Setzy's 2008: Supernova Elite Bound

I don't think this statistics are that alarming.. you are essentially only tracking those players that are multitabling... since given the number of tables running it's difficult to get huge sample sizes from any one opponent unless you are extracting that data from multiple tables. And it's more common to see a multitaber play a nitter style... So although I agree that 100NL is a rock garden... I think your statement actually is verifing that those that multitable 100NL tend to be very rocky... not that everyone is a rock.

Your sample size is obviously much larger than mine.. but mine shows a similar trend the you reported for those persons from whom I have over 1000 hands listed..

11.8/6.3
9.14/4.7
16.1/3.8
19.5/5.2
11.9/8.9
11.6/1.1

Apparently I need to play more hands....

Nooo... NOOO! My plans!

-----------------------------------------------------

Hello Chris,

The service may not be used to pay bills. If you would like to exchange
FPPs for cash the best method is using the 100,000 FPP reward Bonus
offered in the VIP Store.

Regards,

Scotty
PokerStars VIP Team

-------------------------------------------------------

Dangit. Props to PokerStars support for giving me the straight facts, and answering in a timely manner. My question about Neteller was answered within an hour or two, and this one in a day or so. Now I have to revise my plans...

I'd had such a good week, until today!

It's frustrating when you work so hard, play so much, and gain a whole slew of small wins only to see it crash down in a matter of a day. Today was one of those days where nothing goes right, and you just *know* you're going to spiral down. Nothing good gets paid off, every big hand loses, no matter how crappy pot odds you offer to your opponent, they still draw and hit. You virtually can't win when your big hands aren't winning, and today I end up in the red with pretty much every premium hand. (I knew it was coming with AA, just because I hadn't lost any big pots with it yet in a whole mess of hands)

This has been my first pretty rough patch since I've started this new year. Hopefully I can turn things around soon. I'm on the verge of 100k FPP, and about 1/6 of the way to Supernova status. I guess I'm going to get the $1500 VIP bonuses since the concierge thing won't work now. I may end up just putting it in my BR and taking out the money near the end of the year.

BR - $2965

hey gl setzy, it will turn around. I really believe a lot of the times that this happens to me I need to sit back, relax, and turn my attitude around. and I don't mean that I get pissed or anything, but I just mean that I need to realize that I have no reason to think negatively about my game as long as I wasn't playing stupidly.
If I ever break completely free of my sng habit and sit down to a 100NL stars table, I'm virually guaranteed to run into your 20-tabling nitastic self, so see you at the tables. Wink

My recent dissatisfaction with ring has driven me away, for now.

When you play against groups of 10-17VPIP and 3-7PFR players, it becomes very hard to get paid off. Essentially, almost all of the getting stacked hands come from a "nuts-2nd nuts" or "overpair/set hand - combo-nut draw".

When I quit playing 6-max at the beginning of the year, it was to clear that Bonus Stars was offering and then with the new goals I had set for myself in 2007. But I've gotten away from one of my main goals - and that is to increase my winrate. There is no reason I should sit and play for 4 hours and earn 25% as much as someone else who is just as capable of a winning player. If I increase my winrate, I increase my return, and that should be the ultimate goal.

I think 6-max offers a chance to sustain a higher overall winrate than ring. One of the biggest reasons I think this is because it is much easier to exploit players at a 6-max table and win their money rather than having 7 other players and one fish around.

So for now, I'm going to go splash around at 50NL 6-max. Since I've played nearly a full month of 100NL, starting at 50NL 6-max shouldn't be too overwhelming, since the swings are expected to be greater and the learning hopefully won't have as much of a penalty. In addition, I am well overrolled for this level of 6-max, and I think that will be a good comfort.

January is drawing to a close, and I hope February finds me well.

Current BR: $3100

Ignore the last post, I played 50NL 6-max for one day and got pretty much a horrible taste in my mouth, so I went immediately back to ring. However, I'm not afraid to say that things are looking grim. By grim, I mean pretty craptastic.

I've been on a nice slide the past week, BR is sitting at $2475. I've been overplaying AA postflop, getting in the "it's the money hand, ARR in" mindset, which is so bad. Like everyone does on a downswing, I'm questioning the quality of my play, wondering how much is semi-tilt, how much is bad luck, and how much is bad play. After today I'm less than 1 buyin positive ALL TIME at 100NL, over 70k hands at Stars. I think that definitely proves that I'm lacking some necessary skills to succeed in the seemingly pretty damn tough 100NL Stars ring game.

