Bad end to April, great start to May!

So i went on a huge downswing towards the end of April and lost about 25 buyins! I think it has something to do with all the fish having run out of money by that time in the month so it's just the regs left to play against... but who knows.

Here's how April ended up for me;


May, however got off to a great start. I nitted up a little and stuck to the no-limit tables and the games all seemed great. I managed to stack one fish after he opened to 14BB and i flatted QQ and flopped a boat on TQT flop, he overbet shoved the turn for 200BB with his J7o which was nice :)


Bankroll: $5680

April Update

I think i got a little bored of blogging (it usually happens when im losing!) but i thought i'd update the site on my progress in April.

The start of the month was pretty bad, i started off playing Full Ring (9-man) 100nl and after 25,000 hands was still breakeven (i think i lost $100~ but made about $400 from rakeback).

After i got bored of full ring i moved back to 6-max games and changed my style from the way i had previously been playing. I tried to stick to mostly the deep tables and reduced the tables i was playing at to 8-10. For the last week or so i've been beating 100nl for about 3.8BB/100.

Bankroll: $5460

End of the month wrap-up

So it's the end of the month and i don't really consider how much iv made much of a sucess. The month would have been a lot better had i not lost ~$1000 on the first day of the month :( I felt i played really well at NL50 which showed by running at 9ptbb/100 over nearly 20k hands but i really need to be playing at NL100 in order to be playing better players and to try and increase my winrate at that level.

I moved upto NL100 again a few days ago and had a really good run straight away where i made ~$900 in my first session. I then took a break and had a really bad session later on in the day which pretty much wiped out my days profits.


Bankroll: $3560

End of 2008 Update

So i stopped blogging around mid November, basically i hit the biggest downswing i ever had. 45,000 hands into November i was sitting pretty with just below $3,000 profit for the month (and another $700~ in rakeback) and then all of a sudden from the 15th nov onwards i was unable to win a single session!!

I had a solid month where i didn't win a session and i managed to lose 50 buyins!!! Obviously i dropped down from NL100 to NL50 but in total i managed to lose $3,500 ;/ (from the graph you can see i also ran horridly below EV also.)


So anyway this wasn't too much fun at all, i ended November breakeven (up $1,400 with rakeback) I guess it wasn't too terrible, i still managed $16/hour although i wasn't happy about it.

The end of my downswing also went mid way into December but i did manage to turn it around after that and have had a $1,800 winning streak after that uptill the present day.


I think i'll post a new thread for my yearly graph :)

An 'ok' session

Just finished another 1500 hand session at nl100 where i regreted not quiting earlier. At one point i was up about $550 and feeling pretty good about my game. I lost a few all-ins, mostly flips but one KK vs AA that was unavoidable even though it was against the tightest nit ever. I think i ended up the session up about $220 which obviously i dont mind, but i woulda taken the $550!

Here's a funny hand i played which can only be described as complete spew by him. Remember this is nl100 so the stacks were 240bb deep effective!

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players

yy1988 (MP): $97.00
Hero (CO): $358.10
roli57 (BTN): $68.35
mich_alumni (SB): $238.25
bigwheel77 (BB): $67.80
eastern motors (UTG): $130.85

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is CO with A A
2 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, mich_alumni raises to $14, 1 fold, Hero raises to $36, mich_alumni calls $22

Flop: ($73.00) 2 4 2 (2 players)
mich_alumni checks, Hero bets $51, mich_alumni raises to $202.25 all in, Hero calls $151.25

Turn: ($477.50) T (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($477.50) 6 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $477.50
Hero shows A A (two pair, Aces and Twos)
mich_alumni shows Q K (a pair of Twos)
Hero wins $474.50
(Rake: $3.00)

Bankroll: $5100

Swongs!

Had a swongy day today at nl100, cashed out $1000 too though :)


I also won one of my largest hands this level, a 570bb pot;

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players

SB: $109.55
BB: $171.25
UTG: $262.80
MP: $81.85
Hero (CO): $332.25
BTN: $285.05

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is CO with 7 7
1 fold, MP calls $1, Hero raises to $4.50, BTN calls $4.50, 3 folds

Flop: ($11.50) 3 7 J (2 players)
Hero bets $6, BTN raises to $12, Hero raises to $32, BTN calls $20

Turn: ($75.50) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $55, BTN raises to $160, Hero raises to $295.75 all in, BTN calls $88.55 all in

River: ($572.60) 5 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $572.60
Hero shows 7 7 (three of a kind, Sevens)
BTN shows 3 3 (three of a kind, Threes)
Hero wins $569.60
(Rake: $3.00)

Im still not really pleased with my monthly performance compared to last month. This month im playing pretty much twice the stakes and only making the same hourly amount, but i guess im still on track for a $5k~ month if things carry on as they are. Need to try and improve my winrate though!

Bankroll: $4875

Mid November Update

I havn't really updated much in the last week or so as to be honest theres been nothing too interesting to say. At the moment im on a pretty big break even stretch. My little shot at nl200 turned bad after a while and the rest of the month has been grinding back up at nl100.

Today i also decided to take a shot in FTOPS event #9 which was a $300 buyin tourny. I did ok in it considering i didn't ever get above the average chip stack. I placed 1,100th out of around 6,000 players but failed to cash (top 750 cashed).

Heres a graph and stats of my "rakeback grinding" month so far:


Bankroll: $5450

Starting off November

So as i hadn't played poker for a few days (mainly due to hangovers from halloween!) i decided to play a long session to gradually increase my bankroll. It went pretty well overall but only after putting in a ton of hands! After 3400 hands i was down $350 and another thousand hands on from that i had broken even for the day. From there onwards i managed to win 8 buyins and was feeling pretty confident with my game.

