The start of February has been fairly promising so far. The start of my FullTilt quest began with a deposit of $65 in my account on Thursday that quickly went up to $165 after just 15-20 games. It’s amazing how playing a different site can make you more alert and play better poker at times. I obviously ran very well but played solid and was rewarded. I withdrew the $165 on Friday to pay some bills and when I came back on Sunday night from home deposited another $65.
This went up to $145 on Sunday night but the next few nights were quite evens and I kept getting bad luck at the wrong times, i.e. around the bubble. I kept getting spells of several tournaments where I was getting quite badly outdrawn and one night had played 11 SNG’s with just one win and no other cashes (-$41 at this stage). Luckily, I managed to win 2 at the end of the night to keep it level. I didn’t cope too well with the losses and was made quite angry, but fortunatley winning at the right times in the evenings where I wasn’t running so well helped me stay evens. I withdrew my roll last night as I’m going home for the weekend and had $185 to take out.
However, I haven’t been totally satisfied with my play. I have made a few mistakes and played an absolutely terrible hand on the bubble of one SNG which massively frustrated me! On the bubble with a stack of 4400 and blinds 120/240, I raised UTG with Q9dd up to 720 and the BB flat called. The flop was Kd 10h 4d and the BB (had me covered with the other two at the table short) led out pot and obviously seemed strong. Acting very fishy I called, leaving around 2650 behind to get away from the turn if I he bet again. (bad logic, bad play, thought maybe I had implied odds but it was not good play!) I put him firmly on a King, so the fact that after the blank on the turn I called another pot bet of 2360 is just pure awful. I didn’t hit and rued the shocking play. I will learn from it though.
I think my first post after an introductory post should contain some more targets and reflections, so these are the following.
Targets for February : -
1) Play a few MTT’s. The SNG’s are nice if they can be profitable but some of the profits should be invested in attempting to win bigger amounts. I have won more from MTT’s and satellites despite playing a lot less of these than SNG’s.
2) Don’t play poker on a night when I have lectures the next day! I missed my Thursday 10am because I felt ill because I played until too late. This isn’t what I am at Durham for so I need to prioritise and strive for 100% lecture attendance.
3) Maintain an ROI of above 20% in the $6.50 9-man turbos. This will be difficult but from 250 games at this level I am at around 28% so I hope it is achievable.
4) Walk away before signing up to a new batch of SNG’s. If I go and get a drink, have a little wander or read something online it will help me focus and stay fresh.
5) Stay evens when running bad by scraping and grinding results and profit when the luck changes and I run well.
Positives to be taken: -
1) I can beat the $6.50 turbos if I play well and run decent.
2) My passion for poker has been restored after two months off in December and January.
3) I am getting better at quickly deciding who is tight, solid and fishy on a table and can adapt my play accordingly.
4) My aggressive bubble play is quite effective at translating cashes in to 1sts.
Negatives: -
1) I still get angry when I take a few bad beats in a row. I need to calm down!!
2) I need to get a good night sleep before early lectures. Playing poker until late isn’t going to help me do this.
3) I still haven’t looked in to poker software. I am still too lazy!
4) I abuse bad calls in the chat box. This is poor etiquette and should be stopped.
5) I was tempted to step up and/or play HU SNG’s when $6.50’s weren’t going so well. This is a vice I have to get rid of!
6) I can’t afford to step up. I need poker winnings to live off and have to withdraw if I win.
I did a lot of thinking over the last few days. I have decided that due to finances/lack of I have to use poker winnings for general expenditures. I have enough in reserve to cope with downswings but not enough to step up to higher SNG’s for the foreseeable future. This is a bit of a shame as I want to make more money from the game and play with better players but I just can’t at the minute. The $220 I have made in the last week is needed for other purposes right now and I can’t prevent the need to withdraw profits. For the time being I will have to deposit enough for 10 SNG’s and if I make around $100 profit or I am going home/away for the weekend I will withdraw.
In the summer, when I am working and won't have to pay for as much as I do at Uni, I plan to make a good go at working a bankroll effectively and will take on the $100 to $10,000 challenge and see how close I can get!! For now, I just have to use poker for some money to live off!
