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.
Friday, 5 February 2010
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%
Sunday, 31 January 2010
"A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."
Lao Zi said that 2,500 years ago in his classic text, Tao Te Ching. Clever chap, in my opinion. Really knew his stuff. I wonder if he could have done all 100,000 steps to Supernova though?
Grinding really is a grind. Today is what I expect will become typical of chase – nothing exciting, nothing alarming either. Games were played, and profit was achieved at about my average rate. Two sessions, the second had double the games for double the profit. All pretty dull stuff really, but the whole point of the challenge is to grind through all that, and hopefully find the pot of gold.
I've just had a browse through the players currently atop the SS profit leaderboard for $5 DoNs. Five of them play on small networks, and probably pwn the tables there, but the other 15 are all on Pokerstars. Of all the Stars players on there, only three of them are actually ahead of me on how much they profit per game, and two of those three play the non-turbos. The rest are all ahead of me only because of volume played. It just gives me an idea of the sort of numbers I need to be putting in to get ahead of this game.
So far this month I've only managed about 46 hours of play. That's about one week's work, but it's taken me four weeks to do it. Even worse, nearly half of those hours were spent on short sets where I played 15 or fewer games. All that time wasted not only on a small number of tables, but also on the loading up and running down time at the beginning and end of each set.
I really should be able to maintain around 25 games per hour without unduly straining my decision making, so the number of games I have played should only have taken me about 30 hours, which means about a third of that time was in effect wasted time. If I had put in a "full" month, and assuming I won at my current rate, I'd be top of that leaderboard by a decent margin. I'd also be a Gold star VIP already and be earning a decent sideline in FPPs in February. I really have to start getting proper amounts of hours in, with a full stack of tables.
In addition to my current outstanding goal of making the SS leaderboard, which should follow naturally if I put in the volume, I have decided to set the following goals.
1) To play at least one set every day in February.
2) To post updates of at least the numbers at the end of each day.
3) Play the 100 FPP $30k VIP tournaments each Saturday
4) To make Gold Star in time to play the freeroll $100k VIP tournament at 2000 hrs on the last Saturday of the month (Feb 27th).
The last one is the one which will start to stretch me. I will need to play 2,728 DoNs to do this, in 26 days, at an average of 105 games per day. This is far in excess of what I have managed in January, although there have been other distractions which hopefully will not be there next month. This will begin to approach the sort of volumes I need to hit on a regular basis if I want to achieve my long term goals.
If I can put in that volume then I should be able to clear a pretty decent profit just from the games. I would also release $150 from reload bonuses, and earn around another $50 worth of FPP. If I can do it in February then I should be in a habit by then , and I can repeat it in March, by which time I should be able to set aside enough of a bankroll to make a start on the 10s. I'd also be earning double FPP all of March as a Gold Star.
If I make it up to the 10s then a little more effort per day on average will see me make Platinum on a monthly basis, again increasing my FPP earnings because I will be getting 2.5x instead of the 2x at Gold. That should see me picking up over 15,000 FPP a month, plus the increase in profits from playing a higher stakes game.
If I can get up to the 20s by the end of May I should still be able to maintain a comfortable pace to make Supernova by the end of the year even if I don't move up to 50s at all. Supernova will be worth $1k of Stellar Rewards, another $1k for the 100k VPP milestone bonus, and I would still have enough FPP to buy the $1,500 bonus for 150k FPP, plus maybe a little bit more. So at least $3.5k in cashback, plus any more reload bonuses, plus anything I get from the weekly and monthly VIP donkaments, plus profit from games, obviously. Don't quite know for certain how much it will all add up to yet, but a lot better than sitting around doing nothing all day.
Making Supernova would mean next year would be massive for me, because that would give me the 3.5x FPP multiplier from day one. Then I could start to look at purchasing a $4k bonus sometime during 2011, thus getting the full 1.6c value for each of my FPPs. Maybe even shoot for 200k VPP and get the $3,400 milestone bonus. Would still be less than 1,000 games / week at the 20s, which is very doable. Plus it would unlock access to the $1M VIP donkaments which are held quarterly. Average equity is about $200 per player in each of the tournaments, which adds up to $800 free equity for the year. Pretty good stuff imo. Binking one of those would be absolutely awesome.
But all of that is still a long way off; let's not get so carried away with the long term goals that I forget to focus on what needs to be done in the short term, which is to get the volumes going up pretty quickly.
