NEW BEGININGS

as i had no bankroll,i entered a freeroll with 500 other runners.I came second to take £28.It was unusual tournament for me.I had no tough decisions to make,no 50/50 races.The only time i put all my chips in was when someone try to bluff me of pots when i had nut straights and nutt flushes.

I took a break and returned to play cash games.In all I have played for 5 hrs,excluding breaks.I have taken the bankroll to £61.That is an income of £12/hr.On top of this i am due a £50 bonus.So my bankroll will be £111 soon............A good start in the new year.Its all free money.I will stick with low limit cash games for a few days now.I think if i can get my bankroll to £300 plus,i can have real motivation not deposit any of my own money.

Not trying to get too ahead of myself-I think i will make a plan of action.I need to set myself targets about what to do when i reach certain amounts of cash.I want to reward myself with any poker winnings.This way i hope to develope a psychological link between playing good poker and enjoying life.

TARGET

1. Upon reaching £200-I will withdraw £50,take my daughter out for a day.
2. Upon reaching £300-I will withdraw £100-go shopping for new clothes

These are big percentages of my bankroll.But i have never enjoyed myself with the winnings i have had in the past.That was prehaps the reason why i lost it back by going on huge tilts.

i wish everyone a happy new year-and PLEASE ENJOY THE FRUITS OF YOUR LABOUR

POKER RESOLUTION LIST

1. pass more often on turn/river
2. bluff less often
3. take longer to make decisions
4. withdraw money from poker account regularly(helps with staying focused)
5. take more breaks during session
6. pass missed flops more
7. think
8. vary betting patterns more
9. reraise more often
10. mini-raise more often-(it scares me when someone else uses it)
11. stay cool
12. enjoy poker,or dont play
13. live with badbeats
14. enjoy the winnings when they come(helps with motivation)

WAITING FOR CASH

I have zero bankroll.I am however due a £50 bonus at the end of december.I hope this is processed immediatly at 00.01hrs on jan 1st(5hrs to go).....GOSH i havent looked forward to new year so much before.
You may have read my earlier post about having no money explaining why i was playing a lack of poker.And lack of money prehaps explained my lack of sex too.
Well i have been thinking.................It is generally agreed that the richer you are,the more succesfull you are at finding yourself sexual partners.This goes for poker too...The more money you hav,the higher stakes you play,the easier it is to be successfull.

So my new years resolution is to dispense with the filthy,undisciplined, low stakes street hookers;and penentrate the ring of highclass, high stakes poker pros.

PEAR SHAPE

the last few days i let myself get into the .....the chase mentality......end result=BROKE

HERE IS WHAT HAPPENED.

in my last post I said i was too tired to play...,well..shortly after my post i decided to play.And i lost about £200 in an hour.THE NEXT DAY...i went to william hill to get voucher for £150 to play poker.Unfortunately before getting to the counter i got mugged for everything i had.I knew the group were trouble,when i first shot a glance at them.I thought about avoiding them....but against my better judgement i decided to walk right up to them.
At first i thought if I give them £20 they would be happy-and i would still have £130 for poker.They were not happy.So i reached into my top jacket pocket,where i had a £50 note.I offered this to them.Thinking I can still walk away with £80.
I was sweating,I couldnt stand still.There was a whole bunch of emotions going through my head.THEN...to my amazement........I was returned all my money back.....They must have took pity on me.
I was overwhelmed.'Surely an act of such kindness would require some sort of genorous gesture on my part'.I thought for a while......,should I give them £10,or prehaps even £30.
I cant recall exactly what my thought process was at the time,but i left them with all my money.

Later I realised i had run into the ROULETTE gang.The gang is famous for mugging you in their own unique style.

