Another Year of University Ends ...

So I finished my 2nd year at University on friday. Bit of a relief to finally have exams n shit out of the way. Man that gets stressful at times. Now its time to concentrate on playing some poker. I've been saying it for the past 6months, but it hasn't happened. Without the distraction of housemates and general uni life now though, I've got no excuse not to play. I just couldn't find the time or will to play this past 9months.

Since my last post, which seems (and is) ages ago now, I played on and off for a week or so, then haven't played at all since. That's almost 2months without poker. Actually, Im off on holiday Tuesday to Bulgaria and don't return till 4th July, so that will make it 2months without any poker. I reckon thats got to be the longest I've gone without playing since I took up poker a good 5 years ago. I don't intend to play 24/7 or anything once I'm back from holiday, but I certainly need to play a lot more than I have this past 9months (not exactly a hard task)! Time to build the bankroll back up a bit I think. Uni life has meant its taken quite a hit recently, too much spending and not enough earning! The numbers just haven't been adding up. Just like everyone else thats made money from poker, I spend it way too fast. When I was making good money I would spend it almost as fast as I made it. Recently I've still been doing the spending, but without the earning. Not good for the bankroll in the slightest.

My last post I made was a bit of a whinge about not getting my fair share of luck, and I said I would keep records of how I go out of every tournement to really see for myself what was going wrong! Well I did keep records for the week or so I played after that post (before taking the 2month break). I never actually got round to properly sitting down and working out all the numbers, plus I hadnt exactly gathered enough information in just a week, but suffice to say it wasn't a great week and from just glancing over the records I could tell things weren't going my way. I was going to carry on from where I left off with that, and keep further such records, but after noticing a comment left on my last post that it could have more negative affects on me than positive, I don't think I'll bother. So I've had a 2month break, and now its time to start again with a clean slate. If I start keeping records again of how I'm going out of each tournement, it will just put me back in the negative frame of mind I was in before.

Anyway, this was only intended to be a brief update to say that poker is definately gonna be back on once I'm back from holiday! So I hope to post more regularly in the near future.....

When Will This End...

It feels like pure torture at the tables at the moment. I know this is starting to sound like a broken record, and everyone goes through it, but if I can't win at the moment, and I'm going to make a post here, what else is there to say? Maybe some people enjoy to hear that other people are going through a bad run anyway, so they know it's not just them.

Well this 2 month long "torture" is starting to test my patience. I just can't win for shit and I've got to admit it is getting to me. I'm not really losing money, I'm just not making the kind of profit I feel I should be. A couple of hundred quid profit for a months worth of £60 6pak's I can't really class as "going to plan". This following on from a £2k loss the previous month. However, to make sure this isn't just selective memory on my part, and to prove to myself that the reason I'm not winning at the moment is just because I'm running awful, I'm going to start keeping some records.

I think the best way to measure how lucky I'm getting in 6paks is to see how I'm fareing in the pre-flop all ins. Of course there are many many other factors, but I can't really measure them as easily. However, I can easily just write down on a notepad every time I'm all in pre-flop; what hands im up against and if I win or not. This is where I feel I'm getting unlucky at the moment, at the business end of the 6pak's, so I think it will be interesting to see the stats.

So next time I post on here, If I'm still not winning money, instead of just blaming it on me "thinking" I'm not winning anywhere near my fair share of 50/50's, 60/40 shots, etc, I'll have some figures to back it up. Of course I hope thats not the case though, and instead I manage to report back about how fuckin lucky I've become :)! To be backed up by some amazing 50/50 win-rate and a hefty chunk of profit as a result!

If I report back that I'm winning more than my fair share of 50/50's, 60/40's, etc, but still losing, then I guess I'll have to think up some other excuse, rather than keep using this one! I mean, it couldn't just be that I'm playing bad and actually have no edge over the other players, surely not?!

Weekend Standard of Play

Until today I haven't had a chance to play at all really since my last post. But I just had to make a quick post about the standard of play I'm seeing at the moment. A few weeks back when I was struggling to win (and I still am), I was starting to think... maybe I just don't have much of an edge anymore and everyone's getting better. I was starting to question if theres still decent money to be made for me in this game. I soon realised how stupid this was, as I still see just about as much stupid play as I did a couple of years ago. Instead I now realise it's just been a case of me not exactly playing great poker and running pretty awful.

