Had an incredible shitty week, and it was mostly due to my own fault. Good thing i figured that out and stopped the disaster before it got any worse.

I remember saying this to a friend of mine "at this rate I'll be busto by the end of the month". Down 27BI in the first 9K hands of the month, man was that painfull. And i blamed it all on variance. The first 3/4K hands were variance tho, had every possible beat, cooler and suckout happen to me. Every set got beaten by a flush, runner runner straight, 2 outerd by an overpair, you name it. AA < KK , KK

Got over it now tho, went down to 50nl to regain confidence, but i felt too good compared to the opposition, hence i donked off another couple of buy-ins. That was the point where it hit me in the face, my game sucks right now. I'm playing suboptimal and it came due to my incredibly successful month in February. I went on auto pilot, assuming all my bluffs would work out, all my big hands would get payed off etc. Because that was the way it went in February, well was i ever so wrong....

Started reviewing my game intensely, and i came across a vid from Brystmar's ssnl series and at a certain point he said "Remember, in this game there is no money for second place" . And that sentence made something click in my head, my first taught was "fuck, he makes a lot of sense" i know it sounds soooo obvious, but when you're running bad, and started playing bad because of that you forget certain things like this, especially because of the Shellshock.

After all this i went on a bit of a break even stretch on 50NL, about 2K hands with less than a BI profit. Mostly because i was still getting sucked out on. But on the contrary to the shitty run i had before, i was actually winning certain pots. So the next day the games sucked at 50nl, and i found 2 juicy tables on 100NL, i sat down and 2 tabled for about 2 hours and it worked out well, was up about 1BI. The next day 4 tables again and after a couple of days 6 again. I was back on track and so far I've won back 8 buy-ins. I have to say tho that my improved table selection and the fact that i gave up constantly (and yea i mean 95% of the time) playing back at the semi-lag regulars. Now i do it in spots where i see the most EV and not just ever time they raise on the CO or BTN when I'm in the blinds with crap like J5o.

So the clue of all this is: Keep reviewing your game, even if you're running so hot that you don't think it's necessary. Don't go into auto pilot, it hurts your game. And most of all, you can't win every pot, give up when you know you're beat.

To close off here are the goals again:

• 10K roll (took a serious hit with the downswing but we're still getting close)
• start 6 tabling (nailed it)
• Start crushing 100NL (I'm confident i can, the swing made me a better player by the end, but we'll have to wait and see when i hit the 100K hands mark)
• Start crushing 200NL
• Get a 20-30K hands a month average (nailed it )
• Maintain / Beat a nice a‚¬15-20 hourly rate (dropped from a‚¬70 to a‚¬26 but it'll go up again, no doubt)
• Study my game more (keeping it up)
• Make monthly with drawls of 2-4 BI of the lvl I'm playing at no matter how shitty i run (isn't a problem, managed to do it even after the 2.7K loss)
• Read The poker mindset by Hilger to try and eliminate the tilt factors i still have left (It arrived yesterday, and I'm gonna start reading it one of these days when i have the time)

Puke out.

Time seems to fly when things are going your way, doesn't it?

It's been my best month poker wise so far, had a very nice result of 3.4K euro profit and by far the most solid graph i have ever put down. Overall i can only say I am very pleased with my result for February been playing solid and running pretty damn hot aswell i must add. Last 2 weeks i have the sickest run of cards i ever had and i was hitting the deck hard.

All this caused me to start and float a bit tho, already saw me in my brand new mustang GT 2007 edition, and dreaming about how I would spend my future profits. It was nice thinking about this, but caused me to play less optimally and stopped me from reviewing my game plan, which led to, yes you've guessed it a "nice" 11BI downswing at the start of March. Figured I became too good and that my over pairs would always hold up, and no-one would draw out on me boy was I wrong... in the past 4K hands that I'll have played already in March I have seen so many monotone flops that you just can't imagine it possible. Top sets getting it all in on the flop getting rivered by a flush or an overpair hitting it's 2 outers, villains hitting their gutshots like you can't imagine it possible the whole lot...

