got the place in a livable state a week before the end of the lease on our now old flat. The last week before moving was a whirlwind of carpets being laid, deliveries of furniture and white goods and actually packing and moving. It went pretty smoothly as far as I was concerned and by the Sunday night everything important was out the old place and had a home in the new flat. There was a couple of days left the following week that were used to clean the old place and grab any last bits but basically it was a smooth transition.. except for the Internet. There was a telephone socket on the wall when we got the keys for the flat but we quickly realised that after taking it off the wall to decorate there wasn't actually a cable attached to it, nor a hole in the wall where a cable may have previously been. Initially this didn't appear to be a problem as outside the living room window was a coiled up cable that had been run by a company that is installing full fibre connectivity to the whole of Aberdeen. I'd checked with the provider (Vodafone) and my postcode was confirmed as having the full fibre option and an order could be placed. Placed order, didn't hear anything, phoned them, order has been cancelled because full fibre isn't ready. :(. They suggest I can get a copper line installed for £60, I say no. They're planning to phase out copper lines in the next 5+ years so that seemed like a pointless route to go down. A week later, place another order again. Same sequence of events happens again, although this time I go direct to the complaints line and magically they'll do the copper line install for free. Sounds good, engineer will arrive the Wednesday after we move in so only a few days without Internet. During my call with Vodafone I specifically mentioned that there was no telephone cable in the property and that a new cable would need to be run from the distribution point. "No problem" they said. Engineer number one turns up on the 18th of December with no notes of the requirement and leaves. After a fairly abrasive call to Vodafone a second engineer turns up a few days before Christmas. Same things happens again. Another angry call and they say the next engineer will be the 10th of January and they can provide temporary Internet via 4g in the meantime. At this point I had to go to the shops and get a Pay as you Go SIM card and put it in an old phone to use as a hotspot for the devices in the flat. The most data they can add to a PAYG sim is 50gb so I had to contact them every 2-3 days via live chat or phone call to get them to top it up again. I'm still doing it now. There appears to be light at the end of the tunnel though. An engineer did turn up on the 10th and ran a brand new cable into the flat and got the phone line up and running. Unfortunately they hadn't actually applied the Internet service to the line ahead of time so while I can make phone calls on it I still can't use the Internet. A forth engineer is supposed to be working on it today (13th) to do the last part so hopefully the red light on the router will change to whatever colour it's supposed to be at some point and things can get back to normal. All of the above has meant I've not had the time or means to play a lot of poker. I started slacking on results tracking too so I don't even have any proper results for December. What I can say is that I started January 2020 with €10.97 in my Unibet account. I can also tell you January has been going well as the bankroll as it stands today is €36.18 according to my results sheet (There may be some EX changes that swing that a cent or two). I've also not had a losing session on Unibet this month which sounds amazing but the sessions have all been really small and basically just to complete missions. I've added a screengrab of my glorious winnings to fully gloat about the situation. Once the internet finally gets sorted I'll put in some full proper Unibet only sessions and see if we can't get this thing moving in the right direction again. Off brand I had my first FT of 2020 on Stars in a Hot $7.50. Couldn't get the trophy but finished 5th or 6th for just under $200. I've also had a number of deepish runs in Winter Series events but nothing major in terms of return. Had some issues with the Run It Once training website, which I reported, and they thanked me with an Elite subscription for a month so I've been doing some study with that. I also won a twitter comp so have another month waiting to be activated. Looking forward to getting involved with mod duties for the Galfond challenges where Phil Galfond is battling HU in PLO against a bunch of end bosses for silly sums of money with even sillier sums of money on the line in side bets. Should be really fun to rail when it kicks off later in the month. See you in February!

