November Review

Hey Poker World!

Gonna do a short review for this month!

November seems to be a challenging month for me as I tried what LadyMace86 did previously which was to stop looking at your cash game result for the entire month! This is very challenging for me as I am used to looking at my result at the end of the day after my sessions. Throughout the month, I knew I am doing pretty well until the last few days before the month end. Sessions were so bad and was pretty shock when I finally loaded the graph at the end of the month. Steep landslide at the very end of the month. On the other hand, things are turning around for me after a disastrous October.

Volume:                                    55,284 hands

Cash Game Profit:                   484.50

Stellar Award:                           100

Spin & Go Deposit bonus:       150     

                                                 734.50 USD

For the month of December, other than playing cash game, I will try to satellite to Macau Poker Cup Red Dragon event! Hopefully I can get lucky and play my first live event in Feb 2015! This month going to be a festive month so good luck to everyone who are playing on stars!

Good luck to everyone playing! Work hard and study hard! Last month of the year, better be a good one for me!

Cheers!

October Review - Land Slide

 Hey guys!

Picture speaks a thousand word.

As you can see, the graph is moving constantly in one direction for the entire month. I did not expect to lose 50 buy ins after a ok September and was wondering what is going on with my game. After the first week of October, I did not check my result until the last week of October but I knew I was doing badly for most session. To be honest, my confidence level on my game is at all time low where I am starting to question my play during hands.

 

I had a two hours of Skype session with Sipox after I whatapp him for a talk regarding my current situation and he took the initiative to go through on my stats for the entire month and gave advise on which position I wasn't raising enough or don't play well which was a good start for me. Then we talk about preflop and balancing range on each position. I am really grateful as I did not expect him to offer such a big help.

I bought a book 'Poker 1%' last month but did not have the time to read it until this month. Gonna digest it and hopefully it will improve my game! I will still continue to grind hard in November, hopefully things will turn around and gonna work hard on my game off the tables.

That's all for now!

Good luck on the tables!

September Review

Hi Poker world!

Finally completed one full month on Pokerstars playing 6max nl50. Things were not going so well in the second half of the month compared to the first half in monetary term but overall I am happy that I had completed what I wanted to do for the month.

For sweat sessions, I managed to do a few session with ZP and Ava. The session was good because I have to constantly think of my play during the hand so I could justify my play when a question were thrown to me during the session. For example, 'Why are you 3betting  on the turn instead of flat calling villain bet as you may be able to extract more value from him on the river?' Then I would explain my thought which is good as I am constantly maintaining the level of thinking for hours during the sessions. Sometime players would grind for the sick of grinding and they become a grinding machine without them knowing! You cannot maintain the level of thinking because you are so 'immune' to the game as this is what you do everyday. Hopefully I will have more sessions in October as I really enjoy those sessions.

Hand analysis wise, I am still marking hands during session to see what went wrong and what is the more optimal way of playing at the situation vs certain type of players. If I am unsure about the hand, I will then post it to players on skype for their opinion. I have to say a big thank you to Sipox because he always gave detail analysis from preflop play till the river talking about how to play each streets which was mind blowing. This will certainly improve my game as I wouldn't want to repeat the same mistake again especially in big pots. I am folding more hands than before and not putting myself in many tough spots.

Graph for this month,

Total volume:                                 67,952 Hands

Profit:                                             402.36 USD

Stellar Award:                                100.00 USD

PKR (HU Speed SNG)                  570.00 USD

                                                     1072.36 USD      

I am happy with my volume as you guys know that I am currently holding a full time job and time are limited during weekdays. Basically, I am playing 2-4 hours during weekdays and double/triple the time during weekend playing 6 - 8 table. In case anyone of you are wondering if I got the time to sleep, the answer is yes. I slept about 4-5 hours a day during the weekdays. Although I mentioned I have no volume target this month but I still manage 67k hands because I am very motivated to play! I had a number of bad session especially Sunday but it did not stop me from playing. In the end, I managed to pull off a small profit for the month.                                         

As I had stop playing at PKR, I had accumulated a lot of PKR points while grinding cash game which I had converted to MTT/SnG tickets. After a thinking it through, I decided to use all my points to play HU as there is not much value for MTT at PKR. I managed to win 5 out of 8 HU game ranging from $20 - $100 amounting to $570 profit with 0 buyin! I will be playing a 50k gtd mtt ($10k up top) on PKR in October as I was given a $150 entry for achieving their highest club level. Hopefully miracle will happen on that day.

