Owned, and new rule

Got walked all over at one of my four tables during a brief session last night. Three of the four tables were standard passive/rubbish but the other one I joined was mental - the standard raise was to 12c which I can handle when there's one player at a table doing it, but this table had three players making it 12c to go whenever they felt like it. Obviously, being the only one who had to call these bets made it quite tough for me to get the better of the table as a whole. I looked like a right loser to be honest and my preflop started getting comments. And the longer I continued to call them, the more comments I got and the more they raised and laughed, idiots... If I was an absolute Moorman about the stats of this challenge, I might have left the table after one round but I stuck with it and played 80 hands there for a $2.10 loss, which actually included a $2 KK vs AA aip sickener. [This also got laughed at despite me insta-typing 'nh' in the chat. Cunts.] A $2 loss looks good for a table like this but it's heavily varianced because of the unusually large size of the (often effectively blind) flop bets/raises which have to be made because of the... unusual preflop action. I could have stacked myself very quickly if some of my early bluffs didn't run good. I may seek more tables like this in future sessions because it's much more of a challenge and a lot less boring than the tighter tables. My new rule is simply that I can't leave a table because it's too hard, though, as I've just explained, hard is a quality I look for in a table now. So, rule one: Must call every raise to 29c or less and rule two: don't be a complete and utter Moorman twat about the stats and leave a table I'd be lucky not to lose on. Finally, a nh to Keysie who has just cashed in the WSOPE for the second year running for another £20k+ score. Well played mate. Quite where my paragraphing has gone, I'm not sure. Moorman, who I've just given a bit of stick to there, hilariously (because I don't know him and it got cheesy closer) lost a massive KK vs AA and busted shortly after to bring the bubble on, which burst the same hand... So sick at that stage in a tourn that big to run KK into another big stack's AA but I don't know him and I do know Keys, so fuck it, it's FUCKING HILARIOUS. imo. Soz, rambling...

Game: NLHE, 6-max, 1c/2c
Hands played: 1484
Pots won without a showdown: 418 (28% of hands)
Profit/loss: +$17.74

The 'pots won w/o sd', of the stats I have available to me, is the only one (except for profit) that really interests me now with this challenge. We all know the rules so 'flops seen' is irrelevant. 'Pots won at showdown' could actually have been interesting for a couple of reasons but I don't care to explain them and I've lost track of that stat already anyway. My 'pots won without a showdown' was 118 of 310 (38%) in my mini 4-tabling session last night which is totally ridiculous six handed. Though I recorded a loss. Peace.

Well, a Pgchips challenge wouldn't be a Pgchips challenge without some Pgchips challenge music

Raided the charity shop again and I think I've found a couple of beauties:

Spice Girls - Spiceworld, their second album which is over ten years old now ffs. How old do I feel? Should be fucking horrific to listen to but I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully it won't tilt me too much when I'm playing. It was a bargain at 50p imo.

And,

Pure Global Chillout, which pretty much speaks for itself. Perfect untilting poker music I reckon. Unless it's shit. Double CD, 50p.

That's about three hours of music to play to. I hope it treats me well. I've played poker with Elvis' In the Ghetto on repeat in the past though so I should be able to cope with whatever shit these CDs throw up. Woman was supposed to be coming round tonight but isn't now, I don't feel like any more tourns at the moment, so I might as well continue the Pgchips 'let's-go-broke' challenge.

Preflop rule

Okay, I've decided that any pre flop raise of 15 big blinds (to 30c) is too expensive. I must call a raise to 29c (unless one of yous decide to sit down and make it 29c to go every hand...) but can fold pre to any raise of 30c or more.

Just finished my first session which was fucking hilarious to be honest, there were people getting proper pissed off! Four tabled for a few hours:

Hands played: 1174
Flops seen: 1063 (lots of pots taken down pre and folds to bets that were too big...plus the odd accidental fold as with the similar Omaha challenge from a while back)
Pots won at showdown: 118 of 210
Pots won without a showdown: 300

That last stat is pretty sick to be fair, I won over a quarter of the hands at six handed tables without showing my cards. I suppose bluffing is where I made most of my profit...

Total profit: $20.70 (@44ptBBs/100)

As with the Omaha challenge, I think that this looks like a great little exercise to improve your post flop play, though the standard really is horrendous at these tables. Maybe I should try it at 10c/25c?...

New challenge!

