Jan 212013
 

After coming back from the PCA it was time to change a lot of things in my day to day life. A couple of weeks ago I already wrote about my 180 days no alcohol propbet, but it’s much more then that! It’s not about the alcohol, it’s more about playing more poker and getting back into shape. So yes one of the goals is to not drink any alcohol, but my main goal is to play 500 hours of poker in those 180 days, lose a lot of weight and get fit so I’m able to cycle up Alp d’Huez in a new personal record.

180 Days:
Start: 14-01-13
End: 12-07-13
Days left: 173

Poker
Goal: 500h
Pace: 19,4h
Played: 42,81h
Remaining: 457,19h

My goal is pretty simple, play 500 hours of poker, live or online in 180 days. I’m cheating a bit since I started counting the hours from the 1st of January but I’ve only played 11 hours before the 14th of January so that’s not a huge advantage. I’m ahead of schedule but next week I’m away the whole weekend and I have more weekends away planned already so being ahead of pace doesn’t say much. This challenge comes down to roughly 20 hours a week or 2,8 hours a day. Doable for sure but it’s not about doing it for 1 week, I have to do it for 180 days. I didn’t set any VPP or monetary goals and so far this has paid off. Last week I’ve played LHE cashgames, MTTs, Sats and Hyper Turbo SNG’s. I’ve 1 tabled and 16 tabled and enjoyed playing pretty much all the time.

I’ve played LHE cashgames most of the time and things haven’t worked out that well. I’m playing $2/$4 6-max and any full-ring table up to $5/$10. The sample is still small but I would have hoped to do a bit better since I’m playing less tables.

LHE Stats - 2013-01-21For sure I’m running hot on the $2/$4 Full-Ring tables since that winrate isn’t sustainable but I’m hoping as well that I’m running bad at all other stakes. My overall BB/100 is 1.44 which would be very good so I’m just holding on to that. Yesterday was a really good day at the cashgames, winning $950 so let the hotrun continue 🙂 I did have to host 5 TCOOP final tables yesterday as well so I had to mix playing and hosting which wasn’t optimal for my focus and multitable skills. I also played all the NL TCOOP events and all the deadline satellites but I bricked all of them. In the two Hyperturbo sats I bubbled twice, stone cold with a mandatory all-in from the SB (AT < 77, QQ < KK) where both I would have made it if I would have won the hand. I was really card dead in all MTTs/Sats I played, the opposite of what was happening at my cashgames. Means I’m down for the year in MTTs/SNGs/Sats but I’ve only been playing for one week.

My PC died on me Friday when I was playing some MTTs and that didn’t happen for over a year. I did a Windows Update (patches) just before my session so that was probably the reason. My laptop battery was dead as well and you can only play 4 tables max on your mobile so it was pretty frustrating, especially if 2 of those tourneys are hyper MTTs. After 15 minutes or so I got my laptop to work again but busted every tournament in the 30 minutes after, except the $5 freezout! So I was 1 tabling on my laptop and busted in 41st place, 2.5 hours after busting all the other tournaments, FML! While 1 tabling I was fixing my PC which seemed to work out. On Saturday I had the brilliant idea to test my PC by playing $3 Hyper-Turbo Sats. Playing 8-12 tables, putting some pressure on my PC seemed like a great idea. After the 1st 100 I was down and well, nobody likes to finish down so I kept on playing. I was definitely to loose at the 1st blind level and had to adjust to the bubble play, paying more attention to the stack sizes but in the end I did manage to end with some profit. I did have to play 432 Hypers but it was fun and I might try another session in the coming days/weeks.
Profit-Hypers

Lifestyle
Alcohol: 0
Start: 104,7kg
Goal: 95kg
Pace: 104,3kg
Current: 102,6kg
Remaining: 7,6kg

The day I got back from the PCA I was actually 105.9kg. This was without any sleep which normally is roughly 1kg difference. The next morning I was 104,7kg so that’s the weight I will start this challenge with. I’m currently already 102,6kg which is 2.1kg less in just one week. That’s pretty standard for the first week and I shouldn’t expect to keep this up, 0,7kg a week would be fine and doable until I reach the 95kg. 93kg is my ultimate goal but I didn’t want to push it too much so I’ll leave my goal at 95kg. Of course I didn’t drink any alcohol so far this week. I did have a b-day party of one of my best friends who turned 30 but since this is still the first week it was pretty easy to stay away from alcohol. My friends were pretty happy with it as well since I could drive them 😉 Next week going away for the whole weekend will be a bit more difficult but I still just started so doubt it will get super difficult. In total I’ve bet for $350 which should keep me away from making any exceptions in these 180 days. I’m eating pretty healthy and I’m surprised that I’m not hungry at all so far. I’m eating way less than before but I guess my body has plenty of fat in reserve 😉 So far so good but it’s about the long stretch, not just the results of one week.

