Well it's fair to say February was a pretty great month in terms of total profit thanks to the UKPC. I finished just shy of a 5 figure profit month (remember I had to give 50% of my UKPC cash back to stakers) which is a great month by anyone's standards.
My first month on the staking was pretty frustrating in terms of results. I played pretty well all month, the action was better than I expected (I'm generally able to play up to 12 tables if I want to - I'm tending to stick to 6 atm though), and the games are soft. Unfortunately I ran pretty bad, just seemed to be running into the top of peoples ranges over and over again. Everyime I'd be like 'ok, well he can have X, Y and Z here... oh he's got top set again' lol.
Can't complain though, I obviously didn't run THAT bad because my month's losses were fairly small in terms of BIs (about -5 BIs IIRC).
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March has got off to a flyer though!
I saw the new rakerace promo on Sky and as I got <500 points last month I'll be in the bronze tier. I might be in with a shout of winning something half decent if I play some 50NL here alongside the other cash tables on the stake. So figured I'll do that for a couple of days, see how I measure up on the leaderboard and see if it's worth continuing or just using that screen space for more cash tables on the stake.
Tonight I had the first taste of the serious reduction in action on here. I was playing pretty much the whole night 8pm til just gone midnight, and it's Saturday night, one of the absolute peak periods of the site and the best I could do was get FOUR tables of 50NL running. It can't even be blamed on capped games cos there was only about 3 of them running. Maybe all these rakeraces have just burnt everyone out... or they're busting the weaker players quicker than normal. Either way it's a shame to only see 4 tables of 50NL on a Saturday night.
So I played 6 tables on my stake, 3 x 100NL and 3 x 200NL and finished +$550 Then on my other monitor I was on all 4 of the 50NL tables that were running and finished +£250
So a great start to the month for me, long may it continue!
Well done m8, good to see ur hard work paying off lately, nice change from the brutal downswings. Posted by foldUfairy
Cheers Fairy. Its definitely nice to be putting some good results together. As always in poker, that next big downswing can always be just round the next corner so I'm just making hay while the sun shines.
Another cash session tonight. My other site went a bit rubbish, nothing much went my way in any decent sized pot, was only about -$100 though just before the end of the session then just before I'm standing I get AA and think 'come on, a chance to get break even...' so I 3bet someone's open, they peel JJ and flop a set, that's a bit urgh but then to make it worse the river gives me the nut flush and him the boat so obv stacked off for the full $200
Sky went a little better though, nothing major but I 4tabled 50NL again and finished about +£65. Obviously it's always fun when you're winning but I'm really enjoying playing back on Sky. There's something familiar and nice about playing on here that I've missed recently.
I'll definitely take that for the first 2 days of the month anyway, a little over +£300 on Sky on my own money and about +$250 on the staking.
Hey Paul, good few weeks then. Think you said as part of the staking you were getting some coaching, has that happened and do you feel it has made a big difference to your game (cash or mtt)?
I haven't actually had any coaching yet due to my own laziness. Basically before a coaching session I need to send all my HEM data over to the guy so he can review it beforehand and come to the session ready with some things he wants to go through with me. I spent a while not knowing how to do it (and not getting round to asking them), eventually asked them how to do, then spent a bit longer not getting round to actually sending it lol. Shouldn't laugh, it's just pure laziness/forgetfullness I sent all my data over recently so gonna be having a session any day now. A few people have asked a similar question to you so I'll post up here to let people know how it went/how beneficial I thought it was once I do the session. Fwiw, I'm only playing cash on the stake and so the coaching will only be for cash.
The strong start to March has continued. Tonight's results were....
About +$140 on the staked cash
I lost £45 @ 50NL on Sky
Action was terrible again at 50NL, literally can't remember it ever being this bad. I remember that 40NL used to be the 'dead level' cos everyone either played 30NL or 50NL so it never ran... now 50NL is near enough as dead as 40NL was back then.
So played most of the night with 2 tables (not counting the 6 tables of staked cash on another site), managed to get up to 3 tables a couple of hours in, so I decided to play an £11 BH to fill some screen space. Only went and luckboxed the win from 151 runners...
Lambert1803020001£205.74 + £109.56 Head Prizes10£31.11
Havent followed this much over the last 6 months but started reading recently, when I was trying to qualify for the sky fest main, but really just wanna offer my 2pence regarding staking.
If I were you, i would not get staked imo. Never. If you get into a hole then the makeup becomes such a burden to you game that it will suck the life out what you enjoy(w/o a steady income), and moving to a site where seating scripts, table selectors, PT4/Hem and Russian PTR datamining takes place is a bad line.... as the regs are soo superior in table selection, volume, pushing small edges and the reg:fish ratio is horrid. The bulk of your winnings will typically come from making the highest loyalty status with insane volume imo.
