anomaly16

April and May have been pretty bad months for me, especially at the cash tables, but boosted by a few donkament cashes to make results bearable. Doing 8 weeks of contracting definitely knocked me off my A-game and I've struggled since to get back on track. I was planning to get some coaching but for various reasons I've postponed it.

I fly to Vegas in a few days, staying for 2 months this time in a nicer house (with a pool!! :)) with a few of the same guys as last year. I can't wait and I'm looking forward to some live cash as well as playing 3 WSOP events and a couple of events in the Venetian Deepstack series. I have sold 60% of my action which sold out in a pretty incredible 40 minutes based on my tracked results from last year. I hope I'll also be able to fix some of the nasty tilt and leaks I've developed these last 2 months.

"Black Friday" has been only a minor inconvenience for me in the end.. most of my bankroll is safe so I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm sure its a tough time for my american friends, but I think in the end it will be better for everyone. There is simply too much demand for, and money to be made by the poker sites for it to simply die out and fade away. I look forward to the times when recreational players can easily and safely deposit and play again.

It hasn't been an awesome month for poker, but with contracting all of Feb and most of March I wasn't expecting anything great.

My game has definitely suffered, or at least my perception of it, during my time away from the tables so I'm focussed on getting back to where I was. I am planning to get coaching, but I want that to take my game forward and not use it fix leaks I've developed over the last 2 months so it will be a couple of weeks before I book any lessons probably.

Only 2 months to vegas now, so getting super-excited! I'll be playing 3 WSOP events and 2 events in the Venetian Deepstack series this time (total buyin $4200). I advertised 60% of my action for sale on 2+2 a few days ago and sold out in 40 minutes, even getting an offer to buy 1% of my main event action if I was playing! I think the ME isn't a wise investment for me at this stage but I would love to play it some day. I'll have 1% of Gary's attempt, so that will have to do for this year.

It has been a disappointing poker month but it was always going to be when I'm also doing the contracting job. The first week was great.. did my days of contracting and then had a great weekend of poker, but as time has gone on I've been more tired and my decisions have been getting worse as I haven't been as immersed in poker as I normally would be.

Playing enough hands to maintain iron man and black card has compelled me to play when I'm not at my best and also playing at some of the worst times of day doesn't help.

I expect it will be much the same for most of this month until I finish contracting on 24th March. I'm going to try and make the most of the situation though and be as aware as possible of my mental state and the kind of mistakes I am making under this scenario. It can only equip me to handle bad sessions better in the future.

I can't wait to get back to poker full-time and have some sessions with my new coach.

With contracting I'm not getting much time to play poker at the moment, but I put in a winning 3.3k hands today to get my monthly volume up to 18.7k. Results have been ok, but I've made some silly mistakes when playing a bit too tired in the evenings and not being 100% focussed on poker. I have one week more to go in my job contract but I suspect it may go on a bit longer.

Got my vegas flight booked today (way more expensive than last year unforunately). It has one less stop and I'll be travelling with one of the other guys in the house for the London->Vegas leg so it should be better than last time.

I've also finally found myself a new coach. He crushes midstakes so I hope he will able to help me get better at 100 and perhaps start taking some shots at 200. However, I'm not going to start with him until the contract is finished so that I can make the most of the lessons and applying what I learn.

Green Bay Packers are one of a few american football teams I like (for no real other reason than I like their logo and have a T-shirt). I like the game but really don't have a clue who any of the players are but I'm looking forward to the Superbowl tonight anyway.

Its been a tiring week getting used to the 9-5 grind again, but its been a very good week financially with the contracting and some really solid winning sessions at the tables when I have been able to play.

I was at the casino last night to play the monthly £33+£20 addon/topup which had one of the biggest fields for a long time .. 90+ I think with top prize of £1500. It went pretty well, but when I made a shove with a flush draw the villain had flopped top set and had an easy call. The turn brought my flush but also brought him a FH :( I was crippled but made it to the last 2 tables but didn't last too much longer calling a 3way allin blind, and my above average A7o

Cash has been disappointing this month - a lot of runbad and some bad play by me (in some part induced by the runbad) kept my winrate down. My volume was a little higher than the last couple (41k) but not as much as I'd hoped.

