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ONE TIME!.....another diary.
Hello everyone
Iv decided to start a diary as im posting to much in the forum and clogging it up. I want to do this diary so better players can see my way of thinking and correct me, as my poker isnt going as planned atm. Also i will be posting hands to see what people think, and this way people might recognise some errors, etc. I will be posting my balance everytime i post. I usally play 20 nl, but like i said things havnt been going my way so iv dropped down to 10nl. I usally play 3 tables and nearly always play cash.
A brief paragraph about me personally. Im 20, i live in london and my true passion is football....more to the point Tottenham Hotspurs. Im a fitness instructor and my future ambitions are to become a personal trainer or possiable study sport science at uni. I also plan on organising my own charity to help people with balance disorders as iv had some experience in this area myself. My near future aim is to run the london marathon 2014 to raise money for a department at a hospital, but 4/5 hours of running will be a big ask!
Poker wise i played sky poker for a while, studied then played poekrstars where i had a great last summer at 50nl winning about 1.5k in dollars. Started going downhill at christmas where i lost a big portion of that. I then stopped playing to study the game more, join duecescracked and come back to sky where 20 nl went well first few weeks, and i come 11th in ukops main event, won the friday 3k rebuy, and finished fairly high in £33 BH (cant remmeber where, mayeb 16th).
Hope you enjoy reading !
Initial deposit 2 weeks ago was £400
Current Balance: £294.01
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Comments
On the flip side, you seem to be a very competent mtt player. You have had some great results. I have seen numerous people say the same thing to you..........PLAY MTT's. I have seen you mention the fact that you don't enjoy mtt's (by far the most fun format of the game IMO) but you crush them. If you don't enjoy winning money playing mtt's then what do you enjoy????
MTTS FTW!!!!!! Good luck whatever you decide though, hope you start to improve with your cash game if that's what you would really rather be playing.
Yeah liamboi ill try with satliettes its how i got in all the tourneys iv had good scores in, think the most iv everpayed to enter a tourney is £11. Iv sat to all but primo, i want to play in that next. Oh nice, how far along are you with all the studies? yeah ill definatly help just pm mate if you need help, the course i done by qualification with was very good and quick, they educate you well....lifetime fitness is the name.
Good reason to start a diary and to improve - GL with it
These was my main losing hands from the session, these are run bad arnt they ?
Im going to post my hands in individually as when i do it together it comes up as alot of transriptions, how do i solve this?
Gonna play the primo mini because i havnt played a tourney in ages, its £5.50 which is prob too much considering my b/r but like i said i dont play often in tourneys. Also abit dissapointed how the last few days have gone, i feel i deserve more to show for my play but oh well just gonna keep going. Hopeing to play 5+ hours tommorow
Poker overal isnt going amazing, now £125 down on my intial deposit and finding it very tough to have a winning day....my confidence is very low. Funny enough i dont feel like quitting and running away like i usually do, im determined to keep going. Hopefully ill be on the right end of some of these hands soon. Gonna keep to TAG style at 10 nl , think its correct. I think if im a few byins up i will bank the win for confidence.
Now to those hands.....
My thought process ...' I have jacks in sb oop, the person to my left is loose passive so he will want to get involved if i flat which i dont want. I will 3bet so i have the leading strength and if he 4 bets im gonna be against a range that has me crush so i will fold and it will save me money if i have overpair vs overpair. If TAG opponent flats i can win the pot with a cb on the flop most times as i dont think he will mess around. Flop is fairly safe misses alotof his flatting range, i will bet small which will make me look strong as it looks for value, turn i c/f i think if he calls'
Dont even no why im writing in here no one ever replies its been a complete watse on time.
I should of just quit weeks ago when i said and i should of quit earlier when i said im not good enough to earn any money back. Cant remember the last time i had a winning day, aboulete joke, i worked hard and i really tried so why cant i just be a half decent player, fed up. Withdrawig and taking he -150 and f k i n off.
My post is the same as last time......you haven't got the mindset for cash imo. Play small stakes mtt's and fall in love with the game again.
