[Closed] Let's Make it Work This Time (Moving From SSS to BSS and Finally Silver)

So, after catching up on my sleep after not sleeping for 35 hours I am back on the game. Gonna tidy up my flat and then get to poker, gonna 3 table for a start and see if I can get completely comfortable with it. My graph is below from my two sessions.

Well, 459 hands i've played today and tbh, it's not gone well. I'm $6.50 down at -36.9BB/100. I think i've played well but i've been sucked out on AA twice. I was playing 3 tables and got AA at both of them, push come to shove (No pun intended) we ended up all in preflop on both of them. On of them won with 94s, hitting two pair, another, unbelievably called preflop all in with 72o :@ hitting two pair again. I also lost out with KK twice and JJ once. But i'm pretty happy with my play and overall i'm on 18.3/100BB after just under 1000 hands. I will continue my session after i've eaten my Indian Takeaway (♦) and post again with a few hands i've found interesting.

I've noticed some people have actually read the blog so i'm happy with that

Preflop: Hero is BB with 7s, 8h (Comment)
4 folds, CO calls $0.04, BU calls $0.04, SB folds, Hero checks.

Flop: ($0.14) 8s, 6c, Jc (3 players) (Comment)
Hero bets $0.08, CO calls $0.08, BU folds.

Why are you betting this flop? You have middle pair with a weak kicker versus 2 opponents. You should definitely check this flop every time and fold if bet into. You did get lucky with another 8 on the turn but most of the time if you get called here you are beat, and if you hit 2 pair it completes a 9T or a 54 straight.

u sure ur playin sss cos ur stack is $2 on nl4 which is 50bb...???

Thanks for the input on the hand mate, I will take that into account.

And yes, I am trying to play SSS but on NL4 on PartyPoker minimum buy-in for NL2 is $2.

In other news, I have forgiven pocket A a bit after I trebled up, 3 all ins preflop

So, the end of the day for me, i've played a few short sessions and racked up 700 hands or so. Overall i'm down $1 for the day but if it weren't for a few suckouts I would be well up. Getting busted with AA twice, KK once and JJ once is -EV. I would be up overall for the day if it hadn't been for my last hand. I had TT, raised preflop, got a caller. Flop was 3h 6s 8h. In the end ended up all in, I was slightly afraid of a higher pocket pair but no, he had 77. What does he do? Runner runners a flush :@ Bad thing is this was just after i'd doubled up so I was deepstacked for $4.70 and lost it all.

Anyway, i'm hoping I can improve my play tomorrow, I need to tighten up a bit, at the moment i'm playing with hands like JT and KJ. I also need to focus more on my position, I know it's important but I just seem to forget about it at times.

I'm getting into 3 tabling and i'm doing quite well at it, i'll play another session 3 tabling tomorrow and see if I am comfortable enough to move to 4 tables.

Goal Added:
I'm hoping to increase the average amount of hands I play per day, I need to play at least 500, preferably 1,000.

So, since it's the end of the day, I will post my graph up:

BR on Party: $39.50

Always good to have another Brit blogging. Reading about you starting off makes me all teary-eyed and wistful about my first days playing NL10 on Party with my PS $50. It seems like a lifetime ago and yet it was only ten months.

Good luck to you and remember just this one thing: post hands on the SSS forum. It is guaranteed to make you a better player and accelerate your rise through the limits and your earnings.

Tim

Thank you Tim Good to know there's some support ♦
After finishing my Uni day i'm going to begin a bit of poker in a bit. By the end of the weekend I am hoping to have reached $60 and move up to NL10, even though I will be using the same buy in I feel I need to beat NL4 and hopefully move up to comfortably 4-tabling it

End of the day now at 4am here, not played as much as I would have liked to due to me getting engrossed in a film and then playing Forza Motorsport 3 ♦ Anyway, I played about 600 hands today, had a few bad beats and knowingly made a few bad mistakes. It's not been the best day for me and I nearly ended up going on tilt, I knew it aswell, I was getting frustrated at not getting any hands and when I did not hitting anything. It was when I found myself raising preflop with hands like A8s that I closed the tables and stopped.

