Since people like graphs I'm posting my rollercoaster graph of today.
Today I played 3k hands. Might be the most ever.
10k vpp's to go. After next session I'll only have a 4 figure number to go :)
Graph of today:
So this weekend I tried to make up for the slacking.
sort or less worked.
I feel like I'm getting a lot of bad beats, so it's likely variance. I'm not really sure how much my mental state affects my game. I feel like I'm making good decisions, but you never really know if something affects you or not.
Either way, this is my graph since Friday:
It's been a while, so I'll make another blogpost.
I need to play a lot, but I haven't. There are reasons for that, but I don't want to talk about that.
I'm too close to doublenova however to just leave it to that.
It's 2.6k$ extra if you hit doublenova, so it would be stupid not to force it.
I need 21k vpp's. So that's about 22.6k hands at 5/10 FR, so 3.5k$ rake.
I get 73.5k fpp's for that, so that's 1176$ for that. So I get 3.7k$ for 3.5k rake. That's more then 100% rakeback from this point to doublenova.
Went to see Papa Roach and Disturbed last Sunday in Forest national. Pretty awesome, although Papa Roach saved their classics for last, so I didn't know the majority of the songs.
20$ for anyone that can find me! (I didn't find myself, so I wouldn't bother :p)
EDIT: oh yeah, there's actually a funny story to it. Oh well, funny...
So I went to Forest in Brussels, but apparently you need to take one more train from Brussels south, to Forest. I didn't know that, so when I looked up the train schedule I searched for Brussels south, not Forest.
Long story short, I missed my train.
The two girls I went with (yeah, I went with two girls, I'm such a player) both study in Leuven, so I went with them, sleeping at one's dorm.
I had to work at 4.20h, so there was no way I could make that since the first train leaves at 6.00h or something. So I woke up at 4.15h, calling them 8 times between then and 5.00h. Nobody answered the phone. I said "fuck them" and went to sleep again. At 5.45h I finally received a phonecall to ask where I was. I did my story and they said there where 3 sick people calling in today, and I needed to get there as soon as possible. So I stumbled out of the dorm, took the 20 minute walk to the train station, just to miss the first train. I drove to Antwerp-Berchem my car Sunday, because otherwise I wouldn't have made it anyway. So after a 40 minute wait at the train station, a 1.30h train ride and a 35 minute car ride I arrived at my work at 9.00h. I didn't have any working clothes, so I borrowed some shoes that stood some chance in the snow, and a jacket so people wouldn't mistake me for some sweat/beer stinking bum.
I've had better days.
I guess it was worth it though.
So I went to see the last movie last night.
I liked it.
One thing about it though is that it kept me from player two days. I've only watched the first movie, so I spent the last two days watching the remaining 6 movies. It's almost 2u30 for one movie, so I kinda had a harry potter overdose.
It's pretty interesting how the movies age with their public. The first one is a children's movie, but this one is actually as serious as Lord of the rings.
One thing that does annoy me are the translations of the names. The names usually are very different from the English ones.
Dumbledore has become 'perkamentus' which translates in parchmentus.
Hogwarts has become 'zweinstein' which phonetically translates in piggystone.
Anyway, I don't think I'll play much today either, because I'm really tired and my brain is fussy. Too much information in too less time I guess :)
Yesterday I didn't take a nap. Which resulted in not playing a lot during the day because tables are too hard, and being tired in the evening resulting in playing bad.
So I'll have to keep up with the napping. Maybe setting an alarm on my days off. Which should be good, because I'll be able to play some in the morning too, like I did today.
I wanted to reward myself with some online software (not pokerrelated), to get the feeling that I bought it with pokermoney. However, I couldn't subscribe to their site because I had to give a USA city and state. I mailed them stating this problem twice, and after that they just gave me 3 months for free. Likely because I detected a "bug", although they didn't stated as such.
So yeah, I'm happy with the free 3 months, but now I didn't buy it with pokermoney. I still have this gift certificate from my job which is due at the end of the month. I'll likely go buy some cd's or dvd's tomorrow since I don't really know what else to do with it.
I'm kind of a cheap person I guess.
Anyway, I hope I can sleep a bit this afternoon so I can grind a piece into the night. I'll have no time this Friday so I really need to get some hands in.
Just like poker, life has swings.
Interesting thing about napping for a couple of hours, is that you feel like it's a new day when you wake up.
Not only do I have no idea what day it is when I wake up in the morning...
I woke up this morning like this: Aahhrrgg, ain't it sunday? no, must be Saturday... wait wait... what... it's... Thursday... no... that can't... yeah... Jesus Christ it's only Thursday.. oh my god...
... but every time I wake up I've "reset" my mental state, which results in me feeling awesome at times, taking a nap/sleep and feeling a bit down, or the other way around.
I'm a bit emotional these days for certain reasons, and was pretty happy yesterday that I felt good and stable, while after my nap in the afternoon I feel cranky and weirdish. Kinda sucks I have my grinds scheduled in the evening. Totally don't want to play right now, and I wont.
