June 09: best month so far
Joe, Jul 02 2009
Overview
Ok, June 2009 is over and it was the best month of my poker "career" so far (and quite by far too)!
I spent June partly in Vegas playing WSOP and partly in Barcelona playing WPT Spanish Championship, with only a couple days inbetween spent at home when I needed to play the last couple of matches of my futsal team (futsal = football played on a smaller pitch 5vs5 for those who dont know).
Vegas
Ok, so in Vegas, I played these 7 WSOP events:
3.6. Event 09 - NLHE 6-max $1500
6.6. Event 13 - NLHE $2500
8.6. Event 19 - Six-handed $2500
10.6. Event 22 - Shoot-out $1500
12.6. Event 24 - NLHE $1500 215. $2,839
10.6. Event 28 - NLHE $1500 24. $18,688
16.6. Event 34 - NLHE $1500
Made money in 2 of them, which is good I think, especially when one of them was a pretty deep finish (24th out of 2,640). Invested $11k, won $21.5k, which means ROI of about 96%, quite nice imo.
Futsal
Then I went back home to play the last 2 futsal matches. We won both of them and secured 3rd place finish in our league, which was our historical best finish so far, so I was pretty happy about it, eventhough it didnt mean anything since only top 2 advance to the higher league. Edit: I just got this hot news, that we actually advanced to the higher league due to some system changes or something, yay, great month! 
During those couple days I managed to score another solid finish in tournament poker - I won a package in the WSOP Super-satellite at PS worth $12,000 or (since I wasnt really going back there) simply $12,000 in cash.
Barcelona
Few days later I was on my way to Barcelona, to play the WPT Spanish Championship 2009. It was a €5,300 NLHE freezeout and I expected it to have quite a soft field. I also expected about 260-300 players. I was quite right about the first one, but totally wrong about the second - only 172 players registered for this tournament. Still, a pretty solid prize of €277,000 was waiting for the winner.
Anyways, the tournament went quite normal from the beginning, I wasnt really getting many big hands, but I had quite enough soft spots at my tables to be able to at least slightly increase my starting chipstack, which meant, that after 2 days of playing I was still in, eventhough with quite a shortstack. Didnt mind it at all given I didnt have to win a single big showdown up to that point (lost 2 allins vs shorties though, once hugely ahead, once slightly).
Then in the beginning of day 3 I finally used all the saved up luck from previous days to pull out this major suckout: an agressive Danish player with above avg. stack raised from the CO to 2.5bb, I found QJs in the SB and shipped it allin for about 20bb hoping to take it down uncontested or flip for it if called. But the big blind with about avg. stack announced allin too and I knew I wasnt going to be good. Even worse, the original raiser snapped the allin, oh well. My QJs vs BB's AK, vs. CO's AA! Tough one you say? Well, the flop came AK7, giving my opponents top two and top set and me the dreaded gutshot! I and couple players from other tables who rooted for me started shouting "Ten, ten, ten" in a rhytmic way and the river fullfilled my wish, easy game
Couple hands after that I got KK utg and raised, got a reraise from the button and the big blind cold 4-bet instantly. It was an older french guy that I didnt know but it was quite scary, but obviously I shipped it in hoping to see QQ. Button folded and french guy showed 99, wow. I held and suddenly had a big stack. Couple hands and steals/small pots later I was the overall chipleader with about 23 people left. I wanted to abuse the bubble but didnt quite get much of a chance since it was over sooner than I realised it. At least I was the one who busted it Then my super heater ended and with 12 left I was down to about the average stack. Later though, I managed to win a coinflip vs. a shortstack + some small pots against few weaker players, so in the end when the final table bubble busted, I had the chiplead back.
At the final table though I was super card dead, so I didnt really play any interesting hands at all, simply either a steal worked or did not, other than that I was just waiting around and folding, until we were 5 handed and I was already the shortest stack, so when Randall raised from utg and I found 77 in the SB, I didnt quite hesitate much to ship my 23 big blinds in. Got called quite fast, but was in a good shape flipping vs. his AQ. Unfortunately for me the flop came KJT and turned and river bricked and I was out in the 5th place.
