Tuesday 24 June 2014

Holidays break

Hi everyone,

I haven't been playing much since my last post and i don't think i ll play any more until my holidays.
I had a tiny session yesterday where i lost a stack and i felt like i didn't want to play more.

The hand i lost is nothing interesting, i had AAs otb, i 6bet shoved and sb snap calls me with KKs. For a second i was happy to see him having KKs but a K came on the flop. It's not big of a deal that i lost with AA vs KK just i felt that i need some time of the tables.

Plus my holidays are coming up in a few days and i got quite a few things to do before i go.

Soooooo we are not giving up because we caught up with variance. I ll be spending more time studying and watching training videos. I have found some interesting poker blogs too to read but not cash game blogs. (any suggestions always welcome).

Also, i want to find out what my optimal playing time is. As a live player i have had really long sessions, with breaks in between obviously. I haven't figured out yet how long i should be playing before i take a break. At the moment, i am finishing a session when i am feeling tired or when i feel that i play bad. But, until i realise that i have been playing bad or i made bad decisions, i have already lost a portion of my winnings and i don't think this approach is worth it.  

I ll start experimenting with 1h sessions and see how this will work. Plan is to take a small break after playing an hour, maybe do some hand review and will continue playing only if i feel i can play my best.
(this has to be added to my targets for the month)

That's it for now i think. I ll be posting more updates when i ll be back from holidays.

Good luck with your grinding.

Saturday 21 June 2014

Intro

Hello everyone, 

So I will be working mostly on 25NL, 6max cash games on Pokerstars. 
At the moment i am playing 4-6 regular speed tables or 2 Zoom tables at the time. 

My goals for the month : NONE i ll be on holidays till 15th of July. 

So, my goals for the end of August would be : 
  • play 15-20 hours a week online and play 1-2 sessions live a week 
  • start winning some $$$ and make a decent graph
At the moment, i want to analyse more my hand ranges against different type of villains and work more on their stats from holdem manager. 

My coach gave me a new hud set-up which i am trying to learn that at the moment. We have added more "steal" stats and pre flop tendencies for now. Already i was struggling to adjust to that as where i used to have my 3bet stats i now have steal stats and a few times i made decisions looking in the wrong numbers. 

My biggest pot i lost today was : -$26.85 
It was a standard play AK vs KK all in preflop 

Not the best board ever but not much we could do about it. 

I am going to add another session before lunch as i will be going out tonight. More results to follow. 


 

First post!

Hello Everyone, 

I have written a million different intros and i still don't know how to start. 
Writting a blog and publishing your thoughts might not be so easy as it seems.

Alright, let me start with introducing myself and the plan of this blog. My name is Maria and i have been playing poker for several years now. All these years while i was learning the game, i have to admit, it wasn't profitable all the times. 

So i have decided to take things seriously and creating this blog, i hope it will help me more to keep a track of my progress and don't bust another roll.  
I used to play live poker in my local casino for the past year and a half now. Online poker wasn't always my thing as I am not the most disciplined person.

Grinding live can work both ways, you can make a ton of money overnight or lose a ton of money in half an hour! However, it needs way much less effort to play (and win) in a live game. I think i ll come back to my live experiences in another post.....

Well, the past month i took the decision to start some coaching with a professional online grinder. 
I ll need to ask my coach if he is okay to include his name in here. :) I am following him for quite some time now and i always liked his style and approach to the game, so i contacted him and we started working on my game. 

Yesterday, i had my second coaching session. I have to admit that i was totally exhausted at the end and decided not to play any poker yesterday. I wake up fresh today and in a very good and grinding mood. 
But i had another losing session, so instead of browsing random things on the internet i thought to make a blog and hopefully things will work better. (fingers crossed)

I will be trying to put updates of my progress for most of my sessions, i think it will help me way much more if i have to write things down and doing a little hand review at the time. 

I feel i have already written too much for my first post. Any advice and comments on my play are always welcome!