I've just noticed now that I've put in the least hours in a month since June, so the plan to increase number of tables has gone ok, but I think the runbad and some other stuff has kept the volume down. I don't feel I can attribute any of my bad play to the number of tables I was playing so I'll continue to try and play more hands/hr.

Results were boosted by FT's end of year bonus clearing and some tournament winnings as well as a small cash heater these last 2 days so it tuned out ok in the end, although not quite as good as the record last 4 months of last year.

I'm disappointed that I've done no studying, hh review sessions or villain analysis. I've given one coaching session but have yet to make any steps forward in finding a coach for myself.

We're close to getting a house sorted in Vegas for June and July so I'm getting really excited about that and will be booking flights soon :)

In other news I started a job today for a few weeks.. I was offered a contract out of the blue by the company I worked for before Vegas last year. As before I have mixed feelings about doing it but am working Mon-Thu only this time which leaves me Fri-Sun to get some hands in and make the most of the softer weekend games. There are a few good reasons for me taking the job, but the most obvious of which is having guaranteed money so that I know I can cover the cost of flights and rent for Vegas now as well as some money to save to cover bills at home while I'm away.

This will definitely affect my volume target for this year, so I think a wiser goal is for me to aim to increase my hands/hr which I should be able to achieve no matter what else might be going on. For the last 6 months hands/hour have been

253
203
230
188
200
178

so my goal for next month is to get > 270/hr. Getting the next tier of black card is also out of the window for now I think as my average is much the same as at the beginning of the month - 843ftp/day and a long way off the required 1500ftp/day. If I can get my hands/hr up then it should follow in due course.

After the disappointing start to cash this month (b/e results, horrible non-showdown winnings) I approached my session today differently after reflecting on some of the possible short-term leaks I'd developed:

• playing a bit too loose for my post-flop skills
• not paying enough attention to 3bet ranges esp when opponents are quite deep
  
• playing for value that can be too thin and against a very specific portion of villain's range
• playing too many speculative hands in late position
• ignoring reads
• autopiloting too much
• not finding fold button enough
• taking too many opportunities to isolate
• not always taking time to use hud information available
• not believing and ignoring hud information when I do look
• overestimating implied odds
• taking weak lines and folding when I do have odds because of how I'm running
• cbetting too much (esp multiway and oop) and taking thin opportunities to barrel
• not questioning myself on reasons for betting
• not bet sizing correctly given action, ranges and villain reads
  
• making mistakes becuase I feel like I deserve to win after some runbad and stacking off incorrectly compounding the issue
• trying too hard to win every hand
  

I went to the casino last night to play a live donkament for some fun and to get away from the virtual felt. Live action can be pretty slow but it gave me the opportunity to think about the above list and try and get my thought process back on track in the live hands. I played well but was shortstack by the time we made the final table of 9. I finished 7th in the end and mincashed but it payed for the event, some food and a little petrol for the car but I think the time to reflect and take a break was much more of a win.

I thought my session stats today would end up reflecting a more nitty approach but I was a lot more aggressive and also called a lot less so my VPIP/PFR gap was much lower than it has been recently. Its a small sample and I did run better than I have been with some great river cards to contrast the recent terrible ones so that stats might not mean that much, but it was my decision making process that I was most pleased with today and selection of spots to play. I could be blinded by a good day of results so I need to make sure I am as focused in my future sessions and to come back here and read this If I feel like I've let things slip.

I think getting the list of things above right and consistently is what can separate the winners from the b/e players who might appear at a glance to be very similar in nature. I saw a reg today squeeze 35o at a 5-handed table from the BB vs a minraise with two very fishy players who were very likely to be calling and how he thought his hand would play well against them oop and multiway I've no idea. He obviously flopped the nut straight and stacked one of them, but he is clearly not a thinking player despite having very TAG-like stats. He does seem to be a small winner but the sample size is fairly small so I'm not sure it will last.

Anyway, here is my brag graph for the day -


With today's session and the MTT cash the other day the month is definitely back on track :)

Here is a trivial hand today from a $2 Omaha Hi/Lo Rush Rebuy (I had a small cash in the end finishing 29th / 683), but always nice to beat a pro in a pot :)



Volume target : 750k+ Current: 15.4k Projected : 620k
BC rolling avg target : 1500 Current : 869.26

Its not been a great start to the year at the cash tables.. I'm below EV and some non-EV coolers, but I think there is a degree of me not being on my A-game too. In contrast to December I'm running bad at the higher stakes I play and better at the lower stakes which also doesn't lead to good results.

