In october I read one of Verneers blogs and was inspired to give shortstacking a go so all hate should be directed at him :)
I had by far my biggest ever Month in November making $30700 bonuses included. I have since run a few hundred short buys below ev which hasn't been fun to say the least.
I actually miss ' real poker ' so I have decided to start a new challenge. I'm going to play 100k hands of 1/2 all 50bb min tables with my goal being an EV winrate of 3 BB/100 10 tabling.
At first the idea of making 200k a year ss'ing really appealed to me but I guess I'm not the only one, I'm not sure If It was FT's new policy or a ton of like minded people but the games on stars appear to be over saturated with ss'ers leading me to believe that they will follow suit with regards to 35BB tables.

Please forgive me for my sins :)

Gross Graph for everyone's pleasure

This month has started well. I feel way more focused than last and have strung together a few wins which feels great given how rare they were the latter half of September.

Here is one of my favorite bluffs in a while:


http://www.pokerhand.org/?4753432


Oct so far:

Warning - Prob best not to bother reading this, it'll be boring

This is my worst downswing to date in terms of both $ lost and buy ins.
I'm not sure what to do at this point , I took the weekend off to recharge / have some fun only to come back tonight and drop 7 buy ins in 1k hands. It's hard to be upset as I wouldn't take any of the hands back from the big losses tonight.
In poker we are often guilty of deluding ourselves in preservation of our ego or whatever, so in an attempt to make sure I haven't been doing so I'm going to look at my objective spots during this downswing. I'll just look at pots 50BB+ and break them down into flips wins / losses, Coolers e.g ak vs aa , qq vs kk, set over sets ect.. Just non debatable hands.
I'm actually hoping that I have been unlucky as If not It seems as tho I may have a problem.

here goes:

Flips W 8 / L17, not as bad as expected only 4 flips from expected

Coolers W / 12 / L27 - This is probably the hardest part to overcome tho not insurmountable

So the good news is as I suspected I'm running pretty bad, the not so good news is that in searching through my data base I found probably 5 buy ins that I need not have lost.
Looking at the above there is no way that should be enough to account for a 20 buy in downswing and while I know this method is oversimplifying things I think it shows that I am in all likelihood playing pretty poorly as well as running bad.

Guess I'll take a couple of days off and start again fresh next month


Get Money Get Paid

I'm feeling tilted so had to quit my session early, I tried to play guitar hero but my fingers are way too cold. Why?? One of my windows had a crack in it and finally broke the other day and my fucking landlord still hasn't arranged to fix it. Adding to my misery the lights just went out so yea I'm in cold darkness.... Being from Scotland you would expect me to be used to that and I am, but not in my fucking house! So I be Blogging.

Since my last blog I got a chest infection and coughed relentlessly for 10 days, fun times! During that stretch I ran like I felt, and continue to do so.
My month has basically consisted of me firing up a session, dropping 3 buy ins in a few hundred hands, and fighting hard to maintain my sanity. Regretfully I'm starting to lose this battle and have began to spew.

Today I spent a good four hours reading there will be range/ watching vids/ and reviewing sessions only to play a session as follows:

.4 bet 5 of my first 6 3 bets ( say that 5 times fast )
. getting folds on 7% of my c bets
. winning 16% at showdown
. winning 1 pot of 15BB's or more
. Losing $1400

My second session I ran better but played like a bloody Russian which is far more upsetting. My mindset is all wrong at the moment so in an attempt to gain some control I will blog daily to hold myself more accountable for my performance. I think part of the problem is that I don't really talk poker with anyone. In a regular job people have colleagues that they can share there gripes with a little at a time, I however just let it fester and break a mouse now and then. Speaking of... I bought a more expensive mouse this time to stop me breaking it and actually had it cocked and loaded but refrained.


