A little bit of boom amongst those I couldn't bust.
Having found myself reaching a point where Sky had become unplayable due to software problems, things seem to have improved enough for me to return to the tables. The lack of faith in the download client has stopped me putting in any 20+ MTT sessions, but that might not be a bad thing in terms of finding the right balance between volume and quality of play.
Over the weekend there was nothing too spectacular to report MTT wise, but a few deep runs here and there in some of the smaller events did mean I managed to just about stay in the green for Friday-Sunday. Pleasingly, Monday night proved a little more fruitful thanks to my deepest run yet in one of the nightly main events. The Marksman brought joy and frustration in equal measure as I finished up in second place. For a start, it's always a little frustrating to get so close to glory but just miss out, and losing my final hand with AA vs KTo all in pre-flop certainly didn't help on that front. The almost comically frustrating part came from the fact that despite managing to outlast 221 of the 222 entrants, I didn't pick up a single bounty. That's right, not one. It really wasn't for the lack of trying and I certainly don't approach these games in as nitty a way as this outcome may suggest. It was just one of those night where I managed to run really well in all the spots where I was the short stack, but utter pants when the larger one. Despite the frustrations I was still pretty chuffed of course and it's a much needed boost to an April that was otherwise becoming a bit of a damp squib results wise. Total tourney profits came to +£751.73.
There has been a little bit of cash play too, although this has only really been done to see how the software is behaving before deciding whether or not to reg for some MTT's. I'm going to use the 'distraction' element as my excuse for showing a loss of -£29.51. Playing like a tit has got nothing to do with, obviously.
I also just about managed to get over the line for a smidgen of rakeback last week with 508 points bringing in £5.08. I would have paid more rake last week but the software problems forced me to play elsewhere for a while. Are you listening Sky?!
In other news, it was pretty disheartening to hear about the impending takeover of Sky by the Stars Group. For me, the biggest USP of Sky Poker comes from the fact that it operates in a segregated UK only market. This not only helps create better games, but it also fosters a fun sense of community which just doesn't exist on the larger international sites. We have a lot of freedom in this country in terms of online poker options and it's great that Sky offer something a little different to the rest of their competitors in the UK marketplace. I'm really not sure that Stars will either recognise or care about this frankly. It saddens me to say, but I think eventually (and possibly relatively quickly) the Sky pool will be merged into the Stars pool - either by completely removing the Sky client and just transferring accounts across, or with a Sky branded skin being part of a Stars network (as they did with Full Tilt). I really hope I'm wrong though!
Great diary duesenberg. Having read every post I thought it about time I let you know. You share many of the same thoughts on poker as me but put them more eloquently. It's also great that you post your results as it gives me a gauge against one of the better players at my stakes.
Thanks @H3nry and @SR23. Although I didn't really start this diary to stroke my ego, it's still nice to know there are some people out there who enjoy reading my wafflings.
Also, if you've got me marked down as one of the better players at your stakes then it's good to know the games are still looking pretty juicy!
Thanks @H3nry and @SR23. Although I didn't really start this diary to stroke my ego, it's still nice to know there are some people out there who enjoy reading my wafflings.
Also, if you've got me marked down as one of the better players at your stakes then it's good to know the games are still looking pretty juicy!
That's a really good result in the main Chris. I think I may have been one of the people who suggested at the start of the year that you play more MTTs to help with your challenge. I note that now over half your profit so far is from MTTs, not bad for a cash grinder!
As, technically, I would class that as coaching any idea when I can expect my 10% cut?
Thanks @H3nry and @SR23. Although I didn't really start this diary to stroke my ego, it's still nice to know there are some people out there who enjoy reading my wafflings.
Also, if you've got me marked down as one of the better players at your stakes then it's good to know the games are still looking pretty juicy!
Best of luck out there chaps .
😂😂😂
I’m sure I’m marked as a fish
I make good use of the colour-coded notes system.
Red = Good player Orange = Average player Yellow = Bad player Green = K0BAYASHI
That's a really good result in the main Chris. I think I may have been one of the people who suggested at the start of the year that you play more MTTs to help with your challenge. I note that now over half your profit so far is from MTTs, not bad for a cash grinder!
As, technically, I would class that as coaching any idea when I can expect my 10% cut?
Thanks Enut.
I'm a little discombobulated to find that a little over 3 months into this challenge my tourney results are outpacing my cash results. It appears that I may just suck at cash games these days so next time you see me at a table, take a seat - you'll have your 10% in no time at all .
Thanks @H3nry and @SR23. Although I didn't really start this diary to stroke my ego, it's still nice to know there are some people out there who enjoy reading my wafflings.
