The last few days have been a right pain in the ass…
I started playing on a crypto skin a few weeks ago mostly because of another project I have going on, but also so that I could see what the standard of play is like. Anyway, the deal is that you have to amass 1000 player points in a month to earn 30% rakeback –normally not a problem, but I’ve been playing Stars too and didn’t really keep an eye on it. This all meant that two days ago I still had to get 350 points to get the rakeback!
I must admit, I almost give up yesterday after 3 hours. But I did hang in there and got 6 hours in (almost impossible for me in cash games). I was actually surprised how quickly I got the rest of the way there today. But it’s done now – I did it! Phew.
I’ve been writing a piece on 4-betting this week. It’s almost done so will post it up soon.
Right, I’m taking the weekend off now…except the tournament on Sunday of course.
Friday, 30 November 2007
Saturday, 24 November 2007
A quick update…
As you can see from my previous post I ran quite badly the week before last. This prompted a break last weekend, which was good but kind of slowed me down. Other than one live tournament last Sunday I didn’t play at all from Saturday through Monday. I did play the rest of the week – running quite good again – but probably only half as many hands as usual.
I’ve been playing on a few different sites too. The change is really good again but I do miss 100+ hands per table/hr. This week I’ve only averaged 80 hands per table/hr and on that particular site (crypto skin) I can only 4-table. I don’t really mind 4-tabling as oppose 6 or so on Stars; the good thing is that at those hand rates – and only 4-tabling – I feel like I have all the time in the world to think about my decisions! Overall that will make me a much better player.
Today was pretty much a relaxation too; I’ve been to the gym and then spent all afternoon watching the darts on TV. I have a few things to do now, and then I think it’s the local for a few drinks with a bud.
Sundays are fun…I see some of the family for Sunday lunch and then it’s off to the Casino for the tournament. It’s the only live tournament I play these days, but the structure is great. Typically there’s around 8K in the pot and about £2,500 for first.
Wish me luck!
I’ve been playing on a few different sites too. The change is really good again but I do miss 100+ hands per table/hr. This week I’ve only averaged 80 hands per table/hr and on that particular site (crypto skin) I can only 4-table. I don’t really mind 4-tabling as oppose 6 or so on Stars; the good thing is that at those hand rates – and only 4-tabling – I feel like I have all the time in the world to think about my decisions! Overall that will make me a much better player.
Today was pretty much a relaxation too; I’ve been to the gym and then spent all afternoon watching the darts on TV. I have a few things to do now, and then I think it’s the local for a few drinks with a bud.
Sundays are fun…I see some of the family for Sunday lunch and then it’s off to the Casino for the tournament. It’s the only live tournament I play these days, but the structure is great. Typically there’s around 8K in the pot and about £2,500 for first.
Wish me luck!
Friday, 16 November 2007
I want to be lucky!
So far November is going well, but the last few days have been a little swingy. I haven’t been feeling so good either whenever I get my money in. I have to change that feeling though – I want to expect to WIN my all-ins and no expect to LOSE them. I guess that just happens when you feel that you’re running bad.
Anyway, just to confirm my instinct I had to run my hands this month through Poker EV to see how well I’ve run in these all-in situations.
So yeah, my all-in luck sucks so far this month!
A lot can still happen yet, so I’m just riding it out.
Later, TB
Anyway, just to confirm my instinct I had to run my hands this month through Poker EV to see how well I’ve run in these all-in situations.
So yeah, my all-in luck sucks so far this month!
A lot can still happen yet, so I’m just riding it out.
Later, TB
Monday, 12 November 2007
Got Unstuck
So I’ve not played much online this weekend. That was the plan anyway – grind, grind, grind Monday to Friday and relax some at the weekend.
So what did I do to relax? Well, I played some live poker of course!
Saturday night started out well – up a few buy-ins in the first half hour! Then the following hand came up (1-2PL):
I have AQ of clubs in middle position and raise the pot to £13 (three limpers in front of me). Drunken guy on my left re-raises to £26 – he has about £250 behind and I have him covered. Now there’s no reason to put this guy on a really big hand since he’s been talking some trash and I know he’s coming after me. So I just call and see the flop:
Q – 5 – 2 two diamonds.
Perfect.
