since alot of people seemed to like my last blogpost about how i improved my game and what i think about improveing ur game in general i thought i would bump it for the ones who missed it that might find it interesting
also got alot of long comments in if some of u who read it when i just posted it is interested in some random addons to the post that can be found in the comment section!
as for march, i ended up turning a 10k$ downswing at start of month online into a 5k$ winning month wich felt very good after losing 30k$ live + 10k$ online as fast as i came home
april so far has been very kind to me, up about 9k$ so far and starting to feel very confident in my ability as a pokerplayer, im playing very good poker atm
I just went through my whole database and came up with a couple of realizations
it probably will be tl;dr but if u are a struggeling nl50, nl100 or nl200 player i think it can be a good read
during most of 2009 and until the summer of 2010 (july 2nd to be more exact) i was a masstabling rakebacksmallstakesgrinder, i did a database check looking through all the sites i 12 table++ ed on, 80% of hands are probably from stars 24 tabling
July 2nd was the day that i cashed out my roll from stars and started 4 tabling
i thought i was good at poker, i had watched all the videos out there, read most of the books etc, though i was a decent thinker, making all that rakeback $, running under EV and whining about it thinking i should make so much more etc made me paralized and i kinda got stuck in my improvement
during these hands i made about 17k$ in rakeback and lost ~4k$ at the tables pretty much breaking even as u see in the graph under
(i sorted out all my hands on all my aliases before 3rd july 2010 and after july 3rd 2010, alot of hands before that from the 10nl 25nl days etc are lost, i have no hands from 2008 left in my database
where i basically posted a cry me a river graph about running under EV, and that i was doomswitched etc and i was close to giving up on poker.
After this blogpost i took a break, and then grinded out the last hands to achive my next 100k VPP milestone + FPP bonuses
after that i cashed out my roll from stars, i finally started 4 tabling on bossmedia and ipoker and found myself beating nl100 and nl200 at a pretty good rate and it felt good to feel like a winner again, and not a rakebackwinner. then i started to grind alot of my volume at a swedish site where i play alot today. (if u seen some of my hands lately/blogposts with graphs they are mostly posted with the swedish currency SEK, as the tables run with SEK on the swedish site svenskaspel as i speak of)
I started taking more notes, play more pots with fish, pound on weak regs and had more time to look through stats, even though im not really a stats guy. The biggest thing i done so far probably is started thinking on my own, reading hands and ranges from simple logic breaking it down from start to finish what my and villains ranges were instead of just looking on 2barrel and riverbet CBet numbers and trash like that
i pretty much removed my hud except for the basic vpip/pfr/3bet/fold3bet from haveing a shitton of numbers befor as i felt a need to have that while i masstabled to get an idea on the villain even though it only made it worse pretty much.
all i look at nowadays is what ranges people open from different positions (the raise 1st in stat) it tells alot about peoples ranges, some 23/19 regs open different ranges, notable positions is EP BU and SB especially, i guess the steal stat pretty much is the same as this, but pound on these guys who open alot in the SB, dont give up position
the biggest thing i came to realise for REALS is how important position is, position is everything, especially the deeper u get.
pounding on people who open wide in the CO and SB from BU/BB is something u really shouldnt skip just cuz he seems tight, look through his stats, u will find that even the ones with nitty stats opens wide enough in the SB for example for you to call and 3bet more from the bigblind
and ofc be prepared to adjust to his adjustments, if he starts calling more 3bets oop or if he starts 4bet more etc and adjust ur 3bet range accordingly
for my results after the 3rd of july i was really not expecting these kinds of concistent results, as u play fewer hands/session it feels like u have more swings then u actually have longterm, its sick really :D
i havent done a complete database check for a very long time and im happy to present it soooo
here it is: (after leaving the rakeback grind on july the 3rd)
winning at almost 10bb/100 with close to 0 swings. it has taken me many hours to rake in 340k hands obv 4-6 tabling, sometimes 1-3 tabling even, but in just 8-9 months ive moved from a retarded breakeven 100NL player to a big winner on 2/4 3/6 and probably 5/10 aswell (dont have as big sample there yet, but so far so good)
it has made me sooo much better, i cant really push enough on how much playing less tables have improved my game and as u see the results speak for themself.
ive moved up from 0.5/1$ to 5/10$ in less then a year by 4 tabling.
