Number of Winning Players

Current Roll: $11615

The sheer number of terrible players on party poker never ceases to amaze me. I wonder how many players on party poker actually make money. According to my PT database, 40% are winning players. This is absolutely meaningless since I don't have another player in my DB with even 1K hands.

There is no way that 40% of the players make money. In my experience of playing and watching other players, I suspect that at 2/4, the 15th percentile is the break even point, and about 85% are losing players in the long run. Does anyone have any differing opinions?

Hand of the day: I was in the BB with KQo. Two limpers in mid and late position. I bet the flop of K83 rainbow, one folds and I'm raised. The player that raised me is an ABC by the books player. I figured AK would have raised preflop, and a set would have raised me on the turn; I figure at worst it's a split pot. So I checkraise the turn...calls me down with KJ! Mark a few extra BBs for a great read!

The Last Month

I've noticed a correlation between stress and poker winnings. Over the last month, I've been more stressed than I can remember, and my poker results (read: losses) seriously reflected this. As I mentioned in the post above, I dropped almost 200 BB in 3 weeks, and I wasn't even playing so often. In other words, I wasn't taking my own advice and waiting to be capable of playing my A (or even B) game. So I then took a week off completely and focused on school.

After this I toook some time to relax and refocus on my game. Now it's as good as ever having won 9.4 BB / 100 in the last 4K hands (not quite the long run and probably not sustainable, but I think reflective of solid play).

Also, I wanted to point out that The Cards Speak had an excellent post the other day about begin way ahead / way behind that I have experienced in 2/4, but are probably more common in higher limits.

I'm just getting back into the blogging mode, more coming soon!

10K

Current Roll: $10014

Real life hit me hard, but expect more frequent updates again. After a rough 200 BB downswing, I finally worked my roll up to 10K! More later...

Biggest Poker Game Hole

Current Roll: $9192

Want to know the biggest change I made, going from an ok player to a strong, consistantly profitable player? I've had more than one person emailing me asking me for advice, and this is the best advice I can give for those that understand the fundamentals of poker and want to make money. It was, by far, the hardest thing for me to do. Don't play when you can't play your best game. That's it, it's that simple. Don't play when you're tired, stressed, emotional, or unfocused. Don't play desperate poker; play poker confident in the knowledge that money's going to flow from them to you. I play completely confident that I will make money playing this way, and I do.

I see it almost every night, people that should be playing decent poker are literally giving their money away. The Cards Speak had an excellent post on this subject, far better than I could write. He suggests 35BB as a stop loss limit - I'd suggest even smaller. Although, if you can get to the point where actual results don't matter - only the quality of your play matters - then you can ignore everything I wrote. This is much easier if you have an obscenely large bankroll - I'd barely notice 35BBin my roll.

I'm at this point, or think I am. Yesterday I dropped 30BB in my first 20 minutes of play, I was getting crushed. Getting huge hands that woudn't hold. But I kept playing my game and finished up a respectable and healthy 9BB / 100. I can't always ignore results though, someimes it angers me; but I'm getting far better at recognizing these times and walking away. Walking away down is one of the hardest things to do, as I'm sure many of you know. But I promise you this - it will improve your bottom line. It took me a long time and a lot of money to learn this the hard way, hopefully my advice will help someone. If not, you're always welcome at my table :)

A Month

Current Roll: $8422

Hand of the Day: This is something that it is difficult to do, getting good reads on players while playing 4 tables. I usually can only get good reads on those that play too many hands, because I am often contesting pots with them. It's tough to put this hand in context, but I've been railing this guy by making correct reads to really maximize every bet against him. I've been checkraising him on the river with hands marginally better (a better kicker for example). He's been so frustrated he had been taken to calling my river raises with as little as A high.

I'm Holding QTo in the cuttoff. This ridiculously terrible player is in the BB, he will bet almost anytime it is checked to him. I raise first in and it's heads up. Flop of 655, he bets and I raise. Turn is an A and he bets again. I'm positive this didn't help him, so I raise again. Turn is the flush card, this guy could literally have any two cards, and he bets again. I have Q high so there's no way in hell I could call, so I raise him. He thinks forever, and calls with Jack high! I'm laughing so hard right now, and just waiting for the money to flow from him to me. Sure enough, a few hands later he calls me down with Q high against my pocket tens. I had him playing so terribly against me it's very unfortunate that I had to leave.

It's been a month and $4K since I started this blog. About a month and a half since I had a poker epiphany, going from a slightly profitable player to a very profitible player.

