Thursday, November 8, 2007
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
An Obvious Leak of Mine
I just realized that I think I have one really big leak. I don't know how to win money without going to showdown. This means that I'm playing my own cards a bit too much and that I'm not applying enough pressure to move opponents off hands when they don't have anything.
I'm pretty disappointed about this. For some reason I thought it was standard, or it made sense to me that I lost money when hands don't go to showdown. However, I was scanning twoplustwo today, and most of the players there made money when hands didn't go to showdown. This actually makes more sense. The reason why I'm losing money is that when hands don't go to showdown, I'm folding much more than I'm making other people fold. Well, until I can figure this out, I'm going to hold back from moving up to $5/10 nl. Plus figuring this out I think will also significantly help out my win rate. Right now over 70k hands, I'm running at about 3.5ptbb/100 in $2/4, and over 25k hands 3ptbb/100 in 3/6nl. I really should have these in the 5-6ptbb/100 range before I decide to tackle $5/10nl.
I'm going to have to put in more work to figure out how I can incorporate this into my style. I think maybe that I should drop down to 4 tables for a little bit to readjust my game.
So just to illustrate this, here is my PokerEV graph. I know I'm running pretty good right now, but what's really disappointing me is the gap in between the red and the green. Until I learn to apply pressure in spots that I can profitably make opponents fold, I don't think I will ever be a "tough" player to play against. I think that the higher I move up, the more observant players will notice this and I think that I'll be very exploitable.
I'm pretty disappointed about this. For some reason I thought it was standard, or it made sense to me that I lost money when hands don't go to showdown. However, I was scanning twoplustwo today, and most of the players there made money when hands didn't go to showdown. This actually makes more sense. The reason why I'm losing money is that when hands don't go to showdown, I'm folding much more than I'm making other people fold. Well, until I can figure this out, I'm going to hold back from moving up to $5/10 nl. Plus figuring this out I think will also significantly help out my win rate. Right now over 70k hands, I'm running at about 3.5ptbb/100 in $2/4, and over 25k hands 3ptbb/100 in 3/6nl. I really should have these in the 5-6ptbb/100 range before I decide to tackle $5/10nl.
I'm going to have to put in more work to figure out how I can incorporate this into my style. I think maybe that I should drop down to 4 tables for a little bit to readjust my game.
So just to illustrate this, here is my PokerEV graph. I know I'm running pretty good right now, but what's really disappointing me is the gap in between the red and the green. Until I learn to apply pressure in spots that I can profitably make opponents fold, I don't think I will ever be a "tough" player to play against. I think that the higher I move up, the more observant players will notice this and I think that I'll be very exploitable.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Good good day...
Well, I ran pretty damn hot today. My hands are finally holding up, I'm winning my share of coin flips and I even sucked out twice in big pots. Even though I sucked out in those big pots, I don't think I was playing bad poker, in fact I think I was playing pretty damn well. I started losing focus for a bit in the end and may have spewed a bit, but I was pretty happy overall.
I think I'll post some hands later. There were some pretty interesting situations that I was involved in.
Here's a graph of my day. Feels nice having a 5k day.
I think I'll post some hands later. There were some pretty interesting situations that I was involved in.
Here's a graph of my day. Feels nice having a 5k day.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
October Results, and it's Tha First of Tha Month
Okay, so last month didn't go so well. Well, I guess it could have gone worse, but I'm not happy with the way that I handled myself. After I had that initial downswing, I put in so much time and effort grinding to get myself out of that hole, and I'm very happy I did.
However, I then decided to take a shot at 5/10, didn't set myself a stop loss, and then proceeded to dump a bunch of money on it. I loss about 10k in a little over 36 hours. I think that the only thing I was thinking was the money and I was playing optimal poker. So if I wasn't stupid and didn't play 5/10NL, I would have had a pretty good month. Well, below are my results at Stars and FullTilt for the month. I also made about 3,500 on Cake Poker. So, I'm up about 5k for all of October.
The table above cuts off a lot of my stats for the other limits that I was playing. One thing that I was really proud of was that I actually played $3/6nl pretty well in my first month. I even pulled out of an initial downswing at that limit to get those results. I think one of the problems when I initially move up is that I think that people are bluffing me more, and for some reason, I play less aggressive and become more of a calling station. I'm just obsessed with keeping the pot small with pot control, hence I'm afraid to put in a raise, and I just call. I find that I was doing this at $5/10 as well.
So since the table cuts off with $2/4nl results, I'll just show you my results in a graph.
I'm in a sick breakeven stretch. But over 30k hands, I have made about $807.80 for a winrate of 0.33 ptbb/100. I have a feeling that it's going to turn around pretty soon. I was running about -7k according to PokerEV for the entire month. But other than that, I didn't play too much poker near the end of the month.
I did play some, but I felt mentally exhausted. I mean having two huge downswings in one month really drains it out of you. And I was feeling it at the end of this month. Couple this with the fact that I was cramming for midterm exams and wasn't sleeping that much, I was just beat near the end of the month. So, after my exams, I didn't really play poker for about two days. And I think those two days mentally refreshed me. I got plenty of sleep and I'm ready for November.
If you've ever heard Bone Thugs N' Harmony's "Tha First of Tha Month", I think that's a great song. But I have a feeling that November is going to be a great month for poker and life in general. I'm going to really play well this month, and I'm going to put in a ton of hands at $3/6nl and also I'm not going to tilt, and really implement a stop loss when I play at $5/10nl.
But today on Cake Poker, I decided to sit at a couple $5/10nl HU tables. This at first didn't start so well, I was down about $1,200 pretty quick. But then I buckled down and started digging myself out of the hole. I was also playing a really soft 5/10nl 6max game on the site. And I was pretty confident that I was playing very well. All of a sudden, this huge fish decides to sit against me in a $5/10nl HU table. I think I stacked him pretty fast. He was playing horribly. He asks if I wanted to open another table. I quickly agree. I'm outplaying him on the other table as well, and pretty soon, he wants to open a third table against me. I was extremely happy. Well, after about an hour of play, I was up about $4,500 or so against him. I'm not sure exactly since Cake doesn't allow Poker Tracker, but I think I probably bought about a buyin more worth of chips on the tables. After he quit me on tables, I realized that including the 6max tables and taking into account my initial loss, I was up about $5k in an hour and a half. Now, I need to have more of these types of days. I decided to take a snap shot of me sitting on three HU tables with all of the fishes' money.
What's nice about Cake is that they allow you to change you name about once a week. I might have to change my name pretty soon if this fish doesn't want to play me anymore.
However, I then decided to take a shot at 5/10, didn't set myself a stop loss, and then proceeded to dump a bunch of money on it. I loss about 10k in a little over 36 hours. I think that the only thing I was thinking was the money and I was playing optimal poker. So if I wasn't stupid and didn't play 5/10NL, I would have had a pretty good month. Well, below are my results at Stars and FullTilt for the month. I also made about 3,500 on Cake Poker. So, I'm up about 5k for all of October.
The table above cuts off a lot of my stats for the other limits that I was playing. One thing that I was really proud of was that I actually played $3/6nl pretty well in my first month. I even pulled out of an initial downswing at that limit to get those results. I think one of the problems when I initially move up is that I think that people are bluffing me more, and for some reason, I play less aggressive and become more of a calling station. I'm just obsessed with keeping the pot small with pot control, hence I'm afraid to put in a raise, and I just call. I find that I was doing this at $5/10 as well.
So since the table cuts off with $2/4nl results, I'll just show you my results in a graph.
I'm in a sick breakeven stretch. But over 30k hands, I have made about $807.80 for a winrate of 0.33 ptbb/100. I have a feeling that it's going to turn around pretty soon. I was running about -7k according to PokerEV for the entire month. But other than that, I didn't play too much poker near the end of the month.
I did play some, but I felt mentally exhausted. I mean having two huge downswings in one month really drains it out of you. And I was feeling it at the end of this month. Couple this with the fact that I was cramming for midterm exams and wasn't sleeping that much, I was just beat near the end of the month. So, after my exams, I didn't really play poker for about two days. And I think those two days mentally refreshed me. I got plenty of sleep and I'm ready for November.
If you've ever heard Bone Thugs N' Harmony's "Tha First of Tha Month", I think that's a great song. But I have a feeling that November is going to be a great month for poker and life in general. I'm going to really play well this month, and I'm going to put in a ton of hands at $3/6nl and also I'm not going to tilt, and really implement a stop loss when I play at $5/10nl.
But today on Cake Poker, I decided to sit at a couple $5/10nl HU tables. This at first didn't start so well, I was down about $1,200 pretty quick. But then I buckled down and started digging myself out of the hole. I was also playing a really soft 5/10nl 6max game on the site. And I was pretty confident that I was playing very well. All of a sudden, this huge fish decides to sit against me in a $5/10nl HU table. I think I stacked him pretty fast. He was playing horribly. He asks if I wanted to open another table. I quickly agree. I'm outplaying him on the other table as well, and pretty soon, he wants to open a third table against me. I was extremely happy. Well, after about an hour of play, I was up about $4,500 or so against him. I'm not sure exactly since Cake doesn't allow Poker Tracker, but I think I probably bought about a buyin more worth of chips on the tables. After he quit me on tables, I realized that including the 6max tables and taking into account my initial loss, I was up about $5k in an hour and a half. Now, I need to have more of these types of days. I decided to take a snap shot of me sitting on three HU tables with all of the fishes' money.
What's nice about Cake is that they allow you to change you name about once a week. I might have to change my name pretty soon if this fish doesn't want to play me anymore.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
A Hand I'm Particularly Proud Of
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1639525
This may be spew, or not, but I felt awesome after pulling it off. Just to tell you how the hand went down, I never reraise somebody UTG with 88. I might do this with air from time to time, but not with hand like 88. Now that's spew, but somehow in my multitabling frenzy, I misclick, and bet pot PF. Now, after I did that and BB min 3 bet, I had to put him on a huge PP. AK never does this, so initially I put him on AA,KK, and maybe half his QQs. He wasn't the strongest of players, and he was laying me such a sick sick price, that I called to set mine. I knew that I could stack him on the right flop. However, once an A flops, and he bet so small into the pot, I immediately think that he has KK. I discount AA partially because an A in on the flop, but also because against him, I didn't think that he would be the type of player that would put a blocking bet out. I think he would either check it, looking to c/rai or just bet it. So I called, because I really think this bet is a scared bet. He has to view my range as heavily weighted towards AK, so if he showed weakness again on the turn, I decided that I would rep AK and take it away from him. After I bet the turn, he instafolded.
This is a play that I never do. There are so many non-standard things that lead up to my sick fancy play. First of all, my 3bet, then his min 4bet, then his weak blocker cbet. Somehow, I had this amazing read for just this one play. Immediately after that, I wish that I didn't have auto-muck on so that I could show the guy this sick bluff, but I couldn't. Instead, I'm blogging about it.
This may be spew, or not, but I felt awesome after pulling it off. Just to tell you how the hand went down, I never reraise somebody UTG with 88. I might do this with air from time to time, but not with hand like 88. Now that's spew, but somehow in my multitabling frenzy, I misclick, and bet pot PF. Now, after I did that and BB min 3 bet, I had to put him on a huge PP. AK never does this, so initially I put him on AA,KK, and maybe half his QQs. He wasn't the strongest of players, and he was laying me such a sick sick price, that I called to set mine. I knew that I could stack him on the right flop. However, once an A flops, and he bet so small into the pot, I immediately think that he has KK. I discount AA partially because an A in on the flop, but also because against him, I didn't think that he would be the type of player that would put a blocking bet out. I think he would either check it, looking to c/rai or just bet it. So I called, because I really think this bet is a scared bet. He has to view my range as heavily weighted towards AK, so if he showed weakness again on the turn, I decided that I would rep AK and take it away from him. After I bet the turn, he instafolded.
This is a play that I never do. There are so many non-standard things that lead up to my sick fancy play. First of all, my 3bet, then his min 4bet, then his weak blocker cbet. Somehow, I had this amazing read for just this one play. Immediately after that, I wish that I didn't have auto-muck on so that I could show the guy this sick bluff, but I couldn't. Instead, I'm blogging about it.
I'm a 5/10 Fish.
Recently I've been keeping a fish list. I've been finding awful players, and I've been sitting on there tables hoping that they'll spew money to me. Well on Thursday night, there was this fish on 3/6nl that decided to chase his losses in 5/10, and since I was sorta on a semi-heater before this, I decided to go up as well. I closed up a lot of my other tables, and decided to just 3-4 table 5/10nl. I promised myself that if I got outplayed or started losing a lot of money, I'd have a 3 buyin stop loss, and stop playing. Below are some of my hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638798
Here is one of the pots, I knew that he was bluffing here. This guy was so donkishly aggro that my hand was hovering over the call button to snap call. Here I'm a 85/15 favorite.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638804
Here I cold called in the small blind because the sb is a super donk who had been 3 betting and 4 betting in 80% of pots. So I knew he was going to squeeze.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638826
A cooler.
