For Better or Worse

Well, I thought it was getting better.....but its just got a lot worse.

The bad run on stars went to 11, then pulled it all back, then another bad run, along with a few satellite entries, small lossed on cash, has taken me to about $250 down on the month. I must admin I am finding it very difficult to handle the swings. The only good thing, is that I know I am playing well, the outdraws have been, well, fcking unreal, which if I sit back and look at it realistically, means I must be doing something right, but looking at my graphs, it just don't look like it, but I will play through it.

Next month sees a big change in what I will be doing, I will be playing almost solely cash and with the help of bad beat as a trainee trader, I really hope I can learn a lot and move up to the next level. Its a bit annoying that I am doing this on the back of my first losing month this year, but I still think I am doing things right on the sng front. I still am unsure how my game will transfer into a cash arena, as I always think I am being bullied more in cash games than tourneys and tend to make some poor calls, playing more cash, should hopefully eradicate this problem and hopefully make me a more profitable player and move up the levels.

I will not be publishing my stats for a while, as I have decided to drop my yearly goal and concentrate solely on becoming a better more agressive player, should this prove succesfull the profits should be on at least the same level I make now, hopefully a lot more.

We have been discussing a few things on kaz's forum of late and I think we haev all realised that we want to learn more and take the game a bit more seriously, hopefully if we can all chip, we can all become better players.

On a more fun note, we are all off to Canary Wharf the weekend for Dream Team II, hopefully we will have as much fun this year as we did last, we are going down on the Friday this time and will be playing a live tourney at the bigslick on the friday night for a bit of practice and hopefully take home a few ££££

Will update you the outcome if I can remember any of it.

See you all at the bunker if you are going, i'll be the fat long haired one stopping the bar from falling into the room ;-)

Goth

A real struggle

May has been a nightmare, my bad run on the stars sngs eventually went to 12 in a row, out of the money, 6 of which were 4ths, was sooo tempted to take all of me dosh out of stars, but then thought whats the point, all sites are the same, its just our perception thats different. At this stage I was about $240 down for the month overall, after not having too much success on the cash tables either. I decided the only way to get out of this, was to play my way out, I know in the long run, I win on the stars $10 sngs, so I have just started to play them even more. Its good to say the luck has turned around slightly and I have pulled back over half my monthly losses so far, the ai'm now is to grind them out and try and get back into the black for the month. Its a good time to do it at the moment as stars are giving double fpp points, every little helps.

I won't be playing much poker today as it is one of my fave days of the year, its FA cup final day. Which basically means a day in the pub watching footy, talking bollocks and getting rat arsed. So if you do see me playing on the tables later on today, I apologise in advance for any drunken muffings I give out ;-)

I have also applied to be a trainee trader at bad beat, I really want to improve my cash game and bad beat has some excellent cash game players, who hopefully will be able to show me where I am going wrong. If it doesn't work out, so be it, but hopefully I will be given the chance to try.

Anyway, bacon buttie has now firmly in me belly, lets just hope I don't get to see it again later. Off to the pub it is, cya later.

Goth

For Fourths Sake !!

May so far has been a real rocky ride, I started off well, going about $100 up quite quickly in a few days, then a bad run on mansion playing cash, turned this into an almost $100 loss for the month, picked this back up to $50 profit again grinding it out. Then yesterday was a complete nightmare. Pokerstars are doing a great promotion on their 10 Billion hand. So this lead for me to put in $400, as if I am going to play there, I might as well get some bonus back. This with the next 10 days getting double FPP's seemed the perfect chance to build up some decent points. However, Stars seemed to want to get its bonus back off me in the first few days, I started off well getting a 2nd in my first STT, then 6 on the trot not making the money, this was made even worse with the last 4 all being 4ths !!!! all being muffed, by idiots calling all in ins with J8 soooooted and the like. What is a man to do.

Played a couple of sats as well and got no where, so I am now back to $100 down for the month. Got a lot of grinding out to do.

I am still toying with the idea of playing more cash and feel I am starting to get slightly better, I have a couple of cash players giving me some advice, but I am sticking firmly at the 25c/50c level at the moment, although playing on mansion you come up against the same players quite a lot and the bad beat traders are easy enough to spot, courtesy of meds passion for star trek, so I try and keep away from some of them.

