I've decided to start a blog to track my progress playing poker online (and maybe even live in the future). I'm looking post regularly, every other day if not daily, granted I have something worthwhile to say. Not only will I post my progress, I'll occasionally post up some big/interesting hands, not only so I can analyse my own play, but I can hopefully get some critical feedback from other people. Chances are, I'll also post up the same hands on The Hendon Mob forum. Firstly, a bit about myself.
I'm a 20 year old student, reading Mathematics at Girton College, University of Cambridge. I live nn the wonderfully wet North East coast, stacking shelves when I'm not studying. I've always found myself most comfortable and happy playing cards (and doing maths, of course), whether it was playing Jacks, Twos and Eights or New Market with my grandma, or playing game after game of (Klondike)Solitaire on the computer, cards always kept me occupied. I remember a very old laptop my grandparents had loaded with a large card game package, two games jump out in the memory, Blackjack and 5-Card draw. I was terrible at draw, I didn't really understand folding, I felt every hand could be won and considering I was merely playing a CPU, the odds were massively against me. Blackjack, however, I could win. Was it beginners luck? Did my maths prowess give me an edge? Either way, when I finally finished off a game, I'd generally be in profit. It may have only been a minute gain, but it was there.
Roll on the years. Forgetting about the fun of playing Blackjack on the laptop, learning the rules to bigger and better card games: Freecell, Canasta, Bridge, Texas Hold'em....Playing very casual games with friends and family, I'd always lose, yet in hindsight, I know why I lost. I played scared. I knew the rules but I didn't understand the game. Always playing Ax hands, regardless of the second card, playing picture cards out of position, making obvious betting patterns and I didn't understand stack sizing. Everyone starts off like this, but looking back, it embarrasses how bad I would play, and how easy it would actually be to win those games.
Roll on university and poker started to surround me, although I didn't realise it. In our house we'd have regular sit 'n gos, a fellow maths student played a lot and always asked me to join in, and not to mention the bad influence of the college bar man. In March of this year, I made the decision to postpone my study for a year due to suffering with depression. Besides getting a job, I knew I'd need something else to do during the break, due to a knee injury, sport wasn't an option. That's when I thought about poker. On paper, I have everything you need. I'm a quick learner, strong mental maths abilities, a knack for reading people and most importantly a love of playing cards and gambling. The weeks before leaving university, I started reading up on poker. Learning the basics, position, ranges, bet sizing. 4am, couldn't sleep one evening and I found a five pound free offer on William Hill. I lose it all in about 5 minutes, managed to run AJ into 1010. Great start.
From there, I just read around more. Lurked around the Hendon Mob forum. I regularly played on FTP, swinging widly. (I didn't use BRM). Just before Black Friday, I lost my last $10 on FT trying to spin it up quickly. Since then, I had no way of playing poker. I had no money and nothing on other sites. I made a plan then, as soon as I got a job, I'd deposit a decent sum of money ($100ish) and try and grind up from there. Using good BRM and playing a decent volume. In the mean time, I was stuck doing nothing. Betfair, however, were kind enough to give me a $10 starter roll. I played with this for a few weeks, maybe playing a sit 'n go once every other day. I felt maybe my skill was slipping, if I was winning more often I'd play more. Or is it if I played more, I'd win more?
One Saturday, I come home lightly pissed from an afternoon drinking, had some food and decided I wanted to play a MTT (not my strong point, but at least you get value). I sat down and saw a $3,500 turbo guarantee starting shortly. 1200 runners at $3 made the guarantee, top 180 got paid. Good enough odds for at least a cash, especially since I feel I have an edge with turbo games. After a slow first 2 levels, I find myself winning coinflip after coinflip and I'm leader by a considerable margin. Around 2 hours later, we're down to the final table, myself with a chip lead of double 2nd place, sat directly to my left. The $500 first prize actually looks winnable! First hand of the final table, and I find my A2c running into 2nd place's KhJs, flop comes Axx with 2 spades. Villain has out, but needs runner-runner cards. I'm looking good to have nearly half the chips in play, with massively high blinds, I can just bully my way to the win. Turn card is a spade.
River...spade. Of course. With my stack crippled, I'm down in 2nd place. Luckily, I'd be on a table with each of the larger stacks during the tournament, so I felt I knew how to beat them.
Down to 5 handed, and I'm still in 2nd, villain to my left is still 1st. 3rd stack gets it all in with the 2 short stacks, and wins. He shoots to chip leader and we're sat 3 handed. I'm guaranteed $282 now, definitely not a small amount of money, but it doesn't seem enough. I should be winning the $500 prize. Better get those chips back. Chip leader has suddenly become very aggressive. He has a large chip stack, so is shoving and limping, but from how I've seen him play, he'll limp very loose. I'm now down to about 10BB and have yet to see a hand worth getting it all in with. Chip lead limps, and I see Q9o in the SB. I think I'm ahead of his range, and I know he's capable of folding. If he folds, I'll have enough chips to fold a few more hands until I get a monster, if he calls, I'm sure I'm ahead most of the time for this to be the right play. BB folds and I get a call. He flips Q10o. $282, my biggest win ever and yet my heart failed to skip a beat. I just closed the table as though I did that every day. Went downstairs and told my parents, still no emotion about it. I grab a drink, cash out the money and go to bed for work the next day. Why did I feel nothing? Was it because I knew I could have won it? Was it because I knew I couldn't enjoy that money and that I was going to use it for getting to work and paying off some thing? No. It's because I knew it was such a small amount compared to what I could win. Call me arrogant, but I know if I put the time in, I can win more.
So this leads us up to today. It's payday, and as I promised myself, I've deposited $100 on Stars. I should be returning to uni on the 1st of October, this gives me 5 weeks of almost uninterrupted play time. I work 3 days a week: Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. Sunday is all day, however Monday/Wednesday I merely work 7-12 on the morning. With this in mind, I can easily get several hours of play time during the day. The plan now is to grind up as much of a roll as I can before uni, and grind away during term time to give myself a bit more money to enjoy myself when I'm there [read getting drunk in the bar discussing poker]. Whether I go upwards and onwards from there, that's another matter.
Let's shuffle up and deal!
No comments:
Post a Comment