April ended up being a reasonably solid month, continuing on progress from March. I've touched on completely recovering from my downswing, but am still a few BBs off again now as you can see from my graph from a few days ago.
Can't recall too many highlights from the month, but I did do a couple strategy posts on the blog about table and seat selection.
The were a couple disappointments from a couple sites this month. Firstly the announcement from Bodog that there will be no more monthly reload bonuses. Hopefully they replace it with something half decent. Secondly the drop in traffic on Cake from their loss of a couple rooms. Apparently a couple different rooms are to be added to the network shortly though.
For April the goals in order of priority were:
• Clear a chunk more of the Cake reload (done, although have more reloads queued up than I can possibly clear)
• Qualify for the Cake freeroll (yep)
• Play the March Cake and Fulltilt freerolls (slept through FT ... stupid daylight savings)
• Clear some more bodog reload bonus (cleared a fair amount for me for a month)
• Clear my Party bonus (completed whilst making a loss
The profit of $1,100 for the month was made up of:
Bonuses / VIP / Rakeback: $ 410
• Bodog $150
• Cake $200
• Party $50
• Pacific $10
Poker bankroll Interest: $90
Poker profits: $600
Goals for May are:
• Clear a chunk more of the Cake reload
• Qualify for the Cake freeroll
• Play the May Cake freerolls
• Clear most of my final bodog reload bonus (*sniff*)
• Hopefully baby #1 comes at the end of the month too ...
Current bankroll: $25,800
April time played: 24.5h
April hands played: 5,616
April profit / (loss): $1100
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Time to rebalance some cash
Decided I had too much on a couple sites so it's time to move some cash around. Mostly probably back to neteller, as I think i've got enough on most of the smaller sites as well.
I like to have around 100BBs on any individual site as a minimum, and then if I get to much more than 300BB I will withdraw back down to 100BBs. I'm currently budgeting for playing up to $5/10 so that means leaving around $1k on any individual site. Having said that I may leave $1.5k on the sites I regularly play at, just in case.
I had lost a chunk on purple lounge, and was down to my last $300 on there, but instead of depositing more to bring it back up, I will set myself a challenge to build it up again from there (hopefully without losing it). It might not be the best use of my overall bankroll to make the most profits, but I will enjoy the challenge and it gives me another thing to keep me interested and keen on poker. Not that I really play much on Purple Lounge so it might be a slow process.
On the tables the last couple days, the sessions started okay, up around $100, including a small win on a $5/10 table where I didn't play a single hand for the first 20 hands, before winning a 15BB pot with only top pair.
I then found a $3/6 table with a huge fish to my right, as well as a couple to my left. After not winning a single showdown for 75 hands, it made for a fairly poor result at the end of the day. At least i've found a new fish to look for next time though.
Current bankroll: $25,750
April time played: 24.3h
April hands played: 5,602
April profit / (loss): $1,050
I like to have around 100BBs on any individual site as a minimum, and then if I get to much more than 300BB I will withdraw back down to 100BBs. I'm currently budgeting for playing up to $5/10 so that means leaving around $1k on any individual site. Having said that I may leave $1.5k on the sites I regularly play at, just in case.
I had lost a chunk on purple lounge, and was down to my last $300 on there, but instead of depositing more to bring it back up, I will set myself a challenge to build it up again from there (hopefully without losing it). It might not be the best use of my overall bankroll to make the most profits, but I will enjoy the challenge and it gives me another thing to keep me interested and keen on poker. Not that I really play much on Purple Lounge so it might be a slow process.
On the tables the last couple days, the sessions started okay, up around $100, including a small win on a $5/10 table where I didn't play a single hand for the first 20 hands, before winning a 15BB pot with only top pair.
I then found a $3/6 table with a huge fish to my right, as well as a couple to my left. After not winning a single showdown for 75 hands, it made for a fairly poor result at the end of the day. At least i've found a new fish to look for next time though.
Current bankroll: $25,750
April time played: 24.3h
April hands played: 5,602
April profit / (loss): $1,050
Monday, April 26, 2010
Year to date graph
Still digging my way out of my downswing from the start of the year, but i'm getting pretty close to seeing light at the end of the tunnel now. Hopefully I won't see a downswing that big again for a while .. touch wood. At the same time, i'm showing an okay profit for the year now, thanks to Rakeback / bonuses.
Can't say I played all that much over the weekend. I've started playing need for speed underground on the wii, and that seems to be taking up some of my spare time instead of playing poker. I'm sure its good to get a bit of a break every so often anyways, and then coming back to the tables fresh and keen to play.
I've also now turned on comment moderation for the blog, as i've been getting a few posters who have included malicious links in their comments which could infect other readers PCs if they're not careful. I'll still allow all reasonable comments though as I view any criticism as contructive in some way.
Current bankroll: $25,850
April time played: 22.3h
April hands played: 5,238
April profit / (loss): $1,150
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Purple lounge back up and running for me
Seems like a simple uninstall and reinstall fixed up my problems with the last update. Not sure why it didn't install successfully before, but at least it's running now.
Not that i've been able to find any tables on there that were fishy enough with the right available seats, so I haven't actually played a hand there again yet.
Played a little last night, with a maximum of four tables running split between Bodog, Cake and Pacific. I suspect that at first it would appear strange to have three different looking tables up at once, but i'm fairly used to it now. There just weren't enough fishy tables running on any individual site.
The fishiest table I jumped on was Pacific, where I proceeded to lose about 15BBs in pretty quick time. My Cake and Bodog tables weren't quite as good, however, both paid me off reasonably well thanks to a couple fish on Cake and one in particular on Bodog. One of which called most times preflop and would call down with bottom pair no kicker no matter what was on the board. Several times i'd cbet even with A high, and he'd call down with say J high. Obviously i've made a note to find him every time I possibly can in future, although I don't think he'll have much cash left.
The second fish was a super loose aggro player, who had me down early thanks to a backdoor flush when he raised T3s from the button versus my AT in the big blind. However, he was kind enough to keep firing most hands, on most streets, with virtually air to pay me off a good 20BBs in the end. Made a note on him as well.
