Curtains on 2008

So that'd be a year then.
A tale of 2 limits is really what it was for me. Yesterday, I decided I'd have another pop at 400nl as it was probably going to be fishy given the season. Unfortunately the curse continues. I had QQ lose to 56s in a 3bet pot, royal flush draw no good for a stack, QQ lose to AK, QQ lose AA and AK lose to TT all in preflop, and found myself down $2.5k after 1000 hands. I managed to recover it to -$1.5k but finished the session -$1.7k in all-in EV. You really dont need that shit when taking a shot :(
So that session leaves me down $5.5k lifetime at 400nl, and tbh I really havent played that bad. I was almost even, and that entire drop has happened in the last 5k hands. I'm pretty sure I'm a winner in the game, but that's gambling for ya. I'm still well rolled for it, but I think its back to 200nl for another while.
My 200nl graph is nice and I'm at 5.7ptbb over 84k hands. Anyone who compared the two would really think that there was a doomswitch activated for 400nl! I think there's no shame in staying at 200nl and grinding out 5ptbb. I was watching a video recently and the guy was making the point that so many people get caught up trying to be the next superstar, taking shots at higher limits, that they end up not making much money because they're a) passing money up the pyramid as they can't beat the higher games, or b) moving up and playing very few tables which doesn't maximise their hourly earn. Its pretty apparent to me that I'm not the next superstar, so I probably should accept my place in the poker ladder of taking $100/hr off the fishes and poor SSNL regulars.
All in all for the year, I made about $20k profit which isn't bad for my first year at it, but coulda been a lot better if I kept away from 400nl! I'm happy enough with my standard of play and though I obviously have a ton of leaks, I'm generally pretty solid and my dedication to watching videos, reviewing sessions and discussing hands is very good. The only thing I still have trouble with is dealing with variance. If I'm playing and down a bit, I keep trying to grind it back, despite knowing I'm not playing well, and then afterwards I let it weigh on my mind when I'm doing other things.
Next year I'll definitely keep it up and if I was to make some 'goals', they would be to play 250k hands of provisionally 200nl and make $50k but obviously over a 250k sample its hard to predict with much certainty.
Hope you all have a good year!

Rob

Nearly Settled Again

So I made it back without any major catastrophe, though it was a seriously annoying month and I won't be in a hurry to move country again. The trip itself went ok, apart from the van rental company putting the wrong fuel cap on the Transit, but it's nothing my mates boot and a wheel brace couldn't get the better of :-) Things nearly got ugly when we went to return the van though!
Also, if you're ever presented with opportunity to stay in one of those Forumla 1 hotels on the continent, DONT! What a nightmare. They're the Ryanair of hotels. You dont even get a toilet in your room, and ones in the hallway are like aeroplane toilets. They auto-lock when you're done and clean themselves. The dining facilities consist of a vending machine, and there's no staff on the premises between 6pm and 8am!
Eventually we made it to the boat, despite the French motorways which have absolutely no lighting or visual aids and are pretty lethal after dark imo. The new Irish Ferries ship is really nice, much better than the one that went before it. Much cleaner and smoother and the facilities on board are much better. We went for the 5 star suite cabin just to make the journey a bit more tolerable and it was sweet.
Back to poker, I only got settled in the new house last week and I'm currently just using a neighbour's wireless internet. NTL are coming tomorrow to install the 20MB package. I played about 1500 hands and I suppose I'm just using the rest of December to get back into things. I think the months break did me a lot of good, and I'm thinking much clearer now, but obviously I'm very rusty in certain spots. I've been posting a few hands on boards each day and I'll keep that up for a while until I'm on top of the basics again. Pretty annoying hand yesterday where I misclick opened 55 on the button to $46 and then the SB who's already gotten ATo in against me with no history shoved. It was obvious he was trying it on and I think I had to call it off but I had no luck vs his KQs! I should get one more update in before the year is out.

Back Seat Time for Poker

I'm currently packing up my apartment here in Belgium. I'm finishing work on the 19th and we're out of here on the 26th. Some friends are driving a Transit over from Dublin (all the way in one day..ugh) and we're gonna pack up our stuff from here and drive to Cherbourg for the ferry to Rosslare. There's quite an amount of shit to do when moving countries and I won't be sad when its all done with. I still have to organise all of the stuff on the other side like a house in Dublin, a car, and thats all before the usual Christmas madness.
All of this means that I'll have very little time for poker over the next while. This suits me fine. My bad run of late culminated on Saturday with me playing 3.5k hands like a complete robot just trying to get unstuck after getting off to a slow start. During the course or my extended downswing, all imagination has completely gone from my play. I just load up 6-8 tables, dont pay any attention to hand reading and wait to run good. The longer this goes on, the more you really forget why you're doing anything. At the end of that session I literally didn't know anymore what hands were good to be cold calling from the blinds vs. certain guys etc...just a total mental block. The auto-pilot thing might be ok if you table select, but of course I just played on any old table waiting to run good.
Anyhows the breakeven stretch is something like 45k hands now which is godawful but that's life. Looking at Leatherass' well it seems that this is possible in the normal run of things though I'm in no way putting it all down to variance. I realise that I'm not very good into the bargain. I ran good all Summer so I can't complain about the year overall. I started with $900 playing 20nl and 50nl and I made it up to about $24k (currently $19k). I'm gonna take out a fair bit as I promised myself I could buy a ridiculous car with a big engine if I took the money for the road tax from poker. I also need to withdraw some for a new TV and various other crap. Might as well enjoy some luxuries to make up for the last 2 months of frustration :)
If I do play over the next few weeks , it'll just be 2 tables where I'm really trying to apply the stuff I pick up from training videos and articles etc. Its really a curse playing too many tables before you're a good player, so my plan is to be able to implement stuff which goes beyond the basics on 2 tables and then hopefully it'll sink in to my thought process and I'll be a much better player on 4-6 tables after that.
When I get back into it properly my main goal is to get enough together for a month in Vegas in the Summer and a maybe a shot at a WSOP-ament or two, which is a very reasonable goal. Obviously next on the list is enough for a new model (like 02-03) 7-series!! Hmm I'm rambling now. Gonna miss this Belgian beer!

