nightshopper

Unfortunately I busted the UK Tour Sunday evening in 51st place, 16 spots from the money. The good news is that it was a good experience: I was very focussed, I took notes and I had a good idea of how my opponents were playing. Which gives me mixed feelings: I'm gonna be honest, in general I don't pay enough attention to other players. It's hard to do it when playing four tables, combined with chatting and making music requests on Twitch stream. The 'problem' is that I make money playing the way I do, so there doesn't seem to be a reason to change it 😃 Of course I realize that if I'd focus more, I'd probably have even better results. Also, every time that I focus this way and I make good decisions because of that, it gives me such a great feeling. That's why I came up with this plan: I have one €50 and seven €25 tickets left, so when I play one of those that will be my main table and I will 'extra focus' on that one. I will play two smaller tables on the side, so I will three table instead of four table. It's exactly what I did during the UK Tour. I must admit I didn't play my best poker on the other two tables and did too many yolo moves, so that's why I think it's best to play €2 or €5 games on the side.

Starting BR: €2082,46 ( 3/3 )

Loss:                 €17,68

New BR:       €2064,78 ( 8/3 ) 

Ticket BR:            €234

It's an attitude or mental state that I try to have in daily life too. The more you expect, the more you can get disappointed, frustrated, angry,... Not expecting much isn't the same as not hoping, not being ambitious or not dreaming about stuff you want, like I said it's a way of protecting yourself. It may sound easy, but in poker I still have too many moments where the game gets to me cause of expectations. Since this is a big tourney for me, I've been focussing on this state of mind for days now, whereas on normal poker days I'm not always focussing on my mental state of mind that much 😃

@SkilfulPoker  Thanks man! I'm hyped, I'm excited, I'm ready :happy: At the same time, in my head I'm already busted. It's a mental exercise that I do to protect myself from being too disappointed of course. Which doesn't mean I won't be disappointed if I bust, but if I get my hopes up too high it gets too painful 😃 Of course it will also depend on the way I bust. I hope it won't be in a way that I get mad at myself for making a stupid mistake, that would be worse than a bad beat. Anyway, it's also just another tournament and I will play my game!

I know what you mean. Every time I play poker I'm also in the Twitch chat and sometimes I'm so tilted about a bad beat or cooler, so I complain about it in chat. A bit later I feel stupid cause I know they all think: so what, you had a bad beat, that's poker, get over it! But as you mention, I think it's good to do it sometimes. It's way better to moan than to smash something, for instance :atisfied: Also, you wrote about emotions getting the better of you, which is different to a bad beat story cause it's a way of reflecting on your own game.

It's tough not to be influenced by our emotions, pretty sure we all know the feeling. It's also normal to kick ourselves for that, but now it's time to move on and try again :atisfied:  GL on the leaderboard!

I recognize that leak, not playing your best game in lower buy-in events that seem less important. Sometimes I lose patience in those, but of course that's not good 😃 Anyway, GL in the remaining UOS events!

Thanks @SkilfulPoker! But I overviewed my recent results and suddenly I remember there was one evening where I played some HU's I shouldn't have played, I had forgotten about that. Probably cause it had no impact on my bankroll. That evening I got triggered by a big hand I lost with AA in the Titan. My opponent rivered a straight and busted me, which I thought made me bubble. Apparently two other players busted about the same time, which meant I was in the money anyway. I remember I was relieved, but I started tilting anyway. The reason was that in my opinion my opponent didn't play that hand well and wasn't entitled to bust me and my AA in that hand :dissatisfied: I guess it was 'entitlement tilt'. I felt that I should have won the hand, that I shouldn't have busted and that I should have made a deep run in that tourney.

Apart from that misstep, one thing that might have been different was that one evening I felt really really tired - whereas on other evenings I feel just tired 😉 - so when I busted my first few tourneys I quit early instead of registering any other stuff. If I had kept on playing I would have probably played bad and I might have even tilted cause of that. I surprised myself by quitting, cause most of the time I don't do that. I remember also one evening when I 'rage quit' Twitch and Unibet after bubbling an important tourney. It was already late so I had to quit anyway but it was a bubble that made me really tilt so I'm glad I closed all of my windows instead of 'tilt regging' some SNG's or HU's.

So yeah, I'm not happy about the misstep I described, but I am happy with some other decisions I made.

In two days from now I'm playing the €250 UK Tour and to be honest I feel very excited about it but at the same time I know it's a tourney that can make me tilt big time. Of course I know it's just one tourney with the same chance of going out with a bad beat or a cooler as any other one, but it would hurt so much more than in any other tourney. If I bubble this one, I already know I would feel very bad. If you guys have any suggestions on this, feel free to share it here 😃

I haven't had any discipline issues the last weeks and the BR went up, so that's all good. I also took down some tickets and right now I still have 5 €25 tickets (3 X UOS, 1 generic and 1 Dwarf Star Bounty), a generic €50 ticket and of course my €250 UK Tour ticket.