As a tip to all of u out there who struggle at lower stakes, cut down on tables, play more heads up, take a shit ton of more notes, always try to rake in as much quality volume as possible
and seriously, playing heads up and 3 handed with good regs will not hurt u if ur a 100nl 200nl or 400nl player that want to improve
obviously it all comes down to what kind of goals u have as a player, but if u wanna get good, playing good players will get u there and not bumhunting.
but if u are happy bumhunting the lower stakes without much stress, without any ambitions on getting better at the game, go ahead
cuz exactly what gave me the opportunity to move up stakes this year is playing more deep tables, playing more heads up, and not to instasitout as fast as its 3 handed with 2 good regs
play, and improve, and u will be rewarded. there are no shortcuts in this game : ) except for MTT luckboxes obv ;D
to results, the graph with 300buy ins in 330k hands after july 3rd 2010 is played on 6 different sites, € $ and SEK, but i made some fast calculations and it ended up being about 85 000$
if any of you made it this far in the post, seriously, if u wanna get better u need to challange urself, dont be a bumhunter, crush the souls of every reg, they all suck, no one is good under 5/10 (no offence), some decent 200NL grinders, and alot of solid 400NL grinders out there for sure, but if they really were good they would have played higher already, and the good ones, that plays lower probably 16+ table to maximise their hourly so they are all just solid nits whom are not much to fear
but just get out of the mindset of getting xx$/hour on low/midstakes, as i did i calculated and only cared about the rakeback i could make. strive towards improvement and constantly try to move up and play thougher opponents, and if ur smart u will do just that
but obv u can make good money playing under 5/10, but imo alot of u guys should strive just as me to be the best possible player u can be, and for that u need to work really fuckin hard
cliffs:
-dont masstable if u wanna improve
-put down more quality volume try thinking about ur and villains
ranges in all spots instead of looking at stats clicking random
buttons
-u need to realise that u need to work hard to improve in this game,
be the best player u can be
-dont be a bumhunter unless ur happy playing the stake ur playing, then go ahead and maximise ur winnings on this stake or w/e even though bumhunting is kinda anoying
pretty nice youtube channel to browse through while bored
basically theyve done anternative endings to big movies in a comedysortaway
poker is shit atm, lost all my january/february profits (~30k$) in march only, 80% lost in live 20/20$ cashgames with straddle/restraddle
got pretty crazy, and ran supercrap so not much to do
probably shouldnt have played those games in the first place, even though it was suuuuuperduper +ev,(for example i got it in pre for a 12k$ pot with KK vs Q9o preflop and it didnt hold, he 4bet/called it off and "felt that i was light", thats how splashy the games were)
not really rolled to play w 20/20/40/80$ blinds/straddles, kinda transforms to 80/80$ wich was way to high for my 5/10$ roll, and especially when i get this depressed about loseing 30k$ wich was what most people sat with at those tables it was way out of my roll and personal comfortlevel, but its the biggest DS of my life i think so guess i can cry alittle. but it will only make me stronger hopefully!
hurt my roll alot, and played shit for a while online, but its all better now, back and kinda crushing again after a short break for a couple of days
but will take some months to regrind at 1/2 and 2/4 to get up to 5/10 again t_t
its just so retarded cuz i just established myself on the stakes and started winning and getting a decent sample on 5/10, and then i go donk away 30k$ live wich was totally unnessasary, and now i need to restart at 1/2
but knowing myself, i woulda taken that shot infinit times over again if i got the same chanse again to play in those games, so, ye, most of the pots where lost AK in a big pot where i 3bet and kinda barreled of and had to bet fold riv in a superbigpot, and then i lost JJ vs Ax (he only showed one card after board game A high) for ~ 7k$ pot and then the KK hand for 12k$ pot
but gogo lets do it, im gonna make it a good year anyways!
still up alittle bit for the year, and alot of months to go!
the tourneys im gonna play is
3000+300 FR tourney
5000+500 SH tourney
25000+1000 FR main event
package of 34800SEK ~ 35k = 5 460$ or 3980€
ive already sold 10% looking to sell 30 or atleast 20% more
any1 interested? ive played alot of mtts, shipped i think five 700 player+ MTTs and most of them will play pretty deep as the main event is a 3 day tourney with slow blindstructure, the value will be decent.
havent played any bigger livetourneys before but i think i can navigate decently both deep and shortstacked.
soooo, any1 interested, got 30% more to sell
10% 550$
5% 225$
or if any1 just wanna buy % in the main event 10% will be 405$
ordered a new computer wich should be arriving tomorrow, its a solid i7 950, gtx 470 1,28gig gfcard, 12gig ram, 2TB hd, 80gig SSD disk etc etc, gonna be nice since the one i got now is laggins shit playing sc2 in lategame, and i had alot of problems lately with crashing and stuff.
as for poker i made a couple of volumebets w some people (can find about that blogpost a couple blogs down) but basically 35k hands minimum betting 500$ w barbieman
now with 1 week left to go im gonna take rest of the month off focusing more on SC2 and just chilling, well i prolly will put in some more hands but not to much. havent been able to play SC2 in 2 weeks due to computer crashing all the time, so will have to play a shitton to get up to "the top" again, atleast on the ladder.
