Monday 25 January 2010

Update coming in ~1wk.....can't divulge atm....

Saturday 2 January 2010

HNY/ Year Review / Future

I guess first start off with the P+L for the year for online

Poker: +£2196.25

Sports Betting: +£29.35.

The only reason sports betting is in profit is because of a free £100 sign up bonus thingy earlier in the year. If not i'd be stuck - small leak i guess!

Right, well, a year in review:


High points:

1. Without doubt, winning the UK Student Poker Championship. Was an awesome night, saw my Vegas flights paid for and is something i'll always be able to remember!

2. Vegas. Too much to list....see the vegas blog for details!

3. London with the gf - i highly reccomend going to the Jazz Cafe just before Christmas to see their concert if you want to be on a buzz for the next few days.

4. Sweden - beautiful country, was great to start seeing Europe and will go back again one day.

5. Madrid - basically turned into a weekend of poker with a tiny bit of shopping in between. Classic jeal getting shat on moment after he gets a pot taken away from him 3 hands after the pot had happened. Spain is rigged imo

6. Warwickshire (again with gf) - the view when you're having dinner from the saxon mill inbetween stratford and warwick made the holiday.

7. Running / saying goodbye to the poker society. Given it went from 10-12 people to two sell out tournaments, sponsorships, online tournaments etc in the 18 months Me and Joe ran it, i can safely say i'm pretty pleased.

8. In my 2nd Blog of January (my first big post on the UEA blog), I said this:

Got the postgrad day @ uea coming up in a week or so, am gunning for the full scholarship for either the exp. econ or industrial econ courses, gl me


Only just read it back to see if I had set any goals or anything. Looks like I achieved them. In 2008 I made ~ £1.5k online, so have beaten that too. Woot!

9. Graduation - was pretty cool tbh.

10. Staking - I've run great this year with percentages. Just waiting for the $30k sunday million scoop...

Bad Points:

1. Never going to in and out burger in vegas - what were we thinking.

2. Losing to an old man (admittedly a reg) HU in the 2nd tournament we played in vegas, when hu is what im supposed to be good at.

3. Losing that flip when mid stacked with 38 left in the sunday million. The whole house were subdued for a good 15 mins.

4. Bubbling pretty much every sattellite to any $200+ comp i've played in has sucked.

5. Learning I can't swim (!)

6. Not been running properly since easter.


As for the past 3 months (you'll notice a lack of many posts) I've basically just been working really hard, pulling through the MSc. It's tough but I think I'm over the preverbial mountain for now.
Poker wise it's been few and far between as far as a decent session goes. However, once I'd finished for Christmas it turned out I had treated myself a bit too much over the semester and needed a few pounds, so deposited $300 onto an Ongame skin that were offering me effectively 70-80% RB and though i'd give the doubleornothing sngs a crack. I didnt play many at first, spent most of the time reading one MONSTER strategy thread on 2p2, and once I felt I had the basics then i'd give them a go.

Results so far:



Still a small sample size imo, but relatively steady. Don't think I've ran particularly good or bad really, had a few spots where I lost a few in a row thanks to losing 4-5 80:20s etc but thats to be expected. Definately sucked out a few times myself so all in all is fine!
I think unless you specialise in these you should just avoid them, especially on ongame where the rake is 10%. At $50+ on stars there's all sorts of metagame going on between the regs ffs! It's not really poker, to me I view it as a big game tree (lets get some 2nd year economics in whilst we're here) - given most spots are against unknowns, you treat every situation like you're in a vaccuum and play optimal strategy. Example: if folded to in the CO when blinds are 100-200, look at your stack, the button, sb, bb stacks, how many are left, your holding vs their calling range based on the fold equity you have against an unknown (sometimes you do get spew called, but often K-hi and Qxs are ahead of this range so is not a problem) and decide whether to shove or fold. Of course when you're playing 6-7 tables and have a 15 sec timebank this can be tricky which is why knowing the strategy pretty much inside out is essential, but all in all i think i have the hang of it. Raked nearly $800 too, take off my small losses at MTTs (note to self, just stake people in future) and I'm up about $700 or so in 3 weeks. Will be withdrawing this time next week as its back to studying, will leave me a nice little fund to pay for what I have planned over the coming semester.

Random things I liked in 2009:

Brand New- Daisy (Going to see them at wembley end of this month, citing)
Maceo Parker - Life on Planet Groove
Black Eyed Peas - I've Got a Feeling - vegas baby!

