Anosmic: Reloaded

So we come to the end of another month (and another op) and that makes one year of SHNL play for me.

My first SHNL session I have in my PT database is from august 2006 and I've played a fair bit since then; an average of 10k hands per month.

My entire ring poker career to date (as much as I have records for):
NL
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/5...oot07nlmz5.jpg

and Limit:
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/4827/reboot07in1.jpg

As you can see there's quite lot I'd like to forget. With my database growing and growing I decided to start afresh. A clean break come the first of September and go go go!

I've improved a fair bit as a player over the last year; but am still very much aware of my overall suckage and that's something I need to work on.

At FRNL I did okay until I got to to $100NL when it went all wrong. At FRLHE I was always just a slight loser and rakeback and bonus made it profitable.

At SHLHE I just sucked and so I'm starting from $0.50/$1 there and trying to build my way up.

So I'm dividing up my bankroll as follows:

SH-LHE Roll: $300 (300 big bets for $0.50/$1)
SNG roll: $220 (20 BI for $11 SNGs)
SHNL roll: $580 (~11 BI for $50NL)

Since the SHNL roll is a little short I'm going to move up to $420 of bonus money into the SHNL as it comes in (for example I have about that in bonus left on Betfred).

Once that point is reached I'm trackng bonus money seperately. I've reached $100NL and $200NL before using bonus money and I think I got there too soon. This time I'm using only my poker winnings to increase the individual rolls.

For $50NL I've managed 1.35ptbb/100 over 60k hands. Which means that to add $1k to my roll should take around 75k hands. Since I tend to get in 10-15k hands a month that's a good 6 months project. If I've improved enough to be able to make more like 3ptbb/100 then it'll only take a 2-3 months; so that's going to be the first stage. Make $1k and in the process clear the $420 bonus on betfred.

I'm going to make this my main "operation" thread with regular meaningless updates. I hope it will be a journal of how I finally break into medium-stakes poker. But let's be realistic, it'll probably be another crash and burn, right?

The SNG stuff will be posted in my SNG op at least until I finish the 500 tournaments. But I've especially limited my BR for SNGs so that doesn't become a black hole down which all my roll disappears.

If there's anything like a plan to my play I'm going to try to keep playing this nitty game, incorporating a lot of Sauce's guide ideas into my play. I'm also going to try to practice better table selection, work on my reads, review my hands and try not to go on these periodic meltdowns that cost 5 BI.

Good plan?

So gl me :D

good luck man. i dont know how you can jugle all those diff games, that just screws with my head.

gl you :D

blog whore lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bode

good luck man. i don't know how you can juggle all those diff games, that just screws with my head.

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I agree 100%. Pick a game, pwn it then use others to relieve boredom and have some fun. But stop playing so many games. Every game, be it limit or No limit requires certain inherent differences that most cannot jump back and for doing with great skill. If you were a winning NL player and a losing limit player, sure learn more limit. You also need to contend with the differences in stakes. And I'm not talking about the difference between $50NL and $100NL. I'm talking the difference between $200Nl and $0.25/$0.50 limit.

Resolve yourself to play 10K hands at $50NL with 6-8PTBB/100 then move up if your roll permits. Bankroll is not the be all/ end all of moving up, sometimes you actually need to beat the limit your at. I think we all made mistakes in moving up and down so often due to bankroll fluctuations, from moving up as soon as we hit a magic number. Problem was, with rakeback and bonuses, sometimes we hit the BR numbers before ever beating the limit. I for one, got all the way to $100NL the first time last fall without being a winning player at $25NL or $50NL.

Wow at your PT stats. 200k hands of losing poker would just about drive my ass insane. Hell, I can't even take 2k hands of losing poker. I agree with these guys in picking a solo-game. You cannot honestly look at your stats and think what you were doing in the past was working for you. It just has not been the correct recipe. Shakes things up, start 2tabling and learn to beat this game.

Sorry if that was harsh, but damn.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bigspenda73

Wow at your PT stats. 200k hands of losing poker would just about drive my ass insane. Hell, I can't even take 2k hands of losing poker. I agree with these guys in picking a solo-game. You cannot honestly look at your stats and think what you were doing in the past was working for you. It just has not been the correct recipe. Shakes things up, start 2tabling and learn to beat this game.

Sorry if that was harsh, but damn.

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I'm glad someone said it.

I was debating whether it was my place to say that there are just some people who for whatever reason just don't have what it takes to beat the game, and looking at your stats, and your however many cycles of make an operation --> abort operation --> make an operation --> etc, that you may just be one.

Hopefully you'll prove me wrong

I admire your honesty, honestly. :D You really seem like a humble guy with no ego problems. Seriously it's admirable.

