May result plus end graph

My winnings this month are not that nice,but after the first downswing because of the blind changes on stars it took me to long time to recover.Also after they changed everything back i had the feeling that i lost to many hands unlucky.Now the last week i done over 1k winnings again and it looks like that i still can play a bit of poker :]
I dont have a big goal for the new month will not force me in to high goals because the last two month teached me a lesson.Black Friday and the rake and blind changes hit me hard and unprepared i also was for a while on tilt.It is a big different when you do a living out from playing or you just do it for fun.Poker can be so a beautiful dream job and also a big Nightmare.Think the most guys who do a living out of it know that feeling or have similar experience.I will take it easy at the beginning of the month if i feel that my stress level is down and i enjoy the game more again than i will play more and move up in limits again.
Wish you all the best for the new month!
Heiko

Small Mtt STory from Stars

Last night i played a couple of Tournaments and after longtime i was getting in the 11$ 20k gtd under the last 100 guys.Was always over average in chips and i tried to play loose to see many flops.Also i had a soft table to this point and i managed to accumulate some chips because of the weak play from the most of the guys.
Some of the Key Hands are a resteal allin from me with Aj against a very good mtt player.He was sitting to me on the right side and we was fighting a lot.Think we both had something between 25-30 BB.Always when i tried to 3 bet him he went instant allin.So my plan was this time to push direct allin but this time he instant called again with AK :{
But last night my luck was back and i managed to 3out him.Forgot that feeling because the last weeks it happends much to often to me.

After he left the table i took control over the table,the next Key Hand was a crazy and i was close to call the heart ambulance!

AA on the button what a dream,i had a new Supernova player on my table we both had around 55 BB.He open raised KQ of course i done a 3 bet to play a big pot in position.
Flop was not so nice K Q 3 ,he was thinking very long than he checked i had the feeling that im beat already a check should be the best  but i didnt listen to my thoughts and i done a big bet.Nice checkraise from him and i pushed allin.The turn brought one more K and i was sure is bed time for me :}
But not this time a 2 outer came on the River and i really sucked out this poor guy so badly my apologies for that!.Wow it was morning time in Thailand and for sure with my very Loud JAAAAAAAAAA i woke up some of my neighbours.....now i was leader 1from 23 players with a double bigger chip stack than the second leader.


I played many hand and it was easy to bully the other players.Now we moved to the last two tables,i checked all the other guys but really there was only 2 good winning players left.I should be favourite.I really was exited and sure i cash today,but im not sure what happened.Some guys stood up against my raises and the shortys always went allin.I never had the odds to call with my craphands i opened raised ;}
So finally i lost a very important flip against a russian player who was on tilt.not sure my call was so good when i think after but he also tilted me a bit after he restealed always allin.This time i called him with Aj hes hand K7,my luck run out and i was quickly the new short stacked player :]
Managed a small comeback but than i run after i restealed with J10 suited in Aq.Short Story my luck run out and i was ready for my bed :]
11.place 193$ of course not so nice like the first place with 4,9k$ but at the end i had some fun again in playing tournament poker.Will play now often mtts again and also my motivation is back.
Hope you guys do well,and thanks for reading!
Heiko

They changes on Stars and what to do now?

I Think Stars is finished now with the changes they done on the Sngs and if you ask me and some of the other regs they really done a not so good job.They done it really good on the 180s but they messed up my main income on the 45s.
Now im still confused,i spent some time on checking the stats from the other regulars and the most of them dont have a good month like normal.The 45s dont look so attractive anymore and i will not play so swing games like the 180s this days because im still on a bad 2k downswing there.The solution is maybe the 18player games.The buyins are closer and is possible to climb up faster there.Also the games are shorter and i can gain quicker some points.Other wise there are no breaks so i need to open up tables and finish them all to get my break.
I also played some mtts this weekend and it was fun,run in some of them deep but in important spots i run to often out of luck.The variance on mtts is of course the biggest but will take on weekends some night session in  my program again.One hit and i can smile again ;}
Right now i dont no what i will do and we really dont know what changes in poker will come in the future,so i need to find my motivation quick again and build up a bigger bankroll which gives me some more confidence for the future.
The month is soon over and i didn't played much,so i will try to play 1k games more before the month is over.After that i will figure out a plan with realistic goals for the next month.
Thanks for reading
Heiko

Having tough times right now

At the moment really everything in my poker career sucks pretty much.It feels like my worst run i ever had,all this trouble the last few week plus to many downswings.At the moment i run over 4k games breakeven which means besides from rakeback there is no income for long time now.I always was good prepared for times like this but with the Black Friday and all this stupid changes on Pokerstars i really lost to much time and income.Specially in my case when you just recover from a really bad year in India and just build up the new bankroll again.
This all went to long and to bad and sometimes it also feels that i get to many bad beats in important situations on the table.Now i had always bad runs since i started with poker but right now it feels like i cant beat anything.
I will cut my first sessions in the day  time and focus for a while on long session with mtts and non turbo Sngs.Got much more skill in this games and hopefully i can recover and find self confidence there again.
I hope also that Stars stop now changing daily the Sngs Schedule is really a shame how unprofessional they work as the biggest site on Internet Poker.
I found a very funny story on 2+2 will copy that inside here.
Have fun with it.
Heiko

Originally Posted by Nivvy101

Lol at the way this has all been handled. Just who the hell came up with these crazy ideas, and then who the hell approved them. I mean, what was the process?

