A Dilemma

Well, I think I have come to a crossroads in my poker life, after two years playing 90% cash, I am really starting to think if it really is for me. If I actually compare the profit from my early years which was all sng and mtt I think the figures tell there own story. Taking into account I played a lot less in those days and got NO rakeback and NO bonuses at all. At the moment, I am still a small loser on the cash tables overall, but making all my money in rakeback and bonuses.

So the dilemma is, do I go back to playing sngs and MTTs ? or to I still stick to cash and work hard on my game, so that when I do eventually become a winning player at the tables, this along with a good rakeback deal and 30k hands a month should then bring some decent $$$.

I have been looking hard at my figures to try and find out why I lose at the cash tables and it comes down to a plain and simple fact that I pay people off too lightly, I just don't believe them and I always thing they are "at it" and look them up light. I am also sad to say, I still tilt off a couple of buyins a month at least, this really does add up over the course of a year.

The month started off very well on my new site, but as you will see at the end of the month on my graph, the steep climb of profit for the first half of the month is far outwayed by the dramatic fall from grace as the decent is steeper coming down. I actually had another tit attack on friday morning and withdrew most of me money from the site, which I now regret, as it hasn't cleared and I only have 3 buyins left in there at the moment, so I can only play two tables max at the moment (which probably is a good thing)

Maybe only being able to play two cash tables, will give me the opportunity to play more MTTs as well. I have played a couple recently and done well, I should of made a decent score the other day when I was sitting 3/21 in the laddies 2.5k guarenteed out of 698 runners, I got dealt QQ and raised, 1 caller. Flop Q95 all clubs and he insta shoved, I called and he showed 55 and the lucky fish hit his 1 outer for quads on the river, was unreal, I wudda been a massive chippy at that stage as he was quite big stack as well, but eventually went out 15th....sigh. Also managed to make the FT of the 1111Poker Kracked Kings special, which I was really pleased with as there were a lot of good players to get through.

So, until the money clears back into my bank account, so I can then put it back into the poker site I took it out of, I guess its just gonna be 1 or 2 cash tables and mtts on laddies, so watch ya back on the tourney tables, Goth is back ;-))

Lush - Hypocrite

All Change

Well the old saying goes "a change is good as a rest" So a change it is. Giving laddies and the 6 seaters a break for a bit and for my sins, I am going back to iPoker and also back to 10 seaters full ring.

So its a new site and a new nickname, keeping it stum at the moment, but its prob not that difficult to work out who is me if your trawel the 50NL tables, i'm very much a creature of habit !!!

Managed to get a good deal with an afiliate, hopefully it will work out, if not, I guess theres a lot of iPoker skins to have a pop at, but will stick with it for a couple of months at least just to see how the rakeback comes in.

Played a few hands at the end of last month on the new skin just so I can get my hud etc set up. Its been a while since I played full ring, especially on iPoker and I can't believe how many short stacking mother foookers there is, there abs everywhere, at least 5 on each table. The good news is that, as far as I can see, they are all shite lol. Just wait for the right time and value town them and never ever fold top pair post flop vs them.

So started in anger on 1st november and so far, touch wood, things are going ok, a couple of buyins up, just playing quite nitty and getting it in good where I can. One thing I had forgot about was you can't resize the tables and the mini ones are a bag of wank. Also the play is sooooo slow, after playing 6 seaters mainly for the last 18 months, it seems to take forever for the fish to think about folding there 72 off suit under the gun !!! I guess I might have to play 8 tables to counteract the hands per hour rate, been doing 4-6 for that first week, will up this if it continues to go ok.

Other good news, managed to get my first live cash at Broadway Casino in Brum on Friday in the £20 rebuy, was only 64 runners, but there was a 4.5k prizepool up for grabs. I did manage a couple of pieces of luck to get there. At 15 left I was down to 800 chips after the utg limped, I shoved with TT in mid pos and he insta called with his QJ !!! WTF !!! two hands later, there was a raise in early position. i shoved me 35 os in for value with me lat 800 chips. He turned over AK. I had a big smile when the flop came down 345, big sigh on the turn bought the 2 for his straight, then a big fook off grin when another 5 dropped on the river to boat me up looooool.

