Ive had to do this over 2 posts because apparently theres a character limit i wasn't aware of haha
After the main i took 5 mins to cool off and knowing that i cant grind tonight, i decided to take a rare am nl10 shot, it gave me time to have a proper shot focusing on only nl10 and getting to know some more regs - one of whom joined me on nl4 this morning so i expect they were on a wee scouting mission - and get a feel for playing higher stakes, when I came back I felt no issues being at this level with a smaller role than im taking this shot, but then I wasn't used to NL4 at that point and was playing purely for fun with profit being a bonus, now im playing again hunting that profit. I wont go into too much detail but it didnt start great - we got 1 outered all in on flop for a £26 pot, we have TPTK + NFD on a paired board against the nut straight for another £25 pot, and then had K high flush against slow played Aces on a A high board for another £20ish pot, alas the 4 spade pinged, the latter is a buy in we can save folding pre. However I was probably still abit miffed at my main exit and should have taken longer to breathe. But we stuck with it, we got brutally lucky in a £40 pot, say lucky, we were never behind post flop but essentially wasnt a good table but with 4 running and money to be made super deep against the one rec i decided to stick with it, we overlimped from sb with 63dd and called the raise from the reg with the rec also calling giving us a fair price, while 200+bb deep effective with the rec. The flop lands 236r, we x reg x and rec pots, we flat, turn is a 7 he pots again and again we flat and the river pings us a 6 for second nuts, hes missed his gutshot and emptied the clip - fair play to him for doing so but we obv snap and scoop a huge pot. This pot seen us finish this session a buy in up.
Today i went to play some nl10 again take another shot, but decided I didn't think good table selection would allow me to stay on those tables. So knowing it was my one session today i dropped to Nl4 where one of the regs from the nl10 session last night joined us for abit. We finished this session £33 up, and i feel we played really well, however theres 2 buys ins we lost in hindsight i dont need to lose for even more profit, One we had Jh on a 4 heart board and the villian is the only villian on the table I think is ever bluffing here, they werent bluffing. And the other was JJ on a 8 high flop in a 3b pot, same table diff villian but same seat, in hindsight they had the perfect hand for us to get it in against but I think thats the only worse hand we see and it had alot of equity (AK FD) with benefits of notes I can probably fold instead of taking the jam.
Overall for the month we're now well up despite that poor first week, I feel I'm playing some of the best poker I ever had, and I'm glad to spot a mental game leak when deep in mtts on a chipped up table compared to average. This is something I can go away and work on. I'll be taking more Nl10 shots down the line while also making sure im table selecting. Im hoping the points earned today are enough to put me back in league one leaderboard selection - frustratingly i moved up and i havent hit the same points target i did first weeek before i moved up - im unsure why altho nl10 should help with this because we'll pay more money per pot in rake which means more points.
Great Post though Don, great effort in the Main last night and a vul exit hand!
it was supposed to be small, but i just started typing, then there was a character count, then i had to split it over two. and it was no longer small haha
My Fm draft comp went well in alot of aspects. I knew this level would be a step up from what I'm used to, my invite mostly came from the fact that I routinely practice with someone who's very often at the deepend of the competitive Football Manager competitions, and while this was a qualifying tournament with ranking points, i knew this wasn't going to be easy. I went in knowing the tactics I use aren't great against some of the broken features in the game, which aren't really ideal in a competitive environment. I drafted well for my tactic however and ended up with a really strong team, my first round draw was against the pre-tournament favorite and one of the few players in the competition with competitive drafting experience - more on that they've won qualifying competitions just like this in the past. A 2-2 away draw made me fav going into the second leg with away goals in play before winning the second leg 3-2. A strong result against a player I was honeslty not expecting to beat and who was everyones tournament fav put me a little on the map. Things from here didn't go so great in the second round my opponent wasn't well and left, the host took over, and I was given a freebie in to the second round. He ran his tactics to test for the next day in the first leg and it was clear my tactics as suspected would not cope against that style. I didnt change anything because getting a bye so why would I - and the second leg was rigged so I'd win easily and go into the semis. My opponent for that semi was a lad called Coin Bird, lovely american fellow who knew a thing or two about tacitcs, more so the exact kind of tactic that crushes me was his style, a poor start seen us 5-0 down inside 25 mins while im frantically trying to change things, eventually we stopped leaking, has 2 goals disallowed which could have been important away goals but 8-0 was one of the biggest lessons ive had in fm. In the second leg I ripped up my tactic, listened to my chat which included my friend whos won these before giving me some good advice, and we won the second leg 4-1 I believe that was Coin Birds only loss of that entire competition so I can hold my head high and say I gave it everything I had, Coin went onto win the competition and finished 5th/16 in the main comp on Sunday, my friend came 2nd losing the last game (league format for the main comp) to end up not winning. Overall for my first competitve competition Im hurt by the 8-0 but generally happy, and I learnt more doing that than any practice ive done has taught me. And most importantly I learnt that sometimes adjusting just like in poker is the right thing to do. To quote marc warburton "plan b is to do plan a better" is not always the right approach and thats something ive always tried to tweek is improving plan a. Plan A was never going to work v certain tactics.
Poker wise, I said some Nl10 shots incoming, that hasn't really happened every time ive went and looked at the tables theres red tags all over the shop. Moving up table selection is extremely important. Now of course theres 1/2 recs there, but I still think theres better times to try, I don't need to be making myself a mark when I'm taking my shots. So its been mostly Nl4 and till yesterday it was going great, I was out friday so no friday night session, i took sat off to recover and prep for fm tournament so back yest. I will be honest I was overdue a losing day, yesterday sucked. I dont think ive ever had many -10 buy in session days lifetime at nl4. Now granted the first session I played like i had no confidence - and realistically I knew that and was trying to play through my own mental barrier - im linking this to that 8-0 defeat because this was not the poker i was playing on friday afternoon and before. Knowing that I wasn't trusting my reads, my gut etc, running abit meh but standard, The hour and 15 mins was too long to be on the tables, and what it took for me to stand was shipping in QQ for £9 effective on a J83 flop into a solid reg - why I did that I don't know. Is that solid reg ever calling AJ here, maybe once in a month of Sundays if im lucky, this Sunday wasn't that once, she snapped off with the stone cold nut-a-roonies. Thats 2 and a bit buy ins that I only ever lose when im on my D game - at that point I hit stand stood on all my tables and said gg to the nice people talking in some of the chats. Went had a bath calmed myself down and came back later on.
