mathare's Poker Diary

[mathare]

21st January 2010
Due to one thing and another it was a day off for me yesterday. I thought I had probably got at least one day in the bank when it comes to meeting that deposit bonus on 'Stars but I am still keen to work it off as soon as possible so even though it was a bit of a squeeze I was back on the tables this afternoon. But my head wasn't really in the game - I was working on some Excel stuff for a friend at the same time and programming and poker don't really mix - and that shows in my results. No wins again but 3 runner up spots and a couple of bronze medal finishes too which from nine SnGs means a profit of $9 for a ROI of 18.18% this afternoon. At least one of those second places should have been a win had I beel focused properly, and I reckon I could have sneaked another cash in there too but I had to settle for making a small profit and being done with it really. It's not bad though, I wasn't playing properly and still recorded a ROI of nearly 20%.

I'm going to try again tonight all being well and will hopefully improve on the day's figures.

[mathare]

22nd January 2010
Yesterday evening continued in the same vein as the afternoon it seems: lack of concentration due to multi-tasking and doing 101 other things while trying to play 4 SnGs at the same time but still grinding out a respectable profit. I played another 8 tourneys last night and made another $10 profit making it $19 from 17 SnGs yesterday. I think I have now cleared my plate of most other pressing tasks so when I settle down to play again this afternoon I should be able to give the game more attention and hopefully that will show up in improved results. Unfortunately I think I am getting complacent and thinking these $5 games are too easy but I don't think my bankroll is quite there for the step up to $10 games yet. Maybe early next week I can take a look again and see if I can't slip in a couple of $10 games a day in amongst the standard $5 fare.

[mathare]

22nd January 2010 (part two)
Another weak afternoon where I wasn't playing anywhere near as well as I can, and should be. A lack of focus and not really giving a toss doesn't help. I was probably down around my B or C game when I should obviously be on my A game. But at least I now know why I have been playing poorly the last few days - I'm ill. I have felt a little iffy these past few days but shrugged it off as one of those things but this afternoon I started to go downhill quite rapidly and couldn't wait for the last table to finish so I could give up and go back to bed. In this afternoon's session I limped a few shortish stacks into 3rd place rather than playing to win the tournament. I think I have done this quite often in the last few days and is symptomatic of me being ill I reckon. Given the number of times I got dealt KK this afternoon (they were coming at me with a seriously unreal frequency) I should have done better than a profit of $3.50 from 10 SnGs but it is still a profit I suppose.

[mathare]

23rd January 2010
My first really poor session for ages with a loss of $21.50 - one second place and a third the only cashes in 8 SnGs. I only played because I felt I need to keep things ticking over to work off that deposit bonus. I wasn't really in the right frame of mind to play, nor really fit health-wise to be playing but my current health concerns are medium- to long-term so won't pass any time soon and therefore I need to get used to them and stop blaming them for playing way below my best.

Maybe I'll be able to play a better game tomorrow. I'm not sure I could really play much worse than I did today.

[mathare]

24th January 2010
Yesterday evening I was casually mulling over my performance that afternoon and was really disappointed with how poorly I had played and my results as a consequence. I went to bed swearing to make up for it today by focusing properly and playing as I know I can. I was half there this afternoon.

I fitted in another 12 SnGs this afternoon (I could have done more but it was starting to drive me mad) and made another $24, recouping all yesterday's losses plus a little more for good measure. But it was an afternoon of what could have beens as in those 12 events I finished runner up a massive 6 times! A great ITM ratio, sure, but some of those seconds should have been wins. My heads up game is suffering a little at the minute though. Some of the passion, desire and more importantly the aggression has gone from it. I can making way too many weak calls, checking too often and not raising often enough pre-flop. I'm dropping to too many 3-bets too I'd say. I haven't analysed my stats in PokerTracker for heads-up play - I don't need to as I can tell from the last few games I have played that my heads-up game is not what it was a week or two back. I'm hoping that my documenting my failures it will sink into my brain that I need to get back on track and play better when it's down to the last two players. In some of those heads-up encounters I was sat behind a much smaller stack than my opponent but in others I was also outchipping him massively so I reckon I should have won at least 2 or 3 of those match ups. That's $18-$27 of missed profit. I'm pleased that I won back what I lost yetserday but disappointed with my final performances and the profit that has cost me. But tomorrow is another day.

[mathare]

24th January 2010 (part two)

I have been thinking more about targets I want to set myself. It's been a good while since I last had a proper job but when I did I was in management and targets and objectives are all part of that so perhaps it's only natural that I am now seeing poker in a similar light. However, I prefer to think of these targets as more like goals or acheivements in a video game. You know, get so far through a level, beat the baddie and get a power up or an extra life - that sort of thing. Some games have a medal hall that let you see the achievements you have unlocked - maybe this thread will contain my poker version of that. The goals I have set are a mixture of short-term and longer-term objectives so I have something to aim for at all levels and enough to keep me interested and motivated. I used to have a line manager that was fond of 'eating elephants' as in "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." That is to say you take a big task (eating the elephant) and break it down into a number of smaller, more manageable tasks (bites). That's what I have tried to do here to some degree except I don't really know what my ultimate aim is - do I want to become a professional full-time SnG grinder? - so I don't really know how big my elephant is. Or maybe I know how big this elephant is (build my PokerStars bankroll to $500) but I don't know how many more I have to eat. Enough of this silly analogy for now I think, down to business.

The list below includes the objectives I have devised so far. Some of them should occur naturally as a result of regular play but are there to keep me playing, to have a target in sight but just out of reach is a great motivator, and the feeling of ticking something off a list as being acheived is a fantastic reward. Others are in there to keep my mind on not just playing but playing well, a crucial distinction. For each objective I have outlined my current status so we can all see how far away I am from each target. So in no particular order...

Increase PokerStars balance to $200
My current balance is $196.40 so I am setting myself a very easy first target. Once this one is met I will up the target balance by $50 until I finally reach my overall target of $500 in my PokerStars account.

Unlock 1st stellar reward bonus
Stellar rewards are a regular bonus awarded by PokerStars as you pick up loyalty points. I think you can secure $1000 if you make it all the way to Supernova within the year. I don't expect to get anywhere near that sort of level but the first instalment comes when one reaches 750 points. I have 522 points at the minute and they are awarded at the rate of 5.5 points per dollar paid in house fees for tournament players which means I am pulling in around 30 points a day (give or take) so this bonus should be unlocked in a week or so.

Unlock 1st deposit bonus
As you probably know by now, I am working off a deposit bonus on PokerStars that is worth around $80 and requires me to have earned 2061 points in the bonus period, which ends on the 12th February. I have earned 1606 points since I was awarded the bonus which means I need another 455 points, equivalent to another 166 $5 SnGs, although I will obviously need to play fewer games if I start mixing in $10 SnGs as I have thought about doing at some stage. I have a couple of days grace but we're I am still looking to try and get at least 10 SnGs in each and every day until this bonus is available. Also I say this is my first deposit bonus because I have another one if the pipeline, one that PokerStars offered me as a lure to get me playing again back in October. That (along with the stellar rewards I will earn along the way) is equivalent to a 27% rakeback deal (coincidentally the same as at Full Tilt, the room I was thinking of switching to) but crucially only if I complete the bonus before it expires towards the end of April. I have yet to decide whether I want another two months grinding, which is what it would take to unlock that one too.

Log 50,000 tournament hands
I'm including all my tournament play here - it would be remiss of me to forget my past and just count my recent hands at PokerStars for example. With that in mind I have just over 44,000 hands played and by playing SnGs with the frequency I am at present I am logging around 1000 hands a day on average so this target will be met inside a week at which point I will up the target by 5,000 or to some other nice round number, e.g. 75,000 hands.

ITM to be at least 45% after 500 SnGs
For this objective and the couple that follow I am talking about $5 SnGs. I have 243 of them under my belt now and reckon that to get to that $500 balance I am probably going to need to play nearly 500 of them, which is fine by me. If I switch to Full Tilt I would probably start at the $5 SnG level just to find my feet too. My ITM figure is currently around 43% but this month I am running at over 44% so I think 45% is realistic and achievable.

ROI to be at least 15% after 500 SnGs (20% stretch target)
For this objective I have also set a stretch target, a greater figure that I would love to meet making this one a sort of dual target. I'd be happy enough with 15% but if I can stretch that to 20% then I would be delighted. Hopefully this will encourage me to keep striving for a better ROI not just settle at 15%. Is that figure a reasonable one? Including my past poor play my current overall ROI is a touch under 8% although I am showing a ROI of over 14% this month. I think by working on maintaining my focus at the tables (and how many times have I said that is an issue for me?) and getting a little bit of luck along the way I should be able to increase my ROI to 15% over 500 SnGs.

Heads-up win ratio over 50% after 500 SnGs
By heads-up win ratio I mean my ratio of 1st places to 2nd places - I want to win more heads-up encounters than I lose. There is an extra 20% of the prize pool for the winner when compared to the money for runner up so I need to be taking at least my fair share of that cash. My figures are currently 39 wins and 53 seconds giving me a ratio of 42% but for this month the figure is 47%. It would be up over 50% had it not been for the six second places this afternoon.

BB/hand at least 0.10 for all non-blind positions
My hands are least profitable in middle positions and this is something I am working on while I play at present as much of the damage was done last year and it is taking some undoing. My worst position is 4 off the button (true middle position) where my profit is only 0.4BB/hand. Other positions are already there are thereabouts for this target but I want to get them all up to at least 0.10BB/hand. I'm not putting a time limit or any other sort of constraint on this objective (much to the horror of many a manager) because it should occur naturally as a result of good play. At least I hope so. I don't see why 0.10BB/hand isn't realistic but it may be that I never reach this target, especially as I step up the stakes and the games get harder but I am hoping to keep my game ahead of the curve hence this target.

Overall profit on PokerStars according to s/sheet
I have deposited £200 in PokerStars according to my spreadsheet but once currency exchange rates have been accounted for (I calculate all my winnings in the currency of the game as well as in pounds sterling) I only have £120.35 of that left in my account. The £80 or so I have lost is equivalent to around $135 so this target will be acheived automatically if I can keep my balance rising but it is still another goal, albeit related to previous ones, that I feel impelled to meet.

More objectives may be added as time goes on but that's a decent set to start with.

[mathare]

25th January 2010
Put on your best Punch and Judy voices everyone because "that's the way to do it" :D

This afternoon was my most profitable session in a long time, up $55.50 from 12 SnGs which is equivalent to a ROI of 84.09%. This came from three wins and four second places. No bronze medals for me today, it was all silver or gold. And it should have been more gold than silver but I got caught by a lucky out for my opponent on the river in the last tourney. All the money was in and I had him dominated and drawing very thin but he hit and took it down so fair play to him I suppose. I'm not going to complain about making over $55 regardless of whether or not it should have been more than that.

Guess what else happened this afternoon...I hit a royal flush :happyboun. In fact I didn't just hit it, I flopped it! I had AJs (diamonds) and the flop came Qd-Kd-Td. I was already all-in against A9o but didn't have that big a stack, unfortunately, so hitting such a big hand didn't do me all that much good as I was still in a scrap to stay in the tourney. I didn't even go on to win either, I came second. Better that than getting a royal flush one hand and then busting out shortly after, eh?

This afternoon's profit means I can tick off a couple of objectives too, which is very satisfying.
Increase PokerStars balance to $200 - Done :thumbs
Increase PokerStars balance to $250 - Done :thumbs
And of course that's another 12 tournaments in the bag so another 33 points towards the various bonuses I am working towards. All in all an excellent afternoon :)

[mathare]

26th January 2010
If yesterday really was the way to do it then today could scarcely have been more different. An awful session consisting of 15 SnGs but just five cashes and four of those were third place. I wasn't getting the hands or the luck I needed at any stage of any of the tournaments; I wasn't picking my spots at all well; I was all-in against Aces way too many times. All in all, not good, not good at all. A loss of $33, most of what I won yesterday. I have yet to decide whether to have another go this evening or save the 'pleasure' for tomorrow. I wasn't playing that badly, not as badly as the results suggest I don't think.

[mathare]

27th January 2010
I did play poker again last night but only got 6 SnGs in during the available time. I did make a profit of $21 though reducing the overall loss on the day to just $12 so I'm glad I made the effort to get back to the tables.

The same cannot be said of this afternoon though. I may only have lost $5 from 14 SnGs but it was a massively frustrating afternoon. I don't think any of the coin-flips that mattered went my way and I am still seeing AK and AA far too often in the hands of my opponents once I have shoved all-in. It's seriously annoying. Is online poker always like this? Sigh. I can't wait to get these bonuses out the way and then I can move to Full Tilt. I don't feel as though I have ever got my fair share of luck at PokerStars for some reason. I am all too conscious of the poker player's lament about online poker being rigged (I'm not suggesting that at all) but I do feel as though I keep butting heads with premium hands too often and the number of times I have been rivered these past couple of weeks or so is unreal!

I think once these bonuses on PS are out the way I will take a short break from full table SnGs on there and will play some $2 heads-up tables on iPoker (Bet365). I did alright at these ages back but last time I played I got through 10 tourneys but only cashed in one! I think a change of pace would be useful and I have learned a lot about heads-up play recently. Hmm, on the other hand, if Full Tilt's fees aren't excessive at low stakes then maybe I could play there and work off my initial deposit bonus (when I create an account and deposit cash there, of course). I refuse to pay much in the way of house fees for low stakes heads-up play though. It's 5% at iPoker but 10% at PokerStars but when you go to the $5 level it's 5% on PokerStars too. Am I ready for $5 heads-up play? I'll have to give that some thought...

[crazybadger]

I've been playing some heads-up games recently and on FT too. The rake there is about 5% of your buy-in at most levels unless you play Turbo which reduces it down a little because they normally give you a little extra buy-in for the same rake.

E.g.
Normal Heads up = $5 + 0.25 (5%)
Turbo Heads up = $6 + 0.25 (4.17%)

Good luck

[mathare]

27th January 2010 (part two)
Thanks for the above CB, very useful :thumbs

I had a few minutes before my tea this evening so threw in a quick $2 heads-up game on Bet365 to remind myself what it's all about. The early skirmishes were very even but my opponent started to pull ahead and put me in serious trouble with pre-flop raises and c-bets I felt I couldn't call till I ended up short-stacked. But I battled back and won it in the end after cranking up the aggression a notch or two.

I have to say though, I don't like the new Bet365 software. I haven't played there for ages and since then they have tried to give the software a more modern feel but it just doesn't look right to me. I can't really put my finger on what I don't like but it feels a bit too colourful, almost as though it's Fisher Price or Baby's First Poker Game or something. It loses some of the professional edge and becomes more video game-like. I can't say I approve. Ah well, just another 120 or so SnGs on PokerStars to go and then I can review my options, i.e. move to Full Tilt. I worked out the other day that the 27% rakeback is worth something like 0.25% to my bottom line ROI so it's definitely worth having. I need to work out what to do with my loyalty points at PokerStars, and Bet365 for that matter, at some point though.

[mathare]

28th January 2010
I think of myself as an honest and open person and I try never to delude myself about how well, or otherwise, I am playing when I am at the poker tables. I confess that this afternoon I have not played to the best of my ability but nor have I played dreadfully. A few loose calls when I should have known better. I missed picking up on a few reads focusing more on my hand than really going through all the options for my opponent so get a proper view on where I stood in the hand. These mistakes will be more costly at the higher stakes so I should work hard to eliminate them from my game as much as possible now but even so they should really be major factors in my results for $5 SnGs. Luck, on the other hand....

Boy, could I do with a little luck going my way at the minute. Or not even going directly my way but not favouring my opponent so much instead, that'd do me for starters. I have lost count of the number of flush draws I have seen hit against me on the river today. I'm not giving my opponent the odds to hit his draw but who needs pot odds or implied odds when you have luck on your side? I have them beaten all ends up apart from the few flush outs and still they pluck them out the deck. It gets worse too. More than once I have had two-outers hit for the villain on the river this afternoon. That's seriously frustrating. I'm trying to protect my hands with bets and raises but what else can you do when they are calling you down? I've tried varying my bet sizes too, overbetting the pot from time to time and still they come at me with half a hand that makes a bigger hand than mine by the time all five community cards are out there. I'm basing reads on player stats, stack sizes, position and so on to give me an idea of hand ranges and I'm still taking so many beatings it's unreal. Grinding these SnGs on PokerStars is becoming depressing; I can't wait to get that bonus and move on. I get my money in good - I get outdrawn. I go card dead for levels at a time and am forced to shove my short-stack in with the best hand I have seen for ages - outdrawn, or facing a big pocket pair.

Maybe I am too quick to raise/call all-in with semi-strong Aces like AJ because they always seem to be up against a bigger Ace or a pocket pair. Just as I was typing that I got AQs beaten by J8s! And then AJo against TT with the pocket pair holding up. I seriously don't know what I have to do to win a hand these days. These hands almost always crop up when I am have an awkward stack - call the raise and I'm basically pot-committed anyway but when I shove over the top they call and either have me crushed or win the coin-flip.

I played a lot more SnGs this afternoon (15) than I would in a normal afternoon simply because I wasn't getting very far in them. I had 8 bust-outs (2 x 4th, 3 x 5th, 3 x 6th) before I got my first cash this afternoon. Since then I have recorded a couple of 3rds but plenty more busts too. It's been a long, painful afternoon but thankfully it will soon be over. I seem to be nailed on for 5th or 6th in this final SnG given the relative chip stacks :rolleyes:

[mathare]

I seem to be nailed on for 5th or 6th in this final SnG given the relative chip stacks :rolleyes:Nope, 3rd - after losing a 70/30 on the river :rolleyes:

[mathare]

28th January 2010 (part two)
I calmed down a bit over tea and got over the afternoon session to some degree. I decided the best thing to do was to pick myself up, brush myself off and get playing again. A rotten set of results, yes, but not one I was going to let beat me. It was a downswing, right, but that's why we have a bankroll isn't it? And all told it was only a 6 buy-in downswing - a couple of wins and it's all back again.

I can't fit that much poker in to an evening session as I can't usually sit down to play till 8pm and like to have it all wrapped up in time for bead around 10.30pm, and that includes entering all the results (tourney summaries) into PokerTracker. I managed 7 SnGs tonight with 5 cashs (2 x 2nd, 3 x 3rd) plus a 4th and a 7th. But the stinking luck is still with me, only tonight it was at least waiting till I was in the money most of the time before sinking me. Look at some of my bust outs this evening:

A6s v A3o - flop comes A-T-3 leaving me behind, turn and river are bricks. I was 60/40 ahead when it all went in pre-flop (halving splits)
ATs v A9s - K-Q-4 flops, one of his suit. Turn is T in his suit and he rivers the flush. It's around 70/30 to me pre-flop, 76/24 on the flop and 75/25 on the river. I was always well ahead on this one but he pulled it out on the river, again.
87s v A5s - flop comes 7-A-8 and it's here that the money goes in (my doing). I'm 68/32 to the good when the turn comes down a 9 to give him more outs but I am still better than a coin-flip (just about). He hits a 5 on the river to make a bigger two pair and I bust out.
AKo v J7o - this is a heads-up hand so at least I'd made the cash here but pre-flop I am ahead 67/33. Effective stacks are only around 6xBB - 3xBB goes in pre-flop, the rest when the flop comes down 3-T-9 and I shove my overcards with a small stack and fingers crossed. When he flips J7o I know exactly what's going to happen even though I am still a significant favourite. Turn is a 6 taking me up to 77% chance of winning and the river is his gutshot 8!
KK v A9o - I'm 71/29 ahead pre-flop although the money only really goes in on the flop which was 4-Q-5 rainbow and enough to put me 85/15 in front. Turn is a 7 putting me 93/7 ahead so he's drawing to 3 outs (the Aces). And the river is indeed one of those three Aces. :ermmm

That KK v A9o bust out was especially frustrating. He was drawing to 3 outs :ooo The eliminations I haven't posted up were fair enough but in all of those above I am ahead when the money goes in, often well ahead, but I can't get hands to stand up when it matters.

Oh well. A profit of $15.50 reduces the daily loss to a total of $17.50 so the picture looks a little healthier now than it did at tea-time at least. And tomorrow is another day (of being rivered, no doubt :rolleyes:)

[mathare]

28th January 2010 (part three)
I forgot about the notes I made during play :splapme

Log 50,000 tournament hands - Done :thumbs

I'm up to 50,617 hands now so let's set a new target:
Log 60,000 tournament hands

Am I c-betting too often short-handed (when the blinds are high and effective stacks quite short)? I c-be close to 100% in these situations but I need to have a look in PT3 to see whether this tactic is working for me or not because I seem to be suffering from it lately with opponents either floating me or 3-betting me and when I don't have much (or any) of the flop I am in a pickle to say the least. I often end up folding and being left with an awkwardly short stack. I might be better checking the flop and seeing what the turn brings. I'll try and have a look at this in PT3 tomorrow if I remember...

[mathare]

Am I c-betting too often short-handed (when the blinds are high and effective stacks quite short)? I'll try and have a look at this in PT3 tomorrow if I remember...Nope, I'm doing fine here. It's just variance and short-term luck that has me thinking I am doing poorly here. PokerTracker shows this to be a profitable move so I should carry on as I have been, really.

[mathare]

29th January 2010
One of those afternoons again - yes, another one - where it doesn't seem to matter if I get my money in good, I will still be outdrawn and when I am forced to take risks and make moves I will come up against relative monsters. The frustration at all these bad beats has probably put me on tilt. I usually pride myself on my tilt control but I have to admit that I am not playing my best and am thinking I will probably lose hands I should be winning. I'm not steaming my cash (or chips) away though. Perhaps I am even spurning too many opportunities, opportunities I should be taking but I am concerned about yet another bad beat so fold and wait for a bigger and better hand to come along which results in me being short-stacked, forced into moves and then up against bigger hands. It seems that whenever I get into prime steal positions, with stacks that I need to make a move with, that my opponents wake up with much stronger hands than one would expect them to have in those circumstances. After dozens of trash hands I'll get A9s with 8xBB left in my stack and shove when it's folded to me on the button but one of the blinds will have AQ or AK and it will hold up, inevitably. My opponents even took to flashing me their massive hands when I paused for a few seconds to consider the steal but chickened out; the BB would flash me a much bigger hand than the one I was thinking of stealing with. Sheesh!

Still...
Unlock 1st stellar reward bonus - Done :thumbs
I am not setting the second stellar reward bonus as an objective as I'm not sure I will be around long enough to claim it. I plan to unlock that stage 1 deposit bonus and then re-evaluate where I stand at PokerStars.

