Jump Start To October #BOOM 72s

Decided to start off October in a very upbeat and healthy fashion; by going to the gym and having a hearty meal of sushi before continuing the first grind of my day.  

Have been plateauing on my deadlifts lately and can't pull past 245 x 8 reps, or 265 x 5.  Also find that lifting weights have really helped strengthen both my mental and physical endurance for grinding.

On top of that; having a strong core and lower back greatly reduces the amount of pain from being in a seated position for extended periods of time. Will be trying to hit the weights again tomorrow before I grind.

Now as you can see by the graph above; despite being a very swingy day and running below ev, there were many spots where I had good set-up situations and others where I had cooler situations. After going through my database; I realized I ran AK into AA 5 times today and not a single time the other way around, which not only resulted in drops of money but also drops of ev. Not a huge worry though; as the majority of those spots even out in the long run ~ as getting AK or AA in all in pre-flop is rarely a mistake in 6-max zoom, and "sometimes" an acceptable play in full-ring. 

PokerStars 72s BOOM Promotion

PokerStars always attempt to spice up the games by throwing in fun promotions like the BOOM promotion with KK few months ago; as well as the Happy Hour promotions. So what does this promotion entail?

From Oct- 1-7; each day you can BOOM a maximum of 3 hands in which you won a pot with 72s; whether it is from plainly stealing the blinds, going to showdown with the best hand; or making your opponent fold ! 

Each time you BOOM'd a hand; you win (big blind * number of opponents). For me in this particular case at 100nl (Full-Ring) is where I will be booming the majority of my hands. 

Assuming the zoom games don't run shorthanded when this happens (which unfortunately it did happen for me today), this promotion will let me earn a maximum of (1*8*3 prizes) this equates to roughly 24$ at the very most per day at 100nl. 

Of course if you play a higher stake; this number will increase to a maximum of 60$/ day despite the big blind of the higher stake. . . 

7 days- 168$ extra. Not too shabby; not the greatest, nonetheless money is money ! =) A side benefit from this particular promotion is not just in the value of the hand itself; but the amount of action that might be created from players attempting extra hard to win with this hand. Spice up the games? We'll see =)~

As for my BooM hands today~

72s 4betting from UTG vs a BigBlind 3bet-Squeeze 

72s Calling a River OverBet

Once again good luck to all! And may the run hot be ever in your favor! .


Will be trying extra hard this month to update this blog regularly with informative, entertaining, and motivating posts !


Hit me up with a post if you see me lagging on the posts =)~ ~ 

Downswing & Coping with Downswing

You Don't Always Win, Just More than you Lose

The first thing that may come to your notice is the steep drops from hands; 15k to 18k; 20k to 25k, and 31k to 36k. It's not a mere coincidence that these 5-15bi drops are near the end of ever session of each day that I played. 

As I mentioned relentlessly in previous posts that I've been falling behind in the Supernova Elite Chase; and as a result I have been attempting to compensate by playing approximately 11-12k hands a day instead of the 7-8k hands. 

My Grind Hours are typically 3-4 session; 12pm-->2pm; 2pm-->6pm; 6pm--8pm; 10pm-->2am.(Pacific Standard Time) . The sessions typically get worse and as the later the time goes and the player pool dies out. Whenever the player pool dies out it becomes very natural and obvious to begin starting tables 'Heads-Up' as well as playing a lot of short-handed games which are super high in variance.

Verdict: Although being around 9bi's below ev it is unfair to attribute my downswing 100% to ev. The sample size of 35k hands is also very insufficient in determining if my downswing is 100% attributed to situation based variance.

After thorough hand history reviews today, I've discovered that the resulting downswings occurred 75% of the time while short-handed at full-ring tables and over adjusting ranges to be excessively loose. 

Healthy Living/ Bodybuilding

 The best way to cope with any downswing is a healthy measure of lots of hearty food =]. I decided to hit the buffet today and feast upon as much food as I can possibly ingest.

Unfortunately there weren't any decent dumplings or fried rice/egg rolls/ any other stereotypical Chinese food . . otherwise I'd jump on that obviously.

 The month of August is almost 100% attributed to me bulking up, after a thorough 3 weeks of training with heavy weights and eating regularly between 2600-3500 calories intake a day I've gained a good 3-5lbs of mass.

