Grinding and working hard

First of all my apologies for the fact that it took a few days longer to update this blog. Last Friday I threw a graduation party which took a lot of time to organize. Yesterday (Saturday) was busy as well so I decided to update today. I’ll extra try hard to update each Friday from now on.

Last week was the first week in which I grinded a full schedule, exactly the way I planned. I’ve met all my goals, but feel a bit discouraged. I’ve played full sessions on Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. At the end of all these sessions I’ve lost a total of one (!) dollar. Every session I played, I broke about even. Only once I was close to a decent score, but got tenth (first place was $1.8K). I sold some percentages in the larger buyin tournaments I played and think the buyers lost some money.

The fact that I was disciplined makes me feel satisfied, but it sucks to work hard and have nothing to show for it. Of course it could have been worse result wise; I could have lost a lot. Although I broke even, I feel like I learned a lot. In order to improve, I did a reviewsession with a pokerbuddy of mine. He’s definitely a bit better than me, what makes it an awesome way to work on improving my game. The specific spots we spoke about come up often in each session, so it was extremely productive.

Looking back on my first week of full time poker, it feels pretty weird to be obligated to grind long sessions of poker four times a week. I was real curious if I would like it as much as I thought I would. It is definitely harder than expected, especially when the results aren’t there. I’m not complaining though, it feels great to have freedom and no obligations, except for playing poker. I still feel I have what it takes to succeed. It is important to stay real positive and focus on getting better.

The thing I’m most proud about is that bad sessions and annoying beats don’t affect my mood like they used to. In the past I got real pessimistic after a few beats and started complaining. I’m not saying that bad luck doesn’t affect me anymore, but I’ve gotten a lot better at it. It is possible I get more negative if I’m on a big downswing, but I’m definitely improving. Hopefully I can reach the point where I develop an attitude in which I stay positive no matter how bad I run.

Results

Like I said, I broke even last week. I got tenth in a $5 tournament on Pokerstars with 2k+ entrants. It was real unfortunate I got tenth, especially because I had a real healthy stack when there were 14 players left. It didn’t help me that the only decent players left in the field, were really lucky and built huge stacks. I got in a few difficult spots, in which I still don’t know if I made the correct decision. When we were 10-handed, I reshoved A9 for ~18 bb’s against the real aggressive chipleader, whom was one of the good players left in the field. He snapcalled with AQ and it held.

This deep run helped me a lot, because I discussed a lot of spots with a friend of mine whom was railing me via Skype. He plays a total different game from mine but has gotten huge results in the last few months. It was real interesting to hear his point of view on many difficult spots.

Other than this tourney, I had many big stacks in the money, but wasn’t able to get anything going after that. I’ll try to review some of these tourneys. Maybe I made some mistakes, but I think I played pretty decent.

Results this week:

Graduation Party!

So I decided to throw a graduation party last Friday, it was great fun. The party was at my house, so I had to do a lot of preparation. At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to throw a party, because I wasn’t real proud about the fact that it took me such a long time to finish my studies. However, I did work hard the final year and my girlfriend advised me throw a party, so I did.

Of course a few people asked what I’m going to do now. Most friends know I’ll be playing poker full time for the next few months, but it’s still a bit hard to tell that to someone who knows very little about the game. I’m sure most pokerplayers exactly know what I’m talking about. Hopefully I can get some solid results in the next few months. Those will definitely make it a little easier to explain people what I’m doing at the moment.

Next week

I look forward to next week. I learned a lot last week, and know what to expect mentally.

The most important thing about the upcoming week, is the fact that I want stay disciplined. I’m going to grind the full schedule on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I’m also playing an evening-schedule today (Sunday).

In order to improve, I’m also going to put in more time to work on my game. Hopefully I can do another session of handhistory reviewing with the same pokerbuddy as last time. I also intend to watch pokertrainingvideos from Bfizz11, an excellent player. His videos are great and I really look up to him because of his discipline and attitude.

I noticed at the end of sessions that I don’t value my tournament-live as I should. I realize this now and intend to improve in this area. So I’ll try to play every tournament like it is the late stage of the Sunday Million.

Goals

Last week

- Grind MTT’s on Saturday (today), Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. à Achieved

- Analyze my game on Monday à Achieved

- Hit the gym every day à I skipped Friday, but got some exercise

- Write in my diary before every single session à Achieved, really helps my attitude!

- Always keep a positive attitude à Went real well, but can improve even more in this area.

Next week

- Grind a full schedule on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

- Hit the gym every day

- Watch at least two pokertrainingvideos and make notes

- Write in my diary before each session

- Start including tournaments on Party Poker in my schedule. Those are real soft and the fields are way smaller compared to PokerStars.

- Update my blog on Friday!

Bankroll

After four sessions I lost a total of $1. The guys that bought percentages of me this week lost a little. My current bankroll is $3 720. Let’s try to double this!

I would love some feedback about my blog. For instance, do you guys feel I write too little of too much about poker strategy? Would you guys enjoy reading more details about myself? You can leave a comment or contact me through twoplustwo, pokernews.nl or pocketfives (all UglyNakedGuy).

Cheers!

Slacking already

Last week hasn’t been the most productive one. I planned to start my “full time poker schedule,” but decided to go to a great festival called Pinkpop. It was really awesome. We (me and girlfriend) had a great time. Unfortunately we had to travel ~3.5 hours each way to get there so we got home at about 03.00. It was really tiring. Because of the huge hangover, I decided to play a light schedule.

Kings of Leon @ Pinkpop

I played short sessions of turbo SNG’s which didn’t go well. I feel like I play them fine, but ran pretty bad, especially near the end.

