Monday, October 29, 2007

Cost of a Saturday Night Out.... Priceless

2 bottles of champagne, vodka & Redbulls, beers and tips
$700

Paying a stranger in the street to drive my car home
$100

Baby-sitter
$120

Playing poker completely wankered
$1,750

Loss of expected winnings that I would have made if I'd stayed in
$1,000

Total cost of a Saturday night out
$3,670


NL cash is not suited for drunken play. I was nearly $3k down before I sobered up and remembered where my Fold buttons were. The worst part of the evening is that I remember very little about it. Oh well.

October Update 4


Day 22: +$1,715
Day 23: +$1,530
Day 24: +$1,317
Day 25: +$514
Day 26: +$277
Day 27: -$1,751
Day 28: +$1,129

Month-to-Date Stats:

Total: +$24,020

Hours: 192

Average Rate: $125/hour

Hands: 129,181

BB/100: 8.38

Saturday, October 27, 2007

16. That's the Magic Number

Now you may try to subtract it
But it just won't go away
Sixteen times one?
(What is it?)
Sixteen
And that's a Magic Number


Full Tilt have now increased the cap of the number of cash tables you can play to 16. I played 14 two nights ago, and 16 for much of last night/this morning.

I had no problem handling 16 although it makes it more difficult to go for a piss and get back before timing out.

I'm still waiting on getting my 3rd 30" Dell monitor connected so for now I have been playing with a slight overlap with the extra 4 tables.

I made very little last night but this dip had little to do with playing the extra tables. It was really just a case of bad luck. According to the graphs produced by PokerEV, I was robbed of a shitload! :)

The 1st graph shows that I "won" over $2.2k Sklansky Bucks.* The "All In Luck" graph shows that I was due an extra $900 worth of equity from all-ins!


*Sklansky Bucks

Sklansky bucks/dollars are theoretical money won or lost based on the Fundamental Theorem of Poker. The FTOP is discussed in The Theory of Poker.

Basically, if you lose a hand but your opponent made mistakes, such as drawing to a flush without proper pot odds, you may lose the pot but you have earned Sklansky bucks by causing your opponent to make a mistake.

On the flip side. If you are drawing without odds but you get luck and draw out on your opponent, you win the pot, but you lose Sklansky bucks.


Reference: Poker.Wikia.com




Friday, October 26, 2007

"Crying over you, crying over you."

The following comment was left on my last post by one of the Full Tilt regulars:

Is the secret to your success 4-betting with QJo, and getting allin for 175 BB as a 2-1 underdog?

dobieatwar


It's not on my agenda to pick fights with anyone, but it's disappointing to receive a sarcastic comment from another regular at the tables. Especially when it shows a complete lack of understanding of the game on their part. I apologise to dobie if this post sounds harsh but I don't appreciate his comments here or in the chat box at the table.

Here is the hand that dobieatwar is referring to, together with my comments. Hopefully he will learn something from this analysis and improve his game as a result.


FullTiltPoker Game #3969835186: Table Laurel Ridge - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold'em - 2:08:02 ET - 2007/10/26
Seat 1: dobieatwar ($344.35)
Seat 2: Bling1528 ($275.90)
Seat 3: lamta ($41.70)
Seat 7: Narena ($378.40)
Seat 9: premgolf ($256.70)
premgolf posts the small blind of $1
dobieatwar posts the big blind of $2
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Narena [Qc Jh]
Bling1528 folds
lamta folds
Narena raises to $7
premgolf folds
dobieatwar raises to $22
Narena has 15 seconds left to act
Narena raises to $58
dobieatwar calls $36
*** FLOP *** [Jc 9d Td]
dobieatwar checks
Narena bets $88
dobieatwar raises to $286.35, and is all in
Narena calls $198.35
dobieatwar shows [7c 8c]
Narena shows [Qc Jh]
winston1984 sits down
*** TURN *** [Jc 9d Td] [8d]
winston1984 stands up
*** RIVER *** [Jc 9d Td 8d] [Qh]
dobieatwar shows a straight, Queen high
Narena shows a straight, Queen high
dobieatwar ties for the pot ($343.35) with a straight, Queen high and starts crying like a baby
Narena ties for the pot ($343.35) with a straight, Queen high

dobieatwar: another bs
dobieatwar: another suckout
dobieatwar: good job


Dobie:

Fuck me mate. You can't really be that fucking naive can you? This is a perfect example of why I don't get my table chat re-instated. I would still be arguing with all the fish and calling them useless cunts.

