Ocean is Heads Up

I think people can see my hole cards

2010-06-19T18:30:00.000-07:00

At the moment, poker is scaring me.

I have been dealt Aces 21 times and Kings 11 times in the Big Blind. Of those 32 times combined, I have won the blinds 26 times. This seems outrageous to me - how do they know? If I was to 3bet the various villains I face, and they then fold, then that is absolutely fine - I have no qualms about that. But how do they know to fold their Small Blind with 81% accuracy? Am I subliminally sending excitement through the ether?

I'm at an absolute loss as to what to do. This month, every pot I win is small, every pot I lose is MASSIVE. I cannot believe for a second that I'm doing things differently to how I was doing them last month, or the month before, or the month before that.

Villains try insane bluffs, e.g. check-raising all-in with 6c 10c on a 2c 3s 7h board vs my Ad 7c, yet catch runner-runner flush.

I'm finding new ways to lose at poker. Each beat seems to be more creative than the last. Oh poker, what a whore you are.

I think I need to arrange a live sweat session to see if I am running insanely bad or whether I'm thinking so poorly that bad habits have crept into my game.

I think I'm destined to have a losing month this time around. I have avoided it for five months of the year, but I have no idea how to turn it around. I'm not going to play a single hand tomorrow, hopefully that will clear my head.

Being in Vegas may help too - I'll have a group of guys (Knox828, cpar1, iDubDeuce to name a few) around me (hopefully) that will offer sage advice and will allow me to crush and get my graph on the black.

And before you say, "This is such a tilt post" - I wouldn't call it strictly "TILT" as I'm not really donking off my money or throwing my mouse into the wall; it's just super-high levels of frustration. Maybe a nice long run and a day away from the laptop will cure what ails me.

A fun couple of days

2010-06-08T14:55:00.000-07:00

This is my last 2 days worth of play - after a while you kinda expect to get sucked out on, or at least run into the nuts when you have the 2nd nuts.

Ho hum, it's what poker is for I guess. Thankfully this is only 50NL and not at nosebleed stakes :) Guess I can't really complain given the hand I posted below.

Easily The Most Stupid Hand I've Played That Worked Out Great Despite My Idiocy

2010-06-05T13:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5487558

All I can say is "Phew!"

May Summary & VEGAS!

2010-06-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

Woot - May is over.

This month was pretty good to me; I got in a decent amount of volume considering the amount of time I have available to play; the length of my sessions increased; I played my first proper match vs a decent, thinking player who normally plays much higher and came out even; I played when I felt fresh rather than just because, and as a result I felt like the standard of my overall play increased tenfold.

Going into June, I'm really excited about poker - I'm heading out to Vegas again and will be meeting up with Knox828 and a few other HU regs for some hefty war-room sessions.

So, gl to all, crush in June!

Some interesting (and also weird) hands are below:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5464385

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5453029

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5476021

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5480793

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5480795

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5480804

LOL Poker

2010-05-18T06:22:00.001-07:00

April Summary, Computer Issues and Summer Plans

2010-05-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

Right, here we go.

This is April - basically, my feelings towards poker didn't change too much, even having become a kinda-sorta poker writer. I did play little bit following my experience at the Vic, but overall I was just too busy at work (we issued a high-yield bond, had a quarter end, I was covering for a lot of people in our team) to really give poker a lot of thought. As such, it's as if I took a break from playing.

However, contributing to my absence from the tables has been my ongoing computer troubles. As I've mentioned before I had a Sony Vaio for a few years which had Vista on it, and after a while the crapness of Vista overtook the awesomeness of the Vaio. To counteract this, I bought an ASUS which also had Vista, but came with an upgrade to Windows 7. Well, it seems that the crapness of Vista is so strong that it started to cause problems even after I had upgraded - in the form of bluescreens. They happened so often that I just returned the laptop and bought a new Vaio, this time with Windows 7 only, and win has follows. This whole saga took about 2 weeks through trying to fix it (reformatting etc.). Anyway, onwards and upwards from now on! Back to poker...

Now we're in May, my thoughts on poker have changed slightly, but not significantly. I want to play, am frustrated that I can't, but am not overly sad that my volume has gone down. My life is full at the moment, and to try and squeeze too much into it would be a mistake. That's not to say I'm giving up - far from it. In fact I think my actual play has gotten a ton better, and as such I feel I can improve my win-rate even at a reduced sample. I don't think that 100NL is that much different from 50NL, so I can definitely beat it for a good clip. In fact, I would like to reach 200NL by the close of the year - it's within my grasp for sure.

