[Closed] Sam's Poker Bankroll Accountability Blog

Good idea to start a blog as a means of keeping yuorself under control.

I do however have multiple comments on your "plan"

For starters, setting a fixed amount of money you want to win is a slightly dangerous thing to do. If variance hits you the wrong way, you might not make your goal, which might very well put you on tilt at the end of the month since you desperatly want to make that amount.

Second, playinh SH requires a completely different style of play (more agressive) and a bigger bankroll (500bb rather than 300bb)

Third: it's actually pretty easy to multitable up to 4 tables at a time, if you realise that according to the starting chart's we are only meant to play about 20% of our hands, you are still only occupied at one table at a time.

Fourth: Good luck with it, and I'm looking forward to any updates in this blog.

Thanks for your reply Lennert9. I know money goals can be bad news. That's why I set it sooo low. $3.23/day should be possible. There's two underlying things I'm keeping in the back of my mind: 1.) Overall, if I have a winning month, I'll be happy. There's worse things than not hitting $100. So u're right on that note. 2.) If I review hands and see I made the right decision more often than not (even if I lost), I won't be happy I lost money, but I'll still get to keep my confidence about my game.

Yesterday's Results

Had a tough day yesterday playing LHE on Full Tilt for an hour and a half. Was down $15 but made it back plus a nice 15 cent profit! Called it quits after that cause the blinds were coming around and I wanted the psychological benefits of a winning session no matter how small since my last two sessions have been poor. I noticed I still felt impatient, but only on FT. Lately, I just haven't been picking up many playable hands on FT and rather than force my VP$P up to 20-25% every session with marginal holdings, I just have to learn some sessions won't be chock full of great holdings. Poker's a never ending game and there's always tomorrow. Better to wait it out than start getting involved in too many hands with a -EV just to play.

Did well on CD Poker playing .10/.20 LHE. Made a nice $1.47 in a few minutes.

Did well playing .10/.20 PLO at Doyle's Room. Made $8.65. Shame that I don't have the bankroll at Doyle's Room for PLO because I love Omaha, but nobody seems to play Limit Omaha unless it's a mixed game. I might switch to micro-stakes LHE at Doyle's Room if anybody's playing (never see a full ring game going there so might just have to get better at 6-max). Now that I've got $30, I'm rolled for the .05/.10 level (though not for 6-max). I can then use my Ultimate Bet bankroll to play Omaha. Since they're a bigger network it's more likely somebody's playing micro-stakes there. Will keep looking for an Omaha game within my bankroll limits.

Full Tilt = $374.39....Net Profit: $8.45
Ultimate Bet = $57.26...Net Profit: $7.26
CD Poker = $67.01...Net Profit: $17.01
Titan Poker = 40.47 Euros (dormant account, withdrawn to add to Full Tilt account)
Doyle's Room = $31.15 (played two Pro Bounty tourney's)...net profit: $8.65

Current Total Bankroll: $529.81 + 40.47 Euros
Current Total December Winnings: $41.37

Freakin' terrible night.

Started off great! Was up to $50 profit! Half way to my goal! Then dropped like $30, I'll have to do the math, I'm super tired. Anyways...I'm still in the black for the month but not by a whole lot. Aw man. At least I made a lot of rakeback today. That should tide me over.

Over 2k hands, my BB/100 is down to 0.13. Arrrrgh.

Just sick bad beats all day. Flopping top pair with AK and losing to AJ when the J hits on the turn. As a matter of fact, I lost with AK 5 out of 7 times today flopping top pair (for example, AK vs A8 and the flop comes 78A). I almost wanted to start folding it preflop. Couldn't stand to look at it for all the good it did me.

Soooo many suck-outs. And then I tilted from the suck-outs. I'm mad at myself. Sooo mad at myself.

No patience whatsoever.

When I play poorly combined with consistently getting drawn out on, man, there's no tellling how far I can sink. I hate tilt.

The worst part of it is - just because you're on tilt doesn't mean they won't STILL suck out on you

learn to identify tilt and simply walk away when you are tilting. Also, when you make it to silver status (judging by your volume you should get there pretty fast I suppose) immediately read the TILT articles in the psychology department, probably it's best to read all the bronze articles from the psychology part as well.

