Fuck micro stakes

Yet-another-lol-graph. I present to you, OCTOBER.



You see, my style of play lends itself to.... well it's kinda like... if you look at my raising frequency... I guess what im trying to say is, I have no fucking clue what im doing lol.. but this game is amusing nonetheless.

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Comments (6)

So after messing around with the only live game in town I know of. I finally made enough connections to be invited to a few more. I now have 4 live NL200 games of my choosing to attend every single night of the week. Kinda neat driving around my city going from one game to another. All games have dealers + free food & drinks paid for by their 10% rake structure. So far I have not met anyone above NL50 level. Most people here who have played live in a casino or wherever know the typical adage, NL200 live plays like NL2 online. Nothing new there, they all limp garbage pre, chase any 4 outer draw, and call off 2 streets minimum with any pair. And a few think theyre hot shit buying in for $500 and bluffing 5x your bet with air.

Ran into 2 brutal coolers tonight. Family pot gave me an excuse to limp in with A2s, I flop the wheel and some cunt has 67 for the nut straight. Another hand I turn a flush with QJs and get rivered by a boat from A2o, but I managed to recover by simply having the best hand over and over lol. Few idiots tried to slowplay me with flopped sets checking even the river just to see me muck AK high etc.

I made some pretty proud laydowns, like folding TP on dry boards like T85 to severe counter-aggression, and everyone was nice enough to show me their aces every single time. Guess they were just so thrilled they had to let everyone know what they had. When donks werent slowplaying the nuts they were overplaying it, check-raising players with quads on random boards who were doing all the betting for them and just shutting them down, then being like "LOLZ I HAVE QUADS WHAT!!"

All in all pretty fun shit. Hard to keep track how much im up, since the last few times I just stopped by the ATM and deposited my earnings. Think im up like $400 maybe, so nothin much, but enough of a live roll to be able to play for a few weeks. I hate sacrificing my edge by not having enough to reload when I get coolered like in the aforementioned hands, but I can rebound with 50BB's and still have a good time.

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Comments (2)

So I tried playing at work today (im so gonna get fired) without a HUD and constant phone calls and having to sitout randomly between hands to walk to other peoples desk's.




LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. Man. I didnt even realize I was playing like this. The worst part, I copied the HH's to a thumb drive and loaded them up here at home, everyone I paid off was like fuckin 14/12 uber nits lol. Im like "jesus christ how could I not see that".

HUD = for me.

So bad, so so bad.... Guess the only logical thing to do is install HEM at work.

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Comments (6)

Aw fuck nah, redemption?



Came back totally calm after my morning spew. Really just doing what mayzerg suggested, chilling the fuck out. I still wasnt happy with my tables, lot of 60vp's on my left, but I just didnt let it get to me and laid it down when I didnt have it, and bet it when I did. Or least when I thought for sure their range is focused enough that they simply have to fold this board.

Only one hand of interest the entire session. Villain was 27/7/2, overall mostly passive. He suddenly started snap calling a lot of my opening raises.

Submitted by : NewbSaibot

Full Tilt Poker Game #15012414882: Table Soul (6 max) - $0.10/$0.25 - No Limit Hold'em - 12:49:09 ET - 2009/09/29
Seat 1: Hero ($34.31)
Seat 2: Pinch99 ($27.75)
Seat 3: stupid me ($20.42)
Seat 4: - Tilted Rag3 - ($26.64), is sitting out
Seat 5: kingchaching ($25)
Seat 6: DollarsAreSweet ($29.48)
kingchaching posts the small blind of $0.10
DollarsAreSweet posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #3

Holecards
Dealt to Hero
Hero raises to $0.85
Pinch99 calls $0.85
stupid me folds
kingchaching has 15 seconds left to act
kingchaching folds
kingchaching adds $0.10
DollarsAreSweet folds

Flop (Pot : $2.05)

   
Hero bets $1.75
Pinch99 has 15 seconds left to act
Pinch99 calls $1.75

Turn (Pot : $2.05)

