(for those wondering about the title and picture, check this thread, xtranormal and music video. Also this GIF cracks me up every time.)

Since my week off from the EMS forums poker has gone better than I could have hoped. It’s going to be interesting to see what my win-rate levels out at over a decent sample but I’m sure it’s going to be higher than it was previously. During that week off I concentrated on improving my game and by the end of it I had identified and fixed a couple of key issues that had been holding me back. I am miles better now and these are the results for the last two weeks.

This is my third $10k month of the year and at the halfway stage I’m very pleased with how things have gone. Although I don’t set monetary goals I am on course for a particular milestone for the year which would be incredible. I’m also hoping to play enough hands to reach 500k VPP’s but that will depend on the next couple of months.

I probably won’t play any poker this week and will just make the most of the predicted hot weather and start studying for December exams. I was under-prepared for the June exams so this time I’m going to stick to an exam timetable and make sure I get all the work done well ahead of time. None of the exams will give me trouble if I do enough work so I just have to get it done.

Not much else to say, if you haven’t see it here is Bond18’s trip report from his epic evening at the Playboy Mansion (NSFW obviously).

Went to see Star Trek last Friday. I had high hopes for it because the last two films were terrible and there have been lots of positive reviews, sadly I was disappointed (no spoilers below).

It started off well, as usual the cinema was empty (I don’t know how it makes money) and there were only two people other than me and my friend watching the film. The opening sequence was good and the first part was fine, nice character development and gradually building a story. At this point things were looking up.

But once the ships leave Earth it unfortunately stops being Star Trek and becomes a space shoot-em-up with a flimsy plot. I like action movies and it’s probably why this film is popular but in my opinion Star Trek is more intellectual, it’s supposed to be fun and full of action but there’s a strong, sometimes thought-provoking plot behind it. I think they tried to cram too much in, it might have been better if they’d done a whole film on the crew progressing through the academy and then moved on to the Enterprise in the future.

Also there is a lot of ridiculous stuff going on. Obviously there are always going to be plot holes because it’s a fantasy universe but some of the plot developments seem to have been thrown in because it was the only way to get it to work (*** on the planet meeting *** for example, what a coincidence). I also didn’t like the relationship between *** and ***, I understand why they went that route but again it doesn’t feel right. And the scene with Scotty and the water would have been more suited to a parody like Galaxy Quest.

There were some good points. Bones was awesome and the film is a huge success, which at least means the franchise will live on. And maybe that’s more important than whether I enjoyed the film or not, the needs of the many and all that.

Anyway if anyone else has seen it then let me know what you think in the discussion thread (use spoiler tags if necessary please).

Another plus point is it’s got me looking up old Star Trek episodes on Youtube, here are some links:

Great episode - this is a two-part episode from Star Trek: Enterprise season 4, based on the Mirror universe first discovered in TOS episode “Mirror, Mirror”. I haven’t seen much of Enterprise but this is now one of my favourite Star Trek episodes, which I guess is a bit hypocritical considering I just criticised the new film for being un-Trek like. In any case the intro in particular is very clever and worth watching.

Classic fight - from TOS… try and guess what fight scene this is before clicking.

Star Trekkin’ - how could I almost forget this!

I’ll do another update soon, until then… live long and prosper.

In some ways Sunday was a success. As tournament regulars will know it’s very easy to have a losing day and I ended up with a four figure profit. Considering I don’t have a ton of tournament experience I think I played pretty well. Obviously I ran well to end up in profit but my tournament game seems to be improving quickly, partly due to solo studying and partly due to spending so much time watching Bas. Surprisingly I also coped well with playing eleven hours with barely any breaks, I felt tired afterwards but that’s probably because by the time I was done it was already light outside!

But in other ways I can’t help thinking it could have been better. I have a good idea of how bad it’s possible to run in tournaments and this motivates me to make the most of any opportunities I get when things are going my way. It’s said that what separates great players from good players is how much they lose when they run bad, but I think in tournaments the opposite is true because of how the prize pool is weighted. One of my biggest fears of tournaments is I don’t make the most of “run good” and then I’ll go on a downswing and lose a load of money. I know this isn’t exactly how it works but I hope you understand what I mean. You don’t get many chances to win Sunday Majors and after getting deep in two it’s a pity I couldn’t do a little better.

