Back in the Game!!!

Welcome back!!



After a short interuption (about 18 months) I have decided to attempt to carry on writing this blog. Why did I stop you cry, well as I explained in my first ever post I am a naturally lazy individual and simply lost interest. I also decided to take a short break from poker and concentrate on other interests in my life, like Wikipedia, extreme ironing and dossing about in my underpants whilst watching Monk or House on the Hallmark channel.



However after a few months of lazing around Broker got me into Heads Up Sit and Go tournaments (HUSnG). His site, Tagpoker, specialises in teaching losing Micro-stakes players how to play a particular style of tight-aggressive poker that is extremely effective in HUSnG tournaments. A lot of these players have gone on to become very good Medium Stake ($50-100) Heads Up players and some are even looking to move up to High Stakes in the near future. He has a whole host of videos that are free to view and has a range of teaching packages that are very good value for money. I gave this a go and gradually managed to improve my Sharkscope record, even reaching a magnificant +1% return of investment at one point!! Using the bankroll (about $500) I had built up playing cash poker on Poker4ever I transferred it to Full Tilt and again tried to make some serious cash. However due to some bad beats (and possibly a dash of tilt) it plummeted to about $420 and once again I got sick of poker. So i took my money out and used it to pay off a big chunk of my credit card, solemnly vowing to never play poker again.


However I have recently re-opened my account on Minted Poker, and within three weeks have managed to get my bankroll up from $50 to just over $83 two tabling at NL10 cash games. So now I have decided to re-attempt my three stage challenge and attempt to hit $1000 so that I can actually earn some decent money playing poker and maybe, just maybe, play poker full time.


The dream lives on....

Bankroll Management - PS I hit $400!!

Its been a long week for me this week, what with going back to work after two weeks off and playing poker. My body clock was all messed up as I had been getting up at half past two in the afternoon and going to bed at 6am. By Wedsnesday I had more or less acclimatised, getting up at 7am and bed by midnight, so that on Thursday I could play some poker and increase my bankroll. I needed just $17 to reach my $400 milestone but it took me four long, grueling sessions four tabling at NL10 to get there. This keeps me on course to reach $500 before the end of the month so that I can move up to the heady heights of NL20, as per bankroll management guidelines. I decided to check out what advice there is for bankrolls at micro-stakes on the 2+2 forums (btw 2+2 is a must for any aspiring poker player) and the general advice seems to be to have at least 20 buy-ins for the level you want to move up to and have at least 20 000 hands at the previous level. However should you experience any immediate downswing and lose 2-5 buy-ins then it is best to drop back down a level and build up your bankroll again.

Now I have 20 buy-ins for NL20 but only about 14-15k hands. So I have decided that I shall move up when I either reach $500 or have played 20 000 hands and have at least $400 in my account. This should take into account any variance that I may experience and ensure that I have enough experience to take on the high rollers at NL20. I shall have to be very disciplined when (note the when and not if, my game is so solid thats its just a matter of time now) I move up and be prepared to drop down if I am down five buy-ins after the first week. Broker says that won't happen cos right up to NL50 the players are just as bad as NL10!! Its hard to imagine that there are people out there that regularly play NL50+ and lose, they must put on like $300-500 a month at least onto their online poker accounts to satisfy their sick gambling addiction. You almost have to feel sorry for them really, but as long as there are sharks like me to take their money, meh.

Bankroll currently stands at around $410 (dependant on tomorrow's rakeback).

Also congrats to the Count (Ted Hankey) for winning the BDO Darts Championships at Lakeside, a few miles away from where I live. I really wanted John O'Shea to win as he's never won before but nevermind, there's always next year.

Goals for 2009

Well back to work tomorrow for me. Its been a good two weeks off work but it just doesn't seem long enough, and I haven't played enough poker!! I had set myself a goal of having a bankroll of $500 before I returned to work but I'll have to settle for around $383 (depends on how much rakeback I receive tomorrow). This makes me about $3k down from my target that I set in August when I started on Celebpoker. 'So what went wrong?' I hear you cry, well quite frankly I don't play enough and my game went a bit stale until Broker pointed out a few big leaks in my game in mid-November. Since then my bankroll has rocketed from £127 to $383, thats more than treble in 6 weeks!! Obviously the rakeback has helped, but I did take out $123 to pay for Hold 'em Manager (and extra beer), so really I have reached my $500 target.

