It's Friday; enjoy:
Notifications
Clear all
Hey my friend. Yes, still blogging occasionally! Will write something soon and talk with you on Skype I hope 
Ok, 4s4s4s, quick update. My financial year ended at the end of July 2016. Made $39k. Pretty much what I have made the last four or five years, so at least consistent which isn't bad given lacklustre economy.
However I really want to push myself a little bit more, especially as being a bit more active lately means I should be able to grind a bit more. So I will set myself to target of playing at least 1,000 games per month for the next 12 months with the aim of trying to make $50k total, including from coaching and staking.
This month has, regrettably, been hideous so far ♦ I've been dominated in every possible way. Volume decent though, so I will focus only on what I can control.
Summer holidays have been lovely nevertheless and I've taken some time off to spend with my daughter who is already six and growing up fast!
What a lot of time it has been since my last update. The poker landscape has continued to get tougher and tougher, month by month, and has left me scratching my head about how and whether I can continue to make a living this way...
Time will tell.
In the meantime I've decided to put some concerted effort into improving my PLO and trying to move through the stakes. The aim is to make 10 buyins of expected value at each limit before moving up.
Here's the results for PLO $0.05/0.10
Samples are super small so there's no real purpose in giving bb/100 stats; as long as is reasonably clear to me that a limit is beatable in principle, I will try to find out whether the limit above is also beatable! PLO $0.1/0.25 to follow...
I can understand why you don't want to battle regs in Stars spins... but why wouldn't you just play SNGs (spin-like or not) at a bunch of other sites? Why would you switch from your bread-and-butter game to a game that you don't know that well and that, more importantly, that has been in decline since 2015 because it's been affected worse by the rakeback reduction than the soft mainstream games (spins, KO SNGs) where regs' winrates suffered too but they just went from astronomical to still reasonable?
Looks nice! And no worries PLO25 is beatable as well. Props for tackling the next limit with only 10stack EV-adj. But probably the right decision to find your appropriate level very fast by testing new waters. Keep going!
GG with the exercise regime 
are you still maintaining it?
Looking forward to reading future posts of your PLO games
Thanks metalmonkey80! Still doing regular exercise, even if only walking. Feel much better overall healthwise these days. Made some progress in PLO but definitely not an 'easy' option - there are none in poker anymore. Got to PLO50 so we'll see if I can get to the next limit over the next couple of months!
So, the last time I posted a my biggest cash pot was over 7 years ago
Today I got a new big pot record, in a different game:
$1/$2 Pot Limit Omaha Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.
SB: $323.74 (161.9 bb)
BB: $255.82 (127.9 bb)
UTG: $212.35 (106.2 bb)
MP: $155.85 (77.9 bb)
CO: $333.45 (166.7 bb)
Hero (BTN): $208.57 (104.3 bb)
Preflop: Hero is BTN with 9♥: J♦: 9♣: Q♥:
UTG folds, MP raises to $6, CO raises to $21, Hero calls $21, SB raises to $92, 2 folds, CO calls $71, Hero calls $71
Flop: ($284) 4♥: 2♦: J♥: (3 players)
SB bets $231.74 and is all-in, CO raises to $241.45 and is all-in, Hero calls $116.57 and is all-in
Turn: ($864.05) 2♥: (3 players, 3 are all-in)
River: ($864.05) 3♦: (3 players, 3 are all-in)
Results:$864.05 pot ($3.00 rake)
Final Board: 4♥: 2♦: J♥: 2♥: 3♦:
SB showed 8♥: 8♠: A♦: A♠: and lost (-$323.74 net)
CO showed A♣: J♠: Q♠: 5♣: and won $230.34 (-$93.40 net)
Hero showed 9♥: J♦: 9♣: Q♥: and won $630.71 ($422.14 net)
I'm expecting to get flamed, but it sure felt good to take it down ♦
Two and a half years since my last post. No points for frequency... Well hey ho...
I'm still grinding at Stars, Party and - more recently - 888. Titan Poker became Winner and then disappeared... PKR died and got bought by Stars. Full Tilt died and got bought by Stars. PokerStars 'died' and got bought by Amaya. And then Amaya got sold to the British owned FTSE 100 Flutter Entertainment (I just learned this today - really keeping your finger on the pulse there, Tim 
). Does having a few FTSE tracker units count as rakeback???!
And I'm still here. Still playing, lockdown or not, homeschooling or not, solvers or not, HUD or not, Sciatica or not. Still making a living from this amazing game. Sill grateful for every day that I get to do this.
See you in a minute,
Tim64
Hi Tim64,
Welcome (back) to PokerStrategy.com 
The world is sure different than it was in 2018!
All the best,
VS
For some reason started reading through this blog again. Can't believe it's over 10 years old...
I've half a mind to pick up where I left off.
Latest is that since April '21 I've been playing on a new site and trying to get good enough at Cash to make a reasonable living. Started with $20 and some free offers that require you to play lots of different formats, all low stakes games.
Basic plan is an aggressive 10 BI BR, although I've increased it to 15bi as of nl50.
I've already worked my way up through NL2, NL5, NL10, NL25 and N50 (though without a winning sample there, because rakeback has been a big part of BR building). I'm currently on NL100 with 24BI; slight winner at NL100 after ~20k hands.
Intermediate aim is $3k BR, for 15 bi at nl200. No particular time limit, though trying to get in 20-40k hands a month. Not quite possible during school holidays!
The 'ultimate' goal is a 5k BR for a shot at NL500.
In the past the one thing I found difficult to handle is tilt at cash. For some reason I was able to overcome tilting at sit and go's to become a consistent winner there. The biggest types of tilt at Cash have always been a combination of entitlement tilt and mistake tilt.
But over the last 3 or4 months I've done a lot of work on both my mental game and my technical game, and I'm beginning to see progress. So let's continue together down the road to No Limit 500.
Thanks,
Tim64
Originally posted by Tim64
In the past the one thing I found difficult to handle is tilt at cash. For some reason I was able to overcome tilting at sit and go's to become a consistent winner there. The biggest types of tilt at Cash have always been a combination of entitlement tilt and mistake tilt.
It's funny, I found the same thing - I think the reason (for me) was that with SnG's I knew that my buy-in was already spent, but with cash games it was always in play. A bit of a silly way to think about it, but it is what it is.
I just switched to cash games at the start of the year and am currently playing NL5 with stabs at NL10, so I'm really excited to see how your rapid journey up the stakes goes. (i.e. KEEP BLOGGING PLEASE!!!)
Originally posted by Tim64
The 'ultimate' goal is a 5k BR for a shot at NL500.In the past the one thing I found difficult to handle is tilt at cash. For some reason I was able to overcome tilting at sit and go's to become a consistent winner there. The biggest types of tilt at Cash have always been a combination of entitlement tilt and mistake tilt.
Hey Tim64,
Good to see you again!
It sounds like a worthwhile goal.
I hope all is well with you IRL as well.
take care,
VS
This is one of my favourite poker blogs. Loved following your journey and learnt a lot too. Would be awesome if you got back to posting regular updates again.
Cheers
AM
Originally posted by AMAC1000
This is one of my favourite poker blogs. Loved following your journey and learnt a lot too. Would be awesome if you got back to posting regular updates again.Cheers
AM
Thanks, that's kind of you.
And greetings, VorpalF2F!
Well let's see if we can get some traction with this thing, then. I'm currently 2.5 BI away from first shot at NL200.
Below my tiny sample from NL2 and NL5 combined, from mid April until end April 2021:
5k hands. Adj bb/100 6.00 Real bb/100 11.6. Ran well. Made $22.
Thanks,
Tim64