Haven't updated for a while so thought I would have a little late night ramble.
General confusion is the order of the day.
Jobs
Still have not heard anything back from the poker job yet, not that I was expecting to have heard anything back yet as I don't think the closing date for applications has even arrived. So I am really not sure what will happen on that front, could come to nothing or could be moving to London soon, who knows, will just have to be patient and see what happens.
Vegas
Much the same with the quest for Vegas. I have been very lucky and managed to tie up packages long before this time the last 2 years but nothing thus far this year. I do have the £1260 and £435 games to play on the 28th and a couple of more attempts at the Mayhems so I will remain hopeful. As with the job stuff though, I will just need to be patient and see what happens. One silver lining is that even if I don't win a package I will probably try and scrape a small stack together and make the trip anyway.
I am pretty nervous about the games to be honest, especially the £1260. Not about the quality of the field or even the buy in level. I mean don't get me wrong, I know there will be some excellent players and £1260 is a decent chunk of change but if the goal is to go and play in the WSOP main event then I think we have to go into such games with some degree of confidence. Otherwise what would it be like playing a $10k buy in with a mixture of fish, intermediates and top pros. It is more the fact I am a big fan of all the WSOP stuff, I have watched every episode of every main event for the last 10 years++. I have been lucky enough to get over and play a few side events and played with some of the best players but I have never yet played the main event. I am thrilled to watch the main event nevermind trying to contemplate sitting down with 50k starting chips and getting the chance to take part. That really would be something quite special. I guess I should appreciate the fact, a bit like 'shrodingers cat', that this is a possibility at the moment, it is not 'not happening' currently and until I open the box that is the £1260 game on the 28th... The dream remains alive.
Pokering
Have been on a bit of a cold run the last couple of weeks. I like the PLO8 BH's but there just aren't enough of them (this is not a thinly veiled moan, unless Sky__James is prepared to add around 30 more to the schedule in which case it certainly is). It is just that after a few years break from playing poker full time I find myself back playing full time, albeit possibly temporarily. Uni is done which means that student loans have dried up, my partner is on a zero hours contract, the reality of which over the last few months has been she has recieved precisely zero hours. So there is zip, nada, coming in at the moment apart from poker earnings. The bills such as rent etc of course do not stop. I am not worried about this as I have plenty of outs. If I need to work I can find some form of work very quickly. However, this of course means that with the reliance currently on poker earnings, a few £5.50 PLO8 BH's just are not going to cut the mustard. I have been playing some on other sites and we are at least 'ticking over' currently.
I may launch into playing a load of MTT's on Sky but with the current cold run I have been on, the confidence is a little deflated. So I have been scratching around looking at various games on Sky and elsewhere and trying some stuff out, which brings me on to something else I wanted to mention...
Streaks
While experimenting with a few games over the last week I have tried some NLHE HU games here and elsewhere. I may have to give these deeper consideration and run a reasonable sample size as they have been going quite well. I had been winning most that I played and fired a few open today. Managed to win the few NLHE HU games I played today on Sky so fired another 7 up tonight at £5.25 and £10.50 buy ins and won all of those too.
This got me curious as to what kind of winning streaks people go on playing these games so I opened up Sharkscope. I clicked Leaderboards />2017>Streaks>Heads up wins... I was expecting to see like 40 or 50 wins on the trot at the top, I mean that is a **** of a lot but seems 'doable'. Well no, the guy at the top has a run of 402 wins! I mean 402? Seriously? I can only assume this is some form of cash dumping or something. Even if the player got AA in hand 1 every single game and had an opponent all in, they wouldn't be winning 402 games on the bounce. I checked for 2016 and the player at the top had a streak of 783...
