February 2011 – Tzen1 – PokerStars Team: Online

(LHE) Tournament Planning 2011, WSOP?

Feb 222011

This blog entry I’m trying to avoid writing about the “mindset” in poker. It’s actually something I never really plan to do but it seems that lately most of my blogs have been about that subject. It’s just something that is constant on my mind but today I’m going to write about some of my plans for 2011.

After playing the PCA Main Event I’ve realized again, that my tournament game is not nearly good enough to play tournaments with a buy-in of $10.000. It’s certainly something I don’t regret I have done and I see it more as something I did for the fun of it, then something I did as part of my poker job. I do however have one of my SNE packages left and I haven’t decided what to do with it. I could play the just announced EPT Grand Final in Madrid (May 7-12). The good thing about that package is that it includes a €10,000 buy-in stead of a $10.000 buy-in for most other tournaments so there is a little more value in that package. Madrid is however not really a place I would like to go to. I’m a person who loves to be around water, so I prefer cities who have beaches like Barcelona, San Remo or the old venue: Monaco. Now I know that I’ll probably be playing poker all day anyway when I’m going to play the EPT but Madrid just isn’t going to do it for me.

Now the other option is to play the WSOP Main Event 2011. I’m planning to go to Las Vegas in September/October with my party friends again but I do like to go down there for poker as well this year. I could combine that with the party trip I’m going to do and just stay an extra week to play poker but I could also go down there during the WSOP. The downside of the WSOP is that the weather in June is to hot to enjoy the swimming pool but the WSOP is just such an amazing event. Everybody says the Main Event is the best valued tournament there is and normally PokerStars has a sweet deal if you play it under their terms. In 2009 I got 100.000 VPPs for free which for me was worth $5.200 because I could buy an extra Milestone Cash Credit. That means that I actually only paid $4.800 to play a $10.000 event! Last year they gave you 50.000 VPPs to start with in 2011 and in case you made it in the money you would get a PCA package for free, another amazing deal. Whether I’m going to play the WSOP Main Event really depends on the deal that PokerStars comes up with for this year. If it’s as good as the last 2 years I might just not be able to pass up the deal, I’ll just have to wait till probably the end of March before they announce it.

I do however have a third option on what to do with the SNE package. I could just take the $10.000 and put it in my bank account or go and get a LHE bracelet. I of course have a lot of confidence in my limit game and would love to go and play the LHE events they hold at the WSOP. I had the same plan last year but I decided that I rather watch the World Cup which I didn’t regret for sure! Now I might be a better LHE player then a NL one but the variance in Limit is also a lot higher, especially in tournaments. So yesterday I looked at the schedule and listed the LHE events:
– June 3, 2011 Limit Hold’em (3 day event) – $1,500
– June 8, 2011 Limit Hold’em (3 day event) – $3,000
– June 11, 2011 Limit Hold’em / Six Handed (3 day event) – $2,500
– June 15, 2011 Limit Hold’em Championship (3 day event) – $10,000

I have to be back before the 24th of June as my mother is getting married so the Limit Hold’em Shootout Tournament is not an option. Now I could play all four events or skip the first one as I probably don’t want to go down there for more then 2 weeks. The idea is to play the cheaper events and based on how that is going, play the $10.000 event. Sure 3/4 events is still not a big sample size but I do think I have a good chance of making some money playing these events. My poker buddy is also playing LHE so it would fit us both and now that I’ve listed this myself I really can’t wait to go actually. The downside is that I lose some value by not picking the other packages but playing a game I’m 100% comfortable with is worth a lot of money as well. I probably just can’t decide before the WSOP 2011 deal is announced but at least I know what my options are. I might decide to just pick the $10.000 and put it into my bank account but where is the fun in that?

Coming weekend I’m having my monthly tournament weekend again. Playing the $215 Weekly Limit Hold’em en Freeroll on Saturday and playing the Sunday Warm-up/Million and Turbo Takedown on Sunday. I’m already looking forward to play some tournaments again and I have been thinking about mixing in LHE SNG’s as well. The thing is however that I don’t really know how these play. I don’t know if they are a regfest and I don’t know how often they go, I do however think it’s a good idea to play them as I will get more used to playing shorthanded LHE. I was first thinking about mixing them in playing cash-games but now that I think of it, Saturday will be a perfect day to try them out as I’m playing the weekly $215 Weekly LHE anyway.

