December Mini Goals - Round Up!

It's that time of the month folks, and no I'm not in a bad mood! For those of you who haven't yet read my December goals post you'll be able to find it here! This months goals post was a mini edition because I was a little busy for the first week or so, but nevertheless, they gave me something to work towards. So without further ado, here's how I got on!

1. 2.5k Profit

Well I slightly missed with this one. A few things got in the way, like Christmas and falling ill for the last week of the month as well, but I still managed to put up slightly under $2k profit for the month, however it's still the 31st so you never know, there could be one last 2013 bink to be had! I felt like I wasn't playing too well in certain places but thankfully after reviewing the offending hands, I know exactly what the faults were and so hopefully I've learnt my lessons and will put it right.

2. Ship either the $5r PLO8 or the $3r PLO

Success! This past Sunday I chopped the $5r for a touch under $700. Actually on the same day I had a deep run in the $3r as well but came agonizingly close to the final table after my Aces couldn't hold in a pretty big pot to finish in 9th spot. I actually had the chip in in the PLO with 2 tables left but took the bum end of a few set ups to lose a chunk of chips. I ran pretty well in a couple of key spots in the PLO8 but otherwise I really felt in the zone and thought I made some great reads and plays. These two tournaments really are the softest on my evening schedule and every time I load up either, I feel like I'm going to win it. I feel very comfortable in the chip accumulation stages regardless of whether I'm picking up hands or not so believe I'm putting myself in some great spots to take them down should I run well. I also had 2 other final table finishes in the $5r this month so overall my ROI in these tournaments have been incredible this month, let's hope it continues.

3. Satellite into a Weekend Major

Another success! Also this past Sunday, yes I had a very good day, I managed to satellite into the Sunday Million from the regular $11 turbo Mega Satellite that Stars run just prior to the start. I've started to play a few more satellites this month and I'm really learning some interesting strategies, especially in the turbos. Normally in the turbo games, I try to take all the +cEV spots I can take while only making ICM considerations at the final table or just before. In these, I'm having to completely rethink my process and continually adjust based on whether I think I'll make it in or not. Regularly the average stack when the bubble bursts is close to 2BBs or lower, so survival becomes everything. If you believe you have enough blinds and antes to make it in based on a quick prediction then you literally should be playing 0 hands. It may sound pretty obvious but this lesson cost me a few dollars to learn. I didn't manage to cash the Sunday Million this time unfortunately, I ran QQ into AA BB vs BTN, but hopefully I'll be able to satellite into some more events next year and make a go of it then. In fact TCOOP is just around the corner.

So overall, 2 out of 3 goals isn't bad and I didn't actually miss the first one by much so I'm actually very happy with how the month went. Every day I play I can feel my game improving and having these goals to work towards actively encourages me to work that much harder. January's goals will be written up shortly but, more importantly, my 2014 set of goals has been finalized and I hope to be uploading them very soon. I've been pretty ambitious with what I've set for the forthcoming year but I suppose that's the whole point! I hope December went equally well for everybody else and I hope to see many of you at the tables in January!

Almost the end of the month!

Hey everybody, I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and are looking forward to a Happy New Year.

First of all, apologies for not posting for a little while. Unfortunately, I've been pretty ill for the past 10 days or so. I actually passed out at work last weekend and spent most of the day in A&E and no one's entirely sure why. In the meanwhile I've been on a few meds that are supposed to prevent me passing out again but actually just make me really tired so I've spent a lot of the past week in bed, excluding Christmas of course where I was more hyper than a 1 month old puppy.

But I'm feeling a little better now and looking forward to writing a few posts in the next couple of days. As the title suggests, the month, and year, are coming to an end so that means you should expect a round up of how my December goals are coming along. Spoiler alert, they're going well. I'll also write a summary of how I think my years gone and how I did with some of my personal goals, which although I didn't write down, I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to achieve. Finally, of course, I'll be writing a long detailed set of goals for 2014, both in terms of poker and personally.

