Running bad, moving down

11 days into the month and I'm still running horribly. I've said a few times in the last month that I was going to move back down, however, each time I did so I proceeded to go on a heater and/or get a rakeback payment that put my roll back up to an acceptable amount. When I moved up I said I would move down when my bankroll went below $1,000 (starting at ~$1,500, so losing 10 buy-ins, after rakeback, bonuses, etc.) - that finally happened today.

I know I'm clearly not playing perfect - I probably have a ton of leaks that I haven't even realized yet - but I'm running horrible. I just started to review hands from the start of the month until now; I've been stacked 16 times: 4 times questionably/bad (although one time I was actually 2-1 favorite, I don't like my play), and 12 times I was coolered/sucked out upon. You can't do anything about set over set, KK vs QJ on KT9r, etc. That's poker.

In any event, I'm not going to let this discourage me too much. I'm going to continue working to plug leaks. I'm reviewing my hand histories now, will start watching more DeucesCracked videos this week, and begin coaching on Sunday (followed by Two Months Two Million on G4 - check it out). Wish me luck.

Graph:

10 buy-ins below EV, not even taking into account coolers. Sick.

July results...

... in a word... not good. A good number of swings in both directions, but mostly downward. I finished the month down 11.5 buy-ins; it ended with an 8 buy-in loss immediately after a 12 buy-in heater. Even after rakeback I am down $90.47 (it's hard to see an upswing at the very end of the graph) for the month.

Graph:

I don't think I ran well, but I'd be being ridiculous if I said I played perfect and ran horribly. That clearly isn't the case. However, I finished the month a lot better than when I started, without a doubt. Playing 40k hands and watching a ton of poker videos will do that. There are also a number of things I am/will be doing to improve as well. I'm also starting to talk poker on AIM more, which is great. I've been making a point of going over hand histories even more so than I did in the past (lately it's been every single session, which is a good thing, but might not be realistic to continue doing). And I finally signed-up for coaching (TubaSteve's group coaching), which I'm pretty excited about. So, despite losing a lot, I'm kinda excited for poker in the future.

There were also some upsides for the month. I had a lot of fun in non-poker. I also went to Atlantic City for 4 days and made a decent profit, though I was ridiculously card dead for the last 2 days and cut my profits in half. Being card dead live is horrible (only 20-30 hands an hour), but playing one hand at a time definitely lets you think through all of your decisions and think through hands more deeply. I also managed to make Iron Man on Full Tilt Poker (it's their frequent player thing) for the first time ever, which I thought was cool. And, as I said, my poker playing improved a great deal. A big part of my improvement, I think, came in my mindset. I tilted much much less, and was generally okay when I had took a nasty beat or had a horrible session. I attribute a lot of this to The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment. At the start I think I was... skeptical. I was excited when it was announced, but wasn't really impressed initially. I wasn't really taking it seriously. But somewhere along the way I started picking out little pieces of information and ideas that really sunk in. I'm definitely going to watch it again after the final episode comes out in 2 weeks.

Hopefully August will treat me a bit better, though. I think I will be a bit more busy so 40k hands might not happen, but I will still be aiming for Iron Man on FTP again.

Wish me luck,

Jacob Negley

The last 3 days... fml

Down nearly $650. About $400 below expectation. I was just slightly up on the month 4 days ago, so I'm now down $400-500 on the month. FML. Breaking-even is starting to look optimistic at this point. I guess I'm really making up for last month. I wish the poker gods would have done this before I moved up, though.

I'm alive... and I've been playing poker lately

Since I haven't updated this in 4 months, I guess I'll describe the last 4 months. Everything online is $25NL.

March: Practically no poker. I was crushed by exams (and real life in general). I did, however, go to Atlantic City for the first time after my 21st birthday. I was there 4 days but only played poker for 3 of them. At the end of the weekend I was up around $70 from playing 1/2 No Limit Hold 'em. Not fantastic, but I'll take it.

April: Literally no poker. I did watch some DeucesCracked videos, though.

May: Lots of videos, little poker. I played 3 sessions the entire month. I dropped $142 over the first 2 sessions and won back $48 of it in the last.

June: No poker until almost the end of my summer lecture (though, again, there were a fair amount of videos prior to this point). But I've tried to make-up for that in the last 2 weeks. I progressed from strictly 4-tabling to playing around 6-8 tables. This let me get in nearly 15k hands. And, in short, I ran good. I was pretty much in God mode for awhile there. I didn't suck out too many times, but I was very rarely sucked out upon and all the coolers seemed to be in my favor. Though, there was a 10 buy-in downswing encompassed in a 7 or 8k hand break-even stretch. In the end I ran 11 buy-ins above expectation, booking a cool 28 buy-ins (just over $700) while running at 9.6ptbb/100.

I plan to play 25NL until at least Friday (rakeback day), after that I think I'm finally going to take a shot at 50NL. I'm definitely rolled for a shot (30 buy-ins), but I'm kinda afraid that I'm going to get doomswitched at 50NL after running so hot at 25NL. I think I'm going to move-up on either Friday or Saturday and stay there if I don't run bad. If I drop 5 buy-ins I'll probably move down and rebuild. At this rate I'm definitely on course for 100NL (or higher) by the end of the year.

