Break Even

Played Thu for about 4hrs, break even night that felt like profit after being down at one point. I played cack when down but at least I didnt run up the stakes like I felt like doing

Most of the damage done on one table, after my last post promising to keep away from brennan, I found myself sat on his table by accident after reg on all waiting lists. Decided to stay, this time it wasnt him that did the damage but another guy who later claimed to be drunk and normally a high roller (they all say that!). To be fair he wasnt bad at all he just hit a load of hands vs me, stuff like where Id hit a set on turn that would also make him flush, in effect a 1 outer that is only card that gets me in trouble etc etc

Then I had a hand that kinda tilted me, his betting pattern was such that if you fired flop and he liked to take it from you, if you called then hed really go for it on flop. I waited and got AA, raised he called, 885 flop, I bet he raises, I call knowing that with air he'd give up to a raise. Turn a 5 and as expected he fires, I call, pretty sure hes not got 5 or 8. Then a 9 comes, puts 3 to a flush plus poss straight and he bets all in, I talk myself into folding but get extra time to decide. He could have got lky on riv but after taking 90 secs extra decide to call, hit the call button and Ive disconnected, my bloddy virus scan had started and took me off internet. Maybe it saed me money, but no, apparently he showed 34 (no flush). More tilted by fact every time I had called him up to that point was behind , the one time I set him up and caught him I am ahead but stil cant win! Thankyou virus scan, cost me 110 euros ;-)

After that I did definitely play worse, played more hands etc. Was 4 buy ins down at that table, re grouped after 30 mins or so and eventually got everything back.

Off to play Aspers £75 deep stack tonight, mainly for the crack as I suspect I'll play my normal MTT style which is, sit and play tight, get blinded down after a few hrs, wait for AJ, push with less than 10 BB and go out. Actually its deep stack so should give time snd stack to play some speculative hands early so will try and see if I can build a stack, if not im sure it'll be fun anyway

Update

I’ve continued to grind the last couple of weeks. Had a bit of a hiccup just after my last post where I was 4 tabling NL50 and had 2 or 3 sick pots simultaneously where I lost full buy ins to draws. That tilted me and affected my play for about half an hour where I lost another 150 or so away. I have to admit at that point I only had about £250 or so of my initial £500 deposit left and went up the stakes to double up. Promised I wouldn’t do it, but I did and got back to my initial £300 and started again. However managed to refocus and get back to grinding the next day and have rebuilt profit for the month. Ive ran bad a couple of times since and resisted chasing them as felt embarrassed by my inability to have discipline, hopefully that is truly lesson learnt, we’ll see!

Currently on course for about a £500 profit month which I’m quite happy with as my first month back grinding and dropping down to NL50. I still haven’t played a huge amount of hands, mainly when I can fit it in (when baby and Vicky are sleeping) so often at the expense of sleep.

Have also dropped about 100 to Brennan over the month, one intersting pot where I had QQ and not sure I should have stacked off, raised up pf which he called on the button, flop 589, I bet pot, he calls, turn 5 (which I thought was a good card as was a little worried about 89 or J10), I bet again he calls, river 3, I bet (as didn’t want to check and let the cheeky fella betting all in and stealing off me, only hand I thought he may have that beat me is 67 and don’t think he’d have slow rolled as not his style), he raises all in and I realise im probably behind but not much left to call, he flips over 56. nasty turn as think if it had been a 6 that he hit it would have slowed me down on 5689 board) Just goes to show no soft playing between friends which is great as I think if you sit at a table vs. someone you know you should play properly vs. them. However it’s still noted brengun and next time I bust you ;-)

Feel the NL50 are very easy to beat as long as I play consistent/focused…….. and stay away from brennan, who to be fair is the best player ive seen at the NL50 stakes so far. If I start getting over loose it goes pear shaped quickly. I have popped up to NL100 a couple of times, usually just one table alongside my NL50, in profit there a bit but not many hands so far.

On a down note, tried getting ladies to agree and retag me through RTR, tried aND promise them more play and no play if they didnt etc but it didn’t work. Makes me a bit sick to see the extra $ could be getting from RTR rake races. However in light of the recent BetonBet/Eurolinx collapse I won’t be changing sites. My brother in law whos a pro lost £16k of his roll which he had deposited on these sites when they went into liquidation, owing players about £5m overall (some people had their full rolls on the sites), sick and if you read the history something very dodgy has gone on, so I’ll be saying on mainstream sites even if I feel cheated out of extra rake that others are getting.

