[Closed] Bryans Fresh Start

Hey Bryan,

Wishing you the best of luck with your new start.

All the best mate,
-Steve

Hi All
Well, my poker luck seems to have carried over from my live cash (see my other blog) as I just played 4x $2 sng's multi table, and got 2nd place in two and first place in another. So 3/4 cashes, taking BR from just over $55 to just over $66.

In the last one I came from behind with a serious chip deficit in the heads up, to take it down.

Here's hoping the luck continues for a while.

All the best
Bryan

Hi All

Just played a late night session of 4 x $2 sng's again, but unfortynately only cashed in one of them, where I came 2nd.

A bit of rakeback means BR is still at $63.70.

Will keep you all posted.

All the best
Bryan

Hi All

Just played 4 x sng's. Accidentally entered turbos, which I don't normally play. However, reult was, that I got knocked out of 3 of them, then won the last one.

This resulted in my BR staying exactly the same, at $63.70

All the best
Bryan

Hi All

Played a morning session of the usual 4 x $2 sng's. I bust out of two of them, and came 2nd in the other two. That sounds more impressive to me than it actually translates to in money. 2 x 2nd's meant I made a very small profit.

BR = $65.50

Following some degree of success in my fresh start here, and my live cash last weds, I am enjoying my poker at the moment to such an extent that I am thinking of upping my playing rate a little on here and going for silver status again.

I held silver status for quite a while before. I am in the mood to give it a shot anyway.

Watch this space.

All the best
Bryan

Hi All

Just played a late night session of 4 x sng's and didn't cash in any of them. Am a bit gutted about that, just when things were going well. That's how it goes though. The problem with the payout structure on sng's is that, unless you actually win a fair percentage of them, the downside tends to be higher than the upside.

So one session like I just had, not cashing from 4, almost wipes out profit from several winning sessions.

BR = $56.50

Be interesting to see how things pan out longer term, especially when I up the playing rate.

All the best
Bryan

Hi All

Two disastrous sessions, and it's all gone pear shaped !

I had the idea of increasing my rate of play by playing a session of 8 tables multi tabling, say, in the morning, and a 4 table session in the evening.

As I haven't played more than 4 tables for a while (in fact I have only recently played 4 tables, as I had been playing one table at a time for a while, prior to my "fresh start" here).

Anyway, as a halfway measure I decided to play 6 tables at once last night.

Big mistake ! I struggled to keep up with the action, until I had been eliminated from a couple of them, and wasn't playing my best game in any case.

Result was that I was eliminated from 5 without cashing, and only saved a complete disaster, by winning the last one.

So when I played a session this morning, it may surprise you to hear that I fired up 8 tables at once !!

I got what I deserved, and only cashed in 1 out of 8, coming 2nd in the last one.

I had reasoned that playing late at night when I was tired was why I had messed up in last nights 6 table session, and so no need to detract from my aim of playing 8 tables this morning when nice and fresh.

Big mistake no.2 !! Bankroll now down to a paltry $43

OK the thing to do following such a disastrous couple of sessions is to see what I can learn from them.

1. I cannot play more than 4 tables at once, and play my best poker. So I must not do so again in the near future.

2. I have been playing too loosely and speculatively at times, and must remember to stick more closely to pokerstrategy tactics as taught here.

3 my aim will now be to try to play 2 sessions a day of 4 tables, every day that I can, and this should get me to silver status soon enough, as a $2 sng earns 0.5 SP's, so 8 per day = 4 SP's per day x 28 = 112 SP's = silver.

4. I will play each session closely to PS principles, as that is why I am here in the first place.

All the best
Bryan

Hey Bryan,

Sorry to hear about your recent issues with trying to up your number of tables but my advice would be to start trying to add one table at a time rather than jumping from 4 to 6 or 8 straightaway. Once you feel comfortable with playing that extra table you can add another one and so on.

Also this is a new article in the bronze SnG Strategy section that you might not be aware off that introduces you to multi-tabling basics.

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/strategy/sng/1638/1

Kind Regards,
-Steve

Hi All

Thanks for your post Steve. I just read it, and will have to check the article out, as I have just had another awful session.

I played 4 tables, and didn't cash in any of them. This was partly due to bad beats, when I was all-in with the best hand, but got outdrawn.

However, my BR is now at an all-time low, and I don't know what will happen first, me getting to silver status, or going broke.

This is after my success playing live last week (see my other blog) and I also do a bit of low stakes sports betting, which is also going well at the moment.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day, so will see what it brings. Am playing live again tomorrow night too.

