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'I managed to donk my way to a student of the year award' I like the way 'poker speak' finds its way into everyday life, sometimes poker players give themselves away by comments they make outside poker.
Giving up the 4th year is an excellent decision IMO. I remember being completely fed up with studying when I was at uni (a long time ago) and really regretting not having some time out between college and uni, however that wasn't an option back then. If you're struggling with it now (with the mindset, not academically) then another year wouldn't be good at all. On that topic If I had known you wanted a degree you could have had mine for a £10 tourney token and a bag of jelly tots, I haven't used mine in 30 years!
Lastly 'probabilistically', that's a top word. I was going to take the micky out of you for making up words until I looked it up and it exists - now that's a university education for you!
@Enut Yes it is rather amusing how poker players can 'show their hand' in this way in real life situations. Makes me think of that joke poker advert where the diners are going 'all in' with their plates at the dinner tables. Maybe a sharp eyed poster can remember the advert in question?
I am sat here procrastinating after my most turbulent night at the tables in a week or 2 so thought I would spew some literal ramblings in here and let my head clear. Will stick to the format I used in my last update as it seemed a more clear way to lay out my overly long winded ramblings
Non poker related (because there is a lot more to life than poker right?):
Well the last time I posted I had literally just decided to cut uni a year short and do the 'ordinary degree' and not the 'honours degree'. I have had a little time to let this decision sink in and I am happier than ever to stick with this choice. I am severely struggling to find the motivation to finish the work I have still to do (although I definitely will) but this suggests I made the correct choice. I would not have enjoyed the next 18 months of life if I had 'stuck at it'. Health and happiness are much more important and although I have no chronic conditions apart from very severe high blood pressure, my all round fitness, smoking and weight need to be addressed to give myself the best chance of frequenting this planet for a meaningful length of time in the future.
I 'celebrated' my 41st birthday on Sunday past. It was a very mundane affair which involved popping up to my dads in the Saturday evening for a few games of snooker (4-0 to me
Immediate plans are to finally 'bite the bullet' and start my final batch of uni work which has to be completed by mid April. This amounts to 3 in depth lab reports (1 on neuroscience, 1 on social psychology and 1 on cognitive psychology), 1 critical evaluation on a paper about the effects of alcohol on percieved attractiveness and 2 exams. I just hope I find the motivation and mid April comes quickly. Also have a cousins wedding to attend on Monday. Hopefully I am not sitting here in a week having neglected these things due to playing too much poker and watching a lot of random stuff on Netflix (Just wow at Breaking Bad, so enjoyable! Also Narcos was great and I hear The Walking Dead returns in a week...).
Poker related: Well since the last update Sky listened to some suggestions I made and introduced some PLO8 BH MTT's. Great that they are prepared to listen to players so much! We got a new shiney £11 PLO8 BH, first of all with a £100 guarantee. I am guessing the barometer of success would be therefore to attract 10+ players every night. The tourney has had between 22 and 41 runners every night which seems a great success. The guarantee was raised to £300 though and as it has struggled to hit this on a few of the nights has been replaced by a £5.50 buy in. We also have another £5.50 PLO8 BH which is going great guns earlier in the evening. It is great to have these extra games to play. Just a pity we lost the £11 which I personally though by most measures was doing at least 'okay'.
In the tourneys themselves I have been playing pretty well and have won a few, been 2nd a couple of times and had other cashes. I guess from these, the league games and the regular £5.50 PLO8 MTT I must be around £400 or so up from these, maybe a little more since my last update (I don't have a breakdown but that must be ball park accurate). Not a huge amount but it all helps supplement the student income
One aspect which was very pleasing was that my game in MTT's felt so sharp. I did however play like a monumental donkey with a bad case of tilt last night. I had a miagrane, was a bit tired and just not feeling it. These resulted in small changes in my game which meant big differences on outcomes and before you knew it I was on my 'Z game' and had bricked all the evening MTT's. Now semi-tilting, and not really feeling it, seems the very obvious time to have a little break!
