2011 - done!

About half an hour ago I hit my 800k milestone and since I'm not planning to go ahead and make 200k VPP in order to accomplish SNE the next 9 days I'm finished for teh year:

December was a pretty good month again and a solid one to finish the year off. In the beginning of the month I already posted about my hot start into the month but as usual when u brag and post garphs shit got real literally directly thereafter when I managed to book my biggest losing day I had so far which looked like this:

It was one of these days where nothing was working and still you keep playing bc u have to hit milestones and make some VPPs. Not that much fun to lose around 440$ an hour over 13hours but I guess it happens. It tend to check results pretty infrequently, especially when running bad which was a very good thing in this case. Obviously I knew while playing that I was down a decent chunk of money but I never would've thought that it was in the 5k+ area. However when I checked results 5 days later I was career peaking again bc I grinded all back and even a little bit moar so I couldn't care less. If I would've checked my results this day, saw the garph, the hands, etc. it definitely would've got me thinking about my game, how unlucky I am, that I play too long sessions, blablabla and in the meanwhile I would be depressed for at least 2 days. Bc of not knowing how much I lost however I was able to play my A-Game from the 1st hand when I started my session on the next day. Good poker is insanely dependant on having a good mindset - always - and you should do whatever it takes to accomplish that. Not checking results especially when I run horrible works wonders for me.

Anyways, after this day, where I slaughtered almost all my winnings I made the first 11 days of teh month, I was back winning as usual and having new career peaks almost each day (which is extremly motivating).
Final graph looks kinda donkish:

So the story is to go from zero to 7k, go back to zero, go to 11k. I can live with that. Over the next couple of days I might do another graph for BuyIns won this year including All In EV which should be kinda interesting bc I don't really know anymoar how good I was running during the first month of the year bc I change the database of my Tracker pretty frequently. Over the last couple of months I was pretty much always running around my All In EV without huge swings which is nice to have but kinda expected(intended) given my style:

Not much moar to say in case of Poker. Tomorrow I leaving teh rock for appr. 4 months. First stop is my hometown in Germany, catching up with my parents and having a couple of Weizen with a couple of old friends. 28th I fly from Munich directly to Phuket and meet up with my roomie and another good friend in order to explore Thailand for 3 weeks. Atm we trying to make it to the Full Moon New Years Party in Koh Phangan. We screwed up the organisation a little bit bc we booked Patong in Phuket first and thereafter everybody was telling this is shit when u r not into hookers so we canceled our plan and will be starting from Samui. However our flights were already booked so I'm going to have a rather interesting trip with Mr. Schtevendahl from Phuket to Samui through the jungle of Thailand on the 29th...
In the end of January I leave to Brazil where we are having a look into the real estate market atm. It's alot moar expensive than I would've expected but whatever. Main plan there is to spent Carnival in Jurere Internacional which seems to be the hotspot of Brazil - people there call it the Ibiza of Brazil haha. Gonna be pretty interesting to have Ibiza, Carnival and 30°C with sunshine at the same time. I probably could get used to this :)

To give you some impressions how life in Jurere will be like here a few videos and picz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT_Ol6atMZc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6cTjwcynrU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckbw9Mikee8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ4Pxc-AI4Y

Return to Malta will be somewhere in the end of april. Haven't booked a flight yet but got my room sublet until teh 30.04.2011 and after this time summer in Brazil is over and it's time to move on. Seems like finally my plan to not have to deal with any sort of winter works out. Malta was fairly nice until mid december this year and the 5days in Germany I should survive somehow I assume and then it's summertime again. weeeeee

Massive start into december

Prolly regret posting tis but since it is my best start into a month this year so far I somehow feel the urge to share it (in b4 downswong...).
Playing good poker, good hours, good games, running decent, having fun - atm just everything fits together. Got 53k VPPs left for my 800k bonus and basically I want to be done until teh 23rd of december where I'm flying out to my family in Germany for Christmas. Shouldn't be to difficult to bomb about 100.000 hand the coming 15 days but nevertheless I have not much time to fuck around with other stuff but teh occasional party with teh guaranteed loss of memory should be allright...

Like a friend of mine once said: 1k everyday keeps teh doctor away...

peaze!

on a sidenote: gratulations to spanish maricon Adria Baluga who managed to come in 2nd at World Poker Tour in Prague for around 320.000$ - nh, sir...

Finally a decent month... weeeeee

It's end of november now and this is probably teh second month this year (after february) where I'm really satisfied with my results and my play. Beginning of the month was the usual breakeven shit over about 70k hands but since I returned from the start of carnival in Cologne I started running alot better and also game qualitiy increased prolly due to the Pokerstars 10 year Promotion in combination with the WSOP win of the german player Pius Heinz. My last 6 working days were all winners and I had only 3 days this month were I was losing moar than 1000$ which is pretty good also... Anyhu, here's the garph:

So I managed to play a pretty decent volume and made almost 15k$ at teh tables (month is not completely over yet) and another 6k$ from boni and milestones which puts me above the 20k$ mark which is basically the goal each month even though I did not reached it too often this year. Not to much else to say here, games are outstanding atm, I play very good poker and enjoy every minute of it and looking forward what december has to offer. In the end I should not really be surprised bc when u increase volume u run shit and when u decrease it you run decent.