The following day,they relieved me of another £200 from a total of £450 i had.Fortunately I managed to use the remaining £250,to win another £350 playing NLH $1/2.
I was playing with money set aside for car insurance.Thankfully i did not lose at poker.After getting insured I have been left with nothing in my pocket.
So now i am in the chase mentality.the following will give you an idea of what goes through my head ,when i amin this state....

where do i get money from,smoke roll ups for a while,start a new personal budget,ring around for work,write blog,think of new strategy,no more takeaways,think of new business ideas,new invention maybe......i know-i will just play tournaments from now on.stress,headache....can i think of a good quick fraud.......THATS IT,from now on i am working 5o hrs per week.I will only use 20% money to play poker.no cash games,just 1 torny a day.....NO,i will play multitables,like a rock..i will ust need one fool to double me up once....smoking...,daydreaming,smoking.I need a new hobby,more fullfulling life....smoke,how much petrol do i have in my van...Should i gather all the change in my room to deposit into poker........play poker,URGENT,RUSH,need to win everyhand,need to get to £100 quickly..LOSE/smoke....

ABSTINENCE

NO POKER TODAY...................I had a very long and hard day at work.I am just too tired,and will be struggling to stay awake for long.I feel if I play in this state,I will lose the great emotional/mental state I have worked myself into,for playing poker....A bit like,how an athlete would not risk injury by playing in an unnecessary game when carrying a strain.

still going good

i just finished playing another hour of Pot-limit omaha.Again i am feeling so good and enjoying poker.I am thinking clearly,got control of emotions.I remember now,why I got the poker bug in the first place.I FEEL ON TOP OF THE WORLD......The winnings may not be of huge proportions;but this is not the point....

Its the fact that I have worked at getting my mind and emotions into the right condition,to allow me to play a good game of poker.The true test,however,will be when i experience a run of bad luck.I hope I do not allow them to effect my,carefully worked emotional state of mind....fingers crossed.

I made a profit of £42 in one hour.I played 2 tables at a time.

1. PLO 10p/20p-deposit £12.50,got to £20,but lost it all after 50 minutes of play
2. PLO 15p/30p-deposit £10,lose within 5mins,Deposit another £10.I steadily worked this up to £40.THEN 1 BIG POT.

It was a three way pot,on a loose table of 6.

I am in sb.The pot gets raised by button.I call.UTG(short stacked) reraises.evrybody calls.I call.

my card-8356rainbow

flop-834-I pushed all in with about £30- 2callers.turn-2 -river3

I take the pot down.....................

NExt,I do what comes natural to winning poker players like me.....

HIT AND RUN BABY

slow and steady-FEELS GREAT

I had a hard day at work today.Left at 10am ant got back at 10pm.Made about £120.Although I was extremely tired,I felt I needed to play poker to get a little boost..... most people get this from caffeine.
I played at 2 tables of PLOmaha 10p/20p.In short I made £10,taking my bankroll to £80.This feels great ,as I have a £200 in my pocket for living expensive.This separation of living money and poker money is something that is absolutely essential to be succesfull.

I was tempted to play higher stakes,but thankfully managed to control myself.Although I prefer to play No-limit holdem,it is such a boring game at the lower limits.The patience/discipline required I dont have.In fact I would go as far as to say that you have to be a better player to win at the lower levels.All those calling stations, bluffers,fish,bingo players leave me angered and frustrated.....ususally resulting in tilt.

At the moment, atleast, omaha is a more interesting game for me.I think it is still a thoughtfull and skillfull game,even at the lower limits.Although you have to be prepared to take bigger swings in your bankroll.

overall assesment of todays game.

I thought i played at almost the best I good.I have started to develope a good instinct in Omaha now.I was putting my oponents on their hands fairly accurately.Prehaps I need to gather a bit more courage to make bigger bluffs,when my opponents are holding mediocre hands.

Best of all,I am enjoying poker again.

