Revising Expectations, A New Beginning

An Admission
I have been operating under the false belief that I was a winning poker player, but I am not. Over the first large block of hands that I played I was fortunate enough to benefit from some positive variance and this pushed up my expectations. More recently I have broke even in the games over quite a significant sample now. I believe that this in itself is an achievement since it means that I'd be beating a rake free game for about 10bb/100, but I had believed that I was better than this - that I had been beating the rake too.

After my last post (that I have now removed) I did some soul searching with regards to poker. What do I really want out of the game? I had once harboured half dreams that some day it could become a meaningful source of extra income per month. I don't think that this is the best way to frame poker in my life any more because it detracts from the enjoyment I get from purely playing cards.

I have come to the realisation that I don't want to stop playing poker. But from now on I'm going to treat the game as a hobby; something to work on and improve just so that I can challenge my competitors better. I'm back at the 10NL 6 max games and I'm just going to attempt to improve my understanding of the game and my ability to hand read. I will remove all indicators of win rate from my database windows because this has certainly affected my decision making in the past. I will periodically still check these numbers as a measure of my current skill level, but only after I've completed a significant sample of hands - 100k seems reasonable.

As for blogging, I've put up some real garbage over my time on here. I think that I'll start posting again but create some rules which will limit my output to fewer but hopefully higher quality blogs.

So this is a new beginning for me as a recreational poker player, and hopefully my blogs will positively reflect my new outlook on the game.

Stars Rake Changes
It's a good time to start playing again. Poker Stars are about to reduce the ring game rake in the games, which is a great move. Hopefully they'll benefit from increased traffic as a result.

Good luck at the tables
Simon

Edit: 23/02/2012

Haven't played much volume; now that I'm playing more recreationally I'm just tending to play when I feel like it and this isn't very often after all of the hours I put in last year. I guess I'm a bit burned out with it. However there are two events coming up that should stir me into playing a bit more regularly.
1/ Full Tilt Mk II opening for business. I intend to cash out $1200 or so and leave myself a handful of buy-ins for grinding in the Rush games.
2/ Stars launch their own version of Rush called Zoom (rumoured to be very close to launch).
This will have the effect of doubling my playing volume and if it's anything like before Black Friday I will want to play a lot more (because it's just so easy to get through a ton of hands at once). I really hope it has the same effect on me as I'd like to play some 6-max over a big sample to have a better idea of where my leaks are at the moment.

I just got the Poker Stars iPhone client and I'm very impressed. Even over my usually dodgy 3G network signal I've been able to play without a problem. My only annoyances at the moment are no colour coding or note taking options (and obv there's no HUD so I have to use my memory which sucks).

Finally I just bought the 'Building a Bankroll' book by Pawel 'Verneer' Nasarewicz (of Cardrunners fame) and I'm really enjoying that at the moment. It's well written and produced (although some reg knowledge is necessary due to all of the database based explanations and analysis). There was also a hand written good luck note from Pawel at the front which is pretty awesome!

Anyway, once I'm able to quick fold everything but aces again and put in some decent volume I'll try and think up a decent post. Until then, GL.

Sessions Improving + Research

So over the last few sessions I've tightened up somewhat. Basically, I think that the run bad has affected my game and so many of the marginal hands probably became losers. I also noticed that I was leaking money when raising utg and utg+1. At the micros everyone loves to 3-bet bluff and I wasn't willing to stack off with anything less than JJ or AK, plus I didn't feel happy with a large bluffing range in those spots in case my opponents were just getting good hands. This meant that I was super exploitable to 3-bets when I was raising in those positions. I don't believe my opponents were consciously exploiting me, but the aggressive fish that propagate this limit were definitely making money when they re-raised. So I have adapted my ranges so that my CO through SB ranges are just a little tighter but my UTG and UTG+1 ranges would be described as pretty nitty by any regulars. I'll see how it goes!

Results have picked up, although I expected they would eventually. There's no way (even as a losing player) that I should have dropped so many buy-ins in so few hands so a correction was due.

I have just bought my Fiancees old laptop off of her and after a day of ram clogging program deletions and msconfig/service adjustments I've got it running reasonably again. After a further frustrating couple of hours struggling to install hold'em manager I can now play poker on it!. This may or may not help with volume...

Anyway, mindless update over. Will blog again with something more interesting at some point perhaps. But if not, Merry Christmas!!!

EDIT: In order to get a better understanding of the games and a knowledge of what the winning players are doing I've paid for some premium content on poker table ratings. I will use the information I glean to further fine tune my strategy.
I have already noticed some interesting things; the most intriguing being that there is a wide variety of styles that can do really well, from tight to loose and all between.

