mathare's Poker Diary [Archive] - Win2Win UK Horse Racing Forum. Free Tips. Staking Advice.

mathare

19th January 2009, 23:37

19th January 2009
Only a short session but another profitable one :thumbs I wasn't in the mood for a long session and have started going to bed earlier than I used to so I try to stop doing too much on my PC after 10pm so I played for just over an hour this evening. I had my doubts about playing a short session but it worked out well and felt good. I think the game I was in was good and had I played on I could have won more (which is the same as last night really) and I know what they say about quitting when the game is good and so on but I could tell both last night and tonight that I was going to start flagging soon so I figured it best I stop.

There are a couple of key hands I wanted to pluck out from tonight's session as they show pretty well what I am up against. The table was like last night's - tight and with a lot of pre-flop raising so few players were seeing the flop. But a new player had just joined the table to my right a few hands before the first hand I want to look at.

Myself and our villain (80voglia) have roughly even stacks at around $70 each. I'm in the small blind and get dealt AcAs. A mid-position player raises and the button (our villain) calls. I re-raise, the BB folds and both players call. The pot is $10 (ignoring the rake). The flop is 7c Ks 9s. I bet out with my overpair and to make any flush draws at least pay a little for their draw. All draws have huge odds here but I can't give away free cards. At this point I know the mid-position player is TAG but I don't know much about the button. Could I have check-raised? I considered it but I wasn't sure either hand would bet so I figured I'd bet out, hope for a raise and look to re-raise. The mid-position player folds and the button raises. Aha! I re-raise, he caps it and I call. The pot is now $18

At this stage I am curious as to what he has. He could still be on a draw or overplaying a King I think. I don't think he has trips so I feel I am ahead.

The turn is Qd, a blank in all likelihood. Is he out of line with KQ? Not likely given the pre-flop action. Was he in there with JTs for the flush and straight draw? I don't think he had QQ so unless he has top two I think I am ahead still but I want to try to find out where I stand. A bet will give him 10/1 odds though so he could still draw out on me, and by now I am assuming he's drawing. I bet, get a raise and call the raise to exercise a little pot control. He's not going away and two pair is becoming a possibility as he's aggressive in this pot for sure.

The river is bad - Jh. A Ten and I am smashed all over the place, so the chances of his draws coming in have gone up. The chances of two pair have just increased too. For that reason I check-call his bet and he takes down a $30 pot with Kh7h! He had two pair on the flop after cold-calling a raise pre-flop. With K7s. OK, once I re-raise he has the odds etc but that's lousy play by our villain. I'd like to think I didn't lose that much on that hand; I could certainly have lost more on the turn I reckon but the river froze the action.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. I'd taken a hit that put me back down to $57 so still in profit for the session. But later on I was able to get my money back of the villain.

I'm one off the button and get AhKs, the 3rd or 4th time I had seen AKo this session. UTG calls and our villain raises. AK is a drawing hand but also a top pair hand so I want to limit the field so I fire in a further raise. To my surprise the button cold calls the three-bet. Hello! He's another TAG player but I know for a fact he's multi-tabling so probably playing ABC poker. The blinds fold but UTG calls as does the villain so 4 players go to the flop (pot $13.50).

The flop comes 9c Kd Ad and it's like a dream for me. I know I need to cut out the diamond draws so this is a flop I need to show strength on. I cannot hold back here as there was a lot of pre-flop strength shown round the table. I need to see where my hand stands - are AA or KK out there? I would have expected a cap if they were but we'll see. UTG checks, the villain bets and I raise. The button folds (after cold-calling a 3-bet - mistake while multi-tabling perhaps?) as does the UTG player and I have this heads-up with $17.50 in the pot as our villain calls (of course).

By now I am starting to mark the villain as LAG, very loose in fact. Not quite a maniac but he's well on his way.

The turn comes Qh which stops me in my tracks momentarily. It's another card in the playing zone (for most players) and completes a potential straight but I still have top two. I have pushed AA and KK way down in terms of likely holdings for my opponent. QQ? Nah, I just don't feel he has QQ after the way the hand has played out. AQ is possible but I still beat that. Flush draw? Maybe. Straight draw? Maybe. Straight? Nah! My opponent checks (!) so I bet and get a call. Was that weakness on his part? The pot is $21.50.

The river comes the best card in the deck for me - Kh. That's my full house so let's see what you have sunshine. You don't have AK based on previous play so I'm not splitting this. The King hasn't completed any draws to flushes or straights so I am very sure I am good here. He check-calls my river bet but I figure it's a crying call. He flips over....Ac3c! Yes, Ace-Three suited. I think he check-called the last two streets when his backdoor flush draw was shot and he had no kicker in case he hit another Ace. The pot was too big for him to put it down. That hand was good enough to put me back over $70 - back where I was before he got out of line with K7 and cracked my Aces earlier.

So that's the story of tonight's session. One thing I have noticed when I wrote that analysis up was how much more able I was to think through his potential holdings but at the table I couldn't, at least not consciously. But throughout the session I always felt as though I had a good idea where I stood. It was a sort of sub-conscious reading of players - I can't really put my finger on it. It seems to work though :)

Oh, one last thing - Poker Office replayer is awesome for looking back over hands when doing analysis like the above. I couldn't be without it :)

Stats
Hands: 178
Won Hands: 10.11%
Saw Flop: 9.55%
Won Saw Flop: 70.59%
Showdowns: 5.62%
Showdowns Won: 90.00%
Pre Flop Raise: 6.18%
Won: $52.50
BB/100 hands: 14.75

I didn't expect to maintain that BB/100 hands for a second session but I am under no illusions that it will soon start to drop. I'd be over the moon with anything 5+ and happy with 3+ I reckon. I am so full of confidence at the minute that I reckon at this level that's possible. Let's see shall we...

mathare

20th January 2009, 23:15

20th January 2009
Another fairly short session - an hour and a quarter or so - but I think is going to be quite typical of evenings when I play poker so I don't mind that. With limit poker it's long enough to get into the game, scratch the poker itch and hopefully make a few quid along the way. And so it proved again this evening with a further $21 of profit in the bag, much of it coming from a LAG player who seemed to want to play almost every hand and lost a lot of them!

I did my usual trick of playing only one table but having several open with Poker Office running across them all. I may not want to multi-table quite yet myself but if my opponents are doing so why not record as much data on them as I can? So I had another 4 or 5 tables open as well as the one I was playing on. I feel things are going well and I am back into the swing of it so I may well start playing two tables at once soon enough.

One thing I did notice tonight was I fell back into old habits of 'net surfing at times during the game - that and checking Poker Office stats rather than focusing on the table. I don't think that disadvantaged me particularly tonight but it is a habit I was trying to break. I need to keep my eye on things like that and stop myself from doing it.

Stats
Hands: 266
Won Hands: 9.40%
Saw Flop: 11.65%
Won Saw Flop: 58.06%
Showdowns: 6.39%
Showdowns Won: 88.24%
Pre Flop Raise: 5.64%
Won: $73.55
BB/100 hands: 13.83

I told you that win rate couldn't be maintained didn't I? It's dropped nearly a whole BB/100 hands this session! :laugh

mathare

25th January 2009, 21:21

25th January 2009
I felt like an afternoon at the tables today so that's just what I had and it was a rather mixed bag. I played on just one table for the first hour or so and it was looser than previous tables I had played - not that that bothered me as I am a naturally tight player anyway. But I think it did put me off my game a little as I found myself pushing edges that perhaps were perceived rather than actual. On that table I was down below half the amount I bought in for (I buy in for $50 on these tables) for a while but a couple of decent hands towards the end of the session got me back withing 5 cents of level so I decided to call it a day on that one. My eyes were getting tired as was my brain.

I added a second table to the mix after an hour or so and had a much better time at that one. I dropped around $20 in the first round or so but soon made that, and more, back. I was up over $20 at one stage but eventually cashed out with just inder $12 profit from that table.

The most pleasing thing about today was the amount of table time I got. The sessions weren't that profitable so my hourly rates etc have dropped but I did pick up a lot of experience which is what I was after.

Stats
Hands: 625
Won Hands: 9.92%
Saw Flop: 15.68%
Won Saw Flop: 43.88%
Showdowns: 6.08%
Showdowns Won: 73.68%
Pre Flop Raise: 7.68%
Won: $75.45
BB/100 hands: 6.84

mathare

28th January 2009, 23:30

28th January 2009
It was 'more money than sense' day at the tables today it seems. All I had to do was hold my nerve with some decent hands (and a couple of hands that were no better than just 'not bad') and I could rake in a decent profit for a short session. In an hour and a half I made $33 at the usual $1-$2 limit tables.

The biggest profit of the night came from a hand where I held KK in the big blind. A mid-position player limps along with the button, the SB folds and I raise. Both limpers call so three of us see the flop of 2-A-7 rainbow. I bet out trying to see if there is an Ace out there (I'm up against a tight player about whom I know quite a bit and a loose player about whom I know fairly little but he's obviously loose). The mid-position (tight) limper folds and the loose button calls. The turn is a K so I bet out with trips as the button seems loose enough to call on that board. In fact he raises, I re-raise (with the 4th best possible hand) and he caps it. I obviously call as at this I think he may have two pair but not AA to have me in a set over set situation. The river is a 4. I bet, he raises, I re-raise, he shoves his last $0.25 in and I call. I paused over my re-raise as I was seriously wondering what he had at this point. He turned over A5o. Loose call from the button pre-flop followed by utter craziness. Top pair no kicker played badly really. He reloaded after that hand too and lost his next buy-in pretty quickly too. It was a shame to see him leave.

I also won a decent wedge with QQ on a 4-6-6-3-2 board when my opponent flipped up KQo on the river and another good hand with AQo on a board of J-7-4-8-J facing K5o at the river. He was looking for a flush draw but I had a bigger card of the same suit so had he hit his flush he would have lost more to me than he actually did.

Stats
Hands: 715
Won Hands: 9.37%
Saw Flop: 14.55%
Won Saw Flop: 45.19%
Showdowns: 5.73%
Showdowns Won: 75.61%
Pre Flop Raise: 7.41%
Won: $119.1
BB/100 hands: 8.33

mathare

29th January 2009, 23:44

29th January 2009
Not a great session this evening - my first real setback on my new limit poker journey. I wasn't feeling too great and poker was supposed to be a bit of a pick-me-up, a feelgood if you like. I don't feel any better for it and the loss is a little annoying but it's not catastrophic in the slightest. I got my money in when I was ahead most of the time this evening and got outdrawn in some decent pots is all. There were also a few hands where pot odds basically demanded I play them to showdown even though I knew I was beaten but that's limit poker at times.

In a way I am quite pleased to have booked a losing session as I was beginning to think I was having it all far too much my own way at the tables and I needed to be kept in check a little.

Stats
Hands: 850
Won Hands: 9.18%
Saw Flop: 14.94%
Won Saw Flop: 42.52%
Showdowns: 5.88%
Showdowns Won: 68.00%
Pre Flop Raise: 7.76%
Won: $98.45
BB/100 hands: 5.79

mathare

31st January 2009, 19:34

31st January 2009
A long afternoon at the tables this afternoon. I had two tables on the go and mixed results, recording a loss on one that all but wiped out my profit from the other. But in most cases I got my money in good so it's just that the hands didn't always go my way - nowt I can do about that.

One thing I can do something about though is my tendency to see too many hands through to the showdown when I have missed completely and all I could beat is a worse bluff than mine. I'm exercising pot control by check-calling but I should be folding earlier in the hand when it's obvious I am beaten. I keep using the pot odds as an excuse to keep calling but if I miss the river I don't have a hand (Ace high maybe). Do I think my opponent would be bluffing with less than that often enough to justify the call? It turns out he's not bluffing with complete air as often as I thought he would be and I reckon this probably my biggest leak at present. It could also be a side-effect of not focusing on either game today. My old web surfing habits were back on display and I need to keep that in check.

Here's hoping for better next time I play (tomorrow?)...

Stats
Hands: 1370
Won Hands: 8.91%
Saw Flop: 15.55%
Won Saw Flop: 40.85%
Showdowns: 6.20%
Showdowns Won: 60.00%
Pre Flop Raise: 7.81%
Won: $101.70
BB/100 hands: 3.71

The stats are starting to settle down a little now and the one that concerns me the most right now is the showdowns won (60%). That indicates I am taking too many hands to the showdown, trying to pick off bluffs that just aren't there as I said above. I want this stat to pick back up again as it has dropped off pretty fast today.

mathare

1st February 2009, 22:58

1st February 2009
Another fairly short evening session at one table is all I could manage today but it was profitable, a lot more so than yesterday's efforts across the two tables too. I saw some really poor play tonight too, thankfully not mine. I had learned a bit of a lesson about pot odds and checked Poker Office for some stats about hands I was taking to the showdown after the little observation yesterday and feel as though I improved today. But some of the players I played with were rubbish! I have noticed that I now have half a dozen or so players in my database who have lost $100 or more in around 1000 hands or less playing $1/$2 limit. That's some bad play. Of course I have them all on my buddy list now :)

Tonight I also faced some loosey goosey players. One was borderline maniac, raising it up a lot pre-flop but also getting into raising wars with marginal holdings. Thankfully I was able to observe him do this for a while before I got a big hand so I knew how to get the best out of him. I faced him in a few big pots with big hands and got paid off quite handsomely. My good hands didn't always stand up tonight but that's to be expected. A decent enough session all in all though.

Stats
Hands: 1465
Won Hands: 8.94%
Saw Flop: 15.43%
Won Saw Flop: 42.04%
Showdowns: 6.42%
Showdowns Won: 59.57%
Pre Flop Raise: 7.71%
Won: $126.55
BB/100 hands: 4.32

Note that showdowns won figure is still dropping slowly. I thought I was getting better there. I may need to do some more analysis in Poker Office to see if I can spot any real leaks I can work on to help improve that.

mathare

2nd February 2009, 23:03

2nd February 2009
It turns out that I have been rather harsh on myself when it comes to showdowns won and the hands I have been taking all the way. I had in mind that I was dropping towards the 50% figure, a point below which I am losing more hands at the end than I am winning and thus a place I was keen to avoid. But it turns out that I am winning quite a bit overall with hands I show down. I asked Poker Office to spit out the stats for these hands at the $1/2 level and I although the sample is small (105 hands showndown) I am winning $2.39 per hand. I had been beating myself up over this and yet it doesn't seem like much to worry about.

So what is holding my win rate back? Not that I'm not unhappy with it but I do feel it has the potential to be better. That's a question for another day maybe. I have only around 160 hands per position (at this level) so it's not a great sample there either but the profit by position could be a smoother distribution. I have some positions where I win a lot and some where I win very little. And then there are the blinds but I don't think they're supposed to be profitable really. Something for me to ponder though.

Stats
Hands: 1610
Won Hands: 8.82%
Saw Flop: 15.28%
Won Saw Flop: 42.28%
Showdowns: 6.52%
Showdowns Won: 59.05%
Pre Flop Raise: 7.58%
Won: $120.30
BB/100 hands: 3.74

mathare

3rd February 2009, 23:18

3rd February 2009
Poor session for me tonight and it's kinda hard to say where it really went wrong. It was just one of those days where little went right rather than one specific thing going wrong. It was one of those games I keep finding myself in these days where there are pre-flop raises almost every hand but it's usually only 2 or 3 players on the flop, if there is indeed a flop as quite often the raise will steal the blinds. And the raises are coming from all positions and all sorts of players so it's hard to know where you stand at any one time. And when I get the opportunity to steal I don't have anything like the hand I'd be comfortable stealing with so I have to fold. I'm not seeing flops from the blinds due to the raises and the dross I am being dealt. I have had a few good hands and in most cases I have been beaten in a decent pot by what was the worse hand when the action kicked off. I'm either getting called by poor hands pre-flop when I raise with a decent hand and getting beaten or my half-decent starting hands are turning into poo on the flop and I get beaten there and then.

Limit hold'em is much more about cards than no-limit poker. In NLHE your position is key, then it's stack sizes, aggression, control and cards come along eventually. In limit poker it's all about pot odds so it's much more a game of the cards you and your opponent hold. You can't easily raise someone out of the pot. Tonight my small pairs and suited connector hands have been out as I don't have the pot odds to play them. Same goes for marginal big card holdings (KTo etc). With pre-flop raises and few/no callers there's just not enough in the pot to risk it. And it seems tonight that when I do get a hand that's playable no-one else hits enough to be interested. I just had AQs so raised after a few limpers. Three of us saw the flop which contained an Ace and two of my suit. It went check-check, I bet out and they both folded. Should I have checked too? Who knows.

Tonight has been one of those nights with hand after hand that's 93o, Q4o, K9o in the SB with a mid-position raise and no callers - hands that just aren't playable. 68o in the BB and a mid-position raise. No callers before me so I can't justify playing hands like that. I'm losing more than normal out of the blinds this evening. Often my c-bets are being raised when I have missed the flop. All in all a rather frustrating couple of hours at the tables, but that's poker! A few hands towards the end of the session pulled it out the fire a little but I am still disappointed with my efforts tonight.

Stats
Hands: 1748
Won Hands: 8.81%
Saw Flop: 15.22%
Won Saw Flop: 42.11%
Showdowns: 6.41%
Showdowns Won: 58.04%
Pre Flop Raise: 7.72%
Won: $108.85
BB/100 hands: 3.11

mathare

4th February 2009, 20:19

4th February 2009
I'm hoping to get on the tables later this evening but while I wait for my tea to be cooked I thought I do a quick bit of analysis on my Poker Office stats to see if anything jumps out.

I thought about analysing starting hands but I really don't have enough data for anything meaningful unless I start grouping hands. I can analyse my play by position though. Seats 0 (the button) and 7 seem to be most profitable for me, standing head and shoulders above all others. I can understand the button but seat 7 is over $75 better than the seats around it. In fact I am a slight loser in seat 8 for reasons I have yet to fathom out. It has to be said here and now that I don't have huge amounts of data with under 200 hands per position but even so, why am I losing from late-mid position? I have had hands such as TT and 99 beaten and been forced into folding ATs, KQs and KQo due to excessive raising ahead of me either pre-flop or when I miss the flop entirely but these aren't huge losses so perhaps it's more a question of why I am winning so much in seat 7. I've had AA and KK four times compared to none in seat 8, plus AKs and other suited Aces that have won me cash. I've also had pairs such as TT and 77 hold up along with the marginal face card holdings I have been losing with in seat 8. I think is likely just short term variance though so nothing I plan to do anything about.

If I look at how my stats vary with position I can see I am tightest in early position loosening up as I get later and later. Good. My PFR % is highest on the button, understandably. In early position it's highest UTG and then dips a few percent before climbing to be more consistent through middle and later positions. I don't have enough data for these conclusions to be that meaningful though. With under 200 hands per position and a PFR of under 8% we're talking even fewer hands so I can't concern myself with these figures too much. I am happy enough with the patterns that are kinda present and haven't spotted anything that alarms me.

The only other thing I have spotted from my PO stats is that when I really miss the flop and have either nothing at all or just one overcard I am losing cash. With an overcard I am losing most by leading out, with nothing the losses come from calling. Do I need to tighten up pre-flop? I actually think it's still short term variance shining through as this is based on under 25 hands or so.

So I think it's carry on as you were, build up more data while keeping an eye on your game and see what happens, really.

MattR

4th February 2009, 22:32

Maybe with the small data it's just a case of winning a couple of bigger pots when sitting in position 7?

mathare

4th February 2009, 23:10

Maybe with the small data it's just a cast of winning a couple of bigger pots when sitting in position 7?I'm pretty sure it's exactly that Matt and I have no plans to alter my play from any position based on my analysis so far. I have been getting the hands in some seats and not others but my sample size isn't large enough to be able to smooth these things out

mathare

4th February 2009, 23:31

4th February 2009
Pretty much the same as last night - a nothing night with few decent hands and even fewer that were playable by the time the action got to me. There were few flops too so my merit point earn rate was down tonight too, and I was trying to earn enough points in the next few days to make sure I keep my VIP level for next month as I will be away for the second half of this month and won't have chance to play then. I'll have to do some serious multi-tabling this weekend I think.

Stats
Hands: 1852
Won Hands: 8.91%
Saw Flop: 15.17%
Won Saw Flop: 41.99%
Showdowns: 6.21%
Showdowns Won: 57.39%
Pre Flop Raise: 7.67%
Won: $102.70
BB/100 hands: 2.77

mathare

7th February 2009, 13:47

7th February 2009 (part 1)
As part of my attempt to preserve my current VIP status on Bet365 I need to put the hours in this weekend to get the merit points I need. I need to get them by the end of the month but go on holiday on Thursday which means this weekend is really my last chance to put a serious dent in the total required. With that in mind I put in a short session this morning and racked up about 10% of what I needed at the start of the day. I'll put in more time at the tables, multi-tabling too, this afternoon but this morning was the same sort of fare as the other recent sessions - the table was quite aggressive pre-flop but tight too (or at least not many saw each flop). I also found myself on the wrong side of some situations such as AQ v AK but such is life. I escaped with only a small loss.

Stats
Hands: 1926
Won Hands: 9.09%
Saw Flop: 15.32%
Won Saw Flop: 42.03%
Showdowns: 6.28%
Showdowns Won: 57.02%
Pre Flop Raise: 7.68%
Won: $100.82
BB/100 hands: 2.62

mathare

7th February 2009, 19:29

7th January 2009 (part 2)
It looks like a forced end to the afternoon session as the Bet365 poker server seemed to go down about 20 minutes ago while I was in the middle of playing two tables and hasn't managed to come back to life since then.

As seems to be the norm when I play two tables I had one decent winner and a loser all but wiping out the profit from the winning table. If my stats are correct (I can't check them as the poker server is down) I made a slight profit. I dialled up the aggression this afternoon and loosened up a little too, figuring that too often my raises weren't being called and so I wasn't really making much profit on my good hands. If I could be seen to be giving a bit more action then maybe I would get more action. It seemed to work with some big pots being played out (I took down a $39.50 pot when my 99 connected with another 9 on the flop and my opponents had AA and KK, for example) but I also found myself losing some bigger pots when I get outdrawn or faced opponents playing dirge but connecting with rubbish flops.

One thing I did notice about my play though was I was giving up on quite a few pots on the turn. I had the odds to play pre-flop and take a card after the flop but then I had no chance of winning the hand so would just give it up. That seemed to happen to me a lot this afternoon. I need to analyse my play and look for the leaks and weaknesses I know are there (my win rate is dropping quite steadily so there must be issues with my game) but before I can do that meaningfully I am trying to log a decent number of hands. I am trying to be objective about my play though and trying to reduce poor decisions as I play. It's very much work in progress though.

Stats
Hands: 2226
Won Hands: 9.75%
Saw Flop: 16.40%
Won Saw Flop: 42.19%
Showdowns: 6.74%
Showdowns Won: 56.00%
Pre Flop Raise: 8.22%
Won: $105.72
BB/100 hands: 2.37

I said near the start of this poker escapade I'd be happy with a BB/100 hands of 3 or better. Was that too optimistic? It's certainly dropped off a long way and slips with each passing session. It's something I am keeping my eye on though...

mathare

8th February 2009, 13:06

8th February 2009 (part 1)
What a weird old morning session I have just had. OK, the fact that I played too tables and lost on one but not the other isn't that odd as that is becoming the story of my poker career (more on that later) but some of the things I saw amazed me even after all these hours at the tables.

Let's start with table 1, where I started off by getting hit square in the face by the deck. First hand was an unremarkable 46s in the BB which I folded to a raise. The flop gave me a straight flush draw which the turn then completed and the pot was one by a guy with middle pair. Mildly annoying.

Then I got dealt AA next hand (in the SB). There's a limper (UTG), a raise and a call before it gets to me. I re-raise, the limper cold calls two bets and the other two call my re-raise to give us 4 players to the flop. The board shows 6d-8s-7s so with straight draws and flush draws possible I obviously lead out. All my opponents call. The turn is a blank (2c) so I lead out again. If there is a draw out there they have odds to hit it but there is little more I can do as I don't feel a check-raise would work too well here. UTG calls, the pre-flop raiser folds but the othe guy raises. I figure he could have been slow playing a strong hand on the flop so fearing a made straight or a middle two-pair I just call, as does UTG. The river is another relative brick (Jd) so there are no flushes possible and straights would need two connecting cards in the pocket. I bet out again as I reckon I am ahead still, barring the possibility of middle two pair that got lucky with that flop. Both my opponents call. The late position player shows A8o - what? Guess what the UTG player had before we watch me drag the pot in? Yep, the unthinkable. He cold called two raises pre-flop plus bets and raises on the board because he had 72o! ;fire Seven-Two offsuit, under the gun, and he limps then cold-calls two raises and takes down a $34 pot! Unbelievable.

I got my money back next hand with QTs though, and two hands later I won a reasonable pot with AA again. Nine hands after that I got KK and won a similarly sized pot. Then I lost another biggie when my opponent hits a two-outer on the river, drawing to an inside straight with JJ against my KQ (which had formed two pair on the turn). Later on I lost a stupid pot with A6s when I shouldn't have even been playing it. Similarly A9s a few hands later. The other biggish loser I had was AJo which I somehow couldn't fold even though I was pretty sure I was beaten. It wasn't like the pot odds were that special either.

That last hand has become fairly typical of my play and so I am going to work hard on stamping it out. I must pay more attention to pot odds and where my hand stands compared to the rest of the board. What could my opponent be holding? Am I likely beaten? Can I outdraw him? Do I have the pot odds to do so? They are the sorts of questions I need to be asking. Looking at my play this morning, and Poker Office confirms this, I seem to end up on the flop with nothing or just an overcard too often and this is costing me quite a bit of money, especially as I seem to keep betting these situations. You can't scare an opponent off the pot so easily as you can in NLHE - this is much more a game of cards and actually having a decent hand to take your opponent on with.

On the second table I got a good ace (AKo) beaten by a poor one (A2o) when he hit his kicker on the flop. I failed with a few steal attempts, trying to steal with dirge and not giving it up when it became obvious my opponent had a better hand and I missed the flop by a mile. I had to give a few hands up after a bit of betting on the flop/turn when I was faced with more action than I felt my hand could take. All in all I lost around $15 on this table, and as I only made around $3 on the first table I booked a loss this morning.

The slight bright side is the fact that I made another good dent in the number of merit points I need to maintain my current VIP level on Bet365. I should be able to acquire the remaining points in around 3 table-hours.

Stats
Hands: 2368
Won Hands: 9.84%
Saw Flop: 16.60%
Won Saw Flop: 42.24%
Showdowns: 6.93%
Showdowns Won: 54.88%
Pre Flop Raise: 8.23%
Won: $94.41
BB/100 hands: 1.99

My BB/100 hands is now under 2 and I am pretty sure that is because I am losing more than I should on hands when I know (or should know) I am beaten. As I said earlier I am not paying enough attention to pot odds and that will cripple me in this game. I am going to think about the lessons I have learned over lunch and come back to the tables this afternoon with a better attitude to the game. Hopefully.

I'll come back to the multi-tabling issue later. I need to check a few things out first.

markwales

8th February 2009, 14:16

Hi Mat - great write ups as always.

Do you have a rakeback deal? Not sure whether 365 do them, however I could get you a min of 30% (up to 40%) on another iPoker skin which will significantly improve your return playing cash games.

Let me know if you are interested.... similarly anybody else wants a decent deal on iPoker give me a yell on here or via PM.

Keep up the good reporting.

Mark

mathare

8th February 2009, 14:32

Thanks Mark.

I don't have a rakeback deal - I looked into them before starting this new adventure and decided the options were limited as I have accounts with most of the major poker rooms already. I'll PM you for more details though if that's OK.

mathare

8th February 2009, 15:20

8th February 2009 (part 2)
Another entry but not to update you on my latest session. Instead I have some analysis to share with you. This morning's multi-tabling followed what seemed like a very familiar pattern of a winning table and a losing one so I wanted to see if that was just a trick of the mind or whether the sessions I have recorded do actually follow that pattern.

I analysed all my fixed limit hold'em sessions and found that on 20 occasions I have played two tables at once (never more than two though). Of those 20 occasions I have won on one table and lost on the other 12 times, 5 times I won on both tables and three times I lost on both tables. So it's not just a trick of the mind - it does seem that I tend to win on one table and lose on the other albeit I have a small sample from which to draw these conclusions.

How does multi-tabling affect my win rate? Overall my multi-tabling sessions are profitable but it turns out nowhere near as profitable as when I play just one table. If I am playing two tables at once my win rate averages out at 0.25xBB/hour but when playing just one table that figure is 0.84xBB/hour. So as much as I don't feel able to focus on a single table so play another to hopefully give me less time in which to get distracted I am killing my win rate. Interesting. Looks like I should play just one table at once then. At least now I know.

mathare

8th February 2009, 18:02

8th February 2009 (part 3)
This time I am bringing you the results of a session at the tables as I played another couple of hours this afternoon - on one table only, of course - and it went rather well. I wasn't particularly focused on the game as I was preparing some analysis (the results of which I will share with you later) but I got some good cards and some lucky breaks and more than doubled my buy-in making this my best ever limit session in terms of cash won.

The first big win came with AJo which hit two pair on the flop and beat KK. The roles were then pretty much reversed a few hands later when my KK downed an opponent's ATo. My (equal) biggest win of the session came when I took a chance with 88 in late position calling an early raise, flopped a full house and took an opponet holding KK for a bit of a ride. Another hand saw me win a good pot with K7s making a flush on the turn and my opponent folding on the river. I also had KJo win a big pot from the SB facing another KJo when I hit a lucky flush. A few hands later I lost a chuck with KJs drawing to a flush from the flop but never connecting. This is the only hand that really stands out as a significant loser in this session and I had the odds at each and every stage to draw so I don't have a problem with my play here. KJs came back to me a few hands later and I took down another nice pot when I paired my King on the river. Again I was drawing to the flush from the flop with the odds in each round and got a fortunate river. A couple of speculative AQs hands came along that cost me a few bucks each but in each case I missed the flop, took a cheap card and then folded when I missed the turn too and didn't think I could outdraw the other guy. I don't mind that sort of play as I am giving myself a chance to win but also limiting my losses. The biggest 'chancy' play also came off for me this session. I called the extra half bet from the SB with 52o after two limpers and caught a gutshot draw that I hit on the turn. I didn't have the odds to draw on the flop but I figured if I did hit on the turn I could get paid off well enough and if I missed I'd just fold. It worked and I made over $10 that hand. I did play QJo quite poorly towards the end of the session, taking it all the way to the river even though I had missed and ran into AK that connected with the turn and river but this was very much the exception to my play this afternoon.

Looks like the lessons I learned this morning sank in and I really improved my play. Sure, I got lucky in a few places but we all need a bit of luck now and then.

Stats
Hands: 2495
Won Hands: 9.86%
Saw Flop: 16.59%
Won Saw Flop: 42.75%
Showdowns: 7.01%
Showdowns Won: 56.57%
Pre Flop Raise: 8.18%
Won: $144.54
BB/100 hands: 2.90

The stats are starting to settle down now, which is good. I must admit though I am pleased to see the Showdowns Won and BB/100 hands stats go up a decent amount after this session.

I'll be back later with some interesting findings from some analysis I started this afternoon...

mathare

8th February 2009, 20:19

8th February 2009 (part 4)
More analysis I'm afraid.

Today I decided to carry out an idea for something I thought of the other day while I was playing and looking at a few stats in Poker Office. I noticed my database contained data on a couple of players who were big winners at this level, plus data on players who were big losers in the $1/$2 limit games I am playing. How do my stats as a moderate winner compare to these big winners/losers? With that in mind I set up a spreadsheet and copied into it the detailed overview stats for me, the two biggest winners in my database, the two biggest losers and two players in the middle of the pack with a decent number of hands under their belt. What follows is the analysis of that data.

I think the first thing I should say is that I know there is more than one way to skin a cat. Several different playing styles can be profitable and a leopard can't change his spots (to carry on with the cliches) so I don't plan to drastically modify my base game but I do want to see if there are things I can do to make more profit and also see if I am exhibiting any signs of the losing play. I'm going to use the Poker Office detailed stats as the basis for this so I'll be looking at areas such as hand selection, aggression, blind stealing, blind defense, betting actions and sandbagging.

The Players
The players we will be looking at here are:
me (terrorwrist) - 2393 hands, $103.76 profit
Zacharyas - 3608 hands, $263.16 profit
Entarion - 3585 hands, $243.99 profit
Thx4AllTheFish - 3040 hands, $26.03 profit
Branniganzapp - 1961 hands, -$13.79 profit
Offtank - 1273 hands, -$255.11 profit
Siami77 - 1746 hands, -$212.38 profit
Some of these players have under 2000 hands logged but I still think I have a decent line on their play so I'm happy enough to include them in this analysis process.

Hand Selection
I see 16.50% of flops which is the highest of all players featured. The others are all in the range 13.40% to 14.90% so I am over 1.5% up on these players. When we look at VP$IP I am more in line with the others with my 16.90% comparing reasonably well to the rest. Zacharyas has 16.40%, which is the highest of my rivals, with 14.00% (Branniganzapp) as the lowest. Outside the blinds I see 11.20% of flops while my profitable rivals see fewer (10.50% to 9.60%). The losers I am analysing see fewer flops when not in the blinds too so it's hard to be very sure about what to make of this. Am I little too loose overall? Hard to say when looking at figures such as these in isolation. We need to wait and see what each player makes of the hands they are choosing to play, including me.

Post-flop my figures are a bit more in line with the better players. My flop-turn percentage is 67.90%, around half a percent below Entarion and over 3% above Zacharyas. Am I taking too many chances on the flop? When the betting limits are lower, as they are on the flop, it's tempting to just take a card off to see what happens. I mentioned earlier in this diary that I seem to be losing heavily when I have nothing/one overcard on the flop. Maybe I need to stop taking cards here but it's hard to give an opponent too much credit on a raggy flop when you have overcards. Something for me to bear in mind anyway. My turn-river percentage (68.40%) is 5% down on both Zacharyas and Entarion, the players I should be looking up to. But it's also the lowest of all players under scrutiny here so maybe that's not a bad thing. It does suggest I am less willing to proceed with my hands though so perhaps I am a little too loose getting to this stage of the hand but more able than some to give it up and cut my losses. That said, my showdown percentage is the highest of everyone's at 7%. The others have a player within half a point of 6%, generally. Perhaps I am taking too many longshots all the way and hoping my high card hands are good?

It looks like, from this stage of the analysis, that I could perhaps benefit from tightening up slightly pre-flop as that should improve things on all streets. Not too much though, just drop one or two of the marginal hands I must be playing. Poker Stove says 16.5% equates too 66+, A5s+, K9s+, Q9s+, JTs, ATo+, KTo+, QJo - is that an accurate representation of my range? I'd like to think I don't play suited Aces that low unless the situation is right, and I play smaller pocket pairs under the right conditions but I guess the range is probably right in general. I know from memory though that the games are often too tight to make small suited Aces profitable pre-flop (insufficient pot odds) so I ought to keep my eye on how/when I play such hands. That ought to help me tighten up, especially if I do the same with the pocket pairs too.

Aggression
My pre-flop raise (PFR) percentage is one stat that stands out a mile from the others here. Or rather everyone else's towers above mine, which is only 8.20%. The winners (Zacharyas and Entarion) are both up around 12%. Poker Stove has my range as roughly 88+,ATs+,KTs+,QJs,AJo+ whereas 11.5% equates to 77+,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,ATo+,KQo. Obviously hands that can be raised with vary with position but I do need to widen my range it seems. Some of the hands I would class as marginal I ought to be raising with, perhaps because of the tight nature of the game. Incidentally, the losing players have PFR percentages up around 11.5-12% too but obviously play these hands worse on later streets. My first in raise percentage is low too (as you'd expect given my PFR), at 5.20%, a good couple of percent down on the others. If I widen my PFR range I expect this figure to increase as a natural by-product so I won't be taking specific action to improve this stat.

Poker Office, like other similar tools, calculates aggression factors based on how aggressive your betting actions are (betting and raising v checking and calling). The next stat to stand out massively is my pre-flop aggression factor which is a pitiful 0.80 when my rivals are all packing figures around 2.0. More pre-flop raising is quite clearly the order of the day. Pots are being raised and I am calling with hands I should be re-raising with, as well as widening my raising range as mentioned earlier. The winning players in my database share a similar aggression factor profile across the other streets and im each case my own figure is pitiful compared to theirs. I seem particularly gutless on the turn, perhaps because I keep ending up there with questionable holdings (see above). More raising/re-raising is quite clearly in order. Overall my aggression factor is a wimp-like 1.10, half that of my successful rivals. I said recently I had dialled up the aggression, I clearly need to do it more. I know tight-aggressive poker makes money so I need to align my game more with that and not be scared to move my chips into the middle.

Stealing
To me this is a less important part of the game in limit poker than it is in no-limit poker but let's look at the stats anyway. A few blinds stolen here and there can make a difference, after all. I am attempting to steal fewer blinds than my successful rival so maybe I need to try it a little more often. I try it 28.1% of the time with the winners up over 30%. I am folding my blinds to too many steals too it seems as my 'fold to steal' percentages are the greatest of the lot. In fact I fold my SB to a steal around 20% more often than Zacharyas and Entarion. I fold my BB to a steal around 5% more often than Zacharyas and again around 20% more often than Entarion. The losing players are folding to steals less often than me too so do these stats actually mean anything? The samples aren't that big as what Poker Office classes as a steal doesn't happen that often (around 2% of hands). I could try fighting back a little more though, especially with hands I expect to be live against a blind thief.

When I do try to steal how does it go? My stats here are actually pretty much in line with the winning players so this is one area of my game that doesn't seem to need much attention. I don't try it with rags so I should just carry on as I am it seems. That's nice to know.

Blind Defense
Holding on to your blinds can be as important as picking up a few steals along the way so what's this aspect of my game like? We saw earlier than I often fold to a steal attempt but what about general blind defense? I honestly don't think there is enough data to draw any meaningful conclusions but I seem to end up at a showdown when defending my SB and winning money 50% of the time. I can't find anything that easily shows how many hands we're talking about here and I can't find a definition of blind defense in the Poker Office manual so I am not going to worry about this. I can only assume it's a small sample that these figures are based on as I don't do anything 100% of the time. I am guessing it's the number of hands I didn't fold my SB/BB to a steal, in which case we're talking about two hands for the SB and 10 for the BB. These figures aren't worth analysing for any of the players so let's just move swiftly on.

Betting Actions
If I have made one of my rare pre-flop raises when do I do next? I lead out often enough, based on the figures for all players, but according to the stats for the winners I don't raise or check-raise enough. And I call way too often (14.4% for me compared to 8.8% and 5.7% for Zacharyas and Entarion respectively). More aggression is called for. I have check-raised once out of 135 opportunities to do so. I've only raised 9 times. It's too passive and I need to start raising more and calling less. If I think I am ahead and someone has bet into me then raise them.

My general pre-flop play is too passive, as we saw earlier. I am folding around the right number of times but not raising enough and calling too often. We looked at pre-flop raising ranges earlier so I won't spend any more time on it here. I'll just remind myself of the need to aggress more pre-flop.

Once the flop has been dealt do I get any more aggressive? My poor aggression factors would suggest I don't but let's look at the cold, hard facts. I raise approximately half as often as my winning rivals. Am I giving too many players the chance to draw out on me by not being aggressive enough? I should be betting and raising more often and calling less often based on these figures. I fold about the right amount though.

The same goes for the turn really - more betting and raising is called for as the winning players are much more aggressive than me. They bet out around 8% more than me and raise around twice as often, around 8% compared to my 4.2% of the time. I ought to be checking and calling less, which will happen naturally if I bet/raise more often. I should perhaps fold fewer hands too, and the best way to accomplish that is to play better hands to start with rather than get to this stage with trash.

I am fairly aggressive on the river in terms of raising but I need to bet more and call less. I should be forcing my opponents into a tricky decision rather than check-calling for pot control as I think I am beaten. Pound them with repeated betting throughout the hand.

Sandbagging
Or check-raising as it is more generally known. Am I doing it often enough? Hell no! On both the flop and turn I ought to be doing it around 5-6 times as often as I do at present. That's a big difference. When I have a good hand and don't fear draws I could (should) try a check-raise and demonstrate greater strength and more tricky play that way. A lot of players, myself included, seem to check-call. I often lead out but I reckon I should be throwing in the occasional check-raise to mix things up a little and hopefully boost my bottom line.

Conclusions
More aggression! Rrraaarrrrrrr! I ought to perhaps tighten up a little but at the end of the day the biggest problem seems to be passivity. More raising on every street. I don't need to go mental and raise everything and anything but widen mt pre-flop raising range and then when I play a hand, commit to it and put my opponent to the test with bets and raises. I need to give myself both ways to win rather than having to rely on having the best hand. Yes, I will lose big pots this way but I will win big pots too, and steal a few I shouldn't have won. It's going to lead to greater variance in my results but it's what is required.

I have attached the spreadsheet in case anyone wants to look at it (and so I have a copy available too if I need it in the future).

mathare

8th February 2009, 23:04

8th February 2009 (part 5)
A very quick update as I am going to bed now. I played enough hands to clear the rest of the points I needed to maintain my VIP level and then gave up. I made a slight profit, which in itself is surprising as I was very distracted and hardly concentrating on the game as my mobile phone died a few hands in and now won't turn on again ;fire Because of that, and the fact that I am trying to resurrect old handsets as I type I won't be analysing this session too much, you're just going to get the updated stats really.

Stats
Hands: 2576
Won Hands: 9.98%
Saw Flop: 16.58%
Won Saw Flop: 42.86%
Showdowns: 7.03%
Showdowns Won: 55.80%
Pre Flop Raise: 8.35%
Won: $145.99
BB/100 hands: 2.83

mathare

3rd March 2009, 23:01

3rd March 2009
I'm afraid until I get things back up and running properly these diary entries may be rather sporadic and less detailed than you have come to expect. Let me explain...

I have been away for a couple of weeks in Brazil and when I got back I was itching to get back on the poker tables again and continue to both improve my fixed limit game and make a bit of cash along the way. So last night I fired up Bet365's tables and Poker Office and started playing. But the live tracker didn't kick in. Hmmm. I restarted PO but no joy still. I carried on playing but also logged on to the PO forum to see if this was a known issue. It certainly seemed as though some were having issues with iPoker skins after a recent software update. I hadn't noticed Bet365 software update but that's not to say it didn't. I looked for a new PO patch but couldn't see one - annoying but never mind. I then downloaded PO v5 (which I had been ignoring for a while until it stabilises but it seems they have now end-of-lifed v2.x). I tried my registration keys but they didn't work so fored off an e-mail to their support guys. I was still playing at this point and after some real donk hands I got myself back within 70c of level for the session and gave up. No idea how many hands I played or how my stats have changed from that session though, unfortunately.

This evening I had got a reply from the PO guys so got POv5 up and running but it wouldn't import my POv2 database properly and I can't get the live tracker working properly so I played without it for another evening. The first table was going well after 45 minutes or so and with that in mind I started a second table. And yes, I know I said a while back I was going to stick to one table but I obviously lied! And for a change I had a great session on both tables, up $32.10 on one table and $29.82 on the other so not a bad night at all! :)

I'll try to bring you updated stats again when I get PO up and running properly and bring my database up to date

mathare

3rd March 2009, 23:07

3rd March 2009
I have just had a brainwave! I have imported my Bet365 hand histories into POv2 so I can now bring you (and me) up to date stats...

Stats
Hands: 2821
Won Hands: 10.28%
Saw Flop: 16.48%
Won Saw Flop: 43.87%
Showdowns: 7.02%
Showdowns Won: 56.57%
Pre Flop Raise: 8.61%
Won: $207.21
BB/100 hands: 3.67

Everything is moving very much in the right direction. Tighter, more aggressive and more profitable. Yay!

mathare

8th March 2009, 19:42

8th March 2009
I just wrote a decent length post about an awful afternoon session that I played across two tables, losing over $50 on one and over $35 on the other but I have lost that now and don't plan to type it all out again. It wasn't tilt - just really, really poor play. I didn't have Poker Office to rely on as it's still not working for me but that's no excuse for how badly I played. I chased hands long enough to cost me money but no long enough to fluke a few wins and claw back some of the cash I lost on previous chases. I basically played without my poker brain switched on. I don't know why I played so badly but the fact of the matter is I did. I need to take a bit of time out to reflect on this session and learn from it.

Stats
Hands: 3176
Won Hands: 10.01%
Saw Flop: 16.81%
Won Saw Flop: 41.57%
Showdowns: 7.02%
Showdowns Won: 54.71%
Pre Flop Raise: 8.85%
Won: $120.96
BB/100 hands: 1.90

See - not a good day at all. I got some big hands beaten by bigger hands but also by lucky fish playing dross. I still shouldn't have lost as much as I did though and I am now rather angry with myself. I need to calm down and analyse what went wrong this afternoon before I allow myself to play again, so I won't be playing poker this evening as was my original plan.

mathare

15th March 2009, 13:37

15th March 2009 (part 1)
My first session for a week as I definitely needed time out after last Sunday's disaster. That said I haven't used the week off in a very creative way, at least not from a poker point of view. Where I should have been reflecting on the way I played last weekend, analysing hands and generally look at holes in my game I actually gave poker the complete swerve and worked on other things instead to clear my head.

One thing I was actively working on this past week was trying to get Poker Office v5 up and running properly. I have traded a few e-mails with their support guys but we're still not getting anywhere. I can't import my old POv2 data fully and POv5 still isn't tracking my play on Bet365. They came back to me the other day with a few suggestions that I tried out today, the main reason I played this morning, but it's still no good. But having logged on to the tables I figured I stay a while and at least knock off some of the merit points I need to accrue each month to maintain my current VIP status (silver). A mixed session across two tables netted me around $5 profit and it still doesn't feel right playing without Poker Office. I am sure that is affecting my game. I know I should be able to play without it - I can't use it in live play, obviously - but it's a good comfort blanket. And if others at the table have some tracking software then I am losing out by not having mine available to me.

This week I also read a brief article (part 1 of a series) about poker tracking software and what stats to use and what to look for. When I get POv5 up and running fully I will be modifying my HUD stats to better reflect what the key stats are. I will also be using some of the insight gained from this article to review my play a bit better, maybe this afternoon.

Stats
Hands: 3311
Won Hands: 9.94%
Saw Flop: 16.76%
Won Saw Flop: 41.26%
Showdowns: 6.95%
Showdowns Won: 54.78%
Pre Flop Raise: 8.67%
Won: $128.66
BB/100 hands: 1.94

mathare

15th March 2009, 23:27

15th March 2009 (part 2)
Oh dear! This was not pretty for anyone who happened to be watching me play cards, which hopefully was no-one but me. Some of the plays I made were scary viewing even for me though.

The idea was very simple - fire up two $1/$2 limit tables, plug away for a couple of hours playing tight, aggressive poker. Nothing really new there I guess but when was the last time I was actually able to fill this brief? I am struggling to recall the last time I played poker I would be proud of; it certainly wasn't tonight. My post-flop play was truly appalling at times. I am still calling single flop bets with nothing but overcards or a weak pair (at best) and then folding to any turn bet unless I really connect. Why do I get myself in these situations? How? Poor pre-flop play is probably the answer. The hand starts with the deal and what I do pre-flop sets me up for the rest of the hand. I know that, so why can't I play like I know that? I am sorry to say that at some points of tonight's play I was playing blackjack hands - any two face cards or ace and face - as though they were much stronger than they really were, especially given the action before me. True, I wasn't calling raises with them or re-raising so I wasn't going to war with them. But I shouldn't have been playing them as often, or as passively, as I was at times. Once I had decided I was going to play the hand I should have at least followed through with my actions and tried to make my opponents see it was the bullets or cowboys I obviously seemed to think I had.

Passive play was kinda the order of the day though, despite the plan I sat down with. I just seemed unable to click the raise button unless I had a good hand (AQs, JJ+ etc). I was letting players bet the flop, calling and then letting them take it on the turn. No fight in me at all, and I had no idea what my opponents had as at no stage had I tried to define my opponents hand. I was way too cally and that is something I really need to get away from as soon as possible.

I need to start reading up again on post-flop play and re-learn how to play tight, aggressive limit hold'em. I have played that style in the past and if I can find it in me again I can destroy these games and start to move up the levels. Sure, the games are tighter and more aggressive than the books reckon the low stakes games are but that's the nature of internet poker these days. That said, there are still plenty of loons playing really badly at these stakes - I see them every session - but they are often aggressive with it. And that's why I need to re-learn proper tight play so I can take these looser aggressive players down with solid hands and win big pots off them. I have moved Super System 2, Small Stake Hold'em (Sklansky, Malmuth & Miller) and Gary Carson's Hold'em Poker to the top of my 'books to read/re-read' pile so in the next couple of days I will start on one of those and have a limit hold'em refresher course. With games as they are today I need to think about how tight I need to play in each position and how much aggression to show and when. All I know at the minute is I need to show more bite in my game as I am trying to be a shark but am rather toothless at present.

I looked at my detailed PO stats during my play this evening. It's not something I would normally do as I am trying to get better at focusing on the game but I think in this case it helped as it made me realise how passively I had been playing. I will analyse those stats in more detail another day (I'm too tired at the mo) but for now let's just say my aggression factor is under 1, and anyone who knows anything about these tracker stats will know that's bad! I'm also not sure I am using my position well enough. Any idiot can try to steal the blinds if it is folded round to them and play tighter under the gun but how tight should I be playing in each position? Or rather how much can I loosen up as I get towards the button? In tight aggressive games such as I am encountering is it ever profitable to play suited connectors from middle position? I need to re-read the aforementioned books and get the game back in my head as well as my head back in the game, if that makes any sense.

Tonight I was getting my share of decent hands beaten early in the sessions. I'd be ahead until the river and lose to two- and three-outers, that sort of thing. But luck evened out enough for me to have some hands hold up later on and to get lucky with a few draws. I have to say that given some of my play it can only have been luck that saw mew win some hands tonight. But I managed a profit and that's the main thing. In fact I managed a profit on both tables, which is somewhat unusual for me. A profit of around $14 on one table and over $25 on the other so today I have undone quite a lot of the damage of last Sunday and put me back on the road I should be on.

Before I finish with the updated stats (having manually loaded the hands into PO, of course, as the trackers aren't working) I feel I ought to just clarify why I was playing 2 tables when earlier in this diary I worked out it was more profitable for me to play one table at a time. The reasons are many and include a desire to practice multitable play - I need to get good at it as I feel I need to be able to play several tables at once if I am ever to make a decent profit from my poker. And if I am going to learn from mistakes I make then I want to make the mistakes cheaply which means getting used to playing several tables at the low levels so I have all the mechanics of the play as second nature. It also builds up my merit points and increases the number of hands I have logged in Poker Office, which all equates to experience and that's something else I need to build up as fast as I can. With experience comes a more finely-tuned instinct as to where I stand in a hand and knowledge of how my opponent plays in certain situations. I need to learn to read opponents while playing several tables, looking for timing tells, how they have played from certain positions before and what hands they are showing down and that comes with practice too so I am making a concerted effort to improve my play at two tables at once. Time will tell if it works.

Stats
Hands: 3485
Won Hands: 9.96%
Saw Flop: 16.99%
Won Saw Flop: 41.22%
Showdowns: 7.03%
Showdowns Won: 54.69%
Pre Flop Raise: 8.67%
Won: $168.81
BB/100 hands: 2.42

mathare

16th March 2009, 23:11

16th March 2009
Not a playing update this one but a review/analysis session. I said yesterday that I should be looking at my detailed Poker Office stats in more depth to try and spot where I am going wrong (or not making the most of the game at least) so that's the plan for this evening.

First let's define the game we're looking at. It's 10-seater $1/$2 fixed limit Texas hold'em on Bet365. The game is usually tight with I'd say an average of 3 players on the flop, and the pot is usually raised pre-flop. That raise can come from any position and while I'd like to read more strength into early position raises I don't feel that a raise UTG is particularly indicative of a very strong hand in general; I have seen a lot of players overvalue pocket pairs below TT and also two face cards, Ace suited etc. A raise UTG doesn't automatically mean JJ+, AQs+, AK as one may expect. That's far more like my raising range UTG though. The game has a good amount of stealing and attempted steals from late postion, with varying success rates.

That's how I see the game but do the stats I have recorded in Poker Office match my perception of the game I am playing? PO reckons 19.7% of players see the flop, which when you consider that there is blind stealing that will sometimes result in no-one seeing the flop it means 2-3 players (on average) are seeing each flop dealt so I am pretty much on the money there. What about pre-flop raising? I have players in my datebase (with at least 500 hands played) whose PFR is just under 6% and plenty who are up in double figures, but the average seems to be around 10.3% or so. That seems to stack up pretty well with what I am seeing - basically it means the average hand is raised once pre-flop.

Now let's look at my figures in the context of that game. The number of players per flop is around 20% of the table. I am seeing only 16.99% of flops so I am tighter than the average player. However, my PFR% is a poor 8.67% so I am playing too passively. Interestingly, based on the default settings, Poker Office has be down as tight-aggressive pre-flop and passive post-flop. I can certainly agree with the latter part of that. So overall I am probably tight enough but nowhere near aggressive enough. But how does that breakdown by position?

UTG I am a slight loser in dollar terms (-$10.90). I am seeing 9.50% of flops, which is the tightest I play in all positions. I am probably taking too many hands from this position to a showdown as I lose more than I win (win 47.06%). My PFR% is 6.86% which is too passive. That says to me I am calling too many hands UTG. In fact I call something like 1 in 3 hands I play UTG. That's interesting. Why would I limp UTG? In this sort of game there is little point limping AA, KK etc as I am likely to get a caller and if not then I win the blinds and move on. So that suggests I am limping marginal hands under the gun, and too many of them at that.

UTG+1 I loosen up a tiny little bit, seeing 9.52% of flops, but I am a winner to the tune of $73.25. I am taking the same percentage of hands to a showdown as I did UTG (4.5%) only now I am winning 58.82% of them. I am raising less though, only 6.61% of hands, which again suggests I am calling with roughly 1 in 3 hands I play from this position. I need to work on that, for sure.

In seat 5 (0 is the button so seat 5 is UTG+2), I open up more seeing 12.26% of flops and raising 9.47% of the time. This has seen me net a profit of $29.22. I take more hands to showdown (5.29%) which is fair enough if I am playing more hands, but again I lose more showdowns than I win (47.37%). Taking too many hands too far when it's obvious I am beaten? Not being aggressive enough post-flop perhaps?

Seat 5 is the anomaly in the figures for the percentage of times I saw the flop as that figure now drops to 10.8% for seat 6. My PFR% drop too, to 8.03%, but my profit increases to $55.15. I win the same percentage of showdowns from this position as I did for UTG+1, 58.82%. Still too passive but at least I am winning my showdowns.

Seat 7 continues the rise in percentage of flops seen, going up to 11.8%. I raise more here too, 9.27% of the time pre-flop. Tight, and for me that counts as aggressive too, so it's no wonder this is my most profitable seat with $130.82. I see quite a few showdowns in this position, 6.74%, and remarkably I win 75% of these. That's what should happen when you play tight-aggressive. I need to do more of this.

What happens when I move one seat on to seat 8? It all goes wrong! I see 12.01% of flops, which is in line with loosening up in position (except seat 5), but I can't win a hand. I'm raising less pre-flop (8.77%) than I was in the previous seat which suggests I am calling a raised pot with some (comparatively) trash hands and seeing them to a showdown 6.17% of the time. I only win 31.58% of showdowns, less than 1 in 3, so I must either be badly unlucky hear or pressing on with hands I should be able to spot are beaten. Either way I am a loser in this seat to the tune of -$21.40.

One off the button (seat 9) also seems me showing a small loss (-$6.45) but I have around half as many hands for this seat as the others as it only comes into play when the table is full and everyone is dealt in. I see 10.59% of flops, raising 9.41% of the time which is much more like the gap I want to see between those figures. It's natural to see a higher PFR in this seat though as it's a potential steal position, but even so the figures are better than for other seats. I'm only winning 40% of showdowns though so again I am playing too passively post-flop and calling too many bets for too many streets.

I loosen up to see 16.71% of flops on the button, which is still below my table average of 16.99% but seems reasonable enough to me, at this stage. I am raising 14.94% of the time too, some of which will be steal attempts (10.38% in fact as that's my first in raise figure) but they all count. Those figures are close enough to one another to keep me happy. I am going to a showdown 8.1% of the time and winning 59.38% of those so my play from the button seems pretty good. That probably explains the profit of $100.04, which sounds pretty good.

And now the blinds. Oh. The blinds aren't supposed to be profitable (apparently) but is losing $0.14 a hand from the small blind good or bad? That's 28% of the blind every time I am in the SB. I think I am too loose here as I see 27.13% of flops. That seems too many to me, especially when I scroll down and see I have lost decent money with some trash in the SB. I have lost with AA, AK etc too though. Roughly 1 in 11 hands goes to a showdown (9.3%) and I win more than my fair share of those at 55.56%. I am raising 11.11% of the time from the SB, why? I think I should be giving more up from the small blind as it seems like I am calling a lot if I see 27% of flops yet raise only 11% of the time.

The BB is my biggest cash loser around the table at -$127.67 which equates to a loss of $0.33 per hand. That's approximately in line with the small blind in terms of percentage of the blind I lose each hand from that position though. I see 43.11% of hands from here so I hope I am getting a lot of checks or at least priced in a lot. I go to a showdown 13.78% of the time and then win 55.56% of those, so I am winning hands from the blinds. My PFR$ is 2.55% - should that be higher?

One thing I should say about the above is that the samples I am working with are still quite small. I have under 400 hands per position at this level. I really want to get that up to over 1000 per position, which means I need over 10,000 hands in total. I have booked 3485 hands in 55h 45m so we're looking at over 150 hours of play before I can draw more meaningful conclusions. That's probably 3-4 months down the line, in all reality.

I said the game was tight and that ought to mean hands like small pocket pairs and suited connectors aren't reallly profitable hands to play and that high card hands should go up in value pre-flop. What do my own results say about this?

Again, we're dealing with small samples here (I haven't had any pair more than 20 times) but let's see what we find anyway. KK is my most profitable pair ($5.98/hand), then QQ, AA, TT, 88, JJ, 22, 77, 99, 66, 55, 33 and finally 44. I am winning with each of those up to 66, at which point I start to make a small loss. By the time we get to 44 I am losing $1.0/hand on average. In fact I have yet to win a showdown with 33, 44, and 55. I haven't even won a hand with 44! This says I need to stop playing these hands as they're not profitable. Pocket pairs from 66 downwards should probably just be folded unless by some fluke I do have a few limpers and don't think the pot will be raised, or I am in the BB. I need to give up the Pre-flop raising with 77 downwards too it seems. I haven't been doing it a lot but I shouldn't be doing it at all I don't think.

Suited connectors now, and my suspicions seem to be correct. I have played AKs, KQs, JTs, 98s and 65s profitably but QJs is my biggest loser. Sure, one bad hand here and there can skew the stats massively at this level but it seems like I need to only be playing the biggest suited connectors. JTs+ seems to be the order of the day. I need to sort out my pre-flop raises too as I haven't been raising JTs or QJs and these could be good package raising hands in position if I need to up my pre-flop aggression (which I do).

I said earlier that big card hands should play better in a tight game so let's have a quick look at that. I'll look at all hands that include two cards T or bigger. Actually these don't seem to play as profitably as I thought, especially the big Aces with the exception of AK. I am raising heavily with AQo pre-flop, seeing a lot of flops but losing 2 in 3 showdowns. In fact I lose more than 50% of showdowns with KQ, AT-AQ, QJs, KTs, JT and QT. Am I overvaluing tens with face cards? I also need to think about the hands I am raising with pre-flop. I haven't been raising with the weaker suited Kings and Queens and have been raising quite consistently with the big Aces and Kings. Should I using hands like KTs as a package raising hand? This is something to bear in mind when I read the books I put aside the other day.

Using Poker Office I have graphed my aggression factors and they don't make pretty viewing. They are basically static (and way too low) but they are slowly decreasing, which means I am getting slowly more passive not more aggressive. You can't win much playing passive poker so I really need to learn how to make more aggressive plays. Yes, I could go about raising every hand at every opportunity to get my aggression up but that's not poker is it? I need to take onboard advice from Sklanksy, Malmuth, Jennifer Harman etc and read more about how to play aggressively in the right manner. My total aggression factor is currently 1.0; pre-flop it's 0.8. I need to be raising more pre-flop and post-flop I need to consider check-raising more, and re-raising when I have a good hand or a strong draw rather than just calling raises. I guess I just bottle it, perhaps subconciously trying to limit my variance rather than getting my money in good. It could also be that I don't know what range to put my opponents on as I haven't taken the opportunities presented to me to buy information and define their hand with judicial raises.

That's enough for tonight I think. I have given myself a few things to think about. More pre-flop raising, and I can use face card hands and bigger suited connectors for that. I should stop playing pocket pairs 66 or less unless I really have the pot odds to justify the play. And I should generally stop calling and think first about raising/folding before calling. At least that ought to put me in the right frame of mind for trying to pick out the TAG gems in the books when I start re-reading them.

mathare

17th March 2009, 23:11

17th March 2009
Tonight's session was primarily to free me up for the next fortnight by racking up the final merit points I needed to keep my silver VIP level. I keep talking about these merit points and my VIP level and it's not really worth much but it does keep me playing and all the time I have that as a target each month it encourages me to play and rack up the hands and experience. At this level I reckon it takes around 25 table-hours of poker to get the points I need each month. Do that for seven months and I can have $50. I told you it wasn't really worth it didn't I? Anyway, I have got the points I need this month now.

I was also trying to up the aggression a little tonight but as yet I haven't looked at the stats so I don't know if it worked or not. I couldn't really tell while I was playing whether I was more aggressive or not so let's look at the numbers...

Stats
Hands: 3655
Won Hands: 10.10%
Saw Flop: 16.91%
Won Saw Flop: 41.75%
Showdowns: 7.06%
Showdowns Won: 55.04%
Pre Flop Raise: 8.81%
Won: $194.61
BB/100 hands: 2.62

Tighter, more hands won at showdown and more pre-flop raising, along with a profit of over $25 - looks like it was a successful step down the right road. That said, I still don't think I played that well at times. But tonight sees me start with Jennifer Harman's chapter in Super System 2 again...

eruptive plot

18th March 2009, 09:12

out of interest matt,what level of cash games are you playing matt?and how many hours did it take to accrue your total of $194?
i know you like your cash games over sngs,have you ever fancied to try your luck in sng tourneys?

mathare

18th March 2009, 10:14

out of interest matt,what level of cash games are you playing matt?I'm playing $1/$2 fixed limit hold'em

and how many hours did it take to accrue your total of $194?I think that's about 55 hours play now if my memory serves me correctly.

i know you like your cash games over sngs,have you ever fancied to try your luck in sng tourneys?Yep, over the past few years I have played all sorts of SnGs but I found cash games more profitable. But SnGs are the only form of NLHE I can make a profit at as I bombed at NLHE cash games. I tried the double or nothing SnGs, turbos etc but it seems I have a better ROI from the standard SnGs. But as I say, I find cash games more profitable

mathare

18th March 2009, 22:34

18th March 2009
Another analysis session I'm afraid. I don't know how interesting these are for you, the reader, but I suspect not very. They help me though so I am going to keep having them as necessary.

Today's session looks at my pre-flop play as I have read Jennifer Harman's pre-flop advice in Super System 2 and it raised a lot of questions in my mind. I particularly want to look at the hands I play in various positions compared to when Jennifer Harman suggests.

Let's start with early position. Harman suggests playing TT+, AQ-AK, AJs and KQs. That's just 11 hands, which PokerStove tells me is 5.3% of hands. In middle position I can add smaller pairs, Axs, KJ-KQ, QJ, JT, T9s, 87s etc. I assume AJ and AT are acceptable too but Harman doesn't say as much. The other hands I have just listed though she classes as marginal so surely AJ and AT fall into that category alright. Adding in all these marginal hands results in 18.6% of hands being playable, but obviously it depends on what has gone before me as to whether some of those marginal hands can really be played profitably from middle position. When it comes to playing in late position Harman suggests raising with any hand when it's folded round to you and otherwise to think about whether your hand will play well against the likely number of players in the pot. It's hard to put a percentage on that sort of play but to me 18.6% from middle position sounds a lot.

How do my figures compare to these guidelines?

I have filtered the data on my Positions tab of PokerOffice to show me only the hands I have voluntarily put money into the pot for at the $1/$2 limit hold'em level. And by christ I have played some trash UTG! A3s anyone? K8s, J9s, 44 - they are all there. Plug in the hands I have played out of this position alone and you get 11.6% of hands. Eeek! Obviously I wouldn't play all those hands that often but the fact of the matter is I have played them in the past. Fortunately things don't get that much worse as I look at the other early positions. I have thrown in the other pocket pairs and the occasional 76s. Yes, 76s from UTG+2 - yuk! I'm raising with just under 60% of my hands in early position and that's nowhere near high enough. That needs to be up in the 80s at least I'd say. And the way to increase the figure is to stop playing marginal hands and dross from early position - play good hands and play them aggressively. I'm going to call very rarely from early position from now on, and when I do it will be a deceptive mix-up play rather than limping in with a mrginal hand I don't want to face heat with. Rrrarrrr! That should also see me winning more showdowns than I do at present and winning more money as I am loser from UTG when I VPIP.

