Some goals

After reading some blogs and giving things some thought i've decided to start playing 50NL a little sooner then planned. I've made this decision because right now I play 6 tables of 25 NL without giving things much thought, I basically play everything pretty much on autopilot and i think there won't be much improvement in my game that way. Besides that I also want to move up because i know i can beat 50 NL ( because i've beat 50NL before) and because i'm... ,well.... just too impatient :)

Since my bankroll isn't anywhere close to what it should be to start playing 50NL I will make a start by playing 2 tables on 25NL and 2 tables 50NL and move down if i reach 200$, hopefully I won't be too unlucky in the coming period... :)

I'll post my experiences!

A few dollars a day keeps the doctor away

I've played a couple of hands and im slowly increasing my bankroll which is now 428$

Here are some stats:

(click for larger)

I don't play any 50NL games right now as you can see but the games you see there are the ones i played a while ago which didn't turn out very well.

Here's the graph.

I haven't really thought much about what the showdown stuff really means and what numbers should be good. The sample isn't so big yet so i wont draw any conclusions yet.

I'll also try to find some way to make stats like the one that set-o-meter provided for pokertracker databases next time. I at least need to find some way to tell how lucky i've been over some period of time.

And maybe i'll try to find some leaks to discuss in the coming posts.

Good luck at the tables!

A bit up, a bunch down, and up again

I've been playing a little poker over the last couple of months. I used to play almost every day with an average of a couple of hours a day, now i play twice or 3 times a week for a couple of hours. I bought holdem manager two months ago and my database contains 16343 hands so far. Most of the hands i played are on the 25NL level but when things went well i decided to play on 50NL again unfortunately with not much succes. I dropped more then 7 buyins and i moved down to 25NL again in which i slowly regained my hard earned bucks :)

This is what it looks like in a holdemmanager graph:

(Click to enlarge)

If i filter out the 50NL games:

And these are just the 50NL games:

 

The sample isn't large enough to draw any conclusions but at least i can say that i'm slowly moving up again. I will wait a bit longer before i try out 50NL again although i'm probably not going to wait till i reach the 1250$ which Raszi recommends to start playing 50NL. I think i'll wait till my bankroll will be 600 or so. I'll move down when i reach 400$ again. Right now my bankroll is 411.88$.

I still play on Party Poker although i doubt party poker is the site with most rakeback advantages. I just like the site and i'll evaluate other sites later.

Good luck at the tables!

New start?

This blog never took off very much but i've decided to try to start blogging again every once in a while just so i can later track my progress and see what i was thinking at a certain point in time.
Since my last post a lot has happened. At that point in time i worked a fulltime job as a software engineer and played poker when i got home till late in the night, basically it was a pretty unhealthy schedule i was keeping up. At some point i started to suffer from repetitive strain injury which also affected my work. Because poker is supposed to be just a (serious) hobby for me i decided at some point to cash out most of the money i had on several sites and play only live tournaments in the casinos in amsterdam and utrecht in order to avoid the computer when i was at home.

At that time i was so into poker that i made a schedule to play almost 4 live tournaments a week so i could still play alot of poker while not using the computer at all. While i had doubts i could keep up this schedule because of the pretty high stakes at the live tournaments ( my bankroll was nothing near sufficient for 60euro NL and PL rebuy tournaments or 110euro freezeout tournaments ) i still tried this for a while, unfortunately with not much succes. The only time i ended in the money was at a 60euro NL tournament in amsterdam where i finished at i think the 7th place ( i think out of 80 players ) and got busted when someone took my last chips away from me by crushing my AA with KQ. Ofcourse i didn't win enough with this 7th spot to be able to pay for all the buyins and rebuys.

After trying the live tournaments for a while i went on vacation for a month, not touching a computer at all and not playing any poker at all either. I did this to allow myself to recover from the RSI. After i returned i still suffered from RSI but after a few weeks of work somehow miraculously my RSI began to slowly fade away.

