Another poor performance last week has seen the bankroll drop to below $10,000. On the positive side, it was only a couple of months ago that I was reporting a new record bankroll high of $12,000 so its hardly a disaster. On top of this, consider too that in the last 10 days I have withdrawn over $13,000.
Here’s my problem: after a few months winning big dollars any small wins feel like a loss. Any losses feel like the end of the world.
At times like this is I bring to mind an interview I saw with top UK cash games player Ben Roberts. For those of you who haven’t seen this guy, he comes across as the most level-headed person you could meet. His (paraphrased) philosophy is this: “In poker you have wins and you have losses and at the end of the year you add them all up and that is how you have done. You must accept that there will be losses.”
I’ve read other comments, one from London player Jeff Duval that the difference between the winners and losers at the top level is how much they lose when they are playing badly. The biggest winners manage to keep things together much better when things go against them. Some would-be winners can become break-even or losing players by losing more than they should during bad times.
Until his death earlier this month, Chip Reese, considered by those in the know to be the best poker player of all time, was noted as “smooth” player. By all accounts he never did anything that most good poker players couldn’t have done. The difference was he did the right thing almost all of the time. He played somewhere close to his best game all of the time. He was possibly alone in being able to do this and that’s why he was considered the world’s best player.
Most readers will realise that I have not been doing this over the last few weeks. Any poker players reading will probably realise that its a problem they have too. If we were totally rational human beings we would be much better poker players. Luckily most people are incapable of behaving totally rationally at all times. If they did there would be a hell of a lot less money up for grabs at the poker table.
Discipline is the key principle here. Its not enough to know the right thing to do: we must then do it. It takes discipline to do this and when things don’t go my way I become more of a gambler and less of a disciplined poker player. This is not something I am proud of but its something I can seek to put right. Starting right away!
Monday 17 December 2007
Monday 3 December 2007
November results
Big pot 'true winnings': $2,964.81
Small pot winnings: $1,133.73
Rakeback received: $154.92
True winnings (total): $4,253.46
----------
Hands played: 3,897
Hours played: 44:54
Win rate per hour: $94.73
Win rate per 100 hands: $105.17 (5.26ptbb) (excludes bonus)
----------
Bankroll at 1 Nov: $26,842.68
True win: $4,253.46
Good luck in big pots: $1,857.00
Withdrawal: $(2,979.00)
Bankroll at 30 Nov: $29,974.14
-----------------------------------------------------
My thoughts:
Results-wise this has been another solid month. I managed to maintain a 7% return in the big pots which is OK [1]. What has pleased me more is the positive result in the 'small pots'. This indicates that I have been reading situations better, winning my share of these pots and generally winning a higher proportion of pots without showing my cards.
One problem this month has been with volume. I was only able to manage 45 hours play in November, my lowest number yet if you exclude September where I took a week's holiday. Things have been busy at home as well as at work. I would normally manage 3-4 hours per week playing during my lunch breaks at work but this has not been the case in November. I cant see December being any less busy, so I can probably anticipate playing only 45 hours again this coming month.
Goals for December revolve around reducing negative aspects in my game. I have almost eliminated tilt caused by suffering bad beats [2]. I need to concentrate on the other tilt triggers that I still hang on to: when card-dead and when on the receiving end of 'cold-deck set-ups'.
When I am card-dead I need to find a way to keep from getting agitated. After an hour or so without getting involved I start itching to get in and play. I need to sit tight if nothing is happening for me. Maybe I could use this time more productively by making notes on my regular opponents, as quite often there will be significant action going on around me. This is the main reason why most players sit at many tables. I have tried this and am happy with my game at one table. I just need to play that one table better.
Cold-deck set-ups annoy me too. Set-over-set, KK v AA on a rag flop, you know what I mean. To let this annoy you is stupid: if the situations are truly cold-decks, in that the result would be the same if the players were switched, there is really no need to get annoyed by this. For each time you lose one of these set-ups, you will win one. They are part of the game; when and how often they occur is merely part of the variance of poker. The only advantage to be gained is by reacting philosophically to them, maintaining your equilibrium and hoping that your opponents go crazy when they lose to them.
[1] - if all pots were heads-up this would mean that on average I got my money in as 53.5 to 46.5 favourite. In fact, some pots will be multi-way, some will have 'dead money' from people who folded after contributing part-way, so the reality is that for every $1 invested I was returned $1.07.
[2] - there are NO bad beats. It may seem obvious when written down ,but if your opponent has a 10% chance to win the pot, he can still win the pot. Don't be surprised if this happens, and don't let it affect your game. Getting his money in this bad will ultimately result in losses, but the long run is a lot further away than most of us think.
Small pot winnings: $1,133.73
Rakeback received: $154.92
True winnings (total): $4,253.46
----------
Hands played: 3,897
Hours played: 44:54
Win rate per hour: $94.73
Win rate per 100 hands: $105.17 (5.26ptbb) (excludes bonus)
----------
Bankroll at 1 Nov: $26,842.68
True win: $4,253.46
Good luck in big pots: $1,857.00
Withdrawal: $(2,979.00)
Bankroll at 30 Nov: $29,974.14
-----------------------------------------------------
My thoughts:
Results-wise this has been another solid month. I managed to maintain a 7% return in the big pots which is OK [1]. What has pleased me more is the positive result in the 'small pots'. This indicates that I have been reading situations better, winning my share of these pots and generally winning a higher proportion of pots without showing my cards.
One problem this month has been with volume. I was only able to manage 45 hours play in November, my lowest number yet if you exclude September where I took a week's holiday. Things have been busy at home as well as at work. I would normally manage 3-4 hours per week playing during my lunch breaks at work but this has not been the case in November. I cant see December being any less busy, so I can probably anticipate playing only 45 hours again this coming month.
Goals for December revolve around reducing negative aspects in my game. I have almost eliminated tilt caused by suffering bad beats [2]. I need to concentrate on the other tilt triggers that I still hang on to: when card-dead and when on the receiving end of 'cold-deck set-ups'.
When I am card-dead I need to find a way to keep from getting agitated. After an hour or so without getting involved I start itching to get in and play. I need to sit tight if nothing is happening for me. Maybe I could use this time more productively by making notes on my regular opponents, as quite often there will be significant action going on around me. This is the main reason why most players sit at many tables. I have tried this and am happy with my game at one table. I just need to play that one table better.
Cold-deck set-ups annoy me too. Set-over-set, KK v AA on a rag flop, you know what I mean. To let this annoy you is stupid: if the situations are truly cold-decks, in that the result would be the same if the players were switched, there is really no need to get annoyed by this. For each time you lose one of these set-ups, you will win one. They are part of the game; when and how often they occur is merely part of the variance of poker. The only advantage to be gained is by reacting philosophically to them, maintaining your equilibrium and hoping that your opponents go crazy when they lose to them.
[1] - if all pots were heads-up this would mean that on average I got my money in as 53.5 to 46.5 favourite. In fact, some pots will be multi-way, some will have 'dead money' from people who folded after contributing part-way, so the reality is that for every $1 invested I was returned $1.07.
[2] - there are NO bad beats. It may seem obvious when written down ,but if your opponent has a 10% chance to win the pot, he can still win the pot. Don't be surprised if this happens, and don't let it affect your game. Getting his money in this bad will ultimately result in losses, but the long run is a lot further away than most of us think.
Monday 26 November 2007
Blog affecting play?
Last week was really tough. It started out slow and on Wednesday I suffered my worst day in terms of losses, before breaking the record again on Thursday. For those in the know, this represented almost 4 buy-ins. Hopefully the family members reading this wont know exactly how much that is, as they are unlikely to understand that these sorts of things happen from time to time, and to put it in ‘real money’ context it is actually a lot of money to most people.
There were a couple of issues that annoyed me this week:
The first was that when I started losing on Wednesday I got annoyed and started to play too loose and too aggressive: otherwise known as tilting. I lost track of what my table image was and tried too many bluffs against decent opponents who were reading me well at the time. With hindsight, leaving the game was the best option.
Secondly, I was conscious of how these losses would look to my blog readers, in particular non-poker-playing friends and family. I was putting myself under pressure to get the losses back so I could avoid reporting them on this blog. As any decent poker player will know, the past results are almost totally irrelevant and should very rarely be a factor in current decision-making. It’s also a well-known scientific fact that the process of observing an event has an impact on the actual event itself. This was a case in point.
Every couple of days my wife asks me how I’ve done and this puts me in an awkward position. I never tell her the actual ‘cash’ results as I believe these are irrelevant. I hate having to tell her the ‘theoretical results’ too as there are big swings in these and I would rather keep her away from these swings. As a poker player of eight years I have become used to the swings and so am less-affected emotionally by them. However, telling a layman that you have won $1000 one day and lost $800 the next, I’m sure, would elicit some sort of reaction along the lines of “Oh my god!” or “Why didn’t you not play today?” The problem is we can’t really predict when there will be wins or losses. We can only use our judgement and decide to play a game because we expect it to be favourable: sometimes we will win, sometimes lose, but we expect to win more than we lose.
Looking back at the start of this blog, the main reason for starting it up was as means to regulate my play. I wanted the blog to stop me from playing badly, as I didnt want to report that I had done something stupid and lost all of my money. My success in the last 3-4 months in particular has come about because I have consistently played at or near my best.
However, the pressure to not do anything stupid has been replaced in my own mind by a pressure to keep posting good results, or at least never post bad results. I have to change my thought process as a result of my much improved level of play and emotional control. I need to continue to be honest with myself and aim to play well, make good decisions and not be influenced by unhelpful irrelevant factors like short-term results and the anticipated reactions of non-poker-playing family and friends. It's that simple: make good decisions, play well, remain emotionally detached from the game and reap the long-term benefits.
Despite all of that, I am going to stop writing up a weekly scorecard for the time being as I don’t want this to influence my play during the week. I don’t want to be afraid of losing as this is a good way to ensure that it’ll happen. Instead I am going to report my total winnings per hour (now $62.78), as well as my winnings per hour at the current game level ($5-$10: $98.68/hr). As I’ve played well over 300 hours now in total, and over 200 hours at $5-$10, even an extraordinary weekly results will not massively affect these figures. The long-term aim is to keep these figures as high as possible.
Oh, and for the record, this week’s loss was a record $1,705. Oops.
There were a couple of issues that annoyed me this week:
The first was that when I started losing on Wednesday I got annoyed and started to play too loose and too aggressive: otherwise known as tilting. I lost track of what my table image was and tried too many bluffs against decent opponents who were reading me well at the time. With hindsight, leaving the game was the best option.
Secondly, I was conscious of how these losses would look to my blog readers, in particular non-poker-playing friends and family. I was putting myself under pressure to get the losses back so I could avoid reporting them on this blog. As any decent poker player will know, the past results are almost totally irrelevant and should very rarely be a factor in current decision-making. It’s also a well-known scientific fact that the process of observing an event has an impact on the actual event itself. This was a case in point.
Every couple of days my wife asks me how I’ve done and this puts me in an awkward position. I never tell her the actual ‘cash’ results as I believe these are irrelevant. I hate having to tell her the ‘theoretical results’ too as there are big swings in these and I would rather keep her away from these swings. As a poker player of eight years I have become used to the swings and so am less-affected emotionally by them. However, telling a layman that you have won $1000 one day and lost $800 the next, I’m sure, would elicit some sort of reaction along the lines of “Oh my god!” or “Why didn’t you not play today?” The problem is we can’t really predict when there will be wins or losses. We can only use our judgement and decide to play a game because we expect it to be favourable: sometimes we will win, sometimes lose, but we expect to win more than we lose.
Looking back at the start of this blog, the main reason for starting it up was as means to regulate my play. I wanted the blog to stop me from playing badly, as I didnt want to report that I had done something stupid and lost all of my money. My success in the last 3-4 months in particular has come about because I have consistently played at or near my best.
However, the pressure to not do anything stupid has been replaced in my own mind by a pressure to keep posting good results, or at least never post bad results. I have to change my thought process as a result of my much improved level of play and emotional control. I need to continue to be honest with myself and aim to play well, make good decisions and not be influenced by unhelpful irrelevant factors like short-term results and the anticipated reactions of non-poker-playing family and friends. It's that simple: make good decisions, play well, remain emotionally detached from the game and reap the long-term benefits.
Despite all of that, I am going to stop writing up a weekly scorecard for the time being as I don’t want this to influence my play during the week. I don’t want to be afraid of losing as this is a good way to ensure that it’ll happen. Instead I am going to report my total winnings per hour (now $62.78), as well as my winnings per hour at the current game level ($5-$10: $98.68/hr). As I’ve played well over 300 hours now in total, and over 200 hours at $5-$10, even an extraordinary weekly results will not massively affect these figures. The long-term aim is to keep these figures as high as possible.
Oh, and for the record, this week’s loss was a record $1,705. Oops.
Monday 19 November 2007
A tough way to make an easy living
I managed about 10 hours of play this week and it was once again a rollercoaster ride. Without a bankroll this is just not possible to sustain. Not only does the bankroll prevent me from running out of funds, it also prevents me from going on tilt. This is just as well, because if I tilted away my bankroll now I would never forgive myself and would carry out the earlier pledge to never play again.
On Monday I played really well on a fairly tough table, running my $1,000 buy-in up to $1,400 before disaster struck in the form of KK v AA. I lost it all on that hand and called it quits for the night.
Losing with KK v AA is generally accepted as being a cold-deck situation that you shouldn’t worry too much about. Its considered by a lot of pros that there’s nothing you can do to avoid losing your money, especially if the flop comes low and offsuit. However, I wondered if I could have managed to save some money as my opponent checked the turn after re-raising pre-flop and firing a decent amount on the flop. I suspected AA going from a previous hand, and if I had checked behind on the turn I guess he would have made a smaller value-bet on the river than the all-in bet I made for him on the turn. $200-$300 saved here would have added nicely to the week’s bottom line.
On Tuesday I started really well and recouped the vast majority of Monday’s losses before hitting trip Jacks on a QJ8 flop only to find myself against a loose-aggressive player with the nut straight. I don’t see how I could have saved any money here. This was another $1,000 loss to wipe out all of the good work that came before it.
The good news is that from Wednesday onwards things improved. I won lots of small pots and a couple of big ones too. More importantly, I never got big money into the pot in bad shape again.
On Sunday night I got 3-way action holding top-set on a draw-heavy board and amazingly the only live draw against me was to a runner-runner-non-board-pairing flush. KK v K10 v 1010, flop K107. Nice work if you can get it, although it was a shame their stacks were only $500 and $800!
After the ups and downs this week I was delighted with the result of +$3,072 although it must be said that this was by no means an easy week.
On Monday I played really well on a fairly tough table, running my $1,000 buy-in up to $1,400 before disaster struck in the form of KK v AA. I lost it all on that hand and called it quits for the night.
Losing with KK v AA is generally accepted as being a cold-deck situation that you shouldn’t worry too much about. Its considered by a lot of pros that there’s nothing you can do to avoid losing your money, especially if the flop comes low and offsuit. However, I wondered if I could have managed to save some money as my opponent checked the turn after re-raising pre-flop and firing a decent amount on the flop. I suspected AA going from a previous hand, and if I had checked behind on the turn I guess he would have made a smaller value-bet on the river than the all-in bet I made for him on the turn. $200-$300 saved here would have added nicely to the week’s bottom line.
On Tuesday I started really well and recouped the vast majority of Monday’s losses before hitting trip Jacks on a QJ8 flop only to find myself against a loose-aggressive player with the nut straight. I don’t see how I could have saved any money here. This was another $1,000 loss to wipe out all of the good work that came before it.
The good news is that from Wednesday onwards things improved. I won lots of small pots and a couple of big ones too. More importantly, I never got big money into the pot in bad shape again.
On Sunday night I got 3-way action holding top-set on a draw-heavy board and amazingly the only live draw against me was to a runner-runner-non-board-pairing flush. KK v K10 v 1010, flop K107. Nice work if you can get it, although it was a shame their stacks were only $500 and $800!
After the ups and downs this week I was delighted with the result of +$3,072 although it must be said that this was by no means an easy week.
Monday 12 November 2007
After the Lord Mayor's show....
I had a losing week this week. I had a bad session on Wednesday, losing $1500 or thereabouts, recovered with a good session on Friday but recorded another Sunday loss – this time just over $500 – to finish the week down $770.
Whenever I have losses I always like to review what’s happened to see if I could have done anything different. Actually, the answer is the same as when I have won: there are always things I could have done better and in itself that is a positive.
There have been a lot more winning weeks than losers in the last 3 or 4 months and overall I am nicely ahead. However, it still feels a bit weird losing, and that is something I need to keep an eye on as I don’t want the fear of losing to creep into my game.
What’s interesting is that I can now almost totally ignore the cash-flow element of the game and concentrate on the theoretical win/loss. Here’s an example from this week:
I limp in early position for $10 with AK suited. A fairly tight short-stack ($230) makes it $55 to go and a loose-goose (who has my $1100 covered) calls. I know I have the loose-goose beat and am happy to gamble for $230 against the shorty’s range here, but I want to give myself the best opportunity to make the loose-goose fold pre-flop as I am out of position with lots left to bet. I re-raise to $110, so allowing the shorty to go all-in, and thus forcing the loose-goose to possibly face a decision for all of his chips. If he calls the $230 I will without doubt go all-in for $1100. Anyway, LG folds and I call the extra $120 to see all 5 cards.