Also, if you've got me marked down as one of the better players at your stakes then it's good to know the games are still looking pretty juicy!
Best of luck out there chaps .
😂😂😂
I’m sure I’m marked as a fish
I make good use of the colour-coded notes system.
Red = Good player Orange = Average player Yellow = Bad player Green = K0BAYASHI
you probably don't have a clue what to colour code to use one me, you probably call me a good playing fish maniac
Thanks @H3nry and @SR23. Although I didn't really start this diary to stroke my ego, it's still nice to know there are some people out there who enjoy reading my wafflings.
Also, if you've got me marked down as one of the better players at your stakes then it's good to know the games are still looking pretty juicy!
Best of luck out there chaps .
😂😂😂
I’m sure I’m marked as a fish
I make good use of the colour-coded notes system.
Red = Good player Orange = Average player Yellow = Bad player Green = K0BAYASHI
you probably don't have a clue what to colour code to use one me, you probably call me a good playing fish maniac
I've ended up having to use all of the colours for you Craig. It comes out as a sort of murky brown.
Good work over at Stars. It looks like your getting a head start for when we all find ourselves playing on SkyStars.
Given that we're at the start of a new month and it's been a week since the last update, I guess it's time to check-in (although there is very little to report). It certainly hasn't been a particularly high volume week (no rakeback to add) and every single hand played on Sky has been in MTT's. I have been playing a bit of cash too, but this has been on another site, so I won't be including those results here. Now that micro madness is out the way though, I might just venture back onto the Sky cash tables in the not too distant future - I'm sure that DTM must have been missing me .
I seem to have picked up a slightly expensive habit this last week. It involves me busting main events within the first two levels, re-buying, and then busting again well before the money and without a hint of a bounty in sight. It's appears to stem from a combination of running bad and me refusing to believe that a jam on the river could ever be for value (even when the river completes every possible draw out there). Oh me of little faith! On the plus side, I have just about managed to offset this with a few deep-ish runs elsewhere. The only outright victory of the week came in a tourney that I now have a bit of a soft spot for - the £1 buy-in Triple Takedown event. To begin with, this was the first MTT I ever won on Sky, which also happened to be my first MTT victory in about 14 years - no, I'm not that bad, I'd just been playing nothing but cash games for donkeys years. Honestly. The other reason for the soft spot is that I have now won said tourney a total of three times, so more than any other event - £1 freezeout endboss confirmed! A few second places here and there plus a half decent showing in the final Mega Mini of the month (8 bounties no less, so I'm clearly not completely allergic to taking heads!) just about brings me into the green for a total profit from MTT's of +£13.21.
Time really does fly doesn't it? I was sure it had only been a few days since last updating this, but apparently it's been nearly a fortnight. I'm pretty sure there must be a direct correlation between ones age and the sense of speed at which time passes. I'm on the cusp of hitting 40 and it's already rather startling - I was watching the sequel to Trainspotting the other day and was somewhat struggling to comprehend the notion that 22 whole years had managed to pass since I'd originally enjoyed the first instalment. Lord knows what it must feel like if you're Tikay!
MTT's have again seen the bulk of my action since the last update but total volume has generally been on the low side. There hasn't been anything at all noteworthy to report, but I have at least come through with a small profit. At the start of this year when I began dabbling in tourneys a little more, I was really expecting this higher variance format of the game to be far swingier results-wise than has turned out to be the case. Whilst this is fairly pleasing and suggests that I might not completely suck at tournaments, I am also wondering if it could be a sign of weakness in my tourney game. It's all well and good running deep and picking up a reasonable amount of small cashes, but the real money is to be made at the very top end of the placings ladder. I can't help but wonder if I'm not taking enough risks in both the early and bubble stages of events in order to build the kind of stack which will give me a far greater chance of hitting those top 3 spots more frequently. Total tourney profits came to +£131.18.
I've also been playing a little cash on Sky for the first time in what feels like an age. It's been more of a light paddle than properly diving in, but what little I have done has gone ok. A few nights back I was on a 20nl table and the action was well and truly bonkers - lots of opening shoving 100bb stacks with some real junky hands (I actually had to double check I hadn't accidentally sat down at a Spin Up table!). Unfortunately I didn't end up coming out of this game with any profit to speak of, but by the time the table broke one of the players had managed to run up a 1,950bb stack, which I'm pretty sure is the largest I've seen in a standard 100bb 6max cash game. A very nice job indeed. Total cash game profits came to +£151.25.
