A few theories

Very average night last night, was only a short while in when I was distracted and called it a night. The standard start included losing a coin flip against a short stack JJ vs AK. From there I scraped my way back to a reasonable win, playing fairly well and running OK. My W$WSF was 56% without being overly aggressive. There was one point where I had about 8 PF raises in a row. This was not me being a LAG or anything. The first was a QTs button raise against tight blinds, then I had AQ, AK, KK, AK, AJ, 88, TT. I ended up making the minimum over that amazing stretch, in fact I might have lost money. Still I felt like I played OK again, and table selected well enough, that is, the three tables I had open were getting worse and worse as loose players left, so I left with them.

I still managed to pickup something out of the night. The first thing you see when reading forums is that there is definitely more than one way to skin a cat. In poker terms, how to approach a hand. Especially at micro stakes, players have such weak reads they tend to just post a hand that looks like a toss up between folding and shoving. This itself confuses new players, as you post a hand and get 5 ways to play it. You knew there were 5 already, but want to know the best. Sometimes it really is just an impossible hand to read, but other times having hand ranges would actually solve the problem nearly perfectly.

A couple of interesting things have been jumping out at me recently, being the "he'll never call with worse", reverse implied odds and only beat a bluff points. Especially the "he'll never call with worse" is a function of bad hand reading skills by micro players, and I'm definitely to blame here too. It comes down to poker confusion. You find yourself in a situation that doesn't feel right, and have no idea if you are ahead or behind. You might have had a monster pref flop, but scare cards have hit, and your hand is looking pretty weak, but you bet the river anyway without any real reason why. To avoid this, I think you have to hand range as accurately as possible pre flop, and eliminate hands as the hand goes on and he does different things. Now with some sort of hand range on the river, ask yourself what in his range he'd call a river bet. This has to do with how thinly he'll call, and what hands are still in his range. If there is only one rare hand that will call that you beat, you shouldn't be betting. If there are several lower poket pairs, top pairs, etc, that this player will call with then you have to lay a value bet down. It doesn't matter if you are ahead or not, what matters is you had a hand range and thought he would call with worse.

The reverse implied odds, is an interesting topic too. You see A4s in the SB and two players are in the pot already, so you call too. The idea is if you hit a flush, you may get a big pay day. Well, the flop brings no flush draw, but you hit top pair. Reverse implied odds simply says that if you are going to have a big pot here (without two pair or trips), then it's likely that you are actually behind, yet if you win the pot, it's likely you'll win very little. Given you have no position, you really want a read on the player before continuing on. In fact rewind it a little and look at the hand pre flop. If you weren't comfortable playing the ace high flop (which you shouldn't be), and are going to find it tough to draw to a flush OOP, then might as well fold pre flop, and save the pain. I see this situation a lot at micros where people call 3 streets with a dominated ace with the 5th kicker, just ordinary play against a standard player.

The last is facing a turn or river raise/bet. You were aggressor with QQ preflop in position, and cbet a KT2r. He calls. You didn't think his range had many kings in it, but check the turn which is a T, knowing the "he'll never call with worse." Now he bets full pot on the river. So you look at the cards. If he has top pair, you are beat. If he had 2nd pair, you are now beat. If he had 99, he's turned his hand into a bluff, as he might have shown down as winner against AQ or 88-. So basically he might value bet JJ or everything else beats you. So your up against a better hand value betting, or a bluff. I'm not saying this isn't a call, but you have to ask how often he is bluffing here, and how often he has the hand he's representing. If you don't know the answer to that, it's a fold, because people should be betting there for value more often than bluffing. If he bluffs a lot, it's a call, but again, you never bet, because he only calls with hands that beat you, and even the call won't see you ahead all the time.

These 3 theories have seen me hand reading a lot more to catch up my situations more effectively. I find myself striving for the information now, so that I can know how thinly they will bet/call and how often they will bluff. I don't by any means have it down to a science, but as long as I am working towards improving that area, my poker will be moving forwards rapidly I think.

I'm still quite limited in bankroll for NL25, but starting to move up a little, and hope to be fairly well BR'd for it by the end of this month if all things go my way. I'm considering putting more money online (less than what I withdrew) and having a serious crack at NL25/NL50, but maybe grinding my bankroll back up is better for confidence anyway. I also got another free CR month out of FTP, and will probably have another coming up next month, but won't be chasing Iron man again this month. It's just not part of my focus right now.

Longer than expected session

First and foremost, PT3 has died on me. Probably not it's fault, but the Postgresql won't start up. This is annoying as not only have I spent a lot of time getting PT3 up properly, I've also written some programs recently that access the PT3 DB to help along with table selecting and player reading. With that gone I'm not so happy. So it was back to firing up PT2 and losing all my recent FTP history of players. However, one thing can be said about PT2, it's stable, which I still haven't seen with PT3.

I had the most interesting session last night. I had short spurts of tables, all being up a few dollars, mostly due to changing table dynamics leaving me without friends after they left :) I was mostly tired so I was prepared to call it quits quite early up around 1BI overall, when I said the inevitable "1 more orbit." I got sucked out on by a short stack of course. But I looked around and saw near perfect table dynamics, so because I felt I was playing well I'd stay. Well I stayed another 130 hands, just one tabling, and broke about even, including getting a full stack in as 80% favourite and losing, flopping two pair and having to fold, and also turning a low flush and not being able to stop a donk chasing and hitting a better 1 card better flush.

But it's really got me thinking about the difference between running well and playing well. One guy was up just chasing 6-8 outs, often not to the nutz, and he was hitting and was good a lot. His poor style means he'll be having nights where he's losing half a BI every 15 hands, and other nights like last night where he hits often enough to return a small win. In fact, I actually think he lost overall, even after sucking out at least 5 times, and I mean sucking out, as 10-20% favourite and hitting on the river against me and others. You don't get a lot of these situations when playing good poker, but what you do get is much more control over your destiny.

I mean if you have a player on a range on the flop, you can clearly see the board texture, and you know your hand, you really have only a couple of questions left. How do I get the most money out of this situation?

So while I returned just a small profit last night, I felt like I mostly played above average, and I'm really feeling in control of my game and my opponents. I've started focusing a lot more on position again, and factor it into most decisions I make now, as it is the easiest read free tool you can use, even better than your hand. If you are feeling lost early in a hand, look at whether you have position. If you don't, let it go. Why battle a tough pot OOP when you are telegraphing your hand to your opponent and have no idea what he has? If you have position, you can really plan your lines perfectly, and get instant feedback about where you are at if moves don't work.

So I'm still treading water a bit with the results, but I'm really happy with how much more thought I'm putting into pots, and even if I have the wrong ideas a lot, I'm certain my thoughts are moving closer to being +EV ones most of the time. I look forward to what this week brings.

The month ahead...

Well, first up lets talk about what's behind. HU spew offs. Drunken play. Tilty sessions (not really behind, but hopefully less :)). More importantly as those sessions start to make their way into distant memory, I pickup momentum in new world poker learning. This is where I actually try to improve my game rather than do the bare minimum to trick my mind into thinking I deserve to win. Well as a consequence, one thing falling into the category of behind is my ABC poker brain. Not that I've perfected ABC poker by any means, but the more and more I read, the more and more I realise, I don't need ABC as much as I need other things. One unremarkable feature of ABC is the ability to play your hand in the optimum way, and I'll come back to this.

To totally move away from my point, I'll point out poker learning is cyclical. I first heard "Position, Position, Position!!!" about 2 months into playing, but just recently, I've started to analyse it a bit more, and I'm just now realising what a strong poker tool position is. Look at any hand you've posted to a forum and if it's OOP, imagine how much easier it would have been to play in position. There are just so many advantages to playing a HU flop in position, as you can realistically plan out your hand right now. OOP you can start a plan, but so much depends on his reaction. Position gives you easy cbets, pot control, double barrel opportunities, river betting opportunities, floating, drawing, value betting, etc etc etc.