Just a quickie to let you know what my plans are at the moment. Have ran badly the last couple of days, including another really annoying outdraw in the $3 r, but whatever, not gonna keep complaining about bad beats, so I've decided to have a go at a new challenge I've been thinking about for the last couple of weeks. Probably my toughest yet...

My aim is to show a profit from seeing every flop at the 1c/2c 6-max NLHE tables.

I've spoken to a couple of people about it and they seem to think it's impossible. An obvious problem is having to call open shoves... bound to prove expensive. I will play for a bit and work out whether or not I need some kind of rule that means I don't have to call all in pre, we'll see.

Let's hope I run better than I did at my recent trip to the barber's...

Living next door to Jim

I moved to my current address in early December of last year, an unfit twenty two year old slightly annoyed at the unfitness of his, once marginally less unfit, twenty two year old body. My house is literally a thirty second walk (twenty if, unlike me, you don't have to stop half way to catch your breath) from one of the 'biggest and best' gyms in Birmingham. So why, before today (almost ten months later), I hadn't even taken a look inside, sort of beggars belief.

Not only did I look inside, I joined. I didn't even mean to...

I left my house at about half five this evening in search of one thing, food. Unhealthy food. Pizza was the plan. I usually take the unpleasant short cut to the high street, which takes me past three dead and unused factories in just a two minute journey to the shops. But today, for some reason, I decided to take the slightly longer scenic route (scenic in that it only takes me past two small factories and a public toilet), which, along with it's many delights, leads me past a Fitness First gym. Completely unexpectedly, my brain led me in.

After all these months living next door to a gym, I can't help but wonder why I chose today as the day. I don't know... maybe it was the two and a half days of sleep I needed after my embarrassing one hour football session a few weeks ago that prompted my subconscious to lead my body gymwards. Or perhaps it was my worrying lack of shock at the heart pains I experienced on holes fourteen onwards during my second round in Bournemouth. Thinking about it, it's probably a combination of both.

Either way, it's over now, I've done the easy part by committing myself to forking out literally tens of pounds a month for the next twelve months, now 'all' I have to do is drag myself out of the house to use it. The opening hours are 6.30am - 10pm on school nights so, no matter what hours I'm working, it'll be hard to justify not finding time to go. Only laziness should keep me away and, given that I live so close, that would be pathetic.

Golfing trip was great fun, nh and ty to Paul for organising it all, I had an amazing time. But my golfing was shit. This also needs to be sorted imo. I need to start putting in some volume! Me and Ptevey (Ptevey and I?) live fairly close to each other and have talked about playing a round every couple of weeks or so. I would love for this to happen. I spent some decent dosh on golf clubs a few weeks ago so it really would be disappointing if I stayed this bad at a sport I enjoy and have spooned out some decent dosh buying equipment for. I refuse to let my clubs gather dust, rust and spiders.

As usual, I'm bored of writing this shit again so not gonna write even half of what I wanted to talk about, not even going to go back, reread it and correct it,



(anaverageof)threeputtbarrett.

Peace, Brothers.

Bubbles and other losses

September has been a good pokering month for me so far. I have been playing almost entirely holdem multis, which I'm glad to say I've started enjoying again. I was +$1200 for the month before I started playing yesterday thanks to a couple of wins. But last night, I had my first real setback. Spazzed away a shitload.

It started badly with the O8 WCOOP where I played well in the first few levels and felt comfortable with an above average stack despite running pretty badly but made that awful river call (third hand of my last post), which I'm still a bit pissed of at myself about. 10k stack if his two outer misses but whatever, no excuse for me playing the river like a cunt, just got to forget about that now...

But what happened afterwards pissed me off even more. I decided to experiment with the $5 rebuy sats to the $55 80k gteed, so I quickly registered for four of them. The first one kicked off, I was in for $15 (started with double stack and an add on) and was looking good for a seat when the freezeout started. 45 paid, I unavoidably came 46th. Standard. $15 loss.

By this time the second one had started. Again, I looked good for a seat when the FO kicked off. I was in for $25 and came 26th with 25 seats up for grabs (I was forced in with QQ in the small and the BBs T6 held up). Pissed off at that one. Got $16 for another $10 loss or some shit. I also failed to cash in the other two. A fairly unsuccessful experiment, you could say...

Ran KK into JT on a 489 flop (he stop and goed for about a million big blinds and I was prepared to take the gamble) which couldn't hold for double average heading into crunch time in the 50k gteed $5 rebuy. That pissed me off too.

