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Thread: mathare's Poker Diary

  1. #31

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    17th March 2009
    Tonight's session was primarily to free me up for the next fortnight by racking up the final merit points I needed to keep my silver VIP level. I keep talking about these merit points and my VIP level and it's not really worth much but it does keep me playing and all the time I have that as a target each month it encourages me to play and rack up the hands and experience. At this level I reckon it takes around 25 table-hours of poker to get the points I need each month. Do that for seven months and I can have $50. I told you it wasn't really worth it didn't I? Anyway, I have got the points I need this month now.

    I was also trying to up the aggression a little tonight but as yet I haven't looked at the stats so I don't know if it worked or not. I couldn't really tell while I was playing whether I was more aggressive or not so let's look at the numbers...

    Stats
    Hands: 3655
    Won Hands: 10.10%
    Saw Flop: 16.91%
    Won Saw Flop: 41.75%
    Showdowns: 7.06%
    Showdowns Won: 55.04%
    Pre Flop Raise: 8.81%
    Won: $194.61
    BB/100 hands: 2.62

    Tighter, more hands won at showdown and more pre-flop raising, along with a profit of over $25 - looks like it was a successful step down the right road. That said, I still don't think I played that well at times. But tonight sees me start with Jennifer Harman's chapter in Super System 2 again...



  2. #32

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    out of interest matt,what level of cash games are you playing matt?and how many hours did it take to accrue your total of $194?
    i know you like your cash games over sngs,have you ever fancied to try your luck in sng tourneys?



  3. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by eruptive plot View Post
    out of interest matt,what level of cash games are you playing matt?
    I'm playing $1/$2 fixed limit hold'em

    and how many hours did it take to accrue your total of $194?
    I think that's about 55 hours play now if my memory serves me correctly.

    i know you like your cash games over sngs,have you ever fancied to try your luck in sng tourneys?
    Yep, over the past few years I have played all sorts of SnGs but I found cash games more profitable. But SnGs are the only form of NLHE I can make a profit at as I bombed at NLHE cash games. I tried the double or nothing SnGs, turbos etc but it seems I have a better ROI from the standard SnGs. But as I say, I find cash games more profitable



  4. #34

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    18th March 2009
    Another analysis session I'm afraid. I don't know how interesting these are for you, the reader, but I suspect not very. They help me though so I am going to keep having them as necessary.

    Today's session looks at my pre-flop play as I have read Jennifer Harman's pre-flop advice in Super System 2 and it raised a lot of questions in my mind. I particularly want to look at the hands I play in various positions compared to when Jennifer Harman suggests.

    Let's start with early position. Harman suggests playing TT+, AQ-AK, AJs and KQs. That's just 11 hands, which PokerStove tells me is 5.3% of hands. In middle position I can add smaller pairs, Axs, KJ-KQ, QJ, JT, T9s, 87s etc. I assume AJ and AT are acceptable too but Harman doesn't say as much. The other hands I have just listed though she classes as marginal so surely AJ and AT fall into that category alright. Adding in all these marginal hands results in 18.6% of hands being playable, but obviously it depends on what has gone before me as to whether some of those marginal hands can really be played profitably from middle position. When it comes to playing in late position Harman suggests raising with any hand when it's folded round to you and otherwise to think about whether your hand will play well against the likely number of players in the pot. It's hard to put a percentage on that sort of play but to me 18.6% from middle position sounds a lot.

    How do my figures compare to these guidelines?

    I have filtered the data on my Positions tab of PokerOffice to show me only the hands I have voluntarily put money into the pot for at the $1/$2 limit hold'em level. And by christ I have played some trash UTG! A3s anyone? K8s, J9s, 44 - they are all there. Plug in the hands I have played out of this position alone and you get 11.6% of hands. Eeek! Obviously I wouldn't play all those hands that often but the fact of the matter is I have played them in the past. Fortunately things don't get that much worse as I look at the other early positions. I have thrown in the other pocket pairs and the occasional 76s. Yes, 76s from UTG+2 - yuk! I'm raising with just under 60% of my hands in early position and that's nowhere near high enough. That needs to be up in the 80s at least I'd say. And the way to increase the figure is to stop playing marginal hands and dross from early position - play good hands and play them aggressively. I'm going to call very rarely from early position from now on, and when I do it will be a deceptive mix-up play rather than limping in with a mrginal hand I don't want to face heat with. Rrrarrrr! That should also see me winning more showdowns than I do at present and winning more money as I am loser from UTG when I VPIP.

    Let's have a look at the middle positions now (seats 6, 7 & 8). Across the three positions I play 25.8% of hands according to PokerStove. If anyone can explain hands like J4s, 95o etc I'd be gald to hear it. I can tell at a glance that I am playing too many broadway hands, hands like KT that I should probably save for late positions. I know which hands (or at least what sort of hands) play best in multiway pots and which are better heads up so now I just need to tighten up (quite a lot!) and start playing hands in more appropriate pots and situations. I'm raising about 60% of the time from middle position and again I think this should be higher. I should be raising my premium hands and also the middle pairs if I am first into the pot. The more marginal holdings are raise or fold type hands depending on what has happened before me. If I am first in I should be considering a raise long before I consider calling. I almost need to forget that call button exists pre-flop.

    Late position is, in my mind, where some of the more marginal hands become playable. Some of the hands I currently put money into the pot with from middle position are really late position hands. I play a lot of weak Aces (unsuited) from the button at present and I need to cut that out, unless I am stealing. I can tighten up from the button in general, and also as with every other seat I have looked at so far I can raise more. I am only raising about 70% of the time, including steal attempts and that's not enough still.

    I need to be tighter right round the table and more aggressive. MUCH more aggressive.

    The data filtered by VPIP is interesting for other reasons too - it shows then when I choose to play out the blinds I do alright. I actually win $0.75 on average from the SB and $0.53 from the BB when I choose to put money in the pot voluntarily. I guess my blind play isn't that bad after all, and that answers my question from the other day as to how much of a loser should the blinds be at this level. I'm doing alright in that respect.

    Other things I have found from filtering this data is I am reasonably competent at stealing blinds. I win a decent sum when I raise with a chance to steal and less when I just call with a steal opportunity. Aggression again, eh? When I choose to defend against steal attempts with a call/raise I am profitable too. And I seem to pick decent hands to fight with too. Looks like I am tight enough here.

    How would my stats look from seats 3, 4 & 5 if I stuck to Harman's early position advice and just played those few hands? I'd be a slight loser UTG (-$5.20) but profitable elsewhere. I actually raise these hands 90% of the time UTG, which is much more like it isn't it? That drops off with position so I need to maintain that aggression in later seats. I am working with small samples but it looks promising. This is certainly worth a try as the profit from the three early position seats playing these hands beats my current profit levels, although we're working with small samples with these filters applied. With the middle position recommendations my PFR% is only around 40% overall from seats 6 to 8 so I need to work on that a little. But that includes times I fold those hands; when I come into the pot with these hands I am raising around 65% of the time. Better, but still not brilliant. The profit figures are not really affected by these filters; the hands I play are about as profitable as the ones Jennifer Harman suggests. What does that mean? It means it will do me no harm to tighten up and drop some of the crap I am currently playing. Plus it's still small samples so hard to draw statistically meaningful conclusions from this data with these filters applied. If I apply the same set of hands (Harman's middle position suggestions) to late positions I see my profit levels drop to around $100 from $170 for those two seats. That's a pretty big difference but won't stop me tightening up as I know I need to do that. I may be making a decent profit from these seats playing as I do but dropping some of those weak Aces and Kings won't do me any harm at all.

    That's about all my brain can take, and good to get it down on 'paper' before I start the post-flop sections of Super System 2 this evening. I know have it straight in my brain and know what needs to be done. I need to tighten up and have looked at how to do this and what sort of hands to play and from which positions. I know I need to be more aggressive and have seen that my semi-loose starting hands have resulted in me be unwilling to raise as the hand is marginal so I call fearing heat. From now on I'll be playing stronger hands pre-flop and coming in for a raise far more often. I need to pretend the call button doesn't exist unless I need to throw the odd decpetive play into the mix.

    It's a plan, and I look forward to putting it into action. But not tonight, there's not enough time left before bed to make it worth it. I'll have to keep my powder dry for now...



  5. #35

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    19th March 2009
    Tonight was an excellent opportunity for me to try out some new stuff. I got my hands on a new 20" widescreen TFT today so it was a chance to try that out (it rocks!) and also a chance to put into action the points I picked up on yesterday, plus any of the advice for playing the flop I have managed to get from Jennifer Harman's piece in Super System 2.

    Before I get to my results for the day (ooh, suspense) let me just go over quickly what I think I have learned about playing the flop from Super System 2. In a word: aggression. I thought I played quite aggressively but reading Harman's advice it's clear I don't. She gave the example of holding T8 on an 8-4-3 flop. Bet out as you have top pair or raise if in position and someone else bets into you. I'd have called that bet rather than raised it but then I would have struggled later in the hand. I know why Harman is suggesting the plays she does but I need to overcome my natural caution. Eights is a crap hand so I fear an overpair but it's more likely the bet has come from overcards so why give them the chance to draw out on you. Raise and make them pay, or at least have a better idea you're beaten when they re-raise you. So it's things like that I tried to take on board today, along with the improvements to my pre-flop game.

