Cool Things About 2005
1. Getting married
2. Graduating and getting the hell out of Shitty-Oxford
3. Moving to London
4. A whole year to improve my poker
1. Getting married
I’m getting married this year! I’m going to be a husband! Now that’s pretty freaking cool.
We’ve being getting the ball rolling in terms of planning the wedding over the last couple of weeks and I’ve been really excited about it, but it wasn’t until the early hours of this morning when my fiancée turned to me and pointed out that we were getting married this year, that it really sunk in. I have to say, I’m damn happy.
It’s gonna take one hell of a lot of planning and a great deal of sweat, but I’m looking forward of every minute of it.
2. Graduating and getting the hell out of Shitty-Oxford
For those of you who have had enough of the excess saccharine that this post has so far delivered, let me preface the second cool thing about 2005 by having a good old bitch about our life in Oxford.
Oxford is shitty and boring and crap! I’m fed up of being a student and my better half is damn sick of handing around doing shitty, boring, crap jobs while I hurry up and get my degree!
Three years in Oxford is plenty long enough - it’s not a particularly big city and most of what is has to offer has been thoroughly rinsed by the end of the first term of the first year – Four years is ridiculous.
Still, in a mere seven months I shall be a free agent. No longer shall I be bound by the shackles of the library or held by the lure of the laboratories. I shall have every freedom afforded to the professional gambler with all the perks of the penniless job seeker! [It should also be noted that the World Series starts in 7 months, so it will be a particularly busy time of the year for me since I have every intention of qualifying for The Big One!]
3. Moving to London
Hurray, Hurrah and Yippee! Civilization, Activity and Life! Oh yeah, and crazy accommodation costs and no jobs (yet)!
That’s no entirely true, since we do have the option of renting a house from the In-Laws, but since my Better Half grew up in the same house and since her cousin and his family live next door, it may not be our first choice location.
With any luck at least one of us may have a job before we get there and if poker isn’t bringing in the goods by that stage, then I’ve been known to dabble a little in the job market myself!
Most importantly though, we’re moving to London and it’s a fantastic city. The more time I spend here, the less time I want to spend away. There’s so much going on and North London, in particular, has such a great feel of community and life. I can’t wait!
4. A whole year to improve my poker
Poker, poker, poker - where to start?
I’ve now been playing poker for about nine months. It all started a few weeks before the end of Hilary Term (=a few weeks before Spring Break). I’d been working hard for my degree and things were fairly well on track for me to get a First. I was busy wasting a few minutes on FHM’s 100 Greatest Games, when I spotted a link to their online poker room (a skin of Victor Chandler). I’d always been interested in learning to play but the opportunity had never seemed to present itself. I remember a friend of a friend telling me about his playing online and making huge amounts of money. Now this guy was a complete maths genius and went on from Oxford to do a Masters at LSE; I never even contemplated that I’d be able to do the same thing, but I was certainly intrigued and more than a little envious. So when poker was finally placed in front of me by means of a very easily clickable link, I was hardly going to turn it down especially since it was made very clear that one could play for pretend money.
After a quick tutorial I dived in at the play-money tables and before I knew it I was one of the pros, for sure. Enough of this pretend money crap where no one takes it seriously, I need the real thing! So I made my first real money deposit of ten whole English Pounds! It took me a lot longer to loose it all than you might have expected especially since I didn’t even know the difference between No-Limit and Limit!
In the meantime I’d jumped onto Amazon in the search for some poker wisdom and had had the massive fortune to come across “Internet Texas Holdem” by Matthew Hilger – poker clearly IS all about good luck! This book and the accompanying website and poker forum, www.internettexasholdem.com, have been the mainstay of my poker journey so far and I owe a great deal to Matt Hilger and everyone else who posts on the forum.
After reading the book I made my first serious deposit of $400 on Party Poker and started off playing $0.50/1.00 limit Holdem. I gradually worked my way up - with the help off bonus chasing – to $3/6. It was at this point when I was on the verge of having enough of a bankroll to play $5/10 that I had my first big downswing: "All The Summer's Poker News (Part One)".
