April was the sickest month ever for me since I’ve played poker online. According to Hold’em manager (as if I wouldn’t remember anyway), I lost 12 full stacks in the month with AA, and a hefty 21 times with KK. Most of them all-in pre-flop and guys hitting on the river left right and centre! Poker can be a cruel game at times, but what I’ve learnt is that you can’t leave it effect you, you just have to keep plugging along and hope to play to the best of your ability and your luck will change!

However my luck didn’t change in May. Every over pair lost to under pair and it seemed to always happen on the river.
Here’s just an example of what was happening. All of which we got it all in pre….

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I didn’t leave it get me down though and considering how I was running I was delighted to finish the month on +14 buyins.

Just as I thought I could not run any sicker I entered the month of June. There was an unreal number of times my opponent and me had the same hand but they ended up hitting a four-flush. Here is but one example.

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I am down nearly 23 buyins for June but thankfully i don’t think it is possible to run any sicker. As a final hand to basically sum this period up, here is the worst beat I have ever taken which obv happened in a large pot. While there isn’t much to say about it, I just want to put it up to have something to refer to when anyone tells me about a sick beat they’ve taken

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I hate having to post details of such sick hands but I needed to get these hands of my chest so I can start feeling better about my bad beats. These 3 months have been very damaging and harsh but I am still playing well so fingers crossed my EV will turn for the best and next month I will have a cheerful blog with lots of winning hands to show you. I have alot of spare time on my hands at the moment so hopefully I can put in a bit of volume and change the account into winning ways.

GL at the tables….

February Update- I left you in the middle of February on a +12 buyin streak. Unfortunately my luck turned for the worse and I ended the month on + 6 buyins when all was said and done. This coupled with being slightly down in tournaments meant I only ended up slightly for the month in real terms which was obviously disappointing.

March -March was another rollercoaster month for me. I started off down 4 buyins fairly quickly. I then cashed in a 10 dollar tournament where I came 3rd for $950 and unfortunately went out with QQ vs 99. We got it all in pre and he spiked a 9 on the flop and then made quads on the river. This was a disappointing finish to the tournament as that pot would of almost guaranteed me the top prize of $2800.

This result got me in the profit again for the month. Unfortunately, my Hold’em manager crashed so I wasn’t able to play as much as i liked as I was trying to fix it. I had to play over a week without it and i went back into the negative figures again. Just before the end of the month i got it back and ended the month just slightly in the profit again.

I went out playing golf for the first time ever with a friend of mine and I thought maybe a nice relaxing game would ease the pain of my bad beats. If you think poker can be a cruel and frustrating game try golf!! I came to the conclusion that poker is very similar to golf. One mistake leads to another mistake and then another and before you know it you have a 5 over par on the hole. ‘How is this similar to poker?’ you may ask. Well from looking over some hands that I have played badly I will see that I have made a mistake on the flop. To try and rectify this I will then have made a mistake on the turn and then compounded this with yet another mistake on the river. A mistake can be as simple as not making the optimum decision on any given street.

My friend who has been playing golf for a long time told me when you make a mistake e.g. hit it into the trees, you must swallow your pride and chip it back out onto the fairway. Now how can I incorporate this into my poker I started to think. I have come to the conclusion that when I make a mistake I will have to try and swallow my pride and give up on the pot if needs be. Too often I will not want to accept that I need to stop firing and wave the white flag.

They say you learn everytime you sit at a poker table. Golf has been useful in showing how to deal with poker situations by taking lessons from every-day life experiences.

February got off to a flying start. I was up 20 buyins after 8k hands and finally it seemed that my big hands were holding up and no-one was hitting runner runner or one outers to rob me. There is a poker god after all

Everything was running smoothly and I felt in total control of my game. Then, alas I hit a rocky patch and I couldn’t win a hand. I had a 2 day spree where I had every poker players nightmare but when I looked over hands I had played I noticed that I could’ve saved myself a few buyins. When any loss is down to playing bad or tilting pots away its vital to identify it early and make sure it doesn’t continue.

