Updates (3/17/2011)

Decided to post a quick updates on how everything is going. I'm on a bus to Manhattan, so this is being typed from my phone. The quality may not be great but hey I have some time to kill. I decided to give myself a "spring break" and skip town a few days. My head is in need of sone serious clearing. Live poker really can't go much worse right now. I'm on a 170 hour stretch of 2-5 play with about 1k profit. My strategy has been flawed buying in half stack in an attempt to control my bankroll. But not all is lost, I haven't lost money and I have 170 hours of 2-5 experience. I won't go into how bad I'm running. I decided to buy in a full $500 100 bb stack at 2-5 going forward. No more half stacking b.s. From here out its either buy in full at 2-5 or drop to 1-2 if i don't want to play that big. I have a bankroll of about 13k set aside for just poker. This is a stressful time. My roll is massive for 1-2 but I'd like a little more for 2-5. A $20,000 40-buy in roll would be ideal, but not everyone has 20k sitting in a box ready to play. I have 26 buy INS freed up for 2-5 right now. I've decided to play out unless My roll drops below 10k and I feel uncomfortable. I play a very low variance style and it would be mind-blowing to even drop 5 straight buy-INS, but yeah crazier things have happened. Like the girl I was dating that tells me 1.5 months later she's pregnant with a kid from the last guy and she just found out. Now that shit is CRAZY. Like being a corporate slave 3 years before breaking off and moving to AC area on my own. CRAZY! Anyways, sure I could grind out 1-2 for $15-$20 an hour until I get my roll to 20k. But I am burning to establish myself at 2-5. I can beat these stakes and there is more money to be made. I didnt make this massive life change to grind out 1-2 for a year or two, that was not my plan. If I get doomswitched live so be it, but using my roll to grind 1-2 with 65 buy-INS would seem VERY inefficient to me. These next few weeks seem quite important at the moment. Online: I really have improved a lot from where I started. I've been logging sessions and making progress each week. Eventually I might have to choose to be more online or live each week but I like doing both at the moment. Online is where I improve and live is where I earn my living expenses (ok with the exception of the last few weeks). So after my spring break it's back to war on the tables. If youre like me and haven't had a spring break in years or decades, take a few days and give yourself one! That's all for now. I'll keep updated on the 2-5 progress in the upcoming weeks. Or 2-5 failures! Guess we will see. As you can tell I have no confidence things will ever go smoothly again. It can happen after running very badly over 150 hours live. -bag

Another Awful Week (3/6/2011)

Just finished up another horrendous week.  Broke even live in about 24 hours of play.  Or did I win like $50, who cares.  JOY!  IF it keeps going like this I could always drop back to 1-2 and play 50 hours per week at around $15 an hour.  Sounds like a miserable existence and I hope it doesn't come to that, but I wouldn't be suprised with my luck.

Decided to use some of my FPPs and enter the Sunday Million today.  Just busted out AKs < K6 all in pre.  Binks the fucking 6 on the flop and holds.  THAT WAS FUN!!!  Just remembered why I normally don't use FPPs to enter tournaments.  I mean for a normal human being it's probably a nice strategy, but not if you're the type that can't dodge a 3-outer once in your life.

Friends visited Saturday night which resulted in a hell of a hang-over.  Back to playing on Monday.  I don't want to play online tonight since I feel pretty awful.

Things are on the rocks with the girl I'm sort of dating, so I should really be using any free time to play as much as possible.  That is a situation that really needs to end, but she's been such an important part of my life the past two months.  I'm having trouble with the prospect of totally ending it right now.  I'm sure it will fall apart naturally anyways, I just have to end it on my own terms when or if I'm comfortable doing so.  I'm not sure why I can't fully justify ending it right now.  Well ok it's because I really like her.  It's not healthy at all.  Being a logical person I know it can never work out long term, so I beat myself up even more for not ending it.  A vicious cycle indeed. 

Hopefully things will go better this week, maybe not, who knows.

