Rollercoasters

The last couple of months have been a real rollercoaster. After being
confident enough to make a withdrawal back in December, I suffered a large
reversal of fortune. My $88 was slowly whittled away over a month to as
low as $31.82. At NL2, I just couldn't win! My VPIP and PFR numbers are
decent for this level at 25/18, and I was zero'ing in on the
super-loose/super-aggro opponents (the 68/5 types and the 55/45 types),
but they would always draw out on me, or I would get it in with AQ, and
they would finally flip over KK. The one comfort is that my EV numbers
stayed even throughout this big losing streak.

What to do when you suffer a big setback? I thought it was time for a
break. So, around January, I cut back on playing quite a bit, and
refocused on other hobbies.

Luck changed during this January to February cut-back period. With much
less play, I managed to climb my way back up to $60.82! This was very
encouraging. What changed? One simple thing - moving to Full Ring from
6-max. I'm finding that while full ring plays much slower, there is
generally at least one fish on the table. Also, the number of hands my
opponents play, force me to fold much more, or evaluate the merits of
playing more speculative hands based on bet sizes.

And then just as things are going well, a few days ago they get a bit
better: Pokerstars announced a new reload bonus, with a homegames ticket
attached. I rebought for $51.35, giving me the potential to recoup a
$12.84 bonus. Why such a low rebuy? Simply because there is only 30 days
to clear the bonus, and I don't think I'll be able to get much more
playtime to allow more than that in that timeframe. I also don't want
bonuses to dictate my playing times.

With the rebuy, and my improved fortunes at NL2 Full Ring, I decided to
prematurely and cautiously move to NL5 Full Ring. So far, it has been a
wonderful success. In my first evening at NL5, I was up almost $20, and
last night I was up $7. Five and a half buy-ins over 1200 hands - that's
45 big blinds per 100 hands! It feels like this has done a lot for my
bankroll, but in reality, it has just put me back to where I was around
December when I made the $50 withdrawal. Onward and upward! I'll keep
playing NL5 Full Ring unless something goes horribly bad.

Current FT Balance : $0.23
Current PS Balance : $136.83
Current Owing: $701.35
Current Bankroll: -$564.29

Keeping to the Long Path

This week, I've played a mix of formats. After 12 more $1.10 DoN's, I was
6 wins/6 losses. I felt I was losing momentum, so I switched it up.

First format was Fixed Limit Hold'em at $0.02/$0.04. After feeling out
the format, I find I like Full Ring tables over the 6-max tables here.
Playing super-tight does the trick, and I won several dollars over a few
hundred hands.

I was also playing a bit of No Limit 6-max. I played at NL2 ($2.00 buy
in), and was down for a little while there, but came back with a good run
of cards + bad opponents.

Here's a fine example of a hand:

UTG ($2.60) raises to $0.06
CO (hero $5.00) reraises to $0.18 holding KK
UTG calls.

Flop 2sKsKd
UTG raises $0.20, hero calls

Turn 4h
UTG raises $0.50 hero calls

River Js
UTG raises $1.00, hero reraises to $2.00, UTG calls

Hero wins with four of a kind! I think that my opponent had J 7, so he
was essentially bluffing every street. If only it could be like this
every time I sit down to a table.

So, to round out the week, I am up about $10.00. I also made my first $50
withdrawal from the pokerstars account to start repaying my deposits.

Another thing to note is that I require 360 VPP at pokerstars by Dec 31st
to unlock a $10 reward. That's about 15 VPP per day, which means $3.00
worth of rake per day, or $1.25 at NL2. While this is certainly
achievable, it would mean playing a lot more hours, or more tables, or
moving up in stakes. The first of these (more hours) is not going to be
there. The last two (more tables, or moving up) will lead to worse play,
or the tilt problems I had before. Therefore I will do what I've never
done before and tell myself that I WON'T achieve this goal, and simply let
it go in favour of playing less and playing better.