I found myself back at +7 buyins for the month. I decided to start marking players again and looking over hands to find spots where I went wrong. I also noticed that when I had a bad session I really had a bad session. Now I have come to the realisation that what makes a good poker player is not how much he wins in a session it is how much he can get away with losing when he is running bad. So hopefully now when I run bad I can get away with losing the minimum which in turn will keep me in the profit every month.

I came back fresh and feeling on form. I am currently on +12 buyins for the month so my target is to finish roughly on +20 buyins and I will be extremely happy. I have currently played 32k hands which is under my target for the month but at this stage I will be aiming for another 15k hands by the end of the month.

Heres a few hands for the month:

This was my biggest pot to date. We got it all in on the the river.

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Here’s a hand where a fellow Uncover Poker Academy member- icubluff- laughed at me saying I never fold AA on the flop. I actually did muck though which proved to be a good fold

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Heres a hand where I lost a big pot. Even with this horrible turn I was still a 1/4 chance of winning. But a dud on the river meant the pot travelled the other way.

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I can’t complain with how February has played out. Without my 2 bad days I would be up a hefty profit. I will get back in touch and let you know how February finishes for me.

Good luck at the tables!

In my last blog I told you I was going to up the amount of sessions and hours. Unfortunately, this is not what has ended up happening so far this year.

2009 started off badly as a good friend of mine fell ill and had to be hospitalized. For the first week of January I was up visiting him and because of this I couldn’t log my usual hours. I did still manage to get in 43k hands by the end of Jan, but this was well below my target for the month.

I never really felt like I got going in January. By the middle of the month I was down 15 buyins and nothing seemed to be going right. Just as I started to get it rolling again and got back to break-even, I soon dropped back down into negative figures. I just couldn’t get a run together, and with just two days to go until the end of the month, I was determined to get my account into profit.

This was helped after I logged 2 big winning sessions and just managed to pull myself into the black. While it obviously wasn’t what I had been aiming for, to avoid taking a loss after being down 15 buy-ins at one point gave me some consolation. My only goal for February is to concentrate on logging as many hours as I can and hopefully it will be my best month so far.

Here are a few interesting hands from the month. In the first hand, my opponent obviously decided he had too much money so he decided to give me a buy-in. This always helps when you’re trying to get some buy-ins back!

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In this second hand, it was a 3-way all-in on the flop. Obviously when the cards were turned over I was pleased that my opponents were sharing a flush draw and had some of each others outs. When I made quads I was even more happy of course

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In this final hand I was again all-in on the flop. Given that the guy only had a belly-buster or runner runner to win I wasn’t overly panicked but of course every player has to love that miracle on the river which gives the fish a buy-in.

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I left you in the middle on December when I was enjoying a five day winning streak. Unfortunately, my luck turned for the worst not too long after that last blog entry and it was back to negative variance.

I had nut hands busted on several occasions to runner runners, houses busted to one outers, trips into trips and so on and so on. It just seemed as if I was playing a computer game opponent who was on expert mode and I wasn’t going to be able to win a hand regardless of what I had. According to my Hold’em Manager program, I managed to lose 14 full buy-ins with AA in the last 10 days which is quite impressive and have also managed to lose with KK 28 times since joining the Academy. As much as I hate reporting these hands I want my blog to reflect whats happening at the time so there is no positive spin to put on hands like these.

Anyway, the result of all this was a sick sick ending for the month and ruined my plans of ringing in the New Year with a nice profit which had been the goal in my last blog. This is disappointing but one of the pitfalls if you want to set goals in poker- you can’t be disappointed if you don’t manage to reach them every time. And, obviously the only thing good about negative variance is that before long you hope to flip things round and maybe get a bit of help here and there. Lets hope this is what happens as we move into January.