(Late night High level board Meeting, Pokerstars headquarters)

"Right guys, the DOJ are crawling all over us, we are either gonna have to shell out Billions in fines or Billions doing a deal just to stay alive. And we just lost the whole of North America. We gotta raise more revenue and fast! Any ideas?"

(Guy mopping the floors in the corridor)

"Er, excuse me but I think I can help"

(Chairman of the board)

"Let's hear it!"

(Guy puts down mop)

"Well, you know those Sit n Go thingy's? This is what you need to do. You need to raise the rake %age on all these games with lower buy ins and at the same time lower the buy in"

(Chairman)

"I see, so that way not only do all our winning regular players take a drastic pay cut, but we also get less revenue, because for example, every $6.50 game where we used to earn 50 cents we now earn just 43 cents, thus losing 7 cents for every game played at that level. Interesting, tell me more"

(Mop guy)

"OK. Next you need to radically alter the structure of all these tournaments and put in a 45 second time bank to confuse the hell out of everybody and radically decrease traffic in these games. This way your loyal regular winners will make even less money and you will lose even more rake revenue"

(Chairman)

"Brilliant. Anything else?"

(Mop Guy)

"Just one more thing Sir. Get that Steve fella to put his job on the line by telling all these really smart poker players, that all these changes are a great benefit to everyone. And make sure he mentions a number of times that Pokerstars is decreasing the rake!"

(Chairman)

"Genius!", "Oh young man, I didn't catch your name?"

(Mop guy)

"My name Sir?. Er, it's Lederer Sir, Howard Lederer Sir"

(Chairman)

"Well Lederer, I'll see to it that you get a promotion. These new ideas of yours are really gonna sink that Full Tilt mob!"

The Micros 5

After all that stress the last weeks ago,the micros are back with a lot of good jokes about things happened.Enjoy this one ;}

Again we have some new changes on Stars.

Last night i only played some mtts and non turbo Sngs.I will do that for a while because it was fun again.Always playing the Turbo Sngs had nothing to do with playing poker.To much push or fold and also the big variance sometimes.On Mtts yesterday i felt more excitement again,there was more decision the make and i needed to think again a little more.
Nice change ;}

So Stars changed now the 45 and 180 turbo buyins again.
On the 180s it makes more sense and the prizepool and rake looks better than before.
On the 45s they messed it up a bit.For example:

The rake increase on the 45s 7$buyin (before6.50$)  is really too big.I got on the 6.50s a 18% roi in this year which is 1.15$ per game.If i grind 3k games next month they cut 390$ extra rake from my winnings.
In my case im a supernova and i get 40% from this cut back,but the lower rank vips will get cheated here again and we have the same problem is harder for them to build a bankroll to move up in the limits.They will stuck in the same limit or maybe give up sooner.
If Pokerstar will listen to us more and decrease the rake a bit everybody will make more money.Also the break even players who only grind for rake back can get some winnings.The bad loosing players can stay longer in the system before they go broke and of course the Greedy Poker Sites will gain long term more money because the traffic will increase again and also new players get attracted!



It looks for me like a easy decision,so why they will not do this?
My theory is that the have agreements with other sites already,after they higher the rake the other sites will follow...Pokerstar is a company and they lost money because they lost the Americans.So now they try to get more money from the other players.
Reminds me on our Government they also steal more and more money daily from us ;]

I know it is not nice but we have not much choice,it will be definitely harder in the future to make a living out of online Poker.Maybe i will get better in mtts so i still can make good money and let them earn less,i dont have a better idea right now ;}
Wish you all well!
Heiko

Updates (Ger)

Ok Leute ich will es heute kurz machen,seid Samstag bin ich wieder zurück auf Stars.Inzwischen wurde die alte Blindstruktur wieder eingeführt.Buyins werden auch noch bearbeitet,ich denke das war der erste versuche der Pokerseiten uns Spieler tatsächlich um etwas mehr rake zu berauben.Die meisten Veränderungen waren wirklich unter aller Sau und hatten absolut keinen vorteil fuer uns Spieler.
Ich wuerde gerne etwas mehr dazu schreiben ,allerdings bin ich momentan etwas zeitlich eingeschränkt und ich muss versuchen die verlorene zeit die mich die letzten Wochen gekostet haben wieder rein zu holen.
Sobald ich wieder etwas zur ruhe gekommen bin werde ich etwas ausführlicher berichten.
So lange wuensche ich euch guten Karten und viel Spass beim Pokern oder was auch immer ihr gerade vor habt.
Schöne gruesse Heiko

Holiday!

