Pushing forward.

On the eighth May I pushed up to $5.50 STT’s and by the sixteenth I had retreated back to $2.25 games. I played 21 $5 tables in total, cashing in nine of those but unfortunately with only one win. I had made a total profit of $6 and so they weren’t really getting me anywhere. I felt uncomfortable on the days when I lost more than two games in a row, like it was too easy to destroy all the effort I had put in. It was when I lost six in a row that I lost my nerve. I dropped back down and everything was suddenly alright.

I feel more comfortable playing the $2 but I want to move up – so I started multi-tabling three tables at a time so that each round costs $6.75 instead of $11 as it did with two $5 tables. Since the beginning of last month I have playing quite alot of $2 STT’s, cashing in 32/49 of them. Thirteen of these were first place and so is quite a contrast to the $5 games. My overall profit from $2 STT’s in the last two months is currently $122.75.

From now I on I shall post the above picture to show my current bankroll and academy credits. Things have been going a bit slowly the last week but I am still pushing forward. With this amount of credits I can currently buy a $13 Mini Ftops ticket but as there are none of these games right now I have decided to save up.

Above is this my overall graph from the beginning of April to now. I always feel like seeing it in graph form is much more helpful to see the progress. Whether I’ll go back up to $5 games remains to be seen but for now I’m more comfortable playing more $2 games than forcing myself to push up. I’ll keep grinding away, until next time – take it easy.

Play Online Poker

It’s been a while…

Although it felt like I was abandoning my hobby of online poker it was in reality just a break. I did get to play every now but not enough to give me the energy to keep my blog going. I had other things on my mind because I was travelling Australia for a year and what a year it was.

I didn’t get the opportunity to play poker much with the exception of January ’11 when I was living in an apartment in Melbourne for a while. Other times I didn’t have a constant internet connection – having to rely on free hotspots such as the one at McDonald’s – but I did have one here.

The last time I updated my blog was at the beginning of May ’09 – I had planned to play 90 STT’s that month but in reality I only played a total of 44 more in the rest of ’09 and January 11′. In contrast to this I managed to play 89 MTT’s.

Looking back over my accounts it became apparent that I slowly edged away from the single table tournaments, slowly playing more and more multi-table games. I remember when it happened – I lost a few STT’s and convinced myself that they were not worth it – risking so much for so little – so I took my chances and started playing more and more MTT’s.

It seemed to paying off – at least after a while. My bankroll steadied between $400 and $$500 for a quite alot of games until finally in December 6th ’09 I hit it’s peak at $682.91. I had finally jumped out of my bankroll stalemate with a win the day before, 1/452 @ $198.88 for top place.

(I used a different graph style in Excel. Fancy I know.)

This wasn’t too last very long though. Eight days later I was down $532. I had decided to take a lot of chances on the Mini Ftops events before I went travelling as a last ditch attempt at getting some more spending money. It didn’t work of course and so I was punished for abandoning my bankroll rules. Overtime I fell all the way down to $450 – a mixture of bad luck and bad play.

It was my first downswing and man does it hit you hard. There seemed to be nothing I could do.
It didn’t matter. I took out $400, leaving $50 in full tilt just incase I got to play, also safe in knowledge that I had $50 in Doyles Room too.

I didn’t get to play poker again till January 2011 – over a full year later.
I was hoping that my bad luck had left me but it a week I had lost my $50 in full tilt – the first time I’d got to $0 for a long time. I took a weeks break and started playing on Doyles Room. The first day I came 2/58 in a $1 tournament for $11 and then two days later came in at 1/203 to win $159.01. This made my bankroll $215.48, playing more tournaments over the next week to end up taking a chance on a $27 tournament at the end of the month.

DoylesRoom had changed their software and didn’t have many games that interested me any longer. However I couldn’t put any money in a different poker site because I had no money left in my UK account whilst travelling Australia – I got bored and entered the $27 tournament in error of boredom. Knowing I made a stupid mistake I withdrew the total sum of $176.97 from my account.

