A poker blog in 2020

[SkilfulPoker]

Hey all, hope New Year started well for you. 

It's a new year and I've decided to start getting back into poker fairly actively, I thought it would be nice to share how that goes here, share what I'm doing to improve my games, some goals and how things go on the way to hitting them.

A big change for me lately is I've cut alcohol out completely, I've had a go at doing this before but found I got bored pretty quickly not drinking. I love the experience of drinking when out in a pub or club but its just too expensive in other areas of my life, the hangovers really damage my productivity, and zest for life not to mention the wasted money... both on alcohol and on stupid ways you find to waste money when drinking.also there's the long term health consequences of binge drinking... Not cool. Lol at live casino, I often bump into people who say hiiii... As if we are long lost friends and I can barely remember them from some drunken night weeks ago. 

I've had some good times drinking (including heading off to strip club randomly, from casino bar when got chatting to a guy who hadn't been to one, at bar and had won some money in the casino  who said he didn't want to go alone, so off we went in taxi and had a great night...)

Also had some other nice random nights... Meeting new people staying out for days,playing pool, and taking some drugs,I've  only taken drugs about 15 times my whole life (apart from alcohol). They have been enjoyable at the time.

But there's a flip side to all this fun.. and that is alcohol just holds your life on pause.. literally, especially if you waste all your money when drinking which I almost always did... As I get older, in late 30's now, I realise I've accomplished hardly nothing the last number of years, despite being in a great position to do just that. It's time to start actually accomplishing some things in life instead of just standing still... So..

... back in mid December I decided it was time to just stop alcohol completely. Since doing that I've missed the short term experience of getting drunk while out (quite a lot in fact.. after all alcohol is a drug, and as any drug user will tell you, drug induced highs are not easy to give up), but have also gained alot...

I've taken on a new work project which has involved learning a new skill (propper backend coding with node.js - a programming language) and that's challenging but is a nice project and been my main source of income this month, I've got to move it forward alot today, as it goes... But can do that and should have it wrapped up shortly.

I'm no longer wasting money on alcohol, degen sports betting or other wasteful things... Which has freed up some money for other things...

I've got a pair of Sony XM3 noise cancelling headphones which are great :) and should be good when I start making some live events later in the year for travelling. (As it goes I'm listening to Keane - Your Eyes Open, in Cafe Nero, as I write this!) I'm looking forward to getting back into music, and enjoying finding new artists and rediscovering ones I haven't heard in a while.

I also got a new Keyboard (Corsair), no longer going to bars/clubs so thought I'd bring the flashing lights to keyboard instead lol. 

And... Last thing I invested in lately was a Kindle Oasis, which arrived today!

Would never have been able to do this when drinking. So I've decided to stick off the alcohol for the rest of the year and see how things go. 

But... I've been pretty much at a loss for what to do in leisure time. Before I used to drink with friends who drank, or go to places and meet people while drinking... 

Yesterday I had a sudden feeling of boredom take me over. It sure is strange when you are used to being a bit wild when drinking to have it out of your life... And apart from that what to do with the free time ?

Then I remembered poker. I've decided poker will get a lot of my attention in 2020. But sober, quality , attention

The only session of 2020 I played went well, I played live at 100nl, and won £260.

This was mostly due to a weird line I took on turn when I check raised all in for about 3x pot vs aggressive player, I was holding KK which was an overpair on turn!.. the line just kind of happened and I'd never have usually played the hand like this, but I thought I was ahead and he might just call on the Jack high , two tone board.. oh yeah I was also 240bb deep and he had me covered... After some time he did call,  river completed flush but I still won and he didn't show.

I Iost a 60bb pot later and was tired.. not feeling good as was a bit Ill ( didn't know till I started playing...) So left! I never usually leave after losing a pot, all down to being sober :)

Lol... The guy I beat said you are the guy that was raising every hand preflop, last time we played... I don't even remember this, so needless to say my game has improved since not drinking

Anyway  that's the brief bio update

On with plan for poker this year:

My main focus is going to be threefold. Threefold! "Focus on one format, noob!" I hear you say...

But bear with me. I'm going to concentrate on cash game play (mostly live) just online for some practice now and again. Sattelites and MTTS. 

For cash games I know how to beat 5nl already and this is all you really need for live play so this shouldn't need much focussed attention at start. 

Later down line with cash I plan to invest more time and effort into study ( for instance with raise your edge live cash game course), but really don't need this just yet I don't think!

Sattelites because I want to get to Unibet Opens. Also I think ICM play and learning will benefit me nicely in MTTs eventually.

And MTTs because:

- I discovered the MTT player of the year promo last night, and what a great promo for aspiring MTT players. Thanks to the way it's been structured I don't think the fact I missed January will hurt me that much.

- who doesnt want to have at least some edge when playing a live MTT, enjoy a bit of travel, meet new people, and hopefully bink something

So that's my plans for 2020 with poker. I'm also really looking forward to becoming a regular poster in the community , and getting know all the community regulars in the forum (again), Unibet Community has a lot of active members and many play poker, so I'm looking forward to sharing progress with everyone and finding about how others are doing with their own poker goals this year.

[him26]

Sounds wery good, i cant wait to see some action in this thread. I can wait on to see how those plans will work for you. Good luck.