You need to be logged in to your Sky Poker account above to post discussions and comments.
You might need to refresh your page afterwards.
Jugglegeek's diary. First profitable day for two weeks.
jugglegeek
Member Posts: 623
So I've been playing poker for about 18 months now and I have not a great deal to show for it. I started out playing a weekly pub game but had to stop due to moving house. I've played on Sky and made a few quid on the NL4 tables, probably lost about the same amount to live tournements at the casino and last year lost £100 on stars one night at 3am in 3 very ill thought out heads up hyper SnGs (Three $50 coin flips in a row is pretty hard to take, you'd think I'd have won one of them!)
After this I vowed to take more care and practice proper BRM. I would play on 888 as I'd heard it was full of fish and I could use PT3 to track my results and agonise over my 3-bet rate and c-bet percentages. I would only play 4-6 tables at once and would start at NL6 with $150 until I had $200 and move up. I have enough free time between work and a social life to play 10K hands per month and after 40K hands and 4 months I had won $26.61 that's £17 in four months. Allarmed at paying $260 in rake and only clearing $20 in bonuses I moved to stars with the same intention. But I noticed something odd: My bluffs were not working, people kept 4-betting me, I would frequently get to the river and look at my queen-high and a 120BB pot and wonder how I had got here. To make matters worse it didn't seem to matter what hand I had people only every called my bets with better hands. The only big pots I won were coolers and all four of the magic lines on PT3 were either horizontal or slightly downward slopping.
Then I read an article about 6-max hypers. High variance but lots of fish and good for earning bonuses. After 400 of these I had won $100 and cleared $20 in bonuses. "This is the way for me" I thought. 200 more and a flurray into the conffusing world of 6-max NL10 and I had lost it all (my ROI for these after 660 is 1.3%)
So I'm back to Sky. I feel that after getting my but kicked all over the baize at Stars I have improved as a poker player and have noticed several leaks in my game from PT3. I deposited £40 this aft and am up £4.26 already after about 400 hands (30 C4P). The plan is to post in this thread each Tuesday and play enough poker to make +500 C4P each month so that's around 10k hands.
I've to play another 80 of these 6-max hypers to clear another $10. I'm going to do that an then get my money back from stars and begin again. Besides you guys are far friendly than the folk at 2+2.
After this I vowed to take more care and practice proper BRM. I would play on 888 as I'd heard it was full of fish and I could use PT3 to track my results and agonise over my 3-bet rate and c-bet percentages. I would only play 4-6 tables at once and would start at NL6 with $150 until I had $200 and move up. I have enough free time between work and a social life to play 10K hands per month and after 40K hands and 4 months I had won $26.61 that's £17 in four months. Allarmed at paying $260 in rake and only clearing $20 in bonuses I moved to stars with the same intention. But I noticed something odd: My bluffs were not working, people kept 4-betting me, I would frequently get to the river and look at my queen-high and a 120BB pot and wonder how I had got here. To make matters worse it didn't seem to matter what hand I had people only every called my bets with better hands. The only big pots I won were coolers and all four of the magic lines on PT3 were either horizontal or slightly downward slopping.
Then I read an article about 6-max hypers. High variance but lots of fish and good for earning bonuses. After 400 of these I had won $100 and cleared $20 in bonuses. "This is the way for me" I thought. 200 more and a flurray into the conffusing world of 6-max NL10 and I had lost it all (my ROI for these after 660 is 1.3%)
So I'm back to Sky. I feel that after getting my but kicked all over the baize at Stars I have improved as a poker player and have noticed several leaks in my game from PT3. I deposited £40 this aft and am up £4.26 already after about 400 hands (30 C4P). The plan is to post in this thread each Tuesday and play enough poker to make +500 C4P each month so that's around 10k hands.
I've to play another 80 of these 6-max hypers to clear another $10. I'm going to do that an then get my money back from stars and begin again. Besides you guys are far friendly than the folk at 2+2.
