Merry Xmas bro. Have a awesome holiday in FIJI!
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Enjoy your holiday. Make sure to write daily letters to the Editor of the local rag critiquing government policy. I hear if they letters are good enough you get an extended stay at no cost! 
Hardly Working
Poker
So yeah, I massively underestimated how busy the week before christmas would be. Monday-Friday were all 5pm-midnight write-offs not to mention I spent some time during the days with friends visiting from overseas, christmas shopping and recording to try and get my second video out.
I realised on Tuesday that it was going to be impossible to hit my work target for the week, and for other reasons as well instead focused on completing the 200k milestone as quickly as possible. Because of this I ended up watching a single PLO video study-wise this week, and ended up working for 25.5 hours (red means bad) which was far below my 40 hour target which was just crazy unrealistic to begin with.
...
The mental journal was very helpful this week. Even though I played few and short sessions I found a pretty big leak when I play PLOHU.
Basically it's a version of entitlement/injustice tilt where I'm playing vs. someone who is losing 80bb/100 according to PTR who is apparently far too loose and aggressive 3-betting like 60%. I find myself frustrated because I'm not sure how to properly adjust because I'm not totally familiar with the normal ranges in that game.
Here's a breakdown of what happened:
1. I realise this guy is wayy too laggro, so I tighten up my opening range cutting off the very bottom, start limping some hands, 4-bet lighter but I still feel I'm getting run over.
2. Make some river bluff-catch with underfull, make a read that he pots with the nuts.
3. See him min-raise a couple of times, when I get a hand and see a showdown he's full of it, okay, at the moment he seems unbalanced.
4. End up losing a bunch of small/medium sized pots in a row, get the feeling I'm being run over and that this is "unfair" because of his PTR record.
5. Lose a couple of big pots with some probably standard coolers, but seeing as I was on the edge this set me off. End up calling a river PSB with overpair on a paired straight completing 3 flush board, I wasn't good....
At that point I instantly clicked "sit out next blind". It can be hard sometimes when you're down several stacks to admit you're playing terribly but this was an obv. spot.
I think the root of this blowup was basically lack of experience in the game which meant every time I lost in a situation whereas an experienced player would be able to recognise "I'm simply running into the top of his very wide range" and be more comfortable with his/her decisions, I was both unsure about my play AND was unsure whether he was running good or not.
It's going to be very important to rein this in because I plan on playing a lot more PLOHU in the future and it's the kind of game where it's very easy for me to go off the reservation because I haven't learnt enough of it to the level of subconscious competence so when I lose emotional control a big chunk of my solid play flies away(not so in FLHU).
Music
Second youtube video is... OUT ♦!!!!!!!
PARTYING#!!!!1@@$
GOING TO FIJI FOR NYE. GONNA BE SUPER SICKKKK. It was a very last minute decision, booked a week ago, oh man am I pumped right now.
Next year
Okay so what's in store for next year? Well, after trialling FLHU it's something I definitely want to integrate into my work. I've currently got money on 5 sites, I might look at casting the net a bit further but at the moment I think I have a good ratio of FLHU action to PLO playing/study (as long as I play no LHE 6-max which I shouldn't need to anymore in the new year!).
At the moment I'm sitting in for up to 20/40, if January goes as well as December has (best month lifetime), I'll probably add in 30/60.
Here's the plan for January, keep my FLHU tables open, when I haven't got action there play and study as much PLOHU as I can fit in. I do enjoy 6-max and feel I've come a long way and am definitely winning with rakeback, probably winning anyway, but I've played about 40 hours of PLOHU now at 50 and even though my hourly rate is relatively low (about 25$/hr) it's very fun and mentally challenging. I also feel I can move up quickly, especially if I get a coach.
~* 2012 Target *~
[ ] 100K$
My brother came up with this one. "Just do it" he says, fuck it, okay. (Yeah, I know I know, monetary goals blah blah, whatever!)
And on that note, I wish my readers a Merry Christmas and BALLER new years!!!^^
<3 TerrorBlade <3
Wow, good job with Stars!! I'm jealous. Philip Quasts recording from the anniversary concert is my #1 most listened to song right now 
gets me everytime. You did it justice 
Did you record the backing track yourself? If so, care to share the chords? 
I'm not happy with the chords I've found on other sites 
Thanks!!
Yeah I recorded the backing track myself with my copy of the Les Miserables piano score.
http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/t/the_miserables/stars_crd.htm
I just checked out these chords, they are roughly correct but there are a lot of transitional chords missing here. I am just about to head out the door to badminton but when I get back I'll copy paste the lyrics from somewhere and then type out the LEGIT chords for ya!
FIJI NEW YEARS WAS AWESOME!!
