I decided to not pay blinds today

Not really, but since I won money in the blinds it almost looks like it. I feel like I played at the top of my game today, even if I can't win a 60/40 or 70/30.

Here's today.



And here are my positional earnings for my entire foray into 50NL on Cake thus far.



BR is now just under $2,400.

I got another odd "CSG" payment into my account from Cake today. It appears as if their rakeback system is slightly off, so from time to time they make up for it by depositing money in player's accounts. This is my theory and I'm sticking to it. If anyone knows the real reason these mystery deposits keep showing up, please feel free to chime in.

A day of run good?

Today I actually ran decent. Although I couldn't win a flip early, things started clicking at about the 3/4 point. BR now stands at about $2,300.



I have been working lately on the light 4-bets. Since I steal more often than any human on earth, I tend to get 3-bet extremely light by conscious regulars. Against a few players I profitably 4-bet ATC. Now who's getting exploited?

Another aspect of my game I have worked on is the dreaded redline. Now about 40% of my earn comes from non-showdown winnings. If you have a free falling redline, I suggest disallowing yourself from calling. This is the best and quickest fix. I oversimplify, but that's the solution is a nutshell.

I'm baaaack

I have slowly but surely began playing again. I deposited $40 on Cake poker over the summer but didn't really start grinding until mid September. Here are my results so far:



50NL positional stats. I don't think I have ever seen anyone else break even/win money from the SB as I have done over the last 60k hands and am very proud of this.


Overall the play on cake is very soft compared to Pokerstars. Maybe this is why my win-rate is so high. Or maybe it's because the traffic is so much lower, I can only play 10 tables at a time now. Either I have improved while building the BR or am just running hot. Time will tell.

The bankroll is currently around $2,100. Another fact I am proud of is that I went from $40 to $2,000 in just over 100 hrs using a very conservative BR management plan.

I plan on beginning to play 100NL once I hit $3,000. The only problem is there are typically only around 3-4 100NL tables running, so obviously I will just start mixing in 100NL tables at 3k. The odd thing is that there are usually more 200NL tables running than 100NL so when I hit 6K I can put in a lot more volume >50NL for sure.

I will not be posting much strategy here. After Pokerstars got shut down in the US, I spent a lot of time studying the game and kind of came up with my own style of play. It is completely different than what anyone else is doing (that I've seen)and seems to be working very well. I'd hate to divulge it here and suddenly have a bunch of n00bs doing it on my tables.

The only thing I will say is that I have worked very hard on figuring out where the money comes from in poker and built my game around that notion. Some of the results of that quest are counter intuitive but nonetheless profitable. Anyone can figure it out if they just put in the time.

Work work work

Its been one hail storm after another so far this year. I have been on the road a lot more than home since March. At least I'm able to make some dough and since I only have one job now since the demise of PS, its nice to be busy.

I am planning my trip to the WSOP and since work is busy I can't be away too long. I definitely need to go since I have a full ride there from my staker. There will be no makeup so all I need to worry about is expenses. I have settled on going for about a week and playing in 3ish events.

I will summarize events here as I go if I am able to make it out there.

The future of online poker

So the 3 major sites are temporarily (hopefully) shut down. I will refrain from calling it "Black Friday" because it is silly of us to compare the loss of online poker with a positive day for retailers. Once again this is just another way the election of George Bush has screwed us royally. As for the future of online poker.. who knows... hopefully legalization occurs sometime in the next decade and we can get back to playing the game we love without government harassment. I am one of those who has no recourse and has to find other avenues to get in hands. I play in a free poker league and now plan on playing in some live tournaments/cash games whenever I can. Unfortunately I live in a state with no poker rooms and since I have a family I can't just up and change my locale. So my dream of supernova elite is all but gone. At least my main job has been busy so far so I am, for now, not reliant on poker as a side income to make ends meet. Two people have offered to stake me in some WSOP events.. hopefully I will have the opportunity and time to go play in them.

My first run good session in a month and CAP graph thus far

Today:

And my CAP journey so far:

The run good part only lasted about 10 minutes.. but man was it nice to see for a change. This past week has been good for my poker game as I feel I've made several breakthroughs. I had my first coaching session ever last Tuesday and my game immediately saw results.

