I am playing really really shit

Fucking sick of cards at the minute because I'm playing bad and losing lots but, as I've still got two tickets left, I might as well play the $2.5m guaranteed Million and the $1m guaranteed Sunday Warm-Up later today.

Fuck Omaha.

I strongly advise you all against buying but $21.50 for 10% in either if any crazy fucker fancies a piece. peace

Run well, one time...

I've been losing money at cash recently, which is something I'll worry a bit more about if I don't ship the $500k tonight. It kicks off in a few hours and I'm really looking forward to it. Before that is the Blogger Championship Final and I might as well play the $200k tonight as well as that was part of the package.

As my MSN personal message suggested briefly, my plan was to go to the gym for an hour or so to get my body and brain fit for tonight. I left for the gym fifteen minutes ago, and I've just got back. After about ten minutes I had to stop as I was suffering from stitch in just about every organ in my body that hasn't already been killed or desensitised by the abuse of the last few years.

One of my New Year's Resolutions will be to abuse my body soo much that my organs are left sufficiently feeling-free for me to be able to run, or at least move, for more than ten minutes relatively painlessly.

A couple of mistakes to learn from...

The first is, never sign up to over $500s worth of tournaments just before going to the gym for the first time in three months without leaving your account details with a close friend or a good player. There was about a 49% chance of a pgchips heart attack just now and that would have been a sad waste of a few hundred $$. I was literally racing for my tournament's life..

Arguably, the second mistake was going to the gym with an estimated 49% chance of a heart attack. But this is an O8 blog now, baby, you gots to be willing to take some slim edges.

Sorry, no cash in the O8 tourn last night, will be playing the same one next week though because imo there were some really bad things happening.

Well, blogger starts in 45mins, gl to all playing it.

Same shit, different day

For those of you who are backing me, there isn't a PL tournament tomorrow but they're letting me play the one tonight instead. It starts at 7.45pm. PLO8 $215, 25k guaranteed.

I will be playing the $500k tomorrow night, as planned.

Cheers.

PLO8 $50

Even though my BR is only slightly better off than it was this time last week, I finally made the move up to PL50 last night. Why didn't I just dive in last week ffs, before my downswing at $25? Anyway, it took me a while to settle into $50 and get used to the $100+ pots that were flying about. I'm not sure why but I played badly to start with, one really bad crying call on the river sticks in my mind. It was a turned one outer (sigh) but it's a snap fold I've been making at $25. My call annoyed me more than the outdraw, which is a positive thing imo.

I've not got anything interesting to say after today's session really so I might as well show you my biggest $50 hands to date. I've only played five pots of $100 or more so far and I've been on the wrong end of most of them.

One of the first hands I played at this level and it hurt a little bit:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3604063

These are more infuriating when the low doesn't go down at all and KK holds for the high but, again, could easily have scooped:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3606180

Opponent was bad, my worry on the flop was the solid Scarf left to act after me. Worked out okay though (interesting to see that his hand is favourite pre??):
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3605381

Favourite pre, on the flop and on the turn but scooped in a $140 pot:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3610143

Two hands later he does me again:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3610160

Looks like I've ran fairly badly in the big pots so far but, in a way, this little gem from earlier makes up for all them:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3610073
; -)

I've played 2217 hands at $50 so far for a $36.65 loss. Considering how I've ran in my five biggest pots, this loss is nothing to worry about.

I had C4's '100 greatest tearjerkers' on in the background as I was playing tonight and a couple of the films that were up there are on my computer, so I'm off to fall asleep to River Phoenix and the lads in Stand By Me.

Night night, bright eyes. xx
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=a502RejLz8s&feature=related

‘…some shitty tournament’

Firstly, an apology. To the few of you who don’t consider my posts a chore to read, sorry for not making as many of them recently as I did at the start of the month. It’s pretty bad form considering I bring so much attention onto myself with all these challenges. But, for those of you have been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that a week of non-posting = a week of losing money. I have a bad habit of not blogging the times when I’m either running badly or playing badly (the former usually leads to the latter). I have to stop doing this because it doesn’t look good for the blog to have gaps, sometimes weeks long, missing from every month!

