Am I +EV in Blogaments?

January:

Got off to a great start at 5nl in January, hit $240 (at 7k hands ish) very early on and moved up to 10NL. Continued my heater during the first 5k hands of 10NL and hit the high point of the above graph, then had some problems.

The problems were a combination of tilt, running under EV and playing while tired/distracted. I just realised it took me over an hour to write that first post and I have a few things to do before work tomorrow. More giraffes, and other stuff to follow.

Awesome!! Impressive shit right there sir in regard to your successes.

I wouldn't completely agree with you opinion on STT's though (them being "easy" and therefore hard to profit from).
IMO, there's much more to STTs than the push or fold stage, off the top of my head: re-steal shoves and exploiting Regs' tendencies (like being too tight in a given stage). Apart from that there are numerous nuances of the push-or-fold stage that many Regs are not too good at.

It'd imagine it's quite tough to have a perfect game (contrary to what you suggest), especially on $20+ levels, where table and personal dynamics start to matter a lot more than basic aspects (e.g. not limping when 12bb deep in MP) of one's SNG game.

And thus it can, imo, be quite possible to make a substantial amount of money given you're ahead of your average opponent on game analysis (like looking through fellow Regs' hands).

So, to sum up, I think you'd make more money grinding STTs than you will at micro cash - especially given your experience - but I might be wrong. You're the one that made 6k on them.

Nevertheless all the best of luck and will follow with interest
(hoping on every visit that you decided to grind STTs ♦)

Matt

Thanks Matt,

I didn't mean to say that STT's are "easy", more that the decisions are generally less complex than 100BB stack cash games, and the more complex the game, the more opportunities there are for your opponents to make mistakes.

I didn't specify in my initial post but I played turbo's, so you had ~10 mins of play with 40+ BB effective stacks and so a push fold makes up a huge amount of the game. I do agree that there are many non push fold decisions that increase your ROI.

I enjoy STT's and I may play some eventually, but for now I want to stick to cash - call it a new challenge. It also fits my current lifestyle better that I can quit at any moment rather than being locked in for 40+ mins after the game starts.

My February Giraffe

Apologies that it is a bit big, I am pasting into paint and I'm not sure how to scale it down without it getting any uglier.

Things probably worth noting:

• I had another pretty big swing at 10NL, see 10NL hands for Jan and Feb combined for the full extent of the uglyness)
• I missed my 15k hand goal

About the swongs:
I'm not going to kid myself by saying I am being unlucky. I will post my stats for 10NL later on and you will see I am 1BI below EV, but a lot of these swings are caused by some kind of tilt. Generally not the kind of red mist angry tilt, it's more like my brain just switches off momentarily. A hand example:

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $0.10(BB) Replayer
SB ($10)
BB ($1.83)
UTG ($9.37)
UTG+1 ($9.35)
Hero ($10.12)
BTN ($19.09)

Dealt to Hero Q♣ A♦

UTG calls $0.10, fold, Hero raises to $0.40, fold, fold, fold, UTG calls $0.30

FLOP ($0.95) 2♦ A♠ 6♣

UTG bets $0.30, Hero raises to $0.90, UTG calls $0.60

TURN ($2.75) 2♦ A♠ 6♣ Q♥

UTG bets $0.30, Hero raises to $2.30, UTG calls $2

RIVER ($7.35) 2♦ A♠ 6♣ Q♥ 4♦

UTG bets $3.51, Hero raises to $6.52 (AI), UTG calls $2.26 (AI)

Villain here is 21/10 with 1.4 agg over a reasonable sample. A losing player, but by no means terrible. My main problem is the way I played the river in this hand. He's not particularly aggressive, he's not limping a ton of crap under the gun, and I think my raise here on the river is outright terrible. By the river we know he can only have a strong hand (any guesses?), and I clicked the worst of the three buttons. I don't play like this all the time, but sometimes my brain just switches off.

I decided to buy Verneer's book - I had been deliberating for a few weeks because while I'm sure it will pay for itself, -$60 from my bank roll would have knocked me back down to 5NL and I didn't like the thought of that. In the end I decided to buy it from nonepoker funds and treat it as a gift to myself.

I am pretty sure it has a section on the mental aspects of poker and I think this is what I need to work on most to keep climbing the limits for the rest of the year. Previously, Verneer has talked about the Newt and the Monster, which I think might be what is happening to me when I play, however in Verneer's analogy I can never remember which one is the good one - do I want to play like a monster, or are newts shrewd at poker? I don't know animals. "Playing like a beast" means winning I think, beasts and monsters are similar, I'm pretty sure the monster is the one I want.

