http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/4-General-Discussion/519411-Why-haven-t-you-moved-up-
Made a post about some stuff what I believe people are doing wrong, and especially what I did wrong! Have a nice read ;)
For the first time in my life I am trying to set myself real goals. I really have to admit, that it isn't as easy as I thought it would be. I am not only trying to set myself goals, I try to weight them differently. Example: How many hands to play til 31st December 2012. I have given myself a low goal, a solid goal, a big goal and an unarchivable goal^^ I guess the last one is the one I could delete, but just for fun I let it in there. Then there are other goals, like what limits do I want to play til the end of the year, how do I want to archieve them, etc etc. It is really tough if you have to really describe it.
I asked myself: Wouldn't I be just lucky to beat nl100/200 for an average of 8bb/100? I mean a lot of good things coming with it. I have a bigger winrate, so the swings aren't as sick as they would be if I would be just a 1-2bb/100 winner at nl400+. This means I can play more hands while on a-game, which means I can play for way more hours/day(week/month/year) then I would with a lower winrate. Of course, I can take shots at nl400/600/1k, but I feel like I should stick to what I am good at. I mean, I play up to 18 tables and I archieve such a big winrate. So maybe I can try to add more tables to play 24 maybe one day with an average winrate of ~8bb/100. 6 tables more = 480 hands/hr = 57,60$/hr more. As you can see, this is what I am asking myself right now, and I really feel it isn't that easy to find the correct answer.
Those are just things that have to do with poker. The other part is that I am thinking about what I want to do with my life. I think I have reached a lot of material goals I had in the past, and now I feel that I might not have a good enough plan for the future. I mean it's pretty much luxury what I am talking/thinking about right now, and I am really thankful for that. The question is which route I should take in terms of education. Aren't I'm happy with what I am doing, or would I feel that I could have archieved more in my life if I am like 50. I think I know the answer, and it would be that I would think I haven't made enough out of it. I think it is tbh an somewhat more easy decision, but at least I think that I should have thought about it. Taking time for a decision can't be that bad.
I am not going to post my real-life goals here, just wanted to talk a little bit about them^^ I don't feel I have completed my plan yet, even so I am on a good way. Ok, I'll give away one goal: I want to write a book one day. I feel like I would be good at doing something like that and I think that this will become at least a new hobby for me, trying to write storys etc. But I won't talk to much about it in this blog.
---------------------------------------
A little recap of my progress at poker for this year. Like I already wrote I became a masstabling player. I have played close to 200k hands so far this year (I guess that's not what you would expect a 18 tabler to have played right now^^), and overall I am happy with my results. Had to work on some stuff, and I joined a group of players who are also interested in becoming better. We all work with the same coach which is also pretty helpful iMo. Til the end of this month I should have made supernova at stars (was playing on different sites before, but now I am a stars-only reg). I started to take shots at nl400 again, but so far I am running like bullshit. Of course it might be that I am not a winner at nl400, but I doubt that. Maybe next time I'll post some graphs/hands.
Great news! I think this is an important step to guarantee the longterm health of the game. Thums Up Pokerstars!!
But I think that we should see this only as a first fight in the longterm poker health war. Was PTR the first site to offer information from a gigantic database? No, it wasn't. There was and there still is another site where you can get your poker edge from. I really hope Pokerstars will get rid of that site, too.
-------------------------------------------------------
From my perspective, the overall game will become softer again through this. Why? Ok, here is my answer:
While at the moment a lot of players are able to look other players up and table select way to well they now might have to stop doing it. So a lot of the players who are currently playing let's say nl400 have to move down in stakes, and not only to nl200, no they need to move down to nl100. Sounds shocking, right? The other benefit is that players from nl400 who are really strong enough are now able to move up in stakes, because the weaker reg pool of let's say nl1k has to move down. The fish/reg ratio will remain the same, but the regpool will change in a really dramatic way. So the limit nl400 will be a level were players with the skill to beat nl400 and the ones who want to play nl400 do play. Of course there will be some bumhunters, too, but I believe that most of them will simply giveup after a few months when they realize that they don't get enough "good" volumne in to justify their time.