When I feel like I’ve played my best then it doesn’t bother me, for example I finished ~80th in the Sunday Brawl and off the top of my head no hands stand out as ones I should have done better on. Even if you get deep you still need a lot of luck to get any further, and as long as I gave it my best shot then that’s all I can I do. But there are some hands from Sunday 500 that stick in my mind as hands where I might not have got max value. Here are three of them:

Hand 1 - I’m not sure about this one. Of course I’m jizzing in my pants when he raises but when I think about it now his raise looks like he’s “finding out where he is” with his pocket pair and flatting and trying to stack him on a later street might have more merit. I’m probably being a bit results-orientated because he didn’t stack off and because he did the same thing again later, information I didn’t have at the time.

Hand 2 - At this point I had a tight image and probably should have flatted the open raise from UTG. I believe UTG is a very good tournament player so his range is likely wider than most and with my image he may not be calling a jam lightly, plus he won’t auto-put me on AA/KK like he might if a known tournament player flatted here. Also the HJ (who I’ve played a lot of $200NL cash games with) tanked for ages which makes me think he folded something like AQ or TT, while if I flatted he would probably have jammed over the top.

Hand 3 - This has been discussed in the forum. I think it’s marginal either way and being the exit hand it’s the one you’re more likely to doubt yourself afterwards.

I’m probably just being overly critical, I think for a couple of the hands I was just unlucky in that people didn’t stack off when on another day they would. Hopefully I can use the experience I’ve gained and make the most of my next opportunity. This was the first time I’ve played a $500 tournament and the first time I’ve properly grinded Sunday and I’m considering doing this more often going forward. I know it will normally be a frustrating experience and the variance is a killer but there’s a lot of value in these tournaments and the cash games tend to suck on Sunday evenings so it might be worthwhile. We will see.

I will talk more about how my cash games have gone and other stuff soon. The last thing I want to mention is Lance Armstrong’s autobiography which I read recently. Unlike most autobiographies there aren’t that many anecdotes in there, for example it’s not like Ian Botham’s which is full of adventures and funny incidents. What stands out for me about Lance’s book is how single-minded and dedicated he is to being a success and how hard he had to work for his achievements. He also talks a lot about his illness, treatment and recovery, and the effect it’s had on his life. I’ve found it very motivating and would recommend it.

In the last entry I came to the conclusion that my break-even run of 60k hands was probably due to variance. After extending the run to 75k hands the inconvenient truth is I no longer have the ability to beat $200NL. Regardless of the stats being similar over a good and bad period I don’t think variance can cause a graph like mine, being bad at poker causes it. I have no idea why it’s happened but the fact is I have gone from being one of the top winners at $200NL to being an FPP pro and there is no point continuing.

This is the biggest test to my game I have faced for over a year and it’s hard to deal with. Running bad is not pleasant but at least you know things will turn around, you just have to put in the volume and avoid tilting. With this situation there is no guarantee things will turn around, there’s a possibility I will never be able to beat this level again. That might sound like an over-reaction but I honestly do not know what I should be doing differently and it’s so frustrating, this is what I feel like when thinking about the last 75k hands.

And as I’m writing this I just donk out of the $20 1r1a because I’m an imbecile. I play really well for four hours, get into the money, and then do this. Looking at it in a vacuum it might be ok but for a couple of reasons I was 100% sure on the flop villain had Kx and then I not only bet the turn but also manage to stack off. I have no idea why I did it and it’s a total waste.

Time for a break.

So things haven’t exactly gone to plan since the last update. For over a month now (60k hands) my red line has been dropping sharply, FGators-style, and the amount I’ve won over this time is nowhere near what I’ve been used to winning. On reviewing my sessions I couldn’t see many spots to improve on, yet the decrease in non-showdown winnings seemed too much to just be variance. Just a minute ago I went through a load of stats comparing February (a good month) and April (a mediocre month) to see if I could spot something. I was expecting maybe to be c-betting too much on the flop, not c-betting enough on the turn or perhaps playing too many hands out of position. Instead I found something surprising - the stats are near identical! Although this is not conclusive proof that I’m still playing the same I think it goes some way to show that I haven’t suddenly turned into FGators overnight. I’ll keep a close eye on how things go over the next few weeks but maybe I don’t need to worry as much as I have been, I’ve been getting wound up by bad sessions recently and that’s not productive or healthy (for me or for the computer equipment).

