Well, having failed rather badly on my goals for the month, I decided to ease myself through the end of February with a bit of fun poker rather than grinding DoNs, so I had a play with a few microstakes MTTs; some scheduled, some SNG. The scheduled ones were a bit more of a grind, but I managed a couple of cashes. The sheer hard work of surviving the huge field made it a bit less enjoyable. But I had really forgotten how much fun the turbo 180mans are on Stars, and I managed to FT a $2 one of those, which was quite satisfying considering it was only a tiny sample. I'll keep those in mind whenever I need a change of scenery. Other than that I didn't really play much poker for the last few days; I requested a self ban from the 2+2 forums until 1st March to stop myself trolling crap threads, and basically got my diet and sleeping habits back in order.
So, my result for February was as follows
$175 profit from playing
$100 from bonuses earned
$ 25 worth of FPP earned
Total $300 profit
Next month I'm going to be a bit more realistic about goals, so here they are.........
1) Play enough to make 3500 VPP. In non-turbo DoNs that's basically around 50/day, or about 2½ hours work. Basically should be easy to make this if I apply myself. That would get me comfortably past enough VPP to make Gold Star.
That's really about it, my only goal, other than not becoming a spewy tilt-monkey. I think I finally figured it out: if I put in the volume then the money will look after itself. Make the goal something which I can control absolutely: that's volume, it's not profit. Previously I tried to tie goals too much into the financial results, and then got disheartened when they didn't pay off. Now I just want to put in volume at a game I know I'm beating. That volume on its own would release nearly $200 of reload bonuses, and also earn $80 worth of Stellar rewards plus around $75 worth of FPP, so that's $350+ right there. Then on top of that I'm looking for profit from the games I play, maybe including a lucky break in one of the VIP tourneys they run on Saturdays.
Bring on March!
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
[ ] Sustainable
So, another couple of sessions of these slow go DoNs, 19 games late on yesterday before I stopped regging as the games totally dried up, and then another 27 in my first session today, for +$37 and +$14 respectively and a total of +$51 profit. Over a ridiculously small sample of 113 games I am ITM >65% and my ROI is at 21.3%, which seems like a massive heater to me. The VPPs are gonna accumulate pretty swiftly if I can get some solid volumes in. Can't wait to see where this takes me after a thousand games or so, when I'll have a decent sample size. Profit for the year from games only, has now crept over $500 from games, so this is not including bonuses etc.
I've got a sportsman's bet on with Chris from the DoN discussion group about racing to see who can be first to get on the the SS leaderboard, but I have a massive lead and should be able to do it easy. 20th spot is now at $698, so I'm back to within $200 and putting some effort in should get me there within not much time.
Turbos
Games 1387
Wins 759
ITM 54.7 %
Profit $377.60
ROI 5.23 %
Non turbos
Games 113
Wins 74
ITM 65.5%
Profit $ 129.80
ROI 21.27%
Combined
Profit $507.40
ROI 6.48%
I've got a sportsman's bet on with Chris from the DoN discussion group about racing to see who can be first to get on the the SS leaderboard, but I have a massive lead and should be able to do it easy. 20th spot is now at $698, so I'm back to within $200 and putting some effort in should get me there within not much time.
Turbos
Games 1387
Wins 759
ITM 54.7 %
Profit $377.60
ROI 5.23 %
Non turbos
Games 113
Wins 74
ITM 65.5%
Profit $ 129.80
ROI 21.27%
Combined
Profit $507.40
ROI 6.48%
Monday, 22 February 2010
Considering whether to make a change
So I played another couple of sets of the $5.40 non-turbo DoNs and, apart from turning a profit, which makes you feel good anyway, I also find them more playable at the moment. There's less of a rush, because there's more time allowed per action, and less pressure from the increasing blinds. Even when they get to the later stages of the game there's still enough time to make a considered decision on whether to push or fold, even if there are 25 tables open. Only time will tell if his is merely because they're a bit new or whether I genuinely feel this way, but I'm enjoying the format much more than the turbos.
Today so far – 47 games, 31 cashes, $56 profit. Along with the $39 from yesterday it pretty much wipes out the deficit from that horrible three hours on Friday night. Profit for the year is back up to $456 and yet again I'm on the tail of a Sharkscope leaderboard spot.
Today so far – 47 games, 31 cashes, $56 profit. Along with the $39 from yesterday it pretty much wipes out the deficit from that horrible three hours on Friday night. Profit for the year is back up to $456 and yet again I'm on the tail of a Sharkscope leaderboard spot.
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Changing games
Well after yesterday's spewathon I was a little more cautious today, for less than obvious reasons. If I think I'm +EV in the game then I should be going for it irrespective of short term results. But anyway, I was cautious, and after working up about $16 profit in a set of turbos I spontaneously decided to reg to a set of non turbos, figuring that 20 of them would earn me exactly enough VPP to maintain my Silver Star status this month. You get twice as many VPP, albeit for paying twice the fee, but because of the slower format a higher ROI is achievable than in the turbos.