Well I have rambled enough for the night, might go and see if I can get my current NLHE HU streak a little nearer to the 402
Haven't updated for a while so thought I would have a little late night ramble. General confusion is the order of the day. Jobs Still have not heard anything back from the poker job yet, not that I was expecting to have heard anything back yet as I don't think the closing date for applications has even arrived. So I am really not sure what will happen on that front, could come to nothing or could be moving to London soon, who knows, will just have to be patient and see what happens. Vegas Much the same with the quest for Vegas. I have been very lucky and managed to tie up packages long before this time the last 2 years but nothing thus far this year. I do have the £1260 and £435 games to play on the 28th and a couple of more attempts at the Mayhems so I will remain hopeful. As with the job stuff though, I will just need to be patient and see what happens. One silver lining is that even if I don't win a package I will probably try and scrape a small stack together and make the trip anyway. I am pretty nervous about the games to be honest, especially the £1260. Not about the quality of the field or even the buy in level. I mean don't get me wrong, I know there will be some excellent players and £1260 is a decent chunk of change but if the goal is to go and play in the WSOP main event then I think we have to go into such games with some degree of confidence. Otherwise what would it be like playing a $10k buy in with a mixture of fish, intermediates and top pros. It is more the fact I am a big fan of all the WSOP stuff, I have watched every episode of every main event for the last 10 years++. I have been lucky enough to get over and play a few side events and played with some of the best players but I have never yet played the main event. I am thrilled to watch the main event nevermind trying to contemplate sitting down with 50k starting chips and getting the chance to take part. That really would be something quite special. I guess I should appreciate the fact, a bit like 'shrodingers cat', that this is a possibility at the moment, it is not 'not happening' currently and until I open the box that is the £1260 game on the 28th... The dream remains alive. Pokering Have been on a bit of a cold run the last couple of weeks. I like the PLO8 BH's but there just aren't enough of them (this is not a thinly veiled moan, unless Sky__James is prepared to add around 30 more to the schedule in which case it certainly is). It is just that after a few years break from playing poker full time I find myself back playing full time, albeit possibly temporarily. Uni is done which means that student loans have dried up, my partner is on a zero hours contract, the reality of which over the last few months has been she has recieved precisely zero hours. So there is zip, nada, coming in at the moment apart from poker earnings. The bills such as rent etc of course do not stop. I am not worried about this as I have plenty of outs. If I need to work I can find some form of work very quickly. However, this of course means that with the reliance currently on poker earnings, a few £5.50 PLO8 BH's just are not going to cut the mustard. I have been playing some on other sites and we are at least 'ticking over' currently. I may launch into playing a load of MTT's on Sky but with the current cold run I have been on, the confidence is a little deflated. So I have been scratching around looking at various games on Sky and elsewhere and trying some stuff out, which brings me on to something else I wanted to mention... Streaks While experimenting with a few games over the last week I have tried some NLHE HU games here and elsewhere. I may have to give these deeper consideration and run a reasonable sample size as they have been going quite well. I had been winning most that I played and fired a few open today. Managed to win the few NLHE HU games I played today on Sky so fired another 7 up tonight at £5.25 and £10.50 buy ins and won all of those too. This got me curious as to what kind of winning streaks people go on playing these games so I opened up Sharkscope. I clicked Leaderboards />2017 />Streaks>Heads up wins... I was expecting to see like 40 or 50 wins on the trot at the top, I mean that is a **** of a lot but seems 'doable'. Well no, the guy at the top has a run of 402 wins! I mean 402? Seriously? I can only assume this is some form of cash dumping or something. Even if the player got AA in hand 1 every single game and had an opponent all in, they wouldn't be winning 402 games on the bounce. I checked for 2016 and the player at the top had a streak of 783... Well I have rambled enough for the night, might go and see if I can get my current NLHE HU streak a little nearer to the 402 Posted by markycash
Have a little time so thought I would update here again.
Real life
Still stumbling around trying to find some life balance and figure out my path going forward post uni. Didn't get the poker job which I am not surprised about. I was requesting £10k more than the advertised amount (otherwise a reloacte to London just would not have been worth it). They had quite a few candidates with relevant experience so were not going to burst the budget to get me down there, which I fully understand. I will concentrate my efforts on the job front after the WSOP and hopefully sort something out.
Everything seems to be in limbo just now. Still waiting impatiently to see what happens after Super Sunday and the 2 WSOP qualifier finals, these really are going to have a big influence on the short term at least. Also, even although I am finished studying, my partner is studying around 100 hours++ per week for her BSC in Astrophysics so she is utterly consumed by that until June 8th when she gets a few months break. On top of that my son and daughter are studying hard at the closing stages of their HNC & HNDs respectively. I am looking forward to all these things being finished so that life can take a little more shape.
Pokering
Very much a case of 1.5 steps forward and 1 step back. This could be worse of course, although it could also be better. As mentioned previously, there is a complete reliance upon the poker income just now and with trips to Vegas to plan, all bills to play and my kids birthdays (yesterday) to pay for, it is a little bit of a juggling act.