Long weekend this weekend. Might get in a bit of poker with any luck as we're not too busy.
Current bankroll: $25,600
April time played: 21.1h
April hands played: 4,888
April profit / (loss): $900
Not that i've been able to find any tables on there that were fishy enough with the right available seats, so I haven't actually played a hand there again yet.
Played a little last night, with a maximum of four tables running split between Bodog, Cake and Pacific. I suspect that at first it would appear strange to have three different looking tables up at once, but i'm fairly used to it now. There just weren't enough fishy tables running on any individual site.
The fishiest table I jumped on was Pacific, where I proceeded to lose about 15BBs in pretty quick time. My Cake and Bodog tables weren't quite as good, however, both paid me off reasonably well thanks to a couple fish on Cake and one in particular on Bodog. One of which called most times preflop and would call down with bottom pair no kicker no matter what was on the board. Several times i'd cbet even with A high, and he'd call down with say J high. Obviously i've made a note to find him every time I possibly can in future, although I don't think he'll have much cash left.
The second fish was a super loose aggro player, who had me down early thanks to a backdoor flush when he raised T3s from the button versus my AT in the big blind. However, he was kind enough to keep firing most hands, on most streets, with virtually air to pay me off a good 20BBs in the end. Made a note on him as well.
Long weekend this weekend. Might get in a bit of poker with any luck as we're not too busy.
Current bankroll: $25,600
April time played: 21.1h
April hands played: 4,888
April profit / (loss): $900
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
A sad day
Just got an email from Bodog - they are discontinuing their monthly reload bonus. Disappointing to say the least, as I probably put in nearly 50% of my monthly volume on Bodog.
All is not lost, as they are going to replace it with something ... but it really depends on what that something is. Hopefully we will find out soon, and it will still be worth my time playing there.
I've got one more month's worth of reload to go, so between Bodog and Cake, that is where the bulk of my play will be.
I've got more bonus pending in Cake than I can possibly clear by the expiry date in July, due to receiving a couple reloads in the space of a week. Doesn't matter too much though, as it clears $10 at a time, so i'll just keep plodding along.
Current bankroll: $25,450
April time played: 20.2h
April hands played: 4,640
April profit / (loss): $750
All is not lost, as they are going to replace it with something ... but it really depends on what that something is. Hopefully we will find out soon, and it will still be worth my time playing there.
I've got one more month's worth of reload to go, so between Bodog and Cake, that is where the bulk of my play will be.
I've got more bonus pending in Cake than I can possibly clear by the expiry date in July, due to receiving a couple reloads in the space of a week. Doesn't matter too much though, as it clears $10 at a time, so i'll just keep plodding along.
Current bankroll: $25,450
April time played: 20.2h
April hands played: 4,640
April profit / (loss): $750
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Weekend freeroll fail
Got up for the Cake freeroll on the weekend. That's now 4.30am Sunday morning for me until daylight savings comes around again. If I didn't happen to wake up just before it, i'd have missed it, like I did with the Fulltilt freeroll the week before which starts at the same time.
So, after getting up insanely early, I sat down at the table, which had two sit outs, quite a few tight players and two loose fish. I then played for over an hour, but only got to see one flop.
Each orbit I basically was able to grab the blinds, plus a little bit more, and no one called my 3x preflop raises. This went on for basically the whole first hour, except one time when I was in the small blind with junk, and he shoved so I had to fold.
Eventually the blinds have increased by that much that i've only got 9BBs left and shove from the SB with J9o only to get called by one of the table fish in the big blind, who flips over KJs. And that was it for the tournament - at least I saw one flop. Glad I got up at 4.30am for that .......
Current bankroll: $25,350
April time played: 19.2h
April hands played: 4,373
April profit / (loss): $650
So, after getting up insanely early, I sat down at the table, which had two sit outs, quite a few tight players and two loose fish. I then played for over an hour, but only got to see one flop.
Each orbit I basically was able to grab the blinds, plus a little bit more, and no one called my 3x preflop raises. This went on for basically the whole first hour, except one time when I was in the small blind with junk, and he shoved so I had to fold.
Eventually the blinds have increased by that much that i've only got 9BBs left and shove from the SB with J9o only to get called by one of the table fish in the big blind, who flips over KJs. And that was it for the tournament - at least I saw one flop. Glad I got up at 4.30am for that .......
Current bankroll: $25,350
April time played: 19.2h
April hands played: 4,373
April profit / (loss): $650
Monday, April 19, 2010
Haven't had one of these for a while
Struggled a bit on the weekend to find tables worth playing on, even during peak times. Maybe the skins leaving Cake are having an impact on their traffic already.
It didn't stop me from finding a couple huge fish on one $4/8 table though. In the hour that I played there one lost $600, and the other lost $400. I ended the session $5 up. Frustrating, but better than the $200 I was down at one stage to the two fish.
This month has been a bit of a roller coaster, having been up a solid 200 to 250BBs, then back to 100BBs up and now back to about 160 up. The bankroll fluctuated even more significantly - up $500 from play, back to even, and now up a bit again. But that's how it is, and its just another day at the office.
Here's my favourite hand from my last session:
$2/$4 Limit Holdem
6 Players
Stacks:
UTG $193.75
Hero (UTG+1) $93
CO $132
BTN $107
SB $141.50
BB $74
Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1 8c Tc (about the bottom of my range)
1 fold, Hero raises, CO calls, BTN 3-bets, 2 folds, Hero calls, CO calls (button is a fish, but not overly aggo, so probably has something here)
Flop: Jc 9c 7h (10.5 SB, 3 players) (hehe awesome flop for me - stone cold nuts, plus open ended straight flush draw)
Hero checks, CO checks, BTN bets, Hero raises, CO calls, BTN 3-bets, Hero 4-bets, CO folds, BTN calls (set of Js for the Button?)
