Crazy December, lets evaluate.

This month has been pretty hectic.  Between my full time job, gym time, foosball, and christmas, I have somehow managed to play 300 games.  Although this really isn't a lot of games, I am pleased to have reached this many given that my personal best for a month is 400.


Foosball:


Since I don't own a foosball table anymore, I have been trying to get in shape for the ITSF 2012 foosball world championships.  I have been trying to get practice anywhere possible.  As a result of this, I went to Lincoln, NE (about 4 hours east of me), and Denver (3.5 hours west of me) a couple of weeks later just to compete in some local tournaments.  Thankfully I made each of the trips worth it by winning both tournaments.  A combination of this local tournament practice plus numerous hours of watching www.insidefoos.com DVD's has put me in about the best foosball shape I have been in for some time. Both mentally, and technically.  I travel to Nantes, France on tuesday for the tournament. 


Gym time:


As planned, I have been to the gym 3 times a week since the beginning of the month, and feel physically great as a result of it.  Increasing weight as and when it feels right and genuinely feel like I've made each session count.  I'm proud of myself for this as its not always easy when you don't have a partner to motivate you during your lifting. 

Christmas was great.  My lovely wife bought me gifts even though I told her not to.  Of course she got me things I would love.  Shes awesome.  I got the poker mindset book which I am enjoying every page of, as well as the Arnie 'Pumping Iron' documentary.  After I watched the Arnie DVD I went to the gym ready to destroy myself :P 


And now onto my poker month.  Lets start with the overall stats:

Current bankroll:  $1657

As you can see, dissapointing to say the least.  The most frustrating part was losing about $450 within the first 2-3 days of the month and having to play catchup from the start.  I had what I felt were pretty bad stretches of running bad, but also I feel I played pretty awful overall.  Reading the poker mindset has helped me to refocus lately, and I feel I am playing to my potential a lot more now than 3 weeks ago.  


Poker like anything is about continuing to strive for improvement and success.  I'm proud to say that when I got knocked back at the beginning of the month I didn't get stubborn and continue to play at the $30's, or even worse, move up in stakes trying to chase losses.  I dropped a level to rebuild, and now I'm back at the $30's ready to destroy this level in the early part of next year. Slow and steady wins the race!  Marge Simpson taught me that pearl of wisdom.


Here's my EV graph for the month:

Somehow the graph doesnt show quite how badly I ran at the beginning of the month, but I assure you it was nasty.  The $30 level generally speaking was no different to the $20.  A little slower in action but still mostly weak recreational players to play against.  Thats why it was even more dissapointing that I didn't kick on from november.  Ah well, these things will happen over and over again.  

Last but not least, this is a graph for every game I've played since June:

Seeing this definitely gives me some reassurance that I am going in the right direction, and that short term luck is influencing my results thus far.  Approx 100,000 chips below EV with the average buyin of all my games being $17.80.  That comes out to be around $1186 below expectation on all in luck so far.  Bring it on variance!!!

Rebuilding from the disaster...

I haven't written since I made my goals known for the month.  The start of this month has been disastrous lol.  Lets recap on my goals, and where I currently stand with them:


1).  Play at least 350 games. 


So far I have played 80 games.  Yesterday was the first wednesday in a long time where I didn't play at all.  The gym has taken its toll, and I don't feel in the mood when I get home.  I'm sure that'l change the longer this becomes routine, but for the moment I just wanna kick back and relax when I get home.


2).  Play exclusively $33's only dropping to $23's if I have a negative ROI after 100 games, OR if the action is crazy slow. 


The action was kinda slow, but not slow enough to play mostly $23's.  So far I have played 35 x $34's and 45 x $23's.  The main reason is because I started the month losing $400 in 2 days playing $33s!


3).  Try to make as few mistakes as possible.

I have made so many mistakes that tracking them at this stage is just far too much of a headache.  I am nowhere near good enough yet, nor am I that experienced/in the habit in marking each and every potential mistake.  As a result I forget to mark a lot of these instances, so I am going to scrap this idea, and maybe take another shot at it sometime in the future. 

4).  Continue to study (typically on monday / tuesday) by watching videos, contributing in forums, and using pokerstove to improve my knowledge on hand ranges.   