Away We Go! - fav film of the year

Getting asked if I was in Vegas for the Magic the Gathering convention whilst in Tiffanys buying hannahs xmas present. fml.

Owe waking up with an iPhone and not knowing where or who it came from.

Spotify.

Right then:


3 Month Goals:


Clear the rest of this bonus and get back to studying- will buy %s in people if i think its profitable itlr, asides from that I don't have too much time to play.

Average 60% this semester. If I can do this I'll have a good shot at getting 65%+ at the end of the MSc (nb, 50% = pass, 70% = distinction). Going to be bloody hard given one Economic unit is apparently very tough, but we will see. Since I did OK last semester I don't see why I can't get back on the horse and see this one through well.

Go to the gym once a week and play badminton/tt/tennis/squash or w/e once a week. Will see if Owe/Jeal or whoever is up for this. Good physical wellbeing = good psychological wellbeing, the former being something i've let slip over the past 4-5 months.

12 Month Goals:

Well, this is much harder. I have two options- stay on and attempt the PhD, or look to put a foot on the career ladder. I have applied/am in the midst of applying for a couple of different places (I will update this with any progress as and when), and am really looking forward to a meeting I have with a friend's sister in a week or so. Her background is in Economics and she is now high up in a Fortune 1000 firm, I imagine it will be of great benefit to me to hear her story and get her advice.

So, goals...

Either have a job or be studying for my PhD - dependent on what I think I'll be happiest doing.

Obtain over 65% in the MSc (at least 60.)

Visit one new country

Be happy with my fitness/weight etc

Have a year half as good as the one just gone....!


All in all, its been the best year on record for me for a multitude of reasons, from academia to women to big sessions grinding at jeals listening to celine dion and meatloaf(!) - I count myself very lucky.


Wishing everyone all the best for the next decade, for all of those graduating this year gl and all those taking a shot at professional poker or looking for a career I hope you find whatever makes you happy- its more important than you think.

Until next time,

Adam

Friday 23 October 2009

Update on Progress

Hello to All..

So far after 3 out of 4 weeks I have played 38 out of 150 SNGs.. My ROI is around 0, with variance sometimes peaking it above and sometimes below. The conclusions I have drawn from my game:

1. I am not kept interested in the game when I am playing like this, it takes out the excitement, and in the words of Matt Damon in Rounders "Your whole life becomes a f'ing grind". I have always preferred live play and this "challenge" has furthered this. After the past 10 days or so I have found it hard to find the motivation to play, which is obviously not helpful.

2. The lack of motivation has impacted on my ROI - my performance was much better when I was enthusiastic about the challenge, 4 tabling 1 game a couple of times a week is -EV and I believe is responsible for the ROI position.

3. I have room for improvement at this level, however am better than average at this level, and when playing enthusiastically would definately be in a profitable position.

4. I need to work on heads up play more and pay attention to the blind levels when I go heads up.

5. Defensive play was getting me a reasonable cash ratio, but the benefits of getting 2nd/ 1st over 3rd meant that the way I was playing was definately sub optimum, with alot of my 3rds involving being on <5BBs!

Going Forward....

I am going to have a dip in a wider variety of games over the next months and play some MTTs which up till now I have done very little of online.

I am going to be playing on 2 sites: Full Tilt Poker and PKR. PKR has always provided a useful distraction from the grind, and was good val. for me.

I will still continue with the challenge on FTP, but will be playing other games on there aswell. Using PokerOffice I can still track my stats and info for the $5 SNGs so will be able to report on them, obviously the target of 150 games has gone out of the window as I have completed less than a 3rd of them so faw, but n.mind..

GN.

Saturday 17 October 2009

Is that my AK?




AK on 3 out of 4 tables at the same time.. run good?!


Played 4 last night after poker soc..

came 5th, 4th, and 2nd twice.. the bubble should have been a 3rd AKs (again) vs A7o - AIPF he rivers a 9 high straight!

GG. :D

Tuesday 13 October 2009

Adam update (probably long.)

Hey

Haven't posted in a long time, this is mainly due to the work from my MSc taking over my life! However I have decided I deserve 1/2 hour break today and so am going to spew some thoughts here.

Poker

Poker has been going suprisingly well given the little time I have. The b2b account where Owe staked me for a bit ended with around $900 prof from $20 hu sngs which was cool. However, since I have the scholarship and the profit doesn't matter so much, we decdied to switch it to stars and take some shots at $30-$50 tournaments, inc sats to the PCA, and see what happens.
Before this I deposited $100 on stars one saturday and two saturdays later cashed out $600 which was handy, although I did have one sick tournament hand when deep in a 1500 runner $10r:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4781682

FML.

