LEPO

I played the rather fancily named Leprechaun "European Poker open" over the weekend. It was a €200+20 event which got 139 people in total and I ended up splitting first place for €7k. This is pleasing for all sorts of reasons. It's a great way to end the year. It gets me out of my December hole and I shall be on the Hendon mob making me a real poker player!

Overall I am generally pleased with my play. The field was pretty poor and I felt pretty comfortable for the vast majority of the tournament. I played on day 1A which was the Saturday. For once iPokers incompetence served me well. I wasn't going to play it but because they deleted the tournament and I couldn't unregister for it. I decided just to play it.

Early on things were quiet as tends to be the way with these type of tournaments. There was 1 big pot though early on. I 3bet some French guys button open with 2 black Aces. He called. The flop was J95, 2 hearts on boards. I cbet, he called. Turn was 6 of hearts. I ended up check/folding. I honestly have no idea what was the best play. I think there was around 1.5 times the pot in his stack on the turn. I think I either just b/c or c/f. The problem is I am clueless to his range. Does he bet the Turn with Jx, Jx with a heart? Does he slowplay a set, can he have KK, QQ which he slowplayed from pre-flop? I just didn't know and ended up taking the "safe option" as I was still left with my starting stack on a fairly good table.
I suspect getting it in is better though. This was further backed up when I busted him. He limps in sb after 1 middle position limper. I raise, he limp/raises, I shove with AKs and he snap calls with 98s. GG sir.

The rest of the day I just gradually build my stack up by stealing and generally getting good value of my good hands postflop. I really felt like I had a huge edge post-flop on vast majority of the field and the rare times it got beyond a cbet on the flop I really felt in control and always knew where I stood and could get them to do what I wanted to do. I finished Day 1 with 54,400 chips. That was 37bb and I was in the top half of the field so in a good situation.

Day 2 started off fantastically. "Mad" Marty Wilson got moved to the table 20 minutes in and he doubled me through when he min raised utg, called my button 3 bet with A5 offsuit. He check/called a 742 rainbow flop and donk betted the turn which handily enough was an Ace. I went all in and he took about 2 minutes to call despite getting somewhere around 6-1 on his money, I had AK. It's pretty hard to misplay a hand any worse then he did there. After that I was chip leader with around 150,000. The blinds were 800/1500 so I was in a great spot with around 36 left but I spent the next few hours on the same stack size; never deviating more then 30,000 each way.

A crucial part of the tournament arrived for me as the bubble arrived. 14 people were going to be paid. A deal was proposed where we take 500 of the top and give 250 to 15th and 16th. The problem with this was 16th has just been knocked out. To my amazement everyone seemed happy with the deal; I on the other hand vetoed it as there was no way I was agreeing to pay someone already knocked out. This rather pissed off 2 of the people at my table who started mouthing of to me saying "I need to be thought some manners" or later on saying rather sarcastically "He thinks he is going to win this" The irony of that comment is not lost on me. This led to a much nastier atmosphere at the table and a general feeling that everyone was against me.

Around 20 minutes later the 2 hands that would go a long way to my success occurred. Blinds were 4000/8000 I was on the big blind, Utg who had raised my bb a few times went all in for 56,000. It got called by someone on the button. I had around 160,000 chips. I had A9 of spades. I felt I was ahead of the range of the utg raiser and the button was the type of guy who could fold a medium pair type hand, even something as high as JJ no matter how terrible that would be. Giving the dead money in the middle I felt I didn't need much folding equity to make it work so shoved. He snap called with Aces, utg had T9s. So it was hard to be any more dominated then I was seeing as both of them had each 1 of my cards. Still, not a problem as the flop featured 2 spades and a collective groan around the table as the third spade hit the turn. Everyone started going mental at me saying how terrible it was and so on.

A few minutes after that I had 350,000 chips. I raise otb with 85s. I am raising any 2 as guys in the blinds were particularly tight and thought I was nuts and I didn't think they adjusted well to it at all by not 3 betting me enough and just folding too much. The guy in the bb calls. He was 1 of the people who lets say let his feelings known to me about my vetoing of the deal and how aggressively he thought I was playing. The flop is 877 rainbow. I cbet and he raises all in for most of my stack. My biggest fear was an slowplayed overpair like Aces, Kings trying to trap the aggro young guy. On the other hand there is pretty much nothing else he can have other then that that I lose to. I ended up calling and he had 66 and I held.

I think if I cbet that board that I have to call an all in cause it's really hard to get value out of anything so the only way I can get value is to induce a raise with overcards or whatever. I think checking behind and just pot controlling is also a valid way of playing it and arguably is better considering I felt he was on the tight side. The fact that I felt he could be somewhat after me swayed me towards how I did play it but I am still unsure.

That hand meant the final table was formed and I was the big chip leader with 650,000 chips. Aidan was in 2nd with around 500,000. I felt really good about things and thought unless I got majorly coolered I was definitely getting into the top 3. The final table started off well. I was picking up chips and generally in control.

After around 90 minutes I have around 850,000 chips and momentum is totally with me but that totally got turned around in 2 hands. Blinds are 8000/15,000 with an ante of 1,000. Guy to my right pushes all in on the button for around 240,000. I pick up 77 in the sb. I felt he was a bit tired and tilty and wouldn’t have gone all in with an big pair so I called. He had ATo and hit on the Turn. The very next hand I raise with 33, Ciaran goes all in for about 170,000. He had 3 bet me a good few times so I called. He had 77 and held up. This was a huge turning point as not only had I lost the chip lead and was back in the main pack but Ciaran now had chips to play with and had direct position on me. He then preceded to 3 bet me liberally and made my life really tough. I had to tighten up and also regain my composure.

I played really tight for an hour and another big moment for me occurred. Ciaran got knocked out in fifth. This opened up things right up as it meant I could steal more especially on the button as the blinds were very tight. The guy who I doubled through when he had AT got knocked out in fourth. An hour or so later I got it all in with ATs vs. 77 and hit on the river. This meant Aidan and I were exactly even in chips. We immediately agreed on the deal to split the money after leaving money to the dealers. I definitely think I would have been favourite to win a heads up battle but the blinds were about to go up and it was a little too crapshooty for my liking and I was getting tired so happy with the split.

In terms of my overall play I am most happy with my patience and how I kept my head after I took those 2 big hits at the final table. It can be very easy to compare your situation to what you once had and try to over-extend to reach it and end up blowing your chips. On the downside I still think I wasn’t aggressive enough at times. This would likely amuse some on my opponents who thought I was insane but there was opportunities when I could have raised it up more and didn’t as I kept thinking people have to play back against me. I still give too much credit to people and assume they do what they should do to adjust to me, live players very much don’t do that. My other issue is not thinking through every variable clearly. I think this is a function of online poker and iPoker in particular as you have so little time you almost rely on instinct. I need to use the time advantages live play has to take in more of the information and make better decisions.

Anyway this has turned out to be much longer then I anticipated it to be. It was a great weekend and end of the year for me. It is just what I needed!

Hallelujah

I have never been much of a music fan so music debates and arguments over the charts always escaped me. This week this years X-factor winner got the Christmas number 1 again covering an old song. I knew this song well as my at times my brother used to play an older version by Jeff Buckley on a near loop. A big campaign started on facebook to get Buckleys version number so I was subjected to many mails and texts to support some dead guys version of the song. Honestly, I just don't get this. Why the hell do people care. So called "real music" fans drive me up the wall. It's like they have no concept that it's personal taste. Why are you so offended so that a big bunch of 15 year olds buy some pop song, they like it and more people like it then whatever indy band happen to be hip. Tough shit. Try worrying about something that matters and stop trying to convince me to care!

I have been making an effort to read a lot more. I used to always read books as a kid. I loved Enid Blyton, 3 investigators etc. Anything with adventure in it but school seemed to have the opposite effect of what it should. I never read during semester and lost my love for reading. It should be the opposite and promoting it to me. Lately I have been trying to address this. My brother gave me some Stephen King books, I also bought catch 22. It just feels like 1 of those books that everyone should read in their lifetime.

I also read the Selfish Gene. It's weird I have never heard of or being exposed to the ideas in the book. There is something inspiring about learning something new, it gives an inner confidence and it just makes you feel better about yourself. I think that it goes a long way to explaining the deception people feel about poker. I remember learning all about pot odds back in the day. I felt like I had eaten the salmon of knowledge and knew something which only the privileged few had access to. The fact that everyone knows pot odds didn't matter to me at the time as it was new to me. I am sure many others have felt that and feel the same when they discover 3 betting and so on. It makes it very easy to think you are better then you are.

On the poker front things are getting better. Last week was steady. I am well back in the zone now. Yesterday I ran like a god and had a huge day. I am close to being out of the hole that I found myself in the first 5 days of the month. This is something that seems to becoming a pattern. I get myself in the hole at the start, stabilise myself and then run like a god in the final few days. Perhaps I should start playing on the 20th...