   
Hero has 15 seconds left to act
Hero bets $3
Pinch99 calls $3

River (Pot : $2.05)

   
Hero has 15 seconds left to act
Hero bets $4.50
Pinch99 has 15 seconds left to act
Pinch99 folds
Pinch99 adds $2.85
Uncalled bet of $4.50 returned to Hero
Hero mucks
Hero wins the pot ($10.98)

Summary
Total pot $11.55 | Rake $0.57
Board:
Seat 1: Hero collected ($10.98), mucked
Seat 2: Pinch99 folded on the River
Seat 3: stupid me (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: - Tilted Rag3 - is sitting out
Seat 5: kingchaching (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: DollarsAreSweet (big blind) folded before the Flop

0 votes

Massive traffic accident shutting down entire freeway to work, so I just stayed home for an hour this morning. Decided might as well see what early mornin poker is like.



Looks like I need to move back to NL200 soon, dont know how much longer my bankroll can survive at NL25.

Jammed a couple of FD's vs check-minraising fish who hit their sets. Got outplayed by one fish who checked QQ to the river then overbets my value bet on the river.

I thought this hand was *kinda* interesting, least not for the fact that he was running a standard 26/18 at the tbale.

Submitted by : NewbSaibot

Full Tilt Poker Game #15009586431: Table Vehicle (6 max) - $0.10/$0.25 - No Limit Hold'em - 9:02:21 ET - 2009/09/29
Seat 1: sabine87 ($23.01)
Seat 2: GorillaOwner ($29.34)
Seat 3: warro24 ($55.16)
Seat 4: Sai Yang ($25.35)
Seat 5: Hero ($45.32)
Seat 6: xPunkInDrublicx ($44.70)
sabine87 posts the small blind of $0.10
GorillaOwner posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #6

Holecards(Odds)
Dealt to Hero
warro24 folds
Sai Yang folds
Hero raises to $0.85
xPunkInDrublicx folds
sabine87 folds
GorillaOwner calls $0.60

Flop(Odds) (Pot : $1.80)

   
GorillaOwner checks
Hero bets $1
GorillaOwner raises to $3
Hero has 15 seconds left to act
Hero raises to $7
GorillaOwner calls $4

Turn(Odds) (Pot : $15.80)

   
GorillaOwner checks
Hero has 15 seconds left to act
Hero bets $8
GorillaOwner calls $8

River (Pot : $15.80)

   
GorillaOwner checks
Hero checks

Showdown
Hero shows two pair, Eights and Fives
GorillaOwner shows two pair, Jacks and Fives
GorillaOwner wins the pot ($30.21) with two pair, Jacks and Fives

Summary
Total pot $31.80 | Rake $1.59
Board:
Seat 1: sabine87 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: GorillaOwner (big blind) showed and won ($30.21) with two pair, Jacks and Fives
Seat 3: warro24 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Sai Yang didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: Hero showed and lost with two pair, Eights and Fives
Seat 6: xPunkInDrublicx (button) didn't bet (folded)

0 votes

I wrote earlier about finally playing properly, having learned a few things about trying to put people on ranges and shit, rather than just seeing how they react to my bet sizing and "find out where im at" in every hand.

Well my fuckin job makes it impossible to get any quality poker time in during the week, so I had to abandon my table selecting rules and just find overall loose tables with high $$$ pots. The result? A session in absolute faggotry.



Just too many fucking stations on my left. I must have table selected for over an hour, meaning I just kept constantly joining and leaving tables within 15 hands because every fucking table I sat at had 2-3 fuckin homo's running 50+ vpip on on my left with 0% fold cbet. Nothing I could do would shake em. I ended up raising $2 preflop with hands like KQo just because I got tired of them calling with rags and pairing up, no dice. They still call with rags. Then came the tilt, as I started getting check-minraised on totally random fuck flops and just all sorts of other tilt inducing shit fish love to do like overbet jam, check-raise allin with Ace high and hit, etc etc.

