Hi all.

I try to ignore the overall results at they're not pretty. And the more i'm not successful the harder i work at it. It takes a lot of tenacity to get a Ph.D. especially in the sciences, believe me. So failure doesn't really discourage me. It just makes me work harder, well get more focuses would be a better expression.

I've the dubious and embarrassing results of having played 136K of hands on the $4 tables for a HM loss of $-200. Pretty bad aye. Even pathetic really.

Although over the last 52K of hands I'm only down $50. So my rate of loss has gone from $-1.47/1000 to $-0.94/1000, wow such progress. And I actuallly got to break even over the last 8.6 K of hands and then run bad over the next 400.

Still I'm not discouraged. I like a challenge.

Every level be it $4 or $400 has its own particular problems to overcome.

And i guess $2/$4 is the holly grail, the right of passage.

$1/$2 is wannabe, $2/$4 definitely IS, for those who beat it.

It must scare a lot of people, as even the venerable Veneer won't go any where near it. In fact I'm not exactly sure how many pros on CR can beat $2/$4, not many that is for sure.

I'm doing a lot of home work you might say. Which involves collecting data, and finding out what ticks down here in the gutter.

Hand ranges, well nothing is a given. Surfice it to say im back to collecting data.

It's become pretty impossible even to play 4 tables with HM and hud up, because it just sucks on memory and locks up. So ive taken to playing without it.

So i'm on a new and ever expanding data hunt. To get some answers. And deal with the biggest issue we all face, namely loss in the blinds.

So for the moment I'm doing the eternal set mining, in all position to find out what does and doesn't work. All hands some 8091 that saw the flop made only $0.08/hands from May-4, which sort of peaked at around the remainging 3 K after August-1 at $0.095/hand.

The next group is AXs. Not so many have been played from the early and middle positions. Both CO and btn 355 and 444 hands respectively show wins. BUT the most hands were played from the BB 627, that saw the flop and won 99% of the money. So i'll keep with the data search for now.

I need to know what does and doesn't work. I've come to realize that there is a lot of dead money, regarding hands unopened from the CO, Btn and SB.

So currently I'm raising pot, any suited hand from the CO, unopened to me, and ALL HANDS from the Btn and SB when folded to me.

I want to see what the fold/call ratio is, and define the most optimum ranges to play.

As to the blinds perse, well lets say that's a work in progress.

Yesterday was a bummer, 1.69 K hands played. And actually only lost just over 2 buyings.

But the devil was at work again, and he's a grandmaster.

I tend not to tilt or complain about losses theses days as long as i got it in good.

My win/loss =>50bb's was off. 5 losses to 5 wins.

The big and bad included.

JJ v AK river suckout.

QQ v 44 flop 3 4 4 Q lol at that one. Especially since ive been getting a zillion quads of late.

KT v AJ I flop second NUT str8, he suck fullhouse on the river.

76 v QJ and this is a real beauty. The odds of flopping a str8 from a connector is 1.3%. So 1,3 in 100. He hit top str8, me bottom str8, on the flop, thats 1.69 times in 10,000 hands, so pretty rare.

Finally AK v 76s, the flop K 4 6 7 7

The most notable and rare event was losing 4 buyins in the blinds, but its just variance.

I'm on the right pathway to eventual success.

So no complaints, I got it in good every time.

Mostly rare to very rare losses.

Today, the scales will swing my way i hope. LOL.

So im just grinding away, collecting data, and solving the problems.


Tony