By the number of hands played you have no trouble playing the game. You can also keep playing through downswings (that never end!) You have a couple of the much needed skills. Now you just need to become a true student and indulge! We can all beat this stupid game where there's a flop and turn and a river! So let's do it.

Also, thank God for rakeback hey? ;)

i haven't read any of your previous operations, but looking at your stats where you have significant hands, your W$@SD is under 50% for pretty much everywhere. STOP CALLING DOWN AND/OR BLUFFING!!!!

Wow. Lots to sort out here then.

Firstly, it's not really juggling. The above actually represents something like 18 months of poker for me.

So far in 2007 I've played:
FR-LHE: 3k
SH-LHE: 4k
FR-NL: 11k
SH-NL: 97k

3-4k hands is not affecting anything. It's a weekend. It's nothing.
Let's have some perspective please.


I just played 10K hands of $50NL and just about finished up. This has underlined that even the game I've "beaten" I'm not beating enough... hence the restart and re-focus. So I agree with Trainer there.

As beginner's we have the bankroll focus. We often move up so fast we really don't have a chance to think anything. "move up! move up!" is the standard cry on the forums and too many of us do it unthinkingly.

To take a look at Spenda's post:
I have not got 200k hands of losing poker; I've got 200k hands at the end of which I'm down $.

If you see my SHNL graph it goes along, climbing slightly and then goes on a downer, then goes along up and down and then swings down again. I've moved up to $100NL and then back down again more often than I can now remember. And as the stats clearly show it's when I moved up to $100NL+ that it all falls apart.

To begin with I thought I was easily beating $50NL (and maybe I was pre-ban, we'll never know) and I ran 5ptbb/100 over 10k hands, added $500 to my roll and was ready to move up.
As I look back on it after 60k hands I can see that I wasn't beating $50NL well enough; but winning a couple of hundred dollars + bonus + rakeback and suddenly I'm ready for another shot.

I mean that I actually had a good month and found myself up at $100NL over 15k hands and sitting on a $4k roll lead me to try $200NL and look what happened here.

It's not a steady line, there's ups and downs. I honestly thought after 30k hands that I was fairly good at $50NL.
Up to April:

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/5...artstatip6.jpg
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/6...partposmn8.jpg

and since then:
http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/1...artstatyi3.jpg

http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/1...partpossi7.jpg

That I apparently suddenly suck came as a shock to me. But hey, I fixed that showdown problem, eh?

As far as it "not working for me", the problem is you get something like $2/4 FR. Quite clearly I'm not beating that game; 3.5k hands and I lost $139. But, in doing so I cleared approximately $250 in bonus and received $110 in rakeback. That 'works' if your focus is building the roll.

Short-handed I just suck. That's another story entirely.



So my focus is on SHNL, this time I'm not going to move up again when my roll hits $2k or $2.5k (I actually took $1k out of my roll to force myself to stay at $50NL longer). But traditionally I DO beat that level, even if not always very well. Even at 1ptbb/100 I'll EVENTUALLY reach $2k and the idea is this time to be ready to do so.

Of course it's possible, as Salsa says, that I'm one of the guys who can't beat the game. I very nearly quit last month because of that possibility. I finished up and so now I'll try again.


And while I'll take some good-natured ribbing about my operations, let's be clear about them. I like op-threads. I like to reflect, I like to share and I only hope it'll lead somewhere.
But while I've had a number of ops it's not as chaotic as it seems. I had the 7k5 thread, which finished badly and so I quit in order to remove some of the results-focus I had. I then had my "confessions" thread which evolved into a blog.

Aside from that I've had an SNG op and a ring op. The ring finished at the end of the month and so I have a new one. That's just because I think it's weird to mix ring and tourney threads as they're sufficiently different to interest completely different groups of people.

I've identified one weakness. My river betting has been abysmal.
I too frequently check-behind when ahead and miss value; when I do value bet I get raised and I'm against a better hand.

I'm also STILL getting involved in pots I shouldn't. It's most often when I'm 3-betting and then getting involved with marginal hands in big pots.

Obviously sometimes the results go my way, but the play is clearly bad and a few iPoker fish are encouraging me to play very ropey stuff.

No Limit Hold'em iPoker ($50NL)
Converted by FTRConv
5-handed

StacksBB: $54.40
UTG: $31.40
CO: $90.65
BTN: $110.76
Hero: $68.40


Pre-Flop: Hero is SB with :heart:A :diamond:J
UTG Call, CO Call, BTN Raise $2.00, Hero Raise $7.00, BB Fold, UTG Fold, CO Fold, BTN Call

Flop:($16.00) :club:A :heart:7 :heart:Q (5 players)
Hero Bet $12.00, BTN Raise $24.00, Hero Call

Turn:($64.00) :diamond:K (5 players)
Hero Check, BTN Check
River:($64.00) :diamond:4 (5 players)
Hero Bet $37.15

I think I played well today.

