One interesting way to stay in shape is the Nintendo Wii.
Not only will it give you excersice when it is raining outside and you can not run.. but you can use
the Wii's controller for your Poker Playing Experience.
I just found this and figured it may interest you.
It is much easier to do what we are talking about with the logitech controller but this would be even more
comfortable to use for you.
It would work with any platform not just Stars.
Thanks 897,
I don't have a Wii unfortunately. They sound kind of fun but I don't think I will get one as I would no doubt just end up spending even more time on the computer.
I watched that video you posted -- it looked quite complex to me (the most un-computer savvy person I know).
Need to get going and buy the game pad; unfortunately the only shop that sells them around here wanted to charge the equivalent of about $65 and I think that's kind of crazy.
http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Dual-Action-Game-Pad/dp/B0000ALFCI
or
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/gaming/controllers/devices/288
The amazon one says it ships free with orders over $25. Maybe buy a cheap book with it.
IDK where you live so IDK how much it will cost to ship to you form these sites but check it out...
There are piles of other online places to order from as well.
Thanks for looking into this for me. Amazon UK will do it for around $35, so I think I will go for it.
If I haven't ordered it by the next time I post, please call me a liar 
Ho hum. Hopefully, this won't sound too much like a whinge... I'm pretty good about taking the bad beats on the chin but it's a little frustrating when I feel like I am playing some of the best poker I have ever played and indeed Holdem Manager seems to be telling me that I am crushing my limit (after an admittedly small sample), and yet I have so little to show for it.
After 7000 hands at NL100, I should be around $750 up, for an EV bb/100 of 10.76. Instead, I've made a measly $162 for only 2.27bb/100.
Graph for NL100 so far:
Taking into account rakeback, it's the difference between having an hourly rate of $45 and having one of only $15. It would be marginally less annoying if it weren't for the fact that this just seems to continue a trend of running below EV in cash games going back to around October. For completeness, then, here's my graph across all limits:
(Basically running $1,000 below EV - and over 20 stacks in total).
Oh well, what can we do but just keep on keeping on? I hope to report better news next time.
Tim
Sick graph Tim. Must feel good to know that you can run $1000 below EV and still be a winning player though !
Take It Easy
Hey Tim! So you're playing NLSH now? I wasn't aware, that's awesome. Teach me some of that ♦
It's been hard to get some synchronicity in Skype, haha, we gotta work on that.
Keep that beautiful graphic up, good job!
April Review
Well on the one hand I feel encouraged by my rapid progress through the limits playing NL SH. On the other hand I'm disappointed that physical problems prevent me from really getting in sufficient volume to make some real money.
Although it's annoying that this month I have run $900 below EV, I find that much less frustrating than the fact that my body is really not letting me get the most from that which my mind is capable of.
I have ordered a game pad in order to give me yet another position to sit in while playing but I'm not really that confident it will solve the problem. I have a suspicion that a combination of tenseness and repetitive action is just not good for people in their mid-30s. It's frankly rather depressing.
Some statistics, for what they are worth:
Monthly profit from playing poker: $752.39
Total Hours: 48
Hourly Rate: $15.67/hr
% increase in bankroll: 26.28%
May Goals
* Crack $6000
* Withdraw the first $250 above that and take Mrs Tim64 out to dinner
* Play in and win at least one $55+5 Turbo SNG
* Configure game pad once received and learn to play using it
* Continue current weekly fitness regime and if shoulder pain continues, see a doctor or physiotherapist.
BR: $5778.51
Ho-Hum. $1500 below EV after 50,000 hands. Ho-hum.
Ho-hum.
Ho-hum.
If I keep saying ho-hum, in the most nonchalant voice I can muster, maybe I will start to believe the fiction that none of this bothers me in the slightest...
Graph shocker below:
♠_confused:Tim64 ♠_confused:
Even with variance doing everything it could to stop me, hitting the $6000 bankroll mark had to come eventually. So, for the record, here is the bankroll in all its glory:
Full Tilt: $3202.93; Bank: $2779.93; Party Poker: $17.14; Titan Poker: $2.10.
Total bankroll: $6002.10
It's clear to me now that reaching $6000 was always an entirely arbitrary achievement. It's true that it is 100BI for the $55+5 turbo sit and go's, but since I'm not going to play them that's kind of irrelevant. It's also 60BI for NL100 BSS. But again, there was no reason to wait until I was so comfortably rolled for that limit before daring to withdraw.