It was a lot less stressful; players were just as likely to stack off at low blind levels, but there was twice as long for them to do so, which meant twice as long for me to find a hand to get all their chips. Also, the pace of the game was slower generally, including a couple of extra seconds to decide each time the action is on you, and also a time bank of 60 seconds instead just 15 seconds in the turbos. It's basically impossible to time out, but there is also less pressure to act hastily just because a dozen or fifteen tables are demanding action at the same time. I feel that it would still be comfortable to multitable these 25 at a time, so I've decided to give that a shot this week and see if I can make a push at getting Gold after all, which was one of my goals for the month, and was something I basically gave up on a few days ago. Now it's still achieveable with about 150 games per day, which is six sessions at 25 tabling.
My mini session of non-turbos finished 13/20 for a nice little profit of $22, which means that over the day I recovered about three-quarters of the amount I lost yesterday.
Let's see what the week brings us as I grind out something ever so slightly different.
It was a lot less stressful; players were just as likely to stack off at low blind levels, but there was twice as long for them to do so, which meant twice as long for me to find a hand to get all their chips. Also, the pace of the game was slower generally, including a couple of extra seconds to decide each time the action is on you, and also a time bank of 60 seconds instead just 15 seconds in the turbos. It's basically impossible to time out, but there is also less pressure to act hastily just because a dozen or fifteen tables are demanding action at the same time. I feel that it would still be comfortable to multitable these 25 at a time, so I've decided to give that a shot this week and see if I can make a push at getting Gold after all, which was one of my goals for the month, and was something I basically gave up on a few days ago. Now it's still achieveable with about 150 games per day, which is six sessions at 25 tabling.
My mini session of non-turbos finished 13/20 for a nice little profit of $22, which means that over the day I recovered about three-quarters of the amount I lost yesterday.
Let's see what the week brings us as I grind out something ever so slightly different.
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Am I cut out to cope with the variance in this game?
Well, it's already been a recurring theme in what is still a short blog, but today was more excruciating than anything I can remember. I started off with a nice little set of 14/23 for +$20, following it up with 16/23 for +$40, to make it +$60 for the day. All was going well, I was pretty happy and the games were looking good to play. Then suddenly it all went totally pear-shaped, and in my next three sets I went 8/20, 7/22 and 8/24 for -$24, -$44 and -$45 respectively. That's -$113 in just 66 games, and about three hours. So my total for the day was a confidence crushing -$52; not a lot to show for my five hours work.
The only positive is that I cleared another level in Stars' Stellar Rewards scheme, but as it's only $10, it doesn't even cover my losses for the day.
I genuinely feel I played OK today. I've already been back for a review and don't see many spots where I could do anything different, so I can't believe I've been so badly savaged when it comes to payout time. It was just short stack after short stack surviving until it came to me being the shorty, at which point I either shoved BvB into AA or had a strong hand cracked by some retarded call. And in the early part of the games it seemed that flops and action always developed unfavourably, such as raising QQ, getting called in four spots and flop coming a monochrome AKx, meaning I can't continue the hand. Or flopping something really strong, betting it, and getting called all the way by villain until they miracle something on the river.
OK, I accept that some of them have to lose, but I'm incredulous at losing so many in such a short space of time; in just three short hours I'd had my greatest peak-to-trough downswing at the $5.20s, more than 30% worse than anything which has gone before it, and my cumulative ROI had crashed by more than 1%.
If I had run at my long term average then my 112 games should have yielded a daily profit of just under $42, but the actual result of -$52.40 leaves me nearly $100 short of where I could have been predicted to finish the day. My cumulative profit for February is now a measly $48 over more than 600 games, at the rather pathetic ROI of 1.5%.
Halfway through the day I was really happy with the progress I'd made towards my goal of getting on the Sharkscope leaderboard, but now I'm over $300 behind 20th spot, when barely a few hours ago I was within $200 of getting there.
But I'm not going to give up; I know that I am so much better than the average moron who plays these games. But the difference between me and them is that they expect to lose, it's basically normal for them, so variant results are actually happy events. I just need to find a way to cope with the emotional rollercoaster that seems to closely follow my bankroll. I guess a bit more reading on the subject of tilt management is needed.
Let's hope the Saturday donks are more accommodating than the Friday donks were.
The only positive is that I cleared another level in Stars' Stellar Rewards scheme, but as it's only $10, it doesn't even cover my losses for the day.
I genuinely feel I played OK today. I've already been back for a review and don't see many spots where I could do anything different, so I can't believe I've been so badly savaged when it comes to payout time. It was just short stack after short stack surviving until it came to me being the shorty, at which point I either shoved BvB into AA or had a strong hand cracked by some retarded call. And in the early part of the games it seemed that flops and action always developed unfavourably, such as raising QQ, getting called in four spots and flop coming a monochrome AKx, meaning I can't continue the hand. Or flopping something really strong, betting it, and getting called all the way by villain until they miracle something on the river.
OK, I accept that some of them have to lose, but I'm incredulous at losing so many in such a short space of time; in just three short hours I'd had my greatest peak-to-trough downswing at the $5.20s, more than 30% worse than anything which has gone before it, and my cumulative ROI had crashed by more than 1%.
If I had run at my long term average then my 112 games should have yielded a daily profit of just under $42, but the actual result of -$52.40 leaves me nearly $100 short of where I could have been predicted to finish the day. My cumulative profit for February is now a measly $48 over more than 600 games, at the rather pathetic ROI of 1.5%.
Halfway through the day I was really happy with the progress I'd made towards my goal of getting on the Sharkscope leaderboard, but now I'm over $300 behind 20th spot, when barely a few hours ago I was within $200 of getting there.