So I decided to open 6 x £5.50 NLHE DYM SNG's. Off to a steady start and then when it came to shove/fold time things went south. I shoved from the BTN on 2 tables with 'decent' hands and shoved right into KK and JJ. No help and I was busto x 2. In one other game I had just dwindled away and it was busto x 3. The other 3 games I shoved well ahead, was looked up and lost all 3 so bust x 6. The most inexplicable was 4 handed and 100/200 with everyone on roughly 3k. I get A9o on the BTN and make it 600 to go. I am called by the BB to see a flop of 229. I lead for 800 and am flat called and the turn is a random 4. I shove all in for 1600 on the turn (on the bubble) and am called by a completely unconcected with the board KTo. The river is of course a king and that is that. It really was time to take a break and clear the head now!
So yeah, off I went to the PLO8 heads up sit n go's. I had been thinking about playing these more often. I used to play a lot of high buy in PLO8 HU SNG's in the past and wasn't sure whether I should be playing more of these or not. I sat at the £15.75 games with the player with the best HU PLO8 stats on Sky so I could get a judge on the standard, his stats are very impressive. I lost the first 2 games in spots that could have went either way and was a little confused at some of the plays and his aggression levels. Some of the plays looked exploitable so I stayed and won 6 of the next 7 games. Was happy to stay longer but it was late and my opponent left for the evening so I finally called it a night.
All in all a £13 losss on a very rocky night is not too bad! I also found out the PLO8 HU SNG's may be worth considering so not all bad.
Anyways, thoughts collected, mind hopefully more at ease so I will end the inane waffle there.
Thanks for reading and run golden!
It is actually (rather strangely) about the 'drinkers' percieved view of their own attractiveness. So if you want to give your thoughts regarding how attracive you feel you yourself are after a few beers then that would be more on the mark
A bit like how the drunk 41 year old may think the sober 25 year old who resembes a model and who is dancing on the other side of the room would clearly love the 41 year old to go over and make some advances lol.
Non poker related
As mentioned I will have to turn my attention to uni studies for a little while. I have major assessments due pretty much every week now for the next 7 or 8 weeks which if I can successfully negotiate will see my degree through to completion and see me freed from the shackles of life as a mature student. This of course means that I cannot while away the hours playing poker. However rather than go completely AWOL I will try and squeeze some of the new PLO8 BH games in on evenings when I am up to date with my work. This more than likely also means that the WSOP qualifiers will start and I will have to grit my teeth and only be able to take part in a limited way until my course work is done... Once that is completed I can go all out to try and snag another package for Vegas.
It has been a rather eventful week away from the tables. On Monday I had to attend a family wedding and not consume any alcoholic beverages as I was 'the driver'. Even although I could not drink, I had a better than expected time. It was good to catch up with family, see my cousin have a lovely 'big day' and the food was great.
On Wednesday I finally laid my 16 year old car to rest in the scrap yard. I did get the pricely sum of £20 for it
Poker related
Well over all I am up about £600 for the year at this early point. Nothing special but I have put a limited amount of volume in, so all good. I have polished up my MTT game a bit due to the new PLO8 BH's. I also dabbled in the PLO8 HU SNG's as I used to play these a lot elsewhere. I had sat down with the current most profitable player online on Sky and had some success at the last update. Now I know these are not the most +EV game choices but a mixture of ego and wanting to see where my HU games were at led me to playing a good few more with this player...
To start with the games were easy as my opponent did not know what to make of me. He is a top player though so he adapted and realised he had to throw the script out the window and adjust his ranges so as not to get steamrollered. This resulted in several games lasting 1 hand at level 1 as top pair met draws etc. I ran pretty bad, my opponent played relatively well and I then started playing bad... Top marks to him for getting to me and I finished this session down. I think overall versus the player I am now a little down although not too many buy ins. The one strength I have is I do not stick to a fixed gameplan and will constantly try and adapt to opponents. I could adapt, change ranges and try to get on top but I am not sure this is where I should be focussing my poker efforts. There are a lot more +EV games around...
