Finding it difficult to get in any kind of volume at the moment. I really wish I had that 2005 feeling again where I couldn't wait to play but can't imagine ever being that motivated again. There's a lot of reasons for loss of motivation but one is that I sense I have somewhat reached the pinnacle of where I'm ever going to get in the game. I don't think I have the natural talent or aversion to variance to shoot for the really high stakes. Winning a big live tournament would be great, but I don't like live poker enough to trawl my way through the live circuit attempting to bink something. As a result, it's hard to see how my current poker game is ever going to be elevated above what it is at the moment, which is a mid to high stakes internet grinder. I'm grateful to be in this position because I'm making a lot of money relative to all the pro poker players in the world, and a lot more than the average person of my age in the jobber market. But it's still a bit depressing to think you have reached your 'end-game'.
I think a lot of the interest and passion for poker comes from that feeling that the game could take you anywhere. You see people who you can relate to achieve big things in the game and make a lot of money and you see no reason why this can't be you (basically the Moneymaker effect). Unfortunately I haven't necessarily reached those heights you dream about when you watch the WSOP re-runs or High Stakes Poker but still at one point I never thought I would play five figure pots or be making six figures a year. I suppose it's important to put things into perspective. I do still have a big passion for poker. I still watch/read/talk about it a lot because I enjoy it, rather than feeling I have to for some sort of education purposes. I certainly don't play purely for money...yet anyway.
I'm going to try and put in 10k hands this week and then depending on how that goes and how I'm feeling I might just call it a year for poker. I probably should spend the time after that thinking about how I'm going to stay motivated for 2012, because this could become a problem. Especially when I have no obvious exit strategy post-poker.
On a lighter note, I got into a conversation the other day about favourite X-factor auditions with a mate. His was Ant and Seb, mine was this beauty. Don't judge the judge.
Sunday 4 December 2011
Tuesday 29 November 2011
Whaddup
I keep intending to write a blog but have nothing particularly insightful to say so it's gonna be a standard 'update and upcoming plans blog'. Readers must be excited.
After my 3rd place score in London I have struggled with motivation to play online but grinded out 20k odd hands and made a small profit. No particularly exciting sessions or hands spring to mind. It was mostly grinding 2/4 with some 5/10 mixed in. Again, the games seemed good when they ran though it's annoying to see 'action tables' running at 2/4 and people playing there instead of the regular tables. I didn't play many online tournaments either. I continually try the WPT Dublin satellite on Monday nights and never manage to accumulate a stack (except for the time I bubbled it I suppose) so just seem to slowly bleed chips then shove my short stack in a standard spot and lose. The same can't be said for the monthly PKR 500 where I can't seem to not at least final table it. I came 5th this month for 3k or so.
In non-poker news I went to Amsterdam last weekend with a few people who don't play poker for a living which was a lot of fun. The weekend mostly involved eating, drinking and some smoking, with a few touristy activities mixed in. Amsterdam is a really interesting place, definitely worth visiting. One negative of the trip was the hotel. It's hard to describe it without including the words 'shit' and 'hole'. I was responsible for booking the hotel and chose this one because the location was great and it wasn't very expensive (80 euro a night is pretty cheap in central Amsterdam). I probably should have paid more attention to the Trip Advisor reviews which mentioned the various things wrong with the hotel. I'm probably just a bit spoiled from being forunate enough to be able to afford to stay in nicer places (by nicer I mean Travelodge which is a palace compared to this joint) on poker trips and alike. I don't know why I'm moaning this much about the hotel as it made little or no difference to the enjoyment of the trip as we spent hardly any time there.
Some stuff coming up is: PKR party this Thursday as a welcome type thing for their new pro, Jake Cody. This involves a free bar but unfortunately I probably shouldn't take full advantage of it as I have to get the train home the same night and be up for a 9am Journalism class on the Friday. Then on Saturday going to see Spurs v Bolton at White Hart Lane. We're on a ridiculous run at the moment of nine wins and a draw in last ten Premier League games so hopefully we can keep that going. Might stay out in London after that as well as it's JJBird's birthday. Also in a couple of weeks time going to play the £1k event at Dusk till Dawn in Nottingham. Winning that would be a nice end to the year.
