End of month review

Hello

I wont be playing another day of this month and i don't think i will be playing much of february as i thought i best get my last ever education assessments out of the way early and then enjoy the rest of the year as a potential poker pro, until the money dries out!




Got a graph up of my month and i think it reads i am up in the region of about $9k which is lovely. One site in particular i killed on and another where i got killed and still haven't got the measure of it. If i eventually do sometime in the next two months it would be one of the biggest accomplishments of my poker career. Seriously! It has been plaguing me for years now this site and to start a run up on there would be awesome.

I am thinking about playing live this month instead of online to accompany my studies, because if i really wanted to i can bring reading material with me to the tables and also when i get on the computer at home i just play poker so no chance of work! So to play live would be a healthy way to push on this month as i study i feel, but we will see. I am thinking about playing the £560 UKIPT £200k GTD in Nottingham in two weeks time, also the fox poker club £330 deepstack tourney on friday as a prep for it and also possible the weekly wednesday £220 at the old vic for a £10K GTD. Done my research!

I would love to play the DTD monthly next week but as im in London without a car its too awkward and the fact i have football sunday morning is swinging it for not bothering along with my terrible time at the DTD with tourns! Still i am intent on a live poker/uni revising grind for the month of february. I have won enough in January to pay for a bad time live and also playing tourns n bigger than £500 a time makes it so my £5.7k prof won't deteriorate too quick!

So i am looking forward to it and hopefully some binkages too. I know i am lacking massively on the odds maths needed in poker whereby i don't know them well enough to be super confident with them. Like should i be calling a 3/4 bet on the flop with a flush draw with implied odds thrown in there aswell? Also shoving ranges, i am not 100% with those. I do some crazy shit on the open raising all in front and think sometimes it has been my downfall.

On that front i would say that i am competent rather than fantastic. I always can't be bothered to develop that side of my game which i believe is the easy part to know. The other part i know better is timing and knowing quite well when to bluff and when not to and to recognise a bluff with a nice call, or to put in a cheeky value bet on the river to a man clinging on with 3rd pair. That side i am much better with.

Bring on the month of february and hopefully in my end of month review for this month i can say that i have all my assessments completed and i am free to play poker for march and most of april before i have the end of year tests in may. Ideal outcome come mid June would be for me to have a 2:1 degree in the bag and about £40K in the bank, and to be a fully fit specimin. That is the ideal. The main aim is the 2:1 though, as that would be a lovely back up to the real world WHEN this poker lark falls through, because it will, eventually.

Ant

Two binks

Hello

Very nearly had the night off but started at 8.30 tonight and registered through until 12.00am and played until 4am. I won my last two tourns of the night for $1540ish and $2300ish Which has me up at least £2000 for the night so i can't complain. Tis a bloody awesome feeling especially as i was down a vast sum of money if those hadn't of come in. Gotta keep this roll going.

Ant

A session of nearly got theres

Hey

I lost in the region of about £400 but i was very very close to haveing another $6k bink to add to my collection. I came within the last two tables in a $25k and a $30K and in the last 3 tabs of a $40K. Final tabled a $5k and came 6th but my layout of like £1200 nightly makes it tough to break even or profit without a win or a top 5 finish somewhere.

I am confident thought that i am primed for the toughest tournaments on the euros sites and will continue to play 50rs and higher. I am reconsidering my view on HUD's thought as i did come up against some marginal spots that is i did have any more info on the player i could have made a more guided decision. So annoyingly i will be comitting today to trying to sort my holdem manager out.

I will also be mapping out a typical prep day for a massive grind i did yesterday in the region of a 18.00-03.00am job and this must consist of a lot of fibre, no caffeine and at least an hour in the gym to have me buzzing. If i put in the hard work with that discipline it nearly always brings out positive results. So i will have to just put the work in!

I feel that my shoving range might be a little suspect and know that i may still have some flaws in my game so i am going to purchase sngwhiz just to go through some hands and see if i am going wrong, but i am not too far off the optimum i would say. Just have to keep it up and keep on making the monies.

Ant

I'm Butter right now because i am on a Roll!

Hello

Won a $6.7k score on monday which was my biggest online score ever which i was happy about and followed that up yesterday with some more profit in the region of $1.3k. My hopeful nightly layout is of about £1200 across about 15 tournaments on the euro sites and it means that i can concentrate on the higher standard of play instead of mixing in some $22 freezeouts or whatever. I hope my run continues and my approach stays as positive because i like where i am now and i know if i continue at a rate of maybe £500 a night that i would be laughing all the way to the bank and i think i need to fill my boots before this game gets any tougher.

Still pride myself in not using a HUD but it may well be causing me to have less profits but i don't think so so that is the end of that argument. I will leave you now, but hope all is well and the best of luck to you all!

Ant

Update - Long boring post alert.

Hello,

Sort of going to put poker on the backburner for a while until i get my studies and general life back on track. Will need the gym happening, will need to be regularly going out with mates, i will need to make sure i don't get all obsessive compulsive about making loads out of money out of poker and really just neglecting the rest that life has to offer.

This sounds deep and meaningful but its not supposed to be. I sort of need to make poker become a secondary thing that supports a much better life that doesn't involve general sloth and inactivity. It is sort of a warning to myself that last year was basically exactly that and that really isn't what i want. I may also find if i start living a little bit more of a varied lifestyle it may reap benefits on my poker returns because i may be more relaxed.

This sounds too general to say lead a more balanced life but i really need to go against deep grained habits that have me play a lot more poker than i should be at the disadvantage of going out more. Eventually i will get a balance but i will need to see what exactly will work for me. Whenever i feel as if i am just residing back to poker day in day out, without a balance, i will give myself a slap and realise there is more to be had. It will probably mean i make more money so i would be silly not to go for it.

Unfortunately nothing to report on the poker front in terms of play besides me actually losing about £3000 over the xmas holidays because i played agitated and was sort of unable to accept losses when i should have! It is sort of why i am making this post. For me to be more stable against tilt and obsessing about how well i am playing, i need to not care as much about each session in a sort of worriesome manner.

For that to happen i need to first be always revising how the game is developing and feel comfortable with the ever changing dynamic always being one step ahead and secondly i need to have a developed life outside poker so the former is not the be all end all. With this formula achieved soon, if i don't turn consistent winnings on a bimonthly basis with the amount of volume i will be putting in i will probably see that taking poker as seriously as i have in terms of a career prospect was just silly and this would add even more impetus about me striving hard to get a wage job.

However for me to accept that i will really be pulling out all the stops to develop my game and my mentality towards it, and considering i have made tens of thousands already i know i have what it takes to win. So i will need to start developing all the qualities that had me winning regularly, a stable temperament, a comfort with the amount of tables being played and feeling a real sense of enjoyment. Adversely i will need to negate the damning qualities in my game. Mainly agitation due to the discomfort at how many tables i am playing, losing grasp of how certain tables are operating and making the wrong plays as a result and feeling a little clueless at times about what to do in marginal spots that are hard to judge. I mainly have to become quite obsessive in trying to make things as easy as possible and then reaping the rewards of such good preparation.

There is a difference between thinking and doing though, so it will be a test of me to go out and actually try to quell all the unease i have with the game and see what happens.

If you have read up to here fair play to you, i probably wouldn't have, cheers for reading and i will try to reward your support by posting up some more success stories!

Btw, thought i would put a picture up of a man juggling life, quite happy with the cheese aspect to this post now with that picture nicely reinforcing that!

Ant