After a little more research. I think I have formulated a good bankroll game plan for multi-tabling. A standard nitty bankroll for playing live or 1-2 tabling online should run around 20-30 buy In's. But for playing 12+ tables some adjustments need to be made. At least for me or until I can fine tune my results. Starting would be a good guideline I think for a player to hit and stay at each level until he plays a certain amount of hands. And his bankroll proves that he is successful. By the result of the player to reach 100,000 hands at each stake. All win rate estimates are based off the standard 2.5/100. Or two and a half big blinds per 100 hands played. All amounts below are concidered full buy In's which in the case of .01-.02 and .02-.05 let the player buy in for 250 bb's and 200 bb's.
.01-.02 - $5 buy in allowing for 75 full buy In's=$375
at 2.5/100 winrate over 100,000 hands=$50
bankroll minimum after 100K hands = $425
.02-.05 - $10 buy in allowing for 75 full buy In's=$750
at 2.5/100 winrate over 100K hands =$125
bankroll minimum after 100K hands = $875
.05-.10 - $10 buy in allowing for 75 full buy In's after beating previous stake=$875
at 2.5/100 winrate over 100K hands =$250
bankroll minimum after 100K hands =$1,125
.10-.25 - $25 buy in allowing for 75 full buy In's=$1875
at 2.5/100 winrate over 100K hands =$6,25
bankroll minimum after 100K hands =$2,500
.25-.50 - $50 buy in allowing for 75 full buy In's=$3750
at 2.5/100 winrate over 100K hands =$1,250
bankroll minimum after 100K hands =$3,750
.50-1 - $100 buy in allowing for 75 full buy In's=$7500
at 2.5/100 winrate over 100K hands =$2,500
bankroll minimum after 100K hands =$10,000
1-2 - $200 buy in allowing for 75 full buy In's=$15,000
at 2.5/100 winrate over 100K hands =$5,000
bankroll minimum after 100K hands =$20,000
Friday, August 29, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Rules
This should be on going and will be added to as needed. In no particular order.
1) Don't play when tired
2) Bankroll Management
3) Read number 2, errrrg!
4) Don't rush poker
5) Raise or Fold Bitches!
6) 400bb win stop
Don't play when tired:
I think this has the biggest impact on me. I don't have the ability to focus or except certain outcomes in hands. This also affects my ability to cope with re occuring losses through expected play. My being tired is in direct conflict with my ability to counter being tilted. The more tired I am the easier I am to be tilted. The more incorrect decision making I proceed to due which is directly related to my winning and loosing.
Bankroll management:
There cannot be enough stressed on this issue for me anyways. Mainly this means having enough money to play at a certain stake for me. This helps me when I loose a certain amount of money. As the money compared to the whole despite the amount helps my brain not suffer and become less focused causing my play to deteriorate. The real other motive of this rule is to have enough money to ride out the fluctuations that are going to occur through the statistical playing of cards.
Don't rush poker:
With the lack of time I may or may not have during a session. I tend to try and "push poker". The problem with poker is you cannot rush it. You have to let it take its course. Being in a rush causes me to become impatient. I start getting into a negative mindset. Which leads me to make incorrect choices in my play. Which in turn leads to mistakes causing my bankroll to go the wrong way.
Weather your going to get there or not, or your on your upswing or down swing. Your on a heater or your runner bitter cold. You just have to play. I didn't win this hand or the last one or the twenty before that. Thats just the way it goes, don't let it aggrevate me.
This brings to mind when I hear through interviews how so many profesional poker players state. "You have to love to play poker" At this point in time this means to me that you have to enjoy the playing of poker to be successfull at it. Nothing you can do will speed up your winning. Each hand must be taken one hand at a time. One session, one day, one week, month and so on.
Each hand must be played correctly. Don't try to make to much out of each hand and rationalize making bad calls despite the evidence that you are beat in the hand.
Raise or Fold Bitches!
In the kind words of WCGRider
"STOP calling with junk preflop, just stop it. There is only ONE spot you should cold call preflop, and thats with a pocket pair facing a raise. EVERYTHING else should be raise or fold (and a lot of folding). you are playing WAYY too many hands and you need to cut that down."
400 bb win stop
9/07/08
Until my play becomes more consistant my best results during sessions have been just over $20 winnings at the .02-.05 level. Sometimes I make it beyond this mark but gradually I lose this and continue playing to try and get back to that level of profit. I don't feel like I am rushing anything it just seems to be consitant. On average I lose half of what I have won early in the session. So to help put a stop to this. As I would stop after losing so much in one session I will implement this rule.
1) Don't play when tired
2) Bankroll Management
3) Read number 2, errrrg!
4) Don't rush poker
5) Raise or Fold Bitches!
6) 400bb win stop
Don't play when tired:
I think this has the biggest impact on me. I don't have the ability to focus or except certain outcomes in hands. This also affects my ability to cope with re occuring losses through expected play. My being tired is in direct conflict with my ability to counter being tilted. The more tired I am the easier I am to be tilted. The more incorrect decision making I proceed to due which is directly related to my winning and loosing.
Bankroll management:
There cannot be enough stressed on this issue for me anyways. Mainly this means having enough money to play at a certain stake for me. This helps me when I loose a certain amount of money. As the money compared to the whole despite the amount helps my brain not suffer and become less focused causing my play to deteriorate. The real other motive of this rule is to have enough money to ride out the fluctuations that are going to occur through the statistical playing of cards.
Don't rush poker:
With the lack of time I may or may not have during a session. I tend to try and "push poker". The problem with poker is you cannot rush it. You have to let it take its course. Being in a rush causes me to become impatient. I start getting into a negative mindset. Which leads me to make incorrect choices in my play. Which in turn leads to mistakes causing my bankroll to go the wrong way.
Weather your going to get there or not, or your on your upswing or down swing. Your on a heater or your runner bitter cold. You just have to play. I didn't win this hand or the last one or the twenty before that. Thats just the way it goes, don't let it aggrevate me.
This brings to mind when I hear through interviews how so many profesional poker players state. "You have to love to play poker" At this point in time this means to me that you have to enjoy the playing of poker to be successfull at it. Nothing you can do will speed up your winning. Each hand must be taken one hand at a time. One session, one day, one week, month and so on.
Each hand must be played correctly. Don't try to make to much out of each hand and rationalize making bad calls despite the evidence that you are beat in the hand.
Raise or Fold Bitches!
In the kind words of WCGRider
"STOP calling with junk preflop, just stop it. There is only ONE spot you should cold call preflop, and thats with a pocket pair facing a raise. EVERYTHING else should be raise or fold (and a lot of folding). you are playing WAYY too many hands and you need to cut that down."
400 bb win stop
9/07/08
Until my play becomes more consistant my best results during sessions have been just over $20 winnings at the .02-.05 level. Sometimes I make it beyond this mark but gradually I lose this and continue playing to try and get back to that level of profit. I don't feel like I am rushing anything it just seems to be consitant. On average I lose half of what I have won early in the session. So to help put a stop to this. As I would stop after losing so much in one session I will implement this rule.
8/24/08
Gross!
Don't know what to say about this week. I think the variance which I have been running well above started to catch up with me a little. This compounded by my own retarded poker playing abilities, which didn't help any. Set me back down to the $270 mark after I crested at $328 for my bankroll.
It all seemed to start on Tuesday. Before my session began I actually made a note on my playing ability for that day. "Last night I didn't get much sleep which is why I gave myself a lower daily ability today. So we will see how it goes". My rating for myself was 5/4.
The session which only lasted 1600 hands was -6/100. I took a couple bad beats from short stacker's and ran into set over set. I was also a little tired and didn't fold to a couple of raises that I had to fold to a bigger bet on the turn anyway. Also I tried to float blackrain78 in a couple of hands and got into trouble. The biggest problem players Ive encountered are Blackrain78, Sanya, Lucasong, Jofy, and one or two others. They are all multi-table rs who float and three barrel. And are pretty aware of when they are being trapped. The Sanya player has stacked me three times now.