Built a stack in the $11 30k gteed after a nice set vs set but then AK couldn't hit vs KK in a massive pot so I had to hold out for a small cash.

What else? Oh yeah, splashed out on a $22 deep stack tourn where I limped 44 in the second level, few more limpers, BB checked and bet double the pot when the flop came 642... wtf? I flatted, everyone folded. Turn blank, pot, call. River blank, pot, call. I'm beating nothing really and losing to everything, he shows 66 and scoops it, nh. Lost most of my stack in the second level and I didn't fare much better after that.

Had a couple of small cashes last night but overall I lost $100, which is exactly what I missed out on in those shocking $5r sats... Oh well, ran really bad and could have broke even.

In other news, I'm really looking forward to the golf trip to Bournemouth that Paul (or 147_star to give his 'real' name) has arranged. Looks amazing, £75 for two nights bed and breakfast and as much golf as your body can handle (about seven holes, if my footballing is an accurate indication of my current fitness). Going with a great group of lads so it should be an amazing trip, and I'm really looking forward to spazzing my roll out to all the old Durham lads in the cash games too!

I really want to play as much golf as my body allows me to. I think the current plan is three rounds but I'm sure I could convince a couple of them (or maybe just Ptevey, the nutter) to play at least a couple more. I want to squeeze in at least five rounds on this trip, especially if I've got to buy my own set of glubs and other golfing-related shit.

I'm interested in getting in a practice round of golf before the trip so if anyone knows of any good cheap (doesn't actually have to be good) courses near them let me know, I'll try and get down there. Or if anyone fancies coming to lovely Birmingham for a few days for a couple of rounds, you're more than welcome to stop here. I know Paul, the cheating fucker, has been putting in practice rounds right left and centre so I must get in at least one round before this trip. So let me know in the comments or on MSN when I'm next on if anyone's interested in shipping some pre-trip holes and pints.

I have plans tonight and tomorrow so I don't think I'll be playing any poker and I think (though I can't actually remember) that I'm working most of next week so, unfortunately, I might not be putting in quite the volume of poker I have done so far this month before the golf. But then again, after last night, that may be a good thing...

Run well all,

Teadrinka. xxx

WCOOP PLO8 $320

Here're a few of the more interesting hands I played in this:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3173535
Always annoying to miss a freeroll...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3173525
I felt I could have taken it on the flop if I had bet but I was hoping for a low card to fall to get a few people interested. It did but I missed. Sigh.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3173501
Don't mind me semi bluffing this flop, hate his call, betting the nut high on the turn is okay (though I could have kept the pot small by checking incase his low was freerolling me with two pair or the river paired the board as it did), hate his call. River is horrible but I shouldn't really have check called for that much. I much prefer bet, puke and fold.

Went out shortly after with some kind of A2xxs. Highly annoying as I was really looking forward to it.

Broke

Don't worry, the bankroll's fine, it's my body I refer to!

A severe lack of most things even vaguely physically strenuous over the last best part of a decade really did come back and fuck me today. It felt like such a good idea as well as I finally got round to doing something I have wanted to do ever since I got back to Brum.... I signed up with a football team.

As I turned up at the park today for my first training session with the team I fully expected to pick up where I left off five years ago when I left my old Sunday league team to 'go to University'. But I was in for a big disappointment. Today I waved goodbye to the days where I could seemingly run forever without ever breaking sweat, muscles or bones and panted a big 'hello' to creaky bones, muscles and sweat. Seriously, I can't believe how unfit I have become. I once beat everyone in my year at the bleep test ffs, how quickly lungs forget...

Two minutes in, I was gone. I'd already rushed off twice for gulps of water, Lucozade and oxygen before I half-heartedly (the half that'd sensibly packed in at this point) went in for a 50/50 challenge with their fifteen stone striker. I lost fairly comprehensively and was down on my arse as my right knee felt the full force of Robbie Coltrane's size-12 Pumas. Yep, after just two minutes of the first half, I was off the pitch for the third time. The looks of disappointment from my team mates were perfectly just in my opinion, though I thought the sniggers that rippled around the park were a little unnecessary. If equally just.

When I finally came back on, I asked if I could go in goal for a bit to rest my knee. I let three past me in as many minutes and was swiftly replaced.

