Everything is anathema

This post is not content heavy. A few people asked me for a life update and I shall give one, uninteresting as it is. Expect a much more entertaining post soon on the topic of [real] football.

Poker is in a pretty strange place right now. Europe is having regulation fits and the US seems teetering on the brink of re-entering the market yet it all seems somehow underwhelming. I've stepped away from online poker somewhat. I still play, mostly at ongame which has some pretty great games much of the time, but have focused a lot on live play for the past few months. Live poker is encased within its own protective bubble and while the standard of play may rise across the board as time goes on those effects are felt far less in the live environment. It's also something I happy to enjoy, not seeming to reach that boredom line that online players hit when they're only playing a fraction of the hands/hour they're used to. I've been playing £2/£5, playing in the £5/£10 when it runs which has been sparse lately. One of the most enjoyable factors of live play is how deep the stacks generally are. The £2/£5 has a £2500 buy-in cap and the £5/£10 has no buy-in cap. So you just find the weaker spots and cover their stacks, if possible. This also allows for getting into some really interesting spots that rarely come up online with stacks so infrequently going above 200bb effective.

While I've been enjoying going to play live a couple of times a week, the rest of the time I've been enjoying spending time with my family. I can't express enough how I feel having a wife and kids has helped structure my life for the better. What would I be doing if I were still single and childless? Living in Thailand? Vegas? On the circuit around Europe? Spending my £ on retarded watches? Like it or not, I feel it's almost impossible for any single young(ish) male poker player not to fall into that life. I'm glad I escaped. My wife has been playing far more online than I have, she grinds out 6 tables at PKR and does really well. She seems to find the slower pace there a lot easier to cope with when playing multiple tables - the hand/hour rate is still pretty slow with 6 tables compared to any other site. It's an interesting site, I grinded there a little to obtain some hands for the previous Yin and Yang series but it has seriously limited potential. They recently capped to having 5/10 as the biggest game and this rarely runs. The 2/4 barely runs. I did play in those games a little and had a lot of fun, but only played <5000 hands and it's not somewhere any serious regular could consider as their mainstay. My wife loves it however, so I'm happy to play house husband while she plays there - it's like having a second income!

I spilt beer on my lovely Logitech illuminated keyboard and and it died a horrible silicon death. I am now using a clunky MS keyboard from what feels like 1972. I want a new Logitech so badly I even paid for express delivery. BALLA.

Life has been trundling along nicely, playing a mix of online and live. I've made some pretty good friends playing live, so that must surely earn me some life points. Here in the mid-section of this blog post I suppose I should try and insert some kind of meaningful content. I thought it would be a good idea to share some simple concepts that many of us neglect:

- For the vast majority of us it's more important to win money than to be the best in the room at poker. Thus, the reason we sit and play should be because we stand to win the most money possible. The time when this should not be a primary goal is when playing specifically in order to improve, but one could argue that even this is based around winning the most long-term. If you are playing in games with only other competent regs, don't complain about your winrate. If you think reg X is a massive bumhunter, perhaps you should take a leaf out of his book. If you couldn't possibly, because bumhunting (or, to use it's other name, "game selection") is the worst evil known to man then I look forward to your upcoming HU battle with jungleman. Do keep me posted on your progress.

- This is the really important one: Play more when you feel you are running well. Play less tables, less often when you feel you are running badly. For most of you, I bet it's the other way around - which is entirely counter-intuitive. How often do you find yourself extending sessions and making time to play when you are getting back to even and how often do you find yourself curtailing sessions when you've won a large number of BI in a short span of time? When you are running bad and you force yourself to play more, you are inviting non A-game play and higher variance. When you are running well and you quit your sessions early, you are denying yourself profit. Obtain a shock collar that delivers 500,000 volts every time you use the phrase "grind it out" or "lock up a profit".

I have to get back to important business now. At some point I might play some poker.

Found the boomswitch. It was playing reserve left back for Crystal Palace.

Whilst sweating a student I noticed some interesting chatter occurring. I requested the chat log.

w33m1ck14, should you ever read this, get in touch. We should work together.