    So how did I do? Goood! Two tables, as is the norm now, and in quite short sessions (an hour on one, 45 minutes on the other) I made a total of $56.65, including doubling my buy-in on one table. Sure, I had big hands at points during the evening but I played them pretty well. I know I missed bets on some of them due to that natural caution but it was certainly better than before.

    On one hand I had AA on the button and reraised an early position raiser. Two of us saw the Q high flop. I bet, he raised, I reraised and he capped. Hello. I called but wondered what he had. I had an overpair but did he have QQ or even a suspect two pair. Nah, he wouldn't raise from early with Qx would he (the flop was Q-7-8). Was he on a draw and playing it fast? Because of those doubts I called his turn and river bets (7 on the turn, 3 on the river). I didn't think he had a 7 so trips was out and if he had QQ I was well beaten. Nope - QTs. I should have raised him on the turn to see whether he really did have that 7.

    In another hand I had AQs in position on two others (who had AJs and KK it transpired). The action was heavy pre-flop (I made sure of that) and the flop came down A-4-3 all the same suit (not mine). I checked, villain1 bet, villain2 raised and I felt compelled to call. Why? I had a strong Ace and I didn't get that made hand vibe from either of my oppoents so I put them on a draw and the pot was laying me good odds to take one off. Shame it came 9 of the same suit as the three flop cards to put a four-flush out. It was now checked down to the showdown (the river blanked). I feared the flush on the turn but when the river blanked and both villains checked I should perhaps have bet. I should have maybe bet the turn to represent the flush and maybe got a 5-high flush or similar to fold. I shouldn't fear these draws so much as I do, or at least I should be a little wary of them but be aware that my opponents may also fear them. I always think someone else has a flush card in situations like this but my opponents must also think that I could have a flush card and be beating them. There's money to be made in situations like this. If I bet and get raised I am beaten and can give it up but best find out on the turn.

    And now let's see how today's play has affected the numbers. Am I continuing to tighten up and get more aggressive?

    Stats
    Hands: 3760
    Won Hands: 10.27%
    Saw Flop: 16.86%
    Won Saw Flop: 42.43%
    Showdowns: 7.02%
    Showdowns Won: 55.03%
    Pre Flop Raise: 9.07%
    Won: $251.31
    BB/100 hands: 3.34

    That's better! Today's session saw me raise 18.1% of the time pre-flop and play tighter than normal. In fact PO rated today's play as tight aggressive (pre-flop) - aggressive (post-flop) which is just what I wanted. In fact my aggressive factor was 3.4 today which I am really pleased with. All in all a very good session - and tonight's profit pays for around half of the new monitor too :)



  6. #36

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    22nd March 2009 (part 1)
    I got a nasty surprise yesterday - my PokerOffice has stopped working for good as my license has apparently expired. This is the license I bought a couple of years back that I assumed would be good for the life of the product as they were just charging a one-off fee. I noticed when I downloaded PO5 that their website said PokerOffice was $99 a year but I assumed that was for new purchasers only. No, it seems that they have killed off all existing licenses and now you have to subscribe at $99 per year if you want the application to work again. I'd consider doing this if it wasn't for the fact that PO5 doesn't work for me and rival applications don't have a yearly charge. I only found this out by accident too. I had a few spare minutes last night so logged on to the PO forum to see if there was any news of a patch to fix some of the known issues (some of which are quite major). It was while I was browsing the forum that I found out about this licensing issue and checked it on my copy of PO.

    Apparently the guys who make PO announced they were expiring all licenses on 16th March but how did they announce this? I saw no sticky on the forum and didn't receive an e-mail from them, nor did the software tell me anything of the sort was happening so I am not impressed. Up till now I had been happy with PokerOffice as it worked with the site(s) I use(d) and did what I wanted it to. I knew there were alternatives on the market but couldn't be bothered to check them out as I didn't know what else they could do for me that PO couldn't. Today I am about to find out what PokerTracker and Holdem Manager can do for me...

    Requirements
    Before I look in detail at either application I thought it would be a good idea to think about what I really need from such software. What do I use it for at present? What might I use it for in the future? What features do I really need?

    I must be able to track my play live and be able to display stats on my play, and that of my opponents, over the poker client so I can see live stats as the game plays out. I must be able to combine the stats for all my poker site aliases into a single player. I want a variety of stats, including the sort of summary stats I have been posting in this diary as well as optional more detailed stats. I need to see how my play breaks down when analysed by position or by starting hands. The software must auto-rate players as tight/weak passive/aggressive. I should be able to see the same information for any player as I can see for myself. I'd like to be able to track games I am watching as well as those I am playing in. I want to be able to graph key stats so I can see how they change over time. I want to be able to sort the various tables by columns of my choosing. I want to be able to access hand histories and to replay hands within the application itself. I want the option to track cash games and tournaments.

    PokerTracker 3
    A long time back I used to use v2 of PokerTracker and back then it didn't have a built-in HUD making it inferior to PokerOffice. Since then I have heard a few good things about v3 so it's only fair I give it a try. The website looks slick enough with quite a bit of information about the product. They offer a 60 day free trial and recommend users take advantage of this before purchasing the full version, which is fair enough.

    The software was easy to install and the user interface looks clean and simple, more so than PokerOffice and much better than I remember PT v2 being. It seems easy to set up the automatic hand history imports and there are options to easily import previous hand histories from your hard drive, which is useful as I have a couple of years of hand histories knocking about on my HDD I reckon. I certainly have enough to make it worth loading into PokerTracker to get me started.

    I have now loaded my existing data so let's have a look around at the various options we have. I'm going to mainly look at cash game features here as I don't have much in the way of tourney data and am focusing my play on cash games. Having identified the main player name I use I get my stats for that player quickly and easily. I have also been able to set up my aliases on other sites simply so I can now see all my stats across all sites. The General tab shows me summary stats such as number of hands, hands won, session, hours played, profit, rake paid and profit per hour and 100 hands in BB and $ terms. An excellent start. I can also see on this screen important numbers such as my VIP, PFR, went to showdown, won showdown, aggression factor, 3-bet frequency, steals attempted etc. All this data is broken down by stakes level to give me an excellent overview of my play.

    The Hands tab offers me the option to show my starting hands or final hands. If I select starting hands I can see each of the possible starting hands, how often I have been dealt them and stats such as how often I win with them, how much I have won with them, number of times I was in the blinds, how many times I have cold called pre-flop, my PFR, VPIP etc. I can tell how often I have raised first in and how often I have limped with previous callers just by looking at a table of stats, no need to apply any filters as I would in PokerOffice. With a starting hand selected I then get a lower table showing me details of each time I have had that hand and what happened. I can see the site, limit, game number, date, whether I was in either blind, if I cold called a raise, profit on the hand in BB and $ terms, if I saw the flop, the full board, my final hand and who won the hand and what with. It's quick and easy to see the profitable rows in these tables as they are shown in green with the losing entries in the tables shown in a pinky-red. This means I can tell at a glance which starting hands are profitable for me. Nice touch. If I opt to view my final hands I can see how often I could have made each possible hand and how often I actually made it. For example I can see I would have made one straight flush and two four of a kinds had I played the relevant hands far enough but in each case I folded pre-flop. I can see where I folded the hand (if at all) plus showdown stats and profit levels for each hand ranking. Again if I select a hand ranking I get the hands that fall into the chosen category shown in the lower table so I can see a per hand breakdown.

    Let's look at the Sessions tab now. Here I can view my sessions in one of two ways - by table or by time. When viewing by table each table session is listed in the top table, along with the key stats (date, site, table name, limit, seat number, hands, time played, amount won, rake etc). If I select a session the lower table shows me a per hand breakdown for that session, showing the same sort of information as I saw when I selected a starting hand on the Hands tab. As with previous tables, and I suspect all tables in PokerTracker, I can quickly see which entries in a table were profitable and which were losers based on the colour coding. This is a great little feature. at the bottom of the tab is a graph showing profit against hands dealt in the session so I can see how the session progressed. If I now select to view my sessions by time I get another neat view, this one showing all simulataneous tables within the same session. So if I played two tables at once the data from both tables is combined into a single session with similar information shown to that already mentioned. This is an excellent way of seeing how well I multi-table. I can see at a glance whether I generally win or lose playing two tables at once, and can check my multi-tabling BB/hour against that of single tables easily too. I like this feature a lot.

    The Positions tab looks fairly standard. It is broken down into three tables. The top table shows my stats for each seat at the table while the middle table shows the hands I have been dealt in the selected seat and the bottom table shows the details of each of the chosen starting hands. As with PokerOffice I can see things like my VPIP, PFR and win rate for each seat but I can also see things like how often I cold call pre-flop from each position and of course the green/red colouring shows at a glance profitable seats. Nothing too remarkable here but a few improvements on PokerOffice nonetheless.

