March Results

Whoa! Two posts in one week! What's going on?

First I want to give a big congrats to jjok for taking down the Mookie on Wednesday night. If you read my last post, I told JJ I would win Riverchasers Monday night and dedicate the win to him. I ended up going out in 3rd, so he had to go show me how it's done in the Mookie. Now that is how you do it! Impressive!

So the last couple of days of March couldn't have gone any better. I was wallowing away in break even land, and then BOOM, I go on a heater. Tuesday night I sat down and played for a little over an hour and won $900 to bring my total for the month to just over $1,500. Check out this awesome graph:


I even ran above EV for once. My biggest suckout was the following hand. This guy was a LAG who's 3-bet percentage was around 9-10%. That is really high, so I decided to 4-bet. My call is definitely marginal, but I'm not gonna 4-bet/fold AQ.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players

stormjr23 (MP): $246.70
sabxxx (CO): $200.00
kwantum (BTN): $400.00
mayor_bee (SB): $205.75
Kamdini (BB): $406.35
Hero (UTG): $230.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is UTG with Ad Qs

Hero raises to $7, 2 folds, kwantum raises to $24, 2 folds, Hero raises to $52, kwantum requests TIME, kwantum raises to $400 all in, Hero calls $178 all in

Flop: ($463.00) 9d Tc Jc

Turn: ($463.00) 6h

River: ($463.00) Ks

Final Pot: $463.00

kwantum shows Qc Qh (a straight, King high)
Hero shows Ad Qs (a straight, Ace high)
Hero wins $460.00

The other big pots were standard spots. AA beats AK all-in PF. I flop a set of twos and win a stack versus someone who turned two pair. And then this hand, where I take an unconventional line. Villain is pretty aggressive, but had a high fold to 3-bet percentage. So I didn't want to blow him off of a worst hand. I usually don't donk bet, but this time it worked out perfectly.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players

tuckandroll2 (CO): $96.65
union164 (BTN): $89.95
PBlad (SB): $51.80
Hero (BB): $200.00
hugo69003 (UTG): $266.60
TsirhCitna (MP): $249.35

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with Qh Qd
1 fold, TsirhCitna raises to $7, 3 folds, Hero calls $5

Flop: ($15.00) 6h 3s Qs (2 players)
Hero bets $12, TsirhCitna calls $12

Turn: ($39.00) 9d (2 players)
Hero bets $32, TsirhCitna requests TIME, TsirhCitna raises to $230.35 all in, Hero calls $149 all in

River: ($401.00) 5c (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $401.00

Hero shows Qh Qd (three of a kind, Queens)
TsirhCitna shows Ks Js (King Queen high)

Hero wins $398.00

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Here's a random observation for you. I only have to drive 5 minutes to get to and from work. On my way, I pass by a small, little, fenced in dog park. It's basically just a triangular field with a fence around it, 1 or 2 trees, and a garbage can. There are always tons of people there. And it is safe to say that there are more people here playing with their dogs, than there are with their children at all of the parks around here combined. How sad is that?

During my lunch break today, we brought the kids to a park to play. No one else was there. On my way back to work, the dog park had 10+ people there.

WTF?

Feruary 2008 Results and Lifetime Graph

February was another decent month. Not my best month ever, but close again. I was up $2500 at one point, but only finished at +$1800 or so. I only put in 12,000 cash game hands in the month, and when you figure that I put in half of that the first week, that is pretty pathetic :)

Grand Total: +$1,847.83

Cash Games: +1,247.40

• 100NL 6 max: +$398.60 (4001 hands @ 9.96 BB/100)
  
• 200NL 6 max: +$512.95 (7523 hands @ 3.41 BB/100)
  
• 400NL 6 max: +$410.40 (234 hands @ 43.85 BB/100)

MTTs/SNGs: +$168.83

Rakeback: +$387.00

Bonus: +$75.00

Here are the cash game graph and stats

Damn, I sure played Nitty at 200NL. I need to loosen up.

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I'm posting my lifetime graph because I recently passed another milestone: 30 G's. Not too shabby for a donkey, huh? I deposited my first money online back in June of 2005, so almost three years of playing online.

I described my play a few months back as being, "Break even with an occasional hot streak". Ain't that the truth? If you look at the last seven months , there are three distinct break even stretches, and two huge up swings. WTF? I'll take it I guess. I sure am glad there aren't any huge down swings.