Let's have a look at the middle positions now (seats 6, 7 & 8). Across the three positions I play 25.8% of hands according to PokerStove. If anyone can explain hands like J4s, 95o etc I'd be gald to hear it. I can tell at a glance that I am playing too many broadway hands, hands like KT that I should probably save for late positions. I know which hands (or at least what sort of hands) play best in multiway pots and which are better heads up so now I just need to tighten up (quite a lot!) and start playing hands in more appropriate pots and situations. I'm raising about 60% of the time from middle position and again I think this should be higher. I should be raising my premium hands and also the middle pairs if I am first into the pot. The more marginal holdings are raise or fold type hands depending on what has happened before me. If I am first in I should be considering a raise long before I consider calling. I almost need to forget that call button exists pre-flop.

Late position is, in my mind, where some of the more marginal hands become playable. Some of the hands I currently put money into the pot with from middle position are really late position hands. I play a lot of weak Aces (unsuited) from the button at present and I need to cut that out, unless I am stealing. I can tighten up from the button in general, and also as with every other seat I have looked at so far I can raise more. I am only raising about 70% of the time, including steal attempts and that's not enough still.

I need to be tighter right round the table and more aggressive. MUCH more aggressive.

The data filtered by VPIP is interesting for other reasons too - it shows then when I choose to play out the blinds I do alright. I actually win $0.75 on average from the SB and $0.53 from the BB when I choose to put money in the pot voluntarily. I guess my blind play isn't that bad after all, and that answers my question from the other day as to how much of a loser should the blinds be at this level. I'm doing alright in that respect.

Other things I have found from filtering this data is I am reasonably competent at stealing blinds. I win a decent sum when I raise with a chance to steal and less when I just call with a steal opportunity. Aggression again, eh? When I choose to defend against steal attempts with a call/raise I am profitable too. And I seem to pick decent hands to fight with too. Looks like I am tight enough here.

How would my stats look from seats 3, 4 & 5 if I stuck to Harman's early position advice and just played those few hands? I'd be a slight loser UTG (-$5.20) but profitable elsewhere. I actually raise these hands 90% of the time UTG, which is much more like it isn't it? That drops off with position so I need to maintain that aggression in later seats. I am working with small samples but it looks promising. This is certainly worth a try as the profit from the three early position seats playing these hands beats my current profit levels, although we're working with small samples with these filters applied. With the middle position recommendations my PFR% is only around 40% overall from seats 6 to 8 so I need to work on that a little. But that includes times I fold those hands; when I come into the pot with these hands I am raising around 65% of the time. Better, but still not brilliant. The profit figures are not really affected by these filters; the hands I play are about as profitable as the ones Jennifer Harman suggests. What does that mean? It means it will do me no harm to tighten up and drop some of the crap I am currently playing. Plus it's still small samples so hard to draw statistically meaningful conclusions from this data with these filters applied. If I apply the same set of hands (Harman's middle position suggestions) to late positions I see my profit levels drop to around $100 from $170 for those two seats. That's a pretty big difference but won't stop me tightening up as I know I need to do that. I may be making a decent profit from these seats playing as I do but dropping some of those weak Aces and Kings won't do me any harm at all.

That's about all my brain can take, and good to get it down on 'paper' before I start the post-flop sections of Super System 2 this evening. I know have it straight in my brain and know what needs to be done. I need to tighten up and have looked at how to do this and what sort of hands to play and from which positions. I know I need to be more aggressive and have seen that my semi-loose starting hands have resulted in me be unwilling to raise as the hand is marginal so I call fearing heat. From now on I'll be playing stronger hands pre-flop and coming in for a raise far more often. I need to pretend the call button doesn't exist unless I need to throw the odd decpetive play into the mix.

It's a plan, and I look forward to putting it into action. But not tonight, there's not enough time left before bed to make it worth it. I'll have to keep my powder dry for now...

mathare

19th March 2009, 23:25

19th March 2009
Tonight was an excellent opportunity for me to try out some new stuff. I got my hands on a new 20" widescreen TFT today so it was a chance to try that out (it rocks!) and also a chance to put into action the points I picked up on yesterday, plus any of the advice for playing the flop I have managed to get from Jennifer Harman's piece in Super System 2.

Before I get to my results for the day (ooh, suspense) let me just go over quickly what I think I have learned about playing the flop from Super System 2. In a word: aggression. I thought I played quite aggressively but reading Harman's advice it's clear I don't. She gave the example of holding T8 on an 8-4-3 flop. Bet out as you have top pair or raise if in position and someone else bets into you. I'd have called that bet rather than raised it but then I would have struggled later in the hand. I know why Harman is suggesting the plays she does but I need to overcome my natural caution. Eights is a crap hand so I fear an overpair but it's more likely the bet has come from overcards so why give them the chance to draw out on you. Raise and make them pay, or at least have a better idea you're beaten when they re-raise you. So it's things like that I tried to take on board today, along with the improvements to my pre-flop game.

So how did I do? Goood! Two tables, as is the norm now, and in quite short sessions (an hour on one, 45 minutes on the other) I made a total of $56.65, including doubling my buy-in on one table. Sure, I had big hands at points during the evening but I played them pretty well. I know I missed bets on some of them due to that natural caution but it was certainly better than before.

On one hand I had AA on the button and reraised an early position raiser. Two of us saw the Q high flop. I bet, he raised, I reraised and he capped. Hello. I called but wondered what he had. I had an overpair but did he have QQ or even a suspect two pair. Nah, he wouldn't raise from early with Qx would he (the flop was Q-7-8). Was he on a draw and playing it fast? Because of those doubts I called his turn and river bets (7 on the turn, 3 on the river). I didn't think he had a 7 so trips was out and if he had QQ I was well beaten. Nope - QTs. I should have raised him on the turn to see whether he really did have that 7.

In another hand I had AQs in position on two others (who had AJs and KK it transpired). The action was heavy pre-flop (I made sure of that) and the flop came down A-4-3 all the same suit (not mine). I checked, villain1 bet, villain2 raised and I felt compelled to call. Why? I had a strong Ace and I didn't get that made hand vibe from either of my oppoents so I put them on a draw and the pot was laying me good odds to take one off. Shame it came 9 of the same suit as the three flop cards to put a four-flush out. It was now checked down to the showdown (the river blanked). I feared the flush on the turn but when the river blanked and both villains checked I should perhaps have bet. I should have maybe bet the turn to represent the flush and maybe got a 5-high flush or similar to fold. I shouldn't fear these draws so much as I do, or at least I should be a little wary of them but be aware that my opponents may also fear them. I always think someone else has a flush card in situations like this but my opponents must also think that I could have a flush card and be beating them. There's money to be made in situations like this. If I bet and get raised I am beaten and can give it up but best find out on the turn.

And now let's see how today's play has affected the numbers. Am I continuing to tighten up and get more aggressive?

Stats
Hands: 3760
Won Hands: 10.27%
Saw Flop: 16.86%
Won Saw Flop: 42.43%
Showdowns: 7.02%
Showdowns Won: 55.03%
Pre Flop Raise: 9.07%
Won: $251.31
BB/100 hands: 3.34

That's better! Today's session saw me raise 18.1% of the time pre-flop and play tighter than normal. In fact PO rated today's play as tight aggressive (pre-flop) - aggressive (post-flop) which is just what I wanted. In fact my aggressive factor was 3.4 today which I am really pleased with. All in all a very good session - and tonight's profit pays for around half of the new monitor too :)

mathare

22nd March 2009, 12:45

22nd March 2009 (part 1)
I got a nasty surprise yesterday - my PokerOffice has stopped working for good as my license has apparently expired. This is the license I bought a couple of years back that I assumed would be good for the life of the product as they were just charging a one-off fee. I noticed when I downloaded PO5 that their website said PokerOffice was $99 a year but I assumed that was for new purchasers only. No, it seems that they have killed off all existing licenses and now you have to subscribe at $99 per year if you want the application to work again. I'd consider doing this if it wasn't for the fact that PO5 doesn't work for me and rival applications don't have a yearly charge. I only found this out by accident too. I had a few spare minutes last night so logged on to the PO forum to see if there was any news of a patch to fix some of the known issues (some of which are quite major). It was while I was browsing the forum that I found out about this licensing issue and checked it on my copy of PO.

Apparently the guys who make PO announced they were expiring all licenses on 16th March but how did they announce this? I saw no sticky on the forum and didn't receive an e-mail from them, nor did the software tell me anything of the sort was happening so I am not impressed. Up till now I had been happy with PokerOffice as it worked with the site(s) I use(d) and did what I wanted it to. I knew there were alternatives on the market but couldn't be bothered to check them out as I didn't know what else they could do for me that PO couldn't. Today I am about to find out what PokerTracker and Holdem Manager can do for me...

Requirements
Before I look in detail at either application I thought it would be a good idea to think about what I really need from such software. What do I use it for at present? What might I use it for in the future? What features do I really need?

I must be able to track my play live and be able to display stats on my play, and that of my opponents, over the poker client so I can see live stats as the game plays out. I must be able to combine the stats for all my poker site aliases into a single player. I want a variety of stats, including the sort of summary stats I have been posting in this diary as well as optional more detailed stats. I need to see how my play breaks down when analysed by position or by starting hands. The software must auto-rate players as tight/weak passive/aggressive. I should be able to see the same information for any player as I can see for myself. I'd like to be able to track games I am watching as well as those I am playing in. I want to be able to graph key stats so I can see how they change over time. I want to be able to sort the various tables by columns of my choosing. I want to be able to access hand histories and to replay hands within the application itself. I want the option to track cash games and tournaments.

PokerTracker 3
A long time back I used to use v2 of PokerTracker and back then it didn't have a built-in HUD making it inferior to PokerOffice. Since then I have heard a few good things about v3 so it's only fair I give it a try. The website looks slick enough with quite a bit of information about the product. They offer a 60 day free trial and recommend users take advantage of this before purchasing the full version, which is fair enough.

The software was easy to install and the user interface looks clean and simple, more so than PokerOffice and much better than I remember PT v2 being. It seems easy to set up the automatic hand history imports and there are options to easily import previous hand histories from your hard drive, which is useful as I have a couple of years of hand histories knocking about on my HDD I reckon. I certainly have enough to make it worth loading into PokerTracker to get me started.

I have now loaded my existing data so let's have a look around at the various options we have. I'm going to mainly look at cash game features here as I don't have much in the way of tourney data and am focusing my play on cash games. Having identified the main player name I use I get my stats for that player quickly and easily. I have also been able to set up my aliases on other sites simply so I can now see all my stats across all sites. The General tab shows me summary stats such as number of hands, hands won, session, hours played, profit, rake paid and profit per hour and 100 hands in BB and $ terms. An excellent start. I can also see on this screen important numbers such as my VIP, PFR, went to showdown, won showdown, aggression factor, 3-bet frequency, steals attempted etc. All this data is broken down by stakes level to give me an excellent overview of my play.

The Hands tab offers me the option to show my starting hands or final hands. If I select starting hands I can see each of the possible starting hands, how often I have been dealt them and stats such as how often I win with them, how much I have won with them, number of times I was in the blinds, how many times I have cold called pre-flop, my PFR, VPIP etc. I can tell how often I have raised first in and how often I have limped with previous callers just by looking at a table of stats, no need to apply any filters as I would in PokerOffice. With a starting hand selected I then get a lower table showing me details of each time I have had that hand and what happened. I can see the site, limit, game number, date, whether I was in either blind, if I cold called a raise, profit on the hand in BB and $ terms, if I saw the flop, the full board, my final hand and who won the hand and what with. It's quick and easy to see the profitable rows in these tables as they are shown in green with the losing entries in the tables shown in a pinky-red. This means I can tell at a glance which starting hands are profitable for me. Nice touch. If I opt to view my final hands I can see how often I could have made each possible hand and how often I actually made it. For example I can see I would have made one straight flush and two four of a kinds had I played the relevant hands far enough but in each case I folded pre-flop. I can see where I folded the hand (if at all) plus showdown stats and profit levels for each hand ranking. Again if I select a hand ranking I get the hands that fall into the chosen category shown in the lower table so I can see a per hand breakdown.

Let's look at the Sessions tab now. Here I can view my sessions in one of two ways - by table or by time. When viewing by table each table session is listed in the top table, along with the key stats (date, site, table name, limit, seat number, hands, time played, amount won, rake etc). If I select a session the lower table shows me a per hand breakdown for that session, showing the same sort of information as I saw when I selected a starting hand on the Hands tab. As with previous tables, and I suspect all tables in PokerTracker, I can quickly see which entries in a table were profitable and which were losers based on the colour coding. This is a great little feature. at the bottom of the tab is a graph showing profit against hands dealt in the session so I can see how the session progressed. If I now select to view my sessions by time I get another neat view, this one showing all simulataneous tables within the same session. So if I played two tables at once the data from both tables is combined into a single session with similar information shown to that already mentioned. This is an excellent way of seeing how well I multi-table. I can see at a glance whether I generally win or lose playing two tables at once, and can check my multi-tabling BB/hour against that of single tables easily too. I like this feature a lot.

The Positions tab looks fairly standard. It is broken down into three tables. The top table shows my stats for each seat at the table while the middle table shows the hands I have been dealt in the selected seat and the bottom table shows the details of each of the chosen starting hands. As with PokerOffice I can see things like my VPIP, PFR and win rate for each seat but I can also see things like how often I cold call pre-flop from each position and of course the green/red colouring shows at a glance profitable seats. Nothing too remarkable here but a few improvements on PokerOffice nonetheless.

The next tab is the vs Player tab, something that PokerOffice doesn't show and something I had forgotten about since I used earlier version of PokerTracker. This shows me a list of all players I have faced, which site I played them on, how many times I beat them and how much I won plus how many times I lost to them and how much, plus the difference between the amounts won and lost. This means I can pick out the players that keep beating me and make a note of the ones I win from consistently. If I select a player the lower table shows me all the hands I have played against them so I can tell whether I was lucky to have won that much etc. This is another feature I like a lot. I can see it being very useful offline to pick out the players I want to face and make notes of them in the database.

Next up is the Reports tab, and I'm not going to cover this in any detail as it's not that obvious how to use it. I have had a bit of a click around but I can't get much out of it. Hopefully the documentation etc will provide some guidelines but till then I'm going to more or less ignore this feature.

The Graphs tab is the next thing to look at. The options here seem much more limited than PokerOffice. PO allows you to plot any stat (more or less) and to show up to three at once, plus display moving averages. These options don't seem to be available in PokerTracker but is that a big loss? Included are the main graphs you'd want to see such as profit in $ and BB terms against hands played. The graph also includes some summary stats which make it easier to see how things are progressing. So this isn't as feature-rich as PokerOffice meaning I can't see how my aggression factor changes with hands played, for example, but I'm not sure I really care that much. I have already seen plenty of features that PokerTracker does have that would offset the loss of some graphing functionality.

The final tab I'm going to look at is the Summary tab. This shows a very high-level summary of the play at each level showing the number of hands, the number raked, hand with a flop, number of players and the rake paid. You also get a player summary in the lower table showing hands played, profit, BB/100, VPIP, PFR and showdowns won for each player. I don't see a huge amount of use for this tab but that's not to say it wouldn't prove useful. Most of the information is available on other, more useful, tabs though.

Another feature I want to take a quick look at is the filtering. On PokerOffice this is pretty poor, in my opinion. Some of the filters can be useful but there doesn't seem to be a global filter - it needs to be applied to each tab separately, which is rather awkward. In PokerTracker the filters are global so apply to the data on all tabs. The filters dialog is much cleaner and neater than PokerOffice too. The filters seem powerful and flexible, allowing 'and', 'or' and 'not' combinations of filters for even more power and flexibility. This certainly looks like it could be very useful indeed.

I said earlier I wanted a hand replayer and by double clicking on a hand that's exactly what I get. Initially I get a window showing me the details of the hand including actions by each player on each street. At this point I can also add any notes I wish to the hand, with PokerTracker displaying an icon by that hand in all tabs (which is a nice touch) to let me know there are notes on it. The hand history is shown in another tab within this window. There is also a Replay Hand button allowing me to replay the action from that hand, the same as PokerOffice does. There's nothing really here that isn't in PokerOffice but the user interface does seem neater in PokerTracker.

HUD
I've covered the main application in some (too much!) depth but that's not all one needs from software such as this. The HUD is just as important as that's what you use when you're actually sat playing cards. During the course of this review I played a brief session at Bet365 just to see how the HUD worked and what I thought of it. My first impression is very positive and it seems much better than PokerOffice (although I have yet to see POv5 in action I have to admit).

The main points I want to make about the HUD concern the available features and the look and feel compared to what I am used to with PokerOffice. PokerTracker's HUD seems fast enough and allows the user to display a multitude of stats. It comes pre-configured with a sensible default set of stats (number of hands, VIP, PFR and aggression factor) but this can easily be changed to suit the user's needs. For example, I added the auto-rating icon to the display too so I can see who the fish are more quickly. The location of the HUD boxes for each player can be moved around the display as the user sees fit too, and this layout saved for use on other tables. This is useful as I don't like some of the default locations for the PokerOffice stats as they can obscure hole cards. Also the display for a given user can be expanded to show much more detail by clicking on it. If you do this the box expands greatly to show a breakdown of how that user plays, according to your database. You can see how often they cold call, attempt a steal, go to and win showdowns, plus aggression factor, check-raise frequency, 3-bet frequency and how often they fold to a bet, raise and three bet for the flop, turn and the river. Lots of information to get your teeth into if you want it. If you hover over a stat, instead of clicking it, you get a tooltip showing more information including the value of that stat for the current session. This is useful for spotting players on tilt, steaming and playing much looser than normal for example. The HUD also allows you to add player notes directly into the database so you don't need to take your eye of the game to make notes on a player. These notes are also dated so you can keep a history of notes if you wish. Other neat tricks include seeing the cards shown down plus the profit per player at the end of a hand, marking hands for review (so you can go back into the database offline and checkback through the hand) and being able to see the outcome of the last hand at any time during a hand, so if you missed a big pot you can quickly see who won and what they beat. This is all so much better than the PokerOffice HUD.

Conclusions
This review has become a lot more verbose than I had anticipated but it's important to me to get to grips with this software quickly and make sure I get the right product. Compared to PokerOffice I am seeing a lot of new and better features in PokerTracker. The PT interface is also much nicer and slicker. The various tabs are also far more linked up in PT with changes to one being reflected across the others, which is not the case in PokerOffice.

It's not all positive when it comes to PokerTracker though. You can't track iPoker observed hands directly with PokerTracker but you can use handgrabber tools such as IdleMiner to get the hand histories and load them into PokerTracker. Not ideal. Also tourney summaries are not imported (yet) but as a cash game player this is not a major concern to me at this stage.

I am slightly concerned about the level of documentation available though. The website does have some help documentation but is it enough? For example, I couldn't find anything that told me about tracking observed hands and had to search the PT forum for more on that. There is a reasonably active forum with a decent FAQ section though, and I have been able to do most of what I wanted to during this review without needing to resort to the help manual.

All in all I am very impressed with PokerTracker. It's reasonably priced at a one-off payment of $89.99 which is good for the life of version 3.x.x (the latest version seems to be 3.0.0 build 4 so there should be a fair amount of life in v3). For this I get a license allowing me to install PT on two computers, e.g. a desktop and a laptop, which is another nice touch. Also for a limited time they are giving away v2 of PokerTracker for free when you buy PTv3. Quite why I'd want this is another thing, but it's available all the same.

TableTracker
TableTracker is a separate product that integrates with PokerTracker and allows you to identify the tables at your poker site that would be most profitable for you to play. You tell it which sites and limits to search and it will go away and check the tables to find you the best place to play, based on the stats available in your PT database.

I can see this being useful for higher stakes players who play at several sites. For example, those playing NLHE may wish to find easier games more often and so will be willing to go to PokerStars, Full Tilt or wherever the best game happens to be, whereas I just want to sit down at a Bet365 $1/$2 limit hold'em table and try to grind out a profit at this stage. So TableTracker may be one for the future but isn't really for me at this stage of my career. I don't see the need to pay the monthly subscription fee of around $20 per month for it at this time as I don't see it making that much of a difference to my game.

mathare

22nd March 2009, 17:40

22nd March (part 2)
Well, that's PokerTracker well and truly reviewed so let's have a look at the other major product on the market - Holdem Manager.

Holdem Manager
The natural place to start is with the installation process. The installer is included in a zip file (which in itself is a little odd) downloadable from the website and once you have run that they suggest you read their setup guide. That immediately makes me think this isn't going to be as easy to get running as PokerTracker was. When I started HM for the first time it auto-detected a number of poker clients and the database I installed when I installed PokerTracker. I created a new database for HM so I could test import speeds and functionality to give it a fair test as I did that with PokerTracker.

My first impressions of the GUI are not good. I actually rate PokerOffice as more professional looking, and PokerTracker much more so. Not a great start but there is plenty of time for HM to win me over.

HM said it had auto-detected poker clients but in actual fact had only found my old Party Poker installation so loses to PokerTracker on that front as PT detected everything I had installed. Once I configured the auto imports for Bet365, to allow me to test the HUD and live tracker later, I pointed HM at my hand histories and set the import going. It seems slower than PT but not really so slow that you couldn't live with it, averaging 30-35 hands per second. My database isn't huge but if I had a lot more hands stored then this could take a while. PokerTracker provides more feedback and information to the user while importing too so that's another way in which PT is better.

The next step is to set the default player and configure aliases for that player. Having done that (which was fairly simple) I can now start to look through my data. The first view I get is my data broken down by stake levels. And it's wrong. It has picked up a number of hands that are limit tournament hands and marked them as cash game hands. Would I really play $600/1200 limit hold'em as a cash game?

There are fewer tabs in Holdem Manager than there are in PokerTracker but that's not a good thing. The main tab seems to be the Reports tab it defaults to. This initially shows summary stats (hands, profit, BB/100, VPIP, PFR etc) for all different staking levels with a lower table showing the hands at the selected level. The lower table is initially set to only show the first 100 hands but it can be set to show the first 500 or all hands. I would rather this defaulted to show all the hands as PT does. In the top left I have a combo box allowing me to select the report to show. This list includes things such as number of players, hole cards, stack size etc. allowing me to see my data broken down by any of these categories. There are quite a few things on this list I would rather see on a different tab, such as position, hole cards, hands at showdown etc. Talking of hands at showdown this brings me to another oddity - the display of such data. High card is ranked 1 and full house is 7th - the rankings are backwards but why? And the data is sorted in order of profit rather than actual hand ranking by default, which strikes me as a little odd and I would have to re-sort that. Fortunately that is as easy as clicking on the column header in the table. I can't see any option to display final hands I would have made had I not folded too, as I get in PokerTracker. Perhaps this is more of a novelty than of much real use but I kinda like it. The total stats for these tables don't stand out that well either. For example, I have my data sorted by hands at showdown at present and I find it hard to pick out the totals for all hands combined from the separator that splits this table from the more detailed table below. This interface really isn't doing it for me I'm afraid.

The Preflop Cards tab shows a grid of possible starting hands such as that in PokerStove. It seems to default to showing me which hands I have 3 bet with, along with a percentage, presumably the frequency with which I 3 bet those hands. Below that grid is a label showing how often I have taken this action with QQ, KK, AA and AK. OK, but why those hands? Is this customisable? I can't see a quick way of doing it if it is. These stats can be filtered by effective stacks, number of players and a variety of actions can be selected. It's interesting to look at some of these things but I'm not really sold on it at this stage. Again, I think it's the interface. If the whole GUI could be neatened up and made slicker I'm likely to be wowed by this but currently I'm not. The grid incorporates a colour coding based on the percentages for each hand so it's easier to tell at a glance which hands I act on in this way often and which rarely. It's not clear if these colours are customisable though, as I can imagine that's something you'd want to do if you used this screen a lot.

The Hands tab shows me my last 100 hands, but again this can be configured to show 500 or all hands. There's no filtering on this by default, it's just the last X hands. It shows the time, stakes, hole cards, board, profit, position, what action I was facing pre-flop, my action, the winner, their cards and the pot size. I don't really get this tab. What is the point of it? If I want to look at hands it's more likely to be by session, position, starting hand value etc rather than just the last 100 hands. Also the table shows some information I don't understand. There is a column with no header that contains F, R, RC, C, RC etc. I assume these stand for Fold, Raise, Call etc but is that just pre-flop action? I hovered over the column header and the individual entries in the table, and tried clicking them but got no more info this way so I am still a little in the dark. A few tooltips could make a massive improvement here - more interface disappointments. On closer inspection of the cluttered screen I notice there is one of these untitled columns after every street so I assume it is action on that betting round. What about EV $ diff though? I assume this relates to how much I am expected to make compared to what I actually made. And for that to work there have to be all-in situations, I think. Later on in the table there are columns for All-in And Equity % too. This layout is aimed far more at NLHE players I'd say - all-ins don't happen very often in limit poker.

The Sessions tab shows details of the sessions I have played. It defaults to displaying my data by time, so multi-table session show up as one entry in the table. But how can I tell it's a multi-table session? There is nothing to tell me how many tables I was playing at a time as there was in PokerTracker. The rest of the stats displayed are fairly standard though. HM uses the same green/red table colouring that PT uses to show profitable rows from losers, so that's finally something good about this interface. My sessions can also be grouped by day or month, or broken down by table, so that's quite nice. Nothing you can't really do in PokerTracker too though.

The Graphs tab confuses more than it actually shows meaningful information. There are options to show the difference rakeback and bonuses makes to your bottom line (which is admittedly a nice option) but again they seem to want me to show all-in EVs and things like that. Another tab that's not really set up that nicely for limit poker players.

Finally we have the vs Players tab, which shows the same sort of data as the PokerTracker tab did but not as nicely. I have columns showing me the number of 20BB and 50BB wins and losses but how often does these occur in limit poker? You can only get the equivalent of 12 large bets in by capping every betting round. Great for NLHE players I'm sure but largely irrelevant for players like me. I'd rather see the amount won and lost to a player but that's not in HM, just the difference between these figures.

Let's have a look at filtering data now, as that's something that is important to me. Filters applied to one tab are not carried over to other tabs so that same filters need to be set on all tabs if you want a consistent view of your data. This is the same as PokerOffice but not PokerTracker which carries filters over between tabs, and benefits greatly from it.

The top level tabs include a Players tab but having selected that I am not seeing any data even though the tab seems to suggest I have 1367 players in my database. It seems I have to click Run Report to populate this tab, so what I thought were just filters on the left-hand side are actually required inputs to configure the report and it defaults to displaying no players rather than all players. A tad confusing initially. Hmm, now I have hit Run Report it is displaying stats for me and me only. I'm not sure why but let's not worry about that for now. Below the table of players is a Player Analysis tab showing a breakdown of the chosen players play. It comments on the frequency of the player making certain plays. For example, this shows the chances of me 4 betting pre-flop are very low but so are the chances of me 3 or 4 betting. It gives the number of times I made this play, the number of times I could have played this way and the frequency as a percentage, plus the average for this play. Where has this average come from? From all players in my database? Is this used to determine whether the chances of me playing this way are high or low? It's just not obvious.

Let's have a quick scoot through the menus, of which there are more than PT. Actually, let's not as I don't understand many of them, and some of those I do understand I wouldn't have made into menu items as the HM developers have. I can't get away from the fact that I really don't like this interface and the product isn't as user-friendly and intuitive as others.

One thing I should cover is the hand replayer. I forgot about it till just now as it's not that obvious how to get it up. You need to double click a hand. The GUI is crowded and even though it contains much of the functionality one would want from a replayer I just don't like it. I have seen a few hand replayers and this is certainly not the best.

HUD
Call me unfair but I am not going to test the Holdem Manager HUD because the chances of me seeing out the 15 day trial, let alone buy the software, are slim. I really can't concentrate on playing poker knowing I don't like the tracker I am using so for that reason I'm not going to test the HUD. However, I have watched a few review videos on the HUD and it does seem to have some very useful features. For example, you can click on a players stats and get a full breakdown including a breakdown by position (early, middle, late, blinds etc). I can see this being a useful feature I must admit. There's a lot to be said for the details shown on mouse-over and clicking in the stats boxes - the HUD looks really good but much of it is the same as PokerTracker. Yes, there are more features such as the positional breakdown but that really doesn't make up for the user interface of the main program.

Conclusions
Have you really not worked it out yet? I don't like the front end of Holdem Manager. The reviews I read/watched on Holdem Manager and PokerTracker put HM out in front because of the 3 bet stats and the superior HUD but several of these reviews were on beta versions of PT when the HUD wasn't available so it wasn't a fair fight. I get the impression that the team behind PT is bigger too so many of the features currently unique to HM will soon find their way into PT but I'm not sure the reverse is true as it would require a massive overhaul of the HM front-end and that's never a small job so would be a major version release rather than a minor release.

Holdem Manager is cheaper at $80 but I think PokerTracker is worth the extra $10 and then some! From what I have seen today there is a clear market leader for poker tracking and analysis software and it's PokerTracker v3.

mathare

22nd March 2009, 17:52

22nd March (part 3)
One more about software and then I might get back on to playing some cards, honest!

While investigating PokerTracker and Holdem Manager I came across another interesting idea - buying hand histories. As I said in the PokerTracker review I can't capture iPoker observed hands without a 3rd party handgrabber so the only data I can record about players is that captured when they are sat at the same table as me. Or is it? Hand HQ sell datamined hands for all the major sites at a decent price. For example, I could get 300k hands of $1/$2 limit
hold'em from the iPoker network for a little over $10. Those hands were all captured in the last six months so are likely to include plenty of the players I currently face. This seems like a brilliant (and cheap) way to build up a database quickly and easily. I can learn more about the players I am currently facing and when looking to step up the levels (or perhaps if I am considering giving 6-max games a go) I can purchase hundreds of thousands of hands and get an instant idea of how the players at that level are doing rather than having to observe hundreds of hours of play on those tables and capture the data with a handgrabber. It seems such a simple idea but also pure genius. I can't believe I haven't come across the idea before. It will drastically reduce the number of strangers I sit down to play with as I will have an idea of their tendencies from the first hand I play with them much more often. No more waiting till I have several hundred hands for a player before I have a bead on their play - I can have it instantly for so many players.

For now I am going to make sure PokerTracker suits my needs and tweak the configuration a little so I will be back on the Bet365 tables, and not writing lengthy software reviews, while I still have the trial to run. But in the next week or so I will seriously consider purchasing a big block of hands from Hand HQ as they should pay for themselves quick enough even at my stakes.

mathare

22nd March 2009, 22:00

22nd March (part 4)
A two-table session to give PokerTracker a more thorough test and in doing so I have uncovered a couple of minor problems. It could just be the way I have it configured but the HUD is displaying my stats for this session only, rather than stats based on all my hands. I have fired off an e-mail to their support team so let's see how good their customer service is. The HUD proved useful today though and it was a decent session at the tables overall. The first table started well and got tricky later on when I failed to adapt to a loose-aggressive muppet who sat to my left. Not that I am saying that LAG is a muppet approach to the game but this guy was playing all sorts of trash and raising with it too. I'd correctly read him for not having the hand his betting would normally represent so I'd show down some bluff catchers only to have him hit a crappy low pair and beat me. Very annoying. I mean his 98o beat my AQs, and he raised pre-flop if memory serves me correctly. I could check but I can't be bothered, quite frankly. But this guy has jumped to the top of my 'players I lose to' list. I have beat him once but lost to him 4 times and each time it was a decent-sized pot. So I ended up losing on that table, losing nearly half a buy-in. Fortunately the other table, which had started off average to poor for me got very good later on with a huge pot - $55 after rake - coming my way. I hit the nut straight and had some guy with trips betting into me plus some fool who thought his two pair would be good. I hit them both for $15 each plus someone else juiced the pot to the river where it got too heavy for them so I made a profit of $40 on that one hand. I ended that session more than doubling my buy-in for my most profitable session on a table at that level. Losing on one table was annoying given the way it happened (through my bad play coupled with a lucky muppet) but more than doubling up on the other table made up for it.

I am going to make a few changes to the stats shown in here now I have switched to PokerTracker. This makes it easier to track VPIP which is much more meaningful than the percentage of flops seen. I am also going to start tracking my overall aggression factor (AF), plus my win rate per hour and other important stats from PokerTracker such as WTSD (Went To Showdown - percentage of hands in which I saw the flop and went to the showdown)

Stats
Hands: 3941
Won Hands: 10.43%
VP$IP: 17.38%
PFR: 9.13%
W$WSF: 43.89%
WTSD: 42.68%
W$SD: 56.54%
AF: 1.40
Won: $290.36
BB/100 hands: 3.68
$/hour: $6.34

mathare

24th March 2009, 23:34

24th March 2009
The usual two table fare this evening, and it's been a fairly average evening with little to shout about. So before I get to the results from this session and anything interesting I have spotted in my PokerTracker stats let's quickly go back over some old ground - PokerOffice v PokerTracker.

PokerOffice. I find out Saturday evening that my license has expired so dash their support team off a quick e-mail asking what's going. I get a response mid-afternoon on Monday basically saying tough luck and it's now $99 per year, or I can sign up through one of their poker room affiliate deals and get a free license. Been there and done that with them before and now look where I am. I actually got the feeling the support guy who replied had seem e-mail ssuch as mine several times now and that he understands how we feel but "the management/owners" have made a decision that obviously didn't include him and he's just repeating the company position to frustrated punters.

PokerTracker - I am still on the trial version so I am not a paying customer, but as I mentioned the other day I had a query about the HUD and my stats in it. I sent them a support query through their website and four hours later (and bear in mind it was a Sunday) I got as response. That's excellent customer service. And what's more the response was friendly and explained why I only saw my session stats rather than lifetime stats. The fella explained it with a clear example - it's because I know my lifetime stats but my opponents may not so if I normally play a 20/1 game but am playing more like 45/30 as the deck has hit me in the fact then it's best that I know my opponents are likely to view me as loose-aggressive. Makes sense when put to you like that, so I am happy with that feature now. And very happy with the customer support, as I had read reviews that said it wasn't that great.

And now tonight's cards. I hit my first quads at $1/$2 limit :D And it was Aces :) I had the pot won pretty comfortably before I got the fourth on the river but it was nice all the same. Not a huge pot ($16.63) though as it was just me and one other guy. But I did stack him with that hand, another nice touch. I felt I used the PT HUD stats well tonight too, which is a confidence boost. I didn't have that many great hands though so I played a bit weaker, well perhaps less aggressive rather than weaker, pre-flop. I did get KQo quite a few times in early position though - was someone trying to tell me something? It was a bit up and downs in terms of profit but it ended positively enough. In fact I am starting to plan when I should be moving up a level but I hope I haven't spoken too soon!

Stats
Hands: 4134
Won Hands: 10.52%
VP$IP: 17.63%
PFR: 9.22%
W$WSF: 44.07%
WTSD: 42.23%
W$SD: 56.19%
AF: 1.46
Won: $325.54
BB/100 hands: 3.94
$/hour: $6.83

All the numbers are moving in the right direction. I am very pleased with the way this is going :happyboun

mathare

26th March 2009, 23:31

26th March 2009
Another uneventful night at the tables. Two tables for a couple of hours and a nice profit - getting to be a bit boring now :wink

Seriously though, I am doing better than I expected so I have one eye on the future and where I go with this. I said before I started playing $1/2 limit that I would play as though I had a bankroll of $600 (300xBB, the recommended level) and would start taking shots when my bankroll gets up around $1000 to $1100. That's not far away now, certainly not if I carry on as I have been recently. So on one hand I am really thinking about mixing $2/4 in with my normal $1/2 but I also want to play a minimum number of hands/hours before I step up a level, just so I have more hands and know my own play better. Originally I had figures of 100 hours and/or 10,000 hands in my head but perhaps that's not realistic. After all, if I am making a good profit at this game why not step up and see if I can beat that one too? Why keep the stakes smaller than my ability can take? I'm gonna see how I feel over the next few sessions.

Stats
Hands: 4354
Won Hands: 10.91%
VP$IP: 17.98%
PFR: 9.49%
W$WSF: 44.90%
WTSD: 41.99%
W$SD: 55.52%
AF: 1.51
Won: $372.09
BB/100 hands: 4.27
$/hour: $7.51

MattR

27th March 2009, 00:41

After all, if I am making a good profit at this game why not step up and see if I can beat that one too?

Mat, is there also not an argument in there to say if I am making a good profit at this level why not continue to make hay?

I see your point to move up and it's a valid one but why not move up on one table and stay as you are on the other for a week or so and compare your results on the two levels?

mathare

27th March 2009, 10:07

Mat, is there also not an argument in there to say if I am making a good profit at this level why not continue to make hay?Oh yeah, absolutely. The thing is I am making over 4BB per 100 hands whereas a good player can expect to make 1 BB/100 so it seems to me that I am good enough to beat this game comfortably. If I double the stakes then as long as I don't halve my win rate I am making a better profit.

I see your point to move up and it's a valid one but why not move up on one table and stay as you are on the other for a week or so and compare your results on the two levels?That's exactly what I would do. When the time comes to move up a level I wouldn't just drop the games I am playing now - I'd mix tables from the two levels as you say.

Another thing I am also thinking of doing at this level, now I know I can beat it comfortably, is to add more tables into the mix. Step up to 3 tables soon, but at a game I know I am good at. Better to deal with any issues the extra table may cause at low stakes. Then in a few weeks I can always play three tables mixing $1/2 and $2/4

sportingprofit

27th March 2009, 11:06

5000 hands is not nearly a big enough sample to assume that you are a winner at the stakes (4ptbb/100 is very good though), although that said I think you have the roll to start taking shots at 2/4. You can easily move down if need be. One thing I regret is spending too much time at a limit and not moving up sooner. Plus playing at a higher limit will improve your game at a faster rate.

mathare

27th March 2009, 11:11

4ptbb/100 over 5000 hands is not nearly a big enough sample to assume that you are a winner at the stakesTrue. But I think you have a reasonable idea when you're beating a game as to whether it is luck or skill and this certainly doesn't feel like luck. I'm not saying I'm a great limit hold'em player but these are small stakes and there are a lot of bad players about.

although that said I think you have the roll to start taking shots at 2/4. You can easily move down if need be.Absolutely. And that's partly the reason for blending my play across the levels rather then just stepping straight up. PokerTracker will make it easy to track my play at the different levels too.

One thing I regret is spending too much time at a limit and not moving up sooner. Plus playing at a higher limit will improve your game at a faster rate.Yeah, I don't want to keep playing at a level I can beat just for the sake of it when there are greater profits to be made at higher stakes. I've dabbled in poker games on and off for two or three years but never had a real plan of action, until this year, so I've never really been in a position to move up in stakes. But I know it needs to be done and ought to be done soon.

mathare

28th March 2009, 19:45

28th March 2009
What an afternoon! I decided to put in a nice long session as I had nothing else urgent I needed to to but I'm kinda wishing I hadn't bothered. You know the setup by now - two $1/2 tables on Bet365 (I decided against stepping up just yet). I play a solid game on one of those tables and grind out a profit after a slow start but on the other I am getting destroyed. I've had full houses beaten by bigger full houses and my great starting hands just keeping turning to trash by the turn. When it looks like I might win a hand the river comes in and gives my opponent a lucky winner. I've had them hit trips on the river to beat my two pair too many times today. I'm getting a little sick of being ahead pre-flop only to get turned over by the board.

That's not to say that some of this luck hasn't been of my own making though. I have played badly at times, perhaps quite a lot of the time in fact, and that's contributed to the loss today for sure. But I've also had a stinking run of cards. One table my hands hold up but on the other they keep getting beaten. Or I get a strong hand pre-flop, raise and every one folds. It's certainly been a case of winning small pots and losing big ones.

I was playing to get back even over the whole session, just to show I could more than anything else. I know sessions are just arbitrary divisions in what is really just one long game, and also that I should have left the losing table long before I actually did. But knowing these things and actually acting on that knowledge are two very different things.

Looking at just today's stats I can see I played absolutely dreadfully out of the big blind. I don't understand why as I am usually good in the blinds. But today I was very poor in the big blind and poor in the small blind too. I was good on the button but lousy in middle position too. I know w're dealing with small samples per seat (around 40 hands per seat) so 1 hand can make a big difference but even so.

On the bright side though I limited the loss to under $15 at the end of the day so I shouldn't be too hard on myself. Although I should have quite earlier...

Stats
Hands: 4785
Won Hands: 11.03%
VP$IP: 18.12%
PFR: 9.72%
W$WSF: 44.84%
WTSD: 41.87%
W$SD: 54.67%
AF: 1.54
Won: $357.77
BB/100 hands: 3.74
$/hour: $6.71

mathare

29th March 2009, 22:39

29th March 2009
A bit of a landmark this evening as I bust through 5000 hands played at this level. Not that that means anything really. I'm trying to use it as a sign of commitment to the game and that I am keen to make the best of it. I am also happy that it gives me a reasonable number of hands with which to start analysing my game further. I know it's still not a big enough sample but it's bigger than it was, right.

Even with over 5000 hands under my belt I can still improve many areas of my game and I know that. Tonight my weak points were overconfidence with bluffs and overcard hands. I was substituting aggression for hand strength and position, and losing because of it. I managed to get on top of it though and learned to give up pots where I had missed the flop and had no draws and no high card strength. I could only beat a bluff, and a weak one at that. I had my usual mix of beats and outdraws that one expects when playing limit poker. I saw some stinking river cards I can tell you. I was building pots when I was ahead only to see them float off with the river when the villain gets lucky. We're not talking one- and two-outers admittedly but it was a little annoying all the same.

I managed to grind out a profit though, but had it not been for the timely appearance of QQ and KK I would have been reporting another small loss, probably similar to yesterday's. Today's win brings me to a profit of nearly $250 for the month - it's been a good month all in.

Stats
Hands: 5044
Won Hands: 11.14%
VP$IP: 18.12%
PFR: 9.71%
W$WSF: 45.34%
WTSD: 42.09%
W$SD: 54.67%
AF: 1.58
Won: $390.59
BB/100 hands: 3.87
$/hour: $7.05

So this session I upped the percentage of hands I win and kept my VPIP the same but the PFR dropped a little. The aggression factor continues to climb but is still a long way from where I want to get it (I'm paying the price for a lot of passive play in the first few thousand hands) and I am winning more hands when I see the flop now than I was. I'd like to get that figure up higher too. Is 50% unrealistic? I have to admit that I don't know what a good range is for some of these numbers yet and that I need to do so more reading into PokerTracker stats.

mathare

31st March 2009, 22:29

31st March 2009
Another session where I haven't played particularly well. It got off to a bad start when I wasn't able to credit the BB with a real hand on the first hand I played and ended up losing $10 to him. I was never ahead in the hand either, to make things worse. That set the scene for a good part of the session; it took me around 180 hands to get into profit for the first time this evening!

So what went wrong? Not giving people credit for hands was the main issue. I could have nothing and still be betting into people who obviously had me beaten with a pair at least. It didn't matter that it was probably a rubbish pair, I was beaten all the same. So by being stubborn and unable to fold when beaten I got myself off to a bad start that continued to get worse until a couple of big hands managed to turn it around.

I still need to tighten up further as my VPIP is too high at times. I also need to think about checking more too - lose some small pots on the turn river rather than bigger ones at the showdown. I am betting out (out of position) on flops where I have just overcards, hoping everyone else has missed too. They maybe have missed but are they going to fold for one small bet? Chances are they won't, certainly if they have any kinds of draw.

Still, it's been a good month overall. I played over 25 hours and put in over 2700 hands for a profit of just under $250. It hasn't all gone my way, and I have found myself playing awfully at times but I am learning and that's most definitely a good thing.

Stats
Hands: 5292
Won Hands: 11.19%
VP$IP: 18.22%
PFR: 9.66%
W$WSF: 45.20%
WTSD: 41.58%
W$SD: 55.13%
AF: 1.59
Won: $392.36
BB/100 hands: 3.71
$/hour: $6.84

mathare

4th April 2009, 20:14

4th April 2009
Today was the first time I had had a chance to get on the tables for a few days, and with the missus out I was determined to make the most of it. I had planned a morning/early afternoon session followed by another later in the afternoon but only the second of those actually happened for various reasons. But I was still keen to make a good session of it and with it being a new month I thought I'd try a new challenge - 3 tables at once. And it wasn't that bad at all really so I may do it more often. All tables were $1/2 limit as I haven't stepped up yet, despite what I said recently. I have set myself a target of $500 profit before I start taking shots as I know my game still has a number of weaknesses that I am trying to address. Pocket pairs are the latest weakness I have identified. I am playing a lot of the lower pairs on tight tables where I just don't have the odds to really justify it. But now I am aware of the problem I am taking conscious steps to work on addressing it.

Anyway. A mixed session today with two decent enough tables and one that suffered a bit. I just kept getting outdrawn and dealt either rubbish or a hand good enough to get me into a bit of trouble. I pulled it back a bit near the end though and across the three tables I made around $17 but it took me over two and a half hours! I tried to play tighter today though, and a lot of the time the cards played their part as I was getting dealt a lot of trash that's very easy to fold. I got the month off to a steady start and racked up a nice number of merit points (over 350) so I should easily keep my VIP level this month. Last month I earned around 2500 merit points but that's still nowhere near enough to go up another VIP level so I'm not really thinking about the rewards scheme as it's not worth much.

Stats
Hands: 5705
Won Hands: 10.99%
VP$IP: 17.76%
PFR: 9.45%
W$WSF: 45.60%
WTSD: 41.25%
W$SD: 55.64%
AF: 1.64
Won: $409.41
BB/100 hands: 3.59
$/hour: $6.82

So by playing tighter I also reduced my PFR a little, but that's to be expected when you get a lot of trash hands. The figures are starting to settle down now with each session having less of an impact on them, which is good. I think my true colours are starting to show through now.

mathare

19th April 2009, 23:00

19th April 2009
Tonight was my first session for a couple of weeks as I have been working on other things and haven't had a decent opportunity to get to the tables. But I wanted to keep my hand in, as it were, so tonight I made a special effort to play some poker.

Even though I haven't been playing poker for the past couple of weeks I haven't ignored the game completely. I have been reading more and more about the game and it's nuances. I read a book called "How Good Is Your Limit Hold'em?" which was interesting. It was aimed at higher stakes than I play (it was pitched at players in $15/30 games or higher) and was a strange format but useful nonetheless. When I say it was a strange format it takes the form of a series of hands and at various stages throughout the hand you're presented with a multi-choice question and then a few pages on are the answers for that hand. So you read through the hand, answer the questions as you go and then get your score at the end of it. The right answers to the questions are sometimes worth just a few marks (each hand is scored out of 100) and sometimes it'll be worth 20 or 30 marks as it's the key decision in the hand. I generally did OK but I was reading the book more to learn how to handle certain situations than to do it as the quiz it is intended to be. I have also been re-reading Hilger's book on internet limit hold'em, one of the first I bought on the subject several years back.

Has this reading helped? I think so as I identified a number of places where I was getting the answer wrong, even in Hilger's example hands in his book. I think I am betting/calling in too many places and losing bets that way. Overly aggressive if you like. I am also not thinking about the hand properly as I play. By that I mean I am looking at the board and my cards and thinking about my hand only, really. I take into account pot odds (most of the time) and number of opponents but I am not thinking hard enough about plenty of other factors, including:
position of my opponents
what their position and HUD stats means their likely range is
how my hand compares to their range
what their betting actions so far have told me about their hand
properly counting and evaluating my outs (which should I discount? which are likely counterfeited?)
etc
When I realised I had so many weaknesses in my whole approach to the game I was quite worried and resolved to address, which I am trying to do tonight but old habits die hard. A few times I have found myself calling bets, or leading out, when I really shouldn't be. I'm being shown hands at the end that I should have realised my opponent had as almost every time I see them I think "Oh yeah, makes sense" so why aren't I seeing these pitfalls before I fall into them? Because I am not concentrating on the game and don't play with the right mindset. I'm beating the game so don't have to think, maybe. I think I am also scared of folding the winning hand so calling a bet on the river even though there's a four flush out there and I've got second pair. I think I am justifying calls by thinking "I only need to catch him bluffing 1 time in X" but failing to take in all the signs that say he's not bluffing this time so let it go. I am reluctant to step up the stakes until I have addressed these basic issues to some degree at least.

So how did it go this evening with all this new knowledge and determination? I played 3 tables as I was keen to keep the action coming and also to continue knocking off these merit points I try and get each month. Having not played for a couple of weeks I was behind the curve somewhat on that front so I wanted to have a few tables open to help get me back on track there.

One thing that does stand out is the number of times I got dealt AQ tonight. It must have been 6 or 7, in only 300 or so hands. And I don't recall any of them resulting in a decent pot for me but I haven't checked the records for tonight in Poker Tracker to see whether that is actually the case or not. Actually I have just checked the records and it was 9 times I was deal AQ and I made a profit of around $11 from those hands. I also had two or three full houses cracked this evening, each time by a bigger full house. One of those days for that I guess.

Table 1 was basically breakeven by the end of the session. It started rockily for a few hands, then I went on a decent run and put myself into profit that built steadily till I overplayed a medium pocket pair into a board that four flushed and ended up losing $10 that hand. I built up the profit again before getting a full house beaten that cost me $8. My biggest losing hands for this session seem to be medium pocket pairs (TT twice, 88, 77). I won 17 hands (out of 140) which isn't too bad. My biggest winners though were just two pair type hands. It was my biggest hands that were getting beaten, mainly. A profit of $2.25 was the end result.

The second table was a similar story; a suspect start that then became a profit that slowly dripped away. 10 winning hands from 111 here, so lower than on table 1, and again it was two pair hands, and trips, that were winning me the cash when it did come my way. No huge losing hands this time but it was biggish Aces and broadway cards that were costing me money, mainly because the board was blanking on me so I was losing my pre-flop raises when I was forced to fold in the face of action. Another basically breakeven session though by the end with a profit of $2.72.

On the third table I never really got going. I had one full house hold up and that was the one bright spot in the session. I won only 8 hands overall, from over 100 so I consider that pretty poor going. I had one full house cracked here though and that cost me a bit. I also had other big starting hands beaten, such as AK, AQ, QQ, KQ etc. I've been outkicked, had two pair beaten by an unexpected trips and just generally beaten. I've also folded out the blinds a lot as I've had a lot of trash. But does that all explain how I managed to lose $28 at this table? Add in a few folds at various other stages of hands and it does, really, as the graph of this session is basically a steady downward trend. Perhaps this was one table too far? I was thinking towards the end of the session that if I to play properly, and think hands through thoroughly then I should really only be playing two tables at most. Something to bear in mind for the future.

I chipped another few hundred merit points off the target though, not that that is much consolation.

Stats
Hands: 6065
Won Hands: 10.93%
VP$IP: 17.63%
PFR: 9.51%
W$WSF: 45.60%
WTSD: 41.16%
W$SD: 55.40%
AF: 1.64
Won: $386.68
BB/100 hands: 3.19
$/hour: $6.21

mathare

20th April 2009, 23:09

20th April 2009
I'll be honest with you, I laid in bed last night really disappointed, almost disgusted, with how badly I had played poker that night. I was trying to take the multi-tabling thing too far and my game was suffering. I was angry to myself too. So tonight was an opportunity to put things right in my mind again. I cleared the decks after tea and sat down for a couple of hours of poker on two tables with the intention of cementing some of the basics I highlighted yesterday as weaknesses in my thinking when I play.

It wasn't the best of sessions this evening but it wasn't too bad really. I felt I played a lot better than last night but the cards didn't always run my way, which is to be expected. It felt a little like one of those sessions where I was being dealt cards and seeing flops designed to make you lose a little each hand. Decent Aces that miss the flop and then face heavier action than they can really stand; broadway hands that miss the flop that's checked around and then you're forced to fold in the face of action on the turn - those sort of hands. I built up the profit steadily this evening and then lost most of it again steadily, not through bad play necessarily, just natural attrition of my stack really. I was folding a lot out of the blinds in raised pots as I kept having trash. I amde a little overall though.

Another thing that occurred to me this evening was how much I really need to work on this mindset/thinking at the table thing. I seem to play alright really, when I look back over hands I am normally pretty happy with my hand. And on several occasions this evening (admittedly not as many as it should have been) I watched hands closely after folding and when it came to a showdown I'd try to name the hands I expected to see turned over. Perhaps not the exact hand but a range at least. And I was doing pretty well at this, which got me thinking. Yesterday I was talking about making changes to the way I think about the game at the table but is much alteration necessary? Have I been playing long enough (over the years) and reading enough about the game to have a good understanding and feel for the game such that instinct kicks in and tells me how to play without going through the whole conscious thought process? Perhaps. It's not as ridiculous as it sounds. Maybe I am subconsciously processing a lot of the information at the table correctly and making a lot of the right plays based on that. Difficult to prove either way but I certainly feel as though I have a good, err, feel for the game I am playing in.

Hmmm.

Stats
Hands: 6292
Won Hands: 10.87%
VP$IP: 17.63%
PFR: 9.46%
W$WSF: 45.47%
WTSD: 41.08%
W$SD: 55.91%
AF: 1.65
Won: $395.98
BB/100 hands: 3.07
$/hour: $6.14

mathare

26th April 2009, 12:46

26th April 2009
Perhaps playing on a Sunday morning is not a good idea. I fired up Bet365's poker room as I wanted to knock off the final merit points I need to retain my silver VIP level this month but I kinda wish I hadn't. I played some hands badly, that much is true. I also got dealt the sort of hands you have to take to the turn at least when they connect with a bit of a flop and the pot odds say you should try your luck but I don't think any of them got there so I just ended up losing more money. I got my merit points but they cost me as I lost nearly $45 making it my third worst session in terms of cash lost and easily my worst in terms of win rates.

I don't think I'll be troubling the $2/4 tables for a while unless I can significantly improve my play.

Stats
Hands: 6404
Won Hands: 10.77%
VP$IP: 17.60%
PFR: 9.42%
W$WSF: 45.02%
WTSD: 40.91%
W$SD: 55.36%
AF: 1.63
Won: $352.53
BB/100 hands: 2.65
$/hour: $5.31

mathare

27th April 2009, 22:34

27th April 2009
The main reason for tonight's session was actually to blow off a little steam, which is never really a good reason to play poker if I'm honest but I did it anyway. I also wanted a bit of an opportunity to update my Poker Tracker HUD at the tables, displaying more meaningful stats in a better layout than I used previously. So I have added more AF stats as well as C-bet and fold to C-bet stats to give me a better idea of what I am up against. Not that I think it makes a massive difference at low stakes limit hold'em but I've done it anyway.

So how did the session go? It took me over 100 hands to show any sort of profit and shortly afterwards I had total brain freeze for a few hands, got way overconfident and cocky and dropped over $30. Whoops! I steadily built it back up with some much better play - and significantly better cards. I even had some muppet betting into my quads till we capped the turn and river :laugh. So from over $30 down to around $25 up at the end of the two-table session ain't too bad really. The stats are going to show a fairly high VPIP for that session though, partly because I played really quite slackly in some places. I'm still not really back in the zone.

Stats
Hands: 6655
Won Hands: 10.91%
VP$IP: 17.81%
PFR: 9.45%
W$WSF: 45.23%
WTSD: 41.49%
W$SD: 55.65%
AF: 1.62
Won: $376.60
BB/100 hands: 2.83
$/hour: $5.50

I still think I can much better than this...

mathare

3rd May 2009, 22:57

3rd May 2009
Some days I wonder why I even bother. And today was one of them.

I played absolutely appallingly! Loose, passive and just generally badly. Calling in all the wrong spots, not pressing the edges when I had them, that sort of thing. Looking back I can't believe some of the hands I was playing out of position. They weren't utter trash, although they may as well have been for all the good they did me. They were marginal hands designed to get you into trouble and that's what happened most of the time. My steal timing was also way off tonight as I was trying to steal from calling stations and ardent blind defenders. I have these stats available to me so why aren't I using them properly?

I lost almost a full initial buy-in ($50) on one table and managed to escape with only a $9 on the other but it wasn't pretty on either table. And I had good hands tonight on both tables too, including AA on both tables. But it was another of those days where suited starting hands hit two more on the flop but the turn and river both blank, or when I flop the nut straight the turn or river will result in a split pot. A typical poker day in other words. Although it's not every day you run two hands into quads!

One my second table I call from the SB with 83o after 4 others limp. I figure the pot odds make it worth seeing a cheap flop, and that's what I get. 4-4-8 giving me two pair but with no kicker. I check, the two players next to act check before someone bets. Called round to my left who check-raises (git!) and 5 of us see the turn. Another 4! I've hit a full house but anyone with a pair better than 8s is ahead of me. I lead out to see where I am and get 3 callers. OK. I figure I could still have the best hand but may also be in trouble. So when the river comes an 8 I am so happy as I have backed into a better full house. I bet and get raised by the villain to my left. There's cold-call and a fold before it's back to me. I am top full house so I raise. I could have closed the action there and then but I put the guy on my left on a bigger pair than 8s, but not much bigger given the pre-flop action (he didn't raise, just checked his option). I figure he was set-mining but hit a lucky full house, can beat the board so is playing it strongly. I figure I have the best hand and raise him. I don't know what the other muppet is doing in this hand. The betting is capped by the villain to my left - hmmm. The other player folds and I call, obviously. He shows me the case 4 and drags the $43 pot. ;fire

On the first table I ran KQs into quads. I was one off the button and cold-called a raise from middle position. Questionable I know, but it lead to a heads up flop which came 9-K-9. Two pair again, nice. And with a kicker this time. He checks, I bet, he check-raises me and I call. The turn is a 4 to complete a potential flush but I still think my two pair are good. He bets, I call. The river is a blank (5), he bets and I call. He tables 99 for flopped quads. I was never in the hand, but I could have lost a lot more I feel. Thanks goodness for position.

A poor session tonight though and one that has really set me back on my road to the $2/4 tables. It's a good job I am still playing at the lower levels if I am going to play this badly. A lot of it tonight was basics going out the window. Thinking KQo is playable first to act in early/middle position. Thinking that because everyone else has missed the flop then my toss hand could be best even though it's only really J high. I need to really tighten up and start pushing hands when I am sure I am ahead. My opponents are generally straightforward players and if they bet they have something so I should taking one off with draws that don't have the odds, just in case. It should be all about the pot odds in this game, not feel.

I think part of the problem is getting bored though. I am folding Q4, J3 etc a lot but not getting many playable hands so I play ATo and dross like that out of position as it's the best hand I have seen for a couple of orbits. I need to drill more patience into myself. Goodness only knows how I do that!

Stats
Hands: 6864
Won Hands: 10.77%
VP$IP: 17.74%
PFR: 9.43%
W$WSF: 44.73%
WTSD: 41.45%
W$SD: 55.08%
AF: 1.62
Won: $319.08
BB/100 hands: 2.26
$/hour: $4.53

Those stats look awful! I need to do something about them in the next session for sure.

mathare

5th May 2009, 19:30

5th May 2009
I'm not going to dwell on this evening's session as it was basically more of the same. I played better than last time but it felt like none of my drawing hands were hitting. I had the odds to draw so I am plugging away but still drawing blanks. Add to that decent hands on the flop that I bet out to protect getting called by muppets who were way behind and draw out on me and it makes for a bad session. Some of my big starting hands only won the blinds and some of my trash starting hands would have flopped full houses. Typical poker again, really. But another step backwards overall.

Stats
Hands: 7169
Won Hands: 10.77%
VP$IP: 17.80%
PFR: 9.44%
W$WSF: 44.69%
WTSD: 41.22%
W$SD: 55.27%
AF: 1.62
Won: $304.05
BB/100 hands: 2.12
$/hour: $4.17

mathare

7th May 2009, 18:33

7th May 2009
This afternoon I went a long way to undoing some of the damage done recently, both to my confidence and bank balance.

It was the standard two table session and on one of those tables I could do no wrong. Sure, having a string of good hands helped things along but I also played well. Tight and aggressive, making a lot from my good hands and getting away from hands when I knew I was beaten. Maximising wins and minimising losses like a good'un. The second table was a different story as I was basically breaking even, give or take a few blinds lost along the way for over 120 hands. I was only a few bucks down and then I got beaten by a two outer on the river, played then next hand too fast and too far and basically tilted. I don't feel I am a tilty player but the graph of profits from the session doesn't lie and after that two-outer hit it's all downhill so I have to assume it was tilt in some form. I wasn't unlucky with hands after that, not as such. I played badly, basically. Fortunately I was well on my way to recording my best ever session on the other table and netted a profit of over $40, which is stunning bearing in mind I lost more than that on one of those tables. A profit of $82.40 on one table and a loss of $41.75 on the other - a real tale of two tables.

Stats
Hands: 7483
Won Hands: 10.68%
VP$IP: 17.57%
PFR: 9.31%
W$WSF: 44.80%
WTSD: 40.97%
W$SD: 55.53%
AF: 1.61
Won: $344.70
BB/100 hands: 2.28
$/hour: $4.57

So tighter but there is still work to be done on the aggression in my game. I think I have a habit though of playing/raising marginal hands to try and get that aggression up though, which isn't the point. I need to play a solid game and get the aggression up as a natural by-product of that solid approach.

mathare

8th May 2009, 23:29

8th May 2009
A brain freeze after about 70 hands in tonight's session did the damage as I went from a slight profit to being down around $50 in less than 50 hands. I got arrogant and figured I could beat straightforward players by betting them off the pot. Yes, I tried that in limit poker. Deep down I don't have enough respect for my opponents at this level and that's something I need to deal with before it does even more damage to my bankroll. I managed to limit the damage to around $15 overall by playing much better after this point. I couldn't quite ever get back up to being level for the session though.

Stats
Hands: 7790
Won Hands: 10.54%
VP$IP: 17.39%
PFR: 9.23%
W$WSF: 44.77%
WTSD: 41.06%
W$SD: 55.54%
AF: 1.60
Won: $329.75
BB/100 hands: 2.11
$/hour: $4.23

mathare

9th May 2009, 12:34

9th May 2009
I stuck in a late morning session today because I was a little bored, if truth be told. I had set Excel off processing a load of data for me and had little else pressing to do so I figured a couple of hours at the poker tables before the racing started wouldn't hurt.

And I was right - it didn't hurt. In fact it turned out quite well. The play felt good - tight and reasonably aggressive without being aggressive for the sake of it. And I made a few quid out of it, about $35 in fact. That has greatly reduced my monthly loss and set me back on the right road.

I have a few bits to sort out this afternoon but I may try and squeeze a second session in later and if I can play like that again later I'll be very happy :)

Stats
Hands: 7950
Won Hands: 10.52%
VP$IP: 17.31%
PFR: 9.18%
W$WSF: 44.75%
WTSD: 40.73%
W$SD: 55.94%
AF: 1.62
Won: $364.90
BB/100 hands: 2.30
$/hour: $4.59

mathare

10th May 2009, 22:19

10th May 2009
Well I didn't get a second session in yesterday as I had hoped so I stuck one in this evening instead. Y'know how some days it really just doesn't work for you? Today was one of those really. It took me 200 hands across two tables - so roughly an hour and a three-quarters - to make any sort of a profit. It started with just the blinds draining me, then I lost a few hands, won a few, lost a few etc. I fluctuated around a loss of $10for a long while before eventually getting a few hands to hold up, stealing a few pots and eventually breaking the right side of the zero line. The plan at that point was to stop on the basis that if it had taken me that long to breakeven I was going to have a very good night and I should be happy to have got back to evens. So I unchecked the 'auto post' checkbox for each table and played out the hands I had already effectively paid for in the form of the blinds. During that I got AK that held up for another $9 profit so I finished $20 up on one table and around $10 down on the other. That'll do. I didn't feel in the zone and my head wasn't particularly in the game. I feel tired so it's good point to stop.

I played nice tight poker this evening though. It felt good and with all the trash I kept having to fold my VPIP was around 12%. I still need to work on the aggression though as I let that slip a little. I found myself calling in pots I could have raised but I wasn't anywhere near a lock some of the time and the raises felt like they would have been marginal, raises for raises sake rather than when I thought I really had the best hand.

Stats
Hands: 8165
Won Hands: 10.41%
VP$IP: 17.16%
PFR: 9.09%
W$WSF: 44.78%
WTSD: 40.61%
W$SD: 55.76%
AF: 1.62
Won: $375.25
BB/100 hands: 2.31
$/hour: $4.61

My overall VPIP has come down 0.15% in that session, which is nice to see. The percentage of hands won has come down too but I'm not too worried about that as it's big pots I am trying to win, not just a lot of pots.

mathare

11th May 2009, 22:34

11th May 2009
What the hell happened tonight?!?

Yep, a really poor session this evening, losing $20 on one table and $43.50 on the other. So what went wrong? Stupid as it sounds - the cards. I hardly had a hand worth playing.

On the first table I started well, made a bad play, steadied the ship, pulled it back, lost it, steadied the ship once more, another brain freeze and then steady again. But looking at the cards I got - oh dear! Out of 126 hands I saw just 15 flops - that's only 11.90% of flops and for a period we were short-handed (3-5 players). Worse than that I won only 7 hands (5.56%), and one of those was a walk and the other was just stealing the blinds. I'll hold my hands up to around $10 in losses due to bad play on this table though but that's still another $10 due to lost blinds etc. And winning just 7 out of 126 hands - that's rubbish! But I didn't have playable hands for the most part. I'd get something half decent but be out of position or facing a raise and a possible re-raise so be forced to fold. Or just get trash, plain and simple.

