Results for January 2009.

Start of January 2009 BR = $2448.75
End of January 2009 BR = $2256.24

Overall $242.51 Loss
Bankroll decrease of 7.86%

Where did the money come from or in this case go?
Ring games = $14.48
SnG's = - $254.85
MTT's = - $2.14
Bonuses = $50.00

Well at least I know where I went wrong this month. I spent so much time looking over last years results, outcomes and graphs I’d automatically assumed I could make $xxx for the month without even trying, BOY WAS I WRONG. I still remember January 1st saying to myself, “all I need to do is profit ~$600 and I’m on track.” – 1st mistake!

I’d fallen back into a habit that was meant to stay broken which is not focusing on monetary values. I slipped up, but I’ve identified and rectified it. At the start of the year I raced probably harder than I’d raced before. I don’t have the exact numbers but I spent over $3000 on SnG buy-ins alone. I overplayed my games and I played for some ridiculous sessions 10-12-14 hours per day.

February brings 3 big changes for me.

1. Returning to full time work. This will obviously mean my playing time will be decreased substantially so I’ll probably get in around 2 hours per night.
2. A new and hopefully successful approach to MTT’s. Tried a new strategy last night, or dare I say this morning and had a very nice cash which means I’m $242 in the hole rather than $430 in the hole, couldn’t have come at a better time.
3. Finally starting to play cash games properly. Only step left is to get the HUD up and running and we’ll see what that brings.

Goals for February.

MTT. - I played 29 tournaments this month with 2 cashes, 1 being just ITM and the other 3rd place. I feel I really played poorly this month. The 10 spots of being ITM in the $55 really got me down. I can’t see myself playing as many due to time restrictions but I’m certainly going for some cashes and at least 1 final table.

SnG. – My biggest grinding area at the moment. I’ll continue to 4 table $10-15 games and try and build the SnG bankroll so I’m comfortably able to play the $20 games next month which if played solidly enough is very achievable.

Cash. – God, where o where do I start with this? The first and primary goal is to show a profit. I’ll be 4 tabling 2NL for 60-90 minutes per day with auto-rebuy feature enabled if dropping below 100BB. One of my biggest weaknesses with cash games is because my total BR is a little over 2K, it’s hard to treat the game properly. The reality is because I’ve chosen to run 3 independent bankrolls and the Ring bankroll is only over $100 this is what I must play. I also need to prove to myself as shocking as the play is I’ve been there and I’ve beaten it.

Overall I am disappointed with a negative month but it could be a hell of a lot worse. Last year I had 3 negative months with my biggest loss being 20.02%. Can’t make money every session and I blame my losses on an incorrect mentality which leads to an incorrect approach. I didn’t lose massive amounts in 1 day I just had a lot of bad days. In fact my biggest loss for 1 day was $111.71 or 4.88%.

Februarys key point for me will certainly be “quality over quantity” a complete 180 of what I did this month, let’s see how I go.

To wrap up, what would a post be without at least one picture? Here is this mornings result.

Preparation for becoming a cash game player.

I’ve been playing poker seriously since August 2007. To clarify when I say seriously, not professionally, but with a sound bankroll management system. I started with $1 and built that just over to $100 on .01/.02 by January 2008, then started playing SnG’s and MTT’s.

Since January 2008 I’d dabbled in ring games with absolutely no success, I showed a net loss in this area for all of 2008.

After a dismal performance this month in poker in general, I’ve finally realized that I am going to need to learn how to play cash games effectively if I’m going to be doing this as a profession in the next couple years.

With extensive research now done and a few trial runs on multi-tabling ring games I believe I’ve come up with my ultimate approach to beat cash games.

February 2009 will be a testing ground for me. I have Poker Tracker up and running now and will be getting help with my HUD installation shortly.

My plans are to play 4 tables every day for anywhere between 60-90 minutes. At the end of the month, if I show a profit, hopefully a substantial profit, ill continue with my endeavor. If my new found system fails, I won’t quit, I’ll just have to get some guidance from a successful player at my limit, most probably via CardsChat, I already have the fellow in mind.

I’ll still be multi-tabling my SnG’s to keep my skills up there but February for me is really about proving to myself that I can beat cash games.

I’m setting no type of monetary goal for the month in this area, as I don’t really know what would be considered average, good, great or kick-ass. I just want to grind it out to the best of my ability, show a few other players and get their feedback on things like my BB/100 (whatever that means, I still have a lot to learn).

The end of the day, if I see green I’ll be happy.

Here are a few hands from today’s warm up session.

1 good, 1 bad, and 1 fucking lucky.

The Good.


The Bad.

Seriously, WTF was I meant to do there, do I just cop that one on the chin and move on?

The Fucking Lucky.

I'm buggered if I know if I played this correctly, what do you think?

Can I get kicked in the guts any harder?

This is a vent post and nothing more. Hopefully this is also something to look back on in years to come and laugh my ass off, but right now I'm fucking pissed off.

Felt good last night, felt good when I woke up this morning. Decided to play a Satellite SnG to a MTT that costs $55 on Stars, the nightly seventy grand it's called.

Satellite cost $16.50 with 9 players and the top 2 win a ticket into the game. I couldn't have played better if I'd scripted it and won. Sweet, great start. Spent the next 2.5 hours re-reading my post of my most successful MTT to date (4th out of 1044)

Said to myself this game, no distrations. No alt-tabing between the game and Google, no playing a small SnG on the side for the first hour, no TV out of the corner of my eye.

I played amazingly. I was making great reads, awesome lay-downs, calls and re-raises. Everything was perfect. Until......



This game paid 216 places up. This hand knocked me out 226th.

I could have folded around and easily made it into the money.
I could have un-registered from the tournament and taken the $55.

