I'd been winning so far this year. Nothing too special, but enough to think I was making genuine progress in my game. However, for the past 6 weeks for every winning session I've had, I've had 3 losing sessions, and I feel like I don't understand anything, again. I'm sure just looking at the graph you can see there is something wrong, simply by the variance.
So, I started with a NL2 Roll, and worked my way up to NL5 and felt pretty good about it. I was enjoying NL5 a lot, NL2 is such a cesspool that NL5 seems tame. What I thought was just standard variance downswing, came and never went. And now I'm sitting here with my initial deposit 115k hands later wondering where I went wrong?
I certainly didn't wait until now to start looking for leaks, but I'm feeling extremely lost. As such, Here is what I got heh
Since my knowledge of the game, as well as styles of play have changed vastly of the course of the graph above, I'm not really sure what sample size is best for some of my stats.
Over my last 50k hands i've been running 11/9/3.8 5% 3bet, 28% WTSD 50.9%W$SD 26%agg and 20% Steal. at NL5 I would steal more than 20%, my steal % stats can't be very accurate, as I spent a long time not stealing enough. Although, at NL2 20% is prolly not too far off because I figured the wider calling range/less fold equity would mean that my steal range needs to be more weighted towards value.
My stats are pretty tight, I know. From what I've learned that would mean lower variance, but I have anything but low variance All of this has led me to believe that my problem is Post flop. I'm not really sure how to proceed with a decent analysis of my overall postflop play over 100k hands. Here are some more of my stats: + Show Spoiler +
Focusing more on the last 40k hands of the graph, and I see my biggest losing hands are AKo and AKs. I'm not sure what exactly it is I'm doing wrong. Looking through my hands I see a few clear mistakes, a few clear coolers, and a few hands, where I know It's a fold against a 15/12/3.5 or less, but against the 65/25/3? ect.
After a closer look, It looks like I don't know how to play TPTK OOP against a wide range on a drawy board. OOP it seems I frequently 3bet AK preflop, and then cbet the flop, and typically if they haven't folded by the turn, I'm beat and pot committed. Is it a good idea to 3bet AK OOP preflop? From what I understand (notmuch) I would say that it is, because when I flop TPTK the stack sizes allow me to comfortably get it in... as well as isolating/squeezing preflop.
Theres like 10 of these, in my top losing AK hands... I 3bet preflop, flop a K or A heads up[, and there is either a straight or flush draw on the board. I Cbet 70% pot. Called. Draw hits or doesn't hit. I Cbet again. and I'm either 3bet shoved on or called down. In my AK hands, theres a good number of hands where i do this and win, but the general trend seems to be that when the draw misses I get my fold equity, and when it hits, they let me pot commit myself to death in the 3bet pot... Any Comments?
There are tons of leaks in my game, but if i knew what they were, they wouldn't be there. For now, it's just time to small ball AK up hardcore and hope I can not repeat my last 40k hands.
Feel like I had a breakthrough todayby AgentIce, November 04
Today I realized that I have been insanely bashing my head into the wall over and over with the hopes of getting a different result. I did the same thing at poker for a while, until I realized the only solution was to not let my emotions get to the point where I tilted in the first place. I had to identify my triggers that resulted in me getting in a negative emotional state. As soon as I really identified the types of negative thoughts which brought about the negative emotional state of tilt I learned to combat them right away and I was able to control my mood much better.
Well as far as keeping a good schedule or playing poker on a routine or not smoking too much weed, I realize now that I was doing what I did with poker to fix these areas. I was just blindly trying to use brute force to change these habits. Maybe I would play a decent amount for 2 weeks, but inevitably I would be back to smoking weed all day and not working. Of course that would happen because thats what I thought I wanted to do. I didn' realize this though, I figured it was a question of discipline and all I had to do be stronger. But how long can you really fight with yourself?
