Stepped Down a Level

Today I decided to step down a level into the 10NL world. I was playing 25NL with the basic 25 buy in rule. I think it is possible that thee way I was losing I started becoming scared of losing buy-ins. Now I am not saying I was outright scared, but maybe in the back of my mind I was. So dropping down to 10NL puts me above 50 buy-ins (per Jared’s at PokerFox thread) and in a very comfortable place. If I lose a buy- in or two like this, then it won’t sting as bad and make me tilt and hate myself.

Know I know this may jepordize my goal, but I feel it is more important. Besides, I sure the hell wasn’t going to meet it the direction I was in. I will still strive for the goal, for it is not impossible.

I am only up $9 for the 1 hour (2 tables) session I just did. Considering what I went against it turned out better than it could have.

Examples: My flush ran into quads and my KK went all in preflop against Q8 and the Q8 drew out trip queens.

So it was good I was able to bounce back and never go on tilt or play scared. I am going to try this and see if it works out. Hopefully I will be able to get 50 buy- ins for 25NL and do on and so forth.
Thanks to PokerBen for suggesting trying 10NL.

Also I have 2 other new posts below this if you haven’t read them.

Thanks.

3 Days Off

Well I had three days off from poker and went over PT stats. I thought, wow I should be in good shape to play. Well I wish I had something good to say but I don’t. I dropped $47 pretty quick. My big loser was QQ vs KAo all in preflop. He called my all in with KAo and hit trip kings, gg me.

Ultimate Bet No-Limit Hold’em, $.25 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

UTG ($7.40)
MP ($22.65)
CO ($19.20)
EvilOrly ($24.65)
SB ($8.90)
BB ($32.30)

Preflop: EvilOrly is Button with Th, Qh.
1 fold, CO calls $0.25, Button raises to $1.25, 2 folds, CO calls $1.

Flop: ($2.85) 9d, 7s, 7h (3 players)
CO checks, Button bets $1.75, CO calls $1.75.

Turn: ($6.35) 4h (3 players)
CO checks, EvilOrly checks.

River: ($6.35) 9h (3 players)
CO bets $4, EvilOrly calls $4.

Final Pot: $14.35

Results in white below:
EvilOrly has Th Qh (flush, queen high).
BB doesn’t show.
UTG doesn’t show.
CO has 7c 4c (full house, sevens full of nines).
Outcome: CO wins $14.35. Highlight above to see the results.

I should have known he had a 7 because he checked the flop. One thing I notice at this level is EVERYONE, besides me, slowplays trips. I always bet them hoping they think I don’t have it because I did just that. Works alot of the times. Anyway back to the hand. He checks the turn, and I have the flush draw, so I figure this is a good time to get a free card. I get my flush and he bets 2/3 of the pot. Since I have a made hand and wasn’t a huge bet I thought it warrented a call. I was rather surprised though when I seen a 74s. Pretty loose call on his part preflop.

Well I wish I had a winning HH to share as well but I do not. I did not win a pot over .35.

Let’s Plug this Leak Part 1

OK here we go, I am going to go over my PT stats for the month of July. I have a little more hands in than what is in PT because I did play some on a computer without it, but this will do just fine.

When I write this, I am not going to write it in a way you can follow along and do it yourself. The reason I did it this way is time. But I will provide the links on how/what was done.

LINKS:

Titans01’s blog post

Pokey’s How to Use PT Thread

–Thanks to Titans01 for letting us know resources like this were out there and going through it himself as a guinea pig

• Total Hours: 42.23
• Total Hands: 3,997
• VPIP: 16.46
• Amount Won: (109.18)
• BB/100: (5.15)
• W$SD: 45.64
• PF Raise: 11.51
• Total Aggression: 2.60

Sufficiant Preflop Aggression: preflop raise % that is at least 50% of your VPIP% at each position. This should apply to all but the SB.

Position	VPIP	PFR%
Button	25.00	20.79
CO	14.64	11.59
UTG+1	14.96	11.80
UTG	11.72	10.34
BB	8.88	5.09

Ok according to the rule on sufficiant preflop aggression all is ok in that department.

Positional Awareness: Going from UTG to the button, the VPIP progression should rise. If the button’s VPIP is 50% or more than UTG(the goal is 2x) then it is all good.