Ok now on to the non-poker stuff. A Red Dwarf three part special aired a couple of weeks ago and unfortunately it was terrible. If you’re a fan and haven’t seen it yet, do not watch it, it’s worse than you could possibly imagine.

On the other hand I’ve really enjoyed “Lost”. Bas was pestering me for ages to watch it and when I had a few days off work I decided to spend it watching the first couple of seasons. Since then I’ve managed to finish season three and four as well and it just keeps delivering. As well as having an entertaining storyline it’s also interesting seeing how the characters develop and how the interactions change as the story unfolds. Check it out if you haven’t already.

I’ve booked the last four ACCA exams for the start of June so I’ve been putting in some hours studying. I’ve done one and a half books so far and am hoping to finish the other two in the next couple of weeks, giving me about a month to revise. It’s going to be tough but I’m confident I can get it done.

Finally here are some links you might find interesting:

Don’t Talk To Cops (part 1, part 2) – quite lengthy but worth watching. A lawyer and a cop explain why you should be wary when speaking to cops, even if you’re innocent or not involved in their investigation.

The Banker – an interesting article about what Andy Beal has been up to, the mathematician/businessman who challenged the best poker players to extremely high stakes LHE a few years back.

Bond18’s blog – Tony “Bond18” Dunst goes around the world again, this time for 150 days.

I should be doing another entry shortly, until then…

So the first two months of this year have gone nicely, as you may have seen from the graphs on the forum I’ve played a decent number of hands and made some money. I’m really pleased with how things have gone, I’ve been playing very consistently and can’t remember too many obvious mistakes, spews or tilts. There have been some but even those have not been terrible, for example this one. I think it is a mistake, however I still had some equity after the shove and against this player I think the metagame aspects might actually outweigh the cost of that individual hand. For example I got paid off in this hand where he tanked both turn and river. I don’t know why he was tanking because it seems an easy B/C or CRAI on the turn but if he was considering folding then maybe the image helped, who knows.

This month I have a few mini-goals I want to achieve in March and I will talk about two of them here. The first is I need to read through two ACCA books in preparation for June. Unfortunately I got 47 and 49 on my last tests (50 is the pass mark) so if I want to finish my exams this June I need to do the maximum of four exams. I also want to have my first 100k hand month of poker and hopefully play something like 120k hands if I’m running well. It’s going to be tough but if I work hard and make the most of my spare time then I think it’s doable.

I’ve been reading some poker books recently and all three have been pretty good. I finished Zen and the Art of Poker which has a mixture of good and bad advice, I took some things from it but I don’t think it’s a must-have for the collection and for beginners would probably do more harm than good due to the hit and miss nature of it’s contents. The other two I haven’t finished yet but from what I’ve read they seem like decent books. The Poker Mindset seems to be a bit more “orthodox” than the Zen book so it’s probably better for the majority of people. I’ve also been reading the Full Tilt Strategy Guide and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of advice. As I expected the first couple of chapters by Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson are extremely good but even the chapters by “less fundamentally sound” players such as Ted Forrest and Gavin Smith have some good points in them.

I’ll end with some random links that I’ve come across in the last couple of weeks.

Deuce Plays - I’m a regular listener but this week’s episode with Tommy Angelo is especially good and worth checking out.

Radio 4 - Friday Night Comedy - Discovered this on ITunes a few weeks ago and decided to give it a go, very funny.

TR from Cambodia - What do you like to do when you go on holiday? Go hiking? See the sights? Party? This person decided he’d try out some military-level weaponry.

Fire in the hole! - From the above thread (this is some random person though). Oops…

And finally, thanks to the 2+2 pokercast who alerted me to this gem. Skip to 4.30 in this video.

I’ve decided to get the blog going again after a break. Normal service will be resumed shortly, until then I’ve just got a couple of things to share with you. Here is a verse from a poem I came across recently, it wasn’t written about poker but I think it’s quite appropriate.