The most useful thing that I've learned is that - at least preflop - I don't think I'm doing too much wrong. If I can cut out the post flop mistakes that characterise my play I think that I can make some decent money still. But of course I need volume.

Volume

In an effort to try and get more volume in I'm going to (try to) learn to stack tables. I definitely think it will take me time to adjust to this new method, and I've come across a potential problem so far too; without investing in table ninja if I time out during a decision there's no Stars' function to sit back in automatically. There's also no way to bring those tables where I'm sat out back to the top so that I can sit back in manually, so I have to either move the tables aside (obviously an atrocious solution) or click through the table names at the foot of the desktop (only a slightly less atrocious solution). Perhaps cascading is a better way of doing things, maybe I'll try that as this would allow me to bring up the offending tables more easily.

Which ever method I decide to begin to use, I think that it's essential for my volume to increase. Even if I cannot manage more than 6-8 tables at a time I'm currently doing about 10-15k hands a month which isn't nearly as much as I want to be putting in. The last three weeks I have played around 150 hours on skyrim. Using this time for poker could have allowed me to play about 75k hands - this is how often I would like to be playing the game in the next few months.

I played a session today and made two or three big river mistakes - calls with bluff catchers. I've blogged about this before, sometimes I have something like trips or two pair. Good hands, but in terms of the board texture they are at the very bottom of the strong hand range. In instances like this, and facing a bet I tend to think like: "I can't fold trips because... it's a good hand!" which is horrible thinking. Unless I can curb this fishy way of thinking then I'll not improve. So I'll be looking for spots like this and trying to smother the calling station in me from now on.

The Final Effort

This year's poker has been pretty average to say the least. Most of the money that I won (around $1500 I suppose) was taken when Full Tilt went insolvent. In other words I have finished the year break even which is really disappointing.

It has really been a story of two large down swings. I'm at the bottom of one currently (and God only knows when it will end) and I went through another during my play on Full Tilt itself in the Rush games. This tells me a lot about my game really, that I'm not as competent as I once thought; that despite a pretty good knowledge of expected value and maths I make too many mistakes during play. I don't believe that I'm beyond hope and that I can continue to improve and remove these errors from my game and that is how I'm going to approach the next year.

The games seem to be increasingly full of competent players but I do still think that money can be made. I don't believe that poker will always be profitable in it's current format (rake must eventually be revised for the good of the game in my opinion).

This coming year is going to be my final effort to make money from the game. If I come out at the end break even again then I'll likely end my poker playing days and pursue other hobbies and income sources.

So, wish me luck. Once more to the breach! GL

Quads over Quads, Big Down Swing

http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $0.25(BB) Replayer Game#70323306587

sc0uzer ($8.75)
zodimar ($25.55)
Hero ($32.29)
SofiStar87 ($11.25)
abra1985 ($25.75)
Guti2010 ($49.87)

sc0uzer posts (SB) $0.10
zodimar posts (BB) $0.25

Dealt to Hero Qs Qd
Hero raises to $0.75
fold, fold,
Guti2010 calls $0.75
fold,
zodimar calls $0.50
FLOP ($2.35) 6h 6c Qh
zodimar checks
Hero bets $1.45
Guti2010 folds
zodimar calls $1.45
TURN ($5.25) 6h 6c Qh Qc
zodimar checks
Hero checks

Cross my fingers and hope for a river bluff.

RIVER ($5.25) 6h 6c Qh Qc 2c
zodimar bets $6.25
Hero raises to $30.09 (AI)

At the time I didn't think any 6x hand would likely over bet the river like this and just assumed he had 99% bluffs and a very very rare second nuts. Perhaps if he puts me on some hand that's trying to see a showdown (KK+, JJ, TT) and he thinks I'm a calling station (true) then the over bet makes more sense. In that case I could have extracted a little more value with a small raise that a 6x hand would call with.

zodimar calls $17.10 (AI)
zodimar shows 6d 6s
(Pre 19%, Flop 95.6%, Turn 0.0%)

Hero shows Qs Qd
(Pre 81%, Flop 4.4%, Turn 100.0%)

Hero wins $49.95

Anyway, apart from this small ray of light things are going terribly. I'm about 18 buy-ins down over 14k hands at the 6-max games. This is 6 buy-ins below all-in EV so my net expected won is actually negative 12 buy-ins.

It would be very hard for me to sell myself as even a break even player now that I've divulged this information, so I shall not. I played very poorly over the first 2/3 of this sample and made a number of equity mistakes. More recently I've been table selecting better and really slowed down my decision making and managed to improve in this regard.