Fuck

Title says it all really. Was going along ok for the month...gettin to grips with 400nl then came the disaster as you can see on the graph. I'd say at leasy 1k of the downswing is pure tilt, where I valuetown donks for 2 streets and then they shove the river when the board pairs and I tilt call just to verify they have trips (they do). I really played shit for the last 5k hands and paid for it. Dropped to 200nl there today after dropping 1.2k at 400nl and then got stacked twice with QQ aipf. When it rains it pours obv. Pretty much feel like breaking stuff now and had the usual thoughts of withdrawing the lot. Standard. That'll subside in a few days and I'll start afresh for November and hopefully not spew so much. I might just play 200nl coz I'm so fucking bad and sick of donating at 400nl for now. Now its time for an exceptionally large beer and to find a bit of perspective on the fact that I'm enraged that I 'only' netted $2k (after RB etc) for playing a game on the PC for the month.

One Orbit of HSNL

I decided to move up (3) levels on Saturday when I saw some complete idiots at 10/20nl. The 3 of them had about $400 max so I bought in for that much. First hand I played it was folded to my SB and I had ATo, and the BB had $100 so easy ship and hold up againstK3s. Next hand is here: http://weaktight.com/451096. I laughed a lot and then sat out when the BB got around to me again, for a profit of about $650. Great fun...must keep an eye out on future Saturday nights.

Today, like a moth at a lightbulb I played cash at B2Bagain and dropped e380 in 450 hands. I'm running 8 buyins below EV there in 7.5k hands and now for sure am not playing there anymore. Doing pretty good on Everest though even after a terribad start to things, the graph is below. Might play a bit tomorrow, then its back to Ireland for the IPO, which I'm lookin forward to. I'll write a report on my run there, however short it may be!

Ciao

End of a Long Month

Tough month. Feel like I ran bad for a LOT of it, but everyone says that when they're not kickin' ass. It contained my epic-est breakeven stretch of my 'career' to date. Obviously because I was struggling, I played the most hands I ever did in a month. 5k hands of 2/4, where I made exactly nothing and ran $1k below EV....standard for me at 2/4 :( 1/2 wasn't great either where I won at 3.3 ptbb over 16.7k hands and the same rate at .50/1 over 3k hands.


Stats look good all the same at 20/15/2.8 with 44% W$WSF, which is a record for me.WSD is at 27% and W$SD is at 56% which are both solid too I think..and yet I'm on my worst stretch in ages...conventional wisdom is wrong. Still 3-betting virtually never which is probably bad, but the way I naturally seem to play...I'm happy to take regulars on under my terms in single raised pots where I think I play better. I should try and do it a little more, but they pay me off on my big hands anyway so why bother! Twice this month aggro guys have gotten in A7 pre-flop against me (both won against my JJ and AK of course).


Bankroll currently stands in the mid 19's. Need to get motoring if I wanna hit my year end goal of 30k. It should be doable, I don't think $3-4k a month is beyond me.


With any luck I'll win the IPO in October and that'll do the trick ;-) I'll write a trip report of it anyway, which should make for more interesting reading than these mundane updates I normally make. It should be funny. I've barely played a hand of live poker in my life, so I hope people don't get too annoyed at my inevitable stream of mistakes.

Winnings for the month: $2450

Bonuses/Tourneys: $1300

Net profit: $3750

Pretty Sick

Sick in more ways than one. I've been off work the past couple of days with a cold/flu type of thing. Great, I can get some hands in! No. $1700 down in 2k hands, $1200 in all-in EV. That leaves me up an awesome $1150 through play in 18.3k hands for the month. Not really in line with the $4-5k/month I thought I could knock out. I'm not really that bothered.
As I said before, I would like to get together enough to put together a deposit for a house through poker as I'm far too bad at saving to do it in real life, then I'd probably consider the whole venture a success. I suppose that about $40k or so would get the job done. We're gonna rent a place for a year when I get home to Ireland in November so that gives me a bit over a year to get it together (though I'll be taking bit for a holiday next Summer too), so $4-5k a month gets me there, which I think I can manage at $1/$2 if I carry on playing 20k+ a month.

My motivation to move up is pretty low. From $2/$4 up its mostly regs at the tables, and I just don't have the interest in eeking out a slight edge over them getting in 3/4/5 bet wars and dealing with the increased variance. I've worked pretty damn hard to get from $10nl to here in less than a year and I feel like I'm getting to the point now where the extra effort to get better is greater than the reward for gettin there. Most people say 3-4ptbb/100 is very good at 400nl. But if I can beat 200nl for 5 or 6ptbb, play more tables, way over-rolled and have less stress and variance then why not?!
That reminds me, Everest is starting to get annoying. The utterly retarded speed of the software (80hph max) and the top-up feature along with the growing number of decent aggressive regulars makes me wanna move some money elsewhere. I was going to put some on Stars, but a) I dont know if it'd be any better, and b) gettin a large sum of money on there is painful to the max.

Meh.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

So it goes on. Got off to a slow start this month down $1k after 3k hands, but I''ve been on a bit of a heater since and I'm up $1.3k now and Everest gave me an extra bonus which I've cleared about $250 of, then I won $350 in some Betdaq free tourney so that's a total of just shy of $2k for the month, and the bankroll stands at $18k or maybe a shade under.

I'm a joke though. I'm still not happy at $400nl playing nitty coz I'm not happy losing that much at once. That's just ridiculous really...45 buyins and still affected! I suppose I'll get comfortable eventually. As it happens, it doesn't really matter as MSNL on Everest appears to have dried up completely, so I'm left playing $200nl most of the time, which is fine as it lets me keep working on things and ramping up the aggression and exploring new lines vs regulars I have good reads on and the money is pretty good there too.

If I were to set a goal for the month it would be to be over $20k, but goals are silly.

August Wrapup

Another month in the books poker-wise as I'm heading back to Ireland tomorrow for a few days. I got over the 20k hands mark which I'm happy with and want to keep up but it was one of the less enjoyable months of my career for definite.

I moved to 400nl and got battered by variance as outlined in a previous post. However, 200nl was good and I made just over $5k there in 15k hands to offset the just over $3k I lost at 400nl.