Anyway, ten dollars down wasn't bad but I really wanted to play. So I broke three of the big no No's for poker. I decided for some reason to play .10-.25. I'm not sure how many hands I played but after the dust settled I was down to $288.
Poker Rules
1. Don't play when tired
2. Bankroll management
3. Don't rush poker
I was pretty disappointed at myself so the next day I went back to grinding it up at .02-.05 and dropped another $4.
Thursday I decided to stay with the roll management and grind ed out another 2k hands at .02-.05 and showed a $13 profit. I also decided to take a shot at .05-.10 which brought me just over the $300 mark. When the stacks were not as deep the play seemed to be a little weaker at this next level.
When Friday rolled around after work I was feeling pretty good about my playing ability. But yet after a 2k session I was only up $6, 6/100. This for some reason didn't feel like I was doing good despite the bb/100 being above the average. Then out of frustration I again took a shot at the .10-.25 level. I rolled out 1k hands and lost $7, -3/100
Saturday I awoke well rested and was ready to deal out some death! The note on the title of my notes. And was the only thing I wrote. My note taking has not been up to par lately. And I have also been taking a lot of beats lately. Anyways I played a 1100 hand session and scrapped my way while getting two outer ed a few times and was back down to $296. This was a little demoralizing and I cleaned the bathroom and took a little break. When I came back I decided that being just below $300 was close to the 30 full buy In's to play at the .05-.10, ten dollar buy in for the next level. I based my buy in and bankroll management off having 20-30 full buy In's to play at whatever level I was at. I thought this extra little buffer would help offset the swings emotionally a little more. Ive noticed the more money compared to the amount vs the whole. Plays a part in how frustrated I get when I play and loose. The next session wasn't any better running out another 1500 at .02-.05 and lost another $17. I started getting a little frustrated at this point even though I was not looking at the big picture. Earlier this month I was only at $75 and was still doing very well. So my next two sessions I played at .05-.10 and knocked out 2k hands. And dropping down to $269. My cards were running pretty bad and my play was starting to look similar. I think since Wednesday I must have flopped 12 boats and 20 or so straights and only %20 of my hands were holding. Don't know if the weekend was bringing out more inexperienced players but the variance was getting super high. And I was loosing more and more every time the money went in when I was ahead.
So today I had one more session at .05-.10 dropped a few more dollars and went back to .02-.05. The following session was even more brutal than the others and I took 5 beats for my stacks in like 10 minutes. I got super pissed and logged off before I went on a tirade and blew all my money out the spew cannon. I was super tilted, I didn't know what to do so I went and worked on my truck a little bit. After taking a break I logged back on for one more session. With my head clear I rolled out a 3k session at .02-.05. Don't know if the bad variance swing was coming to an end but I didn't take more than 4 retarded beats. The session ended and I was up $20 bringing my stack back to $270.
So overall I took a few shot at some higher stakes. Ran fairly bad and played a little bad as well. I think I'm going to stick with .02-.05 until as originally planned I hit $400. Then I will move up to .05-.10. I need to realize that I might need to grind out at a level for at least a month or two or until I hit 1,000,000 hands. And expect it not to go quicker for me. So starting next week I will only be doing weekly updates, unless something noticeable comes up.
Don't know what to say about this week. I think the variance which I have been running well above started to catch up with me a little. This compounded by my own retarded poker playing abilities, which didn't help any. Set me back down to the $270 mark after I crested at $328 for my bankroll.
It all seemed to start on Tuesday. Before my session began I actually made a note on my playing ability for that day. "Last night I didn't get much sleep which is why I gave myself a lower daily ability today. So we will see how it goes". My rating for myself was 5/4.
The session which only lasted 1600 hands was -6/100. I took a couple bad beats from short stacker's and ran into set over set. I was also a little tired and didn't fold to a couple of raises that I had to fold to a bigger bet on the turn anyway. Also I tried to float blackrain78 in a couple of hands and got into trouble. The biggest problem players Ive encountered are Blackrain78, Sanya, Lucasong, Jofy, and one or two others. They are all multi-table rs who float and three barrel. And are pretty aware of when they are being trapped. The Sanya player has stacked me three times now.
Anyway, ten dollars down wasn't bad but I really wanted to play. So I broke three of the big no No's for poker. I decided for some reason to play .10-.25. I'm not sure how many hands I played but after the dust settled I was down to $288.
Poker Rules
1. Don't play when tired
2. Bankroll management
3. Don't rush poker
I was pretty disappointed at myself so the next day I went back to grinding it up at .02-.05 and dropped another $4.
Thursday I decided to stay with the roll management and grind ed out another 2k hands at .02-.05 and showed a $13 profit. I also decided to take a shot at .05-.10 which brought me just over the $300 mark. When the stacks were not as deep the play seemed to be a little weaker at this next level.
When Friday rolled around after work I was feeling pretty good about my playing ability. But yet after a 2k session I was only up $6, 6/100. This for some reason didn't feel like I was doing good despite the bb/100 being above the average. Then out of frustration I again took a shot at the .10-.25 level. I rolled out 1k hands and lost $7, -3/100
Saturday I awoke well rested and was ready to deal out some death! The note on the title of my notes. And was the only thing I wrote. My note taking has not been up to par lately. And I have also been taking a lot of beats lately. Anyways I played a 1100 hand session and scrapped my way while getting two outer ed a few times and was back down to $296. This was a little demoralizing and I cleaned the bathroom and took a little break. When I came back I decided that being just below $300 was close to the 30 full buy In's to play at the .05-.10, ten dollar buy in for the next level. I based my buy in and bankroll management off having 20-30 full buy In's to play at whatever level I was at. I thought this extra little buffer would help offset the swings emotionally a little more. Ive noticed the more money compared to the amount vs the whole. Plays a part in how frustrated I get when I play and loose. The next session wasn't any better running out another 1500 at .02-.05 and lost another $17. I started getting a little frustrated at this point even though I was not looking at the big picture. Earlier this month I was only at $75 and was still doing very well. So my next two sessions I played at .05-.10 and knocked out 2k hands. And dropping down to $269. My cards were running pretty bad and my play was starting to look similar. I think since Wednesday I must have flopped 12 boats and 20 or so straights and only %20 of my hands were holding. Don't know if the weekend was bringing out more inexperienced players but the variance was getting super high. And I was loosing more and more every time the money went in when I was ahead.
So today I had one more session at .05-.10 dropped a few more dollars and went back to .02-.05. The following session was even more brutal than the others and I took 5 beats for my stacks in like 10 minutes. I got super pissed and logged off before I went on a tirade and blew all my money out the spew cannon. I was super tilted, I didn't know what to do so I went and worked on my truck a little bit. After taking a break I logged back on for one more session. With my head clear I rolled out a 3k session at .02-.05. Don't know if the bad variance swing was coming to an end but I didn't take more than 4 retarded beats. The session ended and I was up $20 bringing my stack back to $270.
So overall I took a few shot at some higher stakes. Ran fairly bad and played a little bad as well. I think I'm going to stick with .02-.05 until as originally planned I hit $400. Then I will move up to .05-.10. I need to realize that I might need to grind out at a level for at least a month or two or until I hit 1,000,000 hands. And expect it not to go quicker for me. So starting next week I will only be doing weekly updates, unless something noticeable comes up.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Progress
Here is my collection of progress which I will continue to update.
I don't have all the information for when I started my tour De-micro. So there is an unknown amount of hands played at .01-.02. I took my roll from $75 to $153 over the course of two weeks multi-tabling, nine tables plus.