Turn: Ah (10.2 BB, 2 players)
Hero bets, BTN calls
River: 7c (12.2 BB, 2 players) (ka-ching)
Hero bets, BTN raises, Hero 3-bets, BTN 4-bets, Hero calls (hehe i'm guessin he hit his boat here. He will be disappointed)
Final Pot: 20.2 BB
BTN shows (Full House, Aces full of Sevens ) Ac Ad
Hero shows Straight Flush, Jack high 8c Tc
Hero wins 19.5 BB (net +11.0 BB)
BTN lost 8.5 BB
CO lost 2.5 BB
He wasn't overly happy losing with the 2nd nuts and may have chatted a little, but I didn't say anything back.
Current bankroll: $25,250
April time played: 18h
April hands played: 4,033
April profit / (loss): $550
It didn't stop me from finding a couple huge fish on one $4/8 table though. In the hour that I played there one lost $600, and the other lost $400. I ended the session $5 up. Frustrating, but better than the $200 I was down at one stage to the two fish.
This month has been a bit of a roller coaster, having been up a solid 200 to 250BBs, then back to 100BBs up and now back to about 160 up. The bankroll fluctuated even more significantly - up $500 from play, back to even, and now up a bit again. But that's how it is, and its just another day at the office.
Here's my favourite hand from my last session:
$2/$4 Limit Holdem
6 Players
Stacks:
UTG $193.75
Hero (UTG+1) $93
CO $132
BTN $107
SB $141.50
BB $74
Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1 8c Tc (about the bottom of my range)
1 fold, Hero raises, CO calls, BTN 3-bets, 2 folds, Hero calls, CO calls (button is a fish, but not overly aggo, so probably has something here)
Flop: Jc 9c 7h (10.5 SB, 3 players) (hehe awesome flop for me - stone cold nuts, plus open ended straight flush draw)
Hero checks, CO checks, BTN bets, Hero raises, CO calls, BTN 3-bets, Hero 4-bets, CO folds, BTN calls (set of Js for the Button?)
Turn: Ah (10.2 BB, 2 players)
Hero bets, BTN calls
River: 7c (12.2 BB, 2 players) (ka-ching)
Hero bets, BTN raises, Hero 3-bets, BTN 4-bets, Hero calls (hehe i'm guessin he hit his boat here. He will be disappointed)
Final Pot: 20.2 BB
BTN shows (Full House, Aces full of Sevens ) Ac Ad
Hero shows Straight Flush, Jack high 8c Tc
Hero wins 19.5 BB (net +11.0 BB)
BTN lost 8.5 BB
CO lost 2.5 BB
He wasn't overly happy losing with the 2nd nuts and may have chatted a little, but I didn't say anything back.
Current bankroll: $25,250
April time played: 18h
April hands played: 4,033
April profit / (loss): $550
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
New microgaming update = crash
Couldn't find enough tables last night on my main sites, so ended up opening Microgaming in the search for the fish. That automatically updated their software, and when attempting to load, crashed at the loading graphics stage. It now continues to crash there every time.
A quick email to purple lounge support got an amazingly unhelpful response of, does your PC meet the minimum requirements. Given i'd told them what my PC specs are, and the software had been running fine before this was unsurprisingly unhelpful.
I figure i'll try deleting it and reinstalling tonight. Hopefully that will fix it.
I ended up playing on a couple fishy $3/6 tables last night for a while though. And boy was that painful. I found possibly the biggest fish i've ever seen in my life. He simply called. And called. And called some more. Whether he had the stone cold nuts, or was holding 3 high, he called every hand to the river. Of course in several 20BB pots he binked the runner runner nuts to my second nuts or some such equivalent, before donating it all to someone else.
Ended up not helping the bankroll at all. I wish he'd stayed longer, and i'm sure I would have more than recovered. All up, I think I had about four $100+ pots where I got rivered, and since it only takes one or two of those to turn a losing session into a winning session - let alone winning all four from time to time.
Current bankroll: $25,100
April time played: 15.3h
April hands played: 3,531
April profit / (loss): $400
A quick email to purple lounge support got an amazingly unhelpful response of, does your PC meet the minimum requirements. Given i'd told them what my PC specs are, and the software had been running fine before this was unsurprisingly unhelpful.
I figure i'll try deleting it and reinstalling tonight. Hopefully that will fix it.
I ended up playing on a couple fishy $3/6 tables last night for a while though. And boy was that painful. I found possibly the biggest fish i've ever seen in my life. He simply called. And called. And called some more. Whether he had the stone cold nuts, or was holding 3 high, he called every hand to the river. Of course in several 20BB pots he binked the runner runner nuts to my second nuts or some such equivalent, before donating it all to someone else.
Ended up not helping the bankroll at all. I wish he'd stayed longer, and i'm sure I would have more than recovered. All up, I think I had about four $100+ pots where I got rivered, and since it only takes one or two of those to turn a losing session into a winning session - let alone winning all four from time to time.
Current bankroll: $25,100
April time played: 15.3h
April hands played: 3,531
April profit / (loss): $400
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
I write about them, and then they bite back
Ran into a few fish who decided to keep hitting their cards on me which has lead to my worst session for a while. Somewhat ironic, given i'd just written about my favourite types of fish.
One of them was kind enough to take about 30BBs off me, whilst still managing to go broke against the rest of the table, and then leaving and being replaced by a TAG which meant I had to get up to find another table. grrrr.
I also cost myself an extra 3BBs on one hand where I had flopped the nuts, but my opponent had then turned the nuts which meant I was now losing. Capping the river in that situation wasn't my finest work ever.
Anyways, I had to reload on two of my tables where i'd dropped 20BBs each, and continued to lose ending the session with a WTSD of around 22% and a W$SD of 25%. Ugly. About $50 in rakeback credits helped it not look too bad in the end though.
Current bankroll: $25,250
April time played: 14h
April hands played: 3,214
April profit / (loss): $550
One of them was kind enough to take about 30BBs off me, whilst still managing to go broke against the rest of the table, and then leaving and being replaced by a TAG which meant I had to get up to find another table. grrrr.