When all the cards are out there is a possible flush on board and a 1-card straight. I make TPTK on the 9J2,K,Q board and shorty takes it with a flush (Ace-Ten). I am more than happy to see the chips slide his way, as long as he had to get lucky to win them.
Whenever I have losses I always like to review what’s happened to see if I could have done anything different. Actually, the answer is the same as when I have won: there are always things I could have done better and in itself that is a positive.
There have been a lot more winning weeks than losers in the last 3 or 4 months and overall I am nicely ahead. However, it still feels a bit weird losing, and that is something I need to keep an eye on as I don’t want the fear of losing to creep into my game.
What’s interesting is that I can now almost totally ignore the cash-flow element of the game and concentrate on the theoretical win/loss. Here’s an example from this week:
I limp in early position for $10 with AK suited. A fairly tight short-stack ($230) makes it $55 to go and a loose-goose (who has my $1100 covered) calls. I know I have the loose-goose beat and am happy to gamble for $230 against the shorty’s range here, but I want to give myself the best opportunity to make the loose-goose fold pre-flop as I am out of position with lots left to bet. I re-raise to $110, so allowing the shorty to go all-in, and thus forcing the loose-goose to possibly face a decision for all of his chips. If he calls the $230 I will without doubt go all-in for $1100. Anyway, LG folds and I call the extra $120 to see all 5 cards.
When all the cards are out there is a possible flush on board and a 1-card straight. I make TPTK on the 9J2,K,Q board and shorty takes it with a flush (Ace-Ten). I am more than happy to see the chips slide his way, as long as he had to get lucky to win them.
Monday 5 November 2007
Passing the $20,000 mark
After a bumpy ride over the last couple of weeks, admittedly more up than down, it was nice to record a week without any losing days. I only actually managed to play just over 8 hours in total, but a record win of $3,512 was more than welcome.
Of the big pots I played (16 in all), I managed to get the money in really well. The $8,430 wagered produced a return of $3,323 (a massive 39%). Obviously, this is due in large part to finding myself in many favourable situations. Here are some of the best ones:
(1) Playing heads-up, I raised from the SB with QQ and called the re-raise from the BB. We got all-in on the flop of 986 and my Queens held up against the BB’s J6 (nice re-raise!) for a $2,000 pot
(2) I raised with AJ and got 4 callers, which didn’t please me until the flop came down KQT rainbow, giving me the nuts. I managed to get a total of almost $600 into the pot whilst almost totally unbeatable. Then, on the turn, the other player with decent chips decided I was bluffing and proceeded to put his remaining $624 in whilst drawing dead. This pot alone was worth $1,078 in equity.
(3) I hit trips (the silent killer) in a raised pot against AK, with the dream flop of K92 and the dream opponent who thought that TPTK was the nuts. This was good for another $2,300 pot.
(4) I hit trips again from UTG (66 on a 643 flop) against what seemed to be an obvious big pair. He didn’t disappoint me and couldn’t wait to get all-in by the turn. This generated another $800+ in equity.
The biggest losing pot of the week I went in with AK (no pair, no draw) on a 775 flop, but in all fairness it was against a guy who had been betting and raising every hand for the last 10 minutes. The only problem was this time he had KK and I was drawing very thin. That was a loss of almost $1,200.
Reading this, it could appear to the casual observer that all you have to do to win at poker is hit the flop and then get paid off by some donkey with an inferior hand. In reality, its much more difficult than that. Its only by getting involved occasionally with the worst hand that you can get action when you have the best hand. There are many small pots that are little more than jabs, attempting to set up the opening for the huge knockout blow that wins all the chips. Also, even when you have the best possible hand, there is still a huge skill element in deciding how much to bet. This requires the ability to estimate what your opponent holds and how much value he is likely to put on that holding. Sometimes you get it wrong and win nothing (as they fold), other times you are spot on and manage to persuade them to lose all their chips.
I observed an amazing run from an opponent this week. He sat down with only $200 and after picking up AA, AQ (Q-high flop) and K7 (KK9 flop, K on the turn) he was sat in front of $2,000 after his first 3 hands at the table. It didn't last however, as he seemed intent on being involved in every hand. He lost $1,200 of it to me 2 hands later with AK against my trip 2s (see above) and another chunk a few hands later. Within another 20 minutes the rest had gone too, including his original $200: a truly incredible run!
This week’s win has seen me crash through the $20,000 barrier since this escapade began. To be honest, this wasn’t something I was expecting much before May next year, so its great to be way ahead of schedule. Obviously its possible that I can dip below $20,000 again, but hopefully it will be onwards and upwards.
Bankroll-wise, my wife has asked me "how much is enough?" I’m not sure what the answer to that it, but I feel much more comfortable making the right playing decisions when there are no bankroll considerations to factor in to the equation: these are totally unwanted distractions. I feel that $25,000 is an adequate bankroll for the level I am playing but it must be remembered that I have enjoyed lots of good luck in the last 5 months (more than my fair share, to the value of about $11,000). It wouldn’t be a great shock to me to find the bankroll stagnating or even going down. I still plan to withdraw 10% per month, so in the next few days I should be taking out about $2,900 to go towards real-life expenses. The rest will remain ‘unspendable’ until its time to withdraw again next month. Hopefully this way, I can build a solid, significant and sustainable additional income stream. It sure beats any other part-time job I could get.
Of the big pots I played (16 in all), I managed to get the money in really well. The $8,430 wagered produced a return of $3,323 (a massive 39%). Obviously, this is due in large part to finding myself in many favourable situations. Here are some of the best ones:
(1) Playing heads-up, I raised from the SB with QQ and called the re-raise from the BB. We got all-in on the flop of 986 and my Queens held up against the BB’s J6 (nice re-raise!) for a $2,000 pot
(2) I raised with AJ and got 4 callers, which didn’t please me until the flop came down KQT rainbow, giving me the nuts. I managed to get a total of almost $600 into the pot whilst almost totally unbeatable. Then, on the turn, the other player with decent chips decided I was bluffing and proceeded to put his remaining $624 in whilst drawing dead. This pot alone was worth $1,078 in equity.
(3) I hit trips (the silent killer) in a raised pot against AK, with the dream flop of K92 and the dream opponent who thought that TPTK was the nuts. This was good for another $2,300 pot.
(4) I hit trips again from UTG (66 on a 643 flop) against what seemed to be an obvious big pair. He didn’t disappoint me and couldn’t wait to get all-in by the turn. This generated another $800+ in equity.
The biggest losing pot of the week I went in with AK (no pair, no draw) on a 775 flop, but in all fairness it was against a guy who had been betting and raising every hand for the last 10 minutes. The only problem was this time he had KK and I was drawing very thin. That was a loss of almost $1,200.
Reading this, it could appear to the casual observer that all you have to do to win at poker is hit the flop and then get paid off by some donkey with an inferior hand. In reality, its much more difficult than that. Its only by getting involved occasionally with the worst hand that you can get action when you have the best hand. There are many small pots that are little more than jabs, attempting to set up the opening for the huge knockout blow that wins all the chips. Also, even when you have the best possible hand, there is still a huge skill element in deciding how much to bet. This requires the ability to estimate what your opponent holds and how much value he is likely to put on that holding. Sometimes you get it wrong and win nothing (as they fold), other times you are spot on and manage to persuade them to lose all their chips.
I observed an amazing run from an opponent this week. He sat down with only $200 and after picking up AA, AQ (Q-high flop) and K7 (KK9 flop, K on the turn) he was sat in front of $2,000 after his first 3 hands at the table. It didn't last however, as he seemed intent on being involved in every hand. He lost $1,200 of it to me 2 hands later with AK against my trip 2s (see above) and another chunk a few hands later. Within another 20 minutes the rest had gone too, including his original $200: a truly incredible run!
This week’s win has seen me crash through the $20,000 barrier since this escapade began. To be honest, this wasn’t something I was expecting much before May next year, so its great to be way ahead of schedule. Obviously its possible that I can dip below $20,000 again, but hopefully it will be onwards and upwards.
Bankroll-wise, my wife has asked me "how much is enough?" I’m not sure what the answer to that it, but I feel much more comfortable making the right playing decisions when there are no bankroll considerations to factor in to the equation: these are totally unwanted distractions. I feel that $25,000 is an adequate bankroll for the level I am playing but it must be remembered that I have enjoyed lots of good luck in the last 5 months (more than my fair share, to the value of about $11,000). It wouldn’t be a great shock to me to find the bankroll stagnating or even going down. I still plan to withdraw 10% per month, so in the next few days I should be taking out about $2,900 to go towards real-life expenses. The rest will remain ‘unspendable’ until its time to withdraw again next month. Hopefully this way, I can build a solid, significant and sustainable additional income stream. It sure beats any other part-time job I could get.
Thursday 1 November 2007
October consigned to history
Big pot 'true winnings': $5,833.66
Small pot losses: $(570.50)
Rakeback received: $127.82
True winnings (total): $5,390.98
----------
Hands played: 5,798
Hours played: 60:45
Win rate per hour: $88.74
Win rate per 100 hands: $92.98 (4.65ptbb)
----------
Bankroll at 1 Oct: $18,277.63
True win: $5,390.98
Good luck in big pots: $5,333.07
Withdrawal: $(2,159.00)
Bankroll at 31 Oct: $26,842.68
-----------------------------------------------------
My thoughts:
This has been a tricky month, and I am happy to get through to the end of it with a nice win. Once again, I have run very well in the big pots. I am sure this undeserved extra help to the bankroll has helped me maintain my equilibrium in the tough times. Who knows what would have happened without it.
I have done reasonably well (EV-wise) in the big pots this month, despite having been involved in so many more than the previous two months put together. I think this is a reflection of the action there has been during the month. There have been a lot of new faces and they have generally been willing to play big pots. I have loosened up a bit compared to previous months and this has meant that results have been a bit more up-and-down.
I lost money in the small pots (ie. those with showdown and pot size < $400, or those with no showdown) and this probably reflects an increase in looseness of the average opponent. Earlier in the month I was way down in this area, and had to adjust to reflect that I was unable to steal as many small and medium-sized pots as I had in previous months.
The bankroll has now reached a very healthy position, due in large part to my continued good luck in the biggest pots. I have no plans to move up in stakes, as I am sure the $10-$20 game would put great strains on a 13 buy-in bankroll. When I do eventually move up, I expect the games to be more aggressive and more frequently short-handed. Both of these factors point to higher variance. Also, if my relative win-rate is lower than at $5-$10, which it more than likely will be, this also indicates a higher expected variance per win-rate, increasing bankroll pressure.
I am happy to have maintained an hourly rate around the $100 mark for the last 3 months, and see no reason to jeopardise that by moving up to $10-$20. I aim to win $5000 per month for the time being and as the bankroll increases my monthly 10% withdrawal will continue to be significant to our household income.
Small pot losses: $(570.50)
Rakeback received: $127.82
True winnings (total): $5,390.98
----------
Hands played: 5,798
Hours played: 60:45
Win rate per hour: $88.74
Win rate per 100 hands: $92.98 (4.65ptbb)
----------
Bankroll at 1 Oct: $18,277.63
True win: $5,390.98
Good luck in big pots: $5,333.07
Withdrawal: $(2,159.00)
Bankroll at 31 Oct: $26,842.68
-----------------------------------------------------
My thoughts:
This has been a tricky month, and I am happy to get through to the end of it with a nice win. Once again, I have run very well in the big pots. I am sure this undeserved extra help to the bankroll has helped me maintain my equilibrium in the tough times. Who knows what would have happened without it.
I have done reasonably well (EV-wise) in the big pots this month, despite having been involved in so many more than the previous two months put together. I think this is a reflection of the action there has been during the month. There have been a lot of new faces and they have generally been willing to play big pots. I have loosened up a bit compared to previous months and this has meant that results have been a bit more up-and-down.
I lost money in the small pots (ie. those with showdown and pot size < $400, or those with no showdown) and this probably reflects an increase in looseness of the average opponent. Earlier in the month I was way down in this area, and had to adjust to reflect that I was unable to steal as many small and medium-sized pots as I had in previous months.
The bankroll has now reached a very healthy position, due in large part to my continued good luck in the biggest pots. I have no plans to move up in stakes, as I am sure the $10-$20 game would put great strains on a 13 buy-in bankroll. When I do eventually move up, I expect the games to be more aggressive and more frequently short-handed. Both of these factors point to higher variance. Also, if my relative win-rate is lower than at $5-$10, which it more than likely will be, this also indicates a higher expected variance per win-rate, increasing bankroll pressure.
I am happy to have maintained an hourly rate around the $100 mark for the last 3 months, and see no reason to jeopardise that by moving up to $10-$20. I aim to win $5000 per month for the time being and as the bankroll increases my monthly 10% withdrawal will continue to be significant to our household income.
Monday 29 October 2007
Getting better all the time?
I feel as though describing another week as “disappointing” would be thrusting this blog closer to monotony. Some might say it’s already there. That said, I have found it tough going (again) but still managed to scrape out a $642 win in 17 hours of play.
Maybe it’s a sign that I’m improving steadily as a player, that I can look back on a week as tough but yet still record a reasonable win. Looking at the big pots, this week I recorded a $306 loss: not earth-shattering by any means but it looks bad in context of the previous 11-12 weeks ($10,000 profit in total). I feel as though I played well pretty much all week, so I just have to accept it as part of the ups and downs of the game.
I flopped a few sets this week but never managed to win a big pot. Here are some of the losers:
44 from the big blind, flop AJ4: I checked the flop here as I was against an auto-bettor (who checked). He then called my turn bet of $70 with K7 (turn made him a pair of Kings to go with his flopped flush draw, which I would have expected him to bet). The flush came in on the river and for some reason I decided to bet into him and then pay off his raise, which meant that I lost the maximum. A check-call of a pot-sized bet would have saved me $200.
88 in 4-way pot, flop K98 (all diamonds): I checked 3rd to go on the flop and it was checked around. The turn was an offsuit 3 and I bet $100 into the $135 pot, called by the button who had $235 behind. An offsuit 6 fell on the river and I made a defensive bet of $150, hoping to save some money against a non-nut flush. Alas, the button raised me with the nuts and I paid off the $85 extra “just in case”.
44 from the big blind, raised by an unknown short-stack, flop J74: we both checked the flop and then he got all-in for $189 on the blank turn, his JJ leaving me drawing at one out.
33 from late position against the blinds (unraised pot): I raised the big blinds flop bet on an 832 board (with 2 spades) and he called. A third spade (the 6) hit the turn and I checked behind. Then another spade hit the river and the big blind tried to trap-check with A(spades)8 but I checked behind as I had a 3 spades for the flush also.
The one time I flopped a set against a big stack, with QQ in a re-raised pot, I came out firing on the QJx flop and bet again on a blank turn, forcing the solid re-raiser to fold. I guess he either didn’t have an overpair (or didn’t fancy it was ahead, maybe).
The biggest loss of the week occurred when I called a raise from the small blind with AK, playing 3-handed. The small blind called too and the flop came down K85, with a flush draw. I checked and called the $105 flop bet. The board paired the 8 and it looked like a good card to ‘represent’. The raiser might think that I was merely representing this card, and would therefore be more likely to get his money in with a weaker K than mine. Alas, I got a sinking feeling after he quickly re-raised my check-raise all-in. He showed 55 for an almost unbeatable full house.
It wasn’t all gloom and doom, however. There were some hands I played really well, extracting maximum value, but to go into details sounds too much like bragging.
I suppose the positive to come out of this review is the fact that I have spotted so many errors I have made during the week. These errors highlight additional opportunities to profit from better play. This is something I need to keep striving for in the weeks and months to come.
If I get to the point where I can’t spot my own mistakes either the game is too tough, I’ve become too complacent or I’m playing perfect poker (the least likely of the three). In the mean time, I am happy being able to win despite some fairly silly mistakes.
Maybe it’s a sign that I’m improving steadily as a player, that I can look back on a week as tough but yet still record a reasonable win. Looking at the big pots, this week I recorded a $306 loss: not earth-shattering by any means but it looks bad in context of the previous 11-12 weeks ($10,000 profit in total). I feel as though I played well pretty much all week, so I just have to accept it as part of the ups and downs of the game.
I flopped a few sets this week but never managed to win a big pot. Here are some of the losers:
44 from the big blind, flop AJ4: I checked the flop here as I was against an auto-bettor (who checked). He then called my turn bet of $70 with K7 (turn made him a pair of Kings to go with his flopped flush draw, which I would have expected him to bet). The flush came in on the river and for some reason I decided to bet into him and then pay off his raise, which meant that I lost the maximum. A check-call of a pot-sized bet would have saved me $200.
88 in 4-way pot, flop K98 (all diamonds): I checked 3rd to go on the flop and it was checked around. The turn was an offsuit 3 and I bet $100 into the $135 pot, called by the button who had $235 behind. An offsuit 6 fell on the river and I made a defensive bet of $150, hoping to save some money against a non-nut flush. Alas, the button raised me with the nuts and I paid off the $85 extra “just in case”.
44 from the big blind, raised by an unknown short-stack, flop J74: we both checked the flop and then he got all-in for $189 on the blank turn, his JJ leaving me drawing at one out.
33 from late position against the blinds (unraised pot): I raised the big blinds flop bet on an 832 board (with 2 spades) and he called. A third spade (the 6) hit the turn and I checked behind. Then another spade hit the river and the big blind tried to trap-check with A(spades)8 but I checked behind as I had a 3 spades for the flush also.