The later on session I played better, I didn't run great either and this seen me lose the rest of the 10 buy ins that made the -10 buy in day. However that said Im glad I went back and reminded myself of the correct decisions in different spots. I ended up having an AM session too before tables died and regs from the higher levels dropped down chasing points meaning the nl4 tables last night were just not worth playing on, that session is also included in the -10 day but i think itself was only wortth 1 buy in of that and tbh I'm content with that session. I couldn't sleep so jumped over to my other roll on stars where i ended the rut finishing 1 buy in up on nl2 before getting some steady sleep.
Well this week is fun. The Nl10 shots just aren't happening. Everytime ive looked they've been reggy so decided against. So stuck with the Nl4 - tried a couple of main sats and well neither gone well - combined pots won at showdown is 2 over the two attempts, both AIP and ive peaked at 3k in chips over the 2 attempts, today i successfully folded to 13th with 9 seats and £13 for 10th but alas had to shove the KQs UTG with 3.5bb left and ran into a very eager AK. Didnt get there. Such is pokers.
Tournaments on the other site havent gone great either, similar story to the sats here. And well Cash has been puke to say the least - i record every session so going to spend some time looking back, but i feel its just cooler after cooler atm, but i think its important to look back just incase it isnt.
Sunday was a -10 buy in day, monday another sort of break even day as was tuesday - wednesday was puke then good, i was 6 buy ins down for the middle session, 1 up for first session but then 5 buy ins up when i calmed recomposed and had another session fir a break even day.
Today was another -10 buy in day, 10 buy in loss in around 2 hours just doesnt feel possible. Apparenelt it is.
General life is abit all over the shop aswell, i was out on friday as previously mentioned. I seen someone in a different group to the one i was in, and alas im now in isolation. I hadnt seen the person whos a family member for 2 years and their group sadly got hit hard. Their okay, and im negative but my second jag was 11 days before contact so rules be rules i gotta isolate. Last week was my week of with the kids which will mean nearly 18 days between having the kids and seeing them, which to be honest im not liking. I like a break as much as the next parent. But truthfully i love my kids, and i just want to give them a hug. Leia taking it rather hard shes refusing to even talk to me on the phone aswell She doesnt understand why someone else being sick means she cant see daddy and bless her soul shes just angry and the best way to deal with that is to not talk to daddy.
Poker is well fun isn't it. I split my roll over unibet and sky and off i went with plan of September being Nl10 only. unibet went err mixed. Anyways Things changed and I was offered a backing deal, im happy for the backer to make themselves known if they wish but I wont name. But hes a good lad and someone i trully respect.
The backing was simple, go play with targets in mind for different things and some coaching. The coaching is really just reviewing some hands, giving feedback what i did good, what i did bad, but mostly is about looking after my mindset after so many failed NL10 shots. Making sure I'm making the right decisions and not letting the level effect me. Something which playing on unibet allowed me to highlight and some study sessions with friends spotted aswell. I wasn't always making a clean decision and I couldn't always explain why - on unibet you can change to BB instead of money size, and my decisions were being clean again. So far this has been successful we're up a little and added some mtts into the grind. The deal is for sky only however thus if i play elsewhere its upto me to manage this.
On that note, I've been really enjoying the mtts being added back - this year we're down a little for mtts but with sample size thats not a huge suprise i think we've had 3/4 cashes. Made up of 1/2 min cashes and a win and a second. Justneed to convert those min cashes to final tables, and those nearly moments to cashes as we're laughing again. Im very content with how im playing atm and working on modernizing my game, poker really seems to have came a long way since I took a break.
However since I've been enjoying mtts I want to play some more, so i put together a mini package for 2 wcoops on sunday, posted up in 2 places and sold out within 30 seconds of posting in the second. crazyness. Hope i can reward those buying with a run.
Overall we're improving, and I purely focusing on did i make the right decision in this hand right now. Result is irrelevant. Remembering not to worry about what I can't control - something I was doing very well at nl4 since return not so much at NL10.
This is more of a mindset update - It feels odd to post this but I love having the mtts in my schedule. Historically mtts have always been a good little worker for me, I'd personally say it was my strongest game, even more so when we look at the bounty hunters we have on sky.
But right now, Nl10 is offsetting my mtt bricks. Since returning ive played around 100 mtts over all the sites, 70 on sky (according to scope) and a bunch on stars. Mtt wise we're down over £80 - fwiw the only mtt ive won in that 100 was worth £80 so i need to win that with the same amount of head prizes again just to break even. Crazy. We're running about break even, small loss or small wins every day with the cash supplimenting this mtt downswing which isnt a bad thing, it also shows the stuff im adjusting for the cash games is working. And most of that has been mindset related, and stopping and thinking. Focus is very much on making the right decisions in this one specific hand.
Mtts im taking the same approach - make the right decision in this hand, and this is where alot of my personal study atm is going. Cash when reviewed was small adjustments things i can make which adjust our win rate. Mtts id always back my late game, being a sat grinder back in the day because i wanted to play SPTs and UKIPTs meant i had to win 2/3 sats a day to break even while funding my desire to play in these bigger events. Which id then sell for to cover the cost of hotel and travel. The strats we learn in sats applies elsewhere to a different extent - i'd say as a result of being a sat grinder along side my mtt grinds i was ahead of the curve when it came to learning icm because for the sat grinders that was far more important and less time is spent deep in tournaments so historically thats where the least amount of study went - returning i fully believe this not to be the case now. And theres a reason why when you load Tikays results thread youll see the same names day in and day out - this of course used to be the case but i think its even more consistent now - that could be me though.
