Bink!

Title says it all really. I don't usually play the $16.50 2x Chance Turbo in the afternoon because I'll be at university or something equally time wasting, but I had a free afternoon and decided to give it a shot, and I won it!

I never had any huge suckouts, just a constant stream of getting it in good and holding, which in O8 isn't as easy as it sounds. When we got down to the final table, everyone was playing really tight so I took the opportunity to steal as many blinds as I could. Using my experience from turbo Sngs, I knew the importance of stealing from late position in order to pad your stack out, a concept the other players hadn't seemed to grasp. I feel it's more important to steal blinds in O8 because people aren't so aware about which hands to "shove" so the average stack is alot smaller than they usually are in NLHE turbo MTTs, in fact for most of the tournament I had between 3-5 BBs, almost nothing.

Just over $1.2k was amazing for my bankroll and hopefully now I can go on to playing higher stakes, I'd like to reg the $22 and $33 MTTs and also PL100, but seeming as the cash grind has been pretty terrible this month, it's going to take a long time relying on solely cash. Thankfully Sngs are also going well and I'm maintaining almost a 50% ROI in the $6.50s over a growing sample. I plan to stay at the $6.50s for quite a while as I've been told that the $16s are a massive reg fest, so I'd like to make a $1000 BR solely for them before I move up, which at this rate could be fairly soon. I feel my Sng and MTT play has got a lot better over the last few weeks but my cash play has rather stagnated, but I'm still working on it, so with luck the cash play will turn around soon.

Quite a bit has happened pokerwise since my last post so expect a few quickfire updates in the days to come. Later y'all.

WBCOOP

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: XXXXXX 400605

Little Update

So once again laziness and generic excuses prevented me from updating the blog regularly, but nevertheless, I'll give you guys a bit of an update.

PLO8 SnGs are going well. HEM is telling me I'm crushing them with almost a 60% ROI, albeit over a fairly small sample. I haven't really put in a huge amount of volume, but it's been fun to mix them into my regular grind as a way of making sure poker doesn't become stale for me. I'm looking to make around $600 profit at the $6.50 level before I move up to the $16s, but obviously this is going to be a long term goal as I'm not playing a huge amount. Bankroll wise it wouldn't be a problem for me to jump into the $16s but I'd like to confirm to myself that I can beat the $6s with no trouble.

I've had a bit more of an urge to play some NLHE, so most of my volume this week has been at the $2/180s. I went on a bit of a heater at the end of last week and it has partially carried on to this week and at this rate I could be rolled for the 12s within another 3-400 SnGs. My short term goal is to play 200 of these SnGs this week as this means I would qualify for the weekly competition we have within my staking stable. It's only a bit of fun but the winner gets 6 free $12 shots, so it's worth my while to put in a bit of volume, besides to obvious incentive of getting to reg the $12s faster. Strangely though, the standard of the $2s has been pretty bad this week, made even strange due to the fact MTTc is having a $2/180 competition this week and many top $12 grinders are taking part. Brumberland, a grinder, is putting on a real master class. In the first 3 days he put in almost 400 SnGs for a total profit of more than $1.1k, pretty sick. 4 grinders from my stable took part, but all had losing days to begin with and considering Brumberland's complete ownage, decided it wasn't worth carrying on. Good effort though lads.

As far as PLO8 cash is concerned, I had a good chat with a mate about the benefits of shortstacking NLO8. I knew my knowledge of the game was pretty poor but I didn't realise how poor it really was. After a brief lesson on what to do, and basically coming to terms with the fact that I was doing pretty much everything wrong, I decided to put what I'd learnt into action and so far it's been going pretty well. I've only put in 1k hands so far this week, but I've been early a very decent winrate and the VPP rate is not bad either. I won't put in a huge volume yet because HEM tells me I'm running pretty good and I can definitely see leaks in my game so it doesn't make sense to grind these hard until I feel comfortable.

After the poor start to my year it's been very nice to get back on track and even better to actually be in the black for this year. Looking back on where I was 2 weeks ago, I've actually made around $1k since that sickening downswing, so hopefully I can keep this rate up for the rest of the year.

I'll leave it at this for now. Little congrats to Fran for his nice run in the PCA side events and Dave for his small MTT score the other day. Also Max for his epic chop in the Sunday night HORSE. Lastly massive congrats to myself for taking down a $3 PL5CD MTT for $49 ;) Get in my son.

PLO8 SnGs

So I feel comfortable with PLO8 cash, and now I’m comfortable with NLHE SnGs. I didn’t really see why I couldn’t combine the two games, and profit. Although PLO8 doesn’t really have the player pool to play MTT Sngs, Pokerstars does indeed have a sufficient numbers to grind STTs and maintain a solid win rate. I’m not saying I’m looking to make them my bread and butter, but I feel it would be beneficial to add these games to my arsenal should I ever need a fall back.

I jumped straight into the $6.50 level with varying results. Although I felt that my cash game background was useful in knowing the basics of the game, it was definitely apparent that I was missing something vital if I were to beat the game consistently, so I turned to 2+2. Time and time again, this uber useful resource has been a goldmine of knowledge and advice. I read a ton of posts on STT game play, especially the turbo form which is more popular on Stars, and I learnt quite a bit on early level strategy, specifically how tight and passive I should play in the early levels, for example, limping premium hands in position then playing them slowly if I hit the flop in order to build a pot for later streets. It then struck me, that through the contacts I had made on the site, I was on good terms with some excellent Sng grinders who had crushed the $16 level and beyond. It would have been foolish of me not to have asked for advice.

