Grinding my way out.

Took a shot at 10nl, like I said I would. I dropped 5 buyins, leaving my bankroll at about $150. So I decided to grind out 2nl and 5nl to get back to $200. The main change I did was changing from 6-max to full ring, and just nitting it up, and table selecting as best as I can. So I grinded it out for about 15000 hands and made my money back. The corresponding graph for this is seen below.

I think I was playing scared at 10nl, and playing too weak, slowplaying when I should have been value betting, and bet/3b jamming, when in hindsight, I should have been bet/folding. Playing 16-24 tables of 2 or 5nl eliminates my ego from the equation, and I just make as many profitable decisions as I know.

Regarding moving up in stakes, instead of taking another shot immediately, I will keep grinding 2nl and 5nl until I reach $300, then start with 2 tables at 10nl, and keep doing what I was doing. I don't imagine 10nl will be significantly harder to beat, but I just have to remove my fear of losing.

I have also signed up for a 3 month subscription to GrinderSchool.com. I will watch their videos and try to learn new things. Maybe one day, I can make some real money.

A little milestone for me.

I managed to double my bankroll in just over a month. I am proud of the progress I have made with my mental game, and have been tilting significantly less.

My results graph in big blinds

I had eliminated any hands from my database from when I was donking off chips in a tilt-fueled rage. The first 20,000 hands above were from a stint at 2nl where I was clearly not giving enough respect to flop and turn raises. Luckily, I stopped fucking around and managed to break even in that stretch. Afterwards, I moved back to 5nl, since I still had a sufficient bankroll for that level. I always kept in mind that the game does not owe me anything. I have made some folds that I would never had made if I wasn't actually thinking about the game.

I am feeling more confident, and more capable than ever. I will continue playing 5nl as well as trying to make a transition into 10nl by adding a table or two as I go along.

Wish me luck!

A clear mind.

When I am feeling well, I don't take anything too personally. I can put half of my stack in the middle, and fold on the river, knowing I am beat, and feel good about it. I have been able to see when value betting middle pair is okay. Maybe it is because I was using a different laptop for a few days, not having my HUD available, and as a result, was forced to actually pay attention to the tables I was at, rather than just waiting for stats to converge. I guess there is merit in datamining, as long as you know what to do with the data, but I think the last several days have shown me that I do actually know what I am doing.

Except on Black Chip Poker, where I have been doing terrible. Really low traffic on that site, low number of tables available. I get bored very quickly and start doing stupid shit like opening 53o UTG. I am down to 67USD from an initial deposit of 100USD. With BCP and PS, I am slightly up overall.

I will try to apply some Leatherass wisdom, and spend 1 hour reading for every 4 hours played. Gotta spend time studying, but not so much that you don't even play much. Gotta play to actually win anything.

Wish me luck.

Terrible

I am such a bad poker player some days. I cannot 24-table. Why do I keep trying to do that? Sigh. I cleared a VPP bonus, so I am now at about $123.93. If you consider that I have cleared 2 $10 bonuses, I have only really won $3.93 from actually playing poker. My progress has been painfully slow, and for that, I am ashamed.

Perhaps I have not improved my tilt. I just pretended I did. They say fake it until you make it. That may not be enough in this case.

Adjustments to be made.

Lately, I have been trying to do more table selection, and adding on to my stack if a fish at the table manages to get a stack of 150bb or more. This led to some small successes, but some large losses too.

I also recently signed up for Black Chip Poker, where they have 27% rakeback. I don't know if that is a good amount of rakeback, but I have never had it before, so I was a little excited about it. Anyway, I was being a little cheeky and decided to play a little bit of 25nl, and lost my temper on a fella who 3bet my CO steals 3 orbits in a row. I called a 3bet of his with KJs, and shoved his cbet with TPGK. He flipped over AJs; and held up to the river. I left the table immediately.

I am reminded of one of my classmates from Brock University, who would study like crazy, and when the results of a test were not perfect, he felt like he was being cheated; that he was entitled to 100% because he struggled so hard. I guess I have the same problem; thinking that because I spend so much time reading and studying poker, that I should be crushing the games. What you end up with is me double barreling a 4-flush board with two black aces, and shoving over a turn raise from a loose-passive player. And I wonder why right now I am breaking even.

I will adjust to playing pseudo-static opening and 3bet ranges, and no deep stacking at 5NL until I have a 50BI bankroll (250USD). Deep stacking at 2NL is acceptable.

Anyway, I have a presentation to prepare and a midterm to study for.

Wish me luck.

Soul-reading and Survivor's Tilt

This afternoon, as I waited patiently for my roommate to finish at the school's gym so we could drive home, I decided to play some poker instead of finishing the work I was meant to do. I came across a situation, and my line of thinking ended up being correct, and I feel like I had made the correct play on the flop. Preflop, probably not so much.

PokerStars Hand #107777176640:  Hold'em No Limit ($0.02/$0.05 USD) - 2013/11/29 16:37:49 ET
Table 'Terebellum' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: MP ($5.28 in chips)
Seat 2: CO ($7.21 in chips)
Seat 3: BU ($8.27 in chips)
Seat 4: SB ($8 in chips)
Seat 5: BB ($5.04 in chips)
Seat 6: Hero (UTG) ($5 in chips)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Sakrilege [7h 7d]
Sakrilege: raises $0.10 to $0.15
MP: calls $0.15
CO: folds
BU: raises $0.49 to $0.64
SB: folds
BB: folds

His bet sizing here, especially since he is IP, says to me that he prefers a fold to his squeeze. I could perhaps give him a range of AQo+,AQs+, maybe some random suited connectors. To be honest, I thought he had AK. I only say that, because I would do the same thing in the same position.  So I call to re-evaluate.

