Getting ready for the new year

First off, here's my 2009 graph. I played 270 hours in 2009 and made 8.78/hr before rakeback.

I decided to get a lot of rest and play very little poker these past two weeks. That being said I did get rolled for 25NL in time for the new year which is very nice. I am ready to get going tomorrow and start working up the VPPS.

I am still sticking to my goals I set, but have decided to focus on the number of hands I play instead of monetary goals. I don't want to become results oriented.

So I am going to try and play 3,000,000 hands in 2010 and see what happens. Even if I play a lot less hands due to unforseen circumstances, I can still reach the goals I set. I see nothing wrong with going for something big but settling for just "satisfactory" instead.
So 24-tabling I will need to play about 5 hours a day on average. Considering I have been training myself to wakeup early, I hope to knock out 3-4 hours in the morning before the kids wakeup and my real job starts.

Just so everyone reading this understands, I work around 60 hours a week in my real job so putting in the kind of poker volume I am talking about would be quiet a feat imo. We'll see how it goes! I'll update things as often as possible.

Beginning bankroll: $766.82

VIP status: Silverstar

Recovering

I spent the last 10 days sick with the flu.. nasty stuff.

I'm grinding 10NL now, BR up to $573. Not really much else to report.. running average lately.

I have been experimenting with how to play ranges near the bottom of A and top of B. I seem to have the most success pot controlling them, however, it all depends on the board. I think this is the area I have improved the most but still need a lot of work. Figuring out which opponents on what boards with what action will likely be the most profitable. Its pretty complicated but I am gaining a knack for it. Currently, pretty much play my A and C ranges identical.. I feel its a pretty unexploitable style.. not that we have to worry about that at micros.

Mixing in some 6-max

24-tabling FR can get old so I am mixing in some 6-max 4-tabling for fun and to actually work on my game a bit. My first session today was donk heaven, I played half an hour and ran 119BB/100. Sustainable obv.

1st day of op

2NL didn't receive me too well, dropped 2.5 buy-ins right off the bat and was like WTF. It did turn around but geez :)

2,075 hands- $8.48- 10.22BB/100

Ran 9/6- Pretty standard for 2NL for me.

2010 Operation

So I made a decision on an op for 2010. I had planned on possibly going for supernova elite, but due to time constraints late this year I did not even make it to 50NL. So setting such a lofty goal when I have never even played at 100nl is unrealistic.

So I decided to go for a pretty lofty goal, one that doesn't include SN elite.

I am going to start with a BR of $50 and grind my way up to 100,000 in 2010. I actually am going to start today since I want to be done well before the holidays next year. So technically its just a 1 year op and won't only take place is 2010. My BR management guidelines are below:

Starting with $50
step 1: 2nl till roll = $150
step 2: 5nl till roll = $300 Go back down if roll hits $125
step 3: 10nl till roll = $750 Go back down if roll hits $250
step 4: 25nl till roll = $1,500 Go back down if roll hits $625
step 5: 50nl till roll = $3,000 Go back down if roll hits $1,250
step 6: 100nl till roll = $100,000 Go back down if roll hits $2,500

I have broken down the time frame for achieving 100k. This is based on past winrates and guesstimated winrates for higher stakes including bonuses along the way. I will update this as I go with what actually occurs during the op.
Getting through each level should take:
2NL- 25hrs
5NL- 20hrs
10NL- 30hrs
25NL- 60hrs
50NL- 60hrs
100NL- 1,300hrs
Overall that's about 1,500 hours or 4hrs per day.

Guidelines
1. I will likely cash out some along the way. My goal is to make 100k during 2010, not have a 100k bankroll in my account.
2. I will play 24-tables of full ring at each stake.
3. I will buy the 100k fpp bonus once and then the 250k fpp bonuses thereafter.

Easy as ABCD

So I was thinking last night about simplification. Back when I played basketball, golf, chess, etc and was in a slump I always backed off and went step by step through the fundamentals and 90% of the time, I would come out and play my best game ever.

So isn't that what getting better is all about? Fundamentals fundamentals then experimentation then back to fundamentals and incorporate a new thing to the mix and then repeat.

So I am back to the fundamentals stage.. I reread a few old forum posts last night and a lightbulb went off. I decided that today I would state (in my head) exactly what my range was and play accordingly. It was like taking candy from a baby. I ran 8BB/100 over 1500 hands and felt in total command of my game. There were only 3 all in hands and I won 2. My red line was slightly in the positive.. which usually takes a nosedive.

Example: I raised 4bbs in mp with AQo and got called by the LAAG bb. The flop was KQ3 rainbow. I am ahead of villain's range so I put my range as top of my B range. He likes to c/r a lot so I want to pot control this a bit so I check for deception. 3 on the turn. He leads out for 3/4 pot on turn, I am still in my B range so I plan to call this and one more bet.. or bet for value on the river if he checks. This plan puts about 20% of my stack in the pot.. perfect for my B range hands. As expected, he checks the river 8.. my guess is he has a middle pocket pair or some kind of Qx hand. I bet 55% of pot and he calls with QJ and I take it down.

