Update - Swine-flu-aments

So it's 12:10 on a Friday afternoon, and I find myself in bed writing this blog, wrapped up in my nice warm quilt, watching Only Fools and Horses on DVD. Normally this would be an awesome way for anyone to spend a day, but I'd rather be slaving away doing whatever chores or work I could find at the moment. The reason being is that I have swine flu, and I can't enjoy myself if I have swine flu because I feel like shit.

So I thought I'd stop being lazy and write the blog post, updating last weeks poker results and plans for the future etc. I've been doing a lot of poker related thinking lately, even more than usual, so it'll do me good to write up my thoughts.

Firstly last weeks results; disappointing to say the least. I played a session on Friday and a session on Saturday. Friday I got deep in the $2.75/$7.5k which had just under $3000 for 1st. I lost a flip for just over a million chips with about 30 players left. I wouldn't usually mind busting out deep as I'm used to it, but when busting out deep is 6am deep, and I lose out on a lot of sleep it's kinda annoying.

So Saturday, I went deep in another tournament, the $5 6max, again a tournament that starts later in my session (seems odd that I never final table tournaments, or even get deep in tournaments from earlier on in my session), I ended up getting 19th after another cooler situation I think. Again I wouldn't usually mind but that time it was 6:30am that I went to sleep, so it left me ridiculously tilted all day Sunday.

Monday night I went to see Bloc Party live at a venue near where I live. They were amazing to say the least. It's a shame though as we were evacuated before they played the final song as someone set the fire alarm off. People were beginning to be let back in, but we felt it wasn't worth another 30 minutes of queueing, and 30 minutes getting out again just for 1 more song so we left and hit the McDonalds on the way back. Thinking back now the woman behind the counter at McDonalds didn't look well so it wouldn't surprise me if it was her that gave me the flu, bitch.

Anyway plans for the future in poker. I've always wanted to get into cash games but have never really been good enough at them, I seem to suck at playing post flop, thus shallow tournament stacks suit my play more. But one of my friends who was a backed MTT player for tourns upto $55s on normal days and all the majors on Sundays, was recently dropped for whatever reason by his backer. However instead of looking for a new backer like you would assume would be the sensible option, he has been using his FPPs to generate cash and has been grinding 0.01/0.02 cash tables. Another reason I always found cash games boring was because I never really spoke to anyone playing at the same levels as me, so I had no motivation, but I've been thinking it would be cool if I could get a little cash roll of my own to play with during weekdays when I don't play MTT sessions, and my friend and I could have friendly competitions etc to motivate ourselves as we moved up through the levels together from the micros.

Sounds fun right? I'm hoping that I can convince my backer to let me keep a separate little cash roll of my own for this venture, then I'll buy myself a copy of PokerTracker and get tackling the micro cash tables. Then in the long run, if I get good enough at cash games I could adopt those as my main game, and play the MTTs for fun at weekends etc, resulting in a more consistent income for me. Obviously that is a long way away from the 2nl tables, but with the friendly competition I'm sure we'll both progress pretty quickly.

That's about all for now, I think I'll get the work stuff sorted that I've been delaying for weeks now so that I can finally get paid, then I'll probably watch a film or something before I play a session or something later.

Til next time

DoubtImReal

NO MORE POKER TIL I DO WORK!!!

So I gotta catch up with my school work (shouldn't take too long), and I gotta send in my invoice etc for the work articles so I can get money (should take less time but I'm so lazy). So I'm not gonna do anything I enjoy (after I have finished this blog post) until I get it done.

I want to succeed in life so desperately, but I am so lazy that I never succeed due to my lack of effort. I'm gonna try for the next couple of days to get caught up with everything, so that I don't have to worry about anything making my life so much easier.

This post probably doesn't make any sense but I don't care and I just wanted to have my thoughts in writing so I can moan at myself when I fail.

Bye

Start of the Month

I played my 1st session for October yesterday, and it was quite a large one, at least by my standards. 81 tournaments according to OPR. I was 12-18 tabling for most of the day, which helped me achieve 2 of the targets I set myself in the previous post, because playing more tables makes it harder to be distracted, as you are always needed to make a decision, and obviously more tables lead to more volume.

I tried to download TourneyTrax before the session so that I could track my play, but for some reason after it downloaded it wouldn't install correctly. I also tried to install PokerTracker 3 but ran into countless problems when trying to install the PostGresSQL element, or whatever it is called, so I just gave up with the idea, and will use my Sharkscope subscription to track results for the meantime, I will just have to hope that they don't miss any tournaments.

As far as the session went I played 27 MTTs and 54 180 man SNGs according to OPR. I ran absolutely diabolically in the 180s, finishing in 12th/11th/10th and 8th as my only 4 cashes, meaning I lost about $250 overall in those. If any of my cashes had turned into a win or a top 3 finish then I might have made profit in them, but sadly it wasn't to be.

I did well in the MTTs though managing to go very deep in 2, the $2.75 tournament with $7500 guaranteed ($2.75/7.5k) and an $11 tournament with $20000 guaranteed ($11/20k). Firstly I went deep in the $2.75/7.5k, but lost a large flip for 800k chips with around 60 people left, which was close to 2x the average stack at the time. Whilst I was concentrating on this tournament however I'd also managed to get deep in the $11/20k, amassing a 100k stack. I slowly built this up to around 1.5 million, just by picking spots to steal blinds and extracting value from my good hands. I then ran JJ into QQ with 11 left for a huge CL leaving me on 600k chips, and in about 7th position with 11 left. From then on I didn't really get many spots and found myself with 8bbs left and 5 players remaining. I pushed with Q7 on the button and was called by K8 I think, I didn't get there and finished the tournament in 5th for just under $1500.

Overall I'm happy with how I played yesterday, making just over $1000, but if things had gone more my way I definitely could have made a lot more.

Here is the lobby for my $11/20k finish:

And my results for the overall session:

In life, my Nan came out of hospital on Friday night and is now at home, stocked up with enough tablets to run a small pharmacy! She was very happy to get out of the hospital, especially as it was in Hull, and she doesn't like Hull (she's said it was like staying in another country!), and hopefully the tablets will help her make a full recovery.

Tomorrow I am going to Brands Hatch race circuit to watch the last race of the British Touring Car Championship season, meaning I won't be playing a session tonight as I have to leave early in the morning. We've been going to see the BTCC for a while now, and they make for a great day out with the races, open paddocks, official merchandise stalls, drivers lounges, and the views of the pit girls! Sadly the team we follow (Vauxhall) is pulling out after this year though. I'm sure it won't stop us from going next year but it won't be the same as we won't have a team we want to support and win, it will be nice to be there for their last race though.

Not sure when my next session will be. I definitely won't be playing MTTs again until next Friday, but I might put in some smaller sessions of 45 and 180 man SNGs before then, depending on time commitments etc. So don't expect any updates before Friday although there may be some.

Until Next Time

DoubtImReal