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Keeping Warm in Winter
AAroddersAA:
Not impressed with my play at the moment. I don"t know why I am playing at the moment. I don"t actually want too or feel like it but am basically just playing for the sake of it. I should take a break until I actually want to play again so I will play the final event of the Feb Blonde league tomorrow then I am going to take a break for the whole of March.
I might actually stop with Sky Poker as well. Not being able to use Poker tracker is annoying.
See you all in April (unless I change my mind, which is pretty much a certainty).
AAroddersAA:
I gave up playing Magic after losing in the first round of the Welsh Nations. I think that was in 2002. Only a couple of months before this I had been travelling with a tournament with Darren and we had been discussing poker for the first time and how we would like to give it a go. We had both started to watch the Poker Million on Sky Sports.
I played a bit online for play money and Darren was playing as well, Paradise Poker was the online site of choice in those days. I soon progressed to real money playing 1c/2c cash games. I was pretty useless. Myself and Darren and a few other friends of ours arranged a few live games, early on we were clearly the top two players and were pretty evenly matched with neither of us able to gain an edge on the other.
One day I was working hard at machine playing with Brian and another mate our mine (Mark) and mentioned the poker. They already knew all about it as there were games running in a few of the local snooker clubs. We setup a few games and actually started a league, I was easily able to convince Darren to join is as well.
Early on we were all pretty terrible but slowly we started to learn. Darren was leading our snooker club league in our first effort at it whilst i was beating him in our friendly Sunday night game so we were still going along quite even. I think I was a small amount up both live and online although the amounts we played for were small (basically £5 and £10 sit n go"s)
We soon found a game a Casino in Cardiff (Now the G on Cardiff Bay) which ran poker tournaments. Darren and I headed down there to try the game out one Wednesday night and Darren actually managed to finish second in his first attempt. I did OK as well but went out just before the money. At this point I was quite happy I was OK at the game.
I then (not really that long after starting playing) hit the coldest run I have ever hit. In the games down the clubs I could not hit a card. I was terrible at the casino going out really early time after time. During this time Darren and one of the other guy"s who we played with regularly did really well which confused me as I could not see how they were so much better than me. I came close to giving up on it a few times as I was quite convinced I was doing something wrong and could not work our what it was, nobody else seemed to know either. I can"t really remember how I came out of it but I did.
I spent a lot of time checking poker forums and reading poker books (Super System, Hellmuths book and the Harringtons). I remember the first time I won an MTT. It was a silly little tournament in a snooker club in Newport and I think I won about £150 but at the time that was amazing. I got a funny little bracelet for it (which is till have, I can see it next to my APAT medals *lol*).
I still played online but my poker still did not have much direction. I did not know if I was a cash player or a sit n go player. I did not have a proper bankroll and basically just treated poker as a bit of a gamble. I managed to do quite well at cash games but really did not understand the correct way to play but between 2002 and 2006 I grew into what seemed to be an OK player.
At this point I had heard of Blonde Poker but had never really bother to do much but read a few of the threads and there was a brand new organisation called APAT which I read about. Tournaments with proper structure for an affordable buyin. I thought maybe I would try and play one some day, they looked really good and I guessed that they would have some very good players in them.
It was almost the end of 2006 and something was starting to click. I now knew I was more than just another player and started to show a steady if small profit from online play. I started to play cash games and started to multi-table and my results started to become more consistent. At this point I decided to turn my whole life upside down and move 200 mile north of South Wales, to the lovely town of Crewe in fact. It was a great decision for several reasons. I will stick to talking about poker though.
Now it was time to start getting serious, coming next my poker in 2007 and 2008 as I try to fine tune my game and become more than just another poker player.
AAroddersAA:
Have not really updated this for a while as I have not had a lot to say. I have been extermely busy in work and talking about the workings of ISP networks is really not very interesting. Poker wise I am taking a break until April, or until I feel like I am properly recharged.
Went for a beer last weekend in Swansea on what was meant to be an all dayer. I don"t get where my stamina has gone. I"m sure it was not too ago I used to have no problem going out for a beer at around 1pm and not getting back until the early hours. These days if I am out before six I always want to go home and go to sleep by 9pm, it"s not even a acse of being drunk, I just can"t keep up the pace any more. It is most annoying as I miss some really good night because of it.