While all this poker happened, little else was going on! My finals were getting closer and closer and I was doing no work. Poker had pretty much taken over, I had no motivation for study and I ended up with a 2:2 at the end of the year (Results!). This may not totally screw me over as I have a reasonable chance this year of pulling things up to a 2:1, but it’ll need some serious graft.
Right now I’m pretty happy with the way things stand regarding poker. I have a reasonable bankroll and I have managed to save a decent amount to fund the honeymoon.
One of my biggest problems is impatience. I’m not talking about the patience require to wait for a good hand and to see out the spells of cold cards. I’m talking about the patience needed to learn, improve one's game and build the bankroll and the experience gradually. I’m far too eager to be the best and to beat the bigger games. I too often find myself playing at stakes that are too risky for my bankroll and sometimes my ability too. Going into a fresh new year, this is my biggest poker resolution:
Always to play at a level that matches both my bankroll and my ability.
Without this discipline there is no way I could count on poker as a reliable* source of income and this is something I would like to be able to do. (*Obviously as poker is a game of chance there is no guarantee of reliability in the short or even medium term).
The next most important thing that I need to work on this year is my record keeping and self-analysis. I bought Poker Tracker very early on and it has been a big help to me, but I have definitely not used it as well as I should have. Too often I have just focused on the bottom line and eliminating as much red as possible from the tables of figures without looking hard into where the red numbers might be coming from. I also don’t keep enough session specific data e.g. win rate, standard deviation, hours played and at what levels. These are fairly easy to keep in some kind of spreadsheet and I may by some record keeping software such as Stat King to help me. Equally importantly is reviewing hands. I have had periods where I’ve been pretty good about going over my past hands to try and eliminate mistakes but more often than not, I’d be more likely just to play more poker rather than work on improving my game.
With regard to improving my game, I need to read and reread more books. I haven’t done my reading or revising recently and I think my game has suffered from it – certainly my limit poker. I’m going to order Middle Limit Holdem and Small Stakes Holdem, which I’ve been meaning to read for ages and in the mean time I’ll re-read ITH. After that I’ll go back to Sklansky’s Holdem For Advanced Players, which I wasn’t ready for when I first picked it up.
I think my most important goals for the coming year, as I have said, are better discipline and better record keeping and self-analysis. These are much more important than setting specific targets, but there are some goals which I would very much like to achieve this year:
1. I would like to build my bankroll and ability so that I am totally comfortable (and profitable!) at the $15/30 tables on Party Poker. The one thing that I’m not sure about is weather I should approach this target by playing full tables or 6-max. I think that a large part of the bankroll building will be done at $5/10 6-max, but it will probably be a long time before I’m happy playing $15/30 short-handed.
2. I would like to become a proficient tournament player and I hope very much to notch up my first tournament win before too long. I’ve had a number of final tables but that first place is still eluding me.
3. The final goal for this year is slightly more pie-in-the-sky but nonetheless a big ambition: I would like to qualify for a big tournament. To play in a WPT or WSOP is obviously a dream come true, but I don’t want to let the draw of TV poker take over from the more down-to-earth goal of improving as a poker player.
If I were to achieve the first or first two goals then I would probably be able to use poker as a source of income after I graduate. This is an whole other kettle of fish and not a subject I am going to broach in any depth right now. Suffice it to say that for at least a couple of years this is something I would very much like to be able to do. It would give us the freedom to pursue other interests without necessarily being tied to a 9-5 job and it would also allow me the time to figure out what I might like to do with the rest of my life! While I hope that poker will always be able to figure, I doubt that it will be able to fulfil all by itself.
I have one last thing to say, but first I shall wish you all a very successful and enjoyable new year and may bad beats roll off you like a cat in a bob slay run!
Watch out for the launch of Fish and Chips Poker sometime in 2005!
