Thursday 19 July 2012

July & Micromillions Challenge

Hello everyone!

I know that in my last post I wrote I would be studying in June and that there would be a post related to that, but since it's taking longer than expected I thought I'd just make a quick post to update you.

Basically, June flew by without me noticing! During the first week, I was trying to recover from my super intensive last days of May where I was chasing Platinum. Then, I went to Greece where I stayed for another two weeks. Here are some pics:

Flisvos bay, one of my favourite places to get a coffee back home.

Greek summer: Beach, sun and frappé coffee!

Beach in Athens

Fun way to pass the time at the beach: board games!

The plan was to come back to Portugal and study during the last week of June, but it backfired when I caught a cold and was feeling too tired to play or think. Imagine, I was even turning down invites from André and other friends to play Diablo 3!

Anyway, not only July is here, but half of it is gone already! What have I done since its beginning... Well, when it comes to playing, not much. I've been playing the Micromillions Satellites, but not many at a time. What I've mostly been doing this month is studying . And let me tell you, it is more chaotic than it sounds. I've dropped the number of tables I play to 4, so that I have more time to think about what I'm doing before I do it. Also, I've been messing around with Holdem Manager quite a bit. I've discovered some new interesting things.

This whole reviewing the way I play thing, has confused me more than it has helped me so far. I'm actually considering to put aside all the spreadsheets André gave me and make new ones on my own... Not that I want to question the hyper-turbo master, but... Maybe that specific way of playing is not what's best suited for me. My hesitation has to do with the fact that creating new spreadsheets is very time-consuming and I may be waisting my time for nothing if I find that it's not working out and go back to my previous way of playing.

Also, since I didn't play at all in June, I'm back to Bronze star. It stung a bit that I didn't get to play at all with my Platinum status, but oh well. I'm not setting any points goals for now, cause I don't want to be chasing after a status instead of studying.

As hinted in the title, I have some things to say about a certain Micromillions challenge. It's not a challenge I'm doing, it's one of André's ideas. You can learn more about it here. Basically, he decided to play ALL  100 Micromillions Events. Why is that a challenge? Because during 11 days, the Micromillions will be running pretty much non-stop. Events can start at anytime of the day, doesn't matter if it's 15:00 p.m. or 3:00 a.m. You can see the full schedule here. In theory, this means that during 11 days he could get absolutely no sleep. In practice, he gets to sleep 1 hour here 2 hours there everytime he busts early from a tournament and until the next event starts. Some of them also have late registration available, which adds a couple of hours of sleep. As I'm writing this, it is day 8 of the Micromillions series and the challenge. You cannot imagine how much I'm looking forward for it to end. Let me tell you what living with a Micromillions challenger is like from the perspective of the girlfriend...

From day 1 it became obvious that André and I could not be sleeping in the same room. There is no way I can sleep if his alarm goes off at random times and all throughout the night. Also, I cannot risk waking him up with my alarm in the morning if he happens to be taking a one hour nap when I wake up. Therefore, I was immediately self-exiled to the guest room. When it comes to meals, he mostly cooks by himself cause it is somehow part of the challenge, but I still prepare some of his meals. The worst part of it though, is the mess he leaves in the kitchen (and in the house overall). I spent around 4 hours clearing just the kitchen yesterday. You can imagine how bad it was. And I can't really say anything cause he's pushing himself to the limits as it is, we can't expect him to clean on top of it all, can we?

As if playing while being sleep deprived is not enough, he also needs to do videos about it. And guess who serves as a cameraman whenever one is needed? Yeap, you guessed right! You may think it's not such a big deal (he films most of his video blogs by himself anyway), but you'd be amazed at how many times you have to re-film a 2 minutes scene when the person you are filming is so exhausted they cannot think straight.

And then there are the accidents. Yesterday, around 5 a.m. I hear a loud BAM! followed by the sound of glass breaking. It's not the first time I hear things falling and rush to the other room to see if André is ok, but this one was worse because of the glass. I get to the computer room and what do I see? André's improvised lightning which consisted of a ladder, a huge pile of books and a lamp on top of it all, was on the floor. If you are wondering what the structure initially looked like, you can see it in this video. It was basically a wonder how it lasted so many days and didn't come down anytime sooner. And to make things worse, André was standing in the middle of the mess of books and broken glass barefooted. I told him to not move and brought the vacuum cleaner. Just my favourite thing to do at 5:00 in the morning.

Today, I woke up and went to check up on him. He was in front of the computer, as usual, and had just started explaining how he missplayed a hand due to his exhaustion the during the night, when he knocked over a glass full of water he had next to him. The water spread to his laptop which I rushed to pick up and then fell on the UPSes and the computer cables. Shortly after, the computer turned off. Oh, and there was more broken glass on the floor, of course. First we wiped the water off the laptop, then André turned it on and continued playing his tournament while I was cleaning up the mess. Again. And all that before I had a chance to get a sip of my morning coffee, may I add.

I won't bore you any further with the errands I need to run (super market, buying lamps etc.) or with the comments "You are nuts" I get when performing mundane tasks such as putting the knives and forks from the washing machine into the drawer or walking fast around the house. Or the complete lack of conversation during the past week. It feels like living with a zombie.