Looking at the progression I need some work. Even though this is just 4k hands I will need to keep aware of this. I need more play in the CO and maybe a hair less in UTG+1. The second area looks good. My button VPIP is barely more than twice the VPIP as my UTG.’s VPIP.

Stealing Blinds: Mine is 22.22 (goal is at least 20%) so that is good. The next step is to click a filter , take my BB/Hand statistic and times it by 100 and compare it to my normal PTBB/100. This should be more than double the PT/BB. So, 0.48*100=48 and is well more than double. As we see both these stas are fine.

Defending Blinds: My BB/Hand number is -.13. This is somewhat better than the lowpoint but I would like to turn this into a small positive if I could, but I am still within spec. The second number is for when I defended agaisnt a steal. The requirement is the same. I am at +1.29 BB/100. I am doing very well in that department.

Heads Up Play: This will look and see how I am doing when there are only me and another in the hand. As a whole I am at 4/BB 100, thats good that I am in the positive here. Then I need to filter this to look at it when I don’t raise preflop. When I am not the aggressor my BB/100 turns to -7. This shows that I am having trouble in this situation and need to keep this in mind.

Multiway Pots: My first number is -0.17. Now there is now guide given on what an ideal number would be but I am assuming the more positive the better. This needs a bit of work. With a no raise filter put in (hands I limped in) my number is the same -0.17. So it looks like I need work in this whole area. I am guessing I need better hands to be playing these multi handed pots.

Pocket Pairs: My VPIP is these is 82.04, the goal is 85% or more.This number may be a tad low because of the sample size but I will keep it in mind. Also my PFR% fits into the range with 51.46. The hands AA-88 need to be positive as well. AA-JJ are for me but TT-88 are a small negative. These hand histories need to be looked over. Also going a little further, 77 is my biggest loser and I need to pay some special attention to this.

Suited Connectors: This needs work, my BB/100 is -0.53, this number needs to be positive. Then I check cold calling with these type of hands. I have a very small sample of this, and that is what I should have. This number is good a 8.23 BB/Hand.

Unsuited Connectors: My VPIP is almost half of what it isfor my suited connectors so that is good. My BB/100 is positive at 0.25 BB/100. My cold calling is a small negative but only 2 hands have been done that way so that is also good. BUT, I can’t think of why I cold called with these 2 hands so I need to remeber to just not do so.

Preflop Aggression: My Raise+bet stats equal 46.09% (at least 40% is the goal), so that looks good. my Aggression factor equals 2.6 (at least 2 is the goal).

Check-Raising: My stats here is too low at .20, the goal is at least .50 up to 2. Looks like I need to check raise a little more when the situation could benefit.

So the things I took away from this immediatly are:

1. Play more in the cutoff
2. Play less in UTG+1
3. Be more aggressive in a 1 on 1 pot.
4. Improve my play in multiway pots. Better hands selection and getting out of the hand sooner when I know I am beat.
5. Be more aggressive with pocket pairs. Be more careful with 88-TT, and pay special attention to 77.
6. I need work with suited connectors. I think most of this is because when I do play them I rarely hit the flop and get out quick. So I will be more aggressive preflop with them and make sure to keep them in late position.
7. Do not cold call any unsuited connectors at all.
8. Remember I have the check-raise in my arsenal and use it a few more times.

Could this equal to alot of my negative numbers? I guess time will tell. Also let me know what you think, what I may have missed etc.

Thanks

Not so Hot

Well tonight was the first losing night I have had in a few days. Unfortunatly it was a 2 buy in lose. I am not going to say to much about it, I am trying to control my ranting. I will post 2 hand histories, stealing this time from Titans. The big loser and the big winner of the night.

First my winner

Hand #33598015-8523 at Northumberland (No Limit Hold’em)

Powered by UltimateBet

Started at 26/Jul/06 19:12:06

 

skydiver99 is at seat 0 with $13.45.

Goloversic is at seat 1 with $4.85.

sluggger5x is at seat 2 with $24.40.

lab2bme is at seat 3 with $67.70.

no surrender is at seat 4 with $39.15.

EvilOrly is at seat 5 with $26.85.

