Virtually nothing to report.

Profit: $10

I've bearly played any poker in the last month due to just not caring to be quite honest. Nothing poker has done in particular, just realising that other things are more important and need sorting out in my life - especially considering I play at such tiny stakes. I will get back to poker at somepoint and might grow some balls and play at significant stakes, but for now I just don't care. Sorry folks.

One good thing though....

$10.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, March 27, 10:06:37 ET 2009
Table Skien (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Seat 1: fionandrea ( $7.26 USD )
Seat 3: avi999 ( $10.00 USD )
Seat 5: smael076 ( $31.09 USD )
Seat 6: garpiano ( $10.00 USD )
Seat 8: RTRFelix ( $18.28 USD )
Seat 10: PoincareOnAcids ( $18.57 USD )
PoincareOnAcids posts small blind [$0.05 USD].
fionandrea posts big blind [$0.10 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to RTRFelix [ Qd Td ]
avi999 folds
smael076 folds
garpiano folds
RTRFelix raises [$0.40 USD]
PoincareOnAcids folds
fionandrea calls [$0.30 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ts, Kd, Ad ]
fionandrea checks
RTRFelix bets [$0.60 USD]
fionandrea raises [$1.20 USD]
RTRFelix calls [$0.60 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Jd ]
fionandrea bets [$3.25 USD]
RTRFelix calls [$3.25 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 6c ]
fionandrea bets [$2.41 USD]
RTRFelix calls [$2.41 USD]
RTRFelix wins $13.85 USD from main pot
fionandrea shows [Ah, Qc ]

Thanks!

When it's not worth fighting the apathy.

Loss: $52

Another whinge type post, sorry about that. I guess it can't be too encouraging and motivating to read my posts when they are usually about how unhappy I am about poker, but you know the saying: you've got to tastes the lows before you reach the highs.

The month of February has been a boring one for my poker. That's not a surprise when I continue to play the same style of games and the same limits over and over again. "Why don't you try something different?" I hear you cry. Well I would if I had the motivation and the interest but I just don't at the moment and I feel that if I am doing something different just for the sake of it, rather than for educational or entertainment value, there's not really much point in doing it. I'm almost certain to lose more money than I would just going through the normal poker motions at games and limits I'm used to and can at least get through by instinct more than anything else. As the blog title suggests, if I fought the apathy by doing something creative it could cost me a lot more than it currently is.

I'm down $50 this month which is perfectly acceptable since I went on a riot in January. I've dropped down to 10NL just until the bad form comes to a end (bad both in the sense I feel as if I am running bad and I'm not playing with any conviction) and when things pick up again I might move up again. It feels like (and it's always feel in poker, whether it's actually true or not is an entirely different question) that I'm getting three-outered a lot with hands like KQ v KJ for small-mid size pots. I flopped a straight with 10 8 the other day in an unraised pot. Unfortunately my oppo had the higher K 10 straight so I said goodbye to a stack. But I was hilosophical, said 'meh' and just moved on. The right poker attitude certainly, but it's not usually my attitude. It felt more like 'yeah, whatever' rather than 'that's variance'.

Generally speaking I'm just not bothered at the moment. Sorry, this was a rubbish post.

Plod, plod, plod - and when to just stick it all in.

Profit: $13

Played another 3k hands for not much progress but I'm not too bothered as I think I've been playing ok and I haven't really felt frustrated.

Basically two hands have cost me any profits I might have made and I'm not sure if I played them right. Typically they were both in the 20NL rooms and they cost me full stacks which now means my current record for 2009 stands at:

10NL = $142 profit
20NL = $19 loss.

Irritating.

Any, the two hands are these.