Starting roll $75
Stakes
.01-.02 Bankroll # of hands BB/100
8/7/08 $153-$157 *900 20/100
8/7/08 $212-$224 *1000 60/100
8/9/08 $210-$211 *850 5/100
.02-.05 Bankroll # of hands BB/100
8/7/08 $157-$212 *2000 50/100
8/8/08 $224-$244 *650 61/100
8/9/08 $244-$210 *2380 -34/100
8/9/08 $211-$222 *2000 11/100
8/10/08 $222-$230 *2000 8/100
8/11/08 $230-$224 *2150 -6/100
8/12/08 $220-$228 *1450 11/100
8/13/08 $228-$242 *2000 14/100
8/14/08 $242-$250 *2000 8/100
8/15/08 $250-$253 *1000 6/100
8/16/08 $253-$244 *600 -20/100
8/17/08 $244-$306 *6000 20/100
8/18/08 $306-$328 *1500 29/100
8/19/08 $328-$318 *1600 -12/100
8/20/08 $288-$284 *800 -10/100
8/21/08 $284-$297 *2000 13/100
8/22/08 $302-$308 *2115 5/100
8/22/08 $308-$296 *1100 -21/100
8/23/08 $289-$272 *1500 -22/100
8/24/08 $266-$250 *? Tilt Tilt/100
8/24/08 $250-$270 *3000 13/100 38,000 Hands
8/25/08 $270-$279 *2000 9/100
8/25/08 $279-$300 *2000 20/100
8/26/08 $300-$282 *2000 -18/100-12 tables-3 hours
8/27/08 $???-???? *2000 ?/100-12 tables-3 hours
8/29/08 $422-$440 *1000 36/100- 12 tables 2 1/2 hours
8/30/08 $440-$444 *1763 4/100 12 tables 2 1/2 hours
8/31/08 $444-$460 *2000 16/100 12 tables 2 3/4 hours
8/31/08 $460-$461 *2500 .8/100 12 tables 3 hours
August--------------Hands at .02-.05---------------53,000
9/01/08 $446-$466 *4000 10/100- 12 tables 6 hours
9/02/08 $466-$486 *3200 12/100- 12 tables 4 1/2 hours
9/03/08 $486-$510 *2700 17/100- 12 tables 3:45
9/04/08 $510-$510 *2000 00/100- 12 tables 3:50
9/05/08 $510-$530 *2000 20/100- 12 tables 2:45
9/06/08 $530-$527 *2000 -3/100- 12 tables 2:30
9/06/08 $527-$510 *3000 -11/100- 12 tables 4:00
9/07/08 $510-$516 *2000 6/100- 12 tables 3:11
.05-.10 Bankroll # of hands BB/100
8/21/08 $297-$302 *1300 3/100
8/23/08 $272-$281 *500 18/100
8/23/08 $281-$269 *1200 -10/100
8/24/08 $269-$266 *360 -10/100 3,860 Hands
8/27/08 $398-$416 *2000 9/100-12 tables-3 hours
8/28/08 $416-$422 *2000 3/100-12 tables-3 hours
August--------------Hands at .05-.10---------------7,360
.10-.25 Bankroll # of hands BB/100
8/19/08 $318-$288 *200 -60/100
8/22/09 $296-$289 *1115 -3/100 1,300 Hands
August--------------Hands at .10-.25---------------1,315
I don't have all the information for when I started my tour De-micro. So there is an unknown amount of hands played at .01-.02. I took my roll from $75 to $153 over the course of two weeks multi-tabling, nine tables plus.
Starting roll $75
Stakes
.01-.02 Bankroll # of hands BB/100
8/7/08 $153-$157 *900 20/100
8/7/08 $212-$224 *1000 60/100
8/9/08 $210-$211 *850 5/100
.02-.05 Bankroll # of hands BB/100
8/7/08 $157-$212 *2000 50/100
8/8/08 $224-$244 *650 61/100
8/9/08 $244-$210 *2380 -34/100
8/9/08 $211-$222 *2000 11/100
8/10/08 $222-$230 *2000 8/100
8/11/08 $230-$224 *2150 -6/100
8/12/08 $220-$228 *1450 11/100
8/13/08 $228-$242 *2000 14/100
8/14/08 $242-$250 *2000 8/100
8/15/08 $250-$253 *1000 6/100
8/16/08 $253-$244 *600 -20/100
8/17/08 $244-$306 *6000 20/100
8/18/08 $306-$328 *1500 29/100
8/19/08 $328-$318 *1600 -12/100
8/20/08 $288-$284 *800 -10/100
8/21/08 $284-$297 *2000 13/100
8/22/08 $302-$308 *2115 5/100
8/22/08 $308-$296 *1100 -21/100
8/23/08 $289-$272 *1500 -22/100
8/24/08 $266-$250 *? Tilt Tilt/100
8/24/08 $250-$270 *3000 13/100 38,000 Hands
8/25/08 $270-$279 *2000 9/100
8/25/08 $279-$300 *2000 20/100
8/26/08 $300-$282 *2000 -18/100-12 tables-3 hours
8/27/08 $???-???? *2000 ?/100-12 tables-3 hours
8/29/08 $422-$440 *1000 36/100- 12 tables 2 1/2 hours
8/30/08 $440-$444 *1763 4/100 12 tables 2 1/2 hours
8/31/08 $444-$460 *2000 16/100 12 tables 2 3/4 hours
8/31/08 $460-$461 *2500 .8/100 12 tables 3 hours
August--------------Hands at .02-.05---------------53,000
9/01/08 $446-$466 *4000 10/100- 12 tables 6 hours
9/02/08 $466-$486 *3200 12/100- 12 tables 4 1/2 hours
9/03/08 $486-$510 *2700 17/100- 12 tables 3:45
9/04/08 $510-$510 *2000 00/100- 12 tables 3:50
9/05/08 $510-$530 *2000 20/100- 12 tables 2:45
9/06/08 $530-$527 *2000 -3/100- 12 tables 2:30
9/06/08 $527-$510 *3000 -11/100- 12 tables 4:00
9/07/08 $510-$516 *2000 6/100- 12 tables 3:11
.05-.10 Bankroll # of hands BB/100
8/21/08 $297-$302 *1300 3/100
8/23/08 $272-$281 *500 18/100
8/23/08 $281-$269 *1200 -10/100
8/24/08 $269-$266 *360 -10/100 3,860 Hands
8/27/08 $398-$416 *2000 9/100-12 tables-3 hours
8/28/08 $416-$422 *2000 3/100-12 tables-3 hours
August--------------Hands at .05-.10---------------7,360
.10-.25 Bankroll # of hands BB/100
8/19/08 $318-$288 *200 -60/100
8/22/09 $296-$289 *1115 -3/100 1,300 Hands
August--------------Hands at .10-.25---------------1,315
Monday, August 18, 2008
8/18/08
Daily Ability 7/6 Start $306
1,500 Hands +29/100 Finish $328
The hand I'm most amazed at today that I won with was pocket kings on a 4d 5d 6c 6s board. Where a player check raised me all in and I called and he missed his gut shot card on the river for 450bb pot. This player raised pre flop and I was hoping to trap him on the button by just calling with my Kings. Only the sb and bb also called, ugggg. The flop came 4 5 6 and both blinds checked and he bet. I 4bet him and the small blind called, double ugggg. The big blind folded and the original raiser called as well. The turn was a 6 pairing the board. This wasn't getting any better for me. The small blind could have very easily had a set and now hit a boat. He checked again indicating he might have been on a draw. The original raiser now checked and I bet 3/4 of the pot. The small blind called and the raiser cranked for 40bb's more. I didn't put him on a boat here. He very well could have had one but the size of his raise and his position told me not. Now rather than being nitty and giving up the pot I just called. I didn't want to rekrank only to have the small blind snap call with his boat. He just called again, triple uggg. Then he checked the river when a brick hit. I bet about 3/4 pot again leaving me with about 40 bb's left in case he pushed and he just folded? I think this player had to have had a larger pocket pair maybe like Jacks or Tens maybe? Maybe even queens, but I doubt aces as he would have re raised already seeing two other people in the pot. The raiser showed pocket 8's for a missed gut shot on the river and I took down almost a 400 bb pot. I just thought this was a funny hand and had to despite making what seemed like a couple bad calls that turned out to be correct. Remember a hand in which a four outer didn't hit and stack me.
