Hey fella, safe trip. 
Do you keep your body armour with you in Canada? Or do they issue you with one at the airport once you land? 
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Tx guys... so far the trip is awesome... in CT now... oh, waiboy, you get issued one when you land... but I had mine custom made years ago so I carry it with me...
It is so awesome being in the sun... In Cape Town at the moment... it's relaxing to have not played poker in over a week now, but, I have been reading and meditating on what I want to do when I come back... and so we shall see... but for now, back to playing with some pics, may post some of the better ones here too...
Cape Town is on my visiting list - hopefully one day for a SA v AB test methinks. Great to hear you're enjoying being back in the homeland.
Of course the other advantage you now have is being that much better informed about the exploits of the number on... er.. number two team in world rugby. BTW how does it feel being beaten by Ireland? I need your perspective because the ABs have never had to deal with that specific result.
Any chance your boys might swap with the Barbarians at the last minute this weekend?
CT is awesome and Newlands is a great stadium if you do get to visit...
On the Ireland game... it sucks to lose but it was always gonna be a really tough game... there is still a lot of speculation about the end of year games/tours etc, and well clearly we did not have the momentum... regardless it still sucks to lose, it's one of their better sides atm, so yeah, we'll leave it at that...
Here's a pic, the view from the bottom of Table Mountain (still trying to get to the top)
You have created a huge trafic jam behind you by stopping to take that picture! 
I hope the weather is good in CT as I will be going there in 2 weeks. Been having terrible weather here in Durbs!
Looks beautiful young Nick 
Plus you'll have to forgive me taking pleasure in the Boks performance - the scars of the Tri Nations take some healing.
Weather in CT has been awesome... back in Joburg today for a couple days... Just started reading "Poker Mindset" and so far through the first couple chapters... but I am getting the feeling that it'll be a book I heavily recommend to all!
I have to say that I am really getting the itch to play again... but still a couple more weeks of holidays... but I think this time is really vital in helping me formulating a plan and a focus for next year...
This is one of my favourite pics from CT, it's from the balcony of our apartment...
I've been eyeing up that Poker Mindset book as a sink for some FTP points.
After watching the Tommy Angelo series "Eighthfold path to poker enlightenment" (as recommended by TerrorBlade) I have a deeper appreciation for the +EV from improving this aspect of my game.
I will be interested to get your thoughts on, and resulting from, your read.
Bryan Habana's pretty quick really.
Back from a trip to Mpumalanga and seeing the animals of Kruger park and other places... was very cool to see 4 of the big 5 in a day... only missed the leopard 
In my spare moments I find my thoughts twitching between poker and fishing, but having almost completed The Poker Mindset I am really evaluating a lot... excellent book and one which will probably be a go-to handbook a lot in the future...
I will probably get into more of my observations once I am back in Canada, but I have to say that I am really spotting some weaknesses in my game and and gonna bring some real focus when I return to the tables...
A couple of weaknesses I have spotted are that I think I may be too risk-averse in some of my decision-making and need to work towards risk-neutrality, I want to desensitise myself to the money more and in gaining a deeper understanding of what tilt is I feel there are still times when I may play less than optimally due to pushing myself too hard...
Anyway, it has been a great time of reflection and to go through this when I cannot play is definitely a great way of doing it... anyway, time to go back to relaxing and playing with my new fishing toys...
Hi Nick, lol @ your last graph made me laugh. (with the sky guy and everything)
I can see throught your thread you have gone into big downswing and big upswing and seeing that helps motivate me for my own SnG goals. You are the living proof of variance lol. I hope you the best in the continuation of your quest and I will keep checking on your blog :).
Good luck and happy holidays!
Merry Christmas everyone!
I hope everyone has an awesome day...
I am back in Canada... 33 Hours of travel to experience a 60 degree fall in temperatures 
-30C here but it is great to be home... and in for a 2 day Christmas festival...
So everyone enjoy your day and we'll get back to poker in a couple days... much to come 
Hey Nick, hope you had a Merry Christmas, and that you and HRH are having a blinder. Beware of frostbite. I'm off for a swim and to take in some suuuuuuunnnnn!!!!!
OK, so here it is... Christmas was great, so much food, family and generally just a wonderful time... I eventually got my luggage back from Air Canada in time to distribute presents and, well, not quite over the jet lag but getting there...
The time though is fast approaching to hit the tables again, but after a break of more than a month and much reflecting I have a few thoughts, reflections and goals to share before I begin.
Having this time off the game has been great in many ways, but mostly because it has allowed me to put a lot of things in perspective. Looking back to a year ago, to about roughly when I started this blog I stated a couple goals that I had to accomplish. Firstly I was going on a trip to South Africa for my best mates wedding, and as it turned out when my granny passed away I landed up being gone for 9 weeks. Poker paid for everything. When I came back in the months that followed I was able to contribute to household expenses and put away the money to pay for another ticket to SA and spending money and also enough to buy HRH the diamond ring she has waited patiently for, but patient enough so that she could get the diamond and the ring that she wanted. Poker paid for all of that too. And upon our return to Canada we have all the bills and rent paid, groceries bought and money in the savings account, and a little extra thanks to the unending hard work of HRH and a contribution from poker. It must be said that there are a great many people here confused as to how we managed to pull all of this off, as really I am an unemployable stay-at-home husband and have been for the last 18 months... but anything is possible with a bit of hard work isn't it?
