Stephen Groom Music Producer? Poker Pro? Sports Bettor? Tune in next post to find out

April 2011 – Things are coming together

It is vital for me to get this balance correct and as such, I will be taking a hiatus from playing any sort of volume this month, playing only a few selected local tournaments and maybe 1 or 2 sessions online with friends.

Ha!

April 2011 went completely different to how I had planned it.  I had a fun, productive month and was glad to be able to spend even just a few hours out in the sun in the hottest April in british history.

Poker

The intent for this month was to play one or two live tourneys, a few online sessions at my friend's houses and not much else.  It is pretty amazing that I missed both of those goals by about as far as I could have but I've had a good month financially as a result.

Live

Total Won: £219
Game Count: 13

Cash Games

Total Won: £9.25
Time Played: 31 hours 12 minutes
Winrate: £0.29/hr

Tournaments

Total Won: £192
Game Count: 2
ABI: £33
ITM: 1/2 (50%)
As I intended, I didn't waste alot of time this month playing low buy-in local MTTs.  The two games that I played were the NPF Birthday Game that I wrote about in the last two blogs, and the Circus £50 1st tuesday game.  I didn't have the cash available this month to play the circus £100 game but I don't regret missing it.

This month, I sat in two of the best live games I have ever sat in.  I remember one night playing with Ben 'bendystash' Dixon, Simon 'simmy3k' Cameron and James 'brickonriver' Howard at Circus Casino, Newcastle sitting in a £0.50/£1.00 game.  We played for around 8 hours, had a great time with some fantastic banter being thrown around the table and we all made some decent money also.  That session for me brought back the reason that I started playing and enjoying the game.  It is a very fun game with friends and I will be making a point to ensure that live sessions are all more like this and less of a grind.  Nobody enjoys sitting with 9 people they don't like trying to take their money and succeeding for probably £5-£10/hr.

Online

This is where I deviated for the plan.  For some reason, and I have no idea why, I set up a grinding station in my house by setting up my old desktop PC again, allowing me to play up to 30 tables comfortably.  This resulted in me playing over 1,000 games on Pokerstars, and netting me a pretty decent amount of $$$.  I'm pretty sure that everybody likes to look at pretty graphs so here are mine:

45 mans:

180 mans:

all games:

All of the results above are via 16-30 tabling $3.25 45mans and occasionally mixing in $2.20 180mans when there isn't enough traffic.  I had a rather fortunate incident where tableninja automatically registered me to a $3.30r 180man which I am underrolled to play and I finished second for $300 which helped boost my BR a little.

This month is the first month where I have made anything close to a wage by plaing online.  It has given me alot of realisations about the potential to make money playing SnGs and the correct approach to volume, brm and discipline.  I have been playing maybe 4 hours every 2 or 3 days and I have realised that if I put in a good amount of effort that I could make a significant monthly wage playing 45man SnGs

I have cashed the majority of my money out of stars, and my bankroll currently stands at just under$300.  I will be playing $3.25 games and mixing in $6.50s when I go over $300.  I will be dropping down to $3.25s very aggressively and moving up to solely $6.50s at around $500.   This should enable me to put in enough volume to see if I can beat the $6 level without risking going broke.  Volume is going to suffer this month however due to college commitments.

College

Between all of this poker playing, I have actaully found the time to do some studying.  I have done the majority of the work I have to do and am on target with getting everything done in time for my deadlines.  I am dissapointed however with what I ahve achieved and how late I am leaving it to finish everything off.  There are 1001 reasons why this is the case but it is my own responsibility to ensure that I achieve the best I can and I will be the one who suffers if I do not achieve my potential on my last shot at formal education.

Life

I turn 21 on May 21st and as such have planned to travel to DTD Nottingham to play the Grand Prix for the 2nd time.  This weekend is more about the social gathering for me and I will be travelling down with some good friends from the newcastle poker scene.  We are staying in Nottingham from Thursday 19th May until Sunday 22nd if anyone wants to meet us down there for a night out or something.

No doubht I will post on here towards the end of may detailing how much money we all lost, or about Ben Dixon winning the Grand Prix again so stay tuned.

Cheers

TL;DR

I am going to skip over the mandatory apology about how long it has been since I last blogged because I'm not sorry.  And you wouldn't believe me even if I was.

So what have I been upto for the last 2 months then?

Dossing would be a good word.
I have spend the last 2 months, moving into my new flat.  I say that I have spent this time as this is the only constructive thing that I can remember doing since my last blog post and I'm still not even finished yet.

College

I seemed to have forgotten that I was studying for the last few weeks, and maybe even months.  I have not spent any time doing work; I have done no research and I haven't attended any tutorials with my lecturers.  It is very easy to place the blame on outside factors and make excuses for this and that is exactly what I am going to do.