Some say a way to a fulfilling career is to find a hobby you love, become good at it and make a career out of it. If this is ever the truth, online poker is the exception. Online poker is fun and profitable, but it is NOT fulfulling. There's nothing fulfilling about sitting along in front of a computer screen, clicking graphical buttons all the while taking suckers' money. It's fun and can be a huge rush, but at the end it often leaves me empty. The anti-social nature of online poker often leaves me yearning for social contact.

Online poker players are a leeches on society, almost as bad as corporations (or governments) that profit from other forms of gambling. Some pros justify this - they claim we're giving entertainment. Bullshit. Mabye in live play, if you're an entertaining, funny, likeable person this could be a justification. Otherwise, in online play, any recreational, poker playing fish could be just as entertaining, if not more so (I personally find poor play far more entertaining than solid play).

I don't plan on becoming a fulltime, online poker pro. If I were ever to become a true professional online poker player, I would only like to do so part time. And I would make sure to spend my other professional time contributing and participating in society, and having a social life.

There's a young adult's book by Minnesota auther Pete Hautman, Stone Cold. It's a quick, good read about a teenager that has a good life and then becomes a professional poker player. I certainly could empathise with the charecter, and it helped me examine priorities and the pros and cons of professional poker.

I've been very busy lately, and I haven't been playing as much as before. I have a lot of posts half written that I would like to finish, a bunch of hands to analyze, aggressive play to discuss. So stay tuned. In the meantime, I'm going to plug a new blog, pokerhack. This is run by a fellow 2/4 player who lives near me in the NC Triangle area.

PokerTracker

Current Roll: $7976

I finally bought poker tracker. I imported all my hands since Sep 30th, over 7K of them. First things first, 7K hands is clearly not the long run, but interesting nonetheless.

Monetary Results -

• Won over $2K in 7300 hands.
  
• 7.42 BB / 100 hands. This seems reasonable, but I think I can improve this.
• 4.81 BB / table hour, true win rate of 18.14 BB / hour or $72 an hour. Not bad, certainly enough to live on.
• Rake - $821! Over a third of my winnings. Wow.
  

Preflop Results -

• Voluntarily put money in the pot 25%. Seems about right.
• Voluntarily put money in from sb: 43% Seems a bit loose.

Aggression - I'm an aggressive player and think I should be more aggressive.

• Flop aggression factor - 3.88!
• Turn - 2.9
• River - 1.66
  
• Overall aggression including PF - 1.77. Definitely aggressive
• I don't know how I feel about my river aggression, I seem a bit overly cautious.
  

Time of Day - There are differences. I'm not too surprised, but this is not the long run so who knows.

• I have winning session totals from 10am - 10pm.
  
• My only losing session totals are 10 - midnight and 2am-4am. I'm not surprised as I'm usually tired and unfocused at these times.

Position - I clearly don't take this much into account preflop, all my non-blind $Vol numbers are 21-23%. But I do seem to do a bit better monetarily in later position, so mabye I should make some adjustments. I may be too loose in the BB as I have huge losses there. I should look into this more.

I will def. play around with this some more, but this is interesting inital thoughts. Insights, anyone? Comparisons with your 2/4 results? Let me know.

Slowplaying in Low Limits: A Big Mistake?

Current Roll: $7746

Hand of the day: I have a tough time making accurate reads when people make plays that I would never consider (mabye this is my problem...I should be considering some even more aggressive plays?). I'm an aggressive player, so when someone plays a hand far more aggressively that I would I have trouble comprehending his play. I'm in MP, I make a loose raise first in with QJs. Short stack rerraises $.50 more all in, next player completes the full raise. I call for the one more bet. Flop of JT8, gives me top pair and a straight draw and a bdoor flush. Heads up not including the all in player. I bet and he raises. Turn 9, I checkraise him and he 3 bets. I bet and call his raise on the river and he turns over KQo. I had trouble making this read, considering his previous action, especially with an all in player.

Second hand of the day: I was surprised at this hand. I'm holding 5's (no diamond) in the BB. Everyone folds to the cutoff who opens. I reraise and the flop comes 962 two diamonds. I bet, he calls. Turn is the A of diamonds. I bet he calls. River is a 3 of diamonds. I check, and fold when he bets - and he turns over the QJ of hearts! What the hell?! Clearly he's trying to advertise or make me emotional, but I feel I played that hand well, and I'd play it the same way next time since very few people will play the hand as he did.

Of those that clearly have an idea of what they are doing, slowplaying is often one of their biggest losses of BBs. To see why, I think it's important to understand exactly where profit comes from in low limits.

