2009

I'twas a good year for me and poker. I remember coming into 2009 very bored with poker. I was almost exclusively a SnG player. Mainly on Pokerstars, but alos bits and bobs at other sites. I was profitable and made steady cash, but nothing decent.

I liked to play the odd MTT, but tbh the feilds on Stars were just so big, that you needed an incredible amount of luck to make that big score and for me, it didn't happen.

I concentrated on the $10 45's on Full tilt for a short while and then moved onto the iPoker SnG's, but the lack of ability to multi0table really frustrated me. I was Making ok money in both, but once again not really enjoying them that much. So, I tried again at stars, but realised the SnG's (1 and 2 table) so were stuffed with multi-tabling regs that any decent ROI was pretty much non-existent. To actually make a bit of cash you had to play massive volumes, something I just didnt have the time or inclination for and so I made a choice....

For quite a while I have wanted to make some big improvements to my post flop game, as TBH in SnG's, it's simply about making +EV shoves at the right times, pre flop, and not much else. I decided to give cash games a go.

I spent quite a bit of time watching training vids and looking at hand histories posted, trying to get myself into a decent line of thinking through hands.

I then started playing. I started at NL20 on iPoker and then NL50 (6-max) on Microgaming. Pretty much breaking even TBH and not getting far. I started off just plying 3-tables and it was a struggle. I had seen so much about this "LAG" style of poker being the most profitable way to play, so I went for it. Jesus the swings were pretty rough I couldn;t seem to get it going. It was great when I was hitting flops, but when I was missin, I was losing way too much bluffing and trying to push people off hands. I realised it was a very hard style to adapt to and I would have to build upto it my own way.. and so the journey for me began!

I predominatntly played on Everest (due to softness) and Purple Lounge (due to rakeback), I dipped and dabbed in others, but nothing of any volume.

It's a been a long learning curve and I still have quite a way to go, but I am getting there slowly.Hopefully 2010 will see me stepping upto at least NL100!

Anyways, here are the cash results:

MicroGaming: 27,760 Hands = $531.94 Profit. + $969.61 Rakeback. = $1501.85

Everest: 19,686 Hands = $1552,09 Profit.

So for 2009 my cash game was:

47,446 hands = $3053.94 Profit

Obviously I wasn;t playing cash all year, so the volume wasn;t huge. I was averaging between 8k-12k hands per month, less on the months where I worked nights.

Overall I have to admit, i enjoyed it. It can be tough at times, but I am determined to stick at it and move forward!

SnG Results:

Pokerstars: 1068 Games played =  $264 loss

Full Tilt: 289 Games played = $438 Profit.

iPoker: 159 games played = $456 Profit.

Everest: 16 Games Played = $106 Profit

Overall SnG Results:

Total Games Played = 1532 for $736 Profit.

MTT's

I am struggling a bit to find the exact results here, apart from what I can get from OPR. They no longer track exact results, but tbh I am pretty sure I am a losing player in MTT's this year. I wouldn't say by huge amounts because I don;t play enough of them, but I haven;t had any big scores.

This is actually something I need to work harder to track as I am a bit pissed off I can;t find actual figures.

So overall 2009 has been ok, not brilliant, but still profitable.

lets hope 2010 is a $5k + year.

Hope you all have a very happy new year and see you in 2010!

BurnleyMik

Bloggerment tonight!!!

Don;t forget!!

I'll add a few boutnies - see the forum.

Xmas was superb, more about it later, but for now.. see you at the bloggerment:

ITS CHRRRRRRRRIIIIIIISTMASSSSSSSSSSSS

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE




I hope it makes it this year, heard rumours his last night out was in Brighton:

I hope you all have a fantastic xmas and I wish you and yours all the very best.

Snow and ice...

..Is great when you are at home and you can enjopy the picturesque views, but when you gotta get to work..... grrrrrrr.

Start the car up and sit there freezing my nuts off until the heater finally warms up. The windscreen finally clears, but you can't use the window wipers cos they are frozen frigging solid. Finally set off doing a cracking wheelspin over the snow that's turned to ice and crawl to the end of the street. Creeping along the sidestreets until you hit the main road, which thank fuck is clear of snow and ice. Finally get going and then BAM. You hit some prick who decides it is safest to do 10 miles an hour, even though the road is obviously facking clear!!!! argghhhhh (because snow is somewhere in their vision it's safer to go slow and piss everyone else off>??). Stuck behind the same pillock for tem mins until I could finally over take. The silly old bastard! He might as well have just walked, it would have been faster for him.

So then I get onto the motorway and it's quite dry, but all that grit and shit flicks up at the windscreen... so I fire up the window washer... no such luck, still frozen bastard solid, but now my windiow wipers proceed to smear the grit and shit all over the window and now I can see sweet FA.

So I am travelling down the motorway, peeping through the smallest slit in the window I can actually see through. Just trying to follow the tailights of the car in front. I pull off the motorway at my junction, stop the car and luckily I had a bottle of water with me so I chucked it on the window and used the wipers to actually have some visibility again.

On my way down the bypass it starts snowing again, so once again the drivers all decide its safer to do 10 mph.. ON A 50 MPH ROAD!!!! waaaaaaankers! I felt like screaming and to top it off I hit every single red light, bar one. ( I pass through 11 sets to get to work). I finally arrive 10 mins late.