Cashout curses
So I have read people talking about cashout curses on the forum. I have never bought into this and I feel it is very dangerous for a poker player to buy into this nonsenese. Firstly, with the number of people who play poker... if such a thing existed then I am pretty sure someone would have shown evidence for this before. Secondly, do some people actually believe that someone is sitting at Sky Towers flicking a 'Doom Switch' on them if they cash a few quid out? Thirdly, and most importantly, if you think this way then it means you are overlooking the real factors which may be affecting your game. The reduced bankroll after cashouts can affect the way you play and you may have been running +ev before and are simply encountering the downside of variance.
I rather unintentionally put this to the test last week. I was having some run bad on Sky and thought I may just need a change of scenery for a few days so I cashed the little amount I had on Sky out and left a £0 balance. I was going to focus play elsewhere for a few days just to break things up a bit and then return to Sky. At this point I realised The Mayhem and other freerolls were on and I thought I may as well play them, I mean if you have 1 astounding night it could result in a £4k package so it seemed silly not to play it. So I took around 16-18 heads in this and cashed for £30. In the regular freeroll I won around £3 and in the 6:30pm which has a narrow payout of tickets I won a £95 Vegas semi ticket. Decent start...
I also finished 2nd in a PLO8 BH and also sneaked a 2nd in this 2 nights ago. I played the Vegas semi with my £95 ticket and as I already have the £435 ticket I was playing for the cash, which I won. Was also sitting 2nd in the Mayhem leaderboard only 2 points behind the leader going into the last day. The last day of the Mayhem unfortunately went pear shaped and I only finished joint 4th but got £125 for this. A pity this didn't go well on the last day or I might have been able to do one **** of a short £0-£5k retrospective bankroll challenge lol.
At the end of the day £0 to about £650 in a few days wasn't too bad. The moral of the story... The Cashout Curse is BS and believing in these things only serves to take your attention away from the factors that actually may influence results. You may also end up encouraging a bit of a 'placebo effect' on yourself if you think this way.
Well I will quit rambling now and go play some pokers.
Thanks for reading and run golden (unless you are sharing a table with me lol).
It never ceases to amaze me that there are still players that believe there is such a thing as the "cashout curse". It is really worrying that people can be so naïve & gullible.
^^^^ It never ceases to amaze me that there are still players that believe there is such a thing as the "cashout curse". It is really worrying that people can be so naïve & gullible. Posted by Tikay10
I've experienced it on the sister-site Sky Bet. Won loads, withdrew, and not won since...
Have a little time so thought I would update here again. Real life Still stumbling around trying to find some life balance and figure out my path going forward post uni. Didn't get the poker job which I am not surprised about. I was requesting £10k more than the advertised amount (otherwise a reloacte to London just would not have been worth it). They had quite a few candidates with relevant experience so were not going to burst the budget to get me down there, which I fully understand. I will concentrate my efforts on the job front after the WSOP and hopefully sort something out. Everything seems to be in limbo just now. Still waiting impatiently to see what happens after Super Sunday and the 2 WSOP qualifier finals, these really are going to have a big influence on the short term at least. Also, even although I am finished studying, my partner is studying around 100 hours++ per week for her BSC in Astrophysics so she is utterly consumed by that until June 8th when she gets a few months break. On top of that my son and daughter are studying hard at the closing stages of their HNC & HNDs respectively. I am looking forward to all these things being finished so that life can take a little more shape. Pokering Very much a case of 1.5 steps forward and 1 step back. This could be worse of course, although it could also be better. As mentioned previously, there is a complete reliance upon the poker income just now and with trips to Vegas to plan, all bills to play and my kids birthdays (yesterday) to pay for, it is a little bit of a juggling act. Cashout curses So I have read people talking about cashout curses on the forum. I have never bought into this and I feel it is very dangerous for a poker player to buy into this nonsenese. Firstly, with the number of people who play poker... if such a thing existed then I am pretty sure someone would have shown evidence for this before. Secondly, do some people actually believe that someone is sitting at Sky Towers flicking a 'Doom Switch' on them if they cash a few quid out? Thirdly, and most importantly, if you think this way then it means you are overlooking the real factors which may be affecting your game. The reduced bankroll after cashouts can affect the way you play and you may have been running +ev before and are simply encountering the downside of variance. I