Status Report 100nl

I am now well into my shot at 100nl and things have gone pretty well. The transition to 100nl is a pretty tough one due to the regs just being that much better. They are applying a lot of pressure on you and you have to be on top of your game so much more than is necessary at 50nl. I felt I could play my C game at 50nl and still grind out a decent day. If I try it at 100nl though if I'm not on my B game or better I'm losing or breaking even at best. Its certainly a bit of a culture shock. I'm not sure that I have had my A game for a full session yet, I seem to play well and then let me game slip. It's more mentally taxing too so I think I will make the adjustment and make my sessions a little shorter and now put in three sessions a day rather than the two per day that I used to put in.

Im going to put in a full 100k+ hands at 100nl in November before I decide whether to make the switch permanent, but I'm committed to it throughout November for sure. I will also post my graph at the end to show the progress so far.

I've been doing a bunch of coaching lately and have added a couple more regs from the 2+2 FTP regs thread to my student list and I'm really excited to work with them. I like working with students that are motivated to move up and succeed and all of the new guys seem to fit the mold. I seem to get more satisfaction from coaching than I do playing these days so the more students the merrier. I still want my coaching to be affordable to the micro guys that are building their rolls so even if I do make 100nl stick I will keep my prices the same. No point targeting micro guys and then trying to charge them $50 - $60, because they just cant afford it.

Also the radio show with the Itsawinner.co.uk guys is going great. We have now gotten 50 episodes in the can and thats amazing. I love working with Mal and Gareth and hopefully I'm able to keep them on poker topics but thats tougher than you would think. We have also hooked up with Fluxstables.com as a sponsor to the show so we are now on our way to being big time. I think its still a long road to that though.

Update for the month to follow soon, the rest of the day I'm focused on baseball... Lets go Rangers !!!!

Opening Session Jitters

Day 1 of the $100nl experiment is in the books and while it wasnt great, I recovered well and am happy with the way I managed to come back. Hopefully I will learn something from this and be able to build on it going forward.

Moving on Up

Well updates have been few and far between lately and frankly that needs to stop. I set up this blog to keep a log of how things poker related were going for me and because I've been super busy lately, I have fell behind getting it done. I need to get back to grinding hard and also updating my blog too.

October has been a cluster fuck of things to do. Every weekend this month there has been something on my plate that kept me from the tables. That wouldn't be the worst thing except that I haven't been making the time up at the tables during the week. We are 22 days into a month and I have only played 15k hands. Sure I am winning at a great rate but the volume is horrible for someone that supposedly plays full time. I need from this moment onward to get back to the grinder that I was previously.

I spent some time with Jared, the owner of Flux Stables, last weekend when I flew up to NY to get some things done for the site and planning some future stuff. Everything was great and I loved meeting Jared and Katherine. I think the working relationship will continue to blossom and we can build on the initial successes that we have had.

I have also decided to make the move to $100nl full time. I've been at $50nl for a long time now and produced a decent winrate and I would like to take my game to the next level. Not sure what to expect, or how much different it will be, but I am going to play for a month regardless. I need a sample size rather than 3 - 5k hands every now and then.

I will update regularly with my progress.

A Bunch of Updates

Wow its been a very busy two weeks, so this post is going to be a bunch of different thoughts thrown together into one giant post.

The last week of September, I managed to rediscover my desire to not only play the game but also found a way to win, and win at a very decent rate. I got out of some of the bad habits that I had been forming and really focused on my game. The results I managed to post are a testament to this and hopefully it continues long into the future.

