Feb Recap

I enjoyed February. Its easy to enjoy the game when you are winning. February has been a month of precision and manipulating bad players.


With precision I mean making more correct decisions on the flop. Reading the board well with opponents ranges and laying down or check folding when necessary. This has made my redline flat to slighty positive. I havent included it in the graph but you will just have to believe me. The redline is the amount of $ you win/lose without seeing the showdown. Zaitsev at Cardrunners did a 2 part series which explains this and how to improve it.


Manipulating bad players has been playing to isolate correctly and setting them up to hang themselves + a load of value betting. This has all added up to a very successful month.


I looked at the rake paid. The rake above of $1500 is incorrect as shown on my rakeback page. The rake is $965 where I have got rakeback of $289. Rakeback is invaluable and anyone that hasnt got it please use my link to the right and sign up asap. Its free money.


Its now March. My plan is to try to play a very formulated month as a 'pro'. Atleast 2 hours per day minimum to start. This will hopefully be a lot more but with a 3 week old baby and starting up a sideline business Im starting off on a low volume number to manage expectations.


2 x 100nl and 1 x 200nl will be my normal play.


Lets see if we can make some decent money.

Squeeze me

I found an interesting spot a few days ago against a couple of regs.

The Button is playing a 26/21/2 style over 500+ hands. He plays very positional poker and from what ive seen a semi decent reg.

The SB is a tightie 12/10/2 style over 130 hands.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks:

UTG		($99.20)
UTG+1		($40.65)
Hero (CO)		($152.18)
BTN		($107.80)
SB		($223.10)
BB		($341.04)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is CO

2 folds, Hero raises to $3, BTN raises to $9.50, SB calls $9, 1 fold, Hero raises to $34, BTN folds, SB folds

Final Pot: $54

Hero wins $54 ( won +$20 )
BTN lost -$9.50
SB lost -$9.50

Btn's had not been raising me too lightly and i would probably have folded AJ if it wasnt for the SB call. I generally dont want to be playing AJo out of position against a reg.

The SB's call changed the dynamic of this hand in my opinion. SB's range here i put most likely a pocket pair. A 12/10 style doesnt have a big pair here or AK, so should fold to a nice size raise. This also puts the btn in a squeeze position.

I also havent 4 bet this session so I think this is a spot to rep a big hand. The AJ is now irrelevant. I could do this with any two cards that I have raised here. The fact that I am in this position against 2 regs gives me a chance to be squeezy. Lucky for me and this blog it worked.

This month has been a record month as I will post tomorrow and this I feel is due to looking for situations like this. Stepping a little outside the ABC poker looking for opportunities to maximise the winrate.

or maybe ive just been lucky.

Taking shots at 200nl

Ive beaten 50nl
Ive beaten 100nl
Time to take a few shots at 200nl I think.

What is usually the case when taking shots is that you play a little scared money and end up having a bad beat along the way, knocking you back down to the previous level in style.

Not me.

I managed to luck out and find a great table. I kid you not when i tell you the following stats of the players at my table

running from my left clockwise
46/24/3 over 88 hands
48/11/1 over 27 hands
80/50/1.5 over 60 hands
57/20/5 over 45 hands

I played around 160 hands when this little beauty fell in my lap.

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks:

UTG		($268.78)
CO		($363.30)
BTN		($264.70)
SB		($102.25)
Hero (BB)		($293.15)

Pre-flop: ($3, 5 players) Hero is BB

UTG raises to $6, 1 fold, BTN calls $6, 1 fold, Hero raises to $22, UTG folds, BTN calls $16

Flop: ($51, 2 players)
Hero bets $34, BTN calls $34

Turn: ($119, 2 players)
Hero goes all-in $237.15, BTN goes all-in $208.70

River: ($564.85, 2 players)

Final Pot: $564.85
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $561.35 ( won +$268.20 )
BTN lost -$264.70
UTG lost -$6

I do find it amazing sometimes that people can play so bad and at a level where the money is significant.

Record month for sure now.

Poker is an easy game...

... when you play against muppets!



$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks:

UTG		($87.00)
UTG+1		($73.05)
CO		($38.55)
BTN		($77.00)
Hero (SB)		($109.95)
BB		($173.95)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is SB

UTG raises to $2, UTG+1 calls $2, 2 folds, Hero raises to $11, 1 fold, UTG calls $9, UTG+1 calls $9

Flop: ($34, 3 players)
Hero bets $23, UTG raises to $51.50, UTG+1 folds, Hero goes all-in $98.95, UTG goes all-in $24.50

Turn: ($231.95, 2 players)

River: ($231.95, 2 players)

Final Pot: $231.95
Hero shows:
UTG shows:

Hero wins $205.45 ( won +$72.50 )
UTG lost -$87
UTG+1 lost -$11


seriously!! His play there is wrong on so many counts. I insta added to my buddy list, this player along with a few others I have run into recently. Who says that the fish are drying up. Either that or my angling skills have become godlike.

The strange thing is that I am finding more fish at 100nl than at 50nl. Maybe because there is a higher aggro factor at 100nl which in turn leads to more bluffs. At 50nl players generally have what they are representing so there is no real room to pick off bluffs.

Im also finding that my value bets and my overbets with the nuts are getting called a lot more at 100nl.

14bb/100 this month.

March will probably see me really turn on the volume in relation to time spent playing. Now that I have all the time in the world to play I want to see what I can realistically make.

Switched on my Boom Button

As my previous post said I have been laid off from my job at a bank and am now at home having fun looking after my newborn son and playing poker in the downtimes that he is asleep.

