Thank God for Rakeback

Where do I start? I had my ass handed to me in January at the poker tables and in life. At the poker tables I experienced my worst downswing in over four years of playing poker. In life it was one random bad luck thing happening after another. We had a pipe burst since it was so damn cold over a stretch of a few days that a pipe froze and burst by the time we warmed it back up. lol plumberbillaments.

I am just getting back into poker since I just received my last rakeback payment which made up for some of my losses at the table. I really can't say enough about playing with rakeback, it definitely makes up for your downswings when you add rakeback + bonuses together at the end of the month.

Pokertrainingguide.com is still going strong, we are in need of updating some of the reviews so that we stay current but that shouldn't be an issue over the coming months. We are also going to add a free poker training promotion that includes more poker training sites other than Cardrunners through Full Tilt poker that we currently offer. So check back soon!

F 2009

I will post my goals when I am less tilted. I am starting off 2009 just as I did 2008 with a huge downswong. I just need one hand to hold up to get my confidence back but it has yet to happen. I am down 10 BI's and this is officially the biggest BI downswing I have taken. I'm on pace to wipe out Decembers gains very quickly if I do not turn this around quick. I think I am going to drop down to regain some of my confidence and bankroll. Of the 10 BI's I am down my EV should only make me 4 BIs down...variance is a bitch. The big dive near the end is getting AA 2 of 3 hands at the same table and getting crushed by a Flush Draw then a set.

EDIT: my tracker is missing another $100 lost...so make that 7/12 BIs below expectation. weeeeeee

NYE Live Poker

Now that I am married New Years Eve has definitely lost its luster to go to the bars, fight the crowds and pay a ridiculous amount on a normally just "ok" time out at the bar. So this year my wife and I decided to order Chinese food in and head to the local casino with her parents. I immediately put my name on the list for 1/2 NL and it took about an hour for my name to get called which was good considering how busy it seemed.

I was at a fresh table that just formed out of the waiting list and it was filled with mostly older people and me and a crazy asian were the only two younger player which I always like. The guy on my left was talking startegy to his buddy and it was pretty lol at some points. I think he mentioned twice folding mid pocket pairs to a single raise preflop after limping because 77 doesn't connect with many flops (I think he limped for $2 and folded for $10 more with 4 callers). As always at live tables there are a lot of raised multiway pots. I knew I had a great table when the third hand in went (3 players in the action) limp, raise, reraise, call, reraise AI, Call, Call. I love that the limper was willing to get it all in and the original reraiser hit his set of aces and the other 2 mucked, one of them being the crazy asian, I wish I could of seen there cards.

To the hands I played:

A7s - Limped in and saw a flop of 8s7x4s...I bet flop and got 2 callers, 2x turn, bet and only one caller and Ax River and I bet and didn't get called by the guys FD. I wish we hit the flush as I would of taken his stack for sure.

ATs - I raised in MP got a couple callers and a flop of Td8d2d and I bet out getting one caller, Ad on the turn putting 4 diamonds out on the board and I get lead into for $20 ($40ish pot) and I call. I was really worried obviously about losing to a diamond but I wanted to stack him if I happened to hit my boat. I think my call is wrong but not too worried about it at this table. River is a blank and he checks to me and I tank for a bit not having the balls in the end to fire and represent a high Diamond thinking he has a medium diamond like the J/T that he would snap me off with and we end up splitting the pot.

J8s - OTB - 4 Limpers by the time it gets to me and I pop it to $12 and get 3 callers. The all insta check the 7 3 4 rainbow flop to me so I fire $25 and they all fold. The guy next to me asks if I had JJ+ so I showed him just to mess with his mind which did work.

JTs - LP - EP raise by the crazy asian with 2 callers by the time it gets to me so I call in position and its 5 to the flop. Flop is JsJx9s with a potential flush and straight draw. BB Checks, Crazy Asian bets $25, fold, call, and I jack it to $117 total AI. I was scared of the call, I knew the only hand that could call the CB of the Crazy Asian on that board was a Draw of some sort and I didn't want to risk playing it fancy and seeing a terrible turn. I knew the Crazy asian who was into his 3rd bullet could make the call with his OP if he had one which I think he did. He tanked for a long time before folding and the caller folded even though he only had $40 behind or so. If the caller isn't there I think I stack the Crazy Asian by making a smaller bet and milking him in but I was happy to take the large pot without a showdown in the end.

J9s - MP - Limped in - Made a terrible call down after checking a J52 flop and it getting check around to see another 5 and a $10 bet from the button. I called the turn bet and then called his river value bet for $20 and he flipped A5. I thought he tried to steal on the turn when it got checked to him twice since he was on the button so I don't mind my call on the turn but I should of folded the river because I don't beat much. Next time I will fire the flop and see how it goes from there.

I only got to play for 1:15 so I was happy with my results of +$109. The game was 1/2 NL with a $100 max buy in and $100 CAP on betting. If I raised $100 and got reraised to $200 I could still reraise to $300 but the game would have to be very deep since the BI is only $100. It was a weird set up.