However, I'm glad I stuck to my guns and held out, if nothing else because it was a real test of patience. I don't know how long it's going to be before I make my first $250 - what I like to think of as 'pure profit' - that I will allow myself to withdraw, but in a way that doesn't matter. The point is that from here on I'm actually going to see some winnings. Actually going to witness the conversion of imaginary chips to online dollars to electronic pounds sterling to tangible banknotes that can be exchanged for life's necessaries, such as bread and milk.
The next step is to get better. Physically better, I mean. Although I'd like to put some of my earnings towards coaching the first thing I will need to spend money on is physiotherapy. A hasty dive into my local swimming pool on Wednesday saw me pulling/tearing/otherwise injuring a muscle in my left shoulder and it's clear things are not going to get better without some help. I console myself with the thought that whatever I do long-term it's likely to be office/desk/computer-based work, so being capable of sitting at the computer for 7 to 8 hours a day is basically a minimum requirement.
The numbers seem to point to poker. $30/hr appears to be doable even for a non-genius type like myself. And 5 hours a day, 20 days a month at that rate gives $3000, which would provide us with a very comfortable but by no means luxurious lifestyle. Even $2000 a month would be enough not to have to worry about money on a day-to-day basis. Trouble is, whatever the numbers say, I've never actually got close to putting in that kind of volume or making that amount of money in a single month and I have no idea whether doing so would even be pleasurable. And when I think that it's taken me 16 months to make $6k, it seems even more implausible. (Wait, that's overly negative thinking -- I have to remember that I started out by sitting down with $2 at a time and now it is 50 times as much).
Well, seeing as I'm supposed to be limiting my time at the computer, I'd better wrap things up there. I will leave you with one hand from today that contributed heavily to pushing me over the line. (Somewhat appropriately, it is by some way far my biggest ever single pot won). Villain had been 3-betting liberally in position (50% from a sample of 6 after 16 hands) ever since I joined the table. I don't even know whether my call down was a great piece of soul-reading or just spew-mania but when he turned over the stone cold three barrel bluff I was kind of pleased with myself (and, yes, hugely relieved that he didn't have one of very many better hands he might have had and which I put him on the split second after I had called his 95bb river push).
Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:
$0.5/$1 No-Limit Hold'em (6 handed)
Known players:
[tg]BU$134.90:///////;SB$110.00:///////;BB$44.80:///////;MP2$100.00:///////;MP3 (Hero)$142.90:///////;CO$173.95:///////;[/tg]
Preflop: Hero is MP3 with Q:s, J:h.
CO posts deadblind, MP2 folds, Hero raises to $3.00, CO raises to $10.00, 3 folds, Hero calls $7.00.
Flop: ($21.5) 3:c, T:c, Q:c (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $12.00, Hero calls $12.00.
Turn: ($45.5) 4:s (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $25.00, Hero calls $25.00.
River: ($95.5) 2:h (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $96.00, Hero calls $95.90(All-In).
Final Pot: $287.4.
Results follow:
Hero shows a pair of queens(Q:s J:h).
CO shows a pair of fours(4:d 5:d).
Hero wins with a pair of queens(Q:s J:h).
-Tim64
Today I called a 129bb+ flop shove on a J23 rainbow board from the preflop raiser who shoved into 2 people. I had QQ and I had donked near pot from the big blind with my over pair.
Villain looked seriously spewy, raising 35% after 50 hands, and I had been playing back at him quite a bit in some earlier hands. Thought maybe he was just pissed at me or crazy enough to play AJ like that to make a statement about me stealing his pots.
Turned out he shoved 129bb with AA. Well, I kind of hate his shove but I hate my call even more. In fact I'm downright ashamed of it.
Not ashamed of hitting my 2-outer on the river, though. LDO.
Now I'm only $850 below ev on NL100 after 14k hands... ♠_confused:
How the hell else are you supposed to catch up to EV without sucking out a bunch?
WP!!
I have absolutely no idea whether this means anything, but according to a certain well-known player tracking website, I am an 'A' student:
Apparently I need to go to showdown 15% less often. Of course, what it actually means is that I should go to showdown 15% less often when it's clear I'm going to get sucked out on on the River.
♦
There have been some highs and lows this month, but mostly lows I'm afraid. The problems with my neck and shoulders have got worse and at one point around a week ago it seemed like I was in pain almost all day long.
Today I had my third session with the physiotherapist and it seems we may at last have got to the root of the problem. She tells me I have "muscle overload" in my right neck from forcing my right arm to adopt such a static position (outstretched on the desk holding the mouse) for so many hours.
She worked on me for half an hour and I seemed to feel some benefit from it but since this problem has now been going on for three months, I'm not holding my breath for a swift resolution.
Naturally my volume has sucked badly. I've managed only 11,000 hands which is not really enough to make decent money even if I ran better than my usual terrible.
