Bro it happens to finish 9th in big prise pool tourny but be happy that u can play poker game that u like and where u earn some gold

thx for the sweat dante!

yeah I didn't mean to come off whiny haha

only moment that it's frustrating imo is right after you bust when you just sit there in front of the empty monitor and think "what, am I supposed to just go to sleep now?"

Hey thread,

December has been the slowest pokerwise. Played a tiny ammount of mtt's on stars for something like -400$ and played what I guess should be around 15k hands of 50/100NL on Unibet for +1100€

Just returned from a weekend of binge drinking with a group of friends in the french part of Belgium, which was really fun. Got ridiculous at some times, f.e. a friend of mine locked another friend in the toilet by somehow taking both doorhandles with him inside. In like 15secs time the guy kicks in the fkn door We start ripping on him like "why the f did you think that was the solution?" and he was very drunk (usually rly smart/nice guy) and he just kept claiming that he didn't know what else to do when there is a window in there too

Later we went to wake up the first victim of the night at around 3am and we ended up singing an improvised song with 9-10 guys to wake him up which got really loud and sounded awesome at the time. It was the most epic drunken medley really, but when the guy (he came back drinking for like one more hour after that) got up the next day, he said he doesn't remember anything about a song etc.. It's cool, we showed him a video of it

Will be putting in some volume at least this week and try to make some cool end of the year/wrap-up posts before making a new thread for 2016. Gonna try to do better wrt updating and writing next year

Also very excited for the 5millball on Sunday

One_Time

Happy Holidays dude I think I finally know who you are irl we have some mutual friends. Keep crushing!

Happy holidays to you as well yeah you added me on fb I think, thanks for the wellwishes!

One-tabled the milly on terrible connection and busted 40mins in which wasn't fun but meh I think I played well but lost the bulk of my chips on a hand that's not exactly standard. I'll type it out since I played on my cousins laptop:

I have 76ss in MP, 40/80 blinds, most people around 10k effective, I have 10600ish. EP open, MP flats, I decide to flat, everyone incl. bb folds

MP is gonna be villain in this hand, he's threetabling like an 11$ mtt, 4$ mtt and this

Flop 983

Opener checks, MP bets 80% pot, I flat, opener folds

My thinking was I shouldn't fold this now bc I can make some deceptive nutted hands and MP's betsizing sorta screams protection, which made me think I'd be able to bluff my hand on a decent ammount of runouts with clubs being the main bluffcards if he checks them.

Turn 8

MP bets a little smaller, ~65% pot

This card seems to smack my range as opposed to his. I don't expect him to bet any 8x in the way he did otf, while my range still has plenty of them. His sizing seems a little weak-ish tho he can have turned boats. 99/88/33 is a very small part of his range. My opponent is three-tabling this and two micro tourneys so presumably he will only play for stacks with the tightest of ranges (seemed pretty standard tag-ish up untill this point). From a balance perspective I think I want to raise some of my weaker draws here, call a few combo's of JThh/JTcc/A9cc and fold the rest of draws, along with raising my 8x and some boats for value. Vs this particular villain I don't care much about balance. Can also just not have a raising range here vs good regs but I think it might be better to balance one in there

I raise around 3x his bet, He calls

Bit worried since his range becomes much stronger once he calls my turnraise. Still I think he has plenty of hands that will find a fold on rivers. A9cc, JJ, TT, QQ prob 3bets but maybe the one combo, maybe peels some combo draws tho I think it would be quite bad, other A9s although he might fold turn with those as well, struggling a bit to come up with a whole lot of hands here but boats/quads are still only 7 combo's and his huge flopsizing could mean I can discount flopped top set a tiny bit but not everyone cares more about value than protection. Gonna re-evaluate the river here but probably bluff a good ammount of them.

River K

He checks, I bet 80% pot leaving me 4k-ish, he shoves

Oops Was very happy to see this particular river come off as I expect him to always 3bet KK pre and it's a "scare card" for his TT-QQ (although it shouldn't change anything and completely bricks my range). Don't think villain will perceive my line to be drawheavy so I'm not too worried about the whole bunch of missed draws. He can also still have some of them. Well, he snapshoved and I sighed. Someone else at the table asked him what he had and he claimed 99. Nice hand sir!

Would love to hear some thoughts here since it felt good in game but I'm wondering if I'm trying to overjustify some stuff. Decent part of it was that it's early in the 5-mill ball and this playertype will probably overfold rivers.