Not really done much of this either.  TBH, gym time and foosball have been my main focuses this month.  


5).  Achieve a minimum win rate of 55%. 


Lol, currently at 47.5%, but it was a lot worse before tonight.  I went on an 8-2 run tonight which has helped.  


So yeah to summarize, I have completely lost the love for this month after the first 2 days of raping I recieved at the $33's.  I started out so motivated and excited to see what kinda money I could make this money after moving up in stakes, but now I am having to rebuild, it is simply not as fun.  


I must stress that I was not outplayed at the $34s.. I played a few more regs than at the $23 level, but most of this downswing was tilt/running bad.  When I get back to $1500 for bank roll then I will start playing $34s again.  As for the other goals, I will continue to aim towards 55% winrate and 350 games.  Other than that, the rest will go out the window :P


And Man Utd got knocked out of the champions league.. What a load of shit that was!! 


Current bankroll:  $1393

December goals in full

I had a rethink about this, and I would like to add to my list of goals for December.  So here they are in no particular order:

1).  Play at least 350 games.  As I've said, this is going to be a busy month for me so I am unable to play as much as November.


2).  Play exclusively $33's only dropping to $23's if I have a negative ROI after 100 games, OR if the action is crazy slow. 


3).  Try to make as few mistakes as possible.  Its seems an obvious one, but I really mean play as perfect as you can at all times.  Everytime I play a hand that I feel I might have played sub optimally, I will mark it for review later.  If I still can't decide if I made the best play possible, then I will post it to husng.com forum and see what others think.  I'd like to make no more than 2 mistakes per game.  So I should have no more than 700 mistakes by the end of the month.  This may well be a lot of effort to keep track of, but I will try my best as I really think this is a great self evaluation tool.  


4).  Continue to study (typically on monday / tuesday) by watching videos, contributing in forums, and using pokerstove to improve my knowledge on hand ranges. 


5).  Achieve a minimum win rate of 55%.  Hopefully I can develop some consistency in that aspect.  Although 350 games is a small sample size and I appreciate that variance (good or bad) will affect this considerably. 


Good luck to everyone with their goals!  I can't wait to get started on mine!

November goal: COMPLETE. Stats and Graphs included.

Ok well tonight was a waste of time lol.  I played B level poker most of the night, and was in such a hurry to finish my 17 games that I found myself in a lot of 'gambling spots' going all in knowing I would be a coin flip at best to win.  Of course I ran terrible in flips tonight which doesnt help :p  I used to be good at picking heads or tails, I don't know whats happened. 


November results:

401 games played.  Win rate of 56.11%.  Volume and win rate goal complete!  Its a great feeling when you hit a goal that you've set yourself.  


November EV graph:

As you can see, I ran about 20,000 chips below EV for the month.  I don't live or die by this particular statistic, but it certainly is a good indication of how positive/negative the expectation of your play has been.  I am pleased to see that I didnt achieve my goal by running super well.   

November update / December goals / Foosball world cup

Hey everyone, its been a little while.  I am currently writing this from work so am unable to post exact stats or graphs.  I plan to give this information when I get home though. 

 Overall I have been happy with my results for November and am currently sitting around 56% winrate with 383 games played.  Only 17 to play tonight to reach my volume goal of 400! 

On the face of things 56% winrate may not sound that great, but I have been told by numerous people that if you are going to be playing exlusively turbos, then a good ROI is anywhere between 5-10%.  My ROI currently lies around 7%. 

Stats, and graphs to follow tonight but lets talk about December.  I think I am going to have a hard time playing another 400 games in December for a couple of reasons.  Obviously there is going to be christmas commitments like work party, spending time with family etc, but also the ITSF (international table soccer federation) foosball world cup takes place in January.  I am pretty out of practice having not played any foosball since September, where I won 2 pro level world titles in Dallas.  So travelling to France in January, I want to make sure I'm in the best shape I can be. 

For December I plan to start going to the gym 3 times a week again.  I have fallen off this wagon since september, but I definitely feel it helped me not only in foosball, but in life in general.  Working out makes you feel good, there is no denying that. I also plan to get a few practice sessions of foosball in at my father in law's house.

