The Wild Rollercoaster - Just A Kid With A Lifelong Dream

[Tal]

Don't be one of those "ooh it's a real game of chess, this" people!

Having played the game, surely you know how annoying that is when a tennis/football/cricket/badminton/beer pong/kisschase commentator says that?

[Ice Shade]

Don't be one of those "ooh it's a real game of chess, this" people!

Having played the game, surely you know how annoying that is when a tennis/football/cricket/badminton/beer pong/kisschase commentator says that?

LOL true xD

[Ice Shade]

King Of The Hill - Heads-Up Style

I know it's gimmicky, and to the hardcore folk amongst you will likely choke on your coffee for not having a reasonable structure in place. But I've decided to work on my game a bit more and also inject some fun into it. I'm going to (on the side) produce a kind of HUSNG ladder system. Hopefully spin a relatively small bankroll up to something huge. Basically starting with just $1.50 per run. I'll play a series of HUSNG's (normal or turbo) and carry forward with the following rules:-

1. Once I have enough money to play the next buyin level up I move straight up.
2. Money cannot be added at any stage, to move up levels the bankroll has to be capable on its own. Even if the bankroll states $99.99 you have to play the $60 HU, not the $100
3. If I lose a match I must move down in matches until my bankroll can sustain the amount the bankroll should be at. Any money leftover is effectively "saved". If I drop below $1.50 I can top up and start again.
4. After so many matches the bankroll will have naturally inflated, so there are cash-out "checkpoints" on the way. These are to be withdrawn straight away as a kind of prize for reaching that far.
5. Checkpoints get more frequent as we go up the ladder, so as to protect winnings that, for a $1.50 startup would be quite alot. This way no buyin level should feel too high, as money is locked up.
6. Cash outs beyond checkpoints are strictly forbidden, harsh but it forces having to play to win the lot and will improve along the way.
7. Checkpoints are mandatory only once. You go past them after the first cash out.

I'm going to put up how the bracket works. Basically it's divisions of matches, reach the top of the division and you cash out a prize, naturally get knocked down to where the bankroll slots into the ladder, and carry on.

Now be under no illusions I'm aware that this is a daft idea but I want to inject some fun into actually playing these games for an area of my game that is not up to snuff. Plus having an end goal in sight is always a good motivator

[verndog158]

Any decent scores/ final tables to report on lately?

[Ice Shade]

Any decent scores/ final tables to report on lately?

Nice, I like it

[Ice Shade]

If only it were that simple...

2014 pretty much could not have started off better really...after having spent 7 months without a decent score and 4 months without a cash at all...just managed to come 4/255 in the XXL giant :-) obviously disappointed to have not won it when six handed I had a monster chip lead and lost AK < J9 and JJ < AJ for what would have effectively been the entire tournament but that being said two happy backers and a nice £950 payday says January couldn't have started better :-D

Also majorly happy that for a change I've been going to Dusk Till Dawn recently with a whole new game approach, basically decided that fancy play syndrome was a pile of crap and that it needed to go...clearly worked! I'd played very well in the GPS and it showed but other comps I had a tendency to want to win everything every hand...having since sorted that out things have improved massively and I've been enjoying going. Having the mentality to enjoy myself rather than having to prove myself is nice :-) going forward I will defiantly be playing more XXL's and seeing if we can't try and get something going

Well....at least the poker is going well, real life sucks...managed literally the day after this win to get myself in a serious bind. Managed to lose my wallet in town last night....after having forgot to sort all of the money out :/ luckily I'd taken out all of the backing money the night before (always force myself to, it's proved worthwhile) but of the 70% that was mine I've managed to lose a decent chunk of it :-/

My own fault, life lesson learnt...but fuck me it stings...pokers going really well, I just wish everything else around it was....ah well, onward and upward!

[Vinodh]

Long time lurker of this Blog! Wd on your score at DTD! Always really nice to boost your confidence with these type of scores. Sincerely hope you crush the life challenges as well. Good luck mate!

