Thanks alot for the positive vibes guy really nice to read.
Cheers dozer for the salute, and Harley and Fulsky & Griffey thanks guys. it's great to read your comments.
Shortstack of Fullstack?!
It's 8 minutes past midnight at the moment and I played a 4.5 hour session tonight. I had a real dillema today, I was trying to decide if I should buy in short again or buy in for a full buy in which would leave me with 2bi's plus what I was playing with. The shortstack had the real incentive that I would have 24 sets of shortstacks but it had some downsides. The first was that it really minimised the skill advantage quite alot. I feel like I have an edge over the players in the cardroom and thought it would be bad to be scaling that down to getting it in with flips + or - the FE I might or might not have pf (probabally not have given how loose some of these guys call shortstacks!)
The second downside was that the progress would likely be slower as a double up is +£50, not +£200. Lastly in the back of my mind I did have the variance issue niggling away and I just felt it had to be higher variance as you are getting all the chips in pf, whereas full stacked you're only committing significant amounts of chips once you've seen the flop at least, or have a monster. Griffey thanks for pointing out the short stacked variance thing here, seems I was on the right track.
Todays Session
So I decided in the end to buy in full stacked. I played for quite a while and was pretty card dead for first hour and a half but was patient. I built my stack up a fair bit then had it knocked down and continued playing on trying to stay focussed. I moved seats a couple of times (once to get position on a young player, that had mentioned he plays 'big tournaments' online - just overheard him talking to someone at the table) and secondly to get position on a big stack when I had been accumulating some chips as I didn't like playing 150bbs+ oop vs another big stack, the guy was also loose which made it awkward to play against him.
The first move I made to the young tournament player (who had been limping alot of hands..) worked out pretty well, I basically raised alot in position, waited for flops that looked like they could have hit me and took it down. He was getting a little frustrated at me, not overtly just subtly you know you can tell when someone starts calling quickly for instance, it's like they are saying - 'well i'm calling you anyway kind of thing' preflop. But it was great to be playing someone that seemed to be able to put a flop together with a preflop range and fold when you seemed to rep something, but wasn't tricky enough to be 3betting me light, or floating my pretty regular cbets. It was in this atmosphere that I had raised to 8 after he limped again, and the flop was something like K85 and he donked into me for like 12. It just screamed he didn't have a hand to me, (I had cbet about 7/10 times we'd been in a hand together) - so I just slightly over minraised him with air and he folded. I thought it was a good raise as I was pretty certain he'd fold. Shortly after this hand I manage to hit a set vs him on the flop and because of what's gone on he turbo shoves over my cbet for like £100 with tp and I take it down.
The biggest hand of the session was one I bailed out of, because I just couldn't see it being +ev. This is after I've moved for the second time so have position on the loose big stacked player I mentioned earlier. I have been very active by this part of the session (been at table for 3 hours) and table was playing tight and limping a tonne so I had been punishing alot in position. This time I pick up a hand, and as i've learnt live when you want it hu or as close to hu as possible you need to raise more. 2 limpers and I'm in HJ with QQ, I raise to 15. I end up getting 3 callers and am 3 way on the flop.
At this time I had about £400 before the hand was started. Two of the callers have big stacks (guy to my right) and guy to my left on button - both close to having me covered if not covered, and there is one short stack of £100 that came along too who is in the earliest position of all three of us.
Flop is:
739 (two tone flop)
short stack shoves - now bearing in mind I had been aggressive and this guy was short I had decided very quickly I was calling the shove. The problem I had was the two deepstacks either side of me. I made a mistake though (still gaining experience live) - and announced call before the big stack to my right had acted. I apologised and then the big stack on my right - decides to reraise the short stack shove to like £200 odd. I ask the dealer if I'm committed to call (I didn't know as I'm still gaining experience every day) and he said no because action was aggressive so I don't have to. I folded seemed like an easy fold in the circumstances... guy behind me that was also deep - calls and ends up stacking off in the hand.
Now what hand would you put these guys on?....
Well would you beleive the 200bb stack to my right that forced me out of the hand had... TPTK (A9o) with no flush draw. Thankfully when the money would have gone in I would have been beat as guy behind me had 2 pair. hand ended with turn and river JJ - so I would have won the lot but of course that's results orientated so doesn't even come into it... but it just amazed me how bad some of these players are. This motivates me even more and gives me a real glimmer of success - because I'm sure if I can navigate myself out of this low bi stage, if I can then continue bumping into these types of players every now and again my profits should be great.
i was thinking about it on the way home and even knowing what I now know, I still dont think it is nescesary to stack off with my overpairs 200bb deep against this villian on the off chance that he does have a set or two pair etc? I just don't see that I need to bring that huge variance into my game, especially that deep - even if I know he's terrible... what do you think???
Overal session went great today. I bought in for £200 and conjured up the discpline to leave at 10.15PM - with £360 profit.
Thanks again to everyone that's rooting for my success in this thread, really appreciate it. In a year or so when this OP's completed hopefully I'll be in a position to fly out and meet some of you with all my wealth!
Next steps
The smallest game they have where i've been playing is 200nl. I might be able to find another place that has lower games I'm not sure. But I'm very tempted to carry on for now with the 200nl and see if I can keep the momementum going, what do you think?
So I now have a £960 bankroll, and am officially in profit (+£100) it's a really nice position to be in considering I had less than 1bi two days ago. I just need to make sure I play well and run OK and hopefully i'll continue to move closer to my goal to make 3k this month.
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