I will try not to let losing money affect my blogging in future, and no matter how grumpy the post may be, I’m going to try to post something after every day’s play from now on. Happy now, Darkstar?! Always a pleasure to share a table with you btw, even though you probably stacked me about three times during my tilty phase this week!

From my last post:

‘…I’ve made $600 in five days at $25 so, with 19 days left of the challenge, I should cruise to the further $1700 I need to succeed…’

A lesson to all bloggers new and old, never post a sentence like this unless you’re willing to accept the ridiculous luck that poker karma has to throw at you as a result. A long, swingy week later my BR has only just recovered, and is finally back over the $1k mark. But it was a really tough week and, as you can see, I’ve done very little to further dent the required $$ needed to complete the December challenge.

Promisingly though, I had a +$150 session at the $50 tables last night so, with 13 days left of the challenge, I should cruise to the further $1700 I need to succeed.

Within two days of my ‘$1k bankroll’ update last week, I was knocked down to $780 after some really bad times at the NL $25 tables. AALx is rarely an underdog in O8 and a lot of the bad players tend to call all in pre quite light, so in NLO8 open shoving any AA hand seems to be the thing to do. I managed to get scooped in five of these in a row (three for full buyins) early on Saturday, the day after my last post. Luckily it was all before breakfast so I had very little to throw up.

The last stacking was my AA24 vs one of the regs who made a ridiculous snap of my sb shove, having raised the CO, with A45J. He must have known what a mare I was having at my other tables as well because he chose that moment to try and wind me up.. When the river fell, and he scooped (obv), I said, ‘nh’ in the chat. He responded with, ‘I am just learning this game, how am I doing pgchips?’ Coming from an experienced player, a player I’ve played a lot with, this was a ridiculous thing to say. I hope his comment made him feel a little bit better about his awful call though. By the way, if you happen to see Donrio35 on your travels any time soon, tell him pgchips said ‘nh’.

I went through a short spell after that, that I’m sure we’ve all been through, where it seemed that ALL my bluffs were getting snapped off, all my made hands were being folded to and I was playing badly and just steadily losing money. So, in typical pgchips style, I took a couple of days off.

Sunday, I drank, and then most of Monday was spent down the snooker hall. It was nice to take my mind off the cards for a bit, and I very nearly made, what would have been, only my third ever maximum break as well… I was dead straight on a black to middle with the few remaining reds pretty much over the holes. But, as I sent it heading straight at the heart of the pocket, I can only imagine the nap of the cloth took hold as I narrowly missed by a matter of feet. Still, a break of 25 is not to be sniffed at, my friends.

Tuesday, I came back to have another crack at the cards. Opening the cashier and seeing only $780 in there was a bit depressing and it made me feel like I didn’t want to open any O8 tables. It’s ridiculous really how such a small downswing can have such a big adverse affect on me. So, instead of O8 cash, I decided to put my 5k fpps to good use and played 24 of the 210 fpp sats to the Sunday $200k. I won 14 of them for a nice $154 return on 5040 fpps. I’ve said it before but, a $50 bonus costs 5k fpps at the lower VIP levels so, if anyone reading this was considering buying one of these bonuses, I would strongly recommend that you play these sats instead. The obvious downside is the time factor but, as they only take about half an hour each (if you win), if you can multi table them I’d say the extra $$ that can be made makes it worth the time spent.

I sold the $T and this time added the money to my roll. Is this cheating? Err, let’s call it rakeback…

From my last post:

‘…some shitty tournament’.

