Progress (4/13/2011)

Finished online this week up +$360 in just under 29 hours.  I guess 7 buy-ins in 29 hours is not a lot, but at least I didn't lose.  And there were signs of improvement.  Based on the way things went I'm not sure how I even ended with any sort of profit.  I ran KK into AA over 4 times.  I stacked off 3 of those times.  Every one of those times the opponent had AA and held.  Probably laid it down once or twice.  It has come to a point where I have to be losing money with KK.  This is insane, but I now need a solid read before shipping KK all in preflop playing 50NL on Pokerstars.  The environment is actually that nitty and stupid.  If the villian hasn't shown they are capable of getting all in preflop with anything but AA over a decent sample size I will fucking throw away KK, it just has to be done sometimes.  I laid it once or twice this week.  I didn't get dealt AA over anyone's KK in a somewhat deep situation either, funny how it never balances out.  Probably for the better, they would just spike the king anyway.

There were also two very deep buy-ins lost set over set against regulars.  And they weren't small sets either.  It was a frusterating week at times, but I hung in there.

I've been keeping it around 10-12 tables.  There are now extended periods where I do feel in the zone and very comfortable.  Tuesday I ended up playing 11.5 hours.  The final session was 1:30 a.m to 6:30 a.m.  I didn't plan for it to go that long, I just got in a groove and kept playing.  Fuck it, I really don't care about my schedule anymore at this point.  As long as I'm eating healthy and working out a few times per week who cares.  Also I'm drinking less than I ever have in my life so that's good.

I'm starting to clear decent VPPs and FPPs again.  I'm currently around 130k FPPs.  I'm going to wait until 250k so I can take the highest $4,000 bonus.  During the last 5 hour session I cleared 5k FPPs.  I want to clear a minimum of 25k FPPs per week online.  If I stay around that pace I can expect to clear that bonus after about 5 weeks of playing 25 hours per week.  If I can play at least break even until mid-May that bonus would almost double my online bankroll from 5k to 9k.  Sure focusing on improving and win-rate are my top priorities.  But the pending bonus is massive so a secondary goal will be at least 25k fpps per week.

In my first 85k hands of full-ring I'm up a little over FOUR BUY-INS BABY!!  +$208.  That came out to $1.19 per hour!  Ok I am trying to look at the bright side.  With bonuses I'm actually making a lot more than $1.19 per hour.  Furthermore, I have really improved as a player.  I'm playing on another level when compared to where I was a few months ago.  If I didn't quit corporate it may have taken me years to get to this level of skill.  I have a LONG way to go, but progress has been made.  Also, this has been my FIRST strech of full buy-in online.  First I wasted a half a year+ messing around with an unsuccessful short-stacking strategy.  Then it was a period of playing 50BB half buy-ins on the 20-50 tables.  So if I can finish the first 100k hands with any sort of profit (ignorning bonuses) that would honestly be great.  One more thing, all of these hands were logged during the worst part of the week.  Since I play live on the weekends, online has been getting the bad traffic days of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.

I was going to hire a coach to help me review my database after the 100k hands, but I might hold off some.  Reason being?  I feel my last 30k hands were nothing like the first 55k hands of full buy in.  Therefore, only the last 30k are applicable to my play right now.  I think a good time to get a coach involved is when there are no signs of improvement after a long stretch.  So if I bomb during the next 20k hands I will probably hire him and get it started.  If I think I'm improving at a level that is acceptable on my own I will hold off on it.

I'm taking off tonight.  I've played 7 nights straight live/online so I'm forcing a break.  Tomorrow it's back to live.  Hoping to build on 3 consecutive winning live weeks.  As always I have a very humble attitude going in, you never know what is going to happen during a sample size as small as a weekend live.

-bag

Saved By Saturday Again (4/10/2011)

Ran ok tonight up +$850 in 8 hours.  Would have been up over $1,000 but decided to run a 3-street semi-bluff/bluff with JQs which cost me -$250.  Dude calls me down 3 streets with a bottom pair on the (4 T 8 K 3 board, ok wow.  Great job that was the only hand you beat in my range there.  I could have gave up on the river, but decided a $150 bet would take it down most of the time.  This time it didn't work out.  Anyways, I'm not going to beat myself over it.  I had him as a decent regular, knew he was weak, and thought I could barrel him off the hand a very high percentage of the time.  Didn't work out that way, so oh well.

Finished up +$475 total on the live week, all of the profit coming from Saturday alone.  Hopefully next week I can START OFF stronger, it's getting stressful getting saved by Saturday each week.  The last two weeks all of the profit came on Saturday.  I should have just played 1 Saturday per week during the past two weeks and my win-rate would have been through the roof!!!

But really just kidding around, no correlation there.  Just a statistical anomaly of me running good the last two Saturdays while running like dog-shit Thursday-Friday. 

Up close to $500 is really just a buy-in, it's the mimimum I'd want to average winning weekly during the next few months, but it's not bad.  3 winning weeks in a row and trying to keep the momentum going.  I might even check out a week-night live on Monday or Tuesday.  If I find nothing I'll just leave and go online no big deal.

-bag

Trying to Salvage the Live Week (4/9/2011)

Down -$375 this week live in 18 hours.  Off to a miserable start Friday and Saturday.  Can not get anything going.  Thursday I lost a nightmare -$900 pot on a huge river suck-out.  Friday (tonight) I somehow broke even exactly after 9 hours.  Getting some sleep soon so I can resume the battle on Saturday.

I've been happy with my mind-set and play this week.  My only option is to keep fighting and stay focused.  I'm not going to expect anything Saturday the way things are going.  Just play mistake free and assume you will get all of your money in with the best of it at some point, only to be sucked out with 85%+ equity.  As for taking down moderate pots, don't worry just assume you won't get a top 10% hand in 8 hours.