One other thing I want to achieve early in December is doing another 12k hands so that I have a million hands in my HEM database to make a good sample for a long term graph. So I think when I've achieved that I'll post the graph and add some thoughts about whats happened over that time-span.
Here's a funny video with segments from a DVD commentary by Arnie on Total Recall. He gives some deep insights into the film. You got to love Arnie!
After my 3rd place score in London I have struggled with motivation to play online but grinded out 20k odd hands and made a small profit. No particularly exciting sessions or hands spring to mind. It was mostly grinding 2/4 with some 5/10 mixed in. Again, the games seemed good when they ran though it's annoying to see 'action tables' running at 2/4 and people playing there instead of the regular tables. I didn't play many online tournaments either. I continually try the WPT Dublin satellite on Monday nights and never manage to accumulate a stack (except for the time I bubbled it I suppose) so just seem to slowly bleed chips then shove my short stack in a standard spot and lose. The same can't be said for the monthly PKR 500 where I can't seem to not at least final table it. I came 5th this month for 3k or so.
In non-poker news I went to Amsterdam last weekend with a few people who don't play poker for a living which was a lot of fun. The weekend mostly involved eating, drinking and some smoking, with a few touristy activities mixed in. Amsterdam is a really interesting place, definitely worth visiting. One negative of the trip was the hotel. It's hard to describe it without including the words 'shit' and 'hole'. I was responsible for booking the hotel and chose this one because the location was great and it wasn't very expensive (80 euro a night is pretty cheap in central Amsterdam). I probably should have paid more attention to the Trip Advisor reviews which mentioned the various things wrong with the hotel. I'm probably just a bit spoiled from being forunate enough to be able to afford to stay in nicer places (by nicer I mean Travelodge which is a palace compared to this joint) on poker trips and alike. I don't know why I'm moaning this much about the hotel as it made little or no difference to the enjoyment of the trip as we spent hardly any time there.
Some stuff coming up is: PKR party this Thursday as a welcome type thing for their new pro, Jake Cody. This involves a free bar but unfortunately I probably shouldn't take full advantage of it as I have to get the train home the same night and be up for a 9am Journalism class on the Friday. Then on Saturday going to see Spurs v Bolton at White Hart Lane. We're on a ridiculous run at the moment of nine wins and a draw in last ten Premier League games so hopefully we can keep that going. Might stay out in London after that as well as it's JJBird's birthday. Also in a couple of weeks time going to play the £1k event at Dusk till Dawn in Nottingham. Winning that would be a nice end to the year.
One other thing I want to achieve early in December is doing another 12k hands so that I have a million hands in my HEM database to make a good sample for a long term graph. So I think when I've achieved that I'll post the graph and add some thoughts about whats happened over that time-span.
Here's a funny video with segments from a DVD commentary by Arnie on Total Recall. He gives some deep insights into the film. You got to love Arnie!
Saturday 12 November 2011
Update and some live donkament success
Since my last entry I took a week long break from poker which always seems to do wonders for your overall mental state and consequently your results when you return to the game. Though I haven't been doing spectacularly, I have been grinding out some small wins online. I'm confident my results will improve back to somewhere nearer expectation soon if I keep playing the way I am at the moment.
I decided to do the Fox Poker Club main event in london last weekend which turned out to be a great decision as I ended up coming 3rd for £7200! I actually don't think I played great on both days (probably B-C game most of the time) but the donkament gods decided it was my turn to do well. My main leaks with live play is based around not pulling the trigger in spots where I really should, generally playing too passive and sometimes overthinking situations and ulitimately levelling myself. One classic example is where I made a terrible call down to a river shove for most of my chips largely because I felt my opponent looked too relaxed. So relaxed in fact I convinced myself that he must be trying to look relaxed and therefore is bluffing. I mean, this type of thinking versus an opponent I know very little about is borderline retarded. And my call got me what I deserved. Obviously a lot of other factors caused me to call and I may be being to harsh on myself but these are things that I need to stop doing.
