Starting over.

I’m going to grind the 210FPP 20 player satellites to earn as much T$ as I can then sell it off to start a bankroll.

I haven’t got much to say at the moment.

But will do in the next couple of days.

I’ve made many decisions and uncovered many truths about my game and I look forward to sharing them with you shortly.

But for now, bookmark this post, it may be worth looking back on in times to come because aside from the FPPs, this time I start with nothing except my will to win.

Custo

No poker depression posts today, let's just lol together.

Since the past 2 posts have been rather depressing, well at least that's what I'm finding after re-reading them, I thought I'd share a video with you that made my laugh. Not the funniest thing on youtube, but certainly worth the watch if you've not seen it.


I have some poker news, but we'll talk about that tommorow. For now enjoy the vid.

I have to give the youtube link, for some reason when I use the embed code on the blog I only get about half the screen in. (Any computer techy people reading this care to tell my why?)

Spoiler @Dr.G, you sent me this.

Cheers
Custo

High Five Etiquette

Break starts now! I’ve hit rock bottom!

You suggested it, so I’m doing it. I’m taking my first break from poker in I don’t know how long it’s been, 2 years, 3 years, I really don’t know?

Since the last post I felt like such a degenerate player it’s absurd and I’ve lost all respect for myself, it really sucks. This is so hard to admit and I hope I grow from it but I am at the lowest of lows right now. Poker actually hurts, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, I can not think of I positive reason why I should open a game after posting this.

Feels like everything I touch goes wrong. I won’t even talk about bad beats because frankly I’m sick of saying them, and people are sick of hearing them. Unless I flop a straight flush and lose to a runner runner royal I’ll just shut up. Really now one gives a fuck anymore about your nut flush losing to that river 1 outer.

3 days after the last post I 16 tabled 5NL, got up about 3 buy-ins in 15 minutes, then lost I hand which was set over set, and from that moment in the next 10 minutes dropped 13 buy-ins. From there I went straight to 200NL and shortstacked until I went broke. That 1 hand of set over set threw me over the bridge. That’s my state of mind, I’ll lose 1 good hand to a genuine unavoidable cooler, then blow 100% of my roll.

I have just over 8,500 VPPs on Stars and just over $100 in an online gateway account.

I have an idea of what I’m going to do, but I need to walk away from playing at the moment.

Poker is just a massive drop-kick to the guts for me right now. If I could turn around time I would never have drawn my entire roll 18 months ago when I built to over 4K from $1. It would have been better for me to get a credit card or loan than pull my bankroll. It is so hard on my ego to go back to playing for pennies. But with bankroll management and $100 I will have no choice.

What also hurts and makes it so hard for me to play an A game is seeing friends at levels miles beyond me, reading other blogs about people playing/making hundreds or thousands per day while I’m playing the lowest games around. Envy really is one of the 7 deadly sins! I will clarify immediately by saying I am happy for every single friend/blogger I have that plays big games and makes good, very good money, so if you are reading this, which I know some of you are please excuse me, you know me well enough that I wish you all the good fortune in the world. I just wish I had a little.

The only other thing I will say is this is not the end and it is not an admission of quitting. I just need to immerse myself back into work, which starts shortly, leave poker alone, collect my thoughts, and come back motivated and happy.

If you have one of those brainwave ideas I’m all ears, I don’t know when I’ll post again, but I won’t leave it as long as I did last time.

Thank you to all people that commented on the last post and thank you again for reading.

I will be back…….

But for now, I’m off.

Peace
Custo

Last night I played 400NL with a BR of $150!

What? 3/8ths of 1 buy-in isn’t enough to take a shot you say?

The title may give you an idea where I’m at right now.

Fuck it! Might as well be honest.

Everything has been going downhill from the moment I decided to grind Double or Nothing SnGs. This was inspired by a professional Double or Nothing grinder I respected and thought I hadn’t paid enough attention to this format of game type. I also thought it would be the easiest and quickest way to re-build a bankroll to around 5K where I can play a little more freely.

