Fall 2010

I know it’s been almost half a year (!) since my last post, but it’s all for good reason.

Since April it feels like I have transformed as a poker player and as a person…I’ve been spending less time with poker and more time with friends and my girlfriend, which has been a very good thing. Over the last few months, while still on my stake, tournaments have become to feel increasingly like high-stress mental slave labor and I often noticed myself wishing I would just bust out of any particular day’s MTT session so I could walk outside and get lunch and not worry about blinds eating my stack, but probably more importantly so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain of getting any place besides first. Whenever I cashed for the minimum it felt like a waste of time, and whenever I got 11th or 3rd or 6th (come on, 1sts are difficult ), it felt like defeat despite the handsome prize attached to such a “strong” finish. Anything but first place in a poker tournament will and should make a serious tournament player bitter and disappointed, and I was sick of experiencing this sentiment on the daily. In the past I rationalized grinding tournaments because of all the time and effort I put into improving my game, plus the decent results I had over thousands of events, but when you step back and really think about it, playing tournaments for a living is a crazy idea. The amount of money you must invest in entries (and in travel/hotels, if you’re a live player), the time necessary to give yourself a chance to ride out variance, and the almost guaranteed emotional agony associated with the very nature of tournaments…I commend anyone who can actually do it and still lead a happy life.

So, I have switched to cash games almost exclusively. I will still play the occasional Sunday Million (buy in with FPPs), but for the rest of any particular week I will devote intense mental focus to playing and studying cash games. When I left my stake for the second time in 19 months last Sunday, I told my boss that tournaments cause too much anxiety to be worth the rare big score (which in itself will only happen if you put in tons of volume, making the mental burden worse and the inflexible time commitment even greater), and that cash games will provide the more consistent income I need in my life. I am not the first person to have felt this way; at least one coach from the MTT training video website Poker Pwnage has said that cash games brought to his life a type of relatively stress-free financial consistency that tournaments never could. Although playing in a major tournament every now and then can be fun and even extremely lucrative, if you are bankrolled for a particular limit and you constantly put effort into improving as a player and staying ahead of the curve, cash games are the way to go.

A Deuces Cracked subscription and one million hand histories from Poker Table Ratings for the $0.25/$0.50 6-max cash games -and- full ring cash games (depending on which I settle on playing) on Poker Stars should accelerate me on my path to crushing my current limit for a decent hourly rate as well as eventually moving up in stakes. I’m still not sure if I want to move to Full Tilt for weekly 27% rakeback or stay with Poker Stars for ~30% rakeback ($4,000 bonus every 1.087 million hands), but my overall goals are to drastically improve as a solid, tricky, and disciplined cash game player so I can spend less time on the internet felt and more time enjoying real life.

Thanks for reading, and more to come! 

ACTUALLY, Pure Profits Will Suffice

I am forsaking my goal to attain Supernova Elite this year. It is just too much of a grind for my current bankroll/cash skills/social life/discipline/etc. Instead, I am going to focus on simply profiting like I did in the old days. VPPs will be a sideline bonus, as I will still reach regular Supernova status (~35% rakeback) in the next few months.

When I asked my MTT backer for a cash bankroll to embark on my SNE quest, he shipped me $3k and things were looking good for a few thousand hands. But then I realized I am an awful cash game player (compared to my MTT skills + experience) and these funds quickly eroded over the next couple weeks. Dejected, I was willing to re-enter a staking deal with my backer starting with a decent amount of makeup to account for my ring game losses, but first I gave a shot at some Steps SnGs using FPPs to buy in.

I bought a few Step 4 ($215) tickets and eventually maneuvered my way to a 6-max Step 6 ($2,100) satellite into the SCOOP Main Event [H]. I won it for $10,300, immediately un-registered from the tournament for T$, and traded these for real money at a 97% rate using this website . This allowed me to pay back my staker for my cash game experiment (disaster?), withdraw some money for myself to pay bills and save in general, and still leave myself 100 buy-ins for the $16 turbos on PokerStars (plus the occasional $11 MTT).  Reinvigorated studying of SnG strategy as well as the strict bankroll management I’ve been practicing since February 2009 will ensure that  this money only grows. Plus, no more profit splitting!

It was a knock to my ego to have to give up on the goal which I had hyped up so much. I didn’t realize how grueling it would be to put in ten hours per day of 24-tabling *tough* games and still make a profit without going crazy or getting butt muscle cramps. However, 2011 will be a different story.

