[Closed] Drakhor's Mindless Ramblings (Sometimes About Poker As Well!)

Lack of sleep + beginner mistakes + bad luck = crippled win rate

I took some bad hits, running with QQ or KK into Aces (paired or flopped, turned or "rivered"), had my aces cracked by lucky river cards, giving the villains two pairs or a flush, etc. Business as usual I guess. In one session I even managed to lose $6.36 like this before I left that cursed table and took a small break. I also had two other sessions where my initial buy-in moved elsewhere (AJ vs AA; QQ vs AA).

Isn't it strange that both my offsuit AQ and AJ are more successful than the suited ones?

But I did get lucky as well, especially in one situation. Here's how it went:

10-player table, 3 empty seats. I'm in the BB with 5 4 :club:. UTG limps, next two fold, another limper, a fold, a completing SB.

Flop comes with 3 6 7 :spade:, giving me a straight! ♦ SB checks, I bet 4x BB, UTG calls, limper (a typical russian) raises to $1. SB folds, I have to go All-In with my $2.18, UTG calls. Putin Boy does what pretty much every russian player seems to do, and gets reckless, going All-In with his remaining $20.93.

UTG thinks, I realize the situation and quickly type in the chat: "Let him isolate me. Apparently that helped as UTG folds.

Turn is a 5 :diamond:, River a 2 :diamond:.

Showdown: Commie has three of a kind, threes. Yours truly has a straight, three to seven. Commie "wins" $18.75 from the main pot. I win $6.60 from the main pot. ♦

Following that, I had some further winning sessions (AQs wins a $4.09 pot on a board with 95JJA after the villain folded to my River All-In; AJos UTG [yes, that was a crazy move ♦] wins a $4.46 pot against the BB with ATs and 2 more of his suit in the community cards [lucky me he didn't get a third one ♦]; AA in the BB [first hand this session!] wins a $3.85 pot against 77, with a scary looking flop though when 2 queens immediately showed up...), and eventually had a slightly winning day after all.

After 760 hands, my win rate is now 10.91BB/100, my Total Amount Won on NL10 is back to $8.69 after it was already down to a mere 65 cents, and my restricted balance is also above $20 again. These are, for me, important psychological numbers and I'm happy I've got there again.

Today, I won't play much for reasons already mentioned previously, and elsewhere, but I'll give the freerolls a shot. I also got a shot at the "5 seats Cruiseroll" as I got 12PP yesterday, although I might not be able to put up my A-game to have a real chance there. But who knows...

And Lemonize, thank you for your kind words. They're really appreciated.

What a day... Overall, it hasn't been that great, money-wise, but there were still a few highlights.

First of all, I cracked my first 1k NL10 hands. With 1054 registered hands in my PokerTracker, I'm a Money Bag (Tight-Aggressive/Aggressive). My VP$IP is 15.94, my BB/100 is 6.37, PF Raise 8.63, and Total AF 3.05. These values aren't that bad, are they?

Second, I had a rather successful 5 Seats Cruiseroll. Out of 4002 entrants, I finished 136th! It didn't get me anything, but I still feel good about it.

Third, I got another 10PP and should be able to qualify for another 5 Seats Cruiseroll. ♦

Oh and look, I'm Silver now.

From Zero to Hero! ♦

What a rollercoaster ride this day was. It started absolutely horrible. Not only was I woken up again by that stupid dog, I also had one Suck Out on the River after the other. 6 times in a row I had my top hands beaten on the River, once on the Turn, once on the flop. I lost about 10 dollars, my Restricted Balance was already below $10, and I was so frustrated that I was about to blow up the rest as well.

But then the Poker Gods finally smiled upon me. This time, my dominating pre-flop hands held up in the Showdowns, and once I was the River Rat myself when my KK won against AA with a K on the River. ♦ I had 5 winning sessions in a row and in the end, I had cut my losses to "only" 45 cents.

I took a break and then it was time for the Freerolls. I screwed up in the first Rookie one, but then the Western European one started with 2173 entrants. I busted my first guy in the third hand, a few more followed and I always had a comfortable stack. I never got to bully any short stacks, but I didn't really have to as the blinds kept on increasing and I won important showdowns. Soon enough all the idiots were gone, and the auto-folders were dropping like flies as well, and I was still going strong. But eventually, the blinds went up to ridiculous amounts, and it turned into gambling rather than playing Poker.

In the end though, I had a fantastic 21st place, winning 52 cents.

So overall, despite my heavy losses at first, I still managed to turn it around and made a 7 cents gain. Sure, this is nothing to brag about, but I could just as well have busted out for good.

Never give up!

I hit my first 100 PartyPoints today. I figured this is a good moment to make a little screenshot of my NL10 balance.

If it hadn't been for those two "crashes", I'd be much better off now.

Hi Drakhor,

Too bad you suffered those two crashes but that's just the past Keep reading articles, watching videos and coachings and you'll become a better player.

Good luck!

Over 2 hours of grinding, only to end up with 1 CENT more...

Sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it.

If you're looking for short-term results than this may not be the thing for you.

Playing break-even is already a success, since you're beating the rake. The majority of poker players never reaches this stage. But of course playing two hours is nothing. Patience my friend, patience

Hi Drakhor,

Listen to calssical's advice. He's right. Just give it some more time and you'll moving up soon enough!

Good luck and keep going!

No worries, guys. I'm always thinking long term.

But I do seem to be trapped in some sort of spiral. Whenever I get over $10 won overall, I seem to bounce into an invisible wall which makes me lose big time again. Then I win a small session, only to lose the next one again, and after that, it goes up again. It's now the third time this happens to me.

