Back to the tables

Date: Thu, Feb 21, 2008

Played a short 6-tabling session tonight. I figured the best way to respond to the little downswing I had was to CRUSH... HARD. :)

Won all of the money back from the shitty session a couple of nights back, and this 10k hands is now back on track!

Time Out
Taking last night off from poker was cool, reckon I needed a break from the tables to relax. Played a bunch of pool with my Dad and bro after work today too which was fun.

I often find myself getting immersed in poker, this usually happens if I've been playing a lot of volume or I'm on a downswing. I actually like having work the morning after taking a hit at the poker tables, it really seems to put poker in perspective for me. When I wake up the morning after a bad session my mind immediately reminds me of the loss, however when I get into work it's easier to step back and look at the big picture. I can see that how I'm running at the tables really isn't that important... and therefor it shouldn't affect my mood.

Dealing with downswings
I've been reading CTS's old blog a lot recently. It's clear that 4-5 buy-in downswings are going to be really common at the mid-limits... so I'm gonna have to get used to it. It's reassuring to see that as good a player as him regularly dropping 7-8 buy-ins in a session and shrugging it off. I need to be less hard on myself when I have a bad session, and just look over the hands and where the mistakes were. Whether it was in the hands, or if it was tilt, or if I was just running bad. Whatever the reason for the bad session though I shouldn't be beating myself up about it, because it's going to happen... frequently. On with the "not caring about money" conditioning. :)

Studying
Did quite a lot of hand analysis over the past couple of days, had a backlog of like 25 of my hands logged on weaktight to get through. Been trying to give Martyn some feedback on a few of his hands too. Also halfway through writing a wee article on grinding and playing sessions, just a few thoughts from a couple of articles/book I've been reading recently... will post it over the weekend.

$200nl vid
Oh aye, before I forget, I made a $200nl 4-tabling video a few nights back. I think it's pretty good, had good feedback for it so far. Used it to review a session with Messiah last week in coaching, but I don't mind sharing it if anyone would like to watch. If you'd like the download link for it just drop me a mail. I'm not making the video public as I'd like to keep my screenname/etc as private as possible at my current site. Cheers.

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Start of next 10k...

Date: Tue, Feb 19, 2008

Down 3 buy-ins in Sklansky all-in luck in the first hour of tonights session = quit + beer + kicking tramps. Wish I had just been lazy and watched the 2nd half of the Liverpool game...

Gonna take a night off tomorrow, going out for some drinking + latenight tenpin.

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Almost...

Date: Tue, Feb 19, 2008

... soooooo close to a perfect game on Wii Bowling.

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$1/2 so far

Date: Thu, Feb 14, 2008

10k hands in at the halfway point of the month, so on track for my target. Over the first 10k hands my objective was really just to settle in and I can work my game up from that.

I started out over the first 5k hands playing way too tight, kinda scared play... $200nl is a LOT more aggro then $100nl, it took me a little while and a couple of coaching sessions to adjust to this. Because it's more aggro I've been getting in more tough spots postflop in 3-bet and raised pots... made a ton of mistakes over the first 5k, lost a lot of buy-ins just not knowing what to do in certain situtations. With the help of Messiah I've moved my game up a notch and I'm not a lot more comfortable with tough spots postflop. I'm analysing situations much better and I know a lot more standard lines in 3-bet/4-bet pots.

My postflop aggression is much more selective now (over the last 5k hands). Due to the poor first 5k hands my winrate here isn't that great, I picked it up a lot in the 2nd 5k. Overall I survived at the level over the first 10k and didn't have to move back down, which is success! Now that I've developed self confidence in my ability to beat $1/2 I can focus on making adjustments to my game and plugging leaks. Hopefully I'll see my winrate increase over the next 10k hands.

So I'm playing about 21/18 now, which I'm happy with, kind of where I want to be preflop wise. My positional stats are pretty much where I want to be too...


There are a few issues I need to address for the next 10k...

Table selection
I like to play 5-6 tables at once and at the times I play there are often only 3-4 good games on the go at 200 on iPoker. So I've got a high RB account at Prima (I'm now setup as an affiliate, so PM me if you'd like an account) and I'll be playing simultaneously at Prima/iPoker to improve the quality of the tables I'm on.

Coaching
Gonna try moving to a video review style with Dave as our last session wasn't that useful due to there not being much action. Dave's a great help going over tough hands on SkyPE, I think this improves my game a LOT. Gonna continue logging my tough hands on weaktight and going over them with him a couple of times per week.