Finally I watched this 2 or 3 weeks back. It was a documentary on BBC broadcast at the start of 2008 called the power of the planet. There are 5 episodes. This is part 1 of episode 1 and I highly recommend it if you haven't watched it before. The links to all the other parts are there on the right

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjldb9Z5fmA

Not much happening

Not been playing much the last week.
I just looked up my stats for the week and I have only played 3k hands which is a fairly poor effort on my part. That constant tightrope of trying to play a decent amount of hands but also only playing when I want to is an eternal struggle to me and still something I don't have an answer to. 1 of the reasons to move up levels is simply I don't have to play as many hands to win a reasonable amount. A rather obvious statement but important. I will likely never be a big grinder of 40k hands a month so to compensate it I need to move up as 200nl isn't going to serve my needs at a limited amount of hands.

Usual story in those stats, 400nl I am down but it's only 600 hands while at 200nl I am up fairly big over 2400 hands although that us down to 1 guy. All my profits from the week come from these 2 hands.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=7571848&postcount=4983

First time I ever had 1000bb on 1 table which felt good and likely my biggest pot ever. He was extremely awkward to play against though as he usually had position on me and kept overshoving all in which when we both have 500bb poses some tricky situations. I definitely made 1 bad fold before it but my patience paid off in the end to spectacular effect.

Mosconi cup, Preimiership, Heiniken Cup and NFL are on pretty much all weekend so it's an excellent weekend of sport but it will likely mean I don't get many hands in. Next week I will try to improve and go for 7k if I feel up for it.

400nl my nemesis

So I've slightly calmed down after my last entry.
It was mainly prompted by a hand where someone check/raised me twice on the flop and the turn. Check/raises are annoying but when it happens after you make a really retardo terrible bet it makes you want throw things at walls. Still, normally I wouldn't get as angry as I did. It's a cumulative thing cause so far December has been really going badly for me. It's about 75% running bad, 25% playing bad but it's the 25% that pisses me off. The problem is this always happens when I make a conscious effort to try move up to 400nl. It feels like I am just destined to languish at the obscurity of 200nl.

At the start of this year I was playing 200nl and it seems I will end it that way. That's not something to be proud off. Now I obviously had a lot going on throughout the year and took 2 or 3 major breaks which stifled any moves up along with my cautious nature with my bankroll. In terms of poker ability I feel like I have improved leaps and bounds but if I want to keep this up I need to show it next year. If I am still at 200nl at this point next year something is majorly wrong and if I haven't already I will likely have to take a cold hard look at everything.
Still a year a long time away!

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Wish this month had never started.
Bah

November

November was a pretty good month all in all. As graph shows I finished up $4k, when you take "loyalty bonuses" and exchange rates into account I think it roughly offsets to make it €4k. If you add the IO ticket it nearly doubles it but I am not going to add that to I am fully 100% certain that I have it. I got told everything will be finalised and I shall be registered before Christmas. I shall wait and see if that comes to pass.

I got 13k hands in November. 10k at 200nl which went very well. My bb/100 was 21. I definitely ran a bit hot but as I said in a previous entry my confidence is very high at the level and I feel like I should be able to crush it on Ipoker. I got 2k hands in at 400nl and finished virtually breakeven, down $56 to be exact. Nothing much to take from that. I still felt comfortable at the level, even most of my regs I was against were pretty weak tight and easy to play against. Although it would be good if the results start to back me up.

Considering my desktop was broken for nearly half the month the number of hands isn't too bad. I had problems getting back into the zone the last few days for unusual reasons. I actually have a normal sleep pattern! I keep conking out before midnight and waking up at 7-8am and as the number of tables don't pick up until late afternoon/evening I am only getting 1 session a day in. So need to sort that out and overall play more sessions at 400nl. I am aiming for at least 10k hands there this month. If I keep my confidence level high then the year should finish off well. I can also say goodbye to 2008 which will be most welcome.

Getting back into it

Finally on Friday the desktop got sorted. They claimed it was to do with the ram banks or something. When I got it home, still didn't work but when I tried different lead it did. The lead that didn't work was an foreign 2 prong plug which needed an adaptor. Everything that I had tried with that adaptor since has not worked. I am sort of worried if I tried "irish" lead with new psu when I bought it that it may have worked perfectly even before I brought it in for repair. Irrespective of that, it's fixed and I have everything up to date and backed up now.

I am now faced with familiar problem of trying to re-acquire a good routine. I played a bit on Sunday morning and also played yesterday evening. Both times I finished up and settled back into it pretty much straight away. I am really trying to work on beating up on regs. I have been doing a lot of reading up into certain training series and feel it has helped me have a better mindset and feel for what is needed. This will help when I try out at 400nl again and have to play against more regs on a regular basis and is ultimately the only way you can really crush a level. As I move up it's something I shall be faced with more and more.

In other news, looks like I am heading out to Vegas around February. I was chatting to a non poker friend and the idea just came up and we were like why not. Prices for flights and hotel are pretty cheap, get 6 days in good place on strip for 1k or even less if you want to. I was there last there but was rather broke so couldn't enjoy it that much. This time it shall be different. We will be mainly doing touristy stuff like going to shows, visiting the Grand Canyon etc although clearly Poker will play a part. The ideal trip would be poker winning over there pays for everything so I can free-roll everything else.

Mindset

The computer is still broke. Nobody wanted to come out to fix it rather oddly. So I had to bring it out for repair. This is where not being able to drive becomes an issue. Thankfully my uncle who is a taxi drive gave me a lift up on Saturday. The repair place is called Computer Doctors, they give me a free evaluation and tell me what is wrong, what needs to be done to fix it and how much it will cost. Unfortunately they told me they would have results on Wednesday. I was hoping for a much quicker evaluation like on Monday but what can I do.

This has meant the added problem of my posting on boards. I am on 4,999 posts and was in the process of writing a 5,000th theory type post. Of course it's saved on the hard drive and I didn't back it up so not much I can do about it. I am not sure whether to hold out or not as I have found myself clicking reply a number of times before thinking ah can't post. It's a tad stupid waiting I suppose but it would be good if I could get it out.

I was rather lazy last week when the computer blew. I should really take the time to read up on theory, watch lots of training videos but haven't really done that although in the last few days I have been doing more. This brings up a larger point about my mindset and my approach to poker. I was watching a Seabeast video (LeggoPoker instructor) He sounded pretty depressed and was saying how boring NLH seemed to him and how Omaha is much more interesting and the way forward. His main reason as he feels like he has stopped learning and become stagnant. He feels he wants continually try to solve the game which in turn would mean constant improvement.

This is something I haven't done. I have read up a lot on poker theory. I post hands and try to extract knowledge out of as many different sources as I can but I have never really tried to figure it out for myself. The closest I come is to do EV calculations, but I tend to do them occasionally. It's not something I work on everyday. I feel this is a big flaw and a fundamentally lazy mindset. I am not proactive enough and if I really want to make something out of this it's something I feel I have to change.

As for how I change it, I am not sure. I am pretty good at spotting these type of flaws. I am just very bad at rectifying them. The most likely scenario is nothing changes or I slightly improve but nowhere near as much as I currently want/hope or need. To my advantage, I imagine it's something a lot of people go through. I suspect a lot of what separates your average 200/400nl grinder like me to your high stakes winners is their drive and willingness to learn hence they "discover" things before they become popular and a 2+2 mantra. This is what keeps them ahead of the game.

I have been thinking a bit about 2009 and what I want out of the year and I think I have a good idea of my goals and roughly what I require. I feel if I want to move forward examining and changing my mindset will a vital part of it. Ultimately for all the talk about how hard the games are, there are still people winning, someone has to win no matter the stakes. I want that to be me. It depends on how much I want it.

Bang and my routine is gone

So first up grad went as expected. The ceremony itself was pretty long and drawn out and was just a matter of counting down to its end. I had overestimated how much the robes would cover so didn't even contemplate dressing up or wearing a shirt or tie like everyone seemed to which makes me the only person who wore a Mister T jumper on the day. The dean of DCU decided to use his speech to go on a tirade about how we must vote Yes to Lisbon II, it was rather bizarre. He barely gave a mention to the actual graduation part; talk about being on your soapbox.

Afterwords went for a small meal to celebrate and suitably everyone was far impressed with the parchment then I was. The Grad Ball turned out pretty well. The meal was fairly nice but I was already fairly full anyway so didn't eat much of it. The desert was some Belgian Gateaux and was absolutely glorious. It was almost worth the tickets alone just to eat it. If I ever learn to cook, I want to learn how to make stuff like that, it may not be healthy but screw that it would be well worth the time and effort involved.