Well I knew that I was going to quit, but I rationalized that it was all bad luck, and that I was still +EV on my tables since there were so much fish. Well, I then lost some more money to this 45/35 fish that was the one 3/4 betting every other pot. Just to set this up, let me show you a couple of his hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638841
He puts it in with 200bb with QJo. This was after everybody knew that he was just a complete donk.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638853
I don't even know what to say.
Here are some of my hands against him.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638874
I'm folding TT never. Too bad I lose a coin flip.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638880
This hand, I'm sort of on the fence. Here after he raised my cbet, I was unsure about either CC or just going with the hand. If I reraised, I was comitting myself to the pot, and I had to decide whether or not I was going with the hand. If I cold called, I could potentially get him to bluff again on the turn, however, if an overcard came I would be in a really hard spot, because he could have some hand like K7, Q7, K2, or any hands that he's reraising here with air could have overcards in his range. I already decided that he didn't have any PP higher than mine because 100% of the time, he would have repopped me preflop. So I decided to try and take it down there, or hope he gets it all in with a pair of 77s, there are also a lot of straight draws that are in his range. One problem perhaps is that there is no flush draw possible, so he's semi-bluffing a lot less here. But he was a super donk, so at the time I was more than happy getting it in.
Even after all this, I still decided to stay on the table. I rationalized to myself that eventually things will turn around. I should realize that when I think like this, I'm obviously not playing my A game. I then get into a lot of sick pots where people turn two pair on me on the turn or the river, or I call with trips with a weak kicker while the other person has the higher kicker or has the boat. Though, I think that in a lot of these pots, I should have been able to find a fold. They were against regulars, and I know that they weren't bluffing. But I resorted to thinking, "ehhh, I have trips, I'm not sure what you have, I call." This is just horrible, horrible play on my part, especially at 5/10nl.
I then try a lot of stupid bluffs and people call me down pretty light. I didn't take into account me image at the table. I should have remembered something that Green Plastic always preaches. He says that when you're losing a lot of money on the table, you should be willing to try even less moves because you don't get as much respect on the table and people expect you to be bluffing. Which is 100% true. Here are a couple bluffs that I tried, that may have worked in other situations, but obviously not then.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638984
Here, the more I think about it, the more I dislike his call. I don't know though. He may have thought that since he induced the bluff, he has to call, but I don't know. I called the flop bet with the intention of bluffing later. So after he checks the turn, I discounted any ace from his range, because I've been playing it like a draw, because he should protect his hand, and should try to extract value from any K. So I bet trying to push him off any PP like QQ, JJ, and so on. But he calls, and then the flush hits on the river. After he checks again, I decided that since I did play it like a flush draw, I might as well represent the flush. So I bet again. Obviously he calls.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1639010
Here I don't know. Does this really look like a bluff? I'm not sure about this. I guess because he check/calls all THREE streets, he's probably going to call more than not. This may have been a stupid bluff to pull. I just felt that he was weak, and that's why I bluffed, especially on the river. Now that I think about it, the river was probably a bad spot to try and pull a bluff. I've heard a couple people say that you shouldn't really be pulling bluffs when you're timing down because people give you less credit. I never really believed that, because people may be multi-tabling, but perhaps this was one of those times where he calls because I had to think a long time about this. I guess it makes sense now. I need to keep this in mind.
But since I lost 10 buyins in 5/10nl, I've been putting in an insane amount of hands to try and make up for my spew. I have made back $5,000 and at least I'm up for the month again. But this was probably the worst time for me to have a spew off downswing. Whenever I go on a massive downswing, I just can't think of anything else, but pulling myself out of my swing. I feel so bad and stupid that I'm consumed with the feeling of grinding to pull myself out of my swing. I've played for about 34 hours including my downswing on Thursday. I was going to study and go out with my buddies this weekend, but accomplished none of that because of my stupid shot. I have an exam on Tuesday that is going to be very very hard. Hopefully I don't fail my class because of my retardedness. But below is my stats for my poker sessions and my EV graph for all pots that went to showdown.
At my worst, I was running about $10,000 under expectation. Right now, I'm still about $6,500 under expectation. Although I felt pretty gross after my $5/10 debacle, I really feel that I've learnt a bunch in that brief foray. Since I was only 2-4 tabling, and I haven't done this in a while, I was picking up on a lot of things. I've felt that my game has really improved and I feel a lot better about my hand reading abilities. Because of this, I'm much much more comfortable now in $3/6 as well. I feel quite confident about my $3/6nl game and I'm actually looking forward to taking another shot at $5/10nl. Hopefully this time, though, I won't tilt, and I will have better results. Lets face it, I am results orientated.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638798
Here is one of the pots, I knew that he was bluffing here. This guy was so donkishly aggro that my hand was hovering over the call button to snap call. Here I'm a 85/15 favorite.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638804
Here I cold called in the small blind because the sb is a super donk who had been 3 betting and 4 betting in 80% of pots. So I knew he was going to squeeze.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638826
A cooler.
Well I knew that I was going to quit, but I rationalized that it was all bad luck, and that I was still +EV on my tables since there were so much fish. Well, I then lost some more money to this 45/35 fish that was the one 3/4 betting every other pot. Just to set this up, let me show you a couple of his hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638841
He puts it in with 200bb with QJo. This was after everybody knew that he was just a complete donk.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638853
I don't even know what to say.
Here are some of my hands against him.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638874
I'm folding TT never. Too bad I lose a coin flip.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638880
This hand, I'm sort of on the fence. Here after he raised my cbet, I was unsure about either CC or just going with the hand. If I reraised, I was comitting myself to the pot, and I had to decide whether or not I was going with the hand. If I cold called, I could potentially get him to bluff again on the turn, however, if an overcard came I would be in a really hard spot, because he could have some hand like K7, Q7, K2, or any hands that he's reraising here with air could have overcards in his range. I already decided that he didn't have any PP higher than mine because 100% of the time, he would have repopped me preflop. So I decided to try and take it down there, or hope he gets it all in with a pair of 77s, there are also a lot of straight draws that are in his range. One problem perhaps is that there is no flush draw possible, so he's semi-bluffing a lot less here. But he was a super donk, so at the time I was more than happy getting it in.
Even after all this, I still decided to stay on the table. I rationalized to myself that eventually things will turn around. I should realize that when I think like this, I'm obviously not playing my A game. I then get into a lot of sick pots where people turn two pair on me on the turn or the river, or I call with trips with a weak kicker while the other person has the higher kicker or has the boat. Though, I think that in a lot of these pots, I should have been able to find a fold. They were against regulars, and I know that they weren't bluffing. But I resorted to thinking, "ehhh, I have trips, I'm not sure what you have, I call." This is just horrible, horrible play on my part, especially at 5/10nl.
I then try a lot of stupid bluffs and people call me down pretty light. I didn't take into account me image at the table. I should have remembered something that Green Plastic always preaches. He says that when you're losing a lot of money on the table, you should be willing to try even less moves because you don't get as much respect on the table and people expect you to be bluffing. Which is 100% true. Here are a couple bluffs that I tried, that may have worked in other situations, but obviously not then.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638984
Here, the more I think about it, the more I dislike his call. I don't know though. He may have thought that since he induced the bluff, he has to call, but I don't know. I called the flop bet with the intention of bluffing later. So after he checks the turn, I discounted any ace from his range, because I've been playing it like a draw, because he should protect his hand, and should try to extract value from any K. So I bet trying to push him off any PP like QQ, JJ, and so on. But he calls, and then the flush hits on the river. After he checks again, I decided that since I did play it like a flush draw, I might as well represent the flush. So I bet again. Obviously he calls.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1639010
Here I don't know. Does this really look like a bluff? I'm not sure about this. I guess because he check/calls all THREE streets, he's probably going to call more than not. This may have been a stupid bluff to pull. I just felt that he was weak, and that's why I bluffed, especially on the river. Now that I think about it, the river was probably a bad spot to try and pull a bluff. I've heard a couple people say that you shouldn't really be pulling bluffs when you're timing down because people give you less credit. I never really believed that, because people may be multi-tabling, but perhaps this was one of those times where he calls because I had to think a long time about this. I guess it makes sense now. I need to keep this in mind.
But since I lost 10 buyins in 5/10nl, I've been putting in an insane amount of hands to try and make up for my spew. I have made back $5,000 and at least I'm up for the month again. But this was probably the worst time for me to have a spew off downswing. Whenever I go on a massive downswing, I just can't think of anything else, but pulling myself out of my swing. I feel so bad and stupid that I'm consumed with the feeling of grinding to pull myself out of my swing. I've played for about 34 hours including my downswing on Thursday. I was going to study and go out with my buddies this weekend, but accomplished none of that because of my stupid shot. I have an exam on Tuesday that is going to be very very hard. Hopefully I don't fail my class because of my retardedness. But below is my stats for my poker sessions and my EV graph for all pots that went to showdown.
At my worst, I was running about $10,000 under expectation. Right now, I'm still about $6,500 under expectation. Although I felt pretty gross after my $5/10 debacle, I really feel that I've learnt a bunch in that brief foray. Since I was only 2-4 tabling, and I haven't done this in a while, I was picking up on a lot of things. I've felt that my game has really improved and I feel a lot better about my hand reading abilities. Because of this, I'm much much more comfortable now in $3/6 as well. I feel quite confident about my $3/6nl game and I'm actually looking forward to taking another shot at $5/10nl. Hopefully this time, though, I won't tilt, and I will have better results. Lets face it, I am results orientated.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
A Certified Degenerate
That's right. I'm officially a degenerate. On Sunday I was on AIM with Whitewash when he introduced me to a couple other Cardrunners members that he knows. We're all thinking of getting a house next summer during the WSOP, and it's going to be sick. Anybody who wants to come down and chill with a house full of poker players is more than welcome to crash at the house. It's going to be nuts. I'm actually really excited about it.
I learned that one of the house mates will be a high volume Full Tilt reg that I've played with a bunch. This guy, Jballer, puts in a sick number of hands in a month. I think he says he puts in about 80k hands a month. After talking a little bit, somehow Whitewash, Jballer and I end up doing flips. We first start off on the 1/2 table. I instantly lose $200. After that, Whitewash is done. So Jballer asks if I want to do $1k flips. Now that's way too much for me, but I agree to doing $500 flips. Long story short, I win the first flip, he wins the next two, and I'm down $500. I decide that I'm done after that, and I'm down $700 after my first flipping session. Now, I used read about other poker players doing flips, and I've always thought of them as degens. Face it, it is pretty stupid to just flip for money. But now, even I have done some flips. The scary thing about it, is that I didn't even really care that I lost the $700. The swings that I have experienced in the past month have desensitized me from the effects of losing or even winning that amount of money. Now I know that I'll never be a person that will get a rush from doing flips, but I can see myself getting sucked into a session of drunken flips next summer in Vegas. Hopefully I won't have a -$10k flip session and then go on life tilt.
Other than that, I've been playing a bunch of poker this week, and my results have been pretty good. I'm really excited for myself. So, on Cake Poker, I finally moved up to $5/10nl. There were a bunch of weak fishies playing HU $5/10 and 6max, and I felt like sitting in with them. I'm up about $3.5k there. I could have been up more, but I lost about $2.5k to this one really aggro fish playing HU. We were playing some pretty deepstack poker and near the end I lost a
4k pot against him where he 3 outered me. After that, I probably lost about $200 to tilt, and then decided to quit because I knew that I wasn't playing my best and that I wasn't willing to stomach the variance of playing against the guy, even though I knew that I had an edge against him.
Here are my results on FT and Stars. I've been playing a lot more HU, and I'm beginning to enjoy it a lot. I think that I've significantly improved this week. I only had one session where I felt that I was totally outclassed. But this one guy was extremely aggro, and was constantly 3 betting me. I just couldn't figure out how to handle his aggression. I quit him after I was down about 2 buy ins to him. I thin the problem was, that I had never played a person who was so unbelievably aggro. I was a little overwhelmed when I was playing him in the session. However, now that I've had a chance to reflect, I'm confident that I can handle that type of player and not get run over. Other than that I sat on a $1/2 nlhu table while I was playing my $2/4 hu just to get more action and I ended up being up about 7 buyins. It was pretty sick. I stacked three different guys, and The final guy ended up stacking off to me 4 times. Granted I was running pretty hot, but these guys were getting there money in so bad. They were pretty awful. But I had a lot of fun.