I got through 14 SnGs this afternoon to complete that bonus but it's only $10, and I actually need to manually claim it rather than it being automatically added to my account and I haven't got round to it yet. It's there, waiting for me though. That was perhaps the only bright spot in a rough afternoon that saw me log another losing session but this time only to the tune of $0.50 with 1 x 1st, 2 x 2nd and 3 x 3rd. I don't intend to go through all my eliminations but the ones I have noted down are:
1. "played very patiently 3-handed but ran QQ into KK" - my first good hand for ages although I had done some stealing to keep my stack alive and when I get QQ and manage to get it all in I am delighted, till he flips over KK. Why when I get a good hand do they have to have a better one?
2. "ahead when it went all-in pre-flop but he hit on the turn and the river blanked" - I think (I can't be bothered to look) this was a dominated Ace contest. No, I have just checked and it was my ATo against Q8o with him hitting a Q on the turn. Pfft! I was 65/35 pre-flop and 80/20 on the flop too.
3. "mechanical error - meant to fold rather than call all-in but was ahead when money went in, rivered by 6-outer!" - oh yes, I remember this one as I busted in 9th after 2 minutes play! Third hand of the tournament and I have AKo. I raise pre-flop to 3xBB (60) and get two callers. Flop comes A-K-5 rainbow. It's checked to me, I bet 120 - a fold and a call follow. The turn is a Ten and the villain shoves for 1320 into a pot of 430 so it's a massive overbet. I click my time bank to give me a few more seconds to think this through. Top two is a good hand but he could have called a pre-flop raise with TT, a weaker Ace (but probably still a broadway Ace), pocket Queens or Jacks but AA and KK are unlikely (he'd have raised before now) and AK is of course possible but that's a huge overbet and I can't call it can I? I mean to click the fold button but I accidentally click the call button. Argh! Villain flips QTo and I am way ahead. The four Jacks give him the gutshot straight and of course he has the two remaining Tens (no flushes are possible) and guess what the river is...a Ten. Mechanical error for clicking the wrong button, a bit of luck being so far ahead when I did accidentally call and then that kick in the balls on the river, Gee, thanks.
4. "needed to make a move w/ short-stack in position but ran into bigger Ace" - I had A9o and ran into AQ in the blinds, just as I said earlier really.
5. "AQo v ATo - lost" - I have him dominated but still lose the hand. Typical of my luck in the past week or so.

One thing I have noticed, and one that worries me, is that I seem to hit short-handed play with a pretty small stack most of the time. Tight is right early on, I get that and play it pretty well but should I be taking a slight risk with the medium pocket pairs (77,88) and KQ when there have been 2 or 3 limpers before me? I seem to fold my way to 25/50 or beyond and thus have 10 or 12xBB when we hit 50/100 which means I will need to start thinking about making some moves soon. The other common scenario is big Ace early on, pre-flop raise and flop bet (sometimes a turn bet too) before it becomes obvious I am beaten when I still haven't hit the board and I have lost a few hundred chips. I need to look at ways of building my stack even slightly in the early stages so I am not in jeopardy as soon as we reach level 4 of the tournament.

[mathare]

31st January 2010
Yesterday was pretty much a day off for me, partly to let the remaining tilt wash away but also because fitting in much poker wasn't really practical given my other commitments. I played one heads-up SnG (I am fitting these in now and then just for practice at this stage really) which I won comfortably but that was it.

Today, however, was a different story. I am getting increasingly keen to play enough to get that deposit bonus in my account which meant, before today's play, fitting in another 83 SnGs before the end of the 12th Feb. Easy enough but I still need to take the time to play a good number each day. I'd like that bonus as soon as possible; I don't want a last minute panic to get the requisite number of tourneys played. I managed 9 this afternoon and another 6 this evening for a total of 15, obviously. When have 9 and 6 ever summed to anything else? As well as playing a good number of events I wanted to make sure I was playing well so while I could have played more this afternoon (and one or two more this evening) I wanted to watch Arsenal v Man Utd so I didn't try to cram in too many tourneys so I could remain focused on them and then use the football as a reward for playing well. And I think it must have worked as I profited to the tune of $36 this afternoon and another $30 this evening making it my most profitable day yet. It didn't all go my way but I kept my head (mostly - I got carried away in one event and busted out quickly when I massively overvalued JJ) and played well, taking my opportunities when they came and getting a bit of luck along the way, which makes a change. In those 15 tourneys there were 4 wins, 3 second places and 2 thirds for another good ITM ratio and an excellent ROI as well.

No more objectives met today but I'm getting closer to some of them for sure. And more importantly I am making a few quid along the way. My profit for this month now stands at $228.60 which I am pretty happy with. I think I'd have taken that at the start of the month if offered it. I just hope I can keep this standard of play up now and build on what is a decent enough start to 2010.

[mathare]

1st February 2010
Another good afternoon with a profit of $28.50 from 12 SnGs with tow wins, three second places and a third. I played well, got a bit of luck along the way (about time too!) and tried to make the most of all the opportunities I had. I nursed short stacks back to life and didn't panic at any point. I'm really pleased with my overall standard of play today. It looks like that day off on Saturday has done me the world of good.

Another piece of good news too:
Increase PokerStars balance to $300 - Done :thumbs
That means a new objective, of course:
Increase PokerStars balance to $350.

It's really pleasing to have seen my balance at PokerStars rise from $57.90 to over $300 while learning a lot more about SnGs and the nuances of play. I'm getting closer to that bonus too. I still haven't spent the 1 loyalty point I need to part with to get the $10 stellar reward bonus yet but I am now only 56 SnGs away from the deposit bonus. In theory, I can lose every one of those 56 SnGs without busting my PokerStars account so whatever happens this adventure has been profitable as the bonus is worth more than I had in my account when I started. I don't want to go on a run of 56 tourneys without a cash though, don't get me wrong, just saying that I am now in a position where I am guaranteed a profit.

[mathare]

2nd February 2010
Not so good today, I couldn't get going in (m)any of the 10 SnGs I played and could only manage two seconds and two thirds for a loss of $10 on the session. The cards weren't coming when I needed them and the luck has swung the other way from yesterday and I am back to being rivered. There were a few occasions when I had built up a medium stack and felt I had a hand good enough to tackle the short stacks' shoves but I was often outdrawn. The real indicator that it wasn't going to be my day came in one tourney where it was down to the last three. I had AK against 22 and the winner of this hand was set to take a massive chip lead as myself and the villain were close in chips and a little way ahead of the other fella. It was a coin flip pre-flop and he was ahead on the flop of 4-4-J but when a second Jack came on the turn the momentum switched and he was drawing to just two outs (the 2s). I don't need to tell you what the river was but I was down to just a few chips, less than 1xBB, and eliminated in third a couple of hands later. Rivered by a two-outer, pfft!

I'm not going to get upset about a $10 loss today though. My results for this month (today and yesterday) still show a profit and at a ROI of just over 15% - a figure I am happy with long-term. Anyway, I said yesterday that I could theoretically lose all the remaining SnGs and still come out ahead but now I have cashed in four today I have effectively locked in more profit.

[mathare]

3rd February 2010
A middling sort of a day today. A profit of $2.50 from 11 SnGs isn't great but I think I played OK and just didn't quite get some of the breaks I needed to go on and have a more successful day.

Not much else to say about that really. Everything was fairly average in so many ways.

[mathare]

5th February 2010
I managed only a fairly short session yestersay with just 8 SnGs played as I was feeling rather under the weather. I have been put on some new tablets that leave me feeling really drowsy and generally rough so perhaps I shouldn't have played at all yesterday but I managed to scrape a $1 profit and edge ever closer to that bonus. I need to play something like another 27 SnGs to claim that and have just over a week in which to do it so all the pressure is off now. I can't wait to get this out the way so that I can then move on, although I haven't yet decided what to move on to.

[mathare]

5th February 2010 (part two)
This afternoon I spent most of it being bubble boy with four 4th place finishes in 12 SnGs including three of the first four events I played. It was all rather frustrating. I got it together later on though with two wins, two seconds and a third place for a profit of $15 overall. Much better than the last couple of days and could have been even better still had some of those bubbles turned into cash finishes, even if they were only thirds.

It's dawning on me too, now that I have nearly 400 $5 SnGs under my belt that some of the objectives I set aren't going to be met. I've got 56 wins compared to 80 second places and I can't see me reversing that trend in the next 100 or so. I'm not too bothered about that though. If heads-up is a weakness in my game then I can study where I am going wrong and work on that. Similarly I don't think I will meet the 15% ROI figure I wanted to achieve but 10% is certainly possible and I should be able to do better than that. Even though I may not makes these targets I set myself I am happy with my play in as much as I am showing a decent profit for the effort I have put in, I have learned a lot about SnG play and have built a solid foundation to take my game forward.

[barrelmaniac]

looks like things are moving in the right direction Mathare, I don't play a lot of poker but I always like checking this out to see how you are doing, you say that your target ROI is 15% which even the 10% you have achieved I think you should be proud of (I don't make or lose anything on average, but I think my lack of patience and tendancy to go on tilt is the main reason for this).
I was talking to a poker playing friend the other week about what % ROI the pros/semi pros make, I told him that I doubt that realisticly over 35% could be achieved but he thought it would be alot higher, whats your view on this? edit* (for online poker)

[mathare]

looks like things are moving in the right direction Mathare, I don't play a lot of poker but I always like checking this out to see how you are doing, you say that your target ROI is 15% which even the 10% you have achieved I think you should be proud of (I don't make or lose anything on average, but I think my lack of patience and tendancy to go on tilt is the main reason for this).I am indeed proud of that 10% figure because it includes a number of SnGs played last year when I wasn't as skilled and lacked the focus and motivation I have this year. My ROI for this year is around 14%.


I was talking to a poker playing friend the other week about what % ROI the pros/semi pros make, I told him that I doubt that realisticly over 35% could be achieved but he thought it would be alot higher, whats your view on this? edit* (for online poker)For SnGs a ROI of around 10% is about average but it should be higher at lower stakes and vice versa. Once you get up to around $100 a ROI of around 8% or so is considered decent enough and you should be able to get slightly higher with appropriate effort to learn the game better and exercise game selection. Above that sort of level you're looking at around 5%. For cash games ROI isn't a good measurement and you need to work in BB/100 (big bets per 100 hands) in which case 1-2BB/100 is considered about right. It varies based on the game type (full ring, six-max, heads-up, limit, no-limit etc) but they are ballpark figures. I don't have any MTT guidelines to hand because I'm not an MTT player; I can't stand the long losing streaks and all the effort you have to put in to most MTTs for no reward.

[mathare]

6th February 2010
It shouldn't be like this. This isn't at all how I wanted to go out but since when has the game had any respect for how I think things should be?

So I finally got through all the SnGs I needed to play to claim that deposit bonus but it wasn't cheap. In fact I had an awful afternoon with just 1 cash in 15! I had a whole bunch of 5th places finishes a few bubbles and assorted lower placings but my only cash was a second place - and that could (should) have been a win but the villain got lucky a couple of times heads-up and when the blinds got high he got lucky in what had become a crapshoot. This is far and away the worst run I have experienced this year and may perhaps be my worst ever. If not, it's certainly up there. Why did it have to come now though? OK, in some ways it's better it came now than at the start of this challenge but it is a serious setback nonethless.

At least I can take a break from poker now and regroup, give my mind a rest and relax a little as I was definitely starting to tilt during the last few tourneys. Actually, let's be honest, I was tilting, not just starting to tilt, and it affected more than just the last few events as my only cash came in the first event I played and it was rapidly downhill from then onwards. My tilt isn't spewy tilt though, it's more a frustrated, negative midset PokerStars did all they could to feed that beast today. I don't think I had any breaks go my way; I had virtually no good luck at all. I'd be card dead for the first few levels and when it came to the shovebot stages I'd run my first half-decent hand into something bigger else get outdrawn, often ridiculously so as I had quads against me a few times plus a straight flush. I lost count of the number of times I was outdrawn by straights often from much weaker starting hands I was well ahead of too. I have never known luck like it.

One second place in 15 tourneys - sheesh! That's a loss of $69 in one afternoon. The bonus isn't worth that much more than that. :(

I'm trying to find the silver lining here but all I come across is more cloud. I met a couple of my objectives I suppose:
Unlock 1st deposit bonus - done :thumbs
Overall profit on PokerStars according to s/sheet - done :thumbs
That last one is pretty close but the bonuses (I have now claimed the first stellar rewards bonus) just tip me into the black. I was pretty confident that by the time I snagged those bonuses I could also say my PokerStars balance was over $350, if not $400, but that's not the case after this afternoon's awful session. I don't even feel like I played that badly; I just got massively unlucky when it mattered.

I am now free to pursue other interests though, which is handy as I need to do quite a bit of non-poker work. I will keep my hand in though but I need to decide the best form of the game for me to play now. I have a few ideas on that, and I have spoken several times of a switch to Full Tilt on a rakeback deal but I need to have a think about what I want from poker long-term and how best to achieve that. What I need now though is a long lie down to recover from this afternoon's utter massacre! :(

[mathare]

7th February 2010
I haven't played the 500 SnGs I specified as a condition on several of my objectives (I'm on 409 at the $5 level) but now I have those bonuses I don't see the need to keep playing them on PokerStars, especially after yesterday's results. Instead I have changed focus to a form of the game that I hope will improve my overall skills and ultimately help me win more money whatever form of the game I settle on as my specialist subject - I'm playing heads-up SnGs. I have played them before and squeezed the odd one in here and there over the last couple of weeks but now they are my main poker focus. I'm looking to improve my controlled aggression, playing weak hands, getting into an opponent's head, identifying and exploiting weaknesses in my opponents, hand-reading skills and so on.

Before today I had played 64 heads-up SnGs, all $2+0.10 and all on Bet365 (iPoker). The common bankroll guidelines I have found on the internet seem to follow those for traditional full ring SnGs i.e. don't buy in for more than 5% of your bankroll so a 'roll of at least 20 buy-ins. I have around $130 in my Bet365 poker account which is more than enough to be playing $2 heads-up SnGs and would support play at the $5 level but for now I am more interested in learning about heads-up play, building up my experience on the cheap and making a few quid along the way. I may have a bankroll for the next level up but not the mindset just yet so I'll stick to $2 stakes for a while.

Stage 1 of my plan is to get to 100 SnGs on iPoker and to evaluate where I stand after that. After 64 SnGs I was showing a loss of $14.40 (-10.71% ROI) and it is my intention to turn this into a profit by the time I have played 100. It means I will need a good showing my from next 36 games as I need a ROI of around 20% on those games to turn an overall profit. I think that means I need to win at least 21 of those 36 games if my maths is correct. It has started well as I played 4 this afternoon and won 3 of those so that's $3.60 profit, now I just need to keep that up for another 30+ tourneys.

Objectives
Show a profit after 100 $2 heads-up SnGs

Once I have shown I can profit from heads-up poker I will likely take a step up and start to play $5 heads-up SnGs, probably at Full Tilt as that ought to be the quickest way of earning my deposit bonus there, not that I have set anything up with Full Tilt yet, let's get this heads-up stuff out the way first eh?

[mathare]

8th February 2010
An afternoon of two halves today. I played 18 heads-up matches. In the first nine I won seven and lost two; in the back nine my results were reversed, losing seven and winning just two. An overall loss of $1.80. I'm trying not to be disheartened as I know luck can turn a heads-up match on its head in an instant. I think I played pretty well but in the latter part of the day just didn't get some of the breaks I was maybe getting earlier. This means I can't now meet that objective I set yesterday unless I go on a really good run. I have played 91 heads-up SnGs in total and need to win eight of the next nine in order to show a profit. I am enjoying playing heads-up though but perhaps I would be better with more short sessions as breaks from other tasks rather than playing for most of the afternoon as I did today. That's something to bear in mind for the future.

[mathare]

9th February 2010
So there we have it, that's the 100 up and things haven't gone as well as I would have liked. I won only 3 of the final 9 tourneys I was missing from the ton which is nowhere near good enough end leaves me with figures of 48 wins and 52 seconds for a total loss of $18. Ah well.

Show a profit after 100 $2 heads-up SnGs - Failed :(

On the bright side I'm not that far away from breakeven here. Today I ran into some bad luck and overplayed a few hands that ended up costing me. Some of my old impatience was back I think. However, with a bit of reading up on heads-up tourney play plus some experimentation with PokerStove to see where hands like Q9o, K7o etc stand against a random hand and I reckon I should be able to turn things around and hopefully tip the balance back in my favour.

I have yet to decide whether to play more heads-up poker on Bet365 (my balance there is £81.06 so maybe I should try to spin that up to £100 through £2 heads-up SnGs) or move to Full Tilt right away and assess the games there. If I go to Full Tilt though will I play full-ring SnGs or heads-up? That's a question I am going to have to answer at some point anyway so best get it out there now and give it some thought. But for now I think a (short) break from poker is the order of the day.

[mathare]

9th February 2010
So there we have it, that's the 100 up and things haven't gone as well as I would have liked. I won only 3 of the final 9 tourneys I was missing from the ton which is nowhere near good enough end leaves me with figures of 48 wins and 52 seconds for a total loss of $18. Ah well.

Show a profit after 100 $2 heads-up SnGs - Failed :(

On the bright side I'm not that far away from breakeven here. Today I ran into some bad luck and overplayed a few hands that ended up costing me. Some of my old impatience was back I think. However, with a bit of reading up on heads-up tourney play plus some experimentation with PokerStove to see where hands like Q9o, K7o etc stand against a random hand and I reckon I should be able to turn things around and hopefully tip the balance back in my favour.

I have yet to decide whether to play more heads-up poker on Bet365 (my balance there is £81.06 so maybe I should try to spin that up to £100 through £2 heads-up SnGs) or move to Full Tilt right away and assess the games there. If I go to Full Tilt though will I play full-ring SnGs or heads-up? That's a question I am going to have to answer at some point anyway so best get it out there now and give it some thought. But for now I think a (short) break from poker is the order of the day.

[mathare]

11th February 2010
I have a dilemma: $40 or a new trackie top?

PokerStars are doing a special promotion to celebrate their 40 billionth hand whereby one can exchange 2500 FPPs for a one-off cash bonus of $40. This seems like a pretty good deal, based on the cost of other bonuses and items in the VIP store. But the trackie top (http://www.pokerstars.com/vip/store/index.html?cat=clothing&prod=cl-11)I like so much is back in stock too, and is also 2500 FPPs. I only have 2800 so I need to make a choice. How much do I like that jacket? Is it worth £25 (which is roughly what the bonus translates into)? Hmmm....

[barrelmaniac]

11th February 2010
I have a dilemma: $40 or a new trackie top?

PokerStars are doing a special promotion to celebrate their 40 billionth hand whereby one can exchange 2500 FPPs for a one-off cash bonus of $40. This seems like a pretty good deal, based on the cost of other bonuses and items in the VIP store. But the trackie top (http://www.pokerstars.com/vip/store/index.html?cat=clothing&prod=cl-11)I like so much is back in stock too, and is also 2500 FPPs. I only have 2800 so I need to make a choice. How much do I like that jacket? Is it worth £25 (which is roughly what the bonus translates into)? Hmmm....


Cash bonus, every time. Business is business, there will always be another tracky top.

[mathare]

Cash bonus, every time. Business is business, there will always be another tracky top.That's a very convincing argument :thumbs

[John]

It's a nice tracksuit top, sure. You'd have to don it with a pair of black aviator shades though, for the full poker look.

I've spent an awful lot of time browsing the PokerStars store, and it's quite impressive. I've manage to accumulate 17,000+ points ever since I joined, simply because I've never used them. I can't remember when that was, but it was at least a year ago. I'm tempted to convert them into Amazon Gift Certificates. For you Mat it depends what VIP status you are at. I'm on SilverStar, so if you're on the same level you could do the same and get yourself some more books or some clothes. Not to say you have bad dress sense or owt. :D

[mathare]

Depends what VIP status you are at though, I think. I'm on SilverStar, so if you're on the same level you could do the same. Not sure about the other options though.I'm SilverStar at the minute, till the end of the month I think when I will drop back to BronzeStar. But as I keep saying, I will be taking my play elsewhere as I am getting frustrated with 'Stars. The Full Tilt store has some nice stuff in it too, as it happens. I don't have enough points to get too much from PokerStars though, nowhere near as many as you. I'd need twice as many points as I have to get an Amazon gift certificate so it's the cash or top for me at the minute, and I think the cash is winning out at present. I have a few points in Bet365 that I could swap for cash too actually. Maybe I should cash those in and get the top from PokerStars. I confess I am a bit of a sucker for cool branded merchandise. I'm an advertiser's dream in that respect. I don't do many brand names, certainly not fashion ones, but that PokerStars top and some of the FTP t-shirts are cool.

[mathare]

13th February 2010
I'd forgotten what a massive hassle it can be signing up to a new poker room. I have got so used to UK-based operations, especially those linked to sportsbooks with whom I already have an account, that I had forgotten about the various hoops some places need you to jump through. I signed up to Fill Tilt, with a 27% rakeback deal, this morning. First off my initial Visa deposit failed (still not sure why) and now my account is suspended until I can provide Full Tilt's security department with proof of age and proof of ID. So I have to scan my passport and a bank statement or something and send them on. That means getting the scanner down out the loft (I have no need for one these days) and trying to find a suitable proof of address less than 3 months old. I opt for paperless billing and statements where possible so this could be a bit tricky. I don't like the idea of having to send a copy of the full bill/statement either but that's what FTP require. PokerStars is suddenly starting to look more attractive again...

[eruptive plot]

13th February 2010
I'd forgotten what a massive hassle it can be signing up to a new poker room. I First off my initial Visa deposit failed (still not sure why) and now my account is suspended until I can provide Full Tilt's security department with proof of age and proof of ID. So I have to scan my passport and a bank statement or something and send them on.

that's srange why your deposit failed matt,i signed up in december with my visa depositing $300,it went through straight away with no hassle.
but i do reccomend you get your scanner down to scan your passport,because this is an excellent site to play poker.i still play a little bit on 888 but only about 1% of the time that i spend on ft.
one game i recommend is the $5 game on a sunday night at 6.45,first prize is a whopping $22000.ok you got to beat around 35000 players but i got into the top 100 last week after 2 hours,but couldnt maintain my position,going out in 1500 or thereabouts.i had $20 for my efforts,you get quite a buzz when you get so close to a big prize.
another good thing about this site is there are at least 50000 playing on this site at any time of the day,so the tables are always quick to load up.
and in the 2 months that i have been here i have accrued 4000 full tilt points.
at this rate i could have something really good in 2-3 years

[mathare]

that's srange why your deposit failed matt,i signed up in december with my visa depositing $300,it went through straight away with no hassle.I think I know why it is; I entered my name as Mat on Full Tilt but it's Matthew with my Visa card provider. I realised that shortly after the deposit failed and by the time I went back to try again my account had been locked. I did get the scanner out though and my account is now unlocked again; Full Tilt seem happy with my ID.


one game i recommend is the $5 game on a sunday night at 6.45,first prize is a whopping $22000.ok you got to beat around 35000 players but i got into the top 100 last week after 2 hours,but couldnt maintain my position,going out in 1500 or thereabouts.i had $20 for my efforts,you get quite a buzz when you get so close to a big prize.A few years ago now I played in a $1 rebuy MTT on Ladbrokes where the winner won a spot on their poker cruise. There were 776 players, plenty of rebuys (none from me though) and I made the final table before busting out in 8th for $80. Took me nearly 5 hours to get that far though. But I know what you mean about the buzz of getting close to a big prize.


another good thing about this site is there are at least 50000 playing on this site at any time of the day,so the tables are always quick to load up.
and in the 2 months that i have been here i have accrued 4000 full tilt points.
at this rate i could have something really good in 2-3 yearsI am certainly prepared to give FTP a go. I plan to deposit $250 and play a few $5 SnGs just to get used to the site then think about playing $10 SnGs. I am thinking of playing full ring as my heads-up skills aren't quite there yet and I know what I am doing more when it comes to 9-man SnGs.

[eruptive plot]

I am certainly prepared to give FTP a go. I plan to deposit $250 and play a few $5 SnGs just to get used to the site then think about playing $10 SnGs. I am thinking of playing full ring as my heads-up skills aren't quite there yet and I know what I am doing more when it comes to 9-man SnGs.

i started playing the 9 man sit n gos, but what i would recommend is the 45 and 90 man multi table sit n go.the prizes for winning these are $170 and $288, just remember to play ultra tight or position.they are good fun to play in.
the only game that they dont play on this site is the game that i made so much money on(triple up),but there is a game here for everyone.if ever you come across me on this site let me know i am under the username op3:thumbs

[mathare]

17th February 2010
That was an experience!

