slightly late as I spent last weekend in Amsterdam with a group of mates - wicked fun to say the least. Anyway, I finished the month +$1537 in ~25000 hands running at 6.16PTBB plus $100 bonus from Party. Needless to say, I am very happy with my results this month. This is easily the most I have ever won in a month and I just cant describe how nice a feeling it is. The money may not seem like much compared to alot of people on here but to me (a poor student) that amount is amazing - easily covers my recent excursion to Amsterdam and pays my bills for the month.

Looking back at the goals I set at the start of the month, I feel as though I achieved all of them to some extent. I could def have spent a bit more time working on my game but saying that; I have been thinking about the game in general alot lately - kind of making a few realisations and feel as though my understanding of the game is the best it has ever been. Setting goals for the month kept me very motivated for the most part of the month and it is something I am going to do every month from now on

I only played tilted once and unfortunately that was the last day of the month where I dropped 5BI. I was all set and ready to quit for the month when I realised that I was short of maintaining my Gold status on Stars (as I had been playing on Party). I decided to get the FPPs' I required. I played so badly in this period - very unfocused and unmotivated - my mind had already finished for the month and it showed tremendously. Obv this was a very frustrating way to end the month - especially as in hindsight having Gold status for the month is not going to make a huge difference to me and dropping $250 does make a difference. So I basically made a bad decision to try and get the FPP's knowing I wasnt going to play optimally and it is something I will learn from in the future.

Quick word about Party - I have always heard that the games on Party are mega soft and that I should be grateful that I am still able to play there. I had never played there for any sustained period of time before but they offered me a bonus this month and I went for it. It's true - the games are very soft - alot less regs and alot more bad players!!!! I am seriousely considering making it my #1 site. The only thing currently holding me back is the software. Its tilts me hard to say the least.

My goals for this month are going to be very similar to last months:

1) Play only ~15000 hands as Uni is really starting to hot up now and my free time is going to be very minimised

2) Continue working on my game - I especially want to work on my turn and river AFs'. I def think I go into c/c mode too easily and lose a fair amount of value aswell as making decisions tougher for myself. I also want to do some work on equity calcualtions but being a Math student this shouldnt take too long. I mostly want to look into how much having a backdoor draw changes equity and these kinda things.

3) Stick to playing optimally at all times and finding the discipline to quit when I start to feel tilted

One final thing I have not decided to what stakes to play this month??? I easily have the roll for 100NL and am feeling confident about my game at the moment. I also just took a fair amount out the 50NL game this month. As I have prev mentioned my eariler shots have not been overly sucessful but I think the phychological aspect of the amount of money was getting to me - I do not think this will happen again. Hmm, I think I just made the decision in this paragraph :). I am going to make sure nothing like self-pride or any crap like that does not stop me from moving down if I need to at any point.

I plan to post my stats and monthly graph as soon as I import hands from my laptop; mostly cos I pretty proud of them!!

All the best

J

After a bad January, February has started off blisteringly well. Currently 19.5 BI up in ~10.5K hands so I have a very healthy looking win rate. I feel as though I have played very well and also run pretty well too. I am not sure why but the games on Stars have been very very good lately which has been nice. Overall I playing with a lot of confidence and feel as though this is some of the best poker I have ever played.

As for the goals I set at the end of last month; well I am oncourse to reach the # of hands I set myself and I have stuck to playing solely 50NL 6max. I think this has helped alot in regaining my confidence after a bad month. I only remember one session where I really played tilted/unoptimally and I recognised this quickly and quit pretty sharpish - I was very pleased I had the discipline to quit.

One thing I am going to try and work on between now and the end of the month is my turn and river AF - they are both very low and I feel as though I am calling too many bets - this is especially true on the river where my AF is ~1 - this obv sucks as the river is the most expensive street. The sad truth is that I am usually very aware I am making a bad call yet talk myself into them regularly. I sit there facing a river bet, thinking through previous streets action - what my history with player is - the players stats etc and narrow them to a range; I then proceed to call even if I only beat one hand out of the 5 hands in the range I have given them (for a very basic example). I suppose the upside is that I am often correct with my ranges but I still get the 'I need to know' urge which is costing me $$$. I guess the only way to work through this is to learn to trust my reads/instincts and have the discipline to make the +EV play.