Get Money Get Paid

Not much to report in terms of last week... I booked a solid $4200 win in 9300 hands of 2/4 with 300 hands of 5/10. The jump to 5/10 occurred because I followed a fish up there. Sadly I lost half a buy in my very first hand, and against the fish to add insult to injury. My trips encountered kicker problems bvb so not much I could do. The fish soon busted and was replaced by a strong 10/20 reg according to pokertable ratings. I was planning on just finishing the orbit when a random posted as soon as he sat so obviously I had to stay. Although it's only a few hundred hands I'm both pleased and encouraged by my play. I wasn't scared money as I kept the pressure on the good reg to my right, and made a good 3 barrel bluff on AJ394 with QT.
I can't get carried away as it's 300 HANDS!! lol and in truth I'm pretty sure the lineup didn't represent a true mean for a 5/10 table, as I had position on the only tough reg, and the fish, and the rest of the table was made up of regs on the tighter side. Anyway ship the $860.

My work schedule has greatly improved, I now play Tue - Thursday, Friday night and Saturday day. It feels great to have Saturday night - Sunday to have a good time knowing my work week is behind me. What's cool is I've finally found a routine that allows me to work weekends, eroding the guilt I feel for not doing so, and enjoy my weekends like the rest of society. I'm aware of how simple this appears but for whatever It's taken this long to find this balance.

So yea this weekend was a good one as the gf and I ate some amazing food, drank a ton of nice wine, and got suitably fucked up on Sunday at a club night in Glasgow called Optimo which I hadn't been to in ages but is always a great night.


Get Money, Get Paid

As the title indicates September was my first month playing exclusively 2/4, and more importantly was my first 4 tabling in 18 months.
The latter played a massive part in booking my biggest month to date $17.5k. The mild tilt I used to suffer from has close to disappeared, my hand reading/ post flop aggression has improved significantly, and I'm enjoying the challenge of playing thinking poker as opposed to the vanilla mediocre poker I had accepted as good.

In terms of performance ( not $$$ ) this month has started really well. I had two solid winning sessions on Tue, Wed but had my biggest victory today losing 4.5 buy ins and playing good poker without an ounce of feeling sorry for myself. I don't even have that sickly feeling in my stomach which is def a first following a session like that. This in my opinion can be attributed to a new found confidence in my ability. Following a big losing session I have in the past suffered from a crisis in confidence which has then caused anxiety hence the sickly feeling.

I plan on blogging every Tuesday with weekly updates, If anyone reads my blog semi regularly ( a stretch I know ) direct me to your blog via a comment or something so i can check it out.

Here is a hand I can imagine butchering playing more tables. Very simple spot but I can imagine bet calling here in the past. http://www.pokerhand.org/?4653891

Another one i may have butchered ( worse ) previously http://www.pokerhand.org/?4654342 . Villain is ok reg with 3 bet 8% I think my check back on flop is standard, turn I think I should be 3 bet /calling. Thoughts??? River is kind of interesting as played. I have his range as flush draws which whiffed a c/r similarly kq, and some random 8's. Seems like an easy fold. He never has aa kk qq imo as they bet the flop. Everyone ok with the analysis? It's funny how during my run bad session I was trying to justify a call as he can have overpairs.



Get Money Get Paid

This past week was a success in terms of dollars earned yet I'm disappointed.

Starting with the good.... I ran / played well this week winning all 7 days for a profit of $8600 all at 2/4.

On returning from Brazil my plan was to have a schedule and to maintain a better rounded existence. Nothing crazy, just read more, exercise, find new activities to break up the monotony of my working week.
I've been back three weeks now and unfortunately I find myself falling into habits of old, waking up late, not working enough, ( only 20 hrs this week ) not studying poker, and most importantly not doing enough outside of poker. The problem with the latter comes not when I'm printing money as has been the case this month, but when as is inevitable poker presents some adversity. Poker is my job that is it, I do not want to have my happiness tied up in it which seems to be inescapable given my lifestyle of the last week.
In an attempt to get back on track I will wake up at 9am next week, work set hours, go to the gym, and find some fun stuff to do that is not smoking weed and playing video games. Regardless of results next week will be a good one.