Wednesday night/ Thursday morning was the O8 leg of the blogger qualifiers, which I originally wasn’t going to play because it didn’t kick off until 3am our time. Luckily for me I did play it because come 8.30am I was scooping the final pot and shipped a load of tournament tickets. I learnt a lot about tournament O8 during the night and it was a lot of fun, especially with two tables left, to be playing with what I would consider to be some really good players. Heads up was a bit of a marathon but I’m glad I eventually got lucky and came through for the win.

The tournament tickets I won are:
3x $215
1x $530
1x $11 (??)

As this total of $1186 is more than my current BR stands at, I’m looking to sell some of my action. This Sunday I’ll be playing the $215 PLO8 and the $530 NLHE $500k. I’m hoping to sell 50% in both. A couple of people have already expressed interest (I still have 15% of the O8 and 20% of the $530 to sell) so if you fancy getting in on it, let me know. I’m selling at face value so if you can spare a few tens of $$ it might be worth investing. Just $21.50 for 10% of me in the O8 and $53 for 10% of me in the 500k. Might be worth a spin. Ship me on Stars or let me know here, whatever.

I’ll post about my move up to the $50 tables later, this is far too long already and I’m hungry.

ffs

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This PokerStars tournament is a No Limit Texas Hold’em event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code:
document.write(paramCode)
005244

.

Bloggers can fuck off

Who gives a fuck who’s playing the Blogger championship or whatever? I get all excited because people who haven’t posted in ages finally post and it’s just to tell me that they’re playing some shitty tournament. Lovely, don’t give a shit.

The problem, I’ve found, with not working is that money doesn’t just magically appear in your bank account. It was for this reason I was going to have to reluctantly withdraw some of my O8 BR. That was until I shipped a Million seat in some 500fpp Sat. Ptevey forced me to play. Cheers mate. He was nice enough to buy the T$ off me at face value as well so I’ve cashed that out to keep me going until the month is over instead of taking a step back in the challenge. I run good.

I started today’s session with a BR of just over $900 and decided that I wasn’t going to stop until I’d reached the magical $1k figure. That was the only aim for today. If it took half an hour, brilliant, I could call it a day and go back to sleep.

Did it take half an hour? What do you think?

Two thousand one hundred and sixty six hands (six and a half hours) later, my BR finally reached the $1k mark. So, relieved and exhausted, I said bye to my friends and sat out at all tables, before realising that the last hands I played on all tables dropped me slightly below the $1k. Sigh. I ran really well in the session, it has to be said, I think it’s the first session I’ve had at the $25 level where I feel happy about the way the cards fell.

Ran well, but played shit.

I tilted off $80 in back to back hands to the same player mid way through, and that was the main reason it took me so long to reach my target today. I’m so embarrassed about the hands, I’m not even going to show them. The $25 regulars’ll be lolling about them for weeks though, that's for sure. It really pissed me off but what pleased me was the fact that, straight afterwards, I was able to sit-out for ten minutes to calm down before starting the grind back up, instead of just carrying on and picking some other undeserving cunt to bankroll for life. Wish I’d done it after the first hand though… Fucking hell, such a knob.

Sitting out when I start feeling a bit tilty is something I need to start doing. It shouldn’t take a three buy-in downswing in two hands (at a rate of -8000ptbb/100) for me to realise I’m a twat and need a quick break. A little bit of tilt multiplied by 9 tables equals a potential disaster.

My $25 stats are getting less impressive by the session. It’s probably because I’m 9-tabling as standard now, but it’s a challenge I’m enjoying so fuck it. Also, knowingly tilting away at least four buy-ins in the last few days doesn’t help anyone’s numbers. Well, maybe theirs.

10c/25c full ring
11731 hands
34hrs 30mins
(340 hands ph)
$597.45 profit
10.7 ptbb/100
$17.32 ph

$600 profit from these tables is 24 buy-ins, I’d say that this evidence enough to show that I am a winner at the $25 level. Do we need a bigger sample to safely determine this, I don’t know? Probably, but unless I fuck up now, I was never destined to be at this level for long enough to put in a ‘significant’ sample anyway, so I suppose it doesn’t matter.