One at least interesting question should be: Is this good for a player who works on his game and who is trying to move up?
Tbh, idk. I'm a little bit afraid that the skill gap between limits might become a little bit to big so for example it might become really tough for a nl25 player to reach nl200 in a year. Some will get there obv, because of talent/heater, but overall I doubt that a lot of players will be able to move up easily. But in order to see the bigger picture, I think it is better for him to be able to maybe play nl200 in let's say 5 years and having the same amount of fish playing there. So the benefits really outweigh the negatives.
------------------------------------------------
One last thing I'd like to add: I believe a lot of people out there posting on 2+2 etc are some type of hypocrite. The use of this word might be a little bit to hard, but come on, once you have spotted PTR, we were all looking ourselfs up, and even our pokerbuddies. Later we used it to become a picture of poker coaches or simply looking some guy up who we felt "just got lucky against us" or something similar to that. I have used PTR a lot. I didn't use it for table selection (I think for 6m it's not really worth the time), but I used it. And I feel like a lot of people out there trying to say: "I never used it" and I just feel like "srsly, come on..". Am I happy that PTR isn't publishing profiles of stars players anymore? Of course am I! When I wanted to get into HU I can remember that a lot of people didn't play me, because "I was to good", even so I only had played like 2-3k hands and was losing! They just saw that I had played some hands at nl400sh. This is the way PTR shouldn't be used, but because people did so, I think it is the only correct step by Pokerstars to stop them offering that service.
I have been thinking for a long time now what I could write and I finally had an idea. Why not writing about football?^^
I'd like to make some predictions for the Bundesliga. Who's going to leave team A, who's going to join team B? So here are my predictions for some players:
Raúl (Scheiße 04)
The "Knappen" offer him a new contract. His last one was worth ~7million €, 5 from Schalke and 2 from Real Madrid. His old contract ends this season and Schalke is only offering him a new contract for 1 year and only 3m€. Raúl will leave Schalke to another destination. He is 34 years old, so the next contract will be his last big one. I don't know where he is going to play, but I'm sure that he will go where the money is. For Schalke this isn't as bad as it might sound, because they need to lower their loan-payments. Even so the fans won't be happy with the result, I think it's a good decision.
Jan-Klaas Huntelaar (Scheiße 04)
If he plays a great EURO 2012, then I believe there is no way that he will stay. This season I believe he has scored in like every game like 38 goals in 38 games or so, and some english club will make him an offer he can't refuse. Especially of the lowering loan-payment, losing other big players and the debt-depleting I believe Schalke has no chance of keeping him. For Schalke it's a pretty bad situation, because they will loose 3 players of the offense (Farfan, Raúl and Huntelaar). Will be pretty interesting to see what's going to happen.
Robert Lewandowski / Lucas Barrios (Borussia Dortmund)
I am pretty sure that if Lewandowski plays a great EURO 2012 that it can become tough for Borussia Dortmund to sign a new contract (atm it ends in 2014). In Dortmund he is right now the new #1 and what also is important: He fits better in the system then Lucas. Because Lucas is an awesome player, too, I don't think that Dortmund will have them both next year. So if Lewandowski leaves, Lucas will stay, if Lucas leaves, Lewandowski will stay. Especially for Lucas I think it is more then fair to give him a chance to play, because he is such an important player.