No more procrastination oh and obv........


Get money Get Paid

Games were really good this weekend and thankfully I managed to run well shipping 17 buy-ins at 2/4 in 10 hours of play spread over Friday and Saturday.

I'm going to set a few simple goals for next week.

. Don't check my results until Thursday

. Exercise x3 times between now and next Friday

. Maintain a tidyish flat

If I can't complete these I really have problems.

So last night I went to a birthday night out and had a great time, I got pretty loose and woke up feeling like a repeatedly violated anus so being the glutton for punishment that I am decided to burn some money i.e play some MTT's. First of all I'm terrible at them, I suck at adjusting to the monotony of those things and generally get bored and do something spazzy. I am however shocked at how bad ppl play post flop and in a $215 buy in. When I place someones range ( correctly ) as being weak I just can't help but fire away which I think is a leak. I mean seriously how are you supposed to win these things? Six hours of poker without being stacked just seems like such a long shot! Anyway If I decide to play in some more of these ridiculous tourneys I'll probably watch some videos and try and rely on more than everyone else being diabolical.
Oh to anyone that plays any form of full ring I truly pitty you.

Hopefully I can finish this month strong and round out what is looking like being my biggest month by a distance.


Get Money Get Paid

Aside from not fulfilling my 30 hour quota It has been a successful week of poker. In 6 days of play I booked 5 wins, one break even day, and a loss tonight for a total profit of $5800 as well as clearing a $1200 bonus.
Overall Tuesday was definitely the most important day of my week.... I broke even and wasn't at all happy with my performance, I didn't butcher any hands but felt as though I was playing too passively. Easy fix.... I watched a couple of CTS vids and basically amped up my post flop aggression. The results of which are below.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4606184 and then this gem http://www.pokerhand.org/?4606756 while It was pretty tilting to get sucked out on in the later I'm really pleased with the result of my aggression.


Outside of poker I'm failing miserably with a couple of simple goals I have.
. Keep my place tidy.
. Exercise x3 per week

I'm aware It's pretty pathetic, hopefully the feeling of disdain I have for my laziness will prompt a change.
I also just discovered online grocery shopping today which will no doubt cost me a fortune but will take away 1 of my 3 pet peeves, ( the others are doing dishes, and going to the hair dressers ) and be a positive in my life. I ended up going a bit crazy in the exotic fruits and off license sections which reminds me of the following vid.

Let's start with the bad. I dropped $3k at 2/4 yesterday which was frustrating to say the least. It really stings to do everything right for the week only to drop 2/3rds of my earnings in a day. I've carefully reviewed the session and all the big pots I lost were extremely standard ( on my end at least ) barring one hand I butchered. http://www.pokerhand.org/?4583491 my c bet is too small here and my flop peel bad, the rest of the hand is standard though the flop mistake should have been avoided, some mild tilt perhaps? I would like to add that I have a lot of history with villain and he is exceptionally spastic post flop so this wasn't at all standard for me, but bad no less. I could talk about beats etc but everyone knows the deal / doesn't care and frankly neither do I.
Funnily enough the only pots I won of 100bb's were gifts so I at least gained some theoretical monies as I wouldn't have lost those pots situations reversed.

The good: In what was a very challenging week in terms of variance, I managed to play 30 hours as planned and book a modest win of $1500. If the exact same week were sent back in time I can say with absolute certainty that I would have been in the red and would have played considerably less hands.

Playing less tables has got me thinking alot more deeply about poker which I don't really want to go into but I will say that the great thing about this game is you can constantly have these aha moments and realize that what you thought was a good understanding was actually very superficial, long may it continue. Oh and finally after all this time I've started posting on 2+2 and am feeling predictably stupid for not doing so before.

I would usually say good luck at the tables followed by some random wiggerish send off.

Play well will suffice.