Numbers are a lot more telling than anything else I can say, so this is a nice little screenshot from my pokertracker.
Friday, August 31, 2007
5k hands finished
Woohoo! I finally finished something I told myself I would do in poker. This is a pretty big thing for me because I have a tendency to run bad at some point and give up before forcing myself to finish...that's just a terrible thing when you're trying to improve your poker game. So hopefully I've broken myself out of that habit. I even ran pretty bad towards the end of my hands and still kept my spirits up and grinded it out to the finish.
Numbers are a lot more telling than anything else I can say, so this is a nice little screenshot from my pokertracker.
Numbers are a lot more telling than anything else I can say, so this is a nice little screenshot from my pokertracker.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
More of the same
I've played 800 hands since I last posted and it doesn't really seem like much is changing. I suppose this is just a standard thing after the heater I was on, so I can't really be mad. It's pretty frustrating to play 800+ hands and have won only 1 BB after all that. I'm almost to 5000 hands at this level and I'm on pace for my goal pretty easily at this point unless I hit a collosal downswing in my next 500 hands (if posting this jinxes me, I may never blog again). I'm actually on pace to finish the 5000 hands with a winrate of 2BB/100 hands and that would be awesome for me. If this all works out I'll start playing 3 tables of .25/.50 and 1 of .50/1 so I can get into the swing of another level before I move up completely.
One thing I have been proud of is the way I've been dealing with tilt lately...not that I've been able to stop tilting entirely. That would be ridiculous and I would probably be lying to you (and myself). I've just been able to keep it from affecting my play (for the most part) and I've been able to calm myself down a little faster, which is a must if you're playing 4 tables. The fact that I'm playing cash games helps too, on more than 1 occasion I've just stopped playing for like 20 minutes because I was so pissed. That's something you can't do in tournaments/SNGs and something that I probably wouldn't have done in the past.
Poker is about discipline and control. It's something I've continually worked on and it's great to see some growth in that area.
glglgl.
One thing I have been proud of is the way I've been dealing with tilt lately...not that I've been able to stop tilting entirely. That would be ridiculous and I would probably be lying to you (and myself). I've just been able to keep it from affecting my play (for the most part) and I've been able to calm myself down a little faster, which is a must if you're playing 4 tables. The fact that I'm playing cash games helps too, on more than 1 occasion I've just stopped playing for like 20 minutes because I was so pissed. That's something you can't do in tournaments/SNGs and something that I probably wouldn't have done in the past.
Poker is about discipline and control. It's something I've continually worked on and it's great to see some growth in that area.
glglgl.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Ever play 702 hands of break even poker?
I just finished a session like that. I guess technically it wasn't break even...I won a couple of big bets by the end, but I really felt like I should have won more. I was a bit of a calling station earlier in the session and I was mostly able to correct it about halfway through. Sometimes I just can't stand knowing my hand got cracked, so I have to see it. Probably a bad habit.
I've been playing a ton of LHE again. I suppose at this point it's because I love pain...and because I've bubbled 5 of my last 7 SNGs. I can't remember a time when I've run worse at SNGs, just sharkscope SilentRebel on Stars. I assume at this point they have me at super tilt. Actually, I'm still just on regular tilt apparently...my ROI has dropped from 8% to 5% during this time, which is especially depressing because I thought I was a better player than 8%. Oh well.
So as my mentioned it's been back to LHE for me. Specifically I've been playing 6 handed .25/.50 anywhere from 2-4 tables depending on how i'm feeling. I've actually been running really well despite my title suggesting otherwise. I'm running at 3.14BB/100 hands over about 3200 hands so far. My goal initially was to play at least 5k hands at over 1BB/100 hands, so I'm well ahead of that pace and tonight was probably just a little bit of negative variance after running so hot.
Tonight I did break one of my cardinal rules in poker...I harassed a terrible opponent. He had rivered me twice and then once called me down with A high on one hand where I thought he had to fold. Then he had the nerve to flop a set when I flopped TPTK (gold in limit 6 handed) and I turned trips so I lost another big pot. So I started giving him crap about how well he was running. So he responded saying that I got into raising wars too easy. I then told him that if he just sits with me long enough I'll get all his money, it was only a matter of time. Basically I made myself look like an asshat and I hate doing that. Also what I said was true. He was playing over 50% of the hands preflop and winning 70% of all showdowns he saw. No one runs that hot for very long...if we played long enough I was going to get all of his money and that's all there is to it. I don't need to tell him that. Live and learn right?
I've been playing a ton of LHE again. I suppose at this point it's because I love pain...and because I've bubbled 5 of my last 7 SNGs. I can't remember a time when I've run worse at SNGs, just sharkscope SilentRebel on Stars. I assume at this point they have me at super tilt. Actually, I'm still just on regular tilt apparently...my ROI has dropped from 8% to 5% during this time, which is especially depressing because I thought I was a better player than 8%. Oh well.
So as my mentioned it's been back to LHE for me. Specifically I've been playing 6 handed .25/.50 anywhere from 2-4 tables depending on how i'm feeling. I've actually been running really well despite my title suggesting otherwise. I'm running at 3.14BB/100 hands over about 3200 hands so far. My goal initially was to play at least 5k hands at over 1BB/100 hands, so I'm well ahead of that pace and tonight was probably just a little bit of negative variance after running so hot.
Tonight I did break one of my cardinal rules in poker...I harassed a terrible opponent. He had rivered me twice and then once called me down with A high on one hand where I thought he had to fold. Then he had the nerve to flop a set when I flopped TPTK (gold in limit 6 handed) and I turned trips so I lost another big pot. So I started giving him crap about how well he was running. So he responded saying that I got into raising wars too easy. I then told him that if he just sits with me long enough I'll get all his money, it was only a matter of time. Basically I made myself look like an asshat and I hate doing that. Also what I said was true. He was playing over 50% of the hands preflop and winning 70% of all showdowns he saw. No one runs that hot for very long...if we played long enough I was going to get all of his money and that's all there is to it. I don't need to tell him that. Live and learn right?