Lastly, for October, I want to maintain my Eat.Sleep.Work.Poker.Repeat routine as I am still highly motivated to play. Why I am motivated to play? It is because I feel that players who were grinding the same limits had move up and they are improving tremousdously as they put in tons and tons of effort to get to where they currently are. No volume target for October as well because if I am motivated to play, the volume will automatically be achieve.

That's all for now!

GL on the tables!

September - Continue to work hard!

Hi poker world,

First half of September had been on the high until sunday grind where I dropped almost 9 buyins which was a disaster. I got no one to blame but myself for allowing myself to be on tilt and on top of that, I continue to play with tilt for awhile before finally hitting the close button on client.

On the other hand, I would say first half of the month went pretty smoothly (graph shown below). This month main focus is to bring back the momentum and 'correct mindset' to grind. I had carried out what I had planned  to do for the month like writing review after my session on things to take notes and what are the area that I had improve on. I would go through these reviews everytime before I start my sessions just to make sure I do not repeat my mistake from previous session. I suggest players who are climbing up the stakes should do because it really work!

Did not have any sweat session yet as everyone is busy grinding. I hope to have at least two sweat sessions by the end of the month. If you are interested, you can pm me on twitter. We can arrange for a 30min session with one another.

Current graph for the month,

Finally I am able to upload profit graph since May lol. Nothing much to comment since there is still second half of the month to conquer. Hopefully I will continue to run good and produce a nice graph by the end of the month.

Rest of the month:

• Continue to do a short review after my session
• hand analysis, hand analysis and HAND ANALYSIS
• Sweat session!
• Platinum status on PS

That's all for now. GL on the table!

Cheers!

September is here!

 Hi Poker world,

Just a short update for coming September, first of all, I had finally upgraded to HM2. Look pretty good but is obviously slowing my laptop down. I had adjusted some of my grinding routine where I will be having breaks every two hours of grind. This will only be implement for weekend grind as I have limited time to grind during weekdays due to work. Definitely going to have a few sweat session with a few players to see how bad I play and to plug my leaks.

This is my graph for today!

Great start for the first day of September and I hope this will maintain until the rest of the month. Post this graph to motivate everyone and myself to work hard and play well for September! I will be playing on Pokerstars and PKR (depending on the traffic) but I believe I will be spending most of my time on Pokerstars since PKR traffic is getting from bad to worse.

That's all for today. GL on the tables!

Cheers!

August - Short update!

Hi poker world! 

Just a short update for the month of August. There will be no graph this month as I decided to take a break for the month of August to have ample time to look back at my game and mental state when approaching the game. 

During this months, I had been reading some blogs and 2+2 threads on poker players who are trying to move up the ladder to remind why I started to play poker seriously. I realised that my mindset had changed when I had move up to NL50 and the mindset I am having for the past few months was not good at all. Just a reminder, when you are starting out at micro stakes, you are motivated to play well and keep studying to crush the table but when you move up the ladder, your mindset may start to change to a 'profit wise' mindset rather than continuing to improve your game. This is where you starting to feel the pain of being stuck to a limit or break even or on the losing end for months. I do believe this is the situation that I am currently in who think more about the profit rather than improving myself as a poker player. This is a wake up call for me to return the the improving/study mindset > profit wise mindset. Of course profit is important, that is the reason we play.  Most of the successful player have put in alot of effort to get to their current position unless you are a ultra luckbox who can climb the ladder with little knowledge about poker but you will not stay lucky forever. Hopefully what I said make sense and will serve as a reminder to some of you and ME.

Recently get to know a poker player who was sharing how to study poker. I find the blog very useful and send him a email regarding this issue and to my surprise, he is willing to share with me. Not sure if I should mention his name here just in case everyone flood his mail box. We had a few conversation on skype and the more we talk about poker, the more I feel like I am someone who just started playing poker. Coming September, we will be having sweat session, more discussion on hand analysis. I have to say it is pretty rare for poker players to share some of their insight on the game and study material as they want to stay ahead of their opponent but I was pretty lucky to get to know him who is willing to share some of his poker knowledge with me. Lets see how I do until the end of the year.

Although I had finished The Mental Game of Poker book one and two, I am going to revisit book one again as it is very obvious that I am not applying the advice given and past mistake that had been corrected had reappear into my game again. For example, I had become POW (Payoff Wizard) on the table again paying villians off more frequently due to massive accumulated tilt even though it is a standard straightforward fold on certain situation.

I will be using Evernote as the main apps to take note of everything related to poker like articles/strategy and etc. One of the most important is to do self review after my session. Had just started using the apps and find it amazing. Everyone should start using it!

