Montag, 25. März 2013

Birthday update aka mediocre march

Yo, time for last update from teh Golden Coast before I move my stuff to Bali in a couple of days.

Month was pretty disgusting in many hinsights. Basically i locked myself in after some days into teh month and was doing not much besides working and working out heavily. Currently i find myself in my first real unplanned detox - i stopped going out 20 days ago for whatever reason (maybe because i'm finally turned 25 and could be considered as old now?!) I kinda can blame all that a little bit on teh weather at least for teh first 2 weeks. Prolly have never seen so much rain in my life and for some reason weather really effects my mood alot. If there is good weather i can basically go out 5 days a week, if there is only rain i'm not even in teh mood to hit a bar on a saturday. Furthermoar my schedules were pretty weird again because of that fucking OZ timezone that i was waking up around 6pm and going to bed at noon for first 2weeks and now waking up around 4ish am and going to bed at 8 in teh evening like a baby :) (granted that first schedule easily kills any sort of normal social life a person can have...
So without going out and without alcohol my social life basically got a huge hit and poker wasn't very good either for most part of march. The brightside though is that i'm healthy and strong as fuck at teh moment. It's incredible how much faster you get gym results if you just don't drink and do eat sound. There is no moar skipping days because you tired, bc you hungover, bc u don't want to or whatever bullshit excuse your mind comes up with. You just push every day and you push hard :)

Anyways, let's start off with some poker. Basically from the beginning there was not much good stuff happening besides teh first 2 days. I wasn't running completely terrible but definitely quite bad and prolly wasn't always playing teh very best either (mainly bc of all this - def. some sort of leak).
After 15 days into teh month i made teh epic mistake and checked results for absolutely no reason. I knew that i should be up and knew that i'm definitely not up anything signifcant - so why don't leave my mind with teh little bit of uncertainty??!
Graph looked like this:

1-15th of march

Afterwards teh unevitable happend (even after 5 years of playing for a living) - my brain went nuts:
"60k hands, that's not really a big sample but it is a sample, i'm barely breakeven, games are shit, am i beating still beating tis shit, i gotta change something, i'm spending too much money anyways, blablabla"
This is obv. all bullshit but it happens. Your mind focusses on everything what is bad and nothing what is good - you don't think about that you make money consistently over 5 years beating this game - you focus on 60k hands where you not even down in teh end (and i had way worse streaks than tis one). You don't focus and that you have enough money to live several years a nice life without making a dime, you focus on what just happend, etc.
Whatever, my solution was to jump back into ZOOM (i have no fucking clue why). So after i played some days of ZOOM i was back where i started - first 2 days massive heater +15 buyins; next 3days massive downer and lost it all back (one time i got 3times KK vs AA in 300 hands - that hasn't happend in a long while). Here teh beautiful garph:

ZOOM, not really teh solution

After those 5 days i decided that this kind of variance is not really and necessary and that i go back to my bread and butter normal ringgames.
At that point i prolly made teh first good decision and decided to mix in meaningful stakes once again which means you can find me at good 400 and 600 games again. One moar time: I have no clue why i really stopped playing those in teh first place - it's not like there would be any problem if i drop a couple of k's at 600 - absolutely nothing would change. Anyways, seems like i'm back for good now and especially NL600 welcomed me with a pretty decent upswing so far. Since I'm playing those stakes again i can post some big hand now where really is some money involved, which most people would consider as significant = 1k+ pot. Some of them you can find on teh end of this page.
Running a little better in general after my excursion to ZOOM and changed one thing i neglected in teh past: when i play poker, i play fucking poker and nothing else. Was watching videos lately while 16tabling, browsing facebook galleries, answering skype questions and bullshit like that. Obviously you cannot expect maximum EV these days if you are not 100% focussed in every spot and every situation. Learned that teh hard way but quite sure i got it in my mind now.
Especially of all teh run bad i played teh most volumewise so far this year that i will finish with around 55k VPPs and prolly around 125k hands for teh month. When i hit 600k milstone that should be around 5k in rakeback so that i should at least aim for 10k total profit in teh end but especially since i'm back at 400/600 pretty much everything can happen.
After tis month you can see that even teh TimStone is not always running hot and printing money. Some will say: "well, you are still up a little so who cares" but if you would know against what kind of mentally retarded people i play on a daily basis you would realize that running like this over allmost 100k hands is in fact SICK.