I'm at about 730k VPP so far which means I'm going to hit the 800k milestone pretty easily before Christmas if nothing special happens. Goal for next year is definitely Supernova Elite again with a little better time management though. Unfortunately I will not be able to play too much during the first 4 months bc of my travelling so that it is going to be a rough end of the year but I'm quite confident I can make it again.

In case of winter plans I booked a direct flight to Phuket from Munich for the 28th of december and will hit Germany before after I hit 800k VPPs on Pokerstars. Plan for Phuket is to stay in some nice Hotel over NYE for a couple of days and then do a little bit island hopping and sight seeing thereafter. I plan to stay 3-4 weeks and then fly over to Brazil for 3 months in order to meet a couple of pokerfriends from Malta who staying there for the winter as well. While I most probably will not be working much in Thailand plan for Brazil is to play a somewhat decent volume and make party in the meanwhile. Haven't booked my flight yet for Brazil but it is basically set in STONE.

Balneario Camboriu, Brazil

Unfortunately it's going to be rather expensive to go there from Phuket so that I have to calculate about 1500Euros one way to Brazil but money doesn't matter - amirite? Late April I'm going to be back on teh rock for another fantastic maltese summer. In the meanwhile I trying to sublet my room for that timeframe bc we just signed a new contract for our penthouse for another 12 months :)

Yesterday my new LOMA exaust arrived so that I will be busy the coming days finding somebody who can install it. In the end I'm looking forward that you finally can hear the 404HP of the car. Unfortunately weather is pretty much shit here atm so that I will not be able to drive too much...

Prolly taking most of today off (need to sleep soon anyways) and hit the town later to spent some of my hard earned money.

I think that's everything for now,

peaze

Say no to Supernova Elite, say yes to Life...

Long time no update here so I guess it's about time...

Mid october I decided that I will not go for SNE this year which had several reasons in the end. First off I said from the beginning if games getting significantly worse towards the end I will def. quit the chase and that was exactly wat was happening. Needed alot longer to get my sessions running compared to end of september for example and it was fairly hard to get 24 tables besides the very peak times on teh weekends. I experimented a little bit with CAP but here is the problem that I find it extremely hard to mix CAP and normal tables bc they are more or less 2 different games (for example I need different raise sizes, different contibet sizes, etc.). So I tried playing CAP alone for a couple of days but came to the conclusion that even if I'm getting massive amount of hands and VPPs per hour the absolut max. I can expect there is something like 0.5PTBB (more likely something like 0.0 while playing 20++tables) with insane swings. I mean in the 50k hands I played I was down 3.5k in EV during the first 20k hands and up the same amount in EV during the next 20k hands and I haven't even played much 600 and 1k - I never experienced that in the appr. 5Mirrion hands I played fullstacked. Another reason was that I was already starting to burn out after 3-4weeks with an average of at least 10.000 US hands each day and still had another 8 weeks in front of me.
So I decided to skip SNE for this year and better focus on my game and trying to play a little higher when there are good tables available. That's basically what I'm doing since then and so I was able to sit down at an NL2k table for the first time since mid 2010 which definitely felt quite good.

October in total was pretty meh. Played a shitload in the beginning and alot less in the end but still managed to put in appr. 250k hands which resulted in 140k VPPs and some decent rakeback. Besides that I was not running to well at the tables and prolly don't played my a-game especially in the last hours of my days mainly because of the volume. Anyways I managed to book a winning month with about 5k $ before Rakeback (might be a bit less than in the garph bc some CAP is not included bc I played CAP with Holdemmanager) allthough my winrate was atrocious...

Anyhu, I cannot change the past so ocotober is over and I gotta move on. Atm I'm playing between 6 and 8k hands a day when I'm playing and doing alot moar theory than I had done during the first 10 months of the year and I think that will pay of in an increased winrate soon-ish. It's also quite cool to not be forced to play no matter if you want to or not because now when I don't want to play I don't play which was not often possible during the last 2.5years.

Besides poker I did some detox after the octoberfest fail. Managed to stay completely sober and healthy for moar than 3 weeks and atm I'm going out 1-2 times a week. This will change a little when I will be flying to Cologne for Carnival tis thursday and staying the whole weekend which will result in a massive intoxication of alcoholic beverages but I guess we only young ones.
Weather in Malta obvisouly got alot worse during the last couple of weeks which results in a decent amount of rain for the most part. It's still basically always above 15degress and yesterday for example we had probably 23 and sunshine for the whole day but still it's not really comparable to summer.
So I try to piss of to destination thailand as soon as possible. My time of departure will be between early december and the 2nd christmas holiday if everything goes fine which I assume. Thereafter my Brazil plans are still actual.

Furthermore me and Adrian are about to sign a new 1year contract for our penthouse here in St. Julians so that I will be definitely back for some moar crazyness next summer. If somebody is interested in subletting the place during winter for 1-5 months you can find the official 2+2 thread right here:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/177/general-marketplace/rent-super-luxurious-seafront-duplex-penthouse-malta-1121785/


cheers!

CAP is a sick game...

one garph says moar then 1000 words... first 23k hands CAP...

Supernova Elite Chase Update

First off, to make it short, I quit the sleep thing after around 40 hours in. Main problem was that I was super tired after the 8th or 9th nap basically not able to do anything. And definitely not able to play poker (at least not winning poker). Unfortunately I have no other choice than to grind bc of SNE-Chase and so I said fuck the experiment. I'm convinced it will work if you have some time to get used to the new schedule but I didn't have that time atm...

