I took the data that I posted the other day regarding my hourly and daily winrates and broke it down into weighted values based on my winrate for the hour or day and the volume I play during that time period. I wanted to see how it would affect my winrate if I adjusted my playing schedule (realistically) and it seems that I can increase my hourly winrate by 78% by changing what time of day I play the most at and by 56% by moving more of my volume to weekends. I'm not sure how to combine the variables of both to come up with an overall improvement factor without getting data broken down into full 168 hour one week sections.
My next step based on that is to try to set up scheduled session times. I typically find my mind wandering off after about an hour and a half, but my A game is probably gone at around the hour mark. Breaking even for a half hour isn't terrible either when you can pull in 3.5 bb/100 in rakeback.
Current outline:
Weekdays:
7am-8am: Wake up. I'm a morning person.
8am: Watch a video while everyone's still sleeping (1 hour-ish).
9am: Breakfast and family time.
11am - 1pm: Play fewer tables and focus on what I learned in video.
1pm: Lunch break.
2pm - 5pm: Play more tables in grind mode.
Quit for day unless I don't feel tired after 10pm.
All of this on a gradient of fewer tables and skipping sessions early in the week and more tables and adding extra sessions towards the end of the week.
Friday:
Poker Day.
Weekends:
Wake up.
Work and/or grind my face off alternating 8am - 10am and 11pm - 2am.
Suck it up with little sleep since I'm going to take a good deal of Monday and Tuesday off.
I played ~400 hands this morning and dropped about 1.5 buyins. Unfortunately 1 buyin was a misclick J9s where I thought I had AK on the BTN getting it in pre against AK which I was obviously happy to see but still whiffed. It was starting to feel like one of those bad sessions where everything is going to go wrong so I just clicked the sit out and close all tables button.
Sure enough:
0 sets.
My preflop raises were 3bet 25% of the time.
Ran at 30% W$SD and 33% W$WSF (52% and 49% are normal here).
Flop cbet success 0% (normal is 48%).
Turn cbet success 0% (normal is however spewy people feel day to day).
The above is going to generally translate into running into tops of everyone's ranges. If I were getting 3bet a lot and/or cbets were not working and I was still winning, then people are playing back at me. But when I can't win with or without showdown there's no point in over adjusting and playing back at people who are just card racking against me.
I think this could have very quickly turned into a negative 4 or 5 buyin session if I decided to tilt instead of close it down so I'm pretty happy that I caught it really fast.
Today, I took a look at a nice little feature HEM has for compiling your winrates and stats based on the time of day and day of the week under the Reports tab. I put together a bit of a spreadsheet based on that to see what time of day is best or worst for me. This would basically tell me when game quality is good and/or when I play my best. I found the results over a 300k hand sample for this year fairly significant.
A few observations for hourly:
Results are fairly terrible between 5pm - 11pm with the odd exception of 6pm - 7pm. Decent, mediocre results from 8am - 10am and 12pm - 2pm. Good results from 10am - 12pm and 2pm - 5pm. Excellent results from 11pm - 3pm.
* Very small sample from 3am - 7am.
What I'm going to take away from the hourly:
Terrible results are probably mostly due to playing non-A-game and getting tilty after 5pm. Be very careful about playing this time frame.
Regs go for a supper break from 6pm-7pm?
Tables are not bad during the morning and early afternoon but not nearly as many fish as at peak time. Probably not a lot of regs awake either so it evens out a bit.
I probably play my best during the early afternoon until supper time. Euros also getting home from work.
Play fewer tables to focus more playing against more regs.
Mass table weekends and maybe one afternoon session a couple days during the week.
* After midnight is skewed as shown below.
Observations based on day of the week:
It is true that I hate weekends because it's a variance minefield but I also make the most money by far on those days. At least now I have the data to prove it and can disregard my selective memory.
I don't know what it is about Tuesdays but it's probably the day that absolutely every fish is back to work and out of money and the games are at their deadest.
The rest of the week is kind of marginal but good enough to FPP pro against a lower Fish:Reg ratio.
