Played a live $1-2 game several hours a day over 2.5 days last week in Reno at the Peppermill. Up $1500, nice! Don't remember losing any large hand, was hitting on all cylinders, catching my straights, winning one hand with a K high. Kindof sick I guess.

The play was so soft, many limpers, I just used basic Fooz strategy across the board and it worked like a slip and slide. Bought easy money and set up bigger hands when I got called and hit. Sweet and easy.

Best hand: live straddle to six and I've got Ad9d in the SB. Four limpers and I call for $4 with bad position but nice odds. Flop comes 678r. I bet out something like 20 and get a late position raise of 50 more. I have another 590 behind at this point, and the raiser has me covered. I figure I've certainly got the implied odds for the call so I make it. The turn comes the magic 5 and I check. He bets 120. I think for all of about 30 seconds, knowing for a certainty he's got the set, and I make what is to me and I'm sure any you reading the right and obvious play: I push in my remaing $420 or so. I want him out out out and I want to take away his odds for calling for that board to pair. He thinks and moans for about 3 minutes, then...folds!

Checking it out now on stove and I've got 74% and he's got 26% equity. He's got to put in another 420 to win back about 936. So he's paying at 44%. Guess he made the "easy" fold.

Contrast this to a reversed identical situation the next day, I turn the top set, but the card (unknown to me, I put him on a lower set) fills his outside straight draw. He's got the lead and position and I check to him, and he only bets 50 into a pot that is probably 80 at that point. So I'm 50 to win back 180 and 27%, and can easily make the call. Of course I'm running like god so of course the board pairs on the river, and he pays off my 100 river value bet. Nice.

Of course I know darn well I was running hot and my next live session could run the opposite way...but I'd say my investment in coaching with fooz paid off darn nicely here, because I certainly am not the player I was back in December. No way.

I'll get to test it all again live in Vegas, next week at Black Hat. See you at the Mirage or Flamingo or Venetian (Mirage is my fav for soft 1-2 games).

Oh yea, online...just barely climbed up to a new equity high, 3202, finally broke that darned 3200 barrier that was eluding me so long. It's taking forever to get to 4000 (and starting up a single NL200 table in my sessions) but it'll come, it'll come. The trend line is up and to the right baby...

Nutedawg's 6 max vids on mid stakes deep stack play got me re-energized about 6 max so I've started playing the NL50 deep tables (since I don't consider myself properly rolled for risking $200 at a pop across my tables)...and I like it! Faster action, sweet tasty fish taking my bait. I continue to learn learn learn that when you a large flop raise with something like JJ on a 678 board you are almost certainly beat so CHUCK IT! Playing well that way last night I only lost $40 in a session I would typically have lost $200+ in. So maybe that's going to help get my win rate up a bit a more consistent. I'm right at my equity high area from one month ago...time to bust out!

What's up with pokertablerating's anyway? I don't understand their magic rating # at all, as it doesn't seem too consistent as I look at different players and the equity curves. Also, why do some players have an equity curve from only a few months, while others have 12-15 months or so? I was one of the latter but now one of the former, and I have no clue why. I do find it a good way to get a quick read on the strength of players though when there's some question though.

Back to new equity highs for me, after my severe drawdown (I lost about 40% of my stake!). The climb back has been almost as rapid as the fall, and both were pretty sick in my opinion. 11 BI's down and now 13 BI's up, over what, maybe a few thousand hands each, maybe less.

I'm definitely improving, learning to cut out of the high variance marginal situations. Too many fish and lower variance/high profit situations at these stakes. Balance isn't needed at NL100 and if such play is exploitable at higher levels so be it, each level has it optimal set of strategies and tactics.

I'm back into the giddy feeling of "I'm going to go on stacking these fish forever" and intellectually I know while that is so in the biggest picture, it's not in the short term, where I'm going to (probably immediately, it always seems that way after one of these posts!) turn around and hit another major draw down period. Sigh. But these near vertical runs are just "running real good" for a period, the longer term graph shows that clear as day.

So I'm (instantaneously) half way to the doubling of my bankroll that was my objective (to be accomplished in one month, hah!!) when I started this blog. It's been five months. Well, it could be worse, at least I'm a fairly certified winning player at these stakes!

What a wacked out game. An 11 BI downswing (straight down!) and now a 9 BI upswing (pretty much straight up)...and counting, my up trend ain't over yet.