Hero calls $0.49
MP: folds
*** FLOP *** [6d Tc Js]
HERO checks
BU bets $1.02

I am still assuming that villain is holding AK, so on this board, I am technically still ahead. I personally think he is capable of folding unimproved, so I decide to check shove.

Hero raises $3.34 to $4.36 and is all-in
BU calls $3.34
*** TURN *** [6d Tc Js] [9s]
*** RIVER *** [6d Tc Js 9s] [8c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Sakrilege: shows [7h 7d] (a straight, Seven to Jack)
IGotThisOne9: shows [Ac Kc] (high card Ace)
Sakrilege collected $9.80 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $10.22 | Rake $0.42

Turns out I had been right. He was exactly holding AK. Regardless of how the hand turned out, I feel pretty stupid for doing this. I made a move based on 1 possible holding in the villains real 3-bet range from the button. Maybe AQ. Even so, I have read enough poker literature and spent enough time on the forums to know that trying to read someone's exact hand is not useful. I did it anyway, and he proceeded to berate me in the chat box in a way that reminded me of Phil Hellmuth, saying that I'm a donk and that no one plays 77 that way, and so on and so forth. Maybe that's true. I guess I made a mistake. If I had lost the hand, I would feel bad in a completely different way, so there is no winning here.

"I don't have to make moves to win at these stakes." is something that I should be writing on a post-it and sticking to my monitor.

Anyway, I am sitting on $111.99, and I will keep at it.

Hee-haw.

Reformed tilt-box

From November 22nd to 25th, I tilted away about 9 buy ins, leaving my bankroll around 70 dollars; and suddenly, I wondered whether or not I had the emotional fortitude to continue. Maybe the first 2 buy-ins lost were due to bad luck, but the rest of them were just because I could not admit to myself that my emotions were getting in the way of my decision making. So I decided to work on my mental game; using Jared Tendler's The Mental Game of Poker as a guide. 

I have not finished the book yet, but it has been giving me some insight on recognizing my problems while playing and resolving them. I realized that I had been learning far too much about NL strategy and was trying to apply advanced ideas for situations that did not call for them; including light 3-betting, check raising draws, and double/triple barrel bluffing. At the stakes I play, this is essentially chipstack suicide. So I reverted back to a very standard ABC tight aggressive style, and I managed to dig my way out of my downswing. As of today, my bankroll sits at 103.28USD and I will keep at it.

Wish me luck.

Know thyself.

I was 20-tabling 5nl today, and I realized something was kinda odd about the way I was playing in comparison to when I only play 2-4 tables. I bluff more.

You would think with limited time to act, I would just play my hands for what they are, but for some reason, I was feeling the need to win pots by making opponents fold. This mindset is very unnecessary at these levels and is way -EV. I am not good enough to bluff people, and I am not consistent enough to play 20 tables at once. So I will have to limit my bluffs to semi-bluffs, and only play my comfortable amount of 2-4 tables.

I played in the early afternoon, and was up to about 130USD. For my 20-tabling session, I ran some very expensive bluffs. Bankroll is now at 116.20. 

I will continue on. Wish me luck.

A small update.

I have not been playing on Pokerstars like I had intended. Instead, I have been playing quite a bit on PartyPoker at the 50nl tables. As much as I would prefer to continue on Party, taking advantage of the very bad player pool there, I will play on Pokerstars exclusively.

As of today, my PS account stands at $114.56. I will continue at the 5nl tables and show some discipline as I go.

Expecting too much.

It has been only a few days since I started. I am up only 2 dollars or so, because I have already started doing things I know I shouldn't do. For example;

PokerStars Hand #106478675842:  Hold'em No Limit ($0.02/$0.05 USD) - 2013/11/03 19:57:06 ET

Table 'Chaldene II' 6-max Seat #2 is the button

HERO ($5 in chips) 

MP ($7.61 in chips) 

Hero posts small blind $0.02

BB: posts big blind $0.05

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to Hero [As Ah]

UTG folds

MP calls $0.05

2 folds

Hero raises $0.20 to $0.25

BB folds 

MP: calls $0.20

*** FLOP *** [Kc 4h 2d]

Hero bets $0.40

MP calls $0.40

*** TURN *** [Kc 4h 2d] [Qc]

Hero bets $0.95

MP raises $0.95 to $1.90

Hero raises $2.45 to $4.35 and is all-in

MP calls $2.45

*** RIVER *** [Kc 4h 2d Qc] [8s]

This player had open limped several hands in a row. This was the first real sign of aggression he had shown, and I decided to get stubborn.

There is no hand he would raise me on the turn that I beat; and yet I still raised all in. 

Why do I do this? Hands like AA are hands that show up so infrequently, that when they are dealt, you don't want to let them go. All the information given in the hand so far had shown me that I should fold a one pair hand on the turn, but I decided to stick my stack in the middle, with 18% equity at best (vs. KQ).

I will take a day off, so I won't tilt off another few buy-ins.

Patience is a virtue, and I have plenty of time.

An introduction

I have played a lot of microstakes (2-50NL) poker over the years, reading forum posts on 2+2, reading all of the old classic poker books. I have always taken my game seriously, and perhaps by posting in this blog, and by posting in the forums, I can further my game to a level where I can play at higher stakes and possibly make serious money someday.

I will begin with 100USD in my pokerstars account, where I play under the name "Sakrilege". I will play with a fairly disciplined bankroll strategy, starting at 5NL, and needing 20 buy-ins at the next stake level before taking a shot.

I will attempt to put in as much volume as possible that can be expected from a full-time college student.

Wish me luck.