The key thing was that for the first 800 hands I had nothing going for me. My big hands were either being busted or getting no action. After 800 hands of not a lot happening I was about $50 down and no more than one pot where I could honestly say I felt I could play differently.

A second session went much better and I picked up some hands. Unlike my normal situation I hadn't got involved in stupid marginal plots and lost several buy-ins. I was down a bit and was soon up for the day, and indeed more-or-less break-even for the month (3k hands).

I'm playing pretty nitty really, doubtless folding to aggression when I have a better hand at times, but at the same time they're still paying me off some of the time so I'm willing to wait for my spots.
I'm playing 14/12 which is light-years from where I was a month ago, but right now it seems to be the style to play here.

If I can keep this more steady approach up I'm more confident that eventually I'll be able to open up and start playing more hands well.


I've also started doing some other stuff regarding reviews and opponents. I've added more stats to the HUD (iPoker now supported by PT, yay!). Like %cbet raised, % won at showdown, turn and river bet % which I'm trying to use in playing my opponents.

In my session reviews I've been using the Misc.Stats tab. Looking at my opponents who did I win/lose against. Was anyone causing me real problems? Was I sitting in the wrong place compared to them? Was my table/seat selection bad.

Hopefully this will all lead to improvements in future.

Gl man.

Deep stacks... ooh

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.25/$0.50
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $81.08
UTG+1: $110.71
CO: $52.25
Button: $119.48
Hero: $118.63
BB: $20.69

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is SB with J :heart: K :spade:
3 folds, Button raises to $2, Hero raises to $7, BB folds, Button calls.

Flop: A :heart: 5 :club: J :spade: ($14.5, 2 players)
Hero bets $11, Button raises all-in $112.48, Hero calls all-in $100.63.
Uncalled bets: $0.85 returned to Button.

Turn: K :diamond: ($237.76, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $237.76)


River: Q :spade: ($237.76, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $237.76)


Results:
Final pot: $237.76
Hero shows Jh Ks
Button shows Jc Ah

The above hand really cheesed me off-

Just to be clear the flop all-in call was a misclick, comes from playing without a mouse on a stupid laptop.

It's galling that so much of my profit went so quickly. Suddenly I went from being up 3BI to just 1. And at my modest win-rate that is expected to take something like 5k hands or so to make back.

Irritatingly enough that today after that error I had a horrible, horrible session on Party and have gone seriously into the red for the month. *sigh*

All to familiar.

After playing almost no poker for two months! (Busy at work, plus had enough basically) I'm back.

It's a new month and I aim to get in some poker before the end of the year.

Just had a fun session of $2/4 FRLHE on crypto. Very soft, great seat selection, playing the donks and tunred a little profit. ONly up $12, but bonus and RB tripples that.

Biondino was railing me and it was just really nice just to have fun playing again. Even after the horrible hands early (AA called by 69o who flops x69 and the like).

I'm hoping to clear something like $500 of bonus this month, like the old days. Be cool to do it and win at the tables... it'll be extra tough given that I so rarely go about 2 tables these days, and play a lot of FR at both limit and $50NL.

GL me.

Your AQ vs 84 on a Q8x44 board was my favourite.

Just read ur post, didn't have time to read it throughoutly but one graph clanced out at me; that's the one with the positional stats. Not sure if anyone has commented it but It seems to me ure to little positional aware, raising far to few hands from co and especially button and vica versa for the early pos.

Edit: ...hmm seems now ure gotten way better as it was the graph from upto i April i read! Well done! :)

nice progress...What was your read on the dude in the KJ vrs. AJ hand???

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FastBeat

nice progress...What was your read on the dude in the KJ vrs. AJ hand???

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His range pre-flop was pretty broad. Once he pushed it was clear I was toast, was trying to fold when I went awww-iiiin.

I break-even good.

Having trouble getting the hands in these days, not least because I'm cautious about multi-tabling when I'm not having it so easy.

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/6443/07decbezs1.jpg

The LHE (FR) has earned me $200 in bonus + some RB (hopefully). But it was a bit dull. I lost a bit at $50NL 6-max on Crypto but more than made it back on iPoker.

Basically slightly winning at Limit is still probably my most profitable route, but I don't see where that's going, because I still suck at SH limit.

Working on my $50NL short-handed game is just taking forever. I basically need to make $1500 to get my NL roll into shape to move up... (I'm not counting bonuses as part of my roll anymore).

In summary. 2007: meh.

is that rake right at 2/4, that's sick.