I don't really know where to start with tonight's update. The whole session was a real battle with a tonne of awkward spots. It's nights like these that I'm going to learn from the most though so I should embrace them. I played some pretty bad poker at times but I'm fairly certain where mistakes were made (like not folding QQ on a king high board because you convince yourself they have a busted draw...) and will try to cut them out next time.
Yet again the session the started badly with not even a hint of a cash in the first 5 tournaments. A good start would be nice sometime as an early score really does ease the pressure for the rest of the session. I did make the semi of the Sheriff though only to fall slightly short of winning a seat, so I treated myself to an unsuccessful all in sat.
Things then began to pick up and I had some deep runs. However, in both the Orfy and £2.20 deepsatck I went from being 3/12 to just min cashing. One hand played itself (I think) and the other was the aforementioned error with QQ.
The good thing about setting targets and having this diary is that it really does help me focus and never give up in any tournament regardless of the buy in. There is nothing worse than having to sit down and write an update after a bad session. This was a big factor in the £2.20 BH which was the only game I was still left in. Without this diary I would have almost certainly punted my stack and called it a night, but instead I spent the last 90 mins single tabling and went on to take it down, saving the session and ending up with a small profit.
It's not the biggest cash of the challenge but it certainly is the most satisfying as it really did turn around a tough night.
Not sure if I'll be playing tomorrow as I might have a couple of mates coming round to watch the boxing, although I haven't asked the missus yet so my plans could easily change!
".....Without this diary I would have almost certainly punted my stack and called it a night, but instead I spent the last 90 mins single tabling and went on to take it down, saving the session and ending up with a small profit......"
What a powerful & fascinating thing the psychology of poker is.
I don't have much tolerance or patience to bad beat stories, or those "so the flop came" or "guess what he called me with?" stuff, but when it comes to how the various ways our minds deal with the ups & downs, I could read & write about it all day.
Honestly @Tikay10 I can recommend anybody who loves playing poker but finds they struggling to find the motivation to play, or feel like they are stuck in rut, to set themselves some targets and make a log of their progress. It doesn't have to be on the forum (although that would be good).
Like I mentioned in my last post, I almost definitely would have punted off in that BH last night and gone to bed in a bad frame of mind. This then spills over onto the next session and confidence is low, which for me is a big thing.
I've been playing for a number of years now and during the past 18 months or so my interest in the game had pretty much gone. I hardly played. But right now I feel like I did when I first stumbled upon Sky Poker. Setting targets, studying and logging each session has renewed my love of the game.
Honestly @Tikay10 I can recommend anybody who loves playing poker but finds they struggling to find the motivation to play, or feel like they are stuck in rut, to set themselves some targets and make a log of their progress. It doesn't have to be on the forum (although that would be good).
Like I mentioned in my last post, I almost definitely would have punted off in that BH last night and gone to bed in a bad frame of mind. This then spills over onto the next session and confidence is low, which for me is a big thing.
I've been playing for a number of years now and during the past 18 months or so my interest in the game had pretty much gone. I hardly played. But right now I feel like I did when I first stumbled upon Sky Poker. Setting targets, studying and logging each session has renewed my love of the game.
Couldn't agree more. Posting results and tracking your progress in public certainly concentrates the mind.
Honestly @Tikay10 I can recommend anybody who loves playing poker but finds they struggling to find the motivation to play, or feel like they are stuck in rut, to set themselves some targets and make a log of their progress. It doesn't have to be on the forum (although that would be good).
Like I mentioned in my last post, I almost definitely would have punted off in that BH last night and gone to bed in a bad frame of mind. This then spills over onto the next session and confidence is low, which for me is a big thing.
I've been playing for a number of years now and during the past 18 months or so my interest in the game had pretty much gone. I hardly played. But right now I feel like I did when I first stumbled upon Sky Poker. Setting targets, studying and logging each session has renewed my love of the game.
Couldn't agree more. Posting results and tracking your progress in public certainly concentrates the mind.