I also cost myself an extra 3BBs on one hand where I had flopped the nuts, but my opponent had then turned the nuts which meant I was now losing. Capping the river in that situation wasn't my finest work ever.
Anyways, I had to reload on two of my tables where i'd dropped 20BBs each, and continued to lose ending the session with a WTSD of around 22% and a W$SD of 25%. Ugly. About $50 in rakeback credits helped it not look too bad in the end though.
Current bankroll: $25,250
April time played: 14h
April hands played: 3,214
April profit / (loss): $550
Monday, April 12, 2010
My favourite fish types
As i've said before, I generally try to be playing against the fishiest (ie worst) opponents I can find. What makes a fish? Well, its basically anyone who plays outside what is normally expected as winning play, and tends to donate their bankroll to the table. ie they lose over the long term at reasonably fast rate.
Generally fish can be classified based on their style of play, which can also be drawn out by their pokertracker statistics. In particular I like to look at their preflop statistics as a key starting point, because, basically if they're a poor player preflop, its also likely they are fairly poor post flop.
So in terms of pokertracker the important preflop stats are:
VPIP: The percentage of times an opponent voluntarily puts money in the pot (ie they limp, raise, or call)
PFR: The percentage of times an opponent raises preflop.
For 6max limit poker that I play, optimal stats are somewhere around the 30% vpip and 20% pfr (usually shown at 30/20 in my blog and generally described as a TAG - tight aggressive). More aggressive players (LAG - loose aggressive) can also be profitable playing a 50%/30% game or somewhere between that and the TAG statistics. I won't go into why those styles tend to be profitable, but if you pick up any 6max limit books, they shouldn't tell you much different from that.
In order of preference I like to be playing against:
1. A very loose passive - anyone who is seeing over about 50% of flops (VPIP 50), and raising say less than 5% I put in the loose passive category who I really want to be playing against. With luck I will even find someone with a VPIP of 80% which categorises them as a massive fish, and there's a good chance they'll give all their money away as they are playing almost any two cards, and likely are playing any two in the blinds.
2. The showdown monkey - This is actually a different statistic in pokertracker as it relates to post flop play. Optimal for a 30/20 player is to go to showdown (WTSD) around or just under 40% of the time. If I ever spot someone showing down 50% of the time or more, you know they are often chasing draws or cards they are not priced in to chase, or bluffing with complete air. These players are particularly profitable for me, as they will be calling big bets on the turn and river, and will often be drawing dead. Combine them with being loose/passive preflop, and they are the perfect fish.
3. A loose semi aggressive - The 60/20 type is also good to play against. You can use a normal preflop range for hand reading their preflop raises, but when they don't raise, you can pretty liberally raise them as they are often playing very poor hands, like unsuited connectors, gappers, Q2 - Q8 etc.
4. A very loose aggressive - sometimes you'll find a player who is showing something like 80/60. They are basically playing every hand, and raising most of the time. Any time you have a solid hand its worth 3 betting to isolate these players. Sure they will sometimes have a hand, and that may create some variance, but generally they will lose all their cash fairly quickly
It is also handy to have notes on how players play particular hands. Some will bet aggressively on the flop with 2nd or 3rd pair. Others will bluff any flop. With the right notes, someone who has solid statistics, can still be turned into a money spewing fish.
Who I try to avoid:
Basically I try to avoid the TAGs. I won't sit in a seat with a 30/20 player on my right. If the player to my right is a LAG running at 50/30, I will only sit down if he is terrible post flop, preferably showing down too much and showing as a big loser in my Pokertracker database.
As per my seat selection post, I dont really care if there are TAGs on my left if there are fish on my right. Sure they'll probably take some money from me, but not as much as I'm making from the fish.
What it means to be playing against fish:
What is means, and what you need to be prepared for, are the bad beats. They are going to be playing rubbish cards. They are going to be chasing their 4, 3,2 or 1 outers. They are going to hit them. Not often enough to not be a complete loser, but often enough to annoy you and potentially put you off your game if they hit a few in a row.
In my last session alone I had AA cracked the three times I received it. Once by someone with T5s who flopped TT5, which also rivered me the backdoor nut flush with four spades on the board. That hand alone cost a lot. Another crack was a guy playing 85s who fopped a set of 8s, and finally the last guy had A6s on a 234 flop, with a rivered 5 which gave me the bottom end of the straight only to lose to his 6.
If you're playing only against TAGs, those beats basically won't happen. However, nor will they keep playing T5s for the 90% of the time that they don't hit anything, or hit something but are still behind giving you an even bigger pot.
Current bankroll: $25,450
April time played: 12.2h
April hands played: 2,875
April profit / (loss): $750
Generally fish can be classified based on their style of play, which can also be drawn out by their pokertracker statistics. In particular I like to look at their preflop statistics as a key starting point, because, basically if they're a poor player preflop, its also likely they are fairly poor post flop.
So in terms of pokertracker the important preflop stats are:
VPIP: The percentage of times an opponent voluntarily puts money in the pot (ie they limp, raise, or call)
PFR: The percentage of times an opponent raises preflop.
For 6max limit poker that I play, optimal stats are somewhere around the 30% vpip and 20% pfr (usually shown at 30/20 in my blog and generally described as a TAG - tight aggressive). More aggressive players (LAG - loose aggressive) can also be profitable playing a 50%/30% game or somewhere between that and the TAG statistics. I won't go into why those styles tend to be profitable, but if you pick up any 6max limit books, they shouldn't tell you much different from that.
In order of preference I like to be playing against:
1. A very loose passive - anyone who is seeing over about 50% of flops (VPIP 50), and raising say less than 5% I put in the loose passive category who I really want to be playing against. With luck I will even find someone with a VPIP of 80% which categorises them as a massive fish, and there's a good chance they'll give all their money away as they are playing almost any two cards, and likely are playing any two in the blinds.
