Standard

*** WARNING *** Standard 80/20 flop hand history beat. Move along, nothing to see here. It nicely sums up my life for the past 7 weeks which is why I'm posting it as a semi-update.

Standard 1/2 pot cbet in 3bet pot for induceaments since I expect this 40/30 to ship all flush draws, Jx, KQ, AK, AQ if I haven't "committed" yet.


Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 811834
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $74.35
BTN: $50.00
Hero (SB): $52.00
BB: $50.00
UTG: $26.65
UTG+1: $51.55
MP1: $50.00
MP2: $50.00

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is SB with Q Q
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $2.50, 4 folds, Hero raises to $6.75, 1 fold, UTG+1 calls $4.25

Flop: ($14.00) 5 T J (2 players)
Hero bets $7, UTG+1 raises to $22.50, Hero raises to $45.25 all in, UTG+1 calls $22.30 all in

Turn: ($103.60) 4 (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($103.60) A (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $103.60
Hero shows Q Q (a pair of Queens)
UTG+1 shows A J (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
UTG+1 wins $100.60
(Rake: $3.00)

Re-listening to Tommy's 8 fold path which is helping me get through this shit.

BR Rebuilding Plan

I mentioned in my last post that I'm going to pretend I have $500 and work my way back up to re-pad my bankroll since I'm a huge life nit. I'm still actually rolled for 100nl by most people's standards but other people's ability to withstand variance without moving down makes me sick. My BR took a large hit between cashing out a decent amount at the beginning of June and the ensuing soul crush.

So far so good. Played 10k hands at 25nl for 8 ptBB/100 in the last 3 days so I only have about 4-5 buyins to go to move back up to 50nl again. That's a solid $40/hour 12 tabling 6max so it's really not that far off my 100nl 18 tabling FR hourly. And there's virtually zero stress and zero risk. The only really difference is that bonus $/hour drops from $19.90 to $7.75. I'll cut that difference in half once I move up again next week.

I'm starting to catch up on the DC podcasts and they're really interesting with a lot of interesting and good information. Just downloaded all of the Stars/2p2 Podcasts but I'm a little tilted at them using long titles that don't let me see who's in the interview on my podcast list on my iPod. I put a text file with the list on a different app so I guess that will have to do.


25nl Observations:

• TAGs and nits are extremely straightforward and transparent.
• LAGs are extremely bad and spewy. All of them.
• People limp a lot. Limpers are 100% fish and generally won't fold any piece postflop.
• Everyone calls down and stacks off much lighter than I am used to.
• Implied odds are ridiculous.

Suggestions:

• Play straightforward most of the time.
• Punish limpers.
• Let LAGs hang themselves and induce spazz. Widen your 3bet value range against them.
• Take cheap draws with high implied odds instead of semi-bluffing a lot unless you're the PFRer making cbets.
• There are a lot of very floatable TAGs on good boards with position.
• Bet/Bet/Shove your monsters.

July 9th Edit: I just hit my 20 hypothetical buyins last night and this continues to run so well that I'm seriously considering going for 25nl July Ultimate Grinder instead of moving back up. Seems like such a beat to play for a badge that's not even real lol. But that's probably not going to happen since I'm going to start splitting up my volume between Stars and FTP playing Rush and that's not tracked (thankfully).

But the hourly is really good, the variance is virtually nothing (38 ptBB/100 standard deviation compared to my usual 34 ptBB/100 for FR), I have had 3 stress free days feeling happy, and my confidence is building a lot at the same time. Everyone had a 5 day head start and I'm now in the top half of the list.

Frustrated

I'm at a loss as to how to explain my last 50k hand stretch. I find it kind of funny that I'm positive $ in pots smaller than 50bb but making pots larger than that activates one sick doomswitch monkey. I'm actually being a ridiculously accurate psychic and calling out cards while sweating all in pots as a decent favorite lol.

To top things off lately a lot of the fresh batch of noobs on 2p2 seem to have monster egos which is always good for the game. Apparently I'm a troll (standard) and a demagog -- yes a demagog,  "gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public—typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes," (Wikipedia) you know, like Hitler, for pointing out obvious logical flaws in thought process.

Funny how I never seem to see this message in any threads within 2 weeks of adding someone to the list. I guess they either move on, create a new account once they realize good posters don't put up with douchebags, or go busto.

Graphs since beginning of June.

Pots smaller than 50bb:

Pots larger than 50bb:

Result:

I got some coaching yesterday which helped me find some spots where I was missing a lot of value and spewing a little too much and I'm feeling really confident again postflop. I'm just waiting for variance to turn around, all-in hands to start holding up, and the worst runner runner cards in the deck to stop slapping me in the face.

Still feeling like I'm playing some of the best poker of my life so amazingly my confidence is still high. Would be huge if that turned into actual dollars instead of having to spend them at the Sklansky Mall.

My plan right now is to pretend I have 20 buy ins for 25nl and run it up how I would if that was actually the case. I think this will force me back into the strict value bet frame of mind. Ran up 5 buyins there in a couple hours playing 6max this evening and will get back up to 50nl once I win 15 more in the next couple days. To the people asking wtf am I doing at 25nl in chat, I have been self-imposed chat banned for the last few months, it's too much of a distraction for me.