The story of the second table is even worse. Hands played: 115. Hands won: 4! Yes, just 4 hands. And each time all I won was the blinds. I had a tight image, that much is true, but with the cards I was getting I had no real choice. Sometimes your hands choose your image for you at limit poker and tonight I had little option but to appear tight and keep folding the trash. My first card would be an Ace or King and my hope would rise a little only to see a 4 or something land next to it. Pah! I got blinded away a lot here. I only lost more than $3 in two hands. In one I got rivered and in the other I just played badly. So of the loss of over $40 I'll claim about $6 in bad play but the rest is due to the cards, pure and simple.

I really didn't enjoy this evening at all. I bet my VPIP has dropped a lot though...

Stats
Hands: 8409
Won Hands: 10.21%
VP$IP: 16.93%
PFR: 9.01%
W$WSF: 44.36%
WTSD: 40.56%
W$SD: 55.40%
AF: 1.61
Won: $311.79
BB/100 hands: 1.87
$/hour: $3.74

I hope that dreadful run of cards means I can expect some big pocket pairs in the coming sessions. And perhaps I won't get done with set over set and get my AKs over turned too... :rolleyes:

mathare

23rd May 2009, 16:10

23rd May 2009
No further play since my last update for various reasons. But I wanted to post a new entry in this diary as a few things have been bothering me recenty, including my choice of game.

Scan any poker bookshelf, pick up any poker magazine, read any poker forum and most of the information and advice will be on no-limit hold'em. The limit game is the ugly sister, if you like. A game that many see as virtually solved so there is little new to say about it. You play certain hands in certain positions and pick up the money in the end. And that's about it. There isn't a fortune to be made in any one session playing limit poker and in some senses you're not a real man unless you're duking it out online with no-limit poker players. And this is all starting to get to me and making me want to play no-limit poker just to feel more like a proper player.

I recently found I had more in my Ladbrokes account than I realised so I am tempted to use that bankroll on effectively a shot to nothing. SnGs or micro stakes cash games though, that's the question. I am tempted more by the former at present but cracking NLHE cash is something that remains a real goal for me. I play it in home games and do reasonably well so why do I fail online?

I'm going to test the waters a little this weekend, all being well. I'll report back on how it goes.

mathare

23rd May 2009, 18:48

23rd May 2009 (part 2)
I decided if I am going to man up I might as well do it properly, so rather than just playing NLHE cash games I should play 6-max NLHE. And that's just what I did for a couple of hours. I dropped right down the stakes to $0.05-$0.10 on Bet365 (better PokerTracker support than Ladbrokes and I figured I may as well keep all my action on one site and build up one set of loyalty points). And it went pretty well, thankfully.

I had to adjust to playing no-limit again, which was easy enough really, but the six-max factor was new for me. So I loosened up and stole a good number of pots as well as value bet my way to some nice wins. I ran into the calling stations I expected to find swimming at this level and on occasion forgot how to play against them but overall I made a respectable profit, given the stakes.

So what are my aims here? I'm not going to make my fortune piddling about at this level, I accept that. But I can multi-table these games, rack up the hands, build up the experience and also grow the bankroll. If I start with a nominal bankroll of $200 for these stakes I will step up to $0.10-$0.20 when I get to $400 (i.e. profit of $200). That's a way off yet and I know I will lose buy-ins along the way but it's important to have goals. I know plenty about the game of poker so it's about time I started to get something tangible out of it, and I am starting to think that the only way to do that is through NLHE cash games hence this latest adventure.

NLHE stats
Hands: 230
Won Hands: 25.22%
VP$IP: 32.61%
PFR: 22.61%
W$WSF: 42.25%
WTSD: 28.17%
W$SD: 60.00%
AF: 3.44
Won: $4.21
BB/100 hands: 9.15
$/hour: $2.38

mathare

25th May 2009, 16:17

25th May 2009
Absolutely awful today. Really, really bad. So bad in fact that this excursion into the realm of NLHE cash games may end very soon. Today was almost enough to convince me to give up poker completely at one stage.

I played poorly (I keep saying that so why can't I do anything about it?) but also got on the wrong side of some variance that did nothing to improve my mood. I finished the two-table session down over 2.5 buy-ins. I got rivered when all-in with AQo against A5s when he hit a 5. I got it all in good on having flopped the nut straight with QTs against JJ only for the board to pair making his full house. I ran AKo into ATo all-in and he hit a set. OK, on balance I also won all-ins with KK (twice), AJo and 33 but the amount I won on these hands wasn't enough to offset the all-in losses. I also had heavy losses with QQ twice, once into AKo and once into 55 which backed into a flush. A seriously bad afternoon. OK, I know in cash terms I didn't lose that much but I have studied the game for years and I am still capable of playing badly and losing even in games such as these. It is really making me question my poker future. Has none of what I have read sunk in and carried over into my game? If I keep getting results as I have been lately I am tempted to give up on the game altogether.

NLHE stats
Hands: 707
Won Hands: 21.50%
VP$IP: 27.86%
PFR: 19.09%
W$WSF: 44.12%
WTSD: 24.71%
W$SD: 50.00%
AF: 3.67
Won: -$21.72
BB/100 hands: -15.36
$/hour: -$4.74

Win2Win

25th May 2009, 21:11

Just off the Bellagio :D ....plenty of stupid Yanks in town for the holiday to fleece :thumbs

mathare

31st May 2009, 16:22

31st May 2009
Well it hasn't taken that long but I think I have finally realised that NLHE cash games online aren't for me. Another losing session (at 2 tables) but during this session I did some soul searching and it dawned on me that I'm just not set up to play NLHE cash, even at micro stakes. I don't have the mindset to concentrate solely on the poker - this afternoon I was 'watching' the racing on Betdaq and filling in the results in my spreadsheet as I went along. I'm also not in the best of health at present (don't ask, it's a long story that I don't want to get into here) which is affecting my mindset. The long and short of it is I can't concentrate enough to play poker.

For a while now (weeks? months?) I have been using poker as boredom relief. I'm not into the game sufficiently to stand a chance of winning but I am playing for the sake of it really. I have plently of other things I could be doing but somewhere in my brain I decide to play poker. Perhaps it's because that's the only of the options that gives me the opportunity to make a few quid along the way. Other things I could be doing could lead to much more cash than the poker can but they are long-term strategies. I think I need quick wins, or at least that's the mindset I seem to be in at present.

I think I need time away from the tables to regroup, think about what I want from poker and how I am going to get it. Because playing in this sort of mood isn't going to result in any money coming my way, I know that for sure.

NLHE stats
Hands: 958
Won Hands: 20.88%
VP$IP: 27.04%
PFR: 17.95%
W$WSF: 44.25%
WTSD: 25.22%
W$SD: 43.86%
AF: 4.43
Won: -$28.55
BB/100 hands: -14.90
$/hour: -$4.69

eruptive plot

3rd June 2009, 07:31

we all go through these losing sessions matt,just remember that big pocket pairs are profitible long term.you just got to grin and bear it when they get cracked and move on the the next big one.
personally i like to see the flop because aces are a nice starting hand,but it is very beatable with any 2 cards, and when i do i get my chips in when playing sit n gos,but when you are playing for cash you have got to be more cautious

mathare

3rd June 2009, 08:52

Cheers EP. Eventually I will get back to limit poker and try and build up some confidence (and a bankroll) that way. I have these flirtations with NLHE cash games every now and then and they usually go badly but over time I forget that and think "I should be able to play NLHE cash, let's have a go"

John

8th June 2009, 11:32

Hi Mat,

You said something to me once which has engraved itself into my brain and frankly, taken a lot of the emotion away when a bad beat occurs. What you said went something like, "It's not always the result that matters. It doesn't matter if you lose the hand if you played it properly" and that's what you've demonstrated above. E.g. on the QTs / JJ hand, 90-95% of the time you'd have hit and KEPT your straight, winning the pot.

You just have to pick your head up off the floor and keep grinding away. And if I may give you a piece of advice - please, please stop doing other things when playing poker. Focus on the table, 100%. Have it open all the time, not minimised when it's not your turn. Poker software only tells you so much, and sometimes you have to make up your own mind, and not rely on the software.

For me, two tables open side-by-side, with music on, is enough to focus me, but sometimes two tables open is too much especially if I'm at the late stages of both tournaments (STTs were what I played, and are now nearly gone... MTTs are gradually taking their place).

I appreciate you're different... but what I don't understand where you're coming from is this... a question I don't know if you'll be able to answer. If you read so much about the game, and enjoy the 'inner workings' of the game i.e. watching the way people move, how they play based on position, etc, and all whilst doing this you're simultaneously and most importantly making your own moves with your own cards, how are you not fully focused on this? How do you get distracted with other things? I just would have thought your mind would be engrossed enough in these things to not even want to look at doing anything else at the same time. Do you think you would make more money if you focused solely on the table(s)?

mathare

8th June 2009, 12:04

And if I may give you a piece of advice - please, please stop doing other things when playing poker. Focus on the table, 100%. Have it open all the time, not minimised when it's not your turn. Poker software only tells you so much, and sometimes you have to make up your own mind, and not rely on the software.Focus is my biggest problem, not just with poker either. I am taking steps to deal with it though, where possible.

For me, two tables open side-by-side, with music on, is enough to focus meNot me, unfortunately. My brain is still churning at 100mph and craves more so I slip away from the tables. I have been reading some interesting books and articles about the differences between online and casino poker. They talk about online poker being a stream whereas casino poker is an ocean of inputs. You're surrounded by poker - other tables, chips, cards, the sights and sounds of poker, cocktail waitresses and the general buzz of a poker environment. Online you just have what comes out of the screen. You're not immersed, which is the biggest challenge I face and one I need to overcome. Somehow.

If you read so much about the game, and enjoy the 'inner workings' of the game i.e. watching the way people move, how they play based on position, etc, and all whilst doing this you're simultaneously and most importantly making your own moves with your own cards, how are you not fully focused on this? How do you get distracted with other things?Because my moves are almost instantaneous, in my mind if not in action. I know what I am going to do with my cards as soon as I see them. I know that unless I get three callers before me I'm folding. When the flop hits I know if I am c-betting, checking or folding into a raise etc. My mind doesn't need to think about these things for long. I play almost on instinct if you like so my conscious brain isn't engaged anywhere near as much as it would be for tasks I need to think about.

I just would have thought your mind would be engrossed enough in these things to not even want to look at doing anything else at the same time. Do you think you would make more money if you focused solely on the table(s)?Would I make more if I focused just on the tables? Possibly. Could I do that - not easily. And certainly not for long or consistently. I know my own weaknesses and focus has always been one of them. My PC (and desk actually) is littered with half-completed projects. Things I start and then something else comes along, more interesting to me at the time, so I start that. Repeat, repeat, repeat. My mind isn't engrossed in the poker enough to not wander. Fold on one table, fold on the other and then what? It could be 30-40s before I see more cards. I can't watch my opponents act and study them to get anything valuable that I can't get from the software (in my opinion, and that's worth it at these stakes) so my mind wanders. E-mail, internet etc. Maybe more tables is the answer, who knows. I need to continue my readings on focus, ADD etc and see what I can learn and then try to apply these lessons at the tables and see what happens.

mathare

8th June 2009, 22:46

I was going to play limit hold'em this evening and rack up some more merit points to maintain that VIP level and also get my head back in the game somewhat but then something I had read recently sprang into my head. It was something I read last night about being mentally prepared for a game online. In a real world casino one probably drives there, or at least crosses the casino floor to the poker room. You then put your name on a list for a game, get your set, buy your chips etc. There are several steps you have to go through to get into a game, even one that has an open seat that means it could easily take you a few minutes to be seated and dealt into the game. Online that's not the case. Fire up the poker room, your chips are there waiting for you so you just pick a table with an open seat and you're away. It's much quicker and you don't have time to mentally prepare as well as you would for a live game. Because of there is a tendency for online players to start sessions badly until they really get their mind in gear.

Is this me? Do I start sessions weakly? That was something I was going to find out tonight and then I had another thought.

I have made a profit at limit hold'em, albeit smaller than I was really hoping for at this stage. Is it me or could it be the luck of the cards? Is there a way to tell?

What I have done is calculated the probability of being dealt each hand and compared that to the number of times I have been dealt that hand out of the 8431 hands I have recorded at $1/2 limit hold'em in Poker Tracker. I have also used some empirical evidence of BB/hand (from over 100 million hands dealt at PokerRoom), EVs basically, and compared that to what I am registering for each hand. Let's have a look at what comes out of this shall we?

Before I do though I want to bung in a quick disclaimer - my sample is still small so any conclusions drawn won't be rock solid. I am doing this more for interest and to potentially guide my future play, as well as a quick check on whether my profits thus far are likely to be greater than I could reasonably expect or not. It's not going to be fully 100% accurate though due to the small sample.

I've been dealt 80 hands (out of 169) more than one would expect for a truly random deck of cards. Of these hands I've had A3o far more often than I ought to have done (99 times instead of 76.30). I've also had 63o, 72o and 42s over 20 times more than I 'should' have done. All losing hands for me, and according to the empirical EV values I have too. In fact of the 12 hands I have received over 10 times more than the expected frequency 9 of them are losers. The only significant winner is AQs which I have been dealt 11.57 times more than one would expect in 8431 random hands.

Have I benefitted from the hands I have been dealt more often than normal though? My EV (BB/hand) values are too rough and subject to influence by a small number of hands due to my sample size so I am going to use the 'real' EVs from PokerRoom here. If I multiply the EV of each hand I have received more often than expected by the difference in the expected and actual number of times I have been dealt the hand I get an estimate of the number of BB I have gained or lost by being dealt these hands more often. And the sum of this figure for the 80 hands is negative, i.e. I should have lost money on them. The EV of these 'extra' hands is -6.915 BB in fact.

I have been dealt the following more often than expected and as a result have made more than half a BB on that hand ranking:
AA, AKo, AQs, AJs, ATs, A4s, KQs, KQo, 77

Some of the big suited Aces in there, so it looks at first glance as though the cards have been kind to me and I have gained bets because of these hands. In fact I have had AA around 5 times more than expected giving me +11.25BB there. I can expect a statistical correction over time then, with AA coming less often than expected. Hands like A4s are only marginally profitable (+0.06BB/hand) but I have been dealt that hand 13.57 times more than average, hence it contributing over 0.5BB to my bottom line.

What about hands I have had more than average that have cost me money? The hands I have received more than expected and as a result have cost me more than 1xBB in EV are:
A8o, A3o, K2o, Q7o, J4o, J2s, T4o, T2s, 97o, 72o, 63o, 62o, 52o, 42s

That's 14 hands, and I used a measure of -1xBB EV compared to +0.5BB for the hands that have won me money as I wanted a comparable number of hands in each list. There are 28 hands in total that have cost me more than -0.5xBB! Some of the 14 hands listed above we have come across before, hands that I have been dealt a lot more often than expected. And with a negative EV for each hand it all adds up.

Obviously receiving 80 hands more often than expected means I received 89 hands less often than one would expect from 8431 random hands. What of those? Which big hands am I being dealt fewer off than I should get and what is that costing me? But also which losing hands am I not getting as often to boost the profits (by not costing me money as often)?

The hands I should have been dealt over 10 times more than I have been are all negative EV hands, unfortunately. There are 12 of them but I won't list them as they are junk hands. So it seems I can expect to get dealt more junk in the future to even things out. Great. In particular I can look forward to 98o coming up more often as I have had 26.3 fewer instances of that hand than I would expect from a random deck.

But what about the general EV of these hands I receive less often than the average player? Oh, I have effectively saved over 17BB by not getting these trashy hands so often. That doesn't sound so good.

However, I have been dealt 20 of the positive EV hands less often than expected, including big pairs such as KK, QQ and JJ and some big Aces such as AKs, AJo and ATo (alright, marginal that last one really). I 'should' be another 25BB up had I been dealt these hands as often as the stats say I should have got them. That is good news.

The bottom line though seems to be that, if the empirical EVs are anywhere near (and I have no reason to doubt they are good enough for these purposes given the other limitations on the data) I am actually around 10BB up on where I 'should' be thanks to being dealt some hands more or less often than others. I should effectively knock $20 off my profit to date, is more or less what that says. I have been dealt the best hand(s), or at least the more profitable hands, more often than expected. Note though that the 11.25BB from the Aces makes up more than 100% of the total. Take the bullets out of the equation and I am about square, and that's only 5 hands. OK, that's maybe twisting the data to bring about the conclusions I want from it but you see my point. My data sample is small and I suppose my profit is about where it should be given the hands I have been dealt, taking the limitations on my data into account.

But what does that mean?

It means I am playing good enough poker, or at least that's how I interpret it. I seem to be pretty much on target given the hands I have been dealt. There is another stat that will reveal more on this though - and that's a comparison of my BB/hand (EV) with the empirical baseline figures. When I get AA do I make as much as I should? This analysis is more flawed than the earlier analysis really due to the sample size but I'm going to do it all the same.

Of the 40 hands with a positive empirical EV I am making more than expected on 17 of those hands and less on 23 of them. I make more BB/hand on some of the biggies such as AA, KK, QQ, JJ and AKo. In fact I make 1.71BB/hand more than I should on QQ but that is only based on 33 hands which means a single hand can have a big impact on these figures. Similarly the +0.69BB/hand more I make on AA is based on just 43 hands so a single hand still has a big influence. Recall what I said earlier about small samples. So it seems I am making more on my big pairs and big connectors than I 'should'.

Of the 23 hands I win less with than I should I have actually turned 16 of the winning hands in to hands with a negative EV, including AT, KQo and TT. And though the sample is very small (16 hands) I need to do better with QJs as I am 1.50BB/hand behind the curve with that hand, by far the greatest negative difference between my recorded EV and the empirical EVs from PokerRoom.

For the losing (negative EV) hands I have turned 29 of them into winning (positive EV) hands. However, sample sizes are small (12 to 84) so no meaningful conclusions can be drawn here, other than the fact that these are generally trash hands and I mustn't allow the fact that they have been profitable for me so far to guide my play of them in the future. They are not good hands to be playing so I can't start to think that Q2s, 93o etc are profitable hands to play in limit hold'em.

Am I learning anything from this analysis? Other than I need to play a lot more hands before I do anything like this again as my sample size is far too small, obviously. I think so, but my brain hasn't quite worked out what really. I saw earlier that I am about on the money (no pun intended) in terms of winning what I should from the hands I have been dealt. I have been dealt some hands (such as AA) more than I should have been but there are plenty of other winning hands that are 'overdue' in as much as I can expect to receive them more often than normal if the random distribution of hands is to level out (which it will long term but who can say how long the long term really is).

The one thing I can take away from this is confidence. I had a dreadful session last time I played limit hold'em getting creamed across both tables. Tonight I have got my poker brain back in gear without actually playing. I have taken time to analyse my play (from a slightly unusual angle, admittedly) and feel like the last session was a correction rather than my skills going completely out the window. This is poker, some days you're going to play every hand correctly and still get murdered. That's the nature of the game. It means others can play it completely wrong and win a bit of cash which keeps them coming back for the long term correction where they give all the money back plus some. I feel a renewed energy and confidence in my play. I wonder how long it will last once I fire up the poker tables though :laugh

Finally I want to quickly look at something I planned to start the evening with, namely how do I perform at the start of a session? I have 72 sessions (separate tables) recorded at $1/2 limit hold'em in Poker Tracker. Scanning down those, looking at the graph of profit/loss against hand number in the session I see sessions where I had good starts, bad starts and neutral starts. So how do you decide whether you were in the zone right off the bat or not? I have arbitrarily looked at the first four hands in each session, figuring that if I wasn't in the game after four hands (when I had made a few poker decisions) then I was never going to be in it properly. If I won or lost less than two big blinds it was a neutral session, with good or bad starts obviously up and down over 2BB respectively. Of the 72 sessions I had 44 neutral starts, 13 good starts and 15 bad starts. So it seems that I am not succumbing to the dodgy start to a session that I had been reading about. I may not be fully focused on the game (as I mentioned in several previous posts) but at least I am not trying to do it all from a lousy start. I seem to be as switched on as I need to be, or as I ever get, pretty much from the word go.

Another confidence boosting outcome there. Now I just need to work on those focus issues and get those nailed and I can start to make some real money from this damn game! :)

eruptive plot

9th June 2009, 07:32

wow matt!!! thats not a post,thats a chapter.
things arnt going to good for me recently at sit n gos,getting murdered to ace fishies.
example last night ace 3 to my qq, out comes 245
aj to my kk out comes 10 q k
a7 spades vs aa out comes 3 spades
it just changes your mindset but just got to dust yourself down and start again

mathare

9th June 2009, 09:14

wow matt!!! thats not a post,thats a chapter.:laugh I have moments like that though, you should know that by now

things arnt going to good for me recently at sit n gos,getting murdered to ace fishies.Sorry to hear that EP

example last night ace 3 to my qq, out comes 245Ouch!

aj to my kk out comes 10 q kOuch!

a7 spades vs aa out comes 3 spadesOuch!

it just changes your mindset but just got to dust yourself down and start againAbsolutely! You may be an 80/20 favourite but it still means you'll lose 1 in 5 on average so your hand certainly isn't bulletproof. We see odds-on horses getting turned over on pretty much a daily basis and this is more or less the same. But as you say, you just have to dust yourself down and go for it again. You're going to get bad beats, that's part of the game, it's how you handle them that sets you apart from the poor players

mathare

9th June 2009, 22:41

9th June 2009
Not a great session at all this evening, 3 limit tables in an attempt to improve focus and combat boredom. Not sure it worked but hey, got to try something.

Rather than analyse this evening's session as I would normally I'm going to list a few thoughts that came to me during various stages of play tonight. It's not exactly a brainstorm, more a brain dump I guess. But as with a brainstorm the key thing is not to dismiss any idea/thought at this stage so these aren't all 'serious' ideas but I wanted to list them anyway. I won't dwell on them tonight though, I want to let them simmer in my head and come back to them another time:
Stop stealing blinds from the button with trash
Check how I often I attempt steals and how successful they are
Play SnGs rather than cash games - the rising blinds may force you to concentrate
Give up poker completely, it has beaten you
Keep playing as you are, you're just in a bad run that will turn round eventually
You're only playing with profit so who cares what happens in each session, really?
Play more tables
Play fewer tables at once
Increase the stakes and have fear of losing larger sums focus the mind
Change poker site to Party, Stars etc.

And the stats, as always...
Hands: 8880
Won Hands: 10.03%
VP$IP: 16.72%
PFR: 8.83%
W$WSF: 43.96%
WTSD: 40.38%
W$SD: 55.61%
AF: 1.63
Won: $290.14
BB/100 hands: 1.63
$/hour: $3.38

mathare

11th June 2009, 22:39

11th June 2009
Pretty much the same as my last session, only this time it was 4 limit tables to try and force me to focus on the game. It was probably better than previous sessions in that respect and I think I could/should add a fifth table. Maybe. I made a few slight, subtle changes to my poker environment too, such as shutting the door to the room I am playing in and auto-hiding my Windows taskbar to reduce the temptation to switch to other applications such as e-mail.

No analysis again this evening, just more random thoughts that I will address at some point.
Analyse PokerTracker stats for my opponents who have the most hands recorded in the database and build up notes/a profile on each of them
Play without any music on
Check-raise more
Learn what percentages of total hands really equate to. What range is 10% of hands?
Practice game/table selection
Have an analysis session (~1hr) after every poker session

Stats
Hands: 9245
Won Hands: 9.96%
VP$IP: 16.67%
PFR: 8.74%
W$WSF: 43.90%
WTSD: 39.99%
W$SD: 55.39%
AF: 1.64
Won: $271.04
BB/100 hands: 1.47
$/hour: $2.93

MattR

12th June 2009, 10:22

mathare

12th June 2009, 11:40

Mat, just a thought here. You are very analytical and I would say I probably fall into the same bracket but I was just wondering if it would be worth you trying a session or two with poker office off and no analysis after the session and just see whether, bottom line, you turned a profit for the evening/session. I guess what I am saying is maybe you are thinking too much about the game rather than playing with your instincts and knowledge of the game, which are clearly very good.I can see where you're coming from but I honestly feel Poker Tracker is helping more than hindering. My HUD is set up to make it easier to spot extremes of aggression and passivity so I have a much better feel as to whether or not to take a raise seriously. I've also got the check-raise stats etc on hand if needed. I know how often opponents fold to bets/raises and so on so I am dialed in on my 'reads'. I think I'd flounder without my PT as a crutch now. I can't focus enough on the table to make the same sort of reads without the software telling me.

MattR

12th June 2009, 12:42

I can't focus enough on the table to make the same sort of reads without the software telling me.

Maybe the fact that you have all that info to hand is meaning you don't have to focus. Do you think that if you had to watch the game closer maybe that would help your focus?

mathare

12th June 2009, 13:13

Maybe the fact that you have all that info to hand is meaning you don't have to focus. Do you think that if you had to watch the game closer maybe that would help your focus?Perhaps, but then I have a feeling what would actually happen is I would switch off, not stay in the game and lose more by not having reads on players.

I have a few ideas for taking my game forward and this may get added to the list of things I try. Thanks for caring Matt :)

John

12th June 2009, 15:11

Maybe the fact that you have all that info to hand is meaning you don't have to focus. Do you think that if you had to watch the game closer maybe that would help your focus?

I would lean towards that as well, but only because in terms of my personal game I feel that as I no longer use tracking software of any sort, I HAVE to focus, and I instill it in myself to focus. My style is super tight, aggressive, which means folding nearly everything and watching with an eagle eye.

I'm not saying this is the same for everyone Mat, but with an absence of tracking software I really do focus - automatically. Do you need to display all the information in your HUD? The option is there to, I know, but do you need it all there?

I would be interested to know how many pros (in particular people like Tom Dwan "Durrr" and Peter Eastgate) got to where they are now, i.e. whether they have ever used tracking software. Wikipedia tells me that Durrr began with a $50 bankroll playing $6 S&Gs and never went bust.

A tactic I try for focus, and it works for me sometimes is to switch off all the lights in the room. So you only have a screen of green poker tables as your light source. Makes you feel a bit like a zombie and is really bad for your eyes and probably also your health if you do it too often but hey it has a habit of working.

mathare

12th June 2009, 16:08

Do you need to display all the information in your HUD? The option is there to, I know, but do you need it all there?The HUD displayed as a table overlay for each player only has 2 or 3 lines in, the basic stats I want on each player. The rest is available in a pop-up by clicking on the HUD for that player, so I'm not suffering information overload by any means. I'm happy and comfortable with what I have.

I would be interested to know how many pros (in particular people like Tom Dwan "Durrr" and Peter Eastgate) got to where they are now, i.e. whether they have ever used tracking software. Wikipedia tells me that Durrr began with a $50 bankroll playing $6 S&Gs and never went bust.You're talking about freaks here though; players so talented they blitzed from low limits to nosebleed in six months, often poorly bankrolled for the level they were playing, so I don't see them as great examples for the average player to aspire to.

A tactic I try for focus, and it works for me sometimes is to switch off all the lights in the room. So you only have a screen of green poker tables as your light source. Makes you feel a bit like a zombie and is really bad for your eyes and probably also your health if you do it too often but hey it has a habit of working.Not sure that would work for me. I have blue light in my office which is supposed to be the best light for working under though.

My problems are more fundamental than light etc. I believe taking the time to answer the random questions and thoughts that have cropped up over the past few days, something I hope to do this weekend, will improve my game significantly.

mathare

13th June 2009, 16:07

13th June 2009 (part 1)
Let's have a look at the various questions and thoughts that have cropped up over the past few sessions and think about each in turn shall we? Hopefully I will start to gain some valuable insights into my game and how/why I play poker etc. The idea is that I uncover some weaknesses that I can then address and make more money from the game. Let's see how it goes...

Stop stealing blinds from the button with trash & Check how I often I attempt steals and how successful they are

In my opinion stealing blinds is far less important in limit poker than it is in no-limit poker. It's also harder, as it's only one more bet for the big blind to call you in limit poker whereas in no-limit games the raise can be several big blinds. What I want to look at is my steal frequency and how profitable it has been for me. I got the impression from my more recent sessions that I am getting out of my depth and bluffing off several bets when I try to steal with a button-raise with trash hands and get a caller from the blinds. I want to get some evidence to back that impression up, or break it down completely.

There have been 687 times when I have had a chance to steal, according to Poker Tracker. Out of those hands I have spurned the steal opportunity by folding 364 times. Obviously I neither gain nor lose in this situation so it's the other 323 hands that are the important ones really.

I called on 35 occasions and profited to the tune of $8.00 (4xBB). If the hand went to a showdown I have generally lost in these situations but remember we are dealing with a very small sample here. I profit if I have two pair or better, and lose with one pair or worse it seems. So if I call when I have a chance to steal should I throw hands away unless I hit the flop well enough? Of the 20 hands where I have missed the flop and had only a high card I have lost $16.90 so it certainly looks to be a case of fit or fold on the flop. The two hands that have cost me the most in these situations have been draws I was chasing, one open-ended and one double belly-buster. Things would be different had I hit either of these draws but was the pot laying me sufficient odds to draw in either case? In the case of the double belly-buster I bet out from the SB on the flop (9-5-8) with T7s when I could (should?) have checked as the pot was small ($3). I guess that was an attempt to take it down there and then but it failed as I got two callers. I missed on the turn (3) and again bet out, $2 into a $6 pot. That's when I should have checked for sure.As it was I got a call, bet out on the river (another 3), got raised, called the raise and got beaten by three of a kind threes. I kept betting out to try and win a pot I hadn't really got much chance of winning and it certainly wasn't big enough for me to play as I did. On the open-ended draw it seems it was actually an open-ended straight flush draw so I don't have as much of a problem with how I played it. My opponent hit a pair on the flop but I had plenty of outs and played this one more sensibly, checking the turn and river. I called a raise on the flop but with 9 outs to the flush and a further 6 outs to the straight I had the pot odds to do so. As I say, just unlucky on this one.

When I had the chance to steal I raised (as a steal) 288 times and this shows a profit of $150.09. It's profitable, which is certainly good news to start with. It's the same sort of story as it was for the hands in which I called - two pair or better is profitable and one pair or high card results in a loss. Still small samples though so nothing concrete here. Having raised do I need to hit the flop to win as I did when I called? Oh yes! If I just have a high card hand on the flop, as I did 89 times, I lose $111.66 which averages to a loss of 0.63BB per hand. Unfortunately I only folded 9 of those 89 hands on the flop so 80 times I saw the turn - why? My biggest losing hand (from a very small sample) is TT followed by 62o (!), JTs, 87o, 75s and 76o. Mostly trash and in almost all of those hands I refused to give my opponent credit for a hand, despite the fact he is in the blinds so could have almost anything. He called my raise but it's only one more bet and at these stakes the fact that the blinds are defending for one more bet isn't unusual. I think I need to either hit the flop, have a draw (with suitable pot odds) or have a solid read that my opponent will fold in the face of a flop bet before I put any more money into the pot in these situations. My c-bets are winning me money overall when I steal-rase pre-flop but I think I need to give it up more when I miss and my opponent plays back at me. I could continue c-betting but check-fold if I miss the turn and save bets that way. That seems sensible enough.

Now what I really want to know is how it goes when I try to steal with trash, but how do you define trash? For the purposes of this analysis I'm going to define it as any hand I wouldn't normally play in late position. It's a fairly arbitrary definition and certainly not as solid as one would like but there's little I can do about that. It's at least illustrative. I have made 288 steal-raises in total for a profit of $150.09 and of those 146 hand been with what I have defined as trash, for a profit of $51.19. Nearly half the hands were trash but they have generated only one-third of the profit. Do you know what that means? Stop steal-raising with hands you wouldn't normally play from late position unless you have a solid read on the blinds and think the steal has a good chance of succeeding. Simple really.

What about the number of times I have attempted a steal and got away without a flop? 106 hands for a profit of $145 - not bad. How many of those were with lousy cards that I wouldn't normally play? 54 of them, for a profit of $69.50. Now there's no quick way of telling what reads I had on the players in the blinds when I made these steal attempts, I could just have been lucky, but the earlier advice applies - don't steal with tripe hands unless you have that read on the blinds and expect it to work a suitable percentage of the time.

Now I think it's only fair I reward myself with some table time. It'll also give me a chance to apply this new found knowledge.

mathare

13th June 2009, 18:29

13th June 2009 (part 2)
A tough 3-table session with a higher proportion of trash hands than normal. I managed to roughly breakeven though. Sort of. A loss of a just under $8 counts as breakeven for me these days :rolleyes:

I felt like I played better when I had an opportunity to steal the blinds though after my earlier analysis. I hope to tackle more of those questions/thoughts tomorrow.

Stats
Hands: 9526
Won Hands: 9.86%
VP$IP: 16.55%
PFR: 8.68%
W$WSF: 43.78%
WTSD: 39.90%
W$SD: 55.68%
AF: 1.64
Won: $263.59
BB/100 hands: 1.38
$/hour: $2.95

mathare

14th June 2009, 16:06

14th June (part 1)
Why do I still play this stupid game? Another $20 down in just over an hour of play at one table. Two big hands did all the damage, running KK into AA and AKo into QQ.

I was hoping playing just one table would give me the chance to practice hand reading skills but instead my focus issues came to the fore and I found myself more able to take breaks between hands, to nip to the loo, go get a drink etc. I don't get that opportunity with multiple tables really so it forces me to stay in the game. Anyway, I'll be analysing my single-table v multi-table sessions sometime in the not too distant future so we'll see then how things look and what this means for the future.

Stats
Hands: 9602
Won Hands: 9.83%
VP$IP: 16.51%
PFR: 8.66%
W$WSF: 43.69%
WTSD: 39.88%
W$SD: 55.57%
AF: 1.64
Won: $245.04
BB/100 hands: 1.28
$/hour: $2.71

mathare

14th June 2009, 20:04

14th June 2009 (part 2)
Play fewer tables at once & Play more tables
The basic premise of playing fewer tables at once is that I have less going on so cannot dedicate more of my brain power to analysing fewer opponents and so practice better hand reading skills. With fewer things to think about I can think about each for longer and in more depth. At least that’s the plan. The idea behind playing more tables is to keep my head in the game, albeit not the game that’s happening on a given table. With multi-tabling I have more hands on the go so many more poker decisions to make so my brain should stay tuned into poker. I won’t have time to get distracted by non-poker happenings.

To tell what works best for me or not I’m going to look at my limit hold’em results in Poker Tracker examining things like my win rate for single tables v multi-table sessions, plus some ‘evidence’ from outside of software such as how I feel sessions have gone when I have had fewer tables on the go.

I’ve recorded 83 table sessions in Poker Tracker but only 46 individually timed sessions indicating a fair bit of multi-tabling. I’ve played anywhere between one and four tables at once. Let’s start with the single table sessions. There are 15 such sessions lasting a total of 22.68 hours and during that time I have made a profit of $82.70 for an hourly rate of $3.64. The majority of these sessions were at the start of the year when I was just getting back into limit poker, a time when I was doing a lot better than I expected. Things have changed since then and I am now doing worse than I anticipated but is that all due to multi-tabling? Of the 15 single table sessions, six are losers and the other nine winners. There are three significant losers and twice as many significant winners. This definitely seems to indicate that I single tabling is a good, profitable strategy. But how much of a part does time of year play? As I said earlier, the majority of these sessions came at the start of the year when my best results were occurring. To check on whether this is coincidence or not I need to look at multi-table sessions from around the same time.

I’ve had 31 multi-table sessions in all, making a profit of $162.34 from 67.70 hours of play, which is an hourly rate of $2.40. If I was doing anywhere near as well on each individual table as I was at a single table I would expect an hourly rate greater than my single table win rate, not less. After all even if my win rate at multiple tables is 75% of my single table win rate, for example, then when playing two tables I would expect a combined win rate of 150% of my single table win rate. Instead I am averaging 66% of my single table win rate across multiple tables.

Is month a factor? I said earlier my best sessions came early in the year. Looking at my multi-table results up to the end of March my win rate was $6.58 compared to a single-table win rate of $7.35 in the same period. So my recent results have been worse but I was still earning less per hour on several tables compared to when I was just playing one. We’re dealing with small samples again here so these results aren’t that significant but there may still be lessons to be learned.

All the stats are saying I should be playing one table at a time so why don’t I? I think there are several reasons I don’t, the main one being boredom. I get bored playing one table. I’m not immersed in the game which means as soon as I switch my attention away from the game even slightly I am out of the game. I can surf the web, e-mail etc. I can go to the loo, talk to the missus, go grab a drink/snack from the kitchen etc. I have too long between hands and not enough that grips me in that time to keep my mind from wandering. Trust me, I’ve tried all sort of things to try and force me to focus on a single table but I find it almost impossible. With limit poker the pre-flop game isn’t that tricky. You know that if you get dealt 65o that it is going in the muck regardless of position. Similarly hands like JTo which can be playable in unraised pots from late position need to be folded in the face of a raise (unless it comes from a complete muppet). And to me once I see the cards I’m dealt I know within a second what I will do with them. I don’t need to wait for the raise to come in as my brain has already decided I will call if 2 others call else I’m folding. Then it’s a case of waiting for the action before me and clicking the appropriate button. Little brain power involved in that one. And there is almost nothing that can happen pre-flop that will make me re-evaluate my decision to play or fold the hand. If I have the right number of limpers I’m in but a single raise is enough to see me off. Players rarely fold to a 3-bet so there is no real point trying it in limit poker; that’s a big bet poker play.

My VPIP is such that I play around 1 hand in 6. On a normal full table this means I am putting money into around 10 pots an hour. If I miss the flop and face action on a small pot I’ll probably give it up as I won’t have the odds to chase any sort of hand. If I miss and face action from multiple opponents on a medium pot I’m also likely to fold. I may have the odds to improve but am I going to improve to a winning hand? No point drawing to the second best hand so get out of the pot. With large pots I am likely to peel one off and re-evaluate on the turn. As we all know you miss around twice as many flops as you hit so I am seeing few hands per hour beyond the turn. In fact Poker Tracker shows me as having seen 16.16% of flops and 11.60% of turns, which I must admit is more turns than I thought I saw. Interesting. That means I see around 7 turns an hour and I take just under 5 of those to the river. That’s not a lot of poker decisions to make in an hour when the pre-flop decisions are now second nature so you can see how easy it is to get bored. There are two ways to get round the few number of poker decisions to be made in an hour at a poker table. One is to find other things to do between decisions. The other is to play more hands and thus have more decisions to make.

There are obviously good things and bad things to do between hands. The good things include watching the others play, making notes of how they play and what they do. But isn’t that what I have Poker Tracker for? And it can do the job so much better than I can. I could switch PT off, or disable the HUD but why would I? It’s telling me things, things I want/need to know. I know at a glance how loose/tight and passive/aggressive each player is. I know how often the raise pre-flop, whether they are an overall winner or loser, how many hands I have seen them playe etc. All useful stuff and information I can use as and when I need to use it to help fine-tune my decisions. I get Q9s on the button. I’m looking for at least two limpers before me if I am to play this hand and then I will also limp in. A raise before it gets to me and I’m gone. But if it is folded round to me I have a good steal opportunity. So a click on the HUD for the SB and BB will tell me how often they fold to a steal, I look at how many hands they have in my database so I know whether 75% (or whatever) folding to a steal means they have done it a few times or many times and then I can act based on that. If I think they will both fold I’ll raise to steal. If I think they will both call I will probably fold unless I think I can outplay them post-flop with position. If I think I’ll get just one caller I’ll quickly think about whether I want to play this hand heads up with a blind based on their VPIP, PFR, aggression factor etc and go from there. All that takes a second or two, maximum and Poker Tracker has done all the hard work for me.

What about hand reading and putting opponents on a range? I only really bother with even attempting this if I am in the hand, else I don’t see the point at this level. Yes, if I get into the habit it becomes second nature and I will automatically do it at higher stakes when I get there. But with limit poker you have to put players on a pretty broad range to start with as the cost of play is limited, unlike NLHE, which means players will call the BB more then perhaps they would in NLHE as they don’t fear a raise because it’s then only one more bet, not potentially half their stack! So you start with a broad range and depending on the flop it can be hard to narrow it down, based on the play I have seen on the tables I frequent. Some players could literally have anything. I have PT stats to tell me VPIP and PFR so I can use that to roughly set hand ranges (although I couldn’t tell you for sure what 12% of hands really equates to as hand range) and work from there. But what am I getting out of this? I can predict who will win the pot but so what? Suppose I see a player get tricky with a hand like A5o, raising pre-flop and spiking an Ace on the river to beat someone holding pocket Kings. I can see the A5o raiser is a muppet but what else do I learn? Next time he raises pre-flop I’m going to look at his PFR and use that to set his hand range; I don’t want my thinking distorted by a suspect A5o he raised with two hands ago. If someone raises 15% of hands then chances are they are raising the best 15% of hands plus a few package hands and positional raises. So if I am going to play I need a hand that plays well against the top 15% of hands. I don’t want to think ‘Ahh, I saw him raise with trash recently so he could have trash again.’ He could indeed have utter dross but the chances are he has a decent hand. My Poker Tracker stats are formed from many more hands than any conclusions I draw from hand reading would be so they will always be what I fall back to. And in the A5o v KK example I can tell from the chat history which shows the summary of each action that this guy had been a lucky muppet so I didn’t need to be studying the hand to see that. If I want to know what sort of hands a player will raise with, 3-bet with, check-raise with etc I have PT stats that tell me these things so there’s my hand ranges – why bother trying to study players in depth to work out probable hand ranges when PT tells me what I need to know?

Or am I wrong? Is there so much more to hand reading and studying my opponents than I think? What else do I need to know at this level of play that PT can’t tell me?

So if I am not fully focused on the one table when I am out of the hand my mind can drift to other non-poker activities which is obviously bad news. When it becomes my turn to act poker cuts in and demands my attentions, I act and then it can go away again until the next time it needs me to do something. It’s not forcing me to stay focused. But if I play more hands I have more decisions to make and less downtime in which to get distracted. So should I play looser at one table? Not my style unfortunately. I play a naturally tight(ish) style and cannot get my head around loose play. I know that to play loose I need to relax my starting hand requirements but by how much and in what position? I don’t have the knowledge, I haven’t done the reading on short-handed or loose playing styles to know the answers to such questions so I stick with my tight style. So having decided that my preferred style is tight how can I play more hands? More tables, of course.

And this is where the dilemma occurs – the stats say I should play one table but my experience of online poker, especially my recent play, tells me that I can’t stay focused on one table so I should play several tables at once to keep my head in the game and to keep thinking poker. Anyway, everyone who is anyone multi-tables. I don’t recall reading an interview with a single pro who claims that one table is enough for them when playing online. Some play 10+ tables at once, others acknowledge their play suffers when they play more than 4 tables. I want to be able to multi-table, it’s a skill I feel I need in the future. But the stats at present say I’m crap at it! I honestly don’t know what to do about this. I can’t play good poker on a single table any more as I have serious focus issues but the more tables I play the less I win if my numbers are to be believed.

There is a chance that the fact that I am losing more recently and that it is
happening in multi-table sessions is unrelated. My game could have just gone to pot and I’d be losing regardless of how many, or how few, tables I played at once. I played a single table session earlier and it felt like lousy play. I got beaten in two big hands which between them basically accounted for the loss I recorded in that session. But I cut the session short as I could feel my mind wandering; I was checking e-mail, the racing results and what deposit methods Poker Stars supports! Hardly conducive to proper poker is it? My graph of winnings against time shows a steady decrease in profits for the last 3000+ hands. I haven’t been winning consistently since mid-April or possibly slightly before that. But why? That’s truly a mystery, and not one I know how to solve. Have my opponents got better? Have I got worse? My VPIP has gone down so I am getting tighter. Am I playing aggressively enough? I dunno. I don’t feel my game is significantly different to how it was two or three months ago but my win rates certainly seem to suggest I am not doing as well as I was back then so something has happened. Am I just in a downswing? Did I start on an upswing and the results I am getting now are more normal for my style of play? Difficult questions to answer so I’m not going to even try.

So what can I take away from this study? I know my results for single-table and multi-table sessions and how they compare with one another. I have taken a look at my state of mind and how I see the game and what I see as important when I play. I know I’d rather play several tables at once and feel comfortable doing so but I can see my win rate suffers when I do. I have played multi-table sessions almost exclusively during my recent poor run but I don’t know if the two are related or not and can’t easily tell. I could keep playing multi-table sessions and hope I come out of a bad spell and start winning again or I could play single-table sessions and see whether the bad spell continues. But I know I am mentally ill-prepared for single-table sessions and as a result am likely to play sub-optimal poker which will of course affect the likely outcomes of the sessions and probably see me lose more, so that won’t really tell me anything about my current luck. Hmm, plenty to think about here.

mathare

14th June 2009, 22:06

14th June 2009 (part 2)
I remember the days when I used to enjoy playing poker and writing this diary, but today is far removed from those times. Down another buy-in this evening in a two-table session that is best described as a Texas Hold'em Massacre. Why do we have the river? I was ahead on a few hands tonight, some big pots too, only to lose on the bloody river. My raises were getting little respect too so some of the pots I wanted to keep small-medium ended up being a lot bigger than planned. And ultimately I ended up getting a spanking. Again!

I'm tempted to cash out of Bet365 and not go back there!

A few more random thoughts for me to pick up at some point too:
Defence against blind steals
Analyse biggest winning/losing hands from last 2-3 months – what am I doing right/wrong?
Play of big suited Aces
Play of pocket pairs

Stats
Hands: 9767
Won Hands: 9.77%
VP$IP: 16.50%
PFR: 8.61%
W$WSF: 43.45%
WTSD: 39.84%
W$SD: 55.33%
AF: 1.63
Won: $192.06
BB/100 hands: 0.98
$/hour: $2.09

MattR

14th June 2009, 22:22

mathare

14th June 2009, 22:31

Mat, a thought just occured to me. Haven't played poker in months and never had any of the poker software so I don't know if Poker tracker does this, but I wondered as it tracks your own games, can you see what sort of player you are perceived as according to Poker tracker? In a similar fashion to how it shows other players. If so does it portray you as the type of player you'd expect it to see you as? The PT HUD shows you your stats for this session only so you can get some idea of how the rest of the table perceives you, at least for this session. The stats show me as tight, not as aggressive as I could/should be pre-flop but more aggressive post-flop. It's hard to say what other info players could have on me as it depends on how often I have faced them and whether they are paying attention and/or using tracking software.

I guess what I'm wondering is have you considered the flip side of the coin here. Are your opponents that use poker software reading your game too well and second guessing your moves? You say that your decision pre flop is made almost instantly in most cases and from what you've said is quite a rigid process so I'm wondering if that is making others read your game better than you'd like them to be able?It's possible, for sure. But would many players really bother too much with that at $1/2 limit? At these limits winning $20 in a session is a really good win. One thing I could do to try to combat this risk (real or perceived) is to switch sites, which as you can see is something I have thought about.

To be quite honest though I reckon my game is just turning to crap. Health-wise I have been rough for a few weeks to two months now and I wonder if that is part of the problem? It's weird though, the health problems are likely to be stress-related but I don't feel stressed in my mind. It's though the physical and mental aspects of me are split and at odds with one another. My conscious mind is fine but my subconscious obviously doesn't agree. I don't feel like my game has gone to pot but maybe my subconscious knows differently. I have a few ideas in the pipeline that will help diagnose the poker problem and from there I can go about treating it - but we warned a lot of these ideas involve a lot of long posts and hard analysis. Watch this space.

mathare

15th June 2009, 22:57

15th June 2009
Guess what - I only lost $3 tonight! That's as good as a win based on my recent results :laugh

Following my recent run-in with Empire Poker (http://www.win2win.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=66383) and my recent wondering as to whether I should play STTs instead of cash games I decided that as Empire had backed down and refunded my inactive account charges I should use the $78 to have some fun. A little trial on the STTs basically. It's the Party network and their house fees suck as low stakes - $5+1! - so I figured I've got seven shots to get it right at a proper rake level by playing the $11 ($10+1) STTs. Short bankroll right? So I need to make a score quickly. It's cash I didn't have a few days ago (even though I thought I did) so why not take a few risks with it? I do understand proper bankroll management, honest, I just don't always follow it :)

It's my first visit to the Party network for a while and it's different to what I am used to so jumping into a speed STT with 5 minute levels probably wasn't the wisest thing to do as I busted out in 5th inside half an hour as the blinds got big and my stack didn't. I jumped straight into a second speed STT and made 4th without really looking like third was really on the cards. I then took stock of the situation as I only had 5 bullets left. I found a normal STT with 10 minute levels and things looked a lot better. It was quite early in level 2 when there were just 5 of us left. I was able to steal to keep my stack steady, increasing it perhaps slightly. I then turned it up a gear as 5 became 4 and then 3. Then I dropped back for a few hands in case the craziness of making the cash kicked in to the game as it does some times. It didn't so I wound up the aggression again and was stealing a lot, with almost any two cards. I got played back at now and then but what I lost there was less than I had already nicked. I span my short stack up nicely and took the chip lead. We had a good scrap 3-handed before we reached a lengthy heads-up pahse with the cheap lead changing a few times but most of the time we were within a couple of grand of each other. I was still stealing a lot of pots, pre- and post-flop till he got bored and went all in a few times to nick some of it back but I was still ahead. Then a dream - AA. I slow-played it to the flop, min-raising and he shoved. I snap called and he hit a straight on the river to cripple me and busted me a couple of hands later but I pocketed $30 for 2nd. So $30 back from a $33 layout and an enjoyable evening.

I felt I played good poker most of the time, not just with the cards but also without them such as my stealing exploits. Most of all I felt engaged. The game had pace, it was back and forth and I felt like I was sufficiently in the game to ignore everything except the poker. My tourney HUD still needs some fine-tuning but I can work on that. But I think I have found my game. Now let's see how far my $75 will take me...

mathare

16th June 2009, 22:16

16th June 2009
What did I say last night? That I thought STTs on Empire/Party were the right thing for me and that I should see how high I could spin my $75. And for once I was right!

Tonight's record on the STTs reads played 3, cashed in 3 including two wins (and a third). And boy does it feel good! I played the cards and the situations well, apart from mis-reading the player to my right once in the 3rd game when I busted out with 98o against his TT. It seems he was in the middle of a purple patch as I had been stealing from him outrageously up until a few hands before this. At some time in each of the games I got short-stacked by traditional STT standards (under 10xBB) but I hung in there, stole and battled back. In the first game when we were 5 or 6 handed I was down to around 3BB and starting to think about panicking but I stole a bit, doubled up, hit some cards and built a monster stack to do the damage heads up. Easy :laugh

I feel like my game is sharp and this evening I doubled my meagre bankroll, making $87 profit tonight from just a few hours of play. Hurrah! I now 15 shots at these tables so let's how it goes from here shall we? I still have some HUD fine-tuning to do but in these STTs I find I'm not using it. I have good reads on how the players are playing when it comes to the stages where it matters so I am not reliant on Poker Tracker anywhere near as much as I am for cash games, which is good.

mathare

17th June 2009, 22:54

17th June 2009
Not quite as good as last night but a profit all the same. Played four but only cashed in one STT, a win after a proper scrap. I doubled up first hand, played the big stack bully for a while and then sat back as I was card dead and didn't need to take risks. When it got to six-handed I had more of a battle than I expected and I was forced to work for a few pots with multi-street bluffs and more refined stealing. I got some big hands cracked and at one stage I was looking 4th (or was it 5th) place in the face after being dropped to under 3xBB. I battled back and got AA, all-in, cracked but fortunately I had the guy covered. A lucky straight and some clever stealing and I'm back in it. I built up the big stack and heads-up I was never really in danger. It helped that before that point the player to my left had built up a good stack but didn't know how to play it so I ragged his BB something chronic from the SB. I stole probably half his stack :laugh A pleasing win to ensure a profit on the night, albeit just $6. It all counts though :thumbs

In the other tourneys I went out with:
KJo v 99, he hit trips on the flop and filled up on the turn
Q7s v AJo. I raised pre-flop as a steal, got a caller and pushed on the flop when I paired the Q. He paired his J on the flop and hit the Ace on the turn to knock me out when the T I needed to make a straight didn't come
I folded KTo into action that got too heavy and lost half my stack so when I got 88 next hand it was an easy shove but I ran it into TJs that paired the flop, hit trips on the turn and made a straight on the river just to rub it in.

I am still really enjoying my poker though and that's the main thing. Well, that and making some money from it :laugh

Eventually I'll add some stats to this thread, I just to decide what's important to show here first

mathare

18th June 2009, 22:15

18th June 2009
Another day, more STTs and more profit :thumbs Played four tourneys and bagged a 3rd and a 1st (plus a 5th and an 8th but I'd rather gloss over those). Up another $26 tonight :)

My total record is now played 14, 4 x 1st, 1 x 2nd and 2 x 3rd for an ITM of 50% and a ROI of 75.32%. It's still very early stages but I am pretty happy with those figures and long may it continue :thumbs

mathare

21st June 2009, 22:25

21st June 2009
I played two more STTs yesterday afternoon and wasn't in the groove at all really - I could tell my some of my early play in the first one - but played regardless. I bagged a 3rd and a poor 6th to record a small loss ($2) there.

This evening I was even further out of the groove so I'm not really sure why I played. I had fancied a game earlier in the afternoon but other things got in the way so I didn't have time. This evening I had a spare hour to hour and a half so planned a two table assualt, staggering the tourneys by around 15 minutes as has become my usual trick. Except I was playing more out of habit than desire. I wasn't focused, I didn't feel in that poker mood once I had started but the plan was in motion and without thinking I played both tables. I was poor though and when it came to the pushbot stage I was on a small stack and didn't have my reads dialled in busting out in 5th and 6th for a $22 total loss on the day.

I hope to be more in the game tomorrow and to get back on track :thumbs

mathare

22nd June 2009, 22:33

22nd June 2009
Rubbish again this evening, played two STTs and lost 'em both. I started play about the same time as last night (9.30pm) and got the same result. I played poorly in the first and averagely in the second. I don't think I should play if I don't get on the tables before around 8.30 else I think my mind is too tired and zoned out to get into it properly. It's a theory, anyway.

mathare

1st July 2009, 18:49

1st July 2009 (part 1)
I'm in a bit of a slump when it comes to STT results at the minute. I've only cashed once in my last 12 tourneys, a second place the other day. After such a bright start I wanted to reflect on how I busted out of the last 12 events. Was it beginners' luck that has now ended? Or have I been unlucky in the last dozen STTs?

1. 20/06/09 - 6th
The blinds are at 100/200 (level 4 on Empire), there are 6 of us left, I have an average stack and get dealt TT in the big blind. Second to act goes all in for 2100 so I have him covered and it's folded round to me. Another 1900 to call with the pot at 2200. TT is a good hand but is this a calling hand in this situation? What could the early player have? There hadn't been too much in the way of pre-flop shoving before this hand yet this gut has shoved for around 10xBB. I saw my cards and didn't think this one through enough, in hindsight, as I saw I had him covered and called. He still had wiggle room with his stack, even with the blinds as they were so he was probably shoving with two picture cards or an overpair to my tens, thinking about it now. He had AQ so I was actually ahead (just, the 54/46 favourite here) but an Ace on the flop did for me and I doubled him up and left myself short-stacked (1080). I shoved the next two hands to steal the blinds then shoved again with 87s. I got a caller in the form of the villain from the TT v AQ hand and this time I was in bad shape as he flipped QQ, making him a 77% favourite. I hit two of my suit on the flop and luckily completed the flush on the river - phew!

I folded some dross hands for a little while, including in the blinds. I then got A6s and was lining up a solid raise to steal but the player before me stole my march and raised to 3xBB. I didn't even think about the re-raise steal here, at least not seriously, but in hindsight perhaps I should have. It's a suited Ace in the pushbot phase of an STT so all such moves have to be considered. The guy did have me covered though and I was still on a roughly average stack so there was no real need to get stupid and risk busting out too soon. My stack was 15xBB so I had chips to play with. Another steal move (with 89s making it a semi-bluff I guess) followed by some folds through the blinds takes us on to the next key hand. The short stack is in the small blind, I'm the button. It's folded to me with A9o so I shove, figuring I can steal back the blinds I had just folded and also were I to get a caller I have a decent (but not great) Ace. SB calls with AKo and rivers a straight, not that I was ever ahead in the hand, or even splitting it really. That set me back to a stack of 1810, not a short stack in STT terms really (9xBB) but in the terms of the current table I was in some trouble and needing to make some moves soon certainly. Two hands later I thought I had my chance and shoved J2s expecting the blinds to give it up as they had been doing so far. And they did, but the button (the villain from the TT v AQ and 87s v QQ hands) shoved over the top of me to make sure the blinds backed away from the hand. His 99 was way ahead of my hand (68% fav) and the cards I needed didn't come so I busted out in 6th.

I went into this level with an average stack but busted out first of the players remaining when this level started. Was it a fair bust out though? I lost a coin flip, won a 3/1 hand I didn't expect to win, got unlucky with the call on the A9o and then panicked a little with this J2s. I wouldn't say I was tilting but I knew I needed to make moves and steal some chips and fast else I wouldn't pose any threat to anyone else at the table. I just mis-timed the last steal attempt somewhat. I guess that J2s looked more attractive than it actually is but these are the kind of shots you sometimes need to make to get anywhere in these events. I think this one is just the way the cards fell although I do feel I perhaps went a little cheaply and could perhaps have held on for a couple more hands and received something better to steal with, who knows.

A mixture of bad play and bad luck with the former probably dominating

2. 21/06/09 - 5th
My stack was 2200 with the blinds at 200/400 so I was severely short-stacked with the table down to five players. I went for a steal in mid-position with T6o - I said I was desperate - hoping to add nearly a third to my stack with a successful steal attempt. Unfortunately the button had AKo and the small blind had AA so I could hardly have picked a worse time to try this. The flop and turn gave me a gutshot straight draw but I didn't hit it on the river and busted out.

How did I get so short-stacked? That's what I am wondering now. Did I miss a lot of steal attempts before this hand, opportunities I should have taken to build at least a respectable stack. Another 1000 or so chips could have made a significant difference (and probably seen me bust out in 4th :laugh). A few hands earlier I raised to 3xBB with the blinds at 100/200 with ATo and laid it down when the SB shoved and the BB called. They showed AKo and AJs respectively so it was a good fold. There are a number of successful steals throughout levels 4 and 5 which kept my stack steady at around the starting level of 2000 chips but throughout the tourney I didn't win a hand that netted me more than the blinds really. I maintained my starting stack in the face of rising blinds but when I got a good hand (the ATo) my opponents found better hands. It was just a series of nothing hands forcing me to play tight, steal the odd pot here and there but as the blinds increased I was short-stacked and unfortunately picked precisely the wrong moment to try and steal. As it happens had I folded that T6o the AA held up to beat the AKo and knock him out so I would have been up to 4th, and there was a stack of a similar size to mine that was in the BB that hand so I was really just up against him for 3rd and I would no doubt have found a better situation in which to attempt to steal the blinds. Ain't hindsight wonderful?

I don't mind the way I played this event though. The cards forced me into a tight stealing strategy and I would have shoved with any two in the right position with the blinds at 200/400 and me having only 5.5xBB, it was just bad luck to run into better hands when I did.

I'd say bad luck here

3. 21/06/09 - 6th
This one overlapped with the previous tourney by a couple of levels, which is how I tend to multi-table these STTs now. It was right near the end of level 3 (50/100) and my stack was down to just 1250 so with the blinds set to double to 100/200 I was soon to have just 6xBB in my stack and be short-stacked so when I got 44 as the short-stack in middle position (2nd to act with 6 players remaining) I shoved looking to add more than 10% to my stack and put me in a slightly better position bearing in mind the blinds will be on me soon and will be 100/200. I got a call from the other short stack, who had me covered with 1785. He had an overpair, sixes, so I was a 4/1 dog and got no help from the board so was out in 6th.

How did I let my stack get down that low? By the time the level started I had 1800 chips, from a starting stack of 2000, so while that is below average bear in mind we were still a full table at that point so I was not short stacked by any means. I folded my first BB at this level (T9s) when the button raised to 400. Next hand I called a 200 bet from the small blind with AQo. I thought about raising but the raiser had one caller already so I would be raising into two players with the BB still to act. I missed the flop and check-folded to some decent action losing 200 chips on that hand. I dropped the same amount from my next BB, checking pre-flop right through to the river where I led out for 100 (into a 250 pot) with flopped bottom pair and weak kicker, representing a straight draw that had hit on the river. The bet was probably too weak but I figured I would lead out for 100 to see what he had, and got raised so folded without a second thought. I have no idea what he had but I was almost certainly beaten. And that's basically how I got to where I was, other than a folded SB.

Both bad luck & bad play really.

4. 22/06/09 - 7th
I had maintained a reasonable stack through tight play until a hand on level 3 where I got dealt 99, raised to 250 (50/100 blinds) and got a call from the BB.I led at every street for 100 figuring to be ahead of his range despite a couple of overcards hitting, and he had shown no strength throughout just calling along. He showed me a flopped three of a kind, a four on the board connecting nicely with his pair of 4s. So I was roughly 4/1 ahead pre-flop and put my money in good only for him to hit and me to miss. Oh well. That reduced me to around 1200, so 12xBB. I folded through the blinds, executed a lovely bluff on a flop from the BB next orbit to take down a pot I had little right to even be in but I was given a free look and then came the final hand. The blinds are 100/200 and I have just under 1500 chips. I'm in the SB with TT facing a mid-position raise exactly equal to the size of my stack which suggests to me this guy is gunning right for me. He's picked me out as the short stack and is looking to play for stacks here. I have a good hand so why disappoint him - I call. He flips KQs so I am ahead, just, another 54/46 situation. And once more I came down on the wrong side of this coin flip when he hit a queen on the river. And it was looking so good for a double through here.

Not much else to say about this one. Was this a calling situation? I needed to gather chips somehow and unless I put this guy specifically on an overpair I had a decent chance here. Sure, JJ+ was certainly in his range but so were a lot of worse hands, including plenty of underpairs. A coin flip was perhaps fair enough but he could equally have been trying it on with something like A7s in which case I am a 2/1 favourite and in good shape. Just another coin flip that didn't go my way.

Probably bad luck

5. 22/06/09 - 5th
I had picked up a few chips early on to build my stack up a little before getting A3s on level 2 that I limped in with from late position, hit a flush draw and backdoor straight draw on the flop, made it a gutshot draw on the turn and rivered the straight on the river, although I was never actually behind in the hand it seems. I made 800 chips on that hand to take my stack up to nearly 3000 from a starting point of 2000. I was in good shape. Some folded blinds, some stolen blinds etc. Down to 7 of us and I try a steal from mid-position with KQo raising to 500 (with blinds at 100/200). It's a raise I can get away from if I get re-raised. And indeed I do get re-raised, the short stack in the BB shoves for 1460 total so it's 960 more to me into a pot of around 2000 so I am getting 2/1 on my money. Turns out he has me dominated with AQo and pairs his Ace on the flop to strip me of half my stack. Damn! A few hands later I shove from the button with J8o, get a call from the big stack in the SB who has A7s but fortunately I hit three of a kind on the flop and fill up on the river to double through. I have a narrow chip lead now. Some more stolen blinds, a few steal attempts gone wrong when I get re-raised so have to fold leaving my 600 (3xBB) on the table each time. I then get JJ and re-raise a mid-position raiser (he raises to 1200 with the blinds at 200/400, I put him all in for another 700) who calls with 77 so I'm a 4/1 favourite again and this time it holds up. I now have 5180, more than a quarter of the chips in play with 6 players left. A while later, with my stack still around the same level, I try to steal from the SB when it's folded to me only for the BB to shove over the top. Hmm, 72o = fold. Things get a little better and I recover the lost chips through well-timed theft and aggression and have narrow chip lead once more - between me and the next bigest stack we have over half the chips in play. So when I shove from early position with 88 I don't expect to get any callers; I have everyone covered. Yeah, but the next largest stack had JJ so was obviously calling and as a result I doubled him through, losing over 4000 chips in the process. I get the 8s again (twice in two hands) and shove my small stack from the BB but only get action from the SB who tables 77. My overpair holds and I double up once more. Back in the game. For two hands when a steal with Q2o goes wrong, finding callers from A6o and KK. The cowboys hold and I am crippled with just 60 chips. I am now shoving with any two and go out two hands later.

So good early play in this one to build a nice stack. That call of the re-raise with KQo is certainly questionable. I was getting 2/1 on my money but was a 3/1 dog as it turns out. I put big Aces in his range but it would have needed to have been AJ or worse for me to be getting value from an Ace. For big pairs it needed to have been QQ or worse for my call to be correct, in pot odds terms. So he was at the top end of his range and most of it would have been a good value call for me. Such is poker. But the situation at this point meant I didn't have to call his shove so I probably shouldn't have done so. The raise was sized to be one I could get away from but I didn't. Oh well. I rebuilt my stack with a lucky double up as a 60/40 dog. I got my money in good with a pair over pair situation to get a good stack going on. The 72o steal attempt was perhaps sloppy, perhaps unlucky. It was folded to me in the SB so I was naturally going to try and bully with my stack. He made the right move and I didn't have a hand I could defend with. The 88 v JJ was unfortunate but I managed to claw a little back with the 8s next hand. The Q2o steal attempt was, as I said for one of the earlier tourneys, something you need to do from time to time. It's not the best stealing hand by a long way but the situation demanded a shove with pretty much any two so again I was unlucky to run it into big hands. Some more bad luck at the end there perhaps.