Speaking of moving up, I have a plan and I will stick to it. For No
Limit, I will start to move slowly into NL5 once I hit $100 again. My
buy-in will be restricted to $5.00 (you can buy in for up to $12.50). If
my bankroll grows, I will move to NL5 exclusively as I approach $150. For
fixed limit, I believe I'm a winning player and could move up easily, but
I want to prove it with more hands. I will stick to the lowest limit
until I have 1,000 hands under my belt, then I will move up one notch (I
believe the next level is $0.05/$0.10.

Here's where I'm at. Pokerstars balance and total amount owing are lower
by $50 because I made that $50 withdrawal:

Current FT Balance : $0.23
Current PS Balance : $84.75
Current OWing: $650.00
Current Bankroll: -$565.02

Here's to hoping I can keep this up.

Grinding DoNs

With $66 tournament dollars, I decided to shift away from 6-max cash games
until those tournament dollars were played through. So far, I have played
through all of the tournament money except for $4.10.

I decided to play $1.00+$0.10 double or nothing sit and go's (DoNs).
Essentially, these 10-man tournaments pay you "double" if you're in the
top 5. They are very low-variance, and at this buy-in level, kind of easy
to play. The biggest downside is that they are a bit boring, as the
proper strategy is to play massively tight -> fold fold fold. On a
positive note, I can comfortably 4-table these, so I can play through a
lot without going over bankroll.

Thus far, the DoN's have been going well. 55 DoN's later and I'm up
significantly relative to my last post. $17.49 may not seem like a lot,
but in terms of percentage, I've increased my Stars account balance by
16%! This is mostly, but not all, due to playing DoNs. I also played one
$1.4 knockout Sit and Go, placing 1st, and knocking out 7 players (worth
$4.5 winnings + $1.75 in bounties). Where I wasn't sure I'd be able to
sit uninterrupted for an hour, I dabbled in some cash games - both No
Limit (0.01/0.02 blinds), and Fixed Limit at $0.02/$0.04. Fixed Limit is
new to me, but I did extremely well over a small sample of hands (up $2
over perhaps 500 hands). I might consider playing more Fixed Limit as a
result.

My Full Tilt balance was refreshed with $0.23 worth of rakeback. Its not
enough to play at any tables, so I'll wait for a bonus offer before
considering a rebuy there.

My Pokerstars balance of $125.42 is now large enough that I can keep with
my original plan and cashout some of this bankroll and start paying myself
back. I'll start with a $50 withdrawal, then wait until my bankroll hits
$200 before cashing out again.

Current FT Balance : $0.23
Current PS Balance : $125.42
Current Owing: $700.00
Current Bankroll: -$574.35

Ballooning my Bankroll

I didn't want to do it, but I had to. I've had a difficult month. I seem
to go into a pattern of having multiple good sessions with modest gains,
but then I get hit with a single session with massive losses.

I rebought into Stars for an extra $90, and this subsequently dwindled
down to about $50. My Full Tilt balance has been obliterated - down from
$6'ish to zero.

At PokerStars, I was also going to convert my Frequent Player Points (FPP)
into cash, a conversion which requires 2500 points, and nets $25, for a
conversion rate of $0.01 per FPP. However, I was two hundred points
short.

Instead, I picked up a technique from the www.twoplustwo.com forums: Play
6-man hyper-turbo Sit and Go's which cost 280 FPP. Out of the 6
positions, the first 2 players get a buy-in to a weekly quarter million
dollar tournament, and third place gets their FPP back. You get nothing
for placing 4th through 6th. If you win a tournmanent entry, you can then
unregister for the tournament, and you will get $11.00 worth of tournament
dollars in your account.

Since 6 players contribute 1680 FPP minus one player who gets his 280 FPP
back, that means there are 1400 FPP for prizes totally $22.00. That pegs
the FPP value at 0.0157 if you do "average" over the long run at these Sit
and Go's.