I'll end this rambling with my year to date 10NL graph, so you can see how bad my swings have been so far:

About missing the hands goal:
So I have a good excuse, honestly. I had 2 exams on the same day on the 9th of February, each three hours long. And then I spent a week on Holiday in Amsterdam (which was awesome) and two days stuck in Gatwick airport due to fog at the airport I was trying to fly to (which wasn't). Now I don't have any more exams until July, and no more holidays until August, so I should be able to hit my target for the next few months.

Life Goals
Thought I may as well add a few of these to this thread too:

• Go to the gym three times a week every week
• Play my keyboard that I got for Christmas every day

And wow this has gotten really long really fast, think I will leave any more for another post.

Stats to the end of February

Just to finish getting this blog up to date, here are my stats from 1 Jan to 29 Feb.

For an overall +$182.33 and a stellar bonus of $10 taking my bank roll to $328. I plan to take some shots at 16NL at $400, which will hopefully be this month.

Overall I am pretty happy with my stats, I think I probably fold too much to 3bets but I am not worried about being exploited at this level. I also think my 3bet% should be a bit higher. I do 3bet bluff with reasonable frequency when I can find the right spot to do so, I hope that the % is low because I am finding tables with fish sat to my right who open limp rather than raise. Comments are very welcome of course.

A New Month
Played my first session of March today, for a small loss of $2.39. Biggest pot played in the 80 minute session:

BB:52/30 - 30% 3bet and Agg:5
SB:41/16 - Agg:2.5

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $0.10(BB) Replayer
SB ($11.98)
BB ($9.77)
UTG ($12.86)
UTG+1 ($5.08)
CO ($14.30)
Hero ($10.68)

Dealt to Hero K♦ J♦

fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to $0.30, SB calls $0.25, BB raises to $1, Hero calls $0.70, SB calls $0.70

FLOP ($3) A♠ J♥ K♥

SB checks, BB bets $8.77 (AI), Hero raises to $9.68 (AI), SB folds

TURN ($20.54) A♠ J♥ K♥ 7♠

RIVER ($20.54) A♠ J♥ K♥ 7♠ 7♥

I'm not sure how I feel about how I played this. I think pre-flop is fine considering how wide BB 3bets and how generally fishy both players are. On the flop I am undecided - I figure he can be doing this with: Ax, pair+gutshot hands like JT or KQ, two hearts, two pair hands. Is this a fold?

the AQ hand I thought about and it looks like a set or two pair... He limped EP and hit his set/two pair and was betting small in an effort to "slowplay".

I'm not 100% sure how I would play the hand, though. On the flop, it's so dry that (from hands that we beat) only Ax hands are going to call us after we raise. Unless he's a big fish that'd call TT there or 6x. So we're folding out a lot of shit. At the same time, though, with his shitty lead, we want to bloat the pot... I don't know.

Turn - as played, you may even fold out Ax with this raise, even from a very bad player. He'd be like "shit, another overcard to my kicker. Jenny don't burn them potatoes!!".

River looks suspicious, this is the bit where I'm like 65% sure it's a set. the bet's small but a lot bigger than his previous ones - he's trying to get paid off.

So to sum up, I'm not sure how to treat these situations - guy donks into you three streets. Do you call, call, raise or do you just call him down? I spose it would depend on a player and your reads. Does he take initiative with strong hands and c/c mediocre ones?

Verdict: Given how passive UTG is I say this is an indication of a strong hand and we're calling him down here: call, call, call.

The KJ hand I'd call him all day. I think he does it with gutshots and FDs for most part.

Wow, that was nice, refreshing my Cash memory!
Best,
Matt

The AQ hand one is a strange one isn't it? His bet sizes on flop and turn are what caused me problems, I like call/call/call to keep the weaker part of his range in, especially with how dry the board is, but just calling a 30 cent bet into a 2.75 pot intuitively seems wrong. Maybe he wouldn't have done that if I just call the flop though.

March has started okay, up two buy ins from three sessions and claimed my second stellar bonus so sitting at $360, I also have 2350 FPP's and will get a $25 bonus at 2500, so I feel like I am very close to a shot at 16NL.