Certainly on this forum too, where the 99% of posters are genuinely the nicest people you could wish for on a public forum.
Nobody knows what is going to happen in the future but I really hope that Stars take a good long look at this forum, see the great community that Sky have, see the endless work that Tikay puts in on a daily basis and they decide to just leave things as they are. We can only hope!
Ended up playing a small session early on Saturday evening before the boxing, then never got round to updating. There was nothing to report anyway as I failed to cash in any of the games resulting in a small loss.
I won't be able to play until next Monday now as I am on call at work all week. Some weeks I don't get a single call out but I know full well that if I risked playing a couple of games then the phone would ring, so not worth it.
For anybody with kids (or without if you were a 90s child and fancy a trip down memory lane). I can highly recommend The Lion King remake, we went yesterday and loved it. Billy Eichner and Seth Rogan as Timon and Pumbaa stole the show. So funny.
Honestly @Tikay10 I can recommend anybody who loves playing poker but finds they struggling to find the motivation to play, or feel like they are stuck in rut, to set themselves some targets and make a log of their progress. It doesn't have to be on the forum (although that would be good).
Like I mentioned in my last post, I almost definitely would have punted off in that BH last night and gone to bed in a bad frame of mind. This then spills over onto the next session and confidence is low, which for me is a big thing.
I've been playing for a number of years now and during the past 18 months or so my interest in the game had pretty much gone. I hardly played. But right now I feel like I did when I first stumbled upon Sky Poker. Setting targets, studying and logging each session has renewed my love of the game.
Honestly @Tikay10 I can recommend anybody who loves playing poker but finds they struggling to find the motivation to play, or feel like they are stuck in rut, to set themselves some targets and make a log of their progress. It doesn't have to be on the forum (although that would be good).
Like I mentioned in my last post, I almost definitely would have punted off in that BH last night and gone to bed in a bad frame of mind. This then spills over onto the next session and confidence is low, which for me is a big thing.
I've been playing for a number of years now and during the past 18 months or so my interest in the game had pretty much gone. I hardly played. But right now I feel like I did when I first stumbled upon Sky Poker. Setting targets, studying and logging each session has renewed my love of the game.
This. And the rest of the post.
Keep up the fine work dude.
Cheers @SR23 any plans to restart you priority challenge etc. was always a great read.
Finally got chance to play tonight after an enforced 10 day break due to being on call at work. I couldn't wait to get started and then as usual I got off to a shocker yet again. I was getting the chips in as a big favourite more often than not only to get rivered more times than I care to remember. Welcome back!
I stuck with it and luckily the tide turned eventually. I won a seat into the main via the semi only to be rewarded with a table that included dog bloke. Within the hour he had taken me to school and had half my stack. It was an honour and a privilege though, that guy is next level. I did recover slightly but went out in the mid stages without ever threatening to build a significant stack.
Highlights of the evening were a deep run in the 7@7 BH and then going on to win the 7:15 deepstack to finish with a small profit.
16:15 - £2.20 Deepy (X) 16:30 - £5.50 BH (X £1.88 head prizes) 17:00 - £5.20 Summit Sat (X) 17:30 - £5.50 BH (X) 18:00 - £7.20 Main Semi (Seat to Main) 18:30 - £5.50 BH (X £2.34 head prizes) 19:00 - £7.70 BH (8th £19.29 + £19.81 head prizes) 19:15 - £2.20 Deepy (1st £44.08) 20:00 - £33 Main (X) 20:30 - £5.50 Mini (X)
Was good to blow away the cobwebs and play again. I don't think I'm going to get chance to play again until Sunday, but I'm off work next week so I will have a rare Sunday evening session which will include taking a shot at the £33 BH and trying to satellite into the major.
Welcome back. Straight back into it with another winning session too, well done. By the way, by my reckoning you were only £6 shy of seeing a 100% ROI on this session - that cannot be classed as "finish(ing) with a small profit" We can see from the challenge updates that you've been doing well but just had a little nosey at your Scope and see that you're actually on an almost £1k upswing from your last 550 games. With an average buy-in of around a fiver this is officially crushing the games. Well done indeed.
