Sunday 25 April 2010

Full Time Week is Over

This was the week that I did not have to go into work and so decided to try the lifestyle of a full time poker grinder. Starting on the 16th and finishing today it was a very interesting week for me.

In terms of poker and lifestyle, I noticed that I had to play my games in the UK evening as the games were not loading up quick enough during the day. This gave me a problem on Monday as I play 5 a side football so if I did become full time, Monday's would officially be my day off from the grind. Also, noticed that my concentration was good for up to 5 maybe 6 hours at a stretch before I felt that there were lapses and my mind began to wondered. I decided to break up the sessions in to 2 smaller 3-4hours in order to keep a high level of concentration and would like to thank Nick for this piece of advice.

One main thing that I loved was the freedom to do what the hell I wanted, whether it was just lounge around, go to the driving range, going to the gym or meeting up with a few people for lunch. Also, with the extra time I managed to go through more HHs and identify areas to improve and have time to go through these with Nick and Bodeye.

Having played 8 out of the 10 days available I fitted in 293 games. I am not sure whether this is good or bad but playing 60% of my usual monthly games in a week seems ok. I definitely worked out a schedule that suits me and should I have a another week off in the future I will have a plan to follow. Hopefully, this will allow me to play a lot more games since this time rounds was learning what suited me best.

Conclusion
Is this some thing I want to do full time in the future? Answer is most definitely yes

Tuesday 20 April 2010

One Penny = 2K

The title of this blog is obscure but don't worry I will explain in full and am sure it will be an enjoyable read (I hope). Everyone who knows poker will inform Joe Public that poker is a game of skill. That in the long run the people with the skill will do better than your random Joe Bloggs. In fact, I subscribe to this fact whole heartedly. However, there is a small factor in which randomness comes into play that we cannot control and this is where some luck is required.

When you are in a rut, downswing, in amongst variance, whatever you want to call it.. you generally think that you have no luck. This is not the case for a lot of people but those who require and in need of some luck then there is a simple cure.

There were rumors circling that donating a few dollars to Nick "MI_turle" Rainey was the way to change luck. I always thought it was a load of hype, maybe some arse licking to get onto his coaching progamme, to maybe get in his good books or just pure idolization.

Now when I hit my rough patch, I spent more time reviewing and playing then ever before and still the results did not change. So I decided that I am usually game to try anything once as long as it's ethical so why not donate some money to the Turtle. I decided I would test the theory out and I donated a single penny to his Stars account, yes that is correct, I donated $0.01 to the Turtle and boom I win 2K straight (relatively) in about 140 games. Can anyone say HEATER???

You want proof - just look at the graph below for the month so far!!!



You can read and see other who have come to the notion that a few pennies sent towards the Turtle is definitely +EV. Read about it here.

Friday 16 April 2010

V for Visitors or Victory

When I was younger there was a programme called V, it's about alien visitors and at the time loved it. When I heard there was going to be a brand new series I was excited and slightly disappointed at the same time. The reason is that I have very limited amounts of time to play poker and so watching TV is not really an option, however, I did record it just in case some time frees up.

My intention for Thursday was simple get home, cook, eat and grind hard. However, after working later than usual, and with having to wake up at 5:30am for the gym I did not feel up to staying up too late so I made the early decision not play poker. This gave me a little excitement to watch V. It was supposed to be a double episode but for some reason only the first got recorded and so now I was at a loose end with not enough time to grind but too early to sleep.

So as a true poker addict I went to the PC not to grind but to study the game. I went through a few HH and compiled a few hands to send to Bodeye for analysis. There were some really grosse spots that I faced and getting a different opinion is always good especially from the "boy genius" himself.

I am not one of those people that only post/submit hands that I lost but also getting feedback on ones I won. Yes, that's right, I ask for help on hands I won. This concept bemuses people, why on earth are you sending in hands you won.. the reason is because there is a possibility that I played it incorrectly and missed value. You can gain just as much knowledge from analyzing winning hands as you do that of losing hands.

My plan for the coming week... I am off Monday to Friday next week so my goals are to try a week as a grinder. My schedule will be to wake up, hit the gym, do a few hours review/studying and play an evening/early morning sessions to fit in with US time.This will be my first experience of putting in a full time schedule and looking forward to it. The only thing I ask for is to run like the great Haile Gebrselassie.

This is a long post and sorry but I am bored at work and have nothing better to do.. oh wait... I am going to review a few HH now! Love my job!!!

Sunday 11 April 2010

Tough Weekend

I put in some volume this weekend.. by my standards anyway completing 102 games. Unfortunately, unlike my previous post I cannot say that the players that faced me will be too afraid. In fact they are probably hoping that I do play since my luck was non existent to be totally frank.

It was definitely, mentally tough trying to break out of the rut I was in and as Nick told me... 1 win erases a lot of the tough times after winning my final game of the day. Indeed it does and although I was not moaning/whinging it was just a little tougher to handle this time playing the 12's. If the same thing happened and it did in the 3's and 6's I immediately brushed it off knowing that I would recover by putting in the games as quickly as possible. I think the money (lost) played a little part in my emotional turmoil but now I have experienced that it wont happen again.

Need to go and watch the Masters, hopefully Westwood can hold on for the W!!

Thursday 8 April 2010

Back with a Bang

Yesterday I started with a great deal of enthusiasm and get the month off to a good start since my holiday. I felt good and played the best I could even with two short Internet outages (very annoying). During the session I did feel like I was getting unlucky in those big pots. After single tabling my last table I managed to get to the FT HU and managed to grind the opponent down to 5BB twice but eventually lost which was a major disappointment having felt that no mistakes were made.

So slightly deflated I opened up my PT3 and refreshed the results for the day and BOOM - I had a 104% roi for the 32 games! I was no longer feeling as upset but still frustrated that I came second. Will be reviewing a few of the deep runs tonight before playing to get the correct mindset.

Updates from the holiday... Drank too much beer and Vodka, eat too much (pretty unhealthy), didn't sleep well but had great fun. No poker was a disappointment but manged a few JCarver vids on PVT. Also read "Deal Me In" - conclusion is everyone goes broke, have the discipline/determination to build back and David "Devilfish" Ulliott is one crazy MoFo!!!