w33m1ck14 >>    hmmm
MaveloveS >>    hmm..6 7?
w33m1ck14 >>    hahaha scardey cats 7 2 off
MaveloveS >>    haha..u love cok always
w33m1ck14 >>    sure ur dad luvs mine
MaveloveS >>    i own u everytime..u are too stupid for me
w33m1ck14 >>    hmmm sure i started with 18
w33m1ck14 >>    silly boy
w33m1ck14 >>    plus i withdrew 1k today lol
MaveloveS >>    sure...
w33m1ck14 >>    so hushhh
MaveloveS >>    i know u did
nitrollu >>    hey guys, I heard this rumour that someone withdrew 1k today, but I can't remember who
w33m1ck14 >>    go check stupit i won a 3500 gtd lol
MaveloveS >>    ahahah...i heard it too :))
MaveloveS >>    so u were that pro player..lol
w33m1ck14 >>    much use withdrew in the last week ??
w33m1ck14 >>    nothing
nitrollu >>    there is a withdraw function?
w33m1ck14 >>    iv played on  this site for 3days and runnnig a mock with
w33m1ck14 >>    use bad players
MaveloveS >>    i ve seen u a month ago..liar
nitrollu >>    wait this is good stuff, let me get a pen
w33m1ck14 >>    A A
nitrollu >>    O K
w33m1ck14 >>    U SHOLUDA CALLED THEN
nitrollu >>    writing that down.. "should have called..", got it, thanks
w33m1ck14 >>    LOL REALY FUNNY GUY MAN
w33m1ck14 >>    I THINK I WILL GET $100 THEN LEAVE
w33m1ck14 >>    X 6 MA MONEY
nitrollu >>    no get $100 , leave then write a book about your incredible journey
nitrollu >>    i look on amazon for it
w33m1ck14 >>    SURE DI CK HE AD
w33m1ck14 >>    HHAAHAA  BLUFFED
w33m1ck14 >>    YA TOTTIE
w33m1ck14 >>    HEHE
w33m1ck14 >>    LUV IT
w33m1ck14 >>    I AM THE DADDY
w33m1ck14 >>    IT WSN THE ACE
w33m1ck14 >>    SO IF I WOULDA CHECKED U WOULDA FOLDED ?
Rob_Mc >>    it was having nothing
w33m1ck14 >>    SAME ITS CALLED PLAYING POKER
w33m1ck14 >>    U RERAISE I FOLD
w33m1ck14 >>    IDIOT
w33m1ck14 >>    IM NOT TELLING U HOW TO PLAY ANYMORE
w33m1ck14 >>    Hmmmm
w33m1ck14 >>    take ma ducks a walk ther
w33m1ck14 >>    65 di ckhead
nitrollu >>    damn knew I shouldn't have folded my set :(
w33m1ck14 >>     A K U TAKE I COULD CALL
w33m1ck14 >>    IM NO TELLING U WHAT I HAD
nitrollu >>    oh please I am really dying to know
w33m1ck14 >>    NO
nitrollu >>    oh well
Loosecann >>    pls tell hum
w33m1ck14 >>    NA
w33m1ck14 >>    MRGRAG AND LOOSE CANNON I DUN BOTH UR NATIONALITYS IN AMSTERDAM LOL
w33m1ck14 >>    DIRTY WE S LUT S
m1ck14 >>    OH WELL LAST ROUND FOT ME GOT S HIT TO DO
w33m1ck14 >>    50 UP IM HAPPY
w33m1ck14 >>    46

We require your assistance

(Told you to choose Fiji).

I haven't updated my blog in a long time. I would apologise for that, if anyone but me actually read it.

Since Black Friday many people will be considering relocating to a different country. I applaud your commitment to the cause. If you are considering moving to the UK, here's a helpful summary of what you can expect:

I recommend Fiji.

I played live yesterday. The table make-up was one not unfamiliar to most of us. A couple of good pros, one whale and some assorted regfish. At one point I went to muck my cards and after flicking them to the dealer one of them exposed so that most of the table could see. It happened to be a pair on the flop and the pot was still multi-way. What followed was some kind of demented mass hysteria. The dealer looked at me like I had just shot his wife and children and the regfish started up like a cacophony of howler monkeys. They thought I'd done it on purpose. Rather than point out that I'd have to be Gambit to have made the card land like that on purpose, I merely said "Sorry, it was a mistake". This was no succour to the enraged apes. The dealer continued to stare at me, mouth-open like a retarded halibut. One of the regfish's friends called over another friend "Did you see that? He just folded and showed and the POT IS STILL MULTIWAY!" I repeated, "Sorry, it was a mistake." It took literally five minutes for the "regs" to calm down and stop acting like professional funeral wailers. I ordered a cranberry juice.

All of this got me thinking about one of those ugly poker truths: The vast majority of idiocy comes from the middle, not the fringes. What I mean is, although plenty of recreational players, fish, whales, whatever, have bad attitudes I think far more bad regulars have bad attitudes and in fact I even expect it from a bad reg until proven otherwise. The table yesterday was a case in point. I lost count of the insults (or rather never started counting) that the bad regs were flinging. The only players who did not fling insults/act like I'd just pulled out my cock and urinated on the table were the other good reg, who just looked embarrassed, and the whale, who thought the whole thing was hilarious and who happened to be a genuinely funny and likeable guy.