***** Hand History for Game 1395875915 *****
$20.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, January 25, 08:19:53 ET 2009
Table Athena (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Seat 1: NobleArdes ( $26.52 USD )
Seat 3: fabislovi ( $15.09 USD )
Seat 5: lank1 ( $4.20 USD )
Seat 6: RTRFelix ( $19.60 USD )
Seat 8: MajorLeak ( $31.58 USD )
NobleArdes posts small blind [$0.10 USD].
fabislovi posts big blind [$0.20 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to RTRFelix [ Ac As ]
lank1 folds
RTRFelix raises [$0.80 USD]
MajorLeak folds
NobleArdes folds
fabislovi calls [$0.60 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8s, Th, 5d ]
fabislovi bets [$0.40 USD]
RTRFelix raises [$1.20 USD]
fabislovi calls [$0.80 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3h ]
fabislovi checks
RTRFelix bets [$2.20 USD]
fabislovi calls [$2.20 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 2h ]
fabislovi bets [$3.00 USD]

Now at this point I'm thinking about whether I have the best hand or not. This guy was a 77/45 so I don't think much of his game and shown down some strange hands already. The thought process is this: if I do think I have the best hand then surely I should raise it up and get all my money in the middle. In the past, or what I usually do, is just call because I have doubts about my hand but if I'm calling then I believe there is a good chance I have the best hand so I should raise... correct? Well I did go all in and he table the old 97h. Fair enough.

***** Hand History for Game 1395846399 *****
$20.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, January 25, 08:05:12 ET 2009
Table Argonauts (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: Dildo88 ( $20.52 USD )
Seat 5: HareKrsna ( $27.88 USD )
Seat 6: RTRFelix ( $21.04 USD )
Seat 8: mancmart ( $27.42 USD )
Seat 10: Pokerpython ( $26.13 USD )
HareKrsna posts small blind [$0.10 USD].
RTRFelix posts big blind [$0.20 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to RTRFelix [ Ad Kd ]
mancmart raises [$0.80 USD]
Pokerpython folds
Dildo88 folds
HareKrsna folds
RTRFelix calls [$0.60 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3s, 6s, Kh ]
RTRFelix checks
mancmart bets [$1.40 USD]
RTRFelix calls [$1.40 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5c ]
RTRFelix checks
mancmart bets [$4.50 USD]
RTRFelix calls [$4.50 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Jc ]
RTRFelix checks

Not really sure what I'm doing in this hand with the check calling. I guess I should be 3betting pre flop but I don't like to do that oop. Again though, by the river I think I have the best hand and plan to check raise him all in. He does bet, I do check-raise him all in and he has 33 for the flopped set. I'm not complaining about the result of the hand because I don't think I played it very well but how should I have played the hands to prevent this from happening? 3bet preflop, check-raise fold the flop, or is that a hand where I shouldn't be folding and losing a stack with AK because the majority of the time I will have the best hand?

These hands are the reasons why I'm not doing anything at 20NL I think.

The Curse of the Backer?

Profit: $110




It's been a while since I updated the blog and I can't blame myself. From July to December is was just one long struggle, never getting any traction and slowly bleeding away the $200 stake I was playing with. I ended the staking deal with $100 and returned it with thanks to my backer.

I attempt to regain some confidence I dropped backed to 10NL, although I have kept 20NL tables running as well so I've actually increased my multi-tabling from 4 to 6. I'm surprised at how easily I can manage it actually. It must just be that, after three years of online experience, a lot of the decision I make are second nature and require a simple and immediate click. The problem has been more with the software. Ipoker doesn't always tell you when you've got to make a decision on a different screen so I occasionally drop some hands which can be quite frustrating. I could cascade the windows but if I did that my HEM settings wouldn't work and I like them the way they are.

So for the past two weeks I have been playing 10NL and 20NL and I have been crushing.... 10NL. Anyway. In 2.5k 10NL hands I've made $107 (that's 40bb/100). I'm definately running hot, there's no question of that. But if I look at my 10NL stats back in June, just before I moved up, I won $166 in 8k hands. Again I was running hot then but I also think I've simply got 10NL nailed down and have done for quite a while.

I know I'm running well because my KQ is busting AA when we get it all in preflop for 10bb (short stacks shoving) and when I have KK on a K236 board and I call a raise, the board pairs on the river and we get it all in and the oppo has 45.

