November 2010 – Tzen1 – PokerStars Team: Online

Yeah! Almost December

Nov 282010

So, it’s almost December what should be a great month as always. I’m not really a big fan of Christmas besides the eating part but I am already looking forward to New Years Eve! I’ve been to parties at NYE but generally don’t like those as I rather spent my NYE with as many friends as possible. I haven’t made any real plans yet but I’ll probably go to a party nearby so I can drink as much as I like and crawl home!

December for me will also be a month to wrap up my SNE chase and that is of course a special moment as well 🙂 I’m planning to give a small SNE party when I make it which will be nothing else then having a drink with as much friends that would like to come over. Because of the “bad” planning of Christmas and NYE (both in the weekend) it will probably be during the week, so we have to limit ourselves to our hangover treshold!

Unlike November in which I worked every day in the weekend except yesterday, I have no weekend play planned in December. I’ll probably play some since I don’t want to risk having to put in to much play during the last week but at least I can do some nice stuff during the weekend again. The fun starts on Tuesday when I’m going out for diner to a real nice restaurant with my girlfriend and family since her little sister will go to Sri Lanka for a couple of months. On Friday I’ll have a combined birthday party which promises nothing else then alcohol and fun.

The week after I’m going to the casino with my nephew. I hardly visit the casino and usually we are not there to poker but to do a little blackjack and a drink. I don’t really like the Dutch casino’s (since Vegas) but a evening out with my nephew is always fun. In Vegas I’m okay to gamble it up but normally with my nephew (who is 19) I try to give the good example so I’ll probably not go broke on this one. The 17th of December is a night I’m really looking forward to! We’ve planned a night out with the Las Vegas crew, which is actually the first time I see Mick again and I didn’t go out with Bob as well since Las Vegas. We had a blast in LV but since we’ve all been busy with various stuff since then, this will probably a night where we tell our memories of those 8 days over and over again. Trust me, we have plenty of memories to keep going all night long and it will be fun to do some bar hopping in Amsterdam as well, which have been a while.

On the 23rd of December I have a concert of Caro Emerald which CD I’ve played over and over when it first came out. I really like the vibe of her music and if you haven’t heard of her yet you should check it out. She’s Dutch but doing very well in Europe lately and you might know her from a Bacardi commercial song.

I’ll have to continue playing some poker as well and I’ll probably have a little less then 100k VPPs left to play in December. I doubt that will be a problem but hopefully I’m going to play better or just run like god, since November was a real pain. I even lost money after rakeback which is really crazy but I don’t really want to talk to much poker. Just for the record, I lost $14.000+. I just don’t want to pay to much attention to that fact at this moment 🙂 Only thing left to say about it is that I really need to change my flop play (or post-flop play in general) but I just can’t seem to adept and seem to have completely lost my connection with playing a winning style of poker. When reviewing my hands I just don’t see it, which is a lot worse then playing bad because you are not focused or made some errors.

Yesterday I’ve been to Awakenings at the Westergas in Amsterdam which for me is really the best party out there. I just love techno and I’ve been dancing from 01:00 till 07:15 without drugs or alcohol. The last 3 hours was completely what I hoped for in which Ben Sims, Paul Mac & Surgeon blew the roof of the Westergas. I had a good night (day?) sleep and I’m ready for another session tonight. I have to work on Tuesday so I only have 1 “night” to play this week and I’m ready to wrap up this chase!

To give you an idea of what Awakenings is:

Not my year…

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Nov 222010

On Thursday I spotted the big difference between my style the end of October (when things were going great) and November. I plugged that leak and had a small win on Friday. I wrote on the Pokernews forum that I plugged my big leak but I guess I was wrong. Saturday/Sunday were the 2 worst days of this month. Did I fix something to make it even worse? I have no idea, but November is killing me.

I’ve played 182k hands in 129 hours, earned 107,5k VPPs and lost $10.911,50.