Yesterday I had my first win since the end of January. It was only the second time I played the €10 Protostar Bounty, so it was great to ship it for €110,36 (including bounties). People who don't like bragging, should stop reading now cause I made an overview of all my wins since the start of this challenge. I collected 16 trophies in almost 8 months.

I also made an overview of my 10 biggest cashes so far. Buy-in 0 means I used a ticket.

Enough bragging for today. I have to admit putting these numbers here gives me a satisfying feeling and helps the mental state of mind, so basically I just did it for myself :laugh:

Starting BR: €1891,67 ( 16/2 )

Profit:              €190,79

New BR:       €2082,46 ( 3/3 ) 

Ticket BR:            €430

Looks like I can play it after all!  GL people, I hope you all bink a ticket :haha:

I won't be able to play that early (it's 18:00 PM for me) but thanks anyway and GL to everyone playing it!

Now that's a nice surprise! Thanks for the wonderful idea and the invitation, @SkilfulPoker! I'd be happy to play this community game, if I'm allowed in it. I'm from Belgium, which means I can play some freerolls but not all of them. I'm not always that active on the community forum, but I'll visit your blog to see when your community game will be played. In the meantime, GL on your tables :happy:

@Livertool Elron also hosts a €5 game every Saturday at 19:30 CET, the Stratosphere.

@Merenitsu 

Tournaments I played going from €100 to €200 were

Nano: Gargle Blaster Nano, Supernova Nano, Sputnik Omaha Nano, MotherShip Launchpad, Galaxy Nano, Comet Nano, Titan Nano, Black Hole Nano

€1 MTT's: Space Madness Bounty, Falling Star Bounty/Leaderboard Low Bounty, MotherShip Poker Main Event

Qualifiers to €2 and €5 tickets

€2 MTT's with a ticket: Singularity/Leaderboard Low Freezeout, Zenith

€5 MTT's with a ticket: Ante Solar

€1 SNG's

Thanks a lot @GR1ZZL3R and @LeVsKaRa: your words mean a lot to me, I'm glad I've been honest about it. And maybe my goal to have 0 'chasing losses days' in 2021 wasn't realistic. To be honest I have the same issue with binge eating: when I try to change that and there is one day I fail, I lose the courage to go on. What I should learn is that if I did chase losses, it's not all lost. It's one day when I lost control, nothing more, nothing less. I can only try to avoid these days as much as I can and in the best case there comes a point where I don't do it anymore.

It's true that when you play MTT's it's impossible to leave the tables and quit until you're feeling calm. That's a disadvantage compared to playing cash games.

The thing I should learn is that when my BR goes down one evening (or several evenings) or that losing an important pot after a bad beat or cooler isn't a disaster. At a moment like this I know that and I feel that. But in the heat of the moment I still know it, but it truely feels like a disaster, like injustice.  So it's also about coping with bad feelings. Feeling bad should be a part of playing poker, a part which we should accept. Trying to fight it doesn't help. By chasing losses I try to take control of these bad feelings, I wanna change them to good feelings. While in fact sometimes we should accept that we feel bad. Feelings are temporarily, they will pass. 

Isn't it funny how when you're calm you realize all this stuff and you even start to spread all this wisdom, while a couple of hours later you start playing poker and after a while your brain is polluted by bad beats and coolers? :dissatisfied:

I'm disappointed in myself, cause the challenge to not chase losses any day in 2021 did not work. I don't feel like going into detail, mainly cause I feel ashamed about it. I know there's no point in being ashamed, but it's the way I feel. All I can do now is try to avoid it in the remaining part of the year, I guess. To be honest at first I was thinking, I'm gonna pretend it didn't happen and not mention it here. But finally I decided to be honest with myself, although I still feel very bad about it :dissatisfied:

My poker results weren't good the last weeks, I had some unlucky bubbles but I think I also made too many errors. The main leak is that I play when I'm actually too tired. The problem is that doing my job and taking care of my family makes me feel tired most evenings. But some evenings the fatigue influences my game too much, so I'd better not play or play some very low buy in games. I've been playing some shorter sessions with more SNG's than MTT's for example. One mistake I make more often when I'm very tired is that I lose my patience, which in fact is a strong part of my game when I feel good.

At one point the BR dropped down to €1741, but luckily the struggle ended last Monday, when I got 3rd in Ian Simpson's homegame. Yesterday I made a small win, but - more important - I binked a €10 and a €25 ticket. It's important cause I had run out of tickets. Since the UOS are around the corner I'm gonna play many satties to €10 and €25 tickets. And... March 7th is the day I will be playing the UOS UK Tour High 2-days 🆒 Like I said before in my blog, it's dangerous to look forward to one tourney. But hey, the biggest buy in I've ever played is €100, so you can't blame me for being excited about playing a €250 game :happy:

Starting BR: €1872,16 ( 29/1 )

Profit:                €19,51

New BR:       €1891,67 ( 16/2 ) 

Ticket BR:            €291

Great challenge Iany, GLGL with that one! It will be fun to follow this challenge here and of course on Twitch. Do you have any idea how many of these tourneys you won last year?