But tomorrow is a new day and is also a Saturday, meaning I will be going fishing (On PartyPoker of course ;)) I'm planning quite a big day of poker tomorrow, with my flatmates going to watch football so hopefully having the house to myself I can grind for a bit, do some Uni work and grind some more Going to be reading a few articles as well and posting some hands both in here and in the SSS forum.

Anyway, I think i'm very slightly in the black for today regarding profits, although it's hard to tell on Elephant because it starts a new days at Midnight and I regularly play after these hours ♦ But according to my PartyPoker account my BR is now....

BR on Party: $40.72

Thanks for reading

Not the best day in terms of poker today, couldn't get the volume in to start with due to me having a gigantically bad hangover. I did manage to get 500 hands in but no more unfortunately. I also didn't run very well at all. I did break the $50 mark at one point in the day but lost a bit towards the end, I was getting quite frustrated nearing the end, I was never hitting with my AK or AQ and such.

Oh well, can't profit all the time, anyway I did manage a small profit of about $0.50 today and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day, even though I do have a full day of Uni.

BR at Party: $47.45

Nice job ♦

Keep it up

Thanks for the encouragement

Well, today I fought through a variety of horrible beats (Involving AA x2, KK x 2 and QQ x 3 losing after all ins pre flop :@) and I finally broke that fabled $50 mark.

I'm obviously not going to lie in my own blog, so I will come clean and admit that I did move up to NL10. This wasn't a rash decision in my opinion, the thing is, the lowest buy in I can use for NL4 is $2, and $2 is the stack I should be using when playing NL10 so I figured that when I go all in I cannot possibly lose any more than I would at NL4 and I can also accumulate points faster so I can reach Silver and start studying those Silver articles.

Anyway, here is my overall graph now, and btw I have just managed to keep to my goal of minimum 500 hands per day, I got 800 or so in today even with a full day of University and various other things I had to do

And here are a few hands, any constructive critiscism is welcome as always

Preflop: Hero is BU with A, A (Comment)
2 folds, MP1 raises to $0.16, MP2 calls $0.16, MP3 calls $0.16, CO folds, Hero raises to $0.28, SB calls $0.26, BB folds, MP1 calls $0.12, MP2 calls $0.12, MP3 calls $0.12.

Flop: ($1.44) 4, 5, T (5 players) (Comment)
SB bets $0.15, 2 folds, MP3 calls $0.15, Hero raises to $0.38, SB calls $0.23, MP3 calls $0.23.

Turn: ($2.58) 2 (3 players) (Comment)
SB bets $0.15, MP3 raises to $4.11 (All-In), Hero calls $1.02 (All-In), SB calls $1.37 (All-In).

River: ($9.23) 7 (3 players) (Comment)

Final Pot: $9.23

Results follow (highlight to see):
Hero shows a pair of aces (Ac Ad)
MP3 shows high card queen with ten kicker (8d Qd)
SB shows a pair of nines (9s 9c)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Preflop: Hero is SB with T, T (Comment)
6 folds, Hero raises to $0.12, BB calls $0.08.

Flop: ($0.24) 5, T, 8 (2 players) (Comment)
Hero checks, BB checks.

Turn: ($0.24) 4 (2 players) (Comment)
Hero bets $0.12, BB raises to $0.24, Hero calls $0.12.

River: ($0.72) 6 (2 players) (Comment)
Hero bets $0.36, BB raises to $0.72, Hero raises to $1.60 (All-In), BB calls $0.23 (All-In).

Final Pot: $3.27

Results follow (highlight to see):
Hero shows three of a kind, tens (Td Tc)
BB shows three of a kind, eights (8d 8c)

Hero wins with three of a kind, tens (Td Tc)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9, J (Comment)
UTG1 folds, UTG2 calls $0.04, 3 folds, CO calls $0.04, BU calls $0.04, Hero calls $0.02, BB checks.

Flop: ($0.20) 7, 6, 8 (5 players) (Comment)
Hero bets $0.08, BB folds, UTG2 calls $0.08, CO raises to $0.35, BU folds, Hero raises to $1.52 (All-In), UTG2 folds, CO calls $1.17.

Turn: ($3.32) 6 (Comment)
River: ($3.32) 3 (2 players) (Comment)

Final Pot: $3.32

Results follow (highlight to see):
Hero shows a flush, jack high (9c Jc)
CO shows a flush, ace high (4c Ac)

CO wins with a flush, ace high (4c Ac)

With the last one, I'm never sure where the "cut off" point is for flushes using 2 hole cards. What is the lowest flush I should go all in with? I can't figure out the odds for it.