 It's hard to say whether or not the 3-5lbs were muscle or fat or even a 1:1 ratio, however definition has decreased slightly but was exchanged with a significant increase in strength as well as endurance.

I have a tendency to not like doing a ton of ab-work. . . generally speaking it feels very unnatural, rumor also has it abs are made in the kitchen which sounds about right to me.

 There's approximately another 2 weeks left in August at which point I will evaluated my strength and muscle mass and decide if cutting down to a very lean, or perhaps bulk up a tad bit more.

I find a lot of people are a lot happier when they are bulking up as it is easier to eat a lot but harder to cut down eating. I find them equally as hard at this point since both phases require discipline whether it is eating a lot or cutting down calories, and of course the food I'm eating has to primarily come from good sources of ''non-Junk'

And Finally Desert.

And yes, this was all for lunch.

Saturday August 10th Update

Graph For the Day

Session Review
Today was broken into 3 sessions of between 2-2.5k hands. The Last 2.5k hands there was a large -10bi dip. I'd like to make it very clear that 10bi downswings in a given session is very atypical and are rarely 100% attributed to pure variance. The pool of players were much more reg-infested during the last session as it was also Happy-Hour,  this continues to reinforce my hypothesis that Happy-Hour may not have been a great promotion. Although the increase in VPP and FPP earn rate within the period of time, the games were filled with regs. 

Should have Stopped at Hand 4k

Leaks

The main leaks in my last session was calling down too lightly in 3bet and 4bet pots, as well as bluffing too frequently the rivers in 3bet and 4bet pots. A couple of times I 5bet-shoved as a bluff and hit the top of my opponents range which usually results in a huge negative dip; whereas against a super wide 4bet range it can be marginally profitable.

Thoughts about Happy-Hour
For the past-couple days the same trend has also appeared in my other graphs where the last session of everyday has always been a huge downswing. . . perhaps I should start making an adjustment to my time management and schedule my grinds outside of the Happy-Hour period, or avoid playing late at night.



Bodybuilding/Working Out

Watermelon =)

Went to the gym today and did a chest/tricep routine, absolutely crowded today for someone reason and had zero chance to get a shot at the bench press, instead I decided to work 80% with Free Weights. Since July I have been gaining a bit of strength in all my major compound lifts and a tad bit in the isolation exercises. After a decent 45-60 mins of working out, a post-workout ice-cream cone. . the grind began.

Fun Hand for the Day

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 4 players - View hand 2279802
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $103.30
SB: $54.57
BB: $231.46
Hero (CO): $169.11

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is CO with A 7
Hero raises to $2.50, BTN calls $2.50, 1 fold, BB raises to $6, Hero calls $3.50, BTN calls $3.50

Flop: ($18.50) 8 A A (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $13, BTN folds, BB calls $13

Turn: ($44.50) 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $31, BB calls $31

Fish Tanks for the longest time ever on the river after I ship. so I figured I'd type a few encouraging words ;)

River: ($106.50) T (2 players)
BB bets $35, Hero raises to $119.11 all in, Hero says "woops", BB calls $84.11

And of course he totally believed I misclicked with the 'woops' ;)















Final Pot: $344.72
BB mucks A J
Hero shows A 7 (a full house, Aces full of Sevens)
Hero wins $343.22
(Rake: $1.50)

Friday- Weekend Prelude, Week 5 Body Transformation.

Fridays High Variance Large Player Pool, Tons of Fish.

You know you're a grinder when the only thing you associate with Friday is a larger pool of recreational players a a softer game.

Like every other day a good grind session should be started with a large coffee/energy drink, healthy breakfast, and some exercise to get the blood flowing.

I like the idea of reviewing the goals I have set for the month and planning out a tailored schedule for that day in order to reach my goals.

Let's start with some Hand Histories

Biggest Winning Hand

Bluff Catching For 183$

Running Hot Vs Reg

Winning a Flip; And Then Another Flip; And Then Another; And Then Another;

Biggest Losing Hand vs Fish

Worst Played Hand <One of>

Losing Stack with Set ; And Then Another vs Fish. . .

Getting Owned By Reg Starting Tables

any questions regarding the hands played can be posted in comments. Chances are I may have not played a hand optimally so any insights or critiques is well appreciated- 

Overall day wasn't 'too bad' but was not too great either. Ran into a lot of poor/cooler situations where I lost hands as well as lost EV.