I started on Full Tilt this afternoon with a couple of $5 SnGs to get me into the groove. Fine. I didn't cash in either but I did bubble them both and it took a few minutes to get all my settings (for Full Tilt and PokerTracker) right. The structure wasn't quite what I was expecting either with blinds at what I consider funny numbers such as 60/120, 80/160 and so on. I guess I'm just so used to the PokerStars stucture now and this will take some getting used to. It takes a bit more thinking about to work out my stack size in terms of BB with this structure. The 6-minute levels seem really short too.

Anyway, it wasn't a good afternoon as I only cashed in three of the 11 tourneys I played (a second and two third places) so I lost $29. I got a free $5 from Full Tilt for making my first deposit though, and am making progress on the initial deposit bonus, which is released in installments so I can get it bit by bit and not have the frantic rush to play enough in a fixed period to make sure I get the bonus as I had on PokerStars. Maybe it was the speed of the games that got to me. I had four tables open as is the norm for me and it was a bit frantic at times. I am used to having that many PokerStars tables open and to be able to keep an eye on my bets on Betfair and keep my bets spreadsheet up to date. I'm not sure I have time for that with Full Tilt based on this afternoon's endeavours but maybe that's a good thing as it will hopefully keep me focused on the game itself if I don't have time to do anything else as well.

One thing I wasn't prepared for was the level of play I was up against. Oh dear, some of it is awful! I first really noticed it when I had KK on a board of Qc-7c-8s-Th. I had made solid pre-flop and flop raises and got two callers each time. That Ten slowed me down as it completed straights and I feared trips too. In all honesty though I had no idea what the other guys had. I had ruled out AA but that was about it. I checked the turn, one villain bet quite big and the other called. I got out of there, which it transpires was a mistake. Villain 1 had 22 and Villain 2 had AcTc. OK, the second fella was drawing to a nut club flush and had paired on the river but seriously, he never had the odds to call at any stage. As for the guy piddling about in there with a pair of 2s - what? He deserved to get knocked out, which he did by the ATs on that hand. I should have kept going though as the river bricked and I'd have won a very nice pot.

This made me think that I could maybe get away with some marginal hands but I resisted temptation for the most part. When I did get it all in I was often up against some tripe that somehow beat me or I was up against an unexpectedly strong hand. My AJ against his AQ. My 99 against his AKs that spikes a pair on the flop. That sort of thing. I hit trips he rivers a flush. You know how it goes.

So the standard of play is pretty poor on the whole and I should be able to exploit that. I can't really explain what happened this afternoon and why, or how, I lost $29 but lose it I did. Tomorrow is another day though.

[crazybadger]

I know exactly what you are talking about. I've been piddling about on FullTilt for a little bit trialling a few different things and one of the first things I noticed was the cards people play. At first I thought I was running into good hands (when they consistently called my bets) or they were bluffing too often (raising with nothing, reraising my continuation bets) but I have since realised it's just that the skill in those lower levels is a lot less than I expected. I think most of them just play their pocket cards all the way to the end without much notice of the board unless it helps them.

Rubbish cards will fold, poor to average cards will play and if they get any piece of the board probably keep playing, and "good" cards will play all the way to the river in most cases because they can't lay them down. I think the biggest problem is what they determine good pocket cards - i reckon its pretty much any pair, any broadway, any suited connector, any ace, any suited king/queen/jack...which is a lot of hands! The only problem is that scattered in amongst all this crap is the rare person who is playing well. I've found myself playing better against the poorer opponents but then running into the guy who outplays me and takes all thoses chips I milked from the others :(

[mathare]

I've found myself playing better against the poorer opponents but then running into the guy who outplays me and takes all thoses chips I milked from the others :(Exactly what I found too. Glad it's not just me who thinks the play down at these stakes is incredibly fishy. It's got me really looking forward to cashing in from them, but I know I'm also going to get what will seem like endless bad beats too.

Edit:
I found there was a lot of min-betting and min-raising too, as though some people were playing it like limit poker, just hitting the bet/raise button without thinking about how much they were raising. Short-stack play on Full Tilt seems lousy at these stakes too. Players will take themselves down to the felt through the blinds, desperately hanging on even when there are 6 or more players left and they have no chance of making the money. It's quite funny really.

All of this makes me wonder how I managed to lose $29 this afternoon though... :rolleyes:

[mathare]

18th February 2010
That's better! I only played 6 SnGs this afternoon but came away with three wins, a third place and two fifth place finishes. That's much more like it, and a nice profit of $43.50 too which more than wipes out yesterday's bewildering session.

I would normally play a lot more in an afternoon but I was keeping one eye on Betfair a lot of the time so decided to keep it down to two or three tables at a time to make life easier. Maybe that helped significantly, who knows. Muppets calling big raises with hands like Q6o and Q9o helps I can tell you that much. :laugh

Not an example of muppetry at the tables this one but a hand worth mentioning all the same. Only a few hands into the tourney (blinds at 15/30) and I am in late position with AA. Mid-position raises to 90, I re-raise to 200. The next to act shoves all in (1365), the first raiser shoves over the top for a few more chips (1545) and I call. Both villains have QQ - something I had not seen before - so neither could really improve their hand easily. Oh yes! 7-2-K-T-T and the pot (4470) is mine. I've tripled up and all but knocked two players out :happyboun. I went on to win that one, although around the bubble I did let a good chip position slide before pulling it back round.

I could get used to playing on Full Tilt if it's going to be like that :)

[mathare]

19th February 2010
I think I might have got the hang of this now. Another good afternoon with a profit of $23 from 13 SnGs. It didn't start well with a quick bust-out in 9th when my rivered nut flush was beaten by a rivered full house but thankfully things improved towards the end when I managed to get three wins to go with the couple of second places I had recorded earlier. The last win was particularly satisfying as with seven players left I was stone last and short-stacked so to hang in there, rebuild my stack and take it down was very pleasing. I'm rather enjoying Full Tilt but I don't expect my 22% ROI to continue for too much longer. Hopefully it will stay at a decent rate so I can build a bit of a bigger bankroll and take on the slightly richer fish.

Talking of building a bankroll, I worked out something about the bonus scheme I am on with Full Tilt for my initial deposit: it's fantastic! 6c per point and 7 points per dollar means I am on the equivalent of 42% rakeback! :D

So yeah, things are going well on the poker front once more :thumbs

I have done so more thinking about PokerStars though and the cash v sports jacket (as 'Stars like to call it) debate. It's not that much money, the bonus I mean. $40 is about £25 and I can lose several times that on a horse so it can be seen as a drop in the ocean really. What would I have to show for that £25 if I took the money? The sports jacket, on the other hand, I wear those things all the time. In the winter they are my jumper; in the summer they're my coat. So the jacket wins out I'm afraid and I will be ordering it soon, before it goes out of stock again for months like it did before. It is an item I had my eye on last year and I feel I deserve a reward and that's what I have chosen.

[mathare]

So the jacket wins out I'm afraid and I will be ordering it soon, before it goes out of stock again for months like it did before.Too late :(

I'm gonna wait for it to come back in stock though as I do really like it.

[mathare]

20th February 2010
For some reason PokerTracker stopped updating the HUD for all players except me the other day so I have been flying blind the last few days. Thankfully the support guys have set me right again although it did involve me starting a brand new database and reimporting tens of thousands of hands and nearly a thousand tourney summaries, some of which had to be entered manually. But I have double-checked my new database against my spreadsheet and the two tally to the penny so I am utterly delighted now. My PT3 database is spot on and it all works again :thumbs

It was a quiet day at the tables as much of the day was spent sorting out this database and other things like that but it was at least a profitable one, up $11 from 7 $5 SnGs so my Full Tilt ROI remains around the same levels and I continue to be very happy playing there. It's very fishy and I love it! I deposited $250 during the week and I am now up to just over $300 and have earned nearly $8 of my first bonus installment. I'm hoping for a busier day on the poker front tomorrow and the profits that go with it.

[mathare]

21st February 2010
The fish and luckboxes won out this morning with two third places finishes the best I could manage from nine events played. I will have my revenge this afternoon though.

I have also passed another milestone - 500 $5 SnGs played so I though I should look back at the objectives I set for this point to see how I did.

ITM to be at least 45% after 500 SnGs - Failed :(
ROI to be at least 15% after 500 SnGs (20% stretch target) - Failed :(
Heads-up win ratio over 50% after 500 SnGs - Failed :(

Oh dear. After 500 SnGs I had a ROI of 7.63%, just over half what I would have liked it to have been. My ITM percentage was 43.40%, a couple of percent down on my target. And my heads-up win ratio was 45% with 65 wins, 78 second places and 74 thirds. My profit was $209.50.

I can do a lot better than that but I need to control my impulses a little more. I noticed this morning that I am getting too tempted to play some hands too strongly post-flop. I need to learn to fold to big (or even just decent) bets when I have got some of the board but not enough to be assured of winning. Not that I should fold too readily either but I need to think through my opponent's likely hand range based on what I know about him (and the standard of play at this level) before acting. I also need to stop calling all-ins with mediocre Aces when play is short-handed. I had a couple of situations like this earlier when I had the guy covered and he shoved for most of my stack UTG. It was folded round to me and I called with a hand like A9o. He had AQo and I was stuffed. Yes, he could have Kx, probably suited, or worse and even a worse Ace than me but if I can afford to fold and still be competitive then perhaps I should be looking for better spots, ones where I have fold equity and two chances to win the pot rather than having to make the best hand. Lesson learned for this afternoon, hopefully.

[mathare]

21st February 2010 (part two)
It seems that the lucky fish are destined to have the better of the day's play. :(

The afternoon has been just as poor as the morning, if not more so. More often than not I am getting my money in when I am ahead but am getting outdrawn. And when I make a solid hand the villain has to go one better having got lucky calling a big pre-flop raise with 97 or some such tripe. I can feel myself tilting a little so having blown a decent amount today I am going to give up for a while after this tourney is over. Not a long break, just till later tonight or perhaps tomorrow but enough to clear my head and hope that the fishes' luck has changed.

I played another 13 tourneys this afternoon, on top of the nine this morning, and secured two second places and three thirds which is still pretty rubbish. I came close to winning a couple of times but got rivered, obviously. How many times do I have to see the villain make a lucky straight on the river? I've come to almost expect it now.

As you can probably guess, my 20+% ROI at Full Tilt is way behind me now. A loss of $49 today means I am down 50c from playing poker at Full Tilt. I have nearly $12 in bonus so far though so in some ways I am still ahead. And I did say that the standards of play here meant I would face many bad beats and that this just what is happening. It seems poker at Full Tilt might be a swingy affair with me either winning a nice amount or losing a chunk all depending on how the luck is flowing at the time. It still not been as bad as PokerStars though! :)

[mathare]

22nd February 2010
:smileybigangry:

Come on poker gods, a little help please. I haven't won any of the last 38 SnGs I have played. I played 15 today and all I could muster was three seconds and three thirds. It was awful. Again.

No, the morning was OK, actually. Played four and bagged three second places. At least one should have been a win but then I was probably nailed on for third in one too so maybe that evens out somewhat. But in the afternoon I had terrible fortune with just those three third places to show for 11 attempts. But how can a man win a poker tournament when things like the following happen:

QQ beaten by JTo (85/15 fav)
TT beaten by 97o (85/15 fav)
JJ beaten by 77 (80/20 fav)
KK beaten by QQ (80/20 fav)
KK beaten by AQo (70/30 fav)

I was getting done on more than my fair share of coin flips too.

It was a really rough session with a total loss of $15 although it feels like a hell of a lot more. Really, really, really frustrating.

[mathare]

25th February 2010
The latest issue of Poker Player magazine has a brief feature on Rush Poker. Full Tilt have been plugging it across their site, obviously. They have even been offering bonuses to those willing to give it a try. So how could I refuse?

I gave it a quick trial run last night. I bought in to a $0.05/0.10 full-ring no-limit hold'em game for $10 and thought I'd see how it went. Well, is the answer. I had doubled up within half an hour so cashed out my $20.02, picked up a $5 bonus for playing and called it a night. $15 in half an hour - easy money.

Buoyed by my first experience I had another go around lunchtime today. I played for 40 minutes and lost around $5. Not great but I was still in profit and the game was growing on me.

I threw in another session earlier this afternoon and quickly turned $10 into over $40 as the deck hit me hard in the face. I was hot! I was bouncing around between pocket Kings and Aces and picked up some nice pots. Some muppets will be wishing they played their hands differently I can tell you :laugh.

And although I didn't expect it, Poker Tracker can handle Rush Poker tables. I switch the HUD off as you just don't need it at this game but the fact that it can log all your hands is a nice touch. My database won't know what's hit it if I keep playing Rush tables - 500 hands per hour!

It's still early days but I am working on a suitable strategy for taking this game on. I'm doing alright so far so I must be doing some things right along the way. It seems that tight play is certainly the way to do it, maybe stick to Hellmuth's top 10 hands he suggests beginners play. But there are opportunities to steal too as most players are playing tight so late position raises certainly become an option. The biggest thing I have noticed though is that the standard of post-flop play is awful. If players miss the flop they don't know what to do. Continuation bets generally take down the pot in my experience. I have been floating pre-flop to take down pots with c-bets occasionally and it's worked out pretty nicely. Pre-flop there are still limpers who can easily be punished. Few players seem keen to call a 3-bet unless they have a monster and 4-betting seems rare so it's fairly easy to put players on hands.

That's all based on roughly a thousand hands at micro stakes tables so don't take it as gospel. But for now this game seems like a proper cash cow and I will be looking to milk it as much as I can. I was fairly dismissive of it before I played but now I love it. It's not proper poker but the money I am making from it spends just as well as money won playing proper poker.

[mathare]

26th February 2010
I wasn't expecting that! I just got my first rakeback payment :happyboun Only $8.59 but all the same, every little helps as they say. I wasn't expecting it because I am working off a bonus at Full Tilt so expected the loyalty points I am accumulating through paying rake to go towards that and not rakeback. But it seems they are going towards both! So I've been pulling in bits of that initial deposit bonus and earning rakeback - cool!

[mathare]

27th February 2010
The format of Rush Poker may be unique but there is no getting away from the fact it is a no-limit hold'em cash game (unless you play one of the other, less popular, variants) and that's something I don't have a great deal of experience at. I finally got volume I of Harrington on Cash Games for christmas, a year after getting (and not yet reading) volume II. I haven't read them yet but I may do soon to see what Action Dan has to say for himself and what tips I can pick up. I'm doing alright myself with focused aggression and a tight game, which is much easier in Rush Poker as I can fold AQo after a raise and re-raise and not feel as though I have wasted the best hand I will get for ages. For players with focus and concentration issues like me this game is a godsend. Anyway. I'm grinding it out on single table Rush sessions at the mo and more than holding my own. With bonuses, rakeback and the happy hours it's looking like a great bankroll builder, especially as those extras take some of the pressure off the results from the game itself somewhat.

I didn't think I would be but I am a big fan of this game :hearty

[mathare]

28th February 2010
I may not be playing Rush Poker in its most effective form but I am playing in a way that suits me, and it seems to be working. I'm talking here not only about my starting hands and betting actions but when I play and for how long.

I've already said I am playing tight and that strategy is certainly paying off. Big (broadway) Aces are useful hands and are standing up so often. Others are playing some strange hands and I am cashing in. I'm not open-limping and only occasionally limping behind if there are a couple of limpers and I have a hand that could hit big like KTs. I've said many times now that c-betting is essential and I stand by that. A bet of two-thirds to three-quarters of the pot on the flop takes it down so often it's incredible. Post-flop play is generally poor; players don't know what to do if they have missed.

As I said yesterday though, it's no-limit cash game poker and that's something I am not used to, and my previous forays into this realm have seen me running away with a smaller bankroll in double quick time. Because of that, and because of the nature of Rush Poker, I am playing short hit-and-run sessions. My bankroll is about $300 or so and I am playing it safe by playing the $0.05/$0.10 tables. Standard bankroll management suggests having 20+ buy-ins so at least 2000 big blinds; I have over 3000. I buy in for the maximum ($10) and I am usually looking to build that up to something around $17-$20 before bailing out again. I've not played that many sessions but unless I am running really hot it seems most times I can achieve my aim within the hour. Then I'm out of there, for a while at least. I may play several such sessions a day each time looking to make a reasonable gain but I would rather play several short sessions than one longer session at this stage while I adapt my thinking to cash games. I'm getting there but the risk-averse side of my character often wants to bank the profit rather than try to spin $10 up to $20 and then up to $40. I'm happier banking a number of smaller profits than looking for big scores less frequently. The big scores can still come; if I am feeling like I am playing really well and am on a roll I may chance my arm over another couple of hundred hands to see how it goes.

I'm trying to play at least one happy hour session a day too, simply because of the double FTP points on offer. The additional points earned during the morning happy hour don't count towards the bonus requirements but they are still useful for spending in the FTP store, and I have my eye on a few things in there. And even without the extra points I am earning the bonus at a reasonable rate. I've only been at Full Tilt for 11 days and have built up 645 points, unlocking $29.55 of my initial $250 deposit bonus, $20 of which has already been released.

I don't really have a plan when it comes to my bankroll and stepping up the stakes to the $0.10/$0.25 tables. I would like to build up a lot more cash game experience first and hopefully build a bigger bankroll as a side effect of that. Maybe I should look to get up to $500 through profits earned at the table and bonuses before I start taking shots at the next level. That should allow me to play a good number of hands at this level which in turn will allow me to analyse my game (specifically at the Rush Poker tables) and see if there are any obvious leaks I can plug to increase my win rate. I'm running a little over 7.5BB/100 at the minute which I am really pleased about. That's only from a little over 3,000 hands though and I would like to get up over 50,000 hands before I really start taking figures like my BB/100 seriously. Tell you what, why don't I set some objectives for my cash game play?

Log 50,000 Rush Poker hands
Win rate to exceed 5BB/100 after 50,000 hands
Increase Full Tilt bankroll to $500

There, that should do for now.

[mathare]

1st March 2010
I had a thought earlier: if I am going to claim all this deposit bonus from Full Tilt I need to start putting the hours in a bit more. Since I found Rush Poker I have played a few hit-and-run sessions that have put on a few points but not as many as I'd have gained had I been multi-tabling SnGs as I originally planned. I know I have till mid-June to rack up the points but I still need to keep things ticking over even though that final date seems so far off at the minute. And so it was this afternoon that I decided to give multi-tabling Rush a go...

Woohoo! That's fun! Two tables is comfortable enough, I'm happy with that for now. It's the right sort of level to keep me constantly engaged but not so much that I am pressed on my decisions and stressed at all. It's just right, as Goldilocks would say. I played for a bit over a couple of hours and squeezed in over 2000 hands - awesome. Just what the doctor ordered to build up my PT3 data and experience. Shame it didn't quite do the same for my bankroll.

My plan with sessions such as today's (which I hope to repeat often now) is to log a couple of thousand hands if I can. I'm looking to make a serious dent in the number of points required to release more of my bonus fund and also work towards one of the Iron Man levels (I'm gunning for silver at the minute but I may aim higher as the month goes on depending on how things go). If I can do all that and not lose much at the tables themselves I will be happy. Today I managed to drop nearly $17 so that doesn't really fit the plan.

I spotted a few mistakes along the way though. I missed a couple of potential straights and flushes on some boards and consequently got caught when I thought my hand was in fact compartively stronger than it was in the end. I'd have top set and think it would be good but miss the fact that the river has put a three-flush on the board and lose to a middling flush, that sort of thing. I need to spot all potential hands from the flop onwards and know what turns and rivers will continue to develop those hands and which are bricks. I must know what the nuts is at all times and assess my hand in light of that so I don't get caught so easily again. That said, if muppets stopped playing 87s into a big raise pre-flop that would help, especially when the pot is heads-up. Still, that's not an excuse; that's where I should be making my money.

Another reason behind today's poor showing at the tables is the fact I ran KK into AA not once but twice, in fairly quick succession too. I crashed one stack with it, rebought and then dumped another a few hands later. Oh well, live and learn. I need to try to identify ways in which to spot Aces pre-flop. Without reads on players (which are near impossible in this game as you don't sit with someone long enough and they keep changing position on you) it's hard to know what pre-flop raises really mean. I assume they mean a decent hand and fold, call or re-raise accordingly. I don't want hands like A9o drawing out on pocket Kings though so I usually re-raise to see where I am. With blinds at $0.05/$0.10 and an standard initial raise to $0.30 I will three-bet to $1 or thereabouts with KK. I think I have been too quick to four-bet and five-bet all-in though. If I am holding a good hand and there has been a bit of raising I sometimes try to take it down there and then by shoving but that's when I have been facing Aces. But I have seen QQ and AKo played like I would play Aces pre-flop so who can tell what people have these days. I don't want to give up big hands unless I have to but I would like to stop my cowboys going down to bullets. I've had it three times now and each time it has cost me a fair whack (relatively, given the stakes).

So a loss at the tables was not part of the plan today but I felt good playing for a couple of hours with two tables on the go so I am satisfied I can do that most days, which is going to be good enough for silver, certainly. And the points I picked up did the old bonus fund a favour too as the next installment was released, another $20 in the bank so perhaps today's loss at the tables wasn't too bad after all, especially when you think I have been banking profits over the last few days which means I am still over $30 ahead at Rush Poker, excluding the bonuses I have accrued.

It's all falling into place, steadily.

[mathare]

3rd March 2010
I didn't update this yesterday, how remiss of me. Hmm. Better do that now then.

In fact I should go back to Monday night when I found myself with a bit of spare time on a couple of occasions so squeezed in a few more Rush hands. It wasn't so good though as it cost me nearly $12. Oh well.

Yesterday was much better though as I profited to the tune of $23.91 in a nice afternoon session. Much of that profit came with a late double up when I hit trip Kings and got it all in against a cocky so-and-so holding an overpair of Aces. Ha!

Today my afternoon session was split into two: a short session before lunch and a much longer one (four hours in fact) afterwards. I struggled before lunch, losing one buy-in at one table and a chunk of one at another. I was perhaps a little unlucky; some hands weren't hitting and others just weren't holding up. But that's poker, and the story continued along the same lines after lunch too. The graph of the session shows a fairly steady downward line till around the middle of the session when it starts to go back up, levels out for a good while as I was found myself up against a sort of glass ceiling, unable to get my session loss back up above a certain level. Every time I won a bit I would lose it again so things stayed steady for a while. Towards the end though I got someone to stack off against me and won that for a very nice boost and reduce the overall losses on the day to $7.70. OK, a losing day at the tables but I unlocked another installment of the deposit bonus (another $20) and actually racked up $16.40 in bonuses today making it profitable overall. And that excludes rakeback calculations too. And of course it's another day towards my Iron Man qualification. And over 300 points towards a T-shirt I have my eye on too.

Away from Full Tilt, I got an email from PokerStars telling me the sports jacket I wanted is now back in stock so I have ordered that :D I am a happy bunny now :happyboun

[mathare]

4th March 2010
Things are still going well. Reallly well in fact.

Today I played a couple of sessions along the same lines as yesterday; a short one before lunch and a much longer one afterwards. The short pre-lunch session has been just to fill in a bit of time and to take advantage of the morning happy hour whereas the afternoon session is my main session of the day. I'm still playing two Rush tables at once and it's still comfortable. It allows enough time to do things like reply to a few emails and put a few bets on too. I prefer it that way than to throw in another table to take up the slack. That might be too much for me at this stage.