Chin up m8
But sky dont get enough people to only play mtts
I don't know what else to say then.
Plenty have stepped up on here..........look at the likes of scotty77 for example, plus more recently lambert and rancid.
I think you need a break though. I get the feeling that you wanna step up asap and only get a buzz from poker when the stakes are high and you can win big money??? To get to the high stakes of poker takes a lot of time and effort......otherwise everyone would be playing there.
I just feel the best way to get confidence and enjoyment back would be to play small stakes mtt's or take a break
Yeah see lambert and rancid are good players and they know they have the right idea withpoker and make decent decisions. Just fed up of always being wrong or not knowing what to do, theres no point in a break ill just come back the exact same and go round in a circle.
Might try sat into a few tourneys and play a few minis until its at £200 then withdraw it.
In reality, all a footballer should be thinking about is how to make the next pass the best pass they can play; how to make the next run the best run they can make, etc. That's all they can affect. One player playing for Liverpool can't decide whether his teammates make a mistake or if Man City score a goal in another game. One player can't change anything other than his next pass/tackle/run. If they adopt that attitude, they won't get nervous or anxious when they're faced with an opportunity to score because it's just a matter of kicking the ball. If they aren't thinking of it as particularly significant, it's just doing something they've done a thousand times before.
That's a very long winded way of saying that you need to get back to basics. Stop thinking "Why can't I beat NL10?" and start thinking "Was that last decision a good decision?". As long as you're looking at your bankroll you're going to be chasing your losses. That will force you into making mistakes just as surely as it forced Gareth Southgate, Stuart Pearce, Chris Waddle and all the others into making a complete h*sh of their penalty kicks which LET THEIR COUNTRY DOWN AND MADE ME CRY WHEN I WAS JUST A LITTLE BOY!!!
Sorry, went off on one there...
Anyway, I think you should step right down to NL4 for a short while where the money is less likely to have an affect on you. At that level it's really quite easy to determine whether you're making good decisions, too, because there aren't that many players who ever really get out of line or "outplay" you. Alternatively - and this is the option I'd suggest - mix in a few regular SNG's into your play. They're low variance but confidence building. You'll win a fair few and winning, even if it's only a six player field, soon increases your enjoyment of the game. Your liability is also limited in these so you don't need to worry about accidentally losing half of your roll. Maybe start your sessions with an hour of sit and go's before moving to the cash tables.
Don't expect to win when you start a session, just go into it expecting to make good decisions or at least to be critical enough to know when you've made a bad decision and think about how to correct it. Expecting to win will leave you feeling pretty terrible when you don't and nobody wins all the time.
Last thing to say is that you are good at posting hands in the clinic but you're not so good at commenting on other hands. If you spend the next six months explaining, in detail, your thoughts on other peoples' play and then responding to any criticisms of your thoughts, you will become a better player. By defending your own ideas you will find that you strengthen your good habits and eradicate your bad ones. It's so much better than watching videos or just listening to the TV but it does take more effort and patience.
The only problem some people have with posting their thoughts is that they put their ego into their ideas and they don't like having their ego bruised. If you want to improve at the game you've got to get rid of that ego and accept that being told you're wrong isn't the same as being told you're stupid. If someone thinks you're wrong, vigorously defend your opinion but be willing to be convinced by their arguments.
Those are the only things I can think to suggest.
haha yeah but didnt he get a pizza hut advert out of that.... got to stick a bag over his head in the advert. classy fella. least u got to see a penalty shoot out that gets you excitied, all i seen is england lose in every quarter final, thats the futhest iv see them get, and i support tottenham so havnt had a heap of joy there either lol least we got gareth bale....he makes everything better.....
anyway i might try the sng thing, i really dont wanna give up but i dont wanna be stupid and continue playing when im a losing player atm. dropping to 10 nl has helped but i still dont feel good somtimeswith my overally play, i struggle to get the response i want when i act. Also trust me my ego isnt big i post hands to take on advice from others, i do listen to them otherwise i wouldnt bother posting and reply. I dont post on oters because im no confident in my skills atm i do look at theres though. How long should my sessions be to fully get into it because if i loose 2 byins or somthing early on i think session is over cant mke profit not wasting my time, this is wrong isnt it as i dont see long term how im playing. how long would u say?
current b/r: £267.93
on day: -£7
on initial deposit: -£132.08
The JT v KT hand:
Calling with JTs on the button is fine pre-flop. Checking the flop with second pair is also fine.
