Zooooooooming back ????

Not quite give up poker totally just yet :-) Had a fantastic holiday away in Yorkshire with the wife and doggies, although we almost didn't go as on the Friday before we were due to go on the Saturday morning, Red my iccle old staffie started collapsing. We rushed the poor little fella to the vets who decided that he needed to have some x-rays to find out what was wrong, these were scheduled for the Monday, so the holiday was postponed for a few days while he had his tests. It turned out he has a very enlarged heart and a lot of fluid on his chest which was causing him to faint on any sort of exertions, so he was given some diuretics and some heart tablets which he now has to take for life. He was given the all clear to go on holiday. We eventually left on the Tuesday, which as we had booked the cottage for two weeks, wasn't really a problem. Luckily the tablets helped a lot and he was a different dog, not quite his normal self, but he was able to come with us everywhere we went and didn't leave our side for the remainder of the holiday. We know he won't last very long as its just a matter of time before his heart gives way, possibly a few months, maybe even as much as a year, but at least we can live with the memory of the holiday that we had with him and it was one of the best holidays I have ever had in my life.

The best thing that came out of the holiday is that I have now found out where I want to live, it will probably be when I retire in about 16 years time, but I live in hope of getting there sooner. Basically we came across a small little village called KirkbyMoorside. I have always said I want to retire to a place just like Alvechurch where I currently live that isn't Alvechurch. KirkbyMoorside has a much larger village centre with a load more facilities, yet the surrounding housing area is a lot smaller, giving it a much tighter nit community, there are many pubs and takeaways within walking distance, what more could a man want.

With the final destination for my life now sorted, I just need a cunning plan to get there as quickly as possible.

So, how do I get there quicker, well, you guessed it....POKER !!! While I was away, my priorities definitely changed from playing poker to spending more time with my family, especially with Red and his heart problems and also my current health problems which are still under investigation. However, there has to be a balancing point somewhere that I can fit in both. Playing Regular sit and goes, is just too time consuming. Even 9 tabling, If I was to play one session, I still would have to put aside 1.5 hours at least, this along with the fact that I am finding them mind numbingly boring has lead me to move back to the cash tables. I have decided to go back to basics so have dropped back to 10NL, For those regulars who read my blog, they will know I had a failed attempt at Supernova a couple of years ago 15+ tabling 50NL, basically breaking even even after the bonuses/rakeback. This was mainly due to the mass tabling. I believe I may have found a solution to this in the form of Zoom Poker, Poker Stars equivalent to Tilts old Rush Poker. This enables me to only have 4 tables open at a time, but still crank up between 1200-1400 hands per hour. So far things have gone ok this month, played about 20k hands and I am about 10 buyins up. Having only 4 tables open does allow you to follow the flow of the game much more, with the benefit of folding instantly hands you don't want to play and moving straight on to the next hand. I am still adapting my play to the nuances of playing zoom, but I think long term for me, it will be a lot more profitable/less variance than mass tabling regular tables.

I am also going to amend my bankroll strategy and take more aggressive shots at moving up than I normally would, which for me was always 100 buyins to move up. This time I am going to move up at 40 Buyins and moving back down at 30. I will still keep an extra £1000 back in a separate account as an emergency on top of what would be deemed my "Active" bankroll. I should get back to Silver Status by the end of the month. I have a week off planned in June while the wife is away in Rome with her friends which should allow me to really up the volume during that month and hopefully get to Gold Status, or if I can move up to 25NL during June, maybe even make platinum.

If things go really well during June an July, I have done some rough calculations that while playing zoom, it is feasible to get to supernova by the end of the year. This would the the ideal scenario ready for 2013, where if I could start on supernova level and then aim for 300k Supernova, some decent $$$$ would be coming my way, especially if I can get any sort of + BB/100 hands going at the tables.

So overall, even with Reds and my health issues, things are very positive at the moment and I am only looking ahead for the time being and not at the past which I have always been prone to do.

For now, Goth is back.........

AC/DC - Back in Black

Bored and had enough !!

The title says it all, for now that is. Since I have had a few health issues, I have really been struggling to sit down and play. Its so annoying as I know at the end of last year I was on a high, knew where I was going and knew the more I played, the more I was going to earn. Now sadly it has all gone, the enjoyment is not there and there I now have other priorities in my life that I need to concentrate on.