Finally, Summer. I'm going back to Vegas folks! Going to meet up with Knox and live large for a week, make a killing at the ATM (oops - meant to write cash games) and generally win at life super hard. Other than that I'll be chilling, and getting myself lined up for an Autumn of CFA study.

Ship Ship!

Guess Who's Back, Back Again...

2010-05-14T04:24:00.001-07:00

Hi all,
So I've obviously not posted here (or anywhere) in a little while, namely because there's not been much to report - my proper job and other social activities have taken up much more time than I thought they would so poker has been on the down-low unfortunately.

However, I do have a big update coming in the next couple of days as I've put into motion measures that will both increase my ability to play and my inclinitation to write about it!

Until then, stay strong and continue to crush.

Bluff Europe Poker Academy 2010

2010-04-13T05:32:00.000-07:00

On Saturday afternoon, 10th April, I ventured into the Grosvenor Victoria casino in London for the Bluff Europe Poker Academy, in association with Black Belt Poker.

I’d never been to anything like this before, so wasn’t really sure what to expect; however the topics themselves seemed quite interesting and I was particularly keen on hearing what Neil Channing and Jared Tendler had to say, so I was cautiously optimistic. I play almost exclusively small stakes (100-400NL) heads up cash games online and have limited live experience outside of homegames, so was hoping for some pointers on live play – things like not giving away tells myself whilst spotting them in others.

Once I got up to the poker room, I found the atmosphere was pretty relaxed (most of the people there had won their seat through Black Belt Poker, which is like a cross between Facebook and DC that has their own iPoker skin) even though the mix of people in attendance was quite varied (roughly 20 people total with three women, a few 18-25s, mostly 26-40s with a couple of older guys). The majority played predominantly live poker (some hadn’t even heard of PT3/HEM or sites like DC/CR) and were aware that they had big leaks in their game that they wanted to try and fix during the sessions.

This was a one-day course, broken down into four “lectures” and two “play with the pros” discussions where we’d be split into groups and play a few hands and then the professionals in attendance would talk through the action that just happened - first to present was Alex.

Alex Rousso: Meta-Learning
This was a short presentation on how to go about learning at poker. The premise was that everyone has a default system for playing - irrespective of whether that system is any good or not; the first step to improving is recognising your default strategy and accepting its flaws – then you can improve by cherry-picking from the various sources on and offline to bolster your skill set.

He gave a few examples of how to work on your game live and online (e.g. trying to put your opponents on hands when you’re not in the hand and awarding yourself points depending on how you do), but always brought it back to basic principles, principally that with a sound grasp of the fundamentals you will never be an empty seat at the table, and that opportunities to learn are always presenting themselves so be alert to your surroundings.

After a “play with the pros” session (I’ll get to them later) came Jared Tendler.

Jared Tendler: Tilt Management
Jared Tendler was a last-minute replacement for Nick Persaud. For those who haven’t heard of him, Jared is an extremely well respected poker mind coach, similar to Tommy Angelo (author of “The Elements of Poker” and producer of “The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment” on DC), and does a lot of work on recognising and reducing Tilt.

Jared’s background is actually in Golf, so he differs from Tommy in that his methodology is firmly rooted in the emotional side of Tilt – e.g. road rage, rather than direct poker-related causes.

He spoke for roughly 20 minutes, with the key message being that in order to reduce Tilt’s effect we need to recognise our onset behaviour patterns; the indicators, the reaction and finally tolerance levels and then work on all three independently for best results. He gave a few tips and exercises to do, and then opened up the floor to questions.

I felt that this was not really long enough for such a fascinating (and essential to our financial wellbeing!) subject, but knowing that Tommy Angelo’s video series was on DC I wasn’t too bothered. I also felt that the pitch was slightly too highbrow for the majority of the crowd, as Jared’s concepts are slightly existential (I felt so anyway) and need to be simplified greatly if given in such a short burst. That said, him merely being there, irrespective of how long, was worth it in my eyes.

We then moved onto Hugh Kirton’s talk on Levelling.