On the poker front, trying to figure out where to go next with the Leprechaun bonus ending. I think I am likely going to try Everest Poker out, I have been hearing many good things about it. The downsides are lack of rakeback and datamining but if it's as fishy as I hear, that will more then make up for it.

Unfortunately all of this is currently a mute point as on Wednesday I found my computer to be off when it should have been turned on. So I turned it and nothing happened. I tried a different plug and when I attempted to insert a wire into the back, there was a rather loud bang and lots of sparks flying. This is of course not good. I figured the PSU(power source unit) was blown and went and bought a new one. I installed it but nothing, still dead so it looks my machine is up shit creek. I am getting someone out for repair but either way it's going to cost me some money and I may end up getting a new machine if needs be. It is lucky I started November with such a nice upswing, offsets any costs pretty well.

This is really annoying as the title says it breaks my routine. This is the biggest issue I have continually had for well over a year. I play a certain amount of hands and then take way too long a break. I could play on my laptop but I really don't want to as I gotten so used to better setup and it seems such a step backwards. Whatever is the cause I intend to get it sorted ASAP, if I need new machine I will buy it straight away, no messing about. Hopefully I can get 20k hands in for November. I would have wanted me before it but what can you do.

The leprechaun sorry

So I finished up the bonus at Leprechaun, good time to review my stats from the site.
They make for some interesting reading..
First off, my overall graph



yes, I made $125.79 for my 40k hands which I roughly estimate to work out as $1.30 an hour. That makes what I earned working at Universal Studios seem high paid!
But the breakdown by stakes rather tells it's own story
Here is my graph at 200nl.




and here is my graph at 400nl




It's fair to say my shot at 400nl didn't go well. What is pretty funny is when I went to review everything on HM, no matter what statistic it was if I did at 200nl I was in profit, at 400nl I was in the red. Even when I cbet at 400nl I was down!

So what went wrong. First off I played 400nl when I returned at the of September so a bit rusty which probably caused me to make mistakes and make spewy plays. My showdown stats are horrific. I was at least 10% down on what you would want that to be. I also think I ran pretty bad, lots of coolers and such like, combine together and you get that graph. I mean ultimately it's 16 buyins which while is a significant chunk of change. It's by no means unheard of for it to happen so I am not too down about it. I still think from playing there that I can hold my own and be a winning player, a comfortable one at that.

At 200nl, things kept improving as I moved along. I really felt like I was improved in late October and November. My November stats suggest this as I am up huge so far



Now I am running a hot a bit but it does reflect my increased confidence and my general edge that I believe I have at 200nl. I still I also have an edge at 400nl so will definitely be try to move up again this month. My aim is to for it to be my main level by the end of 08.

I am on a mini break now for a few days. Graduation is on Monday and the grad ball is on Tuesday in The Burlington, both of which I shall be attending. It's going to be a strange few days. Something 1 of the army guys told me was when my dad found out I had got the degree. He went in the next day to work and kept going on about it and was pretty proud by all accounts. I have already said how I don't feel a sense of achievement about it but the day is bigger then me and what I think.

Complete!

Get in!

October

Bit late with this but I have been a bit behind for the while.
I describe October as an reasonable month poker wise. In terms of win rate, it was actually pretty poor but at least I had a win rate. After September where I was down pretty huge I decided to move down to 200nl for a few weeks and try to regain my game and my confidence. I felt like I did that and I improved as the month went on. I was reading up a lot, watching videos and such like and really felt much more confident in myself and I think it's starting to show. I was also pleased with the amount of hands I got in, 23k hands in 3 weeks. By far the best aspect of October was for the first time I felt like I could consistently put the hands in day after day and not get tired or bored and actually quite enjoy it. It's definitely something I can build on and I am hoping it leads to really strong run for the rest of the year.

So far November has been really good. I am up more after 6k hands then I was for October. I have also started playing some hands at 400nl, I feel I am ready to move up, I never really felt outclassed at the level, it was just a mix of getting it in bad in stupid situations and being in a lot of coolers. I feel good about playing it again and by the end of the year I want it as my main level. Also I am currently at 93,500 points so very close to the end of the IO bonus. I maybe done Friday and will be definitely have it complete by Saturday before Graduation on Monday, just like I hoped.

Let the good times keep rolling!

IPO and leprechauns

I meant to write about this last time but it slipped my mind. The international poker open was in it's 2nd year and once again it broke it's own record for most participants in a live tournament outside the USA. I was doing he floor for the tournament last year and it in term of organisation there was an huge improvement over last year. I'd say 90% of the floor staff did the Irish open this year, dealers in general were much better trained bar 1 or 2 exceptions and in general they clearly learned a lot from their mistakes so credit goes to Stephen, Jeff and Boyles for really putting the event on the map.

I have to say I am really impressed with Boyles and with what they have been doing since the poker room got new management in. If I wasn't such a rb whore I would probably give them a go as their customer service is pretty outstanding but big companies who get their numbers from huge marketing are never going to offer the best deals, it will be the smaller rooms whose only way to attract people is to offer better deals. I suppose if their was a wave of sites going down like what happened in the banking industry then I would go with them as you would know your money is safe. I am always wary of that possibility and tbh putting your money in most sites is a gamble as there is no real way of getting your money back. Costa Rica, Antuiga etc don't tend to enforce the law that forcefully.

Anyway I digressed. This year I played the IPO. I ended up coming around 160th give or take 1 or 2 places. I got to the 2nd and final day on Sunday but lasted 10 minutes. The killer hand was very first hand of the day with blinds at 2500/5000 when guy raises to 15k (the fact he didn't push maybe should have sent alarm bells in my head) I found AQs on the button and shoved, he had Aces and that was it. I still had 9k but lasted 4 more hands. Overall looking back I don't think I played too bad, no major mistakes but I think I played too tight. I still have this weird issue of being aggressive live, I tend to find it harder mainly as they call so much but there was definitely spots where late on Friday I could have shoved my stack in and picked up the blinds. It's definitely something I need to work on for when I start playing bigger live tournament.

On that point, for the last few weeks I have been playing on leprechaun poker. They have been advertising on boards the last while and specifically an pretty incredible deal where if you play and make 100k VIP points you get to choose a ticket to any live event of your choice in 2009. The thread is here
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055360443

Now on the face of it, it's a hell of an offer but I had problems with it, mainly it's almost too good an offer. From the figures I have worked out, it seemed that at best they were going to be break even on the deal and more likely going to lose money on each person who gets it. This is on the assumption that everyone chooses to play the Irish Open and doing anything else would be absolutely crazy, biggest buyin, most prestigious tournament and the best value tournament with all the Paddy power sats and live satellites held around the country, the standard is questionable to say the least.

After mulling it over, chatting with others I decided it was worth the risk of going with it. As of now I have 81,158 VIP points so I am 4/5ths of the way there. I aim to have it complete by my graduation on the 10th of this month. In terms of acquiring the points it has been pretty simple and that bit was never in doubt although I have gone through it even quicker then I anticipated. It's still a risk though. I am not 100% certain they will pay out on it although I think there is very good chance they will judging by how they have been replying. I think they hope to make back money by getting people to try to go for the deal but ultimately failing to reach the magic number and also for people who qualify hope at least 1 of them goes deep and gets their logo on tv.

Either way it should mean I will be playing the Irish Open in 2009 which will be great. I always has 09 as the year I would start to play big live tournaments. If I do play it then I shall be aiming to get some more live experience beforehand in the weekly donkaments in the Jackpot, Fitz etc to try to make myself feel as comfortable as possible and then hopefully take down the big score in April!

2 months on

Well it's been a while since I wrote the previous entry. First off, many thanks to everyone who left a comment or pm about what happened. It does mean a lot. Since then we have generally dealt with most of the legal stuff. It was quite a lot of hassle. I never realised the amount of paperwork death produces. It's just never ending, again I can't praise the army enough, they helped so so much with everything. If I know I am on my way out I am joining the army; everything paid for; hell of a send off; the works!

The amount of cheques we received was just crazy, I have no idea why we got as much as we did. My dad seemed to have 10 different accounts. It's a very odd feeling receiving that. We got the life assurance cheque which was big, much bigger then I would have ever anticipated and both my mam and I just said how empty it felt. It almost feels like we are profiteering from it. I know it's not and what he would have wanted etc but still feels sort of wrong. Of course the financial armageddon that has occurred in the last 2 months didn't help. My mother didn't know where she wanted to deposit it. It seemed like every bank was in jeopardy and I plain don't trust the government 2 year guarantee as I can't possibly see how they can afford it. It was an extra worry we could have done without although I was fairly glued to the TV during it all.

I said last time I don't know how far along the grieving process I am. I still don't. Nothing much has changed at all, I don't feel any different. I don't feel like I have going through some cycle of emotions, maybe I am just going through a long version, don't really know. I suppose it's 1 of those things I will only truly know in a few years.