No it was a question of attitude and mindset and motivation. Today I wrote down all the triggers and negative thoughts associated with them that have lead to this destructive life style. I feel much better about these areas after doing this. I feel the 3 big areas that are triggers for me are mornings, just before I start poker, and at night when I smoke weed. Waking up late leads to starting work later wihch leads to less hours played and staying up later and so on until my schedule is screwed sort of thing. I feel like overall I just haven't really fully appreciated the consequences of my actions. That raised awareness I have now makes me understand WHY I should do things like keep a good schedule. They are in my best interest. I feel like now with constant vigilance I will be able to catch the negative thoughts when they start to happen and replace them with more sensible ideas.
Heres an example of some of the ideas I was writing down. I wrote down the bad ideas/mindsets, and then counterarguments to them. This is what I wrote down for Morning:
I don't need to get up - I've already decided that getting up on a routine schedule is the best way to maximize my productivity and enjoyment of the day.
I can sleep in - You can, but sleeping in leads to not being tired at the end of the day which leads to staying up later than usual. Once you stay up later than usual you will get up later and eventually your schedule is messed up. It's far easier and healthier to just stick with a consistent schedule.
I don't want to get up - The way to have energy is to use energy. If you are tired go for a walk and listen to some music on the treadmill. Get the bloodflowing. Focus on your goal of feeling more awake and having more energy, not on the feeling of tiredness. If you sleep in you will actually feel more tired when you wake up again. You sleep too much.
I'm tired - You are tired because you don't keep a consistent schedule and drink too much caffeine at late hours.
I deserve to sleep in - You deserve to be the happiest you can possibly be, and sleeping in leads to lack of productivity which leads to you not being able to enjoy yourself which leads to depression.
I feel like with poker now if I can just get my work ethic really solid I can make a ton of money. I have been working on my game a shit load and I feel like I've improved significantly as a player. Last month at 50 NL I made 4.5k (not including rakeback) over 40 horus played with a win rate of 19bb/100. I did run good, but with my previous style I never got anywhere close to this win rate. My previous style was heavily dependant on luck of the draw. I also had huge leaks utg and in mp, and I was taking advantage of the button very poorly. My 3 bet game was incredibly weak too. I also never bluffed, and so far my bluffs are working extremely well. I must have watched 30-40 videos last month, as well as reviewed a lot of my hands and different areas of my game.
I plan on posting any interesting hands I play on this blog from now on. It's funny before I never really had any interesting hands, because I was playing like a robot and never bluffing or light value calling. lolz
Well, kind of. This is a public forum so I'm going to focus on poker only, sorry nothing salacious.
Didn't actually play more than an hour and a half of poker because frankly there are more interesting things to do in Vegas, but I found it fun. I stayed at the Bellagio and sat in at 2/5 on Sunday night. There was one guy who I could have sworn I recognized from blog pics or something, so if you're out there I was the brown-haired guy in the 7 seat with the vineyard vines sweater on playing from like 8:00-9:45.
The table was lol-amazing. Completely unlike anything I've ever seen online. Within the first orbit, there was a hand that goes as follows that personified the table:
EP limp
EP raise to $25
MP call
CO shove for $900
"Pro" snickers derisively
EP fold
EP fold
MP fold
CO shows aces and says "you'll have to pay to crack them"
Basically everyone limped pre and overvalued top pair hands post. If you showed any aggression preflop they let you rep aces no matter how many times you did it. I iso'ed maybe 15% of hands (a lot for FR) and took down EVERY SINGLE ONE with a either a cbet or preflop.
Some interesting hands that show you what a live fish I am:
I check my bb with QTss (best hand I had at that point, but had just iso'e twice before and was oop against stations).
Flop: AsKs4s
I check, bet of $15 from a crazy asian, call, fold, I raise to $50, asian calls, other folds.
Turn: 8c
My hands now visibly shaking (I was terrified I had misread my hand, but did not want to give it away by checking it again) I bet $120. He calls.