Over the past two weeks, I've also been playing a lot of PLO. I want to get a lot better in this game. Below are my results for those hands. Granted, I'm not playing a lot of hands right, but I'm confident that I'll be able to really learn this game. I really haven't been playing the $1/2PLO because I'm pretty sure I can beat this game. I'm trying to improve as fast as possible, which is why I'm logging in a lot of hands at the $2/4 level. I'm also trying to improve my PLO HU game. I really think that there are a lot of weak spots in PLO, which is why I'm trying to improve fast, so that I can quickly start making a lot of money. But I'm taking this pretty seriously. I'm only playing 2-3 tables at a time of PLO so that I can get the nuances of this game. Since the NLHE games are kinda tough at times, I'd really like to be able to jump into a PLO game and be able to make just as much money. If I get good at this game, I think that a realistic long term win rate will be around 8ptbb/100. And it should be higher in HU, especially if I only sit with Omaha fishies.
Looking at my stats, I think one of my main problems is that I'm playing too tight. I need to open up my game. I think that I should be running about 28/22 or so. I'm going to go watch some PLO videos now and take some notes.
I decided to post a graph of my Omaha sessions. It's pretty sick how swingy it is. My total on the graph is also lower than my total in the table because I saved the image after the table, and I lost a bit of money in the omaha games.
I learned that one of the house mates will be a high volume Full Tilt reg that I've played with a bunch. This guy, Jballer, puts in a sick number of hands in a month. I think he says he puts in about 80k hands a month. After talking a little bit, somehow Whitewash, Jballer and I end up doing flips. We first start off on the 1/2 table. I instantly lose $200. After that, Whitewash is done. So Jballer asks if I want to do $1k flips. Now that's way too much for me, but I agree to doing $500 flips. Long story short, I win the first flip, he wins the next two, and I'm down $500. I decide that I'm done after that, and I'm down $700 after my first flipping session. Now, I used read about other poker players doing flips, and I've always thought of them as degens. Face it, it is pretty stupid to just flip for money. But now, even I have done some flips. The scary thing about it, is that I didn't even really care that I lost the $700. The swings that I have experienced in the past month have desensitized me from the effects of losing or even winning that amount of money. Now I know that I'll never be a person that will get a rush from doing flips, but I can see myself getting sucked into a session of drunken flips next summer in Vegas. Hopefully I won't have a -$10k flip session and then go on life tilt.
Other than that, I've been playing a bunch of poker this week, and my results have been pretty good. I'm really excited for myself. So, on Cake Poker, I finally moved up to $5/10nl. There were a bunch of weak fishies playing HU $5/10 and 6max, and I felt like sitting in with them. I'm up about $3.5k there. I could have been up more, but I lost about $2.5k to this one really aggro fish playing HU. We were playing some pretty deepstack poker and near the end I lost a
4k pot against him where he 3 outered me. After that, I probably lost about $200 to tilt, and then decided to quit because I knew that I wasn't playing my best and that I wasn't willing to stomach the variance of playing against the guy, even though I knew that I had an edge against him.
Here are my results on FT and Stars. I've been playing a lot more HU, and I'm beginning to enjoy it a lot. I think that I've significantly improved this week. I only had one session where I felt that I was totally outclassed. But this one guy was extremely aggro, and was constantly 3 betting me. I just couldn't figure out how to handle his aggression. I quit him after I was down about 2 buy ins to him. I thin the problem was, that I had never played a person who was so unbelievably aggro. I was a little overwhelmed when I was playing him in the session. However, now that I've had a chance to reflect, I'm confident that I can handle that type of player and not get run over. Other than that I sat on a $1/2 nlhu table while I was playing my $2/4 hu just to get more action and I ended up being up about 7 buyins. It was pretty sick. I stacked three different guys, and The final guy ended up stacking off to me 4 times. Granted I was running pretty hot, but these guys were getting there money in so bad. They were pretty awful. But I had a lot of fun.
Over the past two weeks, I've also been playing a lot of PLO. I want to get a lot better in this game. Below are my results for those hands. Granted, I'm not playing a lot of hands right, but I'm confident that I'll be able to really learn this game. I really haven't been playing the $1/2PLO because I'm pretty sure I can beat this game. I'm trying to improve as fast as possible, which is why I'm logging in a lot of hands at the $2/4 level. I'm also trying to improve my PLO HU game. I really think that there are a lot of weak spots in PLO, which is why I'm trying to improve fast, so that I can quickly start making a lot of money. But I'm taking this pretty seriously. I'm only playing 2-3 tables at a time of PLO so that I can get the nuances of this game. Since the NLHE games are kinda tough at times, I'd really like to be able to jump into a PLO game and be able to make just as much money. If I get good at this game, I think that a realistic long term win rate will be around 8ptbb/100. And it should be higher in HU, especially if I only sit with Omaha fishies.
Looking at my stats, I think one of my main problems is that I'm playing too tight. I need to open up my game. I think that I should be running about 28/22 or so. I'm going to go watch some PLO videos now and take some notes.
I decided to post a graph of my Omaha sessions. It's pretty sick how swingy it is. My total on the graph is also lower than my total in the table because I saved the image after the table, and I lost a bit of money in the omaha games.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Good few days
Well, I've been grinding quite a bit the past two days, and my results are finally turning around. I dug myself out of my hole, and I'm finally up for the month. The 2/4 games and the 3/6 games have been really juicy this weekend, and I did pretty well. The table is my results for the past two days.
Here is a graph of my entire October so far.
I was going to publish some hands, but I'm too tired right now. I'll do it another day.
Here is a graph of my entire October so far.
I was going to publish some hands, but I'm too tired right now. I'll do it another day.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Digging myself out of a hole
Since I've been in this horrific downswing for all of this month, I've been thinking a lot about my game and how I play a lot of my hands and I've noticed that I have quite a few leaks. This is especially true for when I moved up to 3/6nl and the regulars know what I'm doing, i.e. 3 betting light and raising to isolate the fish.
I've also realized that using my old very tag aggro style I was losing a lot of value and only getting called by hands that have me beat. For example, lets say that I have AK in position in a reraised pot and the flop is Kxx. Using my old style, if my opponent leads into me, I would almost always raise him up there. Although it may be possible that an opponent would stack off light with perhaps QQ or JJ in this spot, it becomes increasingly rare the higher you go up in stakes, which is probably why in the beginning of the month I had a rough time in 3/6nl. Now, I've been just calling the flop lead much much more often. Then I would either bet the turn, or perhaps check the turn and value bet the river. This line, gets looked up much more often by hands like QQ, or JJ thinking that they are good on the river. Whereas, my old style, I was often only getting action from hands that had my hand crushed, like a set.
To balance my play, I've also been floating people a lot more in position. Playing against all the regulars in 3/6nl, I have started to realized just how strong position really is. This is especially true when you know people can fold hands and won't stack off light. Before I was 3 betting a lot OOP, and just getting into awkward spots, because I knew people were playing back at me light, but there wasn't much I could really do playing a bunch of reraised pots OOP. Instead, I've been countering this by really tightening up my 3bet range OOP, however, I've opened up my 3 bet range in position, so that I can play bigger pots in position. These are two things of a bunch of things that I've been working on and thinking about.
I played a ton today, and I'm glad to say that I've finally gotten positive results for this month. I think that all the thought that I've put into my game was one of the large reasons why I had such a monster session today. It felt great, especially because I've been consistently losing for most of the month. I think that this may be the most I've ever made in one day for cash games. So, here are my results for today.
Although, I'm sure that I caught a lot of hands today, I don't think that I ran exceedingly well. I checked my hands on PokerEV, and I'm actually running $300 below expectation. I know that's not much at all, but it's nice to know that I'm not sucking out. I've also lost $600 on AA today. But below is a graph of my month so far. You can see that I went on a pretty bad down swing. Although I may have run bad during that stretch, I think that I played even worse. During that downswing, I was only thinking about the 20k month I had last month, and I basically thought I was the shit. I was making too many moves and I thought that I could outplay everybody post flop. It also didn't help that I just moved up to $3/6nl, and I was basically spewing money. Well, it took close to losing $8k for me to reevaluate what I was doing. It was a learning experience, and I've definitely gotten much better from it. I'll also remember this the next time I get a monster month, and continue to remind myself to play good solid poker.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1574641
This is an example of something that I didn't do as much before, but I'm doing more now. Now, after I bet the flop, I decided to check the turn behind because at first I thought BEWdragon was on a flush draw. I wanted to give him a chance to bluff it and build the pot. Now, if he was on a flush draw, my turn bet would probably push him out of the pot, however, checking in this pot allows him to bluff it, or from his point of view, semi-bluff it with the flush draw. Now, I checked the river because I again wanted him to bluff at it. From his point of view, it looks like I have a one pair type hand like KQ, KJ, K10, perhaps even a pocket pair like QQ, JJ, TT. Now, if he has nothing, I think that an aggressive player would very likely bet this river. There is almost no way that I have a flush, because what flush would check this river, after checking the turn. It would be quite hard for a one pair type hand to call any sizeable river bet. Even an 8 would bet this river. So any hand that would call me if I bet would also bet the river, so I'm not losing any value there, IMO. However, if I bet, almost no hands would raise me on that river for "value". But at the same time, if I check raise him all in, after he bets, he is getting such a great price on the all in call, that he has to call with almost anything that he bets the river with. Before, I would most probably just bet the river because I would be afraid that it would get check through. Now, I'm more interested in maximizing value.
I've also realized that using my old very tag aggro style I was losing a lot of value and only getting called by hands that have me beat. For example, lets say that I have AK in position in a reraised pot and the flop is Kxx. Using my old style, if my opponent leads into me, I would almost always raise him up there. Although it may be possible that an opponent would stack off light with perhaps QQ or JJ in this spot, it becomes increasingly rare the higher you go up in stakes, which is probably why in the beginning of the month I had a rough time in 3/6nl. Now, I've been just calling the flop lead much much more often. Then I would either bet the turn, or perhaps check the turn and value bet the river. This line, gets looked up much more often by hands like QQ, or JJ thinking that they are good on the river. Whereas, my old style, I was often only getting action from hands that had my hand crushed, like a set.
To balance my play, I've also been floating people a lot more in position. Playing against all the regulars in 3/6nl, I have started to realized just how strong position really is. This is especially true when you know people can fold hands and won't stack off light. Before I was 3 betting a lot OOP, and just getting into awkward spots, because I knew people were playing back at me light, but there wasn't much I could really do playing a bunch of reraised pots OOP. Instead, I've been countering this by really tightening up my 3bet range OOP, however, I've opened up my 3 bet range in position, so that I can play bigger pots in position. These are two things of a bunch of things that I've been working on and thinking about.
I played a ton today, and I'm glad to say that I've finally gotten positive results for this month. I think that all the thought that I've put into my game was one of the large reasons why I had such a monster session today. It felt great, especially because I've been consistently losing for most of the month. I think that this may be the most I've ever made in one day for cash games. So, here are my results for today.
Although, I'm sure that I caught a lot of hands today, I don't think that I ran exceedingly well. I checked my hands on PokerEV, and I'm actually running $300 below expectation. I know that's not much at all, but it's nice to know that I'm not sucking out. I've also lost $600 on AA today. But below is a graph of my month so far. You can see that I went on a pretty bad down swing. Although I may have run bad during that stretch, I think that I played even worse. During that downswing, I was only thinking about the 20k month I had last month, and I basically thought I was the shit. I was making too many moves and I thought that I could outplay everybody post flop. It also didn't help that I just moved up to $3/6nl, and I was basically spewing money. Well, it took close to losing $8k for me to reevaluate what I was doing. It was a learning experience, and I've definitely gotten much better from it. I'll also remember this the next time I get a monster month, and continue to remind myself to play good solid poker.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1574641
This is an example of something that I didn't do as much before, but I'm doing more now. Now, after I bet the flop, I decided to check the turn behind because at first I thought BEWdragon was on a flush draw. I wanted to give him a chance to bluff it and build the pot. Now, if he was on a flush draw, my turn bet would probably push him out of the pot, however, checking in this pot allows him to bluff it, or from his point of view, semi-bluff it with the flush draw. Now, I checked the river because I again wanted him to bluff at it. From his point of view, it looks like I have a one pair type hand like KQ, KJ, K10, perhaps even a pocket pair like QQ, JJ, TT. Now, if he has nothing, I think that an aggressive player would very likely bet this river. There is almost no way that I have a flush, because what flush would check this river, after checking the turn. It would be quite hard for a one pair type hand to call any sizeable river bet. Even an 8 would bet this river. So any hand that would call me if I bet would also bet the river, so I'm not losing any value there, IMO. However, if I bet, almost no hands would raise me on that river for "value". But at the same time, if I check raise him all in, after he bets, he is getting such a great price on the all in call, that he has to call with almost anything that he bets the river with. Before, I would most probably just bet the river because I would be afraid that it would get check through. Now, I'm more interested in maximizing value.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
I just got absolutely cold decked
So, I just lost 5.5 buyins on Cake poker at 2/4nl. Granted, I was absolutely exhausted, and probably didn't play optimally, but there were soooo many soft spots, I felt that at any point I could have gone on an absolute rush.