Enough of poker, back to other stuff.
As being said bc of my accidental alcohol break gym is going quite well. I think out of teh 25days so far i maybe took 2 off in teh beginning and that's it. Currently running 45mins on one day and working out 8 excercises followed by 15-20mins threadmill on teh other day. Pending around 75kg's at teh moment so that i'm quite close to teh 72-73kg goal which i will than try to maintain over teh summer. Sixpack also coming back moar and moar:

mid march body (posed)

Basically i would be quite satisfied with this but this is obviously while posing, i want it like this all teh fucking time and therefore i need to lose another 2 or 3 i think. Have to take care that i don't go too low bc than i would have to wear some sort of bag over my head in order to score any chick which is not blind...

One of teh few social events i attended with our group was draculas - some sort of cabaret restaurant:

Cabaret
Food was allright but not great, some artists where really good and humour was not bad either but all in all i'm not really about that life. Was a welcome change to teh daily work routine though...


Haven't thought that this would be happening but today is my birthday and i'm neither drunk nor hungover. Kinda nice and kinda very sad :/
So since i was planning to write a blogpost for a while and haven't had any solid pictures i managed to push myself out of teh villa in order to go to teh Q1 resort which happens to be teh highest residential tower in teh southern hemisphere. View was definitely supersick and i'm quite happy that i finally managed to visit it. But see yourself:















Finally weather is really good here so i took a stroll at teh beach after and tanned a little bit before hitting that gym. So all in all not teh worst day :)

As being said my time at teh Gold Coast and my time in OZ comes to an end so i want to do a little recap. Already wrote my impression of Crapney and Melbourne so i will give short overview over teh Gold Coast and OZ in general. All this is my personal opinion which is prolly not even a very common opinion so please my australian friends don't take anything personal :)

Really liked Gold Coast for teh most part even though there is some stuff which wasn't optimal.
First off we had a quite nice villa here but teh problem with villas, houses, bungalows, whatsoever is that while they are nice they are barely ever in teh center of any action. In teh beginning it was allright but when you always have to walk at least 15mins to get somewhere it starts to piss you off. Solution for me was to help teh australian economey that i invested heavily in taxis teh last days. If i would be to come back i would be moar inclined to get a nice pad in a highrise building directly at teh beach. Main advantage here is you are at teh beach and once you go out of teh door you have plenty of restaurants to choose from. Since i don't cook that's crucial and compared to Sydney or Melbourne food delivery is quite bad here. For once they have ridiculous opening hours (most stuff closes between 8 and 9pm i mean wtf?) and quality-wise it was all ok but no great options like in teh other cities.
Another big turn off was teh weather. While we were here for 2 months it was at least raining for 5 weeks i would assume. In teh end my mistake because you can read everywhere even though it is summer it is wet season. Prolly because of this it was also that teh town in not as busy as i would've expected it. Sure if you go out on a saturday night you find plenty of people around but basically every time i went to teh beach it was dead, during teh week after 8pm (what they already consider as night here) most things were dead, etc.
Another thing is nightlife. While clubs are very clean, hypermodern and there is alot hot chicks around it is all pretty fucking generic. If you been to one club you basically been to all. They are basically all teh time in a basement, nice interior, good soundsystem, etc. But they lack one thing, one thing you cannot really buy - heart. Also if you search for any decent techno events here you search forever. You can have teh odd house night in teh clubs obv. but if you are into real electro music there is nothing - everyone told me if i want that i have to go to Brissy... There was one big pool event and another massive techno festival but of course both days teh weather was absolute dogshit. They also don't seem to have any sort of after hour mentality here, prolly because of some stupid laws or whatever. Most people i asked for what stuff to do after 4am were looking at me like i escape out of a mental hospital.
Ok, recap sounds prolly a little worse than it actually was, felt quite good here tbh but i would assume if you are here for longer it might get boring after a while bc everything is samesame but not so different...