Actually, Supernova_Elite_Plz

Change of plans. I have left my MTT/SnG backer (on good terms). Here are my numbers since February ’09:

• Time period: 384 days (Feb. 26, 2009 – Mar. 16, 2010)
• Events played (SnGs & MTTs): 11,869
• Total profit (before split): $19,265

I’d like to formally thank my staker for providing the funds which allowed me to play thousands of tournaments on Full Tilt and PokerStars and gain the experience which has molded me into the improved poker player I am today. Of course I only hope to get better, but it feels different playing solely with my own money. I hope the bankroll management skills I have acquired during the staking arrangement will allow me to safely profit over a very long term.

Warning: many numbers to follow…

Instead of going for Supernova status (100,000 VPPs) by August 6, my new goal is to reach Supernova Elite (1,000,000 VPPs) before the end of the year. As of today I have 39,000 VPPs; I will reach 100,000 in early April (about 20,000 VPPs/week). Then, from May through the rest of the calendar year, I plan on really hunkering down and accruing 24,000 VPPs per week. Assuming I earn 500 VPPs/hour by 24-tabling 100NL, I will need to play about 48 hours/week. My foremost goal is to play a style that is low-variance and geared toward slow and steady bankroll growth so (1) I don’t go broke and (2) I can move up to 200NL and reduce my workload by approximately one-third (or reach my goal 1.5 times faster).

Okay! So what will it mean when I finally reach Supernova Elite status? Take a look:

• Milestone Bonuses: $30,800
• Free entry into two major live tournaments: $18,000 – $30,400
• Free entry into the WCOOP Main Event: $5,200
• Frequent Player Points (FPPs): $48,700 – $74,400
• Total: $102,700 – $135,800

As you can see, reaching SNE status alone is worth over $100 grand…all I need to do is at least break even with my rigorous cash game schedule for the next 40 weeks or so.

Speaking of which, since I have been mostly a [single- and multi-table] tournament player for the last year, there are some things I will need to keep in mind if I am to crush (survive?) the small stakes ring games on PS (very incomplete list of leaks, obviously):

• re-raising: be more inclined to do it out of position instead of in position. The latter will only polarize our range and will lead to villain folding worse hands and re-raising (or shoving) hands which are ahead of ours. We should just call (usually to set-mine, as long as calling commits no more than 5-10% of the effective stack) and see a flop, preferably in position. Position alone makes flatting a raise profitable, not to mention more easily getting value from slightly worse hands on multiple streets.
• ace-king (mother%*#&er!!): I am used to 3-, 4-, and 5-betting with this hand from my tournament days, but such plays are unwise in cash games. We’re going to be flipping at best (usually versus pocket queens or maybe jacks) when villain calls; more likely we will stack off 100 BBs to wired kings or aces and kick ourselves for overplaying a drawing hand pre-flop. I have been trying to get into the habit of using my Poker Tracker stats to determine whether I should re-raise with AK or just flat a villain’s raise and only continue if I hit at least one pair. In any case, it’s worth considering the idea of keeping people involved in the pot when they hold AT/AJ/AQ and we hold AK. Just no three-outers please!
• bet/folding: a poker friend of mine turned me on to this idea no homo, and I am starting to really like it. You cannot win a pot out of position against aggressive opponents by checking and hoping for a free showdown; you must bet. However, it’s also important to not stack off with just one pair in no-limit hold’em cash games, so leading out with a marginal hand (i.e. one pair, be it middle-pair, top-pair / top-kicker, or even an over-pair) and planning to fold to a raise is a good way to maintain the initiative in a hand and take down lots of small pots. Please remember to be disciplined enough to follow through with the folding part of this move: when your tight opponent raises your bet on a flop of 8-3-4 and you hold KK, just fold.

That’s all for now, but I’m sure I have tons to learn now that I have committed myself to cash games. Good luck at the tables!

Supernova_Plz

Long time, no post. Here are the numbers from the first two months of 2010:

• Time period: 59 days (Jan. 1 – Feb. 28)
• Events played (SnGs & MTTs): 1,230
• Total profit (before split): $421 (lowest point, again: about -$3k)

At the end of 2009 I wrote that I was going to try to avoid dipping so deeply into the negative at the beginning of the month(s) to come, but obviously it’s going to take more effort to break that habit since it happened at the beginning of January and February. At least I have the bankroll to absorb losses and give me a chance to rebound like I always do. I believe the key will be to focus as well as I can on every set of SnGs I play and each MTT I enter.

Speaking of MTTs, Full Tilt is hosting MiniFTOPS XV from March 10 through March 21, and I plan on playing in the majority of the no-limit hold’em events. Although this online “circuit” is really nothing more than a collection of frustratingly inflated donkaments, the huge guarantees and decent structures are enticing enough for me to put in some serious time and aim for a life-changing score.

