Primal sit n go's

First post in around 6 weeks, just been letting my head clear after my Dad died. I hadn't fully realised just how massive a part of my life he was, some peoples parents are on the periphary of their lives but my Dad was a central figure, a supportive pillar and the foundation of my life. Dads death coincided with my step daughter Kirsty moving out of my house to start a new life with her boyfriend in a lovely house they are renting across town, this has resulted in me being alone and sometimes feeling very alone for the first time in my life.

In the 2 months since Dads death I have played a minimal amount of poker and done a massive amount of eating and boozing resulting in me topping the scales the heaviest I have ever been and this makes me feel shite, I feel sluggish, tired and unattractive. To combat this I've been on a diet of sorts for the last week I'm following Marks Sisson's Primal Blueprint a link to his website is here   http://www.marksdailyapple.com I'm really happy with the results so far 7lb lost in 7 days.

Ive been going the gym 3 times per week for the last fortnight or so but just doing cardio, however I'm going to pump iron this week for the first time since I injured my neck and shoulder in the car crash I had in april this year. I had been getting really great results following a program called Stronglifts 5x5  http://stronglifts.com and I'm going to throw myself headlong back into the program and I'm expecting excellent results coupling the primal/caveman nutrition plan with stronglifts.

On the poker front micro cash games became to much of a grind as I was experiencing a 60k hand break even run and for the life of me even at 10NL didn't feel I had enough of an edge on my opponents and poker was just becoming a tedious grind. I decided just for a change to play $5 10 man turbo sit n go's on ipoker just to freshen myself up and started to have a bit of success although over a tiny sample size. I've rekindled my enthusiasm for the game and definately feel I have an edge over a lot of the players on ipoker @ $5 single table sitngo's both turbo and regular. Ive also been playing turbo multi table sitngo's on Pokerstars mainly the 45 man and 180 man, comically I seem to bust out just before the final table in around 11th or 12th places but the more of these I play the more confidence I get and it wont be long before I start taking these games down. Below is my HEM graph for my 10 man ipoker sit n go's its a very small sample and may be affected by "positive" variance, however its giving me confidence that I can beat these games long term.

Rabbit in the headlights...

My wonderful Dad died last Thursday 28th July at 15.55 in the intensive care unit of Whiston Hospital, his 5 year struggle with CLL, a form of leukemia, had come to an end along with the suffering he endured in the last 6 months.

Since that day I have felt like a rabbit frozen in the headlights of an on coming car. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion, strangely however the days are flying by, its a wierd paradox. I have so much that I feel I need to write about but can't at this moment in time bring myself to do so as this blog was originally about my poker ambitions, but Dads leukemia seems to have flavoured a lot of what I've written.

I'm trying to get back into some sort of routine as the void in my life created by Dads passing feels like it could swallow me whole if I let it. I know life is for the living but I currently get pangs of guilt if I do anything slightly pleasurable as though its immoral... lets hope this passes soon.

One thing I've discovered at times like this are the true qualities of people and I'm truly blessed to have some fantastic people around me. In my job I get to speak to a lot of people who I would describe as assholes and this was beginning to colour my judgement about the Human race so its been wonderful to have my faith in human nature restored.

I'm back playing online poker after a week off and will endeavour to update this blog on a more regular basis with poker related content being my priority, another priority is to play live poker, believe it or not, its something I've never actually done. Online poker is quite a solitary game and I feel as a single guy being cooked up at home playing poker is not ideal and I don't want to get the image of the local hermit who never leaves the house, so its time to get down to the casino's of either Liverpool or Manchester and play some live tournements, meet some new people and see how it goes.

Hospitals, poker, bed & work.

I hadn't planned on updating my blog today, I was waiting for the weekend and hoping for some inspiration to come my way, however I've just ended my poker session a little earlier than planned as I'm not feeling to great and it's effecting my game.

I was surprised just how fast time has past since I last updated, but thats understandable since I've been extremely busy. Since the last post my Dad has been in and out of hospital with leukemia related infections and on a couple of occasions I was sure we were going to lose him but he just keeps fighting.