From my own perspective, I find myself torn between betting turns and checking behind in position, trying not to build big pots without big hands, and facing check-raises from slowplayed sets (As Theory&Practice talks about), which usually in turn finds myself faced with some sort of river bet from the OOP caller. Then I have to decipher whether or not their hand is strong or whether they're betting because my hand is underrepped.

I've signed up for the Session Review, and hopefully I can learn (and maybe teach) a few things. What I do understand is that poker is a long-term game, and I'm still focusing on the long term. Something I *may* have to do is spend some FPP points on the cash Bonus, clear it and keep on from there...I wanted to save up for the $1500, but if I lose very many more buyins I will not be adequately rolled for 100NL any longer.

Stay tuned, we'll see where the next week leads.

BR - $2475

Well, I've neglected posting my progress long enough. I've had a change of heart in the past few weeks, and I've changed and am now doing something that I find a lot less stressful and easier on the brain.

I dropped down. I dropped way down.

Now I'm swimming in the 25NL fish pond. I love it. For me, it's easier to put in more hands and it's also easier to get paid by bad players...so it's like a double Bonus. The only thing that I really dislike about only playing 25NL is that I don't earn anywhere near as many FPP and VPP as I did playing the higher limits.

There's something to be said about being considerably overrolled for the limit you're playing. I think that personally I have not been following a very sound Bankroll Management strategy at these higher limits (that works for me). Most Bankroll Management guides tell you to have 20/30 buyins for the limit you are playing. That's all fine and dandy, but I still find that multitabling (and as I do, with usually 9) can be a bit overwhelming when a significant portion of your BR is in play at once.

With that said, I have not been putting in as many hands as I should/planned to. I've been partying a lot and going to a lot of shows. One problem I have is that the usual best times to play, weekend evenings, are the times that I have obligations and places to be, or are the times when I go out to party.

Anyhow, I've been steadily winning at 25NL over a good sample. I like playing with virtually no stress. Today I dipped into a few 180s (first tournies in a long, long time) with a friend, ended up placing 3rd in one, my best finish to date in one of those.

So, I think the purpose of this post is just to say that everybody has to follow their own path in the poker world, and there are many paths to success. I don't think that I have to beat every limit on PokerStars to be a good player, and I don't have to prove anything to anyone. In the end, no one will remember how many hands I played at a particular limit. It's all about doing as well as I can, and hopefully winning along the way.

BR - $3100

Sometimes things fall apart, and I can't explain why. But maybe we can figure some things out by dissecting a couple of hands.

Today I set out to put a large enough dent in my VPP on Stars that I could maintain Platinumstar by tomorrow. I played 4000 hands at 100NL (had been playing 25 and 50NL the past few weeks), and a lost a buyin. Not too bad, and I had swung up a buyin and then down, and finished down some. I leave, return and play a quick session and end up half a buyin, then decide to play a few MTTs.

I play 6, cash in 2 and bust before any FT's, pretty much making my money back, but nothing else. Afterward I decide to get back on and grind out my VPP some more.

Then in the span of 5 minutes, I run into a guy that 4-bets JJ oop on me and flops a set for a stack vs my AA when I smooth call, I lose KK vs QQ allin preflop to a spiked Q, my queens get busted by a set of 9s (this was probably the worst play of all the hands, because his line looked more suspicious than the others and may have been able to get away), and my QQ loses to JJ in a reraised pot when villain spikes a J on the river and check-raises me for like the 30% left in my stack. Coooooooooooler. End of that rant, let's talk about the hand histories.

If I'd gotten away from the ones that MAY have been possible to get away from, and played the AA to maximum expectation...here's what would have happened instead.

Hand #1.) I push AA preflop as a 5-bet, villain folds (I guess?) and I win $20 instead of losing $100. +$20

Hand #2.) I got 3-bet with villains QQ, I pushed the KK, nothing I could do. -$100

Hand #3.) I get QQ and raise it up preflop, and proceed to lead out on a 9 high flop into about 4 people for roughly $15. Villain calls, turn pairs the board with a 3 I believe...I lead for ~$26 and Villain reraised to like $70. This is where I tanked and decided to push instead of fold. So say I fold, and save the rest of my $105 stack. -$50

Hand #4.) I get QQ and reraise on the button, Villain calls. Flop comes low and villain check-calls $18 or so, then leads out weak on the turn ($10). Here I can go all in, or fold. Funny spot because I'm not sure of Villain's play if I do go all in, he may call and I lose $100, or he may fold and I win roughly $40. If I call, the river comes and he checks to me, I bet $36 and he check-raises me (where I should lay it down I guess) for the rest of my stack, like $40 more. So I could either lose $100 (all in on turn), win $40 (he folds on turn), lose $60 (fold to river CR), or lose $100 (calling the all in, as I did). -$220/4 = -$55 average between the four outcomes.