The one time I flopped a set against a big stack, with QQ in a re-raised pot, I came out firing on the QJx flop and bet again on a blank turn, forcing the solid re-raiser to fold. I guess he either didn’t have an overpair (or didn’t fancy it was ahead, maybe).
The biggest loss of the week occurred when I called a raise from the small blind with AK, playing 3-handed. The small blind called too and the flop came down K85, with a flush draw. I checked and called the $105 flop bet. The board paired the 8 and it looked like a good card to ‘represent’. The raiser might think that I was merely representing this card, and would therefore be more likely to get his money in with a weaker K than mine. Alas, I got a sinking feeling after he quickly re-raised my check-raise all-in. He showed 55 for an almost unbeatable full house.
It wasn’t all gloom and doom, however. There were some hands I played really well, extracting maximum value, but to go into details sounds too much like bragging.
I suppose the positive to come out of this review is the fact that I have spotted so many errors I have made during the week. These errors highlight additional opportunities to profit from better play. This is something I need to keep striving for in the weeks and months to come.
If I get to the point where I can’t spot my own mistakes either the game is too tough, I’ve become too complacent or I’m playing perfect poker (the least likely of the three). In the mean time, I am happy being able to win despite some fairly silly mistakes.
Monday 22 October 2007
Action, mistakes and loose play
This week has seen a tremendous amount of action at the tables. I've played about 1500 hands in about 15 hours and won just over $2500. This hasn't happened, though, without putting a lot of money into play. I'm thankful to the poker gods for providing me with enough bankroll padding to be able to play at these stakes without feeling outside my comfort zone.
It hasn't all been plain-sailing though and I had a bad hour or so on Wednesday evening where I was in danger of getting seriously annoyed with myself.
Monday brought a nice win ($1100), with a couple of hiccups along the way, but Tuesday I only broke even despite a couple of risky plays that paid off.
On Wednesday I made a couple of moves that under the right circumstances were OK, but with the table image that I had cultivated (very loose aggressive) were nothing more than chip-spewing. I lost a lot of money in $100s and $200s trying to buy pots with nothing and I picked the wrong time to take a stand when playing heads-up against somebody who I have now re-assessed as "tough" from my original classification of "borderline maniac".
I was down over $2000 for the day at one point, but changed tables and immediately flopped the nut straight in a raised pot (big blind v small blind) with QJ. The raiser had TP+SD and we got all-in on the turn, my hand holding up despite the board pairing on the turn.
Next I re-raise squeezed from the BB with AQs and pushed all-in when re-re-raised. It turns out the 4-bettor had QQ but I considered that unless he had AA I had at least 30% equity and decided to go for it, as there was the possibility he was re-squeezing.
After winning this hand it was obvious that I was viewed as the table donkey, although there was another guy who was in more pots than me and was quite passive. He called a big bet of mine with A4 on a board of 5677(rainbow) and when I checked behind on the river with KJ he won a decent pot. This can't have made me look good either, so I decided I had better make the most of this loose image. I tightened up and only raised in super-solid situations for the next 20 minutes or so: just enough to look as if I hadn't gone into my shell with my big stack.
I had lost a few smallish pots to the guy on my right who now had around $2k after pushing me around a bit when I found the perfect spot to push him back. He raised from the SB and I re-raised him to $120 with QQ. The flop came Q53 and he checked and called my follow-up bet of $190. The 4 on the turn appeared to change nothing and he checked and called again - this time a bet of $370. When the river came an Ace, I wondered if he could have anything good enough to call another big bet. I decided he might just look me up with a relatively weak hand, when considering my previous play, so decided to bet enough to put him all-in. He happily called his last $1200 with AQ (top two-pairs) and I raked in the biggest pot in the history of this blog ($3900).
After a disastrous start to the day, I was relieved to get back to a manageable loss (about $400).
The rest of the week was less eventful, in comparison and I finished it very well despite the occasional hiccup. I was much more controlled in my decision-making and managed to find some very favourable situations where I got somewhere near maximum value for my hand.
The action has been good lately as long as you are prepared to look for good tables, avoiding the tight regulars. One of the advantages of playing one table at a time is that I have time to assess how things are going and can look for a better table if necessary. There still seems to be enough loose money making its way to $5-$10 to keep the multi-tabling regulars in business but I'm happy that my method suits my game.
Maybe I could win more per hour playing a tighter game on 3-4 tables. The win-rate would almost certainly drop dramatically and with the reduced win-rate comes increased variance, putting more pressure on the bankroll. I'm happy playing 1 table: it feels more like a game than a job and the enjoyment factor has definitely got to be a major consideration in determining any future plans in this game.
Managing the swings is one of the keys to success, and I'm comfortable with the bankroll now standing at around $24,000. Having said that, I know I have been lucky in this escapade so far. I hope that continues but I am realistic enough to know that I need to hope I still keep playing winning poker when my luck changes for the worse.
It hasn't all been plain-sailing though and I had a bad hour or so on Wednesday evening where I was in danger of getting seriously annoyed with myself.
Monday brought a nice win ($1100), with a couple of hiccups along the way, but Tuesday I only broke even despite a couple of risky plays that paid off.
On Wednesday I made a couple of moves that under the right circumstances were OK, but with the table image that I had cultivated (very loose aggressive) were nothing more than chip-spewing. I lost a lot of money in $100s and $200s trying to buy pots with nothing and I picked the wrong time to take a stand when playing heads-up against somebody who I have now re-assessed as "tough" from my original classification of "borderline maniac".
I was down over $2000 for the day at one point, but changed tables and immediately flopped the nut straight in a raised pot (big blind v small blind) with QJ. The raiser had TP+SD and we got all-in on the turn, my hand holding up despite the board pairing on the turn.
Next I re-raise squeezed from the BB with AQs and pushed all-in when re-re-raised. It turns out the 4-bettor had QQ but I considered that unless he had AA I had at least 30% equity and decided to go for it, as there was the possibility he was re-squeezing.
After winning this hand it was obvious that I was viewed as the table donkey, although there was another guy who was in more pots than me and was quite passive. He called a big bet of mine with A4 on a board of 5677(rainbow) and when I checked behind on the river with KJ he won a decent pot. This can't have made me look good either, so I decided I had better make the most of this loose image. I tightened up and only raised in super-solid situations for the next 20 minutes or so: just enough to look as if I hadn't gone into my shell with my big stack.
I had lost a few smallish pots to the guy on my right who now had around $2k after pushing me around a bit when I found the perfect spot to push him back. He raised from the SB and I re-raised him to $120 with QQ. The flop came Q53 and he checked and called my follow-up bet of $190. The 4 on the turn appeared to change nothing and he checked and called again - this time a bet of $370. When the river came an Ace, I wondered if he could have anything good enough to call another big bet. I decided he might just look me up with a relatively weak hand, when considering my previous play, so decided to bet enough to put him all-in. He happily called his last $1200 with AQ (top two-pairs) and I raked in the biggest pot in the history of this blog ($3900).
After a disastrous start to the day, I was relieved to get back to a manageable loss (about $400).
The rest of the week was less eventful, in comparison and I finished it very well despite the occasional hiccup. I was much more controlled in my decision-making and managed to find some very favourable situations where I got somewhere near maximum value for my hand.
The action has been good lately as long as you are prepared to look for good tables, avoiding the tight regulars. One of the advantages of playing one table at a time is that I have time to assess how things are going and can look for a better table if necessary. There still seems to be enough loose money making its way to $5-$10 to keep the multi-tabling regulars in business but I'm happy that my method suits my game.
Maybe I could win more per hour playing a tighter game on 3-4 tables. The win-rate would almost certainly drop dramatically and with the reduced win-rate comes increased variance, putting more pressure on the bankroll. I'm happy playing 1 table: it feels more like a game than a job and the enjoyment factor has definitely got to be a major consideration in determining any future plans in this game.
Managing the swings is one of the keys to success, and I'm comfortable with the bankroll now standing at around $24,000. Having said that, I know I have been lucky in this escapade so far. I hope that continues but I am realistic enough to know that I need to hope I still keep playing winning poker when my luck changes for the worse.
Monday 15 October 2007
Playing against 'hot' players
This week the theme of loose and aggressive play has continued at the $5-$10 full-ring tables. I can think of at least 3 times when the worst player in the game has had the biggest stack of chips. This is a situation that gets me drooling, and I generally go out of my way to get involved with them. Things didnt go according to plan, however, and the results for the week were no better than 'decent': a $599 win in just under 11.5hrs play.
All three of these players played too many hands, around 60% when not in the blinds, but whereas the first two where at least sometimes aggressive, the third just called even when he was really strong. He won a small fortune but really should have won even more.
These players weren't hot. They just appeared hot, as they played so many hands that they were showing down unlikely winners more often than is usual. Obviously the main reason for this was that they were playing many more hands than is optimal, and so there were also many losing hands that we never got to see.
Numpty #1
This guy was sat down with just over $3000 when I joined the table. He ended up losing $1143 in the hour that I played with him, despite winning $427 from me. He never got much higher than $3k and it was instantly obvious that the sharks were circling him.
He lost $560 drawing to a pair+straight-flush-draw when he hit trips on the river against a full-house. Then he got stubborn with A7 and lost another $460 v AQ on a A95,3,A board.
The only decent pot he won was with A2 when he flopped AT2 and made small bets to the river and was called down by 77, with your truly coming along for the value with K6 (the NFD).
Generally he played too many pots and lost 10 pots after putting in between $70-$200.
Numpty #2
Later the same day; this guy was even worse. When I sat down he had about $1100 but he soon whittled that down to $500 or so before going on a big run up to about $2600. I got involved with him a few times but managed to not lose much to him, until I then won a big one, doubling through my $1300 against his then $1600.
I raised to $50 with KK, which is more than I usually raise but he was routinely calling $50 before the flop so it made sense to get as much in before the flop with the best hand. He called from the SB with J9 and we saw the J99 flop heads-up. He checked and I bet $90, which he just called. The turn was a Q and despite the possibility that he had a 9, I decided to bet again, $190, as QJ was definitely in his range of possible holdings. When he called again I was starting to get a bit worried that he had a 9 after all. The river was a King, and he delighted me by leading out with a bet of $330, which I raised a further $660 all-in. Obviously he called and a big pot came my way.
When I left the table about 20 minutes later he had managed to get back up to about $700.
Numpty #3
This fella did run pretty hot and was very lucky cards-wise, but he didn't maximise his good luck. I just reviewed this guys session and he was actually loose because he got hit by the deck. Every marginal hand he had held up. Every draw he had hit.
Of his $2200 win, over $1800 of it came from yours truly. I lost 15 pots to him. Here are some of the details, starting with the biggest:
(1) He raises to $35 from EP with 65(hearts) and I call from the BB after the button calls. The flop is 972(with 2 hearts) and he bets out $50, called by the button and I call too. The turn is an offsuit 9 and he bets out again for $100, the button folds and I raise to $290, which he calls. I know I have him beat at this point, but because he generally calls when anyone takes the lead its tough to know what he has. The river is the 4 of hearts and I bet a partly-defensive $370 into the $840 pot, which he just calls.
(2) I raise to $30 with KQ and there are 3 callers including our nemesis. I bet only $60 on the flop and that succeeds on getting it heads-up. The turn bring a 10 and he calls my $150 bet, before calling my $220 bet on the blank river with trip 10s. He scoops the pot and comments "Ever heard of checking son?"
(3) I re-raise a button steal to $110 with J9-suited. He calls cold from the BB and the button folds. I check the K-high flop but bet $220 on the turn which he calls with JJ. I give up on the river and he checks behind.
(4) I raise to $30 with T9 and get 2 callers, including the nemesis on the SB with 73(hearts). The flop come QJ8 with two hearts and he calls my $50 bet. The flush gets there on the turn and he min-check-raises my $50 bet, which I call. I have the 10 of hearts. He then bets out $100 on the river and I call again.
(5) I limp on the button with 96(spades) and we see a Kd8s5s flop 4-handed. All check to me and I attempt to steal for $30. Nemesis makes it $60 and I call. I could raise here but I really dont see him folding anything at all. He then bets $100 into the $160 pot and again I consider raising but just call (same reasoning), before folding to his river value bet ($100 - K5 for the flopped 2-pairs).
Looking back I dont think I did too much wrong. It just happens that way sometimes. Value-bets look good when they are called by lesser hands but you can look a bit foolish when your opponent has you beat all along.
There is so much scope for error in this game. I have made lots of errors this week and still come out ahead. This week's win is really insignificant, though, when compared with the amount of money I have put across the line. A better player than me could have won $3-4,000 with the cards I've had, I guess. My quest should be to try to maximise every time. I feel as though I've left a lot of money on the tables this week.
I need to take a bit of a stop back this week, take my time a bit more and think through the possiblities a bit longer. I have maybe drifted into auto-pilot a little and that is dangerous. I must try to re-focus and see if I can get my win-rate back up to that of August and September.
All three of these players played too many hands, around 60% when not in the blinds, but whereas the first two where at least sometimes aggressive, the third just called even when he was really strong. He won a small fortune but really should have won even more.
These players weren't hot. They just appeared hot, as they played so many hands that they were showing down unlikely winners more often than is usual. Obviously the main reason for this was that they were playing many more hands than is optimal, and so there were also many losing hands that we never got to see.
Numpty #1
This guy was sat down with just over $3000 when I joined the table. He ended up losing $1143 in the hour that I played with him, despite winning $427 from me. He never got much higher than $3k and it was instantly obvious that the sharks were circling him.
He lost $560 drawing to a pair+straight-flush-draw when he hit trips on the river against a full-house. Then he got stubborn with A7 and lost another $460 v AQ on a A95,3,A board.
The only decent pot he won was with A2 when he flopped AT2 and made small bets to the river and was called down by 77, with your truly coming along for the value with K6 (the NFD).
Generally he played too many pots and lost 10 pots after putting in between $70-$200.
Numpty #2
Later the same day; this guy was even worse. When I sat down he had about $1100 but he soon whittled that down to $500 or so before going on a big run up to about $2600. I got involved with him a few times but managed to not lose much to him, until I then won a big one, doubling through my $1300 against his then $1600.
I raised to $50 with KK, which is more than I usually raise but he was routinely calling $50 before the flop so it made sense to get as much in before the flop with the best hand. He called from the SB with J9 and we saw the J99 flop heads-up. He checked and I bet $90, which he just called. The turn was a Q and despite the possibility that he had a 9, I decided to bet again, $190, as QJ was definitely in his range of possible holdings. When he called again I was starting to get a bit worried that he had a 9 after all. The river was a King, and he delighted me by leading out with a bet of $330, which I raised a further $660 all-in. Obviously he called and a big pot came my way.
When I left the table about 20 minutes later he had managed to get back up to about $700.
Numpty #3
This fella did run pretty hot and was very lucky cards-wise, but he didn't maximise his good luck. I just reviewed this guys session and he was actually loose because he got hit by the deck. Every marginal hand he had held up. Every draw he had hit.
Of his $2200 win, over $1800 of it came from yours truly. I lost 15 pots to him. Here are some of the details, starting with the biggest:
(1) He raises to $35 from EP with 65(hearts) and I call from the BB after the button calls. The flop is 972(with 2 hearts) and he bets out $50, called by the button and I call too. The turn is an offsuit 9 and he bets out again for $100, the button folds and I raise to $290, which he calls. I know I have him beat at this point, but because he generally calls when anyone takes the lead its tough to know what he has. The river is the 4 of hearts and I bet a partly-defensive $370 into the $840 pot, which he just calls.
(2) I raise to $30 with KQ and there are 3 callers including our nemesis. I bet only $60 on the flop and that succeeds on getting it heads-up. The turn bring a 10 and he calls my $150 bet, before calling my $220 bet on the blank river with trip 10s. He scoops the pot and comments "Ever heard of checking son?"
(3) I re-raise a button steal to $110 with J9-suited. He calls cold from the BB and the button folds. I check the K-high flop but bet $220 on the turn which he calls with JJ. I give up on the river and he checks behind.
(4) I raise to $30 with T9 and get 2 callers, including the nemesis on the SB with 73(hearts). The flop come QJ8 with two hearts and he calls my $50 bet. The flush gets there on the turn and he min-check-raises my $50 bet, which I call. I have the 10 of hearts. He then bets out $100 on the river and I call again.
(5) I limp on the button with 96(spades) and we see a Kd8s5s flop 4-handed. All check to me and I attempt to steal for $30. Nemesis makes it $60 and I call. I could raise here but I really dont see him folding anything at all. He then bets $100 into the $160 pot and again I consider raising but just call (same reasoning), before folding to his river value bet ($100 - K5 for the flopped 2-pairs).
Looking back I dont think I did too much wrong. It just happens that way sometimes. Value-bets look good when they are called by lesser hands but you can look a bit foolish when your opponent has you beat all along.
There is so much scope for error in this game. I have made lots of errors this week and still come out ahead. This week's win is really insignificant, though, when compared with the amount of money I have put across the line. A better player than me could have won $3-4,000 with the cards I've had, I guess. My quest should be to try to maximise every time. I feel as though I've left a lot of money on the tables this week.
I need to take a bit of a stop back this week, take my time a bit more and think through the possiblities a bit longer. I have maybe drifted into auto-pilot a little and that is dangerous. I must try to re-focus and see if I can get my win-rate back up to that of August and September.
