Tzen1 – PokerStars Team: Online

It’s been 3 weeks since I’ve last blogged and there is enough to tell! Let’s just kick start this with saying that I’m happy with how things are going at the moment. There is plenty of room for improvement but I’m still human, unlike some of those grinders out there 🙂

A quick catch-up first with a graph of my play from the 1st of March onwards:

Before yesterdays session (-$681,50) I was extremely happy with my graph so far. Now I need to at least win back yesterdays losses before the end of the month before I’m happy. Being up $2/3K for a month plus bonuses means steady income and a good profit. Especially if you compare it with what happened in Jan/Feb. My low for this year was -$22.000, I’m now down $19.000 so at least I’m already $3.000 up again but I’ve also gained a lot of VPP’s so I’m finally in the plus again for this year!

I’m only playing $3/$6 and $5/$10 and moving down made things really “official”. You still hope it’s sort of a downswing or money you will win back as long as you are playing the same limits. Now since I’ve dropped down I’m not thinking anymore about regaining my losses at $10/$20 and $15/$30. If I do well the rest of the year I can win back those $19.000 at $3/$6 and $5/$10 and be happy with a break-even year and SNE. Assuming I would break-even till the end of the year, then I’m still happy with what I’ve earned for this year, I did hope things would work out different of course but that’s poker. Now I could also run as god and come back to $10/$20 and $15/$30 but at the moment I’m not looking up, I first need to get a stable winrate at $3/$6 and $5/$10.

Strange enough I’m doing really good at $5/$10 and at $3/$6 I’m still slightly losing . It’s a lot better then it was in Jan/Feb and if you would ask me, I haven’t changed my game! I now have a winrate for March at $5/$10 of 0.73 while in Jan/Feb my winrate was -0.81. I really can’t explain that huge difference, I don’t even have the slightest idea! That’s a bit worrying but I’ve seen other regulars at the tables having the exact same thing in Jan/Feb.

If you just look at the graph above, It’s scary! JaneTheHot, one of the best players at my stakes, got the exact same graph as I have. The first week of 2010 everything was fine (just like me) and then a huge downswing hit. These are only the stats from my own PokerTracker (so not all Jane’s hands), but PTR shows about the same. JaneTheHot sustained a much better winrate then I did in 2009 but it’s really scary that our graphs look so similar! Jane stopped winning at the exact same moment as I did and picked things up again at the exact same moment. The only difference is that I played a lot more, so I’m a bit further down still 🙁

I can’t really explain these things. I don’t believe that pokersites are rigged. If I would do that, why bother even playing? Most of it will probably be up & downswings but I believe some of it is the flow that’s going on at the tables which changes month by month. Some months people try to call down a lot, the other month people start raising all kind of things on the turn and the next they only play fit & fold. Now one of these matches my play style the best and others suck for my play style and while most regulars will continue to play the same game, the fish out there make up the most of our winrate. Me and my buddy have the complete opposite play style but often in months he is doing really well, I’m not and vice versa. Pretty hard to try and explain these things on paper without any solid proof, so considering it as just some rambling.

Besides the fact that moving down made my losses sort of “official”, grinding VPP’s has become a lot tougher. I was almost up till 1.100 VPP/hour and currently it’s about 900 VPP/Hour. This didn’t really boost my motivation while I should work harder! I’m at 282.000 VPP and my end-goal for the month is to have at least 310.000 VPP. That means a little over 100.000 VPP a month, but in January I made 140.000 VPP and in March I expect only to get 80.000. Now I’m actually not that worried if I’m going to make SNE or not. I must say, I was first when I moved down but when I do a simple calculation. 80.000 a month for the next 9 months means 720.000 VPP. I only need 690.000 if I get to 310.000 at the end of this month and getting 80.000 VPP a month isn’t really hard work. I wanted to get a lot more VPP during the first 5 months this year so I could get time off during summer but even if I don’t do that, SNE is still doable.

