M0NIKER poker

april results
30 April 2008

Swing, swang, swung... gotta love a swongy month. Played a pathetic amount of hands (which needs to change, and fast) but feel like I learned a whole heck of a lot during April. Ended up watching a ton of videos, messed around at 50nl learning to aggress aemfjones-style (nice 8buyin loss, but still beneficial), and came to the realization that I need to take my game to the next level. I've officially decided (with some advice from malfaire) to sign up for Leggo's SSNL group lessons with MYNAMEIZGREG. While the $750 is a little over 10% my current bankroll, I'm basically losing value every time I sit at the tables without taking this class (why? because I'm not that good, and playing when you're not good is -EV). I'll easily make that $750 back at 100nl... sooner, rather than later, with enhanced skill setz.

[On a side note: If I look at my stats after experimenting and tweaksing at 50nl, I ran at 8ptbb/100 over the remaining 8500 hands for the month. Just sayin...]

April Results:





Table Profit: $654.89
ABS Rakeback: $170.48

March Goals Review:

• 2,500 hands / wk -- MINOR FAIL
• 2,000 hands played on PStars-- FAIL (didn't really get around to it... I like rakeback)
• Make 10 buyins at 100nl -- SUCCESS
• One sweat / wk -- FAIL
• Watch 2 instructional videos / wk -- SUCCESS
  
• Weekly reviews -- SUCCESS (kind of... still need to do more hand analysis)
  

Posted byM0NIKER at 10:59 AM 0 comments  

weekly update #16

21 Apr - 27 Apr:
1,656 hands (100nl)
$248.70
-7.51 ptbb/100

Wow, talk about an epic fail week. Not only did I play only 2 nights, I didn't play very well either. Some pretty good examples of where you should not put money into the pot because you are surely behind, but I won't bore everyone with those specifics. I need to start writing down specific hands during my sessions that I am lost in and follow up with some more in depth analysis post session. I'll try to get that going in May... but obviously my discipline has been lacking lately.

Posted byM0NIKER at 10:44 AM 0 comments  

weekly update #15
21 April 2008

14 Apr - 20 Apr:
2,288 hands (100nl)
$514.23
11.24 ptbb/100

Didn't get as many hands in this week as I would have liked, but I'll take it since I didn't really have a chance to sit until Thursday night. With softball starting up and weekends starting to yield some decent weather (high 70's and sunny), it seems as though it will be increasingly difficult to carve out time for poker. Here's hoping malfaire keeps me on track.

Continued to watch and learn from Leggo's vids, particularly late position aggression and finding spots where AP villains are 'one and done' kinda guys. Knowing when I can profitably double barrel has had a huge impact on my overall play. I've also been working on upping my Att. to Steal Blinds (from 24% thru March to 32% since April) and my Won $ When Saw Flop (33% thru Mar. to 38%). To me, attaining certain "ideal stats" is a waste of time, but I like to see that I am effectively opening up my game in late position and taking away pots where neither me nor my opponent make a good hand. I believe aejones was the one who stated in one of his vids that most of the time both you and your opponent flop jack shit, whether it be a weakish pair or nothing at all. The more skilled player will be able to take these pots down, and therefore increase their winrate. Now that I am starting to understand that, I'm working to incorporate that level of thinking into my game and steal away pots where the villain isn't likely to have a hand that he is willing to get to showdown with.

Anyway, I'll post some problem hands once I've had a chance to browse through the sessions.

Posted byM0NIKER at 1:27 PM 2 comments  

weekly update #14
16 April 2008

7 Apr - 13 Apr:
2,773 hands (100nl)
$816.23
14.72 ptbb/100

I runned spicy hot last week. Sustainable? No. But does it illustrate that I'm improving my game and finding more spots to make money -- I like to think so. We'll see if this continues throughout the month, but I feel like the videos I've been watching lately have really been sinking in and some of the hand analysis I've been doing with malfaire has really been beneficial. Some decent hands to take a look at below, and then a few where the poker gods decided to say "Congrats for trying to improve your game, why don't we let you hit the flop so hard it's impossible to misplay your hand." (As an aside, I will also display how this logic is flawed, as I successfully managed to mess up quads for 200BB stacks -- yay me!)

** No results posted for now, as I don't want them to influence responses (will update) **

Hand 1:
Villain is 38 / 8 / 1.3 over 75 hands. Didn't really know how to interpret his flop and turn leads, as I don't know if he would be doing this more often with a draw or weak top pair type hand. If it's a draw, am I better off just calling? Or is getting it in on the turn here fine?

Hand 2:
BTN is playing 27 / 21 / 3.5 over 80 hands; BB is playing 55 / 6/ 0.5 over 150 hands. Being 185BB deep in this hand vs. the original raiser had me a bit spooked here. I really, really do not like my line vs. his range. I think I know what I would like to change about my play, but what line would you take?

Hand 3:
UTG is playing 41 / 4 / 0.4 over 260 hands; BTN is playing 32 / 9 / 1.0 over 200 hands. Not too concerned with the flop and turn play, except possibly the turn bet size (thoughts?). I feel as though I need to play this hand fast due to the wet board, but is there any merit in checking the river and feigning a missed flush draw? What if I told you that the villain's river AF was 5.0?

Hand 4:
BTN is playing 25 / 17 / 1.9 over 250 hands. Should probably be leading the flop and turn here seeing as though I've got top 2 on a pretty wet board, but sometimes the inner donk in me shines. I don't really have a problem getting it in on the turn here, because I think I'm maximizing my value vs. draws (whether they be Qx or clubs), but once again I hate my line. Thoughts on how better to approach this hand?

Hand 5:
Villain is running 43 / 6 / 0.6 over 180 hands. Pretty sure my flop and turn bets need to be slightly larger to charge the potential draws, but once the villain wakes up on the river with a 1/2pot bet how do you react? Is this the sign of someone hitting a chased flush, or is it a slow-played weaker Ax trying to get value from a perceived missed draw? Call behind, fold, raise for value?

Poker Gods givith:
Hand 6:
Would be quite interesting if I didn't river the K and he still shoved...

Hand 7:
Note how I miss about $25 in value because I'm a retard. He obviously has a smaller set that rivered a boat (uh, duh m0niker, you are holding the other two Aces so he does not have AK) and is calling a shove. Granted, I almost peed my pants when I saw the 4 glorious aces, but such silly mistakes make me upset with the hand.

And Poker Gods taketh away (on the river no less):
Hand 8
Hand 9
Hand 10

Posted byM0NIKER at 2:46 PM 3 comments  

surprise
10 April 2008

Looks like Christmas came early this year...

http://weaktight.com/156559

Too bad that my entire session last night hinged upon this hand's results -- I was breakeven besides this hand over 500 hands. I've really been trying to focus on selective aggression after watching LeggoPoker vids. Bobbofitos is absolutely ridiculous in terms of knowledge and the way he explains things, and if I had $750 to burn right now I would buy his book immediately.

Posted byM0NIKER at 11:54 AM 0 comments  

what would you do? (hand 1)
08 April 2008

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem (6 players)

Stacks:
UTG: $439.85
Hero: $156.00
CO: $188.65
BTN: $94.65
SB: $197.60
BB: $96.75

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1

UTG calls $1, Hero raises to $5, CO raises to $12, 1 fold, SB calls $11.5, 1 fold, UTG calls $11, Hero calls $7

My image at the time was super nitty and I figured I needed to start opening up some hands to try to alter this fact, but 9To UTG+1 isn't the right hand to be doing this with. That being said, once there are 2 coldcallers with effective stacks being 150BB, I think I'm obligated to tag along. Can't really put the unknowns on ranges, maybe small pocket pairs or suited broadways, but I think the CO has QQ+ or AK here 100% of the time. It should be pretty easy to play against him knowing this.


Flop: ($49, 4 players)
SB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks, CO bets $33, SB folds, UTG folds, Hero ?????

Decision time here... checking the flop is standard, but I know that this board has to be scary for our villain because his hand is, for all intents and purposes, face up. The folds by the SB and UTG villains rule out sets, flush draws, and most likely Jx on their part. So what do we do: fold, raise, or call? Let's make a case for each, and I'd like some feedback on what you'd choose and why.

1.) Fold - We know he very likely has us beat at the moment and need one of our 8 outs to make the best hand. Even if we hit our straight, though, 2 of our "outs" make a flush and can either make him the flush or give him redraw outs. It's not worth it, just fold now.

2.) Raise - The board is pretty scary for a 1pair hand, with easily made sets and flush draws abound. Unless he has AdAx he should be hard-pressed to find a call. However, he might also simply be playing his cards and see a big pair that he can't fold. I'll take my fold equity + my outs and roll the dice... now, how much do I raise to?

