Fuck micro stakes

You know they say it takes insanity or downs syndrome or some shit to do the same thing twice and expect different results.

I caught myself last night doing the same dumb shit I always do that costs me money. So I adjusted. I tried something different, to get different results. YAY IM NOT WETARDED! Tonight was night 2 of "pummel the fish with real hands" night. Since I dont know how to make graphs of live play I'll do my best to photoshop one.



This is roughly 4 hours of play, at an estimated 40 hands per hour dealt. I let myself slip twice unfortunately. I tried to bluff a donk off my missed draw and use table talk to assist, which resulted in him calling me with ace high. Props to him. And I got sloppy during my last 30 minutes knowing I was out the door, and started repopping and showing a few mercy calls with like 86o OOP and shit just to hit a flop and get some last minute action. Didnt work. I curse myself for degen'ing for even a second. IT WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN. These guys can beg me to stay as long as they want, I wont let their bullshit friendly comments try to bait me into gambling with them.

Taking weekend off with the wife, monday is next. I almost have a legit roll for live NL200 play now. All from 3 BI's. Knew I could fuckin do it.

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in the ass and call me a bitch. I did it AGAIN. I played super loose aggro vs a bunch of fucktard fish at NL200 live. Why oh why do I keep doing this! I look back at my own blog and talk about pulling my head out of my ass and quit trying to FPS and outplay everyone at the table just because I see them limping in with trash. Yet I saw a guy limp UTG and call a raise with J3o. The raiser had 94s and was just fucking with him and they checked it down, which is how I saw what they had. At that point I silently said to myself "it's on now bitches".

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I dropped almost 3 buyins in like an hour. I dont even remember how exactly. Basically I just NEVER connected with anything whatsoever, and think I ended up check/folding a lot of turns and shit.

Then something amazing happened... I remembered the advice given on LP. I remember reading Myth's articles about how to beat live. I remembered all the posts and all the hands posted.. I tightened the fuck up, said to hell with worrying about a nitty image, and just waited for the big ones. I still saw cheap flops calling the blinds with misc suited hands, 22-99, if it was raised UTG and someone called I insta-mucked KQo pre, etc etc etc. And in about 2 hours I made it all back plus a cherry on top (bout $80) before I decided to call it a night.

It's just fantastic how light these players get it in with. And while I still cant help but think my A9o is good like 90% of the time preflop, these fucking hands just always fail to connect. You really need the AK's and JJ's and shit to be able to properly value town. I even raised AA pre, flop comes A45r, I cbet, get called 3 way, I check turn OOP desperately hoping some tool to bet since there was a lot of that going on, then value bet river and get 1 caller. He mucked but um, wtf did he have? Didnt matter that I raised UTG and a big fat ace hits the flop, somehow his hand was worth about 40 BB's.

So I set a new challenge for myself. Since I'm still addicted to lag play, I'm going to force myself to adapt to being nitty by taking a shot at NL2 FR, since thats how these NL200 games play. I did this a long time ago, starting with play money. I actually had a real roll, but I decided to try play money to get myself used to being a nit, since theres just no other way to play these guys. It worked, and I graduated to NL2 and won like 50 BI's just proving to myself I could do it. It was the first and only time I ever looked at winnings in terms of results and not $$$, since clearly the money is peanuts. These NL200 games are so fucking juicy I simply must start raping them. It's worth it to retrain myself at NL2 so I can play live, because now the $$$ is actually meaningful.

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Just went 40:0 K/D streak, plus 22 heads as demoman, on a 16v16 full server . Gotta be some sort of record. I was running laps around their home base, nothing they could do.

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Comments (9)

So I've migrated entirely to live poker with a small 5 BI bankroll to take a shot at the NL200 scene. So far so good. Up 1.5 BI's, still making necessary adjustments for live, how not to spew, calling wide w/implied odds, bet sizing, etc etc. I have a few curious hands, but no way to post them properly so Ill just try to run it down.

I've really ramped up the aggression the last few sessions, just punishing players looseness, at least after I see that first hand they take to showdown limping K5o UTG. As soon as I see that shit, it's on. Of course I'm getting to know the players too, so that helps. You can assume so much about someone based off one single hand they play.

