Run Good + Hard Work Needed!

Hey

Just an update to say that i am somewhat struggling at the moment to get out of the small sngs that i am playing. Been spending my profits as i make them because my br is quite low so im dealing with smaller profits. This just means that in the hopefully short period of playing these sngs i need to limit my spending to protect my profits so i can re-stream them into playing bigger sngs and/or small multis.

I havent been playing too much recently which has been another stumbling block for why i remain playing low limits. I haven't bothered playing my 8 hour+ days because i have been out a lot and just been generally putting it off. It may be my sub conscious saying im scared about how long it will take to get out of this rut but im just gonna get on with it before more weeks pass by and i am not where i want to be bankroll wise.

Gonna be interesting to see what my hourly profits are when i start grinding a lot and in a weird way i am looking forward to it.

Ant

Warning computers are harmful!

Hey

Recently tried an Anti-Glare Protector for the 24' monitor that i have but annoyingly its just a little too small on the width. A phrase i have unfortunately been noted on before :)

If you are wondering what one of these are, its a piece of plastic film that goes over your monitor that protects from glare and other harmful UV rays that can have an adverse effect on your ability to use your computer properly. People with CVS (computer vision syndrome), which i unfortunately have, can have bouts of migraine, blurred vision, fatigue, eye strain, dry, irritated eyes, and difficulty refocusing the eyes when using the computer. For people suffering from this at any extent i would suggest buying an anti glare protector for your monitor!

I had been suffering with these symptoms for the past year and have got on with playing poker regardless and found that because of this i was never really playing my A-game and that i was never far away from a tilt tantrum. I think anyone with regular headaches and blurred vision as a direct result from using the computer too much would also not be in the best state of mind to play poker.

On the Wikipedia page for the condition, it says that a lot of the symptoms are temporary. However i would imagine that if you use the computer for 8 hours a day daily that these "temporary" conditions would seem a lot more long lasting. To be honest though, i never helped myself with the way i was using the computer in the early days of playing poker. I used to lie down in bed with my back arched and the laptop on my chest literally inches away from my face. I would probably say that i was sat like this for a good year at least and near the end of that tenure i started experiencing eye problems and headaches.

I reacted by buying a 24' monitor and using a desk for it with a comfy chair, thereby being able to sit far enough away from the comp for it not to be a danger to my eyes. However i found that i was getting headaches just as fast from concentrating at the screen for too long, and no question this helped in fostering my bad poker play, through my edginess.

I didn't know what the problem was so i thought i should go to the opticians, and he told me i need a slight prescription but nothing too untoward. I don't need glasses for walking about with (that would be a walking stick, im here all week!) and when i do put them on for computer use or reading i don't notice much of a difference. I still got the headaches, blurred vision and dry eyes.

As a sort of last ditch i bought an anti-glare protector for my monitor. Apparently it can get rid of 99% of the glare that is emitted from your screen and i would have to say that it has significantly helped me! I know it doesn't exactly fit my screen perfectly but it covers most of it and when i look through the filter my concentration levels are improved immensely. I no longer have to look at the screen for a minute a time without having to turn away because i just couldn't take glare.

This alone won't combat the problem i have with computer screens. I think its a combination of a lot of things that i was told to do by the opticians. There is an apparent 20-20-20 rule, whereby every 20 minutes you should look away from the computer screen to an object 20 metres away for 20 seconds.

Obviously i will need to do some sort of an altered version of that because i am not exactly going to look away from my computer screen religously every 20 mins. Could you imagine it. Playing 9 tables having Aces on 3 of them and noticing on my watch, ahh shit its time. Then turn away, stranded by the slow ticking of the 20 seconds on my watch before i can look back at the screen, aghast to find that when i return i have been sat out of the AA bearing tables and hence forth being strickened by an unsurmountable grief :)

The altered version will be to notice when there is a lull in my multi table grinding and you guys know when that is, when you have those few precious seconds to yourself where you can just sit back, smoke a cigar and not worry about playing for a while as you have just auto folded all your tabs dealing with the 49 suiteds or the K2 offsuit. In this quiet, I would just need to look away from the screen, close my eyes and relax, hopefully this will soothe my eye muscles and thus keep them in shape. Then the dreaded reminder beep will have me scrawling back to some sort of poker situation i have encountered a million times. O the Joy.

