Been awhile

I haven't posted in some time, but I haven't really played much either. I've been very busy lately, and sadly poker had to take a back seat. I finally sat down for 45 minutes the other day when one of my friends was playing a $.10/$.25 game he told me I had to get in on. I sat and the table was full of fish. I got into a big hand and was an idiot trying to push someone off of a percieved weak top pair holding, which was actually nothing on the flop, flush draw on the turn, completed flush on river. So I gave away $25 there, and I wasn't happy about it. Hoped that maybe I'd get some metagame out of it, but it's doubtful, even at that level. Well I hit my own flush and won a nice pot back off the same player, then took the fish to my right with a big stack, doubling through him to put me up $25 for my 45 minutes. Not too shabby at all. It was AKd hit an ace on the flop after raising on the button against the fish limping from the cutoff. He checked, I bet pot he called. He led out the turn of a blank, and I raised pot, he thought and called. The river was another blank, and he checked, I only had another $8.50 behind and the pot was big, over $70, so I shoved, and he types in the chat box, "Ugh".



Music to my ears, I know he's beat and he's likely to call. He does call and mucks A7o. Nice win there.



On to today's play of the normal $.02/$.05.



I'm feeling lazy, so here's Poker Tracker for the day. Played 45 minutes today.










Got at a few tables with a player VeilSide, and man I have to play with him more. He's down $25 today, and is absolutely convinced that I limp with junk in early position and raise with junk on the button. The way he played against me, I believe it too. I hit top pair with AK on a flop of AQ4. Got Veily there all in for $5 and he had Q9, sadly spiking a 9 on the river for a two pair. Oh well though, I got the best of him today so that's fine. I wouldn't consider my stats loose though, lol.

After writing this, I had to check my position stats, so here they are in my defense.

Position
(# off the button) VP$IP
Button 14.29%
1 13.79%
2 11.32%
3 10.81%
BB 8.20%
SB 24.59%

So as I suspected, my play is positionally aware, albeit not that much so.

Day I'm mad about, but I ended up

Man, I was planning on getting a lot of time in, but it's 11:40 now and I'm tired and only got to play about 2 hours. First hour went right on pace, ended up about $10 for the hour.

2nd hour, wow. Tried to be amazing, but ended up sucking and costing me $3. Started off slow, not hitting many hands, people having better. I flopped a set of 6's and someone else flopped a set of jacks, which felt like a victory for me, cuz I didn't get stacked. The guy was afraid I had a bigger full house than he did cuz queens paired the board.

After I got my 12 tables up, it was my usual thing. Kicked a lot of ass, and from being $5 in the hole, tore it up all the way to $16.50, showing a profit on my hour of just $6.50, but it's something. I started closing the tables down, and lo and behold this hand came to me. The biggest pot of the day for me, and it was beautiful.

So the flop's nothing great, but I spike a straight on the turn and I know he doesn't ever see it. The way he played through the turn I put him on a set, and shoved it, very confident of a call which I got. The river paired the board and I was left praying for a big overpair, but he had the set that just was turned into a boat. Sweeeeet.

Minus $5




So now I've shut up shop, it blows that I'm only up $11.5, but at least I made a little bit for the hour. I only have one table left and in the sb versus the bb I have Q4 and flop 2 pair, he has AQ and pays me on every street for a nice little win, all right cool. Now I fold till the blinds hit me and call it a night. But something happened before those blinds came, and it was the only pot of the night larger than the previous one.



This flop came, and the pot was already sizeable, about $3. The remaining stacks against me were slightly under the pot, and slightly over so I just shoved it in, fine with taking it down, and definitely fine with someone coming for a ride into kingtown. I even goated the table a little by typing, "Go away!" into the chat box. The idiot totally calls with top pair ten kicker, ha ha ha ha hah. I type in after he calls, "KK" and he responds, "oh no". Oh yes suckka, oh yes! Then the super awesome river slams his 10 down, and hands him the $12 pot. Freaking awesome, I've now lost money for the hour, and only ended up $7 for the day.


My dad would love this one, because he'd get to tell me, "That's why it's called gambling." God I hate when he says that, but maybe that's what I should tell others, because I don't share bad beat stories with him anymore. So there's my bitching/psychiatry session.

Now for the good. I kicked ass, really did. I got unlucky at the end there, extremely so, but that's the thing about this game, it can kick you in the nuts when you're up, and sometimes it'll do you right when you're way behind. My aggression was good. I'm happy with it. I'm now running about 800 hands per hour, and here are my stats for today.

Ah, I already closed photoshop, and my computer isn't happy right now, so I will have to come back and insert that image. For now, here's the day:

Total Hands: 1,553

VP$IP: 8.95%
PF Raise: 5.02%

Folded SB to steal: 93.33%
Folded BB to steal: 88.89%
Att steal blinds: 8.65%

Amount Won: $7.30
BB/100 Hands: 4.70

Went to showdown: 27.16%
Won at SD: 59.09%

Flop AF: 5.17
Turn AF: 2.60
River AF: 2.00

Total AF: 3.52

So I've definitely established my tight-aggressive strategy, and it is working. People are still throwing money at me left and right, it's just very aggravating when the 2 biggest pots I get into I lose when I'm a giant favorite. That really annoys me, but I know in this case that is purely luck, and out of my control. Sometimes I'm worried I'm doing something wrong, but I got it in there as a huge favorite both times, so I am happy with that. If I continue to make good decisions, then the money will follow.

Gah, not fun!

This session just killed me. Haven't looked at results yet but it was bad. Off the bat I lost about a $5 pot, and I just couldn't seem to have my hands hold up. I got it in a few spots where I was a favorite for some sizeable pots, but most of them went the wrong way like this one.







