More Lessons Learnt

I was away this weekend so no long sessions. However played the night before I left and seems I spoke too soon about the record start to the month. I had a nightmare. Played mainly cash but also two multi tables, mixture of horrid luck and awful play resulted in a really bad night.

Multi table’s - Entered two $55 MT and picked up some decent hands early on. However went out of both in the mid stages by making two almost identical amateur mistakes. Both times involved me hitting a hand and slow playing it. The best example on my second MT. Blinds were at 100 200. I had KQ on the bb. There were 4 limpers, also the sb limped and I checked. Already 1200 in the middle, I had about 3.6k. Flop was a lovely 2 K Q , Rainbow. I checked the flop when I definitely should have bet. I figured that there were 4 more people to act and one must had a K or a Q and would fire out a bet. Instead it checked all the way round. The turn is a 8 so not too bad as none with i.e. J10 AJ etc has hit a straight. The small blind now bets 400 and I raise, everyone else folds and the sb pushes in. It seems a good chance to double up as he could have anything on sb i.e. q 8, k8, k2, q2 etc, a lot of hands that my 2 pair beat. He could also have a king and was also trying to check raise from sb on flop. In the end I call and he has 88 and I am out. Great example of always betting flop in a multi way pot if you think your ahead. It was big enough to take the 1200. Even if I get a caller I get info i.e. straight draw, 1 pair etc, by checking I let a lot of potential hands hit i.e. straight draw , pocket pair etc. My first instincts were to feel unlucky at being hit by a 2 outer but it was definitely my fault, a huge error, one I will try hard not to make in MTT again. I was frustrated with myself as I know a lot better than that!

Cash- This was just a train wreck all night. I had a couple of horrible situations early on, its those types of situations where you don’t feel you played bad but that the situation shafted you. Good example, I had QJspades. I raise on big blind to $4, the sb calls. Flop is great, Q 4 8, the 4 and 8 are spades. I bet the pot which is around $10. The sb calls (after his initial check). I now put him either on a straight draw, flush draw or maybe second pair (from my notes I think he’d raise with top pair. The turn is a J, so I have top 2 pair and flush draw. I bet $17 now, im a bit worried he could have 9 10 but hope that this bet will let me find out. He just calls, now I really put him on a flush draw or a trappy straight. I think he’d have given up on a pair now. The turn is a spade, think a 3. He now bets all in $68. This is tough, ive made my q high flush, however theres a range of hands I have him murdered with, he could have hit straight on turn and doesn’t put me on flush as ive been betting since pre flop, he could have trips, he could have a smaller flush. He could also have not much but figures he played it like a draw and the 3rd spade scares me. The two hands that beat me are ace and king high flush. As he was on sb he could have any of these hands so I definitely call as I beat the majority of them. To my horror he has AKs, he never raised or reraised pre flop. It worked perfect for him. He made a loose call on flop but guess he figured his A and K were good as well as draw. I don’t think I did too much wrong but the cards fell perfect for him.

I also got a couple more similar to this where I was done on a river. After that although I didn’t full on tilt my game went down hill. I played too loose, made several calls I shouldn’t chasing draws and pretty much played badly. I was due a run of not great cards ad the start of the session I had these 3 situations that cost me $130ish, there was no need to tilt but im afraid I did to an extent, rather than play solid and win it back. It s not like I got horrendous beats either, just bad situations where I had to loose money. I could have dome off at that stage but I carried on and lost more through poor play. The only thing I’m proud of is that I wanted to move up stakes and chase losses but I stopped myself doing it.

In total I ended up around $500 down for night, if I hadn’t played so bad on multi’s and then hadn’t semi tilted after some beats on cash I reckon I should have limited this to $200 at most. It just shows how quickly it can turn around in this game and how much I have to learn. Still $600 up for month but time is limited to play at the moment.

Record start to a month

This is by far the best start ive had to the month. Played cash again tonight for a few hours and made $360. Im getting the occasional bad beat but for the most part my hands are holding up. I also seem to be finding loose players who like to call ;-)

Trying not to kid myself though as ive been through these good patches before and they are usually followed by a tougher patch. I think I heard Gus Hansen on TV last night say, 'your never as good as you look when winning and never as bad as you seem when loosing'. Thats defintely true, In December I suddenly thought i was better and made the mistake of playing above my means. I am happyn at .50 $1 at the minute and so far $1100 (about £550) up for Feb from 4 days play.

I have been watching my mate 'soap' Suddes on higher stakes, mainly $200 6 pacs where he has had a great run. Watched him win three on the bounce and make nearly $2k in under 2 hrs. It was exciting and made me want to jump up the stakes. He plays a variety of games such as NL, FL, MTT and STT where as I stay mainly on cash and the occasional MTT. I think I do need to add some variation to my play and next month I may try dabbling in FL. Watching him on the tournes made me realise how much my tourne play is lacking these days. He kicked ass on the 6 pacs, made it look very easy which im 100% sure $200 6 pacs arent!!! In terms of the stakes though as ive said before at the moment im happy banking profit and keeping my roll at a level thats right for the stakes im playing. If I decide to move up, instead of banking profit I will start building my roll to cope with the variance.