So yet again I had my nose pressed on the hard fact that I can't win em all and that my play deteriorated a lot the past 5K hands because everything went to well in February, started to doubt if i was a winning player and all (you've all been there) so i had a talk with one of the my poker buddy's i started to talk to and discus plays with since January. Which helped me keep things in prospect. Took a look back at my lifetime 6 max graph which showed to my surprise that before the swing i was actually running 4.5bb/100 over 150K hands so i started to recap and get my head straight again and faced the fact that i actually am a winning player but that i was just playing shitty due to lack of game review and getting it to high in my head because of the sick run i had in February.

So i went back to the grind after losing 7Bi in 1.2K hands and was doing well, was up 98 or something over 1K hands until i donked for a 100BB in a 3 way pot with AA on a 7dJs8d board.But overall i was happy with the session. Ended down 4euro or something but atleast the coolers stayed to a minimum and my losses came from my own bad play. What i noticed while playing and worried me a bit was that i was hemorrhaging money again from the SB, a leak that i had fixed a while back. This probably came due to the fact i was running so shitty and wanted to see more flops against the donks at my tables even when i didn't have the odds. I'm trying to pit a stop to that as we speak. (I'm playing 2 tables right now, it's a slow Sunday morning at 8.34am) Didn't make any shitty plays yet an I'm playing a pretty straightforward 17/14/3 game and picked up some nice pot so far with bottom set for 30BB, and a rivered straight when I flopped an openender in a passive 3 way pot which got a lot of action on the river and doubled me up against villain's 2 pair.

So I'm gonna say it again, and I'm gonna stick to it this time. I NEED to do session reviews after I stop playing. It's essential. I need to stop playing OOP with questionable hands and fine tune my post flop play a bit (I'm happy with it, but there is always room for improvement, right?). I'm also gonna do some sweat session with a friend of mine who is also grinding 100NL , I'm sure I can learn a lot from it since he's running 21/17 ish and I'm trying to open up my PF game a bit.

Another project is on it's way aswell. I'm gonna start coaching a friend of mine who has been playing small ball home games for over 2 years but just recently started to play online and is starting to take poker and more specifically online-poker serious. I'll keep you guys updated on how it's going

So here she is, the February graph, my pride and joy

+ add about 1.2K euro in rakeback to that, not to shabby hu?

Let's look at my goals for 2008 again

• 10K roll (I'm getting close)
• start 6 tabling (nailed it)
• Start crushing 100NL (I'm very confident i can maintain a 4bb/100 over 100K hands, so far so good 5.25 over 35K)
• Start crushing 200NL
• Get a 20-30K hands a month average (shouldn't be a problem, did it 2 months in a row so far)
• Maintain / Beat a nice a‚¬15-20 hourly rate (it was a 75a‚¬/h before the downswing now it's at 60 so no doubt i succeeded here)
• Study my game more (need to work on this baaaaadly)
• Make monthly with drawls of 2-4 BI of the lvl I'm playing at no matter how shitty i run (I'm keeping it up)
• Read The poker mindset by Hilger to try and eliminate the tilt factors i still have left (gonna order it today)

Puke out.

It's been a while I know, but I've been quite busy and had some non poker related issues the past week(s).

Been doing alright, haven't played as much as I wanted to, but as stated above, It just wasn't possible. But I'm making up for the loss of time this weekend. Right now it's 10.55PM on Sunday here, and normally i would have been at work (I work as a industrial maintenance electrician on the night shift) But I got a call from my boss today around 1 to say we could stay home due to some interference. So I'm here grinding it out.

I'm on a break after a 1.4K hand session right now and it's going great to say the least. Almost have my first 20K hands of 100NL under my belt and I'm running above expectation so far, I can only hope I keep this up.

Had some interesting spots the past week, mostly against regulars. Where I had to make a play so they wouldn't exploit me the rest of the evening and it worked out most of the time. That's what i like about 100NL aswell, You hear a lot of ppl say "it's the same as 50NL just double the blinds" But on Unibet it isn't exactly the case, the regulars are a lot tougher. You see a lot more squeezes, blind vs blind plays, 4 betting light. All this keeps me on the edge of my seat during a session and actually motivates me to have my concentration at a 100% at all time and take a lot more variables in consideration when making a certain play.

And I made 2 big leaps in progress, imo. 2 pretty standard syndromes for moving up and been on micro stakes too long i think tho.