rather unintentionally put this to the test last week. I was having some run bad on Sky and thought I may just need a change of scenery for a few days so I cashed the little amount I had on Sky out and left a £0 balance. I was going to focus play elsewhere for a few days just to break things up a bit and then return to Sky. At this point I realised The Mayhem and other freerolls were on and I thought I may as well play them, I mean if you have 1 astounding night it could result in a £4k package so it seemed silly not to play it. So I took around 16-18 heads in this and cashed for £30. In the regular freeroll I won around £3 and in the 6:30pm which has a narrow payout of tickets I won a £95 Vegas semi ticket. Decent start... I also finished 2nd in a PLO8 BH and also sneaked a 2nd in this 2 nights ago. I played the Vegas semi with my £95 ticket and as I already have the £435 ticket I was playing for the cash, which I won. Was also sitting 2nd in the Mayhem leaderboard only 2 points behind the leader going into the last day. The last day of the Mayhem unfortunately went pear shaped and I only finished joint 4th but got £125 for this. A pity this didn't go well on the last day or I might have been able to do one **** of a short £0-£5k retrospective bankroll challenge lol. At the end of the day £0 to about £650 in a few days wasn't too bad. The moral of the story... The Cashout Curse is BS and believing in these things only serves to take your attention away from the factors that actually may influence results. You may also end up encouraging a bit of a 'placebo effect' on yourself if you think this way. Well I will quit rambling now and go play some pokers. Thanks for reading and run golden (unless you are sharing a table with me lol). Posted by markycash
mods' please move this to BB and V......ps.wp Dave
In Response to Re: Markycash diary - Real life, Pokering & Cashout Curses. : mods' please move this to BB and V......ps.wp Dave Posted by HENDRIK62
@ Mr T - I guess it is just so much easier to do than for people to consider that it may be their own play. The unfortunate things is, if we are prepared to recognise it may be our own play then we can chage it as we should have a modicum of control over this factor!
Shiny new passport just arrived which has got me buzzing even more to try and make sure I am over in Vegas this year. I really will need to try and make sure I do not leave this one in random places.
I think I mentioned earlier ITT about having my stars OPR unblocked so it is available if I decide to try for live staking for next years WSOP. Not sure about all this yet but nice to have things unlocked so it is an option. I don't think any amount of telling someone you are worth investing in is going to work if there are no black and white figures to back it up. Well today Sharkscope have also finally unblocked my stats for Marky_Crash on stars and I have the shiny stars which are of no consequence back. I was a little curious as I couldn't even remember exactly how my stats looked, it has literally been years since I seen them.
My ability rating is the same for both sites but I realise I have a lot of work to do on Sky to get the overall profits up to where I would want them to be. Will need to put in some serious volume here at some point soon!
I may set a little challenge of getting my profits for Sky up over the £25k mark by the end of the year or something similar. I think a challenge like this may help me concentrate my efforts. Any ideas for some sort of challenge are welcome!
Hey Mark - Just been catching up on your diary as 'working from home' today. Unlucky with the Poker job, it's certainly expensive to live in London. I was on a course last week down there and was looking over someones shoulder on the tube who was looking at the house rentals page - £6,000 PCM for a 3-bed place in Wimbledon.
Good luck on Sunday with the Vegas sats.
Just out of interest I was wondering why you have done all this studying and then would look to go and get a job in poker or go back to being a poker-pro? Makes me wonder what was the point in spending all that time doing it?
Just out of interest I was wondering why you have done all this studying and then would look to go and get a job in poker or go back to being a poker-pro? Makes me wonder what was the point in spending all that time doing it? Regards Greg. Posted by GREGSTER
Cheers for the post Greg and good question!
When I was playing full time previously the overall life set-up was not ideal. I was very steadily making a profit but at the time I was the only person bringing money into the household and outgoings amounted to more than poker income, or at least made life a struggle.
Week in week out I had to cash chunks of money out to pay for the expenses of life. This left no room for my bankroll to grow and I was basically caught in a cycle of grinding money to keep up with the curve. It was too stressful and took a lot of the fun out of poker.
I decided I would look for a job within the poker industry, as I had quite a few contacts, and see if I could have a solid income in the background which would allow the bankroll to grow. Several people were very helpful but at the end of the day I was lacking in academic qualifications. Therefore I went and done an HNC and a BA which are now successfully completed.
