Steady Away

Got back to basics this weekend. Wife had a mate staying so I got to put in some hrs. Not hugely profitable but stuck to NL50 and over 3k hands. On Saturday I had a 5 buy in dowswing, mainly coolers or huge draws that I pushed and missed. Managed to stay at stakes and grind it back

Holdem manager really helping ID leaks in my game, working on a few today and think it will up my hourly rate. Huge one was playing too loose out of position, managed to fix that in todays session but not sure I have the discipline over long term. Also trying to 3 bet with a wider range which is working as my AA/KK are now getting paid off more than they were. Although I maybe picked a bad time to do that as my KK lost 3 all in pf pots over the weekend, one to AK, one to QQ and one to AA

Turned that daft ev tracker off my graph, it was just tilting me and theres so many hands it cant take into account plus I'm well down on ev over 12k hands so dont want too look at it anymore. Maybe im due to run golden, hope so!

Anyway about £100 up for month not incl rakeback, so same as last month, bankroll steadily going up, even if nothing spectacular.

Old Habits!!

August ended as expected with about £500 profit, not bad for grinding at NL50, only the one blip where I tilted early in the month but nothing major. Uite please I showed myself I could play properly like the last few years where I was averaging £400 profit per month before my gambling at higher stakes took hold.

Played last night hoping to start Sep off with a bang. In hindsight I shouldn’t have really played as was quite tired plus a couple of things already had me in a tilty mood

1- Ladbrokes had again refused to re-tag me, I had tried to escalate the request through VIP club but got a reply back basically saying “no way”. I also looked on RTR and saw if I had been through them I would have had atleast $400 more rakeback- DOH

2- I was analysing HEM for Aug and happened to look at the EV stats which Id purposely not looked at much during the month as knew it had potential to tilt me. Over 13k of hands at NL50 I was missing 600euros, I knew Id been running quite bad in spot but that is crazy.

Neither of these things had me on tilt, but added together with fact I was tired I should have realised all it would take would be a couple of beats for them to all add up to TILT

Anyway decided to open up a couple of tables of NL100, within 30 mins Id lost 2 big pots, both about 300euro (as id built profit and were both vs another big stack) where I was all in on turn with 90% equity. It happens and in Aug I hadn’t let this type of thing affect me but after this I did start to play loose again. That was me about 200 down and after 3hrs of play of swingy play I was about 400euro down at NL100. The latter part through bad play

Old habits resurface and convince myself to gamble 150euros (basically all I had left from Aug profit) on NL400. There was an element of logic in the plan as had been watching a few tables and there were loads of short stackers basically pushing all in. Decided if I was lucky enough to get a hand it was easy quick cash. I also promised myself I wouldn’t gamble rest of the money that Id deposited in Aug, if I lost this gamble Id just start grinding again with that (is what I told myself!)

Anyway 3 hands in I loose 75 euros all in preflop to small stack with AK vs AJ who hit flush. I then double up pushing with A8h that is called by KJ. Back up to 150. Pick up a few blinds by pushing then about 15 mins later pick up AK, a guy raises early pos and I push, he folds. Very next hand I get AA, same guy raises, I push again and he insta calls with AQ , despite a scary looking KQJ flop I win. So theres about 170 of my cash back.

I then take that 170 and sit onto a NL600 table!! as same thing with 3 short stackers plus two normal full stack players. I sit patiently but don’t pick up much. One of the big stacks is bullying the short stacks every hand where someone limps and playing us all very well. I’m up to about 200euros from winning a few spots where I raised button. I then pick up J10h, I raise up to 18 (as it’s the only way to get involved as if I limp this guy just over raises us) and he doubles me. I decided to call which went against my “only play hands you can push preflop stretagy. Flop 2 4 10 (2 and 4 are diamonds). He bets 40 which looks like a standard C bet, I think of folding but then figure if I play J10 pf like I did I may aswell push my last 160 as he may have ak/aq/aj/99 down. He insta calls and I think im done. Another 10 on turn and blank river and I ship it. Think I have cracked an overpair but on the history I see he had 3 5 diamonds so had a o/e straight flush draw. He was actually 56% fav I think.

Anyway I’m not proud of the above as its terrible gambling poker which I really wanted to avoid doing. However I promised myself if I did slip back into old habbits I would write it up. Basically ended a break even night so can try and start fresh for Sep, perhaps grinding again, perhaps not!