Second Session

Put in another session tonight which has just come to a close. Unsurprisingly there were no final tables or shipping tournaments, I will have to wait a while for another of them!

The session tonight was fairly successful despite the bankroll dropping just slightly. I believe it started off at $2042 (so sick writing that) and unless this $4.40 180man comes through, it shall end on $2025.02 (not as sick). I cashed in three tournaments, including the Daily 30k on Stars which saw me bust out in the top 300 of one of their crazy fields. This is something I am pleased with because I seem to be making some pretty deep runs in a fair amount of tournaments (inc. prior to Saturday), which can only improve my game due to experience. Indeed, there was a real contrast in standard tonight I felt. I broke into the top 30/40 in two DTD tournaments respectively and the standard there was so much poorer compared to Stars. This is pleasing given that I can recognise a difference, coupled with the fact that I will improve whilst also hopefully winning some cash!

I'm also happy with the amount of volume that I have been able to put in. That is a total of 17 tournaments played now, with my initial aim to play somewhere in the region of 15-20 a week. Clearly I shall exceed this, which is only a good thing. Get on another heater asap imo!

Unfortunately the volume will drop a bit now though. Tomorrow night I am out and I have to get a lot of work done this week so its out the way for next week. I hope to put in a session on Weds night providing at least one of my pending essays is completed. Failing that, it could well be the weekend before I next hit the felt! At the moment I am pretty much nocturnal, which is off the back of working bar hours but I slowly intend to fix this and when I do I may look at the prospect of maintaining the volume via day-time sessions.

GL

May it Continue

Not really sure that the whole feeling of last night's euphoria has really sunk in yet... I mean ok, its not great deal, people ship tournaments everyday. I'm not even that impressed by the sum of money etc. What's impressive is that I finally managed to actually ship one of these donkaments and not just get close..its long overdue.

Anyway, more importantly I guess I'm pretty shell-shocked by the consequences of it. I have always bitched and moaned about not keeping hold of poker winnings and maintaining a roll. Well this is it now, this is for real. I want to try and keep so focused, so serious, so committed and so determined with it now. Its really surreal in some respects, Jon has been persistent in his determination to get me grinding again for weeks and I made the decision over the last week/10 days to focus a bit more on poker than I have been. Yet I made the deposit mid-afternoon on Saturday and by Sunday morning my bankroll had grown like 5 times as much! It really sets me up..

As a result I have set myself targets and benchmarks but I don't intend to publish those just yet as I have only played 10 tournaments! Don't anticipate shipping another big tournament for a while but I am hoping to hit a few ft's and take down a few scores.

Needless to say my weekly schedule has had to be tweaked a little as its become pointless playing the smaller buy-ins that I would have been. The standard is also probably pretty similar imo (between the $5 and the $11). The new schedule looks like this:

 BWIN


>>> 5.15pm : $5.50 buy-in, $3,500 GTD

>>> 6.20pm : $11 buy-in, $1,500 GTD

>>> 8.30pm : $11 buy-in, $5,000 GTD

>>> 9pm : $5.50 buy-in, $7,000 GTD

>>> 10.30pm : $5.50 buy-in, $4,500 GTD


 DTD


>>> 6.30pm : €6.60 buy-in, €1000 GTD, Deepstack

>>> 7.35pm : €3.30 buy-in, €1000 GTD

>>> 8.35pm : €10+1 buy-in, €3,500 GTD

>>> 9.45pm : €5.50 buy-in, €1000 GTD, Deepstack


 STARS


>>> 5pm : $11 buy-in, $8,000 GTD

>>> 6pm : $5.50 buy-in, $20,000 GTD

>>> 7pm : $3.30 buy-in, $1,500 GTD

>>> 7pm : $11 buy-in, $30,000 GTD

>>> 8.15pm : $11 buy-in, $15,000 GTD

>>> 9pm : $8.80 buy-in, $5,000 GTD

>>> 10.40pm : $4.40 buy-in, $2,000 GTD

(plus $4.40 & $7.70 180mans)


That is a list consisting of tournaments that run on a daily basis, all week, and that I am prepared to play and am rolled to play. I don't intend to have more than 4/5 tables up at anyone time and I don't intend to concentrate solely on the $11s, prefer to mix in a decent amount of the $5.50's. Based on the 200 buy-in rule the $11 is literally at the top end of my roll so I shall monitor that with interest.