Finally - COMPLACENCY - I have just written a few paragraphs about how great everything is and I want this to continue. I remember having a similar start to November last year and getting overconfident - taking shots - losing motivation etc and ended up turning what could have been a great month into just a good one (still the best I had ever hand at the time but meh). I think it is unrealistic to expect to win another 20BI by the end of the month but I definately want to look back at this post and think to myself 'I played optimally for the whole month' regardless of results between now and then. Hopefully by writing this last paragraph I will be more aware if I start to play with some complacency at any point.

Best Wishes

J

Not updated this thing for a while so I figured the end of the month is a good a time as any.

Well, I havnt played a whole lot this month and havnt had very good results either. Played ~22K hands and broke even! Wow thats actually alot more hands then I thought Id put in tbh. Not good.

There are several reasons for the break even month IMO which are:

1) Have been taking shots at 100NL which have been very swingy and mostly unsucessful

2) I have tilted a far amount more then usual - probably because of the swingy shots

3) Have been trying to play some HU aswell - this has gone ok - started great but went kinda downhill from there

4) Have run pretty badly I think - Id have to have to look at PokerEV or something to confirm this but I can definately recall a few sessions where Id felt like Id played very well (session reviews confirmed this) and come out 4 buy ins down which is never nice and terrible for confidence which leads me to;

5) Confidence - the combination of the above has pretty much shot my confidence for large preiods of this month. In hindsight, trying to take shots at moving up aswell as trying to learn some basic HU play in the same month was a terrible idea and not something that I actually planned to do - it just kinda happened that way without me realising it at the time.

Looking at my 50NL stats for the month shows me running at 4.4 PTBB over 13K hands which is pretty good and Im sure I have run below expectation in this period. Also, after my shots at 100NL and HU there is no longer a 50NL table that I sit at without feeling as though I have an edge (pretty large most of the time) over anyone at the table. This feels great to be honest. This leads me too my goals for February:

- Play 20-25K hands at 50NL without playing any other games/stakes. Im not going to set any tagets for profit/PTBB but I am sure I will have a very good month assuming I play optimally for the most part

- Not tilt - well actually to quit as soon as I feel myself playing below optimal - this is something I have definately improved on but it still needs more work

- Work on game - try and put in at least a few hours/week studying PT stats and reading articles/forums etc aswell as watching the vids, which I usually do anyway

It will be intersting to look back at this in 29 days and see how it went. Im quite looking forward to it already! Hopefully this will keep me motivated for the month aswell

All the best

J

at 100NL lately, not gone terribly well in honesty. I am just over 2 buy ins down in ~2000 hands which is ok as I have 30 buy in roll for 100NL and I was over 4 buy ins down at one point. I have done some session reviews and concluded that I have just been pretty card dead, not had many big hands paid off and have made a few frustrated bad plays as a result, but overall nothing too much to worry about and I feel pretty comfortable there. I am prob going to alternate between 50NL and 100NL for a while before making 100NL my reg game.

One thing I noticed is that the regs are very very aggro preflop (there are alot more regs too) you just cant raise the CO/BTN without getting 3bet!!! It can be very frustrating which is obv why they do it. Im all for 3betting light but within reason, these guys seem to do it with any two cards at any time, Im sure this can be exploited and it is something I will look into doing in the future (once I settle down at those stakes a bit more)

After watching Abas latest 400NL vid, alot of what he said about preflop aggro was exactly how I was feeling when taking my 100NL shots. It is quite comforting to hear such a great player went through the same problems I am having. Like many of the comments on the vid suggested, it would have been nice if he talked more about how to counter such players effectively, excellent vid nonetheless. As for countering these aggro players, I guess 4betting light, just calling 3bets with big hands, floating 3bet pots in position etc is the way to go, though I am sure these are high variance plays that require some thought and skill to execute. I also think these plays are not necessary and that an efficient way to counter so much aggression is to stick to your game and not get frustrated - I believe this is something Brian was trying to get across in his vid that not everyone picked up on. I might be wrong.