Busted a bit later where I defend bb with 89dd, flop J76dd. Threehanded pot, I check, opener checks, MP bets, I x/r and shove 1.2x pot on 4x turn. He snaps 66 and holds

Yearly wrap-up posts coming. It's just that I feel like making them nice and big but am too fkn lazy to type it all out

Have some great holidays all of you!

bummer, hope you do another PG&C thread in 2016, it was fun to follow you're progress this year!

I will definitely make one! I had fun in updating this year but would like to get better and more consistent at writing. Also think it helped me a lot in putting in volume (still bad at that ) and playing well, so big thanks to you and everyone who followed me all year! Support itt truly helped me keep my sanity at some points in the year and I very, very much appreciate that

2015 WRAP-UP

General thoughts/ramblings

So, my first year as a tournament pro is finished. What a ride it has been...

I still don't know if I can call myself a professional yet. If I'm being honest, probably not. I do a lot of things suboptimally to say the least: smoking tons of weed, little sleep, playing without focus, playing on just a laptop, playing hudless at times, sitting out tables to do something, cursing after beats, throwing a mouse, unneccesary chatting and the list goes on...

These are all things I have to consider very important to improve on if I want to go further pursuing my path as an mtt pro. Now that I have more experience and (kind of) know what it means to grind fulltime, there are no excuses and I need to hold myself accountable for all this stuff way more than I did in the past year.

That said, I learned so many things throughout the year it's ridiculous. I look at how I was playing in January and laugh at myself, which is exactly how I wanted it to be Feel great about the progression I've made these past 12 months and I'm excited to see where I can take it. It's very clear to me that I'm still a mediocre poker player at the moment and there are just tons of different ways for me to improve if I can stop being so damn lazy and get to work!

The thought of doing that motivates me but this is what I do especially at the end of a year; I get myself all worked up about stuff and gradually go back to being my lazy, pot-smoking self. There is no indication of anything being different this year and just me writing this down won't help either, so I myself am curious as to how it will work out.

I'm slightly nervous about all this going into 2016, but it's nothing compared to how I felt in January this year. I was so incredibly scared of failing, busting my roll, not coping well enough with variance,... Sometimes it's not even funny how insecure I can get. But after my first 2 months going steadily well, I got a huge gift from the RNG in March by binking the bigger $11 for 19k. This was so fortunate, it's not even funny. The experience of getting HU vs solidthought (I knew who he was at the time, but he didn't know me) was huge for me. Playing a good reg for a ton of money HU, no matter the outcome, would set me up for handling high variance situations for the whole year. Being lucky enough to win it, it's far and away my favourite poker moment to date.

After the 19k score I felt somewhat empty and depressed. How fkn weird is that? I felt like I didn't deserve such a score yet, that I was still just clicking buttons and the score was a bit too unreal. The fact that my biggest score to date and a 15k field win didn't make me superhappy made me even more depressed because "if this doesn't do it for me, what will?"

Come the downswing...

I expected things to turn around after getting such a big break early in the year. What ended up happening, I wasn't ready for. I am however glad it happened.

I could never understand those graphs of winning players who bink big and then immediately go on their biggest downswing. Now I see how that works and it's important to use that experience to avoid such big swings in the future. For me, the downswing worked in different stages:

1. Aha, yeah, this will obv happen
2. Hehe, yup, that's variance for ya
3. Hmmm
4. I'm just gonna pump out volume and play well (read: playing more tables than before)
5. Oh come on
6. I don't deserve thissss
7. *** this 11$ FO, I have to win the low SCOOP!
8. I'd be really fkn happy to win an 11$ FO
9. Total numbness
10. Utter depression/break from poker

Going through these stages has done a lot for my mental game I think. I've learned a ton of stuff that might help me reduce variance in the worst of runs. It's easy to lose sight on what you're doing and end up chasing big scores. It's easy to take marginal lines in your regular games and focus on bigger stuff, putting yourself on tilt when you bust one of your bigger buyins. You're starting to chase scores rather than grind it out. You start blaming variance for everything. You start to not care anymore etc...

It's dangerous to get caught up in a spiral of bad behaviour after experiencing runbad. Reflecting on it afterwards will make it clear that a lot more than just runbad was needed to lose all dat money. I think my downswing might have learned me more than anything else so far in poker.

