[Closed] 2nd Round | Ka0s's Progress | NL$10 & $20 SH + PLO$10

Since then, I played NL5 SH and some NL10 SH at Party. Took a bad run at NL10 and now I'm back playing NL5 :tongue::tongue: .

I don't play a lot and don't think I'm going to any time soon. Just 200-400 hands/day on average and just 2-4 tables at once.

These NL5 SH tables are the softest I've ever played ♠_love:!! But of course, I got way more experience then these players.
I'm going to take a looser br approach because my edge is just so huge. I'm going to NL10 with $150 and back to NL5 when under $130/$120-ish. Still way enough buyins for NL5 to avoid going broke.
For NL25 I'll get more conservative though.

Bankroll is now $134 including $20 bonus.

NL10 SH:

NL5 SH:

Look at those bb defends . Probably because all those minraises. I'm making profit from the bb, so I guess it's allright ♠_biggrin: .

Greetz ♠_cool: !

Allright, so I cheated on my 200-400 hands/day.
I also treated myself on a $2 rebuy tournament using my very special and advanced micro limit rebuy tournament technique: Rebuy right from the start, only play big hands and overly aggressive and buy the add-on ♠_biggrin: . Finished outside the moniez .

Cashgames went okay though:

greetz !

Running hot:

My br is now $162, so next session will be two tables of NL10 SH. I'll get back to NL5 when my br drops to $120 (or sooner).
I'm also clearing a bonus but this goes really slow at NL5. Hope I can still clear it in time!

Summary of NL5 SH results:

I just hope I'm not too spoiled by the time I face some competition!!

I am loosing at NL10 X(. Not because of coolers this time, but because of mistakes. I am ashamed of myself now :f_cry:.

I need to stop trying improving my game and trying different stuff at these limits. It's unnecessary things like this that kill my winnings:

I open raise AJo, get called by aggressive bluff-donk in pos.
Flop comes 7KQ, I contibet and get called.
Turn comes 2, no flushdraws.
I knew this guy was gonna bet almost his whole range if I check, except a K or Q! So decided to check-raise him all-in (he had the perfect stack for this).
I check, he bets, I'm allin, he calls, blank river, he wins with 78 offsuit :evil:.

If you think this was a donk move I guess you're right =).
This is not something I would normally do, I might do it with some strong combi-draw sometimes. I really thought this guy was most likely very weak, meaning not having a K or Q. If he had a K or Q this particular guy was checking behind if he played the same as the previous hands I saw.
Although this player was clearly making a mistake here, I made a big mistake too: I thought he would actually lay down his weak hand.

From now on, I'm back to the very tight me for this limit, probably playing more tables if my br gets up a bit.
I also lost about $10 playing mtt's. I'll stop playing those untill I got some money to gamble with again.

I'll be back! Almost cleared another $10 of my bonus, so I'll continue playing NL10 just for now. Greetz! ♠_cool:

Partypoker has this SNG Steps system that seems pretty doable to me. I played those a bit some time ago, but never made it through step 5. I still had some tickets for the 1st and 2nd steps and enjoyed playing SNG's for a change.

I still got the tickets and will play them sometime again, but for now I came up with my own sng steps system for normal sng's. I don't know if it's a smart system (probably not ♦ ), but as long as I have fun... It's a bit of a challenge too.

The plan is, I start out with $30 which is 10 buyins for step 1. Then I see what I can make from it. Games will be single table full-ring. By cashing I earn 'tickets' for next steps. There will be six steps, from $3 to $55
(Changed this to four steps, $3 to $22).

(Revised) Rules are:

• I start out with 10 tickets to step 1.
• I always have to play the lowest step available. So If I have tickets for step 3 and 2, I have to play step 2 first. Exeption is step 4, I may play that one whenever I have the ticket.
• Winnings from step 1-3 must be used to buy a ticket for the highest step(s) possible. Leftover money will be used to buy into step 1. Winnings from step 4 will be added to my bankroll and may not be used to buy-in into steps.
• When I loose my all my tickets: game over.