2. Graduating and getting the hell out of Shitty-Oxford
3. Moving to London
4. A whole year to improve my poker
1. Getting married
I’m getting married this year! I’m going to be a husband! Now that’s pretty freaking cool.
We’ve being getting the ball rolling in terms of planning the wedding over the last couple of weeks and I’ve been really excited about it, but it wasn’t until the early hours of this morning when my fiancée turned to me and pointed out that we were getting married this year, that it really sunk in. I have to say, I’m damn happy.
It’s gonna take one hell of a lot of planning and a great deal of sweat, but I’m looking forward of every minute of it.
2. Graduating and getting the hell out of Shitty-Oxford
For those of you who have had enough of the excess saccharine that this post has so far delivered, let me preface the second cool thing about 2005 by having a good old bitch about our life in Oxford.
Oxford is shitty and boring and crap! I’m fed up of being a student and my better half is damn sick of handing around doing shitty, boring, crap jobs while I hurry up and get my degree!
Three years in Oxford is plenty long enough - it’s not a particularly big city and most of what is has to offer has been thoroughly rinsed by the end of the first term of the first year – Four years is ridiculous.
Still, in a mere seven months I shall be a free agent. No longer shall I be bound by the shackles of the library or held by the lure of the laboratories. I shall have every freedom afforded to the professional gambler with all the perks of the penniless job seeker! [It should also be noted that the World Series starts in 7 months, so it will be a particularly busy time of the year for me since I have every intention of qualifying for The Big One!]
3. Moving to London
Hurray, Hurrah and Yippee! Civilization, Activity and Life! Oh yeah, and crazy accommodation costs and no jobs (yet)!
That’s no entirely true, since we do have the option of renting a house from the In-Laws, but since my Better Half grew up in the same house and since her cousin and his family live next door, it may not be our first choice location.
With any luck at least one of us may have a job before we get there and if poker isn’t bringing in the goods by that stage, then I’ve been known to dabble a little in the job market myself!
Most importantly though, we’re moving to London and it’s a fantastic city. The more time I spend here, the less time I want to spend away. There’s so much going on and North London, in particular, has such a great feel of community and life. I can’t wait!
4. A whole year to improve my poker
Poker, poker, poker - where to start?
I’ve now been playing poker for about nine months. It all started a few weeks before the end of Hilary Term (=a few weeks before Spring Break). I’d been working hard for my degree and things were fairly well on track for me to get a First. I was busy wasting a few minutes on FHM’s 100 Greatest Games, when I spotted a link to their online poker room (a skin of Victor Chandler). I’d always been interested in learning to play but the opportunity had never seemed to present itself. I remember a friend of a friend telling me about his playing online and making huge amounts of money. Now this guy was a complete maths genius and went on from Oxford to do a Masters at LSE; I never even contemplated that I’d be able to do the same thing, but I was certainly intrigued and more than a little envious. So when poker was finally placed in front of me by means of a very easily clickable link, I was hardly going to turn it down especially since it was made very clear that one could play for pretend money.
After a quick tutorial I dived in at the play-money tables and before I knew it I was one of the pros, for sure. Enough of this pretend money crap where no one takes it seriously, I need the real thing! So I made my first real money deposit of ten whole English Pounds! It took me a lot longer to loose it all than you might have expected especially since I didn’t even know the difference between No-Limit and Limit!
In the meantime I’d jumped onto Amazon in the search for some poker wisdom and had had the massive fortune to come across “Internet Texas Holdem” by Matthew Hilger – poker clearly IS all about good luck! This book and the accompanying website and poker forum, www.internettexasholdem.com, have been the mainstay of my poker journey so far and I owe a great deal to Matt Hilger and everyone else who posts on the forum.
After reading the book I made my first serious deposit of $400 on Party Poker and started off playing $0.50/1.00 limit Holdem. I gradually worked my way up - with the help off bonus chasing – to $3/6. It was at this point when I was on the verge of having enough of a bankroll to play $5/10 that I had my first big downswing: "All The Summer's Poker News (Part One)".
