o'nine
07 January 2009
Without dwelling on it too much, 2008 was pretty much an up and down year for. Started off really well as I dedicated myself to becoming a solid 50nl player and moved up steadily to playing in the 200nl games regularly (thanks to mark, ian, brian, dodgy, jason, et al). Unfortunately I became pretty lackadaisical about halfway through the year and my progression ground to a halt. I wasn't booking the hours I needed to constantly improve my game and, obviously, my results suffered. Thankfully I've enjoyed the time away from the tables, so I guess there's a silver lining there somewhere, but I digress...
2009 -- return to form. I've spent the past few days trying to figure out what I want out of poker right now. I know for a fact that it's not going to be used as my primary income anytime soon (and likely not ever), but it is a hobby that I *do* enjoy trying to 'beat.' The past few months I've been unmotivated to play because it had lost that "fun factor" for me... go figure, I'd been losing. Thanks to some brutal honesty from a friend who will remain anonymous I now realize that I had only been fooling myself. How could I honestly expect to keep winning and moving up if I wasn't dedicating myself to actively improving as a poker player?
Enough of that I say. Beginning this week I have a new schedule laid out for myself that will help me start achieving my goals. I'll be playing almost every day as well as reviewing hands, watching vids, reading forums, etc. more than ever. If you don't see any blog posts from me for over a week, please verbally abuse me over IM. Also please feel free to contact me if you want to set up sweats, talk through hands, or whatever else.
Fortunately 2008 was positive as a whole and my bankroll is still more than sufficient, even for 200nl. However, since I'm definitely rusty and am moving all of my play over to a different site (PStars) I think I'll stick to 100nl for this month. I'd like to get in around 20k hands, at which point I can determine if it's time to move back to 200nl for good. Best of luck to everyone on the new year!
Posted byM0NIKER at 12:18 PM 5 comments
mia / bad beats
05 November 2008
Well it's been over a month since I posted... that's not so cool. October was pretty meh, think I won like 3 BI's at 200nl playing a very small volume. I really need to get my act together and transfer my moneys onto Stars. I have little to no motivation to sit on AP with 5 regs and a fish, and it's killing my volume. No excuse though... I'm the only one holding me back.
November has started off pretty much as horribly as it could have. It seems that I'm second best in every conceivable situation so far (A high flush vs straight flush, sets vs straights, QQ/KK/AK vs AA, etc etc etc). I honestly am very surprised that I'm only down 4 or 5 BI's right now this month.
In other news, my xbox360 broke last week. This makes it lucky #3 in the past 16 months, and it couldn't have happened at a worse time. Currently the lil machine from hell is getting all fixed up somewhere in Texas, and all I can do is wait until it comes back before I buy GOW2 and waste away some more of my life. God that game is fun... can't wait.
Posted byM0NIKER at 11:50 AM 1 comments
september results
01 October 2008
Ah September... not really what I was looking for results wise, but I'll take it. Managed to do a pretty good job on my goals this month, which I think will really help out in the long run. Made sure I sat 30+ hrs. during the past 30 days, and even though the hand volume isn't spectacular (just under 9,000 because I ended up 2 tabling during some rough patches) I think that the time was well spent on analyzing the particular dynamics of the tables and trying to put myself in more profitable situations.
Also, watching a good amount of videos and listening to some coaching tapes really has me thinking on a higher level than previously. I truly believe that my success at 100nl over the past few months was due to me playing pretty solid "ABC poker" and generally not making big mistakes. The more I learn about hand reading, putting opponents on ranges, optimizing my lines, getting thin value, etc. the more I realize that my play is vastly different than 1 or 2 months ago. Obviously there will be growing pains with this new approach, and I've certainly experienced them in the past month (see below). I think the important thing to remember is that while there will be small mistakes now, so long as I'm learning from them and enhancing my game they will pay off in the long run.
Here's hoping that October is an extension of the last 3,000 hands of the month!
Posted byM0NIKER at 1:48 PM 2 comments
cliff diving
19 September 2008
Haven't really updated much this month, mainly because things haven't really been going well and I just haven't been motivated to post anything relevant. I've gotten a decent number of hours in at the 200nl tables this month, but the results just aren't there. I want to say that this is because I'm just running into the tops of my villains ranges (as I am not really finding spots where I absolutely hate my play), but at this point I'm not really sure anymore. I'll probably start posting some "problem hands" on Leggo in the next week or so as I review them more... validation that I'm not completely effing up would probably help my confidence right now.
I'm trying to work through the downswing by 2tabling 200nl instead of dropping back down the 4 tables of 100nl. This should (in theory) help me to range my opponents and follow game flow even closer than normal (goddamn you AP and your super fast mega turbo tables... fix the regular speed ones). Anyway, I'm not ready to step closer to the ledge, but I'll be honest and say that my ego is a little bruised. Hopefully this is all for the best though and my "luck" turns around soon.... I'd love to stop running poorly.
*/end rant*
Posted byM0NIKER at 3:42 PM 2 comments
august results
09 September 2008
Didn't get much time to play in August, but to be honest, that was expected. Birthday, vacation, fantasy football prep, work hell translates to not much time at the table. Oh well... I still managed to watch a ton of vids, talk through hands with malfaire, and generally try to improve my game as a whole. As autumn kicks in I hope to get more time at the tables and learn even more. 200nl is a much different beast to 50nl/100nl IMO, at least on AP. I'm not necessarily saying it's more difficult (because I don't think that it is), but the play from the regulars seems much different. I think that postflop play is truly the place where I can gain the biggest edge over my opponents and I'm focusing a lot of my efforts on improving my hand reading and winning pots that actually see a flop.
As for goals I pretty much sucked hard again. I'm going to be changing up my goal list to something that I can track throughout the month as well as keep them attainable. I really like malfaire's approach, so I'm gonna gank it. Anyway, results below. Don't read into them too much, the sample is ridiculously low. As malfaire pointed out though, EV doesn't get me anywhere in life. Show me the moneys!!!!!
August Results:
Table Profit: $394.50
ABS Rakeback: $112.51
Posted byM0NIKER at 12:03 PM 0 comments