Last day of the footy season today and I am hoping that west ham get there just deserts and get relegated, they cheated end of story and should of been docked points. Anyway, there is only room in prem for one Claret and Blue Army.....Up The Villa !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Goth

April Stats

Not a bad month considering I lost 10 days play due to travelling to vegas etc. Helped by eventually obtaining the Stars bonus, which helped put me on track for my yearly target. So here is my stats from April

Total Profit = $401.77
MTTs Played = 8
MTT Final Tables made = 1 (12.25%)
MTT in the Money = 1 (12.25%) - NB Includes FT's
MTT Total $ won = $ 150.00
MTT Profit = $97.60
SNG Played = 52
SNG Profit = $140.85
SNG ITM = 48.08%
Cash Profit/loss = $1.82
Syndi Profit/Loss -$22.00
Bonus Earned = $200

Started well this month on the STT's, but cash has been a disaster so far, so only slightly up on month at the moment. Gonna play the Stars 25k $5 rebuy muff fest at 23:00 tonight, will play as a $15 f/o (rebuy at start and addon) and try and dodge the muffs, then hope to pick up a few hands after the first break. I have only played it 3 times, but made the money once, but you really have to be prepared to spend $50 or get very lucky, but its a fun event.

Starting to have a change of heart about publishing my profit stats, as I think it is making me be too careful. I think I am also going to play a few more sats, which at the moment I don't do, so will publish these if I carry on as well, my biggest MTT win this year so far has been $150, so I need to get into the bigger events, so I can get the one or two big payouts you need in a year to move your roll to the next level.

Also thinking about moving back up to the $20 STT on stars again, or 4 tabling the $10, either way, I would like to get up the next VIP level and see what I can do with the points for a bit of extra profit.

Got a lot of ideas what I want to concentrate on over the coming months, but not sure what I will decide. Will let you all know once I do.

Almost up to 300 STT for this year on Stars, will publish my full stats on there once I have, makes some strange reading, well I think so.......

Goth

Viva Las Vegas

What can I say, if you haven't been to vegas, make sure it is on your next holiday destination. What a great place and if you can, stay at the Bellagio, I have never been in a hotel like it. The customer service there was incredible, I can't recommend them highly enough, although looking at the people I bumped into, I would not like to play poker there, it was packed full of stars, the highlight being seeing Barney Boatman, 15th in the Q in the shop trying desperately to buy a can of red bull and a bag of nuts in one of the big tourney breaks.


Our wedding went better than to be expected, the staff in the chapel at the Bellagio were fantastic and everything went smooth and Amanda looked stunning in her red wedding dress, which was a major shock to me as I thought it was going to be ivory.

We had quite a few friends over from the UK and had a wonderful buffet in our penthouse suite on the evening, the rooms even had their own bar and came with our very own barman called jimmy, which was a bonus as we had to send him out 3 times to restock it due to over consumption.

The other reason for going to vegas was to play poker, as we were only out there for a week and spent a fair bit of time sorting the wedding out etc, I agreed to play just the one tournie. Tipster was staying at the MGM grand and had already made the FT of one of their $65 morning tournies, but came 7th with top 5 paid. So we both entered the $125 evening one there. The standard of the players was truly apalling. I just sat there waiting for hands and betting big when I hit and always got paid off. I won a couple of races and before I knew it, both tipster and I were both on the final table. 57 entrants, top 5 paid. tipster was on my button, so we agreed early on to keep out of pots unless we had big hands. Unfortunately, 3 hands into the FT, I looked down and found AQ sooted on tipsters BB, the blinds were quite big with large antes, so I couldn't hang around, I had about 12k in chips, blinds were 800/1600 with 200 antes, so I raised to 5000, got 1 caller on the button. The flop came down AJ2, with the J and 2 off my soot. Perfect I thought, with 12k in the pot I only had 7k left, so I pushed, he called instantly and showed JJ and had flopped a set. No flush to save me and I was out 10th. I was gutted, but still happy to have made an Final Table in Vegas. The good news is, tipster went on to finish 4th to get $570, we had agreed a 75/25 cut, so I got my buyin back so all was happy.

I will def be trying for the wsop next year, will give this year a miss to give others a chance ;-)

Still feeling the effects of jet lag which helped my stats for April, as I ended up playing the Laddies Graveyard for the first time as I could not sleep and ended up on the FT going out 7th after getting my 99 muffed by A4 sooted.

Going to vegas has altered my feelings about poker, instead of just doing it as a hobby and making a few extra grand a year, I really want to learn more about the game. I had an offer off Bad Beat at the beginning of April to be a trainee trader, but couldn't take it up because of the wedding, I am waiting to hear back from them to see if I can try again in future months, cash is not a strong point of mine, but I think with a bit of help I could turn a steady profit.

Won't be able to play as much this week as I would like as there is lots of footy on and I am still off work, so the pub beckons, but I hope to fit a few mtts and stts and a bit of cash in during the sobre periods.

I have done my stats for April, but will publish them in a few days, will also try to keep my blog updated more often as I am getting lazy. I hope to try to improve all aspects of my life now that I am married, hopefully starting financially, but hey, don't we all dream of that.

GL at the tables.

Goth