2010 Resolution

New Year Resolution for 2010: No more 50NL Full Ring. It's time to move up. You can't really become comfortable doing something unless you actually do it.

I've had a really good start to the year at 100NL and 200NL FR. I'm starting to really enjoy the game dynamic at those levels and I'm finding myself getting a lot better in 3bet/4bet pots. Also feeling a lot more in control postflop and manipulating peoples' ranges pretty effectively. I'm still playing 50NL 6max as I haven't accomplished the winrate that I think I should be having there yet.

I recently read Dusty Schmidt's new book, Treat Your Poker Like a Business. I'd say it's about 30% motivational, 20% promotional (which I found quite lame considering I already paid $ and anyone reading this book already knows about rakeback and Stox) and 50% content - about 1/3 of that new-ish content. I was actually hoping for more of a workbook style, but it ended up being more what to think about with not much what to do. Anyone thinking about going pro (ie. people that need to know this info) might be a bit disappointed in it seeing as how most of the what to think about is already available for free on most forums. Still a decent read.

But if I take anything from this book, it's the fact that I need to treat my bankroll not as money, but rather as inventory. It's just an inventory of chips used to aquire more chips. Invest x chips here and expect a return of x + y chips here. Hopefully I can maintain that mindset and continue moving up this year.

Good luck to everyone in 2010.

November is finally over

Haven't posted in a while. I seem to post a lot less when I'm not winning, which has been the case the past couple of weeks. I've been basically breakeven after a very swingy second half of November.

I think it's a combination of bad sleeping habits and trying out new stuff, then trying to find my way back to fundamentals when something doesn't work out. That can lead to some frustration and trying to force things. I've also taken a couple of failed shots at 200nl FR and 100nl 6max in the past week so that has a lot to do with it as well.

Part 2 of my 25nl series is out now and Part 3 is on the way. If only I could keep running as hot as I do in my videos... lol... maybe I should just start recording all my sessions and talking through my thought process out loud.

200nl shot, fail

I'm obviously not ready for 200nl yet psychologically. I played pretty decent today and I think I can compete there, but I finished the session down "only" 1.5 BI after starting up 1.5 BI and I feel kind of sick about it. Thankfully that's all I was down after running 2nd flush into nut flush 3 hands in a row on the same table against the same 30/15.

Kept running into sets after that even though I pot controlled it pretty well and got away with not paying them much but then got a little frustrated about flush under flush and overpair vs set situations happening constantly and spewed my JJ overpair vs a BB (12/11 with 25% c/r) c/r on a low board. Decided it was time to quit after that when I was telling myself just fold to the c/r just fold, it doesn't matter just fold, but no i 4bet/call the flop, sigh.

Will try again next month.

Update and biggest pot ever!

Thought I'd post an update seeing as how I don't get around to posting that much anymore. I've been watching a lot of videos lately on DC. Most notably the Coaching Tree videos with BalugaWhale and his team. Incredibly awesome stuff!

I try to watch one every day or so and have noticed myself progressively playing a lot more spots comfortably. It kind of feels like everything is starting to click. When I previously tried to loosen up my game, I think I went about it the wrong way. I was basically just trying to play more hands. That's going to result in disaster (or at least no improvement in winrate).

But now, I'm finding I'm playing all sorts of hands without even realizing that I'm running super loose until I check my HEM stats after a session. I think that tells me that I'm doing it right now.

It's not a matter of playing more hands for the sake of playing more hands. It's a matter of seeing more and more profitable spots and pushing my skill edge in those spots. I totally understand the framework behind what's going on when I see high stakes players on edited poker TV shows or at the online nosebleeds pushing garbage around in what looks like donk-on-donk violence sessions.

I'm also starting to make the move up to 100NL permanent. I've put in about 30-40% of my volume there this month with fantastic results along with a lot of hours at 50NL grinding out buyins, experimenting and really focussing on improving my game. I like to use a 3 stake system where I can play low if I am not on my A game but want a poker fix, play my A game and grind in my "home" level, and take shots at the next.

So far this has been 25NL/50NL/100NL for the past few months for me. I've started to put in a little bit of time at 200NL although hardly anything yet as I'm trying to make 100NL home and 50NL the low end. I have not opened a single 25NL table this month.

Also really liking the HEM Scanner. I kind of sucked at table selection prior to this but apparently I have a good scoring system since the tables with the highest scores usually have a monster waiting list. I'm not sure if I'm going to just buy the client side for a one time payment or pick the subscription for server side. Server side is so much faster and a lot of fish are long gone by the time it's finished scanning in client side.

Anyways, BIGGEST HAND EVER in my life happened this week:

UTG+1 is 8/6. MP2 is a squeeze-happy supernova elite.

I had a mini-heart attack on the turn.

Poker Stars $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 119198
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (MP1): $203.00
MP2: $200.00
CO: $216.20
BTN: $336.00
SB: $214.50
BB: $41.80
UTG: $59.15
UTG+1: $200.00
UTG+2: $200.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is MP1 with K K
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $6, 1 fold, Hero calls $6, MP2 raises to $24, 4 folds, UTG+1 calls $18, Hero raises to $72, 1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $200 all in, Hero calls $128

Flop: ($427.00) K 4 4 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Turn: ($427.00) A (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($427.00) 5 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $427.00
Hero shows K K (a full house, Kings full of Fours)
UTG+1 shows Q Q (two pair, Queens and Fours)
Hero wins $424.00
(Rake: $3.00)