Truth be told, as the game went on, I did get better. I made one great goal line block early in the first half (mainly because I was sprawled across it gasping for air at the time) which got me a hard slap on the back and a whack in the arm from a couple of guys (at least one of them was congratulatory, I'm sure). But there's no doubt that I was by far the unfittest and most out of practice 'player' on the pitch. It was embarrassing at times. I have only ever once seen a football player cover less distance in a game than I did today*.

It was absolutely pissing it down in the second half so we decided to cut the game short with a 'next three goals wins'. A few of their players were a bit pissed off by this point and wanted to make it a next goal winner but first to three was the decision, much to their annoyance. It was no coincidence, I suppose, that we went two goals up veryquickly. It all looked over so our skipper sent me up front to finish them off. Needless to say, four golden chances, at least fifteen minutes and a good 3mm of rain later, it was still 2-0. So we called it a day. It's fair to say that I was not the most popular player on the pitch:

"Oi, Curly (an amazing bit of obs. com. referring to the current state of my hair. Why the fucker isn't wowing the crowds of Edinburgh at the moment, I don't know...), my dinner's going cold because of you."

"Yeah, soz, mate."

"Fucking Cornish pasty and chips, as well," he added as he turned to an equally peeved and genuinely sympathetic team mate. The team mate said nothing, but gave that unmistakable look that effectively said, "I know what you're saying mate, that curly-haired cunt right there is a right useless cunt." I'm pretty sure that was the jist of what he was thinking at that very moment. And he spoke for every rain-drenched fucker there. Including me.

It's about four hours later now and I currently feel that there is about a 50% chance of me surviving the night - a vast improvement on an earlier estimate. Worryingly though, I have won more than my fair share of races recently (ignoring the pre-game shuttles earlier) so I'm due a loss at some point... So, as tired as I am, I guess I'd better stay awake long enough for that 50% to become at least 80%. I haven't been losing many 80/20s to be fair...
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3105322
... okay, let's try 90%.

* Emile Heskey - 13 yards, Birmingham vs Arsenal, Summer 2005. He was offside.

18/27/45/180/360-man SnGs

I twenty tabled the 10c 360-player NLHE SnGs last night. (Well, I loaded up twenty of them but busted a few before a lot of the others started). But I played 20 of them in total for a 20c loss. Ran bad at the only ft I made (ran AK into JQ pre for the chip lead 8-handed). Came 8th. Only other nice run was 15th where I ran two overs and a fd into top pair and couldn't improve. Was surprisingly fun to be playing for such small amounts of money again. Though I wasn't taking it lightly, I even folded the best hand once just to make the money. Ship it.

Just tried something similar, but upping the stakes a little. I 18-tabled some $1.20 18/27/45-man tourns with a couple of 10c 360-man ones thrown in and an expensive 180 player $2.20 one for thrills. This last one was sick. Great tourn, $100+ first prize. Came 7th despite being comfortable chip leader 7-handed. This sick hand for a massive chip lead with 7 left did most of the damage and I tilted out soon after:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3017304

I minraised because my computer was being slow and it's all I had time for but, given how crapshooty it was by this stage, I'm not sure I mind the minraise much. Anyway, standard river.

About $20 profit in the 18 Sngs I played but should have been more obviously, can't remember anything much interesting happening (guess tables were always popping up over the top of the horrendous outdraws I was putting on people).

Really don't feel like playing any Omaha at the moment. Think I'm scared of losing. Will probably just 18-table these sit and goes until it gets boring.

Inabit.

tannigreythompson

well i was bound to start playing shit after that last post wasnt i. been running shit too. anyone who shows that amount of hope/optimism/arrogance deserves to get cunted over imo. in the two days after the post i had an 8 buy in upswing followed by a 17 buy in downswing. then spent $65 in a NLO8 $5 rebuy where i didnt win a single hand during the rebuy period. ridiculous. things started to look up at the start of the freezeout when somehow split a pot with a moron but departed shortly after. winning zero hands in an hour and a half of a rebuy depressed me. my desire to play seems to completely disappear when things arent going well so being the bad loser that i am i havent played very much since. definitely a bad loser. $300 down since my last post. guess it happens. worked some long hours out in the sun at the cricket last week which was probably the saviour of my sanity and my roll. was good to be out of the house having fun with friends and other people instead of in the house losing money to enemies and other people. not sure what my plan is now to be honest as my omaha libido has gone through the floor. got about $500 in the roll just 18-tabled some small stakes multi-table sit and goes where i ran bad and broke even. it wasnt fun. downloaded loads of films recently may carry on just watching them instead of playing poker or maybe ill get out of the house a bit. tv is shit only things i watch now are the secret millionaire which makes me smile and mock the week which makes me laugh. millionaire is in ladywood near me next week which should be interesting. drive by shooting there the other day. money well spent. rented a couple of french films, the brilliant amelie which was nominated for five oscars in 2002 i think and a fucking hilarious film called le diner de cons. fucking hilarious. watch it if you can. loads of foreign films i want to watch some for the second time but have been struggling to download them with the correct subtitles if anyone knows a reliable way of downloading foreign films please tell me. though renting them from the library gets me away from the computer if nothing else. my total profit since the $15 deposit 72 days ago now stands at $1196.03 and is getting less impressive by the day.