And on a more long-term note, I have decided to achieve Supernova status on PokerStars by August 6, 2010. (I chose this date so I will be able to freeroll into the quarterly $1 million VIP tournament on August 7.)  If I put in high SnG volume on five days per week from now until August, I will accumulate the required 100,000 VPPs by playing four sets of SnGs per day at 20 SnGs per set. These, along with the MTTs I will play on Sundays (contributing an additional 1-200 VPPs), will elevate me to Supernova status on schedule. Once I achieve this status it will last until the end of February 2011, and the frequent player points I earn until then (at the 3.5x Supernova rate) can add up to “purchase” all sorts things.

I will try to update this blog more frequently from now on, but who knows what 113 days of SnG grinding can do to a person.

The End…of 2009

Had the absolute worst month of my life in November (which I won’t explain) and this month wasn’t much better until I won the Fifty-Fifty on Full Tilt last Wednesday for $10.8k. I played smart, aggressive poker and put everything I currently know to use to take it down, and it felt damn good. Running like a god helped, too, as I got lucky a few times when I had someone all-in and never got unlucky when I was all-in. That, along with having the balls to 5-bet from the big blind, is what brought my name to the top. And thanks to everyone who railed me (no homo); I appreciate the support.

Números:

• Time period: 56 days (Nov. 3 – Dec. 28)
• Events played (SnGs & MTTs): 1,569
• Total profit (before split): $7,768 (lowest point: -$3.5k)

It’s definitely a relief to no longer have thousands of dollars of makeup looming over my head, and in January I’m going to try to avoid dipping into the negative like I always seem to do at the beginning of every month. As much as I’m beginning to hate SnGs, I plan on continuing to use profits from them to absorb the relentless MTT buy-ins which eat away at my bankroll in between final tables and big scores.

That’s all for now. Enjoy New Year’s!

October 2009

Before I forget, here are October’s numbers:

• Time Period:  28 days (Oct. 1 – Oct.28)
• Events Played (SnGs & MTTs): 1,578
• Total profit (before split): $1,120

Starting within a few days I am going to experiment with a weekly schedule I have designed to see how it impacts my mood and alertness and consequently my poker results:

Each 90-minute block of green represents a set of SnGs on Poker Stars. Although turbos usually last only 45-50 minutes, I am allotting myself extra time to account for how long it takes for 30-40 SnGs to fill up and completely register, as well as the occasional extended heads-up match. (Note: the constant strip of green on Sunday means I will be grinding MTTs instead of SnGs.)

Exercise will include weight training (squatting, benching, and other compound exercises) and high-intensity interval training, or HIIT. My main goals in this department are to increase my metabolism in order to be more alert during the 9 hours I will be playing poker every day as well as to build muscle and burn fat. I will also stretch at the beginning and end of each workout to avoid injuries and improve circulation (sitting in an office chair all day cannot be +EV for my veins amirite).

“Break” time will actually be used for overflow minutes for any SnGs which take an extraordinary long time to register and/or finish. Of course I will also water my garden during these times. o_0

I was initially concerned that I didn’t give myself enough “study” time in this schedule, but I feel comfortable with my ability to profit from mass-multi-tabling the $16s for right now. Obviously I will at some point study harder and attempt to move up in limits within the next year, but for right now my main priority is to seriously profit and save money for my own apartment.

“Off day” and “sleep” are just that.

If I don’t go insane trying to adhere to the above plan over the next couple of weeks, I will report how I’m feeling and my poker wins/losses. Thanks for reading!

darq

P.S.: I highly recommend the Firefox add-on “LeechBlock” if you want to help yourself be more productive while using the internet.

The Anti-Burnout Plan

I just played a set of 30 $16 SnGs on PS, not listening to music or fapping at any point. My ROI was 43% ($208.50 profit) and my cash rate was 47%. These numbers aren’t sustainable IMO but it felt good to be able to handle such a large number of tables. Thirty seems to be the point at which both my brain and my computer’s CPU start to feel the heat, ya feel me. But with the help of Table Ninja and an AutoHotkey script I use to send tables back and forth between my two monitors, I think multi-tabling at this volume will quickly become easier. My only complaint is that trying to run my HUD (heads-up display) while playing more than ~20 tables really seems to slow down my computer, so I may have to invest in a quad-core processor as a practical upgrade (it was a minor mistake on my part to purchase a dual-core back when I was building my rig, but oh well. Every other aspect of the machine is working excellently).

I’m going to visit a friend of mine for the Halloween weekend, and I think the trip will be a good way for me to relax after working hard to regain my PlatinumStar status this month. Aside from having a good time with a fellow aspiring poker professional, I plan to prevent a burnout (and downswing) similar to the one I experienced in early September after grinding myself out of my mind in August.