It seems the more I get players to put in money bad, those are the hands I'm getting outdrawn on. I dont' know if I'm doing something wrong with the way I'm going about it or what, but that has to stop soon. I had several hands very similar to this with flush draws and 5 outers getting it all in and drawing out. That hurt.







Then this hand comes about, and I thought for sure all his money was mine. I'm guessing he just didn't have crap but felt like calling my cbet on the flop for no particular reason. Okay, time to check the damage, this probably isn't pretty. I'm guessing I lost about 50-60 big bets.







Here it is, lost 53.8 big bets. I guess I had a good feel for it. Ughh, here's numbers.

Dealt 585 hands and saw flop:
-56 of 113 in big blind (49%)
-12 of 114 in small blind(10%)
-24 of 358 in others (6%)
-Total of 92 of 585 (15%)

Pots won at showdown - 11 of 25 (44%)
Pots won without showdown: 55

BB/100: -9.20
BB/hour: -52.1

Going to play some $1.20 sng's to grab some FPP and blow off steam

Putting in some quality .02/.05 time

So I've decided my delving into .05/.10 has come to an abrupt halt. The play is worse than the .02/.05 in that there's much more bluffing and also calling with hands that shouldn't stay. I'm not sure if it's this extra aggression, but something is causing me to lose when I play at that level. I'm down a freaking ton. Total something like $50. Luckily, I have .02/.05 to make up for it.

Here's what happend at my .05/.10 play. Combining 2 session of data here.

Total Time Played: 60 minutes

Dealt 498 Hands and saw flop:

-40 of 91 times in big blind (44%)

-7 of 90 times in small blind(8%)

-30 of 317 in others (9%)

-Total of 77 of 498 hands (15%)

Pots won at showdown - 9 of 19 (47%)

Pots won without showdown: 32

BB/100: -9.99

$/100: -$2.00

$/hour: -$9.95

Just getting crushed. I'm losing at these tables as bad as I'm winning at .02/.05 and I don't know why. Instead of worrying about it, I'm just going to stick to .02/.05 for now.

Here's how .02/.05 went for the last few sessions:

Hands dealt: 2406

Hours played: 5.33

BB/100: 22.22

BB/Hour: 100.21

$/Hour: $10.02

So I'm going with the old, if it's not broke motto. Here's some hands that caught my attention today.

First hand of the day. Lost $5 with KQ to Q4. Pure awesomeness.

This hand I really expected to take it down preflop. When he called I figured I was toast, but ended up having 99. Crazy call on his part, but it worked for him. I only had ace high.

This was just amazing. for whatever reason I got a feeling that he really thought he was good on that river bet, so I just shoved it all in there with the stone cold nuts and he called with two pair. Huge pot, and just awesome.

Want to punch this session in the face

Okay, I haven't even looked at my stats yet. But that was so gross. I stuck to my usual plan, but had some just stupid stupid beats that really got me steaming. I had to stop playing after 45 minutes, because it really got to me. Here's a little sample of what I'm talking about.

Here I get a free flop from the big blind and hit two pair. I'm happy with that, and hoping someone has a jack and will pay me off. I get one customer and we to to the turn. I bet about the pot, confident that any jack will call me. He's a good fishy and the river pairs the turn, so now the hand I want him to have is beating me, super. He leads out for 1/6 of the pot, and of course I'm calling that every time just in case something crazy happend, but he shows QQ and a now better 2 pair. That sucked, but bottom 2 is a tricky hand to play, and I did well with it.

This one stung a bit more, but again I saw it coming a mile away, and my opponent's nature to slow play big hands saved me any extra money, but god is this frustrating. I limp with 6's utg and flop a boat. But even better than that, 2 aces hit the board. In these games aces almost always will take a flop, so I'm confident that somebody just hit trips and is looking to hand their stack to me. Once again, the turn and river come the same card, only this time Q,Q, and now that ace that I'm sure is out there has a bigger boat. Luckily the guy wasn't good enough to value bet his hand, he figured since I fired twice, I'd be sure to bet again and then he'd spring his amazing check-raise all in trap on me. This is the one that really got me cooking, gahhhr.

Here's the numbers from my playing.

Dealt 340 hands and saw flop:

-41 of 62 times in big blind (66%)

-5 of 63 times in small blind(7%)

-11 of 215 in others (5%)

Total of 57 out of 340 (16%)

Pots won at showdown: 7 of 11 (63%)

Pots won without showdown: 23

I'm about to see how much I made for that session. I wanted to write this before knowing, so that my results didn't get in the way of what I was feeling about how I just played. I really think I'm going to have won a bit, but I'm not sure how much. I'm going to guess about 40 big bets for the session. Time to find out.

I actually did quite a bit better, 57.7 big bets. Almost a full 50% more than my estimate. I really did think I was doing all right, but I was so frustrated from those counterfeited hands, that I needed a break. So I still averaged 76.9 big bets per hour for that session. That's great news for me really. I wish I had poker tracker numbers on these sessions, because I'm doing great.

In 100 minutes today, I've bumped my bankroll up 239.1 big bets. I'm salivating at the thought of .10/.25 being this easy to play, lol.

Through my first 1500 hands and 3.5 hours of play at .02/.05 I'm making:

23bb/100 and 99.6bb/hour which translates to $2.30/100 and $9.96/hour.

Even if my numbers were halved when moving up to .10/.25, I'd be doing

12.5bb/100 and 49.8bb/hour which would be $6.25/100 and $24.90/hour. Those are some nice looking numbers right now, especially being that those limits are only the next tier up. A little excited about that.

