WBCOOP: Mincash hero

I played in a couple of tournaments last night & managed deep runs in both. First off was the 2k UK & IRE freeroll. As I was waiting for the WBCOOP event to start an hour later I thought I'd get in a bit of practice first. I managed to cruise past the bubble but didn't managed to get deep enough to make the serious money.

The WBCOOP also went well. Started off slow & I was down to about 1600 chips & handnt seen a sign of a decent hand & after a flurry of pocket pairs where I raised & everyone folded. I finally picked up pocket 2s with a raise before me & a couple of callers. I called & flopped a set, managed to get aggressive with one player & it all went in. My set turned into a fullhouse & held against the villains overpair. Not long after I'd doubled up again when I was moved onto a table with only 2 other active players! the other 2 were very aggressive trying to take the blinds constantly but after a while & a lucky misclick! I'd got one of their stacks.

So I managed to build up a healthy stack & hold on into the money but didn't make it much further in that event either. At the time the table had been passive. There was a limp in EP & MP which put about 9k on the table. I had a stack of 14k & thought I'd make a move on the dead money. After I shoved, the BTN called with KK, BB called with 84o(?) EP w A4. needless to say I didn't hit!

So I walked away with an $11 ticket a SCOOP event. Obv I'll been looking at the HU event & wouldn't mind playing the mid game too. That's if I can run my roll up high enough & may be able to agreed a staking. Who knows!

- Run Good

Positive return

Just played a 1 game session! But played patient poker which is where I want to be in my game. Managed to secure a victory, villain was a tight player who seemed to get impatient after a while & after spending the whole match limping his buttons & flat calling or folding from the BB started to 3x me, then this hand happened. http://www.pokerhand.org/?5129460
As I said, villain had been supertight throughout the match so far, but hand just changed to being very impatient & 3x his BB & my limps. Hence I decided to limp my AJs expecting to 3bet his raise. My decision was based on the fact that now he's become more aggressive my hand is way ahead of his raising range so if he 4bet shoves I'm snapcalling. Once we see the flop & he leads out, I decide to flat call hoping to induce another bet from him on the turn. As luck would have it he tuns 2 pair & is happy to get it in as am I with the nut flush & he's drawing to 4 outs on the river which brick.

Happy with the victory, takes me to slight positive ROI for the month, but I think its been a journey of lessons this month & I think I've learnt the value of patient poker. So I guess we're coming to the end of the month & I'm going to review my targets I set at the beginning of the month & set new ones.

WBCOOP Event #2 PLO

Last night was event 2 of the WBCOOP series, with PLO being the game of choice for event 2. I guess my lack of knowledge of the game seriously hindered my progress here as I only lasted till 1200th out of 1600 entrants. So not a great start to the series.

I've yet to read the book I bought on PLO mainly because I'm still working on my HU game.

Don't think I'm gonna have the opportunity to play in tonights event so it'll be event #4 next for me.


- Run Good

WBCOOP Update: Lol donkaments

Last night I played a couple of tournaments, one as a time fill waiting for the first preliminary event of the WBCOOP at PokerStars. It was only a £2k freeroll for UK & IRE.

Don't think I lasted 2 levels in the WBCOOP! I got my AKo allin preflop vs 56s, villain flopped bottom pair of 5s & I flopped top pair with As. Turn brought
a 6 giving him 2 pair & the river bricked out & that was me done.

Lasted a bit longer in the freeroll, around 5k entrants & finished around the 500 mark after getting my average stack in preflop with pocket kings against the shove 1 seat before me holding AQs & a flopped A sent me to the rail.

Had fun though, would have likes to have lasted longer in the WBCOOP but that's the way things go sometimes, I'm happy enough to have got it in ahead & that's all I can do. PLO today which should be interesting! Not my strongest game, but I'm gonna give it a shot.