I also booked a short trip to play the Venlo Vip Days. I’ll be playing the €300 NL event on Friday the 1st of April and the €1.000 NL event on Saturday the 2nd of April. I was actually planning to play the €200 event on Thursday as well but I can’t because of a course at work. It should be good fun and it might be a bit softer then the PCA so hopefully I can do some damage.

A small brag: I had to pay my taxes this week and didn’t want to get any money from my savings account. Since I still had a shitload of FPP’s I finally cashed some of them out. My top was 2.198.703 FPPs, so close to the 3.000.000 to get a Porsche 😉 I still have over 800.000 left in case I want to buy a live event package but I loved stacking up my FPPs. With the *5 Multiplier I get from being SNE the points go so fast, I wish I was going for SNE again 🙂

This week wasn’t the best but I made a small profit, I’ll be writing about my results next week again as it’s then time for a February Recap. I’ve tried to leave out the word “StarCraft” in this blog but that’s what I’m going to do now (just 1 game) and then it’s time to study some poker before playing again tonight.

I love StarCraft… I mean Poker!

Poker 6 Responses »

Feb 152011

Okay guys, I admit: “I’m a little hooked to StarCraft”. I haven’t played the campaign that much yet but I’m just hooked to all those Tower Defense custom games. I’m actually not that addicted but time flies when you are playing those games, I just wish a day had a couple of more hours. I still feel like I have a constant full schedule but it’s not that bad lately. If I can play StarCraft a couple of hours a week it means I have plenty of free time. Let’s just hope Diablo III doesn’t come out till next year because I love that game even more!

Next to having some more free time I also finally got a nice gym schedule going. I’m still to heavy and haven’t lost any weight since the PCA and I was pretty pissed at myself when I noticed that. If I would let myself go for a couple of months I’m easily back in no time to 120/130kg and that’s just not going to happen. I used to always lose weight in the winter/spring and gain some in the summer/autumn but this year I only gained weight during the winter. I normally work out in the gym with a friend of mine and if he canceled I would to but I now have the determination again to just go as often as I can. 3 times a week just isn’t enough for me to lose some weight so I set the bar to 4 minimum. This week I’ll try to go every day and set a streak of 8 times in a row, I’m currently at 3 but will hit the gym after I’ve finished my blog.

On the poker front this have been going okay. I booked a $750 plus this week and if I add the VPPs & Bonuses I’m above $100/hr. Now that’s a lot more then last year and my winrate compared to last year is just so much better. Still I’m not satisfied by my results which is good but on the other side I should embrace the fact I’m winning again and just play more. I just try to come up with to many excuses to stop playing when I’m in a session. It’s really hard for me to keep playing when I’m up over lets say $1.000 (it isn’t really a fixed number) and the last two days I proved myself right which is even worse 🙁 Both days I was up a good amount 3/4 into the session but I told myself to keep playing. Obviously I lost most of my winnings at the end, going to bed with a bad taste in my mouth. The stupid thing is that if I would have been down all night and ended up winning the same amount I would be extremely happy. Sure that is what 99% of the people would feel but it’s the wrong mindset. The only reason to stop playing is when either you play bad or the line-up at the tables changed so the competition got better. The fact that during both sessions I’ve kept playing is a good sign, now I just need to keep winning at the end of my sessions and the problem solves itself 😉

I keep telling myself lately: “Whine less, play more” but now that there is no ultimate goal(SNE) that scares me, it ain’t that simple. I still play more then 20 hours a week, so it’s not that I hardly play but it would be smart to play a lot when you are doing good on the tables. It’s actually not funny when I look back at last year, why didn’t I do the things I did to improve my game earlier? With the volume I put in last year and the winrate of this year I could have earned crazy money. Still it’s not really that simple, I play less tables most of the time which is of course already a big help. I sometimes still play 24 tables but not all night long. I just fire up all $3/$6, $5/$10 & $10/$20 tables and I don’t really care how much tables I play in total. I haven’t played a single hand of $2/$4, not even when I was only playing 10-12 tables. When the amount of tables available drop, I just tell myself to try and learn as much as possible since I’m playing less tables in stead of adding $2/$4 to keep getting the most VPP/hr as possible. Last year that wouldn’t be possible due to my VPP goals and this year I still look at the VPPs but it’s not priority 1 anymore. In case I come short, I’ll play a Friday or Saturday to catch up. I’m currently 1.080 VPPs behind my original schedule which gets me to 800.000 VPPs so I ain’t doing that bad on the VPP front either. 800.000 is still so close to 1.000.000. It’s 250 hours more to earn $20.000, a $5.200 WCOOP Main Event ticket and roughly $11.000 in VPPs but I just don’t have those 250 hours left in my schedule. I also expect the games to dry up a little in the summer as always so for now my decision is set. In case I really need the money I could always try to get myself killed during the last 3 months of the year, just like any other SuperNova Elite chasers 😉

