Got a bit lost in January

Poker has been interesting to say the least since I last posted an update in early January. I made a few decisions that have not worked out as I had planned. The first one was to try some new sites and bonus whore a bit to try and boost my bank roll quicker.

The first site that I wanted to try was Pokerstars, its really good for tournaments which would help me start playing some more. It has a $600 deposit bonus and gives you a good length of time to clear it. Their VIP structure is decent and I would have to play a lot on the site to clear the deposit bonus so I thought I could get some other bonuses along the way too. Well that was the plan anyway. For some reason after reading some blogs and threads on 2+2 I decided to give low level SNG grinding a go for clearing the bonus.

There were a couple of reasons for this. I wanted to start learning more tournament theory and I heard that multi tabling SNG’s was a good way of paying a lot of rake and still winning money at low stakes. I gave it a decent shot playing 350+ STT SNG’s. I played mostly $2, $3 and $5 STT to get me into it and played between 6 – 18 tables at once experimenting to see how I could manage. I started of well as you can see below but soon went on a down swing which I hear is more regular in SNG’s than in cash. In the end i broke even white the bonus i was clearing at the same time. My SNG experiment in all its glory can be seen below.



I was getting more tilted also as the players were so bad and I was constantly being outdrawn by them. The beats were unbelievable and happening every few minutes which I wasn’t used to. You are constantly in a situation where you have AK, AQ, AJ all in pre flop against some rubbish like J8s, 95o, K4s. The thing is that in these situations AK is only a 60/40 favourite against most random under cards like J8 and KK/QQ/JJ is only a 70/30 favourite against an Ace rag hand like A4/A5/A6. These situations happen so much and its very easy to lose 15-20 in a row which I would imagine happened to me over the 350 or so I played. Last night I just played a few more and only made the money in 3 out of 11 but in every case I got the money in ahead and lost. I am not interested in playing them in any high volume anymore as I have learned some tournament basics now and I see how soul destroying they can be. On a plus side I didn’t lose much money while trying them out.

I was also playing 50NL cash while playing the SNG’s and I am still running terribly. I can’t seem to win a flip and am still in a horrible down swing which I need to end soon I raked about $70 and cleared $30 in a bonus so only down about $250 overall for the month. Its not great but i got seriously side tracked and am just gonna grind from now on. Graph is below for the cash I played last month.



Other things that happened last month would be I moved from PT3 to Holdem Manager which I would recommend to everyone. It’s a great program and just a lot user friendly. Id say both have almost the same features but it is just easier to navigate around using HM. My computer has started freezing almost every day which is not good. I have the warranty on it until April so need to get that fixed before it runs out. For next month I am just going to grind cash on stars, I hear that the games are crap but from what I have seen at 25NL and 50NL the games are good enough but game selection is required. I’ll mostly be playing 50NL and hopefully moving to 100NL to clear the bonus quickly and move to another site to do the same.

Bye Bye 2009, Hello 2010!

Since the last post two things have happened,

1) I am very happy about the fact that I have been watching training videos, reading theory and got some coaching which was excellent. Coaching is really good just for the fact that you think about your game more afterwards and that someone who is better than you gives you confidence in the things you are doing correctly and can give you advise on what you are unsure about. I'll definitely be organising some more as soon as I get a chance.

2) The downswing has continued, well kind of. Its turned into a bit of a breakeven stretch now. I've won back 9bi at 50NL and am feeling pretty confident about my game again. On the other hand ive lost 5bi at 100nl, 3 of these were at the end of a long session over Christmas were I was not playing my best to say the least. It would have been a good idea to stop playing about 3 hours before I did but I was more a less snowed in and there was nothing much else to do. Sure that's another lesson learned I suppose.

This year my goal was to get my bank roll to 10k and I basically failed. The main reasons I can see were that I wasn't focused enough and didn't set myself intermediate goals so when I fell behind I didn't really realise. Another big reason was that I just didn't play enough. I only played 115k hands this year. The most I played in one month was 14k hands and I had 3 months where I played less than 2.5k hands. I'm not sure what a realistic amount of hands for each month will be but ill have a good idea after this month. So saying all that I did get to a $7k bank roll at one stage but then withdrew $1k and now I am still in a $1.4k downswing which means my bank roll is currently at $4.6k.

I've made myself these two goals for 2010

1) Make 25k
2) Have a 4 figure cash in an online tournament

I had previously said that making 25k without rb was my goal but the one above seems more realistic. At the same time it will be very hard and will take a lot of hard work. The second one is just to get me playing some more tourneys, will be mostly doing this at the weekends. For January I am going to grind 20bi's at 50NL and then move to 100NL and hopefully run good again.

So to end on a positive note, I am more determined and motivated than I have ever been. I am more realistic about where I am at as a poker player than I ever have been. I have learned a lot in the last year and improved massively. So here's to a good 2010 and reaching my goals.

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.