Life for me has been an endless round of work - hospital - poker - bed - work - hospital - poker - bed.

One of the good things that has come from this is the conversations I've had with my Dad over the last few weeks, we have been reminiscing about all the years we worked together in the block yards, remembering some off the great characters we worked with, not forgetting the arseholes as well, also laughing at the antics we used to get upto! I feel the love I have for him just grows and grows day by day and I'm just truly thankful for winning the lottery of life and being his son.

NoiQ Poker

Since my last blogpost Ive changed pokersites, I wasn't enjoying playing on ipoker and was steadily watching my bankroll deteriorate and felt I wasnt getting enough back from the site I was playing on. I discovered NoiQ Poker via RaketheRake.com and signed up for a 30% rakeback deal also they do 3 rake races each month and its not exactly difficult to get paid out for placing in the rake races, when I calulated what rake I'd paid and what I had got back it worked out at a whopping 65% RB!! I recalculated again at the end of the latest race and I got the same figure. Wish I could get rakeback for hospital parking fees!

As for the actual playing itself, I've racked up about 25,000 hands on noiq the currency they use is the euro as opposed to dollars so 10NL on noiq is a bigger stake than 10NL on pokerstars, with that in mind i dropped down to 4NL euro tables and decided to start at the bottom and grind my way up, after 10,000 hands I was beating the limit by 9bb/100 so decided to step up to 10NL euro stakes and hit a brick wall, incredibly moving up coincided with my ego getting a little inflated and starting to believe I'm a lot better than I am, which in turn tilted the life outta me and in the space of 3 or 4 sessions I was down about 10 buy ins...shit.

                                                                   I am the red fish!

So I'm back down to 4NL and I'm gonna stay there and crush the life out of it for about another 15,000 hands then have another crack at the next limit, in the mean time I will just keep learning & playing, keep improving and slowly but surely I'll get there.

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

HAPPY?

I'm currently struggling to get any kind of volume of poker in at the moment mainly for 3 reasons,

1) My Dads illness, I'm spending as much time as I can with him and I'm more than happy to do so.
2) The computer I'm using has seen better days and runs as slow as a snail with a hard on.
3) My overall frame of mind.

My Dads leukemia I can't influence. I would move Heaven and Earth to have the ability to do something about it but I can't its totally beyond my control.The PC I'm using is well within my control and in the next few days it will be replaced with a nice shiny new one.

My frame of mind is totally under my control, but sometimes I'm not so sure...

I truly believe I should have control over my mind however I'm currently having a daily battle to keep a smile on my face and feel positive, not for one minute do I think I'm losing this battle, its just such a struggle, an effort and a fight I could do without as its sapping my motivation in nearly every area of my life not just poker. This morning I was lying in bed having been awake since 5am, I didn't have work so was pissed off at the thought of being awake when I should be sleeping soundly. I was chatting with friends on Facebook and had sent a few "tweets" everything I wrote had a cheerful tone however I felt as miserable as sin.

On Friday morning I had some wonderful news when Jose 'Girah' Mecado contacted me regarding my previous blogpost, he loved it and has offered to help me with my game, I was elated! Friday night I had a fantastic time with my old school mates at our latest reunion and on saturday I went to Haydock races and once again had a good "craic" with some great friends, so whats my problem?

You Choose.

At any given time we have the option to choose our dominant thoughts and I'm currently not choosing mine very wisely. I'm focusing for some reason on whats missing in my life, I'm focusing on events from my past both positive and negative, when I have positive memories, after the initial warm glow I'm longing for those times and I'm feeling the pain of regret for my actions that led to those memories becoming just that, memories and not some ongoing part of my life. The negative thoughts, well that just speaks for itself, negative thinking is like a downward spiral, one after the other the thoughts just drag you down and attract more thoughts of the same ilk until something either internal or external breaks the cycle.