BR = $34

All the best
Bryan

Hi All

Following last nights disaster, I logged on just now, to find the full ring tables filling up a bit slowly. So I entered a 6 max sng instead. Just the one, and because I don't normally play them, and they say a change is as good as a rest.

I am pleased to say that I won it !!

This brings my BR from $34 to $39.55, so a bit better, and a nice psychological boost, having won a type of sng I don't normally even play.

I am still a bit gutted that my BR is below the $50 start line for the first time since I joined PS.

I will be having at least another normal 4 table session today to try to improve that position.

Am playing live at DTD again tonight, so am hoping for the best there.

All the best
Bryan

Hi All

This is getting a bit frustrating now. Got knocked out of 3 and then won the last one again, leaving BR exactly as it was before I started.

sng no.1: All-in pre-flop with AA against KK, opponent spiked a K

sng no.2: Short stack shove all-in against an agressive raiser with a big stack. I had a suited King, he called with Ace rag, end of.

sng no.3: Getting bullied on an agressive table when short stacked and looking for a place to shove. Decide to call a min raise with suited connectors to have a look. Dream flop appeared with flush and straight draws, and I still had some degree of fold equity, so shoved.
With 2 cards to come I had so many outs I would have needed a calculator to count them.
Needless to say, I missed them all.

Sng no. 3: After a long drawn out battle heads up, I won.

BR still $39.55

Am going to visit my mother shortly, and things are a bit dead at work, so instead of going back to work, I may do another session (one of the good sides to being self-employed is that I choose when I work).

All the best
Bryan

Hi All

OK that's it, I am f****ng sick of this stupid game. Knocked out of all 4 this time with the sickest of bad beats imaginable.

I don't mind losing money when I make mistakes or when I am outplayed by my opponent, but when complete idiots call two all-ins with 36 os and scoop the pot, I might as well go on a bingo site.

The micro stakes online game is just a waste of time and effort.

BR = $34.15

Hopefully I will lose it all soon and I can give it up then.

All the best
Bryan

Originally posted by MAGICBRYAN
Hi All

OK that's it, I am f****ng sick of this stupid game. Knocked out of all 4 this time with the sickest of bad beats imaginable.

I don't mind losing money when I make mistakes or when I am outplayed by my opponent, but when complete idiots call two all-ins with 36 os and scoop the pot, I might as well go on a bingo site.

The micro stakes online game is just a waste of time and effort.

BR = $34.15

Hopefully I will lose it all soon and I can give it up then.

All the best
Bryan

Hi Bryan,

It's good to see you've started again but bad to see that the variance is hurting you so bad... I've just recently ditched sng's simply because I don't like the variance that the push/fold phase brings.

Would you not consider NL2 BSS? You're slightly under rolled for it but meh, it'd be better than losing all faith and hope

Hope you get out of this poker rut you're stuck in at the moment.

Something I wanted to add from my own experience which may help put things in to perspective for you...

I played nearly 1000 18 man $1.75 sng's on poker stars with an overall ROI of 5%. I would often play a set (12 tables) and only finish in the money in 1 or 2 thus making quite a big loss and then would also regularly have sets where I would place in the money 6 or 7 times. Until my last 300 games my ROI was 20% and then the downswing hit.

Even with a 300 game downswing though my ROI was positive.

I read somewhere that it takes around 2000 sng's before you can be 80% confident of your ROI.. What I'm trying to get at is, try not to take short term results to heart, it's easy to do and I do it often but it really is the worst and most pointless thing that you can do.

If you're playing 4 tables at a time I would expect the odd occasions where you will lose 2 or maybe even 3 sets in a row but then you will have sets where you place or even win all 4 and this can happen for several consecutive sets.

After hundreds or maybe even thousands of sng's your winrate will become clear... I'm sure that at micro's, using the strategy taught here, you will have a positive expectancy even if it does take time to show.

Having said all that though it was still too much for me and now I play cash. There is still variance but less of it... It's a lot easier to handle.

Hi All,

Have taken a huge gamble that paid off !

I have played live at the local poker room tonight incidentally, but despite winning a couple of big pots, and building a decent stack early on, it all went pear shaped again, and I was eliminated early.

Details will be on my other blog.

But here, when I got home from the live game, I decided that I would take a gamble with my remaining $34 and either build it up to something more reasonable, or blow the lot in the process, and give up this microstakes lark.

I was going to take the whole BR to a cash game, but decided to give myself a fighting chance, by investing it in 3 x $10 sng's.

Result was that I won one of them and came 2nd in another.

My BR rocketed from $34.15 to $73.15

I feel better now lol.

