October Final Result
$5410 in winnings. With the $500 bonus, this is $5910, or £3560 English Pounds. Ready to keep my crushing run going into November now.
Thursday 30 October 2008
Friday 24 October 2008
October So Far
$3157 so far in October... 6 days left though to ramp it up a little. The good news is though sterling's collapsing, so I'm looking at a 20% bonus from last month. Die pound die.
Tuesday 21 October 2008
Saturday 18 October 2008
October Update
Just thought it'd help me to put some of my thoughts down on paper as to how I should be playing at the moment.
I've been giving a lot of thought to the fact that I lose so much in the blinds, and related to this; the amount I lose without showdown. With my monthly winnings standing now at $2k, its a crazy fact that I've won $11k at showdown this month, and lost $9k without showdown. I don't think this makes me a postflop nit or anything, jus that in the area of poker I've spent most time on improving (making the right decisions in big pots) I'm doing well, but obviously leaking money elsewhere.
Through HEM analysis, I've worked out that this without showdown leak stems largely from the blind positions, both through giving up blinds too easily and not stealing enough. Putting on filters like 'did squeeze', 'did 3bet' etc reveals an enormous profit. Crossing this with the "didn't see flop" filter shows that squeezing and 3betting are in themselves hugely profitable.
The "didn't see flop" filter is very interesting to me, as in these situations the cards I held were ultimately irrelevant. I can see that I need to up my squeezing in the blinds, and my 3betting in defence of the blinds as this definitely yields an instant profit, even if I give up every single flop.
Another area I'm losing money at the moment is the medium sized pots, that is the pots between $40 and $100. From reviewing HHs, this is becuase too often I call the flop with any two cards, hoping to spike or get villain to fold later in the hand. This is costing me a lot of money... I'm also folding river too much when little changes, therefore I must have made a mistake earlier in the hand...
I'm going to return therefore to my rules surrounding commitment outlined in PNL. That once 10% of my stack has gone in (usually $20), then not another bet will be made/ called unless I want to stack off with it.
My problem with this previously is that I think it makes you expoitable in certain scenarios. Example, I hold A8s; one limper, I raise to $11 and get one caller. Pot on flop is $24. The flop comes 842r. I cbet $16 IP and villain check-raises to $40. At this point I've put in $25, so shoudn't be calling another bet unless I'm happy to stack off.
Sticking to this though in this situation would make me very exploitable... however I the point I'm getting to is that I think being unexploitable is overrated at 200NL. In the case outlined above, I'm going to be folding in future, rather than (what would normally happen) I call this raise and fold to further heat on the turn (which I'm probably always facing).
So... cliffnotes on how I'm going to be playing...
- Squeeze regular and often, (100% depending on stacksizes being ok and no crazy dynamic exisiting with villain).
- 3bet in blinds to steals regular and often.
- If either of the above are called when I'm doing them light, shut down on 90% of flops. Continuing with no equity, especially oop is spewing money.
- Start giving up on flops, as opposed to giving up on turns.
- Apply the rules of commitment as outlined in PNL.
- Continue with my focus on double and triple barrelling certain players on certain flops.
- Don't ever ever ever regret a pot through some overaggressive re-raise bluff made on the river, got that dan?
- Keep crushing at showdown.
Poker's easy. Ennit?
dan
Read more...Wednesday 15 October 2008
Ugh
No sooner do I win $1.8k then I lose $1.5k of it. I'm losing wayyyyyy too many pots between the size of $40 and $100. Looking at my hands I'm giving up the turn too often as opposed to giving up the flop. I'm floating without a plan, looking to hit gutshots oop etc. Going to work on this tomorrow anyway.
that is all
Read more...
$10k in 50k hands. Halfway There:
By halfway there, I obviously don't mean halfway monetarily speaking, though I'm not too far short. 26k hands, $3459 in winnings.
Been a bit up and down as you can see.
In terms of how I'm playing, I've had 3 coaching sessions now and am working on the leaks in my game that I found out about there. I apparently don't double barrell enough, so am working on double and triple barrelling boards like 268r, where villain likely has a hand like A6 or 98 that can't stand much heat.
I'm really on top of my tilt as of late, I'm not spewing or regretting many pots, need to keep concentrating on that though as it has a habit of coming back at times I'm not even thinking about it.
Got myself SpadeEye now as well, so I've been playing with that. Its easy to spot a fish with it, not so easy to find one at a table with a waiting list less than 4 tho.... But still, table selecting is something I've never really liked to do but by doing it more I should be seeing more $ for the last 25k hands of this challenge.
I'll post some hands as and when I play some interesting ones later today.
dan
Friday 3 October 2008
Turnaround
Since my coaching session the other day with (the excellent) Chaostracise, I've turned it round, winning $860 over 3 sessions totalling 3636 hands.
Over these hands, I've had only 3 pots where I've lost over $100, which is pretty good I think. One I misplayed ( http://www.pokerhand.org/?3272901 ), the other was a cooler when I hit a set vs a flopped straight and the other was AK vs QQ AIPF.
