[Closed] From $0.00 to Sideways 8. (Currently $162.21 as of July 31st, 2008), up $0.00 For August

End (actually the beginning, see below) of day 1:
Didn't go exactly as planned. I just was not getting dealt cards!
Here are the stats:

Day 21-Jun-08
Amount Won ($0.31)
Hands 184
Hands Won 12 (6.52%)

15 hours later

I've now realized that Poker Tracker is 5 hours ahead of me. So what I thought was my end of day 1 yesterday, was really the beginning of day 1
As a result I've managed to pull back from my $0.31 loss
So when it hits 7pm for me here, that will be the end of day 1. But I'm going out for dinner tonight, so I'll be done around 3:30ish

I played a $1+$0.20 SNG today and lost in 6th place. The blinds were getting very high, no one had more than 13 BBs. I had the third highest stack, and when all-in preflop from the cut off with KQs and lost to AA from MID who had limped. I played well IMO.

The real end of day 1 (cash games):
Day 21-Jun-08
Amount Won: $2.86
Hands: 349
Hands Won: 21 (6.02%)

And the real graph:

I played a few more hands while I was waiting for my friends to come over.
I won a three way pot and tripled up, and won another pot preflop.

Day: 21-Jun-08
Amount Won: $4.53
Hands: 362
Hands Won: 23(6.35%)

New graph:

I have discovered something interesting here with the conversions between CAD and US dollars. The Poker site is rounding UP to the nearest penny (which they obviously have to do). Right now the exchange rate is 1.02USD=1CAD. This means that if I buy into a table for $1, it deducts $1.02 from my account. This is fine. But if I rebuy for say $0.30, it should cost $0.305 in CAD so they round up the half penny. These half pennies add up eventually! This means that poker tracker says I lost 31 cents today, when in fact I lost 38 cents. I lost 31 cents to poker players, and 7 cents to the poker site for the currency exchange!
Sure this isn't much, but it would add up eventually.
From now on I would be better of to leave the table, then come back for the 20BBs rather then rebuying.

Hey man good to see you have a blog with some clear goals and everything, but check out the "Strategy" (no limit section)Tab up the top.

I might be wrong on this but I thought PokerStrategy came up with the SSS (looks kinda similar to "Evelyn Ng" "Short stacked tournament (?) play"

How does one exactly buy in to a "tournament" shortstacked and leave halfway through with 25bb.

Assuming this is a mistake I'd follow the SSS to the tee, it's BRM & everything is geared towards the optimal risk vs. reward already and if you follow a more conservative one you won't be able to climb the limits as fast, even though you don't really need the extra security because you can easily jump down a limit I guess.

Good luck

I know this exchange sucks i lost that way so far at least 15$. Basicly i checked that they take me 0,01€ almost every time i leave table. And i play SSS so i leave tables a lot. In two hour session at least 40 times

I know how is it to lose some money if your account currency is €. you loose some money at leaving table, but you gain some money because € is way stronger than $ an his strength is growing.
Because of this, I try to keep as much money as I can on moneybookers in € and depositing on PP or titan (when I need) in € and hope that i will not lose to much due to leaving tables playing SSS.

good luck and hope we won't lose money due curency

I stopped playing at Titan primarily because of this exchange rate, I had the account in Euros. For a MS shortstacker it is even worse, it really kills your winrate.

i think you can change account currency to USD when your balance is 0 (and hope that USD doesnt get weaker)

Originally posted by sismis
i think you can change account currency to USD when your balance is 0 (and hope that USD doesnt get weaker)

Yes you can. When I cash out and move to the next site I'll be sure to select USD instead of CAD. I'll get hit with a fee for a currency exchange from Visa, but it should be cheaper than the exchange from the tables.

