February Review / March Preview

And another month is in the books for 2010. Bring on March now!

My 23rd birtday is right behind the corner. I am not really into celebrating my birthdays too much. They just remind me that I am another year older and still wasting too much time and energie on things I am not really into. At the moment I have this feeling in particular about my current job training. I know the worth of having a solid education but I have just not the desire to grind out the office life longer then I have to. Even I not realy care about this topic anymore I will try to put in some study time from now on for my final exams this summer.

Anyway before this here will get a life tilt rant I just stop it for now and safe it for another post in the future lol. 

Time for talking about Poker now!

At first a short recap of my month. I went on a nice upswing at 25nl the first few days of February. I felt pretty good about my game at this point and I hit the target in my BR for shot taking 50nl. I had a so so start but after some other spew sessions this month I brought "The Poker Mindset"to finaly help myself fixing my mental leaks. I did not finished this book yet but from what I already read it is a realy good one. Maybe I will make a book review here once  I read through it. Otherwise my confidence is growing from session to session. It just seems the improvments I made are paying divides even there is still a lot of work to do. Besides this I brought a sweet new 25.5" monitor for my grinding. It is just great to have such a big monitor. I can see all stats without problems but at the same time the tables have a good size and I can pretty easy 9 tabling with a tile/stack layout. On top of that I brought althoug a new Mod for the cards, chips and table. The style is nothing else but top notch and way better than the standard stuff on Full Tilt in my opinion. And last but not least FT gave one of the random boni which was for me $50. So with the hit you get on your RB it is still a free $34. I like free money and already cleared the bonus (just needed a few thousands hands for that). Finally some graphs:

So my results for February are the following:

[ ] Stay calm and focused everytime you play.

Besides this one day I was pretty near to archive this goal.

[ ] Take shots at NL50.

In fact I am for the moment a NL50 reg. Cool thing.

[ ] Play 20k hands. 75% at NL25 and 25% at NL50.

Meh another close one. Since I was not able to play most of the time at the weekends I failed to archive this one even by not that much. At least I played a lot more NL50 then NL25 lol.

[x] Get at least Silver in the Iron Man Challenge.

Yeah

So what is coming up this month? A lot I can say!

In the spot light is of course my further improvement as a player and getting used to NL50. This means working on some theorey but although putting a decent amount of hands in. There is no better way than just playing, playing and more playing. This together with focusinng on some mental stuff should make it possible for me to performe a lot better at the tables this month.

Although this month:

Prop bet: This month I am back in the "low volume" prob bet for both the $50 and the $100 pool. So with a total of $150 on the line I am feeling even more motivated to go for a nice amount of volume. I realy like to organize these bets and in some way I find it cool that they are even a bit popular in the forum now.

Mini-FTOPS: The next series of Full Tilts Tournaments series is in the air. With my tournament back ground it is still fun for me to play a few of them from time to time. And there is of course still the dream of this one big score! My performance in the last Mini-FTOPS was at best mediocre. So this time it is hopefuly a bit better. Here a quick overlook about my shedule. I would like to play some more events but given my work/school shedule and the difference in time zones (+6 hours) that is simply not possible. So here it is:

# 04 Event: $20 + $2 NL Hold 'em 1 rebuy and 1 add-on $300k GTD ( March 12th 13:00 ET)

# 07 Event: $10 + $1 NL Hold 'em Rebuy $350k GTD (March 13th 15:00 ET)

# 18 Event: $20 + $2 NL Hold 'em Cashout $60 GTD (March 18th 18:00 ET)

# 23 Event: $10 + $1 PLO Rebuy $150k GTD (March 20th 15:00 ET) 

And at the end my goals for March:

[ ] Work your way through "The Poker Mindset".

Not just read it but learn and apply the concepts from it!

[ ] Play at least 28k hands.

That should be doable while playing 90-120 minutes per day 9 tabling. Before I start 12 tabling i just want to see I can win over a somewhat decent sample size.

[ ] Get Iron Man.

