enemaz poker musings

Had a pretty bad day at 0.5/1, down about 60-70 BB, which kinda sucks. I got sucked out on a lot, and payed off way too many hands when i knew i was beat. But that's just the way it is, so im just gonna suck it up and hope to run better. I let my bad run effect me a bit which im not too happy about, but i already knew im not completely immune from tilt, im just gonna have to work harder on it and hope to master my emotions.

Had another deep run in a 180 player 2+0.25 MTT, busted out 14th i think, i tried making a squeeze play, which would've worked against an opponent that's reasonable. Hand went something like this:
Im at the BB and dealt J8o. utg limps with like 16-20 BBs, which is kinda weak. When he was UTG he would often raise with trash (KTo, a lor of Arags) and a player with a pretty deep stack limped from the button or CO. I figure im either facing a flip, and my cards are usually live, so i squeezed for 15ish BBs. UTG called with A7o o.O, but he made a lot of strange calls so i guess i should've paid more attention to that. Anyway made 4.5$, not the greatest but at least i got some ROI :). I had the chip lead, and got dealt aces, i raise, get called and someone shoves. I do a bit of holywood and shove. chipleader thinks for a while and then folds. Villain shows AK and i get a really bad flop, 3sapdes, JQx, he rivered a T. I really like this tournament and structure, and im sure ill ship many more.

61$ for 2nd place in 180 peeps 2$ tourney ♠_cool:

I lost in HU mostly because i was getting sick of villain lucking out on me. Played very aggressive, i just didnt manage to find good spots. He played a bit Kamikaze poker, so he open shoves for like 20 BBs and i have trash so i fold, but thinking to myself "just you wait mister, ill bust you. All your chipz are belong to me!!". Anyway ran pretty good, won a pot with JTo against JJ lol (shorty shoved) and i had a huge chiplead after i took down a massive pot with aces against kings, but HU variance is huge, and i got impatient. Anyway, hoping to ship many more of these tourneys.
I would recommend any decent players at microstakes to try this tourney @ FTP, just so soft..

0.5/1 was ok so far, up like 12 BBs. Ill play some more later on.

Tonight is the live event, wish me luck ♦

Im pa bit frustrated at my losses in 0.5/1. I play pretty good, and for every pot i win i get sucked out in 3. Kinda sucks to lose to really really bad players, but ill get em soon enough.

The live event went pretty well, 6th place with the field having 99 players.
I "cashed" and took home a case with 500 poker chips, 13.5 gr ceramic chips and a deck of modiano cards. I estimated the roi from this event to be about 300-400% ♠_cool:

TBH i didnt really like the tourney structure. The blinds go up in an insane rate, and sooner or later it's pretty much push or fold for 90% of the field. Luckily villains never heard of ICM, so i had a pretty big edge. I didnt like the structure since one hand can either make or break your tourney. This is one of the first hands: i raise and get 3-bet.
Now the table was very very passive, so i had very little info to go on.

Blinds are at 50/100, level 1

Hero: 7700~ chips (starting stack is 8000) Blind: 10K-15K, CO: 7000~

im dealt AKo, it's folded to me, i make it 500 (passive opponents, i would never raise this much online or at a serious event), folded to CO who makes it 1000, folded to the blind who makes the call for 1000, i call 500.

Flop: KQ6r

BB bets 1K, i call, co raises to 2k, blind calls, i call.

Turn: Blank

BB bets 1.5K, i call, CO shoves, Blind snap calls, i muck.

River: Blank

CO shows 66, Blind shows QQ.

I wasnt sure about the turn call, but at least i had the sense to fold the shove.

My stack was pretty much crippled, i had around 2.5 K left and the blinds just went up to 100/200, basically putting me in shove/fold mode.

My table broke up shortly after this and i got moved to another table. The chip leader at the table had a huge stack and called just about atc. I noticed this, and since he was sitting 2-3 seats from me i had to be pretty tight in shoving. I get dealt aces and double up through him, a few hands later i get kings and double up on someone with 8s. i barely played any hands and when i did i shoved and got called and showed the goods every time so my table image was very solid. So i started raising a bit more loosely and i made a pretty awesome squeeze. For example i raise from utg or utg+1 KJo, and get minraised. I make the call, and flop comes KKJ. I check shove and get called by K6 and double up again. Villain claimed he didnt notice i made the raise. What i like about this is that villains dont see raising KJo in ep as loose/donkish play. So i can maintain my table image even though im rasing a lot looser than normally.