On the treadmill

Lately I feel like I have been treading water. Sure, I have been experimenting a lot with my game but come on. Am I really this bad? I started out beating 25NL for like 4BB/100 for the first 50k hands or so and then boom.. it seems like I hit a wall. I am running 1BB/100 since. Just variance? I guess time will tell.

For now its back to basics. I have been rereading everything. We'll see how it goes.

November Review

Winnings: $526.04
Rakeback: $204.80 FPP value (6,400 VPPs * 2.0 FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
-------------------------------------------------------
$730.84 profit

I cashed out $1,000 during the month so my BR is now $1,313.

So I ended up averaging about $15/hr for the month. I run bad.

Less hands but more hours?

So I start December needing around 160k hands to hit my goal for the rest of 2009. That's around 5k hands per day, or 3 hrs per day playing nothing but fast tables.

Reasons to stick with the plan:
1. I tend to never give up on anything.
2. Fulfilling self promises.
3. Prove that I can play that kind of volume.

Reasons to abandon the plan and make a new one:
1. Since I started going for more hands per hour my win-rate has dropped from 3.5BB/100 down to 1.0BB/100.
2. This is December, more time needs to be spent with my family.
3. In January I can start anew with the grind with my sanity intact.
4. I will likely make more money playing less hands per hour due to more time for decisions.
5. Fooling yourself into not caring about results by hiding them in PT is just a bandaid. (more on this another time)

Having listed the above.. which do you think is smarter to do?

I think I am going with less hands, more quality play for now. Maybe when I am going for SNE or something one day its worth it to sacrifice the win-rate for awhile. Right now, getting the BR up to where I can go for such endeavors seems paramount atm.

Poker is about making adjustment right? Doing things come hell or high water can lead to burnout/busto.

Onward we go.

BR= $1,313

Self Doubt

So I have run like 1BB/100 in my last 50k 25NL hands. I am wondering if this is just variance or some major issue with my game. I ran 3.5BB/100 my first 60k hands and then fell off a cliff.

So I decided to get back to basics and run 50bbs today and work on fundamentals. But continued to get rivered and run into the top of villain's range over and over again. I ended up $20 down for the day. I did have one suckout myself... I rivered a queen against AK after we both flopped a K and got it all in. Suckouts for me almost never seem to happen though, but man.. its like 6 or 7 times a session for me.

I am not one to whine about bad beats as I don't believe in them.. there's equity and equity only.. and I know it all works out over the long run. But running bad over several thousand hands really is the pits.

I guess the good news is, even though my win rate has dropped.. I am STILL winning.. which is important to keep in mind. My horrible sessions seem to be break even or 1-2 by ins down where my average sessions are 2-3 buy ins up. I am still waiting for a good sessions. I haven't run good over an entire session since the 8th of this month.

At any rate.. I may stick to the 50bb buy in thing for a bit. Its also a way of reducing variance and allows one to move up a bit faster, assuming I still move down as needed. So I am going to give 50NL another shot (at 50bbs) once I hit 1,300.. which is basically 50 buy ins if I buy in short... more than ample. I will move back down if I drop to $1,000.

-- Update --
Hands played in latest Op:	35,034
Hands left to play in 2009:	164,966

BR Management Plan

I never did post my bankroll management plan yet I keep talking about how nitty it is. So what would you consider nitty? 20 buy-ins? 25 buy-ins? 30? Take a look at my plan. The reason it says "start with $10" is because that's what my bankroll was in late March of this year.


Start with $10
step 1: 2nl till roll = $150
step 2: 5nl till roll = $350 Go back down if roll hits $100
step 3: 10nl till roll = $1000 Go back down if roll hits $250
step 4: 25nl till roll = $2250 Go back down if roll hits $750
step 5: 50nl till roll = $5000 Go back down if roll hits $1750
step 6: 100nl till roll = $12000 Go back down if roll hits $4000

This is my "impossible to fail" plan. As long as I move up and down as planned, its impossible to ever go broke. It also allows for ample time to improve as I move through the levels. In fact, I have had to cash out a couple of times along the way because I felt I was moving too fast. (in 25NL)

So I am on step 4. I sometimes wonder where I'd be if I had not cashed out $1,500 this year. Ah to be young and without a family to feed. :)

Random thoughts

I am still running fairly awful, but I feel in control of my game and emotions right now. I think I am playing better than I ever have. I know I am making some big errors while playing, but
I continue to review those hands and do a lot of reading/studying in my spare time so those leaks are getting plugged rapidly.