Was playing an aggro donk earlier and when he got up to leave I player searched him (as I sometimes do with donks) and he was sitting on his own at 100NL HU table. I have very little to none HU experience but figured I had a huge edge over him because he was that bad and I sat down. Part of my decision to sit was down to reading some of Verneers latest blogs about the HU games he has been playing, I found them very interesting to read as he is learning HU play from scratch, it is very good to hear about his progress and learning curve. I have always wanted to learn to play HU competently and Im sure I will do in the future, gona concentrate on 6 max for the mo though. Anyway this experience had certaintly not discouraged me as I managed to stack him in 130 hands. Here is how the match went:

All the way through I was very unsure of what were standard plays, calls, raises etc Im sure I played many hands incorrectly. I already knew he was quite passive preflop and fairly aggro post flop and def capable of making big bluffs so I was calling him down light. After a while I felt as though I had a decent read of his play: called cbets with any pair, gave up without, slowplayed TP flop - often to river, min rd btn with any ace and not much else - prob PP, called way too many rs OOP etc

I didnt think he would lead a FD (or 6 as he slowplays TP leat along trips) so i just called the flop, this is questionable though i think, after weak turn and river leads I didnt think he had much of a hand so I didnt really expect to get called on river.http://www.pokerhand.org/?1924727

Played this hand very passively and although I knew he was capable of making big bluffs I still think I should fold to river bet, prob should have just bet flop?? not really sure http://www.pokerhand.org/?1924806

Was sure he had FD here, possibly a J, dont think there is any value in raising river and I was def ahead enough to call vs this guy http://www.pokerhand.org/?1924810

Was really unsure about this hand, think I should have raised the flop knowing that he slowplays monsters/TP - he prob had a 9, though if I hit I think he will payoff anyhow. Another in the ? column! http://www.pokerhand.org/?1924821

Think folding(/rasing?) the flop is best here, had him 8/air flop so i checked turn to try and get river value, didnt really think about backdoor clubs http://www.pokerhand.org/?1924830

Think this hand is fairly standard, was suprised to see his hand tbh. Think a case for river value raise could be given as I countered alot of 2pr hands, he calls with Q and I had seen him weak lead river after c/c 2 streets before http://www.pokerhand.org/?1924833

On a side note, this is something I have noticed alot lately from bad players lately - limp/calling or flatting AK pre and then not being able to fold it post flop despite completely missing. Think their mentality is just simply I have AK, its a monster, Im not folding.

The final nail, could sense him getting frustrated http://www.pokerhand.org/?1924852

wow - actually had a very good run of cards in hindsight!!!

If anyone has any thoughts/comments about these hands please leave a comment

I decided to try and not post many bad beats in my blog when I first made it as no-one cares but this is pretty laughable http://www.pokerhand.org/?1924867

All the best

J

... since the 11 buy-in downswing which resulted in me starting this blog. Have been playing very tight ABC style poker which I feel is the optimal strategy to beat the micro stakes. Also, the games have been very good over xmas, with majority of my tables having VPIPs around 50%, another reason for playing tight ABC poker.

I have been thinking alot about playing this strategy. I believe it to be optimal for beating the micro stakes but at the same time playing so tight and straight-forward doesnt allow for too much improvement in my game, at least at any significant speed, which is ultimately my goal. This leaves me wondering whether playing a more open, loose game at the micro stakes, accepting that it will slightly reduce your win rate will be +EV long term as you will be learning and progressing quicker as a player (due to playing more hands, getting into tougher situations etc) so to be able to play and beat the higher stakes??? I think the answer is certaintly yes and it is something I am going to try and incorporate into my game.

Happy New Year

J

Few things to add from my intro blog:
1) My regular game is 50NL, I have logged few thousand hands at 100NL fairly comfortably though and hope to make that my permanent game soon. Even with my obvious leaks, I believe I am good enough to beat 100NL.
2) If anyone reads any of my blogs and has any thoughts, suggestions, criticism, anything then please feel free to leave a comment/message me.

