Shoot for the stars

Been playing on Stars almost exclusively at 50NL Full Ring, only 6 tabling just to get a feel for the site and also only playing when I feel like playing. I don't know why, but there is def something about Stars that makes me tilt less, I am sure I will prob regret that statement later on the year.

Only played about 6k hands this month, but I am over 3 buyins up, so can't complain had a couple of beats too, but overall, nowt to send me on a spunk monkey tilt fest.

In preparation for upping the amount of tables, I downloaded a trial of Table Ninja. It really is one impressive piece of software and I would not play without it any more on stars when multi-tabling, it is worth the $$ alone, just so the active table is under the mouse so you don't have to click twice, which was driving me fooking nuts !!!

The only pain in arse I have is that I can't upgrade to the latest version of HEM, due to an issue I have with .net framework on me Vista PC, its gonna take a rebuild to cure it and frankly I can't be arsed. If I am gonna rebuild it, I will prob go straight to windows 7, but its coming up to 3 years old anyway, do thinking about buying a new one, will prob leave this till I come back from me hols, will def save a lot of hassle being able to build the new one and get it all set up while still being able to use the old one.

Been having a mooch on pokertableratings as well, not sure what to think yet, I am not sure how accurate it is, as I have noticed it has already missed one of the days off when I was two buyins up, which over a sample less than 10k hands, makes a big diff to how you potentially would view a player, so might use it as a very rough guide, but prob not make any stacking off decisions based on the info on there.

Overall enjoying poker again, although this may be due to the fact that I am playing only when I want to at the moment. This will obv change in may when I have to start grinding out prob at least 500vpp a day to get to supernova by the end of the year. I will post my progress weekly on this little challenge from the beginning of May, but as of now, the plan is just to tick over, slowly transfer $$ over to build the roll up on stars ready for the big plunge next year. Made Silver Star this month and should easily get Gold. Hopefully keep Gold during April when I won't be able to play many days, will just have to make sure I get a fair few points in on the few days I can play.

I also think I may of misjudged my calcs for next year, on my last post initially I said my aim would be for SuperNova 500k, looking at the VPP/Hand I am getting at the moment, I think realistically this may have to drop to 300k target unless I can get some big sessions in at 100NL, I guess time will tell.

After seeing Rammstein the other week, it def got me thinking I don't go to enough gigs anymore, used to go to loads. Next on this list is the Foo Fighters, I saw them at the Reading Festival in about 1996, even crowd surfed to them (was a bit lighter in those days !!)

Wish my hair would fooking stay like his instead of looking like some ink dipped hippy !!!

Foo Fighters - Best of of you (Live)

Been Thinking

Brain hurts cos of it. But at last I have come to a decision on what I want to do with poker..........

First of all, nothing is gonna start in anger till May 1st. I am going to spend the next two months sorting out my health and fitness in preparation for what I want to do in the future. Everything I do is now geared around planning for next year.

In short, I have decided to give Stars a real bash, beginning with getting to SuperNova by the end of the year. Gonna build up some VPPs over the next two months, just so I can start May prob at Gold, Get Platinum in May and then go for SuperNova by the end of the year.

I have done some calcs ready for next year and I really believe SuperNova Elite will be beyond me, even if I play 100NL, working full time as well, will just be a bit too much. So my aim for 2011 will be to hit 500,000 VPP, then review from there.

Obviously all of the above depends on my state of mind, as it from what I have seen it can be truly soul destroying when you hit a bad run of variance, and when you are playing that many hands a week, it is gonna hit hard. I def have the bankroll to do it and I have already started moving the funds around, I expect I may even make a loss this year if I don't do anything else, but if I don't cash in any of my FPP's it could be a good year next year if I can stay close to breaking even. Of course the plan is to win at the table as well, but this will be a bonus as no one can play there A game when 20+ tabling.

All may change in the future, but for now this is my plan.

Still well up on the month, found I have lost my patience for MTTs so started to drift back to cash again, lets hope the gods can let my hands hold up for a bit, cos I know then I can crush the levels I play........cough.

Went to see the greatest live band on the planet a couple of weeks ago at the LG arena, 3rd time I have seen them and they were better than ever. If you ever get a change to go and see them, you just have to check them out.

Rammstein.

Short trailer from set



No real decent live footage that has good sound on, so here is just one of there many cool vids.

Part Time Poker

Not played much since my last post, played a fair few MTT's with limited success. Made a few $$ on the Laddies Weekly 2010 Leaderboard race, could of done a lot better in it, but picked a bad week. I was actually leading it by over 100 points after 2 days, but had already got tickets to see Rammstein on the weds night, co couldn't play. Thursdays as you all know is my piss up night (not missing that) but missing two whole days out of the the whole week, was never gonna be good. Also picked up about $280 rakeback from last months play on VC, so overall about $400 up this month, so back in profit for the year....JUST !!!