I think the poor standard is especially emphasised at the weekends, for obvious reasons, when more of the part-time newbies come out to play. Today some of the standard I've seen has been absolutely dire and it makes me embarassed to say that I'm down money this past couple of months with players like these in my games.

The best play of the day, has got to be one of, if not THE biggest pet hate of mine in poker. It's when someone folds they're BB to someones all in during a tournement when they're getting such good odds its absolutely impossible to fold. It really pisses me off, especially if I'm the 3rd man late on in a 6pak and the BB folds to an easy call from the short stacks all in. So many times this has happened and you're the one that goes on to finish bloody 3rd because of the stupid play of the BB. Well this is by far the worst I've ever seen ....

Blinds 100/200

BB has about 4k
SB has almost 2k
Im on the button with just 206 chips (I just lost JJ all in vs the BB's A6 but thats not the point).

I move all in on the button and the SB folds (that fold is bad enough), the BB then dwells for about almost the whole time before folding for the extra 6 chips. Firstly he didn't time out. So of course next thing you think is it MUST have been a misclick. But surely a misclick happens when you don't have the table up and it pops up about half way through the timer when it beeps, and not right at the end of the timer. This player had played absolutely abysmally in the few tournements I had played with him in today. This leads me to believe that it was actually a genuine fold and that he was so new to the game he couldn't grasp the concept that he only had 6 more chips to put into the pot from my all in. Pretty funny from my position, but if I was the other guy I would be livid. Unfortunately I didn't go on to cash, but that would have been hilarious if I did.

When someone makes a stupid fold where they are obviously getting great odds it really pisses me off. Of course this was an extreme example, but it happens so much to less of an extent, and is just so annoying for the 3rd party in the game.

Anyway, time to get back to making money (or at least trying to) off the weekend fish. I just had to share this.

Slacking...

The title basically sums up what's happened on my part since my last post (which was a long, long time ago). A lot of slacking. The first instance is obviously a lack of posting on here. I don't want this blog to be the case that I only post when things are going well. People that choose to read blog's will want to hear about the high's and low's, not just selected information. So it's time to start updating regularly again.

I've been meaning to update for quite a while, but just haven't got round to it. The longer I've gone without updating, the more I've just thought; "well it's been 3 weeks since I last updated, a few more days won't make a difference". Initially I didn't update because shortly after my last post our internet screwed up at university, forcing me not to play for a couple of weeks. But I've been back home for 3 weeks now, and really have no excuse for not updating sooner. Finally, I've got round to it!

The second instance of slacking is the same old story of not putting enough hours into the game. Well, that's up until the past week, as I've managed to play a fair bit this week. It's been a pretty unsuccessful week, but at least im playing. In fact, its been a pretty unsuccessful past 2 months. This takes me onto my next case of slacking on my part. This time it's my poker game in general. Everyone thinks they're unlucky when they're losing, and I'm no different. I do still feel I've been pretty damn unlucky this past 2 months, but until the past few days I thought this was just about the only reason I'm struggling to win at the moment. My only other reasoning was that theres a couple of decent players that have started playing regularly in my 6pak games. However, a few days ago I noticed I really haven't been playing my "A game".

One of the main reasons why I think 6pak's can be so profitable is because a lot of the players don't put enough emphasis on the need to WIN them, and pretty much forget about playing to cash (unless in extreme circumstances like one player only having a couple of hundred chips left in the final 3). It was a pretty easy concept for me to grasp and I didnt understand how so many players played to cash before going for 1st. Well recently I noticed that to an extent I have been one of these people. I guess this is firstly due to expecting to lose any coin flip I enter, and then also being on a losing streak I was just content with getting SOME money back. Both of these reason's are stupid ways of looking at things, so it's back to forgetting what has happened previously, and playing for 1st in every 6pak I play!

The final illustration of how I've been slacking would be failing to keep records of my results. I wanted to record how I fare over the course of the whole of this year, 1st Jan - 31st Dec. It should be pretty interesting at the end for me to look over, and hopefully useful over the course of the year in other ways. January and February went fine, but since then I haven't recorded a thing. I guess I can't be bothered to total up just exactly how much I'm losing, cause I know it won't be a pretty sight!

So far I've started putting the hours in, I've updated this blog (just need to continue doing so now), and I've noticed what I'm doing wrong at the tables, now I just need to address the final point of record keeping. If I can be bothered, I will go back over my game histories and enter all the results I've missed out. It'll be a pretty long process tho!