The course leader who has been absent for the last 6 months (70% of the course) has returned to work in the last 2 weeks, and after a series of conversations with my peers and the course leader himself it has arisen that:

• The course has been ran extremely poorly (we already figured this one out)
• The stand-in course leader had "dropped in" and had no prior knowledge of how the course was supposed to be taught
• He wasn't very good at interpreting whatever inferior information he was given
• Alot of the work which has already been done (15,000 word portfolios for some people) was either wrong, or unneccesary
• I am very good at placing blame on others

So overall, I had lost my motivation for the 3rd year running at the final hurdle of my degree.  I have however set myself a resolution that in the final few weeks of this course, I am going to put in as much effort and time as I can to ensure that the last 5 years & a HUGE amount of student debt isn't put to waste and that I atleast get a pretty certificate.  It is also very important for me to allow my parents see me graduate.  I would imagine the pride that this would allow them would more than make up for any sacrifices I have to make in the coming month.

My new life

I have underwent a few major lifestyle changes in the last year, and it seems that I have finally settled down as I have most of the stuff which I want and need at the moment.

My new flat I must say is incredible, much better than any I've lived in yet and I feel like the whole situation is completely ideal.  Even the two rabbits I took custody of have a new home in their run + hutch outside in the back yard; which is better for both them and me.  At first I was very reluctant to demote them from indoor rabbits to the yard but I think it has worked out OK and they seem just as happy, if not happier, and it is definately better for their health (and mine).

The car I bought in February has done over 1,000 miles since it was purchased and every new mile that I do is more enjoyable than the last.  The reality still hasn't set in that I own such a (in my opinion) desirable car and every time I sit inside to drive it, a great smile grows on my face.

Employment

It is crunch time at the moment and after almost 5 years of studying, it is now time to start working towards the job which I will be working in for the rest of my adult life.  I have a part-time job at the moment which I have been promised will instantly turn into a full-time one when I have finished studying.  I have no intention of this being a long-term employment, but it is great for me as it gives me plenty of options financialy.

The plan when I am finished my studies is to pester all of my friends and contacts which I gained throughout college; while also working full time.  I will be trying to get some work-experience and gain a decent pool of references and testemonials which are vital in the music industry.  The long-term goal is to move up to being able to do live-sound events/gigs as my sole source of employment and be able to earn a living wage from this.

Poker

Live

The last time I looked at my PokerJournal on my iPhone I was consistenly winning money.  The last few times I have played live Hold'em however, I have had some disgusting sessions.  I know nobody likes hearing bad beats but I also know that everybody who says that likes telling them about theirs so here are mine.  This is likely to be TL;DR so I will try to keep this short.

Total Won: £524.75
Game Count: 28

Cash games

Total Won: £859.25
Time Played: 46 hours 33 minutes
Winrate: £18.46/hr

This winrate looks pretty sick for somebody who is playing low and micro stakes live cashgames, and I agree that it is high.  Like everybody else, I overlook the positive sessions when I look back through my memory and only remember the crippling sessions which I am having of late; the type of session where you play 4 big pots in 10 hours, get it in in fantastic shape each time and have the deck deliver perfect-perfect for your opponent to make his hand.  I am learning more and more to deal with this, and if I wasn't playing beyond my means alot of the time, I would be able to cope with this alot more.

Tournaments

Total Won: -£364
Game Count: 12
ABI: £39
ITM: 2/12 (16.7%)

For some reason I am alot less confident in my tournament game live than online, and moreso compared to my live cash game.  I am not sure why this is but I believe that despite this, I am still profitable in the games that I am playing, and that a 1st place finish is just around the corner which will put everything right again and restore my confidence in my game.

This should have been last friday when 4.5 hours into a £32 tournament at the G newcastle, which had £440 for the win, I arrive to the final 9, with 6 paid, with a very comfortable chip stack of around 20bb.  This all went a little bit wrong in the first hand when the following happens:

I am UTG+2 and UTG opens to 2.5x the BB.  UTG+1 makes a 3bet shove for about 19bb and I look down at .  I make the mandatory re-shove and the rest of the table folds.  The BB then snapcalls revealing and UTG shows .  on the flop and no improvement sends me over to the cash tables bitter about what could have been.

This type of cooler hits you so much harder when you are playing live as the amount of hands you play make it seem a lifetime away until the next time you are involved in this hand.  The time you are the unfortunate one with but find gin to go on and win the tournament.  Complaining doesn't help however and it is up to me to move on and not let it affect my confidence and continue to play the same, profitable style.