A few hands later, there was a couple of limpers and I shoved me AK, got called by one of the sneaky fookers with QQ. The flop came down 2QK and I was on me way to the bar but the poker gods were with me, with the turn coming an Ace and the monster K on the river to give me the bigger boat lool. Live poker is soooooo rigged.

After that, managed to get to final table, kept me head down while still short stacked watching them knock each other out. With 6 left I was guaranteed £220, with 5th paying £280, I only had 3 BB left and I did a deal for £300 with all of the others who were pretty even taking a bigger cut, but all playing for the remaining 1.6k. I was happy with that and eventually went out shoving with KJ and walking into AK right behind me. But overall very pleased and really enjoyed the banter. It def gave the confidence a bit of a boost.

So all is rosy again, apart from the fact that I can't seem to sleep at the moment, hence writing this at 2.45am (oh and homes5 was whinging I don't update it enough *blush)

So thats it for now, hopefully will get a shed load of hands in tomorrow, although if I pop down the pub at 14:00 to watch the rugby, it may get a bit messy as they normally turn into an all dayer....c'est la vie, its a hard life.......

Todays song is just a plain and simple happy song, seen the band live twice, always make me smile.

The Wannadies - You and Me Song

Dummy, Pram.....Out

Right, thats it.

Had a great holiday, came back soooo relaxed was untrue. Played some pokes, played well and got back into the grind, has a few outdraws yesterday, but nay bother, I'm relaxed.....

Tonight, 5 buyins down, on such setup hands its untrue, set over set. full house, vs higher full house. In BB with Q3 sooooted, flop A65 all my suit giving me the flush, but the utg fish has limped with KT sooooooooooted to flooop the nut flush....FML

Ladbrokes can go kiss my arse I would of withdrawn all my money if I foooking could, everytime I try to withdraw or even transfer, it says I'm not logged in and gives me a login box, so I login, try again, noooo but i'm not logged in !!!! I'd phone them up, but I would end up smashing me fooking phone if I talked to any prick on the end of it !!!!

Time for another site..........................Can't believe my fave site to play on is the only site that I can't win on 6 max...........

Sigh !!!!!

So the irony of todays song, is that next week I am back at work and it will not be........

Happy Mondays - Kinky Afro

Late night update

Not updated for a while, its seems my apathy for poker at the moment has crossed over into other areas of my life, just can't seem to get going with anything at the moment, plodding along halfheartedly. Def need a break from it all, luckily, got a holiday coming up soon and will be getting away from the rat race for 10 days or so, time to reflect on where I want to be with it all.

On the poker front, last month didn't turn out too bad in the end, I never did quite recover from the experiment at the start of the month, but pulled it back enough that after rakeback etc was almost $90 up on the month. Could of been a lot worse.

This month, I have stuck to me guns and only played a small amount of poker, only about 1.7k hands so far and I am a couple of buyins up. I am sure I will get back into the groove in the near future, hopefully put 20k+ hands in November and get ready for the push for 2010, where I def wanna get back to playing 50NL at least, with the aim of being able to play fully 100NL by the end of 2012

Not really much else to say, will be looking to remap me life out during the break, set new goals and lifestyle changes, using the time for positive thoughts, rather than the current negativity that I seem to be shrouded in at the moment. Also gonna look at changing my writing style, mix the blog up abit, seems to have gone a bit stale lately. Would love to get into a situation where I have the enthusiasm to be able to update it 2-3 times a week, I find looking back over the older posts sometimes quite surprising in what my thoughts were at the time, its quite amazing on how over the years your views and goals in life change and you forget what you used to strive for.

I guess I am just going through me mid life crisis. I have earned it and boy am I gonna have it !!!

Tata for now........

Fallen Angel

Getting Bored

Don't know why, but I am really struggling to find any enthusiasm to play over the last couple of weeks, every time I sit down to try and grind a session out, I get bored after a 100 hands or so, I don't think I have played a session of more than 350 hands since the first week. Its strange cos I have been running ok over the last 3k hands, pulling some of the bad start back. I think I may be about even for the month taking into account the rakeback.

I had already decided to take a bit of a rest in October as we are off to sunny yorkshire for a relaxing week, if the 3G holds up on the lappy, was just gonna play a few sngs and MTTs for a change, but I'm not sure I'm even gonna bother doing that.