On the other hand though I made my fair share of stupid plays and stupid lines. First one I remember was I was semi bluffing with which turned out to be the second nut flush only to hit on the river again. Which again the board paired. And the player raised me about 3x my bet on the river. Don't know if it was the amount of tables I was playing that I didn't just dump the hand but I tried to rationalize what he could have had. This last thing the thinking about what players could have at this level is my biggest leak. I put a player on a hand or range that he could have played the way the hand went. Rather than putting him on a hand his betting is representing. And make a bad call.
Second bad line I took was I was in mid position and I raised 5x with QcQd. I got one caller in late position and the small blind 4 bet me oop. I immediately put him on an over pair to my queens but thinking back this player has also called an all in of 200 bb's with AKo. So he could have 4 bet me with this but being oop, I didn't include that in his range on this hand. I call and the other player folds. The flop comes Qs Jd 4s, and he checks to me? Dunno if going for a check raise if that is his line for aces on a flop like this? Or if he actually put me on queens or jacks and just now hit my set? Maybe he was re raising with jacks and was hoping to check raise me or had Tens. I just don't know. Anyways I am stupid and hoping to get him to bet on the turn so I can squeeze a little more money out of him when a third spade falls. He checks again. I don't know how this player would play AKs here. Maybe the check on flop was to entice a bet so he could crank on me with the flush draw. Would he check the nut flush draw on the flop if he had it? I don't think so he is pretty aggressive. But rather than put me to a tough decision with one card to come I check behind again. And low and behold another spade brick hits the river. And he bets like 90 bb's. I don't have a spade and if he had Askd he just got there. KsKd or AsAd just got there as well and the only thing I can beat is any two cards that don't contain one spade. I just dump my hand here rather than paying off the player. This same player steals the blinds %100 of the time from the button when limped to him. From now on I will try and sit to his left so I can 4 bet the crap out of him. Live and learn and don't slow play. It only gets you into trouble and limits the value of your hand.
1,500 Hands +29/100 Finish $328
The hand I'm most amazed at today that I won with was pocket kings on a 4d 5d 6c 6s board. Where a player check raised me all in and I called and he missed his gut shot card on the river for 450bb pot. This player raised pre flop and I was hoping to trap him on the button by just calling with my Kings. Only the sb and bb also called, ugggg. The flop came 4 5 6 and both blinds checked and he bet. I 4bet him and the small blind called, double ugggg. The big blind folded and the original raiser called as well. The turn was a 6 pairing the board. This wasn't getting any better for me. The small blind could have very easily had a set and now hit a boat. He checked again indicating he might have been on a draw. The original raiser now checked and I bet 3/4 of the pot. The small blind called and the raiser cranked for 40bb's more. I didn't put him on a boat here. He very well could have had one but the size of his raise and his position told me not. Now rather than being nitty and giving up the pot I just called. I didn't want to rekrank only to have the small blind snap call with his boat. He just called again, triple uggg. Then he checked the river when a brick hit. I bet about 3/4 pot again leaving me with about 40 bb's left in case he pushed and he just folded? I think this player had to have had a larger pocket pair maybe like Jacks or Tens maybe? Maybe even queens, but I doubt aces as he would have re raised already seeing two other people in the pot. The raiser showed pocket 8's for a missed gut shot on the river and I took down almost a 400 bb pot. I just thought this was a funny hand and had to despite making what seemed like a couple bad calls that turned out to be correct. Remember a hand in which a four outer didn't hit and stack me.
On the other hand though I made my fair share of stupid plays and stupid lines. First one I remember was I was semi bluffing with which turned out to be the second nut flush only to hit on the river again. Which again the board paired. And the player raised me about 3x my bet on the river. Don't know if it was the amount of tables I was playing that I didn't just dump the hand but I tried to rationalize what he could have had. This last thing the thinking about what players could have at this level is my biggest leak. I put a player on a hand or range that he could have played the way the hand went. Rather than putting him on a hand his betting is representing. And make a bad call.
Second bad line I took was I was in mid position and I raised 5x with QcQd. I got one caller in late position and the small blind 4 bet me oop. I immediately put him on an over pair to my queens but thinking back this player has also called an all in of 200 bb's with AKo. So he could have 4 bet me with this but being oop, I didn't include that in his range on this hand. I call and the other player folds. The flop comes Qs Jd 4s, and he checks to me? Dunno if going for a check raise if that is his line for aces on a flop like this? Or if he actually put me on queens or jacks and just now hit my set? Maybe he was re raising with jacks and was hoping to check raise me or had Tens. I just don't know. Anyways I am stupid and hoping to get him to bet on the turn so I can squeeze a little more money out of him when a third spade falls. He checks again. I don't know how this player would play AKs here. Maybe the check on flop was to entice a bet so he could crank on me with the flush draw. Would he check the nut flush draw on the flop if he had it? I don't think so he is pretty aggressive. But rather than put me to a tough decision with one card to come I check behind again. And low and behold another spade brick hits the river. And he bets like 90 bb's. I don't have a spade and if he had Askd he just got there. KsKd or AsAd just got there as well and the only thing I can beat is any two cards that don't contain one spade. I just dump my hand here rather than paying off the player. This same player steals the blinds %100 of the time from the button when limped to him. From now on I will try and sit to his left so I can 4 bet the crap out of him. Live and learn and don't slow play. It only gets you into trouble and limits the value of your hand.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
8/17/08
This is how I felt by the end of my fourth session today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31WZjM2bl-0
Daily ability 7/6 Start $244
6,000 hand + 13 tables + Finish $306 +20/100
During the first session I was playing solid and doing pretty well when right near the end someone had to overplay A Fucking! 5. And burn $5 out of me right at the end of my first 1,000 hand session.
During the second session I played TAG and laid down the nut flush when the board pair and a player who hadn't been making much out of the hand shoved. Then I was raised on the river when I hit my nut straight and a third diamond hit on the river. I beat my high water mark again finishing above my previous record for my roll.
It doesn't look like I will be able to keep my silver star status until my roll hits $400 and I bust into the .05-.10 level. This wasn't really a goal in the beginning, and neither was achieving the status last month it just happened. Now that I'm playing a lot more hands im not sure if it would be better to save my FPP's for something big, when I really start dragging them in. Or see if I can find some people who will want to buy some of the clothing they have on the site. I have only found a small number of people who seemed interested in this. There seems to be a lot of mixed feelings on this topic of wearing a company's logo when it comes to poker. More so than I have ever experienced in any of my other activities.
Session three and four where close together running in 3,000 hands or so. I started to catch some cards near the end of session four. But was getting beat down on one table. I caught like three straights and got flushed on every time. Even though I folded, I think I made the right choice. In the future I think I should pull out of a table if I have to fold a big hand on the river a few times. As I'm not able to tell due to the amount of tables I'm playing if the players are picking up on this strong bluffing technique they could be using against me. I destroyed a few short stacker's today getting my money in pre flop ahead of there range. I'm not sure what a good number of bb's a short stacker should have before I should call his shove with marginal hands. I think somewhere around 20-30bb's might be a good starting point. Or this also might be a good point to go back and re read pnl vol 1 and study the stack to pot ratio's talked about in this book. After the first read of this book I was a little disappointed. It seemed in a nutshell to the unejumacated me that all the book did was show you how to put all your money in the pot in No Limit. Now its starting to make a little more sense through multi tabling what they were talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31WZjM2bl-0
Daily ability 7/6 Start $244
6,000 hand + 13 tables + Finish $306 +20/100
During the first session I was playing solid and doing pretty well when right near the end someone had to overplay A Fucking! 5. And burn $5 out of me right at the end of my first 1,000 hand session.
During the second session I played TAG and laid down the nut flush when the board pair and a player who hadn't been making much out of the hand shoved. Then I was raised on the river when I hit my nut straight and a third diamond hit on the river. I beat my high water mark again finishing above my previous record for my roll.