    The next tab is the vs Player tab, something that PokerOffice doesn't show and something I had forgotten about since I used earlier version of PokerTracker. This shows me a list of all players I have faced, which site I played them on, how many times I beat them and how much I won plus how many times I lost to them and how much, plus the difference between the amounts won and lost. This means I can pick out the players that keep beating me and make a note of the ones I win from consistently. If I select a player the lower table shows me all the hands I have played against them so I can tell whether I was lucky to have won that much etc. This is another feature I like a lot. I can see it being very useful offline to pick out the players I want to face and make notes of them in the database.

    Next up is the Reports tab, and I'm not going to cover this in any detail as it's not that obvious how to use it. I have had a bit of a click around but I can't get much out of it. Hopefully the documentation etc will provide some guidelines but till then I'm going to more or less ignore this feature.

    The Graphs tab is the next thing to look at. The options here seem much more limited than PokerOffice. PO allows you to plot any stat (more or less) and to show up to three at once, plus display moving averages. These options don't seem to be available in PokerTracker but is that a big loss? Included are the main graphs you'd want to see such as profit in $ and BB terms against hands played. The graph also includes some summary stats which make it easier to see how things are progressing. So this isn't as feature-rich as PokerOffice meaning I can't see how my aggression factor changes with hands played, for example, but I'm not sure I really care that much. I have already seen plenty of features that PokerTracker does have that would offset the loss of some graphing functionality.

    The final tab I'm going to look at is the Summary tab. This shows a very high-level summary of the play at each level showing the number of hands, the number raked, hand with a flop, number of players and the rake paid. You also get a player summary in the lower table showing hands played, profit, BB/100, VPIP, PFR and showdowns won for each player. I don't see a huge amount of use for this tab but that's not to say it wouldn't prove useful. Most of the information is available on other, more useful, tabs though.

    Another feature I want to take a quick look at is the filtering. On PokerOffice this is pretty poor, in my opinion. Some of the filters can be useful but there doesn't seem to be a global filter - it needs to be applied to each tab separately, which is rather awkward. In PokerTracker the filters are global so apply to the data on all tabs. The filters dialog is much cleaner and neater than PokerOffice too. The filters seem powerful and flexible, allowing 'and', 'or' and 'not' combinations of filters for even more power and flexibility. This certainly looks like it could be very useful indeed.

    I said earlier I wanted a hand replayer and by double clicking on a hand that's exactly what I get. Initially I get a window showing me the details of the hand including actions by each player on each street. At this point I can also add any notes I wish to the hand, with PokerTracker displaying an icon by that hand in all tabs (which is a nice touch) to let me know there are notes on it. The hand history is shown in another tab within this window. There is also a Replay Hand button allowing me to replay the action from that hand, the same as PokerOffice does. There's nothing really here that isn't in PokerOffice but the user interface does seem neater in PokerTracker.

    HUD
    I've covered the main application in some (too much!) depth but that's not all one needs from software such as this. The HUD is just as important as that's what you use when you're actually sat playing cards. During the course of this review I played a brief session at Bet365 just to see how the HUD worked and what I thought of it. My first impression is very positive and it seems much better than PokerOffice (although I have yet to see POv5 in action I have to admit).

    The main points I want to make about the HUD concern the available features and the look and feel compared to what I am used to with PokerOffice. PokerTracker's HUD seems fast enough and allows the user to display a multitude of stats. It comes pre-configured with a sensible default set of stats (number of hands, VIP, PFR and aggression factor) but this can easily be changed to suit the user's needs. For example, I added the auto-rating icon to the display too so I can see who the fish are more quickly. The location of the HUD boxes for each player can be moved around the display as the user sees fit too, and this layout saved for use on other tables. This is useful as I don't like some of the default locations for the PokerOffice stats as they can obscure hole cards. Also the display for a given user can be expanded to show much more detail by clicking on it. If you do this the box expands greatly to show a breakdown of how that user plays, according to your database. You can see how often they cold call, attempt a steal, go to and win showdowns, plus aggression factor, check-raise frequency, 3-bet frequency and how often they fold to a bet, raise and three bet for the flop, turn and the river. Lots of information to get your teeth into if you want it. If you hover over a stat, instead of clicking it, you get a tooltip showing more information including the value of that stat for the current session. This is useful for spotting players on tilt, steaming and playing much looser than normal for example. The HUD also allows you to add player notes directly into the database so you don't need to take your eye of the game to make notes on a player. These notes are also dated so you can keep a history of notes if you wish. Other neat tricks include seeing the cards shown down plus the profit per player at the end of a hand, marking hands for review (so you can go back into the database offline and checkback through the hand) and being able to see the outcome of the last hand at any time during a hand, so if you missed a big pot you can quickly see who won and what they beat. This is all so much better than the PokerOffice HUD.

    Conclusions
    This review has become a lot more verbose than I had anticipated but it's important to me to get to grips with this software quickly and make sure I get the right product. Compared to PokerOffice I am seeing a lot of new and better features in PokerTracker. The PT interface is also much nicer and slicker. The various tabs are also far more linked up in PT with changes to one being reflected across the others, which is not the case in PokerOffice.

    It's not all positive when it comes to PokerTracker though. You can't track iPoker observed hands directly with PokerTracker but you can use handgrabber tools such as IdleMiner to get the hand histories and load them into PokerTracker. Not ideal. Also tourney summaries are not imported (yet) but as a cash game player this is not a major concern to me at this stage.

    I am slightly concerned about the level of documentation available though. The website does have some help documentation but is it enough? For example, I couldn't find anything that told me about tracking observed hands and had to search the PT forum for more on that. There is a reasonably active forum with a decent FAQ section though, and I have been able to do most of what I wanted to during this review without needing to resort to the help manual.

    All in all I am very impressed with PokerTracker. It's reasonably priced at a one-off payment of $89.99 which is good for the life of version 3.x.x (the latest version seems to be 3.0.0 build 4 so there should be a fair amount of life in v3). For this I get a license allowing me to install PT on two computers, e.g. a desktop and a laptop, which is another nice touch. Also for a limited time they are giving away v2 of PokerTracker for free when you buy PTv3. Quite why I'd want this is another thing, but it's available all the same.

    TableTracker
    TableTracker is a separate product that integrates with PokerTracker and allows you to identify the tables at your poker site that would be most profitable for you to play. You tell it which sites and limits to search and it will go away and check the tables to find you the best place to play, based on the stats available in your PT database.

    I can see this being useful for higher stakes players who play at several sites. For example, those playing NLHE may wish to find easier games more often and so will be willing to go to PokerStars, Full Tilt or wherever the best game happens to be, whereas I just want to sit down at a Bet365 $1/$2 limit hold'em table and try to grind out a profit at this stage. So TableTracker may be one for the future but isn't really for me at this stage of my career. I don't see the need to pay the monthly subscription fee of around $20 per month for it at this time as I don't see it making that much of a difference to my game.



  7. #37

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    22nd March (part 2)
    Well, that's PokerTracker well and truly reviewed so let's have a look at the other major product on the market - Holdem Manager.

    Holdem Manager
    The natural place to start is with the installation process. The installer is included in a zip file (which in itself is a little odd) downloadable from the website and once you have run that they suggest you read their setup guide. That immediately makes me think this isn't going to be as easy to get running as PokerTracker was. When I started HM for the first time it auto-detected a number of poker clients and the database I installed when I installed PokerTracker. I created a new database for HM so I could test import speeds and functionality to give it a fair test as I did that with PokerTracker.

    My first impressions of the GUI are not good. I actually rate PokerOffice as more professional looking, and PokerTracker much more so. Not a great start but there is plenty of time for HM to win me over.

    HM said it had auto-detected poker clients but in actual fact had only found my old Party Poker installation so loses to PokerTracker on that front as PT detected everything I had installed. Once I configured the auto imports for Bet365, to allow me to test the HUD and live tracker later, I pointed HM at my hand histories and set the import going. It seems slower than PT but not really so slow that you couldn't live with it, averaging 30-35 hands per second. My database isn't huge but if I had a lot more hands stored then this could take a while. PokerTracker provides more feedback and information to the user while importing too so that's another way in which PT is better.

    The next step is to set the default player and configure aliases for that player. Having done that (which was fairly simple) I can now start to look through my data. The first view I get is my data broken down by stake levels. And it's wrong. It has picked up a number of hands that are limit tournament hands and marked them as cash game hands. Would I really play $600/1200 limit hold'em as a cash game?

    There are fewer tabs in Holdem Manager than there are in PokerTracker but that's not a good thing. The main tab seems to be the Reports tab it defaults to. This initially shows summary stats (hands, profit, BB/100, VPIP, PFR etc) for all different staking levels with a lower table showing the hands at the selected level. The lower table is initially set to only show the first 100 hands but it can be set to show the first 500 or all hands. I would rather this defaulted to show all the hands as PT does. In the top left I have a combo box allowing me to select the report to show. This list includes things such as number of players, hole cards, stack size etc. allowing me to see my data broken down by any of these categories. There are quite a few things on this list I would rather see on a different tab, such as position, hole cards, hands at showdown etc. Talking of hands at showdown this brings me to another oddity - the display of such data. High card is ranked 1 and full house is 7th - the rankings are backwards but why? And the data is sorted in order of profit rather than actual hand ranking by default, which strikes me as a little odd and I would have to re-sort that. Fortunately that is as easy as clicking on the column header in the table. I can't see any option to display final hands I would have made had I not folded too, as I get in PokerTracker. Perhaps this is more of a novelty than of much real use but I kinda like it. The total stats for these tables don't stand out that well either. For example, I have my data sorted by hands at showdown at present and I find it hard to pick out the totals for all hands combined from the separator that splits this table from the more detailed table below. This interface really isn't doing it for me I'm afraid.