I took my frustrations from this out on the 7:15pm Bounty Hunter and won it taking 11 bounties. This meant I only needed to snag 2 bounties in the 9:15pm to overtake Pom for the 'most bounties in 1 night prize'. Got the starting stack up to 8k (without taking any bounties) then it went south! We got hardly any hands in as 1 player wound every last second of his time down on every single action in every hand. Another player was doing similar. I am not sure why they were doing this as we were miles away from the payouts. I then got quartered 3 times and then bust... I am still top of the leaderboard though so that is something
All in all, things could be worse. In profit for the year with limited volume and the PLO8 BH games appear to be becoming established.
Well I will leave it there and go finally get on with the studying... Pot of coffee at the ready!
Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables!
I therefore decided to spill some words into the diary.
Having read some of the other diaries on here today one thing particularly strikes me... They are more concise! I particularly like the way Tikay makes a few separate posts rather than throw a massive wall of text out there the way I tend to do!
In that vein I will adopt that method from now on and will ramble on about 'off the tables' stuff next...
I also understand people have much bigger problems. I had them myself with close family members dieing etc not too long ago. None of that however changes the fact though that (a) it would be ideal to finish my studies which I am doing well in or that (b) to do so is taking a LOT of time and a LOT of mental effort which I don't particularly feel like putting in just now, after 4 years of continuous study. I even thought about 'freezing' my course for a year and picking up where I left off next year.
Anyways, I decided I just have to grin and bare it! It is only another 7 weeks or so of intense study and I will be done. To that end I actually done some studying this week! I crunched a load of statistics for 3 of the lab reports I have to do and completely finished one of the assessments so I am quite chuffed that I have managed to give myself an effective kick up the backside.
Apart from all the boring study talk my attention has been turning to what I will do with myself after April when the course is finally done. The first order of the day will be to have a break, hopefully get away and play at least 1 event at the WSOP and chill out a little. After that it is going to be a case of trial and error.
The ultimate goal is to play poker full time and that was the main driver in returning to education (to get a solid income in the background so I can allow the poker bankroll to grow). I know I can do it as I done it for a number of years, I just did not like how I done it. There was too much grinding and stress and not enough exercise and time spent on other things. Hopefully the new qualification will result in the much hoped for job and 'solid background income' materialising, time will tell.
I am a dreamer so I will hope the poker just completely takes off during the summer and I can skip a few steps with the general life progression stuff. If not I have put some feelers out and sounded several employment opportunities including within education, lecturing at college. If none of this transpires and the poker draws a blank then I will do a post grad teaching qualification (they are quite short thankfully, only requiring 300 hours of study).
Anyways this is still just turning into a wall of text (I blame the large font). I will get better at this, promise!
On the tables ramblings incoming. Can I actually be more succinct this time?
Have just been playing the nightly PLO8 BH's and the odd DYM. The last few nights I have hit the coldest cards I have seen since these tourneys were introduced. Endless amounts of 992J type hands and then when I get the A2QK type hands the flops seem to be along the lines of 996 with a pot and a repot in front of me. Have tried to be uber patient and still managed to amass a few chips in tournies only to see them vanish at push/fold stage when getting it in ahead. My AA4K versus my opponents A4KK all in preflop for half the chips in play on one of the FT's particularly springs to mind, probably as the flop was KXX. I am sure I would quickly have forgotten it if I had held up and won the hand.
On a more positive note it is good to see the new evening PLO8 BH games settling down and doing quite well. It is also nice to see that the new system for the league has been warmly received, thus far at least. It is also good to see a couple of old friends who I encouraged to give them a try still turning up. I noticed trebs40 was playing last night but didn't get to play with him as I made an early exit.
Looking forward to the league games and the bounty hunters tonight! Although I am not quite so adept at 6-7 tabling as I used to be.
Hope everyone is doing well on and off the tables and many thanks for reading to anyone who actually has fought their way through the walls of text.
I guess that was slightly more succinct? Room for improvement though, I know!