Take out the pressures (and boredom) of workinga daily job and I've found my concentration when playing poker has been at a high. I used to play in the evening after coming home from work but now i have the choice of playing at any time during the day when I feel up to it.

The results have been great...



I am feeling very happy with my game at the moment. I guess everyone does when they run well. Im not seeing many mistakes and table selection is a big factor at the moment. DONT stay at a table when the fish leave and are replaced with regs. There are so many other profitable tables to go to. Make use of them, move around and pick some good spots.

Feb will be more of the same but i think March i will try and make a proper go of it. Playing pro for a month, putting in a set amount of hours and taking it seriously to find out how much i can realistically pull in a month.

Looking forward to making this month another personal record.

I love this game!

The upside of losing my job

Wow the highs and lows of life. I have the most amazing day of my life on saturday morning when my little baby boy is born and then Wednesday morning I get a call from my senior manager saying that I have been made redundant.

Well f*ck me.. You get paid off with your Royal Flush and then the next hand lose your stack to a runner runner.

The losing player looks at this situation as doom and gloom, the positive attitude player looks at this as opportunity.

I work in the finance industry, I work in a US Bank, I work as a trader. I am high risk in this business. I cant shy away from that fact so I had prepared myself just incase the bad news should arrive.

The downside, I now have limited money. I have a lump sum (almost a years cash) which will run out. I have a sweet sports car I can sell if needed giving me another 6 months money. I have responsibility to my girlfriend and newborn to provide.

The upside far outweighs the bad. Most importantly I get the opportunity of a lifetime now to spend some time with my growing son in his first year of life. I have enough money to last me a year with an extra 9 hours a day in my own space, not working for anyone. I have great experience and confidence to get a job later down the line and can now look at other interests with maybe a switch to a complete different industry. Banking bored the tits off me anyway.

I am considering trying to pull an income from poker. From Jan '08 to now i put $500 online and have turned into over $10k in approx 100k hands of cash. That was playing in the evenings only. I can now ramp up the hands online and see if I can make that a good number and start cashing out. This could be interesting. A sort of pro poker but not reliant on the money. My tourny game has been strong. Im 97% on official poker rankings on FT (darrenb2) so may look at that as an extra line of income too.

I have a business about to start which is poker related that I am reluctant to talk about but anyone who plays in London will possibly here of this business by the end of the year. This will be profitable for the first year with very few outgoings. A few people who read this will know what I mean, the others will have to wait.

So looking at the above, I am comfortable. I have no debt and nothing large to buy for the baby. Its all been done over the past few months. My goal now is to see how much I can make short term through poker playing without using any off my redundancy money.

I have $6k online for cash games
I have $2.2k online for tournys

Im gonna stick to 100nl for now.

Most of all though I get to see my boy explore this world in his first few months.

I am really happy.

Ryverrat

A Baby Boy!

My beautiful lady gave birth to the cutest little boy early Saturday morning.

8lb 10oz (3.9kg) i think

will probably be playing a little less poker this month so apologies for lack of updates etc.

Be back soon !

Wednesday Ramblings

Today my baby is due to be born. The little blighter is showing no sign of entering this world yet much to his mothers discomfort. To be honest I have absolutely no idea how my life will change when he arrives. Im guessing that the volume of poker will drop for a while thats why im cramming in as much as I can at the moment. Im hoping my mindset doesnt change too much that I start to see my winrate as how many new nappies/hour I have just won.

Last night was a fun but frustrating session. I lost 3 coinflips for 1/2 to 3/4 stacks starting the session of to the downside. Understanding variance and sklansky bucks i continue on knowing in will all fall back in line over time. I then met my fish of the day (FotD). Unfortunately calling station, any two card, retarded fish boy was to my left and owned my ass for about an hour.

I lost QQ to T8s (tripped an 8 on the river)
I lost AKs to T5s (turned a flush)
I lost JJ to K6o (flop was KK9 and i didnt believe him)

He stole my money and ran..... but not that far. I had added him to my steadily growing buddy list that only contains superfish and see that he was still logged on. Not only that, his confidence must have been soaring as he was now at the $1/$2 tables. Even though i was nearing my downside stoploss for the night I couldnt pass up such a +ev situation so i added myself to the list. I got the sit opposite him which gave me a little room then 11 hands later i get this.

http://weaktight.com/770799

I still finished the session 1 buy in down but slept well knowing that this move paid off. Im wondering how long this fish will be on this site, I really cant see him lasting too long and I hope to be able to get the fishing rod out again for him sometime soon. J9o hahahahahah.

Heres a few weblinks for your amusement.

F*** my life

Make your own poster

Good luck at the tables.

January Recap

Well that was January. $754 + about $350 in rakeback + $950 odd in bad beat jackpot. Just over $2k and im not happy.

Im still making mistakes at 100nl. A big difference I have found between 50nl and 100nl is the amount of floating that is done. With players being more positionally aware continuation bets are floated a lot more than lower levels. As always cbets are board texture dependant and villain depedant but I am noticing the difference.

So, how to combat that. I think its key to differentiate between the players you believe are floating and the players that are drawing badly. If tagged as a floater its important to know whether they will call a turn bet. I have a stat on Holdem Manager that shows fold to turn cbet which I feel will become useful at this level.

Im also started to get in the mind of playing someone like me which I have found useful in some spots. What things do I hate ? If I spot a decent player I put some moves on them that I know I hate. 3 betting there cutoff 3xbb raises, floating or reraising very dry boards etc.

Lets see if I can have another good month. I got some intersitng hands to talk about in the next post.

Good Luck for Feb.