    The Preflop Cards tab shows a grid of possible starting hands such as that in PokerStove. It seems to default to showing me which hands I have 3 bet with, along with a percentage, presumably the frequency with which I 3 bet those hands. Below that grid is a label showing how often I have taken this action with QQ, KK, AA and AK. OK, but why those hands? Is this customisable? I can't see a quick way of doing it if it is. These stats can be filtered by effective stacks, number of players and a variety of actions can be selected. It's interesting to look at some of these things but I'm not really sold on it at this stage. Again, I think it's the interface. If the whole GUI could be neatened up and made slicker I'm likely to be wowed by this but currently I'm not. The grid incorporates a colour coding based on the percentages for each hand so it's easier to tell at a glance which hands I act on in this way often and which rarely. It's not clear if these colours are customisable though, as I can imagine that's something you'd want to do if you used this screen a lot.

    The Hands tab shows me my last 100 hands, but again this can be configured to show 500 or all hands. There's no filtering on this by default, it's just the last X hands. It shows the time, stakes, hole cards, board, profit, position, what action I was facing pre-flop, my action, the winner, their cards and the pot size. I don't really get this tab. What is the point of it? If I want to look at hands it's more likely to be by session, position, starting hand value etc rather than just the last 100 hands. Also the table shows some information I don't understand. There is a column with no header that contains F, R, RC, C, RC etc. I assume these stand for Fold, Raise, Call etc but is that just pre-flop action? I hovered over the column header and the individual entries in the table, and tried clicking them but got no more info this way so I am still a little in the dark. A few tooltips could make a massive improvement here - more interface disappointments. On closer inspection of the cluttered screen I notice there is one of these untitled columns after every street so I assume it is action on that betting round. What about EV $ diff though? I assume this relates to how much I am expected to make compared to what I actually made. And for that to work there have to be all-in situations, I think. Later on in the table there are columns for All-in And Equity % too. This layout is aimed far more at NLHE players I'd say - all-ins don't happen very often in limit poker.

    The Sessions tab shows details of the sessions I have played. It defaults to displaying my data by time, so multi-table session show up as one entry in the table. But how can I tell it's a multi-table session? There is nothing to tell me how many tables I was playing at a time as there was in PokerTracker. The rest of the stats displayed are fairly standard though. HM uses the same green/red table colouring that PT uses to show profitable rows from losers, so that's finally something good about this interface. My sessions can also be grouped by day or month, or broken down by table, so that's quite nice. Nothing you can't really do in PokerTracker too though.

    The Graphs tab confuses more than it actually shows meaningful information. There are options to show the difference rakeback and bonuses makes to your bottom line (which is admittedly a nice option) but again they seem to want me to show all-in EVs and things like that. Another tab that's not really set up that nicely for limit poker players.

    Finally we have the vs Players tab, which shows the same sort of data as the PokerTracker tab did but not as nicely. I have columns showing me the number of 20BB and 50BB wins and losses but how often does these occur in limit poker? You can only get the equivalent of 12 large bets in by capping every betting round. Great for NLHE players I'm sure but largely irrelevant for players like me. I'd rather see the amount won and lost to a player but that's not in HM, just the difference between these figures.

    Let's have a look at filtering data now, as that's something that is important to me. Filters applied to one tab are not carried over to other tabs so that same filters need to be set on all tabs if you want a consistent view of your data. This is the same as PokerOffice but not PokerTracker which carries filters over between tabs, and benefits greatly from it.

    The top level tabs include a Players tab but having selected that I am not seeing any data even though the tab seems to suggest I have 1367 players in my database. It seems I have to click Run Report to populate this tab, so what I thought were just filters on the left-hand side are actually required inputs to configure the report and it defaults to displaying no players rather than all players. A tad confusing initially. Hmm, now I have hit Run Report it is displaying stats for me and me only. I'm not sure why but let's not worry about that for now. Below the table of players is a Player Analysis tab showing a breakdown of the chosen players play. It comments on the frequency of the player making certain plays. For example, this shows the chances of me 4 betting pre-flop are very low but so are the chances of me 3 or 4 betting. It gives the number of times I made this play, the number of times I could have played this way and the frequency as a percentage, plus the average for this play. Where has this average come from? From all players in my database? Is this used to determine whether the chances of me playing this way are high or low? It's just not obvious.

    Let's have a quick scoot through the menus, of which there are more than PT. Actually, let's not as I don't understand many of them, and some of those I do understand I wouldn't have made into menu items as the HM developers have. I can't get away from the fact that I really don't like this interface and the product isn't as user-friendly and intuitive as others.

    One thing I should cover is the hand replayer. I forgot about it till just now as it's not that obvious how to get it up. You need to double click a hand. The GUI is crowded and even though it contains much of the functionality one would want from a replayer I just don't like it. I have seen a few hand replayers and this is certainly not the best.

    HUD
    Call me unfair but I am not going to test the Holdem Manager HUD because the chances of me seeing out the 15 day trial, let alone buy the software, are slim. I really can't concentrate on playing poker knowing I don't like the tracker I am using so for that reason I'm not going to test the HUD. However, I have watched a few review videos on the HUD and it does seem to have some very useful features. For example, you can click on a players stats and get a full breakdown including a breakdown by position (early, middle, late, blinds etc). I can see this being a useful feature I must admit. There's a lot to be said for the details shown on mouse-over and clicking in the stats boxes - the HUD looks really good but much of it is the same as PokerTracker. Yes, there are more features such as the positional breakdown but that really doesn't make up for the user interface of the main program.

    Conclusions
    Have you really not worked it out yet? I don't like the front end of Holdem Manager. The reviews I read/watched on Holdem Manager and PokerTracker put HM out in front because of the 3 bet stats and the superior HUD but several of these reviews were on beta versions of PT when the HUD wasn't available so it wasn't a fair fight. I get the impression that the team behind PT is bigger too so many of the features currently unique to HM will soon find their way into PT but I'm not sure the reverse is true as it would require a massive overhaul of the HM front-end and that's never a small job so would be a major version release rather than a minor release.

    Holdem Manager is cheaper at $80 but I think PokerTracker is worth the extra $10 and then some! From what I have seen today there is a clear market leader for poker tracking and analysis software and it's PokerTracker v3.



  8. #38

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    22nd March (part 3)
    One more about software and then I might get back on to playing some cards, honest!

    While investigating PokerTracker and Holdem Manager I came across another interesting idea - buying hand histories. As I said in the PokerTracker review I can't capture iPoker observed hands without a 3rd party handgrabber so the only data I can record about players is that captured when they are sat at the same table as me. Or is it? Hand HQ sell datamined hands for all the major sites at a decent price. For example, I could get 300k hands of $1/$2 limit
    hold'em from the iPoker network for a little over $10. Those hands were all captured in the last six months so are likely to include plenty of the players I currently face. This seems like a brilliant (and cheap) way to build up a database quickly and easily. I can learn more about the players I am currently facing and when looking to step up the levels (or perhaps if I am considering giving 6-max games a go) I can purchase hundreds of thousands of hands and get an instant idea of how the players at that level are doing rather than having to observe hundreds of hours of play on those tables and capture the data with a handgrabber. It seems such a simple idea but also pure genius. I can't believe I haven't come across the idea before. It will drastically reduce the number of strangers I sit down to play with as I will have an idea of their tendencies from the first hand I play with them much more often. No more waiting till I have several hundred hands for a player before I have a bead on their play - I can have it instantly for so many players.

    For now I am going to make sure PokerTracker suits my needs and tweak the configuration a little so I will be back on the Bet365 tables, and not writing lengthy software reviews, while I still have the trial to run. But in the next week or so I will seriously consider purchasing a big block of hands from Hand HQ as they should pay for themselves quick enough even at my stakes.



  9. #39

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    22nd March (part 4)
    A two-table session to give PokerTracker a more thorough test and in doing so I have uncovered a couple of minor problems. It could just be the way I have it configured but the HUD is displaying my stats for this session only, rather than stats based on all my hands. I have fired off an e-mail to their support team so let's see how good their customer service is. The HUD proved useful today though and it was a decent session at the tables overall. The first table started well and got tricky later on when I failed to adapt to a loose-aggressive muppet who sat to my left. Not that I am saying that LAG is a muppet approach to the game but this guy was playing all sorts of trash and raising with it too. I'd correctly read him for not having the hand his betting would normally represent so I'd show down some bluff catchers only to have him hit a crappy low pair and beat me. Very annoying. I mean his 98o beat my AQs, and he raised pre-flop if memory serves me correctly. I could check but I can't be bothered, quite frankly. But this guy has jumped to the top of my 'players I lose to' list. I have beat him once but lost to him 4 times and each time it was a decent-sized pot. So I ended up losing on that table, losing nearly half a buy-in. Fortunately the other table, which had started off average to poor for me got very good later on with a huge pot - $55 after rake - coming my way. I hit the nut straight and had some guy with trips betting into me plus some fool who thought his two pair would be good. I hit them both for $15 each plus someone else juiced the pot to the river where it got too heavy for them so I made a profit of $40 on that one hand. I ended that session more than doubling my buy-in for my most profitable session on a table at that level. Losing on one table was annoying given the way it happened (through my bad play coupled with a lucky muppet) but more than doubling up on the other table made up for it.

