Day 8

Another nice session in NL2.
My goal is close I'm starting to feel the 125$ over 10k hands is possible or at least will be very close.

Last night I broke my record of hands per hour doing 327 that's something like 6 tables steady at the same time, although I mostly had 9 tables opened with some periods with only 6 and at the and I stood only on the 3 I was winning the most to try to take some profit over some spewers without great success I must add because I ended up loosing 4$ on those 3 tables compared to if I had stopped on the time I should.
This is a rule I must enforce, stipulate a time for the session and only play that time.
Back on the point, I did 1096 hands over 3 hours and 20 minutes winning $13.35, a little above my goal but not too much.

Interesting things happened last night, a complete agro guy was raising all in with almost any two cards on a table that quickly rose to the 1# place in VPIP$ and average pot on PS lobby. I went against this guy several times, whenever I found my self to have a hand ahead of his range but he was just too lucky, not only with me but with everyone. The guy lost around 15 all ins always reloading with 1$ and after a while he was on 20$ which according to my HUD still made his session like -8$.
Here's one and I lost to him and one I won:
Poker Stars $2.00 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 328847

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter



MP2: $1.54

Hero (CO): $11.51

BTN: $0.67

SB: $2.96

BB: $3.00

UTG: $7.16

UTG+1: $5.00

UTG+2: $3.06

MP1: $5.67



Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is CO with 4 4

UTG raises to $7.16, 4 folds, Hero calls $7.16, 3 folds



Flop: ($14.35) 3 8 K (2 players)



Turn: ($14.35) 7 (2 players)



River: ($14.35) 6 (2 players)



Final Pot: $14.35

Hero shows 4 4

UTG shows T 9

UTG wins $13.65

(Rake: $0.70)




Poker Stars $2.00 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 328854

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter



UTG: $1.34

Hero (UTG+1): $5.24

UTG+2: $0.67

MP1: $2.95

MP2: $3.00

CO: $17.85

BTN: $4.88

SB: $3.00

BB: $5.67



Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG+1 with 8 8

1 fold, Hero calls $0.02, 3 folds, CO raises to $17.85, 3 folds, Hero calls $5.22 all in



Flop: ($10.51) T T J (2 players - 1 is all in)



Turn: ($10.51) Q (2 players - 1 is all in)



River: ($10.51) T (2 players - 1 is all in)



Final Pot: $10.51

Hero shows 8 8

CO shows 7 7

Hero wins $10.01

(Rake: $-12.11)

Day 7

Well like I said on the post before, I'm not changing my play style until 10k hands so I played a 9 table 2 hour session yesterday on PS with 32/12/3.

The session started normal with a few losses due to not being respected at the tables and my cbets being called. I also always start a little shy not entering that many pots and not playing so aggressively like I use to.
After around 140 hands, things went in place and I went positive for the session. For the rest of the time my graph like you can see kept rising bit by bit with the occasional jump of an All In winning.

As you can see I ended up with an amazing $28.20 over 688 hands which is my personal best and to be honest pretty amazing.

Here's some crude analysis:

• I saw the flop 226 hands out of 260 were I put money (87%). The 39 I didn't see the flop, I lost 0.34c and won 0.52c having a positive balance of $0.18c.
• I went All In 13 times in 226 hand (6%), loosing 5 times (42%) a total of $4.16 and winning 7 (58%) times a total of $20.64 having a positive balance of $16.48. The All In winnings represent 58% of the night winnings. 
• I went to showdown 51 out of 226 (23%) hands loosing 33 hands (51%) a total of $5.32 and winning 31 (49%) a total of $13.75 having a positive balance of $8.43. The net showdown winnings represent 30% of the night winnings.
• I  went in 162 hands (71%) that finished without showdown . I lost 89 hands (55%) a total of $5.44 and won 73 hands (45%) a total of $9.69 having a positive balance of $4.25. The net showdown winnings represent 14% of the night winnings.

