Learning styles and plugging leaks.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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...

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.

Big swings

Wow. Okay, I went from $30 to $60  in two days, and then back to $30 in about one evening. It's the Gladiator messing with me. Getting my target of 10PP per day is a bit much with my bankroll.

Besides that, my win ratio in double-or-nothing is rather good, so that's good... I think I'll build to $75 and start working on 10-seater $3 SnGs for a bit - I need a win ratio of 2 out of 5 to make profit.

I don't get limit

I really don't... it's an entirely different game. I do okay, most of the time, but I really have little understanding of proper gameplay and tactics in limit... also, it's not nearly as much fun.

Still, I think it's definitely something I should learn. Any links I should check out, or books?

A difference between six and eleven.

I can tell... I 'win' in the double-or-nothing games a decent amount of time... but less in the eleven dollar ones, and it takes a lot more attention and effort to do so there. I'm not entirely sure if it's a matter of tension or just that the more highly-skilled players flock to the $11 games, but there it is.

I screwed up day before yesterday - I have some unpaid bills, so I took a big risk and tried to win a rather expensive tournament. Obviously, I failed. So now, I'll just have to stick to a bankroll management plan and rebuild.... which is going to take a long while, especially as I'm taking, I believe, Howard Lederer's advice and not allow poker playing to intrude upon other important things. Frankly, I was playing so much that it wasn't all that fun anymore. So, I'm cutting down to no more than an hour or two per day, for now.

I've developed some interest towards limit hold'em, since fluctuations there seem to be less intense, and my bankroll is crying right now. However, it's an entirely different game - loose styles don't work all that well there.

A short break

I've been on something of a losing streak of late, I'm down below $120, so I can't technically play $6 SnGs anymore.  I lost something like $12 trying out various X guaranteed tournaments, so that's a part of it, definitely.

I made a trip to the library, and picked up two Harrington on Hold'em books, Volume II and  Volume III to be precise, I'll check those out. I also picked up a book called No Limit Hold'em: Theory and Practice by Sklansky and Miller.

How to stop losing? Don't play worthless hands!

Lost a few games, and took a look at my play.

My losses came from hands like, pair of sixes, pair of eights, K5 suited, and such...

Although I only lost with two hands I played off the blinds... in general, two-three hands off the blinds.
Losses come when trying to steal the blinds, or defending the blinds, for the most part... or just from the blinds.

But still, queen seven suited? What was I thinking?
...Okay, I probably was getting short-stacked and tried to steal the blinds, but...

The biggest use for PokerTracker I've found has been reviewing plays, for spotting flaws in one's game.

Having the top pair is not enough!

Okay, I checked some statistics, and my most common cause for a big loss is having the top pair in a given situation, when someone else has 2 pair, or a small set. I can spot straights and flushes most of the time, but a small set, or a random pair (say, from small connectors), those are rather hard to spot.

Just thought you should know.

Analyzing my losing streak.

I placed in four DoN SnGs today, then lost four. I'm looking at my plays with PokerTracker, and two out of those might be considered bad beats - first, my straight lost to a flush (both made them on the river), although I think I read the flush, and just didn't want to believe it. Thus, the previous post.

Second, I had a set of kings, and the opponent made their straight, which I didn't spot.
Another big part was making the top pair on the board, but my opponent having an over pair - like, I had jacks, but they had queens in the hole, or I made sevens on the flop, but they had nines.

My chip stacks have been draining too fast, due to playing bad hands, like A7 - A8 off suite, and I've lost a LOT with Ace-Jack off suite. So there's a flaw there... on the other hand, stealing blinds gets  important later on...

But, when I lose, I get eliminated early - on spots 10-8 - while, when it gets to blind stealing stage, and close to the bubble, I do tend to survive.

Playing hands of hope and disbelief

Sometimes, I make these really bad calls, where I have a good idea I'm beat, but just can't lay my hand down. When I hit my straight, but am sure the other guy has the flush, when I try to push someone off a winning hand and end up losing all of my chips....

*sigh*

Delta winnings and multi-table micro rings

Hm.
I'm up about $20 over the last six days in tournament winnings, mostly from Double or Nothing games. I only play one table at a time with those, right now, since each win is important, plus I want more metrics on my win/loss ratio.

However, to wake and warm up, I've been starting my playing by playing 4 1/2 cent cash games at once. I typically end up with a net win of ~30-50 cents ín about 20 minutes. Those are my best cash games, as I don't see 1/2 cents as 'money' any more, so I can treat them as chips.

I cashed out about $45 for some expenses, putting me back to $145 on my bankroll, out of which $150 is money I'd rather not lose, so I'm on negatives in a way, right now. If my win/loss ratio is correct, it's about 50 games of $6 double-or-nothings... or about 15 games before I can start playing $11 DoNs again.

Double or Nothing

These games are so easy, they can distort one's view of SnGs. Well, maybe.

I do lose occasionally, but it's like... I lose 1 in 4. In fact, I've played on the $11 Double or Nothing Sit & Gos.
Kind of risky, but not as much as normal SnGs, so...  but, I seem to average 3 wins to 1 loss ratio, so I'm gaining.

I wouldn't try 10-seat $11 standard SnGs at this point, despite the fact that winning those would be highly rewarding...

I am enjoying the fact that games get a lot less random. Just today on a 2/4 cent ring game, I ran into someone who keeps on betting and raising with practically any hands, like 26 offsuite. It was most aggravating.

My bankroll is at +$37,36 right now, (excluding the $150 injection), but it fluctuates about $15 per day, easily. I was at about +$35 day before yesterday, and yesterday I went down to about +$20.

It's like a year of investment in one day.