Notice I am still almost $3,500 under all in EV. I am not really concerned about it.. as you can see I still made $25/hr even with the run bad. If I had just run at even it would have been $48/hr. Keep in mind my lifetime hrly rate at 25NL was like $22/hr or something.

I will likely get moved up to 200NL by my staker this week.. and since the highest I have ever played is .50/1.00.. it will be kinda scary there I'm sure. At least its still only $40 on the table at risk at once. Losing $200 in one hand still seems like a ridiculous thing to me right now. Of course a year ago, losing $25 in a hand was a huge thing to me. Me=nit.

If anyone is interested let me know, I might throw together a video of me playing micro CAP so you guys can get an idea of how the games play (if you don't know already) I never realized how complicated short stacking is and I assume most 100bb players don't know as well or else they wouldn't hate them so much lol. I don't have camtasia though and I have to figure out how to make cam studio work passably well.

For krikey sake..

Today played out like a bad poker movie script. I just couldn't do anything right. Preflop all in average equity 52%.. hands won at showdown when all in preflop= 42%.

Flop average all in equity of 58%, hands won at showdown when all in on flop= 46%.

Turn average all in equity of 60%, hands won at showdown when all in on flop= 54%.

I actually lost money today when all in preflop with QQ, avg all in was 65%.. over 50 times.

The graph is actually deceiving.. I was nearly breakeven on non-showdown winnings over the last 7k hands.. so my postflop play had to be spot on. All of the losses are at showdown.

So what gives?

I am not sure where to go from here.. I am now $3,500 under ev over the last 6 weeks... 175 buy-ins. This is the most brutal negative variance I have ever faced. The sick thing is I feel like I am playing better than ever.. I review hands and study this friggin game like 30 hrs a week. I just feel like I'm getting screwed right now. Now I can see how people think poker is rigged lol. I know its not.. but has anyone ever ran this bad for this long?

Blah blah blah

-$1,100 ev this week, ended up down like $400.

Played 52k hands and 39 hrs. Going for even more volume this week.

Going to throw mega volume at variance in an attempt to slay it.

Just when you think you got it all figured out..

...poker bitchslaps you back into your place.

So I was going to play all week without looking at the cashier. Today I accidentally saw my earnings in HEM and almost threw the laptop out the window. I dropped $1,200 since Monday (-600 ev). So now I am glad I looked because I am playing terrible and definitely need to adjust quick.

It seems I had become Mr. weak tight passive again, a problem that has plagued me in the past. This game is all about aggression and even though I know that.. I tend to go on auto pilot and try and make hands before putting money in the pot. Yes, I'm an idiot.

So back to square one. I dropped a couple tables so I can focus better and will have to live with less hands per hour for awhile until I can correct this BS.

I did play 4500 hands after realizing how bad I was playing and focused more on winning dead money, picking up pots no one wants etc. I was -$10, +$70 ev. Not too bad.. I may have overdone it a bit as I was +$100 in non-showdown earnings.

So I will spend the rest of the week trying to be the most aggressive bastard I can and at least if the bankroll crashes and burns, I will have gone down swinging.

A lot of thinking, not so much time spent playing

I only played about 28 hrs this week managing about $750 in profit. I just didn't feel that confident in my game so I spent my usual 60+ hrs studying preflop and postflop scenarios trying to determine optimal ranges and lines. My ultimate conclusion through all of this work is to forget what I know now and remember what I knew then.

What I am talking about is my focus this year on the minutia of playing "perfectly" in various spots instead of focusing on the simple stuff, like recognizing fish and extracting value. So starting yesterday night I took my game back in time with a hybrid on what I've learned lately and felt considerably more comfortable.

Decisions were a lot easier and even though its a very small sample, I am encouraged by the results. Note this graph is 3 hrs of play and I actually ran $100 under AIEV.

So this week my goal is a lot more volume and give yesterdays "changes" a decent sample size so I can see where I'm at.

Had my best week ever

After rakeback I had $1,025 in profit this week, which is my best cash game week ever. I didn't exactly play very well imo, but things definitely are starting to improve as my grasp for CAP games increases with experience.