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Loads of PLO
It's been all PLO for me lately as it seems to be the only form of poker that I can play well anymore. Right now I've been running pretty well and beating up on the $10 tables on Stars. I hope that I can continue to play as well as I feel I have recently and get myself rolled for some bigger games without having to redeposit. Most of the boredom that comes with playing lower stakes is taken out because of how many more hands I can play and the fact that the average pot at most of the tables I'm playing is $3-4. It's not uncommon to see multiple people with $40-50 in front of them and if several people have been at the table for a while, the game starts playing pretty deepstacked.
It's nice to have some of the fun come back to poker again. I'll probably post some interesting hands and my thought process over the next few days.
It's nice to have some of the fun come back to poker again. I'll probably post some interesting hands and my thought process over the next few days.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
I post in this thing right?
So occasionally I lose track of this thing no matter how much I enjoy putting my thoughts down...and I really do enjoy that. I feel like some part of my life is being missed in my head if I haven't done any major writing over a decent period of time.
I've been playing a quite a bit of poker lately. I really only let myself play too much in a night tonight...that's one of my big problems in cash games because I start to get a little bored and I make some bad calls/bluffs. Which is what happened to me tonight and I dropped an unneeded amount. Besides a couple of hiccups I have been playing pretty well (not my best, I still play the river like a pussy sometimes...losing value w/strong hands and calling with some hands that are too weak). I've been mixing in some NL, LHE, and PLO. I had a session where I ran super hot playing some PLO with people from 67suited this evening. I bought into a $10 table with $4 and ran it up to $21 or something before I left. That was the biggest limit I've played recently as I've been following proper BR management for a change.
Tonight was my first MTT that I had played since whenever my blog post was. I played a $3.30 freezout on Stars and managed to play great and then terribly. I doubled up on the first hand when I had my opponent drawing dead, from there I played very cautiously and managed to increse my stack nicely with no risk. Then I ran a bluff against a player that I had seen call a pot-sized all-in earlier with nothing more than 2nd pair. He magically folded to me firing the 3rd barrell on the river when I had no business still trying to the run the bluff. I felt like I was just in that poor mindset that Hoy has talked about multiple times on his blog and I eventually knocked myself out of the tourney by bluffing off my chips into top pair. I did like my second bluff better than my first, but both were probably poorly timed/poorly run.
Right after that I stacked off a buy-in playing a cash game because I couldn't fold AA after it was pretty obv (in my mind, my buddy said it was a close spot) that I was beat. I then lost a bunch of chips overplaying another hand. All of these things happen I guess but I had done very well with eliminating them from my game. My pokertracker still shows me as positive in cash games since I started playing on Stars again, so I can't be playing that terribly. I'm not too sure though.
On a life-related note I had probably the best week of the summer last week after going to Hollywood to go see The Format and The Honorary Title, followed up the most epic party weekend ever. We basically had 10 people party it up at this house all weekend with other people coming and going all day, every day. Lots of pool time and spa sessions with a lot of my really good friends.
I just looked over the stuff I wrote about poker and it looks very negative. Results-wise I'm up over $35 just playing micro cash games over my last 2500 or so hands on Stars. I really can't complain, but I was just bothered by a poor session that I just finished...I'm sure you can all relate.
I've been playing a quite a bit of poker lately. I really only let myself play too much in a night tonight...that's one of my big problems in cash games because I start to get a little bored and I make some bad calls/bluffs. Which is what happened to me tonight and I dropped an unneeded amount. Besides a couple of hiccups I have been playing pretty well (not my best, I still play the river like a pussy sometimes...losing value w/strong hands and calling with some hands that are too weak). I've been mixing in some NL, LHE, and PLO. I had a session where I ran super hot playing some PLO with people from 67suited this evening. I bought into a $10 table with $4 and ran it up to $21 or something before I left. That was the biggest limit I've played recently as I've been following proper BR management for a change.
Tonight was my first MTT that I had played since whenever my blog post was. I played a $3.30 freezout on Stars and managed to play great and then terribly. I doubled up on the first hand when I had my opponent drawing dead, from there I played very cautiously and managed to increse my stack nicely with no risk. Then I ran a bluff against a player that I had seen call a pot-sized all-in earlier with nothing more than 2nd pair. He magically folded to me firing the 3rd barrell on the river when I had no business still trying to the run the bluff. I felt like I was just in that poor mindset that Hoy has talked about multiple times on his blog and I eventually knocked myself out of the tourney by bluffing off my chips into top pair. I did like my second bluff better than my first, but both were probably poorly timed/poorly run.
Right after that I stacked off a buy-in playing a cash game because I couldn't fold AA after it was pretty obv (in my mind, my buddy said it was a close spot) that I was beat. I then lost a bunch of chips overplaying another hand. All of these things happen I guess but I had done very well with eliminating them from my game. My pokertracker still shows me as positive in cash games since I started playing on Stars again, so I can't be playing that terribly. I'm not too sure though.
On a life-related note I had probably the best week of the summer last week after going to Hollywood to go see The Format and The Honorary Title, followed up the most epic party weekend ever. We basically had 10 people party it up at this house all weekend with other people coming and going all day, every day. Lots of pool time and spa sessions with a lot of my really good friends.
I just looked over the stuff I wrote about poker and it looks very negative. Results-wise I'm up over $35 just playing micro cash games over my last 2500 or so hands on Stars. I really can't complain, but I was just bothered by a poor session that I just finished...I'm sure you can all relate.
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