Another reason why I might do better this year and I couldn’t do different myself last year, is that the player pool has changed a little. There are some new people, who ain’t that good, putting in a lot of volume at the tables and some good people are playing different games this year. I’m of course not complaining and have to say I still really like to play Full Ring Fixed Limit, so I don’t have any plans to change to another game myself. Since I’m playing $10/$20 again I also got the “adrenaline rush” back sometimes. I don’t even notice anymore when I win a real big pot at $5/$10, it’s just another pot and when I played my best it’s all good. At $10/$20 I have that adrenaline pumping again when I flop a good hand in a multiway pot and I think that’s really good. It wouldn’t be good if that would affect your judgment of course so you should never play scared money (for to long), but I think you do need that adrenaline to motivate yourself to do good. You don’t want to play bad when you know you get the adrenaline pumping when you are butchering the tables. Now it’s not like I butcher the tables all the time but when I’m on a streak at the $10/$20 I feel damn good about it. Last year I was only playing pots which never really bothered me if I lost and it might be comfortable when you are actually losing all the time but I think you also should always try to look for that adrenaline rush. $15/$30 seems like a small step from $10/$20 but I’m not going to play those stakes for the time being. My focus is to get back in the green at $10/$20 lifetime and win some more before I move up again. Getting back even at $5/$10 seems really undo able but I’ll do my best 🙂

I might be talking like I’m a big winner but I’ll show my Year-to-date graph to show that things are still pretty swingy and could improve a lot.

On the other side, comparing the above with my last years, Year-to-date graph at 15/02:

I did play 150.000 hands more, that might have been worth a lot of money in VPPs & Bonuses but I think most people will agree that the first picture looks a lot prettier.
Now there is a small problem incoming, I’m running out of Podcast to listen to. I had downloaded 282 Radio 538: Dance Department Podcast and I only got 26 left. I got a couple of CLR Podcast that I haven’t listened to and some Pache NYC Podcast but I’m probably done within a month or so. I think Podcast are great because you hear new music all the time and for me hearing a good new song, or an old time favorite, can really bring some happiness when I’m playing. I could of course recycle them since I’ve probably not memorized them after only listening to them once but in case you do have an interesting (preferable dance music) Podcast to listen to, please let me know!

I have no plans for the coming week other then a birthday party at Saturday. I’ll try to hit the gym every day and stay away from alcohol and do some damage at the tables again. The week after I’ll be playing tourneys again on Saturday and Sunday and I’m already really looking forward to that! I got plenty of stuff to do now, but I might squish in a little game of StarCraft first 😉

It’s hard to always play your A-game!

Poker 2 Responses »

Feb 082011

I left January behind and was ready to set some records this month. I had an okay session on the 1st of February but again lost at the $5/$10 and won at $3/$6 and $10/$20. Then last Sunday things went completely different. I started out pretty bad and was down about $900 before things turned around. I grinded my way up, was playing really good for a long time and near the end of the session I won a $772 pot at the $10/$20. I haven’t checked it but this must be the biggest pot I’ve ever won at the $10/$20.

Poker Stars $10/$20 Limit Hold’em – 10 players – View hand 1164072
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter
CO posts a big blind (1 SB)
Pre Flop: (2.5 SB) Hero is UTG+2 with 5 of clubs 5 of diamonds
2 folds, Hero raises, 1 fold, MP2 calls, 2 folds, BTN calls, 1 fold, BB calls

Flop: (9.5 SB) 8 of hearts 5 of spades 7 (4 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, MP2 raises, BTN 3-bets, BB calls, Hero caps!, MP2 calls, BTN calls, BB calls

Turn: (12.75 BB) 8 (4 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, MP2 calls, BTN raises, BB 3-bets, Hero caps!, MP2 calls, BTN folds, BB calls

River: (26.75 BB) 5 of hearts (3 players)
BB bets, Hero raises, MP2 3-bets, BB calls, Hero caps!, MP2 calls, BB calls