Probably bad luck

6. 26/06/09 - 2nd
The only tourney I cashed in out of the twelve I am analysing, finishing second.

This one started very promisingly when I took a chance on a weak flop bet from the SB in a blind on blind hand in the first level. I had bottom pair and peeled one off, hitting again on the turn and river to finish with quads. Luckily he paid me off along the way and I increased my stack by over 1000. I wasn't chip leader by a long way though as one guy tripled through first hand and was on a proper tear-up. When we reached level 3 he had 8430 and I had 3630 - between us we had 60% of the chips in play. Towards the end of this level I get TT UTG with just 5 of us left and raise to exactly the amount the short stack has. I want him to know I am after him. He calls with pockets 8s and my tens hold up, hitting a third on the flop actually. Down to 4 players. A couple of hands later and I get KK on the button. I raise to 3xBB, the big stack bets into me on every street so I call along and take him for 2000, although I should have shown more aggression and taken a bigger chunk of his stack. By now he has just over 9k and I have just over 7k. There was then a few orbits of blind folding and blind stealing by all players.

My next big hand came when I was already in the money. I was on equal stacks with the previous runaway leader and raised from the SB as a steal. He called, I flopped second pair and an open-ended straight draw with my 65o so led out. He called again, along with approximately half pot bets on the other streets. My straight had come on the turn so I was a solid winner here so was amused to see him table AKs at showdown. Now I had over 60% of the chips myself. I lost around 2000 of them back to the same guy when I ran 66 into his QQ and doubled his short stack up. A few hands later I lost half my stack to the other guy, who had sneakily built up a stack of around 5000, with my JJ against his AQ. The flop came K-7-K, the turn filled me up being another K and of course the river was exactly what I didn't want to see - an Ace to give him a bigger full house. I was 56/44 before the flop, 77/23 on the flop and 84/16 on the turn. I was ahead all the way and still lost. I was still the second biggest stack at the table though. Steal, counter-steal; punch, counter-punch followed for a good number of hands, including the start of heads-up. The guy who tripled up first hand and was dominating the table finished 3rd, by the way. I doubled up heads-up to take the chip lead, luckily as I had 67o to his T6s. Two hands later the bulk of the damage was done when my A9o came up against his K7s. He flopped a flush draw which completed on the turn and I was down to 4000 giving him a 4/1 chip lead. He finished me off a couple of hands later when I shoved 66 into his K4s. He hit a 4 on the flop and a King on the river. I really thought I was going to win that one too.

I built up a good stack and through good aggressive play took the chip lead when were down to only three or four players. I built this up to over 60% of the chips on the table at one point but got unlucky a couple of times, especially when I was an 84% favourite going into the river with a full house. That one would have tied up the win for me pretty much. I got lucky with the 67o v T6s but not as much as the villain had before. I was 60/40 pre-flop when the hit the flush with his K7s. On the last hand I was an 88% favourite going into that last hand so to lose that was gutting. It's only bad luck that stopped me actually winning this one.

Definitely bad luck

mathare

1st July 2009, 18:50

1st July (part 2)
7. 26/06/09 - 8th

Things had plodded along rather unexcitedly for a while. I’d been bet off my 9s on level 2 and lost a few chips there but other than that nothing to write home about. The end came on level 3 when I raised it up to 5xBB pre-flop with QQ and got a single caller one off the button. I bet out on the flop, rather weakly in hindsight - 400 into a pot of 1150 – even though there was a King overcard. I guess I wanted to see where I stood; I would have folded to a decent raise. But the guy called. We both checked the turn and I led out on the river, shoving the rest of my chips in for a roughly half-pot bet. The river had completed a flush draw and straight draw but I felt he didn’t have a King, else he’d have bet out on the turn even if he hadn’t come over the top on the flop. I was right – he didn’t have a King. He had two in the hole! I had run my Queens into pocket Kings that had hit three of a kind on the flop. Pah!

I’m having that one as bad luck mainly. I had made the right reads, sort of, as I didn’t think he had Kx and given his betting I really thought I had a good chance of being ahead here. Oh well.

8. 26/06/09 - 5th

This is another event where there is little to report before the final hand. A few hands folded, a few hands won but when the end came my stack had neither been significantly up nor down. I had 2200 chips (from a 2000 starting stack) with the blinds at 200/400 so I was starting to come under some pressure because of my short stack. I needed to start making some chip-gathering moves. So I picked my time and went for it – a shove with T6o, not that I thought the cards really mattered. I had a tight image but a short stack, I just needed to get the blinds to drop their hands and given the play to date I had no reason to expect them to play back with anything less than a monster (bearing in mind we’re 5-handed so monster is a relative term). Oh. The button had AKo and the SB had Aces in the hole. I was screwed! As it happens I had a better chance of winning than the Big Slick but I was still under 16% to win the hand. The J-8-4 rainbow flop saw my chances of winning more than halve. However, a 5 on the turn gave me outs. Admittedly they are outs to a gutshot but all the same I was praying for that 7. It didn’t come, obviously.

How did my stack get so short? There was a hand on level 2 I should have played, in hindsight. I had AJ in the small blind. The first two players limp, it’s folded to me and I fold. A bad decision in hindsight. I was figuring the two early position limpers for stronger than they were (TJo and K7s!) so regarded my AJ as marginal but even so it was worth another half bet to limp and hopefully see a cheap flop. Had I done I would have hit big time with two Aces coming down on the flop. Oh well. It’s hard to see any other missed opportunities though.

There’s probably some bad luck in here but it has been coupled with some bad play. That AJ fold is questionable even though I like to play tight early on. As I have said several times before though when it comes to the stealing stages I think in terms of situations before I think about my cards so I don’t mind the T6o shove but to run into AKo and AA – ouch!

9. 26/06/09 - 4th

I don’t want to spoil the ending too much here but there is some awful play coming up. I knew it was a terrible move to make the instant after I clicked the button. I hate poker sometimes. Anyway…

Lots of nothing much happening then AJo again. This time I limp, along with others so 7 of us see the flop. I flop two pair and stack a guy (who was getting on for short stacked admittedly) earning 1360 chips in the process. Then little happens of any interest till we get to 100/200. I folded ATo out the BB after the button raised to 600 and the SB went all in for 2111. It was another 1900 or so for me to call and I had 3070 behind. I folded – sensible decision? I figured the button raise was a steal attempt but was the SB re-stealing? Looking back maybe ATo was strong enough to take a chance on bearing in mind I was getting better than evens from the pot. Oh well, opportunity missed. But it gets worse.

A few hands later we are down to four players. I am UTG and shove with 3270 with the blinds at 200/400. I get a caller in the BB and he tables 77. The board blanks out and I bust out. I was a coin flip with the sevens so where was the bad play? I was down to 8xBB so we are into shovebot territory and thus QTs is a decent hand to be shoving with four handed. The poor play– actually, let’s be honest it was bloody awful – was not folding that hand, and pretty much anything less than Aces without a second thought as the button had 351 chips, less than the big blind. He was crippled. He was surely on his way out in the next few hands barring a series of miracle double ups. With him out the picture I’m guaranteed third place at least, and the $20 that goes with it. Instead I coin flip with the big blind who has me covered and lose out. I was so angry with myself when I played that hand.

Definitely bad play here. Why flip a coin for $20, which is what I effectively did?

10. 28/06/09 – 6th

I had been looking forward all day to having the opportunity to get back on the poker tables and break this hoodoo they seemed to have over me. Such a bright start at the STTs was bleeding away pretty quickly so this was a chance to put that right. Ahem.

Once again I’d had nothing much to work with during the first couple of levels. I’d had AKo once and limped in (too weak?) behind one other limper. The flop came 7-J-J and first to act overbet the pot and got a caller. That was enough to convince me to back out of this one and wait for a better chance. I folded pocket 5s the next hand as the action got too heavy pre-flop to justify playing them. So from there it was just folding my blinds away for a while. My stack was 1570 with the blinds at 100/200 (so I was getting on for short-stacked) when I got dealt K6o in the big blind. The button shoved for 380 total so it was another 180 to me to call. I called – I was getting decent pot odds so why not? His A6o had me dominated and it held up. Worth a shot though. Next hand and the short stack from the previous hand is getting frisky again. He raises to 400 from late position, just doubling the big blind and leaving him only 460 behind. I don’t understand this move. With a short stack this is an all-in or fold move. His raise has pot-committed him but was he trying to pick up the blinds (equal to more than one-third of his stack) with a small raise? I shove over the top for 1190 with A2o. He calls, shows me AJo and takes the pot when the board is no help to me. Actually I had a gutshot draw on the turn and river but it didn’t hit, and I would have needed to hit as his Ace dominated mine. Was it bad luck to be dominated twice in two hands or bad play to get into that situation in the first place?

I tripled up with 66 next hand but two hands later the end came. I’m obviously still short stacked (1090 with blinds at 100/200) so when I get a half-decent Ace in mid-position I figure a shove is the right move. Except the button has AKs, flops a full house and absolutely thrashes my A6o. Oops!

The first all-in call, the extra 180 out of the big blind was fair enough; I’d make that move every time. The second one I’m now not so sure about. I’m the small blind and it’s another 760 to me bearing in mind I only have 1090 behind. It’s three-quarters of my stack, lose and I’m as good as out. But I have an Ace so is this an automatic call? Looking bad I think I should have folded. I got carried away with the power of the naked Ace without due regard to my kicker. It should have been obvious that at best the other buy would have KJo or similar making me something like a 60/40 favourite. And that’s at best. I was most likely dominated or up against with a pocket pair in which case I am a significant dog. This was one I just didn’t think through well enough.

There are elements of bad luck in that I ran into dominating hands so often but mostly it was bad play that sealed my exit here. That said, I had had nothing card or situation-wise to work with before the blinds had got to 100/200 so there is a little more bad luck there. Probably a score draw.

11. 30/06/09 – 5th

The first of last night’s continued attempts to smash the bad run I was on, and another failure.

I raised to 3xBB, on the second level, with JJ from second position. The next player to act called. Hmmm, hello. The flop comes down 6-9-Q two suited. I lead out for 250 into a 450 pot. He comes over the top all-in. Eek. Think, think! Is he on a draw – straight or flush? Does he have top pair or better? Has he hit a set of 9s? A set of Queens doesn’t make sense, he’d have re-raised pre-flop surely. Set of sixes? Nah, doesn’t feel right. If he has a set it’s 9s. But I’m behind to a naked Queen at the minute so put him on a range. Oh, it has Queens in it but is also has several draws in it, which means I am ahead at present. It’s 900 more to me and I’m getting around 2/1 on the call. I trust my gut which isn’t saying fold and make the call. It’s good, he tables 88 giving me an overpair. The turn is another 9 and the river a J giving me a full house, and all of his chips. I am now in a strong position. Fold a few blinds, steal a couple back, and generally muck trash hands. The usual tight play really. And so it is until the next key hand, at 200/400 with my stack a couple of hundred above where it was after the earlier all-in win. We’re down to six players. It’s folded round to me one off the button and I shove for 3570 with 22 in the hole. The SB calls his remaining 1070 and tables AJs. I’m ahead but in equity terms slightly behind (51/49). You’ve already seen my record in coin flips over the past ten tournaments so I don’t know why I thought I could win this one. 7-4-T on the flop and I’m good so far. In fact I am a 72% favourite. The Q on the turn means he has outs for the gutshot as well as the overcards but I am still a 77% favourite. So when the Ace comes on the river to hand the villain the pot am I surprised? Not really.

I switch to full-on larceny and what’s more I get away with it building my stack back from 2500 to 4300 and giving me a narrow chip lead. I give a little back in the blinds next orbit but I am still in decent nick. Middle position I get A2s and shove for 3400. The button calls for 2540, the blinds fold and it’s my A2s against his KQs. I’m 56/44 but is it enough? I pair my kicker on the 9-4-2 flop to put me further ahead. Just need to dodge those Kings and Queens. A 3 on the turn, good. He’s on a six-outer now. And the river is a King. Rivered again! I’m now down to under 900 with the blinds at 300/600. I’m less than an orbit away from exiting at this rate. I double up with pocket 3s two hands later but I am still in trouble. I get another double up a few hands later with T8o against K2o when I flop a straight. I was almost competitive again now. The end comes with a hand I am seriously questioning playing ever again – A2o. I shove from the button, the SB calls with pocket 8s to be a 70/30 favourite. The Ace I need doesn’t come so out I go in 5th.

So I got rivered twice in that one. I managed to build my stack back up from the brink a couple of times so I put a real fight together but ultimately it wasn’t to be. What of that last hand though? Through analysing these STTs I am beginning to really hate A2 as a hand for shoving all-in with. That said given the situation I was in I was looking to steal the blinds again, as I needed to, and figured a suited Ace was good enough. Perhaps I should raise my shove requirements to A5 or something though, and try to get round some of these kicker problems that way. I’m going to put this one down as bad luck because I think any bad play on my part was more than countered by some excellent play in building up my stack again twice in the late stages and at least going for the win.

12. 30/06/09 – 5th

Another 5th place, I think that makes it 5 out of the 12 tournaments I have analysed.

This STT starts with a marginal hand, KTs, that I limp with in middle position behind an early position limper. The cut-off raises to 5xBB, the button calls as does the early limper. I bail out at this point. The betting got heavy on each street and ultimately it turns out the cut-off had 99 and the button 33. Unfortunately for the button they hit a 3 on the flop only for the cut-off to hit a 9 on the turn giving him set over set and busting the button out first hand. I was right to get out of that one it seems. I won those chips back two hands later with an uncalled raise with AQs. I folded a number of hands, including two rounds of blinds then won 290 chips with a re-raise holding QQ. No-one called. I few hands later I make 440 with JJ, which I didn’t have to showdown, and then a few hands later on I get pocket Jacks and this time make 240 without a showdown. I lose those 240 chips back two hands later getting ahead of my hand with 44 but it could have been much worse. The BB called my raise to 3xBB from mid-position, we checked the flop and turn (overcards a-plenty) and I called a weak min-bet on the river despite the T completing a straight draw. He flipped pocket Tens so I was never ahead. Way to passive from him for my liking but I got away from it cheaply I guess. Then it’s the usual fold some blinds, steal some blinds for a few orbits.

The end came early during the 100/200 level, third hand at those blinds in fact. I had 2340 so 11.5xBB before posting my big blind. UTG min-raises, the SB shoves for a total of 1260 and with AJo I figure I am more than a coin flip here so shove over the top to get rid of the UTG player. He can’t overcall in this situation can he? Yes. I read the weak raise from UTG as a poor steal attempt or a desire to play a marginal hand on a flop without committing too much of his stack but also chancing a raise in case he can take the pot uncontested but perhaps I was wrong there. SB has 98s and UTG has 22 which makes me a narrow favourite (37%). The flop came down T-K-7 rainbow giving the SB an open-ended straight draw and up to 44% favourite with me on 30% narrowly ahead of the 2s. A 9 on the turn did me no favours and a Ten on the river sealed the deal. Grr!

Without the UTG player in the hand with his pocket 2s I am just under 60/40 against the 98s so the shove over the top to try and squeeze out the pre-flop raiser seems like the right move. A call is weak and opens me up to a re-raise from UTG shoving and also makes it more inviting for the UTG player to join us on the flop in my opinion. A fold is out the question – win this hand and I knock out another player as well as add a nice chunk to my stack.

I don’t mind how I played this hand at all, although it seems annoying to have gone out with 11.5xBB in my stack. I wasn’t imperilled at all at this stage and could have jousted with the others and probably picked up a few more BB along the way. I was playing well, and feeling confident in my play too. I couldn’t have folded AJo in that situation I don’t think so I am putting this one down to bad luck more than anything.

Summary
So that’s twelve sit-and-go tournaments analysed but how has it all panned out? Was it bad luck or bad play that has caused me to lose $102 in this time? Tallying it up it looks like there has been twice as much bad luck as bad play, which is a relief. Luck can change (OK, bad play can be changed too) but it means I do most things right enough I am just not getting the breaks. Look at the coin flips I lost along the way, and the hands where I was a 5/1 favourite and got beaten, or the hands where I got rivered. I was getting my money in good (most of the time) but I just wasn’t getting the breaks. Hopefully there’ll be a correction along soon and I will reap the benefits of my good plays and make some of that $102 back.

mathare

2nd July 2009, 21:24

2nd July 2009
A bit better tonight, at least I cashed in one of the two STTs I played. Sure, it was only 3rd so I ended up with a loss of $2 on the night but it was better than a loss of $22 I guess.

I don't think I staggered the tourneys enough tonight, I only had only level between them rather than the normal level and a half as I thought I was going to be pushed for time, and that had an impact on my game towards the end. Also in the event I didn't cash in I made a fundamental error and made too small a raise and opened myself up to an all-in shove over the top when we were into the short-handed stealing phase. I knew as soon as I had made the smaller raise that it was a mistake and I shouted at myself but the other fella made the right move, over the top, and left me in a much worse chip position than I would have liked to have been in. Can't complain too much about the luck in these tourneys though, so that's a start :laugh

mathare

3rd July 2009, 22:48

3rd July 2009
A 4th place in my normal $11 STT on Empire Poker this evening. I just had one table on the go for reasons I will come to in a minute. My exit came a few hands after crippling myself my mis-reading my opponent in a hand, shoving with a low pair and getting called by a much better hand. Oops! Still, live and learn.

When I started this STT adventure I had $75 that Empire had stolen from me and then given back when I moaned. I am now up just $10 after around 30 STTs, not the best ROI in the world by any means. I need to think now about what to do with that $85. I'll probably continue in the $11 STTs (I'm not dropping down to $6 as the rake is a massive 20%) and see what happens. If I lose all that I'm not sure what I will do but I have a few ideas, including dumping Empire Poker and going to Poker Stars or Full Tilt or somewhere like that and trying my luck there. I'm thinking of drawing my poker bankroll out of Bet365 so I could use that to start a new 'roll elsewhere.

Before I do that though I should tell you about my latest adventure. And yes, I know I only just started down the STT route and you must think I can't see anything through (which can be pretty much true unless it's going well, unfortunately) but a book I was reading last night basically goaded me into giving low stakes heads-up STTs a go, so that's what I tried tonight. Sheesh! I knew what I was letting myself in for in terms of action etc and I was well prepared for that but what I wasn't prepared for was some of the beats I got tonight. I played seven heads-up matches and won only two of them. Twice I got a full house beaten by a bigger full house. In my last match I was playing a passive trappy sort of player, managed to get it all in pre-flop with AA against his 77 and he hits a 7 on the turn! I got rivered 3 or 4 times again tonight too. I'm only playing $2+0.10 matches just to get me into the groove, and playing off a roll at Bet365 that has about £200 in so I am not worried about the cash as such but sheesh, what do I have to do to win a game of poker sometimes?

Maybe I need to seriously think about going fishing in the American waters...

mathare

4th July 2009, 12:48

4th July 2009
I continued by heads-up adventure on the $2+0.10 tables this morning and I can't see it lasting much longer if my luck continues to run as it did this morning. It was a record of won 4, lost 4 in today's session so far.

In the first game I got top two pair beaten by a rivered straight to cripple me and then got my Ace outkicked on the final hand. Second match I got pocket Aces cracked, again the guy hit a straight on the river. Hurrah, I won one. The next one was over in 2 minutes when my second nut straight (flopped) got beaten by a rivered full house! In the next game I got two pair beaten by a rivered flush to leave me struggling and on the final hand he hit two pair on the bloody river to beat my flopped pair of Aces. Then finally the luck went my way and I won three on the spin.

But how many times must a man get rivered? ;fire

mathare

7th July 2009, 22:58

7th July 2009
My heads-up experiment continues at pace. I have tried to get a few games in each night, with each taking 15-20 minutes I can easily fit them into gaps I find in the evening so I am able to play more a night than I would STTs (obviously). Unfortunately it's not the most successful experiment I have tried. After 32 tourneys I am down $15.20 giving me a ROI of -22.62%. I am only finishing in the money (1st) 40.63% of the time, way down on what I need to make this game pay.

I think I know what I am doing wrong though. Without realising it at times I regard bets, especially big bets, from my opponents as suspicious. I may have JJ with the flop of T-4-9 two suited when my opponent bets, I raise and he shoves all-in over the top (as happened this evening). I have an overpair so the best he can have is a draw (flush, straight) or top pair with a good kicker right? Wrong! He can (and did) have top two pair which leaves me pretty slim pickings. I have to give my opponents credit for hands more often. I need to play more of a small-ball trappy style and not be afraid to let pots go. I'm normally pretty good at this but I haven't been so hot heads up recently.

The plan is to get to 50 tourneys and then end the experiment there. It's been fun, taken me 6 hours so far (so I am looking at about 10 hours in total) and if my current win rate continues I will have lost less than 2 normal STT buy-ins, which is OK.

Talking of STTs, I have separated out the two dodgy speed events I entered on Empire when I first got back into tourney play and having done so looked again at my stats for 10-player STTs. My ROI is 10.39% with an ITM of 35.71% (4 x 1st, 2 x 2nd, 4 x 3rd). That's not as bad as I thought although the sample is only 28 tourneys. But I am happy with that so far and that ROI certainly seems to be in the right ball park for STTs according to the guys at twoplustwo. I'd like to get 100 STTs played at that level before re-evaluating where I stand. I'm going to try to do that at Empire and then switch to PokerStars so that I am at least getting some form of reward for my play through their VIP club as Empire's is crap! If I lose my Empire bankroll then I will shift to 'Stars at that point.

mathare

8th July 2009, 22:47

8th July 2009
I won 5 out of 6 heads-up matches this evening, and it should have been a clean sweep but I let some chatty git get under my skin a little and he beat me.

But I am now up to 38 played and nearly back to 50/50 success rate with 18 wins and 20 losses (47.37%). OK, a 50/50 win rate is still a loser due to the tournament fees but it's my first target. My ROI is now up to -9.77% with a net loss of $7.80 so things are steadily improving. There's a possibility I might actually break even on this little folly :laugh

mathare

9th July 2009, 22:36

9th July 2009
3 winns from 4 tonight, and the one I lost I got trapped very nicely in so I can't complain too much. That brings me to 42 heads-up matches played with a record of 21 wins and 21 losses. I have lost $4.20 during that time in house fees, equivalent to a -4.76% ROI but I am at least up to 50/50 on the strike rate. I said I planned to play 50 such events so I should see that target met tomorrow or on Saturday at the latest. The worst I can do now then is to lose the buy-ins for the last 8 matches, another $16.80 for a total loss of $21, less than two of my normal STT buy-ins. I'd settle for that as my maximum loss given the way I have played at times and the luck I have had.

I have actually enjoyed this experiment and may use heads-up matches as a quick way to scratch the poker itch when I don't fancy playing an STT, or don't have time to play one.

mathare

12th July 2009, 10:19

12th July 2009
During the rain delay in yesterday's cricket I finally managed to reach my target of 50 heads-up matches. I had played 3 of the final 8 matches on Friday night and had lost them all so when I sat down to play the final set of games I wasn't particularly confident about winning. I knew I couldn't make a profit from the full set of 50 matches now, having lost 24 of them and to be quite honest I went in to the final games just looking to get them played rather than worrying too much about trying to play to the best of my ability. I wasn't feeling that great either, which could easily have twisted my mindest further. In despite of all of that I did win though, all 5 of the games. In one I got a little lucky when shoving all-in pre-flop with KK after a series of raises and counter-raises only for my opponent to insta-call and flip AA. He was obviously trying the same thing as me, min-raising to try and get more in the pot before one could reasonably shove all-in and expect to get a call. Fortunately I connected with the flop and he missed everything so my 4/1 shot came in.

After 50 heads-up STTs my stats are 26 wins and 24 losses for a cash loss of just $1, a ROI of -0.95%.

But what now? That's a very good question. I think I will go back to standard 10-man STTs as I was playing a week or so ago before I started on this heads-up escapade. That would certainly be the sensible thing to do. I was making a little money at them and I could do with that continuing. As I said in a previous post I am going to stick with Empire for now, until I lose that bankroll (or make it a nicely withdrawable sum) and then switch to somewhere like PokerStars as I feel I should be on a better rewards scheme. Not that I play that much and not that rewards schemes are that rewarding for someone like me but all the same the one at Empire is crap and worth nothing at all to me. And as I am likely to be playing a lot more poker soon I might as well be getting all the benefits from it I can.

mathare

13th July 2009, 10:02

13th July 2009
I played two more STTs last night, 10-man jobs on Empire Poker, staggered by 15 minutes again so it was back to the normal way of me playing these events. And by heck what a difference playing those 50 heads-up matches had made to my game. I had forgotten how to play! I could play aggressive heads-up poker pushing marginal edges and so on but that's not at all what I needed here. I was badly overvaluing hands that would be great heads-up but poor at a full table. I was making fairly solid raises/re-raises but getting bet off the pot but a big re-raise. Oh dear.

The first STT was certainly just a pipe-opener, blowing away the cobwebs. I ended up short-stacked and went out in 8th trying to push edges that just weren't there. In the second tourney I nearly busted in something like 6th but dragged a very short stack back from the edge of oblivion and built it back to a nice stack, right up there with the chip leaders. I continued to play aggressively, but in a controlled manner and managed to get in the money, then heads-up with the player to my right who had been all over the place. I had a chip lead going into the heads-up and continued to press home by advantage. He would fold a lot of small blinds and often folded to c-bets too so I was winning pots and chipping away at his stack. At one stage I had him down to around 2000 chips so I had around a 9/1 chip lead. Unfortunately he battled back well, brought it back level, nearly gave it away but eventually beat me. I was a bit gutted about that as I really thought I should have won that one but given my stack size at one stage when I was nearly out I should be pleased with second place really.

mathare

13th July 2009, 22:33

13th July 2009 (part two)
Three more STTs ticked off this evening and I'm one step nearer my goal, although I have revised it to 50 STTs rather than 100 as I said previously. This is because I lost all focus this evening, especially in the early stages. I got bored, my mind wandered and I did everything else except play poker most of the time. That certainly explains the 8th place finish in my first event - I was cleaning out my e-mail at the same time. That and running into pocket Aces twice on my final two hands of course. I then fired up another, kind of ignored it for a while just folding hands as necessary but when it started to get interesting with 5 or 6 players left I took more notice. I also fired up a second game. I got lucky in both events, probably in all three as it happens, but played well short-handed in the second of tonight's tourneys to see myself into a solid cashing position when 4-handed one player busted the two shorter stacks to take a chip lead into heads-up. But I wasn't daunted and through some solid heads-up play I beat him and netted the win. I busted in 5th in the other event though, rather timidly too. I had pocket sixes, got all the money in the middle with a reasonable stack and a decent chance of doubling up but found myself up against ATo. I dodged the bullets right till the river when his Ace hit and busted me. Ah well. A profit of $17 on the night isn't too bad.

I have now played 33 of these full table STTs with 5 wins, 3 second places and 4 thirds for an ITM of 36.36%. My ROI is 15.70% which I am pretty happy with, overall. Yes, the sample is small so one tourney can cause great fluctuations but it's going well enough so far.

My new plan - and knowing me it's bound to change soon - is to play 50 full table normal speed STTs and then look to up the pace of the game. I found myself getting bored today so the answer is more STTs at once or more speed in each game. More speed means pressing more marginal hands as the blinds increase and luck becomes a bigger factor faster but I am in the mood (at the minute) to experiment. I want to play short-handed STTs, speed/turbo STTs and also more heads-up matches, although perhaps not speed/turbo versions of those as I find the normal speed events are usually over in 12-15 minutes so I have my short, sharp dose of poker there anyway. Things can get pretty pacy in those normal speed heads-up games anyway. Whether this plan lasts the week or two it takes me to play the rest of these STTs remains to be seen but it's a plan nonetheless.

mathare

14th July 2009, 17:20

14th July 2009
I have found myself with some poker time today and have tried not to waste it. I have played two sessions so far - 4 STTs in the first and 7 more in the second.

The less said about the first session the better really. I got into four coin-flips, one in each event that had a significant say in my result in that tournament. I say coin-flips, we're talking pocket pair against two overcards which is really 55/45 in favour of the pair generally speaking but you know what I mean. Three times I had the overcards (AK v 77, AK v JJ and AQ v 44) and each time the villain hit trips just to rub it in a bit more. The fourth time I had 99 against AQ so was the favourite there but lost. So nothing doing in any of these events - two more 8th places, a 6th and a 5th. It seems 8th is a popular finishing position for me. More on that in a minute perhaps.

The second session was much better would could, and perhaps should, have been even better. I recorded three second places and a third, plus another 8th, a bubbled 4th and another 5th place. For the bubble I lost another race, 55 against AJ and in one of the heads-up encounters I got AK cracked by Q3 to drastically reduce my stack. That combined with my impatience at not turning these stacks into wins resulted in me crapping out a few hands later.

I have played 44 normal speed STTs now and recorded 5 wins, 6 seconds and 5 thirds (ITM of 36.36% still). That's 16 out of 44 in the money. I have also had nine 5th places and seven 8th place finishes so that's another 16 out of the total of 44. The other finishes have been four times on the bubble, five 6th places, two 7ths and just one 9th. I have never busted out first and thus finished 10th. And? In 29 of the 44 events I have finished in the top 5, a strike rate of nearly 67%. I know the games play differently but this could be promising if I decide to give double or nothing STTs another go, as I probably will. Hmm.

So far today I have lost one buy-in ($11) across all the tourneys I have played. That means my profit now stands at $46 (9.50% ROI) and even if I bust out of the remaining 6 STTs I need to meet my 50 STT target I will still have some money left in my Empire Poker account as my maximum loss is now limited to just $20. That's actually quite reassuring.

mathare

14th July 2009, 20:03

14th July 2009 (part 2)
I managed to squeeze a couple more STTs into an unexpected gap that opened up. I finished 7th in the first after getting myself with a steady stack that just wouldn't go anywhere and I ended up getting short-stacked in the face of rising blinds. I went card dead too which didn't help and when I did get a decent hand I shoved AQo for around 4xBB (which is all I had left) in early position and got two callers who tabled AA and AKs. That'll be the Aces accounted for then. The couple of Queens I needed didn't arrive and i was out. No real complaints, I just didn't get the hands I needed to keep my head above water is all.

In the second event it was heading along similar lines to the first but there was a couple of players intent on building a big stack so the game was moving along at a greater pace than the first. Indeed we were 5-handed in the second event when the first was still 8-handed and was a level ahead. I realised that thanks to the big stacks tangling and consolidating in the hands of one player I ought to be able to fold my way into the money if I can steal a couple of blinds before then, which I managed to do. I went into the money with around 6-7xBB in my stack. The guy in second place at the time had about double that with the other fella holding a massive chip lead. I battled back taking a good chunk off the other short stack with pocket 7s that made trips on the turn and the big stack finished him off shortly afterwards. When we went heads-up I was outchipped by 17000 to 3000. I chipped up a bit with pocket Kings holding up before the villain made a massive mistake trying to trap me. He had flopped a flush with K4s against my 73o but he let me in cheaply enough along the way (and I acknowledge I was gambling here but my reads were that he didn't have much) allowing me to river a full house. He wasn't impressed. That gave me a two-to-one chip lead which I was able to press home and win with a straight on the last hand. Finally I turned one of these recent heads-up battles into a win, and it was from a lousy initial chip position too which makes it sweeter

mathare

15th July 2009, 22:28

15th July 2009
I finished off the remainder of the normal speed full table STTs today, the final four to get me to my target of 50 played. I'm not in the mood to go into too much detail on them, too tired for that but my sequence of results was 4th, 3rd, 7th and 2nd. That means I have an overall profif of $80 from the full set of 50 tourneys for a ROI of 14.55%, which I am very happy with. Out of the 50 tournaments I recorded 6 wins, 7 second places and 6 thirds, which I am also pretty pleased with. Still early days and a small sample but looking good.

After that I moved on the speed events, which on Empire Poker are 5 minute levels. I thought about moving to Poker Stars as their turbo events have 5 minute levels too but I had played two of the speed events on Empire already so thought I'd stick there. I had $133 in my Empire account and cashing out would cost me $3 so I could take the $130 and run or I could carry on and see what I could spin it up too, so that's what I did.

These speed events are weird, and I'm not sure they are entirely my thing but I'll try to get 50 of them played anyway. I got 10 of them played today and bagged two wins plus a second and a third place. I know that I need to press marginal hands more in these events and big cards go up in value pre-flop due to the faster rising blinds. Luck also plays a greater part, due to the faster structure and going card dead can really hurt. It happened to me several times today. Once I was down to under 2xBB but I still managed to cash in that one through some good (lucky) double ups. Bizarrely enough other than the four cashes I also recorded finishes of 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th, although not in that order admittedly. But in the 12 events of this type I have played I have filled 9 of the 10 finishing slots. I still keep my proud record of no 10th place finishes in my STTs. Anyway, my stats for the speed STTs are a ROI of 13.64% ($18 net profit) which I would be happy with were it to continue around that level and an ITM of 33.33%.

Onwards and upwards!

mathare

16th July 2009, 22:07

16th July 2009
I've had better evenings at the tables I can tell you that much.

I played 8 more speed STTs at Empire this evening and things didn't start well. I had battled into the final four of the first tourney and was sat comfortably in terms of chip position. I wasn't leading by any means but I was keeping my stack steady enough and waiting for two of the others to go to war and hopefully one would get eliminated, or at least have their stack crippled. With blinds at 300/600 I shoved for 4820 with AQo when it was folded to me in the SB. The BB was chip leader and had 8100 so I could do serious damage to his stack and put him right back in the scrap. That's assuming he didn't call with AA and knock me out of course. Hmmm. This was followed by a 7th place (I couldn't get my big Aces to stand up so got knocked out quite tamely), a 6th (I got AQ beaten by A3 which rivered a straight), another 7th (AKo beaten by QTo and QTo of my own dominated by KQs on the final hand), another 6th place (I was very short stacked and couldn't get anything going at all due to being card dead) before I lost my cherry and recoded my first 10th place. Here it was another case of running into Aces, this time with AK then on the final hand I lost with AQo against T5s which made a damn flush. Pah!

Things then picked up, as one would hope they would after losing 6 on the spin with a 3rd place, which could have been better had I shown some bottle on the second level (30/60). I'm in the small blind with KK. Middle position raises to 240. The next player calls, as do I. The BB folds and three of us see a flop of 3-4-5 rainbow. I check looking to check-raise. The pre-flop raiser shoves all in for just over 1500, the caller calls again for 1090 all-in and I have a tough decision. Am I facing a set? Has one got bullets with the other overvaluing a big pocket pair (JJ, QQ)? I can't see a made straight but a straight draw with the Ace maybe but that's a gutshot. I fold as I don't want to risk it all and bust our early. The pre-flop raiser tables 88 with the other one showing TT. I had them both crushed. The turn was an Ace and the river a 6 so any 2 or 7 would have made the straight but I would have won. Hmm. Dissecting the hand again now it was the two all-ins that scared me so I folded and I'm not sure it was that bad a move actually. I went out with T4s against 88, trying to steal the blinds from the button to put myself in a better chip position.

The final event of the evening I won, and I certainly needed to to bring things back on track. When heads up we swapped blinds about for a few hands, I took a few off him and then got QQ. I min-raised and sucked him in only for a K to hit the flop. We got all the money in and he had K2o. Fortunately I made a straight on the river to take it down and put some respectibility back on proceedings.

My profit in these speed events is now zero so I don't need to calculate the ROI for you. My win and 3rd this evening gives me an overall ITM of 30%, which I would obviously like to improve on.

Still not sure these speed events are my thing though, not really.

eruptive plot

17th July 2009, 07:28

16th July 2009
I've had better evenings at the tables I can tell you that much

Things then picked up, as one would hope they would after losing 6 on the spin with a 3rd place

matt,tuesday and wednesday i lost 18,$10 sit n gos on the trot:yikes:.
i was not amused,let me tell you.i was gettting beaten by sharks with an roi of -50% or even worse.
i was hitting sets on the flop but the fish would call all of their stack just to hope for one card to make straights or flushes and they would always seem to hit:headbange
but since then ive pulled back half of that.at this point of writing i'm even for the week.so by sunday i hope to post a profitible week on my thread

mathare

17th July 2009, 09:45

Losing 18 in a row is something else indeed, sheesh!

I don't feel as I am playing that badly, which is good as I am largely a confidence player I think. If things are going my well I can feed off that and play good, solid poker. My instincts seem much more in tune with the game when I am doing well. Conversely when I am in a slump my game can definitely suffer. Not to the point where I will steam and tilt off all my chips, more that I am likely to try to press edges that aren't really there or attempt a steal in the wrong situation. But deep down I have a solid risk-averse base that will stop me shoving all my chips in if I don't think I at least have some chance of winning the hand.

Talking of being risk averse, it strikes me as weird to think that a few months ago I was grinding limit cash games, perhaps the most risk averse game there is and now I am mixing it up in NLHE STTs and feeling a lot happier with it. I know from my gambling experience that I naturally shy away from risk, other than the risk one has to take in placing any bet. I don't like to risk more cash than I have to so my banks grow slowly but I am taking steps to throw off some of these shackles in a controlled manner and make more from my gambling activities. My dabbling with various tourney types at the poker tables I intend to find a form of the game I am happy to play on a regular basis, perhaps even bordering on full time when I have left this job. At present I don't think speed STTs are it despite my recent craving for action. I'm also not sure I am going to like short-handed STTs as I have always played 10-handed and feel more comfortable with my starting hand requirements at such tables but I am willing to give the short-handed form of the game a go anyway

mathare

17th July 2009, 21:55

17th July 2009
I played seven more speed STTs this evening and cashed in four of them. That's more like it :thumbs

A win, two second places and a third for my cashes this evening plus a 4th, 7th and an 8th. I should have converted that bubble finish into a cash too but for bad play on my part. There was a real short stack (less than 2.5xBB) and he was in the BB. There was no SB as he had bust on the previous hand. I raise all-in to around 6xBB second to act looking to steal the blind or even better break the short-stack. The button called - not part of the plan! His A8o hit the flop better than my KQo and his pair of Aces beat my Kings. I could have folded my way into the cash but I was trying to attack on the bubble and saw a good enough hand to try it with. Maybe I ought to tighten up more in these situations to guarantee third place money. It's kinda not really my style though.

That's 4 x 1st, 3 x 2nd and 3 x 3rd place out of 27 tournaments now, or an ITM of 37.04%. I have made a profit of $53 which equates to a ROI of 17.85%. I'm pretty happy with those figures :)

eruptive plot

18th July 2009, 00:16

this is what i am up against day after day.another night of losing $80 to sharks

mathare

18th July 2009, 22:41

18th July 2009
I only managed to get six speed STTs in today - had I put my mind to it I could have got a lot more in but the cricket and gardening took over instead. Perhaps it was best I only got six in based on how they went. 7th, 4th, 9th, 3rd, 2nd and 8th. It was another day of being outdrawn and lucky river cards but that's poker and I'm not going to moan about bad beats. I know this game is a long-term proposition and everything evens out in the end so I don't get het up over being outdrawn. As long as I am getting my money in good - and tonight I was doing that far more often than not - then I will make a profit in the long run.

My stats for the speed events now read 33 played and 12 cashes (ITM 36.36%) comprising 4 each of 1st, 2nd and 3rd place for a profit of $37 or a ROI of 10.19%. I'd take those stats long-term I can tell you that much.

mathare

19th July 2009, 18:15

19th July 2009
One of my worst days at the tables today. A really, really frustrating day. In cricket parlance I got a start so many times but couldn't capitalise on any of them. Fourteen STTs played and all I have to show for it is one second place :(

It was another of those days of outdraws and lousy river cards that do all they can to crush my hand. I'd get my money in good with a dominating hand but the villain would hit his undercard and beat me. I'd be on two pair and my opponet would hit a bigger two pair on the river or perhaps runner-runner to beat me. It was that sort of thing all day. It wasn't all bad luck, there was some bad play in there also but bad luck in this form of the game with the fast structure is more damaging than in a slower form. Luck has a greater impact on your results, and that's not what I need when it's not running my way. This has confirmed my earlier thoughts that I prefer low variance games such as the normal speed STTs.

And my stats will bear that out now. 47 speed STTs played but only 13 cashes (ITM 27.66%) and a loss of $87 or a ROI of -16.83%. That's bad! A loss of $124 this afternoon from 14 tourneys.

On the bright side there is only 3 of these events left to play :rolleyes:

mathare

19th July 2009, 22:03

19th July 2009
I wanted to get the last three speed STTs out the way and though I didn't feel I was in the most positive mindset I played them anyway. And my destiny to lose became a self-fulfilling prophecy as I played pretty badly.

In the first of tonight's events I played two hands (out of 16) before I was busted. I folded JJ into a 9-3-4 two suited flop when a medium stack bet out double the pot. He could have had anything as he was starting to show loose tendencies but I thought I'd wait for a better spot. Five hands later I have QQ and build a bit of a pot pre-flop by re-raising the LAG villain from the JJ hand. The flop comes 6-T-7 two suited and I overbet the pot with a shove (1280 into a 1050 pot). He thinks for a few seconds then calls with J9s with two of his on the board. The turn completes his straight flush and I start to feel a bit sick. I was better than 80/20 pre-flop and even got my money in good (57/43) on the flop. The suited 8 on the river was just evil.

In the second one I was going along quite nicely as we got down to 5 players. Middle-position raises to 4xBB and I shove for 6.5xBB over the top, knowing he will call. I show AJo and he flips AA. Oh crap! And I'm out.

To be perfectly honest I was in no fit mental state to be playing the third one but I had already started it and basically bust myself out. I called a short stack when I was on the BB to hopefully eliminate him and chip up. I was getting around 1.3/1 on the pre-flop call and had 68s so I ought to have two live cards at least. He showed me A8s and took the pot with Ace high. Next hand I called an all-in with a suited Ace from the SB after UTG had raised. His ATs held up against my A7s and I knew the all-in call was stoopid but I was short-stacked, desperate and frustrated with speed poker that I just wanted out.

This has been an expensive experiment then, costing me $120 which is a ROI of -21.82%. Only 13 cash finishes means my ITM is a poor 26%. I'm glad this is over!

Tomorrow I will deposit into my PokerStars account and then it's the start of a new challenge - the double or nothing tourneys :)

mathare

20th July 2009, 09:22

20th July 2009
I still can't believe I only managed 1 cash in 17 games yesterday - that's awful! :(

As a confidence player this has set me back a bit. Not as far as it could have done had I not had a plan to take my poker forward but it's a knock back all the same. Tonight I will switch to the 10-man double or nothings on PokerStars but probably down at the $5+0.40 level rather than the $10 stakes I had been playing at Empire. I was only playing the $11 tourneys there because of the proportionately smaller rake ($10+1) compared to the $5 tourneys, which also have a $1 rake - 20% of the entry fee! But at 'Stars the rake on the $5 is only 8% for the double or nothings and 10% (I think) on the normal 9-man STTs.

I dabbled in a quick play money STT on Stars last night just to get some of the options set right and get used to a new interface and table layout. I think I have just about got it sorted but as with any new site it will take a little getting used to. That's another reason to drop down to the $5 tourneys.

I'm looking forward to tonight and getting started on this new challenge. I need to try and put yesterday behind me and move on...

mathare

20th July 2009, 22:12

20th July 2009 (part two)
A mixed start to my life on PokerStars and the $5+$0.40 double or nothing tournaments. I cashed in the first two but bombed out in the second two, in 9th and on the bubble in 6th. Lack of playable cards was the main reason for the two busts I have to admit. I hardly had any hand worth even a sniff at a flop so I was playing ultra-tight. But I felt comfortable on the site, which is one good thing, and soon dropped back into the double or nothing mindset having been away from it for a while.

So two cashes gives me an ITM of 50% but an overall loss if $1.60 due to the rake. It'll get better...

mathare

21st July 2009, 09:09

21st July 2009
I've been thinking back over some of my recent play (although without PokerTracker to help me) and I think I am overplaying some hands such as KJ, KT, QT etc. Decent high-card hands but not world-beaters by any means. These are marginal hands in my book, depending on position and the action before me of course, but I think I end up pushing them harder than perhaps I should when stacks start to get shorter. I need to have a good think about balancing my stack size, those of my opponents and the high-card nature of my hand. After all, two thirds of the time a hand misses the flop and in the late stages of the game when it gets to the pushbot stage players will shove plenty of hands so I want to make sure I am in there with a decent chance against there likely range.

mathare

21st July 2009, 19:43

21st July 2009 (part two)
I have been wondering about the structure of STTs across the various sites and how fast/slow they are. I have proven to myself that the fast structure of the speed STTs at Empire (Party) didn't suit me whereas I did OK at the normal speed STTs there. My initial impressions of the 'Stars STTs where that were quite slow and I could easily see myself multi-tabling 3 or 4 of them. So is the structure on Stars that much slower, regardless of the length of the blind levels?

Party/Empire have normal blind levels 10 minutes long (speed tourney levels are 5 minutes long), the same as PokerStars. Levels seem to be 9 minutes long on Bet365. I took a note of the starting stack at each site and the blind levels, plus any antes, to compare structures. I used Harrington's M (stack divided by cost of an orbit) as a comparator. The calculations are somewhat artificial as I have calculated M based on the starting stack and a full table for each level. I wanted to look at how long I would last under those conditions at each level at each site.

Party is the fastest structure with level 1 being an M of 33.33 rapidly dropping to 0.38 at level 10. PokerStars has an M of 50 for level 1 going down to an M of 1 in level 10. Bet365 has a similar structure but the levels are a minute shorter so my M drops quicker in time, if not levels.

So yeah, Party has a pretty fast structure anyway without the speed element to shorten the levels. PokerStars has the slowest structure of the sites I compared so I will need to multi-table these to fit a decent number of tourneys in during a poker session.

mathare

21st July 2009, 22:32

21st July 2009 (part three)
It went better this evening - I cashed in 3 out of 5 double or nothing events on PokerStars so I am at least in profit now. It's only $1.40, a ROI of 2.88% but it is still a profit.

I said last night I had got back into the double or nothing midset quite quickly but I'm not sure that's true. I had forgotten how far removed from true poker these tourneys are. They start off like a standard STT, fair enough, but then it becomes a game of who can make the best folds as we get to the bubble with the shortest stacks all trying to outlast one another. In one of the double up tourneys I played tonight the bubble lasted 53 hands and nearly half an hour! I thought it was never going to burst, especially as it started with one stack much shorter than everyone else. I eventually busted him though :)

I don't know yet whether it is PokerStars itself or the tourney type (and won't until I start playing other tourney types on 'Stars) but I am still not feeling 100% in these double or nothing events. I can't put my finger on what it is. Maybe I am now used to proper poker and so much of that goes out the window around the bubble in these events as it doesn't matter whether you have one chip or all the chips at the end as long as you survive into the final five. I find myself folding hands I'm normally push simply because I don't need to fight the opponents in the blinds and want to work on the shorter stacks. It's just not proper poker and that may be what is bugging me. The only way to be sure is to play standard STTs at PokerStars too but I won't do that until I have played another 41 of these crazy tourneys. And I'm out for the next few evenings so it won't be then.

mathare

26th July 2009, 18:11

26th July 2009
I have been plugging away at the double or nothings on PokerStars as time always (which has been this afternoon and yesterday afternoon really) and am now nearly halfway through the challenge with 24 tournaments played. I can't say I am enjoying them a great deal though. Sometimes the bubble just takes so damn long to burst and it's frustrating as it's not poker as it should be played. Strategy says one should be folding hands that could be played (pushed) as there is no need to build a stack beyond what what see one through to the final five and the money. I had one the other day where there were 3 short stacks when the bubble came and it took way too long to burst. And when it did it was me out in 6th! I was taking on the shorties when I thought I had the best of it but they all seemed to have luck on their side, either splitting or winning pots when they were all-in. Very frustrating. And in another event I got my AA annoyingly cracked by A7s after getting all the money in pre-flop on one of the early levels.

I'm not getting the results I would have hoped for from these tourneys for some reason. I am cashing in 50% of them which is obviously a losing ratio when the rake is accounted for. Played 24, cashed in 12 so a loss of $9.60 overall which equates to a ROI of -7.41%.

mathare

29th July 2009, 16:20

29th July 2009
I haven't been at the tables the past couple of nights as I have been planning a holiday instead. Me and the missus seem to spend ages sorting out a holiday these days. A few years ago we'd just walk into a travel agents, give them a rough outline of what we wanted and accept pretty much anything that fell in the right price bracket but these days it's evenings spent mapping where hotels are using Google maps, reading extensive reviews on Expedia and Trip Advisor and so on.

Even though I haven't been playing poker I have been reading more about the game, as I tend to do a lot. I broke off from reading Moshmann's Sit 'n Go Strategy book that I started re-reading a few nights back and read the latest issue of PokerPlayer magazine when that plopped through my door. And in it was a £50 to £500 (or was it $50 to $500? not that it makes a difference really) bankroll challenge. They outline how to achieve this using cash games, MTTs or STTs and it got me thinking again about low stakes no limit cash games. If I can play decent no limit hold'em in tourneys then why can't I dominate some of the micro stakes cash games and make a few quid that way. I don't expect to make a fortune that way, obviously, but I should be able to grind out a bit of a profit playing down with the fishes. So maybe that ought to be my next challenge - 50 hours of micro stakes NLHE cash games to see how I fare.

I also keep reading articles on Omaha in magazines like PokerPlayer and Inside Poker but I haven't really played any Omaha. To be honest I'm a little scared (OK, maybe nervous rather than scared) to get into it as I won't be able to use PokerTracker. I use it to track my win rates as much as (or even more than) I do to get a line on how my opponents play. I know I can use spreadsheets to do the same job but then I don't have hand replayers etc. I don't use PT to anything like it's full capacity but I am nervous about playing without it. I'm not sure that's a good state to be in.

mathare

29th July 2009, 22:41

29th July 2009
I finally made it back to the tables this evening and cranked out another six of the double or nothing tourneys on PokerStars. And remarkably I made a profit too. All too often I seem to have a session where I cash in half the events I play and miss out in the others. Tonight I went out in 10th in one, bubbled in 6th in another and cashed in the remainder for a profit of $7.60 taking my overall profit/loss figure up to a loss of -$2.00. I haven't worked out my ROI and ITM as I am still waiting for the tourney summaries from PokerStars in order to be able to update PokerTracker properly

mathare

30th July 2009, 23:09

30th July 2009
Another good day - maybe I am finally getting back into the swing of the double or nothing events. Played seven more this evening and cashed in five of them, a much better ratio than I have been achieving in the past. And I played well too. I got lucky in one - I reraised someone I thought was on a suspicious steal only for him to call me and flip KK to my 65o. Whoops! I then hit two pair on the flip and won the hand. Nice. This karma was balanced later on by someone getting very lucky on the river to bust me in 6th. Grrr.

With 37 of the 50 tournaments played I have made a profit of $10.20 for a ROI of 5.11%, which is a little low but better than it has been. My ITM is 56.76% which I would like to improve on but again, it's better than it has been to date so I can't complain too much.

mathare

1st August 2009, 18:57

1st August 2009
I continue to edge towards the end of the double or nothing challenge and it's going better than it did at the start. I have now played 44 out of the 50 events and made the money in 59.09% of them (26 out of 44). That leaves me in profit to the tune of $22.40 which is a ROI of 9.43%. The figures are starting to look OK now.

I made one mistake today though - I accidentally signed up for a $10+0.80 tourney after tinkering with my filters to check what other types of table PokerStars offered and I didn't spot it till too late. It had to be now that I get a terrible run of cards and luck too. I had a full house beaten by quads but fortunately got away from it fairly cheaply mainly due to the passive nature of the guy with quads. I also had two pair beaten by trips twice, the second one eliminating me. I was short stacked so it wasn't totally unexpected but I was looking good right till he hit a two outer on the river. Gah! Obviously this one doesn't count towards the 50 event challenge as it's at the wrong stakes.

I have been thinking about what to do next. I fancy some more heads-up action even though I was barely breakeven at this before. Maybe practice makes perfect. I haven;t decided what stakes to play or where yet but the same stakes ($2) and site (Bet365) as before seems quite likely. Another 50 of those and then who knows. Maybe rather than the 50 hours of NLHE cash I mentioned before I will set a target of x thousand hands instead. At 60 hands an hour 50 hours would be 3000 hands. But playing several tables at once can easily get me up to 100 hands an hour so maybe I should be looking to play 5000 hands of micro stakes NLHE cash at 'Stars.

mathare

9th August 2009, 16:25

9th August 2009
It has certainly take a little while longer than expected - mainly due to illness this week - but I have finally completed the double or nothing STT challenge with the final 6 tables being played this afternoon. Nothing much to report on those games - it was just standard poker really. I cashed in two and lost four though which means I end the challenge with stats of 28 cashes (56.00% ITM) resulting in a profit of $10.00 (ROI of 3.70%).

Now it's back to the $2+0.10 heads up matches on Bet365 for another 50 tables as I need to feed my action side. I would play them at PokerStars but the rake at that level is 10% rather than 5%. I could increase my stakes to get a lower rake level at 'Stars but as I am not sure I am that good at heads up yet it's best to keep the stakes small for now.

mathare

9th August 2009, 20:57

9th August 2009 (part 2)
What's the word I'm looking for? I think the cool kids today would use pwned so let's go with that.

So far this evening I have played 10 $2 heads up matches on Bet365 and won only 1 of them :( I have been struggling since the very first hand to have any sort of dominance and was getting beaten left, right and centre. Getting AA cracked by K4o, AK beaten by A3o etc doesn't help either. Whatever the reasons, I'm not getting the results and because of that it's time to bail out of this challenge for now - put it on hold perhaps - and start something new. But what?

I did say I wanted to get into micro stakes NLHE cash and get a few thousand hands of that in but now's not the time for that. I will have much more time for that in a week or so (when I am out of work) so for now I will stick to STTs. I think it's best to go back to something I can make money from - normal STTs so it's over to them on PokerStars I reckon. Multi-tabling (naturally) at the $10 level should suit me for a while. Let's get another 50 of them in the bank shall we?

mathare

9th August 2009, 22:12

9th August 2009 (part three)
I don't think I should have been playing poker today - I'm obviously not in the right frame of mind for it. The games are happening and I am sat at the tables but I'm not playing. It's like watching someone else play - badly! I'm making all the right moves pre-flop but miss a flop and I'm done. It's as if I am scared to c-bet and do what I know I should be doing when I am the pre-flop aggressor. Like I say, it's as though it's not me playing and I'm watching someone else play but with my bankroll.

You can guess from that how the STTs on 'Stars are going...

mathare

10th August 2009, 10:12

10th August 2009
Last night while I was trying (and failing) to get to sleep I was thinking about why I was playing so poorly and I reckon it could be linked to my second monitor. I had the tables up on my main monitor and a web browser and assorted other bits open on the second screen. I wasn't focusing on the poker was I? I have seen this in my play before and it costs me money every time. I will hopefully get a chance to play more this evening and when I do I will switch the second monitor off.

mathare

11th August 2009, 22:39

11th August 2009
I booked a holiday (10 days in Malta in September) rather than play poker last night but I made up for it with a decent session tonight. I was playing 3-4 tables at once, all staggered by at least half a level if not a full level (10 minutes) and it got a bit hectic when I was heads up on one, in the the final 3 on another and down to 5 on a third. My PC was beeping all over the place as tables demanded my attention but I coped.

Seven tournaments played last night which on top of those played Sunday night makes 10 at this level on PokerStars. I have had 2 x 7th, 4 x 6th, 1 x 5th, 1 x 3rd and 2 x 1st, the three cashes coming tonight, obviously. I played well heads up to win both of those. In some of the others I got starts through quite early double ups with big pocket paisr but then couldn't see it through. I'd either get a good hand cracked on the river or lose a race when calling a short stack when it got to the stage where someone had to play pushbot. And with my stack crippled in each case I tried to fight but then you need luck and I had used all mine up. And those 6th place finishes are odd - I don't know why I am getting so many of them.

Anyway, 10 played and three cashes for a slight loss of $2 overall. I did at least show some glimmers of talent again this evening so perhaps I can make this pay after all.

mathare

13th August 2009, 22:59

13th August 2009
I've had a bit of spare time recently so I have managed to play quite a few more STTs on PokerStars - 16 more of them in fact. And it's gone pretty well. I had cashed in three of the first 10 and have cashed in 6 of the last 16 so a better ITM rate. And what's more the finishes have been weighted in favour of the higher places - in fact my cashes are 5 x 1st, 3 x 2nd and 1 x 3rd overall which I am pleased with. They give me a profit of $38 for the 26 tourneys played at PokerStars, a ROI of 13.29% which is ever so slightly down on my previous ROI of 14.55% for the 50 tourneys played at Empire. That only equates to a difference of a dollar or two though so no biggie.

I have been thinking a bit more about the future and where I go when I have played these 50 STTs at 'Stars. In a week's time I will be out of work and will thus have a lot more spare time. I reckon by multi-tabling (4 at once) and staggering the start times I should be able to play around 20 STTs on an average full-time day so I have set myself a target of 100 per week. Keep up a ROI of around 14% and that equates to a profit of just over $150 a week, not exactly a living but certainly a bankroll builder. I can then start to take shots at the $20 tourneys and hopefully start bringing in over $200 a week.

But what if I get bored of STTs? Bear in mind I get bored and like a new challenge quite often. I keep mentioning NLHE cash and my desire to finally crack it but if I look at where my poker profits come from there are two sources: NLHE STTs and limit hold'em cash games. So despite a poor recent run last time I played limit hold'em maybe I should be back on the cash tables for a break sometime. It takes some mental effort to switch between limit and no-limit so I ought to play a few hours on a lower stakes table than I wish to play my main games on to get me back into the swing of it and then grind away the hours at the limit tables and try to make some cash that way. Let's say I make one big bet an hour at each of 4 tables (I should be in this sort of ballpark) and that I will play $1/$2 as I was before. $8 an hour so I should be able to make a couple of hundred bucks a week that way and build a bankroll via cash games. I think PokerTracker has more uses in cash games too as the blinds don't change and any read you get on a player should apply regardless of how long we've been at the table together. They won't have loosened up just because the blinds have made everyone short-stacked is what I'm saying.

Anyway, let's see how things pan out between now and then. As I have said in the past I am a confidence player and at the minute things are going well with the STTs so the cash games are very much a plan B but it's good to have a plan B at least.

mathare

15th August 2009, 16:06

15th August 2009
I have plans this evening that will take me away from the computer and thus the online poker tables so I spent a large chunk of this morning and afternoon playing $10+1 STTs to keep things ticking over. I got through another 15 of them but only made a slight profit of $6. All too often I was the bridesmaid when it came to heads up. I was usually around 2:1 down in chips or worse and had been a little lucky to get that far but I always made a good fight of it. Sometimes I got lucky and still lost, at other times I got really unlucky but that's poker. I did manage one win this afternoon though, that along with four 2nd places and a third. I didn't cash in the rest - I did bust out in 6th four more times though. I think 6th is usually about the point where the blinds are such that someone needs to start shoving and that someone is often me if I haven't hit a decent hand before this point. Either that or I have a big enough stack and a strong enough hand to take a shot at busting out a short stack, lose and then get forced into pushbot mode. That seems to be how these things play out. Live and learn though. I certainly feel like I am picking up valuable experience every time I play too, which is good.

So another $6 today takes my profit on these STTs on 'Stars to $44 (ROI of 9.76%, ITM of 36.59%) and to $124 overall (ROI of 12.39%, ITM of 37.36%). I have 9 more to play on PokerStars to complete this challenge but I expect I will just start right over again and try to get a lot more of these events under my belt. I am working off two deposit bonuses on PokerStars too so I need to keep playing there, and I am happy to do so. The stats don't really mean too much until I have a few hundred STTs played and I am still only nearing 100 so there is a long way to go yet.

mathare

16th August 2009, 18:33

16th August 2009
Today was a pretty average day - 9 events played for a profit of $9. I had 1 x 1st, 1 x 2nd and 2 x 3rd plus a couple of bubbles but remarkably no 6th place finish! I enjoyed it though, I like these events.

With that done it is challenge completed - 50 normal STTs played on PokerStars now for a total profit of $53. That's a bit lower than I had hoped for as it's a ROI of 9.64% and I would like to keep that consistently above 10%, preferably up around 15% but we are dealing with a small sample here. Had some of those heads up encounters gone the other way yesterday the tale would be quite different. The final stats for these 50 events are 7 x 1st, 8 x 2nd and 4 x 3rd for an ITM of 38.00%. In total, for all STTs the important figures are $133 profit (ROI of 12.09%) and an ITM of 38.00% so that at least is consistent, cashing in 19 out of 50 each time.

I am particularly please that I set myself a target and I have now met it. The tricky bit now though is to set another suitable target. More STTs or limit cash games? I think the latter is the quicker route to getting these deposit bonuses via loyalty points, and probably to a higher VIP level too. But is it the most profitable route? I would be buying in for $50 on each $1/2 table I play and was planning to play 4 at a time which means putting around half my PokerStars bankroll in action at any one time. Just because it is on the tables doesn't mean I will lose it but it's not great bankroll management is it? That said, I have around 200 big blinds in my roll so it's perhaps not that bad. And I will play some $0.50/1 to start off with just to get back into the swing of it having been playing NLHE tourneys as the games are quite different, especially when it comes to the mindset with which one must approach the game. I'll have a think over tea and see how I feel later...

mathare

16th August 2009, 22:14

16th August 2009 (part two)
I decided as I was in the STT groove I should continue in it so I played 8 more this evening with mixed results. I busted out in 7th in the first two, followed that up with a 5th and then a 4th before I actually recorded a decent result. A finish on each step of the podium followed with another 7th mixed in to leave me just $2 in profit this evening. I think I played quite well, on the whole, but there were times when I was dominating the villain's hand but was being drawn out on. Sure, I had some luck along the way but I also had it go against me. I made some dodgy decisions in places so I didn't play to the best of my ability but I played pretty well overall. That 3rd place should have been at least 2nd but I was getting tired, shoved on the first or second hand when it was down to 3 players and didn't expect the equally-stacked BB to call but he did, and beat me. Ho hum.

This evening dropped my overall ROI further to 11.36%, a drop of over 3 points from the other day so I need to try and arrest that slide. My ITM hasn't changed much though, it's 37.96%.

mathare

17th August 2009, 22:04

17th August 2009
A bit of a setback this evening, in more ways than one. I didn't get as many tourneys in as I had hoped for - I only managed to play 5 when I was looking to play at least 8. I started playing later than expected and because the first few ran slowly I soon got up to 4 tables and stayed there for a while without busting out (or winning) and having the opportunity to fire up many more tables before it got too late to really bother. I need to allow at least an hour to play out the final table and I was starting to feel really hot and tired so when I did have a table space free I didn't feel like playing for another hour.

Five seems to be the number tonight. I played five events and finished 5th in three of them. All of them were starts that should have resulted in cashes, or at least bust outs on the bubble fighting to build a stack but unfortunately it wasn't to be this evening. The other finishes were an 8th and a win, my only cash of the evening. So I lost $10 on the session, my first losing session for a while. Again, I played pretty well though so I shouldn't complain.

One thing I have been thinking about is increasing my multi-table ratio. At present I start a new table around 10 minutes after the previous table until I have four running and then each time I bust out of one STT I start another to keep 4 tables running at all times, until such time as I am approaching the end of the planned session in which case I don't start new games and just complete the ones I am still playing. As I said above I try to allow an hour between starting the last table and the planned end of the session. So I ramp up my session and then wind it down steadily towards the end. I don't plan to change how I manage the end of a session, after all I can't speed these events up any - they take about an hour to play and I don't want to have too many tables running late in the session as I start to get tired and then I know I won't be playing at my best. So if I want to make any changes to the number of tables played in a session it has to be at the start of a session. Maybe I should be firing them up quicker rather than having a 10 minute gap between each. I have been using 10 minutes as that's 1 level and it means I have each table on a different level (most of the time) and thus at different stages of the game. It doesn't always work as smoothly as it might though. But PokerStars does have a very generous clock allowing plenty of time to take one's action on each hand so I could drop down to 5 minute gaps between events at the start of a session and see how I get on. That gets me up and running at 4 tables much quicker. It won't make a huge difference to my multi-table ratio but every little helps.

mathare

18th August 2009, 22:49

18th August 2009
A much better session this evening with 8 STTs played (which is the number I would like to play each evening session, ideally) and a profit of $29 recorded thanks to a win, two second places and a third.

Again I was pleased with the way I was playing. I felt like my instincts were good although in my first event I did lay down AKo and JJ to 3-bets in consecutive hands. With the blinds at 15/30 I raised to 90 in early position and in each hand a late-middler 3-bet to 300. Both hands played out the same way but with different players. And in each case I thought about it then folded. They were good hands but how did they stand up against a 3-bet range for players I knew almost nothing about - not so good. It wasn't worth risking the chips at that stage of the tourney. All too often I see a plyer bust out in the first couple of levels - I have taken a few out myself when they overplay AQ or QQ and run into my bigger hands, usually Aces. I have stacked several like that recently setting me up for a nice finish later as I already have a decent stack and can use it while still playing my normal tight game.