Jakub "Kuba" Blaszczykowski (Borussia Dortmund)
I am pretty sure that he might leave Borussia Dortmund. I'd like to see him continue playing for my team, but I feel like it is time for him to make a change. Dortmund has signed Marco Reus (Borussia Mönchengladbach) and if I see it correct, next year Dortmund has Götze, Reus, Großkreutz, Perisic and Kuba. Even so you might rotate from time to time, I think it is important to not have any players go crazy, because they don't play. Perisic joined Dortmund 2011/12 so I don't think that he will leave now, even so he already mentioned that he would like to play more. I hope Götze will sign a new contract and Großkreutz won't leave Dortmund now. So the only real choise here is Kuba. Dortmund can make some good money if someone decides to buy him, and I think the chance is pretty big that there might be some clubs interested in signing him, because he plays his best season ever.
Nuri Sahin (Real Madrid)
There are some romours atm that Borussia Dortmund might buy him back or that they will lend him for a season. One thing that won't happen is that Dortmund will lend him. This doesn't make any sense. For all of you who are unfamiliar with Dortmund: the BVB buys atm only talents (ok, Reus is more then just a talent^^) to give them a chance to develop. For his position we have more then enough other players, so getting him back to Dortmund for just 1 year won't happen. The buy-option is interesting, but if you see it correct, there is like a 0% chance. Sahin left Dortmund for 10m€, because of an out clouse. If Dortmund would buy him, they would have to pay more then that. So, this won't happen (and it really drives me crazy that Sahin made the mistake to move to Real Madrid, which was like 2 years to early for him)
-------------------------------
Poker
Some smallish poker content. Right now I try to play more then I did the first two months, but I don't really get into the grind, which is somewhat dissapointing. When I get home from work I feel most of the time not really good enough to play. But I hope I get to play like ~30k hands til the end of the month from now on.
For all of you who haven't read his blog entry yet:
http://www.philgalfond.com/lets-make-some-changes/
I think he gives some good ideas, but tbh I don't really think that all of them would really "help" the economy. I'd like to present my thoughts on this topic:
1.) Screen name changes
Tbh, I like his idea, even so I believe it is not important to "have" this. It might be important at nl1k+, but at nl100/200, I don't really see a benefit for us. Of course, I can understand why he wants to have this type of changes, but in reality, it only makes it harder for us small stakes grinder to make money. It also should make it harder for the average player to move up in stakes. Well, now you might ask: "Why?" But think about it for a moment: Where do these type of changes make sense? In the games that already have a lot of games going or in the games in which everyone is sitting out and doesn't want to play each other?
I might be biased here a little bit, because I would call myself a 6m-player, and it might be completly different for HU games, but I think this solution isn't the one we need! I really believe that a lot of collusion/cheating observations were only successful, because everyone had access to the "right" screenname. That said I don't think that this solution wouldn't help a little bit, but as long as there are sites out there like PTR which track every screenname, the change doesn't help the playerpool at <=midstakes.
2.) Anonymous HU tables (6max)
Even so this would be a good solution for the recreational player, I don't think it is a good solution for poker in general. The key is pretty simple:
Poker is a game of dreams!
Think about why you started to play poker in the past. If course, it was a fun game to play, but in reality once we all did our first deposit, we all dreamed of living a life like durrrr, Antonius, Daniel Negreanu, Gus Hansen, etc. We wanted to make money and to become rich and famous! So why would it be bad?
It would be bad for the railbirds. I don't think that a lot of ss/ms pros watch nl5k+ games, but the recreational player does! If we would have anonymous tables he wouldn't be able to root for his favourite player. Think about it: You are watching the champions league final, but you have no clue who the teams are and who the players are. Even so you might be able to watch a great football game, it wouldn't be the same as if "your" team would be playing.
Like Phil Galfond, I don't think it is bad to have these games, but I don't really think that this would be a solution.
3.) HU tables/lobby
Infinite tables/KotH aren't the solution here as well. We need to get rid of the players who don't want to play poker! Infinite tables don't help for obv reasons and the KotH solution benefits good players way to much. This again is a solution that doesn't help <= midstakes players, and I believe a lot of people forget this.
