Boom and we are here again!

Long time no see!

I had all but given up on poker ... a couple of journeys into Leicester Grosvenor saw a little cash profit ... and internet poker is all but dead to me.

Anyway ... tonight .. probably 3 years after proper poker, a small pub game against a few players, who have also played in the glory years, sprung up and invited me along.

A quiet bar, a fold out felt, a new pack of cards and a set of chips (not with numbers on them .. you had to remember the values by the colour .. old school).

Game on ... £10 buy in ... 7 players .. £40, £20, £10.

Playing it tight ... sussing out the opposition .. 2 players take themselves out.

It all comes flooding back .. "use your image" a little voice says .. I make a couple of moves but get flushed out.

Back into my poker shell ... until there are 3 left with me a short stack.

A couple of pushes see me double up and then ... WHAM .. before I know it I am chip lead heads up.

I min raise @ 1200/2400 in the SB with QTc. he re raised all in with about 8,500 but I had him covered and called.

He turns over J9os and the board comes no help ... I win 40 Quid but no friends .. ha aha.

However the old buzz was still there.

The "I have played this game for years, of course they can't beat me" thoughts came out.

It is a game of skill no matter what anyone says.

Thank you Poker for the ups and downs and for tonight to renew my energy to the game.

Who knows .. perhaps I might bore you with more posts.

Until then

Keep it tight!

2015 Plans

Well here we are again ... another year ... another dollar?

Like most of my poker playing years last year seemed to be about building from a small start to see if I can get to the point where I can win big.

However as with most of my years I end up protecting my profit and never really staking enough to win big ... being content with small profits.

Anyway I ended up only £350 ish in profit but my highest buy in was $3 so what did I expect.

This year I am determined to put that £350 to use in live tournaments and still intend to go to a GUKPT or UKIPT event at some point.

So as for this year ...

Well I have predominantly decided to play at PokerStars. There are a couple of reasons for this:

Due to new UK regulations surrounding internet poker I am unable to play on PartyPoker.fr from the UK.

... and ...

I want to see what end of year bonus I can achieve believing that I could have added a sizable amount to last years profit given the amount of games I played.

However on starting the year it is apparent that it is harder to win profit on PokerStars than on PartyPoker.fr.

I think this is because the level of play is higher but also the choice of games available leads to higher variance. PokerStars have been very clever with their SnG selections I am sure with the intention of taking away some of the advantage from better players through poker game formats.

So I think January will be about identifying my most profitable games ... oh and actively learning to improve my own poker level to be able to compete.

Until next time

Keep it Tight

How difficult it is to make profit in Multi Tournaments!

This blog entry title is not a question, its a statement!

I decided early in the year that I was fed up with grinding the SnG's and so decided to predominantly only play multi tournaments.

So because I wanted a good range of regular, low buy in tournaments I ventured back onto the Pokerstars.com virtual felt.

My theory was to play small buy in tournaments with a view of hitting the odd biggish win and progressing up the buy ins until I win my millions ... well win more than last year anyhow.

Anyway after about 70 buy ins I thought I was doing well with cashing in around 30% of the tournaments and hitting a couple of 2nds to boot. The spread-sheet however told a different story!

I was about $50 down - not a lot I know but considering I don't believe I can achieve statistics better than that I couldn't see where my profits were going to come from.

Add to that the fact that these multi tournaments were taking so many hours out of my life I could have definitely been in profit playing SnG's for the same amount of time.

So what now?

Well I am back grinding the SnG's and trying to hit the PartyPoker.fr leaderboards ... again! ... for some extra cash.

I am using my points to play in the free-roll Multi Tournaments. (Currently converting 500 points into approx. $25 whereas cashing in the points for bonuses would only get me $5)

And trying to cheaply qualify for bigger tournaments where 30% cash rate will equate to far more than my initial buy ins.

So its back to the grind for me - nothing ever comes easy in this world.

Until next time

Keep it Tight!

2013 in numbers

A quick selection of figures from my 2013 poker campaign!

Total number of buy ins : 1744
Number of SnG buy ins : 1125
Number of cash game buy ins : 405
Number of multi tourney buy ins : 214

SNG ROI : 10.62%
Cash game ROI : 1.03%
Multi Tourney ROI : 8.91%

Freeroll Profit : $115
Bonuses : $95

Longest SnG cash streak : 10
Longest SnG losing streak : 8

Multi Tourney over 50 players best position : 4th
Total multi tourney cashes : 74
Multi tourney cash %age : 34.5%
Number of multi tourney wins : 0
Largest field cash : 992nd of 14775 starting players
Number of final tables : 23
Largest field final table : 7th of 206 starting players

A profitable year last year!

