Kingnat's pokerz

I doubt anyone will have much interest in reading this, but I need somewhere to reflect on where my poker playing has been and where it's going. I got here the same way thousands of others have before me... SnG grinding, switch to cash, Bonus whore, move up to 100NL.. win for awhile, break even for awhile, get crushed... drop down, repeat... the last 5 steps have cyclic for at least 3 times. (Pretty much read Setzy's thread up to the point where he starts cashing in lots of $1500 bonuses and then takes off.. this where our two paths differ.)

The last time it really hit hard was in March 2007, when I had about $3800BR playing 100NL, and nosedived down to as low as $360... (talk about depressing/embarrassing). This wasn't do to horrible BR management issues, just idiotic play. Note: writing a dissertation with a pregnant wife leads to life tilt. Since then I've finished grad school, and working at as a postdoc in Maine with two kids, so I don't get much time to play.

I've been investing small sums of money at neverbeg, which helps me keep my online money working for me, even when I don't have time to play. I realize some people may poo on this idea, but I'm somewhat careful with whom I invest and I haven't been screwed yet, so I'll likely stick with it for now.

Technically I have the BR to play $100NL right now, but I want to be more comfortable with my BR this time around... and get up to about $3k before I switch to 100. I also have most of my money on Stars right now and need to clear the rest of my Full Tilt Bonus before February 2nd or so... (yes I didn't join FT until this past fall). So that should take precedent until it's finished off.

This isn't going to be an incredibly updated thread (likely <2 posts/month)... but I've wanted something that lets me go back to and check up on my progress from time to time.

Total BR: ~$2100 (over two sites, epass, and stakes)

GL Nat! Keep us informed whenever you can.

gl and remember that a deep bankroll is a smart bankroll

Thanks guys... I have this to report. I fucking hate playing on Full Tilt, the software alone puts me on lifetilt.

Really? I like almost everything about the software, with the exception of the slider bar Smile

GL Nat, 3k for 100NL is a pretty smart guideline I used too. Hope you´ll move up soon Very Happy

Actually, now you come to mention it, there are other problems. I find that half the time the "scroll lock" button on my chat automatically applies itself and suddenly when you want to look at something in the chat box you realise it's stuck on 25 minutes ago. And yeah, the whole sitting out thing is a paint in the arse.

I always type my bets in anyway (unless I am betting pot size pre-flop) - I prefer it for discipline.

So I've been grinding away at Full Tilt and slowly hating it a little less, I'm going to try to abuse some AHK Scripts here shortly and hope to talk about that in a week or so. I have about $280 in Bonus monies to grind on Full Tilt, which is SLOWWWWW at $50NL. I sure wish I had the money to pop it up to $100, and finish off all my Bonus, but I'm not going to...

I'm looking forward to my RB check this month.. it should be quite nice.

BR ~$2400...

Forgot two other things:

1) Based on Setzy's endorsement, I plan to review Sauce's 6max guide and work at adapting it to my FR game.

2) I'm going to fly to KC in late April for a NFL Draft party. And since I've never really paid for anything for myself out of my poker money (bought new carpet, hot water heater, and got the FPP flatscreen and portable DVD player, etc.), so this is pretty exciting for me. I've been considering taking out small amounts over the next couple of months ($100 per month) to cover it, as opposed to all at once... thoughts?

So I really <3 the AHK scripts for BetPot and such on FTP... saves me lots of frustration... this is key when variance is grating its teeth on my poker shaft. I dropped 8 buy-ins this weekend. Getting two-outered for full stacks on 3 occasions! It wasn't pretty, but knowing that I was playing well overall, I'm ready to hit it up again.

BR ~$2000

nat, what's your ROI & sample size like over at neverbeg?

My ROI is meaningless since I've only had about 12 stakes completed thus far... most of my stakings are month long large N SnG/MTT. I'm also pretty sure that I'm going to get screwed out of at least $50 by a staker who has disappeared... yeah.

This thread needs more love. How are you doing?

And you should help me with some AHK scripts! Saw that a few posts up, since I am a dumbass and can't figure these things out...