2. The showdown monkey - This is actually a different statistic in pokertracker as it relates to post flop play. Optimal for a 30/20 player is to go to showdown (WTSD) around or just under 40% of the time. If I ever spot someone showing down 50% of the time or more, you know they are often chasing draws or cards they are not priced in to chase, or bluffing with complete air. These players are particularly profitable for me, as they will be calling big bets on the turn and river, and will often be drawing dead. Combine them with being loose/passive preflop, and they are the perfect fish.
3. A loose semi aggressive - The 60/20 type is also good to play against. You can use a normal preflop range for hand reading their preflop raises, but when they don't raise, you can pretty liberally raise them as they are often playing very poor hands, like unsuited connectors, gappers, Q2 - Q8 etc.
4. A very loose aggressive - sometimes you'll find a player who is showing something like 80/60. They are basically playing every hand, and raising most of the time. Any time you have a solid hand its worth 3 betting to isolate these players. Sure they will sometimes have a hand, and that may create some variance, but generally they will lose all their cash fairly quickly
It is also handy to have notes on how players play particular hands. Some will bet aggressively on the flop with 2nd or 3rd pair. Others will bluff any flop. With the right notes, someone who has solid statistics, can still be turned into a money spewing fish.
Who I try to avoid:
Basically I try to avoid the TAGs. I won't sit in a seat with a 30/20 player on my right. If the player to my right is a LAG running at 50/30, I will only sit down if he is terrible post flop, preferably showing down too much and showing as a big loser in my Pokertracker database.
As per my seat selection post, I dont really care if there are TAGs on my left if there are fish on my right. Sure they'll probably take some money from me, but not as much as I'm making from the fish.
What it means to be playing against fish:
What is means, and what you need to be prepared for, are the bad beats. They are going to be playing rubbish cards. They are going to be chasing their 4, 3,2 or 1 outers. They are going to hit them. Not often enough to not be a complete loser, but often enough to annoy you and potentially put you off your game if they hit a few in a row.
In my last session alone I had AA cracked the three times I received it. Once by someone with T5s who flopped TT5, which also rivered me the backdoor nut flush with four spades on the board. That hand alone cost a lot. Another crack was a guy playing 85s who fopped a set of 8s, and finally the last guy had A6s on a 234 flop, with a rivered 5 which gave me the bottom end of the straight only to lose to his 6.
If you're playing only against TAGs, those beats basically won't happen. However, nor will they keep playing T5s for the 90% of the time that they don't hit anything, or hit something but are still behind giving you an even bigger pot.
Current bankroll: $25,450
April time played: 12.2h
April hands played: 2,875
April profit / (loss): $750
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Seat selection 101
Why seat select?
Couple reasons really -
1. If you read any poker books, they will tell you that money tends to move clockwise around the table. The simple reason for this is that you have position on the opponent to your right, so for five hands out of six, you get to see them act first before you have to make a decision. Therefore you want to have a seat to the left of the biggest donaters on the table.
2. The second reason is to play as many hands as possible against the loose/passive players. If you are not near the fish or they are on your left, then you're not going to play as many hands against them as:
a) other aggressive players will raise you out of the hand,
b) the fish will see your raise and act after you giving them the opportunity to fold or
c) you'll be acting first and fold what could have been a decent hand multiway after they limp.
Basically you want them to be limping in, and then you follow with a raise to either isolate / build the pot with your big hands, or overlimp with decent pot odds. If you're playing before them, then they can fold their trash to your raise, rather than feel obliged to call a raise after limping in.
How do you seat select?
Seat selection is fairly simple really. Find the fish, and sit on their left. You want them limping in just in front of you allowing you to raise and potentially isolate as discussed above, or also giving you the opportunity to limp in with more marginal hands that are now priced to play because of a limper in front.
If you can find a fish that is prepared to just limp in the small blind giving you a free look from the big blind, you've almost found the perfect seat.
The player on your left is not quite so much of a concern. Ideally, i'd like a table full of fish, but if not, a tight passive on my left is also quite good. That would let me isolate my fish on my right, and also allow me to regularly steal their blinds. If I have position on a couple fish, I wouldn't even be concerned if the player to my left was quite good.
If I am looking for a really juicy table, i'll want the two players directly on my right to be loose, passive fish. That way I know that i'm playing the most possible hands against the worst possible players.
The theory applies similarly to an overaggressive loose player. It's generally a good idea to have them on your right, which allows you to three bet fairly liberally preflop to isolate, whilst also having position on them on every street post flop. These types of opponents can give you a lot of cash, but I prefer going up against the loose passives as they generally provide for a lower variance session.
How do I do it?
Basically if there's an empty seat on the left of the fish, its a no brainer, I sit down.
If the empty seat is on the right of the only big fish on the table, I won't sit down.
If i'm on a big downswing, i'll often only sit if there are two fish on the right of the empty seat. If i'm running well and playing at lower than my average stakes (say $1/2 or $2/4) I might accept a tight passive on my right, who won't be raising me off hands, if there is a super loose passive fish to their right.
Mostly though, its a matter of finding tables that have several fish, although they are likely full, and adding myself to the waiting list. At the start of my session i'll add myself to a good five to ten table wait lists (generally across two or three sites) which should allow me to find seats on four tables I normally have active simultaneously.
If the seat that comes up from the wait list does not meet the above criteria, I simply decline the seat, and add myself back to the wait list if the table still looks fishy overall.
If i've already got four tables running and a seat comes up, then i'll only sit at down if it has at least two fish to the right of the empty seat.
Once seated, I basically stay there until the fish run out of cash and are replaced by better players. With any luck they'll either be replaced by another fish, or get lucky and suck out on a number of opponents, whilst continuing to donate to me. I am also prepared to get up from my current seat and move to another one on the same table that is empty next to a fish if necessary. I always want to have the most advantage possible.
I think that about covers it ...