Thanks you for any support, help or whatever, i'm hoping to reach Silver status by the end of the week at the latest and hopefully I can continue to build my roll up ♦

I also feel i'm slacking off a bit in the studying terms, since i've been evaluating my play just before bed I never really focus on reading articles or posting hands in the hand feedback forums. So:

Goal Added:

I must read at least 1 article a day, hopefully more, even if it is going over old stuff just to refresh my mind, I will also post more in the Hand Evaluation forums.

BR at Party: $51.18

So, the day has not started well, I did read a few articles when I got up but when I started playing it all went to pot. I'm running at -19bb/100 and keep getting sucked out. For instance, i've lost preflop all ins with KK a few times, the most annoyingly being to A5o and he hits the A on the river :(. I've also lost to QQ with KQs after an all in postflop, I hit my K but he called my all in and hit a Q on the river

So, what i'm going to do is take a small break, maybe read a few articles and try and sort myself out. I started getting frustrated after not hitting any hand for 3 rounds of all 4 tables. I got AKs, raised preflop, hit nothing, conti bet, got reraised and I felt I was pot committed and went all in Why he called my preflop raised with T4s is beyond me, also why he reraised me on the flop when all he had was a gutshot straight draw is also beyond me, but what I do know is he hit his straight

Oh, and by the way, does anyone know if there is any way to get an EV line on the graphs on Elephant?

Terrible little session there Only played about 100 hands and lost 5 buyins in quick succession. Lost with AQ after hitting my A on the flop, lost to 2 pair, K and J, hitting the K on the river :@

I lost 3 hands in a row and very nearly went on tilt, but managed to contain myself and just stopped playing. I was doing well up until then today but now i'm $6 down for the day in cash games as well as $3 on an MTT (Just a bit of fun, $1 MTT with 2 rebuys).

I'm going to cool down for a bit, then give it another crack a bit later on.

I wasn't going to update this again today, or for the next few days but even though I was on a massive downer before, not very happy at all I played another session of a few hundred hands and i've managed to win everything I lost back, and win some more as well ♦

I am now in love with my strategy during SSS of staying at the table for 1 round after I reach 25BB and leaving just before the next BB. This is because on my final table, I had reached $2.88 with a hand, when 3 hands before my BB I get dealt a nice little QQ, long story short me and one other end up all in on the flop whilst I have the overpair, he has QK and had hit nothing. Then, in the hand immediately after that I get the pocket rockets and somehow end up all in preflop, doubling up again

But, the real reason I am posting again today is because I wanted to document my first EVER straight flush:

Preflop: Hero is BB with 4s, Ad (Comment)
4 folds, CO calls $0.10, 2 folds, Hero checks.

Flop: ($0.25) Jh, 5s, 3s (2 players) (Comment)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.20, Hero calls $0.20.

Turn: ($0.65) 2s (2 players) (Comment)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.20, Hero calls $0.20.

River: ($1.05) 6s (2 players) (Comment)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.20, Hero raises to $1.75 (All-In), CO folds.

Final Pot: $3.00

Results follow (highlight to see):
Hero shows a straight flush, sixes high (4s Ad)

Hero wins with a straight flush, sixes high (4s Ad)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Great stuff

Anyway, I just want to have it down, to motivate me that I have realised a major leak in my game, and that is playing hands like QJo too strongly, I probably shouldn't be playing them at all with SSS, so i'm going to focus on fixing that.

As well as trying to fix that i'm going to increase my multitabling as 4 tabling is getting pretty damn comfortable for me now. In my last session I tried 5 tabling and it seems pretty easy. The only problems I have is when i'm on BB on multiple tables at once or i'm playing hands at 3 or more tables, it gets quite confusing and I don't have enough time to analyse things. This may also be because of me sometimes opening Super Speed tables on Party.

I would also like any advice on platform selection, in terms of direct rakeback, is FTP the only platform that offers direct rakeback or does Stars do it as well? Because I would like that instead of not getting any sort of worthwhile rakeback with useless points in Party's reward system.