I am happy to take any decent job now so that I have the solid income in the background and can allow the bankroll to grow. The preference would be to find a job related to poker as I would enjoy this the most but if I don't find anything I will work in something else, probably education. With the studies just recently finished I am having a few months break and hopefully a break in Vegas and then will get more active on the job front. I am really just using this period to see how playing full time pans out for now and to see if I stumble into a job that ticks most of the boxes.
In Response to Re: Markycash diary - Real life, Pokering & Cashout Curses. : Cheers for the post Greg and good question! When I was playing full time previously the overall life set-up was not ideal. I was very steadily making a profit but at the time I was the only person bringing money into the household and outgoings amounted to more than poker income, or at least made life a struggle. Week in week out I had to cash chunks of money out to pay for the expenses of life. This left no room for my bankroll to grow and I was basically caught in a cycle of grinding money to keep up with the curve. It was too stressful and took a lot of the fun out of poker. I decided I would look for a job within the poker industry, as I had quite a few contacts, and see if I could have a solid income in the background which would allow the bankroll to grow. Several people were very helpful but at the end of the day I was lacking in academic qualifications. Therefore I went and done an HNC and a BA which are now successfully completed. I am happy to take any decent job now so that I have the solid income in the background and can allow the bankroll to grow. The preference would be to find a job related to poker as I would enjoy this the most but if I don't find anything I will work in something else, probably education. With the studies just recently finished I am having a few months break and hopefully a break in Vegas and then will get more active on the job front. I am really just using this period to see how playing full time pans out for now and to see if I stumble into a job that ticks most of the boxes. Posted by markycash
Ah, I see, thanks for the reply. You see it a lot that you need to have a degree to be able to get certain jobs, yet there are plenty of people that could do the job just as well that haven't got a degree, but have got lots of experience in that field. Weird world.
Obviously there are cases where you need to have a degree and the qualification and your learnings are relevant, just think it's ridiculous that say someone who has a degree in Geology can just get a job as a teacher in a Primary school, yet has no experience of dealing with a class of 30 kids.
In Response to Re: Markycash diary - Real life, Pokering & Cashout Curses. : Ah, I see, thanks for the reply. You see it a lot that you need to have a degree to be able to get certain jobs, yet there are plenty of people that could do the job just as well that haven't got a degree, but have got lots of experience in that field. Weird world. Obviously there are cases where you need to have a degree and the qualification and your learnings are relevant, just think it's ridiculous that say someone who has a degree in Geology can just get a job as a teacher in a Primary school, yet has no experience of dealing with a class of 30 kids. Cheers Greg. Posted by GREGSTER
Couldn't agree more! I have done a little bit of teaching before and it doesn't matter how well versed you are in your subject if you cannot control the classroom or identify the best ways to engage the students.
Just wanted to take a minute to thank everyone for their good luck wishes at the tables tonight and to AJ & IH8UButler for posting here.
The games ended in pretty horrid fashion. In the £4k package game I got moved to a tricky table but stayed out of things until I found a set with my pocket 5s on a 652 rainbow flop. I bet big on the flop and the turn is a clean looking 10. I bet the turn again and am shoved on and call and my opponent has pocket 10s and turned the overset so GG me. We were on the last 2 tables and that pot would have put me on around 70k and very very likely tied the package up.
With 10 left in the £1260 buy in I finally had a stack going and got up to around 50k. I was only sitting around 5/10 so had work to do still. Got dealt AA in the BB. UTG shoves for 20k, the SB reshoves for 70k and I obviously snap call. If I hold I have 120k+ and the package very very likely tied up. King on the flop kills the dream though.
Definitely my most deflating night playing poker. It is only poker, I will bounce back, yada yada. Just feels like a bit of a kick in the nuts just now but these things happen.
Hope all those who won packages have a cracking time!
Thanks again for the rail folks, very much appreciated.
Definitely my most deflating night playing poker. It is only poker, I will bounce back, yada yada. Just feels like a bit of a kick in the nuts just now but these things happen. Hope all those who won packages have a cracking time! Thanks again for the rail folks, very much appreciated. Posted by markycash
I feel your pain-had a similar night myself. Lost with QQ v A6o in the Vegas Main Event Final (flop 966), and KK v AQ AIPF in the Main-on the positive side, at least it wasn't the AA AIPF that I have lost with in 3 Mains this week. Must confess my runbad is finally starting to affect my mental approach-never good when you are waiting for the nut worst card to land.