Read that guide. Just remember to recognize the position of other players and their most likely holdings, and adjust your 3-bets accordingly. For example, if you have a guy who is running over a significant sample of say, 18/14, you know that this guy is raising a ton of hands on the button. If he opens on the button and you're in the SB and you pick up....AQ, even hands like 88 and 99 that sometimes you'd just call for sets, sometimes even 78s, you can and probably should 3-bet. Not every time. But just enough to know that hey, you can't just walk all over me. Position is such a great tool at lower limits. People are often so see-through and easy to read.

Keep us updated!

Poor kingnat is probably still recovering from the fact that he's now closer to 40 than 20. How's that FTP Bonus clearing going? You down under $200 yet? Smile

Thanks Setzy u da man!... (u too 'tard!)... I've kinda been in a holding pattern recently. RL work/family/shitty-internet has kept me from playing much over the last week or so. The AHK scripts that i've used so far are excellent (BetPot FTW). I'm nearing the close of my FTP Bonus money window (closes Feb. 2nd). I've cleared $340 of $500... and I should be able to clear at least $60 with the time I have. I'm very much looking forward to getting back to Stars. I am really not a fan of FT at all... i hope it diagf.

I still haven't studied Sauce's guide extensively. I'm going to be making a strong commitment to reading more (both poker stuf AND research papers for work) in the evenings which will mean perhaps less poker (WTF!) but improved play and actually being successful at my job.

I've been considering making a run at the rest of my Bonus by 9-tabling $100NL with a ultra-rock short-stacking gameplan to help clear off more Bonus. If I can break even at the table I should make money with the Bonus. It seems like it might be worth trying.

BR ~$2200

Yesterday was a big day for me, as I FINALLY got reliable wireless internet in my place. It's baffling to me that it took this long, but no regrets... I'm just going to bathe in the wonderment that is the internetz...

I think I've also had a bit of an epiphany concerning where I'm losing money most frequently. I don't think I'm reading players much at all. I try to put players on hands, but I think it's an extremely weak part of my game. Reading over Sauce's guide 3 times, I think I recognized some key areas where I'm losing a a fair amount of money.

whoa, where in maine do you live?

and good luck on the operation.

I live near Orono (pronounced: Oar-no)... do u live in Maine?

So without taking the time to do an appropriate calculation, I determined that with my FTP Bonus about to expire (Feb 2nd) and +$200 still to clear, that it might be slightly +EV to simply rathole 12 tables of $200NL FR... (with RB of course) so I did that last night.. lost about $100 at the tables, and came out ahead about $40.

It was blissfully easy to do... and I made several mistakes that I was able to learn from and adjust to... (note I lost $1k last fall trying to shortstack 100NL but I did it like a monkey). Buying in for $40 I my PFR would be $10... if I got a call I would almost always shove the flop... this got me stuck a couple of times holding TT or AK, and villian either hitting the Q on the flop (in the former) or sticking with medium PP (in the later).

It was still quite fun... not much change in the roll, but I should be able to finish my FTP Bonus soon and never play there again (well, except for the 5th of the month FTR tourney).

I'm looking forward to getting back to Stars, and depending on how things go in February I'll consider a run at Supernova.

BR ~$2200

Wow, that was quick... ratholing 9-12 tables of $200NL is fun.. too bad it's probably -EV in the long run. My Bonus is cleared, and I ran well last night while finishing it up... also got to rail on a friend's $4.4-180m FT... nice work smacktard.

I have nearly all of my roll heading back through epass on its way to Stars... and I can already feel a slight twinge of panic. This may seem stupid as I'm thrilled to leave FT behind, but I'm a bit concerned about where exactly I go from here. I think my play has suffered in the past when I didn't have some explicit goal setup... i tend to play sloppy in general.. spewing chips and shrugging it off as variance.

I realize that aiming for $100NL and supernova status on the year is a decent goal, but I don't operate well under long term goals. So what should my short term goals be?

- One goal is to improve my Att. to Steal blinds up to 30%.. (which I find amazing that I'm currently around 20%). I feel like I steal like a monkey from the button and CO. Definitely something to look into and work on.

