Operation: Consistency

GL, and run good.

look forward to following your OP, not many tourny/sng blogs. GL

Getting pwned today. Around every corner is some reg that is whipping out AA with ninja efficiency. While my push/fold game seem fine I appear to have broken my post-flop game.

No Limit Holdem Tournament
3 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
$15+$1

Stacks:
BTN (3,310)
SB (5,515)
Hero (4,675)

Blinds: 100/200 Ante 25

Pre-Flop: (375, 3 players) Hero is BB 8 A
BTN folds, SB calls 100, Hero raises to 600, SB calls 400

Flop: 6 3 J (1,275, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: 5 (1,275, 2 players)
SB bets 1,200, Hero goes all-in 4,050, SB calls 2,850

River: 7 (9,375, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: 9,375
Hero shows high card Ace
8 A
SB shows a pair of Jacks
J Q

SB wins 9,375 (net +4,700)

Hero lost 4,675

Honestly, wtf am I doing? C-bet or check-fold.

Ok, things are hotting up on the table. Oh, and wtf is it regs who feel like sitting down with 5 other regs is in any way a profitable use of their time?

Originally Posted by Nakamura

Oh, and wtf is it regs who feel like sitting down with 5 other regs is in any way a profitable use of their time?

they think they're better than the other regs? vpp whoring? haha I dunno, this is why I don't play SnGs though...

What's a good ROI at 16s?

C bet Flop IMO, yea i think turn is pretty bad.

Originally Posted by courtiebee

What's a good ROI at 16s?

If you can achieve 10% ROI consistently, you are doing pretty well. Something like 6-8% is pretty solid. Part of the issue is there are almost always at least 2-3 regs on a table.

Yesterday was decent in terms of volume. Around 110 games I think. Wednesday was pretty much a no starter because of the PS server reset and then my internet connection was a bit dodgy. We get screwed in South Africa for internet. Believe it or not, I still play off a 384k line because our telephony company (the only one) wants R400 (around $60) for a 4mb ADSL line rental fee. I'm not sure what the international standards are but we have to pay for a line rental and then an ADSL line rental fee in spite of the line being identical! So we sit in a situation where the data is pretty cheap, but the telephony company bleeds us dry in line rental fees. $%&* Helkom!

I won't get much volume in today because I need to prepare for going away for the weekend. A friend of a friend gave us permission to use their 'farm' for the weekend. I use the word farm rather loosely because the land has actually never been farmed. It's basically a piece of land in the mountains with awesome rivers. Since it's summer time here now and really hot, it's going to be awesome just chilling in the river. The whole trip costs us around $40 incl petrol, food, someone to cook breakfast for us.

I was about to ask wether you had a blog in one of the sng threads.
There isn't enough sng blogs on FTR.

GL and run good

Well, got in some volume today. Pretty brutal out there today, 20 BIs below EV after 75 games. It was going alright from an EV perspective (around 10%) until the last set of 18 games. I must have been bust 7 or 8 times by AA. Meh, I've run good over the last 300-400 games, so whatever. Looking forward to grinding when I get back.

Jesus, and I was going to complain about my -10BI under EV in 100games runbadaments.

Have a good trip!

Originally Posted by nice_aiau

Jesus, and I was going to complain about my -10BI under EV in 100games runbadaments.

Have a good trip!

lol ... donkaments!

I was somewhat surprised that when I got back from mini-holiday, I had only dropped two spots in the Sharkscope leader board to 6th position. Maybe the regs aren't so good or don't play much on the weekends? Who knows, anyway the break was nice. We spent a lot of time tanning and swimming in the rivers, drinking beer and expensive wine a mate gets for like $1 a bottle, braaing (read BBQing, except with 'real' meat). I'll post some pics when I find my card reader.

I've been back at the tables and working hard today, playing some decent poker. I probably tilted slightly in the last set and called in a few spots where I should have raise-folded, but whatever. Today's results mean that I'm 33 BI below EV for my last 150 games. It's all good though because I'm still slightly above EV for the year so far. I'll probably try and get in another 20 or so games later this evening when I get back from playing squash.

