Since I’ve not updated this in a crazy amount of time, I thought it was time for an update while I have a few spare minutes.

I guess my 100K hand challenge is at a standstill, or technically completed, depends on your viewpoint

I got in aprox 90K hands of 50nl (8k hands of 25nl, and 3k hands 100ml) and despite starting off good, I nose-dived quite badly over the last 40K hands and took a bit of a beating both in terms of quote, unquote ‘running bad’ and eventually playing bad, and then spewing and tilting like a mofo.

I then dropped down to 25nl and did reasonably well turning a profit and a short stint back at 50nl with good results saw me have a bit of a brainfart one sunday night, that saw me take a crack at 100nl and lose 9 or 10 buy-ins or so.

Since then I’ve been on a hold’em cash game sabatical, sulking, but mostly ‘working on my game’ and taking mental stock of things and how I want to proceed.

Although it has been my worst month in cash games circa around $1.2k down, it has been one of my best months too in other ways as I finished 4th in the Cake $100 guaranteed tourney, to score a near $3.8K and also finally wrapped up the EMS Freezeout League with one week to spare, scooping me a £1,000 worth GUKPT seat which is pretty amazing - and I thank Eat My Stack and Blue Square very much for this sweet prize.

I was really focussed this season to win the EMS league after finishing runner-up to Stanters last season. Alot of good players have won the EMS league previously like Stants, Ram, Bayliss and so I made it one of my goals to win the league and I’m really pleased to have fulfilled this goal and hope to do my best and perform well when I play the seat, which is looking like it might be at Blackpool at the EMS meet-up in November.

My 3 main goals at the start of the year was;
1) To Win the EMS league
2) To score a 4 figure sum in an online MTT (I dont play many donkaments at all)
3) To be playing 100nl 6max and be comfortable at that level by the end of the year.

So I have achieved 2 of my 3 main goals thus far, which is pleasing. The fact I took a hasty shot at 100nl was a disapointment and something that I am really annoyed about.

At present my goals are open and still under consideration, as to whether to continue with NL 6max or not, or learn a new game like PLO and make it my new main game.

I have been taking in a few videos of PLO during my ‘downtime and reflection’ period and have playing a little PLO-50 to some success, and feel like I’m learning and coming on in leaps and bounds as I was a bit of an Omaha noob before this week having never played it seriously bar a few tournaments and having a general grasp of the game.

At the moment, I’m leaning towards having a spell of continueing the PLO adventure for a little while and see if I can play this profitably. I may still play some 25 or 50nl depending on how my mood takes me next month, but my general focus in July I feel will be PLO right now, but of course that is subject to change

100k hands of 50nl challenge thread

 On march the 11th, I posted on EMS about starting a new challenge.

The mission if I choose to accept it, was to play 100K hands of 50NL on Stars.

I finally cleared my bonus over at Cake at 100nl, and ended up losing in actual play over ~18k hands but rakeback/deposit bonus pulled me almost level. About $150 down total.

I ran really bad, ten BI’s below equity in EV from the 10K hands that managed to convert and import into HEM - I know everyone says they run bad, but I ran into some real sickness.

I needed a new target to keep me on the straight and narrow. I know I’m good enough for 100nl and have confidence in my game, but mentally wasnt ready to run bad at the higher level, and want a bigger BR to cushion such things for when I next step up (looking for a super conservative 60 BI BR before I hit 100nl seriously again)

Thus, set myself a target of playing 100K hands at 50nl. And as a side project to learn a new game. It was originally going to be me working on my limit game some more, but I decided to try my hand at PLO. I dont have a hands target for the PLO, just playing little bits here and there learning the game and watching videos. I’ve been playing a few PLO tournaments as well and doing quite well, as I signed up to play at the live APAT PLO tourney at the WCOAP at Dusk Till Dawn in August.

I’m not a mega grinder cos I work and stuff, so this will take me about 4 months, so far I’ve played about 17K hands but am about to kick up the volume.

This is a live video I made of my play 2-tabling 50NL on Stars back in late february which was posted on EMS, forum thread, thought I’d include here on my blog.

No really interesting spots in this video, but I think it shows some solid play of how to beat the 50nl level by just playing ABC aggressive poker.

 DOWNLOAD HERE

So yesterday was a bit of  a bummer to say the least. A day from hell in my opinion.

Get home from a tough day at work ready for some more internet poker and load up the lappy as normal whilst texting a female friend that I’m currently ‘working’ on, all is well, good times.