Hugh Kirton: Poker Psychology and Player Levels
Hugh is a member of Black Belt Poker, mainly playing online PLO and HE ring games, and he spoke about how to identify the levels that our opponents are thinking on and then how to gain the upper hand against them during the course of a session.

Like Jared’s presentation, I felt that this could have been expanded upon a lot further, as the concept of levelling was new to a lot of the crowd. However, I think the main aim was to introduce the idea that “you don’t just play your cards”, and that we need to be vigilant if we are to maintain the upper hand against our opponents.

Then we had the second of the “play with the pros” sessions before lunch. The 18 or so people in attendance were split into three groups, each group with a pro – Alex, Neil or Hugh. In the first break we focussed on ring-game play when 100BBs deep, and in the second we looked at mid-game SNG strategy.

These were by far the most interesting sessions, in my opinion. As I’ve mentioned, the majority of the people on the course were aware that they needed to get better, but didn’t know where to begin, so actually playing hands in their usual way and then having everyone turn over their cards and talking through the streets once at showdown was very useful. It went further than that though; to really ram the discussion home the instructors put hypotheticals into the hands – e.g. for the mid-game SNG hands, the instructors would ask what player X would do with the same hand if they had slightly less chips, or what hand would be at the bottom of their shoving range from the hijack with 9BBs.

Whilst this might not be anything new so far as poker training sites are concerned, it accentuated the point that in order to improve you need to take the results out of your head and focus on the decisions themselves – so long as you reasoned the correct path it shouldn’t matter what the outcome is.

Lastly was Neil Channing, who talked through four TV hands from the Party Poker “Poker Den 3” which was on TV in the UK last year. This was most similar to the “play with the pros” sections, so again it was quite useful – Neil is a talkative guy, and wasn’t afraid to say that he’d made a mistake in a certain hand so it was quite a light-hearted end to the day.

All in all, I thought that the day was in essence a beginner’s course in applying “online” techniques (e.g. thinking in terms of ranges rather than single hands, taking notes, learning the maths, thinking about how your opponents are thinking) to heighten your poker abilities.

Whilst it is probably below the standard of most people who are already subscribing to sites like DC/CR (and the slew of videos etc. available), I felt that it was pitched in the most part at the right level for those attending, so I would recommend a course like this in the future; I did feel that a lot was accomplished in the limited time, and hopefully it sowed the seeds of intellectual curiosity in the attendees. I would caveat that however by saying you can probably find specific videos online if you look in the right places.
The two-day course in May has Annette_15 speaking, and should be more advanced if anyone is interested. See http://www.bluffeurope.com/pokeracademy/ for more details.

Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in

2010-04-08T02:48:00.000-07:00

So, having kinda-sorta sworn off poker for a little bit, I'm now getting more involved than I ever was!

Basically, I'm going to be going to the Bluff Europe Poker Academy on the weekend, and then writing a review for DeucesCracked.com. It all stemmed from a twitter post by DC saying that they had a ticket for a UK member to attend the Academy, so long as they wrote a review. I expressed an interest, and following an email exchange with Krantz he said that the ticket was mine if I wanted it.

A link to the website is here.

Should be interesting imo - the Black Belt guys are well known in the UK, and are well respected in the game. I'll post my review on here afterwards, plus at DC.

Holla!

March, I Barely Knew Ye

2010-04-05T05:41:00.000-07:00

Hola Internet peeps,

Customary monthly summary on the way...

March was another ho-hum month for me. I didn't get the chance to play that much (again) as work has picked up in weeks leading up to quarter end. Apart from taking shots at 100NL, nothing much really happened for me poker-wise!

That said, I have come to a realisation; I love poker and the challenge it brings. In many ways it has kept me sharp since I finished university, and I don't think I'll ever stop playing. However, I have found poker to be quite divisive lately, as all my time is spent in front of my laptop rather than with my girlfriend/family/friends and it's become a chore, if I'm honest.

I'll never be a pro, so my time is better invested elsewhere; and by elsewhere I mean my job (my actual, full-time job). I approached my boss last week about the possibility of my company sponsoring me to take on the CFA series of exams, and the outcome was positive. I need to present my case, but they seem quite happy with the idea, and so I will either be taking Level 1 in Dec 2010 or June 2011.