- Run Good

Scraping a victory

So I put another session in this morning of 5 games & finished 3-2 which isn't awesome but it's a step in the right direction. I think I've been looking too far ahead & I've probably said this before. I haven't reviewed my whole session, but I took a look at my first game which I lost & I played pretty solid apart from one mistake where I tried to make a bluff in a big pot & got punished for it. It's spots like these where I get caught up in my old ways. Thinking my opponent is bluffing so I bluff back without a hand, only it turns out it's only me bluffing!

I'm about a dollar down for the month & I'm actually pretty confident I can wipe that out before the end of the month & I'm just gonna write this month off & put it down to experience.

I've been reading a book by Dalai Lama on happiness & it mentions you have to train your brain to not think negatively which I think would work for me when it comes to my attitude toward poker. Bt the point I want to make is he mentioned some research carried out on the human brain. They asked a bunch of people to tap ther finger on the desk repeatedly & they took a scan of their brain. Then they asked these people to go home & practice for 2 weeks & come back. These subjects came back & found they were able to tap faster & longer but when they scanned their brain found it had reconfigured slightly in light of the new knowledge & techniques they had learnt. I found this a really interesting concept & really backs up the idea that the best way to learn about poker is volume. I know I need to do this myself, but I found myself making the same damn mistakes without thinking about what I was doing or reflecting upon my game.

- Run Good

Patience saves the day

I've just finished another session. Played 7 games & it ended 5-2. I managed to stay calm & not make 'many' mistakes! I think this is as a result of watching one of cog's videos on getting sucked out on & having patience. As a result I managed to keep calm & win my last game which lasted 57 minutes & is by far the longest game I've played!
FML!

Still need to review a couple of sessions I played this week. I kinda already know what I'm going to find, it includes me donking off my stack with a rediculous hand! But it still needs to be done if I'm going to learn & progress.

I've decided I'm gonna play the Mon night NLHE tourney on Stars WBCOOP & the Tue tourney which is PLO to see how they go. I'm slightly concerned at the time difference as I'll be sitting down at 10/11pm to start which isn't going to help my sleep patern & the main event is on Sun before I go down to London village on a work conference which tends to get a bit messy in the evenings. I'll see how it goes & take it from there I guess.

- Run Good

Bad run continues & Stars WBCOOP 2010

My form continues to be horrible, played a good first game & took it down. 2nd game I got sucked out on when I lost with my KK vs KT. I played one more game & got coolered at the high blinds when my JJ ran into QQ. After that I wasn't in the right frame of mind to play on so I watched one of the videos.

On another point, I just got an email from stars confirming I'm in the WBCOOP so Im hoping to run good in one of those to win a ticket so I can enter the med or high HU SCOOP events. I'm def entering the low event.

- Run Good

A Tale of two poker sites

I guess this month is going to continue to be a random one. I'm still winning on Stars at a rediculous ROI of 77% over only 14 games which I know is a super tiny sample size. But as you can see from the pic below it's got me $65.













Compare it to my FTP games, I can't seem to pull it together, I'm down about $1 which isn't much but it seems to be going only one way.














I've just bought membership to & have downloaded a ton of videos which I'm gonna try to watch over the next few weeks. I have a conference in about 10 days which includes a couple of 2.5 hour train journeys so I intend to watch plenty during those.

Spew

I'm over halfway through the month & my play has turned to spew. I'm not sure what happened but I seem to have forgot everything I have learnt. Played 10 games this morning & finished 5-5 which isn't horrible but my play sucks pretty hard. I'm gonna continue to review my play & study loads.

Just bought a one-month membership to HUSNG.com I'm hoping to watch a ton of videos in the hope this will bring me some inspiration.


- Run Good

Videos

So Ive been running goot on Stars recently & decided to cash out some profit to buy the beginner pack on HUSNGs from HUSNG.com. I've watched one so far & they seem really good. I've played 7 games today & finished 4-3 so a marginal profit but I split the session in two after playing really badly. Not sure what has got into me lately but I need to snap out of it!

