Low Buy In Poker - Learning to Win

So for those who have been paying attention, here is my progress on my goals for the week…

 Didn’t play 18 holes of golf, so no progress on breaking 90.  Playing in the morning though barring thunderstorms.

Bankroll has taken a dive, down to mid $160 range… may not get any time tonight to play as the wife has something planned (wink wink) so will maybe be a few days late breaking the $200 mark.

Got trashed twice actually, Memorial day party was a big over-run, got drunk, played live poker twice, lost both times (second time I shove low pp against obvious flush draw to get out of there) and nearly had to physically remove people from my house… at 4am.

So where does that leave me?  I have been good about not snap calling shoves but still playing a bit of ’show me’ poker, believing people are bluffing.

I have also found myself not draggin many pots… like I’m too tentative or something.  I get into a pot with a reasonable hand, then get re-raised and fold out.  Potentially one of two problems, betting too light sometimes or not having good enough cards to be in the pot in the first place… hmmm…

I haven’t updated this blog in quite a while.  Have gone through a major downswing down to almost my initial bankroll and slowly built myself back to where I was about a month ago.  ChrisBCritter has been a substantial and big influence in this process.  Deuce Blue got me to the initial level but then I struggled and lost faith, Chris helped me get it back.

 I’m currently working on learning the aggressive style, playing a little more attack poker as I call it.  I’ve take a few days off here and there for life events… let’s just say my brother isn’t the brightest.  This weekend I hope to play a bit again, probably some tonight.  It’s been a hard week because life keeps intruding on the game.

So what am I working on my low buy in devotees?  (Ok, the one or two of you who actually read this drivel)? 

From May 22nd through the 31st my goals are:

Break 90 on the golf game (have had two lessons this week, recovering my swing and getting it all back on track, used to shoot low 80’s last year, lost it over the winter).

Break the $200 barrier on my BR.  Once at the $200 mark play $5 SNGs exclusively.

Stop snap calling all shoves.  Even when I have the obviously better hand I need to pause and think about it.

Get trashed at least once.

Ok, so maybe some of the goals aren’t so noble… but that is the plan.  Check out my operations thread for more details on the day to day, didn’t figure you wanted to be bored around here.

Keep Dealin… Keep dragging pots…   Monty

As I try to recover my sense of play, my skill set, my general poker wits… it has occurred to me there is a concept out there that is just foggy, just beyond my mental grasp… there has to be…

 I’ve been working on understanding pot odds, trying to ‘get it’.  I think I understand the average hands and what their meaning/value is, I think I understand the basic concepts of aggression, I understand position and it’s value… but the whole further ‘concept’ eludes me…

What I think I am getting at is there is at some point going to be a lightbulb that flashes in my head that makes it all click together.  I think I grasp the concepts, but grasping the methods to implement them… that is another cloud of understanding alltogether…

I know this post might not make any sense, but I’m working on making that light bulb go on, not just playing because someone told me to do it a certain way…

I’ve seriously lost my game now.

 Haven’t been ITM in a while.  Moved to $5.50 and am getting clobbered.  Apparently I’m more donkish than I thought.

 Here are some of the last few days tourneys… for what they are worth.  Comments and coaching suggestions appreciated here or in private mail or in the forums, feel free to make an example of me.

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Online-Poker-Tournament-3368.html

 http://www.flopturnriver.com/Online-Poker-Tournament-3369.html

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Online-Poker-Tournament-3371.html

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Online-Poker-Tournament-3372.html

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Online-Poker-Tournament-3373.html

It’s frustrating to play well then keep getting flushed out on.

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Online-Poker-Tournament-3374.html

and one last one for the day…

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Online-Poker-Tournament-3375.html

I closed FTP before some of them registered, some of my hand histories are incomplete.

I’ve dropped my bankroll by nearly 1/3 in the last 3 days, have totally fallen apart and have no confidence in my game at all.  I thought I was learning, now I think I’ve learned how to be a lamb at the slaughter. 

Anyone with any advice let me know.  I’ve got a $130 bankroll and want to get to $300 at least by the end of May.  Suggestions?