Ive also been diving head first into my coaching and that has been reflected in the number of new students I have gotten and also the results that they are starting to have. One of my newer students that will remain nameless, at his request, has really seen an increase in his winnings after a couple of sessions. He used to be very swingy and had some leaks that needed addressing but since working together there has been far more consistency in his game and it is illustrated by his results. Sure its only a 6k hand sample but you have to start somewhere and hopefully this is just the beginning for him. Here is a graph to his first week after our sessions:



Ive also been doing more and more stuff with the guys over at Flux Stables. I've spoke about them in previous posts but the more I work with Jared, Nick and the guys, the more I'm impressed with the set up they have over there and the things they are trying to accomplish in the staking world. The website if anyone wants to check it out is, Fluxstables.com, Whilst they are predominately a staking group, they do have the beginnings of a very good forum that has a small group of very intelligent and knowledgeable posters that can give advice on a multitude of games. 2+2 has become a little stale with strategy advice over the last year or so and finding a place to help improve can only be beneficial for everyone's games. Ive been trying to get more and more into MTTs and therefore am camped out in the MTT forum on the site.

Outside of poker, Ive started doing Nutrisystem in an attempt to win my bet with the guys in the grind house from last summer. Its only day 2 so not much to report as of yet but the food isnt as bad as I thought it would be so there is hope for me yet.

I will close with the results for September. It certainly isnt impressive but you cant only post graphs when you win, so here they are:

September Results:

Online: $1958
Live: $850
Rakeback: $673
Coaching: $335
Staking: $389
MTT Stake: $239

Total Winnings: $4444

A Weekend of Everything but .....

Poker. Well thats not completely true, but I spent a lot more time away from the tables than I usually would. As any regular readers know, my game isn't the best at the minute and this has been brought on by a number of factors. Well this weekend I decided I needed a break from all things poker related. Friday night I had a family BBQ with all the people that are really important to me and we had a great time. Chicken, pork chops, and steak has a way of making me happy I guess. Just kidding, it was clearly the company present. Its really hard to let things get to you when you have two little nieces running around that don't have a care in the world and cant wait to smile at you.

Saturday morning I managed to get in an hour of coaching with a new student and it went well. Its strange to say that despite not playing well myself that coaching has been unaffected. I feel that I am still coaching things the right way and the results of some of my students is testament to this. The rest of the day was spent with Miss Nino making her the most important thing for once. Not that she isnt normally but I'm sure that sometimes she feels that she takes a backseat to poker. I must say I try my hardest to make this not happen but when its your job and you need poker to pay the bills I can easily see how she does at times. We met up with a friend to see a movie, The Town with Ben Affleck and it was great. The movie is one of the better ones I have seen lately and is definitely right down my alley. Its one of those that I will probably buy when it comes out. Affleck wrote the screenplay for it and I think it was cast tremendously well. After the movie, we did some shopping and to my surprise I got caught up in it a little and found myself giving 'A' game opinions on new outfits.

Sunday morning was reserved for Liverpool v Manchester United and whilst I dont support either team it is certainly a game that I will go out of my way to watch. It didnt disappoint either with Man United running out on the right side of a 3-2 scoreline.

The rest of Sunday, I attended a charity poker tournament put on by two of my good friends, Brack and Sharon. They are two of the most selfless people that I know and they would go out of their way to do anything to help any of their friends. This was no different as they were raising money for a friend who has stage 3 cancer and will sadly leave behind a wife and two small children. We managed to raise over $1700 that will be used for the boys in the future as and when they need it. The whole event was an amazing experience and its truly one of the first times in a long time that I have enjoyed playing poker. We had a great table and when it was all said and done I managed to best 34 others and chopped first place when heads up. I went home from the tournament with a new perspective on a lot of things and hope in the future to be a better person. Seeing the actions of others makes me realize that as a person I have so much more to learn. Hopefully in the future I will succeed in getting where I want to go.

This will probably be the last blog post that touches on personal stuff as I said at the beginning that I would only be talking about poker, and I would like to keep it that way. Lately, however, life is being effected by poker and that has caused the lines to blur a little. That being said I know my personal life doesnt make interesting reading so I will attempt to get back onto poker only from my next entry.

Good luck at the tables.

Poker: The Mental Battle

As many of you know, poker is a beast, it is all consuming and swallows you and your emotions whole if you let it. Well lately it has swallowed me up and spit me out repeatedly. I've had some outside issues that have been weighing on my mind and this has caused me to produce some results that are certainly not like me.