I won a bunch of huge pots, however, there was this absolute donk that was on my left on 2/5 of the tables that I was playing, and he was on my right in 2 of them, but he got the deck slapped in his face. I wish I could figure out how to post hand histories from Cake Poker, but I can't quite seem to figure it out. So I'll try to summarize what happened.
So, near the beginning of my play, I noticed that there were a bunch of the same people on a lot of my tables. And I noticed that this one guy, just kept on raising and 3betting me. So on one of the tables where he was immediately on my right, he raised the button, and I see that I have AKo in the sb. So, I 3bet him, and then he 4 bets me. We were about 120bbs deep, and I thought about it for a while, and I had a good feeling that I was good, and I didn't want to play AK against him OOP because this guy is the biggest calling station in the world. So I shove. He almost instacalls with AJo. And sucks out on me to take the first pot.
Since PAHud doesn't work on Cake Poker, I was basically readless. Since I then knew that he was an absolute donkey, I target him on all my tables. This was probably a mistake. Because I just constantly tried to isolate him, and I think he picked up on this, because he kept on floating my double and triple barrels, and vice versa. So I manage to stack him once, and then he gets hit in the face with the deck. I probably wasn't playing well, and should have gotten away from a lot of these spots, but I don't know.
One memorable hand was where I was deepstacked for 200bbs, and so was he. I had AK and I 3 bet him from the button, after he raised in the CO. He opts to just call. So the board came KKx. There's about $120 in the pot, and effective stacks were about $750. He checks, and I cbet 3/4 pot, and he instacalls. A meaning less card like a 7 or something falls, he instantly checks the turn. Here, I take a weird line because I want him to think I'm weak and shove over me or something. But I bet half the pot, and then he just instacalls again. I was just like WTF. So at the river the pot was about $500 or so, and I think we still have about $600-$700 in our stacks. I'm not quite sure, but he checks and I bet about 2/3 of the pot hoping to get looked up by any pair, but he then shoves on me. I don't know if I had to call, but I did, hoping to see AA or KQ or something, but he filled up on the river with a full house holding pocket 66s. And I ship him the pot.
Well, the next couple hours proceed by me, shipping off my stack to him when he as AA, and I have QQ. He has KK, I have JJ. And then, I had one retarded call when I was on tilt with 77, after he shoved on me after I 4bet him with about 150bb. I called, looking to gamble with him, and half expecting to see AK or AQ there, but actually hoping to see him table some like A3s or something. But obv he has AA. But there I actually suck out on him by catching a miracle gutshot straight on the river, when there was a 3card spade flush on the board with him holding the As. But I sucked out, and somehow thought that I was going to finally start stacking him. But then he stacks me on another table with A10 against my AQ, all in pf. And then almost instantly after that I have QQ and we get it all in on another table pf, and he has AK and hits a K on the flop.
I quit almost instantly after that, and decided that today just wasn't my day. But because of this I just had to put some more money on the Cake Poker account, and I'm going to really put in a bunch of time there. I think that it's a money making machine. Plus I also get rakeback there. But other than that, I think I'm going to take this Thursday and Friday off from poker just to get my mind right, and make sure to stop some leaks. There were plenty of times today that I just spewed money, and I knew I was spewing money, but felt like gambling. That's just retarded. I haven't done that in a long while. So, I don't know if I'm just tired, or what, but I going to take a mini break, and rededicate myself to grinding this weekend. We have a long weekend, and get Monday and Tuesday off, and I'm actually looking forward to a weekend of poker. I am very confident that I'm going to make back a lot of the money that I lost on this downswing. I'll give an update sometime over the weekend.
I won a bunch of huge pots, however, there was this absolute donk that was on my left on 2/5 of the tables that I was playing, and he was on my right in 2 of them, but he got the deck slapped in his face. I wish I could figure out how to post hand histories from Cake Poker, but I can't quite seem to figure it out. So I'll try to summarize what happened.
So, near the beginning of my play, I noticed that there were a bunch of the same people on a lot of my tables. And I noticed that this one guy, just kept on raising and 3betting me. So on one of the tables where he was immediately on my right, he raised the button, and I see that I have AKo in the sb. So, I 3bet him, and then he 4 bets me. We were about 120bbs deep, and I thought about it for a while, and I had a good feeling that I was good, and I didn't want to play AK against him OOP because this guy is the biggest calling station in the world. So I shove. He almost instacalls with AJo. And sucks out on me to take the first pot.
Since PAHud doesn't work on Cake Poker, I was basically readless. Since I then knew that he was an absolute donkey, I target him on all my tables. This was probably a mistake. Because I just constantly tried to isolate him, and I think he picked up on this, because he kept on floating my double and triple barrels, and vice versa. So I manage to stack him once, and then he gets hit in the face with the deck. I probably wasn't playing well, and should have gotten away from a lot of these spots, but I don't know.
One memorable hand was where I was deepstacked for 200bbs, and so was he. I had AK and I 3 bet him from the button, after he raised in the CO. He opts to just call. So the board came KKx. There's about $120 in the pot, and effective stacks were about $750. He checks, and I cbet 3/4 pot, and he instacalls. A meaning less card like a 7 or something falls, he instantly checks the turn. Here, I take a weird line because I want him to think I'm weak and shove over me or something. But I bet half the pot, and then he just instacalls again. I was just like WTF. So at the river the pot was about $500 or so, and I think we still have about $600-$700 in our stacks. I'm not quite sure, but he checks and I bet about 2/3 of the pot hoping to get looked up by any pair, but he then shoves on me. I don't know if I had to call, but I did, hoping to see AA or KQ or something, but he filled up on the river with a full house holding pocket 66s. And I ship him the pot.
Well, the next couple hours proceed by me, shipping off my stack to him when he as AA, and I have QQ. He has KK, I have JJ. And then, I had one retarded call when I was on tilt with 77, after he shoved on me after I 4bet him with about 150bb. I called, looking to gamble with him, and half expecting to see AK or AQ there, but actually hoping to see him table some like A3s or something. But obv he has AA. But there I actually suck out on him by catching a miracle gutshot straight on the river, when there was a 3card spade flush on the board with him holding the As. But I sucked out, and somehow thought that I was going to finally start stacking him. But then he stacks me on another table with A10 against my AQ, all in pf. And then almost instantly after that I have QQ and we get it all in on another table pf, and he has AK and hits a K on the flop.
I quit almost instantly after that, and decided that today just wasn't my day. But because of this I just had to put some more money on the Cake Poker account, and I'm going to really put in a bunch of time there. I think that it's a money making machine. Plus I also get rakeback there. But other than that, I think I'm going to take this Thursday and Friday off from poker just to get my mind right, and make sure to stop some leaks. There were plenty of times today that I just spewed money, and I knew I was spewing money, but felt like gambling. That's just retarded. I haven't done that in a long while. So, I don't know if I'm just tired, or what, but I going to take a mini break, and rededicate myself to grinding this weekend. We have a long weekend, and get Monday and Tuesday off, and I'm actually looking forward to a weekend of poker. I am very confident that I'm going to make back a lot of the money that I lost on this downswing. I'll give an update sometime over the weekend.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
MonkeyTILT!!!
Well, instead of doing work through the night, I decided to fire up a couple tables of 3/6nl. First off, I just want to take back the fact that I think I'll be able to shot at 5/10nl in November. Unless I just get absolutely disgusting, 3/6nl is a lot lot tougher than 2/4nl. There's definitely a noticeable difference because the good regulars are really thinking players, and you can tell that they're adapting their play to how they think you are playing.
But just a quick update because I have to do work, but I lost about 9 buyins at $3/6nl. First off, I didn't realize that I can't take advantage of the regulars like I normally do. I definitely felt that there were spots where I could make a guy fold with just pure aggression in 2/4nl, that I tried to do in 3/6 and they were just calling me down light. Also, I played on Full Tilt after 3am in the morning, so there were only 5 tables of 3/6nl going on. So, it leads me to think that there were a bunch of 5/10 regulars playing at those stakes too.
I don't think for the most part I played toooo badly. But I got into a bunch of rough spots where the villains line didn't make too much sense, and I kept on paying off his value raise on the river. I think that this is a HUGE HUGE leak for me. I always think that they're bluff raising me off my hand, and I maybe catch off one bluff for every 6 that I payoff. Plus 95% of the raise bluffs that I've picked off have been from Donkeys, and not the regulars.
But a comeon scenario would occur, when I would fire a cbet with my top pair and they would float my cbet with bottom pair. On the turn, they catch a flush draw along with their bottom pair, and they float my turn bet that I actually bet for value. On the turn, though I also paired up my other card for two pair on the turn. So I fire another value bet on the river. However, unknown, to me, they actually triple up wtih bottom pair and they actually raise me. And I pay it off.
Strangely though, after that horrible session, I don't feel all that down. I used to feel really depressed and pissed off whenever I had a huge downswing, but I don't feel all that bad now. It could be partially because I'm getting use to these huge moneyswings, but I also that the fact tha tI have such a healthy bankroll helps a lot. I don't have the nervous anxious feeling that there's a chance that I could go broke, since I still have close to 80 buyins for 3/6.
I'll post a bunch of hands later, from my session., but right now I have to get back to doing actual work.
But just a quick update because I have to do work, but I lost about 9 buyins at $3/6nl. First off, I didn't realize that I can't take advantage of the regulars like I normally do. I definitely felt that there were spots where I could make a guy fold with just pure aggression in 2/4nl, that I tried to do in 3/6 and they were just calling me down light. Also, I played on Full Tilt after 3am in the morning, so there were only 5 tables of 3/6nl going on. So, it leads me to think that there were a bunch of 5/10 regulars playing at those stakes too.
I don't think for the most part I played toooo badly. But I got into a bunch of rough spots where the villains line didn't make too much sense, and I kept on paying off his value raise on the river. I think that this is a HUGE HUGE leak for me. I always think that they're bluff raising me off my hand, and I maybe catch off one bluff for every 6 that I payoff. Plus 95% of the raise bluffs that I've picked off have been from Donkeys, and not the regulars.
But a comeon scenario would occur, when I would fire a cbet with my top pair and they would float my cbet with bottom pair. On the turn, they catch a flush draw along with their bottom pair, and they float my turn bet that I actually bet for value. On the turn, though I also paired up my other card for two pair on the turn. So I fire another value bet on the river. However, unknown, to me, they actually triple up wtih bottom pair and they actually raise me. And I pay it off.
Strangely though, after that horrible session, I don't feel all that down. I used to feel really depressed and pissed off whenever I had a huge downswing, but I don't feel all that bad now. It could be partially because I'm getting use to these huge moneyswings, but I also that the fact tha tI have such a healthy bankroll helps a lot. I don't have the nervous anxious feeling that there's a chance that I could go broke, since I still have close to 80 buyins for 3/6.
I'll post a bunch of hands later, from my session., but right now I have to get back to doing actual work.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Had a Great September
So, here are my September results. The chart below is for all my play online other than Cake poker. For some reason PokerTracker doesn't support Cake Poker, so there's no way for me to track my play there. I've made 4k on cash games on Cake Poker and have just over 2k in tournament profits this month. This 20k+ month is absolutely huge for me.
Right now, I'm a little unsure about what my goals for poker should be for the next month. Obviously I want to move up, but since I've never had a month as huge as this one, I'm not quite sure how much my results is a factor of me running good, or of my playing a lot better.
Right now, I think my plan is to withdraw part of my online bankroll. I think I'll withdraw about 4k. So that brings my online bankroll to about 38k or so. With that, I think I'm going to start playing 50% on 3/6nl and 2/4. My experience is that $3/6 players aren't that much different than $2/4 players, so I'm quite confident that I can continue 6-8 tabling with some $3/6 games and not be that much worse. Since I'll be playing between the two limits, I'll game select a lot to find the most profitable and softest games.