Unlike yesterday I managed to log two winning sessions too. The pre-lunch spell at the tables was just over 20 minutes long but was good enough for $10.49 profit. Most of that came from someone doubling me up when I held KK against their 99. Ha! He min-raised pre-flop (to $0.20), I re-raised to $1 and after a bit of a think he shoved on me. Min-raising looking to re-raise with Aces would be sneaky and would you really drag put the 4-bet so much? I couldn't rule out Aces entirely but I put hands like QQ and JJ higher in terms of probability, along with AK. I called his all-in and was delighted to see an underpair. I was even more delighted to see the board do its bit and not put a 9 out there.

The post-lunch session was an uppy-downy-uppy-again affair. I was going great guns before I missed a straight on the board and lost a big chunk to that. Schoolboy error. I lost a few hands I should have won when I didn't protect my hand sufficiently well. I'd maybe have trips and check it with a two-flush on the flop only for the turn (and/or river) to put another flush card out and screw my hand up. I made a few loose calls too, including one where I knew exactly what hand he had, it was the only one that made sense and it had me crushed, but I still called on the end to see what he had. Why, when I knew what he had? I didn't bet out on some rivers when I should have done and ended up folding to big bets I didn't feel I could call. I should have made smaller blocker bets as I have done several times to good effect. I don't pretend I have this game sussed, I'm still learning from every session and hopefully improving. I had a decent spell towards the end of this afternoon's session doubling up with AA against KK, beating QQ off a good pot with AA and winning another nice one with QQ v TT. All that helped towards a profit of $14.24 from that session to make it $24.73 on the day. I also unlocked the next segment of my bonus so that's another $20 on to the bankroll.

I deposited $250 on 17th February and am now up to $395.23. I like Full Tilt :thumbs

[mathare]

5th March 2010
A slight reversal of fortune today. Yesterday all was rosy in the garden; today the manure arrived in a much bigger load than expected. I've had a shocker at the tables.

I didn't get a pre-lunch session in as I nipped out to have lunch with the missus instead. Maybe that's where I went wrong. When I got back I sat at two Rush tables as per usual and that's about as good as it ever got. I mean it, I think I managed to just pop into the black by a few cents at one stage but it only lasted a few hands. It ticked along just below evens for a couple of hundred hands before I lost a buy-in in a big pot. I think that one was when the villain min-raised pre-flop and called my 3-bet before beating my AA by making two pair with his T9s. Aww, come on. T9s?!? I rebought and sailed along without any significant wins or losses for another 500 hands or so. Then the wheels came off. Another buy-in gone, this time with AK against TT that had made a set on the flop. He wasn't playing it like he'd got a decent hand but I guess it worked for him.

Once more I rebought. Only now, with the wheels off the axles soon followed, as did much of the chassis if we continue this analogy. I bought in three times at each table and all but lost the lot. I cashed out on one table for $3.48 - that's all I have to show for a $60 buy-in and it all happened in less than two hours. I was hitting the board enough to get me into trouble but not enough to win a hand. I was running into the stone cold nuts far too often when I had a good, but not winning, hand. I ran KK into AA again pre-flop. AA called an early position raise (not mine) so I re-raised big with KK. The original raiser folded, AA shoved and I called. A sneaky way for the villain to have played AA pre-flop; I don't like that at all.

I'd been running good recently and making hay while the sun shone but today the clouds came over good and proper. I knew I was going to have days like this if I am honest with myself but it's frustrating when they happen so I have stepped away from the tables for today in case I tilt any more of my bankroll off. :(

[mathare]

6th March 2010
Today seems to have continued where yesterday left off.

A 97-minute session across two Rush tables during happy hour - great stuff. It was a bit uppy-downy initially before settling down to being attrition due to the blinds more than anything else. I lost a chunk with AQo and another with AJo. With AQo the board got too scary by the river for me to continue in the hand. With AJo I made a good hand but was up against a pocket pair (33) that made a set on the flop. I started to grind it back a bit and was doing OK when I got KK and it all went wrong for me. Early position raises to $0.30, I pump it to $1, the SB calls (!) and the original raiser folds. The flop is T-9-K two suits. SB checks, I bet $1.20 (half pot) and get raised to $6. I didn't really think too hard at this point. I had top set and put him on a hand like AA or a big Ace that had flopped a flush draw. I fancied my chances so called all-in for another $4.64. He flipped JQo for the flopped straight and I missed my outs to the full house and quads. I mean, come on. There has been a raise and re-raise before him and he calls with QJo in the small blind. He gets damn lucky with that flop but that's been the story of the last few days. My c-bets are being snapped off all the way to the river where the villain hits a lucky pair or some such hand to beat my high card. I am struggling with hands like AQo and AJo when I am re-raised pre-flop - play them or lay them down? And the less said about my results in the SB the better. I'd be better off folding every hand from that seat according to my results!

Today's session puts me into red for play at the Rush tables for the first time as I lost $16.80 today, on top of yesterday's significant setback too. I'm not giving up by any means but it has made me realise how much I still have to learn. I may need to quickly pluck a few NLHE cash game books off the bookshelf behind me and start swotting up.

[mathare]

8th March 2010
My Rush results have gone down the toilet! I'm recording losing session after losing session. I am winning a few small pots, posting my blinds and folding those hands to a pre-flop raise and then losing big post. I have a big problem that is costing me more and more each time I play. I probably have several, truth be told, but the one I have noticed most recently is not reading the board correctly. I've mentioned before how I have failed to spots straights and flushes and that the villain has beaten me to a big pot when I have held a good, but not winning hand. This is basically the same thing only more so. I get a sort of tunnel vision. On a board of 99K (rainbow) I will view my hand in the light of that flop and see how it compares. If I have a King with a big kicker I feel I am strong. If my opponent is betting/raising then I consider the chances he has a 9. I think about a King with a bigger kicker than mine if possible. And that's about as far as I got before I start throwing money at the pot. Can you spot where I have gone wrong? I couldn't until I saw the villain's winning hand but by that time all my chips were in the middle.

Let's have a look at my biggest losing hands from yesterday and see what I can learn from how I played them. Remember this is being played at $0.05/$0.10 blinds, just to put the losses into context somewhat.

1. Lost $11.42 with AKo UTG
I raise to $0.30 with a premium hand and get re-raised to $0.90 by UTG+1. It's folded back round to me and I call. AKo is a good hand and I am not going to be scared off by a 3-bet here but nor do I want to 4-bet it. Pot is $1.95. Flop comes 99K rainbow and I lead out for $1 with top two pair and top kicker. I figure I am winning here but half-pot it to see what he does. Nothing with a 9 in it makes sense pre-flop unless he has 99 specifically and he can't outkick my King (I have ruled out K9 - who 3-bets that UTG+1?). I am raised to $3.10 and shove for $10.52 total. He calls and tables AA for the overpair. Turn and river are no help - bust.

I was thinking of the board in terms of all three cards (as I sometimes have a tendency to do) not in terms of the full deck. I neglected to factor in him having KK for the full house or AA for the overpair, both of which made sense pre-flop too. KK is unlikely bearing in mind there is one K in my hand and one on the board so AA is by far more likely. He could also have had AK though (I did consider that but knew I couldn't be outkicked so we'd be splitting barring him holding AKs and it going runner-runner flush).

Never forget to consider overpairs/overcards to the board.

2. Lost $10.37 with AKo from the SB
UTG+1 raises to $0.30, a standard raise, and I 3-bet to $1 as I have found that this move helps define the villain's hand more. Most people aren't interested in calling the 3-bet unless they have a premium hand so this allows me to narrow his range down significantly. BB folds, villain calls. Pot is $2.10. Flop comes 5-K-4 two suited. I have top-top and the two diamonds on board are screaming potential flush draw at me so I need to protect my hand. I lead out for $1.50 which the villain calls. Pot is $5.10. Turn is an offsuit Queen. I don't put him on KQ so I think my top-top is still good, although I haven't ruled out him holding QQ yet, or a diamond draw. I want to make a solid enough bet to make the pot odds poor for a flush draw. He shoves for $7.87 total. It looks like that Q hit him. Has he got KQ or QQ after all? It would be a strange move with AQ as he's still behind to the King I pretty much told him I had last street. And that's not a flush draw move either. I call - and I am not quite sure why now. What did he have that he was shoving with that I was beating? I have identified two hands that fit all the action so far and have me drawing very thin, if not dead. He flips KK for the flopped set and the river bricks.

I completely forgot that action on the turn can be a delayed reaction to having hit the flop hard but not wanting to lose a customer. Go easy(ish) on the flop looking to hit them hard on the turn. That would have told me that KK was in his range rather than it falling down by blindspot. I was thinking solely in terms of pairs, two pairs and a set of Queens there (OK, plus flush draws until that turn shove) but had completely ignored the possibility of KK.

Never forget that action on the turn could mean the villain actually connected hard with the flop, not the turn card.

3. Lost $5.60 with AQo in UTG+1
It's folded to me and I make a standard pre-flop raise to $0.30. I get a middle position caller and a late raise to $1. The blinds fold, I call as does the middle position caller. Pot is $3.15. Flop comes down Q-K-T with two hearts. I make a weak lead of $1 to see where I stand. I have middle pair on a very wet board. The first caller folds, the raiser shoves for $4.60 total. I think briefly, view my Ace and Jacks as outs and call. Errrm? Even if I hit my straight I could go down to a flush. Only two of the three remaining Aces are clean and three of the Jacks, and if a Jack comes I'm splitting with any other Ace. You don't shove on this board without the King or a very strong draw, preferably multi-way draws so it's no surprise he showed AKo with the Ace of hearts. The turn and river bricked, unsurprisingly bearing in mind I was drawing to the Queens only really.

The money you have put into the pot is not yours anymore. People aren't bluffing at this game. Play the cards, not the man, so if you face a solid raise give it up regardless of how much you have put in so far. Keep the chips you have left rather than give them away.

4. Lost $6.22 with KK in the cutoff
Early position raises it to $0.35 so I 3-bet to $1. The button cold-calls (which didn't ring alarm bells at the time but should have) and everyone else, including the original raiser folds. As I said, it's hard for raisers to play against a 3-bet without a premium hand. Anyway, pot is $2.50. Flop comes 4-4-6 with two hearts and I make a solid bet of $1.50. I'm concerned about the flush draw more than anything else and have put him on a range mostly consisting of big Aces and premium pairs. I don't see a 4 or 6 anywhere in a hand that makes sense for his pre-flop actions. The villain calls. I'm still thinking flush draw here. Pot is $5.50. Turn is 5h putting a three-flush on board. I bet out $2 as a feeler bet - has he hit a flush? He min-raises to $4. I've put $4.50 into this pot so far and it stands at $11.50. Do I call the extra $2? Has he put me on a flush draw and he's raising to see where his flush stands or extract value from a weaker flush? I call the raise, or at least as much of it as I can as I only have $1.72 behind. He shows me JTs in hearts for the flush and the river is irrelevant.

What could I have done to save money here? I could have folded to the turn raise. As I say, it looks like he's put me all-in to either get the rest of my stack off me as he has made the flush or he wants to know how big my flush is bearing in mind his isn't that big. I could have done that but should I? That's what I don't really know. Either way where only talking about $1.72 here. I re-raised pre-flop and got a cold-call with JTs. I led out on the flop to discourage flush draws. Should I have led out for more? Is my bet-sizing wrong here? I usually bet out 60-70% of the pot on the flop, which I did here and still got the call. If he doesn't catch the flush card on the turn would he still call when I bet out again? I made a smaller bet on the turn this time as the flush had hit and I put him on the draw, so why did I call his raise?

The main problem here is one of luck I feel. How many times will that guy play JTs on the button into a re-raise and get lucky like that? I'd love to be up against players playing that way every day if I am holding hands like KK.

5. Lost $3.70 with ATs in the SB
It's folded to me in the SB, I raise to $0.30 and get called. Pot is $0.60. Flop is 4-A-3 with two hearts (I always seem to face boards with a potential flush darw on them). I lead out for two-thirds pot, $0.40. BB calls to make the pot $1.40. Turn is an offsuit Ten. I lead out for just over two-thirds pot, $1. BB calls for a pot of $3.40. I have top two pair here and only the flush draw is going to be a real cause for concern, right? Again I lead out for around two-thirds pot, $2. BB comes to life and re-raises to $6. This is the first sign of aggression from him and I don't understand it. Has he made a set? Has he just paired his Ace kicker and has put me on AK, AQ etc? There's no flush possible. Straights are very unlikely so what does he have? The raise doesn't make sense. I folded, but am now questioning that decision.

Why wait till the river to try and get my chips if he flopped a set. The way he has played it I can pretty much rule out AA but would he play 44 or 33 like that when he could be facing a flush draw? Surely you want to protect a set in that situation. TT? Would you play TT like that on the flop? And why not re-raise pre-flop? 66? You don't play 66 like that on that board until the river, that would be crazy play. If I can think through all that and it still doesn't make sense then he's making a play at me and my top two pair are probably good. I should have called. We'll never now what he had though.

There's a big point in that last paragraph: If I can think through all that and it still doesn't make sense. That's the thing I am struggling with. Pre-flop I can play on auto-pilot and most of the time post-flop instinct gets me through as my sub-conscious processes things to lead me to the right decision a lot of the time. But there are times when I need to engage the conscious brain and when I do it panics and goes "Err, err, I don't know" rather than rationally going through the action. I can do all the analysis fine offline, just not in the heat of battle sometimes, as you've seen. That's my biggest leak.

How do I address this though? Perhaps I need to step down to one Rush table for now to give me more time to think in these situations. I worry that these situations are so few and far between though that only playing one table is going to leave part of my brain elsewhere thinking about things other than poker. To be honest, I have that situation a lot of the time anyway, especially when I play in the afternoons and am trying to gamble on the horses at the same time. I need to change my approach to the game, become more professional and single-minded in my poker play and FOCUS more on the game in hand.

Analysis sessions like this teach me a lot, about how I should and shouldn't play hands, but I need to be able to use this knowledge at the tables too rather than just leave it here on the forum. That's the tricky part...

[mathare]

8th March 2010 (part two)
Have a we got an emoticon for throwing your toys out the pram or spitting your dummy out? ;fire

Immediately after that analysis of yesterday's results I sat at two Rush tables and started to play. It was going OK, I was holding my own. I was getting KK way too often for it to be a normal session but I still wasn't getting far with them. I'd raise and everyone would fold, or I'd get to see a flop with one villain who would fold to a flop bet (often made to protect my hand against potential draws). I gave up in despair when I lost my stack on one table with KK, and lost another couple of hands I felt I 'deserved' better from. Things weren't going my way - they haven't been for a few days now - so I had to admit defeat and take a break before I steamed away the rest of the my chips.

1. Lost $8.03 with KK in late position
There's a limper in early-mid position so I raise to $0.40. The button min-raises to $0.70 and I re-raise to $2. His min-raise was curious suggesting he had some sort of hand to 3-bet but was he trapping or just wary of a bigger hand? He raises to $5.05. Hmm. Am I going to lay down KK here? I call figuring KK is just too big to let go here as even against AA I have outs. Pot is $10.35. Flop comes 2-4-8 rainbow. That changes nothing in terms of pre-flop holdings. We've both missed that flop. It's all going in at some point isn't it? Should I check and let him put me all-in representing AA or shove on him even though my all-in would only be around 40% of the pot? I went for the latter. If he has AA then fair play to him. Oh, he does have AA. Oh well. Two outs twice, and none of them hit. Boom. There goes my stack, running KK into AA how many times now? Why am I rarely on the other side of that equation?

2. Lost $2.50 with QQ UTG+2
UTG raises, I 3-bet to $1 which is a standard move for me with a big pocket pair. It's folded round to UTG who calls. The pot is $2.15. The flop comes Kd-3d-8c. UTG checks, I can't check on this board with an overcard and flush draws. I lead out for $1.50 and get shoved on for $3.47 total. I fold. The chances of him having a King or at least a draw are too strong here. I don't even have Qd to reduce his outs.

3. Lost $2.30 with QQ on the button
UTG makes a standard raise to $0.30 and I pop it to $1. BB min-raises to $1.70 and alarm bells go off. UTG folds and I call. Pot is $3.75. Flop comes J-A-K rainbow - nice, not! Two overcards, straight draws and hitting my Queen could complete a straight for him with any Ten. I don't like this at all. He bets $0.60 which is a very small bet into this pot. A feeler bet looking to see if his King (or similar) is good? Is he asking if I have an Ace? I probably should have answered with a decent raise but I just called. If I thought I was behind I should have folded, calling was the wrong option here in hindsight. The turn is a 4 and the BB fires again, for $1.60. I do what I should have done last street and fold. I was behind to any Ace and any King. I should have raised on the flop to see what he had. He may have dropped his hand if he just held a King, fearing the Ace. Yes, he could have had a monster given his pre-flop re-raise but on the turn I was just guessing as I hadn't been able to narrow his hand range from the flop betting. Wrong move.

The cash poker books I have in my library are flying off the book shelf and rapidly working their way up my 'to read' pile - sooner rather than later I need to get through them and arrest this slump I am in.

[mathare]

8th March 2010 (part three)
I won't rest until I at least have a few ideas as to why my poker results have taken a significant turn for the worse. If it's just a natural downswing I want to know that. If it's something I am doing differently/wrongly then I want to know so I can take action.

When did the dip start? It looks on my records as though it really kicked on around 5th March and has affected every session since, although there is some evidence that it could have started back on 1st March. Coincidentally that's when I started playing two tables instead of one. Hmmm. Let's compare my results pre- and post-1st March then.

Pre-1st March
I only played 8 sessions in February but managed to rack up 3263 hands and a profit of $50.28 at a rate of 7.70BB/100. I had two losing sessions, each for about half a buy-in. My summary stats are a VPIP of 8.09, a PFR of 6.37, I won 60.42% of showdowns and had an aggression factor of 4.23.

All final hands were profitable except high card, including one pair although only marginally so. This is pretty much as expected.

AA and KK were very profitable for me, 7.80BB/hand and 8.60BB/hand respectively. All broadway Aces were profitable with the exception of AQs although the sample size is too small for this to be too meaningful.

I was playing profitably in every position except the blinds but there I was profitable without factoring in the blind amounts. I was earning much more in late position (around 0.20BB/hand) than early position (0.07BB/hand UTG, 0.01BB/hand UTG+1). My PFR was the same as my VPIP for the early positions, the two figures separating a little as I move towards the button suggest a bit of late limping but none in early positions. I was winning at least 50% of showdowns in all positions other than the SB (42.86%). My steal percentages were 8.11% one off the button, 10.09% on the button and 29.90% in the SB.

Post-1st March
Since March 1st I have played 15 sessions (across 31 tables) seeing 19573 hands and losing $102.01 at a rate of -2.61BB/100. I only recorded 5 winning sessions in this time and have had sessions where I have lost three buy-ins or more. My summary stats are a VPIP of 9.24, a PFR of 6.85, I won 52.83% of showdown and had an aggression factor of 4.11.

On the face of it those summary stats haven't changed much. My VPIP is a notch higher and could be trimmed back in a little but it's not changed much. Ditto my PFR and aggression factor. The lower percentage of showdowns won suggests I am taking hands too far though.

High card, one pair and two pair final hands are not profitable while all others are. I would expect two pair hands to be profitable and one pair hands to be a little less draining than they seem to be (-0.12BB/hand whereas I'd expect more like -0.10BB/hand). My overall records suggest two pair hands should be slightly profitable, probably around 0.05BB/hand whereas I am showing -0.05BB/hand. I am winning over 58% of showdowns with two pair hands so I am seemingly losing too many big pots and picking up smaller ones.

AA and KK are still profitable but the figures have dropped to 4.71 and 2.89BB/hand respectively. KK had been more profitable than AA but that trend has been reversed, probably due to the times I have gone bust with KK against AA. Now few of the broadway Aces are profitable, only AJs, ATs and ATo are making me money. AK and AQ (suited and unsuited) are big problems for me and could be worthy of further investigation as to how I have been playing them.

Positionally things have changed a little bit too. I am losing from the SB at a rate faster than the SB itself, unlike above. I am also losing UTG (-0.03BB/hand) and am only marginally profitable UTG+1 (0.01BB/hand). The amount won increases in the later seats but the win rates are all below 0.10BB/hand, less than half what they were before. There is evidence of an increasing amount of early position limping with my VPIP and PFR diverging right from UTG. I am winning at least half of showdowns from all non-blind positions but this figure is worse for the SB than it was previously. I have increased my steal attempts too, to 14.32%, 17.52% and 33.40% - each up around 5% on my previous figures.

Conclusions
It's hard to draw any significant conclusions as to where things are going wrong and what to do about it as the first sample is a bit small to do much with. That in itself leads to a one idea though: play more one-table sessions to build up the sample to a more equal size. I think that's a sensible idea as it also separates potential "beginner's luck" from one-table play if I play one-table sessions now. I should also try tightening up a bit more to see what effect that has, and steal less unless I have a hand that is worth stealing with. Let's see how that goes.

I said I am going to tighten up more but how much should I tighten up and what does it really mean? 10% of hands equates to 88+,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,AJo+,KQo according to PokerStove and I am VPIPing more than that on the button at present whereas I started off VPIPing around 9% of hands in the same position. That's equivalent to 88+,ATs+,KTs+,QJs,AJo+,KQo so excludes A9s and QTs. A VPIP of 8% is 88+,ATs+,KTs+,QJs,AJo+ and that's more what I want to be thinking in terms of really. UTG I should be looking to go even tighter, something like TT+,AJs+,KQs,AQo+ which is 5.3% of hands. I need to recognise that big hands will come around often enough and I can pass up marginal opportunities if I don't think I have a clear edge.

[mathare]

10th March 2010
I don't really understand why it should work but it has done. I have stepped down to a single Rush table in my sessions and I have started to grind a profit once more. I played around three hours yesterday afternoon and finished up over $15. I made $2.13 in an hour at lunchtime today and another $9.60 in an hour and a bit this afternoon. Not big sums but a step in the right direction for sure.

I have had some good hands in that time but I haven't had it all my own way by any means. I stacked some guy earlier with my Aces beating his Kings and then lost all that and some more two hands later when I was in the opposite situation, running my own pocket Kings into Aces. That left me pretty short-stacked but I managed to grind it back up to make a profit on the session.

It's still early days back on single tables but it is at least proving profitable for now, which is more than can be said for my play for the previous week or so. Who knows whether it's a change of luck or because I am playing fewer tables but it's working and that's all I care about right now.

[mathare]

19th March 2010
I haven't played for a week hence the lack of updates. Since I last updated you though I got in a few more sessions and continued in the same vein as my last entry. Not big wins again but wins all the same with profits of $2.04 and $7.96 coming from short one-table Rush poker sessions. With the Cheltenham festival on as well as having various other projects on the go I haven't been able to find the time to play since but I should be able to squeeze in a few hands here and there now and get back to winning ways, all being well.

[mathare]

24th March 2010
I don't get this game at times. I have played six sessions since my last update with mixed results.

I played a bit on Saturday and finished slightly ahead after a very uppy-downy session. Sunday I took a kicking. Monday the same. Yesterday I ground out a reasonable profit in two sessions and then today I take another kicking, losing two buy-ins. I don't feel my game has really changed over the past few days so I guess it's all down to luck but it is frustrating. I am happy to grind out the small profits here and there but losing a couple of buy-ins is then a big step backwards.