You should fight to keep rakeback your own as part of any deal you make. Say for instance on sky you could make £1k per month with rakeback, as soon as you get staked you need to make double that on a much harder terraine.
I would seriously just stick to sky, do some research on coaches you can work with and pay for some coaching outright. And then seat select between 100nl-300nl with a daily stop loss and play less tables... the instant reduction in rake compared to the winrate you can sustain at that level will set you up for greater stability on this journey of yours imo.
Experienced polar opposites of variance across my 2 sites tonight. Ran great on Sky but terrible on my staked site. I lost 2 pots in the space of 5 mins @ 200NL on there, both times the money went in pre and they were AA v JJ and AA v QQ, both times they flopped a set so that was $800 worth of 2 outters... bleurgh. Finished the night -$350 with my EV line saying I should be like +$200 but oh well, getting it in good is what it's all about.
Sky was the opposite, I did lots of the getting there on here. Tbf I like to think I played pretty well too but there was a spot where I flatted a 3bet w/ JJ, C/C on something like 238r and then didn't believe he had it on the K turn when I really should have folded... he didn't have the K, he just had AA lol... and I rivered the J.
Another big get there was when I 3bet KK and villian 4bets, we're both 200xBB deep and against the sizing he used I just KNOW I'm beat, and I so wanna fold, was so close to folding but I'm such a little fish that I just can't fold so I peel, get some ridic good flop like K83r and obv he has AA and we GII on the flop for a 400xBB pot.
I did get a couple of ugly outdraws too though so it wasn't all plain sailing but the end result was a +£300 session. Pretty amazing start to March being almost +£1k on Sky in 5 days and back down to about break even (before RB) on my other site after tonight.
Cheers for the advice TPTP. I agree with a lot of it if my circumstances were slightly different but with the £18k bink I'd sold 50% of myself for the tourney so I got £9k and £6.5k of it was banked towards savings to buy a house. So I did increase my roll a fair bit but nothing astronomical and even with very very good table selection I don't think I'm rolled for 100/200NL+ on my own money unless I just wanna be a massive bum hunter and not play a pot against anyone but the 'big fish at the table' which I aint gonna be.
I assume you're talking about ipoker predominantly for all that stuff? Cos I haven't actually played on ipoker on the stake yet, I'm happy playing on the smaller site, and it's fairly soft on there with mostly US players. Rakeback isn't a big part of my profit tbh, like I've never even made close to £500 in one month on Sky. I remember a fellow poker player (whose played for a living for a good while now) said to me when I told him about going pro 'if you can't make a living from the game pre-rakeback, then you need to find a different profession' and I completely agree with that.
I do have to pay double the rake to get the same RB but then the stakes I'm playing are more than double what I'm playing on my own £££ so rake/RB will be double with just the same volume, plus I get a WAY better % on there than I do on Sky (I'd never reach the 30k points on Sky to get the max 30% RB, on there I get 50% regardless). Plus playing that much higher means pots get to the rake cap SO much easier so most of the pots are reaching the effective 'rake-free' area.
I'll never ever understand why "Rakeback" seems to be a dirty word for people.
Yes, off course you need to be a winning player first and foremost. A little bit of effort though and searching for the right deal can add a significant amount to your monthly profits.
If you're going to be playing at higher stakes on other sites and putting in big volume, you could get some great Rakeback deals for yourself.
I'll never ever understand why "Rakeback" seems to be a dirty word for people. Yes, off course you need to be a winning player first and foremost. A little bit of effort though and searching for the right deal can add a significant amount to your monthly profits. If you're going to be playing at higher stakes on other sites and putting in big volume, you could get some great Rakeback deals for yourself. Posted by Jac35
i wouldnt say its a dirty word. IMO the problem is, if you are a break even player (and living off rakeback), then you need to put in huuuge volume every month just to earn a basic wage. with the game getting tougher is wont take much for you to be losing more than your rakeback given your volume.
rakeback should always been seen as a bonus because of that
it probably changes a bit if you play games with very little edge, like hyper SNGs, where you can ut in big volume and never really lose too much edge due to players getting better.
Yeah it's not so much a dirty word, but it's just not always sustainable or something you can rely on. Being better than your opponents and beating the games is always gonna make you money, but you never know what will happen with RB.
Just look at what happened on Sky about 12 months ago when C4P changed. A lot of people who play BIG volume here had their RB cut by not far off 50%. If you're a player that breaks even in the games (give or take) but makes £2k per month in RB, then suddenly it drops to £1k, that's a pretty huge knock, you probably aren't making enough money any more to live and there's nothing you can do about it (other than learn to start beating the games).
RB just isn't guaranteed at all, Sky (or any site) could change it all tomorrow and that's up to them. You don't get RB playing live cash/MTTs etc. Fwiw, I'm only talking about playing for a living, if you play recreationally then it's just free money and great, but in terms of playing for a living, imo if you can't make enough of a living from the games then you probably aint good enough to play poker for a living.