You underestimate the importance of almost anything when you first hear about it in poker.

So my latest thing is playing the players. I've blogged about it, but still I've been close to the worst implementer. I'd suggest playing the player, when I wasn't even effectively player reading myself. Now I'm starting to get those reads based on last weeks excersizes, but I have to do something with those. I'll keep working at all of the player reading, as I'm still a beginner there really, but I'll possibly add some ideas of what to do with those reads soon. Suffice to say, like the position question before about seeing the same flop in position or out, player reading completely turns a hand on it's head. Like the simplest is you flop mid set, ace high against a maniac or a calling station. You obviously want the maniac to think you are weak, and you understand the calling station never folds top pair. But if you don't treat those situations differently, you may as well give up at poker, because you are set to be a loser. If the reason you play those two hands the same is due to not really reading players post flop play, then you have a major leak. It takes a lot to beat this game, and playing players is ultimately one of the key things to it all, if not the biggest thing about poker!!!

So to come back to playing your hand optimally, even ABC poker requires reads and using those reads to maximise value, minimise losses. So technically while I'm over trying ABC poker, I'm still not getting anywhere near doing it properly yet. Thus, I have a very long way to go in poker.

In any case, I'm going to be grinding this next month. After that I'm likely to get a coach. I've been fumbling with the keys long enough now, it's time to find the lock and open it. I seriously think the guidance and hard work combined will result in me being a winning NL100 player in no time, and at very least getting me competetive at NL50 again. But I'm hoping if I find the right sort of coach, that I'll be able to start piecing together a lot of what's still wrong with my game, which after a month of grinding, hopefully I'll know a bit about myself.

So the months goal is to play NL25, table select, read players, grind. No more, no less.

How to break even

Last 2 nights, I have been sucked out on/coolered for every big pot, and not one pot was played all that bad, even though I didn't need to slowplay a couple. I looked over last nights session in Pokertracker, and thought I should make mention of the AA vs TT hand where he rivered a ten. That made 4 biggest lost pots, all suckouts, the other 3 I had all money in before the suckout, that one I paid off a bet on the river.

Well, tonight I was up over a BI twice, and twice I came back to even. It's hardly worth mentioning the wins, because it's mainly me playing my hands pretty face up and getting action. The big losses were AA vs T9 when he flopped top pair, and rivered a 9. I had only half a pot to call his river shove, so... The other hand while up around a BI again, was AK, where I 3 bet big, and was called by 2 players. The flop of K64 was almost perfect for me, and he called my cbet. So to recap, he's called PF, then called a 3 bet, now called a cbet on K64. My senses are telling me KQ/AK or AA :) Turn is an ace, and even though it does hit his AA, I can't realistically put him on that. My best hope is he'll bluff the ace here, so I check and he shoves (2/3rd pot), easy call and he has 66 of course. I don't know why, but this hurt the worst. I know every move he made was incredibly bad, and I should be happy I'm table selecting well, but this is shit. I would double up in that spot 9 times out of ten, and add the two AA hands.

Still, back to more important things. Really trying to hand read more, and it's still a little vague. I'm trying, which is the main thing, but I still feel completely lost in some spots, and rarely get thoughts about what a villain does this with. I was writing down spots in a notepad document, but it didn't really do much for me so I stopped. I think I might start looking at pots, and trying to see how to break things up more. Still I'm taking better notes which is the main thing, and using Verneers ideas a bit. For example, my notes now all have a 3 bet section first, a post flop 2nd and pf limp, pf bet ep, pf bet lp and pf call section, where I'll just record any hand I see.

Table selection is solid, and if no juicy tables are available, I can now forum surf, rather than having to jump on a table, but I've been on very juicy tables most of the time the last few nights, and it really does make poker much easier to not be constantly grinding grinders.

Overall, I'm actually super happy with how I played this last two nights, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's my best ever, but I still have so much left to work on. My biggest focus will be on trying to assign hand ranges post flop in possible big pots. I know much more where my hand stays, but still find it hard to extract/fold if I don't know what my opponent holds.

Standard crazy night

Started off running superb, getting dealt KK early against a 80BB stack and getting it in PF against 77... not so good after 784 flop, but this is poker. Took a while to get any else going, but eventually hit a nut flush on the turn against a donk who bluffed all the way with no flush, 2nd pair. Again I'm getting coolered/sucked out on in my losses, and stacking complete donks/bluffs. Final luck went to the donks though with AK all in pre flop no good against A9 in a 40BB stack, oh well.

Still booked a win with the flush being a full stack and a few other pots here and there.

Table selecting was near perfect, getting off a table that turned TAG, and ending up playing probably 200 hands on very fishy tables. Hand reading also improved, although I now feel I'm right down the bottom in this field. Verneers series is only getting better, and talked about categorizing reads into 3 bet pots, pre flop and post flop. It really simplifies it nicely, because sometimes your notes end up being confusing, but if you say he'd call PF with this, raise with that, play 2nd pair on flop like this, you can group things nicer and end up with notes that help you at different times.

Example, you are called PF by TAG on button after raising CO with TT, flop is Axx. Notes should help identify if he always 3 bets/folds ace hands, or calls with a lot of aces too, so you can put more of his range on an ace or not (you know he never has QQ/JJ). Then move to post flop notes. If he always bets when you show strength, or always raise/folds cbet, etc etc. Basically, different players give you a chance to get all this info, it's just a case of paying close attention.

Small win was good, hopefully keep momentum going forward and start hitting some nights where coolers/suckouts all miss and I come in with a big night.

Might be one of those weeks again

Played some NL5, and it was infuriating. I had $10 stack vs another $8.50 stack, and he limps everything, rarely raises. He raises, so 33 in position seems like an easy call. Flop is gin, 763. He is lurking around minbet calling, and by the turn, I realise he isn't going anywhere and that he has JJ+, probably KK/AA, I just know it. So I raise his crappy bet to full pot on the turn (a 4, so I have a full house) and he calls. River is a king and he bets half pot of about $3, and all I can do is raise him back another $2 knowing he will have KK sometimes, but also can't fold AA/AK now. He had KK, fuck. Not much else big happened there, but when you 3 bet AKo, and someone calls and flops two pair with 94s (???) you know it's not your night. A lot of crazy plays like that, and if anyone calls your cbet, it means they have a flush draw 99% of the time, because they never fold suited cards pre flop, and either fold without hitting, or raise to protect themselves from the flush if they have top pair or call to hit the flush. What's also nice is that every flush chaser hits by the turn against me. This is of course before you get a real read that he's chasing the flush, so they usually get another street out of you if you have a hand.

Somewhat tilted, I decided NL25 would be the go, however table selection saved me. Right at the point of moving, I'd lost the AK vs 94 hand, and was ready to unload 5 bets pre flop. Well not quite, but I was still fuming. However, I said I have to table select, and since I didn't have the tables running, I started them up. Then I went and had a break for five minutes, came back and found 3 juicy tables, and sat on the waiting list. In the meantime I visited forums, and all up had probably a 20 minute break, which got me right off tilt, and I was prepared to play again.

Horrible start, running KK into AA preflop, and with this guys stats and style, I knew it was AA about 85% of the time, but have been told to never fold KK ever preflop. Not sure if I should trust my gut there, or trust everyone else on that one. Full Stack gone, got into a few pots then when nothing hit. I'd have QQ and a TAG had AK and hit on the turn, he'd call my 3 bet with QQ when I had AK and I didn't hit. People still calling flush draws and hitting, me calling for a couple and missing. My only big winning pot came from a retard, getting his stack in with 2nd pair on a K9x board. I'm not even sure if my play was correct with KQ, you shouldn't win too many big pots with one pair and KQ, but he was slightly shorter, had horrible stats, and had just sat down and posted out of position, so while reads were thin, it's not the sort of guy that will only turn up with the nutz post flop.

