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!