My ultimate goal next month is to make over 12k. If I can do that, whilst maintaing over a 4ptbb/100 winrate, my online bankroll will be 50k so that I can take a shot at 5/10nl in November. This shot at 5/10nl is going to be a very big step. I know that to succeed at 5/10nl, I'm going to have to put in a lot of work and effort. Once I take this step, I'm going to drop back down to 2-3 tables to really put in a lot of effort and concentration into all my play. Lets hope that this move up isn't accompanied by a downswing.
Goals for October:
- Play 50-50 on $3/6 and $2/4.
- Make over 12k+ so that I have enough in my bankroll to attempt to move up to $5/10nl in November.
On a different note, it's funny how I've become such a bankroll nit. I remember before when I would try to move up with 20 buyins in my bankroll. But I've realized that whenever I move up with only 20 buyins, it's really hard to play optimal poker. One misstep and that's 5% of your bankroll gone. Plus if you do happen to stack somebody and then play against another deepstack with 200bbs, losing that pot absolutely hurts because it's 10% of your bankroll. Plus with the state of online poker's aggressiveness these days, it's absolutely possible to have 5 buyin swings in one session.
Well, lets hope that I don't go on super monkey tilt in the next two months and that I continue playing the best poker of my life.
Right now, I'm a little unsure about what my goals for poker should be for the next month. Obviously I want to move up, but since I've never had a month as huge as this one, I'm not quite sure how much my results is a factor of me running good, or of my playing a lot better.
Right now, I think my plan is to withdraw part of my online bankroll. I think I'll withdraw about 4k. So that brings my online bankroll to about 38k or so. With that, I think I'm going to start playing 50% on 3/6nl and 2/4. My experience is that $3/6 players aren't that much different than $2/4 players, so I'm quite confident that I can continue 6-8 tabling with some $3/6 games and not be that much worse. Since I'll be playing between the two limits, I'll game select a lot to find the most profitable and softest games.
My ultimate goal next month is to make over 12k. If I can do that, whilst maintaing over a 4ptbb/100 winrate, my online bankroll will be 50k so that I can take a shot at 5/10nl in November. This shot at 5/10nl is going to be a very big step. I know that to succeed at 5/10nl, I'm going to have to put in a lot of work and effort. Once I take this step, I'm going to drop back down to 2-3 tables to really put in a lot of effort and concentration into all my play. Lets hope that this move up isn't accompanied by a downswing.
Goals for October:
- Play 50-50 on $3/6 and $2/4.
- Make over 12k+ so that I have enough in my bankroll to attempt to move up to $5/10nl in November.
On a different note, it's funny how I've become such a bankroll nit. I remember before when I would try to move up with 20 buyins in my bankroll. But I've realized that whenever I move up with only 20 buyins, it's really hard to play optimal poker. One misstep and that's 5% of your bankroll gone. Plus if you do happen to stack somebody and then play against another deepstack with 200bbs, losing that pot absolutely hurts because it's 10% of your bankroll. Plus with the state of online poker's aggressiveness these days, it's absolutely possible to have 5 buyin swings in one session.
Well, lets hope that I don't go on super monkey tilt in the next two months and that I continue playing the best poker of my life.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Finally Unstuck
Well, after my blowup earlier today, I took a break and then decided to do some serious grinding. Well, I also took a look at the 3/6nl games on Stars and saw a bunch of weak spots. Since I've been playing pretty well, minus the blow up playing heads up, I decided to sit in on a bunch of 3/6 games.
Glad to say that my first serious shot in 3/6 turned out pretty well. Below are my stats for today and a nice graph showing how I dug myself out of a big hole.
Glad to say that my first serious shot in 3/6 turned out pretty well. Below are my stats for today and a nice graph showing how I dug myself out of a big hole.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Was having a good day.... then BLOWUP
I started off today doing really well. I decided that I was going to play a lot of heads up poker. I was up about $800 before I started playing against this donk. He was absolutely awful. I then get sucked out on against him, and I start creating bigger pots in an attempt to gain back my money, and he sucks out again, when he cracks my AA. I then start playing even more pots and attempt to bluff him out of even more pots, and obviously this donk is not going to fold. So I start playing real shitty and all of a sudden, I donk off 5 buyins against him.
So, right now, I'm down $1600 for the day, and it's quite disappointing because he was absolutely awful. I really should have quit him after donking off three buyins because I knew myself that I was tilted. I put in my last two stacks on draws knowing that I was gambling with him. It was really stupid of me.
I'm going to take a little bit of a break and see if I can dig myself out of this hole later tonight. On a good note though, this is my first negative day for the past week, I think. So, I have to be happy with myself.
So, right now, I'm down $1600 for the day, and it's quite disappointing because he was absolutely awful. I really should have quit him after donking off three buyins because I knew myself that I was tilted. I put in my last two stacks on draws knowing that I was gambling with him. It was really stupid of me.
I'm going to take a little bit of a break and see if I can dig myself out of this hole later tonight. On a good note though, this is my first negative day for the past week, I think. So, I have to be happy with myself.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Omaha Hi/Lo natural?
Okay, so Jackal69 put up an Omaha Hi/Lo video today, and I was bored and decided to watch it. Well, after the video, I didn't feel like doing work yet, so I procrastinated, and decided to jump into a couple Omaha Hi/Lo games. Well I since I've never played any limit games of any sort, I have no idea what each limit corresponds to, in difficulty of the game. I started off in a $2/4 game and a $3/6 game. And boy were these games soft. People were absolutely horrible. So, after i started getting a feel for the game, I opened up a $5/10, and then a $10/20. I won quite a bit for somebody who has played Omaha Hi/Lo under 10 times in my entire poker career. I was probably running extremely good. I have no idea what running good in Omaha Hi/Lo is, but I'm just assuming that I was because I made quite a bit of money in relation to BB/100. My other theory is that I'm just a naturally gifted Omaha Hi/Lo player, and I've been wasting my time on NL HE. I should jump into the $50/$100 games to see how I fare.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Poker Thought/Theory Post
While I'm on a poker streak, I decided that I'm going to write a bit about what I think I need to be doing in order to really step up my game for the next level. I'm getting pretty good at hand reading now, and I'm getting a much better feel of how people's perception of me changes, and I've been getting a lot better in realizing which opponents will stack off against me light with say TPGK, and which opponents only reraise me with at least two pairs or sets.
My next step though, which I have to admit that I'm very bad at right now, is figuring out my equity against my opponents CALLING range. I actually read a 2+2 questionnaire by SBrugby, and he talks about how he got immensely better when he figured this out.
So when me and my opponents tangle and he reraises me in a pot, I think about what he has. I think about what he thinks I have, and whether or not I think I can bluff him out of the pot. However, I need to start figuring out his range such that I can accurately put him on a range of hands, and not only figure out what my equity is against his range at that moment, but also what my equity is against his range if he CALLS a push from me. This is the reason why people semi-bluff very aggressively. It's the same reasoning as the case above, except for the fact that you don't really need to put your opponent on a range of hands. Against any range if you push a flush draw, because you can fold your opponent out a lot of the time, against your equity against his calling range is great. This is why fold equity is so great. Well, now I need to start doing this but not only with flush draws, but with over cards and even gutshots I think.
There are certain opponents where I know even though I have the worse hand, if I push, it's going to make it so hard for him to call. So with the fold equity, even if he does call, you're in great shape. One scenario that I've been thinking about, is lets say you're a little about 120bb deep against an opponent. And you're in the cutoff. You raise with AK or AQ, and you get three betted by a good aggressive player, you decide to call. Lets say the flop comes 492r. He fires a bet here. My play right now, in a 3bet pot most of the time is to usually flat call, to float hime, and maybe he's on an AQ type hand, or just fold it. But, I think I really need to start looking into shoving in this spot.
Lets just look at how much money is in the pot first of all. In a standard game 6max game, I will raise about 3.5bb, and the three bet is usually about, 12-13 bb. So with my call, the pot is about 26-28bb. The flop is 482r. He bets about 18-20bb as his continuation bet. So there's now about 44bb in the pot. Now lets look at this scenario from my opponents viewpoint if I shove over his cbet. I have a stack of about 110bb. So there's 150bbs in the pot, and he needs just under 90bbs to make this call. Now, he's getting over 2:1 to make this call, and he needs to be good over 60% of the times or so for this to be a good call.
Well, a large part of his range may be AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ type hands. So we have those hands crushed. And he's certainly almost never going to call a shove with those hands unless I have a maniacal image. Now lets look at all his PP hands under KK, and assuming he doesn't hit a set, which is most of the time. Against this range, I'm under a 3:1 dog. And most of the time he won't be able to make this call with 66,77,88, 55. And then a call with 10 10 and JJ if also quite hard to make here. So in Pokertracker, I gave him a calling range of TT+,88,66,44,22,T9s,87s. This is quite reasonable here I think I even put in a couple weak one pair type hands to take into account instances where he'll stack off light. Against this range I have 22% equity. Given that I have an AK, makes it less likely that he has some of those hands, like KK, and AA. But it's still included in the calculation. I think pokerstove includes all the Aces and Kings in their calculation of that equity. Regardless, lets say that he 3bets a cut off raiser with about 11% of his range. Pokerstove gives this to be 77+,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,ATo+,KQo, which actually seems quite reasonable. You take out a couple q10 hands and K10s hands, and put in more 98s type hands, and I'd a typical loose aggressive good regular probably does 3bet a cut off raiser with a lot of those hands. Well given that the hands that he calls a shove with represents about 4.8% of his range, and that he 3bets about 12% of his range, we will fold him out roughly 60%. So for arguments sake, lets make this more conservative. Lets say he folds about half the times. And he calls about half the time. Lets calculate our equity. Equity = .5(46bb)+.5*(-110*.78+90*.22) = .5 (46bb)+ .5(-66) = -10bb. So with 120bbs stack, and where we fold out our opponents only 50% of the time, this is a losing play.
Now lets look at it when we have 100bbs. Notice that our main pot still stays the same. Just that now, we're risking less chips to win the chips in the middle.
Equite = .4(46bb) + .6*(-87*.78 + 67*.22) =.5(46bb) + .5(-53.12) = -3.5. So at 100bb, this play seems to be almost break even. Given that we balance this play with AA, KK, QQ, JJ and hands like that, I think in reality one might fold out more than 50% of his hands. If we used our analysis where he folded out 60% of his hands, this play actually becomes a slight +EV move at 100bbs, given our assumptions. Plus people might give me much much more action with my other big hands.
In real life though people play a lot more different. I'm going to have to think about this more and specifically what type of players I can target with this. Obviously it's going to have to be a regular, and one who repops enough from the blinds. He's also got to be the guy that cbets quite liberally. This cbet actually traps a lot of money in the pot. I never realized that. Our losing numbers is also quite off because pokerstove includes AA and KK for the calculation.
Though there actually might be a lot of merit to somebody who you know 3bets semitight from the blinds. A person who 3bets about 5% of his hands, has a range of about 88+, AJs+, AQo+, I think. Pokerstove put our included KQs, but not AQo for some reason. Lets change up the flop a little bit. Lets say it's Q28o. Then, his calling range actually significantly tightens. He can't really call with most of his pocket pairs, and even with a tight calling range of JJ+,AQs+,AKo,KQo we still have 27% equity. This quite confusing to me actually. I guess it's counting a lot of AKo and JJ type hands. But against that range, this is only 2.9% of hands. So, if a person is 3betting about 8% of his hands, then he's folding over 64% of his hands. I think I'm actually going to have to put a lot more thought into this. But against certain opponents, I can begin to see how this starts to get quite profitable.
Plus, here, I'm only talking about one instance of where we look at our equity against our perceived calling range.
I don't know who reads this, but good luck at the tables.
My next step though, which I have to admit that I'm very bad at right now, is figuring out my equity against my opponents CALLING range. I actually read a 2+2 questionnaire by SBrugby, and he talks about how he got immensely better when he figured this out.
So when me and my opponents tangle and he reraises me in a pot, I think about what he has. I think about what he thinks I have, and whether or not I think I can bluff him out of the pot. However, I need to start figuring out his range such that I can accurately put him on a range of hands, and not only figure out what my equity is against his range at that moment, but also what my equity is against his range if he CALLS a push from me. This is the reason why people semi-bluff very aggressively. It's the same reasoning as the case above, except for the fact that you don't really need to put your opponent on a range of hands. Against any range if you push a flush draw, because you can fold your opponent out a lot of the time, against your equity against his calling range is great. This is why fold equity is so great. Well, now I need to start doing this but not only with flush draws, but with over cards and even gutshots I think.