On the positive side of things, I'm not really tired like I used to be at any time of day.
I've always been interested in sleep and what it does to a human. Some time ago I was searching a lot of information about polyphasic sleep, namely uberman and everyman (google it I you want to learn more), but stopped since I can't really do it myself due to my job. However, I'm still very amazed on how the body and sleep can be alternated in such ways. I might try to experiment with some things myself now. Not in a sleeping schedule way, but in a mental way. Since sleeping actually does "reset" the brain in a way, I might try if it actually has an effect on you if you force yourself to be happy when you wake up. For example doing some dancing right after you wake up. Since you wake up in a fairly neutral state of mind, that should be possible. Because if I think about it now, I really don't feel like dancing in the morning, but we'll see what happens.
Cold Rush Biorhythm, sounds like a name of a band.
It's just the content of this blogpost though. Cold, because hey, it's pretty cold right now and it makes for a good song. The song is about vampires though so it's not that applicable, but hey, just enjoy the song. :)
Yesterday I played a FTOPS event. Namely the 216$ limit holdem event, which was a rush event. Overall I'm not that big of a fan of rushpoker as a concept, but it's here, and it's likely going to stay. I've played some microstakes limit cash at rush, and I do see why people like it. A tournament, and certainly a limit tournament, however seems like a bit too much. In order to really be successful in tournaments, you have to take as much edge as you can. Not only to play a game optimal strategy, but to take advantage of your opponents. This side is totally ignored in rush, since you can't build up reads.
If you play a game like limit for a 216$ buyin, the majority of the field knows how to play cards, and you can't figure out where the weak spots are. It simply becomes a game of who gets the best hands and the best flops. I believe edges are smaller in limit tournaments then no limit tournaments, so with a rush tournament I'd say there's only one winner, and that's full tilt.
I did take a nap yesterday in order to play that limit event (midnight CET, great job full tilt), and slept for about 7 to 8 hours after the tournament. I did play some full ring cashgames in the evening, and it felt great. Tables where not necessarily all that good, but I really felt good playing them. On top of that, I've could've played a long time. I only played for an hour and twenty minutes, but I had to help a friend of mine out with some things so I couldn't continue playing. I kinda felt a bit tired at around 23.40, so that would've been ideal to go to bed if I had to work in the morning. Giving me a 4.5h sleep, which should be enough since I got close to 3 hours of napping time. However, the tournament decided otherwise and I stayed up. I should keep the napping up, but I might have slept too long. A 3 hour nap is pretty ideal, but usually naps only take one sleepcycle (1.5h). We'll have to see how it works out. It would definitely help if I could keep it up.
Is that I obviously didn't came close to 10k hands.
I did went for a haircut, and trimmed my beard. Looking as sexy as I can be at the moment!
I did play 2.5k hands. The full ring games start to die at 9.30 in the morning, so didn't got in as much hands as I wanted in the morning. Got 1.6k vpp's, which is not that much either.
I'm not really sure what my winrate at the full ring games is. Now that I've played a decent amount I'm getting the regulars color-tagged and it shows how bad those games can be at times. The big difference is that I can beat most of those regulars. They just play straightforward, and to be honest, I'm still paying off way too light. So I should have a winrate in all the full ring games I'd guess. Time will tell though.
Depending on the new regulations in Belgium I might try to keep a SNE pace in January, or close to it, and see how for I can really go. This will include taking naps and playing in the evening/night.
That is, if the legislation allows me to play on the global server, I have a winrate at full ring while playing +/- 15 tables and taking naps allows me to play at times where I don't need 2/4 to get to 15 or more tables. So it'll likely never happen :p
Either way, I'm at 167k vpp's at the moment, so I need to keep up a decent pace.
Playing those full ring games does feel more relaxed. Often times you're just not in a single hand, while sitting in at 16 tables. That hardly ever happens if you're 4-tabling 6max.
Since I posted music in the last couple of posts, I'm keeping the spirit alive.
Once and a while I'm thinking: tomorrow I'm going to grind a lot!
This is one of those days.
Usually it's a big fail when the day comes, but I do it anyway.
Tomorrow is a holiday in Belgium, so I'm planning to play a lot of hands. Even up to 10k. That'll likely have to come from full ring. Since my biorythm makes me wake up pretty early in the morning I'm gonna pick up a lot of the USA time. So there should be enough tables in the morning.
I doubt I'm actually gonna hit the 10k, but that's just something to aim for, although I'll be happy if I get close. Coming from less then 10k hands a month, this should be pretty epic.
I will be going for a haircut, so I can't be behind my pc the whole day, but I really hope I can get 6 hours or so in.
Havad Khan-style: LET'S DO THISSS
I cashed 300$ in the supernova freeroll. Got it in with AK vs AQ with 14bb. But that's the way it goes. Still happy with the 300$. It's actually only 10 minutes or so after the bubble bursted so I didn't waste a lot of time.