Reading
Finished reading the fantastic Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo. It's one of the best poker books I've ever read, I'd recommend it to anyone that's serious about the game. It's really improved my attitude towards the game, winning, losing, and tightening up my discipline. It's really light and easy to read too, the writing style is really different and accessible. Going to start reading the Full Tilt Pros poker guide book next to brush up a little for the big tourney at the end of the month.

PAHud
Dave's recently reworked my PAHud setup, adding some new stats to my hud that I've not used before. I'm not really using these to their full potential at the moment, so I'm going to spend a fair bit of the month looking at interpreting opponent PAHud stats and looking at how to use them in various situations. Will maybe write a couple of posts on this... I've found good way to learn when to 3-bet/4-bet light and when to float recently based on opponent stats.

Study
Not really watching too many CR videos at the moment. Will try to find some time to fit some of those in. Also Dave sent me a big word doc file he's compiled which contains all sorts of gold, need to get through that.

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SIKTILT

Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2008

Great site run by a bunch of poker players from Edinburgh. Some real funny vids, the pro interviews are pretty awesome too, GP/Aba ones in particular.

The full Rury vs. Annette video is genius. :)

"I don't really have a game-plan for today. It's basically going to be turn up and crush." lol

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1k day

Date: Sat, Feb 9, 2008

It's like the poker gods let me run good for a day. Thankyoooooou! I cleared $1,000 in profits over the last 24 hours, which i'm pretty damn happy about. :)

I played in the OP freezeout today and - despite having a brutal hangover - came 2nd for £270. 3 cashes in my last 3 live tourneys... really feeling on top of my game for the GBPT at the end of the month. Came home, 6-tabled 1000 hands of 200nl when the games were soft between 11pm and 2am. Ran good and finished just under 3 buy-ins up.

So pretty much played 12 hours of poker today. Feels good to win like 1/6th of my bankroll in a day... Ship it.

End of brag post. :)

7k hands played so far this month.

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Balance

Date: Wed, Feb 6, 2008

20k
Had to figure a way to up my hands played to 20k this month. Not really too much of a problem. I can find time to get 2k hands in each weekend, then playing 3x 1k nights through the week should be do-able. Went well the first week and I got the hands in, plus a good bit of study and was enjoying it. However I've not really balance the rest of my life with putting more time into poker.

Eat/Sleep/Exercise
It's incredibly important to live a balanced life away from the table in order to be playing your best at the table. At the moment for me this means eating right, sleeping right, and exercising right. On weeknights I like to play sports or pool in the evening, and I've tried to maintain this while playing 1k hands also. This basically means that I don't have enough time to cook something healthy for dinner, and I get to be between 2-3am after doing the session review. I could miss out the sports and cook instead, etc but I'm struggling to keep exercise/sleep/eating balanced when playing a 4-5 hour evening session.

Work
Nearing the end of the project I've been working on for the last 2 years and although my workload is decreasing I still need to do some overtime to apply polish. Work is still my top priority. This means I usually work a couple of 12 hour days midweek, and again the time has to be taken away from something... last week it was exercise/eating/sleep as poker took up the time and this week I'm feeling the worse for it. From next month onwards I shouldn't really have to work any overtime, which will be awesome for poker time.

Balance
So basically what I'm getting to is that I need to find some sort of balance to be playing my 20k volume optimally. It might be boring but using the gym or going out running directly after work would save a lot of time, and give me a lift before the evening session. Planning healthy dinners and making sure I get to bed before 2am will mean I get the 7 hours sleep a night I need to be fresh the next morning.

In short...
I'm getting a lot of hands in, but I need to keep up in the other areas of my life too. I don't want to dig into my Fri & Sat night no work zones which mainly consist of drinking/partying :) . I think this should be possible with more preperation and a more effective schedule, gonna work on this through the week.

Poker Update
Played 4k hands so far this month at 200nl. Up around $300. Gonna hopefully get a good sized session in tonight.

GBPT
I was set to play all of the GBPT events at the end of this month. However due to work commitments this isn't going to be possible, as I won't be able to get the time off over the 4-5 days it runs. So now I'll just be playing the £500+50 televised main event. I'm going to take £200 worth of my buy-in and the rest will be staked. I'll contact everyone with stakes in me to revise the amounts from the £880 in buy-ins that was originally scheduled, down to the £550 ME buy-in.