Are you still going to Vegas this year, or is that it til next year?
Unlucky mate - I find satellites pretty stressful as it's all or nothing, when you get close to such a big score it must be agony every hand - I know I'll be stressing if I get close to an SPT seat next month never mind Vegas!
Always next year though and think it's likely only a matter of time before you hit one of these!
In Response to Re: Markycash diary - Real life, Pokering & Cashout Curses. : I feel your pain-had a similar night myself. Lost with QQ v A6o in the Vegas Main Event Final (flop 966), and KK v AQ AIPF in the Main-on the positive side, at least it wasn't the AA AIPF that I have lost with in 3 Mains this week. Must confess my runbad is finally starting to affect my mental approach-never good when you are waiting for the nut worst card to land. Are you still going to Vegas this year, or is that it til next year? Posted by Essexphil
Ouch on the QQ and AA aipf loses Phil! We pick the wrong time to have the run bad lol.
Although you fairly shot up that leaderboard in your challenge, even when seeming to not get very much run good.
Regarding the bolded part...
I am basically 50/50 just now. Hard to make a rational decision just after the games but will figure it out either way by the end of the week.
Unlucky mate - I find satellites pretty stressful as it's all or nothing, when you get close to such a big score it must be agony every hand - I know I'll be stressing if I get close to an SPT seat next month never mind Vegas! Always next year though and think it's likely only a matter of time before you hit one of these! Posted by IH8UButler
Cheers IH8UButler
I couldn't agree more about these games being stressful.
Something a top player with 7 figure+ MTT winnings said to me once is rather pertinent in my mind just now. He said he didn't bother too much with satty qualifiers and rather than play for example a £400 buy in game for a package he would just play tourneys of equivelant value and use the cash for the trip. I think I may do this in future. I mean there are pros and cons to it....
More forgiving payout structure and much more games to choose from but on the other hand harder fields.
Hello again my friend. Silently railed you last night. Gutted for you esp the main event game. Hopefully you`ll find a way of getting there this year. Posted by WeeFatShug
Shug!!!!!
Great to hear from you mate, I noticed your name regged in the Super Sunday freeroll. Nice to see you over on Sky mate
Yeah, a tough one to take but I just have to suck it up I guess.
Hope all is well with you. Always remember the home game at your place with such fond memories.
Comments
General confusion is the order of the day.
Jobs
Still have not heard anything back from the poker job yet, not that I was expecting to have heard anything back yet as I don't think the closing date for applications has even arrived. So I am really not sure what will happen on that front, could come to nothing or could be moving to London soon, who knows, will just have to be patient and see what happens.
Vegas
Much the same with the quest for Vegas. I have been very lucky and managed to tie up packages long before this time the last 2 years but nothing thus far this year. I do have the £1260 and £435 games to play on the 28th and a couple of more attempts at the Mayhems so I will remain hopeful. As with the job stuff though, I will just need to be patient and see what happens. One silver lining is that even if I don't win a package I will probably try and scrape a small stack together and make the trip anyway.
I am pretty nervous about the games to be honest, especially the £1260. Not about the quality of the field or even the buy in level. I mean don't get me wrong, I know there will be some excellent players and £1260 is a decent chunk of change but if the goal is to go and play in the WSOP main event then I think we have to go into such games with some degree of confidence. Otherwise what would it be like playing a $10k buy in with a mixture of fish, intermediates and top pros. It is more the fact I am a big fan of all the WSOP stuff, I have watched every episode of every main event for the last 10 years++. I have been lucky enough to get over and play a few side events and played with some of the best players but I have never yet played the main event. I am thrilled to watch the main event nevermind trying to contemplate sitting down with 50k starting chips and getting the chance to take part. That really would be something quite special. I guess I should appreciate the fact, a bit like 'shrodingers cat', that this is a possibility at the moment, it is not 'not happening' currently and until I open the box that is the £1260 game on the 28th... The dream remains alive.
Pokering
I may launch into playing a load of MTT's on Sky but with the current cold run I have been on, the confidence is a little deflated. So I have been scratching around looking at various games on Sky and elsewhere and trying some stuff out, which brings me on to something else I wanted to mention...