The graph below doesn't show about $500 I lost when something when screwy with my computer, and also 200euro I lost on Betdaq when flopping the nuts and getting the money in wasn't enough :-(

Even 200nl was fairly crappy towards the end of the month. As the graph shows, another 5k breakeven (that my not be over yet!!) Although the games were very good, I couldn't make a hand which is quite important when playing against people who dont fold! As a result, my non-showdown numbers went very poor, but I finished the month today at a high point in terms of $ won which is nice

I think I have just short of $16k now...meh what a long breakeven stretch, but thems the breaks. Hopefully I can still get to my target of $30k by the end of the year. I'm going to work away at 200nl for another while, and I plan to have another pop at 400nl when I get close to 20k. As ridiculous as it may sound, I'm just not comfortable with the money and another 8 buyin downswing there would kill my spirit so I'll wait a while and try to keep improving at 200nl. Its not like I 'need' to move up. Anyways...back in September to breach the $20k barrier if all goes well! Good luck.

Winning for August: ~$1200

RB and Bonus: ~$800

Total Profit: ~$2000

Keeping at it

I've dropped down for the time being to 200nl. I find it much more relaxing to play than I found 400, and I'm happy to just grind away there for now. My lifetime graph for 200nl is below and I'm quite happy with it. I was just very unlucky to run into so many coolers during my brief stay at 400. Very flippin expensive!! There are a lot of the same players as I saw at 400nl and they are similarly aggressive, but the fact that I'm more comfortable with the monetary amounts at 200nl means I'm much more willing to take them on and play back at them.

My recent bad run has again succeeded in helping me to see the big picture and I'm better at forgetting about the result and not setting goals than I used to be. I just play now and only if I'm in the mood, and only if the games were good.

There was a while were I was a bit obsessed by the whole thing, so it's nice to ne enjoying it more again, and if the money comes, then grand. Though thats not to say that I won't still work hard, watch videos, review hands etc.







I played a hand today which I thought was interesting, but I'm not sure if I should be happy with it or if I just got the right result.




***** Hand History for Game 3587528006 *****
$200.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, August 15, 02:23:47 ET 2008
Table Suva9 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 1: Villain ( $942.10 USD )
Seat 2: ChrisNL1 ( $197.00 USD )
Seat 3: dufcco ( $199.00 USD )
Seat 4: Hero ( $264.00 USD )
Seat 5: peps03 ( $393.30 USD )
Seat 6: marotta4ever ( $1045.78 USD )
peps03 posts small blind [$1.00 USD].
marotta4ever posts big blind [$2.00 USD].
Dealt to Hero [ Js Ah ]
** Dealing down cards **
Villain raises [$7.00 USD]
ChrisNL1 foldsdufcco folds
Hero calls [$7.00 USD]
peps03 folds
marotta4ever calls [$5.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5c, 9s, 4s ]
marotta4ever checks
Villain checks
Hero checks
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ac ]
marotta4ever checks
Villain bets [$16.00 USD]
Hero calls [$16.00 USD]
marotta4ever folds
** Dealing River ** [ Ts ]
Villain bets [$30.00 USD]
Hero raises [$95.00 USD]
Villain folds




I think my AJ doesn't beat a whole lot on the river as every other realistic Ace beats me now. I guess calling here pre-flop is actually a bad after an UTG raise but anyway. My thinking on the river was that calling would be pretty bad, but really all he (19/16/3 and definitely solid player) can have is a one pair type hand (AK, AQ most of the time imo) that can't stand much heat, and that its very possible for me to have a flush the way the hand was played. I figured that turning my hand into a bluff was the best play here. Maybe I would have bet a FD when checked to me on the flop but I think I could conceivably check it behind as the other guy in the hand was an idiot.

I'd like to hear some comments on it. Maybe its not rocket science but I'm happy that I managed to work in something of a decent thought process while the hand was being played. I really want to become better at assigning ranges and playing accordingly, instead of just taking standard lines.

Wrong Way Around imo

Terrible month so far...I'm killing $200nl and getting killed at $400nl. For the most part its just stupid coolers. I've been stacked 11 times in 5k hands at 400nl and 9 of them were either set-over-set or all in pre-flop with QQ+ and losing. The only saving grace was winning back to back all-in pots with a guy when he had $1500 and I had $500. Otherwise it'd be a complete write off and I'd probably have quit by now, but I'm still down 8 buyins in my last 1500 hands in the last 2 days at 400nl, including: QQ

I'm also playing like a scared idiot most of the time and so for now, I've decided to not bother will 400nl for another while....probably until I have 40 buyins again. Meanwhile at 200nl I've won $2k in <4k>8ptbb over 32k at 200nl so I must be doing something right.

Anyway, I'll use this time at 200nl to work on my game vs. the ever increasing aggro of the regs. I've improved a little bit in that regard lately but more to do.

Moving up is hard.

400nl

200nl

July in the Books

So the aforementioned downswing halted at 16 buyins, and the punishment Everest handed out for leaving seems to be over. I've been doing ok the last few days, including a $1k day at 200nl on Thursday. I'm playing pretty well and opening up EVER so slowly, playin 20/17 ish with good aggression. My main mistake now is not 3-betting enough. It's down at about 3.8%. The problem is that I forget to 3-bet light when I'm playing 6 tables, so most of the time I'm only doing it for value, though I did pick a nice spot for a cold 4-bet today which was a thing of beauty. August will be a mix of 200nl and 400nl. I hope to stop being scared money at 400nl soon, as I'm currently running at about 13/9 there!

In total I played about 22k hands.
Lost $1100 on Betdaq
Profit on Everest of $3700
Bonus and RB of $430

for a Net Profit of about $3030

Bankroll currently stands at just under $15k. It'd be nice to touch the $20k mark this month and its possible if I run good for the month, but maybe a bit ambitious. I learned a good bit about ignoring results and playing each hand on its merits during my recent downswing, so I don't have any realy targets except playing good and continuing to study hard!

Tempt Fate Would We?

Good Jaysus...I will never post about doing well again. Entraction network is rigged beyond all belief...Went back to Everest to find it was also rigged now. Dropped $3.5k, or 11 buyins in less than a week. Time for a break. Hopefully I won't hate poker for too long. Bankroll still at about $13.5k I think... so not the end of the world but a serious f#$%#$n kick in the guts.



YOU KNOW IT.

