Chipstar1

The house my girlfriend and I are buying looks like it’s going to be completed 3 weeks early and I’m going to have to end my challenge to concentrate on sorting everything out and moving in. We expected things to get finalised early in January which gave me time complete my challenge and she took a week off work but the searches were finished within 3-4 weeks instead of the 6-7 we expected, now all there is to do is sign a few things, transfer the deposit and clear the mortgage funds, shouldn’t take too long now. Unfortunately my girlfriends in new york for a week on a trip with work friends so that might hold up things but as things stand it seems like it’ll all be finalised in a couple of weeks which coincides with my team online contract ending, I’m then going to take three weeks off for Christmas and time to get moved in before starting on my own in the new year.

I’m really looking forward to next year, pokerstars have given me the go ahead to change my name which I really wanted done because of the negative impact my contract had on my game I felt I needed a fresh start where no one recognised me, it isn’t a decision pokerstars takes lightly and isn’t the norm but given my circumstances they made an exception. I asked for the name change because even though I might not be a member of team online I felt there was still a chance that people at the tables would recognise me and still mess me around, I just want to blend back into society.

My Internet has been really bad for the past 3-4 weeks and it’s put be behind with the number of hands I wanted to play before the end of the year, as of now I just want to try and get in 10k hands a day for the remainder of my contract and try and get my bankroll above $1000 so I can move up to $10NL-$25NL next year.

I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with my blog next year, I kind of just want to go under the radar without all the self promotion. I’ll be making atleast one more blog post with my final graph since I moved back down to $2nl to regrind, it’ll probably be close to 250k hands.

Hey guys, my pokerstars contract runs out in a month and I won’t be signing another. Upon speaking with pokerstars we agreed that it’ll be beneficial for me to go it alone next year and I’m relieved to be doing so.

I’ve had quite a few conversations with my girlfriend over the past few months about leaving the team and I’m now relieved to be doing so. I enjoyed my time with team online but it became apparent to me that it just wasn’t for me.

Here’s my last email to pokerstars

It’s been a great experience being a member of team online. I realise I’ve struggled with putting in the volume I’d have wanted and it’s mainly due to the lack of motivation due to my results. Being a target at the tables has made it really difficult to progress the way I’d have wanted and if I’m honest if I had the chance to go back two years I’d probably have chosen another path.

It pains me to think how I’ve suffered from peoples attitude towards me at the tables and upon reviewing my results I can point to the exact point where my status had a negative impact on my game, it coincides with pokerstars changing my avatar and showing every table I was sitting at in red in the lobby, this was early April last year and if you check my results on ptr you can see the before and after. Hopefully next year I can start putting in more volume and get to where I want to be in poker to prove to myself that I can achieve the goals I set myself.

Since withdrawing my bankroll down to $200 I’ve been grinding $2nl to rebuild and have felt the pressure lift off, I’ve been happier grinding $2nl over the past few weeks than I’ve been in a long time, I have a challenge to play 600k hands by the end of the year and have another 500k to play. By the time I complete it I hope I’ve built enough bankroll to enable me to move back upto $25nl and have proven to myself I can put in the volume when I don’t feel presured.

I’m quite relieved to be going it alone next year, I’m in the process of buying a house and most of my bankroll has gone on the deposit, I felt it would be worth to sacrifice my bankroll for my future. Buying a home for the first time feels like a fresh start for me and having the freedom to go it alone next year will only add to that.

I know I’ve let pokerstars down in terms of the volume I’ve played at the tables but hope I’ve done a good job with my manner towards fellow players, my video’s and my hosting duties.

It’s been a pleasure working with you xxxxx and I hope things go well for you in the future.

Takecare

Time for another update guys…

Well it’s been 10 days since my last update and this is mainly due to not getting the volume in, I wanted to update at 100k hands but figured I’d do one earlier as my volume has only been 5k hands/day.  I’ve got 49 days to go and need to get in another 520k hands to complete my challenge, I think it’s around 10.5k hands a day from now on, a tough task but my hands getting better every day and last night I managed to get in my first 10k hand day.

I’ve been running pretty badly this month, although my ev looks the be close to the same as my last graph I’ve mainly ran bad in situations where I’ve getten 80% of my oppnents stack in by the turn and them hitting their two outter of draw. I used to be able to beat 2nl for 22bb/100 but I guess the games are tougher these days and with the rake increase I’m probably looking at something along the lines of 14bb.

Here’s my latest graph, hopefully my next update will be at 150k hands.

