Long Time No Speak..

4:15am..

I decided I was done with updating this blog a long time ago, but it's 4.15am here and I'm bored with nothing much else to do. I guess a lot has happened since my last few entries, I'm not going to go through everything, but I'm currently playing 25nl on Stars. I've played about 100k hands in about 5 weeks and it's going ok I guess. As expected really, I'm up enough to be satisfied that I'm good in these games but I've played like a monkey at times and I'm far from happy with my overall standard of play.

Tilt has only reared it's head a couple of times and that was mostly at the beginning. It's been really nice to run above ev for once, that's probably a big reason why tilt hasn't materialized so much. Anyway, I'm quite happy at 25nl, I might decide to move up to 50nl if I can plug some leaks and make a lot less errors. I'm not sure if it's even worth it yet, I guess I'll do it when I've got a bigger sample with hopefully a bigger wr in the future. Here's 25nl since around the 25th June:

+$100 in Stella awards
+$150 (approx) in fpps

So I guess it's +$1,550 for the last 5 weeks.

Only $775 for me personally though since I'm 50/50 with the staking group.

It'll be nice to have $2k+ months playing 25nl on my own in the future. I guess it's doable in the months I run well. I could've played more hands for sure, I've been somewhat lazy again, this will change from September though.

I'm not planning to cash in the vpps until I hit Platinum, which will likely be sometime in September with the Olympics holding up my progress for next month.

I'm fairly pleased with the results, but I can honestly say that I haven't been happy with my play after pretty much any session this month, every session I won I thought I could've won more, and every losing session was exaggerated by my own poor play. I only had one session where nothing went right and I ran into a bunch of coolers which is rare for over 100k hands. So I've actually run really, really well, which is why I think I need a bigger sample of hands for moving up.

I've been lazy in the last few days of this month, I wanted to get Platinum but I just couldn't be bothered to play much more, even though I only needed about 6k hands/day over the last few days, which would be fairly easy. The Olympics started over here a few days ago so I've been kinda getting into that. Any excuse not to play, haha. I'll probably use that excuse for the next couple of weeks until it finishes and then I'll look to get back on the hard grind I guess.

I'm actually being staked for this 25nl period, I need to play another 140k hands to complete that stake. I only did it for the coaching offered but I'm not sure it's worth it to keep with it. I guess I was expecting more from stories other staked players have shared with me in the past. It sounded like it was a good way to progress to higher limits, but the kind of attention on my game I'd hoped for hasn't happened. The stable is much bigger than I was expecting, and they mostly have tourney players with just a handful of cash game guys. It seems like we're almost like an after thought. I just expected too much, and had unrealistic expectations probably. It's probably quite standard, not their fault at all.

I would never take a stake to play such small games if I didn't think I was going to get a lot of coaching etc. I pretty much knew I was going to be a decent winner at 25nl. I suppose it has helped because I've been playing a lot lower over the last 6 months or so, I've turned into the biggest broll nit ever for some reason (must have something to do with getting older, haha), so at least it got me playing a stake that matches my ability, I'd probably have jumped back down to like 2nl after the first $100 swing, haha. That fearlessness of youth has deserted me over the last couple of years for sure.

I'm not sure when I'll continue with the updates yet, perhaps I'll do one at the end of every month with an entry or two here and there throughout the month. Don't hold me to that though. It'll be nice to do a synopsis for each month with end totals etc. Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

I'd like to just erase most of the entries in this blog to this point tbh. It reads really badly, and it's a little embarrassing reading through some of those entries. I really suck at goals, and I change my mind constantly about what game I'm going to play, there's qutie a bit of random stuff that was just in my head at the time of writing too. I'm gonna stop and think about what I want to write from now on, and not just put down what's on my mind at that very moment, like some kind of disturbed mental patient writing on a wall with his own shit!

So, no more goals, no more disturbia and no more promises of updates, I'll just write up a monthly report if I'm up for doing it.

$2 180 Prop Betting

15:06pm..

Re $4k in a month at $2 180s

If ur gonna bet against those guys (latest 2+2 prop bet) in the 2s, put as much as you can afford on them imo, the more I think about it, the more I think it's not gonna happen. Just make sure they get a trustworthy escrow. They both have so few posts that there could be something dodgy there. Although the fact they're starting in March makes me think they're at least planning to attempt it, they've obv chosen March coz it has 31 days lol, I guess they thought of the idea too late to do it in January.

Anyway. They're gonna find it tough, there are a ton of regs now, and I know I'll be playing a ton too during that month, probably 3-5k games. It'll inspire other solid players to play too, they're up against it for sure. Plus they don't have massive roi's from all the games they've played and neither has a valid sample in 2s yet. They're over 30% but that's from small samples, I reckon they probably think that's std and they'll run like that again over 8k more games.

The thing is, in these 2s the bad beats are so brutal that it makes you think you'e run badly even when you run hot lol. I remember thinking I ran horribly when I was at 70%, it's not until you really run badly that you realize how good you've run haha. I guess you can just run hot for 8k games, it's possible, but running good these days is 20% for solid regs. For one person to do that over 8k games in a single month is unlikely, for two guys to do it at the same time is almost impossible imo. They say they can play more than 8k if needs be but I'm sure they'll only meet the daily requirement to make it to 8k for the first couple of weeks at least, if they're not close to $2k each by the start of week 3 they'll probably have to play 350 games/day which is gonna soul crush them and almost certainly reduce their roi's as they increase tables to get the games in. All that will be after 2 weeks of grinding 260ish/day too so they'll already be pretty drained by that point.