This is the setup / payout structure:

• STEP 1 ($2.40 + $0.60):
  1st --> step 3 + $1
  2nd --> step 2 + $1.20
  3rd --> step 1 + $1.80
• STEP 2 ($5 + $1):
  1st --> step 4 + step 1
  2nd --> step 3 + step 1 + $1
  3rd --> step 2 + step 1 + $1
• STEP 3 ($10 + $1):
  1st --> step 4 + step 4 + step 2
  2nd --> step 4 + step 2 + $2
  3rd --> step 3 + step 2 + step 1
• STEP 4 ($20 + $2):
  1st --> $100
  2nd --> $60
  3rd --> $40

Extra 'leftover' money won will be added to step 1 balance.

In this post I will keep track of my results of this stupid sng idea:

(I quit this challenge!)

Balance: $33
'Extra' step 1 balance: $0.60
Step 1 tickets: 0
Step 2 tickets: 0
Step 3 tickets: 3
Step 4 tickets: 0

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________________
|             |        |        |        |        |        |        |        |        |        |        |
|   Placed:   |   1    |   2    |   3    |   4    |   5    |   6    |   7    |   8    |   9    |   10   |
|-------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
|   Step 1:   |   04   |   01   |   03   |   02   |   01   |   01   |   02   |   03   |   04   |   --   |
|   Step 2:   |   --   |   01   |   01   |   --   |   --   |   01   |   --   |   --   |   --   |   --   |
|   Step 3:   |   --   |   --   |   01   |   --   |   --   |   --   |   --   |   01   |   --   |   01   |
|   Step 4:   |   --   |   --   |   --   |   --   |   --   |   --   |   --   |   --   |   --   |   --   |
|_____________|________|________|________|________|________|________|________|________|________|________|

Hmm ... including step1 ($3) is pretty dumb. This sng is speed (5 min levels), way too much rake and the variance is sooo great. People minraising TT after 3 limpers with 20bb's, people limp-shoving KJo from UTG ... bleeh
Thing is, I don't want to commit more money to this 'experiment'.

But what can you expect right ??

Maybe I'll come back on my rules and change the whole thing so step 4 is the final one or something like that, we'll see

I'm going to cut this challenge down to 4 steps. Maybe I'll do it again when I'm done and change it again.
I'm already back at 5NL and don't want to gamble too much. I don't want to play lower than 5NL.
I think with 4 steps I have a decent chance to boost my br (or loose $30). I will at least clear $10 worth of bonus doing this, maybe $20. So whatever happens, can't be too bad ♠_cool:

After two big coolers at step 3 ($11) I decided to hand in my balls and surrender.
I made a huge $3.60 profit from this :tongue:. Continuing would be just stupid.

It took my mind of the cash-games for a while that didn't went too well the last sessions, which was the idea behind doing this it in the first place. I've learned some new things. I think I'll do something like this again sometime when I need some change, probably starting at $6 and only 3 steps.
I can never handle loosing too well and changing games is something that really helps me with this. I care less about loosing in the new game.

So, back to cash-games

I played the $2 rebuy at Party again tonight. I always play these rebuying right from the start but after that no more. Than I buy the add-on. So it's a $4.80 + $0.40 tournament to me, with a juicy pot.

The 3rd hand I got dealt aces and got all-in pre against 3 other guys, all with at least double stacks. And what do you know?? My Aces freakin' held up!!!

I was chip leader then and continued to be most of the time. Until it got down to 30 or so. I was getting really card-dead and no situations where I felt like I could make a move. So my stack slowly got smaller and finally went to the final table as 7th. One big stack who was raising big amounts light very often. I was dying to push against him, but couldn't find a hand. The problem was, He would call with anything.

Last hand kinda sucked: BTN calls with JTs, I'm all-in from the sb with A9s, kinda had to. He called all his stack with J-high and won :(. Well that was the hand before the last one, but that ended it.

