Almost a 10k hand week

Its been the most amount of hand I've squeezed into a week ever I would say and well I certainly didn't match last weeks record profits it was a good week learning wise anyway thats for sure. I had to deal with a 13BI downswing but I grinded that out by running really good at 12 tabling 5k hands on EVT. I had my coaching session with Valor on Friday night and found it to be good, he was very observant of what I was doing as I would have expected and asked me lots of questions about why I was doing certain stuff and what my ranges would be for calling certain players and what ranges I put them on just based on their stats. I found it kinda hard to reply to his questions while playing 4 tables as when I am playing I really need to just play and concentrate on the game. Overall I think he thought my game was ok, I definetly cbet way to much and am probably over aggro.

When I was 12 tabling on EVT I found that I was a lot lot tighter obviously as I just can't play as many hands on that many tables without losing tons of money. So I played less aggressive, cbet less pots and just didn't really play back at many players who were 3b or 4b me, they really needed to do it a lot before I would play back, simply because I didn't have time to be doing that. This resulted in me being way more stable, just value betting all my TP hands etc and earning a nice bit of rake. I'll post up my stats and graph for the week below. One thing that is really obvious from the graph is where I started to play 12 tables, just right at the point where the red line starts leveling off, this is fine as my won at showdown shoots up.


Now I want to figure out where I make the most money, playing LAG on few tables or playing TAG on many tables. Also looking forward to more coaching sessions this week so until next week!

An Update

Well, things have went very very well since I last posted. A few things have happened since then. The biggest one has been I have moved my roll from Carlos to Everest, I returned the moniter to Argos and bought a new one. I also moved back up to 100nl when I had 2.2k as I felt that I was wasting my time trying to grind it out at 50nl when I could already beat 100nl well and 22BI should be enough to take a shot. I have also organized more coaching for myself and also won a ticket to the JP masters €750 game which I have played.

So I'm playing 100% of my cash games on EVT now, its been working out very well for me, I have been killing the 100nl games there over a small sample and the softness of the games so far makes up for the small rakeback %. I'm playing about 27/22.5/3.3 so far on the site and I am finding this to be a winning formula so far. I've had to make some small adjustments to my game since I moved to EVT to adapt to the loose play there compared to Carlos. My stats and graph are below and its been a great past 4 weeks for me. Bankroll now stands at $3.9k.


I returned the moniter I bought from Argos, after getting used to it I really was lost without it so I bought this one. It was supposed to arrive on Friday but UPS didn't bother showing up with it, so hopefully I will get it tomorrow. I found the extra moniter great for playing poker as I could play 8 EVT tables with no overlap on the 2 screens. My new moniter had full HD resolution so I really am looking forward to getting it set up.

I had gotten 2 coaching sessions from ianmc38 from boards which I found very good. However with Ian traveling in the other side of the world it was hard to organize some sessions so I have organized with valor, also from boards for coaching which should be good as he is a high stakes player so I should pick up some good stuff there.

I played my first big poker tournament about 2 weeks ago over the May bank holiday weekend. I won a $55R satellite on GJP and took the ticket worth $1150. I found it a great experience and though I played well for the most part of it, I was disappointed with my exit hand as I called an allin when I was very far behind with only 12mins to go in Day 1 after playing for 8 hours. But I will put it all down to experience and hopefully one day I can use it if I can mange to play more big events. Hopefully the WSOP and Irish Open over the next few years.

So thats it for now, good luck at the tables!!!

Weekly Update and playing for pure fun

Have had a good enough week poker wise, didn't get many hands in at all at 50nl but was very happy with how I played at it. I really loosened up my game from what I was playing at 100nl. It's just so much easier to do it at 50nl though. But the idea is to be able to do the same at higher limits. I haven't played many hands at all just because I decided to go back to Donegal for the weekend to see the family and stuff. On Saturday morning I sat in at a 100nl for a short while when a friend was online. I was just messing about open pushing over raises and just having a bit of fun with a $20 stack. Then I played some 0.01/0.02 just to play for pure fun, I was opening nearly every hand and chatting away to the other players in the chatbox. It was all good fun and enjoyed it immensely, its a break from the seriousness of the grinding. Had a few interesting hands that I posted on boards. Other than them there wasn't to much that was interesting. My stats for the week are shown below. Really happy with my LAG game at 50nl and I enjoy playing like this, it can be very spewy at times but this is quite hard to avoid when playing like that.
I also bought a desk for my laptop this week as it was just messing the kitchen table way to much and the girlfriend was getting a bit annoyed with it so I bowed to the pressure!!! So with the nice big desk I impulse bought a 22" Samsung moniter from Argos. I fully intend to take it back within the 16 days as I just bought it to see would I like it.