Happy New Year! I'll be back with a post on my 2009 Goals shortly.

2008 Year in Review

2008 Goals - Lets see how many I fulfilled?

1. Take more notes + PT + PAHUD = pass. I have recently bought Holdem Manager and have been taking better notes all year when I was playing.

2. Increase number of hands played = pass. The months that I played I played quite a few hands. This last 1.5 months has been great and I really think going to SH tables will make it easier in the New Year to continue the trend.

3. Move up to NL200 = fail. I always fail these types of goals because I end up taking too much time off or withdrawing for personal reasons.

4. Take time off = pass. I think I might of taken this to the extreme but I took off from May to September again this past year for the second year in a row. I think I will just make poker a 6 month sport that is played only in the winter. I had reasons to take the time off and they were very profitable reasons. I started a website. Poker Training Guide. I enjoyed summer and worked hard at my real job and started a huge networking group for young professionals in my area that now meets monthly.

3/4 is great and I look forward to setting some unique goals for 2009 that will include everything from work, poker, websites, and beyond. Balance is definitely the key to a long successful poker career as well as life in general.

Once again, Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!!

Riverrun 1 - bwin 0

I just finished my PSO promo with bwin poker on the ongame network. I ended up playing 19,000 hands of 5 max in order to get the $150 in PSO points, and the $250 deposit bonus. For the most part I was able to 6 table and I learned a few lessons of short handed play a long the way.

1. A very profitable play is to check the river with the hands you would normally thinly bet for value with on the river if you are oop. 9/10 the guy will fire a decent sized bet with their missed draws, bottom pairs, etc and you can pick these off when they normally wouldn't call your value bet.

2. It is impossible for me to keep my redline (won $ without SD) at break even when playing more than 4 tables. I can only play showdown poker with 6 tables up and I guess I'll have to learn to live with it.

3. Eurodonks are the best kind of donks to play with and never believe you have a hand. It can be frustrating when you don't have a hand but they pay off in full wehn you hit.

4. 5 max is a more profitable game for me in terms of winrate over my last 20k hands.

Here is my final graph of my time at bwin. I am currently looking to set up shop with a ongame skin with rakeback so I can get even more value from these eurodonks as I learn to go from 6 - 9 tables over the next couple months. The blue line includes the bonuses I worked off while grinding.



I wish all my 3 readers a safe and happy holiday and I will report back in the New Year with hopefully more of the same good news. I will also make a quick goals post at some point in the near future.

NL 50 - Continued

My challenge continues onward and upward over the past week or so. I have had less time to play with Christmas parties and work related functions taking up a few more evenings than usual. Since I am stuck in my house for a while during a severe snowstorm watch I figured I would update my progress.

I just bought Hold'em Manager (HEM) to track my play. I used to use PT2 but it has become obsolete and HEM has a lot better stat tracking and HUD options than PT3. HEM uses PostgreSQL and its an absolute bitch to get going. I am still having problems every time I restart my computer but I think I have it figured out on how to get it working after a restart. It's a royal pain in the ass but a necessary evil.

I have added 2 tables to bring my total to 6 now for NL50 5max and I have identified a couple glaring leaks that I have worked on over the past few thousand hands.

Redline (Won $ Without Showdown) - This is the new stat that everyone is talking about. I have always maintained a good win rate without worrying about or measuring this stat. I am now making a conscious effort to get my redline to a break even state by firing at more orphaned pots and trying to take down 3 bet pots more often on the flop. I will post a graph at the bottom and compare my last 5,500 hands to my first 10,000 hands so you can see the difference it can make. I think this has saved me at least 1 - 2 BB/100 over the last 5k hands.

My other leak is that I am not 3 betting enough either in position or oop. I find that it doesn't make a big difference at NL50 but it will as opponents get tougher and will have the ability to narrow my range when I do 3 bet and I will not get paid off. I am going to experiment with 3 betting more over the next 5,000 hands and see if it suits my style. I think with proper implementation this will add 1 BB/100 to my winrate.

Here is the graph of my last 5,500 hands since the move to NL50:

Here is the graph of my first 10,00 hands at NL20:

NL50 5 Max Update

I have now completed about 3,500 hands of NL50 since my last update and I am running in absolute god mode. I started off by dropping 4 Buy Ins in my first 500 hands of making the switch to NL50. I almost dropped back down to NL20, I was one (1) buy in away from my stop loss number to move back down.

The players at NL50 are just a bit better than NL20 with a one less complete donk per table. There are more regulars that you can just beat up on in position but out of position its best to stay away. I am trying to hammer on the mid stacks as much as possible and by doing so making their lives miserable so they do something stupid and play back at me when I have a hand. I now realize why short handed is so profitable, you really can force your opponents to make huge mistakes if you keep the pressure on long enough,

I'm still due for a gigantic doomswitch very soon but its fun riding the wave of good fortune while it lasts.