Ok, Australia in general. Wrote alot about that subject already and i guess everybody has to make his own picture.
While i for sure had a good time here i'm prolly not coming back to soon which has different reasons.
For once everything feels much too european for my taste. Last year in Thailand or South America you really had teh feeling you are in a different world, each day is an adventure, you see stuff you've never seen before, etc. Here you just feel like you know most of it already, it just doesn't feel any different than europe. It's prolly kinda hard to describe but i mean if i spend most of my year in europe i'm teh kind of guy who wants to have a completly different experience teh other 2-4months of teh year and i wasn't getting this experience here.
Next point: Prices. It's just insanely expensive, most certainly moar expensive than anything you ever saw before in Europe. If you travel on a budget i would much rather go to some country in Asia than here. While you get good service, people are superfriendly, quality is good, etc. you get most of that in other places of teh world as well for a fraction of a price. It's furthermoar a way better feeling when you tip teh owner of a small beach bar in Thailand generously and make his day compared to here where teh guy prolly has his mirrion on teh side already anyways. All in all what i'm saying is that teh experiences you will make in other countries are most likely different and moar exotic and that for a fraction of a price.
Timezone: While for most people this doesn't matter after a couple of days for me it was a pain in teh ass in regards to poker. You can live a normal schedule and basically throw a shitload of money out of teh window or you work a "european" schedule and your social life will lack - period. This is also a point i should consider before making any plans for next year. All Asia, be it Thailand, Phillies, Bali or whatever i will have to face teh same problem.
Legislation: The country is supersafe at least everywhere i went but this comes with teh price of freedom. Basically you can say what ever is fun, slightly dangerous, interesting, worth doing, etc. is either forbidden or insanely expensive. This goes pretty much for everything. Could make a list but than this post would never end.
What i liked most were prolly teh people. Have barely had any unpleasant encounters, everybody is superfriendly, superinterested in what you doing, where you from, etc. Be it taxi driver, store clerk or some local you meet in a club.

Already wrote too much so that should be it for now. Flight to Bali leaves in 5 days and than it's partytime disco, planning to average like 2 hours of work each day to cover expenses and feel a little better but for sure not going to play any signifcant volume while there. Furthermoar looking forward to not spending 50$ each day on takeaway food alone.

Happy bday dear Tim Stone,

peaze out



almost forgot to include teh hands :)

just click and replayer will open:

1. Boaty Time

vs. massive drooler. in retrospect i prolly should just go all in on teh river. His timing was saying he has a flush or air there like 98% of teh time and with my stupid bet i could've saved him 70bucks


2. Standard Bullets

not much too say about this one but nice pot for me


3. A little help from teh Shortstack

we always complaining about those nasty shortstacks but this time teh little moron helps me out to win a decent sized pot i wouldn't have otherwise


4. Nutblockaments

this one probably teh most interesting and also only hand vs. a reg. Wouldn't really have thought that this guy is capable of doing such a play. Even if it look retarded for any non-pro play is quite advanced and tbh i like it alot because it is very very hard for me to call there even if i have small flush or a straight. Was lucky though to have second nuts which is obviously a fistpump :)

Montag, 4. März 2013

God damn rain

Another 2 weeks down in OZ and time for another update.