Current bankroll: $25,500
April time played: 10.6h
April hands played: 2,333
April profit / (loss): $800
Couple reasons really -
1. If you read any poker books, they will tell you that money tends to move clockwise around the table. The simple reason for this is that you have position on the opponent to your right, so for five hands out of six, you get to see them act first before you have to make a decision. Therefore you want to have a seat to the left of the biggest donaters on the table.
2. The second reason is to play as many hands as possible against the loose/passive players. If you are not near the fish or they are on your left, then you're not going to play as many hands against them as:
a) other aggressive players will raise you out of the hand,
b) the fish will see your raise and act after you giving them the opportunity to fold or
c) you'll be acting first and fold what could have been a decent hand multiway after they limp.
Basically you want them to be limping in, and then you follow with a raise to either isolate / build the pot with your big hands, or overlimp with decent pot odds. If you're playing before them, then they can fold their trash to your raise, rather than feel obliged to call a raise after limping in.
How do you seat select?
Seat selection is fairly simple really. Find the fish, and sit on their left. You want them limping in just in front of you allowing you to raise and potentially isolate as discussed above, or also giving you the opportunity to limp in with more marginal hands that are now priced to play because of a limper in front.
If you can find a fish that is prepared to just limp in the small blind giving you a free look from the big blind, you've almost found the perfect seat.
The player on your left is not quite so much of a concern. Ideally, i'd like a table full of fish, but if not, a tight passive on my left is also quite good. That would let me isolate my fish on my right, and also allow me to regularly steal their blinds. If I have position on a couple fish, I wouldn't even be concerned if the player to my left was quite good.
If I am looking for a really juicy table, i'll want the two players directly on my right to be loose, passive fish. That way I know that i'm playing the most possible hands against the worst possible players.
The theory applies similarly to an overaggressive loose player. It's generally a good idea to have them on your right, which allows you to three bet fairly liberally preflop to isolate, whilst also having position on them on every street post flop. These types of opponents can give you a lot of cash, but I prefer going up against the loose passives as they generally provide for a lower variance session.
How do I do it?
Basically if there's an empty seat on the left of the fish, its a no brainer, I sit down.
If the empty seat is on the right of the only big fish on the table, I won't sit down.
If i'm on a big downswing, i'll often only sit if there are two fish on the right of the empty seat. If i'm running well and playing at lower than my average stakes (say $1/2 or $2/4) I might accept a tight passive on my right, who won't be raising me off hands, if there is a super loose passive fish to their right.
Mostly though, its a matter of finding tables that have several fish, although they are likely full, and adding myself to the waiting list. At the start of my session i'll add myself to a good five to ten table wait lists (generally across two or three sites) which should allow me to find seats on four tables I normally have active simultaneously.
If the seat that comes up from the wait list does not meet the above criteria, I simply decline the seat, and add myself back to the wait list if the table still looks fishy overall.
If i've already got four tables running and a seat comes up, then i'll only sit at down if it has at least two fish to the right of the empty seat.
Once seated, I basically stay there until the fish run out of cash and are replaced by better players. With any luck they'll either be replaced by another fish, or get lucky and suck out on a number of opponents, whilst continuing to donate to me. I am also prepared to get up from my current seat and move to another one on the same table that is empty next to a fish if necessary. I always want to have the most advantage possible.
I think that about covers it ...
Current bankroll: $25,500
April time played: 10.6h
April hands played: 2,333
April profit / (loss): $800
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Table selection 101
From a comment on my last post: "You mention very often table selection. Might it be possible for you to write an article one day about the way you choose tables, e.g. how long do you observe before sitting down... do you fixate yourself on a specific seat and wait till it's free? Are you using buddy lists?"
Why table select?
To put it as simply as possible, if you are the worst player on the table, you will lose (in the long term). Poker is a game of relativity - you could be a crap player, but if you're playing against worse players you could still be a long term winner. Conversely, you could be the 2nd best poker player in the world, but if you play against the best player, you will lose.
Conversely, if you are best player on the table, does that mean you will win? Well, actually no. Since rake (the house cut) is taken out of every hand, not only do you have to be better than enough players at the table, but better by a margin that also covers the rake. So for an extreme example, if i'm the best player in the world, and am playing against the second best, there's still a fair chance i'd lose in the long term, just because of the rake.
Therefore you need to carefully select tables that have enough players that are worse than you, by a large enough margin to at least cover the rake.
How to table select?
The answer is .... it depends.
Generally I would start by looking in the lobby at tables with the highest number of players per flop. I'm really looking for the loosest opponents, who are most likely to be quite fishy and willing to donate a lot of cash to the other players. (might talk about that a bit more in future posts as some people look for tighter tables, which, in my opinion, is crazy).
On a site like Fulltilt, where you can use pokertracker and a HUD, I also colour code my opponents. For Fulltilt, these colours show up in the lobby view, so you don't even need to open the table to see if there are fish on it. For me, I code the very loose fish a bright green, and preferably if there's two or more on the table, i'll open it up and jump on or add myself to the waiting list.
On Cake poker, where you can't use poker tracker, I make manual notes against each player. These notes do not appear in the lobby view, so I have to open individual tables and then click on each player to check their stats,or view their colour code, generally starting with the player to the right of an open seat. If there are plenty of fish on the table and it is full i'd then just add myself to the wait list.
If the table is full of unknown opponents, then I am a little more reliant on the lobby players per flop figure. If it is very high there's a reasonable chance i'll sit down straight away at an empty seat, and then watch the table fairly closely both before I play a hand and for the first couple orbits. If there are a couple seats free or it's at the top end of my preferred stakes, its more likely that i'll just watch the action for an orbit or two to try to spot a loose passive to sit next to. If the table appears to be super aggro, i'll probably just give it a miss if the opponents are unknown.
Generally what i'm looking for, is a table which has a seat with two loose passive fish to the right, which i'll talk about a little more in seat selection (maybe my next post). If I can find a table with even more loose passives i'd jump at the chance, and instantly add myself to the wait list. Even one huge fish on my right would be acceptable if I know they regularly donate 10+BB/100.