So far in October I am +$151.19 with 3,971.50 VPP. My goal is to play 70-80 $16s per day (excluding Sundays) between now and the 27th so I can chill during the last few days of the month. With me luck!

darq

Candy for the Haters

After showing a profit for half a year, I finally had a losing month. Aside from bad play, I attribute the downswing to simply being burnt out from playing so much in August. Reaching Platinum & Ironman statuses while still being in school wasn’t exactly the most relaxing venture, and I never took a day off to recharge before barreling into the next 30 days. But at least I can identify what my problem was and fix it for the future.

September, 2009′s numbers:

• Time period: 30 days (Sep. 1 – Sep. 30)
• Events played (SnGs & MTTs): 941
• Total profit (before split): -$69.83

It’s a shame my plan of playing fewer tables seemed to fail miserably…it’s time to go for Platinum again.

Preparations for October and Beyond

Starting in October, when I’m finally finished with school, I plan to saturate my schedule with playing/studying poker and exercise. As an extra incentive to help me with the latter, I bought some new head phones and running shoes:

As a side note, I haven’t been playing nearly as many SnGs as I did in August, evident by the pressure I’m feeling to even make GoldStar on PS this month. In some respects my ego is pushing me to achieve this status as a minimum on a regular basis, but the 2x FPP multiplier represents an actual rational reason to go for it.

For example, 10-person satellites (which pay 4 people) into the Sunday Million run around the clock during the week and cost 5,400 FPPs. As a GoldStar I’d need to play at least 78 $16 turbos per day to accrue enough FPPs to give the satellite a shot once a week. Because the SM entry may be exchanged for T$215, such a plan is extremely +EV since it’s relatively easy to “cash” in the satellite.

I did this yesterday and played four $60 turbos, profiting $470 with solid play and average luck. Despite that, I’m still several hundred in the hole and I’m scrambling to show a profit for this month, but I’ve been in this situation before and somehow I always get myself out of it before the 1st.

P.S.: I’d like to congratulate my friend Josh (“kjoshua” on Poker Stars) for qualifying for a seat in a European Poker Tour event in London on October 2nd. A baller in the making IMO. gl!

Last Month of College

Despite an awful last week of August (almost $700 downswing) I still reached my goals of Ironman status on Full Tilt and PlatinumStar status on PokerStars.

Check it out:

• Time period: 31 days (Aug. 1 – Aug. 31)
• Events played (SnGs & MTTs): 2,232
• Total profit (before split): $1,533

My low point in August was almost -$600, so things could’ve gone worse.

In other news, I built myself a new computer to multi-table more SnGs (and for better performance overall), but this means I can no longer use two monitors until I save money for another screen. Anyway, I am very happy with it so far. Here are the specs:

• CPU – AMD Phenom II X2 545 3.0GHz Dual-Core
• GPU – XFX Radeon HD 4850 1GB
• Motherboard – Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H
• PSU – Antec 550W ATX12V (modular)
• RAM – 8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR2 @ 1066MHz
• HDD – 2 x W.D. 160GB 7200 RPM (in RAID 0)
• DVD – Lite-On 22x DVD±RW
• Case – Antec 300 ATX Mid Tower (3 intake, 2 exhaust)
• OS – Microsoft Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit

Those items totaled around $800, but pre-assembled setups with identical components can cost hundreds more, so I’m proud I saved a bundle and finally took the leap of building my own PC.

Speaking of which, the process of putting everything together went relatively well since I’d been researching online and I am decently tech-savvy as it is. But I seemed to be grounding myself several times a minute out of nervousness, so I’ll probably invest in an anti-static wristband for next times’ peace of mind (and just to feel cool in general). In the meantime I may explore overclocking…but every so cautiously since 3.0GHz processors don’t exactly grow on trees.

Back to poker (kind of): I used 25,000 FTPs, 10k of which I had to buy with Ironman medals, to purchase a football jersey which I will superciliously flaunt to represent my eternal struggle with the laggy, piece-of-shit rigjob of a site called Full Tilt. o_0 …j/k, I love you, Howard. ^_^

Honestly I am not sure if I will be able to maintain my Platinum status on PS this month without playing significantly fewer games on FTP. I only have one monitor right now and my TableNinja trial (read: crutch) expired, but this may be a good thing since my cumulative ROI (since late February ’09) fell from 20% at the beginning of August to 12% at the end of August. For the mathematically less-inclined, this means recently I’ve been earning $1.28 less per $16 SnG, and this adds up when you play thousands of SnGs, amirite. The point is that by playing a lower average number of SnGs/day I will hopefully substitute a lower hourly rate with a higher return on investment (stated another way, I will work less for a higher wage). One interesting note is that if I can maintain an average ROI of 10% playing about 50 $16 SnGs per day from now on, I can make $15,000 before April ’10.

Toning down the heavy multi-tabling might give me more time to play MTTs, but lately final tables are like UFOs: they are elusive as fuck and I seem to get a probe up my ass whenever I get close to one.

On that note, have a good month and ttyl! =]