Trying to win @ Hold'em

Second Place

2015-06-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

Baby Freeroll. Admittedly, when we were heads-up, I got sloppy, since I wanted the game to end. Still, there's almost a trend here.

OTOH, I did lose a 1€ buy-in game without placing ITM, so... maybe I'm just better than the complete beginners?

Playing mid-late with a combination of believing opponent's bluffs and being ridiculously aggressive, seems to work.

*edit*

Also, third place on another tourney today.

And another, 2nd July.

Long time no play.

2015-06-23T06:56:00.000-07:00

Huh.

After a long while, I played some free MT tournaments online, and got to three final tables. Won one, got a spot in a satellite tournament from the other and... well, 8th place from the last one.

PartyPoker Got Exciting!

2013-09-12T23:17:00.001-07:00

They recently gamified their game. :D

Basically, they added achievements, and something they call 'missions', which are basically achievement-goals, or achievement-sets, which do grant some minor rewards, too.

Anyway, got me playing for a few days.

I really suck.

I've Been Playing Again

2013-06-14T05:52:00.001-07:00

So... I haven't felt much like playing, as my paycheck is so much better than whatever I could make at poker with my skill level.

That changed a while back, and I've been playing some.
One of the changes in my attitudes towards Hold'em, has been, that I find zero-sum games to be essentially immoral, so I think I'll only be playing sponsored / guaranteed tournaments from now on.

Since I've admitted to myself I'm not very good, really, I've changed my strategy to playing really tightly, not bluffing (outside semi-bluffs, anyway), thinking others don't bluff much, and folding if I don't hit anything better than a pair on a flop. I'm also very aggressive with the top hands I play.

Of course, those are just guidelines. A lot of depends on the table and my reads, too. My reads are pretty good, I just find myself not trusting them enough.

Say, I've put a lot of chips in a pot, and a card puts a potential completed draw on the table. If my mind tells me another player just made their hand and that I'm beaten... I have really hard time laying down my hand.

But... yeah, basically. I need luck to win, and I'm tailoring my play style around that a bit.

I Cashed

2012-03-09T22:04:00.001-08:00

Okay, so... Since I have a day job now, my playing has been more for fun as of late.
Last night, with my bankroll of about $30, I first played in a $11 double-or-nothing game, where I cashed,
after which I played in a $11 buy-in $4000 Guaranteed tournament.

Yes, I played that SnG just so I would have the money to play in that tournament.

In any case, I was doing well when, at around 11PM, the game went to wait, before a 5 minute break. I was rather sleepy at that point, so I set up an alarm due in 10 minutes and took a nap.

That was the plan, anyway.

As the alarm sounded, I turned it off and went back to sleep. This morning, as I checked my bankroll at PartyPoker, it had gone up a little - a nice amount, really, but not by much. I currently have about $45 there, meaning I can now play 1-2 cent NL games, or 10-20 cent FL games, while sticking to Chris Ferguson's suggestions - never buy in for more than 5% of your bankroll and leave table once you hit 10%.

Cool like bowties.

Another losing streak

2011-11-04T04:18:00.000-07:00

There are two big reasons for those.

One, my hand range tends to be too wide for fixed limit.

Two, I attempt to bluff a bit too often.

Bluffing in FL is very hard - you have the people who mulishly call with any hand even if there are overcards, potential flush draws and so forth on the board. Also, calling is cheap.

In NL you usually only have to worry about the other guy having the hand you're bluffing to have.

As for hand range... well, Hellmuth says suited connectors are like candy - you play and win with one, it's hard to put any of them down.

This is true.

Naturally, I haven't had an opportunity to play SnG's since those require a winning streak. Also, my tournament performance has been shoddy.
I usually start out doing okay, but large blinds in addition to the fact that most tournaments run so late, local time, I'm ready to go to sleep anyway.

A little bit of gambling

2011-11-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

So... lots of ups and downs - I'm still between 30 and 40 dollars on my bankroll.

Some of the downswings are due to playing too much - for a certain reason I was trying to gather a certain amount of frequent player miles, so to speak, but that's past.

Anyhoo, just for fun, when I have a good run, I play a $1 SnG. A ten-seater pays around $5 for winning.

If I happen to place first, I then play a $3 SnG. And so forth.

If I happen to lose, or not place first, I start from the beginning... A self-imposed tournament, if you will.