I have decided I am not going to play much poker at all now until May when I return from my hols. I need to concentrate on my fitness levels and to get my weight down, I really have let meself go lately, I think I need to set some goals to get meself back on track.

On the subject of goals, my enthusiasm does seem to have wained a bit for poker, but my desire to get some serious wonga out the game is still there. Again I think I need to set myself some challenges to keep my interest up. I have seriously been thinking about going for Supernova on stars from May -> December. That would give me approx 8 months to get 100k VPP, I think that this could be pretty achievable and would definitely give me some focus as it would require some proper planning and discipline time wise to get there. I would probably look to do this at 50NL Full Ring, if anyone has any experience of this sort of grind, please feel free to leave some comments or drop me an email.

If all goes well and my game improves to cope with the massive swings the above will take, then I may even consider giving SuperNova Elite a bash, I know I would have to play a minimum of 100NL to get there as it is gonna need an average of 2740 VPP a day, which is some serious grind. I'm really not sure I could dedicate myself for a whole year to get there, but if you could do it and break even at the tables, it could pay a serious wedge of your mortgage, which is something, to me, would make it all worthwhile. Although the wife would prob have a hissy fit at me playing poker for 6-7 hours everyday !!!

But at least it gives me food for thought on where to head.........

Joan Osborne - One of us

All Change

Jan the 1st came and the plans for the year were all laid out. Bankroll aims, table selection, amounts to withdraw on a regular basis etc etc etc......

Jan the 26th and the toys truly went out the pram, a few mad tilt sessions and I had had enough of playing cash. If you are 15 tabling and you start tilting, it can be very expensive very quick.

I ended up withdrawing all of my money out of all sites, except for £200 in laddies and about $75 on stars. I also decided to take out about £1800 out of my bankroll to pay for the spending for the up coming Canada trip in April and pay of the odd other bits of stuff.

So its back basics, back to playing MTTs with maybe the odd 6 seater cash table when there is not much else about.

Yesterday was me first day back at the tables and went ok, played about 8 tournies and made 2 FT's coming 2nd in one and 4th in the other, although the 4th was in a Razz tourney with not that many runners. Also bubbled the FT on an omaha tourney, which was a bit frustrating as I got it all in with AAxx on the flop with the nut flush draw, the fish who called by all in with K6xx for the 2nd nut flush draw hit K and 6 on the turn/river for runner runner two pair, now that is foooking annoying, but c'est la vie. Hopefully tilt will be behind me soon (yes, I have said that before lol) but really gonna try not to let it get to me anymore.

Still not sure where to play me tournies yet, currently mainly playing on lads, but I know the pacific/littlewoods network has some good tournies on there, my m8 Ian took one down for a $12k payday in the last week or so, so they must be shite !!!

The one thing I did do after I had me little tanty snot rage was go back through all the hands etc and to be honest, I really didn't get shafted that much. I only ended 10 buyins down at the tables over about 27k hands, which is not the end of the world really and I have got a fair chunk or rakeback to come back which will cover most of that. I think the main reason for giving it a break is that I really don't want to go a whole year again being a slight losing player and making small change on rakeback, hence the reason to go back to MTTs. I will def be looking to sat into a few of the bigger tourneys and once I have got my roll back up again, start to look at buying in to €20 euro tourneys directly. I have left £3k in my poker savings account which is how I keep my bankroll seperate from my day to day money, and have about £300 online with about another £250 to come back in rakeback this month. Hopefully this will be enough to move forward.

Hopefully as they say on KrackedKings.....Big one coming !!!

New Order - Dreams Never End

Slow Start to the Year

Hellooooooo, the year hasn't started off to great, the days I can be arsed to play I have managed to get a bit of a grind on, played about 14k hands so far this year, but running -ev at the mo, so I am about 2 buyins down, although I am happy with the majority of my play at the moment, so can't really complain.

Not played as many tournies as I would of liked, as I haven't really had the time to sit put aside 6 hours or so to go deep in anything decent, so no news on that really, gotta tidy the house up a bit today, getting a bit lazy on that front, then hopefully try and get 3k hands in over the day and maybe a couple of tournies on the evening.

Speaking of tournies, the Stars World Blogger thingy is up at the end of the month, I have cashed in this a couple of times, so looking forward to playing this again. I would love to play on stars full time, might have to see what it would take to make supernova elite playing 25/50c tables lol, if its possible, might have a bash next year, now that would be a challenge.

Option 1

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 141319

So the first tune of the year is has to be one of my fave artists of all time, he is the godfather of grunge and just probably one of the best live artists out there.

Neil Young - Cortez the Killer

Thats it for 2009

Well, its the final post of 2009 and it was all set to be how bad a year its been at the tables and y worst year since 2005, however December turned all that around. Luckily a few good results on MTT's meant I finished the year $5328.03 in profit, $2600 of this being in December Alone.