  So the combination of christmas and gym/foosball time means I am going to set a semi conservative goal of 350 games.  I am going to start at the $33's and allow myself to move down if I have a negative ROI after 75 games.  Playing the $33's has really been no different to the $23's, so I just need to knuckle down and get some volume in.  It would be different if I had regular players sitting me, but for the most part other winning players seem to avoid me which tells me I'm doing something right.  I am going to set my winrate goal to be 55% again.  If this month goes according to plan, then I plan to take some shots at the $50s in January. 

On a side note, I have played a $23 regular a bunch of times this month and I will continue to sit him whenever I see him in a lobby.  He has a positive win rate and a decent shark scope graph but is just as easy as playing a really bad player in my opinion!  He is so static in his strategy, and I have reads on him now that make it so easy to play him given that he never adjusts. 
 I normally avoid getting into reg wars with anyone, because its not worth it financially, but this guy... lol..

Anyways, stats and graphs to follow tonight.  Hope everyone reading this is doing well in whatever they are doing! 

Pretty bad week, but still on track..

My November to date:

As you can see, I'm hovering around 55% for winrate.  Before goal setting for this month I forgot to take into consideration that I will be playing mostly turbo speed games, not regular speed.  All it means is had I thought about it properly, I wouldn't have said that a 55% winrate playing turbos is as easy as I thought it was going to be.  But I'm proving to myself that I am don't give myself enough credit when thinking about how good/bad my game is (even though it is a small sample!).  


This last week had been completely terrible untill friday.  Just when I thought I was getting into another looooong stretch of run bad, I went 12-3 and made $176.  Since starting this blog, that had been my highest total won in a day.  I played 100 games this week (stuck to my schedule) and definitely could feel myself starting to play with more consistency.  I lost maybe only 3 games to really bad mistakes through tilt / lack of focus.  I definitely feel I've improved in that area since buying a HUSNG.com membership and watching nearly every video they had at the time.   Anyways, here's my EV graph for the last week (100 games):

100 games played, 52% winrate, net profit -$8.50, 20,000ish chips below EV.  The not so glamorous part of grinding :P 


Still very much upbeat about everything though.  On the whole I'm happy with how I've played so far and look forward to reaching and completing my November goal, as well as setting new goals for December and beyond...


Oh, and I bought Fifa soccer 12 today for the PS3.  Its pretty much better than porn. 

Time to move up?

Current bankroll: 

 $1480


November results so far:


$33's  W4 - L0
$23's  W100 - L76
$21's (reg speed)  W2-1


Current winrate:


57.92%

This is a graph of my results for the month.  As you can see I am running about 7500 chips above EV.  Each tournament starts with 1500 chips, so you can estimate this to be 5 buyins above EV. 

My goal for november was to play mostly at the $23 level with the occasional $34.50 game.  However I feel I am overolled for the $23s now, so am probably going to move up.  Although I hate the idea of redesigning my monthly goal mid month (scared of jinxing it :P) its definitely a logical step, and could make this month even better than it has been so far.  I think I'll play a 50 50 mix of $23's and $34.50's for now and see how that goes.  If I don't see much of a difference in difficulty between the 2 levels I'll stay at the $34.50s.  

Also I two tabled with a little more success in the past few days.  I'm starting to get comfortable with it, but still feel like I play a little too passive and fit or fold.  Practice makes perfect!  

In other news it was my 3 year anniversary with my wife on saturday.  Not much to do in western Nebraska lol, but we did have a nice meal to celebrate the occasion!  

Tuesday's results and new plan for the week. Lol.

Tuesday's results: 

$23's W8 - L2

Current Bankroll:

$1412

Month's results so far:

$33's W4 - L0
$23's W51 - L34
$21's (reg speed) W1 - L0

Win rate:  62.22% - I don't want to jinx myself and re-evaluate my monthly goal lol.  For now it is still minimum 400 games with 55% win rate.  I may alter my goal to be 57% winrate, but i will re-evaluate mid month.

Ok so yesterday was ridiculous.  I ran really well.  I felt like I couldn't put a foot wrong.  It definitely feels good, but it makes me sad to know I am going to experience the negative side of that again.  Its unavoidable.  I played decent I thought, but definitely made a few mistakes that went unpunished.