Anyways, I won the prize of €50,400 (only 68% was mine), which is also a new Czech record in biggest cash in live tournaments ranking
Summary
Ok, lets get to the summary:
This month, I made a total profit of $74,857 (of which almost $50k is profit from live tournaments, yay), which is by far my best month ever! I am really happy about it since I wasnt doing very good this year so far and was way below my expectations. After this month I am back in the ok-ish range as far as yearly progress goes. I am obviously pretty happy about this month
Edit: I made some photos while travelling, if anyone wants to see them, they are published here:
WSOP 2009 photos
WPT Spanish Championship photos
PLO variance: When it rains, it pours
Joe, Jun 24 2009
Just had a nice miniheater in PLO which made me think how huge the effect of variance in this game is, short-term. If I had some bad luck instead, it could have had been a -1,000 euro session quite easily.
Selling WPT action + random updates
Joe, Jun 22 2009
Hi all,
WPT Barcelona action
I am back from Vegas and soon on my way to WPT Barcelona. I would like to sell part of my action in the tournament. It is a €5,300 eur freezeout and I am looking to sell 35-40% of my action. 1% is for €60. At the moment there is about 25-30% left for sale. PM me or write into comments if you are interested in buying some piece of me.
Random June updates
- Played 7 WSOP events, cashed twice
- Made 1 deep run in a $1,500 wsop event 34 (i think), ended up 24th out of 2640 or something players after a Californian guy in the big blind called my 15bb push from high-jack and my 88 stood no chance against his monstrous A2o obviously.
- Met surprisingly few LiquidPokerians at the Rio eventhough I was there like every day from June 2 to 18. Where have you been everyone?
- Came back home and won the WSOP ME package the very next day, lol. Probably not coming back though, the flight is way too long.
- So far doing good overall in poker this month, already won more than what I lost last month, so quite happy with that and feeling confident obviously, which is good for the upcoming Barcelona trip. Of course it can still easily turn to a pretty bad month, but I hope it wont happen
Thats it, gl everyone at the WSOP and let me know if someone is coming to Barcelona too.
May + April update, June plans
Joe, May 31 2009
I didnt make an update for quite some time, so here it goes.
April
April wasnt a great month in poker for me. I didnt really played much and when I did, I didnt play great and ran bad. All in all, I lost a bit of money, nothing big, in total -$6,470.
May
In May I returned back to Unibet after a couple months because I wanted to stay in the Unibet CZ/SK team, which required some activity on my part. I also wanted a change, because I wasnt quite winning for some time, so about halfway through the month, I deciced to do a lot of midstakes multitable grinding (8-9 tables), which really isnt my style, but I needed a change. Sadly, the results kept being poor no matter what ever change I did. Partly I ran bad, but partly of course I wasnt playing my best game all the time and there were about 2-3 sessions in which I definately should have quit way sooner and save myself a couple thousand.
Last thing why this month ended up to be the worst month of my poker careeer so far was my shot at NL 50/100 Heads-up against an Italian semiregular, against whom I was clearly +EV, but sadly the one big hand of the match up ended up to be a huge suckout against me, where I lost a 19k euro pot with KK overpair + 2nd nfd against just a str8 draw allin on turn )(http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/690722). NL 50/100 is way above my normal limits, so this was quite a hit for me, but yea, I took the risk voluntarily and fully aware of it, so no problems, wasnt even too angry. What I was angry about was the fact that he didnt want to give me more action soon after that.
Here is the screenshot of the month:
It is in euros, so it is over $20k lost online in May, but at least I ran decently in small live tournaments in a local casino, so I made a bit of money playing live. My final score for May is -$20,345. It is by far my worst monthly score ever.
June plans
For June, I have got some poker travelling planned. First, I am flying to Vegas, coming June 2, but staying only till June 19. We have a house rented with a couple of friends from Czech Republic. My plan is to play about 4-5 smaller WSOP tournaments, prolly the 6-max tourneys, then a 2k freeze or 2 and then maybe 1 plo event, dunno yet. Other than poker, I also want to party a bit and maybe meet up with some of u LiquidPokerians and simply have a good time. I am definately looking forward to Vegas time. Only 2 days left till my arrival
After coming back from Vegas, I intend to go to Barcelona for the WPT Barcelona tournament (5k euro freezeout). I have never played poker in Spain before, so I am quite curious how tough the fields will be there. Tbh I expect quite a lot of weaker players there, but really I dunno. After the tournament is over, I probably want to stay a few days in Spain on the seaside somewhere at Costa Brava, just relaxing etc. I have been there last year and its pretty nice there, so I am looking forward to coming there again.
