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