2007...Getting back to Normal

After the lessons learned in December I went back to grinding at .50 $1 in Jan. I felt a better playing from the bad experience in December and was handling the bad beats a little better (though I still tilted occasionally ;-) ). I ended up £480 up for the month on NL cash which nearly made up for losses in December.

Feb has started really well. I am limited to how much I can play this month as Im away most weekends. However I had a big session this weekend and made around £400 through the 2 days. These weren’t through huge puts but basically grinding away on 2 tables at $.50 $1 NL. As I knew I had time I was waiting for the good situations to come up. Other than that I was taking lots of smaller pots. My biggest pot of Saturday was from calling a $4 raise pre flop with 77, flop cometh 2 4 7 and I get KK all in for a $230 pot. That had took 3 hours at that table where I was at that point $50 up from grinding and just shows sometimes that patience is the key.

The weekend could have been better but I lost a few big pots with the hands where we always loose the most AA. 2 times io was up versus top pair and a flush draw so couldn’t blame the guy who beat me, Im proud that I never tilted!. However one donk really got my blood boiling, for a 45 min period he kept catching 2/3 outers on me after chasing with under pairs, gut shots etc. I had to think long and hard back to December to try and not tilt. I decided to keep playing how I was as he would give me it all back. Then this hand came up. I had J10s. He rose to $4.5 and 3 of us called. Flop was 2d 8s 9s. Giving me up and down straight flush draw. I led out a made a weakfish bet of $6 as I felt I could get the donk to raise and I was favourite verus anything he had pretty much apart from maybe a higher flush draw.. He did raise to $20, everyone else folded. I felt the time was right to gamble as I didn’t want to call and get a blank turn. Felt I could win the pot there and then, so I raised to $120, he called all his chips with AK Off!!!! Crazy call with ace high no draw. Luckily this time I hit. Maybe some will argue I should have waited for an even better situation but that seemed a great flop to me. The great think is he slagged me saying I was the fish and lucky t*#t!, after he had been catching 2/3 outers and id kept quiet ;-). Brilliant at how little some of these donks do not know about the game and another reason I’ll be staying at the stakes for a while.

Most of the time I played pretty ok and am happy with the profit. I set myself a target of £300 per month minimum which I surpassed this weekend alone. This eases the pressure a little and hopefully I can play the rest of the month with same success. One thing im happy about is slowly im starting to develop a better ability to stay emotionally stable and not tilt every time a donk hits. Hopefully this can continue although its not always as easy as it sounds

Christmas Greed

Well I didn’t keep up my posts in November but am going to try to from now on. I had my first really bad month in December since I started playing 19 months ago. I ended the month £550 down but at times during the month it was far worse. I finished 2nd in a couple of multi’s just before Christmas which saved me somewhat as my cash play had been truly awful. I would love to say it was all down to bad luck and a horrendous run but the truth is I was my own worse enemy.

I moved up the stakes to $1 $2. After months of grinding out profit I think I started to believe I was a better player than I actually am. I took on this higher level and tried to run over tables. I got a couple of nasty suck outs early on where big pairs got done by raggy cards and basically tilted. I panicked as my bankroll was vanishing much quicker than it had done on .50 $1 (because I was playing higher stakes but with the same roll). Suddenly any bad beat was magnified and I tilted far easier. ThenI found myself on $2 $5 NL chasing my losses. The hand where I hit rock bottom was when I was sat at the table with $580 and was dealt AK. There was a very loose player on my table so I rose to $25 and got callers. The flop came Kd 7d 5s, A good flop. The 1st player (a tighter player) bet $30, this looked like a feeler bet so I raised to $100. The loose player then rose to $200, the tight player folded. I was sure I was ahead as he was the type to flat call me with trips so went all in he called with 56d. The flush duly hit on the turn and I lost biggest pot of my cash game life. At this point I was playing so bad that I convinced my self this was very unlucky and the guy was a donk…. This put me $1.5k down for the month

I cam off and took 2 days off. When I analysed this hand I could see it wasn’t a bad play by him, he figured he had any diamond 5 or 6. Plus he was probably playing within his bankroll and could gamble, where as to me loosing a $1300 pot was huge on the back of a loosing few weeks. I was not playing great and was playing above my roll to cope with the swings I was getting.

I made a promise to myself that if I was to move up the stakes I would build my roll. For the last year I have basically been keeping the roll at the level to play .50 $1, anything I make above that I take as profit and bank. This has worked and I am going to stick to this for a while. If I ever have the urge to move up again I will no bank profit but build my roll to cope with it.

The problem in December was that I was putting 30% of my betfair account on a table at anyone time. This caused to much stress when the cards went against me. I don’t think I got a lot more suck outs than previous months but whenever I did I felt it more as it panicked me, where as in .50 $1 I would reload with the comfort of my roll and win it back over time from the numpties.

December taught me an important lesson; I got too greedy, believed I was better than I was and paid the price. It showed me the importance of bankroll management and the month taught me a good lesson