I guess on reflection it was a poor year, I finished about 13 buyins down overall on the cash tables in a year where I really thought would be my first +ve. However I can look back over the year and those 13 buyins can be put down to a few sessions where I tilted badly, in fact I did have one day where I lost 13 buyins in one session alone. It just goes to show how over the long term a few bad sessions can really add up and turn you from a losing player to a winning player, every pot and decision really does count at cash, so if like me, you tend to be playing cash in the background while fucking around reading forums and playing Farmville, your $ per hour is really going to suffer. Hopefully this can be addressed in the new year.

I had another small tournament win on laddies, not a big win, but it did take over 5 hours and I believe I played very well and didn't make any mistakes during the whole tourney, sometimes this is more satisfying than winning big $$$, well almost lol.



Tried a few different things on the cash tables this month, even tried a couple of sessions shortstacking on 9 tables. I sat with $10 on $50 10 seater tables playing push poker and some blind stealing at the end of the session I had played 3000 hands and was $135 down looool. It was unreal, variance at its worst. Out of the 20 all in pots I got called on I only one 4 !!! losing 16 of them, worse of all I only got it in bad on about 3 of them, with most being an 80/20 fave getting called by lower pocket pairs which spiked there 2 outers.......So that idea got dropped quite quickly.

I finished the month going back to play 6 max and trying to play an optimum style, I managed to pull back all of the shortstacking losses doing this and finished off the month about a buy in up.

The original plan for next year was for volume, I have been practicing 9 tabling full ring on iPoker for a couple of days, sitting with $30 and seem to be doing ok, but it is still a problem with the shortstackers. Although, looking at the forums, there seems to be quite a few rumours that they will be changing the rakeback method from dealt the contributed, which will change a lot of peoples strategy I guess, but hopefully will make for better tables. The other big change on iPoker is winning players getting banned from playing. Victor Chandler, where I am playing the moment have blocked quite a few of the big winners from playing cash because of a new fine system being imposed by iPoker, which is a complete and utter farce. This even includes losing players who make money by rakeback alone, which in essence is me at the moment, so when I do start to win, it might be shortlived and I will have to start all over again on another skin if I want to play on iPoker, I guess I will see how it goes.

So the new plan is now a mix of volume and quality, alternating from multitabling full ring and playing 2-3 tables of 6 max. I also intend to play a lot more tourneys next year and also trying to sat into the bigger events, especially things like wcoop and ecoop etc. I can't go to vegas this year as where I work we are opening a new hospital in June and it will be chaos, we have even had a 2 week leave ban in the middle of the world cup ffs !!!! that could prove interesting when they try and drag me out the pub. lol

So, my goals for next year are basically to have my first winning year on the cash tables. Hopefully this will make the year my most profitable yet, $10k would be an ideal target overall, but that is what I said last year, but you never know.

Thats if for now, I hate new years eve, so will be staying in with the wife, but I love New Years Day, its like a big broom sweeping all the bad behind and everything ahead is positive. I intend to make it the best year of my life so far, lets hope it is yours too.

Goth

Joy Division - New Dawn Fades

A nice XMAS Bonus

A bit over due, but as you can see by last months graph, I now consider myself a professional rakeback monkey, playing crappy break even poker. Starting the month off well, then just getting in to the old calling station rut, I don't know how many times I have mentioned this leak while blogging, but it is still there, I'm prob losing at least 4 buyins a month just not believing big value bets on the river and paying these people off., this month is almost exactly the same. I do however believe that if I fix this leak, I can be a good winning player at the level I am currently playing at, that along with the rakeback should make for a good year next year. So for the time being the crossroads is straight ahead and carrying on playing the cash tables, I will review this after the first couple of months of next year.


It was a tricky decision, as you see by laddies pic, I have also had my biggest win ever playing MTT's shipping €1500 when I took down the monthly Rake the Rake laddies 5k freeroll. I normally would of been running around the room like a chimp on acid, but I was feeling really ill, so when my AA stood up post flop all when heads up, I thought, oh a win, thats nice !!!!!

To be fair, I did get a bit lucky, as when we were down to the last 5, I shoved from the cut off on a steal while fairly short stacked with 10 7 os and got called by QQ, the flop was a total miss leaving almost drawing dead, then the miracle 7 on the turn and the 7 on the river kept me alive, I think once after that suckout my name was on it.

The win saved my year to be fair, taking my winnings to over $5k for the year, which I thought I had no chance of achieving, I guess it just shows that I still need to keep playing the odd MTT to keep my eye in and have a chance for the big wins to give the bankroll a boost.

Saying that, I have decided to take £1000 out of my bankroll to pay for xmas and also put some towards the canada holiday next year.

Hope to get at least one more blog in before xmas, so keep on muffing and gl at the tables.

The Ting Tings - Great DJ