Anyway, live to fight another day, scrapped and scraped my way back to being down about 2/3rds of a BI, which I was OK with. Table selection was OK, although since it takes a lot longer to find tables, I tend to hang around when people 3 bet too much with position on me, which I don't like at all. I really have to cut chords. My player reading was improved a lot last night, doing everything possible to see how people played different hands. PS is now miles ahead of FT with their live hand replayer, but I'm pretty sure there are tools that will do that for me on Full Tilt, so I might need to find those.

I've decided NL25 is my home. I'm not rolled for it, but it's where I feel comfortable, and I'm sure I'm a winner at these stakes. I'm not sure what will happen if I grind my BR down too much, but for now I'm more committed to playing solid 6 max poker than ever, and this is a much more logical place to play than the crap shoot at NL5 or even NL10 to a lesser degree.

Some results and goals

Just a quick update, almost like a weekly bankroll/goals update.

Firstly, it's worth mentioning that by Friday nights end my accounts were up to their highest point for the week. but last night I tried to 5 table NL5 and ran bad/played worse (drunk) lost some back. So the bankroll update leaves me at around $265 online, which is still not enough to grind NL25, but it probably isn't that far off.

So what's the site plan this week? I'm tempted to play NL5 on PS. Even though I lost there last night, I'm still amazed at the low level of play, and some of of those people sitting with $10+ stacks. I don't think > 4 tables is possible for me still, so I'll play between 3 and 4 probably. If it's not really working out well for whatever reason, it's back to Full Tilt NL10, as I'm still not ready for NL25 bankroll wise.

Goal wise I suppose I have to move on from table selection, if for no other reason than all NL5 tables are soft :) JK, I will still do it, but I can start to focus on something new. I feel like I achieved a lot focusing on table selection last week, and I feel like while still fairly new to it, I've added something to my game. I almost feel like a weight has been lifted focusing on tables more, and that with hard work, I will still be the winning player I've aimed at.

So my next goal is player reading. I might put in a more detailed post after some thought, but the number 1 disciplined rule to help practice this week will be:
* Give players credit for their actions without reads

What does this mean? We get check raised on a flop of 854r. His actions suggest he really likes his hand. What hand would he really like there. By default we might say any overpair/set/76/two pair. Run those through with his preflop range, and we can have a fairly small set of strong hands to judge against ours. Now we add reads. If we have none, keep that short strong range and fold hands like TT/99. If we have them, we might get some clues, like he never plays a set fast or he always plays monster pairs much strong pre flop. Or he always leads with a strong one pair hands, but check raises sets, etc. It isn't always that clear to us, but effectively, you find a default slightly stronger than standard range, and apply reads to loosen or further tighten that range. This way we are helping to force ourselves to get more solid reads, which should really work out in the long run.

Another tool I plan to use is notepad. Mark down important pots, where I had tough decisions, or where I saw someone do something weird, and perhaps analyse it later. I'm not sure exactly what this will do for me yet, but I've always been interested in the idea.

Booked a NL25 win

Booked a win at my first night back at NL25. It was only 220 hands, but I felt like table selecting was quite tough, and both tables I found were the fishiest, but didn't have me in great position against the fish. I'd guess table selecting at this level will need some extra work, but I'm glad I'm doing it rather than not doing it. I saw a 94/5/2 player on a table with a 220BB stack, and tried to join up, but it flashed up on screen, #6 in waiting list... wow. Others are table selecting too obv. In all honesty I know at least one very solid player playing this level, so there will be plenty of strong players, but I'd guess the average NL25 player is a bit tight weak, and follows the best line given his hand in all spots, which is both easy to read and to get off hands. Still it leads me to believe I should probably be table selecting to the point where I only join a NL25 table when it seems fishy and otherwise grind NL10.

So the hands, one table was getting all the hands, the other was getting sucked out on. I called 3 bets in two spots and hit sets and got paid off. Once by an overly aggro player, who 3 bet me 3 hands earlier, and someone the orbit before, so I didn't think he was running into big hands. I decided just to call with TT, not wanting to spew off too much PF at this level, flop is QTx, ship it, he does too with KK, I take down a nice pot. Not much more than 3 or 4 orbits later the fish on the table min 3 bet my UTG raise from the BB, giving me huge odds to hit a set. These guys are so ofter TT+, that you know there is real value calling for set mining with 88, otherwise folding to pressure postflop. Well, I flopped a full house of 855 of course, and yes indeed he stacked off as expected with QQ. Other than that I ran into suckouts twice getting money in good pre flop, on the flop and turn, and then paying a guy off once on the river (small pot, but probably bad call), and folding another river when it was obvious he'd hit a big draw he was going for. Also got in a couple of horrible flops, like the classic 3 bet "squeeze" KK strong for 2 callers Axx flop!!! Hate that one, and in this case I actually check folded, which is a first for me, as I'd almost always bet at it, and hope for folds. Playing much tighter than I every have post flop, with next to 0 bluffs.

Other than that, as I said I just couldn't find really juicy tables, so I decided to quit serious play and have a couple of drinks. I decided to muck about on NL5, but ended up accidentally joining an NL2 table, so made it two of those. I have to say, I remember those days well. Players are crazy bad, ranging from calling with 75% of hands, and then 3 streets with 3rd pair, to just bagging you when they minraise AA and don't get people to fold and eventually hit with their low PP's. In fact, I ran up $15 profit with so little risk, that it's almost better for me to run my bankroll up here, and move back to FTP when I get a serious bankroll going. I'm pretty sure I could 6 table NL5 (which has $10 BI anyway) for huge profits. I'd estimate about 1 month of grinding NL5 would bring my BR right up to serious NL25 BR, and it would be with so little risk. Decisions?

Unfortunately, last night was the end of my Iron Man promotions too. I didn't qualify in the 220 hands, and realistically have to play for above 50 points for all but 2 nights this month, and I just don't feel like that's a goal I need right now. I want to be able to select my games better than that, and quit when I feel like quitting. So without Iron Man, it looks like I'm back to not needing to stick around Full Tilt if I don't want to, so I might muck around on PS to see how it plays out.

As I've always felt, NL25+ on Full Tilt is probably a little too tight to be massively profitable, so it does leave me wondering about which sites I want to play on. One thing is for sure, I need to get out of the culture of chasing the best rakeback plan, so maybe grinding PS would be good to get right away from rakeback and bonuses for a while, and really focus on crushing the poker game.

Playing better, table selecting better

Well my great run (2 winning sessions in a row) had to finish sometime, and last night it did. Funnily enough I actually thought I'd quit while ahead, but obviously rake killed me and turned the night into a very marginal loser. If it's to be believed, PokerTracker says I payed over $10 in rake over 700 hands last night. That would be 14BB/100 hands??? I think pokertracker is lying to me, unsure. Well, when I look at my biggest pot won, I won a $20.55 pot and got returned $18.55, so $2 rake = 10%. Yep, that's pretty insane, and certainly no lie. In fact in 5000 hands I've payed $120 in rake, and I can honestly say I don't think I'm getting 27% of that back, but anyway just interesting.

So I thought I played the best I've played in a long time last night. Everything decision seemed clear and easy, and a lot of that came from two things I'll discuss in a minute. The first half of the session went terrible. I couldn't catch anything post flop, and got played back at every time I cbet a good board with air and got folded to every time I actually hit a top pair or had an overpair. I tried one two barrell bluff with backfired even though I think it was a good move overall. Still I was fully aware it was a case of just running bad and took a break and came back. I then instantly got 3 hands on 3 tables, AA, JJ and AQ. AA got folded to, JJ got called but folded as top trips on the flop, and AQ hit top pair with 3 clubs, I didn't have a club, in a 3 way pot against short stack donks. I got called all in by one on my cbet, and the other called with $3 left. Turn was another club, but also an ace, and he shoves. Only $3 I thought, and I have two pair? Only bad call I made all night, he had 55 for 4th pair on the flop, 5 high flush on the turn, and I didn't improve. So should probably tilt, but I decided to work hard at making good decisions, and things swung my way. I finished strong and thought I'd done enough by the end to turn a profitable session, but having to lay down top set in a similar situation to above on a 4 club river (right decision this time) very late in the session meant I had a losing session overall.

