Back in action

Finished exams tonight was pretty sweet. Played a few tournaments for a reward I played a $5 stud8 mtt a double heads up shootout and and double shootout for a token and the 2.5k gaurantee. I won my double shootout for a $24 token and bubbled all my other tourneys stud8 i finished 5/55 or so paying 4 spots, double shootout i finished 7 paying 6 and 2.5k i finished 50 paying like 40. Pretty much all of this was due to losing important coinflips in the 2.5 I ran AQ into QQ blind on blind then lsot 3 coin flips and a 60-40 to bust. In the stud8 I misplayed a hand then lost a 60-40 and in the shootout I lost a coinflip. Pretty sick stuff, you need some luck in these things especially late when the blinds start getting up, if I could've one one of these coinflips tonight wouldve been a bit more prosperous.

Im planning on playing a few more tourneys tomorrow then getting back into the cash games. Im hoping i can hit a big score, it'd just be nice for once as im playing pretty well, just not getting the cards to fall in my favour.

Long Post

get ready guys this one is going to be a long one. So I might've got a little excited about the CR games. They started off initially very juicy however now alot of the time they will be filled with mainly CR members alot of who are pretty decent. I was doing prtty well today but just finished a session there where I ran pretty badly and played worse. I fell into the trap of playing too many hands again Im going to have to address this I think by reviewing my session each hour or something. Along with this I lost a 300 bb pot with an OESFD AGAIN! this really sucks as getting my money in with correct equity and losing for pots this big just hurts I also lost set over set then ran a crap bluff and played too many hands so that's how i ended up down about 4 buy-ins. it's weird because Ive actually been set over setted about 7 or 8 times now yet I cant remember the last time I got it in set over set, hopefully I'm due for some soon. Sucks but oh well im still running at about 1 bb/100 nothing impressive but I'm up, realised i'm playing bad and ready to turn it around.

looking forward to this rakeback payment coming in, will be great to have a bankroll over $300 my big aim for the month is going to be to try and get up to $500 so I'm properly rolled to play the $5 mtts, of which i played a HORSE one today and didnt get much but managed to bubble (lol gg me).

The big aim for the month is to make it to $750 to be properly rolled for 25 nl. I dont really forsee this happening as I've got to study for finals over the enxt two weeks but maybe I'll play like a degen over mid semester break.

Overall I think I've been running pretty well recently so I'm sorta semi bracing myself for a big of a downswing, maybe I'll have to move back to the normal 10 nl games and start busting out some serious hands when I play.

wow not as long as I thought and I've said everything I wanted oh well jsut a little update.

bankroll $165 + ~$150

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.