Extended Break

Due to a fun time, I wont have any internet till 7/7/2006. fucking brilliant

past couple of days I've played 3k hands or so at NL50 and LHE1/2 and pretty much broke even.
Moving is a pain and my new room has less storage space than i would have liked. Its decently sized but the shelves etc suck ass.
I just spent £130 online at argos for a desk, chair, bedside cabinet and desk lamp. I might have gone a little crazy seeing as i really was only considering a desk, but hey you know me and internet buying. I couldnt satisfy myself so i also bought Ed Millers new NL book from the marketplace on amazon. I had intended to do a quick PSO bonus and get 3 books but nvm I'll do it later.

I now get a good few days for some serious session reviews and book reading. Also watch some vids and hopefully come back in two weeks with 'metagame'. this is kinda something i'm obsessed with, but basically i dont think my play has improved evenly recently. I think some areas of my game are extremely strong whilst others are weak, and holding me back. I don't feel I play optimally when others take the lead. This I need work on as I have been playing like there's no call button recently.

I'm gonna try and get a job too with 'high society'. should be interesting. Also I'm gonna be a super casinowhore once i get the internet back. I intend to make at least $200 in +EV each week from it. Should be cool.

I have been watching a shitload of Buff the Vampire Slayer recently. I forgot how good it was. Used to watch it every Teusday on BBC2 but not seen an episode for years. I'm gonna have A LOT of time to watch the football and tv programmes. Might do a 24 marathon. Definitely do a LOST marathon. My new flatmates are cool, though I don't know them too well. The ones living there right now are moving out soon, but still good that they seem alright.

Anyway I hope to get netside sometime later in the week, and you'll get a trip report for my last few days and also what I've learnt about poker, specifically to do with my own game.

I'm 21yrs old

title says it all.

kid was born on 19th June 1985 at 00.05am GMT.

now i should go to bed.

Changes

I've just taken the past 4 days off, and to be honest I won't have any time to play till teusday at the earliest, and in very happy about it.

I really dont WANT to play poker right now. I messed up in my first two weeks after my exams, by not hanging out, getting drunk etc whilst everyone was still around. Now only a handful of people are in London, and even less are ones that I want to hang out with.

I've been watching the football and generally just hanging out.

The England vs T&T was really good. People thought England were poor, but I disagree. They made good chances but couldnt find the finishes. I'm sure that on another day it would have been a very different scoreline.

I managed to catch the end of the Argentina game today and gotta say they do look good. They seem so solid throughout the team, and can't wait till they play Holland.

Right now I'm packing to move my stuff over to Elephant and Castle tomorrow. Its pretty cool place but they dont have the internet. I've gotta sort that out, but hell I'm pretty lazy. Also gotta pay for it. I'd better sort that out monday.
I've finally read some psychology notes, and OMG there's a whole section basically on gambling.

Although I said I'm not playing poker, I have to get back to it (maybe event his weekend if i get time). This is what i will be looking at.
Stars have a reload. An opportunity to work on my STT game
Pokerroom bonus, where I'll probably clear at the NL50, 0.5/1 or even STTs.
Party where my rb deal is looking good. I'm gonna have to play much more there and am looking to play 9 tables a lot more. I'm also gonna do 4 tables at NL50 for a while to get back into things.
Got all the cryptos to clear of course.


edit: just had a shower and am scrambling to watch the end of the Holland v Ivory Coast game...

Week 2. 03/06/06-11/06/06

again played a lot less than i wanted to, and again pretty poorly.


Cash:

party: won/loss Hands played

LHE1/2 $44.12 2411
NL100 $130.68 2311
LHE0.5/1 $20.5 340
NL25 (10.31) 5687


took 33hrs, dropped a lot on tilt too
so $184.99 means $5.29 per hour. not exactly setting the world alight.


crypto:

LHE1/2 ($54)

pokerroom:

LHE $23


bonus: $200 from party.

i dropped $200 today alone. which pisses me off no end. I really did get fucked by the deck on multiple occassions. My LHE figures were good untill today where i dropped 25 BB in about 80 hands thanks to getting completely fucked everytime. won at showdown on 18%. fucking great.


tourneys

crypto: ($10)
stars: ($8.8)
Party ($1)



This equates to $334 for the week (or about £180). this is fucking shite.

I played about 45 hrs total which jsut annoys me no end. I haven't played on crypto much. what has been very disappointing is the $$ from the NL25. for that many hands i expected to be up around $150-$200. I guess i could jsut be experiencing a bad stretch.

All week i've played decently, sometimes on tilt but mostly pretty well. I just could catch any breaks. Today I had AA once and KK once in 500 hands. Usually i dont complain about this as it doesnt even usually register, but come on its sick.
PT shows no QQ, JJ, AK, AQs. I got 88,77, 66 a total of 3 times combined. Its only over 500 hands so its not that big a drought but it sucks completely. I've really been stung by fish all day, especially in the tourneys where some crazy shit just pissed me off. How about a K9s squeeze that gets called for 1/2 his stack by... J2s. He hits the 2 and gg me. i was seriously like wtf.

I'm actually pretty unhappy about the number of hours played. Although 45 is good, its playing EVERYDAY and not all of this is cash. I've only clocked around 35hrs of cash. what sucks is that I'm making around £4 per hour which TOTALLY sucks. Variance hurts too. If i had published these results yesterday I'd not have shown the $200 dropped and it would have looked so much prettier.
Tomorrow I'm taking the whole day off playing. I think i am a little burned out, which reflected in my play today.


