Felt much better Sunday but again those mid-late positions just kept losing all-ins where I was a big favourite. Busted out of two £55's and the £110. Lost with QQv22, QQv22 & AAv1010. All of the all-ins were for decent double ups that would have given me a great chance to be in the cash and push for final table. Accidentally re-bought into the £110 which hammered the bankroll and was unable to exit. Chat was crazily busy yesterday evening and could not get through, which was a bit frustrating.
Advice is certainly welcome! I was trying to find an EV calculator on Sharkscope but it does not seem to have one, is there a site I can get this?
Not really sure how to proceed this week. E.g. which games to play, how to get back on track, what to do etc. Feels like a very amateur thing to say, but I feel like every time I go all-in i'm going to get sucked out on. Mindset does not feel right.
I think the only advice that comes to mind is run better? It's hard to say much more without knowing positions, stack sizes, blind levels, etc. If you go to "My Sky Poker" at the top, then Hand History, you can copy hands into this thread which will give people a lot more information to go on.
For equity calculators, there are a variety of tools available if you use Windows. Equilab and Flopzilla are my favourites. If you're on a Mac like I am, well, good luck with that. PokerTracker 4 has one built in if you have a license. There's also something called PokerCruncher on the App Store but I haven't tried it. There's a super basic online one here.
Sounds like you may benefit from having a flick through The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler. Either that or take a few days off!
I'll have a dig through, try to find some. I'm not on a mac most of the time so it should be pretty simple to use.
Yeah i'm thinking that too. Going to play a smaller schedule today with smaller buy-ins try and gain back some confidence.
I do have that book, need to read through it again when I get home. Work is pretty chilled out right now so might bring it in and read it.
Going to have a look through all of the tournaments today and try and plot a course through.
I did play a lot more last week than I usually do, it's the first time in 3 years that I reached Gold rewards, which shows how limited my usual schedule is.
Just managed to take 3rd in the £33 event for £860 with bounties. After a torrid week, it was a welcome return. Bit of an annoying exit hand but overall played well. Hands held up which was a great feeling, tried to play more theoretically correct.
Big shout out to NOSTRI, I dug out my copy of The Mental Game by Jared Tendler, was reading excerpts during the final table. Bit annoyed I did not managed to get heads up, as the pay jumps were huge, but after a horrible week for the confidence this was very much needed. Going to take a day off or so, refocus and go again.
Had a fair few messages and chats on tables, thanks to all that are giving me positive feedback. Glad people are liking the diary.
"Also, Sharkscope seems to be showing a more bleak outlook"
Not any more.
In fact, the graph is very odd, in that it appears to be an exact mirror image. You had that big cash a week ago, £792, the graph went vertical, dribbled downhill for 5 or 6 nights, then last night's £860 almost exactly replicated the previous spike. It's uncannily similar.
I really hope this encourages you to think longer-term. 5 or 6 days of constant losses in MTT's it not in the least unusual.
It does feel like groundhog week - I need the next few days to be different though.
Obviously everyone goes through bad variance spots, but I think I let it affect me a little too much. Some of the run-outs were grim, but then I kept chasing things.
Sharkscope still does not seem quite right, in terms of losses last week, it is missing a few £50 satellites that I got into twice and then unregistered one of them.
I did change a few things yesterday, tried to take things more seriously, e.g. sitting at the table, not watching TV whilst playing, constantly working out BB's left and ensuring I did not go short and still had fold equity, that kind of thing. Felt far more dialled in and that's what I need to start doing consistently, not just once a week! I think I had just autopiloted a lot, but yesterday was noticing opponents tendencies and mistakes and that helped me get a few bounties. I still don't get how people will risk half their stack or more, when there is 10-20 left for 50 quid, when the payjumps are much more significant than that.
Just saw that UKOPS is coming up again, will look forward to this!
It does feel like groundhog week - I need the next few days to be different though.
