Sunday, January 31, 2010

Scratch Copenhagen - Hello NAPT Venetian

I won't be going to Copenhagen anymore, as I was able to trade that package for the NAPT Venetian, due to special circumstances. I am looking forward to playing the first North American Poker Tour tournament, and I am sure PokerStars.com will have great success with the new tour, as they do the EPT.

On another note, I have been winning again at a pretty good clip at NL200 and NL400. My current statistics represent my pre-challenge statistics, which is a big positive. Poker becomes so chaotic when all you are trying to do is play massive amounts of hands. About two years ago, I remember I made a goal to play a certain amount of hours each day instead of making daily hand or MGR goals. After making that rule, my win rate increased substantially. For anyone playing 14-24 tables and can't seem to get out of a losing streak, I recommend you drop down to 12 tables max. It has has been a huge help for me this past week. We miss key EV spots without even realizing it when we start playing more then 12 tables imo.

I finally found a coach. I will post his name in a future blog post if he is OK with that. This anonymous coach crushed the NL1k last year, which is very rare these days. I am looking forward to our first session (approx Feb 7th), and will keep the blog updated with my experience with this.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Part 2 - Poker Table Ratings Interniew

Go to PokerTableRatings.com to see part two of the BallCup Challenge interview.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

EPT Copenhagen

I won a package to the European Poker Tour tournament in Copenhagen, Denmark. The satelite was the first Supernova Elite only tournament of its kind. They gave away two packages from the 24 man tournament (30,000 fpp buy in). I have never been to Europe, so I am pretty excited to say the least.

I am still searching for the perfect coach, and have not gotten back into cash games yet. I have been reformatting my computer with Windows 7, and reinstalling all my poker software. It has been quite the process, but everything will feel clean when I am finished importing the millions of hands I have. BTW, I highly recommend if you play online poker to upgrade to Windows 7 (from Vista). The new operating system just runs so much better than Vista, especially when playing. I have posted two links below on maximizing HoldEm Manager's performance/speed and the second one shows how to twek Windows 7 for maximum performance. Both have been very helpful to me.

http://forums.holdemmanager.com/showthread.php?t=11194
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63273

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Finally home...

I am home and finally at ease. I plan on launching back into poker when I wake up tomorrow. Over the next few weeks I will be researching the best tournament books (might have already found them: "Harrington on Hold Em", and "Kill Everyone"), reading them, and playing in a lot of tournaments. I will also be playing my normal NL200 cash games.

Along with those things, I will be looking for a great midstakes no limit coach. I will keep my blog extensively updated with that process. I think that information will be very valuable for everyone who has considered getting a coach.

The reason for the tournament research/practice is I think I want to get into as many live main events around the country as possible. Its nice to get out of the house some.

Total VPPs: 405 (.05%), man oh man, I am way behind pace. I am averaging less then 50 vpps a day. How do you guys do it?

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Busted

Busted at very beginning with 88 vs villains q 10. Vacation time now. Part two of the PokerTableRatings article should be up tomorrow.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

PokerStars Blogger

Online Poker

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! This PokerStars tournament is a No Limit Texas Hold’em event exclusive to Bloggers, you too can take part by registering on WBCOOP

Registration code: 752895

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Made it to day 2, but....

I only have 10,100 chips (average is 40k); we'll see what happens, maybe I can double through twice tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Bahammas and PokerTableRatings.com

I start tomorrow on day 1b of the PCA 10k buy in event. Also, check out www.pokertableratings.com to Part 1 of the Article on my challenge.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

I made it (-$480 - 7500 vpps - 12 hours)

The last day I was basically on fire for the first 8 hours. I couldnt lose, but then I tumbled at the end. The theme of the entire challenge continued I suppose. That is watching my stamina run out each and every day. It is truly amazing the things this challenge has made me understand about poker and professional gambling. I always knew that mental stability was the name of the game, to be successful at poker. But now I KNOW. It is driven so deep into my brain now, to the point where my actions and decisions will refelct that knowledge much more often.

There will be some more extensive blog updates, and an article on PokerTableRatings.com about this challenge in the coming days.

Total VPPs: 1,000,006
Raw Profit: -$15,113
True Profit (raw+rakeback): $74,887
Prop bet winnings: $45,000

Trip packages: I will be choosing Monte Carlo and PokerStars Caribbean Aventure

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Inspiration before I go to bed...

Fast forward to 5:59 on the video and listen to the speech. Replace the word "football" with "poker" and this is what I watched for inspiration before bedtime tonight, right before going into my final day.

One More Day! +$805 (700 above ev) - 8500 VPPs - 10.4 Hours

Ok one more day. All the graphs and such will come when I am finished. Pokertableratings.com is doing a Q and A/article about this challenge, so make sure to check that out. I can't believe its the last day.

Total VPPs: 992,500
Raw Profit: -$14,633
True Profit (raw prof+rakeback): $74,692 (made a mistake on this stat the other day, sorry)

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

99%

Well I am 99% finished with a little time to spare. A couple of my friends are coming to town right now. I am going to meet them to try out some base jumping off the City Center. We've never done it, but it seems like it will be a good time. After that, we're gonna do some alligator wrestling. I'll be back tomorrow to finish up.

99% evidence:


+$267 (200 above ev) - 7500 VPPs - 9.1 Hours

Just two days left. I can feel it now.

Total VPPs: 984,000
Raw Profit: -$15,433
True Profit: $72,322

Sunday, December 27, 2009

-$950 (400 below ev) - 7000 VPPs - 8 Hours

La La La

Total VPPs: 976,801
Raw Profit: -$15,700

Saturday, December 26, 2009

+$1,250 (700 above ev) - 7500 VPPs - 9.2 Hours

All I wanted to do was atleast break even today, just to get my sanity back a little bit. Luckily I succeeded. Only four days left.

I crossed the 2 million hand mark today, below is proof in a screenshot.

Total VPPs: 970,021
Raw Profit: -$14,749
True Profit: $72,551

Friday, December 25, 2009

-$3,883 (1700 below ev) - 7500 VPPs - 8 Hours

It was naive of me to think I would finish this challenge before one last visit to hell. Still on pace to finish one day early. Christmas is so cool!

I am in a bad mood, but I atleast owe you guys a report on the x-mas action. VPPS/hand today were .51 for me. They have not exceeded .42 any day in this entire month. So wow, games were live to say the least. Maybe I lost so bad because I have been playing regs all month, and I forgot how to play fish (j/k). Who knows, let this end.

Total VPPs: 962,614
Raw Profit: -$15,999
True Profit: $70,636

Thursday, December 24, 2009

-$2,002 - 7500 VPPs - 10 Hours

Total VPPs: 955,000
Raw Profit: -$12,116

-$1,149 (400 below ev) - 7500 VPPs - 9.1 Hours

...very bad mood...goodnight

Total VPPs: 947,509
Raw Profit: -$10,116
True Profit: $75,159

graph to date all hands (1,961,827 total hands)

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

-$507 (500 below ev) - 7500 VPPs - 10 Hours

....

Total VPPs: 940,043
Raw Profit: -$8,967
True Profit: $75,633

Monday, December 21, 2009

Update for last 2 days: (+$800 - 10,855 VPPs - 16 Hours)

Getting closer...very tired...

Total VPPs: 932,530
Raw Profit: -$8,467
True Profit: $75,460