20 buy-ins from this month's peak at the end of last week:


As you can see, I can't win without showdown, by going to showdown, or by getting all-in with the best hand. I'm running 8-buy-ins below all-in EV, I'd estimate 2-3 buy-ins lost from spurious, possibly tilty, play, and the rest from either coolers or correct folds after building a pot.

HM graphing isn't perfect for this month, because the tables switched from Dollars to Euros, but I was about £2k up at the start of that chart, and 20 buy-ins at a‚¬600 is approximately -£12k at the trough. I'm £4k down for this month and on track for my first ever losing month. I'll be pleased if i can recover jsut that £4k over the next week, just to get the month in the black, and because Jan was so good that (£21k+£0)/2 would still be over £10k/month, comparable with usual winrate.

I think that this post is probably a good lesson in why we use bankroll-management, and a good example of possible results for anyone considering taking poker up full-time!

No strategy here, just a rare occurence:

a‚¬3/a‚¬6 No Limit Holdem
2 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks:

This was heads up and had been quite a loose, aggressive match so far. However, I had hardly reraised from the big blind. I'd raised every button as had villain, and we had been playing postflop aggressively, but I'd been card-dead out of position and had hardly played a hand.

Given the game flow I expected villain to call the 3 bet very widely and to raise a lot of flops, but I actually thought he wouldn't raise this one since it looked so much like I have a premium range from my tight preflop play out of position, and I didn't think there was any reason to think that he would think that I'd be folding overpairs on this flop.

When he does make a small raise I feel like he often just decided to give stealing the pot a go anyway, since we both know I could have AK or something like 77 that I don't want to put 170 bbs in with.

So then there's ~$800 in the pot with $1400 left to bet. Thats a ~$1200 raise, about the size of the pot, and I'm thinking that if I shove, villain will definitely put me squarely on someting like QQ+,AdKd and only call with hands stronger than, say, JJ, which he can't have often enough for me to show a profit (especially since he didn't 4-bet, and 22 is the only likely set).

I think that if he does call, its often with 1 pair, a nut flush draw or a bigger draw like 3d4d, so I'd hope to have 20-25% equity, meaning I'm risking about $700-$800, so it has to work half the time.

Anyone like a shove? Feel free to leave a comment...

$5/$10 No Limit Holdem
2 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks:

Week one of Feb hasn't gone as well as the whole of January, I've had losing days on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, so I've taken Friday off so that I can start the month fresh on Monday.



I don't think I have been playing badly, but its slightly worrying that I'm actually still running good in all-in EV, so these results could have been about 50% worse. I think that most of my losses have been very standard; AK running into AA preflop, value betting a strong hand on 3 streets and being shocked to see I was behind to something unlikely the whole time; and a few opponents floating and hitting long shots I couldn't really expect them to have.

The weird thing is that losing a bit has actually been slightly calming. I think that when you run good for a while, the longer it lasts the more dramatic a future downswing is going to seem, so at the moment -6 buy-ins is fine. If it had come three quarters of the way through January it wouldn't have even been a notable result.

I'm still playing/learning a bit of 1/2 PLO, and I've decided to concentrate on 6-max for the time being. Its interesting to note that before I got a lot better at NLHE I thought I was ok at PLO as well. Now, the experience of knowing one poker game in such depth makes playing a different one scarier, because even without having a great overall strategy, I can see the points in which I know that I don't know something well. Its possible that thinking like that is actually slowing me down, because I might be trying to construct the overall game plan without knowing smaller elements well-enough.

I'm considering reverting to nut-peddling for a while to get re-used to how often each hand occurs and wins, whereas before I was trying to work out a higher level: For example, I'd look for a board in which the opponent should have to fold slightly too much on each street or else he'd be making miserable and costly check-guess-calls, plan to fire bets on all the turns and rivers that make may range look the strongest (and when it was the strongest), and then try to fit the hands I get dealt back into that strategy. Now I think I should spend a while going back to playing my hand, and folding out better and getting called by worse, before giving the metagame another go.