So if I played those hands the MOST optimally I guess, I would lose only $185, instead of $400. Quite a difference. Hold'em is about minimizing your losses in your mistakes, and in those hands I did not.

Anyhow, I will finish up my VPP tomorrow at 50NL. I've amassed over 130k FPP now and I'm just waiting to get to Supernova before cashing them in for the cash Bonus.

BR - $3100

If you didn't get sucked out on though the way you played the hands would have been more profitable. You need to look at it from both angles. Tongiht I lost full stacks all in PF with QQ both times losing to AJ. Think I should've just folded pf?

Big pots are meant for big hands, you just ran into some variance

Call me crazy, but I've been avoiding the "post a blog, run like crap" syndrome and haven't been updating for a while. March has been exceptionally good to me, and I'm sittin' pretty right now.

Last Sunday I chopped the $3.30R for just under $2,000. I really feel like I've been playing great (especially in the rebuy tournaments), understanding how tight players play, when stealing blinds is a good idea, and using stack preservation and image to keep myself in the game. I played the 3.30R again yesterday and was on track to make a good run and unfortunately lost a crucial coinflip (AA vs 88c, all club board) in a reraised pot that sent me packing. I cashed in the 5.50R 2 days ago (the only time I've played it recently), finishing just outside the top 100. I played well in that tourney and built my stack up, won a few races and then lost one or two, and was out.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not getting stars in my eyes and thinking I'm a pro tournament player or anything. Cash is still my bread and butter game and I'm not leaving it. With my newfound BR boost I really have a great cushion for playing 100NL, and I've been grinding out a small winrate while also gaining a lot of FPPs. 3 months into the year and I'm almost halfway to Supernova. I'd really like to get it done by the end of May, but we'll see how it pans out. If I could play somewhere in the vicinity of 60K hands at 100NL in April and May I think that would do it.

BR - $5,800

Bit of a shameless bump..in case anyone who reads my progress thread didn't know, it's in this new forum called "Poker Blogs and Operations". Good idea for a forum, Poker Etc. was getting to be a bit of a mess.

Well it's not a completely non-content post, I've changed my game! Believe it or not, Setzy is playing limit now. Yeah yeah I know. But honestly, I think I can multi-table it far easier and gain the FPP I need to get to supernova faster. Just the other day I realized that the supernova Bonus is going to be "reviewed" on June 30, so I 100% absolutely HAVE to get to supernova before then and buy those bonuses!

I'm not disowning NL or anything, just taking a break to keep things fresh. I enjoy the mathematical aspects of limit, and believe I play better than my opponents, so I think that combination will pay off for me.

Well...

I never can stick to anything, it seems like. I played a lot of limit the past few weeks, and finally burned out on it. For the meantime, I've switched back to 100NL. Today was pretty rough...but the more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized that it wasn't an "exceptional" downswing as much as a "normal" one. 5 buyins is not that many, and over a 3k hand span even more so!

It's not even really worth going over as far as hand histories go, but just to reassure myself that they were played well I'll run through them fairly quickly.

Full stack losses -
AA vs KK - All in preflop, K on flop.
KK vs AQ - All in preflop, A on flop.
AA vs JJ - Reraised pot pre and big bets on flop/turn, spiked set on river and got all in (< than a psb left).

Other half stackish losses -
Bottom set vs Top set - All in on flop
Bottom two pair turned boat vs top set turned boat - All in on turn
Bottom set vs Top set - Big bets every street - All in on river
QK made 2p on turn vs AK 2p made on flop (I was aggressor preflop) - All in on turn

Just ran through my HH's for the day, which is always a good thing to do. It's never fun losing, but it IS good to know that you play well, and eventually the luck will even out. For all of today's adventures, nothing still beats the 1 outer I took yesterday Sad

Like I used to be in the lower levels, I am starting to get a really good feel for how the players are at 100NL. I am confident in my game, my hand reading skills, and more so in my post-flop skills than even a month ago. I'm very happy to see myself still progressing and not stagnating.