All in all I think I only made 1 mistake in the tournament. It was a big one though. I got lucky with 13 outs and 1 card to come for a decent part of my stack. Besides that I got lucky cards and played very well.

got 7th/427 for $78.20

I'm kinda dissapointed and happy at the same time

I played just a little cash @ 5NL, but I'm definitely on a (small) downswing. If I beat 25NL with a high winrate over 70K hands, I should be able to beat 5NL and 10NL ??

I also played some sng's and I'm really starting to like tournaments. Totally different game.

I said I was back to cash, but I never know what I'm going to do :P. I'll just do whatever I want to do at that moment. Hopefully I'll win again in the cash-games so I can spend it on tourney buy-ins Tournaments are also a good way to get some partypoints for bonuses.

I'm not really putting in a big volume, so graphs and such will come later.

I created a tracked account at Titan, so I will probably stay silver and produce some rake for ps :f_biggrin:.
Titan has a lot of low buyin donkey tournaments during the day (Europe). I'm planning to play a few of those ($1.10 rebuys).

I've also been playing a bit of cash there, but really monkey style. Too aggressive in a lot of bad spots. But I'm still breaking even, so I guess I would crush the games if I play tighter. It's just hard for me to keep playing the same style and not trying some things I shouldn't do at these limits.
There are not so many tables and a decent percentage of regs, I think my bad play will earn me some money in the future from those guys (positive thinking ♦).

My MTT's are going decent, but I really wanna cash bigger grrrr
I finish in the money, but usually the real money is somewhere in the top 5 and I get jack sh#t.

Date	        Buyin     Rebuys   Placed   Entrants	Won

2009/07/08	$1.10     -        5	    164	        $9.84 
2009/07/11	$1.10     -        31	    406	        $3.00 
2009/07/28	$1 	  -        83	    917	        $2.00 
2009/07/29	$1 	  -        24	    858	        $5.50 
2009/08/16	$2 	  $3.20    7	    427         $78.20 
2009/08/19	$1 	  -        16	    420	        $3.19 
2009/08/25	$1.10     $2       17	    300	        $9.78 
2009/08/26	$1.10     $2       61	    770	        $7.89 
                                                        -------
                                                        $119.40

I played a total of 23 MTT's in this period. I think I could keep up with 33% cashes, the play in these things is so incredibly bad.

But I'm still breaking even

A few hands later and I'm up $13.93 and 18 bb/100 lol :tongue:.

From now on my total graphs will be updated in the first post.

I am planning to play more poker this month with the PartyPoker Cash Machine promotion. I'm going to try to build a br quicker using this promotion by playing a lot of sng's which generate a lot more partypoints then cash games.
And those points will also be very welcome to buy some bonuses later on.

As for now, my total br is around $250, but it's divided between PartyPoker and Titan Poker. And I need this money to stay on both accounts.
I need it at Party for the Cash Machine promotion.
I need it at Titan for clearing -an unknown amount of- bonuses and to generate some $ for ps / earn ps points.
So I need to treat it as two separate br's, I can't go broke on one site.
I don't really mind, I want to keep it this way. I want to keep money at Titan to play for ps, but I really need money at Party and/or Stars where I will be playing a bit more as they are my favorite platforms.
I like the idea of having a backup apart from my br itself. Not that I expect to get broke, but it still makes me feel more comfortable.