Thats probably about it for now. Maybe one last thing - I will probably be looking to sell some pieces of me in at least some of the tournaments I have planned, definately in WPT Barcelona (5k euro is quite a lot for me, would like to sell like 40% of my action). So if any of you are interested, leave me a message in comments or pm me.
March: played very little, ran very good :)
Joe, Apr 01 2009
March was a lazy month for me pokerwise. I couldnt force myself to play any decent sessions. My routine of playing 2 sessions a day 2 hours each didnt work this month and I was quite happy when I managed to play 1.5 hour a day. Not really sure why it was so, probably more reasons. One of them probably was lack of decent games at my primary site and limit most of the time recently. Other one might be that I was grinding without a longer break several months in a row now, which prolly has its effect too.
Anyways, lady Luck was on my side this month (after she screwed me over in february) and that made up for the low volume of hands, which means I had a nice winning month:
ended it up at +$33,456 in about 18k hands
Most of it is obviously from online cash games, but I also scored decently in a live tournament: made 5,400 euro for being 29/360 in Unibet Open Budapest.
Following is my HEM stats for march. Its not all hands because I played some on my laptop and at other sites, but it is like 85% hands. Its in euros.
And for you graph lovers I included a graph of my yearly progress. Its not complete, its only hands from microgaming from my desktop, but its like 80% total hands I guess. Again it is in euros.
As you can see I am running somewhat above allin-ev this year so far. I guess I am a bit below in the rest of the hands but not sure (well I am definately somewhat down from the rest of the hands). Also, I am somewhat behind the pace I set myself for this year, but still quite satisfied with the results so far.
February: fail
Joe, Feb 28 2009
This month was a fail as far as poker results go. I actually didnt even make profit, in fact I lost money this month, I ended up down -$3,311. Considering I played 10/20 mostly, its really just a small loss, but I am not quite used to having losing months. Its probably my 3rd losing month ever and I hope the 4th will not come up anytime soon.
What happenned is that basically variance struck down upon me. I ran above expectations in January, but way below expectations in February. As far as allin equity goes, I am running just slightly under it (like 4k or something) when I count January and February together. I dont think I played any worse than before overall, except maybe one session where I probably lost 2 buyins I didnt have to lose. So no worries, I am looking forward to the new month.
What pisses me off lately though is the fact that there is very little action on Microgaming's 10/20 NL tables and even 5/10 NL is not particularly active. I hoped that Ladbrokes joining microgaming will show significant increase of action at my stakes, but it didnt happen. I am not sure if Microgaming remains my main poker site for the future.
Anyway, the next week I am off to Budapest to play the Unibet Open 1,500 eur freezeout. Would be nice to hit some solid score, but the field is actually one of the toughest amongst similar live tournaments, so I will probably need some luck too. Then in late March I am considering going to Austria for the Pokernews Apline Cup tournament series. I think it might be a fun trip (pokering, skiing, drinking, ...) and some friends from Czech Republic are most likely going, so I might join them. Not sure yet though.
Thats it guys, hope you had better February than me.
Jan 09 - enough Sean? :)
Joe, Jan 31 2009
January was a good month for me in poker. Started off running sick hot and winning a lot in the first 10 days or so, then the rest of the month had an ok run. Played a bit of 10/20 NL too recently, hope I will be able to beat these games longterm. So far it seems promising.
My results for January at Unibet, where I played most of my hands. It is in Euros.
That is about $38,147 usd. I played a bit on other sites too + some tourneys and a bit of live poker, actually lost a wee bit in total in those other areas, so total for the month is +$36,478 usd . Pretty good result by my standards, not my monthly record, but one of my best scores for sure.
Hope it is enough this time Sean... 
Future perspective
Just to say a bit to my 2009 goals. I dropped school for (at least) the next 6 months, I am actually going "full pro" for that time period. That means that I will try to give poker a bit more time and will take it more seriously. My primary goal for this year is basically to see how far I can get in poker. That doesnt mean that I want to or even plan becoming a nosebleed player in 2009, but I want to at least taste it. And I hope to be able to tableselect and play any games up to NL 25/50 regularly with positive expectations by the end of this year. If that fails but I will be able to beat NL 5/10 for good winrates, then I will probably focus on improving my multitabling skills and go LA's way (it is the less preffered option).
As for monetary goals, I would like to win around $365k usd this year, which would mean $1k/day on average. It is more of a guideline to me though, not something I will hunt for any cost. Also, the number may change both ways during the year.