River 8s
Balls, I shove $280 more to try and get called by Js, but he folds what I imagine to be Ad5d or something. I show the Ts to try and pretend I was semibluffing the first two streets and overvaluing my hand on the last. Given that I had to be told to put a chip on my hand, was shaking, and was being very talkative before the hand I figured I could rep fishy well. With how the "pro's" played I wouldn't mind the image.
Here's another lol-I'm-a-livefish hand:
tourist limps, and I go to count out $30 to iso qith Q9o, but put $10 in front of me first. The dealer announces "10" and I say fml inside. I get 3 calls total (including two "pros"), and see a JJ4r flop. I say to myself, wow, this is exactly how a fish would play aces, and so I figure any sizing greater than halfpot folds everything from the pro's that isn't a J or greater and lots from the fish too. I do, and everyone folds, the "pros" smiling knowing that they made a sick laydown.
Here's a hand I think I may have screwed up:
Old nit opens for $25 UTG (had been limping a bit), folds to me OTB, I flat with JJ (he has 225, I have 600, blinds cover both). I flat because I figured I should 3bet very polarized (QQ+, AK, trash) given how straightforward people play. Crazy asian in the blinds calls. T94r flop, asian checks, nit bets 40, I call, asian folds. Blank turn, he shoves quickly and I fold. It just felt like he had an overpair trying to protect, especially because he was so seemingly nitty, but I feel dirty.
Also I played to the right of Hal Lubarsky, the blind guy. It was very weird to deal with a helper describing the action.
Ended up $280 or so, obv ran good, but I feel like those games are absurdly soft. GL everyone, and thanks again for all the vegas advice in the previous post!
*Computer question at bottom, if you get bored please read/answer that if you can*
I want to attempt to make weekly updates in this blog every week until atleast the end of this year. This is very hard for me because I am a very lazy person, I have tried keeping a blog numerous times and have always failed. A new start calls for a reintroduction.
About Me:
I'm 21 - 6'3" - 205 lbs
I was born in Detroit and currently live in a suburb.
I have played basketball since I was a kid, I currently play division 2 college basketball.
I live and die with Michigan football. (More dying than living recently)
My favorite musician currently is "Blu" of all time is "Scarface".
My favorite athlete of all time is Jason Williams. (They dont make this play with an english broadcast apparently)
Ok, now on to poker. If you read my blog in the past year you will see that I had a goal to make enough play money to sell for real money, and then turn that money into 10k in 1 calendar year. This started around September of 2008 and I accomplished the goal in about 8 months. My peak br was about 16k and my current br is about 7k. I switched from cash to tournaments/sng's at about the 3k mark and have never looked back. That was pretty much the best poker decision I have ever made. I realize it is a less skilled approach but I think the edge is very comparable to one of a good cash game player due to the greater concentration of weaker players in my opinion. Lately I have been multi tabling the $75 and $26 45 man sngs on full tilt, about 16 tables, with pretty good results. 10% roi over 200 sngs in the last week.
New Goal:
My new goal will be to turn my br from 7k to 20k by January 1, 2010. I will be updating atleast 1 time a week or maybe more. I am going to strictly play the 45 man sngs except on sundays I will play the 750k GTD and the Brawl and the 200k GTD alond with the usual 45 mans. I'm banned on Pokerstars in case you didnt read my last entry. If anyone would be interested in staking me in those I would be happy to sell 50% except in the 200k.
Computer Question:
I'm looking to buy a new monitor. 23" 2048x1052 resolution or something close to that. Will my HP laptop DV9500 with an NVIDIA GEFORCE 8400M GS video card be able to run the monitor at max resolution? what cords/software will I need to use a 2nd monitor? My laptop resolution is 1600x1200 if that helps/matter.
I'm kind of nervous posting a picture of me because I think someone who reads these forums might somehow know me or something. Kind of weird I know.