(Bankroll for 2009 + Jan ’11)
(A very simplified graph not displaying every day after May but rather total amount lost and won)

It wasn’t until I got back into the UK that I could start looking at poker again. I deposited $28 into full tilt – not using any more money than I had back at the beginning of ’09. With this in mind $548.97 has been taken from poker as profits – with the $28 re-invested to start from scratch again. This is what I have done this month in April 2011.

As mentioned earlier, after looking at the disproportionate amount of MTT’s I had been playing over STT’s in became apparent why my bankroll had become less steady. I looked at March & April ’09 for examples – I was using the STT’s as a steady flow of income which subsidised attempts at MTT’s that would provide a big boost every now and then when I won or ran deep. Over time I had stopped doing this, instead just taking chances over and over again. Although it didn’t have too much of a detrimental effect until I entered games way out of my Bankroll Management plan for tournaments.

It seemed that I also got the fear of losing STT’s. Not being able to handle losing a few $11 games in a row because of the big effect it hand on my bankroll. I convinced myself they weren’t worth playing. This of course is not the case and so after losing money immediately (from $28 to $10) I decided more STT’s were in order.

That was eight days ago and I have managed to go from $10.68 to $65.60 in a total of 21 games. Ten being STT’s and me cashing in eight of those.
(Four Firsts, Three Seconds and One Third).

I haven’t won anything big tournament wise but I have run deep a couple of times in the Daily Dollar this month. Just a few hours ago I finished 39/5661, something I’m a bit agitated about because I believe it was my fault that I got knocked out. I also ran to 97/5806 a week earlier – that time my Aces were cracked by something ridiculous. Although not big wins, they have been boosting my new small bankroll.

I’m hoping that I can build it up once more.

Finding the time to play poker.

Over the last couple of months I have been trying to deal with losing games of Poker. Because you can’t win all the time right? Losing is part of the game. You simply have to learn to deal with it and play the long game. But I’ve had trouble after a bad run, trying to clear my head and prepare for the next game afresh and ready to play my best.

I don’t have the time to do this anymore, with working aswell as trying to play poker I have to try and become more strict, more organised and more efficient. Don’t let the last games cloud your judgement for you have a quota to fill and no time to do it in.

I have a 32% ROI for STT’s and have been told that good players tend to have around 15% – 20%. I cannot be compared to that however because to get an accurate ROI % then it’s recommended to be looking at around 2000games player rather than the 200 I’ve played. Either way it’s been going well and I finished this month another $200 up after only managed to play 56games.

In March I wasn’t working and I played 160games of poker. Even this was a small amount but it’s all that my nerves could handle; sometimes only playing single games at a time when I didn’t think my head was up to it.
I noticed this getting worse as I moved up stakes. At first I had a system of playing $5 and $2 games which along with the rake cost me a total of $7.75 a round. I liked this system because if I got third in the $5 game I’d made a profit already, if I got further than that, even better.

In retrospect the $2 game wasn’t important, I was never too bothered if I lost because it seemed like a small amount at the time but it was a chance to boost up my winnings or even make a slight profit by winning if I’d messed up my $5 game. If I won both I gained a profit of $23.75.

When I moved up however it didn’t make sense to be playing a cheaper game when I could be playing two the same and have a shot of winning a lot more money. With the $10STT structure simply double that of the $5 then coming third in one didn’t win me my money back if playing the same system as before. So I started playing two $10 games at once even though I dreaded it as losing $22 in one go if things went wrong seemed like a big chunk of my bankroll and still does.

The reason I ended up writing this is because I’ve had a few bad beats recently and I realised it affected my game. I’ve had bad luck in STT’s and in the MTT’s I’ve actually ran quite deep in the last three I’ve played only to mess it up and receive an amount I could win playing a smaller game. I messed it up due to tiredness and bad moods when I could of won more.