I try to find tables where all the fags are on my right so I can iso, unfortunately every single table just kept ending up the exact opposite. Maybe thats why those seats were available, other nits/tags jumping ship due to shitty ass position.

Just gotta table select better. Or find a way to play retards OOP every single hand. I guess nitting it up to like 10/8 oughta do it.

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Comments (8)

Lets see, where to begin.

Well it’s been awhile since I updated my blog. I like to keep it for real updates only, like when things change, such as in life, in poker, whatever. I also only like to post when I have results, such as a monthly summary of earnings, rather than posting wishful thinking, about how I hope I succeed.

So this month has been, interesting… Last month I remarked that I was on my last leg of poker, having gone around the world twice, coming to the realization I might not be cut out for this, which would really make me feel like a failure because I still don’t consider poker all *that* difficult, at least not at the early levels. Yet still I could not beat any level of poker, which I guess says something about myself. I told myself I had a couple of last ditch ideas on how I might win, and if those didn’t pan out I’d have to hang it up. One of those ideas was to hire a coach, briefly. Since I feel I understand the game, and I have seen a lot traversing the stakes, all I really needed was a little leakfinding assistance. Just things I haven’t seen recreated in poker videos, or read about in online articles. Very specific stuff that I know I do repeatedly. I needed someone there to backhand me and say “now why are you doing that? Have you considered the possibility of this instead?”

The resulting lessons really opened my eyes, and I discovered I had some very severe fundamental flaws about why I should do certain things and why others do them to me. One of the biggest things I discovered about myself was that I don’t ever try to put people on a range of hands, but rather put them on an intent. Instead of saying “well I think he could have this therefore he will call, or he will bet” I would say “well he called my bet, therefore his intent is to call or bet later” or “if he folds to this check raise he has nothing…if I raise his cbet then he was just cbetting”. I would judge a persons likely future actions based upon their reaction to my bet, therefore I would always use very peculiar bet sizing tailored around each opponent that I thought would elicit a certain reaction to let me know if I was ahead or not, or if I could steal the pot. This is fine and dandy and all, and probably useful as the last part of one’s meta game, but it simply must be prefaced with the act of putting someone on a range of hands and deciding how best to play vs that range, not just vs their intent. I finally started calling out ranges on the flop, like “well he could call with any SC, any two face cards, all PP’s” and then go through the natural process of ruling out certain combinations of hands based upon flop texture. This is how it’s supposed to be done, and shockingly I NEVER did this before.

So I picked a limit I felt like giving another try at. Since im not burdened by the paranoia of bankroll mgm’t, and can easily fund myself aggressively for NL25, I figured that would be a good start, and the payback is meaningful enough to be able to take the game seriously. Im not so spewy that I run the risk of losing 20 BI’s in a single day, and due to massive issues of tilt I have to quit at 2 BI’s anyway so a 13-15 BI rule should suffice for poker variance and to keep my confidence strong when I do lose some.

The following is my September graph; excluding the 1st day in which I played a session at NL100 with 1 buyin.



The word sloppy comes to mind. What’s both sad and cool about this is that this is probably the best I’ve ever done. I’ve made more money in a single month before, but only by doing stupid shit like sitting down one-table grinding NL400 for an hour each day. For starters, I just put in 10000 hands in a single month. That’s like some sort of landmark for me. The rest is a little more clearly defined in the following graphs.

NL25 – where I started:



So I had a bit of a streak here. Not much volume, but after doubling my starting bankroll I thought “well shit maybe I don’t need to start down here, let’s see where else I can go”. I figured 13 buyins at NL50 was adequate.