I am off on holiday for at the end of the weeks with the wife and dogs and have withdrew all of my roll from Stars and the limited roll I had on a couple of other sites. It will be a much needed break away from it all. Maybe while I am away I can have a long think about what I want to do with poker, playing the hours that I do for the money that I am now earning doesn't seem reasonable any more. I either need to go one way or the other. I guess when I come back from my hols at the end of April I will know more and post an update on here, but for now, I can't even be arsed to post a vid.

Good luck to all and hope to see you soon.

Goth

General Updates

Not posted for a while mainly as I have been struggling for enthusiasm to do anything at the moment. My health, although slowly getting better is still not right. I am still struggling for breath when walking up stairs/hills and carrying any sort of weight, but I guess there is a improvement, so at least I should be grateful for that. My blood tests have all come back ok. The Echocardiagram showed that there are no issues with the ole ticker, which is a relief and my liver ultrasound scan came back all clear. I did have some some of the pleural effusion on my right lung drained which involved a needle being stuck in my back and guided through my rib cage to get there which was rather uncomfortable but not overly painful. I am still getting some fluid build up in my legs and thighs which is obv not right and must be related somehow to whats causing the fluid elsewhere. I have got some further lung function tests and an appointment with the consultant in the next two weeks but I can't see that this is going to track down the underlying cause. I guess its now just a waiting game to see if my body will recover on itself if they are unable to find out any issues.

As a result of the health issues I really have struggled to put any volume in at the tables, I again failed to even reach silver star in February on stars which is a real ball ache as it does affect the bonuses quite a lot. Whats even more annoying is that when I do play I am playing quite well. In the 147 games I played in Feb I had a 16.1% ROI and 43.5% ITM for a total profit of $164.28. Considering that is the amount of volume I should be playing in a week at least, I am missing out on some decent money even only playing $7.

I haven't put that much volum in this month either, but I think I will be doing enough to get to silver status and then I think I will cash in some fpps just to boost the roll and then start to fit in some $15s as per my bankroll plan.

So thats it today, not even got the enthusiasm to post a decent blog at the moment. At least my health has improved enough that we I can take the dogs out for a nice walk somewhere today as the sun is out for a change, it doesn't get much better than that I guess.

New Order - 60 Miles an Hour.

Running on Empty

I guess there comes a time in everyones life when you get dealt a serious kick up the ass to sort yourself out. Well I guess my time has come, the issues with my lungs haven't cleared properly so  I was referred for a chest xray which showed fluid between my lungs, now this may be caused by the chest infection, but they weren't sure so I was referred for a CT scan. The scan unfortunately has shown that there is further fluid around my heart, which is what is probably giving me most of my problems. I have been signed of work for the last 3 weeks and although with all of the rest I have been getting, my breathing has improved quite a lot, something is still obv not right as I am struggling to carry out even routine tasks like carrying a bag of shopping 200 yards without my chest starting to hurt and getting out of breath. I have two further hospital appointments this week, one a follow up for my original respiratory clinic I attended earlier in the month, then on friday, I have to attend a cardiac diagnostics clinic to have an Echo Cardiogram done and prob a few other tests.

I am hoping that all of this is a result of the infection that I had over xmas, but theres a small part of me that thinks that some of the small health issues that I have had over the last few years were just building up to something like this to happen, I guess its just a case of waiting till Friday and then getting the results back so at least I will then have a better idea of a course of action, wether that be surgery or hopefully just medication for a short while until the problem clears up. I have always been someone that goes through life taking things light heartedly and likes not to worry about things, but I have to admit, I am finding life a bit stressful at the moment, which is probably not helping matters at all as I do tend to bottle things up and keep them to my self rather than finding some sort of release mechanism, its not as if I can even go to the gym and blast the crap out of summat at the moment either !!!

Anyway, enough of the health stuff, you would think that being on my 3rd week off work, I would of been able to grind out 1000s of STTs and be on track for supernova...........Well guess what?.......It hasn't quite gone to that sort of plan, in fact I failed to make silver star on stars in Jan as I only played about 149 STTs for a total profit of $40. Due to the lack of energy that I have had I have not been able to concentrate much on anything at all so have not been in the mood to play at all. In fact the only real volume I stuck in was chasing the 75 Billion milestone hand, where I 18 tabled 1c/2c tables for a few hours trying to hit a bonus, but got fook all.

