SNG Results

Temporary Switch?

Jumping from game to game was absolutely killing my bankroll. I was getting extremely impatient with cash games. I decided that maybe I need to take a bit of a break from cash and instead of being a reg-fish donator I'm using that money to freeroll my property taxes. I cashed out everything but $100 and decided to start back at the bottom. The following sequence then occured:

• I freed myself from slaving away for VPPs. Yes I'm going to lose a ton of money in rakeback, but positive winrate + freedom > rakeback + negative winrate + misery. This is supposed to be a game. Games are supposed to be fun amiright?
• I started playing 1c/2c to rebuild. This went well at first winning about 20 buyins in the first 4k hands, but the impatience started to set in again and I somehow managed to lose half of it back in the next 2k hands.
• I switched to PLO for 10k hands because high variance is what's needed to rebuild a BR quickly - there's another impatient word.
• I decided I needed to play something structured with a clear beginning, end and goal. I went alllll the way back to the beginning of my poker 'career' and starting playing some SNGs on Stars. $1.50 Turbo 9 mans to be exact.

I don't know how long I'll play these or how high I'll try to climb the SNG ladder but it's going really well so far. You'll notice the spreadsheet I've added in my next post with a link in the sidebar since I made myself online busto and can't afford a sharkscope widget or whatever other people do. I started out 8 tabling and switched to 10 about a quarter way through the 147 games I've played so far. ROI dropped very slightly although I'm not really sure how fast the variance in these things evens out.  My HEM results trending tab is pretty much a horizontal ITM line with ROI slowly climbing as I get better and get more 1sts.

I pretty much know nothing about SNG strategy other than that aggression is good and people are bubble nits so I'm going to start looking into that. Moshman's book has been sitting on my desk collecting dust for a number of years and is only 10% read and my CR sub is almost up so I'll quickly download and watch as much as possible. I also have no idea what the comparative skill levels are to cash. $1.50 = 2NL , $3.50 = 10NL, $7 = 25NL ? If anyone knows the answer to this please post a comment.

I'm not ruling out re-depositing a good chunk of my BR if I get into a more permanent zen state of mind, going back to cash, or getting Supernova again but I'm not at all worried if I don't do any of that. If it happens it happens.

Need some advice

I keep skipping from plan A to B to C and back with ever increasing frequency. Jumping from game to game and limit to limit. I'm starting to feel a bit of desperation which is very unsettling. Almost like someone flipped a switch a million hands ago and left me hanging there and doesn't appear to be coming back. Lifetime graph so you have an idea what I'm talking about:

I really don't intend for this to be a whine post at all. I'm honestly just pulling my hair out at this point and need to figure out what to do with this game. I still really want to enjoy poker, but running and playing like shit really sucks the enjoyment out of the game after an extended period of time.

My current situation:

• Full time job + Family
• Have roughly 60 hours per month for poker and diminishing
• Removed most of my BR since BF and it typically doesn't go back online
• I (like most people) think I'm a relatively smart person

What I've done:

• Read basically every mainstream book there is
• Read every strategy post on the forum
• Can probably give you at least the gist of if not a theoretical guideline of most concepts
• Don't have time to watch videos because if I get a chance to sit down at my computer, I want to play
• edit: 14 coaching sessions with 5 different coaches
• Knowledge does not translate into results
• Built a BR from $0 to playing 200NL and all the way back down to playing 25NL
• Played weak-tight 11/9 and LAG 19/17 and everything in between
• Played + and - redline postflop styles
• Mass tabled and 6 tabled

Ultimately where I want to be:

• I want to be that small stakes 200NL / 400NL guy that can just make low 5 figures per month after rakeback seem easy
• Essentially make 2-3x my salary so I can quit my job.

I just don't know how to go from my current situation to where I want to be because I'm sure those guys that make it seem easy put in a ton of hard work. And I just do not have the time to commit to a lot of hard work but surely a part time player that puts in a medium amount of work should be able to survive at 100NL.

I've been falling way behind the curve and it kind of seems like the explosion in free or near free poker information in the past couple years has brought everyone up to speed very quickly. But it must be true that everyone playing micros and small stakes is still terrible if there are people making money at mid and high stakes, so there's still a lot of value in this game even though the migration of players to lower stakes seems to be increasing.

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated in the comment section or email.

LOL CAP games

Thought I might grind out a few quick VPPs in some CAP games on Stars. LOL:

2000 hands
Steal success: 52%
3bet success: 42%
Flop cbet success: 26%
Turn cbet success: 0%
W$SD: 36%
Profit: negative 23 "buyins"
EV: negative 4 "buyins"
Standard deviation: normal NL FR
23 hands AIPF: 0/4 when dominated, 0/6 when dominating, 0/7 flips, 1/3 when crushed, 1 chop and 2 losses AK vs AK
 ??????
How is this freaking possible?
DIAGF

Favourite Hand

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 1370313
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

UTG: $22.35
UTG+1: $7.05
UTG+2: $29.85
MP1: $22.95
Hero (MP2): $25.00
CO: $10.35
BTN: $10.00
SB: $12.20
BB: $10.00

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is MP2 with K 9
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.50, 2 folds, Hero raises to $1.50, 4 folds, UTG+1 calls $1

Flop: ($3.75) K 9 7 (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $5.55 all in, Hero calls $5.55

Turn: ($14.85) T (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($14.85) 8 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $14.85
UTG+1 shows J 3 (a straight, Seven to Jack)
Hero shows K 9 (two pair, Kings and Nines)
UTG+1 wins $14.15
(Rake: $0.70)

Rigged.