External things certainly do help but really, nothing outside of ourselves is permanent, it can be taken away in an instant, the people we love, the possesions that bring us pleasure, even things like hobbies that we enjoy and places that we like visiting, things can happen that can remove the external joys of life.

We as individuals should try to cultivate happiness and positivity from within and not be so reliant on the external influences to provide our happiness, that way the winds of change that blow through our lives and sometimes cause havoc, have less of an effect. Mindfulness is a technique from the Buddhist tradition that I'm currently using to combat some of the negative thoughts, images and feelings that I'm wrestling with on a daily basis, without Mindfulness I'm not sure how I would cope. Simply put Mindfulness is all about focusing on "NOW" not regretting the past or living on past glories, not worrying about the future, what I call anticipatory dread, that fear of the unknown, most of the time it never materialises so we waste valuable time and nervous energy on nothing. Mindfulness originally was a way of me staying fully focused on my poker, so I stayed calm cool and collected playing a game for profit that can truly drive a person round the proverbial bend! Now its quickly becoming a life saver.

When I decided I was going to write a blog, at the back of my mind I was hoping by thinking out loud I would put myself under positive pressure and follow through with the actions I need to take on a daily basis to realise my goals, well it's certainly doing that, as I'm writing this now its also helping me to clarify my thought processes and to count my many blessings.

I've got a new life now, with some fantastic people in it, I know where I'm going and believe 100% that I will get there, however I'm heading in that direction a wee bit slower than originally planned, but its all GOOD.

The Hawaiian House

This may be my first post were I deviate slightly from the main theme of this blog and touch on lessons we can learn from poker that cross over into our life. Just recently I came across an article on the web about a young Portuguese poker phenomenom under the alias GIRAH, apparently this guy was 18 years old and had more or less appeared from knowhere and had quickly progressed up the stakes and was winning at the highest levels and all this in what seemed double quick time.

This totally fascinated me. I did some research on him and found out his real name is Jose Macedo and he started playing poker for fun with play money on Facebook when he was just 16 years old and also admitted he wasn't very successful, in his own word he says he was continually getting "hammered" and now just 2 short years later he is mentioned in the same breath of Durrrr, Jungleman and OMGclayaitken.

Learning that Girah started off getting hammered on FB poker for playchips and saying he had zero natural poker talent intrigued me even further, how could this be? what does it take? what was his primary motivator? how on Earth could such a young man make such rapid progress? eventually I found the answer...

He had a DREAM.... and that dream was to own a house in HAWAII

To quote Jose, "It's a nice house in Maui and I REALLY  want it"

That quote above is the key, that quote reveals the secret of Girah's success and of any person on the planet who wants to achieve massive success. How can an 18 year old boy hold the secret to success in every walk of life? did a mystical guru from antiquity reveal the secrets of the ages? No, quite simply Jose Macedo had a burning desire to to own a home in Hawaii and poker was the vehicle that was going to take him there.

Everybody has dreams, we all want to be, have and do something more, however, how many people are prepared to put in the time, effort and money to achieve their dreams? by gathering info on Macedo one thing really shines through, his WORK ethic, he worked relentlessly for hours on end grinding  poker games and taking copiuos notes, he read book after book after book, he watch training videos created by the players who he respected the most, not only that, he actively sought these guys out and used his creativity to enlist the help of these elite players to further his goals.

Reading the above paragraph doesn't really capture and do Jose's determination and work ethic justice, you have to put yourself in his position, imagine the time and effort the endless hours of playing and studying, pursuing your heroes to extract the required knowledge, ignoring all the general day to day distractions and the merchants of doom, who we all have in our lives, who try to bring us down at every opportunity... wow its a massive undertaking but this young kid did this consistently day in day out.

I am pretty certain that when Jose started his quest as a 16 year old kid he had no idea how he was going to achieve his dream but he just kept taking the next step.

"The HOW doesn't matter, because the WHY will find a way"

Jose's WHY was the house in Hawaii, that was the fuel that drove him forward that enabled him to take massive action and make constant and never ending improvements.

