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Archive for March, 2009

New PokerTracker

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

I’ve just downloaded the new PokerTracker beta – All-in performance charts have been added at last! Looks like I went through a lucky patch early on in my ‘career’, but it evened up recently. The recent unluckiness coincides with my tighter range I implemented in December, so I guess in reality that change in strategy was better than it appeared. Maybe I shouldn’t feel so bad that my cash games haven’t been as meteoric as I’d hoped…

I downloaded the beta mainly to add M to my hud (how lazy! It’s not like it’s a hard stat to work out on the fly), and while it’s not in PT by default, they describe how to add it here, but it required the latest beta.

The only other new things that are immediately obvious is a details page, giving an overall rundown all on one page, and having the HUD on the hand replayer. Not sure that the details page is that useful, but the replayer hud definitely is (although at the moment it’s hanging my computer, but then it is a beta…).

Update: Today was an MTT day – while trying to mess around with PokerTracker and failing to add M to the HUD (can’t be done apparently, despite that link) I was doing $0.25 tourneys while testing what would show (or not show) on the HUD. Once I found I couldn’t do it, I realised I was in the middle of two 45 player tournaments, and doing ok. I went on to place 1st in one of them, but bust out the other – massive prize of $3.49, but when the outlay was 25 cents that’s a nice bit of ROI :-)

I then figured I might as well stick to the MTTs since it was raining, and randomly opened $1 tournaments (18, 21 and 45s). By the end of the day I’d played 13 tournaments (not incl the 25 cent ones), and only got winning places in the 18s (one 1st and two 2nds). Not a massive number of wins, but still an overall profit of $5.14 – compared to cash games not fantastic for 5 hours of on and off pokering, but still +ve, and fun, so whatever.

I’m mainly pissed off at the very last tournament – I was chip leader all the way up to the HU stage, and even to the point that I had half the total chips on the bubble, and then on HU I was the chip leader by 20k to his 7k. Somehow I still managed to hand them all over giving him the win.

  • Penultimate hand;
    No Limit Holdem Tournament
    $1.00+$0.20
    2 players

    Stacks:
    BTN (7461)
    Hero (BB) (19539)

    Blinds: 200/400 Ante 25

    Pre-flop: (650, 2 players) Hero is BB T Q
    BTN raises to 1,200, Hero goes all-in 19,514, BTN goes all-in 6,236

    Flop: 6 T 7 (27,000, 2 players)

    Turn: J (27,000, 2 players)

    River: 5 (27,000, 2 players)

    Final Pot: 14,922
    Hero shows: T Q
    BTN shows: J T

    Hero wins 12,078 ( lost -7,436 )
    BTN wins 14,922 ( won +7,486 )

  • final hand;
    No Limit Holdem Tournament
    $1.00+$0.20
    2 players

    Stacks:
    Hero (BTN) (12078)
    BB (14922)

    Blinds: 200/400 Ante 25

    Pre-flop: (650, 2 players) Hero is BTN 5 5
    Hero raises to 1,200, BB goes all-in 14,897, Hero goes all-in 10,853

    Flop: Q T Q (27,000, 2 players)

    Turn: 3 (27,000, 2 players)

    River: A (27,000, 2 players)
    BB says “gg”

    Final Pot: 24,156
    Hero shows: 5 5
    BB shows: Q 9

    BB wins 27,000 ( won +12,103 )
    Hero lost -12,053

I need to figure out if they were good shoves/calls or not. TBH I prefer to play the HU stage without too many of these – I’d rather see a few flops and whittle down their chips over a coin flip shove…

Got The Book

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

This week’s really dragging! All yesterday I thought it was Thursday, only to realise that’s today’s Thursday, and I’m going to have to go through it all over again and it’s still another day to the weekend!

Still, my copy of Kill Everyone arrived. I’m about a quarter through it and so far it’s been excellent. I was able to play a few SNG’s tonight, but I can’t say that I put anything I had read into practice. I need to sit down and figure out a way of charting my push/calling ranges, and practice working out my M value easily. I’ve only just got comfortable with the starting hands chart I created over xmas, and now I’m looking at changing it plus creating more ‘range’ charts. I guess it all becomes second nature after a while…

So I played 9 $1 STT SNGs (9 man), and got 3 first places and one second, which meant profit of $5.40 – actually it’s way more fun to quote the total amount won which was $16.20! But I guess that’s not fooling anyone…

The games I lost I didn’t feel too bad about, although I can’t remember any bad beats particularly. I haven’t figured yet how to analyse my tournament sessions on PT – have to put some thought into that. I downloaded the trial version of SNG Wizard, so I’ll run the games through them to see what it thinks of me.

Anyway, one more day and then the weekend at last! Looks like Saturday it’s going to be rainy, so I guess that means plenty of poker…

Miniupdate:  I managed to configure PokerTracker to look for emails with tournament results – and it works brilliantly! It not only sets what my placings were, but also everyone elses. Ten times easier than entering them by hand too…

Miniupdate II: I’ve arrived – I’m on SharkScope now!