That put me 12th for $360, i think first was around 7-8k. Top 7 paid $1k+.

Another deep run was the 10k gtd $30 freeze on saturday morning, gets around 700-800 runners and is a decent structure. Have gone deep in it a couple of times, this time made the final table but came in 9/9.

Had 75k at 3k/6k/600 and had J6o in the bb...utg and utg+1 (800k stack) limp, co limps and sb makes up, i check.
Flop Jc 8x 6c. Checked to co who leads for 20k, sb fold, i ship, utg fold, utg+1 CALL, co tank folds. Utg has 88 and hits quads on the river. 8th for $500, winner gets 4.1k. sigh.

Well, at least I keep going deep i guess, one day will hit a decent score.

As for my housemates, we played the $500 GSOP event on ongame on sunday. Jeal played, I think Owe had around 40% then 60% was split between 6-7 of us (I had 10%)

Got deep, i think 160 cashed, we were short with 60 left, blinds 1k 2k + 200a, mp makes it 5k, we have 22k and AQo in the cutoff. Villain has raised to 5k hand before and folded to a lp ship. We shipped, i still think its the right ship although in this case he had AA obv and we bust 55th for $2.2k. GG.

Owe has been playing 90% $100 hu sngs, with the occasional $50 and the occasional $200. Has been doing pretty good, playing solid. Recently have seen him take some sick beats tho, lots of 2 and 3 outers, but thats just the nature of the beast.

Jeal gets sucked out on for fun it seems, I swear his account is cursed! The amount of worstcardinthedeck rivers he got yesterday was insane!

As for random poker soc members, from memory:

Wakes goes semi deep in the stars 100k ($10 buyin) for $150. Over summer shipped a $5r on ipoker for $3k and 2 wks ago shipped a 2 DOLLAR FREEZE with 7,000 runners on stars for $3k!
Tidey 8th/7000 in an $8r for 1.5k, consistent 7% roi over a ton of games playing $20-$30 hu sngs

Poker soc graduate and fan favourite joe boyle has also been crushing low stakes sngs on his days off, his results from the last month are impressive:

Moneybags401 155 $4 $11 20% $587

MBN.

Gl to mark in his challenge!

Non committee members:

Seb fairhurt posted a sick screen shot of him having 14 buyins on a .02 .05 table on stars, pretty crazy!

I think thats all...

As far as non-poker goes, my MSc is tough. I have a gruelling reading/working schedule, so in between that, lectures, sleeping and seeing hannah i have little free time. However i do take saturday afternoons off. :)

Finally did something I like today in economic theory (game theory) and it made me realise how much of it could be used by people who don't know it in poker. In my next post i might focus on an introduction to game theory and its relation to heads up nl instead of posting about myself! The correlation between some experimental economic evidence i was reading in a paper yesterday and cognitive thought/ timing tells online was pretty sick too. But thats for another time.

This week i have stuff all day today, wednesday, thursday and friday so probably won't be playing until poker soc on friday night. Maybe friday afternoon if I'm on top of all my work...

Gl all, ty for reading!

-Adam

Sunday 11 October 2009

Weekend..

Didnt play at all yesterday (saturday) and have only had a chance to get a couple in today. I am now 8.88 up, which isnt much, but does equal ~7% ROI, and if you include the $2 SNG cash which actually got this thing started I am up 13.89 = 10.43% ROI...


First game I bubbled, I am down to approx 8BB, and ship UTG with 3.3 Get called by KQo (UTG+1) and by SB (who folds on flop) Board= Q 7 2 2 10

Good bye.. :D

Second game i actually end up chopping with chip lead again, for another win, taking about $19.. Sadly I wasnt making a copy of HHs at the time, so I dont have any interesting hands to post, will just copy some in from Poker Office..

