S'update

^ old school Biffy Clyro

Cheers to everyone for the comments left on the post below. It's cool to have so much encouragement and advice, I appreciate it.

Motivation and Goals
I've not played a single hand of poker this month which is kind of wierd. I do have a lot of motivation to play, but at the same time I really feel like spending my time just now finishing up work properly and getting everything sorted out for next month.

I kind of feel like I've achieved my unwritten goal when I started this blog of getting myself into the position where I could play as my main source of income. I'll have new goals after finishing work, so at the moment I'm essentially goal-less. I don't see a lot of point in playing so I'm enjoying the last few weeks at work instead.

Other random shit
Ordered a pretty sick new laptop, went for a 17" Dell beast with a 1920x1280 screen which will be real good for multi-tabling. It's still in production despite ordering it a week ago and likely won't be delivered until the start of next month. Bit of a pain as I was hoping to have it all set up by then, but whatever.

Went to see Mogwai earlier in the week who were pretty average but with a few mindblowingly good tracks. Incredibly loud and powerful sound, youtube "batcat" for a good example. Going to see The Music next week, and managed to get Metallica/Machine Head tickets today... wheeeee!

Doubt I'll really have much to post about poker wise 'til I get started next month. Looking forward to grinding a ton!

Oh and it goes without saying, watch the new 25/50 aejones video on Leggo, it's fucking A.

It's go time

I have handed in my notice as a videogames designer at Rockstar and from the 1st of November I'll be pursuing poker as my main source of income.

It's something I've been thinking about doing for the past year and over the last few months my situation has really become perfect to give it a shot. I've become unsure that I want to continue with my current career path long-term so now is a good time to get out there and experience other things before settling down.

I'd like to spend some time living a different type of lifestyle, with freedom to travel, more time to spend working on music and time to develop myself in other areas I'm interested in - mainly personal development, psychology and business. Realistically I don't think poker will work for me as a main source of income for more than 2-3 years. I think by that time the games will likely be considerably less beatable/profitable and I'll likely become bored of the game.

Career
At the moment I don't really know what I want to do career-wise long term, so I'm hoping to explore my options by meeting a lot of people, doing some courses on things I'm interested in and working on some business ideas. I could find that I miss the games industry and want to move back after a year or two, but I'd like to take the chance of finding something that could be potentially more fulfilling.

Poker
I'm very confident that poker can fund what I want to do for the next couple of years and has the potential to make me a lot more money than required. I have a ~100k hand sample at $200nl running at 3.5ptbb, so playing a modest 30k hands month (around 70-80hrs work) I'd make around $6k after rakeback. Seeing as poker is untaxed in the UK that's a pretty sweet monthly.

I'll be spending around 20 hours per month working on my game too, so over the next 5-6 months I'd hope to be clearing $10k/month average with a combination of getting better, moving up stakes and increasing the amount of tables I'm playing. There's always the option to put more volume in if say I want to go on a big holiday the next month, that sort of flexibility really appeals to me.

Attitude
I think over the next couple of months I'll see a lot of changes in my attitude towards things. I'll be focusing my poker time playing and working on my game, this could mean I'll be less likely to want to chat over hands on IM, etc, I don't really know yet. I strongly believe that balance is important in life, I'm not doing this to "be a pro", I'm doing this to improve my overall lifestyle, increase my earnings and give myself more free time to do things that are important to me. I think it's going to be pretty important to remind myself that every once in a while.

Blogging
So I've got kind of conflicting views on what I want to do with this blog. I really don't want it to become somewhere that I post too regularly, as it would detract too much from things that I'd be far better spending my time on. I certainly don't want to be posting after losing or winning X-buyins in a day as that kind of thing doesn't help me achieve the real mindset I'll need as a serious player. On a semi-tangent those sorts of "I had a bad day and need to vent hands and stats" posts on other peoples blogs really tilt the fuck out of me, I've just go no time for it and I wouldn't expect whoever is reading this to either.

That being said I do still really enjoy blogging, and I think my lifestyle and journey over the next few years could be pretty interesting, so I'd like to keep track of it. I'll probably get more personal in stuff I'm posting about and talk more about the lifestyle of playing poker for a living as that's what interests me when reading other players blogs.

I'm also really interested in (competitive) mindset stuff and will be looking to develop myself a lot in that area so I'll probably be writing a bunch of articles as I try things out to improve my mindset. Not decided yet if I'll post exact $$$ figures of how much I'm making per month, what my bankroll is, etc, I think that changes when it becomes your livelihood rather than a pastime! :)

So that's about it, wish me luck! :D

Levelling

This post is more of a reminder to myself than anything else...

I touched on levelling a little while ago after reading NLH:THAP my Skansky/Miller but really never implemented much of it into my game. When I analyse hands after sessions or in real-time my opponents perception of my hand rarely factors into my reasoning and decision making.

In a lot of situations it doesn't really matter... I mean if I'm playing against some 60/10/1 fish then I'd assume he's only thinking about his hand (level 0). Against this opponent the correct strategy for me is to bet according to my hand and my perception of his range (level 1). So basically I'd just be looking to valuetown the fuck out of him and probably not run too many bluffs as he'll be calling down light. This is simple poker and it should be the default strategy for SSNL. Obviously you come across a player at 50nl or 100nl that's thinking above level 1, but they're going to be in the tiny minority so it's better to assume most players are thinking at level 1.

It gets more interesting at MSNL where opponents are generally better players and will be thinking about the game more deeply. There are a lot more situations when it's optimal to be taking into consideration what you opponent thinks of your hand - or range of hands (level 2). So when you get involved in a pot with a 'thinking player' you can start making more sophisticated plays based on how you're representing your hand. Value betting light if your hand is under-repped or running bluffs in spots where a street would likely have hit your perceived range.

Against the 1/2 and 2/4 regs I really need to be thinking about this a bit more. It's incredibly important in 3bet pots... and will gain importance the higher limits I'm playing.

For more read over No Limit Hold'em: Theory and Practise by Sklansky/Miller... P.168 - Multiple Level Thinking.

WSOP Europe

The WSOPE is London is down to the final table of 9 players with £850k going to 1st place. Juanda and Negreanu 2 of the big chip leaders, seems like Negreanu finds gayer things to wear to every tourney! Pretty sure Chris Elliott is Scottish, but live updates are anything to go by he sounds like a bit of a tool...


Final table chip-counts:
John Juanda £1,349,000
Stanislav Alekhin £1,278,000
Ivan Demidov £1,006,000
Daniel Negreanu £1,002,000
Robin Keston £849,000
Scott Fischman £732,000
Toni Hiltunen £386,000
Bengt Sonnert £385,000
Chris Elliott £281,000

Check out the live poker tournaments section at PokerListings.com for live updates and more.