All this leads me nicely on to the fact that I'd rather play when I feel really up to it, rather than because I'm obligated to. I think this is for the best really, as I honestly believe my results will improve even though my hand output will stay roughly the same. Working an 8-6 job and then trying to spend 2-3 hours playing after is really tiring, and affects both in a negative way, and in heads up if you're not on your game it can be extremely expensive finding out, as you can see from the last 1k hands or so of my graph, which was all on one rotten day (coincidentally a Sunday) after a weekend of little sleep and plenty of distractions.

So in conclusion, poker is a whore, as Haseeb Qureshi often tells us. I'm going to keep playing, but mainly on weekends and when I really have time to sit and get invested.

Here's to April, hope it's a good one to you all.

100NL

2010-03-18T04:03:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update as I haven't posted in a while, mainly as I haven't had anything to report.

My playing time is waaay down on where I'd like it to be given the volume I've put in in the last few months. I think I've only played 3k-ish hands, which is a poor effort from me. Seeing as I want to break the "10k hands in a month" barrier I better sit myself down!

Results-wise, again it's nothing spectacular. I was up four buy-ins at 50NL and decided to start taking shots at 100NL, which has gone well so far in terms of EV, but not so great from a monetary perspective.

Whilst I'm still under-rolled for 100NL running under EV is kinda FML, but it's just something to be expected really - in actual fact I find that I'm much more comfortable at 100NL than at 50NL, and after my 13buy-in downswing last month getting sucked-out on for a few buy-ins just washes right off me. I suppose I should just knuckle down, get grinding and watch the monies flow into my account.

I'll post some interesting hands soon.

GL at the tables

Fuck You February!

2010-03-02T14:07:00.000-08:00

Right, time for an update. February has been rocky to say the least, with little Dollar reward, but results aside this has been easily the most enlightening month I have had as a poker player.

In absolute terms, these were the goals for February:

[ ] 10,000 hands played

Not done. However, I don't feel bad about this one, I got 7,546 in which is my single biggest month hand-wise. More of the same in March I hope (plus I'll have an extra three days - and no Valentine's day - to play).

[x] Spend at least one day a week not thinking about poker

Done. I set this as a goal when I was in a downswing, and I'm happy that I did tbh. Irrespective of how I'm playing, taking a break is always worth it. You can forget the shitty beats or times when you've played awfully and come back fresh and ready. I will take this on in the future too.

[x] Dedicate time to sleep properly

Done. Really pleased with this one, as I don't sleep nearly enough, or in far too random cycles. Being in the UK, when the majority of poker happens on US time is a bit of a hindrance, so this had always affected me. However, This month I made sure that I quit playing in good time, allowed myself to chill out and then got to bed so that the quality, and quantity, of my sleep improved.

[x] Replace coffee consumption with Green Tea

Done. I gave coffee and sodas up for Lent anyway, but I put this up because I used to drink far to much of the stuff - mainly because I was so tired. However, there were health issues involved, as machine coffee isn't the best thing to have 12 cups of a day. A green tea and a Granny Smith apple sees me through to lunch now.

[x] Exercise daily

Done. This was a smaller victory, as I am quite a fit guy generally. The reason I put this up was so that I could take the "little and often" approach in order to wake me up after a day at the office and get me in the mental state to play pokers. Plus, it has the additional bonus of allowing me to sleep better.

From a purely goal-related perspective, it would seem that February was an excellent month. Alas, dear reader, it was not. Having had my best ever poker month in January, I was looking forward to playing and crushing, but the poker gods had other ideas. Maybe I was playing tired, maybe I was running bad, but for what seemed like forever I just lost. And lost. And lost some more. 13 buy-ins in all, basically what I won in February and a little bit extra. I truly was beginning to doubt myself, and whether poker was worth it as a hobby.

I took a couple of days off, realised I had some sand in my vagina and sought to get myself into the black for the month. I took a step back from my own poker game and watched Phil Galfond's and WiltOnTilt's videos. I reflected on the nature of winning and losing, quitting, variance, all that good stuff and came to a quite reasonable, but still enlightening, conclusion: Because I was playing more, I was exposing myself to more of the associated risks in poker, namely variance. I may have gone on an extended losing run, but that is not necessarily a statement on my poker playings - to grossly oversimplify, I was just involved in the flip side of the coin, albeit several times in a row. Moreover, a couple of thousand hand losing streak is nothing in the grand scheme of things, and is likely to happen many times in the future as I climb limits.