But I'm not going to give up; I know that I am so much better than the average moron who plays these games. But the difference between me and them is that they expect to lose, it's basically normal for them, so variant results are actually happy events. I just need to find a way to cope with the emotional rollercoaster that seems to closely follow my bankroll. I guess a bit more reading on the subject of tilt management is needed.
Let's hope the Saturday donks are more accommodating than the Friday donks were.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Wondering if I'll ever not suck at making myself grind...
Well at least today was worth a profit of $45, but I simply don't seem to be able to drive myself to sit down and get the hell on with playing games, and I won't run as good as I did today on a regular enough basis to get by on such paltry volmes.
Also, I somehow managed to make the most retarded play I can ever remember since I started on the path to poker enlightenment with 2+2; I'm going to post the HH so I see it, so I remember it with shame, and so I never, ever, ever do it again.
Villain has made a pot-committing raise, so he wants action, and he is also a reg who I know is definitely ahead of my AJ here. And yet I shoved back over him anyway. WHY????????????? I'm so tilted that I reshoved here, it cost me this tournament and is such an awful mistake.
PokerStars Game #xxxxxxxxxxx: Tournament #xxxxxxxxx, $5.00+$0.20 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level V (75/150) - 2010/02/17 xx:xx:xx WET [2010/02/16 xx:xx:xx ET]
Table 'xxxxxxxxx 1' 10-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Villain (955 in chips)
Seat 3: SB (1150 in chips)
Seat 4: TeamTrousers (1490 in chips)
Seat 6: UTG (4275 in chips)
Seat 7: UTG+1 (1675 in chips)
Seat 9: MP (1805 in chips)
Seat 10: CO (3650 in chips)
Villain: posts the ante 15
SB: posts the ante 15
TeamTrousers: posts the ante 15
UTG: posts the ante 15
UTG+1: posts the ante 15
MP: posts the ante 15
CO: posts the ante 15
SB: posts small blind 75
TeamTrousers: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to TeamTrousers [Jh Ac]
UTG: folds
UTG+1: folds
MP: folds
CO: folds
Villain: raises 300 to 450
SB: folds
TeamTrousers: raises 1025 to 1475 and is all-in
Villain: calls 490 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (535) returned to TeamTrousers
*** FLOP *** [4d 5d Th]
*** TURN *** [4d 5d Th] [4c]
*** RIVER *** [4d 5d Th 4c] [2h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
TeamTrousers: shows [Jh Ac] (a pair of Fours)
Villain: shows [Ah Kd] (a pair of Fours - Ace+King kicker)
Villain collected 2060 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2060 | Rake 0
Board [4d 5d Th 4c 2h]
Seat 1: Villain (button) showed [Ah Kd] and won (2060) with a pair of Fours
Seat 3: SB (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: TeamTrousers (big blind) showed [Jh Ac] and lost with a pair of Fours
Seat 6: UTG folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: UTG+1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: MP folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 10: CO folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Anyway, I've closed some of the gap on the sharkscope leaders again, now back to only a couple hundred dollars behind, and I'm very nearly at $400 profit for the year now, and that's not including bonuses, stellar, FPP etc. Not exactly the stuff of early retirement just yet, but plenty of time for this long journey.
Also, I somehow managed to make the most retarded play I can ever remember since I started on the path to poker enlightenment with 2+2; I'm going to post the HH so I see it, so I remember it with shame, and so I never, ever, ever do it again.
Villain has made a pot-committing raise, so he wants action, and he is also a reg who I know is definitely ahead of my AJ here. And yet I shoved back over him anyway. WHY????????????? I'm so tilted that I reshoved here, it cost me this tournament and is such an awful mistake.
PokerStars Game #xxxxxxxxxxx: Tournament #xxxxxxxxx, $5.00+$0.20 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level V (75/150) - 2010/02/17 xx:xx:xx WET [2010/02/16 xx:xx:xx ET]
Table 'xxxxxxxxx 1' 10-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Villain (955 in chips)
Seat 3: SB (1150 in chips)
Seat 4: TeamTrousers (1490 in chips)
Seat 6: UTG (4275 in chips)
Seat 7: UTG+1 (1675 in chips)
Seat 9: MP (1805 in chips)
Seat 10: CO (3650 in chips)
Villain: posts the ante 15
SB: posts the ante 15
TeamTrousers: posts the ante 15
UTG: posts the ante 15
UTG+1: posts the ante 15
MP: posts the ante 15
CO: posts the ante 15
SB: posts small blind 75
TeamTrousers: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to TeamTrousers [Jh Ac]
UTG: folds
UTG+1: folds
MP: folds
CO: folds
Villain: raises 300 to 450
SB: folds
TeamTrousers: raises 1025 to 1475 and is all-in
Villain: calls 490 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (535) returned to TeamTrousers
*** FLOP *** [4d 5d Th]
*** TURN *** [4d 5d Th] [4c]
*** RIVER *** [4d 5d Th 4c] [2h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
TeamTrousers: shows [Jh Ac] (a pair of Fours)
Villain: shows [Ah Kd] (a pair of Fours - Ace+King kicker)
Villain collected 2060 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2060 | Rake 0
Board [4d 5d Th 4c 2h]
Seat 1: Villain (button) showed [Ah Kd] and won (2060) with a pair of Fours
Seat 3: SB (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: TeamTrousers (big blind) showed [Jh Ac] and lost with a pair of Fours
Seat 6: UTG folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: UTG+1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: MP folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 10: CO folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Anyway, I've closed some of the gap on the sharkscope leaders again, now back to only a couple hundred dollars behind, and I'm very nearly at $400 profit for the year now, and that's not including bonuses, stellar, FPP etc. Not exactly the stuff of early retirement just yet, but plenty of time for this long journey.
Monday, 15 February 2010
Numbers update.
I suck at grinding hard, nowhere near as many games as I intended, but here's the year-to-date numbers anyway.
Games 1217
Wins 668
ITM 54.9%
Profit $352
ROI 5.55%
Games 1217
Wins 668
ITM 54.9%
Profit $352
ROI 5.55%
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Mini milestones, and not getting lured into promos
So, after much prevarication I passed up on the $40 buyin Micro Million that Stars are doing for their 40 Billion Hands thing. I reckon I'd have an edge, considering most of the field will be morons, and it's a pretty good slow structure too (10,000 chips and 15 minutes blinds), which would really suit me as well, I know how to cope with making deep runs in MTTs because I have the experience, but the variance element of such a huge field would not be nice and it's really too much money to risk even for taking a shot. It only takes one moron to suck out, or one horrible situation. The field currently stands at 40,019 and still nine minutes left for late registration, so prize pool is over $1.6 million. Someone's gonna have a great day today, but it won't be me. Later in the year I'll play some of these type events when my bankroll isn't quite so tight as it is right now. I'll start to budget money to play some of Stars' SCOOP events in May.
So instead I'm going to be grinding DoNs all day today. I already had a nice first session today for another $26 profit, so I'm up $81 in last 2 hours. Utterly meaningless sample, but wouldn't it be nice to maintain that, $40/hr playing $5 DoNs!
Anyway, my first little landmark was hit today during my set, when I made it over the $700 lifetime profit mark for $5 DoNs. I'm actually closing in on $800 profit since I started taking them serious and also since I joined 2+2, but unfortunately I lost nearly $100 in them before I even had a clue what I was doing.
The second landmark, cleared at about the same time, is getting above the $350 profit line for 2010. It's only a little bit, but I'm glad to be heading in the right direction.
But I really need to galvanise myself into action about this volume though, because it's pathetic so far. So today I really am gonna grind my butt off, and look to get about 200 of these under my belt before I go to sleep. Sad thing is, that's only just above the average games required if I am going to hit my volume for this month.
I'm still contemplating fitting in some of the 40man SNGs which Stars are running only during this week's promo. I watched a few final tables on them at the $1.10s and they look so soft it's really ridiculous. As well as the standard payout the winners of them also split an even share of $40k. I have a pretty decent record in the 45 mans and the play will be equally LOLbad. Only downside is it will kill my volume for the month if I do.
Anyway, less blogging, more pokering! Update of numbers will be done later.
And remember, spite calling costs money.
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
So instead I'm going to be grinding DoNs all day today. I already had a nice first session today for another $26 profit, so I'm up $81 in last 2 hours. Utterly meaningless sample, but wouldn't it be nice to maintain that, $40/hr playing $5 DoNs!
Anyway, my first little landmark was hit today during my set, when I made it over the $700 lifetime profit mark for $5 DoNs. I'm actually closing in on $800 profit since I started taking them serious and also since I joined 2+2, but unfortunately I lost nearly $100 in them before I even had a clue what I was doing.
The second landmark, cleared at about the same time, is getting above the $350 profit line for 2010. It's only a little bit, but I'm glad to be heading in the right direction.
But I really need to galvanise myself into action about this volume though, because it's pathetic so far. So today I really am gonna grind my butt off, and look to get about 200 of these under my belt before I go to sleep. Sad thing is, that's only just above the average games required if I am going to hit my volume for this month.
I'm still contemplating fitting in some of the 40man SNGs which Stars are running only during this week's promo. I watched a few final tables on them at the $1.10s and they look so soft it's really ridiculous. As well as the standard payout the winners of them also split an even share of $40k. I have a pretty decent record in the 45 mans and the play will be equally LOLbad. Only downside is it will kill my volume for the month if I do.
Anyway, less blogging, more pokering! Update of numbers will be done later.
And remember, spite calling costs money.
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Spite calling costs money
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Back to business
Things have really got in the way of me playing and posting for the last few days, but I finally managed to get back on the tables this evening. 60 games so far, and I will play another session when I've posted this. Only problem now is I still can't beat the donks. Pretty sure I'm just continuing to run into bad situations, but I'm already down another $17 so far today.
A couple of useful little bumps for the bankroll have come courtesy of the $40 for 2500 FPP instant cash credit which is on offer in Stars' VIP store as part of its 40 billionth hand promotion, and also $50 from the new year reload bonus which I just cleared in the last set. But so far I'm $21 down for February from actual play, and I'm drifting further and further away from getting on the bottom of the Sharkscope leaderboard for YTD profits from $5 DoNs, which is really annoying me. Top spot has barely moved this month, and is still only just over $1100 profit, but 20th is now $585, which is nearly $300 more than I have so far from these.
Also, I'm not even close to my target for games this month. My goal was to be averaging 100-a-day, so I should be >1200 by now, but in fact I've only played 333, barely more than ¼ of what it should be. If I'm gonna play this Gold VIP tourney in two weeks time I need to hike it up to 171 games every day for the rest of the month. I also need to try and get best value from my VIP stuff by playing the weekly $30k tomorrow for only 100FPP.