Question:

"Whats your WHY?"
"Whats your house in Hawaii?"

I'm going to take inspiration from Jose Macedo and find my WHY and let that drive me forward and I suggest all who want to improve their lives follow Jose's example too.

Further reading: The Monk who sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma
                            Mindstore by Jack Black.

The Inner Fish

Its been a month since my last blogpost and I haven't played much poker, mainly due to my Dads ongoing illness. Travelling from work to the hospital and keeping up a rota of visiting with my brother has been very time consuming so poker has taken a back seat as has a lot of things in my life.

 On a more positive note, I've hired a coach Barry Clark and had a fantastic couple of hours with him he has stripped my game almost back to basics to build a good foundation and also introduced some poker fundamentals I've never come across in any book or poker publication and I'm extremely happy with the direction poker and my life is taking as a result of Barrys input.

When you take a big step like taking on a coach many things run through your mind, am I ready for this? am I attempting to run before I can walk? will the coaching be worth the outlay?... I needn't have worried! Barry has given my game a structure a "Modus Operandi" he's taught me the correct way to review hands not just how but when and this alone has been a revelation and if this was the only thing I got from him it would have been worthwhile.

Barry works a lot with a persons "temperament" in a very specific way and although we have only skimmed the surface in relation to poker I know its going to be massively beneficial.

TEMPERAMENT    an individual's character, disposition, and tendencies as revealed in his reactions

 One of the reasons I decide to ask Barry to coach me was because I felt that tilt was subtly interfering with my play, I mean I wasn't throwing huge tantrums as a result of a bad beat and I always thought I was handling it well but it was knocking me off my A game and even my B game in a really subtle way.
  

When I deem myself to be a superior player to the guy who is getting the better of me, I find it really hard to take, I know the guys a fish but he keeps chipping into my stack and I find myself becoming increasingly more frustrated until my decision making process is in bits then I find that all gains and profits I've grinded out in the session disappear in one or two moments of madness. I've called this situation my Inner Fish and I'm convinced if I can keep this crazy aspect of myself subdued I'll be profitable in the long run.
So to combat this I'm just focusing on the present moment, just observing my opponents play without reacting emotionally to it nor judging it just simply focusing on my decision making process and mindfully staying serene and in the NOW, if I can stay in this "state" my game will improve and profits will follow.

 Check out Barrys bit of the interweb at http://bazclark.com/
 

"CONFIDENCE"

 What a month March was! the theme for the month was my confidence, I've never been the most confident person in the world, some people who know me may find that really hard to believe considering I used to manage brick and block factories and I'm now working in a sales environment, but its always been something that I've struggled with and this month any confidence I had seemed to flow out of me in every area of my life, I struggled at work I struggled I'n my personal life and eventually I struggled at poker!

The graph above is my play on Titanpoker upto a couple of days ago 8,461 hands logged since03/03/2011 as you can see I got off to a flying start and then had a bit of a "cooler" and then I grinded back up to +433 big blinds then all of a sudden I felt as though any luck I had went out the window with my confidence and before I knew it I was -316bb's a swing of almost 750bb's! and this happened in just 2000 hands FML.

Below is the hand histories for 2 hands that had a big bearing on one of the sessions I played.

Hand 1, I definately shouldnt have checked on the flop and should have bet into him but lacking confidence I fail to put pressure on the villian (who has completely missed the flop) and gave him a free card and the turn gives him the card he needs and he has a set of 7's and I'm dominated and he's away with my dough.

Hand 2, once again I've got AQo, when the flop come down unknown to me the villain has the nut straight and I'm beaten from the offset, however due to me showing weakness hand 1 this time I'm overaggressive and this is just playing into villains hands luckily for me he's a shortstacker and doesn't have the chips at the table to clean me out... phew!