So far I’ve played just under 30k hands for my 600k challenge at 1c/2c, I hoped to have played 50k by the end of October but I came down with a virus and didn’t feel like playing much, my hand was aching pretty bad too which didn’t help.

My girlfriend and I are in the process of buying a house at the moment and as a result I’ve had to withdraw pretty much all my bankroll to pay for the deposit, it’ll be worth it in the end but right now $2NL is pretty all I can really play anyway.

I’m not sure what my plans are next year, It’s been so hard for me moving up past $25NL being a team pokerstars player that It might be beneficial for me to go it alone next year without having the target on my back, it’s been a struggle trying to work on my game and move up to higher limits when people are constantly 3betting me and never folding to my steals and cbets, I did so much pre team online that I think the my best option is to go it alone next year and see how things go, if things don’t go well then I’ll probably look for a change of career and play poker part time.

Here’s my graph so far anyway, I’ll be looking to play 8-10k hands a day from here on out, hopefully I can make $1000 I November, that’s my goal, although it’ll be a lot tougher now that when I used to play a couple of years ago due to the rake increase, I think it’s around 6-7bb/100 difference, so in theory if my win rate was around 22bb/100 before it’d be around 15-16bb/100 now. It’s around that at the moment but I have ran below ev so far and have been dealt fewer premiums than I should on average, hopefully I can maintain 18-20bb over the course of the challenge.

Some bad news I’m afraid, last Thursday I broke my hand boxing and unfortunately it’s my mouse hand. I tried continuing at $25NL but my hand was too painful and I couldn’t concentrate. I’m determined to get in the 600k hands one way or another so I’ve decided to drop down to $2 for a while and just grind like crazy, my hands killing me but with enough pain killers I’m sure I can get in the hands.

I don’t mind grinding $2NL because I have pretty much no ego, what’s been refreshing is the number of guys telling me how awesome it is to have an opportunity to play against a pokerstars player and I’ve been suprised by the number of people giving me possitive feedback about the micro stakes video’s I made for Pokerstars, personally I haven’t watched them because their my first video’s and I figured they were probably awful lol.

I might just go for the 600k hands at $2NL and forget about the $25nl I played earlier in the month, it’ll make the challenge more easier to follow. As of now I’ve played 8k hands in the past couple of days and have another 70 days to go which would make an average of  around 8600 hands a day. I’ll try and get in 7-8k hands daily for now and increase the volume as my hand improves, wish me luck.

Over the past week I’ve been playing a little here and there without getting in more than 5k hands in a single day, although I figuredI’d get off to a slow start as I’m a little rusty.

My results so far have been too bad, I’ve played 8k hands at fullring and broke even and 12k hands at 6max for +8 buyins, I didn’t want to put a figure on how much I’d like to have made after my challenge is complete but if I’m in the ball park of 3bb/100 I’ll be happy.

I’m going to post my graph around every 50k hands which which will work out around one a week.

I’ve also started a thread on 2+2 to help with motivation, I’ve included my graph from back when I grinded 1c/2c for those who haven’t seen it, I wish my next 580k hands mirrored that one.

20k hands played

580k hands to go in 81 days = 7160 hands per day avg

The challenge is to play 600k hands at $25NL by the end of the year. The reasoning behind the challenge is that by completing it should put me in a position to move up to higher stakes and stay there. Previously I’ve moved up and had to move back down due to running bad or having to cash out for living expenses. Now that I have enough money to last me until the end of the year I don’t need to worry about my bankroll dropping as a consequence and the 600k challenge will help me finally reach SuperNova status. During the year and especially the past few months I’ve put a tonne of work into my game in an attempt to improve and it finally seems to be paying off. A year ago I was playing really tight at 6max with stats around 15/12, now I’m playing closer to 20/17, a major improvement.

I realise I’ve set challenges for myself in the past and come up short a few times but this one I’m certain I’ll achieve, I need to if I want to reach SuperNova and have the bankroll to move up by the end of the year, doing well during the WCOOP really helped my bankroll and confidence and I’m now ready to get stuck in. I’ve just bought a brand new chair as I was getting back pain with my previous one and I’m hoping it’ll help me get in longer sessions.

I’m going to update my blog once or twice a week and post daily update on my twitter account. The plan is to play all hands at 6max as I played a couple of thousand last month it it went well and I’d love for them all to be at 6max. I’ll include those in the challenge so theoretically I only need another 598k.  I’ve got another 89 days until the end of the year which works out at around 6700h/day but obviously I’d like to take a few days off around christmas time so I’m probably looking to average around 7500.