    I am going to make a few changes to the stats shown in here now I have switched to PokerTracker. This makes it easier to track VPIP which is much more meaningful than the percentage of flops seen. I am also going to start tracking my overall aggression factor (AF), plus my win rate per hour and other important stats from PokerTracker such as WTSD (Went To Showdown - percentage of hands in which I saw the flop and went to the showdown)

    Stats
    Hands: 3941
    Won Hands: 10.43%
    VP$IP: 17.38%
    PFR: 9.13%
    W$WSF: 43.89%
    WTSD: 42.68%
    W$SD: 56.54%
    AF: 1.40
    Won: $290.36
    BB/100 hands: 3.68
    $/hour: $6.34



  10. #40

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    24th March 2009
    The usual two table fare this evening, and it's been a fairly average evening with little to shout about. So before I get to the results from this session and anything interesting I have spotted in my PokerTracker stats let's quickly go back over some old ground - PokerOffice v PokerTracker.

    PokerOffice. I find out Saturday evening that my license has expired so dash their support team off a quick e-mail asking what's going. I get a response mid-afternoon on Monday basically saying tough luck and it's now $99 per year, or I can sign up through one of their poker room affiliate deals and get a free license. Been there and done that with them before and now look where I am. I actually got the feeling the support guy who replied had seem e-mail ssuch as mine several times now and that he understands how we feel but "the management/owners" have made a decision that obviously didn't include him and he's just repeating the company position to frustrated punters.

    PokerTracker - I am still on the trial version so I am not a paying customer, but as I mentioned the other day I had a query about the HUD and my stats in it. I sent them a support query through their website and four hours later (and bear in mind it was a Sunday) I got as response. That's excellent customer service. And what's more the response was friendly and explained why I only saw my session stats rather than lifetime stats. The fella explained it with a clear example - it's because I know my lifetime stats but my opponents may not so if I normally play a 20/1 game but am playing more like 45/30 as the deck has hit me in the fact then it's best that I know my opponents are likely to view me as loose-aggressive. Makes sense when put to you like that, so I am happy with that feature now. And very happy with the customer support, as I had read reviews that said it wasn't that great.

    And now tonight's cards. I hit my first quads at $1/$2 limit :D And it was Aces :) I had the pot won pretty comfortably before I got the fourth on the river but it was nice all the same. Not a huge pot ($16.63) though as it was just me and one other guy. But I did stack him with that hand, another nice touch. I felt I used the PT HUD stats well tonight too, which is a confidence boost. I didn't have that many great hands though so I played a bit weaker, well perhaps less aggressive rather than weaker, pre-flop. I did get KQo quite a few times in early position though - was someone trying to tell me something? It was a bit up and downs in terms of profit but it ended positively enough. In fact I am starting to plan when I should be moving up a level but I hope I haven't spoken too soon!

    Stats
    Hands: 4134
    Won Hands: 10.52%
    VP$IP: 17.63%
    PFR: 9.22%
    W$WSF: 44.07%
    WTSD: 42.23%
    W$SD: 56.19%
    AF: 1.46
    Won: $325.54
    BB/100 hands: 3.94
    $/hour: $6.83

    All the numbers are moving in the right direction. I am very pleased with the way this is going



  11. #41

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    26th March 2009
    Another uneventful night at the tables. Two tables for a couple of hours and a nice profit - getting to be a bit boring now :wink

    Seriously though, I am doing better than I expected so I have one eye on the future and where I go with this. I said before I started playing $1/2 limit that I would play as though I had a bankroll of $600 (300xBB, the recommended level) and would start taking shots when my bankroll gets up around $1000 to $1100. That's not far away now, certainly not if I carry on as I have been recently. So on one hand I am really thinking about mixing $2/4 in with my normal $1/2 but I also want to play a minimum number of hands/hours before I step up a level, just so I have more hands and know my own play better. Originally I had figures of 100 hours and/or 10,000 hands in my head but perhaps that's not realistic. After all, if I am making a good profit at this game why not step up and see if I can beat that one too? Why keep the stakes smaller than my ability can take? I'm gonna see how I feel over the next few sessions.

    Stats
    Hands: 4354
    Won Hands: 10.91%
    VP$IP: 17.98%
    PFR: 9.49%
    W$WSF: 44.90%
    WTSD: 41.99%
    W$SD: 55.52%
    AF: 1.51
    Won: $372.09
    BB/100 hands: 4.27
    $/hour: $7.51



  12. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by mathare View Post
    After all, if I am making a good profit at this game why not step up and see if I can beat that one too?
    Mat, is there also not an argument in there to say if I am making a good profit at this level why not continue to make hay?

    I see your point to move up and it's a valid one but why not move up on one table and stay as you are on the other for a week or so and compare your results on the two levels?

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  13. #43

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    Quote Originally Posted by MattR View Post
    Mat, is there also not an argument in there to say if I am making a good profit at this level why not continue to make hay?
    Oh yeah, absolutely. The thing is I am making over 4BB per 100 hands whereas a good player can expect to make 1 BB/100 so it seems to me that I am good enough to beat this game comfortably. If I double the stakes then as long as I don't halve my win rate I am making a better profit.

    I see your point to move up and it's a valid one but why not move up on one table and stay as you are on the other for a week or so and compare your results on the two levels?
    That's exactly what I would do. When the time comes to move up a level I wouldn't just drop the games I am playing now - I'd mix tables from the two levels as you say.

    Another thing I am also thinking of doing at this level, now I know I can beat it comfortably, is to add more tables into the mix. Step up to 3 tables soon, but at a game I know I am good at. Better to deal with any issues the extra table may cause at low stakes. Then in a few weeks I can always play three tables mixing $1/2 and $2/4



  14. #44

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    5000 hands is not nearly a big enough sample to assume that you are a winner at the stakes (4ptbb/100 is very good though), although that said I think you have the roll to start taking shots at 2/4. You can easily move down if need be. One thing I regret is spending too much time at a limit and not moving up sooner. Plus playing at a higher limit will improve your game at a faster rate.



  15. #45

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    Quote Originally Posted by sportingprofit View Post
    4ptbb/100 over 5000 hands is not nearly a big enough sample to assume that you are a winner at the stakes
    True. But I think you have a reasonable idea when you're beating a game as to whether it is luck or skill and this certainly doesn't feel like luck. I'm not saying I'm a great limit hold'em player but these are small stakes and there are a lot of bad players about.

    although that said I think you have the roll to start taking shots at 2/4. You can easily move down if need be.
    Absolutely. And that's partly the reason for blending my play across the levels rather then just stepping straight up. PokerTracker will make it easy to track my play at the different levels too.

    One thing I regret is spending too much time at a limit and not moving up sooner. Plus playing at a higher limit will improve your game at a faster rate.
    Yeah, I don't want to keep playing at a level I can beat just for the sake of it when there are greater profits to be made at higher stakes. I've dabbled in poker games on and off for two or three years but never had a real plan of action, until this year, so I've never really been in a position to move up in stakes. But I know it needs to be done and ought to be done soon.



  16. #46

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    28th March 2009
    What an afternoon! I decided to put in a nice long session as I had nothing else urgent I needed to to but I'm kinda wishing I hadn't bothered. You know the setup by now - two $1/2 tables on Bet365 (I decided against stepping up just yet). I play a solid game on one of those tables and grind out a profit after a slow start but on the other I am getting destroyed. I've had full houses beaten by bigger full houses and my great starting hands just keeping turning to trash by the turn. When it looks like I might win a hand the river comes in and gives my opponent a lucky winner. I've had them hit trips on the river to beat my two pair too many times today. I'm getting a little sick of being ahead pre-flop only to get turned over by the board.

    That's not to say that some of this luck hasn't been of my own making though. I have played badly at times, perhaps quite a lot of the time in fact, and that's contributed to the loss today for sure. But I've also had a stinking run of cards. One table my hands hold up but on the other they keep getting beaten. Or I get a strong hand pre-flop, raise and every one folds. It's certainly been a case of winning small pots and losing big ones.

    I was playing to get back even over the whole session, just to show I could more than anything else. I know sessions are just arbitrary divisions in what is really just one long game, and also that I should have left the losing table long before I actually did. But knowing these things and actually acting on that knowledge are two very different things.

    Looking at just today's stats I can see I played absolutely dreadfully out of the big blind. I don't understand why as I am usually good in the blinds. But today I was very poor in the big blind and poor in the small blind too. I was good on the button but lousy in middle position too. I know w're dealing with small samples per seat (around 40 hands per seat) so 1 hand can make a big difference but even so.