Through that time I have many ups, downs, be stretches, switched variants, took breaks, yelled, screamed, philosophised, rejoiced etc. and looking back at the last year allowed me to realise the long term nature of the game, because I played OK poker and achieved my goals. I say OK poker, because I know I can play better overall than I did last year, a lot better, and this is what I want to take into the New Year.
Over the next 12 months me and HRH only have 1 major goal we want to achieve, and that is to obtain a down-payment on a property. We would like to attempt to get this in a year, which would be pretty darn impressive if we do, but that's the aim. Aside from that nothing, which is great as it in many ways takes a lot of the pressure off the money side of poker for me. Which brings me to my focus. I want to play better poker, I want to develop my game and I want to build a well-rounded set of skills that will allow me to adapt in any situation I may be in.
I will be playing a lot of MTTs as these are just the ultimate test of all the skills you need to play good all-round poker. But because it is not practical to play MTTs all the time as real life demands our attention some of the time I will be using my shorter sessions to work on different areas of my game.
The first area I will be concentrating on is my NL BSS SH game. I am going to be taking my FT account and building up the roll there. I will be starting at NL25 and my goal is to advance to NL100 and build a roll of about $3K using 20BI BRM.
Once I have done that I am going to take on a HU challenge (quite possibly on my Titan account) to develop my HU game and build that roll up. I will go into more details on that when I get there.
During this time I am going to be playing MTTs up to $22 to start with and develop from there.
I am going to be experimenting with more aggressive BRM in these challenges, but not with MTTs cos that's silly. I am also going to be playing fewer tables in the process in order to concentrate more on reads, adapting ranges and making better decisions.
My ultimate goal is to get established in the mid-stakes, but I want to do so in every aspect of NLHE in order to make myself a much stronger tournament player.
So I expect the first part of this to be fairly slow as I make my way through all the articles and videos, but really there is no rush and no pressure, it's all about quality.
It'll be an interesting year I am sure, and seeing as the first 6 months will be fairly poker heavy, after that I should be getting my work visa and so I'll be able to work, which I am getting quite excited about. I think I am moving away from the idea of playing poker as my only source of income. I like it as a lucrative hobby/part-time sorta thing that can really be enjoyed. And if one day I make just so much money from poker that it makes sense to pursue, then so be it. But until then my focus is on becoming the best all-round player that I can be.
There will be lots more to come in this blog through the course of 2010. But for now, I am getting ready to move back to the tables... and very excited about that!
Nice goals mate, good to see you back.
Are you going to be able to resist playing a few sng's? ♦
Originally posted by lennonac
Nice goals mate, good to see you back.
Are you going to be able to resist playing a few sng's? ♦
Thanks everyone... I think a few SNGs will be inevitable at some point, but I think I'll probably only pick them up again once I have completed a couple of the other challenges... My aim is to do some sorta challenge with them from like the $33 limit and up... but for now, I think I mostly want to balance my poker knowledge as I have a lot of SNG experience and very little CG & HU experience...
Welcome back!
I really like ur idea about quality over quantity, it is harder to obtain quality in poker though. If anyone can achieve that u can Good luck with ur goals!
P.S.: If ur getting excited about working and will get a job, what will u change ur blog title to? 
Originally posted by Atoks
Welcome back!I really like ur idea about quality over quantity, it is harder to obtain quality in poker though. If anyone can achieve that u can
P.S.: If ur getting excited about working and will get a job, what will u change ur blog title to?
haha, yeah I thought about that... we'll have to see I guess... a few months to come up with something... it's an interesting prospect though, cos I am not really sure what I want to do (when I grow up ), that in itself will be an interesting journey as there are a number of factors that'll play into the equation...
Played a few hands yesterday, read several articles and watched a couple videos... I think one of the key factors is going to be patience as it is going to take time to get through the content and begin developing any decent sample sizes...
One of the things I am going to do though is go back to posting the BR progress for a couple reasons. I think it'll be interesting to follow as I have a specific BR goal through my NL SH development, and also during it I want to tackle some psychological aspects and it'll be a part of that. But instead of posting the $ amounts I am going to post it in BIs of my current limit and relative to other limits.
Thinking through my BRM rules I am going to move to a higher BI with 20BI of the new limit, and move down when the roll is 30 BI of the lower limit eg, move to NL50 with $1000 and back to NL25 with $750. Also, while adapting to a new limit and working with new concepts I am only going to be playing with 2 tables. As I grow in confidence I will go up to 4 tables, but probably will not play more than that, so when I move up to NL50, the transition will be switching from 4x NL25 tables to 2x NL50 tables and then growing in confidence.
Anyway, off to the city today for a bit, hopefully will get some game time in later today, and tomorrow I think will be an MTT day I hope...
FT Roll ~ NL25: 33.6 --- NL50: 16.8