Knowing this (the fact that I’ll make it) is the worst thing for my motivation! Since I have the idea that I make it anyway I put in even less hours. Distractions are on the lure almost everyday so that’s really the thing I should watch out for! Getting a Starcraft II Beta Key was probably the worst that could have happened to me. I have a very simple gaming career: Command & Conquer (1995), Warcraft II (1996), Red Alert (1996), Duke Nukem 3D (1996), Diablo (1996), Starcraft (1998), Diablo 2 (2000), Planetarion (2001),  Counter Strike (2002), World of Wacraft (2005).

Sure I’ve played different games, but these are all games I’ve played so much that you could call it sort of an addiction. I had a struggle of almost a year to leave World of Warcraft and start playing more poker. I can only imagine what could have happened if I would have started playing online poker in 2005 or 2006, but I must say being guidleader of a WoW guild for 2yrs was a blast as well. I played WoW for about 3years and this month my WoW guild has it’s 5year anniversary, something I’m very proud of as well!

Now Starcraft II Beta is there and the game is just the same. Now you could say that’s pretty bad, but the game always rocked so I don’t really care. I got an “invite a friend” key and I’ve been playing this game over and over both 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 2. I play my poker sessions on Sun/Mon evening/night but else I try to play as much Starcraft II as possible. I’ve never been really l33t in this game like Elky or RaSZi, but I was proud to be #1 in the copper ladder last week!

What I didn’t tell is that the ladder system works like this: Platinum > Gold > Silver > Bronze > Copper and each ladder has only 100 people on it, which means I was #1 of the worst ladder out there and only out of 100 people but still it made me happy 🙂 I’m now playing in the Bronze ladder and I’m somewhere top15. Since my buddy now also got a Beta Key we’ve been playing 2 vs 2 and we are actually in the gold league and not doing that bad. I’m happy as long as my win/loss ratio is positive and it’s for both!

Besides Starcraft II I almost got back into Planetarion last week. It’s a text based strategy game which used to have ten thousands of players. It’s a tick based game (you only have to do things once every hour) but because of that the best thing is to really be there at least once every hour. I played the game to the extend that my sleep pattern looked like the following:
01:05 – Bed, so I was around after the 01:00 “tick”
02:55 – Alarm so I could do things in the 02:00 “Tick”
03:05 – Bed again so I could do things in the 03:00 “Tick”
05:55 – Alarm so I could do things in the 05:00 “Tick”

I then did this for the full 3 months of a round (and I did play multiple rounds), being top10 almost all ’round’ but I actually never ended really high myself. That means a max of 5 hours sleep and I would be awake for about 10 minutes during those 5 hours. When you had incoming, you would stay up all night to cover yourself and your friends. Well, I’m a geek but that game was both killing and extremely fun! I had a full-time job and didn’t look to healthy but a WoW addiction is nothing compared to this 🙂

I said sort of yes to an old friend who still plays the game. I would really love to play the game but when I spend last Wednesday evening on IRC (that’s what you use for the community chit-chat) I knew I couldn’t just play the game a bit for fun. Luckily I bailed out in time! I’m always looking for distractions but I just shouldn’t!

Besides having a good time playing games there is so much more out there. I try not to drink as you might have read but two weeks ago I had one of my “pre-selected” off days. A pubquiz in my local pub and every team had to dress up, see result below:

It was a really fun evening and I ended the night completely wasted but didn’t even had a real bad hangover the next morning! I really can’t wait until it’s summer again and I can have my weekly beer!

The sun has been out every now and then the last weeks and that also means I can finally cycle outside. Last week I had a nice run but yesterday I really outperformed myself. I solo cycled 80km in less then 3hours and when I was home I was really exhausted! I have to do 100km on the 17th of April (Amstel Gold Race) but that includes loads of hills so I’m not there yet. Since I’ll be cycling with a group I can probably hide from the wind a bit more so I feel confident that it’s not going to be a problem.

On the 22nd of May I scheduled another trip of 100km together with 4 colleagues. We will visit some of the famous dutch hills in the south 🙂 Probably the same as I will be cycling in the Amstel Gold Race, but that’s fine. Then on the 5th of June it will be probably my big day! Cycling the Alpe D’Huez! I can’t wait, I really can’t! The cycling season started again a couple of weeks ago and seeing the pro’s going up a mountain complete wasted just gets me even more excited!