Btw, I do get a pretty good RB deal on my staking site (a flat 50% regardless of volume) but that wasn't a deal breaker and even still I'm trying to focus on quality over quantity at the mo anyway so my RB isn't that great. The plan is less tables but bigger win rates cos I was missing a lot of spots to take pots off people when playing too many tables.
Yeah it's not so much a dirty word, but it's just not always sustainable or something you can rely on. Being better than your opponents and beating the games is always gonna make you money, but you never know what will happen with RB. Just look at what happened on Sky about 12 months ago when C4P changed. A lot of people who play BIG volume here had their RB cut by not far off 50%. If you're a player that breaks even in the games (give or take) but makes £2k per month in RB, then suddenly it drops to £1k, that's a pretty huge knock, you probably aren't making enough money any more to live and there's nothing you can do about it (other than learn to start beating the games). RB just isn't guaranteed at all, Sky (or any site) could change it all tomorrow and that's up to them. You don't get RB playing live cash/MTTs etc. Fwiw, I'm only talking about playing for a living, if you play recreationally then it's just free money and great, but in terms of playing for a living, imo if you can't make enough of a living from the games then you probably aint good enough to play poker for a living. Btw, I do get a pretty good RB deal on my staking site (a flat 50% regardless of volume) but that wasn't a deal breaker and even still I'm trying to focus on quality over quantity at the mo anyway so my RB isn't that great. The plan is less tables but bigger win rates cos I was missing a lot of spots to take pots off people when playing too many tables. Posted by Lambert180
Good point. Hadn't considered that. Seems obvious now u mentioned it though.
How many tables do u play now? Always thought 12 was too many. Used to try and play 12 myself, but stopped for the same reasons as u. Play mostly 6-9 tables now. Less if I'm deep in a tourney and can help it.
ahh ok. That makes more sense then. As I think If you get a 10k broll then hitting 100nl-300nl is the equivalent of playing mid stakes on stars without the world class competition imo. And it puts you in position to clear 2-3k per month.
I was mostly talking about grinding it out on stars which would be massively -ev compared to playing here. But if your saving for a house staking might be the way to go.... just have a clear mutual exit strategy.
Comments
Just finished playing the The Storm €2 rebuy in France and took it down for €525
I saw the new rakerace promo on Sky and as I got <500 points last month I'll be in the bronze tier. I might be in with a shout of winning something half decent if I play some 50NL here alongside the other cash tables on the stake. So figured I'll do that for a couple of days, see how I measure up on the leaderboard and see if it's worth continuing or just using that screen space for more cash tables on the stake.
So I played 6 tables on my stake, 3 x 100NL and 3 x 200NL and finished +$550
Then on my other monitor I was on all 4 of the 50NL tables that were running and finished +£250
I haven't actually had any coaching yet due to my own laziness. Basically before a coaching session I need to send all my HEM data over to the guy so he can review it beforehand and come to the session ready with some things he wants to go through with me. I spent a while not knowing how to do it (and not getting round to asking them), eventually asked them how to do, then spent a bit longer not getting round to actually sending it lol. Shouldn't laugh, it's just pure laziness/forgetfullness I sent all my data over recently so gonna be having a session any day now. A few people have asked a similar question to you so I'll post up here to let people know how it went/how beneficial I thought it was once I do the session. Fwiw, I'm only playing cash on the stake and so the coaching will only be for cash.
So played most of the night with 2 tables (not counting the 6 tables of staked cash on another site), managed to get up to 3 tables a couple of hours in, so I decided to play an £11 BH to fill some screen space. Only went and luckboxed the win from 151 runners...
I did get a couple of ugly outdraws too though so it wasn't all plain sailing but the end result was a +£300 session. Pretty amazing start to March being almost +£1k on Sky in 5 days and back down to about break even (before RB) on my other site after tonight.
I do have to pay double the rake to get the same RB but then the stakes I'm playing are more than double what I'm playing on my own £££ so rake/RB will be double with just the same volume, plus I get a WAY better % on there than I do on Sky (I'd never reach the 30k points on Sky to get the max 30% RB, on there I get 50% regardless). Plus playing that much higher means pots get to the rake cap SO much easier so most of the pots are reaching the effective 'rake-free' area.
Just look at what happened on Sky about 12 months ago when C4P changed. A lot of people who play BIG volume here had their RB cut by not far off 50%. If you're a player that breaks even in the games (give or take) but makes £2k per month in RB, then suddenly it drops to £1k, that's a pretty huge knock, you probably aren't making enough money any more to live and there's nothing you can do about it (other than learn to start beating the games).
50% RB + Soft competition sounds vv good lol!
That is good advice for the poker and the house.
Daggers