    On the bright side though I limited the loss to under $15 at the end of the day so I shouldn't be too hard on myself. Although I should have quite earlier...

    Stats
    Hands: 4785
    Won Hands: 11.03%
    VP$IP: 18.12%
    PFR: 9.72%
    W$WSF: 44.84%
    WTSD: 41.87%
    W$SD: 54.67%
    AF: 1.54
    Won: $357.77
    BB/100 hands: 3.74
    $/hour: $6.71



  17. #47

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    29th March 2009
    A bit of a landmark this evening as I bust through 5000 hands played at this level. Not that that means anything really. I'm trying to use it as a sign of commitment to the game and that I am keen to make the best of it. I am also happy that it gives me a reasonable number of hands with which to start analysing my game further. I know it's still not a big enough sample but it's bigger than it was, right.

    Even with over 5000 hands under my belt I can still improve many areas of my game and I know that. Tonight my weak points were overconfidence with bluffs and overcard hands. I was substituting aggression for hand strength and position, and losing because of it. I managed to get on top of it though and learned to give up pots where I had missed the flop and had no draws and no high card strength. I could only beat a bluff, and a weak one at that. I had my usual mix of beats and outdraws that one expects when playing limit poker. I saw some stinking river cards I can tell you. I was building pots when I was ahead only to see them float off with the river when the villain gets lucky. We're not talking one- and two-outers admittedly but it was a little annoying all the same.

    I managed to grind out a profit though, but had it not been for the timely appearance of QQ and KK I would have been reporting another small loss, probably similar to yesterday's. Today's win brings me to a profit of nearly $250 for the month - it's been a good month all in.

    Stats
    Hands: 5044
    Won Hands: 11.14%
    VP$IP: 18.12%
    PFR: 9.71%
    W$WSF: 45.34%
    WTSD: 42.09%
    W$SD: 54.67%
    AF: 1.58
    Won: $390.59
    BB/100 hands: 3.87
    $/hour: $7.05

    So this session I upped the percentage of hands I win and kept my VPIP the same but the PFR dropped a little. The aggression factor continues to climb but is still a long way from where I want to get it (I'm paying the price for a lot of passive play in the first few thousand hands) and I am winning more hands when I see the flop now than I was. I'd like to get that figure up higher too. Is 50% unrealistic? I have to admit that I don't know what a good range is for some of these numbers yet and that I need to do so more reading into PokerTracker stats.



  18. #48

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    31st March 2009
    Another session where I haven't played particularly well. It got off to a bad start when I wasn't able to credit the BB with a real hand on the first hand I played and ended up losing $10 to him. I was never ahead in the hand either, to make things worse. That set the scene for a good part of the session; it took me around 180 hands to get into profit for the first time this evening!

    So what went wrong? Not giving people credit for hands was the main issue. I could have nothing and still be betting into people who obviously had me beaten with a pair at least. It didn't matter that it was probably a rubbish pair, I was beaten all the same. So by being stubborn and unable to fold when beaten I got myself off to a bad start that continued to get worse until a couple of big hands managed to turn it around.

    I still need to tighten up further as my VPIP is too high at times. I also need to think about checking more too - lose some small pots on the turn river rather than bigger ones at the showdown. I am betting out (out of position) on flops where I have just overcards, hoping everyone else has missed too. They maybe have missed but are they going to fold for one small bet? Chances are they won't, certainly if they have any kinds of draw.

    Still, it's been a good month overall. I played over 25 hours and put in over 2700 hands for a profit of just under $250. It hasn't all gone my way, and I have found myself playing awfully at times but I am learning and that's most definitely a good thing.

    Stats
    Hands: 5292
    Won Hands: 11.19%
    VP$IP: 18.22%
    PFR: 9.66%
    W$WSF: 45.20%
    WTSD: 41.58%
    W$SD: 55.13%
    AF: 1.59
    Won: $392.36
    BB/100 hands: 3.71
    $/hour: $6.84



  19. #49

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    4th April 2009
    Today was the first time I had had a chance to get on the tables for a few days, and with the missus out I was determined to make the most of it. I had planned a morning/early afternoon session followed by another later in the afternoon but only the second of those actually happened for various reasons. But I was still keen to make a good session of it and with it being a new month I thought I'd try a new challenge - 3 tables at once. And it wasn't that bad at all really so I may do it more often. All tables were $1/2 limit as I haven't stepped up yet, despite what I said recently. I have set myself a target of $500 profit before I start taking shots as I know my game still has a number of weaknesses that I am trying to address. Pocket pairs are the latest weakness I have identified. I am playing a lot of the lower pairs on tight tables where I just don't have the odds to really justify it. But now I am aware of the problem I am taking conscious steps to work on addressing it.

    Anyway. A mixed session today with two decent enough tables and one that suffered a bit. I just kept getting outdrawn and dealt either rubbish or a hand good enough to get me into a bit of trouble. I pulled it back a bit near the end though and across the three tables I made around $17 but it took me over two and a half hours! I tried to play tighter today though, and a lot of the time the cards played their part as I was getting dealt a lot of trash that's very easy to fold. I got the month off to a steady start and racked up a nice number of merit points (over 350) so I should easily keep my VIP level this month. Last month I earned around 2500 merit points but that's still nowhere near enough to go up another VIP level so I'm not really thinking about the rewards scheme as it's not worth much.

    Stats
    Hands: 5705
    Won Hands: 10.99%
    VP$IP: 17.76%
    PFR: 9.45%
    W$WSF: 45.60%
    WTSD: 41.25%
    W$SD: 55.64%
    AF: 1.64
    Won: $409.41
    BB/100 hands: 3.59
    $/hour: $6.82

    So by playing tighter I also reduced my PFR a little, but that's to be expected when you get a lot of trash hands. The figures are starting to settle down now with each session having less of an impact on them, which is good. I think my true colours are starting to show through now.



  20. #50

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    19th April 2009
    Tonight was my first session for a couple of weeks as I have been working on other things and haven't had a decent opportunity to get to the tables. But I wanted to keep my hand in, as it were, so tonight I made a special effort to play some poker.

    Even though I haven't been playing poker for the past couple of weeks I haven't ignored the game completely. I have been reading more and more about the game and it's nuances. I read a book called "How Good Is Your Limit Hold'em?" which was interesting. It was aimed at higher stakes than I play (it was pitched at players in $15/30 games or higher) and was a strange format but useful nonetheless. When I say it was a strange format it takes the form of a series of hands and at various stages throughout the hand you're presented with a multi-choice question and then a few pages on are the answers for that hand. So you read through the hand, answer the questions as you go and then get your score at the end of it. The right answers to the questions are sometimes worth just a few marks (each hand is scored out of 100) and sometimes it'll be worth 20 or 30 marks as it's the key decision in the hand. I generally did OK but I was reading the book more to learn how to handle certain situations than to do it as the quiz it is intended to be. I have also been re-reading Hilger's book on internet limit hold'em, one of the first I bought on the subject several years back.

    Has this reading helped? I think so as I identified a number of places where I was getting the answer wrong, even in Hilger's example hands in his book. I think I am betting/calling in too many places and losing bets that way. Overly aggressive if you like. I am also not thinking about the hand properly as I play. By that I mean I am looking at the board and my cards and thinking about my hand only, really. I take into account pot odds (most of the time) and number of opponents but I am not thinking hard enough about plenty of other factors, including:
    • position of my opponents
    • what their position and HUD stats means their likely range is
    • how my hand compares to their range
    • what their betting actions so far have told me about their hand
    • properly counting and evaluating my outs (which should I discount? which are likely counterfeited?)
    • etc

    When I realised I had so many weaknesses in my whole approach to the game I was quite worried and resolved to address, which I am trying to do tonight but old habits die hard. A few times I have found myself calling bets, or leading out, when I really shouldn't be. I'm being shown hands at the end that I should have realised my opponent had as almost every time I see them I think "Oh yeah, makes sense" so why aren't I seeing these pitfalls before I fall into them? Because I am not concentrating on the game and don't play with the right mindset. I'm beating the game so don't have to think, maybe. I think I am also scared of folding the winning hand so calling a bet on the river even though there's a four flush out there and I've got second pair. I think I am justifying calls by thinking "I only need to catch him bluffing 1 time in X" but failing to take in all the signs that say he's not bluffing this time so let it go. I am reluctant to step up the stakes until I have addressed these basic issues to some degree at least.

    So how did it go this evening with all this new knowledge and determination? I played 3 tables as I was keen to keep the action coming and also to continue knocking off these merit points I try and get each month. Having not played for a couple of weeks I was behind the curve somewhat on that front so I wanted to have a few tables open to help get me back on track there.

    One thing that does stand out is the number of times I got dealt AQ tonight. It must have been 6 or 7, in only 300 or so hands. And I don't recall any of them resulting in a decent pot for me but I haven't checked the records for tonight in Poker Tracker to see whether that is actually the case or not. Actually I have just checked the records and it was 9 times I was deal AQ and I made a profit of around $11 from those hands. I also had two or three full houses cracked this evening, each time by a bigger full house. One of those days for that I guess.