Heat of the Summer

About time for an update I suppose...I had the first two weeks of July off and for various reasons didn't go on holidays, and I don't know too many people around here (lol Belgians) so I played a lot of poker and watched a lot of videos. To be honest I was pretty happy to get to work (even though I do absolutely nothing), because I was just getting stir crazy sitting in the apartment all day with only the dog to talk to.

At least going to work involves leaving the house to read the internet all day! I’m moving back to Ireland in November so I’m starting to look forward to that, even though moving the whole show back is going to be a giant pain in the ass.
In terms of results, I dont have my pokertracker to hand but I've played about 12,000 hands so far this month, and I'm up over $4.2k so I'm very happy with that. I'm just dreading that I may be just running good and there's a soul crushing downswing around the corner. But sure we can't go about life worrying about getting hit by a bus, so I'll just enjoy it while it lasts. I'm happy with how I'm playing and I think I should be a comfortable mid stakes player by the end of the year, unless the games catch up and pass me by!

For my last 50k hands at 100nl, 200nl and 400nl I'm beating them for a combined 7ptbb/100. I know its not a huge sample, but its encouraging all the same.
I never bothered putting money on ipoker in the end. Instead I put some on the entraction network which is in euros. This is great because the exchange rate means there's intermediate levels from the dollar amounts, so at the moment I'm playing a good bit there to clear a bonus at €200nl which is the dollar equivalent of about 320nl, a level that I'm pretty happy playing at for now...So in due course I'll mix in some $400nl (which I've been playing a bit of on Everest) and some _€400nl.
Away from cash, I played a €200 buyin tournament on Betdaq last night, which I got a free ticket for. 145 started and I got down to the last 30 (18 paid) with TT being rivered by AK for a pot to go about 10th in chips and virtually certain of making the money (a not insignificant €422). Tournaments have been pretty soul-crushing in the last while for me, I don't see how people can play them regularly. That said, I booked my flights home yesterday for the weekend of the International Poker Open which is on in October in the Regency (check www.boylepoker.com/ipo for details). It figures to have 1200 runners and the buyin is a paltry €150. It'll be great to have the chance to play in such a big event for that money. The structure looks great and I'm really looking forward to playing in it, as to date I’ve only played a tiny amount live.

Half-time

So 2008 is half over. If I look back at the start of this blog and review what I wanted to get done, I can be pretty happy. My objective was to be ready to take a shot at $200nl right about now, having 20ish buyins after playing a WSOP event. Well, we never went to Vegas but I've easily met my goal of playing 200nl and I've played 20k hands there already and have closer to 60 buyins in the tank so all good in that respect.

In fact as I have 30 buyins for 400nl, I'm thinking about moving up and taking some shots at those games when they look good. Everest doesn't always have nice 400nl games running so I'm going to maybe put some money in an ipoker skin and mix it up between the two. I think I have the ability to win there, though maybe not straight off the bat, as I'll admit I'm still not aggressive enough to deal with the regulars but I'm getting there and my game is still steadily improving!

So for the 2nd half of the year, I want to become a regular at the midstakes and increase the bankroll so that I'm rolled for all the mid-stakes games and I can pick and choose the best ones. So if I was to settle on a goal it would be to have played 1000nl (with the proper bankroll) by Christmas. I'm sure this won't be easy, but I don't want to take my foot off the gas and I'm going to keep studying hard (when I'm in work!) to try and get good enough.

I'm going back to Ireland in November which I'm looking forward to and it'd be sweet if I could grind out a deposit for a house in 2009, but that's a long way away yet and I'm sure the games will be much tougher by then, but another distant goal of mine. Obviously all of this may be a pipe dream which I'll be crying over on my next downswing, but whatever!

Quick update on June:

Played good...Talk most of my money from the fishes but certainly started to try and push the regulars around where I could. The challenge of trying to find ways to beat each individual regular in a short space of time is fun.

Winnings: $4214

Bonus and rakeback: ~$600

Total Profit: $4814

Mid June Update

Bleagh...played 2k hands earlier and I'm seriously pokered out after it. I got off to a good start to June and I've split my 11k hands evenly between 100nl and 200nl, mostly because I wanted to clear a bonus so I multi-tabled a lot. Now I'm back to playing 200nl and some 100nl if there are no good games. I was off to a $2k start but the last few days have been horrible. Firstly I was one-outered in a $500 pot. Then the following two abominations from today which resulted in me being stuck for $650 early on. Truly awful stuff:

http://weaktight.com/233539
http://weaktight.com/233538

I somehow stuck at it and ended the day up a small amount, so overall I'm up around $2.4k now for June which is ok, but its been rough. The aggression is much more notable at 200nl and I'm getting 3bet left right and centre, but I've picked a few decent spots for 4b bluffs and CRAI on some flops that has worked out ok. I'll have to have a look at some filters in holdem manager and make sure I'm not wasting money by folding to 3bets to often, and it's probably something I'll need to do a coaching session or two on.
I was going to play the Stars 200 seat WSOP guaranteed tomorrow night, but it's on very late and will likely run all night, and I know I won't be able to concentrate coz I'm useless at staying up late....(great trait for a poker player!) so I'll see what to do. These updates are pretty dull, but such is the life of the small stakes grinder.
No stats or graphs...

Adios.

May Update

Its been a while since I updated last, so here's a quick May summary. It went good! I played pretty solid and ran well...Still v.tight but whatever works is good with me. At the end of the month I was getting bored with $100nl and was getting a bit robotic so with about $6.7k I decided to have a go at $200nl. I got off to a bad start as usual when moving up, but I've managed to turn it around since and I'm in profit for 200nl. It's good because I'm concentrating a lot harder on every hand and I've only been playing 2-4 tables to begin with.
So I hope I can make it stick this time. I think I'm good enough to at least be a small winner in the games by picking on the fish and trying to find the leaks in the regs. So far I've noticed the games are more aggressive, but the aggression seems mindless and I've managed to get the better of a lot of the spewy 27/23 type regs. I've been playing even tighter since moving up which is hard to imagine. I've been running at about 17/13 as opposed to my usual 18/15.
For June I wanna make it stick at $200nl and keep building the bankroll. I probably won't get too many hands in as I'm only gonna play 4 tables max for a while.