Final Pot: 38.75 BB
BB mucks 8 of spades 9 of clubs
Hero shows 5 5 of diamonds (four of a kind, Fives)
MP2 mucks 4 8
Hero wins 38.6 BB

After this pot I was up about $1.400 and managed to win another $600 on top of that for a total of $2072,50, my best session ever! I wasn’t only up at the $10/$20 and $3/$6 this time, I actually managed to win the most at the $5/10, winning $1.289,50 at 4.19BB/100. Sure that isn’t a normal winrate but it felt like I finally got what I deserved after running bad for some time at the $5/$10. Since it was the night of the Superbowl there weren’t many tables to play and since I don’t have a SNE grind on my mind I just kept playing $3/$6 – $10/$20. I could have added some $2/$4 tables to get more VPP but I choose not to and focus more on my game. It worked out this time and I went to bed early (05:00) feeling pretty happy!

So after Sunday’s session I was ready for another good score yesterday. There weren’t any $10/$20 tables to play early in the evening and I was down $600 really quick before getting back to break-even after which I took a small break to have some food. When I got back I continued to run good and was already seeing big numbers again in my head, then I got reminded about what’s poker is all about, swings! All of a sudden around 04:30 a lot of new tables popped up and after playing only 15 tables of $3/$6 and $5/$10 I was suddenly playing 24 tables which included 3 $10/$20 tables. At first it went really good, I was down $900 but grinded my way back to -$130 and just at that moment I lost 2 big pots on the river which would have gotten me in the black again. After that I just couldn’t play my A-Game anymore. I wanted to stop because I knew I wasn’t playing really good but I didn’t want to stop because there were a lot of tables going with a lot of bad players so the conditions to play were really good. I should have known that although the table conditions were fine to play, my state of mind wasn’t anymore but that’s an aspect that is always hard to grasp at the moment you are in it. As mentioned before I hardly tilt but this time I did make some stupid mistakes time after time. It ain’t the kind of tilt where you shove 27s all-in because they where suited but it’s more betting the river when you know the river card probably hit the other player but you just don’t want to believe yourself you got rivered again. I lost a total of $1.095 putting my feet back on the ground after the record session on Sunday.

I think the changes I’ve made to my game are really good. I think I’ve played better then ever during the last weeks and I believe I can win up to $10/$20 if I play my A-game. The hard thing however is to keep playing your A-game. It’s not like I can tweak a bot and it can repeat itself over and over again and win forever. I’m still human and my game changes without me even knowing it. I got in situations yesterday where I wasn’t really sure anymore what I could do best, while if I’m in the flow I’m not even really thinking about what I should do, I just know it. I hope to continue to play well, stuff like yesterday shouldn’t happen anymore but it’s inherent to poker. After writing this blog I will do some studying again to make sure I keep improving my game.

Something else, in 2010 I lost most of the weeks but now since things are going better I remember a feeling which I sort of forgot about. When I’m winning I find it hard to play a lot. It’s not like I’m suddenly a big winner now but I already experienced the feeling again on Sunday. I want to quit while ahead because I’m scared to lose the money again. It isn’t really about the money, it’s more the feeling of winning. If I stop playing, I can’t lose that feeling anymore so I rather quit then I keep playing. Also I rather not start a session, since as long as I don’t start a new session, I’m still a winner. I’ve always had this and it’s really something I should work on. I shouldn’t be scared of losing my next session, I should just always keep thinking about playing my A-game and that’s it. If I do that, winning or losing is nothing more then variance but I wish it was as simple as that. I think that was also the reason why it was so easy for me to put in the volume last year, I was losing! When I’m losing I got nothing to lose the next session. I’m a loser already so it can only get better. Most gambler’s are not addicted to winning but to losing, I don’t want to compare poker with gambling of course but I do think my poker addiction comes with losing, not winning as well. Not that I really feel addicted to poker anyway, I have that “losing” addiction in any game I play. I actually think that it’s really a good thing to have, since a lot of people are demotivated when things get bad and I get only more motivated to do better. I’ve seen that difference a lot when I played World of Warcraft, I could try over and over to defeat an almost impossible boss but some people already want to give up after 2 tries and rather go fight the easy bosses. It’s something I should put on my list to work on, cause grinding a lot when playing good of course gets you the most money 🙂