- Learning to adapt Sauce's guide effectively is a key goal.. (identifying those playersthat can be 3bet and 3betting the hell out of them) Really, REALLY using stats to put players on a range and play accordingly on all streets. I should also be using pokerstove on some basis to get a better feel for what PFR of 10% really includes... what a 6% PFR really includes. I really don't have NEARLY a strong enough hold on those ranges.

- Along with the above, I need to do a better job of taking notes, and getting better use out of PT/PAHUD stats.

- I need to be willing to make a few more laydowns in key spots. I make too many big calls without sufficiently good reads... sometimes I catch a bluff and I feel like a god, but a lot of this is spew for me.

I'd take other outside advice on some meaningful goals.. i realize many goals are playing X amount of hands, but I simply can't commit to something like that because my time simply isn't flexible enough to allow for it.

BR ~$2400

So I have a two-sided story for the last week.

Side 1) I have been doing a lot of menial tasks at work recently and so I decided I should throw up a few 2-, 3- and 5-table SnGs (low stakes) to pass the time. Great idea, right! Not so much, I have never been cold decked so much in my life... playing mostly $6.5 stakes (with a few $11 tables) I have lost about $300 in two days of playing just these tournies... wtf is up with that??? totally, totally disgusting.

Side 2) Monday night I 12-tabled some 50FR and won 3 buyins. Last night I did the same and ran white hot... winning 10 buyins in less than 2 hours... unfortunately I was closing down tables while chatting with a friend and he suggested I leave a couple up... so I did.. and got coolered 3 times in 10 minutes for -$100... wtf.

I was really excited at the start of the night because I thought I was reading players and situations well, I became a bit bummed when I realized i was just running better than jesus... and that mad skillz had little to do with it.

BR ~$2600

*Last edited by kingnat on Thu, 14 Feb 2008, 9:28am; edited 1 time in total*

So I continued to swing back the last few days... losing 3-4 buyins on Sunday and Tuesday night. And I was getting a bit sick when I got 4-outered with one card to come for full stacks twice to start the session last night, but ended up 3 buyins total. I was playing a bit nit'ter last night... trying to be more patient and things seemed to be going well.

I'm in <3 with the AHK Scripts Betpot and Stars reloader... they is the sex.

I'm being more selective in the opponents with whom I tangle... and I'm trying to take careful notes against seemingly solid regs. My plan is to more or less avoid getting overly creative with them until I have a very good read on what they are doing... plus 12 tables I really don't get too much of a read unless it's a VERY noteworthy hand. (pun not intended).

I also was playing a few $11.70 DS to $1M Guan yesterday.. and won a ticket, so that was nice... I'll just use the $T for other things, but I'm still counting it as real money.

I've also attended the newly discovered homegame the last two weeks... and I'm up $100 from that... great group of guys with the thickest New England accents you could ever want.

I'm slowly paying off my NFL draft trip expenses as well ($50 once a week is the plan). And so with 3/4 of that to go.. things are looking alright.

BR ~$2400

Boo-yah!...

I just popped on to FTP (the devil face) to double check my balance there.. and I finally got my Rakeback check from when I was clearing my Bonus there in January... HELLOOOOO C-NOTE!... Almost makes me want to go back for about 10 seconds.

BR $2500

Alright, so I'm a bit depressed. I've been running well lately so that's great. I've gotten in about 18k hands in the month, and I've accrued about 5500VPPs. My total BR is about 3k right now (which I dig) and to give me a shot at reaching longterm goals, I'd really like to make the push to 100NL and platinum star for February. Unfortunately I highly doubt I'll make platinum at 50NL, and thanks to spoon's BR for people with balls I swore that I wouldn't move up till I had a $4k BR.

So being somewhat close to a big step, I'm going to have to forego it until sometime next month. It's probably for the best as I still see some pretty substantial swings at 50NL.. and could certainly use the extra cushion. It's just a bit of a bummer that I can't take a big step towards Supernova for the year.

BR ~$3000

Continuing to have little time to play but seem to be running well when I do have the time. Last night I made 3 buyins and I've had a couple of my horses on neverbeg (or parttimepoker(?)) come through big.. so up up goes the roll.