This is going to be tough, but I really need to start disciplining myself. Even if I don't hit any of my other goals (profit, regular play/posting and leaderboard) then I'm sure as hell going to hit my volume goal, because that's the one thing I do have control over. It's peanuts really, but playing those games will also release another $30 of Stellar rewards, even if I don't buy them from the store yet. I think I'll save them for a big chunk later in the year when it will really make a difference to my roll to get them. I can't believe that if I hit that volume I will still be down on profit for the month, because if I am then something has seriously gone wrong with my game. If the results continue like this for the net 500 games then I will need to take a massive look at what has changed.
Games 1098
Wins 600
ITM 54.6%
Profit $290
ROI 5.1%
OMG, some of those figures are depressing!
A couple of useful little bumps for the bankroll have come courtesy of the $40 for 2500 FPP instant cash credit which is on offer in Stars' VIP store as part of its 40 billionth hand promotion, and also $50 from the new year reload bonus which I just cleared in the last set. But so far I'm $21 down for February from actual play, and I'm drifting further and further away from getting on the bottom of the Sharkscope leaderboard for YTD profits from $5 DoNs, which is really annoying me. Top spot has barely moved this month, and is still only just over $1100 profit, but 20th is now $585, which is nearly $300 more than I have so far from these.
Also, I'm not even close to my target for games this month. My goal was to be averaging 100-a-day, so I should be >1200 by now, but in fact I've only played 333, barely more than ¼ of what it should be. If I'm gonna play this Gold VIP tourney in two weeks time I need to hike it up to 171 games every day for the rest of the month. I also need to try and get best value from my VIP stuff by playing the weekly $30k tomorrow for only 100FPP.
This is going to be tough, but I really need to start disciplining myself. Even if I don't hit any of my other goals (profit, regular play/posting and leaderboard) then I'm sure as hell going to hit my volume goal, because that's the one thing I do have control over. It's peanuts really, but playing those games will also release another $30 of Stellar rewards, even if I don't buy them from the store yet. I think I'll save them for a big chunk later in the year when it will really make a difference to my roll to get them. I can't believe that if I hit that volume I will still be down on profit for the month, because if I am then something has seriously gone wrong with my game. If the results continue like this for the net 500 games then I will need to take a massive look at what has changed.
Games 1098
Wins 600
ITM 54.6%
Profit $290
ROI 5.1%
OMG, some of those figures are depressing!
Monday, 8 February 2010
Knowledge is power
So, I realise that I didn't post yesterday, but after yesterday's single session I was pretty pissed off about the way the results were going, and I really started to think I might have developed a major leak, instead of just running bad. Despite checking through the games I had played I couldn't find anything obvious, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. So I decided I needed more information. I knew that it was time to bite the bullet, and get some proper software to analyse my game in detail. So, having wasted my trial of HEM a few months ago when I had a strop because it didn't work immediately, and instead of wasting time continuing to whinge on a blog about how awful my life is (which it isn't) and how bad I run at the tables (which is in truth merely an unconfirmed rumour), I downloaded the trial of PT3 instead, and spent the whole night getting my archive of all my hand histories in order and then manually importing the $5 DoN games into the PostgreSQL database. I knew there was a reason I had kept them all, and this was it! I think I finally crawled into bed around 8am.
So, I'm now the proud owner of over 100,000 hands all neatly loaded up in and ready to filter in a zillion different ways.
The first thing I realised is just how many different opponents there are out there, and how small is the number of people I see on a regular basis. I think that out of just over 2,500 games, the most I've seen the same opponent is about 60 games. I've seen >13,000 different SNs at the tables in that time, and the huge majority of them have only been seen on a single occasion. And there are only maybe two or three dozen who I have sat with in more than 20 games.
This means that there is, and will continue to be, very little time to accurately profile most villains and assign them some ranges, so I will have to refine and improve the default ranges I use for randoms and improve the way in which I use them for my equity calculations.
The second thing I realised is how chips flow into and out of my stack during a typical game. On average, I only win chips in the first two levels (BB2o and BB30), while I slowly lose them through the rest of the game. In fact, in all games (which obviously includes losses where my cumulative chip count is -1,500) I tend to lose chips at a rate of about 6 chips per hand throughout the game. Comparison with some of the other guys in the DoN group shows that this seems to be a typical profile for a winning reg. So that's an encouraging start!
It puts into numbers for me what I've read on 2+2 about how chips flow away from 'safe' stacks once the game becomes push/fold. And I love numbers. People can twist words, and use them to misrepresent something, but once you look carefully you simply can't argue with numbers. They are a fact.
Of course, no real game will ever look anything like these averages, but it gives an good insight into how the table dynamics develop. The important thing is that poker is not about one hand, or one game. It's about the long term, and making good decisions thousands and thousands of times so that eventually you reap the benefits of correct play.
The corollary is that if good players are slowly losing chips through the tournament then the players who are on average winning them must be bad players. After all, there are always 15,000 chips on the table, someone has to own them and it isn't the good players. It sounds idiotic to think that way, but remember; to win chips you have to risk chips, and risking chips is not ideal in a DoN game, which is basically an exercise in survival. So the guys who have the most chips must have risked the most chips and are therefore bad.
