And what you've all been waiting for.... epic fail:
If anyone wants me to post some specific hands, I can, but I don't want to turn this into a bad beat blog.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Deflated
Okay, I played another 3 hours this evening. Mostly chasing losses for the last hour. To say I lost would be an understatement. Down more than 6 buy-ins. Combined with earlier today that puts me down 12 buy-ins over the last 5 days. Pretty horrible. Quickly glancing over my hand histories, there are definitely some coolers (QQ vs. AA for 170bb, twice my A-high flush was river boated, and a handful of two and three outers)... however, I didn't play great. I played better than most donkeys there, but I still played bad. I know I made some dumb 3bet calls out of position, didn't take my image into account against a few opponents, and a host of other dumb things off the top of my head. Overall, I'm very upset at both how I'm running and how I'm playing. The plan for tomorrow at this point is to review my hand histories of the last few days (something I've neglected for the last 2-3 days) and watch a lot of instructional videos, maybe post some hands on 2+2, but take a break from actually playing. Christmas day I'm going to try to squeeze two 1.5-2 hour sessions into my schedule. I'll avoid going over two hours in either session, as well as stop playing if during any session I drop 3 buy-ins. At that point I will have 10K hands (one goal met, sadly the 5ptbb/100 is impossible at this point), and will be able to look over any confusing hands, try to find any consistent dumb plays, and see if I can find anything weird in my stats. I'll reevaluate from there.
And what you've all been waiting for.... epic fail:
If anyone wants me to post some specific hands, I can, but I don't want to turn this into a bad beat blog.
And what you've all been waiting for.... epic fail:
If anyone wants me to post some specific hands, I can, but I don't want to turn this into a bad beat blog.
Running really bad again...
Down 4.5 buy-ins today so far. I've made a few dumb calls vs. short stacks (die, short stacks, die!), however I think overall it's mostly me running pretty bad. 5 big hands:
Two vs. the same guy. A TAG-y guy with good stats kept trying to outplay me, which I would respect, except he kept getting really lucky. He called my CO raise from the button with A2 against my AJ. Of course both an A and a 2 got on the board and I stacked off. We were really going at it, both making... odd, thought not necessarily bad plays, and I got him to shove a gutshot straight draw with a weak backdoor flush into my top pair (I also had his high card dominated) for 150bb. I was an ~80% favorite, but his gutshot got there.
My QQ was cracked by A2. There were actually 2 Aces on the board which really decreased the odds of him actually having one, or I think I could have actually found a fold.
My KK hit top set with a K on the turn on a board with three clubs. He had the Ace high flush, and I didn't fill up.
My TT got to the river on an 8QQ6Q board. He just called pre-flop, so there was no way he had AA or KK; JJ was possible but not likely. I had a bad feeling, but called his river re-shove to see quads. It's really hard to get away from a house vs. quads, but I'm still not sure if I like my play or not.
I'll probably play another 1.5-2 hours this evening before we head to Delaware, you'll all get another update then.
Two vs. the same guy. A TAG-y guy with good stats kept trying to outplay me, which I would respect, except he kept getting really lucky. He called my CO raise from the button with A2 against my AJ. Of course both an A and a 2 got on the board and I stacked off. We were really going at it, both making... odd, thought not necessarily bad plays, and I got him to shove a gutshot straight draw with a weak backdoor flush into my top pair (I also had his high card dominated) for 150bb. I was an ~80% favorite, but his gutshot got there.
My QQ was cracked by A2. There were actually 2 Aces on the board which really decreased the odds of him actually having one, or I think I could have actually found a fold.
My KK hit top set with a K on the turn on a board with three clubs. He had the Ace high flush, and I didn't fill up.
My TT got to the river on an 8QQ6Q board. He just called pre-flop, so there was no way he had AA or KK; JJ was possible but not likely. I had a bad feeling, but called his river re-shove to see quads. It's really hard to get away from a house vs. quads, but I'm still not sure if I like my play or not.
I'll probably play another 1.5-2 hours this evening before we head to Delaware, you'll all get another update then.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Ugh... bad day....
Today I started out running amazing. I flopped quads vs. an opponent's AA, and stacked some other donk within 10 minutes of starting, and within an hour or so I was up 4 buy-ins. That trend did not continue however. I started losing a lot of small hands before getting sucked out on. I decided that was a good time to stop. Up $24 for the day.