I'm heading off to Austin over the weekend for a conference. Can't wait to dig on some BBQ...

BR ~$3300

how many tables do you play?

I prefer 12. If I feel tired or am having trouble focusing I'll play 8-9... I'd really like to learn effective ways of playing 16+.

Well, one full week later and I have had next to ZERO time to play. TBH, this is actually affecting the way I'm playing as I feel like I need to "catch up" for lost time... now i'm conscious of the fact that this is completely stupid, but it is there nonetheless.

I need to find some time to think through things a little so that I don't tilt off money trying to "make plays" that simply aren't there. Sorry kind of an emo post... but needed to put this out there.

So I had an interesting beginning to March.

I wanted to share my stats from February and March. (March obv the smaller sample. Is there any difference here (other than PL numbers) that I should be concerned with???

EDIT: DELETED STATs, CUZ I realize I WAS BEING AN EMO PUSSY....

Here is the link for the stats with the money won and lost but don't peek until you've looked over the above stats plz:

EDIT: SHUT UP KINGNAT... quit being a bitch and just learn how to play....!!!

I've since had a couple good and bad days... Last night was funny. Sample hand:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (8 handed) Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

MP1 ($21.90)
MP2 ($51.85)
CO ($29.25)
Hero ($48.50)
SB ($50.30)
BB ($10.75)
UTG ($52.35)
UTG+1 ($70.85)

Preflop: Hero is Button with T

, T

.
2 folds, MP1 calls $0.50, MP2 calls $0.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.50, 1 fold, BB checks.

Flop: ($2.25) K

, 4

, T

(4 players)
BB checks, MP1 checks, MP2 bets $1.5, Hero raises to $6, BB folds, MP1 folds, MP2 calls $4.50.

Turn: ($14.25) 7

(2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets $13.5, MP2 raises to $27, Hero raises to $42, MP2 calls $15.

River: ($98.25) 4

(2 players)

Final Pot: $98.25

Results in white below:
MP2 has 4c 4s (four of a kind, fours).
Hero has Tc Td (full house, tens full of fours).
Outcome: MP2 wins $98.25.

LOL... through 2.7k hands last night my 5 worst hands were (in order) KK, AA, KQo, TT, QQ... maybe i should learn how to play big pairs.

I'm feeling alright about my game... I'm just waiting for a little upswing.

BR ~$2800

I decided to delete the stats out of the above post... i realized I was just being an emo bitch and I need to learn how to not suck. I don't really know if I've figured things out yet, but i have been making money recently. I'm up $700 in the last week, but things have fluctuated quite a bit before then. I am going to clear Platinum Star this month so I'm pretty juiced about that, but we'll see where we go from here.

BR ~$3400

please raise TT on the button

A little update...

So I tried a ratholing experiment over 50k hands at 100 & 200nl... it was horribly unfun, but technically i finished in the green (by about $20). So if you had interested in grinding purely for vpp i guess one could do that. I might dabble in it occasionally if I'm too tired to play fullstack, but too bored to do anything else but it will be a very small part of my play.

I tried to do a lot of searching to find out why I was going through these ginourmous swings at 50nl (fullstack).. and I think i finally found out. I pay off nits. ALL THE FUCKING TIME. It is WITHOUT A DOUBT my biggest leak.

Now by "paying off nits" I don't mean making a crying call of half the pot on the river with 2nd pair on a raggy board vs. an agg opponent.. shit no. I mean calling a shove on a low flop w/ TT vs. an 18/6 nit who 3bet my EP raise from MP+1. This guy is not fucking bluffing EVER. But what do I do... i call cuz i'm fucking bad ass and I did this same thing one time and I profit... (only the hand I'm trying to remember was actually me holding TT on a low flop vs. a total fucking donkey who ran like 60/34).

This may seem like the most Absolute silliest thing many of you have ever read... but i'm pretty damn sure this is where I lose all my money. Because it 1) happens often and 2) it's usually for fullstacks.

Anyway... i don't know if the above revelation is fulling my current win streak or not.. but over the last 4k hands i'm a 20ptbb/100 winner at 50nl. (yes I do coaching... $400/hr).