I AM TAKING MY PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITIONING AS SERIOUSLY AS AN BOXER WOULD TAKE HIS PHYSICAL CONDITIONING.

new and improved me

I earned £150 from work today.I deposited £50 of this into my poker account.A bit more than i had set myself;well,elements of the chase mentality are not totally eliminated.Feelimg tired and drowsy,I played omaha for about half an hour.Got my bankroll to £60 and took an hours nap.
The stress of losing money playing poker over the last few months has left me in an emotionally weak state,and a general feeling of emptiness.To resolve this problem I have decided to be nicer to people.Interact more positively with people and do some good deeds.Well,an opprtunity arose today.A neighbour ,who has a delivery round,was suffering from a bad cold.I noticed him struggling to load up his van and offered to help him load up, aswell as deliver the goods.He was very appreciative and brought me a nice take-away meal when we finished.

boy did i feel good

feeling happy,calm, relaxed and in control.Poker awaits

Played PL OMAHA for about 90 mins.After a long time have I enjoyed poker so much.I played a tight passive game,check calling alot.I found this was the best strategy for the table.Most the players were multi-tabling.They were playing a very cautious game.As long as I had the bottle to make a river bluff now and again,I would make a profit at the table.I got my bankroll to £90.I was feeling great.what a player i am.no sign of tilt.passing good hands when i knew i was beat.Feeling a little invincible,I made a few creative moves and got caught bluffing.My bankroll was down to £70......WHAT,one damn silly mistake and i lose nearly 25% of my bankroll.I suppose i had gone into an excitable state of mind.This is no good for poker,so i decide to finish for the day.

lesson learned today.

try to be in the right frame of mind before playing poker.Its not all about being cold and calculating.Nurture your emotional side to.For me this is most important in getting me in an optimam state of mind.

happy,positive mental attitude.

i played poker for three hours today.I deposited £25.I got this up to £44 within 2 hours.This was all the money I had.Before playing i knew i had to withdraw atleast £10 today.So i started a very tight game of pot-limit omaha.I kept the pots as small as possible,as i didnt want to risk loosing all chips to a bad draw hitting.I rarely made a potsize bet when strong on the flop.Instead I was betting between 25%-75% of the pot.I found that my bets were being treated as suspicious.I was given cheap cards to hit on the turn and river to win the pot;or my bluffs were succesfull more often.This is different to my normal game of poker.I usually want to make big pots,and make big bets when strong.What normally happens when i play like this is that i lose alot of chips by getting outdrawn by someone who gets seduced by the size of the pot.
Whilst playing omaha,i also at 1 table of NLH 5p/10p.Again i was playing different to my normal game.I would limp into almost every hand.What happens at this level is that players call with bottom pair on flop,hoping to catch 2 pair.My strategy was to target such players.I would get them to committ all chips when i had top 2pair or the nutts.I was very successfull at it today.

anyway.I have withdrawn £20,and have £24 left in account.I have registersd for a £20 torny.

I am going to work tomorrow.I should earn about £80.I will not use this money to play poker with.I am fed up with playing with money,i need,to live on.It gets me into a stessfull state of mind-always on the 'chase'.If I earn anything more than £80,i will use noe more than 40% of it to play poker.

STILL LOSING

I have made a post for a long while now.The truth is i only bother to post on this blog when i have run out of money,and have nothing else to do.I come back to this blog when i delude myself into thinking that i am analysing my game,and am taking positive steps towards becoming a profit making player.
I will now tell you about something that i think will improve my game.I am a big fan of DRAGONS DEN.Something i have noticed the dragons do a lot is,ask business people how they will get a return on the money they invest;and whether the potential returns are worth the investment.I am going to start asking these questions when i play poker.Naturally not all my 'investments'will be a success,however these questions should help give some bearings to my game.
I play mostly NLH,and i use poker odds in a very lose way.Instead I look at how much i will make if i hit.Well this is what Doyle suggests is the best way to play.There are to problems with this
1.Every other player on the internet plays the Doyle way.So the game feels like a lottery;and you always fear the bluff.
2.And boy do you need some discipline to play this way.As often happens I dont hit my draws for a while.I start chasing.I want big pots.I'm gonna hit soon.Then i'm broke.THEN I POST ENTRY ON MY BLOG.
p.s
MY GOAL BEFORE MY NEXT POST.
I will start with a bankroll of £60 on about christmas day.I will make this into £600 within a weak.If i dont post,it means that i have had a big torny win, and am making too much money.Or i am suffering from depression.