Starting to understand NL

I haven't played too much today, as I've been feeling tired and have had much of my time devoted to other things lately. I needed to play a bit though, so I got on for just under an hour, 55 minutes to be exact. I feel that I've really begun to refine my new style, and the results are beyond anything I hoped for. I'm cutting loose from most of my marginal hands, top pair decent kicker, etc, and minimizing losses, probably giving up multiple pots that I'm ahead in. But in the process, I'm cleaning people out when I have a strong hand. It seems counterintuitive, however I don't believe many at these levels are paying much attention, if any at all to opponnents.

I ended up making 181.40 big bets in 55 minutes, which averages to $19.79 an hour, and it wasn't like I never lost. I layed down several hands that I'd invested over $1 in, and lost a few pots at showdown, although my overall win % at showdown is far greater than it formerly was. I didn't take note of many hands throughout the session because I'm at 8 tables for most of it, and when a game is bad I'm focusing on closing that one and looking for the next.

I do know that I won 2 large pots quickly on with sets, one with JJ as an overpair versus a flush draw, and another with T6 in the big blind. Flop came 779 Turn [K] River [8] and my opponent had A7. Big ones I lost I don't know, because I really won almost all of them, lol. Let's take a look at the numbers and I'll see if anything comes to mind.

Dealt 430 hands and saw flop:
-43 of 81 times in big blind (53%)
-7 of 83 times in small blind(8%)
-14 of 266 in others (5%)

Total of 64 out of 430 (14%)

Pots won at showdown: 9 of 12 (75%)
Pots won without showdown: 32

BB/100: 42.19
BB/hour: 197.9

Yeah, I don't remember the ones I lost at all, which is fine with me. I didn't have any set versus set or anything like that, so nothing too memorable. Very happy with this session, and hopefully when I get back on a little later, I'll reproduce these type of results.

Another solid hour

All right, that was exactly what I was hoping for. I got in 45 more minutes of play, but more importantly took a pretty bad beat in the process for an $11 (110 big bet) pot. Here's how that hand played out.

















So he did end up with 9 outs and a 4:1 shot with one card to come, but did he really have to hit that after I'm sure all he thought was, "I have top pair......Call"? Lol. So, with the beat factored in, the session panned out this way.


Dealt 348 Hands and Saw Flop:

-26 of 64 times in big blind (40%)
-2 of 67 times in small blind(2%)
-12 of 217 in other positions (5%)
-Total of 40 of 348 (11%)


Pots won at showdown
-4 of 8 (50%)


Pots won without showdown
-25


I took 40 flops and won 29 of them. That's 72.5% of pots played I'm winning either by taking it down or winning the showdown. That's pretty good, and I wish I had a few more numbers in regards to what happend after I was the preflop aggressor.

So back to the point, I won 13.59BB/100 which translated to 63.1BB/hour after that big pot was taken away. So it seems as long as I only make 1 donk play or get 1 suckout per hour, I'll maintain my winrate. Of course this is only over 800 hands, but it's looking good so far. Probably not playing today, but sunday I'm going to be logging some hours.

Wow, just checking out the post right now, I realized that he had so many outs with that hand. After calling the flop with top pair that turn card gave him a double belly buster, not a single gutshot. So he was running 13 outs and was down to a 2.5:1 shot, so 28.5% of the time he'll fill it. Still a little worse than A4 beating AK all in preflop, so I'm going to say I'm justified in defining this hand as a bad beat even given his massive number of outs.

Looks like it's .02/.05

Moved up to the $.02/$.05 tables with the same super tight strategy, and it paid. Would have paid more but I didn't let go of top pair with guess what? KQo, lol. I got minraised on the flop, and put the guy on a set. He didn't bet it hard, but extracted from me every street, and took about $2.50 extra, with a flopped set of 6's. I was mad at myself for doing that, especially since I'd just won a nice pot by flopping top 2 pair with AQ.

I won another nice pot as I was closing games out with a flopped set of 8's. Here's what the session ended up looking like.

Dealt 402 hands
Saw flop:
-42 of 74 times in big blind (56%)
-7 of 74 times in small blind (9%)
-19 of 254 times in other (7%)

Total of 68 of 402 times (16%)

Pots won at showdown - 7 of 15 (46%)
Pots won w/out showdown - 36

I played for one hour, making 62.20 big bets, and 15.47 big bets per 100 hands. I'm definitely happy with that, and .02/.05 is going to be my home for awhile. I'm sticking to this extreme nit style at least for now. I don't see any need to expand upon it if I'm beating the game for 15.5BB/100. If I hadn't donked off on that one hand, which I easily should have avoided, I would have been at 21.7BB/100, that's not too bad. If I kept that kind of winning up, which seems very very very possible, I'd even say likely, than my bankroll could be about to experience some serious growth.

Sticking at 15.5BB/100 would get my roll up $311 a week if I could make 50 hours a week. Of course I haven't gotten a streak of beats today, but I truly think the beats aren't going to come as often with this style, due mainly to the nature of style itself. I'm not taking many flops to begin with. Pocket pairs, suited aces, and AK/AQ. Even if I hit top pair, I'm not getting tangled in pots too much. I got caught once, but I won't be doing that in the future. I'm generally cbetting when I raised preflop, which is AK/AQ and pp's 88+ and then leading out/checking to trap when I hit sets. I'm not getting into too many marginal situations, again because I'm playing solid cards.

Anyway, I'm eager to see how this plays out over a more longterm time. I want to get a few thousand hands into poker tracker with this nittyness, and see how it's doing. In all, a very encouraging start to the first changes implemented due to poker tracker analysis.

Call me Mr. Nit

Trying an experiment today. After going through my poker tracker numbers, I've made more than all the money I've won while playing pocket pairs and AK. Actually twice the amount that I've won. The reason I only half half of that, is I've lost 1/2 of all the money I won with pocket pairs by playing suited connectors.