On the plus side, as previously reported, I did finally make it to a $6k bankroll and so, when I had made $250 above that, I withdrew it (7 days seems a long time to wait) and Mrs Tim64 and I went for a really good dinner at an Israeli/Mediterranean restaurant near us called Brosh, where we ate a ridiculous amount of mezze and drank a bottle of Prosseco.
My stats would have looked somewhat better had it not been for a dismal performance today. Managed to halve my monthly winnings with a $300 losing day. Ran into a good regular's set and played a check/call line with top pair for two streets after he called my continuation bet when it was clear I was beaten, and had my aces cracked twice by fish hitting obscure two-pairs on the River after being allin way behind. Moreover all my 3bet bluffs got caught and every time I tried to float someone on a scary board it turned out not to be scary for them. Ah well. Waddayougonnado?
Overall managed a profit of just $502.24 for a $/hour of $17.57 which is ever so slightly better than the day job. Running 7 stacks below EV after 17k hands at NL100 doesn't help...
I sincerely hope that things turn around for me health and pokerwise in June. One thing to look forward to is that we are in the process of buying a house at the moment and if that goes through smoothly at least I will have put a roof over the family's head.
-Tim64
Planning to go Pro
May Goals
* Crack $6000 - Achieved
* Withdraw the first $250 above that and take Mrs Tim64 out to dinner - Achieved
* Play in and win at least one $55+5 Turbo SNG - Not yet
* Configure game pad once received and learn to play using it - Achieved (with 897's kind assistance)
* Continue current weekly fitness regime and if shoulder pain continues, see a doctor or physiotherapist. - Achieved (well, sort of - see below)
The first thing to say is that things are very much better with my health. I have now had four or five sessions with the physiotherapist and things are really starting to improve. I still get aches in my neck/shoulders if I sit still for too long but I'm hopeful this will improve if I keep active and don't do anything stupid.
The second thing to say is that in the last eight days of playing poker I earned the same amount as I did in the first seven and a half months of my poker career - just over $1000. Well of course I have been running well (although between cash and sngs, I'm still running $1000 below EV overall!) but nevertheless this is pretty incredible to me.
I have more or less decided to go 'pro' in the very near future. Specifically, (and no doubt stupidly) I have told myself, and Mrs Tim, that I will quit my remaining hours of part-time work at the Building Society if my hourly rate for June is at least $20/hr.
My plan is to build my 'roll up to an equivalent of 40 buy-ins for NL200 bss and then begin play on that level. I am pretty sure that, purely from the point of view of knowledge attainment, I would be best off remaining at my current limit, nl100. After c20k hands my EV winrate is a very respectable -- but by no means crushing -- 5.5bb/100. And what I should probably be doing is trying to get this closer 10bb/100 before thinking about moving up. However, as always I am really keen to increase my hourly rate from around $30/hr to around $40/hr+. (Because of my health troubles I'm trying to get to the point where around three hours of play per day nets us enough to live on.) Whether this is realistic, I'm not sure. I recently started playing a bit of shallow stack nl200 and even despite the swarms of shove-happy SSS players, it still seems somewhat fishy to me.
Finally, for those of you who might feel cheated that I've pretty much given up playing SnGs, I did finally play in a couple of $55+5 Turbos. Result: two third places, for a profit of $80. My intention is to play these from time to time when I'm in the mood, at least until I have won that elusive first place.
Well, it's great after three months of doldrums to be feeling a bit more positive about my health and poker future. This lets see what the rest of June brings.
Great news, uplifting post. I wish you all the success when you do go pro, you gotta ship that $55 though !
All the best
It's nice to hear you're getting better. If you are in the mood for a session or handreview sometimes just skype me.
hey tim thats great news! glad ur starting to feel better. at least you know its money well spent.
wish you the best of luck this month with your $/hr goals and hope you make it as a pro!
First $1k Day
The tables have been kind to me today. Monster hands set against monsterish hands. Aces versus Kings; Kings versus Queens; sets versus top pairs with top kickers; turning flushes all day long...
The tables will be unkind to me tomorrow, no doubt, but for now (and including Friday's rakeback from the good people at FTP) I am able to say truthfully that my bankroll has grown by over $1000 from where it stood this morning. An amount it took me seven months to earn from when I started. In one day.
Today, I 
poker.
First 9man $55 shipped
And Tim64 saw what he had done and saw that it was good. And on the seventh day, he rested.
p.s. I was kind of pleased that I managed to beat the guy who is at the top of the $55+5 leaderboard on FTP. Course, I had to suckout a couple of times to do it, but I guess even the 
has his day sometimes.
