The Philosopher's Stone - April 2013 wrap-up

Here's the SharkScope graph representing my current progress in PokerHeaven.

Screenname: Laatsarus2
Games played: 382
Av. ROI: 19%

Goals for November

1. At least 1000 games (mostly 2€ and 3€ games).
2. At least 1 sweat session for every week (that's 4 sessions).
3. Attend for at least 1 ps.com coach public coaching per week.
4. Finish Doyle Brunson's "Super System" 1 and 2.

Tervist!

I had a similar surprise with Full Tilt by myself, luckily I had withdrawn 1/4 of my BR to 888. Happy rebuilding!

Originally posted by taavi1337
luckily I had withdrawn 1/4 of my BR to 888. Happy rebuilding!
I hate people like you! Me and him had to start from scratch.

Today was schoolday, couldnt get grinding before half past seven. Grinded til half past midnight, made a little break to eat supper. To play 1000 games in a month i have to play 33-34 games a day on average. Played 42 today, wanted to play more but traffic dried up. Volume has been always my problem, often has happend that i played 10-15 games and when i was in nice profit, called it a day - i was afraid of losing and so didnt play more. I hope that attidude is gone, today i just played my games and didnt care whether i'm up or down.

Around 10 BI up for today though

I'll watch The Bourne Ultimatum, then to sleep to be up around 9.

Good night!

EDIT: Btw, any suggestions how to improve HU game? I think that's my weakest part.

Some Manor admin business before lunch, started to grind around 4 o'clock and played til midnight (2 eating breakes). Played 70 games - i think that's my personal record for 1 day so far And also managed to make profit couple of BI-s

PokerHeaven has some lag - it has unexpectedly closed all the tables couple of times (saying that there was "an internal error") and log out. It takes some time to log back in and it doesnt happen only to me. Others on the tables have complained the same.

Anyway, today it happened again it took some time to log back in (pokerheaven displayed a message that there are currently unexpectedly many players logging in - you're 1500th on the queue) and it tilted me a bit. Sent a message to the live chat that wtf is that, and they admitted that they had a problem with the software and they're dealing with the situation. I said that what about my tournaments, i lost some money (well at least equitywise) and they said that they will refund my account in 72 hours. I wonder how they're gonna calculate that - all the tournaments were running when i got back in in 5-6 minutes, i didnt lost any money directly, just tournament equity for losing some blinds uncontested. They're depositing some sklansky dollars to me?

It was fun though when i got back in because at least half of the field was still out and i was very aggressive to get a chiplead and force others who were in to fold waiting for those who sit out to blinddeath.

Played 49 games today and made around 20 BI profit. My ROI for over 550 games is 21% which pretty cool. I dont think thats represents my skills so much though as that how fishy the sng microlimits are in PokerHeaven. You just have to be most less fishy player on the table!!

Starting continuous grinding session right now (its 19:50 in Estonia). Plan is to grind over 56 games straight to make it over 70 total for the day. I'll update later.

[EDIT] Update: its 1 o'clock in the night and i just won my last table. Played 72 games today and i'm up around 20 BI-s

So i played about 5 hours straight. It may not sound much but for me it is because i've never really done lenghty sessions. I feel fine, could play even more, but tables are dried up and i have a long day behind admining the Manor.

Anyway, i'm proud for myself for being able to play such a long session with practically no breaks (had to go to the restroom couple of times though).

Good night!

Havent grinded today, dont feel very well, had an headache and slept couple of hours after lunch. Hope i dont get really ill, i've a schoolday tomorrow.

Watching "American: The Bill Hicks Story" right now. To those who havent met comedian Bill Hicks yet:

Not that i'm promoting drugs, but..... i think he makes some good points about...

...some fundamentally flaw thinking in the society

Another thing i wanted to mention today.

