Things get put into perspective

Ok, change of tone for this blog..... Its all about positivity for me from here.  Running bad is merely a challenge that i WILL overcome, badbeats are a good thing as it means my opponents are poorer at poker than me!! Etc etc, you get the idea!

And the reason for this, wellllll life is just too short to spend worrying & moaning. One of my mum & dad’s best friends was diagnosed with cancer approximately a month ago, and it has already left her deaf & blind and in a lot of pain. Yesterday, her & her husband decided that she should stop the treatment she was receiving and now basically it is a matter of time before she passes away.  She is one of the nicest people I have met & I can’t begin to imagine how scared she must be at the moment.  Its just horrendous, and i absolutely HATE seeing my mum & dad upset..... it doesn’t happen very often but that helpless feeling is one of the worst feelings in the world.   I don’t want my entire blog to be depressing so i’m going to move on to the positivity side of it again......

All this has made me set myself some goals & decide what i want to do. Some of the things i have wanted to do for a few years, few months or few weeks need to have some wheels put in motion on them

1)      I want to visit Las Vegas to destroy the low stakes poker tables. Originally i said i wanted to do 90 days out there (longest tourist visa you can get) but I would be happy to do 2-3 weeks, preferably before Feb-March next year.

2)      I REALLY want to visit Australia, for about a month.... I would really like this to be whilst also playing poker there to cover the costs of the trip

3)      I want to start dabbling in the stock market, I have been plotting 2 particular companies share prices approx 3-6 times per day, and the threshold of one company is floating between 9.5p and 11p within a couple of days of each other.  If i were to invest 2-3k at the bottom of this threshold, sell at the top, then buy again when they drop down etc etc then i reckon I could make approx £1-2k per month to start with

There is, ofc, a slight problem with these plans.... I need money to do them all.  So if anyone knows anyone with some spare cash that would want to invest then let me know.  Anyone who invests will be entitled to a % of the profits from poker/shares & we can discuss this side of it.

I may not need any investment, I am due to go on a heater of IMMENSE proportions at any time now, I have 2-3 months of chronic runbad that needs evening out. It must be due from today I expect, I cannot imagine me losing a single hand of poker for approximately the next 3 weeks.     Regardless of me having my own money or not, investment in the above ideas would still be welcomed, if anyone is interested.  It just alleviates the pressure on my own scarce (but soon to be bulging again) bankroll.

I have been reading 2 other poker/life blogs recently, both of which are good but in highly different ways, first is Dave Nicholson’s (@lildavefish on Twitter) http://lildaveslife.blogspot.com/ is his blog link..... Good poker read & he sounds a bit of a balla!!  One thing he does say is that to play poker for a living that you have to absolutely love poker, through the good times & the horrific times. This is soooooo true its ridiculous.  I know i have family & friends who either don’t like what i do or don’t think i can do it for a long time/forever, but i have never been more determined in my whole life, i love this “job” and i’m not going to let it just disappear in front of my eyes

The second blog is of Maylis Boardman (@MaylisBoardman on Twitter), http://maylisboardman.wordpress.com/ is her blog link.   Both of them have inspired me in the last few days.  I hope they don’t mind me naming them, I have never met either of them, and i suppose any publicity is good publicity!

One of the things that has come from my “running bad” challenge has been my absolute overwhelming desire to improve my game to restrict my losses as much as possible.  I have mentioned to a few people that I am looking for criticism (in a constructive way preferably) of my poker game from them.  My contact details are, 1) Telephone number 07794 223423 to text me or call me, 2) BBM is 231EA3B3, 3) Email address is andyfield_07@hotmail.co.uk  If there is anything you can tell me about how you think i can improve my game then let me know.   Ed has criticised the way i played one hand in particular, and i would like similar feedback.

I’m also going to try to instigate BRS to take me on as an online staked player,  they agreed to do it in principle a year or so ago before loads of stuff came up & I had to back out.

