Cowboys Into Rockets! AGAIN!---HU Hypers---End of Year Review

So, this may be a tad rushed as it is now 1.11am and I want to put in another session before I sleep. You know what, I despise the need to sleep. Don't get me wrong, I love sleeping, lying in my bed all comfy and whatnot, but the need to sleep really pisses me off. Anyhooow, 2010 has been my first year of, what i'd like to call, serious poker. Although I did sign up to Pokerstrategy a while ago and tried my luck at SSS, my "serious" poker adventure started at the beginning of August this year.

August - I deposited my $50 onto Pokerstars, and with my $50 i'd built up on PartyPoker NL2 I began playing NL5 on Stars with 20 Buyins. My results from Pokerstars NL5 are below:
Hands Played - 22,909
Profit - +$159.05
bb/100 - 13.89bb/100

So, in terms of poker this was a really good time for me, and I believe it was nearing the end of August or the start of September that I moved up to NL10, so i'll leave that summary until the September month ♦.

In terms of life, August was a strange month to say the least. There was a major tragedy that I wrote about in this blog regarding my Mum's beloved Horse of 20 years tragically dying after getting kicked in the leg by another horse. This was a very hard time for my Mum and a tragic day for all the family. Apart from this there was also the issue of me writing my car off on the way to Leeds Festival :x, then, despite having a glorious time at the Festival, losing almost everything I possess there ♦.

September - So, this month (After recovering from Festival antics) I started out on NL10. If I remember correctly I started out losing, then picked it up. However, I never really like NL10 due to the nittiness of it, as you will see later my winrate on it is tragic. Due to me heading off to Uni with no Internet mid-way through the month I didn't get all the volume I wanted in. I think I ended the month about breakeven. Results from Pokerstars NL10 are below:

Hands Played - 37,236
Profit - +$82.00
bb/100 - 2.2bb/100

So yeah, it was a pretty uneventful month, both in poker and in real life. The only real thing of note was me moving into our new flat at Uni (Which is crap). But other than that there is nothing.

October - Absolutely nothing. I played about 2,000 hands due to crappy internet and ended the month about breakeven again. So really there was absolutely nothing of note this month. Let's move on

November - Well, from a quick look at my graph I think I can tell that I moved up to NL25 at the beginning of this month. Swings galore! I went up $250, then down to almost breakeven (This was in the space of 2 days haha) Then back up to $300 and finished the month about $150 up. I'm still yet to figure out why my swings are so bad on NL25, but towards the end of this month I started to play some more (Since our Internet was finally properly sorted out!). Once again, not much happened this month, I went to Uni, I partied, I played Poker, I played FIFA. Job done, that's it. Then I ran out of money.

December - So I started our current month with no money and in dire need of a withdrawal from my Pokerstars account. So I withdrew as much as I could whilst allowing myself enough of a BR to play NL25. This month I started out not playing at all due to a HUUUUUGE amount of Uni assignments due in and a lot of lab work for my Dissertation being required :(. But on about 14th December, when my essay was finally completed and submitted, I started the grind. It started off pretty average before I hit a downswing, and had to make another withdrawal. This meant I didn't have the roll to play NL25 anymore. I dropped down to a mixture of NL5 and NL10 tables, and hammered NL5 and slightly won at NL10 (Just like when I was grinding there to start with :p). I have moved back up to NL25 now, and have been playing it for about 2 weeks (Yes, I was only down on NL5 and NL10 for a few days, thanks to some huge donkplay by fish and some rungood as well :p).

Since then it's been swings on NL25, Festive fun with the family, which involved me having a drunken conversation about poker with my Dad with him saying something like "Well if you can make money out of it it'd be better than any other job you could get" and me replying with "Well it's a bit far off to think about it as a profession haha, but if I knew I could succeed 100% i'd quit Uni tomorrow" :p. Then me and my Dad had to cook Christmas Dinner for the family (Due to everyone else being ill), this went better than expected and we cooked up a storming meal ♠_cool:. Boxing Day was spent at Old Trafford to see my beloved Man Utd win, and then in the pub to make mouth-love to my sweet friend alcohol ♦.

Eventually between the cooking and drinking I found some time to play poker, of which the monthly graph is shown below! However, before that I will post my winrate and stuff from NL25, since i've done so for the other 2 limits ♦

Hands Played - 56,324
Profit - +$194.04
bb/100 - 1.38bb/100

Not great, as you can see. But this includes my first shots at it (Which went terribly wrong ♦), and recently i've started working on not playing standard ABC poker, and when i'm playing against the Regs I will take some unorthodox lines and pull off some very good bluffs So i'm hopeful of the year ahead, if I can avoid any silly mistakes I can beat this limit.