@AdJag612 Belgian players can play the Stratosphere. It runs every Saturday 19:30 CET, except this week it's on Sunday. We can also play some of the freerolls, but not the ones with added money.

Good to see you achieved your goals!.Well done! I've read your blogs from the last few months and it's great to read you got the discipline back after the issue in November. I think it's good you were honest about that. Feeling hyped about reaching the €1000 bankroll, then losing some money and playing a bit higher to get back to €1000 as soon as possible: that sounded so familiar to me. I know exactly how it feels and how it goes. The feeling afterwards is horrible. But... you were honest about it AND you got back to your rules. That's exactly what I'm trying to do, as you may have read in my blog. The thing is, if we lose some money but we keep our focus and discipline we will eventually get there. Well done, keep up the good work :atisfied:

Last week was good. No discipline issues and made a profit. Last Monday I played Ian Simpson's homegame with a €25 ticket and won €85. Also I binked 3 tickets for the PKO Series. I played a €25 re-enter in which I won a few small bounties: €17 profit. On Tuesday I binked the €500 Falling Star Bounty for a €80 profit. That one felt REALLY good since I had 8BB left heads up when my opponent had something like 110BB. Also, it had been a while since I won a tourney. Yesterday I avoided a losing evening by getting 5th in the €300 Asteroid.

Tonight's gonna be a big session for me. I'll play a €50 and a €25 PKO event with my two remaining tickets. Of course those two will be my side events to what really matters: the Stratosphere and the MotherShip Main Event, both hosted by @elron66 on twitch.tv/unibetpoker :laugh:

After tonight I'll only have some €1 UK satty tickets and my big €250 UK Tour ticket left, so the plan for the coming week is to play more qualifiers to €25 and €50 tickets, next to the usual stuff. By the way, I hope Unibet announces the time schedule for the next UOS soon, since I can't wait to play the UOS UK Tour Online!

Starting BR: €1744,86 ( 23/1 )

Profit:                €127,3

New BR:       €1872,16 ( 29/1 ) 

Ticket BR:           €330

Preflop I would raise, for reasons that have already been mentioned. 

On the flop I would call or raise. I think I'd raise since I could do that with a flush draw and some 9's could call me there since the strength of our hand is pretty disguised. Also you make flush draws fold or pay. 

On the turn I would shove (like you did) or fold. I think the player who raises the turn does that with a 2 or a flush draw + pair type of hand. If I'd guess I say they have a 2. So tough decision on the turn, which could have been avoided preflop imo.

I agree on the pleasant voice, so don't hesitate to post some more hands. Or you could consider taking your challenge to Twitch, like Freedom mentioned. You could learn a lot from streaming, cause you'll explain your decisions and you'll get feedback from the viewers :atisfied: 

Seems like it's going well, keep up the good work!

Great that Belgians (like me), but also Swedish, Danish and German players can play the freeroll on Wednesday!

Yesterday we had the first launch of the €5 Stratosphere and I must say I like the structure. Nice to have a €5 buy in game and a €1 Main Event every Saturday 🆒

GL with the challenge! And also with quitting coffee, that may be harder than any poker challenge :atisfied:

Good to hear you use some rules to reach your goals, but I understand that when you get drunk it's impossible to hold on to those rules. In the past I didn't even have to get drunk to screw my bankroll, I was able to do it sober :annoyed: 

I don't know if you play on different poker clients. Is it a possibility to use your Unibet account for your challenge and use another (preferably with not too much money on it) for when you get angry and/or drunk? I mean, obviously the best advice would be not to play drunk but maybe that's too difficult at this point. So it might be better to find a way to protect your Unibet roll, in some way?

@SkilfulPoker Sorry to read you didn't reach your goals, but I'm gonna be honest: no matter how good or bad you are, without proper bankroll management you'll get nowhere. I strongly believe this is the most important law in poker. I don't believe in the challenges you started. What I do like is that you say you prefer playing one table above playing 3 or 4 smaller tables, cause then you can take notes on players and have more focus. It's a good way to play and to learn, if you don't feel comfortable playing several tables at once. But... playing a €25 MTT with a €100 bankroll isn't the way to go. Even Phil Ivey can easily go broke this way :happy: So my advice would be to start again with proper bankroll management. My current rules are: I need 100 buy ins, so with a €100 bankroll I play max. €1 games, and in one session I can play/lose max. 2% of my bankroll. Everyone applies other bankroll management rules, so you should find rules you feel comfortable with. If you wanna put some bigger games into your schedule, I'd recommend playing qualifiers.

GL with your next challenge 😉