“Do you wilt and whine, if you fail to win
In the manner you think your due?
Do you sneer at the man in case that he can
And does, do better than you?
Do you take your rebuffs with a knowing grin?
Do you laugh tho’ you pull up lame?
Does your faith hold true when the whole world’s blue?
How are you playing the game?”

And here is a song that JP first linked me to on the EMS forums, so funny.

I was going to write this blog on Sunday morning and talk about how last week had gone badly poker-wise. It’s still not been great but thanks to some good sessions Sunday the recovery has started.

So before Sunday I had been on a minor downswing and I could tell my play was beginning to suffer. There was only one tilt hand that really stuck in my mind but I was finding it difficult to keep my mind clear because my brain felt “foggy”. I rarely play sessions longer than two hours but Saturday I couldn’t even manage 30 minutes before I was having to quit.

I guessed that the main reason I was feeling this way was my lack of fitness catching up with me, one of my goals for the New Year was to improve my fitness but I hadn’t got around to it yet. So I decided to go for a run Saturday evening despite the rain and felt a lot more alert and positive afterwards (if you read my blog regularly this should sound familiar). Considering how much better I felt playing Sunday I now realise it’s crucial I get regular exercise if I want to achieve my goals this year.

I played some more poker today but it didn’t go well, I finished break-even but I played terribly and cost myself at least $400. I kept making bad decisions for no reason and it was so frustrating. I won’t be playing any poker over the next four days so it will be a good opportunity to go running and get ready for the weekend grind. I am also aiming to read 10-12 chapters of my ACCA book so I’ll have plenty to keep myself occupied.

I’ve seen a few more films recently. Friday night I watched a film out of my Steven Seagal boxset, Executive Decision. For those who have seen the film you will understand why this is a strange choice for the boxset but whatever, maybe they just ran out of good Steven Seagal films and decided to put a quality one in there. I also watched Cloverfield which was a bit short but very impressive, it was so good I watched it again. I also saw Snakes on a Plane for the first time! The film was as I expected, mediocre but saved by Samuel L Jackson (and Kenan ldo).

Also watched a fantastic game between Pompey and Spurs at the weekend. It was end-to-end stuff and when Nugent smacked it in from distance I couldn’t contain my excitement, normally I’m quite calm but it was such a sweet hit and I badly wanted us to win the game. Unfortunately the poison dwarf Defoe equalised but it was a good point and one of our better performances for a while.

The Baltimore Ravens failed to beat the Steelers so my NFL team just missed out on the Superbowl this year. Despite a gritty performance and some excellent individual performances (Ray Lewis as always) the Steelers were the better team and deserved to go through. Still a great achievement to get this far with a rookie coach and QB and hopefully next season we’ll come back stronger, these two games have reminded me what I’ve been missing and I’ll try harder to watch more games next season. Even though the Ravens are out I’m looking forward to the Superbowl, it’s an amazing achievement for the Cardinals to get there and I hope they can provide some competition for the Steelers.

I will leave you with the solo of a song I am listening to at least once a day at the moment. When I first got this CD I kept skipping this song because it’s so slow but it’s grown on me and I love the solo. Here is some guy in a mask playing it.

Have a great week!

Welcome to the first blog entry of 2009!

So far the start of the year has been similar to the end of last year. I’ve played 30k hands so far this month, I was hoping for more but I guess it’s not bad. My results are good although kinda funny as I’m break-even (hello FPP’s) over 26k hands of $200NL and $400NL and the other 4k hands I’ve run hot at $600NL and $1kNL. I also played some $2kNL but didn’t feel totally comfortable once some regs joined so left after one orbit for $0 profit. Although I’ve made some minor mistakes overall I’m happy with my play and progress so it’s just a case of putting in the volume and hopefully running a bit better at those lower levels.