Now i had a pretty big stack, then i had to take a short break to drive home for personal reasons. I asked the tournament director (he plays in my homegame) to stall as much as he can. I come back, i get anted and blinded a bit. Tournament director told me he looked at my cards every round and said i didnt miss out on anything good lol. ♠_biggrin:
So I come back and i had a rush of cards and the chiplead at the table. i played a bit more hands and took down the blinds and antes pretty often, and i guess one of the bigger stacks in the table noticed this and started to play back at me. I realized i had to make a stand myself sometime, but the bubble burst and the table disbanded and i made the final table.
Long story short, i busted in 6th place, shovnig around 3-4 BBs in the SB with T6o into someone with a 10 BB stack who had A7s on the BB.

I think this is one of the first pots where i capped all streets. $$$ ♦
Villain's donkbet is so bad, i think i might've check/folded in his position after a raise and reraise.

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Play hand

$0.5/$1 Fixed-Limit Hold'em (8 handed)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with A:h, A:c.
UTG2 folds, Hero raises, 2 folds, CO 3-Bets, 2 folds, BB calls, Hero caps, CO calls, BB calls.

Flop: (12.5 SB) 2:c, A:d, T:d (3 players)
BB bets, Hero raises, CO 3-Bets, BB calls, Hero caps, CO calls, BB calls.

Turn: (12.25 BB) Q:h (3 players)
BB bets, Hero raises, CO calls, BB 3-Bets, Hero caps, CO folds, BB calls.

River: (22.25 BB) 7:c (2 players)
BB bets, Hero raises, BB 3-Bets, Hero caps, BB calls.

Final Pot: 30.25 BB.
Results follow:

Hero shows three of a kind, aces(A:h A:c).
BB shows three of a kind, queens(Q:d Q:c).

Hero wins with three of a kind, aces(A:h A:c).

My friend calls me, tells me a guy we play with knows some guys that are playing and need some players for a NL cg. I say what the hell, and my friend picks me up and we get to the house.
We go to a pretty nice house, and the host is a complete stoner
We play with 2 more guys, 2 of them high and one a complete nit/fish,and also a couple more people i know. Long story short, playing with stoners is +EV, and im up roughly 140$ ♦

The past couple of days have been pretty slow, making a steady 10-20 BB profit per day. I haven't had a massive upswing so far at 0.5/1, but i'll take any profit over losses :).
Im also playing a bit less then i used to, around 200-300 hands everyday. I play enough to maintain iron man silver, but that's about it. I think i might be getting a little bored with FR, and will start with SH @ 0.25/0.5.
That's about it for today..

It's been a pretty good day. I got some good news regarding my personal life, had a good day at the tables and i won 100$ from the piece of ivey promotion.
I think i might have a BR of 500$ soon, which means i can play SH.
I want to play 0.5/1 FR some more before i start SH, to feel i crush it despite being rolled for it, and gradually integrate 0.25/5 SH sessions and get a feel for SH before diving in the game.
Im also planning on watching all the videos i can.
I think my postflop game is pretty good, i just need to adjust my preflop raising range to SH and get used to it.

Overall it's been a reasonable couple of days.

I started adding FL SH games to my "playlist" and try to get a session in once a day. Ejeckt kindly railed me today, he pointed out a situation where i raised 78o from the BU and told me it was a bit loose. So im gonna stick to the charts and only raise if the blinds can be easily stolen from. I also ran insanely hot,and made a nice profit in a pretty short session.

Also had a pretty good run in FR.

I played some hyper turbos yesterday, also got a 5.5$ seat for the FTOPS warmup which i plan on playing. I also played the 2+.25 180 and busted itm for like 4.5$,which isnt bad, but id rather ship it

hopefully soon ill break the 500$ mark, and after about 10-15K hands in 0.25/0.5 SH (right now i have nearly 2K) ill try 0.5/1 SH. I think after that ill play SH exclusively. The traffic for 1/2 FR in FTP is non existent, so if i were ever to play higher limits of FR, i would probably have to migrate to stars which ill probably do someday when i have time to clear the bonus.

