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.