So I've targeted this one fishcake who's +1 to my right. He hates me already, even called me stupid for jamming and making him fold his top pair when I had 2nd pair + OESD + FD. He's already commented how he's taking the seat to my left as soon as this other guy leaves. So I guess he's mildly positionally aware, but thats about it. I raise MP with KQs, and he snaps. Flop comes QT7r. Theres 90% chance he has something of course, as fish always do, even if it's a gutshot. I bet pot and he snaps. So now I know he's completely weak and drawing for a gutshot at best. Turn is 8 giving me a flush draw, I value bet pretty hard, a good 3/4 pot, and he snaps again. River is 9, missed my draw. So the board is now 789TQ, and I check. I mean, what choice do I have? Besides the fact I put him on a draw, he could also have luckboxed his way into a random 2 pair, and I mean fuck all I have is TP now. I check, he thinks for about 5-10 seconds, and then just grabs a wad of chips and slides them in the middle lol. Dealer has to count it, and it's about 60BB's worth. I muck and he shows me A5o. Well played sir.

I've run into this a few times lately. I've had a few players loud me out at the table as a "raising machine" and I can tell they just dont like my style of play. These guys are used to limping everything but QQ+. The scenario is usually a station fish snap calls me 2 streets, or snap raises me on the flop, and then bets the river like they have the nuts and trapped me the whole time, but the board is usually not good enough to warrant such a sick value bet, so it seems pretty clear they are looking for a fold rather than a call. I hero called once with a pair of 5's and scooped the pot vs a stone cold bluff, but so far I've been letting the other hands go out of fear. I dont really want to get into a variance fest, not with such a small starting bankroll at least, but maybe I should just start going with it. I mean, fish are so dumb I can easily see them betting pot with an obvious straight on the river, b/c in their minds they think "lol i has a straight! BET LARGE!"

Position is the key element to discouraging this, and perhaps even more aggressive betting to just make it too painful for them to try. As far as I'm concerned they're welcome to keep bluffing me, because it's not like im playing rags, and basically it's their funeral when I do ultimately catch them.

Other than that, the only other live leak I've yet to plug is just not pussying out with hands that for some reason I play like the nuts online. For example, this one loosey goosey 50 year old lady limps in UTG. She's a huge station, but mainly with just top pair and gutshot type hands. She'll stack off with bottom straight on the river when someone obviously has the high straight and woefully tell the table "I HAVE TO CALL! I HAVE A STRAIGHT!!"

Anyway, she limps UTG and gets 6 callers to me on the button, so I call with K4s. Flop KJ4r, nice. She leads and everyone folds, I repop her 4x. She snap calls, turn is a Queen. She checks, I bet and she snaps. River bricks and she checks. Board is now KJ4Q5. I opt to just check b/c I've seen the bitch slowplay all the way through the river, and KJ/KQ are in her range. She shows K9s and I win. If this hand were online I'd be betting all 3 streets.

I think part of my passivity live has simply come from a few mega bad beats and my experiences at NL2. I just get so paranoid sometimes that they have sucked out on me yet again, or that every time I raise AK and get 1 caller and the board comes 763, they always call and somehow always have a pair. Then I stop cbetting and etc etc etc. Every time I raise, 3bet, and play my draws fairly aggressively it tends to work out for the best, and these people just keep showing up with such trash it boggles the mind. The funny thing is, the more aggressive I play, the less I worry about suckouts. Dunno how that works, but I just get an instant feel for their hands once they start moaning and debating the call. You'd think people would try to conceal that shit but they cant. They are genuinely scared shitless with their crappy fuckin hands that I breathe a sigh of relief knowing I got these fools when I hit.

I had intended on playing every night this week, but my g/f starting bitching and you know what, I actually started to miss her too. We live together and I feel really bad leaving her alone. Sometimes she'll call a friend over or go to her sisters or something like that, but I still end up missing her. Guess I'm just a big sap, so I decided to spend the weekend with her instead lol. We'll see how long before I go into poker withdrawal. I'm already making deals with her that I'll go out when she goes to bed, since these games run until 6am in the morning. At the very least she's cool with me playing Monday-Thursday, so that should still give me some good exposure and opportunities to build my roll.