Small Steps

Logged another small win tonight, was an ok session, started off running well, hitting a few big flops. Then gave a full buy in away when 4 bet with AKc, flop A 2 6, Guy bets so I raise, he pushes and I call, was fully expecting to be ahead but he had a6h. Fair play, Im behind when 80% chips go in. Looking back at hand I think mt 4 bet was slightly too small but I think he may have come along anyway. That put me about to evens

Was on a couple of good tables with one or two real fish callers. Unfortunately they hit vs me. Then I had about 35mins of pc issues where my virus scanner kicked in and I couldnt stop it. Stupidly tried to play on to catch these fishes but kept timing out. Really need to get a new pc soon!

Once I was back up and running I won a few pots, including one where im all in vs a 70% stack with 45 on J45 board. He also had flush draw but I held up, thats the ev evening out!

So far so good on my NL50 challenge, just over 4k hands for 220euro profit. Ran quite bad at the start but think real test will be when next bad run hits

MTT End game- How not to guide

Played the Laddies MTT VIP Freerole tonight, 280 runners. I started off with intention of busting or getting a big stack right from the start. Doubled up within 5 hands mainly firing at flop and turns and ppl folding. Wasnt even really looking at my cards. Then lost a big chunk when raised with a10, flop A102 and im versus 10's. Left me with 600 chips. I then proceeded to push all in pretty much every hand, everyone was folding but I did get a treble up at one point where I had best of it going in

I actually had one run of about 20 all ins in a row not called, even had AA and KK in the middle. I then got caught with 37 vs aj but I hit, that put me on 7k. I then slowed down but was raising , just over raises not all ins. Started folding occasionally amazing how many chips you can pick up that way, got a guy all in with my ak vs his kj and it held, 12k in chips

I then started to play properly rather than reckless, although still aggressive, had a few nice spots and decent reads got up to 35k, top 2 in chips with 70 or so left.

This is when I reverted to timid boy again, should have carried on with aggression, my logic was to tighten right up as I had a horrible image, just wait for big hands and pick smaller stacks off. Decent plan but problem was I then went on a trash run of cards, in the next 100 mins I only had a few hands that were even slightly playable, just looked back at my HH's and only starting cards that stood out were 88, 66 and AQ in a full 100 mins of play. Anyway blinds were low so didn't affect me too much, still was top 6 when we reached top 30 cash.

Problem was my starting cards remained awful, this is where I played cack, money never really went up until last 9 so I should have used my stack to steal alot more, however had 2 "callers" to my left and so bottled it and decided to keep waiting for decent hands, they never came

Got chipped down to about 19k, pushed 2 times and took blinds to keep my about the average stack size, even then they were just with mid connectors. Down to last 20 and about 20k in chips, average about 30k. I let myself get blinded down and no decent cards hit me, at this point I just wanted to push, cards shouldn't have mattered but I had a run of 8 3, 2 6, 9 4. Plus ppl started raising b4 me so I ran out of options. Blinded down to 10k, feeling mad with myself for not changing gears, while still convincing myself I was due big cards

Classic example of how not to play end of MTT,

Eded up limping in sb in a 4 way pot with J6s, flop JKA, 2 spades, good enough for me, all in vs A10 that held.

Would have been great bankroll boost to get top 4, instead 14th, paid cacky 31euro (1st was 1k). Didnt deserve higher as after I had so much success with aggro style should have carried it on, instead tightened up and played the cards not the situation. Never mind, good MTT experience

Also ground out another 50euro proft at NL50, Bankroll on the increase need to keep focus as playing grinding style is def profitable at these stakes even if a little boring

So far so good

Managed to keep grinding tonight, feels wiers playingthis many handss at NL50 after been gambling away hundreds ££ a time in recent months. However I definitely needed to start from scratch and get back to basics.

So far played over 3k hands for 170euro profit, running at about 6.5bb per 100, My ev did catch up today which helped as my all ins held when ahead. Still about 70euros short but it was like 200 yesterday.

