40k hands done now

Had a bad weekend of poker, lost $3k on Saturday at 200nl. Ran $2k below EV again but also played pretty poor and made a couple of tilty plays. Got a bit of it back today but still down about 1.2k for the month after being up 1k on Friday. Volume wise its going well so far, may not hit the 60k hands but I will be very close and happy with it as long as I can be in profit for the month also.

I had a really sick hand against Martin Klaesser, hes a German Full Tilt Pro. He is playing almost all the time, I dont think hes that good but he does seem to pretty well against me. I picked up AA on the button, the cutoff was after opening to $6 and I raised him to $18, myself and Klaeser were $500 deep at $1/2 and he raised me against to $48. I went for a call but could easily have 5b him here but he sqzes so much that I know his range is mostly crap and we have had quite a lot of battles in previous hands and he knows I would be flatting everything I 3bet against him here.

Flop came down 7c9s3h and he check calls my $55 bet into a $104 pot. The turn comes a 6c which I am not that happy about as I think it does give him some 2 pair hands and straights. We still have $400 behind and pot is $215, Klaeser checks so I bet $145 and he check raises allin. I more or less instantly called, as I think with the money already in the pot I have to call against his range. I also think he could play KK like this a bit as well and would have lots of combo draw hands in his range. I only need 24% equity to call him and I am pretty sure I have it. I also wasnt bet/folding the turn either as I think that would be a huge mistake with the hand I have.

He turned over Tc9c and had still had huge equity in the hand (39%) and he took down the $1k pot by hitting the T on the river. I am not sure about his post flop line, I like his c/c on the flop but the turn is tricky spot I think, he cant fold thats for sure but not sure if hes better to c/c again or play it as he did. Interesting enough hand I thought and the turn from his point of view is the most interesting.

I got my Black Card status on FTP today which should give me an extra few % rakeback through cash bonuses that can be bought with the points that you accumulate. I didnt get up any mornings this week as I was still hungover and tired from the weekend. I also added up my loses from morning play and I was quite astonised to see that I was down about $5.5k from playing in the morning time. I actually felt the games were softer then but I had no idea I was losing so much due to me winning in the evenings and almost balancing it out. I am going to try and give it a go again this month. Funds in my PP account are low and would like to boost them a bit so hopefully can book a few winning sessions this week.

10 days in, 20k hands played

On track so far to reach my goal of 60k hands this month. I have avergaed 2k hands per day so far but the results have been very poor thus far. I really need to get it into my head at the start of a session that people do make hands and are not playing back at me all the time. I sometimes get the idea in my head that this is going on and just spew of a couple of buyins. Its the mental side of my game that I have the biggest problem with. Skill wise I think I am pretty good and will win a lot of pots but I just 5b shove too much and its probably one of my biggest leaks along with calling too much.

Im just after a short 40min session and won $500 and felt I played very well. Managed not to spew at all and won a couple of hands which was nice. Overall I am down $1.3k so far but will keep grinding at it and hopefully can post a winning 60k hand graph. I just need to focus on the mental side and take a few minutes at the start of each session to play calmly and in the right mindset. This is such a crucial part of the game so really need to start getting this right.

Getting the hands in

Getting very good volume in so far this month, have played 8.5k hands so far in 3 days. Unforuntately Im down almost $2k. Running really really bad, playing quite well though and have had lots of very interesting hands. Played a 4 hour session there this evening at RUSH poker and lost 10buyins at 1/2. Won 3 at 50/1 but ran shocking. I think I played very well during the session. In the space of about 15 mins I just didnt win a hand and lost about 8 stacks. The thing I am very happy about was that I didnt tilt and managed to recover about $500 but should really have been a lot more.

Going to take tomorrow off as will be too tired in the morning and have astro in the evening. No harm to after taking a battering this evening.

Looking forward to a new month

Its great how the mind works, October was my worst ever month at poker, lost over $8k in cash games and now with the arrival of November I can just put that month behind me and look forward to winning the loses back. Its great to be able to put October away and even though nothing really has changed it has a great psychological affect on your brain.