In case of SNE it's basically like every damn year. Your volume goes up and your EV goes down:

Graph looks shit, I should be up around 4ish and be down around 2k... Well, could be worse... I know the EV doesn't look too good either but that's mainly based on the fact that I run like a one-legged hooker and getting alot of coolers especially at 400 in no brainer spots where I nevertheless have awkward equity... One of the prime examples is this hand:


PokerStars - $4 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: $220.15
MP: $581.50
CO: $296.00
BTN: $526.60
SB: $200.35
Hero (BB): $400.00

SB posts SB $2.00, Hero posts BB $4.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero has Jh Jd

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to $8.00, fold, Hero raises to $32.00, BTN calls $24.00

Flop: ($66.00, 2 players) 6d Js 9h
Hero bets $40.00, BTN calls $40.00

Turn: ($146.00, 2 players) 7d
Hero checks, BTN bets $80.00, Hero raises to $328.00 and is all-in, BTN calls $248.00

River: ($802.00, 2 players) 8d

Hero shows Jh Jd (Three of a Kind, Jacks) (Pre 81%, Flop 74%, Turn 23%)
BTN shows Tc 8c (Straight, Jack High) (Pre 19%, Flop 26%, Turn 77%)
BTN wins $799.00

And if you get a bunch of that bullshit at your highest stakes it is hard to make money. But things will even out in the long run so nothing I can do for now besides playing my best poker...
In the end I also have to take into account that I played each day this month at least 10.000 hands which equals at least 8hours, often I played more than 12 and when you put in that volume your game will definitely take a hit especially during the last hours. That's the price you have to pay and it's totally normal.
After boni and milestones I'm up a little bit but that's anyways a joke...

In fact variance isn't even hitting me that hard yet when I look up the days seperately. My biggest loser was 1200$ over 10k hands of NL200-1k which is not that much and the biggest winner is 2.3grand over 11,3k hands which is not much either given the stakes.

Furthermore I started playing a little CAP lately as well. For those who don't know, CAP is a special form of No Limit Holdem where the betting is capped after 20Bigblinds. So in any given hand you cannot lose more than 20Bigblinds but cannot really win more than 20BBs either (unless it is multiway pot obviously). It's a very robotic game of poker where you will be all-in before the flop most of the time and experience alot of variance bc you getting your money in as a small fav or small dog very often.
Obviously I run like a peaze of shit in this game as well. So I'm down 2000$ after around 10k hands with an
expected value around 0. I have to see how things go but from what I saw there's alot of very juicy games especially at 400 and 600 with some massive fish who overcalling All-Ins for 20BBs with stuff like A8s or QJo. So my conclusion is that even if edges are slim these games should def. be beatable with a healthy table selection.
Main reason to start CAP was that I had problems getting moar than 12 tables after 7 in the morning especially during the week and if I don't want to end up playing 14 hours each days I have to get more tables running at the same time. NL100 herefore is not really an option because the VPPs are shit and so I thought I might give CAP a chance.

That's the current VPP count so it is still along way to go but atm I'm quite confident I should be able to make it if I do not go on some massive downer. I'm like 7000VPPs behind my schedule for this month so I might have to increase volume a little bit this and the next weekend to catch up. My plan is basically to average 6500points each day until christmas with appr. 8-10days off.
On a sidenote I took my first day off last wednesday were I was pausing my detox for a couple of hours. Before that I haven't been drunk for 3 weeks and now I will be a good boy until Halloween.

I hope things turn around and there is some heater coming along my way soon but obv it is poker and you should always expect the unexpected...

peaze

The Uberman sleep experiment

I don't exactly know how I came up with it but like 15 hours ago I decided to give it a try.

The Uberman sleep schedule is a schedule, where u sleep 20-25minutes, then stay awake for appr. 3.5hours, going back to sleep for 20-25minutes and repeat. More detailed information u can find with the help of google. Gossip tells that people like Da Vinci and Einstein used to live with that schedule for a long time.

The main upside is pretty obv. You only need 2-2.5hours sleep a day and basically have over 21hours where you are awake and can be productive. At least that's the theory of it. I bought a book about it this morning which should help me alot on my way.

Main reasons why I'm doing this is because I'm curious if it really works and because it would be very good for my time management in case of the Supernova Elite attempt as well bc I have moar time to work and moar free time.

I started basically yesterday afternoon. I woke up after a long sleep at around 3pm in the afternoon, then stay awake until 7:30am in the morning.

At around this time I was trying my first 25minute NAP which failed unfortunately. However, at noon I did my next attempt and it worked out nicely. Same at 4pm. Nap at 8pm wasn't that good, I think I only slept for maybe 5 minutes. Anyways atm I'm feeling really good. Maybe a little tired but not very bad and my next Nap comes in 2 hours at midnight anyways...

From what I read so far the hardest thing is the adaption to the new schedule. Especially days 3-5 shall be a pain in the ass and they say you get insanely tired. Thereafter it is going to be better. After 10-20days you should have completely adapted and be able to function with only 2-2.5hours sleep each 24hours. We'll see what happens...

For most people this schedule is not applicable bc you cannot manage a normal 9-5 job and doing strict naps every 4 hours but since I'm flexible as shit bc of poker I don't have this problem so I figured I could give it a try.

