Time to get better!

I didn't play much in the month of November only 2.5k hand. I ran really well for these and managed to win $700 in just a few hours of table time which was sweet before I headed away. Graph is below for November.

Since I came back I haven't been playing well at all. I am not in the right mind set and am just a bit rusty in my normal game. I have only been playing on Full Tilt to clear a bonus and I also dropped down to 50NL to get back into the swing of things. Neither went according to plan and im now in the middle of a big down swing to the tune of 20 bi's or 1k. A good portion of this is running bad and I have been coolered for a good few bi's. The main reasons are though that I lost 7 bi's at 50NL HU the day I came back and I didn't recover from that. I have never played HU so I don't know why I jumped into them games, its odd really. Just been grinding 50NL since then, not game selecting well enough and spewing a good bit. I have a lot less respect for money now which has its good points and its bad. Losing 1k in 7 days hasn't affected me personally which is good but I was playing poorly because of it too, convincing myself that people were bluffing and calling cause I didn't mind losing the money.

Because of the downswing its re-ignited my desire to improve my game. I recently thought it was mainly post flop but I found some leaks in my preflop game in the last week which I want to get sorted too. I can accept now that I only know the very basics of NL holdem. Things like pre-flop raising ranges, 3betting ranges, value betting ranges, id be lying if I said I fully understood implied odds, reverse implied odds, and even pot odds to a certain extent. That said I have a decent grounding in a lot of stuff and I know instinctively the right thing to do just from reading so many theory posts on forums and websites. The problem is that I have never really sat back and thought why am I doing this? What does it achieve? I just know its the right thing to do and up until now I was happy enough with that. Well not anymore, its wrong that I am just playing like I play cause someone says that's what I should do. I should think about what they are saying and try to understand why they are saying it. No more playing on auto pilot. I'm gonna start reading again and watching training videos, review my play and post up some hands. Also im only going to play two tables at 50NL and think through every decision I am making until I can see an marked improvement in my though process when im playing. Its time to start taking poker a bit more seriously as I invest a lot of time into it. This thread

"http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54/poker-beats-brags-variance/brag-really-beating-6-max-1000-nl-games-655028/"

made me realise a lot of things and showed me what can be achieved when someone puts their mind to something.

So here's the plan. Watch training videos and get coaching, read theory posts and actually think about them. Think about my decisions more. Will most likely be a losing month but i wont be bothered if i can implement all of this instead.

Thailand

Been a while since I've posted an update, being on holidays is one reason for the break and I've just been busy since I came back. Thailand was amazing I got to completely forget about work and the place is just really cool. Looking back at the photos now I wish I was back there but I suppose that is expected.

Went to Bangkok first for a couple of days. The place is mental, lots of traffic, people and friendly girls if you walk into certain areas. Seen a few massive rats too which freaked my girlfriend out. Didn't bother me as I wasn't surprised to see them with the amount of rubbish and food being cooked on the side of the street. There is a real buzz about the place and it seems like a lively place from the little time I spent there.

Headed onto Patong then which is in Phuket. Stayed in the Holiday Inn which was really nice, upgraded to the private pool villa when I got there which had its own private swimming pool just for people staying in the villas. The rest of the hotel is class too and the service was excellent. Patong is really touristy though and everyone is hassling you to come into their shop to buy something. It just gets really tiring after a while which takes away from the place a bit. Also there is a street (the busiest one) where all the Thai girls position themselves. Its crazy. Music blaring and girls dancing on tables and bars trying to get you to come in. Along with that are the endless challenges to a ping pong match which I finally accepted. It wasn't what I was expecting but gland I accepted all the same, was an experience to say the least.

Headed onto Kata then which was far more chilled out and I really enjoyed it. There was a cool reggae bar built around a tree on the side of the beach. I could have easily sat there all night as it was just so peaceful and chilled. I took this picture one of the evening.



