A+

As mentioned in my previous post, I gave myself a challenge to beat 100NL for another 15 buy ins before moving up to 200NL. Basically my exit test out of 100nl. Today I completed the challenge. Really wasn't too difficult which is a good sign considering the reason for doing the challenge.

So yeah, moving to 200NL. I'm rolled 40 buy in's deep and I don't see any reason to go about the transition any differently than I did 100NL. Probably start off playing only 2 tables at a time just to test the waters and get comfortable. Other than that, can def start making some alright money at these stakes. We will see happens.. I'll post more later.

Challengament Results:

Quick post break updates

Since it's post break and because I set a challenge for myself, I figure I will post my progress up to this point. It's been pretty good so far. My game is def feeling sharper. I feel like everything I studied this past year finally had a chance to really sink in. Having a fresh, clear mind I was able to adjust a couple of mistakes I was making. Had a few random aha moments that's for sure. Then to top it off, my friend sweat me the other night and helped me basically fine tune my game. All that combined and I feel like I've never been better.

The challenge for myself was to beat 100NL for another 15-20 bi's post break before moving up to 200NL. Including a couple hundred in rakeback and sng winnings I'm at 15 bi's now, but I feel like including rakeback and sng's is sorta cheating myself so I'm not going to include them. I think I'm aiming for 15 actual 100NL buy ins and my sng winnings and rakeback will give me a little extra cushion making it more like 20bi's. Either way I will be rolled quite deep going into 200NL and that can't be a bad thing.

Challengament progress @ 100NL so far:

Dos

Well I'm back from my poker vacation. Didn't mention before, but since this October 15th marked the end of the first year of my poker career I decided to reward myself with a vacation. Also, balancing my poker career and not too mention some coaching now with a full time career can be a lot. It's easy to get burned out as was I. Running bad wasn't helping either. The timing was a win/win situation.

I wish I could say I went to some exotic beach, but I can't this time. Instead I just took a simple trip to San Antonio, TX to visit some college friends. Def a great time since I got to hang out with some friends. Ever since The best beer in the world thread at DeucesCracked I have been craving "real beer" so I def satisfied my craving. Other than that I relaxed and avoided anything poker for about 3 weeks including DeucesCracked. It was just great going to a place I have so many kickass memories of. I feel totally refreshed and 100% ready to begin another year.

Speaking of year two, I'm pretty damn excited. If I'm able to accomplish half what I did the first year, I will be more than pleased. Considering where I train, I'm very optimistic. This next year I will hopefully get some more live play. Unfortunately the only live games worth my time around Houston are going to be underground and who knows how shady they may be. I don't really like the idea of that. I am however planning on going to Vegas for the World Series of Poker in 2010. Def play live and some tourneys. Should be a blast considering a lot of my friends from DeucesCracked will be there. Can't wait.

Alright so it's def time to set a path for my second year:

-I've been on the verge of moving to 200nl and will def be a big part of my 2nd year. I'm rolled for it now and I think I can hang, but I've decided that because of my downswing, I'm going to set a goal to beat 100nl for another 15-20 bi's. To elaborate, post downswing I'm technically only up 11 bi's at 100nl now. At one point I was up 30 bi's. So I've gone on a 20 buy in downswing. Fortunately for rakeback, the damage has only been about 10bi's. So in my opinion if I think I'm good enough to play and beat 200nl, then I should be able to beat 100nl for another 15-20 bi's no sweat and at the same time finish 100nl respectably imo. And especially coming off a break and feeling fresh, this will be my new challenge going into the new year. I like challengaments :)


-Stating the obvious, but continue to study study study. Where I currently stand, I have a great opportunity to seriously go far this year. I proved a lot to myself this past year about what I'm capable of and knowing that gets me excited about what I can accomplish this year if I put my mind to it.

-Where would I like to be this time next year? I hope to be consistently beating 400nl. I obviously won't be upset if I get higher, but I think that's realistic considering the circumstances. The circumstances being I have a full time career other than poker so I can't play 50-100k hands per month. Quality not quantity... man.

-Coaching. Def going to keep this up. I'm going to have to ponder on how to fit it in my poker/job/life balance. It's a complicated situation. The problem is pretty much an opportunity cost issue. As mentioned, I work a full time job during the day, so the times I'm on my A-Game is limited. Sometimes I'm rested enough to come home after being at the office for 10 hours (typical day) and put in a session or coaching lesson. To be honest tho, a lot of times I'm not. My job can be pretty stressful and involved sometimes. Deadlines!! So considering my a-game time is limited, I have to take advantage and play if I ever want to progress through the stakes. And to be a good coach takes up time. Coaching is no breeze. You basically become a mentor and can spend a lot of time with the student. I def enjoy it and with some past life experiences think I can be good. I just have to work out the opportunity cost issue and make my poker/life/coaching/job balance work.

-I think that's all I have for now. I will probably add more later. I think this next year is going to be interesting for online poker in general. The silly UIGEA regs. I'm not quite sure what will happen and nobody does. I'm sure there will be some deposit/withdrawal hiccups, but I don't think online poker will go away. Too much money to be made and I'm sorry but it's about to be 2010. This is called technology. That said, I'm definitely not for full Online Casino's. Poker is obv much much different than online slots, roulette, etc. Biggest differences in poker is you aren't playing against the house (playing against each other and the casino takes a rake meaning the results don't matter to the casino) and poker is a skill game. And anyone who says poker isn't a skill game, considering I've studied it the past year, sounds like an idiot to me. Nuff said.

yayy graphs

October is a pretty special month I guess you could say. I started my poker journey October 2008 and here we are a year later. Damn time flies.

My actual game has come so far this past year that it kinda blows my mind. Definitely not the same poker player I was a year ago. This past year I have gone from the micro's/$5 sngs to being just shy of 200nl. And rolled deep at that. Quite an accomplishment imo considering I started with practically nothing. Seeing how far I've come year 1, i'm excited about where I can potentially take my game year 2.

So to catch up below is my August and September graphs. Should illustrate the downswing/bad run I was on.

August:



September:



Also, since mentioned it's the 1 year mark, here is my overall progress since last October:



I'm not a complete poker table ratings hater because I think for some people it may be quite accurate, but if you know my screen name then it's OBV not accurate for ME. So proof that you shouldn't live by ptr lol. I'm really not sure why it's so far off, especially for even my 100NL. That said, I'm def leaning towards this being a good thing. No complaints.

Just A Post

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.

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"

July

Finished up my last session for July today. Decent month. 100nl 6-max ldo. I'll be back in August.