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So I finally got mo money to invest in this crazy poker scheme I have of going pro. I took a quick 5 BI shot at NL50 HU for no other reason than just to see if I could. Well I cant, so enough of that story. Before I juice the poker economy any further I decided to sit down and watch some poker sessions via the HEM replayer. Not just partial sessions, entire sessions from start to finish, every single hand. It's basically like watching a video of yourself really. So I'm watching my pwning sessions, and my losing one's too, to try and see whats happening with me.

I must say doing this is pretty interesting, I can feel the game flow and dynamic evolving as the session progresses, and can almost read my thoughts at the time from sessions as old as a year ago. One of the first things I'm noticing though which I dont remember doing at all is spewing off like a fucking loon during my losing sessions. Not from tilt, but goddamn fancy play. And I'm pretty sure I know why, because I start to get that creeping feeling possessing me to do it as I watch.

For instance, I'll have some shit like A6o in MP, notice that the CO and BTN are both 16/15 TAG's, and say "well they're not going to do anything fancy if I raise here, so if they fold I can steal the blinds from MP! If they call, well then I'll either shutdown or just cbet any flop queen or higher. If they raise or 3bet I just shut down completely, EZ PEAZY!" This is just so recklessly out of control I'm at a loss for words. I'll even do this UNDER THE GUN, with the same logic that b/c everyone is so tight I'll get a free pass, and they'll tell me if I'm beat, because my hands are so junk I dont have to worry about any difficult decisions.... That is until I flop top pair and wonder if it's good or not, then pick up a concealed open ender on the turn that doesnt complete, all the while getting value towned as my hand improves every so slightly. I'll even raise 86o in the CO, get 3bet by the SB, and call because we're 100BB deep and be like "he aint ever gonna see this shit comin if I hit". THAT IS SO FUCKING FISHY OMG. That is exactly what fish probably tell themselves every time they enter a pot with what they know must be junk "never know what the flop will bring! Imma stack aces with T7o!"

I'm still playing pretty loose in my pwning sessions, but it's more of a controlled aggression. A lot more willingness to fold to 3bets, mostly saving my air range for the BTN instead of CO, no fucking around from UTG or MP, minus the 1/100 times I raise like 9To just for table image, and just taking very light controlled shots at the pot on the flop. See, I keep outleveling myself. I'll think some shit like "well he knows I'm capable of floating the flop or c/r'ing on a bluff, so I have to follow through on the turn too otherwise I'll become an easy target". Well, that might be true vs the best players in the world, but vs tag grinders at NL200 it's just not necessary. I mean I may even be losing some pots to good level X thinkers on the turn or whatever, but thats not important. It wont hurt my winrate to let that slide, and I'm better off just being a loose bitch preflop and on the flop and not much more beyond that. And truth be told, it's probably not happening as much as I think it is anyway! And the real beauty in playing loose is to sneak in there with hands and cooler people to death, rather than looking sketchy with a WTSD of 2% and AF of 5.

Anyway, I'm gonna play some NL200 live this week just because I can, and because it's like NL2, which I expect to be able to beat. Then I'll probably take a stab at NL200 online again and see if I can recreate the rhythm I had back in the day after observing myself play and finding the magic again. In fact, watching my losing sessions might be all I really need, because they are just filled with FAIL and "things not to do".

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Ok, so I deposited $50 today to half-stack NL10 rush on FTP. That's 10 buyins, seemed adequate for one-tabling anyway, already tried full stacking it for fewer buyins but the variance at me up. So what I sacrifice in value I make up for in surviving.

Here's an at-a-glance look at my play today:






The list goes on, and ultimately im busto, again... A lot of the rags in there are just tilt after some monkey limp calls my iso raise and gets it allin with bottom pair on an AK9 flop and stuff.