It only seems logical to see what happens by not playing any suited connectors. I am going to play the nittiest poker I am capable of today. Only playing pocket pairs and AK, and maybe limping with some suited aces or broadway cards which I'll probably lose money with like usual, lol. I'm going to try and really stick to just pocket pairs and AK, with AQs also, but I'll probably end up taking some flops with Axs, and maybe KQs or KJs. KQo is not being played once except for big blind specials, same for KJo and worse obviously.

To implement this strategy, I'm going to run about 9 tables, because even with that, I'm going to be folding quite a bit. Generally you receive a pocket pair once every 17-18 hands, so if I'm 9 tabling, I'll get to play one every other deal. Let's see how this goes....

Okay, just got done playing just over 200 hands. Made 110.5 big bets, for 52.87 big bets per 100 hands. About to go try the same strategy on the .02/.05 tables.

Moving on up! (To the east side)

Tonight was exciting, because it finally happend. I've moved up and am now playing .05/.10. Blinds just increased 400% and I'm loving it. I actually started playing before reaching my initial set goal of $200, because I found a game that seemed really good. I was very close, 97% and really, that wasn't going to make a difference. I was ready, so I moved up.



Now I haven't played many hands at the level yet, but that's because I broke the guy I sat down to play against almost instantly. I was feeling a little tired, and decided that was enough for the day. So these numbers aren't very significant, but it's nice to see these, so here they are.









Played differently today after watching TuffFish's videos of internet play. Loosened up a bit, and also played more passively preflop. Limping with a lot of small pp's if someone else limped already, where before I'd raise. I went back to being very weary of KJ and AJ, still donking it up with KQo. My play at .05/.10 was a tad aggressive, lol. Infinity aggression on the flop and turn, zero aggression on the river, so of course a total aggression of infinity.

But to the numbers for the larger sample, and $0.01/$0.02 blinds:

VP$IP : 30.38%
PFR : 13.50%
TA : 2.88

Here's an interesting thing. I played 15 hands and was credited for $0.50 of rake. At that rate, I'd make 1 FPP after 15 hands, and then 1 more every 120 hands after that. If I was logging 1,500 hands a day, that's about 12 FPP per day, getting me closer to making my bonus without needing $1.20 sng's. Going to see how that works out over a full day tomorrow.

Gotta get myself some rest, tommorrow the battle for $.10/$.25 NL begins.

Sng's bringing me toward $50

Today was pretty good overall, even though it ended on a lower note. I got in 19 sit & go tournaments for the day, boosting my FPP over 90. I started on fire, racking up three 3rds and a win in my first 4 tournaments. But playing micro stakes is of course loaded with land mines. I hit a few and just was handed some terrible beats. I'm of the opinion that talking about bad beats is about as interesting as talking about the weather, so I'm not going to get into it, but that's what happend. Multiple times. In my last four of the day, I was running strong in all, and ended up being handed my final two brutal beats of the night, both to make me the bubble, and then ended by racking up my 3rd win of the day. Not a bad way to go, but three losses and one victory earns a net of -$0.30.

For cash games, I didn't play much today, only 220 hands. It was a winning one, all due to one hand. I got KK preflop in the big blind and my first hand at the table. Utg raises to 6x the big blind and all in. The next player raises to 12 big blinds, and the button folds. The small blind then raises to 93 big blinds all in. I re-raise to 125 big blinds and all in, and the player who raised to 12, then calls my raise. Crazy preflop action, and four of us are all in leaving nothing but the board to be dealt, with a pot of 333 big blinds for me to win.

The flop comes [3h Jd 6c]

Turn [Ks]

River[8d]

I show my set of kings, and the rest muck, with me picking up the whole pot. Now here's the part of the story that gets a little hairy. Of course, the other big stack in this hand had AA, and I sucked out my 20% shot of winning. Now, when holding kings, another player at a full table will have aces about 1 out of 20 times. This is shorthanded, cutting the hands nearly in half, and I think I've kicked the odds in the nuts even for a full table.

Okay, just checked my info. I've gotten pocket kings 28 times. Of those, 3 times another player had aces, roughly twice the normal %, and at short tables on top of that! Also, of those 3 times, I've won 2 of them, which is just silly. Quads on one, and this hand here with the set. Both for very large pots.

So here's how I ended up running for the short day.

Another nice winning day, and another day of huge aggression. Not just a little, a ton. My flop aggression was 24, and total 8.40. Anyone with tracking software should be calling any bet I make, lol. The funny thing is that I felt I loosened up today, but ended up with a VPIP of 23%, and PFR of 10.9%. So I didn't really loosen up much if at all. It's disturbing that the only reason I'm ahead today is because of a suckout, but after a couple of the days I had, I think I had it coming to me. Chaulk it up for a win, and about ready to take on the next level. Going to scope those games out tonight.

Missed a day

I forgot to update my info yesterday, and now I'm not with my computer to update my stats. I know I ended down for the day, started off real bad, then got some back. Adjusting my style led me to some horrible beats for huge pots. Today I went the other way, playing very loose and value betting small amounts, around 1/2 the pot through the river and ended up making a little over 100bb/100 and also playing 4 sit and go's, grabbing two 3rd place finishes and two 2nd's.

AliceDanial

I've found the person to base my play on. The aggression numbers are similar to mine, but their results are far superior. Their play is far tighter than mine preflop, and their raising standards are also tighter. Here's what I've seen them do over 650 hands.














I'm excited to try this out tomorrow. 13.5/11.5/4 is so tight preflop. After the day where I was using passive play, my agression is lowered a bit. Overall I'm running 20.5/13.5/3 right now. I'm thinking 13.5% is something like pocket pairs, AK, AQ, and some suited broadways. Fold the rest. And obviously just about any hand good enough to play is good enough to raise which would be all pp's and AK. This is going to take several tables to maintain discipline. We'll see how it goes, but for now it's sleep.