I grab some food for my tea and place my coffee on the table as I plan to briefly browse the forums and then load up some tables for a serious crack at 50nl. I put my laptop and mobile briefly on the floor while I lean over the table to get my wireless mouse… and yes you can guess it. In a somewhat Matrix-esque freak stylee slow motion moment, I accidently knocked over my brew and up it went into the air. Liquid flying everywhere, I managed to reflex grab and then butter-fingers the cup a few times before it eventually slipped out of my frailing hands smashed on the floor and sent a tidal wave of hot liquid shooting all over my laptop and mobile. Bad times.

Result my laptop immeditely begn to fook up. My mouse had broken in the fall and none of the buttons worked on my mobile, I was just about to fire off the ’seal the deal’ text as well lol

After much frantic wiping and a couple of hours drying out in near the fire on low. The lappy began to work again but now some of the keyboard buttons don’t work so after trying to log in with my password numerous times, I managed to bring up the on screen keyboard and finally get myself logged in.

I should have quit right here. Quit before I even started to play. The omans where not good. I had no mouse, several keys and numbers on the keyboard which didnt work and as a result had to use the normal laptop mouse touch pad which is a pain in the ass when multi-tabling.

So silly me loads up 5 25nl games and 5 50nl games. Having run well at 50nl previously, despite running bad in general over the month. I had the bankroll so decided to have a shot … it didnt go well.

I got sucked out on several times and ended up $240 down when HEM equity shows I should have won $40. So a $280 swing to the negative, nice.

I didnt even tilt which I am proud of though. I have been reading Tommy Angelo’s Elements of Poker and think that little bits of it have helped me get over things quicker.

I was slightly tilted and agro about it after the session as you always feel bad when you lose, but as Tommy says ‘I’m just practising for the next time I lose, the next time I run bad’.

Reset, Reset, Reset, Let it Go, Let it Go

It happened and I cant bring it back and I’m content with that. I will keep working hard and learning. Bad days, bad times will happen but I will perserve. I aim to eventually be playing 100NL by the end of 2009. It’s not a challenge per say but I goal I will be trying my darnest to achieve.

In other news, much like I have read in Blackshucks blog, I am constantly late for work. Like every day 15-30 mins late. I intend to make an effort to reduce this lol, so I’m going to charge myself £1 every day I am late and give the money to charity at the end of the year.

So this week I caught a post on the beginner limit boards of Deuces Cracked from Entity where he is basically offering a spot for your limit hold’em game to be reviewed on the latest episode of the ‘Real Life Micro Limit Grinder, season 3′ by PygmyHero and Entity himself over Skype as they go through your video.

Well I’m new to both limit and the DC community, but thought to myself that it would not hurt to knock out a video and see where it goes, as the potential upside of free coaching from 2 excellent limit players make it worthwhile to try and at the very least I should get some feedback on the video when I post it on DC and EMS, even if it does seem like there are only 3 of us poo flinging it on a regular basis over at EMS

Unfortunately, and sorry chaps but there’s no commentary on the vid, as per the requirements of DC - as they obv have to record voice audio over the top of the video so sorry to disapoint on that front but hopefully the video will still be something worthwhile if your interested in limit, or even if your not as it’s always good to keep your hand in different games.

So here’s my bash at this, did the video in my first attempt using camtasia in one take, so it’s warts and all ;

Download $1/$2 Limit Hold’em Poker Video

Video is exactly 1hr long, 2 tables of $1/$2 on Stars.  File size 41mb so not that large.

I did consider starting the recording over when I paid off a flush at the start lollimitdonakments, but thought, hey I wanted them to see my real play, and a perfectly played video wouldn’t be all that interesting for them to critic anyway !

I think I played some spots really well and a handful of others not so well, calling down in a couple of spots when I actually called their hands out loud in my head to myself like the 66 hand when he had a set (called it on the turn) and the A4 hand with the wheel, but still went to showdown regardless like the donk I am…

I’ll prolly do another one with commentary soon, anyhows, enough rambling, not enough downloading … gogogo!

Enjoy!

Back in early August I started a $0 to infinity challenge as due to real life finance problems I had to withdraw my entire roll to pay off debts. So this is an update of sorts on my status.

My roll at the moment stands at aprox $1,400, which is ahead of my scheduled BR of $850 for this date which is great news and I feel I’ve improved alot as well over the last 4 months.

I’m now decently rolled for 25NL and $1/2 LHE - the plan is to get the bankroll up to about $1.75k and then have a crack/shot at 50NL & $2/$4 - although I will probably move up to 50NL first and then $2/$4 limit the month after - if all goes well and I dont hit a big downswing.

So my goals for this month are to play roughly 10-15K hands of 25NL and about 10K hands of $1/$2 LHE. I might warm up with some 5NL or 10NL hands to begin with as I’ve not played No Limit cash for over a month so I dont want to jump in cold and drop a bucket-load.