My volume is a bit higher than usual as I try to play a few more tables to reach my volume target for the year. I don't think it is the cause of my bad start but I'll definitely keep an eye on it.

On a more positive note I had my best MTT cash for a while last night... an epic 9.5 hrs but worth it in the end and finally managed to win some money for Gary as he had 25% of me.


Volume target : 750k+ Current: 12.4k Projected : 647k
BC rolling avg target : 1500 Current : 873.02

The month started out really well with a couple of awesome days but soon I felt like I was having to pay back for my early good fortune and I ran below EV and breakeven for a few thousand hands. Volume and motivation dropped a bit as they usually do for me during periods like this, but I managed to get back on track and make the most of the soft games over the holidays to finish strong.

It's not quite a record month, but a very solid one matching November. The last four months of the year have been my 4 biggest months of all time.. all within $500 of each other, so it has been a great way to finish up the year.

I've now updated the final results for the year.

I hope everyone that has been reading my blog this month have found it useful and/or interesting - thanks for all the comments. However, the primary reason for me doing it was as a way to review my own year and think about what I want from the next.

Hence my goals for 2011 are:


Volume

I think this has to be my primary goal for next year. 470k hands feels like a lot to me still, but I know lots of people who are doing 70k-100k/month regularly. I'm not going to find more hours in a day for poker, so the only way I am going to get the extra volume is through playing more tables. Where I'm playing 2-6 tables now I need to be aiming for 6-10 I think. I started playing a few tables so that I could fix leaks and get better and I think I have achieved that this year, so I should be able to cope and I've put some 10-tabling sessions in recently without any problems.

As for a number, 1 million hands could be a little ambitious but I'll be pleased with 750k+. I'll need to work on playing with fewer distractions as well as all the other aspects to achieve it. It is expected that Full Tilt will add another tier to the Black Card programme in the next few days requiring 1500 ftp/day for an extra multiplier of full tilt points. As of today my average is 817.27 so quite a way to go to average 1500, but I think my hand target and reaching the new black card level will be closely linked so that is some extra motivation to achieve both.

Results

I'm not going to set any specific results goals. Playing extra volume and continuing to work hard should lead to good results. I'd obviously like to do better than this last year, and it would be a nice milestone to achieve a $10k month at some point.

Coaching

Its been over 12 months since I last had coaching so I think it is definitely time to find a coach to help take my game forward. I hope to get something organised by March if not sooner.

Within the first few months of this year I'd also like to get to the stage where my student feels he is able to go solo without regular sessions and be winning at a decent rate. I'll take time to review with him how it went so I can evaluate my own coaching skills and think about taking on more students.

Tournaments

I feel like I've been due for a decent torunament score for a while but it hasn't quite happened yet. I've been close a few times this year... coming 49th of 28,000 people in one of the miniftops events recently was a bit frustrating after playing well for several hours, going out JJ v KK aipf. I'll continue to keep trying as well as do some work on my MTT game.

Live Play

I'm going to try to approach live play with a bit more dilligence than I have so far. This will involve trying to build a proper live bankroll, keeping better records and accounting for it along with my online play. Vegas 2011 will account for a large part of my live play this next year but I'll also look to play a few larger live events than I have this year in the UK. With my online record I feel I should be better placed to sell some action so I hope this will create some more opportunities.

Study

I'd like to up the amount of time time I spend studying this year:

• at least 1 training video per week
• continue regular hh reviews with Gary & Darren
• continue to do more villain analysis
• spend more time with pokerstove and understanding odds and equity and general theory
• do more sweats and talk to other players
  

Travel

I'll definitely be heading to Vegas for all of June & July but I'd also like to go somewhere else new this year and stay in a house with other poker players. Thailand, Australia or somewhere else in the US are all possibilities. If Gary will have me, I'd love to be able to go see the Redskins play in Dallas.

Other goals

Other goals I have are a bit harder to put specific targets on but I'd like to

• continue to work on my mental game
• try and live more healthily
• achieve a better life balance

So, thats it for 2010. Just a few hours more of grinding and then I'll post my December review and update the year's results.