1: Was lucky enough to win a seat to the 'Drive The Prize' semi final which is on Saturday. This is a 6 handed online single table tourney with the winner heading off to Manchester a fortnight later to play 9 handed with a Audi A3 car and also £15,000 is up for grabs.
2: Making slow but steady progress with the mountain of uni work. Although will have to miss the Thursday league games tonight which I enjoy as I have 1 particularly nasty dealine to meet.
3: Managed to put my £55 prize from the PLO8 bounty hunter league to good use. I asked for a £55 ticket to the 'Sherriff' NLHE BH tourney which myself and the other league winner conorshay played last night. Good to see the ploppers faring well with myself and conor both cashing. I even managed to win it for £787.
So a load of studying to do but certainly some reasons to be cheerful and a little spring in the step.
Have a great Thursday everyone and thanks for reading.
Well done that man.
Had a pretty annoying day to say the least yesterday.
Firstly the 'old chestnut' that is uni work is really weighing heavy on mind for starters. As I have whined about for long enough, my motivation has just died and the end cannot come fast enough! In about 4 1/2 weeks it will be done but I have another big assessment and 2 exams to do before then. I have also had major assessments due the last 2 Fridays which I have got done and to a decent standard. They amounted to 50 pages of statistical analysis with every 'I' dotted and 'T' crossed, and have left me a little mentally drained.
Then yesterday on a drive to Glasgow I noticed some strange noises coming from my new car. Took it to the dealer and as it was Sunday they couldn't do much and had no courtesy cars available. They didn't want me driving it as they had no idea WTF was wrong with it so I left it with them, made my own way back home and am car-less until they telephone me and tell me otherwise.
Anyways, a little frustrated and also wondering how I am going to try and snag a package via the points races for VLV I decided to try some 50p-£1 NLHE 6 max cash games. Sat at 4 tables with £100 on each and fluctuated up and down £100 then hit a couple of rough spots and left £200 down. So I tried HU cash games at the same buy in and sat with £100, lost it and sat with another £100. My opponent was a bit grumpy and dishing out the verbal abuse in chat which I just shrugged off (although if his wishes for me to have cancer have any baring on reality I am in deep doo-doo) He even went on to wish me bad luck fighting the cancer should I get it lol.
Plain sailing afterward and got the £100 up to £400. Opponent was calling way too light and obviously tilted. Then on a A4j55 board with no flushes out I had K5 suited. Opponent actually had something this time (A5) and I was down to £250. Things were getting a bit needly and I felt he was ready to offload. Then in a 3bet preflop hand the board ran out 3467T, again with no suits. I had him on a big pair and maybe even a set. I had 45 suited and thought it was payday. I mean he didn't 3bet with 58 or 89 preflop did he? Yes, he did! So just under £400 down and a bit deflated!
It is also the 2nd anniversary of my mothers death today, she was literally the most cheery and genuine person I have ever met! Wheelchair bound for 20+ years and she never had a bad word to say about anyone, was an astonishing mother and it is the worlds loss that she is no longer in it.
Also not sure how things will pan out post uni with jobs and life so a lot on my mind and a little downtrodden today.
If I know 1 thing about myself though it is that I always bounce back. I never give up but a few days break while I get this assessment done is probably in order at least.
Still always some reasons to be cheerful...
Won my £435 ticket to the VLV £4k package semi and it was pretty smoothe sailing the whole way.
I also amassed over 900 poker points in just 5 hours so if I can regroup, iron the kinks out and get a bit of better fortune then I may give the cash league a go on the last week of the VLV promo. With a few alterations I think it is possible to earn 4-5k points a day although I would need the wind firmly at my back for that to happen and I am still not sure if that would be enough to win a package or not.
Thanks for reading and hope things are a bit less turbulent for yourselves.
Yeah, I think there is something especially worse with HU games. Maybe people feel more pressured in a mental 1v1 battle. Had much the same again today although not just as vile.
I guess it means you are getting to your opponent which long term has to be a good thing
Hope you have plenty run good in your games Stoke.
