Honing your skills

**KY_Ace** · 02-23-2007 12:36 PM

On January 17th Neteller cut off the US customers and sadly my days of making 800/week 3-tabling/bonus whoring 4-8 6-max on Bodog ended. I didn't think it would be a problem, I'd just try out WPX that 100% rakeback site I heard about, how can I go wrong??? and OMG Wed-Sat 1PM-1AM EST they actually give you $50 if you lose with AA a positive sum poker game WOW!!!. 1st week I make $700!! Ha this is easy!! Then it happened, I started losing on a regular basis, I was playing only on the promotion times and after buying in for $1,500 I would be cleaned out or close to it on Saturday and I'd have to wait for my rakeback on Monday to play again. My $1,500 is now down to $1,100 ( $700 in account and $400 in RB ). This was very demoralizing, a huge blow to my ego I have to admit, February is shaping up to be my first losing month in over 5 years, I've had months when I only made $1,000, but LOSING!!! unheard of!!! I've scrutinized every hand on PokerTracker trying to plug leaks left right and center. The last week wasn't as bad as the beginning of February but I am still down, I guess I've plugged a few leaks. Today I tried a new site, just for a change of pace, WOW, what a difference, it was like going from Major League Baseball to little league, when you're used to 90MPH fastballs and they're lobbing them over the plate you hit a home run every time, I lost with sets of aces and took other sick beats but still came out ahead a couple hundred. I've come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no replacement for dead money, I struggle in a positive sum poker game because the players are stronger, more aggressive, make better decisions and force me to make tougher decisions, but I pay my rake at a site that's less attractive to the pros and I'm rewarded with hundred's of dollars worth of dead money in my pots. I don't regret the last month, I've improved allot in the last month, when you are killing the game it can be very easy to let allot of mistakes go unnoticed and still make a healthy profit. When strong players make you pay for your leaks, you plug them or you go broke. I wrestled for 8 years and it was the same way, beating up on the rookies is fun but you don't learn anything because they fail to punish you for your mistakes, I improved the most when I was getting the shit kicked out me by Olympians at practice. If you want to be the best you have to train with the best. I will continue to play on WPX because not being able to beat a positive sum game would mean that there are players on that site that are better than me, and I'm not quite ready to roll over and accept that, if they are better than me now, I will just have to improve, not give up and find some suckers to play with. However, in the interest of paying my bills I will divide my poker time between WPX and other sites. Playing with strong players for an hour or 2/day is a good way to hone your skills and plug your leaks, we should all strive to constantly improve our game. There should be a healthy balance between tough games to sharpen your skills and soft games to pay your bills.

Does anyone else play SHLHE on WPX? particularly at the 3-6 and 5-10 level, how are you finding the games and would u mind posting your PT stats? What do you think about playing on a small site with the same regular players every day? Has anyone else had problems with the hand histories reffering to the players as Player 1, Player 2 etc instead of actually using their SNs making it impossible to keep data on players? What do you think about trying to find tough games to play in once in a while to sharpen your skills?

I will be posting my very ugly PT stats that I am ashamed of very shorty.

**KY_Ace** · 02-23-2007 01:23 PM

**|~|ypermegachi** · 02-23-2007 08:41 PM

you need to suck out better

**TheGermanWunderkind** · 02-23-2007 11:50 PM

dont know if |~|ypermegachi want to say it but it seems you need to go to showdown more often and you should raise more preflop imho.
Also your BB play could be better, of yourse over this sample it can just be a sick run.

But the problem youre getting run over is imho the UTG position of course BB could be better but look at UTG youre making way too loess profit there. You went to SD there way to often, compare these number to the other positions exept the blinds , its way out of line imho and of course as a result you win only 43% of the Showdowns, maybe youre cant just fold your AK AQ AJ UI. Your WWSF is way to less there so it looks youre running really Bad there i dont know but as i said your WTSD Number is way too high there.I dont know maybe its just variance but for me this looks as a Big Leak and I think thats the reason youre loosing on 3/6 at WPX. Also CO Number are out of line in terms of WSF and BB/100 bu think this just pure variance becaus eall other numbers look good there.

