Eat or Get Eaten

so today is day 30 of my 30 day challenge so i have until 12 tonight to play as many as possible- however i have left myself too much to do and dont think my goal of 1000 is achievable.

I am going to play a session this evening and at the end update with my graphs and my thoughts on the challenge and overall if there are any successes to come out of this challenge.

would love 1 good last day to push my overall challenge profits up !!

Anyway- Chat Later - GL.

half way there time wise- not volume wise :(

so half way there the stats tell me ive played 425 games for $109.82 profit.

i realise this has been kinda swingy- i havnt stuck to the rules strictly. i have played 99 $15 games and this is were i have built my profit. i have lost at the 7s and won at the $3.50s.

i am slightly behind the pace i need to complete this challenge though i still feel i will make it !!

the plan now is to grind out alot of $3.50s and some 7s to get back on track- i realise the $500 profit goal was too high (realised that when creating it), so my new profit goal is just as much as possible !! am starting to feel the motivation to push on now and finish this out !!

any way- good luck at the tables guys !!   

so 11days into the 1000 hu hypers in 30 days challenge- it hasnt got off to the best of starts-

1st off i started on tues, played a few games but was breaking even over a 100 game stretch and was getting a bit frustrated,

 ended up at a party wed went to work hungover thurs then started feeling sick on fri- this went through to sunday evening then overnight broke out in spots all over my body, doctor confirmed monday it was chicken pox. so not been well past few days but feeling better now and even though i way behind the pace im feelin the need and drive to still finish this challenge as planned. so i have started playing bits and pieces over past 24 hours. hopefully do a bit of cathching up now and hopefully make some profit as well !! so at the min this is the graph:

little bit of progress - hopefully it continues !!!!!

I have been playin alot of different games this past few weeks- i am losing in cash games and mtts but what is keeping me afloat is hyper headsup sngs.

I have decided to set myself my 1st ever poker related challenge and really work towards it.

This may not seem like big volume to some- but i think it is for me !!

CHALLENGE:

Duration:  30 days

Start:  Mon 23rd April

End:  Tues 22nd May

Game type:  $3.50 & $7 headsup hyper turbo sngs ONLY

Volume: 1000 minimum

Profit Goal:  $500

Blog update: Mon 30th April, Mon 7th May, Mon 14th May, Wed 23rd May (with graphs).

Now i no very well there is a chance i may not even make profit over the length of the challenge however i hope this will not be the case.  I dont think i have ever made $500 profit in a month but hey, whats the point in setting goals low??  during this 30 day period i will ONLY play hypers which will temporarily plug some leaks also. i sometimes play in work but have no hm2 in work - but i will only count games played recorded on hm.

One key issue with the success of this goal could be bankroll. when i build up past $100 i usually withdraw so therefore i have no real bankroll to begin with. so initially i will most likely be playin $3.50s and hope to get off to a good start and play $7s asap.

If you have managed to make it this far in reading - i have one question to any1 who is willing to help - i keep hearing every1 talking about studying their game - how the heck do i do this ?? i dont no were to start !!

anyway, wish me luck and i hope some find this interesting - reason i am not starting today is because i have 18 coors sittin in my fridge waiting for me for sat night !! a day wil def be needed for recovery :)

So March ended up being a kind of strange crazy month for me. it started off quite well then i tilted off most my profit in a crazy 150 game spell only to recover quite well towards end of month.

I did not stick to any form of bankroll management and played many diff types of games !! but at times i had alot of fun. i played alot of headsup hyper sngs ranging from the $3.50 - $30 limits. though the $30 games are not included as i only have small stakes hm2 ! cheap mofo ;)

i played 39 $15 6 max hypers with an roi of 19%. i wouldnt expect this to be achievable long term but i plan to play alot more of these however in the $3.50 - $7 stakes then if that goes well some $15 1s.

i had a mini session 12 tabling $1.50 6 max hypers and i am thinkin about putting in some real volume in these if i can throughout april. i would love to be able to 16-24 table these profitably. i am going to download month free trial of table ninja soon. any1 multitable hyper sngs  have any advice it would be great!!

so i was happy overall in march with my play with a coupleof tilty sessions that ruined wat could have been 1 of my best months.

so far through April i have played very little- 71 games for a $50 loss but i plan to put in alot of volume over next3 weeks !! hopefully have another profitable month.

Man i love heads up poker.

it has given me a new lease of life while playing poker though 1 thing i have learnt and this could not be more obvious -

headsup cash = filled with sharks

headsup sngs = filled with fish

there is without a doubt more money in the cash games - though it wud take crazy effort - learning - grinding to get very good.

i have been playing alot of headsup hyper turbo sngs recently and really enjoy them !! i no alot of it comes down to winning flips but its key to grind your opponent down so that the flip is for the win or if you lose you have enough to fight on.

i will post graphs on my march play which has been mainly hyper heads up sngs in a week or 2 - though in the meantime if there any1 else who plays these games and interested to talk about them comment for sures !!

also on a side note i played 4 micromillions events so far with 2 cashes. no deeeeeep runs but plan to play a few more events and definitely all day sunday !! 

i feel certain this happens to everyone in their poker career at some point.

off to a good start in march, playin some $3.50 and $7 headsup sngs and a few $2.50 180s. with a couple hundred dollars profit........

