19.40pm...

Only playing 1k hands today, just finished a quick 500 hand session, made $30 and was actually $35 up on ev! I really do wonder about HM ev sometimes, i won a flip AKs vs QQ and sucked out on a 20bb shortie with A8s vs 88, other than that I can't remember a single other hand where I was allin vs an opponent, so I'm really not sure how it comes up with the figures it does sometimes. Maybe I just have selective memory or something.

Anyway, pretty much wasted the whole day watching about 8 episodes back to back of an old Australian drama called 'Heartbreak High.' I used to watch it when I was a kid (1994-2000). I found a youtube channel that has almost every episode. It's been 15 years since I watched the first series, and tbh I think I'm enjoying it just as much as I did back then lol.

Anyway, I'm gonna play another 500 hands before I call it a night. I played like 5k yesterday so I think I can afford to relax a bit today.

Until next time...

10.50am...

Been a while since my last entry, I'd decided to grind a ton after my dog died, but it turned into a bit of a nightmare, I just wasn't stable emotionally and ending up going on monkey tilt at 100nl and dropped like $1k in a single session (not helped by running 4 BI's below ev either). I was pretty devasted by this, as my roll was already on the thin side, especially for 100nl.

So I dropped back down to 50nl where I decided I was gonna 12 table 6max, thinking I'd comfortably turn a small profit, whilst very rapidly racking up the fpps. I was right on one thing, the fpps came thick and fast, but unfortunately I found I wasn't able to sustain a very good standard at the tables with that many 6max tables on the go, I was pretty much breakeven for around 20k hands, and my vpip dropped worrying low. I could've of continued on this road and put it down to bad variance, but I could actually see my game was suffering with the addded tables. Tbh I've never been able to play very well with anymore than 1 table, and even then I sometimes feel rushed lol.

I took a couple of months away from poker to kinda sort my head out, I was still emotional about my dog dying, and needed a little more time to recover my focus. I started back at 25nl from about January 22nd, and decided to stay at that level. I want to prove to myself that I can grind fulltime (5 hours/day) and maintain my interest/focus day in, day out.

So it's now March 7th and I'm still going. I took a few days off at the start of this month, but overall I'm pretty pleased with how I've managed to keep grinding. It's actually been more to do with running short on funds than actually wanting to play, I really need the money right now. I know it's not the perfect reason to grind a lot of hands, but without needing to, I don't think I'd get through them. Maybe that's the key for me, I'm only up for it when it's do or die. If I have money to live comfortably for the next 2 or 3 months, I can start to get really lazy. Pretty sad state of affairs, and I feel pretty pathetic for having that mentallity.

So on to my results..... I've pretty much won at the rate I expected to win at, I'd played some 25nl before (see earlier blog entry for graph), and won at around 4.5ptbbs/100. I'm at around 8bbs/100 (holdem manager) as I'm writing this, from approximately 120k hands. I really want to win for a better rate, ideally I want to be a 10bb/100 winner at this level, I've been close to $500 below ev from this sample, but I can't really use that as an excuse, as I know deep down I haven't played as well as a could, I'm frequently seeing hands I could've played a lot better, and I know a better player would've made more than I have.

It's kinda frustrating really, I know I have some pretty big leaks, and I feel I'm close to becoming a better player and improving, but I continue to make the same old errors despite knowing what they are before I even make them. I'm constanly finding myself bluffing in big pots with no hand, I get sucked into trying to outplay people who simply will not fold, I know this, yet I keep doing it. Not sure what's going on here tbh. It must be a mental thing, lt's most likely a mental block or something, and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to curb this unexplainable urge to put myself in these situations.

Hopefully I'll eradicate this in time, because I'm starting to realize that once people at 25nl start calling in big pots, they're pretty much intending to call off. It might be that I'm doing it to the wrong players, or that I'm constantly running into the top of people's ranges in these reraised pots, but I can't seem to get people to fold once they've called a flop bet regardless of what the turn or river brings. The number of times I've 2 barreled my opponent with a weak holding and been shoved over on the turn is boardering on the ridiculous, it literally seems they have a monster everytime I try it.