I thought I'd put all these numbers out here now to emphasise how much work there will be in this grind, to motivate myself to build up the momentum because of the rewards which are there for those who put in the work. I realise that this will not be easy, and it needs to be done at a good constant speed. I can't leave this to a rush at the end all the time, it needs to be approached as a year long project. Getting there will mean I've played between 30,000 and 35,000 of these things, and it will mean around 40 hours per week, just like a "normal" job.
I know I have the ability to do this, I just need to make sure I have the dedication, determination, drive, desire and all those other things that are important in this.
Let's finish off with my year to date numbers. I have now nudged over $300 profit for the year so far, which is decent considering how much (or rather how little) I've played. I finished the day up another $33, but once again not enough volume, only 55 games over the course of two sessions in three hours.
Games 765
Wins 429
ITM 56.1%
Profit $312
ROI 7.8%
Grinding really is a grind. Today is what I expect will become typical of chase – nothing exciting, nothing alarming either. Games were played, and profit was achieved at about my average rate. Two sessions, the second had double the games for double the profit. All pretty dull stuff really, but the whole point of the challenge is to grind through all that, and hopefully find the pot of gold.
I've just had a browse through the players currently atop the SS profit leaderboard for $5 DoNs. Five of them play on small networks, and probably pwn the tables there, but the other 15 are all on Pokerstars. Of all the Stars players on there, only three of them are actually ahead of me on how much they profit per game, and two of those three play the non-turbos. The rest are all ahead of me only because of volume played. It just gives me an idea of the sort of numbers I need to be putting in to get ahead of this game.
So far this month I've only managed about 46 hours of play. That's about one week's work, but it's taken me four weeks to do it. Even worse, nearly half of those hours were spent on short sets where I played 15 or fewer games. All that time wasted not only on a small number of tables, but also on the loading up and running down time at the beginning and end of each set.
I really should be able to maintain around 25 games per hour without unduly straining my decision making, so the number of games I have played should only have taken me about 30 hours, which means about a third of that time was in effect wasted time. If I had put in a "full" month, and assuming I won at my current rate, I'd be top of that leaderboard by a decent margin. I'd also be a Gold star VIP already and be earning a decent sideline in FPPs in February. I really have to start getting proper amounts of hours in, with a full stack of tables.
In addition to my current outstanding goal of making the SS leaderboard, which should follow naturally if I put in the volume, I have decided to set the following goals.
1) To play at least one set every day in February.
2) To post updates of at least the numbers at the end of each day.
3) Play the 100 FPP $30k VIP tournaments each Saturday
4) To make Gold Star in time to play the freeroll $100k VIP tournament at 2000 hrs on the last Saturday of the month (Feb 27th).
The last one is the one which will start to stretch me. I will need to play 2,728 DoNs to do this, in 26 days, at an average of 105 games per day. This is far in excess of what I have managed in January, although there have been other distractions which hopefully will not be there next month. This will begin to approach the sort of volumes I need to hit on a regular basis if I want to achieve my long term goals.
If I can put in that volume then I should be able to clear a pretty decent profit just from the games. I would also release $150 from reload bonuses, and earn around another $50 worth of FPP. If I can do it in February then I should be in a habit by then , and I can repeat it in March, by which time I should be able to set aside enough of a bankroll to make a start on the 10s. I'd also be earning double FPP all of March as a Gold Star.
If I make it up to the 10s then a little more effort per day on average will see me make Platinum on a monthly basis, again increasing my FPP earnings because I will be getting 2.5x instead of the 2x at Gold. That should see me picking up over 15,000 FPP a month, plus the increase in profits from playing a higher stakes game.
If I can get up to the 20s by the end of May I should still be able to maintain a comfortable pace to make Supernova by the end of the year even if I don't move up to 50s at all. Supernova will be worth $1k of Stellar Rewards, another $1k for the 100k VPP milestone bonus, and I would still have enough FPP to buy the $1,500 bonus for 150k FPP, plus maybe a little bit more. So at least $3.5k in cashback, plus any more reload bonuses, plus anything I get from the weekly and monthly VIP donkaments, plus profit from games, obviously. Don't quite know for certain how much it will all add up to yet, but a lot better than sitting around doing nothing all day.
Making Supernova would mean next year would be massive for me, because that would give me the 3.5x FPP multiplier from day one. Then I could start to look at purchasing a $4k bonus sometime during 2011, thus getting the full 1.6c value for each of my FPPs. Maybe even shoot for 200k VPP and get the $3,400 milestone bonus. Would still be less than 1,000 games / week at the 20s, which is very doable. Plus it would unlock access to the $1M VIP donkaments which are held quarterly. Average equity is about $200 per player in each of the tournaments, which adds up to $800 free equity for the year. Pretty good stuff imo. Binking one of those would be absolutely awesome.