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And on a personal note, I am officially sick of the winter. Woke up this morning and it was -5 degrees outside. For cripes sake it's the middle of March!!!! Then I heard on the radio that we have had 100 straight days of having snow on the ground. I hate winters. Hate hate hate.

Let's hope it warms up soon.

Cheers!

December 2007 Results

I figured I better make a review post for December, so here it is. I didn't play that much again. Only 11,000 hands (Which is the same amount that EurekaKid did in one day!!! Yikes!). I'm still having trouble getting motivated to play poker. I guess I am going through a phase were it isn't that fun right now. I'm sick of the bad beats and running bad. If I'm playing, and feel like I may start going on tilt, I log off and frag some fools in Call of Duty 4. I guess that is better than continuing to play on tilt and losing money, right?

When you know what you are doing, and play a lot of hands against donks, you end up getting your money in when you are ahead. If I get my money in when I am ahead nine out of ten times, that means they have nine opportunities to suckout to my one time. Obviously that is how I want it, but it is a mental thing I need to work on. When I am in a big pot and I am a favorite to win, and I do win, I think to myself, "Well, I should have win that anyways". But if I lose I say, "Dammit, I should have won that one!!". Not sure how to solve this problem.

Another bad thing about me not wanting to play much poker right now, is that Full Tilt's Year End bonus is going on right now. I have almost $600 in bonus money that I can clear this month, but I have only gotten through a third of it. That right there should give me motivation, but it's not. I have started to play a lot more Omaha the past week. That is starting to put the fun back into playing poker. And playing Omaha makes me play a lot more focused. Since I don't have PokerTracker Omaha, I have to pay more attention to reads and position, and can't rely on those PA HUD stats I am so used to at Hold 'Em.

Here are my results for December.

In addition to this, I lost about $250 playing MTTs/SNGs, and made $476 in rakeback. So I made about $800 total. Meh.

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I had to really look hard to find a Sweet Hand of the Day. Here ya go.

First hand at this table. Nice little gift, huh? Pretty sad that this is the best hand I could find for the past week?

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players

BTN: $241.75
SB: $101.85
Hero (BB): $200
UTG: $111.40
MP: $199.40
CO: $72.45

Pre-Flop: Ah Kc dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG folds, MP raises to $4, 2 folds, SB calls $3, Hero raises to $18, MP folds, SB raises to $101.85 and is All-In, Hero calls $83.85

Flop: ($207.70) 4c Jd 8s (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: ($207.70) 4d (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($207.70) 6d (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $207.70 Pot ($3 Rake)
SB showed Th Kh (a pair of Fours) and LOST (-$101.85 NET)
Hero showed Ah Kc (a pair of Fours) and WON $204.70 (+$102.85 NET)

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The Sour Hand of the Day.

I played this hand pretty bad. I probably should have continuation bet that flop with my flush draw. But I decided to take the free card in position. I probably should have folded on the turn, but with MP calling that bet also, I thought that I might have some decent implied odds. And then they check to me on the river. I didn't have too many hands on the SB, but he had never check-raised on the river, so I thought it was an ok spot to bluff. His check-raise push is really strange there. Whatever. I'm sure I logged off after this hand and played some COD 4.

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players

CO: $84.90
Hero (BTN): $240.30
SB: $204
BB: $203
UTG: $210
MP: $201.70

Pre-Flop: 5s 7s dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG folds, MP calls $2, CO folds, Hero raises to $9, SB calls $8, BB folds, MP calls $7

Flop: ($29) Jd 2s Ts (3 Players)
SB checks, MP checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($29) 2c (3 Players)
SB bets $19, MP calls $19, Hero calls $19

River: ($86) 9h (3 Players)
SB checks, MP checks, Hero bets $60, SB raises to $176 and is All-In, 2 folds

Results: $206 Pot ($3 Rake)
SB mucked and WON $203 (+$115 NET)



Cheers!

November 2007 Results

Well, November was a good month thanks to 5 hours over the Thanksgiving Weekend. I think this graph pretty much sums up my poker: Break Even with an occasional hot streak.



Was November my best month ever? I made just over 2 grand, which is where I have been quite a few times. So the answer is: Yes, but just by a little.

Cash Games: $2,177.00

• 100NL: $334.45 (8799 hands)
• 200NL $1,990.80 (5767 hands)
• 400NL -$148.25 (134 hands)

PL Omaha: $27.35

Tournaments: -$189.46

October Rakeback (small due to MGR being reduced because of my Ipod purchased from PT Points): $210.00

Grand Total: $2,224.89



Poker Tracker says I played a total of 43 hours. So if you factor in a little bit more rakeback, I made about $58 an hour. Not too shaby!