Originally posted by TerrorBlade
I might be wrong on this but I thought PokerStrategy came up with the SSS (looks kinda similar to "Evelyn Ng" "Short stacked tournament (?) play"

You are right, it is similar. But PokerStrategy didn't "invent" SSS, its been floating around as a legitimate strategy for a while, and there are a number of variations on it. I believe that PS is probably one of the first to write such in depth articles on it though. Most people (pros) considering play short-stacked to not really be playing poker, since its so robotic. But it doesn't really matter, since it works against the fishes regardless...
I found another site which ran some simulations of PS's SSS versus a more conservative plan and found that PS's plan won 40% more over 10k hands. I'd share the link, but it would get removed, sorry.

Day 2 (morning):

I was hoping to come on and play some cash tables, but there is NO tables with people on them. There was one on titan with about 5 people sitting at it. I was really tempted to play the NL10 tables, since there was about 6 ready to go, but I restrained due to BRM. I instead decided to play in a $1 SNG instead. I had to wait about 30 minutes to get a table going though... Remind me to never play this early in the morning again

Did I say that I get dealt crappy cards for SNG's
MTTs I am good, but SNG's... I lost.. again... this time in ninth though. I had pocket kings, went all in on the flop with a set. Guy calls with K10o and makes a nut flush on the turn and river....
So I lost another dollar. I am now going to bed to sleep of the loss

Day 2:
So today was... interesting.
At first I hit a big downswing with a lot of bad beats. Today, of all the hands I played, AA was my worst, losing 3 times, and never winning. I managed to pull up into the green by about two dollars. That managed to offset my SNG loses (of $1.2) from this morning, giving me some profit. Then I had to go to work (which sucked, since TribunCaesar had offered me a stake in PokerStars 100K gtd.)... But at least he was kind enough to extend the offer to next sunday's tourny. When I came back from work I wanted to play some cash tables, but again, there were NO NL4 tables to play on.
Here are the stats from today:
Day 22-Jun-08
Amount Won $1.42
Hands 417
Hands Won 35 (8.39%)

And the graph:

Day 3 and Day 4:
Day 3 was really a blah day... I went down at the beginning, then recouped later in the day. But I am still down from my SNG loss (another $1.20).. heres the stats and graphs:
Day 23-Jun-08
Amount Won $0.06
Hands 537
Hands Won 40 (7.45%)
Graph:

Day 4 was terrible. I posted another loss on a MTT (that was pretty much a big SNG), so I lost $2. I was about three places from the money, but had to push with A10s on the button... got called with pocket K's from the BB and drew nothing on the board.
Then I continued to lose on the cash tables. Everytime I had a good hand, everyone would fold. Anytime I had a mediocre hand (like JJ, AQ), someone would call and win the coin flip.
Day 24-Jun-08
Amount Won ($2.39
Hands 191
Hands Won 11(5.76%)

Graph:

I figured it was time maybe to move to a new site. I'm not earning anything at Titan anyways (I enrolled with PSVIP by accident and they can't change it)...
So I took my original $55 (less $5 for the credit card despoit fees), and put $50 on everest. I must say that they have absolutely deplorable software! But the bonus is good and that's the most important thing I suppose.

Well I played around 500 hands... I'd get the stats and graph, but for some reason Everest didn't save my hands in the C:\program files\everest poker\history folder... They are somewhere though, because when I load everest I can see the game history under options.
So I played those hands and I've lost another $3.25 (but made $0.21 in bonuses)... It would pretty much look like the graph above anyways, so you're not missing much...

What I can't figure out is if it is just bad luck that I am having right now, or if its a skill issue. I know I definitely have a lot more to learn (doesn't everyone :P), but SSS is really not that hard, I have the SHC memorized, and I haven't tilted at all, I just don't know why I am losing here... I just always seem to get my money in with monsters and the guy with 3 outs catches his card to win. Feel free to comment please!
I've been doing as much reading as I can (for every 3 hours I play poker I read an hour, or more). I got a hold of a bunch of ebooks and have been reading them too...
So far I've read through both of Daniel Negreanu's books, Doyle's Super System 2, Harrington on Hold 'em, as well as Sklansky on poker. I'm confident in my post flop play, and I've rarely gotten my money in on a marginal situation.
I'm almost wondering if it'd be more worth it to try BSS, but part of me says that doing so would just be an excuse to try an recoup recent losses.
What should I do?