Streaks
While experimenting with a few games over the last week I have tried some NLHE HU games here and elsewhere. I may have to give these deeper consideration and run a reasonable sample size as they have been going quite well. I had been winning most that I played and fired a few open today. Managed to win the few NLHE HU games I played today on Sky so fired another 7 up tonight at £5.25 and £10.50 buy ins and won all of those too.
This got me curious as to what kind of winning streaks people go on playing these games so I opened up Sharkscope. I clicked Leaderboards />2017>Streaks>Heads up wins... I was expecting to see like 40 or 50 wins on the trot at the top, I mean that is a **** of a lot but seems 'doable'. Well no, the guy at the top has a run of 402 wins! I mean 402? Seriously? I can only assume this is some form of cash dumping or something. Even if the player got AA in hand 1 every single game and had an opponent all in, they wouldn't be winning 402 games on the bounce. I checked for 2016 and the player at the top had a streak of 783...
Well I have rambled enough for the night, might go and see if I can get my current NLHE HU streak a little nearer to the 402
Cash-dumping, for sure.
Real life
Everything seems to be in limbo just now. Still waiting impatiently to see what happens after Super Sunday and the 2 WSOP qualifier finals, these really are going to have a big influence on the short term at least. Also, even although I am finished studying, my partner is studying around 100 hours++ per week for her BSC in Astrophysics so she is utterly consumed by that until June 8th when she gets a few months break. On top of that my son and daughter are studying hard at the closing stages of their HNC & HNDs respectively. I am looking forward to all these things being finished so that life can take a little more shape.
Pokering
Very much a case of 1.5 steps forward and 1 step back. This could be worse of course, although it could also be better. As mentioned previously, there is a complete reliance upon the poker income just now and with trips to Vegas to plan, all bills to play and my kids birthdays (yesterday) to pay for, it is a little bit of a juggling act.
Cashout curses
So I have read people talking about cashout curses on the forum. I have never bought into this and I feel it is very dangerous for a poker player to buy into this nonsenese. Firstly, with the number of people who play poker... if such a thing existed then I am pretty sure someone would have shown evidence for this before. Secondly, do some people actually believe that someone is sitting at Sky Towers flicking a 'Doom Switch' on them if they cash a few quid out? Thirdly, and most importantly, if you think this way then it means you are overlooking the real factors which may be affecting your game. The reduced bankroll after cashouts can affect the way you play and you may have been running +ev before and are simply encountering the downside of variance.
I rather unintentionally put this to the test last week. I was having some run bad on Sky and thought I may just need a change of scenery for a few days so I cashed the little amount I had on Sky out and left a £0 balance. I was going to focus play elsewhere for a few days just to break things up a bit and then return to Sky. At this point I realised The Mayhem and other freerolls were on and I thought I may as well play them, I mean if you have 1 astounding night it could result in a £4k package so it seemed silly not to play it. So I took around 16-18 heads in this and cashed for £30. In the regular freeroll I won around £3 and in the 6:30pm which has a narrow payout of tickets I won a £95 Vegas semi ticket. Decent start...
I also finished 2nd in a PLO8 BH and also sneaked a 2nd in this 2 nights ago. I played the Vegas semi with my £95 ticket and as I already have the £435 ticket I was playing for the cash, which I won. Was also sitting 2nd in the Mayhem leaderboard only 2 points behind the leader going into the last day. The last day of the Mayhem unfortunately went pear shaped and I only finished joint 4th but got £125 for this. A pity this didn't go well on the last day or I might have been able to do one **** of a short £0-£5k retrospective bankroll challenge lol.
At the end of the day £0 to about £650 in a few days wasn't too bad. The moral of the story... The Cashout Curse is BS and believing in these things only serves to take your attention away from the factors that actually may influence results. You may also end up encouraging a bit of a 'placebo effect' on yourself if you think this way.
Well I will quit rambling now and go play some pokers.
Thanks for reading and run golden (unless you are sharing a table with me lol).
^^^^
It never ceases to amaze me that there are still players that believe there is such a thing as the "cashout curse". It is really worrying that people can be so naïve & gullible.
@HENDRIK - Cheers Paul ;-)
Shiny new passport just arrived which has got me buzzing even more to try and make sure I am over in Vegas this year. I really will need to try and make sure I do not leave this one in random places.
