akrammon's blog | New Year, Fresh Start!

June Review
pass all exams (FAIL)
have a great time at VOLT festival (ULTIMATE SUCCESS)
play 500 SnGs and therefore achieve GoldStar status on Stars (SUCCESS, 516)
use Wiz at least a little bit (meh)

I did succeed in the goal for the 500 sample, which definitely was the main of my poker-related goals.
Unfortunately enough I ended up only with a very tiny profit, I guess you could call it breakeven. Well, shit happens.
Also unfortunately - but not unexpectedly - I had little time to review my sessions in Wiz, which I really dislike, but I knew exactly that during the exam period I either play way less or I have few time for reviewing. I'm not happy about it, but I've made my decision when I've set my goals for June.
However, I definitely will do much more reviews in July. I probably won't increase my sample goal, but it will mean much more poker as I will do many reviews.
My equity for the "rakeback" FPP usage is around $80 imo, so I kinda like that. Not that much, but it's still something

July Goals

So, let's get to the June goals. As I've said, I want to do more reviews, preferably use Wiz every day. I'm thinking to do these reviews in the morning. I like to get up "early", unfortunately on weekdays there is no real traffic around 8-10am, so it'd be a perfect time.
As I've already said, I'll keep my sample goal at 500. That's just enough to have goldstar and the 2x FPP multiplier for August as well.
I also want to clear the entire $100 reload bonus. It might not seem to be a big deal, but the deposit must be made before the 15th. I'm likely making it in a day or two. From there on, I'll have 20 days to clear it, so basically I have the rest of the month to get 2K VPPs. If I succeed with the 500 SnGs, I will succeed with this as well
Play some MTTs. Yea I really need to give some time to that. But I hate being up until like 5am and then bust out with 20-ish dollars I know that this is the way it is, and I accept it, but it is hard for me to do it, very tiring. So I'm setting up this goal for motivation

Ok, more detailed time schedule:
All in all I will have ~3 weeks, 20 more days till the end of the month to grind crazy. Actually, grind not-so-crazy - but taking poker studying crazily seriously :f_p:.
I have like 20 days left for a minimum of 422 SnGs. If I do 2 sets a day I will be fine-ish, but I will try to do 3 sets a day or even more.
Possibly there will be some longer continous grinds especially when playing MTTs as well. These will likely happen with reduced table number, so sample won't grow that much, but what the heck, it'll be fine.
Hm, okay, generously, I plan to play AT LEAST 2 hours every day, and - maybe even more importantly - to do *AT LEAST* 1 hour of reviewing every day, but preferably more on average. Let's make it 30 hours alltogether for the month. (videos included)
This way I will be playing poker AROUND 3-4 hours a day which, well, sounds tiring. Also, I'm really starting to dislike the word "play" for what I'm gonna do. More likely I'm gonna do poker (no jokes please, I'm dead serious ♠_rolleyes: ♦).

So. If a huge downswing hits me in the middle of all this I have chances to fail, but I like challanges

(actually a set usually doesn't take an hour so it won't be that bad. However, I have tried playing yesterday evening continously (haven't done it since I increased my tables to 9 from 6), and had some bad experiences Based on those experiences, for performance reasons, I'm sticking with sets for most of July)

I'm also thinking to concentrate playing on the friday-sunday period and learning/watching vids etc on the weekdays. Seems more effective to me.

So, here it goes.

July Goals

500 SnGs
Goldstar and cleared reload bonus (both come with the 500 SnGs :))
At least 30 hours os reviews and studying
Be with my girlfriend as much as possible

(last one is nr.1 goal but I listed it on the end since it's the least poker-related )

Feelings

I have some weird feelings now that I look on these goals and my calculations. But, in June, I did it (500 sngs) with all the exams and stuff. Yes, I has almost a full month that time, but I've spent a lot of time learning for university and still could spend time with my gf. So I have confidence in myself.
It was pretty bad that I ended June with only BE, but it's a positive thing that my lowest point was 20BIs, so not the end of the world. Was pretty bad though, but I overcame it relatively fast, which is a good thing. 500 is no big sample, so I will work on getting some more sample +learning&reviews and I will be fine. Many regs are just ridiculous
So, Here I come!... See you at the tables!

Cheers,
akrammon

Yesterday was a very productive day. I didn't play a single SnG but I learned a lot. Reviewed a couple of my sessions that I'd played in the past few days, and watched a vid, alltogether more than 3 hours, almost 4.

I feel improving I also posted a couple of hands in the SnG hand evaluation section, in the silver one. Feel free to check it out and give your opinion

I've watched lessthanthreee's latest video, in which he reviews santostr's session. It was really good, I recommend it to everyone.

Then I played a set of SnGs - 9 ones - and it went really well 2 first, 2 second and one third place, yay I needed that

Before starting these sngs I've deposited $500 to start my reload bonus, so as of this moment, it is pending. I will keep it in the first post I guess.

Hi, nice blog!
I see your loads of hands in eval forum. Definitely gonna follow this blog as I think you gonna get far with SnGs. Gl!

@dydukas: Thanks a lot I'm trying my best, as you can see I'm making a big deal out of learning for this month, and probably increasing number os sngs for next month only I want to get much much better, and I've got a couple of things to learn...

I only wish that I could get my signature right cos I don't seem to be able to get a link of this blog into it... Hm...

Hi!