Next to all the gaming and cycling I’m still watching Spartacus, Caprica and Lost. I’ve also finished the last 7 episodes of Heroes S4 which I still had to watch. I think I’ll start to watch Entourage S6 but there is still so much more out there I’m sure I don’t have to feel bored for the coming years!

I also live next to Bloemendaal which is the party beach in the Netherlands. The grand opening was yesterday, I did miss that party but I’m sure I’ll spent some time partying on the beach again. On the 2nd of April I go to Awakenings Indoor which always is a really good techno party. I already bough tickets for Awakenings Outdoor (26th of June) and Loveland (14th of August) and will definitely go to Mysteryland as well. Defqon1 and Welcome to the Future are also both festivals I want to attend so I’m really up for another year of outdoor (dance) festivals!

When all the festivals are over the biggest party still has to come. On the 3th of September I will be leaving for San Francisco, spending 2 days downtown before driving to Los Angeles. I’ve already visit Los Angeles for a long weekend so we will not be doing a lot over there, but we are visiting LA only for Six Flags Magic Mountain 🙂 About 10 extreme roller coasters should get our blood pumping before we go to Las Vegas for 8 days of party. My birthday is the 14th of September which will probably be a party which we will never forget!

Poker, Gaming, Parties, Cycling, TV-Series, Festivals and Holiday. I think a nice break-down of my life in just one blog! Unfortunately since all these things take their time it’s hard to put in the weekly hours to blog! Hopefully I do better in the coming three weeks. Thank you for your patience!

— Current Status —
2010 VPPs: 282.019
Ahead of Pace: 62.841
Total # hands: 348.757
Total # Hours: 274,10
Hands/Hour: 1.272
VPPs/Hour: 1.029

What can I say? I’ll just start typing and see how far I get. I’m downloading Lost at the moment and don’t feel like playing poker tonight. I haven’t blogged in a while. I planned to blog at least every week, but things are very tough at the moment. When I was thinking about blogging or not back in December, I was doing very good at the tables and was looking forward to a great year of poker where SNE would be my ultimate goal. As things stand today, I’m at my all time low and it just isn’t fun to write a blog about how bad things are going. I don’t mind to blog about the bad stuff that happens along the road but so far, except the first week, I only have negative stuff to blog about.

I just don’t want this blog to turn into one big moan, so that’s for sure not what I’m going to do. I’m not going to blog session by session as I’m normally doing, it would take me to much time and it would only be a lot of bitching. I’ll first show my February results and I’ll go from there.

So far I’ve played 74.958 hands and lost $9.834.50 running at -0.71 BB/100. That makes this month even worse then January and at the end of January I thought I had the worst part behind me. From a solid winner in 2008/2009 playing over 1.000.000 hands, I turned into a big loser in 2010, after playing 240.000 hands. Being a small loser would be bad, but I think I could life with that, losing -0.64 BB/100 isn’t small anymore, I turned into a train wreck.

It hurts, it actually hurts a lot but if I feel pitty for myself I doubt anyone will let me win. I’ll have to turn this myself and there is only one way to turn it and that is to become better in playing poker. I’m actually not in a bad mood at all and this is mainly because of the time I spent in the gym. I work-out 3 times a week and I cycle 2 times a week and I feel great. I just cycled 2 hours in the gym and I feel very healthy and can’t wait to cycle the Amstel Gold Race in exactly 2 months. I doubt I would still be motivated to play without me being this fit, I really think it’s currently the thing that keeps me going.

I’ve also passed the 200.000 mark, that means 20% of the SNE chase is done. That feels like a good accomplishment as well! I’m way ahead of pace, so if needed I could take it slow.

Currently I’m planning to finish this month doing the same I’ve always done (Including last year), which is playing 20-24 tables $15/$30 till $3/$6. If things remain as bad as they are I’m going to drop down to $3/$6 the 1st of March and grind my way back limit by limit. This means that I’ll play up to 20 tables of $3/$6, I fill it up till 20 if needed with $5/$10 tables. I then will move up as soon as I proved myself to be a solid winner at that stake. The next level will be $5/$10 filled up to 20 with $3/$6 tables until I’m back where I am now.

