Poker Journal Day 26
Day 26, March 20th: I've managed to keep getting up earlier and earlier every day. The days are so routine they all sort of blend together. It's wake up, work out, work on the book, eat, tool around on the computer, eat, work out, work on the book, read, sleep. I read a ton of 2+2 at the moment.
At this stage I've written so much of ElkY's material that I can pretty much permanately read his soul. Not really though, because he's super good at balancing, but there's so much information in my brain I just need to turn it off and listen to my Ipod a lot. I've gotten in contact with more guys to set up coaching when I get home to Melbourne. Looking good at this stage.
Poker Journal Day 25
Day 25, March 19th: Did work on the book in the morning (aka post 2pm, though I wake up at 1pm but spend the first hour working out) and in the evening. I edited and fixed what I wrote last night as much of it was transcribing and rewording ElkY’s stuff and I was typing a mile a minute. In the evening I wrote a section about “having a plan” that took the idea from the “Things it took me a while to learn” article I wrote on it then built upon the idea considerably.
In the evening we went to a basketball game in Nelson, about an hour away. Lately I find that I don’t feel anywhere near as social as usual, and I passed the game (which was a blow out) away mostly spaced out. I spend most of my days alone in my room or the gym and walk around the house with my Ipod in at almost all times. Lee is often busy doing work for the retreat and I’m left to my own devices, but it’s in a state of solitude. Keeping my head so much in my work has a way of, as I described before, “melting my brain”, and when I’m not typing, or thinking about how to phrase something, or debating whether we’re giving optimal advice, or editing, or proof reading, I just want to switch my brain off, not think, and give it some time to rest. I miss my girlfriend quite a bit. I call her in the late evenings some times and do what I can to be an entertaining conversation, but my head is all poker at the moment and she doesn’t play, so I wind up trying to make her do a lot of the talking. One of the ways I can tell my recent conversion to a permanent polyamorous mind set is correct is that I actually feel like calling my girlfriend just to chat. When I was monogamous I never felt like doing that. My thoughts on the subject are enormous and I’m still doing research on the matter, so I’ll write further about it at another time and in a more appropriate place than a poker entry.
I’m majorly looking forward to the tournament in Auckland; I’m so ready to play. I’ve also come up with an idea on how to improve my game over the following months and make some cool videos. I’m on good terms or owed favors with a ton of guys in poker whose game I really respect, so I’ve started asking them if they don’t mind doing a HH review+coaching session with me over Skype while I record it on Camtasia. For some reason my zeal for trying to make myself as sharp as possible for the upcoming WSOP seems to know no bounds. I anticipate showing up cut to shreds, kicking ass at pick up, and with my poker game as modern, aggressive, and focused as I can make it. This is the first time I can remember giving this much of a shit in several years.
Poker Journal Day 24
Day 24, March 18th: Wrote up chapters pertaining to table image and how to use it today. I think the amount of stuff I’ve written up is around the 100 pages mark at this point, though again, a lot of it isn’t my origional ideas, they’re ElkY’s. It’s occured to me that when this is all over, I should probably ask him if he’d be willing to spend a session or two on Skype working on my game, as writing up so much material has given me an even greater respect for him than his results had.
Poker Journal Day 23
Day 23, March 17th: I got pleny of work done on the book. I revised the onlie vs live section to sound less partial to online players and got more work done on the mid stages section, though I am currently awaiting further input rom ElkY in order to shore it up further.
I realized that I have forgotten to keep putting the entries on Pokersavvyplus lately so I’m going back and adding them all today. I also never went over the responses I got on the hands I posted on Day 14, so I’ll go over them now.
On the first hand where I called down with AJ on a 8 9 9 8 A board pretty much every response agreed that my line was standard, particularly since there are plenty of missed draws and counterfeited hands in his range.
Looking back at the second hand, which had me holding 88 in the 100 rebuy, I realize that the suits did not copy/paste correctly into the blog entry. In the actual hand I held the 8h and the flop came T high with three hearts. I check called and the turn was a low heart, prompting me to check/call again. I then check/folded a brick river on the shove. I only got one response on the hand so I’ve gone back and given it a quick bump to see if I can get more input.