I can only continue to look for good tables, and try not to fuck up too much. I've made moves in the right direction but I absolutely must continue to play in this vein.

I ran a few simulations over at evplusplus.com and it made me realise how large the down swings can be in 6-max with a small win rate. So I have to try and play my A-game 90% of the time if I can, and continue to table select well. I'll blog again with further updates at some point, but Skyrim is released tomorrow and that will likely get some of my poker time unfortunately. But until I blog again, GL.

Short Update

Hi, so I've played a few more hands this week and I'm sure now that I'm not going to be a long term winner in this format if I continue to make as many mistakes as I am currently. These aren't tilt induced mistakes, they are a consequence of not having sufficient knowledge of the flop and turn equities in different spots. This is good and bad.

Bad because I'm no longer beating the games (in all likelihood). How can it be good? Well it confirms my suspicion that if I merely continue to play full ring then I'm auto-piloting and not improving my game at a sufficient rate. Making all of these mistakes in the 6-max games will - over time - almost certainly improve my play in every department because I'll have a much greater knowledge of the necessary equities. Most of the mistakes are flop and turn all-in calls where I should probably be folding instead.

I think so far my mistakes might well have cost 2-3 buy-ins over around 8k hands, which is a significant amount. So I will continue to play and work hard to improve my knowledge. Eventually the losing/break even curve should begin to turn back into a nice upward line.

I don't think I'll be blogging as much from now onwards, but that doesn't mean I'm not still playing. Just that instead of blogging, I'll be using that valuable time to study instead. GL

Edit: Have just bought Ed Miller's new e-book on hand reading and will put up a review at some point.

Hmmmmmmmmm......

Well I'm beginning to settle in a bit better into this format but I'm still making too many mistakes. My non - showdown curve has improved to around half a buy-in loss per 1000 hands which is more in line with what I achieve in full ring. Unfortunately I have also lost money at showdown over the sample so the sum is a total 4.5 buy-ins of loss. I'd expect that if I improve my play and start running better that I could probably beat these games. It depends on how much money can typically be made at showdown; in full ring I was earning about a buy-in per 1k hands (giving me $12.5 'profit' per 1k hands). I'm going to need a much bigger sample (and to run better) before I know for sure though so I'll keep plugging away.

The games are very aggressive, and in many instances recklessly aggressive. For someone who relies on showdown winnings for profit, it's quite difficult to play against these fish sometimes because they just blindly bet away. But with each session I'm seeing tons more interesting spots than I was at full ring so I'm definitely enjoying the change. I think that I'll need to work hard to eradicate leaks from my game to make it work.

I'll try and play a long session tomorrow and perhaps dig out some hand histories where I messed up (there'll be several I imagine). Until then, GL

I think I suck at 6-max!

Yeah made a few more mistakes yesterday, and I plan to put in another session later. The question is whether to go back to full ring where my strategy is clearly profitable or to try and develop a winning one for this format. There are advantages and disadvantages of both: I can grow my bankroll taking one path and yet I won't be growing my game; the other path could potentially make me a much better player.

The problem I see at the moment is that I'm losing much more money to the red line (albeit small sample size) than at full ring. Whether this is typical or not I'm yet to find out for sure, but at full ring I lose about half a buy-in every thousand hands which makes it ludicrously easy to make a profit - going to showdown and winning a buy-in per thousand hands or more is pretty easy at full ring cash.

Well my current desire is to continue with 6-max. I may end up banging my head against a brick wall and just giving up and going back to FR but I think I need to try and make the correct adjustments to win. So I need a proper sample size really. Over the weekend I'll get my second monitor set back up and set the other up for a ten table layout (that should get me back to 1k hands per hour). Then I should quickly clock up a reasonable sample size. I somehow think that this isn't going to be easy :S!

I had a huge suck out yesterday. A loose aggressive cut off opens and I 3-bet with AKs. We are both 150bb deep and he 4-bets to about $6. I expected to get almost his whole range to fold to a shove so that's what I did. However he snap calls with AA. The flop gives me just a back door flush draw which miraculously comes in by the river. Thinking about my play in the hand in general, it seems quite a risky strategy to 5-bet shove AKs for 150bb. But if he's only calling with {KK+} - probably a reasonable assumption then there are only 6 combos of those hands in total. I probably need about half of his range to fold to make a profit (a pure bluff would need 80% folds but when I'm called by KK+ I win 23% of the time) which means I need a further 6 combinations of hands to fold. This definitely seems reasonable. But perhaps flat calling preflop is better when we're this deep.

Oh well, for the time being I'll continue to donate to the 6-max games and blog some more about the experience at some point over the weekend. GL