O8 cash
21066 hands
72hrs 30mins
(291 hands ph)
$799.32 profit
$11.03 ph

BR: $999.32

So, the question is, now that I’m ‘rolled’, should I move up to $50?

In context of the challenge, I don’t think I necessarily need to move up. I’ve made $600 in five days at $25 so, with 19 days left of the challenge, I should cruise to the further $1700 I need to succeed. But I think this whole thing will be a lot prettier to look back on if I continue to work my way through the levels.

I do have a couple of reservations though.

The major worry I have with moving up is that the aggressive nature of my O8 game might cause a downswing that seriously fucks up the challenge. If, after a bad couple of sessions of $50, I had to move back down, I might not recover in time. I haven’t been completely comfortable with a couple of down swings I’ve had at $25, which, I expect, are fairly standard playing the way I do.

Hands like this, for example:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3575309
I occasionally get snapped and quartered but often take all of a pot that most people settle for half of (or none of). Plus EV or not, it’s what I’ve been doing. I think it’s good play (I might be wrong because literally no other fucker's doing it), but with aggression like this comes high variance and a worryingly up-and-down BR.

It's important that I feel happy enough to play my natural game at whatever stakes I'm at, so, to ensure this at the $50 level, I plan to go into it with a $250 ‘bluffer buffer’.

So, I’ll move up to the $50 level when/if (never fuck with fate) my BR reaches $1250. And the sooner that happens, the better, some of the whiney bad losers at $25 are really starting to annoy me.

Up and down like a Nun’s yo-yo

There were a lot of full ring $25 tables running today for some reason so I decided I was going to try a bit of 9-tabling. It lasted one hand.

By the end of the first hand on each table I was stuck $30, just bluffing like a twat, not concentrating at all. So I closed three of the tables and decided to 6-table until I felt sensible again. It took a long time to get to break even again and as soon as I did, I suddenly found myself $60 up for the session. I sat down at three more tables, sat out, and made myself a congratulatory cup of tea. Tasted good.

Within ten minutes of the restart, I was $10 down for the session again.

The first two stackings were standard but here’s the third all in I lost. Complete tilt:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3564949
I’m glad I lost, I deserved to. Pillock.

I sat out after that and made myself another cup of tea. It didn’t taste anywhere near as nice as the last one. (And I’m not being metaphorical, tasted like shit.)

I felt good when I came back though and was able to keep a good enough eye on things to open up a few more tables. I 7/8/9-tabled for a good few hours after that second cup of tea and came through the session with a nice profit again.

The promising stat, imo, is that I played 2024 hands in just over 6hrs, which is an average of 325 hands per hour, 50 hands more than my current overall average, whilst still maintaining my ‘30% of hands played’ stat.

10c/25c full ring stats after last night’s session:
4686 hands
16hrs 45mins
(280 hands ph)
$350.39 profit
15 ptbb/100
$20.92 ph

The nice part about these figures, when compared to the same ones yesterday, is that my win rate has gone down while my hourly rate has gone up. This is exactly what playing more tables at a time (more hands per hour) is meant to achieve. But, I know now, only to play as many tables as I’m comfortable with. The way I play, nine tables is often going to be too many for me.

Overall O8 cash in December:

14,021 hands
54hrs 45mins
(256 hands ph)
$552.26 profit
$10.09 ph

I’ll finish this dull, statsy post with a pleasing hand I played vs one of the ‘regulars’. He played it badly and it’s an important lesson for anyone trying to learn O8:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3565429
It’s one of the main reasons why PLO8 is so hard. He’s getting freerolled ALL of the time when faced with that turn bet from me so he should have folded the nuts on the turn. IMO. And how good do I run, btw?!