How did I lose big in the sessions where I finished with a loss? Let's have a look...

Today it was QQ v AKo twice. I was 55/45 in both hands and in both cases an Ace flopped to do me in. I also lost decent pots with AA (cracked by a flopped flush that I didn't think he had), 77 when I turned a set but the villain had flopped a bigger set, KK when the villain turned a flush and my redraw missed on the river, AQ against a flopped set and TT when the villain rivered me.

Monday it was QQ (again) against Aces, QQ (folded on a scary river) and AJs against AKo.

On Sunday the problems came with AKo against pocket Aces after flopping top pair, KK (folded on the river when a second Ace hit and I was sure I was beaten), 77 beaten by 99 and AJs which I was forced to fold by a big bet on a scary flop.

I'm just not getting the rub of the green, and QQ is killing me at the minute. That hand accounts for the vast majority of my losses over the past week. In fact PT3 says that hand has cost me more than the total I have lost in that period. Thing is though I know I should still be playing it and playing it hard. It was favourite over the two AK hands it lost to earlier today.

Just a temporary downswing I guess, just as I was starting to feel more confident about my game too. I should be back on the horse soon enough though and ready to avenge these defeats

[mathare]

24th March 2010 (part two)
I really can't get a big hand to stand up, that's when I do actually get some action on it anyway. I've tried making standard raises with hands KK and AA only for everyone to fold so I have tried min-raises and got the same result. I'm not limping these hands very often as I don't feel that's the right thing to do. When I do get action I'm not winning big enough pots, or enough pots for that matter.

I just lost another buy-in with QQ! OK, I had lost around a third of it before QQ came along but when it did it hurt again. I raised pre-flop from mid-position and get a caller in the BB. Flop comes Q-K-T two suited. BB bets out around two-thirds pot, I call. Turn is a brick. BB bets out around three-quarters pot so I raise him a little over min-raise. I'm trying to find out where I stand. I assume my set of Queens is good as I don't put him on pocket Kings but he could have a straight/flush draw so let's have a look. He shoves on me giving me over 5-to-2 on the call so I make it and am up against the nut straight with him holding AJo. The river blanks and I'm felted.

I am really beginning to hate pocket Queens! They are my worst performing pocket pair by a mile, my worst of all hands in terms of BB/hand and close up there with AKo in terms of cash lost per hand. Hands like 88, AQs, AQo and AJo are getting up there too. My big Aces just aren't standing up it seems. I'm only a few bucks behind my all-in EV though according to PT3 so perhaps I am just playing these hands wrong and shoving/calling shoves too light...

[mathare]

25th March 2010
This is getting ridiculous now. Perhaps I am tilting a bit, maybe even steaming a little but I can't help but think I am on the wrong side of the luck in this game now. Let me give you a few examples from this morning's session that saw me burn through two buy-ins before I quit.

I get KK UTG+1 and a stack of 66xBB. UTG has me covered (just) and we both have middle position covered with his stack of 35xBB. UTG limps and I raise to 3xBB. Mid position re-raises me to 8xBB which UTG calls and I re-raise all-in looking to maximise my potential on this hand. I want it all in pre-flop so I can't be shoved off if an overcard hits and also to be the aggressor so had I raised to say 20-30xBB here I am inviting a shove over the top. Mid position calls (as expected) and UTG calls. Alarm bells go off now. What's UTG cold-called a re-raise with then overcalled a shove with? Mid-position has AA which fits with his actions perfectly. He saw me raise early and re-raised me then called my shove. Unlucky on my part but OK, it happens. UTG has Q7o. Yes, I did just say Queen-seven offsuit. Erm, WTF?!? He's not dominated I suppose but he needs to hit the board at least twice to win. The flop comes A-8-T, the turn is a 6 and guess what the river is? Unless it's a King I'm screwed but in good standing for the side pot between me and UTG who is drawing to four outs. One of which comes - a 9 on the river scoops a massive pot for the UTG muppet who was cold-calling raises and shoves with Q7o. Really, I wouldn't have mind losing to Aces in that situation too much but both of us losing to a hand like Q7o... ;fire

That was the hand that really wound me up but it wasn't the end of it by any means.

I lost over a buy-in with KK on a board of T-A-A-4-8 as my opponent's betting patterns didn't suggest an Ace. He was even toying with me in the chatbox though as he showed down not one, but two Aces for flopped quads. His betting didn't suggest an Ace as he'd crippled the deck.

I misplayed AJo against AKo in a pot that spiralled out of control and cost me almost a buy-in. Hands up, I accept the blame for poor play and not poor luck here. I was never ahead and should have realised that by the turn at the latest.

I ran KK into Aces again too and that cost me over 50xBB. I make that three times in just over 500 hands I had KK and ran them into AA losing each time.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the hand that made me quit, the one that took away most of my second buy-in yet. I'm dealt 66 in middle position and limp when it is folded to me. I could have raised but I was playing this one as a drawing hand looking to set-mine a cheap flop. The button limps and the BB calls. The flop comes 8-A-A two suited. BB checks and I bet two-thirds of the pot to draw any Aces out. The button calls, BB folds. The turn is a suited 6 putting three to a flush on the board and giving me a full house. Right now I have the button on an Ace, perhaps with a flush draw but perhaps not or on a made flush having called the flop bet with a flush draw. I'm not worried about these hands as I am beating them and it's now about how to maximise my winnings from this pot. I check looking to check-raise but giving him a free card isn't a disaster as I may get him to bet/raise on the river. Plus the pot is small and there may not be much to be won. A suited Jack comes on the river putting a four-flush on the board. I lead out for two-thirds the pot and get min-raised to $1. I raise to $2.20 and get shoved on. I call for a further $3.12 with my full house only for him to flip A6o for an unlikely bigger full house. No flush cards at all. He had an Ace as suspected and was just lucky to hit his kicker. Thinking back I didn't even consider him having A8 or A6 (or AJ on the river when he raised me) but instinct told me I was probably good there hence the raise and call of the shove. I didn't realise I was drawing dead from the flop though.

On balance, I won a couple of decent pots too, with AA against KK and AK against KK but nothing that significant compared to the losing pots.

This game can be so frustrating at times. I keep having early successes when I first play games and then soon slip into the red and struggle to recover, which is normally about the point I think "Sod this for a game of soldiers" and move on to something else. I really am determined to make a profit from cash games and from Rush Poker in particular but if there are serious leaks in my game they need fixing and if it's just bad luck I could do with it evening out a little, and soon please. I don't think I have enough hands in my database yet to really draw (m)any solid conclusions about my game as I only have around 26k in there so I will keep playing and hopefully analyse my game when I have 50-100k hands played, assuming I still have a bankroll then :rolleyes:

[mathare]

25th March 2010 (part two)
After my rubbish session this morning I decided what I needed was a spell in my watery thought booth (aka the shower - it's where I have all my best thoughts and ideas). Things started to fall into place a bit more after a few minutes in the spray.

When I first started playing Rush Poker I had been playing one table at a time and had done alright. So I moved on to playing two tables at once and that coincided with a dip in results. I went back to one table sessions and saw an immediate upturn followed by a few really poor recent sessions all but removing the profit I had earlier built up. Not all my two table sessions were bad though and they were certainly useful for building up FTP points, rakeback and so on. If my one table session results weren't obviously better than my two table sessions then one can conclude that the second table isn't harming my game as I feared it may have been so I should start playing two tables at once. At least that way I will get the hands played and start to build up sufficient data to be able to meaningfully analyse my game. I will also get towards the long-term faster and the fluctuations caused by each individual hand will smooth out and a clearer picture will emerge. That's the idea anyway.

So I sat at two tables after lunch with the intention of plugging away for as long as it takes to show a reasonable profit and restore some confidence in play as that had taken a knock after recent sessions where I have lost multiple buy-ins through what seems like bad luck. It was the usual tale of one table going well and the other going badly, really badly at times in fact. It took me just shy of 3000 hands and nearly four hours as well as risking four buy-ins (three at one table) but I did at least finish with a small profit - $0.34 to be exact! A session like that has been good for the bonus account though, as well as racking up quite a few loyalty points and it should see me earn a reasonable amount of rakeback whenever that gets paid too. But more than any of that I experienced a lot of downs and came through them. I made some nice hands and had them stand up, as well as having a load of decent hands beaten by people drawing slim or holding the only pocket cards that could beat me. All part of poker though and I am older and wiser because of this session.

It was a shocking start to it though and I seriously thought I was going to lose a few more buy-ins than I already had in the past few days without anything to show for it. I engaged my brain though and thought back to how I was playing when I first started out and compared that to my current game. I soon identified the problem: Dan Harrington. I have been reading his cash game books and I think my game has changed because of what I have learned from them but it's not applicable here, at least not so much. Rush Poker is a high-card game with little pre-flop raising and virtually no limping. It's a tight, fairly aggressive game and it has to be played that way. I need to stop thinking about what Action Dan recommends for playing hands post-flop and play them the way I know suits this game. That means not calling pot-sized bets with second pair or even just overcards. It means generally tightening up and playing things simply. It means c-betting like I always used to as that used to take down a lot of small pots for me and they all add up. It also means more or less forgetting suited connectors, certainly in all positions other than late position and high suited connectors although one has then to be aware of potential domination. It means consciously valuing suited overcards more than unsuited hands, so not playing ATo under the gun but maybe playing ATs. One thing I have learned from Harrington is the fairly obvious idea of "big hand = big pot, small hand = small pot" but it's an idea I haven't been following. I have been in big pots with nothing but top pair. Why has the pot got so big? Because I have made it big relative to the effective stacks my betting when I could check. I have reined these things in now and things have improved because of it. I am also trying to make sure I have the right number of opponents for the hand I am holding. Do I want many or few opponents for the hand I am playing? I'm also thinking more about the hand I am most likely to make on the flop and thinking about how best to play that, what size pot I want and how that affects my pre-flop actions.

During this mammoth afternoon session I also played with the Full Tilt Poker Academy challenges a bit more to see if I could actually finish some of the tasks on them. Rush Poker doesn't count towards the session tasks, e.g. play a no-limit hold'em session for 50 or more hands and show a profit at the end, that sort of thing. But one-hand tasks such as raise to three times the big blind with AA under the gun do apply to Rush Poker so I was able to complete the Chris Ferguson Pre-flop Play challenge for 400 FTPA points. What I didn't realise though is that you can do each challenge up to 10 times so I have started it again. I had been wondering how you were supposed to rack up enough points to get much from the FTPA store when there are around 30 challenges and they are worth maybe 250 points on average but now it makes sense.

Talking of getting stuff from poker room stores, my PokerStars sports jacket arrived the other day. I love it :hearty and am sure it was the right decision rather than the $40 bonus.

[mathare]

26th March 2010
I am seriously on the cusp of at least taking a break from poker if not giving it up altogether. It is seriously winding me up recently and starting to bring me down somewhat. It's not the amount of cash I am losing but the fact that I am losing far more often then I am winning and it's grinding me down.

I'm playing micro-stakes games with the kiddy-fish so why can't I get a break and win a few hands here and there? These games aren't populated with genius players so why am I unable to grind out even a small profit? There has to be something wrong with my game so I need to find out what and look at how I fix it (assuming I can). Maybe I'm just not suited to poker at all and need to give up on the idea of ever playing for substantial profits. Maybe it will only ever be a game to me, one that I play for entertainment rather than profit. That's be a real ball-breaker if that happens to be the case but I need to dismantle my game, and perhaps even my state of mind, at some point in the near future because I can't keep throwing money away like this.

I'll come back to this thread later as I have already written down a bunch of notes on what could be wrong but I need to go out and clear my head soon. Then I can come back and start gathering evidence to either support or dismiss my theories.

[Profit Seeker]

I assume that was written under the heavy influence of alcohol PS :rolleyes:

Chance of you making 4000 posts before getting banned must be slim if you keep dishing out insults and using foul language like that :Blacklistnonono:

Jeeeeeebus 4000 posts?

[mathare]

Jeeeeeebus 4000 posts?Ooh, so close. The potty mouth came back out and earned you a ban. You will be missed PS, honest. :rolleyes:

[mathare]

28th March 2010
My notes from Friday expanded into almost a huge essay and I needed to get my head round lots of stuff which is why you've not had the promised update till now. I've written loads I just need to split it down into forum-sized chunks and then post it up.

I still struggle to maintain a proper focus when I play. I used to play single-table limit sessions and make a small but steady profit. That was a few years back though. Since then I have been through SnGs, no-limit cash, back to limit, more SnGs and on to Rush Poker. When I found Rush I thought I had found the game for me. How can I lose focus when I am almost always in a hand? I didn't think it would be possible to multi-table when hands come so quickly. But I soon settled, got used to the speed and starting playing several Rush tables at once. Did my game suffer as a result? It's difficult to say as I don't really have conclusive evidence that the number of tables affects my winrate but it's safe to say that what started out as a profitable game for me soon went south and I started losing. And continued losing to the point where I am now about 10xBB down. I'm sure a lot of this is as a result of poor focus at the table. I need to look at why my focus is so poor and what I can do to sort it out.

What does it mean to be focused? It means thinking through betting actions (mine and the villains'). Who raised pre-flop? Who is the aggressor? What did the aggressor do on the flop? What does this mean in terms of hand ranges? When should I check and when should I bet? Am I obviously beaten? Do I have the odds (current and implied) to draw out on him? How many outs do I have? Is the story being told by the betting actions consistent? If not, I could have a bluff catching opportunity? I can do all this in slow-time offline but not consciously during the game. I tend to rely on instinct. I can't really decide whether my subconscious is making good decisions so I want to engage my conscious brain and go through the proper thought processes so I can see how the resulting action compares to instinct. But I am finding it really hard to bring all these thought processes to the fore.

Why am I struggling to focus on the game? There are several reasons, such as:
- the stakes aren't meaningful (on a bad day at Rush I lose maybe £20 but I can lose several times this laying a horse) but I don't feel experienced enough to play at a higher level; if I can't beat the fish at this level what chances do I have at higher stakes?
- I treat the game as entertainment rather than a profitable investment opportunity, that is to say I don't take it too seriously
- I can't be bothered
- other distractions such as email, forums, Betfair and so on

That's probably not a fully comprehensive list but illustrates the main points. A game where I can win or lose a few quid in the course of an afternoon's play isn't capturing my imagination and fully engaging my brain. This is perhaps the biggest challenge I face and I still haven't quite worked out how to deal with it. It's all very well to say I just need to think more about the game as I play but how does one do that constantly when I'm not in the habit?

It's not rocket science to actively put an opponent on a hand range pre-flop based on position and his betting actions and then to refine that range as you get more information through the streets. I just don't consciously do it and as a result end up in situations where I don't know where I stand when faced with a big bet.

I know the problems with my game, at least my approach to the game, but I don't know how to fix them. How does one rewire one's brain? I'm going to have to try really hard to think things through properly for the next few sessions and hope I can start to get into the right habit. Being rewarded for my efforts with a little profit would help too, hint hint poker gods.

One other thing I have wondered about is kind of the opposite of something I have already touched on. I said that when I tend to treat the game as entertainment that I don't take it too seriously. In my financial position I can't really afford to "waste" time playing "games". If it's not contributing to the bottom line, either immediately or with a view to a long-term payback, then I need to review how I am spending my time. I'm not going for all work and no play though, just trying to grind out a profit in whatever way it takes. With poker it's about learning the skills to beat the micro-stakes games to build a bankroll to tackle the higher stakes games. I want organic bankroll growth so my skills grow alongside my balance then I am in a better position to beat the bigger games when I have more money. I read a lot about poker (in books and magazines, not so much online) but how much of this applies to the games I am playing? Micro-stakes cash games are full of fish, not decent players so very little of Harrington on Cash Games is applicable. I am playing the wrong game, or rather playing the right game in the wrong way. I'm at the wrong level. I need to play down to the fish, play them at the game they are playing not the game I think they're playing. So it's maybe a case of taking the game too seriously and thinking about aspects of it too deeply. Fortunately this ought to be quite easy to fix.

I need to forget almost everything I know (or think I know) about cash game poker and get right back to basics. I need to go back to school, micro-stakes no-limit cash game school also known as the 2+2 forums. They have loads of useful information about how to beat micro-stakes games so it's a long period of reading and learning ahead of me I feel. It'll be worth it though. Let's get the basics in order and give me a solid foundation on which to build the skills as I build a bankroll. That way I stand a much better chance of even making it to the bigger games.

Actions
- Read beginners' guide to beating micros-stakes cash games on 2+2 forum
- Read stickies in 2+2 uNL forum
- Apply what I learn from above to Rush Poker
- FOCUS on game in hand and NOTHING else

[mathare]

28th March 2010 (part two)
There is something seriously wrong with my Rush Poker game and I have to find it. Now. I say 'something' but in actual fact there are probably many things wrong with my game but I need to focus on identifying my biggest leaks and fixing them. I'm not looking to iron all the wrinkles out of my game, just to spot a few problems and work on them as I don't believe it is particularly easy to completely overhaul one's game all at once; changes are much more likely to stick if introduced slowly, a few at a time. So that's what I am aiming for, and if I am only making a few changes I want to go for the high impact changes, those that will make the most difference to my bottom line. And so we turn to Poker Tracker and start examining my Rush Poker hands from all angles to see what stands out.

I have played 35,884 hands and am losing at a rate of 1.33BB/100. My main stats (VPIP/PFR/AF) are 9.34/6.88/3.03 but what matters more than this is how they vary with position which we will come to shortly. I am going to showdown 24.81% of the time and winning 55.35% of showdowns. I am stealing 19.14% of the time and folding my blinds 88.12% and 92.58% of the time in the BB and SB respectively.

Am I aggressive enough?
Conventional wisdom says that one should be raising most of the time when opting to play a hand pre-flop. Opinions vary on what makes a good VPIP/PFR ratio but it seems that one should be raising at least two-thirds of hands played. How do I measure up on that front? I (volunatrily) play 9.34% of hands and raise 6.88% of the time which means I raise 74% of the hands I play. I'm happy with that figure. It's not ridiculously high which would suggest I am too aggressive with more marginal holdings (although that may still prove to be the case) and is high enough to suggest I am making the table react to my bets through tight-aggressive poker. Good so far.

Positional Awareness
Position is a massive factor in poker and there are umpteen ways one can analyse their hands based on position. I want to start by checking how my VPIP and PFR vary with position. It's accepted that more hands are playable in late position than early position so VPIP in early should be significantly less than on the button. How much less? I have seen figures of between 50% and 100% less. My VPIP UTG is 7.73% while on the button it is 10.67%. That's not a difference of 50% suggesting I ought to be tightening up UTG and/or playing more hands in late position.

Blind Stealing
I steal the blinds 19.14% of the time which breaks down to be 13.08% in the cut-off, 17.82% on the button and 32.02% of hands in the SB. Is this enough? Not really, at least not according to the 2+2 forums which suggest stealing 20% or more of the time, and closer to 30% for more experienced players. I should be stealing more blinds then.

Let's have a quick look how my stealing has been working out for me though...+0.58BB/hand when I have the chance to steal and raise and breakeven when I just call rather than attempt the steal. Maybe I should be stealing more if it works out so well for me. I need to be careful not to take it too far though.

Postflop Aggression
My post-flop AFs are 4.02, 2.05 and 2.26 for the flop, turn and river respectively. Is it right that I am so much more aggressive on the flop than the other streets? It apparently means I usually decide whether I am going to play a hand on the flop and how to play it. I am betting/raising 4 times as often as I call a bet which means I am not calling too many flop bets to see what the villain does on the turn, even though that's how my play often feels to me. An AF of 4 on the flop means I am not slow-playing hands too often either. It indicates I am betting/raising with strong hands. My (relatively) high flop AF also indicates I am playing draws aggressively, betting/raising to give me two ways to win but also folding draws in the face of strong opposing action rather than just calling the bets and hoping.

What actions do I take after a pre-flop raise? 30.98% of the time I bet out, raising 1.01% of the time. I rarely (0.28%) check-raise though and I should be doing so around twice as often as I do, apparently. Most of the time (54.23%) there is no flop or no action. I should be betting/raising nigh on 40% of the time apparently. When I c-bet I win at a rate of 0.96BB/hand but it is noticeable that my profits are much lower UTG and UTG+1. Is this symptomatic of playing too loose in those positions?

WTSD%
This should be around 25% apparently. I have seen this figure in several places so I am inclined to believe it to be about right. Mine is 24.81% so I am pretty much bang on.

W$WSF%
I should be winning at least 35% of hands I see the flop with according to the experts. I win 47.46% of these hands so this doesn't seem to be a problem. It suggests I am playing strong enough hands pre-flop and not taking chances with too many marginal holdings in big pots. It also suggests I am c-betting at a decent rate but we can check this later.

W$SD
A good figure for a TAG player is 52-55% of showdowns won. I win 55.35% so I am not folding the best hand too often but am winning my fair share of pots when the hands are shown down. Good.

Blind Defence
How am I doing when it comes to defending my blinds? Let's first look at times I have VPIPed and am in the BB or SB. +0.08BB/hand broken down into -0.11BB/hand in the SB and +0.53BB/hand in the BB. My SB PFR may be too high at 62.28% but I can't really be sure. The important thing is though that in each position I am making more when I VPIP than I would lose if I just folded so my play out of the blinds is reasonable. What about defending against steals though? It's a small sample (just 104 hands) but I lose 1.09BB/hand when I call a steal attempt. I should tighten up my ranges here and stop calling with weak suited connectors unless I really have the odds for it and stacks are deep. It's been premium hands like QQ and KK that have done most of the damage to my stats though, both losing big pots. As I said earlier though, small sample, but maybe I need to think about 3-betting rather than calling the steal. My 3-betting range is much tighter consisting only of premium hands (if we ignore the Q2o I 3-bet with once) and 3-betting is marginally profitable.

Heads-Up
I am breakeven in pots where only two of us see the flop. However, that's not the whole story as I am losing in the SB faster than the cost of the blind and am a significant loser UTG in these pots. Why? Let's look at the hands I raised pre-flop. The stats look fine for all positions except SB, UTG and UTG+1 so let's narrow things down to those positions and see what's happening. I am particularly interested in my hand range here. It ought to be really tight as I'm in early position but it's not as tight as it should be (although we kinda knew that from the earlier Positional Awareness section). I think I can seriously reconsider raising hands like AJo, KQo, KJs, QJs and pairs below 88 (maybe even 99) all of which are in my range for raising UTG or UTG+1. That's a quick way of tightening up in early position and will hopefully improve things. What about in the SB? If I am raising in the SB and the flop is heads-up that means the villain has either limp-called my raise or I have 3-bet him, or it's blind v blind and I have raised on a steal. I'm 3-betting a bit light so could drop hands like QJo and ATo. What am I calling raises with? A pretty solid range it seems, no real issues here. Good strong hands that stand a good chance of winning pots against the likely range of a raiser. What am I raising limpers with? A very solid range that makes me a nice profit, actually. Hmm. Maybe my SB play isn't that bad after all once I address the 3-bet issue.

When I opt not to raise and am in a heads-up pot things are roughly breakeven in all positions except the blinds. Why would this be? I'm calling a few too many raises in the blinds it seems as I lose at a steady rate when there has been a raise in front of me. I could tighten up there by folding more often.