I'm not really using buddy lists, as only certain sites seem to support it. Playing fixed limit 6 max, there's often not that many tables running, so I don't need to go looking for certain opponents, but rather accept any table that looks adequately fishy.
After selecting your table, though, you also need to keep monitoring it, just in case it tightens up as the fish leave, or better players join. I'm always prepared to leave a table if this happens, irrespective of how i'm running.
Current bankroll: $25,250
April time played: 8.3h
April hands played: 1,576
April profit / (loss): $550
Why table select?
To put it as simply as possible, if you are the worst player on the table, you will lose (in the long term). Poker is a game of relativity - you could be a crap player, but if you're playing against worse players you could still be a long term winner. Conversely, you could be the 2nd best poker player in the world, but if you play against the best player, you will lose.
Conversely, if you are best player on the table, does that mean you will win? Well, actually no. Since rake (the house cut) is taken out of every hand, not only do you have to be better than enough players at the table, but better by a margin that also covers the rake. So for an extreme example, if i'm the best player in the world, and am playing against the second best, there's still a fair chance i'd lose in the long term, just because of the rake.
Therefore you need to carefully select tables that have enough players that are worse than you, by a large enough margin to at least cover the rake.
How to table select?
The answer is .... it depends.
Generally I would start by looking in the lobby at tables with the highest number of players per flop. I'm really looking for the loosest opponents, who are most likely to be quite fishy and willing to donate a lot of cash to the other players. (might talk about that a bit more in future posts as some people look for tighter tables, which, in my opinion, is crazy).
On a site like Fulltilt, where you can use pokertracker and a HUD, I also colour code my opponents. For Fulltilt, these colours show up in the lobby view, so you don't even need to open the table to see if there are fish on it. For me, I code the very loose fish a bright green, and preferably if there's two or more on the table, i'll open it up and jump on or add myself to the waiting list.
On Cake poker, where you can't use poker tracker, I make manual notes against each player. These notes do not appear in the lobby view, so I have to open individual tables and then click on each player to check their stats,or view their colour code, generally starting with the player to the right of an open seat. If there are plenty of fish on the table and it is full i'd then just add myself to the wait list.
If the table is full of unknown opponents, then I am a little more reliant on the lobby players per flop figure. If it is very high there's a reasonable chance i'll sit down straight away at an empty seat, and then watch the table fairly closely both before I play a hand and for the first couple orbits. If there are a couple seats free or it's at the top end of my preferred stakes, its more likely that i'll just watch the action for an orbit or two to try to spot a loose passive to sit next to. If the table appears to be super aggro, i'll probably just give it a miss if the opponents are unknown.
Generally what i'm looking for, is a table which has a seat with two loose passive fish to the right, which i'll talk about a little more in seat selection (maybe my next post). If I can find a table with even more loose passives i'd jump at the chance, and instantly add myself to the wait list. Even one huge fish on my right would be acceptable if I know they regularly donate 10+BB/100.
I'm not really using buddy lists, as only certain sites seem to support it. Playing fixed limit 6 max, there's often not that many tables running, so I don't need to go looking for certain opponents, but rather accept any table that looks adequately fishy.
After selecting your table, though, you also need to keep monitoring it, just in case it tightens up as the fish leave, or better players join. I'm always prepared to leave a table if this happens, irrespective of how i'm running.
Current bankroll: $25,250
April time played: 8.3h
April hands played: 1,576
April profit / (loss): $550
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
How do you react to a downswing
I was thinking about this the other day, in terms of how I have reacted to my worst downswing to date. Sure i'd had a couple 300BB downswings, but this 500BB one (actually probably even a few more than that) has taken quite a while to recover from.
Step one for me was to withdraw some cash from my bankroll - not a huge amount, maybe $1k or nearly 5%, but almost as much as i'd lost. This seems a bit counter intuitive - withdrawing when I had lost a chunk of change. But I needed a way to feel like poker was still profitable, even if it temporarily (at least I hoped temporarily) wasn't.
Step two has been fairly religous table selecting, which has maybe got a little more lax in the last few weeks after recovering at least a couple hundred BBs. When strictly doing it, I like to have two 50+ vpip fish on my right. When i'm not so strictly table selecting i'll accept a single fish, or even be slightly out of position against several fish. Granted, i'm probably still making a profit when not being quite as picky, but when somewhat beaten down by variance, it's probably good to be playing with the largest advantage possible.
Step three has been patience - not trying to get it all back at once. Money lost quickly cannot be miraculously found again at a rate faster than your overall win rate. Dropping 100BBs can often take 5,000 - 10,000 hands to recover. Whilst it is nice to have the occasional super hot run, it's not something you can rely on.
Step four has been stakes selection - for me it was the choice to maintain my stakes to grind back a profit slowly, rather than increase stakes to try to get it back quickly. I've still played a few hands at $4/8 and $5/10, and even a few orbits at $10/20, but only when i've spotted a hugely fishy table. I think i've stated before that losing say 100BBs at $10/20, whilst being acceptable to my bankroll, it would not be acceptable to me psychologically ... yet. Maybe when my bankroll is larger it will be acceptable to me, but for now, it isn't. Therefore I won't be jumping up stakes to chase any losses any time soon, as it could easily make a downswing substantially worse.
Step five has been to let rakeback do its job. Recovering 200BBs on the tables was enough to recover my 500BB loss thanks to the additional credits generated through rakeback. Enough said.
Having said all that, i'm still well aware that another downswing could start any time soon, and that technically i'm still well down in table winning (approx 200BBs) from where I was.
However, since I include my rakeback in my bankroll, i'm not actually that concerned that i'm still down, and in fact, I don't really track my overall win rate all that closely. Total bankroll to me is far more important - provided that keeps going upwards, i'm happy.
Current bankroll: $25,150
April time played: 7.8h
April hands played: 1,519
April profit / (loss): $450
Step one for me was to withdraw some cash from my bankroll - not a huge amount, maybe $1k or nearly 5%, but almost as much as i'd lost. This seems a bit counter intuitive - withdrawing when I had lost a chunk of change. But I needed a way to feel like poker was still profitable, even if it temporarily (at least I hoped temporarily) wasn't.