Did you do much poker related that might be classed as 'studying' during your break?
Welcome back. Straight back into it with another winning session too, well done. By the way, by my reckoning you were only £6 shy of seeing a 100% ROI on this session - that cannot be classed as "finish(ing) with a small profit" We can see from the challenge updates that you've been doing well but just had a little nosey at your Scope and see that you're actually on an almost £1k upswing from your last 550 games. With an average buy-in of around a fiver this is officially crushing the games. Well done indeed.
Did you do much poker related that might be classed as 'studying' during your break?
Best of luck for your Sunday session mate.
Thanks mate. Yeah I'm on a bit of a heater but it can't last, just enjoying it until the downswing arrives. I've had losing nights since I started the challenge but I'm yet to experience a proper bad run. That will be the testing time, especially as I will have to write about it!
Yeah I've been watching videos on a daily basis and spending time on snapshove (which is free again btw plus they refunded my original subscription). I'm watching a lot of twitch highlights on youtube (both the staples, lex, tonkaaaa, courtiebee) but they are mainly standard spots so I'm finding the Bencb mtt reviews particularly useful but they are few and far between. Johnathan little's content is always a good watch too but I'm always on the hunt for more videos. Anyone I've missed who is worth checking out?
Also using equilab a lot for hands I've been unsure about. I definitely have the poker bug back but it's easy to feel this way when you're on a good run.
In an ideal world I would love to have a few hours one to one coaching but I wouldn't even know how to go about it. That's only something I would consider if I'd got the bankroll to a level where I'm playing main events on a nightly basis though.
"Yeah I'm on a bit of a heater but it can't last, just enjoying it until the downswing arrives"
I think this is slightly on the negative side of realistic - you might experience some turbulence and some break-even spells but I can't see you experiencing any true downswings going forward, not on this schedule at least and not if you continue in the same vein of having that real hunger to play and desire to improve as well.
This is my new favourite poker-related YouTube channel:
"In an ideal world I would love to have a few hours one to one coaching but I wouldn't even know how to go about it. That's only something I would consider if I'd got the bankroll to a level where I'm playing main events on a nightly basis though."
Yea, me too. Pure hypothetical here but could be fun (and even more fun if other people get involved):
If you could take your pick of any player in the game - and they had to indulge you in a few hours of coaching - who would you choose for coaching in each of the following scenarios?
- You are playing the WSOP Main Event - You are playing a SCOOP High Roller Main Event on PokerStars - You are playing the Sunday Major on Sky Poker
"In an ideal world I would love to have a few hours one to one coaching but I wouldn't even know how to go about it. That's only something I would consider if I'd got the bankroll to a level where I'm playing main events on a nightly basis though."
Yea, me too. Pure hypothetical here but could be fun (and even more fun if other people get involved):
If you could take your pick of any player in the game - and they had to indulge you in a few hours of coaching - who would you choose for coaching in each of the following scenarios?
- You are playing the WSOP Main Event - You are playing a SCOOP High Roller Main Event on PokerStars - You are playing the Sunday Major on Sky Poker
Good questions.
1. For the WSOP main event it would have to be Daniel Negreanu. He has been my favourite ever since I first got into poker so choosing anyone else is out of the question for me. 2. The SCOOP question was a tricky one for me as apart from bencb I'm not really familiar with many other high stakes tournament players on stars. So I googled past winners and see that Gianluca Speranza (Takanza) has won it for the past 2 years, therefore I would choose him. 3. Again another tricky one as there are number of players who I would love to receive a few hours coaching from. Gotta go with Bates though, there's no denying that he's a beast and he always takes time to help players on the forum. So he can feel free to pm me (£2.50/hr ok??).
Great to see you back playing again, your enthusiasm jumps off the page.
Thanks @Tikay10. It's great to be enjoying the game again as there was a time when I close to packing it all in. Having periods where I can't play due to work helps too as I'm always itching to play again after a few days off.