You gotta grind with the long term in mind!

Not much seems to be going right at the moment. Last night I busted my $200 squash racquet against the wall. It wasn't even that hard, but I think I missed an easy drop shot when I caught the racquet against the wall. I had another little swipe at the wall and I think that's when it broke. Time to use some of my (non existent) profits from this month to replace it

Man, PS is specialising in busting my nuts at the moment. It helps I'm not losing actually losing money, but having several days in a row where you run badly is mentally quite demanding. Still I've had longer break-even spells - try 5k of games!

I find it's actually easy now to brush aside a day or two of running bad. Funny how this has progressed from being affected by running badly in one or two games, to 10's of games, to 50 games, to a day, now I can nearly run bad a week without feeling too bad. I guess that's part of progressing from fish to pro. It helps that I almost never tilt regardless of how many bad beats I receive, but running bad for a few days makes me want to escape away from my PC!

Well, not too much happening today. This morning was a non-starter as PS reset their server, which was down from 10am - 2pm LT (for SNGs anyway). Seems a little long, no? I've only played 3 sets today because I only had time for 2 sets before I had to go to salsa lessons. Then I got distracted by Norman Chad and the 2010 WSOP day 4 ... Johnny Chan pwning it! Anyway, I've finally run at EV for the day, around $70, and plan to fit in two more sets later tonight.

I've bounced back up from 8th in the SS leaderboard to 6th. I'm gunning for top 5 right now, but still about $200 short of that. Oh, I forgot ... I got back to back BOP High Orbit Leader Board cashes. It's been a while since that has happened, so nice little bonuses.

Seems like the new computer may have to wait a bit. Sandy Bridge boards have all been recalled due to a flaw on the chipset. It's on all the new i5/i7 motherboards, which is a major fuck up for Intel ... $300 million just pissed away. But more importantly, it means I have to wait a bit so I ensure I get one of the replacement boards and not old stock.

Nearly forgot, experimenting in these spots. Villain is stealing over 50% of the time over 2k of hands (stat filter for number of players) and weak. Blinds are a little lower than I'd like, but most people aren't calling in the blinds without a premium hands, even though they should. Holding an A makes it much less likely villain or blinds are holding an A. I think I can safely fold if villain comes over the top, as most players will need TT+, AQs+ to shove here. His opening range is obviously much wider than that.

No Limit Holdem Tournament
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
$15+$1

Stacks:
UTG (1,840)
CO (3,434)
Hero (5,682)
SB (1,429)
BB (1,115)

Blinds: 100/200 Ante 25

Pre-Flop: (425, 5 players) Hero is BTN 2 A
1 fold, CO raises to 500, Hero raises to 1,250, SB goes all-in 1,404, 1 fold, CO folds, Hero calls 154

Flop: 3 Q 7 (3,633, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: 8 (3,633, 2 players, 1 all-in)

River: K (3,633, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: 3,633
Hero shows high card Ace
2 A
SB shows three of a kind, Kings
K K

SB wins 3,633 (net +2,204)

CO lost 525
Hero lost 1,429

damn you put in lots of volume, impressive. gl!

about the a2s hand: i don't think the steal% is going to be that accurate even tho you do have a big sample. chipleader has position on him and is committed to calling both the blinds, so its not a great spot to be in

Originally Posted by fjuanl

damn you put in lots of volume, impressive. gl!

Cheers, still way behind the leading players. One of the best $16 regs, sippin_chriss, plays 8 sets of 25 a day (200 games). Now that's amazing!

Ug .... I have a past history with the PF raiser who is very aggro. Caller is just a random donk. Perhaps just calling on the flop is actually better in this spot and give him more opportunity to bluff. idk 3-way I feel uncomfortable giving out free cards.