Is this a conspiracy? >_> Don't they want me to win? <_< Am I in the Twilight Zone? ♦

Yesterday was the last day I could join a Rookie Freeroll. I got another 11th place finish, and overall made $8.89 from them all. At the same time I lost some 30 dollars on the cash tables.

Guess that proves my topic, eh?

Well, without the Rookie Freerolls I should have a lot more time to study the strategies and read the poker books I already got.

[EDIT]: I tried my luck at FTP to win a Phil Gordon DVD, and joined a freeroll going against 2261 entrants. I finished 17th, and this time it wasn't even a Bad Beat. Ah well...

I think I'm gonna puke.

As soon as I hit the $10 Won Amount, it all went straight down to hell again. I lost with AK vs AA, KQs vs AKo in the BB, then with A2o OTB vs KK in the SB despite there being an Ace in the flop because he gets a third K on the river, and then only a few hands later I lose against the same guy again with a Full House, Sevens full of Jacks vs his Full House, Jacks full of Sevens because he again got the damn J on the River.

My Total Amount is now ($1.87) and I'm totally pissed.

I hate russian luckboxes. I hate german luckboxes. I fucking hate poker!!!

maybe you could try following the strategies on this website... i dunno, it's radical thinking, but that's me. a radical thinker.

Hi Drakhor,

I suggest you read the articles again some more times, post some of your trouble-hands for judgement and you'll eventually become a better player and be able to reach above the 10$ cap

Good luck!

I took a week off from playing poker with real money, then had to add two more days of not being able to play due to the damned dogs waking me up early again.

Today, I wasn't woken up by the dogs, but by the rather windy weather outside. Nevertheless, I decided to try my luck again and see how it goes.

The first table was an immediate success when my ATo raise OTB made the 2 limpers and blinds fold, and my TT in the next hand turned into a set post-flop and finally into a Full House on the River after a pair of Qs showed up on Turn and River.

The second table didn't turn out that well. When I had AKo in MP and made the standard raise, someone else immediately went All-In with over $16, which made me wonder if he had Pocket Aces. I decided to fold and lose my 60 cents raise, but nobody dared to look him up so I'll never know what he had. A somewhat loose limp UTG with KQo and another round of blinds with nothing finally made me leave the table with 1 dollar less.

Something else that was weird about this table was that I got the same hand three times in a row! I always got T4o! And in the next two hands, I also always had a T, so 5 T's in a row. How often does that happen??

The third table was quite enjoyable. It already began with me not having to pay the SB in the second hand because the guy next to me was Out for that hand. Then I had a german on my table who was involved in 90% of the pots with absolute crap. I didn't really have anything worth playing though at first, but got my first few cents out of this guy when I had QJs in the BB and a Q showed up on the Turn.

Another round of rag cards only, and here I was in the SB with J 4 :club:. The Kraut (2 seats to my left) limped into the pot of course, as did someone else in MP, and I liked my Pot Odds and took a shot, filling up. The BB checks, and the flop comes with T 9 7 :club:. I flopped a flush which was exactly what I was hoping for! I bet 30 cents into the 40 cents pot, the BB folds, the german guy calls, the other limper folds. Turn shows up with an 8 :club:.

Yes, it was a Straight Flush. But I didn't even notice... I hadn't slept much in the past 3 days, and this fourth card made me freeze at first. What if the Kraut has the Q, K or A of ? He'd surely beat me now, wouldn't he? Nonetheless, I still made a conti-bet of 50 cents, or half the pot, which was of course called. The River comes with a meaningless 7 :diamond:, I feel pot-committed and toss in my remaining $1.13, which gets called as well of course. Showdown reveals that he had Q T which was the reason he called everything. He thought his pair of Ts was good enough despite the obvious Flush on the board. But in the end I won a $4.05 pot.

Unfortunately, he then left the table, and the second limper congratulated me... and I didn't even know why. I still just thought I won because of a Flush, thanked him anyway and stuck around until it was my turn for the BB again, which I sat out of course. After that, I left the table with my winnings.

Usually when I leave a table, I update the Auto-Rate in my Poker Tracker to see if anybody's icon changed, and when I flipped through some other tabs, I noticed that I had my first Straight Flush in the Misc. Stats. I was a bit confused as I couldn't remember it, and when it checked, I realized it was the hand I just played.

I decided to stop playing again for today. If I can't even notice the Nuts, I shouldn't risk anything until I've finally slept more than 5-6 hours again...

Just played my 3000th hand on NL10.

I guess a 1.94 BB/100 isn't that bad considering the huge crash I had...

[EDIT]: And one more success today. I finished 273rd in the $1500 Freeroll, and thus won $1.05. With that I cracked the 10 dollars mark for money won in Freerolls.

There ya have it Drakhor, it's only your 3000th hand. Way too little to look at anything.

Btw, your "huge" crash was only 2,5 buyins. That's not a huge crash, that's a constant for any poker player I go up and down more than that in a single session all the time, that's how it goes. Look at other player's topic of the "show your style february" thread to look at other people's graphs and their swings in terms on buyins and the amount of hands they played in the timespan of the graph.

At the moment, play to learn the game and you'll get there. Don't look at real short term results though ... a 2.5 BI swing is nothing to be worried about.

PS : If you want a better time graph, go to the games tab instead of the sessions tab and click "get all" and then on the "g" for graph. That will show your evolution per hand played instead of per session. It's more accurate this way

5k hands, and it seems I finally broke through that infamous 10 dollar mark. But now I can't seem to get past the 20 dollar one, or stick to the 15 one.

Finally managed to free up my 50 dollar bonus. Now to get the 100 dollar one. ♦

Over 6500 hands now, and this is a tendency I'd love to keep up:

nice to see that your bankroll is growing and good luck