Ah, the islands… After a week away in Antigua I came back to poker last night… played in 5 different $5.50 SNGs at FTP… well let me tell you, rum makes you rusty.

 First tourney I just played poorly.  No excuses.

 Second tourney (which was simultaneous to the first), I played bad but a little better.  5th place.

Third Tourney I stated as a single… then added tourney 4 and 5 each about 5 minutes later than the last.

Thirt tourney I raised in from MP with early position limper 3.5BB and KK, got two callers… flop had no scare cards in it… figured what the hell, shoved over after the flop, both called… much to my surprise.  It was fairly early yet and I never expected both to call, hell I figured one had AA hiding.  One had A-rag and the other had TT.  Cleaned both of them out and was way up in chips.  Follow that through with some tight play until the bubble, loosened way up and suffered a bit, got it back down to reasonable TAGG play with some loose blind steals and took it all the way to first.

The fourth tourney I kept in the game until the bubble, then got flushed out on my JJ pair… I shouldn’t have chased him but he was so loose I couldn’t help it.

The fifth tourney I got upset with… I was down to an M around 9 with blinds at the 50/100 level… drew QQ and shoved over… got called by one player… he shows 99 (this is all pre-flop) so i’m good right?  Nope… he hits the 9 on the river.

I can’t be upset about it really, I got money in when money was good… but it just sucks to get sucked out on the river.

I’ll be back in the swing totally in a day or two, with the Bonus released I didn’t lose any money last night so I’m doing ok… back to normal soon, rushing to the top!

Ok, yes the title was to entice you to read on…

Played in my first church basement style one time buy in tourney this weekend.  This was weird but I did ok. 

I arrived 1/2 hour before start time, got in line and made it to the registration table.  You signed your name, then paid $50 for 5000 chips… for an additional $5 you received 5000 more (duh, who isn’t buying that)… so that was odd to start.  Then they said they would pay positions equal to 10% of field… you got your chips and drew your seat… I drew… Table 1 Seat 1.  Of course.

Now, there were 135 entrants so that means they should pay 13 places.  They decided to pay 10.

Next, the announcement came that in stead of the standard blind structure, they were going to do the following: 100/200, 200/300, 300/400, 400/500, 500/1000 take a 20 minute break then color up.

So the tourney starts off and I’m doing ok, chip leader at my table at the end of the first break, with around 45 thousand in chips.  Then they color up.  All 1,000 and 5,000 chips now.  If you have 1100 chips, you received 2,000.  If you had 44100 you received 45,000.  So I walked back to the table with 45,000.

The next round starts and they have been moving everyone that gets down a few people around.  I am table 1 though and we ran with 8 up until just before the break.  Now we are back to 8 and the tables are down to about 10.  As the game progresses, we see 1000/2000, 2000/4000 and then 5000/10000 blinds over a 60 minute period and then another break.  I had some good hands and some bad ones, one coin flip that sucked (A-Q suited against A-T off) and he caught the 10 on the river…. in general the players here sucked, they would bet in with anything higher than a Q and any two suited cards.  Low pairs were popular.  I won a blind showdown with a ten high… why he called I have no idea.

Ok, so second break happens, we are down to 30 players.  I have 60,000 in chips, blinds are 10,000/20000 to start.  Of course, I am BB right off the bat.  Dealt crap and another player goes all in.  I fold.  Next hand, I’m SB and still have crap… another all in and I have to fold.  Down to 30000 in chips and now second to last at the table.  Two hands drift by with nothing then I have A-8 suited… seeing that I am in MP, with no callers in front… not knowing what else to do, I Shove it.  I get 3 callers, of course, two of whom are all in also.  The winner?  Q-3.

So in retrospect, I don’t know that I would have pushed A-8 if I had any cushion at all, but I didn’t.  I finished 29 out of 135, not a bad showing for my first real live event.  Except it was weird being in the basement of a church…

All right, so this is kind of a brag post… but here goes…

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Online-Poker-Tournament-3241.html

Was down, then up, then down, then up… all over the place.  I think I played heads up fairly well, did ok the rest of the time, sadly had to miss a set of KK hole cards due to bathroom run but worked out in the end…. ok, bragging off.