Learnt a lesson for the 1000th and hopefully last time the other day. Was up 4 buy-ins for the day in ~1000 hands, really good day. It was getting kinda late and I was very tired but decided to play a quick session. Started ok, nothing really happened, then this hand came up http://www.pokerhand.org/?1850024
I did not know too much about this villain and decided bet/fold turn was the best play, so I bet, get the classic min raise and tiredly talk myself into making a horrible shove. This tilted me hard. Taking bad beats or getting coolered doesnt usually bother me too much. This is what really tilts me - identifying what I should do and then doing the opposite. I do this suprisingly alot. Im not exactly sure why I do it, though I am sure its a pyschological thing. This is something I have been meaning to look into for sometime, maybe I will do in a blog post soon.

So anyway, I went on tilt and soon lost everything I had won for the day. This is the worst of my tilt play: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1850084. This is so horrendously bad its embarassing. I talked myself into a tilt call assuring myself he had a flush draw. My equity against a flush draw isnt even that good, especially if it's like A6s with an overcard. Im obviously crushed by a set, so overall his range has me crushed. Im so bad.

When I looked at pokertracker and saw myself in the red I was enraged with myself. How the f'in hell did I manage this when all I wanted to do was play a quick session before bed??? I realised I was not focused to play to begin with and this is why I had played poorly. I have done this many times before and always swear I will never do it again, yet somehow manage to forget this promise to myself within a day or two. Hopefully everytime I think about having a quick session when Im not entirely focused I will think back to this post and make the sensible decision.

In conclusion: Do not play tired, unmotivated, unfocused, distracted etc

J

Note: I boiled up some coffee, stayed up late and grinded most of it back :-)

Hi, a little introduction to start with. My name is Jamie, 21 years old, from Kent in England. Im a final year university student studying Maths.

I have been playing poker for about 18 months, only seriously for half this time at a guess. I am a marginal winning player I would say, with a fair few leaks. About 2 months ago now, I signed up to cardrunners having been aware of its existence (actually reading many of your blogs!) for some time. My game drastically improved during the first few weeks of watching CR videos. I had my best month ever in November, winning ~20 buy-ins at ~4PTBB/100.

Though massively happy with my November, I was over 30 buyins up at one point, but dropped 10 buy ins towards the end of the month. I blamed it on variance, with some tilt added in, at the time.

Due to having a ton of coursework to do for uni I didnt play for first few weeks of Decmeber. When I started playing again, I went on a 12 buy-in downswing, approx half bad play/tilt i would say.

This seemed too much to be variance, especially given my downswing at the end of November so I took a few days off, did some session reviews, re-watched a few of brymstars micro stakes instructional videos, after they had helped me so much in the first place. I came to the conclusion that I was just playing badly. I had a few coolers and lost a few pots 80+% fav but I was just overall not playing well. I went back to the tables after this and won 5 buy-ins pretty quickly playing some good solid poker.

So why was I playing so badly without fully realising it? I came up with several reasons: ego, complacency, over-confidence - generally thinking I am better then I really am and trying to outplay people accordingly - making hero calls/plays - disregarding the basics of solid play etc. I came up with these reasons pretty quickly as I realised I have been through this exact cycle before and managed to not learn my lesson! I do not want to go through this cycle again.

So here I am, writing my first blog entry, figuring that by blogging my poker experiences I can learn from them, keep them fresh in memory and consequently progress as a player. After all, poker is a game of progressive learning; forgetting/disregarding basic principles which got you to where you are is never going to allow you to progress.

To summarise, I am basically making my blog for selfish reasons. I hate to admit this, but I think it is true. If anyone actually bothers to read this and enjoy it then great, though I seriously doubt this will be the case.

Thats about it for my first post really, I plan to update this about once a week with my general poker thoughts, stats, interesting hands, leaks I feel I have worked on (there are plenty!), good vids/articles I have watched/read and anything else that comes to mind!

Have a good xmas to all

J