I know it's been a while, and I have been meaning to do this for a while, so I apologize to everyone. I hope this can be a pleasant surprise from the tilted blogs (I know I'm quite tilted too, my hot or not rating on PTR is 0. Thats right, ZERO. I run that bad rofl.
Anyways, I hope everyone can benefit from these, and so I'm here to give you all something!
permutations and combinationsby genjix, November 03
Hey,
I often forget this stuff and have to look it up. So am making a note here for myself.
Combinations are unordered giving the number of combinations for a prescribed size.
C(n,r) = n! / r! (n - r)!
An example would be a 2 card Poker hand from a pack of 52 cards:
C(52,2) = 52! / 2! 50!
Taking 2 letters from ABCD, we get 6. This is because AB = BA... Combinations are unordered.
Permutations are ordered remappings of a set.
P(n,r) = n! / (n - r)!
= r! C(n,r)
Given a 3 card flop, total orderings will be 3!/(3-3)! = 3!. This makes sense cos we have 3 positions for the first card (1st, 2nd, 3rd), then only 2 for the next card and 1 for the last... n(n-1)(n-2)...2x1x0
ABC
ACB
BAC
CAB
BCA
CBA
note:
With replacement, the combination formula becomes:
C(n,k) = (n + k - 1) / k! (n - 1)!
Multiple elements can be represented using 0's and 1's like:
11 0 111 0 111 0 1
A | B | C | D
where the 0's are separators for the slots (ABCD). Therefore the combinations will just be the total permutations of all 12 0's and 1's together. Or C(4,12). 4 choices but 12 samples.
Atm NL50 FR reg + $1.2k BR. here's my goals for next few months:
- next 2 weeks, cashout $500, move Amsterdam
- $2k BR and NL100, move UK
- £1.2k bank, move Tehran
- NL50 HU
When variances knocks me down I quickly get back up with no emotional marks. The competitiveness forges me across enemy territory. I think HU is the game for me.
some quick, simple questions from a newbby panzerfaust, November 03
hey guys I just decided to try this online poker thing out -- not for any delusional reason, I just always wanted to get better at the game because I play with my buddies every now and then and I don't do well -- but I find the game itself very fun regardless.
so I put in $20 on pokerstars and after playing for like 8 hours at the 1cent/2cent tables, i'm down to $17.50 -- which I feel pretty good about it since I feel like I learned a lot (and yeah, I know the micro tables are nothing like the higher stakes).
So basically, I'd like to understand the game more and have a few questions that I've had trouble looking up my self:
1.)What are the stats people are talking about when they say, "villain had x/y/z", and how do I gather this information on opponents I'm watching?
2.) What is BI? HU? vpp? nit? oop? ip? float? flatting?
3.) stuff like "3bet, 4bet" etc... just means the amount of raising? like someone bets, someone calls, someone reraises all equal a 3bet? iono lol
i'm really new as you can see, the articles i've read on here have been helping though.
if anyone can just quickly go over those questions i'd really appreciate it.
starting to win again (sometimes lol)by whamm!, November 03
sometimes is better than absolutely nothing it seems for me. no complaints though, ive been rebuilding my roll and shooting for that 3k milestone this month and if i really get into a nice groove and finish hot before november ends, might even go for a 100k vpp month next month just to get my br back to 20k which will be epic since this year ive done so many retarded things and tilted/emo'ed for months and months which i really can't afford to do being old and all lol. paid for all my debts practically before i started rebuilding and it feels good to finally be debt free again. id like to personally thank handbanana21 for helping me out rebuilding, i will not forget jlost88 and yadadameen21 if ever i quit poker and find something else to do after this year. stocks is doing so-so and i haven't really gotten into it seriously yet, maybe next year. how the fuck do i make paragraphs here btw?