**KY_Ace** · 02-28-2007 12:45 AM

I actually had a friend of mine review some AK hands with me and he said the same thing. My normal line was to to bet the flop and bet the turn if i"m OOP with 2 overcards, thinking that if I checked and he bet I would have the right price to call if my 6 outs are live and I always prefer betting to check calling because of folding equity. I think the problem was the IF, alot of times the ace is dead as the have a pair with an ace kicker, and the draw is almost break even if the 6 outs are live. We agreed that check folding is usually the better line or check calling if I have overs with a straight draw so I have made that adjustment. I checkraise the turn sometimes when I have big hands so that they don't always bet when I check.

I think alot of the lost showdowns are from me betting the river when I miss my AK or some other draw instead of check-folding like I should. In late position I like to take the free card on the turn and I will fold on the river when they bet. I think that is why I lose more showdowns in early position.

I've played 2 sessions on WPX since I posted this thread, the first was a 3-6 session where I was doing ok for a few hours and then had a bad run and lost the $700 in my account only earning $200 in RB in the session, so after buying ion for $1,500 1 month ago I only had a total of $600 in rakeback waiting for me Sunday night. I decided to drop down to 2-4 on Sunday, after a long session my account balance was down to $400 but I made $250 in RB, so I beat the rake in 2-4, only $50 but it's a start, beats losing $500.

I'm killing my new site for over $1,600 this week and it makes me wonder why I even bother with WPX but I'm going to stick to my plan of making my money on juicy sites and honing my skills while trying to at least break even and eventually beat WPX. I think my problem on WPX is that there are a few very tough players on there that are reading me better than I am reading them and I will just have to vary my play a little more when I'm in hands with these players and pay very close attention to the way they play their hands. The ones that I am losing to in 3-6 are also beating the 10-20 games and only play 3-6 because WPX has a small player base and usually only has 2 10-20s running.

For my bankrolls sake I'm not buying back into WPX, I will rebuild playing 2-4 and then go back to 3-6 when I'm over $1,000 on WPX. I will keep the money that I make from my other sites seperate.

**euphoricism** · 02-28-2007 10:30 PM

I doubt you could find a harder place to play LHE than wpx. Its a shark feeding frenzy. Youre playing mostly professional players. I doubt the majority of fish even know it exists, and if they do, theyre cleaned out real quick.

Also, your blinds suck. Better seat selection (read: people on your right who dont steal your blinds often) will help you a lot.

In fact if I were to suggest one thing for you to work on, it would be finding better seats. Its the sole reason I was a long term winner at Party 5/10, and you know why? Because I sat where the fish wouldn't attack my blinds, and the blinds are by far the hardest to play.

**KY_Ace** · 03-01-2007 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by euphoricism

I doubt you could find a harder place to play LHE than wpx. Its a shark feeding frenzy. Youre playing mostly professional players. I doubt the majority of fish even know it exists, and if they do, theyre cleaned out real quick.

Also, your blinds suck. Better seat selection (read: people on your right who dont steal your blinds often) will help you a lot.

In fact if I were to suggest one thing for you to work on, it would be finding better seats. Its the sole reason I was a long term winner at Party 5/10, and you know why? Because I sat where the fish wouldn't attack my blinds, and the blinds are by far the hardest to play.

It's good to hear a second opinion that this is a very difficult site to beat. Your suggestion makes allot of sense, I know who all the sharks are on this site, from now on I will sit 2 seats to the right of the sharks or I will not play.

**|~|ypermegachi** · 03-01-2007 10:59 PM

Originally Posted by KY_Ace

It's good to hear a second opinion that this is a very difficult site to beat. Your suggestion makes allot of sense, I know who all the sharks are on this site, from now on I will sit 2 seats to the right of the sharks or I will not play.

i.e. you won't be playing at WPX anymore...

**elipsesjeff** · 03-01-2007 11:24 PM

Your blind numbers are very very poor. If you were to play optimally you would see less than -.15 in the BB per hand and -.07 in the SB. Figure out how much you're spewing there and you'll be pretty upset at yourself.