I 4-bet pre because I'm pretty confident that you're just playing back with a weak hand- frustrated at being pushed around. Even if I had been wrong and you had been ahead it doesn't make my pre-flop play poor. When you're battling with common opponents, hands shouldn't really be analysed in isolation- they are part of a more complex strategy. You've also completely ignored the fact that we are playing short-handed here- there are only 5 of us at the table. Surely you're aware how the dynamics of a table change when playing with just 4 opponents!!?

The flop is great for me. My 3/4 pot bet will often take the pot down- and may even induce a bluff given that we are deep enough.

As it happened, your dubious commitment of $58 pre-flop out-of-position with 87 paid off due to hitting your miracle 1.2% chance of flopping a straight!

When you push over the top, it is $200 to call into what will be a $700 pot. With odds of 5/2, that is a very easy call given the strength of my hand.

To be honest, I'm very surprised at your own inability to recognise what I have just explained, together with your "another bs/ another suckout" comments and your cheek in criticising my play in this instance. (I don't pretend that I don't make some awful plays at times, and I'm more than happy to accept criticism when it's justified if someone feels the need to vent- but that isn't the case here.)

Anyway mate, I sincerely hope you do well at the tables but do choose your targets more carefully in future- there is far easier money to be had out there.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

One [Quarter of a] Million Dollars..... moo ha ha!!!

Last night I reached my $250,000 mark for online poker profit- most of which has been made on the $1/$2 tables. (My earlier posts have a breakdown of all previous months' profits.)


Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Poker EV

I downloaded this piece of software earlier after a few people had mentioned it to me. I need to take a closer look at it before I make my mind up as to how useful it is.

Anyway, here's a couple of graphs of my last four days play as requested by Eternal from the 2+2 forums.



Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Running On Full

I continue to run well, however the recent "tweeking" of my game has definitely improved my play and so I'd like to think it's not all down to the Poker Gods! :)

I made $1,715 tonight in 7 hours, meaning my stats for the past three days are:

Hands: 12,809

Hours: 17.5

BB/100: 27.03

Profit: $7,239 (inc. $315 rake back)

Rate: $414/hr

(BB/100 for the month is up to 9.94 over 92k hands)


EDIT: I just had another $1.5k+ night, so BB/100 is now up to 10.32 for the month. (BB/100 is now 25 for my last 16k hands! A nice little lucky streak!)

Monday, October 22, 2007

October Update 3

I managed 45 hours this week, so I'm pretty much on target at this rate to reach my goal of 200 hours for the month. Week 3 went well:

Day 15: +$2,215
Day 16: +$329
Day 17: +$1,142
Day 18: +$16
Day 19: +$51
Day 20: +$4,307
Day 21: +$1,217

Month-to-Date Stats:

Total: +$19,289

Hours: 136

Average Rate: $142/hour

Hands: 86,819

BB/100: 9.63

Despite winning every day this month so far, I've still been experiencing some large swings for $1/$2 (and a little $2/$4.) On the 18th, I was over $1k up within the first hour, then I lost over $2k(!!) in under an hour and was soon $1.3k down! (I decided to keep playing until I was back in profit even if it took all day- but it only took about 3 hours.)

Considering I'm at close to 100k hands for the month I'm very pleased with my win-rate of 9.63 BB/100. However it just shows that even 100k hands isn't a large enough sample to give an accurate figure here! Maybe you need 500k hands!? (My BB/100 since going full-time, 700k+ hands ago, is 6.62 BB/100)

(NB: 9.63 BB/100 is 4.82 PTBB/100)

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Just Another "Run-of-the-Mill" $4.3k Night at $1/$2...

Sometimes the cards hit you in the face and give you big hand after big hand. Last night they didn't just hit me; they tied me up and fucked me up the arse. I have never run so well. (I played pretty well too, and I don't remember a significant single mistake all night.)

In total I made $4,307 in just under 8 hours ($4,162 + $145 rake back) from 5,708 hands. (36BB/100!) :)

The biggest hand of the evening is something I've only seen once before:

Flopped Set vs Set vs Set

The very last hand of the evening is typical of the luck I had- when my under set turned quads:

Quads vs Full House

Stats from the evening:





Some other points:

*I was dealt AA 34 times (25 would be average) and won every single pot with them!

*I was dealt KK 33 times and won all but 3 pots with them.

*I only lost one major pot all night when some muppet rivered a flush vs my trips.

I am such a luck-box.


A couple of people have recently asked to see my Poker Tracker stats for $1/$2. Here are the 700k hands since going full-time 6 months ago:



Monday, October 15, 2007

October Update 2

I managed 40 hours this week, so on target at this rate for about 190 hours. I'll try to step it up a bit. I've been taking a nap in the evenings/night from about 9pm - 2am and then playing. I'd like to be able to start a little earlier really but my sleeping pattern is all messed right now and I'm too tired to play without that extra sleep.