It doesn't look like I will be able to keep my silver star status until my roll hits $400 and I bust into the .05-.10 level. This wasn't really a goal in the beginning, and neither was achieving the status last month it just happened. Now that I'm playing a lot more hands im not sure if it would be better to save my FPP's for something big, when I really start dragging them in. Or see if I can find some people who will want to buy some of the clothing they have on the site. I have only found a small number of people who seemed interested in this. There seems to be a lot of mixed feelings on this topic of wearing a company's logo when it comes to poker. More so than I have ever experienced in any of my other activities.
Session three and four where close together running in 3,000 hands or so. I started to catch some cards near the end of session four. But was getting beat down on one table. I caught like three straights and got flushed on every time. Even though I folded, I think I made the right choice. In the future I think I should pull out of a table if I have to fold a big hand on the river a few times. As I'm not able to tell due to the amount of tables I'm playing if the players are picking up on this strong bluffing technique they could be using against me. I destroyed a few short stacker's today getting my money in pre flop ahead of there range. I'm not sure what a good number of bb's a short stacker should have before I should call his shove with marginal hands. I think somewhere around 20-30bb's might be a good starting point. Or this also might be a good point to go back and re read pnl vol 1 and study the stack to pot ratio's talked about in this book. After the first read of this book I was a little disappointed. It seemed in a nutshell to the unejumacated me that all the book did was show you how to put all your money in the pot in No Limit. Now its starting to make a little more sense through multi tabling what they were talking about.
8/16/08
Daily Ability 7/4 start $253
630 hands -20/100 finish $244
Today I was told I couldn't play poker by the wife. Then after we hung out all day she decided to take a nap and I had to sit there and wait for her so instead I rushed out some poker and that wasn't good.
Today I couldn't bring myself to fold when a player who had called a flop and a turn pot sized re raise to fold his two pair only to boat on the river and push all in for close to 40bb's. Why I couldn't get him to fold prior to that doesn't matter. I should have dumped my flopped straight at that point. This was followed by another hand where I didn't fold to a min raise when I hit my straight on the river which also gave someone else another boat. I was getting pretty good odds but when someone min raises you unless they know exactly how your playing they pretty much have the nuts and just want a little more money out of you. I don't know why I called, maybe it was the broke rail bird sitting on my shoulder that has to see every time. "Maybe your chopping", or "maybe he is a donkey and is raising with two pair". It sucks to know just how much your local live players suck at poker. Having a long break hopefully will do me good with the live scene. As paying people off was a line that got reinstalled in my system after playing live for a couple months against garbage players. I did fold the nut straight when a player hit his flush I hope on the river as he was check calling me down as I was semi bluffing into him with the open ended straight draw. It hit on the river and he raised me and I noticed it was also a third diamond. I'll never know but I feel it should have been an obvious fold despite the broke rail bird on my shoulder. I was really card dead this session and took a couple retarded beats that frustrated me a little bit. And my roll depicts that. Hopefully this is not a plateau I have reached due to the crossing of the amount of have vs this level and my give a shit factor graph. We will see.
630 hands -20/100 finish $244
Today I was told I couldn't play poker by the wife. Then after we hung out all day she decided to take a nap and I had to sit there and wait for her so instead I rushed out some poker and that wasn't good.
Today I couldn't bring myself to fold when a player who had called a flop and a turn pot sized re raise to fold his two pair only to boat on the river and push all in for close to 40bb's. Why I couldn't get him to fold prior to that doesn't matter. I should have dumped my flopped straight at that point. This was followed by another hand where I didn't fold to a min raise when I hit my straight on the river which also gave someone else another boat. I was getting pretty good odds but when someone min raises you unless they know exactly how your playing they pretty much have the nuts and just want a little more money out of you. I don't know why I called, maybe it was the broke rail bird sitting on my shoulder that has to see every time. "Maybe your chopping", or "maybe he is a donkey and is raising with two pair". It sucks to know just how much your local live players suck at poker. Having a long break hopefully will do me good with the live scene. As paying people off was a line that got reinstalled in my system after playing live for a couple months against garbage players. I did fold the nut straight when a player hit his flush I hope on the river as he was check calling me down as I was semi bluffing into him with the open ended straight draw. It hit on the river and he raised me and I noticed it was also a third diamond. I'll never know but I feel it should have been an obvious fold despite the broke rail bird on my shoulder. I was really card dead this session and took a couple retarded beats that frustrated me a little bit. And my roll depicts that. Hopefully this is not a plateau I have reached due to the crossing of the amount of have vs this level and my give a shit factor graph. We will see.
8/15/08
Daily ability 6/5 Start $250
1,100 +6/100 finish $253
Didn't have many notes today and really only got to play in between hauling water to the shop waiting for the pump to empty the tank. Also I was getting a little frustrated today due to the heavy rainstorm that was slowing down my Internet connection. This almost puts me on tilt as much was when Karina calls me while I'm playing live and hassles me.
1,100 +6/100 finish $253
Didn't have many notes today and really only got to play in between hauling water to the shop waiting for the pump to empty the tank. Also I was getting a little frustrated today due to the heavy rainstorm that was slowing down my Internet connection. This almost puts me on tilt as much was when Karina calls me while I'm playing live and hassles me.
8/14/08
Daily ability 6/5 Start $242
13 tables 2,000 hands +8/100 finish $250
Today's session was a grind it out session. I got sucked out on a few times, hit a couple good hands then just got worn down by standard play. I folded queens and kings today to an all in shove over my raise preflop. This could have been what kept me ahead for the session or not. I also seen people shoving with AKo today and wondered what the % of the time people just shove on the flop could be with ak, pushing for a fold. Ive seen this alot with nubes in tournament play and it looks the same way. I think during my live play I'm going to start verbally supporting bad play. Every time someone makes a bad call I would verbally stae that I would do the same thing. To present a loose, worse image that might give me some more action. I felt like a few times today that I folded the best hands. Simply going off the bet and fold to raises with top top or over pairs. But yet every time I couldn't put a player on a set or other hand due to the betting preflop I was proven wrong when I called them down. I think I might have identified another small leak in my game. When the pot is limped in and im in the blinds I have been firing out with top pair with a face card kicker only to get called by someone on a straight or flush draw. They seem to get there every time or I am the number one target for floaters. Since starting my micro stake journey I don't think at this level that I will be able to maintain the silver star status. I think it will be alot easier to achieve and hold once I move up to the .05-.10 level. I think I will need to hold off playing this level until my roll reaches $400 to give me a little buffer in making the adjustment from playing deep stacked poker to 100bb poker. I have been playing pretty nitty but think I might even need to tighten up a little more when making this jump due to the smaller amount of implied odds I will be getting against my opponents. I think without pokertracker its harder to know what my opponents hand range is for three and four betting. I still think aggression is still key and when C-Betting the bet should be close to the pot sized at this level. As it seems to get the point across more. also I think I might be missing more value by not raising a bet on the flop when I have a set. The draws will still chase and if an opponent wont be able to lay down his hand this will allow me to make the pot bigger quicker. Rather than take the more effective line I noticed while playing at the nl 50 and 100 range.
13 tables 2,000 hands +8/100 finish $250
Today's session was a grind it out session. I got sucked out on a few times, hit a couple good hands then just got worn down by standard play. I folded queens and kings today to an all in shove over my raise preflop. This could have been what kept me ahead for the session or not. I also seen people shoving with AKo today and wondered what the % of the time people just shove on the flop could be with ak, pushing for a fold. Ive seen this alot with nubes in tournament play and it looks the same way. I think during my live play I'm going to start verbally supporting bad play. Every time someone makes a bad call I would verbally stae that I would do the same thing. To present a loose, worse image that might give me some more action. I felt like a few times today that I folded the best hands. Simply going off the bet and fold to raises with top top or over pairs. But yet every time I couldn't put a player on a set or other hand due to the betting preflop I was proven wrong when I called them down. I think I might have identified another small leak in my game. When the pot is limped in and im in the blinds I have been firing out with top pair with a face card kicker only to get called by someone on a straight or flush draw. They seem to get there every time or I am the number one target for floaters. Since starting my micro stake journey I don't think at this level that I will be able to maintain the silver star status. I think it will be alot easier to achieve and hold once I move up to the .05-.10 level. I think I will need to hold off playing this level until my roll reaches $400 to give me a little buffer in making the adjustment from playing deep stacked poker to 100bb poker. I have been playing pretty nitty but think I might even need to tighten up a little more when making this jump due to the smaller amount of implied odds I will be getting against my opponents. I think without pokertracker its harder to know what my opponents hand range is for three and four betting. I still think aggression is still key and when C-Betting the bet should be close to the pot sized at this level. As it seems to get the point across more. also I think I might be missing more value by not raising a bet on the flop when I have a set. The draws will still chase and if an opponent wont be able to lay down his hand this will allow me to make the pot bigger quicker. Rather than take the more effective line I noticed while playing at the nl 50 and 100 range.