Man this cracks me up, the way he looks at the camera is gold :)

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200nl

Date: Sun, Feb 3, 2008

Been setting the new pace, put in 2,000 hands today alone! Really enjoying the new challenge of being up a level. Here's how it's going so far...

I'm finding the play MUCH more aggressive than at 100, and I've not really successfully adapted my game to this yet. I've made a LOT of pretty bad mistakes over the past few days, costing me I'd say around $400-500. I'm sure I'll clear these up over the month while I'm settling into the level.

I had a >$1,000 swing today, and at the end of tonight I had over $2,500 across the 6 tables I was sat at. Biggest pot I've taken down so far has been $531, but there have been quite a few spots where >$1,000 pots have been possible! I wouldn't say the $$$ factor is really bothering me, however I would feel a bit more comfortable if I was deeper rolled. Sitting on the bare 30 buy-ins when I know I have to pay for coaching and live tourneys this month does seem a bit short. If I drop down to 20x buy-ins then I'll probably have to move back down... here's hoping a can run good for a bit and pad the roll.

Got a coaching session with Dave tomorrow night, first one playing 200nl. Got a load of hands stored to talk over... should be good.

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Drawing a line under January

Date: Tue, Jan 29, 2008

First up, my Sweden trip was wicked fun. Just wished I could have stayed there longer... the city was fantastic and girls were gorgeous. Had a great time. Some pics on flickr here.




$6k hit yeaaa!
January is all done for me. I'm happy to say that my bankroll has reached the $6k required to move up to 200nl! Woo! I'm taking the last few days of the month off to try to clear up some of my tasks at work so that I don't have to work as much overtime next month. Gonna struggle to play 20k volume if i'm working 12 hour shifts all the time!

January Stats
Here's this months stats. Up and down until a few big sessions near the end of the month where I ran well. Finishing the month on 11.6 BB/h 6-tabling. A small sample, my hourly rate for the month was around $80/hour.


Gap between my VPIP and PFR below 4 just like I wanted, chuffed with that. :)
Crushing from the button. Positional stats look good.
The road to 200nl
Here's my overall stats since I started grinding 100nl a few months back. I know they're pretty small samples but the first 10k hands my BB/100 was 5.0, the next 10k it was 9.5, and this month the final 6.5k hands I ran at 11.6. An improvement every month, showing the improvements I'm making in my game each month.


To come in February
It's going to be my biggest month yet for poker, I've got a ton of stuff going on. I'm going to be receiving coaching from Messiah every week and going over all of my tough hands with him personally. I'm gonna be playing a large volume of hands 6-tabling 200nl. To top that off at the end of the month I'll be playing in $1,800 worth of live MTTs including a UK televised event.

I did say I was going to ramp it up :) more to come...

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Coaching - 1st impressions

Date: Thu, Jan 24, 2008

Tonight was my first 1-on-1 coaching session with Messiah from DeucesCracked. As much as I'd like to I'm not going to go into any of the strategy discussed as that's between me and the coach. However I do feel happy to give my overview of my first impressions of coaching...

$$$ Cash monies
I've always been dubious about whether coaching is worth the money. I mean my CR subscription costs $50 per month, and DC costs $25 per month... however my monthly 1-on-1 coaching bill will come to $600. This is currently 10% of my bankroll! Quite a big outlay! Financially bankrollwise next month will be very interesting, as I'm going to be taking a lot of shots at education, cash, and tourneys... I'll post on that later, back on topic...

Railing
The coaching session went a lot better than I expected it to go. It was really really beneficial. Messiah seems like a fantastic coach, and there's a lot more included in the coaching package than I expected. To start off I 4-tabled and commentated on my own play, and Dave made comments. Here's how I ran.


I didn't expect to have any real "light bulb" moments, more just to have what I already knew re-enforced, but I was way wrong. In just this session alone Dave fixed a few massive leaks in my game, and got some what I think was pretty incredible advice on plays I would never have thought of making. In one spot I said "I'd never re-raise here, just call.", and Dave was like "For starters I'd rather fold than call, but I'd re-raise here every time, in fact I'd re-raise any 2 cards". There was literally no way I'd have made the play there, but now I think about the situation in a completely different way, and realise I was leaking so much money. Amazing.