So I'm probably going to work on showing up with a hand more often when im firing multiple times. It's not like I'm going crazy bluff barreling air every other hand, but the few times I do find myself in those situations I can't seem to get a fold from anyone.

Anyway, overall I'm content with my wr/play at this level, but I'm starting to think I'm going to have to think of new lines, or even a complete overhaul of my game to take it to another level, I've become a little stale and robotic of late, and I'm seeing little or no improvement. The problem is my style works at 25nl, and I'm making enough money to get by on, but deep down I know I need to radically rethink my strategy if I ever want to compete well at higher limits.

I'm starting to realize that I'm simply not good enough to move up through the limits, I kind of feel I've reached my capacity, and tbh I'm not sure what I need to do to progress my game further. Maybe people do just reach their limit and don't have the natural tools to go any futher, I don't want to believe that, but I'm too comfortable, too lazy to findout. It's just easier to plod along doing the same things i've always done.




These are hands from my laptop only, I have another 90k or so on the desktop, but I'm too lazy to put those on here right now. HM says I'm at 8.94bb/100 from this sample. I think the graph also includes 800 hands of 5nl where I made something in the region of $30. I'll post the desktop graph later today.

So the plan for at least the next few months will be around 90k hands/month at 25nl, until I feel I've improved enough to make 50nl more profitable for myself. I think I'm making almost an identical amount from 25nl as I was from 50nl, so with fewer swings I'll stick with 25nl for now.

I'm going to need to keep hitting at least 7.5k vpps/month to keep my supernova status on Stars, So that should help me to continue grinding out the hands every month. I might need a month or 2 of 50nl to hit 100k vpps before I lose it at the end of September, but I'll think about that nearer the time.

I'm currently involved in a private bet with a micro stakes sng grinder to see what is more profitable...25nl or sngs/mtts upto $6.50. It's a 3 month bet that started on Jan 25th. I'm ahead at the moment, I think I was $700 up when we last counted at the end of February, but tbh I've probably played more than he has overall, It'll be interesting to see how this month goes. He made 3 mtt final tables in February which accounted for almost half of his entire winnings to date, but has probably run a little below ev in sngs. I'm trying to convince him to switch to cash games, but I think he's sng through and through.

Hopefully I can seal victory early, and finally convince him of the benefits of playing cash. The bet also includes a punishment for the loser which will involve me playing 5k sngs should I lose, I'll move heaven and earth to avoid this obviously. I'm just preying he doesn't ship a really big mtt score lol. Anyway, I'll keep this blog updated on how that goes.

EDIT: As promised here are my 25nl hands on the desktop...



And below is my epic tilt session at 100nl: (no prizes for guessing when the tilt started)



And I may as well post my 50nl endeavours:



The prolonged breakeven stretch starts almost exactly when I switched from 4-6 tabling to 12 tables. I fail so hard at multitabling :(

So overall I've made around $3300 (plus maybe $1k rb) from about 220k hands at all limits, not too bad considering I'm $900 below ev. I should be doing better though, I'm gonna have to start improving my game soon, or else I'll be stuck at the micros forever.


On a final note, I mentioned earlier that I'm stuck for cash at the moment, mostly due to this...



£1k ($1800 ish) epic 50" plasma fail. Bought it in December and about a week ago it slid right off it's stand crashing to the floor. Brilliant! I was playing poker at the time and it happened right in front of my eyes, nothing I could do but watch it happen, there was no time to save it. I heard it sliding, looked up and saw it fall. :( I'd had an awful session too, this just about summed it up!

