Wow the highs and lows of life. I have the most amazing day of my life on saturday morning when my little baby boy is born and then Wednesday morning I get a call from my senior manager saying that I have been made redundant.
Well f*ck me.. You get paid off with your Royal Flush and then the next hand lose your stack to a runner runner.
The losing player looks at this situation as doom and gloom, the positive attitude player looks at this as opportunity.
I work in the finance industry, I work in a US Bank, I work as a trader. I am high risk in this business. I cant shy away from that fact so I had prepared myself just incase the bad news should arrive.
The downside, I now have limited money. I have a lump sum (almost a years cash) which will run out. I have a sweet sports car I can sell if needed giving me another 6 months money. I have responsibility to my girlfriend and newborn to provide.
The upside far outweighs the bad. Most importantly I get the opportunity of a lifetime now to spend some time with my growing son in his first year of life. I have enough money to last me a year with an extra 9 hours a day in my own space, not working for anyone. I have great experience and confidence to get a job later down the line and can now look at other interests with maybe a switch to a complete different industry. Banking bored the tits off me anyway.
I am considering trying to pull an income from poker. From Jan '08 to now i put $500 online and have turned into over $10k in approx 100k hands of cash. That was playing in the evenings only. I can now ramp up the hands online and see if I can make that a good number and start cashing out. This could be interesting. A sort of pro poker but not reliant on the money. My tourny game has been strong. Im 97% on official poker rankings on FT (darrenb2) so may look at that as an extra line of income too.
I have a business about to start which is poker related that I am reluctant to talk about but anyone who plays in London will possibly here of this business by the end of the year. This will be profitable for the first year with very few outgoings. A few people who read this will know what I mean, the others will have to wait.
So looking at the above, I am comfortable. I have no debt and nothing large to buy for the baby. Its all been done over the past few months. My goal now is to see how much I can make short term through poker playing without using any off my redundancy money.
I have $6k online for cash games
I have $2.2k online for tournys
Im gonna stick to 100nl for now.
Most of all though I get to see my boy explore this world in his first few months.
I am really happy.
Ryverrat
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
A Baby Boy!
My beautiful lady gave birth to the cutest little boy early Saturday morning.
8lb 10oz (3.9kg) i think
will probably be playing a little less poker this month so apologies for lack of updates etc.
Be back soon !
8lb 10oz (3.9kg) i think
will probably be playing a little less poker this month so apologies for lack of updates etc.
Be back soon !
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Wednesday Ramblings
Today my baby is due to be born. The little blighter is showing no sign of entering this world yet much to his mothers discomfort. To be honest I have absolutely no idea how my life will change when he arrives. Im guessing that the volume of poker will drop for a while thats why im cramming in as much as I can at the moment. Im hoping my mindset doesnt change too much that I start to see my winrate as how many new nappies/hour I have just won.
Last night was a fun but frustrating session. I lost 3 coinflips for 1/2 to 3/4 stacks starting the session of to the downside. Understanding variance and sklansky bucks i continue on knowing in will all fall back in line over time. I then met my fish of the day (FotD). Unfortunately calling station, any two card, retarded fish boy was to my left and owned my ass for about an hour.
I lost QQ to T8s (tripped an 8 on the river)
I lost AKs to T5s (turned a flush)
I lost JJ to K6o (flop was KK9 and i didnt believe him)
He stole my money and ran..... but not that far. I had added him to my steadily growing buddy list that only contains superfish and see that he was still logged on. Not only that, his confidence must have been soaring as he was now at the $1/$2 tables. Even though i was nearing my downside stoploss for the night I couldnt pass up such a +ev situation so i added myself to the list. I got the sit opposite him which gave me a little room then 11 hands later i get this.
I still finished the session 1 buy in down but slept well knowing that this move paid off. Im wondering how long this fish will be on this site, I really cant see him lasting too long and I hope to be able to get the fishing rod out again for him sometime soon. J9o hahahahahah.
Heres a few weblinks for your amusement.
Good luck at the tables.
Monday, February 2, 2009
January Recap
Well that was January. $754 + about $350 in rakeback + $950 odd in bad beat jackpot. Just over $2k and im not happy.
Im still making mistakes at 100nl. A big difference I have found between 50nl and 100nl is the amount of floating that is done. With players being more positionally aware continuation bets are floated a lot more than lower levels. As always cbets are board texture dependant and villain depedant but I am noticing the difference.
So, how to combat that. I think its key to differentiate between the players you believe are floating and the players that are drawing badly. If tagged as a floater its important to know whether they will call a turn bet. I have a stat on Holdem Manager that shows fold to turn cbet which I feel will become useful at this level.
