Monlthly wrap up

Well, this was definately my best month ever, although I am still not overly happy with it. I started out like gang busters, well on pace for 1K in winnings, but alas the poker gods deemed it should not be so. Still, up to 800 in winnings (100 of that going to stakers), plus 200 in rakeback and 100 in iron man, plus how ever much I made off of my volume prop bets and other bonus money, means I will clear my first 4 digit month ever.

I also have around 7500 hands at 50NL with a 3BB win rate, which was every bit as important to me as making 1K. I'm still really picky about the tables I play on and a bit gun shy do to my rough patches there, plus it still feels like a crap load of money when I bluff off half a stack, but I getting there. Really glad I have spent over a year training myself to always think in terms of Big Blinds instead of actual money. It makes moving up a little less intimidating.

Also, I have improved upon my table selection methods. I went from yellow for all fish to pink for the mega fishies. Might sound trivial, but it keeps me from popping onto a table with only 1 fish to find out that fish is 21/11. I'm fine with that fish, but certainly not worth my time if I can get on a table with a 40ish and two 20ish's. Plus I am no longer dropping that 15% VPIP table with 7 nits and 1 whale. LOVE those tables.

I am hoping for a better February. Really wanting to increase my 50 volume. I'm starting to feel comfortable enough to want to play 50 on my own bank roll. Really liking the effect it has on my RB and on my Iron Man bonuses. Just so much easier to get those goals.

Also getting more involved in villan reviews. It's really starting to amaze me just how face up regs play. I mean I know I'm not reviewing studs here, but DAMN. Makes me feel a whole lot better about how often I fold overpairs/TPTK type hands. Only have 5 done so far, but of the 5 the only time I have seen one play a big pot with sub standard hands, and that player likes to flat 3 bets with QQ and check shove on low flops. Really helps get rid of that feeling of being run over.

So, for next month I would like to get 20K hands in at 50 and have poker winnings of 1K. Do a villan review each day, and get some solid coaching in. Hopefully I will get solidified at 50NL and finally run my Micro well.

Winding down the month

Well, I offically hate flush draws. The last 7 times I have gottin it in on the turn vs. a flush draw, guess what the river is? Fortunately all of these have been against shorter stacks, but I am getting sick of seeing it. On the other hand, I got paid off with quads, so it's not all bad.

Actually, this is turning out to be a really good month despite a lull last week. I am up 850ish in winnings (minus 125 to my stakers), so a 1K winning month is still a possability. Not likely with all I have going on this weekend, but that's all good.

I am also getting more and more comfortable with 50, up 5 buy ins this month and running really steady despite limited hands. I am actually running better at 50 than I am at 25. Better table selection has a lot to do with that.

Anyway, not much else going on. I have gotten a couple of invites to Vegas for June. It was really flattering. Still getting used to the idea that good players respect my game. One of the biggest downfalls of never getting into coaching/sweating/finding better poker players to associate with is that I have a somewhat distorted perception of players at my level. I have pulled so much money out of 25 at this point and I forget that this is not the norm. Most make the money and take shots, get more experience and move up. I probably have one of the longer sustained stretches of 25NL goodness. And really, most of it was just good. It's really only been the last 100Kish hands that I have been sick good.

Now if I can just figure out how to start out a session up instead of digging myself a hole...

Blah day, but realizations are more imporatant than 1 session

Well, my week started out like crap last night as I lost 5 stacks in 500 hands where villans hit draws in rediculous spots (capped by 68 calling a 3 bet OOP and hitting a straight on the river), but I was pretty happy with the session overall only being down 2 buy ins. I did wind up having to play rush poker (which I pretty much hate now and accounted for 4 of the suck outs) becuase my son didn't want to go to sleep and I was under a time crunch to get hands in for Iron Man. Just more reinforcement that I hate rush.

On another note, I had another moment of clarity. It took me a while to figure out that splitting levels means I have twice the number of juicy tables to choose from (which means table selection is much easier - which is especially important as I almost never get to play in prime times). But what about 6 max? One of the reasons I don't play much is that you have to rotate tables constantly to keep fish, and you have to pay close attention due to the wide ranges. But I do know of a place to get one or two tables that are 100% fish and stay that way (at 5NL). So I am going to be adding those into my standard table sets. Hopefully as I improve I can start adding 10 and 25NL as well. I will be using a pretty aggressive BRM with this (10 buy ins before adding the next level) and see how that goes.