Last Wednesday was my birthday so I am now 23. Even though it sounds kinda old and grown-up I don’t feel much different from three or four years ago, whether that is a good thing or not I don’t know! I didn’t feel like doing anything special for my birthday and instead just had a quiet evening and played ~3k hands of poker. I lost six buy-ins but after playing a quick session before bed recovered 4.5 of them, ending the day -$300 (I guess sometimes I do run good when playing short sessions). Presents-wise I received a new electric shaver from family, a nice shirt from a friend at work and a sweet Baltimore Ravens hoodie from my grandparents. On the subject of the Ravens, they are one game away from the Superbowl after somehow beating the Titans 13-10 yesterday (hahaha Bas). It was the first NFL game I’ve watched this season and even though it was a scrappy game I really enjoyed it, I do enjoy NFL but just haven’t got around to watching the games. Maybe next season.

I’ve watched half of the films in my Steven Seagal collection and enjoyed three out of the four. I started with Under Siege and Under Siege 2, followed them with Nico - Above the Law and the last one I’ve seen is Out for Justice (which was a bit meh). In particular I really enjoyed both Under Siege films, plenty of action and Casey f***ing Ryback kicks ass. I’ve also read The Diceman and it’s sequel, The Search for the Diceman. They are the strangest books I’ve read but also two of the most thought provoking. The story is of a bored psychiatrist who starts making decisions based on the roll of a die and ends up letting it control his life, leading to increasingly outrageous situations. The books are regarded as cult classics and I’d recommend them.

Work has been interesting recently and not in a good way. Out of the blue right before leaving on Friday one of my friends was made redundant. I went into the kitchen at 4.45pm to wash my cup and when I came back at 4.50pm he was packing up his stuff. He took it ok but it was a shock to everyone, although the company has made some cutbacks recently we were completely unaware our department was going to be trimmed, even his manager had no idea until it happened. It’s going to be interesting to see how everyone reacts this week as we have no idea if this was a one-off or just the start so I think 2/3rds of the office will be looking over their shoulder Monday.

Because of this we ended up going out Friday evening for a few drinks to commiserate/for him to get absolutely plastered. We started off straight after work at a pub by the river, I then went home to get something to eat and get changed and then met up with them at a pub on the other side of town. I actually couldn’t find the place which is a bit embarrassing, in my defence I had never been there before and had only walked past it a few times in the daytime and I’m not very good with directions. We then trekked all the way back to the river to stop at another pub and meet up with a bunch of people from work who had had a company meal. It was good to spend some time with work colleagues/friends and the redundant guy was in a cheerful mood so it was worth doing and we all had fun.

Anyway that’s what I’ve been up to, hope you’ve all had a good weekend and are ready to get back to the grindstone tomorrow morning. Work, work, money made.

I’m a firm believer that “those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it”. As I mentioned in my last blog I’m currently reading An Impartial History of Britain and it’s amazing how past mistakes are being repeated by Governments and leaders all around the world. But that’s a subject for another day, the point is that looking back in retrospect is an important part of learning from your mistakes and improving your decision-making going forward in life. This applies to poker as well and is one of the reasons I am going to write about my year. Hopefully by looking back and remembering everything I’ve done I can take the good points into the New Year, while remembering not to repeat the mistakes I made along the way.

That’s the theory anyway, let’s get stuck in!

In the beginning there was… nothing?

2007 was a good start to my poker career, I made decent progress, ran good and thus had some nice results and an extra bit of money in the bank. I made this post at the end of the year and was full of optimism for the future. Little did I know that my first proper downswing was around the corner and that my poker growth would grind to a halt.

At the start of the year I was playing $100NL and $200NL on Full Tilt. Looking back I think I was a marginal winner at these levels and although I’ve always been well within my bankroll, I wasn’t prepared for an extended break-even/downswing period and it did affect my play quite badly in the first quarter of 2008. I was too results-orientated and was constantly over-adjusting, for example if a normally tight player 3-bet me a few times then I’d start calling lighter, while now I would realise he was just running hot and I should probably make little adjustment.

I’d also worry about how much money I was making. At one point I’d played 66 hours for ~$100 and it would anger me making me think I was wasting my time. I missed out on a good chance to win $10k when I lost this hand here. Several times I threatened to quit poker. Again this was being results-orientated but also it was down to a lack of confidence. I did not have a significant sample of being a winning poker player and the doubts only served to increase my results-orientated thinking. A new low point came on April 17th with me lighting my Full Tilt roll on fire in HU. It’s the only time I’ve ever had a full blown monkey-tilt episode, I just sat there constantly betting pot and typing obscene language in the chat box. I didn’t reveal the amount at the time in my blog entry but I’ll tell you now it was about $600-800.