December Graph -

2010 Graph -

So, What's for 2011?

I'll tell you what! I'm going to grind this crap up (Unfortunately University exams and assignments in January come first :().

Goals for 2011
Grind up through NL25 by Mid-February
Play at the Casino NL50 Cash games more often, the fish there need eating.
Learn some MTT strategy and play MTTs more frequently.
At least be a Reg on NL50 by Summer.
Be earning enough so I can convince my Mum I don't need to get a job this Summer and focus solely on Poker
In relation to the above goal, be able to withdraw a bit of money each week/month during the summer to fund my nights out ♦
Be a reg on at least NL100 by the end of the year.

There we go everyone, there is my review of 2010, my goals and plans for 2011. But there's one thing missing, and that is the bit in between the 2 years. And my Dear God am I going to bring it in with a bang. Heading up to Newcastle tomorrow and going out with all my mates from home and Uni, staying out clubbing until 8am and i'm going to have a truly amazing time ♠_cool: Not to mention a horrific hangover the next day

Good luck to you all, and I hope you all have a Happy New year and a Happy 2011.

First beer for the New Year's Eve has been opened! It's gonna be a good night!

Happy New Year, man!

I know You don't know me, but last weeks I've started to read ur blogg, cause I'll start cg in 2011. Great blogg (hands and explanations). I've been SnG grinder for a half year and I feel I need more sides of poker. OK, enough for this post. HAPPY!

miljon.

Thanks for the reply and a Happy New Year to you too ♦ And i'm very glad you like my blog ♠_cool:

Had a pretty good New Year, got quite drunk and had a good time. Some Geordie did nearly start a fight with me because I was talking to what I assume is his girlfriend, she didn't seem too happy with him. I should've stuck around and maybe if he hit me i'd get some action haha, but no, I just left them and went to see my mates. Tried to get in the casino to play some live NL50 as well, but I must have looked drunk because they wouldn't let me in I wasn't even that drunk, i've been in that casino when i've been a lot more drunk!

All in all it was a good night, and I wasn't even too hungover this morning, managed to get up to watch the football and even managed a cigarette without nearly throwing up (WHich is usually what happens when I smoke whilst hungover haha!)

Might put in a session tonight since i've got nothing to do, but i'll have to make an appearance at the pub at some point to see my mates. Don't really want to but i'll just go in for a few pints, make my excuses and leave

Can't be arsed with a long update here with any hands because i'm not in the mood

I just can't understand why I go through so many swings at NL25, it is honestly like it's rigged to make me breakeven ♦ Obviously I know it's not rigged before anyone has a go at me, but that's what it feels like. Every downswing and upswing sort of evens itself out and I don't know if it's something i'm doing or just variance. I know I make some spewy plays on occasions but when these swings happens it's like one session everything goes perfectly, I play well and run good. My Cbets work, my steals work, I can pull off a few bluffs against the regs. Then on my bad sessions everything goes against me, I don't tilt so I still play well, but i'm constantly running into Full houses over my Flush, flush over my top set etc etc. I know this sounds like a whinge post but it's not, I honestly just want to know why it happens only at NL25 to me, and has been happening for over 50k hands now ♦

Even this month, i've only played 2,200 hands so far, but in that time i've dropped $70, hit an upswing to +$50 and in the session right after that dropped down to -$20. I figure that it MUST be something changing in my play because it can't just be variance.

This is how my NL25 career has gone so far, in 60k hands:

- Down $170 (This was just shit play on my part, i'd just moved up and played crap ♦)
- Upswing to +$230
- DOwnswing to breakeven
- Upswing to $230
- Downswing to $60
- Upswing to $170
- Downswing to $20
- Upswing to $250
- Downswing to $50
- Upswing to $250
- Downswing to $170
- Upswing to $285
- Downswing to $230

Surely not everyone has swings like that ♠_biggrin:

Oh well, shit happens, rant over. If anyone has any suggestions don't hesitate to suggest them

Originally posted by Wriggers

I just can't understand why I go through so many swings at NL25, it is honestly like it's rigged to make me breakeven ...

I honestly just want to know why it happens only at NL25 to me, and has been happening for over 50k hands now ...

Surely not everyone has swings like that ♠_biggrin:

Don't worry mate ... I'm in the exact same place atm with NL25 SH
Though you're playing FR right?