i hope kevin can sweat me sometime when i move back up to 100nl, how about it kevin? :D
October is gone, it's no shave november v.5k handsby SpeedyJack, November 03
Started off the month with my bankroll at a new high, I decided that when I got to 30BI I'd make a move to NL100. I ran really well at NL50, both 6max and HU, and quickly hit my goal. I moved up after two or three days and played and ran really well at NL100 and in the first 10 days and 1000 hands (sick volume) I was up 10BI for the month. I then ran into some standard variance, but ran well again. I broke even for the next 1.5 or 2k hands and got very confident and decided to try some HU NL100, but that went pretty poorly even though I was pretty happy with most of my play. I definitely made some mistakes but I definitely plan on trying again. I didn't play for ~2 weeks in the middle of the month, and when I came back the downswing continued, I went all the way down to almost even for the month when I realized that something had changed. At the beginning of the month as in October and September I felt I'd really been playing excellent poker, but I got too confident in my play and just started playing roboticly and not thinking anything through. This definitely precipitated my downswing. I ended up running well for the last thousand hands and got back into thinking everything through. I even had one guy chew me out for taking so long on my decisions, I made sure to time out my last hand at the table. So here's the graph. + Show Spoiler +
As is pretty obvious I didn't put in any volume at all, 5k hands means almost nothing because it's just too small, but the feeling of confidence I gained during those hands felt awesome because I was a little nervous when I moved up to NL 100. The biggest reason for the weak volume was being out of town for two ultimate frisbee tournaments. I had a great time at both, my underarmor tights performed amazingly, they are the warmest things ever. This weekend I'm going to be running a 5k for the first time, I've never done one before so hopefully I can run an okay time. Indoor practices Tu/Th from 9:30pm till midnight also start this week, so I'm going to be sleeping in on Wednesdays and Fridays for a while.
With any luck I'll be able to stay focused whenever I play poker and put in some volume to speak of this month. Shoutout to my boys at IPC, my floormates, and my homie across the pond.
p.s. adding "aments" to every word is not clever or funny
p.p.s you won't be seeing me posting in the medium stakes forum because i was banned for telling an NL100 player that playing 100 hands at a certain stake doesn't grant you poker skills that someone playing below them doesn't have and apparently he had some pull with a mod. To be fair baal said that he would unban me when I played medium stakes, but when I PMd him he demanded proof as if I would make that up
i know baal doesn't read my blog, but rofl good work mate http://forums.offtopic.com/images/smilies/nickos.gif
I feel bad about calling out hotty, and got a msg from her husband today. Just wanted to say sorry and all. I still have my skeptisism about the whole situation.But in the end to be honest with all of you I dont give a FUCK about whether there real or not. Yeh im new to the site? So what? I was just trying to get my opinion out there. And to newbsai I gotta tell you man. You are overreacting to the whole thing. No one on Lp or TL or any site for the matter is going to hold anything against you in RL, if your wife is real. The only reason they would hold anything against you is if she was FAKE. Anyways i wish you and your wife the best of luck with poker and everything else and hope you make it someday.
Well October started off amazing and did not end so well... I guess I cant be too annoyed at a +25kish month but still it coulda been a pretty big one :/
Also turned 21 in oct which wasnt a huge deal since I live in Canada but basically got blackout drunk and got in a fight with a bouncer halfway through the night...
Just got back from visiting kings/nutsinho/altrum and jem87 in Boston which was pretty good finally got to go out in the states without using a fake id lol.. Boston is a pretty cool town and their new 10k a month apartment is ridiculous
Then to start of Nov I lost KK vs AK for the CL of the sunday mill with about 250 ppl left which sucked and then later in the night lost about 10k in a soft 25 50 game running like shit to have my first 5 fig losing day... about -15k overall
So i have quite the grind ahead of me to get all that back and finsih + for novemeber ah well
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All of this has led me to believe that my problem is Post flop. I'm not really sure how to proceed with a decent analysis of my overall postflop play over 100k hands. Here are some more of my stats:
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