I thought about moving up to 50NL and playing a 50BB stack for awhile to gain some fast FPPs.. but decided against it. I am going to stick to my nitty BR management plan come hell or high water. I mean, what's my rush right? It would be great to be at 100NL to start 2010 and make a run towards supernova+, but the risk isn't worth it. Its better to put in more hands now where the losses won't be exacerbated during the learning process. I've seen some of the graphs where people get to 100NL too fast and either end up moving down multiple times or going broke. I don't wanna be that guy.

So with only 3 days left in the month and I'd have to get another 22k hands in to get Platinum Star.. It ain't gonna happen. The extra 5% in rakeback would be nice, but there is no way I can do that kind of volume right now. I am having issues getting away and playing. My desk is in my bedroom and my 3-year old is either finding a way in, or yelling at the door, "I wanna see daa daaaa" 24/7." The way our house is setup, there really is no way to get away. I miss having a house with an office for sure.

So I am going to have to find a way to get in the hours I will need.. and this probably means getting up at like 4-5AM every morning... I am NOT a morning person so it will be a drastic change.

I am planning on beginning to jog or run on the treadmill (if too cold out) soon and I guess that will help wake me up for my sessions. Its really going to take discipline. And since I work a lot of hours in my job.. well, its tough.

So having said that, I feel very motivated knowing what others have done.. people such as Ronfar, vinvici, and Lydia12345. I feel this is a great opportunity to make a better life for me and my family.. and this is a huge incentive.

So I will try to put in a bit more volume in December. Of course, its another holiday filled month... so the goal I set seems far off. But I am determined to reach it.

Another day in paradise

-- Update --
Hands played in latest Op:	17,602
Hands left to play in 2009:	182,398

I put in 3 hours this morning. Doomswitched again. I ran -$100 under ev and ended half a buy-in up for the session. I ran something like 14/12/3.0 with 43% ATS. I felt like I was in the zone and killing it.. that is until I reviewed the session and all the river beats.

I feel really confident to be up over the past 30k hands considering how I am running. Thank God for my nitty BR management plan, or I would have had to move down to 10NL during the worst part of the swing. Instead, for this op, I am now up +5 buy-ins and have built enough FPPs during the stretch for another 5 buy-ins.

I plan on putting in another short session later this afternoon. I also need to take advantage of the holiday to have a chance of hitting my goal by years end, as next week will likely be crazy for my real job.

Still running like ass

I am about 4 buy-ins up so far in this op and have dropped 2.5 buy-ins over the last 2 sessions. I have been doing reviews and besides a couple of marginal calls here and there, my stats are pretty much right where I want them. 13/11/2.4 with a 35%ATS.

Each session pretty much goes the same. I take down small pot after small pot and steal steal steal then lose a couple of huge pots in cooler hands. My big hands seem to rarely get paid off.

The good thing is, I have pretty much stayed off tilt the entire time. If I was watching PT constantly like I used to, I am pretty sure I would have tilted off some more dough and would be in a big downswing right now.

So overall I am pretty happy. I know the money will eventually flow in, I just have to be patient. Now if I go the entire 200k hands break even I will definitely have to reevaluate things. One thing I would like to note, is although it may be my imagination, the quality of play in 25NL seems to have drastically gotten better since I last played here a year ago. Maybe I am just running bad on table selection. Also, there are a huge number of 20bb short stackers. I don't mind them so much as they are very easy to exploit. I won't go into detail on how to as I am afraid they will read this and adjust. I don't like to tap the tank. But I am sure you better players out there have already figured it all out. PM me if you want to discuss this or anything else.

-- Update --
Hands played in latest Op:	12,300
Hands left to play in 2009:	187,700

Plugging Along

-- Update --
Hands played in latest Op:	8,625
Hands left to play in 2009:	191,375

I am a bit behind pace, but that's okay. I am sure I will have above average volume days. I plan on putting in a lot of time tomorrow. As I have time today I am putting in some time playing $1 SNGs to try and make the top 100 in the weekly Battle of the Planets on Stars. They are having a double $ promotion right now and when I used to grind SNGs I never had a week where I didn't make the top 100. I figure putting in the 100 SNGs today is +ev. I was only +$6 in my first 34 table session this morning, but I made enough points that getting the top 50 should be a cakewalk. It'll add an easy $20 to my BR plus whatever I make in the SNGs. I like low variance easy money.

Goals for the rest of 2009

I have been thinking a bit more today about my goals for the rest of '09. I have decided to make my goal volume based solely. I am planning to increase my play time significantly in 2010 and become a regular grinder at 50NL and eventually 100NL sometime during the year. How the rest of this year goes will determine the loftiness of my goals for 2010.

With the holidays are coming up, I have estimated that I have about 40 days to squeeze in some play this year. I am going to use this time as a trial run to see how many hands/hrs of play are feasible considering my busy schedule outside of poker.