NL50 – finding out where I’m at:



So I bombed. You can see I really tried, both in volume and in comebacks. Not quite sure what to make of this graph honestly. I don’t understand why my redline is always so high. I guess it must mean I bluff a lot and the blue line reflectc where I get caught or something, because my showdown winnings suck. So basically I never showdown a good hand. Statwise I played almost identical to NL25, and maybe that’s the problem. NL50 definitely feels different. NL25 is just an overall very weak passive game. Hardly anybody raises, limpers are ridiculously easy to isolate, people fold to an uncanny amount of cbets, and overall nobody ever really resists you. When they do it’s with something horrible like a stubborn PP or TPNK. NL50 seems to be where all the card runner newbies are coming out. My iso’s get squeezed, my steals get 3bet, my cbets get check-raised, and when I finally have had enough and decide im going to showdown, I’m completely dominated. So my failure here I suppose is that I haven’t adapted. I keep playing the same way I have at NL25 and it just wont work. Or perhaps what I do at NL25 is just pure luc, who knows.

As a result of my inability to adjust to NL50, I am going to hang at NL25 longer. I think once I have about 18 BI’s ill take another shot. My failure at NL50 may just be one of confidence, taking all these shots with like 10 BI’s might be affecting my play more than I realize.

Finally, actual session results:



I must shake my head in shame at the NL200 hands. Needless to say tilt still gets the better of me, and after losing 5 BI’s in the blink of an eye at NL50 and then smashing a picture on my wall, I said “fuck it” and chased back my losses. But hey, it worked. If anybody wants lessons in how to properly chase losses, gimme a shout. I think I can coach loss-chasing all the way up to 5/10 at the moment. Also goes for anyone who wants to stick their entire bankroll for a single buyin at the highest limit possible.




I must say, in the end, it does feel good to do something consistently. Putting in hands, playing for a few hours, seeing results based upon consistent play, and so on. Doubling up at an NL400 table one day, then losing it at NL600, then tripling up at NL200, and bouncing back and forth all over the fucking place sure feels lame. Hopefully having dipped my toes in the water at higher limits will have some sort of positive outcome in the future. For one, the betsizing doesn’t scare me moving up, so I’ve got that out of my system. And since I have seen what it is like to be 3bet by a reg with 89s, it wont completely blow me away when it happens again, nor will I reject the possibility that someone could do this when I have KK and somehow we’re getting it allin on a 678 flop.

Till that day…..

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Comments (4)

EDIT: Keep in mind this blog is my online poker journal, a place to collect my thoughts. My wife says I sound like I'm offering coaching lessons. This is most certainly not the case. I simply speak in the vernacular because it's faster that way.


So I began playing some live NL200 lately. I'm way underrolled for this and have been debating on whether I should quit or not since I lack experience and am financially stressed at the moment.

I've toyed around with my own personal LAG strategy the last couple of months, derived upon nothing but my own assumptions on how people think and react to very specific conditions. Basically a poker playbook in my head for every single possible situation at the table. Due to my limited bankroll this has caused me to reconsider one particular poker philosophy, and that is your initial buyin amount. The idea is simple. What is the least amount I can risk to play a certain style, namely LAG. There are all sorts of variables to consider when you have money on the table, but I think the biggest one is what are the implied odds you are laying people with your stack. It does not take a genius for someone to have a marginal hand or draw, look at your remaining stack, and come to the "aw fuck it" decision. The question is where does this begin?

Shortstacking in an of itself is a rather complicated strategy, as is deep stacked play, at least if anybody else covers. A standard 100BB buyin gives you plenty of room to maneuver 3 streets of action without losing your shirt. But since 90% of poker is played preflop and on the flop, you can get away with plenty of standard poker moves without hitting the point of no return. This fits particularly well with a loose aggressive style as it is not your goal to be seeing too many rivers. With 50BB's you should still be able to make a preflop raise, iso-raise, or squeeze without putting people into awkward situations. You also still have room to bet, check-raise, or 3bet the flop, even in a raised pot, and maintain your FE and EQ in general. Depending upon how much preflop action there was the turn gets a bit complicated, but you shouldnt be in a ton of multiway 3bet or 4bet pots anyway so you wont find yourself here all that often. Most of your hands are going to be HU in single raised pots with enough ammo to fire 1 or 2 barrels and give up/stack off with the nuts. I think the worst situation you will find yourself in is making silly laydowns when you are getting 3:1 to call and people start scratching their heads wondering wtf you are doing. This could possibly result in a lot of unwanted action if you suddenly make yourself out to be bluffstar, but I digress.