Only real issue is when I finish my detox at around Halloween it is going to be tough to live this schedule. I mean, imagine taking a nap at 8, starting pre drinks at half 9, taking another nap at 12, going to a club, probably drinking, coming home at 4 sharp, sleeping 20 minutes, waking up at 4:20, having to stay awake for 3.5hours half drunk and pretty exausted - well, I guess I have to deal with it when the time comes :P Furthermore they say this sleeping pattern gets u in euphoric state, comparable to a drug, so maybe I can skip alcohol completely :)

keeping u posted.

SNE Hunt first update

Seems like my health is directly correlated with my success or better said luck in case of poker... I'm painfree now, ass is fine again and my teeth no longer hurting but from the upswing I had when I was in pain I came directly to that current downswing when I'm painfree. In the end it is painfull anyways though...

That's the AI-EV garph for the month so far. I'm kinda satisfied with my volume even though I have to increase it a little bit to hit 200k VPPs this month and I'm def. satisfied with my game giving that volume. I'm still highly motivated but when the current bad run continues over teh next 100k or 200k hands then this might change eventually... Alone today I think I lost more preflop AI's with Overpairs then I won in like 8k hands which is insane. Nevertheless I was up in EV last month alot so things equal out I assume. I would nevertheless not mind a somehow steady run without that EV bullshit but I guess variance is part of teh game and especially shorthanded increases it alot which I am learning teh hard way at the moment...
Besides poker I'm not doing too much tis month. I'm still on my detox until Halloween (maybe I finish a week earlier but highly depend on my playing volume) and I'm finally back in the gym and back running. Even changed my gym to the one next door, that I save some much needed grind time :)

Cannot say anything about results for the moment bc I'm not checking but it's pretty obvious that I'm down a bunch so it's comebacktime for now...

cheers

Update in case of the current developments...

So, as you all know after my last post I arrived friday night in Malta and went quickly to bed thereafter bc I was dead tired.

After that some things happend:

I started playing on saturday again and managed to play around 12.000hands in 10hours which was pretty good... However I lost 2k $ in the process - basically all back to basics I thought.
On sunday however something strange happend. First my ass was alot better than all the other days. Unfortunately my teeth decided to start hurting me on that day because me without pain would be probably no fun...Ahh, yes, the strange thing. I started winning at the tables, I even started winning alot. I didn't even knew anymoar how it feels to be able to make this amounts in very short-term. The garphs will explain more than words I assume:

Upswingaments

Pretty decent upswing, basically teh first real one since february. I hope it still lasts a few moar days but we will see what happens.

Concerning my health I was at a very good dentist here in Malta who told me that the pain is coming bc I'm having an infection around my wisdom tooth on the right side. He thinks with 27years it's unlikely that the tooth will come out now so everything should be fine once the infection is gone. I will be taking some antibiotika the next days and see if it works out, However based on my recent luck I'm quite sure sooner or later I might get problems with the tooth again :(

Concerning the car I went for it earlier on and everything seems back to normal. The dealer told me there was a cable cut and they replaced it. This cable seemed to cause all the errors with the boardcomputer. In the end paid only 100Euro for the repair works so keeping my fingers crossed that this is really sorted.

Over the coming days I'm obv not planning to go out on teh antibiotiks so there will be alot time for teh grind. So far I don't really manage to play the nessecary amount for SNE but I'll keep ya posted...

cheers

Epic Road Trip fail... es kommt immer anders als man denkt...

Hope for teh best, expect the worst... running horribad...

In general I wanted to write this blog entry on my way from Palermo to Genova on the ferry, however now I'm sitting in my car in Pozzallo, Sicily waiting for a ferry back to Malta.

To make a long story short I started appr. 12 hours ago with my roomie and the Vette from Malta to Sicily, then we wanted to drive up to Palermo, getting from there to Genova via ferry and from then on driving down to Munich. Even before the trip signs were not too good bc last friday I managed to fall on my ass which responded in developing a massive bruise and even though it got better over the last days it is still a pain in the ass. Second sign was that my car already fucked up yesterday and we exchanged the battery because of this. Everything was back to normal – at least for a couple of hours until we realized in the middle of Sicily that probably the charger of the battery is busted while the boardcomputer giving all typ of errors and the instruments barely working. Awesome thing in sicily is that appr. 1 out of 100 people is speaking english which makes it kinda complictated to have a conversation... However we managed to find a guy who confirmed our thesis with the broken charger and this guy got us another guy who had a tow truck. 550Euro and 4 hours later Adrian is now waiting for a flight to Munich in Catania in some shady airport Hotel and I am waiting for a ferry back to Malta with my car praying that it starts later on to get it somehow on the ferry. In Malta another tow truck will be waiting for me which will be another 100Euro or so to get me to my mechanic who hopefully figures out the problem the coming days. Ferry is obvisouly not for free as well so I already spent a k today for a shitload of stress and some experience... However I should look at the brightside – it's not like I crashed the car completly, I'm more or less healthy and if the ferry doesn't sink I should survive the day.

Probably this all is kind of god's saying: „listen son, you are 27, u had a fucking massive summer, went out a shitload, been with some very beautiful girls and spent a decent amount of cash in the meanwhile – get urself a break and go back on track you cannot live like this the whole fucking year...“

Bottom line is that god is probably right. This was a massive summer. I cannot remember any summer so far which was even close to what happend this one. I'm regretting very few. But summer is over. This week was the end of summer party so it has to be over.

Atm I assume that I will not be flying to Munich for the Oktoberfest – I wasn't really to much in the mood going there before the trip but everything was booked and so on. In the end this prolly even saves me money because in Munich and on the way I would've def spent more than what I spent today.