Below is the graph of games played this year. Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it.



First few games played some $20s HU, smart move right.

From about games 50 – 1000 I was 16 tabling $5 DoNs. No help or coaching just using common sense.

Approx. game #1000 was an mtt score courtesy of time with BuffySlayer.

From games 1000 – 2500 joined Team Moshman. Hindsight, biggest mistake I’ve made this year. Not to say anything bad about them, nor say anything bad about getting coaching in general but I was on track and doing fine. I basically tried to re-invent the wheel. All I ended up doing was abandoning everything I was doing and went on an emotional downswing the whole time.

From about games 2500-2600, against my coaches advice and truthfully common sense I stopped playing the $5s & started playing the $10s. Playing the way I used to before I started coaching. Of course I had success doing that.

From about games 2600-3800, played a mix of $5s $ $10s under Team Moshman. Anywhere from 10-30tables per session.

From game 3800-5000, 30-40 tabled the $1s, yes the $1s. Why $1s? Well I’ve been drawing on the bankroll a few times this year, around 8 I think since January. $500 out here and $250 out there. For what its worth, prior to starting the $1s I had terminated the agreement with Team Moshman. I didn’t think they would see benefit in me playing 100s of these games per day, even at +10% ROI.

So why did I stop the $1s, aside from the obvious I mean. About 10 weeks ago I got a random email from PokerStars.

The email, which I have received in the past, was informing me that I’ve been a victim of collusion and they have refunded my buy-in for the tournament that this took place in. Thanks PokerStars.

What not only made me sick to my stomach and also confused the absolute fuck out of me is that this took place in a $1 Double or Nothing tournament! Really? Are you fucking serious? There are people in the world that need to conspire to beat other people out of ONE FUCKING DOLLAR. What the fuck is going on? I totally understand cheaters at high levels, screwing people over for tens of thousands of dollars, that makes sense, nothing I’d ever dream of doing but at least it makes sense. But seriously, there are people out there that are cheating in $1 games. It was after that email I was simply left scratching my head wondering what is happening in the world of online poker.

To add salt to the wound, these games, honestly, they’re not poker,

FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD
Shove 5 big blinds at 100/200 blind vs blind and hope opponent isn’t holding a 20% calling range.

It was only a year ago or so where I was playing the 9player $16s quite successfully, playing 4 tables and actually making good decisions.

I’ll admit it, DoNs poisoned my brain and have made me somewhat forget how to play poker. It is possibly one of my biggest mistakes I’ve ever made.

All this leads to my next point, what have I been doing the past 10 weeks. Well, this is my most degenerate story to date as far as a poker career is concerned. There is pretty much nothing I haven’t been doing. I have lost all sense of direction as far as what I am trying to do.

Primarily I’ve been short-stacking 25nl, and funnily enough, really successfully. For those of you that follow this blog you know I rarely play cash games. Below is the graph of recent results taken from PTR.



So I’m making some money yeah, but I’m really not enjoying it. Over the past 10 weeks I’ve been:
24 tabling 2nl
4 tabling 5nl
Single tabling 10nl – 200nl (and of course 400nl last night)
Single tabling plo 2 – plo 100
Playing any form of mtt low buyin of course.
But basically I have been playing anything and anytime and on any site.

I feel I’ve lost all sense of direction, no routine, no purpose, nothing.

So this begs the question, where to from here?

From here, I’m reviewing my blog, I’m going back to read over when I was not only successful but happy, because short-stacking 25nl and mass tabling DoNs is no fucking poker life for me, I’ll quit before I do that.

I apologise if this post has been full of rambles, but I suppose the content matches the current mood.

I am proud that through all this I still can say I’ve not gone broke nor done something ridiculously stupid, actually, playing 400nl last night was pretty dumb so I’ll re-phrase with I haven’t done anything really ridiculously stupid : )

Oh and for what is worth, I lost around $80 in 15 minutes, then shortstacked 200nl for 30 minutes and got like $45 back.

Comment people, talk to me.

