It’s been a little while since I updated. There hasn’t been anything to spectacular regarding monetary advancements in my poker career since before August. As you can see from my other post I have been running bad and continue to run bad. Being a poker player you get used to these things. It’s part of the game. Think of it like the stock market. If you pay attention to the short term or day to day ups and downs you will go crazy. Instead you have to look at the big picture. Most people think playing poker is just about playing your cards right, but being in control of your emotions during rough times is also a big part if not half the game. And by this I mean, not going on tilt and spewing off your bankroll or stacks chasing money because you are stuck. Instead you have to be in control, take breaks, play smaller stakes, continuing to study and improve and not let it affect you etc etc. Be the professional. No big deal.
In other news, for a while now I’ve been interested in getting into coaching. I enjoy helping people improve their game and seeing them succeed. It’s rewarding and in turn my reward is that I continue to improve my game by doing so. I think to be able to master something; you have to be able to teach it. Some cool situations have presented themselves recently to help me get experience coaching. My coach along with another coach run a poker course at DeucesCracked and about a month ago they asked if I would like to be a teaching assistant to their students in the class forum. I took the offer and I’ve been helping out in that. From there, I was given an opportunity to take on a student of my own.
I don’t want to give away too much, but since she is my first real student I have to at least talk about it. I hope you don’t mind :). She is an older woman who has worked a strenuous job for a while and came across an opportunity to take some time off work and took an interest in poker. I don’t blame her :). She is new to poker so I will have to take her from the ground up. I think it should be a great opportunity for her and I know it will be a great opportunity for me to work on developing a system of my own and most importantly get experience coaching.
Other than that, I’ve been enjoying some time off of work lately. Using my vacation days strategically lol. Speaking of that I’m so glad The Office starts back up. Like a few other shows it’s great because I didn’t get into The Office when it first came on so a lot of the reruns are new to me. Sunday is going to be great on HBO because Curb Your Enthusiasm is starting back up and of course Entourage. There is another show in between that is going to premier this Sunday that may be cool. Also 2months2million on G4 has been kickass. Can’t forget football season and some good movies will be coming out on blue ray from the summer etc too. I typically haven’t watched much TV, but now I guess I have good reason.
I guess that’s about it. I’d post a graph of last month, but I’m on my laptop and not on my poker computer so I don’t have the data, maybe later. I ended down 6 buy ins so nothing pretty lol.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
variance, bad play, and the minute I turned it around.
8:04am Friday, August 14 2009
So this month has gone pretty much horribad. It started out great, bankroll at an all time high, about to start taking shots at 200nl etc. Then BOOOM variance. Variance has been super nasty to me the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I have allowed the variance to get to me and influence my game. As of right now, I think I'm playing the worst poker I have played since joining DeucesCracked. I feel that I have turned into a complete spew monkey/lagtard/calling station/wtfever all combined. Playing lag isn't the problem, but I'm for sure not in the right state of mind to make my minor pf mistakes profitable post flop. I have allowed the bad beats get to me more than I usually do. I think this is in part due to being worn down. I start out my sessions alright and then deteriorate from there. Some other mistakes I have made are playing too long because I'm stuck and not on my a-game. Classic mistakes. I also have been completely unhealthy this month. I have barely gone to the gym, I have eaten terrible, and not taken the breaks I should have from poker. Numbers wise I'm not doing terrible on the month as I'm only down 6 bi's at current moment. And 6 bi's is absolutely nothing to stress over, but in all fairness from my high point I'm down 12-1/2 bi's in 2 weeks. To be honest the fact that I'm down 12-1/2 bi's doesn't even bother me. What does bother me is the control that I feel I have let slip. It is tilting to know that my failures this month have been in large part, my own doing.
"Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around":
As of 8:04am Friday, August 14 2009 this minute is not like the other minutes that have passed me by this morning, yesterday, etc. This minute will not pass me by as this minute is special because it's the minute that I turn it around.