Playing badly on NL tournaments

2011-10-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

I've been mostly playing fixed limit... I'm raising 3x blinds and half pot a lot of the time. I think that's okay.

However, I tend to hang on to drawing hands too much. Risking elimination 3/4 of the time before you're in the money is NOT a winning strategy. Obviously.

I used to know how to play something small-ballish, but I never ended in top places with it - I hung on pretty well, but didn't have the chips for late game, usually.

Bankroll Management... working.

2011-10-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

I'm up from my all-time low of about $15 at Partypoker, to about $32.
Still need to make about $8 more, to be able to play at 0.10/0.20 FL, which also makes a $2 buy-in into a NL game a total of 5% of my bankroll, meaning I can play 0.01/0.02 NL.

0.15/0.30 Limit requires a bankroll of $60, so that's my next target - a 0.02/0.04 NL takes $80, which is also the limit for 0.20/0.40 FL.

Thinking back, that's where I was, a couple of months ago. I was playing a lot of $6 - $11 double up sit-and-go games. Alas, all it took was a few losses in a row, and when each loss is $11, a bankroll of $80 didn't last long.

Reading Super System 2

2011-10-13T04:28:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Harman's chapter on Fixed Limit, is rather interesting.

I've pretty much given up on getting rich quick schemes, instead I'm sticking to proper bankroll management.
In PartyPoker, this means... actually, let's make a list:

<$20 : 2/4 Fixed Limit.
$20-40: 5/10 Fixed Limit
$40-60: 1/2 No Limit, 10/20 Fixed Limit

So Forth.

Helsinki Grand Casino

2011-10-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

Visited. Had one decent hand, which was AK. Flop had king, went all in, doubled up against KQ .

I had to make a train, so I'm afraid I may have left a bad first impression on the other players, though, I pretty much left right after winning that hand.

I'm not really playing that well otherwise, or at least I've lost at Partypoker again.

That went nicely.

2011-08-24T10:12:00.001-07:00

so, a small checkout, and another win afterwards, and I'm at about 80 $.

Nice to have some money - I'm still down by quite a lot, though.

A little bit of gaming...

2011-08-23T13:35:00.000-07:00

I've been playing one-two games per night, and I'm almost back up at 100$. We shall see.
If I hit 100, I'll cash out about 30 $.

Fun?

2011-08-10T12:27:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I haven't been playing much.

The thing is, I find, unless I'm playing for fun, I'm not playing very well.
I've been losing a lot more than I was earlier... I listened to Hellmuth's audiobook, and... I dunno, I'm not doing all that well in no-limit anymore.

I've been listening to Phil Hellmuth

2011-06-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

His Play Poker Like the Pros audiobook. It works rather nicely on cash games and is way less volatile than a smallball approach. (My smallball needs more work).

Anyway, winning pretty regularly on micro stakes limit and no limit hold'em. I still have hardly any bankroll at Partypoker, though... I have about $10 at Titanpoker, gained as a bonus, and about $50 at William Hill poker - likewise, a bonus. This one from PokerStrategy.com.

I also play at RAY Poker, where I have about 1.2€, won from freerolls.

Partypoker still has the best software, IMO.

Learning styles and plugging leaks.

2011-05-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

I found one --- I've started calling all-ins again... I also MAKE some bad all-ins, but much more rarely.

Everyone plays so aggressive online that by playing sort of passively, they practically throw their chips at you.

Oh, placed first on Nordic 50 seat frenzy BTW, mostly playing smallball - more proper smallball, now that I have the book. I had a close call- I had AKs and called an all-in costing me little less than half of my chips - It would have been a decent cash game decision, not so much in a tournament. So, I dropped down to three bets at the lowest point. Took some luck and shoving to climb back up.

I think one of the reasons for my play's volatility is that different situations require different styles, and I only know a couple of play styles at this point.

Oh, speaking of plugging leaks:
http://www.sitandgoplanet.com/blog/100-potential-poker-leaks

Tried out the large bet tournament tactic

2011-05-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

From the Power Hold'em Strategy book.
On a $1000 Guaranteed Speed game with $1 rebuy.
I played maybe 10 hands - all just going All In. Placed 31st out of 768. Interesting.

Reading Books and Losing

2011-05-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

Oh look, weird uppercase-style title again.

Anyhow, picked up some books from the library. I've already read through Dunnett's Poker Wizards and Negreanu's Hold'em Wisdom for All Players.