BR is up to $752.26 now, so if I can avoid the massive downswing that I’m certainly capable of, I’ll move onto the $50 tables soon.

No no, no no no no, no no no no, no no there's no limit!

Literally the last hand of today's session:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3559858

Fucking no limit. Could have been an expensive misclick. I wasn't in awful shape as it happens (it's effectively my KQ vs his AT), though I was unlucky not to scoop imo! I said, 'ffs, ridiculous turn' as a joke in the chat afterwards but all I got was abuse. It was standard, lads, get over it.

It was another fairly smooth 1k hands or so at 10c/25c, added to yesterday's figures:

10c/25c full ring overall
2662 hands
10hrs 30mins
(254 hands ph)
$211.75 profit
16 ptbb/100
$20.17 ph

So, my December stats now read:

O8 cash
11997 hands
48hrs 30mins
(247 hands ph)
$413.62 profit
$8.53 ph

If I continue to 6-table, running at 16pt at 10c/25c, this $2.5k challenge will only take another 100hrs. 16 is probably unsustainable at this level though, so I might be moving up again soon.

So...

Cue the downswing.

EDIT: I'm actually favourite in the hand at the top of the post... 54/46 to me! (The odds shown on Pokerhand are for Ohi for some reason.) Well, I never. If he has any low card in his hand (8 or lower) to go with his aces, however, he's back to being favourite. So I will try not to make this misclick in future as this shove ALWAYS means acesxx. Peace.

Moving on up

‘Bryan Duncan, singer, born in 1953, started his career in 1973 with the Jesus music band…’

Well, if I’d known that before I’d gone to the charity shop the other day, I wouldn’t have bought three of his fucking albums. I listened to one of them and just had to give them back. Let some other poor fucker make that mistake.

I also bought an S Club 7 album, which I was quite looking forward to bobbing my head along to until I opened the case to find a Blue album in there instead. Sigh. Still, could be worse… I could be that unfortunate Blue fan who’s just opened his case to find S Club 7 staring him straight in the mush. Unlucky, son!

The other disappointment was an ABBA greatest hits that is NOT performed by ABBA at all, but by some tribute band called Abbaration. It doesn’t even have Waterloo on it ffs. So, that’s another album I might have to give back. Or maybe I could give it to C man for Christmas…

Daft Punk, Discovery, is probably the only album I’ve bought this week that I’m at all happy with. It’s even still got the membership card in it that the early editions of the album had. It’s probably worth millions now, this antique. 50p. Value. Imo.

Poker.

I took a practice shot at 10c/25c last night. Bankroll-wise, it was a little bit earlier than I’d planned given that, at the start of play, I was only just over $400 but I feel like I’ve grown out of 2c/5c now and it’s just a boring grind (a break even grind at that atm). So I took a shot with the intention of coming back down should I fall below $350. I told myself not to bluff too much, just to take it easy and play some chilled out, low-risk stuff… but that’s just boring.

After this bluff got snapped off:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3555550

…I was lucky this one wasn’t looked up as well:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3555552

Lol, the hand plays itself imo. Way to take it easy, son. As I was telling 147 at the time, if that bet gets snapped by some AA4x, which I was worried about, or just any A2 that is also likely beating my ‘high’, I would have been forced to move back down. Too much in there not to bluff it though even if it was a matter of life and death. I got lucky and was able to stay at 10c/25c for the rest of the night. I was 6-tabling full ring for the most part, which felt comfortable.

10c/25c full ring
1510 hands
5hrs 30mins
$86.80 profit
11.5ptbb/100
$15.78 ph

Not a bad start. This leaves my overall figures for the first week looking like this:

O8 cash
10845 hands
43hrs 30mins
(249 hands ph)
$288.67 profit
$6.64 ph

Hopefully I won’t have to move down to 2c/5c again now (I’ve said it before but what a ridiculous jump between levels… $5 to $25), but I mustn’t get ahead of myself just yet because, as we all know, poker can be a right cunt sometimes.