Stats for June:

Hands: 16833
VPIP: 17.9%
PFR: 13.7%
Att. to Steal: 27.7%
W$WSF: 39%

Total won: $2046.92

RB and Bonus: ~$300

Total: ~$2347

Back on the Horse

I spent the end of April trying to avoid 100nl and just playing tournaments some 20nl HU and some 50nl 6-max, and I started back at 100nl at the start of this month. I'm back playing on Everest, despite the lack of rakeback, the games are softer than ipoker so I think playing there is best despite running into stupid shit very often like this hand (Stacking off with TP was fine vs. this guy):



Dealt to Hero [ Ks Ts ]
** Dealing down cards **
Maltebrauer folds
allinshimi folds
LuisN calls [$1.00]
Hero raises [$4.50]
DaFonz80 folds
kungmon folds
LuisN calls [$3.50]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Th, 3s, 8c ]
LuisN checks
Hero bets [$7.00]
LuisN calls [$7.00]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5c ]
LuisN checks
Hero bets [$15.00]
LuisN raises [$58.75]
Hero calls [$43.75]
LuisN shows [Js Qc ]
Hero shows [Ks Ts ]
** Dealing River ** [ 9c ]

LuisN wins $139.00 from main pot


However, people doing this is a VERY good thing, and I have to remember that. I got off to a fast start this month, up $1k in a very short time, but I'm currently on a -$600 swing. Something I'm still struggling with is the swings.

My stats for the month are at the bottom. I think I'm still improving steadily, and I've done some coaching sessions where the feedback has been pretty good. However, I'm in no rush to move up just yet. I still think I can learn a lot at 100nl before moving up and I need to work on controlled aggression as I still err on the side of caution too much which will get owned at 200nl I think. I think I'm about a 4-5 ptbb/100 winner at 100nl, or at least I'd like to think I am! So I'll keep going until maybe the end of June and see how I'm fixed then in terms of bankroll, confidence, and skill. I would hope to have something in the region of $8k by then, if the gods of variance oblige.



Stats for May to date:



Hands: 6242
VP$IP: 18.2%
PFR: 14%
AF: 2.58 (3.87/1.88/1)
Att. To Steal: 28.4%
W$WSF: 40%

Total Won/Lost: $399.14

Uuuuugghhh

I'm broke...not in bankroll terms, but my recent swing has killed my spirit totally. I'm sure you all know it and have encountered it, but some people deal with it better than others, but I'm a pansy and can't hack it at all.
Putting immense effort into something for 6 months and then just not being able to win a hand doesn't compute with me. Maybe I'll review the hands in a few weeks and see plenty of bad play in there too, but I've looked at stuff 2 days or a week later and my conclusion is still that I just can't find a way to win.
Its very hard to accept and very easy to put down to variance and running bad but is it really possible to drop 12 buyins over 10k hands due to running bad, or do I have to accept I'm just not very good, despite reading forums, watching cardrunners videos, coaching, everything else?
Is it is, then I question if its the game for me. As an old gent who was getting berated by Phil Hellmuth said, "If this is Poker, then I don't want to be a part of it".
I don't really know what to do now. My initial thoughts are to withdraw some of my bankroll which stands at about $5.4k and buy some crap so I have something tangible to show for this fucking torture! Then I'd drop down to $50nl and start again. But then I think there's a chance that maybe there's a tiny miniscule chance that I'm good enough to actually beat $100nl and I should continue. I dunno really...fuck the whole damn lot of them :-)
Time for a break anyway...Length of said break to be confirmed.

Dancing with the Doomswitch

I haven’t updated in a while for a few reasons, foremost I’ve been taking a beating! I moved to a new site and made $1k there in 3k hands and then took a shot at $200nl about a week ago today, and I instantly lost $1k in 1k hands and was shell shocked to say the least. Obviously I moved down to $100nl again and I’ve been trying to get back in order, but to no avail and I’m down a further $300 over the following 5k hands which brings me to today. My play has definitely been affected by the swing and I’m making some tilty calls and shoves and being passive in bad spots for fear of the swing continuing. This is clear from my won w/o showdown going back to its old ways. This if for sure the low-point of my 8 or so months playing poker so far. I’m really terrible at taking the rough with the smooth and I got far sicker about losing the $1k than I was happy to win the $1k the week before.

I really have no handle on the fact that 10 buyin downswings are commonplace in a 50k sample, and that 10-15k breakeven stretches are quite normal. I bought the ‘ Zen and the Art of Poker’ book a while back and I’ve been reading over it over the last few days and it’s definitely helped to calm me down and get me thinking better.

Over the last day or so, I’ve switched to just playing 4 tables and trying to concentrate on every decision to get my thought process back and its looking up a little bit. All I can do is keep plugging away and trying to make the right decision every time.

One great point I read in the book is about trying to win every hand. I always used to get just slightly annoyed if I didn’t win a hand where I VP$IP but the truth is you’re only going to win at showdown and in hands where you’re the PFR about 55% of the time max…this means that almost ½ the time, you’re pissed off, and human nature means that you remember the losses more than the wins, so overall if you go in with the mindset of being even a tiny bit upset when you lose a hand, you’ll end up very negative overall and I think this lets the inner-‘nit’ thrive. So the goal is to try and just make the right decision vs. the opponents range and let whatever happens happen.

I still have about 57 buyins for 100nl, and I’m going to stick with it until I get to about $7k or get some confidence back, which might be in 2 weeks or it might be in 6 weeks. I’m still on par with the goals I set myself at the start of the year, so I’m gonna try and think positive….If I was offered a guarantee in January that I’d be where I am now in terms of bankroll and development I’d have snapped called.

Finally, I’m just going to make occasional updates every now and then as I was kind of getting bored of the weekly report thing. GL!

Week 13: Who Want to be a Million-player?

Busy week, swingy week. Starting at the beginning, I got off to a brutal start last Sunday and gave the cash a break. In the evening I got some inkling that I wanted to play the Sunday Million on Stars but $215 was a bit rich for my roll, so I took $35 I had on Betfair and decided to try and spin it up to the buyin. An hour later, after cracking AA with 34s I cashed out $300 and registered for the big one. At one point in the first hour I was down to 7.5k and miserable, but over the course of the next 6 hours, I played great stuff and ran well and managed to come 170th out of 7500 runners for $1340! That all meant I was fully rolled for $200nl with over $6k. However, I didn't jump straight in as I was a bit lacking in confidence.