Here we have the "poker is a game of dreams" problem again. Like in the real world, a lot of people want to have changes that benefit us all, even so these changes benefit the top x% only. We need to find a solution that benefits all of us! Well, not all of us.
Even so I think there is a lot of missconception in the word "bumhunter" I'll use it to keep things easier. The typical bumhunter is a parasit. What some people don't want to realize is that from a poker companys point of view, a winning player is a parasit, too! The question becomes, which type of winning player do they want to have? And again "Poker is a game of dreams", and so the solution here is pretty simple: They want to have the winning player who is willing to play everyone. I mean, which poker room wants someone to represent them who tells everyone: "I play you, but only if you suck at poker!" But, what is a good solution?
I like Phil Galfonds idea of "right click a player for a HU challenge" which is only viewable if both players agreed. I think we can use this and go one step further! Like I already said, pokerrooms shouldn't want to have bumhunters in their games. Like Phil Galfond wrote, they do pay the same amount of rake like everyone else, but if they wouldn't be playing someone else would! So there is no need to have him in the game. But how to handle this?
- HU tables
Like I already said, I want to have a solution which helps everyone, not only the high stakes players. I believe on pokerstars you are only allowed to open one HU table of one limit at the same time and you are allowed to add a second if you are playing on one. So let's say someone (player B) wants to play this player (A) who has 4 tables open. "A" plays a few hands, opens PTR, realizes that "B" has made thousands of dollars playing nl100, and now "A" goes on sitout. For me this was one of the most common situations that happened while I was trying to get into HU. My solution now is a pretty easy one:
Player "B" might now ask player "A" "What's up?" - "You are to good, I don't play you"; Now player "B" is allowed to kick player "A". What does this mean for "A"? He isn't allowed to open a "new" HU table for ~30 minutes now. Same works if player "A" all of the sudden leaves this game and wants to "start" a new one. After leaving a game you are not allowed to open a new game if player "B" puts a penalty on you.
The question is: Does this really help? I'd say yes. Think about it this way: If he plays for like 2 hours a day, a penalty of 30 minutes costs him 1/4 of his daily play time. But there might be a problem with this solution: Player "B" might now go for player "A", because he knows that he won't play him and in order to get a game he might now always join tables of player "A". So for one day player "B" shouldn't be allowed to join a table of player "A" again.
But, what can player "A" do, if he doesn't want to get the penalty? If he plays "B" for let's say 15 minutes (or at least ~30 hands) "A" is allowed to quit the game. If he then doesn't want to play "B" this day anymore, he is allowed to not play him without getting a penalty. This way "A" can continue his style of play (bumhunting), but it isn't that bad for the economy anymore as it was before.
- 6m/FR
What tilts me like always is if a recreational player lost his money and all of the sudden a player goes on sitout. He doesn't leave the table, he just goes on sitout! Like Phil Galfond I think this is an absolut no go! Think about it this way: You want to go out with your friends, but your friends will only go out with you if you pay for them. Doesn't feel that good, right?
I think we can have a pretty simple solution here. Like the one already mentioned for HU, I think the same would work for 6m/FR, too. If one player is on sitout (recreation player after losing his stack) other players aren't allowed to go on sitout. If they want to go on sitout they get kicked of the table if another player at this table puts a penalty on them. If a player reaches to many penaltys for the day he gets auto kicked from all the tables and is only allowed to continue playing the next day. In order to have a "secure" system, the player should have had at least a few penaltys before, because this solution might be used vs better players, too, if they only go on sitout for like 5 minutes, because they need to open the door, go to the toilette, etc.
This wouldn't hurt pokerrooms, because someone else would play in these games, and in order to have games going, this would be an awesome solution iMo.
4.) Round robin tables/games
I'm with Phil Galfond here. I think if someone wants to play a game, he has a reason for playing it. Some want to proof that they are the alpha male etc, and for someone like him I don't think it would be cool to play vs different players all the time. He wants to own the table, and not the playerpool. He wants everyone else to notice what he is doing.