Finally, I have a little rakeback to add - two weeks worth no less! Last Monday saw £6.23 come in from the previous weeks mammoth haul of 623 points, whilst today adds £16.73 from a slightly better 1,338 points. +£22.96 in total.
It's been a while hasn't it? Longer than I realised if I'm honest.
I feel strangely sheepish returning to this diary/challenge after such a long period of radio silence. It's a bit like bumping into an old friend that you'd lost contact with after being too busy, self-centred and outright lazy to return their messages. You didn't mean to let the friendship slide - you actually really liked that person. It's just that you'd left things for so long that it now felt too uncomfortably awkward to re-establish contact. I imagine the first thing you'd want to do when bumping into your old friend would be to explain yourself, so I guess that's what I should do here.
When I started this challenge at back in January, its principle purpose was to boost my flagging motivation levels to play poker. Lord only knows why I needed it though - I still really like playing poker after all. I also really like money. The more poker I play, the more money I seem to end up with. Sounds pretty straightforward doesn't it? Apparently not I guess.
In 2017 I played at Sky for 9 consecutive months. For 7 of those 9 months I put in enough volume to achieve Priority status. It's now August 2018 and I haven't once made Priority in this calendar year. I certainly think this challenge helped arrest a decline that had begun at the tail end of 2017 but, once the novelty had worn off, the malaise returned with avengeance. It's not that my play has ground to a complete halt, rather it has become more sporadic, unfocused and generally wishy-washy than ever before - as was duly reflected in the lack of updates here. I've also spent more time than usual dabbling on other sites, which was probably my way of searching in vain for a bit of a spark to reignite the fire in my belly.
It has now reached a point where it's looking pretty unlikely that I'll be able to complete the £10k challenge by the end of this year (I'm well behind schedule as things stand). This impending sense of failure is really starting to irk me in a way that can only be described through the use of words that this forum simply won't allow. You know the ones I mean though - they generally contain 4 letters and end in things like 'ck' and 'nt'. I don't like feeling irked. In fact, it's possible that my dislike of the irk could be even more powerful than the love I have for procrastinating (here's hoping at anyway!). With that in mind, the time has come to remove my thumb from the hole in the centre of my posterior and get this challenge back on track. As for the form that will take, only time will tell. So, for the first time in 3 months, I best do an update on where things currently stand...
Given that this post is already in danger of making War and Peace look like a 'quick read', I'll keep this bit brief.
On the whole, cash games have seen the majority of my action. Most of this has been at 10nl though where my flitting mind can't do too much damage to the standing of this challenge. The downside to that of course is that 10nl won't do a huge amount to boost the situation either. Total cash game profits since the last update come to +£364.96.
MTT action got increasingly sporadic to the point of becoming almost non-existent over recent weeks. Not much to report here with the main highlight coming from taking down a '7 at 7' sometime in late June. Tourney profits totalled +£85.79.
Rakeback continued to accrue in dribs and drabs with the odd nice boost appearing along the way - the most significant of which came from being part of the victorious French team in the Sky World Cup promo. Total rakeback comes in at +£335.68.
Hopefully I'll get the next update done before Christmas arrives...
Comments
Having found myself reaching a point where Sky had become unplayable due to software problems, things seem to have improved enough for me to return to the tables. The lack of faith in the download client has stopped me putting in any 20+ MTT sessions, but that might not be a bad thing in terms of finding the right balance between volume and quality of play.
Over the weekend there was nothing too spectacular to report MTT wise, but a few deep runs here and there in some of the smaller events did mean I managed to just about stay in the green for Friday-Sunday. Pleasingly, Monday night proved a little more fruitful thanks to my deepest run yet in one of the nightly main events. The Marksman brought joy and frustration in equal measure as I finished up in second place. For a start, it's always a little frustrating to get so close to glory but just miss out, and losing my final hand with AA vs KTo all in pre-flop certainly didn't help on that front. The almost comically frustrating part came from the fact that despite managing to outlast 221 of the 222 entrants, I didn't pick up a single bounty. That's right, not one. It really wasn't for the lack of trying and I certainly don't approach these games in as nitty a way as this outcome may suggest. It was just one of those night where I managed to run really well in all the spots where I was the short stack, but utter pants when the larger one. Despite the frustrations I was still pretty chuffed of course and it's a much needed boost to an April that was otherwise becoming a bit of a damp squib results wise. Total tourney profits came to +£751.73.
There has been a little bit of cash play too, although this has only really been done to see how the software is behaving before deciding whether or not to reg for some MTT's. I'm going to use the 'distraction' element as my excuse for showing a loss of -£29.51. Playing like a tit has got nothing to do with, obviously.