I tried to remedy this a few nights ago but I did the exact same things, I was doing really well in two $10 games but ended up getting knocked out. My aces got cracked by someone who called with QJ and everything by the queen came on the board to give him a straight. My three of a kind Aces dishing out punishment. At the same time I’d just made the money in the other game and things were looking pretty good for first place. I him all-in a few times but he kept hitting lucky and doubling up until he’d built up to 4000. It was time to change tactics but when I got dealt JJ and 2 5 8 came on the flop I had to push, I actually thought he fold, but he didn’t. He had 78 and I thought that was it until another 8 came on the turn and he doubled up again. I don’t know why but I flew into a rage, I had enough chips to come back but he kept going all-in, which was strange because he was the kind of guy that doesn’t do anything if he didn’t have the cards but if he did then he almost certainly went all-in. I decided he’d changed tactics and called one of his shoves with Q10. He hadn’t changed tactics at all, he was just getting the cards and showed his AQ. Dominated and ashamed of my play, I’d finished second and only gained $5 profit.

I need to gain my patience again. The reason I get so mad is because I truly think poker is what I want to do. I don’t know whether I’m good enough because it’s still early but I need to find out. Instead I sell my soul for £6 an hour. I’ve been getting home and I can’t play properly because I’m so tired, rushing the end of games, partly because of the tiredness but also because I want to spend time with my fiancée.

I really don’t know how people seem happy with 9-5 jobs. You hear them talking about the2week holiday they have in a few months and this seems to be the thing that gets them through the days. I do not want to spend most of my days working, people say money can’t buy happiness.

Really? Because it would in my case.

In my case, happiness is the chance to do things that you like to do. Happiness is the opportunity to make your decisions based on a full range of options. Un-happiness is working most the hours of your life in a job you hate, accomplishing nothing and being so damn tired at the end of it that all you do outside of work is be tired and angry.

In light of this I aim for at least 90 $10 + $1 STT’s this month. If I keep up a 25%ROI then this is $247.5 profit. I want to play some MTT’s too but have yet to decide on a number as I have to wait and see how much time I have to play these. If all goes to plan I shall move up to the $20 +$2 games next month, aim to play the same and aim for $495 profit. I pray to the poker gods this works.

Oh and here’s my overall bankroll graph since starting this.

Play Online Poker

Playing at the Weekend.

I haven’t had a lot of time on my hands recently so I haven’t played as much poker as I’d like to. The main problem with having a 9-5 job in the week is that the only time you can play is the night time and the weekend and I hate playing at the weekend.

The problem is that everybody plays at the weekend and there are a lot more bad players than good ones. You may think that surely this is good? Surely with more bad players out there then you are going to win every game and take down every hand. Unfortunately that may not be the case.

Because of the luck element to the game then sometimes you are going to lose. In my experience this seems to become more likely at the weekend. The last few games I have played I’ve been knocked out because some bad player called a raise with bad cards and got lucky.

My most hated peeve being the call with Ace Rag. A lot of beginner players will call any raise if they have an ace in their hand no matter the kicker. I just raised it up 5xBB because I know how loose the players are on my table and I get one caller. 77K comes down and I bet at him with my AK, he goes all-in so of course I call. He shows A7 and takes down the pot.

He called a 5xBB raise with A7… jesus.

This stuff just pisses me off and it happens so much more at the weekend.

But I can’t give up. I must find away around this, if not just adapting my play.

I just hope I don’t lose a lot of my bankroll whilst I’m trying.

Balancing Poker with life.

Well I had to get a job to pay my bills so I can’t play poker as much as I’d liked. It’d be great to live off poker but with my bankroll rules in place and without getting ridiculously lucky then it would be foolish to think that I wouldn’t have to work anymore.

It’s hard to do though. Working a 9-5 job and then trying to play poker is proving hard, I’ve only managed to play five games so far this week when I’d play more than that in a day when I wasn’t working. I’m hoping that I’ll pick up the quanity of games as time passes, once I’m settled in my new job, either that or I’m going to have to get a lot better at multi-tabling.

Poker is something that I want to be part of my life and it seems I’m going to have to put the effort in so that it can stay part of my life. For anybody who reads this, can anybody offer advice as to how to juggle work life, family life and poker all at once?

