Diary of a MTT Grinder Wannabe

[cambridgealex]

Yeh and if he shoves TT too then its obv a nobrainer

[pleno1]

call looks super std, definitely sighing it in tho obv.

[jackinbeat]

my new mantra.

[Ant040689]

When you know the guy plays tight and can effectively take out 1010-22 out of the equation, and also AQ definitely, the fold looks better. AK is an extreme push for him to go all in so quickly as well, and he may not have even gone in with AK. When i am showing so much strength, what is the best he can come up against? He knows i play tight, at best i have AQ in my 3 bet range to an utg raise however the chances of that are quite low. It all added up really to him having either three holdings of QQ-KK-AA. With say a 10% chance he had AK as i think he folds that because it effectively has no fold equity and hu wants to get their tourney life in with AK after a very strong 3 bet?

One of those where my intuition from playing the table for hours said i was crushed. I left myself with 10 bbs after this pot, if i faded the call i had 20+ bbs and therefore fold equity to open min bets. I was 16 away from the biggest min cash online as well, which should factor in on how tight this guy's rr is going to be, and how solid my one is going to be in fact. He also just doubled the hand previous to me, winning with AQ, which adds to the fact that playing the hand straight after so strong often means he has something huge in fear that others may suspect playing two hands in a row so quickly has meant blood has rushed to his head.

My thought process last night was flawed. I looked at the 9k to call for the amount of chips i could win and it looked like massive pot odds, that is fair enouhg, at that stage i wasn't prepared to call knowing the likelihood i was up against a dominating hand. It was because if i had folded i would have been 54/70 and for some reason in my head i was scared that i would struggle to pass the money bubble with ease so forced the issue with the call when everything else in my head said fold.

Definitely a fold and that isn't even just with hindsight. The amount of times he has me crushed over the times he has AK means i think the pot odds aren't even enough.

[Ant040689]

Just did a spot check of what i need to do to overhaul my bad habits in the game, and the list i have made is so vast and the amount of time i need to spend in correcting them is daunting, but i will be ticking them off one by one. I would rather not list exactly what i need to do and instead tell you about what i have accomplished thus far in future posts. I think i will have more time for this blog in the future when i get everything much more settled with my game, so for the foreseeable future, maybe a month or two, I won't be posting on here (I know a crying shame hey!), so i can concentrate on what i must do.

When i come back i don't quite know how i will format my new posts, they won't be continuous streams of consciousness drivel anymore like i have been known to do, it will be more organised, with more concise entries, hopefully aiding the viewers pleasure. You may think why do i care so much, but i think i will be using this as an informal way of trying to tighten up my writing. I am going to work hard on journalistic techniques and general writing capability to try and develop myself on that front. Admittedly, I am not the best at the moment, but i know i can improve immensely and I am going to be burying my head in reading to help on that front.

Cheers for the support last night btw, was greatly appreciated. I am however, looking back on some of my older posts and i needn't really go further than the last couple of days and thinking wtf am i doing. I am happy, very happy in fact, that one act of relative lunacy on the front of playing the 1001r1a tourney on Monday night paid huge dividends and has set my BR nicely for the games i want to go ahead an play. It was lunacy because i can't afford $300 for one tourney entry, even though i am a winner in the higher turbo games, I would much rather build in the lower games so that i can play $300 tournaments with no bankroll pressure. I could ask for backing in these, (I did actually recently, but my mark up was too high) which i should be able to get considering my good record in them, but to be frank, i hate giving anything of myself away.

If times change in the future or i see myself thinking i would like a some shots, then maybe i will look to the staking system to help. I think a healthy dislike for being backed should be a good thing in a potential staker's eyes anyway because it can show faith in ones game. Faith in ones game? I don't even fully have that yet, but i am still a winner, albeit pretty modest this year with about $30k ($45k for the year going at the same rate, about £29k, about average wage, not bad!) with all sites inclusive and that is with low volume and a shabby setup. Meaning it could possibly be argued that with a better setup and a calmer approach i could look to make so much more money. I hope that is the case anyway!

I rue the amount of time spent in the wilderness of ill discipline, but at least can draw some positives from it. I want the positives to be all i see in the future without the blighting avoidable negatives (dealing with the unavoidable ones would be fine enough because at least they weren't as a result of your own negligence!) and i see no real reason why that can't happen, aside from self belief, but too much thought onto that itself and not your responsibilities can mean you ironically remain in limbo!

Look you see i am babbling again! Gl to all of you at the tables, I will be back with a plan of action that hopefully i will be very excited to tell you about, probably will be weeks already underway in my new system and i so hope it kicks off from the word go!

[millidonk]

An average wage paying no tax is much better than just an average wage!

[pleno1]

29k isn't near average wage either.

[rex008]

29k isn't near average wage either.

I'm curious. Without Googling, what do you think the average UK salary is?

[Sulphur man]

Really enjoying this so dont drop off the radar please.
And catch you at the table at the end of the year when we have both finished swotting up
on the game 

[titaniumbean]

29k isn't near average wage either.

I'm curious. Without Googling, what do you think the average UK salary is?

under half for outside London i'd assume?!

[neeko]

29k isn't near average wage either.

I'm curious. Without Googling, what do you think the average UK salary is?

Mean or median?

[millidonk]

29k isn't near average wage either.

I'm curious. Without Googling, what do you think the average UK salary is?

Mean or median?

mode

[rex008]

29k isn't near average wage either.

I'm curious. Without Googling, what do you think the average UK salary is?

Mean or median?

The ONS published number is usually median (50th percentile). Obviously it's a very skewed graph with a long tail, so median makes more sense. Headline published median full-time salary, latest data available is for 2011.

Still waiting to hear from BITB, just curious how out of touch a Gibraltar-based poker pro gets. Not even sure whether he thinks 29k is too high or too low...?

[anthonyl]

pretty sure England average for employed is about £27K (net £21K), and London about £60K (net £42K). That is with no research though!

[millidonk]

pretty sure England average for employed is about £27K (net £21K), and London about £60K (net £42K). That is with no research though!

London figure is way off.