I have decided to start a blog to channel my need to articulate all things that are poker to people that have some interest. My friends are bored of my ramblings, so I have decided to start uNL ramblings, hopefully becoming SSNL soon. I have called it uNL as I am shot taking at 100NL at the moment and do not consider myself a SSNL player yet. Anyhow, some background would be the polite way to kick of this blog.

I am a 22 year old student at Manchester University, studying Development and Politics and am in my third year of this course, although I am in my fourth year in Manc as I changed after a year from a Business Studies course and re did my first year. I hail from West London, went to boarding school and am very partial to Lily Allen. I have no tattoos. I did 3 A levels, Business studies, Art and Geography and then took a gap year, starting in the summer of 2005 and that’s when I found poker. Obviously being a fish I deposited on Party and played limit. Obviously I ran like Usian and thought I was Hellmuth, aka god’s gift to poker. Well I wasn’t and lost it all, deposited another $200 and being a life nit I really didn’t want too and could not afford to lose it again. So I read super system and Harrington on Hold em and they didn’t really help. I was playing a little bit on Poker Night Live and went for a meet up in the Gutshot, my first taste of some of the Eat my Stack crew. I used to frequent the Gutshot sporadically and enjoyed it there, especially as it was first taste of live poker and as baby faced 18 year old coped a fair amount of abuse but of course I gave it back. My favourite time being when a 40 something guy sat down and asked if it was past my bed time (6 pm). I replied I would leave when I bust him (shit chat I know but meh). I was in the £1/£1 game and was up a little. Over the next couple of hours I built my stack, while he built his though we didn’t really tangle, although the verbal needle continued. I had roughly £325 in front of me, my new friend had about the same. Onto the hand, I had KK UTG+1 I isolate raised the UTG limper up to £8. Great I thought but I then received 6 calls, not good. Flop comes and boom, k76. I bet out about two thirds of the pot and got smoothed by one of the pre flop callers. My new friend then roars pot and my heart rate hits the roof. I tank and then re-raise and he insta shoves. I snap faster than Hellmuth in high stakes poker when he gets owned by Barry. He smiles and says, your aces are no good kid, go to bed and turns over k6. I may have slightly slow rolled him and although the dealer made my heart jump by putting out a turn 6, the river bricked and I raked in the largest pot of my career.

Over the next year my addiction changed to World of Warcraft, pushing poker aside. I managed to kick the MMOPRG drug in 2008 and needed something to fill my time and went back to poker. I cashed out of party and signed up for stars and put $600 on the site, my plan being to play SnG’s to grind my bankroll up. Over December and January I played roughly 1000 SnG’s and they crushed m soul. I made $ but wow its dull, so decided to move to cash. I quickly got bored of FR and moved to 6-max, I was playing 25nl at the time, with a bankroll of roughly 2k. Again I made money and moved up to 50nl and whilst having red line fail I consistently beat that level. I became sidetracked by the offer of a stake at 1/2 and 2/4 limit by a uni friend. Long story short, I ran quite bad and lost 1k. Back to no limit and I slowly grew my bankroll, whilst shipping 1.3k in a donkament which was much needed after a 3 week road trip in the states, from San Fran to Vegas. Now I am taking a 10BI shot at 100nl and after a lovely 6 Bi session down I am just under 4 Bi down. I have made some bad call downs; although as to how bad they are in the long run I’m not sure. Obviously I ran badly like everyone always does but I hope to stick it out and become a reg there in the run up to Xmas. This blog will hopefully be a medium for steam to be blown off, progress to be charted and the general life of a student be mused over by my elders and betters.

Oh and TLDR J