Those things aside, I sat down and I grinded all the way back up to an outstanding $4.20 profit for the month. I'm extremely pleased that I've done it; it has given me faith that I am half-decent at heads up. Playing well and winning are very comfortable bedfellows, and right now I'm there to take advantage. To top it all off, I've just had my last session with Knox828 and I crushed it. I'm ready to take on 100NL in a few more buy-ins time, and with Knox's praise ringing in my ears I hope to be writing more pseudo-pyschoanalytical bullshit soon for you all.

Here's to March, let's hope it's a good one. Graph below in ptbb.

GL at the tables!

Swong-Free Pokers

2010-02-25T15:05:00.000-08:00

Sup yo,

Little update for today. I watched a DC video today before playing today - "Down on the Farm" by bosoxx34. In the series he plans on making videos of his climb through the year playing from 50NL to 1kNL, and for the video I watched he was starting out at 50NL.

The interesting thing about it, I found at least, was his approach to 50NL; he plays it quite straightfowardly, on the assumption that the overwhelming majority of villains are horrendous, and will make stupid plays that will conclude with his pocket being lined with money. He min-opens roughly 65% of buttons, makes very obvious bet sizing tells (which doesn't matter as villains love to call), and a couple of other things I'm forgetting. Anyway, always eager to learn new things and go out of my comfort zone, I tried to mimic, as best as possible, his strategy.

The first thing I'll say is that is a virtually variance-free style. You only really put a lot of money in the pot when you're value betting, and the rest of the time you shut down for a minimal loss. For the 450 hands or so that I played in that way, I made $30 with minimum fuss. However, I found myself being far too passive; not necessarily a bad thing given the outrageous swings in HU, but I found it quite a boring style, which in turn made me play a bit like a robot. In conclusion, I think I'd rather use this style as an adjustment to my normal game vs a really loose opponent - it may be the secret formula to winning at 50NL, but I don't intend on being down here on the bottom rung of the ladder for too long.

Still, I did learn something, and booked a win, so not all bad!

Live in the Now!

2010-02-22T04:06:00.000-08:00

Hallo please, how are you and how is your work, day and health?

Anyway, felt like posting an update, so here goes. I’m almost out of my downswing for the month (still down roughly 3.5 buy-ins, but that’s MUCH better than 13) and have come to a realisation of sorts, which is essentially the title of the post – Live in the Now!

This all boils down to the fact that recently, buoyed by the majorly positive month I had in January (and all the positive comments from my coach and peers), I felt that I have been playing as if I was at a higher limit than I actually am. This in turn had negative results, which impacted my play, and the losing cycle became a heavy burden on my state of mind – if you think you’re going to lose before your session begins, proving otherwise is very difficult. Essentially, I have been making plays that I know will work at 100/200/400NL, but won’t at 50NL. Example; people seldom (to the point of never) bluff-shove on the river at 50NL, yet do at higher limits. I was basically miss-reading my opponents, to my expensive detriment.

Lesson: Pay attention! You’re playing at 50NL you idiot, stop the fancy plays!

However, now that I have had this epiphany, I feel very confident about poker again going forward. In its purest form, poker is about money, nothing else. There may be variance, pride, bum-hunting, grudge-matches and all that good stuff that makes our peers qualify themselves, but when all is said and done, I want to make money. Pure and simple. F the rest, give me my mansion.

The goal still remains to get back to zero for the month however; I refuse to get ahead of myself. I do have 800FPPs to go to clear my January reload bonus on PokerStars, so that will be a nice little boost to the bankroll too. All in all, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I hope I can continue to move forward in March.

Holla!

PS I’ve been playing mainly on Stars this year due to trying to clear the reload bonus, but I wanted to make a video so I went on FTP yesterday. To my surprise, I didn't get much footage as people would sit out on me after a few hands – are there really bum-hunters, even at 50NL? It makes me sadface if true.

Lent

2010-02-17T05:12:00.000-08:00

Just to say, I'm giving up coffee and fizzy drinks for Lent. Maybe I'll feel better by the end of it, and give it up for realz.

Moan Moan Moan

2010-02-16T03:22:00.000-08:00

Poker's fun,
For Everyone,
Except for my opponents,
They should've practised avoidance.