So where do I go from here? Well everyone says you want loose fish calling you with rags. Since I cant handle this online as I get too impatient/tilted, I'm gonna take another shot at live. Since the lowest limit offered in my city is NL200, I cant afford it right now. With my wife currently job seeking and all the bills falling on me I'm just stuck in a rut poker wise. Too broke to play higher limits, too tilted to play lower limits.

Once the money starts rolling in though I hope to be able to take a few lucky shots at live and build a roll from there. I cant beat fish at NL2 because I get too tilted at the shit they stack me with. But the good thing about live is that it forces you to keep your composure (at least for me), since I'm not gonna act like a jackass in front of 30 people. Combined with the calming effect of the social atmosphere, alcohol, and fewer hands = fewer bad beats, I never get spewy. There's still variance, so it might take me awhile before my 2 BI shots turn into a real bankroll, as I fully expect to bust the first few times. Or maybe ill get lucky and just run good the first night and walk out with 5+ BI's.

Whichever happens, I'll have to wait a long good while before deciding when to reload online again. The only limit I can take seriously is NL200 and up, but I certainly need a bankroll there since I'm outclassed by the player pool. So unless I absolutely demolish live tables for 2-3 months straight, I'll probably never have enough funds available to use from my live roll to play online with again, since I just refuse to play anything less than NL100 anymore.

On a side note; Rush poker has been an interesting experience. I learned to play poker from an AI simulator, and the cool thing about that was it had a "next hand" button to just fast forward your way through the crap and find good spots to play in. This is exactly how rush feels, so I thought I might pwn at it since I'm used to playing with blinders on and just quickfolding my way to position with some kind of playable hand. Unfortunately rush changes things a bit. The simulator continues to act like a normal ring game, but rush players are making all sorts of adjustments which make it a little more complicated. The fish are still there jamming and calling off their stacks with garbage, which even the simulator never did, but the light 3betting is something I still havent quite figured out how best to play vs. Since I'm no good at 4betting I opt to just call most of what I suspect are light 3 bets, take a flop, and try to play from there. I figure if they're bluffing they'll lead the flop and I can just raise and rep something that calls a 3bet with, or I can even cbet if they just check it to me, or delay my bet for the turn to look a little more defensive but believable etc etc. But I just couldnt get enough hand volume in to figure it all out. From what I recall light 4betting really does seem to be the best answer, but I just wasnt willing to run into 5bet shoves and folding hands like 98s and KJo, where I could probably either win a large or small pot with once the flop chills everyone the fuck out.

Beyond that I dont really have much else to say about rush, other than I officially take the side of ring game players saying normal poker is more +EV compared to rush, no matter how you play it.

Oh, and about moving to vegas, well the idea was just a long shot, with my wife being unemployed for so long and my job future going nowhere, we thought we might just start looking for employment in las vegas (doing normal white collar shit), which would give me the opportunity to calmly play live in a legal environment without all the ghetto'ness of playing in my city at peoples houses and shit. We're fascinated by the Vegas landscape and culture and think we might actually enjoy living there regardless of playing poker. But it would be a huge undertaking to acquire a new job out of state like that to secure our futures if we ever really decided to move.

THE END

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Little late getting to my year end results, mainly because I didnt even bother looking. But after deciding to do so, I think I actually have something to be proud about.

2009 earnings:


I made monies! But whats so great about this, is compared to my 2008 losses, which is when I first took up ye ole game of poker.



And hey, look at that, only -8BB/100, so not like I was a total donk out of the gate!

So, I have improved! This is great! It means I am learning something afterall! I'm still waiting for my next real landmark, the $0 point. As sad as that sounds, I actually dont feel depressed looking forward to the day I break even. But I do think I'll get there, and much much further.

That is all. Happy new year you smelly bastards.

P.S. This does not reflect live earnings, of which I added up from my ATM deposits to be roughly $500.

P.P.S. We are also considering moving to vegas. More on that later.

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So b/c I'm financially crippled, I decided my best shot at building a bankroll would be to play an assortment of SNG's, just to get the maximum ROI with my buyin's, and the equity advantages of playing a limited player pool by just sitting out until late game play when possible. A friend of mine challenged me to some HU matches and I instantly became hooked. After we called a truce at 5-7 him, I continued the $2 HU games thinking maybe I found my niche, a game where I can justifiably play loose and fancy as fuck vs fish and not be as variance heavy when 5 of them call me in a ring game.