PT Analysis
Some of the other stuff I was impressed with was the PT analysis. I'm now used to being able to look at 25nl or 50nl players PT stats and tell them how to improve their game pretty easily. In the same way, Dave was able to look at my 100nl stats - stats that I hadn't even used before - and point out big flaws in my game. This I thought was hugely beneficial. But here's the main reason I think coaching is so beneficial to me...

Changing the learning model
Reading books and watching videos are great, however I can't gain instant access to exact information I want in order to fix my game. I have to watch the whole video and the chances are that video won't cover the exact problems I'm having in my game. So I could try asking the questions on the CR forum or on my blog, however the responces I get are likely be mixed, not from great players and I won't have confidence to apply them. So fixing my game up is pretty tough, I'm often shooting around in the dark trying to make adjustments and I'm honestly not sure if they're right or not.

Coaching changes this purely because I can ask any question I want, and instantly get back a correct answer. This to me is why coaching is so valuable. It cuts out all of the uncertainty and just gets you straight up correct answers. And get this... In addition to receiving correct answers to my questions, my coach will answer valuable questions that I didn't even know to ask. He'll look at the way I'm playing, and fix things that I'd have no way of knowing needed fixed.

So the whole learning model has been changed, and I have to say it is awesome. I have complete faith that my coach is telling me the right things, so I suck up all of his information and apply it without hesitation.

In addition to this after playing sessions through the week, I can ship 4 or 5 of my toughest hands to Messiah and ask questions on them. No need to forum post or blog post, etc and just get the odd solid answer. I get straight up answers of how to play the hand right then.


I can think of a ton more benefits of coaching, but I've already pimped it too much ;) Anyways, next month I'm going to take coaching every week for the full month while beasting 200nl for 20k hands and I'm sure I'm gonna see a big improvement in my game. I'm really looking forward to it!


Off to Stockholm, Sweden tomorrow morning with a bunch of mates. It's 3am now and I still have to pack lol.


Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh femalesuperrace/10


Oh aye I almost forgot... Had quite a lot of emails about the iPoker deal, I'll get back to those when I'm back in Edinburgh. I'm not ignoring u guys!

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Another strong session

Date: Wed, Jan 23, 2008

Coaching lesson got put off 'til tomorrow night so I decided to do some grinding across 6 tables. I'd rewatched Verneer's 6 tabling 100nl video through the day today, so was in a good mindset to get a bit more TAG. I feel like a caught a good run of cards tonight and played really well. It was one of those sessions that just clicked and most things went right. It's amazing what new goals and focus does for my play.

As you can see I've tightened up my stats a lot, I think this is about my optimum multi-tabling grinding game. Maybe a little tighter. Played 21.5/18, basically playing TAG but isolating a lot from the CO, and loosening up a lot from the BTN. One thing to note is that my aggression factors were pretty insane, I think this shows that I was value betting hands a lot, probably because I caught a lot of cards.

Mixing up the c-bets
One of the things I think I did best tonight was mixing up my betting when players figured out I was playing so aggressively postflop. As soon as they started adjusting to my constant c-bet pounding I'd start check-raising them on the flop, or letting them float me and check raising them on the turn occasionally in good spots to mix it up. I also put a good amount of delayed c-bets in. I think it's really important to mix things up against good players when they start adjusting to your position raising and cbetting game.


Some hands
Cheers for everyone submitting votes in weaktight on what to do on some of the hands in my last post. Feedback is always appreciated.

Rivered trips, bad spot for thin value
This is the hand of the night for sure.

Standard button open with JTo, called by a tight SB (12/10). Obv bet, same as I would a cbet, and he calls. At this point I'd give his range J9+, a mid PP or like maybe 56, or a set. Any other hands I'd only give about 10% of his range to here as I really don't think he's floating me OOP here.

Turn is a K and I check behind for pot control, again pretty standard.

River makes me trips, and he bets $17 into a $20 pot. Without any hand-reading I'd be raising here, but taking into account his range based on previous streets and his PT stats I think this is almost certainly a fold. I really don't beat much, I don't think it's that likely he had nothing on the flop, or that he caught the K. I think I beat only like 25% of his river range here (J9/56/middle pair/bluff). I think he has it about 75% of the time, either with a better J or a set. Does anyone else lay this down on the river?

Anyway, I ran my time bank down trying to talk myself into flat calling. But ended up trying to get some thin value and raising up about 2.3x his bet. He just called with 33.


Overpair fold in 3-bet pot
Pretty easy fold, no way calling here is +EV in my opinion. Despite Verneers recent advice on always felting overpairs in 3bet pots I think this is definately somewhere I can get away.


