Half way review

I've been meaning to put up a post about how the year has went so far and as its been just over 6 months since I started at 50nl, so it seems appropriate to do this now. Looking back now, I'm not really sure why I couldn't beat 50nl but with the rakeback and sign up bonus I was rolled to play 100nl so I moved up anyway. Perhaps one of the reasons why I wasn't a winner at it was because I was running way to many bluffs versus calling stations and being overly aggressive in a game that you don't really need to be all that aggressive to win at. I guess I also had FPS (Fancy play syndrome) which just means trying to make the perfect plays/bluffs all the time. One thing I am sure of though I had really really bad tilt issues back then and I still have tilt problems but not to the degree as I had them back then. When moving up limits this will really slow you down and I spent quite a while at 50nl so my top tips for anyone trying to beat 50nl are:

• Get the basics right, cut out the limping, play your big hands strong and fast.
• Always play ABC poker, no need to do anything different to beat the game
  
• Make sure you have rakeback and a clear-able sign up bonus.
• Avoid tilt.
  
• Table select the best games (lots of NITS at 50nl trying to move up, loads of fish at this level so need to play against them).
• Sign up to a video training site, this will improve your play a lot by watching how experts can easily beat these games.

So I then moved onto 100nl and went on a heater at the start, making 20BI in about 4k hands so I was off to a flyer. I just ran really good, was putting coolers on so many people and rarely getting sucked out on and of course sucking out myself the odd time. I found the move from 50nl - 100nl really easy because of this but once I was settled in at 100nl and the heater was over I found things started going downhill and I needed to improve my game. The aggression at 100nl was pretty high and had lots of spewy regs stacking off PF with KQs, AQs, TT etc and I also found myself doing this.
At this point I took a step back and tryed to figure out what was the best way to couteract this. I figured folding to 3b was making me a lot of money. I could easily outplay most of these guy post flop so thats what I needed to do. There was no need for me to be getting into inflated pots with 78s and being OOP against some aggro guy. These hands play so much better in multiway raised pots not 3b ones. So my tips for 100nl would be:

• Don't call 3b OOP with less than TT/JJ and sometimes fold AQ. (This may seem weak but I found it to work well)
• 3b IP more than you do OOP. Regs at this level didn't like folding to 3b so you want to be playing these pots IP.
• Spew less, this is the biggest leak for all regs. They are just to aggro.
• Start figuring out good spots for value betting, this will improve your game a lot.

I took a very quick shot at 200nl when I had 20BI and well I was playing 50nl after that so enough said. I then rebuilt again and also moved sites. This worked very well for me as I again went on a heater when I moved to 100nl, I moved through 100nl very quickly and started getting some coaching and started taking shots at 200nl. This time 200nl went pretty well and I was up to 8k and was starting to think about 400nl again. Doomswitch then hit and I was back to 100nl again rebuilding my roll.
Around this time I decieded to get a new desk, comfortable leather chair and a new 24" moniter for the new desk. Set up below:

I think comfortable surroundings are really important when playing poker. I have the desk pointing towards the wall so its hard to look at the tv when playing so less distractions is good. The new screen is a great investment, I was able to 10-12 table without any overlap which is great when mulitabling. I really hated having to stack tables on top of each other and misclick quite often which is a pure pain.

So at the minute 200nl is going really well, I've also done a coaching session at 400nl and the games seemed good which is encouraging. I've got just over $9k now so I will try and hold off taking a proper shot at 400nl until I have at least 25BI. I guess my aims now for the year will be to have taken a few shots at 1kNL. This is highly ambitious but I am that way anyway so no harm in it. To play 1kNL I would really want to have at least $30k so time will tell if this is achievable. Hopefully it will be as I don't cash out to often. I'm also planning a trip to the US in October, going to visit San Fran and Vegas over a week, I've being to both places before but I loved them when I was there so no harm in going back again.

Below is all my stats for the year so far. 125k hands is a lot for me but I think I have learned a hell of a lot and I am 10 times the poker player I was 6 months ago. All the top players say that there is so much to learn in poker and I really am starting to believe this. I think I have come along way since I started playing 50nl in January. I've played a decent buyin tournament which I played well enough in. I've moved from 50nl to a stage where I'm starting to take shots at 400nl which I'm delighted with.


Looking at my stats I think its quite interesting how they have slightly changed since moving from 50nl to 200nl. There are constant trends in them all. So as I moved up through the levels the following has happened:

• Win rate has gone up in them all, but the sample size at 200nl is to small to really know how good of a winner I am at it.
• I've tightened up as I moved up levels but not to a point where I've got to NITTY, I would consider my 200nl stats as a decent TAG.
• My PFR/VPIP has merged closer to 1, 73.3% at 50nl, 81.8% at 100nl and 82.5% at 200nl.
• My 3b% has decreased, I put this down to playing better players who play back more at you so I had to decrease this.
• My 4b% has increased but this should happen as my 3b decreases my 3b range will have gotten tighter so my 4b range of hands is pretty similar, slighly wider if anythings.
• I am squeezing a bit more but hopefully I am picking better spots for it.
• My WTSD% has increased which I am a bit worried about but to be honest I am not really all that sure on the relevance to it for the way I play.
• W$SD% is fairly similar, I would love to get this higher but I bluff quite a bit so inevitably this will stay low when I bluff in bad spots.
• One thing which is good is that my W$WSF is increasing all the time even as I have moved up limits. I'm really happy with this as this is a really good indicater how capable you are as a poker player and how well you play post flop.
• My aggression has also increased which I think is natural as the games are more aggressive as you moved up.
• My 3 barelling is quite high as I do it quite alot and its even higher at 200nl than any other level. At 200nl I calculated it to be 5.84% of hands that I open with. This is probably quite high but it's not a stat I have really looked into and havn't compared it much to other players. It was 5.09% at 100nl so it just means that I am being more aggressive.
• So overall I think my stats are going mainly in the right direction and it shows that I have adjusted pretty well to each level I think.
  

So a recap on the poker goals for the next 6 months are:

• Play some more big buyin tournaments, the Killarney festival and the Paddy Power Winter festival. Playing one of these is a big ambition.
• To be able to beat 400nl and 600nl, with an aim to me ready to take shots at 1kNL

So thats it until probably August now where hopefully I will have more positive news, Until then good luck at your games.