I played just under 30 hrs this week and 42k hands. I am looking to get my volume up to 60k hands a week. I am increasing from 16 tables at once to 18 this week to see how it goes. This should put me in the 1650 hands per hour range which seems ideal since I am now getting around .35 vpps/hand at 100NL.

At 250k hands a month I'd be bringing in 5k/month at 100NL in rakeback alone.

My target this week is to play 36 hrs and 60k hands.

Another doomswitch Friday

It wasn't as bad as last Friday but once again I simply could not win at showdown. Check out the circled numbers.

This is when all-in after 3-betting from the blinds. Of course when called my range is going to be weaker but due to fold equity 47% should be absolutely crushing it. But then take a look at won $ at showdown. Over 10% below what is should be. Since the typical all in is $40 at 100NL that basically means that I have to hand the villain $4 at the beginning of the all-in and then we race for the rest. Not fun. And since I had over 100 all-in calls today from the blinds well.. you do the math.

Luckily I ran slightly above ev when all in on the flop and turn and so after rakeback I was really only down about $200. Not too bad. The sick thing is if I had just run average in all-ins I would have been up about $300 today.

I had regained quiet a bit of my losses going into today and thought this might be the Friday that turns it around. I have run like ass every Friday for about 2 months.. isn't this supposed to be the day we make all of our dough?

So I move on with only minimal damage today. I continue to tweak my game every day. I have spent about 20-30 hours a week pouring over HEM stats and such trying to fix any leaks I can find and optimize my play. I may get the guy staking me to give me a coaching session soon since that is part of the deal.

Its 1 AM so I'm gonna hit the sack. I'll try to post again after my last Sunday session.

A little better

Things have gone much better since Sunday night and even though I feel like I am still running pretty bad postflop, the preflop doomswitch seems to be off at least for now. I am still working hard on my game and making minor tweaks here and there. I still have a few leaks and am trying my best to figure them out.

On another note, I feel like tournaments are my best game so I play in a free pub poker league here in Charlotte. Yeah the play is generally horrible, but its still good practice for live play. There are some decent level two players and even a couple level threes but they are a small percentage. 60% or so are level one nits and the rest are just recreational donks.

There are usually between 15-25 people per game and the games generally last 1.5-3 hrs depending on the blind levels. I am pretty sure I get a higher percentage of final tables and top 3 finishes than anyone else in the league, I just don't play but one day a week so I typically fly under the radar. Most of the "decent" players in the league don't like my game and think (sometimes rather vocally) that I am a bad player. They wonder how I get so lucky to win again and again lol.

Anyways, this Monday night was especially fun. I was chip leader in all 3 games going into the final table and was two 60/40s flips short of taking down all three games. I had went 1st/2nd quiet a few times but had never won two in a row. So it was cool to almost win three consecutive games after winning two in a row for the first time.

And for a final brag, here are my live poker stats for the past 2 seasons.

1st: 11

2nd: 7

3rd: 8

4th: 5

5th: 0

6th: 1

7th: 1

8th: 1

9th: 2

Final tables: 36/38

I don't really keep records of my play beyond last season but I am guessing I have won about 60 games now and have won two bracelet games in 6 tries. I also have won two high roller events and final tabled 4 out of 5. These events are 100-120 people and have much tougher fields than regular games.

Anyone in the Charlotte area is welcome to message me if they want to come out to a game for a beer and fun.

WEEEEE

No need to go into detail on this one.

I continue to work hard on my game. If my ev winrate was better the sting of this would be less. I truly feel a 2ptbb winrate is possible at CAP tables. I am studying more than playing right now to try and get rid of all the leaks.

Two hands that sum up my month so far

It seems like a hand like these happens once every 10 minutes. I am not $800 under aiev for the month in only 40k hands. Its effectively 80 buy-ins for the 50NL CAP games. Brutal.

No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($40.45)

SB ($9.50)

Hero (BB) ($26)

UTG ($17)

MP ($24.25)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A, A

3 folds, SB bets $9.25 (All-In), Hero calls $9

Flop: ($19) 8, 7, 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($19) 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($19) 9 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $19

Results:

SB had 7, 8 (two pair, eights and sevens).

Hero had A, A (one pair, Aces).