I played about 150 hands with it today and I didn't really like it so far. I'll give it a few more days before I decide wether I will buy one or not as this one is going back regardless. Its way to expensive in my opinion for what it offers. I would rather get one with 1920x1200 resolution as it would be much better for playing poker. But we will see how it goes.

Last thing is the bankroll now stands at $1584.17 so I just need to keep on building and try to get back playing 100nl as soon as possible.

Its going to be a fresh start

Not sure at the minute how cut out I am for poker. This year has went fairly well to be fair and I've made a bit of money at it. Up until the end of March my BR stood at $4.2k and I was beating 100nl for 4bb/100 which I was happy about to be honest. I then took a shot at 200nl and it went a total disaster, I tried to play my 100nl game at 200nl and I got destroyed to be honest. I lost 1k in about 500 hands playing badly.

Now I have taken out the remainder of my roll and put it into my bank account and I'm going to keep it as profits for the year and I'm left with $1150 which I'm going to use to play 50nl again and this time I am going to destroy it and try to kick out any mistakes I have in my game and just try to learn it better. I also plan on putting up weekly updates on here on Mondays.

The new plan is to take the $1150 bankroll and build it up to 3.5k and then start taking shots at 100nl. I'm also only going to play 4-6 tables and actually concentrate on my game and what others are doing but most importantly put more thought into my decision making and thought process.

Unitl next time......

Everest Poker

Since I posted last things havn't really been going great. When I got to $4k of a roll I took out my original investment to Carlos of $1.5k as I wanted to just be playing with the profits that I have made from online poker. This just makes me feel more secure when I am playing as I now know that the money I am playing with wasn't my hard earned cash to start with.

So this then left me with $2.5k or 25 BIs for 100nl. I got of to a terrible start at 100nl for the month, In my first 1600 hands of the month I managed to drop $1100 which was a bit soul destroying. I then moved back down to 50nl for a while and made a bit back, I felt that I was crushing this game at the time as in my first 2 sessions I made 10BIs, but then I started playing badly again and was back to were I started again.

At this stage I then started watching some cardrunners videos and this was very worthwhile to watch. These players are just a different class and its very good to watch their style of play and try to learn from it. Their thought process in hands is very insight-full and this is something that I need to improve on when I am playing. I took a few days of from playing poker so I could try and come back with a clear head and stll have my bankroll in tact.

When I came back I stupidly took a shot at shortstacking 600nl and 1000nl. It was very profitable but pure luck as well, I won all my races and sucked out big time one guy when I flopped a set and check the flop, he caught up with a straight on the turn where all the money went in but I filled up on the river to give me a $600 pot. The plan is the next time I play 600nl I will be rolled for it but this is a pipedream at the minute.

I also played a few tournamnents this month, I cashed for more than a $100 in the 35k guaranteed on ipoker. I made a stupid call when I was 11th in chips with 72 left and crippled my stack. I went out in 55th I think which isn't to bad out of a 1400 player game. I also came 4th in a 100 man $10 rebuy game for $225. My bonus also cleared this month which gave me a boost of $300 and at present my bankroll stands at $3020 so with rakeback to come in I hope to be at around the 4k mark for the start of April.

I'll post up my 100nl graph and stats for the period so far. Its very gloom looking but I am starting to recover at least.
So thats the story so far this month. The plan at the minute is to start taking shots at 200nl in April and be properly rolled for it by the end of April which I want somewhere over $5k for it, preferably $6k, but we will see how it goes. I'll try stick in an update at the start of April and see how things stand when I get my rakeback in the account.

