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!