Overdue update...

5:37am

I said I'd aim to update daily but tbh there isn't a lot to say on a daily basis. Results have been slow since my last entry. Some turn/river cards have left me wanting to pull my head off!

It's pretty ridiculous sometimes how things go, It's seemed like everytime I've bet the flop with a pair, 2 pair, or even a set, the turn has put a straight or flush out there, and of course there's usually 2 or 3 callers. It's made things really tough at times. I've had so many strong hands that suddenly become vulnerable to a better hand.

I'll be honest it's a real dilemma at 2nl. These guys float with whatever they have and they love suited shit aswell as gut shots etc. it's sometimes tough to give them credit for anything, but the board runs out so bad at times it's tricky to anything but check fold the river. I've left a lot of money on the table because of this.

I'm still learning how best to play 2nl but I think I might have been a little too aggressive over the last few days. I think I'm starting to shape a decent game for it now though.

One thing that's driving me mental is the min bet. A players limps, you raise, the pot is like 22c and they proceed to min bet the flop and turn, then sometimes they'll like pot the river or even min bet again. the problem is if you raise they SNAP it, so you're left guessing what they have half the time. It appears they're weak but I've tried firing again and again but get the same result SNAP SNAP SNAP! Obviously I don't mind when I have anything half decent but I've been raising these min bets with air half the time and it aint working haha. So now I'm left just calling down min bets in a 20c+ pot where they vaule town me with 3rd pair, but how can you fold A high to 2c bets? Oh well, I'm sure I figure it out some day.

It really is crazy what you see though. If it was 25nl+ I'd have tilted off about $1k by now I swear. Luckily $2-$5 pots don't tilt me quite as bad. I have tilted though, just not really badly yet. I think I'll stay in control for the most part, it's a comforting feeling that even when you get stacked twice in a row the next stack you'll win is just around the corner haha.

Talking of tilt, I've been trying really hard to eradicate emotion from my game. I think that's the key to tilt control, there isn't such a thing as tilt CONTROL actually, there is no cure for it if you tilt as bad as some of us do. I saw a CR video that talked about when emotions get in the way of rational thought there isn't a thing you can do about it, it'll damage your game until it's out of your system completely. So prevention is better than cure, certainly is when it comes to tilt. So the way to prevent an emotional response is to take emotion out completely. I've worked on this and it's getting there, I'm tyring to train my mind to stay calm and not let anything that happenes at the tables affect me. Ok, so that's almost impossible, but I think I'm going in the right direction. Avoiding huge losing session helps too obviously haha.

Thing is I'm a really emotional person. It's not like I cry all the time or anything (I haven't cried for a long time) but I tend to get seriously angry If things don't go exactly how I want them to, both in poker and in life. I'm starting to sound like a mentalist now but it's superficial anger really. It's not like I'm on the brink of going postal or something, it's more like "wtf, why does this always happen to me! Why, why, whyyyyyy!" Haha. I'll even swear sometimes if I drop something or perhaps if I change the channel on the tv by mistake, I get really fucked off about the smallest things. It only lasts for a second but I'll often have an overreaction to silly little things that don't matter.

I took a personality test in the past and from my answers it told me I was a cerrtain type, I forget the name now but the description seemed to fit. Apparently my 'group' liked everything to go as aspected and if it didn't it would 'unsettle' them. Sounds accurate to me haha.

Anyway, on to results (since last entry):



















So zero losing sessions. Obviously a good run but I'm a little disappointed if I'm honest, I made a number of mistakes throughout and definitely spewed more than I needed to. That said, you can't play perfectly all the time, so all in all things went as expected really. Almost exactly to ev too.. I'm calm haha.