S&G's making $$$ and FPP

I just found out that playing the sit and goes is definitely the way to try and earn my FPP bonus. At the cash game tables, I have to have $2 taken in rake from my play to earn one point. Over a few thousand hands I only earned 47 frequent player points. But the sng's give me one every tournament I enter. So I'm playing four or six at a time, which usually takes about an hour to finish, then load another batch and go like that. I'm hoping to clear my bonus ASAP.

Today's cash game play was alllllll over the place. I started off just playing terrible, absolutely terrible poker. Don't know why, I was just off today. I wasn't doing anything right. Somewhere in there, something clicked and I turned on. I was in the red 244BB's at which point I just started doing my thing and raking in chips. Ended my day in ring games ahead by about 78 big bets, a nice 322 big bet turnaround. Here's what the day looked like.

So I wasn't going to do any cash, but I ended up putting in over 750 hands, go figure. Here's

what today was supposed to be about, 9 person sit and go tournaments. These things seem kind of hard to squeeze money out of, but I'm managing for now. I know I wouldn't mind a 14.5% ROI on most investments, so I guess it's not bad, but it just doesn't seem that good. I guess the real bonus will be if I continue this pace, I'll win about $50 in play, then get $50, making the total gain close to a 30% ROI.

About to go over numbers. Feeling tired, so I'm done playing for the day. Really close to the bankroll for the next level now. 89%

S&G Success! (Sort of)

Well these last 3 sit & goes, I finished in the money for all 3. Guess it was just a matter of time. I kind of knew that already, lol. Here's a few key hands throughout my play, I was running 3 simultaneously, and I think that does help my game. Keeps me tighter if for nothing else, because I have too much going on to try and get reads on people. Especially since I can't get gametime+ to run with my tournaments.

Tournament 1

This hand I was dealt AK of diamonds. Villain called a pot sized bet on the flop, then raised my bet the minimum on the turn. I check to him on the river and he made a tiny bet of 180. I called instantly and he showed me his pocket 2's. Don't know what he was doing with these on the flop but he took all but 400 of my chips.

The very next hand I got KQc and shoved after 2 limpers. Q7 called me and nailed the flop, but a club on 4th street doubled me back up to around 800.

This hand changed the whole thing. My 6's held up against both these guys and my stack shot to over 2k while simultaneously eliminating the player with KT. From 400 chips to in the money fighting for 1st. Nice.

It was not to be though, as we went heads up I was at a 5:1 chip disadvantage. This was our first hand heads up. It got in preflop and I was ended quickly. 2nd place and a bit of money, I'll take that any day.

Tournament 2

This was a big hand, another straight draw trying to hit, but my pair held up this time and I padded my stack quite nicely.

Another nice addition to my stack here, taking it down on the flop with tpdk.

I ended up getting 3rd in this one. With 3 left and one sitting out I had 3k and the leader had 9k. I got pocket 3's and flopped a set, with the leader putting me all in. It was set over set and I lost. Maybe I should have been okay with 2nd place, lol.

Tournament 3

This hand was great. The guy on my left was so agressive, he raised utg yet again, so when it was my action I shoved my jacks at him. He insta-called and flips up AT. I flop quads and just crush him.

The player utg open shoves all in. Obvious call for my kings and I take his stack and add it to mine.

Mr aggressive gets his revenge. Flops a boat and I wander my way into a flush. I played it so nicely too, lol. Made it look like I was protecting my hand from a 4 flush. Meanwhile my opponnent can't believe how lucky he is that the idiot he's playing just shoved into his boat. Another 3rd place finish.

So it seems I'm back on track. I've decided to try and use these s&g's to clear my bonus. If I can play 4 tournys in an hour, that's roughly 30 FPP a day and I'll have my bonus in no time at all. Might even make a little money, but the good news is I have a big old safety net. I can lose $50 playing the sit & goes, and that's still break even. So I'm delving into single tables as of now.

Updates of less detail than this to follow.

A kind of break for today

After yesterday, I'm feeling a little put off, so I'm in a way taking a break today. I'm going to play some 9 person sit & goes, and see how I fare. This used to be my specialty, I was a solid limit hold'em player and a solid NL hold'em tournament player. As of late I've turned my attention to NL cash games, so this is going to be a nice sort of vacation/break from the grind of cash games. Maybe stroke my ego a bit if I can pull off a couple wins. While I'm keeping these games seperate from my cash game for the purposes of graphing, I am going to take my final bankroll at face value for purposes of my progress towards or away from moving up to the next level of play at NL.

Here's how this has started, and let me warn you now, it isn't pretty.

Tournament #1)

This is my first hand played for the tourny. I bump it up and got the one caller. Took it down with a cbet on the flop of about 1/2 the pot.

Here's my 2nd hand played. 66 and I raise it up utg, the guy on the button has been very loose and wild, so his re-raise doesn't phase me in the least. We get it all in and he shows JTo.

This is why we don't gamble with idiots.

And here we find my first and last hand of my 2nd Tournament today. In the big blind 2 limped in, I made a sizeable raise of twice the current pot, and both call again. On the flop I bet 1/2 the pot, the TT goes all in for a little more, 76 calls, I reshove all in and 76 calls with an open ended straight draw. He then proceeds to hit another 6 on 4th and then complete his straight as well on the river as though to say, eff off aces. After this flop I'm only a slight favorite agains his hand. It's 54% to 46%, so his call wasn't really bad, just sucky. On to more tournaments!!!

Seriously???

This day was so solid, and then instantly at the end, as I'm starting to sit out tables became really sucky. Steadily climbed throughout the day, at about 20 big bets/100 over 1300 hands. Then in two hands nearly everything I'd accumulated got yanked out from under me.

