i G r i n d -er

Ok so I went to get a blood test few days ago and like i thought, i have diabetes. After some googling it seems like diabetes can be quite serious. I am seeing the doctor tomorrow for further consultation. Zzzzz… this sucks. I really have to change my lifestyle which means cutting out on smoking, proper diet plan, and exercise. I really do hope this will not affect my poker as this is the year where i plan to really go all out and make it to the midstakes. I know this may sound stupid but this diabetes thing may be a lifesaver. I smoke like 2 packs a day, never exercise, and my diet is basically isotonic drinks and junk. Being forced to change my lifestyle is gonna be hard but I will definitely try my hardest.

Made 7.5k on the tables this month. Not too happy with it but can’t really complain. Good thing is, i manage to luckbox my way to an 8k tourney win on stars (11r). Was chipleader with 4 remaining and decided to do a chop. Got 8.7k as CL with the original payout of 11k first and 8k 2nd. So not too bad overall. With rakeback and all that, that makes Jan my 2nd biggest winning month at 18k. Weeee

Feb goal
30 hours a week
10k in table profits
intensive review of all hands played as the PFC + 3bet pots.

btw, Federer won the Aussie Open. Great game. Murray played his best tennis and could’ve beaten anyone in the tournament except Fed. Fed is King

Federer is too good. He crushes opponents even when hes on his B game. How the hell does someone make a comeback like that. When Davydenko was up 3-1 on the 2nd set I really thought it was pretty much over. But then Fed goes on to win like what… 11 games in a row? This guy is just too good.

On the poker side of things, I think I’ve been playing my B game lately. I decided to play 100nl till the end of the month to rebuild my confidence and was crushing it at 10ptbb when i tried to bumhunt 200/400nl again and lost like $600 :( very sad. Should’ve quit grinding 20days into the month and finish 9k up instead now i’m at 5.5k+ for Jan. 3 more days until the month is over and I think im just going to relax and watch some videos/review HM etc. Anyway, I am going to see the doctor on Friday to get my blood test. I am almost 80% sure i’ve got diabetes which kinda sucks. Run bad

The Murray-Nadal game was just amazing. Both players played really well and although Nadal did get unlucky a few times he is definitely on his way to recovery from his tennis downswing. Him pulling out of the match because of knee injury is a concern though and with his style of play its pretty obvious his career will not be a long one. Hopefully Nadal will be able to give us a few more good matches before his retirement. Murray played exceptionally well and scored a few aces when it really mattered. This could finally be it. 2 matches away from finally winning a grand slam. The semis should be easy and i believe that if he can win in 3 sets the confidence boost will definitely matter in the finals.

I was lucky enough to have a couple of hundy on Murray paying $1.94. Probably just gonna full bankroll Murray to beat Cilic at $1.25. Davydenko is paying $3.55, a good bet imo. Saying that Federer will probably win in 4 sets :(

Been quite a while since i post here. Jan has been ok for me pokerwise. I was up like 9k playing 200/400nl until i dropped like 2k yesterday. Not too bothered about it but felt that every time i go on a rush i seem to forget to apply some of the stuff i learned before. Not good. The good thing is, I feel that I have improved quite a bit. This month is probably the lowest volume i have put in- 37k hands of FR so far.

My target for now is to finish the month with a 10k profit and continue with what i’m doing now until Chinese New Year which is about 3 weeks away. I’ve already decided to go to Macau for the Macau Poker Cup early March but still undecided as to whether i should reward myself with a 1 week holiday before. The plan is to relax and accumulate my run-goot-juice which i would then use it at the tourney. Not a bad idea eh :)

Any DC members attending the macau poker cup and wanna hang out just drop a PM

peace out

Happy New Year to all DC members!!! Hopefully most of you guys will be out there celebrating instead of grinding it out online :P

I’ve been working on my game quite a bit and feel that I have improved quite a bit from watching some old DC/leggo videos. My results have been shit lately, being 7BI down in EV past 2 days. Variance yea… blah blah blah

!()!

Been mixing in 6 max along with the usual FR games. Im sure my hourly rate is not quite as high as before but I feel that by playing less tables I will be able improve faster. I have already paid for a coaching session with NL_fool, will write up a review after a couple of sessions.

Its hard to not keep track of your winnings while you’re playing a session, this is especially true for me. There is absolutely no benefits from looking at your cashier every 15 mins. And what doesn’t benefit you only hurts you. Many times I thought I should be up like 2 BIs to only find out that I am less than a buy in up which leads to tilt. So from today onwards I am not going to check my cashier or HM until xmas.

2009 is coming to an end. I started the year with hopes to beat 2/4 by the end of the year which have failed badly. I started the year at 50nl and now play 200nl. What I have learned this year :

- Spend more time on learning the game while the opportunity cost is not as high.
- Good table selection → higher win rate → less swongs → less tilt → profit
- Active learning is 10x better than passive learning. Watching a 1 hour video and only learning not to 3bet QJ OTB is 1 hour of profits lost.
- I am not as good at poker as I thought

Goals for 2010 :

- Make it to 5/10 by the end of the year
- Learn omaha
- Stop smoking
- invest 30% of online profits each month

After a good month in May, I dropped 20Bi playing a mix of 1/2FR and 6max. This is the biggest downswing that I’ve encountered. 4k usd may not be a lot to most of the midstakes regulars but it is still a lot of money to me. I am still rolled for 200nl but decided last night to cash out everything but 10k and go back to 100NL until I can get back my confidence. Running bad will always lead to playing bad, this is what I’ve learnt. Don’t kid yourself saying that you’re just running bad. Analyse your hands and surely you will find some misplayed hands that you wouldn’t have done so if you had not been running bad.

Just 2 weeks ago I was determined to give poker a shot and temporally stop university. Now I am having doubts in my ability to support myself through poker. The swings are just so brutal that sometimes I feel like I can take on the best and sometimes i feel like I was just on a huge heater. I am still going to give playing poker profresionally a shot but if I don’t make it to the midstakes by the end of the year, i’ll just have to quit poker.

/RANT

Last month I made $25k inc rakeback. This month after 45k hands i am down $1200. Is this going to be another 100k breakeven stretch? Some months I feel like i can take on the poker world, some days I feel like I was on a massive heater and its all going down from here. I love money, everyone does. I need someone to teach me how to ignore the value of money and see all those chips in the table.. well… as chips.

ps. one day i will win a big donkament and end the grind.