So I will play 200,000 hands before the end of the year. This seems high enough to be challenging, but low enough that I won't likely get too sick of logging the hours. Just like with anything, I want to ease into things. Just for information sake, I have probably average 30 minutes to an hour of play per day this year... so the 3 hrs per day or so this challenge will require is a big leap for me.

Continuing to run bad but feeling good about it

Recently, I implemented a new strategy. I have gotten out of the habit of checking PT every few minutes to see how I am doing. I also do not immediately check to see if I won an all in. I wait until the end of the session to review hands. (unless its a tricky hand and I need a read) The reason I do this is because I want to stay in the moment. It effectively allows me to stay off of tilt and also leads to more hands per hour.

So really, I have no idea how I am doing in a session. Once I get in the amount of time I have scheduled, I sit out next blind and then do a review. It seems to be working very well.

I am really glad I have been doing this, because it has been cooler city for the past 18k hands. Set over set more times than I can count, getting all in so many times and then the miracle river card coming for the villain. The biggest annoying scenario is being called on the flop by a villain with no hand, no draw, then turning a big draw or hitting a set on the turn/river. Welcome to 25NL I guess. In a lot of ways, the play is even worse than 10NL. People have no clue about pot odds or how to bluff. Bad bluffing is rampant so far in my 25NL experience.

The reason I feel good about the downswing (14 buy-ins at the low point), is that I can count on one hand the times I have gotten the money in bad without a huge amount of equity at least.

My stats also seem to be improving (imo) in the past few sessions. I have polarized my range a bit more and am now running more like 13/10.5/2.5. My turn and river aggression has doubled and I feel I am squeezing that extra bit of value out now where I never was in the past. Times I would have checked behind or pot controlled the turn, I am now B/Fing. Its amazing what hands people will call big river bets with. My ATS is now in the 35% range which I am very happy about. I am now breaking even or a slight winner with the red line.. which is very nice.

Other improvements I have made recently is bet sizing the flop, (ie. going more for value on dry boards and betting harder on wet ones), using SPR to manipulate pot sizing for later streets, and choosing the proper spots to commit based on stack sizes in relation to the pot size. I have also gotten much better at adjusting while 24-tabling. I guess my gaming background is coming in handy, I can pretty much follow what is going on in regards to the action in hands I am in and remember how a villain sized his bets etc over time.

The things I still need big improvement on are c-betting, barreling, and 3-betting. My 3-bet % is an abysmal 1%ish. I have a good feel for what ranges to 3-bet, I just am having trouble pulling the trigger while 24-tabling. I have a lot of work to do on reading board textures for c-betting/barreling. Its taken a long time to accept the backwards logic of betting harder with marginal hands when slightly weaker, and pot controlling more when stronger.

I will be working on setting goals for the rest of this year later on today. I will post again once I come up with something.

My background

So I've decided to start this blog to focus my thoughts and chart my journey through the coming days, weeks, months, and years. I have posted an operation or two on FTR but do not feel like I have a permanent home for my thoughts such as this site affords. And without further adieu, I will begin with a brief history of my poker experience.

In the summer of 2007, I was visiting my father down in Florida and watched him play a few MTTs. As I watched over his shoulder, I instantly became hooked on the game. I had always been a gamer, playing AD&D, chess, Nintendo (the original) and any board game imaginable as a kid and continuing on into the computer world in the 90s. I sometimes played 18 hour days in high school and through college in such games as Meridian 59 and Everquest.

Too bad there wasn't internet poker back then.

Now I find myself mid 30s and with a new hobby that has provided a small side income over the past two years in the most micro of micro stakes. I now feel my poker education has progressed to the point that I can take the next step and begin looking at the game as a means for providing a serious income for myself and my family.

So I have finally taken the leap to 25NL and so far have been averaging around $24/hr with rakeback. Which is about half what I make in my real job, but is enough to open my eyes on the potential.

I play 24-tables at the time and have gotten pretty good and making solid decisions quickly. I run around 11/9/2.5 and one of my recent goals has been to get that to more like 13/11. I play on a 17" laptop and stack. I use PT3 and TableNinja. I ran about 12BB/100 in 2NL, 8BB/100 in 5NL, and 5BB/100 in 10NL. I currently run around 2.5BB/100 in 25NL. (I run bad)

My problem has been focus and discipline on putting in hands. Its easy to become complacent when you work a 50+ hour a week job and have two small children to spend time with. Sometimes I just don't feel up to playing.

So the general slant of my goals will be based on volume and getting my lazy butt to the computer for more frequent and longer sessions.

I will try to post often and throw some hands up occasionally that are interesting or give me fits.

Thanks for reading and I hope this blog is interesting enough to make people peruse it often!