I'll just leave you with my favourite incident from this challenge:

A couple of days ago, I was putting the laundry out to dry. As I'm standing in the balcony, I see André coming towards the kitchen. He didn't enter however, he just stood there in the hallway, staring at the floor. I followed his gaze and saw that he was looking at a small slice of onion. I had been cooking that day, and I guess I dropped it without noticing and then the wind must have carried it into the hallway.

André stares at the onion.

The onion stares back.

André keeps staring.

A couple of minutes (!) later, he snaps out of it, goes into the kitchen and notices me out in the balcony. "There's a slice of onion on the floor there", he says matter-of-factly. "I know", I replied, "Why don't you pick it up?". He thinks a bit and then says "Cause if I bend down to pick it up off the floor I think I'll get very dizzy and may not be able to get up again!". That sould give you an idea of what it's been like in this house these past days.

In conclusion, I think poker players should consult their girlfriends/wives before launching themselves into extreme challenges like this one. After all, no one asked me if I wanted to participate in this challenge. I'm trying to be supportive and all, but it's tough work. I told him that I deserved a lunch or dinner at that nice Mexican restaurant that I've been wanting to go for ages but we never seem to have time for it. I think I should add a full day at the beach to my rewards. I've earned it, don't you think?

Ok, three more days to go. I can do this. Wish me luck!!!

14 comments:

  1. Good Luck! ehhe
    http://nunoleite3.blogspot.pt/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanx! Good luck to you too, I see you've been playing the micromillions...

      Delete
  2. I was wondering, since the beginning of the challenge, how it would be for the ones living with Andre.
    Someone already had asked on Andre's blog, so I didn't add that question too.
    Now we know...
    About the pile of books, well, when we saw the video I almost did a countdown clock :P
    Stay strong ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And guess what... I'm off to buy TWO more lamps! He wants to do it again... :P

      Delete
  3. Hello :)

    I watched your funny video at acoimbra.com and then started to read the story of the Micromillions challenge here. Thanks for this really funny story! :) Btw, I'm bulgarian and we are neighbors :) at least when you are in Greece.

    Wish you many successes at the SnGs!
    I also play them but only for fun.

    best regards,
    Tina

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Tina!

    Thank you for your kind comment, I'm glad you liked the video! It's nice to also hear from people that see poker as a hobby!
    I wish you good luck and lots of fun! :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. olá Katerina. sou o Ricardo. eu tb jogo hiper turbos e gostaria , se possivel , partilhar ideias sobre o jogo e softwares.
    comecei nisto há pouco tempo. tenho perto de 7500 hipers feitos, todos de 3.80/3.75 e tou com ROI de 3.7. de momento tou com uma variancia mto negativa mas enfim, pelos vistos faz e fará sempre parte do jogo.

    ReplyDelete
  7. fico entao á espera do teu feedback.
    fica bem e boa variancia nas mesas.
    Ricardo

    ReplyDelete
  8. olá Katerina. isso dos buy ins, claro, falei em dinheiro mas pensava em buy ins, e kdo disse k perdeste mais, e pq jogas mas alto k 3.80, tava a referir.me a k devias ter perdido menos buy ins. claro k o k importa é isso e nao o valor absoluto:) se tivesse a perder os tais 400 a jogar as de 357, tava com lucro mto bom com o "rakeback":) mais verdadeiro k isso até é o ROI.
    kdo "comparei" era pa te situar melhor no meu pensamento e com objectivo de ter um feedback mais aproximado ao k gostaria de perceber, k é a força e regularidade das variâncias.
    os softwares claro, tenho de os ter todos a funcionar em pleno, coisa k ainda tá longe de acontecer. só assim melhorarei verdadeiramente o eu jogo. só com eles, softwares, podemos estudar o jogo convenientemente e com eficácia.
    o numero de mesas k falei é o k vejo dos teus gráficos no blog. se fizeste 25.000 tá bom. já tens mais noçao da verdade do longo prazo.
    vou tar atento ao teu blog e espero em breev, 2013 ver.te supernova elite. era bom sinal pra ti e pra mim tb. kto mais pessoas "proximas" o fizerem, atingir supernova elite, mais motivaçao terei para seguir esta modaldade.
    boa variancia nas mesas.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Ricardo,
      The graphs I put in my blog are always partial and refer to a specific situation related to the post (like a month, a week or a certain buy-in). I haven't posted a lifetime graph cause there was no point to do so, at least so far.
      According to what you said your profit was, I think that you can invest on poker software. They are not that expensive and well worth every cent.
      Thank you for your support!

      Good luck at the tables

      Delete
  9. hi Katerina.
    when you got table ninja and holdem manager, the license you get works for two computers ?!
    on icmizer, you can make copy paste the hands in order to analize tham right? dont have to put the numbers manually i guess...
    thanks
    good variance

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Ricardo,

    You can use both programs on two computers at a time, but for these types of questions I think it's always better if you check the site's FAQs or contact their support.
    Regarding ICMizer, there is an option to load history from the clipboard but I've never used it. Personally, I prefer to manually input the hands I want to check.

    Good luck!

    ReplyDelete

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