First was AA which I got all in preflop for a full buyin against JJ which happened to hit his Jack. Okay, that sucks, goodbye $5. Then at another table, the next hand I played paired aces on the board, and I was confident that the player had trips. I nailed a gutshot straight on the turn and put him in for everything he had, which was just over $6, he called as did another player, and the board paired again on the river, the guy I thought had trips sure did, which was now a full house thanks to another 10, and the other guy had the same gutshot straight as me, go figure!

So, after those two hands, here's my omfg graph of today's play.

So pissed about those 2 hands, horrible horrible outcome back to back hands. Just not cool really. In the first I'm about an 80% favorite, and in the 2nd hand, the two of us with the straight will split the guy's stack 77% of the time.

Sigh, rough day in the end.

Doyle Called me an Idiot

Well, after yesterday's session I really had some thinking to do. I did that, and I also turned to one of the most influential people on my game, Doyle Brunson. Well Dolly didn't hold back, and I'm going to repeat his words because I think it's so important, and I did not abide by his advice, which I now realize. Here's Doyle's words:

"Against a low grade player you simply make the obvious play. You don't try to get fancy when you're in a pot with weak players. You don't make subtle moves that are far beyone his capacity to understand or appreciate.

It takes an idiot in my book to bluff at a man you know is going to call you. You simply can't bluff a bad player because a bad player will call when he has any kind of a hand and pass when he doesnt. It's clear-cut. You don't have to be an expert psychologist to figure out what he's doing. All you have to know is if he's in the pot, he's got something. And you're not going to get him out of the pot by trying to bluff at him.

Above all, you don't want to gamble with that kind of player. Forget about that. Show him a hand. Do very fundamental, even obvious things against a bad player - no tricks, no strategic play, nothing fancy. Play straightforward against a weak player.

For example, if a weak player raised the pot preflop, then checked the flop, and checked 4th street, I would bet automatically because he doesn't have anything at all. It's simple to outplay him because his actions tell me whether he's got something or not. There's no mystery about it.

I could also outplay him by adjusting my style to his. I said I'm always stabbing at pots. I can still do that with a weak player in the pot, but I have to adjust. If he checks on the flop, then calls my bet, I'd give him credit for something. It there's no straight or flush draw out there, he's probably got a small piece of the board. If he had a big piece he would've bet. If he checks again on fourth and calls me again, I know I'm going to have to show him a hand on the end.

If I'm in a pot with a weak player and flop a real big hand, say a set of trips, I would check it because I know if he has anything, he's going to bet, and I'll be able to break him anyway. Normally I wouldn't slow-play that hand, I always lead out with it. But against a weak player, I wouldn't mind giving him a free card if he doesn't have anything. I want him to improve his hand. I want him to make something so I can possibly break him.

You're effectively restricted to a pick axe and shovel against a weak player. Never forget that. Don't try to devise elaborate strategies to use against a bad player. They won't work against him."

So with this information stuck into my brain, I'm venturing onto Stars for the day with great expectation, ready to turn around. I now realize just how much I was trying to bluff at people I had no business throwing any kind of bluff at. I was handing my money over to bad players because they did exactly what they're supposed to. They wouldn't let a hand go. Time to adjust my play, and stick it to Stars.

What a Rollercoaster Ride

Today was up down and all over the place. I played more hands today than any other to date, logging a total of 1,797 hands. Sadly, I sucked today. I made too many bad plays for big pots that ended up costing me. Especially with KQo, I really let that get out of control. I didn't let my opponent tell me what he was trying to and I shoved without thinking on a flop of 6K4, it was instant. And in that instant as soon as I clicked to shove all in I knew exactly what my opponent had from the better, a set. He called and at the showdown there were his pocket 6's. Such a dumb thing to do, I just didn't take the time to analyze the play as it unfolded, and shoved for no real reason other than I didn't think he had a king with a better kicker.

This was another big hit with KQo, and maybe I should stop with these plays at this level. The hand my opponnent had was exactly the kind of hand I'm making this play against to shut them out, yet they call anyway. I just started a 2+2 thread about this topic here.

Another thing that happend, was as the session wore on, I became far less aggressive. At around 800 hands, my total agression was over 7, but after the last 900, TA was down to 4.00. I'm pretty sure I started going on autopilot. In fact I plummeted all the way from +$12.50 to -$6.00, and only made it back to the black for the day by getting all in with KK against AA preflop and slamming quads to scoop one of my biggest pots of the day. Here's that hand, another example of me being behind, but this time getting lucky.

That was a good feeling, just because I was already tired, just wanted to finish up, was shutting tables, and when I got all in with KK, I knew Garrymdp as a tight player and that AA was a definite possibility. Catching 2 kings was sweeet and when he flipped up aces, made it even sweeter. Nothing like getting money in bad but pulling it out anyway. Plus, for some reason, I really don't like garrymdp, no particular reason other than his picture. Regardless of why, that made beating his aces even sweeter.

Here's garrymdp, I want to punch his picture in the face.

After that hand I decided to get on here, blog it up, and hit the sheets. I'm going back at it tomorrow, hopefully with results more satisfactory to the standards I hold myself to. Today was truly an utter disappointment, and getting ahead for the day by being a 4.5:1 dog really just summed up my play for the day.

I just downloaded a program to graph my poker tracker data, so I'm going to give that a try now. Actually fell asleep for a bit there while waiting for things to install. I know I was making a graph, but I've completely lost my train of thought from earlier. Here's a graph of the day's play.

Just not a pretty overall graph, did well for about the first 250 hands, and then it was a steady downward trend, with a multitude of losses and only a handfull of sharp wins.

Here's the graph of all my hands caught on poker tracker so far. Now keep in mind I currently only have 4 days of data, even though it says 6. 2 of those days total 15 hands. On this chart, everything to the right of about the 1,806th hand is today's graph. So while it looks like I've been trending downwards steadily, it was in fact only the latter part of today's session.

