Thailand Turmoils!

If you were in Wall Street and your stocks were losing money, then you went on holiday do you think you'd enjoy it? Chances are, that however much you tell yourself that its a great chance to get away, your mind will always be thinking about it. That's how I feel right now...

Various things have happened here which have annoyed me too, but I wont go into that. But truth be told, my mind is totally occupied about why I'm not winning, and I'm not really enjoying my time here atm. But hopefully things will pick up, here and on the online felt.

But right now, every game I play, every showdown, every AA vs A9 I'm seeing them drop the wrong way for me. People say it usually balances out, but it truly scares the shit outta me, for randomness remembers no previous instances and each drop of the cards is its own instance.

I cant even explain what the hell is going on with my redline atm. The fluctuation in it is so severe recently comparing it to the rest of the graph, and that was even when I was a terrible breakeven grinder! (Looks like I'm going back)

My all time graph of $16s has never seen redline swings as crazy as this...

Honestly right now, I'm totally not feeling being here and would preferred to stay home and grind more to get outta this hole. But fuck it, I'm here, and that's what its about. Apart from the insects all biting the hell outta me, the food which is ok, but always going to be comparatively not as good as my favorite Chinese, Korean and Japanese, the smell, heat, and pollution of Bangkok, I'm having a great time lol. I'll let you guys think whether that's sarcastic or not. But hey, I'm British, I never complain, right?? ;)

I'll do a better blog later, about my Bangkokaments. Just wanted to vent for a bit tbh... laters.

Pre Flight Checks

It seems I sold my soul and now I'm paying for it. Back in December I talked about how I was so happy to be making money whilst travelling. But if I had a choice between making money abroad and at home, well home trumps it all the time, coz obv I'm gonna be home for longer periods then away.

My $16s graph for 2010 so far...

Tomorrow I'm flying to Bangkok for 2 and 1/2 weeks, and I'm reli looking forward to it. This is why I'm playing and travelling often is a good reminder why I do what I do.

But there's no doubt about it, I'm pissed that I haven't made any money, and pissed that I'm pissed which means I wont enjoy being there as much as I could. You can tell yourself that it doesn't effect you, but truthfully you know its impossible. I can totally imagine myself sitting at the beach with a drink surrounded by hot Thai girls in bikinis chilling, living the life.... and all I will be fucking thinking is "What calling range is xx opponent shoving?" or "How does xx opponent play". FFS bro ur in goddamn paradise and all u can think of is poker?? Fuck you lol.

MTT Training

I'm slowly transitioning to the world of MTT SNGs. The 180 and 45 mans on Stars are so profitable, and they fill up so quick. Soooo many fish zomg, so many bad plays. Anyways it seems like the natural progression for a STT player to move over to those games.

I'm studying MTTs with a mate, who's also playing them. No doubt its gonna be high variance, but I feel a lot stronger about my post flop play, and am lovin' the fact that these games have hardly any regs. The $3 rebuy 180 mans are totally awesome and so profitable, I even see SNEs playing them for some reason. Hopefully they'll make a $7 stake too soon since they're so popular...

The only and main thing I don't like about them is that they commit me to longer sessions. I've always been a big fan of taking short breaks after every set, and also the fact that sometimes if something comes up I can cut my session short and do it. But with MTTs, you really do have to stick around and finish your session off. This means you need to plan your days and cant wonder off with mates or whatever you decide later on in the day. The 5 min breaks hourly are good though, kinda cool to nip to take a piss when you need it.

So what huge stakes am I playing? Yep... $2 180 mans lol. So's my mate. Why? Low risk, and tons of experience to gain. Especially end game and final tables. To get the volume in means that being scared to bubble should happen less, and to get used to go for the win! 

Of course, maintaining Supernova means that I am almost always gonna be committed to my STTs until I have the roll to move up in MTT stakes. Anyways, watch this space...

Pre Flight Checks...

Right, lemmie see;

• Laptop for playing Poker
• Sunglasses, beach stuff (fuck you English weather!)
• iPhone, Moneyz, Passport...

Boom! All in!! That's all I need (prob will remember something more important later at the airport lol). I do plan to play quite a lot too while I'm there, hopefully things will pick up again.

Last nite I played with Sippin and got 4 handed, where we got berated by a random guy. Oh how I LOL'd (meaning in reality I thought LOL without moving at all)... made my day.


See you guys in Thailand, GL@TTzzzzzzz peace!!

"Welcome to Thailand, Puyan" - Would be a dream start :D

Off With Their HUD's!!

My 3rd set on Monday (-$449 day ouch) I got the fantastic gift from Windows known as the BsoD, and so had to restart my laptop. Since I also have a desktop I finished off my set on that, but with no HUD.

So just for you non poker enthusiasts, a HUD is a Heads Up Display programme which display the stats of your opponents whilst playing poker. These stats are all from games that you've played in, and not an illegal data sharing of other games. We use programs like Poker Tracker and Hold Em Manager to help us.