I also played some full ring, mass tabling. Something in the range of 15 tables. Which is actually all the tables 2/4 and up.
I've read about a dutch guy who makes supernova elite at full ring 2/4+ with a part-time job. He plays during the night though, since playing at day hours in Europe gives too few tables.
Either way, I wanted to try that, and it's not so bad as I thought it was. Table of interest actually comes in handy here, since you fold most of your hands. Pokertracker does give me some lag when I'm playing 14+. I updated cache yesterday, so I hope it's going to be better today or tomorrow. Most likely tomorrow since I feel really tired at the moment. My health is way better though, so I hope to get back to 2/3 session a day soon.
Couple of days ago was just the messenger I guess. I don't have any fever, so it ain't the flu, just a cold. Problem is that I have very sensitive airways, so I'm sneezing and couching very badly.
Still went to work today though, which might not have been too good of an idea, but it's only for 4 hours on Saturdays so I went with it.
I'm still going to play some today, because otherwise it'll be a rush to get to the 200k vpp's this year, and I don't want to lose value because of it.
Maybe I should start to take some additional vitamins etc. I'm not a big fan of it, since I feel like the body doesn't need help and will fix it on it's own. Which it does, most of the time. But it takes a lot of time to heal and thus time to be 'sick'. Which is not a fun time.
So yeah, maybe I should take advantage of the technological improvements in medicine, to keep me healthy instead of waiting until I get sick. I've read a lot of the supernova elite grinders take supplements, which is pretty wise I'd say. Maybe it's better in general. Just go to the doctor once and a while to stay healthy instead of waiting until it's to late and you need to be cured.
Last quarterly Supernova freeroll of the year today. I'm obviously ahead of EV in those, since I cashed like 1.3 or 1.4k the first time, but I wouldn't mind a deep run. I surely like those quarterly things way more then the monthly freerolls they had before. Because I forget them anyway (just like the 100k ones for gold+), and it makes it really worth it to play. It's always worth it to play obviously, but looking at a 150k first price is just a bit more motivating.
Had a though couple of days due to health issues. Not really bad, but it made me feel tired and I slept pretty much all day for two days.
So I didn't play a lot of poker.
One thing I might try on 3/6 is the 'table of interest' software. I've purchased it right after it came out, but it wasn't that good for my game.
At 3/6 I can play more straightforward, and since I play on there now anyway, I might as well play 8-10 tables with the software instead of 4-6 tables. Volume is such a key factor in poker, and I just don't play enough. If the software turns out useful at the 3/6 limit, I might just stick there and play more volume. It should mean about the same or hopefully even more return in $, but more importantly it evens out the variance a little bit more.
Lately I'm playing a lot of 3/6. Not because of bankroll issues, but just because the tables are bad on 5/10, and super on 3/6. It's been so long ago since I played there that I forgot how good it was I guess.
I'm also likely to have become a better player. Not as much for extracting good value from the fish, which I might actually be getting worse at (I've been paying off too much against donkbets in the past), but for exploiting those regulars (I'm rating them as nits, but for NL people reading this 28/23 might not really seem nitty). It's really amazing how accurate my assumptions are, and how exploitable they are.
If I self-reflect on it, I think I'm in between of the really good players and the nitty regs. I'm on the lower end of the range for good players on preflop stats (around 32/28 or something), while really good players might be 35/30, but I can't play that style because my postflop game is just too exploitable for it I think.
It's though to balance, while not losing (too much) value, and not starting to spew away chips. It's also player dependent. No reason to balance against players who don't realize you can only have one sort of hand in X spot, or players that never fold showdownable hands even if you're screaming you have it.
Things like my turnraising range are still pretty polarized. The only bluffs in that range are picked up draws. It might be enough to get people to think it's not polarized, but it's pretty hard to draw the line to where is enough.
When you play against really good players you're getting in a leveling-war, where it's very hard to decide if it's spew or not. A hand from 3/6 today: http://weaktight.com/2843436
I think this is spew from my opponent, but it might be closer than it looks. Since he has shown nothing but strength I might be able to fold some pairs here. It's very cheap to bluff for him, because he has very likely 12 outs or more. Against my range here, I think it's still spew, but I think it's a good example to show in what situations you can get yourself in against good opponents.
You can't beat those players with abc-gameplay. Even worse: they will crush you for it.
Anyway, main point of the story being: it's easier on the mind if you just see things that are without question bad, or feel like a hero for extracting the most, or losing the least amount of money. Instead of wondering what the hell you are actually doing, and if you're not just donating money away.
While it didn't last for a long time the last time I tried it, I'm going to try and make me a schedule again.
One extra plus on that is that I have a pretty steady schedule at my work from now on.
Which means I'll be waking up at around 4.10h in the morning (or night) 4 days a week, and on Saturdays.