Looking over your stats just a quick workthrough, I'd say your preflop numbers are OK for these stake, but you need to raise more from the BB. Also, German said it right, you aren't going to showdown enough. Against good players a higher SD% is in order, it will reduce your W$SD but it's inevitable. I would run 37-42% WSD at times but overall I'd say they were 39%ish.

Finally, you need to be more aggressive postflop. Your Agg factor should be over 2 overall, and I think yours is slightly lower than optimal.

**euphoricism** · 03-02-2007 08:05 AM

my w2sd over 100kish hands of 5/10 was 32%

**euphoricism** · 03-02-2007 08:06 AM

And your blinds aren't TERRIBLE. If -.15 -.08 is optimal and youre at -.2 -.09... you ain't doin too bad.

I really think its seat selection.

**euphoricism** · 03-02-2007 08:08 AM

Ok final post. The -.2 is really pretty bad. Theres a world of different between .2 and .17 when youre playing thousands of hands.

The -.09 is really good.

**KY_Ace** · 03-02-2007 11:01 AM

The .09 is a little misleading, in 3-6 on WPX the SB is $1 and you don't really have to protect your SB that much to keep your losses down. You can see that my fold SB to steal is 88%, compared to my fold BB to steal which is way up at 50%. $0.50 doesn't seem like much but over almost 18,000 hands it's the difference between posting $3,386 and $5,079.

As far as the BB goes, maybe I should stop CRing the flop with absolutely nothing when I think they missed, it works sometimes but if I'm willing to follow up on the turn I'm risking $12 post-flop to win $16 so it has to work over %43 of the time to be profitable. I don't think there is any filter for this in poker tracker. I can isolate all the hands where I CR the flop when they steal my BB but some of those hands I hit the flop, I need to focus on when I miss and try to push them off their hand when there is no ace on the flop.

Another problem that I have with WPX is the hand histories, they use your SN and they use player 1, player 2 etc for the other players instead of their SNs so it's impossible to keep numbers on players. I think I take pretty good notes, but having numbers on PokerAce HUD would really help, but then again that also means that they don't have any numbers on me, I'm sure that most of the guys on WPX are PT users.

I really appreciate everybody analyzing my numbers, there are so many stats on poker tracker that sometimes I don't notice certain numbers like how my SD% numbers were very high UTG, it's also good to know what numbers I should be aiming for in my BB/SB.

I can put my stats up for a site that I am killing but you'd probably say, numbers look good don't change a thing lol. I guess different numbers should be expected for different levels of competition. I might put them up anyways but I'll wait until I'm at 20K, I played 4K yesterday!! It's easy to play allot of hands when you wake up at 7AM and play with European and Asian players that are just getting home from work. I wake up in the morning and I'm done before dinner, it's so much more like a normal work routine. Sleeping all day and playing all night wears on me after a while.

Thanks again guys, I'll continue to play the occasional short WPX session and I'll do an update when I get to about 30K .hands.

