Another big gap between blog posts, the only person I have to blame for that is me. I now realise why a lot of bloggers start out blogging their hearts out and run out of steam after 6 months, having to constantly update your blog with interesting content can be particularly hard especially if writing isn’t your forte in life.

Poker:

The good run continues, although from what everyone I play with says about me that’s a given. People think I haven’t lost a hand of poker since I started playing years ago . This months graph / results:

An online poker playing friend (pwnchizzle on FTP) has been coming over during the week to grind next to me which has given me some good motivation this month, I have never really played >80k hands of poker in a month, especially at mid stakes games where there is not many games running in the first place. Unfortunately had a bit of a big weekend and am feeling a little under the weather (who would of thought free beer was a bad idea?) so I decided to take a few days off poker to get things back in order.

I have been running particularly well at 600NL and was in contention for whats known as the Ultimate Grinder Leaderboard (tracked by a website called pokertableratings) which basically tracks how much online poker players make across various sites at every level. The standings as of today are as follows:

I don’t think I am going to put in the necessary volume to come first, but it is always nice seeing your name at the top of a list, good motivation to play more. In other news my first online poker instructional video came out on Thursday the 22nd, it is the first video of an 8 part series I am producing for http://www.deucescracked.com/.

I was a little nervous at first recording a video that a lot of people would be seeing, but through the video my confidence picked up and I am happy with the way it turned out. I am going to be producing 1 video a week for the next 7 weeks to be released every Thursday so for the poker players reading this have a watch and give me feedback, it’s always appreciated.

Basketball:

Have still been playing every Tuesday with results polar opposite to my poker results. We played last Tuesday and as I was walking into the rec centre I met an older gentleman that used to play with my dad (who is now 57), apparently they traveled throughout Europe together in their 20′s. We faced his team and they ended up smashing us by about 15 points (first half we were down 35-15 or so). We have lost the last 4 out of 4 weeks with 1 bye which sucks, but is obviously a part of the game  I have to get used to.

We play our last game of the regular season tomorrow night, if we win I think we go through to the final 4 and get to play the finals so heres hoping we play a good game and everyone is in form. I got like 15 points in our last game and hopefully impressed dad’s friend, my classic right handed hook shot to start the game sure put me in the zone for the rest of it. Ended up shooting 6/10 from the free throw line which has been a monster improvement compared to past efforts.

Photography:

A good friend from high school Andreas recently got married to the girl of his dreams (congrats Mr and Mrs WANG ) and I had the chance to take my camera out and get a few photos which was good fun. Was an amazing day weather wise considering the time of year but boy did it get cold outside once the sun went down. A few pics:

Thanks for reading,

Newman.

It has been about that length of time when I decide to check my blog for any comments and realise I haven’t updated it for a while, woops

Poker:

In terms of poker things have continued on the up and up which is amazing, I wake up feeling fresh and willing to play (albeit not for for long periods of time! ). I haven’t really ever had a phase like this in my poker career when whatever play I make it seems to be a correct one, my hands are generally holding up when I am a favourite and so forth. It is certainly nice to be “running good”.

Pushing through June:

I have been doing a lot of coaching on the side of my play which I think is a big part of the reason why I feel so good about my game when I do play. I am really trying to help my students as much as I can to improve their game and I really enjoy seeing them progress or have moments when a huge concept seems to “click”. I have also been preparing a poker related business in my free time which I hope will go live by the end of the month (more details to come ).

Basketball/Fitness:

My good friend Mitch recently asked me to play in his Tuesday night team which is awesome, we are playing in a newly built stadium with super nice courts, unfortunately the quality of refereeing isn’t quite as nice as the quality of the building. We won the first game I played in last Tuesday the 15th, I think I scored like 8 points and dominated the defensive rebounds which is always nice.

We unfortunately lost tonight by 2 points after a very lengthy ref decision lost us over a minute on the clock (the clock’s don’t stop ) when we were down around 10 points with 4 mins left on the clock. We came back in an NBA finals game style finish to lose by 2 points with me scoring about 6 points in the last 2 minutes. I think I finished up with about 14 points out of our teams 36. One of the guys on the opposite team drilled about 6 or 7 from outside which really hurt our early lead we had made in the first half.

Puppy photo:

Peace out,

Newman!

Moving on towards the middle of June (holy crap this year is FLYING) things are going great. I am keeping myself super busy with a lot of poker related stuff, unfortunatley that means my social life has been on the back burner, but my friends will hopefully still accept me if I abandon them for a few weeks.

I have decided to buy myself a few goodies so as the title says my credit card is getting a bit of a beating (for what its worth, I am normally not a person who spends much money on myself).