My weakness from mtts - came in the early game. So thats where ive put my focus, if my grind is going to have mtts along side or fully on certain days i need to plug that gap. If we can improve in the early stages then we can make more deeper runs where I feel my edge is at its biggest. Altho shallow stacks it's still not that big. Full disclousure my studying and lack of results recently arent related, for 1 i only started to impliment parts of strategies that are completely unexploitable yesterday into my game, which ironically yielded my highest head count in a night for about a week, but still no cashes, and well theres the varience in play. Like if we look at sunday i had many mtts in the stars packages i sold i was in for a good 5 hours plus and didn't even get a min cash - altho very unlucky in the storm a bad couple of levels seen us fold at a much higher rate than we should before a BBY crippled us, and then we shoved into kings, standard. But looking at the majority of my mtts thats whats been happening. Go card dead for abit, lose a flip/spot where opponent shoved marginal and we wake up with it behind/shove into it, and lose. This is of course the nature of tournament poker.
However im focusing on the positives, last night we showed improved mtt results, often making a set of decisions i wouldnt have 2 days ago but implimenting something ive been studying to add extra layers, and cash has been going well, we're bricking that many mtts and roll is holding. And despite my poor mtt record this year, If we're playing well the results will come.
Wow, Ive got to be honest I didn't think it had been nearly 3 years since I updated in here.
Firstly I'll update the poker side a little, in truth until 3 weeks ago i occassionally dabbled when traveling and that was it. little win here, little quiet day there type thing.
I don't know if I ever said in here to be honest and I cant remember the time frame, but around the last time I played seriously @DOHHHHHHH convinced me to sign up somewhere and get a free token. Was a simple 4 euro token and you had to sit on a cash table till you'd saw 500 flops before that token became real money. Anyways by the time that token was real money it was now 80 euros. Some spin up, but also a fair bit of run good in the early stages of that. Exclusively playing NL4 to do so aswell. Anyways I can't remember the circumstances and I know going into that I'd historically been a small winning player, small withdrawls here and there. My biggest issue and this diary will prove was mental game, boy could I tilt. Anyways, when I went through some life changes, I felt it was right to withdrawl all my roles, the one I left was the one I'd spun up from that single 4 euro token.
Eventually I think around 2017/2018 that roll was moved to sky, I've always prefered 6 max, and always prefered playing in pounds, just makes it easier in my opinion. Simple withdrawl from site a to depositing that amount on site b. During this time typically I played poker when we struggled financially or needed to clear a debt. Play for a month win just about enough to sort said issue and then disappear into the abyss once more. That was inpart to the intense NL4 grinding which I'll be honest I never enjoyed, and in part to the relationship I was in. But still we'd travel to do things, and I hate traveling so on the train load up the app, play an mtt and fairly often we'd come out with travel and accom for the thing we travel for paid for.
That relationship eventually broke down, and I had some dabbling in poker, I don't remember much about that time poker wise, I think small loses here, small gains there but in truth my mental health was abysmal. The last place I should have been near was a card table, and sensibly I stepped away. The next return i think was around 12-18 months ago, but again I cannot be certain on this time frame. Around this time the return was purely money driven, I had this money sitting here, just not doing anything, and I had some unexpected bills, and that drove me to return. I had some small wins but just couldn't break a barrier, and someone eventually offered me staking and coaching. I accepted, and in truth it was a great experience and I won't name the person in question, but I cannot fault this person for how they treated me. The understood my game, they'd understand what I tried to do in hands, even if they disagreed with it, and supported completely. In truth I think it added pressure to play that previously I didn't have though and with issues in personal life ontop my mental health once again declined. Until about 4 weeks ago I hadn't played a game of poker since.
We were off to Germany and to keep costs down (£450 for a flight one way... not happening) we chose to drive, 8 hours or so to London, spend the night, then to Dover and Germany. Obviously Sky isn't avaliable outwith the UK but quickly in the car and you have 4 people who play or have played poker, poker becomes a conversation, within 10 mins apps loaded and I'm in a bounty hunter, ready to check raise the world. Think I ended up playing 2/3 but got a nice little 2nd or 3rd finish in one of them, on the way back same thing and again a 2nd or 3rd (one was 2nd one was 3rd I just can't remember which way around).
The next day I wasn't doing anything and thought I really enjoyed the poker, in truth I love bounty hunters, love the format and its where I've enjoyed poker, and I thought, lets go have some fun. Think I had 5 final tables that day and finished everywhere but 1st. Then came Friday, the most insane day of poker I think I've ever had. I had plans at night and just wanted to pass the morning away, entered 5 bounty hunters, with a record of 2 wins, 1 second, 1 stone bubble in 7th but with enough heads to make double the entry fee, and a nowhere with a single head. Since then Sunday I loaded up and had a larger session, 2 relatively unlucky 2nd place finishes before winning the 6.30 gave me a very profitable day.
Then there was today. Today was grim. Obviously that form couldn't continue, I know that, you know that and the poker gods certainly know that. By the time I bust the 5.30 I'd collected 4 heads total from all the tournaments entered, one stone bubble, and no other cashes. Down a fair bit. I'd busted that 5.30 within 10 mins of it starting, ate dinner watched some tv and debated am I enjoying it enough to register a night schedule or are we leaving it and doing something else. Once again @DOHHHHHHH convinced me to play.
Standard session 6.30 7@7 7.30 7.35 (shot take) Mini Oh and the rebuy bh.