After a thorough ferensic examination of the scene, we concluded that the subwoofer was responsible, coupled with the fact that the plastic suckers on the base of the stand had been ripped off at one end (probably in transit), so it was basically glass on glass at the front end. Looking at the dust marks, it appeared that it had slid at the right front side and then toppled over. The subwoofer is located right beside the stand on the floor on that side, so we decided that the vibrations from the woofer had slowly moved the right hand side of the base closer and closer to the edge of the stand until it reached the point of no return! A quick check of the stand showed it wasn't actually completely level, and tilted very slightly forwards which obviously didn't help either!

So I had to buy another one, and now we've secured it down with super strong adhesive, so other than a poltegeist shoving it off the stand, I think we're safe. Oh well, you live and learn I guess.

Until next time...

7.14pm

Ok, I know I said I'd be playing a fair amount in the 30 days since my last entry, but I had an unforeseen event occur. My beloved dog 'Tyler' passed away at the grand old age of 13 years (quite old for a Chinese Shar Pei). He'd not been in the best of health over the last 6 months or so, and had a weak heart. He suffered a twisted stomach just over a week ago, and needed an emergency operation to fix it. The vet told us it was high risk because of his age, and his already weak heart. He did actually come through the op (he was a tough little guy), but died 3 days later in intensive care. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to see him after the operation, as they thought it might get him too excited, so we never actually got to say goodbye, which is sad.





This is the only photo I have of him on my computer, it was taken only 2 months ago. He was the sweetest, most placid, well natured dog we could have hoped for, and will be sorely missed by all that knew him. RIP little fella :(


I guess that explains my lack of interest in playing poker for the last 8 or 9 days anyway. But tbh I'm having a hard time motivating myself to play anyway, as I only managed around 24k hands b4 this happened. I'm really not sure why I'm not grinding everyday, as I do really need the money. There's always been an innate laziness in me, but I always assumed I'd snap out of that by my early/mid twenties, but if anything it's gotten worse. Some people seem to have days where they just don't feel like it, I seem to have weeks, or sometimes months of it.

Anyway, I'm going to force myself to play (not ideal, I know), and hopefully it'll kick start my interest again. I actually quite enjoy playing, but it's the starting that I seem to have a problem with, I'm sure I'll get a taste for proper grinding again, once I play a few days continuously.

So, as I said in my previous entry, I was planning to play 100k hands or so at 25nl before moving up to 50nl. I knew I'd have a tough time doing this, and in no way was this realistic, but I actually suprised myself by playing as much as 24k hands there, before jumping up to 50nl. Even more suprising, considering the fact that I ran like aids in those hands. I know I can beat that level fairly comfortably, so it wasn't like I was waiting to improve, before moving up. I just needed to find a game to get myself back into the swing of things, and 25nl seemed like the perfect place to start, as I'm rolled for 50nl.

So after a succession of coolers, bad beats, and admittedly, some poor play too, I managed a pretty meagre 4bb/100 after 24k hands(running 8 buyins below ev). This didn't put me off in the slightest, I knew I was running poorly, and also making some pretty thin hero calls (mainly due to not really respcting the $ at that level). Also, simply witnessing the standard of play, was enough for me to believe I could still beat 50nl.

So 6k (50nl) hands on, I find myself beating 50nl (lol sample), whilst also running pretty hot (3.5 buyins above ev).

Below: 25nl graph, 50nl graph, combined graph:











So I've actually ran even thus far, just glad it wasn't the other way around :)

As far as the serial grinding goes, I'm looking to go for 50k+ hands next month, with a sneaking suspicion it may be over 100k. I've switched from 4 tabling 6max to 6 tables, so hopefully it'll enable me to get the kind of volume in I'd like. Especially as I need to accrue fpps to get me to 250k for the 4k bonus asap (need the money) lol.

I'll most likely give progress reports throughout the next month, where I'll hopefully be sharing how much I'm winning etc :)

Catch ya laters!

12:42pm...