It still hurts to see how far I dropped over those last 1,600 hands. I'm sure I will do better tommorrow.

Back in the saddle

Had a good short day today. Only put in 450 hands, but I made them all count, raking in just over 62 big bets per 100 hands for the session. I played very aggressively today, and it only burned me one time. This hand should give an idea of the aggression I'm referring to.

I still like the play, but I posted it on 2+2 to see what others have to say. I still think it was +EV given that I should have had solid fold equity against QQ, and after his call I was only about a 2:1 dog to make my straight.

I've changed my layout while playing, and I've taken to the new look quite well. I think there's less distraction, and the only thing I'm going to change is the color of the backs of cards on the table. It's just too easy to not know how many are in the hand. Going into photoshop to make them bright yellow after I post this. Here's what my screen looks like now:

One thing you may notice in the picture is that now there are numbers above all my opponents. I've downloaded gametime plus which takes whatever stats I choose from pokertracker, and places them above the coresponding opponent at my tables.

I have used VP$IP%, Preflop Raise %, and Total Aggression Factor. VPIP is voluntarily put money in pot percentage for preflop play, preflop raise % is what it says, and total aggression is (Raise%+Bet%)/Call%. Anyone who has an aggression factor around 1 is pretty tight, and once you reach 3, that player is fairly aggressive.

Here are my stats from today's play.

My agression is just through the roof. You'll be hard-pressed to find too many other players out there with a total aggression factor of 6.90. I'm glad that I'm playing aggressively, because the game of no limit rewards that aggression, but I know I still have a multitude of holes in my game. I'm scouring over my stats in pokertracker to try and find every instance in which I feel I could have easily made a clearly better play, and figure out why I didn't do that in the heat of the moment.

I'm going to get on that, and probably post a blog about my discussions on 2+2 tonight along with what I deem interesting about my playing style.

Awesome Progress Bar!!!

I just got a new toy in my blog recently. In response to a friend's suggestion, my blog now features a progress bar. As my ultimate goal with this blog is to track my poker progress, this bar will show how I am doing in that pursuit. As my bankroll increases, I will approach the funds to move up to the next level of blinds. Once I reach 20 buyins, I will begin play at that level, and adjust the progress bar accordingly. The only thing I have left to do is figure out how to use the thing, lol.

First losing day in awhile

The day after Thanksgiving I only played a few hands, 324 to be exact. It was real ugly for some time, as I'd been four-tabling and catching some awful beats at all tables. I was down $6 at one point, and couldn't buy a pot. I was dealt Aces twice, Kings twice, and Queens once, losing every single hand. Obviously those are premium pairs, so I not only lost, but lost some big pots. Also when the day was over, both AKs and AKo were losers for me, but only for a combined loss of 2.25 big bets, or nine cents.

I knew that I wasn't playing that poorly, although my confidence was rattled a bit by the inability to win a hand, especially with my big pocket pairs, since those are what I rely on for big wins. I decided I needed to start some multitabling, and bumped it up to 12 tables. Talk about mass confusion. My computer was buzzing with beeps and clicks, tables constantly telling me it's my action, asking if I want to post the blind on tables freshly opened, unrelenting.

Finally, my multitabling paid off on pocket 7's and the following unfolded:



Gotta love playing with super-agressive and loose opponents. As this hand played out, I was already shutting down tables, getting ready to go out and do some shopping. It was a nice way to gain back a lot of ground, and turn a bad loss for the day into one of just 5.32 big bets.






Here's my final stats for 11/23/2007:

Turkey Day!

I was doing a little 9 tabling at one point today, and wanted to show what that looks like, but I accidently did another screen capture after that one, so while I'm not playing these particular tables, I was playing this many earlier and wanted to share. This is what utter chaos looks like:


I'm not sure if it looks as crazy to you, but let me tell you. When you're trying to make good poker decisions at all those tables at the same time, things can start to get pretty tricky.


Today's session was anything but stellar. It was a lot of up and down, at the highest point being up 125 big bets, then losing a few really big hands, putting me down about 90 big bets for the day.





Lucky for me, there was a player named arnie_137 whose poker path was about to collide with mine. I don't know what it was that started arnie off, but he began to throw money around left and right. He was shoving all in preflop, then showing 72 when everyone folded to him, he would bet and raise indiscrimantely, seeming to be on tilt hard. This continued for some time, and I decided to take the first decent hand I got and try to look him up before he gave up on his crazy playing method.

This was my first good hand:




How sweet this was. This guy ended up losing $17.14 at our table, and it was amazing. I'll definitely look for him in the future. I'm proud to say that out of all the money he lost, this hand here is the most he lost at once.






So thankfully, after lots of hands, I was finally up for the day all thanks to this one player who felt like sharing. I got in over 1,000 hands today which means my winrate for BB/100 was microscopic compared to the last few days, but a winning day's still a winning day I guess. And honestly, I would never complain about my winrate being 10.5BB/100 at just about any other level of play. After taking this guy's money and his continued throwing away of more money, he eventually left the table, and I called it a day. Here's what my final stats for thanksgiving looked like.








Definitely could have been better, but could have been a lot worse too. I'm undecided how I feel about 9 tabling right now. I think I still need to pay more attention, and more tables leads to more bad plays, which I really shouldn't be doing. Hoping to make up for today's slow pace tomorrow.

What a start to the day!

I squeezed in a couple hundred hands this morning, and wow. The results were beyond anything I thought could be achieved even at uNL. I was 4 tabling, and here's a screen capture of my 4 tables at one point in the session.

I'm up a decent amount at 3 of my tables, but Table #3 I'm up to a ridiculous $20!!! That's up 375BB's. Here's what happend to bring that about.