Feb has been sort of the same. My energy levels have picked up a bit over the last few days, so I am hoping to try and play at least enough volume to get to silver star, then hopefully if I feel better in March grind out enough to hit Gold Star so I can at least cash in some fpps for the $300 bonus to help boost the bankroll. The few games I have managed to play in Feb so far have been ok, currently played 27 $7 Reg 9 mans and I am up about $120, but I am running a fair bit above EV for a change.

Hopefully by the time of my next post, I will have some better news regarding my health and maybe I'll even be back at work, which I never ever thought I would say, but I actually miss it !! I am sure that won't last though as soon as I return :o-)

Madness - Cardiac Arrest

2011 Review

Bit late I know, but I am still getting over the problems I had with my chest over the xmas and new year period, been a bit of a downer really with the only good part of it is losing approx 10lb in weight since mid December, not exactly how I planned to kickstart my new weight loss and fitness program for the new year, but hopefully it will stay off and I can build from here when my chest eventually recovers and I can start training again. Went back to the Docs yesterday and it seems that the infection has now cleared but my lungs are still suffering a bit so I have been given an inhaler to use to ease the current pain and discomfort until it eventually eases and fixes itself.

On the poker front, due to the illness 2011 finished off with a bit of lull as I didn't play at all for the last two weeks of the year. Overall I have to be slightly disappointed. When I went back to SNGS in about March time, I got straight back in where I left off from a few years ago when SNGs were my main game, quickly clocking up over $800 in profit in about 750 games, but then Black Friday came and also stars changed the buyin structure and I hit a severe patch of variance and had about a 2000 game break even stretch, in fact it wasn't until I had the Team Moshman Coaching that I really started to pick back up again. I then had a pretty steep drop over another 300 or so games before starting to recover again. As you can see by the graph I only played about 3200 games over the year, this needs to go up substantially this year if I want to get anywhere near the profits I want to make.

I finished the year only $1901.85 up, but I do have about 18k fpps still to cash in which I will wait until I am back up to Gold Star/Platinum before doing so to get the better value. Its twice as much profit as last year, but still no where near what I was getting the previous few years, again this is down to not playing any MTTs and binking the odd $1k+ payday which I used to do a couple of times a year. I guess I do need to start putting a few of these back into my schedule, maybe even keep a seperate roll.

I still have one eye on supernova this year, but due to illness I have only played 4 STTs this year, so its gonna be a long grind and unless I can move up to be playing 15s/30s by July, I think I will struggle. But for now the plan is tro try and get enough volume in at the lower levels in the first few months that I will have at least a shot at it by the end of the year.

Thats it for now, a short and sweet review.

Rammstein - Keine Lust (need to crank up the sound on this one !!! )

Merry Xmas All

Well its that time of year when............well basically, we all get ill !!! I have been suffering with a really tight and sore chest for the last few weeks and have been living on ibruprofen to get by but basically I have been as miserable as hell and not been able to concentrate on anything, so much so that I have not played poker or drunk any alcohol for over 10days. Broke up from work on Tuesday this week till after xmas, hoping that all would be ok, but after getting the xmas food shopping done on weds morning, I spent the next two days either in bed or lay on the sofa, rather than my chest getting better by relaxing it was getting worse. My wife, bless her, eventually had enough and sent me to the doctors on Friday morning. As a typical man I hate going to the docs and I don't think I have been for about 5 years, but wifey knows best. For once wifey was right and it turns out that I have a severe chest infection and also possibly some pleurisy, no wonder I was in so much pain !! Luckily the antibiotics seem to have started to kick in as of today and I do feel somewhat better, my whole upper body still aches from all of the coughing that I have been doing trying to get up some phlegm from the depths of my lungs that refuses to come out. Hopefully I will also get my appetite back ready for the big xmas nosh up tomorrow as I have hardly eaten anything in the last few days either, but at least things are picking up and I should be back to health for the new year and the new goals/persuits.

On the subject of the new years persuits, the plan of possibly hitting Paddy Power in the new year took a blow as I didn't know that you were not allowed to play on your own affiliate links, so thats fooked up the extra rakeback plan on there for now. So I guess the only other option for now is to get my head back down on stars. Due to the serious lack of volume I will almost certainly be back to Bronze star at the start of the year, but that prob won't make that much difference to me anyway. It would be good if I could put enough volume in on the first few months of the year to give myself a realistic chance of getting to supernova by the end of the year should I manage to move up in stakes sticking to my strict bankroll plan which I blogged about last month.