Really mixed emotions right now. I guess I should be happy but I can't help feeling a tad annoyed with myself. I've had a great night overall, running deep in more than half of the games I played, but in the £33 BH I went from 3/11 to busting out in 11th due to 2 mistakes. I hate losing like that, if it's KK<AA or a bad beat then fair enough but unfortunately it was my own doing and straight away I wished could have pressed rewind and played the hands differently. Having said that it was still a decent run, plus most of the players left were really tough so it would have taken some serious run good to have gone much further.
I made 3 final tables including the mini, which was a strange tournament. I could never build a stack and was hovering around the 10bb mark hoping to squeeze into the money. The bubble burst, I kept doubling up and somehow made the final table, busting in 4th after losing a 70/30 against the eventual winner.
So, the biggest winning session of the challenge has pushed me above the £1k mark so I shouldn't complain. Always a bit frustrating to come so close to bigger scores though.
13:30 - £5.20 Major Early Sat (X) 13:30 - £5.50 BH (X £1.88 head prizes) 14:00 - £5.20 Major Early Sat (X) 16:15 - £2.20 Deepy (9th £5.74) 16:30 - £5.50 BH (11th £7.04 + £6.69 head prizes) 17:30 - £5.50 BH (3rd £37.23 + £10.09 head prizes) 18:30 - £5.50 BH (X) 19:15 - £2.20 Deepy (4th £16.54) 19:30 - £33 BH (11th £71.78 + £167.88 head prizes) 20:15 - £5.50 Deepy (X) 20:30 - £11 Mini (4th £175.44) 21:30 - £11 BH (X)
Start BR: £100 Current: £1176.56
I need to change the title of my diary to highlight the next target but I can't edit my opening post anymore. Is there another way please @Tikay10
Comments
I don't really know where to start with tonight's update. The whole session was a real battle with a tonne of awkward spots. It's nights like these that I'm going to learn from the most though so I should embrace them. I played some pretty bad poker at times but I'm fairly certain where mistakes were made (like not folding QQ on a king high board because you convince yourself they have a busted draw...) and will try to cut them out next time.
Yet again the session the started badly with not even a hint of a cash in the first 5 tournaments. A good start would be nice sometime as an early score really does ease the pressure for the rest of the session. I did make the semi of the Sheriff though only to fall slightly short of winning a seat, so I treated myself to an unsuccessful all in sat.
Things then began to pick up and I had some deep runs. However, in both the Orfy and £2.20 deepsatck I went from being 3/12 to just min cashing. One hand played itself (I think) and the other was the aforementioned error with QQ.
The good thing about setting targets and having this diary is that it really does help me focus and never give up in any tournament regardless of the buy in. There is nothing worse than having to sit down and write an update after a bad session. This was a big factor in the £2.20 BH which was the only game I was still left in. Without this diary I would have almost certainly punted my stack and called it a night, but instead I spent the last 90 mins single tabling and went on to take it down, saving the session and ending up with a small profit.
It's not the biggest cash of the challenge but it certainly is the most satisfying as it really did turn around a tough night.
16:15 - £2.20 Deepy (X)
16:30 - £5.50 BH (X)
17:30 - £5.50 BH (X)
18:30 - £5.50 BH (X)
18:45 - £2.60 Sheriff Sat (Semi seat) (X)
19:00 - £7.70 BH (X)
19:15 - £3.30 Orfy (9th £5.66)
19:15 - £2.20 Deepy (10th £6.53)
20:00 - £2.20 BH (1st £71.25 + £28.01 head prizes)
20:30 - £5.50 Megastack (X)
20:30 - £5.50 Mini (X £1.88 head prizes)
21:03 - £3 Sheriff All in sat (X)
21:30 - £11 BH (X)
Not sure if I'll be playing tomorrow as I might have a couple of mates coming round to watch the boxing, although I haven't asked the missus yet so my plans could easily change!