Raised it up pre with QQ, flopped a boat. When the BB bet out I put him on a king, trying to get paid from Aces, or just excited that he hit a set and was betting it. I raised to entice him to shove at me, and unexpectedly, the small blind bumps it to $1, then the BB calls on top of it! I wasn't waiting here, action was hot and I knew I had at least one customer so I shoved my stack and both called, which I didn't expect but loved!

The BB who led out on the flop had AJ for a gutshot straight, a very dubious play, and was drawing dead. The SB had KT for the trips I thought the BB had and was drawing to his five outs for quads or a better full house.

At the end, I forgot to take of autopost blinds, and ended up playing one table for an extra orbit. True to today's nature I get dealt KK on the button. Raise it up preflop and get one caller. Flop came with 2 jacks and a flush draw, and he calls my cbet. The turn makes the flush, but I thought I might take it down with another bet so I fired again, and he calls again. Now the river comes and pairs the flop, so if this guy had any piece whatsoever, I'm toast. He's the type of player who easily called my preflop raise with JT, A2, any two spades, so I don't feel good about my kings at this point, and he bets a tiny amount, basically forcing me to call. I do, and he shows me this:

I don't know what this guy was doing anywhere in this hand, except he either thought I was "fos", or just felt like playing a hand cuz he hadn't in awhile. I'm voting for the latter.

So I may not get much more in for today, but I exceeded my daily quota of big bets for sure. Just for kicks, and because it's always more fun to talk about winning, I'm going to update my graph so I can see the spike from today. Probably do that up this afternoon.

6 Tabling for First Time Ever

Well I just played 342 hands and had my first loss in a long time. Ended down 10.26 Big Bets. I definitely made a couple stupid plays in there, loose calls that I should've folded. I'm going to try 6 tables out. I think I have it down, so I'm going to see how the winrate looks with this. Hope this works!

4 Tables good.....6 Tables bad

I'm definitely staying away from that for some time. I just couldn't pay enough attention to my games. Players did seem a lot tighter than normal though. I had AA 5 or 6 times and took it down preflop all but once where I took it down with a cbet on the flop. Had a couple retarded hands, like JJ going to the felt with my AK on a flop of 7K3 and spiking a Jack on 4th street, and AQ going in against my AK preflop and being given 2 queens on the flop. So there was some of that, but I think my game's just not as sharp when I have 6 up. Ended up taking a hit for 79.5 more BB's. When I make a graph again, there's going to be a serious crash during this period. Wow, now that I'm looking at my numbers, I'm actually up a fairly good amount today, just not by my recent standards.





I'm going back to my 4 tabling for awhile now, and seeing if I can recoup some of what I lost.

Feels like a good day

Well I found 111 hands played where I won 87.5BB, so I updated the graph in the old post. That put my hands played at 1036. I know I saved the missing hands, but I never sent them to my gmail, so I don't have them accessible. Perhaps I'll find them soon.

It's about 8:30 and I'm starting to feel awake, so I'm about ready to get on Stars and see how today fares. Be reporting later on.

Okay, now it's almost 1 o'clock. I only played for an hour this morning 8:30 to 9:30. After that I ended up running around some places with the girlfriend. I'm getting back on to log some more hands now probably for one hour again, then I have a bit of time to play later on in the evening.

In the first hour I got in 171 hands and made 99 Big Bets, so not too bad for an hour. Would've been a huge one, but I got raped in two big hands at one table in a row, making me -81.75 for the 2nd hundred hand count. Time to get back on.

Well, one more hour and another 202 hands and 81.5 Big Bets. The grind continues and the bankroll is now at $135.36.

Starting Again

It's been a long time since I played serious poker, and I didn't know how much I missed it. Not sure what made me start again, but a lot of reading in my old stomping grounds of http://www.twoplustwo.com/ helped I'm sure.
I decided to stick $75 into an online account and just grind out the smallest stakes I could find. I used to play on Full Tilt, but for a combination of knowing Pokerstars has smaller stakes, and hoping their recent adds with Daniel Negraneu brought new fish in, I went to Pokerstars.

Of course Epassporte was going to take $5, not 5% of anything up to and including $100, so I went all the way for $100, getting $95 in my account.

I took a little time to adjust to the new interface, but got everything set up and felt at home pretty quickly. So this is my plan: I'm staying at the smallest game possible, $.01/$.02 6-max NL, until I have at least $200 in my account.

At that point I'm going to move to the $.02/$.05 $10 buy-in 6-max NL, and work on doubling my $200. I don't care how long this takes, just playing in spare time, but hopefully sooner than later. Basically stick to the 20 buy-in plan. Once I reach 20 buyins for the next level, give it a shot, and if I'm winning, stay there, if I'm losing, drop back down and grind some more out.

Well so far, so good. I've played 2 days, only 300 the first day, 700 today, and results are strong. I'm up 400.25 BB over these first 1,000 hands. That means I'm raking in about 40BB/100, not too shabby by any standards. Here's a graph of my first 1000.

Hmm, kinda blurry, but I don't feel like fixing it right now. There are some hands that didn't get recorded, so my total is a bit higher than the graph shows. Same for the BB/100, but if it didn't get recorded, I can't make up numbers. All I know is I have another 448.75 BB that somehow got lost. I think they're in my gmail, I'll have to check. So my total for 2 days of play is plus 889 BB's, bringing my account up to $128.96. So even if there's 600 (pretty sure wayyyy less) extra hands I played, my big bets won is up to 55.5/100 hands. Hopefully I have the data, and I'll chart it into a more complete graph.

So it's not for much money currently, but at least I'm back in the game. If you log into pokerstars you may just see IBK_Suckout at some $.01/$.02 tables dragging down pots.