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I didn't play much poker this weekend. Made a couple hundred though. Lost with AKs vs QQ all-in PF against a donk, but 2 orbits later, I got it all-in against a nit with AA vs JJ and won. These two hands show what image can do for your bottom line. Because the nit saw me get it all-in PF with AKs, he felt a lot better about his JJ and called my all-in when I had AA. If he would not have seen that hand, I think he easily lets go of his JJ to my 5-bet (I 3-bet from the blinds, he 4-bet to 40BBs , and I 5-bet shoved)

I've also played some cash games over at PokerStars. I think I am going to play more 100NL over there, especially when there are no good tables going on at FT.

Cheers!

7 Month Review

I've been playing poker over at Full Tilt full time now for 7 months. So I thought I would go through my stats/graphs of my cash game play and put up a review post. I think it is good to do this every once in a while and see how you are progressing as a poker player.

April
I don't have a pic handy, but here are the stats for April

• 9617 hands @ 100NL
• Profit of $843.49 = 8.77 BB/100 ( 4.39 ptbb/100)
• VP$Ip = 20.1; PFR% = 14.2
  

May


June


July


August


September


October


Grpahs (I have two databases, so two graphs)



So, I've played:

• 64,786 hands at 100NL 6 max. I have made $6,853.55. That is 10.58 BB/100 (or 5.29 ptbb/100).
• 18,796 hands at 200NL 6 max. I have lost $443.20. That is -1.18 BB/100 (or -0.59 ptbb/100)
  

That's pretty good from what I hear for 100NL. But yuck @ the 200NL stats. Why can't I beat 200NL? Man this is frustrating.

I like that first graph. A nice steady upward climb (That graph consists of 41K hands @100NL, and only 6400 hands at 200NL). That second graph is ugly (24K @ 100NL, 12.4K @ 200NL). Holy Up and Down Batman!

Not sure where to go from here. I want to improve as a poker player, but I also want to make some nice spending money. I could make a lot more money 6 tabling 100NL than I could 4 tabling 200NL. But would I improve as a poker player? Can a casual player do well playing 400NL and higher? Am I just on a downswing and things will eventually turn around (Look at my pokerEV graph a few posts down)?

What I think I need is a coach. But I don't think I can justify the price tag of one when I only play 10 hours a week. Maybe a study partner? Someone who plays 100NL - 400NL, with extra free time to burn, where we could go over each others Hand History sessions?

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A couple frustrating hands from yesterday:

a 24/12 guy in the Cutoff open raises. I 3-bet from the Button with AQ and he calls. Flop comes 952 with two hearts. He checks, I c-bet and he calls. A non-heart King comes off. That's a good card for me I think. I could definitely rep AK here. I would think I could get any hand (Except for slowplayed AA or KK) to fold there. I would think TT-JJ would fold also, since there is now an overcard, plus I am showing a lot of strength. But he check/calls. WTF does he have here? 99? jeez, I would think AA or KK would raise somewhere in there. River is some blank and I check behind. What does he have? 96o. ya, figure that one out. So he put me exactly on the hand that he beats?

Another AQ hand. This time against a calling station fish. I open raise with my AQ and he calls in position. Flop comes Q63 with two spades. I bet pot, and he calls. I know he is drawing. Turn is a non-spade blank. I bet pot again and he calls. River is a 5. Not a spade. I have about a pot size bet, but I check trying to induce a bet from a missed flush draw. He obliges and pushes and I call. Cards get flipped over, and yes, I am right. he does have two spades and was drawing. but the chips slide his way! WTF? He had 74 of spades and the 5 gave him his gutshot straight.

Add that to the two set vs overpair losses the last couple days, and you can see how my poker has been going.

I know, I know. Quit being results orientated. *grumble* *grumble*

Damn I'm Lazy.

Time for a Mega Post!

It's been a while since I posted last. I think it has to do with the cold streak I am on in the cash games. Take a look at this Set-o-meter pic from Aug 24 till Sep 04. Pretty pathetic, huh?




This is about 5500 hands worth. Looking at this graph, it looks like 98% of people flop more sets than me. Pathetic! From Sept 4 until today isn't much better. And I blame my cold streak on my lack of playing. I think I've only gotten in 2,000 hands or so this month so far. And that is after I got in 18,000 hands in August, so I am on pace for only 6,ooo hands this month. WAY below average. I've gone at least four days this month without playing at all. That is very strange for me. Whenever I would have free time, I would fire up the poker machine and play for a quick half hour or something. The last couple weeks, I am instead sitting down and playing some Resident Evil 4 on the Wii. My new favorite game of all time!