As you can see in my previous post, I'm trying to get into the Stars WBCOOP which should be fun although I'm gonna have to put in some late sessions due to time differences. That's if I'm granted premission to enter, let's hope they don't think I've run too good recently!!

- Run Good

Pokerstars WBCOOP

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 332990

Sleeping Donkey

I seem to have hit a tough spot recently & I'm fully aware it's due to bad play. I need to get my head back into the fundementals otherwise I'm going to see all my profit wiped out. I'm such a fucking donk. I'm not sure if it's my new sleeping pattern has left me tired, admitedly I am still tired now & it's midday!

Looking at where I need to be by the end of the month:

150 games - slightly behind
15% ROI - behind
$2 level - behind
Reviewing regularly - on target
Posting on 2+2 - sporadic
Read book - FAIL!

If I'm going to suceed I need to learn from my errors & take them onboard quicker. I guess one lesson I need to take is that I'm realising (yet again) is setting a volume target isn't helping. I'm playing to hit the numbers & not to play well. If I concentrate more on playing well I can improve to a good ROI which is better than hitting the volume which can come later.

- Run Good

Sleep

I've had a bit of an up & down month so far. I guess this is due to the inconsistencies in my playing schedule. I decided to take a stand yesterday evening while pondering my next move. I researched methods for maintaining a consistant sleeping routine & have found out I need to vary the time I go to bed but be resolute when it comes to getting up. I'm training myself to awake at 5:30am which is a big push for me, we shall see how it goes as it's only day 1.

As a result of the earlyrise time I was able to make sure I was more alert before sitting down to play. I guess this worked cuz I played 4 games this morning & finished 4-0. Which is great, puts me back up near the 8% ROI mark. Although I am still behind where I should be in terms of bankroll & number of games played.

Finally, got round to reviewing yesterdays abysmal games. Quitting after 3 games as I lost all of them & I clearly wasn't think at all, I was too loose in calling against passive players. My bet sizing is also off too, potting on the river against passive villains when they've shown no aggression & leading out 3/4 pot when 1/2 pot will do. These are definitly big leaks that I need to work on otherwise it's going to slow my progress.

- Run Good

Starting slowly

With the first week of the year over progress has been slow. I'm struggling to get up in the mornings, which means I'm not hitting the volume I need to. When I do play, I seem to be playing good poker. I had a session yesterday & finished 4-1.

I've also been working on my pokerstars bankroll. Before Xmas I'd let it drop as close to busto as it's ever been. I had enough for a $1 DON & managed to win. I struggled to get it up to $5, but once I did I entered a $3 tournament. I thought it was a DON & adapted my strat that way but when we got to 5 players I realised it wasn't! Managed to finish 2nd for $9 which was a decent bump to my roll. I think I'm around $20 now. Once I hit $50 I'm gonna try the $5 HUSNGs see if I can run it up.

- Run Good

First new year session

I had my first session of the new year yesterday after a few days off playing & it was as if I'd forgotten everything! My play wasn't awesome, I'd slipped back into station mode & was generally playing weak. It does tend to happen more when I have a large amount of time to play rather than a set hour or so. I'm thinking my mentality is geared toward the volume aspect of play rather than making the right play.

The return to work may be a blessing in disguise! It'll give me back the stucture I need & the ability to commit set blocks of time for playing or studying.

I've decided to review my sessions on a diferent day to when I played. I'm not convinced I'll review the games with a clear mind & impartial view, this way it should benefit me more without having the emotion involved from that session.

- Run Good

January Goals

So the new year has arrived & I'm facing quite a challenge of getting to $10 HUSNGs. I need to start strongly in Jan & this takes the form of moving up to the $2 games. If I can hit a 15% ROI I'll get there in 150 games. I also need to finish Moshmans book so I can reread it & make some quality note & hopefully wipe out a few of my leaks.

[ ] Play 150 games
[ ] Achieve ROI of 15%
[ ] move up to $2 HUSNGs
[ ] Review sessions on a regular basis
[ ] Post on 2+2
[ ] Finish reading the heads up book

- Run Good