Best of luck to you all for 2011 :)

As I've been making the posts this month I've been thinking about this one and wondering if I wanted to post an actual $ amount for how I've done this year. In a "real job" I certainly wouldn't tell people my salary and they wouldn't ask, but when it comes to poker I've been asked a lot, even by people I didn't know well. I guess the perception of it is different even though it isn't really.

However, the fact is that a lot of this information is in the public domain if you know where and what to look for. So, in the end I've decided to post the info for this year at least. I'm only going to cover $ won at the tables, so exactly how much I've made from rakeback, bonuses, tournaments, live play, coaching/staking, the contracting work I did in April/May and the overall total can remain a mystery making me feel a bit more comfortable with sharing.



I'm obviously really pleased with the results given the stakes I play and volume I put in (it helps to run above EV too!). I think it has exceeded my conservative expectations that I had at the beginning of the year and is exactly what I needed to prove to myself I can make it work as a pro and gives me a lot of encouragement for what I can achieve next year.

Finding hands to pull out from almost 1/2 million is pretty tough, so I've only got a couple to share.

Hand 1

This isn't an amazing hand by any means and the cards fell really well for me. However, it sticks in my mind because by the time we got to the river I knew he had AK, and I knew he was confident I had AQ which allowed me to get max value. I guess it was one of the first times I felt really in control of a hand against a decent 100 TAG reg on all 3 streets and good hand reading made it possible to raise river with complete confidence to win a stack without have the stone cold nuts.

$0.5/$1 (9 handed)

Known players:

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with 9, 9.

UTG1 folds, UTG2 raises to $3.00, MP1 folds, Hero calls $3.00, 4 folds, BB calls $2.00.


Flop: ($9.5) Q, 9, 6 (3 players)

BB checks, UTG2 bets $7.00, Hero calls $7.00, BB folds.


Turn: ($23.5) A (2 players)

UTG2 checks, Hero bets $14.00, UTG2 calls $14.00.


River: ($51.5) K (2 players)

UTG2 bets $22.00, Hero raises to $117.50, UTG2 calls $90.65(All-In).


Final Pot: $281.65.

Results follow:


UTG2 shows two pairs, aces and kings(K A).

Hero shows three of a kind, nines(9 9).


Hero wins with three of a kind, nines(9 9).

Hand 2

This hand was the biggest pot of the year .. a whopping 780BB vs one deep fish. We'd both been dominating the table (me more skillfully than him obv!). We were both very deep with 388BB effective stacks vs each other and he was playing 59/24/3 with 17% 3bet, 8% fold to 3bet, 4bet range 5.5% over 200 hands. I was aware I'd been in situations before being deep against volatile fish and hadn't felt comfortable.. mistakes can be a lot more costly and there is always the danger they just get lucky on the river and cause a lot of pain. It is hard not get attached to a large stack and losing it hurts a lot more than a 100BB stack. I was thinking if I'd got AA vs his pfr I obviously keep reraising this deep, but there would be a good chance that he would flat at some point and not put it all in preflop which could put me in a nasty spot. I thought jokingly to myself that it would be nice and easy if I could only flop quads.. 5 minutes later this happens.

$0.5/$1 (8 handed)

Known players:

Preflop: Hero is BU with A, A.

UTG2 calls $1.00, 2 folds, MP3 raises to $4.00, CO folds, Hero raises to $14.50, 3 folds, MP3 raises to $25.00, Hero raises to $77.50, MP3 calls $52.50.


Flop: ($157.5) T, A, A (2 players)

MP3 checks, Hero bets $35.00, MP3 calls $35.00.


Turn: ($227.5) 6 (2 players)

MP3 checks, Hero bets $107.00, MP3 calls $107.00.


River: ($441.5) 6 (2 players)

MP3 checks, Hero bets $169.00, MP3 calls $168.80.


Final Pot: $779.3.

Results follow:


Hero shows four of a kind, aces(A A).

MP3 shows two pairs, aces and kings(K K).

Hero wins with four of a kind, aces(A A).