Profit comes when players invest money in the pot not justified by their returns. That's it, and it's completely general and includes pot odds, effective odds, (reverse) implied odds, etc. You need to give them every opportunity to invest money when you are a favorite, especially on the flop where most low-limit players will be the loosest. Also, showing too much strength on the flop can be interpreted as a sign of bullying or weakness! (I make this interpretation frequently, sometimes correctly and sometimes not)

I could list hand after hand of people that missed out on bets from me because they waited until the board became scary to show me strength - they're slowplaying against a player they should know to be aggressive!. I lost count of how many times people have caught runner runners because they were given a free card on the flop (mabye they still would have caught and you would have lost more - but the long run you'd be making a killing!) I've lost count of how many people will cap the flop with me, while they are holding nothing, and then come out betting the turn, and I love this multihanded. I'm still surprised how many people will put in 4 bets on the flop and then fold for 1 turn bet (does anyone know what they could possibly have?!), all those bets are often missed due to slowplaying!

The more people that are in, the less likely you should be to slowplay since it's far more likely you will get raised and these raises called by more people. The less people are in, the more aggressive people are in general so you should be punishing that overaggessiveness when you hold an edge. Don't slowplay!

People in low limits will chase with the longest odds against them, often drawing nearly dead. I've seen people chase (and hit) backdoor flushes on a capped flop. You want this! And I've seen far, far worse chases, including 1000-1 chases in a capped flop (i.e. guy had A3o, opponents had AQs and 33 flop came 3xx, got the two running aces for the only possible win). Don't give them a cheap shot at outdrawing you, and if they're drawing dead force them to pay for that too.

If you're slowplaying suited flops, connected flops, flops with an ace, or any hand with aggressive players - you're almost surely missing bets, and I see it happen all the time.

Anyways, I don't slowplay anymore. I can't remember the last hand I slowplayed. I used to go for checkraises, but now I'd rather bet and be raised so I can reraise. I garnish my aggressive image and want people to always be guessing (if they're even paying attention). Now if I'm checkraising I'm far more likely to be weak than strong, but I'll leave my theory of checkraising to another day :)

Is it ever more profitable to slowplay than not? - yes of course! But it's very tough to tell when it will be more profitable to slowplay so you should error on the non-slowplaying side. Because more often than not, I think you are missing out on bets. There are many other advantages to playing a flop fast and hard, such as information and control of the hand, but I'll leave those to another day.

Building a Roll

Current Roll: $7283

It was my buddy's birthday last night and I got so drunk I passed out on my living room floor, 5 feet from the bathroom where I kept trying to throw up. Ahh the life of a grad student. Alcohol here in NC is relatively cheap, but I still worked up a tab of $70 not including the tip, so I hope my winning streak continues.

Hand of the day: I had kings in late position, and someone in early position had raised with one cold caller. I reraise, the EP caps and the MP calls. 3 handed flop of A83. Not my flop, but the EP and MP check. Had the EP bet and the MP called, I would have a difficult time overcalling here, but checked to me I have to find out where I am so I bet and they both call. Turn is a 4 and it's checked to me. I'm scared of an ace or worse, including the possibility of being check-raised so I check behind. Anways, the river is a blank, the EP thinks for a bit and bets with the MP calling. Now I think I have the EP beat, and I'm not sure about the MP so I just call; I'm not happy with this but the pot size and their actions justify a call. They have QQ and JJ.

The EP made the biggest mistake in this hand - when there are 4 or less people in a flop, always bet the flop if you put in the last raise preflop (unless of course you have a good read). I don't care what you have or what the flop looks like, there are too many people too often willing to fold for one bet on the flop, even in $2/4. The pot is about 7 BB and for one small one he has a good enough chance (give our hands) to pick this one up on the flop. I probably would not have called on this flop, assuming one of the two had an ace; and the reverse implied odds of calling down means I could be paying 2.5bb to see his hand, whereas I could call on the river because the reverse implied odds are now 0. Had I folded to this hypothetical flop bet, I would have been wrong, but in the long run I think it's more profitable to worry about an ace. Of course this may be a weak/tight hole in my game.

One of my readers asked my opinion on building a bankroll. Specifically among tournies/cash, online/live games. I recently read a relevant post about this on internetpokerpro. (this is the blog I modeled mine after) The post is here. I think tournies are a terrible way to build a bankroll; there's more of a luck factor and very low payoff for all but the top places. That being said, I think tournies are a good way to build up a lot of hands of experience for cheap. I rarely play tournies anymore - I like the flexibility of jumping in and out of cash games when I please.

I also think that - purely for building a bankroll - online games are far better. You're going to get to the long run faster since you play more hands per hour. The rake is lower. There are less distractions, and it is often more comfortable in your own home. I think it's still a toss up whether the players are better online or in live games, but either way there are plenty of fish.

Anyways, I'm working on a post on slowplaying, which is one of the biggest mistakes I see among these lower limit players who percieve their actions as skillful.