This evening I was feeling a little tired, but I wanted to play more (and I had only been up like 7 hours after sleeping 8, so I shouldn't have been tired). I immediately started out playing badly and pretty much giving away a buy-in. Then variance really kicked in... after running hot for 3 days, the deck turned ice cold. Not only did everything either get cracked (AA x2, KK x1, QQ x1), but every other made hand seemed to be folded to without getting any money in. All my bluffs seemed to be getting called off as well. I won't pretened I played amazingly - I didn't - but the cards certainly didn't help matters. Oh well, enough rambling... a graph of just today (2000 hands!):
Pretty brutal, huh? Screwed up my graph of the month as well.
I'm in the red again, -$7.75, running at -0.57ptbb/100. However, without Friday, I'm still running at 5.55ptbb/100. That, while not fantastic, is pretty good consider how long it has been since I 've played (not to mention that the games have only gotten harder, or that the rake is significantly higher proportionatly that at any other level).
Any questions or words of encouragement are welcome.
This evening I was feeling a little tired, but I wanted to play more (and I had only been up like 7 hours after sleeping 8, so I shouldn't have been tired). I immediately started out playing badly and pretty much giving away a buy-in. Then variance really kicked in... after running hot for 3 days, the deck turned ice cold. Not only did everything either get cracked (AA x2, KK x1, QQ x1), but every other made hand seemed to be folded to without getting any money in. All my bluffs seemed to be getting called off as well. I won't pretened I played amazingly - I didn't - but the cards certainly didn't help matters. Oh well, enough rambling... a graph of just today (2000 hands!):
Pretty brutal, huh? Screwed up my graph of the month as well.
I'm in the red again, -$7.75, running at -0.57ptbb/100. However, without Friday, I'm still running at 5.55ptbb/100. That, while not fantastic, is pretty good consider how long it has been since I 've played (not to mention that the games have only gotten harder, or that the rake is significantly higher proportionatly that at any other level).
Any questions or words of encouragement are welcome.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
My first poker update
This post covering 3 days, so it might be a little long... I’ll try to keep it concise. As previously mentioned, Friday was my first hand of poker in a good 4 months, maybe closer to 5 months. Also, as I said before, I am playing .05/.10 no limit hold ‘em on Full Tilt Poker. Skip to the graph if you don’t feel like reading.
The weekend didn’t start off pretty. I was rusty. I made a lot of bad plays. I usually take a break from playing after I lose 4 buy-ins in a session, but somehow I was down nearly 6 before I even looked at how I was doing. I hadn’t been playing long and knew I had to shake off the rust, so I decided that if I went below 8 buy-ins; I was down $78.60 at one point, but I never $80. Eventually I worked my way back to “only” down $50 to the penny. Discouraged I re-read some classic 2+2 posts, as well as looking at some newly posted hands. Things made a little more sense than they did before, I think. I played for another two of three hours that night and did slightly better, but still lost somewhere between $7-8 before closing off Full Tilt. Then I logged on to Deuces Cracked and started watching the “Unlimited Texas Hold Them” by WiltOnTilt; there is so much useful information there. Some stuff that would have went over my head a year ago is really smacking me in the face now. Specifically I’m paying much more attention to both where the raises are coming from and I do in response to them. This is something that I thought I understood... but now I really do.
Saturday I started off by watching another video before going through all of my big hands from the night before in Hold’em Manager. After that it was time for a quick 2-hour session. I played noticeably better than the night before and made about $8.50 before taking a break. Some food, hand review of the session, and a WiltOnTilt video later and I was off to the tables again. This time I managed to win $10 in about 90 minutes before getting tired. I was only down $38 and some change at this point.
This morning (afternoon) started out great. I started off by stacking a donk almost instantly. From there I continued to run well; I utilized my fold equity and hit my combo draws when I was called for the most part. I in general played very well (amazingly well compared to Friday), in addition to running bad. Looking at the graph, I think I was only stacked twice over a total of three hours of play, compared to me stacking 5 opponents. One of the times I got stacked was for 150 big blinds near the end of the session when I raised AQo in position, and my opponent called with 55 from the blinds. The flop was Q5x, the turn was irrelevant, and the river was a Q, giving me trips and him a full house. I bet three streets of what I thought was value against a calling station only to find out I valuetowned myself. Of course he left the table within seconds of this happening. Oh well, overall, I’m up a little under 6 buy-ins for the day. Ship it!
And of course, the graph:
My stats over the weekend were 19.2/17/3.28 winning 2.22ptbb/100. Ignoring Friday, I’ve been playing 18.7/16.7/3.46 running 16ptbb/100 (running hot, obviously). That’s around $11.60/hour before rakeback – ship ship.
