Relaunching my blog!

After almost half a year, I'll be back to blogging about my life as a poker player real soon!

Blog Has Moved!

Oops. Forgot to post back here with a link to my new blog, I'm now blogging for RakebackDollars.com so check out their rakeback offers!

http://blog.rakebackdollars.com/author/gotwai/

Final Blog Post

So I've been meaning to update this blog with my Las Vegas trip report, and also the end of month review for July. As soon as I got back from Vegas around mid last month, I had the uphill task of hitting 50k vpps before the month end, in order to keep my SuperNova Elite status.

Well, I'm still a SuperNova Elite, but I'm massively behind on the grind. Right now I have around 372k,and just under 5 months left to get 1 million - who said the SNE grind was easy?

After having a great time in Vegas, where I basically played zero poker, adjusting to life back here has been...difficult. Good news though, we're almost at the stage where contracts are exchanged on the flat, so hopefully we'll get the keys and move in by the end of August, that would be nice! So in exchange for a good amount of cash, we'll finally have our freedom, but in the process we'll also be flat broke. lol.

Poker went well last month, and whilst I did book another five figure month, I'm gonna break a trend here and not bother posting my results. I'm not exactly too happy with the direction that I took with this blog, basically posting just graphs and being completely results orientated, and whilst I think I've proved to myself and everyone else, that I have succeeded in making a living out of playing poker, I'd rather move in the direction of writing stuff that can help others - both poker and non-poker topics (life, travel and food are good examples!).

So this will be the final post in this blog. However, I'll be soon blogging on another site where a few poker mates have setup which will offer bonuses, rakeback and coaching packages. That'll be my fresh start, and I'll probably put up my Vegas Trip report on there too. Once I've got everything setup, I'll post the link here so everyone can keep upto date with my poker journey.

bfn!

June Review

Hands played: 75915
Table hours:  93
Total profits for June: $14,918
2011 half year profits: $66,004

Commentary to follow when I can be bothered! :)

House/flat Hunting Time!

And its about damn time! After working so hard last year, and to a lesser extent this year, we're finally in a financial position to start looking at flats/houses to buy. There seems to be quite a few properties that meet our requirements and budget in the area we're targeting, so I'm hopeful we'll be making offers real soon, with a target of moving out of here by October, but definitely before the year's end. We're pretty much fed up with living above the restaurant, for various reasons, some of which I've blogged about before. I'll be so glad when we're finally able to say goodbye once and for all to this place.

Pokerwise, I had a rocky start to the month but thats just variance, and its expected to happen from time to time. I have various reports/methods that I use to check for this in Holdem Manager, which helps alot when reviewing my 'bad' sessions to determine whether I just ran into the top of peoples' ranges and got coolered alot, or if my losses were due to mainly poor play. Overall though I'm doing good this month, and just today hit the 30% milestone of my SNE chase. Even though I'm way behind, I'm no stranger to hard work. After my Vegas holiday, I'll be back into serious grind mode. 

So yeah, just a short mid-month update to tell you guys that hard work does eventually pay off!

May Review

Hands: 73,137
Table Hours: 93
Total Profit: $19,387


Despite running bad for most of the month and falling just short of the 20k mark, I'm quite happy with the way I handled the bad side of variance for the past few weeks. As you can see in my graph above, the orange line shows my expected profit for the month, and the dark green line is what I did actually win. So had I not been run bad, I would be up 22k for the month. Thats a great indication though that my poker game has improved immensely since I started working with Deilor, and also a reflection of the improvements I've made to my mental game, thanks to Jared and Barry's book.

My goal at the start of this month was to achieve 100k vpps, and try to catch up to SNE pace. I didn't achieve that goal - instead I've accumulated only half that amount - 50k vpps, enough to maintain SNE for another month. Whilst 93 hours playing time in a month isn't something to brag about, I can say that I've spent maybe 30-40 hours in addition to this working on my mental game and reviewing my actual poker game.