Negative side is that if I want to get 8 hours of sleep, I have to go to bed at 20.00h. Or I'll have to take a nap in the afternoon and make it like 22.00h.
Weird thing about it is that if I'm feeling tired, and I eat, I often feel energetic after. While if I feel energetic and eat, I often feel tired after.
Adjusting to a nap-lifestyle takes time. So I'm just going to see at the moment if I feel tired or not.
4.10
wake up & stuff
4.45
work
12.00
go home
13.00
eat
13.30
take a nap
15.00
wake up, do my pushups once every two days
15.30
play poker
17.00
brows the internetz till dinner
17.30
dinner
18.30
play poker
19.30
take a break
20-20.30
play poker
21.30
take a shower and go to bed
If I don't take nap I should be playing poker for an hour instead, and skipping the last session.
It should be good for 3.5h a day. Which is obv. way better then what I'm doing right now.
I'll need to get a decent amount anyway to still hit the doublenova mark (15k hands or something) given that I'm mixing 3/6 into my games lately. Those games don't give a VPP-return as 5/10 does obv.
It shows how bad I've run lately, if I run good. It's really amazing when you hit hands, take it down with cbets, or even hit a miracle 3-outer once and a while. Or your A high calldown is good for once.
I hope more moments like these will come.
Couldn't play that much today. Did some work and I'm fairly tired from it.
Also found the aroma that should do the trick: Rosemary. Tried it once, felt like I was doing focussed things, but I didn't feel totally focussed. Which might mean that it actually works. Stimulation the parts of the brain to focus on things, while the other parts of the brain are in a different state.
We'll see how that goes.
I'm currently down 276$ for the month and played 6.3k hands. w$SD for 5/10 is 48.3, and for 3/6 52.4. Given that I played more than double the amount of hands at 5/10 I'm pretty happy with that result in relation to the w$SD.
One hand which I found pretty interesting.
UTG & BB are pretty huge fish, high vpip and showdown. BTN is a tag regular. UTG has a donkbet % of 25% and has something on the board if he does that.
Yeah, I couldn't find a decent title.
I'm trying my best to feel positive about poker, but it's nothing you can really change in a day.
One of the problems of volume is because I'm doing way to much other stuff on my PC. Therefore I'm going to cut back on the other random stuff I'm doing.
If I'm bored and don't want to play I'll just need to find something else to do. Playing or studying poker should be the main thing I'm doing when I'm sitting behind my computer.
I'll be watching some stuff for entertainment, like my usual youtube channels (freddiew, sxephil and tabs24x7), twitter on occasion, Bryce Paradis' blog and Pokerstars Big game, poker after dark cashgames, High Stakes Poker, and that thing that's recorded in london right before the WSOPE (dunno when that'll be broadcast or what the name is).
And my mails and this blog obviously.
I think if I really try to cut off all the rest I'll be much more productive when it comes to poker, and other real life stuff.
It'll also mean I'll be making blogs more often, cause there's way fewer options which I can do :p
Yeah, I know, I didn't update every day :(
It struck me that the problems I face in poker have mostly nothing to do with the actual play, but always with the mind.
At this moment I have two problems. Motivation and concentration.
I might have found the reason for my lack of motivation.
In the latest blogs of Bryce Paradis he touches on this subject a couple of times. He's going through some serious problems, so it's not really related, but I can find my 'pokerlife' in it.
I think the most relevant video is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3o5NHFVX_E
The lesson to be learned is that you have to accept the present, and preferably be happy with it.
I was never really happy with my pokerlife. I was going for the major goal. It's a good thing when you reach the things you wanted in order to reach your goal, but when things aren't going as planned, it's a failure and you're not accepting it, because you don't want to be where you are now, you want to be in the future, you want to be at your goal.
2009 was a pretty big step in my pokerlife. I moved up through the limits pretty fast, I got supernova level which I've set for a goal that year. I thought the whole setting goals thing was the reason why I did so good, so I did it again.
Once things go bad, like they are going right now, it's a downwards spiral, because you're not happy with the current 'pokerlife' you have, you don't reach your goal in time and might never reach it, so there's little reason to play at all.
So I need to learn to be happy with the things I got. Living in the present, not the future.
If I think about it, it's all nice. Even while I'm down 6k if profit this year, with my rakeback I'll prolly have about 5k up. Which is obv. way less then I hoped for, but it's still nice, giving the downswing.
If I want to quit at the end of the year and cash everything out I'll have a very nice car to show for it. At the moment I'm buying my gas for my car, and small online purchases with money from poker. I even went to see the u2 360° tour, which was the best concert I've ever seen by far. I'm going to see Avenged Sevenfold in a week or two. All for free. Oh well, not for free, but just for clicking a couple of buttons online.
I need to realize that what I got is pretty good, and future things are things I can not control. I can try and make my current situation better, but I can not force it to happen. I need to be happy with the current situation and the road I'm on.
