Quick Update

 Cycling, Poker  2 Responses »
Jun 012010
 

I’ll make this a very quick update but I’m currently really having sort of a poker break. I’ve played a lot during the first two weeks of May and did okay. Till the 16th I was up for the month and was heading for an okay result. Since my girlfriend was coming back on the 20th I didn’t expect to play a lot during the rest of the month. Unfortunately I lost about $1.650 in my last 3 sessions and ended $1.140 down for the month. Not happy again, but with my girlfriend returning and my vacation starting coming Friday I felt it was better to leave it that way, then to play 1/2 sessions more f.e. tonight.

I’ve been relaxing since the 20th and I feel the urge to play poker again. That’s at least something I was trying to accomplish and I think a month break will do me good. I’m currently at 450.000 VPPs and planning to finish at 500.000 VPP’s on the 1st of July. That would leave me exactly on pace which is fine. I’m curious how much VPP’s I will crunch out in July/Augusts but that probably depends a lot on the weather as well. In September I will hit the cashgames and party’s in Las Vegas again and I will have to crunch out the remainder off the VPP’s during those last 3,5 months. I feel pretty okay about my current status and as mentioned before, I expected results to be different but I still don’t think I’m doing really bad. At the end of the year the total sum of money is what matters and if I would have aimed lower (VPP wise) I would probably lost about as much on the tables(bb/100 wise) but with a lower rakeback % at the end.

I’m currently really looking forward to my vacation. I’ll be leaving for Alpe D’Huez on Friday planning to cycle up the big mountain on Sunday morning. I’m anxious, excited, slightly worried and most of all very happy I’m finally doing it. It might be something a lot of people can do without much problems but 3 years ago I was in a completely different situation and to actually go to Alpe D’Huez is something that is worth a lot to me! I’ve haven’t trained a lot since I cycled the Amstel Gold Race about 5 weeks ago. I did good the first week but had some physical issues the 2nd week and didn’t feel really good the 3th and 4th week. So much for a good preparation!

Last weekend I did had a nice training planned with 4 colleagues. I still didn’t feel really well but didn’t want to miss it as it was both a good test and a really nice day out. I cycled about 80km in the hills of Limburg (same area as the Amstel Gold Race) and did better then expected. For those who are familair in the area: I cycled the daalhemmerweg, Camerig, Vaalserberg, Kruisberg(Botterweck), Eyserbosweg and Gulperberg. I was doing okay on the daalhemmerweg, Camerig & Vaalserberg which are all three not very steep, but long (for Dutchies) hills.

The Kruisberg(Botterweck) was doable but the Eyserbosweg was really pushing it. I made it, but those steep parts (16%) are really killing me. Then the final hill was the Gulperberg and after 80km cycling there was no way I could do a 19% part.

It was the first time I had to get off my bike ever but I was really happy with the result of the training. I wasn’t feeling really fit and doing the steepest part at the end might not have been the smartest idea, but that wasn’t my idea. As far as I know Alpe D’Huez doesn’t have really steep parts and it will be more about endurance.

I can’t compare the Camerig or Vaalserberg with the Alpe D’Huez but it will probably come closer to Alpe D’Huez then the last 3 hills shown. I’ll probably sent a twitter update as soon as I’m at the top and will be relaxing (with some alcohol) after! I’m back on the 14th, ready for the first match of The Netherlands in the World Championship Football. The further we get, the less poker I play so in case you don’t see me blogging it’s probably because there is a lot of football to watch 😉

The update is longer then expected and I’ll wrap up with a May Recap and a Year-To-Date Recap. Since I’m not playing poker at the moment I’m not really into it so not a lot of poker this time but I’m sure there will be plenty of poker to talk about during the rest of the year 🙂

— May Recap—
May VPPs: 58.729
May Ahead of Pace: -26.202
May $ @ Tables: -$1.140,00
May $ FPP’s/Milestone: $6.288,82
$May $: $5.148,82
May # hands: 97.602
May # Hours: 73,83
May $/Hour @ Tables: -$15,44
May $/Hour: $69,74
May Hands/Hour: 1.322
May VPPs/Hour: 795

— Current Status —
2010 VPPs: 449.992
Ahead of Pace: 36.293
Total $ @ Tables: -$20.044,50
Total $ FPP’s/Milestone: $34.799,55
Total $: $14.755,05
Total # hands: 613.463
Total # Hours: 484,28
Hands/Hour: 1.267
VPPs/Hour: 929
$/Hour @ Tables: -$41,39
$/Hour: $30,47

 Posted by at 9:11 pm

April Recap

 Poker  5 Responses »
May 032010
 

And it’s already May! A special month for me as after 6 months my girlfriend is returning from a trip down under. She isn’t sure yet when she is coming back, the original date was the 29th but I expect her a week earlier. That means that I can better work my ass of before she comes back, as we need some time to catch up 😉

That plan started pretty bad as yesterday I didn’t get any real hands in but did lose $468,60 in that small sample. My PokerTracker needed it’s HUD cache to be rebuild, I forgot to do that during the day and when I started my session my PC died on me twice. That obviously cost money, from both losing hands and time so I had 2 options: 1) play without a HUD 2) Wait for PokerTracker housekeeping to be done. I picked option #2 because it normally takes a little over 3 hours but after waiting for 5 hours I went to bed at 03:00 without playing any more hands. 45minutes later the housekeeping was done, grrr. Nobody else to blame but me and luckily I don’t have to work Wednesday so I can catch up, but I had preferred to consider that day as a bonus for this month.

So what happened in April? I had a bet going for which I had to reach 80.000VPP. Not a huge amount for somebody who wants to reach SNE and actually not even enough to stay on pace but I had a lot of distractions in April as well. The first session of the month was good (+$613,50) but the following session were all pretty bad. On the 12th of the month I was down $3.500 which I’ve also blogged about in my previous blog. From there on I played 6 winning sessions in a row and almost hit the break even line a couple of times.

I was very keen on getting break-even for the month. In the last session of the month I was up in the first bit and was really hoping to end the month strong. I didn’t get there and even lost $598,50 in that session finishing the month at -$1.377,50. I was swinging a lot between the -$1.000 and 0 for the last part of the month and to end the month below the -$1.000 was very disappointing. -$400 really don’t even sounds like a loss to me but $1.377,50 does. From the 4 months I’ve played so far, I’ve lost money in 3 of them, that’s not something I planned for. I did make it to 80.000VPPs so didn’t lose the bet but because Rock City King also got his 50.000VPPs I didn’t win any money. I think we both really profited from this bet anyway, so I’ll be happy to do it again!

April had other difficulties. The amount of tables available isn’t the same as in Jan/Feb. When I start my play around 19:00/20:00 CEST there are not enough $3/$6 & $5/$10 tables to 20-table. I don’t need 24 tables, everything between 20-24 tables is enough, but 16 just doesn’t do it. Sometimes it gets better during the evening, but not always so fFor the 2nd part of the month I’ve been adding $2/$4 games to my games. I was a small loser for the month at $2/$4 (-$149) over a very small sample (6.957 hands), which doesn’t worry me as I’m confident I’m beating the $2/$4 games. The issue is more that it does give me some headaches as the game plays different. It was easier to play a mix between $3/$6 and $15/$30 then to add $2/$4 again. I’ve used to do this a lot last year and I will just have to adjust but due the the different sb/bb ratio and a lot more multiway pots it just requires some more attention.

In March the $5/$10 was really working for me and the $3/$6 wasn’t, this month it was vice versa. I’ve played 37.935 hands at $5/$10, lost $2.645 which is 0,7BB/100. Not a very good score but I did improve a lot during the 2nd part of the month. The $3/$6 was okay, playing 81.895 hands and winning $1.416,50 which is 0,29BB/100. Also this should be better so there is nothing else to do then to play better during May. Below the full recap:

— April Recap—
April VPPs: 80.059
April Ahead of Pace: -2.133
April $ @ Tables: -$1.377,50
April $ FPP’s/Milestone: $4.483,30
April $: $3.105,80
April # hands: 126.787
April # Hours: 103,48
April $/Hour @ Tables: -$13,31
April $/Hour: $30,01
April Hands/Hour: 1.225
April VPPs/Hour: 774

Comparing these stats to March there are some notable differences. I had to play 12 hours more to get the same 80.000 VPPs. This was because I played about 50 hands less an hour and together with the fact I had to play $2/$4 my VPPs/hour was lowered from 873 to 774. These things don’t look promising but no other way to counter them then just work more! The FPPs/Milestone total is on the low side because I didn’t hit a milestone this month. Since I will be reaching the 400.000 VPP milestone tonight, I have sort of a headstart in May. 

For May I don’t have a VPP goal. I would love to get 80.000 VPP again, but with the bad start and my girlfriend coming back I don’t expect to hit it. 60.000 should be a minimum leaving me at 450.000VPPs for the end of May. This is 50.000 VPPs below my target I had set myself at the beginning of the year. My new goal is to finish at 500.000VPPs at the end of June which would set me right on pace! Now that will be hard as well as I’m going to cycle Alpe D’Huez at the 6th of June. After doing that I will be going on a nice trip to Southern France. The plan is to visit San Remo, Monaco, Nice, Juan les Pins, Cannes & St Tropez! I’ll be back at the 14th of June, which is the day when the Netherlands is playing its first match of the World Cup Soccer! With all the holiday and soccer matches going on it will be hard to put in enough hands to get to 500.000 VPPs at the end of the month. It’s going to be a very tough two months but I’m confident I’ll still make it to SNE!

I’m actually less confident if I’ll survive Alpe D’Huez 🙂 I haven’t trained this week so far as I was busy on Saturday and had to play a handball competition match on Sunday. A buddy of mine plays competition handball and they lacked a keeper for their match. I was a keeper for 5 years and joked that I would go. Before I knew it I had to actually play. Sure, I did do it for 5 years, but that was 14th years ago when I was still a kid. The idea was to train with the guys at Thursday and to play on Sunday but the training on Thursday was canceled. I ended up in the goal and I even stopped the first two penalties. We were able to keep up with the other team the first half, but the 2nd half they really beat us on stamina. Often it ended up them having 3 vs 1 players when throwing a quick offense and sure I’m not really good, but there isn’t a lot you can do as keeper against that sort of offensives. We lost 16-32! I did had fun though. Since today (like yesterday) it rains all day long I’m not playing to cycle and I doubt it’s getting any better tomorrow, Wednesday should be okay. I also got some troubles with my back, so I skip the gym tonight and hit the pokertables early!

Getting back to the softplaying regs from my previous blog. Furbean has posted an update on his blog. It somewhat explains things, on the other side when you read the whole story (including PokerStars responses) you understand how bad it actually is. It might not have been a beneficial tactic for Furbean/Fua999 but it did create a lot of situations which would normally not have been there. I could explain a couple of these but if you are interested it might be better to read the whole thing yourself. The most weird part was the part where a phone call was made in specific situations when holding KK (Emails Part #4), I just don’t see that happening. First of all it’s actually hard to make a phone call when 20-24 tabling. Sure you can make it, but not in time without having issues with timebanks etc. 2nd, don’t we have things like skype/teamspeak/ventrillo? Or even MSN/AIM/ICQ/GoogleTalk? The whole phone call thing really sounds very weird to me and it put doubts in my mind if this is the full story. I liked Furbean as far as you can like a fellow online grinder but as mentioned in my previous blog, PokerStars did the only right thing.

So the PokerStars SCOOP has started again. Since I’m not really a tournament player these tournaments aren’t very exciting for me. What is exciting is that often people deposit money on PokerStars (there is also a SCOOP reload bonus) and some of that money will also flow into the cashgames. Yesterday I saw very juicy cashgame tables already (which made it even more painful I couldn’t play) and I think this will last for the coming 2/3 weeks. Normally I do like to play the FR LHE tournament but I’m really disappointed there. It’s a $22/$215/$2.100 Turbo tournament with 5min blind levels. There are hardly any proper limit tournaments and I expect during SCOOP that everybody would love to play deepstack or at least “normal” poker. Sure in the NL segment there should be turbo tournaments offered but I really don’t see any reason why a LHE tournament should be a turbo. With this setup after 1 hour of play every hand you play you will have to win, which makes a LHE tournament a sort of push/fold NL tournament. LHE is fun because you get to play flop/turn/river a lot more then in NL, but with making this tournament a turbo you could better make it a NL tournament as I see no reason at all to play it. I might give the 6-max tournament(s) a try, but I normally don’t like to play on a Friday. On twitter I got the message that jorj95 was selling shares for his SCOOP adventure and because I like to have a little bit more excitement in the morning to check who is at the final table of the SCOOP tournaments I bought 0,25% ($300). You can check the topic here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/163/staking-selling-shares/scoop-high-level-package-selling-shares-773430/

I did play some tournaments last Saturday as the quarterly $1.000.000 Supernova Freeroll was held again. With only 3322 players the value was pretty sweet but I was the first to leave the tournament! In the 5th hand I flopped bottom set on 358 board and got all the money in at the turn against 88. Maybe this wasn’t a very good play 200BB deep but I have issues with folding a set (especially as a limit player) if there are no flush/straights out there. I played some other $11-$22 tournaments which weren’t succesful and also participated in the PokerNews Freeroll where I did get to the Final table, finishing 4th for a booming $150!

I hope to do better in May as I did in April. A month like March would be pretty sweet and since I’ve slept a little more then normal (due to not playing yesterday) I hope to be fresh and ready to beat the games like I know I can. The wrap up this blog my current status:

— Current Status —
2010 VPPs: 391.263
Ahead of Pace: 57.016
Total $ @ Tables: -$19.363,00
Total $ FPP’s/Milestone: $28.510,73
Total $: $9.147,73
Total # hands: 517.535
Total # Hours: 412,13
Hands/Hour: 1.255
VPPs/Hour: 949
$/Hour @ Tables: -$46,98
$/Hour: $22,20

 Posted by at 3:55 pm

Amstel Gold Race, Poker & Softplaying Regs uncovered

 Poker  2 Responses »
Apr 212010
 

It’s hard to find a good moment to write my blog. During the evening I prefer to play poker and during the day I’m watching TV-Series and work out on my bike. I really want to update this more often, but I think I’ve started the last couple of blogs with a same sort of line. There is plenty to tell! Last weekend I cycled the Amstel Gold Race, I’m still playing poker and a couple of regulars in my main game were caught softplaying.

This time I’ll start with the non-poker stuff, as I am a happy man. Last Friday I traveled with a friend to Valkenburg to cycle the 100km Amstel Gold Race. I didn’t train as much as last year when I cycled the 160km, but I did had the feeling it wasn’t going to be a real problem. As I cycled more km last year I was sure I could handle the distance, the difficulty were the 8 hills I had to climb during those 100km, something I can’t really train for as where I live there are no real hills.

On Friday we arrived in the hotel and we caught up with 8 others from my home town to have a drink before the race on Saturday. I was planning not to drink any alcohol on Friday but after seeing the party that was going on in the bars & disco’s I did had a couple of beers(group pressure?). When I woke up on Saturday I was fresh and ready. We were planning to start at 10:00 and around 08:30 I made sure I ate enough food to start the long journey. At 10:23:46 I passed the Start line and the fun could begin. We cycled with a group of 4 guys and two of them were really hung over from the night before. The pace was slow and the first hill was really easy. The weather was beautiful so we could really enjoy cycling and I was smiling on my bike.

A long flat period followed and the Maasberg was the next hill to climb. This one was a bit more difficult mainly since it was a brick road and also because it was really crowded so you had to pass people while you were shaking all over the places on your bike.

The road continued to the Adsteeg which was easy as well and we finished the first half after the Lange Raarberg, again I had no problem getting up there and was even making jokes on the bike. Then after 50km there was an area created to refill your drinks, to eat something and take a piss before cycling the next 50km. My idea was that if the 2nd 50km was like the first, it wasn’t going to be any problem to finish the race but oh boy, what was I wrong.

From the moment we got on our bikes again, it started going uphill. There where 4 small hills and every time I was down one, the next one started again. I just couldn’t get any rhythm going and I when asking around how these hill were called, people said these hills weren’t part of the 8 hills I was counting on… Jikes! I cycled another not named hill and when I was at the top I really wondered how much longer I could continue. I could still cycle a good pace, but as soon as it went uphill I really was out of breath.

The Wachelderberg followed which was for me the biggest killer of the day. With a max percentage of 14% and people falling of their bike in front of me I could barely get to the top. With a little help from one of my buddy’s I did manage, but wow! I could only hope this climb was the worst at that moment, because I knew for sure I couldn’t handle any worse then that.

When cycling down I already saw the next hill which looked really high and I was still completely out of breath when starting the climb. It was a long one (fromberg) but not that steep and I was able to manage it myself, still completely out of breath however.

I knew there where only 2 more hills to go and since I really couldn’t follow anybody’s pace no more I told the other 3 to continue without me. I could catch my breath a little (I was still cycling) preparing myself for the last 2 climbs and since it was only 10km more to go, I motivated myself to really finish this without getting off my bike. The Sibbegrubbe followed which was the longest climb of the day (2.100m) but somehow I didn’t really had any issues with the climb. As long as it doesn’t get to steep it seems I’m okay and this climb was long, but was pretty constant and I was surprised about myself I managed so well. Now I knew there was only the Cauberg left and for sure this wasn’t going to be easy.

I cycled down the sibbegrubbe and road into the village of Valkenburg again. I saw loads of people left and right and when I turned around the corner there where only 900m left to go! The beginning was doable but when I looked up I was shocked! I could really see the steep parts in front of me and knowing that they “only” lasted 200m I really didn’t want to get off my bike. I saw loads of people who stopped at the steepest point and walked and just as I wanted to do that myself I could see the “easier” part ahead of me. With a last sprint I managed to make it and when cycling over the finish line I couldn’t be happier!

Cycling 50km in pain, I managed to reach the final after a total of 4 hours and 17minutes, only 2 minutes later then my buddies. There where 12.000 others who did so as well, some only 65km, some 250km but all people gained my respect when doing the 100km myself! At the top it was a big party and with the beautiful weather still out there I had a well deserved cold beer!

The steep parts really killed me and I really wonder how I can ever manage to get on top of Alpe D’Huez. I think it helps a lot that it’s easier to get into a rhythm as the climb is more constant and that’s something I seem to handle pretty well. Still it’s 13,8km uphill with parts that go up till 11%, I don’t even want to think about it at the moment! I already started my training for Alpe D’Huez yesterday again as I do realise I will have to train a lot the coming 4 weeks if I really want to get to the top in one go. It would also be good if I can drop a couple of kilo’s in weight, but when working out a lot I do have to keep eating so I have to find a good balance the coming 4/5 weeks! The rest of the weekend was really fun as well, going out on Saturday and sitting in the sun on Sunday were a nice treat and I will definitely be back next year!

So I started writing this blog on Tuesday but since I also wanted to play some poker I’m now (Wednesday) going to hopefully finish the poker part. Why can’t I never keep things short?

April so far is not that good. I was very happy about my March results and was really looking forward to grinding in April. The sidebet would make sure I would play enough so I was prepared for another $10K month (Incl FPPs and Milestone Bonus). The month started good with a $613,50 session but soon I had 3 big losing days (-$1.474,- / -1.088,- / -1.667,-). Down -3.5K isn’t fun but I really believe this was mainly due to a small downswing. I couldn’t hit a single AK/AQ and was playing against a lot of aggressive players. I wasn’t hitting anything and when trying to call down with Ace high, I was off almost every time. I was only losing at $5/$10 and still winning money at $3/$6 which was the exact opposite of last month, which I prefer 🙂

From the 13th on, I had five small winning sessions in a row winning back almost $1.100 . The best day was a Thursday when I was really relaxed playing a little over 3 hours while watching TV and winning $712,-. I shouldn’t watch TV while playing but I do have to grind a lot more in the evenings during the week now and I can’t always play my A-game. That’s okay as far as I’m concerned during the week, on my real poker days (Sun/Mon) I should always play my A-Game and that’s normally no problem.

Because I came back late from the Amstel Gold Race weekend I didn’t want to play Sunday night. I was fit, not that tired but I had the feeling that I would get tired half way the night. When I start playing I don’t want to stop and if I lose money I will beat myself up for playing while I knew I wasn’t prepared enough for it. A good reason not to play but it did put me a little extra behind pace for the month and also for the bet! (have to get 80.000VPP this month) Now I did plan to catch up on Friday or Saturday but now I’m also have something planning for coming Sunday evening. I’m going to watch the first match of the Dutch Soccer Cup Final, Ajax – Feyenoord! Only Ajax supporters are allowed and I’m a Feyenoord supporter 🙂 I’m going with loads of Ajax supporters and I’m not a real die-hard or anything but it will be hard not the cheer when Feyenoord scores. I’m sitting in a stadium with probably 50.000 Ajax Supporters so I better not 🙂

Getting to 80.000 should be still doable, I’ll just have to grind whenever I can! Below my month so far:

Something I can’t leave unmentioned is the fact that 4 FR LHE regs where banned from PokerStars caught softplaying and/or cheating. This has created a lot of fuzz for a couple of days in the Supernova Elite Thread on 2+2. It started with a post from Mcbrag here. There were two cases 1) Diamond789 & Qwer234 2) Furbean & Fua999. The first case wasn’t discussed in to much detail but I did play a lot with diamond789, I’m not sure if he was a SNE but at least he grinded as much as I did last year. I wasn’t really familiar with Qwer234, but I did play a couple of thousand hands with him. With Furbean and Fua999 however I did almost play every day. I even had a bit of contact with Furbean every now and then and was reading his blog every day. When he suddenly quit his blog and stopped playing beginning of March I wondered what happened but because he said he would be back in April I thought it was something related to his private life.

In the 2+2 thread it was disclosed that Furbean and Fua999 had been softplaying eachother since late 2008! To be honest I was very shocked! I’m not stupid enough to believe nobody tries to cheat/softplay on PokerStars, when it comes to money (or even without) people will always try to cheat to win, but I was surprised that people who play so much would even consider doing this! Since you are talking about your own job/life support I would really think people would never take this risk. If there are millions to win, sure I understand why people try (not that I support it in anyway) but when you “only” softplay each other there isn’t that much to gain and so much more to lose! It seems that Furbean/Fua999 really only softplayed each other which comes down to not defending or stealing each others blinds and when HU not call/raise any bets with weak hands.

So I was shocked about Furbean/Fua999 doing this but I was also really shocked that PokerStars never detected this! Maybe the did somewhere in February or they did get a tip but if you spent 5min looking at the hand history both players have with each other it’s so obvious I couldn’t even think of a single point to defend Furbean when he was still only accused (he came forward himself a little later in the 2+2 thread). If two people who play so often together never go to showdown HU (in over 2million hands I believe) I wonder why this was never detected. Both players are SNE and I really thought PokerStars would better look into high volume players like that!

I can’t be that pissed about the whole softplaying to be honest. In one way yes, sure I was fooled and cheated. Less VPPs were gained on the tables and stats were “fooled” because Furbean/Fua999 softplayed each other. On the other side I do believe they never “teamplayed” and we all did get more hands in per table to make up for the lost VPPs. Yeah it’s wrong to do it, but to me there is a big difference between softplaying and teamplaying, although there could be a grey area in between which makes it hard to really split these two things. I would never do it myself and my best buddy and I even never play at the same table together but I can understand the why. I just would never be that “stupid” (sorry furbean) to do it risking my income and also bankroll!

For me personally there is also an extra added downside to these people getting caught. Furbean, Fua999 and Diamond789 where all 3 in my top4 people I won the most money from! This means that I had a good edge on these people and since I played almost daily with them they did make out a good portion of my winrate. Often on almost every table I played, all 3 people sat down. Also these players together added 5/6 tables extra to the $3/$6 and $5/$10 FR LHE tables and since March the amount of tables have dropped sometimes not even getting above 16 on a regular evening.

So in one way I’m very unhappy about these people getting caught, but on the other side how unhappy can you be about “cheaters” getting caught? I think it’s always a good thing! I did sent a mail to PokerStars stressing the fact I really wondered how this could have lasted so long and for the first time I haven’t got a reply after five days! Time to sent a reminder.

Of course there is other stuff as well 😉 The season finale of Spartacus was just WoW! If you haven’t watched it yet, please give it a try. Even people who don’t like the “cartoonish” (how can you not?) graphics, love the story! It’s not just Sex & Blood, the story really has some unexpected twists and even most good series out there, hardly ever surprise me. Flash Forward is also still cool, I’ve also finished the first season of True Blood which I liked as well and with Lost, The Pacific and Fringe still airing there is still plenty to watch!

I mentioned I had a tough decision to make at my job and I’ve chosen to follow the ambitious route! Within the coming 3/4 months my boss will need to find a replacement so I can start doing more IT-Architecture work. My new boss is really looking forward to utilise me as soon as possible and I’m really looking forward to it as well. It is going to be tough but I haven’t doubted since I’ve made my decision, which is a good thing!

I got plenty of other stuff (poker and non-poker) but I’ll leave it for now. It’s already late and I still have to re-read the whole thing so I’ll wrap up with a short Year-To-Date overview.

— Current Status —
2010 VPPs: 360.063
Ahead of Pace: 58.693
Total # hands: 467.206
Total # Hours: 373,37
Hands/Hour: 1.261
VPPs/Hour: 964

 Posted by at 11:23 pm

March Recap – Sidebet & More

 Poker  1 Response »
Mar 312010
 

Just like Jan/Feb I’ll do a recap of the month. This time finally with some good results which means dropping down in stakes worked out. I would love to get back to playing $10/$20 and $15/$30 but I’m 100% sure this is not going to happen anytime soon. I’ll start out with my month graph and the “basic” results followed by plenty of other things. 

 

— March Recap—
March VPPs: 80.022
March Ahead of Pace: -4.909
March $ @ Tables: $2.890,00
March $ FPP’s/Milestone: $7.281,23
March $: $10.171,23
March # hands: 116.668
March # Hours: 91,62
March $/Hour @ Tables: $31,54
March $/Hour: $111,02
March Hands/Hour: 1.273
March VPPs/Hour: 873 

These numbers make me happy! I did not only stop losing money, I actually won money at the tables. Also as the graph shows my game improved during the month which gives me something to look forward to in April. Including my FPP’s and 300K Milestone Bonus I’ve earned more then $10.000, not bad for a months worth. Also an hourly rate of $111 is something I would love to keep the coming months. There are 3 things which I’m not so happy with. 1) My VPPs/Hour is down from 1.084 in January to 873 in March. This is of course due to dropping in limits but the difference is huge! I play a little more Hands/Hour but still it’s more then 200 VPPs/Hour less. This somehow hurts my motivation a lot. I used to think: “I play one more hour and got another 1.000 VPPs”, now I’ve complete lost that feeling but I should just shut up and play. 2) The # of hours I’ve put in is also a bit disappointing, it’s still 6 hours more then in February but it’s not enough. February also had 3 days less then March! This has of course something to do with the fact that I lost a bit of motivation but the number should be at least above 100. 3) The amount of VPPs in March. Now this has everything to do with 1 and 2 but I didn’t even make enough VPPs to stay “on pace” in March. Sure I was plenty ahead in Jan/Feb but my whole plan was to get ahead enough during the first five months of the year so I could take it easy during summer. 

Well, that’s not likely to happen anymore! I wanted to finish at at least 500.000 VPPs at the 1st of June but that means I have to get 190.000 VPPs during the next two months. It’s doable but I doubt I’ll do it. I’ve given myself an absolute minimum of 80.000 VPP a month for April/May and to push myself a bit I’ve agreed to a sidebet with fellow Pokernews NL forum member Rock City King. He wanted a sidebet to grind at least 50.000 VPP this month, I want to grind at least 80.000. If any of us doesn’t make it, he pays the other $500. The idea is that we both make it and it’s for both not something which is unlikely to happen but losing a bet is just not an option. Those $500 at stake still count as money but those can be missed, I’m just not going to lose a bet! Now 80.000 sounds easy since my low for this year was 80.000. For the 1st week of April I’m playing a live tournament tomorrow evening, Friday evening I go to Awakenings and Saturday during the day I will be at the Pokernews PALOOZA and during the weekend of 16-18 April I will be cycling the Amstel Gold Race with lot’s of beer. I had my doubts about the coming month, the sidebet should cover those doubts so I’m confident that I’ll get another 80.000 VPPs. 