got no money

i have been thinking about poker all day.Thinking about how i should change my game.It keeps coming back to patience and discipline.The thing is,if you play a fixed way ,then you become predictable.You are either bluffed out easily,or you only win small pots most of the time,as everyone avoids you.The key is to play a regular tight-aggressive game,and mix it up with a few moves now and again.The skill is to get away from trouble litely ,if your moves dont come off.eg,if you slow play AA and get 4 callers .You are unlikely to win the pot if there are four others in the pot.Can you fold AA here.

By the way i have realised how important it is to play various forms of poker.It really improves your overall game.I normally play NLH.Recently i have been playing more pot limit Omaha.Omaha is a game that requires alot of discipline and routine folding of big preflop hands that miss the flop. eg:
your cards -AsAcKcQs
there are 4 players on the flop
flop- 4d5d7h9h
you got to passthis hand unless turn is almost free

If i can learn to pass such hands easily,it would be a great asset to bring to my usual NLH game

STATS

have you heard about the stats about how often men think about sex.You know the ones,men think of sex every 6seconds,or every 2mins........ Well,i swear i think about poker more than sex,although i partake in little of both.My lack of bankroll explains the lack of poker,and with my looks probably explains the lack of sex too.

lost again

i deposited £25 into my account.I could not wait another day to deposit minimum £50 i had set as a starting amount.Here is how my day went.(by the way from today i will be giving myself marks on how i played-the areas will include patience,discipline,strategy.i will also keep account of my bankroll.
At about 3 oclock i drove to the bookies to get a voucher of £25 to play poker.Congratulated myself at being able to avoid the roulette machine.I did notice the excitement building up,with the prospect of playing poker.I could feel my legs a bit uneasy with the rush of adrenaline.I was speeding and tailgating the cars infront of me on the way back home.When i realised this i set myself a new disciplinary goal-i slowed down.DISCIPLINE-PATIENCE are at the forefront of my mind. i set myself another goal.I will wait 1hr after i get home before playing poker.

I hit the second golf ball into the neighbours garden.I have been ten minutes.Long enough.I go to the pokerden(remind myself that this is poor discipline).

POKERTIME

whilst logging in i write down how i am going to apportion the money.bankroll £25($50).

1. 3 buyins of $10 omaha 0.15/0.25
2. 2 buyns of $10 nlh 0.15/0.25

16:52 $10 omaha-pissed of with lack of money.playing rock.no one tangles with me

17:22 - bust out-trips on flop lose to straight draw hitting river

17:25 $10 omaha reload-same again bust out by 17:30

17.45 $10 omaha reload-this time i got straight nut flush draw on flop.I miss.out again.fuck nows what the odds are.all i know is that i lost.This is the reason you need a big bankroll.favourite only wins over long period of time.

CHANGE OF PLAN-NO NLH TODAY.I decide to play with 2 more buy ins of $10 omaha multitabling.

17:50 $10 omaha tab1

1751 $10 omaha tab2

18:35 i have $35 at one table and $18 at another. think about having a break.

18:42 ZERO lose 3 hands consecutively.

POINTS SCORING

DISCIPLINE/PATIENCE- 4 out of ten.could not wait the self appointed time,before playing poker

STRATEGY-6outof10. i thought i played as well as i could.I had 75% succes at bluffing small pots.I did not attempt any large bluffs.I played like a rock,but occasionlly i played flopped nuts too strong against mediocre draws.Nothing wrong with this when you have plenty of money,as you will get paid off in the long run.But i told myself to keep such pots small as i could not afford to lose.