Through fourteen days of the month I was stuck $105. I can't remember the last time I went so deep into the month without being in the positive. I have said time and time again this month that today was going to be the day that I was going to be disciplined and grind out a profit. At the end of every one of those days, it hadn't happened. I knew that I needed some support and spoke to a friend in England on the phone and we talked out the situation. We came up with a few solutions and I went to bed last night somewhat at peace with everything and woke up this morning feeling fresh and ready to grind.

Well today has now come to an end and through 4500 hands today I was +$312. I've never been so happy to win $300 in my life. It got tough towards the end of the day as I took some tough beats but I was able to battle through them and kept my cool throughout. Hopefully now things return to normal and I can rescue the month.

The underlying message in this entry is, always come to the tables with a clear mindset. If your not in the frame of mind to concentrate and compete, don't even sit.

I will be coaching some tomorrow and might convince myself to go and play live tomorrow night. I'd originally decided not to do this but if I can put in another solid day I might reward myself with a fun night out playing cards with friends.

Winstar $2100 Tournament Review

Ugh is the way I'm going to start the write up about this tournament. I played day 1B and had what I would consider a bad table, I had Joseph Cheung (3rd in chips in November 9), and two very solid internet guys. I knew the face of one of them but couldn't place him. We started with 10,000 in chips and blinds at 25/25. This gives the illusion of a deep structure but antes were introduced in level 4 or 5 and therefore everyone becomes short quickly. It really just makes you want to gamble earlier than you really should in a $2100 buy in.

I managed to chop my stack in half in level 2 when i open AQo UTG+1 and proceed to get 5 callers!, I lead 3/4 pot on AQ7 and get a single caller from a poor local. He again check/calls a 7 turn for almost pot, the 7 on the turn brings a two flush in diamonds. The river comes a K that fails to complete the flush and after he checks, I proceed to make a thinnish value bet. He min check raises and I go in the tank, I obviously know its for value, just thought there was a small chance that he was value raises an A assuming we were chopping. Plus he is so bad that I wasnt prepared to fold with so much in the middle. He rolls over TJdd, having called with a gutter, turned a flush draw and then binked the gutter on the river.

I doubled up soon after by 3betting QQ pf and being called by KTcc. After the flop of QT7cc, we quickly got it in and I managed to hold. I got a small rush of cards after the first break and managed to get my stack to 14k before I decided to brain fart it all away. A solid player opened in the hijack and I sensed he might be weak so I elected to take a flop with A3hh. Normally its a standard 3bet but I made a mistake. We saw a flop of T25dd and I took a check/call line on the flop with the intention of taking it away on future streets. The turn Jh then gave me a gutter with a flush draw and here is where I made my second mistake. He lead for a pretty solid bet on the turn and I elected to check/raise. He bet 1750 on the turn and I check raised to 4k, leaving me 8k behind that I was going to shove on any river, if I was called. Sadly for me he took very little time to shove in on me and it left me in a gross spot. If I think my over is good then I have about 30% equity and I'm needing to call 8k to win 20k which is 2.5-1 on my money. Obviously not getting the absolute correct odds I was pretty confused what to do. With the tournament structure in mind, I made a crying call and was shown QJdd for top pair + flush draw. I blanked the river and was out. I think its interesting to note that the river was a Tcl which would of been a great card for me to represent had he decided just to call.

I had a second seat and entered Day 1C. This went a lot smoother and I played well throughout. The poker gods caught up with me after dinner when 88 < AQ and then AK < AA in a blind battle and that was all she wrote. Not too interesting but I finished a more respectable 155th.

I had the opportunity to join the Flux guys in Atlantic City for the Borgata series but things in my personal life aren't going to allow that to happen sadly. So much credit needs to go to Jared and Nick for the excellent job they are doing with their stable, really great guys to work for and a breath of fresh air in the staking world. Hopefully I will be able to get together with them soon.

Next major foray into live tournament poker is likely to be the WSOP circuit event at Choctaw in January.

I will post my August results shortly, after spending time away playing live I really need to log some