The button is at seat 3.

 

no surrender posts the small blind of $.10.

EvilOrly posts the big blind of $.25.

 

skydiver99: — –

Goloversic: — –

sluggger5x: — –

lab2bme: — –

no surrender: — –

EvilOrly: Ac Ad

 

Pre-flop:

 

skydiver99 calls. Goloversic folds. sluggger5x

folds. lab2bme folds. no surrender calls.

EvilOrly raises to $1. skydiver99 calls. no

surrender calls.

 

Flop (board: Kh 2s 8h):

 

no surrender bets $3. EvilOrly raises to $12.

skydiver99 folds. no surrender goes all-in for

$38.15. EvilOrly goes all-in for $25.85. no

surrender is returned $12.30 (uncalled).

 

Turn (board: Kh 2s 8h 7s):

 

(no action in this round)

 

 

River (board: Kh 2s 8h 7s As):

 

(no action in this round)

 

 

 

 

Showdown:

 

no surrender shows 8c Kc.

no surrender has 8c Kc Kh 8h As: two pair, kings and eights.

EvilOrly shows Ac Ad.

EvilOrly has Ac Ad Kh 8h As: three aces.

And now my loser

Ultimate Bet
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.10./$0.25.
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $8.15
UTG+1: $23.40
CO: $30.05
Button: $76.30
SB: $27.60
Hero: $37.95

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is BB with A♠ Q♦
UTG calls, 2 folds, Button calls, SB raises to $1.25, Hero calls, UTG folds, Button calls.

Flop: Q♣ 2♥ A♥ ($4, 3 players)
SB bets $4, Hero raises to $16, Button folds, SB calls.

Turn: 9♣ ($36, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero is all-in $20.7, SB calls all-in $10.35.
Uncalled bets: $10.35 returned to Hero.

River: J♥ ($56.7, 0 player + 2 all-in – Main pot: $56.7)

Results:
Final pot: $56.7
Hero shows As Qd
SB shows Qh Kh

 

I have no complaints about this loser hand. I got drawn out on but I had my money in with the best hand.

Another big hand I lost was a misread. I was multitableing and had action going. I misread my hand as the nuts but found out I was wrong.

Tomarrow is my wife’s birthday so I doubt I will be playing so I will have a day off. Also I think Friday I will go over PT stats. I have 4k hands this month and believe studying over these can wait no longer. So I may take all friday off depending how long it takes me. I already know I am a losing player over these 4k hands. I just need to find out if my game is fixable.

 

1 Hour

Tonight was another shorty. I am not used to getting up earlier so I tired out fast. Good thing is I am up again tonight. One of the tables I played at was super tight and is where I made the most money of the two. Most of what I won, I won from buying pots, these guys folded super easy. These tight tables are a double edged sword though, I couldn’t get any action when I really needed it like with my full houses or AA preflop. All in all I am happy and thought I played well.

Goodnight.

Early Night

Well I am calling it in early tonight because I am now going to be working a day job. I only got to play for less than an hour today. At first I started on two 50NL tables by accident. I know sounds dumb but with my screen resolution so small I had a hard time reading it on UB. Once the tables died down I left and went to 25NL tables. I lost 12 bucks on the 50NL tables just by normal play, no biggies. I ended up on two 25NL tables, immediatly got up 10 bucks on one just by picking up small pots then on the other table I sucked out on a guy holding AA. He slowplayed it preflop so really it was just bad play by him. I would have folded to a bet preflop in that particular hand. Anyway with covering for the $12 lose and of course losing small pots here and there I ended up 8 bucks ahead for roughly 45 minutes play.

Win Stop, Rants, and Casual Talk

I am kind of thinking about testing out a win stop. Once I win X amount of dollars I stop for the day. I know I know, they say if you are running good to stay at it and keep raking it in. That doesn’t happen often with me. Once I win around a buy in, I end up losing it and/or more before the day is over. I had an ok session earlier today, winning almost a buy in. I play some more, not much is going on either way and I stop the session and do some errands. I come back tonight, can’t find a 25nl table at UB so I go to the 10NL. I procede to lose two buy ins, my Ace high straight against a full house and my AA vs K3. Of course the first was an unlucky situation and the second a bad beat but that is not what I am upset about. I am upset that I keep taking several steps back to my one step forward and can’t seem to keep momentum. I am not feeling bad about my play like I was in the beginning of the blog, maybe I am still not getting enough hands in to clear the varience.