Most of you probably don't know that when I started this poker journey I had $8 in my fulltilt account, a new DeucesCracked membership, no clue (even though I thought I did), and a whole lot of hope. I have taken that $8 and gotten to just about 200nl in the past 10 months. As disappointed as I am with this month, I can't forget how far I have come in the past 10 months. I may not be playing mid stakes/high stakes yet, I don't have a $100k bankroll, I'm not perfect, I still have a lot to learn, but I'm pretty proud of how far I have come considering what I had to work with. And in this minute, a new beginning, I have a whole heck of a lot more to work with than a petty $8.
So what I wrote above about this month, is now the past. It doesn't matter anymore. Who cares. From this minute on I'm moving forward. As I recall Tommy Angelo said something along the lines of in the last ep of Eightfold Path there is no sense in worrying about how much you are down or where I was at, because where I'm at now is well, where I'm at.
Moving forward.
Outside of poker:
- I will get my butt back in the gym and clean out the cobwebs. Considering I'm sitting behind a computer screen about 90% of awake hours (work + poker), being physically fit is a necessity and it helps me be mentally fit.
- I'm going to begin researching a healthy diet and make an honest effort to eat healthy again. This will complement my physical activity and also aid in helping my mental health and brain power.
Poker:
- I have a really awesome opportunity to improve my game. The Poker Puzzle. I meant to dive into this a couple weeks ago, but I didn't. Since I'm going through this tough time, making changes, and growing as a player, what absolute perfect timing to have this opportunity. The timing is like a gift from god. By all means It's not going to be a miracle fix, but from everything I have heard about it, my capabilities, I'm super confident it will help me get to the next level and no doubt get me back on track. I couldn't be more thankful to have this opportunity. I WILL post a sick follow up graph when I have achieved it.
- I'm going to focus on playing less laggy. I don't know how I got to this point, but I need to get it under control. I was watching a coaching tree episode last night and Baluga was talking about playing a less variance style and improving my win rate at the time. Makes sense. That is my objective. I think it will be some minor but significant adjustments here and there. On the brightside, at least I have a lagtard image at 100nl to my opponents. And I'm sure some will read this and be aware, but I'm not worried about that.
- Evaluating my decisions more thoroughly. I feel through the bad month I have developed the attitude of omg he can't possibly of hit the miracle card AGAIN, so I call and yep he hit it. I have got to get back to utilizing the hand reading again and trusting my instincts even if it feels statistically impossible.
- After I finish my thorough study of The Poker Puzzle, I plan to up my series watching and get on the ball with moving to 200nl then mid stakes.
Downswings + variance really sucks, but you can use them to your advantage. They are obviously inevitable, but what you can do is use them to motivate you. Although a downswing doesn't always mean you are playing bad, there is never a reason not to study or improve your game. I think everyone can afford to improve at least a little bit more.
Why did I post this in the forum? Because I'm holding myself to the fire. If I veer of the path, then I will at least feel like everyone knows (even if they don't) and well DC is like my poker home and the members are my teammates and maybe in some way this post will help someone somehow. Well this has been long enough and sorry if it's been a waste. This is my plan and I'm sticking to it. Consider this the beginning of chapter 2.
"Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around"
So this month has gone pretty much horribad. It started out great, bankroll at an all time high, about to start taking shots at 200nl etc. Then BOOOM variance. Variance has been super nasty to me the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I have allowed the variance to get to me and influence my game. As of right now, I think I'm playing the worst poker I have played since joining DeucesCracked. I feel that I have turned into a complete spew monkey/lagtard/calling station/wtfever all combined. Playing lag isn't the problem, but I'm for sure not in the right state of mind to make my minor pf mistakes profitable post flop. I have allowed the bad beats get to me more than I usually do. I think this is in part due to being worn down. I start out my sessions alright and then deteriorate from there. Some other mistakes I have made are playing too long because I'm stuck and not on my a-game. Classic mistakes. I also have been completely unhealthy this month. I have barely gone to the gym, I have eaten terrible, and not taken the breaks I should have from poker. Numbers wise I'm not doing terrible on the month as I'm only down 6 bi's at current moment. And 6 bi's is absolutely nothing to stress over, but in all fairness from my high point I'm down 12-1/2 bi's in 2 weeks. To be honest the fact that I'm down 12-1/2 bi's doesn't even bother me. What does bother me is the control that I feel I have let slip. It is tilting to know that my failures this month have been in large part, my own doing.
"Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around":
As of 8:04am Friday, August 14 2009 this minute is not like the other minutes that have passed me by this morning, yesterday, etc. This minute will not pass me by as this minute is special because it's the minute that I turn it around.
Most of you probably don't know that when I started this poker journey I had $8 in my fulltilt account, a new DeucesCracked membership, no clue (even though I thought I did), and a whole lot of hope. I have taken that $8 and gotten to just about 200nl in the past 10 months. As disappointed as I am with this month, I can't forget how far I have come in the past 10 months. I may not be playing mid stakes/high stakes yet, I don't have a $100k bankroll, I'm not perfect, I still have a lot to learn, but I'm pretty proud of how far I have come considering what I had to work with. And in this minute, a new beginning, I have a whole heck of a lot more to work with than a petty $8.
So what I wrote above about this month, is now the past. It doesn't matter anymore. Who cares. From this minute on I'm moving forward. As I recall Tommy Angelo said something along the lines of in the last ep of Eightfold Path there is no sense in worrying about how much you are down or where I was at, because where I'm at now is well, where I'm at.
Moving forward.
Outside of poker:
- I will get my butt back in the gym and clean out the cobwebs. Considering I'm sitting behind a computer screen about 90% of awake hours (work + poker), being physically fit is a necessity and it helps me be mentally fit.
- I'm going to begin researching a healthy diet and make an honest effort to eat healthy again. This will complement my physical activity and also aid in helping my mental health and brain power.
Poker:
- I have a really awesome opportunity to improve my game. The Poker Puzzle. I meant to dive into this a couple weeks ago, but I didn't. Since I'm going through this tough time, making changes, and growing as a player, what absolute perfect timing to have this opportunity. The timing is like a gift from god. By all means It's not going to be a miracle fix, but from everything I have heard about it, my capabilities, I'm super confident it will help me get to the next level and no doubt get me back on track. I couldn't be more thankful to have this opportunity. I WILL post a sick follow up graph when I have achieved it.
- I'm going to focus on playing less laggy. I don't know how I got to this point, but I need to get it under control. I was watching a coaching tree episode last night and Baluga was talking about playing a less variance style and improving my win rate at the time. Makes sense. That is my objective. I think it will be some minor but significant adjustments here and there. On the brightside, at least I have a lagtard image at 100nl to my opponents. And I'm sure some will read this and be aware, but I'm not worried about that.
- Evaluating my decisions more thoroughly. I feel through the bad month I have developed the attitude of omg he can't possibly of hit the miracle card AGAIN, so I call and yep he hit it. I have got to get back to utilizing the hand reading again and trusting my instincts even if it feels statistically impossible.
- After I finish my thorough study of The Poker Puzzle, I plan to up my series watching and get on the ball with moving to 200nl then mid stakes.
Downswings + variance really sucks, but you can use them to your advantage. They are obviously inevitable, but what you can do is use them to motivate you. Although a downswing doesn't always mean you are playing bad, there is never a reason not to study or improve your game. I think everyone can afford to improve at least a little bit more.
Why did I post this in the forum? Because I'm holding myself to the fire. If I veer of the path, then I will at least feel like everyone knows (even if they don't) and well DC is like my poker home and the members are my teammates and maybe in some way this post will help someone somehow. Well this has been long enough and sorry if it's been a waste. This is my plan and I'm sticking to it. Consider this the beginning of chapter 2.
"Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around"
Sunday, July 26, 2009
July
Finished up my last session for July today. Decent month. 100nl 6-max ldo. I'll be back in August.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
June
Going into June I was coming off a big month of May, newish to 100nl, and hit some variance. I went on a 10 buy in swing, but managed to keep from going into the red at 100nl so no big deal. Towards the end up the month i was able to recover and post a profit of about 2 buy ins for June. Considering the Month I'll take it. With rakeback I ended up about 5 buy ins. That makes for 9 out of 10 months posting a profit and actually the only month I didn't post a profit was the month of April and that's when I moved and didn't have internet for 2 weeks so just saying lol
Goal for beating 100nl is to build my roll to 40-50 bi's for 200nl. Not positive which one yet. I'll figure it out when I get closer and see how I feel.