I check to let him bet. Sure enough he ‘pots’ it - £61. Now I’m pretty comfortable with my hand in this spot against such an opponent, but just be sure I tank it up for a minute to see if I can get a read. The guy is staring me down so badly! I mean I look at him and he looks back even harder. Under the table his legs are shaking. The guy is drunk too, so all of this could mean nothing. I think about just calling for a second and checking the turn, but my call will look strong and I hate giving free cards. Then again, if he has any sort of hand at all, he’s not laying it down. The SPR (stack-to-pot ratio) is just over 3 – plenty enough for top pair/top kicker against this opponent. So I raise all-in for his other 190 pounds and he snap calls! I turn over AQ and he turns over JJ. Wow! Early Christmas! Well it was until the dealer flipped the turn card…another jack and he takes down the £560 pot!
That was just the start. A few coolers later and I’m down a few buy-ins or so. Normally I wouldn’t mind so much, but the game was REALLY good and I was desperate to take advantage of that; especially since I was down from my last live session too. I even changed seat to have position on the drunken fish that two-outed me. And remember: he’s sitting with almost £600 now! He wasn’t the only one either; there were a whole group of them and they’d each turned their initial £50 buy-in into a few hundred!
After one of them cracked my pocket kings with 67 off-suit he actually got up and left! Good for him really – it was his first time in a casino and probably his first time playing poker. The knock on effect, however, was all the ‘hit and run’ banter. This caused Mr. Jack-Jack to start playing scared money – he really didn’t want to lose his winnings, and especially not to me as now I was back to about £500 pounds again and sitting directly to his left. I was in almost all of his pots and stole about £200 back from him due to his new weak-tight nature.
Finally they all left; most of them still up a few quid. I was about to go home too – about 100 pounds down – until I noticed the 5-5 game was only 4-handed. As an added bonus there were two live ones, one weak-tight regular, and only one decent player. Needless to say – I was in.
We only got to play for about 45 minutes until the game broke, but I did manage to run them over for a few hundred quid. I ended up finishing +£115 for the night. Phew.
After that, I’ll not even bother explaining what happened today. But I did play the tournament. And I did bust out to runner-runner flush…again.
It’s Monday tomorrow – back to the grind.
So what did I do to relax? Well, I played some live poker of course!
Saturday night started out well – up a few buy-ins in the first half hour! Then the following hand came up (1-2PL):
I have AQ of clubs in middle position and raise the pot to £13 (three limpers in front of me). Drunken guy on my left re-raises to £26 – he has about £250 behind and I have him covered. Now there’s no reason to put this guy on a really big hand since he’s been talking some trash and I know he’s coming after me. So I just call and see the flop:
Q – 5 – 2 two diamonds.
Perfect.
I check to let him bet. Sure enough he ‘pots’ it - £61. Now I’m pretty comfortable with my hand in this spot against such an opponent, but just be sure I tank it up for a minute to see if I can get a read. The guy is staring me down so badly! I mean I look at him and he looks back even harder. Under the table his legs are shaking. The guy is drunk too, so all of this could mean nothing. I think about just calling for a second and checking the turn, but my call will look strong and I hate giving free cards. Then again, if he has any sort of hand at all, he’s not laying it down. The SPR (stack-to-pot ratio) is just over 3 – plenty enough for top pair/top kicker against this opponent. So I raise all-in for his other 190 pounds and he snap calls! I turn over AQ and he turns over JJ. Wow! Early Christmas! Well it was until the dealer flipped the turn card…another jack and he takes down the £560 pot!
That was just the start. A few coolers later and I’m down a few buy-ins or so. Normally I wouldn’t mind so much, but the game was REALLY good and I was desperate to take advantage of that; especially since I was down from my last live session too. I even changed seat to have position on the drunken fish that two-outed me. And remember: he’s sitting with almost £600 now! He wasn’t the only one either; there were a whole group of them and they’d each turned their initial £50 buy-in into a few hundred!
After one of them cracked my pocket kings with 67 off-suit he actually got up and left! Good for him really – it was his first time in a casino and probably his first time playing poker. The knock on effect, however, was all the ‘hit and run’ banter. This caused Mr. Jack-Jack to start playing scared money – he really didn’t want to lose his winnings, and especially not to me as now I was back to about £500 pounds again and sitting directly to his left. I was in almost all of his pots and stole about £200 back from him due to his new weak-tight nature.
Finally they all left; most of them still up a few quid. I was about to go home too – about 100 pounds down – until I noticed the 5-5 game was only 4-handed. As an added bonus there were two live ones, one weak-tight regular, and only one decent player. Needless to say – I was in.
We only got to play for about 45 minutes until the game broke, but I did manage to run them over for a few hundred quid. I ended up finishing +£115 for the night. Phew.
After that, I’ll not even bother explaining what happened today. But I did play the tournament. And I did bust out to runner-runner flush…again.
