Yesterday was a disappointment. A small downswing, partly my own fault and partly to being outdrawn.
I started a couple of SnGs after yesterday's post. Lost them both. I started off playing my usual LAG style while the stacks were still deep. (I know there are good arguments for playing loose or tight in the open stages, both of them have their merits and are both effective if done correctly, feel free to discuss this in the comments or on THM forum!) I know, however, I started to get a little too loose. I played a few marginal hands badly and started to loose too many chips. I immediately realised this and started to tighten up, not only to stop losing chips pointlessly, but to extract more value when I get a bigger hand. (This is reliant on the table still seeing me as LAG player). My style switch was to be profitable, managing to get Kx hands to call my A10+ all in, knocking out players and increasing my chip stack considerably. With my stack growing, I tighten up a little bit more, no need to throw away the lead, but continue to be highly aggressive around the blinds/button. (I remember sat to the right of a complete nit, so I was happy to steal his blinds with ATC.) The fun began however when the tables became short handed and we were getting close to the money.
Short handed, I'm happy to get aggressive with A8+ hands. 4 or 5 handed, you are very often ahead, so trying to force an opponent all-in is generally a profitable approach. This is where I see my edge in SnGs, I feel confident playing short stacked, my shoving range is wide enough to get called, but also to be profitable. However, TWICE I got A9 in against A6. TWICE a 6 came on the flop. I ran KK into 88 to see an 8 on the turn. And lost an AK versus 1010 (yes, I'm behind but it's still a flip). My later stage play, I feel, was good. I didn't play silly like I did early on, I just feel I got unlucky with the cards that came out. Now while the defeats didn't tilt me, I felt a bit disheartened. I don't believe in luck, but subconsciously, I was telling myself it was one of those days where you just weren't going to win the coin flips, as though I had no luck. I could toss a coin 10 times, and guess everyone incorrect. With that in mind, I decided to stop the SnGs. I agree I was playing too fast, too aggressive. Maybe the F1 had gotten into me? I was pretty happy that Vettel managed to pip pole position in the final second. Qualifying was exciting, and Spa is my favourite race of the season, and after a 4 week break, I was glad to see it back. Either way, I was playing to fast, so I decided to open up a few HE ring games. A game I play MUCH slower, where I don't see massive wins/losses. It's contained, it's slower and it's steady. I managed to pick up some weaker tables, not ones that were willing to invest a lot into every pot, but when where you could show aggression and be able to take pots down. I'm aware I'm playing the lower stakes, the starting place for most players. I don't claim to be massively better than the people I play against, that would be absurd, but the vast majority I'll have a slight edge over, maybe it's knowing they'll fold to a 3-bet, knowing that with the weaker players, checking the flop generally means they missed, where a bet means they hit. Small edges that let me pick up small 10c pots here and there. I'm not winning much, but I'm winning bits. Half an hour or so later, and I've scraped back a dollar here and there, I decide to take a break. I wasn't on tilt, I wasn't playing badly, I didn't drop below my buy ins on both tables and I was building a steady, but small profit, I was playing good poker for the table I was on, however I decided to take a break. The losses in the SnGs had left a bad taste in my mouth and I wasn't enjoying playing the cash games. I jumped into some League of Legends with some friends and forgot the poker for the time being.
A few hours later, I still wanted to hit my VPP target for the day. I load up Stars and attempt some SnGs again. I played tighter to start, still loose, but not as loose. I had my usual swings in chip stack. Loose a hundred or two chips to start, get a reckless image, and then win some big pots with the big hands. Get to 4/5 handed and I'm sat in 1st/2nd place as always, but like earlier, I run bad and lose the flips, and the massively dominating hands. I fall down to 3BB in game, and manage to pull it back for a min-cash. I'd had enough for the day.