So hopefully within the next few months with the basics of workstation ergonomics mastered i can finally relax while playing poker and experience the sort of upturn i was so akin to in the early days of playing. I would like to think the only reason i started losing was because of my reaction to the frequent headaches i would get from the comp and not knowing why exactly i was getting them, which added to the frustration. Poker was becoming ever more bitter sweet as i could only experience smaller spells of greatness when the effects of CVS were on an unexpected holiday.

There are only a few other things i need to do to be perfectly prepared for computer use but these now may appear more anal. Desk height, chair positioning/your position in the chair so as not to get back pain, the monitor being at eye level so you don't have to get neck strain from looking downwards. These things i will only combat if i need to so i can maintain some sort of laziness.

On the subject of hamful computers i will lay a worrying link up to those of you who still use their laptop on their bodies ie. on their chest or lap while using, because people who do this and have done for quite some time can be at risk of the adverse effects rtadiation exposure! The link itself has an initial article that is quite vague but the comments in response to it hold more info.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/green-girl-blocks-laptop-radiation.html#

So i think that is the lot on my bearing of bad news in terms of computer related illnesses haha! Food for thought at least and hopefully this sciency advice will help those suffering from similar problems to myself. I wince at the possibility it was CVS that made bad players bad and now i have given them the cure to be playing stable-mindedly, if i have done i forward my apology to all those pros now out of a job. Bye now.

Ant

Things going well!

Hey

Really can't complain at the moment. On a trend of about £500 a week which isn't the best i know but its very good in correlation to my starting roll. The sit and gos have been becoming more alluring, dare i say it, because they are convenient.

I can start up 7-8 of them and be over in an hour and a half, meaning i can fit it in around some sort of life if i ever decide to get one. However, i am riding high on the wave of optimism and industriousness so i am dedicating most days to poker and gym only. So that would mean 1 1/2 hours getting to and from and in the gym and the rest of my day playing poker and taking nice breaks in between.

In the breaks i can get away from it all and watch cash in the attic or an inevitable re run of sky sports news (that stuff repaests itself every hour i tellsya). When i am at a comfortable roll then i will look into the development of a more well rounded life. However i feel that that would only happen if i manage to have enough in the bank and have the capacity to further my funds nicely, to rent out where i feel i could branch out more with that independence and shit.

I feel that i will have to have a very nice amount to think about renting though as i wouldn't mind taking advantage of such kind parents who ask for hardly any rent from me.

So the plan is. Get cracking with playing these sit and gos. Maintain or better the £500 a week goal and with a comfortable amount in the bank i will re assess and see if i should start playing multis again. Life is simple atm, just waiting for some tilt carnage or summin to mess up this nice little bit of decorum im having here!

On the Crystal Palace fc front. Is Paul Hart really the man to lead us away from relagation? I think so, but am surrounded by pessimists who beg to differ.

Anyway gl peeps

Ant

Not going to Plan

Hey

Have spent much of the xmas period up until now just about paying for all the things i have been getting up to through poker instead of pushing on into the higher stakes which i know i should be in right now. But i need some more application to even think about it.

I have been playing a lot less recently through lethargy and just wanting to play the playstation 3 instead with no real great will to carry on playing. The main reason for this is that i am not liking poker right now as much as i used to. This being as i am playing much lower than i would like and the lack of the profit i was once used to starts to aggrevate me and sometimes this leaves me playing a break even game through tilt.

I am writing now to try and address the problem and calm down a little, set myself a gameplan and stick to it. The end goal is to have £10000 in the bank so i can play all the the euro tournies (10e-$100) i want and feel ultra comfortable with every play i make knowing that i never have to be results orientated because i have so much money to fall back on. At the moment i am banking on lower limit sngs to get me through the struggle i find myself in, and its going ok. However i find myself getting bored and putting in no where near as many hours as i used to. I used to do 10+ a day easily loving every minute of it, but now im struggling to piece together 4 hours and with that i am not even playing that well.

