Note Taking

So as my break even February turns into a down swinging March, I took a little step back yesterday to go over some of my play and have a look at some areas of the game at which I need to work upon. While I poured over my HEM database and went over a through hand history reviews, a fellow grinder made it to a decent Final Table so I jumped on the rail for support and, as there is with most low-stakes Mixed Game MTT tables, he was sat next to a reg. I knew the reg well from both PLO and PLO8 and had around a 2k hand sample on him. I had him tagged up as a reg, and a winning reg at that but I didn't have a single note on him. How can that be right, how can I have played over two thousand hands with one player and not picked up a single read on him other than the fact he was a decent player. So thus I've decided that my note taking skills need to be worked on.

Now this isn't the first time I've though about how to improve my note taking. During Andre Coimbra's $100k bankroll challenge last year I watched a ton of his videos on his Youtube channel and I noticed that even in low-stakes MTTs that he wasn't likely to play regularly ever again, his note taking was very detailed. Whenever he was down to a few tables, say two to three, he could pretty much manage to make a note on every player left at his tables.

Now while I didn't agree with some aspects of his note taking, such as merely reporting hands that said player was involved in rather than gleaming reads regarding his range over a sample of similar hands, I did really the way he was noting every hand of interest, regardless of whether he was in it or not, as well as he noting of bet sizing and position. I started incorporating some of these note taking skills into my game but I feel I've become somewhat lazy recently and started to rely more on my HUD for reads than actually watching hands. The HUD is great for generally tagging up what kind of player I'm up against but the specific reads you learn through actually paying attention are where the money is made.

I'm going to be working on this a lot in the near future and I'll let you guys know what kind of effect it has on my play and on my results. Feel free to leave a comment below on how you take notes and maybe what steps you're taking to work on your notes. For now, good luck at the tables and I'll speak to you all soon!

My Breakeven February

Normally at this time of the month I'd do a short review of how my previous month's goals went but because of an insanely busy start to February and far too many real life commitments getting in the way I decided not to write any for last month. I did however manage to rejig my normal schedule and organise things a little better so that I could play consistently again and in the past two weeks or so I've managed to keep up a decent amount of volume.

Unfortunately though, it's not been all roses. For various reasons including being a little rusty after a few weeks off and also running pretty poorly, granted over a limited sample, so I haven't managed anywhere near my January results. It's not really a sense of a few near misses like it has been in past months but more generally bricking everything and managing a few select tournament victories in order to keep myself afloat.

I still feel like I'm playing well though. Whilst I was writing my previous blog post on 5 things I know I'm doing wrong I thought a lot about my focus and genuinely thinking through every hand I play and so I've found so many more spots where I can pick up chips by considering what kind of player I'm up against. They're mainly hands where, in hindsight, it's obvious that a small bet would have picked up the pot but at the time I was auto-piloting and simply mashed the check button because I hadn't hit the nuts. I'm sure if I could find out how to see my red line for tournaments like HEM does for cash games then I'd see a marked improvement over this time last year.

I've also started mixing in a few more 18 man NLO8 SnGs. I wrote a post many moons ago about PLO8 SnGs any many of the same points I made back then still apply now. Unfortunately nowadays the games can very reg heavy at peak times so for now I'm game selecting which ones I register for which tend to be at the very beginning of my session or just as I'm winding down, which I don't mind at all. For now I'm showing a decent ROI in the $15 games but I'm still aware how brutal the swings can be so I'm keeping grounded. I'm also finding interesting spots almost every day where I'm still not sure what the right line is but thankfully I have a few friends who are real SnG grinders to advise me. Cheers lads.

So that was my February in a nutshell. I'm still not entirely sure about how much I can play in March so I'll hold off for now on writing a March goals post. For now I'll be playing each day as it comes but I still will be keeping an eye on my 2014 goals for a little direction. I hope maybe February went a little better for all you guys and here's wishing you all a big March! Until next time, good luck at the tables and I'll speak to you all soon!br

Top 5 things I KNOW I'm doing wrong!

I read a blog post on PartyPoker's site recently where numerous UK Online Pros gave their thoughts on the best tips they could give on how to be a successful online player. These weren't strategy tips i.e. 3-bet more in position etc, but more on the poker lifestyle and mindset and how to prepare yourself to win at the game. It got me thinking not only about which of their tips I was already doing but about those I was not as well as many others. So without further ado, here are the top 5 things I KNOW I'm doing wrong.

