Thursday 13 January 2011

Small January Prop

I have somehow got myself in a prop bet against two very good SnG grinders, Fried Liver a 180 man expert and Chip210 a former 180 man grinder but has switched to FTP 90 man KOs. The only explanation of accepting this was that I must have been drunk or having an egotistical moment where I felt I was a clear favourite with my new found confidence/success

The prop:
Most profits from the first 500 SnGs in January
Games to be Stars $7/$12 180 man or FTP $6/$12 90 mans

The Wager (small stakes only):
The two losers pay the winner $50 each

The only way I could compete with these high volume grinders was to set a first 500 game cap.

Mr Liver was off to a flyer playing on Stars after about 20 games being up over $1k but fortunately for me went on a sick down swing and is in the minus after his 500. Being a high volume grinder he finished his 500 games a little while ago.

Chip210 on the other hand is only 170 games from completing his 500 and is in the profit. He was clearly crushing the games before he hit a rough patch and another bit of fortune came my way. He looks to be getting back on track.

Me, well I am pretty useless having only played 180 games or so and with half the month gone somewhat behind pace on the volume. My profits are steady but nothing that will set the world alight. I think some long sessions will be due in the next few days.

Better be off, writing this whilst at work is not such a great idea after all!

Good luck y'all!!!

Thursday 6 January 2011

Reflection on 2010 Goals

In the previous post I literally pasted my results without really talking about them against my goals. So here are the goals I set for 2010:

1) Achieve Iron Man status and maintain for 10 out of 12 months in a year
I actually thought that this would be hard as I felt that at some point I may actually be force into not playing because of family or work. However, I grinded every month this year so gained Iron man status for every month of the year. Let's hope I can maintain this as there is a nice bonus at the half year mark as well as an end of year. With my "medals" I did purchase the 3 in 1 Jacket they have on offer, my once that was similar was old so it was nice to get a new one! Next Iron man purchase will be the Binoculars that can take pictures as well.

2) Move from the $3 KO tourneys to the $12 (a must) and possibly $24 (stretch target)
I moved up in stakes pretty quickly and was playing the $24's in no time. Nick was pushing/encouraging me all the way and Bodeye even asked Nick to easy up on me and not to give me a heart attack at one stage but it was all good. Although, currently not playing many $24's as it is now only for extra income so did not want to handle the swings that come with the $24's. Nick will call me a P***y but he is write, the day job is stressful enough without the thought of losing thousands of dollars. I will go back once I grow a pair... I promise!

3) Feature at least once in the FTP leader board top 200
I actually featured a few times which was a surprise. At the time, I did not know that I would be on my way to Vegas and play 1000 games in 2 weeks! What I also did not realise that unlike Stars, FTP leader board rewards high volume high stakes grinders. So even if you played 2000 $3 90 mans you may not break into the top 100 if the other guys are playing less but at higher limits. Only featured 4 times in the top 100 so nothing to write home about.

4) Play 500+ games a month for 11 months of the year
Utter fail here, only managed this for 8 months. To make consistent money I need to be grinding regularly. Maybe initiating a prop bet with someone will encourage me to keep going every month. I did however, average 500+ for 12 months but that was largely due to the fact that I went to Vegas and put in 2 months worth of games in 2 weeks.

5) Make $1k in 5 out of 12 months
Now here is where being not specific will catch me out. In terms of 90 mans I did make $1k 5 months of the year but I suspect that this was not the case if I included all the MTTs, 45 and and other games (satellites mainly).

Overall it was a good year in poker for me as I mentioned in my previous post. I will look to set some specific ones for the coming year in a few days. May speak to a few people and see what they think I should be trying to achieve with my game. Guess there will be a volume related one along the lines of number 4, may be continue the Iron man run, try and aim for a total profit figure broken down into 90 mans only and overall target (cos I is going to ship at least 1 mtt - lol).

until next time.. good luck at the tables!

Sunday 2 January 2011

End of 2010 Analysis

I was going to write an in depth and detailed analysis of the year but rather then using words, I have found the pictures to help.

So this first one is all the games on Full Tilt that I played. It includes all the 90 mans, MTTs, 45 mans and some other minor satellites. Overall happy to make a profit on the year.



My 90 man performance for the year at all buy ins:



Summary of all 90 mans if you are to lazy to count it all up:



The graph to back it up:



A little fun statistics about how my performance was like for each day of the week and a monthly breakdown of profit ville!



From the top graph, can you guess which month I was in Vegas for?? Can you seen the stretch where I was struggling/breaking even? All I can say is that at least I had a real job otherwise I may have been struggling!

What was always funny during the course of the year, was the fact that I struggled to have a good performance on a Sunday. I am not sure what was the cause but at one stage I was down a great deal of money on Sundays but a few good Sundays righted that ship. Obviously, love playing Tuesdays and Wednesdays!

The final graph/picture is my results in MTTs, I could not let you all think that I was simply having a great year:



It's a small sample but the last few months my MTT play has improved and understanding a bit more on the ways to approach them. My play in the 90 mans have helped with the learning but I rarely get a chance to play with more then 20BB unless its the early stages. Hopefully this year will be a good year for MTTs.

I left out the graph for my 45 man play, lets just say, I will not be playing them anytime soon! I was crushed in them however, it was during the breakeven/bad patch of the year so who knows what the future lies. With my new found patience maybe I will tackle the $10 level games and see how I fair over a thousand or so games.

Overall I am happy that my poker has improved dramatically over the course of the year. My game has completely changed from this time last year to now. I am a totally different player and it's all thanks mainly to Nick "Mi_turtle" Rainey, Bodeye2 and Aaron "Johnny_Hilldo" Hill. I also need to thank some of the poker players I have spoken to over the past year and you know who you are.

Here is looking to a better 2011!!!