I’ve been thinking that maybe I’d make a couple of nights a week dedicated to poker and try and play a large amount of games in a shorter amount of time, whether I can achieve this is something that will have to be seen.

‘It’s all going accourding to plan’

Well with what seemed a bad start to the month, things sure have looked up. Today I passed the $400 mark as I took down fourth in a $2 MTT. At one point I seemed certain for first but a bit of bad luck knocked me down and then took me out.

I’ve had alot of bad luck in the STT’s this month and lost out in quite a few of them, fortunately it seems to have gone into my MTT games because a first place and fourth place within a week of each other has made my bankroll happy.

I started writing this because well let’s face of it, I’m proud of my achievement so far. I’ve pretty much multiplied my intial investment by ten. But it’s been a rocky ride, I wasn’t able to catch a break for most of my games this month. I’ve been trying to adapt to $5 games and it’s been hit and miss. But my MTT winnings have been picking up the slack, and you don’t just have to take my word for it because I’ve got an amazing graph that proves it.

Awesome.

Play for the win. Play for the Glory.

The thing about playing poker on the internet is that everyone always knows what position they are in. You can simply click a button to see your chip size in comparison to everyone else’s. So when you have 2000 people in a tournament you’re constantly looking wondering what position you’re in, wondering if you’re doing good, if you’re winning. Hoping that you’ve won some money.

This causes strange behaviour around the time when the money comes into it – known as ‘the bubble’. People are now worried about whether or not they are going to get their money back. This can make a person –of any chip stack– trip up. For instance what does the large chip stack do?

You could just sit there. You’ll get in the money – sure, you’ll take a bit of a blow to your chip stack but at least you’ll then be secure in knowledge that you haven’t lost anything. Until that point, every hand was worth the entry fee, every hand led to the chance of you losing the game and the money.

This I feel may be a common mistake of the amateur poker player, playing for the money, not for the rush, not for the fun. So I choose the other option, play no different around the bubble or if anything take advantage of the insanity, play hard, steal more chips. But beware you run the risk of being weighed down by the small chip stacks. They go all in just hoping that nobody calls them because the blinds are the same size they are. Even though you can’t see them, you can still smell the fear.

So they go all in with the nothing hands because it’s the best hand they’ve had for are while – forced to play the lottery, in a game that is more than that. No longer can their skill – if they have any – help them, it’s now down to blind luck and everybody else be damned if you don’t hit your cards.

I’ve been in both positions and I don’t know which is more upsetting. With the small chip stack you’re out but you had no choice, you had do something – so why not that?

But the large stack. Well, you most likely just lost a substantial amount of your chips.
If you were lucky, hopefully it wasn’t too much and you can recover, but don’t make a habit of it.

They’ll be everywhere, the short stacks, I mean. Like mines. They can be small one second but bigger than you the next. You have to pick your moment carefully which in itself can cause problems. You’ll call to see the flop too many times hoping to get a cheap look and then secure a nice pot size, but before you know it you’ll be blinded out. Complete vigilance and a bit of luck is needed at this junction in time.

The lottery continues, small stacks are eaten up. Some disappearing whilst others multiply their stack by eight times in one go. Soon however you’ll realise the blinds aren’t so big anymore, no longer do you live in fear that if you were to call it would be half of your stack. It won’t be like that for long however so it’s time to take action and you’ve got to do it quickly.

This is not the time for mistakes.

Every decision could make or break the game. Are you being too tight? Calling too many raises?

So many questions.

If you’ve negotiated the path correctly, you should be on the final table. You’ve made it.

Now prepare yourself, for the game is about to start.

Play not for the money.
Play for the Win.
Play for the Glory.

CheckRaisePoker. Bankroll update.

I’d been following my bankroll strategy but I couldn’t seem to get a good game under me. Even the game’s I got into the money I didn’t feel like it was deserved and I knew I hadn’t played my best. It seemed that somehow because of the satisfaction I had from the previous month that it had effected my game.

