December 2010 Review

Bye Bye 2010.

December has been a relaxing month with minimal poker play.

The month commenced with a 2 day trip to Paris. On my return I became sick for about 2 weeks which pretty much set this month up as a low volume episode.

I played exclusively at NL100 with the only variations being Euro tables mixed in with Pot Limit and No Limit. My play was pretty bad and I estimate this months spew at around $300.

I ran the volume pool on 2+2 this month even though i decided not to participate. Its good to be involved in the poker community away from the tables and to make a contribution. I may run the pool again on another occasion if the guys thought i did a good job.

I managed to cash again in the Turbo Takedown and also received a nice repeat cash bonus


The final numbers for December are as follows:

26,000 Hands Played
6,588 VPPs

-$14 (Cash Game Losses)
+$33 (Tourney Winnings)
+$100 (TT Repeat Cash Bonus)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
+$119 (Total Month)


The Full Year numbers as at the end of December are as follows:

206,606 VPPs

+$5,745 - Jan*
+$3,385 - Feb*
+$467 - Mar*
+$1,620 - Apr*
+$1,234 - May*
-$1,555 - June
-$360 - July
+$1,208 - Aug
+$1,198 - Sept
+$1,974 - Oct
+$4,442 - Nov
+$119 - Dec
--------------------------------------------------------------------
+$19,477 (Total YTD)

* indicates winnings attained as a part-time player


One of my targets for this month was to play a full day as I would need to for the SNE chase. I did not manage to do that due to being ill and laziness.
I did however trial 3hr sessions, which will be the maximum chunk that i will do in any given session. I plan to do 3x 2.5-3hr sessions per day with breaks in between from Jan 1st. I have to say that they were quite comfortable and manageable. Each session I trialed was playing 24 tables. I played 26 in one session.

Its been very interesting to see the guys finishing up their SNE chases on the forums. Some of the graphs that I have seen on PTR have been scary to say the least. I have seen 2 players with $35k downswings at NL100/ NL200 over 2-3 months as they desperately go after VPPs.

I am really looking forward to going for SNE next year and wonder what will happen in Jan/ Feb as this will dictate whether I really go for it from 1st March or whether I re-evaluate my goals

The summary of the year was as follows: began the year on a heater from Dec 2009. This continued into Jan where I had my best month ever, bagging just under $6k. I played on FTP as well as Stars in Dec 09/ Jan 10.

My run good continued into Feb. In March I went on a 2wk holiday and the month was pretty relaxed. I picked up the volume in Apr and also decided to play for a living. I resigned from my job and was allowed to leave at the end of May while still being paid till the end of July. This gave me the opportunity of dual incomes for 2 months.

The worst possible thing happened in June when I went on a mega bad beat downswing having my 1st losing month in well over a year. This continued into the following month and I decided to take it easy last 2wks of July before I dropped down to NL50 to work on my game. I improved and made money in Aug, Sept, Oct and Nov.

I made close to $20k in the year which is not bad but also not good enough for 2011. The minimum I need to make me Happy next year would be $60,000.
Now all that's left this year is a nice NYE celebration
Happy New Yr to All....!!

Playing Your A-Game

Merry Xmas to All

It's always my aim to be playing my A-Game when I hit the tables at Pokerstars as is the same I'm sure for u guys. Often it doesn't happen for whatever reason.

Here is a chart from Baz Clark (bazclark.com) depicting factors that influence whether u will play well or not:

10 Inches of SNOW................

Its the perfect weather for staying in and Grinding Online Poker..!!

It hit a chilling -4 Degrees °C in my part of London yesterday with -6 forecast for tonight. It rarely reaches these kind of temperatures in London so time to wrap up warm. Today we have 25cm or 10 inches of snow, so plenty of ammunition for some hefty snow balls

Glad I don't live in Siberia though. This would probably be considered a nice warm day. The coldest town on earth is in Siberia and has recorded a temp of -71.2 °C as its lowest ever!

