Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 8:47 pm Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
Wow quite pleasantly surprised by the response
So here we go with Entry 1 of the diary...
I earned some good brownie points yesterday... Missus loves watching the fly on the wall Choccywoccydoodah on some cookery channel. She is mad about the place so I ordered a large valentines day cake from there to arrive in time for V day. Had to tell her to make sure she got the type of cake etc she wanted (I chose the design etc) so now she is buzzing about it and getting the subtle brags into her friends lol
Had a good early night and promptly overslept my planned waking up time by 2 hours. I don't see that as a bad thing though because it was the best nights sleep in a while and I woke up gunning to go.
I do really like the PS schedule in the mornings because there is a suprisingly good volume of tournaments and the abi is a little lower than the peak time schedule. The smaller field sizes as well help to reduce variance and its alot less likely that you wont FT something that will at least break even on the day with some profit for an outright win. Its also a pretty slack time for alot of regs when you start regging at say 7 or 8am so the fields are noticably softer.
Overall I am fairly happy with how I played today though I did make a few mistakes. Ended up getting third in the $5r to show an overall $1500 profit for a shorter session than I often do so I cant be too ashamed with that. Planning on an early night tonight to make sure I can be up bright and early for an early morning grind...
Joined: 12 May 2010 Posts: 2832 Location: nil fhios agam
Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 8:56 pm Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
Brownie points (or cake points) that start in January and last till 14Feb - great idea
What's your average session time? _________________ "I find it's best to start the day with no composure and then you've got nothing to lose." B. Boatman
Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:08 pm Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
StGilmore wrote:
Brownie points (or cake points) that start in January and last till 14Feb - great idea
What's your average session time?
Yeah it has worked out rather well :p
As for my avg session time I daresay its somewhere around 10 hours though on some days I get in 18 hour grinds and others I get 4 - 6. Just depends on whats happening with RL and my sleeping pattern which often gets kinda out of whack...
Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2012 10:36 pm Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
Hutchylad wrote:
Your brain must be WTF'ing at getting up to play poker at 7am, your usually still grinding haha.
Lol in all honesty those early am sessions have often started at 2 - 3am as my body clock has been really messed up though I can often be found starting a sesh at 7 - 9am these days.
Moving on to the past couple of days...
While I don't suffer from them half as bad these days as I used to I have always had an issue with headaches and migraines. I havn't had a migraine for quite some time thankfully but now and then I do get the neverending headache back for a few days now and then. The last couple of days its been annoying me a little which gives rise to a subject I do like to talk about now and then...
There are many things to consider when taking a professional attitude towards the game. Alot of those things are well documented and known like br management and working on your game etc. There are however a myriad of subtler things which also can make a sizable difference in the long haul.
While it is important to grind out the tourneys/hands etc its also very important to know when not to play. Wether its due to illness, tiredness or other reasons it all has to be taken into consideration before you even turn your laptop on. For instance if you know your gonna be falling asleep in 5 hours there is no point registering for tournaments that takes 7 - 8 hours to even reach the final table... The same is also true if you are ill, or as in my case, have a headache and cant focus properly on whats going on. Just because you are profitable playing at near the top of your ability does not mean you are profitable when playing at 50% of your ability.
Making sure that you eliminate those sessions from your game completely can have a major difference especially when looking over periods of time such as a year or longer where multiple occurences of these types of days can fall in the window. For instance if over the year you played 5 sessions due to being ill/tired with an expected roi of -75% with $1k buyins per session thats a total of $3750 thrown away for no good reason when you knew inside that it may not be the best idea to play in the first place. All of a sudden the numbers aren't quite so trivial unless you just happen to run like greased lightning for a day of course...
In short I ignored this rule for the last couple of days and yesterday I had a shortish session with 3 ft bubbles and today I had an even shorter session and tanked the lot. I havn't lost too much thankfully but in all honesty most of it shouldn't have been put into play in the first place...
Joined: 12 May 2010 Posts: 2832 Location: nil fhios agam
Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2012 11:30 pm Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
If this were an email I'd save it. If a tweet (I know... maybe one or two thousand too many characters) I would favorite it. I'm still working on what to do when I know I'm not on my A game, it's not even a question in my mind, but I want to play anyway.
So far, I've come up with cash, micro levels mixed games. And playing chinese poker against myself, and keeping score ( which is daft but quite fun really). _________________ "I find it's best to start the day with no composure and then you've got nothing to lose." B. Boatman
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 12:23 am Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
Pizzicato wrote:
While I don't suffer from them half as bad these days as I used to I have always had an issue with headaches and migraines. I havn't had a migraine for quite some time thankfully but now and then I do get the neverending headache back for a few days now and then. The last couple of days its been annoying me a little which gives rise to a subject I do like to talk about now and then...
Speaking from personal experience, you should really get your eyesight checked, and if you wear glasses - check they're still suitable. My headaches are now pretty rare since switching lenses a few years back. Just a thought... _________________ You spell bad cess in letters that stretch from here to Seattle
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 8:55 am Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
I used to get migraines from staring at computer screens as well but it cleared up after I started to wear reading specs.
Doubtless you were Tom and Dick but I feel that you are being results-orientated about your recent sessions, although I can manage -75% myself if I fall asleep half-way through a session !
There are a couple of books I'd recommend to you, "Treating Poker as a Business" (Dusty "Leatherass" Schmidt) and "The Mental Game of Poker" (Jared Tendler).