Suddenly the whole 'donk big stack' thing on the bubble makes much more sense now. Of course. These are the morons from whom we win our chips in the early levels. Usually they bust out spectacularly with garbage hands, but occasionally those garbage hands win, and they survive. They continue to win chips in the later stages of the game because they continue to risk them. But most of the time they don't last long enough. It's these occasional tastes of victory which keep the fish coming back.
Even as I write this post I am understanding some things which I knew intellectually to be true, because better players than myself had told me, but I didn't 'get' why they were true. Now I 'get' it. There is still a long way to go; the things I have discovered today only begin to scratch the surface, but I hope that I will be able to learn to use this vast information resource to improve my game further. My regret is that I didn't do this a long time ago.
I think the next step will be getting familiar with using the information from the HUD, which is integral to PT3, to better profile villains when I am considering shoves or calls. I am looking forward to that, because with 20 tables open it can become a little tricky to keep track of who is who.
Thanks to all in the group today who input useful stuff as I was familiarising myself with PT3: Alex, Bryan, Chris, Wurly, Kevin.
I'll probably switch to HEM anyway in the near future, as everyone rates it above PT3, but wanted to trial something like it just to see what I'd get, and I'm definitely impressed.
I also had a few games today (it's still Sunday until I go to bed), so I'll do a quick recap. First, the good news, I was slightly profitable in each of three little sessions, to a total of about $30. This covers some of the losses of the last few days, but not all. Because yesterday I was down $11, and Thursday down $52, which still leaves me in the red for February. I have also only played about half of the games I should have played for my monthly goals. As real life this coming week is gong to be a bit busy I will really need to use every minute I can for game time just to stand still, then catch up the shortfall next week to stay on target for my February goal. Also today I broke through 1,000 games for the year.
Games 1,017
Wins 557
ITM 54.8%
Profit $282
ROI 5.3%
Finally, congrats to the Saints on their win in the SuperBowl earlier today; I know that a couple of the guys were pretty happy about that. I won't profess to understand the game, but as long as people have fun that's gotta be a good thing.
So, I'm now the proud owner of over 100,000 hands all neatly loaded up in and ready to filter in a zillion different ways.
The first thing I realised is just how many different opponents there are out there, and how small is the number of people I see on a regular basis. I think that out of just over 2,500 games, the most I've seen the same opponent is about 60 games. I've seen >13,000 different SNs at the tables in that time, and the huge majority of them have only been seen on a single occasion. And there are only maybe two or three dozen who I have sat with in more than 20 games.
This means that there is, and will continue to be, very little time to accurately profile most villains and assign them some ranges, so I will have to refine and improve the default ranges I use for randoms and improve the way in which I use them for my equity calculations.
The second thing I realised is how chips flow into and out of my stack during a typical game. On average, I only win chips in the first two levels (BB2o and BB30), while I slowly lose them through the rest of the game. In fact, in all games (which obviously includes losses where my cumulative chip count is -1,500) I tend to lose chips at a rate of about 6 chips per hand throughout the game. Comparison with some of the other guys in the DoN group shows that this seems to be a typical profile for a winning reg. So that's an encouraging start!
It puts into numbers for me what I've read on 2+2 about how chips flow away from 'safe' stacks once the game becomes push/fold. And I love numbers. People can twist words, and use them to misrepresent something, but once you look carefully you simply can't argue with numbers. They are a fact.
Of course, no real game will ever look anything like these averages, but it gives an good insight into how the table dynamics develop. The important thing is that poker is not about one hand, or one game. It's about the long term, and making good decisions thousands and thousands of times so that eventually you reap the benefits of correct play.
The corollary is that if good players are slowly losing chips through the tournament then the players who are on average winning them must be bad players. After all, there are always 15,000 chips on the table, someone has to own them and it isn't the good players. It sounds idiotic to think that way, but remember; to win chips you have to risk chips, and risking chips is not ideal in a DoN game, which is basically an exercise in survival. So the guys who have the most chips must have risked the most chips and are therefore bad.
Suddenly the whole 'donk big stack' thing on the bubble makes much more sense now. Of course. These are the morons from whom we win our chips in the early levels. Usually they bust out spectacularly with garbage hands, but occasionally those garbage hands win, and they survive. They continue to win chips in the later stages of the game because they continue to risk them. But most of the time they don't last long enough. It's these occasional tastes of victory which keep the fish coming back.
Even as I write this post I am understanding some things which I knew intellectually to be true, because better players than myself had told me, but I didn't 'get' why they were true. Now I 'get' it. There is still a long way to go; the things I have discovered today only begin to scratch the surface, but I hope that I will be able to learn to use this vast information resource to improve my game further. My regret is that I didn't do this a long time ago.
I think the next step will be getting familiar with using the information from the HUD, which is integral to PT3, to better profile villains when I am considering shoves or calls. I am looking forward to that, because with 20 tables open it can become a little tricky to keep track of who is who.
Thanks to all in the group today who input useful stuff as I was familiarising myself with PT3: Alex, Bryan, Chris, Wurly, Kevin.
I'll probably switch to HEM anyway in the near future, as everyone rates it above PT3, but wanted to trial something like it just to see what I'd get, and I'm definitely impressed.