After tomorrow I'm considering just playing NL50 and try and grind out a BR via hours. I'm also gonna get a shitload more hands in at NL25. I may get in 20hrs at NL25 which means 10k hands 9-tabling. another 20hrs 4-tabling NL50 and I expect to make $1000 next week, minimum. I might play at absolute a lot since i got RB and the bonuses there. I definitely intend to complete my hands at pokerroom. its worth $120 from PSO for 400 points and another $200 for 2000 points. I guess this shouldnt be too hard, although i may have to start negotiating the NL tables there, which I've been avoiding because of the blind structure.


All in all another awful week. BR back to $3773 but i would have thought it would be more like $5000 if things could just go my way a bit. Gonna have to work out how to take money out of my BR. I think I'm gonna take $$ out every 2 months.

gotta figure out some expenditure numbers:

Rent: £95/week
Food/bills: £55
other £20
entertainment £20

these are all estimates, and i reckon they are pretty spot on, if not a little conservative.
so i reckon i need £190 per week which is around $350 a week.
So to be on the safe side lets say $400. That's nothing to make a week

I will be looking into relieving the psychological pressure of playing though and getting a part time job. This will jsut take the pressure off a little and let me play without my subconscience screwing me over.

oooh last day

this is it. everyone is leaving. sad times as my university life is over, at least for now.

football tomorrow, so its all good. LETS GO ENGLAND!!!

today was sick though. broke even on the day, i think down about $20, but holy shit i was stuck $250 at one point by starting the session on tilt. now thats the second time.
managed to stick it in with KK on 7xx board and opponent flips AA.
shit i suck, but luckily i'm a luckbox and i spike a K :P

cue me going on about mofo this and mofo that and fuck me, wtf is wrong with me etc etc.
i then proceed to be a luck box and end down $20 at NL100 for the day. I dropped $30 at NL25 by being on tilt too over 600 hands, after being up $50 then deciding i couldnt pass QQ (when it was obvious i was beat, then got raped by a terribly played QQ vs my JJ). meh.

still pwning LHE1/2 at party, even if im playing extremely weaktight.Fuck it, there was a guy at $100 who went down to $10 when i left. he played 89% VPIP, pfr was 0% and TA was 0.8. i really hope that guy is rich.

oh and i hit 17th in a $4.40 stars 180 man SnG. ffs. never got going. after the first 40 mins i got my stack in maybe 15 times, and only got called once.
blinds 300/600 antes(cant remember exactly how much, maybe 75) and i have 10k. the punk two to my left just doubled up and has 11k. avg stack is around 16k. i open push from UTG+2 with K9s and the punk take an age to call. flips A3s. i was seriously thinking wtf. So i had to be at the bottom of my range for him to have a chance of being ahead, and not very much either. my image had been pretty tight, and the one time i get called its not even by a premium?
gg me when i flop 55K but A spikes on the turn. meh i cant complain, i stuck my $$ in with 1 card to come and only 2 outs.


im bonus whoring now. i got two $100 bonuses at party, then i also have to clear my pokerroom bonus. $200 for 2000raked, plus $120 from PSO when i hit 400, which will be pretty damn fast.
I think i might get a job just to take the pressure off week to week. also i gotta start working out or something. its really hot but i still gotta just suck it up and do it.

do it, just do it.

pokah!

I haven't been posting much recently, not sure why.

i've been pwning the LHE1/2 10-max recently, and am about to bonuswhore the hell out of pokerroom and crypto.

im going back to the NL100 again, but only on party for now.
i want 10k hands before i start to do anything else.

I havent really played much poker, maybe 9hrs in the last 3 days or so.
I have a lesson today with a poker coach so that should be interesting.

Some Accounting

here's the breakdown from 22/5/06-2/6/06

ring games:

mix of NL25/50/100 and LHE0.5/1 and LHE1/2
party: ($372)
crypto: ($266)
total: (638)

this kind of sucks. stuck 638 for ring games, most of the loss was on tilt and i hope never to experience this again in the near future.

STTs:

stars: ($37)
crypto: $32.6

MTTs:

stars: ($8.8)
party: $38
crypto: $15.6

bonuses:

interpoker: $200
willhill: $94.4
party: $25

rb:

affiliate: $8.5
interpoker: $87.56 (although still waiting for this.)


net total for the period: ($182.14)

so pretty much neither here nor there for the period. i got in only 37.5hrs, which sucks. I was hoping for at least 60hrs.
not too bad since i did drop $800 in a day. i now have a rb deal for the 'worlds biggest poker site'


I think i really got to find out a lot about my game and how mentally stable i am/am not. Right now im a net loser at NL100 which totally sucks, especailly since it was the game i was hoping to be my bread and butter. Its ok since i had a contingency plan to play NL50 too just in case.
Not the best week, but had some good times, like hitting two FTs in a day. I will play MTTs a lot more i think.

Right now I am scrambling to try and get myself back into uni for the year after next. I really dont want to go back just yet, as i think im just 'not there' right now. However UCL and central london is a great place, and i do want to come back for my psychology degree.
I found a place for the next year, its gonna be £95 perweek rent, plus bills and food im assuming my expenditure will be around £170 (if i end up eating a lot). Thats around $320 (using .53 as X rate) which is not exactly hard. Im currently hoping for $1000-$1500 average weeks right now, and will reevaluate after the summer). Main concerns witht he new place are thats its in a semi-dodgy looking area, and the place has no internet (which would kill me). I don't know much about routers etc but im gonna have to learn fast. If there's no internet when i move in i have no idea wtf to do.
Current plans are to take advantage of my rb deals, and also do 1 casino bonus a week and one poker bonus a week. this way i would almost definitely struggle to make less than $500 a week.


oh i also paid $250 for poker lessons that im having in a couple of days:
BR: $3439