My BR is a bit over 300€ now and its about week less than month since i deposited 100€. Minimum wage in Estonia is 241€ neto. I've played only 1, 2 and 3€ sng-s and don-s in PokerHeaven. Including my rakeback that i should be getting at the end of the month, i can state that (whit some reservation, because its not the end of month yet) i've quite possibly earned more money playing around 600 stt-s in MICRO-limits than is the minimum wage in Estonia.

I've thought it before, but seriously, who wants to work in Estonia other than reasons of sense of mission or charity. Which are not bad reasons at all - although i'm quite individualistic and i think any possible enlightment (in society-wise as well) comes from within, i e when people start looking and questioning inside, from within, which is very egoistic activity, there is some obligatory dimension that comes along with that individualistic worldveiw that dictates us giving something back to the society. I think every pokerplayer should realize the fact that poker is a non-productive activity, zero-sum game. So despite being a good poker player, you should still live a good and respectful life that includes some directly productive activities. In that respect i'm proud and thankful that i've opportunity to be a part-time teacher as my little contribution to the society. Although thats very questionable, which teachers actually improve childrens' minds and which ones ruin it (rememeber: "Hey! Teachers! Live them kids alone!")

But all in all i'm quite happy that there's poker and i think there are several reasons why its good for sociaty as well, although being non-productive activity. In addition improving our analytical skills, in poker, money always flows to the players who are smarter. And in nosebleed stakes, where's real money, you have to be really really smart and with great thinking and analytical abilities to get the money flowing towards you. And of course, as a member of sociaty, i prefer that money flows towards smarter and intellectual persons than otherwise. So we can treat a poker as means through which resources move to the smarter people who would (hopefully) do something good with it.

Let me know your reasons if you think i'm just a big demagogue with that.

Good night!

Yeah, its very romantic idea "lets give something back to the society" - but what does it really mean? I mean, there's a lot of instances and people who'd think that they give a great deal "back to the society", but actually are just ruining others lives and preaching them the freedom while telling them what to do...

So maybe the best thing to "give back to the society" is to shut the f*** up and live your life without annoying your environment too much. And instead of doing some dubious mission or crusade to penetrate your stupid mythology to others, just lay back, take it easy and play some poker.

Got back from school around 5 and started grinding around 7. Played 40 games today.

Todays movie: Spy game

This is my current progress at PokerHeaven:

The fields are incredibly soft obv, but I'm still quite happy with that, running good, lets see how long can i sustain a ROI over 20%

Strange number of games i happen to have played at this point, lol, could have some meaning to it if someone wishes, i dont care, could use other numeral system than decimal numeral system so its all relative

Originally posted by Luupainaja

But all in all i'm quite happy that there's poker and i think there are several reasons why its good for sociaty as well, although being non-productive activity. In addition improving our analytical skills, in poker, money always flows to the players who are smarter. And in nosebleed stakes, where's real money, you have to be really really smart and with great thinking and analytical abilities to get the money flowing towards you. And of course, as a member of sociaty, i prefer that money flows towards smarter and intellectual persons than otherwise. So we can treat a poker as means through which resources move to the smarter people who would (hopefully) do something good with it.

Let me know your reasons if you think i'm just a big demagogue with that.

Good night!

Well, would you approve of a tax on people in low skill jobs, so it can be redistributed to people who are professionals? Just because someone is smart, it doesn't mean they deserve the money. Hitler was smart and intellectual and look how much good that brought to the world. So I'm not sure I agree about how beneficical poker is for society.

Originally posted by LuupainajaVolume has been always my problem, often has happend that i played 10-15 games and when i was in nice profit, called it a day.

Pretty much same goes for me also. I have never had (beside few last months) any real goal so when session started nicely I was kind of happy to those winnings and often ended it earlier. With some goals (e.g. to diamond this month + rake race) I have found motivation to play bit more. Though with normal job time tend to be bit limited for poker.

Poker doesn't really help that much society. Only as one way of entertainment and sport that has it's own fans. E.g. different poker tv shows and such. But then again same goes for many other activities that doesn't directly produce material product or important service.

