From trading markets to poker table.

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Hello jules97,

Welcome to blogging

As a basic user, you won't be able to upload any images. But I can help you with that for now:

You can either receive the free $50 or deposit yourself and start accumulating StrategyPoints to move up statuses. You can read about it here.

You said you're coming fro trading, can you tell me more about that? How come you ended up trying poker and where did you trade before?

Ingrid

Thanks Krish and hi Ingrid,

I think I've gained a dollar or two in rake after today, so I should be getting a few strategypoints sooner or later.

I wrote a little intro here that talks about some of the trading I've done.

I started out trading ozzie mining stocks in the late 90's then started for a subsidiary of the company Refco in the giddy tech boom. Working all night trading US tech stocks and emini futures when they were just picking up popularity. Everyone was a genius back then (volatility is to traders as fish is to poker players) ♦ . About 5 years later i had just gone back to them and they ended up being a financial world equivalent of the poker site Full Tilt. Thankfully it didn't hurt me at all.

I've always been interested in poker and as I'm getting older, competitive sports are getting harder and harder, so poker is an outlet for competition. I also figured I spend a lot of time playing computer games so at least I can earn some money (touch wood) when I do it with poker. On top of that, after having traded for 10 years+ my sleeping habits and patterns are FUBAR and internet poker gives me a chance to do something when everyone else is asleep!

Todays session was not as great as yesterdays, only 20bb/100. A few fish got away. I think I played ok though. Most of the bigger losing pots I think I played well. I managed to flop a set and get full value. And I got a stack of one fish that I had taken to the cleaners yesterday. A few did get away, or others got in first. But I guess that's the way it goes.

Still a lot to learn, internalize and become 2nd nature. I sometimes miss hands playing only 2 tables (lol) as I check up on things.

I'm still surprised how bad some people can be, checking down KK for a 6c showdown!

Originally posted by ArkhamAsylum
gooduck jules, don't break too many mouses playing poker

I just found this in the intro thread.
Haha I don't think I've every broken any hardware before. The worst I've done was put my fist through the glass window of a vending machine. It sat next to me for a month or so reminding me of my stupidity! lol

your account is tracked right?

i also haven't broken anything in quite some years of tilting online games, obv very proud of it a good mindset comes a long way in being successful.

Congratulations on the Silver Status!

Update time!

I quickly learnt I was horrible, so cut down to playing 1 table while reading and studying some theory. Today I had a bit of a break and decided to play four tables at a time. It went OK, a few mistakes and a little too fast but a nice change to mix it up. I think back to one table and study for the next few sessions.

Up to 4200 hands now, slowly ticking along. I've been tracking my big OMG 'u idiot' mistakes. Here is the best one so far.

Now I thought Villain was an 80/60 maniac just pushing anything allin each hand. So I decided to push allin with TT. Unfortunately, he wasn't the 80-60maniac but a 7/7 supernit with the nuts and I had got the two of them mixed up because they were near each other on my HUD! lol
Aaaand queue Gob from arrested development, 'I've made a huge mistake'.

iPoker - $0.02 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP: $1.56
Hero (MP+1): $3.02
CO: $2.00
BTN: $0.78
SB: $2.30
BB: $1.22
UTG: $2.28
UTG+1: $1.15
UTG+2: $3.13

SB posts SB $0.01, BB posts BB $0.02

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.03) Hero has T♦ T♥

fold, fold, UTG+2 calls $0.02, fold, Hero raises to $0.10, fold, fold, SB raises to $0.26, fold, fold, Hero calls $0.16

Flop: ($0.56, 2 players) 9♥ 4♥ 6♦
SB bets $0.56, Hero calls $0.56

Turn: ($1.68, 2 players) K♦
SB bets $1.26, Hero calls $1.26

River: ($4.20, 2 players) 9♠
SB bets $0.22, Hero calls $0.22

Hero mucks T♦ T♥ (Two Pair, Tens and Nines) (Pre 20%, Flop 14%, Turn 5%)
SB shows A♣ A♠ (Two Pair, Aces and Nines) (Pre 80%, Flop 86%, Turn 95%)
SB wins $4.34

Despite copious amounts of stupidity, I'm still ticking along at about 20bb/100 but I think if I hadn't made some horrible mistakes I'd be going significantly better. I am definately improving though. Now, there is a lot of stuff that I know I don't know, so I have things I can work on actively.

i see that you are posting some hands regularly.

i'd say that hand evaluations were the single most important thing that got me from NL2->NL25.