1. Playing Tired

Over the past couple of months I have worked really hard on getting a routine in place and organising an actual schedule of when I play poker.  It's helped me to treat poker more like a job and to take it more seriously, however, it does have it downsides. Much like a real job, if you feel tired or ill, you feel compelled to still play, especially as you feel that you miss value by not playing. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. Again, much like real life, you performance is greatly hampered by feeling tired and the usual win rate just doesn't exist. As a poker player, I am blessed that if I am tired, I am not forced to play and I think I should take that one day off to recover and feel fresh, rather than continuing on and maybe playing 3-4 days straight tired.

2. Chasing Losses

I think every poker player out there has felt this at some point. You have maybe two or three losing days in a row and then suddenly you're not thinking fully about winning the tournament you're playing, what you're actually thinking is where in the tournament you need to finish in order to get back to even. It's a truly terrible mindset to be in. The focus of every tournament I play should be to win, end of. I spend a lot of time working on my mindset and this is just the next hurdle to overcome.

3. Holding onto small stacks

This is a lesson that I've taken off some of the well known NLHE grinders. There comes a stage when the tables start to build up and it's hard to focus equally on each one. It's at this point that I start to build up 10BB and less stacks on some of the smaller tournaments approaching the late stages. It's in situations like this where I should be getting aggressive and attempting to shove and reshove my chips in order to build a decent stack, after all, I'm aiming for first, not a min cash. I know that keeping my eye out for spots like this will get me to more final tables and increase my ROI, even if I bubble tournaments a little more often.

4. Not paying full attention

Again, a problem I'm sure other grinders out there experience. I have a pretty short attention span at the best of times, so grinding for hours on end gets somewhat monotonous after a while and I tend to resort to watching TV as well or sometimes even playing other games. Needless to say this is diverting my attention away from the tables and directly affecting my bottom line. To combat this I've recently bought a pair of high quality, noise cancelling headphones and put together a super long grinding playlist that should keep my focus on the tables. I'm always for looking for new tunes to add by the way so feel free to suggest your favourites!
5. Autopiloting

This is somewhat different to not paying attention. Even when I am focused on the tables, I tend to get into a stretch where I genuinely am just clicking buttons. It's a mindset that's easier to get into with Omaha games which is a lot more dependent on showdowns and making the nuts. I definitely can tell when I've been doing it for a while, at which point I snap out of it and start thinking about each hand again but I'm still not entirely certain how to eliminate it all together. Hopefully some of you other grinders have experienced similar and can give me some advice!

As you can still see, I'm working on trying to eradicate these issues from my game but it's a long old slog. At least the first stage of identifying the issues is out the way, so I can work on techniques to focus more and improve my bottom line. Hopefully this helps some of you who feel that you're doing the same thing. That's it for now, so good luck at the tables and I'll speak to you all soon!

Damn you real life!

Hey everyone, really sorry for the lack of posts recently. As some of you may have gleamed from my constant moaning on Twitter I've spent practically the entire last two weeks at what is supposed to be my "part time" waiter job. I've barely had time to play poker, let alone write about it, but I should be back to the tables now and thus should have lots of time to moan about that instead!

As I've mentioned before I started the part time waiter job mainly as a good way to show employers outside of the poker industry that I am out there working and employable. To companies within the industry, which I'd definitely prefer to work within, being a professional poker player works to my advantage, but to some gaming and statistics companies all they see is "gambler" and "degenerate" so I try to steer clear of bringing it up in cover letters and interviews. However, it leaves me open to the inevitable question of "What have you been doing for the last few months?".

The last two weeks the hours really stepped up, in fact I worked 13 of the 14 days possible mainly because some staff took some leave and I'd now been there long enough and learnt enough of what needs doing to fill in competently. It's my own fault really, I should have remained next to useless! It's now got to the stage where myself and my girlfriend, who I live with, were having a serious discussion that I need to work less so that I could play more poker! Not gonna lie, I had a beaming smile throughout the whole conversation.

I've just now got back from a quick weekend trip away to Copenhagen and I had a bit of time to write a few blog posts, so all I need to do is a little editing and revising then there should be a solid level of content production again, provided I don't get snowed under with shifts again.

I hope everybody's been having good luck at the tables since I've been away and I look forward to joining you all tonight! Speak to you all soon!

Back on the Grind!