Comments
nice to see u back.
gl m8 with building your b/roll up.
are u playing nl4 atm?
what about dym? no plans to play them again.
best wishes,
:-)
dev
In Response to Re: Back to Sky. Diary: I never quite got on the DYM bandwaggon. However after the number of 3rd place (ie no cash) finishes I've had recently in these hyper 6-max games I might be a wizz at them! lol. Seriously to anyone who thinks they understand variance, they need to have a go. Recently it doesn't matter if I get it in good or not, I always loose AIPF. However the other week I literally couldn't loose. Didn't matter what I had I always hit. It's important to remember the possitive variance too I guess.
I'm going to post this hand just to remind myself why I'm here:
Can you please post a hand to demonstrate why you're here?
People say that you can't bluff at NL4 but I'd challenge that. As with all things in poker it depends. I'd seen this guy playing pretty standard poker, he'd been playing only a few hands, his bet sizing was what you would expect from an ABC player. I think I've made this bluff cheap enough for it to be profitable. I think he only continues with the hand if he has a really stong hand. He's not the sort to call to the river just because he has flopped a pair. I put him on a small pair given his limp/call line pre, he probably thinks I have an Ax or Kx hand and doesn't believe the c-bet. The Q is the perfect barreling card. This time it was successful. What do you think to it?
This also happened earlier which made me laugh. Obviously I'm folding to a 3-bet here without reads but the bet sizing is rediculous. Made for a very easy fold.
P&L: +£14.50
C4P: 58
Also played a deep stack tournement and finished 5th out of 22 so no payout for this. Don't think I'll bother with MTTs for the time being, low stakes MTTs seem to involve lots of luck and varience. Too much time investment
totals:
hands:1619
P&L: +£8.73
C4P: 66
This hand was interesting. I think that I should have bet more on the flop to be honest. My thinking was that any K or Q would likely have bet the flop and there are only AJ/JT/9T/AT that I have to protect my hand against. I then get check-min-raised on the turn. At this point I decided that the SB must have a straight. But I have better than 4:1 expressed odds and he has £2.73 behind for the river, I'm last to act so I'm calling 60p and I definatly see the next card. I have decided I fold if the board doesn't pair and shove if it does. I think this is okay
Hands: 2190
P&L: £13.82
C4P: 78
BB/100: 10.41
Another short session today after work. 278 hands + £3.57. I don't get time to play these super long sessions which is a shame.
Totals
2468 hands
profit +£17.39
BB/100 12.82
C4P 84
I raise here to 12p despite having aces because this villian will either call or fold. I don't fold out any of his raggy nut-busters by raising big and because he is short stacked there is no pressure to inflate the pot now as I can easily get 50BBs in over the streets if necessary. Flop is horrible for my hand as my opponent will either fold most over card hands or have a draw and will call just about any bet. I bet 2/3 pot and get min-raised. Very suspicious. Could get it all in here but that would be a mistake. I flat to control the pot. The turn is a brick and changes nothing so I check to the raiser again. I figure he will either check to see a free card with his draw or bet about 60-80% pot to try to win the hand here. Instead he bets 30% pot. I can't fold to this bet so he's not semi-bluffing with a draw, he's value betting. I call anyway and check the river. He bets 10% here on the jack and now I'm almost certain he flopped it. I call anyway, not often you get 10:1 and free information. He turned over 89s for the straight. I was pleased with this hand because the guy cracked my aces BvB and managed to win 85p.
Totals:
hands: 3257
P&L: £38.10
C4P: 101
BB/100: 23.43
I was lucky this player was short stacked but I don't think I would have continued in the had after the turn if we were 100BBs deep. Looking at the other hands is surprising. In one hand I 3-bet from the blinds to 60p with ATs to try a sqeeze against two players. The origional raiser 4-bet shoves so it's an easy fold. In this hand I lose 30p when my queens run into AK despite being nearly 100BBs deep:
There's a couple of other hands where my premium starting hands get out drawn and I lose only a few pence. It makes me wonder, why do players call with terrible holding when they are so unlikely to get value from them the way they play? If I have AA and get called by 62o how likely is it that they get paid off. I'm going to be very suspicious if I start getting check raised when the flop comes J62 or K66 or even 622. Most often when they call with a terrible hand they don't know what to do. Then comes one of two things, either a massive bet to tell you how strong they are, or they trap themselves into a small pot by checking.