So even though my cash games are going terrible, I am doing awesome on the MTT front. If you read my previous post, you'll see that I took down The Hoy last week. I played some Tournaments again this past Friday and did really well.

I played three tournaments, and I cashed in all three. I played the $26 nightly $28,000 guaranteed, Full Tilts $10 rebuy, and PokerStars $10 rebuy. I finished about halfway through the money in the 28k guaranteed, which only profited me about $20. But the two rebuy tournaments I did really well. At one point deep in the tourneys (And in the money), I was in the top 20 in both.



There you see me in 3rd place and 17th place at the same time. I had the chip lead for a while in the Full Tilt rebuy.

The amazing thing about these rebuy tournaments is that other than the initial rebuy at the start of the games, I did not have to rebuy at all. So after taking the add-on, I only had $30 into each tournament.

In the end, I finished in 52nd place at PokerStars and cashed $150 (First place cashed $13,000). I went out with AK vs QQ.

And at Full Tilt, I finished in 6th place and cashed $750. My first final table at a big MTT, and my biggest MTT score ever.


I went out with AK vs KK. Uggg, My best hand during the final table, and I run into KK. What luck. If I have time tomorrow, I'll post some of the interesting hands from these two tournaments.

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I might as well post my August results too in this mega-post. I played the most hand I have ever played, and when I include rakeback, I made over $2,000 again. I'm liking this streak of $2,000 + months!

Here are the monthly graphs



I figure about $40 an hour for the month. Not too bad, and pretty close to what I have been averaging the last couple months.

Goals for September? Well, I guess playing more would be a goal. But even as I type this, I don't have a huge desire to play much online poker. I am going to go to a bar league tournament tonight, so maybe that will get my interest back up. I had a lot of fun playing tournaments last Friday, but I don't get many opportunities to play tournaments, online or live. I better get that interest back up soon so that I am at the top of my game when I go to Vegas in a week and a half.

Cheers!

July Results

July was a pretty average in terms of BB/100. I'm really happy with the end dollar amount, since it is right up there with my best months. But I think I could have done a lot better. I actually think I ran kind of cold. I was dealt AA only 43 times all month (13,782/221 = 63). That is a huge difference. Next lowest pocket pair was JJ, and got dealt that 53 times. Highest was pocket deuces at 75 times. Yipee.

557 pocket pairs saw a flop, and I flopped sets 68 times. That is right at average.

KK vs AA all-in PF 4 times, and obviously lost all 4. Yuck.


NL Cash Games: +1833.68

• 100NL 6 max: $872.13 -- 7,839 hands
• 200NL 6 max: $961.55 -- 5,943 hands

Tournaments: -$163.00

June Rakeback: +313.oo

Grand Total: +1983.68


(Note: Stats listed in BB/100, not ptbb/100)

Pokertracker says I played 43 hours, so that equates to around $48 an hour.

I am now completely comfortable at 200NL, and plan on playing the majority of my hands at this level. There are still a ton of donks at this level, so no worries there.

Cheers!

June Results

I turned it on the last two days of June, and ended up just shy of the $1000 profit mark for the month (including rakeback). Friday I won $350, and Saturday I won $160. Nice!

NL Cash Games: +834.35

• 50NL 6 max: $55.15 -- 36 hands
• 100NL full: $40.00 -- 20 hands
• 100NL 6 max: $355.85 -- 12,100 hands
• 200NL 6 max: $383.35 -- 350 hands

Tournaments: -$181.85

For 100NL 6 max, I won 2.94 BBs/100. Definitely worse than last month. I played more 200NL when the games were juicy, and my results were good. I'll start throwing in more of those tables when I find some donks up there.

I did some of my datamining at 200NL this past month, so I only have 5000 hands or more on 35 people. The best BB/100's were:

• 24.5 (5488 hands)
• 21.05 (7155 hands)
• 19.96 (5069 hands)
• 18.64 (10953 hands)
  

The worst BB/100 were:

• -15.62 (5460 hands)
• -10.73 (5653 hands)
• -9.43 (15897 hands)
  

My VP$IP / PFR% this past month was 21.2/14.0 (Compared with 20.6/13.0 in May). According to PokerTracker, I put in about 38 hours at the tables for June. That computes to about $26 an hour.