3.) Call - I've got 8 outs to make my hand. I can also probably use diamonds as decent bluff cards to fold out AA and KK with some regularity. Jacks can probably be bluffed with some percentage of effectiveness as well. Let's call here and re-evaluate the turn.

3b.) If you choose to call, what is your line if make the straight? What is your line if a diamond comes? What is your line if a J falls on the turn?

Posted byM0NIKER at 4:12 PM 2 comments  

weekly update #13

31 Mar - 6 Apr:
3,080 hands (100nl)
-$151.05
-5.8 ptbb/100

930 hands (50nl)
-$425.65
-45.77 ptbb/100

Oh man that stings just looking at it. Obviously not the results I was looking for to start off April, but I think that there was a lot of great learning over those 4000 hands. I started off the month pretty poorly at 100nl, which wasn't a big deal. Hit up a ton of LeggoPoker vids (all of craig's low limit stuff) and tried to soak up all of the selective aggression information. After some PT review and reflection I decided that my game was pretty straightforward and I needed to make some alterations in order to prevent falling into tagfish mentality. And so started the 50nl "let's get into tough spots with marginal hands and learn how to play" adventure.

I'd like to give myself an "A" for effort, because I went all out crazy trying to get into marginal spots. I think I did a pretty good job of that, running 29/25/4.5 over the 900 or so hands I put in. However, I get a nice, big "FAIL" for my overall results. While I effectively got into these marginal spots, you can't really say that I managed them even close to profitably. Of the overall 8 buyins I lost during the process, I'd say that about 3 of them were due to coolers (KK vs AA, QQ vs AA, JJ vs QQ), a couple due to combo draws not hitting, and the rest was just bad play on my part. Growing pains were to be expected, so I'm not too concerned. In general though, I was really pleased with the process, as I started to get the hang of when to float certain villains and take the pot away on the turn, who and when I could 3bet lite preflop, what boards I could profitably (and not so profitably) double barrel, etc. We'll call it a $250 lesson and move on knowing that I've gained a ton of knowledge that should help my overall play.

Some interesting hands that popped up through the week that are worth discussing:

Hand 1:
Villain is 22/11/0.9 over 220 hands and we've tangled a bit in some smaller pots. I'm playing pretty loose at this point in the session, opening a lot of hands late position with very little resistance from the table. Being as though we're both 200bb+ deep I think a call of his 3bet here is pretty mandatory. He's likely not 3betting with his mid pocket pairs here, so he almost certainly has JJ+, AQ+ and if I can flop big I might be able to build up a fairly significant pot (implied odds ftw). Check behind on the flop leads me to believe he's got a decent hand that has showdown value, basically just looking for some pot control. Turn is gold for me as it likely doesn't improve my perceived range and he's obligated to make a call with literally anything in his range outside of AQ. Here's where I think I mess up the hand... I bet $14 into $24 and end up missing a significant amount of value in the hand because of it. What hand can he possibly have that is calling $14 but not calling $20? Nothing. So if I bet out to $20 here and get a call then I have a $64 pot on the river that I can fire $55 or so at and likely get a call from AK still. As played, though, I still like the river bet size in relation to the pot in order to maximize my value. Overall, I likely missed out on at least $20 more from him simply by betting too small on the flop. Baby steps... baby steps...

Hand 2:
Villain is 19/8/1.3 over 170 hands. More missed value on this hand, I think. A flat behind from a villain with these stats likely means a mid to low pocket pair (22-TT), or some sort of suited broadway cards. Pretty standard cbet on the flop here, although I'm not 100% pleased with the size. I've been trying to change up my bet size between 1/2pot and 3/4pot, but don't think this is necessarily the spot for the former. Anyway, on the turn I need to be firing out more than $14 into $24 (coincidence? more likely a trend...). Standard Zeebo theorem applies, and I just made second nuts. Same goes for the river, as the J likely doesn't improve my hand here. Probably another Andrew Jackson left on the table here.... frown face.

Hand 3:
Villain is 31/22/2.4 over 150 hands. Pretty standard isolation here, and obviously jumping up and down in my seat when the flop hits. However, what line is best to take in these situations. I know that the original raiser is crazy aggressive on the flop (9.5 flop AF), so I elected to let him stab at it. I didn't want to c/r him off of a hand like KQ, QQ, JJ, or some other randomness. Felt like he might take another stab at it on the turn, and I'd still almost always get him to stack off with AQ and maybe AJ, but does c/c flop + check turn actually "look too strong"? Anyway, figured a river bet of like $15 would look like a blocker bet with mid pocket pair, but maybe I should have just let him attempt to bluff the river. I know it's all theoretical at this point, but what line do y'all think would get the best value here?

Hand 4:
UTG+1 Villain is 56/21/1.7 over 170 hands; CO and SB are unknown but I'm not giving the CO any credit with his stack size as it is. 69s isn't a hand I'll typically play, but given the multiway nature of the pot I figured it was good enough to see a flop. Leading the flop here is pretty standard, I think. Turn completes the flush draw, so betting out here might not be the greatest idea, but I still think it's fine. If I get raised up here it's an easy pitch, but I dont exactly know what a flatcall suggests... he minraised preflop UTG+1, flatted a flop bet, and now flats a turn bet. It didn't really add up to me, and I figured he might have something like AJc or something of that nature, so I went for some value on the river. Was this a mistake? I don't really think I can call a raise here, but I just can't quite figure out what he could possibly have here.

** I've got 2 more hands that I want to post, but I'm only going to put up partial streets in order to get feedback on lines. Hopefully I'll have time to get those up soon.

Posted byM0NIKER at 11:33 AM 1 comments  

March Results (... aka "a whole lotta fail")
01 April 2008

Talk about a bad month in terms of personal goals. I had wanted to crank out like 15k-20k but actually played even less in March than I had in February. Overall I think that I may have burnt out a bit and just chose to spend time on other aspects of my life, which I think is a good thing. I don't want to be sitting at the tables if my mind isn't into it. However, I did manage to watch a ton of videos and finish up reading Prof. No-Limit Hold'em (overall, I'd give it a solid conceptual rating, but don't know how applicable it is to real life play... I'll certainly be reading again when I get the time).

I think one of my big problems towards the end of the month was lack of accountability. Once the group that I was in dissolved, I found myself lacking the motivation to sit at the table and grind out hands. This certainly isn't meant to put the blame on anyone else, as this is 100% my problem -- I should be accountable to one person, and one person only. That being said, I think that a solid group of players surrounding me definitely enhanced my game, and I hope that in the near future I'll be able to get some more sweats in and eventually find another group to be part of. In the meantime, I need to work on setting a schedule for myself and sticking to it. I can't get better if I don't play... "If you want to be the man, you've got to beat the man."

March Results:





Table Profit: $504.53
ABS Rakeback: $142.30
PokerStars Reward: Nintendo Wii (finally got it... time to mod it)

February Goals Review:

• 3,00 hands / wk -- FAIL
• Sustain > 3.5 ptbb/100 -- FAIL (ran just under 3... at least I was in the green)
• 1 non-group sweat session / wk -- FAIL (do we see a trend?)
• Watch 2 instructional videos / wk -- SUCCESS (at least I blew this one out of the water)
  
• Weekly reviews via blog posts -- SUCCESS (kind of... need to do more hand analysis)
  
• Finish reading Professional NLHE -- SUCCESS (not quite sure how I feel about it right now)
• Begin reading The Poker Mindset -- SUCCESS (started it... even though I'm not very far)

Posted byM0NIKER at 4:43 PM 3 comments  

weekly update #12

24 Mar - 30 Mar:
1,307 hands (100nl)
-$181.80
-6.95 ptbb/100

See last post... except even more vids. As mentioned before, I chose to leave CR in favor of LeggoPoker and have been very impressed. Craig's videos are top notch and I already feel like I've picked up a few things from his play that will help me out once I get back into the swing of things. Here's hoping I don't fail so hard in April!

Side note: btimm thinks that just because he is leading fantasy baseball on opening day he is somehow going to pull a victory. Such a bad move, overconfidence is.

Posted byM0NIKER at 4:32 PM 0 comments  

weekly update #11

17 Mar - 23 Mar:
772 hands (100nl)
-$25.64
-1.66 ptbb/100

Nothing to see here folks... didn't play a lot due to other things going on in my everyday lifes. However, did manage to watch a bunch of vids in my free time, so that's a plus I think.

Posted byM0NIKER at 4:27 PM 0 comments