Obviously everyone goes through bad variance spots, but I think I let it affect me a little too much. Some of the run-outs were grim, but then I kept chasing things.
Sharkscope still does not seem quite right, in terms of losses last week, it is missing a few £50 satellites that I got into twice and then unregistered one of them.
I did change a few things yesterday, tried to take things more seriously, e.g. sitting at the table, not watching TV whilst playing, constantly working out BB's left and ensuring I did not go short and still had fold equity, that kind of thing. Felt far more dialled in and that's what I need to start doing consistently, not just once a week! I think I had just autopiloted a lot, but yesterday was noticing opponents tendencies and mistakes and that helped me get a few bounties. I still don't get how people will risk half their stack or more, when there is 10-20 left for 50 quid, when the payjumps are much more significant than that.
Just saw that UKOPS is coming up again, will look forward to this!
Well done Shelly on the return to form ! I like your end comment about taking risks v pay jumps, I recently got a coaching webinar from @DaraOkearey on PKO strategy, very helpful and recommend to anyone looking for coaching . His book Poker Satellite Strategy is V G also. Good luck at the tables .
Quick Diary update - WIll do a longer piece Monday.
Decent weekend so far, with a 10th in the Sheriff on Friday, and A third in the £22 new megastack. I also came third in the £22 megastack on Saturday too.
Currently bankroll is £1799.50, which is a £1500 increase in two weeks since I started the diary. Still getting frustrated as i'm missing out on final tables, with two thirds and a second, plus other finishes in top 10. Hopefully this changes tomorrow in the main!
Will give a better update on Monday but just realised i'd been pretty quiet this week.
I've not been updating this too much as I have hardly played all week.
I've been really tired every evening, to the point where I've had triple espresso's to try and get myself focused for poker. Decided to just leave it until I felt like I could play!
Well I tried to play yesterday with mixed results. Overall finished £54 down on the session, and felt like my play was pretty erratic, was really struggling to focus, not sure why this is.
I'm actually really happy though, as this week after bonus' etc i'm down £35 quid on Sky, which would usually be a lot more. I've been reading Jared Tendlers book and i'm trying top get myself in the right condition to play optimally. every night this week I've wanted to try and play just to see what would happen, but then I've told myself not too as I am not with it and would lose money. So overall a weirdly positive week. Usually I would lose a few hundred and then tell myself i'm playing badly, when actually I'm just mentally not there.
As said, I played yesterday and whilst I lost on Sky, I did well on Pokerstars. There was a homegame set-up for players that frequent the two Reading Casinos. This is the 4th that they have run since the virus (first I've played) and I think they will have a tournament for the top 10 players after 10 events.
The standard is pretty decent, a lot of players go to the WSOP and play big buy-in events and play high cash live, but I thought it would be a fun event to try. Buy-in was £44 and the winner got £580 (there were only around 30 entries, plus re-entries.
I played solid throughout, went very short with 14 left, hung in, and then came to the final 5 chipleading. I held the lead throughout and took it down. Was nice to finally win on a final table! Even though the players are very decent live players, they definitely made some mistakes, especially when I was short and had 4-5 BB's and only once in 6 orbits was my blind raised. That just kept me in it and gave me a chance. Considering how much I was struggling to even stay awake, it felt good to win!
UKOPS starts today and i'm very excited. I managed to win a £33 event of the last time I played, so would be good to do that again. I do feel dead again today and i'm starting to wonder why this malaise has set in. I had gone without eating carbs for about 4 weeks and I've been eating them again for about a week, and this whole week I've been struggling, so maybe there is a correlation there...
Good luck to all those taking part in UKOPS, with the players numbers the site has been seeing, it could be a record breaker.
I've been pretty lazy with updating the diary recently!
UKOPS has been mixed so far, did not play much the first few days, went for it on Monday, where I satted into the £110 and £55 events. Lost out in both a bit before the money, just did not quite manage to build stacks, in both events I was just under average the whole time, but just could not find a spot. Regged into the £22 hyper at 11pm I believe and managed to get a 5th third place in two weeks, for around £240 quid, which puts me up slightly this week. Again got it in good and lost, but my hands had held up well during the event so can't moan.
