Swingy Swingy

The past few days has seen my Bankroll go up and down back down againg then back up a settled somewhere in the middle at $531.53.

A good thing to come from this is i manged goldstar status :D

I also had a very nice hand on $25 NL.

I missed th actual cards but read down in the chatbox, and you will be pleasently surprised.

I found a excellent blog called Smart Poker which is about a guy who earns $120 an hour playing 16 $200NL tables on Fulltilt.

Becoming Poker Weekly $5 PLO

I have set up a private tourney that will run weekly.


The game is Pot Limit Omaha. The tourney will run at 22.00 on a saturday night Pokerstars Time.

See tourney schedule on right for more details.

Hope to see you there!!

Name/Title: [Becoming-Poker $5 PLO]
Tourney id: [75285430]
Site:PokerStarsBuy-in: [ $5.50]
Game: [PL Omaha]
Password: [become]
Date: [2/02/2008]
Time: [22:00]

Bounties: Munchrs(Munchers94)-$2

Post a comment with your bounty(not compulsory) or you can post it on CardsChat Forums here or on Railbirds here

Poker Tracker 3 release!

It has just come to my attention that poker tracker 3 has just been released.

Check it out here

I will make a longer and better review after i have used it a bit more.

Inability to Stick to one thing.

I really enjoy No-Limit holdem and Limit Holdem. i also enjoy SNG's and Tourneys and PLO h/l and just hi.

The problem is i dont stick to one long enough to become really good at it and there for am lacking in a steady income. Although i am leaning to wards NL tourneys and Limit Cashgames.

The bankroll has been a bit up and down of late, hitting $800 at best and $400 at worst right now it is $672 so not bad.

Hope i mange to find my best game and stick to it the majority of the time.

PLO Win

After my dismall effort to move up to NL$25 I decided to semi-shortstack Pot Limit Omaha 25c/50c Tables. I buy in for $20 and leave as soon as i hit $30+.

This is working very well and i manged to recuperate my losses and ge tmy Bankroll back to $530 or so.

Why do i shortstack? Basically it increases my showdown value. It increases my showdown value by letting me get all early in the hand either on the flop or on the turn, which means that i cant be bluffed off my hand if the river is a scare card. This strategey only works though if you regularly get your money in ahead on the flop and turn. If you dont then you loose money.

Crappy Arse Poker Beats

So I tried another session at NL$25 6max and lost around $150.

I had AA twice. Both where all in preflop. AA
I had KK twice. Again i got all in preflop. KK
I also had QQ once. QQ
Basically i coulndnt win a hand, i also managed to flop a set ang get all the chips in only to be out drawn when he flushed up.

Good Week

It’s been a hectic week this week. I’ve spent most of my mornings helping Mum paint the windows ardor house. This is a mammoth task as we have large roof to floor windows right along the front of our house and they all need 10 coats of wood stain. The good thing is we get a coat on all of the windows by around lunch which leaves the rest of the day free to play poker.

The poker playing has been going very well. I played in a $5.50 PLO8 rebuy on Titan poker, I didn’t rebuy or add on and managed a 2nd place due to my flopped Full House getting beaten by a turned higher full house. That tourney netting me a $117.50 profit.

I have also played some Sit n Go's as promised and run ok managing a small 20% roi. I played mostly $6 9man turbos and 6man Sit n go's which are both donk filled but I always seemed to be the bubble boy or come third/second, which is probably due to bad bubble play on my part and not playing premium ICM value.

The Cash games have slowed down a lot and I am officially converted to No-Limit Holdem 6max. Which is showing fruitful in the early going having played 4k hands at $10NL for around 20bb/100.

I decided today with my Bankroll of $530 to give $25NL 6max a shot. It went very well I managed to avoid bad luck and netted a $27 profit over 400 hands or so 6 tabling. Would have liked to play longer but it was dinner time and I don’t miss meals ;).