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July has started off in wild fashion. This morning I went from $100 up, to $150 down, and finished the morning at $170 up. Wow! I found a super donk running at 60/35 and got position on him at both tables. With a player like that, you are going to see a lot more variance. The big hand was me winning a 400 BB pot with 33 on a 358 board. He had 53 offsuit and we got it all in on the flop. He didn't hit his two outer, and I raked in a monster pot.

Cheers!

April Results

April was a pretty decent month. It was shaping up to be one of my best months ever, but the last week or so (Really, a 1200 hand stretch in there) wasn't good. Here is the graph for the whole month of April



That stretch from hand 8300 - 9900 was really brutal. I don't think I played too bad, there were just a bunch of weird hands and coolers in there. In that span, I was shown KQ twice (With me having either AK or AQ), T3o, and J9o in hands where I re-raised them PF, and their crappy hands ended up winning. The T3o hand was the worst. He bet, I re-raised PF and he called. Flop was like 863 rainbow. We got it all-in on the flop, and he ends up winning. Fun Fun!!

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I'm pretty much just playing at Full Tilt now. I was playing some at Prima, but I haven't logged on there in a couple weeks. The software, plus the ability to datamine 16 tables at once is too big of an advantage. I hadn't played regularly at Full Tilt in the past because I thought that it was mostly made up of tight nit's, but I have definitely been proven wrong on that account.

So lets take a look at the numbers.

• 100 NL 6-max: +843.49
• MTTs: -$60.64
• Prima Rakeback: +$32.11
• Full Tilt Bonus: +$50.00
  

April Grand Total: +$864.96

I didn't include the rakeback I will get from Full Tilt, because I don't get that until later in May. But I figure to make about $170 from rakeback. PokerTracker says I put in a total of 40.3 hours. If you add all that up, I made about $25.68 an hour. Not too bad for 100 NL if you ask me.

Since I will be playing mainly at Full Tilt for the foreseeable future, I want to look a little deeper at my numbers.

• 9617 hands, 33 hours MT Ratio of 3.55 ($26.10 per hour not including rakeback)
• 4.48 PTBB/100 (equivalent to 8.96 BB's, or $8.96 at 100NL)
  
• VPIP = 20.1, PFR% = 14.2
  

All of that is pretty respectable. I wouldn't mind playing a little tighter though, and I am working on that.

I also did a lot of Datamining. I have 5000 hands or more on 42 players, so let's compare me to them. Out of the 42 people, I was the 12th best in terms of PTBB/100. Here is part of that list, with their VPIP and PFR% numbers next to them.

• 14.25 PTBB/100; 16.8/14.5
• 9.13; 21.5/15.8
• 8.73; 19.1/9.6
• 7.65; 24/17
• 6.53; 29/21
• 6.31; 19/15
• 6.24; 18.4/9.6
• 5.61; 17.6/11.4
• 4.97; 22/16
• 4.85; 18/11
• 4.51; 16.5/9.7
• 4.48 - yours truly
• 
  
• 
  
• -5.95; 22/7.6
• -6.25; 21/8
• -6.66; 26/17
• -7.30; 21/12
• -8.30; 26.5/7.6
  

Pretty interesting stuff. Granted, I can't datamine every hand, so everyone on that list for sure has many more hands, but I think after 5000 hands you get a pretty good idea how someone plays or how they are running. And Holy Cow! 14.25 PTBB/100. That's insane. I thought I was running super hot the first 2/3 of the month, and I was only at 10.75 PTBB/100!

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I finally purchased PokerAce HUD this past weekend. I had been getting by by using Gametime+ to display stats, but after watching some of FruityPro's videos at CardRunners, he sold me on the power of PA HUD. I now have a set-up just like him, and I am really liking the extra information it is giving me. Most especially are the continuation-bet numbers that it spits out. I basically can know before hand if someone is going to call my continuation bet, and I think it has saved me a lot of money. Thanks FruityPro!

I thought May was going to start off great this morning, because there was an extra abundance of idiots on the tables. I ran across one guy was running at 95/60 and another at 60/30. I was able to take some money off of the first (I was out of position and just called huge Pre-flop, flop, and turn bets. he didn't bet the river and showed K2o for no pair no draw). But the 2nd guy, I couldn't hit anything against him. And then I lost a few pots to short stacks when they open limped from the CO or button, I raised from the blinds, and then they pushed all-in. AK < TT and AQ < AK

Good luck!