Fast forward to October, where I climbed out of the hole. I experienced this similar as my fortune in March, except after the downswing it felt much more deserving. I was able to enjoy my winnings a lot more because it felt like I had it coming to me after a very rough stretch. November went pretty smoothly as well and I took it real slow in December, probably partly because I felt like wrapping up my year on a positive note.

I think I'm pretty blessed with how the year has gone in general. The huge upswing-huge downswing-huge upswing line might have been exactly what I needed to realize what it's like to be subjected to tournament variance and I wouldn't want it any other way if I could do it over.


2015 GOALS - Did I reach them?

Goals

I'm gonna set these lofty (for me). This is what I'll aim for:

[ ] 8k+ games

Nope, nope, nope. Knew this was too much but didn't think i'd miss it by that much (see graphs). Really have to improve on this next year. Even if it's not 8k games, I should be able to cut on being lazy and grind out more games

[ ] Supernova (gonna need easily 10k+ games for this unless I start playing much higher, this is more of a secondary goal which I'll revise a few months into the year)

No. Not much to say on it, don't really care. Shame about the VIP changes

[ ?] 30k$ profit (setting a profit goal in mtt's is meh, but I wont 30k)

With rakeback, cashgames and live poker I think my yearly profit is around 30-31k$ which is great! Don't quite remember if I meant to earn 30k$ only counting tournaments, but feels like I succeeded in this one.

[X ] Top 10 P5's in Belgium (currently 41st)

7th. Not important, kinda cool

[X] Bink my biggest score (currently 4.2k$, 5figs one time? )

Oh, One_Time allright. Had 3 good shots at 5figs and made one count

[ ] Regularly study, review hands, read books, do work off the tables

Way too lazy; this has to improve next year

[ ] Work out/Run/Practice a sport at least three times a week

See above, nope and should do a lot better in doing this. I'm living so unhealthy it's not even funny

[ ] Smoke way less weed, especially during sessions

Superfail

[X ] Keep up with this thread

Can cross this off

[? ] Healthy life balance and have lots of fun

Could've been better


So, reviewing this it looks like I made my profit goal but haven't done much in the way of work and focus to achieve this. If I want to set bigger goals for next year, I will have to do more to pursue them and not just fluke a big score early. Especially my weed/health/study goals should be getting my attention.


You haven't read any of this? It's okay. Giraffes!

JANUARY




FEBRUARY




MARCH




APRIL




MAY




JUNE




JULY




AUGUST




SEPTEMBER




OCTOBER




NOVEMBER




DECEMBER





OVERALL YEAR



+1150€ Unibet cashgames, +300$ Stars cashgames, + (?) rakeback

Might not actually get to 30k$ online, I don't know Guess it's not important.


Final word

Well, I'm pretty happy looking back on my year. My results somewhat match my initial expectations and that's all I wanted. I'd like to give a big thanks to everyone who read this and supported me throughout the year, it really does mean a lot! I feel like I intended to type out a lot more in this wrap-up, but can't think of it at the moment and hope this fits as a good end of the thread. I wanted to give some shoutouts to people who inspired/motivated/rooted for me but I'm afraid I will forget some guys and would feel bad about that. I will mention one guy who I'm not even sure reads this but Blakkman/T8ofDiamonds really inspired me to get into mtt's, his threads are great and have been a huge motivation for me. There are tons of others and I don't wanna nuthug but I owe him a thank you for that.

This is the first year in a whole bunch of them that I feel like I achieved something, even if it's just poker, just winning at lowstakes,... Being able to go snowboarding and paying for it through poker for example felt amazing and being a somewhat lost highschool drop-out, it feels really nice to prove to myself I can still get behind something and make stuff happen

Much love everyone, feel like this is a bit too rambly but here you go

Very good write-up, gl in 2016 mate

Very nice read, hope you do even better in 2k16!
i was coached by Blakkman several years ago, he is not only a good poker player and coach but also a very enjoyable and nice guy! He still inspires me to keep playing MTT's and finding a big score somewhere in the future

Good read your summary. Interesting to sense your ups and downs after your first bink. Hope you keep on blogging 2016.

Read it all, very nice write-up. I think it's natural to become a bit complacent after a big score. I guess it's all part of the learning process and curve. Those gifs were awesome after the graphs lol. Anyways best of luck for 2016!

very enjoyable thread to follow, hope you do another, gl in 2016!

enjoyed the wrap-up and esp. the gifs^^

gl for 2016

Thanks for the love guys! Appreciate it a lot 2016 thread is up and running