November Review

Life has been hard in November. Running like shit at the tables and spewing like a motherfucker. Also I have found that my university course is going down the pan really, to be honest. I am not doing the work and have found myself feeling depressed and generally unmotivated, maybe the reason I am getting so tilted at the tables. Work is handed in late, if at all and it's not ok. I have decided that I need to focus on my university course as a number one priority, no more fucking around. I have banned myself from 2p2 for a week, and will hopefully get in the habit of actually doing my work as I am supposed to.

As for my poker results...



-$649 NLHE
-$250 PLO
----------
a -$900 month

FML.

november.... FUUUUUUU!

As soon as a new month rolls along I feel like my luck drastically changes for better or for worse and unfortunately November I have hit the variance hard and in a bad way. I'm down $600 for the month already and it's only the 9th, sucks.

May have to move down to 25nl again which is not on the top of my wish list. However it's a limit I know I can crush, and so moving down for a bit won't hurt. I feel like I have two main leaks in my game at the moment that is holding me back from my potential. Firstly is calling the river and paying people off when their ranges either crush me or they are bluffing, and people are rarely bluffing on the river, so I should tighten that up. The next is tilting. I need to stop tilting. Or at least control it better.

Here is to a good second half of November for all, though especially to me!

Annoyance

Has anyone else noticed the side bar is at the bottom of the page? It's really annoying. Does anyone know how to fix it?

Heads up.

I'm thinking that I might be more suited to HU, I mean I've always enjoyed it, and I believe I'm actually quite good at it. I'll be playing more HU in the future I think.

Here is an interesting hand from a recent HU session.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (2 handed) - Poker-Stars Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com



Hero (BB) ($50)

SB ($27.55)



Preflop: Hero is BB with 8, A

SB bets $1, Hero calls $0.50



Flop: ($2) 2, 9, 7 (2 players)

Hero checks, SB checks



Turn: ($2) J (2 players)

Hero bets $1.50, SB calls $1.50



River: ($5) J (2 players)

Hero checks, SB bets $5.50, Hero calls $5.50



Total pot: $16 | Rake: $0.50




This is pretty standard vs this opponent imo. Given the action the river is an easy call. The guy brought in for 20bb and was playing quite spazzy and obviously wasn't great, but was sort of competent, although spazzy. I thought that he would be calling the turn very wide, and so I don't like my bet, but I knew on the turn that on a blank river I could potentially bluff catch A high. The jack on the river is like the best card in the deck for me (apart from the ace). I check planning on c/c and he goes ahead and over bets it and I stick to my plan and call. You see given the action prior, when he overbets this river he is super polarized. He either has Jx the Ace high flush (sometimes) or he is bluffing. Now trips are hard to get and I thought that there is a non-zero chance that he is raising strong jacks like AJ or KJ on the turn. I thought any set/weak flush/straight is betting flop/raising turn so I discounted them. That leaves draws, all of them missed. I think he can have random 8x, Tx and any random club. Did I think he was merging his range with a random pair? Nah, he's not good enough to do that, and not bad enough to overbet a pair because with the two jacks he has two purrr. Is he turning 22 into a bluff here? I don't think so. Given that I thought he'd see overbets as signs of strength and would therefore more likely overbet bluff than value bet I called this and got shown Q8hh. Maybe results orientated, but I still think it was a good call.

Jynx

Don't ever brag about not tilting. The last few sessions have been some of the most tilted ever, and it felt like February again. I am taking a day off from 2p2 and poker, to clear my head and do other things, hopefully will help.

I also have been running like crap, but that's no excuse.

Don't play tourneys either. Devil's spawn.

Checking in again

Moving to 50nl has been pretty good so far, I think I have an edge against most players, and I've been running ok. One thing that I notice now is how much better I am at not tilting. I remember February I would be on tilt after the first hand every session or something and I'd be perma tilting. Calming down and taking things as they come has helped my winrate. Also not making a big deal about vip status' has also helped, I used to get platinum every month and it would always be a struggle, I would have to keep playing even when tired and tilted, now I just play when I want to and any volume bonus' are exactly that, a bonus.

Here is my graph so far as I know everyone loves graphs!


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I hope to continue playing solid for the rest of the month and hopefully win some more moneys!!!

I also ran a flipawment in which I got to the semi finals and got knocked out, again. Rigged.

blog tourney thing

Tourneys.

If anyone has any advice about how to do well in a tournament then I'd be glad to hear about it. I think they are rigged at the moment. I mean I have an edge over the donktards I play right? So I should be doing better than 1 final table in 2 years. Riggedness central.

The boomswitch is strong in this one...

October so far has been one long boomswitch. I think I've played well, but I have also been running really well when I need it. So far 8k hands at 22bb/100! I've netted over $500 already and I'm still on the grind! lol. Been playing some 50nl again, which is always fun. It is a lot harder than it used to be, but I think I'm a much better player now than I was then. Another good point is that my PTR is >2k for the first time ever... which is a relief because after February it was <1k for ages.

