Barren Spell Continues

Update
I got frustrated today while playing which is unlike me. The poor stretch of hands has continued although I've made some money back since dropping back to 10NL. The good news is that I have a $50 Rake payment due tomorrow and have very nearly cleared a $100 bonus. This should top my bankroll up and would allow me to move back to 25NL if I so wished. But I think I'll wait until I have won 5 or so buy-ins more at 10NL before I try again to rebuild some confidence.
Bet Sizing
I have been experimenting with bet sizing in various spots based on the things I've recently learned. I'm thinking of standardising my 3-bet sizing to around $1.30 which is an over-bet to most standard pre flop raises. The problem with re-raising to around a dollar is that villains are only making a small mistake by calling to set mine against my pretty tight 3-bet range. But with my new sizing they have to call around a dollar to win 9 more and calling just to set mine here is a big mistake even if we go all-in with over-pairs or top pair every time. Once we do over-bet here then we can also bluff more often. So I'm going to start 3-betting to around $1.30 with a range that is polarised between {QQ, AK} and some low suited connectors. The thing I've first noticed about this strategy is that players float less. They tend to either 4-bet or much more often just fold. This is the correct adjustment since I am now denying them implied odds to set mine. It just becomes a strong range versus a mediocre range with two pot sized bets to come post flop if they call (and some still do).
The second adjustment I'm making is reducing my PFR size from a pot sized bet to a 3x raise and making it 2.5x from the CO and button. This is a defence against light blind 3-bettors and should increase my blind steal profit margin. It also allows me to call with implied odds versus villains who (like me previously) had not been sizing the 3-bets correctly.
Last Blog for a Week
It's holiday (or vacation) time and I'm going to a caravan in the middle of nowhere for a week with my fiancée. I will have no opportunity whatsoever for poker and I'm thoroughly looking forward to it. I do have a book on pot limit Omaha that I shall try and get through but that's it. I'm sure I'll be itching to get back to the tables when I come back. Whatever, I hope the cards fall better for you than they have for me over the last 30K hands or so. GL

Running Poorly

Lost a few buy-ins this week and I think I'm going to drop limits until such time that I can arrest the decline and claw my bankroll back a bit. I haven't taken a huge chunk from it, maybe about 15% but it's still beginning to affect my decisions which is a good sign that I should move down for a bit. I'm due a $100 bonus that should help so hopefully I can pull things around nice and quickly. I'm sure I've made some good folds and got maximum value where I could and that the two pair hand is pretty much the only significant big pot mistake that I've made. A sure sign that I'm not running that well is that three of the biggest losers on the button during those 20k hands are AA, KK and QQ. Anyway, during my first 100k hands I went through two significant downswings and this one isn't as big as that just yet. If the poor run continues then maybe I'll have to reevaluate my game but until then I'll keep on grinding and hopefully turn it around.
The only barriers preventing me from winning at poker are a winning strategy, keeping cool under pressure and volume. GL

Learning New Things

Hi, well after a disappointing session I always like to self improve and I studied a couple of videos on www.cardrunners.com and spent some time with the poker EV tool pokerazor and I have some new insight into a number of things especially regarding betting frequencies and sizing in relation to flop texture. I feel this new knowledge will help me a lot for the rest of my poker playing days. I can't really give too much away - sign up to cardrunners and watch the Matthew Janda series on optimal bet sizing - but I'm now aware of tons of things that I didn't know before and also understand overbetting much better than I did. Another thing that I've realised is that when studying betting lines it's very valuable to look at indifference. This is where villain is indifferent between calling and folding and is the point where we maximise our EV versus an optimally playing opponent. I'd read about this before but just now I ran a few simulations and I actually found some pretty cool points where villain becomes indifferent between calling and folding. Anyway this may not make much sense, if not then I'd highly recommend watching the series to anyone with an interest in game theory and optimal play. In real life of course villains do not play optimally so we should be playing exploitatively. I do however think that having a basic strategy that is fairly optimal should be fundamental for any player. After all, we can't exploit until we've spotted villain's leaks.
Cashout Tournaments
Full Tilt run these tournaments where we can cash out some of our chip EV part of the way through a tournament. I haven't played enough of these yet to know how many players do cash chips out but I think I'm correct in assuming that every time someone does they are just throwing dead money at the prize pool. In this case I'm pretty sure that playing these tournaments could be ridiculously profitable if we never use the cashout option. I'll let you know! GL

Making a Huge Mistake

I've just played the grossest of hands. I turned two pair on a pretty innocuous board so I fired a PSB so that I could shove on the river for maximum value. Suddenly a hand distracted me on another table and while I was looking at that hand I just shoved on the other table without looking. What I hadn't noticed is that the board paired on the river and my hand was suddenly useless and I was now just bluffing. Unfortunately villain called with his top pair become two pair and my chips moved over to him. This demonstrates two points:
1/ Multi tabling means we make more mistakes
2/ While it's very important to make plans for future streets we must examine the board texture to make sure that our equity hasn't drastically changed once we get there.
I actually think that I'd have sometimes got folds from some parts of his range with that bet but it's still a big mistake and one that will take a lot of time and hands to correct. Back to the grind.