Thursday 11 October 2007
Tight is right
Ive just finished another disappointing session. Only an hour long but managed to get involved un-necessarily with a total donk. I managed to win one pot from him, but lost several others. I suspect that he had me beat in the one that I won too.
Just lately there have been some spectacularly bad players popping up. They have been of the fairly aggressive type, in that they have been raising pre-flop and leading the post-flop betting, although their bet amounts have typically been smaller than 'standard.' I have tried to target these players and have managed to lose money in dribs and drabs, which is actually very frustrating.
I need to back off a little. The end result of this getting involved is probably only very slightly +EV and the impact on variance is certainly very high. This sounds like a bankroll-breaker if ever I have seen. Also, it makes it more likely that I will veer into tilt: something I have managed to largely avoid for a very long time now.
From my next session I am going to get back to a tight and aggressive game: vert tight in early positions, a bit looser round the back and play a solid game post-flop. If I make any 'moves' I need to make them against the tight regulars, not the crazies.
I just need to hope that when I do hit a monster it is against one of these nutcases. Chances are it will be, as they play more pots than everybody else. What I need to avoid is leaking away $100 here, $180 there trying to push these monkeys around. All of this comes off the bottom line.
I can use the time after I have folded to improve my reading of the other players. This is something that is always beneficial in the long run.
Now then, how about repeating after me :
TIGHT IS RIGHT
TIGHT IS RIGHT
TIGHT IS RIGHT
TIGHT IS RIGHT
TIGHT IS RIGHT
Just lately there have been some spectacularly bad players popping up. They have been of the fairly aggressive type, in that they have been raising pre-flop and leading the post-flop betting, although their bet amounts have typically been smaller than 'standard.' I have tried to target these players and have managed to lose money in dribs and drabs, which is actually very frustrating.
I need to back off a little. The end result of this getting involved is probably only very slightly +EV and the impact on variance is certainly very high. This sounds like a bankroll-breaker if ever I have seen. Also, it makes it more likely that I will veer into tilt: something I have managed to largely avoid for a very long time now.
From my next session I am going to get back to a tight and aggressive game: vert tight in early positions, a bit looser round the back and play a solid game post-flop. If I make any 'moves' I need to make them against the tight regulars, not the crazies.
I just need to hope that when I do hit a monster it is against one of these nutcases. Chances are it will be, as they play more pots than everybody else. What I need to avoid is leaking away $100 here, $180 there trying to push these monkeys around. All of this comes off the bottom line.
I can use the time after I have folded to improve my reading of the other players. This is something that is always beneficial in the long run.
Now then, how about repeating after me :
TIGHT IS RIGHT
TIGHT IS RIGHT
TIGHT IS RIGHT
TIGHT IS RIGHT
TIGHT IS RIGHT
Monday 8 October 2007
Great games, managed to break even, doh!
A second consecutive week of disappointment. There was loads of action this week; loads of crazy play; lots of big pots; lots of bluffing.
I played about 13 hours this week, as the games were so good, but I managed to lose money. Only a $59 loss, but still gut-wrenching after some of the big pots I won. Overall, in the big pots, I got my money in really well (approx 18% edge) but this was offset by lots of small and medium losses. Maybe I splashed around too much in the smaller pots, so that by the time I played a big pot they decided I was a loose gambler and decided to give too much action.
I played quite a bit short-handed this week and this is where my worst play came. I tried to win too many pots, but I think ultimately I failed because I didnt fire the final barrel often enough. I wasnt quite aggressive enough: maybe because subconsciously I wanted to avoid the worst of the variance.
I really should stick to full-ring for the time being.
On Sunday night I had the worst session of the week. This basically wiped out any profit I had made so far in the week: pretty much the same as I did the week before.
My last few hands of the week summed up my bad play. I had been playing heads-up against a tight-aggressive player, when I failed to raise him off A10 on an A4789 board. I raised his turn bet with no-pair/no-draw and he called a big bet on the river too. I think if I had seen his cards I wold have probably still made the same move.
Soon after that the table became 4 or 5 handed and I called a raise from him with the button and 63 of diamonds. The flop came A67 and I called his flop bet, before the killer 6 came on the turn and we got all-in. He had the nut full-house, and I thought it best to leave and call it a night there.
These two loose plays symptomised how bad my play had become. These are not mistakes that I normally make. I should have recognised that I was off my game and left immediately. Maybe this is something I can learn from.
Lets hope the rest of the month goes OK
I played about 13 hours this week, as the games were so good, but I managed to lose money. Only a $59 loss, but still gut-wrenching after some of the big pots I won. Overall, in the big pots, I got my money in really well (approx 18% edge) but this was offset by lots of small and medium losses. Maybe I splashed around too much in the smaller pots, so that by the time I played a big pot they decided I was a loose gambler and decided to give too much action.
I played quite a bit short-handed this week and this is where my worst play came. I tried to win too many pots, but I think ultimately I failed because I didnt fire the final barrel often enough. I wasnt quite aggressive enough: maybe because subconsciously I wanted to avoid the worst of the variance.
I really should stick to full-ring for the time being.
On Sunday night I had the worst session of the week. This basically wiped out any profit I had made so far in the week: pretty much the same as I did the week before.
My last few hands of the week summed up my bad play. I had been playing heads-up against a tight-aggressive player, when I failed to raise him off A10 on an A4789 board. I raised his turn bet with no-pair/no-draw and he called a big bet on the river too. I think if I had seen his cards I wold have probably still made the same move.
Soon after that the table became 4 or 5 handed and I called a raise from him with the button and 63 of diamonds. The flop came A67 and I called his flop bet, before the killer 6 came on the turn and we got all-in. He had the nut full-house, and I thought it best to leave and call it a night there.
These two loose plays symptomised how bad my play had become. These are not mistakes that I normally make. I should have recognised that I was off my game and left immediately. Maybe this is something I can learn from.
Lets hope the rest of the month goes OK
Thursday 4 October 2007
Learning No-Limit Hold ‘Em from scratch
Somebody posted a question on 2+2 today that really got me thinking.
"There is so much to learn for a beginner, in what order of aspects of the game would the more experienced players say it makes sense to focus on. For example, first is obviously what beats what, then perhaps betting, then pot odds, then position and so on... Of course all aspects of the game have to be considered while at the table (or as much as ur knowledge will allow)There is just so much to learn it would be good to have some kind of logical progression of what to focus on away from the table, depending on what you have already studied and got to some level of grips with.."
This is something that I have thought about before and it’s a really complex subject. I suspect that with enough time, I would like to start by teaching a student how to formulate a strategy for a much simpler game than poker. Then, as they master the fundamentals of strategy formulation, introduce more complexity in the game itself until it eventually becomes No-Limit Hold ‘Em we know it.
Game 1
Consider this very simple ‘poker’ game, contested by 10 players. The game plays exactly like NLHE, except
(1) they receive only one card each
(2) there are no community cards
(3) there is only one betting round
(4) high card wins
In this game, I have no doubt that a great poker player would manage to formulate a strategy that would generate profit. Discussing strategy with the poker novice we could introduce concepts such as
(a) position
(b) pot odds
(c) fold equity
(d) hand-reading
(e) bluffing
(f) stack-sizes
It should become clear quite quickly that a player can play more hands in late position than in early position. Also, it can be explained how raising can be more profitable than calling. We can also introduce risk/reward into the equation.
It wouldn’t take a game theory expert very long to calculate a very profitable strategy in this very simple game. However, not everybody in the game will have the ability or the inclination to work out an optimal strategy. This is where player-reading and hand reading comes into play.
Obviously there would be a lot of guesswork in such a simple game. There isn’t much information to go on when making a betting decision.
Game 2
As game 1, but with the addition of a 3-card flop, after which there is a second (and final) round of betting. The best 3-card hand wins, but there are only trips, pairs and high cards.
This complicates matters greatly, as the element of ‘catch-up’ is now introduced to the game. New concepts can be introduced as follows:
(1) implied odds
(2) outs
(3) pre-flop equity
Also, previously discussed concepts can be expanded on. For example, position becomes more important, as the cost of giving away your hand pre-flop is much greater. Hand-reading is more complicated as there is more information on which to base our decision.
Games 3,4 and beyond
The game can be expanded to eventually reflect NLHE as currently played. If additional betting rounds are added, it becomes obvious that pre-flop equity is less important, implied odds and position more important. Also, the impact of differing stack sizes can be introduced into the equation.
If we add a second hole-card, and expand to include flushes and straights it opens up a whole host of possibilities for our exploration
Conclusion
Its difficult to say which concepts are more important. We need to understand as much as possible about the game we are playing and the circumstances in which we play it.
If we are playing with a short-stack, then maybe we can focus on pre-flop hand equity and position. Otherwise, we really do need to consider all of the other variables.
Once a beginning player has some understanding of fundamentals, they need to play in a game to get some understanding of the flow of the game. They must learn to feel comfortable actually playing the game so that they can think about what is happening and why. Its useful if someone can critique their play, referring back to the fundamentals, as there must be an ongoing process of learning.
Actually, the Theory Of Poker does a great job of explaining these fundamentals. However, sometimes the best way to learn is to have somebody point you towards finding the correct answers for yourself. This probably results in greater understanding.
"There is so much to learn for a beginner, in what order of aspects of the game would the more experienced players say it makes sense to focus on. For example, first is obviously what beats what, then perhaps betting, then pot odds, then position and so on... Of course all aspects of the game have to be considered while at the table (or as much as ur knowledge will allow)There is just so much to learn it would be good to have some kind of logical progression of what to focus on away from the table, depending on what you have already studied and got to some level of grips with.."
This is something that I have thought about before and it’s a really complex subject. I suspect that with enough time, I would like to start by teaching a student how to formulate a strategy for a much simpler game than poker. Then, as they master the fundamentals of strategy formulation, introduce more complexity in the game itself until it eventually becomes No-Limit Hold ‘Em we know it.
Game 1
Consider this very simple ‘poker’ game, contested by 10 players. The game plays exactly like NLHE, except
(1) they receive only one card each
(2) there are no community cards
(3) there is only one betting round
(4) high card wins
In this game, I have no doubt that a great poker player would manage to formulate a strategy that would generate profit. Discussing strategy with the poker novice we could introduce concepts such as
(a) position
(b) pot odds
(c) fold equity
(d) hand-reading
(e) bluffing
(f) stack-sizes
It should become clear quite quickly that a player can play more hands in late position than in early position. Also, it can be explained how raising can be more profitable than calling. We can also introduce risk/reward into the equation.
It wouldn’t take a game theory expert very long to calculate a very profitable strategy in this very simple game. However, not everybody in the game will have the ability or the inclination to work out an optimal strategy. This is where player-reading and hand reading comes into play.
Obviously there would be a lot of guesswork in such a simple game. There isn’t much information to go on when making a betting decision.
Game 2
As game 1, but with the addition of a 3-card flop, after which there is a second (and final) round of betting. The best 3-card hand wins, but there are only trips, pairs and high cards.
This complicates matters greatly, as the element of ‘catch-up’ is now introduced to the game. New concepts can be introduced as follows:
(1) implied odds
(2) outs
(3) pre-flop equity
Also, previously discussed concepts can be expanded on. For example, position becomes more important, as the cost of giving away your hand pre-flop is much greater. Hand-reading is more complicated as there is more information on which to base our decision.
Games 3,4 and beyond
The game can be expanded to eventually reflect NLHE as currently played. If additional betting rounds are added, it becomes obvious that pre-flop equity is less important, implied odds and position more important. Also, the impact of differing stack sizes can be introduced into the equation.
If we add a second hole-card, and expand to include flushes and straights it opens up a whole host of possibilities for our exploration
Conclusion
Its difficult to say which concepts are more important. We need to understand as much as possible about the game we are playing and the circumstances in which we play it.
If we are playing with a short-stack, then maybe we can focus on pre-flop hand equity and position. Otherwise, we really do need to consider all of the other variables.
Once a beginning player has some understanding of fundamentals, they need to play in a game to get some understanding of the flow of the game. They must learn to feel comfortable actually playing the game so that they can think about what is happening and why. Its useful if someone can critique their play, referring back to the fundamentals, as there must be an ongoing process of learning.
Actually, the Theory Of Poker does a great job of explaining these fundamentals. However, sometimes the best way to learn is to have somebody point you towards finding the correct answers for yourself. This probably results in greater understanding.
Monday 1 October 2007
September progress report
Played 10 hours in the last week of the month and following a bad finish only managed to accumulate $194 earnings in the week. I lost all three of the big pots I played, costing me about another $450 in cash-flow, so the bankroll went down slightly during the week. Hardly a disaster but disappointing none-the-less.
Biggest pot of the week resulted in a $1240 loss.
A loose aggressive player (LAG), with a big stack, min-raised UTG and was called by a weak-tightie (WT). I called on the button with J8, and was pretty pleased to see the LAG bet out $20 on the QT9 flop. He was called by the WT and because this was an action board, including a possible flush-draw, and because the LAG could easily have QQQ, AA or KK in this spot I decided to raise to $140. They both called, which surprised me a little. I thought it was likely that at least one of them must have a flush-draw, so when they both checked the turn (an 8, counterfeiting part of my hand) I was confused as to how much to bet. To be honest, as the time ran down, I panicked a bit and decided to bet all-in for $1080, which the LAG quickly called. The river changed nothing and it was the worst case scenario as he turned over KJ for the bigger straight.
My all-in bet on the turn made no sense at all, as I was only likely to get called by (1) the same hand ie. a naked J, (2) the nuts KJ or (3) the same straight as me with a re-draw to a higher straight and/or flush.
I would have been quite happy to get all-in on the flop, turn or river if the board had blanked off, so the result would have been the same in these scenarios, but I should have managed to lose less as the hand actually did play out, so for this I am a bit annoyed at my play.
On a happier note, I was able to win many small- and medium-sized pots due to, I think, good solid play. This is something that I feel I have improved on during the last few weeks and my September results bear this out. Here is a brief summary:
Hours played: 31.8
Hands played: 2,583
Big pots played: 27
Big pot EV: +1,190 (8%)
Small pot profit: +3,869
Bonuses etc: +72
Total won: $5,131
Obviously, this is a great result on the back of a fantastic break-through month in August. I was able to improve my hourly rate and now feel really comfortable playing at this level.
During the month I think I have improved my control, and have done really well in recognising when to attack and when to back-off a little. For long periods I have felt as though I haven't done anything special at all. Looking back, I realise that what I have managed to do is play my 'A-game', or close to it, for a much higher proportion of total playing time. This is most likely the biggest contributing factor to my success this month.
Having said that, there have still been times when I have caught myself getting a bit agitated. I have been able to recognise these times and rein in the desire to get overly-involved. These situations generally occur when there are some really bad players at the table. It can be so frustrating sitting and watching them lose their money to someone else, whilst I constantly fold my rags, or see my low pocket pairs fail to connect with the flop. Its really important to not fritter away chips here, as this really reduces your earnings.
One noticeable number that pops out of my stats is the number of big pots played. In August this was 69/4879 (1.41%), compared with 27/2583 (only 1.04%) in September. This may or may not be significant. Possible causes include:
Wish me luck.
Biggest pot of the week resulted in a $1240 loss.
A loose aggressive player (LAG), with a big stack, min-raised UTG and was called by a weak-tightie (WT). I called on the button with J8, and was pretty pleased to see the LAG bet out $20 on the QT9 flop. He was called by the WT and because this was an action board, including a possible flush-draw, and because the LAG could easily have QQQ, AA or KK in this spot I decided to raise to $140. They both called, which surprised me a little. I thought it was likely that at least one of them must have a flush-draw, so when they both checked the turn (an 8, counterfeiting part of my hand) I was confused as to how much to bet. To be honest, as the time ran down, I panicked a bit and decided to bet all-in for $1080, which the LAG quickly called. The river changed nothing and it was the worst case scenario as he turned over KJ for the bigger straight.
My all-in bet on the turn made no sense at all, as I was only likely to get called by (1) the same hand ie. a naked J, (2) the nuts KJ or (3) the same straight as me with a re-draw to a higher straight and/or flush.
I would have been quite happy to get all-in on the flop, turn or river if the board had blanked off, so the result would have been the same in these scenarios, but I should have managed to lose less as the hand actually did play out, so for this I am a bit annoyed at my play.
On a happier note, I was able to win many small- and medium-sized pots due to, I think, good solid play. This is something that I feel I have improved on during the last few weeks and my September results bear this out. Here is a brief summary:
Hours played: 31.8
Hands played: 2,583
Big pots played: 27
Big pot EV: +1,190 (8%)
Small pot profit: +3,869
Bonuses etc: +72
Total won: $5,131
Obviously, this is a great result on the back of a fantastic break-through month in August. I was able to improve my hourly rate and now feel really comfortable playing at this level.
During the month I think I have improved my control, and have done really well in recognising when to attack and when to back-off a little. For long periods I have felt as though I haven't done anything special at all. Looking back, I realise that what I have managed to do is play my 'A-game', or close to it, for a much higher proportion of total playing time. This is most likely the biggest contributing factor to my success this month.
Having said that, there have still been times when I have caught myself getting a bit agitated. I have been able to recognise these times and rein in the desire to get overly-involved. These situations generally occur when there are some really bad players at the table. It can be so frustrating sitting and watching them lose their money to someone else, whilst I constantly fold my rags, or see my low pocket pairs fail to connect with the flop. Its really important to not fritter away chips here, as this really reduces your earnings.