But my goal is a modest win rate of 5/100 ptbb/100 (10 big blinds/100 hands). That equates to $3.25/hour assuming 325 hands/hour (it’s probably more than that, but you want to be conservative with estimates). Add in about $2/hour from rakeback. If I meet this goal, and play ~20 hours a week until school starts, I should be able to get to 25NL before school starts.
Poker Goals
10K hands by new year’s day
5/100 ptbb/100 (10 big blinds/100 hands)
Finish DeucesCracked: Unlimited Texas Hold Them Season 1 + 2
$70 in Rake Back for January
Stop looking at the session stats/graph every 5 minutes while playing
Non-Poker Goals
Finish Get Smart Season 1
Finish cleaning up and cleaning out bedroom in Hillsborough
Read or listen to one book
Wish me luck, all!
The weekend didn’t start off pretty. I was rusty. I made a lot of bad plays. I usually take a break from playing after I lose 4 buy-ins in a session, but somehow I was down nearly 6 before I even looked at how I was doing. I hadn’t been playing long and knew I had to shake off the rust, so I decided that if I went below 8 buy-ins; I was down $78.60 at one point, but I never $80. Eventually I worked my way back to “only” down $50 to the penny. Discouraged I re-read some classic 2+2 posts, as well as looking at some newly posted hands. Things made a little more sense than they did before, I think. I played for another two of three hours that night and did slightly better, but still lost somewhere between $7-8 before closing off Full Tilt. Then I logged on to Deuces Cracked and started watching the “Unlimited Texas Hold Them” by WiltOnTilt; there is so much useful information there. Some stuff that would have went over my head a year ago is really smacking me in the face now. Specifically I’m paying much more attention to both where the raises are coming from and I do in response to them. This is something that I thought I understood... but now I really do.
Saturday I started off by watching another video before going through all of my big hands from the night before in Hold’em Manager. After that it was time for a quick 2-hour session. I played noticeably better than the night before and made about $8.50 before taking a break. Some food, hand review of the session, and a WiltOnTilt video later and I was off to the tables again. This time I managed to win $10 in about 90 minutes before getting tired. I was only down $38 and some change at this point.
This morning (afternoon) started out great. I started off by stacking a donk almost instantly. From there I continued to run well; I utilized my fold equity and hit my combo draws when I was called for the most part. I in general played very well (amazingly well compared to Friday), in addition to running bad. Looking at the graph, I think I was only stacked twice over a total of three hours of play, compared to me stacking 5 opponents. One of the times I got stacked was for 150 big blinds near the end of the session when I raised AQo in position, and my opponent called with 55 from the blinds. The flop was Q5x, the turn was irrelevant, and the river was a Q, giving me trips and him a full house. I bet three streets of what I thought was value against a calling station only to find out I valuetowned myself. Of course he left the table within seconds of this happening. Oh well, overall, I’m up a little under 6 buy-ins for the day. Ship it!
And of course, the graph:
My stats over the weekend were 19.2/17/3.28 winning 2.22ptbb/100. Ignoring Friday, I’ve been playing 18.7/16.7/3.46 running 16ptbb/100 (running hot, obviously). That’s around $11.60/hour before rakeback – ship ship.
But my goal is a modest win rate of 5/100 ptbb/100 (10 big blinds/100 hands). That equates to $3.25/hour assuming 325 hands/hour (it’s probably more than that, but you want to be conservative with estimates). Add in about $2/hour from rakeback. If I meet this goal, and play ~20 hours a week until school starts, I should be able to get to 25NL before school starts.
Poker Goals
10K hands by new year’s day
5/100 ptbb/100 (10 big blinds/100 hands)
Finish DeucesCracked: Unlimited Texas Hold Them Season 1 + 2
$70 in Rake Back for January
Stop looking at the session stats/graph every 5 minutes while playing
Non-Poker Goals
Finish Get Smart Season 1
Finish cleaning up and cleaning out bedroom in Hillsborough
Read or listen to one book
Wish me luck, all!
An Introduction of Sorts
I've contemplated doing this a few times in the past, but have never gotten around to it until now. My goal for this blog is to keep me concentrating on poker. This blog should keep me thinking about poker, help me confront losing streaks, and hopefully avoid bad play via the punishment of embarrassment. If you are reading this, you are either my friend in real life, or you play poker (at this point, probably micro-stakes, like myself at this time).I'm going to try to keep the writing fairly easy to understand for my non-poker playing friends. My hope is that it will be somewhat like Rounders in this regard; I won't explain every little detail, but it should be easy enough to figure out through context clues. This won't have posts about what I did last Saturday afternoon with my best friends - I'll start a real blog if I get that bored - this blog will be strictly about poker.