Will try and keep posting updates during March. One thing I am going to stop though is posting updates on profit and loss. I never want to post a loss and have therefore been extending sessions to try and turn small losses into small wins, only for them to turn into bigger losses. I will keep an occasional update of how I am doing though.
OK, time to watch Barcalona knock Ar5enal out of the champions league.
AAroddersAA:
OK, have been neglecting this a bit, due to being really busy in work and not playing much poker, but still going to be keeping it up to date.
Played a bit of PLO on Friday night on Sky as I was watching the game and it looked like a good chance to win some money, only the one table but that game really can be brutal, three buyins (at £50) dissappeared fairly quickly. Annoyingly I didn"t really do anything wrong and got my money in good each time but that"s the nature of PLO.
I have been reviewing my play this year. I am down by about £300 overall this year at poker which is a big dissapointment. I have made a few mistakes but looking back I think I have made a lot more good plays and to be honest I don"t think there is too mcuh wrong with my actual game, and I have just run a bit poorly. I can"t really complain as I ran well for the last 6 months of last year.
Now this is where my main current problem lies. I currently have unrealistic expectations. I expect to be winning three figure amounts whenever I play and it just does not happen (nor is it supposed to). For example this weekend I wanted to try and regain some confidence so I started playing 6 tables on £10nl. To make a long story short I won £50 across the weekend. Most people would consider this a good result but I am not happy with it (I should be but I just am not).
Now this time last year I was doing well by playing 10 tables of $10nl on Pokerstars and was always very pleased with making $50 in two days and was usually able to average a profit of £100 per month. At the time this seemed good, now it just does not seem good enough to me, I want to win £500 in a month (and if I did that I would still want to push for more). I end up playing sessions that are too long and not sticking to playing the tables for a sensible amount of time. If I am winning I don"t feel like I am winning enough and if I am losing I feel like I have to try and get at least level. It is this which is causing a lot of my mistakes.
Even though I know I am basically burned out for this weekend and it would be -EV to play now, I am still tempted to fire up the tables and try the £50 PLO again to try and boost the winnings.
I don"t really know what the answer to this is. Part of me says take an extended break from poker for a six month period or so. I can"t say I am enjoying playing it at the moment. The silly thing is I know what I would advise somebody else to do here.
1) Play games you know you can do well at only stick to £10 and £20 buy in games for a while and just play these.
2) Set fixed times that you are going to play and keep session to a max of 60-90 minutes
3) If you are losing then take a break for a few days this will ensure you are not playing tilted.
4) Play a tight aggressive game making all the moves that you know are +EV
5) Just play tournaments that you enjoy such as league games and APAT's.
If I did the above I would be winning again pretty quickly.
The above is what I should do but is unlikely to be what I will do at the moment. Luckily I expect work to be manic this week so I am not going to have time to be thinking about or playing poker.
AAroddersAA:
Played the APAT online events over the weekend. Enjoyed them very much as usual, I do like the 888 structure.
I went out of the main event when I made a bit of a mistake by flat calling an aggressive player preflop and then overplaying second pair (which turned into two pair on the river). When he checked to me on the river I should have checked as I still would have had 8000 chips left, instead I shoved and he called me a better two pair. Put that one down as a mistake I think.
Cash is going better for me now at least. I was up £70 over the weekend after moving down to micro stakes (£10nl) to try and get back to winning and regain my confidence. I think it is working, although I am £15 down today.
I am working Saturday morning so I am unable to get to Coventry but I will be watching on APAT TV and following online (which I will enjoy but I hope I will not be doing for the rest of the season).
Away from poker I have my bonus from work this month and have decided that it is time to buy a new car. My Corsa has been really good (the amount of miles I have done up and down the M5 and M6 is high but it has never let me down) it is time for a new one though so I will soon be booking time off work to go and find one.
Talking of time off this week I will be booking up the time to play APAT Vegas. Then I can start booking things up once this is confirmed.
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