Anyways, I've been running the exact same for the same sample of hands ...
I have these "normal" good sessions where I make a nice profit, coupled with the sessions where I flop a set and the board comes 4 to a flush & str8 with no board pairing etc etc ... I've had 7 preflop AI's with AA vs AK and lost 6 of those (suited AK has 12% equity pre and offsuit 6,8% ♦) ... so probability of that happening is siiick small.

Just gotta keep your chin up and grind it out

Yeah i'm playing FR Thanks for the reply, it's good to know i'm not the only one getting these swings ♦ Actually, no it's not good to know because that means someone else is as frustrated as me with it Yeah i'm just gonna keep grinding it out, it's a damn good job I don't tilt otherwise I think my Bankroll would be significantly smaller!

Yeap, just keeeep on plowing ...

Grinding/Volume + Tiltlessness = $$$$$$$

♦

By the way, I was considering doing this thing that everyone is raving about and stopping looking at my HEM results for a while. It's just i'm wary of doing this as I quite like to look at my graphs and results after a session, and I see a lot of people's problems is looking at their results whilst they're still playing, which I don't do anyway. I just don't know if it will help me the way it's helped loads of other people, also, how do people review their sessions when they're not allowed to look at HEM?

Thanks ♦ Need to start some Uni work now, then hopefully 1.5k hands this evening, maybe an MTT as well. Which reminds me, yesterday I entered the $5.50 $20k GTD on Stars as a bit of a change. First hand I got dealt KK and got in a 3way all in and won ♦ Ran quite well throughout the tournament until my TT ran into AA all in preflop. I finished the tourney in 365th/9046 players The cash was small ($17 or so) but I think my MTT game is improving, i'm no longer just trying to min-cash the tournaments, i'm actually trying to build a stack and going for the final table, I was never shortstacked in that tournament, and I don't think I was below Average Stack once So I think i'll be playing a few more MTTs in the future, I can even do it whilst i'm doing Uni work until I get some serious stages

Anyway i've got a bit off track here, what I was going to talk about is hitting Goldstar this month ♦ Since i've moved down to 9-tabling max i'm currently playing about 600 hands/hour. I'm earning 0.10VPP/hand so I need to play a paltry 30,000 hands to hit Gold this month. Although this is a small amount, the little obstacle of a shitload of Uni revision to do may stand in the way, stupid exams. So my plan is to dedicate at least 1 hour of poker a day during my revision time, except for maybe the night before exams. I need to be averaging just under 2 hours/day to hit it, but I think before my major revision time starts I can dedicate 3-4 hours per day. And if by the 28th (Which is when my last exam is) i'm quite a bit off the pace I can then grind for the remaining few days of the month constantly to hit it ♦

Well, this has been a longer post than I was expecting, good luck everyone, and hopefully my swings will take me upwards tonight

Originally posted by Wriggers
♦

By the way, I was considering doing this thing that everyone is raving about and stopping looking at my HEM results for a while. It's just i'm wary of doing this as I quite like to look at my graphs and results after a session, and I see a lot of people's problems is looking at their results whilst they're still playing, which I don't do anyway. I just don't know if it will help me the way it's helped loads of other people, also, how do people review their sessions when they're not allowed to look at HEM?

Me again

Don't have much to comment on this time other than I myself have been thinking about doing the exact same thing to improve my mindset and desensitize myself towards $$$.

Not looking at it for a longer period of time would be too ambitious to start off with as I usually check my HEM status during play pretty often and have failed with all the "not looking" challenges so far.

So I'll try to start off with not looking at my results before the end of the day and then go from there.

But as far as reviewing goes ... you can remove the $$ or bb/100 stats in the reports page ... and make it so that HEM only show you the last 100 hands, and every time you have an interesting hand, you mark it @HEM ...

And later only look & review the marked hands so you don't see all the hands/end result.

Yeah I might go for not looking at it throughout the day, just to see if it helps me and to keep my love of checking on my stats and graph going ♦

Just had a session in which I played the best poker I can ever remember playing ♦ Didn't run too good and didn't get any big action but my play was superb (If I may say so myself ♠_cool:). Ended the session $25 up in which my Non-Showdown winnings were about $40 ♦ I had this guy on my left that 3bet me constantly, I noticed this and started 4betting loads against him, he obviously didn't realise for a while so I took a bit off him that way. He then just started calling my O/R, but I outplayed the hell out of him postflop, C/Raising him, double barrelling him, whatever the board told me to do ♠_cool: Soulread ftw!