02-23-2007 12:36 PM #1
KY_Ace View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date May 2005 Posts 252 Location Toronto, Canada	Honing your skills On January 17th Neteller cut off the US customers and sadly my days of making 800/week 3-tabling/bonus whoring 4-8 6-max on Bodog ended. I didn't think it would be a problem, I'd just try out WPX that 100% rakeback site I heard about, how can I go wrong??? and OMG Wed-Sat 1PM-1AM EST they actually give you $50 if you lose with AA a positive sum poker game WOW!!!. 1st week I make $700!! Ha this is easy!! Then it happened, I started losing on a regular basis, I was playing only on the promotion times and after buying in for $1,500 I would be cleaned out or close to it on Saturday and I'd have to wait for my rakeback on Monday to play again. My $1,500 is now down to $1,100 ( $700 in account and $400 in RB ). This was very demoralizing, a huge blow to my ego I have to admit, February is shaping up to be my first losing month in over 5 years, I've had months when I only made $1,000, but LOSING!!! unheard of!!! I've scrutinized every hand on PokerTracker trying to plug leaks left right and center. The last week wasn't as bad as the beginning of February but I am still down, I guess I've plugged a few leaks. Today I tried a new site, just for a change of pace, WOW, what a difference, it was like going from Major League Baseball to little league, when you're used to 90MPH fastballs and they're lobbing them over the plate you hit a home run every time, I lost with sets of aces and took other sick beats but still came out ahead a couple hundred. I've come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no replacement for dead money, I struggle in a positive sum poker game because the players are stronger, more aggressive, make better decisions and force me to make tougher decisions, but I pay my rake at a site that's less attractive to the pros and I'm rewarded with hundred's of dollars worth of dead money in my pots. I don't regret the last month, I've improved allot in the last month, when you are killing the game it can be very easy to let allot of mistakes go unnoticed and still make a healthy profit. When strong players make you pay for your leaks, you plug them or you go broke. I wrestled for 8 years and it was the same way, beating up on the rookies is fun but you don't learn anything because they fail to punish you for your mistakes, I improved the most when I was getting the shit kicked out me by Olympians at practice. If you want to be the best you have to train with the best. I will continue to play on WPX because not being able to beat a positive sum game would mean that there are players on that site that are better than me, and I'm not quite ready to roll over and accept that, if they are better than me now, I will just have to improve, not give up and find some suckers to play with. However, in the interest of paying my bills I will divide my poker time between WPX and other sites. Playing with strong players for an hour or 2/day is a good way to hone your skills and plug your leaks, we should all strive to constantly improve our game. There should be a healthy balance between tough games to sharpen your skills and soft games to pay your bills. Does anyone else play SHLHE on WPX? particularly at the 3-6 and 5-10 level, how are you finding the games and would u mind posting your PT stats? What do you think about playing on a small site with the same regular players every day? Has anyone else had problems with the hand histories reffering to the players as Player 1, Player 2 etc instead of actually using their SNs making it impossible to keep data on players? What do you think about trying to find tough games to play in once in a while to sharpen your skills? I will be posting my very ugly PT stats that I am ashamed of very shorty.
	{solicitation URL removed by Xianti}
Reply With Quote

02-23-2007 01:23 PM #2
KY_Ace View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date May 2005 Posts 252 Location Toronto, Canada
	{solicitation URL removed by Xianti}
Reply With Quote

02-23-2007 08:41 PM #3
\|~\|ypermegachi View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date Aug 2004 Posts 3,450 Location emo-kid	you need to suck out better

Reply With Quote

02-23-2007 11:50 PM #4
TheGermanWunderkind View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date Jan 2007 Posts 15	dont know if \|~\|ypermegachi want to say it but it seems you need to go to showdown more often and you should raise more preflop imho. Also your BB play could be better, of yourse over this sample it can just be a sick run. But the problem youre getting run over is imho the UTG position of course BB could be better but look at UTG youre making way too loess profit there. You went to SD there way to often, compare these number to the other positions exept the blinds , its way out of line imho and of course as a result you win only 43% of the Showdowns, maybe youre cant just fold your AK AQ AJ UI. Your WWSF is way to less there so it looks youre running really Bad there i dont know but as i said your WTSD Number is way too high there.I dont know maybe its just variance but for me this looks as a Big Leak and I think thats the reason youre loosing on 3/6 at WPX. Also CO Number are out of line in terms of WSF and BB/100 bu think this just pure variance becaus eall other numbers look good there.