I think I mentioned earlier ITT about having my stars OPR unblocked so it is available if I decide to try for live staking for next years WSOP. Not sure about all this yet but nice to have things unlocked so it is an option. I don't think any amount of telling someone you are worth investing in is going to work if there are no black and white figures to back it up. Well today Sharkscope have also finally unblocked my stats for Marky_Crash on stars and I have the shiny stars which are of no consequence back. I was a little curious as I couldn't even remember exactly how my stats looked, it has literally been years since I seen them.
My ability rating is the same for both sites but I realise I have a lot of work to do on Sky to get the overall profits up to where I would want them to be. Will need to put in some serious volume here at some point soon!
I may set a little challenge of getting my profits for Sky up over the £25k mark by the end of the year or something similar. I think a challenge like this may help me concentrate my efforts. Any ideas for some sort of challenge are welcome!
Good luck on Sunday with the Vegas sats.
Just out of interest I was wondering why you have done all this studying and then would look to go and get a job in poker or go back to being a poker-pro? Makes me wonder what was the point in spending all that time doing it?
Regards
Greg.
When I was playing full time previously the overall life set-up was not ideal. I was very steadily making a profit but at the time I was the only person bringing money into the household and outgoings amounted to more than poker income, or at least made life a struggle.
Week in week out I had to cash chunks of money out to pay for the expenses of life. This left no room for my bankroll to grow and I was basically caught in a cycle of grinding money to keep up with the curve. It was too stressful and took a lot of the fun out of poker.
I decided I would look for a job within the poker industry, as I had quite a few contacts, and see if I could have a solid income in the background which would allow the bankroll to grow. Several people were very helpful but at the end of the day I was lacking in academic qualifications. Therefore I went and done an HNC and a BA which are now successfully completed.
I am happy to take any decent job now so that I have the solid income in the background and can allow the bankroll to grow. The preference would be to find a job related to poker as I would enjoy this the most but if I don't find anything I will work in something else, probably education. With the studies just recently finished I am having a few months break and hopefully a break in Vegas and then will get more active on the job front. I am really just using this period to see how playing full time pans out for now and to see if I stumble into a job that ticks most of the boxes.
Obviously there are cases where you need to have a degree and the qualification and your learnings are relevant, just think it's ridiculous that say someone who has a degree in Geology can just get a job as a teacher in a Primary school, yet has no experience of dealing with a class of 30 kids.
Cheers
Greg.
The games ended in pretty horrid fashion. In the £4k package game I got moved to a tricky table but stayed out of things until I found a set with my pocket 5s on a 652 rainbow flop. I bet big on the flop and the turn is a clean looking 10. I bet the turn again and am shoved on and call and my opponent has pocket 10s and turned the overset so GG me. We were on the last 2 tables and that pot would have put me on around 70k and very very likely tied the package up.
With 10 left in the £1260 buy in I finally had a stack going and got up to around 50k. I was only sitting around 5/10 so had work to do still. Got dealt AA in the BB. UTG shoves for 20k, the SB reshoves for 70k and I obviously snap call. If I hold I have 120k+ and the package very very likely tied up. King on the flop kills the dream though.
Definitely my most deflating night playing poker. It is only poker, I will bounce back, yada yada. Just feels like a bit of a kick in the nuts just now but these things happen.
Hope all those who won packages have a cracking time!
Thanks again for the rail folks, very much appreciated.
Are you still going to Vegas this year, or is that it til next year?
Although you fairly shot up that leaderboard in your challenge, even when seeming to not get very much run good.
Regarding the bolded part...
I am basically 50/50 just now. Hard to make a rational decision just after the games but will figure it out either way by the end of the week.
Cheers IH8UButler
I couldn't agree more about these games being stressful.
Something a top player with 7 figure+ MTT winnings said to me once is rather pertinent in my mind just now. He said he didn't bother too much with satty qualifiers and rather than play for example a £400 buy in game for a package he would just play tourneys of equivelant value and use the cash for the trip. I think I may do this in future. I mean there are pros and cons to it....
More forgiving payout structure and much more games to choose from but on the other hand harder fields.
Great to hear from you mate, I noticed your name regged in the Super Sunday freeroll. Nice to see you over on Sky mate
Yeah, a tough one to take but I just have to suck it up I guess.
Hope all is well with you. Always remember the home game at your place with such fond memories.
Thanks for the rail mate!