Plus I will be able to work the coming 2 weeks. So to speak of work the month was pretty much as horrible as it gets. Good thing is I played decent amount so far and made appr. 55K VPP. Bad thing is that I'm up around 2k $ and basically breakeven again since 50k hands. EV is at around 5.5k $ which helps me nothing and in the end I should be still up EV-wise over the year so it's kinda pathetic to bitch here. You also may say, well, be happy, you are up, you made some money out of rakeback... While this is ofc troo I'm far to ambitious to think that way. Games atm are pretty much awesome and adding 6max was a very good decision for me. In fact 6max 200 was the only limit I ran hot and made like 6-7k with over 4PTBB but unfortunately I lost 3BuyIns at FR and basically lost at everything higher than 200 which is against mindblowing considering what games I play there (the people who play with me probably know what I mean).

For the year I'm sitting at the moment with around 470k VPP and believe me or not I really think about shotting for SNE again... I'm really motivated in case of grinding atm (prolly bc I'm not really satisfied with my year so far) and if you calculate everything than it would be appr. 60K$ I could make in 3 month only through rakeback and boni plus the added benefits for next year which will easily be another 10-20k$ - alot of money given the fact nobody knows how poker will continue.

Furthermore my actual plan is to leave Malta not b4 after Christmas whih gives me additional time on the way. Best case scenario would be to ship SNE between the 20^th and 23^th of december, fly to my parents for Christmas and piss of on the 26^th or 27^th to Thailand. If this should really be happening I'm almost certain I take the entire january of. However I give myself like 20-25% chance of reaching that goal bc it would be an insane volume, with horrendous swings and not too much free time... I definitely will grind alot in near future and I'm pretty convinced I should easily do the 800k milestone but another 200k after this gonna be sick considering I will try it with NL200 and 400 only to keep swings as low as any possible (which is not really possible ldo). The main factors are that I have to see if I can put in 3 four hour sessions on alot of days (never really did this so that is def kinda very tough) and if the games stay how they are which is unlikely tbh bc alot of people will try to grind for SNE themselves pretty soon and put in sick volume and will decrease the fish to reg- ratioo. And for me it is 100% sure that I will never start playing tables full of regs only to accumulate some VPPs. But at least I can try, see how it goes and then reevaluate once I hit something like 750k VPP and then decide if it is worth it to push for the rest.

I still have another 3.5hours til my ferry hopefully takes me and the car to Malta but my battery (again) is getting low and I don't really know what to write anymoar. Atm def a bit frustrated bc of that fucked up day and a little bit burned out of real-life but still looking forward what the next weeks will bring. If I'm lucky there even could be an upswing coming around. And maybe I can manage to do 4 weeks without alcohol at a certain point of time which would be well needed as well...

On a sidenote we spoke to our current landlord the other day bc our rent is running out and he wants to have significantly more money in future even if we would commit for a year so it's quite uncertain if I'm going to stay in that lovely penthouse after this year. On the brightside he likes the idea of getting a jacuzi installed which def would give the place some more value but we'll see what is happening.

Ps: when you read this thingy I probably just arrived at home being dead tired and exhausted so sorry for no pictures and alot of text this time but I need to sleep...

chin chin

The power of Vinivici9586 (Poker only update)

July is finally over and I managed to grind in the last 1000VPPs of 50.000 in order to maintain SNE.
The month was pretty interesting. I managed to lose 3.000$ pretty quickly, coming back to zero, losing 3.000$ again and coming back to zero. That was my first 60k hands aka 60 hours of work this month. Always nice to work for a 0$ hourly rate (b4 rakeback) :P
I definitely wasn't playing too well even though I cannot remember really bad mistakes I made. Was basically a mixture of running like a one legged hooker, getting set-upped here and there, being under EV, playing tired, playing at the wrong time and doing a little bit too much party. However it's always mindblowing what variance can do even if you are proven winner over almost 5million US hands... (and I was breaking even probably another 50-70k hands b4 that as well...) Ok, first part of the month.

2nd part of the month was alot better. I found myself at around 70k hands at the 20th of July, way behind pace for my 50k VPP monthly goal (I still could've skipped one month and still maintain SNE but somehow I wanted to play and make some money because no money no fun...). I checked my results and decided that it is time to kick NL100 out of my selection. It's not like I don't beat it but if you basically played NL200+ all the time and then start playing NL100 (I did that after Black Friday because traffic went down) your VPPs/hand getting a massive hit and I'm convinced that I'm overplaying the one or the other hand every now and then and broking a little bit too lite in some spots. Long story short I thought about the whole situation and my best game is by far NL200. Unfortunately I don't find 24 Fullring tables which I view as decent most of the time so I thought to myself it's time to give shorthanded another try. I mean in the end of the day it is the same game - yes, little bit more aggro, only 6 people but it is still NL200 and most of the regs are still pretty bad because otherwise they would play higher. So far things worked out well and after my first 20k shorthanded hands I'm up around 2k$ with a 2.5PTBB WR which is decent and which should be somehow maintainable even though there's some upswing included atm.
Basically the whole upswing started after mixing in shorthanded... All of a sudden I was winning flips, setupping people left and right AND playing alot better poker compared to the weeks before. From the last sessions I had there were definitely some in which I think I probably played the best poker I had played in a long while if not ever... Conclusion of all that is that I made 11.6k$ after July 19th in 10 working days and 66 hours which comes down to a sweet 175$ an hour (and only one losing day if you can call minus 250 a losing day haha :P). But to be honest there was definitely a good portion of upswing included - nevertheless it's a good sign!