Again, not the most exciting topic to have picked in hindsight. Drawbacks:

• Can feel a bit socially isolated playing long hours on your own
• No protection if you are ill (forunately I haven't been)
• No ability to get any credit (loan/mortgage etc) as your income won't be recognised
• Potential for more mental pressure if results don't go well
  

Not the most exiting topic as I guess the benefits are pretty obvious

• You can work the hours you choose and when you feel at your best, and not have working hours imposed on you
• You can work anywhere in the world as long as you have a laptop and internet connection
• When you work hard and do well you get full receipt of the benefits and don't have others or a company take the credit
• No boss to answer to (except yourself!)
• Limitless potential to earn more
• Tax-free in the UK
• Freedom to do other things
  

Goals are an important way to push yourself to fulfilling your potential. I think the tricky part though is understanding which goals to set and how ambitious to make them. It comes down to knowing your own self : what motivates you, what demotivates you, how success and failure affect you.

In poker there are certianly plenty of goal choices available - results, volume, learning targets etc.. and you can set them to be daily or even over a year or more as well as making them firm "I must.." and weaker "I'd like to..." targets . Setting short term results goals is inherently wrong due to variance and the fact we play for the long term. However, if you play for a living, bills need to be paid and the long term won't help with that.

When I started the year my primary goal was to work hard enough on my game and prove to myself that I could win enough at poker to make a living from it and I'm proud to say that I have achieved this goal.

Monthly I always wanted to do a decent amount of volume, but have never set myself a hard target but always enough to achieve the max iron man level at FT. Results-wise I always hoped to do better than previous months, and I've had 5 "best month ever"s this year.

Starting at 50 I hoped to move up and as the end of the year approaches I now feel established at 100, taking occasional shots at 200 but still playing 50 if the games are good.

Making the trip to Vegas was a goal I wasn't sure I'd manage in my first year, but it came together at the last minute.

I have had some failures as well that I have already mentioned such as improvements towards a healthier lifestyle and playing with less distractions.

With a year as a pro under my belt now, I can set some more specific targets for 2011 which I'll cover in the final topic - "The Future".

With regard to live play I think the best approach is pretty simple.. keep it friendly. I know there are some great players who have an ability to manipulate others and make them tilt, but its just not my style.

Online I think the same rule applies in general... don't tap the tank! I wrote about table chat a few months ago and still stick by what I said then.

The most contentious etiquette issues tend to revolve around how regs perceive each others' actions at the table. Most of the regs are very aware that it is going to be +EV to play at a table when there are bad players and also when you have positon on those bad players. Hence, decisions around seating choices and when to sit in/out can be the cause of some really bad feelings between regs.

At the end of the day we're all playing to make money and to make or avoid decisions so that other regs feel good isn't part of that. To do the best you can at the tables you need to pretty ruthless in your table and seat selection decisions so I won't shy away from making a choice that might annoy another reg. Some are very blatant in their choices and I'm probably considered by some to be one of those although probably not the worst, while others are pretty passive in their decisions and will be losing out as a result.

Its quite understandably frustrating when you have been trying to start a table for some time, finally get what looks to be a bad player sitting down with you, and another reg magically appears and takes the best possible seat. However I'm sure I've seen pretty much every reg that seems to have a bigger problem with this do the same to others at some point (perhaps only in the context as what they perceive as "revenge" on someone who has done it to them before).

I try to be friendly to most regs in chat if not always in my choices of where and when to play and I fully expect them to do the same to me as it is all within the rules. On occasion I won't push it as far as I can... I remember a few months ago finding a table with a reg playing HU with a deep fish. When I sat he politely asked if I would leave him to play HU. It was clear that the fish had been running good, stacked the reg a couple of times and the reg was keen to have the best chance to get his money back. I understood where he was coming from and as he asked nicely I was happy to leave him to it and he said he'd owe me one. Another reg took a seat a few minutes later and was asked to leave the game HU too, but he either chose to ignore it or didn't read the chat.

I guess my point is that its a part of the game that you just have to accept and make the most of. Harbouring hatred for some other reg due to their behaviour just isn't worth the energy and can create an unnecessary dynamic that affects either their or your play.