* I generally work only weekends which explains the high 11pm-3am winrates. It also possibly explains some of my less than stellar results over the past year when I think back to how much money I used to make and my ability to play higher stakes when I wasn't working the weekend shift all the time. On Saturdays and Sundays I generally either don't play at all when I work a night shift and I play for a few hours after 11pm when I get home from the day shift. This is most likely skewing the after midnight hourly winrates because I tend to go to bed before 11pm fairly religiously during the week.
Actions based on day or the week:
Play as much as possible on the weekend in the short amount of time I have.
Quit sessions early and quickly during the week if they start off bad.
Put in more sessions in the 8am-4pm time slot skewed towards the tail end of that during the week to make sure I have a better chance of weekday A-game.
Take Tuesdays off to study or just plain take a break for the next while.
Figure out why I've played 2x as many hands on Mondays as any other day this year.
I'm going to stick to this for the next few months and then re-evaluate. I assume some of this is going to shift with the American player base now gone and everything might move forward a few hours.
Guy is running 32/4 and I imagine has paid dearly for those red stars. Seriously has not lost a pot afaik. He thinks I'm FOS because he keeps binking bottom pair against my Ace high and not folding.
I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to stop this cycle. I get on these really decent runs where I play awesome and feel confident and motivated and hands hold up for a couple of weeks as I steadily grind up a good nanonoko-style-graph profit thinking I've finally gotten out of this shit hole of the longest breakeven stretch ever.
Then I hit the odd day here and there every couple of weeks where I play a session or two and the RNG decides it wants to skydive off my graph at 15% to 30% W$SD with normal W$WSF and WtSD for 2k or 3k hands. I feel like a massive underdog every hand unless I have 80%+ equity when all-in -- past 80% I assume I am ahead which is worth a little prayer to hold -- and completely destroy 2/3 of my monthly profits in a very short time frame. This results in me feeling dejected and unmotivated to play at all for at least the next week and is the main reason for my laughable volume over the past year.
I know that I could try to avoid playing when things are going this terrible but it's kind of hard to catch in a couple of thousand hands which is literally a few hours when you can brush off the first few coolers and suckouts and say "ok you're playing fine, nh" only to be smacked a few more times in a row before realizing it's going to be one of those -8 buyin sessions.
I'm just spinning my wheels in a rut trying to gain some momentum only to slide right back down every time. Definition of insanity...
Example from today. I just start to feel like there's zero chance river is ever a brick here when I get into these shitty high variance spots during these sessions.
My thought process goes something like this:
I'm ahead of his stack off range. Quick estimation is 60-75%.
Drag the slider all-in.
FML here goes another buyin but it's the "correct" play.
Just fold just fold just fold just fold.
Click. Shove.
Villain snapcalls. Bink. Sometimes the nice ones at least say "ty."
Story of my life.
This is against a sweatshop reg who thinks every CO, BTN, SB or BB seat is a 3bet seat when the PFRer is in one of those but still manages to somehow run TAG stats. I'm sure you all know who I'm talking about. He also seems to apply this logic to every time I open from anywhere regardless where he is sitting and has taken a liking to flatting my 4bets as folding to a 4bet is out of the question. He generally seems to be FOS as his default line -- hence my CRAI for value -- but has the largest luckbox I've ever seen. I'm obviously a bit peeved on the turn thinking "You have got to be kidding me (again)" before the river hits.
Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 1304496
I wrote most of this a week before Black Friday and now that I'm seeing more and more live poker trip reports I was inspired to finish it up. It's a bit of a short story / trip report from my first live casino experience about 4 weeks ago. Hope you like it.
The Journey
"Backstreet's back, alright!" Ugh. 90s Theme Weekend on the local radio. Hero appreciates being able to understand the words as much as the next guy -- Must be getting old -- but Backstreet certainly doesn't need to come back. He turns on his iPod. No Bluetooth -- he's only a microstakes grinder -- he has to use the lighter adapter FM transmitter he got for his birthday. "Here they are! Mike aaannnnnnd Adaaammm." This will have to do.