then on tues nite after a 6 hour session with a final table at a $3.50 180 man rebuy coming up short for 6th and a 14/3600+ players close call in a $5.40 turbo knockout i decided to play some more, so with the $120 in my stars account i start playing some $3.50 headsup sngs, i get off to a bad start and lose a few buyins then try to win them back and play a few $7 (great bankroll management i know) needless to say an hour later i have $60 in my acocunt. good point to walk away and come back to fight another day. well it would have been, i played some 25nl headsup cash games and needless to say went broke in the amount of time it would take to take a s***.

of course that is a sure sign to call it a night at 1.30am with work in 7 hours but i no i decided to throw 1 last £10 into the account and then call it a nite. so with my $15 i fired up a $7 husng and hoped to turn it around, i played through the nite and switched off me laptop at 6.30am having built the $15 up to $65 and set my alarm for 8.30am for work. i considered myself lucky to have dug myself out of the small hole then at lunch time in work procedded to build my roll further to $125. damage repaired and all i could think of was work finishing and gettin home to catch up with my sleep !!

so i got home from work and my gf called down and left around 8pm. with my alarm set for 6.00am for an exercise class friday morning its now finally time to catch up with my missed sleep from the previous nite - but no - i will play a couple of husngs before bed.... needless to say i was a zombie and proceeded to throw all my money away with little chance of winning  i wasnt even capable of concentrating and making simple decisions.

so from feeling good about my game to getting crushed to pulling it back to playing like an idiot i experienced alot of different poker related emotions in a 36 hour period. i do withdraw small amounts every couple of weeks to help with my day to day outgoings but losing the money obv wont hurt me in my overall finances - but it has hurt my pride and that can be more painful!

so wat to do from here.... get back on the horse i say. work finishes at 5pm, from 6 pm i will be back to my bread and butter 6 tabling $2.50 180s in an effort to make back my losses and have set aside all day sat as well. i wrote this blog to remind myself of the anguish i felt and as a warning against going on tilt in the future, but it really made me think - if this is how i felt on a thurs nite after dumping $120 onto the tables - how would the highstakes players feel after dumping $500k at the tables.......Wow

Thanks for reading - feel free to comment - we have all been there before im sure !!

So February didnt turn out to be a month of massive transition, i havnt moved up in stakes in the 180s (prob moved further away from that goal) and didnt even play the micro 180s that great.

firstly i experimented in playing more tables than my usual 4, with a few sessions 10 tabling. i find this ok but later stages it did affect my game a bit - would need alot of practice for definite but am ok with that.

secondly - i didnt really have time for longer sessions - really only 1-2 hour sessions which led me to the discovery of hyper turbo heads up sngs- played at the $3.50 level and did quite well (though i think i ran insanely good). since then i have played about 10 $7 hyper husngs and once again ran insane winning say 8 of them.  

im not worried about the figures too much throughout feb and plan to get right back into the swing of the 180 tournaments again throughtout the rest of march - perhaps using the $3.50 husngs as a wee bankroll builder on the side.

a short break from the 180s mite even have helped me coming back fresh and ready to rock - gotta pay for me gf's bday present so lets hope for the best !!

My name is Barry, I am in my mid 20’s and am from the North of Ireland.

I have been playing poker for about 5 years but have put in little volume.  I work 9-5 mon – fri and have a girlfriend who I spend time with also, along with training for local soccer team tues and thurs nights with a game on saturdays, so would tend to avg out at about 12-15 hours of poker a week. However if I started to become more profitable playing I would work my schedule so I could play more and more poker.

I joined pokerstars in feb 2011 and started playing the $2.50 turbo 180 man tournys with a little success. To this date according to sharkscope I have played 3319 sngs with $3225 profit. I am quite happy with this, though at the same time have to wonder why I have never moved up in stakes or at least attempted to play more tables during my sessions.

I always 4 table (any less I get bored) and have never put the effort into attempting more.  I have never put any work in on my game – never used holdem manager – never watched a poker video - never been a member of any poker tutorial website (until deuces cracked this month) – never done a hand history review - never read a poker book – never really been on a poker forum etc.

TIME TO GET MY ACT TOGETHER !!

First things first, I have just purchased a new lap top (5 year old I have been playing on limited number of tables I could play), am purchasing holdem manager tonight, will be downloading pokerstove and will be spending a lot of time on this to work on my shove fold ranges (which will be critical if I am to play more and more tables) and will look in2 buyin table ninja and sit n go wizard.

With the general shove fold nature of the 180 man turbos I have read the standard does not increase substantially as you move up therefore if I can beat the $2.50 games quite well why couldn’t I beat the $8 games?

The two over-all aims I am going to set for myself to accomplish by end 2012 are:

1.  Increase amount of tables I play from 4 to 10+ (profitably).

2. To be playing $8 games consistently with some $15 games added also (profitably).

I am not going to focus too much on bank roll management to start with while playing the $2.50s as I am in full time employment I can reload if needs be, however once I move up I will bring br management in2 account.

I will be setting more short term goals in a couple of weeks once I get my top sorted with all the software I need.

I also plan to post graphs on at least a monthly basis – this not only to show people my progress (hopefully), but for me to take a look from the outside and to almost apply a bit of pressure on myself with real life results set out in front of me to do the work I say I will.

Anyway, thanks for reading, if anyone has any advice or any questions – feel free to comment.

Cheers, Barry.