[Closed] Pincell's poker trip (FL + BSS)

you can't go wrong with FL

good luck

Im just starting out with FL as well, Good luck, I know you'll like it.

I'll read this blog.

FL RULEZ !

hoch die tassen ^^

Hey there,
I played first few sessions and I feel I'm starting to get a little better every hand I play. I reviewed all my hands in PT3 and posted 15 hands where I wasn't sure what to do to.

I already found leaks in my game:
- I can't let go pairs (mostly 88-TT) on dangerous boards
- I tend to slow down and don't protect my top pairs on turn
- I call river bets too often
Well, I have really small sample size but I'm going to improve my game and fix this leaks.

I'm going to develop my thinking progress when the hand is played.
It's quite easy pre-flop:
- at which position am I?
- what is the action before me?
- is my hand good enough to play/what am I going to do?
But it gets a little dificult on the flop:
I tend to do quick decisions and not to think about the board and anything else.
So what is your thinking progress?What is the first thing you are looking at?
Suitedness?Is board paired or connected?It's really dificult for me to this without some order.

My graph and stats:

Pincell

The basic and bronze articles are pretty good for answering those first few questions...

The Flop Texture Article, and the basic ones of playing Postflop. One is for the flop and one for turn and river.
They helped me get the hang of what to do in what situations when I first played my first 2k or so hands....

I would recommend them for micro limits for sure..

Hey there,
it's sunday and time for my weekly post I've been playing a lot,
but just 2-3 tabling because I don't feel very comfortable with 4+ tables.

I've worked on my game (mainly turn play) and I feel I'm starting to beat 0.10$/0.20. I'm only annoyed by few my opponents who are willing to play 92o on KQ2 and catch runner runner straight. But I'm starting to deal with this feeling. My pokertracker says I'm winning against them so whatever.
I noted this players and I'm looking for them every time I want to play.

One question: How big are normal swings(variance) on FL FR?

Pincell

My graph and stats:

P.S.: What do you think about my stats?

Hey There it's time for another post.
So I managed to get silver rank Obey me ♦

Ok. No jokes.I played a lot of hands from sunday and all I can say is that I really think I can beat FL 0.10$/0.20$.

Something about my education. I re-read all brondze articles, watched almost every video in Brondze section and I still review all my sessions. So I'm kinda satisfied about the way I currently play

Graph and stats:

As you can see the last session (~700 hands) was really crazy. My top sets,two pairs, Aces, Kings were crushed by total morons who managed to hit their runner runners. I'm really happy that I didn't tilt and even managed to get winrate +0.93BB/100. I wonder how big the winrate is going to be when variance changes the side.

Well and here are my questions(I would really apreciate answers from experienced players )
1.Is winrate +2.55BB/100 good enough for this limit?
2.Since my winrate is quite good and I'm clearing first deposit bonus I will soon have bankroll for 0.15$/0.30$ (81.22$ at the moment).Is it good idea to move up with ~5000 hands played on 0.10$/0.20$? (Actualy those hand are the only hands I played fixed limit)

Thanks for reading.
Pincell

1. Yeah, it's pretty good.
2. Move up when you hit 90$.

Good luck with FL. It's cruel game.

Hey Pincell

You asked the question about variance in FL FR?

My experience moving through the limits was that I'd more or less break even for the first 8k hands (after a drop for 4-5k hands usually) and then hit a heater and move up after 10 - 15k hands.. it went more or less like that until I was rolled for SH.

Don't ask about SH. All I can say about that (Forest Gump stylz) is study your backside off so when variance strikes you can minimise the impact of the downswing!

GL!

Hey there,
It's time for my Sunday post.

Things weren't going so good lately. I managed to learn that I can tilt pretty hard (good to know :f_biggrin:). There were sessions when I thought I'm going to find that guy and do some crazy shit on him

But without jokes,
I played some horrible and sessions (I'm not going to post my "bad beat" hands, no one is interested in "cry me a river" guys) and my confidence stopped to get drunked somewhere. I was in tilt mode often, so I closed the tables and started to study(re-read articles,watch videos). After that my breakeven 3.5k hands part didn't look like start of a downswing but like some bad luck combined with some horrible play. And that's it. No downswing.