We all let things tilt us sometimes, but don't be those guys.

This is a blog post of 2 parts.

Part 1:

I'm not really a huge fan of post graphs, whether to drum up business or just to brag. I just don't really care/see why anyone else would care. In this day and age however potential students want to see some kind of evidence that you can beat what you're teaching them, and I understand this. As such, here are all the hands in my database played below 2/4. Not that many hands, since 2/4+ is my meat and drink, but enough, I would think, to answer any questions. All hands are at 6max, as you can tell from the stats. I tend not to accept new students who play the same limits as me, but I do have some students playing 2/4, mainly ones I've been able to help reach that point. If any of those within that sphere wish to see my 2/4 stats, just get in touch with me.

The interlude in this blog post will contain a haiku:

Location: Tallinn Estonia
F23B of no percent
My red-line soars

(I have no idea how one properly constructs a haiku. If you are a haiku master and I have murdered your art form, please don't get your panties in a bunch).

Part 2:

I listened to Foxfoodfiend's Blueprint today and I can't emphasis enough how much I agree with, well, all of it. I would like to echo how important it is for people to not quit college to play poker. By all means quit your shitty job to play poker (assuming no one but you is relying on the income from that job), but having that degree on your resume could not only turn out to be a literal benefit but it will be a huge psychological benefit if you do decide to play poker professionally, just knowing that you have it to fall back on. I didn't get started with poker until I'd finished with college, but I was sports betting all throughout college (successfully and without feeling the need to drop out) and if I did not have the proceeds from that I never would have attempted to start playing poker professionally when I did. Unless you're about to be invited onto HSP, stay in school. Poker will be there when you have finished. It will probably be a more attractive arena that it is right now.

The other truth that resonated strongly was the bankroll management advice. Namely, if you're just in this for yourself - you can and should take more risks. People are often very self-limiting once they find a high enough limit they can beat, they just stick with it and robot it out when with a little application they could be playing much higher. If you are not in it just for yourself, if you have a wife and/or kids, you need to be a huge bankroll nit and that often does mean doing exactly what those self-limiting players are doing. It's what I do. It's why I only play 2/4 and 3/6 online rather than regging it up at 5/10+ and why I wouldn't play higher than 10/20 live. I am extremely over-rolled for my limits, but a huge % of that roll is squirreled away as college funds for both my kids and my wife and I's retirement. Why play higher?

Watch the Blueprint episode, you'll get a lot out of it.

There were no flaming stealth bananas in this blog, but if you got that reference then you are in the awesome quadrant of the universe.

This blog post was brought to you by balla powder.

I'm not a Buddhist by any means, but I am allowing the aural inceptions of some soothing Tibetan incantations to get me into zone when grinding. Well, either that or Phil Collins.

I played live for a couple of hours yesterday and for the first time heard the immortal words "I put you on AK" eminating from a gentleman wearing a baseball cap with "WSOP" emblazoned across it. The person in question (sadly not myself) did indeed have AK, so Mr. WSOP can go home feeling like a genius and a rock star after calling off 150bbs with 55. It was a special moment for me, although no one else at the table seemed to realise it was at all funny.

In a bid to tick a few professional poker player boxes I am capitulating and hiring a personal trainer. I do not by any means need to lose weight (am thin like a whippet), nor do I have any desire to "get ripped" (I figure that route is a slippery slope, before long I'd be using moisturiser on my face and shopping for mythical products like whey protein like some kind of stupid alchemist). No, I just have to accept that at the moment I am pretty unfit and the only way I will ever be motivated to exercise more is to hire a trainer.

Some time ago at the Vic. I am in MP and open Ah 6h, it folds to BTN who calls, everyone else folds. BTN is some kind of passive fish, sounds like a cabby from the way he's speaking. Seems like a nice guy who plays poker for entertainment (whether he realises that or not, I'm not sure). His accent makes him sound like an incidental character on EastEnders. He is sitting on about 70bbs and I am very deep.

The flop is Jh 8h 2c I bet 2/3 and he calls. Turn is 4c and I check. He bets about 1/5 of the pot and I call. The river is Th and I make a bet close to pot. He says: "That's the one card I really didn't want to see. That's the worst card in the deck for me. But I really think this fella has Aces or Kings. I really think he does." He calls. I don't remember what he had, it was just the chat that stuck in my mind. I like to think I can remember what it was like to think about poker incorrectly, I can certainly remember why I sucked when I sucked and why I did a bunch of stupid crap at that time, but I don't think I would ever have been able to replicate whatever his thought process was there. This annoys me because understanding the thought process of recreational players is something I try to pride myself on.