Tonight was also a good night for one of my favourite moves for the mid-late stages of a single table tournament - the re-steal. I didn't used to use it that much but after reading several articles on it I have decided to have a go and it's a great weapon to have at the tables. When the game is short-handed and the blinds are such that at least a few players are short-stacked you can tell who is stealing pretty easily and reliably. Then it's just a case of knowing your opponent and whether he is likely to fold to a 3-bet, having some sort of a hand just in case you get called, a suitable stack to make the re-steal threatening enough to the villain's stack and perhaps the most important ingredient of all - balls! :laugh

Anyway, things are going along nicely. I am in profit to the tune of $154 from the 121 STTs I have played at this level (71 on Stars and 50 on Empire) which equates to a ROI of 11.57% so that's heading back in the right direction. My ITM is up a touch to 38.02% and staying pretty stable now so perhaps that is the sort of figure I can expect that to level out to long-term. I'd take that, but I'd like to up that ROI a little still.

crazybadger

19th August 2009, 07:52

I know you probably write this more for yourself than for others but I enjoy reading it. Poker is something I really enjoy and would love to get into but I've had so many other gambling projects on the go that I had to stop playing about 6 months ago. I'm hoping to get back into it soon with a proper bankroll and strategy and spend some time learning how I play best. This "blog" is helping keep me interested that's for sure :D

mathare

19th August 2009, 10:26

I know you probably write this more for yourself than for others but I enjoy reading it. This "blog" is helping keep me interested that's for sure :DYou're glad that this is very useful for me to write, and I enjoy doing so. I try to make sure I add some sort of update after each session if I can. It helps me enormously to just take a few minutes to reflect on how I played and how I felt at the tables. I can then see how things are changing with time.

I have thought about turning this into a proper blog somewhere with more details for each session, including discussions of some of the key hands but I don't think I'm ready for that yet. Maybe in the future. Glad to hear you enjoy reading it though CB - because of that I will try to keep it interesting and informative for you.

And good luck if you do get back in to the game soon :thumbs

mathare

19th August 2009, 22:15

19th August 2009
This evening really didn't go to plan and I have no-one to blame but myself.

It was gone 8.30 when I finally sat down at the PC with some time to spare and shortly beforehand I was wondering whether or not I was in the right frame of mind for poker. I had half thought I didn't fancy it but by the time I got on the PC I had banished those thoughts. After all, poker is what I do so if I don't play cards then how will I spend my evening? There's nowt on TV I want to watch either. So obviously I played poker. Badly.

My heart and mind just weren't in it today. I played sloppily and missed several positional opportunities and generally weak. I was calling hands I would normally raise with. I got dealt one of my least favourite hands (AJ) a lot too, as though the poker gods knew I wasn't playing well and were taunting me.

Sure, in one event I got unlucky when I made the nut flush (with AJs as it happens) and got it all in only for the villain to show me a flopped full house. Bah! All part of the game I suppose, and perhaps it was for the best given the way I played. There were moments of sparkling play with some decent short-stack play plus some good early work to build respectable stacks in pretty much all the STTs I played but ultimately it all resulted in just one cash, a second place that should probably have been a win had heads up not been a combination of me facing the luckiest swine at the table and me playing badly against him. He always seemed to have a piece of the board by the river but I was still raising pre-flop and betting out on boards I had missed but had overcards to. He'd make bottom pair or something though and take it down at showdown.

So 5 played tonight with just one second place to show for it. I realised when I had fired up the 5th table (to bring me back up to 4 at once) after busting out with that nut flush v full house that my mind was fully in this tonight and I should stop there so at least I made one vaguely sensible decision tonight. But pretty muich everything I won last night was given back tonight as I lost $28.

I should know better by now...

mathare

19th August 2009, 22:35

19th August 2009 (part two)
I had a speck of an idea that might eventually form a proper plan so while I am waiting for the last tourney I entered to finally finish (I busted out ages ago but want the full results for my database) I started to think a little more about this idea. Where am I going with this poker lark over the next few days/weeks?

The first milestone is to unlock my first deposit bonus, which I will do in 3 STTs time. That's another $50 for the bankroll there.

The next step is to reach a total of 150 STTs played, so the 50 I played on Empire and another 100 on PokerStars. I'm on 126 at the minute so another 24 in total. I plan to watch a lot of cricket this weekend but even so I expect to reach this target early next week.

Then it's over to the $0.50/$1 limit tables for a change of pace and to remind myself how much I like this form of the game. I used to be pretty good and do quite well before I started to slump and gave up the game for no-limit tourneys so let's bring back those glory days. I'll start at this level to make sure I can play 4 tables at once - which is my desired level of multi-tabling - and to remind myself of some of the nuances of the game. Once I am confident I know what I am doing again it's up a level to the $1/$2 tables I usually play.

It's a start of a plan at least - let's see how it goes.

mathare

21st August 2009, 22:19

21st August 2009
Despite not feeling zoned in again (hence only playing four tables, well that and the late start to the evening) I had a good session. Four STTs played and three cashes. I was kinda giving up on the last two a bit and settled for 3rd place in each of them when I could probably have got at least one second place out of them but I was tired and my mind was elsewhere so best take what I could really. The other cash was a win to give me a profit of $37 from the four tourneys played tonight - I'd take that win rate every day! :laugh

Those four events tonight also meant I met my first milestone on my plan - my deposit bonus has been unlocked and $50 has been credited to my account. It's free money so I'll always be happy to take that. I have started on the second bonus now but so far I have worked off only 6 of the 2061pts I need to claim it. Fortunately I have till February 2010 to earn that one.

Today's session brings me to a total of 130 $10+1 STTs played for a profit of $163 or a ROI of 11.40%. I have recorded 17 x 1st, 19 x 2nd and 14 x 3rd for an ITM of 38.46%. I am happier with my ITM than I am my ROI I must confess. I'd like that ROI to be a couple of points higher, which means either upping the ITM or increasing the number of times I win rather than finishing second or third. Not that 11.40% ROI is bad but I think it could be better, that's all.

20 more STTs at this level and that's my second milestone met. Then it's on to the cash tables and off towards a double milestone as releasing the next deposit bonus will also get me enough reward points for the PokerStars trackie top I really like the look off.

mathare

24th August 2009, 18:20

24th August 2009
A really horrible afternoon today - my first really as what can loose be termed a pro (I now have no other source of income). I played a good number of STTs - 15 in fact - but things didn't go at all well for me. I got two second places and that was it in terms of cashes. Two from 15 - that's dreadful!

I didn't play my A game today, I admit that much, but I didn't play 'two cashes from 15' badly by any means. I was card dead for long spells and when I did catch a hand it would go awry on the flop mostly, or if I made it that far I'd drown in the river. Things really weren't running my way at all today. I don't feel as though I could get a hand to stand up (although I haven't analysed all the events to see how true that actually is, and probably won't).

Time for a break now but I'll be back for an evening session later. I will not be beaten by this game!

mathare

24th August 2009, 22:55

24th August 2009 (part two)
The evening didn't get much better. A second and a third from the last five STTs I wanted to get out the way to take me up to 150 played. Again I wasn't on best form but I was playing well enough I thought. I got unlucky heads up and that second should have been a win and the extra $18 that goes with it. One of those days though. My big starting hands weren't connecting with flops and I was being beaten post-flop so after some reasonable pre-flop action I was being forced to let hands go. I curse this game at times.

Weirdly enough there was a supernova in two of my tourneys today too (the same player each time). Why is a supernova playing $10 sit-n-gos? Like I said, weird.

Anyway, that's the 150 milestone reached. I'm waiting for the summaries of tonight's games from PokerStars still so I can't give fully up-to-date figures on how it has all gone just yet. Needless to say though that today was a serious downswing. I don't want to let it beat me though - I will be back to the no-limit STTs but I want a change of pace and I had planned to go to the cash tables for a break and that is what I will do, starting tomorrow. I hope for a better session than I had today...

mathare

25th August 2009, 10:47

25th August 2009
I finally have those PokerStars results and my database is up to date so let's have a look shall we.

150 $10+$1 STTs played for a final profit of just $42 (a ROI of 2.55%). After 50 events my profit was $80, after 100 the profit was $133 so these last 50 events have been expensive. Indeed the graphs shows a very obvious downswing. But was I playing poorly? I wasn't playing my best as I have admitted several times now but I wasn't playing awfully either - not so bad to justify the results I experienced yesterday I don't think. Anyway, I have 17 x 1st, 22 x 2nd and 15 x 3rd for an ITM of 36.00%, down 2 whole points on what it was after 50 and 100 events.

I now have a +ve BB/hand from every position other than the blinds though - I was negative from 4 off the button for some time but have addressed that.

In terms of starting hands and BB/hand my biggest losers are some of the suited Aces. My biggest loser on this measure is AKs - it just wouldn't hold up at all yesterday. Also in there is ATs, AQs, KQo and KTo, although less so for the Kx hands. There are some desperation shove hands in the list too as one would expect - hands like 98o, JTs and so on. When it gets short-handed or one gets short-stacked these become playable under the right conditions but they often need to hit to win if you get called.

Out of interest - biggest winning hands in terms of BB/hand? KK, AA, QQ, TT, 77, JJ, 99, KTs, QTs and A9s make up the top ten with KK and AA streets ahead of any of the other hands. A bit lower down we have AKo, AJs, AJo and AQo so it's not all bad for the big Aces I guess.

But let's put all that behind us for a while and concentrate on the limit hold'em cash tables. I have been re-reading Phil Hellmuth's 'Play Poker Like The Pros', especially the limit hold'em strategies. Oh dear! Position isn't taken into account and you can tell this was one of the early poker books to hit the market as it's pretty poorly written. Lots of examples crafted to a very specific situation that wouldn't arise all that often at all, and lots of reliance on reads. I am glad I have re-read it but I doubt I'll be taking much of it on board over the coming sessions.

And with that let's get started shall we?

mathare

25th August 2009, 14:04

25th August 2009 (part two)
A tricky start to limit cash game play this morning. I managed to get up to four tables quite comfortably but there are still some nuances to the game I need to pick up again after I dropped just under $20 across those tables in not much over 2 hours. I have played this form of the game a lot in the past so I just need to find my form once more and play the game how I know I can play it. I need to focus more on pot odds than I have done recently as I can't rely on implied odds.

Let's have another go this afternoon and hope for better...

mathare

25th August 2009, 19:30

25th August 2009 (part three)
What was I hoping for this afternoon? Better. What did I get? More of the same :(

Four tables again (as most, if not all, sessions will be I expect as I can handle that comfortably) and another slaughtering for a $0.50/$1 limit hold'em game. Down $47.65 across the tables or -6.12 BB/100 (compared to -5.50 this morning).

I think it's best I just list the thoughts that occurred to me during this session:

I'm having real trouble playing post-flop at times
Others are not raising when they have the best hand so my attempts to raise for information aren't working
Is my play too one-dimensional not to be able to counter such strategies?
Do I need to tighten up pre-flop to hopefully avoid trouble on later streets?
Consider better positional play
Every post-flop decision should be made after evaluating the pot odds and the odds against hitting my hand
Am I calling too many bets on the flop? I call one bet to see what comes (with a decent (but not the best) hand or overcards, say) but I still need to take pot odds into account to justify the call
Better reads - put opponents on hands
Am I over-aggressive? Betting up boards I only have a small part of when opponents are less likely to fold to one bet here than in no-limit
Limit poker is a more straight-forward game so play it that way. If someone is betting strongly they likely have a hand
Give more respect to opponents. My first thought earlier with AJo on the button facing early-mid position raise was "Pah, I can beat whatever trash he's playing." He's probably not playing trash.
Check more? Some of my bets are being folded to too often meaning I don't build pots worth winning
The dividing line between profitable final hands and losers in PokerTracker is between one pair and two pair for both previous cash session and tourney play but today three of a kind and two pair are both unprofitable - two pair massively so. Why? Is this just bad luck?
I lost out with set over set and had a full house beaten today. But when I make quads I win a small pot
Is this really the game for me?
When does a bad day at the tables become a signal to quit the game?
I've been jealous of the shown down winners at all tables. Why can't I make a hand?
I've had rivers (and some turns) making my strong hand lose a lot of value, e.g. I hold AA on a board of T-4-A-J-Q. I had been building a nice pot with top set only for the Q to make big straights possible and got shown K4 on the end.
Need to strike a balance between building a pot worth winning and protecting my hand
When was I good at this game? Was it before I discovered no-limit tournaments?
Read! You have books on this game so read them and pick it up again and fast!
And that's my state of mind throughout the afternoon. Says it all really.

mathare

26th August 2009, 09:58

26th August 2009

I had more thoughts last night about multi-tabling. It's either my best fried or my biggest enemy and I can't decide which.

Friend: It stops me getting bored and losing focus. It keeps me playing only strong hands. It keeps the turnover levels high so I earn loyalty points faster. I build up a database on my own play as well as that of my opponents faster.

Enemy: When I am losing, I lose faster. It distracts me so I don't take in all the information available to me. I can't handle it even though I think I can.

I need to go back over my old sessions (and probably this diary thread) to see how I have done before in limit cash games, comparing single table sessions to multi-tablers.
But for now I am going to try a little experiment at the same tables as yesterday. I'm going to tighten up and play a simple straight-forward game. I'm going to play Hellmuth's top ten hands and nothing else (unless I get a free look out of the BB, obviously). So that's 77+ and AQ+ and that's all. I'll play them hard and fast pre-flop (unless I really think I am wasting my time calling 2 or 3 bets with 77, 88, 99 for example) and then take my cues post-flop from the other players, but I will look to stay aggressive even if that means taking down smaller pots as I can do without being drawn out on so often as yesterday. The plan is to make a small profit and prove to myself that these little games can be beaten. I am an experienced poker player struggling to beat some of the smallest games - that's really not right. I need to focus on the basics of hand reading and so on and get some confidence back in my game. I can't afford to lose $65 a day playing $0.50/$1 limit like yesterday. Here goes...

mathare

26th August 2009, 12:19

26th August 2009 (part two)
Better this morning but still not great - and my session was cut a little short by a server reset at 'Stars.

Four tables again, for just under 2 hours this time and a total loss of $6.80 or a BB/100 of -1.71, three times better than yesterday admittedly but still not what I was after. It felt OK though, I was able to play the tables very comfortably and considered adding more to the mix but I figured I ought to turn a profit first rather than just lose money faster! I reckon I can take on 6-8 tables like that though, and there were moments this morning when it looked like I could grind out a steady profit. Again I had boards turning evil on me, putting straight draws up on the turn/river which of course were hit to beat my big pairs or sets, that sort of thing still. I'm still finding my feet to some extent but I am confident of being able to beat this game, which is one thing I guess.

And now some more random thoughts:
Am I too scared of folding the winning hand and losing a pot that I call too many streets when it is just one bet to me?
Pot odds calculations must be on the basis of improving to a winning hand, not just making a better hand. And that means reading opponents and evaluating which outs might be counterfeited
It's easy to see how you get gold star VIPs at these low stakes cash tables at the rate VIP points can build up. I gained over 200 VPPs yesterday and just under 100 again this morning. Multi-tabling full-time grinders could easily reach Gold Star or higher.
When I see a hand at showdown (or via PokerTracker if they muck) I think "Oh yeah" and see it makes sense with the action that has gone before. I need to turn this around and guess the hands before I see them and use that information more
My multi-table stats - 20 winning sessions and 17 losers (before today) compared to 11 winners and 8 losers for single-table sessions. So it's pretty much the same ratio
Finally for this morning's entry I want to start a new feature - my cash game graph. I want to post up the graph of each session so my ups and downs are out there for all to see. Here's this morning's...

mathare

26th August 2009, 18:15

26th August 2009 (part three)
Aww come on. Is it really too much to ask for to have a winning poker session? I'd take even a small win, just $10 or so across four tables over a couple of hours. Is that honestly unreasonable?

You've guessed it, another losing session and this afternoon was similar to yesterday. I lost $37.20 across four tables in a little under 4 hours. That equates to -4.26BB/100 hands, which is better than yesterday admittedly but still way down on what I want to record for these sessions. Things need to turn around and to do so quickly else I'll be depositing into PokerStars yet again. I lost $121 playing tourneys on Monday and another $100 or more these past two days. It's quite worrying actually.

This afternoon's random thoughts include:
Am I losing faster than the cost of the blinds?
Am I actually enjoying this?
The Hellmuth top 10 hands have worked well in the past showing a profit of over 90BB/100 at $1/2 limit (results filtered to those hands only) so keep going with it and things will turn round
I could profitably add AJ and KQ into the mix too it seems
This strategy doesn't take into account position and that bothers me somewhat
One day the river will stop completing straights against my big pairs
How should I play big Aces when they miss the flop?
The blinds cost 0.50xBB and 0.25xBB so a total of 0.75xBB per orbit and assuming a full 10-seater table that equates to a cost of 7.50BB/100 so I am not losing as fast as I would were I to just fold every hand so that's one thing I guess.

Am I enjoying this? In a way but I'd enjoy it a whole lot more if some of my hands would just stand up. The graph of this session has key moments around hands #650 and #730 where my big pairs just wouldn't hold up. I was betting/raising to protect them and still getting slammed. It wasn't blind aggression though, I dialled it back when I thought I was beaten.

It's not a pretty graph though is it? Never in profit. Not once.

mathare

27th August 2009, 12:03

27th August 2009
That answers that then - a winning session is too much to ask for so I am going to stop asking and give in. Yes, quitting after only two and a half days but the way things are going I am left with little other choice really. Poker is now more than a hobby for me, it's a full-time thing and while I don't expect to earn a living from it I would like to show a profit from 40+ hours a week at the tables and that doesn't look like happening playing limit cash games. I know two and a half days isn't long but I have been putting in the hours and have played over 2700 hands in that time but as I am losing at a rate of over 4.60xBB/100 I can't continue. All the confidence has gone from my game, I don't feel like I am playing anywhere near as well as I can. My mind is tuned into no-limit tourneys and I should have recognised that some time ago. The switch between the various forms of the game is not easy and I should have perhaps taken some time out to re-read limit cash game strategies before sitting down but I didn't. My mind is still set on STTs and that's what I will go back to. It can't go much worse than it did on Monday after all.

I do have some more random thoughts to share with you before I quit though:
I should save myself river bets, e.g. $1 into a $5 pot when I just have overcards as I am beaten by too many hands including anything that pairs any part of the board
This cannot be natural variance so my game must be shot to pieces - I need to go back to STTs
Stop even contemplating blind steals
I am only winning small pots but being beaten out of some much juicier ones
I've lost the knack for this game
I'm struggling to know how to play medium pairs properly, pre- and post-flop
My confidence is shattered
I'm between books so now is a good time to decide on my future direction
I have tried limit cash games for over 2500 hands and lost heavily suggesting my future lies elsewhere
I'm having early position raises with AJ called by A3o and 75o and still not winning pots. You can't bet people off hands
Maybe I don't have the patience for this game anymore
That bit about being between books may sound a little odd but I always maintain a stack of books to read/re-read and shuffle the order about according to how things are going, re-prioritising my reading. I recently shuffled Small Stakes Hold'em by Sklansky et al and Internet Texas Hold'em by Hilger to the top of the pile but have since reordered my books to bring the first two Harrington volumes back to the top of the pile. I plan to order a couple of books specifically on sit-n-gos too.

Before I post this session's graph I want to do something I don't normally do and that's post up a hand history from this morning.

PokerStars Game #32108400583: Hold'em Limit ($0.50/$1.00 USD) - 2009/08/27 10:28:18 WET [2009/08/27 5:28:18 ET]
Table 'Semiramis' 10-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: PartyBee ($50.40 in chips)
Seat 2: 19_Maximus75 ($24.10 in chips)
Seat 3: Quidnunc ($36.25 in chips)
Seat 4: pigreco13 ($56.60 in chips)
Seat 5: 18121971 ($17.95 in chips)
Seat 6: offsuitstan ($18.45 in chips)
Seat 7: xxVOVKAxx ($19.95 in chips)
Seat 8: Dafejo ($44.85 in chips)
Seat 9: yingwang88 ($18.15 in chips)
Seat 10: mathare ($21.25 in chips)
offsuitstan: posts small blind $0.25
xxVOVKAxx: posts big blind $0.50
19_Maximus75: posts small blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mathare [Jd Js]
Dafejo: folds
yingwang88: calls $0.50
mathare: raises $0.50 to $1
PartyBee: raises $0.50 to $1.50
19_Maximus75: folds
Quidnunc: folds
pigreco13: calls $1.50
18121971: folds
offsuitstan: folds
xxVOVKAxx: folds
yingwang88: folds
mathare: calls $0.50
*** FLOP *** [9h Tc 8h]
mathare: bets $0.50
PartyBee: calls $0.50
pigreco13: raises $0.50 to $1
mathare: calls $0.50
PartyBee: calls $0.50
*** TURN *** [9h Tc 8h] [4c]
mathare: checks
PartyBee: checks
pigreco13: checks
*** RIVER *** [9h Tc 8h 4c] [Kh]
mathare: checks
PartyBee: checks
pigreco13: bets $1
mathare: calls $1
PartyBee: calls $1
*** SHOW DOWN ***
pigreco13: shows [As Kd] (a pair of Kings)
mathare: mucks hand
PartyBee: shows [Ah Kc] (a pair of Kings)
PartyBee collected $5.75 from pot
pigreco13 collected $5.75 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $12 | Rake $0.50
Board [9h Tc 8h 4c Kh]
Seat 1: PartyBee showed [Ah Kc] and won ($5.75) with a pair of Kings
Seat 2: 19_Maximus75 folded before Flop
Seat 3: Quidnunc folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: pigreco13 showed [As Kd] and won ($5.75) with a pair of Kings
Seat 5: 18121971 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: offsuitstan (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: xxVOVKAxx (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: Dafejo folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: yingwang88 folded before Flop
Seat 10: mathare mucked [Jd Js]

Let's look over that action again and see where I went right/wrong as when this was shown down I momentarily flipped out.

There's an early position caller so I raise it up with JJ. It's re-raised by the player to my left who gets one (cold) caller. The blinds and limper fold. I close the betting with a call so there are 3 of us to the flop. At this point I am 64% to win the pot. The flop is 9-T-8 with two hearts giving me an overpair and open-ended straight draw. I'm now 80% to win. I bet out to try and build a pot as well as make the draws pay. I get a call and a raise (by the player who it turns out had the least chance of winning this hand) which is called in both places. The turn is 4c putting two clubs and two hearts on the board. I still have that overpair (and am 90% to win the pot) but there is another potential flush draw out there so betting out is a given here as I don't want to rely on the flop raiser to bet out so I can check-raise, nor do I think this move would get rid of any of my opponents so best to bet out. I actually check (why?) and it is checked round. The river comes Kh completing a possible flush in hearts and putting an overcard out there. Not what I wanted. No strength shown on the turn but I should probably check-call here. Which I do, and get shown AKo twice and they split the pot.

I made my mistake on the turn, clearly, but I was also somewhat unlucky to lose that pot I think. Oh well, live and learn.

And now that graph. Look at it. It was all action between hands 220 and 250 wasn't it? All the way down and then back up again. You can see I started to claw things back a bit but I was still way down on where I needed to be to get even again and finished down $11.70 for a total loss over the past few days of $123.10. Now you can see why I can't carry on like this. I played 24 tables during this experiment and only won on 8 of them, the biggest win being just over $9 yet my biggest loss was over $22 and I had seven losses over $10. This isn't the game for me right now.

mathare

27th August 2009, 22:56

27th August 2009 (part two)
It's been a funny old day, and when I say funny I do of course mean bloody frustrating!

I've been back on the STTs this afternoon and the one positive I can take is that I have played more of them today than I expected to. I got through 16 this afternoon and another 9 this evening to obviously make 25 on the day and I said I'd like to play 100 a week in a previous diary entry so that target looks fairly easy to hit and even exceed.

That's close to being the only positive though as things haven't been going that well. The thing is I think I know some of what has been causing today's bad tourney results and it's quite easy to fix. It's me. There, I said it. I haven't been playing well when it comes to the crunch stages towards the end of a tourney. I have been too quick to call an all-in when I have the bigger stack and a marginal hand such as A8, KT etc. You know the sort of hands, the trouble hands. I think KQ will be ahead of his shoving range but he's waited for an Ace so is playing A3o so when the board bricks out he wins with a better kicker. That's happened too often to me tonight. I've also had hands where I have been on a stack of ~10xBB with AJo and shoved only for TT to look me up and I miss all streets. I've had situations like that a few times too. The remedy? Tighten up my all-in calling range massively and watch that all-in raising range too. I'm too quick to shove when stacks get down and I only have a small pocket pair (as I write that I end up with it all in with 99 v ATo in one of the tourneys I am finishing off, fortunately I win). I can fold and still have a stack of say 8xBB which is still playable (to an extent) and can still do some damage. I tend to err, panic isn't quite the right word but I hope you get my drift, and think I need to really start pushing even the smallest of edges (or perceived edges) so as to have a stack that can win the event. It's partly true but I need to survive long enough to make the money first. I read an interesting article on bubble play recently. It said you should play tighter than you might think, especially calling all-ins, because the jump on the pay scale is 20% whereas the jump from third to second is only half that. And that's an interesting point. A $7 profit for third is barely worth fighting for in some respects; it's not going to change anyone's life so people won't tighten up so much that they are scared of not getting at least third place so be careful what hands you're in there with as the average hand is likely to be stronger around the bubble. If I have chips I can play so why risk it all with mariginal hands?

That said I am getting my money in good (or at least good enough) and hitting more than my fair share of nasty rivers. My last tourney exit came with Qh5h on a flop of 7s-Qs-2h, so top pair with a backdoor flush draw. The turn is 6h to give me that flush draw. The river is 2d and the rest of the money goes in (it has been decent action on all streets thus far, which I am happy with as I have top pair and don't read him as having a better hand). He flips Js-2s for rivered trips. He had that flush draw from the flop, fair enough, but to river that 2...

So a frustrating day that saw me lose $14 in the afternoon and a further $18 in the evening. Sure, some of that could be turned round by better play of the short stack in the late stages of these tourneys but some of that is also down to awful river cards coming down. I know that's the normal poker player's lament and that some times the river will make rather than break my hand but it just gets to you at times and you need to let off some steam.

I won't get a full day's play in tomorrow but I hope to get a few hours in early on so would be happy with 10-15 STTs. If I make a profit too I will be over the moon the way things have been going. Can I just not beat PokerStars players? Should I be shopping around elsewhere? Back on Party/Empire perhaps? Something to think about.

Oh, just quickly before I go - books. I have ordered Phil Shaw's book on winning STTs so should have that in a few days. I have also had another book pile reshuffle and brought Arnold Snyder's Poker Tournament Formula off the book shelf and to the top of the 'to read' pile so I will be digging into that shortly. I am more familiar with Harrington so let's have an alternative approach for a while is what I am thinking.

mathare

27th August 2009, 23:06

27th August 2009 (part three)
Just a quickie - I finished 5th nine times today, and fourth a further twice. Had I converted just two of those eleven finishes into 3rd places I'd be in profit for the day (just). I think this shows I am 'panicking' into shoving too early with too weak a hand and can afford to wait a little longer and look to exploit better situations when we are 5- or 6-handed so that I can at least start cashing more often. Then I can worry about converting 3rds into 2nds and then into wins.

counterfeit

28th August 2009, 07:16

Morning Mat.

Just two things I would like to mention.

1. Don't get too worked up about reading up on different strategies. Believe me, it is very possible to read too much and end up meshing together various strategies that leave your game confused and prone to more errors.

2. There is a definite pattern of aggression when play becomes 5 or 6 handed as players try to build bigger stacks. Unless you have a monster hand, I would recommend more or less sitting out until there are only 4 left. Obviously, the odd button steal is ok but don't get involved unnecessarily. You mention above that you went out of a tourney with Q5. Please tell me someone limped into your BB.

Anyway, you know you are good enough so just stick at it.

mathare

28th August 2009, 09:14

1. Don't get too worked up about reading up on different strategies. Believe me, it is very possible to read too much and end up meshing together various strategies that leave your game confused and prone to more errors.

Yeah, I am starting to realise that. OK, I already knew it deep down and I think my natural game is such now that it takes something pretty special or out of left field to change it. I have been playing it so much that I have my own style that is no longer easily changed, I hope. The majority of the books I read are poker books but I don't read them actively in as much as I don't often stop to really think about and digest the material. I read the book cover to cover and some of it will sink in and pop back up at a later date. It's all in there somewhere in my subconscious. The truth is I enjoy reading poker books and like to read different strategies. I won't always apply them but they challenge the way I currently play the game and makes me think about whether my approach is correct and makes me justify my play sometimes.

Last night I was going to read Snyder's Poker Tournament Formula but a couple of pages in I realised it was the wrong book at the wrong time. What I need was a book that would get me thinking about what I was doing without being condescending or trying to massively change my mindset. It needed to be relevant but fresh. So I turned to a book called Why You Lose at Poker, it spoke to me from the bookshelf and has already got me thinking even though I have read it before and am only a few chapters in so far. I have more confidence going into this morning's session, especially having identified leaks yesterday that I can work on.

2. There is a definite pattern of aggression when play becomes 5 or 6 handed as players try to build bigger stacks. Unless you have a monster hand, I would recommend more or less sitting out until there are only 4 left. Obviously, the odd button steal is ok but don't get involved unnecessarily. That's what I have come to realise when I keep seeing a string of finishes around 5th place in my results. As I said yesterday, I am panicking and shoving too light.

You mention above that you went out of a tourney with Q5. Please tell me someone limped into your BB.I should have made it clear that this was heads up and I was outchipped by 8:5. I limped pre-flop with the blinds at 100/200 and bet half the pot on the flop before being check-raised to 1000. That's a pretty big raise but I had seen him make similar moves on previous hands so I (semi-reluctantly called the raise). He bets 1800 into a pot of 2400 on the turn and I call. The rest of my stack (2265) goes in on what I thought was a harmless river and I was out in 2nd place.

I was given two opportunities to fold - the check-raise on the flop and the turn but I really felt top pair would be good, I honestly did. I have trouble knowing what the winning hand is likely to be heads up. I have folded some strong hands fearing I was beaten but I have also led out with nothing but an overcard and taken down some big pots so I am still finding my way to an extent. But I am experiencing a lot more second places than wins recently so perhaps I am getting carried away and should be folding more. As I said before, when I have chips I can still play hands which I can't do if I shove it all in on a loser and get eliminated. This week I have had 3 wins and 7 second places and I'm pretty sure I wasn't so far behind in those heads up matches that I couldn't have turned some of the round with a little more patience and converted some of those second places into wins.

Thanks CF - you have made me really think about some things this morning :)

crazybadger

28th August 2009, 10:07

Interesting to read the perspectives going on here. My thoughts on the near-bubble play...

In a 9 or 10 seat STT I tighten up a little when we get down to 6 players, and a bit more when we hit 5. The reason is that around this stage some people (hopefully not me) are in trouble with small stacks and they'll be trying to get lucky and double up on some sucker. Premium hands only...

When we get to 4 players I loosen a little as most people are hanging on trying to make the blinds so generally a good time to push the mid stack people around if you get alright cards. Always wary of the short stack.

3 players and I like to go nuts. Generally the payouts for 3rd is 20%, 2nd gets 30% and 1st gets 50%. My thinking here is that if I have made the money I dont want to "waste" time and then only come 2nd (like you said you dont get that much more from it) so I accept the 3rd place and push for 1st by trying to get the biggest stack early after the bubble. If that fails I've been paid and have more time to play again. Of course this varies depending on how your stack is when the bubble bursts...

But you've played a fair bit more poker (and read LOTS more :D) so probably already have heard of this train of thought before

mathare

28th August 2009, 10:16

Here's one for you then, a hand I just played.

It's level 1 (10/20) of an STT that started 9-handed but has already seen one player eliminated with QQ into 45 which had made two pair on the flop. You have AA on the button. UTG+1 limps and the player to your right makes it 80 to go (4xBB). AA on the button so you re-raise to 200. The blinds fold, the early limper calls but the original raiser shoves all-in for 1460 total. You have 1270 behind so have him covered (by 10 chips). This is a big re-raise and would basically see you eliminated if you call and lose. UTG+1 has you both covered by a couple of hundred chips.

What do you do? Call the all-in and risk elimination or fold and keep a good stack running?

I'm not going to tell you what I did just yet...

crazybadger

28th August 2009, 10:28

Call.

mathare

28th August 2009, 10:38

Call.I thought about it for a while, using some of the time that PokerStars gives you (something I don't do often enough and am trying to do more often) but that was the conclusion I came to as well.

I thought that before the original raiser had raised I would like to get as much as I can reasonably get into the pot pre-flop holding the best starting hand, hence my re-raise. I was hoping for a re-raise but not an all-in shove so I could then shove over the top but it didn't quite work like that and his shove threw me a little. I looked at my stack and seriously thought about folding and taking a 1300 stack forward. Then I slapped myself and called. It's an obvious call isn't it?

The raiser to my right showed 99 and the board came 5-Q-Q-4-K so I doubled up. The QQ v 45 clash a few hands earlier had got me thinking too. When the all-in shove came when I had Aces I had no idea what to expect I'd be facing. There had been some mental play so far, real craziness

mathare

28th August 2009, 13:01

28th August 2009
Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it!

I'm beginning to go right off this game, by which I mean poker itself. I can't win at limit cash games and I can't win at no-limit STTs either at the minute. I have tried other forms of the game in the past and I couldn't win at those either. I don't think I'm a great player by any means but I think I am good enough to grind out a small weekly profit on a regular basis and steadily build a bankroll. But that really ain't happening. A week or two back it looked like it could and then I started playing the game full time and it has all gone awry.

I said I wanted to work on this end of tourney leak I have spotted - calling and shoving all-in with inferior hands. I don't expect to cure myself of this problem instantly but I do expect to be able to work towards a solution and hopefully improve with each event played. So how am I doing on that front? Let's look at my tourney exits today and see how I did...

1. Eliminated in 4th

I lost half my stack with KJo when we were on the bubble. I was 3rd in chips with more than double the short-stack. I raised to 600 (3xBB) UTg with KJo and the short-stack shoved over the top for 1200 total. The blinds folded and it was 600 to me into a pot of 2100. My first thought was that I am not supposed to be getting into these situations with hands like this. Right, clear that thought out and think about the situation. The pot odds were decent at 7/2 but what am I up against? I'm 60/40 against a random hand but give him a shoving range of 77+, all Aces (suited and offsuit), suited broadways and KQo (not an unreasonable assumption is it?) and I'm a 40/60 dog. I'm still 30/70 against TT+, AQ+, a very strong, tight shoving range in this situation. The pot odds are there for anything over than an ultra-tight range. Unless I am up against a premium hand I am OK, pot-odds wise. I can call and lose and still have something of a stack (around 1500 with blinds at 100/200) so I can call. And I do. And lose to A2s with the board bricking out and him taking it with Ace high.

So I am now the short stack but things aren't too desperate yet. I get the rest of my chips in a few hands later with my stack down to 1235. I shove UTG again and the button calls me. The same clash as before only now the stacks are effectively swapped over. I table A2o and he shows me 55. The board blanks and he takes it and eliminates me on the bubble.

The first move with KJo is justifiable in my mind, looking back on it. The A2o shove? I expected it to get through based on what I had seen go before on previous hands but the button woke up with a playable hand. This one wasn't too bad I don't think. I needed to make some moves with 6xBB else I was going to be stuffed and the Ace UTG looked good enough to give it a go.

2. Eliminated in 5th
I had hardly played a hand before this point. The blinds had taken a chunk out of me and I had 1000 behind with the blinds at 75/150. It's 5-handed and I am second to act. I shove all-in with KTo on a steal only to get a call from the SB with AJo. I think I was desperate at this stage. I had little over 6xBB in my stack and had just been getting blinded out. A panic shove or the move that needed to be made given my tight image? Either way an Ace on the flop seals my fate and I bust out in 5th.

I could perhaps try to justify this given my image to that point but then you can't really blame the guy who called with AJo as his stack was as imperilled as mine. I was a 38/62 underdog so hardly surprising I lost really.

3. Eliminated in 6th
I was unable to get going again and brought a stack of 805 to the hand with the blinds at 75/150 so my stack was shorter than the previous examples. I have 3s one off the button and shove. The SB calls with JJ and out I go when the board offers no help.

I hadn't been very active; I wa hanging back for a decent hand and was usually facing action before me when I had a potentially playable hand so backed off. Unfortunately that left me pretty short coming into this hand and I was unlucky to run into a bigger pocket pair.

4. Eliminated in 3rd
I had done well to survive this long, to be honest. I should probably been out in 4th or 5th but I wasn't. I was scrapping to survive though and reached the money with just over 1000 chips and blinds at 100/200. I stole a few hands then went through the BB to leave me in the SB with a stack of 1440 or 7xBB. UTG/button calls and it's an easy shove (in my mind) with 99 for the rest of my chips. The BB calls and shows me TT - another overpair situation like the previous tourney. The board is no help and I go out in 3rd.

I don't mind this one at all. It's the right move to make with a decent pocket pair. I am short stacked and the button has shown no strength so in it all goes. Had I doubled up I would still be 3rd in chips so there was some scrapping still to be done and I needed to take my chances as they cropped up. This time it just wasn't to be.

5. Eliminated in 6th
I actually went out with 94s but that's because I only had 28 chips with blinds of 75/150 thanks to a kicking a couple of hands earlier. Again, I had been quiet and had a little below my starting stack with 1388 having not been able to pick up any chips on the previous levels. A9o second to act and I shove it all in. It's a steal and nothing more. The SB (why is it always the small blind looking me up?) calls with AJo and his better kicker wins the pot after the board blanks out.

I saw the stack of the SB and didn't think he'd be willing to gamble for all his chips but then I didn't expect him to have a decent hand. A9o is 60/40 against a random hand so it seemed like a good situation for the shove. Maybe I was wrong.

6. Eliminated in 7th
Again the blinds are 75/150 - the level where I seem to come unstuck a lot. This time I have built my starting stack up a little to 1940. UTG+1 raises to 450. I look down at AQo and shove over the top thinking I can re-steal but I have a hand if I do get called. Of course he calls, he has AKo and there is no help from the board.

Aww, come on. I've twice run pairs into bigger pairs, in the last one I ran into kicker problems and the same has happened again here. Who's getting all my luck?

7. Eliminated in 2nd
I was lucky to get heads-up here if I recall correctly. Three-handed I raised to 600 UTG with KTo as the short-stack and blinds of 100/200. The two big stacks butt heads with 55 and JJ double up the smaller of the two stacks. I then eliminate the smaller stack (who has been reduced to around my level) a few hands later when I river a 7 with 97s against his KQo. I desperation-shoved from the button and he called out the BB. I got lucky for once. But heads up I was down 3:1 in chips and facing a struggle. We battled a while and we got even in chips at one point before I gained a slight chip lead. Unfortunately it seemed every time I had a reasonable piece of the board he had a bigger piece (bigger pairs, trips to my two pair etc). It's supposed to be hard to hit a flop but he was doing much better than I was at it. He had recently started to shove all-in with every hand even though he had me greatly outchipped by about 5:1 at this stage. I got dealt A6o in the BB and when he shoved from the SB I called for my remaining 2080 (blinds at 100/200 ante 25). He flipped A4o and I am finally ahead in one of these confrontations. Until he flops a 4 and a flush draw of course. His pair of 4s is enough though and he takes the win.

Seriously, what do I have to do to win a hand like this? I actually got my money in ahead this time and still lost!

8. Eliminated in 4th
Blinds are 100/200 and I am short-stacked with 1175. UTG raises to 800 and I am on the button with KQs. Take into account the blind money and I actually have the odds for the shove, even if I get called so off I go. UTG calls and shows me TT for an old-fashioned race. The board blanks out yet again and off I tootle in the bubble yet again. Yawn.

I'm not so crazy about this one, or I wasn't at the time. I was angry with myself when he showed me tens but in hindsight I did have the pot odds. He's obviously going to call another few hundred chips as he had over 5k at the start of the hand so I am looking at a pot of 1500 for my 1200 (roughly). That's almost exactly what I need if I am up against a pair lower than either of my cards but it just wasn't to be this time. Could I have folded? Sure, but I'd still be in trouble as my stack is under 6xBB so I need to shove sometime. Perhaps I should have waited till I could open-shove rather than being the caller.

You have to admit there is some bad luck in there. There's some poor play too, granted, but some damn awful luck too.

One thing I think I do need to work on is my play in the earlier levels. I am getting to 50/100 with a stack around 1000 having been chipped away by the blinds. I need to try to pick up a few pots earlier on but without taking stupid risks. That's the new leak to work on.

With just two cashes (a second and a third) from eight tournaments this morning for a loss of $43 I am going to have to swallow my pride and step down to protect my bankroll I think. I could deposit more but do I want to at this stage? I'm clearly not on my best form so continuing to play at the $10 level could be dangerous to my wealth. I'm going to step down to the $5 tourneys and try to rebuild some confidence in my play and hopefully start showing some positive results. Hopefully.

counterfeit

28th August 2009, 14:09

Mat - always play to your bankroll. I would never recommend further deposits - that's the way to the bankruptcy court.

My bankroll dips fairly regularly but I just step down a level, build it back and go back to where I was. You should be able to beat the lower level fairly readily so it won't take long to get that $43 and some additional profits back. A couple of days work at the most.

mathare

28th August 2009, 14:24

I think I'm actually going to be forced into a break to take stock of things. The missus' parents are down this weekend to celebrate their anniversary and I don't see much spare time to play poker till Monday at least. Could be a good thing. Time to reflect and all that

John

28th August 2009, 15:57

Take a break fella, it will do you some good. Playing hours and hours of poker every day isn't going well for you at the minute. I'm worried that if you try to play more poker to make back what you've recently lost, you'll lose even more, and faster.

When you come back to play, keep an open mind at the table, and put to bed everything that's happened before.

You shouldn't be calling with marginal hands around the bubble. By all means lead out with them, but don't call with them. If they're marginal you really don't want to be seeing a flop, so if you're first to make a move then push all in. The kind of hands I'm talking about are KJ, KQ, A7-9, and any small pocket pair - 2's to 6's. Obviously at the same time you have to protect your stack so I'm not saying push in relentlessly at every opportunity. Even around the bubble I'm conscious of calling with AQ and AK. AK is not much better than any other two non-paired cards. It becomes pot luck, and you don't want that. You want to get your chips in first, being the initial aggessor, with good cards. People are more hesitant to call a big raise or a push than they are leading out with one.

I'm pleased you've ditched limit poker too. Good move. It works for some but you're someone who's clued up on pot odds, making sure you bet the right amount, and you can't do that in limit poker.

Try to be the aggressor early on to sustain a healthy enough chip stack for when you're 6 or 5 seated. It sounds like you're either not being dealt the right cards in the right positions, or you're playing too tightly in the early stages.

If I think of anything else I'll add to it later. Good luck though.

mathare

28th August 2009, 16:05

28th August 2009 (part two)
Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. I managed to get three tourneys played just now (dropping down to $5+0.50) and still the poker gods have it in for me.

1. Eliminated in 4th
I had been nursing a short stack for a while now. I think I had around 1300 when the blinds hit 50/100 and around 1000 when we reached 75/150. I had picked up a reasonable pot on the second level with QQ and lost those chips again with 99 on the next level. Other than that it was just the blinds affecting my stack. I had nothing playable - either I was in a duff position or the action ahead of me was too heavy for the hand I was holding and it wasn't worth the risk. I did get a double up with A9 when I was down to 755 chips at 100/200 and managed to keep a steady stack for a few orbits. So it was with 1510 at 100/200 with 25 antes that I met my doom. UTG folds, the button raises to 800 and knowing he would call the extra I shoved the rest of my stack in. He did indeed call and I had him dominated (which makes a change) with my AQo ahead of his KQo. He flops a King and there is no joy for me on the board and I am out. I was nearly 3/1 to win that hand but he hits his King. Why when I am ahead do I never seem to win the crucial hands?

2. Eliminated in 5th
I played one hand before I went bust. I raised it up to 3xBB on level two with ATs, checked the flop and dropped the hand on the turn when I faced action and had no piece of the board (4-9-6-J). I got two free flops out of the BB each of which was check-folded when I didn't get anywhere near it. And that was it until the final hand. Again I'd had nothing all tournament and was being steadily blinded out. I took a stand with 33 in the SB with blinds at 75/150 (what else?) and a stack of 685. The BB calls and shows me 44. Why me?

3. Eliminated in 7th
The hand I went bust on was annoying enough but we'll come to that in a minute as it was 3 hands earlier that the damage was done. We're still 8-handed with blinds at 50/100. I'm UTG+1 and raise to 300 with QQ but the button re-raises me to 600 total. Hmm. I have two options - call his 300 or shove over the top and get it all in. I can call and still have 575 behind which is a lousy stack but I am still alive. I don't see folding as an option here as I don't think he has Aces. I don't know that of course but I just don't think so. I call his re-raise. We both see a flop of 7-8-9, two spades. He's not re-raising an early position raiser with JT is he? So he hopefully has overcards to the board (AJ+, maybe suited) and isn't making this play with a medium pair that has now made trips. I shove all-in for 575 into a pot of 1350. The money is going to go in anyway so I may as well be the aggressor. He quickly calls and flips over KK. Yes, very good. Sigh.

I had him covered by 110 chips, 50 of which go on the SB a couple of hands later. I have 94o so won't shove the extra 60 in when there has been a raise and a call. Next hand though - AKo. The 60 chips can go in now. There is a mid-position raise to 300, I call for 60 and the blinds fold. I am heads up on the flop against...QJo. I like those odds (65/35 apparently). It would only be a token win but it would at least see me win a pot for a change. A Queen on the flop puts paid to those thoughts and another on the river comes out just to taunt me and kick me in the knackers.

If the game just isn't going to play fair then I am getting increasingly tempted to give it all up.

mathare

28th August 2009, 16:09

I'm worried that if you try to play more poker to make back what you've recently lost, you'll lose even more, and faster.That won't happen. I sound off in here but I do actually practice semi-reasonable bankroll management and I wouldn't chase losses. I would continue to play as often as I have been the past few days and just hope things eventually turn themselves round as I don't think my STT game is that bad at present, despite the results.

Try to be the aggressor early on to sustain a healthy enough chip stack for when you're 6 or 5 seated. It sounds like you're either not being dealt the right cards in the right positions, or you're playing too tightly in the early stages.I'm honestly getting nothing I feel is playable. Either the position is wrong or the action ahead of me is too strong to justify playing the hand. I'll pick a couple of tourneys at random to show you what I mean. I'll start a new post for them to make the discussion easier...

John

28th August 2009, 16:19

3. Eliminated in 7th
The hand I went bust on was annoying enough but we'll come to that in a minute as it was 3 hands earlier that the damage was done. We're still 8-handed with blinds at 50/100. I'm UTG+1 and raise to 300 with QQ but the button re-raises me to 600 total. Hmm. I have two options - call his 300 or shove over the top and get it all in.

I know one the worst things you can say to someone after they bust out is to tell them you'd have played it differently, but I know also that's why you go to these details in your posts in the first place. If this were me I'd have probably shoved all-in over the top of his 600 re-raise. Because, seeing a King or Ace on that flop spells danger for you and you're forced to give it up. 575 remaining isn't going to give you much time to make a move, and you're reliant on being dealt both a strong hand, and one at that, in good position. Even though you were beat I'd have got all my chips in pre-flop. I say these things, but I'd have probably put him him on Tens, Jacks or AKo/s. I'd always think I was ahead... and I think in poker sometimes you have to adopt that mentality even if it isn't always true. Push and know you're ahead, given the odds are so slim he has Queens or better.

I'm honestly getting nothing I feel is playable. Either the position is wrong or the action ahead of me is too strong to justify playing the hand. I'll pick a couple of tourneys at random to show you what I mean. I'll start a new post for them to make the discussion easier...

Yeah, if you could post up examples on here that would be good. I'll try and help you analyse them and tell you what I'd have done... [if you like]

mathare

28th August 2009, 16:38

PokerStars Game #32152086516: Tournament #190749755, $5.00+$0.50 USD Hold'em No Limit
I start in seat 9 (button is seat #1). My hands were folded unless otherwise stated:
Level I (10/20)
KJo
J5o
94o
64o
Q4o
K5o
83s (BB)
K4s (SB)
A5o
86s
54o
Level II (15/30)
T9s (raise ahead of me)
K5o
K7o
QQ (+405 chips)
J5s (BB)
92o (SB)
75o
J3s
75o
83o
Level III (25/50)
A3o
82o
99 (-500 chips)
96s (BB)
T6o
T2o
73o
A7o
83o
(Seat #6 eliminated)
K5o
Level IV (50/100)
AQo (BB - checked with 2 callers. Didn't raise due to my position & the fact that one caller had only 11xBB so a standard raise to 3xBB may result in him being all in and I didn't fancy being all-in with AQo at this stage)
J9o (SB - I would have made a full house had I seen this to the river, incidentally)
K3o
Q5o
75o
KQo (folded in mid-position despite no action ahead of me. My best hand for ages but still only marginal. A standard raise pretty much pot commits me and that's something I am trying to get away from)
A6o
J8o
53o (BB)
KQo (SB - UTG+1 limps, short-stack shoves for 975 so this was an easy fold in this situation)
85o
Level V (75/150)
88 - UTG & UTG+1 both limp. I considered limping but with 1005 in chips a limp leaves me pretty much committed to the pot if there is a raise (in my view). I could shove but both limpers have me covered and I expect to get at least one caller, especially as UTG+1 doesn't have me covered my more than a few hundred so maybe looking for a near double up. The flop came 2-9-6 with two diamonds and both limpers folded to a bet from the BB.
94s
Q6o
Q9o
K8o
43o (BB)
(Seats #1 & #2 eliminated)
KQo (SB, +150 chips from a steal when folded round to me)
55 (folded due to 3xBB UTG raise)
A4o
A6o
52o
Q9s (BB)
Level VI (100/200)
Q4s (SB)
(Seat #7 eliminated)
Q9o
62o
J2s
85s (BB)
75o (SB, +200 chips from a steal when folded round to me)
A6o - UTG raised so I folded else I may have considered a steal
A9o (+855 chips) - doubled up with a 9 on the turn against 55 in BB
K9 - too risky UTG so folded
94o (BB, +300 chips) - checked down to the river where my 9 high card held up, bizarrely
J2o (SB)
54o
T5s
(Seat #3 eliminated)
JTo - a hand I thought about stealing with but I had my own words about busting out with marginal hands ringing in my ears and I still had 9xBB
J5o (BB)
98o (SB)
62o
A2o
T7o (BB, +100 chips with a walk)
42o (SB)
74s
72o
Level VII (100/200 ante 25)
AQo (BB, -1510 chips)
(Seat #9 is eliminated)

And there we have it. The pocket 8s may have been playable but I don't see many other spots I missed.

mathare

28th August 2009, 16:42

I know one the worst things you can say to someone after they bust out is to tell them you'd have played it differently, but I know also that's why you go to these details in your posts in the first place. I put up the details to help me dissect my own play but also to spark discussion about how I could/should have played so feel free to chip in.

If this were me I'd have probably shoved all-in over the top of his 600 re-raise. Because, seeing a King or Ace on that flop spells danger for you and you're forced to give it up.I considered this and perhaps I should have done so but I honestly don't think it made much difference here. He'd call the difference anyway given his actions so far and his stack size. I thought the flat call and shove on the flop may give me the chance to represent a stronger hand than he thought I'd have. Plus I have the option to check-fold to a King or Ace on the flop this way.

Yeah, if you could post up examples on here that would be good. I'll try and help you analyse them and tell you what I'd have done... [if you like]Have a look at the rather dull post above as it's not at all atypical of what I have seen in each tourney. If you can find edges I should have pushed let me know and I can post more details as necessary

counterfeit

28th August 2009, 17:28

Mat

Inspired by reading your posts and your previously mentioned dislike/disdain for the double or nothing games on Poker Stars, I have decided to put to use the rather unexpected $45 I had sitting in there.

My idea is to play the $1 tables until I get to $100 and then increase the stakes. I will ONLY play these when I am doing nothing else as they will get in the way of the real work.

I'm not going to crash your poker diary with my updates. I will start my own thread.

The reason I am posting this here is because of the Poker Stars link. I doubt we will play the same players at this stage but I have no doubt I will meet your adversaries along the way and maybe we could compare notes.

John

28th August 2009, 21:30

mathare

28th August 2009, 22:11

Hmmm. You're right Mat. Nothing there actually looks like you could have made any kind of moves different from what you did. The very small number of Ax+ hands you did play, and one of them (A9) paid you off. Shame there weren't more of these at A6 or better, as they could have helped you out (no **** sherlock!)And that A9 was a desperation move, not one I'd normally make with that hand (I prefer AT+).

You didn't post any premium or sub-premium hands which is a shame (obv. you weren't dealt any, but had you have been it would have been interesting to see how you played them).The Queens were the best I got and there's not much of a tale to tell with those. I raised to 3xBB pre-flop and got two callers. The flop came T-A-9 rainbow and I bet 180 into a 315 pot to see where I stood with that Ace out there. One caller to the turn of another T. I check as that Ten concerns me. Was he playing Tx with the x being a broadway card? Check and see what he does. He checks behind me and we see another Ten dealt on the river. OK, now I'm worried. I'm losing to a naked Ace (as I was anyway) but otherwise I should be OK unless he's made quads. Argh. It goes check-check and I take the pot against his QJs.

Just keep at it. You can't be doing that much wrong, you're just getting unlucky more times than is mathematically/statistically correct for the hands you're up against when you get all your chips in.Cheers John :thumbs

How many tables are you playing at once? Don't play any more than 4 at a time; it's one thing keeping you in focus and making you concentrate but it's another thing when you can't keep track of what you're doing.I play 4 at once and that's comfortable for me. It's the right level. When one ends I start another up to try and keep 4 running at all times. That's my comfort zone

mathare

29th August 2009, 10:15

29th August 2009
I don't have time to play any poker today (and may not tomorrow either) but I do have a few spare minutes just to consider my starting hands once more. Looking at the tournaments played only on PokerStars and sorted by BB/hand I see the best hands for me have been AA, KK, QQ, TT and 77 which are over 0.5BB/hand better than than the rest (next up is AJs, A9s, 88, J8s and KTs). So that's big pairs and big suited Aces basically, although note that AK and AQ havem't popped up yet. AKo comes in a bit lower down the list (13th best) with AQo in 17th position. So where are AKs and AQs?

AKs is actually my 3rd least profitable hand behind ATs and 76s although this last hand is only in there as I have lost some decent pots with it when play has been 2 or 3-handed and the blinds have been high. I'm only dealing with just over 11,000 hands here so as the sample increases this picture will become clearer and more accurate. The full top ten of losing hands then is ATs, 76s, AKs, 33, Q5s, KQs, 55, JTs, KQo and 43s. It's no surprise that both KQ hands are in there given my all-in difficulties with marginal hands.

If I update the filter slightly to look at hands with 7 or more players (so we're not short-handed but the blinds could still be quite high) we see the worst hands are now AKs, ATs, KQs, 97s and 99 with the best five being AA, KK, QQ, 77 and TT - the big pairs again mainly.

I'm only scratching the surface here and I don't have much time to go any deeper but I am sowing seeds in my mind as to where to take this in the future. I need to build up more hands to 5 or 10 times what I have already really which means another 40,000 hands or roughly another 500 tournaments working on an average of 80 hands per tourney (which is pretty much what I am seeing at present). So that's another 4 or 5 week's 'work' I guess. In another month I should have a much clearer picture of how things stand with my best/worst hands and can use that to narrow down how I should be playing at full tables and as we get short-handed.

I also want to start thinking more about position. At the minute I am green on all positions but the blinds when viewed in terms of BB/hand (a much better measure than amount won/lost in chips). I want to get a better picture of my VPIP and PFR and how that changes with position too though, and also what hands I am taking to show down in each position and whether or not I am winning these confrontations. I'm not doing so 2 off the button it seems as I only win 34.21% of showdowns. Just over 1 in 3 - oof!

More on all of this another day...

mathare

1st September 2009, 21:42

1st September 2009
Given the current flakiness of my cable modem I wasn't sure whether or not to play any poker this morning. I was weighing up the potential cost of the modem going kaput again while I had four tables open against the chance of it happening and the need (desire) to record more tourney hands and get a better line of how I should be tweaking my play. In the end the unbridled joy of actually having a broadband connection that worked (for now at least) was too much to take after yesterday and I jumped on a couple of tables. Only two, mind, as I thought that was a fair compromise given the risk of losing my connection.

In both events I got dealt an absolute bucketload of unplayable trash again until I was short-stacked (under 10xBB) with the blinds up at 50/100 or 75/150. In the first tourney I had already had one lucky double up when my Q5s desperation shove was called by the big stack to my left who really defended everything going but this time had me dominated with A5s. I flopped a flush draw that completed on the river and that was enough to keep me alive a bit longer. Some trash through the blinds then a steal with AJo and a walk with KJo. Fold my SB and then a few hands later another steal attempt with AJo again. I get a caller this time from the SB (the position that usually busts me it seems) and we check the board down all the way. I paired my Ace on the river to take it down against his KTs which was drawing to an inside straight from the flop. Fold my BB and then I was eliminated with TT on my small blind. Second to act min-raises to 300 so I shove over the top to 1900 total. He calls and shows ATs making me around 65/35 to win the hand. Two Aces on the flop weren't exactly what I wanted to see but that's what came and busted me in 5th.

If that was some lousy luck then karma tried to balance things out in the second event. I had folded everything until my stack was down to 750 with blinds at 50/100 when I got AKs in middle position with the game five-handed. I got a double up against TT after the flop gave him trips and me an inside straight draw which hit on the river. Phew. I then folded ATo UTG next hand (just didn't fancy risking it, to be honest) and then exactly the same cards next hand in the BB. There was a raise to 3xBB (450 with blinds now 75/150) UTG+1 so I re-raise shove over the top for 1650 total and get a call with KQo. I pair my Ten on the flop and it holds up eliminating the other guy in 5th. That's normally my trick with KQo. There follows a period of folding trash before I eliminate another with QJo against K3o when I attempted to steal from the short-stacked BB as the SB myself. I didn't mind being called as it was blind v blind and I had half a hand. I paired the river again to win the hand. Lucky boy. What happened a few hands later was extremely fortunate - my internet connection died. I resigned myself to finishing 3rd as I guessed my cable modem had gone kaput again. But I reset it and hoped and 3 or 4 minutes later my connection was restored. I checked the poker table to see just two of us sat there - I hadn't gone out in 3rd and someone had stupidly played and lost while I was sat out when they could have cruised into second place. Ha ha ha! I was outchipped over 5:1 at this point though and was being dealt cards I wouldn't even play heads up so I was folding for a while. I then got some good hands like JJ and AJo I could steal raise with and 77 which I was able to double up with. More folding and stealing followed till I got a glorious AKo against his 99 and with all the money in the middle I flopped a straight and I was off. I now had a better than 2:1 chip lead and kept up the steal/fold combinations till I got those wonderful 7s again and we got all the money in the middle. I turned the top end of a straight with the board reading 6-5-3-4 and he turned the bottom with Q2s so when the river blanked I registered the win. After expecting to bust in 3rd when my connection failed the win was very welcome.

Not sure I will risk any more poker this afternoon though as my connection has dropped 3 times while writing this so it is clearly unstable. I can't wait for that new modem to arrive!

John

1st September 2009, 23:55

Fold my BB and then I was eliminated with TT on my small blind. Second to act min-raises to 300 so I shove over the top to 1900 total. He calls and shows ATs making me around 65/35 to win the hand. Two Aces on the flop weren't exactly what I wanted to see but that's what came and busted me in 5th.

Good play, I'd have done the same. He should never have called your shove with ATs though.

I then folded ATo UTG next hand (just didn't fancy risking it, to be honest) and then exactly the same cards next hand in the BB. There was a raise to 3xBB (450 with blinds now 75/150) UTG+1 so I re-raise shove over the top for 1650 total and get a call with KQo. I pair my Ten on the flop and it holds up eliminating the other guy in 5th. That's normally my trick with KQo.

That was quite a brave push! What made you push over the top; what made you sure you had the better hand? The reason I ask is that he could have had a whole host of decent cards: Pocket pairs 88 through to, well, AA, and maybe he'd have pushed with AQ/AK. Nice that you hit though. Again, I'd just have been very wary of a call to your shove from the initial raiser and I'd think I was well and truly beaten when seeing his call. He flipped over KQo, a bad call really [any shove like yours screams that you have JJ/QQ/KK/AA or at least any Ace plus a 10+ kicker]. So on that presumption, his KQ call makes him odds against to win the pot. Nice that you won it, I just don't think I'd have pushed over the top of him, I'd have probably folded.

Nice that you [very fortunately] won the tournament though, good work. Hope it holds out.

I'm not going to be around much over the next few days Mat, but I'll read this with interest over the weekend and catch up on your posts then, if I get chance. Leave me a reply if you like and I'll get back to you in a few days. Good luck.

mathare

2nd September 2009, 10:03

That was quite a brave push! What made you push over the top; what made you sure you had the better hand? This was purely situational for me. Five players left with stacks of 2910 (SB), 1650 (me in BB), 4235, 1420 and 3285. UTG folds and UTG+1 raises to 450 with the blinds at 75/150. A standard 3xBB raise but he has less than 10xBB in his stack so why isn't he shoving? Folding to a re-raise here will leave him no sort of stack at all so he's basically committed himself to the hand but allowed someone to make an aggressive move against him. It's folded round to me where it is 300 to call from a stack of 1500 after posting. Call and I have 1200 left if I lose and there is no more betting but the pot will be 975 so roughly the same size as his remaining stack and not much less than mine. We'd both be committed to the hand really. Could I bet him off it on the flop on that basis? I don't think I could so if I am going to do anything it's all-in or fold pre-flop. Do I think he'd fold to an all-in shove? No, probably not but it's possible. His pre-flop raise isn't that strong and he has shown inexperience by not going all-in himself. ATo is a decent hand heads-up. If he's shoving any pair or any broadway hand then my hand is close to 50/50 against his range. The tighter his range the worse my odds, granted, but he's the short stack with the blinds approaching - he cannot afford to wait around too long for a hand to come to him so he is going to have to make some moves. In hindsight this is perhaps a marginal move but on the basis that there is a slight chance he will make another pre-flop mistake and fold plus the fact I have an Ace with a decent kicker that will hopefully mean I am in suitable shape here.

All that analysis was done just now, way after the event of course but it serves a useful purpose and helps to hone my instincts, which is what I used at the time to make the move.

Again, I'd just have been very wary of a call to your shove from the initial raiser and I'd think I was well and truly beaten when seeing his call.Don't get me wrong, I didn't want the call that much at all but it was probably the right move from both of us given the stack sizes. If one knocks the other out the stacks across the four remaining players are much more even and it becomes a fairer fight.

He flipped over KQo, a bad call really [any shove like yours screams that you have JJ/QQ/KK/AA or at least any Ace plus a 10+ kicker]. So on that presumption, his KQ call makes him odds against to win the pot. Nice that you won it, I just don't think I'd have pushed over the top of him, I'd have probably folded.Now I have given the details of stack sizes would you still have folded? Would you have called the 300 from the BB and seen a flop?

Replying here as not to disturb the flow of your thread. Yes, I would still have folded the AT I think. I prefer to make the first move when going all in, I dislike calling someone else's push (unless I have a very strong hand). You stated that his pre-flop raise wasn't that strong, but he could have had a really strong hand and deliberately only raised 3xBB in an attempt to build a pot. I wouldn't have flat called his raise either, because I'd have lost it on the flop on the assumption that being first to act, he'd have probably pushed his remaining stack regardless of the flop (unless an Ace appeared). My preference here would be to fold and wait for a better opportunity (in a better position). I'd have been too scared of being the underdog with AT and feared he'd have AJ or AQ. If anything, the bottom line is this: the differences in our decisions is what makes this game so interesting.

mathare

2nd September 2009, 17:51

2nd September 2009
I still don't trust my internet connection enough to stay alive for a proper poker session today so I am exercising restraint and proving to myself that I don't need to play poker every day. It's proving quite difficult though, more so the longer my broadband stays up. But I will stay strong and stay off the tables. Instead I want to do some more analysis of my PokerTracker database, in particular my all-ins.

I have filtered my PT database to look just at hands played in PokerStars tourneys where I raised all-in pre-flop and got a caller so we saw a flop. I want to look at these 231 hands and see what I have been shoving with, what I am getting called by and whether I am winning as many of these all-ins as the odds say I should be. Basically have I been the victim of bad luck or have I actually been quite jammy? For each of the hands I have recorded the blinds, effective stacks, the pot and the hand(s) I was up against. I have run each hand through an odds calculator and noted down the chances of each hand winning and also the chance of a tie. From this I have worked out the most likely result for each hand and compared it to the actual result, as well as calculating my EV on each (given that a hand has called me so I know my exact chances of winning the pot, as well as the pot size as there can be no further betting as I am all-in). I have flagged the hands where I got my money in good, i.e. where my EV is positive. So let's have a look shall we...

