Spanking the micros - Graph/PokerSnowie pic heavy

Making a start - Day 1 - $74.25

I’m not sure if I love 2NL or hate it. I love the fact that I normally manage to see good results and can play quite confidently, but I hate the fact that after what turned out to be an 8 hour and 1 minute day of reasonably good play (27 EV PTBB/100 over 4k hands) , I see $24.25 profit.

To clarify why the ‘C/Day’ is half of my total, it’s 0100 here so I’ve actually gone into Day 2.

Onto the PokerSnowie analysis.

After importing my hands, I ended up with 4030 in total.. PokerSnowie can’t deal with hands where a dead blind has been posted, so that’s where the other 19 hands have gone.

As you can see, I’ve marginally made it inside the ‘Expert’ level that I was aiming for, with $5 in missed EV. I wasn’t expecting so many blunders, but there again I’ve played a lot more hands in 1 day than I usually will so I’m not going to go through them all in the blog (just a review myself).

What I will show though, so I can compare each session, is my ‘Error Details’ screen:

At least I’m consistently shit! My preflop game seems ok, with 7 blunders (considering this will be out of all 4030 hands) and an error rate of 1.35. However, post-flop I’m averaging about 3.5-ish error rate. What is error rate I heard you say? Fresh from the PokerSnowie site:

'The error rate gives a score for how well the session was played. It is independent of the actual outcome and only based on the skill of the player.
For every betting round, the error rate sums up the EV cost of all errors, divided by the number of moves played. So the smaller the error rate the better.’

It’s my bed time now though, so I’ll review the session fully before I play tomorrow. Let me know how much detail you like seeing as part of reviews. What I may do is do a large review every 10k hands or so as an individual post, or maybe once a week.

Thanks all.

Am I on a heater? - Day 2 - $94.73

I’m hoping not. I tend to beat 2NL for around 15-20BB/100 for the start of these challenges normally though. I’m not sure if that’s the motivation of starting a ‘challenge’ or if it’s maintainable, but I’m feeling really comfortable at 2NL right now.

From about 5.6k to 7.2k hands I was starting to wonder when I would get some cards. I just couldn’t seem to break through, and then all of a sudden I got 4 stacks back to back, which I was much appreciative of. There was a all-in with my KK against a fishes 66 on a J73 rainbow flop, I coolered J8s on a T359Q board with my KJo, my 22 flopped 4 of a kind against a KK who I flatted pre, and my JJ turned a set against a slow played KK.

So what does PokerSnowie think?

Still maintaining my ‘expert’ target, and much more into it today. I’ve made less money (also missing a $2 pot where I shoved with KK on a KJ6 flop against AK and held, as I disconnected), but also lost a lot less in EV.

I tried recording myself going through my blunders but my mic wasn’t behaving; I’ll try this again at some point. I think it'll be easier to review in video format rather than typing it all out, for both you and me!

It seems I’ve gone deeper into the ‘expert’ category today by being better mostly on the turn and a bit on the river. The flop still isn’t looking great though.

As PokerSnowie is playing pure GTO, it near enough Cbet’s similarly across his full range. At 2NL, I’m feeling absolutely fine playing my cards quite face up and Cbetting (larger) with my made hands. This can be seen below. For a quick guide to translation, if I had 100% everywhere, I’d play just as Snowie does. If it’s higher, it means I do more of that than Snowie, and vice versa.

So for ‘Bet’ on flop for example, I only bet 35% of the ‘weak’ defined hands that Snowie would have bet. Conversely, I bet my strong hands a lot more than Snowie would (149%).

Pre-flop, most of my errors come as Snowie is a large fan of completing the SB and limping the BTN, which I rarely do. It also plays really tight.

In terms of my stats, I’m playing a 22/17/5 bog-standard TAG playstyle. Today I’ve played 21/17, whereas Snowie would have played 25/16 as can be seen below:

Overall, another good day. I think I’ll play a few more hands tonight and then hopefully tomorrow get up to $100 so I can take a stab at 5NL!

Cheers guys.

Well fuck a duck. Due to maintaining roughly a $2.50 hourly profit for the last 7.5k hands, I thought I was coming home from work tonight to have a 2-3 hour up/down slog to get that last bit I needed to get to $100 for 5NL. The poker gods had other ideas:

I not only got gifted a few stacks, but got some more whilst having my ‘sit out next BB’ box ticked!

Sorry for the short post, but now I must head off to 5NL! Wish me luck.

Feeling odd at 5NL - Day 3 - $107.90

Not feeling that great at 5NL. Despite getting StarsHelper to see stacks in BB and playing/beating this stake countless times before, I still feel like I’m playing less confidently. I’m going to stick with it but I may look at increasing my BrM strategy to enter stakes with more BI as even at this limit, 40+4 doesn’t feel secure enough.

