G1lius' Road to Triplenova

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.

Yeah, swingin!

It's the 22nd of November today, so 2 days after the Pokerstars online pro deadline. I didn't make it :(
So it's 99.99999999% official: I will not succeed in my goal of going pro in 2011.
This year was a really big fail, but it kinda shows where I'm at. I'm not good enough to beat the solid 10/20 players. It's not surprising, since the players at 10/20 often play higher too. I just thought that is was too easy I guess.
I totally have no clue what to do next year. I'll likely go towards the path of grinding instead of trying to improve in an attempt to beat the 10/20 games solidly. But I'll see at the end of the year.
I got a couple of days off now, so I hope to get some hands, since I'll need more then 20k hands/month to get to doublenova, since I don't get as much vpp's on full ring tables.

Really tired now, I think I'll go to sleep very soon (it's 19.05h atm). fml :(

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.

At least I'm up :)

Anyway, I tried table of interest yesterday and remember the problems I had with it in January. I very often forget the preflop action. Once I make an action the table goes into the grid, but I often fail to see where, which leads to donkbets or missed cbets. So that's a no go.

Went to see a couple of friends for halloween. I don't see them as often as I'd like to for various reasons, but I really love it there. I'm really grateful to be part of their lives, but also scared that one day things won't be as they where, and it'll never be the same again. I'm not really sure exactly why I'm thinking that way, and how to  avoid it. It might be because neither one of us says how much they care, but then again, those are just words and I've seen a lot of "best friends forever" forget about each other pretty quickly.
All you can really do is enjoy the moment and hope it'll last forever I guess.