One noticeable number that pops out of my stats is the number of big pots played. In August this was 69/4879 (1.41%), compared with 27/2583 (only 1.04%) in September. This may or may not be significant. Possible causes include:
- less big hands received in Sept compared to Aug
- general tightening up of opponents.
As my edge in these big pots was only 8% in Sept (compared with 13% in Aug) its likely to be a combination of both of these factors. Its definitely something I need to keep my eye on in the future, although if I continue to show such good results in the smaller pots, its going to be less of a concern.
It remains to be seen whether I can cope with a sustained period of bad cards/situations/beats. This is the true test of the poker player. This siituation hasn't come up yet, but it will do at some stage.Wish me luck.
Tuesday 25 September 2007
Been on holiday
Just spent the last week in Ibiza on holiday with the family and some friends of ours. Had a great time despite a couple of days of iffy weather.
I never had time to update the blog before going, so here is a quick recap of the week before we went.
Played 7 hours
Won $2500
Bad luck $400
Withdraw $2000 (10% of bankroll)
Bankroll going forward $18.5k
In the big pots I got my money in really well on many occasions, so this was a great result to have leading into a break. I wonder if a string of bad results would have affected my mood on holiday. I guess not, but things have been going so well lately that its tough to remember a long losing streak and how that feels.
I resisted the temptation to play last night, having arrived back home by tea-time. I resume hostilities later today.
I never had time to update the blog before going, so here is a quick recap of the week before we went.
Played 7 hours
Won $2500
Bad luck $400
Withdraw $2000 (10% of bankroll)
Bankroll going forward $18.5k
In the big pots I got my money in really well on many occasions, so this was a great result to have leading into a break. I wonder if a string of bad results would have affected my mood on holiday. I guess not, but things have been going so well lately that its tough to remember a long losing streak and how that feels.
I resisted the temptation to play last night, having arrived back home by tea-time. I resume hostilities later today.
Monday 10 September 2007
Nice result, didnt feel very good
Results-wise I should be happy with the last week but I dont feel as though I played that well. I played for 13.5 hours and showed a profit of $1456. I was a little unlucky in the big pots, which were few and far between, but nothing to get excited about.
I won quite a few medium-sized pots without showing down, but overall in the big pots I did no better than break even.
Biggest winner of the week (EV-wise) was when my 77 hit a 997 flop in a 4-way limped pot. I bet it on the flop and the turn and the big blind seemed very keen to call big bets. I guessed he'd hit the 9. When he checked the river I bet all-in (about twice the size of the pot) and he insta-called with K9 (trip 9s).
Biggest move of the week came when I raised in EP with 67-suited and got two callers, both solid regulars. This is something that I do very rarely but I had been playing very tight in that session and people had probably noticed. The flop came QJ4 (all spades) and I fired a near-pot-sized bet as many players will just give up if they dont have a great hand here. One reg called and the turn was a 5 giving me a straight-draw. I fired pretty big again and he called. Now I put him on something like KQ with the K of spades. The river was another 5, which I considered a good card to bluff with as it paired the board. I would have played QQ or JJ exactly the same as I played my 67, so figured that a big river bet would get him to lay down. I wanted to be enough for him to be sure that I was representing exactly QQ, just in case he had flopped a flush, so I bet all-in (almost 2x the pot) and he folded after some delay.
Biggest loser came when I raised to $40 UTG with AK-suited. It folded round to the big blind who made it $120 to go. This was a loose-aggressive player, but I didnt get the impression he was messing about here. However I called, figuring that I had position and I could quite easily be up against QQ or KK. The flop came Axx and he checked to me. I had about $575 left (I started the hand quite low as I had just lost a decent pot and failed to reload in time) and bet $250 to signal that I wasnt messing about. He then raised all-in and at this point I guessed he probably had the other two Aces. I just couldnt bring myself to fold. Booo! I deliberately bet an amount on the flop that looked as if I would never fold to a check-raise so that I could do just that. Then I called and got see his AA. I played this hand like a mug and got punished accordingly.
On Sunday night I played like a gambler, and my results were poor, with a $1200 loss. The table started short-handed and the guy to my right was in every pot fighting for it. I got too involved with him, despite not hitting anything at all, and quickly lost money in decent-sized chunks. So the week ended on a sour note, but I can console myself with the knowledge that I made $100+ per hour this week despite this loss.
The plan for this week is to play well every session and hopefully the results will follow.
I won quite a few medium-sized pots without showing down, but overall in the big pots I did no better than break even.
Biggest winner of the week (EV-wise) was when my 77 hit a 997 flop in a 4-way limped pot. I bet it on the flop and the turn and the big blind seemed very keen to call big bets. I guessed he'd hit the 9. When he checked the river I bet all-in (about twice the size of the pot) and he insta-called with K9 (trip 9s).
Biggest move of the week came when I raised in EP with 67-suited and got two callers, both solid regulars. This is something that I do very rarely but I had been playing very tight in that session and people had probably noticed. The flop came QJ4 (all spades) and I fired a near-pot-sized bet as many players will just give up if they dont have a great hand here. One reg called and the turn was a 5 giving me a straight-draw. I fired pretty big again and he called. Now I put him on something like KQ with the K of spades. The river was another 5, which I considered a good card to bluff with as it paired the board. I would have played QQ or JJ exactly the same as I played my 67, so figured that a big river bet would get him to lay down. I wanted to be enough for him to be sure that I was representing exactly QQ, just in case he had flopped a flush, so I bet all-in (almost 2x the pot) and he folded after some delay.
Biggest loser came when I raised to $40 UTG with AK-suited. It folded round to the big blind who made it $120 to go. This was a loose-aggressive player, but I didnt get the impression he was messing about here. However I called, figuring that I had position and I could quite easily be up against QQ or KK. The flop came Axx and he checked to me. I had about $575 left (I started the hand quite low as I had just lost a decent pot and failed to reload in time) and bet $250 to signal that I wasnt messing about. He then raised all-in and at this point I guessed he probably had the other two Aces. I just couldnt bring myself to fold. Booo! I deliberately bet an amount on the flop that looked as if I would never fold to a check-raise so that I could do just that. Then I called and got see his AA. I played this hand like a mug and got punished accordingly.
On Sunday night I played like a gambler, and my results were poor, with a $1200 loss. The table started short-handed and the guy to my right was in every pot fighting for it. I got too involved with him, despite not hitting anything at all, and quickly lost money in decent-sized chunks. So the week ended on a sour note, but I can console myself with the knowledge that I made $100+ per hour this week despite this loss.
The plan for this week is to play well every session and hopefully the results will follow.
Monday 3 September 2007
Starting new tables
This is something I notice that many players are not prepared to do, but is something I have always done willingly.
I started doing it originally on UltimateBet as you used to get double player points for being the first player to join a table. Now I have moved on to other sites but I have noticed that there is often good value to be had in waiting at a new table for other players to join.
Often, other regular players will stay away as they dont want to play heads-up against another regular. Or they may sit down but then sit out until some other players arrive. This is fine by me. Generally, the first one or two players to sit down will be weaker players. Maybe they just fancy a gamble and all the other tables are full so they think "Heads up? OK, why not!"
Sometimes they give away their weakness by the amount they sit down with. If its a strange amount, like $455.72 at a $1000 max table, it is quite likely that they have their whole bankroll on the table. This is a favourable situation, as you will find that if you can get them off to a losing start they will be desparate to get ahead. They will often become married to any hand that they raise or call a raise with. When they've lost a good chunk of what they started with they will often gamble recklessly to win it back or go home.
Other players sit down with the minimum buy-in, and will often start to play 'properly'. For a while you can bully these guys and take a few blinds off them before they realise what you are doing. They normally counteract this by re-raising all-in. If I find anything decent here, like AJ or KQ I will normally call their bet and expect to be in decent shape against their range.
Sometimes the min-buy-in players will reload but with their 2nd attempt they genereally play a bit more aggressively.
On some occasions the table will start to fill up quite quicky. Usually at least another couple of 'gamblers' will come along but when the table gets to 5-6handed the multi-tabling regulars usually swoop. This means that the table dynamics change again. You need to play totally differently against the regulars compared with against the gamblers. However, you can try to isolate the gamblers and you will be largely left to it by the regulars.
Its almost implied that there's no point messing with the regulars when there are some loose fish to fry. I try to take advantage of this a little more than most, but you cant be too greedy or you may get slapped.
After maybe 30 minutes the table plays more like a normal full-ring table, as the fish bust out and are replaced by tight regulars attracted by the higher than normal pot sizes. In my opinion, they have arrived too late to extract value from the fish and must patiently wait for a soft spot to arrive and dump off some cash. This is much more difficult as the shark/fish ratio is totally reversed by this stage. I will generally stay at the table until there are no soft spots at all, which rarely happens, or until external factors (such as bedtime!) require me to leave.
I started doing it originally on UltimateBet as you used to get double player points for being the first player to join a table. Now I have moved on to other sites but I have noticed that there is often good value to be had in waiting at a new table for other players to join.
Often, other regular players will stay away as they dont want to play heads-up against another regular. Or they may sit down but then sit out until some other players arrive. This is fine by me. Generally, the first one or two players to sit down will be weaker players. Maybe they just fancy a gamble and all the other tables are full so they think "Heads up? OK, why not!"
Sometimes they give away their weakness by the amount they sit down with. If its a strange amount, like $455.72 at a $1000 max table, it is quite likely that they have their whole bankroll on the table. This is a favourable situation, as you will find that if you can get them off to a losing start they will be desparate to get ahead. They will often become married to any hand that they raise or call a raise with. When they've lost a good chunk of what they started with they will often gamble recklessly to win it back or go home.
Other players sit down with the minimum buy-in, and will often start to play 'properly'. For a while you can bully these guys and take a few blinds off them before they realise what you are doing. They normally counteract this by re-raising all-in. If I find anything decent here, like AJ or KQ I will normally call their bet and expect to be in decent shape against their range.
Sometimes the min-buy-in players will reload but with their 2nd attempt they genereally play a bit more aggressively.
On some occasions the table will start to fill up quite quicky. Usually at least another couple of 'gamblers' will come along but when the table gets to 5-6handed the multi-tabling regulars usually swoop. This means that the table dynamics change again. You need to play totally differently against the regulars compared with against the gamblers. However, you can try to isolate the gamblers and you will be largely left to it by the regulars.
Its almost implied that there's no point messing with the regulars when there are some loose fish to fry. I try to take advantage of this a little more than most, but you cant be too greedy or you may get slapped.
After maybe 30 minutes the table plays more like a normal full-ring table, as the fish bust out and are replaced by tight regulars attracted by the higher than normal pot sizes. In my opinion, they have arrived too late to extract value from the fish and must patiently wait for a soft spot to arrive and dump off some cash. This is much more difficult as the shark/fish ratio is totally reversed by this stage. I will generally stay at the table until there are no soft spots at all, which rarely happens, or until external factors (such as bedtime!) require me to leave.
Record month
Cash-wise, this has been a record month for me. My bankroll has gone up by an amazing $10,726. This beats my previous best for a month by almost $6,000 and that was about 2 years ago. It feels great.
However, as regular readers will know, this has been due in no small part to good luck in the big pots, which I have quantified at $3,800 for August. On top of good luck in the months of June and July this means that my bankroll of $16,200 is a whopping $7,000 higher than it would be if I had received average luck.
This means that I have been able to happily play $5-$10 NLHE without fear of going broke. This in itself is worth a lot of money. If I had run badly, or even fairly, I would have been in so much more danger of going broke and it surely would have affected my play. So, although I have played well for most sessions this month I must acknowledge the impact luck has played.
However, as regular readers will know, this has been due in no small part to good luck in the big pots, which I have quantified at $3,800 for August. On top of good luck in the months of June and July this means that my bankroll of $16,200 is a whopping $7,000 higher than it would be if I had received average luck.
This means that I have been able to happily play $5-$10 NLHE without fear of going broke. This in itself is worth a lot of money. If I had run badly, or even fairly, I would have been in so much more danger of going broke and it surely would have affected my play. So, although I have played well for most sessions this month I must acknowledge the impact luck has played.
For September the plans remain the same:
$5-$10 full ring,
happy to start new tables when required
play well, leave if not playing well.
Tuesday 28 August 2007
A quiet week
I only managed 12hrs of poker this week, and won just over $1000. I ran well (again) too, to the value of about $1250 so the bankroll starts the week at a healthy $15.5k.
I wonder if August is traditionally a slowtime in the online poker world as far as new players goes. The tables seemed to be dominated by regulars this week, although there were still one or two bad players kicking around.
On the evenings there were often 5 or 6 full tables going, although probably 6-7 players on each table were multi-tabling regulars, including 2-3 short-stackers. What a waste of a seat these guys are!
Just looking at my stats for $5-$10, I notice that my win-rate (5.2 BB/100) is almost exactly the same as for $1-$2. This is after only about 5000 hands at each level, but it does allow for luck in big pots, so maybe it is somewhere in the ballpark of a genuine win-rate. After all, my 'actual cash' win-rate so far at $5-$10 (of 11.6) is, I am sure, grossly over-stated due to running so well.
Next week I need to start making withdrawals from my account to cover living expenses because my wife has changed jobs. She now works part-time and is bringing home a lot less money than before. The change has already made a difference to our lifestyles and we are all a lot happier at being able to spend more time together as a family. I plan to withdraw 5% of the bankroll each week, although if the bankroll gets much higher I will probably set an upper limit on the withdrawal amount (maybe $750) as there is no point in drawing out more than I need whilst still operating on a relatively short roll.
Let's wait and see what happens before I make any hard and fast plans. As we all know, variance is a brutal thing and a major downturn could come my way at any moment.
I wonder if August is traditionally a slowtime in the online poker world as far as new players goes. The tables seemed to be dominated by regulars this week, although there were still one or two bad players kicking around.
On the evenings there were often 5 or 6 full tables going, although probably 6-7 players on each table were multi-tabling regulars, including 2-3 short-stackers. What a waste of a seat these guys are!
Just looking at my stats for $5-$10, I notice that my win-rate (5.2 BB/100) is almost exactly the same as for $1-$2. This is after only about 5000 hands at each level, but it does allow for luck in big pots, so maybe it is somewhere in the ballpark of a genuine win-rate. After all, my 'actual cash' win-rate so far at $5-$10 (of 11.6) is, I am sure, grossly over-stated due to running so well.
Next week I need to start making withdrawals from my account to cover living expenses because my wife has changed jobs. She now works part-time and is bringing home a lot less money than before. The change has already made a difference to our lifestyles and we are all a lot happier at being able to spend more time together as a family. I plan to withdraw 5% of the bankroll each week, although if the bankroll gets much higher I will probably set an upper limit on the withdrawal amount (maybe $750) as there is no point in drawing out more than I need whilst still operating on a relatively short roll.
Let's wait and see what happens before I make any hard and fast plans. As we all know, variance is a brutal thing and a major downturn could come my way at any moment.
Monday 20 August 2007
Action drying up?
This has been quite a tough week. I finished it up only $170, but had great luck in the big pots again, to the tune of $2600, so the bankroll stands at a healthy $13k.
I played 19 hours this week, without any long sessions, so this was quite a lot of effort for less than $10/hour.
Monday brought a disappointing $1500 loss. This was largely due to two badly played pots; one where I hopelessly bluffed $600 away with no pair and no draw against TPGK; another where I called $600 off with the idiot end of the full-house on a double-paired board.
For some reason, losses always seem harder to take on a Monday. It feels as though you have to win it back before you get started for the week. Obviously this is crazy-thinking: its not as though you can take the rest of the week off if you have a good day. Its just part of the flow of the game. You've just got to get used to it.
Looking back, I am quite pleased with how I played after that bad day. To finish up for the week represents a good recovery. This was helped enormously by finding AA on the button against KK in the big blind when playing short-handed.
Overall, I did OK in the big pots. I made $900 Sklansky-bucks (approx 6.3% return) in 25 pots, even allowing for the 2 bad losses described above. In the small pots, however, I had a losing week. This was probably due to the standard of the opposition at the tables this week. There were noticeably less fish about compared with a couple of weeks ago. Average pots were smaller and most tables had 7-8 solid regulars.
I've read before that the party won't last forever. Its no doubt true and to win consistently going forward its going to be necessary to learn how to win against players who don't just give their money away. Thats going to be a big challenge, but its a challenge that I will be ready for.
I played 19 hours this week, without any long sessions, so this was quite a lot of effort for less than $10/hour.
Monday brought a disappointing $1500 loss. This was largely due to two badly played pots; one where I hopelessly bluffed $600 away with no pair and no draw against TPGK; another where I called $600 off with the idiot end of the full-house on a double-paired board.
For some reason, losses always seem harder to take on a Monday. It feels as though you have to win it back before you get started for the week. Obviously this is crazy-thinking: its not as though you can take the rest of the week off if you have a good day. Its just part of the flow of the game. You've just got to get used to it.
Looking back, I am quite pleased with how I played after that bad day. To finish up for the week represents a good recovery. This was helped enormously by finding AA on the button against KK in the big blind when playing short-handed.
Overall, I did OK in the big pots. I made $900 Sklansky-bucks (approx 6.3% return) in 25 pots, even allowing for the 2 bad losses described above. In the small pots, however, I had a losing week. This was probably due to the standard of the opposition at the tables this week. There were noticeably less fish about compared with a couple of weeks ago. Average pots were smaller and most tables had 7-8 solid regulars.