I guess I should also include a brief version of my poker history here. I'll try to keep this really short, but this might be long. Sorry if anything is off in the timeline - I think I've got it mostly straight.
I first became interested in poker in late 2003 or early 2004, around the time of Chris Moneymaker's big win, though it was Rounders that actually showed me poker for the first time. I was hooked instantly, and it wasn't too long before I was putting a great deal of my spare time into poker. After a few months I ran up 3 million in play chips on Poker Stars. Eventually I convinced my mom to deposit some real money. That real money was soon gone. This happened a few times before I started getting the hang of it. At some point I started exclusively playing Sit-n-Go's (SNG); it's like playing a poker tournament and skipping to the final table. 9 men enter, top 3 get paid. I played these, probably break even, for about a year. During my senior year in high school ('05-'06), I decided to take poker seriously. Utilizing 2+2 (the best poker forum around), talking with friends, and a LOT of practice, I went from single tabling $5.50 SNGs, to 8-tabling $60 SNGs by graduation. My ROI wasn't mind blowing, but it was solid. This is the time when I got most of the cool FPP stuff - 50" plasma, a few ipods, etc.. I also cashed out all that I put in - I am now free rolling. My one regret of this time is not playing more and not continuing to improve. I got complacent with how much I was winning, and got satisfied with not playing all that much. If I had played 30 or 40 hours a week February-August, I could have more than paid for college in advance, and be a mini-balla while I was at it.
Anyways, over the summer I went on a nasty downswing that discouraged me from playing a bit, in combination with two or three vacations and preparing for college, not to much poker got done. It was a losing summer as well. I decided as I was starting my first semester to switch from SNGs to ring games. Though a good idea overall, I decided to jump straight to 100NL. That was idiotic. I literally had NO idea of how to play post flop poker. Yet, I maintained a slightly positive, though swingy, ptbb/100... somehow. Then I started getting exam grades back. It wasn't good. I wasn't flunking out, but my grades were still bad. I started focusing more time on school and less on poker. Around this time the UIGEA legislation passed. Not too long afterward my winrate started going into the red. But I was dumb, I didn't improve or move down, I just kept losing. This pattern of losing continued into the next semester, though I played even less, determined to improve my GPA (which I succeeeded in). That summer, Poker Stars had a huge bonus, trying to encourage new customers in the post-legislation environment. Being a Super Nova, this was a huge bonus... I played a lot. This is when I came to the conclusion "hey, you know, I'm not as good at cash games as I was at SNGs." At some point I dropped down to 50NL, but I still played horribly and wasn't improving much (though in my defense, I really was running bad at the time as well). At the end of the summer. even after the bonus cleared, I was down a few thousand. It was about 35 buy-ins (a mix of 100NL and 50NL, weight toward the 100NL, sadly). Over the last year and a half I've made other half-assed attempts of playing, usually 25NL or 50NL, but would always get distracted with school, switch to Omaha or Multi-Table Tournaments, or just run bad (and/or just played bad) and quit. I don't want that to happen this time.
I'm down to about 3K (which is 3K more than I put in, keep in mind), spread acrosss sites. I could just hop on Poker Stars and play 50NL or 100NL. But I want to be a winner again. Like I was in '05-'06. The games are clearly harder now, but I learned it once and I can do it again. I've subscribed to DeucesCracked (video tutorials - highly recommened), and downloaded the newest version of Hold'em Manager (keeps track of all my hands)... and of course the free stuff - PokerStove, random videos off 2+2, etc.. I had a little over $300 on Full Tilt. I'm not depositing on there again, so I know I'll take playing micro-stakes on there more seriously than I would on Poker Stars (where I'm sure "it's just 10 bucks" would run through my head many times each night). I plan on taking this money through 50NL, maybe higher, within a few months. Wish me luck.
This is a good time to mention that if you don't have any money online, and you are thinking about depositing - TALK TO ME BEFORE MAKING AN ACCOUNT. I will hook you up with Rakeback (only donks play without it where available), specific (reliable) sites with good bonus oppurtunities, and the right site for you based on what you want to do. And then keep talking with me - the best way to improve is talking theory with other players.
This took entirely too long to write. I'll post my results of the last few days later tonight or tomorrow.