Lastly from this point forward, anonymous comments without a name left will be deleted. If you don’t have a Google account and wish to comment then either
A ) get a Google account or
B ) leave your name when you comment.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to bringing some more uplifting posts shortly

Custo

Updating in 48 hours!

Well it’s been a good 6 weeks or so since my last update and in that time I’ve now been asked on PokerStars tables, Email, AIM, Skype, Mobile and in person about when I’m updating (Mr. Popular or what) lol.

Anyways, to my readers, friends and fellow players I do apologise for the lack of content recently.

I’m only posting this now because I actually have a ****load to say. Some good and some bad but by posting this now I am committing to updating within the next 2 days

Oh and it will be quite long to so be prepared for quite a read.

I will share one thing with you now…….actually stuff it! You can wait another 48 hours. :)

Good luck me!

Well, the low main event of the SCOOP starts in a little over 8 hours so I’m off to bed now.

I’ve decided given all the advice given to treat this game like any other and just play it. Forget the buy-in! If I bust, I lose nothing. If I min-cash, I’m up a couple hundred, if I win, I turn my life around for the better.

Wish me luck because I reckon I’ll need it.

I’ve been saving my “1 time” the past week and I hope that pays off.

If I can just run good in this event, oh please, let me run good!

The reason I’ll always stay at PokerStars.

Recently PokerStars held a competition for all bloggers to write specific articles for them and in return all bloggers that did this got a $22 ticket into a SCOOP event and the best 50 bloggers got a $109 ticket.

My first article was this one

Consecutive 180 player tournaments, both ITM!

I worked quite hard on this and followed all the required guidelines that were set out.

Through an unfortunate problem with communications there was an error between me and PokerStars and the article was never noticed.

A few days before the SCOOP started I sent a follow up email asking what the next step was and it was discovered that my original notification of the email sent was overlooked.

Through no-ones intentional fault PokerStars immediately rectified the problem by issuing me the $22 ticket for completing the article and a $109 ticket for writing one of the better posts.

I was quite upset when I found out that my original article was never seen but due to the overwhelmingly superb reputation PokerStars have they fixed everything with 24 hours of the issue being raised.

It is reasons like this that I have been and will continue to be a loyal player/customer with them.

I’ve had similar problems like this in the past with other networks and it ALWAYS has fallen of deaf ears.

I sincerely thank PokerStars for fixing this so fast and with that I am finally taking my shot at a big game.

As I’ve been issued a ticket and not tournament dollars I have no choice to play a game so I’ve entered into the low game of the SCOOP main event.

Finally after so many years of grinding micro stakes tournaments’ I am able to play a huge game and ‘take that shot’ I’ve been waiting for.

I’ll be spending every day leading to this event playing micro stakes mtts just to practice my play. The only problem I’m finding is playing for example a 50c mtt with 2000 people I get into spots where I ask myself “Would these people plat like this if it was a $100 game?” and I keep answering no. However I haven’t played a game so big for several years now so I really don’t know. Maybe there is a heap of donks that play and make moves as bad as they would in micro games?

I can already assume that a large portion of the field will be satellite qualifiers but I also assume there will be some serious solid grinders that are leaps and bounds ahead of me.

I am undecided on my approach towards the game at this stage. It’s either super-conservative trying to make the money then climb levels, or do I just take this opportunity to go for it all, which is statistically very difficult. With my current bankroll after a few withdrawals the buy-in alone represents over 20% of my money so even just cashing in this instance would help tremendously. On the flip side of that I can’t see myself having an opportunity to play in a $1 million prize pool again too soon. So you can see how I am quite torn on which approach to take.

One thing I swear, should I run good in this game I’ll never whinge about bad beats and suck outs again lol. Hell I’ll take 4 years of crap just to run well in this game.

Interested in your feedback and welcome to any advice if you are experienced in these types of games.

To the poker gods if you are reading this all I have to say is……. ONE TIME!
(Promise I’ll never say it again :) )

Thanks for reading and again thank you to PokerStars for giving me this opportunity to play and finally have the chance to take down something big.


Custo.