Gotten a bit more particular about big hand situations, working harder on pot control on my big PF hands that don't improve on the flop or turn, and eliminating the on tilt spaz play (usually for me going crazy on a boneheaded bluff). I'm in the black on 13 of my last 16 sessions, which cover everything since the lowest low of my downswing.

Keep on keeping on...eventually I AM getting up to NL200, will add one table into my mix starting at a stake of $4000 which just can't be forever away! My buddy list shows lots of known fish up there and I'm sure I'll discover plenty more.

I used to read of 10BI drawdowns and think "wow, I guess you have to have some incredibly bad luck and maybe tilt a bit to do that...".

Yup.

From 2900 down to 1800...aiiichh!!! My graph looks sick, like this new "wobble" of unprecedented size suddenly kicked in. In other words, it falls off a cliff and plummets like never before.

Okay I'm coming back now, up to $2150 and not completely freaked. I've gotten sucked it up and reviewed the big losers through that stretch and yup, there were several where I just plain spazzed out for no good reason and lost some BI's. Places where I should have realized I was almost certainly beat and beat an exit instead of pushing my chips in.

So now I"ve got to get back another 8 BI's to get back to new highs. Okay no sweat, just play tight aggressive poker, push hard to get the fish heads up, work hard to get all the chips in when I'm almost certainly ahead, and bail on the borderline situations because even if they are profitable by a percentage point or two, who needs the variance when there's so much high probability money to be made?

We'll see how it goes.

I'm remind of the old line, "The thrill of victory....the agony of defeat!". And of course poker kicks you ass right when you are getting cocky, right?

L8's.

Up to $2900 and feelin' alright!

Still playing "loose aggressive", isolating limpers with all sorts of trash etc., firing those CB's and occasionally double barrelling...but also playing pretty darn conservative with weaker holdings (weak in context, even a set can at times be weak!) and facing return fire. Dodging the big marginal situations.

It's working, been a week of pretty consistent session victories and my balance has grown nicely, well into new highs.

I can feel $4000 and starting up at least one table per session of NL200...hopefully by summer, and who knows, maybe sooner. Right now it feels like I won't lose much ever again but I've learned about 10,000 times that it just doesn't work that way, the poker gods and our own mistakes throw us a downswing. Squeezing out those mistakes sure helps keep it under control though...

My $2400 bankroll as of last blog post is now, 3 weeks later...$2400!! I did hit a high water mark of over $2600, and I've been down to to the $2100's a couple times in the interim. So the macro level trend line is okay but honestly I'm not overly happy with the slope of that line...yet. I can do better!

It does seem line all of my profit is from stacking fish. All my other play...net negative. Of course this is completely subjective, but it FEELS like the typical scenario is: play, have lots of small to medium size pots, and generally grind down. Then win a big stack and be back. Or, hit several big stacks and be up a lot. But that happens much less than the "get ground down" scenario.

I think I can start to see why so many people play nitty (you good players running like 12/10). You are playing to try to hit your big hand against a weaker and win a stack...and pretty much avoiding everything else. Or so it might seem anyway (I know I'm grossly generalizing but...). I guess a possible theory of my style of play (I think I'm running in the 20/15 area over the last few weeks) is to increase the opportunities for hitting big against the weaker hand. So what's the problem with this style? To much action in marginal situations, with very high variance.

Well thoughts for the day anyway, I'm not changing, not yet anyway...I really don't want to play 12/10!!

So my initial $2000 roll entering NL100 is now $2400. More importantly, since my first coaching session, my NL100 bb/100 is running at 11...okay it's only over 6417 hands but STILL, it's a far cry from up and down and going nowhere that I suffered for the first 5000 or so NL100 hands prior! Distinctly different, and I pretty much think I'm playing distinctly differently. The trend line is very nicely up and to the right now. Thanks fooz! Two more sessions to go. Somewhere recently I read someone say this is a "wicked hard game", and I do think that's true. Superficially it's pretty simple, but it's got levels and levels and levels of more and more subtle yet significant complexity. And it's wickedly hard in that at any given moment, a very simple aspect can be missed, with a bad bad result. For example today I did something really stupid, now what was it...oh yea, this was really brain dead stupid. I had K7 or something, ended up against a villain with an AK3 on the board. I think I fired the flop and got a call, "oh gee he must have a weak ace". Turn is a 3. River is a 7. "Hey I've got two pair now!", so when I check and he bet's, I call...HELLO!!!! Aces and three beats kings and sevens, hello!! It's easy (okay, for moron me) to miss simple sheit like this in the heat of 4 table battle. I'm now taking the approach on almost every significant situation of hitting the "time" button the moment the clock starts running down, so (1) I DON'T time out, and (2) I can take the time I need to review and think. Maybe someday I'll see it all instantly, but not yet baby, not yet. There's a lot of information, history, strategy and tactics to be integrated before making any GOOD decision at the table.