Well, I’m off to listen to some Blue. All raise…

Vanessa's atomic modern love... Corrr!

Yo.

Got a feeling that this is going to turn into a bit of a boring mathsy (sp?) post, a post full of maths, so let me apologise for that in advance.

Soz.

Well, I’m slowly getting there. While you were all out having fun last night, I had a cosy night in with my new friends at the 2c/5c tables. The tea was flowing and we had a Wales of a thymes. There are some characters at these tables to be fair, my favourite being a lad who says ‘thanks’ in the chat after every pot he wins. What a twat. He even said it when he split one heads up once?? Yeah, ship it, son. I’ve taken a few pots off him and said nothing but I might have to deliberately outdraw him one day just so the ‘thanks’ I give him feels that little bit sweeter and hopefully hurts him that little bit more.

Was nice to take a little break the other day. Can’t remember which day it was but I met up with Ptevey and C for a couple of hours before they headed off to Nottingham to do their bollocks. Thursday daytime, I think. Yeah, ate into my sleep time a treat, you unnocturnal weirdos. (Had a bit of a problem spelling ‘weirdos’ then…whatever happened to ‘i’ before ‘e’, except after ‘c’?).

I met them down the bowling place where we shooted some pool, and followed that with a couple of games of bowling. The standard between us was seriously Laugh Out Loud-able but I banged home a 151 in the second game of bowling, which I only mention because it happens to be exactly the same as my highest break in snooker. 147star? I’ve made bigger breaks… Full stop.

In more depressing news, I’m officially a losing player at 2c/5c 6-max PLO8:

6-max 2c/5c
1460 hands
$9.13 loss
2hrs 45mins
-6 ptbbs/100
-$3.32 ph

Yeah, I know…ouch!

I felt the need to tilt after an ‘orrendous runner runner at one of those tables so I took it out on the 1c/2c tables! 9-tabling 6-max 1c/2c, I somehow played 91% of hands. It was such a nightmare to follow but great fun as ever. Potting most hands and not giving a shit what happened really sorted out my tilt as well.

6-max 1c/2c
952 hands
$14.27 profit
2hrs 15mins
37 ptbbs/100
$6.34 ph

Yeah, eat that, 6-max.

Luckily, my full ring is okay.

Full ring 2c/5c
6082 hands
$200.15 profit
29hrs
33 ptbbs/100
$6.90 ph

Cheers for all your comments in my last post but I still can’t find anything that automatically tops up when you fall below a full buyin. I’m guessing there isn’t one. That kind of thing might actually be considered ‘irresponsible’ of Pokerstars, though, so maybe that’s why the option isn’t there. Or perhaps I’m the only person in the world who sees the need for it. So, until Pokerstars loses it’s conscience or gambling law relaxes, or some genius in one of their offices actually takes a moment to consider troubled topupperers like myself, I guess I’ll just have to live without.

I’m five days through my challenge (December) now and my O8 bankroll is up to $405.29

O8 cash overall in December
8494 hands
$205.29 profit
34hrs
$6.04 ph

Using the old ‘20 buyins per level’ rule I’m planning on moving up to 10c/25c when I reach $500. Hopefully, I can run good and be there by the end of Sunday’s session.

Well, I was going to give you some figures as to what I need to achieve when I move up but I think it’s probably better left ‘til my $500 is reached. Well, isn’t that something to look forward to?

Bought four new albums the other day, by the way. Three of them are to be avoided:

The Corrs - Forgiven, Not Forgotten
Vanessa Hudgens (who??)
Atomic Kitten - Ladies Night (Seriously, WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING?)

The other album, though, is an absolute peach. Bill Withers - Lovely Day, is the first track. I snapped it up based on that alone, obviously, but, hilariously, it’s also got the original ‘If you don’t know me by now’ on it. I’ve listened to it a few times now and can’t help cracking up thinking of David Brent’s version. Fuck, I’m gonna Youtube that right now.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DN41XutK61Y
HAHA, Genius.