Now you may be think I'm in denial, that maybe I was playing badly, and it's my own fault for losing, however, I wasn't. I was playing good poker, at least for the level I'm at. I close Stars and play some more League of Legends before bed. As always, I fall into restless (my knee injury keeps me awake and prevents me from getting a decent night's sleep) sleep watching pro Starcraft 2 streaming and wake up around 6 hours later for work. I don't enjoy working at ASDA, it's mostly bearable, however some days it's just stressing. Today I had a 10 hour shift, I was shattered, I was in excruciating pain due to my knee and most importantly, I was missing the Belgian Grand Prix. With all of this in mind, I didn't want to play poker this evening. The 10 hours of mind numbing work gives you plenty of time to think, and I find myself thinking mainly about poker and this blog. I'm going to try treat poker like a job. I want this to be something serious, so let's treat it serious. With this is mind, I would admit I'm in state to be working. I'm in pain, I'm tired and I want to have a few drinks. I'll play some games, write up this blog and grind the tables tomorrow, at least until I go to work and providing I don't sleep in too late.
Tomorrow will be a good day, I'm sticking to cash only, see how I go with that and I'm going to revisit some albums I haven't heard in a while.
Hope everyone has had/is having a good bank holiday weekend!
Sunday, 28 August 2011
Saturday, 27 August 2011
Day 2: Early Chip Lead
After depositing $100 onto Stars, I opened up my first table. A 9-handed turbo SnG for $3.50. My main game on Full Tilt when that was running. Despite losing a large portion of my stack, I knocked out the 4th place finisher to put myself into the money with a similar size stack to 3rd place. After 2 quick double ups, I knock out 2nd place and go heads up with a commanding chip lead. I few aggressive hands later, I get villain all in with rags against A7. An ace on the flop ends my first game on Stars and my first win. An immediate 10% roll increase!
The question has been brought up on the THM forum about how I'm managing my bankroll and what games I'll play, so I'll take a few minutes while watching the Formula 1 to explain. I'm going by a 5% buy-in limit in ring games, and 3% for sit 'n gos. I may occasionally play a MTT, however I don't consider myself a good tournament player, so don't expect many reports about taking any down! For ring games, I'll leave when I get to 10% of my roll, unless I know I have a massive edge on the table and can make more money. On the flip side, if I lose more than one buy-in on a table, I'll leave if I feel like I have no edge, I'll leave the table. As for games, I'll generally play HE and PLO8, PLO8 in ring games and HE for the SnGs mainly, however I'll probably play some HE cash and vice versa. Yesterday, I found myself with 4 tables open and I coped very well. With the purchase of a new monitor, I may move up to more tables, but we'll worry about that when we get there.
After a few hours play yesterday, I lost a few SnGs, but won more playing PLO8 ring. In about 2 hours play, I was up $13 playing .01/.02 games. Playing 4 tables at one time (which fills my screen full), along with my headphones on and some music, I found myself being fully focused on the game, not flicking about browsing the web.
If you are not aware, Stars have lowered their VPP requirement for VIP status down to 10% for the month of August. To reach Silver, I merely need to clear 75 points before 31st August. Yesterday, in my short session, I cleared 18 points. Putting a few more hours in, and I will reach it and claim 15% rakeback for September. To reach Silver in a normal month, I'd need to hit 750VPP per month, 25 per day. At the stakes I'm playing, I think this is a reasonable goal (until I go back to university), so besides expanding my bankroll, my main goal for September is to achieve Silver status. Not only that, but I need to clear 1700 points to fully release my 100% deposit bonus. Going by my 750 points per month goal, I can have it cleared in around 3 months. Which, if all goes to plan, will mean my bankroll will be over $250, meaning I can jump up table stakes.
Sat here thinking about it, I always had this idea that grinding up a bankroll would be a long and tedious process. Indeed I'll have losing sessions, but even with a small win of $10 like yesterday, in 15 days, I'll have moved up stakes. This puts an aim of gaining about 2 buy ins per day, and I can move up stakes every 2 weeks.
Qualifying 3 is about to start up, so I'll end here, watch the cars and then start playing. Thank you all for the positive response to my blog, and I hope I can continue to write up enjoyable posts.