And, what you all really just want to see:

February Results

It’s the last of the month and, to be honest, I’m a little disappointed by the results. But first, let’s see how I did on my goals:

Poker Goals:
-17K hands (not quite 20K, but an acceptable amount)
-Moved up to 25NL
-4PTBB/100
-DeucesCracked Videos: Finished Turning the Corner, watched some random videos, and started The +EV-olution of a Poker Player
-Cardrunners Videos: Watched every six max Raptor and CTS video, the Phil Galfond video, and started watching You Too Can Crush the Micros

Non-poker Goals:
-Got an A on all 3 exams (94, 94, and 98)
-Finished Wonderfalls
-Did not watch an episode of Get Smart
-About halfway through The Black Swan, did not start No Excusses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner

And let’s look at how my stats for the year are.


So why am I disappointed? Well... let’s see the graph:


Yeah. A $200 (8 buy-in) downswing. For the first 10K hands of 25NL I ran at over 7PTBB/100... the last 2K hands have changed that to barely 4. That’s depressing enough, but it’s even worse knowing that I tilted off probably 3 of the buy-ins. There is nothing worse than losing money and knowing that it is your fault because you did something stupid.

So, next months goals.

Poker:
-20K hands
-4PTBB/100
-DeucesCracked: finish +EV-olution of a Poker Player, Hand Readers, Dear FoxwoodFiend
-Cardrunners: Finish You Too Can Crush the Micros seasons 1 and 2

Moving up to 50NL would be nice, but I want to have a bigger bankroll before I move up this time, to be able to better deal with the swings (mentally, at least).

Non-poker goals:
-Maintain an A in all of my classes; don’t go to lab at the wrong time
-Watch Get Smart (hopefully finish it, but that isn’t likely)
-Play Little Big Planet for the first time in over a month... maybe even beat it
-Get some reading done

Thanks for reading, and wish me luck at the tables.

Mid-month update

Hey all, this month has been fairly swingy. At the start of the month I decided to focus on deep stack play since my roll was big enough and I felt as though they were more profitable and that I had a good edge in the games. I went on a big heater early on, but then a brutal downswing followed by a long break-even period. Despite this I wasn't discouraged, to be honest. On Friday, after getting my rakeback (weekly rakeback at FTP for the win), I decided to move up to 25NL. I ran well Friday (up over $50 despite losing a ~$70 pot with KK all-in pre-flop vs. AQ), horrible on Saturday (nothing seemed to be working, massive suckouts all around), and great today (no huge suckouts, but a cooler or two in my favor and no suck outs on me).

Overall, I've run bad this month but am still making a decent profit. I'm down over 3 buy-ins below expectation at 10NL and almost 2 buy-ins below expectation at 25NL, but am not deterred. Hopefully I'll be at 50NL before I know it.

And, of course, the pictures:

The month:

The 25NL hands thus far:

The stats for those who care:

End of the month and next month's goals

I won't bother posting the graph since it's the same as the second graph in the post below except with another ~1k hands and me losing ~$8. Overall a good month with me running at 5.35PTBB/100 and +$210 after rakeback. I also got a free week of Cardrunners (www.trulyfreepokertraining.com) which I guess I'll abuse in the next week or so.

Poker Goals for February:
-Move up to 25NL (should be able to do this sooner than the end of the month, but definitely by the start of March)
-20,000 hands
-4PTBB/1000
-DeucesCracked series: Turning the Corner, Hand Readers, and Dear FoxwoodsFiend
-Cardrunners videoes: I don't even know what they have... maybe some CTS or Raptor videos?

Non-Poker Goals for February:
-Get A's on all three exams and stay on top of all reading for school
-Finish Wonderfalls (funny show - check it out)
-Watch Get Smart seasons 1 and 2 (this got pushed back a month due to Christmas DVDs)
-Read The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
-Start reading No Excusses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner

Hefty goals, there's a good chance I won't hit all of them, but I'll be sure to make a post at the end of the month with a list of my sucesses and failures. Doesn't look like there will be any poker today due to a Superbowl Party and some reading I need to do for school this week, but I'll update this in a few days.

Running Hot

Hello, everyone. I've played a fair amount since the last update. It started out pretty rough with a 5,000+ break even streak. Needless to say, I was a little bummed out. But today and the day before yesterday (no time for poker yesterday) more than made up for it. +3 buy-ins on Wednesday and +6 buy-ins tonight. Ship it. Okay, I know, I know, you just wanted to see the pictures:

Today's graph:

(click to enlarge, obviously).

Which makes the month look like this:

(click to enlarge, obviously).

And my two sickest hands of the last two weeks - one in each direction.

Apparently this guy was opening any two cards, and third nuts is no good:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3791258
And my big suck out, with a massive 9.6% equity:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3791268

I'm going to try to get in 3-5 hours tomorrow and post my overall month results and my goals for next month tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Long time, no update...