Outcome: SB won $18.05

The next one is my favorite of all. When the money went in and I saw his holding I actually said out loud, "FINALLY! ONE I CAN ACTUALLY WIN!" Then when the flop hit I said, "OH SHIT, HE'S GOT A RUNNER RUNNER" And sure enough.. it came like clockwork. I almost puked for real.

No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($50.30)

Hero (BB) ($21.50)

UTG ($31.10)

MP ($71.20)

CO ($51.50)

Button ($8.65)

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, K

3 folds, Button bets $2, 1 fold, Hero raises $19, Button calls $6.65 (All-In)

Flop: ($17.80) 8, 2, 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($17.80) 6 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($17.80) 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $17.80

Results:

Button had K, 9 (straight, nine high).

Hero had K, K (one pair, Kings).

Outcome: Button won $16.95

Today I went through HEM and looked at a bunch of the regs. It seems like 90% of them are running way over AIEV and are STILL losing money. Its a good thing I am there to keep their bankrolls afloat.

Here is the graph. Hopefully I have bottomed out.

50NL still doesn't like me

So I was staked to move up to 100NL, so I have began playing there. Suddenly all of the bad beats disappeared and things were going smoothly. I was winning a few races here and there. My overpairs were holding up for the most part.

So after each of my 100NL sessions that past two days I went ahead and fired up some 50NL tables for some "stress free" grinding to add some more vpps.

And each time.. BOOM. Doomswitch. I had sets flopped on me numerous times, backdoors flushed a few times while valuebetting against air type hands... you name it, it happened. Because of all the postflop coolers I am now starting to run under aiev. Bad news. The 10-15 buy-ins I have to give up at the start of each session are impossible to overcome if I run bad postflop too.

I guess I shouldn't be complaining really. At least the doomswitches are only hitting at 50NL so far. I guess running bad just always stings, no matter the stakes.

I filtered out for preflop all-ins and in the last 2 days I am averaging 48% equity and winning 38% of showdowns over 200 all in hands. Overall I am averaging 52.5% equity when all in preflop and winning at 46%. Its really hard to comprehend how huge that is. I am trying to wrap my head around it. As an example, if I had run equally as good as I did bad in the past 2 weeks, it would have meant an additional $1,000 in my bankroll over those 30k hands. That's 100 buy-ins difference at 50NL!

I'll settle for just getting my equity.. I don't want more.. just please stop making my 88 an exact coinflip to 98s.. which the way I running, basically is from an equity standpoint.

So my history with 50NL continues. I run bad deep stacked, half stacked, and now short stacked. I should ask pokerstars to ban me from opening 50NL tables.

Anyone got lube?

The poker Gods continue to bend me over. In the past 2 weeks, I am going through my worst short term negative variance ever. Today was no different. One hand summed it up perfectly.

No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($40.45)

SB ($9.50)

Hero (BB) ($26)

UTG ($17)

MP ($24.25)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A♥, A♦

3 folds, SB bets $9.25 (All-In), Hero calls $9

Flop: ($19) 8♦, 7♥, 3♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($19) 2♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($19) 9♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $19

Results:

SB had 7♣, 8♣ (two pair, eights and sevens).

Hero had A♥, A♦ (one pair, Aces).

Outcome: SB won $18.05

So I can't win with AK vs A3o, or KQs vs KJo. I have to be a 4-1 favorite just to have a chance. The few times I do win pots, it seems I have to suck out on the river after being outflopped. Its a good thing I don't monitor how the all-ins are going during my sessions, or my laptop would already have flown out the window.

Here is todays graph and my total journey through 50NL CAP so far.

After my initial adjustment period, I feel like I am crushing the game. But where are the results? Over the past 15k hands (4-8 tabling so its a lot of time spent playing) I am running ev adjusted 5bbs/100. On all-ins I am a 53.3% favorite on average and am winning 49.3% of showdowns. Apparently that 4% accounts for the $330 under ev I am running.

So come on Pokerstars. SHOW ME DA MONEY!

Staked+Switched games

After much deliberation, I decided to accept a staking by one of the most profitable players in the game. The package includes a full stake in whatever game he decides I should play in and "free" coaching. In return I pay him 50% of profits until the end of 2011. If I am able to move up and grind higher stakes now, its possible I can increase my hourly rate significantly.. even with the 50% deduction.