Anyways we crawled into the money in the 7.30 for a little something back, when i say crawled i mean literally. Its not my style to fold to the money but I've never felt so spot dead and when the blinds went up and we had 3bb after that I went lets just get there and see what happens. We got there, and we even laddered 5 places (to 8th) with just a single double before busting. In truth its not the way I like to play poker but on a day when we're losing getting a result back can be handy. We took 2 heads in the 6.30 very early on and I felt some momentum coming back there but alas a few missteps and it wasn;t to be a run there. The 7@7 was an interesting bedfellow. Started very slow, spun up a little, eventually took a couple of heads before setting myself up as chip leader with 8 to go. One bad beat, one BvB standard shove and call i was on wrong end of and a flip later... we finished 8th. Think I got £30 back for that give or take. The rebuy was single bullet+add-on plan. Only I lost a flip right before the addon break, i debated just leaving it bust quickly get something else up but in the end took the addon and off we went. 2 heads and another 8th place finish later we about doubled our costrs for the rebuy. I'm not sure I appove of 8 people being left in an mtt at this stage.
But then we come to the £11 shot take I took. Historically the £11 bhs have been my nemisis. I know how to play them, the standard hasn't been that much higher, but wether its a mental block, a buy in issue or whatever else they just haven't been kind. Thats gotta change. Again very grindy tournament where I came alive with 8 or so left, rather than busting. Think I had 1 head going into this but had been consistently decent in chips, before busting everyone from 8th to 4th resulting in a total of £38 from our 7 heads alone. Alas however we turned the nut straight, and we check raised big our villian called with his split pot gutter ball and flush draw for half his stack only to connect with the flush draw. Unable to fold and stacks at this depth resulted in us going from a nice chip lead to 3/3 and about 15bb. We shove AJ next hand and ping two callers, one isolates a K high flop with K7 and ends up holding from there. A little under £80 is a nice consolidation prize but another one that got away. However that evening session turned what I think was a -£30 day and a bleak feeling into another decent winning day and +70.
Anyways in the time I've played since getting into that car in Germany, I've taken my poker roll from £237 to £755 just from bounty hunters, ontop of that I wasted £10 on Harry Kane to have a shot on target in 90 mins, thanks Harry. And I withdrew £50 to give myself options to play during the nights I cant sleep, in truth I dont like that option much and I'm writing here instead. Ill probably move that again. More I want to say but im out of characters so I'll leave that for another day.
@Tikay10 hasn't gone unnoticed the kind messages I've seen around from you.
@mumsie still due you a beer for letting me hobble into the money last night and really aiding that ladder.
@rabdeniro very similar, they say not to bet on your rivals, and I never do, but i thought evens in this game... even Southgates England cant mess that bet up
I'll update all the other stuff I wanted to post later, more life related stuff, I the mean time, I'm not going to post any goals etc. I just want to play stuff I enjoy, know that'll be "low volume" and have fun doing it.
"I just want to play stuff I enjoy, know that'll be "low volume" and have fun doing it."
And especially THIS
"and have fun doing it."
You'd be astonished at how many recreational players don't actually enjoy playing poker, but they don't realise it. Moan & groan, whinge & whine. That's not a recreation, that's a chore.
Enjoyed reading this actually felt a bit nostalgic remembering reading yours dohhs and lamberts regular posts back in the day, wp on the recent results and gl at the tables
I promised a proper update about other stuff and well here that is. This will be more behind the scenes Don rather than poker Don, and bring you to where I am in 2024 rather than the memories of anxiety ridden, ragey 2013 Don.
Quickly though on poker, I lost about £25 yest, played a few bounty hunters, and did take heads but no bone on any runs. More than my fair share of bad luck, but with the past week I think I'd be very poorly placed to complain.
Firstly, these days I find myself as a single parent to my kids. I have equal custody of my older two, and my youngest is abit more complex. Right now thats going through the courts so I don't think I should say too much just incase anything I say has an impact, but so far that process has gone almost aswell as it could from my side, and my legal team expect it to continue to do so.
Outwith that as Tikay has mentioned I've played alot of games, My main go two have been Europa Universalis 4, which really soothes my need for strategy and thinking, while Football Manager has offered that, it can also be abit more chill press space and watch some pixles play football. Ive also done Football Manager and F1 Manager on the competitive scene. Neither are major eSports and thus little to no money in it. On top of that both are typically invite only and sometimes its not just about how good you are. In truth I achieved 17th in the FM Rankings (the only way to rank players) in 2022, and I feel had I been able to get more comps in, I could have got higher. My F1 Manager career was much shorter, but I won the only competition I entered, scoring close maximum points. Unfortunetly taking these games to those levels has largely killed my enjoyment of them. Once you learn to exploit something its hard to not do it consistently and that makes the game less challenging and thus rather boring. Since then I've spent time doing commentary on twitch for 3 seperate FM competitions and in truth thats something I've really enjoyed.
Outwith that I joined the local pool league, where as a team we won a cup a year or two prior to covid, and more recently got elected onto the league committee, where I was relected back onto it at the last AGM. My actual pool skills might be limited, but I do enjoy trying to help make it the best experience for everyone, even if that is giving up my time for free. And more recently I got asked to join the pubs darts team, I hadn't thrown a dart for about 15 years at a house party, but that has been amazing social time too. And with some luck in draws of opponents, and insane luck in my throwing I finished the season winning all 4 of the singles games I played for the team. How that happened I can only imagine some minor miracle.
Lastly I want to talk about something a little more serious. I've never hid my anxiety, what I did though is i never accepted any support for it. In 2021 after the breakdown of my last relationship I added depression onto that list. Low mood, self esteem issues, and welll everything else that comes with the condition. Choosing not to go into more detail there. I was extremely lucky that ironically through my FM gaming I met a friend who happened to be a mental health nurse and spotted signs early and gave me support, that also helped me get local support and with alot of work I have alot less bad days than I have good. I always remind myself how far I've come. But for me, I want to say to anyone reading this who maybe struggling, you are loved, speak to friends, speak to family, speak to your doctor. Please don't suffer in silence.