Or so Prahlad Friedman, aka SpiritRock, would have you believe.

Yesterday's post was my first official rant about poker. Obviously, writing after a losing session is not necessarily conducive to writing an impartial analysis of the current status of my poker game. However, agonising internally isn't much better.

I'm certain that I'm doing the right things. I'm certain that things will turn around as a bi-product, it's just a case of when. I'm certain that I complain too much.

So, time to turn my frown upside-down, and get a boner for poker again. Goal for the rest of the month is to turn a profit for February, not matter how small. Heck, even getting even would be a plus. Wish me luck

Ugh.

2010-02-15T16:50:00.000-08:00

So; In January I won... and in February I swung. This month has been ridiculous so far, and I'm only halfway through.

I've had my biggest ever losing day, biggest ever downswing, biggest ever winning day and more cooler hands than I care to remember, a large part of which I've been on the bad end of.

Whilst losing in itself is no bad thing - the decisions are what I should be worrying about, the rest is just variance - I'm coming round to the idea that things I'm trying to learn for higher stakes really don't apply at all to small stakes HU. Basically, in order to win you have to make a hand and then bet the shit out of it. Simple. At 200NL this wouldn't work though, which is the whole headasplode part.

The bit that really is getting me down is that I think it's making me worse at pokers. I feel like I'm playing my B/B+ most of the time, but I'm not sufficiently bankrolled to make money-neutral decisions. Gonna have to sit with Knox and discuss a way forward, and watch some videos. Positive affirmation is always so good for my game.

Gah, rant over. Sometimes I hate poker. Really hate it.

Time to sleep and come back fresh.

January Summary

2010-02-07T11:17:00.001-08:00

Hi all,

Been a little while since my last update, and with that gap the month has closed, so it's time for the obligatory summary post.

The month started slowly; as I mentioned in one of the older posts I had taken out all my poker monies during late November to fund 1. Christmas and 2. a return plane ticket from Miami. I deposited on Stars (with a reload bonus) and FTP and got going.

I had been reading Knox828's blog during December, and his outlook on poker resonated with me. I shot him a pm on Cardrunners and he agreed to coach me. I was actually very surprised about what he said during the first session review, and it made me much more excited to play poker. It's really quite pleasing during a session review to hear your coach say "if you check-raised here to x it would be awesome" and then when the video plays on a few more seconds I've done just as he said.

The positive affirmation of my habits drove me on, and with a little bit of rungood thrown in for good measure, I have had my best ever poker month and am feeling really optimistic about my poker experience. Obviously HU is EXTREMELY swingy, but I managed to avoid the worst of it and only had one losing session in the entire month. Clearly, this is not the norm, and the sample size is far from being conclusive, but nonetheless it stands to reason that I must be doing something right (providing I'm not a luckbox) if almost every time I play poker I end with more than I started with.

Going into February, I feel very good about poker, and am looking forward to playing as often as I can. January graph below (in ptbb/100).

So, for February, onwards and upwards.

To 3Bet, or not to 3Bet?

2010-01-26T04:13:00.000-08:00

Sup Yo, been a little while since I posted here.

Coaching with Knox828 has been going very well of late - he feels good about my game, which in turn has a positive correlation to how I'm feeling about it too, rather unsurprisingly. All of which leads me onto the title of this post; to 3Bet or not to 3Bet.

Basically, Konx828 gave me an exercise to do, which involved either 3Betting or folding in the BB - NO LIMPING. I had to record myself for 20 mins or so, and then we'd go over the carnage in the session. Before doing it, I was quite excited at the prospect; though I do 3Bet a reasonable amount, this exercise would take me well outside my comfort zone, which is where, for better or worse, the best learning takes place.

It actually took two attempts to get meaningful video - the first guy quit me after 20 hands. The second match was really quite interesting, as it turned out to be a hyper-aggressive game with 3 and 4Bets aplenty. I did run hot, which helped with gameflow - e.g. responding to villain's first 3Bet with one of my own (pocket 10's), which we played for stacks (he had AQo, I shipped the pot). After that I 3Bet KJs, and got stacks in again, (he had 77, I shipped the pot again).

It really was quite liberating tbh, the constant pressure had the guy on the back-foot the whole time and he was trying crazy things in an attempt to combat my monkey-ish tactics (at one point my 3Bet frequency was 50%). To exemplify the point, I 3Bet/5Bet shoved Aces late in the match, and he snap-called with K10o; luckily for him the flop came out KK5. Other times he would muck, and overall I finished the match up a buy-in or so.