That will be the first month I try to do this. But with the volume I am planing to play this should be no problem. I just have to watch out I play at least the 25 days I need to and can still take 6 days off pokerwise.

[ ] Perform good at the Mini-FTOPS

No profit goal or such things. I will buy in most of them with points so it is a bit like free rolling. I will just try to play my best and maybe I can make some deep run. When I play good but bust out of the money... Well, nothing I can do and the variance in 6k+ starter fields is just sick.

I see this is already way too long again so I just wrap it up at this point.

May the grind be with you in March!

March !

Ah, the last week of another month by.

For me, it has always been how much I enjoy my life that mattered most. Unfortunately that has cost me much money in wasted tuition etc, but as I stand now I cannot say I regret one thing, for the person I have become is what I am most pleased about.

February was a rather hectic month in the beginning / middle, but has ended nicely. Again I feel I have been taking massive steps forward in my own development, and coaching / staking has really began to show some fruits. If any of you are reading this, I would just like to encourage you to continue working hard, you are all coming along very nicely.

March will be the first month I really dedicate myself to grinding in the hopes of really making a good sum. I am shooting for 10k in profit and hopefully something like 14-15k total after RB/Staking. Achieving these goals would really give me a good feeling of accomplishment.

Assuming I can meet those high expectations, in April I would shoot for something similar to give myself a bit of financial cushion before moving into midstakes / learn PLO.

Run good everyone.

Andrew

Crushing

Things are going really well lately. I loosened up my pre-flop game quite a bit after a very very good coaching session. I'm sure some of my recent success has to do with people seeing 12/9 on their HUDs for me while I'm really playing 17/13+ on good tables. I wonder how long it will take people's HUDs to converge and play back at me and further I wonder if I can re-adjust back to nitty at that point and collect the spew.

Anyways, here is a giraff. I think the small red-line downswing at the end is the beginning of people re-adjusting or if I was just slacking on the table selection (I was playing really hungover all weekend).



Time to move up soon?

Things I have to learn about myself

Warning: This post contains a lot of whine/rant. So in case your a not in the mood for this just dont read it ;) Anyway I just want to use this post to look at it later and laugh about myself and how dumb I was back then.

Yesterday was one of those days which makes me wonder if I am ever capable to find my way in the poker world. I am not talking about variance. This is just a part of the game and I am happy I dont get mad too often about it. No, I am talking about one of my blow-ups I have from time to time. And when I steam its epic. You know the older TV coverage from Mike Matusow when he make one off those hughe donk bluffs for all his chips? In that case I am sure you got my point.

The problem is I do not realize I am in self destruction mode until it is too late.
So my first session yesterday already started bad. Pretty early in the session I turned TPTK on a paired board vs a 30/10 guy who limps/call pre. He c/r me on the turn (I just checked behind flop). Now I should realize that Baluga is Baluga since his theorem is never wrong lol. Needless to say I happily called his raise there and stacked him off on his river shove. Of course he showed the flopped full house. I ended the session like -1/2 BI down and felt pretty stupid since without that hand I would end it +1/2 BI.

Then I had a really good coaching session with Mao. and felt pretty motivated to start another session. I did so and was up ~$40 pretty quick after a guy limps / shove AQs for ~85bb UTG vs my raise from the BB with AKs. It is really sometimes just an easy game lol.

After that nothing too exciting happend and I was near the end of my session when I made the first stupid move. I c/r the turn from the SB vs a BTN steal with TT on Js8sxx. In first line the c/r vs this particular villain was no good idea but then I made one of the cardinal sins: I called his 3bet AI since there was already so much money in the pot. LOL. Even you get like 3.5:1 for your call never ever call there. You are never good dummy!
To be honest I have no clue why I c/r the turn there since my normal line would be to c/f it after c/c the flop. Smells like fancy play syndrome imo.
But obv not ended my session right then. Before I ended it I overplayed two times overpairs for 100bb each. Ouch. Find the fold button dummy!
I got "unlucky" in only one big hand where I lost a $120 pot. I called QJo pre and saw a beautiful TcKcAx flop 4 way. It got checked to me and I obv bet big there and got c/r from the SB who called my 3bet shove with TT. Turn a 9. River a 9. GG me. Well, he had his ~30% equity in that spot but LOL for his play here.