I used to love snow, now its a major pain in the arse. Global Warming? MY ARSE!

Short Stacking Ratholers...

FACK OFF.

Getting sick of these SOB's. Land at your table, double through (normally takinmg money off a fish) and insta leave. Just draining money out of the tables left right and centre. They can;t play post flop poker these arseholes. They ruin your raising ranges if they get on your left and they are generally just exploiting the bad players and ruining the game.

Seen a sudden influx on Microgaming that are starting to piss me off. Land - hit - double and leave. Cowardly wankers. Cash tables are for playing poker, not push/fold. Play Sng's if you want that.

Getting nowhere...fast

arggh this fucking game.

Month started out really well, then it went a little tits up and now I just keep getting nowhere.

So I started out winning buy-in after buy-in and was up around $500. Then came the downswing on Purple with me dropping $300 of that back. A lot of coolers didn't help. I then had a fantastic saturday night, where I fired the tables up at like 2am and the guys were just giving their money away. Managed to win about $177 in a very short period of time.

Sunday afternoon, $120 of that goes straight back with me losing 3 races with AK. Starting to question whether or not to keep 4-bet shoving this fucking hand as it never hits when I have it over the last few days. Lost to QQ twice and JJ (once to AA..meh).

So, with it running so badly I fired up everest for a few games and same shit. I drop another $100 there. On the Everest session I genuinely felt I didn;t make any mistakes and never lost any pots for stacks, it just seemed to wither away. I know I got outdrawn quite a few times and had to lay down hands and basically thats how I lost the majority.

The last couple of nights I have tried again at Purple and same shit. I have a winning session and then follow it up with a losing session.

I am about $180 up so far for the month over about 9k hands. How can it all start so well and then go so cold like this. I feel like kicking someone in the bollocks and saying "thats exactly how I feel right now"

There is no worse feeling than going to bed after a losing session. It plays on my mind a bit trying to figure out where I went wrong. As you can tell I am not a fan of losing :-)

So in conclusion each time it goes well, I can be sure to follow it up with a total arsehole of a session that will see me back where I started. I am finding it quite difficult to motivate myself again right now as when the cash isn;t flowing it's a tiresome game.

Oh and for a laugh yesterday I fired up 20 tables of 18 player SnG's ranging from $3-$16 and as usual ran like a one legged donkey on stars. Saw so many beats I just ended up laughing. Worst was in a $16 where with 8 left I called a shove with my AA vs his 44 for CL and board ends up running 5673x. I knew as soon as I saw the flop it was going to screw me and good ol' stars didn;t dissapoint. Ended up with only one cash and dropping another $90 or so. FML. Oh and 3 way all in one off bubble. I have KK vs 22 and ATs.... 22 flops a set. ATs rivers the low str8. hahahahahahah only only pokerstars.

Makes me glad I play cash tbh!

Hope you all run good.

BM

No Cash

..and I am not talking about fellow RTR member and blogger!

last night i just played a few MTT's and the bloggerment.

APAT WCOAP -

I started off being fairly active, willing to play and gamble a bit as the structure was frankly excellent at the beginning allowing plenty of play. A flopped set vs an overpair helped me greatly as did a flopped set vs a top pair monkey. So at the second break I was sitting near the top and playing fairly well. I have to be honest that I was pretty card dead throughout the whole tourney. Only getting AK once and never seeing AA/KK/QQ/JJ once. Most of the time I was just having to work hard and try and choose my spots carefully.

as the blinds increased though so did the need to play shove/fold poker and when you have absolutely nothing its quite difficult. I ended up shoving 45s over a raiser and taking it down and making the steals with all kinds of utter shit just to stay alive.

Finally on the cutoff, with the blinds at 2k/4k and I had 22k. I pushed A6s. Only for the BB to wake up with AK. Did I get a suckout?? Did I fuck! I ended up finishing 15th, with top 20 paid. Was pretty gutted TBH, as I felt I had a decent chance, but at the end of the day there is only so much you can do without a single hand. I ended up with $105 for about 5 hours work..lol. (buy-in was 75+7.50). a masssssssssssive profit of $22.50. sick.

Bloggerment -

Stack was up and down like a postitute's knickers, but never really going far. 15 entered and I ended up in a husband and wife big-stack sandwich! Hammer on my left with a huge stack and mair on my right with a fucking god-damned enormous stack. I ended up all in with JJ vs Mair's KT and stars being stars by the turn she had two pair and it was GG me in 3rd. BTW, Mair went on to crush Stan HU and I believe he has to clean the toilet twice a day now....with his tongue!

Everest 10k GTD -

Piss take. Played well for about 2 hours, then got it in with AQs vs AJ. of course there was going to be a jack on the river. gtfo. didnt even make the money. That game was a very similar standard to the 100k $10 thingy on stars on Sunday nights. People calling off with Ace high just in case you were bluffing..lol.


Purple Lounge €2.5k GTD -

Never really got going in this. when I got to 10 BB's I pushed AK from UTG, only for big stack to insta call with ..... guess what.... Ace fucking Jack. The flop seals my fate with his 3 outer. FML.

So not a very productive night overall, but it was a nice change from the cash grinding.

Will be back at it tonight!

Gl all

BM