Am ready to give the grind another go, and see how it goes.

Thanks to Wurby for stopping by, and for your advice mate. I am not sure about cash games. I used to like them, and may give them another go sometime for a change. However, I have lost my stack too many times playing the PS strategy in cash games to think variance is necessarily less. In fact, I feel sure that on one of the coaching sessions I was watching, the coach said that variance was less on sng's than cash. I may be wrong on this, as it's a while ago.

Does anyone know for sure ?

At least I feel I have a little bit more to fall back on now when I have the inevitable bad sessions.

I can at least go to bed now on a positive note, having been successful at a higher level, getting placed twice in $10 sng's, winning one of them.

All the best
Bryan

Yikes Bryan!

I know I sound like a complete old granny but come on mate, you know better than that. I'm glad your gamble paid off but, as a regular reader of your old blog, I feel worried that you are about to self-destruct.

The bad beats in poker are incredibly grotesque and difficult to deal with but I'm almost certain that gambling your way out of them isn't the answer. Thing is, nothing can prevent your $73.15 slipping below $50 once again if you get unlucky.

And I worry that if you haven't the patience for the grind at the low limits, you will struggle just as much on the mid stakes. Because the grind is exactly the same: putting in the hours, getting sucked out a bunch, getting frustrated, getting the occasional heater and just generally making sure you make good decisions time after time after time.

It quite simply is the case that the micro-stakes (cash or sngs) are beatable, if you have the patience. You built your $50 upto $180 last time round the hard way - I believe you can do it again.

GL my friend; we're behind you all the way.
Tim64

edit: as to your questions about variance, in my own limited experience, it's pretty similar. You can't get around that pesky random number generator, however hard you try. And variance, in any game, is always going to be enough of an issue that solid bankroll management is your biggest ally.

Hi All

Thanks for your last post Tim64, nice to hear from you again. I appreciate your concern, and you are right that I know better than that. It was nice when it worked though. lol.

I won't do it again in a hurry, as I know its wrong.

There are parallels with poker and the part-time business I am pursuing at the moment. It is a question of your level of belief I think.

In the early days of a network marketing there is a lot of effort input for relatively little reward, and it is easy to do what a lot of people do, and quit in the early stages. In fact, with a good solid company, the ultimate rewards can be incredible, and I know a number of people in the company I am with who have done that. However, the early days are like the daily grind of poker.

I know why you said I would have difficulty in the mid stakes, but I honestly don't think I would, because by the time I get to mid stakes (if I ever do) I would have enough belief through what I had already acheived, to carry on regardless.

At present, when I am playing for peanuts, and in danger of losing the lot on a bad downswing, it is hard to have that level of belief that it will work in the end. It is easier to think all this variance is crap, and its just your luck if you make it.

Post from people such as yourself, do help me a great deal and I hope I will carry on, the same way that I get pissed off sometimes with the other business, but carry on regardless, because enough genuine people like yourself assure me that the rewards will ultimately come, with enough persistence.

I've gone on a bit haven't I ? So a quick update on my last 3 sessions:

These were all 4 x $2 sng's:

Yesterday morning
3 x ko's and 1 x 2nd place taking BR = $69.55

Yesterday evening
2 x ko's 2 placings BR = $71.35

This morning short time ago
3 x ko's including 2 x bubbles
won the last one BR = $71.35

One thing that has almost made me determined to be prepared to quit, was that the other day - when I was really pissed off - I looked at drawing out my money. My BR was less than $50 and the rules at FT are that you cannot withdraw less than $50. I don't like someone telling me I don't have access to my own money.

That led to me deciding to try the gamble of playing at high level, and roll it up or go bust and quit. Daft in hindsight but that was the mood I was in.

I have even thought, since having less than ideal results on my last few sessions, that if I drop close to the $50 mark, I may just withdraw the cash and quit anyway.

I think your post Tim64, may have dissuaded me and made me persevere again. If the worse were to happen though, and I lost the lot, I wouldn't reload on FT.

So here's hoping the grind moves my BR in the right direction the sooner the better.

All the best
Bryan

I think your post Tim64, may have dissuaded me and made me persevere again.

Don't worry, you're not the only person I've persuaded to stay being a degenerate gambler. After all, I need the company.

Hi All

Don't know how much longer I will be a degenerate gambler Tim64, as things just got worse. I just played a late session of 4 x sng's and got knocked out of every one (some on the bubble).

Almost without exception, I had pushed and ran into a better hand. It makes a change from me usually having the best hand, and getting outdrawn.

BR back down to $64.11

All the best
Bryan