Fun day at the tables

Well today was meant to be a day off but CR added these fun tables where you can play with pros and quite simply they are JUUUUUUICY. I need to concentrate on playing my A game at these tables because I honestly think a win rate of 15+ bb/100 is acheivable. I thought these tables would be hard and Im sure they are at times but god today they were soft when I was playing. I played a bit with sbrugby and people were just donating. I didnt play great though and Im putting in a session now Im currently up about $20 running at 6.5 bb/100 but i made a couple uber donk moves just overplaying a few hands. I'll jsut outline a few of the donk hands below suckouts and bad play:

JJ goes down to 86s in horrific fashion
KK loses to QQ when he flops a set but I should've folded the flop and only lost $2 instead of $9
Flopped a set with 66 on a co-ordinated board and didnt fold, should've only lost $1 instead of $8
lose a 60/40 for 300bb pot when I cant hit a OESFD
AA goes down to JJ AIPF J on flop

so while I overplayed some hands, some (big) pots(the last two) I got it in a good favourite to make money but instead of being up $25 I'm down $25 a tough $50 difference. tough beats in big pots but Im still up $20 so im confident I can beat this game pretty convincingly.

It's funny, sitting with brian I didnt really feel intimidated I've watched his videos and felt I had a good read on his plays. I didnt run overly hot when playing at that table and didnt play overly well but I certianly didnt think Brian ran over me and I'll be more than happy to sit at his table and still say I have an edge over the overall table. the donators who will sit just to say they did is just sick but so profitable it makes me happy all over.

Along with losing those big pots today I had some disappointment in my token race i played some really good poker to win a $75 token in my two table tourney but then in the tier 3 I just didnt get anything. It's disappointing because I felt I played pretty close to optimal but the cards jsut didnt come. I cant complain because i did win a few coin flips in the tier 2 but I felt like one of those tools just calling 1 time. Hoping for a bit of luck and run good because damn that first $300 wouldve made a big difference to my roll heck even the $120 or so for 3rd wouldve been more than welcome. I'll probably keep trying with these though as the two table tourneys are pretty soft and if i can get a few hands at the tier 3 a few times it could be extremely profitable.

will post a beginning bankroll for june at the end of my session.

End of the month report

In a word I'm so happy with how the month went. I really think this was probably the most I've learnt in my poker career. It's nice to feel that. I started the month off playing terribly, quickly working myself into a $100 hole nearly going busto. A 3rd in a tourney got that all back and I started winning before falling into the trap of playing bad/running bad/playing worse. Quickly, again, I found myself another $110 in the hole. It was here I took some time off re-evaluated my game and got some advice from peers. I came back rejuvenated and playing the best I'd played in nl cash games to run at 12 bb/100 over 5000 hands to totally recoup my losses.

+ rakeback I'm going to hit my goal of making $300 and being properly rolled for $10 nl in my first month back. Goal acheived, I'm stoked. hopefully there's no troubles with my rakeback payment.

As a treat myself for making my goals I decided I was going to play a $10 tournament some time soon, however nitty bnakroll management got the better of me and I thought I'd instead take two shots at winning a $24 token in sit and go tournaments on full tilt. Well I Played awesome and took the first one down. I dominated + didnt run into any coolers or suckouts which was very nice.

So what do I do now? Well I'm thinking with my limited roll the smartest thing to do is to put it where I am most likely to win money. That means no no to a 4-600 player tourney even though it would be sweet to hit a huge win it seems unlikely. Therefore I'm going to play the 18 man tier 2 which pays 6 spots with 5 seats. This seems more value than the 9 man which pays two. rom here if I can win a seat I'll played the tier 3 which pays $300 for first. Apparently these play like a $10 sng so hopefully I can take it down or at least cash to boost my bankroll nicely.

That's it for the month for me, tomorrow is a day off for studying for finals best of luck. I'll probably make a post tomorrow outlining my June goals.

bankroll - $165 + $24 token + ~$150 rakeback.

So damn hot

Well my game has improved out of sight. I'm playing with a prelfop hand matrix now and it's given a little structure and focus to my game. I'm getting into fewer "tough" spots and in general losing smaller pots and winning big ones. Playing good and running good = money. The way things are going now I see the games as easy, as I should.