Lets hope for the same this year.

Good luck at the tables for 2014 all!

Until next time

Keep it Tight!

Ditching the Heads Up Display

It all started with a little game on PKR! They got me in with a tantalising reload bonus and the free cash was just too much to resist!

So sitting there on the virtual 3D felt without my comfort blanket of a HUD and without 10 other tables fighting for my attention I set about to playing some poker.

As an aside ... It probably is the next best thing to playing live poker. In fact that is the real reason I am able to write this blog entry because I did start playing real poker.

I was able to identify the person who was playing weak tight. I was able to identify the player who was drunk. I was able to enter into chat to get a feel for a player. Most importantly I didn't rely on 3000 hands of history on a player to which had no relevance to that players current situation.

Let's just take a player of whom I have 3000 hands of history. I should have a pretty good idea of how they play ... right? Well yes as long as they play consistently the way their stats show they do.

What if I play a player who normally plays sober for 5 days a week and then plays loose drunk every Friday and Saturday night ... their stats won't show this on the HUD. In fact it will lead you to play less optimally on either side of their range because you will be playing to their average range.

Think about the fact that an average 6 man STT might last 30 - 100 hands (depending on format). Then think about the fact a player might play against his tracker stats for that SnG.
His tracker stats aren't going to reflect their change of style in play against 3000 hands of history.

What if a player is playing tilted? What if  he let his girlfriend have a go on his account? What if he has recently watched a training video?

With online poker as competitive as it is today identifying just one persons current situation of play, at that point in time, might mean the difference of a break even day to a losing one ... never mind a winning day.

Then let's go one stage further ...

If you have stats on a person it will probably lead you to play the same way against them. This then makes you play predictably and anyone picking up on that will exploit you.

So ... after successfully clearing my PKR bonus, I have moved back to PartyPoker.fr, ditched the tracker and HUD and gone back to good old "read the situation" poker. What's more ... its paying off.

I am now ...

Playing less predictably
Picking up on people's weaknesses
Picking up on people's strengths
Making assessments of new players quicker
Picking up on players mood and current style of play
and
Making notes

but

I am playing less tables!

Then again ...

it is far more enjoyable, less systematic and more profitable.

So if you run a tracker and you think the stats have a handle on me. Think again because the next game it's all going to be different.

Until next time

Keep it Tight!

Shocked by the impact of rake!

 

Perhaps I am a little slow on the uptake but I have only just seen pictorial evidence of the impact of rake for my Party Poker account.

 

I have to say I thought I was struggling to make a profit and perhaps that I was even becoming a losing player ... but this is obviously not so!



 

 

 

Am I the only one that finds this astounding. It makes me feel like I am being exploited for my time I spend playing.

Not only that I feel sorry for those guys who are winning players but the rake takes them into negative ROI.

The poker sites need to understand that this is not a sustainable model for income or maintaining a player market.

If they want to maintain their customer base they need to rethink their methods of generating profit from the games.

Perhaps for example they could rake less from losing players and more from those that win on an increasing scale, for example as a tax at the end of the month based on a players winnings.

Its worth checking your own graphs just to see what impact rake has on your profits ... even if you can't yet do anything about it.

Until next time ...

Keep it Tight!

Advantages of being allowed to play junk?

I spend most of my time trying to play poker properly, which normally means ditching the poorest of hands.

However I have recently been playing at a level that is allowing me to get in cheaply to multi way limped pots with absolute trash. Whats more this is not currently a losing proposition and is giving me one major advantage .... psychological well being!

How?

Well normally when I play I am raising/re raising with a strong hand and then adjusting through the streets as to how I see the hand playing out. When I win I feel great and justified as the best hand wins ... but when I lose it is generally followed by feelings of ...

"How can you call a pre flop raise with that?"
"How do you stay in the hand with that trash?"
"Typical hit the 2 outer river to win the pot?"
"Mmmm tough fold or tough call?"

... all negative feelings.

However by playing trash I get feelings of ...

"Well didn't expect to hit much there anyway!"
"I didn't expect that to hold up by the river!"
"Thats an easy fold!"
"Oooh set up on the flop of 22A with my 2"
"Whoah ... straight to my 7 on the river!"

All positive feelings.

So why isn't this a losing proposition as it should be ...

Well I must have an edge on my opponents at this level and the players I have been playing tend to:

Not fold top A
Chase flushes and straights
Fold to weak bets if holding nothing

Anyway this isn't going to break the bank if I lose and it isn't going to make me rich if I win. But it has brought back some sense of perspective to my game ... as well as some happiness and fun.

For now I can reserve my tight game (and grumpiness!) for the tourneys I play.

Until Next Time

Keep it tight!