I decided that today im gonna start getting some volume in SH.
Started with a brief morning session with some small losses, then i sat down and told myself: okay, you're gonna play for at least an hour and a half 3 tables of SH.
It was a bit of a roller coaster (im sure my swing was tiny compared to others), as SH tends to be. im only down 20 BB After being down ~65 BB. I got 661 hands in, which is pretty good for me. Soon once the preflop games becomes automated ill start to 4 table. And when i feel ready, ill go for 0.5/1 SH.
I've played almost 3k hands of SH in this month, my goal before moving to 0.5/1 is 15K hands and a roll of 550-600$.

BTW here's today's graph:
At first i got slaughtered - All the hands i dominated preflop hit, every pocket pair i had seemed to draw all the overcards in the deck to the board and when i wasnt crushing preflop, i missed. But i got back to business and sustained rather minor losses.
Here is the graph (since the graph itself fucks up the page, ill supply a link to it)

Aren't rollercoasters built for fun and amusement? Cool thing about SH is that you go really fast through it. Problem is it never ends (the rollercoaster, I mean).

Good luck at the SH game. I actually think it's a bit easier than FL, as the way hands are played just makes more sense. FL is too tight for my liking. Also, I got slaughtered with swings when I moved up to FLSH 0.50/1 :/ Hope you're luckier than I was ♦

I've never claimed to dislike SH. I know that's where the money is at, so sooner or later im gonna have to like it.
Im not too scared by the swings, the opposition is soft and i know that even if i run bad i have a huge edge. Tilt control,as i found out this week, is crucial. I think in that part im actually surprised that i didnt tilt. Im sure as the bigger swings will come, my tilt resistance will be put to greater tests.
So far SH has proven to be pretty cool, i still have no strong preference FR or SH, but the future is in SH, and i walk towards the future

Today i noted i called passive players too much with a high on a two suited flop.
They had something every time -_-

They had something every time -_-

Well you only need to win 1 in x times (depending on situation) to make it profitable If you think you had right odds, you'll get your "1 time"'s soon

MTT/SNG front:
Didnt have a successful day at hyperturbos, 3rd in 1, bust in 2. Cashed in another 180 ppl mtt, for a mind blowing 1.35$.

SH:
Pretty good session today, made hero A/K high calls with the maniacs, hero folds versus the stations ♠_cool:
+48 BBs is pretty sweet profit.
At one table i had a hand against a station:

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Play hand

$0.25/$0.5 Fixed-Limit Hold'em (6 handed)

Preflop: Hero is BU with A:d, A:c.
MP2 folds, MP3 raises, CO calls, Hero 3-Bets, SB calls, BB folds, MP3 calls, CO calls.

Flop: (13 SB) 6:d, Q:h, K:h (4 players)
SB checks, MP3 checks, CO bets, Hero raises, SB folds, MP3 folds, CO 3-Bets, Hero calls.

Turn: (9.5 BB) 9:c (2 players)
CO bets, Hero raises, CO calls.

River: (13.5 BB) A:h (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets, CO calls.

Final Pot: 15.5 BB.
Results follow:

Hero shows three of a kind, aces(A:d A:c).
CO shows two pairs, kings and sixs(K:s 6:s).

Hero wins with three of a kind, aces(A:d A:c).

And he got really pissed lol. "WTF you played that hand so bad!!!! the turn raise is awful!!!"
So i think to myself: "MY PLAY is awful?!?! coldcalling a raise with K6s is awful. Donking the flop instead of c/r is awful. not 3-betting the turn is awful."
I played the hand perfectly i think, isolate him with a raise, call flop, raise turn. His line looks like Kx, so even without the A i would value bet. He told me "there's a flush, a straight and so many better hands out there and you bet a set?!". I was thinking about explaining to him about what he was representing, but that seemed -EV ♦
So at this point i wanted to tilt his ass, so i started trash talking and it was very fun ♦
I think it got me paid off a bit more with my good hands.

Another green day, shipped a hyper turbo and cashed 3rd in another, and had a pretty solid +36 BB SH session. Also, for the first time started to 4 table, and so far it's pretty manageable. My BR is at 560$, which is pretty awesome.

I think if i make 600$ ill probably play 0.5/1, regardless of the amount of hands i played.

I saw some NL SH vids yesterday, and it inspired me to improve my postflop game and take it to the next level. The low limit players are usually somewhat thinking players, but i think if i get myself one step ahead of them, i can make a killing.
Im sick and tired of my non-SD winnings being negative. I am starting to take a better look at each flop, could villain hit this flop? is there a chance i can bluff him off a better hand that didnt hit? SH is a great opportunity for me to start getting my non SD to stop falling rapidly, even though at the limit im currently playing most players are SD bound stations. I think it will be good if i look for the TAGs, or non SD bound ppl which may be bluffable. It might be a bit early for this, but i think if i start now ill definitely have a bigger edge as the stakes rise. I also think this will make me a better poker player overall.

Once i reach a limit that i find to be profitable enough for my requirements, i might take a stab at BSS NL, going for SH. My dream, one day, is to make a big MTT. I think postflop skill is so important for these type of tourneys, and i also think getting into an opponents head and making the cards irrelevant is poker in it's best,sickest form. I saw an EPT episode, the last PCA where psychobenny was 3rd, and his game is so sick. I see how my thinking is pretty low level, and its surely something i want, and need to improve. So im starting to get deeper in the game, and i think this is a pretty big step for me.

I don't think it's possible to have non SD winnings be positive in FL. However, check your graphs in your tracker and remove the SB and BB positions in the filters, so it only shows you your winnings from other positions. Then your SD and nonSD winnings should both be positive.

This morning, i wanted to play 0.25/0.5 SH. There werent a lot of open tables so i went to 0.5/1 FR. The tables had loose numbers so i figured it was worth a try. I made a small profit, but after playing SH, FR is just so...slow >_<
I play for 30 minutes, make maybe 5 BBs profit, after playing maybe 5 hands. I think what Ejeckt told me is true, once you go SH, you never go back
So, from now on, im Exclusively playing SH . Hurray ♦

Also, i wanted to play 1-2 tables of 0.5/1 SH to get a feel for the limit. Had a pretty good session, and now i have 610$. I never thought i would get this far in my poker quest. If i make it to 1/2 SH by december, i think i can achieve my goal of 200$ cashout/month. Im not so sure how easily beatable 0.5/1 is, but i really think it might be possible
Furthermore, i think playing 0.5/1 will get me gold status pretty fast. Also i can get gold ironman status. 6 more days till the end of october, and what a month it has been! 0.5/1 SH FTP players, embrace yourselves, im coming for your moniez

Edit:

I wanted to ask a question about tracking SW. It seems im gonna have to buy one pretty soon. I have a pretty good PT3 db, and it would be a shame to lose it. However, HEM is 10$ cheaper and supposed to be better than PT3. Is there a way to convert my database from PT3 to HEM?

You should try to export your hands from PT3 to some folder on your computer. And import those hands to your HM.

Export hands, not database itself.

Welcome to suckout city!

population: Me

$%#%@#$%#$%$%@$%@$#%#@

(just needed to let it out)

Stations can be so frustrating >_<
Coolers too.

Whoever said SH was swingy, was darn right. I played a session today, and at a certain point was down to -120BB. I regained a bit and ended the session about -90BB. Nothing seemed to click, and i was slaughtered by the fish. There was a really strange fish. He rarely raised pf, but on every single board he would barrel. And when he would hit, his line was donk/call all streets. at first he sucked out on me a couple of times, but i knew i would get him, and eventually i did Made a hero call against him w/ a pair of deuces with a 3 kicker ♦ Of course going to showdown with A high always.

After the bad morning session I took a short break and decided to play a bit more. Ran good, bluffed a bit, and now im only -25BB. Ill make some sick RB this week, got in a lot of volume on SH. The rake is a serious bitch, but hopefully ill make gold status, which should give me access to videos and knowledge which will help me improve my game and increase my WR. After todays session, i assume it's a matter of 3 days max till i become gold.

October is coming to an end soon, will probably post a monthly report with goals for next month. Stay tuned

So bluffing = +EV and rake = knowledge Interesting ^^

GL with SH, gold status can improve your game alot i guess.