I would try to save a few more hhs for the blog but It's difficult 12 tabling 6max and trying to dig out the right one. Did manage to save one though, a relatively interesting spot I think. I'm not sure calling the river jam is correct here, we're either splitting the pot or I'm beat. I'm letting go of about 60c invested but I don't think it's worth calling off a further $3+ when a split is the best I could hope for. I'll just assume he had A9 or quads, I'll sleep better tonight that way:



Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players

DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter



BTN: $0.73

SB: $2.06

Hero (BB): $5.00

UTG: $4.50

CO: $1.85



Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is BB with A 8

UTG calls $0.02, 2 folds, SB calls $0.01, Hero checks



Flop: ($0.06) 4 4 A (3 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $0.04, UTG calls $0.04, SB calls $0.04



Turn: ($0.18) A (3 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $0.13, UTG calls $0.13, SB calls $0.13



River: ($0.57) 9 (3 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $0.40, UTG raises to $4.31 all in, SB folds, Hero folds




On a personal note, I forgot my dad's b'day again! I don't think I've ever remembered it in my life. That's terrible isn't it? :(

Didn't Make It..

1:53pm..

So I didn't manage 6k hands. Nevermind, I played 5k which isn't bad:







A decent day overall (+$35). Middle session was really frustrating, I missed just about every flop the whole time and ran into some pretty evil river cards in some decent sized pots, but was saved again by preflop allins.

Above ev yet again. This is getting strange, It's a little unsettling if I'm honest haha.

Boardwalk Empire And More..

2:20pm..

We've got a new channel over here on Sky (cable) called 'Sky Atlantic.' It's basically the HBO channel from what I can make out. Shows like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' 'The Sopranos' etc. All of those big U.S shows that I've heard are great but I've never got around to watching. I did watch the first 4 episodes of 'The Wire' after buying the boxset but it was a little slow for my liking, maybe i'll go back to it in time and give it another chance.

I have started to watch 'Boardwalk Empire' though and so far it's been pretty good, not brilliant but it's definitely a decent watch. It also has a great English actor in it called Stephen Graham who starred in 'This Is England. and 'This Is England 86,' as well as the film 'Snatch' and the tv series 'The Street.'

I hadn't even realised he was in it until his first scene came up, he plays a young Al Capone. I'm hoping his character will become a big part of the show as he's a fantastic actor. His Scouse accent leaks out fairly noticeably though, but then my mum is Scouse so maybe I'm hearing it more than most people. He got great reviews for his performance in the U.S though, so I guess they can't hear it so much. Anyway, I'm going to stick with the show to see how good it gets.

I've also started to watch '6 Feet Under' which was pretty good too, quite funny in places. I've only seen the first episode but it looks promising. I've series linked 'The Sopranos' too, hopefully that'll live up to the hype! That's a lot of hours of tv right there but there's nothing better than settling down to watch a really good quality show after a hard days grind. Talking of which...








A decent day at 2nl. +$28, not bad. Ran close to ev too which is nice.

Not the best effort in terms of hands played but I started late after I'd stopped for the server restart and by the time I restarted I was already feeling tired haha. Oh well, hopefully I'll hit around 6k hands today.

Unwell and frustrated..

11:04am..

Woke up yesterday with a mild sore throat and headache. Thought it was gonna be a nasty case of flu that's been going round in this area, decided to play a session anyway, it was tough to focus but managed 3k hands nevertheless. My reaction to being ill is about the only truly manly reaction I have to anything, I bacically just quit life until I'm 100% better haha.

Session:



A frustrating session in all, $5 from 3k hands isn't terrible, and at least I ran above ev again, pretty sickening to think how far below ev I ran at 25-100nl and how sick hot I'm running at cheeseburgers... standard I guess.

Found it really tough to flop anything all session and my cbets seemed to get raised a ridiculous number of times, most of my winnings came from preflop allins.

Strangely, I'm feeling much better today, must've been a 24 hour virus or something. Just started today's session but had to end after 400 hands because of the server restart.. forgot about that.

Micro grind: Day 1

8:55am..