After today I have 5 days off work, which is perfect for UKOPS, so will try to look at the events and come up with a good schedule.
Played another Pokerstars home game yesterday with the players from Genting/Grosvenor Reading and managed to win my second game out of two for £300 quid. Three handed took nearly 90 minutes and heads-up was over an hour, but managed to win. Not quite sure why I keep coming third in Sky, but getting past that point on stars!
Bankroll is £1650, which is a £1550 increase from three weeks ago, and that even included a £700 downswing ! Really still working to control my bankroll management, even though the first three weeks have not been perfect, i'm happy with a lot of things.
Biggest positive is that have not chased losses or bad session is the last 10 days or so, i've just logged off and given myself a day or two if I needed it. It's a start but definitely need to keep doing this! Here is to hoping that I turn a FT into a top 2 and a win over the next few days to round the month off nicely! Poker Coaching / Support Group Maybe support group is the wrong term, but I have been enjoying our groups chats with PKRPar, mumsie and itsover4u. Had to check their usernames then as I just know them as Craig, Charles and Danny!
Not had much chance to work with Danny yet, but hoping we can do some things this weekend, i've had to work pretty long hours this week which has affected my availability, which i'm hating as I was hoping people would just let me play poker. The cheek of some people right?
Enjoyed the group chat though, we have also been railing each other in different events and it's proven a good forum for discussion which is great. Looking forward to this continuing and all concerned improving results and bankrolls!
UKOPS was a strange time for me. When it was coming up I was very excited, keen to play and eager to see what I could do. Once it was there, I played a bit in the first two days, breaking even, then didn't really play again except for the odd event here and there. Not entirely sure why I did not want to play much...
Had basically had a week to 10 days off sky until Wednesday when I decided to fire up a few tables at 10pm. I'd been reading Jared Tendlers book and was trying to increase my motivation towards playing. It seemed to work, I busted out of the £33 to a house over house situation ( I took a bounty in the event), and was left in the two £22 events, the 10pm £1k BH and the £22 megastack.
I managed to win the £1k Bh for just over £300 and finished 6th in the megastack for just over £130, so a profit of around £370 for the night.
I played a little last night and broke covered my tourney buy-ins by winning or finishing second in a few Six max games.
Still not quite feeling it though, not entirely sure why. I started this diary just over 4 weeks ago and have made a profit of around £1900, which I certainly would have taken at the start of the month. There has been a lot of positives, most that I have kept within my bankroll, have regularly cashed and in general been pretty solid. Usually by this point I would have taken shots into the £220 or even the £550 at the end of UKOPS and tried to parlay profits into larger wins, but there was no temptation and when I did not feel like playing I did not force it, which is massively saving me money and I think is a positive mental upgrade.
Maybe some suggestions would help, possibly I need to set some targets, have a goal to work towards, something like that.
Really enjoying the group with the guys as mentioned before. Mumsie and I in particular have had a lot of debate in the last few days over certain spots and hands which I have enjoyed as it has made me think about the game, instead of autopiloting like I do a lot. Also congrats to him on a couple of great cashes yesterday that will boost his bankroll and confidence. Seems like drinking wine whilst playing works for some people!
One post from the forum over the last couple of days that grabbed my attention, was about the poker set up people have at home. Usually I just sit in the chair of on the couch, with the laptop, watching TV as I play. I do sometimes sit at the table, but i'm thinking I may need to make some changes to 'professionalise' my set up and hopefully this will improve my focus when playing. Particularly liked chicknmelt's set up, the minimalist approach, the cushions to keep comfy and the large screen, that kind of layout could be something that I would go for.
It is the weekend and my two favourite days to play on Sky are Fridays and Sundays, so may well be on the tables later. See you soon!