All together a painful -$167 session for a day result of -$195. I never lost so much in just a single day before. The fact wich really hurts is that I lost it all cause of my own stupidity. I could easily end up the the day at least break even if I could found the fold button!!!
I am really fed up with those blow ups I have. I can play solid for most of a month but in the middle of the month I have those 2-3 days where I just act like I never played poker before. Besides the money I lost during those episodes they just crushed my self confidence every time. I just stop myself to be the player I know I could be.
I should finally learn someday that if I am just patient enough and fold in the right spots there are still plenty of spots where I will get their money with not much effort. It is really that easy: just wait and while you wait make less mistakes than them. Finally they will make a mistake and you get their money. GG.
Hopefuly one end I will learn it and (more important) apply it.

At the moment I am not sure which way I want to go in the next time. Here are some ideas without a particular order:

• Stay at NL50 until you hit your 5BI stop loss - Since I lost cause of mindset problems and not skill problems (even I admit I have some leaks in my game) this is not complete out of line. But like I said before my self confidence is maybe a bit too low for it.
• Move to Poker Stars 50NL for a change of scene - Starting somewhat fresh on a new site is maybe not a bad idea. I could aim at the 100k VPPs for SuperNova . That would be a long way but with enough effort doable. But then the games there have the reputation to be harder than the ones on FTP. And there are a lot of SSer now.
• Stay at FTP and move down to NL25 again - Another good option and maybe the right one. Just grind out some money and get a bit of confidence back.

So no real clue now what to do. Hopefuly I can decide what I really want to do soon. I think at first I will ship now the "Poker Mindset" to get my head back on track. Since this here is already way too long I wrap it up here.

So long!

r2w

Shot taking, bragging and other stuff

Hello together,

I think it is time for a little update about my month so far. First to say it is a pretty busy one. I started another low volume prob bet in last minute (on February 1st) after some people asked me to do so even I will not participate in it this month. I was just not sure if I would be able to put in 25k or more hands this month. In review maybe a mistake. And low volume is a bit of an understatment as there are some people comitting themself to 100k or more hands (we have one in for 400k hands!). So I was pretty busy the first few days with that but I like to organize these prob bets and I wish everybody in it GL!

But even with little time to play I started great into February. I was a quick ~5BI up after three short sessions. So I decided to try NL50 out on last Thursday. I got a sweat from a well known and respected 2+2er who was very helpful with pointing out the differences between NL25 and NL50. One week later I am doing okay but not great at NL50. The adjusting progress just cost me some money. But I will be honest and admit that I although made some dumb plays. So overall I could do so much better at the moment. But well, mistakes happens and will happen in the future, too. Especially when you start to wonder why you get two or three times more 3betted preflop or get paranoid they play back at you in every single pot lol. Nothing I can do besides to learn from them and not repeat them the next time.

On a related note I made at Thuesday a coaching deal with another known 2+2er. I have great respect for his approach to Poker and he is a nice guy, too. So I think it will be great for me to have him as my coach and I am sure he can help me a lot to beat NL50 and above.

Yesterday I got my new monitor. It is a sweet 25.5" (odd size I know lol) one. Realy bigger then I thought it will be but I am very happy with it. I got it for €267 shipping included (that is around $367). So its a pretty decent prize for this size and the quality seems to be good, too. My old monitor which is a 19" one will now be used as secondary monitor for chatting, browsing, etc while I am playing. The only thing I have to do now is to make a good layout when I am playing. The Full Tilt software makes the tables way too small when I choose the tile option. They are then at the smallest possible size while there is still space left on the screen lol. So I have to resize them manually. I want to play up to 12 tables when I feel comfortable at NL50. Maybe too much for tile them withouth great overlap so I have to see if I can stack them maybe in a good way.

I think thats it for now. I know everyone has a great February so far.

r2w