8/13/08
Daily ability 7/5 Start $228
2200 Hands +12.7/100 Finish $242
I decided to include my ability and tilt factor. The first number is my ability at the start of that session. This includes how tired I am how i am feeling, my ability to focus. The second is my Tilt factor. This is partially derived off how tired I am my ability to remain calm and stay patient and how bothered I am by other things.
During my fist session today I never made any big hands short of grinding out a full buy in only to loose it to somebody that shoved over my raise pre flop. I think in this situation that without aces it would be profitable to fold to all pre flop shoves considering the amount of times I've ran into aces with my kings. This is also taking into count the amount of times I run into AK. With AK or QQ being the best scenario and still loose. The only big hand I had the first session was a hand I quad ed on and rather than value bet I shoved for max value and villain folded. I think I lost money in that situation. I mainly shoved here because throughout the hand the villain was raising my bets on the flop and turn.
Session two was the same until the final 300 hand stretch where I caught a mini heater only to cold stop on one hand. There way action pot is raised I call w/ 66 flop comes 633, and I flop second nuts. Original raiser bets I call to allow the third player to draw and he calls. The turn is the A, and the original raiser bets and I 4 bet him. Third player fold and other opponent calls. The river is a 7 he bets into me again and I 5 bet him. He activates his timer and types in "I gotta see it" and shoves over the top of me. Mainly live players never talk a lot unless there pretty confident about there hand. Let alone TYPE the shit in the chat box. For some reason I thought he might have drawn out on me and really doubted that he flopped quads. I called and the shows 77 for a bigger rivered boat then leaves the table. I seem to continue to grind out money then just to loose it in one big hand like Conrad said the difference between a good player and a bad player is the ones that play 10 out of 10 hands right not just loose all there money on the last one.
2200 Hands +12.7/100 Finish $242
I decided to include my ability and tilt factor. The first number is my ability at the start of that session. This includes how tired I am how i am feeling, my ability to focus. The second is my Tilt factor. This is partially derived off how tired I am my ability to remain calm and stay patient and how bothered I am by other things.
During my fist session today I never made any big hands short of grinding out a full buy in only to loose it to somebody that shoved over my raise pre flop. I think in this situation that without aces it would be profitable to fold to all pre flop shoves considering the amount of times I've ran into aces with my kings. This is also taking into count the amount of times I run into AK. With AK or QQ being the best scenario and still loose. The only big hand I had the first session was a hand I quad ed on and rather than value bet I shoved for max value and villain folded. I think I lost money in that situation. I mainly shoved here because throughout the hand the villain was raising my bets on the flop and turn.
Session two was the same until the final 300 hand stretch where I caught a mini heater only to cold stop on one hand. There way action pot is raised I call w/ 66 flop comes 633, and I flop second nuts. Original raiser bets I call to allow the third player to draw and he calls. The turn is the A, and the original raiser bets and I 4 bet him. Third player fold and other opponent calls. The river is a 7 he bets into me again and I 5 bet him. He activates his timer and types in "I gotta see it" and shoves over the top of me. Mainly live players never talk a lot unless there pretty confident about there hand. Let alone TYPE the shit in the chat box. For some reason I thought he might have drawn out on me and really doubted that he flopped quads. I called and the shows 77 for a bigger rivered boat then leaves the table. I seem to continue to grind out money then just to loose it in one big hand like Conrad said the difference between a good player and a bad player is the ones that play 10 out of 10 hands right not just loose all there money on the last one.
8/12/08
Daily Ability 6/5 Start $220
1400 hands +11/100 Finish $228
Today I felt like I played some solid poker and also came to the conclusion that people in deep stack poker don't usually push there entire stack without the nuts, or close to it. Today I played for two hours and was up $12 only to loose it in one hand of set over set. My current average of getting set over set against is 2-3 times a day. And so far when it happens, despite the book telling you to get your money in regardless. I'm finding that the way the bet patterns are coming off and the way the villain is playing that there is a %75 he has a set. Like for example one of the set over set hands I ran into today. I was on the button there was a mid position player who raised one off the button called and I 3 bet the original raiser with JJ. The 1st raiser folded and the one off the button called. The flop came 8 J Q and he checked to me. I came out and bet here and he check raised me like he had a set. This player was a fairly tight player and I mostly put 9T out of his range due to being oop and calling another 3x raise preflop. When he re raised me I thought about getting the money in here but thought if he was reppresenting an over pair like KK or somehow I gave him to much credit and he was playing with QJ it would just cause him to fold. So I cold called his check raise to get some more action on him later on. The turn was a blank and he potted the turn. This is where I started to get a yellow flag from this player. I called and he shoved on the river of another blank for over 150bb's. I started to get a sick feeling like I was up against an over set here but I called anyway and he showed me QQ. I think I should be able to fold a set here if I want to improve. There were a few other hands this session that I should have folded to raises on. I have basically taken up the idea of folding whenever im raised after I bet the flop with top top or an over pair. I would say close to %90 someone has hit a set or two pair or straight or better. Ive found in general that folding to raises is helping me stay profitable with no reads and no numbers from my poker tracker on my opponents.
I'm not sure if I need to be betting my big hands bigger on the river when I have the nuts or close to it. Instead of a fishy value bet which a lot of players fold to anyway. So when getting called regardless I should be getting maximum value. Tried to check behind a couple big pairs to induce a bet and got into trouble twice but folded both times. Also I retardedly called a few raises when tried to think through a hand to much. Putting players on a range and rather than just folding got hosed when players played hands way different than should have played.
1400 hands +11/100 Finish $228
Today I felt like I played some solid poker and also came to the conclusion that people in deep stack poker don't usually push there entire stack without the nuts, or close to it. Today I played for two hours and was up $12 only to loose it in one hand of set over set. My current average of getting set over set against is 2-3 times a day. And so far when it happens, despite the book telling you to get your money in regardless. I'm finding that the way the bet patterns are coming off and the way the villain is playing that there is a %75 he has a set. Like for example one of the set over set hands I ran into today. I was on the button there was a mid position player who raised one off the button called and I 3 bet the original raiser with JJ. The 1st raiser folded and the one off the button called. The flop came 8 J Q and he checked to me. I came out and bet here and he check raised me like he had a set. This player was a fairly tight player and I mostly put 9T out of his range due to being oop and calling another 3x raise preflop. When he re raised me I thought about getting the money in here but thought if he was reppresenting an over pair like KK or somehow I gave him to much credit and he was playing with QJ it would just cause him to fold. So I cold called his check raise to get some more action on him later on. The turn was a blank and he potted the turn. This is where I started to get a yellow flag from this player. I called and he shoved on the river of another blank for over 150bb's. I started to get a sick feeling like I was up against an over set here but I called anyway and he showed me QQ. I think I should be able to fold a set here if I want to improve. There were a few other hands this session that I should have folded to raises on. I have basically taken up the idea of folding whenever im raised after I bet the flop with top top or an over pair. I would say close to %90 someone has hit a set or two pair or straight or better. Ive found in general that folding to raises is helping me stay profitable with no reads and no numbers from my poker tracker on my opponents.