After my session of HUDless whim, I thought;

is HUD + P + 20T = >20T + P - HUD (+RB)?

Yea that's probably wrong, but roughly translate into; "How much edge am I actually losing when not using a HUD, in comparison to the number of tables I could possible play to earn more?" That is, if P is Poker, T is number of Tables, HUD is HUD and RB is Rakeback. Yes I'm chinese but unlike the other 1.5 billion I suck at it... but remember, my passport says I'm British.

To be honest my HUD wasn't really working well at all when I rebooted, and so forced my other sessions to go "bareback", ie HUDless. Because the HUD takes up a lot of RAM, it only limits me to around 20 tables, so without it I'm able to load up more tables without it going completely nuts and BSoD on me.

I've definitely come a long way since last year, and have a lot more confidence in my plays. So I'm questioning myself, why do I actually need a HUD. There are only a few situations in which I believe I will have an edge with a HUD, but in reality, all the all ins are going to happen, and I already have notes on who are good and bad regulars of the game.

Also, if it means I can play a lot more tables and earn more points and $ per hour, then its definitely worth it. I used to be a believer in playing less games for a higher dollar per game, but now I think the average random is better and with more regulars, those edges are going to be hard to find.

In putting more volume in as well, the variance will balance out and the bad run will be over quicker. Hey, there are tons of players who play HUDless, and if Spacegravy can do it, then why not?

Goodbye My Dear Huddy!

Superbowl, and Hero of the Month!

Congrats to the Green Bay Packers for wining the SuperBowl. I went round a mate's house to watch it, coz well as a non American I need someone to explain this unbelievably complicated game lol. It was fun watching such a close game. I love my football (soccer to you yanks who call it wrong), but there's nothing like watching a totally over the top American Black Eyed Peas fluorescent costume half time show! Don't worry guys, just wait for the London Olympics, our show is gonna be cringe-hell (the thought of all Brits).

Who says that strangers don't look out for each other anymore? I always think, its better to have faith in our neighbours then live life thinking the worst of ppl...

I'll leave you guys with this; GL@TT everyone!

Perspective

What can I say? 2011 really hasn't gotten off to a good start. I'm kinda fuming right now, after losing $300, of which took me 2 days work gone within 60 games. Time to take a time out, and blog...

Its so frustrating, nothing seems to go right. This is a bitch, and a moan, and my EV line is drifting apart. My 3rd set today my computer totally crashed and so I sat out til I got it working again, then HEM's HUD function stopped working. Totally tilted me, time to take a break and chill out.

But I've been thinking about the last quarter of the 2010, where I ran so good. Totally killing the games and not even thinking about it. So what am I bitching about? Sure, I got a 1500 game break even stretch, but in perspective, its nothing really...

Year 2011 so far... Yikes!

My last 3000 games.

So lets keep this in perspective...

I'm healthy, I got money in the bank (holy smokes!), I can do what the fuck I want, I work for me, and in 2 weeks time I'm going to fly to Thailand for 3 weeks. My mate just lost his job, other people hate their work, taxes have gone up (which I don't need to pay), its almost impossible to save money, its freaking cold, .... [insert other bad shit here]

So I'm not winning. Who cares. Its 1500 games. I'm not even losing! Time to step up the volume, and get those hours in. Those all in buttons aren't gonna press themselves! No doubt, that being a grinder of these games has a psychological effect on us over a long period of time. Negativity is supppper minus EV, and what's worse, is that it can be something that slowly manifests within a long time, until before you know it, it attacks you and you tilt all your money away. Boom!

Perspective... its pretty damn important!

 

Lazyassness!

Holy crap I'm lazy. Feeling soooo lazy! Homer Simpson would be proud lol.

Coming back from a month in Hong Kong and losing has made [wanting to] play poker harder for sure. Also I've been transitioning into playing some MTT SNGs, mostly $12 45 mans. Its kinda nice to do something different, and its been ages since I played any of these, its really cool to see how far I've come by knowing how to handle certain situations a lot better.

I know I should logically move over since there's more money in these games, but I just feel that my commitment is with STTs (Single Table Tournaments) at the moment. I mean, I've been learning how to play these for over a year now, and I wanna reap the benefits! But definitely the plan is to move over entirely at some point.

MTTs seem easier to do longer sessions then STTs for sure. Obv this is coz the tournaments are longer duuuh. The hourly breaks are cool tho, giving you a chance to run to the toilet or whatever. But the beats are brutal, and the top heavy payouts makes it hurt sooo much more.

The Plan

So I've got another 2 weeks until I go to Thailand. These are the things I plan to do pokerwise before I fly out there;

1. 7500 VPP minimum. A given, really.
2. Average 100 STTs a day, so 1300 overall.
3. Play an average of 24 MTTs a day, mostly 45 mans but others can count.
4. Profit!! And hopefully make some sort of progress on sharkscope leaderboards.

I'm also hoping that I will be able to play a lot more when I'm in Thailand. My holidays are "working holidays" unlike other people and I have to make sure that I do that.

Its time to step up!

GL@TT y'all!