And now I'm totally exhausted. I'm gonna use today to recover so I can jump straight back in tomorrow. I didn't take any pics with MY camera but the friend I was travelling with took a few so I'll get them off her later. I spent the whole time LIVING IT!!
It was a good balance between drinking/dancing & doing touristy stuff like visiting the markets, snorkelling & swimming in that heavenly ocean. I'm so looking forward to planning my next adventure!! I'm thinking I definitely need to be at a black member event this year ♦
Will post up blog post with plans tonight/tomorrow!
~*2012*~ LEZZ GO!!!
Alrighty readers, I am recovered from my insane new years shenanigans and am ready to take 2012 by storm. What's in store for me this year? I shall continue to work on the same three main areas that I focused on when I started this blog.
Music
-Last year I got the youtube channel off the ground, I've released the first two videos a fortnight apart. Fortnightly seems like a good frequency for this kind of thing. For anyone who's interested it's basically gonna be (mostly) musical theatre covers! I plan on getting some of skilled female friends in on this action for some sweet duets as well ;)!
-I will continue to sing in the Auckland Youth Choir this year, I've been with them for four wonderful years now and met so many awesome people in the process. We're constantly hitting new heights skill-wise so it only gets more rewarding.
-Band practice is resuming next week, and country music club will be back on again soon as well. Both are great in their own way. They give me a chance to work on my singing and get performing experience.
Overall I don't have a specific "end game" in mind for music, I just know I love it and if any doors open up because of it I might take that chance.
Fitness
I'm currently in good shape but something I've been YEARNING for and I think about nearly every day is kickboxing!! I took some time off it after I injured myself during the show I was in last year (joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat!) and have kept myself in shape with running/skipping as well as some upper body workouts with dumbbells + pull up bar.
A friend of mine has resolved to running a MARATHON this year, a pretty high bar to set to be sure. At first I was keen to jump onto that bandwagon but then I thought about how much time I've have to dedicate to that which would cut into my other fitness stuff so I decided it's too big a commitment. Still though, I felt I needed to shoot for something epic!!! Instead I have other plans ♦..
This year, I'm going to train towards my "Warrant of Fighting" at my gym. Not necessarily get in the ring but I'm sure I'll realise as I get deeper into training whether it's something I want to do or not. To qualify for this I have to get to a level of skill and fitness where am ready to get into the ring for reals. This is probably going to be the hardest of my goals to achieve and also the most "unknown". All I know for sure is it is a crazy amount of hard work to achieve this, but I think a year should be enough time to get it done. If not I'm gonna have an awesome time anyway and will make some new friends along the way 
My gym is closed for about another week so I'm going to continue running and skipping every day to keep up my fitness until then.
Social
The post-joseph months of Nov/Dec 2011 felt a lot different to before the show. Before, I would spend a lot of my free time chatting with my friends online and playing league of legends. Afterwards I had almost no draw towards any game and socialised instead by hosting and attending dinner party/games nights with my friends in REAL LIFE!! I realise now this is how I want to spend my non poker/music/fitness time, connecting with people.
No doubt some game will come along that will DEVOUR my life but until then I'm happy not gaming at all really.
I have mentioned earlier my want to increase my culinary repertoire and indeed took steps towards doing so! I had a friend of mine from choir teach me how to make a few thai dishes and we had a bunch of them around in the week before new years which was a blast!!
This also ties into poker somewhat but.....
-ATTEND A BLACK MEMBER EVENT FFS!!
...this one is somewhat contingent on how the next few months go financially but at the moment it's looking pretty likely I'll be in *okay* shape for that...all I gotta do really is figure out which one looks the most epic? I (am shit but)LOVE dancing so probably a party one Maybe if I have someone special in my life by then I can take them to a partner event hmmmmm...lol
Poker
Okay so what's up with me lately and what are my plans this year?
The overall plan for 2012 in essence is to "ball out of control". Basically I want to work very hard, make a lot of money and enjoy the benefits such as a black member party ♦
For the immediate future there are two variants I'm going to play, FLHU and PLOHU. No more 6-max LHE for me as I don't need the VPPS and I should be able to retain SN with PLOHU!! I will play and learn PLOHU while I don't have action on my FL tables.
Using an aggressive BRM I plan to move up the stakes quickly, we'll see how that goes but I want to be well and clear of PLO50 and be shotting at PLO200 by some time in February!!!
WEEK OF JANUARY THE 9th, 2012
-Gotta stay in shape for when my training begins! Go for a run/sport every day!
[X] [X] [X] [F] [X] [X] [ ]
-I have a bit of stuff on this week, but should be able to put in 40 hours of combined play and study, with at least 5 hours of study.
[ ]
-Release my third video!!
[ ]
We so excited
TerrorBlade
Originally posted by Yoghi
You should do the London event
fat duck reservation for 4?