So yeah, I think the option to play "rush" poker is cool, but it shouldn't be a "general" solution.
5.) Must move tables
This again is a solution I believe <= midstakes players don't really gain anything from. You should be allowed to table select to at least some degree. It might be a good solution for HU games, but here again we have the problem that some players won't play each other, while some players want to play a certain person! From a recreational players perspective, if I play HU just for fun, I want to tell my friends "Yesterday I played HU vs Phil Galfond and won 10k vs him!".
So I believe this solution is only good for games which aren't running regularly, but from a <= midstakes players point of view, I really don't see why we should want to have this.
6.) Rewards/Promotions for game starters and hands played
For hands played stars already has a VIP programm ;) So I don't think this needs to be done, especially because the typical bumhunter wouldn't play more hands because of a promo like this.
Rewards for game starters however I think are a really great solution! The one who is willing to start games is the one a pokercompany wants to have. So pay them a little bit more then the other players!
But I see one problem with this. All of the sudden the 6m games which are now running might not run anymore, because in order to get more money, a lot of people won't join a table as "2nd" player. So there should only be a reward if there aren't enough games running atm. Don't know how to calculate a "fair" solution for this, but pokerrooms should be able to find ways.
7.) Adressing the button war problem, games INSTA breaking
I guess I went over this at point 3). Tbh, I haven't really seen this "button war problem" that often at nl100/200. If this really is a problem at the limit games, I think there needs to be a good solution. But, playing for "extra" 20 minutes isn't the correct one. If you want to stop playing at 9pm and the game breaks at 8.50pm, I don't want to have to play 10 minutes more the I want to. I guess even here the "penalty" solution might be a good one.
------------
Alright, I guess I wrote a lot and I don't think a lot of people will actually read this. But like I said, a lot of stuff isn't necessary for <= midstakes, and even so I believe a lot of things have to change, I believe the solutions should be fair for everyone, and not only for the top 1% of players.
Well, the blog title is a little bit over the top, but I haven't been posting for a couple of weeks now, so it is close to a new beginning ;)
I didn't really play that much after my last blog entry, because I had to do a lot of stuff in real life, especially with my new apparment <3 I think the break was important, because I had something else to do and sometimes it's good to take some time of to realize the things you were doing wrong.
One important thing is to break your game down and to really think about what you are doing and why you are doing it. A lot of stuff like "I raise A7s on the BTN" aren't that important in first place, but you should always ask yourself, if it is a good play or not. You might fix some plays you are doing pre-/postflop and even so those changes won't turn you immediately from a 4bb/100 winner into a 10bb/100 winner, it is always good to look where the small edges are.
For myself I find it really hard to find the spots in which I am losing money. Even after some database analysis I wasn't completly sure. I went with my coach over some things and we found one spot in which I was bleeding(!) money. It was not something smallish, it was a massiv leak. I know where I got it from, it was from a poker vid, but it was a little bit different. The coach didn't represent his idea wrong, I made the wrong adjustment. Even so the coach wasn't correct with what he said, I think this small thing turned me from a good winner to a small winner. So: Always be careful with your changes!
The question is, how to not fall into this trap? I am not really sure if my solution right now is the best, but I started a poker diary for myself. I am writing down all the stuff, like "Today I watched poker vid XY - Learned to raise AA from UTG" or other stuff I am thinking about, like mental game things etc. The important thing here is that I keep records about my changes, and if I realize "well, the last 2 months I did something wrong" I can look back and see what changes I did to my game and question them. This obv means more work for me, but I think if you want to do a change to your game, it is better to write down why you are doing it, so that you can find mistakes in your thought process right there.
