Always calculate, think of it as a war. - Mike McDermott

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

November at a glance

Well I had very high hopes for November. The month started great I was crushing the 3/45's as the graph below indicates. I started mixing 6/45's in around the 500 game mark and things slid downhill quick. Then I rebounded. That rebound didn't last long and I finished the month in the 3/45's. So not so good. I feel like my game really improved this month and I ran pretty poorly to finish off the month. I will keep plugging away reviewing my game and try to fix whatever I can find. Less than 1500 games played this month, I hope to play that in the first week of December. Adios.

A few for the road

Well not a good morning poker wise. I'll just leave it at that. I only played 28 games though. I have to work today and don't get off until pretty late. I might try and squeeze in 20 games after I get off if I'm feeling it. As much as I press myself to play max volume it is not always the best idea when I'm losing and don't feel like playing. At times like these it is best to take a break. Lucky for me I have to go in to my dead end job for 8 hours today and that is all the break I'll need. I leave that place ready to either grind or learn how to grind better because I defiantly don't want to end up stuck there for who knows how long.

Radiohead- Reckoner

    I am a huge Radiohead fan and listening to "Reckoner" puts me in a good mood.

    Also, there will be a 45 man competition starting up soon on 2p2. I plan on playing the A tier for sure, that is the $3 level. I wanted to play tier B as well ($6), but after the past few days I doubt I will be able to. Oh well. These comps are fun because they are alot of good players playing for bragging rights and some money. A good way for the community to connect.
    Ok, well I am off to work. Hopefully I can make it through the day with my head up. I'm not in the right mindset right now to interact with customers very well but I do my best. Have a good one all.

Monday, November 29, 2010

trainwreck

What a great day. I had alot of fun playing poker today.


 Not alot I can say. I woke up this morning excited and ready to play. The fact that I had a hideous two previous days was a distant memory. Clean slate, new day, now this. A black eye. I played a little over 140 3/45's today and lost steadily all day.
    I suppose this is some sort of test the poker gods have deemed necessary for me to take. I accept their challenge. Tomorrow is a new day and I aim to utilize it to the max. I hoped that this blog could have started on a good note but it is what it is. Good luck to all the hard working grinders out there.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

This could have gone better ;)

Hello, another day in the books. Only 80 games today and they were painful. Oh well I feel like I played well. I will go through a few tourney's in the re-player when I finish writing this. I work part time at a local grocery store and find it hard to go into work 3-4 days a week. I'd much rather spend my time getting my games in, instead I'm price checking soup on aisle seven. Today was one of those days where I played before and after work. It's what I have to do to get in a decent monthly volume. It is easy to miss a day here and there but those days add up, and that can't happen.
    I have tomorrow off and plan on getting in 120-150 games. Today went horribly wrong so tomorrow I will start off in the $3's and most likely stay there for the day. I have no problem with this, I'm sick of losing.

QuantumPower (PokerStars)

Zoom In:
Filter: E45-45 SNG Only

   
   
 Above is a graph of all my 45's on stars.

It's been a long day and I'm fixin' to get me some shut-eye. Good night.


     

Saturday, November 27, 2010

1st blog post

Ok so I finally am sitting down and getting this done. My first blog. My first blog post. Very exciting stuff. This blog will focus heavily on poker. I love poker. It keeps me sharp, it gives me hope. A brief history of what I have been doing since I started playing. I started on PartyPoker in 2006 I'm guessing just dabbling in sng's and maybe some mtt's. This was so long ago I can't recall exactly but I was terrible. I'm sure of that. I often think about what it might have been like had I found 2p2 or had the wherewithal to seek help in my game. I'm pretty sure it never even occurred to me how profitable poker could be or was at the time with the right knowledge.
      Fast forward a year or so later and US players were no longer allowed to play on party. I migrated over to pokerstars and fulltilt with everyone else. I just kept doing my thing. Head in the sand. Totally oblivious to the good times that were being had by competent players with a will to succeed. Fast forward to mid 2009 I began to take things alot more seriously. I was constantly on 2p2 and pocketfives looking for my niche. My little corner of the poker world where I could possible learn to be the best and make some good money also. This is when I stumbled across table ninja and things were off and running. I think it was a thread about boku that prompted my curiosity about multi-tabling. Before this I was just tiling no more than 9 games at a time. With table ninja I could do up to 30.
       I played 8500 45's in the last few months of 2009. 15% ROI $2.87 ABI. I also played 1700+ 180's in 2009 with a 40% ROI and $4.04 ABI.
     With the huge increase in volume I was finally able to make money. At this point in time I really wish I would have seeked to improve my game because it was flawed everywhere. So many leaks to be plugged and I just didn't realize it. Eventually I hit a huge downswing caused by bad luck and suboptimal play. During this downer which started early Jan 2010 I developed some very bad habits which I was blind to. After months of losing I decided to call it quits and take an extended break.
     Poker was never in danger of disappearing from my life. I just needed to take a step back and reassess the situation. I was losing money, plain and simple. Several months later I started playing on full tilt again after dabbling on and off with mtt's there for a couple years. This time I was after the 90 man ko's. I did well in these and it resulted in me playing more mtt's which culminated in a double deuce run I will never forget. 10th place AA<KK on xxxxK for 1/9 going into final table. 10th: $1400, 1st: $31,000. I was devastated. I could not function properly for days. After a couple weeks I finally lost it all back in mtt's well outside my roll.
    After a couple weeks I found my way back to the 45's on stars and have been grinding there ever since. In the past month my game has improved dramatically. I still have alot to learn and push myself to study and try to get better everyday as well as play. I have a feeling I am going to be grinding 45's for a while and hopefully 180's soon. My goal eventually will be to play mtt's both live and online.
    Well I intended this to be brief but it got long quick. I had no idea what to except with this being my first blog post and all. Ok, well I guess that is it for now. I played 120 games today and ran very poorly. Very disappointed at the moment because I tried to play all $6/45's today and had to start mixing in $3's at about the 60 game mark. Lost a little under $200 today. Oh well I will be playing again tomorrow morning, so I am looking forward to that. Good Luck Everybody! Peace.