An extra 2p?? WTF?

Just returned from my fortnightly 'big shop' at Iceland. I got the usual: two loaves of wholemeal (£1.60), a pack of four tins of beans (£1), a small bottle of milk (£0.40), and a packet of bananas (£1).

It should last me.

It usually comes to a tidy total of £4 dead so I stood there smiling in front of my regular cashier (till-woman?), my four quid at the ready, when she bluntly blurted out, "four pounds and two pence, please." What the... break it to me gently why don't you? After all we've been through.

It turns out that good old milk was the culprit here, 42p ffs. It's sick, an extra 2p for a small bottle of milk. Honestly, the amount I spend on butter, milk, eggs and cheese I'm seriously thinking about growing my own cow.

At one point yesterday I was stuck $160 from 10c/25c PLO8. I must constantly remind myself that this BR has come from that $15 deposit at the start of the '1c/2c challenge' on Wednesday. So, twelve days later, after starting the day on $413.96, going down to $255 was really disappointing and, though I was unlucky with cards, was ENTIRELY my own fault. Nobody forced me to play.

So I moved down... briefly.

I played two hands of PLO high $10 just for a change. I sat down with $10 and bluffed the fuck out of my first hand and got caught which prompted the comment 'lol, donk at the table' from one of my opponents. So I tried to catch someone out the very next hand. It didn't go well:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2731966

NH, sir. I left the table.

I'll now put some links to a few of the hands I played during my tilty phase yesterday. Make of them what you will:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2731844
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2731879
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2731884
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2731929
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2731950
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2731984
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2731895

Some horrible stuff in there from me. The queen-high flush one was sooo lucky and I really annoyed myself with the set of kings hand. The turn call is shit (drawing to half) and I have played enough to know that his bet on the river is screaming, 'I've scooped, mate. Inabit.' But I called anyway. Sooo bad but thought I'd share it with you.

My bankroll is now back to about where it was before the massive downswing, I clawed it back to $273 late last night (after a cashout of $115). Some of the following hands are the reasons why. Most of the poker-playing people who know me know that I have lost many a bankroll in the past by tilting and playing games well above my roll (and probably skill level) so those people won't like the stakes of this selection of hands but fuck it, it worked out (and I wasn't tilting when I played it).

His play is very questionable here if you ask me, I don't mind him flatting pre with the intention of moving me off a low flop but I'm going nowhere there. Of course I got verylucky to scoop:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2733331

Horrible play from my opponent gifts me $55 pot:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2733547

Nuts hold for $86 pot:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2733564

Small pot but interesting decision on every street:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2733777

Sick battle of the blinds. Unlucky not to be ahead and then to miss given he'd flopped the nuts:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2733970

I played one table of PLO8 $100 and one table of NLO8 $50, focusing more on the $100 table. I profited from some nice flops and some bad play by my opponents but I think I also played well. I really thought about, and eventually tightened up, my preflop raising hand selection in the 500 hands I played at the $100 table.

At 1c/2c, 2c/5c, and often 10c/25c my preflop range included:

- Any pocket pair tens or above (if I hit it's often top set and opponents don't fold middle or bottom set or dodgy low draw for any price)
- Any suited ace (as 2nd nut flush doesn't fold at this level)

But I soon noticed that there were at least a couple of really solid players at the $100 table sitting with full stacks. The players sitting with much less than a buy-in were idiots. The good players fold middle set to my top set and the poor players aren't sitting on enough money to pay my top set enough to make up for the times I miss after raising pre. So pairs without a nice low draw were often folded (or just limped in pots that looked to be heading towards a cheap multi-way). [[Any decent pair at the lower levels, with or without a low draw, became a raise simply to make it more expensive for the numerous players willing to chase a low draw after the flop.]] The decent players at the $100 level wouldn't chase a low draw without a good high draw to back it up and so my top set on a lowwy flop didn't want to be in a big pot with the solid players anyway (especially given the size of my BR).

Also, taking the second hand above as an example, if I don't have the low draw to back up my suited ace, I am going to be frustrated fairly often when I flop my miracle and have to split the pot with a low as weak as that. By narrowing my suited ace range to include a fairly decent low card as well I will be scooping a lot more often. Thinking about it, this rule probably applies to every level after 2c/5c and is an adjustment I will think about when returning to the $25 level.

So what are my plans from now on?

My number one aim is not to go broke. For this to happen, it's important that I don't move up too quickly (no more PLO8 $100 for a start). I find it easier not to move up when there is something stopping me. I found it very easy to stay at 1c/2c for 10k hands whilst doing the challenge and so it seems reasonable to to think that setting myself some kind of challenge at the $25 level will keep me there until I'm ready to move up.

The '1c/2c challenge' involved me attempting to make a certain amount of money for every 100 hands I played. This target was 50ptBBs/100 hands (pokertracker Big Bets are two big blinds). I really enjoyed this challenge and am more than happy to try something along these lines for my new chosen level of 10c/25c.

I have rummaged through the '2+2 forums', which are very good by the way, and the consensus seems to be that there is no one on Stars at the 10c/25c level consistently grinding out a 10ptBB/100 hands profit. So even if it is unattainable, this has to be my target. But this is just half of my new challenge. My other target is to make every day a 2k-hand-day. Some days I'll be working obviously and there will be days where I have some other plans but I want every playing day to consist of a solid, worthwhile stint.

So the new mission for Pgchips on Pokerstars is:

Stakes... 10c/25c
Hands... 2k per day
Target win rate... 10ptBBs/100 hands
Target profit... $100 per day

Based on the information I have read I'll be lucky to reach my targeted win rate and also 2k hands is a lot for me in one day as I even find 6-tabling tough but as always I'll try to give you an honest (and maybe this time interesting) account of my progress, win or lose (though if I lose for too many days on the bounce I'll find myself back at the '1c/2c challenge'!).

Unlike the 1c/2c thing, I have no end-date in mind and neither is there a specific number of hands I'd like to troll through. I'll just plug away until either I have the advised bankroll for the next level (or a number I feel comfortable taking a shot with), or I get bored, or I got broke.

Cheers for reading if you still are.