For the month of June, I'm setting my goal to achieve 100k vpps, just short of 400k before the half year mark, and my 10 day holiday to Vegas. I tried making enquiries to cancel my flights, but the refund I was offered was so ridiculous to the point that I might as well just fly out there and enjoy it. Also, I've been told that the potential strike by Virgin Atlantic pilots has been resolved, not that it matters anyway since I've decided not to play in the Main Event. Hotel is booked, we're staying at the Monte Carlo on the strip so it really is going to be a break away from the grind that is online poker.

To finish on a good note, this month I also took my first steps into the world of high stakes poker - 5/10. If I look back at this time last year, I wouldn't have even thought I'd be playing at this level right now. My plan for June is to table select across from 1-2 all the way upto 5-10, and multi-table 10-12 tables. The last thing I want to do is fall back into old and bad habits, so I'll also be spending alot of time reviewing my sessions with Deilor, and working through Jared & Barry's Mental book.

For a change, I'm actually looking forward to June. Beginning of July is our Vegas trip. End of July is Raymond Lam's concert in HK...will we be attending? :D

Turning a corner

Where to start? Well, despite running bad all this month on and off the tables, this month I feel I've turned a corner in my poker career. Firstly, I'd like to thank Deilor for helping me identify the biggest mental leaks in my poker thinking. Secondly, I'd like to thank Jared Tendler and Barry Carter for writing 'The Mental Game of Poker' book. A book of poker truths and revelations which I now refer to as my bible.

I've had a few sessions with Deilor in the past couple of months, but it was only after our 3rd session, and after I'd replayed that session several times over, that it really sunk in - I was playing poker like a fish. I had so many mental game issues that prevented me from thinking clearly, and making logical decisions. I always took it for granted that I'd think logically, having a Masters degree in Physics and a maths background. But as Jared and Barry pointed out in their book, when your emotions are out of control, it turns off the higher functions of the brain - the part where logical thinking occurs.

Whilst I'm not going to go in exact detail about my mental game leaks in this blog, they're all covered in detail in  the book. I've read the book once over, and now I'm going through it again much more thoroughly, using it as a guidebook in helping me resolve the mental game flaws that Deilor found. Up until this month, these flaws had remained unresolved, and in some cases, I wasn't even consciously aware of.

Its with confidence that I can say these flaws have frustrated me and hindered my progress in the past, and that I'm so relieved and thankful that I'm fully aware of them. Fixing them is going to take a lot of work, but just knowing what to fix is a big step forward and onto the path on achieving resolution. So far this month, I'm seeing the positive effects of working on my mental game is having on my poker game, which I'll report on once the month is over.

Off the tables is a different matter, but I'm trying to apply Jared's teachings not just to poker, but to all parts of life, especially when it gets frustrating. 

Had I known that Virgin Atlantic pilots were balloting for strikes, had I known that Black Friday would have occurred, had I known that PokerStars were going to delay their WSOP announcement a few days prior to the series starting, then offer no incentives (as per previous years) for playing in the WSOP, I would have taken the option of flying to the Caribbean to play in the PCA at the beginning of the year. 

But I didn't know all this. So now I'm in an unfortunate situation with 2 direct flights booked in July, having booked early and at a ridiculous price, with PokerStars now not offering their SuperNova Elite VIPs guest suites at the Palms. There'll also be no VIP party, no 50,000 VPP incentive, no goodybag, no free PCA package if you cash in the Main Event, and absolutely no PokerStars representation at the WSOP this year.

That'll teach me to book so early, not entirely sure if I can cancel my flights and get a full refund, not sure if the strike is going to go ahead, going to Vegas at peak season and being amongst all the top poker pros but not playing the Main Event. Oh and having to book my own accommodation. Thanks PokerStars, I really feel like a VIP. I've decided pretty much to not play the Main Event now that they've withdrawn all the extras, and since they've given me the 10k buyin in cash I'd rather save that towards buying our house later this year, than waste it on a high-variance tournament.

I'm really not looking forward to going to Vegas in just over a month's time. What's the point since I'm not going there to play in the WSOP? I won't even be able to play online whilst I'm there, since its been banned. If I could have my choice right now, I'd refund those ridiculously priced tickets and book a week away to the Maldives or the Caribbean, and/or go to Hong Kong and chill out, go shopping, eat nice food and get front row seats at Raymond Lam's concert. And perhaps pop over to Macau too, to remember only the good times we had over there back in 2009.