"There has been a lot of positives, most that I have kept within my bankroll, have regularly cashed and in general been pretty solid. Usually by this point I would have taken shots into the £220 or even the £550 at the end of UKOPS and tried to parlay profits into larger wins, but there was no temptation and when I did not feel like playing I did not force it, which is massively saving me money and I think is a positive mental upgrade."
I'm struggling a bit for motivation myself, I felt a bit burnt out over UKOPS and results weren't going my way which doesn't help matters. I think setting yourself some volume targets is the best way to keep the motivation up, so set yourself a target of playing 200 MTTs a month or something?
I agree, I think a volume target is better than a profit target. Will have to try and think of a reasonable number. 200 could well be a good start. How many do you get through a month?
I agree, I think a volume target is better than a profit target. Will have to try and think of a reasonable number. 200 could well be a good start. How many do you get through a month?
Not many this past month or 2. But 200 was always my benchmark, it keeps you busy enough. Depends how many nights per week you play. But yeah volume targets are far better than profit targets, I used to set profit targets until I was advised that you have no control over a profit target as you can play your A game and lose.
Comments
For equity calculators, there are a variety of tools available if you use Windows. Equilab and Flopzilla are my favourites. If you're on a Mac like I am, well, good luck with that. PokerTracker 4 has one built in if you have a license. There's also something called PokerCruncher on the App Store but I haven't tried it. There's a super basic online one here.
Sounds like you may benefit from having a flick through The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler. Either that or take a few days off!
Yeah i'm thinking that too. Going to play a smaller schedule today with smaller buy-ins try and gain back some confidence.
I do have that book, need to read through it again when I get home. Work is pretty chilled out right now so might bring it in and read it.
Going to have a look through all of the tournaments today and try and plot a course through.
I did play a lot more last week than I usually do, it's the first time in 3 years that I reached Gold rewards, which shows how limited my usual schedule is.
Just managed to take 3rd in the £33 event for £860 with bounties. After a torrid week, it was a welcome return. Bit of an annoying exit hand but overall played well. Hands held up which was a great feeling, tried to play more theoretically correct.
Big shout out to NOSTRI, I dug out my copy of The Mental Game by Jared Tendler, was reading excerpts during the final table. Bit annoyed I did not managed to get heads up, as the pay jumps were huge, but after a horrible week for the confidence this was very much needed. Going to take a day off or so, refocus and go again.
Had a fair few messages and chats on tables, thanks to all that are giving me positive feedback. Glad people are liking the diary.
Cheers,
Shelley
A few days ago;
"Haha i'm very sure that time will come for me soon too. It just takes one good one to turn it around."
And so it proved. Very well done last night. Back on track now.
Not any more.
In fact, the graph is very odd, in that it appears to be an exact mirror image. You had that big cash a week ago, £792, the graph went vertical, dribbled downhill for 5 or 6 nights, then last night's £860 almost exactly replicated the previous spike. It's uncannily similar.
I really hope this encourages you to think longer-term. 5 or 6 days of constant losses in MTT's it not in the least unusual.
Chuffed to bits for you.
Obviously everyone goes through bad variance spots, but I think I let it affect me a little too much. Some of the run-outs were grim, but then I kept chasing things.
Sharkscope still does not seem quite right, in terms of losses last week, it is missing a few £50 satellites that I got into twice and then unregistered one of them.
I did change a few things yesterday, tried to take things more seriously, e.g. sitting at the table, not watching TV whilst playing, constantly working out BB's left and ensuring I did not go short and still had fold equity, that kind of thing. Felt far more dialled in and that's what I need to start doing consistently, not just once a week! I think I had just autopiloted a lot, but yesterday was noticing opponents tendencies and mistakes and that helped me get a few bounties. I still don't get how people will risk half their stack or more, when there is 10-20 left for 50 quid, when the payjumps are much more significant than that.
Just saw that UKOPS is coming up again, will look forward to this!
