SNE Plans

I have decided to go for it. The final factor that made me decide in favor of an attempt, is that I am finally picking up day job work from a new company.. so there is a lot less pressure on the poker income.

I only have a lol $3.1k bankroll but that is 60 buy-ins for the 100NL 50bb tables. So I will start off there and see what happens.

I am a lifetime winner at 25NL of 1.7BB/100 (2.2BB/100 in the last 250k hands). I am a 1.2BB/100 winner at 50NL over 250k hands.. So what's my expected winrate at 100NL? I have no friggin' clue, but even if I lose at -.5BB/100 I will still make 70k; so there really is no excuse.

In my spare time I have been formulating a schedule and have decided 6 days a week, with two 4-5 hr sessions a day. It still gives me time in the AM to work my "real" job and it allows me 3-4 hrs in the evenings and Sundays to spend with the family. I have also scheduled 2 months of vacation time to give me a break at the halfway point and then again at the end of the year for the holidays. It also allows me 28 sick days.

So without further adieu, here is the breakdown:

2011 SNE Schedule

~15000 hands/work day

247 work days

~3,705,000 total hands

1,000,000 total vpp

3,500,000 total fpp

$56,000 FPP bonus

$4,667 bonus/month

$24,400 milestones + $20,000 SNE bonus= $44,400

$3,700 milestone/month

$5,200 tournament packages

$105,600 total RB

$8,800 RB/month

($37,050) projected earn (-.5BB/100)

$68,550 TOTAL

$6,855 TOTAL/work month

Notes:

1. It looks like a lot of hands, but since I can comfortably do 2k hands per hour now its not as bad as it looks. (I typically average 1700ish hands per hour.)

2. It looks like I am setting myself up for failure with the negative winrate, but I am a realist and know suddenly moving up two limits will not be easy. If I do better than this, great.. if I do a bit worse.. I can still get there.

3. I will mark on the calender when each bonus is coming to keep my piece of mind and to give me mini goals to reach along the way.

4. I will only be checking the cashier Sundays. Daily, I will only have hands and VPP points earned on HEM. This allows me to be more focused on my actual play and less focused on the money. I will treat this like a video game and the only "prizes" being collected are VIP points. I know this puts me in danger of going busto.. but it will be pretty clear while playing if I dip below the minimum amount to get 24 tables up. My plan if this happens, is to drop the number of tables or move to 50NL until I hit a bonus. I have enough vacation and sick days to allow me to still reach SNE even if a temporary drop down in stakes is needed.

2010 Review

2010 has been my winning-est poker year since I started playing in the summer of 2007. I am pretty happy where my game went even with being a full time dad and working a day job that takes a considerable amount of my time. I feel like I have paid my dues and am ready for something bigger.

My overall game by leaps and bounds this year. Some of the stuff that was Greek to me at the beginning of the year is now fairly trivial. I know I still have leaks in my game and look forward to plugging them while I grind 2011 out.

Month to month earnings:

Jan- $1,020.63

Feb- $1,045.00

Mar- 0

April- 0

May- $650.00

June- $1,549.18

July- $1,492.83

August- $1,338.30

September- $1,422.84

October- $1,003.89

November- $1,814.17

December- $1,315.95

2010 total- $12,652.79

Hourly rate- ~$16.50

Monthly review- December 2010

As you can see, I took it easy this month in preparation for my high volume in 2011. I never did play any hands at 50NL. Instead I spent a ton of time reviewing hands and watching videos trying to improve my play. I learned a lot this month regarding flop textures, correct spots to barrel, and bet sizing.

Monthly Review- December 2010
Cash winnings: $707.65
SNG/MTT winnings: $6.93 (16 $1 DON SNGs)
Rakeback: $601.37 FPP value (10,738.71VPPs * 3.5 FPPs/VPP)
Current Bankroll- $2,724.23+24,456.32 FPPs x1.6c= $391.30= $3,115.53
Hours played|$/hr: 52.5| $25.07/hr
-------------------------------------------------------

$1,315.95 profit

Starting to think about next year

Its been a variance filled month but at least I am up so far. I have grinded my way back to about a 3k effective bankroll and have been doing a lot of thinking about next years goals.

The company I do CAT work for just finally started sending me local work for the off season. This takes a TON of pressure off of my poker game since now I likely won't have to cash out much if any each month for expenses.

In fact, I am now leaning more towards actually going for SNE now since I can afford failure. 3k may seem like a very low bankroll for trying a move to 100NL, but since I mainly play the 50BB tables I actually have 60 buy-ins right now for those games.

I am going to go ahead and move back to 50NL now to lessen the culture shock associated with a 2 level jump. Hopefully I don't blow my whole roll in the last two weeks of the month. :)

I do realize SNE is a huge accomplishment and will be very difficult for someone with a day job. But since I am used to working long hours and other individuals have shown that it is possible.. I think I am pretty dumb if I do not make an attempt. I ran the numbers and even if I average a loss of 2k each month, with rakeback I would average 6k income anyways. This is a bit more then my best year ever in my "real" job.