Qualifying 2 is drawing to a close now, so in about 15 minutes, I can start today's grind
Friday, 26 August 2011
Day 0: Registration
I've decided to start a blog to track my progress playing poker online (and maybe even live in the future). I'm looking post regularly, every other day if not daily, granted I have something worthwhile to say. Not only will I post my progress, I'll occasionally post up some big/interesting hands, not only so I can analyse my own play, but I can hopefully get some critical feedback from other people. Chances are, I'll also post up the same hands on The Hendon Mob forum. Firstly, a bit about myself.
I'm a 20 year old student, reading Mathematics at Girton College, University of Cambridge. I live nn the wonderfully wet North East coast, stacking shelves when I'm not studying. I've always found myself most comfortable and happy playing cards (and doing maths, of course), whether it was playing Jacks, Twos and Eights or New Market with my grandma, or playing game after game of (Klondike)Solitaire on the computer, cards always kept me occupied. I remember a very old laptop my grandparents had loaded with a large card game package, two games jump out in the memory, Blackjack and 5-Card draw. I was terrible at draw, I didn't really understand folding, I felt every hand could be won and considering I was merely playing a CPU, the odds were massively against me. Blackjack, however, I could win. Was it beginners luck? Did my maths prowess give me an edge? Either way, when I finally finished off a game, I'd generally be in profit. It may have only been a minute gain, but it was there.
Roll on the years. Forgetting about the fun of playing Blackjack on the laptop, learning the rules to bigger and better card games: Freecell, Canasta, Bridge, Texas Hold'em....Playing very casual games with friends and family, I'd always lose, yet in hindsight, I know why I lost. I played scared. I knew the rules but I didn't understand the game. Always playing Ax hands, regardless of the second card, playing picture cards out of position, making obvious betting patterns and I didn't understand stack sizing. Everyone starts off like this, but looking back, it embarrasses how bad I would play, and how easy it would actually be to win those games.
Roll on university and poker started to surround me, although I didn't realise it. In our house we'd have regular sit 'n gos, a fellow maths student played a lot and always asked me to join in, and not to mention the bad influence of the college bar man. In March of this year, I made the decision to postpone my study for a year due to suffering with depression. Besides getting a job, I knew I'd need something else to do during the break, due to a knee injury, sport wasn't an option. That's when I thought about poker. On paper, I have everything you need. I'm a quick learner, strong mental maths abilities, a knack for reading people and most importantly a love of playing cards and gambling. The weeks before leaving university, I started reading up on poker. Learning the basics, position, ranges, bet sizing. 4am, couldn't sleep one evening and I found a five pound free offer on William Hill. I lose it all in about 5 minutes, managed to run AJ into 1010. Great start.
From there, I just read around more. Lurked around the Hendon Mob forum. I regularly played on FTP, swinging widly. (I didn't use BRM). Just before Black Friday, I lost my last $10 on FT trying to spin it up quickly. Since then, I had no way of playing poker. I had no money and nothing on other sites. I made a plan then, as soon as I got a job, I'd deposit a decent sum of money ($100ish) and try and grind up from there. Using good BRM and playing a decent volume. In the mean time, I was stuck doing nothing. Betfair, however, were kind enough to give me a $10 starter roll. I played with this for a few weeks, maybe playing a sit 'n go once every other day. I felt maybe my skill was slipping, if I was winning more often I'd play more. Or is it if I played more, I'd win more?
One Saturday, I come home lightly pissed from an afternoon drinking, had some food and decided I wanted to play a MTT (not my strong point, but at least you get value). I sat down and saw a $3,500 turbo guarantee starting shortly. 1200 runners at $3 made the guarantee, top 180 got paid. Good enough odds for at least a cash, especially since I feel I have an edge with turbo games. After a slow first 2 levels, I find myself winning coinflip after coinflip and I'm leader by a considerable margin. Around 2 hours later, we're down to the final table, myself with a chip lead of double 2nd place, sat directly to my left. The $500 first prize actually looks winnable! First hand of the final table, and I find my A2c running into 2nd place's KhJs, flop comes Axx with 2 spades. Villain has out, but needs runner-runner cards. I'm looking good to have nearly half the chips in play, with massively high blinds, I can just bully my way to the win. Turn card is a spade.