-bag

Online Changes and Focusing (2/24/2011)

I recently decided to take a different online poker path.  My progress has really been minimal at best during the past few months.  I showed signs of life this week winning +$550 in about 18 hours but I still have much work to do.

Dropping to 50NL full buy in

At first I thought I could find a half stack strategy at the 100NL level.  I had previously bought in 50BBs at the 20-50 tables, but the format was removed.  I thought with the format changes there could be a good opportunity for half-stacking, and I still think it can be done.  Also I knew a lot of regulars would be better than me at 100 bb, but a 50bb stack was out of their comfort zone, and they would think I'm sub-human and retarded for not buying in 100bbs.  Hence they might pay me off more when they shouldn't.  In addition any mistakes or big coolers would be minimized.  Also, I could gain the same rake-back while risking less which could build my roll more!  But it was still flawed logic because:

1)  You make the most money in poker on the LATER STREETS.  You want to have more then 10bbs when you get to a pure turn or river profit situation.

2)  Win rate is always > rake-back.

3)  As stack size gets between 50 and 70 bb win-rate often drops (so a respected coach tells me), and thus variance increases.

4)  If I bust ass at 100bb perhaps I can actually move up the poker ladder one day, rather then fuck around in the middle.

After I won a good amount of buy ins I was planning to buy in full at 100NL.  This logic was flawed as shown above, but for a while I thought I could work hard and find a way to do it.  I can be very stubborn.

So I've decided to stop being stubborn and just drop to 50NL full buy in.  I have just over a 100 buy ins to play these stakes and I'm about to clear another $1500 bonus.  I just started 50NL this week and logged about 3k hands last night.  I felt more comfortable with the money and free to make more profitable plays.  Also, the regulars do not seem as good.  Most are around my skill level, rather than better.

Coaching Plans

I've never received coaching.  This is about to change.  After I log 100k hands at 50NL I'm going to hire a very coach to help review the hands and make specific recommendations on how I can go about improving certain areas.  I don't care what the net result is after the 100k hands.  I don't care if I win 3 bb/100 in 100k, or lose -3bb/100 in the 100k.  I still want to go ahead with this coaching.  And it wouldn't be a bad idea to pay for a check-up after the next 100k hands if it goes well.

Considering a Training Site

I've never been to a training site.  I still question the actual value in a training site.  But I think it could be worth it to have someone explaining some spots and areas to think about, rather then going about everything on my own each week.  I'm going to ask around for a recommended site based on my situation and stakes.  I'm not expecting much here.  This most likely wouldn't account for a drastic shift in my improvement, but I think watching a video or two could be a good addition to my weekly studying.

Preparing for Live this Week

Just trying to stay focused here as I kick off my live portion of the week tonight.  I'm going to completely switch casinos for my live play this weekend.  I think a change of pace will be fun.  I'm a little sick of seeing the same miserable regulars.  It should also be nice having no players recognize me for a once.

-bag

The Last Hand (2/20/2011)

I’ve been grinding 2-5 NL for a little over 8 hours now.  It’s been the usual card dead, and I’ve been unable to get much going during the past two hours.  I’m still up around $250 with a $500 stack.  If I leave now I’m up about +$1300 for the weekend, which is great.  The next hand I would be big blind, so this is it.  I expect to quickly muck something like 3-9 off-suit and get the hell out of here.

Perhaps I can expand my range a little and attack with this last hand.  I mean ok sure if the hand is feasible.  But I won’t do anything stupid.

I look down and find AQs spades.  Ok this is very feasible.  Hell I’d even pop with this normally.  I raise to $15 and get 5 callers.  The pot is around $100.

FLOP:

3s, 4s, 6s

WOW, am I seeing this right?  Ok I flopped the nuts with the exception of 5s 7s, or 2s 5s.

I check second to act.  The next guy pops it around $65, two players call!  Action is on me and I raise $125 on top.  1 fold, 1 call, 1 fold.  At some point during the flop I check my cards, as if to say “hmm do I have 1 spade?”  Also perhaps I still couldn’t believe what I was actually holding.