To illustrate the whole thing here my final July garph:

Like 5days ago I changed my Stars avatar to Hayden Panettiere in honor of one of the best small stakes players ever existed (kid is unemployed after Black Friday unfortunately) and of course it made BOOM directly afterwards. Should've done that a long time before but better late then never I assume.

For August my goal is to make 50k VPPs again to keep on pace for the 600k milestone this year. However I get alot of people visiting me this month so I might end up a little bit short this time but we'll see what happens and as being said I can skip one month and I will lose Supernova Elite beginning october anyways so that it doesn't really matter. Goal at the tables is like always making some money and if I keep running like I do atm this should be realistic...

Speaking of real-life there was a really massive pool party at the villa of some other pokerfriends here in Malta with well above 150 people during the peak and an open bar. Was probably the most massive private event I ever attended and I cannot remember another night were time was passing by that fast which is in general a good indicator how nice the party was. Thanks again to the guys organized this one and made it happen - I'm sure it was not the last one this year.

Furthermore my parents visiting me in Malta atm which is a good thing but definitely will decrease my volume because these days I'm more busy grinding restaurants with them instead of grinding pokerhands... Oh, and my dad's birthday today! Happy birthday, dad!

Good luck at the tables and enjoy the summer!

best wishes from Malta

Finally new career peak after long break even stretch...

Somehow I cannot really motivate myself to write much in summer because there are so many other things to do which explains why my last post was more than a month ago... However now I feel like writing at least a little bit what has happend over the last 6 weeks...

In general life is good, it is summer here in Malta, each day above 30°C, sunny, no clouds. I probably haven't done that much party since I started my studies back in the days :P

3 weeks ago we rented a sweet farmhouse with a pool over a weekend on the neighbour island Gozo (which tends to be alot quieter than Malta...). On this weekend I went to La Grotta for the first time which is definitely one of the nicest venues I ever went.

Basically every week here is at least one massive event mostly openair with well known international DJs like Deadmau5, Guetta, Underworld, Basement Jaxx or artists like Snoop Doog and LMFAO. I can only recommend everybody to give Malta a visit during summer because I believe there are few summer hotspots in Europe where you can have this amount of fun and entertaintment for pretty cheap money.

Last week some friends visited me to celebrate the 30th birthday of my boy Markus Schneider so we went out 5 days in a row (which I haven't done in ages but it is still possible with 27 haha). After the week every single one of them was happy that they choose Malta to celebrate instead of somewhere else.

Don't really know what I should write about all those parties so I better let some pictures do the talking...

The only bad thing in case of the partying happend last weekend when me and another german professional poker player were massively attacked by a guy while partying in one of Malta's best openair venues but shit happens day and night and nothing you can do about it. My facebook followers will be informed about that case anyways and since yesterday the maltese police is as well so I will see how it goes. I'm fine in the end which is all what counts and this action definitely taught me the lesson to be a bit more careful no matter where I go...


In case of poker the last 5 weeks basically were a nightmare. I was running pretty bad, not playing enough, to many parties, etc. which resulted in a pretty long break even stretch (yes, I know, it could be worse..) After rakeback I still made ok amount of money so no reason for complaining. However I'm without a loosing day during the last 6 days and prolly playing the best poker I played so far in my life so it definitely goes in the right direction. Furthermore I stopped playing NL100 and started playing NL200 shorthanded instead which goes pretty well so far and which should've been one of my best decisions this year when things work out as planned. I even played some hands at the 1k tables where nobody have seen me during the last 4 months :)
Yesterday I reached a new career peak on PTR and managed to come back after I was down 3000$ two weeks ago. Now I'm up 3700$ not including rakeback which still sucks but month is not over yet so I hope to increase this figure a little further.
Finally presenting the current AI-EV graph for the month where you can see that the boomer just started...:

see you guys around, keep on rockin!

Life without Winter - trying to make it happen :)

Honestly I want to write more often here but somehow I'm too busy/lazy/whatever...

But now almost one month after my last post I think I can share a little bit (it's not that I wouldn't have stuff to post every week but yes, lazy me).

First off I thought about my near/mid future and what I want to do with it while I was not really able to sleep one night and came to the conclusion that I'm living life at 90% right now, but why not living it 125% or 140%? I'm playing since almost 3 years for a living now, stopped giving a fuck about money long time ago and still I'm not travelling like 1/4 of what I want to travel. I mean, I'm free like a bird, can basically work from everywhere in the world (ok wait, no longer in the "land of the free"), make decent money even if I only work like 80 hours a month and I'm not using the opportunities given because of that. Don't get me wrong, I feel pretty damn good atm in Malta, getting to know a shitload of new awesome people each week, have a massive circle of friends here, amazing Parties, etc. But winter is coming without a doubt and I'm definitely not looking forward to spent my time in winter here working 200++ hours a month to kill the time. I did that the last 2 years and I'm not getting younger unfortunately...
Ok, to make a long story short I'm definitely planning to leave Malta latest in November and not returning before late April 2011 (at least that's the plan). Also I definitely wouldn't mind spending another summer here next year - everybody who went to this island and is young and outgoing probably knows what I'm telling about. I doubt there are many places in Europe or maybe even in the world who give you that lifestyle combined with amazing weather for a reasonable price.

massive Beach Party at Armier Bay

About one month ago I was speaking to a friend who is definitely planning to go to some island in Thailand end of this year and my roomie is also very interested so this is going to be the first goal. This should go down somewhere between november and february.
Given the fact that in february is still european winter (even if it is not really cold in Malta) returning by that time is not really an option for me. So I definitely have to go on the other side of the world to run away from winter. 3 places came to my mind which I would really be interested to see/live there:

1. Buenos Aires - Argentina: There's alot of poker guys living so that I would be connected right from the start but it's spanish speaking so this probably would really cause problems even though I could go to a language school but when I'm to lazy to update this blog more often I'm not sure if that would work out.