Anyway my targets, or New Year Resolutions if you like, for 2009 are:

To be playing NL20 by the end of January, for which I'll need a $500 bankroll.

To be playing NL50 by the end of February/mid March, for which I'll need a $1000 bankroll.

To be playing NL100 by the end of May, for which I'll need a bankroll of $2000.

By the end of the year I want to pay off my loan and Credit Card, currently about £3.5/4k (about $5.8k).

To improve my Sharkscope record as 'Deatheverytime' on Full Tilt (current ROI -17%, $93 down).

To bed at least one member of Girls Aloud or alternatively Kelly Brook.

How I got into Poker - Part Three

Happy New Year Everyone!! Technically its not actually New Year yet but I thought I'd get this out of the way before I get totally inebriated. I'll be spending a quiet night in tonight watching Sky Movies and working my way through a crate of budweiser, a litre of vodka and a box of heroes. Usually I go out on NYE and this will be the first one that I've just sat in and chilled out, although I might play a bit of poker...

But now back to my story of how I got into poker.

After watching Ed Miller's video series ('Poker Made Simple') on Stoxpoker I managed to build up my bankroll on Fulltilt from $49 to $300 after a couple of months or so. It was at this point that I became aware of Rakeback and Prop Playing. Prop players are players that are paid, via very generous rakeback, to play on websites. Rake is how poker sites make their money, usually around 5% of each pot is taken away as rake, so if you win a pot of $10, the site will take 5% (50c) as rake. However a site will pay you some of your rake back to you if you sign up through certain websites, so that if you pay $100 in rake, you will get a certain percentage back (eg 30% will give you $30 back). Normally a website will offer around 30% rakeback to play on their site, and will pay your rakeback on a weekly or monthly basis. For prop players websites will offer a higher percentage, from 75% to 110%. However these websites tend to be smaller operations with a limited choice of tables to play on, but on the plus side tend to have very bad players on them. So I joined a site called Pokertime as a prop. I only lasted a week as I wasn't really properly bankrolled to play as a prop effectively. I took just one bad beat, but it was enough to destroy my bankroll. It was a $170 pot after flopping the second nuts straight, but my opponent had flopped the nuts straight and that one hand nearly halved my original bankroll. As a result I quit Pokertime and after I received my rakeback I decided to move on and just get a normal rakeback deal. If I had won that pot.... well who knows?

After my brief interlude at Pokertime I instead decided just to get a rakeback deal and after careful deliberation joined Celebpoker. I had trawled through various poker websites and this site was considered to be one of the most fishiest, with a lot of traffic. However I had to earn at least 100 euros a month in rake to get any back. I thought that this would be easy to achieve but playing NL10 I was barely racking up $100 worth of rake a month, let alone 100 euros (for those who don't know $100 equals about 72 euros). But on the other hand I managed to get my bankroll back up to over $300, so its definately a good site for making money at micro-stakes and, who knows, one day I may return to that site when I move up stakes. But I needed to get regular rakeback so after a few months or so I moved on to Poker4ever.

A friend of mine had recommended this site for a while and had built up a five figure stack from $200 in just a couple of months, although he was a prop player earning 85% rakeback. So in October of 2008 I joined poker4ever, with 35% rakeback, hoping to emulate my friend's achievements and build up a huge five figure some in no time at all. So far I've been playing on poker4ever for about three months and my stack has grown from $200 to a whopping $330, though it did hit a low $127 at one point in early November. The picture above shows my graph from the 16 November until Christmas Eve (its probably best to click on it to see it more clearly).

So there you have it in a nutshell, or three blogs, my story of how I got to where I am today. To be honest I haven't progressed much fiscally from last year but I think I am probably five times the poker player that I was this time last year. Hopefully as this blog progresses my bankroll will grow as per my Project (see first blog below) and this time next year I'll have three grand, thirty grand or even 300 grand!!