I sorta forgot this thing existed. I'm going update it more in the future. Last year ended on a down note and this year didn't start off much better, but things have begun to look up. After a rough few days, I ran sick hot. Look at the monstrous jumps at 3892 and 4046, all at .05/.10.



And the two big hands:

Full Tilt Poker Game #10041572141: Table Dusk (6 max) - $0.05/$0.10 - No Limit Hold'em - 17:29:27 ET - 2009/01/14
Seat 1: TylerDurden88 ($20.30)
Seat 2: angry hobo ($14.20)
Seat 3: koenie1984 ($10)
Seat 4: Sandcastle8 ($38.95)
Seat 5: Ustas ($10)
Seat 6: RMagnabosco ($10)
Sandcastle8 posts the small blind of $0.05
Ustas posts the big blind of $0.10
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to TylerDurden88 [Ah Ad]
RMagnabosco raises to $0.40
TylerDurden88 raises to $1.40
angry hobo folds
koenie1984 folds
Sandcastle8 calls $1.35
Ustas has 15 seconds left to act
Ustas adds $0.10
Ustas folds
RMagnabosco calls $1
*** FLOP *** [3h 3d 3c]
Sandcastle8 bets $4.30
RMagnabosco raises to $8.60, and is all in
angry hobo has been disconnected
angry hobo has reconnected
TylerDurden88 has 15 seconds left to act
TylerDurden88 raises to $18.90, and is all in
Sandcastle8 calls $14.60
TylerDurden88 shows [Ah Ad]
Sandcastle8 shows [6h 6c]
RMagnabosco shows [Qc Qh]
*** TURN *** [3h 3d 3c] [7d]
*** RIVER *** [3h 3d 3c 7d] [Js]
TylerDurden88 shows a full house, Threes full of Aces
Sandcastle8 shows a full house, Threes full of Sixes
TylerDurden88 wins the side pot ($20.60) with a full house, Threes full of Aces
RMagnabosco shows a full house, Threes full of Queens
TylerDurden88 wins the main pot ($28.10) with a full house, Threes full of Aces
RMagnabosco adds $10
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $50.70 Main pot $30.10. Side pot $20.60. | Rake $2
Board: [3h 3d 3c 7d Js]
Seat 1: TylerDurden88 showed [Ah Ad] and won ($48.70) with a full house, Threes full of Aces
Seat 2: angry hobo didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: koenie1984 (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Sandcastle8 (small blind) showed [6h 6c] and lost with a full house, Threes full of Sixes
Seat 5: Ustas (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: RMagnabosco showed [Qc Qh] and lost with a full house, Threes full of Queens



Full Tilt Poker Game #10041926244: Table Dusk (6 max) - $0.05/$0.10 - No Limit Hold'em - 17:50:19 ET - 2009/01/14
Seat 1: TylerDurden88 ($46.05)
Seat 2: angry hobo ($11)
Seat 3: koenie1984 ($10.05)
Seat 4: Sandcastle8 ($29.15)
Seat 5: Ustas ($13.80)
Seat 6: RMagnabosco ($10)
koenie1984 posts the small blind of $0.05
Sandcastle8 posts the big blind of $0.10
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to TylerDurden88 [7d 7h]
Ustas raises to $0.35
RMagnabosco folds
TylerDurden88 calls $0.35
angry hobo folds
koenie1984 folds
Sandcastle8 calls $0.25
*** FLOP *** [5s 7s Ac]
Sandcastle8 checks
Ustas checks
TylerDurden88 bets $1.10
Sandcastle8 has 15 seconds left to act
Sandcastle8 raises to $2.70
Ustas raises to $10.30
TylerDurden88 raises to $45.70, and is all in
Sandcastle8 has 15 seconds left to act
Sandcastle8 calls $26.10, and is all in
Ustas calls $3.15, and is all in
TylerDurden88 shows [7d 7h]
Sandcastle8 shows [4h Ah]
Ustas shows [Kd As]
Uncalled bet of $16.90 returned to TylerDurden88
*** TURN *** [5s 7s Ac] [Tc]
*** RIVER *** [5s 7s Ac Tc] [4s]
TylerDurden88 shows three of a kind, Sevens
Sandcastle8 shows two pair, Aces and Fours
TylerDurden88 wins the side pot ($30.70) with three of a kind, Sevens
Ustas shows a pair of Aces
TylerDurden88 wins the main pot ($39.45) with three of a kind, Sevens
TylerDurden88: wow
Sandcastle8 is sitting out
Ustas adds $10
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $72.15 Main pot $41.45. Side pot $30.70. | Rake $2
Board: [5s 7s Ac Tc 4s]
Seat 1: TylerDurden88 showed [7d 7h] and won ($70.15) with three of a kind, Sevens
Seat 2: angry hobo (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: koenie1984 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: Sandcastle8 (big blind) showed [4h Ah] and lost with two pair, Aces and Fours
Seat 5: Ustas showed [Kd As] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 6: RMagnabosco didn't bet (folded)

I'm also catching a lot of leaks and improving rapidly, in great part due to DeucesCracked. I haven't played the last two days, but plan to get 500-1000 hands in tomorrow. Thanks for looking, and wish me luck.