On the third hand where I flopped two pair with K5 out of the SB in a UB tournament opinions were highly mixed, but most seemed to think that given odds and that people on UB do really weird and spazzy stuff I should at least call the turn. This was an interesting one as a number of guys I respect had fairly polarized responses, but most seemed okay with the idea of at least calling.
On the fourth hand where I 3 bet J7dd in the Tilt 100/r/a most agreed that it was worth having a move like this in my arsenal pre flop so long as I didn’t start going nuts with it. Most liked the line I took post flop, though some said they would bet all three streets as a bluff. I feel like the line I took is better since that early in the tournament people will almost never fold any pair on the turn and rarely turn many worse pairs into bluffs so getting to showdown is not so hard.
Poker Journal Day 22
Day 22, March 16th: I took the “morning” (I generally sleep until about 1pm here) off and we had a visit from Lee’s friend Yann then played a three way tournament between us. Lee wound up beating me heads up when I shoved the turn against his donk bet with a gigantic draw and blanked off. I’m down $200 to him in tournaments at this point in the trip. I anticipate being broke by next week.
I continued working on the book in the evening. First I read over and edited the early stages play section, which is nearly 30 pages long now. Then I continued on the mid stages portion and finished adding everything that ElkY provided from his outline, though I’ve emailed him again to get input on some topics I felt needed further elaboration. Then I shored up the online vs live section to include more of his material and edit it so it read in a way that was more congruent with the rest of the book. I’ve written and read so much about poker over the last week that I find my brain starting to melt and tune out a little when I go over things, forcing me to slow down and reread things two or three times just to make sure I’m thoroughly thinking over what’s being said, or what I’m trying to say.
Poker Journal Day 21
Day 21, March 15th: More work on the book today of course. I continued writing up ElkY’s thoughts from the outline he provided, mostly on middle stages concepts. All this writing about poker makes me miss actually playing poker. Luckily we have the Lee Nelson deep stack tournament coming up on the 26th, which I have the uneasy feeling that I’ll spew out of by attempting some insane ElkYesque triple barrel.
Poker Journal Day 20
Day 20, March 14th: All the poker related stuff I did today was writing and glancing over some interesting hands at HSMTT. I wrote about pot control, pot odds, and additional forms of tricky play at the mid stages of tournaments. I still have a ton to do in that section; I’d guess that buy the time I finish that section alone will be in the area of 50 pages. Brevity might be the soul of wit, but it’s not quite indulgant enough to teach someone tournament poker.
Poker Journal Day 19
Day 19, March 13th: More work on the book today of course, though I was given a retreive when Lee and Penn took me to a basketball game in the town of Nelson, which is about an hour from the retreat. I spent the majority of my evening writing on the topic of mid stages play, which has already turned into 15 pages of work and is nowhere close to complete.
At first when I accepted this assignement I was concerned that it would slightly derail my attempt and refamiliarizing myself with the game and keeping my focus on improving. Going over the notes of ELKY every day and keeping my head concentrated on the idea of attempting to write excellent strategy while consulting with fellow excellent players has done the opposite, and I feel sharper every day.
Poker Journal Day 18
Day 18, March 12th: Continued working on the book today. I more or less finished my section on hand reading though I’m still looking to contact some of the sick online guys I know about providing specific examples for me as I currently only have one in there and would like to get at least three thorough and thought out spots per section.
I took my old adapting to live play for online players article and made a bunch of additions and edits to reformat for a section in the book. It’s nearly completed. I also began writing a chapter on mid stakes play, and although writing at length for a while it is nowhere close to done. That seems like a major chapter to me.
I’ve been playing Lee at a HU SNG in the evenings. He won yesterday when 50 BB’s effective I raised the button with AA and he called in the BB with KQ. The flop was QQ7 and that was the end of that. Tonight I reraised 97ss at he 50/100 level (we start 20,000 deep) and got it in against his raise on a Qs 7c 5s flop. I never had a chance against his As 4s. I’m down $200 New Zealand to him in those so far.
Poker Journal Day 17
Day 17, March 11th: Obviously didn’t play today. I went over the outline of the book in great detail with Lee today and took a bunch of notes to send off to ELKY. In the evening (which is very late for me, especially compared to Lee and Penn) I began to write a section about hand reading.
I had enormous trouble sleeping. I think I dozed off somewhere around 6am.