I will def play a bit before the end of the year, but probably not much, only played 88 sngs this month for about $20 profit, but I am am not that bothered at the moment as all I care about is getting my health back on track ready for the new year.

Will probably have a more detailed think about next years plans and goals over the next few days and hopefully post on NYE.

So until then, Merry Christmas all, drink lots, eat lots and do everything to excess, oh and take time out and give a small thought for all those SNE wannabes desperately grinding 20k vpps a day over xmas cos they left it a bit late ;-))

Goth

Greatest song ever made...........

Joy Dvision - Love will tear us apart

November Review

November didn't really go according to plan, mainly due to lack of volume. I had a really good start hitting everything in site then the doom switch flicked and went on a $200 downswing, luckily it didn't last too long and I managed to finish the month off it profit, albeit only about $60. As I said the biggest problem was the volume, I still can't seem to get back into the grind and I only played 182 tournies in the whole month. This annoyingly means that I am going to probably miss out on one of the stellar bonuses, I think I need get about 2900 vpps in December to get another $50 bonus, with xmas and all of the pissups coming up, I just can't see me getting to this. Although if I do decide that supernova is a realistic aim next year, I might just try to get to Gold Star ready for the start of 2012. There is a chance that I might just use 2012 for bonus whoring around some of the sites I have not yet joined, amazing Paddy Power is one of those, they are doing a 200% signup bonus at the moment up to $2000. I have worked out that in the 3 months, I could probably get $1200 of that possibly more if I squeeze in some 6 max cash, althuogh I have heard mixed views on where iPoker is going at the moment. The added benefit of Paddy Power is that I am already an affiliate for them, so if I join up via my own link, I can probably get another 25% on top of any bonuses and VIP payments, so it could work out for 3 for the first 3 months of the year, would be nice to turn over about $2000 before any profits at the table.

I guess the main driver of what I do is what stars do the change the VIP system. They really need to do something so that the low stakes grinders who knock out about 3k VPPs a month can get a guaranteed 30% or so rakeback equivalent. The new year will also probably bring in a lot of ex Fult Tilt Regs who are waiting for the new year to start grinding for supernova, this might water the fish pool down a bit, but will at least keep the games going.

I also hear that Bodog has completely anonomised all of the tables, so I can really see a huge exit from that site of all the regs who can no longer use huds and tracking software, so again most of these will end up stars I guess which is quickly becoming the only real place to play.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Full Tilt evenutally comes back and what format it will come back with, will they come out with all guns blazing with large rakeback and VIP deals to attract everyone back and if they do, how many people will really trust them to go back?

I think 2012 is going to be an interesting year for online poker, lots of countries seem to be ring fencing it to their own countries so they can claim their share of the golden pie, unfortuantely I can only see this increasing. The land of freedom will of course come back on the scene, hopefully in 2012, but again, I have a feeling that all of the sites that they are allowed to play on will be completely ringfenced to just the yanks.

Part of me thinks the bubble as burst, the players seem to be getting more and more knowledgeable and the games getting harder, the other part of me sees this as a challenge to improve my own game and try to have my best year ever as again it seems that I am only going to be about $2k up by the end of the year, better than last year, but still no where near the results of the previous 3 years when I was probably only playing 1/5th of the volume that I have put in. Maybe I need to look back through my records and I am sure that they will show that I was winning a lot more playing MTTs that I thought I was and need to introduce them back into my schedule. Although funny enough, I have been playing a few of the $2.50 180s on stars, only played about 5 so far and not got a cash yet, I still gonna give them a go on the side of my 9 mans which I still think will be my bread and butter for a while.

Determined to get at least 500 STTs under my belt this month, then if it look I can get to Gold Star, will play some cash on side. I will probably end up playing a bit of cash anyway, as I think stars are doing another 72 Billion milestone hand promotion, so will def try and bink a bit of that, I'm due some after 18 tabling for 7 hours last time and not hitting a bean !!!

Bit of long update this one, but its been a while, off to the pub now for a nice couple of lunchtime pints before getting back to hopefully grinding a few tournies out.

Something mellow for you to chill out to today from my all time fave godfather of grunge......

Neil Young - Harvest Moon