Goals Added:

- Fix my leak of playing deceptively strong hands (QJ, KT etc) so much.

- Increase my multitabling capacity, hopefully to 6+ tables in the near future

- Find a suitable poker platform with a decent rewards system for my play

Ok, so that's me for the day, bedtime before Uni tomorrow, I should really find out when my work deadlines are ♦
Oh, and one other thing, tonight I withdrew £30 (About $50) from William Hill, i'm wondering if anyone thinks it would be worthwhile to put this into my main account or just keep it as spending money?

BR at Party: $53.90

Here I am, back again! Been a quiet few days regarding poker for me, and a much less quiet few days regarding everything else ♦

So yeah, i've been pretty much binging the last few days and having a great time, but come tomorrow I will be back on it. Both the poker and the University work, of which i have a HELL of a lot. Today I tried playing for a bit but was feeling the effects of last night waaay too much, meaning I played a gigantic 95 hands, losing $0.22. I made a load of mistakes during these hands and I am pretty damn lucky I didn't lose more.

Anyway, as you may have noticed, I now have a nice shiny Silver medal near my username, that's right, I finally made it to SIlver. I haven't started reading the articles yet but that will begin tomorrow. I also achieved my goal of both beating NL4 and rereading all useful Bronze articles.

So:

Goals Achieved:

- I want to master NL4 and move to NL10 SSS Done!

- Reach Silver Status on PS Done!

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So, there we go, a small update there, my bankroll has taken a small hit since I last updated so it now stands at:
BR at Party: $46.60

*Sigh* Well, I don't know what has happened but I haven't been putting in the volume at all. After a hard day and being very tired today I tried to put in a small session. It didn't go well at all to be honest, i've made a loss of about $3.

I could rattle on about bad beats and such, of which I had a few but that would be making excuses, I know I made mistakes during my play, and I know this not because of analaysing my play, but because I was conscious I was making the wrong decisions whilst I was making them. That just makes me feel that even though I thought I was doing well, that my psychological aspect of the game is not up to scratch at all.

So, i'm going to leave it for today, read a few articles and hope tomorrow is a better day, at least it won't be as busy I will leave you with living proof that slowplaying hands is not +EV:

Preflop: Hero is BB with As, Ac (Comment)
MP3 folds, CO calls $0.10, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.20, CO calls $0.10.

Flop: ($0.45) 4s, Qd, 5c (2 players) (Comment)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.43, Hero calls $0.43.

Turn: ($1.31) 8c (2 players) (Comment)
Hero bets $0.62, CO calls $0.62.

River: ($2.55) Jc (2 players) (Comment)
Hero raises $0.60 (All-In), CO calls $0.60.

Final Pot: $3.75

Results follow (highlight to see):
Hero shows a pair of aces (As Ac)
CO shows a flush, king high (Kc 9c)

CO wins with a flush, king high (Kc 9c)

Suppose I really should stick with basic SSS for now ♦

Life is Good... Sometimes, But Damn Well Hard!

So, the last few days have been VERY interesting for me, meaning poker hasn't been my main priority, although I have been thinking about it when I should be concentrating on other things ♦

So, to get things started, on Friday night, I went out clubbing as we students do, tried to take money out of my bank when those dreaded two words came up:

Insufficient Funds.

Ooooohhhh Shiiiittt. It's a good job I was raving the night away otherwise I would NOT have been happy. So yeah, basically I have £45 left to pay a months rent (£340) and let me eat for 3.5 weeks Looks like i'll be breaking out the Credit Card

I suppose the $50ish i've got in PP should come out to let me eat, but i'm not going to do that, I didn't deposit anything in as it came from TAF so i've never missed that money, and I don't really know what I would do without either poker or being able to get drunk ♦

So that's the first interesting thing, the other being the fact I discovered I am due to hand in 7 assignments, none of which i've done So work should really be my priority, although i'll be using my work breaks as excuses to play a bit of poker

Back to business though
In terms of poker it's not been the best few days, apart from today i've had 4 losing days in a row, meaning I nearly had to move down to NL4 again (I set myself a limit of when I reach $40 I will move down), I actually got to $39.97 but decided I should be allowed one more shot. Thank Christ it payed off.