I also had a few games today (it's still Sunday until I go to bed), so I'll do a quick recap. First, the good news, I was slightly profitable in each of three little sessions, to a total of about $30. This covers some of the losses of the last few days, but not all. Because yesterday I was down $11, and Thursday down $52, which still leaves me in the red for February. I have also only played about half of the games I should have played for my monthly goals. As real life this coming week is gong to be a bit busy I will really need to use every minute I can for game time just to stand still, then catch up the shortfall next week to stay on target for my February goal. Also today I broke through 1,000 games for the year.
Games 1,017
Wins 557
ITM 54.8%
Profit $282
ROI 5.3%
Finally, congrats to the Saints on their win in the SuperBowl earlier today; I know that a couple of the guys were pretty happy about that. I won't profess to understand the game, but as long as people have fun that's gotta be a good thing.
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Nothing to see here
Still gonna throw in a quick post, even though I'm not playing any games today. Circumstances outside of poker have made it impossible for me to stick to my original goal of playing every day this month. The other goals for the month still hold though, and I should be back on the virtual felt tomorrow.
Friday, 5 February 2010
I'm a little confused
At the end of January all was well in my nice cosy little DoN-grinding world. I won about half my races. Four times out of five my pocket aces would hold. And all those 70/30s? Well, someone would only bink the ace about 30% of the time, meaning the rest of the time my pair would win through.
Now the last few days have shattered that somewhat idyllic illusion. Seems I can't hit a thing. After a string of losing sessions I've spent more time today reviewing games than I have spent playing them. I've spent ages on the stove playing with ranges. Hours were invested in looking to see what shoves I might have missed. I came up thinking that I'd just pretty much run bad; either +EV hands were not holding up at showdown, or I was always shoving my SB into someone holding KK+. I'm not saying that I played every hand absolutely perfect, but there weren't any obvious and glaring errors which I could see being repeated over and over again. So I loaded up a session for today and figured it would all work out in the long term as long as I put in the effort.
90 minutes later nothing had changed, and I was another 10 buyins down. So I quit after less than 40 games. Once again I reviewed the games to see what was wrong, and I still can't see anything. I've even started wondering about some of my fundamental views about this game, views which have seen me through nearly 10,000 DoNs with a profit which I consider decent, even if it is nothing outstanding. But this year I've played almost 1,000 games, at a profit per game of little more than half of what my long-term rate was at the start of the year. My long-term profit per game is now down to 80% of what it was on 1st January.
For the time being I have to just keep telling myself it's variance, and it will work out. I wouldn't say I'm on tilt about all of this, more that I'm a little down about how the results have gone despite my play. I'll confess to one tilty call right near the end of my session today, when I had KK and there was an ace on the flop and I lost half my stack to Villain's value bet on the river even though I knew he had the ace. But generally I wouldn't say I'm easily put on monkey-tilt, because I know in my heart that I'm still making mostly good plays.
Anyway, to give myself a bit of respite from the doom and gloom I decided to play a set of ten of standard STTs instead of DoNs, the 10-man $3.40 turbos which Stars run. I was (sort of) disciplined about doing it, in that I decided I was totally prepared to lose the whole $34 it was going to cost me, without needing to reg for more to "win my money back" if they all went pear-shaped and I didn't cash at all. I was considering it as entertainment to allow my brain to have a bit of a freeroll to get over the bad beats I feel I'm taking in the DoNs. If I cashed in any of them and got some money back then I would just consider that I was getting my entertainment a little cheaper than I expected. I'd still get a small handful FPPs back as well.
These were the first "normal" STTs I had played in a long time and at first I had to keep reminding myself of things like the fact that here I could be aggressive with AK in the early rounds instead of open folding it, or mentally prodding myself to remember that JJ doesn't necessarily have to be setmined or folded. And all the other stuff that goes along with a game where the aim is to actually win chips instead of just trying to avoid haemorrhaging them.
After I got over that little mental block I started to feel comfortable, and once a couple of the got to the bubble I suddenly realised how bad the play still is in some of these games. It actually amazed me to see how tight people are even in these once the bubble approaches, trying to limp into the cash.
Once I'd pegged who were the regs and who were the donks it was all pretty much ABC, and I managed to cash 4 of the 10 games, and bubbling a fifth. 40% cash rate was actually more than my set of DoNs for the day, LOL.
I ended up with two 3rds and two 1st, which meant not only did I allow my brain a bit of entertainment but I also cashed for $42, for a profit of $8 on the set. I know it's not exactly the stuff of millionaire's row, but it was nice anyway, felt particularly good to be taking down both the games which I got to heads-up.
That's it for me for today though. I will start again tomorrow refreshed and sure in the knowledge that good plays will mean good results in the long term.
Now the last few days have shattered that somewhat idyllic illusion. Seems I can't hit a thing. After a string of losing sessions I've spent more time today reviewing games than I have spent playing them. I've spent ages on the stove playing with ranges. Hours were invested in looking to see what shoves I might have missed. I came up thinking that I'd just pretty much run bad; either +EV hands were not holding up at showdown, or I was always shoving my SB into someone holding KK+. I'm not saying that I played every hand absolutely perfect, but there weren't any obvious and glaring errors which I could see being repeated over and over again. So I loaded up a session for today and figured it would all work out in the long term as long as I put in the effort.