I didn’t want to mess this up, I want another good month and I’m not ashamed to say that it’s important to me. So even though I didn’t paticulary want to I played some poker. I can’t say whether it’s the right thing to do and alot of the time I’d say it isn’t. If you know you aren’t going to be playing your best, then don’t. Simple.

But I felt that if I didn’t play now then I might never play. I’m in a position in my life right now that this money could be useful to me, so as I rise in stakes I try and convince my brain that it’s not money, it’s just chips. Play the same way you always do.

But I wasn’t ready for the swings. Because if you too are taking poker seriously and you are soon to move up limits then the more exaggerated swings are one thing that will deter you from playing. Even moving up from two dollars to five the swings are off putting. You see your bankroll go down more than you’d like and all you can think about is how long it took to build that up in the smaller limits.

I know it’s the thing I’ve struggled with most and I even went back down to two dollar games because my game wasn’t at my best. I barely played in the first 5days, only getting round to eleven games compared to the thirty nine I had played but this time last month. I’d been playing bad, unable to concentrate on the games.

But I continued and yesterday I entered six handed two dollar MTT. No guaranteed prize pool because although I do like to take my chances with them, you need to play both very well and get very lucky all at the same time. With the smaller one’s you have alot more of a chance to make some money.

I placed first and earned $143.57 which is what I’ve been waiting for. As I outlined in my general poker strategy, I was waiting for this to happen.

I continue with gradually building my bankroll with SNG’s and hope to cash in an MTT every so often to bump my bankroll up. So far I’m pleased with my progress, in just over a month I’ve my intial investment of $30 into $374 which is not too bad at all.

Play Online Poker

Bad Start to the new Poker month.

I don’t know why but after having a good first month I gave myself the fear from playing the first game in April. I actually didn’t play one game on the 1st April which is unusual but on the second day I picked myself up, convinced I was going to lose and headed over to my computer.

With myself fearing the worse I signed up to a five dollar STT, a two dollar STT, and a two dollar MTT. I had to throw myself into it, I had a lot of opportunities to cash. I was drawing dead in the five dollar game, there must have been 30hands before I was dealt AJ, which ended losing me 160chips. I was being blinded out and not getting any cards to fight back. I had to do something so when I was dealt pocket twos, I bet a semi-bluff and made my chip stack a little taller.

But it was no use. A really loose person pushed all-in against my 3xBB raise. I’d seen this guy go all-in with nothing so I called with my A 10 and he showed a pair of threes. They held up and I was left with 45chips. I don’t know what I was thinking, I had psyched myself out before the game and was making plays I wouldn’t normally.

I managed to double up twice before being knocked out with KJ, I left the table.

Over at the two dollar table, I been blinded nearly 500chips before I made my first move raising up in middle position with KQsuited. In retrospect I wouldn’t recommend this as it usual turns out bad. Another player re-raised me all-in and I had to fold, lowering my chip stack even more.

I managed to double up with 8 4 when my three of kind beat another players two pair and then gained some more chips with a risky bluff when a pair came on the flop. I lost more chips when my bluff on the flop forced a small stack all-in, I didn’t have anything but with two overcards and small call, I had to see take my chances. Pocket three’s and they held up again, halving my chip stack and making my chances of winning even smaller.

I had been reading a lot recently about always going for the win, that if you go for the win each time you’d make more money for getting first place a few time’s than getting second and third place significantly more times. With that in mind and me having the small stack, I pushed all-in with pocket Jacks and a player named kgmidas called with KQ.

Pocket three’s were the downfall of me in both games as each time they managed to hold up against my overcards. But not this time, when I went all in with my Pocket Jacks I definitely wasn’t supposed to win that hand. I watched the table and saw 8 K Q come down followed by another Queen and then a five. I’d been knocked out of this game too.

I hadn’t played my best but I’d also had a few beats but I wanted to try and again. I found a five dollar table and tried again. Things were going well when I doubled up early on with pocket rockets. I said for myself to take it easy and try and hold on to these chips.

