Running nowhere fast: Poker and Fitness

Copied over from your blog for reference:

I've been generally focusing on playing a minimum of 1,000 hands a day - when volume doesn't matter. New week starts tomorrow and my volume goal from now on will be 500 hands per day - that leaves plenty of time for study!!!

Nice, yeah I found that useful myself. Feels very different when you are focusing more on improving I think. Love your positive attitude and the start of the new week idea. ♠_thumbsup:

Week 11 progress report

Ok, so this is the last week I'm planning to report on volume targets. Volume is unimportant at this level! Lesson learned. More important is the journey and the results (that's macro results - not short term results).

This week I played 7,082 hands and its no accident that its almost spot on my goal of 1,000 hands a day - which goes to illustrate that my focus was wrong - quality not quantity is the way forward! All my play was on iPoker NL€5 Speed. My profit was a poor €14.31 (4.04 bb/100) - but a profit is a profit As I said last week, I've lost my confidence a bit at the moment, but slowly clawing my way back....

Here are the graphs for the week:

And here are my results from the start of the blog:

So my focus for the week has been on defending my BB from button steals - lets see how that looks (I have no clue what the database will show, I'm doing my analysis as I type....)

Since I posted about defending my BB more I have played 508 big blinds. Incredibly I have made a profit on the BB of 1.85 bb/100 So the macro number looks promising (albeit over a small sample).

Here's the original spreadsheet with the new data beside:

Now that's REALLY interesting - I have increased my 3bets from 10% to 42% and my success rate has plummeted from 64% to 48% - my adjustment has been huge, but can NL€5 players really adjust to my adjustment and fight back that quickly? Interestingly though, it still seems to be working for me....

Obviously the huge caveat is the sample size, so I need to give it more time before drawing any conclusions - I'll revisit it again next week....

Hey with your new focus I'm sure you'll start crushing soon and grats on booking a profit for week 11! Look forward to seeing how the rest of your week turns out.

How's it going mate?

Haven't played much this week - virtually no cash at all. Very little study as well.
Just doing a new build PC which is proving more troublesome than I expected ... hopefully will have that sorted this weekend and can then return to things....
I'm using my SSD from this machine (my old machine) in the new machine, so at some stage I need to take the plunge and wipe the old machine- at that stage theres no going back and if I don't get it right, I might end up disappearing for a few days.....

Week 12 progress report

Well - I took the "volume isn't important" to an extreme over the last week - but a bit of a break can be refreshing sometimes....

So what did I play?
I didn't play anything on Netbet at all this week - and that's where my "grind" is.
On Pokerstars, I jumped into the Dream Team promotion .... I played 63 x $1 Spin and Go .... for a return of $64 .... a profit of $1 at the tables ... but we can add 3 x $5 lottery wins to that
I played 2 x $0.02 990 Hyper Turbo MTTs for a loss of $0.04 lol.
I played 2 Home game HU matches (for the pokerstrategy championship) for a profit of $2
And I took advantage of various sports betting promos (including "bet £10 ante post and get £10 in play free" - but forgot to place my free bet. What an idiot!)
Overall I somehow managed to weasel out a profit of over £20 on the week!

Talking of W34Z3L - I joined his live coaching in the week - and dead on the start there was a local power cut (seem to be happening quite frequently at the moment!) after which my PC wouldn't start - took half an hour before I could rejoin the coaching .... grrrrr

Week 13 Progress Report

I feel a bit of a fraud!

I haven't crunched the numbers yet (but will have by the time I report them below!) but have had a pretty poor week (volume and results), yet in the bankroll reporting thread, I think I'll be reporting a reasonable profit. How come?

Basically I'm still taking free money off of pokerstars They are still running promos on their sportsbook pages, of the ilk, Bet £10 ante post and get a free £10 in play bet. Yesterday I place 2x£10 ante post bets. I got 2 x £10 free in play bets. All 4 bets won, giving a nice boost to my bankroll.

So this is a poker blog - should I be including sports betting results? My feeling is probably not - however I have seen that others have included sports betting results - not that that is a valid reason for me to follow suit. I suppose the main reason, is simplicity. If I win then the winnings remain in my poker bankroll. If I lose, then the losses leave my poker bankroll. So the simple (lazy) way of tracking is to just leave everything in my poker bankroll. I'm convinced that my sports betting is positive ev, not because of my skill in sports betting, but because the promo bets are the only bets I place, so I don't think I there is a "degenerate gambling" risk to my poker bankroll.