While all this poker happened, little else was going on! My finals were getting closer and closer and I was doing no work. Poker had pretty much taken over, I had no motivation for study and I ended up with a 2:2 at the end of the year (Results!). This may not totally screw me over as I have a reasonable chance this year of pulling things up to a 2:1, but it’ll need some serious graft.
Right now I’m pretty happy with the way things stand regarding poker. I have a reasonable bankroll and I have managed to save a decent amount to fund the honeymoon.
One of my biggest problems is impatience. I’m not talking about the patience require to wait for a good hand and to see out the spells of cold cards. I’m talking about the patience needed to learn, improve one's game and build the bankroll and the experience gradually. I’m far too eager to be the best and to beat the bigger games. I too often find myself playing at stakes that are too risky for my bankroll and sometimes my ability too. Going into a fresh new year, this is my biggest poker resolution:
Always to play at a level that matches both my bankroll and my ability.
Without this discipline there is no way I could count on poker as a reliable* source of income and this is something I would like to be able to do. (*Obviously as poker is a game of chance there is no guarantee of reliability in the short or even medium term).
The next most important thing that I need to work on this year is my record keeping and self-analysis. I bought Poker Tracker very early on and it has been a big help to me, but I have definitely not used it as well as I should have. Too often I have just focused on the bottom line and eliminating as much red as possible from the tables of figures without looking hard into where the red numbers might be coming from. I also don’t keep enough session specific data e.g. win rate, standard deviation, hours played and at what levels. These are fairly easy to keep in some kind of spreadsheet and I may by some record keeping software such as Stat King to help me. Equally importantly is reviewing hands. I have had periods where I’ve been pretty good about going over my past hands to try and eliminate mistakes but more often than not, I’d be more likely just to play more poker rather than work on improving my game.
With regard to improving my game, I need to read and reread more books. I haven’t done my reading or revising recently and I think my game has suffered from it – certainly my limit poker. I’m going to order Middle Limit Holdem and Small Stakes Holdem, which I’ve been meaning to read for ages and in the mean time I’ll re-read ITH. After that I’ll go back to Sklansky’s Holdem For Advanced Players, which I wasn’t ready for when I first picked it up.
I think my most important goals for the coming year, as I have said, are better discipline and better record keeping and self-analysis. These are much more important than setting specific targets, but there are some goals which I would very much like to achieve this year:
1. I would like to build my bankroll and ability so that I am totally comfortable (and profitable!) at the $15/30 tables on Party Poker. The one thing that I’m not sure about is weather I should approach this target by playing full tables or 6-max. I think that a large part of the bankroll building will be done at $5/10 6-max, but it will probably be a long time before I’m happy playing $15/30 short-handed.
2. I would like to become a proficient tournament player and I hope very much to notch up my first tournament win before too long. I’ve had a number of final tables but that first place is still eluding me.
3. The final goal for this year is slightly more pie-in-the-sky but nonetheless a big ambition: I would like to qualify for a big tournament. To play in a WPT or WSOP is obviously a dream come true, but I don’t want to let the draw of TV poker take over from the more down-to-earth goal of improving as a poker player.
If I were to achieve the first or first two goals then I would probably be able to use poker as a source of income after I graduate. This is an whole other kettle of fish and not a subject I am going to broach in any depth right now. Suffice it to say that for at least a couple of years this is something I would very much like to be able to do. It would give us the freedom to pursue other interests without necessarily being tied to a 9-5 job and it would also allow me the time to figure out what I might like to do with the rest of my life! While I hope that poker will always be able to figure, I doubt that it will be able to fulfil all by itself.
I have one last thing to say, but first I shall wish you all a very successful and enjoyable new year and may bad beats roll off you like a cat in a bob slay run!
Watch out for the launch of Fish and Chips Poker sometime in 2005!
posted by Pinky @ 4:27 PM
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