Adjustments that I have made moving up:

1.) Tightened up from the SB.
2.) Stealing slightly more from the button.
3.) Stabbing at slightly more orphaned pots to get my W$WSF % up.
4.) I am folding my SB / BB to a steal slightly more so I am not defending out of position. This is will be more key as I move up. I only want to play pots in position.
5.) Only playing 4 tables so that I can better adjust and react to my tables.

My turn aggression factor is up quite a bit but I think that is due to the cards I am getting and all the made hands I'm value betting.

Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet is the name of the game at these small stakes.

I will continue playing another 6,500 hands and then hopefully take a shot at NL100 if all goes well. Ill try to update on my pending doomswitch shortly.

Hands since I started Short Handed, I moved up around hand 10k:

NLHE Shorthanded 5 Max

It been a while since I have actually played poker so I figure why not update the old blog. I have given myself a challenge of learning short handed NLHE. I almost exclusively played Full Ring over the last 4 years and I always wanted to play SH but wasn't able to open up my game enough while I was learning.

So my challenge was to play 10k hands at bwin's 5 max tables before moving up. I deposited $400 for this and I said I will only move up to NL50 if I show a profit and have a decent understanding of the short handed game. I also cleared a PSO promo for $150 and am almost 35% done a 8x Ongame bonus of $250.

Here is a graph of my last 10k hands. I was 6-7 tabling for the most part and the downswing at the end was in about 1 hour of playing just before I typed this.



Things have gone relatively well, the play is pretty atrocious at these limits so its not saying much that I actually beat the games. I ran at 6.25 PTBB/100 and they say anything over 5 is good enough to move on so I think I will.

I will play another 10k hands at NL50 before the end of December and then reevaluate in the new year. If I go on anymore than a 5-6 BI down swing I will probably move back down and reevaluate. I made about five NL50 BI's in profit so I will let it ride so to speak.

I will also invest in Poker Tracker 3 or Holdem Manager as soon as they are more stable with Ongame's software. I haven't been using a HUD but I think I will need one since I plan on playing 6 tables at a time. I have been using a Bet Pot script as well over the past 10k hands and it makes things a lot easier to multi-table as it saves me 1 sec every action almost.

200th Post / Vegas Trip Report

Google helped me celebrate my 200th post by taking my Page Rank away!! Fun times. I can now officially join the Google bashing. They didn't take my search engine rankings away yet so all is good in my books and my new venture gained a couple PageRank points to even things out.

I just got back from Vegas and I am still recovering. I only got 2.5 sessions of poker in for a total of 8-9 hours of live 1/2 NL play. This was the first time to Vegas with my wife, the last three trips were all boys weekends and boy was Vegas different when you are more sober and asleep early.

My first session started at 9am when my wife went out shopping. I was at the South Point Hotel and jumped into the only game running at the time. There were 5 players when I sat so I knew there would be some action playing 6 max. I found out quickly I was playing against 4 locals and one other tourist like myself. Thirty minutes in the two players on my left almost got into a fight over someone stealing someone elses small blind by mistake and posting it as their big blind, thus making the SB post another $1. The dealer had to give back $1 in tips to the SB and the BB guy berated the SB for having no class. This enraged the SB to the point of having to be restrained and getting asked to leave. He was the other tourist in the game and the game broke shortly after.

Hands of note:

44 in LP I limp call a raise from the SB who has been very active. Flop gives me a gutshot and I raise the $15 CB to $45 and get a call. He checks the blank turn and I check behind thinking I am probably behind to a bigger medium pair. Blank river and he checks and I check behind to see his KTs for overs and a missed FD and rake one of the bigger pots of the morning at that table (it was tight).

Table breaks within an hour and I ask if anyone wants to go tot he strip for a game and catch a ride with the BB from the fight above.

We end up at the MGM and they have 4 full tables going so we are in luck. I played this game for 6 hours and a few tourists cycled in and out but again mainly regulars during the daytime. I ended the session +$3 and made some good plays and some marginal ones as I'll talk about below.

Folded to me in the CO with KK and I open to $10 and get a call and a speech by the old nitty regular who hasn't really done much either but commented on me only playing a few hands, and the BB comes along. Effective stacks are $200.

FLOP: JJ9 rainbow and the BB checks to me and I CB $20 into $30 and the button calls and the BB folds.

TURN: Blank Deuce. I check here hoping to control the pot and call a medium sized bet. He insta-shoves his stack in of around $170 into a $70 pot. I was pissed at myself for not betting $50 on the turn and reconstructing the hand after words I realized I made him do this by acting weak and he would of value bet his Jack if he had one and his most likely holdings were a semi-bluff. I tank and fold my Kings and he throws his bluff with ATc at me. I was 50/50 calling/folding in this spot and I couldn't see the bluff as the table was so quiet and he was quiet. No big pots were being played and I threw away the best hand. He outplayed me and I gave him credit to the guys around me and the one guy who I drove over with even said he never saw that coming with the way he was playing. It was a weird spot.

What do you guys think?

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