After deciding to begin the micro cash grind, I was torn between 2nl and 5nl (lol). Both games are easy obviously, but If I want to do something that can't be matched I think I'll start at 2nl and crush the shit out of that first. Perhaps I'll move to 5nl once I'm satisified I've achieved something special (in both senses of the word) at the lowest stake out there.

The first session was really fun. I ran pretty hot if I'm honest, got AA vs KK like 3 or 4 times and won a couple of stacks with AA/KK vs QQ. I even managed to suckout with KK vs AA one of the two times it did happen. Unfortunately the other time it was for 250bbs.

I'm not sure what my feelings are about stacking off pre with KK at 2nl when stacks are that deep. He was a passive fish who raised 5x pre and just jammed on my 30c 3b. I knew it was a bad situation but I expected a player like that to min 4b AA or soemthing lol. Anyway, I couldn't fold it but whatever, It's ez to forget how deep you are when all you're losing is $5 haha.

So here are the results of yesterdays play:






Nice to run so far above ev. I wanted to play another 2k hands but I was feeling a little tired and didn't think my chances of making much were good after such a hot run. I'm going to try and aim for zero losing days for the rest of the month. Probably won't happen, but it's doable at 2nl for sure.

I'll be trying to keep a daily running update from now on.

I'm going to change the blog name yet again haha. It started out with "supernova elite in 2011" at cash, to "Sng madness" when I quit cash and went back to sngs, to "Trying to bink a score" when I switched to mtts.

My god, I change my mind constantly, no wonder I've never completed a single goal I've set in poker haha. My blogs just read like a ridiculous rollercoaster of plan switching. Time to finally stick one out me tinks!

Micro Mentalist

15:28pm...

Ok, so I've officially decided that making a good living from poker just aint gonna happen, so instead, I'll be looking to make a shit living from it for the next year or so. I was lying in bed last night thinking about money and it kinda just hit me that I'm quite content being poor. I've never looked at rich people and thought "wow, I wish I was them." As long as I have somewhere to crash, am warm and always have something to eat, I'm as happy as a pig in shit tbh. All these material things... you can't take them with you. Besides, who knows, I might not even make it to 40, so who cares, right?

I plan to just play the most fun, lowest variance games I can from now on. So long as I can pay my meagre bills each month I'll be happy.

So instead of putting pressure on myself to make an unrealistic amount each month, I'll be playing for fun only, making sure I make just enough to get by on. I've always believed I'd never make it to 40 for one reason or another, and have never planned for life after that age. I've never thought about marriage or children, it just never interested me. I have other reasons to think this way but I'd rather not publish them in a public blog at this time. I'm not terminally ill or anything (or at least I'm not aware that I am) but I have strong suspicions that my health won't hold up for much longer than another decade haha.

I've been thinking of a way to make the grind fun, bigger swings seem to stress me out more than they should, playing for big pots it's a stressful thing for me. I guess I do care for the money if it stresses me, but the stress isn't about not making tons of money, it's the worry of not being able to make enough to get by on, especially since I've now been out of proper work for about 3.5 years.

So to stay motivated, aswell as maintaining the fun aspect, I'm gonna try to become the greatest micro cash grinder there's ever been. I want to set records in microland that will be hard to match. Not from a skill aspect of course, there are far more skillful players than me, even some of those fellow cheeseburger grinders have more skill than I do.

No, I'll be looking to play a lot of volume at the very lowest stakes, a stake where no sane person would grind full time. I want to post some ridculous benchmarks that might never be matched (mostly since nobody will bother). I'm gonna look to annoy the trolls on ptr as much as humanly possible, I won't stop until I have at least 10 pages of frustrated breakeven/losing players projecting their own inadequacies by spamming my profile with the usual:

"wtf"
"loser"
"bot"
"fish can't beat higer stakes"
"nit"
"only plays abc"
"would get destroyed at higher stakes"
"makes less than a Chinese sweatshop worker"
"makes less than minimum wage"
"nice hourly"
"lol"
"why"
"doesn't make any sense"
And my personal favourite... "move up"

Hopefully I'll get plenty of the above coz it makes me 'lol' so much.