Hey everybody! As you probably guessed from the lack of blog posts over the last week or so I haven't been around much. Real life kind of took over in the form of temporary work and visiting my "in laws" (quotes used as I'm not actually married). Even though it was nice to get out from behind my computer screen and see the outside world for a little bit I am back at it now and raring to go!

Poker went very well either side of the break. Just before I left on Friday I shipped the $11 NLO 6m for around $280 and the yesterday, the first day back grinding, I took down the $8.80 PLO 6m for $340. Not huge scores but it keeps the scoreboard ticking over nicely and profit is good no matter how much. Also it's really good for my confidence levels to actually have won these tournaments outright. I obviously ran well in both tournaments but I did feel like I was playing my A game and making the correct plays. Especially in yesterday's PLO, I really stepped up the aggression on the final table when possibly in previous months I would have sat back a little more and picked my spots, maybe costing me the tournament win.

I'm also showing good results with my higher buy in shots, in fact my highest ROIs are in the games with buy ins of $11+. I've been slowly increasing my average buy in over the last couple of weeks and it's now creeping up to around the $15 range. I'm hoping within a few months this rise further and buy the end of the year it can be closer to the $30 mark. It may mean having to diversify my games over different sites but I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it. Currently PokerStars offers more than enough games at my buy in level, but more couldn't hurt!

I haven't got anything pressing to do until Sunday so hopefully that means a solid few days of grinding with a ton of volume and great results. With a bit of luck and run good I can start cashing out enough by the end of the month to comfortably afford the vast majority of my action in the £220 PLO8 at the Vic at the end of the month. I don't particularly want to completely raid the small live roll I've started to put aside in the first month of 2014 but if I can pad it a little before that time then I'll feel a little more comfortable. I'll be sure to keep you all updated with how the week goes, and if you want more current updates then be sure to follow me on Twitter (@Grimiscool). Good luck at the tables everybody and I'll speak to you all soon!

January Goals

What's up everybody! I hope you all enjoyed reading my 2014 goals post. If you haven't yet had a look then you can find it here! A lot of my monthly goals this year will relate to those yearly goals so be sure to check it out should anything I say here be a little confusing! So without further ado, let's get stuck in!

1, $2.5k Profit

Hoping to get 2014 off to a good start. Around $500 per week I think is a very attainable target given my stakes, volume and ROI. If I play smart and grind hard I should hit this no problem. Recently I've had a few deep turbo runs only to falter towards the end so I hope to put those near misses behind me, learn from them and finally take one down sometime this month.

2. Two Red Label Final Tables

I'm using this goal to refocus my efforts on the Red Label tournaments. Recently I've been busting these too cheaply in my opinion, either by getting it in on a flip way to early or wasting away a decent chip stack towards the bubble or soon after. I usually play 6 of these a day and with the Omania's only having small fields, I believe a solid player should be making the Final Tables of these fairly regularly.

3. At least one four-figure score

This definitely ties in with the points I made above about deep turbo runs and Red Label final tables. Although I've had some great results in the past few months, I've had no scores over $1k. The closest I came was a $950 score in the PLO8 $16t 2x Chance. I play so many tournaments a day where four-figure scores are available so if I can ride the variance and play well, a $1k+ score shouldn't be too far away. I'd say my best chances for this would be said $16t, the morning PLO8 Omania or possible a random micro stake turbo.

4. Have developed an organised system of what to do with tips

I pick up a couple of waiter shifts during the week and normally I make about the same from tips as I do from my wage. Unfortunately, while my wages go straight into my account, my tips normally stay in my pocket ready to be spent on whatever I fancy walking home. Even today, I've counted out the exact change to order some Chinese as soon as it opens! Goal starts tomorrow lol.

5. Have a full clean out of my flat and throw away as much as possible

I had my boiler fixed today and the plumber needed the closet completely cleared out so he could get to it. I have far too much junk. Correction, my girlfriend has far too much junk! I actually hate having too much stuff. I moved to London with just a backpack, that's genuinely all I needed. I need to spend one day this month having a total clean out of all the excess in this flat and actually make it look nice again.



So there you have it. A couple of Poker goals and a couple of Non-Poker related goals too! Who said Tales of a PLO8 Grinder had to be solely about PLO8 grinding! Let's make sure 2014 gets off to a great start! Hope January goes equally well for all of you too! Til next time, later y'all.