Hey there,
my name is Oliver, feel free to call me Olly, like everybody else does. I`ve been here around for ages. Due to the fact, that I`m only tracked on i-poker I´m basically bronze member 4 life.
I did a blog a couple of years back in the german part of this forum, but I wasn`t in the state of mind I´m now, so I let it dry out. And yes, I`m german, so bare with my little english knowledge - I´ll try to improve it.
I just recently returned to card games. So this blog is here to keep me of stupid ideas.
Or returning to other online games.
Yes, I played World of Warcraft since TBC, most of the time pretty competitive and I always loved the game, no matter in which bad state it was. I was on and off there as well. The reason why I don`t want to play it anymore? That`s pretty easy, whenever I play wow I turn into a person I really dislike. I`m turning into a very toxic person and that`s not fun for anybody around and ofc it`s very bad for myself. I don`t want to turn into this person again - ever.
So the easiest way for me to not become that horrible person again is to deny myself every chance to get there again.
So quitting was the best choice for me and hopefully I`ll stay strong enough to say: "NO!" whenever I`ll be asked to return. Yes you can bet it`ll happen. Already denied a couple of requests.
As I said, I returned to card games, this means poker ofc. Literally just returned to the online field like 4-5 weeks ago.
Also I returned to playing Skat (200 year old german card game) last year. I was playing it for a couple of years like 13-20 years ago. Hyper competitive. When asked back then I would always say that I would crush everybody with one exception. And back then I believed it to be true. Basically I was an arrogant son of a bitch, just an asshole. Pretty good I was, but an asshole for sure. I took a long break from that game, 10 years plus, for several reasons: I made mistakes and couldn`t handle the blowback - which I honestly deserved and around that time my relationship blew up as well and I was introduced to wow. So I wasn`t in a good place back then and it all came crashing down on me so my escape from reality was wow. And man did I escape the real world. I wouldn`t do nothing except of playing wow. Literally nothing. Anyway, a lot of water passed the Rhine since then and I gave myself a chance to return to Skat last year. Surprisingly some of the players remembered me, had the chance to come clean with some of the guys, still some old stories to catch up, but that`ll come in time. I also joined a skatclub where the first team plays in the 2.Bundesliga (2nd highest league in Germany) and I`m part of that team. Due to covid-19 most of the season got canceled since march 2020. So nothing special to report on that front.
Anyway, if any germans reading this and you have questions about skat, feel free to ask me anything about it, anytime, anything.
I also played basketball in germany for most of my life, these days are over now, got injured too many times and my body suffered too many hits. As you can guess by now, I`m overweight. I remember at the start of 2020 I was at 138 kg / 1.96m. Already managed to loose around 18 kg this year. I will focus on my health, nutrition and sports way more and hopefully get back down to around 90 -95 kg - this was my comfort zone and hopefully It`ll be again in the future.
Let`s talk poker. I was introduced to this beautifull game a long - long time ago. Never played NLHE back then, it wasn`t popular back then. We played mostly Stud games in so many variations, I forgot most them already. But we had a lot of fun in homegames, even in the casinos around here, where only FLH was played. Played as high as 10/20 Euro in the casinos. But like i said, long long time ago and it was FLH.
These days the poker rooms in the casinos are closed till 31st of october. If they open again in november I`m looking forward to play a session there.
What i did and did not only back in the days doesn`t really matter anymore. Just a fish thinking I was any good - I was not. Still not.
But here`s what I plan for the future and what I started like 4-5 weeks ago.
I returned to pokerstars. Deposited 20 Euro and 50 Euro. So around 80 $. The first 30 $ were gone in a heartbeat. So playing this and that and mixing it all up was probably not the best idea. I then discored a Challenge on Pokerstars "1000 Redemption Points for 80$" So I cleared that for the reward, took me like the whole month to do so. I won and lost some $ in the casino, well got hooked there pretty good.
Anyway, I started on the october 1st with 150,10$ on Stars. Got another Challenge, again 1000 Points for 80$ and already got some points there:f_cool:
I lost a chunk of $ on Zoom NL2 - yeah what a fish 
:f_cry:, but won most of it back on the regular tables. So loosing in zoom, winning on the casual tables.
1.10. +25,26$
2.10. +6,30$
Night from the 2nd to the 3rd I was bored and played in the casino again, got some $ early only to blast away around a 100$ on other slots.
3.10. -18,44 and I was bored again, but in a good mude and I discovered that there`s another Challenge where the reward would be 27$ for some Points to collect on NL10 or higher. So i said, let`s go for it, how bad can it be? The first couple of hands were like b/e and the i got a little heater. Won on Zoom 10NL 2-3 Stacks while completing the Challenge. It was fun.
To be honest here, I lost a stack back to the pool with KK vs 88. That one is on me, he/she/it played it well and i donated the Stack.
4.10. +16$
The results are cash game only, I also played some Mtts, Sng`s on the side and here I`m down 30,71$
My PC had several problems on sunday, so I reinstalled windows and everything new. Looks way smoother now. Hope it`ll stay like this, but my hand history is gone and all that kind of stuff.
5.10. did not play
As start of today, my Stars Bankroll is at 188,32$.
So far I cleared 384,15/1000 Points for the 80$ Challenge (Rakeback i guess), If I`m not mistaken I can clear that up to three times this month. I will aim to clear it 2 times. But mainly focussing on learning, decision making instead of brainless zoom grinding for the 80$. I turn very quickly to autopilot on zoom, mostly playing fit or fold there. So I prefer to play on the regular speed tables for now and focus on the good things and making a few $, instead of hunting the rakeback. If it happens to be close to clear a 2nd Bonus I will re-evaluate in the last week of october.
For learning and motivation I`m watching Epiphany77s Stream, whenever available and his YouTube Videos.
Any suggestions for content I should watch, read, consume?
Moving forward I will play NL2 and NL5 till my BR gets to 230-250$ and then taking shots at NL10 and so on. I will focus on CGs, but also play some micro Mtts, mostly KO tournaments whenever I feel like playing it. But for now, keep concentrating on CGs.
This Blog will hopefully help me to improve and leave the micros in the future pokerwise. It will also help me to be honest with myself. And if I`m lucky I get the chance to meet some new people along the way, who are also trying to stay positive.
Enough of the blah blah for now. I will post graphs every week, or if something interesting happens one way or another.
cheers and gl on the tables
VS