Up the Palace! Up the Poker!

Hey

Playing on full tilt and stars has helped my bankroll out a lot especially at the lower limits. 12 tabbing is always fun when the tables are relatively easy and i made $150 yesterday from my first serious grind which you gotta love!. If i keep that up i will be dancing in the streets before too long!

Going a little eskew now i would like to mention crystal palace football club. Why do we always deem it necessary to put the fans under the most immense pressure going just to feed some sort of lurid sadism fix it has. We couldn't nick a goal against WBA to make it all so easy after having a shot cleared off the line and Stern John going so close in the final minutes both of which i know most the fans thought were goals!

It felt like having 66 versus JJ all in pre flop and getting a 629 flop but then having it dramatically taken away by a J turn and an overkill J river. Massive game on sunday against Sheffield Wednesday. Both literally playing 90 mins for our survival in the league. Only a win is sufficient for them to stay up while we need a draw or better, but the game is to be play at Hillsborough, so the game is really up in the air.

The question is will it be like 2001 for us when we victoriously avoided relagation with a Dougie Freedman goal at Stocport or are we going down in dramatic fashion like we did in 2006 from the premiership like we did at Charlton. I am going up to Sheffield anyway to watch the game.

My record of watching away matches consists of 14 non wins. One of the most elaborate being watching Ireland against France at the Stade de France when Thierry Henry decided to play a bit of gaelic football. Absolutely devastated. It was more the hope that was raised with the Keano goal being quashed so qucikly in that fashion when we had chances to win the game. Ah i was inconsolable. I hope that this isn't the case on sunday. I don't even care if we don't win either because of this annoying away day jynx i have. Just please can we stay up?

On another note i will like to draw all of your attention to the new Gcasino website. I had a little spin of the games like Deal or no deal and thought they were pretty good. The poker site though i liked most. Its on ipoker and the design is quite alluring to the eye in dark and light blue colours, but trying not to sound like a big advertisement, the main reason i am saying all this is because they are doing a freeroll promo where they are giving away £500 a day from now on in daily freerolls. And on some days even giving away £1000 or £1500 in freerolls, they guarentee at least half get paid as well which is odd but it still keeps enough of a heavy weighting up top to make it all worth while. Think you should all give it a look esp if you are a freeroll specialist. What i would do is press this link sign up and enjoy the freerolls. If you play them all you will get a free roll there (see what i did :)) and who knows what could happen next.

My outlook is good for my new tyoe of game i play and realise that i should have played this for a lot longer than just the last week or two! But whats the most important thing about all this is that i am enjoying my poker again and can't wait to be playing again. Cue the grinding!

Ant

Loving it

Hey

Well i have changed the type of sng i am playing and all of a sudden eveything is looking up. If you want to know the specifics i used to be playing double your money games to limited success. The games have got alarmingly tight and tough in those and my profits were definately limited. It was good for getting rakeback though in a very low variance way but i just wasnt making that much money.

Decided now to play 45 mans down to 9/10 mans and to 9 table them religiously for 10 hours a day, preferring to stick to the slower versions of the game as the turbos go too quick for me and i can never multi table them well. The rush of coming first in any form of tourney is great and these little mini rushes i get when i take one down really is a perk for me that keeps me content to play for long hours. Previously in my cash or double your money forays i was left bored and may well often start playing poorly. I hope now i won't be as i am studying my game a lot more, watching training vids and learning the exact maths of when to push or fold. Found out what i was doing previously was near enough the right thing to do but i have needed to tweak a few things and i have noticed there are some anomolies that have been left unanswered for me that i will post up on here to try and get some answers from you.

All i would like to get across in this post is that the fire has been relit in me. My enthusiasm has sky rocketed and i just know now that i am on course to make the big bucks and really enjoy the cushty living that playing poker well can give you. Roll on the big scores and steady winning!

Ant

Calm Before the Storm

Today i feel really good. Not about my poker in the past week or two because i have hardly played and when i have i have been slightly idiotic and loose, not really caring. But its dawned on me that i just havent been enjoying the game as much as i used to.

Scared in ways that i am not good enough to keep up even in the lower sngs and multis. Always wondering whether or not i did the right thing and always assuming i didn't. Because of this i'm getting bored very quickly with proceedings and opting for a more inane thing to do like ps3 or watching a film. Noticed that when i feel confident in my plays and self assured that i normally kill whatever game i play, mainly sngs and multis (self proclaimed fish at cash, but maybe i might give a fuck about improving myself in that?). My lack of confidence is because i am beating myself up about not being rolled enough to play higher multis and what is happeneing is i am winning loads one day and then the other i can tarnish all the good work when i feel shitty about the low stakes situation i have put myself in.

It's a sort of vicious cycle but i know there is only one way to get out of that and that is to face this shiz full on. Change all my bad habits and i mean all of them. I'm going to go cold turkey on everything i feel may be detrimental to my poker play. No booze, no junk food, more breaks in between poker sessions, more exercise and making sure that i leave myself no time to be completely bone idle. With this i will generally feel better. A healthy body is a healthy mind. Never had a healthy body. So does that mean all other fat people are as insane as me?

Going through a slight transition period now. I have realised that i am really looking forward to going back to uni for my final year in september and that i am going flat out to get the best grade possible and with that guarentee of a degree i then, hopefully, have avenues open to me to pursue if poker doesn't work out for me.

ATM i'm stuttering like Gareth Gates but i can't honestly say i haven't made any genuine efforts to pull myself out of the hole. Today i am going to grind sngs in the way i know how, to make enough money to buy the services of an online training site. With the added education should come assurance in that what i have been doing in these sngs was altogether correct but needed a little bit of fine tuning. I could live with that. If i find out i am a fish from some self important dude narrating over his plays in a mock up sng, i won't be best pleased. I wouldn't know how to tell everyone else using the site that he is wrong :P

So plan is. Go to the gym every day. Eat healthily = increased capacity to maintain concetration levels for longer. Gotta also learn from pros online through these training vids = more assurance in my own plays = more money = the want to play longer hours = when was the last time you got away with mixing maths and english through the use of a " = " sign?

Anyways i just think now this is the calm before the storm and all of a sudden this blog will turn into cringeworthy brag reading over and over and hopefully over again.

Laters

Ant

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.