Also, I finally did a villan review session with Nino last night. Let me just say wow. I have been doing it wrong. Took about an hour to go over a 50 reg. But now I know his game inside and out. His 3 bet ranges, open ranges, how he plays sets, flush draws - everything. What amazed me the most was just how exploitable this winning 50NL player is. I can't imagine not being able to soul crush him now. Very excited to start doing reviews on more of the players I see regularly and figuring out how to abuse them.

Weekend update

Well, this was a good weekend for me. Started out a bit rough when I dropped 80 on Thursday. I was really disappointed as 70 of it was at 50 in my backed shot. I really felt like I was just doomed to always lose at 50NL. The highlight was running QQ into quads on an AA6A board. Yup, that was the 3rd time in less than 10K hands that I ran into quads and paid them off.

Then Friday night came around and apparently my persistence was rewarded. Binked two 100 plus days, and last night I pulled in another 15 bucks. All that while running 70 ish below EV. I even managed to get up 3 and a half buy ins at 50 for the month. Here's hoping the doomswitch has been turned off. I still have a bit of MUBS there, but I'm getting better.

Starting to feel really confident though. So far this month I have 2 losing sessions (one 60 and one 90) while I have 3 sessions over 100 (and 2 over 150). This is a dramatic turn around from previous months, where my loosing sessions were much bigger than my winning sessions. Part of this is due to improvement, but a big shout out goes to El Nino for finding the key to my tilt. Missing value might not be as talked about as spew, but I have had a couple of sessions turn around this month when I closed my eyes and went for value despite the desire to get to take a lower variance route.

Which brings up a conundrum. El Nino is my coach. No doubt about that. While he hasn't transformed my game, he HAS improved it in so many ways and opened a bunch of doors for me. Much of my rather dramatic improvement can be directly attributed to him. But part of the stake I am getting is free coaching. If I had the time I would have no problem getting sessions from both. Nino's rates are retardedly reasonable compaired to the market for coaches. But for me, as always, it's an issue of time. I just can't afford to take 3 or 4 nights a month off of the tables. But I don't want to lose such a valuable resource.

And now some poker theory for you. Been noticing that a TON of players are instantly potting if you check as the PFA. I'm going to start taking notes on these players and start checking instead of C-betting in certain situations, to see how well that works out. Probably be pretty high variance, but I think there is a spot to increase EV that a lot of people are missing out on. I'm starting to think that with all of the aggression in today's game, you need to look for spots (and I don't mean all the time - but as the occasional curve ball) to take a passive line and hand out some rope. Going to be hard to get out of the value mentality and evaluate the situation before I throw out the value bet with TPTK. But I can't tell you how many times I was the insta pot bet when I checked as PFA.

Blah Blah

Well, last night was BIG PIMPIN! 3200 hands and I won 10bb's! TBH, I think I made a couple of bad river calls, but overall I felt like I was playing decent. Just never got much going. Still, so far this month I have been able to keep my bad sessions as small winners instead of 1-2 buy in losers, which has a LOT to do with why this month is looking so good.

It was also an odd day. I had a reg who had dropped down from higher limits start chatting with me. Basically told me to move up as I was wasting my time at 25. It was a nice confidence boost. It's been really interesting these last couple of months as there seem to be a lot more regs who respect my thought process/giving me encouragement to move up.

And on that note, I have decided to get staked for 50NL. I'm not going into the details of the arrangement, but I will go into the thought process for taking it.

At this point, I won't be able to take shots at 50 unless I have an amazing month. While it certainly looks possible this month (I am over 60% toward my monthly goal already!), one bad day could mean no shot this month. And as far as I can see that is how it will be for the forseable future. I am not in a situation where I can risk loosing a 50NL buy in or two taking shots. That's where the backing comes in. I have worked it out where under 50 is on my roll so that I can still maintain my income. This way I can take a shot at 50 and not have to worry about losing. If I can get it to stick (and I don't see any reason why I can't) then I increase my income. If I don't, then I don't hurt me or my family. So, I consider it an opportunity cost. I will probably lose a little bit in overall earnings due to the lower win rate at 50NL, in the long run it will help me by improving my game and by letting me get established at a higher limit.