I may also continue to work on playing a little Badugi & 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball when I’m not grinding for kicks.

In other news, last night I won my first EMS game for a while when I took down Week 20 of the EMS Freezeout and cemented my top 10 place in the league, it looks like I might get 2nd or 3rd place in the overall league which is pleasing as I’ve worked hard to bring my A game to these games this season. Much props goes out to Stanters who wins the title again, which makes it 3 championships for him out of the 5 seasons which is amazing consistency. Well done Stants.

This has been a bit of a strange month for me really. I deviated from my usual unlimited hold’em games, which is something I said I would try not to do as I really wanted to concentrate on my no limit cash game play.

However, there was bonus money to be made and I’m still grinding my roll up, so meh I decided to spend the month bonus whoring of sorts.

I started off using a short stack strategy system on Stars to try and achieve Gold Star status and get the $100 bonus for the level-up. While this proved variance-tastic yet successful at 25-100NL Full Ring, it was just boring me to pieces playing like Johnny Five so I changed over to limited hold’ems starting off at the $0.50/$1 level.

The reasons for the switch was 1) you earn rake faster at limit and I wanted to clear the bonus on Stars and I wouldnt make it at NL 2) I also started doing Kickbacks on the iPoker network clearing the ChilliPoker one and the Vulcan Poker one and limit gets you the points you need so much quicker and 3) I’m such a sicko that I actually like limit poker - I enjoy the mathematical methodical play which isnt as tedious as short stacking.

BUT there was one hold-up, I’m pretty lousy at limit poker. Although I was beating .50/1 LHE, I knew I was just spewing money in various spots. I was still playing limit, to some degree, as if it was no limit and I needed to improve if I wanted to spend the rest of the month play the limited’s… cue Sir RatAttack from EMS.

He was kind enough to go over some hands that I sent him from my database and go over this for nearly an hour over MSN. His advice really made some things click for me. Basically I wasn’t 3betting enough, I was only 3betting around 6% when the accepted decent range for this was 10%. RatAttack being more confident post flop was 3betting 18% of the time which blew my mind. I haven’t since been able to LAG it up quite to those standards but I have pushed the 3bet% up to 11% and definately seen results improve as you take the iniative in the hand.

Another major area to work on was my blind defence. Man, I was such a nit. Folding my BB around 62% was far too much. I’m much more comfortable now playing marginal hands to a BTN raise from the BB and am able to defend with hands like K4o, 97o, T8o and am more able to take the pot down on the flop or turn with say a check-raise a J62 board when holding A2 etc

Thanks to Rat I’ve gotten alot better and even moved up to $1/$2 where I’ve been winning too at a good win-rate. Might just be running hot, but we’ll see…

I’m really intent on improving my limit game though. I bought 3 books from Amazon this month, Gus Hansen’s every hand revealed (very easy enjoyable read), Tommy Angelo’s Elements of Poker (not read yet, but a must read!) & Stoxpoker’s limit book on tough hold’em games which I’m working my way through. Most peeps have said it is a very good book which has improved their games so I’m going to finish up the book over the next week.

Next month I’m going to split my action, playing both limit and 25NL in equal’ish measures. I feel being decent at a couple of games can only be good if your feeling tilted in one game or need a change to enable you to carry on grinding and getting the hands and fpp’s in.

That said, I’m not sure which will be my main site next month. I’ll definately be doing a couple of kickbacks but my main site is up for debate. As I acheieved Goldstar I’ll be working off the $100 bonus which clears at x7 so that shouldnt take me too long - but I’ve also obtained a rakeback account at Full Tilt so I’m unsure of where to play.

There was an interesting video posted on DeucesCracked which was basically teaching you to use an Excel spreadsheet to work out the various fpp’s and bonuses you can cash in on Stars to give you an eqivilant rakeback level. TBH it seems pretty even for my level of play, I do like Stars but how many £50 Amazon gift certificates do I need?? I say that as that seems to be the most worthwhile item you can purchase in the VIP store on my level in terms of fpp $/£ worth.

I suppose I could use the gift certificates for xmas shopping and then ‘pay myself’ the equiliant back to put into my bankroll, but then what about the rest of the time? Rakeback at Full Tilt seems like the most tangible deal but then again the games are apparently harder there.

Hmmm some things to ponder. Other than that this weekend it’s my mates 30th birthday, so we’re all off out for a curry and then a night out round Manchester, good times!!

Welcome avid, loyal readers [ thats about 2 of you ] I have starved you long enough!

