I'm Back

Good Morning

It's a rather lovely British bank holiday Sunday and I'm up for some Zoom poker.

In the last few weeks I've begun to get a bit of an itch to play again so I've decided to put in a few thousand hands at 50NL Zoom. I'm pretty busy so I'll have to fit it around other commitments but hopefully I'll be able to manage a few thousand hands per week.

Once I've reached a milestone (maybe 50k hands) I will post some graphs and give some thoughts on the current state of the games.

I really don't anticipate much because after a year out my game is likely to be very rusty. Additionally I imagine that there are new trends and theories doing the rounds that I will not yet be aware of.

I'm not sure how much of a renaissance this will be but for now I'm back at the tables. GL!

Edit:

Message from PokerStars:
Welcome back to PokerStars, where the Stars come to play!
As a welcome back present, we'd like to deal you quads.

Thank you for playing at PokerStars!

PokerStars Zoom Hand #99121709247:  Hold'em No Limit ($0.25/$0.50) - 2013/05/26 10:32:19 WET [2013/05/26 5:32:19 ET]
Table 'Arp' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Interface21 ($25 in chips)
Seat 2: wordsmt ($55.04 in chips)
Seat 3: chachar73 ($43.75 in chips)
Seat 4: Blood Out444 ($61.76 in chips)
Seat 5: daveaneo ($25.50 in chips)
Seat 6: Hero ($56.68 in chips)
Seat 7: tezonchik ($54.64 in chips)
Seat 8: faustus2 ($48.50 in chips)
Seat 9: The Cambist ($50 in chips)
wordsmt: posts small blind $0.25
chachar73: posts big blind $0.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [9c 9s]
Blood Out444: folds
daveaneo: raises $0.65 to $1.15
Hero: calls $1.15
tezonchik: folds
faustus2 has timed out while disconnected
faustus2: folds
The Cambist: folds
Interface21: folds
wordsmt: folds
chachar73: calls $0.65
*** FLOP *** [9h Js 9d]
chachar73: checks
daveaneo: bets $2.50
Hero: calls $2.50
chachar73: calls $2.50
*** TURN *** [9h Js 9d] [5d]
chachar73: checks
daveaneo: checks
Hero: bets $6.50
chachar73: folds
daveaneo: folds
Uncalled bet ($6.50) returned to Hero
Hero collected $10.70 from pot
Hero: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $11.20 | Rake $0.50
Board [9h Js 9d 5d]
Seat 1: Interface21 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: wordsmt (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: chachar73 (big blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 4: Blood Out444 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: daveaneo folded on the Turn
Seat 6: Hero collected ($10.70)
Seat 7: tezonchik folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: faustus2 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: The Cambist folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Edit 2:

Initial thoughts are that the games don't immediately seem too dissimilar to before. Many of the regs that I used to bump into are still present in the games. I imagine that they have improved beyond my old standard by now though.

I was reading through some old posts on this blog, and it's clear to me that I used to think at a much higher level than I do now. A year out of the game is a long time, and I may never return to that standard (in fact I'm pretty sure that I won't).

However what today's play has reminded me of is that I used to love the challenge of playing hands against thinking opponents; the challenge of assigning ranges and making the right decision. I've missed the battle with these regs that I used to compete with day in and day out. So I'd like to keep this little renaissance going; perhaps I begun to take the old battles for granted and forgot that I actually relished them.

So expect to see more posts in the near future as I begin to rediscover my passion for the game. I'll never be as sharp as I was but at least I'm back!

Boo!

Been a while, huh?

I've been pretty busy with work and things and to be honest I've hardly played a hand in 2 - 3 months.

My training is going to be worth much more value in the long run than earning a few dollars per hour at poker so unfortunately the game is going to be on the back burner for the foreseeable future.

Overall my life is well back on track after my work frustrations at the start of last year and the brief turmoil of being unemployed. It's great being a driver and being in a role where I have a chance of progression and where I'm undertaking training that will put me into a different league of earnings.