From what I see I won all the big all ins, only loosing some light ones I called given the short stack of the villain and 2 of them I lost where I had a high +EV. As a final note on the All Ins, I had +EV on all I lost for a total of $5.05.
My bluffs make me stay positive on the non showdown winnings and when I get to showdown I'm sure to win about half of them and extract value from them controlling the pot on most of the others.

All in all a great day I don't know If I can repeat.

PS: I'm finally above my plan :D

Im I a Donk?

Yesterday I was reading a post on 2p2 about "The Three Basic Fish Types" and I found my self to be a loose passive preflop agrodonk posflop.
I have been wondering about my stats a while because they are far from the 22/18 they should be in order to be a TAG a competently beat the level. My stats are around 29/11 witch indicates I see too many flops and I see them passively, that is, not raising them as I should do and mainly because I limp in with marginal hands. The thing is my post flop aggression, around 40% on flop, 50% on turn and 35% on river. This means I bet/raise a lot, even OOP.
Well, it seems to work given that a lot and I mean a lot of people at NL2 fold to aggression even with the best hand. I'm starting to think that NL2 is filled with a lot of people that like me lost their first 2/3 deposits and now are trying to TAG their way up but end up playing weak tight folding better hands to bully's like me.

Here you have an example:
Poker Stars $2.00 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players - View hand 327484

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter



UTG: $2.97

UTG+1: $1.45

MP: $7.63

CO: $5.73

BTN: $4.63

Hero (SB): $5.60

BB: $0.82



Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is SB with 2 7

1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.02, 3 folds, Hero raises to $0.08, BB calls $0.06, UTG+1 calls $0.06



Flop: ($0.24) 5 3 3 (3 players)

Hero bets $0.12, BB folds, UTG+1 calls $0.12



Turn: ($0.48) Q (2 players)

Hero checks, UTG+1 checks



River: ($0.48) A (2 players)

Hero bets $0.12, UTG+1 folds



Final Pot: $0.48

Hero wins $0.48





I only did this because I knew the player already folded too many times to aggression and to prove a friend of mine that poker is not mainly luck, it's more then that.

Well, I'm not bragging, on the contrary, I know I have a leak here and I need to fix it. Because of that I made a post on 2p2 and after some replies I decided I'm going to keep this style of play until my 10k hands, but after that I'm not moving up to NL5 like I planned, instead I'm doing 10k more at NL2 but changing the play style.

Day 6

Although some opportunities may arise in poker like in life, the most important thing is to maintain the focus and follow the pre-designed plans. In situations where the plan may not hold anymore or may need some changes, what we should do is re-design it and start following the new plan.
I'm not ready to NL10 mainly because my poker skills are not enough and my bankroll is clearly bellow average.
I have earned the bonus I wanted, and I'm close to the new bonus but that's about all the time I'm giving to NL10...for now!

So...Here I am back to my plan!

Day 6 started hot!
Out of NL10 and it's aggression levels, one comes to NL2 and sees PFR of 0.04c and thinks...omg 2 minutes ago I was trying to squeeze my way to the flop paying only 0.10c and before you notice it you are a bully raising and raising and picking up dead money and even putting people on hard spots where they fold to your air because no one bets there without a strong hand.
Like I was saying, it started hot 50 hands 4$ up 200 hands 8$ up and then happened one of those thins that makes poker fun. I spot a player tilting and going all in and I managed to isolate that player 3 times in a row by raising hard pre flop. On the first two I couldn't respond to his all in because the flop hit his range more then mine but on the third having 2 pairs on flop I called and showed ATo vs J5s on a ATQ rainbow, needless to say K came on river and he doubled up to 2$. Next hand I get AA and raised his PFR making him 4bet me to go all in and have my aces being pwned by 22 doubling him up again to 4$. The guy continued all in again and doubled yet one more time against another player leaving the table right then...well not all is bad, I still have his name :)
After this strange beat I had some good hands smashed and lost a bit of focus but I was able to get a grip and finish on a nice 11,52$ over 700+ hands.