What i have noticed at these low limit omaha games is that rock players get plenty of action despite their tight image.Even when it is obvious they have nutts.So i have got to stop calling the odd flop or turn bet with no hand, before passing.I do this to encourage players to bluff at me,hoping to catch them out with the nutts eventually.

BANKROLL-£0 PROFIT/LOSS -£25

decision time

i have decided to become a professional pokerplayer.The great thing about the internet is that you can always play at stakes where your abilities are better than most.
i must apologise if my blog is repetetive.My main reason to start this blog is to improve my own game.It is like a diary where i can help myself to keep track of my goals and thinking.
At the moment my bankroll is close to zero.Actually my bankroll does not exist.I wait to get paid for work and use the majority of it to play poker and lose.Typically i get £10-£40 per day.I then deposit all of it(less£10) into poker account.(good to talk about money,it will help me appreciate its value-and also i am trying to think of poker as one long continuous lifetime session with tea breaks,sleep breaks,marriages ,births etc.)
MY IMMEDIATE GOALS
Deposit £50 into poker account(when i get the money) and stick to the following:

• use £11 to play in 1-2 tornys( to hopefully get lucky and get a bankroll boost £30-£200
• play omaha $0.15-0.25-Set aside $45(3times $15 buy ins)
• £20 left-2 buy ins of $20 each at $0.25-0.5 NLHoldem

1. if i get to £80 then i will play only one table at a time with 1 full buy in amount ($50) and play a more tight game looking to trap.This has been a succesfull strategy for me before.It really helps me use my instincts more,as i am concentrating more,and my bluffs tend to be more succesfull.
2. If i get to £100 I will set the following goals.

continue playing at the same level with the same buy in amounts(approx 50% of full buy in).For every £25 above £100 i will invest £12 into a torny.If i reach £200 i will take a day off from poker,to discourage the faulse feeling of being a great player,which usually results in me playing higher stakes and crashing out very soon after.

My next blog will be before i deposit £50 into my account.

I dont have any money to play poker today.I will not have any money for atleast 3 days more.So what to I do now.The fact that I am thinking about poker and getting some money(bankroll) to play, answers my questions about what I want to get out of poker.I WANT TO MAKE A LIVING FROM PLAYING ONLINE POKER.I know i can do this.I understand the game.If I tighten up my game a little I know I could do this.
In the next few days I will be posting my ideas about how to improve my own game.These tips will be usefull to most new poker players.however the 2 most important things to learn first are DISCIPLINE and PATIENCE.These can not be taught.So if you are lacking in these departments(like myself sometimes),what can be done.THINK,THINK AND THINK.WHY?
Only You, the individual have the answer.Think about the following and expand on them for yourself in your own context.

• You do not have a right to win all the time.
• When do you play-tired?,Excited?
• How long can you play for?-I always make a profit in the first 2hrs,get excited and then lose a huge chunk within minutes.
• Tilt prevention.Before you even start have a mental/written plan to prevent tilt.
• Value money.I move up to higher stakes to early,a couple of badbeats and i am out.

If you are a beginner,dont concentrate to much on strategy and odds to begin with.Instead work on Discipline and patience.Get all the external factors that effect your state of mind within control.

low bankroll

Lost all my bankroll on the roulette again.God damn it those electronic roulette machines.

I've had to resort to playing the free rolls for the last four days.I have been playing $100 freerolls,with 1000+ entries,and won £0.70.I have had to re-examine why I play poker,and what I expect from it.
do i want to make a living,get rich or just have an expensive hobby.
Answering these questions will need some serious thinking for me.

At the moment I am in debt approximately £3000.These fall into 3 categories.

1. £500 immediate
2. £1500 by mid August
3. £1000 by October

what makes a great INTERNET pokerplayer?

DISCIPLINE and PATIENCE.

so here is my dilemma.Do i stop playing for six months.Pay my debts and start with a bank roll of£3-5000.Or do i keep on playing with small amounts (£10-£50) and hopefully build up my bank roll.WELL I WILL KEEP YOU POSTED.