So the two things that helped. Catching up on a solid blog at CardRunners, Verneer, I ran across a post that mentioned decisions in poker were easier when you watched someone else play. All about not getting attached to your money/cards, and as he mentioned you play your A game while railing. It made me think I definitely need to get less attached, and I felt like I did this well last night, looking at every situation closely rather than just hitting call to see where I'm at after getting 3 bet/check raised. The second was an extension of that, called finiding the fold button. I made a decision to play hands extremely face up without reads on a player. So if I got KJ from the button, was called and then check minraised on a K74r, fold. Why? Because I stand to win a very small pot if I continue and I'm ahead, or I'll get punished or have to fold if I'm behind. Given how many good spots there are to make money, there is no reason to semi bluff your way out of trouble at this level. Now if I had the read he bluff check minraises, now it's a different story. I can happily call, and probably call the turn too, as long as my read indicates he'd do that.

The reason behind the above rule is to force me to get more reads. It may feel frustrating laying down decent hands a lot, but I noticed last night, people rarely take advantage of you folding. One player got me to fold and then tried a couple of moves, and he got burnt about the 3rd time he tried it anyway. It's a form of tilt I think, just expecting every loose player to be bluffing you, but they genuinely have a hand often enough, and without reads there is no point winning a tiny pot or losing a big pot.

So onto table selection, almost perfect last night. I managed to get 4 tables up in the 2nd half, and all 4 were fishy. I have now stamped > 25 VPIP as green, with 15-25 as red and <15 as blue. Also have similar colours for PFR. So if you look around a table, I expect to see a lot of green VPIP's, and hopefully blue PFR's. And last night, I had that pretty good. I had to close tables occasionally, but I'm really getting into the groove of just closing down a table and looking for a replacement. The reasons for closing so far are usually fish leaving and short stacks/TAG's coming in. So for example, I left a table where the two to my right were suddenly short stacks. A reasonable weakness I've found is not leaving a table with a looser short stack to me left, who are likely to call with anything and shove any flop, so you need to hit the flop to continue and hope you have it. It shortens your poker game quite a bit, as you can't just raise any hand in position against these guys. Anyway, with how easy it's been to table select I'm upset I haven't done more of it in the past.

So looking forward. Table select NL25 tonight. Yep, fire up two tables, pretty much underolled, to take a shot. I just feel like I'm playing good enough to beat NL50 and with table selection should be able to find some very fishy NL25 tables and be +ev by a margin at that table. I do believe in bankroll management, but I also believe you get things in life by taking chances, and if this were to work out, and I could build up a bankroll in the first few sessions, I'm sure I'd never have to look back at the highly raked, poor $/hr NL10 level. My aim in the next few months is to grind up to NL50 again when I hit a bankroll of $750, and I think thats very acheivable with more work on hand reading and table selection, and of course keeping tilt out of my game.

Table selection (or lack thereof)

Another winner, ship it!!! I didn't really find great tables last night, but still managed to get in a pretty easy win. To be honest I think my potential for winning has jumped up this week versus last for two reasons. Firstly, the table selection has improved chances of winning, and secondly I'm able to see situations a little clearer against people who are essentially tight weak players.

The problem is some of these people may bet normal pre flop, then cbet, which seems super standard, so raising with a 2nd pair type hand seems standard, but more often than not they are only cbetting with a hand. So I find myself giving them more and more credit and it's making my game a lot simpler. Still 2 of the 3 biggest pots I lost were due to semi-bluffs backfiring, and the biggest was a suckout of floppped flush versus overpair/runner runner full house. I can't complain, the biggest winning pot was set over set, which I swear I've never had on Full Tilt, but had happen to me multiple times. Overall, small win, but good to see a profit return, and I'll be taking stabs at NL25 earlier than bankroll would suggest if I keep this confidence in my game.

Two things before an NL25 shot. Firstly, continue working on table selection. I really need to keep a focus on players hands during my non-playing hands, to help determine if the table is really good or not. I could easily miss a big pot, which may have stacks of information in it. Also I still need to iron out who is calling a cbet to float a lot, and who is doing it with top pair, never folding to anything. I don't need to run bluffs that are getting constantly caught by these low limit players, so either I fire a single cbet, rather than my usual bet flop and turn, or just give up on flop when I'm OOP and the flop is fairly dry and he's calling mostly with the goods. Have to take a closer look at this later.

Back to table selection, and most importantly why I've never been that interested. Firstly, I would table select a little, by choosing what looks like a decent table in the lobby, and a decent table position based on stack sizes. But once I got 3 bet twice by my immediate left, I'd try to outplay him. Basically, one huge problem I have is trying to outplay good players. I figured I'd get more of a thrill out of outplaying 18/16/4's than just taking 50/4/0.3's to value town. Exact opposite. I now love these fishy players, as I know I'm going to get paid by them constantly. So I'd get surprised when I'd bluff a guy off of two pots, then he'd call my 3 barrell bluff with top pair. Whats surprising, he's paid attention to my style, and is happily letting me value own myself, well played sir. Secondly, I just don't like to pay full attention to the tables. I do get a little flustered when I have 3 tables with action at once, but there is so much downtime, and I"m never paying attention. The less attention, the less table selecting you are doing. I've been known to play 20 hands against a player without knowing he was there. Like a fish left, and I didn't notice for 20 hands. So for some reason, rather than address this obvious problem, I covered it up by saying I'm working hard, but actually focusing on other smaller problems in my game. Can I get it in here with top pair versus this guys flop shove? Well what would he get it in with here that I beat? Has he been loose/tight/spewy/tilted? I don't know, because I haven't seen his hands.

So basically, practising table selection is a perfect antidote to poker laziness that costs you big money IMO. Knowing how to play a draw or top pair is important, but even more important is to have that guy on a range, and work out why he's doing what he's doing, based on his history. Denis Philips (chip leader of WSOP) actually mentioned this on a podcast recently, but he has flaws, and his coach coming into the final table is working out those flaws, and concentrating on improving them. I think what I'm doing will essentially be the same. After working on table selection a bit, I'll probably write out 15-20 aspects of the game that are essential to being a top player, and rate my overall skills versus say a 20BB/100 winner at NL100 to see what areas need the most work. I'd give myself 8/10 in no categories, but some will obviously be closer to 2/10 some closer to 7/10, so that will be an interesting excersize and I'm sure if I'm honest and can keep up a work rate, I will make it in this poker world.

More on Table selecting

At long last, after months and months of losing sessions, I managed to book a win last night. OK, it was only really 6 sessions of losses in a row, and this one win makes up for at least the last 3 of those. It wasn't a huge win, but those others weren't huge losses either.

Nothing major to report in terms of play, but I am getting a feeling for when to go and when to slow down at this lower level. You hear some people say micro players don't value bet enough, but I think my problem is the opposite, where I value bet and get called with the worst hand quite a lot. I'm basically never giving guys credit for calling with AK/AQ pre flop (rather than raising), but it happens a lot with some players and you need to identify these situations. I'm now finally letting go of value betting those hands, and betting other marginal spots where I don't think I'm getting folds ever, and focusing more on maximising value when I get hands, which should be an ideal tactic at NL10 at least.

Another ideal tactic at any level is table selection. Some would argue it isn't necessary at NL10/NL25, so I'll spend a couple of lines explaining why that's not true. Firstly, what they are saying is you don't need to table select at NL10 to beat it. That's true. I never table selected much up to NL50 and have been a winner there. But beating something is not as good as beating it convincingly. I always wondered what the big difference between me and the guys crushing NL50 were, and I think it comes down to being the complete player, which definitley includes table selecting hard.