When I moved into my new appartment I realized how many DVDs I have. I have close to 120 movies I haven't seen yet or which I haven't opened yet. So this is another adjustment. I won't buy any new DVDs atm^^ I have so many movies to watch for the next 3-4 months, I don't need any new. I mean, it's always funny if you go to a DVD seller, and everyone in the store really "thinks" about buying DVD abc or yxz, and you are just walking through the store taking this DVD and another one and one more^^ I like the look on their faces :D
As you can see I am pretty happy with my play so far. I should be up close to ~25 buyins over ~30k hands, which is an awesome result. But, speaking of results, my real winnings just suck. For those who have no idea what to make out of the AIEV, just read my last blog post, I think I gave some really good insight. Maybe I am writing an article about the topic, because I believe there is a lot of missunderstanding out there.
I thought a little bit about my playing schedule, and I am not 100% happy with it. I think 90 minutes are ok, but I think 120 minutes would work better for me. The point is, that if I get to play only 2 sessions, I have played 4 hours instead of 3 hours. That are 800-1.000 hands I am missing that way. If this happens 4 times a month I lost one complete day of play, and I think that is to much.
The other adjustment I have to make is that my 3rd session won't take me 2hours, I think I am going to play for just 1 hour. That is 0,5 hours more, which would be 400-500 hands a day. So if I get to play every 2nd day to play 3 sessions, I am going to play overall 10k hands more a month then I would by using the old schedule. Obv I am just trying out atm what works best for me, but I think this adjustment is a good solution so far.
After my last blog post I played a good amount of poker. I think the changes I did really helped me a lot, because I am more focused in my 2nd and 3rd session, which is awesome. I keep on seeing the spots in which I can steal the pot, because my opponents range is weak and I go for them. Unfortunately I have a little problem:
This is nothing new to me, because this is "normal" for me. Sounds crazy, but whenever I play I am running completly sick under EV, doesn't matter if it's iPoker, FTP, Party or Stars, I am way behind my EV. Obv the All-In EV doesn't tell the complete story, but I want to go over it a little bit, because I feel a lot of people don't interpret it correct:
First of all: It really doesn't matter what your EV line looks like, you can always(!) work on your game! So don't use your all-in ev as an excusion for yourself, why you don't improve.
a) All-In Ev goes up, Winnings are even/loosing
If you just look at the results of this player, you might think he is a bad reg. Even so he has leaks that he can fix, he has one problem that he can't fix. He is unlucky in All-In situations!
b) All-In Ev is even, winnings are going down
Even so this player is as unlucky as player A, this situation is different. Player B would be just a break even player! So he really is a bad reg. He has a lot of leaks, but here is the good news for him: If he works on his game he can push his winrate. The important thing here is to recognize that he wouldn't have made any money even if he would have run close to his All-In Ev. So if you are this type of player, go work on your game, there is a future for you!
c) All-In EV goes down, winnings are going dow
This shows the graph of a loosing player. Like player A and B he is running below his expectation, but even if he would run close to it, he would loose money. His solution is the same as for player B: Work on your game! Maybe move down a limit so that you winrate would be more like the one player B has.
d) All-In EV goes up, winnings are way over EV
Congratulations!^^ I think here is one important thing that a lot of people don't realize if they talk about All-In Ev. They see a graph like this (or they are running like this) and they get afraid that someone could write: "Wow, you are just winning because of luck!" This statement wouldn't be true! We have a solid playing regular who knows how to play the game. What benefits him is that if he gets it all-in, he is more likely to win the all-in. but! Like I alreasy wrote: Even he can work on his game!
-----------------------------------------------------------
That's close to all I wanted to talk about all-in EV. If you have any questions or have any comments, feel free to share them with me :)
------------------------------------------------------------
1 hand, 2 mistakes
http://www.handconverter.com/hands/1475834
This might look pretty standard for my opponent, and spewy if you are in my shoes, but I don't think that's the case.
Preflop depends obv a lot of villain, but I like my play so far.