Now I dont know much about the statistics of HU play, but I tilted my brains out towards the end when I started getting 3 outered by their bottom pairs making trips on the river, or players just stacking off all in preflop for 1200 chips at level 1 with K7o vs my AK, and hitting their 7 on the turn. Other things I noticed were fish just doing the same typical fishy things they do, calling multiple streets with a single overcard only to bink on the river, calling 3bets with air, and calling every preflop raise with literally any two cards. I'm reeeaaaallllly finding it hard to differentiate between the skill vs luck factor these days.

Since I have $20 left, I'm gonna try the ole stacked table thing. I ran up a small roll doing this once, playing about a 7/4 game. I'll have to remember how this is done.

If none of this works, then I'm just gonna write off penny stakes as genuinely unbeatable over a large sample, and those that make it through simply ran good enough that they could move up. My next move will be to simply deposit an amount I can comfortably play NL200 for, because I cant seem to win at anything below this.

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I havent played any hands online this november. I focused entirely on the various live games in my city ranging from NL50-NL1000, but NL200 was my cutoff. Sadly I failed, playing a hyper aggressive game vs a bunch of live tards trying to push every edge I had. Honestly I feel I just got sucked out on 100% but I'd need HEM to be the judge for sure. So I am absolutely 100% officially done with live play. My style just does not fit it.

Sadly, my style doesnt fit online either. In all reality my style probably sucks, but I think I know what I'm doing, it just only works at higher limits, you know the ones where people fold T8o in the small blind to a 6x BB raise. But then again I probably dont have to make it 6xBB to get into a favorable spot. I've always done well at higher limits. My HEM graphs is all positive from NL200-NL400. It's the micros that kill me. I probably know how to beat them, but I dont have the time to nut peddle all night across 20 tables and win 1 buyin per day before I can move up, and thats not even counting when variance sets you back 10 BI's. Micros are like this horrible slow grind, up and up and up, and then BOOM, you go way down when some fish gets his money in bad. Then you repeat the process, and if you have enough patience, eventually you come out the victor.

So where can I play to maximize fish's mistakes and remove them from the equation at micro limits. I have deemed this to be possible in SNG's. You see, in an SNG, some retard mother fucker can only fuck up so many times before his ass is gone. The way I see it, if I play a 1 table SNG, im not playing vs 9 fish, im only playing vs 3 or 4. The rest will knock themselves out, all the while giving me equity for nothing. Now theres still variance in SNG's. But as long as I can capitalize on my superior poker playing skill vs these 3 or 4 fish I encounter, it should be a cake walk. The other fish self-destruct, and I get to play for payouts vs hardly anyone at the table.

So where does this leave me? Well b/c I cant afford to play NL200 online right now, which I would do with about $1000 bankroll or more, I need to work that shit up. Hopefully I can grind my way through the SNG circuit to about a $200 bankroll or so and then take shots at NL50, the first limit that isnt completely filled with total idiots. It'll still be a struggle b/c theres still plenty of fish also taking shots, but the bulk of NL50 players and up consist of new grinders, people who have read a few articles, seen a few forum posts, and maybe even read a book. As a result, they are trying to curtail their game to a more profitable style, and that includes folding dumb fucking garbage that stacks players like me when we hit TPGK.

My goal is to quickly get into NL100 and above, where I can play my 40/30 style and actually do some range finding postflop.

See it's funny, everyone says the higher the limits, the bigger the bankroll you need, because the players are better. But I see it as the opposite. The higher the limits, the less likely you are to be busting your ass because you know and respect these players, so you arent getting it all in every 2 fucking seconds, because that would be stupid because they arent either without a really good hand. At micro limits, you have to just run with your hands so often because there is zero range finding vs idiots, and then you find yourself getting rivered so often that you need a huge 50 BI bankroll to recover from the suckouts.

Thats my theory and im sticking to it.

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Help plz.

edit: done, thx edzwoo!

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