I also received an email about the new 888.com poker room LuckyAcePoker.com, which is pretty much Pacific Poker under a different name. I am looking into depositing there as they are the new fish tank now that party seems to have wizened up a bit.

Overall a very good week, seeing my Bankroll go from $300 to $555.83. Hopefully the weekend is just as fruitful for you and me in poker and life.

New Plan

For the last month or so ive been grinding Full ring cash games and prfited around $200 from it. In the last week or so I have stoped winning and started loosing, wether this is a downswing or not it is over a not 8k hand selection.

I think one of my problems is always playing the same game, same conditions and often same opponents. So I have decided to go back to Sit n Go's.

I will be playing what are my best sit n go's. The $5.50 18 man and the $6.60 6max No Limit Holdem Sit n go's.

I will be implemeting the 50 buy-in Bankroll manangement plan. Heres how it will look.

Bankroll-----max Buy-in allowed------Move Down mark.
$300----------------$7-----------------None(under $5.50 is to high rake)
$600----------------$15----------------$480
$1250---------------$25----------------$1000
$2000---------------$40----------------$1600

I have also decided to bonus whore the ipoker network sites and take advantage of the easier poker games on their that are full of fish. I will probably take all my money to titan and get their bonus by playing $10NL again(if there wernt so many fish i wouldnt) and the $5.50 6max Sngs.

Tilt Factor

Tilt has been my downfall. Times that by 16 tables and it’s a mighty big downfall. Today’s session has not gone well.

I opened up my usual 16 tables on pokerstars $10NL full ring and would be greeted with the donkeys and, what seems to be my growing ever larger, share of horrible luck. I had KK busted 3 times all by A-rag, every straight or flush I hit ended in villain hitting a better straight or flush and more likely a Full House.

The horrible cards brought on tilt and I started to play badly getting my money in when I knew I had been counterfeited when the board paired giving villain a better two pair. So using my genius poker skill and my $50 smaller $350 Bankroll I decided to hit the 6max Pot-Limit Omaha eight-or-better tables netting me another $55 loss which $25 of which can be attributed to bad luck but the rest was bad play.

The day was not without good news though, I got an email from my satellite internet provider informing me that I had used 80% of my 5gig internet usage up and it won’t be reset until the 20th of this month. The reason this is good news is it will give me an opportunity to get away from poker and the emotional rollercoaster it has started to become.

I have also received some other good news as I may soon be able to install a new video card and get another monitor which I will dutiful upload to this blog for my wonderful readers to awe at.

Whilst away from poker I intend to be reading the book giving to me for Christmas entitled “Pelé, The Autobiography”. Once reading that I will re-read and study Harrington on Holdem again and probably go back to my formerly beloved $5 18 man Sit n go’s.

To CardsChat I am sorry but I won’t be posting for the next 10 days, although my posts seem to have started declining in poker strategy. This may be one of my problems but im not entirely sure.

In the meantime I will blog via Word and if I get the chance upload from an internet café.

Good Luck to you all,
Munchrs.

New CardsChat.com Avatar

I found this really beautiful pic and decided to use it as my CardsChat Avatar.

Here it is...

Statistical Significance, Poker Addict

People often rave about thier great BB/100 and often complain about "Huge" downswings. I personally have done both. But realising just how statistically significant your results are depends on the number of trails run. A statiscally significant amount is considered 10k hands, but to be a bit more in depth you really need to aim for 25k+ to draw accurate conlusions.

After running my own numbers I see how insignificant my stats actually are at this point. What i thought was a downswing was nothing more than a little varience and the fact that i was probably on a heater before the varience occured made it seem like a much bigger downswing than it actually was.

Prior to my miniscule downswing I had become very self-assured in my game and my poker ability. The downswing was pokers way of telling me to pull my head in. It was making sure I didnt get to big for my boots and that I always reviewed my game and keept on trying to improve and better my poker ability.