• Shellshock / thinking everybody is trying too outplay me. (the "he can't have me beat again")
• Falling in love with your hand

A great player once said "a true grinder can lay down his hand at any time, he doesn't get attached to it" . And i hope i finally fit into that category of "true grinder" . It's pretty difficult to make that leap tho, but It seems I'm recognizing a lot more betting patterns and certain plays that make this easyer, pretty proud of it actually. And it's costing me less money.

For the rest I'm happy with my progress and hope i can keep on getting to know certain plays etc. But I'm sure Cardrunners will aid me in this.

So let's review the 2008 goals:

• 10K roll (over half way)
• start 6 tabling (nailed it)
• Start crushing 100NL (running 5.43BB/100 over 19K hands so I'm very pleased with this)
• Start crushing 200NL
• Get a 20-30K hands a month average (worked for the first month so far, hope I keep it up)
• Maintain / Beat a nice a‚¬15-20 hourly rate (got a a‚¬55/h @ 100NL right now, So it's going good hope i keep it up)
• Study my game more (Been slacking with this a bit lately)
• Make monthly with drawls of 2-4 BI of the lvl I'm playing at no matter how shitty i run (Done, changed this to 5BI or half my rake back haven't decided yet)
• Read The poker mindset by Hilger to try and eliminate the tilt factors i still have left (still need to do that)

Puke out.

Time to review.

Did pretty well overall this month. Had a shitty "downswing" tho the last week, down 9 BI's at 50NL all standard crap was happening, and 2 outers are the new coin flips, right? Managed to get some of my losses back tho. Al-tho I had some tilt issues as-well, which I am not proud of ofcourse.

So Saturday the games at 50NL were filling up with nits and there basically wasn't a decent table around. Having my Bankroll requirements for 100NL and 65K hands at 50NL @ 5.2BB/100 under by belt i decided to have a go at 100NL. Started off terrible with KK < AA all in pre-flop, top set vs runner runner straight when everything went in on the flop ( he turned a gutshot and made it on the river). This resulted in a nice - a‚¬250 start which is pretty damn discouraging, I can assure you that. Had a bad case of fancy play syndrome the next 2.5K hands, was basically shell shocked and didn't believe any of the regulars when they played back at me, and i put my stack in the middle pretty light. Especially when i was tilted like hell after i lost my 250BB stack after I flopped Top set, got everything in on the flop and see villain turn a flush. Made a note on him tho. Hell i won't even stack off with KK PF when i have a 200BB stack and he puts it in with a flushdraw when it's clear he has 0 Fold equity at all. Oh well i got over it...Eventualy had some bad tilt after that, stopped playing. Started off the next day with a clear head, decent table selection and 4 tabling to have a clearer view on my game instead of playing on auto-pilot when 6-tabling. This went well, got over my los, and got break even again at 100NL. Next day: a sick heater and I seemed to have gotten my A-game back. Overall I'm happy with my play at 100NL. Learned a lot from my mistakes, now I'm trying to adapt to the regulars, but I'm sure it'll work out fine.

So here she is, the graph:

The graph is in euro btw so $ = a‚¬

Last 5K hands are 100NL, you can see the beats, coolers, and bad plays by me clearly here, but I got back.

Here is the graph of my first 5K hands @ 100NL

I'll probably stay at 100NL for atleast 100K hands and My BR goal for 200NL is atleast 9K so I'll have to have that as-well. But thanks to my new Rake back deal it'll be a bit easier to get there.

Conclusion:

• Still need to work on my game a lot (especially against the regulars)
• Try and get rid of the tilt ( need the poker mindset asap)
• Put a minimum on the fancy plays

Goals:

• 10K roll (Working on it)
• start 6 tabling (Done)
• Start crushing 100NL (Started playing, we'll have to wait and see about the crushing)
• Start crushing 200NL
• Get a 20-30K hands a month average (worked for the first month so far, hope I keep it up)
• Maintain / Beat a nice a‚¬15-20 hourly rate (got a a‚¬40/h @ 100NL right now, but the sample size is ridiculously small ldo)
• Study my game more (Doing it, let's keep it up)
• Make monthly with drawls of 2-4 BI of the lvl I'm playing at no matter how shitty i run (Will do as soon as my Rake Back pays out)
• Read The poker mindset by Hilger to try and eliminate the tilt factors i still have left (still need to do that)

Next update will probably be early February, planning a long grind session this weekend so I'll have a better view of my 100NL progress after that.

