Friday, April 22, 2011

Grind on my Mind

So, it's been a week since Doomsday and it feels like things are looking better overall. For one, we are guaranteed our money is safe which is obviously great and makes me feel much more comfortable. I still can't play on Stars but on Monday I will be sending all the information they need as proof I am living in Malta and I am hoping that by Friday next week I will be able to play again.

One thing that has changed completely for me now is my mindset. This whole ordeal really opened my eyes to a real problem I have which has led me to believe I have to change some things in my life. Up until now I have saved absolutely no money. IF Stars had been unable to give me my money back I would be broke almost and need to take loans in order to play/keep up this lifestyle. This was definitively not a good feeling. After spending something like 4-5 days in a state of shock unsure what was going to happen, I find myself with a new motivation I have never had before. I want to grind, a lot! I never want to feel like I can get in a shitty situation because I can no longer play poker. By the end of this year I want to have enough money on the side to feel comfortable enough to know that if something goes wrong in the poker world I should still be fine and have options.

So, while i am still blocked on Stars, I have been playing on PartyPoker last few days. As expected action at 300s+ is dead. It's impossible to be a mid/high stakes reg without playing on other sites. Because I expect to be playing on Stars again soon though I am not going to go out of my way to play multiple sites and am jsut sticking to some low stakes games on Party with some occasional higher stakes action for now and sitting some regs when it's really dead. I've been doing pretty well so far. Up a little over 3k over the last few days, hopefully I can keep grinding hard and keep the profits coming in.

It's really tough to have this new grinding motivation while in Malta. My roommates have friends over from Spain and have been going out every night for the past week and it's hard to say no and try to stick to going out 2-3 times a week. It's also hard to save money with the lifestyle we have here so I am considering whether I should stay all summer here or just half of it or something. The truth is Malta will be here next year and the year after that but poker is very unpredictable and I want to make sure I don't regret not taking full advantage of it, a few years from now. I can't give any definite answers yet as I have yet to see if maybe it is possible to be a sicko grinder here. Only time will tell.

Anyways I hope you guys are doing well and finding a way to keep busy if you're in the States.

Good Luck to all!

TYF

Monday, April 18, 2011

Decisions, decisions

So everyone is now aware and suffering the consequences (still mostly unknown)of the DOJ's attack on the 3 biggest poker sites operating in the United STates. Everyone is affected by this differently. I have a lot of decisions to make now but won't get into too much detail on them for now as they will largely depend on whether I get access to my Pokerstars account balance soon or not.

I have never hated myself more for being lazy. If I had sent all the paperwork to change my location on Pokerstars a week, a month or 2 months ago i would be at least able to play and to withdraw as well. Now, I have sent all my proof of residence in Malta to 4 different emails. Two answers I got stated it was not possible to change locations now and am waiting for two more answers. I have enough money off the sites for the next 2 months or so, the rest is online though.

I deposited a little money on Party Poker tonight and am going to be grinding some 100s/200s there until my account hopefully gets unfrozen on stars. I have some really big decisions to make. Up until now I have saved basically no money from poker and have been kind of loose when it comes to Bankroll Management. It was all ok until now but I feel in light of what has happened I should start taking things more seriously. I have decided that staying in my penthouse in Malta until end of August is probably not the best idea and I am going to be looking to move somewhere where I will spend less, go out less and thus grind more and save money. I am not trying to become one of those guys that never leave their houses and never see daylight. I still plan to go out 1/2 nights a week and work out, have hobbies, etc. but the thing about Malta is that summer here is basically like spring break in Cancun everyday for 3 months. I know, you're probably like: "Why the fuck would you leave???!!", but the truth is Malta will still be there next year, and many years after. As for when I'd leave and where, again I can not give an answer before I know what is going to happen to my balance on Stars.

From what we saw friday, there is lots of uncertainty in online poker and anyone thinking that friday's events won't make it harder to make as much money as before, at least for a while, doesn't realize what this really means. I really don't want to go back to a normal life, so I'm going to do my best to have enough money on the side to have other means to live by in the future, other then getting a 9 to 5 and working for The Man. And of course, worst case scenario, I would like to have enough money to go back to school or something.

