Hello everyone!
For those who doesn't know (what I mean is... everyone) I had been a breakeven player on NL100 FR for a long time. From Septmeber 2008 to May 2009. I would always slowly and unsteadily win some money, then I'd lose it all in just a couple of sessions (or hands). Actually that happenned twice, and it's always very frustating to lose just in a couple of hours everything you took 5 or 6 months to win.
I've never been one to blame everyone else for things that happen in my life, so I end up taking a lot on myself, and after the second time it happened at the beginning of June this year (All due to tilting), I got really frustrated with my game. Thought about quitting also, I mean, I like the game, I had been really giving some thought as wether to turn pro or not and that tilting session (where I had been running bad and on top of that I decided to donate 250BB+ stacks on two different tables) really got me down. Decided to step away from the game for a while, even got a little bit sick, probably due to overall stress, and that contributed to leaving me almost the whole month of June away from the felt.
During this time I wasn't playing, I decided to study the game and analyze my own game and well... I had a "Oh! Snap!" moment! ♠_smile:
I started understanding a lot of things I hadn't really understood so far and I started seeing the big picture of the game.
Well, I decided to go back to the felt but first... screw the FR tables, I realized I was only playing them because I was too afraid of having to pay for the blinds every 6 hands (yeah, like if that had anything to do with being a winning player), and that was just too pathetic for someone who can see "living from poker" as a possibility.
Before that I'd only play FR and change tables as soon as there were only 6 players left, now I'm playing SH and I couldn't care less if it gets HU (actually I've been finding HU pretty amusing). ♠_cool:
Second thing I did was go back to NL50, my BR was down to a little more than $3k (around where it had been for a looooong time) so I wanted to get up to $3.5k before moving up to NL100 again. Well, that didn't take too long ~3k hands later and a whooping ~27BB/100 (BB = Big Blinds) and up in NL100 again.
Now, ~7k hands in NL100 and a whooping ~29BB/100 (along with rakeback and another whooping ~123BB/100 on NL50HU in just 500 hands though) my BR is now a little bit above $6k.
But the two things that are most satisfying are not the whopping winrates, but:
1) The fact that I'm understanding the game a lot better, and enjoying it a lot more (even during -500BB losing sessions).
2) This:
The Non-showdown winnings have been steadily going up at a whooping ~20BB/100 and the EV line just a little bit below true winnings.
Note that this graph is only for NL100 hands.
My non-showdown winnings had never been so high... actually my non-showdown winnings had never been above $0, and now it's been so steady.
Only 7k hands though, so let's see how it will behave.
The big dropdown around 5k hands were due to two distractions (I could swear I saw his AF at 9.0... it was actually 0.9, and I made two very horrible plays in two big pots ♠_ugly: ) and one experiment that didn't turn out so good, tried to extract too much value in a very marginal spot and end up commiting myself to the hand. Oh well, I don't think it was the right move, but I believe it's important to not be afraid of experimenting and trying different things. Later I saw it was a mistake, now I'll just avoid making that again.
Well, but anyway, the most important thing here is the fact that I didn't tilt on those hands (and I would usually tilt when I made such huge mistakes).
For now I'll just keep playing on NL100 for a while and see how things go, when I feel I'm ready I'll go up to NL200.
And to finish this very long post, here's the biggest pot I've ever won a few days ago.
Call me a donk, a moron, an asshole... and tell me you wish you had me seating on your table. I still think the hand was well played... and I'll gladly sit at your table! ♠_biggrin:
Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:
$0/$1 No-Limit Hold'em (5 handed)
Known players:
[tg]BB$227.75:///////;MP2$97.50:///////;MP3$100.00:///////;CO(Hero)$279.75:///////;BU$187.85:///////;[/tg]
Preflop: Hero is CO with 5:d, 4:d.
2 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, BU folds, BB raises to $13.00, Hero calls $9.50.
Flop: ($26.5) 8:d, 6:d, Q:s (2 players)
BB bets $15.00, Hero raises to $45.00, BB raises to $214.75(All-In), Hero calls $169.75.
Turn: ($456) 4:c (2 players)
River: ($456) J:d (2 players)
Final Pot: $456.
Results follow:
Hero shows a flush, jack high(5:d 4:d).
BB shows a pair of aces(A:d A:c).
Hero wins with a flush, jack high(5:d 4:d).
Needless to say, Villain cursed me and my entire family... ♠_love: and then unfortunately left the table. ♠_cry:
How much tables you usually play?
K 