Another biggish fold - AQ on A-high flop
If we have full stacks I re-raise the flop for value/info. But in this spot I think a flop re-raise will commit me, so just flat call. 6 on the river and he over-bet ships it. Eugh, this is close I think. This is the first time he's cold called so I doubt he can have a straight. I was figuring him for 2pr or a set. I'm beating A9/AT/AJ which match his line, hmm. I guess he could have like 99-QQ or something here too, but these don't match his line as well. Meh, I think this is tight. Could prob call or fold here. Will pokerstove this tomorrow.


Most of the hands where I won big pots tonight I played pretty well, pretty standard. Here are a few of the more interesting winners...

Getting value with a turned set
Got nice value here from a loose player who calls too much.

Shipping AK ** (TM) DodgyKen
God knows what this fish is doing. :)

Post-oaking a reg
This guy likes to make hero calls on the river. So I make the river bet look like I'm trying to steal the pot on the river.

C/Ring an aggressive players float
My cbetting image was out of line at this table at this point. I liked C/Ring the turn here and letting him float me.

And another float C/R here
Looks like that flop would have missed me and I was cbetting. But no! That's right fish, hammertime!

Snapping off a river bluff
Loose player, pretty easy river bluff call, most likely middle pair of missed draw.


Running hot
So I've been running pretty hot since I've moved to the new iPoker skin. I've got a special reverse luckswitch activated account, which is nice. Give me a shout if you'd like a luckbox account and I'll hook you up. :)

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A solid session

Date: Tue, Jan 22, 2008

First up, cheers to everyone that left comments on my previous post. I'm pumped to get started the hard work. I'm gonna try to blog even more too, if I'm gonna blog more I need to blog faster, so more bad english and typos coming up!

Railing
Did some railing sessions with Graham over the past couple of nights, cheers for that mate. He railed me last night in a completely insane 300 hand session with some HUGE hands. I've sent these to Messiah to help analyse. Anyway it was cool having someone railing while I was playing, kept me thinking about the hands more, but it was difficult to play more than 3 tables while trying to talk and commentate on my thoughts too. So when railing using mikogo/skype from now on I'll try to just play 3 tables and concentrate on improving my reads/play rather than grinding for high volume.

Then I railed Graham for about an hour tonight while he played some $50nl on iPoker. Was good to sit back and watch and chat about some of the tougher hands. At the end of the session we went over some of biggest losing hands in PT which I think was pretty useful also. Graham played real well and crushed the session for like 20bb/100 which was pretty sweet too :)

Hands
Got 500 in tonight 4-6 tabling before spending the rest of the evening railing/studying. Over the past couple of weeks I'd basically loosened my game up to about 23/20, and I've been finding it really tough to play postflop with my loose image and in some of the marginal spots I've been in. So tonight I decided to pull it back a bit and grind. I played 19.5/16.5, TAG with tricks and ground out a $60 profit, 11BB/100 (not PTBB anymore). My buddy Jamie (who plays much higher stakes) railed me on MSN for some of it which was fun too, got some great advice from him, cheers man.

Here are some hands from tonight as always, thoughts welcome.

AA with lots of action
lol, sitting with AA and watching everyone dump money in the pot pre was pretty sweet. Flop is, err, dangerous. But there's $66 in the pot and we've got effective stacks of $80 (but MP only has $60). I can't check with what's likely the best hand, and any bet commits me, so I raise the anchor and ship the chips. :>

They've only really flopped a flush with AQ, maybe QJ/JT at a push. I'm screwed if they've flopped a set but I because of the pot size we just felt AA every time here. I think I get called by a good amount of hands I have beat like pocket pairs with a club, or AcX, and I'm gonna take the pot down a lot.


LOL you = my profit
:)

This hand was sick
Villain is 50/12 over 30 hands. His minraise preflop doesn't mean strength, he's done it twice before with weak aces/low PPs. Easy value raise in pos with AK.

On the flop his bet is weak, I put him on A6/A3 , some FD, 45, a mid pair, or something like J9/JT/JQ. Because he's such a fish I have to give him quite a wide range here.

Turn card completes the FD and 55, he checks it to me. I love having position here on the turn. He could have made that flush, so I can check and see what he does on the river. If he has the flush, he's going to bet.

