Higher Stakes means Bigger Swings!

I took the decision to kick it up to $50NL yesterday morning, and after a pretty wild day, I am glad that I did.

I started out by digging myself into a 2 buy-in hole pretty quickly, but I ended up the day up slightly over 2 buy-in's.

I am very pleased to say that I saw very little in the 700 hands that I played yesterday at $50NL that caused me to be afraid at this level. The players are just as bad, they still play too many hands, they still limp all the time, they still try to run crazy bluffs, and they still pay me off!

A couple of hands to illustrate the point.

Hand 1 :

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1311257

Villain plays 23/8 over 77 hands. Here, I don't believe the villain has a flush. He could have 2 pair or a set, but he insta-pushed the river, and I just didn't believe him.

Hand 2 :

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1311265

Rinel plays 48/24, thelastgame plays 77/0(!). See if you can guess what Rinel is holding, to justify his overpush?

Weekly Report - Sunday 29th July 2007

NL ($0.50) - 699 hands - VPIP 20.46 - PFR 17.02 - Won $119.19 - BB/100 17.05
NL ($0.25) - 3,091 hands - VPIP 19.57 - PFR 15.6 - Won $15.69 - BB/100 8.01
NL ($0.20) - 766 hands - VPIP 20.89 - PFR 17.36 - Won $61.99 - BB/100 20.23

Weekly Totals 4.556 hands - VPIP 19.93 - PFR 16.18 - Won $305.03

Monthly Totals 12,521 hands - VPIP 20.29 - PFR 15.95 - Won $438.13

Another very satisfactory week! I made a successful foray into the world of $50NL, which will hopefully be my game of choice now on (for a while). I certainly ran extremely well at times this week.

Compared to last week, I managed to add a whole percentage point to my PFR stat whilst keeping the VPIP almost identical, which I am pleased with. I know that I will need to open up my game several more percentage points on both of these stats in due course, but that can certainly wait until I have a few more tens of thousands of (hopefully winning!) hands under my belt.

Here's my graph for the week:

What are the odds against that happening...?!

Another solid winning day at $25NL with a profit of $68 from about 750 hands.

Interspersed within the day were two more mind-numbing one-outer river situations. The score for the week so far, is hero 1 : villains 2.

I am guessing that throughout my poker career, I will be on the wrong end of one-outer's far more often than I will benefit from them, by virtue of the fact that I will be the one with the strong hand, playing it for maximum value, most of the time.

Still, these situations are always pretty stunning.

Hand 1 :

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1305209

Flshman1 was playing 18/9 and S.Manconi was a superfish playing 60/7. With a raise and a (fishy) coldcall in front of me, I figured that my tens were about 50/50 to be the best hand at that point, but I decided to just call and evaluate on the flop.

My check/call on the flop was risky, with two hearts on the flop, but I wanted to keep both villains in the hand, until they were pot committed.

The 7c on the turn figured to be a good card for my hand, and with a raise and a reraise following my check, I figured that I had trapped them pretty good, and so I put in a pot sized reraise.

Can't fault the villain for calling all-in as he had turned his set. I loved the 7 on the river, as it completed my boat, but it also completed his quads!

Hand 2 :

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1305573

Villain (weakish 31/10) min-raises from the button. Big mistake(!) as this prices me in to call from the BB with J8s. I flop trips and check to the pre-flop raiser who bets as expected (why wouldn't he; he flopped a boat!) and I called, thinking that I had him in bad shape!

The turn comes the 7s which was a moderately threatening card, as it completed an unlikely str8 for a T8 hand, and also put a spade draw on board. I wake up check raising here, and I am reraised all-in!

At this point, I figure that the villain had a likely overpair, or a possible flush draw with AK or AQ spades . I almost beat him into the pot with my call (if that is possible online!) and I am delighted to see the case Jack on the river to seal the deal.

I am thrilled/horrified to see that I was way behind at every point until the end!

Ouch! The bruises ...!

I am running very well this week, and I have the bruises to show from where the deck kept hitting me!

I have won just over $100 in the past three days. Yesterday, I played just under 1k hands at $20NL and $25NL, and I won $75.

I have signed up for a sweet rakeback deal at Battlefield Poker (Prima skin) (Thanks for the tip, Pkr_Brat!), so I think that they will see the majority of my play from now on. For those that are interested, I earned $6.04 in rakeback for 766 hands of $20NL. There are a few niggly things that annoy me about the Prima software (notably the process of reloading up to a full buy-in whilst you are at the table) but I love the pace of play there. I am sure that they deal considerably more hands-per-hour-per-table than any other site.

I am currently reading several books at the same time, which is normal for me! Whilst trying to find time to read the final Harry Potter book, I am also reading Online Ace by Scott Fischman. This is a pretty well-written book, although it has a major focus on SnG's which are not (currently) my thing. One tip that I internalised from yesterday, was where Scott was talking about the fact that you really should be bluffing hardly at all at low levels (I know that this is Standard advice). The interesting part for me, was that he said that you will be making a good percentage of your money by picking off other people's bluffs, especially if you setup your play to present then with an invitation to bluff. (Checking the river to them, being an obvious example).