I know I'm a massive underdog before the flop, but why o fucking why let me flop a Q then turn a K.

This game is harsh, but I'm not giving up. If the game was a $5 one, or I'm properly rolled for these games it would hardly matter as much.

I didn't fold cause I was going for the win, not the cash. I should have waited 10 more places, got a minimum of $90 then gone for the kill.

This was/is the first shot I've taken at a big prize pool since I started playing with BRM, August 2007.

Perhaps, I'm just meant to keep grinding and wait till I'm rolled for games like this.

Custo on the comeback.

Slowly, very slowly infact, but the January curse, or so I thought there was one, has been lifted. I totaled 5 days with no poker when I had my break, funny cause that doesn’t sound like much in the grand scheme of things but it felt like a lifetime as I’m used to playing almost everyday.

I’ve managed to distract myself from all forms of following the progress of my BR. I’ve abandoned all spreadsheets I use for tracking and have been keeping records with nothing more than pen and paper, remember those? I obviously didn’t, you should see my hand-writing! I’m really not looking forward to the 31st as there will be a ridiculous amount of data entry required that day.

I’ve been putting most of my time in ring games aswell since my return. Last years dismal performance in this format of play left me stressed and I always knew in the back of my mind that I will need to learn how to beat these games. I’d hardly say I’m dominating then yet, but I believe I found the biggest gap in my performance, post flop play. With reading so much poker material and watching training videos I’ve been obsessed with pre-flop play but never really taken the time to understand how to play post flop correctly. Crazy I know but I’m attending to that now. I’m not going to tell you how much I’m up until the monthly wrap-up, I don’t even know anyway to be honest. All I do know is that I am playing with a profit and taking things slowly.

I’ve ventured back to my 4-tabling Titan’s Double or Nothing SnG’s. The past 3 sessions I’ve had I’ve won 10 out of 12 so that’s fantastic.

I’m really not concerned if January turns out to be a net negative cash result, I dropped so much so fast, it’s more important to get myself back on track for the long-term rather than playing like a madman trying to prove to myself that I’m a ‘winner’ every month. If I can keep up the gradual growth and get closer to the life-time goal, I’ll be more than happy with that.

At least I don't get this upset.

My god watching something like that makes me feel better. An obvious over-exaggeration but a classic to watch. I'd hazard a guess there are people that actually act close to this level of extremity aswell.

It's been a good break so far, I haven't played for 4 days now and have spent most of today re-reading old favorite articles and blogs. I still may not return for a couple of days until I feel my approach is perfect.

Will be posting again after the first return session.

Taking some time off & need some help.

Ok. I officially don’t know what’s going on. I have now lost everyday for 8 consecutive days. I am down $366.70 across all game types. My confidence is completely shot. I have witnessed so many disgraceful hands it driving me insane.

I won’t say online poker is rigger – because it isn’t
I won’t say I’m the unluckiest person in the world – because I’m not

For 8 days know all I’ve seen is constant AIPF situations where I have KK vs 55 and 5 hits on the flop. I shove the BB from SB with JJ and BB has QQ. I have the good old AKs vs QQ yet no A or K comes. I have 77 with QQ AIPF flop a 7 then watch that 3rd Q on the turn.

I know we all bitch and whine about it but I’ve never seen it last this long and its taken 15% of my entire BR that took me all of last year to build up.

I am off on a small holiday tomorrow for the next few days which couldn’t be coming at a better time. I need a break from poker for a while and regather my thoughts and look at my long term goals & objectives.

Upon my return I will be looking into some training, particularly for multi-tabling low limit SnGs. I had success in these games but still only consider myself an average player. I feel I went from poor to average last year. This year I want to go from average to good, good to great the year after that.

If any of my readers feel they can help please msg me via this blog or CC if you’re a member, I’ll obviously need some verifiable statistics before we start talking. The search for training is not a knee-jerk reaction to the downfall I’m suffering, it’s something I had contemplated last year, but it’s become even more obvious I need it now.

Hopefully, this will be my last bitch vent post for a while.

Thanks for reading and I am interested in hearing back from you if you believe you can assist. Help is always welcomed and rewarded.

Custo

Far King El

I'd never blatantly swear in a title so this is as close as I'm going to get.

2009 sucks so far. Almost everything is going wrong. I'm down $99.41 in 6 days so far. I've had a great attitude at the start and felt I was playing optimal, then the suck-outs started. I can even remember the first hand that started this goddamn downward spiral. All in pre-flop situation on the bubble of a SnG. My AK vs QQ. Flopped a king, turned a king and got rivered with the Queen. OK, that happens, then it didn't stop. Another all in situation in another game, my A4 vs opponent Q4, not the most premium holding but I had him out-chipped by ~ 4 to 1, and of course he catches that Q on the river again.

I think the problem, I know the problem however, I'm trying to make too much too fast. Towards the end of the year I'd contemplated changing my BR requirements. They are 50 buy-ins across all game types. Well, they have changed as per my original thought.

New BR requirements are:
50 buy-ins for ring games
75 buy-ins for SnG's
100 buy-ins for MTT's.

This unfortunately does mean a slight decrease in the SnG's and MTT's I'll be playing, but I know with constant grinding and following the same practices I had last year I'll be back up. It just sucks that this year started the way it has.

I know losing streaks are part of the game, and to help psychologically I have made my buy-in rules a little stricter so is these shocking runs continue my overall BR will decrease at a lesser rate which will in turn not have as much of a negative impact on me.

This is purely a vent post but one I need to make so when I'm multi-tabling $100 games at the end of the year I can laugh my ass off at such a small decrease in comparison to what I will have.

For now, I'm going back with the same approach I took at the start of last year. SLOW DOWN and don't try and be a millionaire within 12 hours. Moving down in stakes will suck, be it's the best move for the long haul.