I plan on playing a lot this month, days are getting shorter and weather is getting worse so there will be more time to play as there is less time to play golf!! My goal will be to play 60k hands of poker which would be a lot more than I have ever played before. But with RUSH poker on Full Tilt I can get around 1k hands played every hour while only playing 4 tables. Despite last months loses and a large withdrawal I am still comfortably enough rolled to play 200nl 6max games so plan on playing that in RUSH. Also want to play on ipoker as I have much better rakeback there than FTP so will mix in 100nl games there as well so I can play 8 tables at a time.

There will be satellites starting now for the Irish Open and also the UKIPT in Galway so will try and play some of them also. Would also like to play 1 or 2 live games also. There are a couple on this month that look good so might try them. So the countdown for 60k hands starts tomorrow, I would say the chances of me doing it are about 50/50, really depends how I am running. If I start of badly I will find it much harder to get through them so hoping for a good start. Going to aim to beat the games for 3BB/100 (6bb/100) which is very ambitious giving that the games are getting tougher every day but best to aim high anyway!!

Shipped an IWF ticket

Just won a ticket to the Irish Winter Festival which is on in 2 weeks time in Dublin, 20 players with 2 packages, very slow structure so never really had to gamble!!

Cash games on the other hand are still going downwards, playing a little better but still a bit of tilt in my play at times. Won a small bit today but lost a good bit a few days ago so still well down (-8k).

I'm not going to concentrate so much on trying to get back to even for the rest of the month. Just want to start playing better when I'm playing, especially HU as I have a huge leak in my game there which is basically tilt control and making dumb moves on the back of that.

Anyways bed time!

Booked a win

Played a very short session this evening. 34 minutes in total, yielding $173. Played 500 hands of rush poker and to be honest I've no idea how I ended down $100, finished the session thinking I was up at least $100 but its very tough to keep track of your hands when playing it but non the less I was down. A couple of hands I didn't play great, failed to get enough value after a bad turn and the other hand I valued towned myself when I value bet KJ on a K high board and got called by KQ, but not too worried about that.

Opened a bunch of HU tables and two regular played me, one on Paddy Power and the other on Full Tilt, the PP guy hit and ran me, won a 50bb pot on his 4th hand and insta quit. It's one of the most frustrating things that happens so often when playing headsup. On FTP I played over 100 hands with the guy before I quit myself, could only play a short session and let him know that before we hand many hands played but he still bitched and moaned at the end!! But very happy to have 2 winning days in a row, only $5.9k to break even for the month now, at this rate I wouldn't make it but I just want to build up a few winning sessions in a row to get some confidence back into my game again.

One aim this month, get even

Had my worst start to a month ever, after losing over $6k in first 2 days. For some reason anytime I have a good month the following one is always bad. This has happened everytime I've had a 10k month I proceed to have a losing month after that. So with that in mind my only aim this month is to play as many hands as it takes to get even. So I am around $6k in the red right now. Today I played 3.5k hands and made less than $50. It was all rush poker but will probably mostly play on ipoker for the rest of the month as I have a better rakeback deal there and if I'm putting in a lot of hands I may as well see the benefit of that at the end of the month.

It's so frustrating to get my bankroll up to over 20k, then make a large withdrawel and a few days later is almost cut in half. My own personal plan was to have a $40k bankroll to start 2011 with but that is very unlikely right now. If I had of wrote this a couple of days ago I would have been pretty confident to make it to maybe even 50k.

Since I last posted I played a live tournament were I played like an over aggro monkey. I find it very tough to play live tournaments and will not be buying into any in the near future. I will try 2 satellites on Paddy Power for the Irish Winter Festival as there is 2 big guarantees on there in the next couple of weekends.

Anyway going to try and update every day I play this month to motivate me to make sure I make some money this month. After a fierce downswing I am a huge believer in just booking a win no matter how small it is. I think its good for the mental side of your game just to see that you've had a winning day. So when I go back to even today I quit and hopefully I can string a couple of winnng days together now.

Lovely graph so far this month below: