Though games & very busy with social activities

So it’s definitely time for a new blog. I’ll just pick up where I left, which was Tuesday. As said I went to the gym in the evening to do some exercise. I only cycled an hour, but it’s a start and better then just sitting at home. Since I want to put hands in whenever I have time, I jumped behind my PC after coming back from the gym and played a short session where I managed to win $297 in 2603 hands. I played 160 hands of $15/$30  and won $1.040, I lost on any other limit I was playing, more on that later in this blog.

For Wednesday I was planning to go to the gym followed by another poker session. I was at work in Amsterdam and my sister called me at 16:45 that there was no public transport running to my home town. The last 3 weeks the country is covered with snow, which is great. I love “real” winter, I don’t mind the cold and I like the snow but the public transport has screwed up more then once these weeks, which is really shitty. Since I didn’t want to be at a train/bus station with thousands of other people waiting for the first train/bus to ride, I decided to just go to a nice restaurant in Amsterdam with my sister and a friend and have a good diner before deciding how to get home. My sister travels by car, but was to afraid to use it due to the very slippy roads. At 20:45 we decided to give the car a go, I would drive which wasn’t that bad, but the roads where stuck all over the place. Eventually the 50 minute drive took us 2,5 hours and I was home at 23:30.

Because of this I decided to work from home on Thursday as I didn’t feel like spending another evening in Amsterdam. Most of my work concerns meetings and reading/sending e-mails and since I only had one conference call in the morning it was no problem to do most of my work from home. Because I was off from work on Friday I could play a nice long session on Thursday. I still had to get up at 09:00 to help my grandparents moving so wasn’t planning to play thru the night. I wasn’t doing great, was down about $1.000 but won most money back till I got a huge streak of premiums on almost every table. You can look at the graph what happened, AA was beaten by sets,straight ans flushes, KK/QQ/JJ almost always had an A on the flop where my opponent either won the hand or didn’t put any more money in the pot after the flop. Sometimes I play break-even poker for hours and when a streak like this happens I’m suddenly up $1.600, this time I was down $1.600 and was kinda unhappy how such a good streak could end in such a disappointment.

Friday it was time to move my grandparents. I’m not handy at all, but managed to follow the instructions to build two bedroom cabinets and did all sorts of other stuff to help out with the move. In the evening I had a party, since the pub which I very regular visit had its 10 Year Jubilee. The pub also organizes a SNG every Tuesday with 20-30 people which has been running for years now. I’ve organised two leaderboards last year and played almost every week. Since I’m to busy with my SNE chase I stopped playing live poker but I also just come there to have a drink on Friday/Saturday. The owner of the place is also really into poker, playing tournaments in the Dutch Casino’s and online and his poker tables where up for replacement. The group of regulars bought two new poker tables with the publogo printed on the felt. The tables looked really great and he was extremely happy with his present. It was a really fun evening where everybody was wasted, except me…. One of those days where I really hate I’m not drinking, but if I start making exceptions already I know where it ends up.

Saturday I had to wake up again at 09:00 to help out with the move. In the evening I had two birthday parties and at 03:00 I was really tired and happy to see my bed again. Sunday at 10:00 we continued at my grandparents and when I was home at 15:30 I jumped intoed to catch some sleep before starting my Sunday evening session. Within 700 hands I was already down $1.300 and couldn’t win a single hand I was playing. After a half hour break things got a little better, but suddenly lost every hand again and was at a day low of -$2.700. I managed to fight back to -$1.043 after 11.620 hands, somehow I was very happy with this result as this wasn’t that bad looking at the total graph of the day. Again I only won money at $15/$30 and lost at any other limit.

On Monday I continued to help out with moving and was really fed up with it. I was planning to go the the gym in the evening, which I did after a quick hour sleep before diner. I started playing pretty late around 22:00 and finally had a good start. Around 23:30 a lot of tables were breaking, this always happens between 23:30 and 00:30 and always comes with big swings. People play their last hands of the evening and this normally has a lot of influence on people’s hand selection and aggression. I normally take a break right after this moment or in the middle if I win a nice chunk of money. This time I was up when it started, but down after (It’s the spike around 2.300 hands). I can’t give any other comment then “variance” and after a half hour break I picked up playing again. After the break I was playing pretty good and won some money again, but I was getting really tired. There were also no $10/$20 & $15/$30 tables open so my VPP rate was pretty low, so I decided after losing  some pots that I liked the fact I was still a bit up and called it a day pretty early at 03:53. After losing the last couple of hands there were only $30 buck left, but at least I got some VPPs again. Again I was up at $15/$30.

