Catching Up

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. I guess I haven't had much to talk about. So what have I been up to? Well, dodgeball started a few weeks ago and so far we've played 3 times and are 1-2. Last Monday it felt like we got dominated pretty badly but the final score was 11 games to 6 so it wasn't too bad. I didn't have much fun though because I was out so fast everytime and never saw much action. My throwing sucks, but I think I catch and dodge ok. I just don't generate enough power with my throws and am not tricky enough so they catch them on me a lot. All in all, dodgeball is a pretty fun way to get some excercise.

We've also been trying to get into badminton and have been out twice. We haven't found a club yet, so have just been booking a court at the leisure centre once a week. Again, it's pretty fun excercise and so far we are tied up at 1-1, although, I think she let me win last time. Booking a court is a little too expensive though, so we should find a club. It costs us $10 each for 45 minutes which I think is a little too much.

Poker has not been going well since my last graph. Up, down, up, down. It's been a rollercoaster and it's been hard to log hands because of it. Each day has involved some fairly large swings and that makes it harder, although it shouldn't. Psychologically I know I need to keep playing and not let the swings bother me, and sometimes I am good about it but other times I'm not. In those times I think I am better off simply not playing and go at it fresh the next day. I don't do myself any good playing when I'm not "feeling it".

Here's an example of a day in the life of buck over the past two weeks. I wake up at around 9 and after showering, getting a coffee, and having some toast I sit down at around 10 hoping to get 500 hands in before lunch. Boom! 100 hands into the session (about 30 minutes) I'm down $1000 and not feeling good. I stick it out for another 100 hands and tread water before taking a break. I come back at it in the afternoon and play 500 hands booking a $1250 win. So, I'm +$250 on the day so far after about 700 hands. I decide I don't want to break because now I feel good and want to get back at it so I track down some games and find two tables over at Full Tilt where I think I should have a big edge. I've been data mining at full tilt for a while and have some statistics on my opponents which I can use to judge a game quickly to see if I want to play in it. I don't play at Full Tilt very often because I've never done well there (bad reason) and the games don't look very good very often (good reason). Anyways, on this particular day I see a guy with 55/40 VPIP / PFR stats (VPIP = voluntarily put money into the pot and PFR = pre-flop raise percentage). These stats indicate that my opponent plays 55% of hands dealt to him and raises 40% of hands dealt to him. As a comparison, I play a 29/20 style, which is still on the loose side. Usually I do good against these guys by employing an isolation strategy. I sit on the immediate left of this guy and whenever he enters a pot (usually raising), if my hand is good enough I reraise trying to isolate him (make everyone else at the table fold) and then play him head's up with position on him. It's pretty good poker. Anyways, on this day, it does not go well. I miss most flops (my hand does not make a pair or anything on the flop), and he hits hard. I make a mistake on the turn in one hand, but later reviewed every hand played and feel pretty good with my play in most hands. That doesn't change the fact that in only 150 hands I lose $1300, and give his one opponent over $1000. I really felt horrible. Later that evening I reviewed every hand played and as I said, I feel as if I played most of them well.

So, in one day I was -1000, +250, -1100. There has been a lot of that lately. Yesterday I was -500, +500 and quit then. Even being up, I didn't feel good about playing so took the rest of the night off.

For the month, I'm pretty much even. I don't know exactly, but I think I'm down 500 (I don't feel like looking right now) online, up 675 live, and am living off of rakeback which should be 2500 on the month.

Alright, now I feel like playing so maybe I can come back with some good news later!