River...spade. Of course. With my stack crippled, I'm down in 2nd place. Luckily, I'd be on a table with each of the larger stacks during the tournament, so I felt I knew how to beat them.
Down to 5 handed, and I'm still in 2nd, villain to my left is still 1st. 3rd stack gets it all in with the 2 short stacks, and wins. He shoots to chip leader and we're sat 3 handed. I'm guaranteed $282 now, definitely not a small amount of money, but it doesn't seem enough. I should be winning the $500 prize. Better get those chips back. Chip leader has suddenly become very aggressive. He has a large chip stack, so is shoving and limping, but from how I've seen him play, he'll limp very loose. I'm now down to about 10BB and have yet to see a hand worth getting it all in with. Chip lead limps, and I see Q9o in the SB. I think I'm ahead of his range, and I know he's capable of folding. If he folds, I'll have enough chips to fold a few more hands until I get a monster, if he calls, I'm sure I'm ahead most of the time for this to be the right play. BB folds and I get a call. He flips Q10o. $282, my biggest win ever and yet my heart failed to skip a beat. I just closed the table as though I did that every day. Went downstairs and told my parents, still no emotion about it. I grab a drink, cash out the money and go to bed for work the next day. Why did I feel nothing? Was it because I knew I could have won it? Was it because I knew I couldn't enjoy that money and that I was going to use it for getting to work and paying off some thing? No. It's because I knew it was such a small amount compared to what I could win. Call me arrogant, but I know if I put the time in, I can win more.
So this leads us up to today. It's payday, and as I promised myself, I've deposited $100 on Stars. I should be returning to uni on the 1st of October, this gives me 5 weeks of almost uninterrupted play time. I work 3 days a week: Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. Sunday is all day, however Monday/Wednesday I merely work 7-12 on the morning. With this in mind, I can easily get several hours of play time during the day. The plan now is to grind up as much of a roll as I can before uni, and grind away during term time to give myself a bit more money to enjoy myself when I'm there [read getting drunk in the bar discussing poker]. Whether I go upwards and onwards from there, that's another matter.
Let's shuffle up and deal!
I'm a 20 year old student, reading Mathematics at Girton College, University of Cambridge. I live nn the wonderfully wet North East coast, stacking shelves when I'm not studying. I've always found myself most comfortable and happy playing cards (and doing maths, of course), whether it was playing Jacks, Twos and Eights or New Market with my grandma, or playing game after game of (Klondike)Solitaire on the computer, cards always kept me occupied. I remember a very old laptop my grandparents had loaded with a large card game package, two games jump out in the memory, Blackjack and 5-Card draw. I was terrible at draw, I didn't really understand folding, I felt every hand could be won and considering I was merely playing a CPU, the odds were massively against me. Blackjack, however, I could win. Was it beginners luck? Did my maths prowess give me an edge? Either way, when I finally finished off a game, I'd generally be in profit. It may have only been a minute gain, but it was there.
Roll on the years. Forgetting about the fun of playing Blackjack on the laptop, learning the rules to bigger and better card games: Freecell, Canasta, Bridge, Texas Hold'em....Playing very casual games with friends and family, I'd always lose, yet in hindsight, I know why I lost. I played scared. I knew the rules but I didn't understand the game. Always playing Ax hands, regardless of the second card, playing picture cards out of position, making obvious betting patterns and I didn't understand stack sizing. Everyone starts off like this, but looking back, it embarrasses how bad I would play, and how easy it would actually be to win those games.
Roll on university and poker started to surround me, although I didn't realise it. In our house we'd have regular sit 'n gos, a fellow maths student played a lot and always asked me to join in, and not to mention the bad influence of the college bar man. In March of this year, I made the decision to postpone my study for a year due to suffering with depression. Besides getting a job, I knew I'd need something else to do during the break, due to a knee injury, sport wasn't an option. That's when I thought about poker. On paper, I have everything you need. I'm a quick learner, strong mental maths abilities, a knack for reading people and most importantly a love of playing cards and gambling. The weeks before leaving university, I started reading up on poker. Learning the basics, position, ranges, bet sizing. 4am, couldn't sleep one evening and I found a five pound free offer on William Hill. I lose it all in about 5 minutes, managed to run AJ into 1010. Great start.