I paid $12.592,50 in rake what means that I still slightly beat the game without rake. Last year Oct – Dec were my best months of the year but not this year. I always like the end of the year (3 years in a row) because a lot of players needed to earn that extra bit of VPPs to get SNE or a huge milestone. They played more tables then they were used to, or played above their normal stakes. I kept doing what I was always doing, so could profit from those players.

This year most regs are probably just better then I am. When 6 regs are sitting on each table and I still beat the fish then it’s probably about right I’m barely beating the rake. I’m in a way happy I’m still beating the game but it’s the bare minimum. The last two days hit me hard since I was doing fine till about 00:00, both days I was up about $500. Probably most regs who beat my ass come online around that time, since both days I lost about $2k from that moment on. I can’t play during the day since there are not enough tables and I can’t move down because then I won’t reach SNE. That’s what I always did and I was never to stubborn to move down and always find my way up, this has to wait till next year I guess.

Quitting is no option, that would only cost more money. Unfortunately I can already conclude that this year sucks despite the fact I’m going to reach SNE. I could blame myself that I didn’t play more when things were still going good, but the whole plan was to play more during the period I normally earned the most. Some people might think that going for SNE might be the reason why things are going so bad but I really believe that things wouldn’t have gone a different way. Sure I could have moved down and won money. But the total sum would have probably been lower in the end, knowing the value of SNE.

My dad used to say: “Working hard won’t kill you”. And that’s exactly how I see it. At the end of this year I’ve worked 50+ hours for 45 weeks but I’m still smiling. At least I can say I did earn money, I know there are plenty of pokerplayers who go broke every year and I’m for sure not one of them. The coming 5,5 weeks I’m going to crunch out those last VPPs. I’m surprised how fit I am every day when playing, the fact that I don’t drink any alcohol probably has a lot to do with that. I’m still ready to play poker every day, I don’t think my mental state could be any better. In December I will allow myself some fun again and starting January it will all be about fun. What I’m going to do next year I still don’t know but I doubt I’ll quit poker this easy 🙂

Edit: For some who might wonder:I haven’t been contacted to become a Team Online Pro, all finalist should have been contacted before the 20th. Why did I pick up blogging just now again? More bad beats 🙂

FML

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Nov 162010

November! The great month. As I wrote in my last blog, all I do this month is play poker! I had no issues at all with the fact I had to play a lot, I do however have issues with the fact that I cry myself to sleep almost every day!

The last 3 weeks of October were great and I saw no reason why this wouldn’t continue. Play a lot, make some money, that was the idea. I probably play bad but today was a perfect example of the daily pain I’ve been feeling this month.

The day started okay but soon it went downhill. I struggled all night long with ups and downs and when it was almost time to quit at 06:30 I’m finally in the green again. As I’ve been losing almost every day this month, I was extremely happy with the fact I grinded my way up again. Still fit, I motivated myself to do the last 1.000 VPPs of the day. At first I win some more and then the shit hits the fan! I manage to lose almost $700 in just 30 minutes and all hands were 100% coolers. There is just one small pot which I could have played different, all the others are just bad luck.

I didn’t come to tell you about my bad beats but this is part of my SNE chase and it doesn’t make things easier. I’m still really motivated to play cause I just want to get SNE this year but without that, I would have stopped playing a week ago. I’m nowadays happy with losing sessions of less then 4 digits and that’s not the way I want to play poker.

When I was still slightly up today I was thinking about giving a small November update. Not knowing I would be frustrated so sorry for the bitching. I want to stay positive and the only reason how I can still be positive is with the volume I’ve put in this month. From all the days I planned to play poker I skipped one but that was 100% a smart decision as I was really tired after playing a lot of poker but also working hard. The statistics so far this month:

Hands Played: 133.074
Hours Played: 98.42
Hands/Hour: 1352.15
VPPs: 79.128

Total VPPs: 837.015
Behind Pace: 36.958

I was aiming for 150K VPPs this month and I’m on pace to get 145K. That would leave me at 905K VPPs on the 1st of December and then it’s really just the last bits of the year. I lost about $6.500 so far this month and I wasn’t planning to lose another 🙁 I’m happy with anything better then the last two weeks and it’s now really time to sleep!