Ambitious Ambitions

Sup?

Well, I’m well past the 2c/5c level now, and I’ll probably never play there again. I moved up to the $25 level on Wednesday and I’ve been 9-tabling the 6-max PLO8 tables at this level ever since. It’s gone quite well overall and my game has come on a hell of a lot in that time.

But it didn’t start well.

In fact, it started terribly. I went $90 down within hundreds of hands and was probably lucky to break even over the first 6k. It wasn’t all bad beats, and I was certain that there was a leak or two in there somewhere, some nasty habit I’d brought with me from micro micro maybe, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Now, I am quite proud of the fact that I have taught myself how to play this game and have twice built a bankroll of hundreds of dollars from tens of dollars playing the micro micro stakes of the game. But, after 6k hands of break even 10c/25c I had to concede that there were some things I was doing very wrong and, what’s more, I had no idea what they were.

So I finally got over my stubbornness and read some literature. I started with the 2+2 forums. It felt like cheating a bit to be honest but I’m a bit of a prick for not doing it sooner. I spent a good six hours reading every page of the O8 section of the forum and it has helped an unbelievable amount. There’s a lot of crap on there, as I’m sure there is on every forum (except maybe Dur Pok Soc) and some terrible advice, but what was good was unbelievably helpful.

I didn’t realise how shit (well, at least how unoptimally) I was playing before. Even some of the hands I have proudly posted in my previous posts are embarrassing to look over now tbh. But anyway, it worked for the micro micro levels but not for $25. But, now I think my game is okay for the $25 level and have finally been winning a bit of money. It does help that I’ve been running sick good recently as well.

I have played 17 hours in total for a $510 profit over 11.5k hands. This is about $30 ph at 8.9ptBBs/100. Obviously if I ignored the first 6k hands these figures would be sick at like $60 an hour or something. But those first 6k hands happened, were important, and so are included.

So having played over 10k hands at this level now I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of where I stand at the tables and what I think I can achieve.

I believe that with a lot of discipline and a lack of tilt, a win rate of 10ptBBs/100 is possible. This will be my main aim from now on. Playing 9 tables at a time I get through about 600 hands per hour and if I was to achieve my targeted win rate this will bring in $30 per hour. I have a lot of debt to pay off and I desperately want a holiday (I hear Malta’s pretty cheap…) so I want to put in enough hours to make $1k per week at 10c/25c.

Hence, ‘Ambitious Ambitions’! Impossible? We’ll see. Anyone for a prop bet to incentive me on?

$1k, at my target rate of 10ptBBs/100, will take 20k hands, which, at a rate of 600 hands ph, will take about 33 hours. I will continue to work for the agency (unless there is a bit of prop betting going on) as I think it’s important for me to have something to force me out of the house every once in a while and also something other than poker to pay my rent. But for the next few weeks, possibly months, I will be trying my best to fit in a big number of hours of Omaha around work.

If I get anywhere near 20k hands a week, winning at anywhere near my target rate, I’ll be earning well and paying off debt quickly:

I hope to pay off $500 a week in debt and keep the rest of what I make in the roll. I don’t intend to move up from these stakes until all of my debt is paid off so there is no pressure there. And anything I make over $500 in any week will probably eventually go towards a holiday.

That’s all for now, sorry nothing even mildly amusing to report at the moment. I’ll probably be posting my progress or lack of it in this blog. Peace.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2941703

Facebook bowling is -EV

Dickie, if you're reading this, thank you for introducing me to facebook bowling - you owe me a new mouse you houndrel.