Flop: I am not really afraif of getting c/r here. If he has a hand like KQss I don't think be wants to raise/call it off on this board against me, so if he c/r he gets really polarized, and I think on this flop he is more likely to just call me with a set. Might sound strange, but I think he wants me to catch a hand. I mean, if I have QQ, he c/r bets turn shoves river, I am not happy with my hand.
Turn: The 4 is a relativ blank and my range gets more into OPs and FDs. I am not betting a hand like A6cc here anymore. So my A5 is the only hand I am 2nd barreling here, which has at least some outs (Ax might be good, 6/2 give me a straight).
River: here is the mistake that I make! If I have AA on the river and I do expect him to call me with a hand like TT, he isn't folding often enough for me to have a profitable bluff. So my mistake is to bet the river, because I don't see him folding.
Now you might ask: Well, what did he wrong? I believe this is pretty easy to see. I think the odds on the river are way to bad for him to call me. If I am value shoving QQ+/4x/flushes, he can't beat one single hand! Think about it this way: What hands can I really be bluffing with? There aren't really a lot of hands, and like the only hand that comes into my mind is A5s. So by calling he wins 3 times and looses >20 times (obv he might loose to >30 combos, depends on my real range which I am not giving away here). I think that's a common mistake you see a lot at nl100/200. People actually call because "I have an overpair", but they do forget to think about a range. The fun part about it is, that even I did not think correct about his range, because if I would have done that, I wouldn't have shoved the river. Thought that was a funny hand.
Sometimes it is not easy for us to admit that we made mistakes. I mean, it is the beauty of the game, because you can always say "I run terrible". Even so you might really be running terrible at that time, it gives you an opportunity. Especially at the times when you are running like shit you can spot leaks that you have way easier. I'm not going to tell you what leaks I found, but I was pretty surprised those plays actually weren't as good as I thought they would be. Over the last couple of months I had some sick downswings, which I think wouldn't have become a 40 buyin downswing if I would have played my a-game. I would have lost ~30 buyins, but I could have saved 10 buyins. 10 Buyins!!! That's so huge! If I think how many hands I have to play to win 10 buyins, it really makes me feel sick.. But that is just what I would save during a downswing. Thinking about how much money I could possible win more if I'm actually on a heater, I think we all underrate this. So overall I think I have to do some changes.
It is pretty funny, because in February I had close to the same thoughts, but I didn't do every change in my life/in poker which I wanted to do. Now I think is the right moment and I am willing to do the changes. So, here are some of my plans/goals I have at the moment:
the grind
My grinding routine in the past looked a little bit like this: Start playing, play for 3-4 hours, quit. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think this can work for a lot of players. But the more I think about it, I want to change it. The problem I have with it is that I find myself often watching at the clock thinking to myself "2 more hours to go" etc. and I don't think that's the best way to think when it comes to playing poker. The second thing is that I feel that I am not that focused anymore after 2-3 hours like I was maybe a year ago. So I want to change it to the following schedule:
I like my new plan a lot, but I think I have to find some good solutions for 3 important points:
For question 2 and 3 I am actually thinking about adding a different game, like playing Stud/Razz/etc. Obv I am playing these games on a way smaller limit, but if I can use the time to challenge myself to at least think a little bit about poker in general, I think this might be a solid try. But that's just one thought at the moment.
poker theory
This is another important change I want to do. Overall I think I don't really have that many leaks, but there are at least some. The problem is to find them and to correct them. But, I think I am currently doing some things wrong, because I am a little bit to much on autopilot. Not saying what I am doing wrong, but I think I can work pretty easy on these smallish leaks to get back to a solid winrate.
In order to work easier on my leaks I'm going to move down to nl100/200 and I will stay there for quite some time. My bankroll could afford playing higher, but I made a bigger investment in reallife, so I don't want to risk to much right now. Also I think fixing my game has atm an higher EV for the future then continuing at nl400+.