So first of all, back in the old days (up until late last week), I'd look for up to 4 tables in the lobby that had high flop % and high $ and join it, probably spending my whole session playing those same 4 tables, unless something was clearly not good there. I'd invariably find I'd be up on 2, down on 2. I was definitely noticing the two I'd be down on, I was either getting 3 bet a lot, called in position a lot, or the table was full of TAG's (or at least TAG wannabees, which still isn't good). Occasionally it was a juicy table and I was just getting unlucky, but not as much.

So lets look at some maths there. If I played 2 tables, at 5BB/100 hands, I'd be making around 10BB/hr (woohoo $1). So the obvious happens and you move to 4 tables, and still win at 4BB/100, slightly less than before because you are a little more rushed. Still you are winning more than before per hour, now up to 16BB/hr. You have open one juicy table, two tight weak tables and one mixed table with a couple of real donks and a few decent players. 16BB/hr, no real breaks in play, no extra work than firing up tables and playing.

Now we do the reverse. We table select religously. Because of the extra work, we can only do two tables at first, and we will have some downtime, sitting on waiting lists and quitting tables that turn TAGgy or break down. But with table selection we will always be sitting down on fishy tables, so quite a lot of the time we have 2 very fishy tables open, way more downtime. Now the fishy tables are really worth 15BB/100 to us, so all up it's a potential of 30BB/hr. But given downtime we'd have to bring that down to something like 20BB/hr.

These figures are of course made up and may not be true, but think of the benefits of table selecting:
* You've just increased your hourly expectation playing less tables
* You are always playing the donks rather than playing TAG's on table, LAG's on another and donks on the other
* You are always expected to earn money, rather than some nights getting unlucky and playing 4 bad tables
* Once you are comfortable you can still 4+ table with good table selection and really up the earning rate
* Because you are practicing table selection so strongly at NL10, it will be part of your game once you move up in levels where it really is important

Tomorrow I'll have a look at a few reasons I've stupidly avoided table selection in the past, but I can safely say, even though I probably still didn't table select perfectly last night, I certainly ended up on some fishy tables, and can't complain about that at all.

First table selecting results, and more goals

I just blogged about my leak finder week 1. That will be a point of reference for me, and I'll blog the results throughout the week.

Basically, back onto NL10 Full Tilt. while trying out these theories. Obviously I'm not currently bankrolled for more, but I also feel like it's actually not a bad base to work from. I also feel like part of my problem last week, where I returned 5 losing sessions in a row, is playing lazy, not respecting players. They aren't necessarily good players, but what are they really repping by 3 betting/raising the flop against your top pair? If I was more observant I'd realise they are really quite tight, and will very rarely bluff in that spot. But I just figure players are donks and call. Sometimes I was right, more often I was wrong.

So the table selecting will actually really improve this. Already last night I took every situation seriously, and gave credit to players raising if they deserved it. My one table selecting was pretty straight forward, probably even came too late. I lost about $12 on one table, with a loose player raising me a lot post flop, and finally having the goods against my top pair with a flopped set. I didn't fully pay him off, as I had a weaker kicker, but I wasn't in a good spot and left. The next table ended up very profitable, so it shows how important table selection can be.

I still returned a very small loss, which is still frustrating, but I'm just happy to be working hard to improve my game again, and felt like I played pretty well, and definitely table selected better.

Some things to keep doing which I did well last night:
* Sit down only in good spots based on stacks sizes and stats if available.
* Watch out for loose players to my left
* Give tight players more credit for hands when make moves.
* Keep the tables to a limit where I can easily improve this part of my game, which is currently 2, but I'd prefer 3 by the end of this week

Some things I'd like to work on tonight which I didn't do (or didn't do well) last night:
* Data mine before playing, and sit on waiting lists of juicy tables rather than randomly picking an available table
* Have a timer popup every 15 minutes telling me to check tables, and follow through
* Pay even closer attention to post flop play
* Find statistics on the HUD that will help me more with table selection
* Every 15 minutes, look for reasons not to quit, rather than reasons to quit.

Overall, I think this is really the next step forward for me as a poker player. When you focus less on results, and more on how to best influence those results, it can only be a good thing. It really makes light work of the so called grind when you have more to play for. Also I can really see that proper table selection will actually work towards fixing other major leaks I have like not paying enough attention at the tables, poor self control and not giving players credit.

Leak finder week 1 - Table Selection

OK, I lightly touched on this subject before playing last night, and the partial thought, then playing has allowed me to setup some goals in terms of better table selection.

Background

It's worth mentioning what my background of table selection is. I've known about the concept from pretty early, and have tried to table select somewhat. Where my biggest weakness has always been is table selecting once in a table. I tend to just keep playing a table once there, so realising I'm not at the most profitable table and leaving is something I really want to introduce. The reason I've not done this well is probably lack of attention to detail. To table select while there, you have to be aware of what players are doing, and I'm usually too lazy to know for sure what this is. I might complain I'm playing too many tables sometimes, but if that's the case, then play less tables and table select properly, then add tables once you are table selecting well at a lower table limit. The bonus with choosing this leak to improve first is that to table select well, you have to improve your observational skills. So not only will I get off tables where the TAGs are, or where I'm getting 3 bet too much, I'll also have more of an idea on how certain players are playing.

Datamining

OK, first and foremost, Full Tilt lets you datamine, so don't deny it. I have a pretty decent buffer between when I can turn a computer on and when I get to sit down to play, so why not let PokerTracker keep stats on others. It's not an essential NL10 tool, but it's even useful at NL25, so is good practice. The biggest problem I don't always use that. If I see all of those datamine tables are full, I usually just fire up another table. As a first step towards improving, it's time to sit on waiting lists of extra juicy tables. If there is nothing happening there, looking at high flop percentages, with high dollars averages is a good start. This is purely to make sure you aren't getting on a nitty table, which might be good to push around a bit, but not so good to make money off (I think, although I should further investigate).

Stack sizes

So that's all before opening up a table. After opening, without any stats, like a new table from the lobby, I'll be looking at stack sizes compared with the open spot. Players to the left of us have position on us, players to the right we have position on. It's said money flows left, meaning that you should be winning more money on those you have position on, and the main guy you have position on is directly to your right. So the first thing to check is does he and the player to his right have a full stack. Why is this important? Even if he's loose, which is good to have to your right, if he only has 25BB's, you can only win a 25BB pot off of him. Plus, given that stack size, it's going to be push fold on the flop, meaning your positional advantage is not really important against this guy. It also reduces your set mining hands down to well below implied odds, so you can't call with 76s or 55 in position any more. Basically it's just wasting your positional advantage. The only reason is if you had history or know his stats, and you figure he'll probably bust soon and leave.

On the other hand, you don't care as much about full stacks on your left. Again, money flows left, so if the guys that have position on you don't have much of a stack, their positional advantage over you is minimal. It isn't as bad to have full stacks to your left, and it certainly helps if you steal a lot of blinds, but you really don't want competant full stacks, otherwise you are giving away positional advantage to a good player.

We have the stats

Once we have stats, there are a few more simple ideas. Firstly, are the players mostly playing regular stats like 18/12/2 + 20/18/4 + 14/12/1.5 + 20/11/1. These guys may not all be pros, but they aren't likely to give a lot of action without having the goods, so it takes a lot of pressure and probably tilting to get these guys to pay off. Where the levels aren't very good, you really want the biggest advantage possible, so playing tight players is not good news. Leave a table if there are too many tight players.

