Originally posted by Melvin
Vonki will be pleased when I have to go to work in a pink dress. Luckily I still have over 20 days left, so more than enough time to catch up!
hahah ooooh yes!! ♦ ♦
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Originally posted by yoshiwa
dead blogs are dead , almost end of the month ... ♦
Melvin please wait until I'm back before you wear a pink dress to work.
The Artist Formerly Known as PokerStrategy.com's Online Editor 
Unfortunately I lost a lot towards the end of the month, trying to chase a bonus ended up as -EV for me :(.
Way over 15.000 hands though, so no wearing pink dresses to work for me!
I did earn some money in the Gladiator promotion, cleared $500 first deposit bonus and also unlocked a $1000 reload bonus for WPT, so all in all it wasn't too bad.
Still thinking about if I should go to the Diamond Event in London or not. Also thinking about going to the event in Rome.
Poker-wise I will start adding some more pokerrooms again, probably William Hill and maybe one of the Ongame sites.
Hey Tim!
I'm afraid I have already decided to go to the Rome event and possibly some other trips in the upcoming weekends. (Rome flight ticket already booked)
Could be that I'll go to London another time though, just not with the Diamond event :(.
This month I haven't played much yet (who would have guessed?), so the plan is to start today with a 1000hands/day target again.
Let's crush NL200 this month!
Haven't played much for the past month, however I did have some other fun adventures that I'm willing to share with you all!
Last month, there was the WPT National series in Marbella. Marbella (Puerto Banus) is one of the nicest and is by far the most baller/expensive place the south of spain. I think it would probably rank quite high on a world level as well. There are a lot of celebrity's and rich people who have a house in Marbella. If you don't have a 20 million euro yacht and a Ferrari, Porsche or Lamborghini on your lawn, you don't count in this town.
Saturday:
When on a saturday morning, after going out in Gibraltar on friday, some of my friends suggested to go to Marbella and rail some of our collegues: DanielK, Pleno1, CallumN, Yulia, Lukáš, Sammy4ever (sorry if I forgot to mention anyone) who were playing either the main or side event.
I decided to go along and was planning to maybe play some cashgames on the side, go out in the evening (we were hosting a party from PokerStrategy + Party Poker also organised a party) and then take a taxi back home the same evening. Seeing as I also had bought 30% of DanielK his action, I also wanted to make sure he wasn't just spewing that away!
During the day there were juicy cashgames going on, so I decided to join the 5/10 game and take a shot at them. It went reasonably well and the main part of my winnings came from winning a preflop allin with AK vs 66 and 99 for a 3200 euro pot.
me playing 5/10 No Limit
When at around 1AM the first day of play was over, DanielK, Matt and I decided to go out and have a look at the Party Poker party (constantly referred to as the party party). Followed up by the PokerStrategy.com Party. Both were really great and we went out till deep in the night. Since it was already very late I decided to book a night in the hotel and stay for another day.
PokerStrategy.com party venue
Sunday:
On sunday DanielK was still in the tournament, so my % was getting worth more money and railing became more fun as they were getting closer and closer to the money. Meanwhile, I also enjoyed the pools, a few cocktails and joined the cashgames again. We'd go home as soon as DanielK would bust, however he survived another day! I continued doing well in the cashgames, so it was a great sunday.
Hotel pools, where I was enjoying the sun and a drink or 2.
During the evening break of the Main event, we checked up with the PokerStrategy.com headquaters to see if it was okay if we took a late notice holiday for monday, since Daniel was likely going to make it into the money. This was fine, and we booked another night in the Hotel.
Monday:
Since I didn't bring anything else than the clothes I was wearing (I was only planning to stay out for a day), we went shopping for some clothes on monday morning before the tournament started. I was able to buy some new (and more importantly fresh) clothes, but also wanted to buy a new wallet.
I found a nice wallet in a Hugo Boss store, wanted to buy it, but then found out I only had a lot of 500 euro notes on me anymore and even though they accepted this as a payment, they didn't have enough change to allow me to take the wallet home.
[x]brag: Too much money for Hugo Boss
[x]Beat: No wallet
[x]variance: didn't think about buying more items, to still be able to buy the wallet
While I was drinking cocktails in the pools and enjoying the sun + railing him from time to time, Daniel was still doing great in the tournament. Shipping some big pots, making some big plays, getting into the money and then even playing down to the final table! An amazing result that made us having to book another night in the hotel and another day off work!
Tuesday:
Unfortunately, Daniel started as a shortstack on the final table. He had about 200.000 chips, where the average was 800.000. In one of the first hands though, he managed to double up with KK vs AQ. Shortly after that, he lost a few hands in a row and was back down to 300.000 chips. Daniel made a nice bluff on the river, but his opponent was able to find the call anyway, knocking Daniel out in 8th place for about 14.000 Euro.