I did make a couple of plays that I thought were good at the time though: 

1).
Seat 1: hero ($1,470.00 in chips) DEALER
Seat 2: nozzzzi ($1,500.00 in chips)

hero: Post SB $10.00
nozzzzi: Post BB $20.00

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [5s 7d]
hero: Raise $50.00
nozzzzi: Call $30.00
*** FLOP *** [2s Js 7h]
nozzzzi: Check
hero: Bet $66.00
nozzzzi: Raise $152.00
hero: Call $86.00
*** TURN *** [9s]
nozzzzi: Bet $140.00
hero: Call $140.00
*** RIVER *** [Ad]
nozzzzi: Bet $200.00
hero: Allin $1,138.00
nozzzzi: Fold
*** SUMMARY ***
hero: wins $2,022.00

2).
Seat 1: 8IWINULOSETHX ($1,455.00 in chips)
Seat 2: hero ($1,470.00 in chips) DEALER

hero: Post SB $25.00
8IWINULOSETHX: Post BB $50.00
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [6s Kc]
hero: Raise $100.00
8IWINULOSETHX: Call $50.00
*** FLOP *** [Th 9s 4s]
8IWINULOSETHX: Check
hero: Bet $100.00
8IWINULOSETHX: Call $100.00
*** TURN *** [2d]
8IWINULOSETHX: Check
hero: Bet $280.00
8IWINULOSETHX: Call $280.00
*** RIVER *** [8c]
8IWINULOSETHX: Check
hero: Allin $1,015.00
8IWINULOSETHX: Fold
*** SUMMARY ***
hero: wins $1,975.00


An example of me running well:


Seat 1: WannaSnuggle ($1,683.00 in chips) DEALER
Seat 2: hero ($1,272.00 in chips)

WannaSnuggle: Post SB $15.00
hero: Post BB $30.00

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Td Kd]
WannaSnuggle: Raise $60.00
hero: Raise $160.00
WannaSnuggle: Call $100.00
*** FLOP *** [3d 7d 9d]
hero: Bet $130.00
WannaSnuggle: Call $130.00
*** TURN *** [Js]
hero: Bet $300.00
WannaSnuggle: Allin $1,408.00
hero: Allin $712.00
*** RIVER *** [8h]
*** SUMMARY *** 
WannaSnuggle: Shows [Tc 8d]
hero: Shows [Td Kd]WannaSnuggle: wins $396.00
hero: wins $2,604.00


If anyone in my hand histories happens to see this and wishes to remain nameless, then let me know and I'll edit the posts.  I'm just too lazy to edit your name.  :)  
 
New plan for the week :P

New plan for the week is because I found out that I am not working friday.  This means I can put more volume in on friday, which will shorten sunday's schedule.  I'll probably play around 23 games on friday now, and 15 on sunday.  If I feel good after 25 games on saturday, I am going to try and play as many more as I can.  That way I can have 2 days complete rest on sunday/monday.  

Monday's results and plan for the week.

After my coaching session, I played just 4 games.  I wanted to use monday as a complete day off, but felt like I needed to make 4 games up from last thursday when I only played 6.  


Monday's results


$23's W4 - L0 


Bankroll: 


$1290


I immediately tried to apply some of the strategy tips that I had gone over in my coaching session.  It seemed to work! :P  


The main thing I did was become a little more aggressive out of position facing an opponent who has a wide raising range on the button.  I played 3 games vs a thinking player who has pretty similar stats to me.He opened close to 90% from the button, so me 3betting him 25-30% of the time pre flop drove him nuts.  He started calling my 3 bets wide, and then stacking off with middle pair/gut shots on the flop.  This is why it pays to create an aggressive dynamic.  


I plan to play 100 games this week, and have created a schedule that hopefully won't burn me out.  


Tuesday:  10 games
Wednesday: 12 games
Thursday: 15 games
Friday: 18 games
Saturday: 25 games 
Sunday: 20 games


Doing it this way will ease me into my heaviest day (25 games) then give me a slightly shorter day on the sunday to finish off. 
  

Weekends results & HUSNG.com

I thought I would post my full weekends results in one post.  My plan was to play around 60 games over the weekend and use today as a rest day.  As it so happens, I managed 50 games so I'm gonna play 4-5 games tonight and put in more volume when I'm feeling fresher.  