Thought I'd start updating this blog, as I've gone back to cash games for the time being, So looking back at my previous entries, looks like I epic-failed in my pursuit for SNE. Haha, oh well it's not like I ever thought it was realistic to play that many hands everyday for a year. Tbh I thought I gave it a decent crack, I surpassed my predicted 'week' before burnout took hold, and actually managed to keep it up for almost the whole of January.

I think I played somewhere in the region of 220k hands that month! I won't lie, it was brutal, and I'm not sure I could have carried on through February even if I was crushing 100NL. As it was I was struggling even to breakeven, albeit I was a good $1k or so below ev, so I think it was a combination of running bad, and playing too many hours which finally forced me to quit.

On the plus side, I made close to 90k vpps for the month, and the UK promo pushed me over the 100k mark for SN a couple of months ago! I've spent the past couple of months wasting time imo playing micro turbo sngs, inspired by the Boku87 challenge no doubt. I played them before his prop bet and did ok, so decided to go for massive volume (again) lol, turned out I sucked at volume in those just as much as in cash, only managing 1k games/month twice. This month was one of those months, and unfortuantely I hit a pretty rough stretch of something like 900 games breaking even, pretty much, and now I'm just sick of them. I think I've mentioned before in this blog that I'd never play sngs again, but this time I really mean it! Well maybe the odd one lol.

I was checking over my fpp earn rate in the sngs, and realised I was basically wasting my SN status by playing them, and after a few calculations, I've realised I can still hit a few bonuses if I jump back into cash games. Like an idiot, I spent 100k fpps on gift vouchers, so i'm 100k down on the 250K required for the 4k bonus! There's still enough time for me this year to accumulate those, so I'm going back to cash games.

I've started back down at 25NL for now, just to get a hold on the games, and work myself back into them. Things haven't really changed a great deal at that level, there are still some very soft games. Having said that I've pretty much been breakeven over 10k hands thus far, a little confusing, but I know I've run into some fairly evil coolers and such so I'm not worried. I'm confident of progressing quite well. Hopefully after 50-100k hands I'll be in a position to move to 50NL where I can start to make a decent number of fpps, whilst also making a little at that limit too.

There won't be anymore ideas of insane volume for me, I've learned my lesson, It's 6 tabling about 5 hours/day for me for the rest of the year. Hopefully I can get that 4k, and perhaps even hit a milestone bonus before the years out. Maybe that January stint won't be completely wasted afterall.

I'll post my graph once I hit 100k hands, might be interesting to compare it to an earlier graph I've posted on here. I'm not sure it'll be quite as swing free as that one, judging by my start, but hopefully I can get somewhere close to 6bb/100 for 25NL.

7.18pm...

This stars lag is really pissing me off! I'm trying to get as many ffp's as possible by the end of the month for a new monitor, at this rate it'll be next xmas or something! I really feel like playing today too, and that's rare tbh. I just feel sorry for those guys chasing elite this year, they gotta be pulling there hair out!

Ok rant over.

I haven't had a losing day for a few days, so not all bad. Just can't get any big winning days going at the moment. I'm definately enjoying FR more than 6max, I'm certainly more relaxed playing it, and I don't think reads play such an important part, as they do in 6max. So far so good, but I remember last time I attempted FR...it didn't go so well. Hopefully I've learned a few lessons since then.


Until next time....

7.18pm...

I've decided to give full ring a try for a while. 6max was going ok, but if I'm going to consistantly put in a high volume of hands, I'll probably be better of playing full ring in the long term. I was starting to find 6max a little too fast 12 tabling, I've only been playing 12 FR tables but will increase it to around 16 when I get my new monitor, which will be sometime in February, hopefully early Feb. At the moment I have to put up with the overlap:



I'd love to be able to cascade, but it makes me feel ill, with all the tables popping up etc.