It seems poker has a funny way of creating many varying emotions. When you run well you feel immortal, when you run bad you feel like you couldnt win if you could pick what card would come next, and when you run right in the middle poker becomes boring yet you still cant stop playing it.

Poker is addictive, managing your addiction and your emotions that the addiction evokes are essiantals in beating poker and become a winning player.

I'll leave you with some insignificant numbers. Please take note of my VPIP/PFR etc. in both pictures.

The top one is my "downswing" of 6k hands., the one below is my first 9k hands at $10NL Below that is a running total profit of all hands.

Pyschological Leaks

Ok my game is going to be put under serious sqruntiny in the next week or so.
I intend to plow throug The Poker Tracker guide i mentione din my last post. Then im going to re-read "The Pyschology of Poker" and hopefully it will improve my overall play/winrate.

A serious leak is being to short-term results orientated. Poker is not about the short-term, its not about how this particular hand ends or this particular week, its about playing the best for every situation and waiting for the good results to come. And they will come aslong as you are playing Mathmatically/psychologicaly sollid poker. Using a mixture of reads and probability to make the best decisions most of the time is what it takes to be a good poker player. The amount of bad decions you make will define how great a plyer you become.

Another leak is being statistically orientated. I seem to feel the need to play a 700 or 800 hands an hour whilst I would probably earn around 2/3 the amount of money playing 8 tables instead of 16 and making better decision and Overall playing better.

A player should focus on playing the optimal strategey for every situation based on the information you have at hand to make money in the long-run over a statistically significant amount of hands.

Poker Coaching

So ive been looking into poker coaching recently. The results have beeen good i've found numerous coaching sites and have also found the Poker Tracker Guide which ive brought and hope to read tomorrow or later today.

Hopefully Poker Tracker Guide and help me find my own leaks and once i progress up to $25 and $50 NL then i can get some pro poker coaching.

So i played some Omaha hi, didnt do to badly am up $35 over 1200 hands at $10PLO. Basically to beat the players at this level all you need to do is play tight/nitty preflop and nut peddle the flop.

Although i saw one very good player there who raised every hand pre-flop but was an absolute nit post flop. This strategey worked amazingly well. it did 2 main things for him. 1) Gave him a maniac image(because he reaised every hand pre-flop), 2) His opponents payed him off on his good hands as they thought he was a maniac. What they failed to notice(i noticed and i was playing 8 tables lol) was he was a net pedler post flop.

I find $10PLO/NLHE players to be very un-observant, even the good players seem to play their cards alot more than they play there opponets. I can often take advantage of this by C-Beting low flops and "Double Baralleing"(betting the turn if its a blank after you C-Betted the flop). It seems alot of players are more weak tight and agression is where im amking my money at the moment.

GL all,
Munchrs

2008 Goals

Ok so i decided to post my 2008 poker goals before I lost the piece of paper i wrote them on. So here they are ...

1) Have $750 Bankroll on Pokerstars by 01/02/08.
2) Achieve Silver star status in January.
3) Have a $1500 Bankroll on Pokerstars by 01/03/08.
4) Achieve Gold Star status in Febuary.
5) Achiev platinum star status for 3 months in late 2008.
6) Cashout $3.5k by August to pay for trip.
7) Become loyaler.
8) Get some profesional poker coaching and/or subscription to coaching videos.

How win at poker the easy way.

The Obsession

Wow found this great article here. Go down th the post made on 1/1/2008 titled "The Obsession".

Its really a great article about growing and developing as a poker player. It touched on some points on how much work/time you have to put in to become not only good but great at poker.

I'll leave you with my take on this article:

"To become the great at poker you must not let poker become part of you but become part of poker."

Introduction

I started playing poker in early 2007. After winning money from freerolls i floundered around building it up to $1100 then loosing about half and withdrawing the rest.

In December 2007 i decided to take poker seriously and deposited $100 onto pokerstars and started grinding micro cashgames. Since then i have progressed up the stakes to $10NL(lol still micro stakes :P) and am currentl on a BR of $350.

GL