Originally posted by chenny8888
Originally posted by Yoghi
You should do the London eventfat duck reservation for 4?
Ofcourse, as long as I know 3 months in advance it should be fine.
i must say, i ve been following the blog briefly for some time and it's really interesting reading w so much going on. Thx for making regular posts and being a great example of an active lifestyle.
gl in 2012! btw: my 1st BM party is going to be the partners event in Salzburg in April, anyone of u guys going there?
@TLN, tyvm ♦ Hopefully see you at a BM party or something this year maybe.
@yoghi
Week of January 9th in Review
I must say it feels like I've had an incredibly slack week, and in few ways I have...
-I have a bit of stuff on this week, but should be able to put in 40 hours of combined play and study, with at least 5 hours of study.
[X/F]
I ended up putting in 39.5 hours of volume with only 2.5 hours of study, so managed to hit my combined target but not study target. I surprised myself here, not until I checked HEM this morning did I think I'd be past 25 hours volume given how "lax" the week felt, I must have been "sitting" for at least 60 hours to get this number..
Now that I'm primarily a FLHU player (about a 60/40 split hour wise FL/PLO last week), it feels like there's a lot of inefficiency in my day. It seems like it takes a good 5-10 minutes to get all my tables up and running on my second monitor, once those are going I open up a couple empty PLO ones, sometimes have to wait awhile for action there, etc.
I'm going to write an AHK script this week that will hopefully shave off a good 15 minutes of table open/organisation time every day.
There is no justification for not hitting the paltry 5 hour study target, given the amount of HU plo videos I've got on my PC. This has to change in coming weeks, I'm currently trying to befriend some HU players and find a coach so that it'll be much easier to hit this quota!
I haven't quite figured out the best way to approach HU yet. First I started by strictly table selecting because the rake is huge and I maintained a decent WR (10bb/100 exactly on EV over 9k hands, tiny sample i know!), but then I thought maybe it's better to just play everyone (losing 30bb/100 over 3.3k hands in EV, up 17bb/100 in winnings lolvariance) for at least 100 hands just to practice adjusting to whatever life throws at me, not being interested in the money I earn from it now but more just getting better?
If anyone has advice on the best approach to improve fast, table select now and use aggressive BRM maintaining a good WR against the megabads to avoid rake or do I play everyone just to get experience then arbitrarily move up and table select at 100 & 200 for profit?
Gotta stay in shape for when my training begins! Go for a run/sport every day!
[X] [X] [X] [F] [X] [X] [F]
I'm quite happy with this, except maybe the fact I didn't go for a run on sunday. I shouldn't be training EVERY day anyway, my body needs a rest. It's good to have something to shoot for though, I think 5 or 6 days a week is optimal.
Went back to kickboxing for the first time since ~september on wednesday, was SIIIIIICK!! I left the gym feeling AMAZING and looking like I just got out of a pool (filled with sweat). My shoulders/upper arms are STILL sore (5 days ago), and I plan on going back twice this week, tomorrow night for technique and wednesday for fitness. At the moment they have very few classes running but on the 23rd they fully reopen.
Also played badminton twice with my brother. It's always a super solid hour of fun and exhaustion. We've never had coaching but we just get better by 1v1'ing each other and we fought the closest game we'd ever had, culminating in the most intense final rally (multiple dives) I've played. He won that game 29-27 (it's first to 21 but you have to win by 2). I came home bruised and battered but feeling on top of the world from the exercise.
I feel I'm in the best shape of my life atm, which isn't saying a great deal as I've been a couch potato for most of it, but I'm in good stead to start conditioning myself for kickboxing.
I'm gonna leave a similar goal in here this week.
-Release my third video!!
[F]
Well this was incredibly fail, I think I have to double down this week to make up for it. Maybe not two singing vids but I was planning on doing a sort of "introduction to my channel" video showing what music books I've got etc. to show everyone what they're in for.
I did very little piano/singing just for fun last week actually, even though my Chess & West Side Story piano books arrived <3 Definitely going for more singing and playing this week as I gotta keep my voice in good shape!
I think the reason for this fail has in part to do with not wanting to close all my HU tables down and reopen them later which takes time, which I'll address this week as described above.
WEEK OF JANUARY 16th GOALS
-40 hours a week combined study and play with 5 hours coming from study, the ideal is that I achieve my musical & fitness stuff while having time for friends AND get this seemingly simply goal in, then I'm doing it right!
[ ]
-Go for a run/sport every day, make it to at least one kickboxing class this week
[X] [X] [X] [X] [XKB] [X] [F]
-Release another singing video this week in addition to an introduction video for the channel!
[ ] [ ]
Other Stuff
One of my friends in choir has done a lot of work with "youthline" which is an organisation that offers free phone counselling so that kids can call up if they need someone to talk to about whatever is troubling them and has successfully managed to convince me to sign up.