Saying that, I’m playing the best I have so far but it is a small sample and does include my stint of 2NL at the beginning:

With errors as follows:

Just a quick post as its such a small number of hands, and I’m now about to start day 4!

Wish me luck! Please! Anybody!

Hey good luck with your challenge. It seems like you are a God on NL2-NL5.

¨I'm getting impatient with restarting poker over and over ¨ On what limits did you played before ?

Hey there.

Anything from 2NL up to 100NL in the last 8 years or so, depending on how much money I had available to play with. The highest limit I was successful over a large sample was 10NL, whereas I had temporary success at 50NL but withdrew the money, and 100NL was mostly gambling... Never really played 25NL properly as far as I can recall.

More confidence at 5NL - Day 4 - $158.44

Today I unlocked a $25 bonus through my StarsCoins, which to be fair was needed. I was feeling a bit unsure at 5NL, and every lost stack was like "Shit, here it goes, I'll be back at 2NL soon".

The bonus has given me an extra 5 BI, which helps this as now I’m comfortably in 5NL territory. It also helps that I had an ok session today:

I’m noticing big differences between 2NL and 5NL… I’m sure last time I played there weren’t any. Might just be I’ve bumped into a few better people in this small number of hands.

Firstly, there aren’t as many 60/5 style players. At 2NL, I could load random tables and guarantee at least 2 per table. 5NL, I struggle to get 1 so far, though as my hand count is low it makes TableTracker redundant.

Secondly, I’ve seen some evidence of half-decent plays. One guy in chat got berated for check-calling a straight on the river (today I learned what Horunge means in Swedish), and his answer was ‘There was no point in betting, I only get called by better hands.’ You’d never hear this at 2NL!

So, here’s the graph so far:

My 5NL play looks a lot less stable, but tbh in a BB graph rater than $, it’s not too dissimilar.

As far as PokerSnowie goes, not a fantastic day today but still on target. I think on Saturday I’m going to try recording a video review of why my Flop and/or River error rates are so high, and go through a bunch of hands:

For now though, I’m feeling comfortable still. Considering how relieved I felt at the extra 5BI, I think I’m going to keep grinding 5NL until I have at least 30BI for 10NL, if not more. My original intention was to go at 24BI, but we’ll see..

Now it’s sleep, work, then back to the grind!

Thanks guys.

Mindless grinding – Day 5 – $186.63

5NL is now in my confidence zone. I was going to call it my bitch, but #samplesize #karma and all that other new-age shit. Sure, I’m making bad plays occasionally, but the poor quality of players is making up for it. So many spots where you can predict their range quite correctly, and then value town the fuck out of it knowing they won’t fold.

Here’s today’s session:

And our total so far:

There’s a $0.02 difference between PT4 and PS, not sure why, maybe a disconnect or leaving a table when I’m BB in a hurry.

Not sure how I like my volume, considering I’m playing regular tables. I’d like to get up to 10NL I think and then start calming it down a bit and studying more. Currently my intention is to grind it out until Sunday night, and then do a big review for the week. From this, I think I’ll focus on 1 area per week…this week, being PokerSnowie’s flop play analysis due to my shit scores. I’m also going to use that time to update my intro post to be a bit more personal and less rushed and strict.

I’d like some advice too. Personally when I’m looking at blogs,the more pics the merrier (relevant ones, that is). Is this the general consensus? If not, I can skip them and just do a weekly read for easier trawling and stuff.

Until then, here’s what PokerSnowie had to say about me:

I’m actually really quite excited for Sunday to see where my large flop error is coming from. Saying that, I’m excited for the weekend in general; off work, plenty of grinding/chilling.

For some reason while doing this challenge, I’ve been listening to mostly country music. No idea why, but I guess I find it quite chill. Here’s a motivational one I bang on every now and then though, bloody love it! Shame it’s about the Yanks..

Well, time to go to bed and read a few blogs, then work/grind again tomorrow! If anyone has a study group for micros, I'd be really interested in joining by the way! Also think I might make a late entry to the GRODT challenge.

Thanks.

Still driving the 5NL train – Day 6 – $207.94

I’m starting to believe I’m crushing 2NL and 5NL now. I’m feeling automated at the stakes, but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. I actually got happy when I got my QQ in against AJo and lost, because I played it correctly against the right person.. That, by the way, is the pot at about 1k hands where my green line drops away from EV. In terms of that EV, I had another good 29BB/100 session, showing a similar win-rate now at both 2NL and 5NL for 6 days back to back.