In other news, I am 2/3 of the way to Supernova status on Stars. I have a whole bunch of FPP saved up and ready to go when I get there. If I play as much in the following weeks as I have in this month, I am on track to be done in less than one month.

That's all for now...

tough hands. keep workin on your skillz though it will pay off.

I'm officially Supernova. Smile

I have got to fucking quit paying off these 100NL nits when they bet on the river and I'm so obviously beat.

STOP

CALLING

RIVER

BETS

SETZY.

I'm such a breakeven player, it'd make you guys sick.

Right now I'm sort of in a poker funk. I feel like I play well compared to the regulars that I play against, but for some reason I don't have good results. Don't get me wrong, the 100NL FR regulars on Stars are pretty annoying to deal with. Some things I'm starting to seriously believe though...

1.) When you play versus a bunch of nitty regulars, your image so very rarely ever comes into play. Oooh, so you raise 89s UTG. They don't care. They're going to call preflop and look for a set. Most times, they fold to the cbet. But every so often, that 1 in 8 shot hits and you get raised, or they hit some other pretty good hand.

2.) If you're looking for the truth, it's on the river. In my experience, you almost always know where you stand when the bets come out on the river. If you're out of position and you get raised, expect something damn near the nuts.

3.) Small bets followed by reraises from the same player on the same street equals incredible strength hands.

Something I'm having incredible difficulty with is determining where I stand versus a flop raise.

Examples:
I raise AJ in MP and a fullstacked button calls, and the flop comes out A67 rainbow or AQ5 with two diamonds. I cbet and get minraised. What the hell?

I raise JJ in MP, two players call. The flop comes out undercards, and I get minraised. I've seen sets in this position and stuff as crazy as AKo with no draw.

I have a problem 3-betting on the flop because I feel it ties me to the pot that much more, especially when I'm beat. Sometimes folding seems too weak and raising seems too spewy, but then calling seems too passive...so I'm stuck.

The minraise on the flop in general perplexes me, and I find myself lost more in those situations than any other.

I've cleared one of the $1500 bonuses and started on the next one. This new promotion is awesome, but my playing is lackluster. I'm pretty unhappy about it, to say the least...but I have to take advantage of this promotion while I can. Being Supernova makes it just that much better, too.

congrats on supernova.

i liked your points, keep thinking things through, & posting about them. we all benefit.

Basically after I don't know what you'd call it...a meltdown and rejuvenation of sorts, I have come to a couple major decisions in lieu of some of my recent bad times.

I'm going to start making some DETAILED and specific goals, starting now.

Goal #1. - 1ptbb/100 LONG TERM

As of this moment, I want to be a minimum 1ptbb/100 LONG TERM winner at 100NL FR. I'm erasing the past, and starting over now. Starting at zero. The past is history. I'm going to embarrass myself by stating publicly that I am a marginally losing player at 100NL FR over 120k+ hands. That's going to change.

I am going to set some new rules and guidelines for myself. If I lose two buyins within a 15 minute span, I will immediately leave all tables and take an hour break. During the hour I will consciously review my current play and visit the forums to post and read.

I am going to study and read an hour for every four hours of play. This will include reading hand histories, posting hand histories, giving feedback and hopefully getting feedback.

Goal #2. - 20k by Jan 1, 2008.

I don't care how much I have to play to get it, but including bonuses and winnings I want to have a 20k BR by Jan 1, 2008. I will be taking out 10k to pay for my school loans, which will leave me with a 10k BR. Right now my BR is $6,300, with one $1,500 Bonus 1/3 complete and 150k in FPP left to purchase more. By working off this Bonus and the next I should have the additional 50k FPP to buy another $1,500 Bonus, totaling $4,500 in bonuses. That leaves $10,200 to gain.

It's time to quit screwing around. I have played poker without a job for almost a year now, and I have no reason to not be a winning, successful player.

Goal #2. - 20k by Jan 1, 2008.

i really enjoyed reading your blog Setzy. Congratulations on reaching Supernova, that is really something.

Well my first session didn't go that great.

2448 hands, -$153. I thought I played well, but I'll post a few big hands for analysis anyhow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Villain is an aggressive multitabling regular, lordyefc.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

MP3 ($102.55)
CO ($40.30)
Hero ($149.50)
SB ($119.40)
BB ($126.40)
UTG ($263.70)
UTG+1 ($130)
MP1 ($128.90)
MP2 ($19.90)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 2

, 2

Poker Forum

Join Our Poker Community!

Poker Forum Index

FTR Blogs and Operations

Setzy's 2008: Supernova Elite Bound