All in all, I was up a few thousand from cashgames and a few thousand from Daniel + had a super awesome weekend. definitely something worth repeating!
That was all for this update. I'll start playing some more online again today, so next update might be online poker related or I'm going to do a post about the Diamond event in Rome. (let me know which one you'd prefer!)
- Melvin
Something I've been thinking about recently, is how we learn in general and how this applies to learning poker. I believe there are some flaws in your natural way of learning things when it comes to poker.
One way of learning, is subconsciously by Operant Conditioning. The theory behind this is that when you are rewarded for a task, you will learn to repeat this task and link the task to the reward(positive reinforcement). And if you are punished for doing something, you will be less likely to do it again in the future (negative reinforcement)
An experiment from Psychologist Skinner illustrates Positive reinforcement very well:
Another video that illustrates this effect:
And a video that illustrates both Positive reinforcement as well as negative reinforcement:
These concepts work rather well in every day life and it would be nice if they worked in poker as well. However, unfortunately it doesn't work so well for poker when you are result oriented (and it is almost impossible not to be).
The problem is that in poker, your reward (winning money) does not always come from making the best move. Neither does a negative reward (punishment) always come from making a bad move.
Say you make a fold on the river, where you are 100% beat in your opinion, you still get the punishment of losing the pot even though your fold was the right move.
If you on the other hand call an all-in pre-flop with 72o and suck out on your opponent, you get a reward (winning the pot) even though you made a bad play.
I believe these things make it very hard for you to learn poker only by just playing and you can not let your gut feeling control you to much. You have to train your logical mind and have logic in control when you are playing.
Let me know what you think about this.
I think this is a very interesting subject and I do think you are right 
I think it's a big cause of tilt. You play well (heck, sometimes you feel like you're playing better than you ever have before), and yet sometimes you lose every pot (or what feels like it anyway), despite playing at your very best. The natural way for us to feel is that its unfair and unreal. We're used to getting rewarded when we're doing our very best and really put time and effort into it. Be it with money, an A+ or aprechiation from family and friends. Poker doesn't work that way and I know I for one have struggled with this alot.
I also think alot of players have alot to gain by removing results and graphs from their daily life. I've actually worked with that alot over the past year or so, and it does do miracles. I hardly ever check any graphs during sessions, and I don't check daily graphs very often either. I try to check only once every 2-3 days or even less. I try to only think about how I've played, and I keep trying to be happy about my day even if I have a feeling I lost quite a bit but felt that I've played well.
I personally think that emotions in general is bad for your game. Emotions cause tilt. One thing that does cause alot of emotions, either your graph shows your up, down or break-even is just that - the results. It's not always tilt, it could also be that when you're up x amount in a day, you quit because you feel its a decent result and u dont wanna end up down or BE. Or youre down lots and it has a negative impact on you. Either way, each time you end up NOT looking at your graphs or cashier, you remove some emotions from your game.
Oh and, don't we all know;
Running hot and winning: hell yeeeee, I'm the best pokerplayer ever!! 
I must at least be like the best player at my stakes! (we're winning alot so like duh - obv we must be rly good)
Few days/weeks later...
1st day of Running terribly and losing: FML this is so unfair. This game is rigged.
Few more days of runbad and losing: FML I must be the worst pokerplayer ever. This game sucks. Maybe I should quit playing poker 
Ofc this is a little bit over the top, but I think we all have been there. ♦ It's so hard to not let emotions take control and completely wash away all sense.
Yes, I agree! Probably the only way you can completely neglect this is by not caring about your results and the money you are playing with. A good BRM and strong mindset will go a long way, but it is also something you have to be able to do for yourself.
Hey Melvin,
That is such a key matter of the mental part of the game and probably one of the most importnat factors for control over tilt.
Playing money independantly with not looking at the cashier and daily graphs is so hard ♦ but it helps you concentrate on the game and not thinking about the short term (which somehow gives you more tilt when losing and puts you some limits when crushing well).
Nice post!
Regards,
Dean
Thanks, Dean!
At the moment, I'm really not in a playing mood. Every session I start, I lose concentration after 2 minutes. I make big mistakes, lose pots early and tilt myself because of it.
Normally I hardly have tilt problems, but at the moment I really don't feel like playing.
Guess I'll just enjoy the upcoming summer for now and focus on life more than on playing poker.
Long time no update from my side, let's do a quick one!
Past 2 months I haven't played much poker.
What I have done is enjoying the nice weather in Gibraltar, Family and friends coming over, going out and meeting new people and of course working my ass off!
With some colleagues on holiday, new projects we're working on and some other changes inside the company, it was a busy period. Things are getting back to normal and I'm starting to sort myself out a lot better now, so I'll try to use the extra energy to play some hands of poker again!
In a few weeks, my sister is also coming over to Gib for 15 days. Really looking forward to this, as I haven't seen her much since I moved down here.
Next update should contain something about poker again!