Multi-way Pots
When 3 to 10 players see the flop my positional breakdown is a bit weird. I am winning UTG (which makes a change) but losing significantly UTG+1 and am slightly down UTG+2 whereas every other position is profitable (SB is breakeven). If I don't raise pre-flop in these hands then I lose slowly UTG and UTG+1. If I don't raise the pot is either full of limpers or I have called someone else's raises. Let's look at those two cases now: when I am not facing a raise (ie all limpers) there's nothing that stands out and the only really significant point to take away from the case where I call a raise is that the sample is too small to be meaningful. What about when I raise pre-flop? Here we go, big trouble UTG+1 and UTG+2. If I narrow the data down to just those seats I bet I see my hand range is too wide...AJ, AT and pairs below 88 could all be dropped from the range and that ought to help things a little. Another way of tightening up from early position as I suggested earlier was necessary.

Pocket Pairs
The gurus on the 2+2 forums reckon VPIP with pocket pairs should be 85% or more; mine's 57.66%. Hmm. I'll be honest, I don't like the small pairs especially in raised pots. Harrington (and others) suggest playing pairs in such pots as you're calling one bet with the potential to hit a nice hidden hand and stack the villain but I don't think stacks are usually deep enough in my games to make this work as desired. All too often I would find myself calling a 3xBB raise with 22 and missing completely and then what? I don't mind playing 88 or higher, even 77 at times but I really don't like the small pairs in raised pots. My PFR should be at least 50% of my VPIP here, if not higher. My PFR figure is 45.25% so nearly 80% of my VPIPs are raises. That's not too bad.

Are all the pairs profitable though? AA-88 should certainly be and with a big enough sample (and proper play) the smaller pairs should be too apparently. QQ, TT and 88 are all significant losers for me. That looks like a problem for sure. It looks like I need to review my play of these hands.

Suited Connectors
Some people play suited connectors more than others so there are few guidelines on the 'right' numbers to show for such hands, other than BB/hand should be positive, which mine is at 0.05BB/hand. I shouldn't be cold-calling with these hands very often at all, which is fine as I have cold-called with AKs five times out of the 1234 hands I have been dealt. No real issues here it seems although the only profitable hand without paint in it is 43s so perhaps I should give up some of the weaker suited connector hands. This doesn't seem to be a big leak though so I'm not worrying about this for now.

Unsuited Connectors
My VPIP with these hands should be significantly less than that for suited connectors which it is (19.69% VPIP for suited, 11.84% unsuited) but my winrate should be positive, even if only slightly so, but it's -0.09BB/hand. It's profitable when I cold-call so that's not the issue here. Am I raising too light or calling raises too often? My raise calling range is tight whereas my raising range could be tightened (to Broadway connectors only) but the main problem seems to be AKo - it's a significant losing hand for me and I ought to find out why. It looks like a review of the hand histories for this one is in order.

Broadway Hands
I'm thinking specifically of the unpaired paint hands here, suited and unsuited. I just want to check how each of them are performing and whether they are profitable or not. I expect they all should be, or at least not significant losers. Oh. AKo I knew was a bad hand for me but AQo and AJo can join it on my trouble list. I need to review the hand histories for those too to see where I am misplaying them. Everything else is OK for now though. Some of the weaker unsuited hands are slight losers but to a much lesser degree than those big unsuited Aces.

More on Position
I wanted to take another look at position now, focusing not on VPIP or PFR but winrate (profit) in each seat. For a while my BB/Hand in the SB was more than the cost of the blinds, ie I was losing faster than I would have done had I folded all hands in the SB but I have turned this round now. However, my UTG and UTG+1 win rates are negative and my UTG+2 win rate has come down from what it used to be. I am not losing particularly quickly in these seats but is there any reason for me to be losing at all from these seats? How do I lose from non-blind seats? By voluntarily putting money into the pot and not winning it back at the end of the hand. There is no other way. Let's pull up the hand ranges for each of these seats and see how loose I am as well as how I am playing the hands.

UTG
There are some sloppy limps with weak Aces (A8s, A7o), weak broadway hands (e.g. KJs, QJs) and small pocket pairs but it's not as bad as I feared. The biggest losing hands are QQ, AKs, AQs, 77, 88, AKo and TT. Is there anything wrong with playing these hands in this position? 77 is perhaps borderline as part of a tight-aggressive strategy but the rest are playable. Is it a question then of how I play the hands? Open-limping isn't the problem and I can't cold-call or limp behind when I am UTG so if there is a problem with my calling strategy it must be with calling raises (eg calling 3-bets or limp-calling). Ahh, here we go. When I call a pre-flop raise UTG I lose. There isn't a single winning hand in this situation. The range is pretty tight (77-QQ, AKs, AJo+ and KJs) and the sample small (24 hands) but they are all losers. The problems here seem to have a whiff of misfortune such as running AKo into AA and QQ into KK. But was a call the right move here? Let's have a look at hand I raise in this position instead. The range is wider than ideal, that's for sure. It includes all pairs (except 44), all Broadway Aces, KQ, KJs and QJs. It's another small sample (271 hands) but a wide range all the same and one that should be tightened up significantly. It's the same hands causing the majority of the losses so I really need to sit and review how I play those hands.

UTG+1
As my position at the table improves my hand range can open slightly but UTG+1 is not the place to be opening a great number of hands. My range is 22+, 98s, JTs, QJs, KTs, KJs, KQ, ATs and AJ+ which is again too wide, although it partly depends on how I am playing these hands. I said earlier I don't like the small pairs in raised pots and the lowest pair I have called a pre-flop raise with is 77. I have raised with all pairs though and while they are not significant losers (which may only because of a low frequency thus far) I can drop all the small pairs here and switch to just raising premium hands, which means not raising KJs and probably not KQo either. That's a quick tightening up of my early position play. I'm not crazy about the raises with JJ and AQo when I am not first in either. That means UTG has raised signalling he has a strong hand. AQo and JJ are better calling hands here I feel but the sample is small and this isn't a big leak at this stage so I am prepared to let that go for now. I think I need to stop open-limping so often though. I haven't done it very much at all but hands like 44, 66 and the smaller suited Broadway hands don't have any place here. In later position with previous limpers looking to hit a hidden monster, fair enough, but not UTG+1.

In terms of hands to be reviewed for UTG+1, I ought to look at how I play TT, AQo, AJo, KK, KQs and AKs.

UTG+2
I am at least winning in this position so I won't focus on this seat in too much depth, just have a quick glance at my range really. My range is similar to the previous seat and so could be tightened up a little but it's not too bad. I'd like to know what I am doing wrong with AQo, AJo and ATo though as they are my biggest losing hands.

Showdowns
What am I taking to showdowns? Unsurprisingly I am losing money at showdowns UTG and UTG+1, as well as in the SB. Am I getting here with too weak a hand in these positions? Is this all because of my pre-flop ranges? It seems I am getting premium hands beaten rather than getting this far with rags, which is nice to know but I still need to look at those hand histories to work out how I am playing big hands so poorly.

River
What sort of hands am I getting this far with? And how does my position (in/out of position) affect things? I have seen 951 rivers and it's profitable for me to do so, in all positions except UTG, UTG+1 and the SB of course. It's those premium hands getting smashed again. When I have position my win rate is over 2BB/hand compared to -0.34BB/hand out of position. That's something worth being aware of then; I lose when I am out of position on the river. The sample isn't really large enough for meaningful analysis of how I lose but it's worth noting all the same.

Turn
Working backwards we come to the turn, what am I getting here with? I have seen 1375 turn cards and win at a rate of 0.41BB/hand which splits down as 1.43BB/hand in position and -0.31BB/hand out of position. The problem really is those premium hands in early position as that's what driving the losses. I need to spend some time analysing those hand histories for clues I was beaten and to identify where I could have folded earlier in the hand.

Flop
The story on the flop is pretty much the same, winning at a rate of 1.01BB/hand in position and losing 0.12BB/hand out of position for a total win rate of +0.30BB/hand. Interestingly my win rate when I have relative position on the pre-flop raiser is 0.10BB/hand but it's 1.67BB/hand when I don't have relative position. I haven't quite figured out what to make of this yet though.

Conclusions
It's clear I play too loose in early position. Whether I play too loose or too tight in other positions is less clear because of the early looseness. Rush Poker is a tight game though and some of the standard NLHE cash game metrics don't really apply because of that. There is scope for me to steal more often though and also to tighten up my requirements in the blinds when facing a steal.

The big problems seem to be the premium hands though. Have I been beset by bad luck running a good hand into an even better one a few times or were there clues that I was beaten throughout the hand and I just missed (or misread) them? The only way to really be sure of that is to analyse the hand histories for the hands where I lost most, to look back over the action for clues that should have told me my hand was no good.

Recommended Actions
Tighten up in early position, esp. not raising without a premium hand
Steal more from late position
Call fewer steals/fold to more pre-flop raises when in the blinds
Tighten 3-bet range in SB

Hand History Reviews
Review play of QQ, TT, 88, AKo, AQo, AJo - how am I losing so much?
Review play of QQ, AKs, AQs, 77, 88, AKo and TT UTG
Review play of TT, AQo, AJo, KK, KQs and AKs UTG+1
Review play of AQo, AJo, and ATo UTG+2

[mathare]

28th March 2010 (part three)
I have analysed my Rush Poker game (above) using advice from the 2+2 forums and various other sources of help and advice for micro-stakes no-limit hold'em cash games but this got me thinking, how is Rush Poker different to a normal cash game and what do these differences mean? The main differences I could think of were:
- lack of constant opponents so no reads, no history with opponents etc.
- more hands per hour so more bad beats and tilt potential per hour
- no fixed position rotation (small blind doesn't follow big blind etc)
- missing out on information on opponents as you don't get to watch hands you fold

How does this affect a Rush session compared to a normal cash game session? It makes for a tighter game, it means a HUD is next to useless and it means that you have to stereotype all opponents as one rather than being able to identify TAGs, LAGs and so on.

What I mean by this last point is you just have to assume that Opponent A plays the same as Opponent B and so on. You're just up against Opponent X with no specific playing tendencies other than those you assume apply to all players at this level. You don't know if the guy who raised to 3xBB UTG would only do that with a premium hand, you just have to base your reads/hand ranges and what you know about average opponents. This is both good and bad. Good because you build up a picture of the average opponent faster than you do an individual opponent as you're using all hands to build up this average picture. Bad because how many players are truly average? You never actually get a real bead on anyone's play and so are guessing in the dark more.

Does this matter? At micro-stakes, probably not. Just accept you're in a tight game and play accordingly. You won't usually get the right conditions for suited connectors in late position as the stacks aren't usually deep enough and very few pots are limped round, there is usually at least one pre-flop raise, so play the game you're in rather than the game you think you're in. This isn't a typical NLHE cash game (in my opinion) so modify your own game to fit.

How do I need to modify my game then?
- Play only big hands pre-flop
- Steal blinds from button/SB
- If I don't have odds (inc. implied) for a draw then fold and move on
- Play of pocket pairs - do I have the implied odds, i.e. are stacks deep enough?
- Fold more often (pre- and post-flop)

Beginner's Luck
When I first started playing Rush Poker I was doing alright and was winning a bit here and there. Then it all stopped going my way and started to go downhill, rapidly. Why are my results now different to those when I first started? Has my game changed or has my luck changed? I define the early game as the first 15,000 (ish) hands when I was doing well, then the worm turned for the remaining 20,000 (ish) hands. That means we have two reasonable samples to compare though. And I have checked, the difference doesn't really correlate with me multi-tabling so I am ruling that out for now.

Differences between early & current game (early stats v current stats)

VPIP & PFR basically unchanged (9.26/6.63 v 9.40/7.06)
Going to more showdowns & winning fewer (22.49/58.54 v 26.46/53.43)
Winning $ when seeing flop less often (50.27 v 45.46)
Aggression Factor is way down (4.09 v 2.48)
3-betting more (1.61 v 2.56)
Not folding to 3-bets as often (87.68 v 82.73)
Not folding BB to steal as often (90.57 v 86.50)


Positions

Winrate in BB significantly decreased (-0.16 v -0.34)
Winrate UTG+1 significantly decreased (0.05 v -0.08)
Winrate UTG+2 significantly decreased (0.10 v -0.02)
Others mostly unchanged
Playing looser UTG (6.72/5.59 v 8.47/7.65)
Coldcalling pre-flop less in all positions
3-betting pre-flop more in all positions
Stealing more on the button (15.73 v 19.45) and less from SB (34.90 v 29.83)

AFs

Preflop: 2.17 v 2.55
Flop: 5.45 v 3.21
Turn: 2.89 v 1.66
River: 2.43 v 2.16
Total; 4.09 v 2.48


So I'm...

- playing looser and far more aggressively in early position
- not folding to raises like I used to
- re-raising rather than calling - is this why I am getting into trouble with some premium hands? Creating too big a pot that I am then committed to?
- stealing on the button rather than from SB
- playing more aggressively pre-flop and less so post-flop, noticeably so on all streets => raising/betting less and calling more

[mathare]

29th March 2010
Hand History Reviews
I said earlier that I had a number of specific hands I wanted to review in an attempt to try and identify where I am going wrong with them. This is that exercise. I'm looking specifically for errors that are big i.e. costly and/or obvious. I'm not reviewing every decision, just looking back over the hands to see how I perhaps could have played them differently (better). Obviously, I know the result of the hand now so am looking back with hindsight but I still hope to be able to get something useful from this exercise. The number of each hand I will analyse is not fixed. I will start with the worst hands and work down the list of losing hands till I am satisfied I have identified where I am going wrong. I won't bother with hands where I lost less than 10ptBB (PokerTracker big bets, each equal to 2xBB) though.

All Positions
QQ
1. Lost 38.00ptBB (QQ v 68s, 7-4-9-T-T)
Open-raised to 2.5xBB pre-flop and got three callers; check-raised overpair on rainbow flop; saw turn out of position & bet out for half-pot, villain makes small raise with possible (but unlikely) straight draw on board, called; check-called all-in (for about one-third pot) on river - lost to turned straight (68s).

My pre-flop action is fine in middle position but I don't know why the villain called with suited one-gappers, maybe that's just me. I don't like the check-raise now though, and not just because of the result. I honestly think the villain would have raised had I bet out so I'd be getting more money in when ahead, which is kinda the point of the game. The villain was open-ended with a backdoor flush draw so his bet and call are reasonable. When he makes his straight he raises but I had no reason to fear the Ten really. The money could have all gone in then in which case I may have folded but I doubt it. The check-call on the river I am happy with.

No huge or obvious mistakes there really. I think the check-raise was a poor move but given his turn raise any raise on the flop may not have told me I was beaten and I can't always live in fear of unlikely straights.

2. Lost 37.55ptBB (QQ v 55, 3-2-4-9-A)
Min-raised UTG pre-flop and got min-raised by UTG+2, BB cold-calls, I raise to 10xBB and both call; I bet two-thirds pot when BB checks 3-2-4 two-suited flop, UTG+2 min-raises, BB folds, I call. Turn brings a third suited card making flushes possible, I check-call all-in for less than one-quarter of pot; river is Ace completing straight draw for villain holding 55.

Why the small opening raise? I was completing academy tasks, otherwise that's a standard 3xBB raising hand for me. The BB's cold-call concerned me more than the min-raise. Was my re-raise large enough? There is $1.05 in the pot before my call and after my call my raise is only $0.60 so around half-pot. I probably should have raised more, to $1.20 to $1.40 to give me a better idea of where I stood. Effective stacks were 75xBB so a raise to 12-14xBB would have given AA and KK a chance to perhaps shove on me. UTG+2 was drawing to an open-ended straight and hit on the river when I was ahead 3:1. These things happen. I committed myself to the hand on the flop by betting $2 into a $3.05 flop leaving me $4.51 behind. I should have shoved the rest in over the top of his min-raise rather than call and check-call the turn when the third club came.

No massive errors here but I could have made a couple of better decisions in playing this one out.

3. Lost 36.20ptBB (QQ v 87o, 6-5-9-Q-A)
Middle-position limps, folded to me in SB & I raise to 3xBB, BB and limper call; flop is 6-5-9 rainbow so potential straight draws (and one potential made straight), I bet two-thirds pot with overpair, BB only caller; turn makes me a set, I bet out half-pot, BB calls; I bet half-pot on river, BB shoves all-in and I call with 3.4:1 pot odds. He shows 87o for the flopped straight.

The pre-flop bet could have been a bit bigger given my position throughout the rest of the hand but it's not bad. Flop bet is fine with the overpair but BB gets trappy with a call. Turn bet is good again with the set and again BB is trappy. At this point I think my set is good and have the BB on a hand that's likely to be overcards including an Ace. When the Ace hits on the river and I get action I happily call with good pot odds and a strong hand. I didn't put him on 87o I admit. Should I have done? Come on, he's just called pre-flop (which is loose bearing in mind he doesn't even have position at that point due to the mid-position limper) and calls my lead outs on two streets before getting excited on the river. That Ace could have killed his action if I had a hand like JJ or perhaps KK so he was taking an unusual betting line with his actions. I'd have raised on the turn if not made a small flop raise. Bad luck.

4. Lost 35.75ptBB (QQ x AJo, Q-K-T-2-5)
Open-raise to 3xBB from middle-position, BB only caller; flop a set but on a co-ordinated board so when BB bets two-thirds pot I ought to raise, instead I only call; BB bets two-thirds pot on turn and now I make a small raise, BB shoves, I call and he shows the flopped straight; river is no help.

The error here was on the flop. With a draw-heavy board (three Broadway cards and two suited) I had to raise with my set. The turn was not the street on which to make the raise. I was getting better than 5-to-2 on the all-in though so the call wasn't perhaps that bad given he could have been on one of two flush draws, a straight draw rather than a made straight or a lower set. A set of Kings was possible but unlikely given his pre-flop call. The money should have gone in earlier. I'd still have lost but it should have gone in a street before it did.

5. Lost 27.65ptBB (QQ v KK, 9-9-T-6-5)
Open-raised to 3xBB UTG, middle-position raises to 9xBB, I call; I bet two-thirds pot with overpair and villain shoves over the top for another 34xBB giving me pot odds of 2.27:1. Does he have 99 or TT for a monster? Possible. A hand like A9 or AT? Possible again but would these hands raise so big pre-flop? The odds seem good so I call. He shows KK and the board bricks out.

Could I have spotted he was holding a bigger pair and got out of the way? If I fold to shoves like that too often when getting better 2:1 I will be losing a fair amount of value from big hands (I reckon anyway) so the call is fair enough. Just bad luck to run into a bigger pair. I'd have played the hand the same way now.

6. Lost 27.20ptBB (QQ v AA, K-2-8-3-J)
UTG+2 open-raises to 4xBB, I shove for 54xBB, villain calls; board blanks out.

Did you spot the big mistake in this hand? A re-raise to 10-14xBB would have been appropriate. Had he called I'd have frozen when the K came out and probably folded. Had he raised me all-in, who knows? But that's the sort of hand I need to learn to get away from. A shove there means AA, KK or perhaps AK. The first two have me crushed and I am racing with AK. That's got to be folded in that situation. My shove was a grotesque error.

7. Lost 25.75ptBB (QQ v AA, 9-3-6-7-9)
Open-raise to 3xBB UTG+1, cut-off calls, SB raises to 13.5xBB, I call, CO folds; SB checks flop, I check behind; SB bets around 40% of pot on turn, I call; SB bets just inder half-pot on river, I call.

The mistake on this hand comes on the flop. I raise, get a caller and the SB 3-bets into both of us. I was getting 2:1 on the call but couldn't be sure I had position because of the cut-off. I check-call the rest of the way which is reasonable given the way the board fell. Could I have folded that pre-flop? A raise there doesn't always mean a better hand than mine and post-flop I didn't put in more than I had to so I don't mind this too much. Had the raise been a hand like AKs (which is possible) then my hand holds up and I win a nice pot.

8. Lost 23.75ptBB (QQ x ??, 2-7-K)
The button raises to 4xBB and I 3-bet to 10xBB in the BB, the button raises to 27.5xBB and I call with pot odds of just over 2:1. I bet just over one-third pot on the flop and the button shoves, I fold.

Two mistakes in this hand, correct the first and I can't make the second. When the button first raises it could be a steal, when he re-raises me it's clear he has a hand. As I said before this is probably AA, KK or AK (possibly AQ but unlikely) and I should be folding here really. I said I'd call with 2:1 in the last hand and I am getting that here but I am out of position and he's shown much greater strength pre-flop. After calling I shouldn't be betting out on that board as I won't shove him off any of the hands in his probable range.

9. Lost 21.50ptBB (QQ v AKo, 6-5-A-2-J)
Button open-raises to 4xBB, I raise to 10xBB and button shoves for 43xBB total. I call. He pairs his Ace on the flop and I get no help from the turn or river.

I was getting 1.62:1 on the call and I have said several times now that QQ should be foldable when shoved on like that, only I didn't fold, I called. I was in about as good a shape as I could be at that point and lost the hand on the flop.

10. Lost 20.15ptBB (QQ x JTs, T-3-2-A-J)
UTG+2 I open-raise to 3xBB and only the BB calls; he bets the pot on the flop, I call with an overpair; he makes a small (one-fifth pot) bet on the turn when the Ace comes, I call; the river completes the flush and he bets the pot, I call and lose to his rivered two pair.

The flush is an unlikely holding on the river unless he bet two diamonds on the flop with a backdoor draw. A straight was possible with KQ but that doesn't fit his flop/turn betting. The flop call is OK I think, if he has a set he's bet pretty much the maximum since overbetting the pot is rare so a call here is fine so I can see what he does on the turn. He doesn't like that turn card though. I should raise his turn bet to see whether it's a suck bet, if it is then I can fold my hand but by calling here I don't know where I stand. I am losing to any Ace on the river. I correctly surmised he didn't like the Ace but didn't do anything about it. That's my mistake here.

Conclusions
I got a little unlucky in some of the biggest pots there. Mostly my mistakes seem to be not raising enough when I was likely to be best and calling too often when I have been told in no uncertain terms pre-flop that if I am not already way behind then I am racing at best. In games like this I don't need to race, I can wait for fat value situations and make the money that way. I don't need to shove or call shoves with QQ. I need to bet my sets stronger and I need to raise when my opponent has all but told me the latest board card has him scared.

AKo
1. Lost 57.10ptBB (AKo v AA, 9-9-K-5-8)
I open-raise to 3xBB UTG, UTG+1 raises to 9xBB, I call; I bet out half-pot on the flop, he raises to 3 times my bet, I shove, he calls; the board is no help.

The mistakes are huge and incredibly obvious here and all come on the flop. Pre-flop the raise and call are fine. A half-pot bet on the flop says I have a hand, his raises says he has a bigger one. He's clearly not worried by that King so his range now includes a set (9s), a full house if he held KK (or K9 although that is very unlikely), quads with 99 (unlikely) and the overpair of Aces. What else can he have? The best I could hope for is AKs but the flop is rainbow so he's not playing the suitedness in that case. A call would have been a mistake, the shove is a catastrophic error. I'm drawing to just two outs (the remaining Kings) so what was I thinking?

2. Lost 53.15ptBB (AKo v TT, T-4-7-A-K)
There's a middle position limper followed by a raise to 3xBB, I re-raise to 7xBB in the SB which the raiser calls; I bet around two-thirds pot with overcards and get a call; I bet a little over half-pot on the turn and get min-raised, I call; I shove for around half-pot on the river and get called. His set takes the pot from my two pair.