To our left

The main one I don't like recently is getting 3 bet a lot from a player to your left. If this is happening I will leave. Secondly, having a guy call too much with position on you may not be good. It's worth mentioning, both of these players will invariably have nothing on a given flop, so it's interesting to see if you can pick up post flop reads. Like if the guy that calls every CO raise you do calls cbets, then gives up on turn bets, he can be profitable to you. If he raises every time you show weakness, this can be profitable too. Another reason to have tighter players to your left is for stealing opportunities. Usually a steal is betting the CO or button, where you are likely to have position if called or 3 bet. If the two players to your left are tight, you can obviously steal their blinds easier, but can also steal from CO easily, and even MP easily. Of course raising every button, CO and MP will start tilting them, so this can be especially good if played right.

To our right

I'm not thoroughly convinced we need a loose player here, but the advantages are real. You can play a lot of pots in position with better hands. Having a full stack player limp call OOP too often is pretty nice. Having a tight player means he will have decent hands quite often, and you will only have your position advantage. Basically if you get a read that someone isn't playing well OOP, it's worth having position on them regardless of what stats they are, and like I said having a full stack gives you a big opportunity if they start playing back badly.

Other players. No real positional advantage, so just having looser players would be ideal. Overall, it would be great to see loose players all the table round, especially post flop. As I challenge myself more in table selection, I'll probably start trying to find some stats that mean more in terms of post flop play, rather than just relying on are they loose or tight pre flop.

Other factors

So finally, a couple of weirder concepts. Losing on a table. Even if the players are suiting me, if I can't get control of a table, let it go. I did this last night, letting go of a table I was down a buy in, and the next table saw me go up a buy in within 30 hands. There is a clause here. If you are just running bad, I like to move, as the table will start tilting you, but if you played a big bluff that failed and everyone saw, this could be a good point to stay to see if you have a loose table image now to help you get big hands paid off. If it goes further south, then staying is fine. Another one is tilt. If something on the table is tilting you, like a donk doubling up, or someone talking shit, don't feel compelled to stick around. Leave if you don't like it.

Summary

So that's all the concepts currently. My biggest weakness has been moving tables. I've always had a degree of trying to table select before sitting down, but then I'll play 150 hands before realising my table is full of TAG's and I've lost 1.5 buy ins. This is where I'm going to set a timer for every 15-20 minutes, to check the table I"m at. Look at stats, look at pots, etc. If it's all good, then keep going, if things have changed for the worse, then just leave and look for another table. I just have to be more active when it comes to thinking about the table I"m on.

I may come back and review this document as well as upgrade it as I learn more, but my main goal in the next week or so is to really improve my table selection.

Finally some insight

Had an interesting few days to do with poker. After just about losing it all the other night play miles over my bankroll, I pulled quite a lot back, mainly from HU SNG's, running miles better. I still got sucked out on, but probably only about the average. Like an 80/20 does lose 20% of the time, and that's how it was going for me, rather than losing 2 out of 3 80/20's.

So I got some pride back and can now say I'm bankrolled for very low levels again. So what now? I still don't have any true answers on that just yet, but amongst all the mayhem of the last few weeks, I've managed to have a major poker click. I'm still getting all the poker podcasts, and listened to a Bart Hansen Cash Plays episode interviewing Gabe Thaylor (sp?). He kept hitting the same point which eventually hit me pretty hard. After discussing a few different hands it was obvious he put a lot of emphasis in table image of you and your opponents. After hearing him say this a few times, I realised it's still a weakpoint of mine. Someone could have stats of 30/25/4 and I couldn't tell you how they've done that yet. They've probably shown down 4 or 5 times so far, but I've missed them all, due to playing other tables, or playing distracted. He also mentioned allowing players to play in a way that suits you. So if they are playing too tight to help you out, raise them a little lighter, and if called, you may have the worst of it, but it may get them playing looser after, which they might not do well. Interesting just how much he focuses on metagame.

So far this is nothing new, but the poker click was yet to happen. I realised firstly that all my poker learning has been do I bet this river, or fold to that turn bet. I've probably learned a lot in that area compared to some, but I've always known I've missed some things like table selection, accurate player profiling and self control. Well, why know these things and then go review more hands? Why not practice improving table selection? Rather than continually quote it as a weakness, work hard to make sure it's no longer a weakness. Set goals, and try to achieve those goals. Table selection for example should be quite easy to improve with some simple guidelines. In fact I might work on this one first.

So I guess I want to profile my biggest weaknesses over the next few weeks, and one by one try to set tasks to help improve that area. I'd say fix, but then you'll never be perfect at every thing, so I'll say improve, with the aim of continuing to improve after I stop putting real focus into that area. So I'll set myself a goal to improve the table selection first. I haven't set full guidelines yet, but it will involve things like not having really loose 3 bettors to my left, tight players on my right, short stacks on my right, table full of TAG's etc. I think with miinimal effort I see my winrate improving a lot doing this, so fingers crossed. I'm sure there are much bigger subjects, but if table selecting correctly, I can still have other major leaks and still be the favourite at that table hopefully.

I get knocked down

Well, the flame is flickering and well and trully ready to go out. I'm contemplating walking away right now and leaving some money in the accounts for when I get a passion back, or just keep on grinding, and potentially lose it all donking off. In a way that would be the best option, because I really won't put money online for a while. Maybe I should just withdraw it now.

Going back a day, I logged my 5th 500 hand NL10 6 max session for the week (including Sunday I guess), and it was again a loser, making it 5 in a row. A small loser again, but certainly frustrating grinding against donks and losing night after night. I'm proably approaching it slightly wrong, as I really don't seem to get anywhere on any tables, even loosening up quite a bit.

So a little tilted, a little bored of the grind, I fired up some HU SNG's with the intention of playing them for a while. So not just to make up losses, but to actually potentially grind HU again. Well the first match was a win, and the 2nd I made every right move. Then with him grinded down to 600 chips, I got it in very good KQ vs K5 and he hit. He ran good then (as did I earlier of course) and I tried to hold on, and eventually after getting up and down again, got him down in chips, and again got it in good, AK vs T2 and he won, and took the chip lead. Coin flip later and he wins. Now I have to say this tilts me, but not in the way that I want to get it in with 72o every hand after, more in the way that I want to prove to these donks I'm better, so I won't accept a losing night. My luck went far south, my bankroll inhibitions faded, and I found myself playing $55 SNG's losing 3 in a row, and seriously thinking I played them near perfectly, losing every coin flip, or being sucked out on or coolered every time.

It's worth pointing out that at this time I had very little bankroll left. Stupid as it sounds, that's a good thing. When you have a bankroll, your tied to that somewhat. You want to preserve it, make it grow. It may be little to cling onto, but it's something chaining you to fundamental poker concepts and money management ones. Once thats gone, there are no fundamentals left, there is simply a question. How far do I follow this trail? I can get off here, and I think that's the standard line to take here. The effects are I've lost something I've worked for, and also a feeling of quitting something. I hate quitting something without achieving what I set out to do. It's not the end of poker indefinitely, but it's definitely serious mode off, maybe forever, maybe not. If I stand and fight, I stand to win a lot. I keep my skills going forward, I take pride in working for what I want and I stand and deliver. So what if I fail, I can honestly say if I stand and fight now, then I've given myself the chance to do something greater. It would be a huge acheivement to stand up and win from here, belted against the ground, little to nothing left in the tank, still step up Rocky style and take the belt. It would be something to behold, and realistically without anything to lose, why not try.

The only reason I can think off is self control. I think I have the poker skills, learning skills and tilt control skills to get back on the right trail, but I don't have self control right now. I want an instant bankroll, I don't want to grind. I can't imagine still grinding NL10 in January next year, it would kill me to think of all the work I'd have to do between now and then to keep playing solid poker night after night like that. So I'm left here unsure what to do about all of that. Hopefully it will come to me, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. Nothing would surprise me now.

Keep that sucker going down.

Wow, really crappy night. I've now lost my last 4 sessions at NL10, which is pretty disgraceful. The problem last night, bluffs were backfiring. I also rarely ran into any decent hands, and was constantly losing pots where I flopped really bad.