Other than that, I would also like to find a good, balanced life-style as a poker player. It is quite an important condition for me when I will be deciding whether or not I want to pursue poker for the next several years as my main focus. Besides other things, it also includes quite a lot of travelling to some poker events and possibly staying not just for the tournaments, but longer. Will see about it though, dunno yet.
Thats it I guess.
Cheers,
Joe
December wrap-up
Joe, Dec 28 2008
December is almost over and it is definately over poker-wise for me, because tommorow I am going to the mountains to snowboard a bit and celebrate the new year.
It was a swingy month for me. I started pretty bad and about halfway through the month I was down about -$15,000. Then I scored 3rd place in a live donkament (1,000 eur side event at EPT Prague) and won about $19,000 + another about $1,000 in live cash games, which put me slightly up for the month total.
Then I came back home and things slowly started to go my way in online cash games too. Before the Christmass holidays I managed to get my online cash games score to about -$5,000 and I didnt play very much.
Then Christmass holidays began and I started to play more and table select a lot across multiple sites, because games were softer and I wanted the most of it. I did quite a good job in table selecting and also played solid, which together with an ok run netted me about +$11,000 in the last 5 days. That put my online cash games score to +$5,826 total for the month. Not great overall, but good considering the downswing in the first part of the month.
Also, I won a PCA/EPT Step 5, which means +$1,400 in value. I would like to try and play PCA Step 6, but it is filling up pretty slowly and since I only have a few hours left, I might miss it.
So overall, I ended the month up with a solid score: +$26,302.
Thats it for now, gotta go to a party. Will try to find some time later to write a small summary of the year and some goals for the next year.
Tournament success
Joe, Dec 14 2008
Yesterday, the 13th of December, I finally had some decent success in a live tournament. I played a side event at EPT Prague, it was a 1,000 euro freezeout, 169 players participated and I took the 3rd place and the prize of 16,400 euro (~$21,320).
I am pretty happy about it of course. It was I think my 7th bigger live tournament so far and I only cashed once before and it was just the minimum prize, so I quite needed some solid result finally.
I think I played quite well during the tourney, but also had a lot of luck. And the field was really really soft, probably softest I ever experienced in a 1k+ buyin tourney. I think I could have ended up winning it because I feel I was the most experienced player in the last 3, but with the structure being quite fast there wasnt much space for any postflop play and 1 preflop allin decided my final fate - my A8 lost to A4 when I was second in chips just barely behind the chipleader.
November recap
Joe, Nov 30 2008
November was a dissapointing month pokerwise. It was very swingy and I had quite a few huge losing days. I somehow forgot to use stop-loss because its been quite a long time since I had been running really bad for longer than few days. Losses could have been smaller had I used stop-loss this month. In the middle of the month is actually started looking better for a few days and I thought it might bee an ok month in the end. Well, that didnt happen and I in the end I am happy to actually end up in positive numbers for the month. Two days ago I already counted with November being a losing month. All in all I made a whopping $392 playing poker!. Given I played about 90-100 hours of poker, my hourly rate is $4/hour. Guess I could have worked in McDonalds instead Oh well, I am not counting rakeback, so I will be getting around another $1,700 for this November poker misery.
I dont have a screenshot from the database this time because I have been playing across multiple sites and also on different computers a bit, but I will post a screenshot from my spreadsheet that shows my day-by-day results.
As for my future plans regarding poker:
In a few days I am leaving for Warsav, where a 1,500 eur freezeout takes place - it is called Unibet Open Warsav. I am sponzored for this event by Unibet. It is about time I hit something finally, so I hope its gonna happen there . After that there is EPT Prague in our capital city. I am not sure yet if I will be playing it, more likely not but we will see. But I am most likely gonna be there anyway and play side games and maybe some side events. If anyone is coming to Prague, just let me know and we can meet up if you like.
Also, I hope to do way better in December. After a basically breakeven November and mediocre October I already need a big month again. I am almost definately not gonna hit my goal for the year unless I hit some major score in a tournament or a sicko heater in cash games, but if I manage to have a good December, then I am still going to be quite satisfied with the yearly result.
Edit: I forgot to mention one thing that made my end of this month better: CSKA LONDON (ugh, I mean CHELSEA) - ARSENAL 1:2. V-v-van Persie for the prezident!!! Arsenal ownage oh yea
(Too bad Glock didnt manage to keep his 5th place in the last round at Interlagos to let Felipe Massa and Ferrari win the title, then it would be a very nice month for me as far as sports go.)
Thats it for now,
have fun folks!
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