Logitech kb/mouse combo:

It is going to take some getting used to, but the keyboard is a nice upgrade from the 3+ year old keyboard I used to have. This new one is packed with extra features like the LCD display (can display time, outside temp, current song being played in iTunes.. etc).

The Zotac Zbox:

I bought this little beauty for watching TV shows and movies on my TV after some recommendation and help from my friend Jason. It is basically a tiny little PC that holds 1 hard drive but can connect to the rest of my computers at home via wireless or cabled networking. I am looking forward to spending some solid time on the couch watching some movies new and old.

Third on the list is the Logitech Harmony One universal remote control:

This bad boy can basically control any device that receives an IR (infared) signal. Instead of having 1 remote for each device in your main living area a universal remote can be programmed to control all of them with ease. I can sit on the couch, turn the heater on, switch between pay tv, digital tv, dvd player, my new pc (as above) all from this remote. Genius I know!!

My poker results going from May into June haven’t slowed down. I finished my staking contract with my coach and we ended on good terms with both of us making a lot of money. I have decided to play the mid stakes poker games on my own money for a higher level of risk for myself, hopefully yielding a higher return.

June so far:

I am also in the midst of producing my first video for http://www.DeucesCracked.com (the poker coaching website I mentioned in my last blog post) which will hopefully done by weeks end, however I am not going to rush it as I want the video to be top notch.

That’s all for now,

Newman.

I just thought I would write a quick blog with my may results.

All in all a stellar month.

In other news I have just been accepted as a coach for the poker training website http://www.deucescracked.com and will hopefully be producing video content for them shortly.

Newman.

I have been feeling ultra motivated as of late so decided to write a quick post. I have added a new section for the site for my poker coaching, it can be found top right or here.

I also decided to change the “weekly” quote, something I haven’t really done weekly but will endeavor to do from now on.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find the author for the quote, but I thought it was very true, “Failure is not the worst thing in the world. The very worst is not to try.” Sometimes people are so worried about the results of an action before they have even tried, to anyone out there that is being indecisive about something just get in there and give it a go. Most people who have acheived great things in their life did so by learning from their mistakes and failures.

On a side note I recently ordered a shiny new Dell 30″ LCD monitor which arrived today, boy was I excited when I plugged it in(it’s the simple things I guess?).

Newman.

As I woke up late today I had a look at the poker games running and they didn’t look particularly easy with lots of good players sitting, I figured I would reward myself  with a day off (I don’t normally have many in any given month). The day crept on towards the afternoon and I had made no plans so I decided I would sit down and play a few hours of poker, boy am I glad I did!

Best day ever:

Coaching - So after writing about coaching in my last blog I received a few emails from candidates asking me more about what I was offering which was good. I have done a whole pile of coaching so far in May and have started backing (and coaching) players again, mainly players from 2+2 and guys I have met and talked too along the way. If anyone has any interest or questions about what I am offering, feel free to email or skype me, my details can be found in my “contact me” section.

Fitness - So after complaining in my last blog about being lazy about getting back to the gym I finally did it. I went in and signed up for 12 months ($500 something dollars!!!) and have been going 4-5 times a week since. I normally go for 45-90 minutes depending on how I am feeling on the day. It has left me feeling a lot better, more awake and has improved my mental state which is always helpful for the poker.

Unfortunately we don’t have a basketball team running right now so I haven’t been playing as much as I enjoy. Our team has put in an application to play at a different center to our last league, they have a waiting list and we have to wait for a team to drop out before we can get a place so hopefully it doesn’t take forever.

Share trading - I haven’t really had a chance to read the books that I acquired regarding share trading because I have been so busy with work and other stuff. Unfortunately the Australian market has taken a huge dive ever since I jumped on board.

The graph (oh how I have a love for pretty graphs!!) is of the all ordinaries index from March (when I started purchasing shares) to date. It is essentially a representation of the Australian share market as a whole. Basically shows a huge downswing which is unfortunate, but a part of the game which I am all but used to. Hopefully there will be some recovery in the near future and I can start turning a profit from some of my holdings.

Photography – So I sent my DSLR back to Canon in the east of Australia after I had broken something small whilst traveling in Thailand. I got a phone call two days later saying the camera is working fine and they couldn’t find anything wrong with it?

A little dazed and confused I asked the lady on the phone if she was sure, she said yes the service team tells me it has been tested and is working perfectly. I gave the lady my credit card details and after a $50 fee for a service it was back in my hands within a day, thanks for the good service Canon! (although I did feel a little stupid because I tried for hours and could not get the camera working at home).
I plan on taking a whole pile of new pictures now that I have got my camera fixed so look out for some photos to come in future blog entries

Barcelona, Spain:

Lola is growing big fast:

Until next time!