So that's a brief little update of what's going on and what to expect. I have an absolute ton of little bits and bobs I need to do now that I'm back in London so I'm hoping to get them all out of the way today, leaving me a good amount of time to write all these posts that I've promised and also to get a little grind time in. Hope everyone has a great time on New Years Eve, but remember, games will be sooooooft on the 1st! Speak to you all soon!

December Goals - Mini Edition

Unfortunately real life got in the way for the first week or so of the month, hence why I was so late in writing a November summary, and with almost half of December already gone it seems a bit silly making a full set of goals. Thus, I am setting some mini goals to hit before the end of the month that will hopefully keep me motivated over the Christmas period and encourage me not to slack off and gorge on mince pies.

1. $2.5k Profit

This is purely an extrapolation of how the month has gone so far and how much I think I can play over the next two weeks. I think I can keep my ROI in the $11 PKOs as high as it is now unless they become severely reg infested and my ROI in PLO and O8 MTTs has always been around the 50% mark so if I can continue at this pace, then $2.5k should be pretty easy.

2. Ship either the PLO8 $5r or the PLO $3r

These two are without doubt the softest tournament of the day for each of their respective games. The level of play is just atrocious and, compared to their freeze-out counterparts, the prize pools are astronomical. I've won the $5r in the past but recently I've being falling at the final few fences. Likewise with the $3r, I've made the final table a bunch of times but have never been able to take the outright win. This month, all is going to change!

3, Satellite into a Weekend Major

Currently I'm not cleared to reg the 215s on the weekend, whether they be the Weekly O8s or the Sunday Million but there are quite a few low stake satellites to these events and I've been told they're usually quite soft. I normally avoid these on the weekends but with the recent Pokerstars promotional push for their weekly tournaments, the prize pools are looking very tasty and I'd love to get my hands on some of that.

So there's a few mini goals to set out and try to achieve this month, or the next two weeks as it is. All three should be attainable and thus hopefully this month can be my first clean sweep of goals. I hope December goes well for all of you out there as well. Ta ta for now!

They say it's all over........Hell no it's not!

Indeed, I am not dead, just busy. I have a few posts that I need to write in the next few days so here's what should be coming up.

Following on from the last post, I did go to the PokerStars VIP Party here in London and it was amazing! I have tons of pictures, including pics with various Pokerstars Pros, but be warned I am pretty damn drunk in most of them, it was an open bar after all.

The week after the VIP Party was my birthday so I had a fair few events during the week including a night out with my mates and visits from my family and on top of that, my girlfriend's family also visited for a weekend so I even had to take a Sunday off! The horror. That did mean unfortunately that I didn't post a November summary and a conclusion to how the month's goals went so I'll be writing that pretty soon. This also means that I need a fresh set of goals for December, however they may not be as lofty as you'd expect, because.....

I got a job! OK, not a real job, just some catering and events staffing gigs. With Christmas just around the corner, a little guaranteed cash will come in quite handy as well as giving me a solid reference to put on my CV. Unfortunately, most employers don't consider "Professional Poker Player" a valid job so it's good to show that I'm not sitting around all day playing a game and writing blog posts!

I also want to write a more detailed blog post about the new 180 man $11 PKO SnGs on Stars because I think they're fantastic. Definitely the best new game Stars has released in a while and they create some pretty interesting dynamics where the fish will seriously call you with any 2 cards given the chance they can win your bounty. It makes for some pretty fun short stacking.

So anyway, I'll get started on writing these posts and I hope you guys stay tuned and read them. Quick shout out to MrScRuFFF and Pokerchef for shipping the NLO8 and PLO8 FTOPS events (Scruffy actually chopped the PLO8 with Chef too!). Enjoy the jerseys and, of course, all them $s! To all you grinders, have a big Sunday and good luck in the big Sunday Million!