That all for now! Cheers!

July Review - Low Morale Poker Player

Hola fellow poker players! Once again, I am in the red zone and nothing seems to be going well for me for the past months. It s pretty tough for me as I have not earn much from poker and BR seems to be stuck or moving down for the past three months. I am thinking if I should take a long break to study intensively as I feel that I am not improving anymore and my play is getting worst session after session! I know I have not show a nice up slope graph yet for the past month and this really bother me as well. Dream to build enough bankroll (BR) to conquer Macau is getting further and further atm.

Total hands : 27,460

Profit/Loss : (774.63) + 740.11 (VIP Rewards) = (34.52) USD

On 30th July 2014, PKR did some changes to their hand history code which no longer allow HM1 to import hand histories (HH) therefore the result is short of two days and the other two days did not ran any better so I gonna add extra ($200) loss to the net amount which was shown on the graph. VIP rewards were high for this month despite of low volume was because of a promotion that was introduce by PKR in July and I was given $150 on my birthday as a good gesture from PKR. Of course I was disappointed with the graph as I mentioned on the previous post that I was looking forward to play well on my birthday month but thing just did not went the way I wanted.

As PKR had change the code of HH, therefore HM1 is now useless and I have to get HM2 as they no longer update HM1. So graph for August will be a complete.

To poker players who are grinding at nl50 and above, I hope to have some sweating session with you be it you are new to the limit or a PRO. I do believe we can share a thing or two or learn from each other in the session. So kindly leave comment below or you can DM me on twitter to make this possible.

Apart from poker, I had completed one month as Client Services Executive. Work went pretty smoothly as I manage to do/learn what area I wanted to work at which is corporate tax and was doing some accounting work at the same time like preparing unaudited financial statement (UFS) and payroll for my client. Working environment is good after getting along with all my co-worker in the office and most of them does not know I was grinding poker online. My WTF moment in the office is when I was assisting my boss to do some work and he was giving one of my senior HAIRDRYER TREATMENT while I was siting face to face infront of him(boss). At that moment, I was like wtf, should I move away or just stay there and continue with my work. Alright, I will keep this non poker related stuff short and I know it is boring.

No plans for August yet as morale is very low at the moment. Maybe don't play at all and do intensive study on poker and HOPEFULLY get to have some sweating session with you guys. Just bring it, we will be able to come to a suitable timing for both of us even though I am living in Singapore.

June Review - Spewy month

Time for June review. June did not went well for me and I had only myself to blame for the straight line downward slope at the very end of the month. Not going to blame on variance, bad luck or whatever excuses that is available. I was very spewy at the end of the month which my graph clearly said so. I got no idea what got into me to this spewy behavior and threw about $600 away. Sometime when you feel like you play better or believe u are playing at a higher level, you tend to forget the fundamental way of playing it. Anyway, I deserved to lose and this should served as a reminder for me to play better in both game and mental aspect in the second half of the year.

Total hands played : 52,431

 Profit/Loss : (318.03) + 923.36 (VIP Rewards) = 605.33 USD

Although I am in profit this month, I do not really like it as I needed VIP reward to put me in profit. I want my profit to come from the volume of hands I played, so hopefully July gonna be a good month for me. Really looking forward to play on July with much improve discipline and focus level. 

Recently I got a job and will be working in a certified public accountant (CPA) firm as client service executive. Will be doing corporate tax, personal tax and accounting work. I know it sound like a boring job and YES it is. With my current work, my grinding session will be shorter but it make me wanna do better with limited time. Hopefully with the time constraint, I will be doing better and stop all those mental fish behavior. 

No idea what is the volume I am going to  play this month. I only started my first hand on 5th July but I gonna try to grind as much as I can after work. Lastly, 25th July is my birthday! Run good months ARE COMING!

 

That's all for now! Gonna get back to work tomorrow. GL to everyone on the felt!

May Report - Worst run ever in poker life

May had been the worst month ever I had to endure. Nett lost on the table was (1405.92) with only 36698 hands!!!! (YES IT IS ONLY 36698 HANDS)  One of the most painful period ever. Everything did not went smoothly for most of my session. During this period, I became a fortune teller. Every time I put my money in ahead, I will bound to lose on the turn or river and I can literally see it coming before the card was even dealt. I think every poker player will somehow become a fortune teller whenever they are in the downswing.