No Limit Holdem Tournament
9 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
$15+$1

Stacks:
UTG (1,500)
UTG+1 (1,500)
MP1 (1,500)
MP2 (1,500)
MP3 (1,500)
CO (1,500)
BTN (1,500)
Hero (1,500)
BB (1,500)

Blinds: 10/20

Pre-Flop: (30, 9 players) Hero is SB Q Q
3 folds, MP2 raises to 60, 2 folds, BTN calls 60, Hero calls 50, 1 fold

Flop: 5 5 J (200, 3 players)
Hero checks, MP2 bets 150, BTN calls 150, Hero goes all-in 1,440, MP2 goes all-in 1,290, BTN goes all-in 1,290

Turn: 10 (4,520, 3 players, 3 all-in)

River: 4 (4,520, 3 players, 3 all-in)

Final Pot: 4,520
BTN shows a full house, Fives full of Jacks
5 J
Hero shows two pair, Queens and Fives
Q Q
MP2 shows two pair, Jacks and Fives
A J

BTN wins 4,520 (net +3,020)

Hero lost 1,500
MP2 lost 1,500

How long does it take to play a set of 25?

Originally Posted by Nakamura

Ug .... I have a past history with the PF raiser who is very aggro. Caller is just a random donk. Perhaps just calling on the flop is actually better in this spot and give him more opportunity to bluff. idk 3-way I feel uncomfortable giving out free cards.

No Limit Holdem Tournament
9 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
$15+$1

Stacks:
UTG (1,500)
UTG+1 (1,500)
MP1 (1,500)
MP2 (1,500)
MP3 (1,500)
CO (1,500)
BTN (1,500)
Hero (1,500)
BB (1,500)

Blinds: 10/20

Pre-Flop: (30, 9 players) Hero is SB Q Q
3 folds, MP2 raises to 60, 2 folds, BTN calls 60, Hero calls 50, 1 fold

Flop: 5 5 J (200, 3 players)
Hero checks, MP2 bets 150, BTN calls 150, Hero goes all-in 1,440, MP2 goes all-in 1,290, BTN goes all-in 1,290

Turn: 10 (4,520, 3 players, 3 all-in)

River: 4 (4,520, 3 players, 3 all-in)

Final Pot: 4,520
BTN shows a full house, Fives full of Jacks
5 J
Hero shows two pair, Queens and Fives
Q Q
MP2 shows two pair, Jacks and Fives
A J

BTN wins 4,520 (net +3,020)

Hero lost 1,500
MP2 lost 1,500

You dont 3b/squeeze QQ preflop at 10/20?

It takes around 1 hour to complete a set of 25, although it varies according to time of day. I'm GMT+2 so in the morning not a lot of people from the States are online, so the action is slow. At night the tables fill up much quicker, so sets take less time. You have to also factor in table selection time, which can be up to 20 minutes to avoid sitting down with too many regulars.

Originally Posted by nice_aiau

You dont 3b/squeeze QQ preflop at 10/20?

I don't 3-bet here because jot down the hands he 4-bets or calls with compared to his opening range. Our hand value is deceptive as well, so aggressive opponents will often hang themselves, given enough rope....

What a day so far. I'm nearly $500 down from 75 games, $EV is around -$70 . That's around 25 BIs bad. Ain't it weird how it's almost identical to my graph from Friday a few posts up? I'm not hugely worried as I'm rolled deep and I know I'm not making many mistakes. When you wrap your mind around it, I was equally likely to run 25BIs good which would have meant a profit of +$330 for the day and I would have been nearly $700 up for the month. The difference between -$470 and +$330 is $800! So I could have been $800 better off compared to where I am right now and suddenly it's a good month.

I think it highlights the inherent variance in SNGs and why small samples just can't be relied on. I think the minimum is probably 10k before you can draw reasonable conclusions, but then again you probably learnt a thing or two in those 10 000 games....

Anyway, I sill got two more sets to donk off some more chips and add to today's spectacular spew -worse ever I think.