So for September, I'll be focusing on playing a lot of sng's at Party and play some cash at Titan.
But before jumping in, I will need to work on my sng theory. That really needs improvement.
I think my strength in cash games is overseeing the situation and adapting accordingly. To be honest, for a big part my game is feelings-based and less strategy-based. And I don't mean 'oh, I feel like the turn is gonna be a spade, let's call' :).
When I play, I try to absorb everything that happens in every hand, whether I'm in in or not. How well I pay attention has a big impact on how well I'm playing at that moment. So everything I'm observing builds up this abstract mass of data inside my head on which I base a lot of my decisions. So when I base my decision on some 'feeling', it's really coming from actual happenings. It's often just too complex to totally describe it quickly and clearly at the moment I'm playing, that's why it's abstract. But the fact that it's based on feelings doesn't mean it can't be explained theoreticaly. And even when I do some stupid things, I'm usually pretty good at using that as an advantage in future hands.
That's why I've never posted many hands in these forums. My actions take into account these feelings based on so many other hands, but all the judges can do is comment on the hand in a vacuum. Of course, you can add some reads or stats, but it's really not the same. I do post hands sometimes, it is good to hear other people's opinions. And it's of course a fact these judges are better players then me.
Luckily for me, I've played enough hands at NL SH with very good winrates to back all of this up ♦. (Before I started this blog).
It could happen however, that I will get into trouble when trying to move to the small stakes for example. Maybe I will need some serious theory-work by then, but that is yet to find out.
The way I play makes it very hard for me to play a lot of tables. I usually just play two, sometimes up to four. I get really lost when I try to play more then 4 tables and usually end up losing. That's also because the table sizes are getting too small for me, and I can't play cascaded tables :).

SNG's are a different game. Playing these micro-limit full ring stt's profitably simply demands playing by a fixed theory for the most part.
So I will need to work on that first. I'll start out by reading articles. After that I'll spend a decent amount of time with the icm-trainer.
Then I'll play some and see what happens =). It would be very nice to start of with a good run, because if I start out loosing too much, I'll have to play the $1 turbo's. Not sure if I want to do that. Omg you really read this long boring post? Time to hit the articles.

I reached the final table again in a $1.10 rebuy mtt @ IPoker.
Got 8/341 this time for just $28.65

Out in two hands :rolleyes:. First my 88 didn't hold up against somebody's QQ, very next hand AJ beat my 88 again.

One of these days ... one of these days ... one of these days ...

It appears that PartyPoker promotion runs from 0:00 EST to 24:00 EST.
So today I earned 47 partypoints today, but because of the timezone that's 37 for today and 10 for yesterday. And I don't feel like playing a lot tonight.

I am not making a lot of points anyway because I had to get down to the $1 sng's. Too bad there aren't any $2 games.
So I'm not really gonna work on getting a lot out of this promotion, not worth it anymore.

I played 56 sng's today so far:
28 x $3 -> ROI:-65%, ITM:10%, -$55.20
28 x $1-> ROI:40%, ITM:46%, +$11.20

Dissapointing results. If I would starts out winning, at least I'd had a buffer. But that's poker bla bla bla
I think I will continue playing sng's though, kinda like it for now.

I've been playing some more sng's.
The $1 turbos went great. So after winning some $ for my br I went to the $3 turbos. And those, again, went horrible.
I don't understand, as soon as I'm playing the $3's, I'm loosing everytime.
These players should be the same as the $1's, right? There shouldn't be an increase in skill?

Anyway, I'm quiting the turbos if I can play a speed or normal for the level. It would make sense there's a lot more variance in the turbos. My br doesn't really need variance :). Maybe I'm not good enough at it, I don't know.

After that I also played some heads-up sng's at Titan. Just a few, those went well (won 8/9). I'm liking those, the players seem pretty easily beatable. I don't know if they all are, but I'm planning on sticking around for a while. These could be easy moniez, we'll see =).
I need to clear my Titan bonus anyway, and I'm not really liking fr sng's atm.

I didn't play any cash games in the meanwhile.

Yesterday I played a cash session again. I have to say, I was on top of my game!! I was just killing it! I never played poker like this before. My reads and decisions were spot on. I never played this well before. I would definitely loose if I were to play myself like I played yesterday.

I played just 560 hands, I'm having a bit of trouble staying concentrated for long times atm. I played 3 tables tops.
I ran hot too, I don't remember getting any huge coolers. Winrate: freakin' 98.98 bb/100 for +$22.29 at NL$5 SH over 563 hands.
As you can see in the graph, it wasn't just a few big lucky hands where I won a lot. The winnings are distributed evenly throughout the session.

I needed this :f_p: :f_p: