February Results

Once again this month, I broke my career high in money earned in cash games. I didn't play as many hands as I wanted to, only logging 92k hands. I'm taking today and tomorrow off as I'm again having computer problems. My computer keeps turning off randomly, and I think it's a heat issue. I'm not too surprised that my computer is starting to have recurring problems; it's now three years old. However it's still a very fast and strong computer, so it's worth it to keep replacing the parts that are going bad, unless it costs too much. Then I'll just invest in a new desktop.

As far as actual results, I made around 13k in cash games, another 2k in rakeback, 2k in tournaments, and lost 2k playing live for a total of just over $15k. My previous career high was 12k, which I set in January. My goals for March are to play more hands and continue improving my game, which it has tremendously since I moved up to 2/4 nl. I ran at 1.6 ptbb over my first 100k hands, and ran at 2.4 my last 100k hands. Overall since moving up to 2/4 in the end of december, I've cleared 30k at 2/4 alone. I'm pretty happy with the direction of my poker career.

-Prabs

Random Thoughts

Well, yesterday sucked. My car was broken into. The thief smashed my passenger window in and stole my ipod, am/fm transmitter, and some chargers. The ipod was in my middle console...along with my spare keys. Somehow it went unnoticed, probably because it was on the very bottom of the console. Thank god the car wasn't stolen. It's going to be a huge hassle now to get it fixed.

What sucks is that for the past 3 months, our gate to our condo has been broken and wide open 24 hours/day. A few months ago, I went in and asked why it was open, and they said it needed a part and would be fixed shortly. I'm going to complain to the home owners association and see what happens. Hopefully this doesn't cost me too much.

Poker has been ok lately. I haven't made too much the past few days and haven't run too well. I've basically broken even for the past 30k hands, but hopefully things pick up.

My friend Bill Vosti (billyjex on 2+2) released his ebook. I linked it on the right hand side; the url is www.skilledonlinepoker.com. The book itself is very good. I've been playing poker for a long time, but it explains some concepts that I don't understand very well. While it's targeted at beginner/inexperienced types, good players who want to understand the game better to beat midstakes would benefit a lot from reading the book. I'd definitely recommend picking this up if you want to improve your game.

On a related note, I thought it was a pretty cool idea he had. Maybe I'll write an e-book on full ring poker sometime soon. Right now I'm going to focus on playing though, because writing an e-book takes an incredible amount of time and dedication. I'll save that project for when I burn out again, which could easily happen sometime this year.

-Prabs

Mid Feb update

My month is going very well. It started off on a down note when I lost 2k live playing 2-5 no limit. I bought in for $500 each time and dropped 4 buyins in about 2 hours. Pretty pathetic showing. I was playing against a very loose aggressive player. I got bad beat pretty badly by him once, and the other buyins were just very high variance plays that didn't work out. I don't think I played that great though, but I don't think my EV in the pots was too bad either.

On the flip side, online poker has been going great for me. Including rakeback and a small tournament win of 2k, I've made about 11k so far online this month, for a total of +9k including my live loss.

I've definitely been running hot. Haven't been getting bad beat at all really, all my big pairs are holding up, I'm not getting set over setted at all. This pace can't continue and I won't be too surprised if I don't sustain this pace. We'll see though, I've been playing great and running great, which is a good combo. Hopefully when it settles down I continue making money at a decent clip.

I've added some new elements to my game which hopefully will help my winrate in early position. I'm feeling very good about it, logically my changes make sense and should make my game very unpredictable.

-Prabs

last jan update

I ended up playing on the 31st after all and made ~$1k. It brought my total profit to $8800 for the month, plus around $3000 in rakeback and another $900 in tournaments. So I ended up clearing 12k for the month despite a very rocky start. Hopefully Feb will go better.

-Prabs

My 100th post

I'm somewhat surprised my blog lasted this long. I've had some stretches where I haven't updated in awhile, but I've been pretty good about it overall I suppose. As I always say, I'm going to try to update more.

This month has been very frustrating at times. I pulled through a soul crushing 70k hand breakeven stretch at 2/4. This happens from time to time, and I can't say I played my best throughout. There were definitely some sessions where tilt played a part in my losses. They were never horrible, and I wasn't on monkey tilt in any way, but I certainly left money on the tables and didn't play optimally at times. Mostly this occurs in situations where I usually can make a solid fold, but am stuck on the session and can't find the fold button. It's still one of my major leaks, but I'm working on it, mostly quitting when I'm feeling that sense of being against the wall.

Also contributing to my breakeven stretch was running AWFUL at higher limits. This month I'm down ~$4k at 3/6 and 5/10. I played ok, but was in very tough spots most of the time. I did the right thing though and moved down and only let myself play 2/4 to grind it back.

There are still a few days left in January and it would be nice to finish out at a +$10k month, but so far I'm pretty happy with the month all things considered. I've learned a lot. The games are SO different at 2/4 when compared to 1/2, especially preflop. They're much more aggressive preflop; I even successfully 5-bet all in light this month. I don't think I played my A+ game the entire time, ran bad at higher limits, and didn't get quite as many hands in as I would have liked. Next month I need to get in at least 120k hands. The more hands I put in at 2/4, the higher my win-rate will go as I get more and more used to the game.

Here's a graph of my month so far (at the top of this post). Right now I've made ~$6k. I've also earned $2500ish in rakeback. As always, click the graph to see a clearer full size picture.

-Prabs

Update time plus year goals

I suppose I should have updated this earlier, but I've been pretty busy lately with poker (and getting owned by poker also). In December I had a good month at 2/4. Made about 7k while not playing very many hands.

This month has been FRUSTRATING. After 10 days, I have played 40-50k hands and am down over that period about $3400. I'm doing ok at 2/4 after breaking even for my first 30k hands, but I took some shots at 3/6 and 5/10 and have run horribly. All my big hands are getting cracked and every spot I'm getting into is tough. I suppose that's a product of playing at higher limits with better players, and I have made some less than optimal decisions, but overall I'm running pretty bad. I'm down 1k at 3/6 and 3k at 5/10.

I don't have a large number of hands at either of the higher limits, but I'm missing all my big draws that I'm playing for stacks, and basically any short stack is doubling up off me when I hit a big hand. For example, I 3bet QQ the other day at 5/10 to 150 (because there was a caller in between of the short stack opener and I). The short stack had 500 and called. Flop was KK9, he checked, I bet 120 and he check raised all in. I called and of course he had KTo. Completely standard hand, he's an awful player, but I ended up losing a 1k pot as a result of variance.

In another hand, I made a questionable play. A loose aggressive player opened UTG, and I 3b on the button with 56s. I think I messed up right there. I should have called, or folded. The 3bet was unnecessary, especially given the fact that he raised in early position. Big mistake on my part.

He called and I flopped a gutshot and a flush draw. He checked, I bet and he called. Turn was a brick and he checked again. Here again I messed up. I should have taken the free card knowing that his range was likely to call any bet, especially considering he was loose. Instead, I shoved for about the size of the pot. Obviously he had KK and obviously I missed.

At least I didn't bluff off a stack with garbage. I did have 12 clean outs. However, I played it poorly preflop and on the turn and I can't make those mistakes while playing at higher limits.

So after I lost the 3k at 5/10 I was in the middle of a $5500 downswing. I was pretty fucking pissed about it because I was nearly at 30k in my bankroll when it happened. I was also looking forward to a big January, and instead I'm stuck 3k almost halfway through the month. I should be clearing 10k/month at the very least.

I took the day off and am not going to play any limits higher than 2/4 other than a table or two of 3/6 when it runs. Usually that game is very good. I took a day off and won $1600 back yesterday. Of course, I played a table of 3/6 during the day and lost about $900, so I actually made $2500 at 2/4. It was fine, I got into a very +ev spot where I got KK all in against a flush draw and an over.

I'm rolled for 3/6 but it's not a huge deal if I play it even if I wasn't rolled. I'm just playing 1 table and am not going to play if the table sucks. I was getting worried that I'm not good enough to beat 2/4 after doing so poorly, but the fact is I was getting very unlucky. I think I also wasn't playing aggressive enough. We'll see. I'm definitely staying away from 5/10 for now.

As for this year, I need to clear $100k. I should have done it last year but I didn't play enough. It's long past time for me to start making 6 figures/year. I need to start saving up and investing in real estate and other things, and I can't just keep this cycle of playing whenever my roll is getting low and then taking time off. This year I'd like to play at least 80k hands/month and hopefully move up to 5/10 by the end of the year.

-Prabs

moving up in limits

So after grinding hard for a month and a half, I once again made enough money where I was comfortable. That resulted in me not playing too much. I also have had computer problems where I had to reformat both of my computers. I couldn't play during that time and it cost me a good bit to get both fixed. My motherboard on my desktop crapped out, and it ended up costing me around $800 to get both computers completely fixed and set up.

So to mix things up, I moved up to 2/4 nl. I gave myself 5 buyins ($2k); if I lose those, I will drop back down to 1/2nl and grind again. If I do well, then I'll stay at 2/4 with 1/2 as my comfort zone if I ever need to move down for confidence reasons. I'm already overrolled for 2/4 nl, but this is my first serious shot at 2/4 nl full ring.

I started playing 3 days ago...the monetary swings are taking some time to get used to but it's starting to become more natural. Right now after 8k hands, I am up around $1200 and running at 2ptbb/100.

I don't think I'm playing my A game quite yet. I've caught myself getting in some bad spots against short stacks. Part of this is my tendency to play looser in big pots for some reason whenever I play higher limits. I think the problem is I feel like I SHOULDN'T be scared of bigger money, so I force myself to not care as much about the money and pretend like it's not a big deal or something. As a result, I sometimes stack off too lightly to half stacks.

However, I'm getting better with it. I noticed myself doing this in the beginning, but I hit my stride after about 2k hands and started playing really well. I even folded KK preflop correctly after just one raise preflop. My instincts are just as good as anyone's at full ring. This is mostly a product of the volume of hands I've put in at full ring; pretty much any situation that comes up has happened to me many times before, so I know what kinds of hands people show up with most of the time.

I'm curious to see the difference between 1/2 and 2/4. After 8k hands, I can't see my win rate dropping too much. The games are tougher but there are still very poor players playing. Right now I'm also only playing 10 tables as opposed to 16. If my hourly is higher at 1/2 than 2/4, then it would make no sense to move up, but I suspect that very quickly I'll be able to play 12-16 tables and make a significantly higher hourly. We'll see.

-Prabs