Hit the $10,000 mark

I have been playing loads over the last few days and I have been generally running bad but eventually I strung a few big pots together and I have hit a profit of $10,000 from playing at pacific. Although I am not safely over at all, I have barely scraped past it, I am there nonetheless for now. It has been a lot of work to get to this point and it has by no means been easy. I was stuck at $8,000 for a long time and now I am $2,000 clear of that which feels good.

I have been playing a mixture of $200NL and $100NL recently, although I am not really bankrolled for $200NL. Anyway I am trying hard to push into $200NL and so far the games are definately tougher, the aggression is noticeably higher but not a real problem. Players decisions are somewhat similar between the two levels. A big difference is people do get QQ in regularly and even JJ and AK always.. whereas at $100NL QQ often calls a raise and there is less raising in general. I still feel I have an edge although have felt competition in being the most aggressive at the table, which is rare at $100NL.

I will probably take a small break maybe a couple of days as my head is aching from all the grinding and hopefully socialize a little more ^^.

Thanks and Good Luck.

14 buy ins lost in less than 3 hours

Well I woke up today to experience the worst session you could expect. About 5 beats in I recorded them in notepad and continued to do so as it was just awful.

TT vs AK - lost AIPF
straight draw + flush draw against top pair - lost all in on flop.
set vs straight draw - lost all in on flop
top two vs set of aces all in on turn - lost
all in with flush vs pair - lost all in on flop
all in with trips vs straight draw - lost all in on flop
all in pre with AQ vs QQ 30BB - lost
called with pair checked turn he made back door straight
6 outted for a big pot :(
TT loses to QK all in 30 BB
AA vs set of 99's all in pre flop after i 3-bet pre
straight draw loses vs gut shot
QQ loses vs KK AIPF
QQ loses vs A6 AIPF
straight draw + flush draw all in on turn - lost.
river a set but lose to a rivered straight
lost flip pair vs overs for 30BB - lost
i get 22% of my stack in hit with AQ and lose to a set
all in with flush vs bigger flush - lost
missed every flush and pair plus flush draw
flopped set of QQ vs TPTK, split pot..

I was pretty tilted and quit the tables and took a small break. I hit 200NL and won $700 getting a bigger pair vs a smaller pair and holding up several times. What makes me sick is this happens somewhat often and I see people post graphs where they lose 5 buy ins at the most. Its just not possible you are all so lucky. I just seem to encouter these beats so frequently, just getting stacked 14 times when you are such a favourite.. arg so nasty and I had this happen in october with a 22 buy downswing..

Well I had reduced my losses by half and spent 3 hours playing while my friend watched while i 4-tabled $100NL, I initially dropped a little over $400 by lossing KK to A6 where he made quad 6's and then QQ to KK and my friend was like sick... and I was just like you shoulda seen earlier lol. Then from that point I made $700. Some hands were where I turned my TT into a bluff when really deep, betting $120 into $140 and taking it down. I then stacked AQ with AK for 200BB stacks and finished the day down $375 and $75 since being home 4 days ago. recovery FTW ^^

Half way!

I am currently on my christmas break but I have exams in January and pretty much need to learn everything in 2 of the units.. Well I plan on spending the day studying but I realise I will have to pay the second half of my tuition fees soon and therefore january and febrary will cost me a little over £1000 including rent. Therefore I really need to put some hours in at the tables. The good news is I am half way through the year in which I decided to pay bills/rent/tuition by playing poker.

Having made $1000 online in the last 3 weeks from playing very few hours and 1 of the weeks I was out getting drunk and clubbing and so I am pretty pleased with the result. Unfortunately its just not enough I really need to play more.

Currently I am really pleased with how I am playing, I am definately playing my best poker right now. It was really good to be able to discuss poker with a friend from back home and my situation and talk it through with someone. This is something I want to do with family but its just not really possible. My friend unexpectedly apologized for doubting the skill in poker as he can clearly understand it now, even tho he doesn't play. This means a lot to me and I wish others would see it. While I continue to make money at poker I also continue to just scrape through. I maybe am to blame because I buy drinks for others and eat out nice places but food is important to me as well as friends.