The lowest temperature ever recorded at the surface of the Earth was −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F; 184 K) at the Russian Vostok Station in Antarctica July 21, 1983

With all this coldness going on, here are a few photos of London under snow:

Enjoy...!!

December Mid Month Review

This may well be one of the shortest blog posts that I have made ever. To sum up December so far:

-Went to Paris for 2 Days
-Got ill in the sub-zero weather
-Still ill
-Played virtually no Poker
-Decided that December will be a Chillax Month before I commence my SNE Chase

I am fully back at NL100 now although all my sessions have been 10Tabling and not 24. I have one goal for the rest of the month now, that is too trial a few days as will be the norm next year.... i.e I will 24Table NL100 for 8hrs and see how i find it. I have already done this a few times at NL50 in Nov, so won't be much of a shocker in terms of volume. It will however be interesting to see what I win/ lose in each session and over the course of a day


The numbers for December so far are as follows:

6,000 Hands Played
1,500 VPPs

-$189 (Cash Game Losses)
-$82 (Tourney Losses)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
-$271 (Total Month)

Paris Trip and Aftermath

On December 1st my girlfriend and I went to Paris for 2 days and 1 night via the Eurostar High Speed Train. This was the first time I had visited Paris and also France, so I was pretty excited.

Unfortunately it was also bang in the middle of the Big Freeze. A town in the UK had hit -20c during the week and Paris was also sub-zero. I hate the cold.!!

I wrapped up warm and we managed to see many sites including:

1. Eiffel Tower

2. Arc de Triomphe

3. Champs Elysees

4. Place de la Concorde

5. The Big Wheel

6. Moulin Rouge

7. Lovure Art Gallery

8. Notre Dame

plus more....

As u can see from the pic I managed to touch the top of la tour Eiffel.

All our site seeing was in -2c of cold and constant light snow. The weather also played havoc with our Eurostar Train which took 8hrs instead of 2.5hrs to get us back to London... Raaarrrr. They have offered us a free return ticket and refunds of taxi fares as compensation. All in all a memorable trip though. Have to go again during a summer break.

Since I got back I immediately came down with the man flu and have been unable play any serious volume on the felt. Only today I am starting to feel better but still only 85%. Hopefully tomorrow I should be close to 100%.

I have now moved back up to NL100 and just trolling the lobby shows a completely different picture to NL50.... less fish, less average players, more above average players, more solid pros and more 'Red Ringed' Elite pros.... All in all a tougher playing field.

I have played terrible too and am so far down around -$350 in less than 5000 hands. Hope I can turn that around before Mid Month. I did say that I would have an easy month before I start an SNE chase in Jan. So this month i will just target a $1,500 bonus + Break Even on the tables.

There is a lot of talk about legislation soon to hit the U.S that will affect poker, maybe within the month. This could completely change my goals for next year. Will just have to wait n see.

November 2010 Review

Month 11 complete and as usual its seems to be over in a flash. When I was a kid someone once told me that the older you get the faster time seems to elapse.... tru dat...

I will be having today off from the felt to relax and to pack as I am of to Paris tomorrow for a 2 Day Break. It will be my first visit and hopefully not covered in snow as is in the UK

At mid month I was up just under $500 in table winnings. That was soon boosted and i went on a mini heater for the next week and peaked at just below $2k winnings. The doomswitch was then activated, followed by the spew button and I went on to lose about half my winnings over the course of the month.

A few months back I talked about certain books I was reading to improve my game. I am still ploughing through these and that will be a large part of December's target to complete them.

I was one of the first to complete the volume pool on 2+2. I could have entered a higher pool as my results below will show but as it was my first time I was being somewhat cautious particularly because of an Internet downtime incident in the month. The final results are yet to be determined but there is already 1 confirmed fail in my group, so I will get at least $25.

My HEM graph shows that I have won this month at above AIEV but on the tables I feel around even. I suppose you remember the bad beats more than the suck outs. This months spew estimate is around $500.

