Habit's Poker Blog

In June a lot of stuff changed. In the beginning of the month I was a few
days abroad to visit family. During that time I had alot of time to think
about Poker and how approach the problems I had with the game in the past.

The more I thought about it the more my I desire to play something 
different arised. While switching over to PLO (Pot Limit Omaha) might have 
been the smartest choise because still, until now, the games are pretty 
soft and not completely figured out. I even thought about it but having 
had big problems with the mental site of the game and the variance being 
even higher in PLO I decided against it.



In the past I've always been a tournament player. When taking poker
seriously in the beginning of the year again I would have loved to just
grind tournaments, but I thought I would not have enough time during 
the week to be commited to stay in front of the Computer for 8+ 
hours, which alot of big field tournaments definetly will take.

So while checking out what other No-Limit-Hold'em type of games exist
I stumpled upon 180-Man Sit and goes. They usually only last for
4:30 hours max. Playerfield is pretty weak and they are suggested to
build a bankroll fast. I thought by grinding them and adding some
bigger field tournaments whenever I have enough time to finish them
could be a great route to get my mind off of the cashgames and learn
another format.

So I decided to give it a shot for at least 3 months. For sure I will
not give up on cashgames compeletely, but for now all my focus is on
tournaments. I enjoy playing them and am satisified with my
performance. I did not "tilt away" any of them even tho sometimes there
was only one tournament left to play and it had to One-Table for hours.
I just used that time to watch training videos besides. I had
to watch some parts twice or even three times because the table was
taking away my focus but still I think this is a great way to improve 
my game and use the time useful.

The only downsite I see to grinding Tournaments is the little Rakeback
I produce so the Event-Bankroll might not grow as fast as it did in the 
past.
I'm still good for a couple of coaching sessions, so for now this is not 
a big problem.

Thank you for reading the book so far! Here are my results for June!

 

 

 

Winnings:                               -14.61$
Hands total:                             19,141
Tournaments total:                       194
Avg. Buy-In:                             0.91$
ITM:                                     17.5%
Tournaments won:                         0
Final Tables:                            10
Bankroll:                                138,02$

Even tho I again show up with a losing month I am super happy about my
game. I practised so much. My game is developing alot towards where
I will not get denied my first tournamentwin for much longer!
I will stick to 1.10$ tournaments and below with a few shots at 2.20$
tournaments for now.

Event Bankroll: 148.56$ (+51.26$)

 

Tonkaaaap’s WSOP Dream -36.00$

888Poker had a great Promotion! 7 Homegames with a buyin of 12$.
Each winner gets seated into a 8-Man Final Table (with a random lucky guy).
And the winner gets a 12.500$ package for the Main-Event of the World 
Series Of Poker. Each homegame had less than 200 Entrants and was
played as a normal 12$ tournament. So the 12.500$ gets payed by 888Poker
completely! In my eyes this was the biggest chance to go to the WSOP with
a low budget. For sure you had to be incredibly lucky to win it all. But
since each homegame was payed out as a normal 12$ tournament I played 3
of them. Unfortunatelly I did not cash in a single one.

Pokerstars AMA with Eric Hollreiser: 10.27$

In June there was an Ask-Me-Anything with Eric Hollreiser. Every question
that got picked out of the community was compensated with a 11$ 
Tournament-Token. Even tho my question was uncomfortable for Pokerstars
(it was asking them about the new Rakeback system that only favors losing
players) they could not ignore it becaues alot of people added positive
reaction in discord, so they had to pick it.
I mincashed big 11$ for 21.27$!
Unfortunatelly I only noticed afterwards that I did not receive the
ticket yet and payed that tournament with my Cash.
The 11$ Bounty Builder I played with the ticket afterwards I lost rather
quickly.

 

The Deal: 13.88$

During June I played "The Deal" almost every 12 hours and got
13.88$ for my effort. 

This time I will write a little more about it, because it's free money 
for everyone! (and everyone likes free money, right?)

You have to invest 7 Starscoin (worth 0.07$) every 12 hours.
Whenever a jackpot gets payed out (a guy investing 7 coins needs a 
Royal Flush and has a 1/8 chance to win the jackpot which gets
higher whenever someone plays "The Deal". People investing
70 Points (not suggested) get a chance to get the jackpot with a Straight
Flush already). 

That's 420 points invested througout the month (30 days) if you 
constantly play every 12 hours! (worth 4.20$) 

While I am not certain if I got a part of every jackpot in June,
you can still see, that I got way more out of it than the 4.20$ I 
invested.
That does not count in the hands you make yourself playing it.
If you get a Pair you already get 2 points back. if you make 2-pair
you get 7 points back (so breakeven). If you get lucky to make
a better hand you sometimes even get payed money. (1$ for a flush 
for example, but I do not want to go into detail about every possible
hand combination)
If you did not invest your Starcoins into "The Deal" yet I strongly
suggest to do so in the future. It's + EV!!!

 

888Poker Golden Pyramide Promotion + Snap Poker: 63.47$

In June 888Poker ran the Golden Pyramide Promotion.
You can spin the Wheel of Ra and get Tournament Tickets, Free Bets or Blast
Tickets out of it. The Freerolls (Tickets) start with a 500$ tournament,
over 2.000$ and 4.000$ to a Big 10.000$ tournament on Sundays. 
Blinds increase very fast so all Tournaments are pretty much over in less 
than an hour. 
Last few days of June they added a daily Auto-Allin tournament for 4.000$
I played as many Tournaments as possible and sometimes, when I had a few 
free minutes I played a few hands of Snap Poker on my mobile phone with 
great sucess.
In total I made 63.47$ and at least 80% should be out of the Pyramide
Promotion Tournaments.

 

Goals achieved that were set for June

• Play 60k hands (failed because of the shift to tournaments)
• Finish 1 Book (failed, stumpled upon Galfonds well which took all my focus)
• keep reading “The Mental Game Of Poker” (done, but not much)
• drop 4-5 kg of mainly fat (failed, was on a good pace but then my knee got hurt which meant no more sports + eating out of frustration)
• get to see the sun twice a week (done, gladly I have a window next to my computer 😀 )
• get my mindset up to something that is working somehow again (done, mindest is at its prime!)

 

July Goals and Approach

 

Primary Goal: Learn as much as possible

Since I am still very rusty in tournament play it is very important
to learn as much as possible. I always went with 80% play 20% study
approach in cashgames but for tournaments it should look more like 60-40.
A big danger is that I want to learn to much to fast so I should not
overload myself with complex articles/videos. But I also have a great
tool for learning which is called "ICM Trainer". 
With tools like thisone you pretty much can't overload your brain 
with new information but you still can keep practising. In worst case 
you just stop looking at the optimal ranges and make mistakes, 
which is not as terrible as reading or watching something without 
getting the information required out of it.

Other goals for July

• play at least 250 Tournaments
• play at least 5000 hands in ICM Trainer
• watch 15 Training Videos
• lose 2 kg bodyfat
• win 1 Tournaments
• make 10 Final tables
• finish 1 book