Cheers,
(Small) Paul.x
Friday 8 February 2008
Friday 1 February 2008
The Start Of Self Assessment
Hi, I am a young aspiring poker player and I hope producing a blog will be good for many reasons. I want to get feedback and criticism on how I play the game and at times I'm sure I will vent frustration to other people who can sympathise with the bad beats that are part and parcel of the game!
Best to start with a brief introduction I guess. My name is Paul and I'm a second year law student studying at the University of Durham. I started playing poker around 20 months ago, when I reluctantly agreed to play a £4 game with my mates who all knew how to play. Somehow I donked a win and since then I have been hooked.
I started out on Willhill and would consistently make a small profit in the low level SNG's and had a few decent tournament results in the £2.25 MTT's. I also made a tidy sum each night playing 15c/25c cash games. In around 14 months I played a monster amount of hands on Willhill and clocked up around $2k profit (Including all game types).
However, playing on Willhill I picked up a lot of bad habits which I am still struggling to shake off now! These include: -
1) Poor bankroll management. Initially I would play above what I was rolled for, and now I am sometimes reluctant to play what I am rolled for for fear of losing what I sometimes see as personal money rather than poker money.
2) Withdrawing after a decent night. This goes hand in hand with the poor bankroll management. If I make money, I want to keep it, even though if I play with good BR management these profits will be secured.
3) Stopping when running well and moving up trying to recoup losses.
4) Not monitoring effectively enough wins/losses in online/live games. Sharkscope and thepokerdb.com helps, but I don't monitor results closely enough, and I especially don't like to record losses!!
5) Tilting...I guess this is just an inherent flaw in my genetics but I am liable to tilt at times if I am on a bad run. I must find more ways to avoid tilting to improve as a player.
6) Getting in very poor sleep patterns. As the easiest games are late, I often stay up until the early hours of the morning, affecting anything I have planned for the next day.
7) Playing under time constraints. I used to try to slip in a turbo or two in before football training for example, and rushing my game and my hands really didn't help!
Anyway, my game, along with it's multiple flaws, has moved away from Willhill and I now play primarily on Pokerstars and Fulltilt, operating as mainly a SNG player. I think I will continue to prioritise SNG's, perhaps on FullTilt which seems slightly easier, and combine these with some MTT's on Stars for the chance of a big payday. I will dabble in cash for enjoyment at times, but won't grind it out for the time being at least.
My stats for SNG's on Stars and FullTilt are available by searching for 147_star on Sharkscope for these sites, and I think these are fairly encouraging for my first year of turbos. However, one huge tilt on Pokerstars and a general loss at HU SNG's has weakened Stars a little.
Therefore, I will post in my blog to wind down, give myself aims and guidelines for my poker career, and give myself something to work towards. If anybody wants to post something, especially criticism, please do so. I want to get better and that's the only way.
My aims from my initial post are:-
1) DO NOT PLAY HEADS UP SNG'S WHEN ON A LOSING STREAK! This is my biggest weakness and is my least profitable of any form of game. I should stop them all together as I don't have a decent ROI in them.
2) IF I FEEL BAD BEATS ARE AFFECTING MY PLAY, TAKE A BREATHER.
3) MOVE UP TO HIGHER SNG'S. I want to progress from the $6.50 games and move up as my bankroll permits.
4) PLAY MORE SATELLITES TO BIG TOURNAMENTS, I.E. THE SUNDAY MILLION. I want to give myself a chance of winning big and this is the best way to do so.
5) PUT UNIVERSITY WORK ABOVE POKER WHEN I NEED TO. I can't play for just an hour before work as if I lose I will want to win it back. I need to have a few hours set aside for an online poker session.
6) ESTABLISH AN ONLINE BANKROLL. I will try to do this, though I will skim off the top to fund general living costs.
7) READ POKER BOOKS AND FORUMS. I still haven't read a poker book yet but I plan to read all of the major ones and hopefully some specific SNG books to add extra dimensions to my game.
If anybody has read through all of this rubbish, I apologise for the length but once I start writing it's not easy to stop. Plus, the weakness section was extensive!!