So what did I do at the tables? Over the last week I have played:
Netbet (iPoker) - 1 x €1 Twister ($ EV - Loss of €0.30)
Netbet (iPoker) - 1,396 hands of NL€5 6max Speed Cash (€ EV Adjusted - Loss €1.87)
Pokerstars - 5 x Heads Up Hyper Turbos (Pokerstrategy HU Tournament) - ($EV - Profit of $2.99)
Pokerstars - 22 x $1.50 Fifty50 ($EV - Loss of $0.90)

So why this strange mix of games?
The Netbet cash was the bare minimum I needed to play in order to retain my Gold status at pokerstrategy next month.
The Pokerstars fifty50s are chasing the Dream Team promotion

But what has REALLY enthused me for the past few weeks is the Pokerstrategy heads up tournament. I've stunned myself by winning the 3 rounds I have played so far. 256 started - just 32 players left (including me). If I can luckbox another round or two, then it starts getting serious!!! My fourth round game (which I expect to be played on Tuesday or Wednesday) is against a Pokerstrategy moderator from the French forums, who in the last round knocked out a Pokerstrategy coach. To say I'm nervous (but excited) is an understatement!

So why am I going on about this? In short - I've decided I'm scared of embarrassing myself (at this stage I feel that a certain level of competence is probably expected....) so now I have my Gold status secured for September, I'm going to focus on playing microstakes HU STTs on pokerstars until I am knocked out of the Pokerstrategy tournament. All the practice I can get can only help me!

Once I am knocked out, then I need to revise my approach for the microstakes 6max cash which will again become my focus .... in the last few weeks I've lost my way a bit, so when I return to this I will set myself a solid schedule to try and get into a routing and develop some good habits. I'm thinking along the lines of shooting for 2 hours play a day and 2 hours development (HUD development, Strategy videos, database analysis etc) a day. Though I might need to up my play to do enough to maintain Gold in October on Pokerstrategy....

Originally posted by 8runo
I'm going to focus on playing microstakes HU STTs on pokerstars until I am knocked out of the Pokerstrategy tournament. All the practice I can get can only help me!

Well my practice is going absurdly well so far. Obviously not a sample of any significance, but results have been so good, I'm starting to wonder if I will go back to 6max at all..... (HU is certainly more enjoyable too!)

Also worth adding that I'm not table selecting at all, and don't know who the regs are - so I imagine I'm almost certainly playing regs.....

I don't know what is going on here, but I'm into the last 16 of the Pokerstrategy Heads Up tournament!!!!!!!

Even more shocking is that I've still only dropped the 1 game (what can your opponent do when he gets the money in ahead, and I outdraw him? ) - so that's a total of 11 wins from 12 games played against Pokerstrategy members in this tournament! Whilst there's unquestionably a huge amount of luck/variance in that number - it reads really well to me

well done, ship it!!

Wow, just read 2 pages of your blog and I can just say that I am VERY VERY IMPRESSED how well organized you are and how much effort you put into it. I am fighting with micro stakes aswell so I will visit you there from time to time.

I wish you to poker "gods" be with you

Thanks to you both

I have no illusions about winning it (then again, I had no illusions about getting to the last 16 - I was thrilled to just win my first game :))

Good blog man, see you next week at tables

Thanks aeusse - looking forward to our match up

Week 14 Progress Report

The poker highlight of last week was without doubt heading into the last 16 of the Pokerstrategy Headsup Tournament My last 16 match, against aeusse (there's a spy in my blog :p) will be this week. That will for sure be my main point of focus

Results from last week? I still feel a bit of a fraud as Pokerstars are still throwing money around to encourage sports betting and so my results will again include sports betting profits, but not too shabby a week on the poker tables either....

My HU practice and results
Over the past week, I have played 85 HU tournaments (82 STTs and 3 MTTs) winning 54 for a ROI of 12.3%. Full breakdown is below:

Pokerstars Zoom

Not huge volume, but an acceptable result for the hands I did play.

And here's my graph for overall cash game results since the start of the Blog.... definitely appear to have flatlined lately - I feel its partially loss of focus (with HU distractions) and partially chopping and changing between sites (pokerstars and iPoker) that is to blame. No change expected soon as I focus on my HU game and will at some stage soon switch back to iPoker to ensure I keep gold status at Pokerstrategy in October, however as soon as I am knocked out of the HU tournament, I will make a concerted effort to get my 6max focus back on track

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Week 15 Progress Report - Time to make a BIG decision

So my little adventure in the Pokerstrategy Heads Up tournament is over. I'm disappointed, naturally, but no complaints - we played deep and slow poker, and I was constantly outplayed by my opponent - it was clear he was a class above me and the right man proceeded to the next round. I'm proud of myself to have reached the last 16 and completely outperformed my expectations.