Edit: fixed a few errors and added more links, it being the first post and all. And either add my RSS feed or click the follow me thing at the top right of the page if you want to keep up with my posts
I guess I should also include a brief version of my poker history here. I'll try to keep this really short, but this might be long. Sorry if anything is off in the timeline - I think I've got it mostly straight.
I first became interested in poker in late 2003 or early 2004, around the time of Chris Moneymaker's big win, though it was Rounders that actually showed me poker for the first time. I was hooked instantly, and it wasn't too long before I was putting a great deal of my spare time into poker. After a few months I ran up 3 million in play chips on Poker Stars. Eventually I convinced my mom to deposit some real money. That real money was soon gone. This happened a few times before I started getting the hang of it. At some point I started exclusively playing Sit-n-Go's (SNG); it's like playing a poker tournament and skipping to the final table. 9 men enter, top 3 get paid. I played these, probably break even, for about a year. During my senior year in high school ('05-'06), I decided to take poker seriously. Utilizing 2+2 (the best poker forum around), talking with friends, and a LOT of practice, I went from single tabling $5.50 SNGs, to 8-tabling $60 SNGs by graduation. My ROI wasn't mind blowing, but it was solid. This is the time when I got most of the cool FPP stuff - 50" plasma, a few ipods, etc.. I also cashed out all that I put in - I am now free rolling. My one regret of this time is not playing more and not continuing to improve. I got complacent with how much I was winning, and got satisfied with not playing all that much. If I had played 30 or 40 hours a week February-August, I could have more than paid for college in advance, and be a mini-balla while I was at it.
Anyways, over the summer I went on a nasty downswing that discouraged me from playing a bit, in combination with two or three vacations and preparing for college, not to much poker got done. It was a losing summer as well. I decided as I was starting my first semester to switch from SNGs to ring games. Though a good idea overall, I decided to jump straight to 100NL. That was idiotic. I literally had NO idea of how to play post flop poker. Yet, I maintained a slightly positive, though swingy, ptbb/100... somehow. Then I started getting exam grades back. It wasn't good. I wasn't flunking out, but my grades were still bad. I started focusing more time on school and less on poker. Around this time the UIGEA legislation passed. Not too long afterward my winrate started going into the red. But I was dumb, I didn't improve or move down, I just kept losing. This pattern of losing continued into the next semester, though I played even less, determined to improve my GPA (which I succeeeded in). That summer, Poker Stars had a huge bonus, trying to encourage new customers in the post-legislation environment. Being a Super Nova, this was a huge bonus... I played a lot. This is when I came to the conclusion "hey, you know, I'm not as good at cash games as I was at SNGs." At some point I dropped down to 50NL, but I still played horribly and wasn't improving much (though in my defense, I really was running bad at the time as well). At the end of the summer. even after the bonus cleared, I was down a few thousand. It was about 35 buy-ins (a mix of 100NL and 50NL, weight toward the 100NL, sadly). Over the last year and a half I've made other half-assed attempts of playing, usually 25NL or 50NL, but would always get distracted with school, switch to Omaha or Multi-Table Tournaments, or just run bad (and/or just played bad) and quit. I don't want that to happen this time.
I'm down to about 3K (which is 3K more than I put in, keep in mind), spread acrosss sites. I could just hop on Poker Stars and play 50NL or 100NL. But I want to be a winner again. Like I was in '05-'06. The games are clearly harder now, but I learned it once and I can do it again. I've subscribed to DeucesCracked (video tutorials - highly recommened), and downloaded the newest version of Hold'em Manager (keeps track of all my hands)... and of course the free stuff - PokerStove, random videos off 2+2, etc.. I had a little over $300 on Full Tilt. I'm not depositing on there again, so I know I'll take playing micro-stakes on there more seriously than I would on Poker Stars (where I'm sure "it's just 10 bucks" would run through my head many times each night). I plan on taking this money through 50NL, maybe higher, within a few months. Wish me luck.
This is a good time to mention that if you don't have any money online, and you are thinking about depositing - TALK TO ME BEFORE MAKING AN ACCOUNT. I will hook you up with Rakeback (only donks play without it where available), specific (reliable) sites with good bonus oppurtunities, and the right site for you based on what you want to do. And then keep talking with me - the best way to improve is talking theory with other players.
This took entirely too long to write. I'll post my results of the last few days later tonight or tomorrow.
Edit: fixed a few errors and added more links, it being the first post and all. And either add my RSS feed or click the follow me thing at the top right of the page if you want to keep up with my posts
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