The cool thing about buying in for half, is that you get double the buyins at your given limit (begin degen logic). That is my ultimate goal here. I want to play NL200 with 50BB's and still be able to play a solid game. If I could, I would certainly buy in full. It's always good to cover, it maximizes value, and unless you are a spewtard you arent in any particular danger of losing too much. I suppose playing halfstacked can also protect you from yourself, especially as a LAG player, letting you off cheaper when you make gross mistakes. But if a full buyin is +EV just to make sure you cover everyone at the table, well then all you need do is buyin for whatever everyone at the table has. I am going to assume that most live play involves less than 100BB stacks. I know where I do it does.

Anywho, we'll see how this goes. If I donk off half my paycheck this weekend, then I'm done. Shit, I'd rather just underoll myself for NL50 online than take hopeless shots at NL200 live.

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Comments (6)

Poker in my city is illegal. A few police raids over the years have made the papers, but other than that the sport remains totally underground and invite only. I finally met a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy which finally brought me my first invitation to a real game. The games running in my town are 1/2, 2/5, and 5/10. Way outside of my bankroll, but since I often only play with 3-4 buyins at a limit anyway, I felt comfortable buying in at the 1/2 game. My first real live experience beyond kitchen table poker with the guys from work. And it was awwwwwwesome. Boy people arent lying when they say 1/2 live plays like .01/.02 online. Everyone limps, every single hand, and you have to make it $30 preflop to thin out the herd. Try making a standard $6-$10 raise preflop, the whole fucking table is in lol. You dont know how many times someone has made it $50 preflop, everyone folds, and they show AK or JJ and proudly say "I had to protect my hand".

So my first couple of nights went ok, I finished up like $60 or so just playing ABC, as I was pretty nervous and terrible at counting chips and shit. I kept misfiring and throwing in chips before announcing my intent and being forced to just call or make stupid automatic minraises etc. After one weekend though my confidence was high and I felt very comfortable around the table. Everyone is cool and seems to really like me. They all have good attitudes and it's a very friendly game. The host said he was happy to bring an internet player to the table to see how differently "we" play. Some kid was there with a pokerstars shirt on but other than that they were mostly old and middle aged guys. Most have nicknames, like "doc" and "scooter" etc. The house provides a full open bar and a nice array of snacks. The host also makes sandwiches for people and cooks other forms of grillable shit. Table side service for whatever you want, it's a pretty fuckin cool operation. I think the rake is like 5% starting at $30.

Then came my second weekend. I absofuckinglutely demolished these players. I just played hyper aggressive, Doc.Lemon style, FPS'ing my ass off and it worked pretty well. In reality I just ran well though, as I kept getting paid off by TPNK type hands and other retarded shit. Then there was today. I basically sat down and started bombing players perflop and on the flop, and I just couldnt shake them for the life of me. I even got called out for raising too much preflop at one point lol. And thats when I began to rage. Silently of course, I'm not about to disrespect any of these guys who have graciously accepted me in their circle at a time where everyone is freaked out and suspicious of the next police raid, which have been described as full SWAT with firearms drawn and bullet proof vests adorned. Pretty ridiculous really. Each time a raid has been successful it has been with the use of an informant, so you really have to earn your way in.

Anyway, back to the hands. So here I am squeezing OTB with Ax and sometimes any two, and I guess they picked up on this finally, and apparently their strategy to combat this was to just call with any two OOP when I raise. And I just kept getting outflopped every damn time. And the sickest thing was I flopped 2 fullhouses and a set at one point, and got zero action, even though I played them exactly the same as all the others. I flipped up the nuts from time to time and then 83s other times, trying to mix it up and generate some action. Just would not work. They were more than happy to continue limp calling whatever the fuck, and catch any piece and just check-calling it all the way to the river.