Plus, what happens if one of them has gone the whole of week 1 BE? It can happen easily, I had a 2,500 game BE stretch very recently, it's easily done, how are they gonna continue the grind when one of them realizes he has to make $4k in 3 weeks? It'll also affect the other guys motivation since they both have to make it. Even if they both start like a train, at some point one, or both of them will hit a wall, they'll BE for a long stretch or they'll encounter a downswing they could never even imagine, if they're not prepared for that it'll come as a big shock to them, and I'm not sure either of them have seen it in 2s so they don't have the experience to plough through it, this, imo is the key, you need massive experience to keep the faith, you need to have got through that kind of thing and come out the other side. Without it, you'll be more inclined to quit on it.

I've got that experience now, whereas before I just quit coz I thought it was ridiculous and I felt helpless, like it wasn't normal and so therefore there wasn't anything I could do, it's easy to quit when you feel that way. The 2nd attempt I made was similar too, I still thought I'd just run unimagineably horridly and just assumed it couldn't go the same way, I thought I was due a heater and that normal service would be resumed, haha, turnsout poker doesn't work like that, variance has no memory. I quit coz I fucked my back up, but tbh there was a part of me that quit coz I could only see it going the same way again, I genuinely couldn't have carried on because of the back injury, but I imagine I'd have quit anyway eventually coz I was seeing similar variance all over again. I wish those boys luck, but I don't expect them to ship this particular bet.

2 Day Madness

7am...

Last couple of days I've been kinda going off the rails. Not sure why, but I've been completely reckless, not really caring about anything, and ending with me quitting my job completely. Funny thing is I know it's probably one of the worst decisions I've made but tbh who cares!

I havn't slept for about 40 hours and I'm a little delirious right now.

I'm putting this out there though.. I WILL SHIP $5k IN A SINGLE MONTH @ $2 180s!

I'm either gonna do it or I'm gonna die, it's that simple!

It could take me all year, I don't care, I'm gonna keep going until I have $5k profit from 30 days play. Hardly anyone will read this so there won't be the pressure. I'm not gonna prop it this time, I'm just gonna fucking do it!

Might update here as I go, or I might not even look at results at all and just grind the shit out of it and look at the end of each 30 day period. Don't know yet, I'll probably update my mental state, if not my results.

It'll probably bring the end of me, either through total burnout or death lol.

I hate it..

7;44pm

..Coz is blatantly rigged up to the eyeballs.

That is all.

Quick update..

Another stretch under ev, I'm not that bothered anymore, it's just pretty funny now. I'm exactly $75 (32 BI's) below ev at 2nl after 337k hands now. It does seem that if I play any significant sample of anything I'll end up below ev eventually. It'd be a really strange feeling to run above tbh.

I rememeber Chiren saying he ran horribly during a million hand sample at 2nl. I was intrigued, after checking on his overall ev during that 1 million hand sample, he ran at $223 below ev. I've played exactly 1/3 of that and I'm bang on schedule, it'd be $225 if I ran exactly the same until 1 million hands.

"31k sessions but had to change it at the end due to ev downswings and an unimaginable high amount of bad beats"

^^ A direct quote from chiren during his 1 million hands at 2nl in a month. This is a guy who has probably played 5+ million hands in his life, and has seen just about everything I expect, so for him to say that just confirms to me that I'm running badly and it's not all in my head. I need to know that, you can get paranoid pretty quickly playing poker so it keeps me level headed, I basically know it can, and sometimes does happen.

I just had another look at my overall ev, I'm 86 BI's below overall, when you look at it in BI's I guess it's not so bad. I reckon some people have had it worse.

Just a quick photo..

Just thought this was worth an entry...

Lifetime Cash Game Results On stars..

10.33pm..


Ok, so I've decided to post my lifetime results in this blog. I've just uploaded the last 400k hands (it took ages).
























I'm actually only $3,337 down in ev, still a lot obviously, but I thought it was more. there were a few more 25nl hands in that last upload and it's not quite as bad as I'd thought.

I've been pretty fed up with how badly I run in higher limit games, I think rightly so after looking at this. It's almost laughable that the 3 biggest games I've played any meaningful sample of.. 25nl, 50nl and 100nl is where i've been shit on the most. Can't say I'm happy with running above ev in 2 games 5nl and 10nl. $145 basically, just over 1 BI at 100nl :( The 400nl session was a drunken mistake, I've got the hh in hm, I might post it on here if I can figure out how to, it's pretty funny.

Obviously I realise you can't choose where variance strikes, and I don't believe the site to be rigged, it's just a bit annoying lol. Oh well, I've done ok overall I think. Pretty good volume too.. 1.24m hands! I probably played around 200k on Full Tilt too, it's a shame I don't have the stats from those hands, I remember crushing 25nl on there for a while and doing pretty well in their 50nl games also.

Hopefully I'll just run like the wind at 2nl for the rest of my playing days and make that 3k back. You can only dream haha.