To all my american friends, hang in there!
To my euro friends: MBN!

Gl at the tables (if you can play)

TYF

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Bad Run/Good Life

So, it's proving to be much harder to blog from Malta then I was expecting.. Weather is getting very nice, tourists and English students are coming in greater numbers each week and well every time I start a new post, by the time I find time to finish it too much has changed. Anyways, I will do my best to do a better job in the future possibly with smaller posts and will just give you guys a quick update on my poker/life over the past few weeks for now.

Basically it's like the title says, I am running bad in poker. My downswing hasn't ended although I have had a few winning days finally. Most of the bad run is due to bad luck at the higher stakes I've been taking shots at (1ks/2ks) and well my horrible run at ftp super turbos which I have decided to not play as I am attempting to remain a somewhat sane person. Of course i would love to say my bad run is all bad luck but there has been a decent amount of tilt since my last post. Mostly in the form of openshoving 570s and 520s. I am happy that it is not as bad as it used to be but still somewhat disappointed.

I've made a few changes to my approach to poker over the past few weeks that definitively have helped me play better although variance does not want me to see $$ results just yet. My friend Pistons convinced me to stop crying over my allin ev graph and uninstall Holdem manager. I thought this was a great idea since EV graphs only make you feel like you have an excuse to lose and you shouldn't. If you're losing you should work harder and EV graphs just make you think you're fine as you are. Of course, I am not saying that is never true, in fact it is likely that I was to some extent fine the way I was. But without that excuse(the ev graph) I have much more motivation to work harder on my game which is something I have definitively not done enough since I arrived in Malta.

The other good thing is I no longer use a HUD. I have been using a HUD heads up for most of my poker career and I believe it was NOT beneficial. I think HUDs hurt your growth and awareness as a poker player. In HUsngs at higher levels, players' strategies change way too much at different stack sizes and if you can't stay focused and are solely dependent on your HUD it will hurt you and make you very lazy. I do believe though, that a person that has played most of their career without a hud will benefit from using one. Also, in my experience huds are much more useful in superturbos, deepstacks and pokerstars regspeeds then in turbos which are now my main game.

Anyways, because I no longer use HEM I can't give any updated EV graphs which I know you guys love but I hope you will just be happy with one of the graphs I saved before I stopped using it.

















Unfortunately I have no clue which of my graphs this is. If I had to guess it is my lifetime turbo graph or 200 to 500 graph or something but it's the one I have saved on my PC that has the most games in it so probably the best one to post. I should start naming these things when I save them ^^.


Some people asked for more pics of my flat so here's an ok one. My camera is out of battery atm and I'm too lazy to charge it to take more pics of other rooms just now but I can do that in another post if people are interested:

Living room/dining room/kitchen area:








I am enjoying life in Malta more and more. It is very different to wake up after a downswing to go to class then to wake up to an ocean view, good weather and a sick flat. One thing that happened in the last weeks that definitively affected me pretty badly psychologically and confidence-wise though was that my poker results affected my life plans. Poker is an extremely stressful job, and for me, one of the few things that makes up for it is the freedom it gives you. You can work anywhere at any time and that just made all the variance in the world worth it. Recently though, my downswing got so bad that I decided to cancel a planned trip to Berlin during the EPT to focus on playing. This really hurt me because it feels like I lost the one thing I love most about poker as a job. I plan to focus as much as I can now on playing well and making constant money so that hopefully this does not happen again.

Good luck at the Tables!

TYF

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Poker Love

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of updates. I was in the States for a few days and was too busy to make a post. Anyways a lot has happened since my last post.

The day after I decided to stop chasing sne I started playing sick poker, possibly my best poker ever. I lost a little the next day but then had a sick sick day where I made 7.5k which felt really good. The next day me and my roommate decided to swap 30% in the 215$ hyper on stars and after being down to 1 ante at one point, I managed to finish second for 16k which was really awesome. So everything seemed good.