After I reached 90$ balance I started to take shots at FL 0.15$/0.30$ and they where quite successful(104 hands - 38.14BB/100). It's very very small sample size but it's very nice start to new higher limit. The only problem is that there aren't people who play FR at that limit. It's very hard to find a full FR 0.15$/0.30$ table on Party. Do you know some other site where they offer this limit?

My biggest pot up to date:

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Play hand

$0.15/$0.3 Fixed-Limit Hold'em (10 handed)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A:s, J:s.
2 folds, UTG2 raises, MP1 folds, MP2 calls, MP3 calls, CO calls, BU folds, SB calls, Hero calls.

Flop: (12 SB) 4:s, J:h, 9:s (6 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG2 checks, MP2 checks, MP3 bets, CO calls, SB calls, Hero raises, UTG2 calls, MP2 folds, MP3 calls, CO calls, SB calls.

Turn: (11 BB) J:d (5 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, UTG2 calls, MP3 calls, CO raises, SB folds, Hero 3-Bets, UTG2 calls, MP3 calls, CO calls.

River: (23 BB) A:h (4 players)
Hero bets, UTG2 calls, MP3 folds, CO raises, Hero 3-Bets, UTG2 folds, CO calls.

Final Pot: 30 BB.
Results follow:

Hero shows a full-house, jacks full of aces(A:s J:s).
CO shows three of a kind, jacks(J:c 8:c).

Hero wins with a full-house, jacks full of aces(A:s J:s).

And yeah. My bankroll is over 100$

Thank you for reading.
Pincell

P.S.: I'm going to post lifetime graph in first post of this blog and update it every time I make a reply here.

PokerStars is the best site for playing FL. If you are not registered there, this is the right site for you.

Second best is iPoker network (Titan, Mansion, bet365).
Titan has the best VIP program, so this isn't bad option either.

After you beat 0.25/0.50 FR or 0.5/1 FR, you could think about going on SH tables. There are usually more SH tables on all sites and there are more bad players.

Well, I'm definitely going to move after I clear first deposit bonus. I went to party just because of that extra limit.

I can't chose PokerStars because I'm already registered there.
So basicaly I have two options:
- Fulltilt with rakeback and a lot of players
- Ipoker(titan,mansion) which I find very annoying (didn't try Bet365)

What do you think about Fulltilt + Fixed limit together? Do you play at Bet365?

I wouldn't advise you Full Tilt. Yes, they have lots of players, but not that a lot on micro and low limit FL games. Besides that, their rakeback is nothing special.

Titan=Mansion=bet365, so it really doesn't matter where you play. Same network, same software, same players. Only difference is in their VIP program and Titan is MUCH better then other two.

Yes, I currently play at bet365, only because of First Deposit Bonus.

Hey guys,
didn't play much last week (little "vacation" with my family). And those few hands I played sucked a lot. As you can see in my lifetime graph last 600 hands was pretty sick. I lost almost every big pot and that's really playing games with my mind. I don't know if I play good,if I play bad and I'm afraid that it's the start of a downswing.
What is the best thing to do know? Don't play and study?
However I still have decent winrate on 0.1$/0.2$(1.62BB/100) and very good winrate on 0.15$/0.3$(6BB/100). It's funny because I have lower W$SD at 0.15$/0.30$ then on 0.1$/0.2$.
Well that's everything from me, I'm looking forward to some helpful replies.

Pincell

600 hands is variance.. 20k hands I'd start to worry.

Just post any hands where you weren't sure of the correct line to play in the eval forums and keep studying (a case of do as I say, not do as I do...).

Originally posted by Pincell
I lost almost every big pot and that's really playing games with my mind.