So what gives me the confidence to say I can crush these stakes, and it’s not just heater? It’s looking very similar to my last challenge..:

I stopped not long after that. Basically, I got to 10NL (when I hit $120 on there, as I started with $80 and wanted to play with 20BI) and then killed my macbook. I then bought this crappy laptop that I’m using, and was disheartened that it was slow, that I couldn’t record videos, and that I’d lost my stats/shiny graph so I gave up and used the money to buy some headphones (Astro A40 gaming headset, for anyone who cares).

But, it shows that I’m consistently hammering 2NL/5NL. I’ve also changed my aggression a bit, something I had to do at 10NL and hence before I had a positive red-line, now I have a slightly negative one.

Whilst typing this, I’m loading my hands into PokerSnowie and genuinely expecting a worse score. Maybe not even in the expert category tonight, and I think that’s down to my over-confidence.

…so I just got it, and my best score yet. Almost in the ‘World Class’ category:

Obviously I don’t have a clue then, as I’d have said that was my worst session in the 6 days I’ve played.. Will be interesting to review.

For now then, sleep time and really looking forward to a good weekend grind. Aiming to be on 10NL by the end of it, but $93 at 5NL on regular tables will be a lot of work for a weekend!

Wish me luck!

Count me in! Good Luck!

An off day – Day 7 – $210.99

Finally I’ve had a bad-ish day. It started as usual, got a stack or so up, and then lost it with 22 on a KT2A board going all in against an 83/32 (100+ hands) to find QJ in his hand. After this I never really got settled I don’t think.

I didn’t play too bad (dreading PokerSnowie though…should definitely be my worst score!) but I got beaten a lot by villains ranges being at the top. Lost with a flopped set of 5s to a turned set of As, lost a pot in a 4b pot with QQ on a 56357 board…to K4s… I had 0 4s in his range.. It’s just been crap.

To combat it, I’m ending todays session now. I’m going to carry on playing tonight after midnight, but new session, new mindset.

So here is today:

I’m going to limit posting my full graph to a weekly event (or on milestones) now as it’s getting to the point where each session is having very little impact on it.

Now just waiting for the hands to be analysed by PokerSnowie.. My river error is going to be silly, from too many call downs where villian had the absolute top of his range.

Wow…Shit. My worst by a mile, and it shows in the results!

So that’s that session over. I now know I played bad, despite villiains getting good parts of their range. Pretty much time to go back to the tables, and concentrate on playing my A game rather than feeling sorry for myself for this result.

Wish me luck!

Breaking the rules – Day 8 – $301.17

I got impatient.. Well, actually I’m going to say it was a sensible suggestion. At the start of todays session I started struggling with 5NL like yesterday, so I stopped and analysed my play. The problem seemed to be I was getting too aggressive in very marginal situations. I put this down to wanting to smash 5NL this weekend to get to 10NL, and it was actually preventing me from doing so.

So I did a deal with myself. A 2 BI shot at 10NL. If it goes well I get to stay anyway so no harm done. If I lose it, go back to 5NL and be content that it’s where I currently belong. It seems reasonable; I felt comfortable at 5NL, and 10NL brings the advantages of being able to make StarsCoins a lot faster and play the challenges, for which I got $2.50

Well, fuck me, it was a killer of a day. I made an early marginal call in a 4B pot on a KQ2 board with AA where I was shoved on.. I figured he either had AA too, had AK or had hit a set.. I called.. QQ it was. Luckily, I spiked an A but it still left me reeling.

From here on out I played pretty breakeven for a while, or so I thought. Turn out I was just letting my EV catch back up! Once it did, my cash started going with it:

I’m not going to post PokerSnowie tonight for 2 reasons. Firstly, I’m scared as to how bad I played and I think seeing it may tilt me. Secondly, it’s 0150 meaning it’s well past my bedtime!

For now, here’s the challenge graph with me sat nicely with 30BI for 10NL, maintaining a 20BB/100 winrate over 23k hands

Night all, and wish me luck for tomorrow!

Praise the rakeback! – Day 9 -$324.77

Yesterday wasn’t brilliant:

It looks ok on the surface, being 18BB/100 EV up,but remember that the upswing at the start was actually the early hours of the morning from my previous session. So basically I logged on, lost the best part of 8 BI, and then had a rage-break before coming back and grinding them back in.

Here are the big loss pots in that stretch (hand 900-1500) with a brief summary:

AK vs AA AIPF – Not much to be said. I don’t really know if I should be calling here. Villain was a relative unknown, 18/9/0 over 25 hands.

Do I really ever win here? – Villain was 68/17, but surely even he folds 32% of hands… 53o must be in his folding range right..? Even so, I don’t beat much here except 2p that he’s gone mental with, and will more often see 77.