But all of that is still a long way off; let's not get so carried away with the long term goals that I forget to focus on what needs to be done in the short term, which is to get the volumes going up pretty quickly.
I thought I'd put all these numbers out here now to emphasise how much work there will be in this grind, to motivate myself to build up the momentum because of the rewards which are there for those who put in the work. I realise that this will not be easy, and it needs to be done at a good constant speed. I can't leave this to a rush at the end all the time, it needs to be approached as a year long project. Getting there will mean I've played between 30,000 and 35,000 of these things, and it will mean around 40 hours per week, just like a "normal" job.
I know I have the ability to do this, I just need to make sure I have the dedication, determination, drive, desire and all those other things that are important in this.
Let's finish off with my year to date numbers. I have now nudged over $300 profit for the year so far, which is decent considering how much (or rather how little) I've played. I finished the day up another $33, but once again not enough volume, only 55 games over the course of two sessions in three hours.
Games 765
Wins 429
ITM 56.1%
Profit $312
ROI 7.8%
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Running unbelievably bad
Losing pretty much every hand really sucks, but that's basically what happened in the second half of the day. First (mini) session went fine. Won 11/18, didn't get lucky to do so either, in fact I probably was unlucky not to get more wins. $16 profit, but should have been more.
Second session was two hours of torture, particularly at the end. Couldn't win a ****ing thing. Of the last seven games, where I was a favourite to cash in all of them, somehow only managed to win 1/7. Makes a massive difference, $20 down instead of $40 up. Maybe should expect to lose one of them, but even so, should have been $30 up.
Down by $4 overall on the day.
Here's the numbers so far
Games 710
Wins 397
ITM 55.9%
Profit $278
ROI 7.5%
Second session was two hours of torture, particularly at the end. Couldn't win a ****ing thing. Of the last seven games, where I was a favourite to cash in all of them, somehow only managed to win 1/7. Makes a massive difference, $20 down instead of $40 up. Maybe should expect to lose one of them, but even so, should have been $30 up.
Down by $4 overall on the day.
Here's the numbers so far
Games 710
Wins 397
ITM 55.9%
Profit $278
ROI 7.5%
Thursday, 28 January 2010
Silver star achieved, and a little profit too
So, I just now ground out the last few VPPs required for Silver Star this month in a nice little session, 39 games in 1¾ hours, for about $46 profit. Pretty bad that it's taken me this long.
Good thing is that my VPPs will now be earning 1½ FPPs, and I can start making something approaching proper rakeback now too. Also it's clearing my various bonuses, which is also more money to look forward to. Definitely got to aim for Gold status next month, 100 games per day average should be a cinch. It should also translate to over $1k real profit if I can get my head on straight, and that doesn't include all those lovely FPPs
Really starting to feel good about grinding this stuff now, just need to make sure I put in enough hours on a regular basis to make it worth while. Out of my last 20 sessions, I've only been down after two of them, one by only the rake in a tiny 10 game block where I cashed 5 times, the other that awful session two days ago where I was $55 down. I take it as a good sign that I'm mostly winning.
Here's how we're looking right now for the year so far
Games 665
Wins 374
ITM 56.2%
Profit $282
ROI 8.2%
As for the Sharkscope leaderboard, it looks like I simply need to be putting in more volume. As my profit goes up, so 20th spot gets a little further away. I recognise a few names on there though, none of them seem all that much, so just keep on going I guess.
Good thing is that my VPPs will now be earning 1½ FPPs, and I can start making something approaching proper rakeback now too. Also it's clearing my various bonuses, which is also more money to look forward to. Definitely got to aim for Gold status next month, 100 games per day average should be a cinch. It should also translate to over $1k real profit if I can get my head on straight, and that doesn't include all those lovely FPPs
Really starting to feel good about grinding this stuff now, just need to make sure I put in enough hours on a regular basis to make it worth while. Out of my last 20 sessions, I've only been down after two of them, one by only the rake in a tiny 10 game block where I cashed 5 times, the other that awful session two days ago where I was $55 down. I take it as a good sign that I'm mostly winning.
Here's how we're looking right now for the year so far
Games 665
Wins 374
ITM 56.2%
Profit $282
ROI 8.2%
As for the Sharkscope leaderboard, it looks like I simply need to be putting in more volume. As my profit goes up, so 20th spot gets a little further away. I recognise a few names on there though, none of them seem all that much, so just keep on going I guess.
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