Headed to Phi Phi then on the ferry. This place is just like nowhere I've ever been before. There are no roads on the island, no cars, no motorbikes. Its a small island and people just walk about or cycle around the paved paths. Its so chilled out and one thing I noticed is that the tourists are very young and relaxed with not many Irish or English about. Mostly Scandinavians and Australians. The beach on one side of the island is pretty impressive too with no speed boats to ruin the relaxed atmosphere. There are beach parties every night and they go on into the wee hours, free buckets of drink are handed out for people jumping over a big skipping rope which is on fire. They also light a ring of fire when everyone is drunk and try and get people to jump through it. It didn't take too much effort on their part as a few buckets of drink gave me the courage to do just about anything. We done some snorkelling and went to some really nice beaches including the one from the film "The Beach" which was unfortunately mobbed with tourists. Some more pics below





Headed to Ao Nang after that which I also liked. It was a bit more build up and there was loads to do. It was a nice end to the holiday too with a sweet hotel and pool. One highlight was getting caught in a torrential shower when on a long tail boat. It was raining so heavy the guy couldn't see where he was going and had to stop. There was another guy bailing water out of the boat with a bucket at the same time. The boat was packed and nobody had life jackets it was a pretty funny situation looking back now. The weather was amazing for the holiday apart from that incident which I actually enjoyed.

2nd November

Well October is over and was a decent month. Ended up winning $734 before RB and bonuses. After RB and bonuses it was a 1.1k month so cant complain about winning that amount of money. Im heading on holidays to Thailand in a couple of weeks so this month is going to be more than likely quiet poker wise. I've only made a few general rules this month

1) Keep improving and beating 100NL

2) Play some 200NL and run good

3) Look into getting coaching for when i come back from holidays (Anyone interested leave me a message please)

Looking forward to getting coaching now as i think it will improve my game a lot. My post flop play is an area i need to work on as im a bit straight forward in my play at the minute and still a bit on autopilot. 10k seems a bit adventerous for the end of the year espically when im not gonna be playing for 3 weeks of it but ya never know. Im sitting on 5k now. Graph for the month is below.

27th October

Since the last post I haven't played much at all, it was a bank holiday weekend and drinking and socialising takes preference on them for sure. Played about 2.8k hands and won $250 which I am happy enough with tbh. After that -$570 session anything in an upwards direction cannot be complained about.

Went home to Donegal at the weekend and had a pretty good couple of days. Too much drinking as usual but some serious craic. The session starting at about 5pm on Saturday and ended at 12pm on Sunday afternoon. Was lucky the pub was closed when we attempted to get in at 9am on Sunday morning or it would have gone on for a lot longer. The plan for the rest of the month is to get the total hands played up to 15k which should be easy enough and just play solid while not losing too much, making it a 1k month would be nice also.

Busy Weekend

Since the last post things have been going pretty bad poker wise. I had one of my worst days on Friday when I dropped $570 in a 3hr session. Looking back now I was playing really bad for the last hour and a half or so which is when I lost most of the money. One of my main strengths is that I don't tilt, almost ever. I don't get in to the state of mind where I want to smash my monitor or play 5/10 and just not give a shit if I lose 2 or 3k. My problem is that sometimes when I lose a few buy ins I try and make it back a little bit too hard. Just getting into bad spots and getting the money in very thin or normally in -ev spots. The good thing is that this happens very little and im playing my normal game 95% of the time. Unfortunately my normal game isn't that great either.

Played the IPO on Saturday and this was a major disappointment as I didn't really enjoy the poker side of it at all. The social side of the tourney wasn't great either with a few French and Belgians at my table with little to no english so conversation and craic was at a loss. All the talk about them being complete droolers was a bit ott. There was one guy at the table though that was a complete muppet and didn't last past the 2/3 level. All the other foreigners were decent and not getting too far out of line. There was also a couple of northerns at my table who were pretty bad, a lot of limp/calling and slow playing hands in really bad spots.