My mouse has caused me a lot of trouble recently (I'm sure I've lost at least $50000 in 'mouse tilt') and I think it's been on its way out for a while. So, I guess it should have come as no surprise that my full-blooded attempt to bowl the fastest facebook bowl ever recorded finally finished it off. There was a loud crack and a fat chunk of plastic flew across the room. It was an explosive end to a troubled life.

Luckily it was the mouse I broke and not my computer or my arm but now the pointer thing doesn't point exactly where I want it to point every single time. With a 'fold' button and a 'call' button and a 'raise' button all in fairly close proximity, it's quite important that the mouse points the pointer to the button I want the pointer to point at. Otherwise, it's just pointless.

So I guess 6-tabling is out of the question until I buy a new one. I just tried to 4-table but I was far too slow between tables, sometimes it's important to make bluffs instantly or they don't get through so playing without a mouse would almost completely take away my bluff. Actually, this would probably be +EV thinking about it...

Anyways, had a nice couple of hit and runs since my last post:

17 hrs 15 mins
6336 hands (367 ph)
$92.38 profit
$5.36 ph
14.6 ptBBs/100

Will need a few more sessions like this in the next couple of days to bring me on target for $1k by August. Over $600 short at the moment with only 12 days to go. (It doesn't really matter when I reach $1k of course, but it would be nice to meet a target for once).

Bye.

Stress ball for sale!

Plugged away at the tables for a good few hours last night. My play was very on and off and had mixed results as I went through several really bad spells in the six or so hours I played. The tables were full of action though and it was great fun, losing didn't even bother me.

Progress to date:

16hrs 30mins
6091 hands (369 hands per hour)
$68.88 profit
$4.20 per hour
11ptBBs/100

Few winning and losing hands here if they're of any interest to anyone:

Nuts and a redraw takes quarter:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2912350

Bad turn in $30 pot:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2911656

Big flop:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2911586

Nut low and draw to high miles behind:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2913571

Love the turn:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2913471

Don't know about this one:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2913429

Jam it:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2913382

Missed wrap:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2913358

Hate his call on the turn but whatever:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2913347

River:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2912857

A set just isn't good on this kind of lowwy flushy drawwy flop (without the fd, that is) when faced with serious action but I'm sure he's happy:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2912610
My hand has 63% expectation vs a bare set on the flop. That's why this game is so tricky sometimes.

Everything misses in a $25 four way all in:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2912610

In the 2.5k hands I played today I earned enough FPPs to play another 210 FPP sat. I took one of the 6 seats without much trouble and unregistered from the tourn as usual and had to decide what to do with the $11. Last time, I played and won two heads up matches but they were really boring. So I decided to spread it out between a $6.50 9-player PLO8 SnG, a $3.40 10-player PLO8 SnG and a $1.20 10-player NLHE SnG. Was nice to chill out after all the poker and there was some good banter at the tables. Crashed out of the holdem one in an unnecessary way:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2914191

but won the two Omaha ones for a $42 return on my 210 FPP investment. This means that my 400 FPP stress ball is worth $80. Anyone want to buy it?

Dwain Chambers

As I played so shit the other day I decided that dropping to just four tables would be a good idea last night. I played 482 hands in the 1hr 40min session for a $19.76 profit. Good stuff.

9hrs 40mins
3647 hands (377 hands ph)
$52.43 profit
$5.42 ph
14.4 ptBBs/100

Bankroll did take a hit though as I played two $22 PLO8 multis for no return. I got into three way all ins in both as a favourite (but not a big one) and lost. I need to play lots more today and tomorrow. Sticking to 2c/5c now.

Bob Monkhouse

Playing like a right twat at the moment.

8hrs
3165 hands (396 hands per hour)
$32.67 profit
10ptBBs/100
$4.10 ph

Was all my fault today.

Got some films I've been meaning to watch for ages so gonna watch them instead of playing tonight. Starting with Howards End. May play more over the weekend but $1k by August is looking like a tough ask now.

400 FPP stress ball

Played another 210 FPP 20 man SnG sat to the $100k after my poor session of cash. Somehow managed to qualify thanks to some appalling bubble play from some of them. This fold was important:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2901073

UTG just had to be incredibly strong there, I fold everything. The push by TT is worse than pushing AKs there in my opinion. Anyway, unregistered from the tournament obviously and inspired by Paul’s heads up form decided to use the $11 to try two $5.50 heads ups. I lost a big pot in the first one with a set vs flush draw leaving me with half a stack so I tilted and went on to win. Sweet, freerolling in a way now for the second one...