I also just about managed to get over the line for a smidgen of rakeback last week with 508 points bringing in £5.08. I would have paid more rake last week but the software problems forced me to play elsewhere for a while. Are you listening Sky?!
In other news, it was pretty disheartening to hear about the impending takeover of Sky by the Stars Group. For me, the biggest USP of Sky Poker comes from the fact that it operates in a segregated UK only market. This not only helps create better games, but it also fosters a fun sense of community which just doesn't exist on the larger international sites. We have a lot of freedom in this country in terms of online poker options and it's great that Sky offer something a little different to the rest of their competitors in the UK marketplace. I'm really not sure that Stars will either recognise or care about this frankly. It saddens me to say, but I think eventually (and possibly relatively quickly) the Sky pool will be merged into the Stars pool - either by completely removing the Sky client and just transferring accounts across, or with a Sky branded skin being part of a Stars network (as they did with Full Tilt). I really hope I'm wrong though!
Progress so far:
Cash: +£1,259.47
MTT's: +£1,781.70
Rakeback: +£360.66
Total: +£3,401.83
Having read every post I thought it about time I let you know. You share many of the same thoughts on poker as me but put them more eloquently. It's also great that you post your results as it gives me a gauge against one of the better players at my stakes.
Also, if you've got me marked down as one of the better players at your stakes then it's good to know the games are still looking pretty juicy!
Best of luck out there chaps
Love wafflings, me.
Keep them coming.
I’m sure I’m marked as a fish
As, technically, I would class that as coaching any idea when I can expect my 10% cut?
Red = Good player
Orange = Average player
Yellow = Bad player
Green = K0BAYASHI
I'm a little discombobulated to find that a little over 3 months into this challenge my tourney results are outpacing my cash results. It appears that I may just suck at cash games these days so next time you see me at a table, take a seat - you'll have your 10% in no time at all
Keep it up mate
Congrats on locking up your Vegas seat by the way. Must have been one helluva grind that.
Good work over at Stars. It looks like your getting a head start for when we all find ourselves playing on SkyStars.
Given that we're at the start of a new month and it's been a week since the last update, I guess it's time to check-in (although there is very little to report). It certainly hasn't been a particularly high volume week (no rakeback to add) and every single hand played on Sky has been in MTT's. I have been playing a bit of cash too, but this has been on another site, so I won't be including those results here. Now that micro madness is out the way though, I might just venture back onto the Sky cash tables in the not too distant future - I'm sure that DTM must have been missing me
I seem to have picked up a slightly expensive habit this last week. It involves me busting main events within the first two levels, re-buying, and then busting again well before the money and without a hint of a bounty in sight. It's appears to stem from a combination of running bad and me refusing to believe that a jam on the river could ever be for value (even when the river completes every possible draw out there). Oh me of little faith! On the plus side, I have just about managed to offset this with a few deep-ish runs elsewhere. The only outright victory of the week came in a tourney that I now have a bit of a soft spot for - the £1 buy-in Triple Takedown event. To begin with, this was the first MTT I ever won on Sky, which also happened to be my first MTT victory in about 14 years - no, I'm not that bad, I'd just been playing nothing but cash games for donkeys years. Honestly. The other reason for the soft spot is that I have now won said tourney a total of three times, so more than any other event - £1 freezeout endboss confirmed! A few second places here and there plus a half decent showing in the final Mega Mini of the month (8 bounties no less, so I'm clearly not completely allergic to taking heads!) just about brings me into the green for a total profit from MTT's of +£13.21.
Progress so far:
Cash: +£1,259.47
MTT's: +£1,794.91
Rakeback: +£360.66
Total: +£3,415.04
Good work Guitar Bloke, keep it going.
Time really does fly doesn't it? I was sure it had only been a few days since last updating this, but apparently it's been nearly a fortnight. I'm pretty sure there must be a direct correlation between ones age and the sense of speed at which time passes. I'm on the cusp of hitting 40 and it's already rather startling - I was watching the sequel to Trainspotting the other day and was somewhat struggling to comprehend the notion that 22 whole years had managed to pass since I'd originally enjoyed the first instalment. Lord knows what it must feel like if you're Tikay!
