Things have been pretty hectic around here lately, but that’s par for the course. On the plus side, I already have nearly 24k hands logged with 4 days to go in the month; my goal was only 20k. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday started out routinely and tamely enough. Some up, some down, but a little more up then down. Then, all hell broke loose. Read the rest of this entry »
My last blog post seems long ago and far away. My fruitless focus on trying to add tables cost me several months that I could have used to improve and make more money. I don’t regret trying, because I wouldn’t know whether I was maximizing my hourly unless I tried more tables, but it was nonetheless a pretty stagnant six weeks. As soon as I went back to 4-tabling, and focused again on learning and improving, my winrate was right back to 5ptbb/100. In most of March and some of April, I even managed to take a decent shot at 200NL, but it didn’t work out. Fortunately, a week into May, I was compelled to seek staking, which I received. About 11k hands into the stake, my backer decided he needed to back out in spite of the stake going well (he had some other things come up he needed to focus on.) In retrospect, I’m glad he pulled out, because I managed to “stick” at 200NL and things have been pretty much awesome since, save for 5 buy-ins lost at a 300NL shot on Bodog. 
Here’s the graph since my last blog post, +~$3800 in rakeback/bonus:
Looking forward, the plan is to keep grinding and continue to focus on making whatever improvements to my game I can. I’m able to use more of what I earn to build my bankroll, so a 400NL shot by fall’s end is not out of the question. Also, I have been playing a little 100NL HU with good success as of late, so I may wind up shifting more of my energy to that, though I have no plans for that at the moment.
I think it’s time I go back to what finally gave me a breakthrough. That includes cutting back to 4 tables. It kinda bums me out after making the investment in a second monitor, but my results have been terrible since I went to 6 tables. I’m done rationalizing that it is all because of poor luck or that I am still adjusting. If I look at it from an honest, objective standpoint, since I started 6-tabling I have mostly broke even and had one good “up”swing, not the other way around. 70 thousand hands of <1ptbb/100 don’t lie. Before that I had over 5ptbb/100 over 120k hands. Even if I could squeeze out a better hourly by sticking with it, I’m quite sure whatever I would have to do to make that work wouldn’t be a good enough game to beat 1/2NL 6max. I’m not here to play for rakeback and stay at 100NL forever. I had hoped that I would maintain nearly the same winrate as before and allow myself to make the same money in less hours, but that’s just not happening. The second monitor is still cool to have, it will be a nice aid to cherry picking tables, and I can no doubt run an MTT or two along side my cash tables now and again without any ill effects, but I must not have enough tracks in my brain to process so many decisions without faltering significantly. So, my new priority is to find the handle on my game again, and move up.
The good news is that I have watched some videos recently that have improved my postflop game, but in order to lock in on the game flow and my table image and really focus, I’m going to have to stick to 4 tables. I really feel like I’m now playing better than ever when I’m on my game, but I burn out too quickly with 6 tables going and can’t find the balance between taking pots away with well-timed aggression and spewing my stack off repeatedly for reasons I can’t explain. I expect to get back in the saddle and be better than ever, and once my bankroll is there, I think my confidence will be as well. Hell, I’d go for it right now if my bankroll were where I want it to be. So, I think there are good things just up the road, and now that I am refocused and back to my old tilt-avoiding regimen, it’s only a matter of time before I can right the boat.
I did indeed decide to play again yesterday. It was pretty ugly, but I got through it alright and wound up profiting $58 over 1800+ hands. It was a nice shot in the arm, even if my winrate was terrible; at least I profited! I had free time in the night but decided that I’d take it easy instead of grinding. I played and cross-staked a couple micro donkaments with Eric (a.k.a. MewsicLovr) and got to sweat him to a final table, that was fun. I also played some .50 PL 5CD. I lost about $20 bucks in the first 10 hands donking around with ML; he got most of that, heh. Once I settled in and browsed a couple of articles I made it back, running good and playing aggro. I couldn’t believe how weak the players were, I was blind-stealing like crazy.
Today I got a bit of a late start, which wasn’t too surprising. Truth is I was playing some Battlefield 2 on the P.C. and got involved in a super long round that put me a bit behind schedule, heh. I was pretty relaxed and focused once I started, and before my mid-afternoon break to pick up my daughter, I was up 2 buy-ins. Nice! I hopped right back on when I got home and the tables were hopping. I got put in some marginal spots, but they were working out for the best for the most part today, whereas the last few days they were mostly going badly. Before it was all said and done, I was up 7 buy-ins in 1300+ hands! MAN that felt good. So, hopefully I can sustain an upward trend in the days and weeks ahead, dig out of this thing, and put it behind me. Here’s the month so far:
The past two days have been hell, in regard to poker at least. I’ve actually managed to take it somewhat in stride as things are otherwise pretty good in my life at the moment, so that’s the silver lining. I am down in the neighborhood of 19 buy-ins in the last 2 days, 10.5 coming on Monday, 8.5 on Tuesday. Monday evening I pretty much lost my mind and was playing badly, but that tilt probably only accounts for about 3 buy-ins. According to PokerEV, Monday I ran 7.5 buy-in’s below equity on Full Tilt alone, and I had some gross hands on Cake that probably account for another buy-in. Most of the tilt involved combating persistent 3-bettors with 4-bet all-in bluffs that nearly always ran into QQ+. More of my tilt involved spewing at in opportune times as opposed to making bad calls and such. I’ve been coolered with overpairs and TPTK so many times it’s entirely expected now. However, I was feeling better by yesterday, eager to play again just to prove to myself that I was still sane. Three more buy-ins below equity, overpairs running into sets, missing all draws, light reraisers always showing down the goods against me in reraised pots; it was a continuation of the same nightmare from the day before and I just never woke up. It didn’t wind up affecting my play, but I forced myself to stop because I didn’t want to snap.
