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

February.

On the verge of my twenty-second birthday I want to take a few minutes to look at where I am at. In the last year I have gotten back into poker / been serious about it for the first time in my life. While I never dwell on decisions, there have definitely been moments where I have wondered why I choose to make life more difficult than it has to be.

I think this is supposed to be some sort of turning point, or that one is forthcoming. The one where the light switch turns on and my chronic underachieving and general apathy turns into focus. The focus though, cannot be artificial, I know it must come from wanting to better myself, not wanting things. Many of the people I know and used to look up to, I now realize fall into the latter half, funny how they can achieve something I want with reasons I think are completely wrong.

Anyways, this is a poker blog.

For myself, though poker is a game where improvement should come every time one thinks about it, I really seem to have plateaus somewhat in my development. Sort of like my graph, slightly over b/e then a jump... rinse, repeat. I know what I feel are the big jumps, are actually a culmination of ranging improvements, but being able to 3b flops, flat c/r and raise turns etc take a good deal of confidence to follow through with.

January was a good month. Did not play until like the 23rd ran hot as hell made 4k, hoping run good continues.

- February Goals -

100k hands.

+4pt wr.

workout every once in a while.

Andrew.

January Review/February Goals

OK, it is time for my monthly review since I take this weekend off pokerwise. So here it is:

I had a bit of a rough start into this month but nothing really to worry about. After this short episode I caught a very nice upswing. But then I had one session when I went on tilt and blew some BI. It is pretty easy to see in the graph where that happend. But besides that I am happy with January. It is my best month ever at the cash tables so far while my confidence into my game grew slowly but steady this month. Of course I find still enough spots where I did not take the best line.
But instead of being upset with that like in the past I am now excited about the complexity of Cash Game Poker and how there are always spots to improve. So it is a good thing to remember myself that I still have much to learn even I improved a lot this month since I worked really hard on my game. And it is nice too see this work paid itself off.

So here is my graph just for NL25:


The first thing I am really happy about is my red line. It is way better then anytime before even it is still not great. But I find my blue line decent, too. I definitively found the fold button way more often in January in spots where I had to do and therefore stopped my POW magic lol.

And here is my overall graph with the summary of the different stakes:





So I played a bit off NL10 in the beginning of the month since the NL25 tables were so meh most of the time. But after Full Tilt increased the minimum table buy in they are better then anytime before. So no more dime for me next month. The few NL2 hands happend when I rearranged my HUD. But it wasm nice to win a cheeseburger in just 1,5 orbits lol.

My goals for this month were:


[ x] Stop spewing!
Yeah. Besides my tilt session and some minor pay offs I did not spew in January.

[ x] Clear $125 Iron Man Year End Bonus
Ship the free money!

[ x] Play 25k hands
Yeah.

[ x] Improve your red line
It is better but still space to improve.

[ x] Keep Iron Man Gold status
I booked this, too.

So everything more or less achieved and here are the goals for February:

[ ] Stay calm and focused everytime you play.
I caught myself to be mindless and therefore sloppy with my game when I grind sometimes. Since this is a safe route to burn money I need to stop that. I am yet not sure how do achieve that but I will hopefully find a way.

[ ] Take shots at NL50.
I think I am finally at a point where I can try to do so. My bank roll is big enough to make this step and I have no problem to move down again when I fail.

[ ] Play 20k hands. 75% at NL25 and 25% at NL50.
Since February is such a short month and I will play just 4-6 tables when shot taking NL50 compared to the 8 tables I play normally at NL25 that goal seems reasonable.

[ ] Get at least Silver in the Iron Man Challenge.
Looking at the goal above this one seemsmore realistic then aiming another month for Gold.


That was everything for now. I hope you will all have a great month in February and I hope I will have some time/motivation to blog here a bit more then I do at the moment lol.

r2w

January and Travel

Hey Guys,

It's been a while since I updated.January as usual,is not good Poker-Wise.I'm running bad and playing bad as well.Nothing I can do on the former,but lots of things I could do on the latter.I'm not gonna whine about the number of set over set I have encountered this month,because it's just plain retarded.Lots of things I can do regarding the latter.

I've been grinding too much for my level and not doing anything about it.Just plain grinding which is bad.This week,I'm gonna start reviewing my session and discuss about it within the forums and the chatroom.I am guilty of not doing anything much about improving my game in terms of watching videos and reading strategy posts as well.So I gotta pick up on that this week.Mostly this is due to Time-Management.I am not using my time efficently.My sleep schedule is different from week to week,and I'm pretty sure I do useless things when I'm awake apart from grinding.I'm definitely gonna write up something about time management on a piece of paper.

On to the Travel Topic.2010 is going to be a good year for me in terms of Travel.Hopefully,I'll be able to visit lots of interesting places.Before heading back to Asia this summer,I am planning to see Paris,Lisbon,Barcelona and Italy.I will need to grind really hard to afford this trips.
Its not gonna be cheap.I'm gonna stop by Jordan,Syria and also United Arab of Emirates during May as well,then back to Kuala Lumpur(home).On the course of being back in South East Asia,I would like to stop by Borneo Islands,Bali,Thailand,Vietnam and Cambodia.Easy to mention the countries without having the Money!So Poker Gods,do your Job and make me a luckbox or better yet,a donkament win!