Winning does keep me busy nowadays and I really hope I can do good this year. I think nothing but me stands in my way to grind back my losses from last year and that is really a personal goal. I would love to see my own lifetime graph going up again and currently pick that above trying to make as much as money, possibly by getting SNE again. It’s a hard thing in poker anyway to determine what’s the best way to earn the most money. If I’m a winner this year putting in as much volume as possible is of course the best thing but do you keep winning if you play that much? Nobody knows! I do however know that I value some more free time as well so I’m almost positive I’m not going to get SNE this year. I might be able to beat $5/$10 and even $10/$20 which gives me a good VPP/hr rate but I rather not get back to playing 24 tables non-stop and have poker on my mind 24/7. When I write this down it still hurts… The *5 multiplier is just crazy, the $20.000 bonus at the end is crazy but it’s also the idea of trying to accomplish something during a whole year that really attracts me to it! I think it might be the only reason why I would really love to play poker full-time but I also still really love my job so I’ll have to live with it.

Besides poker I still have a full schedule with activities. Last week I had 3 birthday parties which started with an evening of indoor paintball. I wasn’t really sure what I should expect from an indoor paintball field but it was a lot of fun. I only got 1 purple bruise and managed to hurt some other people pretty good. We all had aching muscles the next day, we are really getting old 🙂 The next day it was time for some heavy drinking but somehow I managed to go home early (02:30) because I wanted to go to the gym on Saturday. Saturday evening I had a birthday party in Amsterdam and after the party we went to Club Air. Besides outdoor festivals and Awakenings I hardly go out to clubs anymore but I remembered again why I always loved it so much. I did feel a bit old inside but I’m not to old to party. We stayed till 04:30 and the next day I again woke up without a hangover which made it a perfect weekend! Tomorow it’s my girlfriends birthday, she turns 23! After spending a lot of time thinking what to buy her I think I found something fun to do together, I hate buying presents 😉 Next weekend is then the only weekend without a birthday and then I got 3 weekends in a row again. I used to never have a lot of birthday parties but it seems like everybody wants to celebrate their birthday nowadays, it’s fun but it’s hard to stay away from the alcohol 🙁

I’m planning to record a (bi-)weekly Pokernews NL radio item with Remko Rinkema somewhere this week as well, so listen to Pokernews NL Radio coming Sunday. We missed last Sunday’s show because Remko managed to reach the Final Table of the Estrellas Poker Tour finishing 4th for €26.100, not a bad excuse to cancel the show 😉

January, good or bad?

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Feb 012011

January is already over and I’m not sure if I should be happy with it or not.

I started with a normal session last week on Sunday playing $3/6 and $5/10 which was okay. Going to bed at 06:00 in stead of 08:00/08:30 was already nice for a change and I played less tables at the same time to get into the groove again. The day after I did exactly the same thing, I started with $3/$6 and $5/$10 but around 23:00 there were hardly any tables. I opted to do two things: Add a bunch of $2/$4 tables or add a couple of $10/$20 tables. VPP wise you can play 1 table of $10/$20 in stead of 3 tables $2/$4 to get the same amount of VPPs, then the question is of course what will I win or loose on the tables. My idea was that I could better play less tables and try to learn from it, then try to mass table and make the same mistake as last year. Sure it isn’t smart to just move up when you are not even beating the previous limit but I did had some idea’s why I would be more succesful this time.

I’m very confident about the changes I’ve made to my game. I think they are almost all good and I feel I now got the tools to beat the games again. The question is of course till what limit can I beat them. I rather try out now how I’m doing on the $5/$10 and $10/$20 because in case I do well on these limits I can still make a run for SNE. If it doesn’t work out I can always quit playing $10/$20 again and just go for my original goal of 700.000VPPs. If I wouldn’t try now to beat the higher limits and do get there later in the year it might have been a huge waste of SNE value.

Back to the session, I ended up with a small loss, lost about $1k on the $10/$20 but was up on $3/$6 and $5/$10. Not that happy with the session but I knew it was study time the next day. I had a lot of idea’s on how to study my opponents, I’ve had them since last year but basically never executed them which might have been my biggest mistake of 2010. With the volume I play any small tweak can lead up to a lot of profit and working on my game should be as important as playing. I won’t explain in detail what I’ve done since there are probably plenty of foe’s reading my blog but when I hit the tables later that night I crushed the games at $3/$6 and $5/$10 and won almost $1.200 in a little over 4 hours.