It's a grey, dreary day. Just above freezing with a steady shower hitting the pavement. About as much as you can ask for on a Friday in early April with winter threatening to come roaring back any minute. He's on his way to the local casino. It's 2 hours away, which is why he's never been to one before, besides the fact that it always seemed a bit indimidating. Looking out the driver side window, spring flooding is well under way. The fields look more like small lakes. Two feet of gravel shoulder hold the water back from swamping the two lane highway as the third wheel makes another smart ass comment on the podcast.
Hero has played this game for nearly five years and had yet to set foot in a poker room. Upon arrival he turns into what appears to be the parking lot in front of the casino and weaves around the valet service looking for a spot to park. Every single one of them is full and are marked with what appears to be yellow squares on the pavement. There's an empty one in the last row and the square marker is fully visible. It's a handicap spot. What kind of a sick joke... there's gotta be 400 handicapped parking spots here! Two more times around the block and he finally finds the "General parking in back" sign.
After wandering around a bit in the lobby of the hotel he manages to find the corridor to the casino. At the end, the incessant zylophone sound effect being played by the man on the stage spinning the bingo ball drum completely changes the atmosphere. After Hero's eyes adjust to the darker lighting, he's hit by a wave of electronic slot machines with a wheel chair or a walker sitting at every one. That explains the parking lot.
After wading through a sea of slots in multiple rooms and running in several circles, Hero finally finds what he's looking for:
The back half of the casino containing the table games and poker room is on the other side. Hero finds an ATM in the 18" corridor between the men's and women's restrooms and waits in line for a 30 something to stuff a wad of 100s into her wallet before she scrambles off back to the pit. Hero is scared money. He withdraws 100bb for 1/2, puts half in his pocket to put on the table and the other half in his pocket to rebuy if necessary.
There's six tables in the room. Four of them are running. All $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em. No one's on the waitlist and it doesn't take Hero long to get into a game.
The Line Up
Seat 1: Hero. This seat sucks. 3 of the 4 dealers like to constantly lean over their chip tray. The automatic in table shuffler directly in front of Seat 1 is kind of interesting but makes folding awkward. It's really tough to see the action in seats 8 and 9 and causes a lot more prompting than necessary and a few checks after seat 9 had bet and a "That only works once buddy" response from some of the other players. It is a decent seat for interacting with seats 2-5 though.
Seat 2: The whiner. It's his birthday, 32nd in fact, and he's supposed to out for dinner with his girlfriend but her babysitter bailed. He runs extremely bad and can't get a top pair hand to showdown without the board running out 4 to a flush or straight. General FML attidude.
Seat 3: The News Anchor. At least, he looks remarkably similar to Devin Scillian from Detroit Local 4 news and is happy to throw out the fact that he has a lot of money to burn and is playing in the $1100 MTT the next day. His wife apparently crushes online but is too indimidated to play live. Super friendly, talkative and polite guy.
Seat 4: Nitty Old Guy. I assume this is what everyone means by live old nit-regs. Super weak-tight-station willing to c/c down with 2nd pair + flush draw and folds to a token $2 bet in a $50 pot on the river when his draw misses. He's a 1/2 reg because his wife is a bingo reg and they wander back and forth between the poker room and the bingo area to swap cash depending on who's up.
Seat 5: Crazy Limp Fish. Random hick with massive swings and rebuying for 300bb at a time. Has a goofy smile plastered on his face the entire time and likes to see if he can bust people with 72o because that's funny. "Anyone that knows me knows that when I limp/reraise it's AA every time." True story told after stacking Asian LAGtard's AK aipf and raking in a 400bb pot.
Seat 6: The Mid Life Crisis. Scruffy 40ish year old who plays relatively well and straightforward. Drama drama. Corderoy pants are a little slippery which is bad for having your wallet fall out at which point he sits there in shock looking like a drooler while the dealer calls surveillance. Thankfully Crazy Limp Fish sees it on the floor under the Seat 6 chair and says "It's right there, numbnuts. Where's my finder's fee?"