I had a few rough hands today, ie. a set flopped on my aces but I still booked a win. over the past 3 days I've played about 2500 hands running at 14.5 bb/100 for about a $75 win. 7.5 buy-ins up booyeah. the goal of finishing even for the month seems more and more realistic I need tgo win 5 buy-ins in the next two days which while i dont think it will happen i believe I will get close so I'm happy.

Along with this Im pretty certain Im going to qualify for the bronze freeroll on full tilt which I strongly intend on playing and cashing. Along with this my rakeback for the month should hit about $150

Thats about it at the moment, needless to say Im very happy.

bankroll - $120

First session back + Preparing to prosper

Well I played my first session today since I blew my fuse. I played extremely well and ended up running at 5bb/100 for the 400 hand session. A big part of this was due to my relearning of the game.

A part of my "preparing to prosper" in poker as I like to call it is 1 on 1 coaching which I will be attempting to receive. I've decided to go with brystmar on CR who did a really good low limit nl hold'em guide. I watched these videos but really didnt take the time to learn them. I went through the first two tonight so I would have some background on his teachings before we started 1 on 1. My game was 100 times better just as far as playing hands goes. I think when I was losing I Would've been playing 90% of my hands. Some tough situations came up with pocket pairs like 9s and 10s but I got away from them only losing $1 at the most usually.

My sessionw as pretty dull really I won a decent sized pot with QQ vs an overplayed AK and won a buy-in when I hit a straight against two pair. Other than that I had told fold some mid-high pairs and just got blinded down. overall very happy with my play.

Just an update saying I'm back. hoping to receive my Rakeback soon and will be depositing $100 from poker winnings hopefully for the last time to fund some lessons.

bankroll - $55.

What does the future hold.

I've calmed down a bit since my last post. I'm still disappointed but Im a little optimistic to what the future holds. When I get my rakeback I'll have a decent roll again plus I'm going to deposit my winnings from my home game with the hope this will be my last deposit. Aiding in this I'm going to try and set up some lessons with a coach.

I wanted to say thankyou to a cardrunners member in this blog who gave me some words of support/good advice in a thread over there after reading this blog. He is doing the same thing as me at the moment so it's good to get another opinion on it and any advice and support is always good. If anyone is thinking about it I strongly suggest you join cardrunners. Even if I wasn't playing poker I'd still consider keeping my membership just because it's such good value and a great community.

I'm taking about a week off till I can get a lesson but I really need to stop trying to make things happen in my game and just let them happen. When I first started I was playing a good game but with the small wins I just played worse and worse trying to get more. I just need to play my A game and play a tight game. Also the fact Im a complete calling station doesnt help.

This post wasn't overly stimulating but i got some things off my chest and it's just an update of where I'm at.

Maybe it's just me.

I'm not really sure what to say. for the last three years I've studied poker tried to improve and really hope I can make something of it. Well today in conjunction with the last few sessions have made me re-think this. It's funny I'm having to post this after I just posted a link to this blog at cardrunners. Quite simply I cant win. I can't win when I get no hands hour after hour then get big hands only to have them get either sucked out on or simply coolered.

Im frustrated beyond words right now as after working back up to $135 I thought I could really turn it around but now I'm feeling that a poker player is imply a result of their environment. It sucks I've become the one thing I've always hated, the whiny little bitch who sits there complaining how much better the good players run. It just hurts to read how someone can push in $35,000 while Green Plastic is holding quads yet I've lost about 5 buy-ins with over pair vs under pair in the last few session.

I've got about $100 in rakeback coming to me plus the $50 I've got right now. I won a home game the other night for $100 so I'm questioning on using that to buy a lesson with fruitypro but at the moment it all seems so pointless. Even playing optimal right now I can't see how I'd be winning given the situations I've faced. All through my poker life I've heard how I've had to concentrate on long run +Ev etc. etc. but to have a long run you have to out last the short run and it just seems like a horrible pointless situation right now.

I pokerhanded all my coolers but fuck it who wants to read it it's just all a big whinge and even though this extremely long winded post doesn't begin to explain how disappointed I am I'm somewhat at a loss for words just how hard it seems to grind out winnings and reach that 5bb/100 yet it's so easy to simply get stacked again and again and again in fucked up situations.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do, at the very least I won't be playing for a few days.

bankroll - $50

Sunshine After Storm

After yesterdays misfortune I was a little down and disappointed it's hard watch your account go from $230 to $80 on a few hours. Last night, after blogging, I played a few more hands playing a solid game at 4 tables. I managed to win 2 buy-ins which was great.