I took Monday off and came back to cash on Tuesday and it really was a swingy type of week, some tough variance and I finished it -$500 in Sklansky bucks. I took a shot at $200nl on Friday night and had AA cracked straight away :-( Anyway, I won my biggest pot ever with quads Queens to finish up $50 at $200nl.I was just finishing up my $100nl today and happy to have just turned a profit for the week when I got into a 250bb pot with topset vs a combo draw which he hit.

I wasnt finished there though! I donked around in $20nl HU and $50nl 6-max for an hour tonight and made about $150, so somehow I managed to finish a really tough week in profit (just!).
I'll be mixing in a bit more $200nl next week. I'm pretty confident these days, and my won w/o showdown is now looking much better at about -3 ptbb/100. Fingers crossed for a good start to $200nl.
I also satted into the Sunday Warmup tomorrow so I'll see if I can keep my recent record in donkaments going!


Weekly Stats for Week 13:
Hands: 4880 (incl 600 not at $100nl)

The following are for $100nl:
VP$IP: 17.1%
PFR: 13.5%
AF: 4.13 (5.65/2.72/2.13)
Att. To Steal: 27.3%
W$WSF: 37.3%

Total Won/Lost: $54.74
Cashback: Approx $190
Sunday Million cash: $1340

Net Profit/Loss: $1544.74

Week 12: Rebuilding

So I spent a good few hands at $50nl trying to make some adjustments, open up and get better without the 'pressure' of $100nl. I was happy with the adjustments I made (though I can still open it up more but I think shouldn't be too tought) and played a lot more $100nl than $50nl this week and I'll probably continue that way now. Today was a bad day, where I got off to a -$300 start, but rallied back to finish $-100, still a sour end to a week that was going well. Still think I'm steadily improving, and some of the recent content on Cardrunners is really helping in efforts to beat the regulars aswell as the bad player. I'm starting to see that just because someone has like 21/18/3 stats doesn't mean they're not very beatable and I think a lot of the regs at $100nl on iPoker are exploitable in different ways. I guess there are more regs at $200nl and I suppose finding the individual tendencies that allow me to get the better of them will become more important. All going well I'll take a sniff around $200nl in early April, but at the moment the prospect of having $200 on each table seems like a lot! (Think in terms of pot size and big blinds, I know, I know!)

Weekly Stats for Week 12:

Hands: 3477 (+ 813 at $50nl)

The following are for $100nl:

VP$IP: 17.0%

PFR: 13.9%

AF: 2.58 (3.69/1.88/1.25)

Att. To Steal: 25.9%

W$WSF: 40.1%

Total Won/Lost: $164.23

Cashback: Approx $145

Net Profit/Loss: $309.23

Week 11: No content!

OK, here's a no content update for last week as I didnt get time to do it at the weekend. Basically, I played a lot of $50nl to rebuild my game and try to play better after a bad start to the week at $100nl!


Weekly Stats for Week 10:
The following are for both $50nl and $100nl

Hands: 4081 (incl 1698 at $100nl)
VP$IP: 18.1%
PFR: 14.3%
AF: 2.76 (4.42/1.48/1.38)
Att. To Steal: 28.5%
W$WSF: 43.3%

Total Won/Lost: $134.77

Cashback: Approx $115 (from now on I'm only including cashback in the weekly update and I'll include reload bonuses as they come in)

Net Profit/Loss: $249.77

Week 10: Trippin' along

Well, not much to report strangely. I played, I did ok! I'm really having a good time of it lately with poker and I feel like I'm improving steadily. I definitely think I have the ability to beat $100nl, though with this game you really can never be sure if its just good variance. Anyway, I believe I'm going in the right direction and thats it! My non-showdown winning have improved vastly to only -2ptbb/100 or so over the last 5k hands so that might be another indication that I'm doing something better than I was.

I'm still playing VERY tight pre-flop and I hear from everywhere that its not optimal, and this is probably true, but I'm happy to master it and improve my confidence and gradually open things up as I hopefully move up. Short update but thats the way when things are going well :-)

Weekly Stats for Week 10:

The following are for $100nl only

Hands: 5308 (incl 684 not at $100nl)

VP$IP: 16.1%
PFR: 11.9%
AF: 2.41 (3.39/1.65/1.53)
Att. To Steal: 24.12%
W$WSF: 40.03%

Total Won/Lost: $532.49 (4.27 ptbb/100 at $100nl)

Cashback and Bonus: Approx $210

Net Profit/Loss: $742.49

Week 9: Mix and Match

I played a bit of everything this week for variety. Don't want it to become too much of a grind, so my adventures included some $20nl heads up, $50nl heads up, $20nl LAG session and regular $100nl grinding. I'd recommend playing HU and dropping down and playing a LAG style for a session; you really learn a lot. I played something like 35/29 and enjoyed it again. I also made 4 buyins in 500 hands which was nice, I'd like to play a bit more like that in my regular game, but I just gravitate to nitsville. Ah well, its nothing that can't be worked on and it's going ok so far.
I did fine at $100nl this week, grinding away and as usual playing very tight. I'll loosen up just in time for when I get to start $200nl ;-)
No other excitement. I'll just work away for March and see how I get on. I'd like to make $1.5k but I think thats at the top of my range, given that I'll not play as many hands as I should, especially as I've friends over for St. Patrick's Weekend. So maybe $1k in March and then by mid April the bankroll would be over $5k and I'd be ready to start taking a sniff at $200nl.
I'm playing in the VCPoker.ie Boards League final on the 9th of March with Ken Doherty, which I'm looking forward to, as I've been a big Snooker fan since I could see over a table. It's an STT with a $500 prize pool and another $500 for knocking Ken out so hopefully I can pick up a small piece of that to help me on my way.

