The Calm Before The Storm

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Most  significant events are preceded by a calm period, the period in which everything is at its normality before a sudden change of events. As professional poker players we spend 8  of the 12 months in the year preparing for these so called “storm” periods and when they arrive they can be life changing, soul destroying and pretty frustrating at times. A poker players storm comes in the form of the world series, European poker tours and world poker tours . The “calm” period is where the real dirty work is done. The 12 hour online multi table tournament grinds, 18 hour live poker cash game sessions and the hours upon hours of poker discussion with friends. Basically the calm  is the period we spend throughout the year grinding under normal circumstances and the storm is an event that takes us away from normality where we take shots in the bigger buy in tournaments.

In a perfect world we would all like to spend every moment playing in the bigger buy in events but for most of us that’s pretty much impossible. We have to grind profitably throughout the calm periods to gain a bankroll thus enabling us to take shots at bigger events. Recently I took my shot, here is what happened.

As we all know the world series of poker came to an end in July leaving 9 individuals left to battle it out for millions of dollars in November. I will be there but unfortunately I wont be sat at the final table as I busted the main event 10  before the money on day 4 in 757th place. My exit wasn’t the prettiest, on a 7s5c2 c board I lost a 400k pot at 2k/4k/300 with AA vs. 88 the turn was the 8c and I missed my flush draw and 2 over’s on the river to leave me with 55k. Shortly after I lost a flip with JJ vs. AK and my dream was over for the 2010 main event. All was not lost as I managed to make the feature table on day 3 and I got to play with Scotty Nguyen, Adam Schoenberg and David Sklansky which made my day. That airs on the 7th of September so I get to sit around with a few friends and laugh at myself on TV.

Its back to the grind for me up until November where I will be heading to Vegas with James Dempsey and David Jones for the Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza. I’ve started to put in some good volume online and have been really close to big money but I keep falling short. This weekend I finished 8th in the $246 Sunday brawl on full tilt for $8.5k and I got 45th in the ultimate bet $1k for $4.5k. Obviously I am happy to make good money but its still very frustrating when you get so close to life changing sums. Maybe I am saving up all my good luck for the storm in November

Nicky Evans (Cod Meharly)

About Nicky Evans

Before moving to Brighton University in 2005 to study business and marketing, I had never played a hand of poker in my life.

It all started with casual home games in the dorms at first, then moved to the local casino, where I played £5 rebuy tournaments and took an occasional shot at the £10 rebuy if my student loan had come through. I quickly developed a good understanding of how to exploit weaker opponents and over time even managed to get myself out of debt. Read More