Friday-Sunday


$23s W24 - L25
$21s (reg speed) W1 - L0

Current bankroll:

$1200


Pretty crappy results to look at like that, but considering I ran pretty horrible on friday (W3-L7) and played 2 days of twice as many games as usual (still single tabling!), I'm not too unhappy.  Saturday I finished 14-6, so was really happy with that.  At least 3-4 of sundays matches I felt I lost due to coolers, or running bad.  Either way, I need to remember its all about the long run, and I'm still ahead of my challenge so far (55% win rate).  I'm, currently at ~ 58%. 


Side note: 


I am a member of HUSNG.com which is a great learning resource for those who want to improve their heads up sit 'n go game.  Recently one of the sites instructors has been taking a lot of shit from people who think hes very arrogant, and not good enough to be a coach on a website.  I kinda backed him up on the forum saying his videos were good in my opinion and that I'm sure I would benefit from his coaching.  To my surprise he posted offering me an hour of free coaching for backing him up! Lol.  I had the free coaching session tonight and found it very helpful.  Hopefully I can work with him again, and just am chuffed to have been given that opportunity.  Thanks again HUSNG.com for being an awesome place to learn.  

$136 / per hour...

Was my hourly rate last night.  This is why people want to play poker.  They achieve this once, and think they can ditch their job and do this consistently.  At the stakes I'm playing, unfortunately that's just not possible.

Results:

$23's  W3 - L0
$34.50's W3 - L0

Total bankroll:  $1252.50 

I'm under no illusion that I can continue at this pace, but at the same time only one of the matches I played, I should have lost.  I got it in with KT on a T42 board, villain had QQ, and I rivered a T to make 3 of a kind.  Yum. 

Also, I'm not sure how good/bad this play was, but it felt right at the time:

Blinds 25-50

Hero:  2100 chips
Villain: 900 chips


Hero: Jd Js
Hero raises to 100, Villain calls.


Flop:  9c 5h 2c  Pot: 200
Villain bets 100, hero calls.


Turn: Kd   Pot:  400
Villain bets 100, hero raises to 320, villain goes all in (700 chips total), hero calls.


River: 8d

Villain shows Ad 9d for a pair of 9's.
Hero wins the match. 

Villain hadn't lead out on the flop once the whole match, and I had continue bet almost every flop so I didnt think his bet was with a 9 in his hand.  As a result I didn't raise, because I didnt think much of his range would continue on future streets.  I would rather let him bluff.  When the K came, and he bet 100 into 400.  Whenever he had bet small in big pots, he was weak.  I had seen him bet 70% of the pot when he had top pair type hands.  So I raised looking to call an all-in bet.  By this point, I put him on a weak 9 (something like 97) or a flush draw.  I duno if others would call the all-in bet there, but it felt right with the info I had at the time.

Anyways, more importantly I didn't play much last night which is dissapointing.  At the higher stakes, this is the difference between being satisfied with $4k months, or pushing on and getting $10k+ months.  I need to continue, especially when I'm playing well.  One reason I didn't continue is because I felt an early night would do me good, and I am expecting to play 40+ games between friday-sunday.  I am afraid of burning myself out, and playing badly on the weekend.  The weekend is obviously where more recreational players play, therefor the action is faster, and the games are easier.

No multi tabling, again!  *slaps self in the face*.  Must play some multitabling tonight.  No excuses.

    

TV Series 'Lost' and Wednesday's results

Results:  

$23 W6 - L4


Current Bankroll: 


$1095

Tonights session started later than usual due to the gripping nature of Lost. A month or so ago ,my wife and I started watching it from the very first episode having never seen it before, and currently feel like to junkies addicted to heroin.  Perhaps not the best show ever made, but bloody hell I'm hooked.  


As a result, I completely forgot to play any games 2 at a time! Although the games were moving along fast enough that it really didnt matter too much.  

I started great winning 3 of my first 4 games, but then a really bad player was catching cards and started to tilt me a little.  I played him 4 times and won twice, but really should have won a third time if it wasn't for some terrible call downs I made, when it was pretty clear I was beaten.  This is probably one of my my biggest weaknesses.  I try and make way too many hero calls in spots that good players would be bluffing, but bad players simply always have a hand.