So, here I am today, in a similar situation as I was in yesterday. I want to play! I can’t decide if I should or will. I honestly feel like I can play well and be as profitable as ever right at this very second. Also, I don’t want to give up on making Iron level Ironman when this is the best start I’ve had towards that end for months. I think I’ll put a tight stop-loss on and go for it; I have no illusions of making of what I’ve lost in any big hurry, I just want to get the ball rolling in the right direction again.
Truth be told, things went pretty lukewarm with the 6-tabling, and I was trying to get that to pan out. I couldn’t put my finger on why my winrate was dwindling so much; it was very frustrating. I guess I just wasn’t as focused or wasn’t table selecting as much. But finally, after a horrible Thursday last week, I watched a bunch of videos and tweaked my game quite a bit. The main tangible differences are ratcheting up my postflop aggression, value betting thinner, throwing in more double/triple barrels and bluffs, opening up my reraising range. More than that, the videos I watched taught me the value of table image, which I had hardly been giving any attention to. It is your table image and the game flow that tell you when to pick spots to double barrel, bluff, 3-bet light and what have you, not stats from HUDs alone. I guess because for so long I have more or less played robotically according to HUD stats, I lost whatever feel for game flow and table image I had before I added tables. So now, I honestly think I’m better than I was before when I was 4-tabling. I am regaining my confidence, and with any luck, I’ll be ready to take my 200NL shot within the next month. I finally feel like I got the missing pieces to the puzzle that will allow me to succeed at 200NL (and hopefully beyond!)
Coming into January, I hoped for 35k hands, $3000, plus rakeback and bonuses. The way I was playing, I would have had to run pretty white hot for that to happen with my ABC weak-tight game. However, I think it’s definitely attainable next month. Still, my wake up call last week that turned things around for the better did somewhat salvage this month, and the Full Tilt Ironman bonus, which didn’t affect rakeback, was a nice boost as well.
So, $2185 in winnings, $425 Ironman bonus, $40 Cake deposit bonus, and $780 rakeback bring the total to $3430. Not bad at all. considering that downswing in the middle!
All-in Luck (only for Full Tilt play, Cake hands not supported):
February goals: 35k hands, $3000 + rakeback (hopefully $3500 which is 5ptbb/100, I think if I continue to play well and improve it’s easily attainable.) Move up to 200nl when, after withdrawal, my bankroll is 8k.
Please ’scuse the messy desk 
It got here Christmas Eve, and I got to put in a couple of quick sessions the day after Christmas while the wife was running around. I like it better already:
Eric, a.k.a. MewsicLovr on the Felt Poker forum, is coming through town with his family and is going to stay with us tonight. We’ll be hitting up the local cardroom today and tomorrow… I’m really looking forward to it! More to come…
I didn’t really feel like I was bragging in my last post; in fact, I thought I was humbly admitting that I played pretty bad and was lucky to run hot. But whether it was a brag curse or just a regression to the mean, I sure hit a bad streak after I made that last blog post!
Before:
After:
Of course, this also somewhat coincided with going from 4-tabling to 6-tabling on the 10th. I ran bad, that I know, but I do wonder if the extra tables were causing me to make some poor decisions I might have otherwise avoided. So, for now I am back to 4-tabling. I went ahead and ordered a second monitor to match this one and make a better attempt at 6-tabling; the tinier tables didn’t bother me much, but the software didn’t seem to like them, and it was slowing me down.
I did of course make 20k hands already, and Silver level Ironman on Full Tilt, but my winrate is pretty paltry so I’ll no doubt be on the lookout for good games to pad my winnings a bit and regain my confidence.
I am pleased to report that so far, I am comfortably on pace to meet my goals for December. However, I don’t feel I’ve been playing really well, I’ve just been getting lucky enough to compensate. I decided early on to add in some more hands to my preflop 3-betting range and to try to take a more head-on approach to dealing with other regulars in anticipation of moving up to 200NL. I have had mixed results with this strategy; I have to get a better handle on postflop play with more marginal holdings. I have stacked off light a few times more than I ought to have, and I have run into some coolers, but somehow I am having a pretty good month due to running hot on all-in luck.
On the 10th I decided that rather than wait for a second monitor, I would try 6-tabling on the one monitor. It was a pretty big adjustment for me, not least because of the tables winding up so tiny. I made a couple of bad crying calls on the first day that, had I taken the time to think through, I would not have made. However, I ran better in general as the week wore on and became more accustomed to the faster pace. Still, cramming the tables onto one monitor is not the way to go; I am hunting an identical monitor on eBay to see if I can get a good deal on a used one. I will say that deciding to by the Full Tilt Shortcuts script was a great decision as it has helped immensely.
The month is just flying by so far; I can’t believe it’s halfway through. I’m looking forward to having Eric (MewsicLovr on the forums) and his family over after Christmas and hitting up a cardroom with him; hard to believe that’s less than 2 weeks away now. Hopefully I can get all my grinding done next week and be comfortable taking some time away from the computer in the meantime. I’m sure the games will be good approaching New Year’s, however, so that will be tough to pass up.