Wednesday 24 March 2010

Goodbyeeee (ala blackadder)

Well unfortunately it's not worked out, small loss of about $60 overall but all I'm bothered about is my effort not bearing any fruit. I'm playing the odd MTT now and then but I think online poker is no longer for me. I can't pinpoint why exactly, but either way this blog is closed and there will be no more posts if/until I win a decent amount.

I've definitely enjoyed writing this blog and there have been times where I've loled at my previous drunk nights post, but as I say there is no longer anything substantial to write so I have decided thus. It is by no means the end of the poker road, as I'm sure I'll be able to pluck something out of the bag playing live.

Thanks for reading and all the comments, and I hope to see you soon.

P.S will always be available for 2NL donkfest.

Saturday 13 March 2010

Still nothing.

Unfortunately I made no inroads into those tournaments due to losing the vast majority of 60/40s. The last tournament I couldn't catch a break in the rebuy period but eventually built up a stack having used what was left of my roll. With 35 to go and on about 60k I have AJ in the BB. The HBL who was slightly bigger stacked limp snapped every call with any two so I decided to try my luck which inevitably ran out on the river vs K9. That put me in a pretty foul mood so I took a break for two days and here I am once again. plonked in another 40 dollars and trying to make a go of it again. I'm playing fine and not tilting but in hindsight spamming rebuy tourns with no roll isn't the way to go despite running badly throughout. Playing about with the 18 man turbos again. Doubled my roll today which is a nice and obviously temporary boost. That's it poker wise.

Seeing as I'm bored most evenings and the Aikido here is really shit compared to the instructors in Durham, I managed to find a Krav Maga club which so far is really, really enjoyable. It's the system the Israeli special forces use and it's essentially a brutal form of Self-defence designed to incapacitate an opponent instantly. Judging by the justice system in the UK whereby the would be attacker/criminal is practically rewarded for breaking the law, there would be very few occasions where the truly nasty stuff would be used as I would like to avoid jail. Nevertheless Krav Maga (I've read) is more of a mindset in not fearing pain and keeping focused. My shins and forearms are just purple from this week, which has raised a few questions at school as some students think they've got a nutter assistant. Oh well, they might to some fucking work now!

I also think the Krav Maga guys, while very friendly, tend to go harder against me because they think I'm english. Come to think of it I'm not sure saying I'm Italian/Polish/Irish would fair much better. At least I'm not Maroccan. Ach cunts rivered a set. The instructor is late 30s, the military type who doesn't say much but devises some funny drills, my favourite so far being one person stands still with his eyes closed, while the partner pummels him until he says go, then the guy taking the punishment ferociously deals it back to the pad which the original guy runs and picks up. Though it is fair to say I purposely missed the pad a few times cos he slapped me in the fucking ear which killed.

Anyways, hope youre all good, hopefully dups tourn tomorrow! X

Sunday 7 March 2010

Brick wall!

Weee hello again, these last 4 days have been an uber-grind to say the least!. I've put in a lot of volume in for a healthy loss, in cash of about 5 buyins and in tournaments I'm very slighlty in profit. After my cash bummage I took a quick break and switched to the 3.30rebuy 180 mans which so far have been quite profitable. I've played about 9 of them and cashed in about 6, although the best cash was no more than 40 dollars which has been incredibly annoying. However, I'm sticking at it as the field seems really soft and I'm determined to register a win, as there is so much value it's untrue.

I think I've played more poker than I have slept in these last two days, including a 20 hour session yesterday where Isaac and Paul joined me and Lass for a 2NL donkfest which was brilliant, just like old times. I can't actually remember if I finished up or not but I suspect not, with Isaac at one point sitting at the table with $69 which was absurd but very funny.

My roll is at 80 which isnt exactly inspiring for the amount of volume put in, but I'm enjoying these tourns despite the frustration and its getting me FPPs much quicker than 10NL so I think I'll stick with these in the near future or I piss away my roll.

If I win tonight which I better bloody do, then I'll post it. Come one you cunts one time X

Laters choildren X

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Tilt 0-1 Me. (notice I'm playing away)


Well this is a new era for me. I haven't tilted once, even when dropping 5 BI in my last two pretty filthy sessions. I had got up to +10BI a few days ago which was pretty nice, until I started getting killed somewhat. 4 tables + tracker = win.

Played a few tourns today with no results, a min cash in a 4.40 180 man. This means my roll is now pretty much directly proportional to my cash graph + $10. At this rate I'll easily be hitting the unchartered territory of silver star + VIP bonus by the end of the month. Think I've put more volume in this week than the entirety of last year.

Right, off to watch Italy put in what will most likely be a dire performance against Cameroon.

X

Monday 1 March 2010

$103

Evening, just had my first day back at school which was quite laid back, all the teachers seemed rightly pissed off and I don't blame them. As usual the best part of the day was dinner time, we get a buffet consisting of at least 4 types of meat. Today was salami, beef, haddock, and fish fingers. Obviously they all went on the same plate. The food is exceptional at this school so I thought it's worth a mention.

Anyways onto poker. Yesterday nights session of about 300 hands was uneventful, eventually finishing a massive $2.30 up. Tonights session has gone much better, being up a buyin and a half. This was 90% due to running like a god. my only reasonably paid hand however was my quads vs overpair. The rest was a small grind. At the end however I was shafted for most my stack with AA hitting the nut flush on the turn for him to fill up on the river, which is fair enough. Straight after that I'm writing this to give myself 10 minutes to recompose, instead of trying to claw it back instantly. It's quite sad it's such a small amount but it could turn out more costly as I do feel slightly tilty even after that.