BIG WIN (not a skillful hand, but was the biggest monetary win for the game, and got it down to 3 players, I would like comments on the call, I am thinking it is probably -EV in that spot, particularly being a bubble, but I made it in this spot as he had very aggressive preflop, and I think with the most premium hands you dont shove for ~25BB and 10*Raise)

Full Tilt Poker Game #15262782981: $5 + $0.50 Sit & Go (111918770), Table 1 - 80/160 - No Limit Hold'em - 6:57:09 ET - 2009/10/11
Seat 2: bes1986 (3,170)
Seat 5: UEA PokerStar (3,970)
Seat 8: Blondin8886 (2,735)
Seat 9: Strangercz (3,625)
Strangercz posts the small blind of 80
bes1986 posts the big blind of 160
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to UEA PokerStar [8d 8c]
UEA PokerStar raises to 320
Blondin8886 folds
Strangercz raises to 3,625, and is all in
bes1986 folds
UEA PokerStar calls 3,305
Strangercz shows [Ac Ks]
UEA PokerStar shows [8d 8c]
*** FLOP *** [8s Jc 5h]
*** TURN *** [8s Jc 5h] [Kh]
*** RIVER *** [8s Jc 5h Kh] [Qc]
Strangercz shows a pair of Kings
UEA PokerStar shows three of a kind, Eights
UEA PokerStar wins the pot (7,410) with three of a kind, Eights
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 7,410 | Rake 0
Board: [8s Jc 5h Kh Qc]
Seat 2: bes1986 (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: UEA PokerStar showed [8d 8c] and won (7,410) with three of a kind, Eights
Seat 8: Blondin8886 (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: Strangercz (small blind) showed [Ac Ks] and lost with a pair of Kings

BIG LOSS (Bad call on the flop fml.)

Full Tilt Poker Game #15262663867: $5 + $0.50 Sit & Go (111918770), Table 1 - 50/100 - No Limit Hold'em - 6:44:48 ET - 2009/10/11
Seat 2: bes1986 (6,160)
Seat 4: kiki1809 (1,895)
Seat 5: UEA PokerStar (2,905)
Seat 8: Blondin8886 (930)
Seat 9: Strangercz (1,610)
Strangercz posts the small blind of 50
bes1986 posts the big blind of 100
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to UEA PokerStar [Ac Tc]
kiki1809 folds
UEA PokerStar calls 100
Blondin8886 raises to 250
Strangercz folds
bes1986 has 15 seconds left to act
bes1986 folds
UEA PokerStar calls 150
*** FLOP *** [2c 6s 4d]
UEA PokerStar bets 200
Blondin8886 raises to 680, and is all in
UEA PokerStar calls 480
Blondin8886 shows [9s 9d]
UEA PokerStar shows [Ac Tc]
*** TURN *** [2c 6s 4d] [2d]
*** RIVER *** [2c 6s 4d 2d] [3d]
Blondin8886 shows two pair, Nines and Twos
UEA PokerStar shows a pair of Twos
Blondin8886 wins the pot (2,010) with two pair, Nines and Twos
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2,010 | Rake 0
Board: [2c 6s 4d 2d 3d]
Seat 2: bes1986 (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: kiki1809 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: UEA PokerStar showed [Ac Tc] and lost with a pair of Twos
Seat 8: Blondin8886 (button) showed [9s 9d] and won (2,010) with two pair, Nines and Twos
Seat 9: Strangercz (small blind) folded before the Flop


In other news, beggining to see the end of the swine flu, but still feel very rough.. Particularly after doing seminar prep for next week! I am looking at applications for ACA accountancy training place as well, so hope I will run good and get to go to my first choice! And also.. looking at trips for next year, would like to go to: Vegas, Florida, LA, New York and Sydney... Hmmmm.. bank error in my favour onnnnneeee tiiiimmmmeee?????

Am currently playing in the aced poker tournament thing, atm. am 24th (62 remaining).

GL. GN. x

Friday 9 October 2009

Day 5 am

OK, played a couple of games today so far, and think I am starting to see my way out of the flu.. ftw..

(I have gone against my first decision, and am now registering 2 SNGs at a time as the multitabling is working well)

First game came 3rd, pretty standard, nothing of particular note, final hand for me, I was short stack with around 8BB, got it in PF with A8s, vs. 10-10, flop brings 8, but nothing else..

Second game, was a first for me, in that I made a deal to chop up 1st-2nd (i had around a 2K chip lead so it was a win :D ) for $18.54.. I reckon we were fairly equal, and with my chip lead the chop was +EV for me I think.

One of the guys I got most of my stack from had this as his sharkscope:

Games Played: 26
Av. Profit: -$5
Av. Stake: $5
Av. ROI: -100%
Total Profit: -$143
Form: Supertilt


Max. Val. :D :D :D

These 2 bring the BR up to profits, +$1.04 :D :D Munns.. :D :D

Its a step in the right direction..