[Ice Shade]

Long time lurker of this Blog! Wd on your score at DTD! Always really nice to boost your confidence with these type of scores. Sincerely hope you crush the life challenges as well. Good luck mate!

Thanks mate much appreciated

[Ice Shade]

Click to see full-size image.

Here is the heads up idea ive been toying with that i mentioned before...basically it toys off the idea of six divisions and a seven tournament final. Each match has the bankroll from the previous game, any loss tells you where to go and if there is any money leftover (after rounding down) it ends up becoming a kind of safety cash. At prescribed levels you are instructed to cash out a prize, naturally it drops you down but at the end of the day if you are good enough to get that high this will eliminate "run good runs"...you actually have to become good at HU to consider going deep at this. It finds out those high on the variance scale very quickly.

Now im not saying this is a good idea for those grinding (far from it) more something a bit gimicky that provides a bit of fun motivation to learn the game. You'll quickly find after a few hundred games what division you are hovering around and (by that very nature) what levels you should play it if you were to be taking it seriously and started grinding. I'd be very interested to see if someone could manage to weather the early variance and actually make it from bottom to top in this...if you did it without breaks or knockbacks it'd be 59 matches to get from $1.50 to nearly $26,500....that said one insane run and you could pull this off in a day or two...LOL or not xD

[Ice Shade]

When Dreaming Becomes Too Much

Watching these last few weeks unfold has been one filled with alot of joy, tainted with disappointment...and knowing over the next few weeks it's only going to get worse :-( It is true what ive been told before...my emotions, on the whole, swing wildly with the wind...pretty much if it changes direction im not too far behind it.

The deep run in the XXL was great, it feels nice to start the year off with a bang, keeping my cash>final table rate up was a bonus and finally cracking $20k in live earnings was a big achievement...going forward I look forward to the challenges ahead. Losing my wallet and half the winnings was a bitter pill to have to swallow...somewhere out there someone just got a late Christmas present but it still doesn't help the situation i now find myself back in...elated one day, devastated the next.

What's worse though is that ive had to sell chunks for the DTD Grand Prix (Something that had the wallet not gone missing would never have happened) But what upsets me the most is the inability to play the UKPC...Now i know what everyone is going to sit there and say with regards to "not rolled for it, low variance, don't take such big shots" yadda yadda yadda....that is who I am...I can't help but feel intensely disappointed when i had my heart set on playing the first ever British championships the moment it was announced...and in my own local as well...I would play for next to nothing just for the chance, and still give it all the love and dedication as if i had all 100% for myself. I know the XXL is, at the moment, a one off...I just wish we'd have got to 2nd...not even the win, im not greedy, but second would have been enough to have won the free seat, added £500 towards it and lived out a dream...I refuse to give up hope...and i would sell vast intense chunks to play this...we can only dream (Oh, and anyone who wants to say "if you dont have X invested you aren't dedicated enough" can basically stop reading now. Sorry, anyone with that mindset approaches this game with a mindset i simply do not understand nor appreciate. I don't need financial commitment to be dedicated, no matter what anyone else wants to believe)

Ugh. Here i was four days ago elated with the chance to make something of this....one drunken mistake and now im back down where i was....Suppose you can't miss what you never really had eh?

[Ice Shade]

Must Be A Heater....But How To Keep Warm?

I'm going to take a guess that I'm on some sort of roll, deep runs all over the place, a five event average of over 70% for the first time in years, over a grand up on the year, seven winning days with three winning days in a row...you'd wonder why I'm as broke as I am sometimes!

But it is making me wonder....there's momentum now, sure it's not a lot and at no point am I going to claim that because of a good streak like this I'm clearly amazing and should be playing all the deep stacks. I mean I'm still making mistakes, if only small ones....that said I think to not take advantage of this good fortune would be to let it go to waste...