It’s Monday tomorrow – back to the grind.
Friday, 9 November 2007
Finding leaks and changing style
So after moving to Stars last month I really started looking at certain aspects of my game.
Gradually, throughout October, I realised that certain things had to change – finding leaks in your own game can be a very difficult task indeed. I enlisted the help of a coach too; although so far I’ve only taken one lesson.
See Poker Stars has quite a different style of player compared to the Ongame network. Generally, I’ve found the typical Poker Stars player a lot more tight-aggressive then the looser/ laggier players at Ongame. Of course, Ongame is only 5-max…compared to 6-max at Stars. I think the other factor, however, is that a lot more players multi-table at Stars, and at a lot more tables too.
So I guess that’s why Ongame is generally viewed as having some the softest games available, whereas Poker Stars have some of the toughest – I don’t think so.
The games are very different. Yes. But it’s how you approach the games and plan to beat them that make the difference: At Ongame I became tighter and tighter – going from a 26/22 player to 19/16 or so. At Stars exactly the opposite is happening!
I think that’s why I enjoy Stars a lot more: I much prefer a LAG style to a TAG.
Anyway, since making various changes to my game and identifying some leaks, I’ve so far dramatically improved my win rate. It could just be a heater, but I know how hard I’ve worked and how much I’ve changed!
Let’s just wait until the end of the month…
Gradually, throughout October, I realised that certain things had to change – finding leaks in your own game can be a very difficult task indeed. I enlisted the help of a coach too; although so far I’ve only taken one lesson.
See Poker Stars has quite a different style of player compared to the Ongame network. Generally, I’ve found the typical Poker Stars player a lot more tight-aggressive then the looser/ laggier players at Ongame. Of course, Ongame is only 5-max…compared to 6-max at Stars. I think the other factor, however, is that a lot more players multi-table at Stars, and at a lot more tables too.
So I guess that’s why Ongame is generally viewed as having some the softest games available, whereas Poker Stars have some of the toughest – I don’t think so.
The games are very different. Yes. But it’s how you approach the games and plan to beat them that make the difference: At Ongame I became tighter and tighter – going from a 26/22 player to 19/16 or so. At Stars exactly the opposite is happening!
I think that’s why I enjoy Stars a lot more: I much prefer a LAG style to a TAG.
Anyway, since making various changes to my game and identifying some leaks, I’ve so far dramatically improved my win rate. It could just be a heater, but I know how hard I’ve worked and how much I’ve changed!
Let’s just wait until the end of the month…
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
Let’s get blogging!
I haven’t blogged for November yet, so here we go…
So far though, poker is going well.
I couldn’t tell you if I’m up or down for the month yet because I’m trying not to be too results orientated. Short term results mean nothing anyway - if anything paying too much attention to them can only hurt your confidence…If you’re running bad that is.
I’ve played over 5K hands this month and still plan on getting another 500 to 1000 more in today. I really need to work hard on these Mondays to Fridays so that I can relax a bit on the weekends. I prefer to grind 4 hours a day, 5 times a week; than 3 hours a day, 7 times a week. It’s still my goal to get around 40K hands this month.
So I played live last night too. Sure enough it was my turn for the ass whipping! That’s okay…it’s about time anyway. I try my best to keep the fish happy too. After all, it’s what keeps them coming back!
I’ll be posting some more shortly I hope. I plan on writing a few essays this month too. I mean it’s about time I completed part 3 of the SPR stuff! Now’s a good time though. I’m looking forward to going over it again and putting all my thoughts together in writing.
So far though, poker is going well.
I couldn’t tell you if I’m up or down for the month yet because I’m trying not to be too results orientated. Short term results mean nothing anyway - if anything paying too much attention to them can only hurt your confidence…If you’re running bad that is.
I’ve played over 5K hands this month and still plan on getting another 500 to 1000 more in today. I really need to work hard on these Mondays to Fridays so that I can relax a bit on the weekends. I prefer to grind 4 hours a day, 5 times a week; than 3 hours a day, 7 times a week. It’s still my goal to get around 40K hands this month.
So I played live last night too. Sure enough it was my turn for the ass whipping! That’s okay…it’s about time anyway. I try my best to keep the fish happy too. After all, it’s what keeps them coming back!
I’ll be posting some more shortly I hope. I plan on writing a few essays this month too. I mean it’s about time I completed part 3 of the SPR stuff! Now’s a good time though. I’m looking forward to going over it again and putting all my thoughts together in writing.
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