I'm obviously trying a bit too hard to convince people I have a hand. Out of the 7 biggest losses last night, 6 were bluffs or 2nd pair hands, and one I called down a semi-bluff shove on the river and he hit a 2 outer on the river after getting the money in. I have plenty of ideas behind my bluffs, and I think they are OK, maybe just a little too advanced for NL10. And I'm not looking down on NL10 players at all when I say that, I'm just thinking players will fold 2nd pair to 2 bets, and that's the read I get sometimes. So I bet again, he shoves. Bad read. I Bet again he calls again with 2nd pair/weak top pair, good hand read, but bad read that he'd fold. I bet again he folds, good reads all around, but not happening as often as the calls/raises were last night.

The winning pots were much smaller in general, with a flopped straight and open ended straight flush draw against a set, and two top pair hands that I got a little extra value from by not betting the flop. I also got a full pot in good only to be sucked out on, but that's fine.

The one thing I have to focus on is not playing too many weak ace/king hands, and instead substitute in more drawy hands when betting in position. For example, if I raise A4o from the button, what value am I looking to get. If I get action on a flop of AT6r I'm probably not in good shape. If I don't hit the flop I have to decide to bluff or not, depending on villain/board. So if I'm not happy when I flop top pair, and I have to bluff other boards, why not bet more 65s hands and fold A4o? Same example, board comes down At6r, I'm still not happy if I get action there, but now I can easily fold. But if the board comes down 743 I can make a lot of money, of if it's A65, I can also make quite a lot if he has a decent ace which he wouldn't 3 bet. The trick is to not spew pre flop too much, and I'm finding weaker aces or kings are just not playing well post flop when I'm called.

So overall, I ran pretty nasty last night, and finished down about $19. I looked at Iron Man to see I was merely a few points from the 50 I need to keep bronze ticking over, so I booted up a $23 HU SNG. I nailed this SNG. Every move I made worked out perfectly, and I won a lot of pots, to get him down to 650 chips, when he opened shoved. I had KQo and called without much hesitation, and he showed K5, which rivered a 5 to keep him alive, in fact nearly even in chips. He then went on a big run, and I managed to keep from losing it, won an all in as big favourite, and worked him back down to 800 chips. Again I get it in good and he wins an all in, and has me in trouble again. Finally I get it in with a coin flip with TT vs AJ and he wins it. Very frustrating, so I fired up another table. I played OK here, but again lost a pot where he rivered his draw, lost another big one where I had a huge combo draw, and again thought ATs was good enough for my last few chips only to be up against AJ. I was down $46 more for the night. Tilt? Yes. Not because I felt I'd played badly or wasn't confident I could win the next one, more because now I was in a mode of chasing my losses. I played very well for 2 more games, and won them both to almost break even, and contemplated playing another before deciding my run was good enough and stopped, down just the rake of $4. This was very lucky, because if I'd lost the 3rd, I would have been down $69 on top of the $19 from earlier, and my bankroll is far too fragile to take big hits like that right now, especially when I'm struggling enough to book a win at NL10.

Well, it all seems kind of average right now. I guess I'll have one more night tonight to have a crack at getting something going, but if it's another negative night, I'll most likely be taking a couple of days break from the grinding, it's just not going well right now. I'll keep on forum posting and reading too. I'll set an unrealistic goal to be posting enough each week to hit 500 posts by the end of the year, and I'm happy for most of that to be in the micro forums. I'm still confident my game is good enough to crush NL10 for a significant amount and move up to NL25 soon, but I'm aware that these downswings can take time to recover from, and I'm still realistically 10BI's away from my goal of $500 bankroll, which seems like a huge heist right now. Hopefully I can find some donks in the next few days and win a lot off of them.

Another 600 hands

What a weird night of NL10. It was actually heaps of fun, even though not at every point. I played over 600 hands and lost $2.75 :) Probably made more than than in rakeback, so a winning night, yay :) I was probably down about $35 at one point, just getting beaten to the line every time. Then I finally made a decent run at it, and finished up very close to even.

I lost my stack plenty of times, but not as much as it felt like. I felt like I got it in a lot, but I guess I made a few more big folds than I thought, potentially saving some money, who knows. More often than not I'm still making a few too many hero calls, but realistically it's close, as some of those turn out for the best.

Since it was quite an action packed night, I've had a look at a lot of the big pots. Basically all big pots where I was behind when the money went in saw me getting coolered (in my opinion). KK vs AA all in pre flop, standard. AJ vs TT on AJT, fairly standard, although the action might suggest that AJ was not going to be good often. KQ vs AQ on Q96dd drawy board, so could be draws, but I guess this spot is very marginal. AQ vs AK on dry ace high 3 bet pot after he called in position and AJ vs T8o on J82T board, after he overshoved the turn after hitting his 2 pair. Now I'm not saying they all deserved to win a big pot, more that I got it in (althought managed to not go all the way with this one) with a decent hand, and lost. On the winning side, flopped straight vs 2 pair was a standard pot. AT vs J9dd on AA7dd I think really was spew by him. He's ahead of nothing, but still 5 bet shoved the flop after calling PF. 22 vs AQ on T92 board. It was a fairly tough spot for me because he was repping one of the few hands that beats me, but in the end 4 bet shoved the flop with AQ, no draws or pairs, wow?

So I got it in pretty good all night, and wasn't always against very strong hands myself. There were no hands I really feel bad about now, but it's obvious I'm overplaying my top pair hands quite a bit. KQ vs AQ and AQ vs AK are prime examples of when I could be ahead of very little other than draws, and shouldn't think people often go mad with draws or semi bluffs like that. I'm not sure exactly when to let go, maybe when to call, it's hard to say, but certainly 3 betting flops where I only have the top pair is proving to be marginal at best, so I may look at slowing down these hands a bit, if not folding against certain opponents.

Plans on moving up

Didn't get to play much poker the last few days. I spent a bit of time on Pokerstars Friday night, but mainly mucking around low BI SNG's and some NL5. Couple of crazy pots. I had T8 on a TT84 board and got it in on the turn and lost. The nut full house and lost? He had KT and hit a king on the river, doh. The other I was running over the table a bit, and went a little over the top with top pair when a fairly loose weak (as in saw too many pots, but gave up if he didn't hit) played back at me. He had top two pair, and after getting it in, I hit my kicker. Overall, I finished up, but it was all just a bit of fun really.

Played a bit drunk last night on FTP also. Again played pretty average while drunk, but just hit cooler after cooler after suck out to be down 4 BI's in no time, and bounced back thanks to one lucky pot and some donks to be down just a bit. Still I let my drinking affect my decision making at points, which I didn't like at all.

Plenty of forum posts and reading forums. All micro limits stuff now, but it's nice to be able to look at a hand, and pretty much see the persons mistakes. It also highlights how important every decision is. Without seeing the results, you can still see the poster got in a really tough spot, all due to calling OOP pre flop, or 3 betting a loose player with a bad 3 bet hand. But certainly experience helps you understand that losing a big pot is not important. What's important is that when you got it in, there were hands he could be holding that you beat. Or that your bluff was going to be successful a lot of the time. As long as you have some solid reasons for a play, then losing the pot is not an issue. Part of having solid reasons for a play involve having solid reads on players, so I'm still looking to improve my attention skills on pots I'm not involved in.

On the bankroll side of things, I'm about $330 on Full Tilt, $100 on Pokerstars. If I wanted to I could join the accounts, and work at getting just 7 more BI's at NL10 before moving up. TBH this is crossing my mind, because I know I will be competetive again at NL25 6 max, so if I can win 7 BI's, I'll seriously consider moving up. I'll probably just keep the money in their current accounts, but I'll count the Pokerstars amount in my bankroll. This works out OK anyway, because if I had a douwnswing of 10 BI's on NL25 to start with, I'd just move back down to NL10 again, and still have 15 BI's for that level, plus the extra 10 sitting on Pokerstars. So in theory you should not really ever need to access that bottom part of your bankroll, because you just move down again when it's required anyway. Given I'd hope to be a 10BB/100 hands winner at NL10, I'd be aiming at getting 7 BI's within 3 weeks play, and I think that's ample time to prove I'm playing well at that level anyway. So if all goes well, I'll move up once my full tilt account hits $400.

Breakeven at NL10

Mostly a break even night, maybe down $2-$3. It started off strong, getting good value from overpairs and sets, and only really lost it's wheels in all in pots against short stacks. I was behind once, and flipping 4 times for 1 win, so as you can tell losing 4 from 5 allin preflops won't help a nights profits. Add to that the night before, where I lost 3 coin flips in a row, and maybe I'm due a little luck.

All up I played 500 hands, and I really didn't play too badly. I've been concentrating a lot at the tables, and find myself hand reading very well. I kept myself from losing a bit last night by double barrell bluffing in good spots. At this level, the cbet works OK, but the double barrell is pretty much always good. Of course you'll run into top pair hands that won't fold, but more often than not, people put you on at least an overpair or TPTK when you fire again. It also helps that I'm picking my spots to cbet, as getting your cbet called on a bad board isn't worth double barrelling. So it's a bit obvious, but I'd cbet when the board is dry, especially with a high card, like Q62r or K44, occasionally against a weaker player on other boards, or when I've hit and need to extract value. When called, reload and fire again. Works a treat and saved me in more than a few spots last night, when I was either OOP or facing what looked like someone holding a better hand than me.

The verneer video talks about keeping yourself out of tough situations, and that's exactly how I'm playing now. By playing mostly in position and with strong hands, you really find the post flop situations and very simple. I could probably stand to raise a little more, but at this level especially, raising more hands can be like throwing money away, as people call a lot. It still shocks me how often people limp in early position, and then they just fold when you raise. I remember those days I guess :)

Anyway, it's going to be a long grind obivously. Hopefully after I've reached 10K hands (I'm a little over 1K) I will have had a couple of good runs and be pushing over $100 profit by then. Also I made 60 FTP's yesterday, so there is still hope of making bronze Iron Man this month to keep things ticking along. That will at least give me another month of CR membership as it will clear the medals needed to buy 5000 FTP points. Not sure of the amount of rakeback I'll be getting, but I'm sure it's just enough to pad the bankroll rather than increase it much.

Getting a groove back

First of all, I went with my plans to grind the 6 max for an hour and learn for an hour plus, proably two. Couple of funny things. littleholdem, successful online tournament player was on Pokerroad radio podcast, which I listened to last night. He mentioned he hasn't read books, and he doesn't visit forums a lot. He says his main source of learning was just playing a lot, and railing top players to see how they play. Interesting, but I wouldn't agree that's for everybody, and it certainly hasn't been working as much for me. Secondly, I watched part 1 (most of) of Verneers new CR series for beating micro 6 max. It's a solid start to the series, and I feel like it struck a few chords with me. It was mostly about keeping your game as simple as possible, and that's exactly how I played last night. Only a couple of spots saw me make any sort of play at it, and all times those plays worked out.

So for example, the best thing I've learned of recent times, but what I still don't work on too well is cbetting and turn betting. It's as simple as this. Cbets are effective, but against certain loose passive players, they only acheive their goal a smaller percentage of the time. Double barrells are a lot higher winrate though. So you cbet, then bet the turn. If you cbet then don't bet the turn, but then bet the turn again when you hit a big hand, it's a clear signal for players behind you to call cbets, and see what you do on the turn. So I get stuck sometimes, betting the turn is now natural to me, but I do it in spots where I don't really want to. To avoid this, don't cbet where you don't think a turn bet will help you, and don't check the turn after cbetting and getting called. So the plan when you missed the flop should simply be bett two streets, or check the flop. There are times when this plan isn't perfect, like turn scare cards, or a blank ace where this guy is likely to call you down with A7o. If your opponents are observant enough and bet every time you check the flop, throw in the occasional check when you have a big hand too, just to keep them guessing.

I ran like god, or so it felt early. In actual fact I only ended up just one buy in, and I felt like I played very solid. The only reason I wasn't up 5 BI's, was I lost a huge pot when villain called the turn shove with a draw against my top pair top kicker and hit his draw, so got my money in good, and getting all in with JJ vs AQ for a coin flip, against a very loose player (50/36 from memory), which also didn't go my way. Apart from those two I was hitting flops very well, and value betting more often than bluffing. So it felt like I ran well, even though I lost the two biggest pots I got into.

But overall, I just felt back in the groove. It felt like I knew when my hand was good and when it wasn't. I knew when to bet the river and when to just check behind. I knew when to continue on with a bluff, and when to let it go. I guess I finally felt like all this effort I've put in has left my game at a higher level than it was a few months ago if I can just dig up the necessary information at the right times. I guess I took some confidence out of reading forusm and watching videos again, so I'll definitely keep up my work rate with those. This also means giving up being any sort of Iron Man until I get back to NL25, but I'm OK with that for now.

Start from scratch again

I managed to kick along a little bit more last night. I can't say I had terrible luck for the most part, because I actually had some good luck tonight. I guess now I've dropped 80% in the stakes I play I'm going to get the luck come back :) Anyway, I played a bit of NL10 6 max and $11 HU, and won a little.

I'm fairly comfortable that I'm going to grind my way back up now. I played some NL10 6 max, and even though I didn't play optimally for that level (it's all value bet to death, fold when you don't hit), I can start to see a plan to come back formulating. The plan is to 4 table for 1 hour a session. Then spend another hour analysing my play, posting hands, reading forums, watching videos. If after all that I still have time I can grind another hour or however long I have. The important bit is to not spend every free moment playing poker. I need to invest time in learning, and joining a community again. I'm going to start posting more on the 2+2 forums, as I think that's where the highest volume comes in, and I'll aim to post one or two tricky spots as well as answer/read a whole lot of other posts.

This is exactly whats needed to succeed at poker. I've realised I'm not ready to give up all I've learned, and that even if I'm not earning the big dollars, doesn't mean I can't be improving my game quicker. I've always had the expectation on myself to just get there one day, without putting in all the efforts required, but now that it's not working that way perfectly, I have to question what it is about my game that doesn't allow that. And the truth is, when I'm sitting down with 6 players, even at NL10, I can't easily say where all my money is coming from, so I'm going to start looking for spots I'm throwing my cash away, and focus on winning plays at each level I play. My lack of skill comes down to a lack of knowledge, so I'm going to look to fill that gap, and come back stronger than ever. I'm fairly certain after doing this for a bit, I'll be moving up to NL25/NL50 etc with ease.

Monetary goals. This isn't so much a September goal as it is a moving up goal. So it shouldn't be affected too much by luck, as it will even out over time if I'm playing well enough. I don't want to move up unless I'm smashing a level, so I'm talking about getting above 10BB/100 hands. Also I want around 30 BI's at the next level, but will relax that a little for NL25, so I'll aim to get up to $500 at this point and start taking shots. I'm currently just under $300, so that's $200 or 20 BI's or 20000 hands at 10BB/100. Given that I'm aiming at about 1 hour of 4 tabling a night now, that's going to take about 2 months of playing solid poker. It sounds insane to be honest, and I'd actually hope to reduce that time by making sure I can beat that winrate, take rakeback into account and maybe put in some more hours here and there. But the main goal is to really get into the whole forums culture again and work hard at becoming one of the main contributors at the micro limit forum. I might actually set a goal of posting at least 50 posts a week, so that I know I'm spending enough energy there to improve my game a lot. I'm pretty certain if I do all that I'll be cruising back into NL25 by November, and will set a higher bankroll goal for NL50, like about $1250. So again, to be beating NL25 for 10BB/100, that would be about 30000 hands. So there is very little hope of me playing NL50 this year, but a lot of hope of me improving my game heaps if I stick to my goals, and I think I should if I'm serious about playing.