Do You Consider Yourself Lucky or Unlucky?

I am a huge fan of Derren Brown. He is essentially a magician but combines a whole bunch of techniques in suggestion, hypnosis, misdirection and showmanship to achieve his results.

One of the biggest reasons why I like him is because he is an atheist and openly shows that he can manipulate the same techniques as those achieved by so called psychics, fortune tellers, religious fundamentalists, and others. Therefore solidifying that they do not exist.

I watched a recent episode (sorry non UK guys if you cant watch it) of his about luck. Its a kinda interesting question especially that we play poker, but he asks you;

"Do you consider yourself a lucky person?"

In the show, Derren creates a rumour of a lucky dog statue, of which self professed into actually making the village seem lucky. The show documents a few people around the village, some who consider themselves to be lucky and others who consider themselves to be unlucky.

The unlucky guy essentially is a person who doesn't take opportunities, choosing to say no. This was in  comparison to the "lucky" landlady who helped a person fix his tires on his car, who happened to be a comedian who ended up offering to do a gig at her pub. Consequently meaning that she had a great night in which more people turned up to see the comedian, and ended up making a lot of money from the big turnout of people buying drinks.

There were some situations in which the unlucky guy was set up, in which if he took the opportunities then good things would happen to him. One of them was that a 50 pound note was literally right there on the road on his walking path and he didn't see it.

Just comes to show that if you consider yourself as an unlucky person, it basically means that you are a "safe" person who chooses to say no more often then not. Not getting involved and not looking for opportunities means that you don't get those "lucky" chances that lead to other things.

For sure I have believed that I was unlucky, especially in comparison to my brother. But in reflection, I really do remember saying no a lot more in comparison to yes. Being closed and safe and given me less opportunities and made me feel like I am unlucky.

In poker we always judge our plays based on the long term plays, but one could argue that our reluctance to spew in some spots means that we lose the experience of understanding those spots better. I certainly think that I have had a bias towards folding in certain close spots in which I've had because of the fear of spewing.

The reasoning for saying NO, because of the fear of things going wrong when saying yes... ultimately is a losing "unlucky person" play in the overall scheme of life!

My Most Minus EV Cash Game Ever

A while back when I first moved to Manchester, I met up with a fellow poker player that I played with back in the early STT days who went by the name of NJD77. We had a drink and a chat after he finished work.

He said that later on in October he was gonna organise a "twoplustwo" meet with some other guys and invited me to come. Of course even though there is a big chance of losing money and more embarrassingly the chance to show how much I suck in comparison haha. Since I never use that forum I actually have no idea who most of the people are. 

The players in question were; 

Derby (or Dreuby?) - A Dutch cash game player who has an unorthodox play should we say lol 

NJD77 - A former fellow STTer now turned cash game grinder

Buffyslayer - An MTT grinder, and newly added SNGProtege Coach, who strangely enough for me lives in Milton Keynes... My hometown 

Entim - Former SNGProtege coach, 18 mans specialist and now complete baller killing live tournaments and staking. 

The game moved to my house and we had some dominoes to start the night off. We watched Entim run retardedly bad vs a fish in a few HU SNGs, which unfortunately proceeded to spill over into the cash game.

Derby who we now decided to call Deurdy due to IPhone's auto correcting, took it upon himself to have a 100% pre flop VPIP folding only a few times to some 3 bet shoves. 

Was a great night and it was awesome meeting some real life legends! haha. I'm sure that they're all gonna be humbly saying they're not. But none the less it was an experience, and I hope that I can meet more people in the future.






A 180 Man Fail

With my continuous involvement with SNGProtege as well as breakdancing, starcrafting, and going out and staying social, it has been increasingly difficult to be able to commit myself to a 5/6hrs of grinding the 180ms.

So I've decided that I'm going to have to play more shorter sessions, involving my old favourites the Single Table Tournament 9 mans, and maybe some Heads Up stuff. When I can find the time I'll throw in the odd 180m tournament, but for now my priority will be getting those VPPs/FPPs again and my status up again (I'm Bronze Star again woohoo!)

I really do think that even though they are not as profitable as before, I should still be table to make a decent amount in them, especially with the fact that a lot of players are still stuck in shove/fold mode. I'm a big believer now in relearning the game straight up, and harnessing your skills by getting lots of post flop experience.


Additions/Changes to SNGProtege

I'm aware that some blogs end up being very "advertisy" and I'll try not to be like that. This blog is always gonna be about what I wanna write about and no one can tell me otherwise!

SNGProtege has expanded now. We've got a new MTT Coach, Buffyslayer1, and has 2 new students turned coaches Bigniux and Whyme270483! Congratulations to all!!

We've also added all videos to be accessible from the forums, as well as the webinars that happen every week. The videos and webinars have evolved from simple push/fold ranges strategy, to now understanding the game from a fundamental hand reading level. Here's the titles of our webinars to date;

1. Invention Value
2. Raise/Folding <10bb Stacks
3. <6 True bb Shoving
4. Isolating!
5. Calling Shoves; Thinking Beyond EV
6. Flat Calling
7. Bluffing Lines
8. Fancy Play Syndrome
9. End Game Short Term Memory...

If you are interested in being staked in low stakes SNGs and MTTs, please feel free to apply here.