Sundays, gotta fucking love 'em

No Limit Holdem Tournament
9 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
$15+$1

Stacks:
UTG (1,500)
UTG+1 (1,500)
MP1 (1,500)
MP2 (1,500)
MP3 (1,500)
CO (1,500)
Hero (1,500)
SB (1,500)
BB (1,500)

Blinds: 10/20

Pre-Flop: (30, 9 players) Hero is BTN Q Q
4 folds, MP3 calls 20, 1 fold, Hero raises to 100, 2 folds, MP3 calls 80

Flop: 9 4 J (230, 2 players)
MP3 checks, Hero bets 160, MP3 calls 160

Turn: 6 (550, 2 players)
MP3 checks, Hero bets 400, MP3 calls 400

River: 9 (1,350, 2 players)
MP3 checks, Hero goes all-in 840, MP3 goes all-in 840

Final Pot: 3,030
Hero shows two pair, Queens and Nines
Q Q
MP3 shows two pair, Nines and Fours
4 A

Hero wins 3,030 (net +1,530)

MP3 lost 1,500

Briefly, Friday was pretty much the opposite of the grpah immediately above. EV was around $-50 and I think I made something like $550. I don't know wtf is up with the variance to run 25 BI bad over 75 and then run 30 BI good over 90. Seems well outside 1 standard deviation. Anywhoo, no time to post a graph coz I gotta jet and meet a mate.

Oh and couldn't quite make PS High Orbit Leaderboard for a third week in a row. Was on track after Friday's effort, but half of those games counted towards a Thursday's diabolically bad run and then got munched last night at the tables.

Thanks for posting ur ups and downs. It shows us with much less experience that if we keep doing the right things that in the end the results will be good.

I am multitabling 4 at the 5.50s on FT. I can't imagine being in the late stages on 18 tables and being even close to being able to keep up. How do you do that.

It's pretty rare that I'm sit on all 18 tables when the ICM decisions get complicated, so that helps. Most decisions can be made in <1 second anyway. Half the time I'm waiting for my PC to catch to me!

Otherwise it's just practice. I think Boku87 was playing up to 50 at once during his PokerStars challenges. He is playing MTTs, so he is more likely to be at a full table and therefore have more time before he needs to act again. But I would guess 60 hands/hour is probably normal for a MTT. He needs to be making and performing decisions in around 1-1.5 seconds.

Oh, also AHK scripts, Table Ninja, Xpadder and stacking ftw!

SNG forum is kicking off again. I feel semi-inspired to write some articles again. I have a few ideas in mind. Perhaps I'll dust off my $EV article I started writing about 6 months ago. I know many SNG players seem to run behind EV so it was exploring some of the reasons why this may be the case.

Recently there have been some interesting threads in the SNG forum.

Why we shouldn't shove everything that is +EV. I have some homework to do on this.

Pre-flop bet sizing. I haven't fully explored all of what I want to here. Betting 125 at 25/50 is a lot better than betting 150 for example. I want to explore dealing with min-raising and not spazzing out. This is becoming very important as they are becoming more and more prevalent.

As far as poker goes, so much for spreading the love on Valentine's Day .... absolutely mauled the tables today. ROI = 50% although EV is around 20%. I love donkaments!

Kicked off with a nice score for the high orbit board, 1476 points which should be enough for a top 20 finish this week. Also appear to have made top 3 in Sharkscope board for now.

good luck continuing to meet your goals! I'm impressed with what you've written here and in the SNG forum.

Originally Posted by Vi-Zer0Skill

good luck continuing to meet your goals! I'm impressed with what you've written here and in the SNG forum.

Cheers!


F*** me, I'm walking cowboy style after the last two days. I didn't play much yesterday as I was reading up on some theory, writing some stuff, posting hands and speeding up some AHK code I wrote.

I don't sound like a whinny bitch, but I run a million miles one day and then get destroyed the next. Over the last 2 days I've dropped 30 BI over 60 games and my EV is positive!

All I can say is that this graph is starting to look awfully familiar in this thread.




Some gems from today....