Reply With Quote

02-28-2007 12:45 AM #5
KY_Ace View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date May 2005 Posts 252 Location Toronto, Canada	I actually had a friend of mine review some AK hands with me and he said the same thing. My normal line was to to bet the flop and bet the turn if i"m OOP with 2 overcards, thinking that if I checked and he bet I would have the right price to call if my 6 outs are live and I always prefer betting to check calling because of folding equity. I think the problem was the IF, alot of times the ace is dead as the have a pair with an ace kicker, and the draw is almost break even if the 6 outs are live. We agreed that check folding is usually the better line or check calling if I have overs with a straight draw so I have made that adjustment. I checkraise the turn sometimes when I have big hands so that they don't always bet when I check. I think alot of the lost showdowns are from me betting the river when I miss my AK or some other draw instead of check-folding like I should. In late position I like to take the free card on the turn and I will fold on the river when they bet. I think that is why I lose more showdowns in early position. I've played 2 sessions on WPX since I posted this thread, the first was a 3-6 session where I was doing ok for a few hours and then had a bad run and lost the $700 in my account only earning $200 in RB in the session, so after buying ion for $1,500 1 month ago I only had a total of $600 in rakeback waiting for me Sunday night. I decided to drop down to 2-4 on Sunday, after a long session my account balance was down to $400 but I made $250 in RB, so I beat the rake in 2-4, only $50 but it's a start, beats losing $500. I'm killing my new site for over $1,600 this week and it makes me wonder why I even bother with WPX but I'm going to stick to my plan of making my money on juicy sites and honing my skills while trying to at least break even and eventually beat WPX. I think my problem on WPX is that there are a few very tough players on there that are reading me better than I am reading them and I will just have to vary my play a little more when I'm in hands with these players and pay very close attention to the way they play their hands. The ones that I am losing to in 3-6 are also beating the 10-20 games and only play 3-6 because WPX has a small player base and usually only has 2 10-20s running. For my bankrolls sake I'm not buying back into WPX, I will rebuild playing 2-4 and then go back to 3-6 when I'm over $1,000 on WPX. I will keep the money that I make from my other sites seperate.
	{solicitation URL removed by Xianti}
Reply With Quote

Honing your skills

Thread Tools

Display

Honing your skills

Posting Permissions

02-28-2007 10:30 PM #6
euphoricism View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date Mar 2005 Posts 5,365 Location Your place or my place	I doubt you could find a harder place to play LHE than wpx. Its a shark feeding frenzy. Youre playing mostly professional players. I doubt the majority of fish even know it exists, and if they do, theyre cleaned out real quick. Also, your blinds suck. Better seat selection (read: people on your right who dont steal your blinds often) will help you a lot. In fact if I were to suggest one thing for you to work on, it would be finding better seats. Its the sole reason I was a long term winner at Party 5/10, and you know why? Because I sat where the fish wouldn't attack my blinds, and the blinds are by far the hardest to play.
	<Staxalax> Honestly, #flopturnriver is the one thing that has improved my game the most. Directions to join the #flopturnriver Internet Relay Chat - Come chat with us!
Reply With Quote

03-01-2007 04:31 PM #7
KY_Ace View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date May 2005 Posts 252 Location Toronto, Canada	Originally Posted by euphoricism I doubt you could find a harder place to play LHE than wpx. Its a shark feeding frenzy. Youre playing mostly professional players. I doubt the majority of fish even know it exists, and if they do, theyre cleaned out real quick. Also, your blinds suck. Better seat selection (read: people on your right who dont steal your blinds often) will help you a lot. In fact if I were to suggest one thing for you to work on, it would be finding better seats. Its the sole reason I was a long term winner at Party 5/10, and you know why? Because I sat where the fish wouldn't attack my blinds, and the blinds are by far the hardest to play. It's good to hear a second opinion that this is a very difficult site to beat. Your suggestion makes allot of sense, I know who all the sharks are on this site, from now on I will sit 2 seats to the right of the sharks or I will not play.
	{solicitation URL removed by Xianti}
Reply With Quote

03-01-2007 10:59 PM #8
\|~\|ypermegachi View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date Aug 2004 Posts 3,450 Location emo-kid	Originally Posted by KY_Ace It's good to hear a second opinion that this is a very difficult site to beat. Your suggestion makes allot of sense, I know who all the sharks are on this site, from now on I will sit 2 seats to the right of the sharks or I will not play. i.e. you won't be playing at WPX anymore...