Summary

I believe that I am playing the best I ever have, and that I am definately profitable in all of the games I sit in, or at the very worst breakeven in some of the games where I am sat with 4+ of my poker playing peers.

If this is the case, it is only now a matter of bankroll management and volume if I am going to win money playing live poker.  It is however important that I continue to work on my game and do my best not to become complacent and arrogant thinking that I am god's gift to poker and that I don't need to learn any more.

Online

The theme for this period has been shot taking.  I have played some of the biggest buy-in games I have played online, under no illusions that I am probably making a losing decision when I enter these big games, but chasing that big 5 or 6 figure score.

I took a total of 5 big shots in this period and this accounts for $1,012 worth of losses since Feb 1st.  I played:

• $216 FTOPS #1
• $215 sunday million $1.5m gtd
• $215 sunday million $5m gtd
• $216 miniFTOPS 2-day
• $75 miniFTOPS main event (x2 multi-entries)

I played all of these bigger buy-in games without cashing in a single one which basically turned a breakeven period into a large losing one, but I have no regrets.

Since 1st Feb, I have played 348 tournaments across full-tilt and pokerstars.  This includes SNGs as I do not think I can filter these out with HEM.  I have been ITM 18.9% but performed at a -34.9% roi totaling a loss of $1374.75.   This isn't ever nice to see but given the amount of money that I have wagered, and amount of games I have played, I think that this is an OK result.

I am making the money more than enough to be profitable in these games, the trick now is to work out how to get the all important 1st place finish.  I have made a few final table runs in the last 2 months, and believe that if I keep going deep in my games, a decent win is only a matter of time.  I may need to work on my endgame strategy a little however as I am still finding myself in spots where I am not sure what is profitable, and often feel like I am just pushing buttons and acting without thinking.

Overall

Overall, I am happy with my poker game.  I am playing better than I ever have and believe that I can only get better from here.  I attribute this confidence in my game to spending alot of my time surrounded by the best players that I know.  Spending time sweating games and playing sessions together gives me a great opportunity to learn and improve my game.

I cannot stress enough that I will not become complacent and overconfident in my skills.  I will take every opportunity that presents it'sself to improve my game.  The reason I am so happy with my game at the moment was due to the realisation that I wasn't a particularly good player, and erasing all of the arrogance and ego from my personality.  It allowed me to be able to learn, and better equiped me to take advice from others which in turn has made me a far better player, even in the space of 4 months.

Poker is now taking up the majority of my down-time, aswell as my up-time and pretty much everything.  Poker is like a drug, and it is one that I have chose to spend the rest of my life living with.  I will not be able to quit playing poker as I have become so engrossed in it's marvels and have fallen in love with the game.  This is not a bad thing though, it just needs to be managed so that it doesn't impede on other elements of my life.

It is vital for me to get this balance correct and as such, I will be taking a hiatus from playing any sort of volume this month, playing only a few selected local tournaments and maybe 1 or 2 sessions online with friends. Tommy Angelo would refer to this as "quitting practise" and I am doing this to ensure that in the future; time spent playing poker does not impact time that could be better spent elsewhere.  It will also allow me to better dedicate time to my studies, and allow me to put aside some money in preperation for graduating later this year.

Business

As mentioned in my last blog, I have put my business idea Rent a Producer on hiatus until I have more time later in the summer.  I have also became sidetracked with another idea for a business in the future which I cannot reveal too much about at the moment.  I am confident in both of my ideas and remain optimistic about their money making potential in the future.  It should only be a matter of time now until I can say that I am self-employed and be able to get by on my own two feet, but that will become apparent in the future.

 

 

I would appreciate any feedback from this blog, as it is very rare that I type 2,000 words in any format, nevermind a first-person narrative on my own life.  Please give any feedback you may have, and I will endeavour to blog more in the future.

Cheers
Stephen

2010 and Jan 2011 round-up

Well, this is rather unconventional as most people posted these type of posts at around the 31st Dec or 1st Jan mark.  But seeing as though the late part of my 2010 was very boring and I've had an incredible 2011 so far, I thought it best to hold off for one month until I had something interesting to post.

2010

Poker

Well, my iPhone tells me that in 2010, since November my total profits playing live poker were £473.00.  If we remember that prior to my iPhone getting owned I was on -£444, that gives me a total profit of £29.00.  So a breakeven year...

Online was far far worse.  I was playing $6.50 45-mans and acheiving a pretty decent ROI of around 8% and then decided to play a session of 40 $12 games.  After going on a 40-game streak with not one first place finish, it was very quickly GG bankroll and GG internet poker 2010.

