Waste of a Year !!

You can probably guess by the lack of updates what the poker year has been like. To put it mildly, I need to either improve dramatically or just not bother, but as you can guess, I am not going to give up just yet.

I have finished the year $122.22 in profit AFTER rakeback and bonuses, which is a big concern as I played approx 670,000 hands this year, mainly at 25NL zoom.

So what happened, well basically, if you look at my top 10 losing sessions of the year I would of broken even at the tables and thus been at least a $2k up. It seems that my lack of focus or playing at certain times, ie when pissed or when not really in the mood takes up more of a toll than I imagined. The good news I guess is that if I can limit those sessions there is hope in making some reasonable $$.

I was hoping that I could pay for a new car out of this years winnings, but I can just about fill my existing one up with some fcking petrol !!

So the plan is simple, I am going back to basics. Changing from Full Ring down to 6 Max and dropping right back down to 5NL Zoom with an initial online bankroll of £150. I still have an offline roll of £1550, which I will always keep separate for reload bonuses. I will not however use this for topping up my account at all, if I start losing, I will drop down levels, if I go bust, I give up it is that simple.

I have setup a withdrawal plan and moving up/down plan which is slightly less conservative than I have at the moment, also any bonuses will not count to moving up at all. So again, if I am not winning, I give up.

I know I say this a lot, but I hope to post more, I would like to setup a PGC thread on 2+2, but not sure that I would keep it up, so I might just post up an initial thread with the goals and see how it goes and update it once a week, if it gets any followers, will then maybe update it more regularly, will prob x-post on to here as well, which is a bit lazy, but who cares.

My primary focus for 2014 is going to be my health, if I can manage to fit quality time with my family and friends and squeeze in 100k hands per month, that would be ideal, but if something has to give, it will be the poker volume.

Thats enough shit for now, hope you had a merry xmas and wish you all a happy new year.

Goth.

Steep Learning Curve

Apologies for the lack of updates, but 2013 seems to have just flown by, it seems only days since the grind for supernova began on Jan 1st.

The grind is going a lot slower than expected, I was ahead of schedule on Jan 1st, but since then I have slowly been falling behind the pace. This was to be expected as I knew that at some point I would have to move up to 50NL to have a chance of reaching my goal. What I wasn't expecting was the amount of VPP per hand being approx 20% lower. This has put me further behind schedule than I had planned for, so I will need to up the grind or move to 50NL quicker.

The other option is to add some 10NL zoom tables, however I would rather not do this until I am winning at a constant level at 25NL. I am currently down at the tables overall on the year by a few buyins, so I don't think it would be a good idea to add tables while I am not in profit pre rakeback.

I managed to play just under 100k hands in January which is the most I think I have played in a month before and I am on schedule to play about the same this month. My losses at the tables have really come down to about 6 to 7 days losses. In Jan I did manage to have 1 day where I was 13 buyins down, which was really annoying that the time as I was winning at about 5bb/100 until that particular day. It was just one of those days where I was running KK into AA and when I had AA, KK was sucking out. I also manage to have 3 top sets vs lower sets where they rivered quads after all in the money had gone in on the flop or turn.I did also manage to hit quad 9s on a QQ9x9 board where the villain had flopped quads and played it perfectly when all the money went in on the river.

The one bad thing about grinding is that there are many days where you just don't feel like playing, are tired, or just are generally in a bad mood, I have had a few days like this and have tilted 4+ buyins off. Its these days that I need to take note of and learn by my mistakes. I am not sure what to do, ideally I still need to play, but I need to be very mindful of my mood and if I detect any sort of adrenaline going or see myself 4 bet bluffing in a stupid spot, I need to force myself to stop straight away. It might be wise when these days happen that I do stop playing and use the time for studying instead, at least then some useful poker activity will be happening !!

The other addition to the learning curve I need to adjust is playing pissed after the quiz on Thursday nights. It was unfortunate at the end of last year and at the start of this year I had a few small winning sessions when I was doing this, which gave me the false reasoning that 6 pints of Winona does not effect my play or judgement at all, the last two Thursday nights with a total loss of about 10 buyins has proved this to the contrary !!! I def need to stop playing. I still have about £30 in one of my iPoker accounts, so I might just force myself to play some 1c/2c 6 max on there if I want to blow some steam off when I get back !!

One thing I am pleased is that I am studying a bit more, still nowhere near as much as I would like and I am not yet posting hands on forums etc like I should. I decided to buy leak buster and it immediately identified some critical leaks in my game which I have started to adjust, it did spot quite a few leaks that I knew I had and even tell myself while I am playing that I am doing it, but still carry on. Hopefully I can keep ironing them out one by one and get my game more consistent.  I still have a massive leak in paying people off to much when I know I am beat, I still can't help myself calling with my big hands knowing full well he has the exact hand I have put him on, its almost if I have to call to prove that my hand reading skill is spot on !!! as I watch the pot go his way and I say "I knew he had that"

Been a bit of a long post, hopefully won't be as long until the next one.

Goth.