Reply With Quote

03-01-2007 11:24 PM #9
elipsesjeff View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date Jul 2004 Posts 4,863 Location Northern Virginia	Your blind numbers are very very poor. If you were to play optimally you would see less than -.15 in the BB per hand and -.07 in the SB. Figure out how much you're spewing there and you'll be pretty upset at yourself. Looking over your stats just a quick workthrough, I'd say your preflop numbers are OK for these stake, but you need to raise more from the BB. Also, German said it right, you aren't going to showdown enough. Against good players a higher SD% is in order, it will reduce your W$SD but it's inevitable. I would run 37-42% WSD at times but overall I'd say they were 39%ish. Finally, you need to be more aggressive postflop. Your Agg factor should be over 2 overall, and I think yours is slightly lower than optimal.
	Check out my videos at Grinderschool.com More Full Ring NLHE Cash videos than ANY other poker training site. Training starts at $10/month.
Reply With Quote

03-02-2007 08:05 AM #10
euphoricism View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date Mar 2005 Posts 5,365 Location Your place or my place	my w2sd over 100kish hands of 5/10 was 32%
	<Staxalax> Honestly, #flopturnriver is the one thing that has improved my game the most. Directions to join the #flopturnriver Internet Relay Chat - Come chat with us!
Reply With Quote

03-02-2007 08:06 AM #11
euphoricism View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date Mar 2005 Posts 5,365 Location Your place or my place	And your blinds aren't TERRIBLE. If -.15 -.08 is optimal and youre at -.2 -.09... you ain't doin too bad. I really think its seat selection.
	<Staxalax> Honestly, #flopturnriver is the one thing that has improved my game the most. Directions to join the #flopturnriver Internet Relay Chat - Come chat with us!
Reply With Quote

03-02-2007 08:08 AM #12
euphoricism View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date Mar 2005 Posts 5,365 Location Your place or my place	Ok final post. The -.2 is really pretty bad. Theres a world of different between .2 and .17 when youre playing thousands of hands. The -.09 is really good.
	<Staxalax> Honestly, #flopturnriver is the one thing that has improved my game the most. Directions to join the #flopturnriver Internet Relay Chat - Come chat with us!
Reply With Quote

03-02-2007 11:01 AM #13
KY_Ace View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message Join Date May 2005 Posts 252 Location Toronto, Canada	The .09 is a little misleading, in 3-6 on WPX the SB is $1 and you don't really have to protect your SB that much to keep your losses down. You can see that my fold SB to steal is 88%, compared to my fold BB to steal which is way up at 50%. $0.50 doesn't seem like much but over almost 18,000 hands it's the difference between posting $3,386 and $5,079. As far as the BB goes, maybe I should stop CRing the flop with absolutely nothing when I think they missed, it works sometimes but if I'm willing to follow up on the turn I'm risking $12 post-flop to win $16 so it has to work over %43 of the time to be profitable. I don't think there is any filter for this in poker tracker. I can isolate all the hands where I CR the flop when they steal my BB but some of those hands I hit the flop, I need to focus on when I miss and try to push them off their hand when there is no ace on the flop. Another problem that I have with WPX is the hand histories, they use your SN and they use player 1, player 2 etc for the other players instead of their SNs so it's impossible to keep numbers on players. I think I take pretty good notes, but having numbers on PokerAce HUD would really help, but then again that also means that they don't have any numbers on me, I'm sure that most of the guys on WPX are PT users. I really appreciate everybody analyzing my numbers, there are so many stats on poker tracker that sometimes I don't notice certain numbers like how my SD% numbers were very high UTG, it's also good to know what numbers I should be aiming for in my BB/SB. I can put my stats up for a site that I am killing but you'd probably say, numbers look good don't change a thing lol. I guess different numbers should be expected for different levels of competition. I might put them up anyways but I'll wait until I'm at 20K, I played 4K yesterday!! It's easy to play allot of hands when you wake up at 7AM and play with European and Asian players that are just getting home from work. I wake up in the morning and I'm done before dinner, it's so much more like a normal work routine. Sleeping all day and playing all night wears on me after a while. Thanks again guys, I'll continue to play the occasional short WPX session and I'll do an update when I get to about 30K .hands.
	{solicitation URL removed by Xianti}
Reply With Quote