Anyway, I went into day 2 with 20bb but managed to double very early with QQ vs JJ and from there always had a decent stack up until the final table bubble where I hit a couple of big hands and went into the final as slight chip leader. The final table was a pretty passive affair overall mainly because most of the players were either passive anyway or the money meant a lot to them. I really should have tried to run over the table a bit more than I did but I had one player two to my left who also had a lot of chips that didn't like folding. Incidentally, he also liked hitting the nuts a lot.
I mostly watched the others exchange stacks until we were six handed and this situation took ages, so the blinds got very shallow with an average of 30-35bb. At the break when five handed we talked about a deal for about half an hour but couldn't agree on anything. I was certainly open to a deal considering four of the five players were decent and the skill edge was so minimal with shallow stacks. As well as this the pay structure was very steep. We couldn't agree on one mainly because the worst player at the table who was chip leader wanted a deal where he would lock himself up £12k. Don't think so mate. What was funny is that he mentioned the 'good structure' a few times presumably implying that his chip lead meant he was a clear favourite to take it down. After the break someone was allin for the first three hands so this player was then asked if he still liked the structure. He didn't answer.
Eventually we were three handed and I was short with 15bb and called a button 10bb shove from the BB with KQ and loved seeing his JQ. Didn't love the 99T8Q board though. Then next hand I shoved my mini stack with T2o and got called by AQ and lost. Pretty sure this score puts me at least breakeven for the year in live tournaments so that's nice.
As I mentioned before online was been pretty 'meh' The games seem very good though. I had one of my stakees over the other day and while I was playing a 2/4 game he asked who the fish and regs were. I said "fish, fish, fish, fish, bad reg". They don't run all the time but when they do they seem great so there's definitely loads of money out there to win.
Been loving watching An Idiot Abroad recently and the season finale was last night. Here's one of my favourite clips from the series...
I decided to do the Fox Poker Club main event in london last weekend which turned out to be a great decision as I ended up coming 3rd for £7200! I actually don't think I played great on both days (probably B-C game most of the time) but the donkament gods decided it was my turn to do well. My main leaks with live play is based around not pulling the trigger in spots where I really should, generally playing too passive and sometimes overthinking situations and ulitimately levelling myself. One classic example is where I made a terrible call down to a river shove for most of my chips largely because I felt my opponent looked too relaxed. So relaxed in fact I convinced myself that he must be trying to look relaxed and therefore is bluffing. I mean, this type of thinking versus an opponent I know very little about is borderline retarded. And my call got me what I deserved. Obviously a lot of other factors caused me to call and I may be being to harsh on myself but these are things that I need to stop doing.
Anyway, I went into day 2 with 20bb but managed to double very early with QQ vs JJ and from there always had a decent stack up until the final table bubble where I hit a couple of big hands and went into the final as slight chip leader. The final table was a pretty passive affair overall mainly because most of the players were either passive anyway or the money meant a lot to them. I really should have tried to run over the table a bit more than I did but I had one player two to my left who also had a lot of chips that didn't like folding. Incidentally, he also liked hitting the nuts a lot.
I mostly watched the others exchange stacks until we were six handed and this situation took ages, so the blinds got very shallow with an average of 30-35bb. At the break when five handed we talked about a deal for about half an hour but couldn't agree on anything. I was certainly open to a deal considering four of the five players were decent and the skill edge was so minimal with shallow stacks. As well as this the pay structure was very steep. We couldn't agree on one mainly because the worst player at the table who was chip leader wanted a deal where he would lock himself up £12k. Don't think so mate. What was funny is that he mentioned the 'good structure' a few times presumably implying that his chip lead meant he was a clear favourite to take it down. After the break someone was allin for the first three hands so this player was then asked if he still liked the structure. He didn't answer.
Eventually we were three handed and I was short with 15bb and called a button 10bb shove from the BB with KQ and loved seeing his JQ. Didn't love the 99T8Q board though. Then next hand I shoved my mini stack with T2o and got called by AQ and lost. Pretty sure this score puts me at least breakeven for the year in live tournaments so that's nice.