Sad thing is those two hands alone led me to make a loss on the session


 HAND 1
http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $0.10(BB) Replayer Game#2701960261

FirstGold ($8.25)
cashjunk1 ($11.74)
DjinnD ($9.98)
lowrence ($12.20)
marenghi10 ($12.55)

FirstGold posts (SB) $0.05
cashjunk1 posts (BB) $0.10

Dealt to FirstGold Qh  As 
DjinnD raises to $0.40
fold, fold,
FirstGold raises to $1
fold,
DjinnD calls $0.60
FLOP ($2.10) Qc  Kd  8s 
FirstGold checks
DjinnD checks
TURN ($2.10) Qc  Kd  8s  7s 
FirstGold bets $1.57
DjinnD calls $1.57
RIVER ($5.24) Qc  Kd  8s  7s  Qs 
FirstGold bets $2.62
DjinnD raises to $5.60
FirstGold raises to $5.68 (AI)
DjinnD calls $0.08
FirstGold shows Qh  As 
(Pre 45%, Flop 91.2%, Turn 0.0%)

DjinnD shows 7h  7c 
(Pre 55%, Flop 8.8%, Turn 100.0%)

DjinnD wins $15.50

HAND 2
http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $0.10(BB) Replayer Game#2701943375

FirstGold ($6)
superpolesasha ($7.83)
hitpokram ($16.51)
PotatoJunkey ($10.15)
broston ($2.85)

FirstGold posts (SB) $0.05
superpolesasha posts (BB) $0.10

Dealt to FirstGold Qs  Ac 
fold, fold,
broston raises to $0.30
FirstGold raises to $0.70
fold,
broston calls $0.40
FLOP ($1.50) Qd  Jd  As 
FirstGold bets $0.75
broston calls $0.75
TURN ($3) Qd  Jd  As  9d 
FirstGold bets $2.25
broston calls $1.40 (AI)
RIVER ($5.80) Qd  Jd  As  9d  7s 
broston shows Tc  Kd 
(Pre 37%, Flop 82.2%, Turn 90.9%)

FirstGold shows Qs  Ac 
(Pre 63%, Flop 17.8%, Turn 9.1%)

broston wins $5.42

So for the last few days I've hardly played poker at all just trying to clear my head and get some confidence, thankfully I'm feeling better about a lot of things in my life and have been doing a lot of studying, so tomorrow I'm going to play about 1000 hands and lets see how it goes...

stop! stop!! STOP!!!

Well I started tonights session full of enthusiasm and planning on playing 1000 hands at 20nl on Titan poker, up until Friday I had been playing 10nl on friday I had lost half a buy in but felt that overall I had played ok and the losses incurred were before I had adjusted to the gameplay, however tonight I played terrible it was as though my decision making was screwed up!!

I had wanted to carry on playing and to complete my goal of 1000 hands for the night but I was beginning to tilt and get angry, angry with myself more than anything else as all of the profits that I had slowly but surely been building up at 6max 10nl was quickly whizzing out of my grasp at 20nl. one particular hand is probably the worst hand I have ever played....

Titan Poker 6 max 10/20nl

UTG $17.56
Hero MP $18.52 -QdQs
CO $11.93
Villain BT $21.47 -8d9d
SB $21.10
BB $19.80

UTG folds
Hero Raises .40c
CO folds
BT villain calls .40c
SB folds
BB folds


Flop
8h, 9c, 6c,  pot $1.10

Hero bets .82c (donk bets)
Villain raises $3.00            at this point anyone with any sense should have folded but what did I do???
(insane) Hero Reraises to $5.18 (wtf?)
Villain shoves ALL IN      at this point I again should have folded but what do I do???
Hero CALLS and is ALL IN

Turn 7c
River Kd
Villain wins $38.43

I have replayed this hand and I just can't understand what was going on in my head as I really fell in love with my pocket Queens and just could not fold them! this is not like me as I have many times fold Queens, Kings and Aces if I feel I am dominated.

Am I the MUPPET!!??

Lazyitis

I need a good kick up the backside! the main purpose for me creating a blog was to keep me on track and moving forward towards my poker goals, I reasoned that being transparent about my game development would keep me on track, as I would be accountable not only to myself but to the readers who take time out of their days to catch up with what I'm actually doing so thank you Lee, Martin & Krissy for taking an interest and I shall endeavour to keep this blog updated and include some interesting non poker related stuff as well.

