12 more Don’s. Only 5 wins.
I’m going to have to redeposit on Stars. Good thing that I have a day job 
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I’ve Obviously Pissed Off The DoN God
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009Struggling
Sunday, April 19th, 2009Haven’t blogged anything in more than a week! That has to be a sign it’s not going well. Last weekend I took a bashing at 2NL losing $7! I then switched to some $1 DoN’s to build that back but lost half/won half, so gaining nothing (other than losing the rake).
This weekend has been identical! Lost $7 at 2NL – how is that possible? Reviewing the hands shows why really;
- Poor call
Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold’em – 4 players
BB: $3.87
CO: $2.31
BTN: $1.32
Hero (SB): $4.20Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is SB with T
T
CO calls $0.02, 1 fold, [color=red]Hero raises to $0.04[/color], BB calls $0.02, [color=red]CO raises to $0.10[/color], Hero calls $0.06, 1 foldFlop: ($0.24) 8
8
6
[color=blue](2 players)[/color]
[color=red]Hero bets $0.10[/color], [color=red]CO raises to $2.21 all in[/color], Hero calls $2.11Turn: ($4.66) 3
[color=blue](2 players – 1 is all in)[/color]River: ($4.66) J
[color=blue](2 players – 1 is all in)[/color]
- Overvaluing top pair
Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
SB: $2.05
BB: $1.00
Hero (UTG): $3.18
CO: $0.83
BTN: $1.01Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG with T
K
[color=red]Hero raises to $0.06[/color], 1 fold, BTN calls $0.06, SB calls $0.05, 1 foldFlop: ($0.20) T
2 6 [color=blue](3 players)[/color]
SB checks, [color=red]Hero bets $0.16[/color], BTN folds, [color=red]SB raises to $0.92[/color], [color=red]Hero raises to $1.68[/color], [color=red]SB raises to $1.99 all in[/color], Hero calls $0.31Turn: ($4.18) 6
[color=blue](2 players – 1 is all in)[/color]River: ($4.18) Q
[color=blue](2 players – 1 is all in)[/color]
- This one standard I guess
Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
BB: $1.98
UTG: $2.43
CO: $2.05
BTN: $1.00
Hero (SB): $2.98Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is SB with Q
Q
1 fold, CO calls $0.02, BTN calls $0.02, [color=red]Hero raises to $0.06[/color], [color=red]BB raises to $0.10[/color], 1 fold, BTN calls $0.08, [color=red]Hero raises to $2.98 all in[/color], BB calls $1.88 all in, 1 foldFlop: ($4.08) 3
6 A [color=blue](2 players – 2 are all in)[/color]Turn: ($4.08) 8
[color=blue](2 players – 2 are all in)[/color]River: ($4.08) 6
[color=blue](2 players – 2 are all in)[/color]
- SS hits a set
Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
BTN: $3.32
SB: $1.02
BB: $1.86
UTG: $2.30
Hero (CO): $2.93Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is CO with 7
A
UTG calls $0.02, [color=red]Hero raises to $0.08[/color], BTN calls $0.08, SB calls $0.07, 1 fold, UTG calls $0.06Flop: ($0.34) 9
A 7 [color=blue](4 players)[/color]
SB checks, [color=red]UTG bets $0.06[/color], [color=red]Hero raises to $0.30[/color], BTN folds, SB calls $0.30, UTG foldsTurn: ($1.00) J
[color=blue](2 players)[/color]
SB checks, [color=red]Hero bets $0.80[/color], SB calls $0.64 all inRiver: ($2.28) 5
[color=blue](2 players – 1 is all in)[/color]
Half bad, half ok I guess.
I found this guy on youtube. He’s just like me! 
Got The Book
Thursday, March 26th, 2009This 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;
How exciting 
Magic Touch Worn Off Already!
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009Ah, 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 playersStacks:
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 foldsFlop: Q
4 Q (210, 3 players)
Hero checks, MP3 bets 60, BTN calls 60, Hero raises to 220, MP3 folds, BTN calls 160Turn: K
(710, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets 20, Hero calls 20River: 2
(750, 2 players)
Hero bets 520, BTN calls 520Final 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 playersStacks:
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 60Flop: T
A 9 (450, 5 players)
Hero goes all-in 485, 3 folds, BTN calls 485Turn: 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 playersStacks:
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 foldsFlop: 2
3 T (1,025, 2 players)
UTG bets 1,000, Hero goes all-in 3,550, UTG goes all-in 1,605Turn: 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 playersStacks:
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 915Flop: 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 playersStacks:
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 checksFlop: 6
5 5 (250, 5 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, CO bets 100, 1 fold, SB folds, Hero calls 100, UTG foldsTurn: 9
(450, 2 players)
Hero bets 350, CO calls 350River: K
(1,150, 2 players)
Hero goes all-in 890, CO goes all-in 845Final 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, 2009I’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;
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
$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)
More Success At The Tourneys
Sunday, March 15th, 2009I switched back to Pokerstars to see what their tournaments are like. The blinds went up slower and started at lower amounts, so the play was a lot slower. The PartyPoker SNG’s seemed to rapidly change to fold or push, turning into a preflop crapshoot, while the PokerStars SNGs involved a bit more poker.
That said, I’m probably better at preflop crapshooting
I played 5 $1 SNGs, again one tabling while watching tv (this isn’t serious poker!), and finished in the money in two of them. One third place and one second place, which meant I ended up down $1.50.
That was yesterday, and today I tried some multitable tournaments. I signed up for a $1 event, and then noticed that there were no rake $0.25 events – considering I was just doing this for fun rather than to challenge my awesome poker skills, zero Rake seemed pretty good, so signed up for a couple. I played all three at the same time.
I held my own for a while, but two of the tables went awry and I crashed out about midway. I then checked the lobby of the remaining one to see it was the $1 game, and I was currently in 2nd place! (bit of a surprise as I hadn’t been particulary pushing hard).
I kept on going, and won the thing. Fortunately there was just two of us getting all the chips, and the other guy had no idea about HU play. Prize for winning was $14, which not only puts me well ahead on my tournament pokertracker graph (sample size 50 tournaments!), but also repayed all my recent losses at the cash tables, and returns me to my original PokerStars deposit.
Looks like I’m becoming a tournament convert. At least while I’m winning 
hmm, just realised the MTT I just won was 45 players, which I thought would mean a first prize of $22.50. Didn’t realise that prize structures varied so much. Guess I’ll watch that next time (because, like, I’ll be first place lots of times!)
The new $1 SnG King
Sunday, March 8th, 2009So I carried on playing the $1 SnG’s onParty, for no real reason other than it was a Sunday morning lie-in and I was watching tv, so one tabling these mini tournaments was something mindless to do (the tv was mindless, and I figured that maybe two mindless things added together might make the day constructive).
In the end I played six tournaments. I finished first in three of them, second in one, third in two, and then lost one. A net profit of $7.60.
Not a big amount of money, but it was fun winning.
I’m not sure whether to carry on with Party though – to keep anything I’m winning I either have to make over $50 or 300 FPP, otherwise it all goes back to Party. I’d probably be wasting my time TBH…