HAND 1

No Limit Holdem Tournament
7 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
$15+$1

Stacks:
Hero (3,085)
UTG+1 (1,260)
MP (1,270)
CO (1,380)
BTN (3,400)
SB (2,150)
BB (955)

Blinds: 25/50

Pre-Flop: (75, 7 players) Hero is UTG K K
Hero raises to 125, UTG+1 goes all-in 1,260, 5 folds, Hero calls 1,135

Flop: 8 10 7 (2,595, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: 7 (2,595, 2 players, 1 all-in)

River: J (2,595, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: 2,595
Hero shows two pair, Kings and Sevens
K K
UTG+1 shows a straight, Seven to Jack
9 9

UTG+1 wins 2,595 (net +1,335)

Hero lost 1,260


HAND 2

No Limit Holdem Tournament
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
$15+$1

Stacks:
UTG (830)
Hero (2,542)
CO (2,983)
BTN (2,895)
SB (2,780)
BB (1,470)

Blinds: 100/200 Ante 25

Pre-Flop: (450, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1 A A
1 fold, Hero raises to 438, 2 folds, SB goes all-in 2,755, 1 fold, Hero goes all-in 2,079

Flop: 6 7 4 (5,622, 2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: Q (5,622, 2 players, 2 all-in)

River: 3 (5,622, 2 players, 2 all-in)

Final Pot: 5,622
SB shows three of a kind, Queens
Q Q
Hero shows a pair of Aces
A A

SB wins 5,622 (net +2,842)

Hero lost 2,542

Weeeeee .... ridin' the SNG rollacoaster - destination: Suck Out City! Volume wise 1150 games so far this month. I will have to haul ass over the next 10 days to achieve goal of 2.5k games.

Well today has been a total let down. Today was like getting to third base with your girlfriend, you're all happy and she just wants to cuddle.

Pwned the tables all day long getting up to around $300 and then spewed all but $70 over the last 20 games. It was pretty spectacular. In general it's been a pretty sick variance month.




The human brain loves to pigeon-hole things. We tend to separate and put days into a pigeon-hole, "Oh, that was an awful day, tomorrrow will be better?" But will it, or is it just variance? Are we really playing any differently if we aren't tilting today? The point I'm trying to make is trying to break out of the mold viewing a single day without looking at the broader context. You have to view playing poker as more of a continuum than that or the tables will eat you alive. You'll feel terrible and hate the world in general. That isn't a good place for your mind to be in.

Anyway, I have made decent progress in terms of volume today, the most important thing! I am determined to break 2k games this month, even though it's only 28 days this month. My Birthday is on Thursday, but I guess I'll be grinding away. I'm having a Birthday party with my mates and making potjiekos (read "pot food" kind of stewed for hours in a witches cauldron over a fire). It's an SA tradition! So I guess no poker on Saturday then.

Very nice work grinding through the variance and happy B-day.

Originally Posted by dneureiter

Very nice work grinding through the variance and happy B-day.

Thanks!

Today is my day off since I played over 7 hours yesterday but I eat, shit and breathe poker! Tbh I wouldn't be a very good grinder if I wasn't degen on some level . I've just played one set this morning but the tables are so tight, it's hard to make money. I should have just played more games yesterday.

I'm going to run over the ICM from the last set because I feel like I made a few mistakes. At least I'm not happy with my performance. Once I finish that I have work to do on how profitable shoving different ranges is e.g. if 66+,ATs+,AJo+ is 0 EV to shove, what happens if I shove 66? Imo it's got to be -EV since shoving AA is so +EV. There have to be hands that balance things so it's 0 EV to shove the entire range. Perhaps I am misunderstanding things?

I also have work to do on some AHK code that needs cleaning up and more efficient programming. My approach to programming is a pretty blunt one. I get things to work, but I'm not very efficient in how I go about doing it.

Keeping my eye out for a new place to rent too. I moved in with my folks while I was wrapping up studies, but now it's time to move on. I guess this has really motivated me to play so much. I do need a good kick up the arse sometimes.

The problem is rents are still pricey here, they went up after the credit crunch and the Soccer World Cup and haven't really come down. Idk where people are getting the money from because about $1500/month is a decent salary in SA and a single room apartment costs about $600 - $800. I can't decide whether to go for a 2 bed or a 1 bed either. I'm not sure I want to work in the same space I sleep in. Any thoughts from some people who grind from home?

This week has been a real grind for me. I haven't really had a lot of luck in terms of what cards my opponents are rolling over. Some days it feels like every time I felt a hand my opponent turns over a dominating hand!