One reg (who might be reading this) told me in chat the other day "I used to like you, but you are just like the rest". I'd taken a short break from my tables to make a drink and when I sat back in it just happened that one of the tables had almost broken and he was playing a fish HU. Sitting back in my original seat he had perceived that I'd jumped into postion on the fish. For some reason he doesn't seem to want to use AIM/Skype to chat and I had no desire to launch into a debate about table etiquette in public chat at the tables, espeically with the fish there, so I just left him to his perception of what had happened. Since then he has said a few things in table chat that I've not been too happy with, like quoting my winrate with a number of unknown players at the table, but again I do not want to launch into some debate in public chat with him about the ethics of what he is now doing. So, if you are reading this sir, get AIM and add me. We've had some fun at the tables in the past and there is no reason to do/say things that are going to affect how much we win.

So, in conclusion, keep it friendly, keep it fun, and save all your focus for making good decisions.

Happy Christmas everyone!

The bulk of my poker playing is online, but I do enjoy playing live for a change of pace and actually getting to see some real people!

Last year I played in the Office Poker league (a saturday afternoon tournament at the local casino) and finished a respectable 3rd. This year I've played again but it has been a bit of a shambles with a change in ownership and the new owner being out of the country most of the time. It was a great structure and a fun and friendly event but numbers have dwindled down to only 2 tables for the final event this year. I think it may unforunately die if it doesn't get some love and attention early next year. The events are generally holdem although there had been some PLO and a team event. There were some more varied games this year which I loved (especially getting to play PLO8 and win) but unfortunately I think it contributed to the reduction in numbers.

Last year a clear winner emerged fairly quickly, but scattered attendences this year meant that everyone realised with only a couple of events left that the league (and £500 prize) was still quite open. Going into the final event there were 4 of us playing with enough points and a chance to win. Two were knocked out and I reached the final table with one other who was 3pts ahead of me with up to 1-12pts available at the final table. We were both pretty short and it didn't last too long... I shoved JJ allin over a raise but it was a pretty easy call for him with AQ and the turn A ended my chances. Congrats Tam!

I obviously played quite a lot of live poker when I went to Vegas: 1 WSOP event, 1 Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza event, a $200 torunament at the Rio, a few small satellites as well as some live cash. I mainly played $1/$3 live at the Wynn and Rio however I didn't play that great or run very well which curtailed the amount I could play due to bankroll limitations.

I've come back from Vegas more determined to play better live and have definitely played better on my trips to the casino here since. A live cash games usually runs in the evenings but it has a lot of preflop nonsense so I've stayed away not wanting to put in the hours to get through the variance and have stuck to torunaments instead.

I'm looking forward to being back in Vegas this year and will try and play more live than I did last time.

Poker is an information war and some information is just too significant to share. I'm not saying I know some magic secret that can make you a winner at poker, but any information that if shared could affect your own winrate should be guarded carefully. There are some things I'm sure others would find interesting if I discussed them but it is not in my interests to share it here.

As there is no real content in today's post here is a wonderful picture from a post by Baz that really sums up a lot of the things you need to think about if you are going pro.

I decided to add this topic just to talk about playing games other than your main game. PLO and PLO8 happen to be two of my favourite alternatives to holdem but I've played most others at some point.. even Badugi recently.

It is important to stick to one main game if you are playing professionally I think. However, certainly for me, I feel there are some benefits of playing other games at times. It can give you a different perspective of different elements that are common to all forms of poker .. ranges, lines, position, aggression etc... In the early days I switched between holdem and plo8 a lot, and each time I came back to the other game I felt better at it. It can also provide a welcome mental break if things haven't been going so well - being able to shove a few draws in a cheap game and win for a change can feel pretty good and get you back on a more even keel without threatening your bankroll. I started playing poker for fun, and its good to rememeber that once in a while if you feel grinding your regular game is getting you down.

A database and HUD are essential tools these days and the only real choice is between PokerTracker 3 (PT3) or Holdem Manager (HEM).

I started out using PT3 but a few months later I trialed HEM and decided to switch instantly. I'm not sure how PT3 is these days, but at the time it seemed buggier, had less features and the HUD seemed slow and hungry on resources.

Getting to know your database is critical so that you can make the most of reviewing hands, analysing villains and looking for your own leaks.

Getting your HUD and popups right is a very personal thing and something you should re-evaluate and tweak over time. I'm sure others would find my HUD interesting but I'm not wanting to share. I know a few of my regular opponents are reading this and I'd rather they weren't aware of the details.