Ran into a lot of lucky situations where I won flips but consistently ran QQ into AA/KK AIPF. . .
This just goes to show that in the short run, EV only tells a part of the story, the story of your hand versus their exact hand.  Not a terrible day either way. . . on the bright side, shouldn't complain. . as pitabread189 points out here




Should be putting in more hands, however decided against it since the ZOOM player pool died out right after the 3:00am- 4:00am- EST promo ended. . . which by coincidence the parts of my graph with the most amount of variance were played between the Happy Hour Times. . . . perhaps a sign that it's not the greatest promotion.

Healthy Living 

Week 6

So after some in-depth thought after my first 4 weeks of cutting down my freshmen 15 and sophomore 25 I figured I will start bulking up a little bit more and throwing on some muscle mass.

I figured since summer is ending soon, as well as my love for food and lack of muscle mass I should work on that. The overall goal is by the end of the year; I will have a 6 month Transformation.

For the time being, will be trying to put on 2-3lbs of solid muscle this month (Realistically 1- 2lbs of fat as well).

For the time being; consuming 2500-3000 calories depending on whether or not I'm working out that day. Lifting weights 3-5x a week. I find that cardio tires me out and doesn't let me perform my best in the gym (depletes glycogen storage)  so will be avoiding running and stick to lighter jogs and walks
instead.

Aug1-3 - World War Z, Fireworks, Food, Food,

Wednesday was really my off day that I didn't put in any hands.  On the other hand I did have lots of fun  having this amazing lamb-chops at a restaurant near Coal- Harbour.

Afterwards had a chance to see fireworks with a couple of friends @English Bay.

Also had a chance to rock out the new 'Out Door' pianos near Science World which despite being abused by kids smacking keys randomly. . . is relatively in-tune . . .









A 'Jazz/Blues' band I believe self organized themselves and started playing after I came back from dinner... was quite interesting and spent some time watching them

                                                                                 

                                                                                    Thursday-

World War Z- went to theaters with friend of mine '' as it was her only day off.'' <--- psht. 9-5 jobs ;) .

To those who watch Walking Dead or zombie movies in general it's more or less same story line different actors different plot line kind of.

There were parts of the movie we burst out laughing. . . zombies can sometimes be very. . . 'DERP' & scary at same time.

Friday

._. last set always emphasize on the 'DEAD' in deadlift

Woke up super late as I was out late after fireworks with couple of friends afterwards. Decided to head to the gym and pump some iron and get the blood flowing before grinding it out. 

Since I'm working on a split; the routine for Friday was Back + Biceps. Exercises were; 

Seated Rows; Dumbbell Rows, Chinups, Deadlifts. Around 3-4 sets of each exercise.

In addition to my current 'cutting' diet once a week I do a 'Cheat-Day'/ kind of re-fueling glycogen storages and just helping me mentally deal with such shenanigans.

3 Piece Chicken + Large fries

Rack of Lamb

We start with; Post-Workout Shake, Post- Workout Meal. Post-Post workout meal. 

I think all in all consumed something like; 4k calories this day...

After washing down all those calories with a medium chocolate frosty; we're ready to grind. . . 

NOT.

Sugar/Carb Crashed hard. As you can clearly tell by the graph.

Was on fire mashing buttons and crushing everything in sight until 2/3 through the session when I started crashing, nearing the end of my session was feeling droopy and nearly fell asleep @ the grind station.

Lessons:

Never start grind session from 11pm-5am. . .

Never consume 2k calories just prior to grinding

Never continue grinding when already starting to crash.

Month End Review- July

Month Summary

Goal: 200/345k hands reached 

Hours: 121 hours put in                                         Money: ~7k          

Peak of the month was about half way through the month, at which point I encountered a downswing.

Took half a week off, and slowly climbed back up a tad bit.

Healthy Living

Started the month on Nicotine Patches as a method of trying to quit smoking.

Worked out 4-5x a week with heavy weights. 

Ate "relatively" clean, with the exception of 

Wings night out

Gelato 3-4x a week at most.

All you can eat sushi

A 'July Reflection; August Goals post will be posted tomorrow with in-depth' short comings will be discussed more thoroughly.

Time Management. Tilt Management. Table Selection. Self-Control.