GL avoiding tilt in the future

Im not too familiar with FL but you should try and identify why you are tilting. Initialy I blamed bad beats but it was mostly lack of cards. I would go on tilt when card dead. So as soon as I was experienced enough I started playing 3 tables instead of 2 and this helped a lot. Now Im at 4 tables and I even folded KK pf once lol. Read my blog for the details.

When you have more tables open, you get good hands more frequently and can even choose what to play and when. As opposed to losing your stack against a set after waiting an hour for AA.

Thanks for all your help guys. I know tilt is a big part of my weakness. Multi-tabling definitely makes it easier to play solid, patient poker. I tried last night, however, my laptop screen is too small and my HUD gets in the way of the Fold/Check/Bet buttons. This actually led to me timing out and folding a couple big pairs because I couldn't resize the table fast enough to be able to hit the button to bet in time. Funny thing is, after cursing both those times, somebody flopped a set defeating my overpair. Talk about happy accidents.

I also realized last night I had started underestimating the other players and started calling down with Ace high and super-marginal holdings too much after making a couple good call-downs. David Sklansky emphasizes defeating fish by calling down with medium holdings but I took it way too far.

Anyways, I did the math.

The damage to my Full Tilt bankroll:

Was = $374.24
Down = $14.58
Last Night = $359.66
Currently Back Up To: $368.89

Ahhh, the downswing continues.

I was on a 100BB upswing not too long ago and now I can't keep my winnings to save my life...After winning $10 in 5 minutes, I've lost that and down a further $7.

Posting your hand for analysis once can save you from committing the same mistake 100 times...

Thanks Brood. That is indeed something I will be doing. Especially after a terrible day of poker. Was at $50 profit yesterday. Now probably at -$20. Not going well at all.

Tonight's Plan:

Give myself a break from poker. I've lost perspective. Playing longer than I should be.

Instead, I'm going to spend tonight clearing my casino bonus (won $832 freerolling roulette at an online casion and have turned that into $1001 playing blackjack to clear my bonus). The wagering requirements are ridiculous. Only 10% of every dollar I bet goes to clearing my bonus so I've got a looong way to go. Probably cleared about $700 of my $3660 wagering requirements. Gonna restrict poker to 1 hour a day til I clear this bonus so I can have a nice chunk of change to deposit into my account. Hopefully I'll have about $850 left of the $1001 by the time I'm done clearing the bonus. Doing the math real quick, I have to wager approx. $30,000k still (since only 10% of every dollar goes towards the bonus). With a house edge of 0.5% I can expect to lose $150, right?

I'm playing 5 hands at a time, wagering $1 on each. I'm tempted to wager $2 on each to clear my bonus twice as fast but that'll make the swings too much for me to handle I think. Especially if I clear my bonus at the tail end of a downswing. I want to keep variance to a minimum, even if that means it takes two weeks to clear this thing. I could use a break from poker anyways after these past few days. And then when this bonus is cleared I'll be dying to take a break from blackjack! So it works out perfectly.

Lost $11 just now, wasnt feeling like playing but figured I HAD to play on a saturday. O well, tomorrow is another day...

make sure you follow the correct BJ charts for the variant the casino offers, if you play perfectly you should be playing +EV, but realise that after this bonus is in, playing any casino game is -EV, so cash out immediatly.

Thanks Lennert9. I follow the strategy chart provided by Wizard of Odds. I play 8-decks at Casino Classic and I use the +4 decks chart (dealer stands on soft 17).

How exactly is playing basic strategy +EV? It was my understanding that playing perfect basic strategy diminishes the house edge however it takes counting cards to swing the EV slightly in your favor. Otherwise couldn't we all play blackjack for a living?

Yeah, I don't like to gamble with my money when the edge isn't in my favor. However, sooo many online casinos will give you an hour free to gamble with their money and you get to keep your winnings made in that time (capped at $100/$200 depending on the casino, and of course you have to clear the ridiculous wagering requirements). So I won $150 in that hour and have turned it into $1001 all for free. I'll take an offer like that any day of the week.