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 11:39 am Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
Ok I have recieved a few messages about the headaches issue and while I don't particularly want to go into the ins and outs of everything I can say I have seen all the relevant specialists, had all the scans and been poked and prodded enough to know that I am not gonna keel over to an aneurism
Also my eyesight has been checked recently and while my eyesight is not perfect, it isnt imperfect enough to mean that I need to wear glasses all (or indeed any of) the time
Its something that I pretty much have to live with wether I like it or not. Thankfully the days/weeks of continuos cluster migraines are over and things are much better than they used to be as I am alot more aware of my 'triggers' and can take steps to decrease the liklihood of them becoming an issue.
As to evelyns post... Its quite possible I was being a little hard on myself for the last couple of sessions I played. The numbers I used were meant as examples (though probably quite accurate about Thursday) and must be treated as a fluid numbers when making a decision of wether to play or not. For instance if you are just a little under the weather you may not be losing much of your edge at all so the best decision would be to play still. Its all about being honest with yourself, knowing your own body and your own mind and leaving any ego and personal desires out of the equation.
I have also historically slacked when it has come to reading poker books (with a few exceptions) but that is something I have planned to change this year... I think the 2 books evelyn posted are a great place for me to start and I will be purchasing copies in the very near future
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 12:35 pm Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
Something else I have been thinking a little about recently as well is when am I going to play more live tournaments...
I really do enjoy playing live sometimes as a way to break the monotony of the online grind. I havn't had any decent results yet due to overspew and coolers but I am definately very hopeful for the future.
I always do feel a little guilty going to play live for a weekend though because of how much of a variance bomb it really is... Playing online I might play something like 200 tournaments in the time frame that you have to commit to play a single event on the live circuit and assuming no variance its undoubtedly better value to stay at home and keep pounding the keyboard instead.
Anyway I have decided to commit to playing the GPS @ Fox and UKIPT @ DTD so I definately have something to look forward to. It will be great to get down to London for the weekend and catch up with everyone down there as I am sure there will be a heavy forum presence
Its possible I may throw in next months deepstack @ DTD as well but I think its unlikely as missing 2 sundays in the same month would likely mean I would lose my platinum VIP status for the month which would kinda suck along with the volume loss etc.
No real plans to play anything else yet though I would obviously like to find a way to play EPT London this year and maybe another GPS/UKIPT or 2...
Joined: 12 May 2010 Posts: 2832 Location: nil fhios agam
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 9:06 pm Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
I wonder how many migraine sufferers are going to end up on THMF after googling - lol
Glad to hear you're all checked out and healthy. What's the wife's response when you say 'sorry, honey, I've a headache' ?
Very interesting to see your thoughts on the potential losses for a successful online player like you in playing live T's. _________________ "I find it's best to start the day with no composure and then you've got nothing to lose." B. Boatman
Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 12:21 am Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
bump
Pizz out of interest what would u say is ur average size field where u do well/better?or do u think it makes a difference when u play the amount of mtts as u do?
Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 1:41 pm Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
StGilmore wrote:
What's the wife's response when you say 'sorry, honey, I've a headache' ?
Well that will give me another 15 seconds sleep at least...
StGilmore wrote:
Very interesting to see your thoughts on the potential losses for a successful online player like you in playing live T's.
Its not so much about losing money as opposed to maximising hourly/winrate. Variance management helps as well of course...
(The evelyn clause) All these numbers are rough and may or may not apply to my particular situation/ability but are used to demonstrate the point
The next live event I am likely to play which all these factors would come into force is GPS in London.
To play the event means being willing not to play online for at least 3 days of which one day is Sunday. While I often slack during the week, I do tend to ensure good volume on Saturdays and of course Sundays. A typical Friday would probably be around $1000 in buyins at an abi of $30ish. Saturdays tend to be a little more, maybe around $1500 with similar abi and Sundays I tend to run between $1500 and $2000 in buyins with a slightly boosted abi (maybe $40 - $50). On a 'slack' weekend I would still expect to run about $4000 in buyins. Assuming a 50% ROI this would mean that on average (screw you variance) I would earn $2000 for my weekends grind of which my backer then takes his 50%.
GPS in London is a £430 buyin and I would expect my expenses to be circa £200ish pending DCSW7's floor etc. If I need to get a hotel obviously the expenses will increase by that amount though I can easily find a room share to easily help. For it to be a 'break even' choice between the 2 choices I would need approximately a 350 - 400% ROI in the GPS to match what I would at least theoretically earn online.
Quite frankly... I am not that good at live poker...
Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 1:58 pm Post subject: Re: Diary of an online comeback...?
uh-hu wrote:
bump
Pizz out of interest what would u say is ur average size field where u do well/better?or do u think it makes a difference when u play the amount of mtts as u do?
Thats kind of an interesting question...
I feel that I do best with a field size of between 1500 and 3000 players but its actually quite a hard thing to quantify. Smaller fields means smaller but more regular wins/ft's and larger fields means that while you win more they happen much much less often. This leads to the same kind of skewed perceptions similar to 'Why is there always an Ace on the flop when I have KK' and 'I lose 75% of my coinflips' which I do my best to try and avoid
Volume is definately key though and assuming your a winning player (in the games that you are playing) who plays enough tournaments it kind of comes out in the wash in the long run I think...
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