In terms of figures from last night, there is no point in quoting them given the minute sample size. However, without the big win I would still have been in profit by $15 due to two other cashes. With the big win, my roll stands at $2042.56 and long may it continue to grow!!

Unfortunately I have quite a busy week both at uni and in terms of nights out (night out Tuesday, double date bollocks on Thursday, we are throwing a mini house party on Friday and about 4 million essays due in somewhere in between). This means a lack of volume I imagine. However, I hope to be able to put in a session tomorrow and Wednesday, just means my back is against the wall with uni so it could be subject to change..

Anyway, GL, will post updates accordingly..

Brag

Shipped!

A very very good night. Upon first time of asking I shipped a tournament on Bwin, woo woo!

Absolutely incredible timing. One of my only worries regarding the MTT grind was the sustainability issue due to a lack of ability to keep reloading or any staking deal in place. As a result I really wanted to get off to a flyer and sort myself out properly. Shipping the $5.50 $7,000GTD for $1525 certainly helped in that department!!!

I was pretty happy with the way the night went other than that, going uber deep in one of the Stars frenzies as well as a DTD tournament, meaning two decent cashes to get me going. I would have been in minor profit for the night but obviously Bwin had other ideas, well and truly turning my boomswitch on when it mattered!! I had some real run good at crucial times, one huge hand a couple of tables before the ft to give me a substantial chip lead and then winning the majority of my 60/40 scenarios etc and coming from way behind twice on the ft! ooops.

Gotta say a big thanks to Jon whose advice on and around the ft was pretty invaluable. First experience of a final table in such a big field so it was good to have someone to talk to etc, plus he enjoyed me betting 1millyon.

Anyway, I am going to spend a few hours today looking over the renewed figures, updating spreadsheets and then looking at the schedules again. I will post again later with a new agenda! GL

Its been a while!

Well hello again..

Its been a while, fundamentally due to me being really busy with uni and work (in the bar I mentioned in previous posts).. Well this is now coming to an end, enabling me to play a bit more poker!

I have quit the bar job now as the late night shifts were interfering with my studies too much and the management team there leave a lot to be desired. Anyway, the lack of income and excess spare time means I want to play some poker again. I am okay with money at the moment so the money I have deposited will be used to build up a bankroll, all being well I will make strategic withdrawals in 2010 when I need it. For now though, its all about the roll baby!

I will set targets as I go and make necessary adjustments but I will briefly outline the plan at the moment before just getting stuck in to some volume.

My roll as such is £300 across three sites - Stars, Bwin (OnGame network) and DTD (Boss media). I will be putting in a couple of sessions a week, depending on uni and social life, where I will play anything from £1-5 buy-in MTTs. In the couple of months I have had out I have still improved a lot via 2p2 as well as playing the odd MTT where I have gone uber deep and final tabled numerous 180mans. Not going to say too much for now, just want to get stuck in and hopefully turn out a tidy profit before xmas.

Schedule for tonight:

Bwin - 6pm $1.10 ($500 gtd)
6.15pm $2.25 ($1800 gtd)
DTD - 7.30pm €6.60 (€1000 gtd, deepstack). I will see how this goes as its the top end of my buy-in range, might make it a once weekly thing.
8.35pm €3.30 (€1000 gtd)
Stars - 6pm $5.50 ($20,000 gtd)
7pm $3.30 ($1500 gtd)
8.05pm €2.25 (€1000 gtd)
8.40pm $2.20 ($1000 gtd)


This is a nice 8 tournaments to get me going. I may alter it slightly at 8pm depending on the number of tables, may decide to drop the 8.05 and 8.35 tournaments but we'll see how they go!

Looking forward to it. GL