From there, I just read around more. Lurked around the Hendon Mob forum. I regularly played on FTP, swinging widly. (I didn't use BRM). Just before Black Friday, I lost my last $10 on FT trying to spin it up quickly. Since then, I had no way of playing poker. I had no money and nothing on other sites. I made a plan then, as soon as I got a job, I'd deposit a decent sum of money ($100ish) and try and grind up from there. Using good BRM and playing a decent volume. In the mean time, I was stuck doing nothing. Betfair, however, were kind enough to give me a $10 starter roll. I played with this for a few weeks, maybe playing a sit 'n go once every other day. I felt maybe my skill was slipping, if I was winning more often I'd play more. Or is it if I played more, I'd win more?
One Saturday, I come home lightly pissed from an afternoon drinking, had some food and decided I wanted to play a MTT (not my strong point, but at least you get value). I sat down and saw a $3,500 turbo guarantee starting shortly. 1200 runners at $3 made the guarantee, top 180 got paid. Good enough odds for at least a cash, especially since I feel I have an edge with turbo games. After a slow first 2 levels, I find myself winning coinflip after coinflip and I'm leader by a considerable margin. Around 2 hours later, we're down to the final table, myself with a chip lead of double 2nd place, sat directly to my left. The $500 first prize actually looks winnable! First hand of the final table, and I find my A2c running into 2nd place's KhJs, flop comes Axx with 2 spades. Villain has out, but needs runner-runner cards. I'm looking good to have nearly half the chips in play, with massively high blinds, I can just bully my way to the win. Turn card is a spade.
River...spade. Of course. With my stack crippled, I'm down in 2nd place. Luckily, I'd be on a table with each of the larger stacks during the tournament, so I felt I knew how to beat them.
Down to 5 handed, and I'm still in 2nd, villain to my left is still 1st. 3rd stack gets it all in with the 2 short stacks, and wins. He shoots to chip leader and we're sat 3 handed. I'm guaranteed $282 now, definitely not a small amount of money, but it doesn't seem enough. I should be winning the $500 prize. Better get those chips back. Chip leader has suddenly become very aggressive. He has a large chip stack, so is shoving and limping, but from how I've seen him play, he'll limp very loose. I'm now down to about 10BB and have yet to see a hand worth getting it all in with. Chip lead limps, and I see Q9o in the SB. I think I'm ahead of his range, and I know he's capable of folding. If he folds, I'll have enough chips to fold a few more hands until I get a monster, if he calls, I'm sure I'm ahead most of the time for this to be the right play. BB folds and I get a call. He flips Q10o. $282, my biggest win ever and yet my heart failed to skip a beat. I just closed the table as though I did that every day. Went downstairs and told my parents, still no emotion about it. I grab a drink, cash out the money and go to bed for work the next day. Why did I feel nothing? Was it because I knew I could have won it? Was it because I knew I couldn't enjoy that money and that I was going to use it for getting to work and paying off some thing? No. It's because I knew it was such a small amount compared to what I could win. Call me arrogant, but I know if I put the time in, I can win more.
So this leads us up to today. It's payday, and as I promised myself, I've deposited $100 on Stars. I should be returning to uni on the 1st of October, this gives me 5 weeks of almost uninterrupted play time. I work 3 days a week: Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. Sunday is all day, however Monday/Wednesday I merely work 7-12 on the morning. With this in mind, I can easily get several hours of play time during the day. The plan now is to grind up as much of a roll as I can before uni, and grind away during term time to give myself a bit more money to enjoy myself when I'm there [read getting drunk in the bar discussing poker]. Whether I go upwards and onwards from there, that's another matter.
Let's shuffle up and deal!
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