I'm just over a week in and I can say I am excited abut the opportunity. He has me playing the 50NL CAP games and its surprisingly a lot more fun than I expected. Its like a learning a new game altogether, but my deeper stack and SNG background is definitely a big plus on quickening the learning curve.

Although I am experiencing a lot of negative variance so far, I feel like I am on the verge of crushing it. In my first 8k hands or so while I was learning, it was a bit of a struggle. Now for the past 12k hands I am running ev 5.20bb/100.

The only problem is... take a look at the graph. Its some of the most ridiculous cash game variance I have ever faced.

In 21k hands I am 50 buy-ins under AIEV.

50.

FIFTY!!!!!

The sick thing is, even with all of this bullshit I am still net up $100 after rakeback and a $50 stellar reward. All I can do is keep grinding and wait for the poker Gods to at least lube up a little before they bend me over.

By the way, right now my staker has me grinding 6-8 tables at once while I learn. So 21k hands represents like 40 hrs of play.

40 hrs of hell.

I'll post more frequently now that I have decided which direction to take.

Derailed temporarily

With the purchase of a new computer and a major car repair, I was forced to cash out most of my bankroll. It almost made me puke to click the button.. but since I didn't want to tap into our savings, I think I did the best thing.

So I am faced with a new challenge. Rebuilding the roll. So in between real life work and being sick the past week or so, I have played a few DONs and regular SNGs to pass the time while I decide what direction to go.

I was offered a staking and coaching deal by a big name player, but am not sure I will accept. With todays changes by pokerstars, I am leaning towards just going it alone. The guy who offered the deal is a short stacker and I am not sure I want to go that route. I am a proven winner playing a 50bb+ stack.. so I almost feel like I am regressing if I switch to short stacking, if only temporarily.

I may try an interesting challenge I have been wanting to do for some time. I was thinking of starting at $50 and starting at 2NL at 6max 24-tabling. I would play a pretty ABC preflop game and move up according to a specific BR schedule. I think it would be a good test of mental endurance and fun to see how high I can go in stakes and how quickly I can build a roll.

I will think about it tonight and decide later. I am still stinging from my bad fortune this month.. but have always had a positive attitude about such things and know it'll only be a minor setback.

Not a fun week one

It wasn't the play at the tables that made for a less than stellar first week. Me and my two kids came down with the flu on Tuesday and then on Friday afternoon, my computer died.

So I frantically ran around all Saturday morning and afternoon trying to get my laptop fixed. It was a power issue so I went to the Best Buy I bought it from and they said they couldn't do anything because then power connection inside is soldered. I tried a new power cord.. no luck. I replaced the inside connection and had my brother sodder it.. nope. So apparently it was something fried on the motherboard.

So there I was on a Saturday afternoon, missing the best times of the week to play poker, with the flu, and suddenly in the market for a new laptop. Blech.

My budget for a new machine was $750 so I ended up settling on this. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+/+AMD+Turion%26%23153%3B+II+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+6GB+Memory+/+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Dark+Gray/1572108.p?id=1218270199430&skuId=1572108

I bought my wife an Asus last year and she has been very happy with it. The things that attracted me most to it was the base ram and the nice video card. I finally got it completely setup last night and fired up 24 tables of 25NL. Without tweaking anything performance wise, everything was smooth and seamless. It was the least amount of lag I had ever had while 24 tabling. I am used to about a half second delay whenever I click a button before the next table pops up.. now its instant. Bring on 40 tables! :)

I am a bit disappointed that I missed all of the prime time hours last week, but overall I am fine with how the week went. After rakeback, I did increase the bankroll some and hopefully am gaining my sea legs at 100NL. I ran like complete ass in my early Friday session or I would have had a near break even week.. more than I ever could have asked for.

It sucks that I have now had to take 3 of my 18 "sick days" already. One for being sick and two for not having a computer. So already I am a bit behind for the year. All I can do is keep plugging along. Here is the graph from week 1:

As you can see, until my Thursday night double doomswitch (I ended up recovering it all by nights end but dropped $500 two separate times) I pretty much held my own.

I ran -.26 and my goal was better than -.5. So far so good.