how it began

For those of you that don’t already know me my name is Isaac Blake and I am in my first year at Durham university studying physics. I’m starting this blog as I find myself regularly checking other peoples blogs so its time to give something back.

I finished school in 2006 but hadn’t got accepted into any universities that I wanted mostly due to poor GCSE grades. When I got AAAB in my a-levels I decided to wait a year and try again.
So I was on a unplanned year out and fully expected to have to get a job for most of it as there wasn’t much money in the bank and I had my car to keep running. I turned 18 at the end of august and soon found poker. I owe most of my initial interest in poker to Poker Night Live on sky 843 (unfortunately they got cancelled last year). The advice and banter on pnl lead to my first and only deposit on their supported site poker333.
Initially I played $1 sng’s and worked my way up through the levels. At the time I had heard that 20 buyins was what was needed to be rolled, on reflection im lucky I didn’t go broke through variance and had to step down a few times. When I found that $5 sng’s weren’t making as much for me as I would have liked I tried the 2 5 cent cash tables and haven’t looked back since. Not exactly sure of the timescale but after about 5 months I had a bank roll of $600-$800 and was playing 10 20 cent.

In feb 07 I got an email from poker333 about a $100k free roll I was eligible for in aid of some anniversary. I met the entery requirements they set me and registered for the tournament. On the first Sunday in march I sat down to play the tournament, to my great surprise there were only around 830 entrants. This was clearly a far bigger tournament than I would likely be playing in the near future with a cost per entrant of about $125.
I gave all my attention to the game and played solid poker identifying the weak players. Unfortunately I was having problems with migraines at the time so was forced to take pain killers and a cloth about half way through just to keep me at the computer. Normally this would put me out for the rest of the night and I did consider packing it in after a few hours but I decided to stick it out. I had one crucial hand at the 1 in 3 paid stage when the blinds were getting high and my chips went in with AK against QQ and JJ luckily a K flopped and gave me the chip lead accelerating me through the bubble. The prize money started at about $200 this was big money for such a small bankroll.
As people got knocked out the minimum prize money increased, I played a steady and patient game and still feel I played some of the best poker I have ever played. I found myself heads up at about 3am. The final hand of the tournament the villain had a 2 to 1 chip advantage on me and pushed from the button, as the blinds were so big I called with A3o expecting it to be ahead and he flipped KQo. Unfortunately a Q flopped and it was over I got $17.5k for 2nd and the villain got $37.5k. I instantly checked my balance to see if it was real and sure enough the money was in my account. At 3am I woke my parents to tell them the good news they were stunned and thrilled at the result.
At this point I would like to say I skipped the lower limits and started at 2 5 dollar cash, but I didn’t and withdrew $17,000 the next week. This left me enough to deposit $600 on full tilt to take advantage of the rake back and bonus.
In September 2007 (just before I started university) my bankroll stood at about $4000 online mainly from cash on full tilt and a few tournament cashes on top, the highest being $500.
Sorry about the history lesson in this my 1st post but I though it necessary to get it in before I can look at the future. Hopefully in the second post ill cover my first two terms of uni and aims for the future. Feel free to comment Isaac.