What else is uncertain is what next. I am finished college, graduation is in 3 weeks. I don't have a "real job", for now it's just poker. I had the idea of going off traveling for awhile, Australia seemed particularly appealing or maybe backpacking around Asia. Boards poster Ianmc is doing that and the idea of living of poker while traveling really sounds sweet but to do that I need to playing higher but also I now just can't think of myself. The house feels very strange. At the start of 08, all 4 of us were living here and I also had my pet budgie. He died in March aged 11, then my brother moved out a month or 2 later and then my dad. So from having 4 people and a pet, there is now only my mother and I. That is a big difference and a dynamic I haven't really gotten used to yet. If I went abroad my mother is on her own and that makes me uncomfortable cause I just don't want to leave her, being on her own would be a challenge and she has never had to do that. Clearly at some point I have to go, I can't live at home forever but when that point comes I am not sure so everything is just a bucket full of uncertainty at the moment.

On the poker front, yeah I do remember this being a poker blog at 1 time. I didn't play for 6 weeks following the funeral. I started on a different skin on Ipoker to go through a bonus which I am still going through. I imagine I will get it done mid November. As for how I am playing, well initially very bad it seems. I am not sure whether mentally I wasn't fully up to it or not but I was down a good bit after a brief good start. My won% @ showdown numbers were appalling. While there is no optimal number; I should have been at least 6% points higher so I was getting it in bad too often. A lot of this happened at 400nl so I decided to take a break for a week and move down back to 200nl. I am still comfortably rolled for 400nl but wanted to get some confidence back in my game.

I am still at 200nl but feel like I am turning a corner. Something which I have developed that I am really happy with and that I never really had before is a routine. I am now playing 2 sessions a day from around 9-12:30 and then 1:30-5. Now I don't play all those hours all the time but I will play some session during them. So I may play from 10-11 or whatever depending. The good thing is that is when Ipoker tables are at their softest. It really helps having a routine, I am playing more hands then ever consistently and I am enjoying playing more hands which is huge for me. This has made going for that bonus pretty easy. I have also being 6 tabling much more comfortably, I can extend it to 8 tables for a while without too much bother so this means I get far more hands in. I'd say 25-30k hands a month is a pretty realistic target.

So if I can my game in order I think I can finish of the year pretty strong and hopefully at 400nl, that's the plan anyway!

The post I didn't want to write

I have been weighing up whether I should actually write about this or mention it. I am very conflicted on it. On the 1 hand I just want to say what happened. I am not sure why but I feel like I need to tell the story, get it out of me or whatever yet I can't explain why I feel that. On the other hand I sort of don't want people really knowing, not in an embarrassed type way but more cause it's just plain awkward. It causes people to react to you differently, they are not sure what to say and I am not sure how I am supposed to reply. The normality of people not knowing has been rather nice cause the last few days have been anything but normal. So to sum up I want to say what happened yet at the same time I'd rather people not know about it. I believe that is what you call having your cake and eating it. Ultimately my emotions have won out; I am just going to talk about it. So warning none of this has anything to do with poker and is majorly TL;DR

Last Thursday my father died, he was 55. He had a disease called scleroderma which took him, can read more about it at the link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scleroderma
It's a really horrible nasty disease which has no cure. When I become a poker millionaire I shall donate some money and hopefully get closer to a cure coming into being. I wouldn't want others to suffer it and unfortunately suffer he did. I imagine everyone goes through this but seeing your dad or any parents gradually deteriorate is horrible. He seemed so strong when I was young, like he could do anything, but near the end he couldn't eat, struggled to walk and breathe. There was nothing he, I or anyone else could do about it. It's an incredibly helpless feeling knowing that. I can only imagine how he felt going through it.

We know things were bad in the final few days although when he did go it was more sudden then we expected. From what I gather he was 1 second talking to the nurse, next second his heart just gave away. I was on the 27b on the way to the hospital so missed it by about 10 minutes. I felt a mixture of numbness and relief when I knew. The relief part comes from the suffering he went through, there is only so much one can take. He was not going to improve to the extent where his life could be classed as decent and he was in a lot of pain. I didn't want him to see him suffer any more. The numb part, well I am sure you get it.

Since then, the whole last few days have been very surreal. All the family have been over here really helping my mother and I out and pretty much organising everything along with my brother. My dad was in the army and I have to say the army have been fantastic to us, nothing they can't do for us. Something that I wasn't aware of is that my dad and any soldier for that matter is entitled to a military funeral; I always thought that was used for special cases but not so and that is exactly what he wanted.

The first mass on Saturday evening was quite something. We had little service in Staffords funeral home, from there we had to go to Donnycarney church. It's no more then 200 metres. Here is the route on google maps
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=53.376468,+-6.217457&daddr=53.374398,-6.218981&hl=en&geocode=&mra=ls&sll=53.375399,-6.217414&sspn=0.002736,0.008261&ie=UTF8&ll=53.375537,-6.218439&spn=0.002736,0.008261&t=h&z=18

But you may remember the flash flooding that hit Dublin on Saturday evening, well we were a victim. The road to the church was flooded. I was in the car but the people walking behind the hearse had to go into the army truck that was parked beside the funeral home, as water would have been up to their knees if they had kept walking. So we had to take a de-tour, here is the actual route we took

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=53.376468,+-6.217457&daddr=Elm+Mt+Ave+%4053.376853,+-6.218468+to:Elm+Mt+Rd+%4053.381860,+-6.225530+to:Hazel+Rd+%4053.375754,+-6.223186+to:53.374669,-6.219506&hl=engeocode=4722134218138153488,53.376468,-6.217457%3B14487765998833391793,53.376853,-6.218468%3B2782591117424020827,53.381860,-6.225530%3B709566554548741047,53.375754,-6.223186%3B12742730155763534924,53.375025,-6.220590&mra=dme&mrcr=3&mrsp=4&sz=17&sll=53.376788,-6.222821&sspn=0.005472,0.016522&ie=UTF8&ll=53.376314,-6.220118&spn=0.005472,0.016522&t=h&z=17

Point B, we had to turn back on ourselves as Elm Mount flooded too, talk about the scenic route! It took us 25 minutes to drive it, on a normal day I could walk it in less then 3 minutes. It was a pretty crazy evening. Here is what the outside of my house was like
http://picasaweb.google.com/cooker3/Random/photo?authkey=mn_Py6yCxic#5232716824709933906

My dad was born on July 15th which is Saint Swithun's day and the folklore states that if it rains on that day when it will continue to rain for 40 days and 40 nights. The joke that was going around is that my dad decided to give us 40 days worth of rain in a few hours.

The funeral took place on Monday morning. The service was pretty nice; once it was over the army took control. The coffin was draped in the tricolour; they carried him on to a gun carriage that transported him to Fingal. At the graveyard about 50 soldiers did an guard of honour up until the grave. This was the point when everything felt wholly unreal. I vividly recall looking around and just thinking, "is this really happening?" Once the coffin was lowered, there was a 21 gun salute (despite being told it was coming I still jumped about 2 foot into the air) Finally the army school of music played The last post which is the famous song you always hear at military funerals played on a bugle. That bit was the one which got to me the most, 1 on my aunts seen it and came over to console me and then it was over. I have to say it was quite the send off; army did an incredible job putting it together. We went back to the local and suitably most got drunk. I met a lot of the family who I haven't seen in ages which was actually really good. I ended up leaving a bit early as I was completely shattered and immediately went to bed despite it being only 6pm.

So what now? I am not really sure. I have no idea how far along the grieving process I am. I am not even sure if it has fully dawned on me. Nothing like this has ever happened to me, the closest anyone who has died to me is my grandparents but that was wholly different. They were much older and we knew it was coming for them all. While my dad was sick, he was much younger and well he was my dad. We have to sort out all the legal stuff although I presume everything goes through my mother. The Olympics being on have been a godsend. It gives me something to focus on and take my mind of everything. As all those who reads boards have noticed I have generally being posting as much as usual, probably a bit more. The same sort of idea is behind that; it's something normal to do, to keep my mind of everything else. I have not played poker since, no idea when I will start back, might be days/weeks even longer. I am not too bothered. I am certainly not going to push myself back into it. You need to be mentally good to grind it out properly; no way I am doing it until I feel I am and who knows when that shall happen.

July in review

Things are going well! My graph above is of July. It must be said I was having an distinctly average month until the final week and I proceeded to run like an Ethiopian high on EPO. I am not going to say I played fabulously caused most of the winnings were just donated to me. I have been mixing in 400nl with 200nl and it's going well. The standard is as bad as 200nl and in sports much worse. There are lots of tags and some good players as well but with a bit of table selection there is certainly nothing to be scared of. I am fairly happy with the number of hands I played. I aimed for 15k in the final 2 weeks and that is what I got done. It helps when you can't have a losing session!