I think I may do this again actually, of my own accord, as it is a very good exercise. I did learn about my game too, and feel that I've added a hyper-monkey-aggressive plank to my poker-ship.

In other news, I feel a revision to my 2010 goals is required - I'd like to half my hand goal for the year; based on me having a full-time job and a long-term girlfriend, 10,000 hands/month is really the max of what I can do I think. I'll strive to get more hands in, but I'm not going to go play just for the sake of it.

Also, I'll be taking a shot at 100NL in the very near future. Let's pray for run-good!

GL at the tables

PS Hand of the month so far is this one http://www.pokerhand.org/?5088852

I won on a Sunday! (kinda...)

2010-01-18T03:43:00.000-08:00

To clarify, I won a whopping $2.10, which is just a tad over four big blinds (basically break-even). However, I was quite pleased even with this modest sum given I was playing on a Sunday, and for some reason I always lose on a Sunday. (perhaps my luckbox gets reset for the rest of the week?)

Silliness aside, if I took all the Sunday sessions out of my results it would have a massive effect on my win-rate, and in fact I think I'm going to check this when I get home.

More to the point, I have come to the conclusion that 50NL is not really worth my time for much longer; I've been playing the bulk of my hands on PokerStars this year, and vs 85-90% of players we've been playing showdown poker. They play all of their hands, never fold, and make hand after hand - which is obviously a losing strategy (the first two parts anyway), but I'm not learning anything and it's costing me money in outrageous call-downs.

I'm all for losing pots if it gives me something to study so I can tighten up my game in the future, it's just frustrating I guess. Anyway, I'm not getting downbeat about the whole thing, there are things to be happy about; my B and C games are getting better from the bottom-up, and in general I feel very confident about my overall game.

I'm halfway through the month, and so far I've played more hands than I did in the last three months of 2009, and with the exception of last Sunday (ldo) I'm also having my best month. In conclusion, dilligence > apathy.

First session with knox828

2010-01-11T15:56:00.000-08:00

Well, I've just finished my first session with knox828, and it went rather well!

Before I get into it, I need to make one thing clear. For the tens of you who may read this, I can't stress enough the importance of having someone (or a group of people if possible) to talk about poker with. Watching videos on training sites is one thing, but it's not enough to blindly follow what Phil Galfond or David Benefield says you should; without understanding the reason, it's impossible to implement the strategy properly. As Dog Is Head says in his inspirational series "Dog is heads up", hammering two bits of wood together doesn't make you a shipbuilder - you have to think of the context, the schema, the purpose in order to have direction in your actions.

Now, after that blurb, a mini-review. With a few notable massacred hands (which we resolved were no big deal as I knew where I massacred them) he was seemingly quite pleased with my play overall, in fact saying that with the right game selection I could probably beat 200NL now. Very encouraging stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. However, as susceptible to flattery as I am, I daren't get carried away - I will continue to work hard at my game, stay within my bankroll limits and build a sturdy ship, ready for midstakes and beyond. lol Ivey Thunderdome.

Plus, it has given me further resolve to actually sit down and play more poker, rather than watch replays of the Weber Cup bowling on Sky Sports (not that there's anything wrong with that) or play Championship Manager for hours and hours. It's only January - small sample size I know - but I think 2010 will be a good poker year for me...

... aaaaaaaaand commence insane run-bad.

In Poker, no one folds.

2010-01-10T18:07:00.001-08:00

Ever.

That is all.

50NL = EZ Game???

2010-01-06T05:30:00.001-08:00

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5051307

Weird...

I gots my FTP back :)

2010-01-03T08:28:00.000-08:00

Huzzah and hurrah - I only had to wait a week for them to reply.

To cut a long story short, FTP went down for a few hours at the end of the year, and ever since then I've been locked out of my account, for apparently no reason. I've just got an email saying my account has been re-opened, but without a reason as to why I was shut out.

Stars support >> FTP support.

2010 - onwards and upwards

2010-01-02T11:48:00.000-08:00

Hello again Internet, Happy New Year!

In short, 2009 came and went rather quickly; I hardly accomplished any of my goals, poker or otherwise last year. Plus, after the Miami debacle I ended up taking December off completely.