Of the various hands I have raised all-in with pre-flop and got a caller the biggest winner for me in terms of BB/hand is AA, unsurprisingly. The biggest loser? KQo. Again, no surprise given the rants I have had about my exits with that hand in the past. It should be noted here that we're dealing with very small samples so these conclusions aren't that accurate and are just for interest more than anything else. That said, I should probably stop shoving with KQo unless I really have to. Ditto QJs and perhaps 55 which is also right up there.

Of the 231 hands in this study the biggest winning percentage I experienced pre-flop was 92.80% (AA v AKo) with the lowest being 1.82% (AKo v AKo so a likely split pot). On average my chance of winning was 45.78%, lower than I was expecting if I am honest. Hmmm. The average chance of me losing a hand was 50.79% so perhaps it's not quite as bad as I thought. Take out some of these shoves with low pairs when I was up against an overpair (as seems to happen quite often) and things look much better though.

144 of the 231 hands (62.34%) went the way they "should" have done, that is to say they went the way of the greatest percentage chance. I was expected to win 89 of the hands (again, lower than I expected) but I actually won 102! That's 13 hands I shouldn't have won that I did. Of the 89 hands I was expected to win I won 53, split 4 and lost 32 so effectively I won 55/89 (61.80%) and lost 34/89 (38.20%). I was expected to lose 138 hands and of those I did indeed lose 88 of them, split 2 and won 48. That's 89/138 lost (64.49%) and 49/138 won (35.51%). So I am actually winning a greater percentage of the hands I should have lost than the hands I should have won. There's not much in it though and this is a small sample so I won't be reading too much into this.

What about bad beats? What's the biggest bad beat I received and the biggest I dished out? The biggest bad beats I have given (lowest chance of me winning but I still won the hand) are my AQo cracking pocket Aces then when I rivered a straight, closely followed by AKs beating AKo by rivering a flush. The worst bad beat I have received was getting JJ beaten by 88 but having AKo beaten by AQo and A7o (on separate occasions) and AQo beaten by KQo are pretty close.

Finally - am I getting my money in good? How often do I have a positive expectation given my winning percentage and the size of the pot once I have been called? I have a positive expectation 112 times, out of 231 hands that equates to a percentage of 48.48% so I am getting a good deal from these all-ins less than half the time. Uh-oh. I plotted a graph (that I may include here later) to show how my EV changes with hand, working from AA on the left down to 22 on the right. The idea is when the graph takes an obvious downturn in EV there is probably a cut-off for my shoves and I should stop going all-in with hands below that. And it seems the turning point is TT. It's not quite as simple as only play hands TT+ as the way hands are organised this includes things like J2o but excludes 88, 99 etc. which obviously seems a bit daft. Suppose we take this data and trim out the obviously weaker hands (such as J2o) and see how that affects things shall we? That means cutting out everything below A8, all hands below K9, Queens weaker than QT, the same for Jacks, Tens weaker than T9s and then everything other than the pairs and suited connectors down to 76s. Once I do that it turns out I am getting my money in good on over 54% of hands, which is much better. If I cut out pairs below 77 then things improve even more. Interesting.

So what is all this telling me? I'll be honest and say I am not 100% sure what I am trying to achieve here but I'm sure my brain will churn it around for the next few days and something will crop up eventually. What I think I can say though is that I am shoving with too loose a range, including some real trash. How much of that is out of necessity though? Let's look at hands where the effective stack was at least 5xBB and see how that affects things. That's 186 out of 231 hands and there is still some trash in there, about 30 or so hands meaning roughly 1 in 6 of these shoves is with hands I don't think I should be shoving with. Eek! With effective stacks of 10xBB or more there are only 6 such trash hands out of 73 so the ratio is down to 1 in 12 - much better.

I think the main conclusion to draw here is that my range needs to be tightened for pre-flop shoves. There will always be situations where desperate measures are called for but in normal cases I should be shoving with a tighter range, something like 77+, A8+, K9+, QT+, JT+, T9s, 98s, 87s and 76s with these middling suited connectors pretty suspect too when we're thinking about heads-up all-in confrontations. Take T9s down out of the mix and that range is 63.8% against a random hand. I won't be up against random hands I know but it at least shows I am starting with a solid range for the basis of my shove tactics.

My new cable modem arrived midway through this whole exercise but I continued with it anyway despite the massive temptattion to break off and play some poker. I'm glad I did as I now have a better outlook on my all-in tendencies and the way I am playing when it comes to the crunch. I am panicking too early and too often. I need to wait for better hands to come along rather than shoving with any Ace, for example. I can hopefully take this on board for tonight's session, assuming I get to play (which I should manage).

Also Phil Shaw's Secrets of Sit'n'Gos has arrived so I can start reading that tonight :)

mathare

2nd September 2009, 22:04

2nd September 2009 (part two)
I managed to get 4 STTs in this evening - I could have played more but once I got all 4 fired up simultaneously I started to feel a little tired and made the decision to play them out and not start any more.

So tonight was the first opportunity to put my new all-in knowledge into use so how did it go? I'll just focus on the main all-ins, the ones that got me eliminated.

1. Eliminated in 3rd
Out with AKo against 66. This is certainly in my new tight range and goes down as one of those things. It was close to a coin flip, as such confrontations are usually designated, but he was ahead all the way so I cannot complain too heartily.

2. Eliminated in 5th
The damage was done a few hands before I actually busted. I had 64o in the SB and had a great read on the BB - he was folding to every steal attempt and I had nicked a few chips from him myself when it had been folded round to me in the past so let's try it again. The BB was short-stacked and didn't need to take unnecessary risks - or so I thought. He called me with A6o and it held up, in fact he paired his Ace on the river. With my stack down below 400 and blinds at 100/200 with a 25 ante I was doomed. I got A5o a few hands later and in it all went. I'm called by T7o but he pairs his 7 on the turn to knock me out. 64o was nowhere near my new tight all-in zone, I know, but this time I went with a solid read and was perhaps unlucky to run into a playable hand.

3. Eliminated in 3rd
The 75/150 blinds have really been crippling my stack and there has been too much action for me to try stealing with anything worth trying it with so I scrape into 3rd. I get 44 in the SB and re-raise the button who had raised to 450 but my all-in is only to 660 total and I expected the call. I had made the money and had little chance of making it up the money ladder unless I took some risks so this was one of those, which is why I ventured below my pair cutoff of 77+. The button shows K5o and I am OK until the river puts a second pair on the board (6-9-6-T-9) and counterfeits my 4s to eliminate me. Like I say, I needed to take some risks to have any chance of anything but 3rd so it was worth trying.

4. Eliminated in 7th
Another where I couldn't get going early on with nothing playable. The end came with three pairs in a row - 7s, Tens then 4s. I lost the minimum by limping with 77 into a multi-way pot and folding when the flop came A-Q-J and the action told me I was well beaten. Next hand I had TT and raised to 300 pre-flop with blinds at 50/100. A player two behind me raised all-in (1835) and I tanked for a while. He had shown himself to be fairly loose but I could fold and have 900 chips left. My own words about not panicking too early rang loudly around my head and after a while I folded. In hindsight I think this was probably the wrong move. I'm more likely to be up against overcards than a higher pair so I should perhaps have called. I'm not sure there was enough dead money in the pot to justify it though so then again maybe the fold was correct. The next hand was bad - I made a desperation shove UTG with 44, exactly the sort of move I said earlier I need to avoid in the future. I think I was still slightly tilting from the previous hand, second guessing myself. I got called by AKo which paired the Ace on the flop and eliminated me. Oh well. Live and learn.

So two third places tonight is all I have to show for my efforts. There's always tomorrow...

mathare

3rd September 2009, 12:54

3rd September 2009
I am becoming increasingly frustrated with this game. What do I have to do to win these days? My results are really making me question my whole approach to the game and making me wonder if I have any idea what I am doing any more, which is not good.

I only got five STTs in this morning due to one thing and another and they results don't make for good reading. Let's take the traditional look at how I got busted shall we?

1. Eliminated in 6th
Blinds are 75/150 and I have a stack of 1440. The table is 6-handed. 3rd to act limps in showing no strength whatsoever. I have AJo in the SB and raise all-in over the top of the limper. He has me covered several times over with a stack of 5040 but even so I don't expect him to call what amounts to a decent re-raise from a tight player. The BB gets out the way but the limper calls and shows JJ making me a 30/70 underdog roughly. Oh dear. His pocket pair holds up when I don't pair my Ace and I am out in 6th. The hand was very much in my new pushing zone and I think I made the right play here but it just didn't work out on this occasion.

2. Eliminated in 4th
I had lost a couple of gambles with ATs for 9xBB and 77 for 8xBB levels two and three respectively, hadn't really won any hands other than a couple of steals and was desperately short-stacked when this hand came up. My stack was 680 with blinds at 75/150 so whatever happened I was probably going to get called. I had had nothing for several orbits now and any marginal hands I could have perhaps tried to shove with faced too much action before it was my turn to act so I lost all my fold equity. So it was with 76s that I took a stand on the button and got called by 55 in the SB. It was a tight one with the chances of me winning coming out as 48.57% plus a 1.49% chance of a split pot so with the dead BB in the pot too I had the odds to make this a +EV play. Except the 5s made a full house on the river although I had several straight draw outs till that point. Another one that wasn't to be.

3. Eliminated in 6th
I actually went out with QJs against KK (16.88% chance of winning) but by then I had less than 1.5xBB thanks to an earlier battle I lost. With blinds of 50/100 it's folded to the SB (1150 total) who raises to 300. My steal radar starts bleeping and I take a few seconds to consider whether my hands of KQs stands up well enough against his likely range. I could call and see a flop with him and then look to shove or fold depending on the texture of the board and his actions but instead I re-raise all-in trying to semi-bluff re-steal on him as I think my hand is good. He calls and shows A2s giving me around a 43% chance of winning. The flop comes 9-K-9 rainbow - a great flop for me. The turn is 7d giving him a flush draw, which I dodge on the river when an Ace hits instead giving him a bigger pair than mine. Rivered and out. Yawn.

4. Eliminated in 6th
I'd had a lucky double up earlier on when I got it all in with A9o against AQo and rivered a 9 but I still didn't really have a stack as the blinds were eating me up and I wasn't getting playable hands in the right situations. Even when it was folded round to me in late position I didn't get any hands I could confidently steal with given the tendencies of the blinds. So the end came with A4o UTG with blinds at 100/200. I shoved for 1030 total and got a caller one off the button with 88. I'm a 30/70 underdog again and his pair holds up to knock me out. Tsk.

5. Eliminated in 2nd
This is the only bright spot of the day. I folded my way into second, basically. I was folding a lot when it was 4-handed and was fortunate enough to have two bigger stacks clash. I got the same sort of result 3-handed too and went heads-up with a huge chip deficit of nearly 8:1. I battled this back (again by folding a lot of trash) to under 3:1 but ultimately I was fighting a losing battle. I went out with a brave/stupid shove with 74s in the BB after he had min-raised from the SB. I shoved for 2420 with blinds at 100/200 and was up against QTo. My hand defied the 35/65 odds to hit two pair on the flop of 7-4-T. The turn gave him additional flush outs but the river came a Q giving him two higher pair than me. I cannot complain too heartily here as I shouldn't have even made it that far but to to get rivered again was frustrating.

The worst of it is I don't know where my game is going awry. I seem to almost always have a short stack going into the later levels (50/100 onwards). Am I playing too tight early on and folding too many marginal opportunities to build up some chips? Am I just getting unlucky? What the hell is wrong?!?

Laf

3rd September 2009, 21:28

The worst of it is I don't know where my game is going awry. I seem to almost always have a short stack going into the later levels (50/100 onwards). Am I playing too tight early on and folding too many marginal opportunities to build up some chips? Am I just getting unlucky? What the hell is wrong?!?

It's probably a combination of both. If you're playing too tight and not getting cards it's so hard to build a stack early on. Of course the problem then is if you get to the later stages and you're short stacked, you can't afford to get unlucky as it usually ends up with you being knocked out.

Confidence can play a big part too. If you're not confident in your game it can be very difficult to make the right decisions. That certainly applies to me. I recently had a run of 27 SnG's without a win and only cashed in 4 of those over a period of about three weeks. As bad runs go I'm not sure how it compares to others but it felt pretty bad to me!. I could only put it down to a lack of confidence. After a small run of bad results I was eager to get back to winning ways and probably tried to force things a bit too much. A few more bad results and my confidence was down and I was making bad decision after bad decision. By the end of it I didn't know what I was doing and felt like I was guessing the whole time.

I'm not sure if you'd consider yourself to be 'running bad' right now but you might find these tips from Chris Ferguson useful.
http://www.chrisferguson.com/tip/132/Running+Bad
http://www.chrisferguson.com/tip/140/Running+Bad+Part+II+-+It%E2%80%99s+Bad+to+Always+Get+Your+Money+in+Good

mathare

3rd September 2009, 22:21

Cheers Laf. I think I am on a natural downswing made worse by some of my own plays, if you see what I mean. I will read those Chris Ferguson articles in the morning to gee me up for the day's play :thumbs

mathare

4th September 2009, 10:59

4th September 2009
I was thinking earlier this morning that were I to go through each elimination it could get quite time consuming if I am playing 100+ tourneys a week. That said though I think it is a useful exercise, for now at least, so I am going to continue with it. And that means I need to go through yesterday afternoon's events before I can start today's play.

Yesterday afternoon was very much one of two (unequal) halves. I got 10 more events played with a break after the first four as the cat came up when I had these STTs on the go and demanded feeding. I managed to stall her until I had played out those four but it meant I couldn't start new ones up as existing ones finished. With her fed I managed to get another six STTs in so let's see how it went.

1. Eliminated in 3rd
I had got a little lucky 5-handed when I had 76s and was forced to shove my remaining 860 in with blinds at 75/150 only to get called by AQo. I had straight-flush outs and a pair on the flop but didn't improve on the turn or river but then again neither did my opponent and I doubled up. I kept a steady stack for a good while then, neither threatening the chip lead nor looking set for elimination really and secured another double up 3-handed with AQs v A9s. By now the stacks were starting to level out with me on around 3500, another on 4000 and the chip leader on 6000. I got AQo in the SB and with blinds at 100/200/a25 (so we all had playable stacks) I raised to 800 after the button limped. The BB folded and the button called. The flop came 6-6-3 two suited and I made a continuation bet of 1000 into a pot of 1875. The button min-raised to 2000 and I didn't fancy it any more. I was behind to a lot of hands so figured I was best saving my chips for a better spot as I still had a stack of around 8xBB. There must be another double up later on that's not in my database for some reason as my stack was just under 3000 when I busted. I have A8o on the button with around 7xBB and shoved. The BB called with AQo dominating me, paired his Queen on the flop and busted me. I think that's fair.

2. Eliminated in 3rd
I had been struggling to build or even maintain any sort of stack but had folded my way into the money, basically. I was short stacked (as always) with 1333 and blinds of 100/200 when I got QTo on the button and decided it was good enough to push with. In it all went but the BB had other ideas and called with pocket 5s, which held up easily to eliminate me. I had to make a move at some point else I was going to run desperately short of fold equity. Antes were to be introduced in a few minutes so I needed to try and gather some chips and figured a broadway hand was good enough given the utter trash I had been dealt to that point. It was just a shame I ran into 55 but I had at least made the money.

3. Eliminated in 2nd
Things got short-handed fairly quickly, and without me getting involved much. In fact we were four-handed when I started to win some hands and even then I had a stack of 1565 so hadn't suffered too much from the blinds even though I was below an average stack. I took a big chunk of chips and eliminated the short stack with AKo against A6o with blinds at 75/150 then next hand added another couple of thousand to my stack with AQ0 against 94o (I know!). That evened the stacks out a bit with the chip leader on around 5050, me on 4700 and the short stack on 3750. A largely uneventful period of me folding and stealing a few hands followed as my plan was to sit back and play tight and see what happened. On the next key hand it was folded to me in the SB with K2s with 16xBB in my stack so I raised to 3xBB and got called by the BB who was also the big stack. The flop came 3-2-2 so I checked looking to trap him and double up. He bet 1400, overbetting the pot, and I called. The turn was a King completing my full house. Again I checked. He bets 2200 and I call all-in for my last 1200. It has worked perfectly. He shows 55, the river is a 7 and I take a nice pot to double up. Stacks are now around 6500 (me), 4000 and 3000. More folding and stealing as I revert to playing tight again. It works and the other two clash on a few occasions and eventually one is eliminated to leave us heads-up, although I have a 2:1 chip deficit due to my previous tight play. I start strongly and bring the chip lead down to around 6:4 before I am eliminated with A8o. He min-raises from the BB and I call. The flop is 5-6-5 and I bet 600 (into a pot of 850) which he calls. The turn is an Ace and I figure I am now certainly ahead and bet out again, 1000 which he calls. The river is a King. There are no straights or flushes on the board so I bet 2200 on my Ace. He min-raises putting me all-in so I call. No point folding now. He shows K5o for a flopped set and rivered full house. Ouch. But these things happen I suppose. I don't mind how I played this hand, and he played it well to trap me like that I suppose.

4. Eliminated in 3rd
My fourth successive cash of the afternoon and fifth of the day - I was on a roll. I don't have the end of this tourney in my database - really not sure why - but it looks like I was again slightly fortunate to have made it to third by folding. Ah, remove hole card filter - that'll help! Ahh, I had been stealing to keep my head above water and even though I had the shortest stack it was over 10xBB. The button raised to 450 with blinds at 75/150 so I shoved over the top with 88 in the BB. The button called with TT and I lost, as one expects to in those situations. A risk worth taking I feel, just unlucky to run into a bigger pair instead of overcards maybe.

5. Eliminated in 6th
The run of cashes comes to an end with the first tourney of the second part of the afternoon session. I had won one hand before this point with AQo continuation betting into a board of 2-A-7 all of the same suit when I didn't have any of that suit. And that was it. So it was with a stack of 1010 and blinds of 50/100 that I went out, annoyingly with AKo dominating my opponent's A8o but he flopped an 8. Right move, wrong result.

6. Eliminated in 4th
Nothing much doing for ages and I was forced into a risky double up 7-handed with J9s (my stack was 665 and blinds at 75/150) when I rivered a 9 against a dominating JTs. Phew. The blinds ate up a portion of that stack quite quickly as I folded trash hand after trash hand and got it all in again with Q7s on the button facing AJo in the BB. I flopped a 7 and survived. I then got AQo twice in successive hands, the first time executing a good steal of 500 chips but the second time losing 1915 when I got called in two places (TT and A6o). Whoops. I was down to 400 chips now or just 2xBB. I got a double up with QQ but it was just prolonging the inevitable and I went out with 65s against AA and A4s. Oh well. I think I was doomed from a pretty early stage to be honest.

7. Eliminated in 6th
I was desperately short-stacked (how many times have I written that recently?) with blinds at 50/100 (I had 595). Mid-position raised to 300 and got a caller so I shoved from the SB expecting a call from both players but with 55 and my stack as it was I had to take a shot. The original raiser called but the limper curiously folded. I was up against QJo and made trips on the flop. He had flush draw outs on the river but they missed, thankfully and I nearly tripled up. I managed to steal a couple more hands but not many and the blinds were fierce with a stack my size. I only had 735 left when I was forced in with a weak hand, J9o, as the blinds were 100/200. The SB called with AJo and the expected happened. Another short stack disaster for me - I just had nothing to work with in the early stages so when the blinds get to 50/100 or so I am losing big chunks of my stack each orbit. Maybe I need to make stands earlier... Just looked over my hands till the first double up and I can't see any opportunities I missed. I got a free look from the BB first hand and flopped a straight but in trying to trap I let a flush draw get there on the river and lost 100 chips (could have been much worse) and two hands later I lost 180 with AKo. The only other decent hand I had was 99 and it was heavily raised pre-flop so I didn't fancy it so early on in the game. Every hand was trash after that so I was destroyed by the blinds.

8. Eliminated in 3rd
I had a good result on the third level with QQ against 99 winning a nice pot to give me around 2250chips (45xBB). That was nibbled at by rising blinds before I was forced into another double up attempt with KJo on the button. I shoved for 1440 (blinds 75/150) and the SB called with KK. Uh-oh. The board came 6-J-J-4-5 and I was still alive, somehow! Fold & steal, fold & steal - you know the story by now. But soon the stealing died out as I lost all opportunity to steal with anything worth attempting it with. I lost over a third of my stack (by survived the bubble) during this period of folding and went out shoving A9o over the top of a standard raise from the button. He called with AQo and won the kicker battle. I didn't have much of a stack for this hand (11xBB) but there was a dominating stack (who eliminated me) and I was trying to target the other stack of 14xBB but this A9o opportunity was too good to miss so I had to take a risk.

9. Eliminated in 2nd
I lost nearly a third of my stack on the fourth hand with AKo when he flushed on the river and didn't really make much back for a while. In fact I was down to 910 with blinds of 50/100 when I went for the big double up with AKo. A shorter stack called with AQo (good) and the BB thought the odds were good enough for J9s. At least his cards were live I suppose. In fact the BB caught two of his suit on the flop to give me a scare but my hand held up all the way and put me back in contention with an average stack again. Blinds lost and stolen, blah blah. Four-handed UTG limps for 200 and I check my option with Q4o. It's a lousy hand but if he lets me see a flop I'll take it. 6-K-T two suited is no help so I check it. He checks behind. The turn is 4h putting three hearts on the board. I have a pair of fours and a draw to a Queen high flush so I bet 200 (min-bet) which he calls. I still have no idea where I stand in the hand but he's shown no strength so far. Another 6 comes on the river. I check-call his bet of 600 after much thought as I only have 6s and 4s so I am praying he missed everything and is trying it on with an overcard. I don't think he has a King or Ten from how he played the hand and calling and losing leaves me with 5xBB so I can attempt to double up in the next few hands. He does indeed just have an overcard, A8s in fact and I win over half my stack. Lots more folding and tight play while the bubble bursts before I double up with AKo against 97o (!). He shoved from the SB when the button folded and I made the easy call. He had me covered but was now crippled when I pair the flop and turn. I put him out of his misery two hands later when my A6o flukily held up against his much better hand of AKo as I paired my 6 on the flop. The stacks were 5000 (me) against 8500 at the start of heads up but I lost 1225 on the first hand heads-up with a combo draw that missed on the turn and was facing too much action to risk busting with. We swapped blinds for a while without seeing many flops (6 in total from 30 hands). I went out with JTo getting it all in pre-flop against A9o. I had 15xBB and called his all-in re-raise which was perhaps a little rash. I should have folded here - I made a mistake. He had a 3:1 chip lead though so I would have had some work to do, but I should have kept myself in the game and tried to fight it out.

10. Eliminated in 8th
I'd played tight and folded all the tripe hands but it all went wrong with QQ on the third level (25/50). I raised to 3xBB, got min-raised to 250 with someone else going all-in for a further 20 chips. I called the 120 and the re-raiser called the last 20 so 3 of us saw the 4-4-7 flop. The pot is 835 and I bet 450 into it with my overpair to see where I stand. No-one is going to play a hand with a 4 or 7 in like that pre-flop are they? Unless they have 44 or 77 specifically, and the former is very unlikely now. I get a call. Hmmm. The turn is a bad card - a 7. That's two pair on board (and a flush draw) but they are both lower than my Queens and if I don't think anyone is playing a 4 or 7 pre-flop then I am in good shape, right? I push my last 665 in and get a call. Yes, he has KK in the hole and takes the side pot but loses the main pot to A6s when the 5 on the river completes the flush. I am out though. QQ v KK - harsh, but it happens.

I have 24 STTs recorded at this level ($5) and have lost $15 despite cashing 10 times (ITM 41.67%). I'm simply not finishing first often enough. I only have 1 win, 3 second places and 6 thirds. I need to try and go for the win more rather than just surviving the bubble but to do that I need to gather some chips early on. I still don't know if I am missing too many spots to make chips early on or are just being dealt unplayable hands (or potentially playable hands in unplayable situations). Time will tell I guess, and it's something I need to keep my eye out for.

Now let's get some more poker under my belt shall we?

mathare

5th September 2009, 12:56

5th September 2009
At last - things have started to go my way! :)

I played 12 STTs yesterday and cashed in half of those - 2 x 1st, 2 x 2nd and 2 x 3rd for a profit of $24, a daily ROI of 36.36%. Woohoo! Things haven't been perfect by any means though. I am still having a few focus issues, especially in the afternoon with the racing bets to check too. I put the bets on at lunchtime then play poker but most of the time I leave orders that I need to (OK, like to) check have been matched. I can work round that or try hard to overcome it though, and it's not a huge issue really given I am only playing four STTs at a time.

I have made a few mental adjustments too. I read those Chris Ferguson articles, along with some of his other stuff and I think some of it really sank in. I am trying to focus more on making the right decisions at the tables and letting the results look after themselves. I'm not berating myself for bad play but noting it down and making sure I review key hands after the event to make sure I learn from these situations. I am also trying to lighten up and enjoy the game more. It's supposed to be fun and even though I am playing full time it shouldn't ever become a chore. Recently I have half been thinking about making sure I play as many STTs as possible but now I am happy to sacrifice some volume for better performances and hopefully a better bottom line.

In the spirit of mixing play with analysis and learning let's look back at yesterday's events shall we? I started to write this yesterday but ran out of time as it can take so blooming long.

1. Eliminated in 8th
Things got off to a bad start when I lost half my stack on only the fourth hand. Blinds are 10/20 and I raise to 60 UTG+1. I get two callers. The flop comes 2-6-3 rainbow. I bet 120 into a pot of 210 to see where I stand with my overpair. I can't see anyone connecting with the potential straight nor playing 22 or 33 in this manner so the only hands I fear are bigger pairs and 66. One caller and the other folds. The turn is a 7 which doesn't affect the straight to my mind; it was possible on the flop but I still don't think anyone has connected with it. 77 gets added to the list of hands to worry about though. The pot is 450 so I lead out for 250 and get a curious raise to 580 total. An odd sized raise I ponder the significance of. I am behind to 22, 33, 66, 77, AA, KK and QQ as well as curious two-pair hands I can't see featuring here so that's 7 of the pairs beating me. He's called all the way and this is his first aggressive action so did the 7 help him? I call the raise anyway. The river is a 4 meaning if he was playing 55 he now has the straight so that's another pair I need to worry about, along with hands like A5. But who would play such a hand in this manner? It doesn't make sense. Confused, I check. He bets 720 all-in and I have 740 behind. Argh - what to do, what to do. I still have half my starting stack and we're only on the first level. Do I really want to go bust with JJ against a higher pair (which is what I have started to convince myself he has but has played them badly)? No, I don't, so I fold. He flashes me AQo as he drags the pot. I don't tilt as such but that does bother me. About a dozen hands later I lose 6xBB with AKo when I raise pre-flop, get a caller and miss everything and am forced to fold to his action. I couldn't risk bluffing it all away here. The next interesting hand was JJ UTg with a stack of 515 and blinds of 25/50. I shoved and only stole the blinds despite the fact I expected/hoped I'd get a caller. Oh well. And that was it till the end came with A9o against 66. I shove one off the button who calls and the blinds fold. He hits another 6 on the flop to signal my demise. That first JJ hand did the main damage, after that I was always going to struggle. Be interested to hear how others would have played that hand.

2. Won
I'd folded till we were 6-handed then got a nice double up with KK v ATo and again two hands later with AKo v KQo which really set me up nicely. Four-handed I got yet another double up when I checked my option after the SB called. I had 96o so wasn't expecting to do much other than fold on the flop. The flop came Q-5-8 giving me a gutshot draw. He checked and I checked behind. The turn was the dream 7 completing my nicely hidded straight. He bet 300, I raised to 900, he min-raised to 1500 and I shoved for 3400 total. Oddly he called. The river was a 2 and completed the flush draw, which I had been slightly worried about but he only had top two pair that he had badly overplayed giving me a great chip stack, over half the chips in play. I folded through the bursting bubble before losing a chunk of chips in a blind v blind confrontation. The button folded and the SB raised my big blind to 600 (blinds of 100/200) which smacked of a steal so I re-raised to 1500. He shoved over the top for 2440 total and I called the extra 940. It was his 77 against my K8 so he was slightly ahead. Another seven on the flop prevented me from getting anywhere near his hand and I doubled him up levelling the stacks out a bit but making me the short stack with around 3500, 1000 below the average stack. I then turned thief to rebuild a stack putting pressure on the others, sometimes with nothing but often with a hand. I had built my stack up to 6510 and the chip lead before entering a long period of folding trash and getting unplayable situations. This kept me out the way of the other stacks tangling and in doing so I folded my way into heads-up. I was lucky to get some hands along the way but I also feel I played it quite well despite being down 2:1 in chips at the start. I soon overhauled that and built on my own lead steadily but the clincher was my 99 holding up against his K7o with all the money going in pre-flop. He just had me covered by my ATo was enough to see off his Q6o and secure the win for me.

3. Eliminated in 5th
I lost 180 chips on the second hand with AQ against 88 then it was the blinds attacking my stack that reduced it to 880 by the time we were at blinds of 50/100. The table was five-handed and it was folded round to the SB who min-raised to 200. I had 77 in the BB - call and take a flop with a view to getting the rest in there unless it comes nasty or get it all in now with fold equity? I went for the latter and the SB called (he had a massive stack so could afford to do so) with KQo. He hit both his hole cards on the flop, another King on the turn for the full house and then to rub it in the 7 came on the river to give me a lower full house. I was drawing dead so to make it appear in the stats as a beaten full house (which it truly was, I know) is just mean really. I don't mind my play here though, just the wrong result at the end of it.

4. Eliminated in 3rd
The blinds had eaten away at my stack to leave me with 970 and blinds of 75/150. Five handed I was second to act pre-flop with K9o and felt I had to shove. I picked up a caller from the SB with AQo and swore. Fortunately I hit a King on the flop and doubled up, crippling the SB at the same time. I then combined stealing and folding to slowly build my stack. I won another good hand with 44 when I rasied UTG and the BB called. I hit a 4 on the flop and bet out for the minimum. The turn blanked so I bet out again for 450 and again the BB called. The river completed a full house for me so I bet again for 1200 into a pot of around 2200 but this time the BB folded. I still won around 1100 chips though. I won a similar amount several hands later against the same player when I rivered a straight with T9s against his AQs. He led out on most streets but check-called the river. I know I got lucky here but he was min-betting so I had the odds most of the time, certainly when you include implied odds. I tightened up, as I could afford to do with a decent stack, waiting for the bubble to burst, which it duly did. When it did pop the stacks were around 3500, 4500 (mine) and 5500 so it was quite even really. I was taking shots and picking up a few small pots and stealing a few blinds. It was a three-stage death for me really when I lost nearly a third of my stack with J7o against Q7o. I flopped second pair on an A-T-J board, turned two pair when a 7 was dealt but lost to a straight when a K came on the river. Two hand later I lost over half of what I had left against the short stack when I had JJ up against his AA. The end came with 99 against T9o. I flopped a set but the board came 8-9-5-7-6 to give him a rivered straight to the Ten and eliminate me. I made the right moves most of the time but they didn't always work out as desired.

5. Eliminated in 3rd
Some mentalist was moving all-in a lot on the first level when he still had around 45xBB left so when he did it on a hand when I had KK I called him. He had A5o and the board came 7-T-7-K-6 to give me a full house and eliminate that muppet early on. There was then nothing to write home about for many orbits unless you'd send a postcard about me stealing a few blinds and folding some blinds away. I was building a steady stack and with blinds at 50/100 I had 2600 - over twice the stack I usually have at this point - when I got dealt 88 on the button. I raised pre-flop to 300 and got a caller from the BB. The flop came 5-4-3 so I led out with my overpair only for the BB to shove over the top of me. I didn't fancy calling 1400 total so I folded away the 600 I had put in the pot so far. I stole all those chips back and more in the next orbit and a bit. My next key hand was AKo against TT when the table was down to 5 players. One off the button I raised pre-flop to 450 (3xBB) with a stack of just over 3000. The BB had just over 2000 before posting and shoved all-in over the top of my raise. It's a move I'd have made with his stack and hand in that situation too but I made the fairly easy call. I was looking to get a lot of chips in and hopefully face two big cards (smaller than my AK, obviously) but TT made it pretty much a coin flip. I needed the river to pair the King before I could take down the pot though. Phew. We were now 4-handed so I switched back to tight waiting for the bubble to burst with a stack that could survive quite well. The plan worked well enough and when the bubble burst stacks were roughly 5000 (me), 2500 and 6000 so I was well in contention. I folded loads more crap hoping the big stack would pressure the short stack but I think I played it too passively and could have stolen more to keep myself in better condition if I am honest about it all. I then lost nearly all my chips against the previously short stack who had just about caught me up. I made a standard raise to 600 (blinds 100/200) on the button for the SB to then shove all-in. I had 88 and quite fancied my chances so I called - a little loose in hindsight but at the time I was thinking that we were probably coin-flipping for 10% of the prize pool (the difference between 2nd and 3rd) and that a win here could see me go into heads up with a cheap lead and perhaps win the whole thing quite comfortably. He flipped ATs so it was indeed a coin flip. He paired the turn and river though so I lost out. I had a few hundred chips left but they went a few hands later when I had no option but to put them in with Q3s and got called by JJ that went on to make quads. Comprehensively beaten there. I didn't play that well 3-handed, I recognise that. Lessons learned for the future I hope.

6. Eliminated in 4th
I won a nice chunk early on with AK (adding 300 to my stack with blinds at 10/20) and that was it for a while. I then spiked another good hand with JJ UTG holding up against 55 UTG+1. I lost my bottle a bit on the turn and river for some reason though and could have made more on this hand. Despite that I went on with a stack of a tad over 2300, nice when blinds are still 25/50. The blinds then started to do their thing as I got round after round of unplayable hands, although I did steal a few along the way. It all went in with 44 UT4 with the game down to 4 players. Blinds were 75/150 and I shoved for 1355 (around 9xBB) UTG with 44 getting a caller in the shape of the SB with A5s. The board was 5-3-2-3-T so the Ace or 6 I had been screaming for after the flop failed to materialise and I was out. We were coinflipping (I was 51.59% to win) and I think it was probably the right move in the circumstances. I had been tight for several orbits and finally got a playable hand with good fold equity. The SB's call was loose given I could easily have had a dominating Ace in that situation but so be it.

7. Eliminated in 6th
My stack had been eroded by the blinds for a couple of levels and was down to 1335 when I was suddenly dealt back to back beauties. I got KK and got a short stack to call all-in for 260 with JTo which was crushed by the set I made on the turn. Next hand I got QQ and got the short stack to commit his 800 all-in pre-flop with 77. I made a set on the flop and busted him, dragging his chips into my stack. I sat back for a while but stupidly lost 450 chips with 85o after a free look at the flop from the BB. The flop of 7-T-9 gave me an open-ended straight draw so with implied odds I called a small bet of 150. The turn was a 5 and an 8 on the river gave me two pair but gave any J or 6 a straight. The turn was checked but I called a river bet of 200 in case my two pair were good and he didn't have a 6 or a J. He had A6o and took the pot. I still had over 2000 and blinds were only 50/100 so I was still in decent order. I got JJ UTG and made my standard pre-flop raise to 300. The BB called but folded to my c-bet on a scary 9-A-K flop. I raised pre-flop with KJs but had to fold to significant action on a flop I missed completely losing 450 chips. Then the blinds had a nibble at my stack before I got a double up from the SB with AKo against QTs. He paired the flop and had flush outs on the river but it came an offsuit Ace and I was still in it with nearly 3000 chips. A steal with KJo went wrong when my SB caller made a bet on the flop I couldn't call as I had nothing anywhere near it and it was too risky to raise him there. I went out a few hands later with the same hand I doubled up with previously - AKo. I made a standard button raise to 450 (75/150) after UTG had limped. UTG then called the extra 300 and we saw a flop of 8-2-5 all one suit. He min-bet so I called with overcards figuring him for the flush draw with at least one high card. The turn was an offsuit Ace so when UTG bet 600 I shoved for 1665 total. He made the very easy call with QJs having flopped a flush. The Ace of the same suit came on the river to taunt me. I didn't put him on a flopped flush I must admit. When the turn came offsuit I still had him on the draw. I got my money in ahead though...

8. Eliminated in 8th
There's little of interest happened before I busted out here really. The game was less than half an hour old so we were still on level 3 (25/50) when I managed to get it all in pre-flop with AKs, and by all I mean my stack of 1265. How? I was in mid-late position and re-raised an early position raiser. He raised to 200 and I re-raised to 500 to see how much he liked his hand. A lot, apparently as he shoved all in for another two grand. I thought and then called figuring I was only really dead to Aces and Kings. He had Aces and busted me convincingly. I'm quite disappointed with how I played this. I don't mind the re-raise - it could have been bigger to be honest but either way he'd have put me all in with Aces. I didn't figure anyone would play Aces quite like that so in hindsight perhaps I shouldn't be too disappointed. Live and learn.

9. Eliminated in 2nd
Not much of interest until I doubled up on the fourth level with KQs against AJo. My stack of 1295 was drip-fed into the pot with a pre-flop raise, just under a half pot bet when I paired my King on the flop and the rest in on the turn. He had paired his Jack on the flop also but the rets of the board was no help to him and I won a nice pot. I lost half my stack a couple of orbits later calling an all-in raise (1310 with blinds at 75/150) from the SB. I had AKo he had JTo of the same suits so his flush outs were counterfeited too. He hit a Jack on the flop and turn with the river pairing the board to give him a full house. Grrr. Right move, wrong result again. I won all the chips back 3 hands later though with 77 against AT when the board missed us both. I shoved in middle position five-handed with a stack of 1280 and get a caller from the button with ATo. He was the big stack so could afford the call. My pocket pair held up and I was back in the game nicely. On the bubble I stole a few blinds and pinched some pots with solid c-betting to build my stack further. I lost some of this to the rising blinds as the short stacks started to fight back but when the bubble burst I still had a reasonable stack of 3210 with blinds at 100/200 and was second in chips, around 500 ahead of the short stack. Again I played a little too passive three-handed and could have tried stealing with some of the small Aces I was dealt rather than lose the blinds but the big stack was being fairly aggressive and making a lot of pre-flop raises (as he should). I could have re-raised him on a re-steal but didn't, I need to consider that move more in the future at this stage of the game. I folded my way into second though and got an immediate double up heads-up with 77 against KJo. He raised from the SB, I shoved over the top and he called. My sevens held up again to reduce the chip deficit significantly. Over the next few hands I dragged it back to parity and kept it round there for a while before being forced to fold some trash out of the blinds and slipping back a bit. I lost 1200 with A4o with the blinds at 200/400/a25 when the BB re-raised all-in and I felt too weak to call him when I could fold and still have 10xBB in my stack. I lost another load of blinds when I had hands that couldn't take action and as he was being quite aggressive I folded rather than get it all in with J3o or K7o. The end came with K8o when I felt I had to take a stand only to run into AQs. His high card was enough to win the thing. Again possibly too passive heads-up when I could perhaps have taken the initiative more and tried to shove some hands I folded instead. That's something I can work on though. Phil Shaw's book on sit'n'go strategies references some optimal heads up play tables from The Mathematics of Poker by Chen and Ankenman which I have on my 'to read' pile but it looks quite heavy going. I should try to work my way through it sometime though as that may be useful in the future.

10. Eliminated in 6th
I maintained my stack by winning smallish pots with KQs and AKs at the 50/100 level but each pot was only worth around 4xBB profit so I wasn't building a big stack by any means. The blinds rose and began to eat my chips away so when I got AKo in late position with blinds at 100/200 it seemed natural to shove all-in for 1255. I sucked the SB into calling with a dominated hand of AJo but he flopped a flush draw that completed on the turn and I was out. Once again, right move but the wrong result. Not much I can do about those.

11. Won
I got a treble up with pocket Aces when the blinds were 50/100 to make things interesting. I got the same hand 6 hands later and made a standard 3xBB raise to 300 on the button. The BB called. The flop was Q-8-J, the BB checked so I bet out again for 400 into a 650 pot. Again the BB called. The turn was another J - he checked and I checked behind as I was now behind to any Jack. It also put three to a flush on the board. I could (should?) have bet out to see where I stood but I am rubbish in situations like this and never know whether I should bet out or check. Every time I do bet out I seem to get called/raised by hands that have me crushed and every time I check it seems I am ahead - I can never get it right. The river was a brick and I called his bet of 500 (pot was 1450). Again I could have raised but didn't for the same reasons as I checked behind on the turn. Did the turn help him and he was trying to check-raise me after I bet the flop after his check? If so then he bets out on the river, if I raise he's going to re-raise, probably all-in and I am put to a tricky decision. I called and won when he showed 97o - yes, 9-7 offsuit. He had a flush draw that missed on the river but he only had a gutshot on the flop so what was he doing calling my bet? Giving me chips, sure, but what else? I won a similar sized pot and burst the bubble a few hands later with ATo against A8s. He paired his 8 on the flop but I hit a Ten on the turn to give me the pot and ensure I finished in the money. I had the chip lead too with a stack of 6000 facing stacks of 4250 and 3250. I played better 3-handed in this one stealing a fair amount pre-flop to make sure I maintained my chip lead. Unfortunately I lost 3700 with JJ after I raised to 450 (3xBB) from the button and the SB shoved for 3695 total. I called as I would be a coin-flip with overcards and only really behind to QQ+. He held AQo and hit his Queen on the river. Oooh! I then went steal crazy to rebuild my short stack getting another double up via a shove with ATo in the SB when the button folded. I paired the flop and turn to crush his A4s and won back the chips I had lost with JJ earlier. As chip leader once more I got busy stealing and pressurising the other stacks into making tricky decisions. I lost all these chips and more back to the same guy with A9s against his ATo. He had hit two pair on the flop, I had paired my Ace. He just called my bet there. The turn seemed like a good card for me as it paired my 9 but it put three to a flush on the board. I bet 600 into a pot of 1000 and he shoved for 4015 total. I put him a flush draw so called him down. He was on a flush draw - which hit on the river incidentally - but I was already beaten by his higher two pair anyway. Losing that one hurt and there was now less than 1000 between me and the short stack. Two hands later I put the short stack out when my A9o had his A5o dominated. He raised all-in pre-flop from the SB and I made the (loose?) call. I rivered a flush to make sure I won the hand. I was down 2:1 in chips for heads-up. I got aggressive and over the next 10 hands managed to chip up another 1000 chips or so. I doubled up with A2o against J8o when we both paired the flop (him the J, me the Ace, obviously). The end came two hands later when he shoved his short stack in with Q7o only to run into my KTs and my high card held up. Winner! I fought back nicely from losing big chunks of chips several times three-handed when it just wouldn't go my way - JJ v AQo, for example. The A9 v AT hand was frustrating but that's poker. I didn't give up and gave myself a chance to win it with aggressive play.

12. Eliminated in 2nd
I lost 360 (blinds 10/20) early on with AA. I raised to 60 in late position and got two callers, including the BB. The middle position caller bet 100 on the 6-9-7 two suited flop after the BB checked so I raised to 300 with my overpair trying to shut down any straight or flush draws. The BB folded and the original raiser shoved all in for 1380 total. Did I want to call an extra 1000 with AA on a draw-heavy board and risk early elimination? Folding leaves me with more than two-thirds of my stack to play with so I did indeed fold. Nothing then for a while till I doubled up with AQo against 88. The button raised my BB to 300 (50/100) so I shoved all-in for 1000. He made the call - I paired the flop and turn to double up. I doubled up again (after folding for several orbits) with AQ against AJo when my better kicker made all the difference. I won another big pot with KK a few orbits later. I was on the button and called an all-in raise before me. Blinds were 100/200 and the all-in was for 2765 so a big bet. He turned over AQo and I was drawing very thin when the flop came A-A-8. The turn was a dream though - one of the two remaining Kings to give me a full house. I only needed to dodge the last remaining Ace and the other 8s on the river, which I did and soared into the chip lead. Four-handed next hand I raised UTG with KTs and got raised all-in by the short-stacked BB. I called the extra 700 or so chips and faced AKo. His Ace held up but I still had the chip lead. I played passively again surrendering my chip lead waiting for the bubble to burst. When it did I was fortunate enough to fold my way into second with 3rd being eliminated just three hands later. I then doubled up a few hands later with KTo heads up against A6o when I shoved all-in pre-flop for 4000 (10xBB) and rivered a straight. I built on this advantage till I had a chip lead of over 2:1 then doubled him up with A2o against KK. I raised his pre-flop limp all-in on a steal but he made the very easy call. His hand easily held up to put him slightly ahead. I scrapped back into the lead with some aggressive play before losing 6550 with K7o against KJo. My pre-flop aggression getting me in trouble again. I held on for a few more hands but the end came with my 96o being crushed by his A6s. I tried. I was aggressive and played quite well heads-up but I mis-timed some of my plays is all.

I have to admit it takes quite a while to do these analyses. I need to find a way to speed them up but think they are worth it as I learn a lot more when I write things down. Maybe I should focus on those STTs where I finished outside the money with a quick look at 3rd places in case I should have done better rather than go through each event in full. I could perhaps pick fewer key hands too. I'll see how it goes in the future. It would be a shame to drop this 'feature' as I do think it is useful and helps me learn more about my play and where I am going wrong, as well as what I am doing right. That way I can reinforce the good behaviour and change the bad. It gives you lot a few chances to critique my play too I guess. But it probably took me two hours or more to write up these 12 events so that's getting on for as long as it took to play them!

mathare

5th September 2009, 17:09

5th September 2009 (part two)
Just when you think you have got things cracked and are finally heading in the right direction it all goes wrong again. 11 STTs played this afternoon and only three cashes - a 2nd and two 3rds. That's a loss of $29 today :(

After reading (most of) Phil Shaw's book on STTs I have decided to open up a little in the first couple of levels and try to see some cheap flops with hands that can win a lot of chips like high suited connectors and small pairs. They are usually quite easy to play post-flop - either you hit your hand or you don't and if you don't then check-fold out of there. I'm hoping that this way I won't always be suffering with a short stack when the blinds start to rise and could compete much earlier. We'll see how it works out though.

I'm not going to have time to analyse my exit in all the events right now as I need to go out shortly but I will put it all up tomorrow for certain so we can all see where I went wrong and learn from my mistakes. But for now I am trying to remain upbeat and confident in my play and keep biding my time till the change of luck comes along and I start to get the results I think my play deserves. I think the analysis of today's play will see me using my stock phrase a lot - "right move, wrong result" :rolleyes:

mathare

6th September 2009, 11:09

6th September 2009

The analysis of the STTs played yesterday afternoon...

1. Eliminated in 4th
I had been building a stack early on thanks to some good hands like AKs (against AJs) and AA rather than small pairs and suited connectors hitting good flops. This was enough to fight the rising blinds for a while but I got caught on one hand with the blinds at 50/100. I got a free look out of the BB with two limpers including the SB. I had 95o and bet out 200 into a pot of 300 when the flop came K-5-K. I'm not so sure about this move any more but it got one caller with the SB folding. The turn came a 6 and I led out for 400 into a pot of 700. The UTG limper raised me to 1200 and at that point I lose all interest, as well as 700 chips leaving me with a tad over 1000. I doubled up seven hands later with 44 on the button holding up against AQs in the BB. I went out around 4 orbits later with A8o against 77. It was folded to me in the SB so I shoved with the Ace for 1245 with the blinds at 75/150. The big stack in the BB called and hit a 7 on the flop to eliminate me. It was a decent Ace and were I up against another Ace there are more kickers lower than mine than above. As it was I was coin flipping with the pocket pair. I don't think that was the wrong move given my stack. The stacks going in to this hand were 3490, 3125, 1245 (me) and 5640 so I needed a double up to get back into the competition. The stacks in second and third had enough to do serious damage to the big stack and were close enough to one another that they would want to avoid each other so I had to take my shots when they came and I felt this was one I needed to take.

2. Eliminated in 5th
I got AJ first two hands but couldn't do anything with it on either occasion but then again I did lose the minimum on each hand. I limped with pocket 7s but folded to a big pre-flop reraise. The only changes to my stack after that were the blinds until I was able to double up with 99 on the button. I limped in and four of, including both blinds, saw the flop. I had an overpair to the 8-2-6 board so called a 150 bet (pot was 200) from the SB. The turn was a 6 so I needed to find out if the SB was playing a 6 in his hand (I didn't think he had a pocket pair above my 9s, or 88 or 22). He check-called my turn bet of 300. The river came another 6 giving me a full house. His action so far told me he didn't have 88 or 22 and I seriously doubted he had the case 6 so I was only worried about TT+. I had a full house though so when he checked I shoved for 515 and he gave me a crying call with K8o. I lost 8xBB with AKo when the turn put too many draws up there and the action was such that I didn't like my hand so folded. From then on it was fold, fold, fold as I had nothing playable for 5 or 6 orbits. Five-handed I got 44 on the button when UTG raised to 1200 with blinds at 75/150. That's a hand that doesn't want to see a flop, I thought, and I was getting desperate with a stack of 930 so I called all-in hoping I was coin-flipping. here was dead money from the blinds in the pot so as long as I was at least 45% to win this was a +EV situation for me. In fact I was narrowly ahead of his ATo (I was right, he probably didn't really want to see a flop) with a 53% chance of winning. However he hit an Ace on the flop to take the lead and ultimately the pot. I hate calling all-in but that bet was so suspicious I had to go for it with just over 6xBB in my stack.

3. Eliminated in 2nd
Once more nothing doing till the 50/100 level when my stack had dropped to 905 and I was forced to go for a double up. The cutoff raised to 200 so I shoved over the top for my whole stack on the button. The cutoff called and tabled KK which left my 55 in trouble. The flop came 2-4-A giving me gutshot straight outs. The turn was a 6 which doesn't change anything really. I had six outs on the river (two 5s, four 3s) and fortunately one hit - a 5 to give me three of a kind. Phew! I started to build/maintain my stack through the rising blinds and as players were eliminated. Five-handed with blinds at 100/200 UTG+1 raised to 600 and I pushed my whole stack of 2380 in with JJ. The raiser had me covered by 5 chips so it was a decision for virtually all his chips too. Did he have a hand he liked that much? Apparently he thought AJo was good enough and called. He didn't hit his Ace and I basically got rid of him and took the chip lead. I lost some of those chips (and the lead) taking a few shots to try and get the bubble out the way but I survived the bubble with a reasonable stack anyway (4400 on first hand in the money, so an average stack really). I got another double up to take a massive chip lead when I tangled with the chip leader. I had 4455 chips, he had 6050. I raised on the button to 600 with blinds of 100/200/a25 and he pushed from the SB. Hmmm. Did I like AJo enough to risk elimination? The third place player had just under 3000 in his stack going into this hand so around 15xBB so no-one was being forced to play hands at this stage. A win here would set me up nicely for the win and I was either coin flipping against an underpair, crushed by JJ+ or in good shape against any hand other than AQ and AK. I called and he showed ATo. Phew. My kicker won the battle and I now had two-thirds of the chips in play. A few orbits later it was folded to me in the SB so I made my standard raise to 600 only for the BB to shove again for 2845. KQo and it costs me around a third of my stack to call. Win this and I have a 7:1 chip lead heads up and am virtually assured victory. KQo could stack up OK against his pushing range so I call but am dominated by AKs which makes a flush on the river. I still have a narrow chip lead but 3rd place is struggling against two much bigger stacks now. He busts a few orbits later and stacks are roughly even for the heads up battle, which lasts just 3 hands! I raise to 1200 (200/400/a25) from the SB and he raises me all-in. I have KQo (I hate that hand) but call anyway. He shows ATo and takes it with a bigger high card. I don't mind my play in this event, despite losing some big pots with my hated KQo.

4. Eliminated in 5th
Blinds are 75/150 and my stack has gone backwards with the rising blinds. Five-handed I'm second to act and shove for 1085 with pocket 7s. The button calls as does the SB (who has been fond of huge overbets in the earlier levels). The button has JJ and the SB shows A5s. He called two shoves with A5s?!? He won it though when he made two pair on the river eliminating two players and taking a massive chip lead with which he went on to win the tournament. I don't mind the shove with 77 in this situation as I was in good position for the shove and had a short stack that required me to start taking risks. Right move, wrong result - again!

5. Eliminated in 3rd
I didn't win or lose any big pots in this event it seems until I busted with JTo. I had basically folded my way into the money and had only 1425 at the 100/200 level. I got unsuited braodway connectors on the button with the short stack needing to fight hard to have any chance of second place so it was a god opportunity to gamble. I was dominated by the SB's KJo which held up. I was lucky to get into the money really so can't complain about going out taking a shot.

6. Eliminated in 8th
I won one pot in this event before I went out. One. Not that it lasted that long (15 minutes). I stupidly busted on the second level with AQo. UTG+2 limped along with the button and the SB. I should have raised to thin the field but just checked. The flop came 3-A-7 and I bet 90 to see where I stood. I then called a raise to 210 total from the button so two of us went to the turn of 9c. I check-called another bet of 210 and looking back I don't really know why. I had no idea where I stood on this hand and had given up the betting lead. It got worse on the river (4h) when I check-raised all-in after his 600 bet. Why? What was I beating? There are no flushes and the only straights are with 52 and 65 which wouldn't be played in this manner. A pre-flop limp and the betting action so far fits with a pocket pair that has made a set but I am praying he has TT-KK or a hand like AT or AJ. Unlikely isn't it? He calls the extra 370 and shows me 33 for a flopped set. Obviously. That was bloody awful! I deserved that really.

7. Eliminated in 6th
I didn't win a single pot in this event as it happens. The blinds have taken their toll and reduced me to 820 on the button. UTG+1 min-raises to 300 so I shove with AJo. The raiser calls with AKo and busts me. With blinds at 75/150 I needed to make a move as I had under 6xBB and this seemed like a good spot to do it, but it just didn't work out.

8. Eliminated in 7th
I middle-position with just 1107 when the blinds were 75/150 I took a real loose gamble with Q9s. I had been playing tight and thought I could get a steal through unless I met a real hand along the way. The button had AKs and despite hitting two of my suit on the flop I couldn't make a hand and was out. There was a micro-stack that had acted before me else I wouldn't have made this move at all. Either way though it was still a loose raise and I could have waited another few hands I think. The blinds weren't set to raise for another few minutes so I could have gone through the blinds once more before really being forced into action I suppose.

9. Eliminated in 4th
I doubled up at 50/100 with A4s against KQo (ha!) when my high card held up, fortunately. We were five-handed and I shoved for 1155 second to act expecting to steal the blinds, especially given the SB had a similar sized stack so would be all but eliminated if he called and lost but winning wouldn't propel either of us up the ladder much, just put us back in the fight somewhat. I figured I would either get the steal through as it was a strong move with over 10xBB and might even get hands like A9 to fold or I'd get a desperation call from the SB, which I did. As I hoped he would have he had high cards but no Ace and it held up. I was lucky to some degree but I was also 60/40 to win once he called. My exit came in a really annoying manner. Four-handed it was folded to the SB who limped and I checked my option with Q5. The flop came 6-8-7 to give me an open-ended straight draw but was two-suited so the flush draw was in the back of my mind. The action went check, check which looking back at the hand so far was potentially an error as I could have bet out but I didn't want to have to fold to a raise so I wanted to check and see if I hit the turn. The turn was a 4 to complete my straight - oh yes! The SB led out for 300 (a pot sized bet) which I raised to 900. He reraised me all-in. Hello. There were two flush draws on board now, did he have either of them? I had a straight though and that's a great hand here isn't it? Easy call....all the way to the point when the SB shows you T9 for the flopped nut straight. Oh poo! I shouldn't (and don't) fear monsters on every hand by any means so had completely missed the fact he could have flopped a straight. I was thinking about flush draws, two pair and perhaps sets but certainly not the bigger straight. At the start of the hand I was comfortably 3rd with 1000 more chips than 4th so should have made the money in this one but for this hand. Very annoying. That said, I'm not that upset at how I played it. I was basically committed with the turn raise and having hit my hand of course I was going to get my chips in if I could. It was really unfortunate for him to have flopped the nut straight.

10. Eliminated in 3rd
I won quite a few hands in this one but none of them were very big, it was a lot of blind-stealing basically. Similarly I lost a lot of pots but they wre mainly the blinds. Three-handed I got J9s on the button and shoved with 16xBB on the button. A big shove but I wanted to just take it down there rather than see a flop as my hand wasn't that strong. I was around 1000 behind the BB and 3000 behind the SB who called with ATs. Eek! He paired the flop and I was out in third. I was taking shots with semi-decent hands trying to represent more strength than I actually had by making a larger than normal preflop shove. I figured that unless the SB had a good hand he'd fold, and the BB would need a monster as calling and losing would cripple him. Unfortunately the SB did indeed have a good hand and made the call. Ah well. I think this is another one of those where the move was OK but the result was wrong. Most of the time I take the blinds and antes unopposed but not this time.

11. Eliminated in 5th
I won a few hands early on to build a bit of a stack and keep me in the hunt but the blinds really took their toll when I got dealt so much rubbish. That said, I did miss several opportunities to steal blinds with not too much risk, shots I would normally take. The blinds were 100/200 when UTG+1 raised to 500. I shoved from the BB with A7 for 1300 total and got the call. It was an Ace with a medium kicker, I needed to take this chance having spurned others leaving me the short stack. The villain had JTo making me 55/45 to win but he paired the flop (along with getting an open-ended straight draw) and his hand held up. I missed too many chances to steal blinds to be competitive here. I had taken my eye of the ball it seems and played this one badly.

You may have noticed partway through the above that there was a slight change of focus and reduction in the amount of detail given for each tourney. I have tried to speed up the analysis by looking only at hands where I won/lost more than a significant number of BB and then only at blind levels that matter. If I win 200 chips at the 10/20 level so what? It's only 200 chips after all. If I lose 200 on the later levels that could just be a folded BB. So I am looking at only the best and worst hands, along with a quick glance at roughly how many hands I won/lost to give me an idea of how I was playing. I hope it works still.

mathare

6th September 2009, 16:41

6th September 2009 (part two)
This is getting beyond a joke now. Seriously, I am closing to having had enough of poker for a very long time. It's just got ridiculous to the point of mega frustration and what's worse is I no longer have any idea what to do about it. Were it as simple as reading a book to help sort my game out, or watching some videos to pick up on where I am going wrong or whatever I would gladly do it - for the right price. I'm grinding $5 SnGs so I don't want a site that costs me $30 a month or whatever because it's going to take me 40 STTs to earn that back if (and it's a huge if) I make 15% ROI (which I am nowhere near but everyone tells me should be possible). I don't know how much of my recent poor run of results is pure luck/variance and how much is of my own making, nor do I really know how to tell.

I settled down this afternoon, just after lunch with the intention of putting in the hours and playing around 16 SnGs. I have got through six before my patience has run out. Either I am truly the unluckiest person alive or I am really not cut out for SnGs, and if it's neither of those then it must be that PokerStars has it in for me. 6th, 3rd, 5th, 3rd, 8th and 4th. Three times I was busted against Kings, and once against Aces. I mean, really. Let's have a quick look at these six tournaments then I will continue my whinge!

1. Eliminated in 6th
I'd picked up some reasonable pots with 88, QQ and AA throughout but not many other pots had been dragged my way. Seven-handed the short stack doubled up through me. He raised to 450 (blinds 75/150) with a stack of 870 UTG so was pot committed. I raised all-in (2090) from the SB with JJ and got the expected call. He had A9s making me a 68/32 favourite on the hand. He rivered an Ace to take the pot down. I folded through the next couple of orbits of trash (although I did get a couple of hands such as KQo and KJo that I should maybe have taken a shot with but each time someone raised with a much better hand after I had folded so I perhaps dodged bullets there). The end came with JTo when it is folded round to me in the SB and I shove for my last 1070. The BB calls with AQo and pairs both on the flop. I have outs with the board reading Q-A-J-9 on the turn meaning any King or 8 gives me a straight and a Jack gives me trips to put me ahead of his two pair meaning I have 10 outs. None of them appear on the river, mind. Why do I always run into a bigger hand when I am forced to make moves? Why does the board give me hope?

2. Eliminated in 3rd
Six-handed the SB raises to 300 (50/100 blinds) so I reraise all-in from the BB with AKo. He tables A7s with my kicker holding up to double me through. This is a stack I am able to build on and survive through the bubble nicely, getting into the money with just short of an average stack. I take the chip lead for a while then lose it misplaying a couple of hands but I don't lose too many chips, thankfully. The end comes with QTo a few hands later. The button min-raises to 400 with blinds at 100/200 so I shove over the top for 3140 total. He insta-calls having trapped me with AA. Again I get open-ended straights out going to the river but miss them all. The min-raise wasn't strength and anything less than a monster he has to fold to such a re-raise right? Unfortunately he had a monster and try as I might I couldn't crack his Aces.

3. Eliminated in 5th
Having edged my stack up I then suffer a setback with AKo when I make a big re-raise preflop and get stuck on the hand. UTG raises to 150 (blinds of 25/50) so I reraise to 500. He calls and we both check a 2-3-8 two-suited flop. He shoves all-in on the turn (Tc) and I lose all interest in this hand. I rebuild as the game gets short-handed but also stay out the way of big swings to my stack until I lose 1000 chips with 77 against A4s when he pairs his Ace on the flop. Another 65/35 that goes the way of the underdog. I won the chips back next hand with A7o v QJo (55/45 in my favour) but 5 hands later it is all over. UTG with blinds at 100/200 I feel forced to move in with JTo and hope I can take down the blinds as my stack is weak at 1295. It's folded to the BB who makes an incredibly easy call with KK. The flop gives me open-ended straight draw outs AGAIN coming 8-3-9 but neither the turn or river is the 7 or Q I need and I am out in 5th.

4. Eliminated in 3rd
I'd put myself in real contention winning big pots with AQs, AJo and KQo (!) giving me a stack of 4370 four-handd with the other stacks at 3145, 1540 and 4445 so I was only just behind the chip leader. I was slipping backwards folding trash while waiting for the bubble to burst and folding KJo and A5s to big re-raises and getting blinded away. But when the bubble did burst I only lasted three more hands. QTs on the bubble and a stack of just over 11xBB meant I was prepared to shove as both other stacks were more than 3000 chips bigger than mine. This time it was the SB that had cowboys in the hole and his KK held up despite me getting a gutshot draw on the flop and additional outs on the turn when I paired the Queen but of course the river blanked on me. Out against Kings for the second time in a row.

5. Eliminated in 8th
This event hadn't been running that long and was only on the 3rd level when I was eliminated. I have AKo in the BB with 1190 behind. UTG+2 raises to 150 and gets a caller from the SB. There's 350 sat at there waiting to be claimed and with a strong hand I want those chips, naturally. The mid-position raise could be anything so I figure a shove should win me the chips unless he has Aces or Kings. He could call with QQ or AK and perhaps AQ but surely he'd fold everything else. KK for the third time in a row, only this time the board doesn't even deign to offer me any outs to tease me and out I go in 8th. Yawn. KK doing for me three times now.

6. Eliminated in 4th
I'd been playing well, staying out of trouble and building a stack to be competitive around the bubble. One of the stacks gets crippled and is in the BB when it is folded to me in the SB with K8s. He has 850, I have 2615 and the blinds are 75/150. I have to put him all-in if folded to me, which it is, so I do. A8o. Nice, and it holds up. He and I are now nearly level in chips. I set about trying to steal a few blinds to give me at least a lead over him but he's holding his own and picking up chips from the other two keeping me under pressure as the short stack. I go out as bubble boy with TT on the button when I shove for 1590 with the blinds at 100/200. The SB, my nearest rival in terms of stack sizes, calls with 88. Result! The flop is harmless but he picks up a third 8 on the turn. Are you kidding me? Pre-flop I was 80/20 to win that and still lost it. At least it wasn't Kings I guess :rolleyes:

So perhaps you can see now why I have given up for a while and am thinking of giving up for a long time.

Look at my results on PokerStars now. 53 $5 STTs played for a loss of $35 or a ROI of -12.01%. OMG! 39.62% ITM is fine, I'm happy enough with that but not when that is 3 x 1st, 6 x 2nd and 12 x 3rd. 133 of the $10 STTs played for a loss of $113 (-7.72% ROI) and an ITM of a rather low 33.83%. That's 13 x 1st, 21 x 2nd and 11 x 3rd so better but still not great. There is nowhere near enough wins in there at either level. That's all for standard 9-player STTs paying 50/30/20, by the way.

Now look at the same tournaments on Empire Poker. Only 50 STTs ($10 entry) but an $80 profit with a ROI of 14.55% - which is what it should be, roughly - and an ITM of an acceptable 38.00% with 6 x 1st, 7 x 2nd and 6 x 3rd.

Why the massive difference in results? If you think about my first 50 STTs on PokerStars (at the $10 level) I did OK. I made $53 on them which is a slightly lower ROI than I had hoped for but is a profit nonetheless. So what has gone wrong since then? The graph has a massive drop in it, it looks quite terrifying actually.