Step two has been fairly religous table selecting, which has maybe got a little more lax in the last few weeks after recovering at least a couple hundred BBs. When strictly doing it, I like to have two 50+ vpip fish on my right. When i'm not so strictly table selecting i'll accept a single fish, or even be slightly out of position against several fish. Granted, i'm probably still making a profit when not being quite as picky, but when somewhat beaten down by variance, it's probably good to be playing with the largest advantage possible.
Step three has been patience - not trying to get it all back at once. Money lost quickly cannot be miraculously found again at a rate faster than your overall win rate. Dropping 100BBs can often take 5,000 - 10,000 hands to recover. Whilst it is nice to have the occasional super hot run, it's not something you can rely on.
Step four has been stakes selection - for me it was the choice to maintain my stakes to grind back a profit slowly, rather than increase stakes to try to get it back quickly. I've still played a few hands at $4/8 and $5/10, and even a few orbits at $10/20, but only when i've spotted a hugely fishy table. I think i've stated before that losing say 100BBs at $10/20, whilst being acceptable to my bankroll, it would not be acceptable to me psychologically ... yet. Maybe when my bankroll is larger it will be acceptable to me, but for now, it isn't. Therefore I won't be jumping up stakes to chase any losses any time soon, as it could easily make a downswing substantially worse.
Step five has been to let rakeback do its job. Recovering 200BBs on the tables was enough to recover my 500BB loss thanks to the additional credits generated through rakeback. Enough said.
Having said all that, i'm still well aware that another downswing could start any time soon, and that technically i'm still well down in table winning (approx 200BBs) from where I was.
However, since I include my rakeback in my bankroll, i'm not actually that concerned that i'm still down, and in fact, I don't really track my overall win rate all that closely. Total bankroll to me is far more important - provided that keeps going upwards, i'm happy.
Current bankroll: $25,150
April time played: 7.8h
April hands played: 1,519
April profit / (loss): $450
Monday, April 5, 2010
Party cleared
Not sure how it cleared, as I didn't think i'd earned anywhere near enough points, but my Party bonus is no longer pending. Maybe because I lost more than the bonus, it instantly cleared. Always annoying when you lose more than the bonus you are trying to earn. Oh well.
I had a couple nasty little sessions, with four showdowns in the space of an hour where i'm holding the K high flush, and have run into the nut flush in obviously some quite large pots. This would have put a decent dent in the bankroll (and in fact dropped me nearly 50BBs all up), if it weren't for a few fish on some other tables who were donating quite liberally, often betting with literally nothing. Admittedly I was even surprised that a few of my hands held up.
Indeed, on one hand I held AK on a flop of AKK, and managed to keep two opponents calling my raise on the flop, and then they both called the turn K which gave me quads. Only one caller on the river though, but it was a nice pot still.
Current bankroll: $25,100
April time played: 7h
April hands played: 1,375
April profit / (loss): $400
I had a couple nasty little sessions, with four showdowns in the space of an hour where i'm holding the K high flush, and have run into the nut flush in obviously some quite large pots. This would have put a decent dent in the bankroll (and in fact dropped me nearly 50BBs all up), if it weren't for a few fish on some other tables who were donating quite liberally, often betting with literally nothing. Admittedly I was even surprised that a few of my hands held up.
Indeed, on one hand I held AK on a flop of AKK, and managed to keep two opponents calling my raise on the flop, and then they both called the turn K which gave me quads. Only one caller on the river though, but it was a nice pot still.
Current bankroll: $25,100
April time played: 7h
April hands played: 1,375
April profit / (loss): $400
Sunday, April 4, 2010
$25,000
Better late than never - was hoping to hit $25,000 back in December, but my 500BB downswing over the next couple months destroyed that idea. Feels good to hit the milestone though, and I guess a bit of a vindication that with patience, i'll eventually be able to recover any losses.
Still a fair way into that downswing now, having recovered a little over 250BBs, but rakeback and bonuses have made up for the rest of those losses, and added a little profit on top.
I've actually played a few hours over the Easter weekend, but it looks like everyone's on holiday, as there aren't all that many tables running whenever i'm on. Each session seems to have started with a loss before ending a few dollars up, and i've bounced off the $25k mark a couple times already. Hopefully here to stay now - particularly if I can keep running a little on the hot side.
I've only really had one bad session so far this month, where I ended up heads up with an aggro muppet who just kept hitting everything - I was particularly aggrieved with his 45o on a board of AT7r when i'm holding KT and he c/rs the flop, raises the 4 turn, and then bets the river 5 when he spikes his runner runner two pair ... f me. That was at my bogey stakes level of $2/4. All other stakes from $1/2 to $5/10 are currently in the green for the month, although at such a small volume they could easily turn around.
Current bankroll: $25,000
April time played: 5h
April hands played: 984
April profit / (loss): $300
Still a fair way into that downswing now, having recovered a little over 250BBs, but rakeback and bonuses have made up for the rest of those losses, and added a little profit on top.
I've actually played a few hours over the Easter weekend, but it looks like everyone's on holiday, as there aren't all that many tables running whenever i'm on. Each session seems to have started with a loss before ending a few dollars up, and i've bounced off the $25k mark a couple times already. Hopefully here to stay now - particularly if I can keep running a little on the hot side.
I've only really had one bad session so far this month, where I ended up heads up with an aggro muppet who just kept hitting everything - I was particularly aggrieved with his 45o on a board of AT7r when i'm holding KT and he c/rs the flop, raises the 4 turn, and then bets the river 5 when he spikes his runner runner two pair ... f me. That was at my bogey stakes level of $2/4. All other stakes from $1/2 to $5/10 are currently in the green for the month, although at such a small volume they could easily turn around.
Current bankroll: $25,000
April time played: 5h
April hands played: 984
April profit / (loss): $300
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