The pre-flop re-raise is too small, that should have been at least 10xBB, especially with that limper in there and my position. The Tens probably call anyway though and hit their set on the flop. What's my c-bet saying? I have shown strength pre-flop, re-raising the guy so I am saying I can beat top pair which suggests an overpair. His call is reasonable but a raise would have been OK there too (from him, not me). I continue to show strength with the bet on the turn but he thinks he has me beaten (which he does) and raises. Is he trying to see if I had AA? A bluff-shove there represents AA perfectly but it's a bold move. The shove on the river says I have a decent hand but top two isn't that strong here really. If he raised the turn because the Ace helped him then we're possibly looking at two pair (AT most likely) and I beat that. A set is possible too with a small turn raise so as to keep me on the hook. I may have been able to check that one down or call a shove from him. Would that have been the better play? It's hard for me to say really as all I can see is him flopping that set and playing it the way he did. I might have made it too easy for him. Had I raised larger pre-flop the money would have gone in earlier anyway.

3. Lost 51.85ptBB (AKo v KK, 5-K-4-Q-9)
UTG+1 open-raises to 3xBB, I re-raise to 10xBB in SB and villain calls; I lead out for three-quarters pot with top pair and get a call; I bet three-fifths pot on the turn and get shoved on, I call with over 3:1 pot odds; river is no help.

The main problem here is getting married to top pair, top kicker I think. It's easy to say with hindsight that I was probably beaten but not so in the heat of battle. The villain signalled he had a decent hand pre-flop with his raise and call. I think my flop bet is fine to find out where I stand with TPTK but I should be checking the turn to keep the pot manageable. He could have been playing KQ or QQ and thus be ahead of me. A set of 5s or 4s on the flop is unlikely but I can't rule it out of his range entirely so top pair may not be any good. Could I have folded to the shove? With 3:1 odds maybe not as I could be good but what hands would he play that way if I was ahead? I think when he shoves the turn I have to let top pair go, and should have checked the turn in the first place.

4. Lost 37.75ptBB (AKo v AJs, 4-6-J-K-8)
Middle position min-raises to 2xBB as an opener and I make a small raise to 5xBB on the button, the blinds fold, middle position calls; villain checks the flop and I bet two-thirds pot which he calls; I bet four-fifths bet when he checks the turn, he min-raises, I call; he shoves for less than one-quarter pot on the river and I call with odds of nearly 5.5:1. His turned flush takes the pot.

The pre-flop raise is perhaps a little on the small side and a raise to 7-9xBB would have been in order, although I did have position so maybe the smaller raise is acceptable. The villain checks the flop with TPTK and a flush draw, just calling my bet. When the flush card comes on the turn I have to bet smaller and wait for a raise to tell me where I am. 80% of the pot is too big here and something around half that size ought to have done the trick. When he min-raises me I have good odds on the call but what am I drawing to if I am behind? I have top pair with no redraws so if he's drawing to the straight or flush (or has a made flush) I am screwed. Should I have folded to that raise? Maybe but as I just said, a better ploy would have been a smaller bet out or even a check behind on the turn to avoid issues of pot commitment. I should have included flush draws in his flop range so when the card hits on the turn I have no reason to make the pot big for him.

5. Lost 28.60ptBB (AKo v AJs, 3-A-3-4-J)
Middle position open-raises to 2.5xBB, I re-raise to 7xBB in the cut-off, he calls; he check-calls my two-thirds pot bet on the flop; he check-raises my two-thirds pot bet on the turn, shoving over the top to double my bet, I call with odds of just under 5:1; the river makes him two pair and he takes the pot.

The pre-flop raise is about the right size and I have no reason to believe I am anything but ahead on the flop so the two-thirds pot bet is pretty standard. His check-call could indicate an Ace with a smaller kicker or a lower pocket pair that is slightly scared of the Ace but is looking to draw out to the full house. When he check-raises me on the turn I have to ask myself if that 4 helped him. There are no flushes and only one straight possible but would he raise 52 pre-flop? Would he play pocket 4s like this? Ditto A4? Did he have A3 and is now dropping the hammer? None of those hands really fit the pre-flop and flop action so I have to think I am good here and with odds of nearly 5:1 this is a pretty simple call. I just get unlucky on the river with him hitting his kicker. I had read the situation right.

6. Lost 28.55ptBB (AKo v AA, 8-J-K-5-6)
UTG+1 limps so I raise to 4xBB in middle position, it's folded round to UTG+1 who re-raises to 11xBB, I call; UTG+1 bets less than half-pot on the two-suited flop, I call; UTG+1 shoves on the suited turn, putting me all-in for 36xBB, I call; the river brings a fourth spade and I lose to the nut flush (although I was losing to a bigger pair anyway).

I am happy enough with my pre-flop actions. The raise is standard and even though the villain limp-reraised I'm going to call in that situation with a hand like this. I call a smallish bet with TPTK on the flop but should have folded instantly to the shove as the turn brought a third flush card. His shove was for over three-quarters of the pot and that should have told me I was beaten. That was the point at which I should have folded.

7. Lost 19.35ptBB (AKo v AA, K-7-J-4-8)
I open-raise to 3xBB UTG+2, the button re-raises to 10.5xBB, I call; I bet just under half-pot on the flop and am bet by a huge raise, almost all-in by the button, I call the rest of my short stack with odds of 3.34:1; the rest of the board blanks out and his overpair takes the pot.

The pre-flop action is fairly standard but when I am re-raised is there a case for shoving? My stack is 36xBB and I need to call 7.5xBB. Obviously the Aces call any shove from me so all I am going to get rid off is hands I am racing such as QQ and JJ or hands I beat like AQ. AA and KK will call every time. On that basis the call is fine but it basically commits me to the pot as it makes a pot of 22.5xBB and I have 28xBB behind. On the flop I could just shove with TPTK. All the money was always going in here but I didn't really give myself any fold equity, not that I really had any with his pocket Aces but that's not the point. There was only one real exit point on this hand and it's the pre-flop re-raise, I could fold there but nowhere else in this hand really. That would have been very tight on a micro-stakes table though. I think I was just destined to lose a big pot here.

Conclusions
It seems I am overvaluing TPTK at several stages. I need to factor in the likelihood of the villain having a set as well as accounting for flush draws and so on. There have been some big bets that I have called with nothing more than top pair and no draw but those bets are from straightforward players who are not playing back at me, they have me beaten and I need to recognise that fact. I also need to make slightly larger pre-flop 3-bets.

AJo
1. Lost 47.45ptBB (AJo v AKo, 2-7-A-9-K)
UTG+1 limps, I raise to 4xBB, the cutoff and UTG+1 call; UTG+1 checks, I make a small bet of under one-third pot, the cutoff puts in a big raise to more than three times my bet, UTG+1 folds, I call; I check the turn and call the cutoff's bet of two-thirds pot; I bet 30% of pot on the river, cutoff raises all-in and I call the extra with 4.64:1 pot odds. His two pair take the pot (although I was never winning that pot).

Raising AJo in middle position is perhaps marginal if I don't have the post-flop skills to pull it off in situations like this one. I thought I did have the skills, to be honest, but perhaps it's time to re-evaluate my play of hands like this pre-flop. Why such a small bet on the flop? Is it a probe bet? I don't really know what it is to be honest but when I am raised that ought to suggest I am beaten. He only called pre-flop though so he could be playing a weaker Ace (that hasn't hit it's kicker) or (less likely) a decent pocket pair that is raising to see if I really have that Ace I am sort of representing. I am losing to four Aces (AK, AQ, A7, A2) and beating eight Aces so with odds of 2.21:1 this call isn't the biggest mistake in the hand. When he bets the turn (after I correctly checked) I can fold. He still thinks he's good and I have top pair with a good kicker, not top kicker. I should believe I am beaten and fold.

2. Lost 20.25ptBB (AJo v A8s, A-3-3-4-5)
Button open-raises to 3.5xBB, I call; I lead put for half-pot on the rainbow flop and get a call; I bet two-thirds pot on the suited turn, he calls; I bet less than one-third pot on the river (a third club), he makes a small raise all-in, I call. His flush takes the pot.

The button's raise could be a steal so calling with AJo out of position is a reasonable play. I wouldn't want to be 3-betting here. I have top pair with a good kicker on the flop and think I am probably ahead so bet out and get a call. I don't put him on a 3 so his range is mostly Aces now. The turn brings a second suited card and completes a potential straight but who'd play 52 that way? I have no reason to feel I am behind so bet out again. If I don't bet the river what happens? He shoves on me for two-thirds pot with a rivered flush (after playing a backdoor draw from the flop with a weaker Ace) but what would I do? Any 2 makes him a straight and two clubs gives him a flush. Can I lay it down here? The pot would be laying me over 2.5:1 so I'd probably call. I can't put him on a 2 here and two clubs doesn't make much sense given his play so far unless he specifically had Ax of clubs (which he did). If I don't bet I'd call his shove so maybe he'd lay it down on the river. I could have checked the river but it doesn't affect the outcome of the hand or the amount lost. I got unlucky with the river card as I was ahead of him till then.

3. Lost 18.60ptBB (AJo v 33, 5-A-3-T-9)
Middle position limps which starts a chain of limpers including me on the button so 5 of us see a flop; the open-limper bets four-fifths pot, I make a small raise, he makes a much bigger raise putting me all-in, I call; I was drawing thin and get no help as his flopped set holds up.

I got it all in with top pair good kicker. That's rarely a good thing to do even in weak games like this. I raised on the flop to see if my Ace was good and got told in no uncertain terms that it wasn't. I should have listened, simple as that really.

4. Lost 11.75ptBB (AJo v ATo v 99, 8-4-J-9-3)
UTG limps, I limp behind, the cutoff limps, SB min-raises, BB calls, all limpers call so 5 of us see a flop; SB bets 15% of pot, I call, cutoff calls; SB checks turn, I bet two-thirds pot, cut-off calls, SB min-raises, I call, cutoff calls; river is checked round, SB wins pot with turned set.

I'm not crazy about that pre-flop limp but it's better than a raise with a weakish Ace in that position. The flop betting is weird! SB makes a tiny bet and with TPTK I need to be raising here, especially with the passive cutoff in the mix. On the turn I make the bet I should have made a street earlier only know the SB has a set and the cutoff has an open-ended straight draw leaving me drawing dead. Calling the min-raise isn't so bad with odds of nearly 5.5:1 and checking the river down is fine but the mistake came on the flop.

5. Lost 11.50ptBB (AJo v KQo, Q-Q-9-J-4)
I open-raise to 3xBB from the cutoff, the button calls; I bet around 40% of pot on the flop as a c-bet, button calls; I bet around 40% of pot on turn, button calls; I check river and button bets half-pot, I call with 3:1 odds. His flopped set takes the pot.

Was that a flop to c-bet on? It's got a high pair on board and is likely to have hit the villain in part at least. If he doesn't have at least a straight draw here I have done well. When he calls I have to check the turn even though I make top two pair as it adds another straight card into the mix. I can then re-evaluate where I stand depending on what he does. On the river I get it right with a check-call but it was a street too late.

6. Lost 11.00ptBB (AJo v AKo, K-2-4-J-A)
UTG+2 I raise to 3xBB, SB calls; flop is checked round; SB bets just over half-pot on turn, I call; he bets pot on river, I call; his bigger two pair take the pot.

I was never winning this one but it was weirdly played out. He tried to slowplay on the flop but I checked behind, fearing that K. I was happy to call a small bet on the turn having paired up as the King may not have helped him either. He could be on a draw or have two pair already though. When the Ace hits I make a big two pair but lose to a bigger two pair. Did his betting actions say AKo to you? They didn't to me. They didn't say QT either which would have made a straight, although looking back over it now that seems more likely than AK in many ways. Was the river call a mistake? I was getting 2:1 with two good pair and no strong evidence he had me beaten so I don't mind that call so much. It's certainly not a massive mistake.

Conclusions
These hands have highlighted one of my biggest errors, my unwillingness to believe strong action means a good hand and not folding enough. At this level they are really not playing back at you and folding is a must it seems. I also need to raise weak bets not passively call them and watch which flops I c-bet.

AQo
1. Lost 28.00ptBB (AQo v AKo, Q-K-T-8-T)
I open-raise to 3xBB UTG+1, middle position calls, cutoff raises to 10xBB, I call, middle position calls; I bet one-third pot on the two-suited flop, cutoff shoves over the top to around 4.5 times my bet, I call; turn and river are no help as his bigger pair takes it down.

I have no issues with the pre-flop action and make a feeler bet on the flop to see where I stand. The answer comes back telling me my hand is no good yet I call. The pot odds were under 2.5:1 and I had few outs - a Jack splits the pot with any other Ace, any Ace gives any Jack a straight so I am only drawing to the two remaining queens really. A really poor call. I asked if my hand was good and was told it wasn't but continued in the hand all the same.

2. Lost 20.90ptBB (AQo v K9o, A-K-4-4-K)
I open-raise to 3xBB in SB, BB calls; I bet two-thirds pot with top pair on the flop and BB calls; I bet two-thirds pot on the turn figuring my Ace is still good, he calls; I bet one-third pot on the river and call his shove for another 15xBB getting over 4.5:1 pot odds. His full house takes down the pot.

The action up to the turn is standard and I can't argue with any of it. I don't have him for KK, AK or anything with a 4 in it on the turn and if he has a 4 he'll soon tell me so that bet is fine. The river bet though? He must have been calling me with some part of the board so far and a King has to feature heavily in that range so the bet-call on the river was poor. I could have saved myself a chunk here with a check-fold as his range includes a lot of Kings and far fewer Aces.

3. Lost 19ptBB (AQo v AKs, 8-A-2-4-6)
Cutoff raises to 3.5xBB, I re-raise in the BB to 8xBB and get a call; on the (two-suited) flop I bet two-thirds pot and get a call; turn brings a third suited card and again I bet two-thirds pot, he calls; when the river puts a four-flush on board we both check the river. His bigger kicker wins the pot.

I'm not crazy about that pre-flop 3-bet out of position. It was too small for such a bet. I'd rather not 3-bet at all there now but if I am going to do it then the bets needs be around 12xBB rather than 8xBB. On the flop I have no reason to assume I am beaten so the bet is fair enough. The turn bet, however, is poor. The villain could have been in there with suited cards and hence a flush draw which has just hit and I'm now building the pot for him. I should check and see what he does here, as I did on the river when it got really scary. If he bets either of those streets I should fold. I only have top pair with a good kicker. I am losing to several Aces as well as the flush now, let it go.

4. Lost 17.60ptBB (AQo v AKo, 7-3-A-2-J)
I open-raise to 3xBB in middle position, the cutoff raises to 8xBB, I call; I bet two-thirds pot on the (two-suited) flop, he calls; I shove for a half-pot bet on the turn when a third diamond hits, he calls; river is no help as his bigger kicker takes the pot.

Everything is fine up to the turn again. When the flush card hits I should be checking, not shoving. If he puts me all-in then I have 3:1 pot odds and a decision to make but I have no reason to bet there.

5. Lost 14.60ptBB (AQo v KK, Q-2-3-5-T)
I raise to 3xBB UTG+2, middle-position raises to 10xBB, I shove for 29xBB and he makes the call; his bigger pair takes the pot.

Hmm. I could have called that pre-flop 3-bet and led out on the flop. All the money would have gone in on this hand for sure but the pre-flop shove is dodgy, I don't like it at all.

6. Lost 13.00ptBB (AQo v A8s, T-A-3-9-8)
UTG I raise to 3xBB and get one caller UTG+1; I lead out for two-thirds pot on the rainbow flop, he min-raises, I call; we both check the turn; I bet half-pot on the river, he calls and wins the pot.

Pre-flop betting is fine again, I don't mind AQo UTG even though some wouldn't play it. I hit top pair on the flop so bet out. When I am raised I put him on a decent Ace, TT or a big pocket pair looking to get rid of the Aces which is why I check to him on the turn. When he checks behind I think my kicker is still good on the river so put in a half-pot value bet. I'm unlucky that he has hit his kicker because I didn't play this hand too badly.

7. Lost 12.75ptBB (AQo v ??, A-T-T-K-5)
Button raises to 3.5xBB, I call; I bet out half-pot, he calls on the two-suited flop; I bet half pot again on the turn and again get a call; I bet one-third pot on the river which puts a three-flush on board, he raises to 3 times my bet and I fold despite pot odds in excess of 3.5:1.

I am losing to any Ten, AA, KK, AK, QJ and any two spades on the river. What am I beating that would have gone this far? He called bets on the flop and turn after raising pre-flop. He could have a big Ace here, a flush draw with high cards (eg KQ), a big pocket pair (KK, maybe QQ) and perhaps hands like KT. If he has a Ten without a King or Ace he has to raise the turn, surely? There are two flush draws that could beat his trips so he needs to get the money in now. If he has KT or AT he can wait till the river, perhaps even hoping the flush draw completes as it did in case I am on the draw. I can't see many hands he could have played in this manner that I am now beating so I fold. I could have saved myself that river bet too, I didn't need to make that with the three-flush on board.

8. Lost 12.50ptBB (AQo v ??, 2-4-6-K-7)
I open-raise to 3xBB UTG+1, both middle position players call; I c-bet for two-thirds the pot on the flop and get one caller; I bet 60% of pot on turn and get a call;
I check-fold to a half-pot bet on the river.

C-betting works well in this game but I need to have some sort of threat potential on the flop. With a 2-4-6 flop my c-bet has to represent a decent overpair as I am unlikely to have a set here and certainly not a straight with 53. When I get a call I ought to slow down, especially when the K hits on the turn. The caller has told me he has a good hand too and while he could have a set an overpair is certainly a good part of his range with overcards in there too but less likely given my c-bet. My turn bet is too big (I could even have checked here) but I do at least do the right thing on the river. When firing that second barrel on the turn I was leaving myself only the Aces as possible outs and that's too slim for a situation like this.

Conclusions
I need to start listening to the answers to questions asked when making bets. If I am raised then chances are my hand is no good. I am overvaluing my hand pre-flop somewhat and need to stop that. I also need to check more when obvious draws complete and to stop firing too many barrels with nothing.

88
1. Lost 20ptBB (88 v QQ, 3-6-6-7-2)
I raise to 3xBB in the cutoff, BB reraises to 7xBB, I call; he bets two-thirds pot on the flop, I call; he shoves all-in for two-thirds pot on the turn, I call; river is no help. His bigger pocket pair wins the pot.

Nothing out of line in the pre-flop action and with an overpair calling a two-thirds pot on the bet is OK. The call on the turn? Pot odds of 2.5:1 with an overpair and few draws mean I need to be up against an overpair to be significantly behind. Unfortunately that's where I am. I can't fault the play here too much really.

Conclusions
No significant errors identified.

A3o
1. Lost 35.10ptBB (A3o v A6s, A-Q-6-A-T)
UTG+2 limps, cutoff limps, I complete from the SB, BB checks; I lead out for three-quarters of the pot with top pair on the flop, UTG+2 calls, cutoff min-raises and we both call; I bet just under half-pot on the turn with trips, UTG+2 folds, cutoff min-raises, I call; I bet one-third pot on river, cutoff puts me all in, I call. His full house wins the pot.

I haven't put this hand in context with those around it during the session but it smacks of tilt doesn't it? I could easily fold the raggy Ace in a multi-way pot pre-flop, and should really fold it. Leading out on the flop though was daft. When I get a caller and then a raiser I am beaten and it's time to fold. Even if I call the min-raise on the flop with over 5:1 odds I should be checking the turn even if I did hit trips as someone is telling me they have a better Ace than me, and it's not hard for them to have a better kicker. I should be exercising pot control here but instead I go with blind aggression all the way and lose a big pot.

Conclusions
I didn't expect to be analysing rag hands in my biggest losers but this is a big pot lost. I should be folding rag Aces pre-flop and not going all guns blazing when I hit a bit of the flop. Stupid play all round.

TT
1. Lost 32.65ptBB (TT v 99, J-8-7-T-4)
I raise to 3xBB in UTG+1, the cutoff and BB call; BB checks, I bet two-thirds pot on dangerous two-suited flop, only BB calls; turn is checked round, I bet half-pot on river, BB shoves over the top and I call despite odds of less than 2:1. His straight wins the pot.

It was going alright till the river really. I had to bet that flop to see where I was with three to a straight and two to a flush out there. There was only one overcard and I had a gutshot. When I hit trips on the turn it makes anyone with a 9 a straight so in many ways I didn't want to hit my card. Checking behind was the right move here. I should have check-folded the river too unless he made only a small bet in which case I could have chanced a call but calling a big all-in shove was ridiculous. I refused to believe I was beaten despite his bet making it obvious.

2. Lost 16.50ptBB (TT v 87s, J-A-9-T-Q)
I open-raise to 3xBB UTG+1, the button is my only caller; I make a small bet of a little over one-third pot on the flop and get a caller; I bet 10xBB (around 70% of the pot) on the turn when I make a set and am raised to 27xBB, I call; both players check the river. His turned straight beats my set.

On the flop there are two overcards and he could reasonably have either, both or a strong draw using those cards so a small bet should give me some idea where I am in the hand. He doesn't raise so I have no real reason to suspect I am in a bad way. When I make a set on the turn and he raises me alarm bells should go off. That card completes a few straights including with KQ which fits his action so far. He could also have two pair though so a bet is sensible. Should I be calling that raise though? I am being offered nearly 3:1 on the call and with no clear sign I am behind I don't see how I can fold now. If he has a straight I have redraws to quads and full houses so I call. We both check the river, me because I am pretty sure I am beaten and the villain because any King now makes a bigger straight. I don't like the way he played suited connectors in that hand but it worked for him. I don't think I make any startling errors though.

3. Lost 16.00ptBB (TT v A7o, 7-2-5-A-4)
The button open-raises to 4xBB, SB calls, I call in BB; I lead out for two-thirds pot with overpair when SB checks, button calls, SB folds; I bet one-third pot on turn, button calls; I bet one-fifth pot on river, button calls. His two pair win the pot.

Personally I don't rate A7o as a good stealing hand here but hey, that's not my hand. I feel I have to lead out on the flop when the SB checks as I have that overpair. As it is I got the button calling with top pair, which is what you want here. He hits his Ace on the turn and at this point I should slow down. I could check the turn and river, folding to any significant bets from the button but he's not done anything other than call post-flop so I don't know he has an Ace. I don't see this as bluffing a calling station as such but I could have lost less on this hand by slowing down on the turn and river when the overcard comes.

4. Lost 10.25ptBB (TT v AKo, 6-A-2-3-Q)
I open-raise to 3xBB UTG, middle position calls; I bet two-thirds pot on the two-suited flop, villain min-raises, I call; I check the turn (which completes the flush draw), he bets around one-quarter pot, I call; we both check the river. His Aces win the pot.

When I am raised on the flop (which I probably shouldn't have bet anyway) I have to think I am beaten and am drawing only to the Tens. He makes a small turn bet which gives me 4.67:1 and I have a flush draw still, albeit to a Ten high flush which may not be good anyway but I call all the same. I could have saved a bet on the flop but after that I played well enough.

5. Lost 10ptBB (TT x ??, 4-7-4-A)
I open-raise to 3xBB UTG+1 and get one middle position caller; I bet two-thirds pot on two-suited flop, he calls; I make a two-thirds pot bluff at the Ace on the turn, he makes a huge raise over the top and I fold.

I didn't need to make that turn bet. The flop bet was fine but not the turn bluff.

Conclusions
It seems as though I need to fold more when told I am beaten. I've got to stop thinking there's no way he can have <insert hand> and just fold and move on. I also need to stop c-bet bluffing at high card flops/turns too. My opponent is likely to have caught the Ace so stop bluffing into him with hands like TT.