So yeah, as of now (by 'now' I obviously mean 2moz) I'm a full time Hamburglar. Perhaps the only one? Wow, I could end up being the new 'BlackRain79' Something to aspire to at least, haha! I'll know I've made it when I've surpassed the number of haters he has.

So yeah, I'm going to make a huge effort to keep this blog updated with my cheeseburger adventures, and hopefully I'll slowly build a following in microland. It will take some time, people won't notice me until I start appearing at the top of ptr leaderboards, which will take a while.

Eventually I'll surpass the top winner on the all time lists and hopefully that'll open up some doors in terms of coaching etc. Coaching is something I love to do, I get a lot more fun from it than playing. I'm sure they'll be players struggling at the stakes I beat who could benefit from me, and as I'm not looking to make masses of money, I'd be a pretty cheap option for those guys. Anyway, that's getting ahead of myself, I'll need to hit the tables consistantly hard for the best part of a year before anything like that can happen.

Fun times ahead....and that.

Until next time...

Been a while..

7:57am...

I shouldn't really bother with a blog tbh, I fail so hard at updating it. Anyway, I have some time on my hands so I guess I might aswell fill it.

On the poker front things have been slow. Yet again I've decided to switch games, and go back to cash. I'm not even sure why, just out of boredom I think. My results have been going fine in sngs/mtts, the non-turbo variety that is. Turbos have beaten me senseless over the past 6 months or so, I've barely made anything from them, so much so that I even started to breakeven at $1 45s (lol). Obviously small samples etc, but I'm completely over playing them now, and although I've said it before, I probably won't ever play another turbo again.

So after the small mtt success, reported in my last couple of entries, I actually hit another relatively decent score I think it was 2nd in a 2r for approx $550 on Stars. Forgot to screen shot the lobby for the blog, I'm blocked on opr too, but it happened.. I promise, haha. Actually got it in with AJo vs JTs allin pre hu and lost to a rivered flush, oh well.

Just remembered it's on my P5's profile:


















Got 17th in a large field mtt a couple of weeks ago too, first was approx $5k I think. I had a top 3 stack for a long time but went totally card dead leading up to the ft, and couldn't find many steal spots. I was pretty gutted not to hit another big one, but I can't really complain, I've done really well in just a few mtts played over the last month or two.

Spent some of December playing $2 180s, shot up to something like $1400 then went on the enevitable swong and lost about $450, afterwich I decided to switch to $4 180s for a while and again did pretty well. I think I made about $1800 in January from a mix of $1 45s and $4 180s (mostly $4 180s obv), and then about $100 from 2nl and 5nl for fun. January and February were the first $1k+ months back to back, I'm fairly certain I've never done that before. Perhaps I did in cash games a while ago, but I don't remember. I really need to keep making that kind of money month after month, only laziness prevents me from doing this really.

I've yet to play this month, so far, but I'm planning to play quite a lot of 5nl to see what kind of wr I can achieve, before a possible move back up to 10nl and then 25nl. Depending on what happens at 5nl, I might even decide to keep playing down there for longer. As lol as that sounds. I don't need to make much more than $750/month at the moment, so 5nl might be a fun, and relatively variance free way of doing that. Lots of hands but when the games are that soft it's easier to get through them. Auto pilot ftw!

So it's cash for the rest of the month, I'll reavaluate at the end of February before making any further plans. Perhaps I'll become a cheeseburger grinder for the rest of the year haha.

Edit: Just unblocked myself on OPR and SS:










Actually did $1k+ back to back a few months before too. I hadn't even realised.







And ship the $20k (overall profit) landmark on Stars! One of the few legit brags I can make. I think it's a brag anyway. I guess I could've done it quicker without $1 and $2 turbos but whatever, better late than never.