On another note, what the hell is up with all the short stack ninjas? On UB it is getting very hard to find a table that had anywhere near full stacks. That is why I had to move to 10NL tonight, every table that had a seat open had all small stacks, hell alot of them , if you added all the stacks on the table together didn’t even equal a full stack! I think these poker rooms need to make it where you have to buy in at the max amount.

Speaking of short stacks, I am also tired of seeing these guys buy in short, have a VPIP of (literally) 90% and then end up with a $100 or more. These guys raise every hand preflop, and bet at least the flop and turn no matter what their cards or other’s image. Then unless you flop a monster you have to let them get away with it. I stayed in a game with one of these guys for an hour and half last night just waiting to get a hand to bust him with, man what a time to go card dead. I did not get a single playable hand in any position. In the 10% of the time the guy would fold I would jump in and steal what I could. Yes I know these guys will be broke soon but its not looking like I am going to be the bennificiary of their donations.

This looks like a rant night . I was reading a thread on Pocket 5’s the other day about some guy with a small bankroll (can’t remember the exact figure), 100-1,000, somewhere in those lines; went on a lucky streak, played some of the bigger NL cash games and drove his BR up to 85k. Then like an idiot he did not drop back down once he saw the varience come back around and lost 40k of that. I could never move up in limits like that because money means too much to me. I would love to have the balls to go on a rush and jump up and take advantage of it and no I wouldn’t do like this guy, I have intelligence and common sense. But it won’t happen because I don’t have it in me to do so. It seems you hear stories like this alot, these damn kids pull stunts like this and then go bragging about their BR. Here I am struggling 7 months in and these guys make more in a year their first year than I do at my full time job. Surly they are just riding some luckbox wave , I refuse to believe they are all that good at this sick game.

OK done ranting, I bet you are glad, but hey I have to get it out somewhere.

I have 3300 hands in for the month so far, I know its not much to you guys. I am sure some get that in a week easy,maybe even in a little more than a day, but I am working on it. I would like to hit 5k hands by the end of the month and once I do, I will do a PT workover like Titans01 did. I would do it now but I would be afraid the sample is to small.

BTW, I am still enjoying Ultimate Bet, I jsut need to get my shit together and find a way around these short stacks.

Thanks for listening and commenting, I appreciate all the support I can get.

Good Fold ?

Good fold or is a reraise in order?

Hand #33598216-3969 at Rocky Hill (No Limit Hold’em)
Powered by UltimateBet
Started at 22/Jul/06 16:24:08

htrac is at seat 0 with $7.95.
Oligus Ale is at seat 1 with $28.70.
SUPERLIFE is at seat 2 with $22.15.
tiddy36 is at seat 3 with $23.40.
EvilOrly is at seat 4 with $27.70.
ArchieHenders is at seat 5 with $9.85.
The button is at seat 5.

htrac posts the small blind of $.10.
Oligus Ale posts the big blind of $.25.

htrac:  — –
Oligus Ale:  — –
SUPERLIFE:  — –
tiddy36:  — –
EvilOrly:  As Kc
ArchieHenders:  — –

Pre-flop:

SUPERLIFE raises to $.85.   tiddy36 re-raises to $2.90.
EvilOrly folds.   ArchieHenders folds.   htrac calls.
Oligus Ale calls.   SUPERLIFE folds.

Flop (board: 3h Ac 2d):

htrac checks.   Oligus Ale checks.   tiddy36 bets
$9.55.   htrac folds.   Oligus Ale folds.   tiddy36 is
returned $9.55 (uncalled).

Hand #33598216-3969 Summary:

$.45 is raked from a pot of $9.55.
tiddy36 wins $9.10.

Slow Night

Nothing much happened to night in winning or losing. I am up a little.

I watched a 25NL video from Mkind at Cardrunners (member contribution area), and it was pretty good. His first video messed up so he redid it in the pokertracker replayer and it turned out pretty decent. I suggest watching it.