The next day I played a long session, I ran 9k below allin ev and lost 7.5k. That was one week ago, and since then I haven't had one winning session! During the week I decided to start playing on ftp as well. I don't have rakeback but the deepstack sngs and superturbos seem to be pretty profitable even without rakeback so I figured I'd try the 200$ supers and 500$ deepstacks. Anyways a mix of getting coolered and losing allins brings this graph for the past week on ftp:


















Pokerstars has been very cruel as well. A mix of coolers and bad beats brings me this weekly graph for both sites combined:
















I'm down overall in allin ev, but coolers played a big part in this, as well as bad play as it is very difficult for anyone that isn't extremely strong mentally to play well in this situation, and unfortunately I am not strong in this aspect of the game so I have definitively not played my best.

I am unsure of what my next step should be. I am loving life outside of poker, but am realizing Malta isn't the best place to come to be a sick grinder. It's just too awesome. Hopefully I can start running good soon so I can keep enjoying this life.

Anyways, I hope you guys run better then me. This may be my biggest downswing ever and the fact that it has happened over one week where I haven't even played much is extremely frustrating but I trust things will get better soon.

Gl at the tables!

TYF

Friday, March 18, 2011

Change of Plans

So far this year I feel I have played pretty badly. I spent most of last year playing way below my A or B game but this year it felt different. For one, I developped a habit of openshoving any hand at 500s with even mild tilt which is something I didn't do at all last year until the end of December. The only times I feel I have actually played well were vs a few regs that I warred, a few shots at higher stakes and maybe some random games every other week. I am still on pace for all my goals (except binking an mtt which I am starting to believe will never happen) because I had fortunately run really well in sngs after January. Recently, my luck changed and I started not winning anymore and even losing slightly. Because I was running well before, I obviously didn't even think about changing my plans even though I knew it would affect me badly later.

A few days ago I lost a lot of money though. I played bad the whole day, then lost a lot openshoving at 570s and another 2k in flips at 230s. Btw I recommend no one flip with fisfarfar, he just runs way too good :p
















Yes, he did indeed win 13 flips in a row at one point, mbn to be him ^^. Luckily he did not want to flip for 345 or 570 so he saved me some money. Anyways, now that I am no longer running good and need to start playing well to win again I have to ask myself: Why am I playing bad?

The answer is simple, I have too much pressure on me and a bad mindset. After talking with some friends that were having similar problems earlier this year and now resolved them, I have found that my main problem is I have become obsessed with Supernova Elite.

Last year I saw many good players move to stars for sne or already established regs try to go for sne playing midstakes husngs. Many were very capable players and yet a ton of them crumbled under the pressure that sne brought to them. The weird thing is, this shouldn't have happened. Most were very good players, used to playing high volumes of high quality poker. The thing about having sne as a goal playing stakes where it is a grind (so low/midstakes) that affects some(of course not all players, but defintively me) is that you constantly try to play even when you shouldn't, you take unnecessary risks for the sake of vpps, add more tables then you can play, are more likely to flip with other players, and just constantly think about the vpps.

A lot of the players I know that made sne last year with a nice profit on the side were guys that didn't care about sne, it just happened. That is why I am removing sne from my goals (which I actually forgot to put on the list in my previous post even though it was a big one ^^) and do what is best for me financially. This probably means play on other sites then Stars, play some HU cash and just go where the money is. If November comes and I am at 650-700k vpps(which is very likely) then I will definitively grind hard to make sne because at that point it will be my best decision financially, so it is still more liekly then not that I will make sne, but if I don't I don't care. People have to realize that sne is overrated and unlike in stts or full ring games, midstakes Heads up sngs are hard to beat if you don't focus on the game and adjust and instead just focus on the volume, unless you're a real sicko like heybude which most people aren't. There is still plenty of non-rakeback money to be made in heads up poker and that is where you will find me, far from any sort of volume goals.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Malta

As I stated in one of my previous posts, this year I am going to be travelling a lot. I already spent a month in ENgland at the beginning of the year and now I am in Malta and plan to live here until the end of August. When deciding where I wanted to spend most of my time in 2011 I had a lot of factors to consider but the 2 most important ones were how many poker players lived there and how is the nightlife and cost of living there. I narrowed my choices down to Thailand and Malta. Both countries have plenty of poker players and both are great places to party. I decided to go to Malta because even though the summer here is absolutely insane, before that it is relatively calm which makes it easy for me to grind and get ahead of sne pace so I can enjoy the summer. Also, I would rather be here in the summer and then go to Thailand when it's winter in the north so that I never have to face cold weather. So the plan is to stay here until September, then probably go to Brazil to grind a lot and visit my family, then move to Thailand.