So far it looks like this;

displaygraph

How exciting :-P

Magic Touch Worn Off Already!

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

Ah, not so good today. I went through 6 MTT’s of various types (some 18s, 27s and nothing more than 45 players). Lost them all.

Switched to single table SNGs, and while I held a reasonable lead initially, I crashed out before getting in the money.

So figured that’ll do for now. $10 loss overall – annoying but I guess I should expect the variance.

  • 9 player single table SNG – very first hand;

    No Limit Holdem Tournament
    $1.00+$0.20
    9 players

    Stacks:
    Hero (UTG) (1500)
    UTG+1 (1500)
    MP1 (1500)
    MP2 (1500)
    MP3 (1500)
    CO (1500)
    BTN (1500)
    SB (1500)
    BB (1500)

    Blinds: 10/20

    Pre-flop: (30, 9 players) Hero is UTG A A
    Hero raises to 60, 3 folds, MP3 calls 60, 1 fold, BTN calls 60, 2 folds

    Flop: Q 4 Q (210, 3 players)
    Hero checks, MP3 bets 60, BTN calls 60, Hero raises to 220, MP3 folds, BTN calls 160

    Turn: K (710, 2 players)
    Hero checks, BTN bets 20, Hero calls 20

    River: 2 (750, 2 players)
    Hero bets 520, BTN calls 520

    Final Pot: 1,790
    BTN shows: Q 4
    Hero shows: A A

    BTN wins 1,790 ( won +970 )
    Hero lost -820
    MP3 lost -120

  • and then a villain’s FD comes through to knock me out;

    No Limit Holdem Tournament
    $1.00+$0.20
    8 players

    Stacks:
    UTG (2675)
    UTG+1 (1090)
    MP1 (2130)
    MP2 (1310)
    CO (1455)
    BTN (1435)
    Hero (SB) (575)
    BB (2830)

    Blinds: 15/30

    Pre-flop: (45, 8 players) Hero is SB 6 A
    1 fold, UTG+1 calls 30, 1 fold, MP2 calls 30, BTN says “pitty”, 1 fold, BTN calls 30, Hero raises to 90, BB calls 60, UTG+1 calls 60, MP2 calls 60, BTN calls 60

    Flop: T A 9 (450, 5 players)
    Hero goes all-in 485, 3 folds, BTN calls 485

    Turn: 2 (1,420, 2 players)

    River: 5 (1,420, 2 players)

    Final Pot: 1,420
    BTN shows: 8 T
    Hero shows: 6 A

    BTN wins 1,420 ( won +845 )
    Hero lost -575
    BB lost -90
    UTG+1 lost -90
    MP2 lost -90

  • Another 9 man STT. I’d built up a good stack, then was a bit overexuberant;

    No Limit Holdem Tournament
    $1.00+$0.20
    5 players

    Stacks:
    UTG (3005)
    Hero (CO) (3950)
    BTN (1070)
    SB (3655)
    BB (1820)

    Blinds: 75/150

    Pre-flop: (225, 5 players) Hero is CO J T
    UTG raises to 400, Hero calls 400, 3 folds

    Flop: 2 3 T (1,025, 2 players)
    UTG bets 1,000, Hero goes all-in 3,550, UTG goes all-in 1,605

    Turn: 8 (7,180, 2 players)

    River: 8 (7,180, 2 players)

    Final Pot: 6,235
    UTG shows: Q Q
    Hero shows: J T

    UTG wins 6,235 ( won +3,230 )
    Hero wins 945 ( lost -3,005 )

  • I build it up back, then push on AK;

    No Limit Holdem Tournament
    $1.00+$0.20
    5 players

    Stacks:
    UTG (2860)
    CO (920)
    BTN (5935)
    Hero (SB) (2415)
    BB (1370)

    Blinds: 75/150

    Pre-flop: (225, 5 players) Hero is SB K A
    UTG raises to 450, 1 fold, BTN raises to 1,500, Hero goes all-in 2,415, 1 fold, UTG folds, BTN calls 915

    Flop: 6 2 J (5,430, 2 players)

    Turn: Q (5,430, 2 players)

    River: 6 (5,430, 2 players)

    Final Pot: 5,430
    BTN shows: Q Q
    Hero shows: K A

    BTN wins 5,430 ( won +3,015 )
    UTG lost -450
    Hero lost -2,415

Just for a laugh, here’s a spot where I missed my draw and felt compelled to bluff on the river. I suppose in hindsight if I’d check/folded the river then remaining in the game with 900 chips wouldn’t have been that bad. However I think my line represents a strong hand, but it shows how players at this level with stubbornly stick with things to the bitter end.

  • Moral – don’t bluff (yeah, right!)