My game has been running quite badly. I'm not sure why, maybe I've been playing too much again or maybe it's just that I've been calling too many all-ins AGAIN.

I also picked up Power Hold'em Strategy. I haven't finished that one yet, so I can't speak for it. Poker Wizards was an interesting read, definitely.

Today's Facebook fan Freeroll

2011-05-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

I made just one big mistake. From the big blind, which is pretty usual for me - I play badly from BB.

Okay, I had a trash hand - 34s. Flop gave me the bottom pair. Just BB got called and everyone checked 'til the river, which paired a K on the board. Everyone checked through, and the player on the button made an oversized bet - 4200 to the 3600 on the pot.

Since it seemed odd, I figured it for a bluff and called. Nope, he had the king set.

I wasn't quite done at that point, but with small blind leaving me at 1100 chips, I didn't have much life left.
In retrospect, I should have folded, of course. Busting out, outside the money is just plain stupid. Le sigh, retrospect and so....

Busted out 225th in 50 Seat Frenzy

2011-05-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

Was getting kind of short, I min-raised A3 offsuite, got called, flop was ATT, and was looking good. Things happened, another player pushed all-in, I called --- a bad call in retrospect, but he had pocket deuce.
....
And naturally, he got a set on the river. Blergh.

*edit*
Replayed the hand. In retrospect... I had about six bets remaining, with blinds at 800... so, if there was a mistake, it was not pushing all-in from the get-go, or three-betting, if I was going to go all-in...

The thing is, without that ace on the flop, I was ready to fold.

Playing loose and tight.

2011-05-21T06:10:00.000-07:00

I'm having moderately good success with this style. If I'm the first to call, I play any pair, any connector above 56. If I have an actual hand, I do a smallball raise of 2.5 to 3 time big blind, plus any ante. So that's very loose.

If someone's already called, I'm much tighter and limp in with anything less that top eight hands or so. I avoid bluffing most of the time, although I do get a lot of folds from post-flop feelers, which really don't count. Unless I have the nuts, I usually fold to big raises, but that's a lot more subjective.

Still, I'm not actually doing all that hot right now - I have a lot of RL stuff, so I may end up needing to go AFK for extended periods of time, and I've lost a few games just because I had to be away long enough to get short-stacked.

*edit*

In retrospect, I just added a lever to make me play loose on a tight table and defaulting to tight on a loose table. Not a bad thing, for sure.

Smallball and tournaments

2011-05-19T02:35:00.000-07:00

I've been doing pretty well using smallball tactics - not going for marginal situations, getting into lots of pots, and weirdly, keeping the pot size small. Checking the turn is a very interesting tactic.

Oh, I'm up to $84, by the way. When I hit $100, I'll transfer $30 away, and continue grinding $11 double-or-nothing sit-and-gos.

*edit* Hit $100, transferred $30, now at $70-ish - I actually lost a 6 game.

My current win/loss ratio on $11 DoN SnG games is 14 wins/5 losses, so it's pretty good right now.

Placed in a tournament.

2011-05-18T03:46:00.000-07:00

It was a $1 rebuy tournament, I came fourth, netted about $13.
I tried to play smallball, and it worked pretty well.

The thing is, I lost because I _accidentally_ went all-in due to a missclick. I was in no shape to play afterwards.

Anyhoo, my balance right now is about $40.

Swings are scary

2011-05-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

I've been playing some freerolls on Everest Poker. Nice application, and a decent pace of freerolls.

I placed on a Nordic 50 Seat Frenzy Qualifier again, so I have a place on the 50 Seat Frenzy five days from now. Placing there would net me a position on a $250K Guaranteed tournament, which would be peachy keen.

My bankroll has gone down, I'm currently at $38, which is scary... I haven't been doing all that good on $6 Double-or-Nothings lately. I've won 4 out of the last ten, which is slightly bad, indeed. I'd like to get to about $75 so I could start practicing on $3 10-seat SnGs - the profit margin on those is equal to the $11 Double-or-Nothing games.

Working on my bachelor's degree...

2011-05-16T00:55:00.000-07:00

So I don't have that much time to blog.
My ability to play is still heavily affected by my condition - how I'm feeling, how awake I am, and so forth. I did actually have a noteworthy placement yesterday - On a Pokerisivut.com freeroll, I placed sixth, winning $36. Last night's hockey game may have stolen attention from many players, though.