Weekly Stats for Week 9:

Hands: 3973 (incl 885 not at $100nl)
The following are for $100nl only
VP$IP: 15.5%

PFR: 11.9%

AF: 2.9 (4.48/2.21/1.27)

Att. To Steal: 23.52%

W$WSF: 38.24%

Total Won/Lost: $385.44 (3.68 ptbb/100 at $100nl)
Cashback and Bonus: Approx $115

Net Profit/Loss: $500.44

Week 8: Half Way Up

This was my first 'full' week at $100nl. In fact I played a fair bit of $50nl aswell when the $100nl games were crappy which is good from a discipline point of view. Though 10 tabling just because I have a shiny new monitor wasn't a good idea and cost me a buyin. I played very tight at $100nl which I suppose is not unusual for someone who has just moved up. I found that a lot of the TAGs still paid me off regardless. I'll stick with that style for another week anyway and try to open it up gradually from there. I'm getting used to $100nl now. This week included KK vs AK aipf and KK vs AA, so my week could easily have been a lot better. I'm not that worried that I should be able to get the hang of things and work my way towards $200nl. (Hope I don't look back on this and cry when I'm playing $20nl in 2 months :-)....) Not much else to say...Rakeback is keeping me afloat


Weekly Stats for Week 8:

Hands: 4593 (incl 1322 at $50nl)
VP$IP: 15.22%
PFR: 11.5% (I know, I know....)
AF: 2.63 (4.00/1.77/1.0)
Att. To Steal: 22%
W$WSF: 38.65% <----Me like!

Total Won/Lost: -$65.29 (-1.08 ptbb/100)

Cashback and Bonus: Approx $130

Net Profit/Loss: $64.71 (Rich I tells ya)

Week 7: $100nl and the River Boat

Got off to another good start at $50nl this week making $200 over 2k hands so I decided to have a shot at $100nl. I only managed 1300 hands before the end of the week, but found that it was very tight. The tables I was at ended up having a players-saw-flop of 21% total, which it pretty brutal. I normally play a lot on weekend mornings so maybe thats just a bad time at these stakes. I played OK. For the first days play I was just about to quit up around $30 when I got it in with 66 on a 6J5J board vs. AJ naturally the river was an A for a higher full house and a $237 pot was pushed to him; not what I needed! So I played on and ended up finishing down around $120. Second session was breakeven. I think its beatable, just have to get better at beating the regulars which there seems to be a lot of. I'll stay up for another 3 or 4 buyins, and I'll mix in some $50nl when the games are $100nl are quiet.




Weekly Stats for Week 7:
Hands: 3385 (incl 1308 at $100nl)
VP$IP: 16.4% <----too tight!
PFR: 12.6%
AF: 2.45 (4.21/1.71/0.66) <----River still bad
Att. To Steal: 23.3%
W$WSF: 38.38%

Total Won/Lost: $81.28 (4.17 ptbb/100)
Cashback and Bonus: Approx $88


Net Profit/Loss: $169.28

Week 6: Boomswitch

This week was crazy brilliant. Definitely the best week of my short poker life. I ran bloody brilliant at $50nl. It was really a bad week to analyse my play because I was running so hot that I didn't get in many tough spots at all. Also, for whatever reason I had really low motivation to play when running so well, though this could be due to me flat out not being in the humour for poker this week. So, I only managed a fairly lazy 2.5k hands. I played a session at $20nl where I really loosened (28/23) up just to see how I can deal with the tough spots that playing laggy brings, and I enjoyed it though to some extent my looseness overcame me and I started making some horrible calls post-flop. Its something I intend to do maybe once a week or once a fortnight to try and improve my overall play.
Then came today, where for some reason I decided to play a $7.70+R EPT Copenhagen Sat to the $800 Super-Sat. I played well and managed to take one of the 3 seats which I was over the moon with and I didn't rebuy once! I was the shortstack with 4 left, but not so much that the other guys could wait for me to blind down, so 2 of them got it in with 66 vs. AK and tbh I dunno who won, but it was to my benefit. Obviously I didn't play in the Super-Sat given that $800 is about 1/3 of my bankroll, so I'll just add it to the roll and I'm now rolled for $100nl, but I don't think I'm quite ready, so I'm gonna go on as normal at $50nl for the rest of February and then make the move to $100nl. So, for one week at least....YAY POKER!

Weekly Stats for Week 6:

Hands: 2632 (incl 443 at $20nl)
VP$IP: 18.4%
PFR: 13.9%
AF: 2.7 (4.13/1.83/0.79) <----River still a problem

Att. To Steal: 27.4%

W$WSF: 43.11% <----Me like!

Total Won/Lost: $311.73 (11.39 ptbb/100)

Cashback and Bonus: Approx $80
Donkament score: $740 (after selling W$ and playing in one or two others)

Net Profit/Loss: $1131.73

Febru-worry?

Another week in the books, and at that, not a very good one again. Started off well and then hit a 5 buyin downswing as February started with some nice coolers and bad beats, but in truth I should be doing well enough elsewhere to overcome them. Won without showdown is still godawful at -9 ptbb/100 for the week...so bad. Also this week, I lost money from the button, so I really need to up the aggression and use position a lot better when I have pretty sucky hands which is moreso the case on the button than in any other seat obviously. I realised this week that I haven't actually been playing poker up to now but instead playing 'show down the best hand' ala fgators. I really dont want to play 1.5 million breakeven hands! So now I've taken to such crazy things as betting the turn when I don't have 2 pair+, if I think the villain is drawing, and raising c-bets from villains whose range is unlikely to have hit the board where mine is (though I've been 3-bet a few times when I've tried it), shoving with 'pair+primary draw' hands. Plenty of things to think about. It's really nice having the cashback as it means while I'm still actually only breaking even in terms of play (*sigh*) my bankroll is making slow progress towards $100nl. I hope in the next 6 weeks or so I can continue to improve a lot and maybe be ready for $100nl by then. One can but work hard and fight on!
A couple of mini-goals for this week are to play 20/15 as the only way I'll improve is to play more hands out of my nitty comfort zone. Also, won w/o showdown to -5ptbb/100 for starters, and W$WSF over 40%. I know people say you shouldn't play to have a certain set of stats, but I think these stats really do reflect good play.


Weekly Stats for Week 5:

Hands: 3758
VP$IP: 16.3%
PFR: 11.8%
AF: 2.87 (3.7/2.28/1.46) <----Better. Hopefully its well placed aggression Att. To Steal: 21.3% W$WSF: 39.28% <----Also better, but not reflected in my Won w/o showdown. Total Won/Lost: -$80.84

Cashback and Bonus: Approx $60

Net Profit/Loss: -20.84$

Week 4: Good Result, Bad Play?