After my vacation i also played at a new local 10euro rebuy tournament i discovered without much succes but it was still fun after a one month pokerbreak. I also tried the online tables again but this time i didn't open up 6 tables but kept the table amount to just 2 tables. Since i didn't have any bankroll anymore i deposited 50 euro and started playing 25NL with a little succes.
This is where i'm at right now. What i want to do from now on is occasionaly play the weekly 10euro rebuy tournaments and try to slowly let my online bankroll grow according to raszi's bankroll plan. I'm not planning to play as much as i used to since that was just too unhealthy in multiple ways. I just want to occasionally play poker from now on but still take it seriously.
I will see if i can report my progress every once in a while.

Good luck at the tables!

NLFish

Update

It's been a while since my last post... The last time i tried to post i wrote a big story and when i submitted it something went wrong and everything i wrote was lost. Since then i stopped posting for a while but i'll will try now to post a couple of posts every week.

A lot has happened since my last post. I'll try to explain in short what happened.

First of all i managed to qualify for the 300k gtd tournament on party which i sometimes try to qualify for. I qualified two times before but in the main tournament i didn't even get close to the money. This time was different. After hours and hours of poker i finally managed to finish in a 15th place out of (i believe) 1179. I won 2300$ with this spot which i cashed out for the most part.

In real life I sometimes play in 10euro rebuy and 50 euro freeze out tournaments which are organised here and in a 1-2 euro game with some poker people i got to know during these tournaments. Normally I dont play 1-2 euro but some of the people who play in the game are not that good. To keep a long story short, after one of the tournaments i started playing in a 1-2 game and after a couple of hours of play i lost 300 euros.

A day later i was following a course in Utrecht and since i heard that they host 2-2 euro games there i went there after i finished my course and checked out the poker there. Quickly i found out that i had to wait a couple of hours for the sng tournaments to end before the 2-2 tables would be opened. Because i didn't want to wait that long i decided to play in the 5-5 game again. I've played this limit in the casino in Amsterdam as well but i dont really think i have an edge here but i gave it another shot anyway. I bought in for 500 and i think i didn't even last 2 orbits. First i walked into a straight while i hit my second pair on the turn. Second someone sucked out on me with a flush. I immediately left the casino, while i didn't play bad i just walked into a big hand and got 1 suckout and with such a limit i dont want to put another 500 on the table.

In another 1-2 session with the people i know from the local poker tournaments i lost again another 400. Basically i lost most of the money i won in the Saturday 300gtd.

Meanwhile the 15up/5 down challenge is going up and down but latelely it is going up. Right now my BR is $784.42 although $100 of that amount is still left from the tournament win. But i also played in some small tournaments like the qualifying tournaments.

To keep working towards a clear goal i will update my targets to be:

Target BR: $1500
Point of failure: $450

I will post stats and graph later.

Good luck on the tables!

Going down!

Yesterday began good. At some point i was 90$ ahead and i stopped for a moment. Later i began playing another session in which at some point i tilted....

I started out with AK wich i limped from an early pos. Button raised and i called, flop didn't bring much and he made a c-bet, turn q we checked, river k. I checked again, he made a 8$ bet and i called, he had KQ.

Then i got a 89s, i flopped a straight on a board with 3 clubs, someone bet, i raised, he reraised, i went allin, he had the nut flush on the flop. Then i tilted and made some dumb moves. I quess i was just too tired when i played that last session. In the end i was left with -20$ for this challenge, from 137$ up to 20 down :(

I guess i learned again... not to play when tired, drunk, in a bad mood etc.

3rd day of the challenge about to start.

Results of the first challenge day

Yesterday was kind of swingy but i still managed to go up 1 buyin. Here's the graph and the sessions i played:












A couple of hands:

$50 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, August 14, 17:32:09 ET 2007
Table Table 130249 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 3: NLFish ( $41.39 USD )
Seat 5: amosimo ( $67.11 USD )
Seat 6: banana_cow ( $49.58 USD )
Seat 2: Rekop1177 ( $54.26 USD )
Seat 4: The_Man__Who ( $50.75 USD )
Seat 1: windem ( $10 USD )
amosimo posts small blind [$0.25 USD].
banana_cow posts big blind [$0.50 USD].
windem posts big blind [$0.50 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to NLFish [ Ac Kd ]
windem checks.
Rekop1177 raises [$1 USD]
NLFish raises [$4 USD]
The_Man__Who folds.
amosimo folds.
banana_cow folds.
windem folds.
Rekop1177 raises [$6 USD] <--- Hrmmm
NLFish calls [$3 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Td, Ks, 5c ]
Rekop1177 bets [$5 USD]
NLFish raises [$15 USD] <--- He can bet whatever he want i've hit tptk, Raise!
Rekop1177 raises [$20 USD] <--- I dont give this much thought and move all-in
NLFish is all-In.
Rekop1177 calls [$9.39 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8h ]
** Dealing River ** [ 9d ]
Rekop1177 shows [ Ad, As ]a pair of Aces.
NLFish doesn't show [ Ac, Kd ]a pair of Kings.
Rekop1177 wins $81.03 USD from the main pot with a pair of Aces.

The preflop minraise and min reraise was suspicious. But even if i would have called the flop i would have trouble laying my hand away on subsequent bets. Should i call and payoff small bets and fold bigger bets on the turn and river? Should i raise and fold to a reraise? i guess i could have minraised and fold to a reraise on the flop.

second hand:

$50 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, August 14, 19:21:57 ET 2007
Table Table 130249 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 3: NLFish ( $90.09 USD )
Seat 6: banana_cow ( $45.17 USD )
Seat 4: Samwisepoker ( $73.36 USD )
Seat 1: DickyWicked ( $66.68 USD )
Seat 5: foggy55 ( $63.33 USD )
Seat 2: pjferr ( $50 USD )
Samwisepoker posts small blind [$0.25 USD].
foggy55 posts big blind [$0.50 USD].
pjferr is sitting out
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to NLFish [ Kh Qh ]
banana_cow folds.
DickyWicked folds.
NLFish raises [$2 USD]
Samwisepoker raises [$4.25 USD] <--- Ok ... im in pos. let's see the flop
foggy55 folds.
NLFish calls [$2.50 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3d, Ah, 9s ]
Samwisepoker checks.
NLFish bets [$3 USD] <--- c-bet
Samwisepoker calls [$3 USD] <--- since he reraised from the SB i put him on
a big PP which he wont just let go
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4c ]
Samwisepoker checks.
DickyWicked: i want $4580.54...
NLFish bets [$4 USD] <--- i'll just fire again
Samwisepoker calls [$4 USD] <--- at this point i convince myself he just can't
let go of his hand.
** Dealing River ** [ 7d ]
Samwisepoker bets [$10 USD]
NLFish raises [$25 USD] <---- what was i thinking??
Samwisepoker is all-In.
NLFish folds.
Samwisepoker shows [ Ad, Ac ]three of a kind, Aces.
Samwisepoker wins $108.36 USD from the main pot with three of a kind, Aces.

Another stupid hand:

$50 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, August 14, 14:59:59 ET 2007
Table Table 126400 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 2: car_cc ( $9.28 USD )
Seat 4: JNandez87 ( $99.71 USD )
Seat 5: biomeggi ( $55.89 USD )
Seat 6: PokerDman ( $51.61 USD )
Seat 1: NLFish ( $62.16 USD )
Seat 3: Indy75 ( $31.66 USD )
JNandez87 posts small blind [$0.25 USD].
biomeggi posts big blind [$0.50 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to NLFish [ Ah 6s ]
PokerDman folds.
NLFish raises [$2 USD]
car_cc folds.
Indy75 folds.
JNandez87 folds.
biomeggi raises [$6.50 USD]
NLFish calls [$5 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8s, Kd, 2d ]
biomeggi bets [$7 USD]
NLFish raises [$18 USD]
biomeggi raises [$28 USD]
NLFish folds.
biomeggi shows [ Ks, Kh ]three of a kind, Kings.
biomeggi wins $64.74 USD from the main pot with three of a kind, Kings.

Sometimes i reraise these flops with air to pretend i have top pair and hope my opponent has QQ, or JJ, AQ or something and folds. Something i should try to let go and even if i want to play a bit tricky it might be better to just call and see how he plays the turn...

There were also alot of positive hands too ofcourse but i have the feeling i could have won a lot more yesterday. and 50$ for 1000+ hands is not very good.

Let's see if i can prevent some of those mistakes today.