Hey Tom,

Yeah I think I'll try and post one one (and check out a couple of other peoples) after each session for the next couple of weeks. But at the moment I stand so much more to gain studying the basics. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I have some basics down pretty well and can start massing study of hand histories. All the hand histories in the forums that have already been posted look like a great resource.

When analysing your play and looking at your graph check the "display all-in EV" option. This shows whether you are playing well at a point or just getting lucky.

It is very helpful.

Originally posted by BObamaJr
When analysing your play and looking at your graph check the "display all-in EV" option. This shows whether you are playing well at a point or just getting lucky.

It is very helpful.

Hey Bob,

Thanks for the tip.
Here is a chart with 'all-in EV' and 'BB won with and without showdown' for good measure. What is it telling me?

BB won with showdown shows you how many BBs you have won when hand went to showdown. BB won without showdown shows you how many BBs you have won when hand didnt went to showdown, when opponent folds it goes up and if you fold it goes down. Red line also takes blinds into account, so when you fold from SB/BB, red line will go down.

It is often hard to have blue and red lines going up nicely. Usually if blue and red line are going up over a large sample, player is really good. Often just having red line going breakeven and blue line going up nicely is really good too. Most winning players at micros will have blue line going up and red line going down, but they will win more from showdown(blue) than lose in nonshowdown(red) pots.

Beginner players should not pay too much attention to red line, really often when player tries to force his red line to go up, blue line will come down, which is not good. It is also not recommended at micros, because most players will call your bluffs looser making your blue line go down. Most of the time it is enough to keep red line breakeven by stealing enough from CO/BTN/SB and 3betting occasionally from blinds to BTN/CO/SB steals, just pick your opponents carefully, you dont want them to call too often when you are out of position.

Good looking graph anyway, you have been running 1BI over Expected value, but sample size is way too low, so it doesnt really tell you much. I like how your nonshowdown winnings are up, dont bluff too much though!

I once took a shot at forex trading and was selling euros (not really sure what I did, but I guess something like that ♦) when it was diving. I deposited 100$ and in 10minutes I saw how I already "won" 10$. So I deposited more and more thinking "I will regret later that I didnt depo more because I will surely win!!".
I ended up depositing 500$ and lost 300$ of that ♦. I did everything exactly the opposit I should had done, buying/selling when I should had been selling/buying. Soon I realized forex trading required a lot of work to get good at, just like poker :).

btw, were/are you trading stocks or forex?

Hey Phenomenomzor thanks for the explanation of the graph.

I think my red line is probably a combination of a couple of things. Stealing blinds from seriously tight nits with a wide range and I'm probably cbetting way too much. But yeah I think that is the least of my worries at the moment.

FX is probably the hardest market in the world to trade. Without even considering how hard it is to predict, it is so rigged in the favour of the banks, retail traders would have a much better chance in their local casino.

Plus the spread that one has to pay with the online retail 'bucketshops' is insane. Also the leverage is stupid, I've seen places offer 200:1, any more than 3:1 is suicide. And also these guys arent taking your trades to any market, they are taking the other side of your trade and banking on you to lose, and if you don't, they might just spike their market a few pips against you and wipe you out. The few winning ones are what you would consider in poker to be running hot with a negative EV.

I think you did a good thing getting out after losing. Stay away! It's easy to see in hindsight what you should of done. In the present it's another matter.

I've traded pretty much everything, mostly futures.

Yesterday I played int he $100 and $1000 poker strategy freerolls. I had a quick play with the ICM trainer before hand and did pretty well in both tournaments. However afterwards I went and played some cash tables and stupid me started to play those cash tables like they were a MTT! I lost a buy in or 2 before stopping and realizing what was going on. Now I've banned myself from MTTs!

Played 1300 hands today. 4 tables at once. Got a nasty hand early on, but knuckled down and played ok until towards the end of the session when the tables became fish infested. Got a few.

I think I find the regs at NL2 easier to play against. I might not win big against them often, but they seem very predictable. Fish I'm sure are more profitable, but the swings get a lot bigger and crazy things happen! It's hard to isolate when 3 fish will call anything!

Another 1000 hands today. Yesterday I spent studying and didn't play at all. Ticked along pretty nicely at 60bb/100 today. Noticeable improvement in decision making which is nice. But still a long, long way to go.

There was one guy today who wouldnt let me steal his blinds. Very annoying 3betting me at 30%! Luckily I managed to snag him a couple of times and get paid off massively. But I really did struggle adapting. I tried calling a few times with ok hands but got pushed off by his cbet when I didn't hit. I didn't really have a clue about what kind of looser range I should have been 4betting with, so didn't do that except with AA,KK. Another thing to work on, but probably a ways down the priority list.