I managed to get 653rd out of 18394 runners in the Turbo Takedown Tourney for a $200 cash. I like this tournament and play every month. Hopefully I can get the repeat cash bonus next month. I was also sat with a team pro for the first time ever in a Tourney. I will try and get the Bounty next month if it happens again.


The final numbers for November are as follows:

140,000 Hands Played
22,000 VPPs

+$844 (Cash Game Winnings)
+$145 (Tourney Winnings)
+$53 (Volume Pool Winnings)
+$3,400 (200k VPP Milestone Bonus)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
+$4,442 (Total Month)


The YTD numbers as at the end of November are as follows:

200,018 VPPs

+$5,745 - Jan*
+$3,385 - Feb*
+$467 - Mar*
+$1,620 - Apr*
+$1,234 - May*
-$1,555 - June
-$360 - July
+$1,208 - Aug
+$1,198 - Sept
+$1,974 - Oct
+$4,442 - Nov
--------------------------------------------------------------------
+$19,358 (Total YTD)

* indicates winnings attained as a part-time player

December will be pretty relaxed before I commence my SNE challenge for 2011. I will be moving back to NL100 and maybe throw in a few NL200 tables too. I will also as usual work on developing my game further

Away from the tables I was lucky enough to go on a memorable trip. I have been a big Liverpool FC fan for over 25yrs but never had the chance to visit the club's home ground. 5 of us went down there this month and saw an excellent match vs West Ham United with Liverpool Destroying them 3-0. Here is a brief clip that I took of the Anfield Anthem, You'll Never Walk Alone:




GL All.........

R

Brick Lane

Brick Lane is a street in the East End of London. It runs from Swanfield Street in the northern part of Bethnal Green, crosses Bethnal Green Road, passes through Spitalfields and is linked to Whitechapel High Street to the south by the short stretch of Osborn Street.

Today, it is the heart of the city's Bangladeshi community and is known to some as Banglatown. It is famous for its many curry houses.

Yesterday I visited this famous street in London for the first time an enjoyed a nice curry. You can walk the entire length of Brick Lane in about 10 minutes.

Winding through fields, the street was formerly called Whitechapel Lane but derives its current name from former brick and tile manufacture. By the 17th century, the street was being built up from the south. Successive waves of immigration began with Huguenot refugees spreading from Spitalfields, where the master weavers were based, in the 17th century. They were followed by Irish, Ashkenazi Jews and, in the last century, Bangladeshis. The area became a centre for weaving, tailoring and the clothing industry, due to the abundance of semi- and unskilled immigrant labour.

In the 20th century the Brick Lane area was important in the second wave of development of Anglo-Indian cuisine, as families from countries such as Bangladesh (mainly the Greater Sylhet region) migrated to London to look for work. More recently the area has also broadened to being a vibrant art and fashion student area, with considerable exhibition space. Each year most of the fine art and fashion courses exhibit their work near Brick Lane.

November Mid Month Review

It was Round 3 yesterday when David Haye decided to turn it on and dispatch Fraudley Harrison in style! Something to do with the fact that he had bet on himself to win in this round.... hmmm... controversial to say the least but he is the most exciting heavyweight around, so we forgive him his dodgyness .

I hope the fight with one or both Klitschkos can be made in 2011 before he hangs up the gloves. All the best to the Hayemaker... Bring it home!!

Clips are now available on YouTube.

It's the 15th of November already, mid month and i have been busy grinding my butt off at NL50 with lil NL100 thrown in for fun.

The month looks like this:

For the first ever i joined the volume pools on the 2+2 forum. These basically work as follows; you say how many hands you think you can do in a specific month, then you attempt to play them. The minimum level is NL50. Anyone who fails their pool forfeits the cost to the successful players. More details available through the link

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/96/small-stakes-full-ring/stars-november-volume-thread-909025/

The pools are: 50k, 75k, 100k, 150k, 200k and 300k. You can join a maximum of 2 pools and it costs: $250, $350, $500, $750, $1k and $2k respectively to enter. I entered the 50k and 75k pools which will cost $600 in total if I fail.