BR ~$3100

Hi King, would like to apply for coaching. Please more up too. I'm good at detailed posts.

Some goals:
[ ] >60k hands {getting there... might not make it to 60k}
[x] Take breaks during long sessions {breaks end up being too long...}
[x] Post and discuss hands {on irc at least... GOLD feedback}
[x] Move up to 100nl {Wyatt, i am rollin'}
[x] Play the VIP freerolls (which i never get to do) {played and failed}
[x] While doing VIP freerolls, satty into the Sunday Mill {played and failed}
[ ] Play the Sunday Mill {well, didn't win any satty's and also had to watch some friends' kids so worked out fine}
[x] Don't play like shit. {I think there was a 8k swing where I started over-playing certain hands... or maybe i got coolered.. idk really, I think overall I've been running well, and applying several new principles that I had never used before... very exciting stuff.}

I <3 irc chat... sometimes it's a distraction, but at times I have renton, spoon, fnord, mcat, takesix, fatb, Miffed, badgers, etc. going over hands with me... talking about different lines, ranges, etc. It's been extremely valuable.

I also cashed some fpp's for the $650 Platinum Bonus... I recognize that this is giving away value long term, but I'm on a part timer. And had I not moved up to 100nl there was a very real chance that I wouldn't make Supernova on the year. Given my two weeks of uber-grind that I had available I wanted to give myself the best possible shot at sticking at 100nl and grinding. The next Bonus I take will likely be of the $1500 variety. I'm about 56k vpp from 'nova and I'm hoping to knock that down to about 45k before the end of the week.

Sidenote: I decided to try a little HU. I'm awful at HU. I'm not playing it again.

BR ~$4800 <== brag: highest online br eva.

I was at a few of your tables the other day. Tried to get your attention, but no love.

Bump I guess?

There isn't a particularly good reason other than I'm trying to avoid real work.

Let see, since May I've pretty much floated between about $3700 and $5000, playing mostly 100nl, but dabbled in 50nl for a bit. Included a few hands of 6m, and have been playing more sessions with fewer tables. In general I don't really feel like I've played much at all since double vpp week, and in general I feel pretty down on my poker skills.

I had a -4.5 buyin session the night before last and followed that up with another -2 buyin sesh the next day. Just feeling a bit lost I guess...

On a good note, I have less than 10k vpp to make Supernova, which I'm pretty excited about. I also have 150k in fpps that are burning a hole in my pocket. So as soon as I make supernova I'm conceirging the new laptop I purchased last week and hope to find some other things I purchased recently for which I can get paid back. If not, i'll hit up the $1500 Bonus. That should make my BR happy.

So good as time as any I suppose. I'm running white hot this week... to the tune of $1300 over about 10k hands... which is 13ptbb/100? or 6.5?... How fucking dumb is it that I still haven't figured out that statistic??? And here I am owning PT for almost 3 years...

I ran into an uberfish last night that handed me $360 last night. So that was generous. (see Tales of Poker)... I still feel like I play really badly most of the time. 3b TT in the SB to a tight CO raiser... and shit like that. Also getting nervous on later streets with strong hands and losing lots of value on later streets. I tend to grow a vagina on the turn... and push people out of pots prematurely, when I have a strong but non-nut hand.

As for a status update, I'm 3.2k vpp from 'Nova (omfg!), w/ 4.8k roll, and 163654 fpps in the clip... waiting for that "nova cherry to pop.

Nice work on the hot streak. I'd like to thank your fantasy football team for folding to mine preflop this week. Laughing

1.7k left till nova... currently scrounging up receipts from various car repairs, and smallish purchases that we've made in the last few months that I hope to lump together to clear what is likely to be around 170k feeps.

If I can concierge the entire feeps roll I should be able to get $2.7k... ship! $650 of which I need to take out to pay for the laptop I purchased and the rest is going to the BR. Which makes me think about what I want to do next... grinding the veeps has been my primary focus (while dabbling a bit with trying to win money and play bettter, blah blah blah...). So do I grind 100NL?... take some shots at 200NL?... I'm just not sure right now.

Btw, still running hot... $5.4k

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