    Table 1 was basically breakeven by the end of the session. It started rockily for a few hands, then I went on a decent run and put myself into profit that built steadily till I overplayed a medium pocket pair into a board that four flushed and ended up losing $10 that hand. I built up the profit again before getting a full house beaten that cost me $8. My biggest losing hands for this session seem to be medium pocket pairs (TT twice, 88, 77). I won 17 hands (out of 140) which isn't too bad. My biggest winners though were just two pair type hands. It was my biggest hands that were getting beaten, mainly. A profit of $2.25 was the end result.

    The second table was a similar story; a suspect start that then became a profit that slowly dripped away. 10 winning hands from 111 here, so lower than on table 1, and again it was two pair hands, and trips, that were winning me the cash when it did come my way. No huge losing hands this time but it was biggish Aces and broadway cards that were costing me money, mainly because the board was blanking on me so I was losing my pre-flop raises when I was forced to fold in the face of action. Another basically breakeven session though by the end with a profit of $2.72.

    On the third table I never really got going. I had one full house hold up and that was the one bright spot in the session. I won only 8 hands overall, from over 100 so I consider that pretty poor going. I had one full house cracked here though and that cost me a bit. I also had other big starting hands beaten, such as AK, AQ, QQ, KQ etc. I've been outkicked, had two pair beaten by an unexpected trips and just generally beaten. I've also folded out the blinds a lot as I've had a lot of trash. But does that all explain how I managed to lose $28 at this table? Add in a few folds at various other stages of hands and it does, really, as the graph of this session is basically a steady downward trend. Perhaps this was one table too far? I was thinking towards the end of the session that if I to play properly, and think hands through thoroughly then I should really only be playing two tables at most. Something to bear in mind for the future.

    I chipped another few hundred merit points off the target though, not that that is much consolation.

    Stats
    Hands: 6065
    Won Hands: 10.93%
    VP$IP: 17.63%
    PFR: 9.51%
    W$WSF: 45.60%
    WTSD: 41.16%
    W$SD: 55.40%
    AF: 1.64
    Won: $386.68
    BB/100 hands: 3.19
    $/hour: $6.21



  21. #51

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    20th April 2009
    I'll be honest with you, I laid in bed last night really disappointed, almost disgusted, with how badly I had played poker that night. I was trying to take the multi-tabling thing too far and my game was suffering. I was angry to myself too. So tonight was an opportunity to put things right in my mind again. I cleared the decks after tea and sat down for a couple of hours of poker on two tables with the intention of cementing some of the basics I highlighted yesterday as weaknesses in my thinking when I play.

    It wasn't the best of sessions this evening but it wasn't too bad really. I felt I played a lot better than last night but the cards didn't always run my way, which is to be expected. It felt a little like one of those sessions where I was being dealt cards and seeing flops designed to make you lose a little each hand. Decent Aces that miss the flop and then face heavier action than they can really stand; broadway hands that miss the flop that's checked around and then you're forced to fold in the face of action on the turn - those sort of hands. I built up the profit steadily this evening and then lost most of it again steadily, not through bad play necessarily, just natural attrition of my stack really. I was folding a lot out of the blinds in raised pots as I kept having trash. I amde a little overall though.

    Another thing that occurred to me this evening was how much I really need to work on this mindset/thinking at the table thing. I seem to play alright really, when I look back over hands I am normally pretty happy with my hand. And on several occasions this evening (admittedly not as many as it should have been) I watched hands closely after folding and when it came to a showdown I'd try to name the hands I expected to see turned over. Perhaps not the exact hand but a range at least. And I was doing pretty well at this, which got me thinking. Yesterday I was talking about making changes to the way I think about the game at the table but is much alteration necessary? Have I been playing long enough (over the years) and reading enough about the game to have a good understanding and feel for the game such that instinct kicks in and tells me how to play without going through the whole conscious thought process? Perhaps. It's not as ridiculous as it sounds. Maybe I am subconsciously processing a lot of the information at the table correctly and making a lot of the right plays based on that. Difficult to prove either way but I certainly feel as though I have a good, err, feel for the game I am playing in.

    Hmmm.

    Stats
    Hands: 6292
    Won Hands: 10.87%
    VP$IP: 17.63%
    PFR: 9.46%
    W$WSF: 45.47%
    WTSD: 41.08%
    W$SD: 55.91%
    AF: 1.65
    Won: $395.98
    BB/100 hands: 3.07
    $/hour: $6.14



  22. #52

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    26th April 2009
    Perhaps playing on a Sunday morning is not a good idea. I fired up Bet365's poker room as I wanted to knock off the final merit points I need to retain my silver VIP level this month but I kinda wish I hadn't. I played some hands badly, that much is true. I also got dealt the sort of hands you have to take to the turn at least when they connect with a bit of a flop and the pot odds say you should try your luck but I don't think any of them got there so I just ended up losing more money. I got my merit points but they cost me as I lost nearly $45 making it my third worst session in terms of cash lost and easily my worst in terms of win rates.

    I don't think I'll be troubling the $2/4 tables for a while unless I can significantly improve my play.

    Stats
    Hands: 6404
    Won Hands: 10.77%
    VP$IP: 17.60%
    PFR: 9.42%
    W$WSF: 45.02%
    WTSD: 40.91%
    W$SD: 55.36%
    AF: 1.63
    Won: $352.53
    BB/100 hands: 2.65
    $/hour: $5.31



  23. #53

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    27th April 2009
    The main reason for tonight's session was actually to blow off a little steam, which is never really a good reason to play poker if I'm honest but I did it anyway. I also wanted a bit of an opportunity to update my Poker Tracker HUD at the tables, displaying more meaningful stats in a better layout than I used previously. So I have added more AF stats as well as C-bet and fold to C-bet stats to give me a better idea of what I am up against. Not that I think it makes a massive difference at low stakes limit hold'em but I've done it anyway.

    So how did the session go? It took me over 100 hands to show any sort of profit and shortly afterwards I had total brain freeze for a few hands, got way overconfident and cocky and dropped over $30. Whoops! I steadily built it back up with some much better play - and significantly better cards. I even had some muppet betting into my quads till we capped the turn and river . So from over $30 down to around $25 up at the end of the two-table session ain't too bad really. The stats are going to show a fairly high VPIP for that session though, partly because I played really quite slackly in some places. I'm still not really back in the zone.

    Stats
    Hands: 6655
    Won Hands: 10.91%
    VP$IP: 17.81%
    PFR: 9.45%
    W$WSF: 45.23%
    WTSD: 41.49%
    W$SD: 55.65%
    AF: 1.62
    Won: $376.60
    BB/100 hands: 2.83
    $/hour: $5.50

    I still think I can much better than this...



  24. #54

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    3rd May 2009
    Some days I wonder why I even bother. And today was one of them.

    I played absolutely appallingly! Loose, passive and just generally badly. Calling in all the wrong spots, not pressing the edges when I had them, that sort of thing. Looking back I can't believe some of the hands I was playing out of position. They weren't utter trash, although they may as well have been for all the good they did me. They were marginal hands designed to get you into trouble and that's what happened most of the time. My steal timing was also way off tonight as I was trying to steal from calling stations and ardent blind defenders. I have these stats available to me so why aren't I using them properly?

    I lost almost a full initial buy-in ($50) on one table and managed to escape with only a $9 on the other but it wasn't pretty on either table. And I had good hands tonight on both tables too, including AA on both tables. But it was another of those days where suited starting hands hit two more on the flop but the turn and river both blank, or when I flop the nut straight the turn or river will result in a split pot. A typical poker day in other words. Although it's not every day you run two hands into quads!

    One my second table I call from the SB with 83o after 4 others limp. I figure the pot odds make it worth seeing a cheap flop, and that's what I get. 4-4-8 giving me two pair but with no kicker. I check, the two players next to act check before someone bets. Called round to my left who check-raises (git!) and 5 of us see the turn. Another 4! I've hit a full house but anyone with a pair better than 8s is ahead of me. I lead out to see where I am and get 3 callers. OK. I figure I could still have the best hand but may also be in trouble. So when the river comes an 8 I am so happy as I have backed into a better full house. I bet and get raised by the villain to my left. There's cold-call and a fold before it's back to me. I am top full house so I raise. I could have closed the action there and then but I put the guy on my left on a bigger pair than 8s, but not much bigger given the pre-flop action (he didn't raise, just checked his option). I figure he was set-mining but hit a lucky full house, can beat the board so is playing it strongly. I figure I have the best hand and raise him. I don't know what the other muppet is doing in this hand. The betting is capped by the villain to my left - hmmm. The other player folds and I call, obviously. He shows me the case 4 and drags the $43 pot.

    On the first table I ran KQs into quads. I was one off the button and cold-called a raise from middle position. Questionable I know, but it lead to a heads up flop which came 9-K-9. Two pair again, nice. And with a kicker this time. He checks, I bet, he check-raises me and I call. The turn is a 4 to complete a potential flush but I still think my two pair are good. He bets, I call. The river is a blank (5), he bets and I call. He tables 99 for flopped quads. I was never in the hand, but I could have lost a lot more I feel. Thanks goodness for position.

