WBCOOP 2013

As I’m sure many of you are aware the World Blogger Championship of Online Poker is fast approaching on Pokerstars and I intend on competing and hopefully winning some money!  The 31 event schedule is kicking off on the 1^st of March and is running until March 11^th when the $5000 Main Event closes the series.  The best blogger of 2013 will win $5000 and we’re asked to write our greatest moment on pokerstars!

I’ve had many great memories on Pokerstars, from my first mtt win (a $1 FLHE event) to when I was grinding 25nl full ring and having occasional epic days making more at the than I ever would with a student job.

However, my single greatest moment on Stars was when I satellited into the 6th Anniversary Sunday Million. I didn’t cash, in fact I nearly bubbled it, but the way I got in had me on the edge of my seat.  In the last minute super satellite I was down to 1bb on the bubble and got it in with KK and held.  We waited ages for every hand to finish as it was hand for hand and suddenly I was propelled into the biggest mtt I’d ever played!

The WBCOOP is a great chance for many aspiring poker bloggers to get their name out there and win some great money at the same time, not to mention take part in a prestigious online poker tournament series that you can make your name in as a player, not just a blogger!  Previous winners such as Pokerstars Team Online player Daleroxxu have gone on to do great things, maybe you could be the next one in line. 

There are a huge range of events including all of your favourite games in various formats so there is no excuse not to get involved and get the competitive juices flowing, every tournament offers SCOOP tickets and everyone who cashes can get into the $5000 main event where serious money is up for grabs.  For those who really do well and cash in multiple events there is the WBCOOP leaderboard that is offering even more in prizes!

All the best to my fellow poker bloggers, see you on the tables!

Focus At The Tables

One aspect of my online game that I'm making it my mission to work on over the next month or so is my focus while playing.  Since I stopped mass multitabling (which I did to give me more time to think about my plays) I find myself making decisions in the same amount of time as before, then clicking over to 2p2 or watching TV, making the whole exercise pointless.

To combat this every time I fire up a session for the next month I'm going to close everything else, turn my phone off and just play.  I think at the start my attention will wander so sessions will probably only be 30 minutes or so but hopefully they will be more intense and productive.  I want to take better notes and to learn from action that I'm not involved in.

This comes directly from my reading of Treat Your Poker Like a Business where Dusty and Jared talk about focus at the table, having read most of this book there are many aspects of my game that I realise I need to work on.  This is the first!


In other news I should probably fill you in on how the mixed game challenge is going, more specifically at the moment 2-7 Triple Draw:
As you can see, less than stellar results at the moment but I'm going to turn it round.  I've been playing more since these numbers but I'll update here less frequently than my PGC thread.

2-7 TD --- 1972 Hands --- $23.69 Profit --- Currently Playing .1/.2
2-7 TD --- 750 Hands --- $8.83 Loss --- Currently Playing .25/.5
Razz --- 16 Hands --- $0.55 Loss --- Currently Playing .04/.08
Stud Hi --- 80 Hands --- $1.62 Loss --- Currently Playing .04/.08
Stud 8 --- 0 Hands --- $0 Profit --- Currently Playing .04/.08
FLHE --- 952 Hands --- $2.95 Loss --- Currently Playing .1/.2

Total Cash Mixed Game --- c. 3770 Hands --- $9.74 profit

As you can see, less than stellar results at the moment but I'm going to turn it round.  I've been playing more since these numbers but I'll update here less frequently than my PGC thread.  Back to the tables, hopefully with more focus!

A Honest Reflection

I started this blog a bit over a year ago and I wanted to have a look at the last 12 months and look forward to the coming year.  I haven't worked nearly as hard as I've wanted to at poker, I put my hands up to that right now, I don't deserve to be any better than I am now.  In other ways I think I've had a good 12 months; I'm on for a 2:1 at university, my skiing has improved and I guess most importantly of all, I spent 2 months on a very competitive work placement in London and have been offered that chance to go back when I graduate.

I try to keep this blog mainly about poker but as everything in life tends to affect everything else, going forward more structure and a better handle on the rest of my life will certainly help with poker.  Since I've finished this work placement and had the feedback I did, its given me a fresh drive to be the very best at everything I do, including poker.  Over the next 12 months I have three goals and they are going to be the be all and end all of every waking moment of my life, I have one year left of university which is really the last chance I have to set my life in the direction I want it to go in.

1) Graduate with a 2:1 degree or better

This should be for obvious reasons, the better I do here, the better things are in the future.  I feel this is well within my grasp and I will be incredibly disappointed if I fail.

2) Get into the best shape I've been in since leaving school

I intend on competing at the UK Ski-cross championships next April, in order to have a chance of even making it I'm going to have to get back into that shape I was when I was training every day.  This is something I've wanted for the last year or so.  I'll probably outline my plans in a separate blog post.

3) Poker

My desire to be the best possible poker player is at an all time high.  I still don't want to be a professional, but that doesn't mean I can't aspire to be good enough to be one.  While I've been working in London I've started learning mixed games, I've had a PGC thread where I update my progress daily:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/174/poker-goals-challenges/loldonakmentzs-mixed-game-min-bet-mission-1227664/

Its been going pretty good so far, I've bought a DC subscription and am making my way through learning 2-7 TD.  The aim at the moment is to be a competent mixed game cash player,  from what I've heard the edges are bigger at micro mixed cash than NLHE so hopefully I can build a bankroll there and then work on my NLHE game without having to worry about depleting my BR.  I realistically see myself having 12 months to sort out my poker game, once I get into a full time job my time that I'm going to be able to put in will go right down.