90 minutes later nothing had changed, and I was another 10 buyins down. So I quit after less than 40 games. Once again I reviewed the games to see what was wrong, and I still can't see anything. I've even started wondering about some of my fundamental views about this game, views which have seen me through nearly 10,000 DoNs with a profit which I consider decent, even if it is nothing outstanding. But this year I've played almost 1,000 games, at a profit per game of little more than half of what my long-term rate was at the start of the year. My long-term profit per game is now down to 80% of what it was on 1st January.
For the time being I have to just keep telling myself it's variance, and it will work out. I wouldn't say I'm on tilt about all of this, more that I'm a little down about how the results have gone despite my play. I'll confess to one tilty call right near the end of my session today, when I had KK and there was an ace on the flop and I lost half my stack to Villain's value bet on the river even though I knew he had the ace. But generally I wouldn't say I'm easily put on monkey-tilt, because I know in my heart that I'm still making mostly good plays.
Anyway, to give myself a bit of respite from the doom and gloom I decided to play a set of ten of standard STTs instead of DoNs, the 10-man $3.40 turbos which Stars run. I was (sort of) disciplined about doing it, in that I decided I was totally prepared to lose the whole $34 it was going to cost me, without needing to reg for more to "win my money back" if they all went pear-shaped and I didn't cash at all. I was considering it as entertainment to allow my brain to have a bit of a freeroll to get over the bad beats I feel I'm taking in the DoNs. If I cashed in any of them and got some money back then I would just consider that I was getting my entertainment a little cheaper than I expected. I'd still get a small handful FPPs back as well.
These were the first "normal" STTs I had played in a long time and at first I had to keep reminding myself of things like the fact that here I could be aggressive with AK in the early rounds instead of open folding it, or mentally prodding myself to remember that JJ doesn't necessarily have to be setmined or folded. And all the other stuff that goes along with a game where the aim is to actually win chips instead of just trying to avoid haemorrhaging them.
After I got over that little mental block I started to feel comfortable, and once a couple of the got to the bubble I suddenly realised how bad the play still is in some of these games. It actually amazed me to see how tight people are even in these once the bubble approaches, trying to limp into the cash.
Once I'd pegged who were the regs and who were the donks it was all pretty much ABC, and I managed to cash 4 of the 10 games, and bubbling a fifth. 40% cash rate was actually more than my set of DoNs for the day, LOL.
I ended up with two 3rds and two 1st, which meant not only did I allow my brain a bit of entertainment but I also cashed for $42, for a profit of $8 on the set. I know it's not exactly the stuff of millionaire's row, but it was nice anyway, felt particularly good to be taking down both the games which I got to heads-up.
That's it for me for today though. I will start again tomorrow refreshed and sure in the knowledge that good plays will mean good results in the long term.
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Same shit, different day
Can't be bothered to do a rehash of yesterday's post. Today ran almost the same, only the suckouts were far worse. My only goal for tomorrow is to run better. Need to get a decent volume going too.
See you later, I'm done for this day.
See you later, I'm done for this day.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
What a bleh day...
I guess I'll have to get used to running like crap on occasion, but today really sucked. I lost count of how many times some donkey cracked my AA with utter shite like Q8o, not even like they had KK and binked a set! And then to compound the misery I also lost count of how often I shoved KK/QQ into AA; of course no suckouts for me! Why do all the donks get all the breaks?
The whole day was totally bloody ridiculous, and was summed up by the last game to finish; it went all the way to a big blind of t1000. Shorty after shorty was surviving with ridiculous hands; thankfully I was never shorty, of course I wouldn't have won a mandatory all-in the way I ran today. At least I cashed that one.
I've given up on getting to the target which I set myself yesterday of playing 150 games today, I just can't face any more right now. Plenty of time wasted overall today, and down $7 to boot.
Games 874
Wins 487
ITM 55.7%
Profit $325
ROI 7.2%
The whole day was totally bloody ridiculous, and was summed up by the last game to finish; it went all the way to a big blind of t1000. Shorty after shorty was surviving with ridiculous hands; thankfully I was never shorty, of course I wouldn't have won a mandatory all-in the way I ran today. At least I cashed that one.
I've given up on getting to the target which I set myself yesterday of playing 150 games today, I just can't face any more right now. Plenty of time wasted overall today, and down $7 to boot.
Games 874
Wins 487
ITM 55.7%
Profit $325
ROI 7.2%
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Got my first daily set done
Well, I said I'd play every day this month, and having got home at midnight, I forced myself to sit and play a couple of hours. An OK session, slightly behind my year-to-date, but still, it was another session in profit, which is a good result. And I got through 48 games, half my daily quota for this month, on what was always gonna be a short day because of bowling. But having reviewed it I think I'm still missing a few spots to shove and pick up blinds, so a few things to tighten up tomorrow.
At least I ran better on the felt than I did on the lanes (453 ftl, and low man drop for next week). Probably for the best though, means I can grind more next Monday night.
Nothing on tomorrow, so it should be a big grinding day (by my standards). I want a minimum 150 games.
Here's how we stand so far this year.
Games 813
Wins 456
ITM 55.5%
Profit $332
ROI 6.8%
At least I ran better on the felt than I did on the lanes (453 ftl, and low man drop for next week). Probably for the best though, means I can grind more next Monday night.
Nothing on tomorrow, so it should be a big grinding day (by my standards). I want a minimum 150 games.
Here's how we stand so far this year.
Games 813
Wins 456
ITM 55.5%
Profit $332
ROI 6.8%
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