The numbers for November so far are as follows:

67,000 Hands Played
10,000 VPPs

+$515 (Cash Game Winnings)
-$55 (Tourney Loses)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
+$460 (Total Month)

9 Milla

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to win $9m....? Well i must admit i have wondered often about having just $1m but never $9m. Someone who won't be wondering is Johnathan Duhamel, a 23yr old from Canada who on Monday scooped the WSOP 2010 Main Event Title and with it the second biggest payday ever in poker history. Entering the November nine as chip leader he played solid, considered poker and held out to crack his opponents K8s with his AJo shove. One Tourni and he is set.... Prior to this his career earnings in 4yrs were less than $100k. Poker can change your life.... All the best to Duhamel....

Here is the winning clip:

October 2010 Review

Well I have just been dumped out of the Turbo Takedown and missed the cash by a few spots. I picked up KQs in the Cut-Off and pushed after they all folded to me. I could have folded and hung on for 1 more orbit and picked up the $78 min cash, but hey I was in it to win it..!! Anyway the SB called with 88 and it held up.

This Tourni has such a bad structure and its not long before it turns into a all-in shove fest. Its fun though and with the 3000 FPP buy-in it attracts over 20,000 entrants. I do enjoy playing it and will go for it again next month....

So, October is done and its time to review.

The main thing to take place this month is my grind set-up. I have a new PC which does not lag at all and have a better room to play poker. I also have a new chair as detailed in my last post.

This last week I decided to make a change to my table set-up. I am now playing 24 Tables instead of 20. The trial has gone well and even though i find the intensity pretty tough sometimes i see the benefit in terms of an SNE chase next year.

I carried out some excel analysis a while back which tells me that over a course of a year you would have to grind 8hrs a day with 20Tables of NL100 to hit SNE. If you bump that up to 24Tables the equation becomes 6.5hrs which is much more appealing. Also if i split it between 18x NL100 and 6x NL200 i should get there no probs. Now i just gotta figure out how to play poker... lol

The second half of the month was disastrous in terms of run-bad.... not quite as bad as June but there were so many occasions when i got all the money in good on the flop or turn only to have a vicious bad beat inflicted on me by the poker gods.

Today, was a great example. It's Session 1 and i find myself in position on a big donk.. I PTR'd him and he was a losing player and i noticed he was very active and playing something like 35/10. He is on the button and raises to 4x, the SB folds and pick up AKs in the BB... so, i raise to 14x... he shoves and i call and he Turns over AKs also and hits his flush.... Raaaaaarrr.. Then, the very next hand i get KK in the SB and all fold to him and he raises to 4x again in the Cut-Off and i raise to 14x as before and he shoves again. I snap call and he turns over ATs and completes a Juicy Full House by the River... So im stacked by a buffoon 2 Hands in a Row. He then starts laughing in the chat box while i am wiping away the tears on my new chair. Man.

I could have easily made a loss this month with my beats but I managed scrape some winnings. If I had run at EV and not Tilt Spewed I would have made winnings in excess of $2k. My Tilting cost me around $400 I reckon.

The final numbers for October are as follows:

128,000 Hands Played
20,000 VPPs

+$575 (Cash Game Winnings)
+$10 (Tourney Winnings)
-$111 (Grinding Chair Investment)
+$1,500 (FPP Cash Bonus)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
+$1,974 (Total Month)

The YTD numbers as at the end of October are as follows:

177,677 VPPs

+$5,745 - Jan*
+$3,385 - Feb*
+$467 - Mar*
+$1,620 - Apr*
+$1,234 - May*
-$1,555 - June
-$360 - July
+$1,208 - Aug
+$1,198 - Sept
+$1,974 - Oct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
+$14,916 (Total YTD)

* indicates winnings attained as a part-time player




My biggest objective for November will be to hit 200k VPPs and pick up the Bonus. This will take my Bankroll to around $7,500 and enable me to go back to NL100

I will be issuing a fun November Challenge for myself, so stay tuned for that one. Lets all have a great November.

So Happy Halloween and GL on the Felt..!!