Now I could moan on all day long about various bad beats and coolers but the fact is, that will get me nowhere. Another fact I can tell you is that the reason I had so much losses is that I was playing BADLY, I still need to sort out my play when i'm holding hands like KQ, KJ, JA, QA because I play them way to loosely. For example, if i raise preflop with AJ and someone re-raises me, I feel the need to call, and i've lost several buyins this way. So that is my major leak.

Today i experienced variance in all it's ironic form, playing 4 tables and within the space of 10 minutes I had lost 3 buyins between 2 tables, trebled up on one table when I was behind preflop, doubled up on another table and then lost all that stack next hand when my Aces got cracked ♦ But I have ended the day at a $5 profit.

I will probably update in a few days, hopefully when I have collected together some interesting hands, read all the Silver articles and reached the $60 mark (Here's hoping!)

In a bit peeps:

BR at Party: $45.60

I Feel I'm Updating My Blog Too Much...

But oh well Today has gone badly for me, not in terms of Poker, the poker has been great, juist in terms of my life in general. I missed a whole 9-5 day in Uni because I wasn't feeling well and didn't get out of my comfy double bed until 3pm

I also got my examination timetable for January, finding out I have double the amount I thought I did Bringing the total up to a mighty 2 exams ♦ Although I am happy it is not interfering with my 3 day ski holiday to Switzerland ♦

NeuChatel here I come!

So, right this moment I am chilling in my room because my illness and my bad mood in general cannot tolerate being in the living room with 5 people who I chose to live with ♦ No matter how funny they may be, illness wants me to lie on my bed, browse forums, play poker and listen to Muse until sleep summons me

Anyway, onto the main issue at hand:

Poker!

So, i've been very successful today, i've started plugging up that dastardly leak where I play too looesly, although I do think on these micro limits playing hands like AJ and AQ from UTG is quite profitable, as you get called with bugger all :). So, back to the success, my BR has hit an all time high (Since I started this blog anyway) due to me winning about $12 today.

I would like to post this following hand, but warn you that I know this is terrible play by me, I was aware of this when playing and wasn't really that bothered about the win or not, I was just very curious as to what the hell my opponents were doing, with min-raises and min-reraises all the way.

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Play hand

$0.05/$0.1 No-Limit Hold'em (9 handed)

Known players:
[tg]MP1$11.60:///////;MP2(Hero)$2.14:///////;MP3$1.85:///////;CO$1.78:///////;BU$10.16:///////;SB$5.81:///////;BB$10.54:///////;UTG1$1.79:///////;UTG2$2.50:///////;[/tg]

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with Q:c, J:c.
3 folds, Hero calls $0.10, MP3 folds, CO calls $0.10, BU folds, SB raises to $0.20, BB folds, Hero calls $0.10, CO calls $0.10.

Flop: ($0.7) 8:s, Q:s, 6:d (3 players)
SB bets $0.10, Hero calls $0.10, CO raises to $0.20, SB calls $0.10, Hero calls $0.10.

Turn: ($1.3) 3:c (3 players)
SB bets $0.10, Hero calls $0.10, CO raises to $0.20, SB calls $0.10, Hero calls $0.10.

River: ($1.9) 4:d (3 players)
SB bets $0.10, Hero calls $0.10, CO raises to $1.18(All-In), SB folds, Hero calls $1.08.

Final Pot: $4.36.
Results follow:

Hero shows a pair of queens(Q:c J:c).
CO shows a pair of sixs(6:h A:d).

Hero wins with a pair of queens(Q:c J:c).

Tbh, I was thinking my final opponent had either hit a set on the flop and was doing some extreme value betting, or was on a flush draw, didn't hit it and tried to bluff me. However, his play defies belief, playing like that on 3rd pair. As for the other opponent, i'm thinking he was on a flush draw, although it's quite possible he had 72o if my other opponent is anything to go by.

Also, please don't slate me for my play, as I said, I was curious as to what the hell these players were doing and just wanted to know what they had ♦

I have found that most of the Silver articles regarding NL are completely useless to me, yes the articles are good but I don't tihnk advanced strategies can ever really work at the lake full 'o fish that is PartyPoker Micro Limits

Anywhooooo goodbye for now, I hope there is still at least 1 person that is reading what is most probably a very bland blog ♦

BR at Party: $55.80