In order to keep good track of my improvments and what I did to reach them, I'm going to update my blog on a regular basis. I don't know how often I will do this, but right now I want to do it at least 2 times a week. I think it is important to have some sort of diary so if you look back like 6months or so that you can see what you did wrong that time and remember to not do the same mistakes again.
Real Life
Another big change is to start with sports again. I don't want to start big, but doing some at the beginning and then adding a few more minutes to every session, so my body will work better. Atm I feel a little bit like this:
You got my point. I don't want to be eaten by zombies, so I need to learn to be able to run away again ;) I mean 2012 is coming, the end is near ;)
In addittion to that I want to eat more healthy. Bought a new book which was recommended to my mother by some of her tennis friends who had success with it (not just women, men, too). I think those 2 are important in order to be able to be more focused.
Ok, I think that's all for now. I'm going to start with sports today, but the grind etc I guess I'm going to start next month. Taking some days of playing poker and starting again should be the way to go. Til next time!
Last month I managed to win ~10k incl. rakeback etc. Pretty awesome again, especially if I think back that like 12 month ago I was happy if I was winning 1-2k. It feels good to play poker again after the 2 big downswings I had which really destroyed me inside. But anyways, I am back to the game and I am happy about it. Still think it is pretty funny to see how you can run well at nl200 and horrible at nl400 etc (happening on Stars for me^^), but that's ok. Just don't look at the results, look if you made any mistakes which would mean that you might be a real losing player at those stakes, but if you find yourself in funny spots all the time (KK vs AA etc), then there is nothing you did wrong. I mean obv is obv, but especially on stars this is pretty sick for me, because my results at nl200 are 10bb/100 while I am -20bb/100 at nl400, and I don't think that the games are so much tougher^^
Earlier this month I went to Belgium to play the Belgian Poker Series in Blankenberge. I haven't played live poker since April, but I enjoyed it. The general organisation in the casino was ok, but I think with a poker tournament the cashgames should be open earlier then 8pm. The cashgames were pretty good. I got somewhat unlucky in some spots but managed to win enough to pay for the hotel, gas and food. On the second day the torunament started. The room was pretty big and there was enough space for every player, but there was no air conditioning which was really annoying. The tournament didn't go well for me. Got coolered a lot, but although did some sick suckouts, too. At the end of the first day I was involved in a pot in which I should have 3b preflop, but I thought the range of the original raiser was to tight to do it effective and so playing the hand postflop would be more effective. Unfortunately his range was bigger then I thought and my bluff got called. I think my bluff was a good one, but overall I think I overrated my successrate. After that hand I was somewhat short with 10bb left. I shoved 2 times and could build my stack up to 14bb again. Then with 3 hands left and the blind level increasing the next day so that I would come back with just 9bb, I decided to "double up or go home". Unfortunetly I couldn't win the preflop all-in for the 4th time in a row there (the first 3 were smaller pots), but I am ok with it. Obv wasn't the most +ev play I did, but I thought I could make more of the next day, especially if I think about my general luck in all-in situations lol
On Monday I watched United 93 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475276/) and I think it's an awesome documentary movie. I mean, even so I knew what would happen I was sitting in front of my tv and was really feeling with them. I mean you really wish they can make it and survive even so you know they won't, incredible. I mean, it is not the only movie this happened to me. Take Valkyrie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0985699/). When the bomb explodes I was sitting there and hoping that Hitler died, even so I knew he didn't. What I somehow don't really like is that it sounds a little bit like the people on flight United 93 are the only heroes of that day. I mean, if you would have been in one of the other planes and you would knew what would happen, because 2-3 other planes were used as weapons, I believe the other passengers would have done the same. But in first place we all want to believe that if we just keep sitting nothing will happen to us, human nature. I think they all did what they thought was the right thing to do in this situation and in general they were right to do so, because something like that never happened before this way. But ok, don't want to take it to far. Just thought it was amazing to have these kind of feelings even you know that the result was another one.