Have had quite a few things happen to me over the period i was absent from blogging that i will shed light on within the next posts, nothing serious, but some quite funny all the same. Was tempted to do a mega post with all i shud have posted in the two months i wasn't writing but thought i would like to save you guys lengthened boredom.

One reason i wasn't blogging was because i thought i wasn't doing it right and im not. All so random and unorganised, no real planning involved, just a sort of stream of poker-related conciousness. I never know what i am going to write in the next sentence i just sort of scribe and see what happens. Will address this in later posts but for now i would like to relish in the laziness that is my current writing style and look forward to feeling better about all future posts. No idea why i thought i should share that with you and my insecurity here must be blinding!

Anyway, i think my approach to the game is what is most at fault at the moment. I am remembering the days of my former relative glory of having a £10K+ roll and taking it easy, pretty much crushing life along the way and its this that makes me remain in the doldrums of false starting with any roll i try to build. I think back constantly to the mistakes i have done and this aggrevates me and therefore affects the poker play i am doing currently.

Just an issue of manning up really, learning from mistakes and examining what i need to do to avoid the "i could have made it" tag i am placing on myself as if i have no chance of fully recouperating. I see my mate F3nix35 pushing on with his tourney success and knowing i could have been in the same spot if i was equally careful in bankroll management but c'est la vie i wasn't and i am where i am now. There we go again another thought that has me slightly agitated! lol.

I think its a matter on getting into a daily routine to crush the online lower stakes sngs that will help me push on. Go gym an hour a day, take regular breaks away from the comp, feel good about the profit i am making and be safe in the knowledge it takes little steps to make big goals. There is a rushing element in me that wants everything now and its in that i have in the past made so much money so quickly but the pitfall of doing things too fast is that you can lose the money just as quickly.

Lesson really here is to just enjoy my poker within the comfort of good br management and hopefully with my skill (if i have got any or if the games are so tough now that its all break even stuff lol) i can pussh on slowly into the promised land of going back to the multis, where no one can say anything against, that i am an above average player.

Cheers.

Tourney Update

Hey

Experienceing somewhat of a turn for the worst recently dowswinging on three of the main sites i have been using recently. This is slightly annoying as well because tourney variance can damage your bankroll very quickly. I wouldn't say that much of my play was at fault for this because on the sites i have resorted to at the moment my ROI is averaging around 80% with profits clearing the $5K mark across all of them. Just experiencing a nasty downswing of late, but i am definately looking forward to the upswing that should ensue soon, and hopefully with this some more xmas money to use for my family. This is just a little update really to say i'm alive and yet again pledge an empty promise to start blogging more on here!

cheers

Deal or no Deal?

Hey

Just won $2.8k on stars making my weekley earnings on there around $5K, which ain't bad! lol. I think i might just start grinding on here for the rest of my life if this continues. However, my sleeping pattern is adjusted with American time so i have no life really, just money making seems to be the only thing going for me lol.

Back to the tourney anyway. I just played my usual game and found that i was ripping guys to shreds. It was only a $5.50 2R1A ($20.50) tourney so this is probably why i found it so easy. However, the final table had no play in it because everyone was in or on around 10 bbs apart from a runaway chip leader. With 8 left it soon became a lottery and by this time i was showing my yellow belly and frantically e mailing pokerstars support for a mod to come on and arrange a deal. That was with 8 left!. One thing led to another and we're left with 5. The mod decides to turn up and the shit gets sorted and i dealt from last position with like 6 big blinds left lol.

This was fine, don't think i had another alternative but to take the money, but it was the request of the mod to play out the tourney that annoyed me, while he watched. Apparently we need to play out the game so that afterwards the money situation can be sorted. So an idea came to my head. This is our very own deal or no deal poker version! Should he have taken the money, should he have played on, there is only one question deal or no deal! I got everyone on board with this concept and we all seriously played for an hour afterwards for no apprent reason really but just for curiosity's sake. It was a beautiful sight really. This was poker at its finest. Not for the money but just for the love of the game

So Should i have dealt?

Congratulations on your finish in tournament #209010675! You agreed to a deal at the final table to adjust the payouts as follows:



When the tournament ended, you were automatically credited with the official place 2 payout of USD 4,049.10.