I'm not sure if I need to be betting my big hands bigger on the river when I have the nuts or close to it. Instead of a fishy value bet which a lot of players fold to anyway. So when getting called regardless I should be getting maximum value. Tried to check behind a couple big pairs to induce a bet and got into trouble twice but folded both times. Also I retardedly called a few raises when tried to think through a hand to much. Putting players on a range and rather than just folding got hosed when players played hands way different than should have played.
Friday, August 15, 2008
BLAMO!
Here it is a compilation of my thoughts and progress as a losing poker player : ) I am the one that continues to make poker profitable for everyone else.
Fade back to dec 31 2006, the night of my wedding. I was getting married, in Girdwood Alaska at the Alyeska ski resort and hour and so minutes out of anchorage alaska roughly 8 hours away from my hometown of Fairbanks Alaska. In our hotel room in which we were both getting ready in. There was a review of all the final tables for the previous year on one of the espn channels. I just remember thinking to myself. "Look at all that money those people are winning" The same people pretty much were at every final table or so it seemed. "How hard can that be" I thought, the same people consitantly winning events and making it to the final tables. "An absolute proof that there must be some kind of skill involved". I don't know why seeing these episodes hours before my wedding grabbed my attention so strongly. Maybe because we didn't and still don't have cable where I live, who knows. I had seen the movie Rounders before and knew about poker. At my fathers work they played poker every friday night for a while and I would just watch but was never drawn into it. But after I was married and we drove back to my hometown of Fairbanks I purchased a poker book and it all seem to start from there.
I read a book or two and really didn't even understand what all the terminology meant at all. But rather than take time to understand I found, at our local office max. Chris Moneymakers Texas Holdem pc game. And I began to play this in my spare time. What a letdown this game was, I suppose now it may seem different but at the time it represented nothing like real poker. I soon after purchased the Poker Accademy texas holdem software where I played online for free against people in canada. I seemed to do ok playing on this for about a month or so until a friend I was working with told me about playing online at a sight called PokerStars. I had actually signed up with FullTilt first and tried to play the play money games then stopped. I found out how to put real money online on stars and went from there. At first I only played in mtt's as this was what I was first introduced to on tv. I played for a month or so until I won my first tourney. I think it was a $3 mtt with about 900+ people in it. I was so hooked and stoked that I could win that much money doing something that I was having alot of fun doing. Soon after I won a satellite for the Sunday Million on Stars and thought that I was destined for success. Soon after I started as I had not purchases pokertracker or anything equivelent, graphing all my tournament results. Finishes, cashes, overall winning for weeks months days. With the help of the bluff database. And slowly watched my averages continue to go up. Although I continued to see a trend of swings in my graph I continued and probably if not due to the amount of Sunday Million tourneys I played in would be about even. Every time I would make a big cash I would dab in the cash games only to loose my money as I had no clue the difference in playing in them verses in the tourneys. I would loose my money in the cash games that I would win in the tourneys when I had any money at all. There was a repeated cycle of me reloading and going broke. With some wins in the tourneys mixed in I would just loose that money as well. I never really understood bankroll management and never adhered to it. I factored in what I spent as an entertainment expense which never seemed to escalate more than $25-$50 a week. I started finishing on avg higher in the tourneys but started to realize how much of a crapshoot they really were. I started to adhere to bankroll management at this time but never won enough to move up in stakes in the tourney's. And everyone who knows and plays at the mtt's in the $1-$10 range on stars has a pretty good understanding of what "loldonkaments" means. So with getting more and more frustrated with tourneys. I decided to stop playing in them and start playing mainly cash games. This was sometime around sept, nov of 07. This was a rude awakening for me as it was like learning how to play over. And I was unsuccessful to say the least. By this time I had started a live .25-.50 game at my house and had built three of the internet style poker tables. They were and probably still are the nicest ones I know about in my town. And I have since sold two of them. I had a live bankroll and an online one at this time. Which the live slowly built and the online kept busting. By this time I had read almost two dozen books. All the big name and famous ones that everyone recommends. Except I just read them, didn't really study them like I should have. Or reread and applied the information that was provided in them. I was playing .25-.50 and .50-1.00 on the internet and loosing my money and reloading. My live game probably due to the quality of people I was playing against was showing a very slow profit. And as my live roll grew to $1000 I move my live game stakes up to
.50-1.00. Which at the time I thought was enough to be rolled for. Having 1000 bb's of whatever stake you were playing at was enough. Oh well live and learn. I made my live roll into $2000 and started playing elsewhere live in my town at some $1-$2 games while moving down in stakes to .10-.25 online. This new stake online was noticably softer and easier to beat than the nl 50 and nl 100. I started winning online at this point but my bankroll was so small that I would always just seem to take a couple bad beats and still have to reaload but not as often. I went to vegas for a friends wedding early in May and did well at the live $1-$2 games there which bolstered my confidence. So much so that I went back with a friend a month and a half later when he won a local satellite to play in one of the small buy in wsop events. This time I felt I played really well and made what seemed to me all the right moves. All the right laydowns, all the right calls which ended up being fairly correct but ran into some really bad variance and lost my whole live roll of $2400. My wife at this time was pretty fed up with the amount of poker I had been playing and was glad I had gone busto. As probably like many other people I am very involved and pursue continiously whatever I am trying to succeed at. And this had worn on my wife who had been very patient for some time. As I was no longer able to play live and my game previously before going to vegas the second time had been shut down. Due to a rash of robbery's of local poker games in my town. I went back to playing on the net again. Still playing at .10-.25 my reloads were getting less frequent. I had pokertracker and poker academy prospector at this time and was reviewing my bad results. I had joined stox poker and had watched and downloaded most of the no limit texas hold'em vids. Which at this time I have not watched all of. I was trying to set goals for myself to reach a certain limit at certain times to push myself forward. I was very prone to being tilted and this would effect my game tremendously causing me to go on spewing sessions.
This is bringing us close to the present now. I went through one big spew session then followed up by myself understanding how much my tilt was effecting my game. For some reason I bought back in and for the lack of a better description began playing without fear. I had always been very nitty and gave extreme implied odds to people. And not easily being able to fold hands like top top and sets on straight and flush boards. I made one last session of playing without fear trying to represent hands against players that didn't work playing with all my money on the table with every buy in. I made one last deposit of $150 and dropped back down to .10-.25 and ran a little cold decked. At this time I was trying to four table but had no bankroll to do so. My roll ran down to $75 and at that time I watched this interview with the Dang brothers on cardplayer tv. And listened to there story of how they started and where they were now. The younger brother had started playing .01-.02 online until he could beat the game. I had played .01-.02 before but thought I was to good to play at that level and thought of it as a joke. I mainly played there to blow off some steam and play with a friend online heads up which never worked as our lagtard playing style would immediately draw other players. So there I was with $75 left in my account on stars a closet full of pokerstars clothing and some serious demoralization going on within myself. But the interview on cardplayer gave me some serious hope. These two super successfull players had started at the bottom and worked there way up so that meant I could to.
Timeline three weeks ago....
I began multitabling nine tables at .01-.02. At this time there was a new update with my pokertracker and pokerstars and pokertracker no longer was importing any new hands so I had to start writing down my results. I nine and 12 tables at .01-.02 until my roll reached $150. I took notes on my days play and was roughly hitting 2000 hands a session. I began just simply folding to all raises to my bets and playing super nitty. And was still seeing positive results. I took a shot at .02-.05 and hit a big heater running my roll up to $225. After that I pretty much stayed at .02-.05. I ran my roll to $242 before taking a dive down to $210 then slowly working my way up to $250. So this is where I am now, tired of losing trying to push my game to the next level. Trying to focus on my mistakes and sticking with serious bankroll management. I won't play in a level unless I have 25 full buy'ins at that level. Here is my projected bankroll requirements that I have given myself that I will try to stick with.