From the previous post, I had said that I gonna play a bigger volume in May but the downswing had greatly affected on the number of hands I played. Had spoken to a few players and the advise was to take a few days break or move down in stake to get my confidence level back. I took the advise and took one week break. During this break, I was reviewing the hands I had played in May. Taking break did helped, I was playing pretty well for the first two days then came variance once again where coolers were everywhere. Confidence hit rock bottom as I became a ATM on the table. Had a good seat on the table with fish but most of the time I am just giving out money to them. They miraculously hit their 1- 3 outers so often that I just kept reloading and continuously repeat this over and over again. There was one point where I am not sure if I can still beat the game (mental fish). I can obviously beat the fish, just that they run extremely lucky and I was running on the other end.

Pokerstars

PKR

Weeeeeeeee! I am embarrass to post the graph but I cannot just post profit graph.

Total Volume = 36 698 hands (Took about 10+ days break)

Loss = (1405.92) + 380 (VIP + Stellar Reward) = (1025.92) USD

Most serious poker players should feel the same when we are in the downswing. You get very emotional when variance cannot stop coming after you. You lost your confidence and start to question yourself. You just have to endure and play through the swings. I am looking forward to June. This is gonna be a UPSWING month to compensate what I went through in May.

That's all for now. GL on the table and those who are playing in WSOP 2014!

April Report!


PROFIT month cheers! but I'm pretty disappointed with how my month ended. Variance caught up with me and I ran pretty awful at the end of the month. Whatever that can go wrong just went wrong on the table and there is nothing I can do about it.

Due to pure laziness, I had played lesser volume of hands, I went on tilt at the end of around 1k hands which I spewed away two buyins which is deadly and I stop playing for the last 3 days of month due to how bad I ran. Discipline is one of the most important factors for you to succeed in poker therefore I have to be back on track to play more hands in May and stay cool headed. I got no idea if posting my graph in monetary term with profit/loss is a good idea but I am going to post it for this month report.

Total Volume: 41,534 hands
Profit: 405.97 + 841.76 (VIP Reward) = 1247.73 USD

I know I am not the best online cash game player on PKR nl50 but I expected myself to earn much more as the players I am playing against, were not the greatest. Like what @Flixx had said in his #grindingitup episode, 'No point whining about the weather since you can't change it'. If they ran good against me then there is nothing I can do to change it! I just hope to play them against before they give out their money to other players.

PKR traffic is getting lower and lower constantly and I hardly able to grind nine tables at their peak hours and therefore, I had to change a new grinding site to hit more volume of hands. I have not decide to play on Pokerstars or Full tilt poker but both site does not offer rakeback deal which is a little meh. I have not set a target for the number of hands I want to play in May as I am going to grind on mainly on another site.

There are quite a number of things I want to accomplish in May,

• Finish reading long overdue Mental Game of Poker 2
• Have a schedule for exercising
• Start learning Spanish
• More HH analysis with my poker friend. 
• Get a Job!

That sums up for my entire April. Good luck to everyone on the tables and wish me luck on new grinding site!

Chin Ye

 Let's Start!

Hello everyone! My name is Chin Ye, a online 6-max no limit cash game player from Singapore. I decided to play poker seriously about 3-4 years ago and putting in effort to grind and climb up the stake.I mainly grind on PKR and Pokerstars. Had a short email interview from PKR a few years back.

Why I started to play seriously? Because I had enough of losing money like a fish. I told myself to deposit another $50 and if I lose it, I will never play poker again. I started by playing at microstake NL10 using short stack strategy thinking of winning at least $2 a day. So this go on until I reach NL25 and met a dutch player who was telling that why am I playing short stack when I am a good player! So I heed her advice and started playing 100bb and money is growing much faster ever since. Here am I at my current stake playing NL50 up to nine tables at a time. I still made mistakes during my grinding session and I am doing my best to minimize them ($ save = $ earn)

I am not aiming to play nosebleed cash game like NL5000/NL10000, I want to play at least NL400 in the near future and looking forward to play live cash game and tournament in Macau. This blog will be reminding me the goals I set for myself and keep track of my progress on climbing up the stakes. Like most poker players, I would like to play poker full time and have to the luxury to travel around the world to meet different people.

Growing up in a traditional Chinese family. parent want you to get education and find a job and work all your life so you can buy house, car and etc. By the way, I hold a bachelor degree in Accounting and Finance. My parent disapprove me of playing poker as she feel poker is gambling but my small profit over the years had made her started to think otherwise that poker is does not involve 100% in luck.

Other than playing poker, I also play DotA 2 (Defense of the Ancient) so any poker player who play the game can add me on steam.

 Lastly, anyone who want to discuss poker can follow me on twitter @TheRealChinYe or add me on skype. That's all for now!

Stay tune!

Chin Ye