Gonna stick in another session in half an hour or so, but for now, i'm gonna make a sandwhich ♠_cool:

Originally posted by Wriggers
Just had a session in which I played the best poker I can ever remember playing ♦ Didn't run too good and didn't get any big action but my play was superb (If I may say so myself ♠_cool:). Ended the session $25 up in which my Non-Showdown winnings were about $40 ♦ I had this guy on my left that 3bet me constantly, I noticed this and started 4betting loads against him, he obviously didn't realise for a while so I took a bit off him that way. He then just started calling my O/R, but I outplayed the hell out of him postflop, C/Raising him, double barrelling him, whatever the board told me to do ♠_cool: Soulread ftw!

Gonna stick in another session in half an hour or so, but for now, i'm gonna make a sandwhich ♠_cool:

Monkey tilt on him and 3b shove into your AA would have tapped it off nicely! (Your AA winning of course!)

Hate these swings haha! Added in a few NL50 tables in today's sessions just to see what it's like. Seems there is a LOT more light 4betting and I haven't got the stats to pick these spots as well. However, first session I ended up $100, winning 2 all in's preflop on the NL50 tables, and losing another with set over set on the flop Then started up the second session and the usual following of a good session with a completely shit one began. 4bet all over the place on both limits, Cbets never working, KK runs into AA preflop, get slowplayed by someone with AA on an AK358 board when I had AK So I ended that session a nice $88 down :(. I seriously don't get why this is always happening, every time I play a few sessions in a day, one session I rape them, the next I get raped

Oh well, as long as the dowswings stay smaller than the upswings...

Originally posted by Wriggers
Hate these swings haha! Added in a few NL50 tables in today's sessions just to see what it's like. Seems there is a LOT more light 4betting and I haven't got the stats to pick these spots as well. However, first session I ended up $100, winning 2 all in's preflop on the NL50 tables, and losing another with set over set on the flop Then started up the second session and the usual following of a good session with a completely shit one began. 4bet all over the place on both limits, Cbets never working, KK runs into AA preflop, get slowplayed by someone with AA on an AK358 board when I had AK So I ended that session a nice $88 down :(. I seriously don't get why this is always happening, every time I play a few sessions in a day, one session I rape them, the next I get raped

Oh well, as long as the dowswings stay smaller than the upswings...

The solution is to play one long session with more breaks. ♠_cool:

Maybe i'll have to start doing that ♦ Well i'm playing another session tonight anyway, my losing one was cut short due to my computer dying (It's on it's way out I think It stopped recognising the hard drive for a while haha). Hopefully it will go better this time

very nice blog Wriggers!

i was reading and it become more interesting.

Gl with your goals in 2011

will track your progress for sure sir

Thanks crodady ♦ Good to know a few people are tracking my progress, will probably post a few hands tonight, but at the moment i'm procrastinating so I don't have to do my Dissertation work ♦

I'll probably give a shot at the Daily $40k Gtd tonight whilst i'm working away on my Dissertation, then get a few cash game sessions in later on tonight I think i'm starting to make the swings become a little more stable now i've started to exploit the regs like hell ♦

The swings continue My first session, up a new high of $135, playing fantastically, sucking out once and outplaying all sorts of opponents. Second session, down $115, running into all sorts of slowplayed monsters and getting sucked out on Unfortunately, after my first session I decided to open up 2 tables of NL50, and my set of J ran into a slowplayed QQ that had hit a set. Not that it matters it was slowplayed, I was never getting away from that. Also lost stacks on NL25 with a flopped set of A into a flopped straight, and me shoving an OESD with Flush draw into TPTK and it holding

So yeah, I think I might just start only playing 1 session per day if this is going to continue ♦ But for now, i'm just happy the upswings have been bigger than the downswings, and i'm currently up ~$100 for the month after 7,000 hands. Not too bad, should be better though ♦

Hello!

Good luck with your shots at NL50! NL25 was my most troublesome limit as well, and I also failed moving up twice. Don't let the swings bother you and just keep on grinding, while improving your game of course. ♠_cool:

Regarding light 4-bets/bluff 5-bets and stuff at NL50 - this is certainly going on but you really should avoid it unless you have a big sample/solid reads. I used to suffer from fancy play syndrome and it cost me a ton of cash.

Light 3-bets and squeezes vs the ABC regs however I found had an insanely high success rate at NL25 and NL50 for the most part as well, as long as you don't get lazy and pick your spots carefully. You probably already know all of this but since we both play FR at PS on similar limits I figured I would share my thoughts.