I made two deposits into PokerStars of £100 (around $160) each plus unlocked a $50 bonus to give me a bankroll of $370. I had some bad forays into cash poker losing $123 there but even so my bankroll stands at just $100 on PokerStars. Where has it all gone? And where did it all go wrong, more to the point? I completed the 50th $10 STT on 'Stars on 16th August so am I suffering a downswing lasting several weeks, has my game gone to pot in that time or is it a combination of the two. I don't feel I am playing worse than I was before but I am seriously lacking confidence in my own game. I don't know what to do now though.

I can't play $5 STTs on Empire due to rake ($1) so it would have to be $10+1 STTs there and I would need to deposit a bankroll there to get myself going again after I lost a lot of it playing turbos to see if they suited me (nope). There are not enough STTs on the iPoker network - it's fine for cash but I don't rate it at all for STT action. Also, I feel I should be rewarded for putting in the hours so want a decent loyalty scheme that allows me to get something back (cash, merchandise) which is why I like 'Stars.

I understand the game well enough and have read (and understood, and absorbed) a lot of books on poker, including STTs so why am I getting the results I am? Sure, reading books doesn't necessarily make me a good player but we're talking low stakes STTs here and I should be able to grind out at least a small profit and steadily build a bankroll shouldn't I? I reckon I should be able to maintain a 10% ROI given past play and results but obviously I am nowhere near that at present.

I'm currently unemployed and likely to stay that way for a while (for health reasons) meaning I expect to have a lot of free time over the next few months. I want to use that time to do something I enjoy and that will show a long-term profit as I would like to keep some money coming in if I can, even if it is just building bankrolls rather than being used to pay off bills (my missus brings in a decent wage and we have savings we can draw on too). What else can I do to occupy the time and keep my mind engaged as well as produce a long-term profit for low outlay? I can see a few options:
Research into sports & horse racing systems to expand my gambling portfolio
Poker (!)
Software development - I have a few ideas for software products but I don't know how easy they will be to develop to the standard I would like or how profitable they would be, really
And then I am out of ideas. The one that appeals most is poker as I love the game, despite the hard time it has given me recently. But if I am just going to be playing through an ever decreasing bankroll because I have no idea how to win the damn game anymore then it's not the best option by a long chalk is it?

I go on holiday in a few days so will be taking a break from everything then for 10 days. I just don't know what I am going to do when I come back and that bothers me. Any thoughts on my predicament are very welcome.

Also any comments on my play throughout are appreciated. If I am playing like a muppet then by all means tell me, I'd rather everyone be honest than give praise or sympathy where none is due. I like it straight up.

Now what the hell am I going to do for the next three and a half days?

mathare

7th September 2009, 10:41

7th September 2009
Here's the thing - I can play winning poker. I know this, my records show this. I have done it before and I can do it again. I need to look at how I did it before and then simply repeat that. Easy.

I have tried almost all forms of hold'em poker - fixed, pot limit and no-limit in cash game and tournament format. Some more than others admittedly and I know enough about myself and my preferences and natural game not to get involved in six-max games and I'm not going back to heads-up, at least not for a good while. So where have I profited in the past? I need to look at sites as well as game types to see if that tells me anything I can use going forward as I really don't want to give up the game but if I am not making money from it then I have no other choice really. I don't have any other real source of income I can draw down on to fund 'fun' poker so I need to focus on profitable poker.

The spreadsheet in which I record all my betting activities shows two clear areas I have made money from - fixed limit cash games and no-limit tournament poker, although I have sucked at latter this year according to the same spreadsheet. And who am I to argue when you look at my exploits in the turbos, double or nothings and the results I was moaning about earlier at PokerStars? Even so, they are obviously my strengths and thus where I need to focus.

No limit hold'em tournaments
I think I have probably said pretty much all I need to say about these recently. I had a strong start to the normal STTs (on Empire) then dabbled in a few tourney formats that really didn't suit me. I went back to standard STTs at PokerStars with decent results initially but in the last few weeks this has taken a significant dip for reasons I can't really explain. My bankroll is suffering though. I am struggling at PokerStars so I could switch to a different site to see if that helps any. Except I don't have a bankroll at Empire, just $35 and I won't play the $5 games due to the rake. I have money at Bet365 but there just aren't the STTs on the iPoker network. So what to do? I need to build confidence in my game once more and get back to being a winning player.

Fixed limit hold'em cash games
OK, I had a rotten three days playing this at PokerStars but it hasn't always been like that. This is how I got started in poker over five years ago and I have played this form of the game on and off since then. I made a real go of it at the start of this year and it was going well. I was up over $400 playing $1/2 limit at Bet365 by mid-April before things took a turn for the worse and I lost around half of that profit in a couple of months. But the fact remains that I have played this game well not that long ago so could do so again. And I have checked on one of my fears - that my limit game went wrong when I went back to NLHE STTs but that's not the case at all. In fact the dates suggest I got disillusioned with seeing my limit cash game profits slide away that I gave STTs a go again but for a goodly while it was solid limit cash for me and I was doing well.

So why did I suffer such a dip in my profits? Maybe I was lucky early on or unlucky towards the end of the run of games I played? Perhaps I got complacent. It's almost impossible to tell for sure what happened but let's not get away from the key facts here: I can play and win at limit cash games of hold'em. I built a bankroll at Bet365 this way and I could do it again.

There isn't so much written about limit poker these days as no-limit but several years back a few decent works were published and I have most of them. Small Stakes Hold'em by Sklansky et al is considered one of the best and can make you a winner up to the $5/10 games apparently. I have had the pre-flop strategy from that book printed out and pinned above my PC for a few years now. I am seriously considering playing limit cash games following this to the letter and seeing how I get on that way. I have also dug out books on limit poker by Lee Jones, Gary Carson and Matt Hilger and an reading those (starting with Carson).

One good thing about this form of the game compared to STTs is the cost of mistakes - they are less in limit cash games. You call and are behind so it costs you maybe one extra bet. Do that in a no-limit tourney and it can cost you the whole event. An hour or so invested with nothing to show for it but frustration at a slip you made. Yes, you may need to invest more in the first place by having more cash available to sit down with than you need for a few STTs but for other reasons I think cash games will suit me at present. There are time factors such as the cat wanting food or attention - it's much easier to break out from cash games and come back to them a few minutes later than it is in tourneys where you will still be blinded away and could miss some key hands or come back and find yourself with a short stack in an awful position thanks to missing a few minutes of blinds. It's easier for other players to take advantage of the fact you're sitting out in tourneys.

Then comes the question of where to play such a game. PokerStars has a better VIP program in as much as I can get more of the things I want with my points such as branded merchandise (I'm such a tart!), books etc. and I can pick up bits regularly so I feel as though I am getting rewarded for my play rather than a small cash bonus every now and then or tourney tokens like other sites. But I only have about $100 in PokerStars and that means grinding it out at $0.10-0.20 with proper bankroll management or taking a bit of a shot at $0.25-0.50 and having only 200 big bets when the recommended levels are 300+ and the more the better. I think the latter is the better option though, were I to play at 'Stars, as if I lose it all it's 'only' $100 and having 500 big bets at the micro stakes is perhaps a little bit of overkill. I could play at Bet365 where I have had such good results before and still have a suitable bankroll. I could comfortably play $0.50-1 there with my 'roll. Is it better to play smaller at PokerStars or bigger off my Bet365 bankroll? How important to me are the VIP points? Suppose I can't get into the game and end up losing, it's better to play smaller, right, and lose less.

Other Games
What about playing other games? I could play micro stakes Omaha cash games, for example. I've not played it for real before but I know not to play danglers and that all four cards need to work together - is that enough to play at these limits and hold my own? But then again I'm not used to pot limit games having only ever played four pot limit hold'em sessions.

Miscellany
I have been thinking about rakeback and looking into that too. I signed up for most of the big poker rooms several years ago before rakeback came along so don't have any rakeback deals. That said though I did some digging yesterday and have sent off a few enquiries about getting some of my existing accounts converted to rakeback deals. There is nothing doing at Party but I am hopeful that I can get a deal at PokerStars, which would be sweet. I'll let you know how it goes.

Conclusions
For whatever reason I am not getting the results I want from STTs at the minute and my love for the game of poker means I will always be drawn to it so I need to find a form of the game I can win at. My records show that I can win at limit cash games and while I had bad results in them at PokerStars a couple of weeks ago it is time to drop down the stakes further, pick a solid pre-flop strategy and go with it. I know enough about post-flop play to be able to handle my own there and the books I have been re-reading have helped reinforce some ideas here.

On a normal morning I would play 6-8 STTs which at my current ROI would mean a loss of over $5 assuming I played the $5+0.50 tables. Why don't I sit down at two $0.25-0.50 limit cash tables with $15 to $20 on each and see if I can't do better than a $5 loss between now and lunchtime, eh?

mathare

7th September 2009, 15:10

7th September 2009 (part two)
Well, first mission accomplished. I played for an hour across two tables seeing 116 hands and lost just $0.40.

I realised at this time that these Sklansky pre-flop recommendations are in a lousy format so I have reformatted them to make them more useful to me while playing and am just about to sit down again, this time at more tables and for longer. Wish me luck. My aim is obviously to make a profit but I'd settle for not losing $10 as I would on a standard STT afternoon :rolleyes:

mathare

7th September 2009, 17:56

7th September 2009 (part three)
Ah. What did I say earlier? I'd settle for not losing $10 as I would on an average afternoon playing STTs given the way things have been going for me recently. Yeah, well, I didn't lose $10. No, I lost a lot more than that. ;fire

The session started well with a small profit being accrued and maintained. I was playing tight and aggressive, just the way it should be. Then for some reason it all started to go wrong and I ended up down $28 :yikes:

I got into some awful hands too, not because I played them badly really just the way the turn and rivers were coming out at times. I turn the nut flush after raising/betting all the way with AKs only for the river to pair the board and it became obvious that there was not one, but two full houses out against me. People staying with trash in the face of my pre-flop raises with KK and hitting trips on the flop to leave me pretty much screwed. I river a nut flush and get shown a full house by a real fish. I raise pre-flop with AA and get called by Q9 which hits two pair on the flop. You know the sort of things I mean, all the ways poker can kick you in the balls and they keep coming up when I play on PokerStars.

So I have a new plan - come back iPoker, all is forgiven. I'm going back to the cash games on Bet365 but playing $0.50/1 in case I am really that bad at this game that I am going to carry on being a loser. :rolleyes:

mathare

7th September 2009, 19:25

7th September 2009 (part four)
I had forgotten just how many iPoker skins there are and thus how many different loyalty schemes are out there. I have been trying to compare some of them, at least for the sites I have accounts with to see where I would be best rewarded for my play if I switch to the iPoker network. It's not easy when some of the sites average things out over several months and have various levels that one would move up/down based on number of hands played and so on. It's too hard to work out how long I would play at a given site and what level I would play and how many hands I'll fit in each month so while various calculators are telling me I should go over to Paddy Power and play there I'm going to stick with Bet365 I think. I need to focus on poker and making money from the game itself not the VIP schemes and whatever that go along side it. Focus!

Tea time now, and then after that a couple of hours multi-tabling $0.50-1 at Bet365...

mathare

7th September 2009, 21:43

7th September 2009 (part four)
Just a quick entry as the missus wants me to spend some time with her this evening. Such a different story this evening. Two tables of $0.50-$1 on Bet365 and up $8.74. Not a massive win for an hour and a half's work but it shows I can win at this game after all. And it's not as through it all went my way as the graph of the session shows...

mathare

8th September 2009, 20:22

8th September 2009
I know how indecisive I seem - it seems as though every time I have a bad session that I think of switching games or sites or limits or giving it all up. And that's how it may seem today too but I have my reasons for contemplating change.

I played all afternoon at Bet365 across three $0.50-$1 limit tables. It was an up and down session but more on that later. I want to start by talking about the Bet365 software. I used to play at Bet365 a lot, for the first few months of the year it was the only place I played. Since then I have played at other sites such as PokerStars and see how good poker client software can be. Bet365 (and I assume all iPoker clients since I think they all use the same PlayTech software) lacks several key features that I have grown used to. You can't resize the tables on Bet365 very easily. They start at a default size and can be made to occupy the full screen or multiple tables can be auto-tiled as mini-tables. Useless. Why can't I resize the table to suit me? Why, when I have multiple tables open, can't I have then auto-resized to occupy the screen and all be visible at the same time. PokerStars allows this so why can't Bet365? This is a serious problem for me as it means I can't easily play more than two tables at once on Bet365, and then I have the chat minimised so the tables fit side my side. My monitor isn't tall enough to provide the real estate for a 2 x 2 square of such tables unfortunately but it obviously would be if the tables could be a custom size. I found this afternoon that when playing three tables I had to have one table in front of the two side by side at the back. This meant I was missing some players' actions and not spotting what they were doing. I couldn't focus on all opponents in all games at once. I tried the third table on the second monitor I have hooked up but that meant I was either watching one table or two depending on which screen I was looking at so I was missing at least 9 opponents' plays. Also Bet365 should beep when it is my turn to act on a table but it doesn't always so if my attention is on another table and what's happening there I can be timed out on a hand - very annoying. And the PokerTracker HUD doesn't fit as neatly onto the Bet365 tables as it does on PokerStars.

So in short the Bet365 software is rubbish and is doing my head in. On top of that, despite the network having dozens of skins it was dead at my level this morning, and I usually like to get in a couple of hours before lunch and then 4-5 in the afternoon. It was OK in the afternoon, there were plenty of tables running but I needed to find other ways to occupy my time and mind this morning (I read a book, before you ask). This is supposed to be a major European network so where is everyone?

Rubbish software and a quiet network aren't conducive to making we want to play many hours there I have to admit. And that is why I have been considering another change of site - to Full Tilt. I wanted to have a look in the Full Tilt lobby this morning to see how busy it was but to do so you need to log in it seems, and I don't have an account with them. Yes, I could create one but I am holding out on this one till I really need it and then I will sign up on a rakeback deal as their rakeback offer seems pretty decent.

Here's my plan - and even though I wavered this afternoon this remains the plan. I'm going to continue to grind out $0.50-$1 limit on Bet365 until such time as I have made $200 profit (excluding bonuses etc). That will see me up over $500 on Bet365, more when I take the bonuses and cash in the loyalty points I am building up, at which point I will split that bankroll in two and use some of it to fund a deposit at Full Tilt and I will take my action there, playing the same level and grinding out the hours and hands to get rakeback and the deposit bonus. If I settle at Full Tilt then I will take the rest of my 'roll out of Bet365. So there you go, a plan that involves me changing rooms (quelle surprise) but not yet (shock horror!).

So how did this afternoon's session go? As I say I think I found it too hard on three tables due to the software's limitations and in the future I will only play two at once, even though that effectively halves the number of tables I can comfortably handle and thus halves my win rate. Better to play two tables well than three badly though. Anyway, I ended up losing $26.23 over a session lasting nearly four and a half hours this afternoon. Things started out not too bad, before taking a downturn, then picking up nicely followed by another downturn. I know I didn't play as well as I could, attempting to steal some blinds and hands when I had little chance of getting it through, realistically. My no-limit instincts kicking in there so I need to watch that. Blinds are defended more in limit, in my opinion - I haven't checked to see if this is fact but it makes sense when you only have to call one more small bet as the BB if raised by the button - so stealing them makes less sense. I think I have a problem playing flops when I have a big hand pre-flop but miss. I'm talking about hands like AK and AQ that see flops like T-8-3 rainbow. Bet out and try to steal the pot with high card or check it down as you have none of it? I'll come to this shortly.

I got myself into some tricky situations today that didn't quite go as planned. Had certain key cards not come the session would have been very different. Let's look at some of the biggest hands I lost (and yes, for now I am ignoring the hands where I got myself into similar situations but was fortunate that my hand held up when the key cards didn't come).

i. I have QQ in the BB. It's folded round to mid-position who raises. Everyone folds to me so I reraise and the raiser calls. The flop comes K-Q-A with two hearts (I have none) giving me a set. I bet, he raises, I reraise and he calls. OK so far? My pre-flop reraise is fine to see where I stand. I 'know' now the villain has a decent hand but it's unlikely to be AA or KK as he didn't cap it on either betting round when he had the opportunity. I put him on a hand like AK or AQ here, perhaps with a heart for the backdoor flush draw but the Ace and King of hearts are out so if he has AK he doesn't have a heart. I don't think he has two hearts - what hands would he play this way that don't include a King or Ace but are suited? So on the flop I am sure I am ahead and bet/raise as much as I can. The turn is a veritable disaster - a Jack. Now any ten gives him a straight. Could he be playing a hand including a Ten? Sure, but the likely hands given the betting are only TT, AT and potentially KTs but the latter is far less likely I would say. There are more hands I am beating than are beating me if I put him on TT-JJ (I don't think he has AA or KK and he can't have QQ), AK-AT, KQs and potentially KTs so I bet out again, partly because I think I could still be ahead of most of his range and because I don't want to give him the chance to represent the straight. He raises and I call. OK, now I really think I am behind. I think he has that Ten somewhere in there. Had he called I'd be good but he raised. Still, if the board pairs I draw out on him so there are 3 Aces, 3 Kings, 1 Queen and 3 Jacks that can help my hand. That's 10 outs, and even allowing for the fact that his range includes many hands that use up 1 or 2 of these outs I still have 8 so as long as the pot is giving me 5/1 on my hand I am in real good shape - which is why I called the raise on the turn. The river is a pretty safe 5h as even though a flush is possible it's certainly not likely so whoever was ahead on the turn is still ahead. I check-call the river bet I knew he would make as I'm not folding this pot when it's over $11 and it's $1 for me to call. He shows down ATs (diamonds) for flopped top pair and a turned straight. He was drawing thin, to those Jacks really, but got lucky on the turn and I lost $6 on the hand even though I think I played it correctly.

ii. I am dealt JJ UTG+1 and raise when UTG folds. I get a caller to my left and it is then folded round to the SB who reraises. I call as does the player to my left. The flop comes 8-5-4 all diamonds. I have the Jack of diamonds giving me an overpair and a decent flush draw. The SB bets, I raise with my overpair to see what flush draws are out there and also to see if there is a made flush out. The player to my left calls and the SB folds. The turn is an offsuit King. I am now behind to any King hand but surely only hands with the Kings of diamonds would have hung around, unless someone is playing hands like KQo with the Queen of diamonds. Similarly KJo is possible but it would be a loose call given there was an early position raiser. So I don't really fear the King that much. I bet out and get a call. He's drawing to the flush then, surely. The Ace of diamonds comes on the river completing the flush. I now make a mistake - I think. I bet and call a raise rather than check-calling. I am behind to any Ace, any King and two diamonds (King and Queen) which is too many cards and my hand now too weak to bet out against someone who has called me all the way unless I really think he has a smaller diamond but I should have let him bluff at it in that case. He had not one, but two of the cards that beat me with AQo holding the Queen of diamonds. I could have done without that river but in hindsight I cost myself a bet there too, so a loss of $5.50 should have been a loss of $4.50. OK, it would have been nice had it been a win but you see my point.

iii. I get AA one off the button. The action has been fold, limp, raise, fold, fold before it gets to me. I reraise as I don't expect both blinds to call the initial raise so I figure this is the best way to build a pot without facing too many hands. The limper and raiser call my reraise so three of us see the flop of 9-K-5, two hearts. The limper checks, the raiser bets and I reraise in an attempt to shut out flush draws, especially as I didn't have the Ace of hearts. Both opponents called. The limper cold-called two bets - interesting. He's not got KK based on that play. 55 doesn't fit the actions of the initial raiser but 99 might. So I am probably ahead still but I need to worry about flush draws still. The turn is a Ten putting a second club and thus another potential flush draw on the board. I now have to add TT to the list of hands that fit the play of the initial raiser and are ahead of mine. The turn action is the same as the flop - check, raise, reraise, cold-call, raise. I am now confused. Yes, there are odds to draw to a flush for one bet but not to cold-call for two on both the flop and turn really. The river is 2h completing the hearts flush. It's checked round - yes I check as by now I am so confused that I don't know where I stand. I should have bet here really but that cold-caller was worrying me with his actions. He showed down 87s but in spades! Eh? A gutshot on the flop with two hearts on board and he's cold-calling raises - oh my god! The initial raiser showed down KT for a turned two pair and the winning hand. He played it awfully if you ask me. A risky raise pre-flop but calling my reraise was OK given what he had already put into the hand. Bet when checked to, fair enough but when you're raised on the flop you have to start asking questions about what you're against. He got a lucky turn really as he didn't really make it all obvious he had hit his kicker as I would have raised his bet there anyway, and I am assuming he would have bet top pair again when checked too even if he missed his kicker. Lucky turn for him, not for me. Again, I played it right with the wrong result.

iv. I folded this one on the river so can't be 100% sure I was beaten but the signs were there I thought. I had AKo in the BB and capped it after two raises pre-flop before it reached me, coming from early-mid and late-mid positions. The initial raiser folded, the reraiser called so two of us saw the flop of 5-Q-5, two hearts again. I bet in case my overcards were good and with a backdoor nut flush draw - he called. The turn was not what I wanted to see - another 5 leaving me behind to any pocket pair as well as any Queen and the case 5. I check-called his bet figuring I had outs unless he had that case 5. With overcards I surely had 6 outs to a great full house, and the nuts if the case 5 falls too I suppose. The pot supported a call on the turn given that number of outs. I check-folded the river of 4s when my draws missed. I was behind to a 4, a Queen, any pocket pair and the case 5. Did he have any of those? He could have after all he reraised the flop and had been betting when I checked. He didn't raise the flop so I put him on a pocket pair rather than the Queen, and a pair below Queens too, but that still has me well beaten so I folded for a loss of $3.50.

v. Another AKo hand in the BB this one. There are five limpers including the SB so I raise to try and get some of the more marginal hands to fold. Unfortunately they all call and six players go to the flop of 9-J-A with two clubs. It's checked to me and I bet top pair top kicker. I want to know if there are flush or straight draws out there and get any weak paired hands to fold for fear of making a lucky two pair on me. My bets gets two callers. The turn is another Jack. I bet out again with top two pair wondering if there is another Jack out there. It's called round. The river gives me two bigger pair when a King comes down so I bet again. One caller, one folder and I lose to 99, a flopped set that became a full house when the Jack came on the river. I was kinda expecting trips to be out there but not a passively played hand like that. He trapped me but forgot to actually spring the trap at any point. Lucky but also stupid play on his part, and over-aggressive on mine perhaps but I was trying to find out where I stood - with one foot in a non-working bear trap by the look of it.

There were other hands that cost me a bit too, mainly big hands like QQ and AQs that were raised up pre-flop but then missed making a winning hand, despite the odds generally being there to draw to one. There are exceptions to this, such as three (!) A6o hands I played stupidly - the first stupid part being playing them at all. Steals gone wrong or hands I was able to play out the blinds for minimal cost that hit enough on the flop to get me into trouble, you know the sort of thing.

Now back to those big Aces when they miss flop - how are they working out for me? I've filtered my database down to AJ+ suited and unsuited on iPoker where I there has been a raise pre-flop and I all I have on the flop is high card. The worst of these six hands for me is AKs where I have won just 2 out of 9 times I have been in this situation. Of these 141 total hands I am seeing the turn with 96 of them, perhaps that's not as bad as it first seems if you think I likely have 4 to 6 outs in most cases and the pot contains several bets pre-flop so I am getting some odds to draw. Without looking at each individual hand it's hard to say what the best course of action. I can filter on betting actions on the flop though and for the 80 hands I made a c-bet with I make a nice profit (with all but AKs again but this is a small sample). Checking has lost me money on the 23 hands on which I have tried it so it looks like c-betting is the right action to take unless it gets really scary and I am likely to get raised by a multiway draw, for example. Perhaps this isn't something to worry about as much as I feared. Hmm.

And finally the graph of this afternoon's session...

mathare

8th September 2009, 22:25

8th September 2009 (part two)
I'm too tired to give you the full lowdown on tonight's little session so I will save that for the morning - there won't be much poker to play if iPoker's lack of players this morning is anything to go by. I don't know if it was dropping back to two tables, the fact it was an evening or sheer luck but I made a profit, albeit only around $5. I didn't play that well at times losing all focus in the middle of the session, and for quite a while too, which I am not happy with myself for but I pulled it back well enough. More on this in the morning - tired now.

mathare

9th September 2009, 13:37

9th September 2009
I said last night that this morning I would analyse the session I played didn't I? I would have done it earlier but for some housekeeping I was doing on PokerTracker to keep my database in tip top condition after I bought 200,000 hands of $0.50/$1 limit from HandHQ last night to give me a better idea of how my opponents play. That was one of the things that distracted me during my play yesterday in fact.

The session started with three key hands in the first five, two of which I lost and one I won. I will come to those shortly. With two tables I was able to concentrate better, right up to the point where I was doing well and winning at a decent rate (for this level) at which point I got distracted by all sorts of things - Murray's performance in the tennis, buying hand histories from Hand HQ etc. My focus went out the window and I started to play worse than I had earlier and consequently started to lose. I slapped myself and got back in the game to finish the session ahead by $5.18 though.

Now those key hands:

i. First hand of the session I have QQ in the big blind. Four limpers including the big blind so I raise, naturally. I have a huge hand and want weak Aces and Kings out of there, just in case, but I also want more money in the pot - which I get as all limpers call. The flop comes 4-2-3 with two diamonds. Uh-oh, straight and flush draws. The SB checks, I bet and it's called round to the button who raises. A diamond draw that he's betting for value? Or a straight draw? Or a made straight? Or just overcards or an overpair? Who knows at this stage - all are possible. Two of us call. The turn is Ah making a straight for any hand holding a 5 but how many of those can there be out there given the play to date? I fear that Ace as an overcard more than for the straight value I think. I bet, the next player to act is all-in for his last 50c but the button raises again. He's not scared by that Ace is he? That's either utterly irrelevant to him and doesn't affect his hand or he now has a monster (the straight) in which case he has to have a 5 - and probably two of them as pocket 5s is about all that makes sense for his play so far if we assume he has the straight. 65s in diamonds is possible I guess but either way it looks likely I am behind to the straight, as well as any Ace. The river comes 3d to complete the flush but with a pot of over $12 I have to check-call his bet. He shows 55, including 5d, for the turned straight. Nasty way to start a session.

ii. Second hand of the session and I make a tilty steal raise with K3o when it is folded round to me in the small blind. I don't know enough about the BB at this stage so I am just praying he has utter tosh that he would chuck to a raise rather than play heads up. He calls and we see a flop of 8-7-Q rainbow. I bet, he raises and I call. This is the raise that tells me I am beaten with just that King overcard and I should fold but I call. We both check the Queen on the turn, pairing the board. The river is a 7 double pairing the board and I think my King could be good. I forget the fact he raised the flop so probably had something there and even an 8 will win him the pot with two bigger pair. I bet, he raises and I call only to be shown Q8o for the turned full house and a $4 loss all because I didn't fold either pre-flop or on the flop. Stupid.

iii. Just three hands later I get another big hand, TT. It's raised UTG and I reraise in mid-position. The action goes fold, cold-call, raise (capping it), fold and all previous callers/raisers call the capped bet so four of us go to the flop, which comes down 3-4-6 with two hearts. Chances are this has missed everyone and the most I need to worry about is a flush draw and I have one heart so I have reduced the odds of that a bit. It's checked to me and I bet with my overpair. The SB and UTG call my bet. The turn is a potentially nasty 7d as it puts a potential straight on the board. Was anyone playing 55 on me again? Again it is checked to me, I bet and both call. The river is an offsuit Jack and it is checked round. I could (should?) have bet on the end here but if either of the others were playing overcards including a J, which was very much in their range given the action throughout the hand I was losing so I checked it down. The pot was dragged to me with both others having AK. The win from this hand all but covered the loss from the previous two losing hands so I was back even again and ready to start building a profit from the session. Phew.

The only other significant losses came from AQo, AQs and AJs that were raised pre-flop, bet on the flop but missed the board and were eventually folded when I realised all I could beat was a poor bluff. I think I did as well as I could with these hands though and kept the losses down where I could.

I have decided I should bring back the stats I used to post when I was playing cash games on a regular basis, but with a slight twist. I will post two sets of stats - one for the overall figures for the level I am playing and another showing my progress in this race to $200 I have started so I can form a Full Tilt bankroll. The overall set of figures will be number of hands, voluntarily put $ in pot, pre-flop raise percentage, aggression factor, BB/100 hands and total profit. For the race to $200 I will give the number of hands played, profit, BB/100 and estimated number of hands to complete the challenge based on that BB/100.

Overall Stats
Hands: 1635
VPIP: 13.76
PFR: 7.03
AF: 2.27
BB/100: 0.62
Profit: $10.09

Race to $200
Hands: 1112
Profit: -$12.56
BB/100: -1.13
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

Now let's go play some poker and get that BB/100 moving in the right direction shall we?

mathare

9th September 2009, 18:22

9th September 2009 (part two)
Just a short session this afternoon lasting little over an hour. My heart wasn't really in it and my mind was elsewhere a lot of the time so I cut the session short and went to watch the cricket and read my guidebook to Malta ahead of my upcoming holiday there.

It was a profitable session though, raking in $7.16 from just 133 hands across two tables. And unusually there are no hands to really go through, no big losers - just a couple of hands raised pre-flop that missed the board and were folded to bets on the turn so standard stuff really. And unusually for one of my sessions it was profitable throughout as the graph below shows.

And that's it for me for a while now. I'm having a break in Malta starting tomorrow so it'll be the 20th or 21st before I get back to playing poker. I have a whole pile of books to take with me on holiday, some poker related and some not to give me a rest from the game but also keep my learning ticking along nicely. And when I get back I plan to make a serious dent in that $200 target! :)

Overall Stats
Hands: 1780
VPIP: 13.26
PFR: 6.91
AF: 2.23
BB/100: 0.97
Profit: $17.25

Race to $200
Hands: 1257
Profit: -$5.40
BB/100: -0.43
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

mathare

22nd September 2009, 17:40

22nd September 2009
My first session back after my holiday and things haven't really gone to plan. I said I wanted to make a serious dent in the target of $200 I had set myself playing $0.50/$1 limit poker on Bet365 but instead of doing that I have set myself back somewhat. Two tables for around three hours today have left me with a loss of $27.67 :( I'm not going to moan about not getting the starting hands and when I did not having them hold up because that's too easy a line to spout without really meaning it some times. I didn't get great hands and many of them didn't hold up at all but then again I didn't play well either. I wasn't focused on the game really, I had other things on this afternoon including betting on the horses and watching how those bets turned out so I have myself to blame somewhat.

This is a recurring issue for me - focusing on the game and how I can improve in this area. Maybe I can't improve enough to make it worthwhile at these stakes. The money doesn't mean much at all when I have around £15 on each table and only two tables open. It's not like I can lose (or win) much on any hand either. But then do I have the discipline and skills to play at higher stakes, even if it is just one level higher ($1/2)? I want to prove to myself I can grind out a profit but the honest truth is I am not sure I can. I know I haven't played enough at this level to really have variance smooth things out and for my true skill level to become apparent but then I sometimes wonder if that's what I want to do anyway. My lack of confidence in my skills is shining through again isn't it? One bad session and I start to doubt everything again which leads me to changing my mind and changing my plans too often to be effective.

I have still got a lot to learn, of that there can be no doubt. I have also started to wonder again if I can get anywhere in this game, thinking I could never be a poker pro or even a half-decent grinder in which case should I stop spending so much time playing and look at other pursuits to make some money. I need to gain more confidence in my own play and stop being quite so results focused perhaps. Maybe I need to play more and get into that long run during which I should see my own skill level become apparent in my results. I dunno. I do keep thinking that there are plenty of better ways I should be spending my time that in the long run would make me a lot more money. I need to do some serious thinking away from the tables perhaps. I need to find something (or several things) I am happy doing for several hours each day that ultimately can generate some income. That could be playing poker, it could be developing software (for which I have several ideas but it will take a long time to get started to any serious level with this one and see any form of return), it could be developing systems for sports/racing betting, it could just be taking on more betting systems and spending more time actually betting on things to generate profits. Like I say - I need to do some thinking about what I want from life, and how much poker should play a part in my life.

Overall Stats
Hands: 2124
VPIP: 12.43
PFR: 6.73
AF: 2.07
BB/100: -0.49
Profit: -$10.42

Race to $200
Hands: 1601
Profit: -$33.07
BB/100: -2.07
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

mathare

23rd September 2009, 12:45

23rd September 2009
I had a good think about things last night and came to a few conclusions.

The first of which was I should take an extended break from the game and stop trying to force things to happen. I have dived straight in to full-time play (more or less) and that is putting pressure on me to perform and I'm not running good at the minute which is just compounding things. If I am going to play it should be short evening sessions rather than trying to play all afternoon - back to how I used to play the game, and win. I can fill my afternoons learning more about VB and using that to develop some of the software I have ideas for, which ultimately will earn me money.

The second conclusion was almost the polar opposite of the first. I should play more tables at once - like 5 or 6 at least such that I don't have spare brain capacity or time to worry about anything else. Every second should be about poker and I should have plenty of decisions to make. This is a bit of a problem on Bet365 due to the software which prevents one from resizing the tables but you can tile multiple tables. If you do that though you can't really use the PokerTracker HUD as the screen is then a mess! So switch the PT HUD off - I don't really need it when I am playing except for very marginal situations and when playing loads of tables the game should be about taking the big edges without needing to press the marginals. I should be playing a simple game of 'get it, bet it' poker at this level really.

I thought about these ideas some more and decided that I should give the second option a bit of a run and see how I get on as I can then always fall back to the first option if necessary. So that's what I did this morning - 5 tables of $0.50/$1 limit hold'em on Bet365, and I could have done 6 or 7, perhaps even 8 tables I reckon. It certainly kept my head in the game and stopped me wandering off to check the internet, e-mail etc. And what's more I managed to grind out a small profit, $5.14 in fact having played for 98 minutes. It was an uppy-downy session for sure and I struggled with some fundamentals like playing overcards on the flop and knowing for sure when I am beaten and folding rather than throwing that last call in 'just in case' but those are things I struggle with anyway regardless of the number of tables I am playing. I had opponents river flushes on me plenty of times to beat my strong but lesser hands. I even had a set under set for a big pot - that was annoying! But I rather enjoyed the session and feel a bit better about the game now.

I'm not sure I will play much, if at all, this afternoon though. Playing while the horse racing bets are on will be the real acid test of my focus but I have just had a new mobile phone delivered this morning so this afternoon I want to play with that.

Overall Stats
Hands: 2543
VPIP: 12.43
PFR: 6.61
AF: 2.19
BB/100: -0.21
Profit: -$5.28

Race to $200
Hands: 2020
Profit: -$27.93
BB/100: -1.38
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

mathare

25th September 2009, 17:22

25th September 2009
I'm beginning to think that the first conclusion I drew was the right one :rolleyes:

I have played two sessions of 6 tables of $0.50/$1 limit hold'em on Bet365 and now find myself around $45 below where I was when I last updated this diary. And do you know what's worse - I can't really see what I am doing wrong. Which can mean one of several things such as I'm not doing that much wrong and I find myself on the wrong side of natural variance or more worringly that I am doing several things wrong but I am blinded to them for some reason. I suspect there may be elements of both of those in there but in my mind I think it is weighted towards the second reason. I think my pre-flop approach is OK which means it's all going wrong for me post-flop. I acknowledge I struggle when I miss the flop, which is around twice as often as I hit it on average so I need to get help there. I have turned to Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth in the form of their Small Stakes Hold'em book. They seem to suggest that far more mistakes are made post-flop than pre-flop so that's the section I need to focus on. So I'm going to do just that rather than pondering where I could have gone wrong the last couple of days.

I''ll give you the stats before I leave though

Overall Stats
Hands: 3722
VPIP: 11.55
PFR: 6.23
AF: 2.11
BB/100: -1.41
Profit: -$52.34

Race to $200
Hands: 3199
Profit: -$74.99
BB/100: -2.34
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

mathare

28th September 2009, 13:53

28th September 2009
I'm getting rather slack at updating this as and when things happen - sorry about that.

I had a quick session on Saturday only lasting just over an hour and including play at 5 tables despite the poor recent results. And I'm glad I did as I had a really good run of cards - the deck didn't exactly smack me full in the face but it was at least a glancing blow as I won $34.14 from just 320 hands. I don't think I played any differently to previous sessions but the money just came to me, along with decent cards, which helped.

That's all I really wanted to say about it. So, err, yeah.

Overall Stats
Hands: 4042
VPIP: 11.63
PFR: 6.26
AF: 2.11
BB/100: -0.45
Profit: -$18.20

Race to $200
Hands: 3519
Profit: -$40.85
BB/100: -1.16
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

mathare

28th September 2009, 15:36

28th September 2009 (part two)
Another session in the bag and another winner :)

This was another hit-and-run session really with 6 tables played simultaneously but the session only lasted 75 minutes taking in 350 hands. I was doing well and was over $25 up so I decided to end the session as a winner. I know it goes against much of the money management advice, stay in the game as long as it is good and all that, but I have recorded a win and with it boosted my confidence in the game, confidence that could easily have ebbed away had I not stopped at this point and lost say $15-$20 of this profit back, or worse. Then I might see the session as one that could have been better had I stopped earlier. As it is I may ponder what could have been and what I could have won but this is low stakes hold'em - the good games are always there because there are so many bad players at this level so it is important to do whatever it takes to keep me on my A game and if that means quitting as a winner for a confidence boost and playing short sessions then so be it. At the end of the day it's a win anyway. It also means I have scratched my poker itch and leaves me free to do something else for the rest of the day if I so desire. I may have another session this evening if I feel like it but it's mission accomplished for today at least with a profit of $27.41 in the bag. That makes the stats look a lot nicer.

A quick word before I go about ending a session as I'm not sure how everyone else does it and I don't recall seeing anything in print about this. How do you end your sessions? Once you've had enough do you just stand up and leave? Not me. Once I have decided to quit a table I untick the "Auto post blinds" checkbox and wait till the BB comes round to me. When I am prompted to post my blind that's when I leave the table. The way I see it is the blinds are a form of pre-payment for the hands I will see when I am not in the blinds. Why pay the blinds and walk away on the button or in late position when you're entitled to see several more hands for free? I have done it this way for years and yesterday provided and excellent example of the benefit of this approach. After posting my SB I unticked the auto post checkbox and waited to see what I'd be dealt for the remaining hands before I would leave the table. On one table I got pocket Jacks twice (snagging the blinds each time) and another my final hands included QQ (which lost against KK), AA (won a small pot) and TT (won a decent pot when they turned quads) - hands I would probably have missed out on without this exit strategy of mine. You've paid for the hands already so it costs nothing to at least see the deal and fold pre-flop. Something to bear in mind perhaps.

Overall Stats
Hands: 4392
VPIP: 11.68
PFR: 6.12
AF: 2.04
BB/100: 0.21
Profit: $9.21

Race to $200
Hands: 3869
Profit: -$13.44
BB/100: -0.35
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

Laf

28th September 2009, 17:01

28th September 2009 (part two)
A quick word before I go about ending a session as I'm not sure how everyone else does it and I don't recall seeing anything in print about this. How do you end your sessions? Once you've had enough do you just stand up and leave? Not me. Once I have decided to quit a table I untick the "Auto post blinds" checkbox and wait till the BB comes round to me. When I am prompted to post my blind that's when I leave the table. The way I see it is the blinds are a form of pre-payment for the hands I will see when I am not in the blinds. Why pay the blinds and walk away on the button or in late position when you're entitled to see several more hands for free? I have done it this way for years and yesterday provided and excellent example of the benefit of this approach. After posting my SB I unticked the auto post checkbox and waited to see what I'd be dealt for the remaining hands before I would leave the table. On one table I got pocket Jacks twice (snagging the blinds each time) and another my final hands included QQ (which lost against KK), AA (won a small pot) and TT (won a decent pot when they turned quads) - hands I would probably have missed out on without this exit strategy of mine. You've paid for the hands already so it costs nothing to at least see the deal and fold pre-flop. Something to bear in mind perhaps.

I use the same strategy when leaving a table. As you said, you're getting to see the cards for free so it's the logical thing to do. Also, I don't play a hand when I first sit down until I am in the BB.

mathare

28th September 2009, 18:30

Also, I don't play a hand when I first sit down until I am in the BB.I never post till I am in the BB. It gives me a chance to check any notes on my opponents at that table, to get settled and also a brief interlude in which to fire up more tables if desired. No point paying more for a hand than I have to so I always wait for the BB

mathare

30th September 2009, 09:05

30th September 2009
I didn't get a chance till now to give you the details of the session I played yesterday afternoon. I had planned a much longer session than the recent hit-and-runs to prove to myself that if I needed/wanted to play full-time I could handle 6 tables at once for more than an hour and a half. I didn't want to go to extremes and put in an 8 hour day or anything at this stage but I wanted to build up the session length so set myself a target of around 3 hours or 1000 hands, whichever was longer. In the end I played for just over 3 hours (182 minutes) and saw 1020 hands playing six tables simultaneously and was perfectly happy doing so. I am taking a lot of positives from that.

The session was a bit uppy-downy to tell you the truth. It started well, slipped into a losing session after around 150 hands before I clawed it back a bit but then around 270 hands onwards the session stayed in the red, finishing down $9.50. I like losing but I don't mind this too much as at one stage I was over $25 down and brought it back. I felt I was playing consistently well across all tables and making good decisions but not always getting the desired results - just as poker should be really. I can't win every session and I don't expect to but I think I did about right here given the way the cards fell.

One thing I have noticed about my PT stats is the number of times I have been dealt certain hands, especially KK. I have been dealt 5412 hands in total (at the $0.50/$1 level on the iPoker network). Of those 312 have been paired hands which equates to 5.76% when the expected value is 5.88% or roughly 318 hands so that's not too far out of line. Each pair is as likely as the others so of those 300 or so hands I should have roughly equal numbers of each rank. But I have only been dealt KK 11 times whereas I would expect to get it more than twice that often. Interestingly I have been dealt AA 36 times which is around 12 times more than expected so taking AA and KK together I am as expected. So I have received more AAs and less KKs than expected. The samples I am working with are still quite small - even 5000 hands isn't anywhere near enough to give a true picture - but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.

Overall Stats
Hands: 5412
VPIP: 11.38
PFR: 5.91
AF: 1.97
BB/100: -0.01
Profit: -$0.29

Race to $200
Hands: 4889
Profit: -$22.94
BB/100: -0.47
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

mathare

30th September 2009, 17:47

30th September 2009 (part two)
It was a proper massacre this afternoon. There are few positives to take from the session but I am looking hard for them.

The plan was the same as yesterday - play around 1000 hands across 6 tables and see how it goes. That's how I want to spend my afternoons now. It takes around 3 hours (it took longer today as I took me just under an hour to get up to 6 tables because the seats weren't opening up very often) leaving me time before and after to do other things. Plus 1000 hands a day keeps things ticking along at a decent rate, is a nice round target, and also keeps my merit (loyalty) points going up at a decent rate taking me nearer to bigger bonus cash payouts. But today was BAD, costing me a fraction under $50 all told. Not life changing sums of money there by any means but a sure inconvenience when I am trying to drag down $200 profit to start a new bankroll, not lose the one I already have.

So what went wrong today? And don't say "everything". Some tables went really well - I nearly doubled up on one - and some went really badly. In fact I lost my $25 buy-in on one table and nearly all of my buy-in on another table. I felt I played pretty well, not the best I can play but not far off it and I feel well enough to be able to beat the game at this level but events just went against me. There are a few hands I will post hand histories for later and discuss my play because they provide excellent example of what I am up against and the standard of my opponents. They will show that the money is there for the taking and that making the right decision doesn't always lead to the right result.

Those tables where I did poorly, losing all or nearly all of my buy-in, let's take a quick look at them. Bergamot, the table where I lost it all, I won just 1 hand out of the 109 I was dealt. One. I saw 11 flops and won just one hand. I lost with hands like QQ (twice), AQo, TT, QJs and 77. The one pot I won was with TT. On Pandharpur, where I lost almost all my buy-in, I won one hand out of 9 when I saw the flop and won the blinds twice when everyone folded to my pre-flop raise. The hand I won after seeing the flop was a small pot I won with AA. The two hands I won the blinds with were AQo and KK. I lost pots with hands like TT, JJ, AQs, AQo, AKo and AJo so big pre-flop hands that just weren't holding up. And that's pretty much the story of the session.

I said earlier I wasn't playing my best but that I was playing well. There are exceptions to that though. I completely screwed up on one hand where I rivered two pair. I was sure one of my opponents had two pair (QQ and 22) as the board was 2-7-2-Q-9. I held 97o for a rivered two pair (99 and 77) and bet out thinking I could win the hand, completely forgetting how two pair hand rankings worked. I confused myself counting my outs on the turn and thought a 9 would help so lost a bet or two I didn't need to make/call on that hand. Oh well.

Oh yeah, I have a note here that says "KK v QQ v AA". This was one of the last hands I played and it sums up my session fairly well. The table has seen enough pre-flop raising to think I can limp-reraise with KK UTG. A middle position player raises and the button reraises. OK, I'm not folding KK here so I cap it to try and drive out the middle player or at least force him to call two bets cold, which he does and the button calls too. Three of us see a flop of Q-A-T two suited, a flop I can't say I am pleased to see as it pits draws all over the place and makes a set for three hands which could easily be out there against me (TT being the least likely of the three). I bet out anyway as I can't check after capping pre-flop. This round of betting gets capped too and with my gutshot draw I think I have to call so do so. The pot is big and hard to get away from now. The turn is a K giving me a set but putting another potential flush draw on the board along with a straight draw for anyone with a J. It's checked round as everyone is scared by the potential straight. The river is an offsuit 5 and I bet (rather stupidly) and both opponents call. I flip my Kings, middle position shows down QQ and the button has AA for top set and drags the pot. The three biggest pairs in the game all making a set - can't happen in the same hand very often. Just a shame I wasn't the one with the winning hand.

My final note for this session seems to read "misery threshold v acceptance". Mike Caro introduced the concept of a misery threshold, a point at which one has lost so much in the game that they don't care if they lose any more. I'm sure we've all experienced this sort of feeling at some stage but it wasn't like that at all for me today. I knew things were going against me but stick to the plan (OK, I actually fell 2 hands short of the target due to the way the blinds fell but that's not the point) and accepted the way things were going as part of the game. I know this is a setback but I also know I was playing quite well and that in time that money, and more, will come back to me.

Overall Stats
Hands: 6410
VPIP: 11.03
PFR: 5.71
AF: 1.97
BB/100: -0.78
Profit: -$49.76

Race to $200
Hands: 5887
Profit: -$72.41
BB/100: -1.23
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

mathare

30th September 2009, 18:47

30th September 2009 (part three)
The first of those hand histories I wanted to post (terrorwrist is me):
GAME #1869973839: Texas Hold'em L $0.50/$1 2009-09-30 13:23:20
Table Bergamot
Seat 1: sunnyb123 ($27.03 in chips)
Seat 2: Galtran ($9.25 in chips)
Seat 3: InLoveWithAK ($17.57 in chips) DEALER
Seat 4: archer4x4 ($48.98 in chips)
Seat 5: Navvare ($20.00 in chips)
Seat 6: nonossan ($2.63 in chips)
Seat 7: superkiller87 ($9.06 in chips)
Seat 8: terrorwrist ($23.75 in chips)
Seat 10: ghjhtrnjh ($17.47 in chips)
archer4x4: Post SB $0.25
Navvare: Post BB $0.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to terrorwrist [H10 S10]
nonossan: Fold
superkiller87: Call $0.50
terrorwrist: Raise (NF) $1.00
ghjhtrnjh: Call $1.00
sunnyb123: Fold
Galtran: Fold
InLoveWithAK: Fold
archer4x4: Fold
Navvare: Fold
superkiller87: Call $0.50
*** FLOP *** [C8 H4 S5]
superkiller87: Bet $0.50
terrorwrist: Raise (NF) $1.00
ghjhtrnjh: Call $1.00
superkiller87: Call $0.50
*** TURN *** [H2]
superkiller87: Bet $1.00
terrorwrist: Raise (NF) $2.00
ghjhtrnjh: Call $2.00
superkiller87: Call $1.00
*** RIVER *** [C6]
superkiller87: Bet $1.00
terrorwrist: Call $1.00
ghjhtrnjh: Raise (NF) $2.00
superkiller87: Call $1.00
terrorwrist: Call $1.00
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $17.82 Rake $0.93
superkiller87: Shows [D8 HJ]
ghjhtrnjh: Shows [H7 CK]
ghjhtrnjh: wins $17.82

I have TT in early position and raise, which is a standard play for me with this hand as I want to drive out weak overcard hands. I get two callers. OK. One player cold-called my raise, which is interesting. He must have a strong hand then. The early limper though I'm not convinced is that strong. The flop comes down 8-4-5 rainbow, a great flop for me. The limper bets out and I immediately, instinctively, put him on a top pair type hand. I don't give him credit for a set or the straight draw. Why? He limped and called a raise so has he hand he quite likes but isn't that chuffed with. He could have 44 or 55 and play them like this but I wouldn't play such hands from early position so I assume (perhaps incorrectly) my opponents are less likely to do so too. I'm not ruling those hands out but if he has a set would he bet into a pre-flop raiser. Why not check, wait for me to bet and then raise me trapping the other player too? So I don't put him on a set, and for the straight he needs to have 76 - would he play 76 from early position? Again I think this is unlikely and again why bet a made straight into a pre-flop raiser? So I assume the bettor has top pair or similar and raise with my overpair. When the late position player cold-calls for the second round running I put him on a range that includes big overcards (played quite badly) and bigger pairs. 88 is also a possibility if he is waiting for the turn to raise. The turn isn't quite a brick as it opens up potential straight and flush draws but the straight draws are unlikely. I have to wonder though about the possibility of someone holding two hearts and drawing to a flush. I hold one heart so that cuts down the flush draw chances somewhat. The action is the same as on the flop. If I was ahead on the flop, and at this stage I have little reason to think I wasn't, then I am ahead now. If the late position cold-caller has me beaten he ought to let me know about now but instead he cold-calls again, three times in a row. Is he playing a monster overpair or a set but doesn't know how to get value for it? The river is scary as the 6 completes two straight draws (with a 3 and a 7). I had been trying to protect my hand with raises as it was vulnerable to another heart, overcards and these straight cards but I also thought I was ahead. Now I have to wonder if either of those two got lucky and hit a straight playing a poor hand badly. I call the opening river bet, there's a raise (he's hit something) and I am forced to call by the pot size. The early player has top pair (as I thought) but the late player has a straight.

Let's just look at that again. The early limper called a raise with J8o. That's not a hand to limp with in the first place let alone call a raise with, although calling the raise after investing one bet isn't that big a mistake really. He bets out top pair on the flop and gets raised so he has to think he could be beaten here. The board continues to bring cards that make hands that could beat him but he has top pair and he's not going down without a fight, despite being raised on every street. He doesn't even have top pair with top kicker - his J kicker isn't that strong at all really. But the late position cold-caller takes the biscuit. K7o and he cold-calls an early position raise pre-flop. He then cold-calls on the flop with nothing but a gutshot draw. The pot is $5.25 and he has to call a $1 bet so he has around half the pot odds he actually needs but makes the call anyway praying for a miracle. Actually his Kings could be outs but any reasonable thought at this stage would tell one that hitting a King with a 7 kicker is unlikely to be good enough to win so he ought to discount the King outs to perhaps 1.5 outs meaning he has 5.5 outs and would need around 9/1 on the flop, still way above what he's getting. On the turn he hasn't picked up any additional outs and is getting 4.88/1, still way below what he needs to make the call but he cold-calls for the fourth street. And hits a miracle on the river at which point he makes the raise and drags down a big pot.

I may be biased but I think I played that one pretty well and those two played their hands truly awfully. Shockingly bad in fact. I was fuming when I saw what they had but did my best to stay off tilt. I think I managed it but this was the table I lost my full buy-in at, and I don't feel through any real fault of my own when you see some of the hands I had beaten and what they were beaten by.

By the way, I know it's very easy for me to put the limper on top pair on the flop when I have played out the hand and know what he has but when I go back through these hand histories I try to put myself back in the situation, back at the table with everything go on around me and thinking back to what I thought of the hand at the time. Instinct told me he probably didn't have a made hand bigger than top pair from his position and betting actions. I could have been very wrong but in that case it would have been live and learn. That's how my instincts improve, by subconciously putting players on hands (ranges really) and checking back over hand histories (or having PT3 flash their cards up at the end of a hand) to see how close I was.

mathare

30th September 2009, 19:02

30th September 2009 (part four)
And the second of those hand histories, from the same table:
GAME #1869984585: Texas Hold'em L $0.50/$1 2009-09-30 13:32:38
Table Bergamot
Seat 1: sunnyb123 ($42.81 in chips) DEALER
Seat 2: Galtran ($7.25 in chips)
Seat 3: InLoveWithAK ($18.32 in chips)
Seat 4: archer4x4 ($49.48 in chips)
Seat 5: Navvare ($18.00 in chips)
Seat 7: superkiller87 ($4.58 in chips)
Seat 8: terrorwrist ($17.00 in chips)
Seat 9: BlackDemonjak ($49.25 in chips)
Seat 10: ghjhtrnjh ($16.48 in chips)
Galtran: Post SB $0.25
InLoveWithAK: Post BB $0.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to terrorwrist [SQ CQ]
archer4x4: Fold
Navvare: Fold
superkiller87: Fold
terrorwrist: Raise (NF) $1.00
BlackDemonjak: Fold
ghjhtrnjh: Fold
sunnyb123: Call $1.00
Galtran: Fold
InLoveWithAK: Fold
*** FLOP *** [H7 C7 SJ]
terrorwrist: Bet $0.50
sunnyb123: Call $0.50
*** TURN *** [H6]
terrorwrist: Bet $1.00
sunnyb123: Call $1.00
*** RIVER *** [D6]
terrorwrist: Bet $1.00
sunnyb123: Raise (NF) $2.00
terrorwrist: Call $1.00
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $9.27 Rake $0.48
sunnyb123: Shows [C6 DA]
sunnyb123: wins $9.27

I have QQ in middle position and when it's folded to me I raise. I'd always raise this hand regardless of the action before me, even if it means capping it. I only get one caller, the button. The flop comes 7-7-J rainbow, a good flop for me with an overpair. I should get action from smaller pairs, any Jacks and probably overcards not giving me credit for the set and probably forgetting about potential overpairs. I bet and the button calls. I can't narrow his range much based on that. He cold-called a pre-flop raise knowing the flop was likely to be 3-handed at most (if the BB called with one small bet already invested). I don't think he has a 7. He could have a Jack and fear an overpair but that's less likely than at least one good overcard such as an Ace. If he has an Ace he think he might be good here but can't really raise in case he's wrong. The turn is a 6, a brick as far as I am concerned and bet out again. The button calls once more. When the river brings another 6 I am dead to hands such as any 7, any 6, JJ, KK and AA but other than that I think I'm good. I don't fear that 6 as such but it does concern me slightly. If raised I wouldn't reraise, just call, which I have to do based on the pot size and the action thus far. I bet, he raises and I call. He takes the pot with the only hand he could have that makes any sense in this hand, A6.

A cold-call with A6o with a pot that's likely to be played out with 2 or 3 players max to the flop is madness to start with. On the flop he's getting 6.50/1 with very few outs. As in the previous hand he can't really count the Aces as full outs but as they are Aces they are probably worth 2.5 outs or more combined but not the full 3 given his kicker. He has outs to splitting the pot of course and runner-runner 6s or runner-runner 7s will win it for him. PT3 puts him at 13% to win the hand on the flop so he's borderline in making this call really. The 6 on the turn actually reduces his winning chances to 11% so his call on the turn with odds of 4.75/1 is a bad one but he makes it anyway and hit the miracle card on the river to beat me. So I make it one street played reasonably (the flop) but the rest were awful yet he won a nice pot with a rubbish hand and I got a great hand smashed. Again.

crazybadger

1st October 2009, 00:03

In the end I played for just over 3 hours (182 minutes) and saw 1020 hands playing six tables simultaneously and was perfectly happy doing so. I am taking a lot of positives from that.
Very positive. Especially if you are confident in the way you are playing over-all. Yes I know you are having losses still (or at least not a steady upward trend in profit) but if you are playing good poker then this sort of effort will help even those poor tables.

I like losing...No you don't. Don't lie! :D

I may be biased but I think I played that one pretty well and those two played their hands truly awfully. Shockingly bad in fact. I was fuming when I saw what they had but did my best to stay off tilt. I think I managed it but this was the table I lost my full buy-in at, and I don't feel through any real fault of my own when you see some of the hands I had beaten and what they were beaten by.
I think you played it as well as you could. That is just very poor play on their part. I have never liked limit for the fact that it seems to draw the fish and they play absurd hands often. For someone like yourself who has done a lot of reading on the game and knows how it should be played maybe this game isn't best for you? Or maybe this level? Just from my own experience I hated limit as I felt like all my good folding was pointless and then when I actually had something I felt like the power was reduced as they called/limped with rubbish and if the flop missed, even with something like AKs I started feeling like I was behind...

The river is an offsuit 5 and I bet (rather stupidly) and both opponents call. I flip my Kings, middle position shows down QQ and the button has AA for top set and drags the pot. The three biggest pairs in the game all making a set - can't happen in the same hand very often. Just a shame I wasn't the one with the winning hand.
That hand is pretty crazy and I'm not the one to speak about getting away from hands, and laying Kings down is tough, especially when you made the set. Doubly so when you consider some of the poor play you had seen earlier (not this table I know but still limit poker can get that).

So I make it one street played reasonably (the flop) but the rest were awful yet he won a nice pot with a rubbish hand and I got a great hand smashed. Again.
Another example of why I don't like this game. You would/could have pushed him around more in NL and at least made it an even worse call if he was stupid enough. Sadly as you said poker is about making the right moves and sometimes still getting beaten. Small comfort sometimes though...

mathare

1st October 2009, 09:25

No you don't. Don't lie! :DNo, I don't, you're right. There is definitely a word missing there.

I have never liked limit for the fact that it seems to draw the fish and they play absurd hands often. For someone like yourself who has done a lot of reading on the game and knows how it should be played maybe this game isn't best for you? Or maybe this level?[/quote]My records show that limit cash is the best game for me, the only one I can consistently make a profit at actually. And I'm playing this level to prove to myself I can beat it and build a bankroll. I think it's the right thing to do. I also find it much easier to multi-table limit poker and I need to multi-table to keep me focused on the game. A mistake in limit will cost you a bet or two but could cost you your whole stack in no limit so I am happy playing limit cash for now

That hand is pretty crazy and I'm not the one to speak about getting away from hands, and laying Kings down is tough, especially when you made the set. Doubly so when you consider some of the poor play you had seen earlier (not this table I know but still limit poker can get that).That hand demonstrates one of the quirks of limit poker - the pot was so big I couldn't get away from it. There was still a slim chance I was winning, especially when everyone checked the turn fearing a Jack for the straight so the pot was giving me the odds to call at pretty much every stage of that hand. It was incredibly difficult to fold Kings in that spot, it's just one of those losses you have to take on the chin.

Another example of why I don't like this game. You would/could have pushed him around more in NL and at least made it an even worse call if he was stupid enough. Sadly as you said poker is about making the right moves and sometimes still getting beaten. Small comfort sometimes though...I could certainly have pushed him around more in NL and probably won a smallish pot but all too often in NL I don't know where I stand when an opponent bets out as their bet sizing puzzles me. With limit that confusion is gone and I have a much better idea of where I stand. Limit poker is more of a science whereas NL has a large feel element so is more of an art at times.

Yes, poker is about making the right moves and still getting beaten at times. Betting and raising to build a big pot that you're almost certain to win only for a miracle card to come on the river and make someone a bigger hand to snatch the pot away from you. And you know that had they been the one in control of the pot they wouldn't have won anything like that much because you know how to build big pots with big hands and they don't. But it's all part of the game and this is what keeps the fish playing so long may it continue.

As you can probably tell I am in a really positive mood today. I thought more about yesterday's session and honestly feel there is little I could have done to improve things and it certainly could have been a lot worse. Sometimes things just don't run your way and that was one of those times. But today is another day so let's see what happens this afternoon.

mathare

1st October 2009, 21:51

1st October 2009
This afternoon was pretty much the same story as yesterday with my good hands being outdrawn regardless of how hard I tried to protect them and me getting huge swathes of duff cards. Not once in the 859 hands I fitted in was I in profit for the session. It started badly and got worse. I almost got it back to even (at which point I would have quit the session) before the roller coaster decided I needed to be dropped again and down I went, ending the session with a loss of $27.52. But hey, I remain positive. I have to else I will lose a lot more in these sessions. I gotta keep doing what I do and one day this will all work out for me and it'll be payback time. Right?

Overall Stats
Hands: 7269
VPIP: 11.05
PFR: 5.75
AF: 1.98
BB/100: -1.06
Profit: -$77.28

Race to $200
Hands: 6746
Profit: -$99.93
BB/100: -1.48
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

crazybadger

1st October 2009, 22:47

Hmmm I wrote some replies to this thread last night but it's not here. I must have hit preview and not submit...

I wont go into as much detail but the general idea was that I agree with most of what you said about the game of Limit HE and it's more my personal preference that I don't enjoy playing. It is more of a "science" and in fact if I were to ever write a bot (considered it several times) then it would be for Limit for this reason.

I did have a question for your limit games...how tight do you play preflop? I found in my short stint at it a while ago that the only quasi-success I had was when I felt like I was playing more like a fish pre-flop and then making the decision to get out or stay in (obviously this depends on table aggression and position etc)...It might not be right and might go against Limit HE theory but it's just something I noticed - the good hands don't always hit the flop and then you end up in no-mans-land but you "have to" keep paying because the odds are often there to call (and you cant be sure they hit because they often play with rubbish). Just a thought (keep in mind my lack of experience at this game) :)

mathare

2nd October 2009, 09:31

I did have a question for your limit games...how tight do you play preflop?My VPIP is 11.05% which is pretty tight. I'm only putting money into the pot with 11% of my hands which PokerStove says is pairs 77+, A9s+, ATo+, KTs+, QTs+ and KQo. Obviously that's averaged across all positions but it's pretty tight. I see 11.24% of flops which includes those I get a free look at from the unraised BB.

I found in my short stint at it a while ago that the only quasi-success I had was when I felt like I was playing more like a fish pre-flop and then making the decision to get out or stay in (obviously this depends on table aggression and position etc)I struggle with those in/out decisions post-flop when I loosen up pre-flop as I never have a clear idea where I am. I also struggle to work out what hands to play where as part of a loose strategy. Tight play is in my blood I'm afraid and going against type is really hard for me. I also think that by playing tight I know where I am against likely hand ranges for my opponents. I know how to play tight holdings as I have had a few years of practice across various games and it's a style that suits me, especially playing 6 tables at once.

the good hands don't always hit the flop and then you end up in no-mans-land but you "have to" keep paying because the odds are often there to call (and you cant be sure they hit because they often play with rubbish).This is just an exercise in. counting outs and properly discounting them. Take a board of 9-5-2 rainbow with you holding something like KTo. How many outs have you got? You have two overcards so you have 6 outs right? There are 6 cards that would improve your hand, sure, but would a pair of tens be good enough to take this pot down? They might put you ahead on the turn but you need to worry about an overcard (Q, J or A) coming on the river that makes someone else a higher pair so you can't count those Tens as full outs. The three tens are worth maybe two outs here. The Kings are probably good though but there are potential straight draws, runner-runner flushes could hit etc so even the Kings if you hit may not win the pot. I'd count the two overcards here as maybe 4.5 outs with means instead of needing pot odds of around 13/2 I want odds of around 9/1 - quite a difference. Sklansky et all in SSHE have a great section of counting outs and hidden outs. Some weak looking hands can be as strong as open-ended straight draws thanks to combo draws whereas overcard draws can be weaker than expected. If you have an idea of how many outs you truly have then you can more easily make sure you have the odds you need before continuing in the hand.

mathare

2nd October 2009, 13:11

2nd October 2009
From bad to worse, that's the way things are headed for me it seems.

A quick session (105 minutes) this morning with the standard six tables results in a loss of $16.22. The session started with a dip from which I recovered and then it was a steady downhill from there really. My fourth losing session in a row and the past 3500 or so hands have cost me around $95 which is obviously not what I was expecting. Sigh.

I think I have identified a few more weaknesses in my game this morning though and have made notes of them so I can check them out in more detail and look at resolving them.

Firstly, I think I am perhaps calling too often pre-flop after limping and it is raised then folded round to me. Perhaps I call in early position with KQo or something and a middle position player raises. No one cold-calls and the blinds fold so it is back to me for one bet. The pot is small but I am calling because I have one bet in already. That's not so bad but I think I am going to pieces and leaking chips all over the place post-flop in hands like this. I need to properly evaluate my hand strength on the flop and count my outs, especially as I am out of position so any bet could be raised. Should I be check-calling or check-folding? If I have hit any of the flop how vulnerable is my hand and what's the best way to protect it - bet out or check-raise? I think I am seeing too many streets with effectively marginal holdings in short-handed pots. I didn't raise with KQo in early position as I think it is too weak to raise with from there but too strong to fold so I limp looking for a few players to be in with me as I am playing it as a drawing hand really. When the pot is short-handed I need to play 'fit or fold' on the flop really. I think I'll try that approach and see what happens.