MTT's have again seen the bulk of my action since the last update but total volume has generally been on the low side. There hasn't been anything at all noteworthy to report, but I have at least come through with a small profit. At the start of this year when I began dabbling in tourneys a little more, I was really expecting this higher variance format of the game to be far swingier results-wise than has turned out to be the case. Whilst this is fairly pleasing and suggests that I might not completely suck at tournaments, I am also wondering if it could be a sign of weakness in my tourney game. It's all well and good running deep and picking up a reasonable amount of small cashes, but the real money is to be made at the very top end of the placings ladder. I can't help but wonder if I'm not taking enough risks in both the early and bubble stages of events in order to build the kind of stack which will give me a far greater chance of hitting those top 3 spots more frequently. Total tourney profits came to +£131.18.
I've also been playing a little cash on Sky for the first time in what feels like an age. It's been more of a light paddle than properly diving in, but what little I have done has gone ok. A few nights back I was on a 20nl table and the action was well and truly bonkers - lots of opening shoving 100bb stacks with some real junky hands (I actually had to double check I hadn't accidentally sat down at a Spin Up table!). Unfortunately I didn't end up coming out of this game with any profit to speak of, but by the time the table broke one of the players had managed to run up a 1,950bb stack, which I'm pretty sure is the largest I've seen in a standard 100bb 6max cash game. A very nice job indeed. Total cash game profits came to +£151.25.
Finally, I have a little rakeback to add - two weeks worth no less! Last Monday saw £6.23 come in from the previous weeks mammoth haul of 623 points, whilst today adds £16.73 from a slightly better 1,338 points. +£22.96 in total.
Progress so far:
Cash: +£1,410.72
MTT's: +£1,926.09
Rakeback: +£383.62
Total: +£3,720.43
Lord knows what it must feel like if you're Tikay!
I can't actually remember.
It's been a while hasn't it? Longer than I realised if I'm honest.
I feel strangely sheepish returning to this diary/challenge after such a long period of radio silence. It's a bit like bumping into an old friend that you'd lost contact with after being too busy, self-centred and outright lazy to return their messages. You didn't mean to let the friendship slide - you actually really liked that person. It's just that you'd left things for so long that it now felt too uncomfortably awkward to re-establish contact. I imagine the first thing you'd want to do when bumping into your old friend would be to explain yourself, so I guess that's what I should do here.
When I started this challenge at back in January, its principle purpose was to boost my flagging motivation levels to play poker. Lord only knows why I needed it though - I still really like playing poker after all. I also really like money. The more poker I play, the more money I seem to end up with. Sounds pretty straightforward doesn't it? Apparently not I guess.
In 2017 I played at Sky for 9 consecutive months. For 7 of those 9 months I put in enough volume to achieve Priority status. It's now August 2018 and I haven't once made Priority in this calendar year. I certainly think this challenge helped arrest a decline that had begun at the tail end of 2017 but, once the novelty had worn off, the malaise returned with avengeance. It's not that my play has ground to a complete halt, rather it has become more sporadic, unfocused and generally wishy-washy than ever before - as was duly reflected in the lack of updates here. I've also spent more time than usual dabbling on other sites, which was probably my way of searching in vain for a bit of a spark to reignite the fire in my belly.
It has now reached a point where it's looking pretty unlikely that I'll be able to complete the £10k challenge by the end of this year (I'm well behind schedule as things stand). This impending sense of failure is really starting to irk me in a way that can only be described through the use of words that this forum simply won't allow. You know the ones I mean though - they generally contain 4 letters and end in things like 'ck' and 'nt'. I don't like feeling irked. In fact, it's possible that my dislike of the irk could be even more powerful than the love I have for procrastinating (here's hoping at anyway!). With that in mind, the time has come to remove my thumb from the hole in the centre of my posterior and get this challenge back on track. As for the form that will take, only time will tell. So, for the first time in 3 months, I best do an update on where things currently stand...
Given that this post is already in danger of making War and Peace look like a 'quick read', I'll keep this bit brief.
On the whole, cash games have seen the majority of my action. Most of this has been at 10nl though where my flitting mind can't do too much damage to the standing of this challenge. The downside to that of course is that 10nl won't do a huge amount to boost the situation either. Total cash game profits since the last update come to +£364.96.
MTT action got increasingly sporadic to the point of becoming almost non-existent over recent weeks. Not much to report here with the main highlight coming from taking down a '7 at 7' sometime in late June. Tourney profits totalled +£85.79.
Rakeback continued to accrue in dribs and drabs with the odd nice boost appearing along the way - the most significant of which came from being part of the victorious French team in the Sky World Cup promo. Total rakeback comes in at +£335.68.
Hopefully I'll get the next update done before Christmas arrives...
Progress so far:
Cash: +£1,775.68
MTT's: +£2,011.88
Rakeback: +£719.30
Total: +£4,506.86
About time too.
PS - welcome back.