Got half an hour until my ufc is done,

First my predictions

Franklin V Belfort, Belfort first round TKO, This is more of a reflection that I feel Rich is overworked. This is his third fight this year, and both of those where sick matchups that went the distance in physically tough fights, In Henderson and W. Silva. He cant and wont keep the pace of Belfort for long and Rich's boxing is outmatched by guys with super fast hands. His stance because of this right check kick opens up his hands too far. Also Belfort looks in amazing shape and he DESTROYED Lindland to the point when I was watching that I though I was going to see my first stretchering off of an opponent in MMA.

Cro Cop vs Dos Santos, Dos Santos will beat through Cro Cop fairly easily, not that an easy win against cro cop is "easy", Cro Cop looked pretty slow and rusty vs Al Turk a guy with no stand up, maybe he was taking it easy because he looked like he was about as focused as a light sparring session. Dos Santos for my mind is a about as genuine HW contender as exists atm, think might be absurd until you look up his camp and training partners and his first couple of pro fights. Dos santos will control the distance set up his combos and beat Cro Cop down, before finding his opening and finishing this fight from the inside with a nice Upper Cut or Short hook.

Trigg vs Koscheck, Trigg gets a beat down and looks silly.

No real opinion on the rest of the card.

Poker has been good, I don't want to say too much too jiinx, should be a clue. I have gone back to the beginning and challenged every assumption I hold about my game and my opponents. I found that almost 50% of what I was thinking was obviously backwards and illogical. But mostly it has been going and for the first time really breaking down what I know and not making "instant" decisions at the table.

Life has been great, have a workout schedule going for the first time in a long time, It is somewhat absurdly intense but I'm loving it. I played a few sports in Australia at representational level as a junior but I broke my leg badly found poker and put on a ton of weight. Ive lost something like 13kg's in a month being going out alot and having a really good time. Looking forward to summer in Australia as this is the year I'm going to learn to surf, and considering I live 10 mins from the beach and I'm the boss, it will be fun.

Politics, in this time and place is lol, better than any day time soap since the beginning of time.
Things are starting to move fast in America, and hearings have been sheduled on the HR172 or some such, which is a bill for an independent Audit of the federal Reserve. It would be the first independent audit of the federal reserve in its 96 year history, and man I cant wait to hear wtf they find. Perhaps Congress might find out where the federal reserve sent the $500 Billion dollars they paid to European Central Banks and who's banks they might have been. Also under what possible circumstances do European Central banks get paid $500 Billion Dollars of US Federal Government money.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about start here and move out from there; Start with Matt Taibai's article "The Big Take Over".
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...takeover/print

Get in the right frame of mind and watch this, for me that's a bowl but do whatever it is you got too do.

Terrance McKenna is sometimes described as the Timothy Leary of the 80's and 90's. Be warned music is annoyingly overstated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLc6i29yhDM

I showed this to my friend Mitch and his response was, whatever that's just Moore's Law, wanker

It strange to think but its true, everything we though was possible and infact probable is being challenges, the old world is rapidly transforming economically, socially and Geo-politically. The economic times in certain parts of the world is a symptom of this and not its cause. China is positioned as the next economic hegemonic power unless the west can figure out a new Paradigm of relationship and balance with the global system that has been empowered by telecommunications and the breaking of geographical barriers.

Its exciting to think what the world will look like in 24mths time because its certainly not going to be anything like it does now, but the ufc is done so I'm done rambling

I was PM'd on 2+2 from someone with 1 post a very recent join date saying;

"You sound cool, we should meet up"

Sounds inviting, I suspect if I show up this might be me;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ToNZHG5KHw

As dedicated readers of this blog know, I've turned into a giant whiny bitch lately. This will now stop.

Last week I registered a new account on the site I play on under my Dad's name to get rakeback, that new account is seriously doomswitched. Not sure if they figured out I was me logging in from the same IP or whatever but I'm sure security was sitting behind their computer laughing their asses off at me.

Today I finally got tired of it, and went back to my old account. I've been playing online a long time now, and I can't think of a time where I have consistently gotten set up after set up that I have lately. But I digress, anyway I fired up my old account and instantly it reversed. I flopped top two or a set the first 4 out of 5 hands I played, on another I backdoored the nutflush vs a turned straight and got payed off for stacks when the turn got checked through. So fuck it and fuck the extra 2k per month rakeback would generate I'm going back to the oldschool account and screen-name.

I'm semi-serious btw.

Also I'm not sure what it is but under this account I just know I'm going to crush and am super confident and aggro when I need to be. Also ppl seem to play much worse vs me on this name.

Thanks Isura for the offer for the sweat, but I feel like Ive gotten myself out of my funk at this point, if some of those leaks re-appear I might PM you.

My one problem is I cashed out most of my online roll due to my planned migration between accounts, so now I'm very short online. If I bust my account I'm not fussed it will mean a forced day off since it would take about 24hrs to redeposit. That or I could go back to the doomswitched account, which is not likely.