The question I'm now asking myself however is what to do going forward...I clearly want to press this opportunity to possibly build a respectable bankroll, plus the fact I'm having so many deep runs is starting to turn heads...I've got options, but some are far more appealing than others...

Firstly, and I'm nipping this in the bud now. I don't want to play online. I'm aware the people that frequent this blog will throw their hands up stating that they clearly can't help me then. But the simple fact is I enjoy live more, my play style suits live more, I get more out of my game playing live and currently I the money I have left after life expenses and stuff means if I did go and play online I'd have a schedule that'd last about five days...and I'll cover two responses off right now

1. Play smaller events - no, I literally do not have the motivation to play through five thousand man retard crapshoots where all I'm going to do is get sucked out on by garbage because "it's a $2 comp and they don't care" or make an ultra deep run worth barely fifty quid.

2. Find the motivation - tried, failed, multiple times over many years. Not about to put my first realistic bankroll in 7 months online just to sit there three hours in and go "cool, I cashed twice for a fiver...fuck my life"

Now I want to make clear now that if this bankroll grows in size, to the point where an online bankroll looks to be worth it then I will most definitely make the switch. But I simply don't see $300 as enough motivation. And at the end of the day it's all about motivation. That's why I'm doing so well at the moment, I love live, I'm doing well at it, and its rewarding me.

But with regards to live....do I stick to £25's? Or do I start moving to £50's/£100's with the intention of selling more...I've always been notorious for going into events with next to no % and I'm not adversed to doing that again...do I only play bigger when the guarantees are stupid (and field sizes with it) or do I gradually move up? Or do I just throw caution to the wind and find someone willing to take a swing?

Need to work these out relatively soon...this gravy train may not have too many more stops to go...or does it?

[Rexas]

Pete, as you yourself have said in this diary before, it's not just about the money for you. If you put this attitude into online poker, it will do wonders for your game. Basically, I feel like you've missed the point a little. People like Tomsom and gilly see more hands and more tournaments in a session than you do in a year, and not only that, but these hands are tracked and saved so they can be looked at afterwards. This means that they can review all the hands they've played, mathematically work out if they made good decisions, share hands with other people for second opinions on decisions they made, and through this can find their leaks and improve their game rapidly. Studying and volume are two completely necessary things if you want to take this game seriously as a long term source of income.

Don't play small online tournaments to make millions, because you won't (although if you're a profitable player, you eventually will). Play them because they give you a chance to get a years worth of playing experience in a single day. Don't play them and go crazy because some guy sucked out, get a HUD, and go back through every hand with someone that knows what they're doing so you can analyse your game and find out the mistakes you're making. You'll find that you become much more comfortable live and start understanding situations on a level you didn't previously, and will ultimately enjoy the game more because you'll win more.

As some who was very much in your situation a year ago, at least in that I exclusively played live, I hope you can learn from how important I've found playing online to be for my own game. I learnt all this stuff the hard way because I wouldn't listen to the people around me telling me exactly the things that people are telling you in this thread. Try it, you might surprise yourself.

[pleno1]

Big plus 1!

[millidonk]

Whose heads are all these deep runs turning or was that a metaphor?

I know you said you enjoy live more which is great for a hobby but if you want to make the most of your limited roll then online would be your best bet. Don't have to play million man mtts just grind stts or 180s and watch the money roll in. Think you might have a touch of shooting for the stars syndrome (which most of us have been guilty of).

Why is $300 not enough motivation btw? isn't that about what you get for 9th in the £25 anyway? I think too many people let their ego get in the way with poker. Money is money imo.

Realistically you can only play x1 live mtt per day and you can soon go broke doing this but if online is an absolute no go I would stick to playing £25 on my own dime and try and satellite into bigger events. If you got semi backed for bigger comps then ended up getting dropped due to running bad, variance or finding it tougher than originally thought then you could maybe struggle with motivation having to drop back down again. 

[verndog158]

You say you don't want to play the 3 dollar crapshoot a online, can you explain the difference between those and the xxls after the second break?