Also will pracc alot w my team wich sponsors me w a boost of 150€/month (yeeey) wich is pretty neat, we have a strong tight lineup so gonna have to bring some extra activity due to 2 weeks of all poker
u can visit my team myRev @ http://www.myrevenge.net/ : ) not much exciting there but yea i have alot of high hopes for us
and finnaly more to poker, ive had the best (i think?) pokermonth so far in my life, atleast pretty close to my best one, and ive played over 110 hours and OVER 50k hands wich surpassed my goal of 35k hands. so im pretty proud of myself have been grinding it out more then ive done in a month for like 4-5 months or something.
ive only been playing 1/2$-3/6$ this month (no 5/10+ cuz it fucked me over hardcore in december), mostly on this swedish site but also last couple of days ive finally got some of my roll over on Ongame with eurosuperpoker which just merged with ongame (ongame is growing alot).
and there is running a shit ton of games there so thats nice, catched a sick good heatersession this morning on ongame as u can tell from that graph so ye i feel good about it. will put down alot more volume on ongame later, since there is like running 40+ games above 200NL, compared to the swedish site im playin most of my hands at run like 6-10 games above 1/2 at best, and u need to sit there for hours trying to get more games started wich is a pain in the ass since every fucking reg on the planet instasitsout when its 3/2handed and no one will join if u sit and wait at a table..
21,000$ in the green this month! nice recovery after losing alot in december i feel i start to get a hang on 2/4 atleast for reals now as i have put down alot of volume there now in the last 6 months.
i keep failing at 5/10 but ill get there hopefully
also check out the blogpost under this one for some nice music!
gonna smoke a shitton of weed this week to "celebrate" results + putting down some volume again finally, havent smoked whole month just to keep some grind motivation
speaking of! to mixx up some from my last blogpost, something nice to listen to while stoned:
btw when guitar comes in, really reminds me of donkeykong country 1 and 2 for supernintendo? any1?
Ok, so i was thinking to maybe make a bet of like 3-5k$ or something w/e just to set a goal and follow it.
like if some1 wanna do this with me, that plays ~ the same stakes as me, ~1/2$ - 5/10$, but most volume have been around 1/2 - 2/4, still in the shotting at 5/10 and failing everytime stage atm.
im planning on not making a superlarge sample goal but atleast like 40k hands/month, playing 4-5 tables will take me around 100 hours/month wich is very realistic for me, and ive been slacking the last 4 months of the year only playing like 20-50 hours/month.
and i need to shape up.
So im planning on doing 480k or 500k hands next year, lets say 500k
anyone wanna make this bet with me? and like check off every month over MSN/skype and see if the monthlygoal was fullfilled? and bet like 3-4k$ or something on it?
and if both make their goal no one has to pay up obv just as motivation to grind
but i need something like this i think to MAKE ME DO IT
ive had 10-14bb/100 over 140k hands now last year on 1/2 and 2/4 and it would feel nice to put down the volume on those stakes for reals next year and maybe put away some money + get a profit of 1M SEK (swedishcrowns) mark next year, (wich is around 145 000$ or something)
should be doable
ive talked to my only RL medium/higherish stakes friend about it and he is up for it but he is in the middle of playing HU and learning omaha and shit and he dosnt use HEM and dont wanna get it to calculate how many hands and blablabla hes just laazy.
soooooo any1? =)
edit:
here are graphs of my play of 5/10 SEK - 15/30 SEK wich is 150$NL-450$NL basically in $
265k SEK = ~40 000$
and as some of u know i 24 tabled before this switch of sites on PS before, and made about 17 000$ rakeback there breaking even, and i klonked some tourneys and also did some retarded stuff on some other sites but im at a 60 000$ year or something everything included, starting as a nl50 grinder of the start of the year ive improved alot
just as motivation for some1 to maybe wanna do this with me as we can talk some hands and stuff over, im not too good but i guess im decent atleast
(THESE GRAPHS ARE ONLY FROM THE 2ND HALF OF MY YEAR, u can find the PS graph from my older blogwhines that i used to make about running 200BI under ev etc, but that was basically breakeven results over 600k hands)
click em for bigger