To those who criticize poker from moral point of view I just always say that those playing poker for money have to take responsibility for their action. Also at least in Finland different sort of slot machines in real life or in online casinos are much bigger problem from gambling problems view.

nice job, how many tables do you play?

Originally posted by savage1981

Originally posted by Luupainaja

But all in all i'm quite happy that there's poker and i think there are several reasons why its good for sociaty as well, although being non-productive activity. In addition improving our analytical skills, in poker, money always flows to the players who are smarter. And in nosebleed stakes, where's real money, you have to be really really smart and with great thinking and analytical abilities to get the money flowing towards you. And of course, as a member of sociaty, i prefer that money flows towards smarter and intellectual persons than otherwise. So we can treat a poker as means through which resources move to the smarter people who would (hopefully) do something good with it.

Let me know your reasons if you think i'm just a big demagogue with that.

Good night!

Well, would you approve of a tax on people in low skill jobs, so it can be redistributed to people who are professionals? Just because someone is smart, it doesn't mean they deserve the money. Hitler was smart and intellectual and look how much good that brought to the world. So I'm not sure I agree about how beneficical poker is for society.

I did see the Hitler-point coming You're right, smart and Good doesn't necessarily come together. BUT i'd argue that there's bigger chance that society would benefit when money would flow toward smarter people than it would be otherwise. I mean, Goodnes-equity wise it would be better, Hitler was just a bad beat ♦

But of course, i agree that it is hard to come up with a convincing argument why poker should be beneficial to the society. But in that respect it is very hard to determine anyway whether ones activity is beneficial or not. Whole culture consist bunch of an activities that arent productive directly, in a hard sense - philosophy, poetry, literature, arts etc. And as ghaleon mentioned, there are lot of activities in our society that can be argued as non-beneficial or worse at the end of the day (marketing, trading, stock markets etc, not to mention military industry or even petroleum industry). And in the end, beneficiancy is not maybe important at all, people are just trying to be free and find happyness :f_grin:.

In teaching physics, pupils often complain, why do they need to study this stuff. And they're right in the sense that most of people doesnt NEED to KNOW physics to live their lives. Is it right or beneficiary to teach physics at school? I've come up with 2 main reasons why to teach physics at school: 1. Its important part of western culture and well educated human being knows some concepts related to it - its just part of our culture (that's not necessery for being happier though); 2. Physics is a good method to improve logical and analytical reasoning and thinking, to improve thinking abilities in general (might be necessary to be more free and happier).

But same goes partly for poker. It helps to improve our analytical abilities and ALSO helps to learn how to reflect our emotions and how to healthfully deal with them. Its really interesting how poker forces us to reflect ourselves, to notice different conditions in our inner life. And that might be very important in figuring out how to live free and happier life.

Originally posted by Doubleup12
nice job, how many tables do you play?

6-10, depending on the traffic.

PokerHeaven is not great for mass-tabling actually - there's no TableNinja for PokerHeaven and there's no time-bank, which is very bad

no timebank =o, dunno how id live

Played 51 games day before yesterday, 60 games yesterday (first bigger losing session for a while, i think i had around 6-7 winning sessions in a row) and today only 14 games.

Heading to student-city Tartu today to visit some friends. I consider this as my hometown :f_love:, this is the only city i'd live in Estonia, i really love it.

Todays preflop action is Estonia vs Ireland football match. I'm not a very big football-fan but this is the first time Estonia has made to the finals.

Võitle, Eesti, võitle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Had a busy and fun day in the Minor: my mother arranged an art workshop and my sister made a dance "workshop". Later in the evening i set up a cinema and we watched Lars von Triers "Melancholia" with my introduction titled "Aliens and the end of the world - encountering the unknown" - main question: is it possible to semiotically interact with aliens or the unknown (such as death or the end of the world)

started grinding around 11 pm and played 35 games. Wanted to play more but the field tried up.

Was quite tired but i have a goal to make 1000 games in the end of the month and that motivated me. And ofc, TwiceT-s blog i THE place where to get motivation