.....so i decided to take a shot at nl200, at this point my roll was about $4800 so it wasn't too bad of a thing to take a shot, i mixed in 3 tables of nl200 at first with 3 of my best nl100 tables. At first i was steadily going between being up a buyin and even then i took a 3 buyin downswing.

I won a couple of big pots towards the end of the session and so decided to quit while i was ahead, up $1100 for the day having played just under 9k hands (and made another $200 from rakeback :)


Here are a few of the hands i played today:

• River the nuts Vs a slowplayed top set (view hand)
• Coolered someone in i think my largest nl100 pot (view hand)
• 93% on flop... 89% on turn.... AA gets cracked :/ (view hand)
• Had the 'tilted' image after getting coolered the hand before, i don't know what he was doing though? $650 pot! :O (view hand)
• Finished the session off with this hand (view hand)
  

Bankroll: $5000

Playing against "the" fish

In todays session i was lucky enough to join one of those tables people dream of being on with one big rich fish spewing his money away. At first the table acted like a normal table untill it discovered what a fish this guy really was.

When i joined i noticed that one guy with the biggest stack (he had around $600) was bullying the other players around after the flop, if any pot was checked to him he would pot it and if he got a call would pot it again on the river, this made the pot very big and i don't think anyone had even called him down yet.

Then this hand came up..

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players

UTG: $101.50
MP: $213.05
CO: $96.00
BTN: $100.00
Hero (SB): $100.00
BB: $564.35

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is SB with 9 9
4 folds, Hero raises to $4, BB calls $3

Flop: ($8.00) 7 5 Q (2 players)
Hero bets $5, BB calls $5

Turn: ($18.00) K (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $18, Hero calls $18

River: ($54.00) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $54, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $54

Final Pot: $162.00
Hero shows 9 9 (a pair of Nines)
BB shows J 7 (a pair of Sevens)
Hero wins $159.00
(Rake: $3.00)

I called here because the fish was so polarised, he either had a monster and i was crushed or he was bluffing and i was ahead. Since i had seen him make this pot sized bet on the turn and river before i felt slighty more confident in calling him although it was still not easy.

Everyone congratulated me on a good call after the hand and this is when the game really got going!

An hour or so later this hand came up which was somewhat similar and confirmed to everyone else who wasn't calling the fish down that they really should be. Obviously there was a few pots where people called down way too light or the line the fish took was slightly different and people didn't realise, this kept him in the game longer than he should have been :)

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players

CO: $388.50
BTN: $140.05
SB: $111.95
Hero (BB): $171.65
UTG: $578.40

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with T 9
UTG calls $1, 1 fold, BTN raises to $4.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $3.50, UTG calls $3.50

Flop: ($14.00) T A J (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($14.00) 5 (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $14, BTN folds, Hero calls $14

River: ($42.00) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $42, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $42

Final Pot: $126.00
Hero shows T 9 (a pair of Tens)
UTG shows 8 7 (Ace Jack high)
Hero wins $123.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Towards the end of the session the fish got involved in the hand below:

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players

BB: $315.70
UTG: $289.70
MP: $117.95
CO: $153.05
Hero (BTN): $233.65
SB: $366.90

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BTN with 5 J
UTG raises to $3.50, 3 folds, SB calls $3, BB calls $2.50

Flop: ($10.50) 9 2 9 (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG bets $8, SB calls $8, BB folds

Turn: ($26.50) 8 (2 players)
SB bets $26.50, UTG calls $26.50

River: ($79.50) J (2 players)
SB bets $80, UTG requests TIME, UTG calls $80

Final Pot: $239.50
UTG shows 7 7 (two pair, Nines and Sevens)
SB shows 2 A (two pair, Nines and Twos)
UTG wins $236.50
(Rake: $3.00)

After the hand i think most people were sure that he would be tilted now and that there would be fireworks!!

The very next hand i pick up AsKs! I had to think quickly about the line i was going to take with it to try and get the fish's money. At first i thought i would limp reraise him causing him to shove but after i limped, the fish raised and everyone else at the table called i decided if i was going to play a 500bb pot i would rather see a flop with my hand disguised. Im not sure if it was the correct play but either way as the hand played out im pretty sure the money was going in anyway.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players

SB: $312.20
BB: $408.20
UTG: $117.95
MP: $153.05
Hero (CO): $233.65
BTN: $248.90

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is CO with K A
UTG calls $1, 1 fold, Hero calls $1, BTN raises to $5.50, SB calls $5, 1 fold, UTG calls $4.50, Hero calls $4.50

Flop: ($23.00) K 7 A (4 players)
SB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks, BTN bets $16, SB folds, UTG folds, Hero raises to $41, BTN raises to $243.40 all in, Hero calls $187.15 all in

Turn: ($479.30) 8 (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($479.30) 7 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $479.30
Hero shows K A (two pair, Aces and Kings)
BTN shows A 4 (two pair, Aces and Sevens)
Hero wins $476.30
(Rake: $3.00)

After the fish lost the pot he left and everyone at the table chirped in with "that shoulda been my money" etc etc. The table broke and the 9 or so people on the waiting list filtered through and all left.

Sadly when i was playing i was really not in the mood to play poker, i lost so much on my other tables during this time and i was barely even playing my c-game! After winning the last pot for $480~ and leaving the table $370 up i think i was still a small loser for the session ;/