So I was actually down for the month since my session last Sunday. I knew this week would be extremely busy with the move and the parties on Friday and Saturday, so I was already happy to log my hands. Also last Year, January was one of my worst months, which was pretty scary back then, since it was my first month going semi-pro (working part-time at my regular job). My expectations for January were and still are pretty low. I’m happy to break-even in the games and just getting ahead of pace. I think in January a lot of people play better then during the end of the year. People tend to play less tables then in December, where they still had to rack up VPPs to get a milestone or SNE. Also people start a new year fresh with new years resolutions like: “I’m not going to tilt”, “I’m not playing any limits  above my bankroll” and what else. This has its impact on the games and also impact on my winrate.

Also my poker career is always going in cycles where I win 2/3 months and then get a losing month where things suddenly don’t go as easy as before. This is happening to me now as well. You could refer to it as ‘the zone” which some pokerplayers always mention on TV. Especially Sunday when I was playing I could notice I wasn’t in “the zone”. Where if I’m in the zone I don’t really have to think whether or not I’m 3-betting or calling in the BB, Sunday I was doubting to many decisions. I try to recall how I did things back in Oct-Dec, which were all great months, but I just can’t play the same. If I doubt things, my decisions take a second longer, if you are playing 24 tables, you don’t have the time to think 1 second longer about your decisions, so you feel rushed. Normally when things don’t go as planned I drop down in limits, but here comes the issue. I’m up big time playing $15/$30 and $10/$20 and down a really scary amount $5/10 and $3/$6. Moving down in limits might be a good thing and I have done this so much in the past that I’m not worried about it at all. But with my current winrate of 2,97 BB/100 at $15/$30 there is no way I stop playing these games. Also, moving down in limits will require to put in a lot more hours to stay ahead of pace, something to think about!

What I normally do during these periods is read a lot about poker, check my Pokertracker for leaks, maybe watch a pokervideo (I’m not a member of any training site at the moment) and move down a limit until my confidence level is back. When I feel like I’m in the zone again, I’ll move up until the cycle happens again. Today I’ve spent a lot of time reading blogs, which is also a big help. I saw some good points on displaying stats in my HUD. I haven’t changed my HUD since September and found some helpful tips of stats to add to my HUD. I’ve added CBET Turn, CheckRaise Flop & CheckRaise Turn to my HUD display which should help me in making decisions in my post flop play. I’m not at the level were my confidence is really gone, this did happen before last year, but I’m just a bit surprised that I’m a big loser this month in the $3/$6 and $5/$10 games. There are some good new regulars and I’ve seen some regulars playing a lot better since they play a lot less tables after December. I’ve also seen some other regulars struggling with the new players so I’m not that worried at all but I’m not playing as confident as I did in Oct-Dec.

After going to the gym the afternoon, where I cycled for 90minutes but at the same time was also reading SNE blogs, I was ready for a poker session tonight. I played only 1861 hands with my new HUD, since I wanted to make some minor adjustments to it and was up $493,50 putting me in the green for the month again. I also really wanted to get a blog posted, since it has been a week now and I don’t want to disappoint my readers 🙂

Now before I post my current status I would like to ask what you think about these long posts? I rather post more often with less text, but I doubt I could find the time to do that. About one blog a week seems like the pace for this year but when typing it out it feels like a huge amount of text and I would like to know it if most people just scroll to the bottom and only check the overall status 🙂 Also if you would like to see anything else in my blog or have questions, feel free to ask!

— Current Status —
2010 VPPs: 61.611
Ahead of Pace: 31.474
Total # hands: 72.285
Total # Hours: 55,17
Hands/Hour: 1.310
VPPs/Hour: 1.116