Since my last entry I dropped back down the levels to 5nl and then 10nl on Stars to rebuild my roll after I had dropped a good chunk at 25nl due to a pretty bad set of coolers, and a little bad play towards the end… but live and learn, and rebuild, onwards and upwards and all that keep thinking on the bright side of life and all that palarva! :) 

So after going some way to rebuilding I made ‘Silverstar’ status on Stars and was given a bonus of $100 if I could achieve ‘Goldstar’ the following month. Now thats alot of hands for me at 25nl (prolly estimate about 80K hands) so I had to change tactics if I wanted to the chase the bonus.

My first answer to this canumdrum was to ‘turn to the dark side’ and short stack 50NL full ring.  I did have an attempt at SS’ing 50NL & 100NL 6max - this involves us not playing as nitty and opening up our range to BTN and C/O steals and so forth. So I had a good read of the available short stack strategy online and messed about with Pokerstove and although I set off like a stallion on heat in mating season the extra variance soon hit and after about 3k hands I was a small 1.5/PTBB winner.

The basic idea behind Ss’ing, is you can use the blunt tool of the all-in preflop and the power of your short stack to basically make it a 2 street game and take away any implied odds for the villians. Suddenly, the shortie is the aggressor and forces the original raiser to know the maths of hand v ranges, which most of them dont.

In fullring games you often gain the benefit of additional dead money with limpers in between you and the light raiser. Overall I have found short stacking 6max to be profitable but the swongs are redic. - full ring is far more safer, but I suspect that more money is to be made SS’ing 6max - if you can handle the swongs that is.

If you learn to SS, you’ll learn to become a warrior at the 25BB and under poker game, which correlates to alot of tournies….and as tournies are where the real donk money and the occassional big score are at. It’s gotta be +ev to become better at playing short stacked as that is a bit of a flaw in my MTT game. I have no problem becoming chipped up and have lost count of the amount of times I have been chipleader at the first break in the EMS league, but once the stacks become shallow I seem to lose my edge - so hopefully my end game in MTT’s will improve.

I think it’s certainly true that if you stop at shortstacking, you are stunting your growth as a player (and boy, it can get boring and mechanical!), but if you take it seriously and follow the maths, I believe it can lead you to conclusions about poker in general which will give you a better all around game.

I also found this nitfy piece of software which can help you on deciding ranges to push etc

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/45/software/short-stacking-strategy-sss-calculator-121624/index6.html

Anyhows, I have more to write but this is getting a tad long and I dont want to go off on a tangent so I’ll have the rest for another post.

The past several days, I’ve found I’m playing less and studying more. I’ve just not been in the mood to play and have been getting my moneys worth from Deuces Cracked vids, having taken in the No Limit Grinder, From The Ground Up, Unconventional Wisdom, Baby Steps and just started the Maths in Poker series.

TBH I’m finding it hard to maintain a balance of playing enough hands, watching enough vids, reading all the many poker mags I get that are still un-opened in their plastic on the coffee table despite my mum’s pleas to shift the buggers LOL and finishing all the books that are still left un-read, or more likely half-un-read.

I read quite a bit of strat too on EMS and DC and together with work and trying to maintain a normal social life and some kind of exercise routine it can get a bit too much with so many things that I want to do, but so little time to do it in.

I really need to sit down and work out a proper poker and life timetable and would be interested to hear how others make best use of their time.

In other non rambling news, I’ve taken a few shots at 10NL, I was up about 4 buy-ins at that level with some inspired play on saturday and peaked the $350 BR but then promptly dropped just over 5 BI’s with some proper just pure donkey bad plays on the sunday so I’m down to just under $300 . I will be dropping back down to 5NL for a spell until I build up a few BI’s for another shot.

I really think I should just not play at weekends, I mean during the week I play and run just fine, but when it’s weekend the fish come out to play! Now, really that should be good, but down here at 5NL thats a receipe for muffings galore. Firstly Rovers get tonked 4-0 by the Arsenal, then the fish start to bite me! Final straw tonight was when  I got all in with KK on a 63T-rainbow flop and my opponent flipped 62o and rivered two pair. I also had KK < QQ on the river and everyone was hitting sets and flopped straights on me left, right and centre.

I managed to only keep the losses down to just over 4.5 buy-ins and decided enough was enough for the night and to shut down the tables before I began to tilt and vent my frustrations on here instead.

Overall though apart from at weekends, I’m playing very well and doing quite well at 5NL. I’m hoping that by next month I can step up to 10NL, or I might look into getting staked for 25nl over at stakeashark, although cash baps have not gone well on there for others and I’m not sure what the interest would be.

Anyhows, I’ve signed up to Deuces Cracked and have just finished the No Limit Grinder series, which was quite good. Theres a 2nd series of this one starting out so I might head over and download the first episode of that one now.