Puke, out.

Didn't play as much as intended this week, only got 7K hands in. With the majority being Friday and Saturday night at 5K hands. Was one of my best weekends ever tho, basically running over the tables for a 606BB profit @ 12.2BB/100. So I'm very pleased.

Have reached and topped my BI requirements for 100NL but I'm still gonna wait until the end of the month to fine tune my game and fix some of my leaks.

It feels like I made a lot of progress over the weekend tho. I know it's a big heater but i made some calls and lay downs I would probably couldn't have made a few weeks ago. Strange how your hand reading skills and "full of shit detector" can evolve like that. Probably is because I played a lot more then i was used to, because at this point in the month i would normally only have played 5-7K hands and I'm at 17K right now. So I'm staying in the flow of the game more. Pretty proud of my progress tho, the last 3 months have been amazing, and i have a lot of that to thank to CR.

So 6tabling is starting to pay off in terms of volume of hands (LDO) and I'm happy Ican keep a decent 6bb/100 win rate while doing it. I'm surprised at myself that i didn't go ape shit while doing it.

8 tabling will have to wait for quite some time tho, because taking notes and watching for timing tells will get a LOT harder + i have a 22" wide screen and a simple 19", I'll have to update the 19" to a 22" or 24" before i even attempt this.

Oh I forgot to add a couple of goals in my last post.

• Make monthly with drawls of 2-4 BI of the lvl I'm playing at no matter how shitty i run
• Read The poker mindset by Hilger to try and eliminate the tilt factors i still have left

The with drawls to have a nice fiscal reward for the grinding I put in, and the last one is kind of self explanatory. I hate buying books tho, 80% of the poker books i own i have got for free due to an ITH bonus so I'll have to give that a shot again.

I'll keep you guys updated on how it goes, I'm too Superstitious to post a graph already (yea i know it sounds gay but i only allow myself to brag once a month in order to keep my feet on the ground)

Puke out.

I'll start by giving some background information.

Iv'e been playing poker since July 2006. Started out playing 5 card draw with friends, after seeing a NLHE tourney on tv i gave it a try.Deposited $50 on pokerheaven and started playing $3 sng's and 10NL FR (lol bankroll management). So obviously i went bust there. Looked around for a while and then deposited $300 on a Prima skin to clear a 100% first deposit bonus ( can't remember which one) started nitting it up at 10NL FR again and it went horrible, i sucked badly. Diden't have a chance to clear the bonus, and went bust again.

After all this i started studying hard and desided to do the ITH empire poker bonus for the 150% bonus and the 3 free books. this actualy went quite well. I cleared the bonus and did the first deposit on Party after that. Everything went uphill from there. After this is started Blackjack bonus whoring which went good, put poker on hiatus for about 3 months and built up a nice roll, to eventualy halve it by being a roulette degenerate lost half my roll in 1 spin. I'll never go near a roulette wheel again after this. Eventualy i started grinding my roll back together at Full Tilt trough a PSO promo and here is the start of me playing 6max (this was around may 2007). i grinded a big enough roll for 25NL and left FT again after i relized what a rock garden it became.

Ever since(august 2007) i've been playing on Unibet (prima skin) and it's Fish heaven, Donks running 40/6/0.5 over 1K hands are no exception over there. Thanks to me joining CR when i transfered to Unibet I grinded my way trought 20NL/40NL and now i'm at 50NL planning on moving to 100NL at the end of the month, because I almost have my 30BI roll for 100NL.

So that's my story so far, i've come a long way and have struggled a lot. But i picked up a lot on the way here.

To come to the point here are my goals for 2008:

• 10K roll
• start 6 tabling
• Start crushing 100NL
• Start crushing 200NL
• Get a 20-30K hands a month avarage
• Maintain / Beat a nice a‚¬15-20 hourly rate
• Study my game more

I can already check off the 6 tabling because i started it the 3d of january (my first day of poker in 2008) and i must say it 's going quite well. played 10K ish hands so far. It's kinda swongy but it's a decent profit imo

570BB @ 6.1BB/100 over 9.4K hands @50NL

I'll post the complete graph at the end of the month and try and keep you guys updated weekly on my progress/downfall.

Puke, out.