But enough about me, congrats to Jay and Clayton for their showing in the 2500 6 max. Unfortunate one of them couldn't bink it off but that's the reality now.

So lets agogo

I'm getting thoroughly owned, and it feels like shit.

I think it might be starting to affect my play too. Its weird I haven't felt so out of sorts with my game in a while, I think im playing ok but its hard to tell. I really feel like I'm getting cold-decked in all the small and medium pots.

But I'm starting to make stupid calls.
Eg raise KK utg, agg-donk calls us utg +1

flop JT3 with a fd, I bet get called turn T. I check, donk checks back, river total blank I bet get min-raised, Vomit. I really hate this spot, like wtf plays like this for value and is anyone ever doing this as a bluff. As I'm breakeven and playing not great I tank say fuck it and call, get shown AT and insta sit out all my tables.

I should be betting the turn 100% on this board but I'm starting to see and fear the nuts everywhere.

I played Monday and won 4bi, and another 4 under ai equity (I think the stat is dumb but makes me feel good in a downer). Yesterday I didn't play at all because I felt tired and not really into it. Today I'm down 3ish Bi's in 1300 hands. Sick thing is all I want to do atm is grind grind grind.

I'm going to take a break watch a vid, grab some lunch and come back re-focused.

I feel run-hot around the corner, that or suicide watch who knows.

Im about half way through my day, sitting on the couch watching some shield.

Today like this month has been, super super frustrating, I've played around 1300 hands so far today. I keep finding myself in amazing games but I'm in the middle of one of those runs where every-time I have the second nuts I run into the table donks nuts. Standard but gross spots where I RR ip with AA, a super mega donk pot leads the flop I call and shove over his bet over his bet on the turn, his range is anything from btm pair, to fd to set etc and I keep running into sets or he gets there on the river.

Thank god for rakeback, actually that is one of the things that is making this run even more mentally crushing. I opened up a new account on a site where I didn't have rakeback under my Dad's name, this site wouldn't accept credit card deposits from Australians (wft), so I could only get $150 on there. I ran it up to 300 quickly playing 50nl then I fired up some 100nl tables and got it up to 800 or so, from there I'm something like a 1ptbb/100 winner my last 15k hands @ 100nl, which is not cool at all.

Luckily I have been playing some on euro sites when I'm tired of breaking even and I'm winning 1k euros there in very few hands.

Hopefully this turns sometime soon, and I know it will but I haven't had one of these runs in a while and it sucks.

I'm just being a big baby, so I'm gonna chill on the couch for 20 mins and go back and fire up some more tables. It seems really strange to be complaining about making 2k in a week, but for the hours and games I've been playing its feels lol.

Least I'm not playing a ton of WSOP events atm.

This is kinda therapeutic, will have to keep blogging. In other news the strikeforce card turned out to be ok but a bit of a let down based on some of those match-ups on paper. Any mma fans in leggo land?

Later, at-least for a few more hrs.

Lately life has been pretty uneventful, I haven't really been grinding much. I usually sit fire up some tables, take some gross beat and say fuck it and quit. I'm such a good pro.

Thats what is boiling down to at the moment, I am a terrible poker pro, at all the things that really count, hands, improvement, motivation etc.. I have been spending so much time watching tv, playing xbox and wasting time with herbal medicine. Its so gross seeing all the updates coming in from vegas, I really wish I was there and I could have been if I had decided to get on my bike and grind up some cash at some point in the last 6 mths. This has kind of been the story of my poker career, run hot crush the shit out of poker for a few weeks then take the next few months off.

Over the past few months I have really been trying to decide what I want from my life and how poker fits in. For those who don't know me I graduated mid last year with a degree in Film and Television in Australia, but job opportunities are basically nil. Since I graduated I have run into two people from my graduation class one was working in a Pizza shop and the other was working in an Electronics store. Poker is one of the few things in life that I am genuinely passionate about. 90% of the time I just love playing, this silly game. But the other 10% of the time I walk around on constant tilt.

My main problem is focus, when I'm playing my A game, I'm almost unstoppable. But the thing is I'm playing my A game about 5% of the time. My B game is a pretty big step down but still a small winning proposition. My C game on the other hand is terrible and my D game is literally trying to light my money on fire.

That being said I have still done pretty well this year without really putting in any time or effort into my development or at the tables. I look at SEABEAST and the guy is amazing, he crushed for a while now, but Its funny to think I knew him when he was still grinding 2/4 and 3/6 LHE online, now he's off playing 40k tourneys. Thats the thing in poker you get rewarded for the effort and time that you put into this game.

I just need to find out how to tap into my focus and really put in the hours, its not like i have much else to do most of my friends are working full time or busy studying for mid year exams, or for their CA certifications.

Today I'm off to buy a new desk because the one I have now is a total POS, then tonight my plan is to grind all night and try to get my sleep schedule somewhat normal.