I have pushed my winrate to about 5BB/100 (or 10bb/100) and this will make me one of the biggest winners at my limit but there is still room for improvement. I am pretty thankful to be running well as I ran pretty bad in october and couldn't do another month like that... literally felt like I lost every flip lol.

Wish me luck!

Live £1/£2

I got back this morning at 8am after going to a casino with some friends. I played for several hours and made £225 although gave half of it to my friend who was unlucky to lose a big pot. It was nice to profit as I dont plan on going much but hopefully again before finishing my degree. There was a £2000 buy in tournament and therefore the cash games were supposedly tougher than normal as many people joined the cash tables from the tournament and there was even filming!

I was at the top of the waiting list when they opened up a 2nd table and many people from the £2/£5 game came over to play, as there game had broken up. Generally the play was bad and the £2/£5 players were just messing about in this game. I got nicknamed the rock as I played very few hands but you get so few hands an hour it is pretty easy to be card dead for an hour.

One had I had was raising to £7 with AK getting a re-raise to £25 by a good player messing about and 2 callers. I shoved for a little over £200 and everyone folded. I took a few pots down on the flop but my best hand of the night was raising to £7 UTG with pocket 5's and getting a call on my left by a professional poker player who plays £10/£20 live and up to $10/$20 online. He had told me he was bored and at the time this was the highest game available. I got another call out the blinds and we saw a flop: 346 two tone, 3 way. It was checked to me and I bet £15 and got two calls. The turn brought a 9 completing a flush draw. It was checked to me and I checked and the guy to my left checked. The river was a 6 and we checked it to the guy to my left who bet £42 into £67. I spent a few minutes thinking and I was really confident I had the best hand I wasn't worried about the flush although I was thinking he could have turned his hand into a bluff. In which case he may have a 3 or a 4 and I would have him beat. I also didn't think he value bet a 6 in this way and that was more of a betting tell and given how he played which was crazybored I was confident and I made the call and he instantly said "you got me" and I showed 55 and he went wow, nh. I got a lot of respect making this call and people said well played when I left the table at around 5 am.

It was great to speak to some of the players and we got talking about live vs online and was interesting. I was pleased with how I played, although didn't get into all that many spots and I think my decision to leave the table when I did was good as it was just the high stakes players and although they were still messing about I didn't feel comfortable with £425 at the table. I had a hand where I had K high and I was so so sure I had the best hand on a AA4 board, he had re raised my c-bet to over £50 and he had about £150 behind and I should have pushed and I would have if we were playing lower and I just wanted to book a win and thought I was to tired to make this re-bluff. Although I thought I had the best hand I thought he could be playing wild with a small pocket pair and the play would be to re raise all in and take it down. I folded and he showed 5 high and I soon left the table, but I was very tired lol.

All in all it was fun and I can see live is VERY soft. But I wouldn't wanna play live much because its pretty boring playing tight. You play so few hands an hour and I could easily run bad for long time live, as the action is pretty slow. If I had more money I would be interested in playing the higher stakes but I am not even rolled for their lowest stakes so it is back to grinding the pokeh on the internets

poker is easy when you flop the nuts!

Since starting this blog I have hadn't played all that much. This is partly due to the fact I have university work to do. Although I have done a lot of reading of hands posted on forums and talking with friends about particular poker situations. This has really helped and I feel I have increased the depth of my understanding of certain situations.

I played for about 40 minutes earlier, I would have continued but I had such a headache and I had to stop. I was running so so hot although didn't get much action a lot of the time when I had the nuts. I bluffed off a buy in against a flopped set but ended up a few dollars short of 4 buy ins up. This included winning an all in with AQs vs KK and KK, for a $300 pot. They certainely fooled me pre-flop lol, when I decided to shove over the top, oh well. I am now clearly out my breakeven stretch and have made around $600 from my last 3 sessions.