Bad Beats and Variance - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Huzzah!! Christmas is over at last (thank God) and now we can look forward to the New Year. Hopefully during 2009 my opponents will not hit every flush, inside straight and ridiculous two pair/three of a kind redraw draw that they have been getting against me these last couple of days. I'm not a naturally violent person but I swear to God the next time Broker tells me its just variance I'll stick a cheesegrater up his jacksy and twist!! In fact it amazes me that you see so few bust ups in live game poker (what some call 'Bricks and Mortar' poker). I suppose that is because 95% of internet poker players will never ever play live poker in a casino or card club. I've played in quite a few live tournaments and have never had any real tilt issues, but in internet poker I turn into Mr Angry at a moments notice. Today I had my Kings crushed by, wait for it, K5 off suit, and my opponents have hit nearly every flush and straight draw going. For instance I four-bet a half stack with AK suited making it $2.50. My opponent has $6 behind him and flat calls. The flop comes down A, K, 4. I think to myself, he probably hasn't got aces or kings here, as I have one of each and there's one of each on the board, and I don't consider for a minute that he has pocket 4s cos what dumbass retard would call nearly half their stack pre-flop with a pair of fours? So I stack him off and he shows, guess what, a shiny set of fours!! My toys went out the pram and I refused to play any more internet poker today. In another hand I get three quarters of an opponents stack in on the turn, and on the river a third heart rolls off and he ships it in. Its a dollar fifty to call for a $7 pot and I have top top (top pair and top kicker). I know he's got it but can you ever fold in that scenario? Anyway despite all this I have managed to break even these last two days after hitting over $300 on Christmas Eve. My target was to get my bankroll up to $500 before I go back to work on 5th January but that isn't looking very achievable at the moment. Especially if my opponents keep hitting every god damn draw!!!!

Having said this I have had my fair share of suck outs in the past, it seems that whenever I have pockets Kings and my opponent has pocket Aces I almost always hit a set. I once went all in with Queens on a J, 9, 7 board. My opponent called with 10 8 for the Jack high straight, but running 7s on the turn and river gave me the full house, winning me the pot. Plus I should be due a good run after all the bad beats that I've had so maybe that $500 isn't so far away after all (I might make it by March).

So how should one deal with tilt? I tend to moan and winge, then drink some strong alcoholic beverage. Sometimes I'll lie on my bed and put the pillow in my mouth and punch the mattress while screaming obscenities. But the best thing to do if you feel that you might be on tilt is to stop playing. It sounds like simple advice but I've learnt the hard way its the best way to save money. Another thing I used to do after a bad session was to not play for a week or so, and I've only recently stopped doing this. Its best to take some time out and when your feeling calm and relaxed start playing again, but waiting a week is a bit much. Maybe just an hour or so is best, maybe even a day if you're on the edge of sanity and feel like you're heading firmly towards psycho-ville. Tilt is really pent up emotional anger so if you have a punch bag (or in Broker's case a door, vase or laptop) then you can release that energy by punching and kicking the bejesus out of it. Also repeatedly banging your head against a brick wall can help too, but for legal reasons I can't advise that.

Well I feel a lot better now, these words have been like punching the mattress (with the pillow in my mouth). I could go and play some more poker now but I've got a box of wine to drink and there's some half decent films to watch on TV, and anyway, I wouldn't want to go on tilt again...

How I got into Poker - Part Two

Merry Christmas everyone. It seems to me that every year goes faster and faster as I get older, I remember when I was younger time seemed to go so slowly, but now the years whizz past faster than Usain Bolt on steroids. Today is also my birthday so I guess this should call for a double celebration. I've had many people wish me happy birthday and it got me thinking, what's so happy about seeing yourself getting older and older and your life ebbing away before your eyes? Goddamnit I wanna be 16 again, life was so much easier and less complicated then, I just worked weekends and earned enough money to buy all the drugs, alcohol and cigerettes I needed to have a good time. Those were the days...

Anyway back to my riveting story of how I got into the wonderful world of Texas Hold 'Em. To be honest I've already told the story of how I got into poker, this part just explains how I got to where I am today.

I joined Full Tilt in April 2007 and mainly played the micro stakes SNGs. As with my previous experience at PKR I had good days and bad days, my tournament play was getting better but I still had to deposit $50 to $100 a month onto my poker account to keep playing. Again I started to blame the poker site for all my bad beats, I created the 'Big Stack Theory' that stated that poker sites generally favoured the big stacks over small stacks in tournaments in order to get them finished quicker. This way they could fit more tournaments per day and make more money. Of course now I realise that this is nonsense but back then I thought I was the new Doyle Brunsen, destined to blaze a trail so bright that it would turn poker history on its head. This outlook was significantly boosted after I won a 600+ person Multi Table Tournament, it was only a one dollar buy-in but I won $180 which meant I wouldn't have to deposit for a few months. This was in late Summer of 2007 and I have never since had to deposit any extra money to fund my online poker playing (I only mention that as my Mum might read this and I think she's convinced that I waste all my money on online poker, its actually spent on alcohol, drugs and loose women, I tend to waste the rest).