So the distraction is over and its now back to the grind of 6max microstakes. Or is it? The tournament has given me a new confidence in playing Heads Up (I had previously played a substantial amount of Heads Up, profitably, to Supernova on Pokerstars - but lost my confidence and belief a couple of years ago and quit HU play) and over the last week I have been trying my luck at NL50 cash on Pokerstars. I've made a good profit However its tough to get a game, assuming you avoid the regs and "game select". I'm also paranoid when someone sits at my table that they're a shark there to prey on me - and I do feel like the prey (despite my profits over the week).

So I've got a choice. What do I do?
1) Keep playing HU cash. Work on my game hard and improve till I feel more confident about what I'm doing and can table select a little looser.
2) Return to 6max microstakes, and work hard on my game and improve my 6max game.

I'm much more exhilarated playing HU than 6max, but the minimum stakes are enforced higher (NL50). The biggest issue though is the health of the ecosystem in HU is also problematic and I don't know what the near future holds for HU cash games - how much effort is it worth putting into improving HU play if the tables then disappear? It also looks problematic to find study material and HU cash information looks pretty limited on Pokerstrategy

So my decision? Undecided! I cannot make my mind up - so I think I'll give it another week on HU and see how it goes. This is a risky strategy - the stakes are higher, the swings are potentially huge and this means that my bankroll can quickly skyrocket, or totally collapse...... I say I'll give it another week - but I might give it less if I lose my nerve sooner.......

So last weeks results? In the table below - the EUR results are from Netbet (microstakes HU) and the USD results are from Pokerstars (HU). I've included the rake stakes because that's pretty brutal at the iPoker microstakes HU - I'm still losing there even without paying rake, but I actually feel less confident on the iPoker tables than I do on the higher stakes Pokerstars tables.

Prior to switching to cash, I did play some HU STTs, effectively breaking even.

Week 16 Progress Report

I'm still in complete turmoil when it comes to deciding whether to play HU or 6max. I completed the week playing HU, and again it was profitable - so its a pretty simple choice isn't it?

The problem is, I still feel like "prey" - I get the impression that some players are deliberately targeting me, and when unknowns sit down to play with me, paranoia is setting in! Sometimes justified, sometimes not.....

It's also frustrating to get a game (assuming you're not prepared to sit with sharks, which I'm not.... like everyone else there) - you can quite literally be sitting at a table for hours and hours without getting any action....

But for those two huge negatives, when you are actually playing, HU is a far more exhilarating game and far more challenging - there's no hiding place and it is man v man - only one of you can succeed - you're in every hand and the dynamics of the game are far more stimulating. It seems to allow for far more creativity and flexibility in your play and style than multiway games where I feel I end up just grinding my cards a lot more and thinking a lot less. Its also, proving so far to be far more lucrative for me than 6max......

So what will I play next week? I still don't know. I still cannot decide - which basically means that the status quo holds station and I'll start off again on HU and see what happens......

Here are my results from the last week, and the month to date.....

Week 17 Progress Report

Another good week completed and I'm there .... Challenge successful 4♥:K♥:A♥:

The profit again came from HU cash tables. I don't understand how I can be so successful on these tables yet lack so much belief and confidence. I still feel like the prey rather than the predator and I still don't believe I can consistently beat the games. And in a way, that is correct because my sample size is pretty small - I've only played 2,716 HU Cash Hands (since 1st June) - however a profit of $632.79 (46.6 bb/100 - over 12 buy ins) should breed some confidence shouldn't it?

And here's a recap of the results from the beginning of the blog (1st June 2015). I'm not sure why the NL€2 are marked as HU tables as when I look at specific hands, a lot of them (most of them) are 6max. This recap REALLY illustrates the impact of the Heads Up tables I started playing! The other thing I'm pleased to see is that the majority of my profit has come from poker. I've previously admitted to feeling a bit of a fraud by counting the sports betting promotional wins in my results here, but this illustrates that the impact wasn't decisive.

So I can now collect my reward can't I? A shiny new treadmill? Well actually no - I'm going to put my reward off for the moment. I have some changes going on IRL and expect to be moving house soon (4-8 weeks or so) - so I'm looking at moving before I buy any large bulky items that I'd need to move with....
Because of this I'm also not going to start a new challenge until I'm settled in my new address.

Hey 8runo,

gratz on finishing the challenge - well done! Also, enjoy your shiny gold status and be back for the next challenge, soon!