Progress (plus Zoom graph)

Hi there. Apols for the lack of recent blog updates, the new job and other life changes are not leaving me too much time for poker any more and when I do get a moment I prefer to use it playing! Never the less, I'm long over due a detailed post so I'll provide one in the near future.

The purpose of this was just to give a little update as to where I am with my game and my recent results. I've just come through a rather nice heater but that seems to have ended now (dropped 5 buy-ins yesterday). But I'm not bothered, the great thing about getting towards a million life time hands is that variance affects me less and less as I can just look at my life time graph and know that it is almost certain that I'm beating the micros - even though my win rate doesn't seem that impressive (a little under 3bb/100).

In general I feel like my game is improving a lot. The most recent progress I've made is to be cold calling less in the blinds; and by this I mean that in situations where it's probably close between a call and a 3-bet I'm tending to favour the 3-bet a little more - especially in the small blind. I think that this is the best approach even though in pure game theoretical terms it means I'm probably a little unbalanced. I'm also squeezing a lot more than I used to. I don't think I truly ever comprehended how profitable a play it can be and I'm certain it has got me winning more dead money.

I think that I've also improved my play in those situations where I do cold call out of position. I used to play the check/call/check line almost exclusively, but there are so much more effective lines available. Donking against players who rarely c-bet should be routine strategy but was never part of my arsenal before, and the check/call/donk line is perhaps the most under-rated line I've come across in my poker life time.

But I must also mention areas where I think I could improve. I've obviously worked on my OOP play quite a lot this year, but I don't make enough money on the button. My winnings hover around 22-23 bb/100 and I think that this number should be in the high twenties at least. So this is where I'm going to focus my study for the forseeable future. I'll work on my opening, 3-betting and flatting ranges as well as which boards smash my range versus blind callers (because I don't double barrel nearly often enough). If I can move this win rate up I think it will have a really positive affect on my game.

Finally, I deposited a little money in order to take advantage of the recent Stars bonus and so my bankroll is currently large enough to move to 50NL which is something that I haven't done yet. I'm working on clearing the bonus, which I'll best acheive four tabling 25NL Zoom in my opinion but as soon as it is cleared I'll be mixing in some 50NL tables and hopefully make that limit my new home by Christmas.

I hope you're all running well. GL

Simon

P.S. I've played over 100k hands at Zoom poker now, and I do believe it to be beatable (graph included). This isn't an especially brag worthy graph, but I think it's semi decent evidence to back up my claim.

Intriguing Hand

Apologies for no updates for a while, I've actually been playing quite a bit but just not got around to posting. I'm trying to clear the WCOOP bonus at the mo so I doubt I'll post much for a bit as I'll be busy playing but I thought I'd post an interesting hand. I actually time out folded on the river so unfortunately we'll never know what villain had.


http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $0.25(BB) Replayer Game#85795121236

mag2012P$ ($33.57)
Genius4832 ($27.53)
Recazy ($26.25)
Stolarr ($25)
BOGEC73 ($35.16)
BankoBet ($47.98)
Mr.KALABS ($38.07)
Szwejoslaw ($25)
Dzhigurda ($32.64)

mag2012P$ posts (SB) $0.10
Genius4832 posts (BB) $0.25

Dealt to BankoBet Qh  Th
fold, fold,
BOGEC73 calls $0.25
BankoBet raises to $1
Mr.KALABS calls $1
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold,
FLOP ($2.60) Js  Kc  As
BankoBet bets $1.75
Mr.KALABS calls $1.75
TURN ($6.10) Js  Kc  As  Qs
BankoBet bets $4
Mr.KALABS raises to $8.25

Villain's stats are 14/12/5. When he raised it really suprised me because I can't think of any hands that would do this... think about it. Villains with stats like those will not often call with much other than pairs and good broadways pre-flop. I think raising JJ here is too thin; I think he has to have a flush or maybe a straight (if he's not full of shit). But what flush hand calls in MP? KTs gives him the royal flush.... Maybe some weird suited connector? TT with a spade?

If he'd been a bigger fish I'd have called down but I just got the impression from his bet timing that he was really serious about his hand. I soooo wanted to call on the river, just because I couldn't think of hardly any hands that would play it this way.

BankoBet calls $4.25
RIVER ($22.60) Js  Kc  As  Qs  9c
BankoBet checks
Mr.KALABS bets $14.25
BankoBet folds
Mr.KALABS wins $21.58

Meh we'll never know. If his stats suddenly converge on 57/37 I'll be kicking myself.

Double Barrelling. Edited 27/08

Edit: I've been thinking further about this, and I think some things need clarifying and a more thorough and well written blog post should be provided and I'll do that in due course.

My main concern is that I didn't stress that the flop bet was negative EV. The turn bet was profitable which is what made the play +EV overall. Anyway I'll do a thorough post on double barrelling and update within the next fortnight. Hopefully that will make things much clearer. GL!