These next 12 months I have to focus and work hard; I will succeed.

Back on the felt!

Well, I'm back from France, last trip over there this winter and the end of a great season!  Snow has been awesome even if the weather at times was a bit below par.  Anyway, this has meant I haven't played a hand of poker yet this month so volume isn't going to be too impressive but I'm going to try do the best I can.

Here are March's results anyway:

Cash:

Tournaments:

Overall: +$53 before bonuses

Crappy month and now really keen to make amends in the second half of April.  I've decided to make very different goals to my ones before.

1) No bitching, constructive criticism of my own play only.

2) No checking of overall monthly results until the end!

3) Participate daily in the uNL forums

Measurable results aren't too important at the moment as I have a lot of revision to do for exams etc so working on this kind of stuff is achievable a the moment. 

Mid March Update

Hey guys, I'm sorry I've been quite for a long time but I've had a lot going on recently that has kept me pretty busy from blogging so I'll fill you in.  First I better review how poker has been for me this year.  I am making a big push in 2012 to make 50nl by the end of the year, not just being rolled for it but being a competent winning player at that level and being ready to make a run for Supernova in 2013.  I'll be honest and say I haven't had a great start to the year and am running pretty badly which I'm sure is affecting my play.  I'm not saying if I was running good I'd be crushing but it has affected my confidence a lot and I'm sure that has a subconscious effect on my play.  I've also been breaking my rules on game selection and been playing far too many mtts, including the MicroMillions.  These are not my main game and although I'd love to play them once I reach 50nl and am happily making profit, for now I think I should really be focusing on cash games and using my poker time for that, this unfortunately includes my homegames that I've been playing.  These tournaments are small buyin but they do have a negative effect on my play as when I run bad in mtts, I feel it affects my cash play.  I've decided to take a couple of days off from playing altogether and have withdrawn a little bit of money from my account and have bought some video games to keep me occupied and am combining that with some studying to get my drive to play back.

Year to date cash:

Year to date mtts:

I've started a 6max skype group with players from 2p2 and am now more driven than ever to achieve my year end goal, I feel 2013 is going to be a good year so I want to be prepared for it.  With all these cut backs I've been making I've given myself a new reward, I'm going to save my fpps that I earn from grinding and use them to take shots at the Sunday Million whenever I have enough, around 13k.  I should be able to play ever 2 or 3 months by my calculations so that should give me my tournament hit in one big go!

One thing happening away form the tables right now is a bit of a health worry, I won't go into details as it could well end up as nothing but I'm being referred around circuits of specialists who are trying to figure out what is wrong with me and what they can do about it.  I'll update on this when I know more as I don't want to go into it without knowing much myself but if I'm honest, I'm so -ev in poker right now I'm sure I'm going to be +ev life.  I might even use my one time....

All the best on the tables

Jake

February Review, March Goals

Well February has certainly been an interesting month for me!  I did not have a great start on the cash tables and it got steadily worse, however, I really feel I worked on my game well and have come along a lot this month.  However, the main problem with this month is I spilt a pint of water over my laptop like a pro and therefore have had to reimport all of my hands form this year so far!  I managed to get January to how it was supposed to be but February looks a bit funny.  I've decided not to wate too much time on trying to fix it and get on with the year but here are the results from February!

Cash: -$118

 MTTs: $162

Bonuses: $20

Total: $64

Pretty poor month to be honest but I've plugged a lot of bad leaks in my cash game that I hope will make a big difference.  Secondly, and I appreciate that this gets said a lot, but I ran horrifically on the cash tables this month.  AIEV only tells part of the story, there were a lot of coolers it felt this month and they just caused me to play sub par poker which resulted in more losses.  I want to stop relying on mtts to bring me into the positive every month.

The problems with my laptop at the end of the month lead to me failing almost all of my goals but I'm back up and running now so despite having missed the first few days I'm ready to take on this month head on!

March Goals:

• 30k hands with profit at 16nl 6max
• Top 10 in homegame leaderboard
• At least 1 $100+ figure mtt score

I'm not going to add too many more this month as I have 3 essays due in over March and I don't think I'll get much else done but here we go!

Good luck on the tables!

Refocus

At times in our lives we lose focus and try too hard to achieve our goals.  In my rush to build my bankroll and move up both my skill level and stake I've been trying to do too much and therefore have been losing money.  To remedy this I've cut my number of tables I play to 4 and am making a concerted effort to improve my game.  Instead of reading "Treat Your Poker Like a Business" I've gone back to watching poker videos from Leggo Poker and rebuilding my game, going back to basics and not trying anything too fancy, I'm just gonna build my roll and work on my fundamentals.  I don't think I need to be getting too creative at these stakes and I've been trying too hard to win every pot and play a style that I think is good, but in reality, my skill level cannot back up.

So with the cut down of tables and change of studying I guess I should reevaluate my goals.  My goal for the number of hands is being cut from 30k to 25k and I want to finish the video series I am watching now by the end of the month instead of getting the book read.

When you're down, you gotta get back up!

Bit over dramatic for poker, but this was how I felt with competitive sport and that went ok, now I need to apply myself to poker just as hard!