There are certain opponents where I know even though I have the worse hand, if I push, it's going to make it so hard for him to call. So with the fold equity, even if he does call, you're in great shape. One scenario that I've been thinking about, is lets say you're a little about 120bb deep against an opponent. And you're in the cutoff. You raise with AK or AQ, and you get three betted by a good aggressive player, you decide to call. Lets say the flop comes 492r. He fires a bet here. My play right now, in a 3bet pot most of the time is to usually flat call, to float hime, and maybe he's on an AQ type hand, or just fold it. But, I think I really need to start looking into shoving in this spot.
Lets just look at how much money is in the pot first of all. In a standard game 6max game, I will raise about 3.5bb, and the three bet is usually about, 12-13 bb. So with my call, the pot is about 26-28bb. The flop is 482r. He bets about 18-20bb as his continuation bet. So there's now about 44bb in the pot. Now lets look at this scenario from my opponents viewpoint if I shove over his cbet. I have a stack of about 110bb. So there's 150bbs in the pot, and he needs just under 90bbs to make this call. Now, he's getting over 2:1 to make this call, and he needs to be good over 60% of the times or so for this to be a good call.
Well, a large part of his range may be AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ type hands. So we have those hands crushed. And he's certainly almost never going to call a shove with those hands unless I have a maniacal image. Now lets look at all his PP hands under KK, and assuming he doesn't hit a set, which is most of the time. Against this range, I'm under a 3:1 dog. And most of the time he won't be able to make this call with 66,77,88, 55. And then a call with 10 10 and JJ if also quite hard to make here. So in Pokertracker, I gave him a calling range of TT+,88,66,44,22,T9s,87s. This is quite reasonable here I think I even put in a couple weak one pair type hands to take into account instances where he'll stack off light. Against this range I have 22% equity. Given that I have an AK, makes it less likely that he has some of those hands, like KK, and AA. But it's still included in the calculation. I think pokerstove includes all the Aces and Kings in their calculation of that equity. Regardless, lets say that he 3bets a cut off raiser with about 11% of his range. Pokerstove gives this to be 77+,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,ATo+,KQo, which actually seems quite reasonable. You take out a couple q10 hands and K10s hands, and put in more 98s type hands, and I'd a typical loose aggressive good regular probably does 3bet a cut off raiser with a lot of those hands. Well given that the hands that he calls a shove with represents about 4.8% of his range, and that he 3bets about 12% of his range, we will fold him out roughly 60%. So for arguments sake, lets make this more conservative. Lets say he folds about half the times. And he calls about half the time. Lets calculate our equity. Equity = .5(46bb)+.5*(-110*.78+90*.22) = .5 (46bb)+ .5(-66) = -10bb. So with 120bbs stack, and where we fold out our opponents only 50% of the time, this is a losing play.
Now lets look at it when we have 100bbs. Notice that our main pot still stays the same. Just that now, we're risking less chips to win the chips in the middle.
Equite = .4(46bb) + .6*(-87*.78 + 67*.22) =.5(46bb) + .5(-53.12) = -3.5. So at 100bb, this play seems to be almost break even. Given that we balance this play with AA, KK, QQ, JJ and hands like that, I think in reality one might fold out more than 50% of his hands. If we used our analysis where he folded out 60% of his hands, this play actually becomes a slight +EV move at 100bbs, given our assumptions. Plus people might give me much much more action with my other big hands.
In real life though people play a lot more different. I'm going to have to think about this more and specifically what type of players I can target with this. Obviously it's going to have to be a regular, and one who repops enough from the blinds. He's also got to be the guy that cbets quite liberally. This cbet actually traps a lot of money in the pot. I never realized that. Our losing numbers is also quite off because pokerstove includes AA and KK for the calculation.
Though there actually might be a lot of merit to somebody who you know 3bets semitight from the blinds. A person who 3bets about 5% of his hands, has a range of about 88+, AJs+, AQo+, I think. Pokerstove put our included KQs, but not AQo for some reason. Lets change up the flop a little bit. Lets say it's Q28o. Then, his calling range actually significantly tightens. He can't really call with most of his pocket pairs, and even with a tight calling range of JJ+,AQs+,AKo,KQo we still have 27% equity. This quite confusing to me actually. I guess it's counting a lot of AKo and JJ type hands. But against that range, this is only 2.9% of hands. So, if a person is 3betting about 8% of his hands, then he's folding over 64% of his hands. I think I'm actually going to have to put a lot more thought into this. But against certain opponents, I can begin to see how this starts to get quite profitable.
Plus, here, I'm only talking about one instance of where we look at our equity against our perceived calling range.
I don't know who reads this, but good luck at the tables.
Hit a mile point
I just hit a mile point in my NL cash game career. I'm up over 10k for the month on cash games alone right now. This is the first time I've ever done that. So I'm up with tourney cashes I'm up about 12k for the month. I'm very glad about that. And I'm also consistently beating 2/4nl. Check out what happened today.
I played about 3000 hands today, and I think I played pretty good. I was playing very aggressive. I all of my hands on Stars, as I'm trying to get points for cashback there. I decided that since I can't get rakeback, I'm going to start playing a lot on stars so that I can take advantage of their points for cash system. I also did this because I recently withdrew basically all of my bankroll from Absolute poker. But there are a ton of reports of people somehow cheating with Absolute's software, where certain players act as if they can see people's hole cards. It's very convincing. Go over to 2+2 to read about it for yourself. So those are the main reasons that I'm moving to Stars. But people on Stars float sooooo much more than players on Full Tilt. Maybe it was just tonight, but it was actually quite profitable for me in certain spots to push a lot of my draws. Fold equity is nice.
So after I finished playing today, I when over my Pokertracker stats and at first was actually ecstatic with my play. I had a great session where I lost money with AA!
Yea, I know I like to brag. Haha. But I actually was extremely proud of the fact that I thought I played well, and made tons of money despite running bad. This was until I looked around at the rest of my stats. Check this out.
I made 5 flushes, which were ALL good on the river, 10 full houses, and the best part, was that I flopped QUADS 3 times! And amazingly I got paid off on pretty much all of these hands. I guess other than the fact that AA didn't hold up for me, I ran extremely well. Here is that AA hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507720
I used to think that I could fold these hands, but I'm actually fine with losing these. I will never fold AA or KK in this spot. Once I there's all this money in the pot, and he shoves, I'm getting such great odds to call against his range. Folding IMO is definitely -EV.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507722
This is a hand that I was not so sure about. I'm still not sure if betting that river value bet is +EV. I wasn't sure if KQ would call a third river bet, and KJ got there, as did JJ if he was calling me down with a PP, and an outside chance of 88. So basically does he call me with a worse pair on this river to make it a +EV river value bet. If it were AA, I would definitely fire all three streets for value, but with AK, I think it's that much thinner. I'm also talking about a good player calling me down three times. Not this guy. He played that hand sooooooo bad. When he table 3 9's there, I was dumb founded. I mean he's losing so much value. He didn't put in a single raise. If you're going to call 96s OOP, you have to at some point bet it or put in a raise.
I played about 3000 hands today, and I think I played pretty good. I was playing very aggressive. I all of my hands on Stars, as I'm trying to get points for cashback there. I decided that since I can't get rakeback, I'm going to start playing a lot on stars so that I can take advantage of their points for cash system. I also did this because I recently withdrew basically all of my bankroll from Absolute poker. But there are a ton of reports of people somehow cheating with Absolute's software, where certain players act as if they can see people's hole cards. It's very convincing. Go over to 2+2 to read about it for yourself. So those are the main reasons that I'm moving to Stars. But people on Stars float sooooo much more than players on Full Tilt. Maybe it was just tonight, but it was actually quite profitable for me in certain spots to push a lot of my draws. Fold equity is nice.So after I finished playing today, I when over my Pokertracker stats and at first was actually ecstatic with my play. I had a great session where I lost money with AA!
Yea, I know I like to brag. Haha. But I actually was extremely proud of the fact that I thought I played well, and made tons of money despite running bad. This was until I looked around at the rest of my stats. Check this out.
I made 5 flushes, which were ALL good on the river, 10 full houses, and the best part, was that I flopped QUADS 3 times! And amazingly I got paid off on pretty much all of these hands. I guess other than the fact that AA didn't hold up for me, I ran extremely well. Here is that AA hand.http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507720
I used to think that I could fold these hands, but I'm actually fine with losing these. I will never fold AA or KK in this spot. Once I there's all this money in the pot, and he shoves, I'm getting such great odds to call against his range. Folding IMO is definitely -EV.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507722
This is a hand that I was not so sure about. I'm still not sure if betting that river value bet is +EV. I wasn't sure if KQ would call a third river bet, and KJ got there, as did JJ if he was calling me down with a PP, and an outside chance of 88. So basically does he call me with a worse pair on this river to make it a +EV river value bet. If it were AA, I would definitely fire all three streets for value, but with AK, I think it's that much thinner. I'm also talking about a good player calling me down three times. Not this guy. He played that hand sooooooo bad. When he table 3 9's there, I was dumb founded. I mean he's losing so much value. He didn't put in a single raise. If you're going to call 96s OOP, you have to at some point bet it or put in a raise.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Graph of September
I've been playing pretty well this September. Including my tourney cash, I think I'm up over 10k for the month. I have to say, that's not bad at all. Below is a graph of my September cash results.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1494759
This hand just boggled my mind. Normally i would have bet out that river, however, I had a feeling that there was a very small chance that the person didn't have an A, and that he would bet the river. Now, I don't get why he bet that river, I guess he was trying to bluff me out. But his call of my river raise, is awful. He's calling $28 more for a split pot at best.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1494769
A cooler in my favor.
I would post more hands, but I have to be off to class.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1494759
This hand just boggled my mind. Normally i would have bet out that river, however, I had a feeling that there was a very small chance that the person didn't have an A, and that he would bet the river. Now, I don't get why he bet that river, I guess he was trying to bluff me out. But his call of my river raise, is awful. He's calling $28 more for a split pot at best.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1494769
A cooler in my favor.
I would post more hands, but I have to be off to class.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Teaching
I'm writing this post because I'm procrastinating my TA duties. I have 100 lab reports that I need to grade, and I have absolutely no desire to do it. Grading sucks. One thing that I've come to realize, though, is that I actually like teaching people things. I actually enjoy my office hours when people come to me with questions and I can help them out with understanding concepts and how to do the homework problems. It's very satisfying because you're actually adding to the knowledge base of the people you teach. Grading on the other hand, to me, doesn't serve much of a purpose. It's an arbitrary measure of somebody telling you how much you know, on an artificially created assignment.
This leads into something that I've been thinking about for a while. I actually want to teach somebody what I know about poker. It will serve two purposes. I will be giving back to the poker community and helping somebody with their game, and it will help me internalize and better practice the concepts that I do know, in much of the same way that TAing has helped me better learn the subject that I TA. I don't know how I'll find a student, but hopefully some of my friends will read this post and realize that they really do want to commit to learning poker, or somehow I'll find a student some other way. Note that I use the term "student" here very loosely. By "student" I mean somebody who wants to be serious about the game of poker and is willing to discuss poker concepts with me.
Okay, now I'm back to grading....
This leads into something that I've been thinking about for a while. I actually want to teach somebody what I know about poker. It will serve two purposes. I will be giving back to the poker community and helping somebody with their game, and it will help me internalize and better practice the concepts that I do know, in much of the same way that TAing has helped me better learn the subject that I TA. I don't know how I'll find a student, but hopefully some of my friends will read this post and realize that they really do want to commit to learning poker, or somehow I'll find a student some other way. Note that I use the term "student" here very loosely. By "student" I mean somebody who wants to be serious about the game of poker and is willing to discuss poker concepts with me.
Okay, now I'm back to grading....
Sunday update
I was watching updates from the WSOP Europe last night and to my surprise a young internet phenom, Anette_15 was on the final table. If you don't know about her, just go to pocketfives.com, and you can read her fanclub there. I have to admit, back in my donkament days, I was part of that fan club. Well when I woke up this morning I decided to stream the final table coverage over the internet, and to nobody's surprise she took down 1st place for 1 million pounds. Just reading about her is pretty sick. She started her roll through online freerolls, and she's been destroying online mtts ever since. And get this, she's only 18! I can't wait till she turns 21 and starts destroying the WSOP here in the States.