Anyway, I will post here as frequently as possible and hope to generate some interesting discussions, most likely by very bad hands I have played.
Cheers,
Paul. (147_star)
Best to start with a brief introduction I guess. My name is Paul and I'm a second year law student studying at the University of Durham. I started playing poker around 20 months ago, when I reluctantly agreed to play a £4 game with my mates who all knew how to play. Somehow I donked a win and since then I have been hooked.
I started out on Willhill and would consistently make a small profit in the low level SNG's and had a few decent tournament results in the £2.25 MTT's. I also made a tidy sum each night playing 15c/25c cash games. In around 14 months I played a monster amount of hands on Willhill and clocked up around $2k profit (Including all game types).
However, playing on Willhill I picked up a lot of bad habits which I am still struggling to shake off now! These include: -
1) Poor bankroll management. Initially I would play above what I was rolled for, and now I am sometimes reluctant to play what I am rolled for for fear of losing what I sometimes see as personal money rather than poker money.
2) Withdrawing after a decent night. This goes hand in hand with the poor bankroll management. If I make money, I want to keep it, even though if I play with good BR management these profits will be secured.
3) Stopping when running well and moving up trying to recoup losses.
4) Not monitoring effectively enough wins/losses in online/live games. Sharkscope and thepokerdb.com helps, but I don't monitor results closely enough, and I especially don't like to record losses!!
5) Tilting...I guess this is just an inherent flaw in my genetics but I am liable to tilt at times if I am on a bad run. I must find more ways to avoid tilting to improve as a player.
6) Getting in very poor sleep patterns. As the easiest games are late, I often stay up until the early hours of the morning, affecting anything I have planned for the next day.
7) Playing under time constraints. I used to try to slip in a turbo or two in before football training for example, and rushing my game and my hands really didn't help!
Anyway, my game, along with it's multiple flaws, has moved away from Willhill and I now play primarily on Pokerstars and Fulltilt, operating as mainly a SNG player. I think I will continue to prioritise SNG's, perhaps on FullTilt which seems slightly easier, and combine these with some MTT's on Stars for the chance of a big payday. I will dabble in cash for enjoyment at times, but won't grind it out for the time being at least.
My stats for SNG's on Stars and FullTilt are available by searching for 147_star on Sharkscope for these sites, and I think these are fairly encouraging for my first year of turbos. However, one huge tilt on Pokerstars and a general loss at HU SNG's has weakened Stars a little.
Therefore, I will post in my blog to wind down, give myself aims and guidelines for my poker career, and give myself something to work towards. If anybody wants to post something, especially criticism, please do so. I want to get better and that's the only way.
My aims from my initial post are:-
1) DO NOT PLAY HEADS UP SNG'S WHEN ON A LOSING STREAK! This is my biggest weakness and is my least profitable of any form of game. I should stop them all together as I don't have a decent ROI in them.
2) IF I FEEL BAD BEATS ARE AFFECTING MY PLAY, TAKE A BREATHER.
3) MOVE UP TO HIGHER SNG'S. I want to progress from the $6.50 games and move up as my bankroll permits.
4) PLAY MORE SATELLITES TO BIG TOURNAMENTS, I.E. THE SUNDAY MILLION. I want to give myself a chance of winning big and this is the best way to do so.
5) PUT UNIVERSITY WORK ABOVE POKER WHEN I NEED TO. I can't play for just an hour before work as if I lose I will want to win it back. I need to have a few hours set aside for an online poker session.
6) ESTABLISH AN ONLINE BANKROLL. I will try to do this, though I will skim off the top to fund general living costs.
7) READ POKER BOOKS AND FORUMS. I still haven't read a poker book yet but I plan to read all of the major ones and hopefully some specific SNG books to add extra dimensions to my game.
If anybody has read through all of this rubbish, I apologise for the length but once I start writing it's not easy to stop. Plus, the weakness section was extensive!!
Anyway, I will post here as frequently as possible and hope to generate some interesting discussions, most likely by very bad hands I have played.
Cheers,
Paul. (147_star)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)