    A poor session tonight though and one that has really set me back on my road to the $2/4 tables. It's a good job I am still playing at the lower levels if I am going to play this badly. A lot of it tonight was basics going out the window. Thinking KQo is playable first to act in early/middle position. Thinking that because everyone else has missed the flop then my toss hand could be best even though it's only really J high. I need to really tighten up and start pushing hands when I am sure I am ahead. My opponents are generally straightforward players and if they bet they have something so I should taking one off with draws that don't have the odds, just in case. It should be all about the pot odds in this game, not feel.

    I think part of the problem is getting bored though. I am folding Q4, J3 etc a lot but not getting many playable hands so I play ATo and dross like that out of position as it's the best hand I have seen for a couple of orbits. I need to drill more patience into myself. Goodness only knows how I do that!

    Stats
    Hands: 6864
    Won Hands: 10.77%
    VP$IP: 17.74%
    PFR: 9.43%
    W$WSF: 44.73%
    WTSD: 41.45%
    W$SD: 55.08%
    AF: 1.62
    Won: $319.08
    BB/100 hands: 2.26
    $/hour: $4.53

    Those stats look awful! I need to do something about them in the next session for sure.



  25. #55

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    5th May 2009
    I'm not going to dwell on this evening's session as it was basically more of the same. I played better than last time but it felt like none of my drawing hands were hitting. I had the odds to draw so I am plugging away but still drawing blanks. Add to that decent hands on the flop that I bet out to protect getting called by muppets who were way behind and draw out on me and it makes for a bad session. Some of my big starting hands only won the blinds and some of my trash starting hands would have flopped full houses. Typical poker again, really. But another step backwards overall.

    Stats
    Hands: 7169
    Won Hands: 10.77%
    VP$IP: 17.80%
    PFR: 9.44%
    W$WSF: 44.69%
    WTSD: 41.22%
    W$SD: 55.27%
    AF: 1.62
    Won: $304.05
    BB/100 hands: 2.12
    $/hour: $4.17



  26. #56

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    7th May 2009
    This afternoon I went a long way to undoing some of the damage done recently, both to my confidence and bank balance.

    It was the standard two table session and on one of those tables I could do no wrong. Sure, having a string of good hands helped things along but I also played well. Tight and aggressive, making a lot from my good hands and getting away from hands when I knew I was beaten. Maximising wins and minimising losses like a good'un. The second table was a different story as I was basically breaking even, give or take a few blinds lost along the way for over 120 hands. I was only a few bucks down and then I got beaten by a two outer on the river, played then next hand too fast and too far and basically tilted. I don't feel I am a tilty player but the graph of profits from the session doesn't lie and after that two-outer hit it's all downhill so I have to assume it was tilt in some form. I wasn't unlucky with hands after that, not as such. I played badly, basically. Fortunately I was well on my way to recording my best ever session on the other table and netted a profit of over $40, which is stunning bearing in mind I lost more than that on one of those tables. A profit of $82.40 on one table and a loss of $41.75 on the other - a real tale of two tables.

    Stats
    Hands: 7483
    Won Hands: 10.68%
    VP$IP: 17.57%
    PFR: 9.31%
    W$WSF: 44.80%
    WTSD: 40.97%
    W$SD: 55.53%
    AF: 1.61
    Won: $344.70
    BB/100 hands: 2.28
    $/hour: $4.57

    So tighter but there is still work to be done on the aggression in my game. I think I have a habit though of playing/raising marginal hands to try and get that aggression up though, which isn't the point. I need to play a solid game and get the aggression up as a natural by-product of that solid approach.



  27. #57

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    8th May 2009
    A brain freeze after about 70 hands in tonight's session did the damage as I went from a slight profit to being down around $50 in less than 50 hands. I got arrogant and figured I could beat straightforward players by betting them off the pot. Yes, I tried that in limit poker. Deep down I don't have enough respect for my opponents at this level and that's something I need to deal with before it does even more damage to my bankroll. I managed to limit the damage to around $15 overall by playing much better after this point. I couldn't quite ever get back up to being level for the session though.

    Stats
    Hands: 7790
    Won Hands: 10.54%
    VP$IP: 17.39%
    PFR: 9.23%
    W$WSF: 44.77%
    WTSD: 41.06%
    W$SD: 55.54%
    AF: 1.60
    Won: $329.75
    BB/100 hands: 2.11
    $/hour: $4.23



  28. #58

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    9th May 2009
    I stuck in a late morning session today because I was a little bored, if truth be told. I had set Excel off processing a load of data for me and had little else pressing to do so I figured a couple of hours at the poker tables before the racing started wouldn't hurt.

    And I was right - it didn't hurt. In fact it turned out quite well. The play felt good - tight and reasonably aggressive without being aggressive for the sake of it. And I made a few quid out of it, about $35 in fact. That has greatly reduced my monthly loss and set me back on the right road.

    I have a few bits to sort out this afternoon but I may try and squeeze a second session in later and if I can play like that again later I'll be very happy :)

    Stats
    Hands: 7950
    Won Hands: 10.52%
    VP$IP: 17.31%
    PFR: 9.18%
    W$WSF: 44.75%
    WTSD: 40.73%
    W$SD: 55.94%
    AF: 1.62
    Won: $364.90
    BB/100 hands: 2.30
    $/hour: $4.59



  29. #59

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    10th May 2009
    Well I didn't get a second session in yesterday as I had hoped so I stuck one in this evening instead. Y'know how some days it really just doesn't work for you? Today was one of those really. It took me 200 hands across two tables - so roughly an hour and a three-quarters - to make any sort of a profit. It started with just the blinds draining me, then I lost a few hands, won a few, lost a few etc. I fluctuated around a loss of $10for a long while before eventually getting a few hands to hold up, stealing a few pots and eventually breaking the right side of the zero line. The plan at that point was to stop on the basis that if it had taken me that long to breakeven I was going to have a very good night and I should be happy to have got back to evens. So I unchecked the 'auto post' checkbox for each table and played out the hands I had already effectively paid for in the form of the blinds. During that I got AK that held up for another $9 profit so I finished $20 up on one table and around $10 down on the other. That'll do. I didn't feel in the zone and my head wasn't particularly in the game. I feel tired so it's good point to stop.

    I played nice tight poker this evening though. It felt good and with all the trash I kept having to fold my VPIP was around 12%. I still need to work on the aggression though as I let that slip a little. I found myself calling in pots I could have raised but I wasn't anywhere near a lock some of the time and the raises felt like they would have been marginal, raises for raises sake rather than when I thought I really had the best hand.

    Stats
    Hands: 8165
    Won Hands: 10.41%
    VP$IP: 17.16%
    PFR: 9.09%
    W$WSF: 44.78%
    WTSD: 40.61%
    W$SD: 55.76%
    AF: 1.62
    Won: $375.25
    BB/100 hands: 2.31
    $/hour: $4.61

    My overall VPIP has come down 0.15% in that session, which is nice to see. The percentage of hands won has come down too but I'm not too worried about that as it's big pots I am trying to win, not just a lot of pots.



  30. #60

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    11th May 2009
    What the hell happened tonight?!?

    Yep, a really poor session this evening, losing $20 on one table and $43.50 on the other. So what went wrong? Stupid as it sounds - the cards. I hardly had a hand worth playing.

    On the first table I started well, made a bad play, steadied the ship, pulled it back, lost it, steadied the ship once more, another brain freeze and then steady again. But looking at the cards I got - oh dear! Out of 126 hands I saw just 15 flops - that's only 11.90% of flops and for a period we were short-handed (3-5 players). Worse than that I won only 7 hands (5.56%), and one of those was a walk and the other was just stealing the blinds. I'll hold my hands up to around $10 in losses due to bad play on this table though but that's still another $10 due to lost blinds etc. And winning just 7 out of 126 hands - that's rubbish! But I didn't have playable hands for the most part. I'd get something half decent but be out of position or facing a raise and a possible re-raise so be forced to fold. Or just get trash, plain and simple.

    The story of the second table is even worse. Hands played: 115. Hands won: 4! Yes, just 4 hands. And each time all I won was the blinds. I had a tight image, that much is true, but with the cards I was getting I had no real choice. Sometimes your hands choose your image for you at limit poker and tonight I had little option but to appear tight and keep folding the trash. My first card would be an Ace or King and my hope would rise a little only to see a 4 or something land next to it. Pah! I got blinded away a lot here. I only lost more than $3 in two hands. In one I got rivered and in the other I just played badly. So of the loss of over $40 I'll claim about $6 in bad play but the rest is due to the cards, pure and simple.

    I really didn't enjoy this evening at all. I bet my VPIP has dropped a lot though...

    Stats
    Hands: 8409
    Won Hands: 10.21%
    VP$IP: 16.93%
    PFR: 9.01%
    W$WSF: 44.36%
    WTSD: 40.56%
    W$SD: 55.40%
    AF: 1.61
    Won: $311.79
    BB/100 hands: 1.87
    $/hour: $3.74

    I hope that dreadful run of cards means I can expect some big pocket pairs in the coming sessions. And perhaps I won't get done with set over set and get my AKs over turned too...



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