I've read before that the party won't last forever. Its no doubt true and to win consistently going forward its going to be necessary to learn how to win against players who don't just give their money away. Thats going to be a big challenge, but its a challenge that I will be ready for.
Monday 13 August 2007
Best week so far
Although I'm not superstitious, I don't want this post to upset the poker gods and rain down a series of bad beats and cold decks on my head this week.
I had a great week, winning $2700 and even had good luck in the big pots to the value of $1450 on top. As a result the bankroll stands at $10,380 which is not far short of my all-time high of $12k. (Don't ask what happened to that, by the way!) This is almost approaching the realm of being a playable bankroll for $5-$10 full ring. According to my calculations, my 'true' win rate of $139 and actual standard deviation of $600(ish) indicate that my risk of ruin is a measly 0.04%. However, I am not dumb enough to believe that this wouldn't increase dramatically with even a small downturn in fortunes. After all, its only 10 buy-ins.
The biggest win of the week came when I got all-in for nearly $1000 pre-flop with AA against AK suited (about as big a favourite as its possible to be).
Other big wins came with:
-JJ v AQ where I flopped top set against a flush draw, turned the full house and got paid off a decent bet on the river when he paired his Q;
-KQ v 1010, villain called 3 decent-sized bets on a K42,4,2 board (he had check-called then check-folded the previous hand and I decided he would pay off relatively light as a result);
-44 v KJ where I flopped a set and the pre-flop raiser got a bit too frisky with his overcards.
There were lots of small wins too and I was particularly pleased with a couple of bluffs I made against regulars. Not only were they, I believe, well-timed but they were plausible too (possibly the most important factor in pulling off a successful bluff).
I didn't lose many big pots at all this week. The biggest came when I flopped TPGK + the nut flush draw with AQ, but was against AAA and missed the flush. I kind of suspected I was beaten when the money went in on the turn and should have really lost less in all honesty.
I have been reading Alan Schoonmaker's book entitled "Your Own Worst Poker Enemy" and found some interesting stuff in there, along with a decent amount of fluffy padding.
The main thing it emphasizes is the need to be objective at all times. You need to honestly evaluate the game you are playing in, the way you are playing, how you are feeling. All decisions need to be made dispassionately and if this isn't possible for whatever reason you need to stop playing. If I continue to play well and run well we will never know if the book was a worthwhile read or not. Oh well: I can live with that. If I lose and go off for a ton of money, we will know that it had little or no effect on my (and most players' number one) problem of losing too much when things go against us.
I have just started reading Professional No Limt Hold 'Em by Matt Flynn and others. I will let you know how I get on with that later.
I had a great week, winning $2700 and even had good luck in the big pots to the value of $1450 on top. As a result the bankroll stands at $10,380 which is not far short of my all-time high of $12k. (Don't ask what happened to that, by the way!) This is almost approaching the realm of being a playable bankroll for $5-$10 full ring. According to my calculations, my 'true' win rate of $139 and actual standard deviation of $600(ish) indicate that my risk of ruin is a measly 0.04%. However, I am not dumb enough to believe that this wouldn't increase dramatically with even a small downturn in fortunes. After all, its only 10 buy-ins.
The biggest win of the week came when I got all-in for nearly $1000 pre-flop with AA against AK suited (about as big a favourite as its possible to be).
Other big wins came with:
-JJ v AQ where I flopped top set against a flush draw, turned the full house and got paid off a decent bet on the river when he paired his Q;
-KQ v 1010, villain called 3 decent-sized bets on a K42,4,2 board (he had check-called then check-folded the previous hand and I decided he would pay off relatively light as a result);
-44 v KJ where I flopped a set and the pre-flop raiser got a bit too frisky with his overcards.
There were lots of small wins too and I was particularly pleased with a couple of bluffs I made against regulars. Not only were they, I believe, well-timed but they were plausible too (possibly the most important factor in pulling off a successful bluff).
I didn't lose many big pots at all this week. The biggest came when I flopped TPGK + the nut flush draw with AQ, but was against AAA and missed the flush. I kind of suspected I was beaten when the money went in on the turn and should have really lost less in all honesty.
I have been reading Alan Schoonmaker's book entitled "Your Own Worst Poker Enemy" and found some interesting stuff in there, along with a decent amount of fluffy padding.
The main thing it emphasizes is the need to be objective at all times. You need to honestly evaluate the game you are playing in, the way you are playing, how you are feeling. All decisions need to be made dispassionately and if this isn't possible for whatever reason you need to stop playing. If I continue to play well and run well we will never know if the book was a worthwhile read or not. Oh well: I can live with that. If I lose and go off for a ton of money, we will know that it had little or no effect on my (and most players' number one) problem of losing too much when things go against us.
I have just started reading Professional No Limt Hold 'Em by Matt Flynn and others. I will let you know how I get on with that later.
Monday 6 August 2007
Focus on one table
I have played all week at $5-$10, and have played pretty well too.
Although I have got involved in trying to start new tables, I have concentrated on playing 10-handed. At this level, there are quite a few players taking a shot on a short bankroll (even shorter than me!), and they tend to play scared for a while and then get married to a hand after they are sick of being pushed around. You can almost tell when it is coming: they sit down with $500, call a couple of pre-flop raises or raise/c-bet and fold to the flop-raise; then, next thing they check-raise all in with tpnk or worse!
My bankroll is small, but I always try to play true to the level I am at ie. I sit down with the max and play aggressive (tight or loose depending on the make-up of the table).
This week has been a good one: I have won $1425 and been lucky to the tune of $1155 (mostly attributable to a big pot when shorthanded with JJ v AA), so the bankroll at the end of the week is over $6k, even after withdrawing $600 on Wednesday.
A few observations about $5-$10 full ring:
- play is generally fairly tight, with the occasional total donkey sitting in
- regulars are fairly predictable
- sometimes quite a few short-stackers, generally very tight, looking to get all-in PF
- too many players call raises out of position
- too many regulars call first barrel and fold to the second.
My sample size is very small in this game (only 1500 hands) but I am feeling reasonably comfortable so far. I've only played 10 big pots and the money has gone in OK so far (+10% return).
What has been encouraging has been the very positive flow from small pots. This probably shows that I have been picking my spots carefully, reading the players well and showing just enough aggression to pick up more than my share of small pots. In fact, in the last 2.5 hours of play I have managed to win over $500 without getting involved in a big pot at all.
This level of play, and good luck, needs to continue or else I will need to drop down in stakes or risk going broke. I know I am capable of winning if I continue to play well: I've just got to force myself to do it.
I was given a confidence boost earlier in the week by finding out that my Poker IQ is 125, which is pretty good (ie. good enough to win at levels up to $1000NL). I took the test on http://www.donkeytest.com/ and found this to be a very rewarding exercise. However, one thing struck me about the IQ. It is actually your maximum potential Poker IQ (ie. assuming you play your 'A game'). So, although I was encouraged to find out I scored a 125, I realised too that to achieve the success that this IQ suggests, I need to play my best game (or close to it) all of the time.
To that end, I am looking forward to receiving the new Alan Schoonmaker book this week. It should be an interesting read.
Although I have got involved in trying to start new tables, I have concentrated on playing 10-handed. At this level, there are quite a few players taking a shot on a short bankroll (even shorter than me!), and they tend to play scared for a while and then get married to a hand after they are sick of being pushed around. You can almost tell when it is coming: they sit down with $500, call a couple of pre-flop raises or raise/c-bet and fold to the flop-raise; then, next thing they check-raise all in with tpnk or worse!
My bankroll is small, but I always try to play true to the level I am at ie. I sit down with the max and play aggressive (tight or loose depending on the make-up of the table).
This week has been a good one: I have won $1425 and been lucky to the tune of $1155 (mostly attributable to a big pot when shorthanded with JJ v AA), so the bankroll at the end of the week is over $6k, even after withdrawing $600 on Wednesday.
A few observations about $5-$10 full ring:
- play is generally fairly tight, with the occasional total donkey sitting in
- regulars are fairly predictable
- sometimes quite a few short-stackers, generally very tight, looking to get all-in PF
- too many players call raises out of position
- too many regulars call first barrel and fold to the second.
My sample size is very small in this game (only 1500 hands) but I am feeling reasonably comfortable so far. I've only played 10 big pots and the money has gone in OK so far (+10% return).
What has been encouraging has been the very positive flow from small pots. This probably shows that I have been picking my spots carefully, reading the players well and showing just enough aggression to pick up more than my share of small pots. In fact, in the last 2.5 hours of play I have managed to win over $500 without getting involved in a big pot at all.
This level of play, and good luck, needs to continue or else I will need to drop down in stakes or risk going broke. I know I am capable of winning if I continue to play well: I've just got to force myself to do it.
I was given a confidence boost earlier in the week by finding out that my Poker IQ is 125, which is pretty good (ie. good enough to win at levels up to $1000NL). I took the test on http://www.donkeytest.com/ and found this to be a very rewarding exercise. However, one thing struck me about the IQ. It is actually your maximum potential Poker IQ (ie. assuming you play your 'A game'). So, although I was encouraged to find out I scored a 125, I realised too that to achieve the success that this IQ suggests, I need to play my best game (or close to it) all of the time.
To that end, I am looking forward to receiving the new Alan Schoonmaker book this week. It should be an interesting read.
Monday 30 July 2007
The roller-coaster continues
This has been a very frustrating week. Most of all, I have been frustrated with my own play.
Monday - Thursday was very good: I won almost $150o. Unfortunately, on Friday and Saturday I managed to play horrendously and lose $1600. I am my own worst enemy, as I seem incapable of accepting losses. I play a more aggressive game, which is undoubtedly less-profitable and at higher variance. This is what keeps me around the break-even mark as a poker-player; no doubt about it.
The 4-day winning streak contained solid play at $1-$2. The only cooler (in my favour) came in the form of KK v QQ, and in this hand the villain could have probably lost less than a full buy-in if he had slowed down a bit.
The 2-day losing streak began with me losing an all-in pre-flop coup with AK v AA whilst playing 3-handed. This seemed to induce me to play much more aggressively than I had been as it was Friday night and as usual there were quite a few bad players around. With this in mind, I decided to take a shot at $2-$4.
Straight off the bat I lost a buy-in 3-barreling someone who made 2-pair with K8. To be fair, this nearly worked as he took an age before calling my big river bet.
Next I pushed too hard with 2nd-pair + gutshot against someone who (judging by his betting pattern) was never going to fold his top pair - there goes another $100 equity.
By this time my table image was that of a total donkey and I made matters worse when getting involved with A9 v AQ (tptk) when I picked up a gutshot on the turn. I was convinced that the pre-flop reraiser was pushing me around (it was his 3rd or 4th reraise from the blinds against me). I then put a short-stack all-in with my 1010 only to find he had AA, before restoring some credibility by getting paid off the maximum with a full-house against the nut flush.
Later, playing 4 handed I lost further when my Q8 (raised from the button) lost a decent pot against the BB's 32, with a 224 flop, turn 8 and 3 on river. I then donked off another buy-in with 97suited, getting busy from the BB when I turned a flush draw to go with my flopped straight draw, only to find the SB pre-flop raiser had trapped me perfectly with a set of 6s which he filled up on the river.
On Saturday, I played 4 big pots and managed to get my money in whilst in the lead in only one of them, so all in all a big improvement over Friday!
On Sunday I returned to winning ways, but again a week that started out really well ended up as a huge roller-coaster. The result of +$150 for the week pales into insignificance compared with the variance. I am really annoyed that I am not reporting a $1000+ win for the week.
I really need to rein in the aggression when I am losing. I just find it so difficult, especially when there are bad players, as there were on Friday and Saturday nights. I just want to get in there and play against them before they bust out to somebody else. I am sure there is some merit in this approach, I just need to temper it a bit.
One guy played so bad on Saturday that he would play about 50% of hands, call raises out position liberally and was passive post-flop: the dream customer, you would think. He lost his $400 eventually, but would have lost it a lot sooner had he not won about $750 from me. I won all the small pots and he won the 3 big ones.
First, I raised his big blind and bet him all the way on a J-high board with my QQ only to find that he had pocket AA. Next, I reraised from the BB with AK after a raise and his call from the button. I bet the K-high flop and again on the safe-looking turn, committing myself to the pot, only to find that he had spiked his set on the turn. Then I raised his limp from the button with A10, which he called with 10/8. On the flop of QJ9 I called his weak lead-bet before raising him on the turn when the A landed, drawing almost dead.
Sunday night was much better. I had had a chat with myself before playing. I decided that I needed to slow down my decision-making a bit. I was playing too much on auto-pilot and wasn't really considering all of what was going on. I realised I needed to pay more attention to what the other players were doing, what their tendencies and capabilities were. I had been concentrating too much on my own cards and prospects, and not enough on the rest of the game.
This is what I need to do, going forward. Also, more importantly, I need to keep it going when things are going against me.
I ordered a couple more books from Amazon yesterday: Professional No-Limit Hold 'Em, and a poker psychology book called (cant remember exactly) Your Own Worst Enemy. I am sure there will be some interesting concepts / tips in both books that hopefully will save me many hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars.
The biggest problem I have is with maintaing my objectivity whilst playing [more specifically losing]. This is something I can overcome with discipline and I guess the number one requirement in solving the problem is recognising it. I have read quotes from the great cash-game player Ben Roberts about "losing in poker is OK" and "its the quality of the decisions that counts". I am sure he is right.
In terms of bad beats, I am becoming increasingly indifferent to losses after the money goes in. However, I still have trouble when I go from being a 80-90% favourite on the flop to drawing dead on the turn. This is something I must learn to deal with, as with decent stacks the majority of the money is remaining for bets on the turn and river. The only way to deal with this is to improve my hand-reading abilities.
Wish me luck!
Monday - Thursday was very good: I won almost $150o. Unfortunately, on Friday and Saturday I managed to play horrendously and lose $1600. I am my own worst enemy, as I seem incapable of accepting losses. I play a more aggressive game, which is undoubtedly less-profitable and at higher variance. This is what keeps me around the break-even mark as a poker-player; no doubt about it.
The 4-day winning streak contained solid play at $1-$2. The only cooler (in my favour) came in the form of KK v QQ, and in this hand the villain could have probably lost less than a full buy-in if he had slowed down a bit.
The 2-day losing streak began with me losing an all-in pre-flop coup with AK v AA whilst playing 3-handed. This seemed to induce me to play much more aggressively than I had been as it was Friday night and as usual there were quite a few bad players around. With this in mind, I decided to take a shot at $2-$4.
Straight off the bat I lost a buy-in 3-barreling someone who made 2-pair with K8. To be fair, this nearly worked as he took an age before calling my big river bet.
Next I pushed too hard with 2nd-pair + gutshot against someone who (judging by his betting pattern) was never going to fold his top pair - there goes another $100 equity.
By this time my table image was that of a total donkey and I made matters worse when getting involved with A9 v AQ (tptk) when I picked up a gutshot on the turn. I was convinced that the pre-flop reraiser was pushing me around (it was his 3rd or 4th reraise from the blinds against me). I then put a short-stack all-in with my 1010 only to find he had AA, before restoring some credibility by getting paid off the maximum with a full-house against the nut flush.
Later, playing 4 handed I lost further when my Q8 (raised from the button) lost a decent pot against the BB's 32, with a 224 flop, turn 8 and 3 on river. I then donked off another buy-in with 97suited, getting busy from the BB when I turned a flush draw to go with my flopped straight draw, only to find the SB pre-flop raiser had trapped me perfectly with a set of 6s which he filled up on the river.
On Saturday, I played 4 big pots and managed to get my money in whilst in the lead in only one of them, so all in all a big improvement over Friday!
On Sunday I returned to winning ways, but again a week that started out really well ended up as a huge roller-coaster. The result of +$150 for the week pales into insignificance compared with the variance. I am really annoyed that I am not reporting a $1000+ win for the week.
I really need to rein in the aggression when I am losing. I just find it so difficult, especially when there are bad players, as there were on Friday and Saturday nights. I just want to get in there and play against them before they bust out to somebody else. I am sure there is some merit in this approach, I just need to temper it a bit.
One guy played so bad on Saturday that he would play about 50% of hands, call raises out position liberally and was passive post-flop: the dream customer, you would think. He lost his $400 eventually, but would have lost it a lot sooner had he not won about $750 from me. I won all the small pots and he won the 3 big ones.
First, I raised his big blind and bet him all the way on a J-high board with my QQ only to find that he had pocket AA. Next, I reraised from the BB with AK after a raise and his call from the button. I bet the K-high flop and again on the safe-looking turn, committing myself to the pot, only to find that he had spiked his set on the turn. Then I raised his limp from the button with A10, which he called with 10/8. On the flop of QJ9 I called his weak lead-bet before raising him on the turn when the A landed, drawing almost dead.
Sunday night was much better. I had had a chat with myself before playing. I decided that I needed to slow down my decision-making a bit. I was playing too much on auto-pilot and wasn't really considering all of what was going on. I realised I needed to pay more attention to what the other players were doing, what their tendencies and capabilities were. I had been concentrating too much on my own cards and prospects, and not enough on the rest of the game.
This is what I need to do, going forward. Also, more importantly, I need to keep it going when things are going against me.