Day 5:
Wooooo... So today I quadrupled my money. I took all of it onto the $1/$2 tables and went all in on KK...

Just kidding

But today was a good day, a really good day.
I downloaded Hold 'em Manager, because Poker Tracker wouldn't stop crashing on me. After importing my hands, I analyzed them more (wayyy better than Poker Tracker just to let everyone know)
I found that when playing the NL4 tables I was often called down preflop with mediocre hands, just as I suspected. They would often catch a pair or two, or an OESD on the flop and beat me. But I looked at the NL10 tables and saw that it very rarely happened. So I made an executive decision to move up to the NL10 tables. I obviously have the skill for it. I bought into the four tables and set a rule on myself that I could not rebuy until I had won that amount (thus the most I could be down was $8). Well I never had to rebuy, and I ended up winning back my loses from the last two days, and then some! Take a look for yourself:

Day 23-Jun-08
Amount Won $10.80
Hands 217
Hands Won 17 (7.83%)

Graph:

So as you can see, I wasn't really running hot, my win % is the same as the other days (actually is a couple decimal places below my average). The only difference is that I was getting the odds each time correctly (ie my QQ beating JJ), unlike the day before.

Hello brian997 and very interesting blog

I like how you let graphs accompany your individual posts - makes it a lot more interesting and easy on the eye

Good luck on your climb up!

Best regards,
SoyCD

Day 5 con't:
This morning I woke up early, couldn't sleep for some reason. So I decided to play some cards.

These stats overlap the post from last night:
Day 25-Jun-08
Amount Won $11.46
Hands 707
Hands Won 49(6.93)

Graph:

I had a bad beat at the end, so I decided not to play anymore and now I'm off to work

Day 6:

Today was just an ordinary day. It was hard to find good tables at first (which is why the graph is all funny :P), but then I got some and pulled up from the early losses. Right around the 200 hand mark, I made some good calls, tossing hands like JJ and KQ post flop.

Day 26-Jun-08
Amount Won $3.21
Hands 542
Hands Won 36(6.64%)

I'm planning a very long hand session tonight so that I can take advantage of the double points for the Euro Cup. I should be able to hit silver tomorrow.

Hi master I follow your advices !

Originally posted by VassR
Hi master I follow your advices !

Haha good stuff The way you were playing out there, you were likely to get rolled over on...

So heres what you should do
1) Open up 2 internet windows. In the first one, go to this site: http://www.pokerstrategy.com/strategy/no-limit/822/3/
In the other one, go to
http://www.pokerstrategy.com/strategy/no-limit/822/5/
2) Open up Titan Poker and look for a room with 9 players and join it. For your bankroll of $40 you should be playing the NL $0.02/$0.04 tables.
3) Buy-in with 20 times the Big Blind, in this case $0.80 (but the table minimum here is $1.00, so you'll have to do that instead).
4) Make sure you click "wait for Big Blind", and when it gets to you, pay it.
5) Follow the starting hands chart, with no exceptions, don't bend it, ever!

-For example, if you were in the small blind with A10, you should fold. If you are in the big blind with TT and someone raised, you should fold. Even if their raise if small, you should still fold, because thats what the SHC (starting hand chart) says to do.
-The other window I had you open up was for if someone raises you. Remember that if someone raises you, you never ever call, its either all-in or fold, depending on that chart.
-If a bet or raise commits more than half your remaining stack, you need to go all-in
-You should leave the table if you get more than $1.20 in your stack, rebuy to $1.00 if you are less than $0.80.

The key is to follow the SHC, its always right
This strategy should feel very robotic to you, so after a while you may want to open more tables up.
Don't tilt and good luck

By the way, for everyone else, I met VassR in a cash game on Titan, where he was playing (and seriously breaking BRM), so I told him to post here and I'd write a blurb on SSS