Cycling
Morning exercise: Avg 3* week
1st at my own strava segment: Not yet
Scheveningen in 2h 40m: Not yet
Finish AGR 150km: Not yet
Alp d’Huez in 1,5h: Not yet
Finish Galibier: Not yet

I was planning to start last Tuesday with spinning in the gym but the weather was really bad so I didn’t get out of the house. I made up some more lame excuses on Thursday and during the weekend so I’ve not started cycling yet. Tomorrow I hope to start but the weather is again pretty bad, guess I have to do it anyway. I hope the cold weather / snow goes away asap since I would prefer to cycle outside at least during the weekend, we’ll see. I did start doing morning exercises and I still hate them but I did do them every day I planned to do them. The idea is to do them each day I don’t have to work, which means I’ll do them Sat-Tue. It’s a combination of stretches, ab exercises and push-ups. I prefer to wake up and jump behind my computer to check Facebook, Twitter and forums but nowadays I start with getting my heart rate up to 150+. I already see some improvement and I hope that these exercises will keep me fit during these 180 days, old people have to stretch 😉

Other stuff

I also wanted to mention some other stuff which hasn’t got anything to do with my 180 day countdown. First of all Andre Coimbra’s short film has been released, check it out below!

He also started his $100 -> $100k MTT challenge in which he will donate any money won to charity. You can follow the challenge on his blog and check out the video below for some extra info:

As you can see his girlfriend is featuring in his videos and she also plays poker. Andre learned her to play hyper sats and in December she won $20k and made it to Supernova! She keeps a blog as well and I think it’s a great read.

I added two other blogs to my blogroll as well. Both AWice and MouldyOnions are trying to set a new yearly VPP record. Actually they want to go way beyond that and reach 8M VPPs within 1 year. I think this is pretty nuts and currently they are racing to be the first SNE of 2013 (Check out PokerStarsblog to see what’s it all about) after AWice won the race to being the first SN of 2013. MouldyOnions is currently ahead with 629.455 VPPs and AWice is having a huge downswing and currently 2nd at 464.928 VPPs. Seems like Mouldy will be reaching SNE within 1 month which would be pretty insane, especially since up till now he has profit playing hypers as well! Check out their blogs.

Last thing I wanted to add is that since last week you can also subscribe to my blog. In case you want to receive an e-mail as soon as I publish a new blog you can leave your e-mail address at the top right of my website and I will promise to only e-mail you once after I finished another blog post.

I guess that’s it for this week. I should be blogging once every two weeks and I hope I’m still on pace by then! Cya

 Posted by at 3:12 pm
Jan 182013
 

I’m back home and a couple of hours ago it just started to snow! I would love to have spent a couple of more days at the Bahamas, this was probably the best poker trip I had so far. It wasn’t one thing in particular, it was the combination of all things that made it perfect. Being back home isn’t that bad either, it’s time to start getting into shape and play poker but first I want to show you my highlights of this year’s PCA!

After a pretty easy flight via Atlanta we arrived at the Bahamas around 20:00. We had a limo arranged by the PokerStars VIP Club picking us up and when we arrived in the hotel Lobby some of my fellow Team Online colleagues were already waiting for me 😉 We quickly changed clothes in our room and my first Heineken already waited for me. It had been a year since I saw most of them but it was great to see everybody again. The next day we had a Team Online meeting where I got to meet the new guys, Rohit “GodlikeRoy” Bhasin, Caio “Pessagno” Pessagno, Isaac “Ike Haxton” Haxton & Tatiana ‘Mysters_Y’ Barausova. We all talked about what we had done last year and what our plans were for this year and that alone was already really inspiring. Talking poker just makes me feel like I want to play and because all my friends hardly play poker anymore I normally get pulled out of the “poker zone” pretty quick. Scott “UnMarketing” Stratten did a presentation about social media and since I’m a social media addict this was a pretty welcome meeting topic. Later that evening it was time for some drinks with the team and after Kevin’s (WizardOfAhhs) girlfriend shouted: “Shots, Shots, Shots” things went downhill pretty fast 🙂 I could go on and on about what happened everyday but I’ll try to stick with the highlights from now:

Pool
After breakfast each day started either with tennis or the pool. Two years ago the weather at the Bahamas wasn’t that great. I brought my girlfriend that year and wanted to play a lot of poker so didn’t had a lot of time to hang out with her. Luckily my best buddy brought his girlfriend as well since when the sun isn’t shining you would get bored pretty quick during the day all by yourself. Last year the weather was great but this year it was awesome! 27C, sun and not a lot of wind. I love hanging out at the pool and it makes the whole PCA experience just so much better. My appetite for playing poker during the day also completely disappears when the sun is out, not sure if that’s a good thing but I didn’t really mind!

 

Tennis
I really wanted to play as much Tennis as possible this year. I brought my own racket and knew Frosty would also bring his. The first day we had the Team Online meeting so the second day we agreed to play at 10:00 during our Team Online drinks the night before. We made a small bet on who would win, knowing that Frosty was wasted that evening so probably had a small hangover at least. Unfortunately he didn’t show up, which meant losing the bet (we stated that pertty clear) but he didn’t really agree on that 😉 We both still wanted to play tennis so we challenged the Belgium PokerStars Team Pro’s, the De Meulder twins. I didn’t do any sports for 5 weeks and no tennis for 5/6 months and was really stiff. The match was pretty bad overall and we lost it but at least I was enjoying my time in the sun 🙂 The next day we played our first singles and Frosty beat me pretty badass, 6-0 6-2. Happy he didn’t show up the day before when we had that bet 🙂 We continued to play every day and also did a Team Online doubles like last year. Vgreen was still on the team last year and he played like Rafael Nadal, this year he was replaced by GodLikeRoy. He hadn’t played any tennis for several years but was not as bad as we expected. Roy teamed with Shane “Shaniac” Schleger and Frosty and I teamed up as well. We won the first match with 6-1 and also won the re-match with 6-4, in which we all played way better. Playing tennis each day out in the sun is just such a good way to start you day. I really got a lot better, fitter and quicker during only one week. I really miss it now I’m back home 🙁

 

PA for a day
I won the MicroMillions III challenge vs Grzegorz “DaWarsaw” Mikielewicz so DaWarsaw would be my PA for a day. I think he was really afraid that I would make him do a lot of silly stuff but that wasn’t my plan at all. I didn’t say that obvious since the look on his face each time somebody mentioned the bet was way too much fun. We picked out Wednesday and he would be my PA from 10:00 till 22:00. The day before we did a short interview with Pokerstars.TV, check it out below:

 

So Wednesday after breakfast I handed out a great gift to DaWarsaw. He could wear my Dutch National Soccer Team shirt with my name on the back the whole day, so everybody would recognize that he was my bitch 😉

I think the shirt looked perfect on him. The next thing on the agenda was to go to the pool and chill a bit. DaWarsaw got me some towels, drinks whenever needed and played his role as PA perfect. The most fun part of the day was the part were Frosty and I played a game of tennis. I had never played a match with a ballboy but this was a truly amazing. The speed of the match is so much faster and the annoyance of running out of balls just doesn’t happen. DaWarsaw would cheer whenever I would win a game (not very often), made sure I had enough water and was running around all the time, probably more than I did. I was so happy I didn’t have to play his golf caddy for a day, winning such a small bet (I only beat him by $5) never felt this great 🙂

Obviously he carried my tennis gear back to my room, got me another drink and since we didn’t meet for dinner he was lucky I didn’t pull any stunts during the rest of the day. The bet really happened in good spirit and I hope we both come back next year to the PCA and have another fun bet!