Im also started to get in the mind of playing someone like me which I have found useful in some spots. What things do I hate ? If I spot a decent player I put some moves on them that I know I hate. 3 betting there cutoff 3xbb raises, floating or reraising very dry boards etc.
Lets see if I can have another good month. I got some intersitng hands to talk about in the next post.
Good Luck for Feb.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Cracking month
My previous set up was a desktop, 2 screen (17" & 19") monitors. The upside of this set up is the number of tables without any overlap and the ability to have extra things on the screen without any risk of misclicks like IM's, Holdem Manager Pokerstove etc. The downside is that its damn unsociable.
I recently purchased a 19" Compaq laptop for about £350 which has allowed me to play poker and spend the time with the missus. Same thing different location but she feels like im spending time with her. Fair enough. This, in turn, has led me to lay around one and a half the amount of hands than I usually play a month which has also led to my record month in profits.
Its almost month end so I best not speak too soon. I will post the graphs/stats in a few days once I lock the profit in for Jan.
I recently purchased a 19" Compaq laptop for about £350 which has allowed me to play poker and spend the time with the missus. Same thing different location but she feels like im spending time with her. Fair enough. This, in turn, has led me to lay around one and a half the amount of hands than I usually play a month which has also led to my record month in profits.
Its almost month end so I best not speak too soon. I will post the graphs/stats in a few days once I lock the profit in for Jan.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
A Silver Lining - I Suppose
I work for a US investment bank and yesterday saw our stock price plunge over 50%. There are another round of job cuts soon and morale is at an all time low. The economy is f*cked. Not just a little but seriously f*cked. Im surrounded by people who are feeling the pinch. I am now seeing those people that looked quietly confident they could ride this out, starting to crack under the pressure of the barrage of daily news. I still feel we have further to fall. I believe that we are not at the bottom and over the next 3 months earnings season there will be more shock and more suprises from behind the curtains of companies yet to speak. Economically the world is screwed.
With all the bad news surrounding us at the moment I have found one part of this that is a positive to me as a poker player in the UK. The exchange rate to the US$.
Currently, on my trading screen, the spot rate is 1.3803, in July last year we were 2.0
This is great for any winning players. Firstly any $ we have on the US sites have gained 35% value. Secondly any profits we make are also now worth a lot more. We are playing the same level of players but our profits (and losses) are now worth more. This is bad if you are a losing player but great if you are a winning player.
Good winning players should be playing in USD and raking this in while the pound is weak making sure they continue to cash out to take full advantage of this situation.
With all the bad news surrounding us at the moment I have found one part of this that is a positive to me as a poker player in the UK. The exchange rate to the US$.
Currently, on my trading screen, the spot rate is 1.3803, in July last year we were 2.0
This is great for any winning players. Firstly any $ we have on the US sites have gained 35% value. Secondly any profits we make are also now worth a lot more. We are playing the same level of players but our profits (and losses) are now worth more. This is bad if you are a losing player but great if you are a winning player.
Good winning players should be playing in USD and raking this in while the pound is weak making sure they continue to cash out to take full advantage of this situation.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Jan so far.
Im on a rush! Its been a while. Ive made around $1800 this month which includes that $950 bad beat jackpot.
Even though I try my best to shrug off the times when I cannot win an 80/20, lose all my coinflips and run card dead for a couple of thousand hands it still gets you down and makes you question the game and question your play. Then comes a rush and everything is rosy again.
This is a common cycle I feel with the game of poker and I say every single one if us goes through this. Im 'lucky' I guess that I do not have to rely on poker to pay any bills, never needing to withdraw any funds as I have a well paid full time job but for the players that rely on this income the feeling must be amplified on both up and down turns.
When you are on a downturn remember..
-Tighten up
-Drop down to build confidence and to not play scared money
-Reduce number of tables
-Table select well. Move tables if conditions change
-Review your session
-The good cards will come. Natural distribution
Maybe ill write a bigger post soon on controlling the tilt of a downturn.
Monday funny
http://wiifail.com/
Even though I try my best to shrug off the times when I cannot win an 80/20, lose all my coinflips and run card dead for a couple of thousand hands it still gets you down and makes you question the game and question your play. Then comes a rush and everything is rosy again.
This is a common cycle I feel with the game of poker and I say every single one if us goes through this. Im 'lucky' I guess that I do not have to rely on poker to pay any bills, never needing to withdraw any funds as I have a well paid full time job but for the players that rely on this income the feeling must be amplified on both up and down turns.
When you are on a downturn remember..
-Tighten up
-Drop down to build confidence and to not play scared money
-Reduce number of tables
-Table select well. Move tables if conditions change
-Review your session
-The good cards will come. Natural distribution
Maybe ill write a bigger post soon on controlling the tilt of a downturn.
Monday funny
http://wiifail.com/
Friday, January 16, 2009
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