 I think that pretty much covers most of what i wanted to say, and if not then it can wait!!  I have been awake for 24 hours now & am starting to fall asleep typing so bye for now & GG

Andy

My new staking deal

Ok, a bit of moaning first then onto the reason for this blog, ie the title of this post!!

Soooooo, overall, the last 2 months have been hard, REALLLLLLY hard.   Every time I have thought I was coming out of the runbad, it comes back & bites me on the arse.  I’m playing well, but I’m just sooooo card dead it is ridiculous.  I made a note of all 113 hands i was dealt in a session on Monday. Only 16 of the hands were what i would describe as ‘playable’.  Thats 14% of hands, and some of them I had to fold preflop as there were raises/3bets etc before action got to me. if i was lucky enough to win half of those 16 hands (which I didnt) I would have only won 7% of all the hands i was dealt that night!!  Jeeeeesus!!  When you are so card dead & only playing so few hands its hard to get value out of those hands cos people know you must have a pretty big hand. 

When i’m involved in hands I just cannot seem to win a flip, my pairs are losing to overcards, my overcards aren’t hitting against pairs, my draws just aren’t getting there.  The last 2 nights I have probably played a total of 10 hands combined, missed with 2 overs & a flush draw on 2diamond low board when it went all in on flop, missed with open-ender vs an UNDERPAIR (so my hole cards are good too if i pair up), and had my aces busted by pocket 6’s amongst other tilting hands!!  Last night i flopped bottom set, turned a fullhouse but got rivered by quads. FMELE!!!!!!   Last weekend i somehow managed to brick off with TWO open ended STRAIGHT FLUSH draws. GG!!  Its just been mega frustrating.  Somehow I have still managed to have profitable months whilst this has been happening.  Enough moaning anyway, as this leads me into the purpose of this post......

I have snapped up the offer of some staking for live poker, basically I have agreed with this person that they bankroll me for December & we go 50/50 on profits at the end of the month. At this point we also then re-evaluate if we both want to continue with the deal.  For the sake of my blog I am going to refer to my staker as “Fortuna” (Greek goddess of fortune), as I’m not sure they would want anyone knowing their identity.   The deal is good for me in the following ways:-

1)      I don’t have to risk my own money for a month, which gives my bank balance a month off from getting twitchy (ideal in Xmas month)

2)      It will allow me to play a slightly more open/aggressive game

3)      It gives me a confidence boost that someone is willing to invest in my poker ‘career’.

4)      It will stop me having a “flutter” on roulette on my way out of the casino!!! (Roulette is the devils game, and it annoys me that I have the occasional dabble on it with my own money, but if I’m playing with someone else’s money then I know I won’t even touch it !!)

It is also a good deal for Fortuna, I’m clearly a winning player, proved in nearly a year’s worth of live cash play (and even when I’m running as bad as Stephen Hawking with a flat tyre), so they should make some money out of it.  It isn’t something that either party can take on lightly, there has to be a huge degree of trust from both sides & in this case it helps massively that Fortuna is a poker player too so completely understands the swings that poker can have!  I think it is fair to say we both have respect for each other’s games, despite our poker styles being a bit like chalk & cheese. I think if someone could find a middle ground of both of our games then that person would be a fantastic player!!!!!

In other news, I’m flying out to Basel on Wednesday for the United match out there. It is a pretty huge game for us now with the way the group has progressed so should be a good trip!!  Me & Boldy (lad I’m going the match with) will be having a pint & a full English at about 6am in Manchester airport & the plan is to be in a pub in Basel for about midday local time!  Can’t wait !!!  Although apparently beer in Switzerland is painfully expensive!

            I really need to write a blog on the plague of slowrolling thats sweeping live poker at the moment, so will try to have that on here by the end of the weekend.

Finally, I have a good feeling about poker this weekend.... despite the runbad I just think its gonna be a huge weekend for me.... gonna win at least 80% of my flips & all my draws are going to just “get there” !!   Time to cash in some flip tokens.... Bink!   Good luck to me, and good luck to Fortuna too!!