Real life stuff: Last uni assessment handed in, last classes attended and just a couple of exams to do on the 18th & 19th April at which point I will cease to be a 'mature student'. Cannot wait and feel great that I will be able to close that chapter in life and will have seen it through the 4 years of studying and came out the other end!
As mentioned previously I laid my 16 year old car to rest 6 weeks ago. Was starting to get loads of problems with it so I was really happy to get the 'newer' one and was looking forward to trouble free motoring, for a while at least. Within the first 4 weeks the front suspension coil snapped though and although it is still under warranty it meant a couple of days without a car.
Then yesterday I went to start it and the battery was flat as a pancake. I hadn't left anything on so although I gave it a push start and got it going, I was worried as the problem had not been identified. Went to start it this morning and yup, battery was as flat as a pancake again! Will need to get it into the dealer again this week. So much for the trouble free motoring.
First world problems and all that!
On the tables musings next...
Also not sure whether to 'hang my boots up' in relation to OH8. I mean I will always play some OH8 games but I am starting to wonder if it is worthwhile focussing on OH8. I have made steadier profit from OH8 over the years than when compared to any other format however my biggest cashes and greatest volume of profit have been on the NLHE tables. Not to mention the fact there are so many more NLHE games. DYM NLHE SNG's are not really my thing and at NLHE cash games I am too impatient and too active so it will need to be a switch to NLHE MTT's if I do this.
I am not sure why the PLO8 BH's have been snubbed for both the mini and major UKOPS. Also any 'good will' regarding adding more PLO8 BH's seems to have evaporated. I don't quite get this as the PLO8 DYM's have all but died off anyway, the £11 PLO8 BH's did pretty well till they were pulled, and there are gaps in the schedule for PLO8 BH's. Also the current offerings are not shooting at the entire PLO8 player pool with just 2 x £5.50 BH's at a similar time of the day. Pretty sure some small stakes stuff and some sort of weekly PLO8 BH would do well without many issues. UKOPS would have been ideal to test just how popular the PLO8 BH's can be. Sky would make more ££'s and the players would have more game choice but hey ho I am done flogging that dead horse so I will drop the issue and will just have to squeeze extra games in elsewhere if I am playing OH8.
Well that concludes the Sunday morning ramblings. Enjoy the rest of the weekend folks and GL on the tables!
The studying stuff is really drawing to a close (just 2 exams next week and I am completely done with uni). My attention has therefore been turning to other stuff I haven't had adequate time for (jobs, poker, health, family).
On that note I dusted the bicycle off, blew up the tyres (yes it had been that long the tyres were flat) and went a 11 mile cycle that took in Eglinton Country Park. On one of the country lanes there were fields either side with loads of horses. I decided I would be a kind chap and stop, pick some handfuls of long grass that the horses could not reach and give them a little treat. I selected some nice juicy green handfuls of grass and wandered calmly (so as not to spook the horses) over to the fence. The horses stopped in their tracks just out of reach around 2 feet from the fence. I though, aww, they are a little timid so I leaned on the fence so I could reach over and ZAP, I duely electrocuted myself. Yes, I guess I missed those 3" by 3" 'electric fence' signs. Quite a jolt they give you! I was also at such an angle I had no choice but to grab onto it again to haul myself up. I didn't get zapped the second time thankfully (I must have broken the circuit or something). No harm done apart from looking like a proper wally and feeling like I had been properly Tango'd. The penny started to drop as to why the horses pulled up 2 feet short of the fence! Horses 1 v Me 0.
On the pokering front I played the £435 VLV semi I mentioned previously. Started off okay and got the starting 5k stack up to around 18k with average stacks around 9k. I liked my table and was getting quite into the groove. Then Mr Matt Bates was moved to my table. He also had a similar stack and were was he placed? Directly on my left! I was by no means in any comfort zone in relation to snagging a £4k package (average stacks when those are dished out would be around 50k). So I had to keep working away. Well my timing was off, I made 3 or 4 plays, 2 were I had hands and 1 or 2 were I didn't. I guess through a mixture of Matt's proficiency and board texture he got away from the couple I hit and I lost more than I should in the ones I didn't hit. At least I offloaded to Matt, he is obviously an excellent player, didn't get to go last year and he put the chips to good use and didn't look back so WP that man!