That is all.

Golf TR.

I actually managed to get out to a golf course this morning for the first time in 2 years. I used to golf fairly regularly back towards my high school days, probably twice per week but life has kind of just filled up with other things since then. 5am felt pretty early as I had a ~2 hour drive to meet my group for a 7am tee-time  at their local course but it was a really nice morning at 23 degrees already.

They decide they want to degen it up and play $1 per hole skins with one mulligan allowed on each 9 holes which I obviously oblige to even though I haven't picked up a club the past few seasons. Keep in mind these guys are even bigger nits than I am and prefer to play $0.10/$0.20 with 25bb at our home games. =)

The first two get off some decent drives and I set up my tee fully expecting my ball to get a bit of air time by being driven downwards off the tee, bouncing up 10 feet in the air and making off for the weeds on the right. To my surprise, my ball decides to take off 225 yards straight down the middle and I win the first 3 holes in similar fashion, knocking down 8 foot puts while everyone else was 2-putting.

After that things kind of evened out and I my forearms started to ache a bit once they had a chance to rest during the breakfast break. The skins started to carry over a lot and I ended up with the best overall score but just didn't win the right holes and finished at +$7. I got destroyed on the island green par 4, first nailing a rock, bouncing off the bridge and back into the water and then overshooting the green where I was able to take a drop on the fringe, as well as on a monster par 6 that was a chore to get to in 7 considering I wasn't hitting my irons that far by the 17th.

They use a weird rule with respect to lost balls penalties: +1 for literally lost ball and +1 for the drop resulting in +1 if it's out of bounds and you pick it up and +2 if it's in the water and unretrievable. Sounded kind of silly to me, but it added a bit of strategy in that it seemed better to take two safe shots than one risky shot that would cost you on average 50% more than normal if you mess up. Final tally was 104 which they of course counted as 108 considering I "lost" four. Not terrible considering the circumstances although I think I could have shot 97 if my short game wasn't completely out of whack on the back 9 on at least 8 of those causing a lot of chip shots to get on. Definitely going to try to get out there a bit more this year.

Poker

Every time I've sat down the past few days I start loading tables from the lobby, get to about 8 and then say eff this I don't feel like playing and insta-close them before I post blinds. Not that I haven't been winning, but I just plain haven't felt like it and have instead headed over to the 6max hyper-turbo shove fests with mediocre results after running super hot at 49% ITM one day followed by 8% ITM the next to even out at 33%. I think these are defintely profitable although I don't much care for the change to the 10/20 start for 25bb rather than the old 25/50 10bb start. I think I understand shovebot strategy a lot better than the average person that plays these and just end up bleeding off a couple blinds sitting around waiting to implement it because by the time you have unknowns' 25bb stackoff range figured out along with the nuances of what a minraise means, you're down to a formulaic 10-15 bb anyways.

In one of my last posts I said I was going to withdraw and move down to 10NL 6max. My plan seems to change every time I write up a new blog post as I'm feeling kind of wrestless and impatient with poker at the moment. Almost immediately after I wrote that, I did withdraw but kept playing 25NL Full Ring after a couple of sessions of 6max. I'm just at that point again where I'm torn between making easy money and getting tired of the same thing over and over again without seeing large improvements although I feel like I'm playing extremely well right now. Waiting for the next boom I guess.

Taking a few steps back

It kind of seems like you have to be really fluid in your approach to this game and I'm going to be taking what feel like a few more steps backwards in my poker life.

I was a little late to the Full Tilt Poker license gongshow boat, not having read any other blogs or the zoo or listened to podcasts for the past couple of weeks until yesterday and I also only play on Stars. I'm sure you've all read about this ad nauseum so I'll just post some cliffs for those that have been under a rock somewhere like me. As far as I can tell from skimming forum threads it kind of looks like it went:

• $1 in FTP$ != $1 in USD since there's not enough to go around after the DOJ seizure and the $60M shortfall in what is essentially player credit due to inability to process transactions coming in pre-BF.
• Not paying back players sufficiently is a violation of their license.
• License suspended / revoked by Alderney Gambling Control.
• FTP is completely shut down worldwide in the middle of regular play with no warning. Can not connect at all.
• FTP claims "maintenance" and to this day still say they are "updating" on their website.
• Hearing date set for July 26th.
• European investors to the rescue!
• Ivey drops his lawsuit against Tiltware.

To their credit, the Isle of Man put out a statement saying that Stars has continued to show that they are in full compliance with their license. That said, I think I'm going to take a step back and play on a much smaller bankroll for the time being as I really can't afford to see that amount *poof* into nothing no matter how unlikely it is on Stars with a rather large property tax bill coming up. FTP has shown their incompetence over and over pre and post BF, while Stars has shown the complete opposite, but everything still feels chaotic with new sky is falling here and there messages every other week. Online poker has taken a beating and a number of steps back in the past few months. I don't want to be left holding a bag of monopoly money if another random bombshell drops despite having very high confidence in the integrity of Stars.

So for now I'm going to take a step back as well and withdraw most of my BR, drop down to 10NL, try to learn 6max in a more serious and focused way, and practice some more aggressive bankroll management than I have in the past. Hopefully I'll feel like I'm on more of a freeroll once I build it back up. I've become way too comfortable in the past just sticking it out at whatever level I feel best at and that has led to a lot of burnout and de-motivation to learn. Tentatively, I plan to start with $500 and move up at 30 buyins giving myself 10 buyin shots and whatever happens with my VIP level happens, although I would be shocked if I don't reach Supernova again by the end of the year.