My Day at the Casino:

I went to the casino tonight and played 2/4. It was sick (in the bad way). I played two hands poorly (got trapped for extra bets both hands on a flush draw by the drunk guy to my left who kept reraising EVERY hand regardless of his cards...he rebought I don't know how many times). Then, I flopped trip Aces in the Big Blind (ahh, the Big Blind special). Of course he reraised as he always does. We did this all the way down to the river where it's capped of course, and he says "Full house". I'm flabbergasted. He turns over pocket 3's. Guess what the river was? I couldn't believe my eyes.

So down to my last $6 with 10 4 off-suit, I fold to a preflop raise. If I had called, I would've hit a full house and been back up to $54 given 8 people to the flop and turn, but noooo, I had to fold to the preflop raise. I busted the next hand with 5 7 suited. At least I waited til I was down to $4 to tilt.

Now I understand what David Sklansky is talking about in Small Stakes Hold 'Em. I always played NL at the casino so this was my first time playing LHE live. EVERYBODY was in EVERY pot! It's seriously as loose as .10/.20LHE. That's exactly how it played like. And I got wiped out (which hurts my ego). I usually kick ass at .10/.20LHE.

Anyways, honestly, I feel like I played well (except for the two hands I mentioned earlier) and got stupidly unlucky. I enjoy playing live so much more, however, the River Rock Casino bad beats me every time I go there. Four times ago, got all my chips having flopped Aces against pocket QQ. Turn is a Q. Three times ago, got all my chips in with AA, outflopped by pocket 10's. Two times ago got all my chips in with top two pair, villains hit a better two pair on the turn (they had the same hand). And then tonight happened. It's sick. But the other nearby casino only has 4/8LHE which I can't afford.

Seriously, somebody please promise me the bad beats end some time. I don't complain about bad beats online cause honestly, I've taken more bad beats live in a shorter amount of time and in less hands than I've ever seen online.

Oh yeah, next time, I'm going to wait til I can get a seat to the right of the drunk guy.

Hey Brood,

Tell me about it. Tomorrow is another day, and hopefully it will be better than today.

the charts are good in that case I used that site too when I learned to card count.

Basic strategy is still-EV, but it is the best you can do without counting cards. The basics of counting cards is that once there are significantly more high cards than low cards in the deck play becomes +EV, so you should bet little when the count is negative, and bet more when it is positive, but ofcourse, an online casino reshuffles every hand, so the count is always zero, and you are always playing -EV, but BS only loses 0.5% in the long run, whereas mimicing the dealer, or assuming a ten in the hole lose you 5%

P.S. in my previous post I meant, that combined with clearing the bonus it was +EV since you are clearing more bonus than you are losing

Wow...so I've dropped $200 playing basic strategy blackjack ($1 bet per hand, 5 hands at a time).

This is sick. Was at $1005. Now at $805. Everywhere I look money's just going down down down. I'm sitting here wondering when is this going to turn around? I've lost 40 more hands at blackjack this session than I've won. This is sick. 5 hands at a time no less. Seriously, this is gonna turn around right? It's gonna swing down, it's gonna swing up, right? If it keeps just going down I won't have any left by the time I clear my bonus.

This is sick. Sick sick sick sick sick.

just a thing, you were talking about PLO, i know at pokerstars theres always a few PLO very micro limit games going on, i'll look and tell you right now theres about 10 tables for .01/.02.. so pretty much the smallest you can get, about 5 FR and 5 SH.

Am just getting interest in PLO so haven't played, but i've heard in general theres alot of fish at pokerstars, especially in NLHE dont know about limit.

So maybe I'd check that out if i were you :)..

Best of luck (or should i say variance ♦)

Thanks dude, I'll look into that.

Ok, the downswing in blackjac continues. I'm down to $686 from $1005. Is this kind of downswing unusual? Will it go back up? It took me less than half an hour to lose $68 this morning. And I'm following the chart plus I have a program to follow where I punch in the cards and it tells me what to do. So I'm quite confident I'm following proper strategy.

If I keep losing at this rate I'll go broke before I clear the bonus. Seriously. I'm losing about $100 an hour.

Is this to be expected? Will it turn around?