This was of course a huge confident boost and my next session was last Saturday. Since it was the last Saturday of the month I was planning to play some tournaments on the side as well. I played the Monthly Gold Freeroll, a WBCOOP qualifier tournament and the $215 Weekly Fixed Limit Tournament. I didn’t play many cashgames on the side, only the $5/$10 and $10/$20 tables. I also had two friends playing at my house so the conditions weren’t optimal to focus. I did however do good in all 3 tournaments. I had never played the Weekly Fixed Limit Tournament and found it extremely soft for a $215 tournament. Maybe that’s being result oriented as I made the finale table and got 5th for $1.040. I got my aces cracked twice on the final table and without that I think a top3 finish wouldn’t even have been a question. It would be nice if the tournament gets some more players, so I encourage you all to sign up next month 😉 I busted the WBCOOP qualifier in 181th place, nothing special but it did earn me a ticket for the WBCOOP Main Event on Sunday. I made a deep run in the Gold Freeroll but after losing KK vs 88 for a top5 stack I never recovered and finished 31st for $160. Not a bad score for the first tournaments of 2011, I did however lose $540 on the cashgames (only at $5/$10).

On Sunday I had the same sort of thing planned. I was playing the Sunday Warm-Up, Sunday Million, the Turbo Takedown, the WBCOOP Main Event and of course our weekly $11 Yanks Zandvoort Home Game alongside some cashgames. No friends at my place this time so I could focus a little better. I busted the Warm-Up pretty quick with a bad move and busted the WBCOOP Main Event in 20 hands with AKo after I 3bet all-in on a AA3dd flop against 33. The Turbo Takedown was an early exit as well and after winning with QQ vs AA in the Sunday Million I busted with a coinflip (JJ vs AQ), argh! So only early exists and even my Home Game tournament didn’t really go well. Only upside there is that we had 45 people playing whom I all know personally so that was great fun 🙂 The first tournament Sunday sucked and I’m not sure if I want to continue playing them mixed with cashgames. Looking back on the hands I don’t think I made any big mistakes except in the Warm-Up but I might make it a tournaments only evening once a month. I’ll then add some $11/$22 tournaments so I’m more focused on playing NL only but again I didn’t really do bad mixing it with cashgames and I wasn’t playing that many until I busted all tournaments anyway. I won $67 in the cashgames after being down all night so was happy with the end-result but of course not happy with the total result of both days.

So yesterday there were no tournaments, no friends, so no distraction at all. Time to whoop some ass and finish strong during the last session of January. I was playing roughly 20 tables at all times and was playing all $3/$6 till $10/$20. Every time I won a pot on $10/$20 I lost 4 at $5/$10. It was just bizarre! Looking at my stats I didn’t get many good hands at the $5/$10 tables but it wasn’t that bad either. I had huge swings but it just never really went my way. It could be that (some of) my opponents already adjusted which makes sense but I dropped $2.193 at the $5/$10 tables in a little over 5k hands, losing -4.35BB/100. That’s not bad, that’s monkey bad! On the other side I won $1.443 in 1.400 hands, which is 5.1BB/100 at $10/$20. I’m not sure what I can tell from that, sure I was running hot there but the difference is so huge, I’m not sure if I should be happy or sad. I had a small plus at the $3/$6 as well, but did lose $660 in the complete session.

Looking at the total month (which was only 2 weeks due to the PCA) my graph/stats look like this:

I’m happy with the $3/$6 and $10/$20 result but what the hell happened at $5/$10. That just looks so 2010 and I was hoping I was over that 🙂 I’m up $496 in online tournaments this month and had my first Hendon Mob (http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=184844) Flag due to winning $10.960 at the PCA so all in all not a bad month but I’m not sure what’s in store for me in February. After I’m done blogging I will do some more studying and hope to improve my game so I can beat the $5/$10 as well and of course continue to beat the $3/$6 and $10/$20.

I’m certainly happy with my “new” rhythm. It’s just a little less poker but it feels like I’m more relaxed. I went to the gym 3 times last week and I’m planning to do the same or more this week. I do have 2 birthdays the coming weekend where the “no alcohol rule” doesn’t apply but I didn’t drink any alcohol last weekend which always helps to feel fit to be able to play concentrated for longer periods of time. I’ll again have to stress everybody to watch the new season of Spartacus, since episode II was again just brilliant! I’ve also finally started with 24 which is something I’m watching with my girlfriend, which is the first time ever I watch a series with her. I normally watch most series in the break between my poker session and thought it would be fun to watch something “good” together, so we picked 24. So far I think it’s a little to predictable but I do enjoy it and my girlfriend as well so I’m sure I’ll get to Season 8.

I’m ready to rock February!