I had enough FPP to join 8 of these. I did amazingly well. I placed 3rd
in one of them, regaining my FPP, which I reinvested in a 9th SnG. Of the
rest, I lost only 2, winning 1st place in 6 of them. That netted me
$66.00 in tournament dollars. That's roughly $0.03 per FPP, so I
essentially TRIPLED what I would have gotten with a cash bonus!

It was good fun to play Sit and Go's again. The winnings are tournament
dollars, which means they are only available to pay for subsequent Sit and
Go and Tournament entries. I don't mind, as I am a winning player at Sit
and Go's. In fact, going back to SnG's is probably good therapy after
getting trounced at 6-max cash games for the past year. As well, the
lessons I've learned from 6-max should enable me to play a little looser
in the early going with confidence. In fact, if I play well enough, I may
stick with Sit and Go's to rebuild my bankroll, as I'm confident that I
can do it.

As for my Full Tilt bankroll, it looks like I will have to do something
similar. I have 4000+ player points. Time to look into what I can do
with those to rebuild there (although using them will impact subsequent
rakeback). Or I could possibly wait for a reload bonus while I work on
Pokerstars.

Current FT Balance : $0.00
Current PS Balance : $107.93
Current Owing: $700.00
Current Bankroll: -$592.07

The $5.50 tournament

I had the day off today, so I played the $5.50 tournament for the donation. Unfortunately, I did not get in the money this time.

Out of a field of 5004 players, the top 720 players are in the money. I was busted out in 1215th place.

The hand that busted me was my QQ versus an AK holding.

This player was getting quite aggressive, and I'd seen him try to bully a number of pots prior. His aggression factor is 3.5 and his 3bet percentage is just over 10%. Here I thought he was simply bullying the initial raiser and I was going to squeeze.

Poker Stars $5.00+$0.50 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t150/t300 Blinds + t25 - 9 players - View hand 1020234

Hand History Converter



BTN: t5685 M = 8.42

SB: t24804 M = 36.75

Hero (BB): t11105 M = 16.45

UTG: t1925 M = 2.85

UTG+1: t4520 M = 6.70

UTG+2: t12000 M = 17.78

MP1: t14230 M = 21.08

MP2: t16030 M = 23.75

CO: t8040 M = 11.91



Pre Flop: (t675) Hero is BB with Q Q

1 fold, UTG+1 calls t300, 5 folds, SB raises to t2100, Hero raises to t11080 all in, UTG+1 calls t4195 all in, SB calls t8980



Flop: (t26880) A T 9 (3 players - 2 are all in)



Turn: (t26880) K (3 players - 2 are all in)



River: (t26880) 6 (3 players - 2 are all in)



Final Pot: t26880

SB shows A K (two pair, Aces and Kings)

Hero shows Q Q (a pair of Queens)

UTG+1 shows A 4 (a pair of Aces)

SB wins t13170

SB wins t13710

Another tough night

After losing three buy-ins... this happens.

My opponent has played roughly every other hand, and I've been playing back at him by reraising his limps and until now he's been backing down. I've actually had the goods each time! Unfortunately, he hits his breaking point and won't take it anymore and calls his way into a lucky break:

Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1006337

DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter



CO: $7.63

BTN: $5.05

SB: $5.16

BB: $4.39

UTG: $3.19

Hero (MP): $14.01



Pre Flop: ($0.07) Hero is MP with K Q

UTG calls $0.05, Hero raises to $0.15, 4 folds, UTG calls $0.10



Flop: ($0.37) 9 Q 6 (2 players)

UTG checks, Hero bets $0.25, UTG calls $0.25



Turn: ($0.87) 4 (2 players)

UTG checks, Hero bets $0.70, UTG calls $0.70



River: ($2.27) 3 (2 players)

UTG bets $1, Hero raises to $4.45, UTG calls $1.09 all in



Final Pot: $6.45

UTG shows 4 3 (two pair, Fours and Threes)

Hero shows K Q (a pair of Queens)

UTG wins $6.14

(Rake: $0.31)

The $5 MTT

Just an update - No, I haven't played the $5 MTT yet. I haven't had time, but I will this coming weekend! Rawr! I can't wait.