2nd big problem I got is concentration. I just realized that I have some serious issues with that. I've paused the video of bryce (10 min.) twice to just think about other stuff, I got up from the table and wandered around at least 7 times while I wrote this blog. It's pretty hard to keep focus on one thing. When I do something for a time, it just becomes more of a drag, so I do something else.
The easy solution would be medication. But I'm really not into medication. Medication is to heal, not to make things easy. So for now, I don't have any solution to this yet. I'm not saying I'm never going to take medication, but for now I definitely don't feel anything for that.
I might try some aromatherapy although I'm not really a big believer in that sort of stuff, but my mother is into it, so I just have to ask for it.
As for the volume, it all went good until I got down 600$ in a session again, and I just quited. I know it's all long term and stuff, but for now I'm just going to focus on being happy with the 'pokerlife' I have.
So I'm trying to get back on track, playing some volume in October.
Going to update almost daily.
My goal is to have a couple of 1.5k hands days, and doing 1k days almost every day.
Yesterday I've played 1034 hands, at various stakes. Even played a bit 0.25/0.50 rushpoker, just to see what the level of play is like. It's pretty nice for a grind, but playing abc poker is all you can do. It takes a lot of the challenging part away. It doesn't really run at 1/2, and there are no tables above that, so I wasn't considering playing them anyway.
Also played a bit of 3/6 since the tables where pretty bad at 5/10 and 10/20. Pretty amazing how big of a difference it is between 3/6 and 5/10. There might be some merit into playing those regularly, since I can 6 table those pretty comfortable I think, while I'm 4-tabling 5/10 and really doing a lot table-switching. Tables seem to break up a lot after I join anyway. It's a good sign I guess :s
I feel like one of those SNE grinders when I play 3/6 though. The play is not as challenging, playing overrolled and pretty robotic.
But I guess it's a better alternative for not playing because the tables are just too bad.
http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself.html
So it seems this blog is like... the worst idea ever!
But my goal failed, and I don't really know what I'm going to do anyway, so I'll definitely can't tell you guys.
I'll just continue to post my progress here, where ever I may go.
I'm 1.2k down for the month now. I'm really losing confidence.
My w$SD is 52.35 on 5/10, and I'm down 3.15BB/100 over 2.3k hands.
I know variance is sick, but it's really starting to get to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qTRCjTS9VU
I'm still not playing a lot, but when I do it struck's me how much money I play for.
If played 20 hands or so, and was up 250$. That is actually a lot of money. When I was grinding away I never thought about that. It's not good to think about it too much, but realizing it is actually worth something might be for the better.
I was planning on playing right now, but the tables where bad so I just made this small blogpost instead.
I'm also progressing fairly quickly on my attempt to unite the Belgian pokerplayers. The site is registered and upcoming. Next week I'll start translating in English.
Yes, I know. It's been too long since I updated my blog.
Reason being: I got nothing to blog about. I still haven't played this month, with the exception of a small 2k hands.
I don't want to think about it too much. I might not go for triplenova anymore. Not really sure.
I am making some effort into the future Belgian gamblinglaw. I'm writing to some politicians, getting some information etc.
I could be doing a lot more, but I don't feel like I'm the person to take the lead here. I don't mind doing some things on my own, but I don't want to have the pressure of people counting on me to do it, and to do it right. I believe there are better persons for that job out there.
Anyway...
Since I'm not playing, I don't have a lot to say. I will be updating on the Belgian law, if we make some progress.
Peace out
Yes, I know. It's been too long since I updated my blog.
Reason being: I got nothing to blog about. I still haven't played this month, with the exception of a small 2k hands.
I don't want to think about it too much. I might not go for triplenova anymore. Not really sure.
I am making some effort into the future Belgian gamblinglaw. I'm writing to some politicians, getting some information etc.
I could be doing a lot more, but I don't feel like I'm the person to take the lead here. I don't mind doing some things on my own, but I don't want to have the pressure of people counting on me to do it, and to do it right. I believe there are better persons for that job out there.
Anyway...
Since I'm not playing, I don't have a lot to say. I will be updating on the Belgian law, if we make some progress.
Peace out
It's just one of those days
No, just making a post to say I'm still on a break. I played like 500 hands or something this month.
I wanted to play a session, but the tables where just too bad. Even Zzeigler was down to 10/20. So instead I'm making this blogpost.
It feels pretty good right now. Although the badrun is still somewhere in my mind, I don't think it'll get to me.
Although I don't like the fact I'm "losing" hands, my mindset is just way more important then my hands.
I'm also trying to get some things going for the upcoming regulations about poker in Belgium. Trying to contact people for it. It seems like getting in contact with a pokerclient is the hardest part. Political parties seem pretty open about it, although I haven't suggested any specific things yet. Right now I'm trying to get an idea where we should be going. I'll prolly make a specific post about all that once I actually get somewhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_BAHdBHfJw&feature=related
I love that song for so many reasons. The text is pretty motivating, it's a nostalgic song, I grew up with this kinda music, and it's a nice beat, very good for running, I always use it on my walkman (the brand, not the old cassette thing) while running.