This month I don't expect to get many hands in. The 2008 Olympic games begin next Friday and pretty much decided I am going to watching them every hour of the day and barely play poker. I love the Olympics, just a festival of sport. In celebration of it and of the recently finished Tour De France I am going to purchase a bike. It will serve a few purposes; for 1 it will mean I will be getting exercise and that is something I have been sorely lacking in the last year or so. It will also give me something to do and focus on between sessions. Exercise makes you feel better and therefore should hopefully result in a better and more relaxed mindset and ultimately better decisions and results. That is the plan anyway.

Here is hoping I start August as I finished July!

C C C C Changes

So since my last entry there has been a lot going on mainly down to my brother. He came into my room and calmly told me he was moving out the next day and I could have his room. This matters because of the relative sizes of the room. My room is tiny. It's around 10 feet by 8 foot and so small that when we got the house evaluated we got told that it's too small to advertise it as a bedroom. All this means is I've always had to make do with using my laptop for all my computing needs which is sub optimal for numerous reasons including screen been too small so struggle to play lots of tables, no mouse and no where flat to place laptop, uncomfortable seating positions as I have to sit on my bed etc etc. My brothers room on the hand is much bigger and like a pretty decent sized bedroom so I pretty much straight away start planning exactly what I want for it and I must say I want a lot.

So in the past 12 days or so I have purchased the following desk, leather chair, super now monitor, desktop along with seriously good speaker system, mouse, keyboard and a printer/scanner, I have also gotten new phone line upstairs so I have easy access to broadband. I have spent just over 2k but I think it's well worth it. Pic of it is below (minus printer/scanner which hasn't arrived yet)



This week has been a struggle putting it all together. It took me 2 days to build the chair and table and encountered all the usual problems when you have to assemble items such as this but with a bit of help I got there in the end. It also took me good 2 days to transfer everything across. To download all the stuff I need, to re acquire all the licenses for all the proprietary software I own etc but I have pretty much completed everything that needed to be done. There is a point to all this though, I am not just gratuitously spending money just because I can. 1 of the big reasons I think I struggled grinding out hands is because of my previously terrible set-up. I struggled to fit a lot of tables on screen. It is hard to be comfortable when sitting on my bed so I found it hard to get long sessions in. So simply put I have no more excuses any more. It's up to me to be able to put the hands in. I think 30k a month should be a minimum requirement.

On the poker front, I haven't been playing all that much due the above but I have been playing a bit and I have been doing well. I have decided to start mixing in 2-4 along with my standard 1-2. I feel it's time I start moving up but to begin with I think it's better to mix it in and get used to it and gradually go from playing or 2 tables to playing 5 or 6. So far it's been going well. I have played 5000 hands at both levels and up around $1900 total. I am pretty pleased with how it's gone and think I played decently and handled the tables. So far, there hasn't been anything particularly difficult. Tables have been nitty although there was 1 crazy table when a hand didn't go by without a 3bet and fair few 4 bets. Overall though with good game selection I expect to be reasonable winner at those stakes on ipoker. From Monday on though I want to get 15k hands in before July ends. If I run well then a 5 figure month is on the cards but I will see how it goes.

In other news, Tour De France started last Saturday. I have been following it but not to same extent I have done previously, the drug scandals have really hit the event hard. The ironic thing about the whole cycling doping scandal is the reason you hear so much about it is because their testing procedures are so stringent. If you put those in place in other sports especially the 4 major North American sports I bet there would be an scandal of epic proportions that would be up there with what has happened in cycling. On to a wholly better note last Sunday seen 1 of the greatest sporting duels I have ever watched when Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final. It was just an incredible match; 5 sets long, longest mens final in history and John McEnroe called it the best tennis match he has ever seen and seeing as his match with Bjorg in 1980 is often quoted as the best, that is good enough to me. I don't think any other sport has 2 people or teams as good as those 2 and I felt privileged to just watch it all. So yeah, I enjoyed it.

The WSOP main event is on going and as I type this Hawk Eye from boards is chip leader! while cardshark is still in the running. It would be fantastic if either of them got to the final table in November so good luck them but for most people they have completed their trip to Vegas and after mulling over it so long I am glad I didn't go. I have been reading a fair few blogs and 1 of the common themes is the grind of vegas and how much it takes out of you emotionally and bankroll wise. Everyday there are multiple 4 figure buyin tournaments been held at various casinos along with big money cash games and I can see how it is so easy to take a big loss. Giving the state of my bankroll and how much money I would have probably spent; going on a bad run could have put me in a bad way; to the point where the 2k I spent on my new system is small change. I feel that next year I will be in a much better position financially to go to Vegas such that even if things go for the worst my bankroll will not take a huge hit percentage wise.

Speaking of blogs I have been reading Valor's blog in particular with interest. Something that pleasantly surprised me (although he will not be happy with) is the mistakes he is making. He seems to make a lot of the mistakes I do, this oddly makes me feel better about myself as if Valor does it then me doing it is less of a problem and not something only confined to me(if that makes sense?) So while it's constantly trying to improve yourself is obviously vital; making some of those errors will not necessarily stop me moving up and beating higher levels. I also seen him advertise his coaching services, what he is offering sounds exactly like what I need so I am going to try and aim for to win a certain amount which I can put towards getting him to do some coaching for me. This hopefully give me more motivation to play hands

Taking stock

I think this is pretty good time to look back over the previous year or so and what I have and haven't achieved in poker and beyond. Why now? Well for one it's just coming up to halfway through the year so good as time as any to do a bit of a review but also because this time last year a significant point in my poker career occurred and yesterday a significant point in my life occurred.

This point 12 months ago I was in Los Angeles, it was where I spent my summer. I worked in Universal Studios Hollywood, it was a chance for an escape to somewhere different and also the weather was a lot better! I and the 2 other people I went over with spent first the few weeks looking for somewhere permanent to live. It was around this point we found an apartment on Hollywood boulevard. It was about a 5-minute walk away from the Kodak Theater, which hosts the Oscars every year. I hadn't been playing poker since I arrived 3 weeks earlier as I was on a public network in the hostel where I stayed and I am fairly paranoid about playing on 1 but more important I was too busy searching for apartments on Craigslist. I never had to really search for a place to live before and I finally understood the stress involved in it. It was not a pleasant experience. Anyway, we found somewhere reasonable and I was free to play poker again.

I'd be playing 25nl on or off since October (lol) In my defence in that time there was 2 spells where I didn't play for at least 2 months due to "final" year and I had only put 25k hands in. This was back in the days when I 1 tabled. I am not sure how I did it looking back. I am nothing if not disciplined. I always bankrolled for higher levels namely 50nl even before I started playing at that level so I wasn't playing it because I had to but I was playing it as I seen it as starting a fresh. I played MTT's previously but I was reading more and more on cash games and finally this post inspired me to make the move
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054920511

But while having the right bankroll is important, being able to beat the level is as important for me so I set upon the idea that I wouldn't move up unless I knew I could beat a level hence my continual grinding at 25nl.

So, what is the significant point in my poker career that occurred at this time last year that I stated at the start? simply put I moved up levels. I made the move to 50nl in July. This was the first of 3 increases in level. In October I moved up to 100nl and in December I moved up to 200nl and being there since for the most part bar the occasional shot at 400nl and 1 week where I moved down to 100nl again. In general I have been very static about what levels I play which looking back I am not so sure is that great an idea. But that is where I am now. I want to be playing 400nl regularly by the end of the summer but I am likely to adopt a more fluid view of levels and play different levels across different sites.

I have been reading a lot of the Vegas blogs seeing as there is quite a lot of people over there due to the imminent start of the main event. I have to say I am quite jealous. A large part of me wishes I went over now. I could have done it. I even looked at flight costs to LAX but I just felt it could cost me too much money and too much of my roll as a lot of my time would have been spent going to shows, visiting the Grand Canyon etc. This has left a void in my summer, which is pretty apt as the rest of my life seems like a void at the moment and the reason is something I hinted at above.

The significant point in my life that occurred yesterday? Well my exam results came out and I passed so I now have a degree in computer applications. As I said in a previous post I am fairly ambivalent about the degree itself but being in college has defined me for the last 5 years. Pretty much everything I have done or not done has at least an indirect connection to DCU and usually it's a very direct connection. I still live at home because my home just happens to be on the very road that DCU is at. I have spent 2 summers in the US working, both times on the J1 visas which I got cause I was a student. The first time I ever played poker was in DCU pokersoc and so on and so forth. I have to face a future not tied to the place and I am really not sure what that will entail. Something else which occurred to me yesterday was I was going through daft.ie as I occasionally do, I have nothing really keeping me at home bar home made dinners and clothes washed (which I admit is pretty handy). The idea of moving out 20,30 minutes whatever away from my house just to share with a stranger really doesn't appeal to me. I mean what's the point? There is nothing keeping me here. I have no debt. I may just leave and not sure if I will come back. I could travel for a while. I could just go somewhere and settle there. I could do both; travel around until I find somewhere. But it would be something. I admittedly have only really started thinking about this so none of this may happen but something has to happen. I am not sure why I am only thinking this now and not a month ago but it's like the results coming out have set a light bulb off. To make this happen I will have to be playing and beating 400nl successfully. I think it's the only way I could make it work and afford it.