Wish me luck  ( :

Needless to say I had a very good WCOOP, cashing 4/6 tournaments with three of them being the highest buy in events I played. As a result I increased my bankroll by  over $6000 which is huge to me.  In my previous post I went into detail on how my first cash went but I went on a little too long with it so I’ll make my summary shorter this time.

In the second $1050 I played (event 42)  I managed to build a stack early on when I hit a few hands and then lost 1/3 of my stack my semi bluff ran into a flopped set in a 3bet pot. I was then quite short in chips when I shoved for 6300 in the BB vs a co steal and doubled up with KJ vs AQ when I was called. About half an hour later I managed to double up with TT vs AK and then increased my stack by 50% a few hands later with with AQ vs all in preflop. I was up to 25k by this point but it all went down hill from there, I was moved to an aggressive table and had my steals raised, I was soon down to 20k chips and ran totally card dead, I didn’t even have the opportunity to steal with trash, by this time I figured my best bet was to just try and make the money so I played accordingly managed to sneak in the money for a $1765 cash after my pocket 5s lost to KQs all in preflop.

I hadn’t getten many decent hands during the tourney so I was pretty pleased to have cashed another big tournament running card dead.

In the third $1050 (event 48) we were given 7500 chips and after about 50 minutes I’d missed some flops and was down to 6600 chips when I was dealt Aces UTG. I raised 3x and had two callers, the flop came perfect for me, AQ6. I managed to get all the money in by the river and coolered a guy who had pocket 6s, I was now up to 12.8k chips. I built my chips further was a few steals here and there when I was dealt KQ in the SB. Play folded around to me and I raised to 2.5x, the BB called and the flop came Q93 with a flush draw, I bet out half the pot and was called, the turn came another Queen but for some reason I felt bad about my hand and checked, the BB then bet out 1/3 of the pot so I just called, the river brought a T of hearts making the flush so I checked again, the BB bet 600 and I called again, he turned over AQ for the best hand and somehow I avoided going broke. Not much happened for the next 3-4 levels, I won the odd hand with a steal and a cbet until we reached blinds of 300/600, I was dealt pocket Kings and min raised from middle position, the player two to my left shoved all in and just about had me covered, I obviously called for my remaining 10.2k but unfortunately I ran into Aces, at this point I figured my tourney was over until the river came a King, doubling me up to 22.1k, I got really lucky there. During the next couple of rounds I increased my chip stack with a few steals and picked up  some post flop value with Queens. We were about 3 rounds from the money by now and I wasn’t dealt any decent hands or had many chances to steal, I was moved to a table with big stacks where most of them could take a gamble if I shoved as a bluff so I figured it was best to play it careful and try and make another cash. I crept into the money again and for the 3rd time I lost a flip when getting into the money, this time it was my AQ vs TT. I hit nothing and was out in 116th for $2026, I was happy none the less.

My final cash was in the last event I played (event 60). This was a $215, I’d played the $500 1R1A a few days earlier but went out with QQ vs AQ all in preflop so this was my final chance to cash another tournament. I must admit I didn’t play too well during this event, I was a bit under the weather and couldn’t really wait to go back to bed. As a consequence I made some questionable plays early on, one notable one was check raising all in with 98s on a board of Q85 which got called by A8s who also had a flush draw, some how I got really lucky and hit my 2 outer on the turn and doubled upto a 15k stack, after this I figured I better try and play better after been given a life line. During the next couple of levels not much happened and I pretty much broke even when I was dealt K6 in the BB, UTG limped and the SB completed, the flop came 664 and I checked to UTG, he bet out half the pot and I decided to just call seeing as my hand was pretty much the nuts at this point. The turn came an Ace and I checked to him again, this time he checked behind. The river came a J and I bet out half the pot and this time he raised for 3.5x my river bet, thinking it he played it like a lot of people play his hand and maybe I should have found a fold, I’m not sure but as it turns out he had Aces and took down the pot. A few hands later I managed to win a flip with AKs vs 77 which nearly doubled me up to 16k chips. A couple of rounds later I was down to 12k chips when I doubled up with AKs vs AQ, not long after that I won a 21k pot with QQ all in preflop vs AT, I was now up to 39k chips and in pretty decent shape. I was then moved tables which threw me a little and got involved in a pot where I 4bet Q8 button vs BB, he obviously shoved on me and I had to fold. During the next couple of rounds I probably broke even with a couple of steals and a hand I shoved with pocket Kings, I was now closing in on the money and managed to get there still a few chips to spare. I was pretty card dead during the last hour and in the end I shoved over the top of a preflop raise with A9 but lost the all in to JTs, it was my forth lost flip in a row after I’d cashed but I didn’t care, this time I did better than a mincash (just).