Big Session

Friday (June 10th), before the festival, I had a very nice session in which I got a few solid results. I made a couple of final tables and won a $4,50/180man. I felt I was in the right flow. Of course it helps to run good, but I made lots of plays that worked out nicely. The last final table I made ($10 rebuy), was the biggest FT. I got 5th and was pretty happy with it. Of course it sucks to get 5^th for 1.4k, when 1^st is ~$5k, but I was pretty short. I was unable to get anything going, every raise got 3b and every c-bet got flatted, it was pretty annoying. I feel I was a little impatient and didn’t play optimally near the end. When we were 5-handed, I was the shortest stack by far, so planned to play really aggressively. I lost a 28bb flip, which sucked a bit. It was a great day though, so I was happy.

I also FT’d a $4 4max tourney which I love. I was a massive chipleader during the last few tables, but ran bad near the end. I busted in a 50bb pot in which I cold-4bet-shoved AK and got called by AJ, pretty disappointing. I ended up in 4^th place.

The other two FT’s I made, went fine. I won a $4,50/180 which is always a nice way to freeroll the rest of the tourney’s. A got 4^th in a $8 500 CAP. There was an extremely aggressive player to my direct left, so I couldn’t do much.

Cashes:

A nice +$1400 day (I sold 40% of the $10r because of my big cashout). Real solid considering the amount I invested in this session.

Mediocre Session

Last Thursday I played another MTT session. From the start I ran pretty bad. I started playing a little worse near the end. I did get nice stacks in two of the biggest tourneys I played (10r and 8r). Just in the money, I made a few plays that didn’t work out and couldn’t grind up. I broke about even for the session, so I can’t be unhappy about that, given the fact that I ran pretty bad.

Cashes:

Next week

Although last week was real fun, I’m a little pissed off about my lack of discipline. I was really looking forward to grinding and improving, which I didn’t really do. Realizing I slacked a bit makes me more motivated to work hard next week. This weekend I’ll spend grinding. I’ll hit the gym every day and have a review-session planned with a poker friend of mine. He is a little better than I am, but I think we’ll both benefit from it.

The thing I’m most disappointed about is that I got negative and frustrated near the end of the mediocre session. A new goal of mine is to always keep a positive attitude. There will be many horrible sessions in the future, so if I can’t deal with it, I shouldn’t even bother. Even if I brick every single tournament next week, I want to stay positive and think about ways to improve.

Goals for next week

- Grind MTT’s on Saturday (today), Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.

- Analyze my game on Monday

- Hit the gym every day

- Write in my diary before every single session

- Always keep a positive attitude

Bankroll

After the +1400 session, I lost a little in the next session playing turbos. Current bankroll: $3 721

Questions/Comments

If anybody has any tips or questions about me or my blog, please leave a comment or send me a PM on 2P2 (UglyNakedGuy).

Graduated! The start of the Journey

After a year of hard work, I finished my studies (Sportsmarketing) and it feels great! I looked forward to this moment for quite a while. It took a long time to finish my last assignment, way longer than I expected but it’s oke. My final year

was by far my best year, so I’m real proud. I haven’t done much lately, other than focusing on my final assignment. I played about 2 sessions of poker in the last three weeks, but nothing special happened.

I did listen to a lot of “self-help” audiobooks. Some of them were fantastic; I learned a lot of helpful stuff about achieving success and happiness in life.

Start

This Sunday will be my first session playing “full time poker.” I’ve decided to grind poker 4 days a week, mostly in the afternoon. This way, I can still go to sleep at a proper time and have breakfast with my girlfriend. I find it really important to create a solid weekly routine. My schedule will look like this:

Days of playing poker: Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I will register from 12.00 until 17.45. These will be rather long days, but I like this schedule and don’t want to miss the Ante Up at 17.45.

During the rest of the week, I will be doing things around the house, meeting with friends, spending day with my girlfriend, going to the gym and working on self-development. I also intend to work on my pokergame in during these days.

I’m very excited to see how this schedule will work out. If anybody has tips or comments, please let me know!

Money

About 6 weeks ago, I withdrew about 5.5K from my Stars account. I was a bit worried after Black Friday, so liked to have the money on Neteller instead of Stars. I still have about 2.5K on Stars.

Given the fact that I don’t have an income, I consider using that 5.5K as a backup for when I run out of life-money. I have a bit of money saved up and am expecting a serious chunk because of my graduation, but that can take a while. Therefore, I intend to play with the remaining 2.5K until I get my graduation-money. This means I’d have to move down a bit, which is unfortunate. However it seems to be the smartest thing to do. I don’t like to worry about money in the near future and don’t mind that much to play a little lower. It would be nice to start off well, so I can move up quickly.

With 2.5K it seems best to play everything between $5 and $22. I might sell off some action to play 10r/8r/33fo’s.

Excited

For about a year, I’ve looked forward to this moment. It is real excited to start playing poker full time. There are a lot of pitfalls in playing a lot of poker, but I feel I’ve taken them all in consideration. It would suck if it doesn’t work out, but at least I’ve given a hundred percent. The key is to stay positive and don’t let the beats affect me.

I’m also excited about the challenge. I look forward to improving every week, reaching goals and setting new ones.

Development

In order to keep improving I will create a poker-developmentplan. The goal is to undertake the maximum in order to reach my full potential. For instance, I will watch an instructional video for each session intensively and take notes.

This plan will be written this week. I’m not sure if I’ll post it here, I might post pieces.

Every Friday

My goal is to update my blog every Friday. This seems like the best day, because I play on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. I will reflect on the past sessions and write about my journey.

Hope this blog is a good read, let me know what you think! You can follow me on Stars (SlMSALABlM).