UTG
AKs
1. Lost 19.50ptBB (AKs v 88, 8-A-5-5-K)
I raise to 3xBB UTG, SB calls; SB checks flop, I bet around 60% of pot, SB min-raises, I call; SB checks turn, I bet two-thirds pot, SB min-raises all-in, I call; river gives me me top two pair but SB wins pot with turned full house.

He slow-played it on the flop and turn to trap me and it worked. I'm obviously betting the flop in that situation and I have no reason to believe the turn card helped him so I am going to bet that street too and call the raise when I am getting over 5:1 on the call. I got unlucky here.

2. Lost 18.50ptBB (AKs v A3s, 3-3-8-A-K)
I raise to 3xBB UTG, BB is the only caller; he checks flop, I bet two-thirds pot, he calls; he check-calls my two-thirds pot bet on the turn; BB bets out nearly two-thirds pot on the river, I call; his full house wins the pot.

The river was his first aggression in the whole hand which led me to think the King helped him. It made me top two pair and with odds of 2.73:1 on the call I am making it all day. He slow-played a set which turned into a full house and could have possibly taken me for more in that hand, to be honest. I didn't do much wrong at all.

3. Lost 12.05ptBB (AKs v QQ, K-J-3-5-6)
I raise to 3xBB UTG and get one middle position caller; I bet three-quarters pot on a threatening monochrome flop, villain min-raises all-in, I call getting better than 5:1 on the call; the turn is a blank; the river completes the flush. Villain wins the pot with a flush.

That flop was scary and I could check it but then I may be shoved off a decent hand so I bet out. He makes a small all-in raise which I have to call. At this point I am ahead 56/44 which becomes 75/25 on the turn, it's just unfortunate he catches one of his outs on the river. I didn't do much wrong here either.

Conclusions
I've been unlucky with AKs UTG it seems. I got unlucky in three hands without doing much wrong myself.

AQs
1. Lost 17.75ptBB (AQs v 22, 2-A-T-K-4)
I raise to 3xBB UTG, the button calls; I bet around half-pot with top pair, button calls; I bet two-thirds pot on the turn, villain min-raises, I call; the remaining money goes in on the river representing less than 20% of the pot. Button takes the pot with a flopped set.

I can't see anything wrong with my bets pre-flop or on the flop so let's look to the turn. What is the villain's likely hand range when calling my flop bet? Most likely hands include decent Aces and that's what I have to assume he has. Gutshot straight draws are possible if he started with KQ, KJ, QJ, etc. I have to think my top pair good kicker is still ahead though and bet out. What does his min-raise mean here? I am getting over 9-to-2 on the call and I have outs, including the Jacks (although I may then only be splitting the pot) and the last two Aces. I don't think this is a strong enough bet to get me to lay my hand down so I call. The remaining stacks are so small compared to the bet that the river plays itself really. I put the money in but would have called his small bet anyway with odds in excess of 15-to-2. I can't really fault my play too much here. A smaller bet on the turn would have left more to go in on the river but I still think it would have gone in and I would probably have called.

Conclusions
There are no glaring mistakes in the way I played this hand. The villain flopped bottom set and milked my Ace. It happens.

77 (exceptions to 10ptBB rule)
1. Lost 6.50ptBB (77 v ??, 2-6-T-T)
I raise to 3xBB UTG, UTG+1 min-raises to 5xBB, I call; I bet around one-third pot on flop, he min-raises, I call; I check turn, he bets pot and I fold.

I lost a little more than I needed to here when I bet the flop but that's not a huge mistake at this level. He twice showed strength but only min-raised me. When he made a pot-sized bet on the turn I was obviously beaten and rightly folded.

2. Lost 4.25ptBB (77 v AQs, 5-A-A-K-5)
I raise to 3xBB UTG, BB raises to 8.5xBB all-in, I call; he flops trips and rivers a full house.

My downside in this hand was limited by the BB's short-stack so calling his pre-flop all-in was a fairly easy decision. I'm racing overcards and well behind a bigger pocket pair but will see all five cards. He won the race.

Conclusions
No big errors on these hands.

UTG+1
AKs (exception to 10ptBB rule)
1. Lost 5.00xptBB (AKs v ??, 6-Q-9-9)
I raise to 3xBB UTG+1 and get min-raised by the button, I call; he bets out for half the pot on the flop, I call; he bets one-third the pot on the turn and I fold my overcards.

I have nothing and he's shown strength on three streets now. Time to give up and move on.

Conclusions
Played just fine.

KQs
1. Lost 12.50ptBB (KQs v T9s, K-2-2-5-Q)
I limp UTG+1, the button calls, BB checks; I make a pot-sized bet after BB checks two-suited flop, button calls, BB folds; I bet two-thirds pot on blank turn, button calls; I check river which completes flush draw although makes me top two pair, button bets three-quarters pot, I call. His flush takes down the pot.

He was getting a little over 2:1 on the flop and 2.5:1 on the turn with nothing but a flush draw. He hit a lucky river. That happens too.

Conclusions
I got unlucky against a fish playing a draw badly.

UTG+2
ATo (exception to 10ptBB rule)
1. Lost 7.00ptBB (ATo v ??, J-2-J-Q-A)
I open-raise to 3xBB UTG+2, middle position and SB call; I bet half-pot on flop, middle position calls, SB folds; I bet one-third pot on turn, middle position calls; I check river, he bets just over half-pot, I fold.

The open-raise is suspect. I could so easily fold that hand. Having played it I have no need to bet at that flop which could have hit someone. Ditto the turn, I don't need to bet that either. I fold correctly on the river though.

Conclusions
I overvalued ATo and bet into boards when I had nothing. I need to stop that.

Overall Conclusions
What have I learned from this exercise? How am I going to change my play of these 'big' hands?

- I need to review my pre-flop actions, especially 3-bet sizes and what I call raises/re-raises with
- Stop overvaluing top pair top (or even good) kicker
- Recognise that villains are not that tricky and give their bets more credit regardless of how unlikely the hand they are representing is (they play odd hands don't forget)
- C-bet only flops which are likely to have missed opponent, not high card flops
- Fold to big raises when I don't have good odds to draw
- Check more when obvious draws complete
- Stop firing too many barrels with nothing but overcards
- Bet good hands strongly, make villains pay to draw out

[mathare]

29th March 2010 (part two)
I was hoping to get those hand history reviews posted up last night but it has taken me a lot longer than expected to get through them. I had a lot of hands to replay and analyse though and I wanted to do it all properly so as to get the maximum value from the exercise. I think I have done that now, and learned quite a bit along the way. Between that and the analysis I did yesterday I have identified quite a few ways in which I should change my game.

So where do I go from here?

I have around 35k Rush hands recorded so far. I want to take that to 50k at least and my aim for the next 15k hands is to at least break even. Not a very exciting aim but I want to show that I can turn my game around, learn from my mistakes and start to get back on track. I'm not going to win back 10 buy-ins in 15k hands so my target is not to get back to where I started, it's just to avoid losing over the next 15k hands. If I win a little along the way, all well and good. And if I do lose? Then it's time to revisit whether Rush Poker is the game for me. Simple as that.

So here are my new poker objectives, superseding any I had before:
Log 50,000 Rush Poker hands
Breakeven for next 15,000 hands

Now let's get playing and see if anything I have written and read over the past 24 hours or so has sunk in...

[mathare]

29th March 2010 (part three)
There is an old saying that goes "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em". Today I want to introduce a new variation on that old favourite, namely "if you can't beat hold'em, quit". You can probably work out from that how today's session went.

I played close to 2000 hands and ended up down $17.25 or a little over 1.7 buy-ins. Not a great result when I said my plan was to play 15,000 hands and breakeven, eh? I'm really struggling in this game and I don't know why which signifies it's time to take a break and come back fresh at some point in the future. Probably. I may not come back to Rush Poker at all I have to admit. I know this sounds like toys out of the pram but this afternoon would me up. Not tilty wound up, just annoyed. If this were any other system e.g. sports, horse racing etc it would have been on the scrap heap ages back with these results but because it needs me to be a part of it I keep playing. I enjoy playing, except when I have days like today.

33 shoves on my pre-flop and I call with AA rubbing my hands with glee. Till he flops a set.

I have TT calling me down when I have AA and he turns a lucky set even though he was drawing very thin.

In the BB I shoved massively over the top of a button raise and SB re-raise with KK (and I mean massively as the raises were to $0.30, $0.90 and my shove was for over $12 although effective stacks were only around $4), SB calls (as I hoped someone would) with JJ (yes!), I flop a set on a board of A-K-T and he rivers a straight when the queen comes. Come on, that's not fair!

I took a kicking with AK, suited and unsuited, AGAIN! I really hate that hand now. I was playing more pocket pairs and was missing so often it was unbelievable. And I mean way more than I should miss with those hands. I was raising pre-flop with solid starting hands only to have to throw them away to massive re-raises. I don't think I played that badly and PT3 kinda agrees with me but I still had a pretty bad session. I don't like this game any more! :rolleyes:

When I come back to the tables (there's no point kidding myself that I won't play again in the future) it is unlikely to be at these tables. I think the fact that one can't get any sort of line on an opponent's play is detrimental to my game so when I come back it'll be to normal cash tables. I have devised a 5k Hand Challenge that I want to play out. It's basically 5,000 hands of micro-stakes no-limit cash (perhaps $0.02/0.05 aka 5NL) and 5,000 hands of small stakes limit hold'em (maybe $0.25/50) to compare how I do in each game. The idea is that I will adopt whichever game I do better in as my cash game of choice and continue to hone my skills at that variant of poker (until I have another strop, of course :)) I'm not really sure 5k hands is enough of a sample so I may extend it to 10k hands but we'll see how things go. Before I start either challenge though I need to do a lot of reading, both from the poker bookshelves behind me and of the 2+2 forums. I will learn to beat this stupid game!

[mathare]

30th April 2010
Sad as this may seem, I'm pretty proud of myself. I said I needed a break from the game and I have managed it. In fact I have been off the tables for a little over a month now and as I am going on holiday next week I should easily be able to extend that break till well into May too, by which time I hope to be in a much better frame of mind to play poker.

The break has certainly helped clear my mind of all the bad experiences I have had at the poker tables. I don't think of myself as a tilty player because I don't obviously steam, I don't get stroppy with others and I don't display any of the anger or other emotions I traditionally associate with tilt. But does that mean I have excellent tilt control? Or do I just tilt in a different way to others? Is mine more of a passive tilt than an aggressive one? Do I misplay hands too passively and miss opportunities that way rather than the traditional view of tilters as incredibly loose and aggressive? I don't really know but I am sure it would benefit me to keep a more level head when I do play cards.

I plan to get back to the tables sometime in May and when I do come back I hope it will be back with a vengeance. I have plans that will hopefully ease some of the pressure on me away from the poker tables and allow me to concentrate on my game more. OK, I have yet to put these plans into action properly but I am getting there. Having a plan is better than not having one, that's for sure.

As part of the break I have steered away from the poker literature too, partly so I wasn't tempted to return to the felt before I was truly ready. But I have been reading Poker Player each month still and something in this month's issue made me think about what I want to do when I do start playing again. As I said in my last entry I had been mulling over a 5k Hand Challenge. That's still part of the plan but I want to start with limit hold'em, a game that is much simpler than the no-limit form. I contemplated coming back to play SnGs rather than cash but I now feel cash is the right game for me for several reasons which I won't go into here. I have been reading advice from cash game players this month and there is a definite trend to what I have been reading, a common theme: you need to put in the hours, both to make the money and to improve your skills. When I play I need to play as much as I can. I'd like to play a minimum number of hands per week or per month and make that number pretty respectable. I dunno what exactly, maybe at least 25,000 hands a month or something like that. I should be able to play at least 4 full-ring tables at once so around 250 hands per hour which means I'm looking at around 100 hours of play a month. Hmm, might be possible.

What I'd be trying to achieve here is not huge profits but to find my feet in the game once more, re-learn the nuances of limit poker and to exploit leaks I find in my opponents' game. I'm on a rakeback deal at Full Tilt so making a profit at the tables isn't the primary concern in some respects. I'd like to breakeven at the very worst. Not much of an ambition I know but I am trying to be sensible and set myself targets I think I can hit before trying to stretch myself. I know how important confidence is to my game so I feel it is important for me to feel like I am taking steps in the right direction and to grow my game steadily alongside my bankroll.

There are profits to be made at limit poker. I have made them before and I can make them again by rediscovering the solid game I used to play. I think it is a vital step in my development as a poker player to build up cash and confidence from limit poker before attempting no-limit cash again, even at micro-stakes. I want the experience of various situations under my belt and burned into my brain before I tackle no-limit cash games again.

So there you have it. A plan is forming for my return to the tables next month and I am looking forward to it. There is still quite a lot for me to do before then and I don't want to rush my return so I need to make sure I have completed all the other projects I want out the way before I hit the felt. On the other hand I have a bonus at Full Tilt that will go to waste if I don't get back before mid-June or so. I just need to make sure my head is in the right place when I do sit at the virtual felt once more though, and that's perhaps the biggest challenge I will face for a long time.

[mathare]

21st May 2010
Yesterday I broke a promise I made to myself some time ago - I sat at the online poker tables before I had completed the various non-poker projects I am working on. But I did so with good reason, partly - I felt like it. Well, that's true but the main reason is that I realised that I only have three weeks left on my initial deposit bonus at Full Tilt so unless I get playing and racking up the loyalty points I am going to miss out on another $90 worth of bonus and I don't like doing that.

It was straight back to business yesterday with 4 tables of fixed limit $0.25/0.50 hold'em. It's a different game to what I am now used to after all that Rush Poker so there is some re-learning of hand values and the proper way to play to be done but accounting for the bonus dollars I earned yesterday I broke even (more or less) in a short session of an hour or so. The important thing is that by the end of it I felt like I was really getting back into the swing of it which bodes well for the future. In fact I reckon I could easily step up the number of tables to at least 6 on the go at once and still be able to play my normal game.

One thing I do need to work on is my post-flop play though. Pre-flop it's an easy game but post-flop I am never quite sure when to press on with a hand, especially one that has missed the board, and when to just cut my losses and give up. I'm working on that though.

[mathare]

24th May 2010
I have a big problem - I really don't think I will be able to stick to my current plan. I had an hour and a bit at the tables this afternoon and based on that there is no way I can do what I intended and go back to playing limit hold'em cash games. I had up to six tables on the go, comfortably too, but found it rather dull. Yes, low stakes so the money doesn't mean anything which doesn't help things either but I usually try to treat money in poker as numbers rather than hard currency. I want the numbers to increase rather than thinking in terms of how much (or how little) I am making when playing. But it was all so slow and dull that I may find myself back at the Rush Poker tables trying to remember why I gave them up in the first place.

If only I could find a form of poker I enjoy playing day in day out so that I could hone my skills and start to make some money playing it :rolleyes:

[mathare]

26th May 2010
It's still very early days but perhaps Rush Poker is indeed the format of the game that I ought to be concentrating on. I have played a few sessions over the last couple of days and it's been going OK. I'm not racking up big profits but I doing enough to bring in a couple of bucks (but no more, really) here and there so that's progress. Anyway, one doesn't really expect to make much playing $0.05/0.10 tables! But for me it's not about the money per se. It's about learning the game, becoming a better NLHE cash game player and learning to be comfortable with pots that are 10s of BBs and the bankroll swings they bring. It just so happens too that Rush Poker is the format of the game that fits my lifestyle and circumstances best, allowing as it does hit and run poker to be played in short sessions.

Not that I have been playing particularly short sessions that past couple of days. I have been playing for a couple of hours at a time, across two Rush tables, as I look to knock off the rest of that bonus. After today's session I have unlocked a total of $194.04 out of $250 so I still have another $55.96 to go, and at $0.06 per FTP that equates to 932.67 loyalty points. The past couple of days I have been trying to get 100 points off that total in each session, which just happens to have roughly equated to 1500 hands so to unlock the rest of that bonus I'm looking at around another 14,000 hands and I know have around 3 weeks to fit those hands in before the bonus offer lapses. I should be able to do it in around half that time but it's nice to have a bit of slack.

Poker would be pretty boring if all I was doing was trying to unlock the rest of my bonus. I am also trying to make sure that throughout each hand I make as many correct decisions as possible. That is I am trying to play the best poker I can. Sounds like an obvious thing to do doesn't it? And it is, but it's amazing how often I play way below my A game. I hope that through sessions such as those I have been playing I will reinforce good behaviour and proper play in my brain and it will start to become almost second nature. That's the theory anyway. That's why I don't mind whether or not I make a profit on each individual session. Yes, I am unlocking chunks of the bonus so am effectively making money anyway by playing but for me the important thing is how I played rather than how much I made.

OK, so I haven't had any big losing hands or bad beats yet but at this time I feel better prepared for such eventualities and less likely to throw my toys out the pram and switch games as I would have done before. I really want to make a go of this game, to get better at it, start making a profit and to eventually step up the stakes.

That's the plan but it remains to be seen how long I will stick to it, especially given my previous record at sticking to poker plans!

[mathare]

27th May 2010
Business as usual then. Two Rush Poker tables for a couple of hours trying to get through 1500+ hands, rack up at least a hundred loyalty points and see what happens. And what happens is I lose a couple of buy-ins with some poor play and some poor luck. Overall I think I played reasonably well, making good decisions the vast majority of the time but I did get frustrated a couple of times and make bets I could have made smaller or even kept back but generally speaking I am happy enough.

The biggest losing hands I had were:

AKo v 33 - villain flopped a set, I flopped top pair and as the board started to come non-threatening I thought I was ahead and put in more than perhaps I should have
KK v AKs - I flop a set and eventually suck all the villain's stack into the middle on the flop only for him to hit a runner-runner straight. I was 95% to win that hand but these things happen

And that's about it as far as significant losing hands go, not too bad really.

One thing I have noticed when I play is that I often try to avoid building too big a pot when perhaps I should be betting more, and more often. If I raise pre-flop and get a couple of callers the pot is around 10xBB when the flop comes down. A c-bet of 6-7xBB called in at least one place gives a pot of between 20 and 25xBB. On the turn I tend to hang back and if I bet I may bet only 10xBB or something, when I should be looking at more like 18-20xBB if I have a decent hand. Maybe I am letting villains off too lightly. Maybe I am actually too scared to risk a big chunk of my stack on this one pot and that's something I will need to overcome if I am to learn to play this game properly. It's something to bear in mind. I'm not going to have big wins unless I am willing to take the risks with my chips. Not silly risks mind, but betting proper amounts on the later streets.

[mathare]

28th May 2010
Another day, another losing Rush Poker session. :rolleyes:

It's beginning to dawn on me that I'm not going to crack this game in a hurry, if at all. I am winning fairly small pots but losing some big ones. Not too many big ones, and to bad luck admittedly, but the combination of small wins and big losses all adds up to an overall loss.

Today's slices of bad luck include:

KK v 97s - I was building a nice pot with this hand on a non-threatening board only for the villain to pair on the turn and make trips on the river. That damn river did for me again! I had him crushed till then. Ah well. That was a painful pot to lose too.

AA v Q9o - cold-calling a re-raise pre-flop with Q9o, what was the villain thinking? I sucked all his chips in with aggressive bets and raises but he turned a straight on a board of K-T-6-J-8 and that was the end of that hand for me.

I've got nearly 45,000 hands of Rush Poker in my database now and the figures don't look that promising, truth be told. The last few days I have been hopeful of turning it round but for whatever reason I just don't think NLHE cash is my game. I have been browsing my PT3 database and my own spreadsheet records and am unable to get away from the fact that it's SnGs that seem to be the money-maker for me so why aren't I playing them? I want to finish off that initial deposit bonus which should take me another week or so if I play Rush Poker and then that's me done there, I'm switching to SnGs again. I have just over 500 $5 SnGs in the database and I want to get that up to 1000. At least that's the latest plan but am I not now changing a plan I made only a few days back? So we'll see how the SnG plan changes once I get started, eh?

[mathare]

6th June 2010
Don't talk to me about poker plans! I've changed my mind yet again but this time I feel pretty confident that the decision is the right one. I've said that before, I know, but my reasoning this time is sound and solid so it stands to reason that plans based on such thinking must also be right, no?

It was while playing a few SnGs the other day that it hit me. I had my moment of clarity if you like. Before I get to that, why was I playing SnGs? Wasn't the idea to unlock the bonus through Rush Poker, quit that and play SnGs for profit? That was one version of the plan, yes. Then I had yet another really rough Rush Poker session, crunched a few numbers and realised I could still unlock the remainder of my initial deposit bonus playing $5 SnGs, which would get be back into the swing of things before I stepped up to $10 SnGs for 'proper' play. So I spent an afternoon at the SnG tables, broke even and had my epiphany.

I had anything up to 4 SnG tables on the go, which is not unusual for me when I play these events. But I was barely paying them any attention. My focus was on my spreadsheets, on Betfair, this forum, my email and everywhere but the card tables. I was flicking back to them when they beeped, taking my action and then moving back to whatever I was doing when the beeping poker table so rudely interrupted me.

If I could give the game my all, focus properly and play the game to the best of my ability I could do quite well I reckon. But for whatever reason I can't do that at present, and haven't been able to for some time now. And it's not just SnGs, it's any form of poker. I just don't care enough about the game I am playing to give it the attention it deserves and requires. Maybe it's the stakes that are the problem. I can have $10 on a Rush Poker table yet have a couple of hundred quid at risk on a horse race - where's my attention going to be? Yes, I can influence what happens to the $10 far more than I can the result of the horse race but my attention follows the money.

So what am I to do? Isn't it obvious? I'm giving up poker for a while. How long? I don't know but I know this is the right decision. If I can't give the game the focus it needs then I am just throwing money away by playing. And wasting my time, time that could be better spent elsewhere. So that's what I will do with it.

I finished off that bonus this morning though, and surprisingly I had a fantastic session at the Rush Poker tables. My best ever in fact, winning a little over $40. At one point I even started to consider reversing my decision to quit the game but no, I know that taking a long break from poker is the right decision. The fact of the matter is I got hit in the face by the deck this morning. In 1630 hands I got dealt pocket Aces 16 times, over twice as often as I 'should'. And I was blessed post-flop too, taking down a lot more hands than I expect to in a session like this. I know not every session will be like this, far from it, and that this was just a freak but a nice way to end things. My records show way too many big losing sessions and when I do have winning sessions they are small compared to the losers. Winning small but losing big is not a good way to play poker.

I think I also see cash and tourney stacks differently. I know how to move my tourney chips about and how to use my stack. I'm not sure I do in cash games, at least not as well. Perhaps it's the fact that each and every cash game chip has a set value whereas that's not the case for tourney chips. In an SnG I know the value of my chips changes with increasing blinds and I know how to take appropriate risks and when to step back from a pot. I can't find that approach so easily in cash games. I am left guessing too often, perhaps reluctant to build a pot that represents a large portion of my stack even though a few dollars is hardly here nor there in the grand scheme of things. It's a mental barrier I just find hard to break down so I am not getting full value for some of my big hands and losing big pots with some more marginal holdings. I'm a better tourney player than a cash player, I have come to accept that now.

So that's me done with the virtual felt for a while, hopefully a long while. No point throwing more money away on something I'm not concentrating on properly. I don't put random fivers on horses picked with a pin so why take an analagous approach to my poker? At some point in the future when things have settled down a bit with my other gambling activities and I have a nice regular income I may sit back down at the poker tables and play for small sums, just to keep my hand in. But I have other, more important things that demand my attention now. And unlike poker, the things I have planned can be interrupted, picked up and dropped as and when. I can give them attention in small bursts and not really suffer as a result.