Now it’s back to cash games and I think I’m going to give myself a challenge to do for the next 3 months, details to follow.

I’m really happy with the way the wcoop’s gone for me so far, I’ve played four tournaments and cashed three of them, whats more is the tournaments I’ve managed to cash have all been the $1050 buy ins I decided to play, giving me a total cash of just over $5700 with a $530 and a $215 tournament still to play. I had initially decided on playing the earlier $1k tourney (event 9) but was feeling really tired so decided to skip it and play last nights tourney instead (event 48).

Apologies in advance for the long paragraph, English wasn’t one of my better subjects ( :

I started my wcoop campaign with event 3 ($215 NLHE) and to be honest with you it feels so long ago that I can’t remember anything about it, I think I went out when I shoved all in with pocket twos and faced kings from the big blind finishing around 4500/10000.

A few days later I entered the $1050 tournament and this was this biggest tournament I’d ever played and it’s safe to say that as a micro stakes player I’m not buying directly into these high stakes tournaments, there worth 22 buy ins to me so I’d be foolish to do so with the bankroll I have , therefore it’s pretty apparent that even a min cash is a huge score for me.

Event 28 started pretty decently for me, I was dealt AK five or six times during the first few hours and managed to build my 10k chip starting stack to around 11-12k after the first couple of hours, I felt quite comfortable at the table and wasn’t playing scared. By the time the blinds reached 100/200/25 I was down to just under my initial starting stack and after a few hands where I semi bluffed a draw and had my 3bet re raised I was down to 6000 chips. Soon the blinds increased again to 125/250/30 and at this point I knew I needed to go with the next hand I played, I didn’t think I could afford to raise fold and needed to go for broke. Luckily soon after I was dealt JJ in the hijack and after a player raised from early position I shoved over the top of him, to my dismay the cutoff re shoved over me forcing out the initial raiser, from my experiences this is usually a monster hand so I wasn’t too confident. At this point I was just hoping for a 50/50 with AK so I was relieved when the co turned over pocket nines. The board dealt out 4T572 and my hand held a doubling up to 13k. Not much happened  during the next round, I was pretty card dead and most of the raising was coming from early position. Soon afterwards the blinds were up to 200/400/50 and my stack was down to 11k when I was dealt pocket 6s in the SB, the play folded around to the button who decided to limp, getting 7/1 pot odds I decided to make up my small blind. The flop came good for me (692 with 2 clubs), normally I’d have bet out here in a cash game to try and build the pot, but in tournaments I find that when the button limps they usually try and take it away on the flop if checked to and I wanted to gain a few extra chips out of the hand. I checked and as did the big blind, predictably the button bet out 715 and I re raised to 2k, this folded out the big blind. To my surprise the button then shoved for another 6600 and obviously I called. He turned over Q9 of clubs for top pair with a flush draw, at this time I was around 70% favourite to win the pot and as the turn and river ran a 3 and 7 without a club my hand held and I eliminated the player increasing my stack to just over 21k.During the next level I was only involved in one hand, 3bet bluffing a late position steal, this was successful and helped make the round a break even one. Next the blinds increased to 300/600/70 and I was involved in one hand that lost me over 5k chips. I raised up in middle position with a bad queen and was called by the player sat to my left, the flop came Q87 and playing it passively I check called two streets of small bets and folded to a river shove, by this time the board had brought a possible flush but I was either way ahead or way behind and still had 13k chips to look for a better spot to get my money in with, this was by far my worst played hand of the entire series, hopefully I learn from it. The blinds were soon up to 350/700/85 and after successfully stealing the blinds I was dealt AKs with a stack of around 10K. A raise came in from early position and with me sitting a couple of seats to his left I re raised all in, I was called by AJos as the board came AT962 my hand held increasing my stack back up to 21k.  I wasn’t dealt any hands during the next level and didn’t have any opportunities to steal or re steal with most of the raises coming from early position, as a result my stack dwindled to 13k chips by the next round when I was luckily dealt KK in mid position, I hadn’t had much luck with being dealt premiums at this point, apart from AK I’d only had Jacks and Kings once in 400 hands or so. With the blinds at 500/1000/125 UTG opened to 2199 and was called by a player in front of me, with 7k in the pot already I moved all in and was called by UTG with KQos, he had 70k chips and was getting nearly 2/1 so his call was probably correct against my range. It was a great situation for me, I was 90% favourite to more than double up and by this time I was only around 30 from cashing, if I won this hand I’d probably make the money. As the board ran out 979Q8 I won the pot close to 32k chips, I was nearly there. A few hands later I took down the blinds with an early position raise with AJ, building my stack even further to 34k. Nothing much happened for me for a couple of rounds, I was dealt bad hands and didn’t have any opportunities to steal with them, a raise always seemed to come before me when at 600/1200/150 blinds and a stack of 29k I was dealt pocket aces for the first time in the big blind. At this point I’m thinking I could probably fold to the money and as even a min cash was a huge deal to me and would have been my largest ever tourney cash I was seriously debating whether or not to fold. It’s obviously quite easily a hand you’d want to get your chips in all day long but as I’m a micro stakes player living off a smallish bankroll that min cash is a big deal for me. With the forth smallest stack at the table I was hoping for a raise from one of the shorter stacks, atleast then they’d be playing for their tournament life if I shoved over them and maybe I’d have a bit of fold equity, I’d take that equity all day. The play folded to the smallest stack at the table, he had 14.5k chips and I was hoping he’d raise because if I played an allin with him I might still have an outside chance of cashing even if i lost the hand. He shoved as I’d hoped and everyone folded to me, I didn’t really think twice about it and called him. He turned over 67s and as I feared he paired up on the flop of  964 with two diamonds, to my dismay the turn gave him another 6 but gave me some hope as it was another diamond and I had one in my hand, unfortunately the river bricked with a three of spade, I was now crushed and my stack was reduced to just 13k, the unlucky number. At this point there were only 15 people to go before the money but with only 13k I was resigned to bubbling, I gave myself a 1 in 4 change of making the money now. The blinds soon increased to 700/1400/175, at this point I was just in fold mode and with the 4 minutes of time bank I had left I made full use of it, at this point the fewer hands I got to see the better. Luckily I managed to get a walk in one hand which kept me around the 13k chip mark. I was close to the bubble now and soon after the blinds increased again we were hand for hand, fortunately hand for hand didn’t last too long and I’d made the money in the biggest tournament I’d ever played, I couldn’t believe I could cash a tournament which had some of the best mtt players around, it was clearly the toughest tournament I’d played. Soon after I cashed I was dealt pocket 7s on the button with 8500 chips, after a raise came in from mid position I went allin and faced a 50/50 against AQs, with the board running TJAQ8 I was finally out in 133/1146 for my biggest tourney cash and biggest winning day of $1948.20. It was such a great start to my campaign, I’d planned on playing three $1050s but didn’t give myself too much hope of cashing any given the toughness of the field and the infrequency I play tournaments, now the pressure was off.