Good Evening

Hi there, apologies for the lack of an update for a while. I just haven't been playing.

Basically when I haven't been working or fulfilling other commitments I've been building a website for Dad who was made redundant recently. He wants to do freelance work if he can find it so I offered (perhaps unwisely) to do a site for him.

I did plenty of programming during my degree but hardly any in the 6 years since. I'm very rusty to say the least, even in the basic html/css. I had a lot of trouble over the weekend just trying to get the tabs to function properly. Some old code that I used in the past doesn't seem to work any more so I resorted to a simple jquery function and it seems to have finally done the job. Next I want to build in an email form and the ability for web visitors to download his portfolio so wish me luck. But I'm going to hold off on that for a bit; he's got a functioning website now and I really need to catch up with my accountancy study which I'm way behind on. Plus I'm missing playing poker!

On to poker then, and as I said I've hardly played recently. But I loaded up some full ring tables tonight and it went well. After playing 70-80k hands of Zoom I was surprised at how much softer the games seemed on the normal tables. I think I'll probably play a mixture from now on. It's a fine balance as it's dead easy to play 1000 hands per hour at Zoom, but I don't think my ability would net me much more than 1.5bb/100 in those games and I think that I could earn twice or even three times as much playing the normal tables. But then of course my volume suffers. Still, I enjoyed the session so I'll stick with it for a while. It's awesome being able to table select.

Right I feel like I'm rambling now but I wanted to post something. I'll likely get chance to play a few hands this week now that I've finished the web site project so I'll post again in the near future. GL

Poker Stars buys Full Tilt Poker

Diamond Flush Poker News has all of the details.
NVG (2+2) has a lot of happy people.

Personally, I'm chuffed. I thought that I'd lost my money forever. It's not a life changing amount, but it is almost like another months salary. It will enable me to play the next limit comfortably (although whether I will or not I'm not sure, I think I'll play a little at 50NL but most of my hands at 25NL while I continue to leak fix).

To Poker Stars, I thank you. May the integrity that you continue to show bring you the rewards you obviously deserve.

To any other readers of this blog, if you EVER catch me playing somewhere other than Stars or Full Tilt in the future, then I deserve to be severely reprimanded.

GL!

Time is once again mine!

Good evening! From a negative post to a positive one! I passed my driving test yesterday with one minor, so all that hard work ended up paying off. It's such a relief that it's over, and all the stress was worth it for the elation I felt when told that I'd passed. And now that it's done, I've now got time free again! Which means poker.

Edit:

It's great to be able to play again. To get in from work and have a free evening, or have a weekend day to myself without the need to spend 3 hours driving. It's also an amazing thing to be able to drive with the added freedom that I feel that I have now. It was worth all of the hassle for me.

I have put in a  few hours this week. I'm about 15k hands away from the 50k hand mark at 25NL Zoom. Once I've got there I'll put up my rather mediocre results and then perhaps consider moving to 50NL.

In an effort to improve my win rates, I've begun to consider taking some more creative lines to extract more value. One line I have taken once or twice is checking great hands out of position rather than auto c-bet. Nearly every regular at these limits - and many fish too - will just bet if checked to. Earlier today I flopped top set on an AT3r. This is the sort of flop that villains are going to fold on a ton when facing a c-bet. So in situations like this I can perhaps check to induce a bluff, then pick it off and lead the turn.

Rumours are flying around that Poker Stars have completed the purchase of Full Tilt Poker. I have no idea how credible these rumours are, but if it's true that would be a good result for all of those players who had funds trapped there (including my ~$1500). I'm not going to jump on the "OMGz Monopolisation..." bandwagon; at the end of the day whatever Stars' motivation is it looks like they're putting hands into their own pockets to return funds to the poker playing masses. Fair play.

Anyway I'm going to get back to the tables and play some more! GL

A Backseat Hobby

So little time to play lately. I had a few hands tonight, just because I wanted to play but I was so tired I made a stupid call with a straight when someone overbet shoved 10000000000000000000000000000 times pot with the obvious full house. I didn't even think about the awful risk - reward ratio, I just called "cos I got a pwetty straight".

Until I get more time to play (to make myself game sharp again) and until I don't feel so damn tired all of the time I might just cash out. And leave myself a few pennies to play with. It's just life isn't giving me much time to play poker any more, and without that constant grind I just get too rusty. My age probably affects it too; my mind needs to play often to keep my decision making sharp. Unfortunately I cannot do that currently and so I think I'm likely presently a losing player. So it's not worth the money investment and I'm better off spending my $1500 on something else.

I'll sleep on it though. I think that learning to drive is stressing me out because I'm approaching my test and doing 3hrs per day practise on top of my job. As soon as that weight is off my shoulders I may be able to give poker more time again.

But whatever, it's a pretty meagre message I'm giving out tonight. Apologies for that, and hopefully I'll be more positive in my next post. GL