Hi Pincell,
as the others already said, FL is a beautiful, but very swingy poker game. You should accept swings as part of Your game (and no, it's not easy at the beginning). Then You can spend more time on studying than steaming. Just take a look to the other FL blogs around here. You will understand then.

See You at the tables

One thing that helped me was finding the biggest losing hands,
and posting them and comparing them to what the articles said.

I found that most of my losses were comming from over playing hands..
Pressing on and staying in hands too long, or overplaying top pair
top kicker.

Also over playing draws when I should have played them passivley.

Then have a look at all your winning hands, and see if you were playing them properly.

Thats another leak, if your winning by playing poorly, you keep playing poorly.

Hey there!
Just short post. I'll write big one at the end of August. Things are still the same
--> Still getting sucked out by morons
--> Still nice winrate though
It's a pity that traffic on Party (FL 0.15$/0.30$) sucks a lot.

Most interesting hand last week:

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Play hand

$0.15/$0.3 Fixed-Limit Hold'em (10 handed)

Preflop: Hero is UTG1 with A:h, K:s.
UTG folds, Hero raises, 3 folds, MP3 calls, CO calls, 3 folds.

Flop: (7.46666666667 SB) 6:d, 6:h, 3:c (3 players)
Hero bets, MP3 raises, CO folds, Hero 3-Bets, MP3 calls.

Turn: (6.73333333333 BB) 2:s (2 players)
Hero bets, MP3 calls.

River: (8.73333333333 BB) 6:c (2 players)
Hero bets, MP3 calls.

Final Pot: 10.7333333333 BB.
Results follow:

Hero shows three of a kind, sixs(A:h K:s).
MP3 shows three of a kind, sixs(A:d Q:d).

Hero wins with three of a kind, sixs(A:h K:s).

Villain was stupid moron who was raising almost every hand and flop.

Pincell

August, 2009

Hey guys,
didn't write here for a long time so I decided to write a summary of my last month. I'm going to write summary like this every month.

To get things started, I'd like to say that this was my first month playing Fixed Limit Hold'em (don't count 4 donkey days in July).

My progress:

So there I was on the 1st of August. FL donkey, no clue how to beat this game, no clue what to do all the time. After some sessions I finally started to remember the SHC, lines against one opponent and stuff. And right after this I hit upswing. It couldn't be anything else because I can't imagine how can someone who just started can go up so quickly. I didn't start to feel invincible though. I was re-reading articles, re-watching videos, reviewing my session and posting hands.

It didn't take long and I reached 90$ balance and could move up to higher limit.I also reached silver status on PS. I was running like god on my new limit too. After 3k hands I had winrate ~10BB/100.

I almost made a decision to move up to higher limit (149.18$) but I didn't want to rush things and wait for proper bankroll to move up (150$). I don't consider this decision as mistake but everything could be different if I moved up. I had a small swing (doomswitch obv.) before but this one really made me puke. I lost almost 130BB in 1.5k hands. Since that I've been trying to recover from downswing (first deposit bonus helped a lot).

But the thing I really want to talk about is TILT. After I hit downswing I really started to feel bad, stopped to improve my game and I just played to recover from downswing. It took me a while to understand that this is just another part of the game (thank you Kieran). When I play session I try not to go on tilt after bad beat. I made progress in this, but I still go "insta tilt" after few suckouts in a row (thank you Kieran again for encouraging me every time I whine in your chat on Skype ).

My goals for September, 2009
Poker goals:
- learn to manage tilt
- improve my game (review sessions, read and re-read bronze and silver articles, watch videos again etc)
- start to think in BB's, not $'s (every graph I'll upload will contain BB's not $, this is going to be the same for the first page of my blog --> "my bankroll is" sentence is going to be deleted)
- move to Titan Poker
I was thinking about the goal: Move up to 0.25/0.50, but I can't control future and as long as I play poker I can hit a downswing so that's it.

Graph and Stats:

Thank you for reading,
Pincell