Basketbal
DaWarsaw & I played a basketball match vs Frosty and RJ. We are both slow and tall guys, they are short and fast guys so it was an interesting match-up. We agreed to do a best out of 3, first to 7 points. I think during the total match they had run three times as much as we did and after winning the first game DaWarsaw could hardly run anymore, probably the heat got to him. We lost the second game and since these guys were outrunning us big time I didn’t really believe in it anymore. DaWarsaw and I talked some strategy for the 3th game but we still were 6-4 behind. Somehow we managed to turn it around and DaWarsaw finished it off with a beautiful swish from the deep corner. Such a sweet victory and we had a small bet for some beers which was very welcomed after the match!

 

Talonchick wins & Luske wins twice!
I didn’t play any poker at all but most others did. For me it just doesn’t make sense due to the Dutch tax laws but for most people this isn’t an issue. Adrienne “talonchick” Rowsome loves her mixed games and participated in the Triple Stud Event. Marcel Luske also made it to the final table but Adrienne was victorious making this a back-to-back win for her! Last year there was no trophy so this year she was extra happy, I think also because half of Team Online was rooting for her heads-up 🙂 Check here for more info.

Marcel Luske likes his Mixed games as well and after busting the Triple Stud final table without reaching the money he tried his luck in the H.O.R.S.E. event the next day. After busting Adrienne he managed to win heads-up vs our new Japanese Team Online member Naoya “nkeyno” Kihara! Marcel probably felt really good after all these mixed games because only a couple of days later he won the 8-game event as well! It’s really great to see him doing so well. Yes he can talk for hours and sure sometimes what he says hardly makes sense (Johan Cruijff of Poker is a good way to describe it) but after all these years he still has so much love for the game and he is one of the friendliest guys in poker. More info about his wins here and here.

 

Dinner at Nobu, twice!
Most of you know I love sushi and luckily at the Bahamas they have a great Sushi restaurant 🙂 They have other great dishes as well but I didn’t even check that part the menu. The first time Nobu we went with the Team Online group including +1’s and it was great fun to have the whole group together for dinner. Last year we did that at the last day of the PCA and I lost the credit card roulette so I was really happy I dodged it this year! Ordering the yellowtail jalapeno sashimi is a must and I couldn’t wait to order the lobster Roll, whoaha! You just can’t order anything that comes close where I’m from. The 2nd time Nobu we had a PokerStars country dinner with the Belgium and Dutch Team Pro’s. Charlotte wanted to try out the crispy rice roll (middle one) and it was officially crowned as the best sushi by the both of us, so we ordered it three times 😉

We didn’t only have group dinners at Nobu. Every night we went out for dinner with a big group, a great way to start the evening!

 

Party
I only stayed for 7 days this year so there wasn’t a lot of time to party. I arrived on Saturday but went to bed early and the club is only open Thu/Fri/Sat. Since I was flying home on Saturday I didn’t want to drink on Friday which meant Thursday would be the only night out in the club. The PokerStars party was on Sunday so I missed it and from what I’ve heard it was one of the best ones ever! Ah well, most of the evenings we just hung out in the hotel lobby or Plato’s which is fun as well since it is way easier to talk there. We knew we had to get our dancing shoes ready because Cammie would fly out from Miami again to meet us all. She is a good friend of Caleb who works at the PokerStars VIPClub club and we got to meet her last year and had great fun on the dance floor. On Thursday after dinner (see pic above) we went to the casino bar where they also have a small dance floor, check the results below:

 

When we go out my name changes to Crazylegs, at least Frosty always calls me that. I just can’t help myself, when there is music I got to move! We had a fun bunch to hang out with a mix of PokerStars employees (Carly, Shirley, Dylan & Caleb) and poker players and their +1’s (Charlotte, Marta, Frosty, DaWarsaw, RJ).

There should be a photo with more of us on it but I have no clue who took that one? So after the warm-up, we moved on to the club! I think more people were waiting for the club to open because it was pretty busy for a Thursday. I wasn’t really wasted but I can’t say I remember much 🙂 I probably had a lot of fun, because that’s what I remember. It was also the last day drinking alcohol for me (my 180 day bet started right after PCA) so it felt kind of weird. I ordered a lot of Heineken, some Tequila and probably no water and just danced as long as I could 🙂

All of the above made this year’s trip just perfect! I’m pretty certain I’ll be there next year again and hopefully a little longer so I don’t miss the PokerStars Party. It was really good to see everybody again and also to meet a lot of great new people. Thx everybody!

 Posted by at 1:09 pm