After talking to a few other players from 2p2 that were considering moving to Malta, I came down here to search for a nice place. At first we were sure we would get a sick villa but once we got here we quickly realized a sick penthouse is the way to go. We found an amazing place with 4 bedrooms, 3 balconies, ocean view (and basically right in front of the water), 5 bathrooms, an outdoor jacuzzi facing the ocean and very well equipped rooms, in a great location. I never imagined I would live in a place this sick at my age so I am very happy with it. Here is a pic of the view I get to enjoy every morning when I wake up:










One of the great things about Malta is that I met some really good people. I never met any other poker pros in real life before and it really is awesome to meet people that do the same thing you do. Last weekend me and some german pros took a ferry to go to Gozo, an island next to Malta, where we rented a villa for the weekend to enjoy the carnival there. It was an awesome weekend, We drank a lot and partied hard both friday and saturday but still managed to find some energy to go sightseeing in the afternoon. Here is a drunk carnival pic and a nice sightseeing pic for you to enjoy:

































I didn't get a chance to play much poker last week. I'm up over 10k$ this month in husngs but down almost as much in mtts so that kind of sucks. I plan to play a lot this week though so hopefully I can turn this month into a good one. This weekend I went out on Friday for another crazy night in Paceville (main area for clubs/bars in Malta) but stayed in on Saturday to play( and bust round 2) in the 1k$ HU mini FTOPS. On Sunday me and some friends went to rail my roommate Adria aka Chojjasd who final tabled the Unibet Open Malta with a dominant chiplead. He was definitively the best player left but when lady luck isn't on your side there is nothing you can do. After losing every all in he finished 6th for 19k which sucks considering how good his chances were of making first for 117k but still a good pay day and I had 10% so can't complain.

This week I plan to put in some serious husng volume so will keep you guys updated on how that goes. I am trying to have my first 100k vpp month and am on pace to do that so we'll see if I can keep this going.

Gl to everyone playing!

TYF

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Poker for 2011

As I said in my introductory post, last year was very swingy for me. I started the year with less then 30 buyins for 100s thinking I would spend all year playing 50s and making a cool 50k on the year and ended up playing 100s from the second week of January and then moving up and down between 100s and 1ks for the rest of the year, warring any reg that I could, tilting, flipping and playing drunk a lot, and not putting in enough actual grinding hours, as well as spewing money in cash games and mtts.

This year, I have a lot more pressure on me. I have been enjoying my life as a poker player a lot and so I am doing my best to keep the money coming in with as little variance as possible. I am also trying to make supernova elite, and am ahead of pace now but I am trying to get way ahead of pace before the summer because from what I have been told about Malta in the summer I will be lucky to get in 120k vpps between June and August. So my goals until end of May are to grind like I have never grinded before and just go out on weekends, so I can comfortably enjoy the summer and then cruise to sne afterwards.

Anyways here is the list of what I consider very doable goals but still tough for 2011 in poker:

- $250,000 (including supernova elite money)
Seems extremely doable, and since my main goal this year is to enjoy myself I don't want my monetary goal to cost me too much stress or pressure and this is already a huge improvement from last year.

-Bink an MTT
I had originally decided I would not play mtts in 2011 since they cost me a ton in 2010, but after seeing my roommates (chojjasd (stars) and mrklout(stars)) bink mtts like it's nothing every other day I had to get back into them and hopefully this year I'll finally get a nice score.

-Make Sharkscope All games Pokerstars Leaderboard
I think this is a good goal to have as it will hopefully stop me from playing a ton of hours just for the vpps and actually try to play well and profit without rakeback.

I'll be making another post soon with my goals regarding travel and life as soon as my roommate buys a camera so i can take some pics of my place here in Malta so I can share them here.

Good Luck at the Tables!