Secondly I think I am staying in too many pots for one bet on later streets, especially when the bet size has doubled, because I have convinced myself the pot is big. But is it? SSHE defines a big pot as one that is six-handed or more pre-flop OR raised pre-flop and four-handed or more OR three-bet or more pre-flop OR at least two opponents will usually go to the river. This means pots that are 6 big bets on the turn are generally not big pots but I am often treating them as they are. These are medium pots than I can fold my way out of. I hope I can start to save bets in these situations now by folding more in these medium pots when I don't have the outs and odds I need to draw. Sometimes I know I am beaten but still can't fold. I need to work through that.

Another potential leak I have found is I am stuggling to protect my hand at times when just betting out doesn't work. Suppose there are 6.5 small bets in the pot - perhaps I raised preflop and got two callers with the SB folding. If I bet out now when the board has a two flush then any flush draw has the odds to come along. The first caller is getting 7.5/1 which is enough to play a draw with 6 outs. If I can check-raise (assuming I am confident that someone will bet into me) then the odds maybe reduced but ideally I'd want the better to my immediate right to get this to play out as desired. I think I need to re-read the SSHE chapter on protecting hands.

Finally I am getting into trouble with overcards when they miss the flop, one of the trickiest situations in what is otherwise a pretty straightforward game. I think the answer again is to re-read the relevant SSHE chapter so that I know whether to bet out with AKs in early position on a board of 2-6-8 rainbow or not.

That's pretty much it for my notes this session other than one that says "runner-runnered again & again & ..." - it was like that this morning. Oh, and one that says I should start posting my session graphs again so I'll do that now.

Overall Stats
Hands: 7855
VPIP: 10.94
PFR: 5.73
AF: 1.94
BB/100: -1.19
Profit: -$93.50

Race to $200
Hands: 7332
Profit: -$116.15
BB/100: -1.58
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

mathare

2nd October 2009, 16:49

2nd October 2009 (part two)
If anyone can tell me what the hell I am doing wrong in this game and what I have to do to have a profitable session then I am all ears, seriously.

You've probably guessed that this afternoon didn't go well. In fact I took the unusual step of cutting the session short as I was going to play on for another hour or so but not after some of the hands I have just been through. I'm not tilting as such but I needed to shut the tables down in case I did tilt off the rest of the few chips I did have left after a session that cost me $36.71.

Unbelievable is the best word to describe it really. I was being drawn out on so often despite protecting my hand to the best of my ability. I was building pots when I was ahead and having them snatched away from me either by runner runner draws or the miracle river cards. Several times I was beaten by the only hand that could have beaten me. I'd have the second nuts and be up against the stone cold nuts, regardless of how unlikely it was given the play so far in the hand. I don't fear monsters when I play but I have seen far too many recently.

The one hand that really got me this afternoon was one I will post up shortly. I am dealt QQ and flop a full house on a board of J-J-Q. I'm building a wonderful pot here as the board comes four to a flush and I am getting action. On the river betting round I am heads up facing raises and then I start to wonder what he has. I think he's overplaying Aces or something, probably including the flush Ace and before I put the final bet in I think "Unless he has quad Jacks but...nah, how unlikely is that?" Guess what he had? :rolleyes: :headbange

How much more of this can I take? I need confidence in my game to play properly and I am trying hard to retain that but the last few days have been hard to take. Just under a month ago I sat down with a bankroll of roughly 300 big bets to try and increase that to 500. Instead I have pretty much halved it, and the trend is definitely downwards at the minute. Part of me is telling me to 'borrow' from my sportsbook account at Bet365 to boost the poker bankroll and I will make it back in time. Part of me is thinking of getting off the iPoker network and going to Full Tilt and some of me is considering jacking it all in for good.

I'll take this evening off and weigh things up...

Overall Stats
Hands: 8543
VPIP: 10.91
PFR: 5.75
AF: 1.95
BB/100: -1.52
Profit: -$13.21

Race to $200
Hands: 8020
Profit: -$152.86
BB/100: -1.91
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

If I saw those stats for one of my opponents they would be straight on my buddy list and I would be looking to join whatever tables they were sat at!

mathare

2nd October 2009, 17:03

Read it and weep. I nearly wept at the end of the hand - and nearly puked too!

GAME #1873694381: Texas Hold'em L $0.50/$1 2009-10-02 15:19:35
Table Nawalgarh
Seat 1: Jvatoly ($23.97 in chips)
Seat 2: Irbisa ($22.96 in chips)
Seat 3: alavala ($59.48 in chips)
Seat 4: Andrey6262 ($15.13 in chips)
Seat 5: mux777 ($34.67 in chips)
Seat 7: Zmitrok ($23.00 in chips)
Seat 8: bitangar ($27.20 in chips)
Seat 9: terrorwrist ($29.91 in chips) DEALER
Jvatoly: Post SB $0.25
Irbisa: Post BB $0.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to terrorwrist [CQ HQ]
alavala: Raise (NF) $1.00
Andrey6262: Fold
mux777: Fold
Zmitrok: Fold
bitangar: Fold
terrorwrist: Raise (NF) $1.50
Jvatoly: Fold
Irbisa: Call $1.00
alavala: Call $0.50
*** FLOP *** [DJ SJ SQ]
Irbisa: Check
alavala: Check
terrorwrist: Bet $0.50
Irbisa: Raise (NF) $1.00
alavala: Call $1.00
terrorwrist: Raise (NF) $1.50
Irbisa: Call $0.50
alavala: Raise (NF) $2.00
terrorwrist: Call $0.50
Irbisa: Call $0.50
*** TURN *** [S3]
Irbisa: Check
alavala: Bet $1.00
terrorwrist: Raise (NF) $2.00
Irbisa: Fold
alavala: Raise (NF) $3.00
terrorwrist: Raise (NF) $4.00
alavala: Call $1.00
*** RIVER *** [S4]
alavala: Bet $1.00
terrorwrist: Raise (NF) $2.00
alavala: Raise (NF) $3.00
terrorwrist: Raise (NF) $4.00
alavala: Call $1.00
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $25.75 Rake $1.00
alavala: Shows [HJ CJ]
alavala: wins $25.75

crazybadger

2nd October 2009, 23:58

mathare

3rd October 2009, 10:09

Painful painful painful! I cant fault any of your plays and even if the possibilty of him having Jacks occurs you could not lay that down. He could just have easily had AQ, AJ, QJ, or something like that and raised you too. I can't say much else apart from sorry. :ermmmAs you say he could have had lots of hands in that situation, including AA or KK for a pair bigger than top pair on the board, a Jack in his hand for trips, QJ for the smaller full house and even the nut flush and be overplaying them. JJ is so unlikely in that situation as it has to be the only remaining two Jacks in the deck so there is only one way he can make his hand from all the possible starting hands he could hold that there is no way I can lay it down. I can't even dial back the aggression really as I want to build a big pot for the times I am ahead and he is overplaying a worse hand. It was just painfully unlucky.

Keep going. Don't think about changing yet. Even if you have to write off thi entire $300 bankroll keep going as long as you feel you are learning/growing your game. My theory is that if you're not winning then you need to be learning something. If you're not doing either is when you start to consider a change. Bad beats don't count...unless you consider learning that luck is a B*tch!I had a good think about this last night. I have just enough in my bankroll at present to fire up 6 tables simultaneously buying in for $25 on each but if I have a losing session today then I probably won't be able to play 6 tables at once with my normal buy in without topping up my account. So I then have to choose between playing fewer tables, buying in for less or dropping down a level to $0.25/0.50. Good bankroll management says I should take the latter option and to be honest it may not be a bad idea. I'm not earning a living from poker by any means so it doesn't matter much that my potential winnings are reduced, what matters is that I learn to start beating the game again and preserve what I have left of my bankroll. It's not a big sum of money, I could lose it and redeposit to start a new bankroll but I don't really want to, I want to prove I can beat the micro stakes games. If I drop down and play 1000 hands a day (which is my target) then working on a profit rate of 1BB/100 (which is reasonable I think) I should be able to step back up to $0.50/$1 in a couple of weeks. If I can't beat that level in that time, say I'm not showing a profit after 15000 hands, then I seriously have to rethink what I am doing and how I am approaching the game.

So that's the plan for now...

crazybadger

3rd October 2009, 10:34

Sounds reasonable. I hope it works for you. I always wonder how different the game is at the different levels. The problem could be that your game is actually suited to even higher levels...or maybe you can grind out easy profits in the $0.25/0.50 level. It's so hard to tell...

mathare

3rd October 2009, 15:40

3rd October 2009
A quick in-play update for you to show how badly things continue to go for me. I have hit a straight flush against a full house to net a big pot and the nut full house against a lesser full house to drag in another big pot but I am still behind for the session because I keep betting/raising to protect my vulnerable hands but draws just keep getting there to beat me :(

I'm facing a drop to $0.25/0.50 for sure

mathare

3rd October 2009, 16:52

3rd October 2009 (part two)
That's another session I have called an early end to after a bad beat as I can't take it any more, I really can't.

I'm not one of those who screams that online poker is fixed and that site X has it in for me and you see more bad beats on the river at site Y than anywhere else unlike others you see posting on the internet. I understand statistics, probability and the laws of large numbers. I realise that seeing more hands in the internet in a shorter space of time than one would playing live means that one will see more freakish hands due to the random nature of the deal. In fact as the deal is more random online than live one may expect to see more freaki hands online even without the speed difference and the ability to multi-table. But sometimes I do wonder what this game is up to and how much the random nature of it and variance hate me and like watching me suffer.

I dragged in two $20+ pots in this session and yet finished down $31.57 in just over two hours. I had planned to play for 3+ hours but there was no way I could go on like that so when I got a big hand cracked by trash AGAIN I stopped posting the blinds and shut the tables down when the blinds reached me. The hand that did for me this afternoon was AA cracked by 76o. I have AA in middle position. UTG limps, I raise, the SB re-raises, the limper calls, I cap and they both call. The flop comes 4-7-K rainbow. SB checks, UTG bets and I raise - they both call. The turn is a 5. SB checks, UTG bets and I just call. My raise was cold-called on the flop and neither of them have shown any signs of getting away from their hands so I just call to see what the river brings. SB calls also. The river is a 3 and puts a three flush on the board. SB checks, UTG bets and I call thinking my Aces are probably good but I'm not sure. 76o for a flopped pair that backed into a straight on the river. He had second board pair with no kicker on the flop and put in $2 on the flop with that hand - wtf!?!

Other noteworthy hands from this session include:
1. QQ beaten by AJo on a board of 9-4-5-3-2. He had nothing but overcards on the flop and a gutshot straight draw on the turn. I'd raised UTG pre-flop, he'd reraised and I called. He bet out on the flop, I raised and he re-raised. The turn and river betting was him betting and me calling. I may not have bet or raised enough to protect but I got the impression from the first two rounds of betting that I was up against a decent hand, and one that wasn't going anywhere regardless of how often I raised.

2. AA beaten by 62o which flopped bottom pair and turn into trips. He limped in early and I raised. The BB and limper called. The flop is 3-7-2 rainbow. BB bets, the limper calls and I raise. BB folds, limper calls. Turn is another 2. Early limper bets, I raise and he calls. On the river (K) he check-calls my bet and shows me 62o. Jesus Christ!

3. QQ beaten by 99 when he made trips on the river. Early position raises, middle position raises all-in and the button caps. I cold-call from the SB knowing there can be no more action, the BB folds and the early raiser calls the extra two bets. I bet out on the flop of 8-T-A two clubs to see where I stand. It's called round. The turn is a 3 and it gets checked round. I fear they may be a raggy Ace out there so don't bet again. The river looks like a safe 9 so I bet out (I could have checked here but when it was checked round on the turn I thought there might not be an Ace and my Queens could be good). Early raises and the pre-flop capper raises. I call and he shows me 99. The all-in raiser had KJo so I was ahead till the damn river. Again.

4. 99 beaten by J2s. There's one limper and I raise from the SB. The BB folds, the limper calls. The flop is 9-5-2 with two clubs. I bet out as I don't want to give a free card to a club draw and thinking I could take this pot down now as it's heads-up and unless he has two clubs, two big overcards or an overpair I won't get any action. He calls. The turn is 8c putting three to a flush on the board. I bet, he raises and alarm bells ring. Has he got it or is he representing? I call and check-call the river (another damn club). He flopped a flush draw which completed on the turn. There was nothing I could have done to protect that hand, which is hugely frustrating.

So all this got me thinking - bankroll management says I should step down now having lost over half my bankroll but it seems clear to me that I am being beaten by hands that shouldn't even have seen the flop so should I be actually playing at a higher level where there are fewer muppets? There is certainly something to that argument but I'd need to redeposit to have a bankroll to take on the higher stakes and if my luck continues like this then I am losing twice as much money and I can't handle that.

So it seems like the choices are step down or step out, give up the game and follow other money-making ventures. The good thing about poker though is it takes up time and I can see instant results. It's not betting system research where one can spend hours investigating angles only to find they aren't profitable, or they could make a slight profit over many weeks or months. The results with poker are instant and there for all to see. On the other hand I can't lose money investigating betting systems!

It's time for a good long, hard think about things.

Overall Stats
Hands: 9203
VPIP: 10.90
PFR: 5.78
AF: 1.93
BB/100: -1.76
Profit: -$161.78

Race to $200
Hands: 8680
Profit: -$184.43
BB/100: -2.12
Hands Required to Complete Challenge: N/A

mathare

4th October 2009, 15:05

4th October 2009
It's clear that the $0.50/$1 limit cash games aren't working for me and that something needs to be done. It's not so clear what that something should be though.

Poker isn't exactly in my blood but it is a game I love to bits and struggle to let go of. I thought of uninstalling all the poker rooms from my PC yesterday but then thought that was an over-reaction and left them as they were. I have enough self-control to stay away from the tables while I sort things out, I think!

So what am I to do instead? Yesterday evening I started working on some football systems I had been mulling over for months, if not longer than that. These are potentially good ideas so let's see if that potential can be realised or whether I should just forget about them. If they are good then there is cash to be made from them, both by following them and potentially commercialising them in some format so let's see what lies down that path.

I also need to think about what has gone wrong for me with poker as I don't want to shut that door permanently. The way I see it is I am being beaten a lot of times by hands that shouldn't be there. So why are those hands still there at the end? Why are these players having the opportunity to beat me? I should welcome hands like 62o playing when I have AA as I am a huge favourite. So am I still the victim of cursed fortunes, experiencing the dark side of natural variance or am I doing something badly wrong? I am prety sure I am doing some things wrong when I play, I know my game isn't perfect, but are these mistakes enough to be giving me the results I am getting? I think there is more reading to be done, and more playing but at what stakes? Should I drop down, stay at the same stakes and hope my luck changes, step up to (hopefully) reduce the number of muppets playing or even change sites? I need to seriously think about these things, but if I need to either create a new bankroll or boost the one I already have (or what's left of it) then I need to bring in some more money from somewhere, and hopefully the football systems I am working on will help there.

My long terms goals are to bring in cash from reliable football systems, then add a poker income stream (that's income, not additional outgoings) and finally build up a portfolio of my own horse racing systems. I haven't set timescales for all of this but I would like to think that within a couple of years this is all possible if I put the work in.

I have also been thinking today about my limit hold'em education. Are the books I have the right books? SSHE is considered the bible but it talks about generally loose games and that's not what I am experiencing online really. Has the game changed since the book was written? Are the iPoker games atypical and I should be playing somewhere with more US players such as Full Tilt? Should I join one of the video training sites to pick up more tips about the online game? Is limit poker the right game to play? I have always thought of it as the game in which to grind out a profit, and it is my game of choice for multi-tabling, but can I learn to beat micro-stakes NLHE cash games and build up a bankroll that way? I got Harrington on Cash Games vol.2 last christmas and haven't read it yet as I don't have volume 1 so maybe I should invest in that, read both one after the other and take on the micro-stakes NLHE games to see how I do.

So much to think about. But for now poker is off my reading list as I have started to read a number of non-poker books to keep my mind off the game somewhat and football systems are my main focus as I look to develop that as an income stream. So don't expect many updates to this diary for a while as I plan to stay away from the tables for a little while while I regroup. Incidentally my health has been suffering of late, and deteriorating as it happens, so I wonder if that is having more of an impact than I realise on my game. Perhaps when that improves so will my poker.

A lot to think about over the coming weeks then...

mathare

22nd October 2009, 09:38

22nd October 2009
Over two weeks since I last wrote anything in here but last night I got a phonecall from PokerStars about the bonus I am/was working towards. They wanted to update me on how it was going and ask why I wasn't playing so much (ie at all) any more. We had a chat about that and they offered to up my VIP status back to SilverStar till the end of the month (which doesn't mean much really). They also added another chunk of bonus fund allocation to my account which means when I have worked this one off (around $82) I have another one of over $100 to work off too and I have till around February to get the necessary points I think it is.

It's slightly tempting but I need to decide first whether I am in the right mindset to go back to the tables. I haven't done everything I wanted to do during my break from the game yet, not by a long chalk, but I am tempted to dabble again at some point in the not too distant future...

mathare

30th October 2009, 13:30

30th October 2009
I had been putting off even considering a return to the tables until I had got a number of other things out the way, including various updates to my betting recirds spreadsheet. Thankfully that is all now done and I can think about where poker fits into my plans again.

It's been just over a week since PokerStars got in touch about upgrading my VIP status and adding the additional bonus funds to my account. So it seems like I ought to give them another chance doesn't it? My overall win rate is lower there than at Bet365 but for some reason I just enjoy playing there more. Or at least I think I do. I ought to look back through my old diary entries and check that really hadn't I?... I prefer the software there to the iPoker software, that's for sure. And after all I have only played cash games there for a couple of weeks, and that coincided with part of my evil downswing so I really do think they deserve another chance. Right, that's the poker room settled but what about the game and limits?

It's gotta be fixed limit poker, that's what I know and what I am most comfortable with when playing cash games (which suit me better than tourneys at this time). I have a bankroll of just $72.46 at PokerStars and I don't plan on depositing again. So I need to work with what I have got. PokerStars has games at $0.10/$20 and $0.25/$0.50 and there seems to be quite a few active tables of both at present. Playing $0.25/0.50 would give me a bankroll of under 150BB and I like to buy-in for around 25BB on each table. Therefore playing 6 tables at that limit is my limit and that's all my bankroll on the felt at once. That's BAD bankroll management so I need to step down to $0.10/$0.20. My bankroll gives me over 350BB at that level which is a lot of play. If I can build my roll up to $100 then I can mix in some $0.25/$0.50 tables and gradually increase the blend in favour of the higher stakes as my bankroll increases until I am playing all $0.25/$0.50 and building my bankroll through that.

Sounds like a plan :thumbs

But one thing does concern me. I was getting caned when I last played cash and thought the low stakes were a factor didn't I? Muppets chasing hands they had only a small chance of winning with yet getting there? Right. So now is the time to learn from those mistakes and correct them. Protect hands where I can but recognise those cases where I can't and betting would just be building a pot for someone else to take away. It's time to see if I have learned anything and whether I really can make anything from the game long-term. It's time to settle into a positive mindset and value bet the fish - starting this afternoon!

mathare

30th October 2009, 19:36

30th October 2009 (part two)
Well that didn't quite go as I had hoped :rolleyes:

I started with four tables and built up to six as I got back into the swing of it but at no stage in the session was I ahead. I obviously paid the blinds at the start and that was the closest I ever got to being even. I finished the session (which lasted over three and half hours and took in 1019 hands) down $5.57. That's equivalent to -2.73BB/100 which I am a bit disappointed with. Oh well.

I like to think I know myself quite well. For instance I know I am a worrier, a thinker and a planner. I'm risk averse. I know I try to resist the urge to run before I can walk but sometimes I get obsessed with a plan or idea and run with it for a short while only to find it doesn't work as I had thought or hoped and change it. Maybe I don't let things get into the long run and change plans too readily. Or maybe I know myself well enough to know when things must change. It is with all of this in mind that I want to discuss the fallout from today's session as it has made me realise a few things.

Let's not beat about the bush - I didn't play very well this afternoon. That's not to say I played badly but I can play a lot better. I was on my 'B' game at best. Why? Because it didn't mean anything to me. I make a loose call and it costs me a few pence - so what? The stakes prevented me from focusing on the game. Yes, I had six tables going so I had action most of the time but there was still a fair bit of downtime that allowed me to surf the web, look up stats in PokerTracker and so on. I was able to keep a good eye on my frequent player points and see the rate at which they were accumulating. In short my head wasn't in the game, hence not playing my 'A' game.

What can I do about this? I can play at higher stakes. Right. That means a larger bankroll and mistakes costing me more but should focus the mind more. And if it doesn't? I lose more money, faster. Not good. It also means I need to deposit more at the chosen poker room which means dipping into my bank account and I am trying to preserve my capital where possible as I no longer have a regular income. Therefore this isn't the best idea. How else can I improve my game? I could play more tables. Yes, but if I don't give a toss about the stakes I am just throwing more money away so that alone is not a solution. I could slap myself hard until I force myself to play the game properly and take it seriously. I could, but I don't think it would work, not in the long-term certainly. I could try a different game, such as Omaha, as I will then be forced to think about the game as I can't play on auto-pilot. I could play no-limit hold'em for similar reasons. But suppose I can't maintain my focus there - I just lose more, faster again.

That all sounds rather negative doesn't it? And with good reason I think. Think about the stakes I played today. A good session will see me win maybe $10. Whoopee! It's hardly a significant sum is it when I have a lot more than that on the horses and football. The potential profit and losses from a poker session, given the stakes I ought to be playing as dictated by my bankroll, are trivial compared to my horse racing and sports betting. Not that either of those are particularly large stakes but they are in comparison to poker. And they are a lot less effort too. Put the horse racing bet on, wait a few minutes and that's job done. Not so with poker. I have to sit, think, work, put in some effort and still only get a tiny return. I have to wonder if it is worth my time.

Poker is not so much in my blood as in my heart. I love the game and I enjoy playing it, although not as much as I used to. I can't give the game up and never go back to it but I think I need to take a serious break from it and drop it from my long- to medium-term plans. I can always add it back in later if that becomes a good idea but for now it's best to forget about poker as a potential revenue stream and concentrate on other things instead.

I know how indecisive (amongst other things) this makes me seem. I say I am making a comeback, have one poor session and spit my dummy out and give it all up, right? In a way, yes, but in so many respects that's not the case at all. This afternoon has made me see the light, as it were, and it doesn't shine down on the poker tables. I don't have the bankroll, or the proper focus and attitude, to play at the stakes that would make it worth my while considering playing. I think $0.50/$1 or $1/$2 is the lowest level I could really face and give the game the respect and dedication it deserves and warrants but I am not ready for that. Maybe I will be in a few months, maybe not for a couple of years but I am not at present so I need to stop trying to force it. Square pegs and round holes spring to mind.

So that's it from me for a while. I will return at some point, I'm sure, but I don't know when and at which tables. Time will tell I guess. But for now giving up for a while feels more right than coming back from my previous hiatus did. I have many other projects that are a much better use of my time so hopefully they will start to bear fruits in the coming months and reduce any temptation to return to the electronic baize before I am truly ready to do so.

Profit Seeker

5th December 2009, 05:09

Man you're not very good at poker ain't ya matthew. get some balls and start playing a decent amount of tables. I've made $35k this year 24 tabling $16 9mans and it's very easy money you looooooooozzzzzzeerrrrrrrrrrrrr :splapme :ermmm :laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh

Edited by mathare

mathare

5th December 2009, 10:38

I assume that was written under the heavy influence of alcohol PS :rolleyes:

Chance of you making 4000 posts before getting banned must be slim if you keep dishing out insults and using foul language like that :Blacklistnonono:

John

6th December 2009, 00:01

Consider your infraction carefully before posting again, Profit Seeker.

mathare

9th December 2009, 19:24

9th December 2009
I did something very strange today - I played poker.

The last couple of days I had been reading Victoria Coren's new book (For Richer, For Poorer) which is a damn good read incidentally and just happens to be about her life in poker. Hands from the EPT she won a couple of years back are interspersed throughout the main body of the book and it really got me thinking about the game and how I ought to get back into it.

I had thought about playing SnGs again but then I don't find those all that convenient at times. I like the fact I can start and end cash game sessions when I choose to - that suits my current situation so much better. I don't get that much time to myself these days, at least not during the day time and not time I could spend playing poker as we have a cat who can be quite needy at times. So even though I am at home all day I don't have that much poker time as she will come up and shout at me until I give her the attention she craves - difficult when I am multi-tabling on PokerStars at the same time. I could play in the evenings I guess but since I am at home all day now I have decided to try to spend my evenings with the missus else I'd be on my computer around 15 hours a day, every day! Anyway, with not that much time to play I figured cash games would be better as I can dip in and out, and recently the cat has tended to leave me alone from mid-afternoon onwards, preferring to sleep for a few hours instead so I can have some piece and quiet. Today I used that opportunity to fire up the cash tables at 'Stars.

My bankroll is a fraction of what it used to be and I hadn't played for about 6 weeks prior to this afternoon so I thought I'd take it easy with four limit tables - playing $0.10/$0.20 as I said I would to rebuild my 'roll. Update my 'Stars client, log in, and sit at the tables - all good so far. Then I start posting blinds and playing some hands and it's downhill from there. I played loose, sloppy limit poker. Not loose-aggressive either, loose-bad poker. I was calling quite a few (OK, a lot of) small bets because, well, they were small and I might make a hand. Pot odds - what are they? I had planned to sit down, play tight against the fish and make a small profit. That plan went out the window early when I forgot (!) that hands like KJo are not part of a tight strategy. I was seeing short-handed flops with pocket pairs out of position and all sorts of crap like that. I couldn't lose much doing this as there wasn't much on the table. I was almost playing play money poker but with a small sum of real money. It wasn't pretty but it was very valuable. I learned a lot, about myself more than about the game of poker.

Why was I playing so terribly? Because the money didn't mean anything, partly. And because I lacked the interest and discipline to play properly. Maybe that's because the money wasn't meaningful too. I had four tables up but there was still a lot of downtime when I wasn't in any of the hands which meant I was off surfing the web and all sorts. What was the incentive to play properly though? A good session might see me win $5 across the four tables - big wow! It's going to be hard to build a bankroll this way so I am demoralised and playing poorly as a result.

I know the answer. I have known the answer for ages but I have refused to listen to the voice that keeps telling me what it is. But today I did listen and I started up one table of no-limit cash, $0.05/$0.10 stakes so that I didn't have much at risk and so I was exercising sensible bankroll management. I have shied away from the NLHE cash tables for so long because I was crap at them before. All my records show I am rubbish at no-limit cash but part of me still sees it as the holy grail - the form of poker that I must become good at if I am to make any serious money from this game. I have tried before to become good, had a couple of bad results and run away from the tables again. I have dipped my toes in the pool and found the waters too cold so I have run back to the safety of the sunbeds. But I know I must get into that pool at some stage, starting today. One table is a start, and a slow one at that, but I enjoyed it a lot more than the limit poker which I seemed to be playing on auto-pilot. I felt more alive with the no-limit game. It wasn't just bet or raise but bet or raise how much? More decisions to make so more time spent thinking about poker and less time to waste elsewhere on the internet. I know that as a naturally tight player (my whole game goes to pot when I try to play loose and I play almost any two cards in appalling positions) one table won't satisfy my poker-lust and that I will need to multi-table to get the best from it but I can do that. I was playing 3 or limit tables at the same time as that no-limit game today. Four no-limit tables should be easy enough and I hope to get up to 6-8 tables eventually.

I think it could be the answer to my problems. Playing no-limit cash will finally address the nagging voice telling me I need to get better at that form of the game. I can build a bankroll better through NLHE than I can grinding limit - which just seems dull to me these days. I need to accept that I am a different person and a different poker player to the one who used to happily grind limit poker and make a few quid on the side. I need the gamble of no-limit now. And there will be more significant sums at stake on each hand as I can potentially lose my whole stack any time I play a hand so I should be more focused. There won't be as many small bets to call, knowing that raises can be any size ought to keep me from calling small bets as I won't have the safety net of knowing the raise will also be small.

At least that's the theory. I feel really good about the (no-limit) session I played this afternoon even though it was less than a hundred hands. I won $4, which isn't bad at those stakes and I felt like I knew what I was doing. Of course, I may spit my dummy out next time I have a bad session and get felted and swear off the no-limit tables but let's hope I can be bigger than that and start on the long road to building a proper bankroll from which I can make a small income from poker.

mathare

10th December 2009, 18:51

10th December 2009
I've done it again, I've played cards! As I said I would, four tables of micro-stakes NLHE cash this afternoon and it felt good. I made mistakes on some hands, as I knew I would as this isn't really the format of the game I am used to, but I felt I was learning. I was aggressive at the right sort of times but not excessively so. I raised well and at times was dominating the table enough to get outright bluffs (in position) through.

It didn't all go my own way though and I lost a big (for these stakes) chunk on three key hands.
1. I raise to 3xBB with QQ from the BB with two limpers; one folds and the other calls so two of us see the flop. 8-6-7 rainbow - nice. I bet out two-thirds pot and get a call. I don't particularly like the King that comes on the turn but lead out for around two-thirds pot again, and again he calls. The river is an awful 5 completing straights for anyone who had the draw on the flop. I make a strong bet again, get min-raised and call thinking my queens could still be good but in all honestly the pot was getting a bit big to be folding in this spot. He showed me 96o for a flopped bottom pair that rivered the straight. I couldn't get rid of him throughout the hand but it felt at the time like I made a mistake on the river - now I am not so sure looking back at it.
2. UTG raises to 4xBB, I re-raise to 10xBB when it is folded round to me in the SB. UTG calls so the flop is heads up and comes Q-7-3 rainbow. I lead out for around half-pot. UTG shoves, raising my $1.20 bet to $4.05. This would be a stupid call wouldn't it? I'm probably beaten here and I could let this one go even though I do have a decent starting hand and am only facing one overcard. The move is too strong for me to call isn't it? So why the hell do I call? He shows me KQo and pairs his King on the river just to rub it in after the turn bricked out. I'm really displeased with that call.
3. The previous hand left me with around 30xBB (from a starting stack of 100xBB) which all went in pre-flop when I called a shove pre-flop. Early position raises to 4XBB, I jack it to 10xBB with AJo in the cut-off, I get 4-bet all-in and call. Why? I'd be racing a pocket pair at best. In fact I am against AKo and lose the pot as the board offers no help whatsoever.

Those last two hands were played poorly, I can't decide about the first one now - maybe I didn't play it that badly.

The net result was a loss of $4.05 from 502 hands, meaning I lost the profit I managed to scrape up yesterday. But I'm not that annoyed by that because the important thing to me is that I played another 500 hands and have recorded more table time, more experience at the game and that can only be a good thing. I don't expect to be good at this game right away but I do need to keep plugging away, keep the number of hands played ticking over and hopefully the bottom line will look after itself in time.

mathare

13th December 2009, 21:09

13th December 2009
Another 500 hands this afternoon and I am slowly learning, not as fast as I would have liked but learning all the same.

Today's session was a bit frustrating at times. I was making mistakes early on and not giving the game the thought and concentration it both deserves and requires. You'll see some of this evident in the hand summaries I am going to go through shortly but it also extended to things like not spotting possible flush draws on the board and then being shown the flush at showdown. In the back of my head I wondered why he had come to life but simply dismissed it as him pairing while I had hit two pair and carried on regardless. Nope!

I wasn't feeling as comfortable and confident at the tables either today. I was puzzled by some of the villains' moves, especially the three-bets. What did they mean when they re-raised me? I had one guy who called a lot of my pre-flop raises and would often raise me when I bet out on the flop, else do something similar on the turn. Was he intentionally floating me or was it just coincidence and he happened to have a hand he liked when I bet out? Is floating too tricky a move for this level? He didn't seem that tricky a player but then with under 100 hands on all my opponents how can you really tell what type of players you are up against? You need several thousand hands so you have seen these players in some situations at least a couple of dozen times before you can get any reliable sort of line on them I'd say.

There is no doubt about the biggest mistake I made today though, and I want to discuss that before getting into the specifics of hands. It was a mechanical error too - I clicked the wrong button! And not the safe error of checking instead of betting. Not min-raising when I meant to call or raise more. Not even folding the winning hand on the river. I accidentally called an all-in for a little under half a buy-in when I knew I was behind. I sat and thought over the hand for a few seconds when the villain put me all in. I knew I was beaten but mulled it over just in case. Nope, I was behind and drawing way too thin to make this a good call so fold. Yet I clicked the call button! I was fuming with myself after that. He showed me a full house and I had nothing anywhere near competitive and was felted. I closed that table and nearly the other three with it thinking I was in completely the wrong place mentally to play the game but I stick with my three other tables, focused, knuckled down and got on with it. It was very much a session of two halves - before and after this incident - and I am happy with my play in the second half if not the first half. It took a loss of over three-quarters of one buy-in (spread across the four tables) to kick my mind into gear and start playing 'properly' but even then the hands were interspersed with random brain farts that cost me money (as they should, to train me out of them). Bad hands I played this afternoon include:

1. I have KK in early and raise to 3xBB with one mid-late caller. The flop comes Q-4-A rainbow and I c-bet for around two-thirds pot. The villain makes a big all-in raise making it around 5 times my c-bet. He's got something hasn't he? This isn't a strong straight draw as any draw here is a gutshot effectively, and there are no flush draws for extra outs. He'd have probably re-raised AA and maybe QQ pre-flop so it's not trips. But this is not a straight bluff - he has at least an Ace, probably with a decent but not staggering kicker. I'm not ruling out AQ or even A4 but any Ace has me behind so the kicker is largely irrelevant at this stage. So even though I know I'm beaten I call, and I still can't explain why. It was every early in the session - maybe I wasn't in the zone yet but this was a really poor call, getting married to my hand. The turn and river bricked and he dragged a nice pot.
2. I get a free look at the flop with 93o from the BB along with three others and make a small check-raise on the ensuing 9-3-8 flop with top and bottom pair. The bettor makes raises it to 3 times my bet, I make a more sizeable 4-bet effectively putting him all in so he raises the rest of his stack and I insta-call having gone this far with my hand. I have him on a flush draw (there are two hearts on board) or perhaps an overpair. Top pair-top kicker is not outside his range either. I don't have 98s in mind but that's what he shows me and takes a good sized pot as the rest of the board offers me no help. Limping with suited connectors into a multi-way pot - why didn't I see that one?
3. I got rivered with KQs in a heads-up pot against A9o when an Ace hit on the river with the board coming down 5-K-6-6-A. I check-raised the flop and made a half to two-thirds pot bet on the turn followed by a good (size-wise anyway) bet on the river. I don't know what I put him on - I didn't really have a range in mind when I was betting, it was all about my cards not his too - but it should have included the overcard. I just wasn't think about the game properly on this hand.
4. I raise to 4xBB UTG with 88 and get a single caller in late position. This guy had called quite a few of my pre-flop bets so I had a wide range in mind as he was quite LAG anyway. The flop comes down 7-7-J and I lead out. He makes a solid raise but I don't have a Jack in that many hands for him, or a seven, compared to overcards and hands that have half-hit this flop so I call. I check the 9 on the turn and fold to his strong bet. I have no idea what he had - this is one of those "I don't know what his bets mean" moves I was talking about earlier. I could have got away from this on the flop when he raised but I had a decent pair for that board so it was perhaps worth a look. I think he had something as he didn't seem like much of a bluffer but I still have no idea what he held.

Other than that there were no big losing hands for me, everything else is under 15 big blinds which could just be a pre-flop raise and a couple of feeler bets on the flop and turn, or pots that I have kept small as I had some showdown value but in the end not enough it seems.

There is one more hand I was to quickly look at though - one I won.

I had JJ in early and raised to 4xBB after a limper. The SB and limper call so three of us see a flop of 8-9-5 rainbow. It's checked to me so I make a solid bet and get a caller from the SB. The turn pairs the 8 and this time the SB leads out. I just call fearing potential trips or two pair and trying to exercise pot management. I could have raised to find out how much he really liked his hand but that didn't feel right. The river was a 4 - again he bet out solidly and by now I had to call with the overpair. If he had two pair it was two board pair and I was ahead. 67 for the straight? Nah. There was no possible flush and an 8 was possible but instinct told me I could be good here. He flipped A7s and I dragged the pot. At no stage on the turn and river was I really confident I was ahead. It was partly instinct and partly not thinking and just blustering on that won me this hand. The turn was the time to raise, and if not then then I should have raised on the river. I needed to throw a raise in here I reckon to see if he really had that 8. What's the point of position if you don't use it?

It's all part of my education as a poker player though.

mathare

14th December 2009, 20:25

14th December 2009
I managed to get an earlier than usual start and played for a bit longer than normal so I managed to pack in 777 hands rather than the 500 or so I had planned, but that's certainly no bad thing. It was profitable too, but only to the tune of 75 cents! :laugh

I played well today, for the most part anyway. A couple of questionable decisions that I can recall but that's better than it has been and much better than yesterday. So I will skip straight to the key hands...

1. I have QQ in the SB. UTG raises to 4xBB and gets two callers and an all-in shove from the button making it $1.80 in total. I have a good hand here and cosider my options. A fold is out of the question despite the 3-bet as it was from the button and any sensible 3-bet would have pot committed him so the shove was the natural move there. I can widen the button's range from a standard 3-bet because of that. I want to get this heads-up with the button if I can which means raising enough to get rid of the UTG raiser. I consider shoving for around $11 but in the end decide a raise to $5 ought to get the job done yet leave me some wiggle room. In the unlikely event that someone 5-bets over the top of that raise I can re-evaluate where I stand in the hand. UTG min-raises to $8.20 and it's back to me. I made a strong 4-bet and have been re-raised - I'm likely beaten here or racing a hand like AKs. It doesn't feel like a good call so I fold my hand. This was my biggest loss of the session - $5 and I didn't even see the flop. The board came down 8-2-4-8-2 and UTG showed Aces. The all-in button didn't show but I made a good fold in hindsight, although possibly an excessive raise in the first place. It was raised to $1.80 and $4 may have signalled the same intentions as a raise to $5.

2. Six-handed due to players sitting out I raise to 4xBB with KK on the button after UTG limps. The SB shoves making it $2.75 total. I snap call without really thinking, which is not the best move but unless I definitely put him on Aces what am I going to do if not call this bet? You can't win a big pot unless the money goes in at some stage and KK is obviously a really good hand here. The SB shows JJ and I am way ahead...until the flop includes a Jack and the turn and river blank out.

3. I raise to 3xBB with AJs in middle position and get two callers including the BB. The flop is 7-A-9 with one of my suit. I bet out half-pot when the BB checks and get min-raised. BB folds and I call the raise putting the villain on a flush draw (the flop has two diamonds) or a good Ace so I am not sure whether I am ahead here or not. Tc comes on the turn and I check-call the villain's shove of his remaining 60c which is only around one-third pot. He tables A9 and I don't hit the Jack I need on the river. I was right that he had an Ace put I didn't weight the chances of him having already paired his kicker too as highly as I perhaps should have done.

4. I raise QQ to 3xBB in middle position and get two callers, including the BB. The flop is 7-4-8 two clubs. The BB makes a small bet which I raise with the overpair looking to shut out flush and straight draws. The other caller makes a big shove raising my $0.80 bet to $5.55 and I fold. I had no idea where I was there hence the raise but that bet was far too big for me to consider calling with just an overpair. He could be drawing but he could equally have had a bigger pair, trips or the made straight. Even if he was drawing I needed to dodge quite a few bullets and couldn't justify the call. Best fold and lose a small pot than call and probably lose a much bigger one.

5. A suck-out on my part this one. UTG raises to 4xBB and I pop him to 12xBB. It's folded to him and he shoves the other $0.65 from his stack in. I make this an easy call with my JJ but he flips over AA and I am well behind. Eek! The flop contains a Jack and he doesn't get the Ace (or backdoor flush) he needed to beat me. A suck-out but pay back for the KK v JJ hand earlier. Karma.

mathare

9th January 2010, 19:39

9th January 2010
To put it politely, I have been fannying around a lot at the poker tables and not really concentrating enough to make a serious go of bringing down any real money from a game I understand and love to bits. Why? I honestly don't know why. But it applies to the type of games I play as well as my play of the actual hands. I have flitted about between various game types from SnGs, turbos, limit cash, no-limit cash and so on, all without settling on a form of the game I am happy to play long-term and give myself a chance of making money at. I hope I can stop that sort of behaviour now.

I have $57.90 in my PokerStars account (or I did at the start of the day) which give me just over 11 bullets if I play $5+0.50 SnGs which is the form of the game I plan to specialise in from now on. Forget the cash tables and the fact that I'm a wimp if I can't hack it at NLHE cash and all that crap. SnGs are recognised as a good little earner and bankroll builder so that's where you'll find me from now on. I said in my last diary entry that I plan to play less than I was but for something like SnGs and a desire to build a proper 'roll I am going to have to put in a few hours here and there if I want to see any sort of progress, and I most certainly do want to see progress. I may even need that progress to keep me motivated and going in the right direction.

My first target is to build my current PokerStars roll to $500, and in doing so I will count any bonuses I pick up along the way. I'll play SnGs, at the $5 level, until I can get my bankroll up to $500 and then re-evaluate. I know that's a big roll for SnGs in terms of number of buy-ins but I am looking to prove to myself I can handle the lower stakes tables, build up plenty of experience along the way and show good money management skills too, which means not taking shots too early.

I played a few pipe-openers this afternoon, winning the first and busting out of the money in the other three leaving me up 50c for the day - woohoo! :laugh I spotted dozens of mistakes and weaknesses in my game though, primarily a lack of aggression short-handed in position. I rarely think I can get a hand like 63o through when I am on the button four-handed but I shouldn't be thinking about my cards. It's all about the situation - my opponent's stack sizes and their relative positions, my image at the table, what size raises have been folded to in the past and so on. I need to play regularly to build up my experience and keep the game fresh in my mind. I'd like to get in 15-20 hours a week but we'll have to see how that goes.

mathare

10th January 2010, 13:03

10th January 2010
I am a real mix of emotions at present: disappointment, anger, despair, confusion and so on. It has come to my attention that I am playing really poor poker and I am struggling to break out of that and start playing how I know I can play, how I used to play. How can I be playing so badly? Am I just rusty or am I really a crap player who has deluded himself into thinking he's not actually that bad? Is it the games I am playing and the opponents I am playing against putting me off my stride? Is it the poker site I play at? Is it bad luck, pure and simple?

I said yesterday that I had a plan - take my small bankroll at PokerStar and try and take it up to $500 through $5 SnG play. I didn't give myself a great chance of succeeding with only 10 bullets in the gun when I started but I hoped I could at least spin that up a little and in doing so start to build a roll that was suitable for launching a challenge of this type, and if I failed then I haven't lost much and have hopefully learned a lot. I also said that I thought I would need the progress to keep me interested and motivated. Hmmm. Was my plan too ambitious? I don't think so. It's hardly the Ferguson $0 to $10,000 challenge is it? It's a reasonable idea and gives me a solid target to aim for. I said I would include bonuses along the way so I don't need to make $450 from the SnGs alone as I have a couple of bonuses I am working off at PokerStars anyway that will help the bank balance move in the right direction.

So how is it going?

You had to ask didn't you? We couldn't just let this one slip away silently, oh no. Since you ask, the answer is badly. I have played 10 SnGs now and remarkably, given the standard of my play in them, I still have some cash left. I have won two of them and finished outside the cash in the other eight. Yes, two wins is decent enough but an ITM of just 20% is really very poor. And oh my God I have been playing badly.

I'm not stealing enough.
I'm wimping out when I am 3-bet pre-flop.
I'm not putting opponents on hands.
I lack focus, concentration and discipline.
I fear I am playing too tight at times (short-handed & high blinds).
I'm getting carried away with some hands, overvaluing them and losing (e.g. ATo on a board of T-Q-J-6-T, I river trips and make a big raise off the back of it only to be shown 89 for the flopped straight. This is one of many examples where I felt invincible when I made the bet and then said "oh ::swear" when the cards are flipped).
I wonder if I am too reliant on PokerTracker (although deep down I don't think I am, although I do think I need a lot more hands on my opponents before I am happy to trust anything PT says).
I'm weak post-flop, especially when I have missed the flop.
I'm suffering hugely from poor information density.

I need to find out where I am going wrong and plug those leaks NOW. In particular I want to look at things like:
how my results vary by site
how my results vary by game type
how I am playing in each position (VPIP, PFR etc)
how often I am stealing, especially when the table is short-handed
how my play varies with the blind levels (am I loosening up as the blinds increase? etc)
what sort of hands I am busting out on and was there anything that could (should) have made me realise I was in a bad spot

In short, I need to completely dismantle my game examine all the little pieces in great detail and then it back together in a better order so that it works properly. The SnGs at these stakes (and the level above plus perhaps the one above that too) should be easy money and I should be able to show a long-term ROI of around 15-20% according to popular opinion and an ITM of 50% shouldn't be beyond me.

I have been playing poker on and off (and maybe that's the problem and I should be playing regularly) for years now. I have read all the major texts and a lot of supplementary volumes too. I feel I understand the game and when I watch a hand I am not involved in I can see others making mistakes such as not shoving when they have a great situation to do so, and that's without knowing any of the cards at the table so I am able to think beyond just the cards I hold. But my performance both recently and much longer term is both disappointing and frustrating me. If I can't reliably beat these low-stakes SnGs I am clearly doing something very wrong and it's a case of identifying those problems and addressing them. If I can't do that then I should seriously consider giving up online poker for good and just play the occasional home game where it's as much about the craic as it is the cards, if not more so.

This afternoon will see some serious soul-searching and number crunching, all part of a game called "spot the leak"...

mathare

11th January 2010, 13:44

11th January 2010
Not one to do things by halves, I spent almost all of yesterday afternoon and evening plus a couple of hours this morning analysing my SnG game looking for weaknesses. I tend to absorb information better when I write it down so to that end I have written a 13-page dossier on my play that I can refer back to as necessary. It captures a lot of the relevant PokerTracker data too so I can see how my play progresses from this point too. It focuses more on pre-flop play than post-flop as I feel any mistakes made pre-flop are going to be more expensive than post-flop errors and also because I have identified a number of leaks in my pre-flop game so I wanted to work on those before looking deeper into my post-flop play. Get the basics right and then I can work on fine-tuning my approach to the game.

The main ways in which I can improve my game are:
tighten up pre-flop in the early levels
reduce steal frequency in early levels, especially from the small blind
open-limping needs to be tightened up considerably from middle position
stop open-raising with so many weak aces from middle position
steal more when we are short-handed, even with trash
raise more pre-flop when heads-up
continuation bet more often heads up

I wondered yesterday if I was playing too tight but the answer is almost certainly that I am not playing tight enough in the opening levels. I questioned whether I was stealing enough - nope, I must steal more often but only when it is worth doing so, i.e. when the blinds are high. I should stop stealing as often in the early levels, especially from the SB. I felt I am weak post-flop especially when I miss the flop but PokerTracker suggests otherwise, which is good to know.

Obviously PokerTracker can't help with the issue of focus/concentration and information density but PokerStars can - play more tables. I ought to be able to play at least 4 tables at the same time without any issue, especially if I tighten up my early game. The online game will always have a much lower information density than the live game as you can't see your opponents, there are no cocktail waitresses, no clanging slot machines and general casino hubbub etc. The way to make up for this is to trade volume for density, play more tables each offering less information than a single live table to build the level of information to be processed up to a similar level as for live play. It's got to be worth a go hasn't it? For now though I will stick with just a couple of tables at once while I absorb the required changes into my game. When they become second nature and my results start to improve I can add more tables into the mix.

I feel quietly confident at the minute. I have spotted a number of leaks in my game and identified simple ways to address them. All good so far but what I really need now is for the cards to go my way too and for my results to improve alongside my game. I don't want to find myself improving my game but hitting a natural downswing that makes it seem like although I am playing better I am doing worse. I need positive reinforcement of these changes to my game. Fingers crossed...

mathare

12th January 2010, 18:41

12th January 2010
So how is my new improved game working out for me? Still mixed results I'm afraid. I feel confident in my game though, which is good, so I am sure it will all click in time.

Since I did that analysis of my SnG play I have played a further 26 $5 tourneys on PokerStars. I won $28.50 from 12 of them yesterday (most of the profit come in the evening) and then lost $27.50 this afternoon across 14 tourneys. It's not that I played badly as such but some things just weren't going my way. Bubbles just weren't bursting whatever I tried, and far too often I ended up all-in against AA and losing those confrontations for the most part, as you'd expect. Short-handed, especially when down to 4 players it seems that I ended up losing fairly dominant, or at least strong, chip positions and I don't really understand how. The fact it is happening suggests I am not picking my spots properly. I am playing aggressively and stealing plenty (too much?) but this is something I clearly need to be aware of and to watch my play at these stages of the game. This tendency to squander decent chip positions is borne out in my recent results too with 11 cash finishes of which 7 have been in 3rd place. Not good enough.

While retaining the overall target of building my bankroll up to $500 (it's currently $48.90 - I am down $9 overall since I started playing again) I have started to set myself little targets along the way to help keep me motivated. For example, I want to get my $5 tourney profit figure into the black - that's the first target as it stands at -$44 at present. I want to increase my ITM to 45% (it's 38.20% at these stakes) and improve my ratio of wins/second/third places which presently reads 8/7/19. I want to improve my profit per hand in middle positions but I haven't yet put any firm figures on this. My main aims are to play more and win more but I feel it is good to have specific goals in mind.

Talking of goals and playing more, I can quantify how much I want to play each day now as circumstances have forced my hand somewhat. I have been steadily working off a bonus of $82.45 and have given up on trying to unlock it several times but now I realise it represents a good chunk of the bankroll I wish to build - over one-sixth of the profit I need to realise to achieve a $500 bankroll so it is worth trying to get this free money. To do that I need to earn a total of 2061 VPPs by 12th February 2010. I currently have 1183. Each SnG is worth 2.75 points so I need to play another 320 SnGs to get those points which means playing an average of 10 a day. I managed 12 this afternoon and will hopefully get some more in this evening but I need to put the hours in the table if I want that $80. I want to put the hours in though as I need this sort of intensive training to help improve my game.

I am back up to 4 tables a time, by the way. I know I said I would be on 2 at a time and I was for a bit but then I decided that I was getting bored and distracted so last night I cranked it up to 4 at a time and I have stuck with that this afternoon too. And it feels fine. I don't think I could manage more, especially when they get short-handed and the action is back on you so quickly, but I have been playing 4 tables comfortably. I am even balancing the required aggression levels when tourneys reach different stages too, say I have one in the early stages and am on the bubble in another. I'm coping perfectly well with that and don't find that my approach to one spills into the other, which is a relief.

mathare

12th January 2010, 20:15

12th January 2010 (part two)
I don't know how significant some of these findings are as I am still dealing with a relatively small number of hands once you start slicing and dicing the data as I have been but I have noticed a few quirks in my PokerTracker stats, such as:

- my BB/hand UTG is better when there are six players left than where there are only five of us
- should my BB/hand really be nagative in the blinds? This is what I have always thought but I am now starting to wonder why I can't profit from the blinds. I am very profitable in these positions without accounting for the blinds but what figures should I be aiming for?
- my BB/hand is positive in all positions except the BB when there are only 4 players left
- is BB/hand a good measure of my performance in any given position/situation or is another stat more telling?
- when the table has only 4 or 5 players left I am raising almost every hand I play (VPIP 26.73%, PFR 23.28%)

Hmm, just had a quick Google about. BB/hand is a sensible stat to be using it seems and it is expected to lose out of the blinds but the amount won without the blinds should be significantly positive, which mine is.

I have just filtered down to hands played on 'Stars only and looked at my positional stats. I'm stronger in earlier position than late positions. Perhaps I am overvaluing marginal holdings pre-flop in later positions when we're short-handed and squadering chips that way. That sounds plausible, and should be a fairly easy leak to plug but I need to make sure I am still stealing often enough.

I am a loser three-handed, according to PokerTracker. This shouldn't come as a surprise as I have more 3rd place finishes than any other but I'd like to work out what I am doing wrong. Looking at the amount won without blinds I am positive (and nicely so) in the blinds but losing from the button. Hmm. Am I pushing too hard, too far and too fast on the button when we're three-handed? Am I deluding myself that I am going for the win when what I am actually doing is risking more chips than I need to and risking them more readily than I should? That's something else to keep in mind. I am not winning many showdowns from the button, just 1 in 3. Small samples and all that but even so, it should be more than that.

Something to take into this evening's games for sure.

mathare

12th January 2010, 23:31

12th January 2010 (part three)
I am now going to parrot out some of the common phrases you'll hear poker players utter:

I don't get dealt pocket Aces as often as other players
I keep getting my good hands outdrawn
They keep hitting lucky rivers against me

And all of these were true this evening. I'm not going to go through anything in any real detail but I remember one hand where I was miles ahead only for him to runner-runner me to make bloody quads. Git! I had what seems like endless outdraws on the damn river too, and got flashed AA a few times when I was all-in. Why do I never have AA in this situations? OK, I had it once this afternoon when some muppet thought A2o was good enough for an all-in first hand :doh

Unlike many other players though I have some evidence to back up some of my moans. The standard small sample disclaimer applies but I have been dealt 22,729 hands of which 1,378 have been pocket pairs. So 1 in 16.49 hands is a pocket pair which is pretty much in line with the maths. Those pairs should be pretty equally split between the ranks, especially in a large sample (which this isn't) so I am expecting to have been dealt AA 106 times, not the 96 times I have had it. Not a huge difference but surely I am due those Aces at some point. I have the same number of pocket Queens too and only 98 pocket Kings. The world owes me some big pocket pairs. Filter this down to just hands played at PokerStars (and thus reducing the sample size, I know) and there have been 1155 pocket pairs giving me an average of 88.8 of each rank. I have had KK 88 times, that's OK, I'll let Stars off for that. But 76 pocket Aces - they owe me 12 or 13 AA starting hands annd 7 or 8 QQ hands too while we're at it. Grrrr.

Tonight's seven tournaments included three 5th place finishes. I seem to be having a lot of those so I looked at my results for PokerStars and broke it down by final position to see if I could learn anything useful.

1st: 22
2nd: 29
3rd: 30
4th: 25
5th: 39
6th: 37
7th: 28
8th: 14
9th: 5

I'm not busting out too early (good) but I am finishing 5th or 6th too often to be healthy. I'm not saying I should be taking more risks and busting out more in 7th or 8th but I should be getting to the bubble more often than I am, then I can push on to finish in the money. The final 5 or 6 seems to be a real black spot for me. I'll have to keep an eye out to see if I can work out what I am doing wrong. Am I getting there with too short a stack? Passing up too many steal opportunities? Stealing too often with trash? It'll be hard to see true patterns until I have a lot more data though.

Apart from the three 5ths I had a win, a 2nd, a 9th and a 7th this evening so a loss of another $2.50. This is proving a lot more challenging than I expected I must admit. I must stick with it though.

mathare

13th January 2010, 13:37

13th January 2010
Those 5th and 6th place finishes are annoying me and I want to try and work out what needs to be done to make it further in the tournament more often so it's back to PokerTracker for another look at the data. I want to focus on regular SnGs played at PokerStars as they not only represent my current game and site of choice but also my most recent play meaning I am getting a more accurate picture of how I am playing now, not how I played last year or whenever. This reduces my sample to just over 19000 hands from 229 tourneys but it's a necessary filter I feel.

Everyone knows that tight is right for the early levels and it became apparent during my last study of my results that I wasn't tight enough during the early stages. I am in danger of covering the same old ground here but it may help reinforce the idea somewhat. I am looking at my performance in each of the blind levels and I am disappointed in what I see.

The first level (10/20) is profitable for me to the tune of 0.18BB/hand. My VPIP is 8.42% with a PFR of 4.48%. I win two out of three showdowns and don't defend my blinds to a steal really. That's all fair enough I think, although as I said the other day I would like to see the VPIP and PFR figures converge a little. Have I been heeding my recent advice to tighten up early doors? Yes, it seems I have as my VPIP is 6.53% and PFR is 4.44% since I did that big dossier on my play. I am attempting very few steals too (7.69%). I still need to tighten up a little more though. I may be overvaluing AJo and have been struggling with TT the few times I have played it so perhaps that one can be dropped too. That's still a much tighter range than I had previously employed in this situation though so by and large my opening level play is fine.

But it's downhill from thereon in. I am losing 0.04BB/hand when the blinds are 15/30 for some reason. My VPIP has stepped up slightly to 9.31% and with it my PFR has upped to 4.91%. I win 55% of showdowns, which is obviously more than I lose, and I am not defending my blinds more than is necessary. They are the overall stats but what about the stats from the last few days? My game is one of 8.56/4.81 with 50% of showdowns won, blinds folded to steal attempts 100% of the time and a steal percentage of 13.64%. Yet recently I am losing 0.06BB/hand, why? If we look at all the hands I have entered the pot with the range is much wider than for the opening level. ATs has been an expensive hand for me as has AJs and pocket pairs including JJ, 99 and even 66. I haven't had too much luck with ATo and AQ (suited and offsuit) either. Small samples but even so it is clear I should be tightening up massively here. Add a date filter in to reduce the sample to just my play since I took my game apart over the weekend and I have indeed tightened up significantly. I have been unlucky with KK and am losing heavily with AQs and AQo though. With so few of each hand played in these circumstances though it is impossible to say for certain whether any specific hands should be dropped. I just need to get into the long-term building up more data and keep in mind that I need to continue to play tightly. Take out those big losses with KK and AQ and it puts a completely different spin on the figures. Perhaps my play in the second level is not as bad as I feared and a bit of bad luck in a small sample is making it seem that way.

25/50 next and this is my worst level of all of them with a loss of 0.07BB/hand overall. VPIP is 10.55% with a PFR of 6.99% so I am loosening up but only slightly as the blinds increase slowly. That looks alright to me. I am winning less than 50% of showdowns though (48.96%). I am folding my blinds to a steal regularly though, which feels like good news. It's my two pair hands that are doing for me on the showdowns it seems. It's difficult to say whether this is due to bad play or bad luck but they are costing me money at this level. What of my recent play though, have I tidied things up a bit since I gave myself that kick up the rear? VPIP of 10.22% with a PFR of 7.11% means I am playing about the same as I always have at this level. I have won 50% of showdowns in the last few days though so things have improved slightly on that front. I am giving my blinds up without a fuss and attempting few steals of my own. On the surface of it that all looks OK so why am I losing 0.03BB/hand? It is bad luck like on the previous level? I've been burned heavily a couple of times with two pair hands including one that began life as A8o. Why was I playing that? It was in the SB so I hope I limped into a multi-way pot with amazing pot odds....no. I called from the SB with just one previous limper. That's rubbish play that ended up costing me 8.5BB! That hand is one of several weak offsuited Aces I have played at this level so I need to cut those out. I have also had a couple of TTs go against me so I should watch my play of that one and similar pocket pairs that readily face overcards on the flop. So it's a general tightening up that is required at this level, more than I have done already.

The next level is 50/100 and it's a breakeven one for me overall. My VPIP is up to 14.24% with PFRs coming in 12.02% of the time. Those figures are much closer together, I like that. I win just under 50% of showdowns (49.69%), defend my blinds a little more often (80.12% fold BB to steal, 89.19% for SB) but am concerned I may be stealing too regularly at 26.27%, almost double my figure for the previous level. It's hard to say when viewing the stats in this way because it's not clear how many players are left at the table - these figures are just averages for all hands played at this level regardless of how many players were left in. My range has opened up a bit for hands I am willing to play but has it opened too much? Let's look at the hands I have played recently... With a VPIP of 14.71% and a PFR of 12.61% it seems I am playing as wide a range now as I ever was but losing too many showdowns (42.86% won). It's broadway hands doing the damage including QTs, QJs, AJo and AQs plus small pairs such as 22 and 33. I'd say I should be tightening up further but this needs to be based on things other than the blinds so we're running into territory where this approach of examing my stats for each blind level starts to fail.

I'll finish this examination of play at each blind level with a quick dash through the remaining levels. 75/150 is a slight winner for me while 100/200 is a slight loser. Above that the sample is too small to be meaningful in any way. I should be winning more showdowns at 100/200 though, a sign I am overvaluing some holdings. Recently (since the last big analysis of my game) both 75/150 and 100/200 are breakeven levels for me but there is still room to win more showdowns at both levels. Don't read too much into that though as we are dealing with very few hands all told.

I wanted to get an idea of how I played as the blinds increased and the above gives me that. I'm OK on the first couple of levels but could tighten up more on the 25/50 level. If I am squandering too many chips there I could be leaving myself in a poor position when the table gets short-handed, an area I want to look at in more detail now.

I said above that all those 5th and 6th places were doing my head in so let's look at my play when there are just 5 or 6 players left and see if I can work out where I am going wrong. I have an inkling that I am getting down to 10-12xBB and panicking faster and more extremely than many of my rivals at this level and this is leading me to bust out with marginal holdings against overcards. That is to say I am picking the wrong time, and the wrong hands with which to make a stand. I have filtered the data down to hands with 5 or 6 players at the table and by looking at the breakdown by blind level it is quite obvious that I have a problem with the 25/50 level. A loss of 0.16BB/hand. And marginal hands seem to be the problem indeed. Significant losses with medium pocket pairs such as JJ and TT and problems with hands like QJs. My range has tightened up over the past few days but I have had big losses (my full stack) with JJ and TT in that time. The TT hand I overvalued when one overcard came on the flop, a Jack, and my opponent held JTo. I had him 65/35 pre-flop so that's not too bad. I made a strong bet on the flop that he just called and shoved on the turn (1245 into a pot of 1425 so not excessive) with 11 outs. I was counting on him not having the Jack or a bigger pair in the hole, obviously. Whoops. With the Jacks I raised to 3xBB pre-flop and got shoved on for around 30xBB total. And I called. Erm, what was I hoping he had? He's got AQ+ here at least. He had AA and doubled up through me. These things happen but that was a loose call. I should have folded and just taken the 3xBB hit. I had a stack of 45xBB so why squander two-thirds of it on a non-premium hand? Dumb. Cut out such plays - and I need to! - and things don't look anywhere near as bad.

But plays like that are relatively few and fare between - they aren't the major reason I am finishing 5th or 6th so often are they? Why, when the table is short-handed, is everyone outlasting me? If I can get past that 25/50 level I do alright. I make 0.06BB/hand at 50/100 and am breakeven at 75/150. At 100/200 I obviously start to panic a bit more as I lose an average of 0.04BB/hand. I need to dig a bit more into the numbers to see what is going on and where I am going wrong (and also what I am doing right). My VPIP increases steadily along with the blinds, as does my PFR although as always the two could be closer so I need to limp less, especially with hands that don't really justify my entry into the pot. I am winning only 31.58% of showdowns at 25/50 - that's incredibly low suggesting I am taking far too many hands to the end. I don't seem to be getting my share of flushes and straights - or perhaps I am not giving myself a chance to get them by not playing the right hands - but I am overvaluing two pair again, often a middling pocket pair against an overcard that has paired or an overpair. My straights aren't holding up very well either but I am conscious of the sample size once more.

This is getting frustrating, what am I doing wrong? Where should I be looking to try to find my short-handed leaks? Positions! I'm better in late than early but profitable everywhere except the blinds and even then I am showing a significant profit without the blinds. Ah, but do I lose more from the blinds short-handed than at a full table? My overall averages are -0.16BB/hand from the BB and -0.09BB/hand for the SB. When there are 7 or more of us at the table those figures are -0.23 and -0.16. Short-handed (6 to 5 players) they are -0.21 and -0.16. These figures rise when we get to the bubble and beyond it seems. Hmm. What about my steal percentages? Aha! I have attempted to steal in 21.47% of cases from one off the button, 26.40% on the button and 50.00% in the SB. I have had 320 steal opportunities from the small blind and raised in 160 of those. Eek! It's been a profitable move but only just at 0.01BB/hand compared to over 0.5BB/hand from the other positions. A deeper look at those 160 hands seems in order. I've been unlucky with a few hands such as AJs (rivered the nut flush but was up against an unlikely flopped full house), KK (v A8o & he flopped an Ace) and have got on the wrong side of some coin-flips but that will all equal out in time. It's the 64o, the J8s, T7o and the like I need to be cutting out unless I have a very strong read on my opponent and know he will fold his big blind to my steal. That means I need plenty of hands on him and also to make sure I am risking enough chips to make the steal look strong enough to get through but not so many that I am needlessly squandering chips when faced with a better hand. Ooh heck, I have just realised that over the past few days I have stolen 100% of the time from the SB when short-handed. That's every hand out of the 24 in which I have had the chance, so 83o has been just as worthy a candidate as AA. Hmmm, I don't like that much.

I don't want to swamp myself with too many changes to consider at any one time. I will be far better off improving my game bit by bit so what are the main points to take from this analysis?
- ease off with the stealing from the SB when short-handed. Make sure your hand has some sort of merit to it before even considering this move
- tighten up more during 25/50 play
- big re-raises mean something, don't call them without a premium hand unless your stack size forces you into it

I feel buoyed by that. I like finding flaws in my game as it means that I am doing something wrong and when that's the case you can take positive action to address the problem. When it is just the natural variation in the game getting at you there is nothing you can really do about it, you just have to suck it down and get on with it. But with this I have something I can take to the tables, things to be aware of while playing and conscious changes I can make to how I approach the game.