2. Cape Town - South Africa: Another place I heard alot of and I definitely want to go to at a certain point. Only thing here would be security issues because I heard you really have to take care where you go and when you go and I don't really want to get robbed coming home latenight after a party. Sure you could rent some bodyguards there but that's probably not too cheap and maybe a little bit exaggerated.

3. Golden Coast - Australia: My current favorite. It's basically main season there from january to april, weather is amazing, lots of party people and I would finally make it to Australia which is ranked pretty high on the list of places I want to have spent some time. Also got alot of other pokerfriends who are really interested in this which makes it alot cooler than to travel alone. Only thing now is that this needs to be scheduled somehow but in general I'm pretty good in organizing stuff so I would say this is really going to happen!

Gold Coast

If some of you have other suggestions for places where I should go don't hesitate to share your opinion. Criteria is that it is not in the US and A, weather is comparable or hotter than the mediterranean summer and that there are some parties going on. Don't wanna go to some abandoned island - I'm still under 30 ;)




Malta life is pretty good atm. I think I found a pretty good balance between work, party, workout/run and relax which results in 2-3 Parties a week and 110-130k hands of poker a month which results in a 120-140hours working month.
Last month was my 2nd best month in case of poker this year so that I cannot complain to much. Crossed the 20k$ border a 2nd time 2011 nevertheless because of the Spring Championship of Onlinepoker (a very big and well known tournament series on Pokerstars) out of which I pulled appr. 8500$. The rest came from the cash tables and from rakeback. Also received 10k$ for the WSOP ME which I'm not going to play and also not really count as profit for may but it's money in my pocket anyways. Apropos WSOP in Vegas - at the current point it is very unlikely that I'm going to Vegas this year mainly because I never planned to play Live Poker anyways and since black friday I'm not even allowed to play Onlinepoker there as well so I would basically only go there just for partying, sunbathing and sexual harassment. I expect with flight, hotel, food, drinks, shopping and co. I would end up spending appr. a thousand dollars a day and the question is if I really want to do this or pay alot less and still have the good life here in Malta. Definitely tend to number 2 at the moment but my mind changes rather quickly so I will not give it a 100% yet.


Current month is pretty meh in case of poker so far but it is slowly getting better. This is mainly based on the fact that I run like a one legged hooker at NL400 and 600 and run g00t at NL100 and 200 but as always no matter how good you run at the lowest stakes if you get screwed at the higher ones you don't really make money. Here the current EV graph which shows that pretty much everything is ok. Don't wanna complain about it because year so far was fine but this is the only graph I can post because I'm basically started checking results maximum 2 times a month and don't even know at the moment if I'm down or up in money.

ALL IN EV June 2011

Biggest difference at around hand 255 results in a hand where spanish spewtard idiot xGabrielMooyax decided that KQo is good enough to ship over my 4bet at NL600 for 120BBs effective Button vs. Small Blind. Even if you consider the aggressive nature of todays games especially at NL400+ this play is ridiculous and you will probably not find a single reg who makes money who will disagree with that. I fistpump AKs and he flops gutter and bink a Q on turn for a 1.5k pot. To be honest I have not the slightest clue how a guy who has such obvious leaks can put down an NL400 leaderbord not long time ago but there are people who seem to run good and he is spaniard so power to him.


Next week some good german friends are coming over for a little visit (basically every month somebody is coming) so I will try to increase volume a little bit the coming days that I can take most of the time off end of the month to spent some time with these guys. Then end of the month is also Malta MTV music week with some massive events. Even Snoop Dogg is coming for the big final. At the moment me and Adrian trying to get somehow in contact to him that we can organize some sort of After Party at our penthouse or Hendrik's Villa with him so I will keep you posted about that one :)


In case of working out I'm coming closer and closer to the final body goal for this summer. At the moment I'm running 3 times a week and going to the gym the other 3 days with mostly one day off because of heavy drinking. When I left London in April I had about 80kg and now down to 74kg. 

Beginning June

Reaching 71-72kg would be really sweet because then I would have the perma 6-Pack, maybe even 8 but for that I would have to do at least a 2 week drinking break which is basically impossible at the current time. Furthermore I'm still eating pizza like twice a weak and some fries every now and then which doesn't really help but I'm still pretty satisfied with the results so far given the fact I started to get really serious maybe like 5 weeks ago. Nevertheless maybe I get lucky and loose the last 2-3kg somehow but who knows...


A little book tipp for the end for you guys who speak german (I'm not sure if these books getting translated into english but if so they are a must read).

The guy is Kurt Molzer and also wrote a book before that one which was also amazing. Think it's called "Kurt's Geschichten". If you like sex and have some sort of humor both of his books are definite must reads...