Start BR: £100
Current: £758.87
".....Without this diary I would have almost certainly punted my stack and called it a night, but instead I spent the last 90 mins single tabling and went on to take it down, saving the session and ending up with a small profit......"
What a powerful & fascinating thing the psychology of poker is.
I don't have much tolerance or patience to bad beat stories, or those "so the flop came" or "guess what he called me with?" stuff, but when it comes to how the various ways our minds deal with the ups & downs, I could read & write about it all day.
Like I mentioned in my last post, I almost definitely would have punted off in that BH last night and gone to bed in a bad frame of mind. This then spills over onto the next session and confidence is low, which for me is a big thing.
I've been playing for a number of years now and during the past 18 months or so my interest in the game had pretty much gone. I hardly played. But right now I feel like I did when I first stumbled upon Sky Poker. Setting targets, studying and logging each session has renewed my love of the game.
Posting results and tracking your progress in public certainly concentrates the mind.
Nobody knows what is going to happen in the future but I really hope that Stars take a good long look at this forum, see the great community that Sky have, see the endless work that Tikay puts in on a daily basis and they decide to just leave things as they are. We can only hope!
Ended up playing a small session early on Saturday evening before the boxing, then never got round to updating. There was nothing to report anyway as I failed to cash in any of the games resulting in a small loss.
17:30 - £5.50 BH (X)
18:00 - £7.20 Main Semi (X)
18:30 - £5.50 BH (X £1.88 head prizes)
19:00 - £7.70 BH (X)
19:15 - £2.20 Deepy (X)
I won't be able to play until next Monday now as I am on call at work all week. Some weeks I don't get a single call out but I know full well that if I risked playing a couple of games then the phone would ring, so not worth it.
For anybody with kids (or without if you were a 90s child and fancy a trip down memory lane). I can highly recommend The Lion King remake, we went yesterday and loved it. Billy Eichner and Seth Rogan as Timon and Pumbaa stole the show. So funny.
See you next week!
Start BR: £100
Current: £732.65
Keep up the fine work dude.
Finally got chance to play tonight after an enforced 10 day break due to being on call at work. I couldn't wait to get started and then as usual I got off to a shocker yet again. I was getting the chips in as a big favourite more often than not only to get rivered more times than I care to remember. Welcome back!
I stuck with it and luckily the tide turned eventually. I won a seat into the main via the semi only to be rewarded with a table that included dog bloke. Within the hour he had taken me to school and had half my stack. It was an honour and a privilege though, that guy is next level. I did recover slightly but went out in the mid stages without ever threatening to build a significant stack.
Highlights of the evening were a deep run in the 7@7 BH and then going on to win the 7:15 deepstack to finish with a small profit.
16:15 - £2.20 Deepy (X)
16:30 - £5.50 BH (X £1.88 head prizes)
17:00 - £5.20 Summit Sat (X)
17:30 - £5.50 BH (X)
18:00 - £7.20 Main Semi (Seat to Main)
18:30 - £5.50 BH (X £2.34 head prizes)
19:00 - £7.70 BH (8th £19.29 + £19.81 head prizes)
19:15 - £2.20 Deepy (1st £44.08)
20:00 - £33 Main (X)
20:30 - £5.50 Mini (X)
Was good to blow away the cobwebs and play again. I don't think I'm going to get chance to play again until Sunday, but I'm off work next week so I will have a rare Sunday evening session which will include taking a shot at the £33 BH and trying to satellite into the major.
Start BR: £100
Current: £773.55
By the way, by my reckoning you were only £6 shy of seeing a 100% ROI on this session - that cannot be classed as "finish(ing) with a small profit"
We can see from the challenge updates that you've been doing well but just had a little nosey at your Scope and see that you're actually on an almost £1k upswing from your last 550 games. With an average buy-in of around a fiver this is officially crushing the games. Well done indeed.
Did you do much poker related that might be classed as 'studying' during your break?
Best of luck for your Sunday session mate.