Comments
After the main i took 5 mins to cool off and knowing that i cant grind tonight, i decided to take a rare am nl10 shot, it gave me time to have a proper shot focusing on only nl10 and getting to know some more regs - one of whom joined me on nl4 this morning so i expect they were on a wee scouting mission - and get a feel for playing higher stakes, when I came back I felt no issues being at this level with a smaller role than im taking this shot, but then I wasn't used to NL4 at that point and was playing purely for fun with profit being a bonus, now im playing again hunting that profit. I wont go into too much detail but it didnt start great - we got 1 outered all in on flop for a £26 pot, we have TPTK + NFD on a paired board against the nut straight for another £25 pot, and then had K high flush against slow played Aces on a A high board for another £20ish pot, alas the 4 spade pinged, the latter is a buy in we can save folding pre. However I was probably still abit miffed at my main exit and should have taken longer to breathe. But we stuck with it, we got brutally lucky in a £40 pot, say lucky, we were never behind post flop but essentially wasnt a good table but with 4 running and money to be made super deep against the one rec i decided to stick with it, we overlimped from sb with 63dd and called the raise from the reg with the rec also calling giving us a fair price, while 200+bb deep effective with the rec. The flop lands 236r, we x reg x and rec pots, we flat, turn is a 7 he pots again and again we flat and the river pings us a 6 for second nuts, hes missed his gutshot and emptied the clip - fair play to him for doing so but we obv snap and scoop a huge pot. This pot seen us finish this session a buy in up.
Today i went to play some nl10 again take another shot, but decided I didn't think good table selection would allow me to stay on those tables. So knowing it was my one session today i dropped to Nl4 where one of the regs from the nl10 session last night joined us for abit. We finished this session £33 up, and i feel we played really well, however theres 2 buys ins we lost in hindsight i dont need to lose for even more profit, One we had Jh on a 4 heart board and the villian is the only villian on the table I think is ever bluffing here, they werent bluffing. And the other was JJ on a 8 high flop in a 3b pot, same table diff villian but same seat, in hindsight they had the perfect hand for us to get it in against but I think thats the only worse hand we see and it had alot of equity (AK FD) with benefits of notes I can probably fold instead of taking the jam.
Overall for the month we're now well up despite that poor first week, I feel I'm playing some of the best poker I ever had, and I'm glad to spot a mental game leak when deep in mtts on a chipped up table compared to average. This is something I can go away and work on. I'll be taking more Nl10 shots down the line while also making sure im table selecting. Im hoping the points earned today are enough to put me back in league one leaderboard selection - frustratingly i moved up and i havent hit the same points target i did first weeek before i moved up - im unsure why altho nl10 should help with this because we'll pay more money per pot in rake which means more points.
Great Post though Don, great effort in the Main last night and a vul exit hand!
Well done @The_Don90
My Fm draft comp went well in alot of aspects. I knew this level would be a step up from what I'm used to, my invite mostly came from the fact that I routinely practice with someone who's very often at the deepend of the competitive Football Manager competitions, and while this was a qualifying tournament with ranking points, i knew this wasn't going to be easy. I went in knowing the tactics I use aren't great against some of the broken features in the game, which aren't really ideal in a competitive environment. I drafted well for my tactic however and ended up with a really strong team, my first round draw was against the pre-tournament favorite and one of the few players in the competition with competitive drafting experience - more on that they've won qualifying competitions just like this in the past. A 2-2 away draw made me fav going into the second leg with away goals in play before winning the second leg 3-2. A strong result against a player I was honeslty not expecting to beat and who was everyones tournament fav put me a little on the map. Things from here didn't go so great in the second round my opponent wasn't well and left, the host took over, and I was given a freebie in to the second round. He ran his tactics to test for the next day in the first leg and it was clear my tactics as suspected would not cope against that style. I didnt change anything because getting a bye so why would I - and the second leg was rigged so I'd win easily and go into the semis. My opponent for that semi was a lad called Coin Bird, lovely american fellow who knew a thing or two about tacitcs, more so the exact kind of tactic that crushes me was his style, a poor start seen us 5-0 down inside 25 mins while im frantically trying to change things, eventually we stopped leaking, has 2 goals disallowed which could have been important away goals but 8-0 was one of the biggest lessons ive had in fm. In the second leg I ripped up my tactic, listened to my chat which included my friend whos won these before giving me some good advice, and we won the second leg 4-1 I believe that was Coin Birds only loss of that entire competition so I can hold my head high and say I gave it everything I had, Coin went onto win the competition and finished 5th/16 in the main comp on Sunday, my friend came 2nd losing the last game (league format for the main comp) to end up not winning. Overall for my first competitve competition Im hurt by the 8-0 but generally happy, and I learnt more doing that than any practice ive done has taught me. And most importantly I learnt that sometimes adjusting just like in poker is the right thing to do. To quote marc warburton "plan b is to do plan a better" is not always the right approach and thats something ive always tried to tweek is improving plan a. Plan A was never going to work v certain tactics.
Poker wise, I said some Nl10 shots incoming, that hasn't really happened every time ive went and looked at the tables theres red tags all over the shop. Moving up table selection is extremely important. Now of course theres 1/2 recs there, but I still think theres better times to try, I don't need to be making myself a mark when I'm taking my shots. So its been mostly Nl4 and till yesterday it was going great, I was out friday so no friday night session, i took sat off to recover and prep for fm tournament so back yest. I will be honest I was overdue a losing day, yesterday sucked. I dont think ive ever had many -10 buy in session days lifetime at nl4. Now granted the first session I played like i had no confidence - and realistically I knew that and was trying to play through my own mental barrier - im linking this to that 8-0 defeat because this was not the poker i was playing on friday afternoon and before. Knowing that I wasn't trusting my reads, my gut etc, running abit meh but standard, The hour and 15 mins was too long to be on the tables, and what it took for me to stand was shipping in QQ for £9 effective on a J83 flop into a solid reg - why I did that I don't know. Is that solid reg ever calling AJ here, maybe once in a month of Sundays if im lucky, this Sunday wasn't that once, she snapped off with the stone cold nut-a-roonies. Thats 2 and a bit buy ins that I only ever lose when im on my D game - at that point I hit stand stood on all my tables and said gg to the nice people talking in some of the chats. Went had a bath calmed myself down and came back later on.