As I mentioned before online was been pretty 'meh' The games seem very good though. I had one of my stakees over the other day and while I was playing a 2/4 game he asked who the fish and regs were. I said "fish, fish, fish, fish, bad reg". They don't run all the time but when they do they seem great so there's definitely loads of money out there to win.
Been loving watching An Idiot Abroad recently and the season finale was last night. Here's one of my favourite clips from the series...
Tuesday 25 October 2011
The inevitable downswing
I've had a pretty successful year up till now in poker so it was about time I had some sort of downswing. I started this month pretty poorly, then grinded a load of hands and made a decent chuck back, before an awful last few days brought me back down again. Today was my worst day of the year (though I have had bigger losing days in the past).
Today was just one of those horrendous days where nothing goes your way. I probably should have quit slightly earlier than I did as tilt was becoming a factor and I was playing in a few tough 5/10 Stars games where I need to play very close to my A-game to have any sort of edge in them. It just felt like I was getting owned by my opponents in every single way. If I bluffed, they called. If I had a marginal hand, they barrelled every street. If I had the nuts they either had air and gave up, or somehow found a check with a hand they're supposed to bet with. I ran bad today, but the honest truth is that I probably was getting owned as well. Anyway, I'll probably end up taking a break depending on how I feel about poker tomorrow.
To cheer myself I brought a £250 Amazon voucher with Stars FPPs and going to buy a load of pointless stuff with that. Any DVD/CD/Book/Video Game recommendations would be much appreciated.
Today was just one of those horrendous days where nothing goes your way. I probably should have quit slightly earlier than I did as tilt was becoming a factor and I was playing in a few tough 5/10 Stars games where I need to play very close to my A-game to have any sort of edge in them. It just felt like I was getting owned by my opponents in every single way. If I bluffed, they called. If I had a marginal hand, they barrelled every street. If I had the nuts they either had air and gave up, or somehow found a check with a hand they're supposed to bet with. I ran bad today, but the honest truth is that I probably was getting owned as well. Anyway, I'll probably end up taking a break depending on how I feel about poker tomorrow.
To cheer myself I brought a £250 Amazon voucher with Stars FPPs and going to buy a load of pointless stuff with that. Any DVD/CD/Book/Video Game recommendations would be much appreciated.
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Grinddddddd
Since my tourney run good I've had a rather inevitable downswing involving running bad in my usual cash games, and (unsuprisingly) losing in some more badly judged high stakes PLO shots. Oh well.
Since then I've been keen to get some hands in as my volume this year has been poor and the overriding reason for this is laziness. This week I've been grinding like eight hours a day. Yes, eight hours! Like an actual, real job. Unfortunately the action at 2/4+ on PKR has been very dry. 2/4 barely runs in the day time and at night there are only a few tables and anything higher just runs sporadically. Fortunately when tables do run they have been really soft, and I've done okay.
Due to the lack of PKR action I have been playing a bit on Stars and also doing decently. The Stars games differ quite a lot from the PKR games with much more 3/4 betting and generally better regs. Saying that, there's still a good amount of fish floating around and for every Nanonoko type reg who basically has NL 6m solved, there's a load of very mediocre regs (biggest leak I have noticed is bet-sizing mistakes). So basically, there's money to be made from those games, especially if you work at your game. Here's one cool hand from the Stars games, really like how I played it....
SHOWS TotalBiz
TotalBiz wins the pot of $248.70
TotalBiz wins the pot of $853
There's been a few random people turning up to play higher stakes and my results had been meh but turned around a bit tonight. Some hands....
Sucky spot vs someone who is keen to get in money with much worse than top pair 2nd kicker.
Seat 1:Rhymenoceros ($2,267)
Seat 2:PaulvanWees ($1,725)
CHECK PaulvanWees
BET Rhymenoceros, $60
RAISE PaulvanWees, to $1,685
CALL Rhymenoceros, $1,625
SHOWS PaulvanWees
PaulvanWees wins the pot of $3,449
This one is much more marginal, but then given the game dynamics my hand seemed like the nuts to me. He ended up playing it well, which was probably by accident.