Last weekend I’ve played a session with my best mate, who also plays LHE on PokerStars. He plays the same stakes so he knows exactly how the game works. He plays a completely opposite style of what I do which makes it hard to try and copy things from each other. What does help is to talk about the game and to understand what his thought processes are when he plays hands in a certain way. This makes it easier for me to understand some of my opponents, as I sometimes really don’t get how solid winners can even win playing hands in some ways. I played a session were he was watching me and it really was useful for me to adjust my play in some spots.

Other positive things are the fact that I’m actual winning money against most of the regulars. If I take a look at the top20 people I played most hands with this year I’m a winner against 12 of them. I’m also up in money against the top20 which means I’m not doing bad against the FR LHE regulars. It does make explaining my losses even harder. When I look at the tables I often see a table full of bad players and maybe 1/2 good people. I see bad plays, bad players and I see no reason at all why I should leave the table, but I don’t turn out to be a winner at the end. It seems I lose money against the “average joe”, so that’s where I should probably focus to improve my game.

I’m currently losing 0.64 BB/100, which is a lot, but I’m paying 0.98 BB/100 in rake. So I’m actually up against the players on the tables, I’m just not beating the rake. I won’t say that this makes me a good player, but at least I’m not a complete loser 🙂

I’m now going to catch up with Lost Season 6. I’ve also got Entourage, True Blood, Carprica, Fringe, Heroes and 4 Seasons of the Wire to watch! I actually really liked The Wire S1 after all! It’s not really the same as any other series I’ve watched before but I’m now really into the story and I want to watch Season 2 asap. I just need to get a hold off it first 🙁

I’m also a big fan of the Olympics, watching almost any sport. I didn’t miss a single speed skate race and I really loved the Snowboarding which aired yesterday. I already thought it was a really good addition to the Olympics 4 years ago but I think this year a lot more people watched it and I only heard positive comments about how cool it looked on TV! I can’t wait to see the rest of the Olympics and I really have to find out where I can watch the Ice Hockey matches because that is the only thing I’ve missed so far. Go Dutchies!

If I blog a bit less you will have to excuse me. If I drop down in limits I have to play even more hours to reach my goals. Also as said at the beginning of this post, It’s not fun to only write down negative things. I need to keep my spirit up and it helps me more to watch a TV-Series when things go bad then to spent two hours blogging about how bad things actually are.

— Current Status —
2010 VPPs: 207.382
Ahead of Pace: 81.355
Total # hands: 239.161
Total # Hours: 189.57
Hands/Hour: 1.261
VPPs/Hour: 1.094

Finally a good moment to write my blog, I’ll explain along the way why I didn’t write it any sooner. Tonight I’ll play the $100.000 VIP freeroll, then I’ll go to Utrecht and will dance till dawn! Ben Sims is in the house and he is one of my favorite DJ’s. Last year, Ben Sims in the Puma was my best night out in 2009, so the expectations are very high! It better be good 🙂

After my last blogged session on Tuesday I played a session on Thursday. It started out as a pretty normal session, but in the end I got my ass burned again. 6.883 hands and losing $2.698,50, how the hell did that happen? After 2.400 hands I was about to quit as it was Thursday and I had to work the next day. I wanted to quit as soon as I was even for the day and suddenly I get a real bad streak going and I’m stuck $1.600. Next thing I know I don’t want to go to bed, especially since I’m winning a bit back again. Then the real shit happens and I’m down $3.000 without even knowing why. Well, I remember I was really running awful at 10/20, I saw a player doing the most stupid bluffs and he was winning again and again. It’s 02:30 I’m not happy, especially since I have to work the next day, but when I wake up I remember it’s just a normal day at the poker tables.

After a good Friday night out in Amsterdam I consider playing poker on Saturday. I decide not to and call a friend to just hang out at his place. We decide to try a custom game of Warcraft III. I never really played Warcraft III and I haven’t played a lot of video games at all since 2007. I had a Diablo II revival back in September after reading some Diablo III previews, but that’s about it. We play Warcraft III Risk Next Gen and I’m insta hooked. I always liked Warcraft, Warcraft II was the first game which I played over a LAN for ever and ever with 7 friends. I really like Risk as well and this combination is really good. I’m happy I don’t have a Warcraft III copy myself and at 05:00 I go home to get a good night sleep before my next poker session on Sunday.