Although I was disappointed with myself at the time, I think in my heart I knew it was one of those bad experiences that would eventually turn into a positive. I haven’t monkey-tilted since and as long as I don’t forget, I won’t repeat it. And even though I’m obviously not proud of my behaviour, I do find it pretty funny to think back to how I felt at the time.

Even though this was quite a low point, the downward spiral hadn’t finished yet. I would say this blog entry marks the low point. But instead of taking a break like planned I decided to do a challenge, really focusing on my decisions. While I believe I played ok during this time I didn’t make any money and decided I needed to be playing on a site with rakeback. But with most networks cheating you, taking your bankroll or having crap software there was nowhere to go. And that’s when I decided to follow Bas’ suggestion and convert to Pokerstars.

It’s Getting Better Man!

Almost every blog entry in March and April ended with how I was going to take a break from poker. I never did take that break, not because I’m a gambling addict but because I believed in myself. I saw Bas and others making money from poker and still believed I could do the same. I’d made a lot of progress in 2007 but at the start of 2008 I seemed to be stuck in a rut, unable to win and not seeming to get any better. I knew I had room for improvement, I just couldn’t work out how.

I started spending more time on 2+2 and my game took off. I’d been looking at 2+2 for several months but it was only now I really “got” it, only now I started picking up new tricks and ideas. I also started running better and these combined factors led to an excellent month at Stars $100NL. Although I was a loser on Stars in June, I won on other sites and was definitely back in business. I also played live for the first time at the Virgin Festival in Nottingham and you can read the report here.

In July I went back to running bad and had a losing month, including a terrible run on double VPP weekend. However by this time I was much stronger emotionally and even though it sucked I continued to play well and avoid tilting. This would be my last bad month of the year as from August onwards not only would I win, I’d win bigger than before.

In August I ran hot and made close to double figures for the first time, playing on various sites and a mixture of 6-max and HU. It was around here that I finally started playing properly HU and winning money. In the past I had been too impatient, playing too many hands pre-flop and then giving up too many pots post-flop. I learnt to play a more disciplined game and playing against some terrible players managed to make some nice money. I also played FTOPS for the first time, albeit without success.

Over the next few months I continued along the same lines, playing similar games and winning a similar amount. I made no huge improvements but just kept taking small steps, gradually playing better poker, playing more hands, playing more consistently. Nothing exciting happened but this was a great period for me because I was running better, playing better and consistently making money. This continued until the end of November when I made the step up to bigger games.

Whenever I’d moved up limits in the past I’d actually play better than normal because I was really focused, I’d be nervous and desperate not to make a mistake that would cost me twice as much as normal. This time was different. There were no nerves but I still had that focus, and apart from having to use a calculator for bet sizing it didn’t feel much different to normal. Even though I lost at the very start it did not affect me negatively, I had become desensitised to the money and my decision-orientated mindset kept me focused on decisions rather than results.

Which brings us to the last month of the year. I wasn’t expecting much from December because the last few months had gone so well and I had exams to revise for, yet in the end I played more hands, higher stakes and won more money than in any previous month. My play was of better quality and more consistency than at any other time in my poker career, despite putting in almost twice my highest previous volume. It was a fantastic month and the massive heater over the Christmas period was the perfect way to end the year.

I don’t have a full graph for 2008 for several reasons, so instead I’ll just show you my Stars graph since I started there in May. I don’t know exactly how much I’ve won this year but this graph is missing Jan-Apr profit, rakeback, tournament wins and money won on Euro sites so maybe add $25-30k to it. The biggest pot I won is here and the biggest pot lost is here.

The Future is in the Future

So what will 2009 have in store for me?

Well obviously it’s impossible to tell!

I wrote down some goals in my previous blog entry that I hope to achieve by the end of the year. I also want to continue putting the hands in, making more money and continue improving as a player. Apart from that it’s out of my control and I’ll just have to see how it goes and adapt as the year develops.

I’ve really enjoyed looking back at 2008 and then writing this summary. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it, if you have any comments or questions then please add them here. Thanks for reading!