Dunno how I missed this blog from a follow SNG player. Blog looks very good and well organized. and you got some good goals as well.

I am very interested in your progress and will follow this closely. I might drop by the hand eval forum later and give my opinions on a few hands.

I wish you the best of luck and take care man!

edit : for your signature you need to enable BBCode there's a small box you need to check in your profile!

You click on options --> Activate BBCODE (In profile edit signature)

@steve: Thank you steve It means a lot to me

How you missed it? Well, it started yesterday ♠_biggrin:

By the way, you got any idea what's wrong with my signature? From my point of view, it doesn't look like a working link...

Well I edited my last post with the answer let me know if you need more help

Originally posted by stevegold87
Well I edited my last post with the answer let me know if you need more help

Thanks man, fixed it

Hy!

GL my hungarian friend! ♠_cool:

Hi akrammon,
as a SNG player myself, will probably follow your english blog.

GL mate

subscribed gl

Hi there!

Keep your future monthly posts as organized as the first two was, even looking at them makes me feel good:)
GL

Originally posted by jaszvitez45
Hy!

GL my hungarian friend! ♠_cool:

Spoiler

csomó angol kolléga megnézi ezt a spoilert és nem tudjak mit jelent hahahahaha!

Thanks man Funny spoiler ♠_biggrin:

Originally posted by remete13
Hi akrammon,
as a SNG player myself, will probably follow your english blog.

GL mate

Thanks It's good to see that unknown fellow poker players find this blog

Originally posted by gekitsios
subscribed gl

Thanks gekitsios, it feels great to have you around ♠_cool:

Originally posted by V1kt0r
Hi there!

Keep your future monthly posts as organized as the first two was, even looking at them makes me feel good:)
GL

Hey Viktor!
I had no doubts you'd show up, nice to see you here

About organising blogs in some way, I recommend it to everyone. Not only does it make the readers feel much better, it also organises your thoughts about stuff.

@ everyone:
Woooow, it's good to see so many visiting this humble blog of mine hope to see you guys around in the future

As for poker itself, I played a set between 1am and 2am GMT+1, just finished now. I've got really positive feelings, I recommend this time to anyone who can stomach it. My set fired up in 2 minutes with no problems, though there was one really good reg at my table, and the reg/fish ratio seemed similar to earlier evening or afternoon sessions, there are a few things to note:
Fishes seemed to be much spewier (spelling?). There are the same amount of bad players, but these ones arent the ones that are weaktight and make 13BB atc pushes profitable BvB, but the ones who are insane and are really looking to loose a lot of chips in the early stages. If you can stomach the more badbeats (you get it in more and almost always ahead), then it's really good. If you are the tilty one, then maybe not perfect, cos a few fishes sucking out on you in the early stage might screw up your late game on the other tables. But it's a big positive experience! Fishes are much worse at this time

Many of the regs seemed to be on the weaker/tighter side. Might be just a coincidence though, I dunno. The fishes are no coincidence though, have experienced it when playing after 10pm as well. About the regs, well huge positive feelings. there was one playing 4/1 (!!!) in the early stage, though only on 100 hands, but he still was nitty, even if not that nitty.
Whatever. Sorry for the long rambling.

And no I'm not results-oriented, lost like a hundred bucks went really bad, but my edge was big so I feel good

Cheers guys, will post some of these hands in the eval forum tomorrow, will link the most interesting ones here as well (I don't like directly posting hands directly here cos it makes the blog look a bit hectic but if anyone below silver is interested I will do it so they can have a look).

And thanks again for all the posts

Well, I don't have anything hand THAT interesting in the hand eval forums, probably you should check this one out, it's a K5s facing a BU steal from a reg. dydukas gave me a very thourough analysis on that one, so for the sake of that it definitely worth checking.

As for yesterday, I kept studying a lot, and played only one set, didn't get any good results, only 2 min-cashes. Well, next time will be better
I think I played pretty well but I marked a few hands, I'm gonna check them out right now, then I'll probably try to play somewhere around noon or 13pm. There was good traffic at those times in the past 2 days and more importantly the good regs weren't there, yay ♦ at least not at my tables and that's just enough

Hehe, np, I just ran the numbers. Anyway let's wait what a judge will say too.

Btw, with out antes that's a fold. Don't let those antes fool you, always count true bb if you already don't. For example 6 handed 200/100/25 is the same as 300/150 level!

Originally posted by dydukas
Btw, with out antes that's a fold. Don't let those antes fool you, always count true bb if you already don't. For example 6 handed 200/100/25 is the same as 300/150 level!

Yea I try to adjust a lot when antes come in. I noticed back in the $6,5s that the 100/200/25 was the most profitable level for wide steals many people there play the same game as on the 100/200, maybe they don't even notice the antes. And when it's 5-handed or more, man, you can get rich very quickly ♦

I remember I used to think: wtf, why is there another level of 200/100/20 after 200/100 but just with antes, like it changes anything, just a waste of time. ♦

lol, there's one thing that really can get me on tilt, and that's the internet connection failure during poker... funny thing is that we were 3-handed on one table yet I managed to end-up second ♦ the 3rd guy was a real multitabling fish ♦

So I had a hot shower and ate a sandwich, I'll play one more set for sure, maybe 2 if I feel like doing it. After all it's sunday, should be fishfest.

Then I'll write a longer-ish update on my progress (not going very well but got some interesting/funny hands and stuff).