A couple of semi interesting hands I got involved in which sealed my fate would be. I open AQs otb at the 75/150 level to 450 and SB and BB both call. Ive about 6.5k and SB and BB both cover me. Flop is A97r, the SB checks and the BB bets 900 into 1350. I call and the SB folds. The turn is a 4 and the BB donks again for about half pot. Ive seen him donk flops with TPTK and under pairs but when he bets out on the turn he must have a hand. I really consider folding here but due to a lot of frustration regarding being card dead for the last hour or so I convince myself that I could be good here enough to call and that he will check a lot of rivers to me. I call and the river is a K. He bets out again and I quickly fold. He shows AK and comments on how he couldn't decide whether or not to raise pre flop, lol. After this I blind away for a while and then pick up AA, I shove over an UTG raise and he looks me down for 4/5 minutes and finally folds. I've only about 12bb or so for the next couple of hours and cant find any good spots to get it in with big stacks to my left. Jesse May gets moved to the table and there is some banter starting when a couple of minutes before the dinner break there is a loose raise in MP and ive JQ otb. I shove and the SB shoves over my raise, the original raiser folds and the SB flips KK. No help and I am gone.

I was in a good mood that night for some reason and decided to go out with a few of my friends. I meet one of them at Octoberfest at the IFSC. It's jammed and there's not much craic about it so we head to the Check Inn in temple bar where one of our other friends is at. After several weird shots and some other drinks that I never heard of were in "good form". There is a stupid argument in the group we are in and it gets out of hand possibly cause of the drink on board. The bouncers get involved and are way over aggressive and make the situation even worse. We try and calm the situation down but the bouncers didn't understand english to well and decided to get rid of us and before we know it we are turfed out on the side street. On to coppers then which was the normal shite. After we decide to roam the streets for god know what reason and end up in some asylum place for African refugees. The door was open and we seen a pool table so it was their own fault imo. The owner didn't want to play pool with us and asked us to leave or he would call the guards. We tried to barter with him and decided that if he gave us a bowl of muesli that we would leave after. He wasn't amused and a big stand-off resulted over the bowl of muesli. We left then as the craic was gone out of it but it was hilarious at the time. Gonna try and get back to playing poker tomorrow and get my goals on track for the rest of the month.

Oops forgot about this

Had kinda forgot about this but I think it will be a good idea to start using it again to track my progress and different feelings on poker / life over the year. Not sure how much ill update it but ill try to do it every week, maybe on a Saturday or Sunday morning which suits me best.

Since i last started this in January i have come along way as a poker player. Not in terms or winning money, more along the line of understanding the game and having a better focus and determination. Poker has become a lot more enjoyable and profitable since January. I've been playing 50NL and 100NL 6max since January on two different sites. I average around 11k hands a month but due to work commitments i barley played at all for a few months over the summer. My BR when i started this was 1.8k and after some grinding over the last months its up to 5.1k and i took out 1k last month so i am pretty happy about that. I'm still on track for having a 10k bank roll by the end of the year so that is good and that was my initial goal. Here is a graph of the last few months that i neglected to update











I received a sweat coaching session by digiman last month which got me thinking about my game compared to his and how we differ. The session was actually just above break even but i ran really bad. That didn't really matter tbh, i got something out of it that was invaluable. I realised i was shite at poker. Yes that's right, i have no problem in saying it I was shite and to a certain extent I still am.
Its weird because the higher you play the better you think you would become and i have definitely become better but my improvement rate is very slow. I had a problem of just loading up 6/8 tables and playing the same game no matter who was sitting around me. I wouldn't think about a hand until it was over and then it wasn't for long. I was like a BOT. The fact that i was consistently winning means that i was doing most of the fundamentals right and this is all you really need to do right at 50NL and 100NL to win. But i had a lot of problems, i wasn't isolating donks, i wasn't 3betting enough, i was too predictable. Well im gonna try change all that now and i have improved a serious amount in the last few weeks alone. Watching training videos and reading more theory posts along with thinking through hands more and table selecting better have seen a positive effect on my game. so im gonna try and keep improving at a faster rate and move up to higher levels soon.