My target for January is that I’m going to try and up the hours. I’m able to play long sessions and log a lot of hands and this is often the best way to iron out a bit of bad luck. I have a sneaky feeling January is going to be a great month for me as I’m feeling good about my game and positive about my ability to start making some big profits….fingers crossed though!

I have a included a selection of the most fun hands from the last few weeks so if you have a strong stomach make sure you have a look!

In the meantime best of luck at the tables and for 2009!

This hand involved a 3-way all-in on the flop… would’ve been a very tidy pot to take down obviously

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not a lot had actually happened until the river card in this hand… obviously when the turn hit giving him quads, my opponent was probably on his knees praying for me to hit some kind of draw/make a hand I could possibly pay him off with and, sure enough, filling up on the river meant that is exactly what happened

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Obviously all the money went in on this flop… while I didn’t fill up at least the opponent didn’t have me covered…

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this was another 3-way all-in hand on the flop which again I was on the wrong side of

lastly a hand where for a change, I decided to lose a buy-in with top 2 pair instead of a set….

I’m keeping fingers crossed these are the last beats I post in my blog- next time it’s going to be all big pots I win!!

Following the great news I had been offered a place in the Uncover Poker Academy I started off playing 1/2 No Limit Hold’em. Unfortunately, I hadn’t actually played at these stakes for a while and so surprise surprise I started off very poorly! I had thought to myself before starting “I will go and kill these stakes”, but after beginning to play regular sessions I realised the general standard of play had got a lot lot tougher since I was last a regular at these stakes. Due to some general bad play, and finding myself being re-raised left, right and centre pre-flop and then not always responding well, my results were pretty poor.

I found myself behind in pots more often than not, and this- coupled with running slightly under expectation- meant that after just 4 days I had an overall loss of €1959. A terrible start for me at the Academy! I was approached by Chris, the Academy Director, and was told that due to the fact I was running/playing so bad my daily bankroll was being suspended while an emergency review would be conducted of my play to find out what was going wrong (no surprises there). I felt really bad that I had let everyone down and I was determined to get my bankroll re-instated and prove that I could be a valuable asset.

With a bit of haggling, hustling and persuading my daily bankroll was resumed. At my own suggestion I was now playing stakes that I was comfortable with and used to (50/1 No Limit). After 4 days I had won €1100 and was feeling very good and comfortable with both my play and the standard of the opposition. Unfortunately, I had 3 very poor days towards the end of November where I lost over €1100 and so I only ended the month making a profit of €577, but considering the start I had this is still very respectable.

December, my second month as an Academy player, started off very poorly and after 10 days my total amount won for the Academy was down to €89. I was running extremely bad and I managed to lose with trips vs trips 6 times in the space of 4 days which is obviously pretty sick. I also seemed to be losing with AA and KK hand after hand. I just couldn’t win with my MONSTER hands and all poker players know how frustrating that can get!

Here is just one example of the trips vs trips hands, and the way I was running it was typical I had to run into the big stack here with me also happening to have a pretty big stack at the time as well. I nearly folded to the 4-bet on the flop but with the flush draw out there- and the over-pair possibilities as well- I felt I had to call and pray he would turn over AA! Obviously A9 would be ideal as well but we can safely say this wasn’t very likely! Anyway, no surprise I was all-in on the flop drawing to one card in the deck and no and I didn’t end up hitting quads lol!

After such a hideous start to December I felt that the heat was now on again. I thought if I start to lose at these stakes I will surely be kicked out of the Academy. I decided to watch a few videos on cash games and also look over my hand histories just to get focussed again and start to think about my play more critically. I decided to change my strategy/game play to a very slightly more conservative style and for now this seems to have paid off very nicely. I’m currently on a 5 day winning streak where I have made over €1900 so for the first time this month I’m in profit for the Academy. Long may it continue!

I’ll update you as December comes to a close and hopefully this will end up being a big month for me.

Best of luck at the tables!