Malta Trip - Friday Days are starting to blur at this point so I'm pretty sure most of Friday was spent at the pool. The girlfriend obviously wanted to get a tan and there was plenty for MiniTBC to look at and try and touch. I think we had a wander around the area around the hotel too and stopped at an "Irish" (and I use that term very loosely) pub for a drink. In the evening I met up with a bunch of the guys that work at Run It Once Poker. I've been doing beta testing and moderating for them since the start of the year and with their offices being in Malta it seemed like a perfect idea to meet up for some face to face "Hi, I'm MoreTBC"ing. Probably met about 10 of the team as well as two other players that were also attending the UO. Ended up spending 3-4 hours with them enjoying the local beer, Cisk, and talking about various poker and non-poker topics. They were kind enough to pay for everything and also brought along some merch so I headed back to the hotel with a cap, set of playing cards and some patches. I also bought more pizza :) Malta Trip - Saturday It's DSO day. Started out in the normal way, breakfast and then some morning poolside action. The DaVitsche family had similar ideas and I ended up chatting to David for a bit about all things Dad and how holidays are not really holidays when you have small children, they're just normal stressful life in warmer locations. I was reliable informed that, unsurprisingly, the Deepstack Open started really deep and the first few levels were not that exciting so I skipped them for some more family time and got involved around level 3. At this point you were still sitting down with around 150bb so there was plenty of play to be had. I had a lively table, including an Irish Betstars employee and a local (who eventually won the event) who were trading cans of Carlsberg all night. Opposite me also sat Dan, one of the Run It Once employees I'd met the night before so there was plenty of chat at the table. As far as play went nothing majorly interesting happened. I did fold a nut flush draw in a 3 way pot on the turn only to see the flush hit on the river and the player to my direct right win the hand with a ten high flush but other than that no hands of note before the dinner break. I grabbed more pizza and headed back to the hotel room on break. Sat out on the balcony with the girlfriend reeling off a story about how romantic the setting was and then casually proposed to her. Pretty sure I'll be the only person ever to bash out a proposal in a DSO dinner break :) She obviously said yes because I'm awesome and then I left her to tell everyone she know and I went back to play :) The blinds caught up with me eventually and I shoved 99 and ran into JJ. Had a sweat on the turn for a straight but could not find any outs and that was that. Off to bed for an early night Malta Trip - Sunday to Wednesday We checked out of the hotel on Sunday and moved 10-15 minutes down the island to another hotel for the rest of the trip. I won't bore you with the details, it was a lot of walking, eating and drinking to be honest with a water park and an aquarium thrown in for good measure. Was pretty sad to be leaving on the Wednesday to be honest, really enjoyed my time and I would definitely go back. The, now, fiance went as far as to say she'd move to Malta so I might have to go job hunting in the future :) End of September There is nothing like your first Sunday session after bricking a live event in a foreign country to get the screenshots of cashes going. Fun little story about the first cash, it was from a ticket I didn't even know I had. I'm not even really sure why I logged into my Grosvenor account but I found a €11 ticket and used it in the rebuy to make a decent profit. The following Tuesday I stepped the luckboxing up a notch.. Used some of my winnings from the Sunday to enter a €5 flip sat to win a €33 ticket. I then used that ticket to late reg the UCOP €33 R/A with no intention of getting an addon and went on to collect the trophy at about 2:30am. Almost doubles my biggest win ever and get's me another major series title. Nice to get a UCOP title before MPN closes down next year. Don't have any major plans for October as I have no work holidays left, so live MTTs are not and option, and most of the online series are wrapping up. I'll play some UOS nanos if it runs this month as I'm determined to get the BR back on track the hard way rather than just dumping some winnings into the account. Other than that, I'll just play when I can and see if I can milk this heater for all it's worth :) See you in November.

Pre-Malta I PLAYED ON UNIBET!! Yes, I really did, and it went pretty well. Here are the results of the one session I played before Malta... The blue rows are ones I played with tickets so actual bankroll investment was very low and resulted in 3 FTs and 5x'ing the bankroll. This was actually the night before our flight to Malta but we had everything packed and ready so I got the OK from the boss to play a little warmup session :) Malta Trip - Wednesday The flight to Malta, although direct from Aberdeen, was scheduled for around 6pm so there was a lot of waiting around to be done before we could get going. 12 month old children do not like waiting around. They do not like to sit still. They find everything in an airport that could be remotely dangerous interesting and something they want to touch. I did several laps of the airport in an attempt to entertain MiniTBC while we waited for the check-in queue to be short enough that we were not standing about too long and again when boarding the plane. This appeared to work quite well as she fell asleep pretty quickly after boarding and got to miss the incredibly tilting process of having to watch the refuelling truck reverse up and fill the plane WHILE WE WERE ON IT!! A very nice Glaswegian lady who was sitting next to us informed me that if they can get everyone on the plane and close the doors the flight is considered "ready for takeoff" and you can't then claim compensation for a delayed flight. Sneaky Ryanair, very sneaky. After nearly an hours delay, we were off. The flight was boring, I bought an overpriced ham and cheese panini that was rubbish and MiniTBC woke up about 2-3 hours into the flight and started getting nosey. Luckily she wasn't in a crying mood and spent most of her time climbing on me so she could see over the seats to laugh at complete strangers. By the time we touched down on Maltese soil it was well past midnight. I'd received a hot tip to swerve the white cabs and get on the eCabs app for an Uber style experience. I'm very glad I did. The queue for taxis was massive whereas I wondered outside opened the app and had a taxi in about 5 minutes. The driver did not muck about in getting us to the hotel either. On arrival at the hotel I spotted my first two familiar faces, DaVitsche and NMPfan. They were far enough into the hotel by the time we got our bags out the cab that I didn't get a chance to say hello, and in all honestly I didn't want to. That's no disrespect to them, I just really wanted to get checked in and go to bed :) I later found out they were returning from what was supposed to be an excellent kebab shop that apparently was not. Malta Trip - Thursday MiniTBC did not care about the late arrival the previous night and woke up around 7am as she tends to do. Whilst this meant I was still very tired, it did mean we could make breakfast and miss the rush of poker players who tend to hit the buffet with 5 minutes to go. There was a solid selection of food to choose from and definitely something for everyone. The cooked breakfast items I went for were on the warm to cold side but I didn't really care, I was hungry. We then went for our first wander around Malta. We needed to get some essentials for MiniTBC so went on a hunt for a grocery store. It was also our first introduction to the heat and the paving system. Even at 9-10am it was hot (at least for me and my pale Scottish body) and the roads are not flat or very accommodating to a push chair so I became a sweaty, deep breathing mess in minutes. When you're not pushing around some dead weight it was lovely though and I wish I could have that weather every day. Stubbe had kindly invited myself and few other to visit the Unibet offices so we could complain in person so I met up with the rest of the crew in the hotel lobby and made our way there. It was my first time meeting Hotzonicu, Triceraatopp and her boyfriend Causality so we did the standard and slightly awkward Alias/Real name introductions that you find at live events. Jonny came along for the ride too but poor Pirahn was not invited and was left in the hotel to moan there :D We got a quick tour of the offices and then went into a big meeting room so Stubbe could show us slides about things. We then complained about them not being right or what we wanted. It was a good time :) They had some really good mini pastries filled with chocolate or something that only I ate because I was hungry and like free stuff. I unfortunately had to leave slightly early as I received a very panicked phone call from my girlfriend to tell me MiniTBC had woken from a nap in hysterics and would not stop crying. I could hear her crying in the background and knew something was up so hoped in a cab and got back to the hotel. This was my first holiday as the responsible adult for another human being so it was a really stressful time. Luckily it was a fairly simple issue to sort once I got back to the hotel. Turns out a combination of the delayed flight and probably being in her swim nappy a little too long after the morning trip to the pool had given MiniTBC some pretty angry looking nappy rash. Creamed up and a cuddle later and she was almost back to normal and I took a trip to the local Pharmacy to pick up some extra backup cream. On the way back I also picked up my Unibet goody bag and badge to get me into the free dinners (which for the second time, I never used once). I took the bag upstairs and let the boss check out the contents. She gave the bag a 4 out of 10 for taste. Inside was a black t-shirt, black sunglasses and a big cloth thing that I don't really understand. I ended up hanging it over the crib provided by the hotel that we ended up not using. After the excitement of all that it was time to play some poker. I'm going to be completely honest, as I type this now I have no recollection of playing this tournament. I don't remember any hands, I don't remember what happened when I busted, I don't remember how long I played for, nothing. Were it not for this picture I would not be sure I even played at all. All I know is that I never moved table, I remember that. Maybe I was still tired from the night before, maybe I just played badly and want to block it out :) I did not cash. I don't really remember what I did after it either but my gut tells me I went to go get food. There are lots of places that sell single slices of pizza around the hotel and I like pizza so it worked out really well. After that I assume I went to bed :) Part 2 coming soon..