Yeah I've been watching videos on a daily basis and spending time on snapshove (which is free again btw plus they refunded my original subscription). I'm watching a lot of twitch highlights on youtube (both the staples, lex, tonkaaaa, courtiebee) but they are mainly standard spots so I'm finding the Bencb mtt reviews particularly useful but they are few and far between. Johnathan little's content is always a good watch too but I'm always on the hunt for more videos. Anyone I've missed who is worth checking out?
Also using equilab a lot for hands I've been unsure about. I definitely have the poker bug back but it's easy to feel this way when you're on a good run.
In an ideal world I would love to have a few hours one to one coaching but I wouldn't even know how to go about it. That's only something I would consider if I'd got the bankroll to a level where I'm playing main events on a nightly basis though.
I think this is slightly on the negative side of realistic - you might experience some turbulence and some break-even spells but I can't see you experiencing any true downswings going forward, not on this schedule at least and not if you continue in the same vein of having that real hunger to play and desire to improve as well.
This is my new favourite poker-related YouTube channel:
Yea, me too.
Pure hypothetical here but could be fun (and even more fun if other people get involved):
If you could take your pick of any player in the game - and they had to indulge you in a few hours of coaching - who would you choose for coaching in each of the following scenarios?
- You are playing the WSOP Main Event
- You are playing a SCOOP High Roller Main Event on PokerStars
- You are playing the Sunday Major on Sky Poker
2) Bencb
3) @chrisdonkb obvs
1. For the WSOP main event it would have to be Daniel Negreanu. He has been my favourite ever since I first got into poker so choosing anyone else is out of the question for me.
2. The SCOOP question was a tricky one for me as apart from bencb I'm not really familiar with many other high stakes tournament players on stars. So I googled past winners and see that Gianluca Speranza (Takanza) has won it for the past 2 years, therefore I would choose him.
3. Again another tricky one as there are number of players who I would love to receive a few hours coaching from. Gotta go with Bates though, there's no denying that he's a beast and he always takes time to help players on the forum. So he can feel free to pm me (£2.50/hr ok??).
How about you? Who would you choose?
Great to see you back playing again, your enthusiasm jumps off the page.
Really mixed emotions right now. I guess I should be happy but I can't help feeling a tad annoyed with myself.
I've had a great night overall, running deep in more than half of the games I played, but in the £33 BH I went from 3/11 to busting out in 11th due to 2 mistakes. I hate losing like that, if it's KK<AA or a bad beat then fair enough but unfortunately it was my own doing and straight away I wished could have pressed rewind and played the hands differently. Having said that it was still a decent run, plus most of the players left were really tough so it would have taken some serious run good to have gone much further.
I made 3 final tables including the mini, which was a strange tournament. I could never build a stack and was hovering around the 10bb mark hoping to squeeze into the money. The bubble burst, I kept doubling up and somehow made the final table, busting in 4th after losing a 70/30 against the eventual winner.
So, the biggest winning session of the challenge has pushed me above the £1k mark so I shouldn't complain. Always a bit frustrating to come so close to bigger scores though.
13:30 - £5.20 Major Early Sat (X)
13:30 - £5.50 BH (X £1.88 head prizes)
14:00 - £5.20 Major Early Sat (X)
16:15 - £2.20 Deepy (9th £5.74)
16:30 - £5.50 BH (11th £7.04 + £6.69 head prizes)
17:30 - £5.50 BH (3rd £37.23 + £10.09 head prizes)
18:30 - £5.50 BH (X)
19:15 - £2.20 Deepy (4th £16.54)
19:30 - £33 BH (11th £71.78 + £167.88 head prizes)
20:15 - £5.50 Deepy (X)
20:30 - £11 Mini (4th £175.44)
21:30 - £11 BH (X)
Start BR: £100
Current: £1176.56
I need to change the title of my diary to highlight the next target but I can't edit my opening post anymore. Is there another way please @Tikay10
Congrats on a great night @waller02
"I need to change the title of my diary to highlight the next target but I can't edit my opening post anymore. Is there another way please @Tikay10 "
Think I can do it for you - what would you like it changed to?