This time i start off with poker. Haven't checked results since i posted teh last garph so i actually don't have an actual graph to show unless i would be checking results which i don't want to. But my impression is that not much has happend anyways. Finished february pretty weak in case of volume and earning, mostly bc not running as hot as before and bc of a short 5 day vacation further north during which i haven't played much and when i played is was for sure B+ game at best. Would assume i finished feb around 10k-ish before rakeback and should be up 1.5-3k in march already as well so even if it is not much it is money in my pocket. At the moment Stars has it's 95 billion hand promo which means games are a little bit better (especially during off-peak times) but not by much. Played my 2nd tournament this year couple of hours ago (first was teh supernova freerole which i a little bit moar than mincashed) but this one wasn't going that well. Was some sort of sunday million anniversary special with 7.000.000$ pricepool guaranteed and they ended up having almost 10.000.000$ for grabs with almost 50.000 players willing to pay teh 215$ buyin. First 3 hours were decent and i had some average stack until i get dealt Aces UTG which i raised and 2 people wanted to see teh flop with me. I bet with 20BB behind and one guy decides that his QJs is strong enough to get all teh money in on J52 rainbow - in retrospect a solid play after another Jack hit teh river and i'm out. Was teh first time in tis year that i punched my table :) Anyways, lol_donkaments i guess.
On a sidenote Partypoker, the worlds 3rd biggest onlinepoker room decided that it makes sense so seperate playerpools so that from now on pro's have to play with pro's and fish have to play with fish. So in teh next few weeks their marketshare will drop drastically - if you have any stocks of them, SELL THEM NOW ;)

Playing pretty solid volume atm as well mainly bc weather is atrocious. It's summer here and what i didn't
know it is raining season. So i haven't seen as many rain as teh last 14 days ever (not even in London, not even close...) Good thing when you are playing for a living though is teh freedom you have so after 2 other players who were staying at Byron Bay for some weeks arrived at our house we decided to escape teh weather at least for a couple of days and go further north where teh climate tends to be moar tropical and alot warmer. Fraser Island was teh plan but after we heard that one was flooded we decided to make a trip to teh Whitsunday Islands instead. Teh Whitsundays is like an island group north-east with one of teh sickest beaches worldwide and beautiful landscapes in general - highly recommended.
So 5 of us packed our bags and left on friday teh 22nd with destination Airlie Beach which is like teh gate to teh Whitsundays. It's a small village with only like 4000 inhabitants but shitloads of backpackers who are chilling and travelling to teh different islands there. We prolly would've missed our flight if i wouldn't have checked at teh trainstation how long teh train takes to teh airport so we had to get back to a cab. But in teh end all went well. Rented a house there which had like a supershitty groundfloor and a very nice 2nd floor close to everything. Strangly i was losing a very important flip for teh bedrooms there so that i ended up without a room. So teh next 5 days i slept on different beds and teh couch which wasn't too good so that i was pretty tired all teh time :/

one of my sleeping stations in teh upstairs living room

view from teh balcony
We went out teh first night and unfortunately no club or bar was very busy. Later i got told by a taxi driver that february is prolly teh unbusiest month bc weather in south australia is still very good so that no aussie tourist coming over to Airlie. During teh night we met teh usual 18 or 19 year old girls who just finished school and are travelling around. I swear to god it is basically impossible to meet anyone in their 20s from europe here bc they all working and their life seems already game-over - pretty pathetic when i think about it... I had a discussion with a mate about Australia and all this and teh mainreason why OZ is so hyped (read: overhyped) is that nobody of all teh people who are hyping it like crazy has seen anything of teh world so far (i don't blame them, they just turned full-age.) Obviously those people will tell how sick everything was once they back home but let's be honest you can take any 18year old boy/girl and stick him in his own place in Schwäbisch-Gmünd (insert any other random village here) and they will go mental without their parents around and everything is supercool and whatnot. It's nice and interesting here for sure but some people project it to be some sort of supersick paradise which it is for sure not. I also realized that teh moar teh people already have seen with whom i spoke with teh less impressed they are with down under... Anyways, enough of teh rant and my theories.

words of wisdom in Airlie Beach
Next day was happy hangover times and we went to teh lagoon in Airlie which is like a nice big saltwater pool to chillax. In teh evening Nace managed to book us an island trip with a speedboat to go diving and Whitehaven beach, which is in fact a sick 7km long superwhite sandy beach. Teh trip was allright but still fairly overpriced imo. We payed like 150$ p.P. for 60mins of snorkling, driving around with teh boat a little and 60mins on teh beach. Obviously we managed to get on teh boat with teh least attractive people and 2 chicks were so fat that i was in permanent fear of teh boat not making it back. In teh end we survived though...