Which went on for ages. It was a ‘deep stack, blinds never go up’ heads up. 2k starting stacks, blinds stay at 5/10 throughout. Well, we were both too good for each other so after over an hour of play he had a massive chip lead of 2150 - 1850. He was playing better than me so I said ‘is there any way of chopping this and going to bed?’ He initially thought I was coming onto him with the ‘going to bed’ bit so set him straight and I was glad when he suggested that we just go all in. I said ‘cool’. Next hand he shoved, I snapped and my JT held up. We both lolled in the chat and when I finished him off a few hand later I ‘gg’ed but he didn’t reply. The bitter bastard. So another 210 FPP turned into $20 or so. This made it all the more annoying when my 400 FPP stress ball was delivered today. FFS I just spent a potential lot of $$$ on a fucking stress ball. Now I know why they are so called.

So, that’s made up slightly for my crap session last night. I plan to put in a few hours today and tonight probably. Hope to run a bit better than I did last night.

Waste of time

Completely ruined my figures tonight, played 1153 hands and ran shockingly bad for about 1152 of them. I guess it was due to be fair. It was quite funny at times some of the stuff that was going on. Least fun you can have in this game is getting it in with the nut high draw and the nut low draw vs some idiot who thinks top two are good and missing both. Got stacked doing that a couple of times in quick succession and also had an unavoidable set vs set in the middle of it all - he flatted me on the flop and I still had the second nuts on the turn so I got them in thinking I was ahead. nh. Was down over $20 at one point but the tilt stayed away and I managed to pull it back.

I 6-tabled for 3hrs 20mins playing 1153 hands for a loss of $5.18. Not as bad as it was at one point but still a big disappointment. I played okay and learned nothing, waste of fucking time.

Time... 6hrs 30mins
Hands... 2523 (388 hands per hr)
Profit... $32.14
WR... 18ptBBs/100
HR... $5 ph

Looking weak now, those figures. Got the day off tomorrow as I say. Will have to put some hours in then.

Rolled by August

I'm about 1.4k hands through my new 2c/5c challenge. At the same stage of my '1c/2c, 100% flop' challenge I was over $40 to the good.

2c/5c, PLO8, 6-max:

1370 hands
3hrs 10mins (433 hands an hour)
$37.32 profit
27ptBBs/100
$11.80ph

Making 1c/2c more profitable. The big difference, of course, is that I'm now multi-tabling while at 1c/2c I was, at most, three-tabling. This makes a big difference to both the win rate and the hourly rate. While my win rate at 1c/2c was about 100ptBBs/100, my hourly rate must have been about $2ph (though I didn't keep records of times during the challenge).

6-tabling does change my play a bit as making the 'right' decision every time becomes increasingly difficult. I find myself erring on the side of caution a little too much preflop and on flops and then my calling seems a little too loose post turn and on the river. Weird. This drop in standard of my play is shown by the big drop in the ptBB column. For me, it is a sacrifice worth making as my hourly rate has improved significantly. I'm not sure whether I've got the win rate/hourly rate ratio perfect yet but I'm happy enough with the way it has started to continue along these lines for now.

This 1.4k hand sample includes three successful 6-tabling sessions and a predictably losing 466-hand session of 12-tabling (ffs). The session of 12-tabling is the reason why my ptBBs is below my targeted 30ptBBs/100 while my hourly rate is above. (I got through hands quicker than expected). The 12-tabling session was a losing one and both my win rate and my hourly rate would be much higher if I hadn't done it. I'm just such a greedy twat ffs, DON'T DO IT! I don't always feel comfortable 6-tabling and to try anything above that is retarded imo. That's about the tenth time I've had to tell myself that.

I do think I have ran sickly good so far and the 30ptBBs I was hoping for whilst 6-tabling may have been a bit optimistic.

As far as the bankroll goes, it's up to around $240 now from the $20 fun money I left in. I said in my last post that I was going to work out 'the right' BR for me to have to make the relatively big jump up to the $25 level (and be at that BR by August). By 'the right BR' I mean 'a comfortable BR' really. I'm sure in the world of O8 there is a generally accepted 'correct' BR to have when moving up to $25 but, as temperemental as I can be at times when playing poker, the right BR for me may be completely different to your typical poker player's. So I haven't researched at all and have, instead, tried to work out what needs to be right for me to make the jump.