It’s now heads up.   The pot is about $600.  I will be first to act on the turn.  The guy obviously has a set and he’s not going to lay it down.  But I wouldn’t be surprised to see 5s7s with my luck.  But really I know there is no way he’s playing that hand with a raise pre-flop.  This is a pretty tight at least semi-regular. 

So blank the fucking turn PLEASE?  If it pairs the board I know I’m toast and it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to even check-fold the turn.

TURN:

Kd

An absolutely beautiful card.  Couldn’t have hand-picked a better card to show up on the turn.  I still basically have the nuts and he’s crushed right now.  I stall about 15 seconds before pushing my final $250 all in.  It seems like an eternity, but really it was a small stall.  The guy looks incredibly impatient.  I push all in.

SNAP CALL.  Pot is now about $1100

River:  6h

“I have the full house” as he turns over his pocket 4’s.  He says it almost as if he expected his miracle boat-up on the river.

“Nice hand” as I turn over my raped ace high flush.

I instantly got up and walked out of the casino; that was my last hand anyways. 

And 77% of the time I guess I’m the happiest guy in the world.  77% of the time I’m up $1900 fucking dollars this weekend live.  Man could I have used that big win, that amazing confidence boast.  But nope it doesn’t work like that for me, never has, never does, never will.

This week wraps up live with a disappointing net profit of +$790.

Fuck my life.

-bag

Challenging Myself (2/16/2011)

The title of my last post was “All Time Low” which is a pretty accurate description of my life right now.  Online I was playing a little over break even for about a month until I got doom-switched last night.  But my problems aren’t just with online.  Live I’ve had two losing weekends in a row at 2-5 where nothing could go right.  Also I’ve been dealing with some beyond serious issues with the girl I’ve been dating.

Now that I think about it the dating issues and the downswings might not be a complete coincidence.  I have had so much on my mind that it sticks with me during my poker sessions.  It’s like stepping up to the plate with 50 pound weights attached to my ankles.

The last two weeks have not been fun.  At this point I’m forced to take the negatives and CHALLENGE myself with them.  I have to use the negatives as fuel, as motivation.  When I woke up today I went to the gym and released rage (I don’t even like the gym).  It was a decent work-out I must say.  So life has me down?  Good use it to go to the gym and release some fucking rage.

Does poker have me down?  Good use it to stay focused and play mistake free during every single session.  Use it to study and improve even during an off day.

With poker the losses may not shift all at once.  All I can do is take each session 1 hand at a time.  Again my job is to make correct decisions, not win money (as hard as that is to grasp).

It’s not all so bad right now:

Live

I should really stay positive.  Live I’m fine.  I’ve ended up with a net loss two weeks in a row, but I’ve only had three losing live weeks since October.  I’m still just rolled enough to play out 5 more buy-ins or so at 2-5.  If the downswing continues I can always drop back to 1-2 for another month or two before taking another 2-5 shot.  I am willing to commit as much time as possible on 2-5 because I feel now is a great time to solidify myself as a 2-5 regular.  The bankroll is there and I don’t have much financial stress.

I also recently became friends with a 2-5 regular that I really respect.   I see the dude frequently win 2k on 2-5 tables during his weekend sessions like it’s no problem.  He’s very good and I look up to him for sure.  He’s a good person to coordinate strategy with.

Online

How I wish last night had never happened.  After I lost $300 in 3 hours and was feeling tilted I should have never logged back on.  I’m 75% to another $1500 bonus, but with the -$500 loss last night knock the eventual bonus to $1000 basically.  I continue to hate the online, but I still have over 90 buy-ins to figure things out.  And if I play break even until I clear the next bonus I will have over 120 buy-ins.  So the project is far from over.   

Dating

Whatever I decide I obviously can’t let any girl affect my performance when playing poker.  If this happens frequently then she just has to go.  A girl having that sort of influence is retarded.

-bag