GOALS
90k hands this months - played about 15k so far
Be happy to make 10k, but I think 15 to 20 is possible.
Try to make regular blog and forum posts.

Longer term goals, 1000nl reg by the end of the year, grind out a big enough roll to go and play BIG live games at the Aussie mills and look to be a top online player by next WSOP. Sounds like a big ask but I think its very possible, but not easy.

Let us agogo

I've been playing a fair amount and crushing pretty hard. Been 5 days and my account says I'm up about €2800 Euros so far, this includes some bonus money and rakeback for a few days last month, probably around €150 worth.

Funny enough I feel like I have been running pretty badly in terms of all in expectation the last few days, but I guess I am running above expectation in terms of flopping sets and having people spew vs me.

Tonight I'm going to take it easy and play the low and medium scoop events, and a few cash tables on start at the same time. lucky for me my sleep schedule is pretty backwards atm because these events start at 230am Australian time. Hopefully I can make a score, be nice to go out and buy a 55inch LCD I have been looking at lately. Either that or I have to wait a few more weeks, its sometimes nice being a poker player.

If that doesn't happen my goal for the month is €10k, and if I can put the volume in I think this should be easy. Not easy in terms of putting in the volume but the mistakes I am seeing people make at the current stakes I'm playing is hilarious, my edge in big pots in monstrous. Therefore as long as I can force myself to get the volume in I should get there easily.

I think I'm going to need to divide my challenge bankroll between two separate sites because after a week staring at the same tables and the same layout for hours a day, I'm starting to loose my mind. There is this weird muscle memory type thing that goes on in my brain whereby sometimes I make a terrible call with no justification just because something clicks in my brain, or tilt. It feels that all of the collected memory for the past few days grinding (reads, big pots, suckouts, tilt etc) gets backed up and forces the poker gears in my brain to stall. I find by changing sites and being forced to try and re-understand the visual cues to beat the game it refocuses me and makes me play better.

Till next time GL

Managed to play 2400ish hands today and according to my cashier I am now up almost exactly €2100 in two days, this includes a €50 bonus I cleared today. Plus I should have cleared around €150 in rakeback but haven't counted this in the total yet.

Today I started off slowly, but then brought it home with a big session while mixing in some .75/1.5nl. I know I'm not technically rolled for this limit for the challenge but the games where way too good to pass on. Even though I did crush today, I still managed to loose a €400 pot when I over-setted someone and they turned quads, but whatever that stuff happens. So overall I feel great and hopefully I feel like playing again tomorrow but if not I might just take it easy.

Gl at the tables

Got a decent number of hands in today and these are my results;

Played 1157 hands of 100 Euro 6 max - winning 640.64 and
Played 926 hands of 100 $ 6 max - winning 200.74

Worked off 30euros of a bonus too, so not a bad start for the first day. I'm aiming to get around 3000 hands tomorrow.

My goal for the rest of the year is to clear 100k Euro's, which I think is super doable but its something to aim for from here.

I was scheduled to start on Friday but woke up not really feeling it so I skipped it, instead went out and played a bit of live poker, which I haven't done in about 6mths. Lol live poker, game was very good and I ended up winning 600ish in 4 hrs playing 5/5NL. Game was super loose with the average raise being 40 to 55 preflop which kinda sucks because you have to play super tight until you double up and can play deep vs most of the table. Alot of the stacks where 1500 plus so once you get a double up the game tends to play like 5/10.

I managed to double after an hour went I open limped 99 utg+1 (10 handed), the game was playing super aggro so I was trying to see a multiway flop for likely one raise behind me. I had a pretty tight image so I think a limp is way better than a raise in this spot. Anyway everyone limped behind me and the sb didn't realise he was in the sb and threw out $5, which was counted as a minraise. The bb calls, I call two behind me call, then the huge action player at the table makes it 5 with $55 more, he gets four calls and I ship for slightly more than $600 total, folded to the action player he snaps (he has me monsterously covered), next player tanks and calls for 300 to 350 all in.

I'm up against A2ss and K7cc and manage to fade both and scoop. Not much happens after that and I quit a few hours later with an ok win, and a few hrs of entertainment.

But back to my online challenge, I stuck 700 Euros into a Euro network this afternoon to start my challenge, I only deposited 700 Euros instead of the 1k I had previously mentioned because that is all that I had in my neteller account. My plan is to just grind .50/1 euro 6 max until I get up to 8k total and then move up to 1/2 and keep moving up at 40 Bi's and re-evaluate when I get to 600nl. I'm planning to be at 1/2 within three weeks, not sure if it will happen but to motivate myself when I get to 8k euro bankroll for this challenge I'm going to head out and purchase a nice LCD hi def TV I have been looking at.

So far today I have play around 1300 hands and am up just under 6bi's, I'm going to head out grab a redbull come back and try and get in another big session and then I'll update this.

Gl all.