Well, I also played two mtts today. After seeing her play, I was pretty determined to play my best in the two that I played. I played in the WCOOP event #5 $530 NLHE 9 handed event, and in the Stars 55k guaranteed 10+ rebuys. I got absolutely no cards in the WCOOP event, and busted in about 1500/5000, and in the rebuy I busted out in 6/1000+ for a payday of $2700. If I made $2700 today playing cash, I would be ecstatic. However, I was pretty pissed that I busted out in 6th because the play on that final table was soooooooooooo awful. If any of those players were on any cash tables I would fleece them. I also think that I messed up once on the final table in a crucial spot. If people were making solid plays, and I got beat, I wouldn't be that pissed. I saw that 15k payout for 1st place and knew that I had a great chance in taking it down. Sigh. On a positive note, I'm finally in the positive for Stars mtts.
Well, I also played two mtts today. After seeing her play, I was pretty determined to play my best in the two that I played. I played in the WCOOP event #5 $530 NLHE 9 handed event, and in the Stars 55k guaranteed 10+ rebuys. I got absolutely no cards in the WCOOP event, and busted in about 1500/5000, and in the rebuy I busted out in 6/1000+ for a payday of $2700. If I made $2700 today playing cash, I would be ecstatic. However, I was pretty pissed that I busted out in 6th because the play on that final table was soooooooooooo awful. If any of those players were on any cash tables I would fleece them. I also think that I messed up once on the final table in a crucial spot. If people were making solid plays, and I got beat, I wouldn't be that pissed. I saw that 15k payout for 1st place and knew that I had a great chance in taking it down. Sigh. On a positive note, I'm finally in the positive for Stars mtts.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
September Update
Just wanted to say that I dug myself out of that hole that I was in. I made back those 20 buyins that I lost, and I'm glad to say that I've been playing some pretty good poker. Yesterday I played a lot of HU and six max, and I must say that I really enjoy HU poker again. I just moved up to playing 2/4nl for HU, and I don't feel intimidated by the competition anymore. I got my money in good a bunch of times, however, I ended up getting drawn out on a bunch.
I just got PokerEV, and it calculates your equity for hands that went to showdown street by street. I've been running pretty far behind expectation. I'm owed about $2100 in equity. Here's the graph of my last week. Hopefully, I'll be going on a sick run pretty soon.
I just got PokerEV, and it calculates your equity for hands that went to showdown street by street. I've been running pretty far behind expectation. I'm owed about $2100 in equity. Here's the graph of my last week. Hopefully, I'll be going on a sick run pretty soon.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Poker's been real frustrating
So earlier on this month I went on an absolute heater. I was killing 2/4nl. However, I'm in the process of moving into my apartment in Virginia, and since I know absolutely nobody here right now, I've been playing a bunch of poker.
Well, things have gotten absolutely awful. I've gone on a 20 buy in downswing. The good thing is that I don't think I've really gone on emotional tilt yet. There was a moment that I remember it creeping up on me, but I curbed that right away. Not to say that I haven't gone on tilt, I don't think that I've been playing optimally, I tried to bluff a little too much. However, I'm glad that I haven't really let emotional tilt, where I just call all types of bets for no reason get to me. I've gotten a couple people go over some of my big pots that I've lost, and I'm glad to say that quite a few of them have been coolers. Needless to say, it has sucked. It also doesn't help that I still don't have any furniture yet, and playing long hours of losing poker on the floor is not fun at all. Here's a graph of my result up till today for the past week.
However, I don't think my head has been in the right place in the past couple hands that I've played. I started playing poker for the big pots, and not the little ones which is more my style. Well today, I got a coach, and he reminded me about general theoretical rules of thumb about poker. And it's definitely put my mind in the right frame work. There were also a couple concepts that I knew, but somehow forgot, about who to value bet, and who not to.
Well today started off like every other day that I've been playing. I got completely destroyed the first couple hands I put in. The difference between today and the other sessions was that I felt like I truly was playing my "A" game today. I didn't see too many spots on the river, where I felt like I missed a value bet. It felt great. And the results, I think, showed up. It feels great battling back after a bunch of crappy sessions. I could be wrong, but I think today is the turning point to my downswing. Below is the graph of today's session.
Tomorrow is my first day of classes, and I'm actually a TA now. It feels kinda weird. I'm TAing for kids a year younger than me, and the profs in my department explained to me that it's not okay for me to socialize with my students because I'm now part of the teaching staff. Strange.
Well, things have gotten absolutely awful. I've gone on a 20 buy in downswing. The good thing is that I don't think I've really gone on emotional tilt yet. There was a moment that I remember it creeping up on me, but I curbed that right away. Not to say that I haven't gone on tilt, I don't think that I've been playing optimally, I tried to bluff a little too much. However, I'm glad that I haven't really let emotional tilt, where I just call all types of bets for no reason get to me. I've gotten a couple people go over some of my big pots that I've lost, and I'm glad to say that quite a few of them have been coolers. Needless to say, it has sucked. It also doesn't help that I still don't have any furniture yet, and playing long hours of losing poker on the floor is not fun at all. Here's a graph of my result up till today for the past week.
However, I don't think my head has been in the right place in the past couple hands that I've played. I started playing poker for the big pots, and not the little ones which is more my style. Well today, I got a coach, and he reminded me about general theoretical rules of thumb about poker. And it's definitely put my mind in the right frame work. There were also a couple concepts that I knew, but somehow forgot, about who to value bet, and who not to.
Well today started off like every other day that I've been playing. I got completely destroyed the first couple hands I put in. The difference between today and the other sessions was that I felt like I truly was playing my "A" game today. I didn't see too many spots on the river, where I felt like I missed a value bet. It felt great. And the results, I think, showed up. It feels great battling back after a bunch of crappy sessions. I could be wrong, but I think today is the turning point to my downswing. Below is the graph of today's session.
Tomorrow is my first day of classes, and I'm actually a TA now. It feels kinda weird. I'm TAing for kids a year younger than me, and the profs in my department explained to me that it's not okay for me to socialize with my students because I'm now part of the teaching staff. Strange.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Back in the States
I just got back a month long vacation back home and I had an absolute blast. For the first time in 8 years, I know kinda sad, some of my friends from America visited me in Indonesia. We did all the touristy things that I hadn't done in more than 8 years and it was a lot of fun. Partially because we were all jet lagged, but mainly due to the fact that we had very full days, we only went out drinking twice on this tripped. I don't think I've had so much sober fun in a while.
Anyways, because of that, I didn't get to play poker that much in the month of July, but I did get some hands in. I think I've turned a corner in my 2/4nl game. The times that I did play, I was very on top of my game, and I'm very proud of it. Below are my stats for the month of July.
It's nice that I'm playing pretty well online, but I did lose quite a bit of money in live games this month. I went to London, UK to get my student visa for next year, and I decided to play in a couple live cash games. I have to say the competition in London was absolutely awful! I've been to casinos in Vegas where I played 2/5nl and the players in London where much much worse. I was playing 1/2pound plhe and 1/3 pound plhe and the players were absolutely atrocious.
There was a huge fish there who was calling 3/4 pot bets on the turn with nothing but a gutshot. And he was doing it constantly too. Well, I was involved in a huge pot with him, and I bet the turn kinda small, like 1/2 pot with basically the stone cold nuts. I wanted to bet enough so that I could shove any river. Well he called, along with another person, and rivered a 1 outer on the river when I shoved into him. That was a 1000 pound pot, and people started berating me that I didn't bet enough on the turn to push him off a draw! Anyways, in total I lost about 1200 pounds in the live cash games, so that amounts to $2400 using todays exchange rate. Oh well.
I don't know how often I'll play in live cash games anymore though. The action is way too slow, and I think that I don't concentrate hard enough. It's hard to concentrate on the action for hours when you only see 25 hands an hour. By the time the blinds come around a couple times, I play on autopilot, and I lose a lot of +ev opportunities. Since people are so passive, I think that I missed a lot of times where I could have 3 betted and taken down pots on moves. I think that, and the fact that I don't have too much experience in 9 handed games anymore makes me a little too cautious, and make me only play my cards. Plus some players are so atrocious I have no idea what their range is.
I'll post some pics on my trip Indonesia later.
Anyways, because of that, I didn't get to play poker that much in the month of July, but I did get some hands in. I think I've turned a corner in my 2/4nl game. The times that I did play, I was very on top of my game, and I'm very proud of it. Below are my stats for the month of July.
It's nice that I'm playing pretty well online, but I did lose quite a bit of money in live games this month. I went to London, UK to get my student visa for next year, and I decided to play in a couple live cash games. I have to say the competition in London was absolutely awful! I've been to casinos in Vegas where I played 2/5nl and the players in London where much much worse. I was playing 1/2pound plhe and 1/3 pound plhe and the players were absolutely atrocious.
There was a huge fish there who was calling 3/4 pot bets on the turn with nothing but a gutshot. And he was doing it constantly too. Well, I was involved in a huge pot with him, and I bet the turn kinda small, like 1/2 pot with basically the stone cold nuts. I wanted to bet enough so that I could shove any river. Well he called, along with another person, and rivered a 1 outer on the river when I shoved into him. That was a 1000 pound pot, and people started berating me that I didn't bet enough on the turn to push him off a draw! Anyways, in total I lost about 1200 pounds in the live cash games, so that amounts to $2400 using todays exchange rate. Oh well.
I don't know how often I'll play in live cash games anymore though. The action is way too slow, and I think that I don't concentrate hard enough. It's hard to concentrate on the action for hours when you only see 25 hands an hour. By the time the blinds come around a couple times, I play on autopilot, and I lose a lot of +ev opportunities. Since people are so passive, I think that I missed a lot of times where I could have 3 betted and taken down pots on moves. I think that, and the fact that I don't have too much experience in 9 handed games anymore makes me a little too cautious, and make me only play my cards. Plus some players are so atrocious I have no idea what their range is.
I'll post some pics on my trip Indonesia later.
Monday, July 2, 2007
My Best Month Yet
I just had the best month in poker yet. I started the month alright, but I think I had some major leaks in my game. I had sort of forgotten how to play solid poker. I had the right reads, but I was fighting for too many pots and making too many bluffs that people would never believe.
And then I went on tilt one day. Almost all my tilt was on a single day. You can see the red in the 2/4nl and the HU tables. I was playing against an overaggro donk, and he kept on sucking out on me in the big pots, and sooner or later, I was down about 1,500 to him.
After that ass whooping, I took a break and reevaluated my game. I went back through all my poker tracker hands to see what I was doing. I have to say, I'm pretty proud of how I recovered. The next step is to not have these blowups in the first place.
The fact that I only started playing poker this month after June 12th is pretty cool, too. Hopefully I'll carry over what I learned this month over to the next couple months and I'll have a monster summer.
I'd also like to mention that I started playing MTTs again, and I've also taken one down this month. MTTs are fun.
Here's a graph of my month. You can see where I start tilting.
Well I'm off to go home to Jakarta, Indonesia now. I don't know how much poker I'll be able to play there. The internet there was so shitty the last time I was there it tilted me to try and play. Hopefully I won't forget how to play again.
And then I went on tilt one day. Almost all my tilt was on a single day. You can see the red in the 2/4nl and the HU tables. I was playing against an overaggro donk, and he kept on sucking out on me in the big pots, and sooner or later, I was down about 1,500 to him.
After that ass whooping, I took a break and reevaluated my game. I went back through all my poker tracker hands to see what I was doing. I have to say, I'm pretty proud of how I recovered. The next step is to not have these blowups in the first place.
The fact that I only started playing poker this month after June 12th is pretty cool, too. Hopefully I'll carry over what I learned this month over to the next couple months and I'll have a monster summer.
I'd also like to mention that I started playing MTTs again, and I've also taken one down this month. MTTs are fun.
Here's a graph of my month. You can see where I start tilting.
Well I'm off to go home to Jakarta, Indonesia now. I don't know how much poker I'll be able to play there. The internet there was so shitty the last time I was there it tilted me to try and play. Hopefully I won't forget how to play again.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Back in the States
For the past month I was gone out of the country. I went to Argentina, and then I went to the NorthEast for my younger sister's graduation, and then I went to Las Vegas a bit for my parents.
I was thinking about going to Vegas to play the WSOP, but I'm really on the fence right now. First of all, I would have to play a ton of single table satellites to get enough tournament money to play an event. I would also have to get a hotel room for the week or so. Plus the chances of me winning, or making any money with these tournament fields at 1000+ players seems very slim. Although I could make money in the Sit 'N Gos, I feel like I would make more money online. I don't know, I might take this summer to build my bankroll, and play in the WSOP next year. I'm still not quite sure yet what I'm going to do.
I really want to get my bankroll to 30k+ before the end of the summer. That might be my goal right now.
