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Archive for May, 2009

Surprising Fault with PokerTracker

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

I can’t start PokerTracker, and looking at 2p2 forums it looks like no-one else can either. Their servers are all down, and apparently PT verifies its license on startup.

That was a bit of a shock. I’m not worried about playing without the benefit of the HUD, but it’s not so great that I’ve a product that will only be useful while PokerTracker.com is in business.

V annoying, especially as normally I’ve only good things to say about PT3 (so many people prefer HEM, but I suspect they’ve not tried PT3 – comparisons with PT2 definitely preferred HEM, but I think the latest PT definitely covers all the previous deficiencies plus much more).

Update: Did most of my work, so played a bit of poker. Almost wish I hadn’t (or at very least, should have stopped while ahead);

31may09

There were one or two bad beats in that fall (my set beat by a pair of queens that made a straight on the river!), but I can’t blame variance really – there were enough hands that I played badly to blame myself for the loss. One that stands out the most was AJo in the big blind – I 3bet the button’s raise, he reraised then I shoved – not sure that was a good move really (maybe it’s ok with suited? Perhaps not even then?).

Aces Cracked

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

Short session this morning;

30may09

Not sure what went wrong at the start – seemed like everyone was getting monsters against me, but what can you do…

Built it up quite well after that, until I got aces in the button and the BB decided to 3bet defend. I 4bet since I doubted a defender would call a shove, and he shoved! Turned out the idiot had 99, and went on to hit a set.  Took me for $14 :-(

Off to tennis now. Got some work to do, so not sure if I’ll get much poker in tomorrow…

No Turbo Takedown for Me

Friday, May 29th, 2009

As the title says, I blew my 200FPPs on a 25FPP rebuy and while getting past the break, didn’t get much further…

(not much of a post, more of a twitter!)


Update: No lucky session either;

29may09

It doesn’t help playing an ultra aggressive turbo tournement and then switching to cash games. About half way through I realised I was being really spewy – double barrelling air far too often, and letting crap go to showdown. I cleared my head and got back on track (as you can see), although I still feel extremely relieved that I managed to pull it back as much as I did.

The fall at the beginning wasn’t entirely poor play either though. I had AA 4 times, yet they lost $4 (2/4 lost), and then this miserable bad beat;

  • Look Closely – FH wasn’t made on the turn
    $0.05/$0.1 No Limit Holdem
    6 players

    Stacks:
    UTG ($2.80)
    Hero (UTG+1) ($10.00)
    CO ($9.70)
    BTN ($9.40)
    SB ($21.10)
    BB ($6.00)

    Pre-flop: ($0.15, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1 A T
    1 fold, Hero raises to $0.30, 2 folds, SB calls $0.25, BB calls $0.20

    Flop: K Q 2 ($0.90, 3 players)
    SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $0.50, SB calls $0.50, BB calls $0.50

    Turn: Q ($2.40, 3 players)
    SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $1, SB raises to $5, BB folds, Hero goes all-in $9.20, SB calls $4.20

    River: K ($20.80, 2 players)

    Final Pot: $20.80
    Hero shows: A T
    SB shows: J Q

    SB wins $19.80 ( won +$9.80 )
    Hero lost -$10
    BB lost -$0.80

um, that adds up to -$14. I guess the other -$12 was me being an idiot :-(

Onwards And Upwards

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Looks like I’m sustaining 50BB/100!  Freaky – if this happens again it’ll go to my head and I’ll consider turning pro (just have to start multitabling 48 tables of 10NL);

27may09

To begin with though I wasn’t quite with it – I hit a set on the flop which unfortunately was also monochrome. I put some money in on the flop and villain called so I slowed a bit checking back the turn, and then the river made 4 to the flush. The villain checked to me, and I stared closely at the board to see if it had paired and it hadn’t, so thought ‘shame, any single heart has made his flush and maybe he wants me to raise’, so I checked it back – he had made his flush (a single measly 9), but the money came to me! I looked at the hand again – the board had paired – how did I miss that?!? I must be going blind, and felt quite amateur at that moment.

After that though it picked up, although the tables were fairly aggressive and I wasn’t making much headway with my chronic FPS. But, I did have a fair bit of luck making some big hands, and since the tables were aggressive the money flowed easily my way. I’ve noticed one thing (that’s pretty obvious really), and that is when raising the flop most TAGs assume you’ve missed, and when you check they assume you’ve hit (once you’ve established your table image as a fellow TAG that is, although my stats are creeping towards being a SLAG – slightly loose aggressive :-) ). Makes it nice and easy to build a pot when you get top pair on the flop…

Quickie Link

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Here’s a good post on 2p2. Various posters giving their history on how started with online poker and how they built their roll.

Quite a few well known names there (to 2p2 people anyway), plus it’s started by Raze who started his roll from a $5 freebie and now plays $200NL…

Boo-yah!!

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Ooh baby – my poker biorhythms are really in sync now;

26may09

Loads of stuff I’ve picked up from the videos are working. For instance, the blind stealing is still proving wildly successful – one of the many multicoloured stats choking up my screen is ‘everyone folds to blind steal’, as long as it doesn’t drop below 30%, then my stealing is profitable (even 30% is generous, because it doesn’t include hands I go on to win even though they call, and since I have position there’s a good chance I will do ok). This stat hasn’t dropped below 40% yet. Virtually no-one picks up that I’m raising each and every time it’s folded to me on the button. (Update, hmm, I think I’ve got my maths wrong. Maybe it should be 60%? In which case I shouldn’t be profiting? – usual table percentage seems to be about 40-50%)

And then when they do cotton on, there’s more stuff to do. For example in this hand the BB had definitely picked up I was stealing a lot – he had 3bet me from the BB three times already, so either he was on a heater or had decided to 3bet light. So I did this;

  • Bluffing a blind defender
    $0.05/$0.1 No Limit Holdem
    5 players

    Stacks:
    UTG ($10.00)
    CO ($4.20)
    Hero (BTN) ($24.20)
    SB ($9.40)
    BB ($10.30)

    Pre-flop: ($0.15, 5 players) Hero is BTN T 4 (or whatever, cards aren’t important to me here)
    2 folds, Hero raises to $0.30, 1 fold, BB raises to $0.90, Hero raises to $2, BB calls $1.10

    Flop: 8 A 6 ($4.05, 2 players)
    BB checks, Hero bets $2, BB folds

    Final Pot: $4.05

    Hero wins $5.85 ( won +$1.85 )
    BB lost -$2

Risky perhaps, but not a great deal as long as my assumption that he’s defending is right. However in my 3betting light theory he should have folded preflop (I didn’t raise enough), but still a result. Also, as a result, that’s $1.85 won there covers 6 more blind stealing attempts. I’m probably boring you to death about stealing, so won’t go on about it anymore – just one last bit of proof. Here’s the chart for the last week where I attempted to steal from the blind, but filtered for no-showdown (ie either they folded, or they raised me and I folded) – Att to steal stat was 45%;

stealing2

So I’m pleased with StoxPoker so far. While I’m learning a lot, I’m sure I’m missing a lot too, but that’s ok, you can’t expect to learn everything instantly…

:-) just seen this on 2p2;

who’s the fat guy in the front, and why does Barry’s beard keep vanishing?

Keeping Eyes on the Target

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Here’s a nice brag over on 2p2;

Although even 300k hands sounds huge to me! :-D


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