I definitely don’t win here! – Villain is 13/13/3 over 108 hands. I check flop to induce.. I think thats fine. His 3b calling range is mostly pairs and AK (maybe), AQ, AJ, and maybe KQ (assuming he plays upto his 13/13 stats). From inducing, it lets his AQ/AJ/TT/99 and stuff get a pot up. I think they all give up on the turn though, so what am I facing now? AK/KQ/JJ/KJ(?)/77. Maybe T9 if he’s that wide as he jut turned an open ender. And what about the river? Think I have to fold the river really.

Let him catch up.. – Villain is complete unknown, 0/0 over 1 hand. He 3b from my BTN raise, so can say he will do this with a wide range. Beautiful flop; maybe should raise and rep a flush draw but don’t want to fold his AJ style hands. Turn, bingo, his AJ has caught up, let’s ship him. AQ is never folding, AK probably isn’t either. AA definitely isn’t..

What are the odds of it happening again? – Villain is 21/16/3 over 565 hands. Villain can 3b wide here against BTN, and I have a good shot of set-mining 3 ways. Boom, I hit. Check back to let him catch up if required, or bluff turn. Villain bets.. I can rep a flush draw here so raise small to look bluffy. What?! He reraises? He either does this with air, AA, QQ or AQ at best. Oh fuck, AA again.

Houston.. We have tilt – Villain is 13/4 over 24 hands. Hero is pissed off and gambling.

After this, I pretty much up-tabled and left the session, chilled to some music whilst playing Final Fantasy 7 on my phone, then went to the girlfriends parents for dinner. On returning, I got my head together and grinded it back. I’d still be slightly down if it weren’t for these beauties:

As you can see/imagine, it completely put me off my blog intro update and large review session. I think seeing my set of 3s get busted by a set of As twice in a row would just have tilted me more that day, so I’ll get round to that another time.

For now, back to the tables; wish me luck!

Let's talk truths - Day 9.5

I've just written my blog post, about to start a session, and feel I need to go through a hand from yesterday to show myself I'm being stupid:

Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

MP: $9.62
Hero (CO): $10.35
BTN: $8.86
SB: $13.67
BB: $10.00
UTG: $11.93

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is CO with Q J
1 fold, MP calls $0.10, Hero raises to $0.30, BTN calls $0.30, 2 folds, MP calls $0.20

Flop: ($1.05) 7 8 T (3 players)
MP checks, Hero checks, BTN bets $0.90, MP calls $0.90, Hero calls $0.90

Turn: ($3.75) K (3 players)
MP checks, Hero checks, BTN bets $3, MP calls $3, Hero ???

Easy fold right? Not if I'm in a gambling mood.

So let's make some assumptions to make this maths easy.
1. If I miss the river, I fold
2. If I hit my A or 9, we all go all-in and I win (even if its a 3rd spade)
3. Neither villain has an A or a 9, or a flush draw

Next, let's work out my odds of hitting the river:
52 cards in a deck, 6 are out (my 2 + the board), so 46 left. There are 8 cards left that (given the rules) give me the nuts. My odds are 8/46.

How much money does the pot need to amount to on the river to make it worth while?:
Imagine I'm flipping a coin, and betting 'tails'. I have 1/2 chance of winning, therefore to be breakeven I need a prize of 2/1.
Here I have 8/46 chance of winning, therefore to breakeven I need a prize of 46/8 x $3 that I'm putting in.

Therefore, to win if all conditions are perfect, I have to win $17.25 when this happens.

Let's add up.. $3.75 on the turn, add the BTN and MP bets of 3 each = $9.75. Add the rest of their stacks ($4.6 +$5.42) = $19.77! PROFITABLE CALL!

BUT, that's if all conditions are perfect and we live in a rake free world. Now lets assuming that 1 of these has an A (non-spade), and the other has a flush draw.

Now there are only 6 cards out of 46 that help us (one A is taken, and lets say we play perfectly and fold on A of spades). We now need to win $23 to be breakeven.

Add onto this that both villains could fold, or we could split pot, or we could call down against a flush draw, and this soon gets to be really bad. To be honest, I really wasn't expecting the initial set of rules to bring a good decision around! But we are then relying on a lot of assumptions for everything to play out well.

FYI;

Nice blog!

good grinding highly unlike me who wanders off to go ger a bit more.??

Very nice read

Got a question about poker snowie, do you have a subscription for that?

I do indeed. Can't remember which one, but I think it's about £30 a month and lets me upload 100k hands.

Intermediate Post

Due to currently only managing 1-3k hands per night, I'll do weekly reviews on a Saturday or something. For the meantime, here's a video of me playing some 10NL, with my thought processes included in a fast English accent!

Looking forward to your comments!