However, new decade, new goals, new resolve. I'm aiming high for most of these given how much I can play with a full-time job, but I am determined to succeed.

Play 120,000 hands in the year (20,000 per month) minimum
Move up to 200NL by close of year
By my own house
Begin a Masters-level qualification
Spend a lot of time improving my hand-reading (my biggest leak imo)
Talk to a lot more people about poker - discuss hands etc. with people other than my coach
Go back to Vegas

Let's hope that whilst they're optimistic goals, I can still accomplish them.

Party in the City where the heat is on...

2009-12-03T06:51:00.000-08:00

Hmm, where to begin. Last week, I left the damp and overcast shores of the UK for Miami, and had a great time. (There's really nothing like sunshine and cocktails to cure what ails ya). I was with my girlfriend, ldo, and we basically mooched around for a week on Miami Beach, did a bit of shopping, ate some delicious food, and didn't get shot once.

However, we ran into some trouble when we were coming back - basically my girlfriend's mum works for an airline, and as such we got a staff travel ticket, which enables us to fly as a "standby" passenger on the plane. Normally this isn't a problem as flights are rarely sold out and you can even get a pretty nice seat... but our return flight wasn't as problem free. We didn't get on our intended flight and I had to buy a full price one-way ticket back to London, which I had to pay using a hefty chunk out of my bankroll. Ugh. So, it seems that poker opportunities will be limited in December as I try to find spare monies to rebuild my bankroll. This is a big shame as I was about to move up to 100NL, but I suppose that will have to wait until the new year. SwongsR1thing I guess. Plus I have a cold now, and as such require a lot of sympathy.

However, it does give me some time to re-evaluate my poker goals as we move into the new year, and I'll update this in the near future with a list of my intentions.

I'll also post November results, but they're about as spectacular as October's, i.e. not very, but +ve.

Until then, good luck at the tables!

Red Bull and Sims 3?

2009-11-16T14:33:00.000-08:00

Hmm, where to start... I have come to the conclusion that online poker is a bit of grind. And by "bit" I mean a fuckload, ldo. Especially heads-up pokers, where riding the variance (both mentally and physically) is probably the single most important aspect of the game.

Play of late has involved me dodging various villains as they make nut hand after nut hand, which is frustrating to say the least (thank Jebus I'm only at 50NL, most people couldn't bet their way out of a paper bag). However, despite the frustration, I have been able to lose the minimum the majority of the time, which means that on the odd occasion when I do actually have a hand to value-bet I can recoup the losses pleasingly quickly.

Also, I finally understand the idea that you can play well even though you have lost monies. So I'm either getting good at 50NL or just improving at clicking buttons.

PS: This has been quite a smug post, they won't all be like this.

The Unbearable Lightness of Ballering

2009-11-13T02:35:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

Just a quick update - since I've started this blog there's been a ton of other stuff going on outside of poker so volume is a little down on where I'd like it to be. (However, my girlfriend has recently got a new laptop for her birthday so she won't be stealing mine anymore, definitely +EV).

Work has been pretty hectic, so it's put me in a bad state of mind to play once I get home (which, as Tommy Angelo would say, is a form of "Wrong Thinking") but even so, I've managed to squeeze in a session with my coach which was very fruitful. It's really amazing how just one other person's perspective can have such a revelatory effect on your game, but that's what I pay him for I guess!

I'll update my stats once I get home, but essentially 1k hands into the month I'm up the princley sum of $10 or so. Ship it holla. What a baller I am.

Stay tuned, one day you can be as rich as me.

Thanks,

Nick

Business Time

2009-11-04T04:16:00.000-08:00

So, to bidness.

Hello Internet, I hope to bore you with the tails of my poker sessions for the forseeable future (plus a little bit of extra stuff if relevant).

In any case, my name is Nick and I'm getting to grips with heads-up poker online. I'll post results, targets, hand histories and the like as I play more and more.

October was a bit of a wash for me, I barely played and as such my results are kinda meaningless. However, they were positive, which is at least something. November will be much better in terms of volume, so hopefully I can get a head of steam and leave 50NL in the very near future. There are still a number of leaks in my game, and I'll be going through those with my coach periodically. Hopefully I'll make some good progress!

October results are as follows:

That's all for now!