Also, couldn't help but watch this one for the first time in ages, amazing.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9JitDWQI9qc&feature=related

Modern Love Collection is the name of the album. (almost certainly) At a charity shop near you, if that’s your thang.

'thanks'

Before you roll those dice, baby think twice

Celine and Enya really are doing the trick at the moment so I'm just off out to do some charity shop shopping with eyes only for them pair..

But a quick post before I go.

This challenge is only three days in and it is already brought up a couple of problems. The first worry is my posture. I have been sitting at my desk crouched over my laptop for 23 hours over the three days and it is not doing wonders for my back. My posture's so bad at the moment, I'm practically kneeing myself in the head when I walk. My desk is slightly too low for me. Maybe I should get a new chair. Ah, fuck, just as I was writing that I checked the chair and it wasn't all the way to the bottom. Retard. That's better. Let's just hope the damage caused in the last three days isn't permanent.

Okay, so problem one solved ffs. Only 23hrs too late.

The second thing that's starting to become a problem is I seem to have developed a bit of an OCD. I don't know if any of you other cash game players have this but at the moment I literally CAN NOT be sitting at a table with less than a full buy in. It's getting quite annoying to be honest as, especially at the start of a session, I obviously spend a lot of time with exactly a buy in. So when I play a hand that I don't win I have to top up again instantly. The first hand of the session earlier, I folded on all six tables and had to go round insta-topping up on all of them from $9.95 back up to $10. It's kind of distracting and someone even commented on it at one of my tables earlier. Arrggghhh. Please let me know if I'm not alone in this.

Anyways, enough of that.

Felt like I played really well today. 6-tabling and 4-tabling for the most part I banged in another lengthy, back-breaking session.

Overall stats after December 3rd session:
2c/5c
5551 hands
$141.50 profit
23hrs
25 ptbbs/100
$6.15 ph

I lost four of my five biggest pots today so the stats aren't too flattering again really, sigh. Hourly rate, wasting my life ffs... Three outdraws and a big cooler were the ones I lost, though the one I won was a really sick outdraw I put on someone when I was on tilt which calmed me down for the rest of the session.

A couple more days of this and I'm taking a shot at 10c/25c.

Babies, think twice

CUNT

Yeah, so, I've been 12-tabling 6-max. Obviously.

Unfortunately, I didn't quite beat it as well as I'd have liked..

6-max 2c/5c

1188 hands
$0.85 profit
2hrs
0.72 ptbbs/100
$0.43 ph

Even the old 'rounding up the hourly rate' trick fails to make these stats look any prettier.

It was a tough session. I timed out a lot early on because (I didn't realise until it was too late) I still don't know how to play the fucking game very well. Every decision is so important post flop and I had an absolute mare thinking about a billion tables at the same time. Making the move from 4-tabling full ring to 12-tabling 6-max is just the kind of childish thing that pgchips should have grown out of by now. But still, live and learn. Hahaha, I wish.

As with ALL of my other 12-tabling exploits I feel like I was unlucky not to show a decent profit. Ran bad imo (but, as 12-tabling has never shown good results, I'm probably wrong and I must just play badly when I have too many tables going).

Might not be doing that again for a while.

Luckily, I calmed down after the annoyance of yet another 12-tabling disaster and banged in a nice, calm, bankroll-building, spell of 4-tabling full ring.

Not only is 4-tabling seemingly (I'll judge it when I finally have a 12-tabling session that isn't hundreds of $$ below expectation!) more profitable, I also enjoy myself a lot more than when I'm playing 8 or 12. It's nice to be able to actually think about a decision for more than a tenth of a second before another table pops up, and see patterns in people's play to adjust to, and, more importantly, I can talk to friends and/or watch the telly at the same time.