Some hands from March:

Small sample size on this villain, I believe this was his first 3bet in 35 hands when this occurred, he ended up as 12/8 4.5%3bet from 100 hands before I left this table:

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $0.10(BB) Replayer
SB ($10.99)
BB ($4)
UTG ($18.94)
Hero ($10.15)
CO ($11.89)
BTN ($6.59)

Dealt to Hero Q♦ Q♠

fold, Hero raises to $0.30, CO raises to $0.90, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls $0.60

FLOP ($1.95) 6♠ 7♠ 3♥

Hero checks, CO checks

TURN ($1.95) 6♠ 7♠ 3♥ 6♦

Hero bets $1.20, CO calls $1.20

RIVER ($4.35) 6♠ 7♠ 3♥ 6♦ K♠

Hero checks, CO bets $3.32, Hero folds

CO wins $4.15

I was planning to check/call a none A or K river, although I felt a bit lost from the turn onwards. Does my turn bet achieve anything?

Hand 2:
Villain is 33/26 with 20% 3bet and 3.7agg over 60 hands

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $0.10(BB) Replayer
SB ($9.63)
BB ($10.27)
UTG ($6.67)
CO ($9.21)
Hero ($10)

Dealt to Hero Q♦ Q♣

fold, fold, Hero raises to $0.30, fold, BB raises to $0.90, Hero calls $0.60

FLOP ($1.85) 6♠ 3♣ 9♦

BB bets $1.10, Hero calls $1.10

TURN ($4.05) 6♠ 3♣ 9♦ J♣

BB bets $2.10, Hero calls $2.10

RIVER ($8.25) 6♠ 3♣ 9♦ J♣ 3♦

BB bets $6.17 (AI), Hero calls $5.90 (AI)

Calling down with an overpair here seems fine, considering his range and aggression, but then again I don't see that many people fire three times with air. Is his range wide enough for me to call that river bet?

Hand 3

Villain 23/16 8% 3bet 1.4 agg over 68 hands.

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $0.10(BB) Replayer
SB ($13.83)
BB ($10)
Hero ($10.70)
UTG+1 ($8.62)
CO ($19.24)
BTN ($10)

Dealt to Hero Q♦ Q♣

Hero raises to $0.30, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB raises to $1, Hero calls $0.70

FLOP ($2.05) T♦ 5♦ 9♥

BB bets $1.40, Hero calls $1.40

TURN ($4.85) T♦ 5♦ 9♥ 5♣

BB checks, Hero checks

RIVER ($4.85) T♦ 5♦ 9♥ 5♣ 4♠

BB checks, Hero bets $2.75, BB calls $2.75

Should I have bet the turn here? I have generally been playing a little less aggressive recently, to keep weaker hands in and encourage bluffs or weaker calls from them, however on reflection this board might be a little too wet to check the turn here - although I can't really see a hand in his range that has a draw other than two diamonds. Any thoughts?

Big welcome in our blogs section

Arbitrary Personal Information
I'm 26, British, in full time employment and in a stable relationship with a wonderful woman who I don't deserve.

what have you done? ♦

Originally posted by IngridN
Big welcome in our blogs section

Arbitrary Personal Information
I'm 26, British, in full time employment and in a stable relationship with a wonderful woman who I don't deserve.

what have you done? ♦

Thank you for the welcome. Nothing too bad, although listing my faults and shortcomings would take up a blog of it's own.

You also made me notice I got my own age wrong, I am 25. That's pretty stupid. In my defence, I am almost 26 (call it 25.93, and we can round up to 26)

♦ alright!

regarding the hand, I now learned never to play the evil Queens always disappoint me.

Just a small update: bought both Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo and Verneer's book and so have been busy reading EoP on kindle at work and Building a bankroll at home, some really good stuff in both of them. When I have read and absorbed most of the information from these two I think I will buy Jared Tendler's book next, also available at a bargain price for Kindle.

Poker update: I am on track for my hands for the month goal, but I am down $9 from play and collected $35 worth of bonuses for a small profit overall. I feel like my play has significantly improved, however I am suffering from some bad variance - for example I lost KK vs AA all in pre-flop twice in 30 seconds for a total of $27 dollars one session which propelled me to my biggest session loss ever. This didn't make me angry at all surprisingly, the concepts of accepting variance and reciprocity from the books I have been reading really struck a chord with me.

I intend to bug Verneer in his blog with a few questions soon however I am still digesting the information in his book so I want to finish it before I ask a question. I really can't recommend the book enough if you are still undecided about buying it. I would say you could randomly select any 10 pages of the book and they are probably worth the cost on their own. If you don't like to read, what are you doing with your eyes and this forum, browsing for pictures??

Glad you're enjoying it! What have you found to be most helpful so far?