I'm having a lot of trouble with dumb regulars at the moment. Common SNG ettiquette is not to sit down at a table with more than 1 good player. Most good regulars follow this practice but some consistently fail to table select, which is just fucking annoying and eats into everyone's profits. It's real hard to make a profit when you are sitting with 6 other regulars.

Here is a game from today where I opened some fresh games and sat down with one other regular. Some days I wonder why I even bother to table select as there doesn't seem to be much point. Guys with an orange ring around them are regs I haven't seen do retarded stuff. I want to play a game .... (sorry, watched Saw 7 last night ) spot the fish!



Anyway, I'm still getting good volume in and I'm at about 1500 for the month, but still have a lot of things to do with finding a new place and arranging food for my party.

Anyway, duty calls. I have to go reg it up now, even though my elbow hurts quite a lot now. I'm trying to stay away from the mouse and just use my Xbox controller for now.

im not a grinder nak but i used to be a pro snooker player, playing mainly from home. i think a lot of parallels can be drawn, esp regards the mental side of it.
looking back i took it too seriously, should have been lighter-hearted about it all. finance was always an issue, but if i could do it again, id break up the day by seeing friends for lunch, that kind of thing. its importnat to break up the monotony and actually enjoy it.

i do have a good friend who is a grinder, he plays from his pc which is set up in the lounge. sometimes the kids are there watching tv, playing with the dog.

the perfect environment in which to play in is a relative concept i guess.

by the way, you mentioned sth about zen and poker if i recall correctly in this blog. if u could lead me in the right direction so i can listen to it it d be appreciated.

thanks and gl...

Thanks, I appreciate the advice. I'll probably look for a 1 bedroom place and set up in the lounge.

I had a quick look for the zen stuff, but can't find them right now. I'll see if a mate still has a copy somewhere. I didn't listen to all of them, coz there are 8, but I listened to enough to really help me control tilt to practically zero.

I have this feeling I'm not going to accomplish much today. I was about to settle down for a set of games before catching the start of South Africa's first cricket game at the CWC, but my gran wants to come over for tea. Since it's my Birthday, I'm sure she wants to give me something. I wonder what I'll get....

HappY birthday. Good luck with the grinding.

Happy B day NAk

Thanks guys.

Man this week has been tough. I feel like I'm being kicked in the nuts by a 2 ton mule every 5 seconds. I'm just not having much luck when I felt hands. When I make decent shoves, opponents turn up retarded hands based on my range.

Hand 1 - Opponent is decent reg, very likely shoving ATC.

No Limit Holdem Tournament
3 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
$15+$1

Stacks:
BTN (3,400)
SB (3,232)
Hero (6,868)

Blinds: 300/600 Ante 50

Pre-Flop: (1,050, 3 players) Hero is BB Q 6
BTN folds, SB goes all-in 3,182, Hero calls 2,582

Flop: 6 J 8 (6,514, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: 7 (6,514, 2 players, 1 all-in)

River: Q (6,514, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: 6,514
Hero shows two pair, Queens and Sixes
Q 6
SB shows a straight, Five to Nine
5 9

SB wins 6,514 (net +3,282)

Hero lost 3,232

Hand 2 - 2 hands later he makes a Hero call presumably because we called with Q6o in the previous hand. Ok, the call isn't ridiculous but it's wider than most will call in this spot.

No Limit Holdem Tournament
3 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
$15+$1

Stacks:
Hero (3,286)
SB (2,700)
BB (7,514)

Blinds: 300/600 Ante 50

Pre-Flop: (1,050, 3 players) Hero is BTN 4 A
Hero goes all-in 3,236, SB folds, BB calls 2,636

Flop: 3 Q J (6,922, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: K (6,922, 2 players, 1 all-in)

River: 9 (6,922, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: 6,922
Hero shows high card Ace
4 A
BB shows two pair, Kings and Threes
K 3

BB wins 6,922 (net +3,636)

Hero lost 3,286

Soul read? Nah, CO is a reg and smooth calls at a HBL. I pretty much know he always has AA and sometimes KK or QQ. If I had QQ I would definitely fold. I would also fold KK based the fact he would mostly be holding AA, since there would only be 2 other kings in the deck. If he had shoved PF, I might have called with JJ.