I ordered a couple more books from Amazon yesterday: Professional No-Limit Hold 'Em, and a poker psychology book called (cant remember exactly) Your Own Worst Enemy. I am sure there will be some interesting concepts / tips in both books that hopefully will save me many hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars.
The biggest problem I have is with maintaing my objectivity whilst playing [more specifically losing]. This is something I can overcome with discipline and I guess the number one requirement in solving the problem is recognising it. I have read quotes from the great cash-game player Ben Roberts about "losing in poker is OK" and "its the quality of the decisions that counts". I am sure he is right.
In terms of bad beats, I am becoming increasingly indifferent to losses after the money goes in. However, I still have trouble when I go from being a 80-90% favourite on the flop to drawing dead on the turn. This is something I must learn to deal with, as with decent stacks the majority of the money is remaining for bets on the turn and river. The only way to deal with this is to improve my hand-reading abilities.
Wish me luck!
Monday 23 July 2007
More big losses, and more thoughts on luck
On Thursday I lost another $600 and Friday nearly $800 before managing to regain some composure and just about make a profit over 5 hours of play on Saturday and Sunday.
Total result for the week was a loss of $1540. On top of this, luck deserted me in the big pots too and I was down another $1000 in bad luck. This has made short work of my bankroll and it has gone down from a healthy $6k on Monday to today's level of $3.5k.
I dropped down to $1-$2 following Thursday's loss, except for one session of $2-$4 I played on Friday losing $400. During that session I had the biggest cooler of the month so far, losing with QQ v AA on a AQ2 flop, with us both having over $700 behind. I returned to $1-$2 where I promptly lost another buy-in with KK v AA and I remain at $1-$2 (certainly no higher) for the forseeable future.
I just reviewed my big losing hands and there are as many as 16 so far this month where I have put the money in the pot in a really bad situation. However, the good news is that only 3-4 of these hands were really bad, unjustifiable plays. There are a couple of marginal river calls in there that have paid off longshot hits for my opponent, but most plays have been generally not too bad.
This just goes to show how much luck there is in poker. Not only are there bad beats, but there are bad situations. I suppose the winning player is the one who wins more when on the positive end of these situations compared to the losses he suffers when on the receiving end. Sometimes, for example AA v KK in an aggressive game, there is no getting away from it and you must just accept it as part of the game. Other times, you play a marginal hand and flop an unreadable two-pair v the invisible set. On these occasions, you seem to get punished when you are already losing. You dont really, it just feels that way.
Part of the luck of the game is the timing of your luck. Its possible for someone to run badly at say $1-$2 and never win enough to progress to the higher limits. You never know; with good luck at the lower levels they could have flown through the levels and be playing $25-$50 within a year or two, picking up valuable lessons along the way before settling into a lucrative professional career.
I dont have a problem with luck, except for the fact that you cant predict its impact. You have to try and work around it. If that means moving down levels, or stagnating where you currently play then so be it. For me, that currently $1-$2. Wish me luck!!
Total result for the week was a loss of $1540. On top of this, luck deserted me in the big pots too and I was down another $1000 in bad luck. This has made short work of my bankroll and it has gone down from a healthy $6k on Monday to today's level of $3.5k.
I dropped down to $1-$2 following Thursday's loss, except for one session of $2-$4 I played on Friday losing $400. During that session I had the biggest cooler of the month so far, losing with QQ v AA on a AQ2 flop, with us both having over $700 behind. I returned to $1-$2 where I promptly lost another buy-in with KK v AA and I remain at $1-$2 (certainly no higher) for the forseeable future.
I just reviewed my big losing hands and there are as many as 16 so far this month where I have put the money in the pot in a really bad situation. However, the good news is that only 3-4 of these hands were really bad, unjustifiable plays. There are a couple of marginal river calls in there that have paid off longshot hits for my opponent, but most plays have been generally not too bad.
This just goes to show how much luck there is in poker. Not only are there bad beats, but there are bad situations. I suppose the winning player is the one who wins more when on the positive end of these situations compared to the losses he suffers when on the receiving end. Sometimes, for example AA v KK in an aggressive game, there is no getting away from it and you must just accept it as part of the game. Other times, you play a marginal hand and flop an unreadable two-pair v the invisible set. On these occasions, you seem to get punished when you are already losing. You dont really, it just feels that way.
Part of the luck of the game is the timing of your luck. Its possible for someone to run badly at say $1-$2 and never win enough to progress to the higher limits. You never know; with good luck at the lower levels they could have flown through the levels and be playing $25-$50 within a year or two, picking up valuable lessons along the way before settling into a lucrative professional career.
I dont have a problem with luck, except for the fact that you cant predict its impact. You have to try and work around it. If that means moving down levels, or stagnating where you currently play then so be it. For me, that currently $1-$2. Wish me luck!!
Thursday 19 July 2007
Dealing with losses after a winning streak
After a fantastic string of results I lost $600 yesterday.
I played quite badly. I convinced myself that one guy was a big bluffer and got creamed by him a couple of times when he had big hands. I pushed too hard to win pots I had no business being in. I saw too many flop and tried to outplay people who couldnt be outplayed. All round, it was a bad day at the office.
I'll describe the two WORST HANDS OF THE DAY and I'll leave you to wonder how I ever hope to win at this game. They are pretty bad.
(1)
I open for $12 in mid-position with A9, folded to the loose-aggressive 'bluffer' in the BB, who re-pops to $36. I call.
Flop comes A74 with 2 diamonds (of which I have none). He bets $36, I call. My thoughts are that my Ace could be good here, its only a small bet, lets see what he does on the turn.
Turn is an offsuit 10. He bets $108. I think "OK, you must have an Ace. But you might not. You could have a big draw with something like KQ diamonds. Fuck it: all-in $335."
He calls and I lose to his AK.
(2) I cant bring myself to go into the details, but basically I raise and call his limp-reraise with 44. Then I call down two small bets and a big one on the river and get shown a full house.
After I won $2500 in 9 days (21 hours) I thought I had a God-given right to win. Looks like I have been taught a lesson there. I must go back to playing well.
After a great streak its easy to think that all you have to do is sit down and you will win a buy-in. What I need to remember is that winning just one buy-in every 8 hours of play is a great result ($50 per hour = $35000 per year for me). I had been spoiled by my streak. I must get back to playing well, picking my spots carefully and playing winning poker.
I lost at least $500 more than I should have done today. As Mike Caro says, "the money you dont lose spends just as easily as the money you win".
I played quite badly. I convinced myself that one guy was a big bluffer and got creamed by him a couple of times when he had big hands. I pushed too hard to win pots I had no business being in. I saw too many flop and tried to outplay people who couldnt be outplayed. All round, it was a bad day at the office.
I'll describe the two WORST HANDS OF THE DAY and I'll leave you to wonder how I ever hope to win at this game. They are pretty bad.
(1)
I open for $12 in mid-position with A9, folded to the loose-aggressive 'bluffer' in the BB, who re-pops to $36. I call.
Flop comes A74 with 2 diamonds (of which I have none). He bets $36, I call. My thoughts are that my Ace could be good here, its only a small bet, lets see what he does on the turn.
Turn is an offsuit 10. He bets $108. I think "OK, you must have an Ace. But you might not. You could have a big draw with something like KQ diamonds. Fuck it: all-in $335."
He calls and I lose to his AK.
(2) I cant bring myself to go into the details, but basically I raise and call his limp-reraise with 44. Then I call down two small bets and a big one on the river and get shown a full house.
After I won $2500 in 9 days (21 hours) I thought I had a God-given right to win. Looks like I have been taught a lesson there. I must go back to playing well.
After a great streak its easy to think that all you have to do is sit down and you will win a buy-in. What I need to remember is that winning just one buy-in every 8 hours of play is a great result ($50 per hour = $35000 per year for me). I had been spoiled by my streak. I must get back to playing well, picking my spots carefully and playing winning poker.
I lost at least $500 more than I should have done today. As Mike Caro says, "the money you dont lose spends just as easily as the money you win".
Monday 16 July 2007
Conditioning the poker brain
On Saturday night I had a poker epiphany.
I sat at a new table with $400 and folded my rags for the first round or so. The player to my left was very active, involved in a lot of raised pot, a couple of which he had raised himself, but I was yet to see any hand revealed. He had me covered with about $550.
Then I picked up KK and raised to $16 pre-flop, called to my left and also by the small blind (the next most active player at the table). The flop came 10,8,2 with 2 hearts. I bet $36 and got min-raised to my left, folding out the small blind. I considered the possibility that he had out-flopped me, but concluded that he could have a wide range of hands here. I re-raised and we got all in on the flop. Two low spades came on board and I wondered briefly if my hand was good. As it turned out it wasn't. The villain had 84 of diamonds and had caught a 2nd pair on the river.
This isn't a bad beat story. I tell the story of this hand because of my reaction to it. Initially, I was annoyed and sat out, stood up, let out a big sigh and looked out of the window. Then, within a couple of seconds at most I had a chat to myself. It went along the lines of this:
"What are you doing. Why are you annoyed? You know the cards don't matter. What matters is getting the money in when in a good position. The outcome is out of your control. You win some, you lose some. Keep getting the money in this well and you are going to be a big winner. Get back in the game and keep making good decisions."
I sat down happy that I had regained any lost composure, that I wouldn't be affected by losing the big pot. I played another 40 minutes or so, but didnt get anything going and left when the table composition changed. The bad player who stacked me was replaced by a rock and another loose player was replaced by a dangerous loose-aggressive type: time to go. I played another 40 minutes at another table, losing about $90 with no major dramas. I then won about $230 at another table (in only 10 minutes) when I got the money in really well in consecutive pots (top two pairs v top pair/gutshot, then KK v QQ). I called it a night there, as the wife was due home after a night out with the girls.
I totted up my results for the night and calculated that I had won a measly $25 for 3 hours play. Adjusting for luck, however, I had won $650.
I had earlier finally convinced myself that the luck didn't matter, so instead of being annoyed at playing 3 hours for $25 I was actually really pleased that I had 'won' $650.
Its like in business, there is profitability and there is cash-flow. Saturday night was profitable, and I could go to bed knowing I had won $650. On the cash-flow side, I hadn't been paid yet and so would have to wait to get the money (or, it could be argued that I had already been paid up front for this pot, because I had been running well lately).
The trick to this game, for me anyway, is looking at profitablility and cash-flow as two separate items. I was profitable, therefore all was well. The only time cash-flow matters is when lack of cash affects the ability to stay in action, or affects the way I play.
To prove the point, the next night I won $300+ largely due to one big hand where I re-raised a really loose-aggressive player pre-flop with AJ. On the rag flop I overbet the $80 pot, setting him all-in for $180 which he correctly called with pocket 7s. I caught a Jack to outdraw him. The luck factor on this hand was $312+. I went to bed that night knowing that I never actually won anything; I just had a positive cash-flow of $300.
I need to condition my poker brain to ignore the cash-flow and concentrate on playing profitably.
I sat at a new table with $400 and folded my rags for the first round or so. The player to my left was very active, involved in a lot of raised pot, a couple of which he had raised himself, but I was yet to see any hand revealed. He had me covered with about $550.
Then I picked up KK and raised to $16 pre-flop, called to my left and also by the small blind (the next most active player at the table). The flop came 10,8,2 with 2 hearts. I bet $36 and got min-raised to my left, folding out the small blind. I considered the possibility that he had out-flopped me, but concluded that he could have a wide range of hands here. I re-raised and we got all in on the flop. Two low spades came on board and I wondered briefly if my hand was good. As it turned out it wasn't. The villain had 84 of diamonds and had caught a 2nd pair on the river.
This isn't a bad beat story. I tell the story of this hand because of my reaction to it. Initially, I was annoyed and sat out, stood up, let out a big sigh and looked out of the window. Then, within a couple of seconds at most I had a chat to myself. It went along the lines of this:
"What are you doing. Why are you annoyed? You know the cards don't matter. What matters is getting the money in when in a good position. The outcome is out of your control. You win some, you lose some. Keep getting the money in this well and you are going to be a big winner. Get back in the game and keep making good decisions."
I sat down happy that I had regained any lost composure, that I wouldn't be affected by losing the big pot. I played another 40 minutes or so, but didnt get anything going and left when the table composition changed. The bad player who stacked me was replaced by a rock and another loose player was replaced by a dangerous loose-aggressive type: time to go. I played another 40 minutes at another table, losing about $90 with no major dramas. I then won about $230 at another table (in only 10 minutes) when I got the money in really well in consecutive pots (top two pairs v top pair/gutshot, then KK v QQ). I called it a night there, as the wife was due home after a night out with the girls.
I totted up my results for the night and calculated that I had won a measly $25 for 3 hours play. Adjusting for luck, however, I had won $650.
I had earlier finally convinced myself that the luck didn't matter, so instead of being annoyed at playing 3 hours for $25 I was actually really pleased that I had 'won' $650.
Its like in business, there is profitability and there is cash-flow. Saturday night was profitable, and I could go to bed knowing I had won $650. On the cash-flow side, I hadn't been paid yet and so would have to wait to get the money (or, it could be argued that I had already been paid up front for this pot, because I had been running well lately).
The trick to this game, for me anyway, is looking at profitablility and cash-flow as two separate items. I was profitable, therefore all was well. The only time cash-flow matters is when lack of cash affects the ability to stay in action, or affects the way I play.
To prove the point, the next night I won $300+ largely due to one big hand where I re-raised a really loose-aggressive player pre-flop with AJ. On the rag flop I overbet the $80 pot, setting him all-in for $180 which he correctly called with pocket 7s. I caught a Jack to outdraw him. The luck factor on this hand was $312+. I went to bed that night knowing that I never actually won anything; I just had a positive cash-flow of $300.
I need to condition my poker brain to ignore the cash-flow and concentrate on playing profitably.
Friday 13 July 2007
A moveable feast
My plans shift all the time.
First, I started 4-tabling full ring 50c-$1, then I switched to 6max, now I have switched sites and am playing 6max $2-$4. However, I am only playing one table at a time.
The reasons for this change are many
- higher win-rate should result in lower variance
- more 'poker' decisions as there are less multi-tabling grinders at $2-$4
- most of my online poker experience is at $2-$4
- I enjoy playing one table more than I do playing many tables
- long-term game improvements more likely playing one table
Obviously, I have some bankroll issues. My starting bankroll for the month was only $3,300. This only gives me 8 buyins at $2-$4. I need to get off to a good start or go back down if I lose. Otherwise, its gonna be BUSTO.
So far, so good. The standard is generally poor. There are a couple of weak-tight players kicking about at most tables but there are quite often one or even two very loose players. Sometimes these are of the 'dream' passive types, but I dont mind if they are aggressive as long as they are way too loose. I have run well for 10 days or so (again, continuing my good fortune) and the bankroll stands at approx $5,000.
I intend to go easy on the withdrawals while the bankroll is on the low side, as inevitably I cant run well forever. However, I do still plan to make a withdrawal at the end of the month.
Wish me luck!
First, I started 4-tabling full ring 50c-$1, then I switched to 6max, now I have switched sites and am playing 6max $2-$4. However, I am only playing one table at a time.
The reasons for this change are many
- higher win-rate should result in lower variance
- more 'poker' decisions as there are less multi-tabling grinders at $2-$4
- most of my online poker experience is at $2-$4
- I enjoy playing one table more than I do playing many tables
- long-term game improvements more likely playing one table
Obviously, I have some bankroll issues. My starting bankroll for the month was only $3,300. This only gives me 8 buyins at $2-$4. I need to get off to a good start or go back down if I lose. Otherwise, its gonna be BUSTO.
So far, so good. The standard is generally poor. There are a couple of weak-tight players kicking about at most tables but there are quite often one or even two very loose players. Sometimes these are of the 'dream' passive types, but I dont mind if they are aggressive as long as they are way too loose. I have run well for 10 days or so (again, continuing my good fortune) and the bankroll stands at approx $5,000.
I intend to go easy on the withdrawals while the bankroll is on the low side, as inevitably I cant run well forever. However, I do still plan to make a withdrawal at the end of the month.
Wish me luck!
Tuesday 3 July 2007
Lucky me!
Totting up the results for June, I have realised how easily it is to be fooled that you are a good poker player.
My actual winnings for the month were $1,585 (which works out at about 4.5BB/100). It would be easy to think that I had played really well and I could go pro within the month. However, analysis of the big pots (>50 big blinds) shows that I got lucky to the tune of $800 or so. All of a sudden this makes the results a lot less impressive.
I took a 'salary' payment of $580 from my account, so I start July with just over $3,300 in the bankroll. I am going to start playing $1-$2, but restrict my buy-in to $100. Also, I am going to play only 1 table, which I will carefully select, and I am going to try to learn to focus 100% on the game whilst playing, to see if I can improve my reading abilities. I am convinced that this is going to be productive in allowing me to move up in limits, improve my game and ultimately improve my win-rate.
My actual winnings for the month were $1,585 (which works out at about 4.5BB/100). It would be easy to think that I had played really well and I could go pro within the month. However, analysis of the big pots (>50 big blinds) shows that I got lucky to the tune of $800 or so. All of a sudden this makes the results a lot less impressive.
I took a 'salary' payment of $580 from my account, so I start July with just over $3,300 in the bankroll. I am going to start playing $1-$2, but restrict my buy-in to $100. Also, I am going to play only 1 table, which I will carefully select, and I am going to try to learn to focus 100% on the game whilst playing, to see if I can improve my reading abilities. I am convinced that this is going to be productive in allowing me to move up in limits, improve my game and ultimately improve my win-rate.