The hidden benefits are also that it will make it easier to get my iron man bonus. It will make it possible for me to finally get my black card - which will open up cash bonuses and increase my bonus money. Plus some free coaching will definately be welcome! It will hopefully also establish a relationship that I can use later when I am ready for 100NL.

Oh, and as I will be playing 2 limits instead of 1, it should be much easier to keep up a full set of decent tables. The only real down side is that I probably won't be starting as many tables.

Weekend Update

Well, this was an intersting weekend. I got in a ton of poker, but each session was a trail. Friday and Sunday I started down two buy ins. Saturday I started down almost 4 buy ins. NOT how you want to be started sessions. But I ground out each of them, pulling a 3 buy in winning session on Friday, and just under a buy in on the other two days. Last night was particularly interesting as I lost 4 buy ins at PL (which is usually my better game) and won 5 at NL. I was pretty disappointed overall though. I really felt getting so many hands in at such prime time I would be able to get at least one 4 buy in session and really crank up this month. Sadly, it didn't happen.

On the plus side, I am still ahead of pace for a 1K month in winnings (not including bonus money!)

On the theory side, I think I have swung a bit to far into the large value bet realm. Part of this is probably results oriented thinking from running into 2 rivered 2 pairs/straight type things, but I think my river bets have been getting on the large side. Ah, the adjustments of a poker life.

Improvement and other fun things

Well, so far this month is going pretty smooth. I had one bad session where I played really poorly, costing myself a buy in with a couple of bad calls and generally not value betting well, but otherwise I am improving greatly. The coaching sessions are really paying off. It's not that I've really opened up my range, but I am getting so much more value in so many spots. A funny aspect to this is that while my overall variance has gone down, my short term swings are much greater. I have experienced several 4-5 buy in up swings and a few 2-4 buy in down swings already this month, with less than 5K hands in at 25NL. I still have a relatively low variance style compaired to many regs, but I'm am starting to see why so many regs are used to much bigger swings than I am used to.

Anyway, not much has changed in the last week. I am 1/4 of the way to my goal for the month already just from winnings. Hoping I can keep up the pace and be able to take another shot or two at 50 this month. At this point it has become a moral imperative that I get solidified in 50.

New year - New goals

Well, it's a new year. My end of the year didn't go so well. Took a big whot at 50 and got crushed. I really don't feel to bad about losing as it was cooler situation after cooler. I did learn a lot in those sessions, so it wasn't a total waste.
I was really hoping to get it to stick, as last month was my best shot at getting into 50NL.

So, for the foreseable future, I will be going for 1K in profits before I take a shot at 50NL. The bad news is that I have never made more than $700 in a month. The good news is I would have the last 2 months if I hadn't taken shots at 50. The other good news is that I am already over 20% of the way to my goal after having the best session of my life. I'm fairly confident that I will make my goal for the month as of right now.

I have also been experimenting with turbo table scanner(?). It's a great program that tracks fish. So far it has been amazing. It is great to start a session with 1 or two fish on each table and knowing I will only have to switch out 1 or two tables after I get started. Starting tables is still better, but now when I start up a session I have 8-9 good tables instead of 6-7. It's also nice to have a freind list and a whale list.

This new software has also gotten me back into 6 max. I have almost no database, but the ability to track fish at 6 max is just to juicy to pass up. In the past I have always hated how difficult it is to keep good tables up. Fish go broke and suddenly that juicy table is meh. Then your off to search again. But with the fish tracking tool finding good tables is suddenly easy. So I have been putting in some 5NL at the end of my FR sessions. I'm going to go for 10 buy ins at 5 and 10NL. Hoping to get to 25 by the end of the month (already up 7 at 5NL). So far I have done OK. I'm still overvaluing hands in certain situations (lost 2 buy ins in situations where I should have lost a third of a buy in instead) due to the aggression levels, which still seem retardedly high to me. But the higher win rate posabilities and better rewards are worth a shot.