So that is where I stand at the moment. Lots of ideas and thoughts but nothing definitive. Hopefully this point next year I can look back and be happy with what happened!

Month in review - TL;DR

The month isn't over yet but I have completed the Devilfish bonus, which I started in the last week of May. So the graph along with 400 hands at ipoker is above. It really isn't too much to write home about. After the great opening week, which I posted about it, all went downhill and in fact I have lost 600 since I made that post which is all pretty depressing. I am running at .75 pt bb/100 over the 30k hands I played so I was virtually breakeven.

So what happened? Well I think my last post covered it pretty well. I am a station. I called way too much and kept calling my stack off continually when I was crushed. I say I lost a good 10 buyins doing this when it just wasn't necessary. I posted a fair few hands on boards.ie amongst other forums and pretty much every hand I posted went along the lines of everyone saying I should fold and I had called and was crushed. I went through my stats and the most striking thing was won $ at showdown was 48 which is pretty low and it basically equaled my w$wsf
(A good thread on what the numbers mean:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055197237)

It's something I was starting to curb near the end and hopefully in the future I can continue to improve on that. As for running bad. Did I run bad? My guess is I did run below expectation (Unfortunately none of the software which tracks that works on B2B) It was a frustrating couple of weeks though. The reason I didn't post an entry last week was because I was just pissed with everything and didn't want to acknowledge it or think about. I took 2-day gap and things improved a bit. In general though it's not an issue and isn't important.

Good parts: I played 30k hands and completed the bonus like I wanted. I did in 27 days in the end. That's the first time I broke the 30k threshold, which is not very much compared to some of the sick stats you see posted on 2+2 et al. The simple fact is I doubt I will be ever 1 of those guys who 16 tables for hours on end and plays 100k hands a month. So to make good money I will just need to play a decent enough level and play it consistently well.
When rb and bonuses gets added I will still make somewhere around €3k-€3.5k which is still pretty nice and more then I made total in my time at Universal Studios last year or roughly half of what I made in 8 months at Vodafone so I have certainly had it worse.

Where to next pokerwise? I am not sure what I will do, I have been looking through bonuswhores as ever, and nothing has really stood out for me. There are some big bonuses out there but rb% they don't work out that great and ultimately that is what I am looking for. So probably just play on GJP a bit, maybe a bit on Devilfish as well until I come across something, which takes my fancy.

Away from poker Euro 2008 has been taken place and it has been a really fantastic tournament. So many good matches and so much top quality flowing football. Russia being the highlight so far. Their match against the Dutch was fantastic and Arshavin looks like the real deal. Turkey has also performed 2 miracle comebacks so it's really had it all. I am hoping Spain or Russia take it down although I have a feeling it will be the Germans who win it all.
I also have to mention Tiger Woods. He is incredible. I was compelled by the US open more so then usual. I watched it from the Friday on. His final 6 holes in round 3 on Saturday were just staggering. 2 eagles and a birdie from the rough, which had no rights being anywhere, near the hole. It those sort of shots which separate him from all other sports men or women. He constantly produces the impossible over and over again. To win in 18 hole play-off considering how bad his knee was is also a testament to his character so yeah all in all I rate him pretty highly.
Another great sportsman continues on his campaign to greatness today. Wimbledon starts today. Go Federer!

Oh yeah this week my exam results come out. Something to look forward to!

That difficult 2nd week

Yeah it's not been a great week. They always say the 2nd one is much harder then first whether it be sporting victories, albums and for me I found it to be true for weeks at this site. As for what has been happening. Well I am running bad. Now I am not going to go on about it as I think people over-rate when they run bad. It happens and is part of poker and with the amount of suck outs I had last week I can in no way complain about it but it is a reason without a doubt.

In general I am still pretty happy with my play for the most of the week. I wasn't tilting, I was feeling calm and think I was doing a lot right. Thursday was a different story. I dropped just over 6 buyins(hands 5193-6700 roughly on graph) and I would say about 4 of them came from me making really bad call downs. For me playing bad is so much more tilt inducing then running bad and I am really disappointed with myself about some of the calls. I am definitely too much of a station at times and it's something I need to work on.

On plus side I had good day today, won over 5 buyins and nearly breakeven over the 2 days.
Overall I am now basically breakeven for the 2 weeks on Devilfish although I will be in profit when you add in rakeback and bonuses that I will eventually get. I am still completely confident I am a winner in those games and are a comfortable one at that. Just need to stop calling down as much!

Good start back

That's my graph for the last 7 days. I am pretty pleased with how things are working out in general. I started off slowly, On Wednesday which is middle bit of the graph I played really badly. I was really unhappy with myself after that but I reviewed through the hands and made some conscious decisions of what I need to do to improve and played much better for the rest of the week which the graph shows. I think I was still a bit rusty thought when starting off. Now I have to say I am running pretty good. I can think of 2 or 3 times when I got an underpair in and hit the 2 outer etc but still aside from that I think I am reading situations well and making a lot of good decisions. Today didn't go that great but I just reviewed through the hands and pretty much all bar 1 hand was coolers or standard flips etc so I am not too worried by it.

I am playing on Devilfish Poker and it's been going pretty well. Software looks a bit like some of the final year projects people out of my course could do but it does have seem pretty nice features such as box you tick you keep you topped up at all times which is sweet. The standard is pretty poor. You get the usual donk who just donates to you but the site is absolutely full of tagfish. People playing 23/13/2 etc. I really don't mind playing at a table full of them cause I can just dominate it and run them over, they are really easy to read and I pretty much always know where I am at in a hand. Some of the downsides are player liquidity due to B2B being 16th biggest network overall. When I was going for the bonus I thought I would be playing on Boss a lot but turns out that is cardroom2 and to really get the big rb deal you need to be playing on B2B. The other major problem is only Pt2 supports it and even worse PAHUD doesn't work on it so I have had to revert back to Gametime which is rather painful as it is not a patch on PAHUD or HM hud but I should get around 54-55% rb when you include the signup bonus and combined with poor quality of player then it works out pretty good. I'd certainly happily take 4 weeks of winnings like the ones I have above that's for sure.

In other news I watched the finale of lost last night, not going to spoiler it or anything but I really enjoyed it as per usual. It's so annoying that it is off the air for 8 months now. It is by far the best show on tv by a country mile at the moment imo. Euro 2008 starts next week. But in general not much on tv which may not be a bad thing. It means I can grind it out. I am hoping to get 30k hands done for the 30 days. That should ensure I get everything I need for the various bonuses. As for the rest of summer from a non poker capacity. I have nothing planned as of yet. I always assumed I would go somewhere abroad as there was lot of plans for things but nothing has come to fruition as of yet. I think it should go abroad at least once. I mean what is the point of winning lots of money if I don't spend on it anything afterall.

The end!!

Exams are over \o/

I think they went ok, bit touch and go on whether I get what I need but I think I should do. Once I get a pass then that is all I need. The degree means absolutely nothing to me. When I started college way back a long time ago. I had certain goals in mind for what I wanted to do and achieve by the time I finished. Not 1 of them involved getting a good degree. See back when I started I was a whole lot different then I am now and for the worse. I needed to "improve as a person" That sounds too much like what a self help guru would say but I can't think of a better way of putting it. I think every goal I set myself I have achieved. So while coming out with a pretty worthless degree in an area I have no interest in working in may seem a failure to some people and understandably so. I look upon it differently. I set out to achieve certain goals and I got them and that is all that matters to me.

So after my final exam I dossed around awhile and got home for the champions league final. I was up for Chelsea as I am firmly in the ABU camp and have been so I can remember. The first 25 minutes were awful, very reminiscent of the cup final last year but once Ronaldo scored game started for real. It turned out to be a pretty good final. The best one since 2005 imo. Chelsea were the better team overall on the night but they couldn't put United away when they had the chance and that usually costs you. I feel sorry for Terry, I can't imagine trying to deal with that.