Anyhow, my point being, there's no point in looking behind, you can only change the future.
Yesterday I played one small session, and didn't play again because I was up, and I was happy about that. Only shows I'm not ready to play yet.
Today was just not the day to grind. It was 37°C outside in the shadow, warmest day of the year. Right now it's getting better and although I could play, and I actually want to play for a bit, I'm not going to. The longer the break the more I'll long for playing again I guess.
I will be reviewing my own sessions again this month. Something I haven't done in a while. If I really want to be better I'll have to work on it. Not just putting in the hands and thinking on the spot, but do some thinking later. Most highstakes pro's do it, so it'll be stupid to assume I don't need to do that.
If I find a microphone that actually works (the one on my laptop is so crappy you can't understand a word I'm saying) I'll try to give comments on my own game and record it. I'm more focussed and 'into' it if I'm actually doing it for "others" instead of just going over my session and view everything.
I'll likely release them on some dutchspeaking fora. Maybe not if there's too much questioning around it, but if I'm making it anyway, I might as well release it for other people to enjoy.
Once the temperature is somewhat decent I'll try and put the hours in as well. In summertime there's usually little work, so I'll be home pretty quickly from work normally.
I think I can say it's a pretty bad month
I looked at my results this month. I saw my cashier by accident and noticed the number on there was fairly low.
After that I was too curious and looked in pokertracker.
The damage: 12.8k hands, 3.8k down.
So after my tilting about the whole regulation in France, I went to see a movie. The A-team.
Pretty good movie. It's not the best movie of the year, but it's good enough. They really honor the series in my opinion.
Anyway, after that we had a couple of drinks. Too many drinks.
Which basically ended up with me not feeling well during the whole day yesterday. That combined with the hot weather here, making it VERY hot inside, means that I didn't play yesterday either.
It sucks, but I never could've gotten in a lot of time anyway. I lost about an hour of play I guess, because I felt better during the evening. But I've looked at a couple of videos on youtube, and I don't really regret it, giving the nature of the videos.
That's where the science comes in.
I've always been interested in the human psyche, and saw a lot of videos about it. It's strange you can quote whole lines from somebody's speech, but fail to realize it also applies to yourself.
I've been struggling with motivation since forever, and although I've seen the video before, it took me another look before I realized it could also apply to me.
http://www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg#p/u/0/u6XAPnuFjJc
For the people that don't view the video, the think it boils down to is that you have 3 things that increase performance and give more personal satisfaction.
- Autonomy
- Mastery
- Purpose
And I've thought about them all.
I don't have to report my pokerresults to anybody (except for you guys ;)), so that's a lot of autonomy.
Without a doubt, I got where I am because I got better at it. I learned more and more, mastering the game.
And like I've said in one of my previous blogposts, I like to view the bigger picture. Even beyond going pro.
So I got all incentives, yet I'm not all that motivated.
And I realize now that I should focus on all three things at the same time. If I'm thinking about moving up, I'm thinking about shortterm, I must do this in X time. I lose sense of bigger purpose and autonomy.
Same goes for all the other things.
While it does give me some boost, it's not for long. And it's obvious why. I forget about the other things.
The goal of mastery is also a bit faded. I would've signed for this to be playing the 10/20 games 1.5 year ago. It doesn't have to stop here however.
I never really wanted to be the best, and it's still a long way to go, but why wouldn't I try to reach it? After all, it's not the goal that's important, it's the route you take to get there that is.
I'm taking my "restday", although I didn't plan on doing one, because I wasn't happy with the amount of time I played, but I'm just too tilted to play right now.
Not because of some hand or something, but because of the news about the French poker regulation.
Again, they isolate the country, only allow to play against each other. Plus, they ask a big amount of taxes on every pot, which basically means, no one is capable of playing winning poker. Even if someone manages to do it, it'll be by no means something worth playing for.
Belgium has his own regulation planned for the start of 2011, and it's easy to just do the same things the other countries did. I looks bad.
I have the option to move out, to another country, but if everybody closes off their country, there's a lot less people to play with.
Lately I've seen good or decent players make a play that I can't really figure out all that good.
I see some extra value in it, but it's so marginal, and so exploitable on first sight that I really wonder what's the deal about it.
The play goes as following:
they're in position, I'm not (I bet you didn't saw that one coming). I check, Villain bets, I raise, villain 3bets, I call, turn goes check/bet/call, river goes check/check. Villain shows Ax high.
Pretty often it's on lowcard flops, so I guess there's little really strong hands in my range that can really punish him if I have a made hand.
If he folds if I check/raise the turn I can play my draws really aggressive, but if he doesn't I can't really do alot about it. Being more aggressive with my weaker hands is not quite the solution I think. After all, he could have tptk hands and overpairs and sets.