Today has also been prosperous I'm up another 3.5 buy-ins 4 tables now seems like no sweat and I can make optimal decisions playing this amount. No real interesting hands came up in this session jsut that standard. Things could've been even better had I not got stacked KK to AA AIPF but hey that's a cooler in my books.

Reflecting back on yesterday I will readily admit Im not ready to 8 table but something struck me today. I recalled someone talking about a conversation with boosted J who 10 tables saying he said that he will go on 10 buy-in downswings regularly. This made me think playing this many tables and running the way I was it was inevitable but there are a few inexcusable plays i made including misclicks which I wouldnt have made playing fewer tables so I think for the moment the absolute max I will play is 6 but usually only 4.

so as it stands the total damage is that I am only down 3 buy-ins on my pokertracker. The overall aim after yesterday for the month was just to break even so that looks possible for the month I would be ecstatic if I could make it back to where I was previously + 5 buy-ins for the month but this seems unlikely even though it would only give a small bb/100. Quite simply I haven't played well at Nl this month and breaking even would be a win. next month i believe I can do extremely well, learning from this months mistakes.

bankroll - $135

Puke

Just played the worst day of poker in my life. Quite simply I was destined to lose. The final damage was down 15 buy-ins thats half a full bankroll lol clownshoes. I didn't really play all that well a big error was playing 8 tables early but the overall factor was simply how I was running.

After playing tonight I went through my pokertracker stats and found that I lost about 8 buy-ins in just unavoidable situations be it coolers or suckouts the most frustrating of that being AA into KK and my open ender second nut straight hitting but at the same time hitting an oppenents nut straight gutshot draw.

I'm pretty disappointed with how it went, I played about 3000 hands and attribute 8 buy-ins to coolers/suckouts 2 to multitable misclicks and 2 to overplaying top pair. Along with this just a day of not (m)any hands and missing every draw account for the rest.

I'm happy to say I see this as a learning experience, clearly I'm not ready to play 8 tables and while my bankroll is so low i'll be playing 4 at the max. I gained alot of respect for Boosted J and durrr today in how many tables they play. Right now I'm going to just play a super nit game and try to get back even on my pokertracker.

Right now I've earned about $80-100 in rakeback so my bankroll in reality is still hovering around the 150 mark and while the goal of $300 at the end of the month is seeming more and more unlikely I'm hoping to be able to get it to $200.

I really did expect this downswing coming I'd been running fairly well yet I was just hoping it wouldnt be to this magnitude.

bankroll - $80

Back grinding and goals

Well after busto-ing for about the third time I'm trying to take a more business like approach to poker. With the completion of my university degree nearing I'm thinking it would be a luxury to be able to play a thousand hands or so a night at 2-4 NL and make a good 20-50k extra a year on ym salary. As such I have deposited another $100 and started grinding formt he bottom, $10nl.

The past fortnight I've learnt alot, my biggest lesson beign that the laggy CR approach isn't really optimal approach at the lower levels and playing like a nit gives a more positive expectation. I ran terribly and played way too loose to start and nearly broke my buy-in, frustrated I played a tournament and re-couped my losses by finishing 3rd to a tough hand.

From this I vowed to play withing my bankroll being 30 BI for cash and 100 BI for tourneys. The call of tournaments is so tempting but I really am going to wait till I reach $400 so I can start playing some token satellites on full tilt and then most likely play their $4k gauranteed afternoon horse tourney as I think this is where I will have the biggest edge.

As of now my sample size of around 6k hands has me running at 5bb/100 good, but not great I'd really like to get that up to aorund 6 or 7 after 30-40k hands to be ready to move up to 25nl.

I've set out the following goals for moving up although I forsee that I will take a shot for one session two tabling 25 nl when I reach $500 in my bankroll.

May
up to $300 - adequate 10 nl bankroll

June
$750 - 25 nl bankroll

July
$1000

August
$1500 - 50nl

Sept
$2000

October
$3000 - 100nl

November
$4000

December
$5000

As of now my account stands at $230 something I'm pretty happy with plus the fact I have earned near $70 in rakeback means my goal of reaching $300 in may should be realised.

BR - $230