June:
Goal for beating 100nl is to build my roll to 40-50 bi's for 200nl. Not positive which one yet. I'll figure it out when I get closer and see how I feel.
June:
Sunday, May 31, 2009
May
As mentioned I completed my goals for beating 50NL and made the move to 100NL. Ended up being that I played 50NL for about half the month and 100NL the other half.
I only ended up playing 7600 hands this month which is really light. I guess I was just taking it easy as i was adjusting to 100NL. Testing the waters.
So far so good at 100NL. To be honest I really don't see much difference skill wise, but I think that's partly due to how much my game is improving. This is the best month I've had so far.
May:
Moving forward, I need to take my game to the next level. Think outside the box and get to mid stakes.
I only ended up playing 7600 hands this month which is really light. I guess I was just taking it easy as i was adjusting to 100NL. Testing the waters.
So far so good at 100NL. To be honest I really don't see much difference skill wise, but I think that's partly due to how much my game is improving. This is the best month I've had so far.
May:
Moving forward, I need to take my game to the next level. Think outside the box and get to mid stakes.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Hi 100NL
Last weekend I achieved my target goals and beat $50NL. [Insert Party Poker balloons and fireworks imo]
Target goals were:
50k hands
35 bi's for $100NL
To summarize, I learned a fuckton at $50NL. My game came together and I worked out a ton of leaks. I also hit a ton of variance at 50NL and it was quite the up and down roller coaster at times. Pain in the ass, but it really toughened my skin. I think "inner game" is super important. Overall I'd say I started $50NL still primarily a feel player and finished significantly fundamentally stronger. An epic tranformation imo. Proud of how far I have come. Big thanks to my awesome coach and DeucesCracked.com for helping me get to my current state.
Moving forward, today I played my first sessions at $100NL. It went quite well. Finished up a little over 3 buy ins (+$300). I played three 1 hour sessions and only got in about 640 hands which is actually a pretty low Saturday for me. At one point I was playing 4 tables, but for the most part played 1-3 tables at a time. Just wanted to break myself and test the waters. The biggest difference I noticed was having to table select more. We will see were my thoughts are when I've gotten into it a bit.
Target goals were:
50k hands
35 bi's for $100NL
To summarize, I learned a fuckton at $50NL. My game came together and I worked out a ton of leaks. I also hit a ton of variance at 50NL and it was quite the up and down roller coaster at times. Pain in the ass, but it really toughened my skin. I think "inner game" is super important. Overall I'd say I started $50NL still primarily a feel player and finished significantly fundamentally stronger. An epic tranformation imo. Proud of how far I have come. Big thanks to my awesome coach and DeucesCracked.com for helping me get to my current state.
Moving forward, today I played my first sessions at $100NL. It went quite well. Finished up a little over 3 buy ins (+$300). I played three 1 hour sessions and only got in about 640 hands which is actually a pretty low Saturday for me. At one point I was playing 4 tables, but for the most part played 1-3 tables at a time. Just wanted to break myself and test the waters. The biggest difference I noticed was having to table select more. We will see were my thoughts are when I've gotten into it a bit.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Update Part 1
Alright it's been a while since I've added to my blog. Been really busy and well I guess I keep procrastinating because I have so much to add.
To start off I'm going to post the link to Episode 4 since I haven't yet. We finished the series and it was awesome being a part of it.
Ep 4:
http://www.deucescracked.com/videos/861-Episode-Four
I will update soon about my recent move up to the 4th floor lol, my new sweet poker office, beating 50NL and my thoughts on moving up to 100NL since it's right around the corner, my first 6 months at DC and since I just signed for another 6 months, what might be in store etc.
To start off I'm going to post the link to Episode 4 since I haven't yet. We finished the series and it was awesome being a part of it.
Ep 4:
http://www.deucescracked.com/videos/861-Episode-Four
I will update soon about my recent move up to the 4th floor lol, my new sweet poker office, beating 50NL and my thoughts on moving up to 100NL since it's right around the corner, my first 6 months at DC and since I just signed for another 6 months, what might be in store etc.
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