So as a whole, in 2010 my poker experience was negative, but IMO the price of a good education.  With the scraps of my 45-man bankroll I was messing around with $25 PLO and found that the games are full of mostly breakeven players so plan to play a few thousand hands of this in 2011.

Christmas

Christmas was pretty uneventful, as it tends to be when you get older than 13.  As a 20 year old though I think I did astoundingly well on gifts from my very generous mother, father and close family.

It is over a month past now but I will quickly list what I remember getting

• GT5 - The most exciting gift.  I had only been waiting for the release of this for 5 years, and upon opening it christmas day, once again felt that 13 year old kid on christmas feeling.  I must say though, after putting in around 12 hours on it, it is very dissapointing as a single-player game and seems to me to be GT3/4 with improved graphics and alot of feature limitations for none premium cars.  As a multiplayer game though it is second-to-none IMO.  Maybe the single player game will be better when I put in a few hours on it.  I have been very busy recently so haven't had the time for it yet.
• Clothes - Essential.  Between everybody I got an unfathomable amount of clothing, more than I could probably wear throughout 2011 but it is awesome nevertheless.  I got 2x trainers, 4x tee-shirts, 1 jacket, 1 coat, 1x dress shoes, 1x wellington boots, 1000x socks and 1000x underwear.  There was probably more but this is what I've managed to wear so far.  Alot of the stuff is still in a bag in the back room so there's probably more goodies buried somewhere over a pile of shortbread biscuits and other little gifts.
• Cash £££ - I got some money from various places which was very generous and always nice!
• Gift card - I got a gift card from work, it was worth £25 which is far and away better than nothing, which is what I expected
• Misc - I got allsorts of small gifts.  I haven't time to write a list of everything but I got alot of cool stuff from alot of people so don't be offended if you consider your present to be a "big" one and it isn't listed above.  I haven't forgot it, I'm probably wearing/using it right now and forgot it was gotten at christmas time.

College

I will be the first person to admit that college didn't go great in 2010.  Here is looking to the future though and doing alot more work and commiting alot more in 2011.  This will be my last year in formal education and it will be an absolute shame if I don't acheive my full potential and end up oweing probably around £20-£25,000 for a lowly Foundation Degree and a failed attempt at a Bachelors

Business

Rent a Producer hasn't moved in the last few months but I am happy to let it sit dormant and build backlinks + climb in search engine rankings organically until I dedicate all of my time to it post-college in May

2011

Here is where the fun starts.  January 2011 is probably rivaling the best month I have ever had and I am hoping that this trend will continue for the rest of 2011.

Poker

So far, in live poker in 2011, I am winning £1,643.50.  I finished 5th in the Circus 1st-tuesday £50 game on the 4th of January for £455 which means I am freerolling live tournaments for a little while.  I will be playing this game again tonight and hope to repeat my performance!

Live cash games I am so far winning £1,432.50 over 49 hours, giving a rather unbelievable hourly of £28.84.  This is due to me having a lot of money in January and taking shots at £1/2 games, £2/2 PLO games and running amazing each time.  This will stop now due to me being a little less liquid financialy and will probably be playing £0.50/£1 max.

I had my first major tournament win online on the 20th of January this year placing 3rd in the Daily 40k on stars for a little over $3,700.  A big thanks to Sam James who was over my shoulder from 3 tables down giving advice (alot of which I ignored regretably) and I have no doubht that if he was playing he would probably have finished 1st for $8,000.  Sam went on to win the $39,000 GTD on Full Tilt 5 days later for $10,000

Me and Sam and two other friends traveled down to Dusk till Dawn again the following day for the January €115 Grand prix.  Over the course of the weekend, I managed to make £347.50 in cash games.  Taking away the £97 for my tournament buy-in from which I was eliminated in Day 1, I left Nottingham £250 wealthier for my efforts over 3 days.

In addition to my cash game profits me and my friend Ben Dixon decided at the beginning of the event to swap 10% of any prize money we both won in the tournament.  He final tabled and negitiated a 4-way chop giving him €10,500 , €1,000 of which was then passed on to me.

Flat Move

I am yet again moving "house" and will be moving into my father's 1 bedroom flat just up the road from where I currently live.  He has just spent a fortune renovating the flat from the ground-up completely rebuilding the interior so you can take my word that it is absolutely amazing.  Not that my current accomodation isn't nice already.

New Car

Since I had won all of the money in January, it would be a waste to not have anything to spend it on.  Thus, I reveal to you, my new (2002, 02) BMW 318Ci SE

I expect that I will have alot more that I have forgotten to write when I re-read this post another day, or a write-up after i win £2,200 in the £50 game tonight so stay tuned.

Cheers
Stephen