    No Limit Holdem Tournament
    $1.00+$0.20
    6 players

    Stacks:
    UTG (1595)
    UTG+1 (780)
    CO (1345)
    BTN (755)
    SB (7635)
    Hero (BB) (1390)

    Blinds: 25/50

    Pre-flop: (75, 6 players) Hero is BB 4 3
    UTG calls 50, 1 fold, CO calls 50, BTN calls 50, SB calls 25, Hero checks

    Flop: 6 5 5 (250, 5 players)
    SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, CO bets 100, 1 fold, SB folds, Hero calls 100, UTG folds

    Turn: 9 (450, 2 players)
    Hero bets 350, CO calls 350

    River: K (1,150, 2 players)
    Hero goes all-in 890, CO goes all-in 845

    Final Pot: 2,840
    CO shows: K 8
    Hero shows: 4 3

    CO wins 2,840 ( won +1,495 )
    Hero wins 45 ( lost -1,345 )
    BTN lost -50
    SB lost -50
    UTG lost -50

Onwards With The Tourneys

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

I’m continuing with the tournaments – it’s probably just luck but I seem to be doing better at them than I was with the cash tables. Not enough games played yet to really tell, but I’m enjoying them quite a bit. There’s a lot more satisfaction at crushing 8 other people at a table completely than there is with the occasional all-in cash win.

Since today’s a tennis day I’ve been going with $1 9seater SNGs – they all seem to take an hour if I get all the way through, and I don’t want to be stuck in the middle of a MTT when I need to leave for the courts.

I started out well, taking first place in the first three tournaments. That probably made me a bit cocky, and I crashed out of the next five! Then I took a 2nd place in the final table I was playing. I’m not sure how I can represent that visually – I guess an advantage of cash tables is you end up with a nice graph soaring majestically upwards (ahem). Maybe this’ll do;

21032009

Well, maybe not. I’ll have to think of something.

I’m fairly pleased with that (results of the SNGs that is). I’ll have to figure out why I lost the others – one was an easy bad beat where my QQ preflop all-in was beat by some trash, but the others I think I just played poorly. It seems if I can get to the bubble with an average stack then I’m fine – I don’t need to be dominating the table at that point since everyone tightens up and it’s easy to just take their chips from them. Once past the bubble I’m usually dominating and it remains easy enough, and then HU has been astoundingly simple – I keep stealing and bullying, while my opponents have been remaining tight and often let me check the BB. I doubt it’ll stay this simple at higher levels, but for now it’s nice to play stress free games.

The issue is what happened with those 4 other games (not including the bad beat there) – I seemed to make several bad plays such as this;

No Limit Holdem Tournament
$1.00+$0.20
9 players

Stacks:
UTG (2750)
UTG+1 (2050)
MP1 (1020)
MP2 (1440)
MP3 (1460)
CO (1285)
Hero (BTN) (1720)
SB (1710)
BB (65)

Blinds: 15/30

Pre-flop: (45, 9 players) Hero is BTN 9 T
3 folds, MP2 raises to 120, 2 folds, Hero calls 120, 1 fold, BB goes all-in 35

Flop: 6 K T (320, 3 players)
MP2 bets 150, Hero calls 150

Turn: 8 (620, 3 players)
MP2 bets 180, Hero goes all-in 1,450, MP2 goes all-in 990

River: 6 (3,240, 3 players)

Final Pot: 2,960
MP2 shows: K J
Hero shows: 9 T
BB shows: 3 5

MP2 wins 2,960 ( won +1,520 )
Hero wins 280 ( lost -1,440 )
BB lost -65

I wouldn’t play that hand like that at a cash game, and the blinds are still so low that risky shoves like that are really unnecessary. That’s the overconfidence from winning the first three tournaments, which is tilt really. As every teacher I’ve ever known has said to me, ‘must do better’…

Tomorrow (or maybe tonight if I feel like it) will be MTT day. After seeing Yegor’s comment about satellites I’m tempted to see what’s on offer, or maybe I’ll try the PS steps if I can figure it out.

ps. Ordered Kill Everyone from Amazon, should be getting it next week. Also haven’t got round to pokerpad yet, and I realised that there’s not much point trying the mouse wheel thing – I don’t use a mouse with my laptop (duh)

51 Tables

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

Another vid;

PokerPad

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

Not being able to play at lunchtimes really sucks! I vaguely browse 2p2 & other forums during the morning (that is between workstuff, honest), get fired up about a certain idea or two, and then when it gets to lunchtime I can’t do anything about it. I have to be normal, and read the news, or find a sandwich van, or go down the pub for a quick 3 or 4 (extra quick since the moment you’re in the door it’s time to turn round and go back to work!).

Today I discovered PokerPad – an AHK (autohot key script) which sets a whole stack of quick keys;

It’s been really bugging me that Pokerstars has the worst betting controls ever – Titan had 1/2 pot and PSB buttons which really made it easy (no 3/4 pot, but all you had to do was click 1/2 pot then click slider once to increase it to 3/4, more or less). So my betsizing on stars is always a little bit off.

So pokerpad looks really cool (once you remember all the keys), although the All in button worries me. On stars I’ve already accidentally gone all in several times by typing 6 instead of 0.6! This pad has two all in buttons – maybe I can disable the one that does it without confirmation though (in other words if it sets the value but I still need to press return to do the bet, then that would be fine).

Anyway, now I’ve a new toy to try out, but I can’t play until later :-(   Why the hell aren’t I financially independent and not have to work!

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009


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