Angribob came back to me with some premium strategy on pretty much all aspects of the game. I’d like to thank him for the long post he wrote for me and no doubt the time and effort he put into jotting down his thoughts on (virtual) paper. One of the funnier things he mentioned was that he believed most players at thee $6.50 were droolers, hell bent on getting their money in the middle with less than premium holdings. I’d always worked on the principle that all players are solid until proven otherwise, I believed this was the best way to go around cash games as it meant I didn’t lose a lot of money to the better players before I’d properly analysed their game. However, the more Sngs I play, the more I’ve come to see how right he is. The players in the games are unbelievably bad, even the regs. They’d either bust out in the first 2 levels by making absurd plays with for example, top pair on a low board and frequently calling 3 bets with middling cards or they’d play ridiculously tight, even in the latter stages where more often than not they had less than 10 big blinds. Some of what I’d considered previously to be the better regs turned out to be so predictably weak/tight when the blinds got steeper, that I could abuse them effortlessly.

Like I said before, I’m not planning on playing these games for a living, but while the games are this soft, it would be a good idea to steal some dead money now and again, and it makes poker less of a grind if I’m not constantly playing the same games.

That’s it for another Grim rant about a subject no one other than myself cares about. If anyone reading this suddenly gets the urge to play a Sng or 2, look out for me and we’ll have a bit of banter at the table. Later y’all.

Small update

It’s been a pretty rotten start to the year as far as cash games are concerned. I’m having my worst month ever and I literally had only played for around 4 days. Those few days though were enough to get me stuck close to $800. If I were to take any positives out of those monstrous losses, it would be that I managed to put in well over 6000 hands, which at least shows that I have the ability to grind hard should I need to. For the time being, however, I do not think it is a good decision to keep on playing, as I would definitely destroy my bankroll. Sometimes you have to make the smart decision and take a step back, even if it makes my Supernova grind a hell of a lot more difficult.

But, being the degen that I am, I couldn’t step away from poker all together. I decided to put in some time on my NLHE Sng game. I am still staked for these, and receiving free coaching from one of the best 180 turbo grinders out there, not sure if it’s my place to put his name out there but if any of the turbo grinders are reading it, they can probably guess who it is. He had put a lot of faith in me, even though I had not put in anywhere near enough volume, and had already taken a reload off him. Thankfully, the time off from O8 had renewed my interest in NLHE and it’s been a pretty profitable few days. Although I’m still not able to put in the same amount of volume as the other grinders in the stable, I still managed to hit around 150 Sngs for the week, and made a not too shabby profit of $300 which keeps me solidly out of makeup and around halfway to my goal of attaining a bankroll large enough to take a shot at the 12s. The upshot of this is that it makes the time I take away from O8 cash not too detrimental to my Supernova chase. At 5VPPs per Sng at the 12s. I could still knock out around 1000 VPPs per week which doesn’t quite get me to Supernova, but means that I earn a half decent rate away from cash games.

The 2s have been super soft recently. I don’t claim to be a Sng superstar, but I can definitely see a skill edge forming over the field, which honestly given the training provided to me should be apparent by now. My goal by the end of the month is to finish with the 2s and take my first 12s shot. I will start playing O8 cash again, but sparingly and perhaps take a step back from my usual volume. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had moved down from PL50 to PL25 because of the hit my BR took, and I’m going to stay there until I can prove to myself that I am a winner at the level. The more I look back at those hectic few days, the more I feel I tilted unnecessarily, and lost way more money than I can put down to variance. It’s a weakness I thought I didn’t have but as my database is quite clearly telling me, it does exist. Right now I am reading articles on how to deal with tilt and speaking with other players who experienced the same thing.

That’s all for now folks, I’ll be writing another post tomorrow. See y’all at the tables!

And the downswing continues

So I wrote the last post almost 24 hours ago, and in that time period I managed to lose another $300 :( I've moved down to PL25 in an attempt to stop the rot but that doesn't seemed to have done the job. Although I have to admit, I didn't feel like I was playing my best, mainly because I have less respect for the money which is a huge leak in my opinion.

I'm a bit disheartened at the moment but I know I have to keep playing through the pain, because a downswing doesn't last forever. I'll be back on my feet in no time. I'm still well enough rolled to comfortably play PL25, and with 4k hands logged in the past 2 days, my love of grinding is well and truly back.

I hope everyone else is having a better start to 2011 than I am!

New Year Post

Happy New Years all. Once again I have failed miserably in my attempt to keep this blog updated, so badly in fact that December is actually empty. It’s not that the urge to write isn’t there, I certainly will still express my opinions on various subjects and I still believe that my keeping a blog I can only improve my game, it’s just that I’ve been stretched for time. The holidays are a very busy time for a student living away from home, busier in fact than term time. One has to do the obligatory visits to every friend who’s been left behind, which in Portsmouth is pretty much the whole lot, while also paying enough attention to the family, which is easier said than done. Anyway, enough of this nonsense, how about I talk about actual poker.

So, as I may or may not have mentioned in earlier posts, I’m aiming for Supernova this year. From what I can estimate, it would take me roughly 300k hands to reach this goal, assuming I don’t move up in stakes for the year, which is also a goal of mine. This relates roughly to 30k hands per month as I believe it is better for me to stay ahead of pace. Once again I will make an attempt to keep this blog updated with how far along I am at regular intervals.

It’s January 3^rd now, and although I haven’t put in a long session yet due to New Year commitments, I have logged 1.5k hands, but unfortunately I lost $300 in the process. It’s a bit disheartening to start the New Year off so badly, but it’s important to keep in mind that downswings do happen, and through hard work and discipline, I can make the money back in no time. I need to keep working on my game, review hand histories and get as much advice as I can from better players.

I’ll leave it at this for now, but I will be writing more soon. Good luck for the year all, but not too much if you’re playing PL50 ;)