No Limit Holdem Tournament
9 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
$15+$1

Stacks:
UTG (2,300)
UTG+1 (1,115)
MP1 (1,460)
MP2 (2,012)
MP3 (1,463)
CO (1,860)
Hero (1,545)
SB (1,295)
BB (450)

Blinds: 75/150

Pre-Flop: (225, 9 players) Hero is BTN J J
4 folds, MP3 raises to 300, CO calls 300, Hero folds, 1 fold, BB goes all-in 450, MP3 calls 150, CO raises to 750, MP3 calls 300

Flop: 10 5 7 (2,025, 3 players, 1 all-in)
MP3 checks, CO bets 750, MP3 goes all-in 713

Turn: 9 (3,488, 3 players, 2 all-in)

River: 5 (3,488, 3 players, 2 all-in)

Final Pot: 3,488
MP3 shows a full house, Sevens full of Fives
7 7
CO shows two pair, Aces and Fives
A A
BB shows a pair of Fives
A Q

MP3 wins 3,451 (net +1,988)

CO collects 37 (net -1,463)
BB lost 450

Busy grinding at the moment, just starting a new set. Phew, life is tough at the $16s right now. I'm making the right sort of plays, just having some shitty luck. It's getting harder to sit down at tables with < 3 regs these days, which just sucks. Not sure if I'll make 2k games this month given yesterday's lack of performance.

Wow, totally owned over the last couple of hundred games. I need a karma boost or something. Maybe saving a kitten might help....



On another note I'm getting a strong feeling that one of the $16 regs is cheating. He wasn't a huge volume player and, IMO, not that strong a player. All of a sudden he is playing up to 450 games in a day and scoring over $1.2k. He had a couple of days of big winnings and deactivated himself from Sharkscope yesterday and today he deactivated himself from Topshark. Seems like an unusual for someone to do if he is a coach and 2nd in the Sharkscope leader board.

I'm trying to avoid him at the moment but it's hard as he is playing such high volume and over-regs quite a bit.

I know who you think. He regs over me all time, although 3 regs are in already and lately he was on the 2nd place in SS. Yesterday i checked his score on pokeroptimizer.com and he has really hot run but still a small sample size.

We might be thinking of different players. I didn't know about pokeroptimizer, but I checked on there and he has played 12k of games according to that.

I emailed support again because I'm not happy with the standard, "He's not running any prohibited software" BS I got the last time. If you are a reasonable programmer it's possible to write software to aid decisions, which is mostly illegal. How do they check for that?

IMO, the the most likely reason for hiding your stats is that you don't want others to see your volume or good results. It it was all above board, you would probably be proud of the volume or good results, not wanting to hide it.

Yea..he has 12k in 6 months, but his good run lasts about 1-2 thousands of SNG's. Believe that there can be a lot of another reasons why he is hiding his stats.
I am pretty sure, that he is just running hot and now there will be a correction soon (also because of his bad table selection).

Originally Posted by Lance

... his bad table selection

Yeah, this bit is doing my head in at the moment. I can't seem to sit down at games without a plethora of regs sitting down with me. I never register to games with more than 1 reg, even if they are pretty bad. They usually have an idea of what to do and I think that more -EV than sitting down with a couple of 39/3 and 78/63's.

Anyway, you are probably right. Time to take my whipping at the digital felt.

Wow, given an utter beasting today.... Nearly 30 BI bad over 90 games .



Here's an interesting hand. I have a good read on UTG+1, a regular. I know he doesn't limp suited connectors and generally only limps PPs from an EP like this. This is quite an unbalanced strategy since, when he calls the flop, I know he has a set eights. How do I know? Well, he would have raised his top pairs like AA or KK, so he can't have those. We already know he doesn't have suited connectors, so he isn't on some random flush draw. He won't pitch up AKs or AQs here since he would have raised those PF. He isn't limping any AT, KT or Tx hands either. Since we know he needs a hands to call our flop bet, it's highly likely his hand is a set of eights.