OK just let us do a small review about the last couple of weeks.
First there was the Black Friday which took all the Americans from us,we lost on pokerstars 25% traffic and i needed to quit working in the morning time,i shifted back to evening and night work.

2.All the poker players in Thailand have to pay for every money transfer to the bank account a extra fee which is not small!

3.After everything was looking ok again,i find myself in the trouble which caused from Pokerstars.They changed the rake system and blind structure what makes it impossible to beat the games like before.It feels like your Boss tell you do the same job or more for the half hourly rate or less!!!

4.Traffic went more down and i cant get sample size or any winnings ;{


Pokerstar will change things now on Wednesday after everybody was complaining,i will wait till this day.If the change will not suit me i will transfer my bankroll to Full Tilt.I gave the games in the afternoon a shot and they look profitable enough for me to make a living out of it.

After i went to the mirror that afternoon i was sure that i need some holiday,i will stay away from poker to wednesday.

I'm so much disappointed from Stars that they treat us players like this and i think the best is we show them that we dont need them.There plenty of other sites and we can make the choice.

It really feels like that they try to let us bleed for the income they lost the Americans.

I pray that i have some good news next time when i writhe something here.
Thanks guys!
Heiko

Really good Post from a other Player

Hi guys i really think this man hit the needle on the head!!!
Check out the Blog he says the right thing about the changes on Stars!
http://www.atkinator.net/

Im so tired of that!

As i promised on the beginning of the month i will play 5 k games without any excuses from my side!
But guys this graph is sick and its not my doing.I started up on the beginning of the month with a big motivation and i played on one of this days 270games.But i tell you the story about the 2 crazy downs in that sick Graph.
The first bad down happens last evening I'm in a middle of my session,will open new tables but i dont find my buyins in the Lobby.There was this new crap instead.5.43$ and 10.85$ buyin.
Also 45 nd 180 players like i always play.Ok little confused i took them inside my program didn't wanted to stop my session.I felt quick that i was not the only one guy who was confused.The traffic was terrible down.Stars told us now that they changed something,i was thinking thank you very much for the Information.(i really think it is absolut unprofessional to doing changes in that way) I played and played and find quickly out is not only the buyins that changed also the blind structure was new.
I stopped after i went terrible down,sometimes really my stack was ok and than boom i was blind dead.
The reason is the new blind structure changed every 3 minutes instead from 5 minutes before plus people having a 45sec. Time Bank before only 15 sec.
This slows all the other player who are not mass tabling to steal time.
One time i was before a final table and the blind went 2 times up i didnt had any changes to do anything.Stack went down from 9 bb t 3or 4 in no time.


Ok what can i do,i studied the new blinds and the price structure,calculated the new rake and started on the next day a new session,extra less tables was the plan but anyway if i wanted to play more it was not possible.People a day later still dont register much.

I played really a pretty good A game,done all good calls and pushes but i tell you i experienced today that a good winning player will loose Roi because of this changes.Everyone in forced to gamble more and on the Final tables you also loose some edge because of this new blinds.

I need first some sample size because i also was getting a lot of bad beats but I'm sure the games will not be so profitable like before and it will be impossible to grind like before.

Don't know why changes have to be so bad,for sure there done some other good stuff but in my case it will be the best to bring the old games and old structure back.

I'm sure they loose at the moment rake because of the less traffic and i cant get my sample size.And if i cant beat the new games i need to find something else,for sure i cant keep my promise with the sample size this month.I'm actually happy when i can make some Dollars again first.

Thanks for reading guys and i really hope you do better than me.
Heiko

May

I worked out a plan for my sessions to reach this time my target from 5 k games.
25X 200 and i got also 6 day offs.I run good on the first day so i took on Monday my first day off.Yesterday i also run good again.In only two working days i played 539Sngs if i keep playing like this i will gain some extra free days!
actually i need to play today only 61 games to stay in target but i will do a little more.
I increased also my tables again because i feel it is more easy again,so yesterday i had for sometimes 27-32games open.In a 6 hour session i played 169 games which is fantastic so 200 games at day i do in two 4 hours session.I think to playing session from maximum 6 hours allow me always to stat very concentrated.I get some problems with the right and quick decisions after more than 6 hours grinding.
I'm top motivated again and happy that i started with a good profit in the new month.I still run so ugly on the 180player Sngs since the Americans are gone,the downswing is something like 2k now.From some really good regs i saw similar swings some of them had 2-3k swings as well so i pray i will go up there soon again :]
Thanks for reading my minds.
Heiko