Seat 1:Rhymenoceros ($2,098)
Seat 2:PaulvanWees ($3,496)
CHECK PaulvanWees
BET Rhymenoceros, $80
RAISE PaulvanWees, to $160
RAISE Rhymenoceros, to $240
RAISE PaulvanWees, to $320
CALL Rhymenoceros, $160
CHECK PaulvanWees
BET Rhymenoceros, $1,238
CALL PaulvanWees, $1,238
Funny one. He open folded like this just the one time in the match. I actually bellowed in pained laughter when it happened.
BET Rhymenoceros, $1,360
CALL PaulvanWees, $1,360
Seat 1: Rhymenoceros ($2,000)
Seat 4: TeddyMonroe ($2,020)
Seat 6: 777andrej777 ($1,259)
CHECK 777andrej777
CHECK Rhymenoceros
BET TeddyMonroe, $100
FOLD 777andrej777
CALL Rhymenoceros, $100
CHECK Rhymenoceros
BET TeddyMonroe, $500
RAISE Rhymenoceros, to $1,630
CALL TeddyMonroe, $1,130
Since then I've been keen to get some hands in as my volume this year has been poor and the overriding reason for this is laziness. This week I've been grinding like eight hours a day. Yes, eight hours! Like an actual, real job. Unfortunately the action at 2/4+ on PKR has been very dry. 2/4 barely runs in the day time and at night there are only a few tables and anything higher just runs sporadically. Fortunately when tables do run they have been really soft, and I've done okay.
Due to the lack of PKR action I have been playing a bit on Stars and also doing decently. The Stars games differ quite a lot from the PKR games with much more 3/4 betting and generally better regs. Saying that, there's still a good amount of fish floating around and for every Nanonoko type reg who basically has NL 6m solved, there's a load of very mediocre regs (biggest leak I have noticed is bet-sizing mistakes). So basically, there's money to be made from those games, especially if you work at your game. Here's one cool hand from the Stars games, really like how I played it....
Seat 1: TotalBiz ($648.70)
Seat 2: roquemola ($457.70)
Seat 3: gvynt ($400)
Seat 4: verdriet ($449.40)
Seat 5: hotwussy ($433)
Seat 6: knwizz ($145.80)
| Dealer |
| Posts small blind $2 |
| Posts big blind $4 |
Seat 5: hotwussy ($433)
Seat 6: knwizz ($145.80)
Dealt to TotalBiz
Preflop: (Pot: $6)
FOLD hotwussy
RAISE knwizz, to $8
RAISE TotalBiz, to $16
FOLD roquemola
RAISE gvynt, to $50
FOLD verdriet
CALL knwizz, $44
CALL TotalBiz, $36
RAISE knwizz, to $8
RAISE TotalBiz, to $16
FOLD roquemola
RAISE gvynt, to $50
FOLD verdriet
CALL knwizz, $44
CALL TotalBiz, $36
River: (Pot: $1,102.70)
Showdown:
SHOWS gvynt SHOWS TotalBiz
TotalBiz wins the pot of $248.70
TotalBiz wins the pot of $853
There's been a few random people turning up to play higher stakes and my results had been meh but turned around a bit tonight. Some hands....
Sucky spot vs someone who is keen to get in money with much worse than top pair 2nd kicker.
| Date: | Tuesday, September 27, 09:19:33 ET 2011 |
| Type: | Cash Games |
| Game: | Hold'em NL |
| Table: | 40209670 |
| Blinds: | $10/20 |
Table info:
| Dealer, Posts small blind $10 |
| Posts big blind $20 |
Dealt to Rhymenoceros
Flop: (Pot: $70)
CHECK PaulvanWees
BET Rhymenoceros, $60
RAISE PaulvanWees, to $1,685
CALL Rhymenoceros, $1,625
River: (Pot: $3,440)
Showdown:
SHOWS Rhymenoceros SHOWS PaulvanWees
PaulvanWees wins the pot of $3,449
This one is much more marginal, but then given the game dynamics my hand seemed like the nuts to me. He ended up playing it well, which was probably by accident.