I haven't played any poker at all today, since it was the day off to end my losing streak. Instead I spent the afternoon going to the gym for a swim and then a long time in the steam room, deciding that I should make more effort to appreciate the fact that I don't have to be in work on a Friday afternoon :)

Phase (1) Raise every button
Phase (2) ??????? (Play completely tight-straightforward from there)
Phase (3) Profit

I'm sure that this villain thought that we were in a tough back-and forth game in which we were stealing and re-stealing pots from each other, but it wasn't the game I was playing, and I think that perception was caused almost entirely from the fact I never passed or called a button, even thought that shouldn't really be related at all. This hand was actually 3 handed, but it came just as a player joined after we had been playing heads up for a while, so psychologically iwe're still heads-up here.

Flop would have been a check-raise-getitin and expect villain to show up with plenty of hands like J4/89. River was a fake blocking bet intended to play on the above, and it seemed to work just fine...

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (3 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($1478)
Hero (SB) ($1383)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, Q
Hero raises $35, BB raisess $75, Hero calls $75

Flop: ($220) 4, 5, 9(2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks

Turn: ($220) Q(2 players)
Hero bets $165, BB calls $165

River: ($550) A(2 players)
Hero bets $275, BB raises $1203, Hero calls $833

Total pot: $2763

Results:
Hero had Q, Q (three of a kind, Queens).
BB didn't show
Outcome: Hero won $2763

Villain had 75o, not sure why that doens't come up in the converter.

It has been my best month so far, and I've made sure of that by quitting when I broke $30k - I'm really affect by arbitrary numerical things and dropping back into the 20s before the end of the month wouldn't have been worth the extra couple of thousand I could possibly have won, so I gave myself Thursday and Friday off work.

I've played almost entirely 6-max 4/8 and 5/10 this month, 19500 hands running well above expectation at 18.75bb/100. That's $30902 or about $32k including rakeback. I've played roughly 70 hours over 20 working days at about $440/hour.

I'm still using the same routine - no poker at the weekends so they're just like everybody else's, then on the weekdays wake up at 7.45, breakfast etc and walk with Hannah to her work at Liverpool street, then back around to the supermarket/gym/bank/anything else useful, back home around 10-11, poker session, lunch, poker session, break, poker session, repeat as needed, then normal evenings, perhaps 18.30 walk into Bank to meet people at their drinks after work.

My previous best month, last July, totaled $28,134 including rakeback so while this was about $4k better as a direct comparison, the dollar is also worth about 1/3rd more than it was last July, making this one much, better in Sterling.

I'll still be happy with $60k for the quarter, so I'm hopefully going to take the next two months a little easier and do more alternative stuff - reading about philosophy, learning guitar, getting fitter.

Having said that, I ran about 10k above expectation in all-in pots in January, and about $15k above expectation in terms of my average win rate. I'm sure the Poker Gods won't allow that to continue without any retribution, so I won't be surprised if I follow this up with a February in which I have to play 30k hands for $8k or something like that.

I've won $26,478 so far this month. My previous best was last July; $26,569. And I'm only 2/3rds of the way throught the month!

Of course it could still go either way, and to be honest I'm probably due some bad luck. I'm running about $10k above expectation in all-in pots. Many were where I have semi-bluff shoved the flop or turn with 20-35% equity and got there, but I think I am also well ahead in pots in which I have got it in as a favourite and they haven't hit, and they all add up as well.

Its nice to note that if I had been running at expectation in those pots I'd be at $17k in almost as many hands, so I'm probably still playing at 10bb/100.


I'm still putting some time into learning Omaha. I've player about 1000 hands of 6-max breakeven, and 3000 hands of heads-up, down 7 buy-ins. My main issue at the moment is working out if I have been card-dead, or whether its typical to have no-pair-no-draw on almost every flop I play. Thats the puzzle for me at the moment - if we're both rarely flopping anything I want to bet, bet, bet a wide range, but my experience has been seeing call, call, call, with top-two+ almost every time.

I have actually found PLO really boring so far; I feel like I rarely make a hand and can rarely bluff, most pots are small and the big ones have been flips. Its probably a function of playing lower ($1/$2) but there isn't the same amount of action as hold'em on the flop since any bluff/semi-bluff/thin value bet gets picked off by a station calling and/or catching, so it seems like nobody does it.