Overall full ring stats:

2c/5c
2483 hands
$90.31 profit
12hrs 30mins
36 ptbbs/100
$7.22 ph

So, including the 6-max, my overall December stats are:

2c/5c O8 (6-max and full ring)
3671 hands
$91.16 profit
14hrs 30mins
25 ptbbs/100
$6.29 ph

As I ran badly yesterday (imo), hopefully my win rates are set to improve. Though this obviously depends on whether I can control my greedy urge to 12-table.

Anyways, hopefully I'll be back tomorrow, relaxing with four tables open, and conversations going on MSN as I successfully follow some kind of visual media.

147's tar.

Suicidal in December?

Not yet, but I will be if I put in anywhere near the volume required to succeed in my new challenge. I'll come onto that in a bit.

When I was reading through my blog the other morning I was reminded of how much I used to enjoy one particular form of poker.

PLO8.

I don't even know why I stopped playing it, I used to absolutely lap it up (33 posts in June/July is some volume!). I can't think of another form of the game that I'd be willing to play 10k hands of at 1c/2c in less than a week! Certainly not Holdem.

Holdem is for cunts, by the way, and I don't care how many readers that offends, you Holdem playing cunts.

Anyway, as I say, I started playing O8 cash with the start of that 10k hand experiment at 1c/2c at the end of May and, luckily enough, I failed it profitably enough to steadily build my roll to a point where I was pratting about 12-tabling the 6-max 10c/25c tables in June and July, lol. The last time I mentioned O8 cash, though, was in the depressing 'tannigreythompson' post on 7th August.

And that was it, O8 gone... what a prick I am sometimes.

The fact is, that spell of poker in June and July was probably the most enjoyable and profitable time I've had since starting this blog. And I think that showed in the amount I played and the volume of blogging I got through. 33 O8 posts in June and July was followed by a sorry 2-post August where I got in a right strop after running slightly badly (well, a $350 downswing at 10c/25c was pretty annoying to be fair), ending in me inexplicably knocking O8 on the head.

I've only posted 20 times in the four months I've spent away from O8, so, to save this blog, and hopefully to start enjoying poker again, I've decided to set myself another O8 cash challenge:

Starting with a bankroll of $200, my aim is to make $2500 profit playing O8 cash in the month of December.

Yeah, that should keep me busy playing and writing in December.

I realise this sounds like a lot to make from that small starting bankroll, but given that I'm not planning on working at all in December, I should be able to get some serious volume in.

It's been a long time since I played the game so I'm going to grind the rust away with some 2c/5c full ring to start with. My plan is, when I feel comfortable with the game again, to move to the 6-max 2c/5c.

To get anywhere near the targeted $2500 I'd imagine I'm going to have to move up at some point but as it seems that I'm capable of a 14 buyin downswing at 10c/25c, I'm going to grind 2c/5c until I feel happy. You never know, I may even beat 2c/5c well enough not to have to move up...!

Started last night with a lengthy 4-tabling session just to get my O8 game back. Was sitting at one of the 2c/5c tables with $68 at one point which was fun, though that table was the only reason I made profit last night.

So, figures so far:

Game... Full ring PLO8
Stakes... 2c/5c
Hands... 1616
Time... 7hrs 30mins (ffs, I'm wasting my life)
Profit... $49.21
@... 30ptbbs/100 and $6.56 ph

Went through a horrible stage of tilt in there on other tables and I don't think I'm anywhere near my best so, though my hr is soooooooo slow doing it, I'm going to carry on 4-tabling full ring for the time being. (How many times have I said that, by the way... No doubt my next post, entitled 'CUNT', will be talking about the break-even six hour 24-tabling session of 10c/25c I've just had!)

Not at all happy with my current hourly rate so hopefully by the time I post next I'll be happy enough with my game to make the move to 6-max, or at least to open up a few more tables.

Will post again later.

Hope you're happy... Frodo!