It is a difficult thing about competition, when you feel you are good enough, or when you hear of someone else accomplishing something, you want to compete at their level.

Often this leads to trying something you are not ready to do yet.  When I played darts competitively, I thought I could hang with the big dogs and was quickly beaten down.  Same thing with pool.  With golf on the other hand, I’ve grown slowly to where I compete on a level I can do well at but still have to struggle to be the winner at.  That though, is amateur competition.

Playing poker and making money is a professional competition.  It isn’t about the cards, it isn’t about your cards, it isn’t about bet size… or stack size… it is totally about controlling YOU.

If you can keep yourself in check, be patient, be smart, know what your odds are and then play them correctly, you will win in the long run.  The question is, is the long run for you or are you just here for the quick kill?

I learned a few things this weekend… most of them positive:

 1) When the wife and daughter are out of town, it is Prime Poker time, the house is silent and there are no distractions, 4 tabling is much easier.

2) When you are on the win streak and the confidence is high, somehow the improbable happens and the cards keep coming.

3) You can still be a nice guy and a prick during poker.  I am living proof, I’m a nice guy but at the table I can be a real prick… if I see something that I think will tilt you, I’m exploiting it.

4) Tilt is not to be entered lightly… it will cost you a bunch.

5) Even though you are up, you won’t continue to be… gained 15 then lost 25 on the bankroll in one day…

6) Laugh and learn to love the guys who call you a donk when you are killing them… you may be a donk but you are the one winning.

7) Don’t laugh when you pulled a stupid call and it gets through, learn to not make that call again.

Flushes are hiding everywhere… watch for them closely.

9) A-rag is a popular hand in .05/.10 NLHE on FTP

10) I like lists today.

Enjoy… let’s go make some MONEY!

I’ve spent the last few weeks building my bankroll back to reasonable levels, reasonable by small stakes standards.  At the beginning of the week (I know, it is Wednesday)… I had $91 in the BR.  Not a bad batch, was $9 from total break even in my 4 months of poker.  My sharkscope graph looked pretty good, things seemed to be going right.

Then I took a walk on the beach, tried to scoop some sand, and found it slips right through my fingers… just as my bankroll appears to be over the last few days. 

I have had some bad luck, but mostly it is bad play.  Last night I lost out on an important tournament, chasing a hand I should have dropped.  I say important tournament because I felt I was playing good, not great but good, had just bubbled out of two $2 SNG’s on what I felt were bad beats… so I signed up for a $5 SNG… I know… bad strategy… played it down to 5 players, so basically the bubble.  I’ve been reading Harrington on Hold ‘Em which might not be helping me in the long run… let me explain.

 I was playing against 4 others who had all tightened up on the bubble… one player ahead by a fair margin with the rest of us fairly equally matched… except one player down by about 1/2 my stack.

I am UTG and see KK when my hole cards come.  The big stack is on my right, in the BB for 100 chips.  I want to isolate yet get some action, thinking I’ll go up against him.  I drop in a 300 bet to open, get two folds, one call, SB fold and now BB is down to deciding what to do… he thinks until time is almost up then calls.

Not ideal, but not bad I think… so flop comes rainbow J-3-5 and I figure I have top pair, no straight showing, no flush showing, so I bet the pot.  CO who called before calls again, so that worries me a big but big stack bows out. 

So now I figure I’ve got top pair, possibly with him sitting on A-something and having a pair… maybe he is on a straight draw with A-4 or something… turn comes down a 9.  Still not enough on the board for a flush… straights are unlikely, so I bet 1/2 pot, he goes all in immediately… now I’ve seen him do this and pull out some amazing draws in this game, winning against J’s with 3-9 when he just wanted to steal… so I figure he is trying to push me out… so I call…

He shows me down with trip threes.

My problem here is two fold… I was beat but couldn’t read it… I was also drawing dead and didn’t know it… but did I play it wrong?  I’m really not sure.  Based on Harrington I played it right… but I’m leaking like sand through the fingers on situations like this… I don’t know if it is just variance or if I’m sinking.

Coach, if you are reading I’ll try to upload some histories tonight, but man, I’m actually questioning my skills at this point, yet I don’t think that question is justified?

Confused and sandy… Monty