Switch to 20NL though, and things instantly turn the other way. I've played 1k hands since New Year's day and I'm up $3. My aces ran into a set of threes yesterday. What is going on? I'm starting to think that the difference in quality between 10NL and 20NL is significant and that hoardes of micro-grinders roam around that limit on ipoker. The answer is, I guess, to radically change my game at 20NL. I'm playing 17/13/3 at 10NL which is quite tight and cagey (aggression is probably a bit high because I'm running hot). At 20NL maybe I need to have that range up to 20/18 with a lot higher aggression on the flop and turn to win hands without showdown.


So lots of stats there but the bottom line is that I've wiped out all the losses I made over the past six months (although it strictly my bankroll anyway) and ponder again how to make fundemental changes to my game in order to move up the limits. Videos I guess.


Final note, the MAD series has started at raise the river. I played in the first event and I think I was second in chips going into the final table. Top three got paid so I was still looking to build a stack for the bubble as the blinds were pretty silly. Got 60% of my chips in with JJ v 55 and a 5 popped on the river. Next hand shoved a raise with AJ and got called by AK. Nice.


Get on over to RTR though, every tourney has an overlay and we have a superb loyalty deal with Cardoza.

Year review and... blah, blah, blah.

Everyone else seems to be doing one so I might as well divulge my thoughts on my poker year 2008.

Maybe a huge flaw I have in my overall poker stratgy is not setting a goal for last year. I just looked back through the blog and it appears that I couldn't bothered and just plodded along from the off. I think I set a general goal of making $1000 profit for the year which I failed to do - I made $650 according to the manual money tracker I use. The manner in which I made the money didn't please me as more than a third of that was through rakeback rather than winnings.

So with no goals set I just played the same games throughout the first six months. After going on a monster heater in June I picked up a staking deal and went up to 20NL which is pretty much where my year ends in terms of poker progress.

Here were my stats leading prior to 20NL





And then here there are after going up to 20NL - maybe a couple of weeks old.

There are far from perfect of course but I think they are more inline with what they should be - less limping/calling, more three betting and more aggression but it's actually led me to a loss rather than a profit.

I've talked about the particulars before so I'm not going to go on about it. The net result of the last six months has been regression. A lack of results has seen me question my confidence, ability and skills to the point where I don't know if I'm doing the right things anymore. I have forgotten how to play poker.

With that being said I'm throwing myself at your mercy. I need help to improve my game. I need a tutor/mentor rather than a backer. I have watched tons of videos and read endless amounts of articles but I just don't seem to find them helpful. In the infinite world of poker situations, I never seem to be able to relate the situations I'm in to the situations I've looked at on videos unless they're really obvious or I've perfected how to deal with the situation myself. My biggest holes seem to be:

Not playing enough hands in position to raises - should I be calling with KQs from the cut-off to a raiser. Probably, but how do I play when that flop comes or this flop comes etc.

I'm really poor at playing single pairs - I don't call, bet, raise enough, with mid pair or top pair no kicker. You could say, then just do what you're writing here. But when I do I inevitably get the sitatuation wrong, spunk off a chunk off my stack bluffing or calling and then decide never to do it again so I don't learn how to play the hand.

Not getting value - This might be because people aren't as shit as they are in 10NL but can the difference between the levels surely be as big as to suggest that in 20NL people run for the hills when you flop a set and bet out even though you do the same with, junk, draws etc? It's probably just an excuse I'm trying to find like every player does during bad times, but betting for value just doesn't work at the moment.

I can't be bothered writing about any more leaks I have, it's boring. Plus I don't know if I am right with these concepts. I need an objective opinion and forums just don't seem to work for me in that respect.

If poker has been good for one thing this year is has been Raise the River. I've met a lot of good people on the site and I've learned a lot of new things about making videos, podcasts and supporting a website in general. Maybe that's where my future lies in poker. Not playing it, but selling it to the masses and encouraging people to play it.

Whatever, here's to the next year of poker..... give me strength lord.

And I did this too...

Instead of playing I'm doing this...

Beats losing money, let's put it that way.