On the river he checks, which seems really strange to me. So I feel that I can rule out a flush and middle set now, or else he's betting that river. So a lot of his range is made up with marginal hands... the weak Js, and small pairs with a A or maybe K kicker. There's $60 in the pot and he has like $43 behind. Can I make him fold 40%+ of the time here is the question. It's not a play I like making at $100nl against these sorts of fish, as I wouldn't be surprised if he calls with his A6. But I think I can fold him enough to make profit by shoving the river here.

He runs down his entire time balance and times out. I breathe out.


3-bet AQ on baby board
Villain is a 22/16, seems like a decent player. He opens UTG which makes me a bit wary, but I think I get value here 3-betting and take control in position.

Flop comes paired all small cards. Ugh. I fucking hate these spots. Am I meant to check behind here? Am I meant to c-bet? I cbet $21 and he insta-ships. Obv he has an overpair, easy fold. I just really hate playing AK/AQ in a 3-bet pot when it's likely villain has an overpair. Maybe I make enough profit from cbetting decent boards and making hands to make 3-betting here profitable, but I hate these hands. Something I'm going to work on with Messiah.


Double-barrell OOP with NFD
Villain is 22/6 here. I think I make a mistake by double-barrelling here. I think he's floating me on the flop maybe like 20% of the time. I don't think I'm folding out much on the turn he's called me with on the river. Probably best checking the turn I guess. He raises my turn bet big and I'm gone.


lol I love this hand
Villain is a MASSIVE donk. Over the past 30mins he's just jizzed his chips all over the table. When he calls the flop I'm not too happy, but obv I'm getting it in every time. :)


Can I call here in pos to draw?
Obv I'm mucking it without the cold caller. But can I call in position now with the bigger pot and implied odds? Or is this still a fold?



First coaching session tomorrow
I've got my first session with Messiah tomorrow night, really looking forward to that one... seeing as people are pretty interested in the coaching thing I'll try to blog a bit about it too. Upon his request I've supplied my last 15k stats from PT, including positional stats, and a bunch of hands with reads and analysis that I think I'm having the most problems with. It's clear that postflop - mainly in raised pots, handreading, and LAG play are the areas I really want to improve in... and it seems like he's happy to tailor the sessions around this. I won't be done the session 'til 2am tomorrow night, but I'll try to get a short report in the following day.

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Upping the Ante

Date: Mon, Jan 21, 2008

I can feel a lot of changes coming on, I just know now is the time...

Over the Christmas break and this month I've realised that there are fantastic opportunities available to me within the poker world and if I put the work in I'll get a HUGE amount out it. Aside from that I love this game, and it's something I really want to conquer. I've become really motivated to take my game to higher levels, and beat poker for a much higher winrate. I feel that this is the right time to step things up and dedicate a much bigger portion of my life to poker. Playing a lot more, studying a lot more, and analysing a lot more. I'm incredibly determined to get to the higher levels, and fast. I'm not after a quick fix or an easy way to get there, I'll be using proper bankroll management and crushing everything, playing high volumes of hands.

People talk about the games getting harder, but the fact is that there's so much fantastic material out there now that if you put the time in you'll become a top player. I'm fully ready commit to studying and playing the game HARD for the next 6 months. I've decided to give myself much higher goals. I want to put double the hands in each month, and spend a lot more time on strategy and study. I'll need to reschedule things a bit, but I'm going to make it happen.


More hands
There's no way to get better without putting in a lot of hands. This is pretty evident from reading top players blogs, like CTS's. I'm going to up the number of hands played each month to at least 20,000.

Smarter Study
I think I should use my studying time a lot more effectively. I also believe that it's worthwhile to invest a lot more money into study, as it'll pay off. Videos are a much faster way to get better than books, so I'll be focussing a lot less on books now. Although CardRunners is fantastic and offers a wide range of material not all of it is useful to me, probably only 1 or 2 of the videos per week are ideal study material. I'm really impressed with the DeucesCracked coaching site, I'm going to signup there in addition to CR, which will increase the amount of videos I've got access to.

Feedback and coaching
At the moment I definately don't use the most effective ways to get feedback on my game. I usually post on forums, or discuss things with players at the same level as me. I can often receive more poor advice than good advice, and it can be difficult to seperate the two. Verneer made me realise that paying for coaching is the way forward. Having a great coach eliminates poor advice, gives me the benefit of his experience, and confidence in my play.