| Dealer, Posts small blind $10 |
| Posts big blind $20 |
Dealt to Rhymenoceros
Flop: (Pot: $110)
CHECK PaulvanWees
BET Rhymenoceros, $80
RAISE PaulvanWees, to $160
RAISE Rhymenoceros, to $240
RAISE PaulvanWees, to $320
CALL Rhymenoceros, $160
River: (Pot: $1,470)
CHECK PaulvanWees
BET Rhymenoceros, $1,238
CALL PaulvanWees, $1,238
Showdown:
SHOWS Rhymenoceros
SHOWS PaulvanWees
PaulvanWees wins the pot of $4,195
SHOWS PaulvanWees
PaulvanWees wins the pot of $4,195
Funny one. He open folded like this just the one time in the match. I actually bellowed in pained laughter when it happened.
Dealt to Rhymenoceros  Preflop: (Pot: $30)RAISE Rhymenoceros, to $50 CALL PaulvanWees, $40 Flop: (Pot: $110)  FOLD PaulvanWees Showdown: Rhymenoceros wins the pot of $119 |
Decent river for me, though I like my post flop bet sizing given the board and the villain.
Dealt to Rhymenoceros
Preflop: (Pot: $30)
RAISE PaulvanWees, to $30
RAISE Rhymenoceros, to $140
CALL PaulvanWees, $120
RAISE Rhymenoceros, to $140
CALL PaulvanWees, $120
River: (Pot: $1,250)
BET Rhymenoceros, $1,360
CALL PaulvanWees, $1,360
Showdown:
SHOWS Rhymenoceros
SHOWS PaulvanWees
Rhymenoceros wins the pot of $3,999
SHOWS PaulvanWees
Rhymenoceros wins the pot of $3,999
Sometimes, what can you do?
| Posts big blind $20 |
| Dealer |
| Posts small blind $10 |
Dealt to Rhymenoceros
Preflop: (Pot: $30)
RAISE TeddyMonroe, to $50
CALL 777andrej777, $40
CALL Rhymenoceros, $30
CALL 777andrej777, $40
CALL Rhymenoceros, $30
Flop: (Pot: $150)
CHECK 777andrej777
CHECK Rhymenoceros
BET TeddyMonroe, $100
FOLD 777andrej777
CALL Rhymenoceros, $100
River: (Pot: $790)
CHECK Rhymenoceros
BET TeddyMonroe, $500
RAISE Rhymenoceros, to $1,630
CALL TeddyMonroe, $1,130
Showdown:
SHOWS Rhymenoceros
SHOWS TeddyMonroe
TeddyMonroe wins the pot of $4,049
SHOWS TeddyMonroe
TeddyMonroe wins the pot of $4,049
So all in all I'm down only a bit (relative to the stakes anyway) in these games but hopefully can get more action soon.
Other stuff
Apart from poker I've decided I need to start doing more exercise as I've been gradually putting on weight over the last couple of years and clearly the occasional bit of sport I had been doing isn't enough. What hasn't helped is some drugs I have been taking for a long-term digestive problem I have which not only make you appear more fat, they also increase your appetite thus making you eat more food and actually get more fat anyway. Double whammy innit. On the positive side they have been working very well for said earlier problem and they actually seem to give me more energy so exercise is somewhat more appealing to me.
My plan at the moment is to exercise three times a week which would include games of tennis, squash or football. Unfortunately all these sports are never regularly fixed in schedule and are sometimes weather permitting. But I have a number of people to play squash and tennis with now and hopefully football can become a regular thing. If I can't get in a session of one of these three things then I will go on a run (sigh). Really don't like running but I can obviously see the benefits of it and I ordered some running shoes the other day. Anyway, I've managed to play tennis and squash so far this week and have tennis arranged again for tomorrow. I really enjoy playing these games so that's all good and I must say exercise does give you some sort of 'high' feeling after it.
One more thing is that I'm starting this journalism course on Friday. It's just a part-time thing and is only one morning a week with one extra morning each month along with extra work to do outside contact hours. I'm looking forward to it though often the enjoyability of such things depends on your tutor and what the other people in the class are like. Hopefully I get some run good there.
This seems like a long blog and I've had enough, laters.
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