If they haven't filled up for the first semester then I might be starting training for that in a few weeks time!! It's not a big time commitment, you are expected to work a couple of 3 hour shifts every month, but I think I'll be able to meet some new friends, work on my people skills (lord knows I need to stay on top of that, hermit4lyfe) and help some out some kids through their RL downswings. I'll keep you posted on that.
Thanks for reading
TerrorBlade
Every Monday you never fail to inform/inspire. Big props to you for joining youthline dude. One of the best organisations we have in our beautiful country IMO.
He won that game 29-27 (it's first to 21 but you have to win by 2)
Isn't that what "deuce" and "advantage" is for? (Never played properly, but it's usually the norm, in table-tennis and tennis anyway)
Good luck with your goals 'bussiest-man-I-know', see on Wednesday for SH coaching.
"You have to win the game by at least two points. If the score reaches 20–20, then 21 points are no longer enough to win the game. You need to win two clear points: two points in a row, one after the other.
For example, 22–20 would be a winning score, as would 25–23. But 21–20 would not be enough, and neither would 24–23.
If you reach 30–29, however, you’ve won the game. 30 points is the upper limit. This rule is intended to prevent games dragging on too long, especially at the top level of play, where excessively long games put athletes at risk of injury."
Badminton is TOO INTENSE FOR ADVANTAGE!!
would've thought you're too old to be a youthline volunteer, just figured they usually got ppl around the 18-20 age bracket. tennis tie breaks are the same. and in the wimbledon grand slam you need to win by 2 games. with no upper cap on how long that is... (cause upper caps are for girly games like badminton)
I think most people volunteering are 18-30 from the people I've met who work there.
And holy shit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_tennis_match_records
183 game match? 11 hours? Jesus christ
Where the hell are the blog posts?
Excellent question and my loyal readers deserve an answer.
The past month or so has been very interesting in that I've had much RL stuff to deal with. Firstly I spent a crazy amount of time trying to find a new car to replace the old laser, hours and hours browsing car listings online, visiting and test driving, forking out $$$ for mechanical inspections only to get bad news... but I finally locked down a beautiful '99 toyota corolla
Now I just have to get rid of my other one. Old girl was my first car, will be sad to see her go :f_frown::f_cry:
That's one less thing to worry about...Also I have to get my wisdom teeth out soon which is gonna be thousands of $$, YAY!! Good thing poker has been going well.
In addition to car stuff, I've had some girl issues that have been severely hindering not just my poker efforts but affecting almost everything in my life...not in that I don't have enough TIME to play but I find my thoughts constantly clouded, motivation severely waning but I hope to get back on track soon.
Poker
I just read through yoghi's entire blog, I feel I'm retracing his steps in some way, I'm finding that although I'm making more $$ than ever it's making me more lazy because I don't have to work as much. I feel that late last year I was making strides in my PLO game and then when I decided to just go flhu/plohu my motivation is far diminished to learn PLOHU because I can't just instantly open up 4 tables and go for 2/3 hours etc.
I definitely need to get a PLOHU coach asap if I want to get anywhere though, I feel as though I have an edge against the 'tards but vs anyone else it's a cooler war and I'm not at the stage where I can see smaller edges.
Even though I haven't been making blog posts I've still been experimenting with stuff. I've discovered a few more things.
-Hourly goals don't make me work harder
-My workday is approximately 2x more productive if I wake up and get out of bed before 7:30am. I will sleep in for at least an hour if I wake up past 8 and just generally feel lazy for the rest of the day.
-Just "playing" PLOHU isn't enough for me to get better and move up, I'm fairly sure that I'm too bad for that.
-Stress affects my mood and sleeping patterns which feeds back on itself, I've had the impending cost of desperately needing a new car/needing to get wisdom teeth out/sorting out taxes for a long time sitting at the back of my mind. I know exactly when & how much I need to pay in taxes so that's fine and I've got the new car.
Just gotta bite the bullet on the dentistry and have some time away from girl troubles and then I can focus on re-establishing a healthy cycle.
Fitness
Kickboxing has been great. I've been insanely sore the past couple of weeks, and have had a lot of fun at the beginner sparring classes!! I really notice the difference of coming back to it with a heightened fitness level. It has become very clear that the muscles in my upper body are the bottleneck at the moment so I'm just making sure I go to enough classes and eat plenty so I can build strength.
Music
In the same way that an hourly goal doesn't motivate me per se, when it comes to music telling myself I need to get a video out the door hasn't helped me either. Every time I sat down to record I wouldn't feel in the zone. With everything that has been happening in my life lately I just haven't been impassioned enough to get it done. It might be a while before I find it again 
I would write more but I'm about to go get lunch with the lovely chenny8888!!
TerrorBlade