Pokerstars Home Games & WBCOOP time again!

Pokerstars Home Games... Excellent idea and addition to Stars software. I think it's a great way to help people encourage their friends get involved in the online game without the worry of playing with loads of strangers/sharks who're going to take all their money (or at least this is probably how many newcomer to the online game think!). I'm certainly going to use this new feature as a way to encourage my home/pub game friends to sign up up and try out the online scene!

I may even start my own blog poker club in the near future... Watch this space :)

In other news... Its that time of year again... The WBCOOP is coming! Later this month bloggers from around the world will lock horns in battle to claim the crown of WBCOOP champ. I plan to show Daleroxxu the way to do it.

Anyone else planning on playing?

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.
Registration code: XXXXXX 616283

New Year... New Game...

As the title suggests, I'm not playing my usual mtt sngs so far this year. I've played a few of them during the first few days of Jan but didn't really make much from them. In fact i think im a little down in those games this year. I did however somehow fall upon a new game... Heads Up.
Its never before appealed to me much as i've never liked the idea of playing to win such small amounts. I'd always imagined the possible roi would be tiny, variance big and that i'd be rubbish at it.
I think this opinion has come from my experience of HU which is usually at the end of a sng with big blinds where its pretty much shove every button, fold every BB until eventually someone gets bored, calls and then sucks out on the other person. Not really that fun... (slight exaggeration i know but you get the idea!)

Having played a few HU turbo sngs over the past few days, I've quickly learned this isn't the case. There's actually scope to get a fairly consistent win rate going and make a fairly healthy and consistent income from them while keeping the flexibility in my schedule that i seem to crave so much - Each game only takes about 20 mins max to play out and are usually much quicker. I don't like multi tabling and you can't really multi table HU so thats a good excuse for getting away from the grinding. I only play one or 2 games at a time at the moment and am really enjoying it. Its very interesting studying your opponents individual style and traits and gets away from the boring ABC sng strategy.

I imagine I'm probably just running well at the moment but from what i read and see, the variance in these should be relatively low so fingers crossed i can keep up a reasonable win rate. I've not actually had a losing day yet. Running a little above EV but not hugely. I started out playing the $6 games for a bit of fun but quite quickly moved up to the $11 games. I've been doing really well in the 4 man HU shoot outs too which has probably helped boost my roi somewhat but its a pleasant start all the same! Hold'em Manager graph with EV line below for just HU & 4 person HU shootout games since the start of the year.

I've signed up to HUsng.com so will watch a few of those videos over the coming month and hopefully improve my game, continue to plug away at them and hopefully continue to see some nice results.
The only downside I've seen so far is that they don't produce much rake and as a result it will be impossible to hit SuperNova playing these all year. If i keep winning at this rate though I'll be able to grind up through the stakes in no time. We'll see how it goes. I want to put in at least 1000 games at about the $11 level before i consider moving up just to prove to myself this isn't just a super hot run.

I'm not ruling out a return to the mtts and mtt sngs sometime soon but my immediate focus is improving my HU game.

On a separate note, i thinking of jumping on the bandwagon of coaching/staking. I've got a few small plans/ideas and am currently coaching a couple of friends to turn them from novices to online superstars. If that goes well, I'll look into taking on some new 'strangers' to coach and mentor and hopefully turn them in to profitable players. I've got a few ideas in my mind of how i can make it affordable and my kind of target market but will play it by ear while i get some feedback of my current 'students' and see how their games progress... If anyone is remotely interested in having a chat about coaching options feel free to get in touch.
If not, i should have something a bit more official in place in the coming months!

In other news... Isildur1 is Viktor Blom?! Who'd have ever thought!

2010 Review & 2011 Plans

2010... It came and went pretty quick! I barely remember it!

Not my best year of poker but i think that's more down to my volume as opposed to results! As I've mentioned throughout this blog, i really struggle to motivate myself to put any real volume in. I simply don't enjoy poker when I'm playing more than 6 tables at a time. I think it gives me a better roi and lowers my variance somewhat but at the end of the day leads to me making less $ than the real grinders. Something i plan to work on in  2011 but I'm certainly not going to tie myself down to any targets just yet.

2010 monthly breakdown

Jan +$604.40

Feb +$2281.91

Mar +$263.33

Apr +$90.11

May +$1441.27

Jun +$2363.21

Jul +$346.75

Aug +$164.28

Sept +$45.64

Oct  -$35.64

Nov +$26.75

Dec +$667.54

Total Profit +$8259.55

A bit embarrassing considering i call myself a pro but i bet my hourly rate is pretty damn good! lol

My year on Pokerstars: Bare in mind both my mtt wins were on Party and Full Tilt so aren't included above; hence the figures not tallying

Jan and Feb i played quite a lot and ran pretty well. Played mainly 45 man and 180 man sngs but also mixed in a few hyper turbo sats on stars which helped top up my T$. I played more than half my years volume at Stars during these first 2 months!

March i spend almost entirely touring around California, Nevada and Arizona. Drove over 2000miles over there and enjoyed every minute of it! Really wanting to go back now! As a result i played hardly any poker but still managed to luckbox my way to some mtt sng wins and show a reasonable profit.

April i spent in holiday mode still. Put very little volume in. Just played a bit of plo8 cash and some super turbos on Party. Ran pretty badly over at party and lost quite a bit of my profit from earlier in the month off stars but still scraped a small profit.

May was much of the same except i managed to bink a win in an $11 mtt on Party which made up most of my months profit.

June we got back to grinding the 180 mans and ran like god. I was winning them for fun. I remember one set i played where i final tabled 3 at the same time and won 2 of them and got 3rd in the other. Pretty good considering a set for me consists of about 12 games max... lol

After my previous 2 good months i went into anti poker mode and just totally lost the will to play much in July, August and most of September. Just playing bits and pieces at random sites.
I eventually decided i needed some $ as my bankroll was quickly evaporating. I decided to grind the Full Tilt Super turbos as they would give me some flexibility as they are so quick to play.
This didn't go to plan.
I was basically a microstakes rakeback grinder over a load of games. It was a real grind and i just felt like i was running well below EV but couldn't face playing anything longer plus the fact i wasn't winning when i felt like i was capable of crushing the games drove me to grind on. In the end, i decided i was wasting my time. Even if i could crush the games, the variance was being too harsh to justify my time when i could win standard turbos so much easily.
With a severely depleted bankroll, December saw me return to my home - mtts. I played quite a bit and put a load of hours in at the microstakes mtts. Eventually managed to take down a $5 turbo which saw me turn a reasonable profit. After I'd taken down the tourney though it cued an end to my grinding and i pretty much took most the rest of 2010 off as i was so busy with family functioned etc around Christmas.

2011... I have some loose plans but nothing set in stone. I'd like to make a bit more $ which i think is simply a case of putting in more volume! I'd also like to play a bit more live and perhaps take some more shots at bigger mtts as i never satellite into anything - well, if i do i usually take the T$ instead! I plan to perhaps keep a bit more structure to my year as 2010 was all over the place but I'm not going to commit myself to a certain game as it will just lead to me getting bored! I would also like to have a shot at Supernova. People have proved its easily achievable yet I'm not convinced ill get anywhere near it again. Will give it a shot though :)

I'm absolutely shattered so will leave the typing there for now. Apologies for the rambling (as usual) but really don't have the energy to reread and edit it now!

All the best for 2011 - See you at the tables!