I did win one pot with TPTK vs a player who I'm sure was drawing and didn't get there. Hence he didn't call my river bet. I have the weekend to myself so I'm going to go for a TINTIN style mega-grind tomorrow. I need to start earning some C4P
totals:
hands: 3444
profit: £34.73
C4P: 109
BBs/100: 17.72
I had a profitable session just now. Played for about 2hr, 721 hands + £13.81 and 23 cash for points. My epic session was cancelled for a few reasons (late departure of my GF, need to by farther's day card, need to go out for dinner with my folks) but +3BIs is a good afternoon and I should get another hour or two in later today
Anyway, I've seen a lot written about c-betting at NL4 so I thought I'd give it my 2p worth. First of all it is not a leak to c-bet at NL4. There are profitable c-betting spots and betting the flop with ace high or king high will often avoid difficult spots later on. There are also times when checking the flop will lose you value later in the hand. For example when you check the flop with ace-high only to turn an ace on the next street.
The leak is c-betting without a plan. There are a number of questions you have to ask yourself before betting the flop such as: "what will my opponent call with?", "do I have possition for the rest of the hand?", "what level of poker is my opponent thinking on?", "what am I representing", "what happened pre-flop?", "what cards could come on the turn that will improve/make my hand? therefore alowing me to bet again?" "what cards may come on the turn that I can barrel?" Don't just c-bet because "well this is what I'd do if I did hit"
When playing against your standard NL4 player they are likely not thinking about the cards we might have, just what they have. They will also have one of two ranges: "pretty" hands like any two suited, connected cards etc or quite a narrow range of pairs and broadway cards. So when the flop comes we have to think about what they have hit. say the flop comes Qd6c2d and the flop is checked to you heads up and in possition. The average NL4 player will continue with any queen, 22, 66+, and any two diamonds that's 23.5% of all hands. Add another few % for the likes of 43 and 54 and round it to 25%. If we assume that they fold the rest then we win the hand with a c-bet 75% of the time. If we bet 50% of pot then we have a good chance of taking down the pot and risk very little to do so. Especially if we have raised to 3-4BBs and only got one caller. If we do get called then it's fine to give up on the hand. This is exploitable if your opponent likes to float but we have to assume that most NL4 players (even the solid regs) are not going to float us that often. C-bets are fine on dry flops and in possition. Just don't feel that you have to fire the second or 3rd barrel if you think they are drawing. Paired boards are particularly good for c-bets since your opponent's hand is so polarised between super-strong or nothing. on a KK2 board for example it's unlikely your opponent will have hit the flop and if they have then they likely have a king. If we c-bet this flop with ace-high we will often have the best hand anyway.
Then there are situations were it's definatly -ev to c-bet. Flops with two or more broadway cards are so likely to have hit the opponent's range. If the flop comes KJ9 for example an we hold a pair of tens I'd just give up. If it's checked to you there are plenty of players who will call with Jx from the blinds and then check call with 2nd pair. There are four queens that improve our hand to the second nuts here but other than that not a great deal.
I mentioned barrelling earlier in the post and this should be done with extreem caution. First your opponent has to be capable of calling on the flop with nothing because they think you are betting with nothing, second the turn card has to appear to help your hand range, third your opponent has to be thinking about what sort of nothing hand you might have bet the flop with. A classic example would this. You raise the button and a reg calls you from the big blind. The flop is 8c4d2h, villian checks and we bet the turn is Qs, villian checks again and we bet again. This queen is a good card to barrel this spot because we could be betting with KQ, JQ, AQ or even QT since we have the button. It's also likely that the villian called to set mine with 77,99 or TT and saw our flop bet as a c-bet but they are now afraid that you have out drawn them with the queen. In general barrelling is bad at NL4 but there are times when you can get away with it.