If I finish Saturday with a net loss it will be extremely discouraging.  I had two consecutive winning weeks in a row and was trying hard to string something together.  I guess it's a winning week so far 90% of the time if I can avoid one suck-out.  I know I can't be pissed off if Saturday goes bad, but sometimes I can't help it.  I might throw in an extra 8 hour live session Monday or Tuesday if this weekend finishes the way it started.  Not like I win online anyway.

I'm in the mood to torture myself if this week ends bad.  Like do something crazy.  OK GOING TO RUN BAD?  Let's play 6 days straight until it balances.  Still running bad?  Ok make it 12 fuck it.  Lol

-bag

Online Struggle and Thought Process (4/4/2011)

The struggles resumed online Sunday as I dropped -$290 (just under 6 buy-ins) in 8 hours.  I thought most of the money lost was pretty standard.  Fish turns a gutshot against my set, idiot regular flops trips in a 3-bet pot against my KK, etc, etc.  Come to think of it, whenever a fish re-raised post-flop they happened to have the mortal nuts.  No matter if they were a 30/15 or a 70/25, if they raised against me post they had somehow caught the top 1% of their range every time.  And the majority of my losses during the past month online have been the exact same thing.  Me paying off the 75/25 fish holding TPTK or better.  Perhaps range theory applied to poker can’t help everyone.  I mean sometimes they have to be holding something other than the top 1% for that sort of thing to work.

At this point I feel I have the skill to at least be winning slightly playing 8-12 tables of 50NL.  So how in the fuck do I come back and drop close to 6 buy ins in 8 hours after one of my more comfortable weeks?  I think when I have decent losing sessions online it’s mostly psychological, as opposed to live where if I lose I’m purely running bad.

What I mean is my thought process live is excellent, where online I’m all over the place.  Let’s look at my thought processes live vs. online:

Live Thought Process:

 I’m going to wait for the right spots and play fundamentally solid.  My job is to make the correct decision every single hand.  The net win or loss is irrelevant.  There have been plenty of break even sessions live where I finished happy with the result.

Online Thought Process:

Make sure your STATS are optimal.  Is your PFR and VPIP at least reasonable for a given session??  BE EXPANDING YOUR 3-BET RANGE, pick off as much dead money as possible.  Go after fish and make aggressive plays against their shit ranges.  FOCUS ON POT CONTROLLING MORE.  Take it to show-down more unless you have strong reads.  Be constantly table selecting, live in the lobby if you have to.

Point:

 WOAH WOAH wait.  What the hell happened to “wait for the right spots and play fundamentally solid”  It’s as if I have to spew off to some stupid fish in a borderline situation if I’m not up a buy-in or two in an hour online.  If I look at the same spot live scaling the money up to a 2-5 game I would have NEVER paid off there.  Why is my thought process so different online?  There are so many different variables to focus on that I think I’m getting away from the basics.  I’m getting away from WAITING for the right situations and playing fundamentally solid.    

WAIT for the right situations and play fundamentally solid.    

WAIT for the right situations and play fundamentally solid.    

WAIT for the right situations and play fundamentally solid.    

WAIT for the right situations and play fundamentally solid.    

So the first thing I should scream at myself during my next online session is:

WAIT FOR THE RIGHT SITUATIONS AND PLAY FUNDAMENTALLY SOLID.   

I have also realized it is wise to ask myself “WHAT WOULD I DO LIVE” when involved in a big pot online.  This sounds easy, but it’s not.  I put it up on the second monitor next to me, I say it several times, but then I get into a big pot and with TPTK against the fish and I still snap off the last $25 of my buy-in rather than saving it.  Rather than just accepting he has a set 90% of the time there.  I look at the replay later and ask “would I have played that the same way live?”  If I scaled up the buy-in to $500, would I have paid off 50 more BB’s there?  The answer is usually NO.  So right now I’m having a bit of an issue where the $50 online buy-ins don’t mean as much, for whatever reason I don’t protect them as well.  I need to stop stacking off so light against fish.  I need to treat to $50 buy-in the same as a $500 buy-in.    

During every decent 50NL pot I need to ask:

Would you play this the same way live?

Unfortunately I’m done with playing online this week, ending the misery at 8 hours.  I have to go home for my friend’s funeral.  I should be back Wednesday-Thursday and I’ll just pick up with the live week.  But Sunday during my next online session I’m going to look back at this post.

When playing online going forward please for the love of God make sure you:

1)  Wait for the right situations and play fundamentally solid.

2)  Ask yourself if you would play this hand the same way live.

-bag

Smashing Live Finish (4/3/2011)

Just closed out the live week in very good shape.  Up +$1625 in 9.5 hours for Saturday.  +$1255 net for the week.  I will take it.  What a relief after a miserable Thursday-Friday. 

I felt the most comfortable and thought I played my best 2-5 sessions tonight.  I'd say a buy-in was won because the deck just hit me a little.  But the other two buy-ins were from abusing bad players and playing solid.

A big improvement I identified from tonight's play was my implementation of two successful semi-bluffs to take down decent pots.  They were bluffs against the right regulars that worked very well.  They weren't suicidal bluffs where I would be drawing to the river with no equity if called on the turn, just very well placed.  Both happened to be turn barrels heads up.  I don't want to overdo it but well placed bluffs are essential if I want to get a win-rate over $30 per hour.  I have a lot of respect as a nitty solid player and I can get a ton of respect from the regulars during the upcoming months running well placed bluffs.

You obviously have to be bluffing every once in a while to take down some moderate pots against certain players.  Unless you just run like God or happen to find a table with 6-7 casual players.  That's about all I wanted to say right now.

It's 9:00 a.m but at least I have something to feel good about.

-bag