Poker – Poker has been going pretty well at the higher levels under my new staking deal, I am about half way through the first deal I made with my coach and my results have been stellar although I haven’t been running very well at 3/6 (about 12 buyins below ev, but whos counting right?). The graph below is my play for the month so far, again if you are not in the know the lines are all pretty irrelevant so just ignore and appreciate the pretty colours

Have also started playing some full ring rush poker again at 1/2 to get my volume higher even though I vowed never to play it again. I have played about 12k hands this month winning at almost 5ptbb so I certainly cant complain about earning some extra money on the side. The game plays very different to the traditional form of full ring that I am used to so adjusting can take some getting used to when I switch from one game to another but I think both games can be insanely profitable.

Coaching - I have decided to get back into coaching more students for full ring holdem, primarily at the 100nl and 200nl levels. Having previously done a pretty large amount of coaching  whilst staking a whole group of full ring players I shied away from for almost a month after most of them finished their contracts. I however did almost 3 hours of coaching today and I felt it really helped me think not only about improving my own game but helping others, which is a thing I really love to do.

If you are interested in receiving coaching from me you can email me… my email is michaelnewman AT iinet.net.au and my other contact details can be found in the “contact me” section of the website. I am willing to coach FR NLHE from 50 – 200nl, 6M NL from 50-100nl and PLO (both 6M and FR) from 50-100plo.

Fitness - To my own major disappointment I have not signed up to the gym again as I promised myself I would, so a slap in the face for me is probably deserved. Luckily for me my mother said she would get me 10 personal training sessions for my birthday which recently passed (29th March) so I will lock that in hopefully within the next week and pay for a years memebership and get my fat ass into shape, which will hopefully give me more energy throughout the day.

I haven’t been playing nearly as much basketball as I used to either because our season finished and we didn’t sign straight up to play in the next season with the same team. Hopefully my friends and I will get ourselves into gear and make a team or two whenever the next season starts. My puppy Lola is almost old enough to start going walking too (just needs to go to the vet for one more injection I believe) so I foresee myself talking her for many walks in the near future which should be good.

Share trading - I have bought a whole bunch of new shares and I profitably sold my first stock which was a small mining company a friend gave me a tip about. I bought at 85.5 cents and sold the next day at 99c which is a whopping 15% rise, I only wish I had more money available in my share trading account at the time in which to purchase more, but I guess like anything high risk it could of gone either way so who is to say it might not of gone down in price if I had purchased a higher volume of the stock!

I also recently got hold of a copy of “The Intelligent Investor” written by Benjamin Graham who was said to be one of the greatest investment advisers of the 20th century. The book looks quite complex and I have found myself trying to read a chapter and just skimming over because I feel like a fish out of water reading it. There is so many terms that I am unfamiliar with so I am going to take my time and hopefully get through it piece by piece.

Travel – The poker guys that I traveled to Sydney with have booked a monster trip to the US with stops to Hawaii, Vegas, New York and more. I have decided not to go and to focus on my work and fitness at home. Although I LOVE to travel I just think it isn’t the right time for my to reward myself with a holiday, the guys keep on pressuring me to go and I honestly would love to, however I just don’t think it is the right decision for me at this point in time.

On a side note of travel, here is one of my favourite photos that I took whilst I was in Europe, the photo was taken in Barcelona in a market just off La Rambla:

I will try and include a photo I have taken on every blog post I do from now on, photography is one of my very keen interests and I hope you readers enjoy the pictures.

Summary – I will try not leave it so long between blogs next time I write but I really didn’t have a lot of content to write about since my previous entry. Hopefully by my next blog I will be posting more poker results and my workout program that my new personal trainer will of developed for me to do at the gym.

Until next time,

Newman.

We had some pretty big nights out including St Patrick’s day which involved everyone starting drinking at midday, I don’t think I made it past 9 that night before I decided to call it quits and head home in my drunken state. Highlights of that night included me buying a huge round of shots for all my friends and making a new friend, hello to the very small leprechaun who must of been.. 3-4 feet shorter then me.

I really got on well with both of Julies friends and will hopefully travel up to Canada sometime in the near future to catch up with them again, more about my travel plans later.

Poker – A mix of not feeling like working and enjoying my free time a little too much has led to a very unproductive month with very good results, so I will not complain.

As far as my new coaching/staking deal is going, I haven’t played near as much volume as I should of mainly due to very poor games running and my lack of desire to play rather then enjoy the company of good friends. Now that the Canadians have moved on I will hopefully be diving in head first and putting in some solid volume for the remainder of the month. As far as the hands that I have played go I am very happy with my results and couldn’t ask for more.

Basketball - We played our semi final game v the top team in the league and unfortunately lost by 6 points even after holding a lead with 4 minutes left in the game. I think we ran out of legs but probably played the best game we had played all season. Congratulations to the other team who should go on to win the league undefeated throughout the entire season, a valiant effort!