Sky will have the UK rights locked up nice and tight :(

** August Update ** days :) days. I've got about €7 in my Unibet account. I will play one day soon, I promise :) Malta is just around the corner so I'm going to have plenty of stories to tell from that and it might give me the big to start playing again. I've got a decent stack of small MTT tickets waiting to be used so I'll get around to using them at some point this month. Nothing too exciting off brand either. Just ploddi--ng away in the micros on Party/GG/iPoker with BRs started from winning Twitch stream giveaways. See most of you in a month, and some of you in 8-9 days :)

I would like to register my interest in having to introduce myself with an Internet alias in Malta.

0.25-1-5-20-100 Freezeout sats 0.2-2-20 R/A Sats 10-100 Freezeout mega sats on a sunday.

** July Update ** Down €8 over the month on Unibet. Barely played outside the missions and recorded a whopping 10 MTTs for the month. The evening schedule is really not very good if you want to play €1 MTTs. The Rags to Riches promo is also one of the worst Unibet do so there has been absolutely no desire to play. As much as I want to get the bankroll back on track I really struggle to fire up a session of nanos. Hopefully I'll see Leo in Malta and have a talk with him about the schedule to try and beef it out a bit so casual players have more options in the evenings. Off site I've been doing a little bankroll building. Won a €5 ticket on a twitch raffle and turned it into this gold trophy crown on a Saturday night. I'd never deposited on the site before so had to make a small deposit to get my bank card checked and then withdrew some of the winnings to move to Stars to play the MicroMillions main event on Sunday. I did not win that (although I did mincash) but I ended up with this score instead.. 4am! There was no need for it to run that long. I ended up moving from my laptop to a tablet just before midnight and actually fell asleep while still in the tournament. After a 45 minute powernap I got up and got dealt queens third hand and got a full double to give me a decent stack and then I went on a heater after that.I had no idea how big my bounty was until I logged into the client the next morning to get a screengrab. April 2018 was my last win on Stars so it feels good to get through another minefield. I've already withdrawn most of it, the majority going on accomodation and holiday stuff for the few extra days I'm staying in Malta after the rest on Party since Powerfest is on :) That's all I have for now, see you in a month :)

** JUNE UPDATE ** Up €7 on Unibet so now have a sweet €34 in the BR. Also have €25 in tickets, not really sure how or why but they are there. Banged out 2 trophies as well.. Another month of just doing missions and playing at random ahead.. Is it September yet? I want to go to Malta. Off brand, first MTT played after the the forced alias change on Party.. Also ran up a $3.30 PPL ticket throughthe $33 semi and into the $330 final but bricked :( See you in a month :)