When I move up to $25 again I really don't want to be in the mindset where I'm liable to tilt. There are a few things that need to be right before I'm able to take that step up in an untiltable state of mind. The most significant one is that I need to have enough money not to be bothered about some sick cooler or bad beat. I cannot let sick hands allow my next (or any future) decision be anything but what I would consider to be the right one.

Basically, I don't want to get annoyed by poker again. Otherwise I'll end up cashing out and taking a break like I had to do around 'blow up' time. Doing that was a massive step back in the BR build I had planned, which, after a couple of weeks away, saw me back to 1c/2c for more 'fun'. This all happened because I wasn't prepared mentally for the small setback I faced at the time, which was then made doubly worse by tilt (http://www.pokerhand.org/?2769734).

I guess to sum up, I want to win lots of money whilst quickly rising through the stakes, and all completely stress-free. Is that too much to ask for?

If my mind is in the right place I genuinely think I can do it. I need to get the right balance between work (actual work, which I plan to continue throughout the summer) and poker. Work is still most important to me at the moment proven by the 70-hour week I have agreed to work at the end of the month.

Going into my step up financially ready will be an important thing to get right.

At the moment, I want $1k in my account before I move up to 10c/25c. This could be much less or much more than is recommended, I honestly have no idea...

I need to make another $760, which, at current rate (probably a bit higher than expectation), would take 64hrs. I said I wanted to be rolled for 10c/25c by August which is 16 days away. 4hrs of poker a day is not that many really. I have tomorrow off work so that's 20hrs out of the way already...

So,

I want my BR to be on or over $1000 by August, 6-tabling 2c/5c 6-max PLO8.

Only if It feels right to move up then will I move up. Then I'll have to work out how I want to go about beating the $25 level at a happy rate.

Ready to build a roll

I'm bringing the '1c/2c 100% flop' challenge to an end. I think I've done what I set out to do (clearly 1c/2c is easily beatable when seeing 100% of flops) but it's just not moving my bankroll on fast enough. Especially as I've got no motivation to put in the volume at the moment.

My $20 'fun money' is now up over $190 so it would be a bit silly to stay at 1c/2c even if I wanted to. I don't think my bankroll is ready for 10c/25c yet either though so I'm going to have to stay at 2c/5c (the only level Stars provide between 1c/2c and 10c/25c) for the time being.

Had a spare couple of hours this evening so took the time to see how the PLO8 2c/5c 6-max tables compare to the 1c/2c ones I've been playing. As expected, they're almost exactly the same. Bit less money flying about but they're still weak.

I six-tabled for two hours and got in 660 hands for a $31 profit. It's a very very small sample and I think I did run a bit above expectation but I would hope to make $30 for every 1k hands I played at this 2c/5c level. Going on this information, 6-tabling, which felt pretty comfortable, it should take me about three hours to play 1k hands (for a $10 hourly rate). This seems like a pretty reasonable target to me.

I plan to play 6-max PLO8 2c/5c achieving an hourly rate of $10 and a win rate of 30ptBBs/100.

Hopefully I can do it by 6-tabling but if not I'll switch it around to see what my optimum number of tables is.

I'm working a lot over the next week so I might not get much chance to play but when I do, this is what I'll be doing to try and really get this bankroll going. My long-term goal is to be 'properly rolled' for 10c/25c by August. I'm not sure what kind of roll I'll need yet, that's something I'll think about and write about later. Any suggestions welcome by the way...

Yesterday's bit of FPP fun and today's good session of 2c/5c has brought my profits to $758.04 since the $15 deposit 47 days ago. I'll get to $1k eventually Fran!

I'd better get to sleep anyway, I've got work in a few hours ffs.

4200 FPPs = $100

I used the $88 in tounament chips to play 26 NLHE $3.40 turbo STTs. I was keen to get it out of the way quickly so opened 14 tables for the first session. Always a mistake... I played poorly rushing all over the place and lost shit loads in that first session.

6-tabling after that was easy.

I made my money back and went on to show an overall profit of $10.20. Pretty shit return actually from 26 STTs (39c profit per $3.40 tourn - not great). Fuck it, serves me right for 14-tabling. Anyway, so all my $Ts are now converted and I've turned 4200 FPPs into $98.60.

Not sure whether that's good or not to be honest. I probably could have spent the same amount of FPPs on freeroll multis for a much larger profit but this was certainly quicker.

So, to conclude, I guess all I've found out is that the 210 FPP sats to the Sunday $100k are great value. Oh, and I also found out that I can't 14-table... again.