10 days of poker since arriving in New Zealand and I’ve put in nearly $30k worth of volume. I’ve certainly been hitting targets for cumulative buy ins, but unfortunately, my bottom line isn’t following suit. My ROI currently stands at 16.35%, so it’s far from being a disaster, and obviously it is still early days and a small sample size, but it is a little disappointing.

The point is though that it really shouldn’t be. I mean I know all about the variance involved in tournament poker. I know I can’t expect to win every time I play, and I can feasibly go through long spells without putting up a 5 figure score, but yet this seemingly dry spell is still irking me a little.

Perhaps by expressing my illogical discontent in this blog I will be able to rid my mind of any negativity. Having said that though, I don’t feel as if any negative thoughts have been affecting my game, just my general well being. Obviously I’m going to have a better day if I’m $10k up rather than being $3k down.

That brings me onto another point – playing in the morning as opposed to the evening in the UK. This as I’ve mentioned before was a key reason for the move; being able to work a normal working day, a 9-5. There is some irony in that, in that the whole pursuit of poker began by trying to avoid such a grind, but that’s by the by. When I played in the evening in the UK, I could spend the whole day doing what I wanted free of any negative thoughts, and when I finished playing for the night, if I felt like crap it didn’t really matter, as I would be going to bed within 2 hours. Now if I finish playing at 1pm and am staring at a series of 0s on my spreadsheet I still have the rest of my day to supposedly enjoy. I can’t say it’s easy to motivate myself to visit the gym, or even go and play golf when I’m $3k in the hole for the day. This is something I definitely need to look at. The mental side away from poker.

Being down for having a losing day is totally illogical, and borderline retarded. I have won a lot of money playing this game and I know I will continue to do so, and as long as I continue to improve and practice proper bankroll management I will have no financial worries. One thing I may do to improve this, and to make my outlook on the rest of the day more positive is to change the way I record my results. Currently, I start a new spreadsheet monthly, and in addition to that I have gaps between each day and at the end of each day I do a quick calculation to see how I’ve done. Perhaps if I was to have one big spreadsheet it would help me see that one whitewash, one $3k losing day means nothing in the long term, a drop in the ocean if you like.

Anyway, enough of that psychological rubbish. My poker week has been pretty up and down, and I’ve suffered a few horrible beats deep in tournies, and just don’t seem to be winning those important flips deep.

Yesterday for example I made the money in the Ipoker $50r, the Ongame $50r and the Party $150. Ipoker I went out after losing a huge pot JJ < QJ all in pre, guy caught an ace on the river for the nut straight. It’s not really what I call a huge beat, but I hold 70% of the time, and when I do I’m a top 5 stack and in good shape to make the FT. Party was similar in that I limped A8o in the sb intending on shoving on a raise from the bb. When he jammed himself I thought for a moment before making the call, was pleased to see he had A5 until the 5 dropped on the river, which obviously being Party happened about a nano second after I made the call (I’m still not sure if I like the cards coming out that quickly or not, I guess it depends if I’m winning or losing…). And out I was in 15th place.

Last Sunday I made it deep in 3 majors – 32nd in the Paradise 100k Euro, 23rd in the Ipoker $250k, and 6th in the Pacific $100k. Pacific was the most sickening. With 6 left I was sitting 2/6 and had 14 bbs. UTG moves all in for 10 bbs and I’m sat on the button with AA, after 10 seconds of Hollywooding hoping the big stack may have a marginal decision to make I moved in and UTG showed A4o.

Flop 2 2 5, Turn 3. And needless to say there was no 2 or Ace on the river. Shortly after I got it in with AJ vs 55 and failed to improve. $4k for my troubles, but obviously I had my eye on the $25k 1st prize.

It hasn’t been all doom and gloom though, I have been running insanely well in the turbos. In 3 days I took down the $10k $100 turbo on Ongame twice for about $3.5k each time. It’s really quite sad, but I love those turbos, and if I could play any tourny all day every day it would probably be the $100 shorthanded turbo on Ongame.

Away from poker it’s been fairly quiet. The town triples in size in the Summer months, so this is really the calm before the storm. We have managed to get a few things in though. We bought a car, a Mitsubishi Carisma, nothing flashy, just a solid car to get from A to B for the next 8 months. We also went to watch the local football team play – Tauranga City Utd. It’s a great set-up they have. 5 teams, a stand with a bar on one side of the pitch and a fair number of people coming to watch weekly. For example 2 weeks ago when we watched the reserves there were over a hundred people there. Now we just have to get fit and push for a place…. We’ve played golf a couple of times and will join the local course this week. It’s a pretty good track and they have an offer on for membership until the end of February for $385 (150 quid) which is a steal. Only thing left on our agenda is selecting a hot tub for the back garden….