Second set of 5 was pretty blah, and I wasn't really feeling in the mood to play due to the late start..  I figured if I'm gonna play an average of 100 games a week, I had better focus harder untill a little later than 10:30pm.  So I stuck it out and played about average.


Ran pretty average, played pretty average (poor at times) and still was up 2 buyins, so all in all can't complain too much :)


I think for tomorrow I am for sure going to 2 table my games untill I feel overwhelmed by this.  I'll make a note of how long I can play well 2 tabling,  Then I will drop to 1 table and finish the rest off.  Hopefully I can build up some mental muscle for 2 tabling a lot more. 


Untill tomorrow!

Tuesday 1st Nov results

This is my graph since I started playing on Carbon Poker.  A pretty horrible downswing, which to be honest left me wondering if I can even still beat the game at the low stakes.  After looking at my Expected Value (EV) graph on my PokerTracker3 software, I was around 60,000 tournament chips below EV for the month of september, which is where the majority of this downswing happened.  Considering each game begins with 1500 tournament chips each, thats a lot of chips! 


Results last night:


$34.50 W1 - L0
$23      W6 - L3


Current Bankroll:  


$1060

Last night was pretty fun.  I tend to play in sets of 5 games (one at a time) with a break in between 1st set of 5 and 2nd to stay focused. I ended my first set at W3-L2.  I occasionally play the 34.50s mostly when I'm not getting action fast in the 23s (remember that Carbon Poker has less than 10% of players that Fulltilt poker had) so decided to play a 34.50 at the beginning of my second session.  Once I won that, the action picked up in the 23s again and I was able to go 3-1 to make around $90 for the night.  Made a couple of mistakes in 2 of the matches I lost, but generally played pretty solid.

That is about a 20% of my monthly goal, but I'm not going to re-evaluate my goal just yet.  
I'm pretty conservative with my bankroll so don't want to take too many shots at the $34.50s without at least 50 buyins (~$1725), as I fear it might affect me too much mentally if I play them and run bad against bad players. 


At some point I'm going to have to learn to multi table, because its going to be difficult to play 400 games a month single tabling.  I have a beautiful wife and baby girl, and a full time job, so balancing this would be a lot easier if I can play 2 games at a time!  I think I will start by playing maybe 1 or 2 sets of 2 tables tonight, just to dip my toe in the water...


Results to follow!

Carbon Poker situation and November monthly goal.

Well I foolishly used my 5 free searches on sharkscope tonight researching my opponents so I actually cannot show my post black friday stats untill tomorrow.  I will say it is not pretty to look at though.  There was a big swing in the middle where I combined running bad and playing bad to the max it seemed like.  

I'm going to set myself a monthly goal that isn't unachievable, but also isn't pointlessly easy.


My monthly goal for November is to play 400 games and achieve a minimum winrate of 55%.  My last 3 months have been 56%,48%, and 53% respectively.  55% is definitely possible and is a good way to try and steady back the ship.  Most of my games should be $23's, with the occasional $34.50.

Pre black friday lifetime stats

This is a graph of my lifetime sit n go results before black friday hit.  To those that don't know, black friday is a term that was made up for the day (some point in april, 2011) that poker players in the USA were banned from playing on the biggest poker sites.  This was due to some poker sites accused of money laundering, and other serious allegations.


I exclusively play heads up sit n go's but have dabbled with 6 man sit n gos and 9 man sit n gos in the past.  


Since black friday I have played on a site called Carbon Poker.  Sadly it has nowhere near the playerbase that pokerstars or fulltilt poker had, and therefor nowhere near as many bad players.  This makes for a slightly tougher field but still beatable.


Carbon Poker graph results, my current bankroll, plus the results of my session I play tonight will all follow in a post tomorrow.


Thanks,
Joe.

About me

I thought I would write a little about me for those who don't know me.  My name is Joe Hamilton and I am an Englishman living in the USA.  I have two main passions besides my family and friends, and thats foosball and poker. 


I spend a lot of time playing poker online, and want to play full time as a career.  This blog is going to follow my ups and downs as I continue to pursue my goal.


I may occasionally mention things to do with foosball or other random interesting things going on with me.  Some tournament results or something else that's relevant. The last tournament I played was in Dallas, TX (Sept, 2011) where I won 2 pro division world titles.


I hope people will find this as interesting as I will!
Cheers, Joe.