Still a few things which annoy me. When there was a big brawl and Ray Haughton goes "nobody likes to see this" stfu and speak for yourself. I *love* seeing brawls, they are great, the more the better. I think I speak for 95% of people when I say that, seriously who doesn't love seeing a good punch up? 2nd thing which is sort of a function of the first point. Drogba's sending off. While I don't blame the ref for sending him off I think the biggest problem with football is the ridiculous rules Fifa and Uefa lay down. The fact that a little slap like this is seen as an automatic red card is so retarded it's incredible. It was a nothing incident, at best it should be a yellow card. This is an area football have it so wrong while rugby union have so right imo. You watch a Heineken cup match, you have a a bit of punch up, ref talks to them and tells them not to do it again and they both shake hands. That is the way it should be done. Red cards ruin games, the more it happens the more it takes away the spectacle of the game and it's happening too much and I sick of it!
So more brawls and less cards, that's the way forward!

So on to poker, being looking around for a few deals. Devilfish poker has been launched and they have a pretty good deal where you can get a 53-54% rb deal when you add in everything including signup bonus and rb. I think it will be good for me to do something like this for a few reasons 1) I think it would be good to start on different network, fresh start and all that as Devilfish is on Boss network 2) I perform better when there is a signup bonus as opposed to rb. What I mean by that is if I get 50% in rakeback which corresponds to €1000 or get a signup bonus which I have to complete in 30 days and that too is the same as 50% rb and €1000 then I am much more likely to get it with the signup bonus because the feeling of having to play a certain amount of hands otherwise nothing is so much more motivating. This is true of the Unibet bonus I got in February. I played more hands in 19 days then I have ever had to before or since just to get it. It's the same motivation when I have 2 days to go to an exam etc. I just need that pressure of having to play to really put the hands in. There are a few more deals around as well which I am looking at so hopefully I can really motivate myself for the summer and really put the hands in.

April - Quick graph

So here is my graph for April
By no means nothing special, still it's far better then March in every respect. I become much more aggressive so I think I am likely making way too many spewy errors where I bet when I shouldn't do etc but I am trying to work on it and think long term it will turn out good for game. I am happy that I am making money in non showdown pots as I am trying to work on that. I think what I need is just to play consistantly day in day out. That is what I did in february for the Unibet bonus, I think if I can do that then it would really help.

Feeling better

Not a huge update but I have been playing a bit more since the last entry. Up a bit, nothing major and haven't made up for my March losses yet. What I am happy with though is the fact I have been wanting to play much more. In the last few days I have been watching some of Seabeast videos on Leggopoker and they really have some good stuff in them. He talks a lot about how you should approach playing, what is the right mindset to have. How to think properly etc and it has really helped hearing his perspective on this.

I would be looking forward to putting a proper month of play in but alas it shall not be happening as my exams start in 12 days so obviously for a period of time poker(and most everything) will have to be put on the back burner and I am going to have to give full concentration towards the exams. I just want to do them and be done with college, well least that course forever so just require 1 last effort to cross the finish line. Hopefully when they are done come end of May and start of June I can really start putting the hands in.

Apathy

I haven't been playing much since the Irish Open. I played on Monday, then didn't play until Saturday as I didn't feel like it and not played since. That really has been the story since I finished the Unibet bonus at the start of March. I am not sure what's happening but it just feels like I have lost some of the passion to play. I have even noticed in last few weeks that I am reading poker forums less and less, example I logged on to 2+2 and start reading a really interesting thread on MSNL about a hand played between a poster and Taylor Caby from Cardrunners. I got 9 replies in out of 160 odd and just stopped reading as I didn't care. It's the same on boards, I am reading HH less and less. I am more interested in an online game I have been playing the last few weeks and reading up on that.

As for why this is happening, it's hard to say. I think it maybe an number of reasons. 1) I have not been getting much exercise and this eats into all aspects of life but I think the lack of exercise has meant I lost some energy. The previous 4 years while I wasn't exactly working out but I was walking to and from my house to DCU twice a day 4-5 times a week. That is an hours walk total and it certainly didn't do me any harm. Now with that gone and my lack of sporting activity means I am less motivated and my days are less structured which results in me being apathetic and lazy. Reason 2) is my general playing area. I play on my laptop sitting on my bed. This is bad for numerous reasons. For one my laptop is small and limits how many tables I can fit on screen limiting my number of hands. It also means I have to use touchpad and no mouse which is annoying and means I can't use a lot of scripts such as bet pot script etc. Another bad point is it's just not good posture and I do believe your posture and general playing area is important. As for why I don't just buy a table with desktop, well there is simply no space to put it. If I could I would have already bought it.
Reason 3) maybe I have just lost interest in general and I have come as far as I want to in poker. I don't want this to be true. I feel there is a lot for me to achieve but maybe I just don't want to do it or least put required effort in to achieve it.

So the question is how do I go about rectifying this if I want to. I think it's going to require a fairly big life change on my part which encompasses more then just poker. I need to start doing sport of some sort. I used to play squash, tennis, GAA, football back in the day and picking 1 or more of those back up would really help in lots of ways. It would keep me fit, give me an competitive outlet other then poker which I can look forward to and give more structure to my day/week. I also need to work on other interests and have generally more plans and things to do. I think ironically giving less time to poker which help me as it will make more focused when I do concentrate on it.

All of this is of course easy to say here, doing it is a whole different kettle of fish but I really feel like I have to. I am entering a crossroads now, I (hopefully) will finish off college next month when I do my final 2 exams. Assuming I pass then my fall back for the last 5 years which has helped justify me not comitting to anything and staying at home disappears and I am left facing the rather scary question of what I want to do with my life. So changes are going to happen irresepective and I think poker can be a part of it and a big part if I really want it to be. It's just a matter of how much.

IO general thoughts and stories

So as I said in my last post I was going to be dealing at the Paddy Power Irish open. It turned out better then I hoped and in general it was a pretty good week. I dealt for 57 hours and pretty happy with the money. General perception from most people is that was a successful and very well run weekend and in general I would agree with that. As much as I personally don't like the CityWest Hotel I do have to say it is a good venue for a poker tournament and Paddy Power do a very good job doing the room up and generally marketing and branding the tournament. The bar area was very nicely done up, with bucking bronco thing, computers set up in the lobby etc but most of you probably already knew that. A few things you may not have known about though.

The treatment of the dealers was a bit mixed. On the Friday which was Day 1b I think the room was very very hot. This was a problem throughout the weekend with the room either being very hot or cold, they never seem to be able to find an in between. Other problem was they were a bit short staffed on the day so it meant we didn't get a break for ages. This caused 1 of the dealers to just walk as she wasn't given a break to have a sandwich. Another one walked later on as she was pissed of with treament (so I was told) and then during the women's tournament 1 0f the floor staff wanted to get 1 of the male dealers sent home because he 1) didn't smile and 2) didn't layout the cards TV style when there was an all in called. I asked a few people and none of us do that for an all in. He was really angry about it and tbh I don't blame him. He didn't get sent home, just got a polite warning but when you have people walking out, people being sent home for not being up to the job and your short staffed then trying to get someone sent home for nothing is not a clever thing to be doing.

This seem to be a bit of watershed moment though as after all this things got much better, we were generally dealt with more respect, they were very appreciative and couldn't thank us enough. There was a nice moment when Liam Flood going on mike after the main event ended and asked the players to give the dealers a big round of applause so I think some of the criticism by the dealers who walked probably went a long way to turn it around.

Another interesting tit bit was on Day 1a, all the players got one 5k chip but about 2 or 3 hours in they were taken out of circulation and not used in Day 1b. I asked why just out of curiosity and nobody seemed to know. I eventually got told by TD he tell me when it was over. The 5k chips were eventually introduced mid to late into day 2 but were never really used all that much. When it was all done I asked David the TD about it he said the reason was they suspected that the 5k chips were being sold off, as it turns out they got it wrong hence they were re-introduced. I am not sure what led them to believe they were being sold off originally and how they found out otherwise but I always think they should use different chips each year to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen but I guess it would be pretty expensive to buy them every time.

1 final story which I found interesting and sort of disturbing. I was chatting to some of the people involved in the production side and they said that some of the players were not putting their holecards on the little window where the holecard camera lied until the very last second. This was sort of annoying them and they went to try and see why. It turns out what was happening was some of the players kept looking around at all the cameras and they picked up on something, when someone had a big hand the camera would zoom in on them before action had reached them so these players wanted to hold off putting their cards into the area assiged so that the cameras couldn't give them away to others at the table. If all of this is correct then that shouldn't ever happen but it is symptomatic of the biggest problem with the tournament as a whole. They whored it out for TV. This is true in both years I have worked at the IO in that they try to run the tournament to suit TV instead of how it should be done of TV being made to work around what is best for the tournament and the people who play in it.

Hopefully they sort out these issues next year and maybe make the structure a bit better mainly because I may try to qualify for it. I am hoping 2009 is my year for playing some big live tournaments.

