Raziel2689 Heads Up 2014 Grind

[DMorgan]

Making a thread for the 2014 grind, aiming for my biggest year yet in terms of online volume. Since the traffic died off on iPoker to the point where I couldn't keep all of my volume there (about 18 months ago) I've been exclusively playing on stars, all heads up SNGs until about a week ago. Volume in 2013 was fairly poor and my roll suffered accordingly which is why I haven't really been around much on Blonde or on the live circuit, just been getting my head down and grinding away. I barely posted on blonde last year so this thread should provide some good motivation to a) post more and b) play lots.

Since they launched a couple of weeks ago I've been dabbling in some of the heads up zoom CAP games. They fit in perfectly to top of tables while grinding HUSNGs and playing zoom too I've really boosted my VPPs/hr that used to suffer with downtime between games when I was just playing SNGs. With zoom mixed in as well I've really got no excuse not to hammer the hours out and reap the rewards. Last year I logged 230k VPPs which sounds ok-ish but looking a bit deeper into the numbers, 121k of that was from the 9th of September to the end of the year and I didn't go to Vegas so there isn't a six week online hiatus either, so there is plenty of potential to put up big numbers in 2014. Last year I was exclusively playing $/€60 and $/€100 games but starting in January it'll be just 100s and 200s with some 100CAP and 200CAP mixed in.

My main poker goal this this year is 400k VPPs. I'm not really into setting profit goals because its just not something that I can control, if I stay the course and reach my volume goal I'll be doing fine for $$. My other goal is to play fewer than 5 live tourmanets this year. Over the past few months I've been thinking a lot about what my general goals are and how to achieve them. For the last few years the plan has pretty much just been make money online > play live tournaments > win a live tourmanent > live happily ever after. That strategy got me stuck approximately a house and a bunch of near miss sob stories that nobody gives a shit about. It still obviously a lol sample size of probably 100ish live £1k+ tournaments but I haven't really studied any MTT stuff at all since I quit playing the live MTT circuit regularly so my profitability in those events has eroded. In my mind it has got to the point where for the money, time and effort of playing a live tourmanent I'm just way better off grinding online.

I'm sure I'll get cabin fever or someone will make a ridiculous splurge with an unattainable guarantee eventually and i'll spur of the moment get on a plane for a live shindig so I've given myself some wiggle room with five. I'm probably going to post daily updates with some graphs too cos people seem to love a good giraffe. Will be posting a decent amount of music since in the last couple of years I've developed a pretty big addiction to drum n bass & deep house music. I probably listen to a good 80 hours of music a week so will be sharing some gems. Doubt there are many people on Blonde with the same musical taste but you never know, spread the love and all.

I only have a database from September 9th to the end of the year, first two are HUSNG graphs from my PC and laptop, not going to import everything across to one because it always majorly screws up the results in HEM when they get re-imported

PC - 1766 games

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Laptop - 4566 games

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Heads Up Zoom CAP experiment so far

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First music offering - my favourite house track of 2013 by a mile



Best of luck in 2014, lets gettttttt

[tikay]

Ooh, this should be an interesting read Dan, good luck with it.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years time, as to poker & life?

No Vegas this year?

[TL900]

Is there alot of recs in the games, or is it just a case of your one of the better regs out the bunch? Always assumed HUSNGs was a sort of dead game on stars especially.

GL will be reading with interest.

[pleno1]

Went to dinner tonight with one of the better regs, he is Portuguese guy I'm sure you'll know him but I can't remember his name.

Big gls here mate, one for the good guys.

[MC]

gl dude.

I didn't realise there was zoom HU cap. What stakes you playing? Any clue on VPP/hr?

[mondatoo]

GL in reaching 400k vpps and winning lots of $'s.

[DMorgan]

Ooh, this should be an interesting read Dan, good luck with it.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years time, as to poker & life?

No Vegas this year?

In 5 years time I hope not to be grinding online poker but its certainly a possibility. I still really enjoy it so it wouldn't be the end of the world still being an online grinder at 29. A couple of years ago I would definitely have said 'I want to have won x major tournament' but a little older and (hopefully) a little wiser that seems like such a silly goal. Looking back at the five years I've been playing full time I don't think I could have predicted what has happened in the proceeding year so as for five years time? I have no idea. One thing I definitely want to do is a whole lot more travelling, but I'd want to do it properly ie take a year off playing poker. I'm a pretty big bankroll nit so I would imagine I'd need a nice chunk of money in the bank before I'd do that. Ask me next year if I clear $100k in 2014!

No plans for Vegas at the moment, definitely not doing 8 weeks again. I'm pretty over punting a chunky %age of my roll in big tournament packages and with all the expenses involved it is essentially just a holiday. If I do go this year it'd probably be just for a couple of weeks to see some of the people I got to know playing the Bellagio 5/10 games in the summer of 2011 and 2012.

Is there alot of recs in the games, or is it just a case of your one of the better regs out the bunch? Always assumed HUSNGs was a sort of dead game on stars especially.

GL will be reading with interest.