On the turn, we should be raising. We have the second nuts on the wettest board you're ever likely to see and there's only 15BB in the pot when we're facing this action. We should be thinking that there are lots of two-pair or top pairs that our opponent can call a raise with and also lots of draws that i) our opponent can be holding which we can get value from and ii) our opponent can put us on, so he can pay us off.
If our opponent wants to get it in on the turn he's probably doing it with a wider range than on the river for those reasons: he can have a draw himself or he can think that we're on the draw. By the river, neither of us can be on the draw so if the money goes in, we both must have a made hand. If he just calls a raise on the turn, our river value bet is larger too.
The JJ v 45 hand: I'd probably play the same way. No worries here, in my opinion. Just take a note about his check on the turn after making the nuts.
The AQ v KK hand: I think you need to explain why you're check-raising the flop. What were your thoughts there?
The QJ v A8 hand: I think you should just give up after your c-bet on the flop. It's not that wet a flop but it is Ace-high in a 3-bet pot. If he's in the hand with a small pocket pair he doesn't call the flop unless that pair was 55 or 66 and if he's called a pre-flop 3-bet with an Ace, he's unlikely to fold at any stage. Save the 420 chips by not betting the turn. (Just realised this wasn't a 3-bet pot. The ideas are still the same, I think.)
The K9 v AA hand: Think about shoving over the limp pre-flop unless you've never seen this guy limp before. K9 is generally well ahead of the limpers range and there's a huge (relative to your stack) amount of chips in the middle in dead money.
Once you've checked, with your stack it's a cooler and you played it fine post-flop.
I don't very often look at anyone's diary but I hope some of this will help. Keep posting in the clinic.
Regarding the length of sessions I'm definitely not the best person to ask. I am very strict on not really caring how long I play or how much I lose. The one occasion recently when I did decide to play high volume was the Kings of Cash promotion which I was third or fourth in after two or three days. Six tabling, playing super-laggy for 6 hours a day nearly killed me. I had to give up after the third day feeling pretty exhausted. I am definitely not the person to be giving advice on that.
That hand's an interesting one. As it happens, against his hand we're a 43% underdog. That's because while we can hit our flush or straight, he can still hit his full house. You'd have to put his range into pokerstove to get an answer, I think. His overshove, while terrible, does make it really tricky because it makes your pot odds so bad.
Also just a little tip i'd try to ignore the negative figures above about how much your down from initial deposit and avoid posting them , it's never nice looking at negative figures and you can't help but think about chasing losses- again just speaking from personal experience where i have had to look at negative figures. Just advice though as i can empathize with alot of your posts from when i started writing my diary- btw if your interested in june i don't mind doing a couple of sweat sessions- looking at h-hs just generally discussing stuff via messenger on fb- skype etc and also don't worry about the fact people don't reply often lots of people just lurk on the forums reading the diaries and not commenting.
With the AQ i done it because i wanted to balance my range, i will want to do this with draws and somtimes even bluffs and i knew this hand was going to showdown because the stack of villian, so i wanted everyone to see i can do it with a made hand.....so in future i can do it with air against an aggresive constant cb.
With the 1010 hand, I was really suprised to see QQ, i was thnking maybe ak with a diamond. Think i got lucky to hit the 8 then unlucky to hit the 10 seeing as i have 2 off them lol iwould enjoy the kings of cash promo to keep going, obv i cant win it playing 3 tables but to aim for top 10 or somthing simular would be a good incentive to keep me playing for longer. What was ur end result in term of profit/loss for such a long input of play?