NL2 is my home for now and will be for a while :)

A little detour

Last couple of days, I've been away from PS to test something at FTP.
I used the link here in my blog and created a FTP account where I deposited 140$.
My goal was to make 100 FPP's and that way unblock the affiliate program 75$ bonus.
To achieve this I have been playing at NL10 a level witch I clearly don't master but where my results aren't that bad.
The first session I played 1 table and quickly won 12$. I opened 5 more tables to end with a 23$ up session...I was :O WOW.
The next day I 4 tabled and in a session where I was initially up bu 3$ I ended down by 7$.
The third session I 6 tabled again and after 1 hour I was up bu 12$ but a series of poor decision and worst then that, a series of hero call's I don't even make anymore on NL2 made me end the session 17$ down...pretty lame.
Overall in 3 days I lost 2$ but got my 100 points so I'm getting 75$ back witch makes things overall good. I will probably try one or two more sessions because I'm now 110 point away from a 35$ bonus so I guess I have 35$ to "spend" :P

My goal is and will remain to succeed at PS NL2. This week I will return and hopefully stronger then before.

Day 5

This session I tryed to play as many as 9 tables at the same time and I must say that it wasn't that difficult. The main problem for me is not being able to focus so much on some CBETs and because of that some of the dead money I like to pick up goes away but I think that can be compensated with more set mining and more premium hands. Apart from that, the only problem I foresee in playing 9+ tables is...how the hell do I go to the bathroom??? As soon as I started to move towards it rooms began to flash and beep. I even set up the reflective door of my closet in order to see what hands I had and they were always playable hands so, back to the chair.

As to the session itself it started sky high with 5$ profit on the first 200 hands but at the end it came down to 3.58 after 862 hands witch is a lot bellow my desired goal but at least it was another positive session for me and the total winnings rise to 38$ so far after 5 sessions / 3851 hands.

I really need to stop a day or two and Anallise my hands.

Day 4

I'm glad this day came!

I had to say it although it hurts but the truth is that when after a pause to study the game you come back and start running hot at 70-100 BB's/100 you begin to think that you figured things out and that from now on the road to success is clean, wide and without obstacles. Well Poker just like life ain't like that. And sometimes a reality check it's a more important lesson then a lot of reading.

Enough with the philosophy and let's see what happened.
I started the day bad, really bad. Although I was for the first time on correct VPIP$ / PFR levels (around 21/19), my cards weren't holding up.
I got a lot of AQ/AJ/KQ/KJ/JT most of the times I played them in position and with the raises they deserve but at the end the villain was always hitting something and my cards weren't holding up. I started to go negative for the first time and for most of the session I was loosing 1-2$. Sometimes I recovered to -0.80$ for example but next thing I noticed I was down 2$+ again. In the last 100 hands some value cards finally came like my first AA, my first QQ, a KK that for the first time wasn't folded to me after a 4 BB raise and a set I finally was able to mine and that summed up not only I recovered from the red line but I went up for 2.76$ for the session witch in the end makes me very happy because it showed me that maybe it wasn't everything my fault.

I didn't had time to Anallise the hands yet but I can tell that my biggest mistakes were three:
1. I CBET a lot with air and I even double/triple barrel some times. This is not wrong, what is wrong is when the villain cold calls or check/raises me, I need to get out sooner. I lost a lot of 0.80$/0.65$ pots that summed up make a lot. Like I read on 2p2 one day, at this level if someone tells you they have something...believe him!
2. Again the limping! After my start on the right VPIP$ / PFR levels I saw things going down on earnings so I started to limp more and more. That cost me 2 x KK folded all around to my 0.04 raise.
3. FOCUS! I can't play without focus, at least not for now. I believe that people that have a lot of practice can play 10 - 18 tables without almost paying attention but I can't play 4-6 tables without being focused because when I'm not I make a lot of bad decisions.

I will post some hands later in the day.