P.s There’s a slight change in my tournament playing/hosting scheduale, I covered for another member of team online the other day and hosted the HORSE event 39 and I’ll be covering for another in tonights $1k event 48 HLHE.

Team online and (best blogger in the world*) Daleroxxu asked me for a swap so he could play the $2k plo event as the tournaments he’d be hosting would run the same time so I’ll be hosting events 52 and 53 instead. I’m also going to play event 55 instead of event 53 as the structure is a little deeper and suits me more.

* He might be the best blogger but he’s not the best at waking up and hosting the tourney we swapped lol

The WCOOP begins tomorrow and I’m excited to say the least. A few months ago I managed to cash a few of the tournaments I played in the #SCOOP for around $840 and this time around I’ll be playing much higher buy in tournaments this time around and a cash in just one of them will really give my bankroll a boost.

My shot at $100NL didn’t go too well, I lost about 3 buy ins but ran over 2 buy ins below ev and got crushed with aces against a couple of fish who made two pair on the turn after I got in half their money, it seems that’s just how I run at $100NL, I had to move down when I ran 15 buy ins below ev at the 100bb buy in $100NL games last year so it looks like I’ll have ot try something else until I rebuild my roll and have another shot, I might give the cap games another try to gain the vpps I need for supernova.

Anyway, this month my main goal is to do well in the WCOOP events I play and to make over 20k vpps.

Here are the tournaments I’ll be playing and hosting during this years WCOOP….

I’ll be playing events……

WCOOP-03: $215 NL Hold’em

WCOOP-09: $1,050 NL Hold’em

WCOOP-28: $1,050 NL Hold’em

WCOOP-42: $1,050 NL Hold’em

WCOOP-53: $530+R NL Hold’em

WCOOP-60: $215 NL Hold’em

I’ll be hosting events……

WCOOP-44: $320 NL Hold’em (2X Chance)
WCOOP-45: $265 NL Hold’em (Turbo, Knockout)

Pretty excited to have gotten another turbo to host, I hosted one last year and the tourney only lasted 18 minutes, I had to be so fast with typing it was really good fun.