And what about poker? Well I've started to get a little bit of an itch to play again. I think I had a bit of burn out for a while after playing nearly a million hands in a couple of years. I quite fancy playing a bit of tournament poker for fun in the remote chance of a big pay day, because the grind of cash games (not to mention the time effort required) is still a bit of a turn off at the moment.

I'll probably be looking at Full Tilt's Rush tournaments so that I can get in more volume if I do play. And if I do I'll be sure to post all about it here.

It would be a shame for my history to fade away; for the ups and downs and the rants and raves to disappear; for the booms and busts to become another dead thread at the back of a google search. So I will try to keep my blog going, even if my posts are only intermittent.

Until then, good luck at the tables!

Welcome back FTP!

I will be honest, I never ever thought I'd see the day.

FTP is back! Thank you Poker Stars you legends!

My $1.2k balance and 96k FTP points are restored, and I've just paired my account with the Stars one so that I can have liquid cash movement between the platforms depending on my mood. 

Can't believe I'm so happy about this, but it's really weird using the old software again. I love Stars but opening FTP back up is like meeting back up with an old friend who I haven't seen for years. 

Good luck at the tables!

Edit:

So I've played a few hands there now and I think I may move back. I don't want to sound sour because it's been great playing on Stars, but I think that I'll get a better rake back deal on FTP. I don't think it would take too much work to maintain Platinum Edge status, which amounts to 20%. Plus you get FTPs so combined I think I could get about 25% rakeback on FTP compared to probably under 20% on Stars. At the end of the day, I'm only talking a handful of dollars but if anyone has read my previous post on compound interest you'll know that these small numbers can make a big difference over time.

In order to make this easier, I may actually move to 100NL. I will likely need work on my game to become a winner there, but I doubt that there is too much difference between that limit and 50NL plus the better rake  and rake back will probably enable me to at least break even until my game improves.

Savings and Compound Interest (Not a Poker Post)

I've been very foolish over the years when it comes to money. The number of pointless things that I've wasted it on is just unbelievable. This is just a short post encouraging anyone who reads not to make the same mistakes that I did.

Since I left school at 18 I've spent most of my time getting into debt and then repaying it; a cycle that I'm only just breaking.

Before I go any further, I'd like to draw your attention to a mathematics article that explains the value of saving and compound interest:

have-we-caught-your-interest

My girlfriend and I have begun to discuss mortgages. The problem is we have jack shit in savings so we are going to have to wait until such time that we can afford a deposit. If I hadn't been such a pleb when I was younger and had put up say, £1000 a year for the last ten then using the equation from the article I'd have about £12.5k (assuming I had invested wisely enough to get 4% interest on average), nearly enough to pay for a mortgage deposit. If I'd put up £2000 per year I'd now have £25k, more than enough.

And just to demonstrate how much my hapless spending may have cost me, consider the following two scenarios. 

1/ I started saving £2000 a year when I was 20, and managed to get 4% annual interest; and I continued until I retired at 70 (assuming retirement ages have risen by that stage). I'd have £317,547.53.

Note that only £100k of that is savings, the rest is compound interest!

2/ I started saving at 33 years old and put up £2000 a year and managed to get 4% annual interest; and I continued until I retired at 70. I'd have £169,940.67. About half of what I could have saved. 

These are very reasonable assumptions. I have probably cost myself a six figure sum in interest earnings through pure foolishness!

If you are in your early twenties, I encourage you not to fall into the same pitfalls of spending that I did and to try and invest for your future. If you are older like me, then we must make the best use of the time we have left. I estimate that I can still just about double my savings through compound interest in the remainder of my working life (providing interest rates climb again in the near future), and I'm going to strive hard to make sure I don't return to my old ways. Good luck!

Opportunity Knocks

Hi.

I may have mentioned before but I'm currently studying accounting and I'm working in an accounting assistant position. The course that I've been doing thus far is the AAT certificate, and the plan had been to finish and then begin the ACCA chartered accountant training next year. However an opportunity has arisen and I might be starting with ACCA immediately.

