End of October

Hey guys.

I know we I only just started this blog but gonna do a re-cap on October. Was my worst month to date by far and endured a 60BI downswing. This is not really normal for HUSNGs and essentially should never really happen. In hindsight i didn't really play all that well, although i ran like garbage throughout the whole month (Graphs are posted below).


Lifetime FTP Graph.



October FTP.


October Redback.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU October!



In saying all of this and as terrible as my month was, I'm actually really proud of how i handled it. I went through a period in April/May this year that was no where near the extremity of this downswing, and to be honest it was just a long breakeven stretch. This period almost broke me between April and May, and as close as i've come to quitting. I didn't really tilt once throughout this current downswing though, nor did it really affect my life in general. Its tough to get up every day and get back to it when you've had 12 losing days in a row, and as i said before i certainly didn't play my best and my confidence was hurt, but i pushed through it and towards the end of the month it slowly began to turn slightly.

The biggest challenge in being a professional poker player is definately the mental challenge and being able to pull through the tough times and continue to play well. I don;t claim to have mastered this because it certainly did affect my play to a degree but not nearly as much as it would have 6 months ago.

In other news, recorded 2 new videos last night for Pokersavvy Plus. I was inspired by a series of matches i played vs a fish to record them. Essentially i was thinking about how we approach playing fish and how often we don't focus on playing our A-game because they're just fish. Obviously our B or C game is effective vs fish so why put all our mental strength into playing our A-game? Even though we would still have an edge it's certainly not what it could be when we don't show up with our A-game and in a game where variance can so adversely affect our results it is important to be at our best regardless of who we're playing against. And if you do this you will be surprised how easy playing some types of players actually is!!! So that will be out hopefully sometime in the next 7 days.

Almost finished University for the semester looking forward to it a lot. After that i have a pretty busy time coming up, with trips to Melbourne for the Hachem Series at Crown Casino where i plan on playing the HU event, and straight after that i'll be off to Belgium for the Belgium Poker Championships. Mainly going for the HU team event that i'll be playing with two people i have a great deal of respect for and are two of the top HUSNGers in the world in PrimordialAA and Spamz0r (mientjeuh on FTP). After that i arrive back in time for APPT finals in Sydney where i also plan on playing the HU event, so should be a really fun month and hopefully ship something big.

Hardest part of all this will be being away from Nat (fiance), i don't think we've been apart for more than like 4 days at any time. Our parenting classes start just before i go so will be missing some of that too which is disappointing because it's something i def need to do haha. I have no idea on children and have never really dealt with a baby in my life so need all the education i can get! haha. But anyways i think that's all for now, gonna try to get some sleep had a long day grinding and sick of staring at the screen!

~Good luck in all your games~

Matt

Introductory blog.

Hey guys. Doing a blog upon request of a couple of people and i guess a desire to write more frequently than i do.

My name is Matt Wakeman, also known as "mjw006" or "rocky2810" at the tables. I am currently a $200 HUSNG reg and i play mostly on FTP and Redback Poker (on the cake network). I also work for Pokersavvy Plus as a video instructor dealing with HUSNG's specifically, and am a member of Team Redback. I thought id make this first blog post a longish one and introduce myself a little bit to the blog world.

Poker Background:

I started playing poker recreationally in 2007 and I was essentially a donk for the first year of my poker life. Once i first discovered 2+2 and pokersavvy i started to think about the game differently and began to grind out 25NL 6-max cash games. I grinded these out for a few months and did a ton of study in an attempt to learn the game. I was playing mostly on stars at this time and was 6-tabling 50NL whilst building my roll. Once i was ready to take on 100NL i decided to chop my BR between sites and deposit on FTP. Once i moved to FTP i went on epic downswing in cash games, and looked to start playing some MTT's again (by again, i mean i used to play these back when i was a total donk). I got hooked on the MTT world and chasing big scores and had some pretty decent success in MTT's, then once again, EPIC downswing.

This lead me to HUSNG's after i had played HU cash with a lot of success and always fancied myself as a HU player haha. But with my recently acquired tourny skills combined with a natural enjoyment/ability in playing HU poker, it kinda made sense looking back on it. This brings me to my first real general comment on some of my thoughts on poker in general (something if you read this blog you will have to get used to lol).

--> A lot of people ask me why they should play cash/MTTs/SNGs etc etc? I am a firm believer that you have to find your strengths. In my case that involved going through several forms of poker before i found my real strength, HUSNG's. Some people are super-talented at various forms of poker, but generally speaking a lot of people will be more suited to play a certain type. No one will be able to tell you what your best at, and just because you saw Durrr playing high stakes cash games or you watched Bond18 crushing MTT's doesn't mean that the style of poker will necessarily be your best format no matter how much you desire it to be. Poker is a skill and it can be learned, therefore focussing all your attention on one style will obviously yield the best results, this still doesn't mean that is your best format.

Anyways, back to the blog. Since that time i have almost solely played HUSNG's. I began playing professionally (probably a little too early), in January 2009 and have worked my way up from the $50 level up to the $200s and occasionally above at the moment. My results have been very good, but you can't get complacant based on results. Im fortunate enough to be able to talk to a lot of good high stakes HUSNG regs, and it ensures that i continue to think about the game on the highest level that i can. I do not consider myself as even close to the level of player as some people i know and i feel very lucky to be able to associate with them. Playing professionally is a tough job, much tougher than its made out to be. The biggest challenge is the mental challenge which i will more than likely address regularly throughout the course of my writing future blog posts.


My Life:

In "the real world" i live a pretty simple life. I am currently completing my final semester of University, a degree in Business, majoring in Management and Human Resources. I have a gorgeous fiance who is currently 25 weeks pregnant with our first child. Wasn't necessarily planned but im extremely excited about having a little boy!

I was born in South Korea and was adopted to Australian parents when i was a baby. I am incredibly lucky to have been adopted into the family i was, and to live in a place as great as Australia. I guess we take it for granted to live in such a peaceful and developed nation sometimes, but when i think about what could have been had i stayed in South Korea, it kinda makes me cringe. I have a wonderful loving family and have been afforded many luxuries in my life (not spoiled or anything) that many people don't have available to them, and i would not have had available to me had i ended up elsewhere.


OK, so i guess i've kinda introduced myself pretty extensively now haha. Thats basically my life story. Will try to update this at least on a weekly basis with my random thoughts on both poker and life. I have a pretty busy schedule coming up with some live HU tournies in both Australia and Europe and will also use this blog as a place to discuss my travels =)

Thanks for reading! Talk to you all soon!

Matt