I do realise that the paragraph above sounds like the sort of thing a hold'em fish might complain about, and I'd know how to adjust to a calling-station in hold'em and make a bigger winrate than against any other opponent, so I still expect this to have a happy ending.

Here's the "after"-shot:



I was ahead of schedule for the Q1 $60k target ($20k so far) so I treated myself to a good chair as well as a new desk.

I'm impressed with the desk. It only cost about £95 (from Ikea) but is really useful. I wouldn't usually buy a corner unit "designed" for a PC, because they try to give you a place for everything - sliding keyboard shelf, mouse pad shelf slides out from that, LCD plinth, and none of it is quite where you would want it to be and you can't move it because they only produced it with that in mind. This one is just a good flat expanse of corner-desk with a shelf underneath for the tower, and then shelves/racks up high. It also Includes the whiteboard I've been wanting so that I can pretend I'm House MD when trying to figure something out.

Holdem is going well and I'm still running good - $20k in only about 12k hands so far mostly at 4/8. Heads-up Omaha isn't going quite so well, but I think that was to be expected since I knew how bad I was at flips. That's why I've never had any urge at all to gamble at a casino game. I think that focusing on the whole quarter will help me get more hands in over the next 2 weeks, and the novelty of the new chair/office can't hurt either.

In terms of poker, and online cash games specifically, I've come up with 2 targets:

1) $60k won during Q1.
I've decided to try thinking in quarters instead of months to encourage a longer term view and prevent myself losing motivation after I have made a reasonable amount each month. I'm not making a plan for Q2-4 because they will depend on the previous quarter's results.

2) No playing lower than $4/$8
I'm naturally financially conservative and have found that I tend to regress to $3/$6 and a moderate wage with lower variance, after that $4/$8 starts looking quite big and I forget I've been beating $5/$10 and regress a month in progress. I have the bankroll for 5/10 and to start 10/20, and no reason to think it won't work out, so I have banned myself from the smaller tables in an effort to keep my $/hour up.

That's it!

Some might think $60k is low for 3 months of $5/$10, but I'd only like to have to play 20k hands per month so its still a demanding 10bbs/100 required. Ill probably play nearer 30k hands in months that don't go as well, so realistically its 60-90k hands at 7-10bbs/100.

Other goals -
Tidy my 'office' & get fancier chair and better desk: Since I spend plenty of time here it ought to organised, and a good chair will be healthier since I'm often sat in it.

Get fitter - I've signed up for that private health insurance that discounts the premiums and gym membership if you go regularly and meet other targets. I'm a sucker for arbitrary numerical targets so hopefully that scheme along with the incentive of 'winning' a ~£50/month discount will keep my on track. I went for the first time last night with quite shocking results - my squat technique struggled with only 30kg on tha bar. Hopefully its just a case of getting back into it and remembering the movements. I'm also going to try to go some of the classes, particularly any that will help me get more flexible since I'm terrible at sorting that out myself.

Here is a "before" picture of my 'office' - hopefully posting this pic will motivate me to sort it out so that I can post the "after" photo:

Finally got a home poker game arranged! Its the sort of thing that we plan to do every other week and actually manage about once a year. Its micro-stakes, and since Hannah has less poker-experience she gets to call for a round of tequilla for everyone else every now and again...

I lost 3 stacks within the first hour - playing KTs fast into A8s on a flush draw turn and both missing, running 99 into two pair on a 6-high flop, and check-raise shoving a flop flush draw into KK. Somehow managed to make a come-back and finish 1.5 buy-ins up, but after a couple of Vesper-martinis (Started as James Bond themed irony and really developed a taste for them) and a couple of tequillas, I'm not really sure how I managed it. Here are some pictures:



Online I have got off to a great start to the year - running well above expectation with $8k profit in 1700 hands.

I've decided that Party Poker isn't as great as I previously thought. They do have more fish but they have many times more regulars as well. Its hard to get on a good table because the list will be 10-deep and the players will have turned over by the time you get there.

I'm going to check out Full Tilt next, I can see that they have a lots of players too, but the lists don't look as long and it seems like the might have more types of tables to choose from, so I'm hoping the pool of regulars in each might be smaller.