Along with the goal to have a 10k bank roll at the end of the year i set myself mini goals every month to try and keep me motivated. this month i have planned to

1) Play 15k hands (only managed 9.5k last month)

2) Keep beating 100nl and improving my game

3) Make 1.5k not including rb or bonuses

4) Go to the gym/pool twice a week

I've played 7.7k hands and am up $950 so they are going well as are the other two.

Finally i am playing day 1b of the IPO. I'll most likely be massive value at this as i've never played any tourneys at this level live or online before. It's more for the fun and im not worried about losing the buy-in so there will be no pressure which is good.

P.S. I am looking for further coaching, can you please PM me on boards or leave a message for me here if you have room to fit in another student who plays 100nl and is looking to move to 200nl. Just include the structure and prices etc.

The story so far

I started playing poker in college (DCU) like most people do and really enjoyed the social element of it and it wasn't so much about the money. I had decent success winning plenty of small tournaments among friend and doing ok in the bigger tournaments the poker society ran. The money at that time was just a bonus as i didn't really realise how much money you could make from playing poker on a more regular basis.

After leaving college i gave it up and only played the odd game with friends before heading out or with family and friends at home. Then one of my friends started playing seriously and i followed his progress closely. He started making a lot of money and i quickly got dragged into the world of "gambling" as know by the rest of the non poker playing world. I lodged $200 into an ipoker skin and started playing $5 and $10 STT's and .25/.50 limit pokers. Looking back now i didn't have a clue what i was at. I started winning money and was thinking to myself this is easy when i had almost $300 in my account. Then i went on an awful run of losses in $10 STT's playing up to 8 at a time. I decimated my account down to $120 and i got fed up of STT's. Then i turned my attention to the 50c limit cash games. I played with my whole BR on two tables and it didn't take long until i was almost busto. Knowing nothing about limit poker this is not a surprise to me now. I was now left with only $30 in my account and was feeling like poker wasn't for me.

With some advise from my friend and after realising i needed to learn how to play i left my pride to one side and started playing 2c/4c NL (agh the memories). I also started reading the poker section on www.boards.ie at this time. The games were closer to the standard i was at and i started winning again. I kept reading the theory section posting occasionally to get slated by my terrible play (as deserved). When i started winning at 2c/4c i made a goal to be rolled for 50NL ($1000) by the end of 2008. I think its essential to have goals in poker or else you can easily loose discipline and motivation. I soon moved up to 10NL and then onto 20NL getting more and more confident in my game as i went along. It was mid 2008 when i started playing and i reached the goal in November. I then started taking shots at 50NL and opened a Full Tilt account where i only lodged $100 into it. I didn't really think about this as i only lodged the money to play in a tournament which was around $15. I started playing on FT then as i really liked the software and availability of games. As i only had around $100 on the site i went back to 10NL as i was afraid of busting my account. Looking back now this really stunted my poker growth as i should have just lodged more and started playing 50NL. It was probably a comfort thing to as i wasn't yet comfortable playing 50NL. I worked this account up to 1k over the space of a few months playing 10NL then 20NL and finally 50NL where i found myself as a small winner over a small sample.

So back to more a less the present day and my FT account is at around $900 after a couple of sick days at 50NL. Ive had to take all my money off the ipoker skin as they moved to microgaming and i didn't want to play on it. Ive cleared all my bonuses on FT so I'm looking for a new site to play on and clear the bonuses. I've also set myself a new goal to get my poker bankroll up to 10k before the end of the year. Its 1.8k as i type this now.

I have a good full time job as a telecoms engineer so poker is only a hobby for me at the minute but the thought of being able to make up to 50k a year from just playing in the evening a few nights a week is very appealing to anyone. I'll leave it at that for now and try and update this once a week with how I'm getting on.