Last blog I said that I was winning again and I didn’t change my game at all. Well, I think this is not true. I noticed myself playing last week and I did notice a difference. I’m playing the exact same basics and I doubt I play any different preflop. My postflop play is changed a bit. I seem to be more relaxed and consider lines I normally didn’t take. This doesn’t mean I’m now calling down in stead of folding, it could even mean I’m raising where I normally strongly considered a fold. I have a better “feel” for these plays were normally when I tried this I would run into a set or two pair all the time. At least, that’s how it felt. I hope I can continue to play like this because I would love to grind back all the money I’ve lost in Jan/Feb! I’m still down $17.527,- but that’s a lot better then $22.000. It’s okay if that takes all year but my goal for this year was to at least play break-even and I would really like to achieve that goal. 

Now to complicate things my new boss, I changed department 1-1-2010, has really great plans for me. He wants to put me in a position as solution architect working for all group services domains. This could be a big step up in my career as I’m currently working in the HR domain only and this will give me the ability to spread out my wings and to become an expert in many other domains like Finance, Risk & Procurement. This will give me a great opportunity to extend my knowledge and to meet a lot of people to whom I could prove myself to. Since these people are often higher up in the organisation this could really be beneficial to my career. There is no extra money involved directly in taking this job but when I do things right it will definitely lead to a better position, thus more money in the future. So what am I complaining? Well, I doubt I can take this opportunity when working part-time. Switching back to full-time would mean I’m not only keeping the same income, my income would even drop since I earn more with playing poker then at my current job. I can’t finish my current SNE plans or really need to work my ass (60+ hours a week) off till the end of the year and it’s also a really different approach to life compared with what I’m doing now. I’m currently working 24 hours a week, I work hard but I’m not that challenged at work. I get my challenge out of my poker career and cycling goals. I’m really happy with how things are going and also I’ve never been so happy at work. If I get my “real” career going again my work will become a big challenge (which I like). I will have to leave my comfort zone since I will be doing work I’ve never done for people I’ve never met. 

It all comes down to making choices and I’m a person that doesn’t like big changes. I don’t like to leave my comfort zone and I normally play things safe. That might sounds strange from a guy who plays poker for a living but for me doing that didn’t feel like a big risk at all. So do I see myself playing poker in five years time? No, not at the moment so long term it might be best to get my career going again. The thing is that I’m not even sure if I want to get my career to a higher level. If I would go back to working full-time my income is already more then decent and I’m not the guy who wants to work 50/60 hours a week for a boss. On the other side I do really like to spread my wings at work and to move up a step and use my knowledge to help the company. Possibly I can wait with going back to a full-time job till the 1st of January, this will at least work out a lot better for my poker & cycling goals in 2010. I need to make a decision within the next two weeks and it’s probably my hardest decision ever with the biggest impact on my life ever. Obviously I’ll let you know the outcome but I’m in a tough “turn” spot…. 

Back to less serious things. As you’ve all read before I’m watching a lot of TV-Series but I’ve found another good one. I have plenty of others to watch but I was hooked after 2 episodes. I doubt I can explain things better then the Trailer but before you watch it you should look at the list of movies the creator/writer of Flash Forward has worked on http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0333060/:

And movies to come:

 

 

I watched all episodes which are out (13 so far) in 3 days and ‘V’ resumed yesterday as well so I have a tight schedule (Caprica/Lost/Spartacus/V/Flash Forward) 🙂 

I’ve been a bit sick over the weekend and I didn’t go to the gym or cycling for a couple of days. I did go to the gym again today and hopefully I can work a bit on the bike on Sunday/Tuesday because I only have 2,5 weeks to go until I have to ride the Amstel Gold Race. Looking forward to it and I think I can already handle it but a little training can do no harm! 

I’ll wrap up with my year to date results:
 

— Current Status —
2010 VPPs: 310.046
Ahead of Pace: 66.210
Total $ @ Tables: -$17.527,00
Total $ FPP’s/Milestone: $23.962,57
Total $: $6.435,57
Total # hands: 389.074
Total # Hours: 306,97
Hands/Hour: 1.267
VPPs/Hour: 1.010
$/Hour @ Tables: -$57,10
$/Hour: $20,96

 Posted by at 10:24 pm

It’s been 3 weeks since….

 Poker  Comments Off on It’s been 3 weeks since….
Mar 222010
 

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

 Posted by at 4:44 pm
Page 15 of 22 1 2 … 13 14 15 16 17 … 21 22