I was eager to do good after my loss on Thursday. I start at 18:30 play about 4.500 hands and PokerStars gets bugged. I’m still up a small bit and have to take a forced break. I can start my session again about an hour later and for the next 5 hours I go up and down but never really get a good streak of cards but I was happy with my play. I don’t want to quit yet and after a 30min break I log another 2.o00 hands but since I really wasn’t able to get anything going I decided to quit at 06:00. 12.178 hands, +$328 and take a look at the graph 🙂 It looks really swingy but if you check the numbers on the left, then you see that the actual money swings where not that bad.

I skip the gym on Monday and I’m happy to start another session. I’m down about $1.500 for a long time, manage to get almost back to break-even and then I get a streak of good hands but awful beats. It feels like this has happened to me a lot of times this year, after winning with an average distribution of cards I lose big time when I get a streak of premiums. It feels really fucked since those streaks normally get you a big boost in your graph, I take a break at 01:41 and I’m down $822. I hit the couch and watch another episode of The Wire S1, I’m still not sure if I like it that much, I need a bit more action, especially in the middle of the night.

The 2nd session of the day is a lot better. A good start but just like Sunday I don’t get to win a lot of money in the end. It’s 06:00, I’ve played 10.522 and lost $1. I’m okay with my results since I did win after all, but I would have loved to win some money back which I lost on Thursday.

Tuesday I hit the gym and cycle for 2 hours. I feel really fit already, not drinking and working out helps a ton. I want to hit 125.000 VPP and I only need about 1.700 VPP. The plan is to get those and write my weekly blog. That was the plan…. I hit my target and I’m only down a bit and I’m on the way up, I tell myself to stop as soon as I’m even (didn’t I want to same thing on Thursday?). I was playing really good, but saw a lot of 2/4 outers where people just played awful. Also every straight/flush draw completed when somebody was chasing it, people didn’t play bad in most spots and that’s just variance. I was better then my opponents and had a good feeling about my play, so there was no reason to stop other then that I couldn’t write this blog.

I refresh my Pokertracker every now and then, but I miss the 5 hands I’m up. What happens next is best compared with getting a dart thrown in your eye. 4.998 hands, -$2.030. 38% W$SD (Won $ at Showdown) at the $15/$30 with a WTSD off 43%. Translated: Lot’s of good hands/flops, but none of them won at the river. During my normal workdays (Sun/Mon) I do fine, but on my “extra” days I seem to always lose. This feels really bad, since when I play on those days I feel like I’m doing that bit extra which should get me to SNE. I know I shouldn’t think like that, but when you are not winning, loads of strange things creep into your mind.

I’ve played 150.000 hands and I’m down about $6.000. I was up almost $3.000 in the first week so I lost $9.000 in about 3 weeks. That’s serious money! Do I feel going for SNE has anything to do with it? Not at all! I would have played exactly the same stakes and exactly the same amount of tables if I would not go for SNE. I would have played less hours but I’m far from burned out. I’m super motivated and in general well rested. I’m above SNE pace, but even more important I’m ahead of my own goals for January, VPP wise.

I decide what’s always best when things don’t go your way: I take a break until Sunday. On Wednesday I play Risk on Facebook for 3 hours after hitting the gym, on Thursday I attend a farewell drink at work and on Friday evening I chill with some friends and play some more risk (I’m a little addicted after playing Warcraft III Risk Next Gen) and as already said, tonight I’ll dance till dawn on some heavy techno.

I’ll hit the tables again tomorrow to finish this month. January was a bad month in 2009, it’s even worse in 2010, but a year has 12 months so there is plenty of time to catch up!

— Current Status —
2010 VPPs: 127.602
Ahead of Pace: 48.150
Total # hands: 148.418
Total # Hours: 117,38
Hands/Hour: 1.264
VPPs/Hour: 1.087