I like your end comment about taking risks v pay jumps, I recently got a coaching webinar from @DaraOkearey on PKO strategy, very helpful and recommend to anyone looking for coaching . His book Poker Satellite Strategy is V G also.
Good luck at the tables .
Decent weekend so far, with a 10th in the Sheriff on Friday, and A third in the £22 new megastack. I also came third in the £22 megastack on Saturday too.
Currently bankroll is £1799.50, which is a £1500 increase in two weeks since I started the diary. Still getting frustrated as i'm missing out on final tables, with two thirds and a second, plus other finishes in top 10. Hopefully this changes tomorrow in the main!
Will give a better update on Monday but just realised i'd been pretty quiet this week.
Cheers,
Shelley
I've been really tired every evening, to the point where I've had triple espresso's to try and get myself focused for poker. Decided to just leave it until I felt like I could play!
Well I tried to play yesterday with mixed results. Overall finished £54 down on the session, and felt like my play was pretty erratic, was really struggling to focus, not sure why this is.
I'm actually really happy though, as this week after bonus' etc i'm down £35 quid on Sky, which would usually be a lot more. I've been reading Jared Tendlers book and i'm trying top get myself in the right condition to play optimally. every night this week I've wanted to try and play just to see what would happen, but then I've told myself not too as I am not with it and would lose money. So overall a weirdly positive week. Usually I would lose a few hundred and then tell myself i'm playing badly, when actually I'm just mentally not there.
As said, I played yesterday and whilst I lost on Sky, I did well on Pokerstars.
There was a homegame set-up for players that frequent the two Reading Casinos. This is the 4th that they have run since the virus (first I've played) and I think they will have a tournament for the top 10 players after 10 events.
The standard is pretty decent, a lot of players go to the WSOP and play big buy-in events and play high cash live, but I thought it would be a fun event to try. Buy-in was £44 and the winner got £580 (there were only around 30 entries, plus re-entries.
I played solid throughout, went very short with 14 left, hung in, and then came to the final 5 chipleading. I held the lead throughout and took it down. Was nice to finally win on a final table! Even though the players are very decent live players, they definitely made some mistakes, especially when I was short and had 4-5 BB's and only once in 6 orbits was my blind raised. That just kept me in it and gave me a chance. Considering how much I was struggling to even stay awake, it felt good to win!
UKOPS starts today and i'm very excited. I managed to win a £33 event of the last time I played, so would be good to do that again. I do feel dead again today and i'm starting to wonder why this malaise has set in. I had gone without eating carbs for about 4 weeks and I've been eating them again for about a week, and this whole week I've been struggling, so maybe there is a correlation there...
Good luck to all those taking part in UKOPS, with the players numbers the site has been seeing, it could be a record breaker.
Cheers,
Shelley
UKOPS has been mixed so far, did not play much the first few days, went for it on Monday, where I satted into the £110 and £55 events. Lost out in both a bit before the money, just did not quite manage to build stacks, in both events I was just under average the whole time, but just could not find a spot. Regged into the £22 hyper at 11pm I believe and managed to get a 5th third place in two weeks, for around £240 quid, which puts me up slightly this week. Again got it in good and lost, but my hands had held up well during the event so can't moan.
After today I have 5 days off work, which is perfect for UKOPS, so will try to look at the events and come up with a good schedule.
Played another Pokerstars home game yesterday with the players from Genting/Grosvenor Reading and managed to win my second game out of two for £300 quid. Three handed took nearly 90 minutes and heads-up was over an hour, but managed to win. Not quite sure why I keep coming third in Sky, but getting past that point on stars!
Bankroll is £1650, which is a £1550 increase from three weeks ago, and that even included a £700 downswing
Biggest positive is that have not chased losses or bad session is the last 10 days or so, i've just logged off and given myself a day or two if I needed it. It's a start but definitely need to keep doing this! Here is to hoping that I turn a FT into a top 2 and a win over the next few days to round the month off nicely!