I am hoping to start playing in 2 teams when the next casual season rocks around, the more I play the closer I will be towards achieving some of my goals of losing weight and getting closer to dunking a basketball.

General – As I mentioned in my previous blog I opened up a share trading account, without doing much research I bought a decent chunk of shares which have done reasonably well so far.

The table above represents the % change of the 5 shares that I bought since buying them. I bought roughly the same $ value of 5 different shares in a variety of differing sectors, some being blue chip shares (big companies) which I plan on holding long term as well as some more speculative shares which have shown the greatest % change thus far as expected. I am hopefully going to do a ton of reading on the subject and perhaps get into some day trading on the side of poker.

On a tangent I have decided I probably wont be going to the USA in June as I had earlier planned on, I have decided I want to stay home / get a few more things in order and setup a good routine in terms of eating, work, exercise and other activities before I reward myself with a trip overseas.

Thanks to everyone that has been reading my blog so far, it means a lot to me and feel free to comment and let me know your thoughts!

Michael

Poker - February was a much needed success in terms of ”work”:

Ignore all the lines if you are not a poker player, it will not make sense to you March has started very well, being my birthday (March 29th!!) month this is obviously expected and I have set myself some high hopes in terms of results. I also just accepted a deal with an American player for him to coach and back me in some higher stakes games which I start on Tuesday, I am hoping to learn a lot and hopefully have some success in the harder games.

Basketball – Since my last blog our team has had 1 bye and 2 games, winning one in an ultra low scoring game 26-22 and losing 40-37 to take 2nd spot on the ladder. Unfortunately that loss puts us into 4th on the ladder. On the bright side we made it into the finals, we play our semi final game vs the top team (1 plays 4, 2 plays 3) who have gone 15-0 all season, with our team being the only ones close to defeating them in the two times we faced off. I think we have a good shot of beating these guys, in which cake the grand final should be a cake walk as none of the other teams compare to the top team.

General – In other news I just opened a share trading account which I have been meaning to do for a long while, I will have to do some thorough research into it as I am pretty much clueless in this area but I am hoping to put a decent amount of money towards this as a side income stream so that one day I can hopefully move away from playing poker.

Puppy!! So I just got a new dog, she is a female cavalier king charles spaniel and her name is Lola, she is basically an inside dog who just craves attention and has been keeping me away from the poker tables as much as she can, lucky for me I can tire her out and she sleeps for a good hour or two after every play session.

That is all for now! hers hoping to a good March with a basketball finals victory, a good profit from the poker tables and some good times with my friends!

Life – Last night DJ Tiesto (www.tiesto.com) was in Perth doing the last of his Australian Kaledioscope world tour so my friend Brendon and I went to see him play. The crowd packed into Metros Nightclub in Perth City from 9pm when doors opened and Tiesto finally started his set at around 11:30, many red bull vodkas later he finished his set just after 3am and I drunkenly stumbled through the streets of Perth trying to find a taxi to get me home. Overall I thought his set was pretty good but I would of liked to have seen him play some more of his old classic stuff, although he did do remixes of the tetris theme song and Calvin Harris’ not alone that both went off! (youtube dj tiesto tetris remix to get an idea).

He is well known for his awesome light shows and visual displays and last night was no exception, I had seen him once before at Roskidle Festival in Denmark but the two shows were nothing alike. I tried to take some videos and photos with my crappy Nokia camera phone but the videos didn’t come out so well, I got at least one decent photo however.

Poker – After having a short an unsuccessful January thanks to my excessive partying and relaxation in Thailand I am back in fine form in February with sights of a record month, both in terms of money made and volume of hands played. I have been trying to focus and play between 2-5 hours a day pending what else I have booked for the day. I have also started getting back into the coaching which is a nice little amount of side income that is relatively stress free (email me for info about coaching, contact me section) and enjoyable with the right candidates.

Basketball – I have been playing a load of basketball along with my weekly games which has been amazing, I feel like I am getting a load fitter and my play in the post is improving as I try and play more aggressively both in our practice and real games. We unfortunately have been on a small losing streak losing both our last 2 games, on Thursday the 11th we played the top team in the league who has gone undefeated all season and we lost by 6 and only started the game with 4 players so we were quite happy with our effort. I only got about 4 points and went to the line twice shooting 0/4, even Shaq would of been disappointed with my big man efforts. We have a tough run of games in the next few weeks leading up to the finals with most of our games being against teams higher then us on the ladder, here’s hoping our fitness keeps improving and we play some solid games.

That about does it for now, I look forward to blogging again soon hopefully without a nasty hangover next time!