Right, I guess it's time to get back to the tables and try to win a 50/50. Quite a task in itself at the moment, so once I can master this, maybe I'll be allowed to win the odd tourney here and there...

February Summary

£60 6pak Results:

Total Played = 87
Profit = £1908
ROI = 33.23%

Overall:

Total Profit = £1788
Hours played = 20.5
Hourly rate = £87/hr

February was another disappointing month for hours put in. I've decided that this is probably because just as in January everything ran pretty smoothly so I rarely felt the need to put in many hours to win more money. If I won a few hundred quid in the first hour or 2 of playing then I'd be content for the day. So again I'm relatively pleased with the months profit. Well, extremely pleased considering the amount I played. It's just the amount played that is the problem which needs addressing.

So March has started off better. In the first 3 days I've been more dedicated and put in a more respectable 11 hours worth of play already. Surely a good thing. Or not. The only reason I've put so many hours in is due to running bad and refusing to quit, with the mindset that things will surely turn around soon. Just yesterday I played 6paks for 6 hours, winning a grand total of 1 out of 20. Managed to drop almost 15 buyins and amost 1k in the process. I think thats gotta be the most buyins I've dropped in 1 day since I started playing 6paks. Nothing would go my way, but hey thats poker I guess. I've just got the task of turning the month around now. I hate to see that big red figure on my P+L spreadsheet for the month so I'm sure it will be an incentive to put more hours in until it's gone! So the proof is there that the reason I haven't been putting the hours in is because I've been running well and content with profits made. Playing for longer when running bad and less when running well can't be a good thing, so it's something I need to change.

Finally, I just wanted to add something about the ZeeJustin saga that has gone on recently. I'm sure everyone has read tons about it already and is fed up of hearing about it, but it seems I'm in the minority with my view on the matter. If somehow you haven't heard about it, you can read here. Everyone is slating the guy and branding him a cheat, which I guess he is in a way, but I think it has been blown way out of proportion. I'm sure many people have multiple accounts just as he did, which although is breaking the rules, is nothing terribly wrong. It appears he wanted mutliple accounts mainly for Sng's to hide his image which people had managed to adapt their game to. Something I'm sure many do. The problem comes with him entering some Mtt's with more than 1 account. If he doesn't have more than 1 account on the same table then he really isn't gaining any advantage here, as he is paying the entry fee for each 1 just like everyone else. I think it was merely a case of wanting more chances to win big money, than any malicious intent of say chip dumping or manipulating play with different accounts on the same table. If he just intends to play each account normally and disregard the fact he has other players in the tournement also then it is basically just like someone wanting to play 10 different Sng's at once to increase the amount of money they can win in a time period, something he would do.

Yes, what he did was wrong, but I don't think he really realised quite how wrong it was or did it with intentions to screw over other people so I really don't agree with any of his money won fairly being confiscated. I think the most stupid thing of all this, is the fact that he must have known he was taking a risk by having multiple accounts, which was forbidden, but still had so much money spread among them. Finally, how can Party or Stars just take whatever amount he has in his account when caught as a punishment. We don't know how much this is in relation to money he won on the site. If someone is caught for a crime, the courts won't just say, well lets take whatever he has in his bank at the moment as punishment. It has to be fair and relative to the crime committed. Well thats just my 2 pence on the matter anyway. I'm sure many don't see it my way at all, but I feel slightly sorry for the guy as I feel he is just being made an example of to deter others.

Thx for reading and GL at the tables.....

Much Better

Ok, this is going to be short and sweet because I have to be up in a few hours as I'm off to Prague for a few days, so I need to get to bed. Betfair headquaters have fortunately flicked the switch back on for me. I'm back to winning ways and made a decent profit this week. I probably won't get a chance to play again this month, so my 6pak ROI will probably end as it stands now, which is 33.23%. Even better than last month so I'm pretty pleased.

More detail to come once I'm back from Prague......

Spoke Too Soon

This past week everything has pretty much been the opposite to last. I'm now struggling to win most 80/20's let alone a 50/50. But hey you gotta take the rough with the smooth I guess. At least my ROI is starting to look a little more realistic.

It all turned basically straight after my last post, starting with last Sunday's tournies. I lasted an impressive 10 minutes in the Betfair £40k gt'd. Great start. So I decide to just enter the stars $500k tourney later, rather than doing a few others aswell. I hadn't entered this tourney for a good couple of months until last week. It always has an exteremely large field, which makes making the FT a real long shot let alone winning the damn thing. But with such big money on offer its worth a shot. Well last week was ridiculous, with a $1.1mill prize pool. That's 5,500 entrants. You've got just about the same chance of winning the world series. Maybe they need to add a regular tourney with a bigger buyin, which would provide more value.