With this misguided belief in my own abilities I gradually whittled away my bankroll on low stakes SNGs to just under $50, and was starting to question exactly how good a poker player I really was. This is really where Broker comes in.

Broker is a good friend of mine who has been playing poker for quite a few years, but had only been taking it seriously for the last couple of years or so. Throughout my first 18 months of playing poker he had been a constant mine of information and advice. He must have bought every book going on poker theory and read it inside out and upside down. Most of what little I knew about poker, and probably most of what I know now, was due to discussions that Broker and I had. He would have these eureka moments and excitedly tell me he had discovered the importance of position, the magic of check raising, or the sheer genius of the continuation bet. Anyway he had joined a poker website called Stoxpoker, and on this website were instructional videos on how to play. He recommended that I watch a series of video's by a guy called Ed Miller, also known as the Noted Poker Authority, called 'Poker Made Simple'. These videos showed how to make money at micro-stakes 6max tables (six seater cash poker tables). I changed my game from playing tournament poker to cash poker and quite literally overnight I became a winning poker player, within two months I had a bankroll of $300 and I was flying. The advice was simple, to make money at low stakes poker you simply adopt a tight aggressive strategy (also known as tag). You only raise with premium hands in early position, and gradually loosen up as you reach the button. You isolate limpers when you think your hand is better pre-flop by raising, and if they call, simply outplay them on the flop. Set-mining (trying to hit three of a kind with a medium/low pocket pair) became a significant weapon in my arsenal and I was really starting to learn how to get the most money from my big hands and lose the least from my losing hands.

At last my vast potential as a world class poker player was beginning to take off, my only limit was my own laziness (possibly the only thing vaster than my poker talent), and, a la Del Boy, this time next year I'd be a millionaire. Well, at least a few grand better off surely...

How I got into Poker - Part One

Welcome back!! Its been a couple of weeks since my last (first ever) post, but in my defence I was dying of man-flu (like bird flu only ten times worse), and spent most of my time knocking back bottles of night nurse and downing strepsils by the bucketload. I did manage a few hours of six max NL10, had my pocket rockets smashed by pocket fours (not to a set mind but to runner runner flush when he called an all in bet on a 5, 9, 10 flop) and J6s (all in pre-flop, naturally). But despite these bad beats I was able to use all my poker skills and superior knowledge to churn out a slight profit, putting me $38.93 up overall for the whole month. Whoop, whoop!!

Anyway going back to the title of this thread, how did I get into the wonderful world of Texas Hold 'Em?

It all started about two years ago. I went down the pub to watch the footie with a couple of mates, we were slightly the worse for wear from excessive beer consumption, and one of my mates thought it would be a brilliant wheeze if we stayed on and played in the pub poker league. So I paid my £5 entry fee, sat down, told everyone I didn't have clue what I was doing, and promptly went out first!! However I learnt a valuable lesson in that first game, and that was to tighten up and not play any junk hands. Needless to say in the second game that evening I made it to the final table and finished fifth. Elated with joy (and Stella Artois) at my new found talent I joined an online poker room PKR and played play money tournaments for a month or so. Then in January 2007 I deposited $50 and started playing with real money. I mainly played in one and two dollar sit and goes (sng's), and slowly my money ebbed away. I had some successes, including coming fourth in a 660 person tournament, and thought I was the nuts. 'Always play the ace' I used to say, I had no idea about playing in or out of position, and barely knew the first thing about odds. I soon became convinced that the reason I was losing money playing low stakes sng's was that the website was rigged and favouring big stacks over small stacks, since I tended to only go out when I went all in against a bigger stack (funny that, when you think about it).

I therefore decided to jump ship and join Full Tilt, primarily cos my poker hero at the time Gus Hansen played there. Check out this hand and you'll understand why Gus Hansen is my favourite player.
I'll post Part Two in the next couple of days (promise), so stay posted!!

Adios