I didn’t listen and instead started playing big stack poker, stealing blinds and generally making a nuisance of myself. I was up to 4000chips which is a good amount to have when the game gets short handed. I just had to wait it out and let other people knock themselves out.

But I was dealt pocket ten’s not long afterwards and raised them up. I received a re-raise from a tight player named ThePower9, a player who throughout the rest of the game showed that he cannot turn down a draw and usual goes all-in with them.

I suspected he had Queen’s or Jacks. I called in hope of hitting a ten, it was a minimum re-raise so was worth the cost. Nothing higher than a seven came down and I checked to him, to which he bet half the pot. I folded and asked if he had Kings. He was kind enough to show me Jacks and I’d made the right decision. Everyone on the table then discussed the hand for a while and the only over profitable player at the table ‘Laugh1ngMan’ agreed it was the correct play after someone said that I should of folded before the flop if I knew had higher pockets.

I lost 1000chips when I got attached to a pair of jacks with A kicker. Baggizmo flopped two pair with 5 6 and made small bets throughout the hand to which me and another player called. I had dwindled down to 2500chips and was dealt QQ. The tightest player at the table rockistired had moved all in pre-flop. I’d suspected he had good cards. Maybe AK but I was going for the win and called with my Queens. He turned over K6 and I felt a lot more hopeful. But the flop brought 8 K 7 and the turn a 6. He won with two pair and I was low again.

I was on tilt. I’d now had enough but I didn’t realise. I was trying to steal blinds from the tight player and decided to push with my stack when I was dealt A 9. I put him on a good hand but not a great one, mainly because his bet was too high. I was hoping he’d fold with it but he called with his A 10 instead and I’d lost. I remembered that I told myself the day before never to play with A9 again as when I entered all my details into poker tracker it was the hand and lost the most chips with by far.

I’m not playing at my best right now by was happy yesterday when I came won a two dollar game and then came second in a five dollar. I didn’t want to stop there and played another two games and lost them both. I don’t know what’s wrong but I’m playing terrible right now, I’m unfocused and I’m making stupid moves.

Bad start to the month and I hope it gets better.

Beat the Brunsons and win $100000.

DoylesRoom’s newest tournament where everyone is a bounty! On top of the tournament payouts, you get $5 for every player you eliminate and special Brunson Bounties from $250 to $1,000 for knocking out each of the family members. If you can survive the crossfire and eliminate each Brunson, you will receive a monster cash bonus of $100,000. That’s no chicken feed, so you can be sure nobody is going down without a fight!

It’s being held on Tuesday night 9:30ET, that’s 2:30am Wednesday morning for anybody in the UK, but maybe it’s worth staying up for this ones. This is your only chance to take on all the Brunsons at once and they are making it affordable for everyone. You can directly buy into the tournament for only $10+1 but if that’s still expensive you can enter satellites inot the tournament for as little as $1.10.

There are many way’s to make some cash in this event.

$100,000 Beat The Brunsons Bounty- Knock them all out and this cash mountain is yours.
Tournament Prize Pool – Go deep in the tournament and you’ll be rewarded handsomely.

$500 Casino Chip – The tournament winner gets a bonus $500 in their DoylesCasino account.

Everyone’s A Bounty – Take aim at all other players because everyone has a $5 cash bounty on their head.
Brunson Bounties – Cash anywhere from $250 to $1,000 when you eliminate a Brunson from the tournament.

$5,000 10/2 Challenge – Doyle won back-to-back WSOPs with 10/2. K.O. him with it and we’ll pay you $5,000.

Brunson Family Feud -If a Brunson knocks out another Brunson, everyone at that table gets their buy-in back.

Get Beat By The Man – Getting knocked out of a tournament by Doyle Brunson is nothing to be ashamed of, it’s happened to the best of them. If Tex Dolly takes you out, we’ll send you a free copy of one of his bestselling books so you can sharpen your game and come back for another shot.

As you can see the low buy-in is worth it.

See you at the tables.