As regards my move to Titan I've played about 5.5k hands and and I'm running about +6bb/100 not sure of the exact figure as I'm writing this in my luch break at work so dont have access to Hold'em manager. Titan as been an eye opener as I was lead to believe the ipoker network was full of fish as its linked to a lot of european bookmakers/sportsbooks, however the games seem to have more than their fair share of regulars who are incredibly nitty! looking at the tables in the lobby and the percentage of players seeing the flop averages around 22% so I was expecting to find it a real struggle but so far its not to bad at the micro levels I play 10nl and 20nl. Overall for the year my stats are 30k hands on Absolute, Pokerstars and Titan and I'm running -0.80bb/100 which I'm happy with as I'm still a novice and have much to learn.

I've been reading as much as I can online about successful grinders and its quite obvious that they all have a solid work ethic and I feel thats the main area I need to work on for me to achieve my goal of giving up the day job and earning an income from poker, I always knew it was going to be hard and would require a lot of time and effort but I now know I underestimated just how much time and effort it will take, however I'm sure it will all be worth it in the end as my job is quite soul destroying at times and the daily commute is a pain in the arse as well!

Survival of the Fishiest

Hey Guys I'm back hadn't planned on leaving it this long between updates but due to some personal and work related issues I just didn't have the time to update.

 I have taken the advice of a couple of really good poker players who advised me to find a "soft" poker site with plenty of fish and this has led me to sign up with Titan poker the biggest skin on the ipoker network thats renowned for its fishy players, why did I sign up with Titan and not another ipoker skin? simply the vip program looks outstanding at first glance it seems on a par with pokerstars and they are offering a generous sign up bonus, in fact the first time I logged on after depositing they awarded me a bonus! $16.50 it aint mega bucks but free money is free money :)

One thing I've discovered about poker over the last 18 months or so is how much it can mirror life, poker like nature has its very own food chain. Bottom of the food chain are the fish, new players or bad players who are not sure what they are doing and in some cases why they are doing it! and all the way at the top are the sharks who inhabit the nosebleed games, guys Like Isildur1 on Pokerstars and Phil Ivey & Durrrr on Fulltilt

          These guys are the Titans of the game, anyone with ambition who plays poker aspires to be just like Ivey, Isildur1 and Durrrr. I would love to have just a quarter of the ability of any of them.

                                                            Viktor Blom aka Isildur1

Soft Opposition

So thats the main reason why I've decided to build my bankroll on Titan Poker I will still play a bit on Pokerstars but I should be able to build my bankroll quicker due to Titans fishier players and excellent VIP program, so watch this space, so far I've only played about 1500 hands on Titan @10nl with mixed results but I should know where I stand at the end of the month when I've played about 15000 hands, wish me luck.

.

welcome to zero limit poker

Hi I'm Neil and this is my first post, so i suppose I better introduce myself....

I'm a 46 yr old guy from a little town in the north of England called St Helens, it's stuck between the bigger cities of Liverpool and Manchester so largely goes unnoticed to the outside world unless you drive along the M62 and see the "Dream" sculpture, St helens own Angel of the north. I spent most of my adult life working in the building industry managing brick and block factories but seeing as that's been decimated by the global downswing so I'm currently working in the telecoms industry selling mobile phones to f@ckers who want the most expensive blackberry or iphone they can get their grubby little hands on, but only want to pay the price of two bean tins attached with a piece of string!

This blog is mainly going to be about my poker exploits but I have been known to ramble on a bit so I may even touch on subjects as diverse as health & fitness, zen buddhism and the political landscape... what do they say? never talk about politics and religion? well it's my f@ckin blog so I'll post what I like!.