The later on session I played better, I didn't run great either and this seen me lose the rest of the 10 buy ins that made the -10 buy in day. However that said Im glad I went back and reminded myself of the correct decisions in different spots. I ended up having an AM session too before tables died and regs from the higher levels dropped down chasing points meaning the nl4 tables last night were just not worth playing on, that session is also included in the -10 day but i think itself was only wortth 1 buy in of that and tbh I'm content with that session. I couldn't sleep so jumped over to my other roll on stars where i ended the rut finishing 1 buy in up on nl2 before getting some steady sleep.
NL10 shots will still come, but on my terms.
Took me 2 pages to realise i was reading stuff from 8 years ago.
Caught up tho and interesting read.
GL and keep enjoying it - Thats the main thing
EDIT - Why is he ll a banned word?
Well this week is fun. The Nl10 shots just aren't happening. Everytime ive looked they've been reggy so decided against. So stuck with the Nl4 - tried a couple of main sats and well neither gone well - combined pots won at showdown is 2 over the two attempts, both AIP and ive peaked at 3k in chips over the 2 attempts, today i successfully folded to 13th with 9 seats and £13 for 10th but alas had to shove the KQs UTG with 3.5bb left and ran into a very eager AK. Didnt get there. Such is pokers.
Tournaments on the other site havent gone great either, similar story to the sats here. And well Cash has been puke to say the least - i record every session so going to spend some time looking back, but i feel its just cooler after cooler atm, but i think its important to look back just incase it isnt.
Sunday was a -10 buy in day, monday another sort of break even day as was tuesday - wednesday was puke then good, i was 6 buy ins down for the middle session, 1 up for first session but then 5 buy ins up when i calmed recomposed and had another session fir a break even day.
Today was another -10 buy in day, 10 buy in loss in around 2 hours just doesnt feel possible. Apparenelt it is.
General life is abit all over the shop aswell, i was out on friday as previously mentioned. I seen someone in a different group to the one i was in, and alas im now in isolation. I hadnt seen the person whos a family member for 2 years and their group sadly got hit hard. Their okay, and im negative but my second jag was 11 days before contact so rules be rules i gotta isolate. Last week was my week of with the kids which will mean nearly 18 days between having the kids and seeing them, which to be honest im not liking. I like a break as much as the next parent. But truthfully i love my kids, and i just want to give them a hug. Leia taking it rather hard shes refusing to even talk to me on the phone aswell
Poker is well fun isn't it. I split my roll over unibet and sky and off i went with plan of September being Nl10 only. unibet went err mixed. Anyways Things changed and I was offered a backing deal, im happy for the backer to make themselves known if they wish but I wont name. But hes a good lad and someone i trully respect.
The backing was simple, go play with targets in mind for different things and some coaching. The coaching is really just reviewing some hands, giving feedback what i did good, what i did bad, but mostly is about looking after my mindset after so many failed NL10 shots. Making sure I'm making the right decisions and not letting the level effect me. Something which playing on unibet allowed me to highlight and some study sessions with friends spotted aswell. I wasn't always making a clean decision and I couldn't always explain why - on unibet you can change to BB instead of money size, and my decisions were being clean again. So far this has been successful we're up a little and added some mtts into the grind. The deal is for sky only however thus if i play elsewhere its upto me to manage this.
On that note, I've been really enjoying the mtts being added back - this year we're down a little for mtts but with sample size thats not a huge suprise i think we've had 3/4 cashes. Made up of 1/2 min cashes and a win and a second. Justneed to convert those min cashes to final tables, and those nearly moments to cashes as we're laughing again. Im very content with how im playing atm and working on modernizing my game, poker really seems to have came a long way since I took a break.
However since I've been enjoying mtts I want to play some more, so i put together a mini package for 2 wcoops on sunday, posted up in 2 places and sold out within 30 seconds of posting in the second. crazyness. Hope i can reward those buying with a run.
Overall we're improving, and I purely focusing on did i make the right decision in this hand right now. Result is irrelevant. Remembering not to worry about what I can't control - something I was doing very well at nl4 since return not so much at NL10.
Onwards and upwords from here.
This is more of a mindset update - It feels odd to post this but I love having the mtts in my schedule. Historically mtts have always been a good little worker for me, I'd personally say it was my strongest game, even more so when we look at the bounty hunters we have on sky.
But right now, Nl10 is offsetting my mtt bricks. Since returning ive played around 100 mtts over all the sites, 70 on sky (according to scope) and a bunch on stars. Mtt wise we're down over £80 - fwiw the only mtt ive won in that 100 was worth £80 so i need to win that with the same amount of head prizes again just to break even. Crazy. We're running about break even, small loss or small wins every day with the cash supplimenting this mtt downswing which isnt a bad thing, it also shows the stuff im adjusting for the cash games is working. And most of that has been mindset related, and stopping and thinking. Focus is very much on making the right decisions in this one specific hand.
Mtts im taking the same approach - make the right decision in this hand, and this is where alot of my personal study atm is going. Cash when reviewed was small adjustments things i can make which adjust our win rate. Mtts id always back my late game, being a sat grinder back in the day because i wanted to play SPTs and UKIPTs meant i had to win 2/3 sats a day to break even while funding my desire to play in these bigger events. Which id then sell for to cover the cost of hotel and travel. The strats we learn in sats applies elsewhere to a different extent - i'd say as a result of being a sat grinder along side my mtt grinds i was ahead of the curve when it came to learning icm because for the sat grinders that was far more important and less time is spent deep in tournaments so historically thats where the least amount of study went - returning i fully believe this not to be the case now. And theres a reason why when you load Tikays results thread youll see the same names day in and day out - this of course used to be the case but i think its even more consistent now - that could be me though.