All for Now.Thanks for reading.
good luck!

MOTHER FUCK JANUARY

January should so far be my best poker month to date. I have put in the most volume I have in one month (thanks to Winter Break!) however I have run like absolute shit for most of the month. I know every poker player likes to think they run the worst - but this has been really awful and frustrating.

Here is the EV graph for the month thus far:


Now I know even EV adj my winrate is not so impressive. My excuse is basically 24-tabling and frustration about running bad. I've also tried to experiement and make some adjustments throughout. I feel overall I can win at 3.5ptbb while playing 16+ tables. This is reflected in the prettier slope near the end of the graph. This is mostly due to a few preflop adjustments I've made recently.

Hope to run better. This is getting old.

Good luck all. Cheers

January is halfway over.

Hey guys,

Though I have not written in a while, I would like to keep this guy goin forward with all of us. Mostly my lack of posting has been due to my semi-vaca from poker, however this week I finally began my crusade on 2010.

Things have been going quite well, all the adjustments I have really thought out are helping my game significantly. I know FTP is softer @ ssnl, I am hoping the 200 and up games are profitable so not to be forced into early NLH retirement. By all means though I am not trying to get ahead of myself, as almost certainly I can forsee myself getting it handed to me when I move up again, but it would be nice if games stay reasonably profitable for a while :).

Future plans:

50k hands per week till Feb, 2.5+ptwr.

Feb continue on 100, get into 200.

Build roll on stars and hit Nova ASAP.

Learn PLO prob starting @100.

Possible SNE run if good at plo ?

Hope everyone is doing well in 2010 !

Mao.

Back to real life

So I am official back to real life with today being the first office day for me this year . I really enjoined the last three weeks I had vacation. It is just so much better so sleep until noon, then firing up some tables and chatting in the chatroom and/or in the forum and then playing some more poker until hanging out with my GF in the early evening.

But now I am sitting here from 8AM to 4PM again and just hate it lol. I really hope I reach my poker goals this year and can make poker my profession from 2011 on. I can not see myself forever in that soul reaping job I am in at the moment.

Pokerwise this month is pretty meh so far. I am with ~8.9k hands in pace for the prop bet which is good but I am only a bit over break even so far (1/2 NL25 and 1/2 NL10). But after some reallly good sweats (espically the one with andrew ;) ) I have at least a pretty decent idea where my leaks are at the moment. Now I only have to get myself into plugging them the right way.

That will be maybe not that easy because I have simply not that many time to play/study/watch Stox vids like I want to. But well, with a bit time managment I should find some space in my shedule to do so.

On another note I am (and pretty much every other reg I guess) still waiting for Full Tilt to increase the minimum table buy in. They announced to make that happen this month after they failed to make it in December. But I have some doubt we will see this change very soon.

r2w

Year end review / Welcome in 2010

So 2009 is over and pokerwise I am not too sad about that.

Of course it was an interesting year and a lot happend. I started with playing Double or Nothing SnG on OnGame before I switched to Poker Stars in early Summer and played there 90man SnG and some Stud Hi. But this was just a pretty short peroid before I made the move to Full Tilt. And after I played there some more Stud Hi and LHE I finally concentrate on FR cash (even I had in September a short visit at 6max) since July.

But December was just a month to forget. My results are okay but could be so much better. But I screwed it up playing awful a.k.a. spewtastic poker. I really never played so worse like I did most of the month. I have not really a clue why I did so but I do not want a month like that again for sure.

At the last week I had to mix in a lot of NL10 to get the volume I needed for the prop bet. The tables at NL25 were just awful. So I made the prop bet even it was very very close at the end and I am happy to split the $300 price pool two ways for a nice little side income.

So lets see now how I did in December overall.

December Goals:

[X] Have finally a winning month (before RB). Even it could be way better like 3.5pt at NL25 and around 4.5-5pt at NL10.

[X] Play 25k hands. Yea and I am happy about that.

[ ] Improve overall as player ( posting hands, reading COTW, etc.) Big Fail

[X] Table select as good as I can. Meh somekind. It is just hard sometimes to do so proper

On the positive site is that my red line is a little bit better. After some great help I found out that I have two major leaks which are the reason for my hughe red line losses. I work hard to fix them now. And I reseted my HUD. Some parts of it are now color coded which helps my game a lot. I although optimized my preflop play a bit and it is now a bit better.


So here are my goals for January:

[ ] Stop spewing!
[ ] Clear $125 Iron Man Year End Bonus
[ ] Play 25k hands
[ ] Improve your red line
[ ] Keep Iron Man Gold status


And here are my goals for 2010:

[ ] 20k in winnings (RB and Boni although count)
[ ] Move up to NL50 until March
[ ] Move up to NL100 until July
[ ] Take shots at NL200 from November on
[ ] Have a positive result overall in tournies
[ ] Learn 6max
[ ] Learn PLO


I know that are pretty big goals but I like to set myself such ones. I believe the only thing which still stops me to excel at Poker is myself. So with the right mnd set and enough hard work I think I have a real shot to reach all these goals.

I wish a happy new year and an awesome 2010 a the tables and in real life to all my co-contributors of this blog and its readers!

r2w