Whitehaven in teh back

Viewpoint 2km from Whitehaven
On Whitehaven

Next day i woke up early to grind a little and teh guys rented a van in teh meanwhile so that we decided to make a trip to teh waterfalls nearby. That actually turned out to be good fun bc there were only 2 groups besides us, teh weather was good and it was a quite amazing location:

Posing

Waterfall

Since Airlie wasn't too busy i decided to definitely go back to Broadbeach on wednesday to be able to grind during teh 95billion hands promotion. On tuesday we did another trip with teh van which wasn't as good as teh waterfalls unfortunately. Tried out some nearby beaches but non off them were supernice in particular and in teh end rain sent us back home.
Overall was a very cool and relaxed trip to Airlie though, something like holiday during teh work & travel holiday ;) If you come to OZ definitely give it a shot but prolly aim moar for something like july/august when it will be way moar busy and prolly much nicer.

Airlie Beach

low tide and sunset at some random beach

3 of teh boys before boarding teh speedboat

hangoverments

teh timstone

teh lagoon

fucking awesome birds :)

feeding teh cockatoos

As being said i came back on wednesday 27th and been grinding and working out since then bc teh weather is still - shiat. On teh other hand this was good in regards to putting in some hours during teh promotion.
At teh moment our house is in full force with 6 boys and a gf of one of those boys but it will not stay like that for too long.

Changed my nutrition pretty much away from all those nasty pizza and pasta to chicken and fish only while still doing alot of cardio and gym sessions. I have a 24hour gym around teh corner here which defininitely helps... Since Sydney 14th january i lost 7kg so that i'm down to 78kg now. Losing like 1kg per week seems a good way to go. Sixpack is coming back slowly and i guess once i hit 75 i will reevaluate if that is enough or not. Really have a good feeling that i might manage to get back to my unique 2008 south france shape :)

Since i have too much money anyways and got alot of complaints about picture quality i decided to buy another Samsung Galaxy product today:

Galaxy Cam
It's not some supersick camera but pics should be way better compared to teh phone + you can go online and send texts with that badboy, only for calls you need an actual phone. Cannot say much about it yet, will get an update if i'm satisfied with it once i used it a couple of times.

Also i'm back to learning fucking spanish again after i took a break for like 3 months. Purchased a Rosetta Stone course and they seem to have a pretty unique learning method without translations. Was kinda expensive compared to my old course from babbel.com but it's defnitely moar fun so far and i have to be prepared when going back to South America. I'm going to kill myself if i don't have at least teh very basics down until then.

That's it for teh blog for now. I'm around 4 weeks moar in our house here (forgot to mention: won flip for masterbedroom in march vs. Tyler again) and then take a flight from Brisbane to Bali where i will stay until teh 20th in this beautiful place with a non-poker friend from Germany and from what it looks a swedish kid from Malta comes around for something like 10 days as well:

Villa for April in Bali
If you have time and want to come along please feel free to enquire. As for now we only have 2 bedrooms but place looks spacious enough to accomodate at least a 3rd person.
After Bali i'm not sure yet. I definitely want to visit a mate in Doha on my way back to Malta and maybe also do Dubai for 2 or 3 days once i'm in teh area. Might as well go somewhere in Asia after Bali for another 2 weeks before going back. Haven't decided yet but prolly i have enough after almost 4 months on teh road and am happy to return to my 2nd home: Teh rock!

Have to go for a run now,

peaze out