Isolation Raise

Well I recently left my old blog and wrote up an introduction for this new one. Right now its friday night and im not feeling too good so I have decided to not play. I have a fair bit of work to do but hopefully I can put some hours in at the table. When it comes to improving recently I have been focussing on my post flop play but have made a few small changes pre-flop in the last month. Although it is pre-flop where I feel I do best and this led me to write about the dynamics created by an isolation raise, see below. Enjoy :)

Part 1: Reacting to the isolation raise

When you sit down at a poker table you should try and categorise as many players as possible. It is the players’ tendencies that are going to impact your game play or at least they should be. These tendencies may become more apparent over time but keeping record of players can help you in this area. Having statistics on each player will certainly help you do this, although it is not necessary for everyone. I personally do not use them and the reason is I like to play creatively and take a more feel approach and sometimes statistics can cloud my judgement. This is just my personal preference and I recently took a personality test which showed that I rely on a feel approach in many situations. I believe each poker player should tune their game style to their abilities and their strengths. Although you have a style your game should still be changing as dynamics of the game change.

When I open up a table, I firstly look around to see if there are weak players and try and sit on their left. An interesting table dynamic that can arise is when a weak player open limps. If it is folded around to me I will open up my range to isolate this player by raising. My goal is to see a flop heads up against this player but if he folds I can collect the dead money which is just as good. When I raise in this situation I will raise 1 big blind bigger than my opening raise; this is because I want to discourage others from entering the pot if they have position on me. The reason I want to discourage others from entering the pot is my range is a little wider in this situation and I don’t want to get lots of callers who had a better price. The goal is to play against the weaker player but if I have good players behind me still left to act I will likely have to make my isolation raising range tighter.

If a weaker player limps in and a player to my right raises and I know they are capable of isolating I will 3-bet in this spot more often than I would do if the weaker player had not limped in. This is because I know the player who isolated has a wider range in this situation and if they are doing this regularly I will be more inclined to 3-bet wider. The frequency in which they isolate will have a strong correlation to how wide my 3-bet range is. In this scenario my range will consist of the typical range I normally 3-bet for value with and sometimes I will increase this slightly if I believe I can get value from worse hands. The other part to my range are hands with little value but which have some high card value e.g. K4s which means I can still make top pair or flop a flush draw when called.

Therefore when I know this player is likely to be isolating a weaker player I widen my range for 3-betting. Although I will widen my 3-bet range in this spot, this does not necessarily mean that I am increasing the number of hands that I raise for value. Rather, to ensure my range remains polarised. This means I appear aggressive with a wider range but the range I will be stacking off with is still the typical range of your tight aggressive player. When I 3-bet with K4s I do not lose value from my hand as it is a hand I do not normally open or 3-bet with, I am only playing it because I think I am going to take down the pot enough of the time because of this particular table dynamic. The reason why I prefer to have K4s compared to 62o is firstly K4s makes top pair more often, it is suited which adds some value and it reduces the chance he has AK or KK. If instead I have a hand with good post flop potential i.e. a suited connector or low pocket pair, I likely want to keep the pot small and keep the weaker player in the pot and I will just call the isolation raise and try and make two pair or better or a strong draw. If I have a mid pocket pair e.g. 88 I don’t want to 3-bet as I cannot stand a 4-bet so I will call with these hands. I will be more inclined to call if the regular who isolated will likely 4-bet or fold, when holding a hand that can’t stand a 4-bet but is still good.