.01.-02 $100-$150
.02-.05 $200-$300
.05-.10 $350-$450
.10-.25 $500-$750
.25-.50 $1,000-$1,500
.50-1.00 $2,000-$3,000
$1-$2 $4,000-$6,000
$2-$4 $8,000-$12,000
So here I am hopefully this blog will show where I started where I am and how I am progressing in my search to become a winning poker player. I'm not sure if I will do a daily report or a weekly summery. And yes I know I cannot spell.
Fade back to dec 31 2006, the night of my wedding. I was getting married, in Girdwood Alaska at the Alyeska ski resort and hour and so minutes out of anchorage alaska roughly 8 hours away from my hometown of Fairbanks Alaska. In our hotel room in which we were both getting ready in. There was a review of all the final tables for the previous year on one of the espn channels. I just remember thinking to myself. "Look at all that money those people are winning" The same people pretty much were at every final table or so it seemed. "How hard can that be" I thought, the same people consitantly winning events and making it to the final tables. "An absolute proof that there must be some kind of skill involved". I don't know why seeing these episodes hours before my wedding grabbed my attention so strongly. Maybe because we didn't and still don't have cable where I live, who knows. I had seen the movie Rounders before and knew about poker. At my fathers work they played poker every friday night for a while and I would just watch but was never drawn into it. But after I was married and we drove back to my hometown of Fairbanks I purchased a poker book and it all seem to start from there.
I read a book or two and really didn't even understand what all the terminology meant at all. But rather than take time to understand I found, at our local office max. Chris Moneymakers Texas Holdem pc game. And I began to play this in my spare time. What a letdown this game was, I suppose now it may seem different but at the time it represented nothing like real poker. I soon after purchased the Poker Accademy texas holdem software where I played online for free against people in canada. I seemed to do ok playing on this for about a month or so until a friend I was working with told me about playing online at a sight called PokerStars. I had actually signed up with FullTilt first and tried to play the play money games then stopped. I found out how to put real money online on stars and went from there. At first I only played in mtt's as this was what I was first introduced to on tv. I played for a month or so until I won my first tourney. I think it was a $3 mtt with about 900+ people in it. I was so hooked and stoked that I could win that much money doing something that I was having alot of fun doing. Soon after I won a satellite for the Sunday Million on Stars and thought that I was destined for success. Soon after I started as I had not purchases pokertracker or anything equivelent, graphing all my tournament results. Finishes, cashes, overall winning for weeks months days. With the help of the bluff database. And slowly watched my averages continue to go up. Although I continued to see a trend of swings in my graph I continued and probably if not due to the amount of Sunday Million tourneys I played in would be about even. Every time I would make a big cash I would dab in the cash games only to loose my money as I had no clue the difference in playing in them verses in the tourneys. I would loose my money in the cash games that I would win in the tourneys when I had any money at all. There was a repeated cycle of me reloading and going broke. With some wins in the tourneys mixed in I would just loose that money as well. I never really understood bankroll management and never adhered to it. I factored in what I spent as an entertainment expense which never seemed to escalate more than $25-$50 a week. I started finishing on avg higher in the tourneys but started to realize how much of a crapshoot they really were. I started to adhere to bankroll management at this time but never won enough to move up in stakes in the tourney's. And everyone who knows and plays at the mtt's in the $1-$10 range on stars has a pretty good understanding of what "loldonkaments" means. So with getting more and more frustrated with tourneys. I decided to stop playing in them and start playing mainly cash games. This was sometime around sept, nov of 07. This was a rude awakening for me as it was like learning how to play over. And I was unsuccessful to say the least. By this time I had started a live .25-.50 game at my house and had built three of the internet style poker tables. They were and probably still are the nicest ones I know about in my town. And I have since sold two of them. I had a live bankroll and an online one at this time. Which the live slowly built and the online kept busting. By this time I had read almost two dozen books. All the big name and famous ones that everyone recommends. Except I just read them, didn't really study them like I should have. Or reread and applied the information that was provided in them. I was playing .25-.50 and .50-1.00 on the internet and loosing my money and reloading. My live game probably due to the quality of people I was playing against was showing a very slow profit. And as my live roll grew to $1000 I move my live game stakes up to
.50-1.00. Which at the time I thought was enough to be rolled for. Having 1000 bb's of whatever stake you were playing at was enough. Oh well live and learn. I made my live roll into $2000 and started playing elsewhere live in my town at some $1-$2 games while moving down in stakes to .10-.25 online. This new stake online was noticably softer and easier to beat than the nl 50 and nl 100. I started winning online at this point but my bankroll was so small that I would always just seem to take a couple bad beats and still have to reaload but not as often. I went to vegas for a friends wedding early in May and did well at the live $1-$2 games there which bolstered my confidence. So much so that I went back with a friend a month and a half later when he won a local satellite to play in one of the small buy in wsop events. This time I felt I played really well and made what seemed to me all the right moves. All the right laydowns, all the right calls which ended up being fairly correct but ran into some really bad variance and lost my whole live roll of $2400. My wife at this time was pretty fed up with the amount of poker I had been playing and was glad I had gone busto. As probably like many other people I am very involved and pursue continiously whatever I am trying to succeed at. And this had worn on my wife who had been very patient for some time. As I was no longer able to play live and my game previously before going to vegas the second time had been shut down. Due to a rash of robbery's of local poker games in my town. I went back to playing on the net again. Still playing at .10-.25 my reloads were getting less frequent. I had pokertracker and poker academy prospector at this time and was reviewing my bad results. I had joined stox poker and had watched and downloaded most of the no limit texas hold'em vids. Which at this time I have not watched all of. I was trying to set goals for myself to reach a certain limit at certain times to push myself forward. I was very prone to being tilted and this would effect my game tremendously causing me to go on spewing sessions.
This is bringing us close to the present now. I went through one big spew session then followed up by myself understanding how much my tilt was effecting my game. For some reason I bought back in and for the lack of a better description began playing without fear. I had always been very nitty and gave extreme implied odds to people. And not easily being able to fold hands like top top and sets on straight and flush boards. I made one last session of playing without fear trying to represent hands against players that didn't work playing with all my money on the table with every buy in. I made one last deposit of $150 and dropped back down to .10-.25 and ran a little cold decked. At this time I was trying to four table but had no bankroll to do so. My roll ran down to $75 and at that time I watched this interview with the Dang brothers on cardplayer tv. And listened to there story of how they started and where they were now. The younger brother had started playing .01-.02 online until he could beat the game. I had played .01-.02 before but thought I was to good to play at that level and thought of it as a joke. I mainly played there to blow off some steam and play with a friend online heads up which never worked as our lagtard playing style would immediately draw other players. So there I was with $75 left in my account on stars a closet full of pokerstars clothing and some serious demoralization going on within myself. But the interview on cardplayer gave me some serious hope. These two super successfull players had started at the bottom and worked there way up so that meant I could to.
Timeline three weeks ago....
I began multitabling nine tables at .01-.02. At this time there was a new update with my pokertracker and pokerstars and pokertracker no longer was importing any new hands so I had to start writing down my results. I nine and 12 tables at .01-.02 until my roll reached $150. I took notes on my days play and was roughly hitting 2000 hands a session. I began just simply folding to all raises to my bets and playing super nitty. And was still seeing positive results. I took a shot at .02-.05 and hit a big heater running my roll up to $225. After that I pretty much stayed at .02-.05. I ran my roll to $242 before taking a dive down to $210 then slowly working my way up to $250. So this is where I am now, tired of losing trying to push my game to the next level. Trying to focus on my mistakes and sticking with serious bankroll management. I won't play in a level unless I have 25 full buy'ins at that level. Here is my projected bankroll requirements that I have given myself that I will try to stick with.
.01.-02 $100-$150
.02-.05 $200-$300
.05-.10 $350-$450
.10-.25 $500-$750
.25-.50 $1,000-$1,500
.50-1.00 $2,000-$3,000
$1-$2 $4,000-$6,000
$2-$4 $8,000-$12,000
So here I am hopefully this blog will show where I started where I am and how I am progressing in my search to become a winning poker player. I'm not sure if I will do a daily report or a weekly summery. And yes I know I cannot spell.
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