Now I could start talking about AA vs. KK (and varients, today I list a stack when my AKs paired up on a K high board and I lost to AA...). Fooz says "in general, get it in PF". Well....maybe. I'm not sure in NL100 though. In my experience, if the player isn't grossly fishy (playing VSIP > 30), then if he 4 bets back...it's seems like it's almost always AA, if I'm holding KK. I'm okay being the 4 bettor, but calling or pushing over the 4 bet in this game (full ring)...I'm quite suspicious that there's more EV (less negative EV) in just chucking it. Love to have enough data to really know. (Now all you mofo's are going to 4 bet my 3 bets with your JJ's aren't ya?) Yea "it's exploitable" to do that, oh hell any fixed strategy is exploitable, the only thing that isn't exploitable is varying your play.

Here's on where I foobar'd: I 4 bet my KK in the blinds and get called by the 3 bettor. Flop comes QQx. What to do? I pushed...WRONG!! At least I think so. Because the probability I'm beat with AA just went way up, as the odds of his having QQ went way down. Did JJ call my 4 bet? Maybe. Did AA call my 4 bet and not push? Maybe. What's more likely? In my mind, AA is much more likely here. Maybe with the money in the pot already, pushing is better than check folding? I dunno. I just don't think I see a JJ there very often though.

It's late and I'm rambling....

Hitting more new highs, and it's good to actually have a positive bb/100 number in NL100, even if it is small!! Played Saturday night and what is it about Sat. nights? Deck pounded me hard and the fish were biting big time, biggest single session win I've ever clocked, $384, whoo-hoo!! May there be many more and even larger.

I've come down off that high a bit with play on Sunday but that's poker. Had a hand against a fish that I'd stacked a bit early (he was playing something like VPIP=38) where I think I needed to call...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3957565

I guess I set up that push by him by checking the turn, but his PF raise (he was only raising PF 7%) and his call of the flop made me figure an AQ, AJ or AT was awfully likely. From a basic range perspective, I've got him crush IF he'd take this line with holdings like KQ or QJ. But that seems a bit unlikely. I dunno. At least he gave me the favor of flashing his QQ's, which in turn got me to really think about it.

I continue to find that when I get a strong top pair (AQ in position, I raise and get a BB caller for example and board comes Qxx), if the line goes ck-bet, turn blanks and then it's a donk by villain on turn, I'm crushed, particularly if they fire both the turn and river. Maybe calling the turn here is the right play, and folding to a river barrel.

I have my third coaching session with fooz this Wed. night, this time data analysis on post flop play using HEM, should be educational.

Ah finally...back to a new high!

Didn't come close to hitting my original goal when I moved to NL100 (admittedly I lost a week to vacation so in theory I should measure my result in another week). HOWEVER...my struggle drove me to coaching (fooz => highly recommended), and holy cow how the first 2 hours has CHANGED MY GAME!

I'm not going to share the details; sorry, it's paid for information, and even though it wouldn't be of the same value to you (whoever you may be) that is has been to me (since I paid for it and have taken it as deeply to heart and play as I can to get my $$'s worth from it!). I can sum it up in three words though: be more aggressive.

My last couple of sessions, since my first coaching session, have the following net:

+124
+28
- 99
+5
+288

but more importantly, my game is really quite different. Used to be I'd occasionally run into someone who'd just crush me ever pot I got into with them, appeared they always had it and I'd pretty quickly bail the table rather than face them...now I think I'm starting to be that guy.

Well I've got another 4 hours of coaching coming and it's only going to get better. Coach says don't sweat the short term because variance is a crush (oh, the +288 session above includes a $100 stack lose on KK vs AA...), but I'm results oriented sorry but it's just true, and I want to see reasonably consistent profits, end of frackin' story! Now I do feel like I can win this game (NL100 and from what I see of the same fish playing NL200, that too soon enough), with confidence, and in a month I'm pretty sure I'll have results corroborating my belief.

Onward!