I've been playing $100s on stars for the last year or so, most of the regs backed off pretty quick but there was one guy that always sat me and he quit a couple of weeks ago after we had played about 300 games so once I've got the lobbies its pretty much exclusively fish sitting me with the odd MTT/cash reg blowing off steam. Playing SNGs alone I could pretty easily get 50-60 games/day against recs.

I doubt it would be possible to get anything close to that volume anywhere besides stars. All of the euro site regs I know play across iPoker/Party/888 and a couple of other skins. This actually leads to some really interesting wars going on when you're battling someone because they're sitting 12 or more lobbies across sites and if you know peoples screen names on sites where they don't know you, then you can sit them in like six games at once and it not be too hectic because you know that you're playing against the same guy.

Whoever you're sitting gets pretty tilted pretty quickly when they think that they've been unlucky enough to be sat by 4 or 5 different people on all of their sites at once which is a pretty profitable spot.

Went to dinner tonight with one of the better regs, he is Portuguese guy I'm sure you'll know him but I can't remember his name.

Big gls here mate, one for the good guys.

Thanks mate, can't think of any Portuguese regs off the top of my head, if he sits 100s though we've definitely played a few games. Is his location on stars is Hungary or Portugal?

[lucky_scrote]

Before rakeback what ROI did you achieve at 50's and 100's last year? I imagine it must still be decent if you're playing a lot of recs now, or have the fish got better at HU as a whole? I'm not taking any glory from you playing fish btw, you've earned that if regs no longer play with you.

I played HU sngs for a living a very long time ago, I remember I used to get tons of action at €500 HU sngs from fish but the poker economy has certainly changed. It sounds dirty but there was one really good reg on there that would always play me, so I used to time down on everything to frustrate him and make it even more turbo-ey.

[pleno1]

the guy is called "janekaaa"

[DMorgan]

gl dude.

I didn't realise there was zoom HU cap. What stakes you playing? Any clue on VPP/hr?

Playing 200CAP at the moment when it runs, sitting that and playing 100CAP if there isn't any action. It doesn't usually take long though to get some action when you're open sitting.

With the data I have at the moment its looking like around ~160 VPPs/hr with zoom alone. Add in the HUSNGs and its about 330 VPPs/hr

 

[DMorgan]

Before rakeback what ROI did you achieve at 50's and 100's last year? I imagine it must still be decent if you're playing a lot of recs now, or have the fish got better at HU as a whole? I'm not taking any glory from you playing fish btw, you've earned that if regs no longer play with you.

I played HU sngs for a living a very long time ago, I remember I used to get tons of action at €500 HU sngs from fish but the poker economy has certainly changed. It sounds dirty but there was one really good reg on there that would always play me, so I used to time down on everything to frustrate him and make it even more turbo-ey.

From the data for Sept 9th to the end of the year it was 4.3% with an ABI of $94. I actually used to play $500s too on iPoker about 3 years ago, but I would certainly have been eaten alive at those stakes on stars and it was one of the big rakeback deals that kept me afloat. I didn't really do any studying at all for ages and my complacency came back to bite me in the first few months of 2012. I followed that up with some pretty poor punting decisions in Vegas and ended up back grinding the $30s.

I haven't actually had anyone time down on me in a while but whenever I was battling other regs that'd just make me sit them even more. I have always seemed to play more tables that most HUSNG regs so I'd just fire up another couple of tables and it wouldn't bother me at all.

[Pinchop73]

Will be posting a decent amount of music since in the last couple of years I've developed a pretty big addiction to drum n bass & deep house music. I probably listen to a good 80 hours of music a week so will be sharing some gems. Doubt there are many people on Blonde with the same musical taste but you never know, spread the love and all.

Damn Dan that sounds exactly like my musical tastes the last few years, knew I couldn't be alone ha!

Your top 3 favourite sets?!

[lucky_scrote]

Yeah at 4.3% the recs are most certainly better at HU! 10-20% was doable 5 years ago but most of the opponents played weak passive and adopted a very poor push fold strat.

[verndog158]

have played a lot of the HU zoom since it has been available, alot this week, and purely the capped games. seems very soft, you think a lot of the regs are put off by it being capped per hand and play the uncapped version?

[DMorgan]

the guy is called "janekaaa"

Yeah he's an absolute crushbot vs fish, he was a 90k winner last year before rakeback with an ABI of $84. We've played a little bit, his style is kinda tight and pretty tilting to play against and he's too busy crushing for us to want to play each other really. He plays mostly regspeed games so we're rarely after the same lobbies. Massive respect for putting up those numbers, really sick work.

Damn Dan that sounds exactly like my musical tastes the last few years, knew I couldn't be alone ha!

Your top 3 favourite sets?!

That I've seen live I'd have to say Loadstar at Global Gathering last year, Shy FX at the first Hospitality gig I ever went to in Sheffield are my standout two. Third is pretty close between TC at Leeds Hospitality last October, Ben UFO at a little warehouse thing in Sheffield a few months back and Camo & Krooked at Warehouse Project in 2011. Honourable mention for Laidback Luke at EDC 2011.

Same question to you?