Slightly dissapointed didnt make more as there were some awful players about but never managed to get hands vs them. One guy was playing 85 60 stats , I picked up QQ and figured they'd be good only to run into his kk. Even the loose players get dealy hands apparently ;-)

I'm happy to log these small profits as in the last few months if I logged any profit under 200 in a night it just got gambled in a spin up, its not as exciting but when you realise you have nursery fee's starting in 5 months and wife going to part time figured its time to get back to profitable play

Grinding...Plumber needed

ok, so I started regrinding today, set up hold em manager (havent used tracking software since nov when deleted it in a huff with all things poker). Played just over 2k hands at NL50, Ending up with 50euro profit. Not great but I actually saw it as a big achievement as haven't played that low for that long for ages

Was also about 160 down at several points, normally id race up stakes to win back quickly but stuck with it tonight and won it all back at NL50. I always said id ignore ev graph but my curiosity got better on me, it actually tells me im short about 200euro, makes sense as I lost a lot of all in races, plus worst beat of night I was all in on turn with qj, on qq82 boards vs kk who hit his 2 outer. Im sure the ev will even out eventually

The tracking software has made me realise just how many leaks are in my game, especially for long term grinding. Felt I played ok in parts but awful in others. I know several areas that I ned to work on

Closest I cam to tilting, I was sat on brennans table, there were two really agro players, very loose and had both shown down with cack all but had big stacks from when they did hit. I tried to start 3 betting one of them but he called me down with 5 3, bottom pair which was better than my nothing. I then pick up ak and 3 bet again, he goes all in, I call and he actually had qq which holds, was annoyed with myself as could have waited for better situation than race. Anyway he left so focused on the other big stack loose agro player. Brennan had just doubled up on him when the guy pushed with air. next hand Im i sb with 69, he min raises, I call, didnt really think about it, just seemed cheap to hit big hand and he may be steaming, up until that hand id been folding sb 90% of time. I flop 66Q, he bets and I raise he calls, turn J spades putting 3 spades out, he insta pushes all in, I 100% believe he either has nothing or maybe j/q with one spade. I call but he has 7 2 flush. Again was bit mad with self and felt tilty at this point

However glad to say i cooled down, at that point i was 160 down and could have tilted more off chasing, but thankfully I stuck to grinding and got out of it......for now

Anyway will have a look at stats with view to start plugging some leaks, god im bad at poker these days, that's what happens when you don't take it seriously for a while

False starts

Well since the car crash where I did about £2k over course of a saturday night and sunday afternoon I have really cut back on play. Have been playing cack all year and just leaking money. Havent wanted to deposit big chunks as that 2k was all I had in a back up bankroll that i'd put away at end of last year after a decent end to last year (never had intention of actually playing with it). Actually down for 2009 now after 3 previous years of solid profit. Just goes to show that you have to have respect for the game and play it properly. This year I've basically tried to win big and quick, hopefully lesson learnt.

Have only been depositing very small amounts lately. The odd £10-£20 when I fancy a tourne. Actually turned one £10 into £500. Did this by winning a $10 satellite into a $60 MTT, where I cashed for $250 (1st was $1.5k and I lost a monster pot in last 5 to go chip leader when my kk caught a guy with 85 pushing but he made straight). After that I Played HU NLH and 6 seat PLO properly and olidly and got that up to near $900. I then spotted a big fish (although that is also what I'd call me also this year) on betfair HU $1 $2 , just had to play him, he is so bad and Im sure very positive ev decision long term.

Ran horribly v's him, he's the type who just bets and once in pot doesnt give up, so if you hit hands you win big and he'll keep reloading. You just need disciplined hand selection and be prepared to trust your hand is good when you think it is and go with it. Unfortunately he ran well vs me (he hit very big hands vs my big hands) and I did most of that money. Dont regret it and id play him for as much money I had in my account any other day, sure I might bust but you got to take shot if you feel you truly have clear edge,

Since then been basically playing bits and bobs more for fun when get a bit of time. Apart from if i've had a few hrs spare where i've tried playing sats into MTT and qualified for a few.

Actually been deep in a few of these decent buy in MTT, think reason being that I have been playing with small amounts of cash think Ive tried harder, a few cashes but bit frustrating as keep just missing big money, my end game needs some work as dont move chips quick enough late on. Been trying to spin up whatever cash Ive won. Havent won big yet but been close a few times. Had quite a bit a fun without loosing this month, however still only just above even which is bad considering what can be made grinding properly

Tried grinding last night on .25 .50euro and .50 1$, played ok but I was very bored, im think of trying to make grinding exciting, maybe set self a challenge. I know grinding is the real way to make cash as thats what I did for 3 yrs. The way I have been treating the game will just leak money, I'm aiming to get focus back in Sep and the challenge may be starting at small stakes and build a bankroll the proper way like in the old days