When thinking about 3-betting in this situation I will first consider other factors before deciding. If I have players behind who are aggressive and know that I am 3-betting with a wider range then I will have to make sure it is not too wide to the extent that I am easily exploited. Another important factor to consider is my image. When considering my image, it is more feel based than anything; I likely have an overall image and a current image. This could be the case if I play an overall tight aggressive game but have played a looser style for this session. Knowing which one will have a greater impact will help me make better decisions. It is important to indentify the players who will 4-bet you light just because you 3-bet three times in a row against them and the ones that will still wait for a good hand, but widen their range slightly for now. If my image is perceived as tight I will be more inclined to 3-bet a player who is likely isolating.

Introduction

Hey, I am 22 and in my final year studying at Bath university in England. I have played poker for about 1 and a half years and my first success came by playing £10NL online and winning £10, shortly after being introduced to the game by my housemates. In my mind I had the best hand and bet it and got paid it seemed simple and I was instantly hooked. I got myself a poker book and read about position and I started to realise there was even more skill to the game than I had hoped. Within a few weeks I was £70 down but I was keen to learn. Over the next few months I was playing in $ now and I progressed up to $100NL.

Around 6 months in and I had made $4,000 and was still playing 100NL. I felt confident in my game, and had discovered most things for myself and had only read two poker books and browsed very little on forums. I was c-betting without realising the theory behind it and was playing poker aggressively and all was well.

Suddenly everything went bad, I was losing lots and running bad. I was so convinced I was running bad that I thought I was destined to run bad forever. I had months of running bad.. I would flop straights and lose everytime. I would lose with sets to bigger sets and have people catch runner runner straight draws sometimes up to 5 times a day. I only played 1 or 2 hours a day but it continued for months. I kept taking breaks and coming back. I was so annoyed that I got my money in good so often and so often I didn't win.

Soon I had lost all my winnings and I was down $500 lifetime to poker. I was crushed and also gobsmacked by how unlucky I was. I felt cursed and I would check the odds of each hand and looking back now I can safely say I did run really bad. At the time I got teased by friends for playing a game with no skill and when anyone doubted my previous success I was so hurt inside. It motivated me to become as good as I possibly could at this game to prove I was good and to show I had a bad run. In reality running bad had caused me to go on tilt and I would estimate up to 1/4 of my losses were tilt related. During the time of busting my roll I took I think two shots at 3/6 with $120 and once ran it up to $1000 and then lost the biggest pot of my life for $1,360.90 where I had A3s and had unticked the blinds and was playing my last hand. I raised UTG and got a re raise so I decided to gamble seeing as I had made alot of $. I had planned to just check/fold without a huge flop, but we saw a heads up flop of: 3 3 10. I was pretty excited and when the turn was an ace, I called an all in and was shown QQ and bam... the river is a Queen. My world literally just stopped, I felt no pain just disbelief and just felt like how can I run bad every day I play.

After a lot of thinking the next thing that really happened after some breakeven poker was entering into a $26,000 prize pool tournament with a free ticket and coming 2nd out of 405 players, for nearly $4,000. During this tournament I sucked out with an underpair all in preflop, and with 73 against AA all in preflop when I was on a steal as a short stack and also card dead. Unfortunately I lost heads up when we had equal chips with AKs vs A9s.

Luckily for me I had been lucky in this tournament and its quite possible I would have quit poker there and then had it not been for this tournament cash. This rolled me for 100NL again and I started to play for the long term playing in tough games and learning as much as I could while not focussing on making $. I dropped $1,000 over the next month or two and overall I was up near $3,000 lifetime but happy to have improved my game. From this point onwards I became disciplined and was able to control my play better.

I then decided to profit as much as I could and I have since then put in 130,000 hands at 100NL and have graphed them below. This has pushed me into a profit of 5 figures lifetime. The graph covers my last 6 months of poker :) and it includes about 2-5% 200NL, which involved a 10 buy in downswing and resulted in me dropping back to 100NL. This resulted in a 45,000 breakeven stretch, which was mentally challenging as I am paying my rent and bills through poker whilst studying. I do have a student overdraft if need be but this is my challenge to get through the whole year with the help of poker!


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