I've had to suffer a number of suckouts so far and today really was ridiculous, but I still managed to just about breakeven on the session. I'll be playing another 2k hands or so later tonight, so hopefully my luck can change. I was quite proud that I avoided tilting too, because in the past that session could have been a disasterous one.

12.04pm...


Finally got it! Highest I've been is Goldstar, so feels like an achievement. Hard to believe I plan to play 4x this amount next month!

Next stop....... Supernova!





Now for that 30" monitor!

4pm...

So I've decided to post my first graph which pretty much covers November and December, although I did win a further $550 on Full Tilt during this time from around 17k hands, 8k at 25NL and 9k at 50NL with a winrate of just over 4 ptbb/100 for each level.

So here's my graph from poker stars only:





I've been fairly dissapointed with my 50NL winrate, and although I don't think I've run that well, I still expected a little more tbh. The increase in tables seems to have had a marginal effect thus far (only 27k or so hands doing this though), I guess I'll have a clearer idea of how it's going to go once I put in another 100k or so hands 12tabling. At least it doesn't seem to have drastically reduced my level of play, although the swings (both up and down) seem to have magnified a little. Far too early to tell just yet though.

I really hope I get to 3-4 ptbb/100 next month, although I will be exclusively 12 tabling for the whole month. I'm expecting between 1-2/100 tbh, but I'll aim for 3 since I'm still an improving cash game player, and will hopefully run well too! It may turn out that I'm actually barely breakeven playing this many tables, but only when I have a decent sample size will I know for sure.

I'll be posting my Januray graph too, so it'll be interesting to see how things go, and whether I've improved or got worse lol.

Here are my stats for both limits:



Obviously with the increase in tables, I've tightened up somewhat at 50NL and it'll probably drop still further to around 16/12. If anybody has any opinions on these stats, they'll be well received, as I'm open to criticism, so long as I can learn something and improve.

Also I'd like to know if anyone has any thoughts on how increasing the number of tables you play effects your winrate. As mentioned, I've gone from 4 tabling to 12, can I expect to see a large decrease in winrate that just hasn't as yet manifested itself?

Until next time....

7.20pm...

Jesus, brutal session today! Played 4k hands without a break, 9-11 tabling. Lost AA allin pre twice vs KK and AK, once for 150bbs, as well as a few other beats, did get lucky once in one pot, but generally ran pretty bad, didn't make too many hands etc. It was the first time I've really played a big session at the weekend, and I honestly couldn't believe how loose people were.

It only really occured to me about 3 hours into it that I was getting zero respect and all my cbets were being called, and there was usually at least two players calling my raises. It's difficult to asses the tables whilst you're 10 tabling 6max, I started to tighten up for the last 2 hours or so, but just couldn't hit a thing, not a good thing when everybody's calling every bet you make. I thought I'd managed to control tilt quite nicely over the past week or so, but I think that's more than likely because I was winning the sessions. Not so easy to keep it together when you're losing. In the end I dropped just over 3 buyins, but a lesson has been learned and I'll definately take a different approach to weekend play next time.

One thing for sure is it's going to be a much tougher road ahead than I can even imagine. I know my 2009 schedule will be brutal, but I think it'll be even worse than that tbh. 4k hands has left me exhausted today, and my thumb feels bruised or something from all the clickaments. I won't be playing anymore tonight. I can't afford to have this kind of attitude next year.

Report card so far......must get tougher!

On the plus side, only 167 more VPP's for platinum!

Until next time....

4.18pm...

Just played a 3k hand session, was going along nicely and then the last 20mins happened! Was up like 4 buyins and lost 3buyins in last 20 mins!!! It's always a loose aggro fish that gets me, got it in with 55% equity on the flop and he shipped A high and I didn't hit my flush. This type of thing is the only thing that seems to tilt me, if it was a good player pushing because he thought I'd fold, I'd accept it, but when it's a total moron It drives me insane. I started spewing for the first time in a few days afterwards, so I think it's a good thing to take a break for a few hours.

Anyway, rant over!