Seat 7: Quiet TAG. 50ish Mike Ditka lookalike. Nitting it up and fat value betting, pretty solid adjustment to the game with an obvious nit-value range. Doesn't say a word all night besides "Raise."
Seat 8: Good LAG native kid. This guy can't be more than 19 and is just going wild with the preflop iso's and semi-bluffs. Apparently cardracking and crushing the table. He cashes out shortly after Hero sit down so they don't get to clash. Security shows up with the $100 chip lockbox so he can trade in 240 red $5 chips and then escorts him to the cashier. He gets replaced by a young Tom Dwan for most of the night who burns through $400 before realizing his iso/cbets aren't working.
Seat 9: Asian LAGtard. Overvalues absolutely everything and is more than willing to fire off 300bb with air. Endless supply of Sir Robert Borden's ($100) in his pocket. High variance is an understatement.
Other Noteables: Too good for 1/2 dude in his 40s and wearing a 90s sportjacket keeps wandering back and forth from the poker room to the blackjack tables. He asks when the 10/20 game is going to start. Host: "I can gaurantee you there will be no 10/20 game tonight." 10/20 pro: "Put me on the interest list for 10/20." That was a lonely list. Eventually he stoops to our level and sits at the next table over looking trying to look completely disinterested after waiting for three hours.
Drinks on the House every 2 hours!
The Hand
Hero only gets seriously involved in 2 pots the entire night after playing 150 hands. The concepts of isolating and cbetting are a complete lost cause even when he goes with a standard live large iso so limping along it is. Hero rakes in a few orphan pots, three in total. The term 'orphan pot' doesn't really apply to this game either. The only medium size pot he plays, he opens JTs UTG and managed to get HU with Mr. Mid Life Crisis, taking it down with a bet, check, check/call line when villain decides to turn his 88 into a bluff on J733K.
Hero's been overlimping and seeing some flops. Stack has dwindled a bit.
Hero is BB with AsQs
Preflop ($3):
The Whiner limps.
The News Anchor calls.
Old Nitty Guy calls.
Crazy Fish calls.
3 folds.
Asian LAGtard raises to $14.
Hero Calls $12.
The Whiner calls $12.
Old Nitty Guy calls $12.
Crazy Fish folds!
Flop ($58): Qh Ts 8s --> Jackpot!
Hero slowplays cause there's no way this flop is getting checked around.
3 checks fml.
Asian LAGtard bets $80! [Ks Qd]
Hero calls $80 and is all-in. [As Qs]
The Whiner calls $70 and is all-in. [Ks 3s]
Old Nitty Guy calls $60 and is all-in. [Ad Td]
Hero is in total disbelief looking around, wondering what is going on. He's so flabbergasted that he can't even match hands up to the board and doesn't know whether he has the best hand or not. Spade ONE TIME! Turn, 3c. River, 6c. Blank. Blank?
Hero is still trying to figure out what everyone has while LAGtard is reaching for the pot. LAG's half of the table puts up a unified "HEY!" The dealer is also trying to figure out what everyone has. "I have top pair top kicker," says LAGtard holding up the King of spades. Hero's half of the table lols and points at Hero's Ace of spades. The dealer requires two full forearm swipes at the pot to push 60 red chips and change all over to Hero's corner. Hero auto-folds the next two hands while he's busy stacking chips.
Two hours of limping and check/folding later and Hero decides to call it a night. Profit: 300 big blinds for a 200 bb/100 winrate. Not too shabby. He fills up a rack of red chips and heads to the front of the poker room where he's traded four black chips to take to the cashier. Taking the intended long walk back through the pit he can see how easy it would be for most people to just throw down a black chip on a hand of blackjack on the way out.
Back in the car its raining again while Olivier Busquet makes some profound statement about the key difference between a good player and a great player is the ability to control tilt. Hero is definitely planning on coming back as he empties the contents of his wallet on the passenger seat and counts his profits.
**********
For anyone that hasn't seen this yet, it's an absolute must watch.
'Too late, axe in car' makes me burst out laughing every time.
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