I discovered poker about 2 years ago, obviously I knew it existed but it just hadn't attracted my attention, I was busy working, backing horses, going to rugby league matches and watching ballet (yeah you read that right) One night I happened to come across the poker channel on sky tv and started to watch and suddenly found myself intrigued, I've always been one for trying to make a fast buck so thought "I can do that!" then suddenly realised I didn't have a bloody clue how to play, so being a bit of a bookworm I ordered "Play Poker like the Pro's" by Phil Hellmuth (stop sniggering) and digested it. I deposited $200 on PKR and and another $200 on Carbon poker and started to play full ring cash games nlhe .10/.25 and it was a rollercoaster winning one day then losing what I'd won the next day so I was kind of breaking even but to me my first impression of playing poker was of 9 fella's sat around a virtual table in cyberspace swapping money!

I continued swapping money with the other regs on PKR for a few weeks and then the opportunity came up to go on a "dirty weekend" with a stunning ex girlfriend of mine and I withdrew my entire $400 bankroll to blow on a wild weekend... the weekend was awesome but poor old Destruval didn't have a bankroll anymore so poker fell by the wayside for about 8 months mainly due to some personal problems I was experiencing. I wanted to hit the felt and improve myself as a player but I was in a dark place at the time and decided to abstain from the tables, I just knew I would tilt badly and probably wipe out my entire finances so I spent the time reading about poker mainly how to play sit and goes and eventually started playing $6 sng's on Party, UB, Full Tilt, Paddy Power, bwin and just about every othersite you can name. I'd have some success and then go on a downswing, blame the site and withdraw what was left and deposit in the next site hoping this next site would be my "lucky site" as I didn't have a clue about variance.

What am I trying to achieve by writing this blog? I want to be succesful at playing poker, my idea of success may differ to anothers but basically I have worked for "The Man" since I was 16 and I see online poker as a means of becoming self sufficient, independent and free, if I can spend the remaining days of my life doing something I enjoy while interacting with like minded individuals I'll be extremely happy so this blog is a record of my efforts to achieve personal freedom through poker and it can be a meeting point for others who may be on the same journey as me where we can share experiences and enjoy the ride.

Tough Month Poker & Life

Just finished my last session of February it was a short session only 378 hands of .5/.10 6 max nlhe it took 68 minutes 4 tabling as I just wanted to achieve my silverstar status on Pokerstars and then get an early night as I hadn't slept the night before worrying about my Dad who is in hospital at the moment, he has leukemia and also just before Christmas had a heart attack, so he has been in the wars of late but he's one tough cookie and he is ever cheerful and just gets on with it, unlike me I'm a whining bastard!.

Tonights session was Ace because I ran like God, making 237BB's in just 378 hands I even was dealt pocket aces half a dozen times and everytime it seemed like it was just either folded round to me uncalled or as soon as I raised everybody folded, just felt as though I wasn't getting any benefit. I was hoping to gets some stats and graphs on this post but as I'm a noob I aint a clue what I'm doing so they will just have to wait until I fathom that one out.

Yesterday I had to come off after missclicking the fold button instead of calling an all in when I had a T to A straight FML!! it sent me on the worst tilt I can remember as I was shaking with temper (almost) so fuckin annoyed with myself... Talking of tilt does anyone have that really strange feeling that comes over them when you are running hot and you feel like omg whats occuring!? I feel a bit panicky, its fear of loss I think fear that all of a sudden this amazing session is going to end and the Poker Gods are gonna trip me up while the rest of the Gambling Gods look on pissing themselves laughing!

Decided to search myself on poker-edge.com and they currently rate me as a SHARK!! think they may have made a mistake I think I'm more of a dogfish than a fucking shark but I'll take that I must be on the right track, I just need to keep playing consciously, keep reviewing hands, reading and watching videos and keeping my mind on my poker goals.

 I came across this great quote from actor Will Smith....

“The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is that I’m not afraid to DIE on a treadmill. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, but if we get on a treadmill together, there are two things:
1- You’re getting off first
OR
2- I’m gonna DIE
It’s really that simple”

and thats the attitude I want to bring to my poker career.