While playing, pokertube is usually open which keeps my mind on poker and not getting the shakes by not playing like a dickhead. I get the impression that I'm a bit like a dormant volcano ready to spew any minute, but thus far I am not playing badly.

I've plonked in another graph to give you some idea of progress. As the title suggests the BR is just over $100 which is my first milestone and it came reasonably quickly. Technically still not rolled for it though.....



These posts will get less and less frequent but for now every $ matters more so I am updating at a higher rate.

X

Sunday 28 February 2010

Some more progress

Afternoon, today I had my first loosing session after putting in about 1k's worth of volume 4 tabling, being down 3 dollars at the end of it is nothing so I'm not too bothered, though I did play worse today and didn't manage to win my big races such as KK AK vs JJ, and QQ KJ AI pre. I was expecting a blip after yesterday evenings session where I managed a nice 2.5 BI over about 600 hands. At the moment I'm playing ABC poker but today I haven't hit too much and less of my Cbets and check raising are getting through. I made a very bad call with top pair on the river after a bloke flopped quads and bet out all three streets.

But at the end of this afternoon's session I'm still up by just over 7BI which I'm happy with over the last 3 days. I find 4 tabling much easier now with software and although it's bad to completely rely on it I think that at 10NL people rarely mix things up and so the sample seems to have become more useful than I thought it would.

Because stats are a novelty to me at the moment, here is what they were at the end of the session on respective tables.

14/9
11/8
16/13
14/10

Action Tony no longer exists.

And thanks for the comment and offer Isaac though I'd like to kill this game first before any staking or moving up. And it's great to hear from you again :) I'll probably have an update tomorrow or tuesday as I'm back at the school....boooooooo.

X

Saturday 27 February 2010

One last take.

It's not really necessary to point out the fact that this blog, along with my poker career (if you can call it that) is on its deathbed. Since september I have played almost no poker at all and there isn't a truly valid reason why. While I have decided to 'give it another go' several hundred times, they have all been completely lacklustre faliures and I'm not very proud of it.

Which brings me to now. I'm currently in France working as a language assistant in a private school, and it's treating me very well. 550 euros a month, free apartment, 18 hours work a week, with free food during the day. I've yet to discover a downside to it so I hope it continues.

Moving on to poker, I haven't put any money into Stars, as I still have 30 dollars leftover from my last withdrawal. I am having one last go at building a bankroll- I've set myself no targets at all apart from to not give up when things don't go your way, and play logically as opposed to thinking that pokerstars 'owes' me after I get coolered or vice versa. For this, I have bought poker tracker (more accurately Tom has a spare code which he has given me, which is incredibly generous.) This will keep me completely honest and tell me about my game so I can pinpoint my mistakes instead of blaming it on life in general which was a convenient and unfortunate habit I had last year.

Talking of which, I think last year my game worsened. While I wasn't throwing money around at the table, I was very loose and it came back to bite me. Online I was most certainly down, somewhere in the region of $150, which doesn't sound much- but when I think about how much online profit I had after 6 months of actually learning the game then I'm very disappointed in my performance. My only saving grace is my slightly above average ability to play live which put me in for a small profit. Online my concentration levels are frankly pathetic, as demonstrated last year. My Willhill and full tilt graphs, and to a lesser extent my stars graph tell quite a story, which you can look at at your own leisure. But enough about how much of an anticlimax last year was, I am giving it one last shot- I can't really say how confident I am but I know it's not 100%.

So, about these last 3 days. With this 30 dollars I have, I am treating it as if it was the first stake Isaac ever gave me. That magical $50 which set me on my way to becoming a semi-reasonable micro-stakes player. Poker tracker has given me all the information I need thus far and I know I am more profitable because of it. No more calling raises with K10 in the small blind or 78s.

My current game is Full ring 10NL and this is what the graph shows.


As you can see I am up roughly 5 buy-ins, up until my dip at the peak I was playing well and running well. I have found that my most profitable strategy is to trap and slowplay as much as possible, but obviously not all the time. The amount of river donk bets I have check called, or the amount of non beleivers looking me up after I check the turn after a C-bet has been the foundation for my small profit so far. While it's fair to say that I'm probably not getting the maximum value out of my hands, for the moment I'm going by small pot won > big pot lost.

I'm running nicely at 8.55BB over just short of 3k hands. At the 2k mark it was 15 which was obviously unsustainable. My first dip came after I made a bad call with an overpair after a guy shoved his stack after he completed his flush on the river. I didn't really understand it as he didn't put the standard value bet in so I called and got the bad news. Incidentally though the 3 previous times I made the same call and they turned out well. The next dip came after I raised JJ into the BB who flat shoved. I dwelled for about 20 seconds and called as I thought that's probably the worst way to get value out of a monster- but I lose on the turn to his 66. That's about as bad as it got. I stuck at it surprisingly and clawed some of it back. I'm going to play another session now.

Reward for the gayest post ever- but I do miss DUPS and I hope that some of the other guys like Isaac Gambon and Hannes will update their blogs and let us know what's going on. As a side note I highly doubt anybody reads this anymore, but I would appreciate a comment just to see if you're all still playing.

Tek care lads. X