Monday 25 June 2007
A losing week
This week has been very disappointing.
First of all, I only managed to play about 7 hours, as opposed to my target of 12-15. Then, I failed to get my money in very well, and I failed to get as lucky as I have done for the last few weeks.
I lost $60 on the week - so while not a disaster it was a stutter at best.
I actually missed playing a couple of days, which is unusual for me as I normally manage to fit an hour in on even the busiest of days. The days after I had missed a day were the worst results. I'm pretty sure this is not a coincidence.
I was too eager to play on both Tuesday and Friday and racked up losses those days of $380 in only 3.5 hours play. I got my money in really badly on Friday, even overbet bluffing the river with a missed straight draw against quad Aces.
All in all, a poor week. However, I have stuck to my review plan and get some solace from that. Its reassuring to know that when I play well I generate money, when I play crap I generate losses. I can't argue with that: that's the way poker works.
Also, even though I haven't made a withdrawal yet I have changed my plan on how much to withdraw. Here is the latest plan:
1. Withdraw 100% of my 'true' win for the month
2. If this exceeds 25% of month-end bankroll, cap at this level
3. If I have a true losing month I withdraw nothing.
This has quite a lot of benefits, namely:
1. My earn is related to my 'true' win ie. not affected by luck
2. My bankroll is maintained at a reasonable level
3. Rakeback is re-invested into the bankroll
4. Good luck is re-invested into the bankroll
It sound like a good solution to the conflicting problems of funding steady income and allowing bankroll growth. Let's see.
First of all, I only managed to play about 7 hours, as opposed to my target of 12-15. Then, I failed to get my money in very well, and I failed to get as lucky as I have done for the last few weeks.
I lost $60 on the week - so while not a disaster it was a stutter at best.
I actually missed playing a couple of days, which is unusual for me as I normally manage to fit an hour in on even the busiest of days. The days after I had missed a day were the worst results. I'm pretty sure this is not a coincidence.
I was too eager to play on both Tuesday and Friday and racked up losses those days of $380 in only 3.5 hours play. I got my money in really badly on Friday, even overbet bluffing the river with a missed straight draw against quad Aces.
All in all, a poor week. However, I have stuck to my review plan and get some solace from that. Its reassuring to know that when I play well I generate money, when I play crap I generate losses. I can't argue with that: that's the way poker works.
Also, even though I haven't made a withdrawal yet I have changed my plan on how much to withdraw. Here is the latest plan:
1. Withdraw 100% of my 'true' win for the month
2. If this exceeds 25% of month-end bankroll, cap at this level
3. If I have a true losing month I withdraw nothing.
This has quite a lot of benefits, namely:
1. My earn is related to my 'true' win ie. not affected by luck
2. My bankroll is maintained at a reasonable level
3. Rakeback is re-invested into the bankroll
4. Good luck is re-invested into the bankroll
It sound like a good solution to the conflicting problems of funding steady income and allowing bankroll growth. Let's see.
Thursday 21 June 2007
Calculating luck
A couple of months ago, after what I thought was a particularly bad run of luck,I came up with a method of quantifying luck. I wanted to make sure my run of poor results was at least partly due to bad luck.
I decided that I would analyse all pots ending in showdown, where the total pot was at least 50 times the big blind. I decided to look at these 'big' pots for a couple of reasons: (1) They were statistically the most significant factor affecting results; and (2) they were relatively few in number and could be reviewed quite quickly.
Basically my calculations determine two things:
- how well (or badly) I got my money in, and
- how was the outcome, compared with the expectation.
Its best to demonstrate my method by going through a few examples. (All examples feature $0.50 & $1 blinds with all players starting the hand with $100. Rake is ignored).
Eg1
- I am on the button with AA, and an early position players raises to $4 with KK, I reraise to $16 and he goes all-in. I call, so the pot is $201.50.
- I am an 81% favourite, so my true win is (0.81*201.5)-100 = $63.22. Or, I have bet $100 and my pot equity is $163.22
- If I lose the pot, I have been unlucky to the tune of $163.22, ie. pot equity compared with return.
- If I win the pot, I have been lucky to the tune of $38.28, again, pot equity compared with return.
Eg2 (same hands as Eg1)
- EP limps for $1, 4 callers for $1, I raise to $6, EP re-raises to $20, everybody fold round to me, who raises again to $40. EP calls and we see the flop. The flop is K82 rainbow, EP check calls my $60 flop bet.
- My EV in the hand is calculated as:
I decided that I would analyse all pots ending in showdown, where the total pot was at least 50 times the big blind. I decided to look at these 'big' pots for a couple of reasons: (1) They were statistically the most significant factor affecting results; and (2) they were relatively few in number and could be reviewed quite quickly.
Basically my calculations determine two things:
- how well (or badly) I got my money in, and
- how was the outcome, compared with the expectation.
Its best to demonstrate my method by going through a few examples. (All examples feature $0.50 & $1 blinds with all players starting the hand with $100. Rake is ignored).
Eg1
- I am on the button with AA, and an early position players raises to $4 with KK, I reraise to $16 and he goes all-in. I call, so the pot is $201.50.
- I am an 81% favourite, so my true win is (0.81*201.5)-100 = $63.22. Or, I have bet $100 and my pot equity is $163.22
- If I lose the pot, I have been unlucky to the tune of $163.22, ie. pot equity compared with return.
- If I win the pot, I have been lucky to the tune of $38.28, again, pot equity compared with return.
Eg2 (same hands as Eg1)
- EP limps for $1, 4 callers for $1, I raise to $6, EP re-raises to $20, everybody fold round to me, who raises again to $40. EP calls and we see the flop. The flop is K82 rainbow, EP check calls my $60 flop bet.
- My EV in the hand is calculated as:
- Pre-flop: (0.81*85.50) = 69.25 +
- Flop: (0.09*120) = 10.80 [I now have a 9% chance to win the pot]
- TOTAL EV $80.05
- My true loss in the hand is $100 - $80.05 = $19.95
- If I lose the pot, I have been unlucky to the tune of $80.05
- If I win the pot, I have been lucky to the tune of $125.45
Adding up all of these hands for a day or so, it can have a huge impact on actuals results. In theory, over time, the impact on results should average out to somewhere approaching 0%.
At the time of writing, I am ahead of the curve. I have won approx $400 more than my calculated EV since 29th May.
This allows me to be more objective in reviewing my results than I might otherwise be. I can look at a good week and keep my feet on the ground because it may be largely due to winning more than my share of the big pots.
What it doesn't do is keep a track of 'situational luck' ie. the luck you need to get in a profitable situation eg. AA v KK. Obviously this should even out over time too, but its a hell of a lot more difficult to calculate than EV luck.
Also. having calculated my 'big pot results' (true and actual), I can then calculate my small pot results. As there are many more of these (approx 95:1 ratio), luck in these pots should even out more quickly.
A side benefit is that I force myself to review all big pots to see how I played them, as well as calculate how lucky (or unlucky) I was.
Monday 18 June 2007
A good week
I managed to win every day except Sunday this week. In just over 3000 hands I won just over $500. This is very good at these stakes.
I ran well in the big pots, to the tune of about $150 so the true win amount was $350. In 9 hours this is a very respectable $38 per hour.
The bankroll stands at $3400, as rakeback from May ($160) was received this week too.
As far as the results go, so far so good. However, even after a week of wins, I did find myself getting a bit annoyed during the losing session on Sunday night. This is quite distressing. It was almost as if I had got used to winning being the natural order of things and losing was not really something that should happen. Of course this is a long way from the reality of poker.
The last major hand of the week was a semi-gamble, although to be fair I did pick a maniac player to gamble with. The maniac raised to $3.50 from early position and after a mid-position caller I re-raised from the button to $13.50 with Q10 of spades. Only the maniac called. The flop came QK3 (two spades) and the maniac bet out $25. I thought his most likely hand contained a King, but there was a reasonable chance he never had one, so I pushed all-in for $130. He called all-in for $125 and turned over AK (with the Ace of spades). The turn came a spade and I won a big pot.
Without this pot I would have had a $220 winning week, but obviously my luck factor would have been different. (My total equity in this pot was approx $125).
This is not a pot to be particularly proud of, but against his range of hands, its probably a winning play. Against his actual hand, it was a marginally losing play, although I did take the lead, giving me some fold equity also (especially pre-flop).
I ran well in the big pots, to the tune of about $150 so the true win amount was $350. In 9 hours this is a very respectable $38 per hour.
The bankroll stands at $3400, as rakeback from May ($160) was received this week too.
As far as the results go, so far so good. However, even after a week of wins, I did find myself getting a bit annoyed during the losing session on Sunday night. This is quite distressing. It was almost as if I had got used to winning being the natural order of things and losing was not really something that should happen. Of course this is a long way from the reality of poker.
The last major hand of the week was a semi-gamble, although to be fair I did pick a maniac player to gamble with. The maniac raised to $3.50 from early position and after a mid-position caller I re-raised from the button to $13.50 with Q10 of spades. Only the maniac called. The flop came QK3 (two spades) and the maniac bet out $25. I thought his most likely hand contained a King, but there was a reasonable chance he never had one, so I pushed all-in for $130. He called all-in for $125 and turned over AK (with the Ace of spades). The turn came a spade and I won a big pot.
Without this pot I would have had a $220 winning week, but obviously my luck factor would have been different. (My total equity in this pot was approx $125).
This is not a pot to be particularly proud of, but against his range of hands, its probably a winning play. Against his actual hand, it was a marginally losing play, although I did take the lead, giving me some fold equity also (especially pre-flop).
Monday 11 June 2007
A steady week
I played OK last week.
Having started the week playing 9-handed, I decided on Tuesday that the make-up of the tables wasnt particularly helpful to my style of play and decided to go to 6-max. I thought there were too many set-miners, and they played that particular game better than me.
6-max, I think, attracts a higher proportion of the "drop-in gambler" type players, so I decided to give this a go for a while. So far so good.
I've run well this week, to the value of approx $240 [1], so my win for the week of $390 is hardly fantastic. The "true" win figure of $150 means that I have won about $10 per hour, plus about $3 per hour in rakeback.
I wont be going pro just yet but its not bad income from a hobby, and at these stakes its not stressful at all.
The bankroll at the end of the week is just over $2700 with at least another $240 accrued rakeback to come. I should be OK to withdraw $500 at the end of the month. Remember - if I go bust, that the end of my poker career.
[1] - I will provide more on how I calculate this in a later post.
Having started the week playing 9-handed, I decided on Tuesday that the make-up of the tables wasnt particularly helpful to my style of play and decided to go to 6-max. I thought there were too many set-miners, and they played that particular game better than me.
6-max, I think, attracts a higher proportion of the "drop-in gambler" type players, so I decided to give this a go for a while. So far so good.
I've run well this week, to the value of approx $240 [1], so my win for the week of $390 is hardly fantastic. The "true" win figure of $150 means that I have won about $10 per hour, plus about $3 per hour in rakeback.
I wont be going pro just yet but its not bad income from a hobby, and at these stakes its not stressful at all.
The bankroll at the end of the week is just over $2700 with at least another $240 accrued rakeback to come. I should be OK to withdraw $500 at the end of the month. Remember - if I go bust, that the end of my poker career.
[1] - I will provide more on how I calculate this in a later post.
Tuesday 5 June 2007
Folding Kings (nearly)
I nearly folded KK correctly the other day. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
Here's how it happened. You tell me if you would have played it differently:
I ($100) limped UTG for $1, UTG+1 (LAG - $90) made it $4 to go, folded round to the BB (absolute rock! - 8% VPIP 3% PFR, $36 behind) who re-raises to $9.
I was sure the BB's range was AA-KK but called anyway for $8 more.
Flop ($27) came 222. BB checked, I bet $8 (maybe he's got AK, dont want to give a free card to the LAG behind me), LAG calls, BB calls (OK, he's got AA).
Turn another rag. BB checks again, I bet $8 (same reasons as before), LAG calls, BB calls.
River Q. BB checks again, I check (happy for free show-down), LAG bets $30, BB calls all-in for $20 ($10 in side pot), I call $30.
Showdown - LAG 1010 (stupid river bet), BB AA, me KK.
Here's how it happened. You tell me if you would have played it differently:
I ($100) limped UTG for $1, UTG+1 (LAG - $90) made it $4 to go, folded round to the BB (absolute rock! - 8% VPIP 3% PFR, $36 behind) who re-raises to $9.
I was sure the BB's range was AA-KK but called anyway for $8 more.
Flop ($27) came 222. BB checked, I bet $8 (maybe he's got AK, dont want to give a free card to the LAG behind me), LAG calls, BB calls (OK, he's got AA).
Turn another rag. BB checks again, I bet $8 (same reasons as before), LAG calls, BB calls.
River Q. BB checks again, I check (happy for free show-down), LAG bets $30, BB calls all-in for $20 ($10 in side pot), I call $30.
Showdown - LAG 1010 (stupid river bet), BB AA, me KK.
Revised goals! Bank-roll building plans?
A disappointing week all in all. After a good start I had a $190 loss on Sunday night which reduced week 1 profits to $155. So not exactly earth-shattering results after 12 hours play. A further $100 was released from my start-up bonus (Full Tilt), so the bankroll was up to $2,255.
On a happier note, I actually played quite well for most of the week.
However, I have thought about the plan to withdraw $1,900 at the end of each month and decided that at the current stakes this is unrealistic.
Revised Plan - WITHDRAW 20% of the BANKROLL at the end of each month. In effect, this means that I have to win 25% of the month's starting bankroll to retain the same bankroll at the end of the month. I feel that this is achieveable, and it allows for a steady (hopefully increasing) income.
On a happier note, I actually played quite well for most of the week.
However, I have thought about the plan to withdraw $1,900 at the end of each month and decided that at the current stakes this is unrealistic.
Revised Plan - WITHDRAW 20% of the BANKROLL at the end of each month. In effect, this means that I have to win 25% of the month's starting bankroll to retain the same bankroll at the end of the month. I feel that this is achieveable, and it allows for a steady (hopefully increasing) income.
Tuesday 29 May 2007
Poker 4 Rent
This blog has been created to chronicle my attempts to play internet poker successfully. This follows several years of break-even/slightly-winning play.
I know all of the fundamentals of poker very well but have not always been the greatest at doing the right thing.
My list of crimes includes:
- chasing losses;
- poor (non-existent) bankroll management;
- tilt.
My wife and I have moved into a lovely 4-bedroomed detached house in a quiet cul-de-sac and I see this as a new opportunity to set some goals for my poker playing in the immediate future.
My starting bankroll will be $2000. I will play $0.50-$1 No Limit Texas Hold Em for approximately 10-15 hours per week, playing 4 x 9-handed tables simultaneously.
Goals are:
1. Withdraw $1900 rent money each month end (starting 30 June 07)
2. Play within bankroll (at least 20 x 100BB buy-ins for current level)
3. Track and review large pots played to assess luck-factor
Rules
1. Move down in stakes if bankroll is less than 1,500 big blinds
2. Stop playing for minimum of 12 hours if more than 300 big blinds lost in any one session
In case anyone is wondering, the rent money is already covered by mine and the lovely wife's more than adequate salaries. This extra money will be invested in some sort of equities-based managed fund (to be decided).
ALSO, I HAVE COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT POKER HAS TAKEN UP A LOT OF MY ENERGIES IN THE PAST FEW YEARS AT IT. NOW IS THE TIME TO MAKE SOME NICE MONEY AT THIS GAME. IF I GO BUST I WILL STOP PLAYING POKER FOR GOOD.
I realise that the starting bankroll is a little bit on the short side - only 20 buy-ins - but with average luck in the short term this will soon be rectified.
I am planning to review each week's results and play on a regular basis. Also, I will make some comments on whatever catches my eye in the world of online poker.
Bye for now
I know all of the fundamentals of poker very well but have not always been the greatest at doing the right thing.
My list of crimes includes:
- chasing losses;
- poor (non-existent) bankroll management;
- tilt.
My wife and I have moved into a lovely 4-bedroomed detached house in a quiet cul-de-sac and I see this as a new opportunity to set some goals for my poker playing in the immediate future.
My starting bankroll will be $2000. I will play $0.50-$1 No Limit Texas Hold Em for approximately 10-15 hours per week, playing 4 x 9-handed tables simultaneously.
Goals are:
1. Withdraw $1900 rent money each month end (starting 30 June 07)
2. Play within bankroll (at least 20 x 100BB buy-ins for current level)
3. Track and review large pots played to assess luck-factor
Rules
1. Move down in stakes if bankroll is less than 1,500 big blinds
2. Stop playing for minimum of 12 hours if more than 300 big blinds lost in any one session
In case anyone is wondering, the rent money is already covered by mine and the lovely wife's more than adequate salaries. This extra money will be invested in some sort of equities-based managed fund (to be decided).
ALSO, I HAVE COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT POKER HAS TAKEN UP A LOT OF MY ENERGIES IN THE PAST FEW YEARS AT IT. NOW IS THE TIME TO MAKE SOME NICE MONEY AT THIS GAME. IF I GO BUST I WILL STOP PLAYING POKER FOR GOOD.
I realise that the starting bankroll is a little bit on the short side - only 20 buy-ins - but with average luck in the short term this will soon be rectified.
I am planning to review each week's results and play on a regular basis. Also, I will make some comments on whatever catches my eye in the world of online poker.
Bye for now
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