Bdog also did a 25NL video but no sound and I can’t stand that, so I barely turned it on. On the same note he also made an SnG video but his mic is turned down so low it cannot be heard with everything on my computer turned up to max.

Remember if you make a video make sure the mic is turned up in all the proper places including the windows volume control and if you need it turn on the mic boost. I have not messed with camtasia much but I am sure there are settings there as well. When I do make a video I test out a very short segment first to make sure it runs properly.

Speaking of videos I am thinking about making one this weekend for critique purposes. I will try to make it no longer than 20 minutes and maybe you guys will watch and tell me good and bad points.

I will be glad when next week comes and I get on a daytime shift, these short stack tables I believe is hurting what I could be making on nights like tonight.

As you can see on the left I need to be way ahead of where I am to complete my goal, but I believe with some work it is doable.

well thats it for my rabling tonight lol, GL at the tables.

Wild Night

First I would like to post a hand. This isn’t for a critique or a bad beat whine, just a sample of how things go wrong when they look so right. BTW sorry, I couldn’t get any of the hand converters to get this right so I copied and pasted straight from poker tracker.
Hand #32811478-53959 at Garden Grove (No Limit Hold’em)
Powered by UltimateBet
Started at 20/Jul/06 01:43:33

EvilOrly is at seat 0 with $25.
KCBLACK is at seat 1 with $11.70.
TeamViper1 is at seat 2 with $13.45.
MR_Fargo_OH is at seat 3 with $21.45.
matt isaacs is at seat 4 with $3.90.
Foxfire2011 is at seat 5 with $25.20.
The button is at seat 4.

Foxfire2011 posts the small blind of $.10.
EvilOrly posts the big blind of $.25.

EvilOrly: 9d Td
KCBLACK: — –
TeamViper1: — –
MR_Fargo_OH: — –
matt isaacs: — –
Foxfire2011: — –

Pre-flop:

KCBLACK folds. TeamViper1 calls. MR_Fargo_OH calls.
matt isaacs folds. Foxfire2011 calls. EvilOrly
checks.

Flop (board: 5h Tc 2c):

Foxfire2011 checks. EvilOrly bets $1. TeamViper1
calls. MR_Fargo_OH calls. Foxfire2011 folds.

Turn (board: 5h Tc 2c Ts):

EvilOrly bets $2. TeamViper1 calls. MR_Fargo_OH
goes all-in for $20.20. EvilOrly calls. TeamViper1
folds.

River (board: 5h Tc 2c Ts 3s):

(no action in this round)

Showdown:

MR_Fargo_OH shows Th Kh.
MR_Fargo_OH has Th Kh 5h Tc Ts: three tens.
EvilOrly mucks cards.
(EvilOrly has 9d Td.)

Hand #32811478-53959 Summary:

$2.30 is raked from a pot of $46.40.
MR_Fargo_OH wins $44.10 with three tens.
This was the first of 3 buy in I lost tonight. I’m not upset over this hand, just an odd occurance. The next two buy ins I lost were to a maniac at a different table. He reraised me preflop every single time I entered the pot. I eventually had to play back at him and wished I never had. First time was with KT, flopped top pair, non scary board…he went all in..he has been doing this alot dso I have no respect for his raise..call..he beats me with his 96 for two pair. Next him and another guy go at it, the other guy went all in with KK..the maniac had AA. Next I get KQs, once again he reraises preflop. I am so sick of it I go all in. He calls with ATo, and guess what…he doesn’t beat me with his Ace…he beats me with quad 10’s. I know what I did was not optimal obviously. What I should have done was the poker version of turn the other cheek and just left the table the first buy in and found somewhere else. It was the guy’s time to be a luckbox and it is hard to fight that.

Fortunatly I did win a buy in and a half roughly back throughout the night so some damage control was done. Also I am not in a full rage of tilt and that I am proud of considering how bad I was tilting at the begining of this challenge. I am however dissapointed, I hate going to bed behind and makes for a troublesome sleep.

I am going to add in what my daily average has to be to reach my goal and what my actual average is just for shits and giggles. It’s looking like I need to learn how to be one of these guys who wins a few buy ins a night, not just one buy in on a good night.