Then again, it's only 0.5BB, and you can get in really though spots if you get raised on the turn, or capped on the flop.
You also might miss the value from missed draws, but often people don't fire the 3rd barrel because it's obv. villain is calling down.
It is a well balanced play. Instead of calling the flop and turn, which makes your hand pretty face up, you disguise your hand a bit more.
It seems like it is in fact a decent play, but it just doesn't feel good to me. It is very exploitable, but only if you know his hand (and everything is exploitable if you know villains hand obv).
I'll give it some thought, might implement it to my game.
I can't really remember the last time I learned a completely new line in pretty standard spots. Maybe this is one of those times. :)
So it's the first weekday in the two weeks I don't have to work.
I skipped the morning session, because the tables where just insanely bad. Went for a run, played a session just after noon. I was planning on doing one or two sessions before dinner, but my mother came home and said it's time to cut the hedge.
Just to give a good idea of how way too long our hedge is I made a video :)
Long story short, only 2 hours of poker.
I hope to get in 4 hours from now on. The other hedge is not that long, so it should be quicker.
For the people just buying a house: don't plant a hedge, it's a fuckload of work, and a pain in the ass to get rid of.
I like to give song and movie quotes as a title :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyUPFMHCA_Q
Anyway, last workday this month. Looking forward to my well deserved rest.
I hope I can play a lot, and enjoy some other things as well.
Was very close to buying a house last week. After long thinking I decided I'd wait a bit for that.
One thing that played a small roll in that was the gamblinglaws in Belgium. It's very unsure what will happen, and as a limit player I'm kinda bound to pokerstars.
I still haven't looked at my results this month, although I have looked at my yearly result, because I needed some information about that. So I know I'm not massively up or down.
It does make me realize I'm way behind schedule on my winnings. It seems like I'm not beating the games as well as I thought I would, and therefor I'm not even close to the +/- 13k I should behaving right now.
July 1st is the official halfway mark of the year, and I will be making some conclusions.
Maybe take coaching, maybe just accept 1BB/100 is too though (not a lot of people have that kinda winrate over a decent sample). We'll see. I don't like to think about it all too much, I'll do that at the end of this month.
FAILED!
Also my schedule kinda failed. If I'm home a bit earlier from work, I usually get everything done, but if I'm just on time, or later, it's usually a fail.
In 2 weeks my vacation begins. I'm not going anywhere, so according to my schedule I should be playing like at least 20 hours a week. Let's see how that's gonna work out.
I do succeed in not looking at my results. At this moment I don't know if I'm up or down, or how many hands I have. I'm thinking about doing a videobloggy thing at the end of the month so you can see live how I look when I see my results :D
Also played a bit HU today. felt ok, I did run good so I ended up with about 200$ profit. I think it was quite equal in terms of skill. He limped a lot, and did some limp/raises. It looked like a fairly balanced range. It was definitely a regular (he was sitting along with 10 others), so I wonder what the idea is behind that, and most important: how do you play against it.
First mental change is starting I think, I see playing poker a bit more as just putting in the hours, instead of winning some money, or playing X amount of hands. It's not a big thing though, but I do feel it.
I think, but pretty sure...
http://weaktight.com/2368068
flop is interesting. If SB had just called, I'd prolly raise, but if I 3-bet here, I'm scaring off all the others.
Just calling also disguises my hand. I think I got extra value on the river because villain put me on a lower FD.
Anyhow, ship it!
I'm not really in the habit of posting hands, because nobody really cares all that much about LHE I guess.
, K
, J, 7 (4 players)
(3 players) (2 players), 8 (flush, Queen high)., K (two pair, Kings and sevens).
The world series are starting again, and just like last year I made a fantasy team with a whopping 20$ on the line.
My team:
- Barry Greenstein, pretty much a must have in my opinion. He plays all the games, plays them good, and plays a lot.
- Chad Brown. I read somewhere he is very motivated for this years world series. He also plays a lot of the games. He's not the greatest out there, but he's good enough to get some results.
- Daniel Negreanu. I don't think I need to explain this one. He's good, plays alot, and has bracelet bets with Ivey and durrrr, and god knows who else.
- George Lind. He's gonna hit at least 3M VPP's on stars this year, so he has stamina, he won the SCOOP leaderboard this year too, so he can plays tournaments as well, and different games. He doesn't have a lot of live results, but it's hard to imagine he can't transfer his skills to a live game.
- Jeff Lisandro. A bit biased by last years result, but he plays good, plays alot of studgames, which means low entrance tourneys.
- John Juanda: Hasn't got a big win the last years, but he's definitely one of the better players in the mixed games.
- Matt Hawrilenko. He made name playing LHE online, so I love that. He's playing the nosebleed mixed games online if they run, and had some good results last year. It does surprise me he didn't start in the 50k 8-game. Let's hope he's only skipping that one.
- Phil Ivey. Because it's Phil Ivey.