If I do, and as a condition of the opportunity that I have been offered I will need to pass the exams in quite a short space of time. Maybe within 3 years. The down side of this is that for the next three years I'm going to have to work really hard. The up side is that I could probably expect to add 10k to my yearly earnings for the next 25 years or more if I qualify. So essentially the rewards are huge for this work investment.

The other down side is that those spare periods of time when I'd often play cards will likely be very few and far between. I will always enjoy playing and I'll strive to fit in the odd session but this post is mainly a message that blog posts are likely to be pretty rare from now on.

So that's where I'm heading, and I feel very lucky that in the current climate these opportunities are being presented to me. I always was a bit of a luck box.

This isn't the end, but until I blog again good luck!

Good Evening

Hi there.

I've played nearly 5k hands at 50NL Zoom so far and I feel like I've settled in now. In truth it plays very similarly to 25NL (or at least it has over that very small sample). There are plenty of fish, and a range of regulars from decent to terrible.

I played just two tables for a while, but have now increased it to four. I'm really pleased with how I've adjusted to the new limit. I began by making a couple of mistakes but now I feel that I'm playing as well as I was at 25NL. With the larger bet sizes I was concerned that the increased risk might make me play sub-par but that hasn't happened at all. Although I suppose it's easy when you flop quads in three bet pots.

So yeah, I've had a bit of a heater today. I dropped a handful of buy-ins in the first 3-4k hands but have more or less made that back now. It's obviously very early days and over the next few weeks I'll find out if I've really got what it takes to beat this limit too. Pleased so far though.

Among the changes I've made to my game recently is an effort to fold very marginal pre-flop spots rather than open raise, or to raise rather than call in places where the EV is close. I mentioned this a long time ago in the Rush days, but it's pointless wasting time in close to neutral EV spots because folding actually has some equity... This is hard to explain but the easiest way is that you could get dealt aces in the same time span that you just wasted raising QJo UTG and seeing three streets to showdown. Obviously this equity is offset somewhat by paying the blinds tax but I definitely think that the time factor should lead to a different style of play. I believe that it enhances fold equity; calling adds more time to the hand (on average) and therefore in close spots I believe that the more aggressive option should always be taken.

But this is just a belief, and I have no proof mathematical or otherwise. I just think that time should be a consideration when playing this format of poker.

Right, I think I've waffled enough. I'm shattered (who'd think that the weekend has finished?!) so I'm going to pop a tinny and head to bed. GL all!

Time for a Riskier Approach?

I've been thinking lately that it might be time to adjust my obscenely nitty bankroll strategy and bring a greater element of risk into my global poker strategy. If I include the money that is returning from Full Tilt's reopening then my 'roll stands at around $4000 and I'm still playing $25NL. 160 buy-ins seems very over the top to me for these limits. If you consider that I'd likely move down to 10NL if I ever dropped below $1k, this gives me a total of 220 buy-ins.

Why?

At one point (I'll admit it) I harboured ambitions of turning poker into a profession and leaving the world of real work behind. That was back when I earned less and had no real career to speak of. Now that I do have a fledgling career, and now that I'm undertaking professional training that may increase my earning capability beyond what poker can currently offer I don't think that I need to be so risk averse with my bankroll.

I also think that I'm ready for a bigger challenge. I think it is time that I tried conquering the small stakes limits.

How Much Risk?

Providing that I'm happy to move up and down limits (and I believe that I would be based on my history) then I wouldn't be taking on too much extra risk by moving to a mixture of 50NL and 100NL from now on.

I've also considered returning to HUSNG as returns in that field still look good. The problem is that I'd need a lot of game work to get my self into winning shape at that format. However the potential hourly would be better than I expect at cash despite it being my strongest area. I could perhaps begin at the $50s and see how I get on.

The long and short of it is that I feel that I should take slightly bigger risks in order to allow myself the potential for some bigger rewards. I'm happy to move back down limits if it doesn't go well. So wish me luck!