A fresh start in 2008

At the start of January I opened up a new account with Carlos Poker with a good cashback deal. I think this is crucial to any poker player these days as you really need that extra bit of money to boost your bankroll and it can turn a losing month into a bad one.

I said to myself that I was going to start afresh in 2008 and just forget about what ever money I had won or lost up to that, to be perfectly honest I'm not sure if I have been in profit since I started playing as I didn't keep any accurate records, I actually think I am up about €1500 - €2000 but this could be wrong as its easy for anyone to forget the money they lost and just think about the times they've won. So with that in mind I am taking note of whatever money I have deposited into different accounts or played with in the casino. So to date my spending is as follow:

Carlos €416.04 / $600 - I went on to lose this and deposited another:
Carlos €681.58 / $1000
VC poker €50 - wanted to play in an Irish Open Freeroll
Poker Stars €15 - played the Sunday 100k once, other time I forgot to play it and lost the $11!!
Sporting Emporium €55 - played the €75 scalps game one night
Jackpot €150 - a drunken night at the end of January

Holdem Manager €50 / $80 - poker tracking software.

So to date I have spent about €1420 on poker and my online BR currently stands at $3617 (rakeback of around $250 is still to be added to this) which is the equivalent to €2400, so to date I am up €1000. So where this money has come from is described over the next couple of paragraphs.

The screenshot below is from sharkscope where I made a few $ playing $20 30 man tournaments and some other 10 man sit and goes, also in there is a $110 6 man SNG which I played while chasing loses one day. Something I have tried to cut out of my game.


I also played a good few hands at 50nl and at the end of it I was actually down money which was very annoying. I thought I would be able to beat this level quite comfortably but due to tilting problems I had a few sessions where I dropped a lot of money, around $500 3 times, this was very upsetting at the time and every time I made the money back I done the stupid thing and I would tilt it all back again. You can see some really quick drops in the graph, basically where I played bad and then tilted ever more off. But it does make for a funny looking graph!!
So if you examine the graph you will notice that I make money in a completely different way to most poker players. I make my money from pots that don't go to showdown red line, basically I play my hands very aggressively and they don't get show down, in showdown pots I am really bad because people call my bluffs so the showdown winnings are bad blue line. My actual winnings green line is the difference in the two and as a result of bluffing to many calling stations which is poor on my part, I lost money playing 50nl, with the rake back added in I showed a small profit over 25k hands which is very disappointing. My stats from poker tracker at 50nl are shown below. I have split them into 2 as basically on the 23rd of January I had a coaching session where the only thing that we discussed was my PF game, which as you can see I did improve a hell of a lot which can be seen from my winnings and stats:
Some of the main differences in my game from the coaching was my PF raise, instead of calling and limping more I now raise a lot more. I am still playing the same % of hands but playing them a lot more aggressively, you can see that my stealing % is also a lot higher which means I am picking up a lot more pots from the button and the blinds, this is very important in improving your win rate. Basically I have improved my game quite substantially in my opinion for this level.

Once I had $2000 in my poker account I started taking shots at 100nl, to date these have gone very well over a small sample size of hands. I am now comfortably bankrolled for 100nl and I am feeling pretty good with my game. I am going to finish this post of with the same graphs that I have used above.
So as you can see I ran really hot over the first 3.5k hands or so, since then I've had 2 $450+ downswings but I recovered from both of them so I am happy enough. One of the main differences is that I am up money in showdown pots which is where I want to be. Its also nice to be still making money in non-showdown pots, with the 2 of these combined I think I have the basis of a good game. My stats over this period are below:
1 thing I want to work on now is improving my PF raise and getting my W$WSD higher as I think these are important to my game. My stats aren't as good as they way they were at the end of my 50nl so I'm going to take a few days of playing poker now and try and work on this. I'm also going to sign up to cardrunners and watch some of their videos as I have been hearing nothing but good reviews about these from fellow 100nl players. So thats it for now, I will try and keep this updated each week from now on. Next week probably won't have much of an update as I don't plan on playing many hands this week, more of s review week and study week.