Away from the IO, my sleep pattern is much better and I woke up today feeling pretty refreshed. I am likely not going to play today but hopefully start up by end of the week and get myself playing and running more like I did in February

The mehness of March

March has been continuing in much the same vein as first paragraph of my last post. I barely played at all this month. My sleep issues continued and my usual ways of remedying them have no worked like before. Twice I stayed up for about 26-30 hours trying to reset the body clock but both times I just end up sleeping for about 5 hours and waking up at 3am. This caused me many problems including the fact I wasn't awake or feeling fresh when ipoker was busy. The few times I have played have well been bad. I am down a good bit this month, I imagine the above contributing a good bit to it. So my move to 400nl has been postponed for a while until I start feeling it again at 200nl and start winning again!

From tomorrow on I am going to be taking a break of sorts from online play for the Easter week as I shall be dealing at the Irish Open in the Citywest. Last year in the lead up to the Irish Open I was really excited by it, this year is different. I don't feel 1 ounce of excitement about it at all. I'm really not sure why either. It might be due to my general lethargicness that I have feeling at the moment and also because it's in Citywest. I really dislike that place for oh so many reasons but on plus side I am staying there so annoying taxi journeys home. I am just looking to get through it, hopefully it goes by quickly and also hopefully being forced to be awake at certain time will ensure my body clock is forced into a more normal sleep pattern so when it's over I can look forward to April and put in some proper time and run more like I did in February!

Tiredness and some rare live action

I took a break just like I planned after unibet bonus. I intended on playing on Monday but didn't and the reason is something which is bothering me more and more and that is my inability to sleep. My bodyclock seems to naturally want to deviate towards going to bed at 10am and waking up at 6pm and I feel like I am in a constant battle against it. I don't mind it for a bit but after a while it gets to me. I don't know but there is just something depressing about waking up when it's already dark. In contrast after a good night sleep and waking up in the morning you tend to feel great. This also co-incides with me playing really well when I load up a few tables. I have really tried to go asleep a bit earlier, when I say earlier I mean like around 6am but I just can't do it. My usually remedy for this is to stay up 30 hours, collapse into bed at 10pm and have a big sleep. Following that I start the inevitable drift back towards non daylightness. Some people suggest sleeping tablets but I have issues with any sort of tablet or medicine, not a phobia but I just don't like taking anything unless I have to. I always like to let my immune system fix me when ill etc. Anyway hopefully it resolves itself and I can have reasonable sleep pattern which facilitates everything.

I took part in DCU student masters. Here is boards.ie thread for it
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=55325290

120 odd people took part in it. They had a pretty nice setup for it. The venue is a really good place to hold a tournament like that of that size. The dealers were actually good, I had a big concern going on about that but was proved wrong. Structure was decent early but turned into a crapshoot pretty quickly, I felt too quick but I always think that I suppose. My first table was the definition of perfect. I had an donktastic french guy to my right and 3 really tight players to my left. By the time the table broke up I manage to triple my stack mainly thanks to the french guy, I wish the table had never broken. In saying that my other table wasn't exactly bad either. In general play throughout was very very tight. Unfortunately for me the bubble was non existant, it lasted about 20 seconds and we didn't even play a hand for it. I could have stolen so many chips at that point. I got lucky a few times as is mentioned in that thread and got to final table on day 2 with an reasonable stack.

I felt pretty confident going into final table but within reason, ultimately skill wasn't going to play much of a factor, just a who is running well contest. The tightness continues and I stole a few pots early on but hour in I had pivotal hand. Guy raised all in for 2nd hand in a row. The first time he did it is worth a mention. Just as I was about to look at my cards I noticed at corner of my eye that he had stood up and was quietly calling his mate over, not verbally but waving his arm in that motion. I remember thinking looking down I hope I don't see a good but not great hand and of course I see 88. I thought for minute but my read was he was super confident and ended up folding. It was for about half of my stack. I would have had about 9-10bb if I call and lost. So on to this hand, his demeanor is very different, he stayed sitting down and pulled his cap down and generally looked uncomfortable. This time I look down and see 66 but feel I am racing nearly always and maybe occasionally be in a better spot. This, combined with the fact that it got announced blinds were going up next hand made me decide to go for it. Straight away, guy behind me insta pushes all in and I assume I am crushed and are dead to 2 outs. The original raiser turns over A9s, other guy turns over AJs. I was pretty shocked by how weak his hand was considering how confidently he pushed. Naturally though I was delighted with situation all things considered. Flop was 522 which was a lovely flop, turn was the Q of hearts giving AJ the nut flush draw and the river was 5 of hearts giving him the nut flush and decimating my stack. If I won that I would have had about 150k and being chip leader and would have felt really confident about taking it down.

I then went into push bot mode with 6 bb. I pushed 3 times in row, once it got folded, another with AK and split with another AK and final time with K3 which got called by 99. The flop was K3x but river was a nine so justice was served in end. My final hand I had 1bb and my A6 was no match for A8 and I was gone in 8th.

Boyle said they would add $200 to each of our accounts which is nice. I got €153 for 8th so made about 300 euro. I am happy enough with how I played final table. 88 hand is main disputable hand I think but overall no complaints.

Not going to play tonight, again tiredness, not feeling in mood. I will see how I feel tomorrow.
I got HM hud set up on mini view so I may try 6 tabling 200nl and see how I can handle it

Looking back and forward

So quick review of February. It was a really good month for me results wise. I completed the 2k bonus this evening and overall post a very healthy profit for the month. I would post up some stats and graphs but checkyourbets, pokertracker, holdem manager and Poker grapher all display 4 different totals which is funny. The reasons for this are 1) None of them really like the fact I am playing in euros. They were not designed with more then 1 currency in mind which is pretty poor imo and 2) I had issues with prima not writing HH properly so not every hand I played got imported. I do know I made over €7k anyway which is a very healthy profit so considering I was nowhere with the bonus on the 10th and happy to just make 2k in profit from the bonus itself, the final 19 days were an outstanding success.

I am going to take break for a day or 2 as need a rest after playing constantly for the last 19 days. I am hoping to read up more, I neglected theory quite a bit in Feb. I also signed up for a yearly membership for Leggopoker after hearing some pretty glowing reviews and they do have an impressive cast of winners. I hear in particular that Aejones vids are amazing.
I have also decided to go back to Green Joker not carlos and I am going to start to play 400nl. I am well rolled for it and I am going to try to make it my regular game but if action is slow then I am more then happy to play 200nl as well, I think this is the best way to move up, I can gradually adjust to it. If I can start to beat that for a good rate over a good amount of hands then I can really start looking at making a lot of money and maybe work on an idea I have in my head of what I want to do in the 2nd half of the year.

There is a thread on boards about a trip to Vegas. I am thinking of maybe heading over. Seems getting a bunch of us to rent a house works out pretty cheap. I have been to the US twice but they were on J1 visas so both times working holidays, it would be good to have a relaxing non working trip and also I would be in Vegas! Anyway just an idea now but who knows

HUD reliance

Things have cooled off a bit since my last post which is not too surprising. I can't run like that forever as much as I would like to. I am pretty much break even since that point, this includes the bonus so probably down about 2 buyins in play. I am not overly pleased with how I have been playing, I am been too spewy in spots and I think the reason behind it explains my title.

I start using the Holdem manager HUD last week after it randomly started working, it hadn't been working properly on Prima since it's purchase. I had the hud working on ipoker but I didn't like the lack of flexibility in the layout(which is still a problem) There was also something about it which I didn't like. I couldn't put my finger on it initially, but I figured it out after a while and it turned out it was the lack of colours for each stat. They didn't stand out like they did on PAHUD but with a little tinkering in options once I had the colours on and the number of stats streamlined then I liked it a lot more. There are an incredible number of stats displayed and just an amazing amount of information at your fingertips. There is also a great feature where you can double click stats box and get stats for current session for each player which is incredibly handy to able see how someone is playing now.

The added information has resulted in me becoming more laggy in spots, floating people more, cr in limped pots when I see they have a high steal% in limped pots etc and I think at times I can get a little too caught up in numbers so when I see someone who has 3 betted 8% of the time on the button I sort of stop evaluating ranges and just obsess over the idea that he is stealing and trying to bluff me. I then find myself calling a 3bet oop with marginal hands and trying to outplay people and generally getting it in bad. This is costing me too much money. It's good to experiment and try things out but there are definately times when I am over doing it.

This hand is an good example. I mean I almost embarrassed to post it
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2168410

Needless to say donk betting/3 betting 99 on KT3 board in 3 bet pot tends not to put you in good shape. I felt sorry for bartboos and he started going mad in chatbox asking me why I raised all in, I didn't answer as I had no answer. Looking back his aggression got to me and I got owned
Now thankfully this is worst example and probably the worst hand I have played in long while but I am still doing other things that need to be curbed.

So while the HM hud is really powerful I need to be careful not to get too caught up in the numbers and then maybe I will be able to post something more positive next time.