Ok, I wasn't going to add any hand histories from the past week, to try and keep a bad beat free zone as I had been running pretty well in general recently and should have no reason to complain. But I'm in a few £60 6-pak's at the moment and just can't resist...

Level 3 - 4 left - 25/50 blinds - Button (2k stack) makes it 200. Sb (700 stack) flat calls. I'm in the BB with KK and move in for 1.5k. The button calls with A9dd, as does the SB with Q9ss. Last card out is an ace and I'm gone. Of course this kinda thing happens all the time, so it's no big deal. But just an example of how things are running right now. Plus a way to vent my frustration at such a shocking call getting paid off!

Ok, and as we speak, heads up 200/400 blinds. Me 3.1k to his 2.9k. I'm dealt AA in the BB and he min raises to 800. I just call. Flop comes 10 9 3. I check. He moves in with the mighty 10 4 and the 10 on the river cripples me. I guess when things just aren't destined to go your way there's nothing you can do to change it!

Anyway, enough of the bad beats. I just couldn't resist as they were happening to me as I was typing up this blog! This month I STILL haven't managed to put many hours in, despite the fact that I keep saying I will. Well I'm definately putting in this week. How much you make in the long run is basically dependant on how many hands, or in my case tournements, you play. So as I keep saying, but failing to put into practice, I MUST start playing more!!

Running Well

I haven't managed to put in anywhere close to the hours proposed so far for this month. I guess I just still don't have the poker bug at the moment. However, the few tournements I have played in have brought decent results. Although still a pretty small sample, I've managed to get my ROI for 6pak's in 2006 up to 39.43% now. Noteably I've got almost 3 times as many first places as second's, which I guess is what has accounted for this ROI. This must mean that I'm winning most of my 50/50's at the moment. Unsuprisingly I hadn't noticed this and was actually thinking I keep getting screwed over in the final few until I noticed this stat. An obvious case of selective memory. Of course when the shoe is on the other foot I can recall every 50/50 I've lost in the past week. I'm sure everyone does it. When things are going well you just assume you're getting your normal quota of luck which you deserve, but when things go wrong its unbelievable bad luck on your part. Anyway, long may this "lucky streak" continue.

I'm planning on playing a few of the sunday biggies tonight. Well I'm already going in the Sunday40k on betfair and will almost definately play the Stars $750k too. Whether I bother with any others or not remains to be seen. I'll be trying to rack up a few more 6paks at the same time and hopefully keep my ROI up at a ridiculous level. Although of course I know as soon as I have actually recorded a decent amount of 6paks the figure will be no-where near where it's at now. Until then ....

January Summary

Back around christmas time I was sent a new P+L spreadsheet by someone off the betfair forum. It's a lot more detailed than the one I set up myself a few months back and after a few adaptations is pretty much perfect to record accurately what I need (if anyone wants a copy just ask). I definately intend to keep track using this spreadsheet for the whole of this year. I started to do so back in september last year but that only lasted a month. This ones quite a lot easier to use than mine was though so hopefully as it's less effort I won't get complacent this time.

Onto January's records...

£60 6pak Results:
Total Played = 69
Profit = £1296
ROI = 28.46%

Total Profit = £907
Hours played = 19
Hourly rate = £48/hr

So nothing special happened in January. But I was pleased with the profit made from the few hours I did manage to get in. I think this ROI is pretty high for 6paks, but I'm not really too sure cause I have never really worked out my ROI before. Of course my sample so far is tiny though so only time will tell. If I can carry on this way though while playing a lot more then I should be able to turn in a pretty tidy profit.

Time to put the hours in!

Just a short post. I've just finished my 5th and final bit of coursework for uni! That was 3 weeks of hell and I can actually resume my life again at last. This means its time to put in the hours at the tables like I promised myself I would. Looking back at January's records I've played for a grand total of 15 hours this month. Many times I've had single sessions longer than that! If I want to achieve my goals I need to be making at least £2.5k a month on average and this isn't going to happen if I don't put the hours in. So I'm looking to play nearer 100 hours this month.

Hopefully there will be a few more regular updates to come now that I should be playing a lot more...