Poker Coaching / Support Group
Maybe support group is the wrong term, but I have been enjoying our groups chats with PKRPar, mumsie and itsover4u. Had to check their usernames then as I just know them as Craig, Charles and Danny!
Not had much chance to work with Danny yet, but hoping we can do some things this weekend, i've had to work pretty long hours this week which has affected my availability, which i'm hating as I was hoping people would just let me play poker. The cheek of some people right?
Enjoyed the group chat though, we have also been railing each other in different events and it's proven a good forum for discussion which is great. Looking forward to this continuing and all concerned improving results and bankrolls!
Cheers and thanks again for reading.
Shelley
Solid progress there Shelley. You just need to keep that bankroll discipline, so do be careful during the rest of UKOPS.
Is that a Red Dwarf reference?
GL with the rest of UKOPS.
UKOPS was a strange time for me. When it was coming up I was very excited, keen to play and eager to see what I could do. Once it was there, I played a bit in the first two days, breaking even, then didn't really play again except for the odd event here and there. Not entirely sure why I did not want to play much...
Had basically had a week to 10 days off sky until Wednesday when I decided to fire up a few tables at 10pm. I'd been reading Jared Tendlers book and was trying to increase my motivation towards playing. It seemed to work, I busted out of the £33 to a house over house situation ( I took a bounty in the event), and was left in the two £22 events, the 10pm £1k BH and the £22 megastack.
I managed to win the £1k Bh for just over £300 and finished 6th in the megastack for just over £130, so a profit of around £370 for the night.
I played a little last night and broke covered my tourney buy-ins by winning or finishing second in a few Six max games.
Still not quite feeling it though, not entirely sure why. I started this diary just over 4 weeks ago and have made a profit of around £1900, which I certainly would have taken at the start of the month. There has been a lot of positives, most that I have kept within my bankroll, have regularly cashed and in general been pretty solid. Usually by this point I would have taken shots into the £220 or even the £550 at the end of UKOPS and tried to parlay profits into larger wins, but there was no temptation and when I did not feel like playing I did not force it, which is massively saving me money and I think is a positive mental upgrade.
Maybe some suggestions would help, possibly I need to set some targets, have a goal to work towards, something like that.
Really enjoying the group with the guys as mentioned before. Mumsie and I in particular have had a lot of debate in the last few days over certain spots and hands which I have enjoyed as it has made me think about the game, instead of autopiloting like I do a lot. Also congrats to him on a couple of great cashes yesterday that will boost his bankroll and confidence. Seems like drinking wine whilst playing works for some people!
One post from the forum over the last couple of days that grabbed my attention, was about the poker set up people have at home. Usually I just sit in the chair of on the couch, with the laptop, watching TV as I play. I do sometimes sit at the table, but i'm thinking I may need to make some changes to 'professionalise' my set up and hopefully this will improve my focus when playing. Particularly liked chicknmelt's set up, the minimalist approach, the cushions to keep comfy and the large screen, that kind of layout could be something that I would go for.
It is the weekend and my two favourite days to play on Sky are Fridays and Sundays, so may well be on the tables later. See you soon!
Cheers,
Shelley
"There has been a lot of positives, most that I have kept within my bankroll, have regularly cashed and in general been pretty solid. Usually by this point I would have taken shots into the £220 or even the £550 at the end of UKOPS and tried to parlay profits into larger wins, but there was no temptation and when I did not feel like playing I did not force it, which is massively saving me money and I think is a positive mental upgrade."
Objective achieved then, I'd say. Very well done.
I'm struggling a bit for motivation myself, I felt a bit burnt out over UKOPS and results weren't going my way which doesn't help matters. I think setting yourself some volume targets is the best way to keep the motivation up, so set yourself a target of playing 200 MTTs a month or something?
Enjoying the diary anyway. All the best.
Craig Charles seems to have been going for ages, dunno what ‘Cat’ is up to these days though..