My weakness from mtts - came in the early game. So thats where ive put my focus, if my grind is going to have mtts along side or fully on certain days i need to plug that gap. If we can improve in the early stages then we can make more deeper runs where I feel my edge is at its biggest. Altho shallow stacks it's still not that big. Full disclousure my studying and lack of results recently arent related, for 1 i only started to impliment parts of strategies that are completely unexploitable yesterday into my game, which ironically yielded my highest head count in a night for about a week, but still no cashes, and well theres the varience in play. Like if we look at sunday i had many mtts in the stars packages i sold i was in for a good 5 hours plus and didn't even get a min cash - altho very unlucky in the storm a bad couple of levels seen us fold at a much higher rate than we should before a BBY crippled us, and then we shoved into kings, standard. But looking at the majority of my mtts thats whats been happening. Go card dead for abit, lose a flip/spot where opponent shoved marginal and we wake up with it behind/shove into it, and lose. This is of course the nature of tournament poker.
However im focusing on the positives, last night we showed improved mtt results, often making a set of decisions i wouldnt have 2 days ago but implimenting something ive been studying to add extra layers, and cash has been going well, we're bricking that many mtts and roll is holding. And despite my poor mtt record this year, If we're playing well the results will come.
Firstly I'll update the poker side a little, in truth until 3 weeks ago i occassionally dabbled when traveling and that was it. little win here, little quiet day there type thing.
I don't know if I ever said in here to be honest and I cant remember the time frame, but around the last time I played seriously @DOHHHHHHH convinced me to sign up somewhere and get a free token. Was a simple 4 euro token and you had to sit on a cash table till you'd saw 500 flops before that token became real money. Anyways by the time that token was real money it was now 80 euros. Some spin up, but also a fair bit of run good in the early stages of that. Exclusively playing NL4 to do so aswell. Anyways I can't remember the circumstances and I know going into that I'd historically been a small winning player, small withdrawls here and there. My biggest issue and this diary will prove was mental game, boy could I tilt. Anyways, when I went through some life changes, I felt it was right to withdrawl all my roles, the one I left was the one I'd spun up from that single 4 euro token.
Eventually I think around 2017/2018 that roll was moved to sky, I've always prefered 6 max, and always prefered playing in pounds, just makes it easier in my opinion. Simple withdrawl from site a to depositing that amount on site b. During this time typically I played poker when we struggled financially or needed to clear a debt. Play for a month win just about enough to sort said issue and then disappear into the abyss once more. That was inpart to the intense NL4 grinding which I'll be honest I never enjoyed, and in part to the relationship I was in. But still we'd travel to do things, and I hate traveling so on the train load up the app, play an mtt and fairly often we'd come out with travel and accom for the thing we travel for paid for.
That relationship eventually broke down, and I had some dabbling in poker, I don't remember much about that time poker wise, I think small loses here, small gains there but in truth my mental health was abysmal. The last place I should have been near was a card table, and sensibly I stepped away. The next return i think was around 12-18 months ago, but again I cannot be certain on this time frame. Around this time the return was purely money driven, I had this money sitting here, just not doing anything, and I had some unexpected bills, and that drove me to return. I had some small wins but just couldn't break a barrier, and someone eventually offered me staking and coaching. I accepted, and in truth it was a great experience and I won't name the person in question, but I cannot fault this person for how they treated me. The understood my game, they'd understand what I tried to do in hands, even if they disagreed with it, and supported completely. In truth I think it added pressure to play that previously I didn't have though and with issues in personal life ontop my mental health once again declined. Until about 4 weeks ago I hadn't played a game of poker since.
We were off to Germany and to keep costs down (£450 for a flight one way... not happening) we chose to drive, 8 hours or so to London, spend the night, then to Dover and Germany. Obviously Sky isn't avaliable outwith the UK but quickly in the car and you have 4 people who play or have played poker, poker becomes a conversation, within 10 mins apps loaded and I'm in a bounty hunter, ready to check raise the world. Think I ended up playing 2/3 but got a nice little 2nd or 3rd finish in one of them, on the way back same thing and again a 2nd or 3rd (one was 2nd one was 3rd I just can't remember which way around).
The next day I wasn't doing anything and thought I really enjoyed the poker, in truth I love bounty hunters, love the format and its where I've enjoyed poker, and I thought, lets go have some fun. Think I had 5 final tables that day and finished everywhere but 1st. Then came Friday, the most insane day of poker I think I've ever had. I had plans at night and just wanted to pass the morning away, entered 5 bounty hunters, with a record of 2 wins, 1 second, 1 stone bubble in 7th but with enough heads to make double the entry fee, and a nowhere with a single head. Since then Sunday I loaded up and had a larger session, 2 relatively unlucky 2nd place finishes before winning the 6.30 gave me a very profitable day.
Then there was today. Today was grim. Obviously that form couldn't continue, I know that, you know that and the poker gods certainly know that. By the time I bust the 5.30 I'd collected 4 heads total from all the tournaments entered, one stone bubble, and no other cashes. Down a fair bit. I'd busted that 5.30 within 10 mins of it starting, ate dinner watched some tv and debated am I enjoying it enough to register a night schedule or are we leaving it and doing something else. Once again @DOHHHHHHH convinced me to play.
Standard session
6.30
7@7
7.30
7.35 (shot take)
Mini
Oh and the rebuy bh.