So a few hands from the past couple of days, focusing on pocket 7's and pocket 8's, which are hands that I never really feel comfortable with:

Hand 1.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1301893

Nice check on the turn by the villain (20/12), set me up to make a weak call on the river. I probably should have given him credit for a 6 here, and "pitched it"! Damn-you, pocket 8's! I should have listened to Seebok! lol

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Hand 2.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1301919

Here the villain (52/15) gets lucky with the freecard that I presented him with on the turn. Doh!
It is easy to say in the cold light of morning that I should have fired another barrel, but would you have done so?

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Hand 3.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1301928

Here I raised the flop to find out where I was at, and I discovered that the aggro villain (58/16) liked his had quite a bit!

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Hand 4.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1301931

Here the villain obviously has a pocket pair, but is it better than my 7's?? I am quite surprised that I made this call, actually! Villain played 100/55 for the 11 hands that he survived, before I felted him!

Rollercoaster Session, ends up more of less even

Pretty wild session on PokerRoom last night (where I play as gunnerrob)!

I won and lost some huge pots (for $25NL!), highlighted by this one:

1. http://www.pokerhand.org/?1294369

The ultimate BB Special! Villain was a typical fish playing 31/0, so no reads to be had there, then.

If he had held pocket 8's or pocket 10's for the better boat, he would surely have raised the turn? Nice one-outer Sir!

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2. http://www.pokerhand.org/?1294386

This hand I am not proud of! I am better than this! Villain was playing 59/19 and had already come over the top light a couple of times. I very rarely push or call all-in with flush draws.

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3. http://www.pokerhand.org/?1294392

However revenge was extracted in the sweetest of fashion from the Villain in hand 2! It is so rare that you get a spot like this!

Very Good Couple of Sessions!

Since posting my weekly report yesterday morning, I have booked a couple of very good sessions, posting about another $100 in profit at $25NL on PokerRoom.

I downloaded Poker Grapher yesterday, and I have just figured out how to get it working, so here goes ...

I will have a chance to play quite a bit over the next few days, so I will carry on at $25NL until the end of July, and then take a shot at moving up to $50NL on August 1st.

I am amazed at how much more of a feel for the NL game I have now than I had at this time last month!

Weekly Report - Sunday 22nd July 2007

NL ($0.25) - 532 hands - VPIP 18.98 - PFR 15.6 - Won $14.65 - BB/100 5.51
NL ($0.20) - 2,217 hands - VPIP 20.3 - PFR 15.07 - Won $68.05 - BB/100 7.67

Weekly Totals 2,749 hands - VPIP 20.04 - PFR 15.17 - Won $82.70

Monthly Totals 7,965 hands - VPIP 20.49 - PFR 15.82 - Won $133.10

Really very satisfactory numbers!

I have also cleared a $100 bonus, and I am well on my way to clearing another $50 bonus.

Cardrunners saves my poker career!

Let's start this post with a confession!

Since the start of 2007, my online game has (or more accurately, had) collapsed in a heap. From when I started playing in May 2005, until the end of 2006, I had been a consistent winner at Limit Holdem at low stakes. I was consistently winning a few hundred dollars a month, and coming close to doubling that figure by working off deposit and reload bonuses.

However, the change in the law in the USA, has wiped out the vast majority of clueless American limit holdem players online. These guys were my bread-and-butter, and now they are gone.

So for the first six months of 2007, I had been dabbling with the still-numerous NL games online, with fairly miserable results. I had lost money consistently, month over month, and I was becoming a bit despondant.

My trip to Vegas for the WSOP 2007 was my first attempt at playing live NL, and I must confess that I was pretty short of confidence heading into the trip. Therefore, I was absolutely thrilled to find that I was a pretty solid favourite in these extremely soft games.

Whilst in Vegas, I read and heard several references to both Cardrunners and PokerXFactor. These two competing web-based video poker schools, have both had some very good press over the past year.

I returned from Vegas with a conviction to sign-up to one of these two services to really get my online NL game into shape.

A little more research led to my choosing Cardrunners as my saviour. I signed up on July 2nd, and I have been absolutely thrilled at the results!

Cardrunners posts a training video every day except Sundays, and the focus is heavily on 6max NL games, which are by far the most popular games these days.

I have been trying to discipline myself to watch at least one video every day, as well as playing for a couple of hours at a minimum.

I have been amazed at just how little I understood about how to play NL! I was playing far too loose, making far too many crazy moves, was far too unwilling to lay down big starting hands, was far too willing to go broke with one-pair hands, etc etc.

I am now a consistent winning player at micro-stakes, and I confidently expect to be documenting my progress as a winning NL player moving up through the limits in this blog over the coming months.

WSOP 2007 Report

So, my trip to Vegas for the WSOP came and went, and I didn't get my act together to post a single blog entry!

My trip was extremely enjoyable, and almost extremely successful.

I stayed for free at the Candlewood Suites, which was absolutely ideal for my needs. I will certainly stay there, or somewhere similar again.

At the tables, I played exclusively 1/2 NL, and I won money every single day or my trip, for a total profit of just under $1,300 for my six day trip. I played 5 sessions at MGM, but also at Mandalay Bay, Tropicana, Excalibur, Monte Carlo, Planet Hollywood, Ballys, Harrahs, Luxor, Flamingo and Golden Nugget.

I found the games to be consistently soft at every casino. I played mainly tight, made a few dumb moves, and never looked like losing!


The weather was consistently between 110 and 115 degrees every day, which was pretty overwhelming!

I came and went entirely as I pleased, ate lots of crappy food at odd hours of the day, and had an absolutely brilliant trip!