How do I know I would have checked the turn and folded the river? I got stacked yesterday in exactly the same situation against another reg. I read my opponent for having a set of twos, called a min re-raise on turn and stacked off. I learnt my lesson and am starting to trust my soul reads more.

No Limit Holdem Tournament
9 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
$15+$1

Stacks:
UTG (1,530)
UTG+1 (1,440)
MP1 (1,500)
MP2 (1,480)
MP3 (1,580)
CO (1,520)
Hero (1,470)
SB (1,480)
BB (1,500)

Blinds: 10/20

Pre-Flop: (30, 9 players) Hero is BTN Q 10
1 fold, UTG+1 calls 20, 2 folds, MP3 calls 20, CO calls 20, Hero calls 20, 1 fold, BB checks

Flop: 8 10 10 (110, 5 players)
BB checks, UTG+1 checks, MP3 checks, CO checks, Hero bets 75, BB folds, UTG+1 calls 75, MP3 folds, CO calls 75

Turn: Q (335, 3 players)
UTG+1 checks, CO checks, Hero bets 180, UTG+1 raises to 544, CO goes all-in 1,425, Hero goes all-in 1,195, UTG+1 goes all-in 801

River: 9 (4,480, 3 players, 3 all-in)

Final Pot: 4,480
CO shows two pair, Queens and Tens
Q 9
Hero shows a full house, Tens full of Queens
Q 10
UTG+1 shows a full house, Eights full of Tens
8 8

Hero wins 4,430 (net +2,960)

CO collects 50 (net -1,470)
MP3 lost 20
BB lost 20
UTG+1 lost 1,440

I've run so badly lately I feel like I want to puke. I haven't tilted, I just seem to be running really badly. Over the last week or so, I have dropped about $1k. I reckon this must be one my worst down-swings, if not the worst. I've decided to give it a break for a bit as I can feel the frustration setting in. This means I definitely won't make 2k of games this month, a pity but there is no shame in fitting in 1.8k into a short month. I might have a few more games after I take a swim and clear my mind for a bit. I always find swimming quite therapeutic, almost like it takes the stress away.

I figure wtf, I may as well turn this into a bad beat and fucking variance thread. I have been beaten, bashed and crushed at the $16s pretty much from the day I started. I would say the first 3000 or so games I was perhaps a little intimidated at playing the stakes, so I didn't play all that well. I definitely made a lot of mistakes and took some abuse from 1 or two regulars, which caused me to have some self doubts and move back down to the $6.50's. A word of advice, don't ever listen to abuse from poker players in the chat box. For one, if they are typing abuse in the chat box then you are a) making them uncomfortable (+EV) and b) they haven't learned to stop berating the fish, which means they probably aren't very good poker players, even if they regularly play the game.

Since those days I feel like I have learned a lot and play much better overall. I would say my 'true' ROI is probably 6 - 7%, which is in line with my EV results since then. It's true ROIs are dropping all the time at the $16s as more and more good players fill up the $16 games, due in part to PS' retarded rake structure. A $15 game takes $1 in rake (6.67%) a $25 game takes $2 in rake (8%). Great business model guys! So not only do the games get harder because the players are better, they help themselves to more rake too! A lot of players would probably move up if the rake situation improved and was generally better structured. Anyway, I wandered a bit off the point. The best players at the $16s, sippin_criss and envision9, made their monies at 8% last year. That's probably two percent off what was achievable 2 to 3 years ago. Since I'm a naturally competitive guy, I want to be close to the top. I want to be in the topmost echelon of players. I want to be winning at close to 8% ROI. I can comfortably say that I'm not there yet, but I'm also not that far off either.

I guess I'm having a lot of trouble reconciling my EV and my winnings. I know Ev lines are evil and we shouldn't really focus on them too much, but on the other hand we shouldn't be running at 60% EV either.

I just feel frustrated I'm sitting at 3% ROI when I feel like I should be so much closer to my long term goal. I know I have to just keep on grinding away and hope things improve a bit. The frustrating thing is that just because I have run bad over 8k of games doesn't mean I'm any more likely to start running good. Personally, I find that more annoying than running bad in the first place.