So I will crunch the numbers a bit more and post my plan for SNE next year sometime this month.. of course if I decide not to go for it, I will post that as well. 3.7 million hands next year seems very daunting.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Back on track

Above is my week thus far. I do still have a short session tonight planned, but I may bail on that and spend time with the wife.

I am trying to pace myself this month because I may make an attempt at some super high volume next year. I am still undecided on SNE. My br with fpps included in only about 3k right now. I assume 3k would be the minimum I would want to begin a try for SNE, 4-5k would be much better. I also need to cash something out by the end of the month. So if I can't add at least 2k more to the BR by the end of the year, I will likely need to either readjust the SNE schedule or just try for something lesser.. like 600k vpps or something.

In the past 50k hands or so I am running just under 3ptbb/100 at 25/50NL. 90% of my volume right now is at 25NL, I plan to slowly shift that to mostly 50NL by months end so the transition to 100NL won't be such a culture shock.

Right now I feel completely in control of my game. (isn't that usually when the wheels come off?)

I have gone back to basics and made several key adjustments to my game.. and how I adjust to the game of others. The area I have improved the most is extracting more value from my medium strength hands and losing less on them as well. I won't bore you with the details. Here is a couple fun hands from the day. I got paid on quads 3 times btw, ridiculous good variance.

Hand #1: The villain in this hand is a 14/12 reg who cbets the flop 46% but 3 barrels a whopping 75% of the time after cbetting. Once he commits to a hand he pretty much goes all the way with it. If he has AA/66 here its a cooler. I had him on AK the whole way but pretty surprised by what he had. This was a 50bb table and we were extremely deep for these games. This guy is definitely a level 1 thinker.

No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (7 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

MP1 ($5.73)

MP2 ($17.84)

Hero (CO) ($24.03)

Button ($7.18)

SB ($10)

BB ($11.93)

UTG ($26.96)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 3, 3

UTG bets $0.75, 1 fold, MP2 calls $0.75, Hero calls $0.75, 2 folds, BB calls $0.50

Flop: ($3.10) 3, 6, A (4 players)

BB checks, UTG bets $2.21, 1 fold, Hero calls $2.21, 1 fold

Turn: ($7.52) 2 (2 players)

UTG bets $5.37, Hero calls $5.37

River: ($18.26) 10 (2 players)

UTG bets $18.63 (All-In), Hero calls $15.70 (All-In)

Total pot: $49.66

Results:

UTG had A, Q (one pair, Aces).

Hero had 3, 3 (three of a kind, threes).

Outcome: Hero won $47.66

Hand #2: The villain in this hand is a 38/4 drooler. Note I would have played it a bit different were it a more competent player. I feel I did a good job of maximizing value. One question I asked myself, is whether he knew he was playing the board on the river. I think he thought he still had a strong hand. It appears that I got lucky on the river.. but I'm pretty sure he is never folding even if the last jack never comes.

No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

Button ($4.65)

SB ($23.92)

Hero (BB) ($46.23)

UTG ($9.94)

MP ($16.36)

CO ($12.50)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 2, J

4 folds, SB calls $0.15, Hero checks

Flop: ($0.50) 5, J, J (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $0.40, SB raises $0.80, Hero calls $0.40

Turn: ($2.10) 5 (2 players)

SB bets $1.50, Hero calls $1.50

River: ($5.10) J (2 players)

SB bets $1.75, Hero raises $43.68 (All-In), SB calls $19.62 (All-In)

Total pot: $47.84

Results:

SB had 7, 5 (full house, Jacks over fives).

Hero had 2, J (four of a kind, Jacks).

Outcome: Hero won $68.15

Hand #3: Another major drooler.. 50/5ish who has trouble finding the fold button. (please don't add a tutorial on where it is stars) In this given hand, I sized my 4-bet both to make it as cheap as possible for him to call and to give me just under a pot sized shove for the flop or turn.. depending on the texture. I find that bet sizing is extremely important at the 50bb tables.. you are always thinking about the next 2 streets when betting, since the commitment threshold varies so widely from hand to hand. Its much different than playing deep stacked where you are less worried about facing all-ins at any given moment.

Note the delayed shove on the turn. I did that to allow him a chance to get a piece with his missed broadways and to allow him the chance to feel I am full of crap if he has AK. Another thing I have improved on in maximizing value is to remember the entire range.. not just the weak part and the strong part.

No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (7 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

Hero (MP2) ($13.73)

CO ($35.42)

Button ($5.33)

SB ($4.51)

BB ($5)

UTG ($5.50)

MP1 ($5.50)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with A, A

2 folds, Hero bets $1.25, CO raises $3, 3 folds, Hero raises $3.50, CO calls $1.75

Flop: ($9.85) 5, 5, 8 (2 players)

Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($9.85) 10 (2 players)

Hero bets $8.98 (All-In), CO calls $8.98

River: ($27.81) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $27.81

Results:

Hero had A, A (two pair, Aces and fives).