Also wondering after how many hands I should be thinking about moving up limits? I suppose I'll at least give NL2 another week and see where I'm at after 5k+ more hands.

Hey jules!

Always nice to see such new dedicated players! Seems like you are off to a good start there.

Looking forward to see you climb the stakes!

Hi Jules,

Good luck with the pokerz and maybe we will see each other on the way to the high stacks ♦

Tom

Decided to try NL4 today, start was a little rocky, there was a maniac cleaning up the table lol. But after that went ok @ 20bb/100 over 1k hands. I didn't really play that well and had a some luck. But I'll take it.

Didn't notice much difference from NL2, maybe a little more 3 betting and a few less bad players per table. More competition for the bad players, can be harder to get to them out of position.

Another 1k hands at 22bb/100. I got collared by a maniac a few times, but I can't complain I'm still ahead of allin EV by quite a bit.

Not a great day today, -12bb/100. Played ok apart from two very stupid hands. Would have been above water without much luck if not for those moments.
There were also less crazy fish today which didn't make things any easier.

I went full retard twice. Good news is they were isolated and did not instigate further stupidity.

Here's the first one, no excuses. So bad it's embarrassing.

iPoker - $0.04 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $5.88
Hero (SB): $4.00
BB: $2.90
UTG: $4.56
UTG+1: $4.74
MP: $9.35
MP+1: $1.75
CO: $0.54

Hero posts SB $0.02, BB posts BB $0.04

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.06) Hero has 4♥ J♦

fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN calls $0.04, Hero raises to $0.12, BB calls $0.08, BTN calls $0.08

Flop: ($0.36, 3 players) 8♦ J♣ 3♦
Hero bets $0.36, BB calls $0.36, BTN calls $0.36

Turn: ($1.44, 3 players) A♣
Hero bets $1.44, BB raises to $2.42, fold, Hero calls $0.98

River: ($6.28, 2 players) Q♦

Hero mucks 4♥ J♦ (One Pair, Jacks) (Pre 12%, Flop 22%, Turn 0%)
BB shows A♥ A♠ (Three of a Kind, Aces) (Pre 88%, Flop 78%, Turn 100%)
BB wins $5.87

The second one is full retard too. Forget for a moment how questionable it was to shove with QQ into the first guy. I'd decided to shove before the 2nd guy re raised. I was surprised when I found the cards flipped and it was a three-way pot.

iPoker - $0.04 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG+1: $1.00
MP: $5.74
MP+1: $4.63
CO: $4.00
BTN: $5.29
SB: $1.56
BB: $4.00
Hero (UTG): $7.69

SB posts SB $0.02, BB posts BB $0.04

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.06) Hero has Q♣ Q♦

Hero raises to $0.16, fold, MP calls $0.16, MP+1 raises to $0.60, fold, fold, fold, BB raises to $4.00, Hero raises to $7.69, fold, MP+1 calls $4.03

Flop: ($13.44, 3 players) 9♦ A♣ 5♦

Turn: ($13.44, 3 players) 2♥

River: ($13.44, 3 players) K♥

MP+1 shows K♦ K♠ (Three of a Kind, Kings) (Pre 18%, Flop 0%, Turn 0%)
BB shows A♦ A♥ (Three of a Kind, Aces) (Pre 67%, Flop 100%, Turn 100%)
Hero shows Q♣ Q♦ (One Pair, Queens) (Pre 16%, Flop 0%, Turn 0%)
MP+1 wins $1.18
BB wins $11.37
Hero wins $0.00

On a brighter note, I hit my first 4 of a kind and found a nice river card to get paid. ♦

iPoker - $0.04 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP+1: $9.25
CO: $4.54
BTN: $4.76
SB: $4.08
BB: $4.63
UTG: $8.52
UTG+1: $4.00
Hero (MP): $4.34

SB posts SB $0.02, BB posts BB $0.04

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.06) Hero has 4♠ 4♦

UTG raises to $0.08, fold, Hero calls $0.08, fold, CO calls $0.08, fold, fold, BB calls $0.04

Flop: ($0.34, 4 players) 4♣ T♠ 4♥
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($0.34, 4 players) 7♥
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $0.25, CO calls $0.25, fold, fold

River: ($0.84, 2 players) K♥
Hero bets $4.01, CO calls $4.01

CO shows Q♥ 5♥ (Flush, King High) (Pre 48%, Flop 0%, Turn 0%)
Hero shows 4♠ 4♦ (Four of a Kind, Fours) (Pre 52%, Flop 100%, Turn 100%)
Hero wins $8.27