I was thinking about going to Vegas to play the WSOP, but I'm really on the fence right now. First of all, I would have to play a ton of single table satellites to get enough tournament money to play an event. I would also have to get a hotel room for the week or so. Plus the chances of me winning, or making any money with these tournament fields at 1000+ players seems very slim. Although I could make money in the Sit 'N Gos, I feel like I would make more money online. I don't know, I might take this summer to build my bankroll, and play in the WSOP next year. I'm still not quite sure yet what I'm going to do.
I really want to get my bankroll to 30k+ before the end of the summer. That might be my goal right now.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Running Hot
Well I haven't updated this blog in a while. I was almost at risk of not graduating this semester, but it seems as if it has worked out alright. But lately, I think that the games on the internet have been extremely soft. I've just been making a ton online recently.
Below are my stats in the recent weeks since I almost went busto in 2/4nl. I'm especially excited about this because of the 1/2 nl heads up results. I've been a lifetime loser, at 1/2 heads up, but I've recently started playing a lot better.
Below are my stats in the recent weeks since I almost went busto in 2/4nl. I'm especially excited about this because of the 1/2 nl heads up results. I've been a lifetime loser, at 1/2 heads up, but I've recently started playing a lot better.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
I was on TV!
Well, not really. I was playing on a couple tables on 2/4nl, when I noticed Yawning Boy and a couple of my tables. I was even playing HU against him on one when everybody left. I soon realized that I've seen the name on CardRunners.com, and it was Andrew Wiggins one of the lead instructors on the site. I know he doesn't really play limits this low, so I thought that it was going to be a video.
At the end of his session he told the table that it was going to be a cardrunners.com video! I'm just glad that he had already finished recording and sat out when I tried to run a bluff on somebody. I wouldn't want to be called an idiot infront of the online poker community. I don't know if my ego can take that.....
So it went up on Wednesday and I watched it right away. The video was pretty good overall. On a more important note, though, the quality of the video was kinda shitty. So it's kinda hard to make out the names. Dammit. I also pretty much stay even the whole time I'm playing with him on two tables. I think I ende)d up about 20-30 dollars in the whole session that was recorded on cardrunners.com. So, he barely mentions me at all in the video. I think I only entered two-three pots against him, and I folded to his cbet, or he folded to mine. I guess I'll have to wait for another day to become an online poker celebrity.
At the end of his session he told the table that it was going to be a cardrunners.com video! I'm just glad that he had already finished recording and sat out when I tried to run a bluff on somebody. I wouldn't want to be called an idiot infront of the online poker community. I don't know if my ego can take that.....
So it went up on Wednesday and I watched it right away. The video was pretty good overall. On a more important note, though, the quality of the video was kinda shitty. So it's kinda hard to make out the names. Dammit. I also pretty much stay even the whole time I'm playing with him on two tables. I think I ende)d up about 20-30 dollars in the whole session that was recorded on cardrunners.com. So, he barely mentions me at all in the video. I think I only entered two-three pots against him, and I folded to his cbet, or he folded to mine. I guess I'll have to wait for another day to become an online poker celebrity.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Almost made a huge huge mistake....
So the other day I finally had access to my entire bankroll online. My Epassporte account was finally approved, so I can know move my bankroll between the different sites I played. With that in mind, I decided to take another shot at 2/4nl on Full Tilt. The first day I played pretty good. I ended up about 3 buyins. I was feeling good about myself. I was only 3/4 tabling, and I was definitely improving. Just paying attention to the different plays that people do and the plays being run on me really improved my game. So, I was feeling good with myself and the next day decided to continue playing 2/4nl.
Well, disaster stuck. I went on a 13 buyin downswing. It was sickening. Here are some hands:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039736
I guess this guy really wanted to gamble. He's dominated by so many hands it's unreal that he does this with 45s. Oh well, set is no good.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039748
I almost puked after this hand. When I saw the turn, I got this feeling that another spade was going to hit, and it did. This happened near the end of my downswing , so I was pretty pissed after this.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039752
AA, no good. I guess the flush really likes to hit when playing against me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039757
Really frustrating when I lose those hands before, and I can't win this.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039762
This is a cooler, I think. I'm not really sure if I can get away from this hand. I don't know. From just the way that he bet I put him on 77 on the flop. Part of me was thinking QQ and AA, but I heavily discounted those just because I held the A and the Q. So I also somewhat discounted the flush draw because I don't think the flush draw would be 3 betting me as often here. This is because I thought they guy to be pretty tight and not stupid. I just don't see him playing the flush like this, he'd probably peeling the flop. I don't know though. I also don't think with the flush draw out there that I can fold. On the other hand can I even fold this flop EVER if the board was rainbow?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039775
I don't think I can get away from this hand. Toughts welcome.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039782
Well, I knew I had the best hand on the flop and turn. However, I asn't sure about this river call. Is his range on the river big enough that my call of his push is +EV long term? I guess this is player dependent, and I shouldn't have called.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039786
I don't think I can ever fold this. It's just sick.
Well, there are also few pots that I tilted and general spew. Well, after this horrible session, I took a break, and somehow reasoned that I was playing really well, and decided not to move down. I was very very close to going broke. However things started to turn around and I started to gain some of the money I lost.
Since I was playing well, I decided to contine to play 2/4nl. Well I started playing a lot better, and my hands finally heald up. I made some money back, and then I took a break for that day. Over the next 2 days, I decided to 8 table 1/2nl. Well, 8 tabling 1/2nl was so much easier after my 2/4nl stint. I completely destroyed 1/2nl 8 tabling. I also destroyed heads up 1/2nl. In two days, I basically erased my huge huge downswing. I'm really pissed that I can't quit after say a 4 buy in downswing in one session. And the fact that I continued to play 2/4nl after a 12-13 buyin down swing really disturbs me. If I had continue to tilt or run bad, I would have completely destroyed my online bankroll. I need to learn to protect my bankroll. I'm completely gratefull that I completely destroyed 1/2nl and got my bankroll to it's previous position. I'll show the graph below.
My pokertracker stats of the run that helped me out of the holeI dug myself.
Well, disaster stuck. I went on a 13 buyin downswing. It was sickening. Here are some hands:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039736
I guess this guy really wanted to gamble. He's dominated by so many hands it's unreal that he does this with 45s. Oh well, set is no good.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039748
I almost puked after this hand. When I saw the turn, I got this feeling that another spade was going to hit, and it did. This happened near the end of my downswing , so I was pretty pissed after this.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039752
AA, no good. I guess the flush really likes to hit when playing against me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039757
Really frustrating when I lose those hands before, and I can't win this.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039762
This is a cooler, I think. I'm not really sure if I can get away from this hand. I don't know. From just the way that he bet I put him on 77 on the flop. Part of me was thinking QQ and AA, but I heavily discounted those just because I held the A and the Q. So I also somewhat discounted the flush draw because I don't think the flush draw would be 3 betting me as often here. This is because I thought they guy to be pretty tight and not stupid. I just don't see him playing the flush like this, he'd probably peeling the flop. I don't know though. I also don't think with the flush draw out there that I can fold. On the other hand can I even fold this flop EVER if the board was rainbow?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039775
I don't think I can get away from this hand. Toughts welcome.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039782
Well, I knew I had the best hand on the flop and turn. However, I asn't sure about this river call. Is his range on the river big enough that my call of his push is +EV long term? I guess this is player dependent, and I shouldn't have called.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1039786
I don't think I can ever fold this. It's just sick.
Well, there are also few pots that I tilted and general spew. Well, after this horrible session, I took a break, and somehow reasoned that I was playing really well, and decided not to move down. I was very very close to going broke. However things started to turn around and I started to gain some of the money I lost.
Since I was playing well, I decided to contine to play 2/4nl. Well I started playing a lot better, and my hands finally heald up. I made some money back, and then I took a break for that day. Over the next 2 days, I decided to 8 table 1/2nl. Well, 8 tabling 1/2nl was so much easier after my 2/4nl stint. I completely destroyed 1/2nl 8 tabling. I also destroyed heads up 1/2nl. In two days, I basically erased my huge huge downswing. I'm really pissed that I can't quit after say a 4 buy in downswing in one session. And the fact that I continued to play 2/4nl after a 12-13 buyin down swing really disturbs me. If I had continue to tilt or run bad, I would have completely destroyed my online bankroll. I need to learn to protect my bankroll. I'm completely gratefull that I completely destroyed 1/2nl and got my bankroll to it's previous position. I'll show the graph below.
My pokertracker stats of the run that helped me out of the holeI dug myself.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Over 100k hands for the year
So I just looked at all my PokerTracker hands and I'm over 100k hands in nlhe for the year. 113k hands to be exact. One statistic, though, really jumped out at me today - the amount of rake that I've spent.
I've given poker sites over 13k in business. That's mind boggling to me. What sucks even more is realizing that I played the majority of my hands (over three quarters) on sites that I don't have rakeback. That is unacceptable. What's crazy is the fact that I paid this much in rake, without even realizing it. Rake is like that scheme that they described about in Office Space, where they had the program which took cents off thousands of transactions. Nobody notices it, but over time it adds up.
What I'm trying to get at is that today, I finally realized the importance of playing your "A" game all the time. If I played the best that I could in every single pot that I was in, saved a bet here, put in an extra value bet there, I would be much much richer. Lets say over 100k hands, I averaged 5 cents more per hand. That's either 5 cents I save or 5 cents more per hand, that's $5k more that's in my pocket. So, lets play good in every single hand.
I've given poker sites over 13k in business. That's mind boggling to me. What sucks even more is realizing that I played the majority of my hands (over three quarters) on sites that I don't have rakeback. That is unacceptable. What's crazy is the fact that I paid this much in rake, without even realizing it. Rake is like that scheme that they described about in Office Space, where they had the program which took cents off thousands of transactions. Nobody notices it, but over time it adds up.
What I'm trying to get at is that today, I finally realized the importance of playing your "A" game all the time. If I played the best that I could in every single pot that I was in, saved a bet here, put in an extra value bet there, I would be much much richer. Lets say over 100k hands, I averaged 5 cents more per hand. That's either 5 cents I save or 5 cents more per hand, that's $5k more that's in my pocket. So, lets play good in every single hand.
A high... ship it
I was playing against this really aggro donk. He had position on me, and for the first half an hour with him on my right, I didn't connect with a single flop, and I couldn't take a single pot from him. On the flop I knew that he didn't hit anything when he didn't bet. Since nothing changed on the turn, I already told myself that I was going to call ANY bet on the river. I was going to call any overbets as well.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1012355
Pretty proud of this call. Who says you can't get reads 8 tabling?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1012355
Pretty proud of this call. Who says you can't get reads 8 tabling?
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Bleh, gotta control tilt
Well, I started off playing pretty well today. I can multi-table really easily know. I'm using FullTiltShortcuts which basically automate my betting for me. So I can 8 table pretty easily now, and right now I'm just trying to grind so that I can move up stakes. So I was playing pretty well up to the last 200-300 hands in the session.
I misclicked in one huge pot and called instead of folding. Maybe it's because I haven't gotten much sleep, but I wasn't thinking right after that. Instead of just folding the later streets on the big hand, I got stubborn, and tried to bluff out my opponents in a three way pot! Then, I sorta went on auto-pilot on the 8 tables and tried to really run everybody over. Well, that didn't work out so well. So within half an hour, I erase basically all of my profit for the day. Oh well, at least I caught myself quit all of my tables before I ended up in the red.
Other than this I think I'm playing a lot better poker. I've changed up my game and I'm a lot happier with the way I'm playing right now. I've also started playing Omaha Hi. I've been dabbling in the .5/1 OmahaPL for the past month or so and over the weekend I moved up to 1/2nl. It seems as if there are a lot of awful players in Omaha that don't know what they're doing. You don't even need to outplay people, you just sit back and wait until somebody overvalues there hand, and you make tons of money. That, or you win money through a lot of coinflips.
I misclicked in one huge pot and called instead of folding. Maybe it's because I haven't gotten much sleep, but I wasn't thinking right after that. Instead of just folding the later streets on the big hand, I got stubborn, and tried to bluff out my opponents in a three way pot! Then, I sorta went on auto-pilot on the 8 tables and tried to really run everybody over. Well, that didn't work out so well. So within half an hour, I erase basically all of my profit for the day. Oh well, at least I caught myself quit all of my tables before I ended up in the red.
Other than this I think I'm playing a lot better poker. I've changed up my game and I'm a lot happier with the way I'm playing right now. I've also started playing Omaha Hi. I've been dabbling in the .5/1 OmahaPL for the past month or so and over the weekend I moved up to 1/2nl. It seems as if there are a lot of awful players in Omaha that don't know what they're doing. You don't even need to outplay people, you just sit back and wait until somebody overvalues there hand, and you make tons of money. That, or you win money through a lot of coinflips.
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