Anyways we crawled into the money in the 7.30 for a little something back, when i say crawled i mean literally. Its not my style to fold to the money but I've never felt so spot dead and when the blinds went up and we had 3bb after that I went lets just get there and see what happens. We got there, and we even laddered 5 places (to 8th) with just a single double before busting. In truth its not the way I like to play poker but on a day when we're losing getting a result back can be handy. We took 2 heads in the 6.30 very early on and I felt some momentum coming back there but alas a few missteps and it wasn;t to be a run there. The 7@7 was an interesting bedfellow. Started very slow, spun up a little, eventually took a couple of heads before setting myself up as chip leader with 8 to go. One bad beat, one BvB standard shove and call i was on wrong end of and a flip later... we finished 8th. Think I got £30 back for that give or take. The rebuy was single bullet+add-on plan. Only I lost a flip right before the addon break, i debated just leaving it bust quickly get something else up but in the end took the addon and off we went. 2 heads and another 8th place finish later we about doubled our costrs for the rebuy. I'm not sure I appove of 8 people being left in an mtt at this stage.
But then we come to the £11 shot take I took. Historically the £11 bhs have been my nemisis. I know how to play them, the standard hasn't been that much higher, but wether its a mental block, a buy in issue or whatever else they just haven't been kind. Thats gotta change. Again very grindy tournament where I came alive with 8 or so left, rather than busting. Think I had 1 head going into this but had been consistently decent in chips, before busting everyone from 8th to 4th resulting in a total of £38 from our 7 heads alone. Alas however we turned the nut straight, and we check raised big our villian called with his split pot gutter ball and flush draw for half his stack only to connect with the flush draw. Unable to fold and stacks at this depth resulted in us going from a nice chip lead to 3/3 and about 15bb. We shove AJ next hand and ping two callers, one isolates a K high flop with K7 and ends up holding from there. A little under £80 is a nice consolidation prize but another one that got away. However that evening session turned what I think was a -£30 day and a bleak feeling into another decent winning day and +70.
Anyways in the time I've played since getting into that car in Germany, I've taken my poker roll from £237 to £755 just from bounty hunters, ontop of that I wasted £10 on Harry Kane to have a shot on target in 90 mins, thanks Harry. And I withdrew £50 to give myself options to play during the nights I cant sleep, in truth I dont like that option much and I'm writing here instead. Ill probably move that again. More I want to say but im out of characters so I'll leave that for another day.
@The_Don90
My oh my, that's such an great post, so honest.
Well done Don, & keep it up. You really DO have the ability to turn a stead profit long-term.
Always a pleasure and nice to see you frequenting the tables.
@Tikay10 hasn't gone unnoticed the kind messages I've seen around from you.
@mumsie still due you a beer for letting me hobble into the money last night and really aiding that ladder.
@rabdeniro very similar, they say not to bet on your rivals, and I never do, but i thought evens in this game... even Southgates England cant mess that bet up
I'll update all the other stuff I wanted to post later, more life related stuff, I the mean time, I'm not going to post any goals etc. I just want to play stuff I enjoy, know that'll be "low volume" and have fun doing it.
@The_Don90
THIS;
"I just want to play stuff I enjoy, know that'll be "low volume" and have fun doing it."
And especially THIS
"and have fun doing it."
You'd be astonished at how many recreational players don't actually enjoy playing poker, but they don't realise it. Moan & groan, whinge & whine. That's not a recreation, that's a chore.
This made me laugh.
Great read Don, keep the updates coming!
Quickly though on poker, I lost about £25 yest, played a few bounty hunters, and did take heads but no bone on any runs. More than my fair share of bad luck, but with the past week I think I'd be very poorly placed to complain.
Firstly, these days I find myself as a single parent to my kids. I have equal custody of my older two, and my youngest is abit more complex. Right now thats going through the courts so I don't think I should say too much just incase anything I say has an impact, but so far that process has gone almost aswell as it could from my side, and my legal team expect it to continue to do so.
Outwith that as Tikay has mentioned I've played alot of games, My main go two have been Europa Universalis 4, which really soothes my need for strategy and thinking, while Football Manager has offered that, it can also be abit more chill press space and watch some pixles play football. Ive also done Football Manager and F1 Manager on the competitive scene. Neither are major eSports and thus little to no money in it. On top of that both are typically invite only and sometimes its not just about how good you are. In truth I achieved 17th in the FM Rankings (the only way to rank players) in 2022, and I feel had I been able to get more comps in, I could have got higher. My F1 Manager career was much shorter, but I won the only competition I entered, scoring close maximum points. Unfortunetly taking these games to those levels has largely killed my enjoyment of them. Once you learn to exploit something its hard to not do it consistently and that makes the game less challenging and thus rather boring. Since then I've spent time doing commentary on twitch for 3 seperate FM competitions and in truth thats something I've really enjoyed.
Outwith that I joined the local pool league, where as a team we won a cup a year or two prior to covid, and more recently got elected onto the league committee, where I was relected back onto it at the last AGM. My actual pool skills might be limited, but I do enjoy trying to help make it the best experience for everyone, even if that is giving up my time for free. And more recently I got asked to join the pubs darts team, I hadn't thrown a dart for about 15 years at a house party, but that has been amazing social time too. And with some luck in draws of opponents, and insane luck in my throwing I finished the season winning all 4 of the singles games I played for the team. How that happened I can only imagine some minor miracle.
Lastly I want to talk about something a little more serious. I've never hid my anxiety, what I did though is i never accepted any support for it. In 2021 after the breakdown of my last relationship I added depression onto that list. Low mood, self esteem issues, and welll everything else that comes with the condition. Choosing not to go into more detail there. I was extremely lucky that ironically through my FM gaming I met a friend who happened to be a mental health nurse and spotted signs early and gave me support, that also helped me get local support and with alot of work I have alot less bad days than I have good. I always remind myself how far I've come. But for me, I want to say to anyone reading this who maybe struggling, you are loved, speak to friends, speak to family, speak to your doctor. Please don't suffer in silence.