CO had A, K (one pair, fives).

Outcome: Hero won $26.45

Yes it is possible

Sometime this year I heard about a good player breaking even at 25NL over 100k hands.. I thought the idea of this was hilarious.

Until now.

I am exactly break even over my past 100k hands at 25NL. I did add 600 in rakeback but still... its pretty ridiculous what variance can do. I hate to imagine what the streak would have been like at 100NL+

In a nutshell, I suck and need a ton of work. Back to the drawing board. :)

Weak Tight is my middle name

I was continuing to review my play over the past few weeks and realized my aggression has declined considerably. It is exactly half what it was a couple of months ago. HALF. Instead of an af of around 3.5 it is now in the 1.8 range.. wtf???

So I fired up 12 tables so I could concentrate a bit closer on things. Its pretty obvious once I stopped and smelled the coffee that I was missing tons of spots to apply the right pressure.

In a nutshell.. I have been on autopilot.

And while it is a tiny sample size.. this is the graph from today.

The showdown winnings are crap but check out the red line. There were a lot of good barreling spots that I was missing. I made a couple of check raises with air against a button raise on an A high flop.. since A high is a tiny part of an aggressive button range, its a profitable play to throw in occasionally. My weak tight ass was not finding these spots over the past 100k hands or so.

Its kind of funny though, since my live play has been the complete opposite over the same time period. I play in a pub poker league and have a reputation as being a super aggressive bastard (and an idiot according to many "good" players) I simply look for more spots since I'm obviously one tabling and since they are donkaments and move pretty fast You have to accumulate chips pretty quickly. Every single season I am consistently at the top of the power rankings and make more $ (virtual money) per game than anyone else. This season I have played in 26 games, have 26 final tables and 23 top 4 finishes. Albeit, the games only average about 15 people.

So why hasn't this aggressive play translated into my cash game play? Because I am a 24 tabling super nit who has been focusing way too much on vpps. So I am going to continue playing 24 tables, but if I find myself losing aggression, I am going to have to cut back and forget SNE. Its just not worth it.. I can't stomach losing or even breaking even.

SN curse?

At about the same time I achieved Supernova, my current downswing began. Here is the graph.

As you can see, I am down about $400 in all in ev. The graph fails to show the times I got it in on the river after someone hit two pair, gutshots, or a set on the river. My hands seem to hold in the small pots but I get boned in the big ones.

However, I am realizing something.. worrying about this crap doesn't help anything. There is nothing I can do about it. I think its key to forget about the results and focus only on the quality of my play. As long as I play my A game, my best results will come. Period. My best results are all I can hope for. Tilt and changing my game based on the outcome of prior hands will add up in a negative way in the long run.

So I am officially saying goodbye to caring about results. I have set a FPP goal for the month. I will not check the cashier again this month until I achieve it and from here on out I will only check it once per month.

Went into the time machine today

Before I left for the job in Phoenix in October, I was having my best month ever so far at 25NL. I was on top of the PTR leaderboard and was simply crushing.. every play seemed automatic easy. After nearly a month off, call it rust, call it whatever.. but things just weren't the same. The game had become a chore.

So I went back to the weeks leading up to my time off and studied my stats, hands, etc and had a minor eureka moment. I had actually taken notes back then on what I was doing and thinking at the time and it made me realize I had stopped thinking about hands the same way. I had suddenly become results oriented and somewhat of a tilting calling station.

So today I went back to basics, I simply thought about ABCD as I played and focused on maximizing value. This sounds obvious right? Shouldn't I have been doing this anyways? Well I think I had become so focused on reading the players at the table, I had forgotten on playing my own cards effectively.

I have played 7k hands so far today and while the results aren't stellar.. the tilty moments seemed to have vanished. I think its mainly because I am more properly setting up better spots for myself and flying less by the seat of my pants. Choosing the correct action in relation to value and forming a plan for each hand before proceeding sure does make things easier. I am now considering different options based on board texture and opponent tendencies rather than just mindless aggression or passivity.

As for goals for the month, my plan is to grind up 100k FPPs by months end for the 1.5k bonus and then decide whether to go for SNE next year. I made all the necessary scheduling plans, I just need to make the final decision. I am actually leaning towards going for it.

It gets worse and worse

I thought I was running bad up until today.. but today was horrendous.

Is this even possible? I had AA 44 times today, got called 19 times.. 9 times they hit sets.. one time a guy flatted a 4bet with qj and turned a straight.. another time a guy flatted my huge 3-bet with 10 8 and turned 2 pair. I won two raised pots with AA.. the biggest being 25 bbs. So down 5 buy-ins with AA alone and ended my session down 8 buy-ins.

I am down 16 buy-ins at 25NL for the week. The sick thing is, the games have been tremendously good. Tons of whales everywhere and for some reason Pokerstars won't let me take a dime. I feel lucky to have moved down to 25NL.. imagine this crap at 50 or 100nl.

I won't bother posting any hands, I am going to purge them now and try to start fresh for my evening session.