I finally chilled out and just went back to ABC. If I had AQo, I raised regardless of preflop action. If I missed a 4way pot I just c/f. If it's HU I cbet 100% and then just c/f. I managed to piss away 2 buyins over the course of 5 hours, just bleeding chips from iso-raising and cbets + double barrels on occasion. They just showed up with a hand every single goddamn time. Not good hands mind you, but hands. And of course fish love nothing more than to limp AA and AKs UTG, but I never fell victim to a trap. Just one big annoying downswing all day.

Anyhow, I'll be going back next weekend, since I'm at breakeven status right now with my winnings/losses. I planned to give the live poker ring a couple of shots. Meaning I'll show up with 2-3 buyins per game (honestly I shouldnt lose more than 2 buyins in a single session playing 1 table live vs a bunch of fish. If I do then I'm doing something wrong and will come back next time to re-evaluate my game).

I dont really want to be sinking $400 every shot I take, I'd rather play NL50 or NL100 online with that shit. I especially wanted to break in to MTT's but simply dont have the time to put in the hours. But if I can become the local Tom Dwann and clean up at these tables, it might just pad my bankroll enough to take a trip to a real casino one of these days. I like one table poker better than multi table grinding, and I like live better than online already. My vision of being a professional poker player is one mixed between lots of live casino play, and SOME online play. I do not wish to be the next internet superstar nor do I think I ever would. Online is a different game. Too many professional grinders and cardrunner clones running around. Besides, being a live pro is where you go to play the WPT and WSOP etc. I would like to be very used to this rather than switching between and failing because im not used to it.

So heres to another shot this weekend. If I fail the next 2 weekends in a row then I'm done for awhile, as I cant afford to lose $1000 every month right now. Cheers.

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Comments (6)

So I signed up for a poker training site last month some of you may have heard of called PokerVT. It is a site started by Daniel Negreanu meant to visually explain his latest strategies behind poker.

I had a few hiccups during the initial signup phase where after being charged for service and logging in for the first day, my account was inexplicably terminated due to a technical glitch which somehow claimed my account had expired. According to technical support, this is actually a problem several members have complained about. Technical support resolved the issue that day, however my second month billing cycle started about a week ago, and the same thing happened again. This time technical support was unable to resolve the issue. So for over a week now I have been unable to login to the site, as it claims my account has expired, even though they have clearly billed me for this month. After getting fed up calling technical support multiple times a day I decided to ask for a refund in full for this month's service until they have resolved the problem. At that moment I was told by someone claiming to be the manager that the problem had finally been resolved and I have nothing to worry about anymore. Naturally I'm a bit skeptical since the problem was also "resolved" about 8 times in the last week. Regardless, I still requested this month be refunded to me since I have not been able to use the service for a full month on the pretense that they have overbilled me. Management refused. I then asked to have my account canceled and since I have been prevented from using the service this month due to technical difficulties on their end, requested a refund for this month's service. They refused again. At this point the manager was actually talking over me any time I spoke, rudely interrupting everything I said going on some long circular diatribe about how if I'm canceling then why should I be refunded, and if I'm staying why should I be credited, completely disregarding an entire week of failed access to the site.

So I have filed a dispute with my credit card that I was billed for services never rendered and they will launch an investigation claim. I have also put a block on future payments to their site since they have proven they cannot be trusted with my financial details to continue billing me. I have screenshots of the failed login screen which shows the pokervt account information with timestamp and my credit card records showing the charge they placed this month for membership that my bank has requested be faxed to them.

Ultimately I would rate this site a 1/10. The customer service is terrible, the management is rude and clearly has no experience in customer support. I wish I had recorded the phone call because it was laugh out loud hilarious and would result in his immediate termination if heard by the executive branch of this company. The site suffers from technical glitches which will disrupt access to your account for prolonged periods of time. They will also continue billing their customers regardless of whether you are an active member or not.

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Comments (10)