January

January

So far.

Running real bad. Played 25/50 today against a big fish and got crushed. Just pretty ridiculous setups. Hopefully can turn this round, and maybe get some of this EV back?

The thing that annoyed me most about today, though, I can't mention for a while.. but basically;

I found out a reasonable reason why some people might think poker players are degenerate cheating angleshooting scumbags.

I buckled...

...and checked my results. Just cos I was annoyed about how the day went. Snow storms blocking me indoors and made the power cut for half the day, then this wasn't too pretty.

Good thing is the games are AMAZING recently. Also I have logged a tonne of hands and am happy with my workrate.

Brutal.

So the final day of the year. Thought I'd play a little bit. I ended up being more annoyed than 99% of the days I have played this year despite not losing a great amount of money.

I started off the day by losing top two v top set in a 3bet pot within the first 2 minutes. It wasn't a good way to start, but soon the internet kept disconnecting, which was extremely frustrating. Especially in spots like this:






Though, I had a few of these, and this has gotta be somewhat standard if I'm having frequent net disconnections.

The reason, though, that I couldn't stop playing was the fact that I had probably the worst player I have ever played with, to my right. We were around $7k deep at 10/20. Gradually the disconnections went from every 15 minutes, to every 10, 5, and then no access at all, so I got kicked off the table. I certainly wasn't too happy.


Now I have wrote that, I'll move onto a more cheerful note. The month ended up at just over $40k prob around 45k with rakeback, after around 35k hands played. No graph cos my main computer is being repaired. I was pretty disappointed that I had to play a lot of 5/10 this month, as on the main site I play on, not much was running any higher.

Toward the last 5 or so days of the month, the games on my main site really picked up and got really good. I hope they can stay like that for a while, though there was not much 25/50 still.

---------------------------------------------

The year as a whole probably hasn't gone as well as I thought it would (and I can't post final winnings as they are split on my two dif comps). I ran quite a bit under EV, and probably didn't play quite as much as I should have. Saying that I still made a lot of money on the year and won't complain, as I realise I'm very lucky to be in the situation to begin with. Outside of poker I had a really fun year, and I hope next year will be more of the same.

As for 2010 goals, I think it's pretty silly to make a monetry goal, because there are lots of things that can interfere with that, that I cannot help.

So my goals will be:

• Get money on a few more new sites to increase the amount of games I can play/ game selection.
• Work hard and put in as many hands as possible on my preferred set up, try and play as little as possible on the laptop.
• Try to keep up effort with the theory side of the game, sometimes it's quite easy to just play and not give thought to improving your game.

Gl for 2010!

Don't call it a comeback?

Okay, this has been a strange month. Especially following on from last month.
If I had to describe it in one word, I'd want to say stressful, but i'd probably have to go with relieved.

There is part of this graph which is missing as it's on my laptop, and I don't wanna start it up to get it, so I'll just describe it; I played 2 days at the start of the month on my laptop, 3k hands -19k.
So when looking at this graph, just shift the beginning down 19k.



So basically, I was at one point $55k down. That was just past halfway in the month. If I hadn't just had a 100k month, I would have been feeling pretty bad at that point. But I just got on with it. In fact I gave myself a new rule, which was not to look at my results on any given day. By the end of the month I was pretty happy to see that I had clawed it back and finished in the black.

I'd imagine this month will end ~+$10k after rakeback.

Don't call it a comeback?

6 figure month!

I have decided to stop playing for the month. +103k before rakeback (I'm expecting about 2.5kish).

I started off the month really slow, but towards the end, wow I ran pretty well. Didn't really lose a session for the last 10 days.

I think one of the strangest bits of my month is that I never had a day >13k if I recall correctly. Also I had a -17k day at the beginning of the month.


This is the graph from my laptop:






This is the graph from my desktop:





Obviously the good thing about this month was not reaching some pointless milestone of 6 figs (though it still feels good), but it was making sure I played well at all times. Also I am getting used to 25/50 a lot more now. Trading stacks there is still pretty scary, but I'm sure it'll feel just fine soon.


I'll be filling my days off for the rest of the month with playing football, going out, and generally relaxing.

Gl.

Quick update.

+~25k this month atm.. was 40 at some point yesterday. I ran 13ish (?) k below EV today. It's getting a little tiring, but I'm not sure I can complain this month.

So I had hit 10k down for the day getting a little frustrated, and my 2 girl roommates came into my room drunk and jumping on me while I was 6 tabling. At the time I had AA in a 3bet pot. Finished that hand, 6 X's later then Spotify-Akon and speakers up full blast, I was done for the session.. I think it was probably good for me, because I could tell I was about to play sub-optimally.

I'm off to do something productive before my early morning kickoff tomorrow (and before my drunk roommates get back).

2nd losing month ever!

Yeah, so, not too fun. Didn't get to play too many hands, because I had lots of visitors to my home in Bangkok and then had to move back to England, and move into a new house ready for university.

Started October off alright, +11k.

Gl.

Variance.

So by now I obviously know that variance is a massive part of poker. Every player is gonna have their ups and downs. I have learned to cope with the losing. It gets easier the more it happens, and I guess apart from last month, it's been happening a lot this summer.

From what I have gauged from talking to poker players over the years, the vast majority of them would say that they have mostly been on the wrong side of variance. Some probably have been, some probably haven't. I have a feeling it's because losing makes the player feel worse, than winning makes the player feel good (I think I have worded that poorly, but I can't be bothered to spend time thinking about how I'm gonna re-word). That way the big losing days/months will stick in the memory.

Now, before I share my story of variance I will say, I know I've been pretty damn lucky in certain aspects of my poker career, those aspects can't be measured. However, all-in expected value can be. For anyone that doesn't understand it; Expected Value. It's basically the mathmatical expectation of my winnings when I am in an all-in situation.






This is a graph of my 10/20 hands over the last 9 months or so. The thin line is my EV, the thick line is my actual winnings. I'm not really sure what I should feel. I won 170k at 10/20 over this time, which is obviously a lot of money. But being $100,000 behind EV just really sucks a lot. It's a hell of a lot of money to not have due to a bit of bad luck.

As for this month, you may be able to tell, with the tone of the post, It's a losing one. I'm not particularly worried, because I have been playing well, and had these sort of stretches before, and come through them. Just gotta keep the right mindset and put in some work.


I leave Bangkok at the end of this month to go back to university. Which is pretty sad cos I really love this place. I've had such a good summer. Just hope I can get back into the routine of doing some work instead of doing whatever the hell I want.


Good luck everyone, but save some for me please!