I've been dissed on 2p2 about my blog, just want to say anytime, any stakes, HU, no problem, bring it.

GL to you all at the tables

Start of a new month

October is here, and it's going to be a good one (hopefully).

It's actually got off to a really good start, I feel I'm playing really well and running ok as well is always nice. I feel as if I've improved a lot as a player last week or so. Then again it is just 4.5k hands so far, but made a pretty good profit in that time. A move back to 50nl sometime soon? Maybe, but right now I want to play 25nl for a bit longer.

I had sweat sessions from Chriswitteman, which really helped. Top guy, and I'm looking forward to the next one. He should coach.

I should also probably mix in some uni work...

Making a List

I made a list of everything that makes me not awesome:

WHY I AM NOT AWESOME

· Shy

· Hygiene

· Dis-organised

· Boring

· Bad at poker

· Lazy

· Anti-Social

Ways of improving:

• Talk to people more
• Do at least one thing a day that you can talk to someone about
• Use more lists and keep a diary
• Work out a little every day
• Utilize the facilities I have to improve my poker game no end
• Get off my fucking ass
• Shower every day, not every other day

What I can gain if I get better at these spots

• Friends
• Girls
• Money
• Looks
• Grades

Hopefully I'll get motivation from this.

A brief report on 2010 so far

Since the last time I blogged was January I will fill you in on my months since then.

February

February was the most difficult month I've ever had. I started off with a really long break even stretch, followed by a 20 buy in downswing. I was tilting and only kept playing to secure platinum again which was really draining and frustrating. A bad month all in all. I played 40k hands but lost about $600 which sucked!

March & April

I took a break from poker in these two months. I played about 1k hands in March before I left for NZ and when I got set up in NZ with internet in April I played maybe 5k hands of 25nl. It was good though I really didn't like poker anymore and taking a break helped me. I cashed out half my roll and moved down to 25nl.

May

May was an awesome month, however. I played 30k hands of 25nl and ran at 6-7ptbb/100 so really good to finally feel like a winner again and nice to play lower, less stress and variance. May was good.

June

I puked on my laptop which made me unable to play poker until September.

September

I'm back played some 25nl getting used to it again. Not winning at the moment but hopefully my luck will turn.

There was a brief summary of each month. Hope that fills in the gap and I'll be posting a massive TR of NZ whenever I get round to writing it.

I'm back and back for good.

Sorry about the lengthy absence. I went to NZ for 6 months (I'll blog that soon). All I want to say is I'm back now and I am back on the tables for good. Lets hope for run good!

SitRep - January

Can't believe I used SitRep in the title, what a geek I am, but I've been playing lots of Call of Duty recently so... (for those that don't know it stands for situation report, yeah I know right?)

Just gonna update for January. I recently found out that someone actually reads this (hi ready!).

January was a pretty decent month overall, won at a decent rate, got 40k hands done and got platinum again, which I'm pleased about. I want to get supernova this year, and it's gonna be a bit of a stretch, but I reckon, if I move up sometime during the year then I should be ok. I feel like I'm beating 50nl, but not to the extent that I feel I can beat it. I think it's a case of getting the mental side correct, and stop tilting and calling when I know I'm beat. I definitely want to get some more hands in, but I am still the same lazy ass no good that I always have been I guess.

I did play some 100nl during January and ended up positive in a 4k hand sample (I know [ ] sample size). But 100nl exhausted me, by the end of January I felt so burnt out, I wouldn't care if I didn't play another hand of poker again. But I took a couple of days off and am ready to grind again. February hasn't been a great month so far, lost money in every session or so. I played well today however and have put in 2k hands at 5ptbb/100 which I'm pleased with, just to end the streak of losing.

You'll notice that I'm stopping the target setting thing, I feel like that's all I am posting here for is continuing the target setting thing, and I feel like if I stop that I might actually post blogs more often. I am however considering getting my own website, and transferring my blog over there. I think I can have a lot of fun with a website that can have loads of poker stuff, I can make some videos, and do other cool stuff related or not related to poker. I think using Split's website as a template (I don't think I could ever get it that good, but it will hopefully be a fun thing and will make me update the blog more so it's all good).

So little more to say, I'll post my girrafe because I know a lot of people love looking at giraffes (well, I do)

This is the year so far, it's not the best graph, but it's a winning one so I'll take it.

Obligatory WBCOOP post.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 838948

Redline Barg.

I have always struggled to get a decent redline. I hated seeing my redline just bomb and while I was making money it suggested to me that my game was seriously leaky.

Here is my January graph, with a good redline (its green cos my HUD's ****). Seem to be finally getting to grips with not leaking money away. Now to stop spewing...