Generally, my feelings about the quality of my play are largely dictated by the very immediate short term. As I lost money today, I'm not happy! Looking at PokerEV, raising pre-flop, missing and c-betting cost me a buyin this week. That not what the theory says should happen! So I need to look into 2nd barreling soon (what opponents and boards to do it on) Anyway, my hands were split pretty even between $20nl and $50nl this week as I just can't seem to play the way I want at $50nl...which is annoying considering I can pretty well destroy $20nl at will without even concentrating. A new thing that I want to try and work on is dealing with weak donk-leads, eg I raise pf and they bet something like $1 into $4 pot, how to respond with good hands, draws, weak made hands etc. Also looking to improve the W$WSF which is still brutal.

Weekly Stats for Week 4:

Hands: 3680 (incl 1946 at $20nl)
VP$IP: 18.21%
PFR: 13.23%
AF: 2.03 (2.91/1.22/1.14) <----something amiss here. Att. To Steal: 26% W$WSF: 36.23% Total Won/Lost: $167.84 (9.12ptbb/100 ( 3.22 for $50nl hands))

Cashback and Bonus: Approx $65

Net Profit/Loss: $232.84

Week 3: Short and Painful

Well, I played very few hands for the reasons I stated last week and still finished down a good bit. I called a river overshove with TPGK after checking the turn which I regretted as he river-ed 2 pair. Got 3 outered for a $20nl buyin all in on the flop and I lost a buyin with worse trips. Still feel like nothing is running for me at all. From my playing point of view keeping the steal % up is something I wanna do. Also want to improve my turn and river play.
This week I'll be playing a mix of $20nl and $50nl depending on my mood. I've only got just about 20 buyins for $50nl and I think I'm still playing 'not to lose' instead of to win. That being the case, I'm not losing much by playing $20nl for a little while. Still think its a matter of 'when' in terms of puttin' the hurt on $50nl. We shall see. I also realised while I was back at home that I'm taking poker a bit too serious. Every day when I get in from work I'm straight in front of the computer like a zombie. From now on I'm gonna be a bit less strict and just play as many hands as I feel like, be that 3k or 6k in any given week.




Weekly Stats for Week 3:

Hands: 2134 (incl 354 at $20nl)
VP$IP: 18.3%
PFR: 12.5%
AF: 2.82 (3.62/2.58/0.87)<----losing value on the river fo' sho'
Att. To Steal: 25.4%
W$WSF: 35.6% <---terrible and it was the same for $20nl and $50nl
Total Won/Lost: -$124.95 (-9.22 ptbb/100 including $20nl hands)

Cashback and Bonus: Approx $30

Net Profit/Loss: -$94.56

Week 2: Travelling Without Moving

I wrote a long post already and lost it so here’s a shorter version :-P. Started the week terribly and was down 3 buyins after 3k hands on Wednesday. I was completely card dead and had a couple of bad beats and wasn’t playing well either. I took a break on Thursday to try and let all the info I’d been reading sink in a little bit. I think a break is definitely a good idea every now and then just to let your brain digest all the crap instead of constantly firing theory and play at it. Anyway, came back Friday, and ran better (played better too I think). My VP$IP and PFR and Att. To Steal are all looking more respectable and my W$WSF is also heading in the right direction, though this week was a terrible one to gauge as I was hitting nothing. My numbers in non-showdown pots are also much better. On Saturday I actually won money in non-showdown pots, which must be a first. My modem is screwed, so I won’t be able to play properly until Wednesday, which is when I head back to Ireland for an interview, so I can’t see myself putting a lot of hands in. I think I did well on the tasks I set for myself last week. Not going to do any this week as it’ll be a quiet week. I’m only breakeven at $50nl over 10k hands which I’m not happy with, but I’m definitely a much better player than when I started, so I’m not too concerned and I think I’ll be able to beat it now when the cards start to fall for me! I’m a lot more interested in being good enough to play at $100nl before moving up now, rather than just moving up when I have the bankroll, so I’m happy to stay at $50nl and keep learning. In any case I’m still a fair way off even having the bankroll, so March would be by rough goal for moving up.

Weekly Stats for Week 2:Hands: 4114 (+482 at $20nl)

VP$IP: 17.7%
PFR: 13.05%.....both going in the direction
AF: 3.33 (5.15/1.89/1.91)
Att. To Steal: 27%....Again, I want it right at 30 which it was for the 2nd half of the week.
W$WSF: 37.37% <---Still crap but was up around 43% for the 2nd half of the week
Total Won/Lost: -$73.56 (-0.96 ptbb/100 including $20nl hands)

Cashback and Bonus: Approx $70

Net Profit/Loss: -$3.56

Week Numero Uno Complete

So that's the first week of my struggle in the books. I couldn't believe how downright maniacal $50nl was...I was at so many 40/20 type tables and I really didn't know how to play them properly. Getting in stupid spots 3-betting AK from the BB and not knowing wtf to do when I missed...which seemed to be a lot this week.
I played pretty brutal all week if I'm honest with myself. I try to play a 18/14 type of game but for whatever reason it always ends up being 14/9 which is so exploitable. My attempt-to-steal in the low 20's is also to low. I'm also giving people way too much credit postflop which is really going to be the hardest thing for me to shift. I'm not a confrontational or aggressive person so I find it very tough not to shut down on the turn or river if I see any signs that I'm not way ahead, especially at a new level, where I'm not comfortable playing the bigger pots yet.
After a disasterous final day of the week I managed to book a small profit. At one point I was down $140 thanks to two coolers and AA no good vs AK for a buyin, but I recovered to -$60 to leave me with a small profit for the week.
Things I need to work on this week are getting VP$IP and PFR, and W$WSF up. My W$WSF gets worse as I from UTG to Button which is the opposite to most people.



Comments welcome!



Weekly Stats for Week 1:
Hands: 6261
VP$IP: 15.22%
PFR: 10.08%
AF: 2.19 (3.4/1.3/1.3) <----LOL!
W$WSF: 32.34% <---Ugh...
Total Won/Lost: $52.28 (0.84 ptbb/100)

I also played some $20nl to work on a few things on Saturday night and made a total of: $65


Cashback and Bonus: Approx $110

Net Profit/Loss: $227.28