So in short c-betting is fine but you have to have a plan for the rest of the hand.
Totals:
hands: 4175
P&L: £48.54
C4P: 132
BBs/100: 22.17
Not much action on the tables at the moment so I've gone into my spreadsheet and made a graph. Best thing about it is there is no red line to worry about. Red line is the (usually downward sloping) line indicating $ won without showdown. It's easy to be a winning player at the micros while have a -ve red line because I play fairly nitty safe in the knowledge that there are plenty of fish just dying to get to showdown with a worse hand. The problem comes when the cards weren't running my way I'd start trying to improve my red line by defending my blind with junk and bluffing in bad spots. Anyway, here's the graph:
totals:
hands: 4506
P&L: £62.76
C4P: 141
BBs/100: 37.79
The villian had limpped in UTG which often means a small PP at NL4 if the player is halfway decent. I had to assume that a guy with £9 in front of him is not a standard NL4 donk. When I bet the turn it should be to set up for a river shove so why I decided to check call the river I'm not sure. Nothing made sense appart from a set so I folded. It's pretty wierd for him to show up with two pair here I think. I'm still undecided as to whether shoving the river is a good play. Most of the time I think it's going to be a set.
Totals:
hands: 6260
P&L: £76.34
C4P: 210
BBs/100: 32.25
Totals:
hands: 6843
P&L: £78.19
C4P: 228
BBs/100: 30.32
tourny losses: -£5.50
Totals:
hands: 7061
P&L: £82.22
C4P: 233
BBs/100: 30.93
I should be able to get some hands in over the weekend but I don't think I'll be making C4P unless I pull some kind of sick TINTIN style grind from Friday to Sunday
totals:
hands: 7817
P&L: +£75.57
cash: +£92.99
tourny: -£17.50
C4P: 255
BBs/100: 28.64
I tried a little bit of 8-tabling tonight and I think this may have accounted for me not quite playing my best. However looking through the hand histories of the biggest hands there are no terrible plays that stand out. I maybe just missed a few spots where I could have nicked a pot here or there because I was playing too many tables durring happy hour. There was one hand that stood out that I was pleased with how I played it. I lost the hand but saved myself £1.53 on the river. The villian kindly showed his cards which makes it certain but I'm not beating much after that ace hits on the river and I'm very weary of the check-call, check-call, shove line from the blinds.
Totals:
hands: 8700
P&L: £59.99
cash: +£77.49
BBs/100: 24.15
tourn: -£17.50
C4P: 288
Definatly will not be reaching 500 C4P this month. I still need 176 to do this and I only have tomorrow. Therefore I see no sense in joining the rest of the regs for the 11pm happy hour. Time for a I beer I think. Here's the graph of my first 10k hands:
Totals:
hands: 10016
cash: +£86.34
tourny: -£17.50
C4P: 324
BB/100: 23.37
P&L: £68.84
impressive results for the number of hands played
I've also notcied that my way of counting hands is not quite perfect. So far I have been using the "hand history" to search for all the hands I've played durring a session. If you do this then it shows all the hands that you saw while sat at the table. Since I wait until the big blind reaches me then there are going to be a few hands per session that I have counted but that I wasn't dealt in for. Assuming 20 hands per session and 36 sessions that's 720 hands that I didn't actually play.
I'm playing just short of 30 hands per C4P point. So if I up my volume to 15k next month I would reach 500. Hopefully I will be able to move to NL8/NL10 soon though and earn more points.
Glad to see someone is reading these TINTIN. It's helping me keep focused by keeping a track of my hands like this and writing about them. Makes it more difficult to splash £10 on a heads up hyper SNG or something stupid.