- Tom Dwan. This is really the biggest gamble, but he has a lot of bracelet bets, he started playing the nosebleed mixed games lately, so I do think he's going to play alot, and (hopefully) good.
- Vanessa Rousso. She's getting a lot of good results lately. She's doing good in highroller events, so it does mean she has some skill to go with it.
The 50k is well underway, and it's not looking all that good for me. Matthew Hawrilenko and Vanessa Rousso did not start, durrrr was one of the first ones to go out. Daniel Negreanu and Chad brown are out too.
George Lind and Barry Greenstein are on the shortstack, and the first one for me is John Juanda with 396k with a 305k average.
Oh well, if one of them ships it, it's all good :)
Well... I don't feel like playing poker, but I thought that wouldn't make such a good title.
I got time. Don't have to work. Grinding time you'd say.
Well, the weathergods have been good to us for about the first time this year. It's really one of the nicest days in the year. Sun is shining, is warm, but not too hot, like in summertime.
I'm mostly doing stuff outside, or just sit and relax there.
To give you an idea how I'm typing this blogpost atm, I took a picture while pretending to be busy typing :)
I wanna sleeeeeeepp!!
Really. Went to bed around 21.00h last night, which is pretty early obv., I had to wake up at 5 though. Should be enough, but I'm really really tired right now. I'm not going to play, I'm tired, really don't feel like playing, and the tables are bad.
I have to wake up around 3.30h (in the morning, yes sir) tomorrow, so I'll prolly go to bed right after dinner, in the hope to catch up some sleep.
Not made the average of 666 hands (it's not exactly that much, but it's a funnier number) for a couple of days, so I'll have to have a 'catch-up session' soon. It's a holiday this Monday, and I don't have to work on Saturday, so that's an excellent opportunity.
I'm up about 1.5k this month at a staggering average of 0.5BB/100 (guess at what stakes I'm up, and win a thumps up) I'm at 16.2k vpp's this month, with not enough hands, so that means I'm really catching up by playing 10/20.
Since I was so close to 100k VPP's to hit supernova, and I had a day off from work I decided I'd go for supernova today with around 96700 VPP's on the counter.
Long story short, after 4 hours and 15 minutes I called it a day, with 600 VPP's to go.
Although I didn't hit my goal, it was well worth the try because I played more then 1800 hands, which (I think) is a record for me, and I ended up with a 1833$ profit, which is also a record.
Just for brag-reasons it's kinda sad I didn't make 1$/hand :)
It is kinda double.
I didn't have to work the last 14 days, so I'm going back to work. But I'll also have to get back to work on the pokertable. I've been playing pretty much the whole 14 days, but it's more relaxed, no pressure. Now I've got to work and schedule close to 3 hours of poker around that, without having to play too much in the evening (because I'm too tired, and can't keep my focus as good as I should).
It shows you have to have some routine to really get things done.
I hope I'll get the good motivation back to keep me from slacking. I might need to look up some video's to help me with that.
For the people who need some motivation, for poker or life, I'll give a couple of links that really helped me set my mind the right way. (most video's I discovered at TED.com)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
Randy Pausch, one of the most famous speeches that goes around the internet I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0
Also Randy Pausch with a lecture about time-management.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html
Dan Gilbert talks about happiness.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_gilbert_researches_happiness.html
Again Dan Gilbert with a bit of general poker theory applied to life. Although he doesn't present it as poker theory ofc :)
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html
Not so inspiring, but it's interesting to watch :)
There are a lot more videos I've watched and find inspirational. But I can't remember them all at once or can't find them.
Notice there's little to non information about poker or setting goals. That's because I personally need a bigger picture. I need to know why the hell I want to be a pokerpro anyway.
For some people just saying to themselfs: "I want this" is enough. But I need some bigger picture about life. And you'll see a lot of these videos are about being happy. And that's what it's all about. You can do a lot of things, but you have to remember to be happy while doing it.
It is thin. Very thin.
My mind is pretty much blown by what I've seen the last 2 days. Some of the players who play up to 30/60 are so laggy, that it's hard to not call it spew.
I can find some merit into a lot of the plays, but boy, is it extremely borderline.
Maybe if I play more against them I'll see that they balance it with something, which turns out to make a profit, but for now, I call it spew.
It does cause me to quit me sessions VERY quick. It is very hard to not let yourself go into the spewflow of the table. I'm proud that I recognize that I'm too fed up with the spewyness, and doing things I maybe shouldn't do.
I guess it's the normal run of things when you move up. You always think it can't get more aggressive than that limit, but when you move up, you get blown away.
Luckily I've been running pretty hot. I'm up 3.4k this month so far. I was hoping to get more hands in today, but it kinda failed since I had to prevent tilt.
To celebrate my new blog I decided to win some money :)
It's been a long time since I had a 1k day, it's always nice to run good.
it's 25% 10/20, 75% 5/10
Since the other blog is offline, and I don't know when or if it'll come back, I'm starting this new one.