I've generally been 3betting less and playing postflop poker which has been working out. The immense amount of squeezing and 3betting going on has led me to slowplay PF slightly more often, ie flatting qq to a tight player then shoving over a squeeze.
And I've not had any mad moments either. Usually I think I would easily have had enough moments over 4k hands to wipe out $860 in profit.
Not too many interesting hands have come up though, what with me not losing that many and all.
I'm probably most troubled by this one: Villain a 32/5/1
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3275287
The turn bet just looks like he's after a cheap draw, so I raise it up. Hmm though, I'm not sure.
Oh and I changed my SN on Party, cos it lets you do that. Ladderbear has been a consistent loser and is now retired. Good work Penguinator on your recent results.
Dan
Wednesday 1 October 2008
Betting Reciprocality
I've been reading an article by Tommy Angelo. Its talking about reciprocality, which is something I go on about all the time but don't really realise it. I tend to call it "where's my edge?". One of the things he talks about is betting reciprocality, that is taking a hand and imagining that the roles of you and the villain are swapped around. How would you have played this hand differently? How would your opponent have played it differently?
Doing this, you can then decide if you 'won' the hand or not. For example, the 3 examples of KK AIPF vs AA that happened to me today cost me $850 of actual money. However, doing a reciprocal analysis I can see that in reciprocal money terms the hands cost me nothing, and won my oppenents nothing. This is because any time I have AA, and they KK, the hands would have been played in the same way. Basically, there's no way anyones folding KK pf 100bbs deep.
So I've decided to look at a few middling $ amount hands from today and perform this type of analysis.
Hand1: This was virtually my last hand of the day, played a few minutes ago, and the hand which made me realise that I was on megatilt and should stop:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3265098
There are two ways of looking at this. First of all, PF I perhaps saved money by flat calling rather than 3betting, as my opponent may have simply 3bet this hand with a view to get it all in. I think its more beneficial though to look at the postflop actions.
Flop: He cbets, I float oop with my AK hi. I think that in this situation the villain would do the same thing, so nothing lost nothing gained.
Turn: Villain checks behind. I think in this situation I would have bet, but given that I would have folded my AK, the net reciprocal amount won and lost is still 0.
River: I decide that my hand looks very much like QJ, KJ, AJ, therefore I want to get folds from his middling pocket pairs. I bet, however he raises. At this point my tilt takes over, and I can't imagine a hand he has and call.
Reciprocally, villain would probably just check fold river. If he had decided to bet, he would've folded to my raise. Therefore, he would have saved himself $60. So therefore, in playing this hand as shoddily as I did, I cost myself $60 in reciprocal money.
Hand2: In this hand, I get decent value from TPTK by betting all 3 streets strongly. Villain calls down with Tp weak kicker.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3265150
Preflop and flop: I think I play same as villain preflop and flop, call his raise and his flop bet. Reciprocally though, he probably bets less on the flop as I bet full pot. Therefore I earned myself a few reciprocal dollars.
Turn: I bet virtually full pot, $28. I think the other way around villain would bet less, so say I earned myself $5 reciprocal dollars or so. In villains shoes, I think I call another bet.
River: I bet nearly full pot $72. This is the part of the hand that I think has most reciprocal value for me, as I think facing this much aggression versus someone who knows not to double and triple barrell such rubbish cards with air I would find a fold here. Instead, villain calls, costing himself $72 in reciprocal amounts.
Therefore, allthough my actual amount won in this hand was $115, reciprocally I earned myself probably $80 based on the fact that his and my actions would have been different.
I may do a few more of these analysis after each session as I think it important to know where exactly your edge lies in poker, and at the minute I cannot for the life of me see where mine is.
dan
I hate money anyway
Played 2135 hands today. Net winnings: $-1322.44. Fantastic.
I learned a good lesson today. Don't ever ever EVER get KK all in preflop against a villain who has AA. Foolishly, I did this 3 times today and cost myself the best part of $850. Stats like 'villain is playing 75/55/10' go out the window you see, when he has AA. Its really that simple.
My other massive losers:
I have an overpair, the megafish has a set.
I punish the cally nit and he rivers me: grrrr
Hands I maybe misplayed:
I could do with advice on this probably; villain would definitely get worse than JJ in pf as we had a crazy dynamic going.
I thought villain could have KQ a whole lot here and value own myself.
So there you have it, all my biggest losing pots of at least $200. This hasn't been a selective blog post, I haven't left out any god awful ones or tilty ones, this is all of them.
Someone please tell me I can win at poker again one day. Comments welcome.
Dan.
Read more...
Challenge Update
Having played so damn little, I stand at 8720 hands, total winnings; -$117.02. EV Winnings; $942.62.
Been playing better as of late I think; I've not had any hands I totally regret in the last week or so. I feel like I'm getting to know the regulars pretty well now and there's a strong 4 betting dynamic where people have started to 5bet shove insanely light vs me. Some examples...
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3263419
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3263420
I'm still seeing a lot of crazy play going on as well.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3263425
I won't update this will all my recent hands played, I suppose I just want it in writing that I feel super confident about how I'm playing and I think I'm due one my $10k in 25k hand heaters which occasionally pop up.
laters; dan
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