In relation to the jobs front... I haven't looked much yet as I still am at uni till next week and I am not in a massive rush. I did put some feelers out though in some poker circles as I would love to work either within the gaming sector or in Education. I had the chance of a job in London. Doing almost exactly what I would like to do and with one of the bigger gaming companies. The salary however was just a bit short of what I would need to make a relocation to London work. If it had been local or even in 'middle England' it would have been happy days indeed. The search continues!
Well the Fruit 'N' Fiber is well and truly scoffed, I am sure I have sufficiently bored anyone reading and need to go get passport photos taken so I will relent for now
Hope you are all doing well on and off the tables!
Okay I did this in reverse the other day... I keep a little diary elsewhere so will cheat and copy/paste the update from there which Mr T set me up so well for
"I had got off to a reasonable start on Day 1 although I wasn't getting the rub of the green around FT's but still managed around £150 or so profit over the day. I felt I was playing well though so took some confidence into day 2. I was happy enough with this as I was playing a bit sloppy for a couple of weeks beforehand.
I regged for 5 of the 6 events (gave the £55r a miss as I could see this getting messy and I am only just starting to focus on the poker after the studying is drawing to a close so the bankroll still needs a TLC). I also regged for 2 of the £5.50 PLO8 BH's (later unregged for the second one of these as the NLHE, PLO and PLO8 mix was getting a little confusing).
I was firstly pleased that my confidence going into these did not seem to be misplaced as I had got a few stacks going early doors.
The UKOPS £22 event 08 was PLO which I enjoy, although would enjoy even more if there was an '8' on the end of the 'PLO'. Things started steady and I got it in 3 way with the nut straight on the flop (there were a lot of redraws out though of which I had none). The board obviously paired and I was outdrawn although took a little sidepot down so all was not lost! I realised the calling ranges in this MTT were going to be massively wide so I had to tread a bit more carefully as I didn't really want to be 'flipping' all over the place. So with adjustments made I steadily ticked over managed to take it down for around £477.
Decent start and I still had stacks in other games.
In one of the £22 NLHE BH's I was sitting on 11k with average stacks around 8k. At this point a lovely chap and top player called 'omm' was newly sat at my table. I asked how he was doing and he said 'okay, but not running great' or something to that effect. Trying to keep his chin up I said 'Hopefully things will turn soon for you mate!" (Yeah I am going to regret saying that lol). I am duly dealt QQ while I was mid typing that, I standard open raise and omm shoves, I snap call and he has AK. An ace on the river seals my fate although I am left with just over 5k and it was still nice to see omm catch a break to be honest. All is not lost then! And I am dealt KK about 2 hands later and open raise hoping to induce a shove which I duly get (not from omm this time). Up against AK again and wouldn't you know it, an ace on the river again leaves me on 233 chips... I build this up again to 4.5k then run my JQ into AQ and it is GG me although still managed £25 in bounties so a tiny profit at least.
The £55 UKOPS 12 and £5.50r UKOPS 10 were still going and I had reasonable stacks in both. I nursed a small stack into the money in the £55 and then lost with A9o v Q5s AIPF which would have gave me a pretty healthy FT stack too. So bust in 8th for around £135. The £5.50r event 10 went a bit better and I managed to take this one down too for about £944. Should be looking good on the UKOPS leaderboard now and around £1423 profit for the day so have a little spring in the step today and looking forward to the UKOPS games tonight (One of which is PLO8).
Only downside is I have to study loads for neuroscience and cognitive psychology exams in 5 & 6 days respectively (after which I am totally done with uni, woop!). Last nights adventures will make the study a little more bareable
Hope you are all doing good on and off the tables and thanks for reading!"