I recently applied for a few different coaches, and came to the decision to start working with Messiah from DC. I'll be having my first session with him this week, and will do weekly or fortnightly 1.5hour sessions. In addition to this he'll be available through the week on IM or email to talk through hands or concerns. The cost isn't cheap at $150 per session, but I strongly believe it'll be worth it in the long run. He seems like a great guy, and the service he provides looks fantastic. What better way to learn than directly from someone who's crushed the levels I'm playing at.

Coaching is very flexible too, so in the future when my game moves up to 2/4 I can hire a new coach to guide me up to the higher stakes. The idea of being mentored by a top player like Brian Rue or Vanessa Selbst is pretty awesome.

Support and Motivation
I still feel it's really important to be part of a group of poker players, and have a lot of friends within the game. I think a group gives me the drive and motivation to push towards my goals, mainly because there are other players doing the same thing. A group can also provide a great amount of support, especially through tough times like downswings. Aside from that I think that online poker is a pretty lonely game, you need people to chat with or discuss hands with during long sessions, and players to connect with who understand the situations you're in on - and off of - the table.

Life balance
I won't succeed in making these new goals in poker without having balance in the rest of my life. I will be reprioritising things within my life to make more time for poker and balancing poker with the other things that are important to me... my job, spending time with friends/family, and my wellbeing (eating well, fitness, personal development). I'm confident I can make this work, and that having a fit, healthy, balanced life will make me a better poker player.



On to my updated goals, on where I want to be by the summer...

Cash Games
My play will primarily be at cash games, here are the cash game goals:

• Be beating 2/4 by the summer, achieving the $100/hour winrate
• Play >20k hands per month
• Specialise in 6-max, but branch out to Full-ring, Heads-up, and Omaha.
  

Tournaments
I'd like to play some of the softer touraments available this year. I really enjoy live tourneys, and they're a good break from playing cash and a nice opportunity to travel. Here's what I'd like to play this year:

• All events at GBPT Edinburgh next month. (£100 & £200 prelims, and the £500 ME)
• Travel to a couple of live events before the summer, maybe Ireland, Holland, Scandinavia, not had a look at the full schedule yet.
  
• Play in the WSOP this summer, one or more $1.5k prelim, a couple of Venitian events, and lots of live cash.

I think that's about it for now... lots more to come.

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iPoker $$$ loyalty deal

Date: Sun, Jan 20, 2008

As you guys know I'm pretty picky about where I play online. I never play on a site unless the tables are soft and I'm getting a high amount of $$$ back each month. I've recently shipped all of my bankroll across from my old iPoker skin to a new one and have been playing there all month. The service is fantastic and the loyalty deal is the best I've seen on the net for iPoker.

I've set up an affiliate account with the owner of the skin, and I can now offer you guys exactly the same loyalties that I'm receiving. Here's some reasons why I play at the site...

Why do I play on iPoker?

• It's soft. Clearly the most important thing to consider when playing at any site, there are loads of fishies.
  
• Great traffic. I think it's the 3rd biggest poker site around, at current time of posting there are 30,000 players on the the site.
  
• Miniview tables rock. They're great for playing on a laptop and I can fit 9 on my desktop screen with no overlay!
• Software is easily customisable. I use custom betpot/auto-reload scripts which I'd happily share with whoever wants them, and I use table customisation software that lets you change the card graphics, table background, etc. You can setup the tables to look exactly the way you want them.
  

Why play through my affiliate?

• I'll have your account instantly upgaded (and locked in) to the top 6-star "titanium" VIP level. This is very $$$ profitable. For a breakdown on exactly how profitable it is just fire me an email.
  
• We're UK based, and offer a VIP points system that allows you to use points to buy in to live events in the UK, and soon bigger EPT events.
  
• We offer top online customer service. Also, if you have any problems/suggestions you can email me and I'll bring it up directly with the owner of the skin.
  
• We offer superfast cashouts, if you need to get some money out in a hurry with no messing around.
  

So if you already play at iPoker (BlueSq, Titan, Betfred, Kiwi Poker, VCPoker, etc) I'm certain I'll be able to offer you a better loyalty deal than you're currently receiving. It was easily worth me switching from my old skin to receive the extra benefits. If you don't play at iPoker then i'd definately consider it. The fishy tarbles and great loyalty deal I'm offering will save you shopping around.

If you're interested in signing up for an account to give it a go, or would like more info or a more in detail breakdown of the loyalty deal, just drop me an email.

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