So all my aim for this month is to reach the Laddies gold level, which I prob only need to play about 700 more points to get there, then decide what to do. Will def be back for a big push in November, as I don't want this year to end with less than $3k profit, as that is def a big step backwards.

Will prob play some cash later on tonight when the fish come back from the pub, lets just hope they ain't got their lucky boots on and suck out on me.

Hope the fun comes back into poker soon, or I will end up going to the Gym every night like I used to before I found poker !!

Gonna take a couple hundred quid out of me bankroll as well to pay for a Rammstein gig at the NEC in Feb, awesome band live. By using a piece of me bankroll it will at least makes it seem that it is worth while sat in front of a PC for hours on end.

So here are the boys live......

August Round up

August sought of fizzled out a bit, I ended up playing a bit robotically and it showed in my results, going back to my old calling station routine. Was a decent month, but should of been my best this year, but it was not to be, but was still $660 up overall, which was originally my target per month at the start of the year, but that idea has gone up the swanny.

I am off work this week, so decided that this month was the perfect opportunity to grind out 40k hands plus and get the laddies VIP and some nice rakeback etc. I also chose the 1st sept to try out loads of new things in my game. What happened was the singlemost worse day of my poker life, I finished the day 13.5 buyins down. Yep you read it right, 13.5 DOWN !!! That was in approx 3.3k hands. The crazy thing is, it don't matter, I learnt a lot, yep expensive, but I did learn. It didn't help in the fact that every fooking muppet and he dog hit everything against me, I also lost about 5 buyins overall with some shocking calls for 25bb+ "just to see if my read was right" lol, well thats my excuse and I am sitting to it.

Had a lot of strange thoughts during this massacre, ranging from "ok, I am gonna get a coach and destroy this game" to "thats it, i'm taking all me money out of every fcking poker site and giving up" The latter one normally came when the fish hit there miracle two outer to stack me after I have played the hand perfectly.

Think I will however drop back to 4 tables from 6 for a while, mainly due to the fact that if I get a beat, I def find myself chasing on other tables to get it back, that prob contributed to a couple of buyins, I suppose it was tilt, but it didn't really feel like the adrenaline fuelled tilt that I have had in the past.

So I guess for now, I am still gonna grind it out, target for the month is to just break even now loooooool.

Good Luck at the tables.

Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight

Running Hot

Well warm at least, for a change I have been dishing out some muff twice I have got it all in with QQ on a low flop only to walk into AA/KK and both times been awarded with a two outer to stack my oppo, on one of them, he was as tight as a nats chuff, so I decided to ck raise him post flop to see if he really did have AA/KK, of course he shoved so I had my answer, then before I could fold, the iccle gremlin in me head goes, "ah call anyway, just to see" I did manage to fold AA post flop after doing the same on a 468 double suited flop vs two fish, they ended up all in, one with a flopped set of 4's the other with the nut flush draw which he duly spiked, felt pleased with my laydown and saved meself 70BB. Its these sorts of laydowns that build up and save you a lot of $ p/hour in the long run.

Been 4 tabling comfortably for a while, but I have upped this to 6 tables and seem to be coping quite well with it for now, think I am gonna play most of my week like this then choose maybe 1 or 2 sessions a week where I just play two and try some different things out.

Also revamped my bankroll strategy, basically building for the future. Decided I am definitely going to stick to a 100 buyin rule now, but as added protection, I am gonna make this in ££ even for the €€ tables. This should also then allow to have some room to play 10-20 MTTS a month as well, I do enjoy them now and then, but have to be in the right mood, I find after playing cash tables all the time now, I have lost a lot of my patience in MTTs, which obviously, is a big no no.

Overall, played about 13.5k hands this month and running about 3.5ptbb/100. Which is not the best stats in the world, but I am happy to run at that, my minimum to move up the levels is 3, so I am above that at the moment, but over such a small sample, 1 session can change that quite a bit. Up about $650 on the month and I think I got a $90 bonus to come next week, so looking good. Almost certainly won't make the 30k hands I had hoped for as I have been distracted on quite a few evenings and I got a weekend on the piss coming up at the end of the month. Still hope to play well over 20k hands, which will probably be the most I have done.

Lets hope things can carry on like they are at the moment and I can make the most of this hot streak and clock up some $$$.

PJ Harvey - Down by the water