The difference between this amount and the amount to which you agreed in the deal is USD 1,257.05, and this amount has been debited from your account. You will find this transaction in the cashier history at this time.

NO!

I came 2nd, and not only do they let us play it out to beat ourselves up about it, they place the money you would have won in your account and then take it away from you once they sort out the proper, agreed payout. I was staring at the balance in my cashier thinking you want to stay here don't you, you beautiful $1257.05 yeeeeeeeh you want to become a weeks intense driving lesson programme don't you, maybe then i can buy a car and drive on the road and shit, yehhhhhh. But not to be. It was taken out and i was left disgusted with the world.

Meh at least i am cheating on my sharkscope hehe, i believe i will have profits showing of $1200 more than i should which is fine by me lol. Makes me look more menacing to the fishes but maybe will make it harder to make use of my premiums if they always think i have it. O well hu knows.

Well i am off to bed now but as a parting gesture, Fenix35, if you're reading this, be very afraid, my br was at £500 two weeks ago but im coming for you. You and ure $50K bankroll aint safe from me. Once i pass you im gonna first mooney you, then do the Jay Z dance towards you. Then runaway into the hundreds of thousands just like on an ice cream cone. So tasty.

Gl peeps

BOOM! Back Baby!

Hey

Well after my last post it probably looked all doom and gloom for the Antster (and yes i will assign myself in the third person while putting a cockney twist in it for good measure) but since my bankroll was at a measley 800 euros i have had two very big wins. Both coming in 2000+ minefield pokerstars tournies where i placed a third and a fourth for $2K a pop wagering $11 in the first and $15 in the second one, both results coming 3 days after eachother. I was so busy transferring that money onto softer euro sites that i had no time at all to gloat on here but here i am :)

My record across three euro sites in particular is great, with a standard positive roi of over 80% and 100's of games to boot on each one hopefully means that sorta result making isn't luck. I'm just going to be ridiculously stringent now with my bankroll and abuse these euro sites in particular because i find them more bearable than the massive fields of the american sites. With a

I also learned a major thing in the past few days. Never mix euro site mtts with at most around 300 runners with full tilt or pokerstars tournies of 3000 odd runners. This will just lead to annoyance over how many you have left to conquer on the american sites and just aggrevate you enough to play poorly too on the euro sites. That is why i am playing the euro sites during the peak times of say 5-m - 11pm and then when those tourneys are done and i don't want sleep lol i can play on the american site tournies out of those times. Particularly the mtt sngs they have going the 90 mans, 45 mans, and 27 mans. I know when combining these with the 3000+ mtts it won't be pretty but it sorta feels right when ure only playing on two sites and know what to expect.

Revelations here as i write, i have had a downspell since the wins on pokerstars and realise that if i dnt cash in one tourney tonight my life bankroll will be at £1600/1806 euros/$2500 dollars. After being at a peak of say $5000 dollars. Easy come easy go right. Just shows you talking about br management doesn't make you utilise it! Been playing 10rs and $50 freezeouts since which i guess isn't horrendous but i may need to be a lot tighter.

To be fair as well since the win i have spent around £600 dealing with some other shit. Also, i need to stress that I have taken into account all the rebuys i am likely to spend in the tourneys tongiht and i am playing about 20, so would be unlucky for me not to add to that proposed BR stated above.

Anyway i am in a great mood approaching the Slovenia trip having been quickly backed for the 30% i eventually decided to giveaway, and i feel that i will be bringing a good game to that tourney. A bink here would be amazing as i think the estimated prize for first is between 50-100k euros so that wud be a win of a lifetime. I will be playing for first and if i get the opportunity to play the bubble i will be doing so aggressively avoiding other likeminded people and those with AA! hehe.

Really need to start reading other blogs, apart from the ones on my list and should get my networking shoes on but i guess it's something i am unlikely to get around to too soon, saying that though i could start tomorrow if i was bored!

A big thank you to the new guys that are starting to follow me on this blog along with the older ones, it's real nice to know that you appreciate this, and don't forget to leave comments. I'm pretty sure that is why every blogger blogs, well that and advertisement money, *cough*Amatay*cough* :)

Cheers guys