Understanding Betting for Protection

I have recently improved my understanding in regards to betting on the earlier streets.
We are on the turn. The pot is $100, and we have 77. Villain has KJo and the board is 3c6dQs2s. If we fire out a pot sized bet and villain folds every time then our EV for making this play is $100 dollars. If however we decide to play the pot more passively and try to showdown then if we check down to the river our equity is now only $86. Basically when we bet we have made him fold out his share of equity in the pot. It would be incorrect for him to call since he's not getting the right price to draw to six outs. If we decide to check down though he gets to realise this equity. So when we fire we are betting for protection and this is another reason why aggression is so critical in this game. Notice that we are never getting called by weaker hands when we bet, nor are we making better hands fold so this is neither a value bet or a bluff. Listen to very good poker players talk about their decisions and they'll often talk about folding out equity share. That's the same thing as I demonstrated here. For this reason I think that play on the flop and turn should be a lot more aggressive than play on the river. River play simplifies to value betting or bluffing only. My game is currently very passive on the turn and I'd like to increase my aggression there. This new understanding should help me to achieve that.

Convergence

Hi, well I'm still break even over 15k hands now at the new limit. I'm happy with this so far because I'm earning around $100 rakeback per week so I'm still growing the bankroll. However, being a break-even 25NL player is not what I want. On a positive note, my statistics are converging upon the numbers that I had at 10NL with one exception. For some reason there's a seat in middle position where I'm losing 5 ptBB/100. This is pretty ridiculous and I'm putting it entirely down to variance. If this number was converging like the others I'd certainly have good profit by now so it looks like the strategy I was using at 10NL might still be a small winner at this stake. It's not where I want to be though, I should have better statistics in the late positions. Only making 10-15 BB/100 from the button is not good enough for me. I also think I could be losing less from the blinds although I think this is the part of my game I'll address later on. My immediate goal is to earn enough in the button and cutoff to offset my sb+bb losses allowing my profit to come from the other table positions. Achieving this first goal will require a lot more playing experience I feel. But if I can get there then I'll certainly have enough confidence in my game ready for my transition to 50NL.
Long Term Goals
This is something I've been thinking about lately. Some day I'd love to be playing tons of HU cash because it's the purest and most skillful form of poker IMO. But being only a part time player, I think that Rush will always provide a better opportunity for making money. Maybe once I reach 50NL I'll attempt to find a balance where I grind out a couple hours of Rush per day before getting into some HU cash games for another hour. Well, this is all speculation. I must get my grind back on. I have a week at home now where I'll try and play as much as possible. Then I have a week off so I'll forget about the game and return refreshed afterwards. GL at the tables

Value Heavy Betting Lines

Hi, right well it's time I got my inner LAG out and started making some more bluffs in position and getting my aggression frequency higher on the flop and turn. Basically whenever I have a set in position I either 1/ Raise the flop - this move gets millions of folds 2/ Raise the turn - this move gets even more folds. The problem is that the only time I ever make these moves currently is when I have a strong hand. Good players however will often bluff raise the flop and turn. We shouldn't really talk about balance in the micros because it is not necessary. I do think though that against a random player it is probably far better to have a bluff heavy range when we do these things than a value heavy range because these moves always get tons of respect. Furthermore, once the regulars know that I can bluff raise IP on the flop and turn they will be more liable to pay me off once I have a set. So what sort of strategy could I use? Well I'll call IP with all of the low pocket pairs and play pretty fit or fold with them. But I'll also call with some suited connectors {65s-T9s} and play these far more aggressively. I'll look to double the amount that I'm raising the flop and turn and see how it goes. I'll prob be more likely to float with equity and raise without on both the flop and turn if that makes sense. Lastly I know that these are things that good players do anyway, but I've only been learning to value bet properly so far so it's about time I began to learn how to wield position more effectively. Wish me luck!