To finish this post I managed to get into some sort of disco fight for the first time after more than 10 years. Until now I'm not really sure what happend but let's say it was pretty decent and I drank a little bit that night (it all started in Nordic and the locals will know what that means). However I ended up in some "nice" after hour club and got into some trouble at the bar for some reason - don't know because of what but whatever. Next thing I remember is that pretty much before shit was about to get real the two bouncers were standing right besides me at the bar. I was pretty happy at that moment because I knew they gonna kick me out so I'm not getting in some fight down there on my own. Unfortunately the one of the bouncers didn't seemed to appreciate my pretty face and started trying to hit it while the other bouncer was dragging me out. Even if my defence was pretty nice given the fact 2.5°% were running through my body he somehow managed to hit me 3 or 4 times during our journey to daylight so that I got some nice cut behind the right ear which made me able to take this picture:

Vampire Party

Moral of the story: avoid bouncers - run as fast as you can.
If my mum is reading this: I'm good!!! This is obviously no real blood - was at a vampire party that night and this was part of the costume...


Rock on! Over and out...

Summer is coming

Because I'm lazy it's been a while since my last post. But whatever, alot of stuff happend the last 30 days and I was more or less busy for the most part...

As many of you know we got kicked out of our summer residence after 22 days so it was time to come up with something new and something better. This was the last place:

Unfortunately the new place has no pool but besides that I like it more because it's alot more in the center and we have no direct neighbours. But it was a long way to sign that one... Everything was basically set up but then the landlord received an anonymous phone call telling him a german and a new zealand guy were kicked out of their old penthouse and so he didn't wanted to rent the place to us anymore. Kind of reasonable. After a long email from me and my roomie, after a long talk of the Dhalia Real Estate Manager with the new landlord, after a reference letter from my old landlord (when I lived here one year ago), after increasing the security deposit from 3000Euro to 9000Euro and after a final meeting with our new landlord we convinced him that we are not as bad as we look and were able to finally sign.
In the meanwhile I lived for a week in another penthouse in Gzira on my own because two of my poker buddies, Bao and Beyne, who rent this one, were on vacation in Germany. Alot better and cheaper then ending up in a hotel room... However, on the 27th of April I finally was able to move into the new place and we haven't had any complaints since then and I'm still very satisfied. These days I'm almost happy we got kicked out of the old one haha... Alotta pictures are up on facebook so I only post a few here that you can get an impression:

We already had some pre-drinking at the place but as being said without any complaints, most probably because downstairs is only and office which closes around 4pm and further down there are 2 restaurants. That is one of the best part for me because atm I'm cooking max. 3 times a week which is amazing. I make a phonecall and 15 minutes later I receive a decent meal for a good price :)
In case of nightlife we are also alot closer than we were before which means you can just walk into Paceville in 15Minutes or take a cab for 5Euro which will take you there in 3 minutes.

Directly after moving in I got two good german friends coming over so that I ended up making alot of party the first few days after moving in. At the moment I'm going out like twice a week which works fine along with poker. But next friend is almost on the way and since I gotta entertain this people it's going to get a little harder in case of party towards the end of the month but I assume that I will have finished work this month around the 26th so that this isn't a big issue.
I'm also doing alot of stuff in case of my summer body atm so that I reduced carbs (even not enough yet) and going one day for gym and the next for a run. Lost like 6kg since I came from London and am pretty satisfied with the results so far.

On a sidenote my roomie bought a BMW Z4 2 weeks ago and we went to Gozo last saturday with the cars. Was definitely good fun and my arms got massive tan during the day - convertible for the win. Furthermore my first sober day at the beach. Gozo is the smaller neighbour island of Malta and you can only reach it via a ferry. About 40k people living there and it's pretty beautiful for a day but living there would prolly not be my style. But during carnival it's getting pretty crazy there from what I heard so that I definitely have to try and spent at least one carnival there :)
/culture

Back to poker it has been over a month since black friday.
In the end I can say for me it's positive. Games are better than ever and very few americans moved abroad so far - I can name 3 regulars who moved (out of 200++ I know). Sure there will be some moving the next 3 months but it seems like not nearly as much are moving as I expected first... I asked myself what I would've done if they close down poker in my country of residence and I'm pretty sure I would've moved in max. one week - I mean it's my fucking job, what should I do. On the other hand I realize that many people are not that flexible and free in this case like I am or maybe they don't have the focus I have, whatever...

Traffic obviously went down but games are good. For me the only thing which changed is that I have to mix in decent amount of NL100 which I basically haven't played the last 2 years but on the brightside this takes alot of variance out of the game and games at NL100 are insanely good so that I even should be able to make some decent money there.
Atm there is also one of the biggest tourmant series on Pokerstars running at - the Spring Championship of Onlinepoker. Most people know the fact that I hate tournament but because of Supernova Elite I had 5200$ which I had to invest in tournaments so that I splitted this amount into several SCOOP events. Running more or less decent so far even if I'm unlucky and lose in the very important spot but that's tournament poker. I'm up around 4k$ so far in this scoop (since I see every event as a freerole this is like 4k free cash) and I also have a couple of nice events left. Maybe I can use my one-time on one of these, preferably the 1050$ Main Event... In case of cash games I make slow but steady money so that I should be up around 5k$ here as well and with an additional 2.5k$ out of Rakeback it's a decent month so far. Nevertheless I hope for a strong finish or better said a tournament cash above 25k$ so that I can buy the last piece missing in the penthouse on my own - teh jaccuzi!