Day 8: +$303
Day 9: +$753
Day 10: +$1,505
Day 11: +$602
Day 12: +$909
Day 13: +$114
Day 14: +$109

Total: +$10,013

Hours: 91

Average Rate: $110/hour

Hands: 60,859

BB/100: 6.04

So, 14 consecutive winning days so far but strangely I have had to recover from an average deficit of $650 on half of those days!


Here's a $800 cooler from a $2/$4 table this morning. Probably not the best flop play by the villain but it worked for him! He may have been trying an intentional "mis-click" but all of the money was going in anyway.

$2/$4 Cooler

Monday, October 08, 2007

October Update 1

One week down, and I'm on target to reach 200 hours by the end of the month.

I wasn't going to play last night due to being tired, but figured that I'd be giving up potential earnings if I missed a day. A can of Red Bull woke me up though and I managed 6 hours at the tables to take me up to 50 hours for the week.

Day 1: +$500
Day 2: +$533
Day 3: +$1,288
Day 4: +$676
Day 5: +$709
Day 6: +$503
Day 7: +$1,512

Total: +$5,720

Hours: 50

Average Rate: $114/hour

Hands: 32,659

BB/100: 6.16

A good month so far! :)


I bought an extra monitor last week. My set-up now consists of 3 x 30" Dells and a 24" Dell. Despite being able to have all four connected, I think I'll just stick with the three 30"s. I'll post up a couple of photos soon.

I really wish Full Tilt would allow you to play more than 12 cash tables. I know I could play 16 comfortably, and maybe as many as 20. I posted a few weeks ago about having played 16 tables simultaneously, but it meant having to play 12 on Full Tilt and 4 on Pokerstars- and having to constantly switch focus from the format of one site to the other made things difficult.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Poker Goals and Targets

Setting goals or targets can help to improve your overall poker performance in several ways including aiding with discipline and motivation. However it's important to understand how goal-setting works otherwise it could actually have a detrimental effect on your poker profits.

When I used to teach maths in England, we were introduced to "SMART Targets."

Smart Targets Definition

Quoting from the above link:

Goals should be SMART - specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic and time-based.

The acronym SMART has a number of slightly different variations, which can be used to provide a more comprehensive definition for goal setting:

S - specific, significant, stretching

M - measurable, meaningful, motivational

A - agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented

R - realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented

T - time-based, timely, tangible, trackable



Basically, what this means is that your goal is defined in such a way that it will directly help your game, as opposed to simply being a "wish."

The following "goals" are fairly common examples of what are really just wishes which by themselves won't actually help a player's game at all:

*** Make over $2k this month

*** Win 2 MTTs this month

*** Increase my STT ROI to 10%

It's true that simply by putting these targets in print can help to motivate a player, but with a little more thought we can give ourselves more of a chance of achieving them.

Here's an example of what I mean:

*** Make over $2k this month by:

**Reducing my VPIP% at full-ring games from 26% to 20% (by not playing Axs from early/mid-position, not playing less than AQ from UTG, only playing connectors from late position, not playing ATC just because they're suited.) I will analyse my stats on Poker Tracker at the end of each session.

**Taking a 10-minute break everytime I loss a big pot and start to tilt. (To help recognise tilt, I'll define it as shouting out loud or hitting something.)

**Having my girlfriend change my password and hide my mouse everytime I go out on the piss, so that when I come in shit-faced I'm unable to play poker.

Here's another example:

*** Increase my STT ROI to 10% by:

**Calling less all-ins when the blinds are high, and pushing more often instead. (I will analyse the times when I do call all-ins, and assess whether it was the correct play or not.)

**Reducing bluffing on the river against players that I have noted as calling stations. (I will record any river bluffs that I do make and their results, and make a note of my success rate.)

**Turning off my chat so that I don't get distracted by getting involved in pointless arguments at the table.


October's Goal

So, onto my goal for October which I will keep very simple:

***Play over 200 hours by:

**Spending no more than 90 minutes a day on poker forums.

**Planning each week in advance, allowing for times when I will be working-out, playing football, sleeping, and shagging.

Monday, October 01, 2007

September Report

Due to being in England for half of September I only had 15 days of playing cash online. Therefore it was a fairly decent month.

Total: $9,910 (Excluding $3k made playing live in England)

Hours: 97

Average Rate1: $102/hr

Average Rate2: $330/day ($680/day for the days that I actually played cash on)

Rake Earned: $1,650 (included in above total)

Losing Days: 6

$1k+ Days: 5

Best Days: $2,309 and $2,066

Worst Day: -$608