be happy!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Sweet upswing! And a lucky hand...

The last 3 session were awesome. I had an upswing before but I was lucky that time. This is the first one when I’m playing my best and the result is coming too.








And I had a lucky hand (4 outer) against a maniac opponent. I try to remember but I’m almost 100% sure that this is the first one in a month or so. Another sign of an upswing…

2nd best session ever – no problem either :-)

Last time I wrote about my worst session. Now I have a chance to talk about almost the best!

I won 4 bi yesterday (6 in the last 2 sessions). I played almost my best I think, so I gave myself a huge A++++ score.

Here are my stats from yesterday:



wosd: +$20!

There were 2 big changes these days:

1st: poker God forgets those EV-killer hands finally...

2nd: I’m much more aggressive from position

Both of them are priceless!

And I enjoy it!

Interesting hands are coming soon...


Oh, and thanks for Stamkos and St.Louis: Bolts – Trash : 4-3 (OT)!

Worst session – no problem!

Another big step! Yesterday was my worst day ever, I mean in result: - 4,5 bi. BUT: I wasn’t mad or sad at all. I played every big hand as a unique one – no fights or vendetta. This time there were some coolers and unlucky hands. But I’m very proud of myself because there were no hard feelings. I slept like a baby after all.

I’m not saying that I’m sure I played my A game but I wasn’t on tilt. That was a short session (680 hands or so). I think this could be happens with everyone sometimes.

I lost an all in with KK vs AA, another one with my flopped straight vs an agro monkey’s flush, another w AK vs QQ (board: AAJ Q T), another with flopped two pairs vs oesd + flush draw, etcetcetc…

Wasn’t a funny session but I tried my best and I’m happy with it.

Let me show you a few interesting hands from this session!

1. Str vs Agro’s flush



Honestly I think I played it good. I don’t think that I can fold this ever against a player like him. He could play like this with so many hands and only flushes betas me. Please, let me know if I’m wrong!


2. Top 2 pairs vs draws



Any thoughts?


3. AKs vs QQ - my fault I think!



Same agro! He won that str vs flush hand too. But this one was earlier. On the flop I didn’t want to give him a chance to fold, that’s why I just called. The plan was let him betting on every street then stack him off. Then Q came. Honestly I didn’t like that turn card. He is an agro guy but jacks, queens, tens are in his pre flop 3bet range too. The river gave me a straight and because of my turn check he could betting on the river with his airs or weaker hand again (flush draws for example), that’s why I called that 1/3 pot bet. What do you think?


4. Questionable fold



This one was just the 6th hand on this table and I had no history with these guys. I think I lost a lot with this type of hand a couple of month ago. I never believe them and they almost always had me with their flopped sets.

The question is that: what kind of hand is good enough to call an early raiser’s cbet on that flop then raise his double barrel to all in on that turn? Could it be just a draw or a slowplayed monster? Or this is a clear flopped sets? Then why shove it? If hi just call, he has a chance to win my whole stack on the river.


5. KQ vs 25/1’s AK



What do you do against a calling station from position with this hand?


6. And a little one finally



Is there any way out from this hand or did I play it well?

Recovery month!

Here I am! The last couple of weeks were too busy to blogging, but I’m still playing if I can.

I had a coaching session in the end of October – after those horrible days. Steve give me some advices how to recover my play.

My only objective now (in November) is to play my ‘A’ game regularly! If I can then we (Steve and me) can start making my A game better.

What I need right now is a session score chart. I used Steve’s one and made some changes. So here is mine:

Session Scores for Recovery - I try to be as rigorous as I can

E Game – Check results and continue session
E Game – More then 6 table
D Game – Check results and quit
D Game – Bluffing Calling Stations for a stack
D Game – Not respecting turn check raises (except aggro monkey)
C Game – Chatting
C Game – Folding Frustration
B Game – Lack of pre-flop aggression
B Game – Auto piloting
A Game - Use Starting Hand Charts (for my pre flop A game)
A Game – Post Flop Focus: cbetting, board textures, opponents style (preflop range, post flop aggression frequencies)
A+ Game – Reviewing Session


Yeah, I need hand charts again. I reviewed my session and I saw that I started to play too loose from early positions and not enough agro from late. Then nobody respected my cbets which could be very frustrating.

My faults

There is a lot, so let see some!

1. When was my last session review? I have no idea!

2. How many hands did I review in October? Just a few…

3. Did I change something when I realized that my play went wrong? No.

Etc.

How do I want to be a better player? Good question...


If you are familiar with the Full Tilt, then I’m sure you know how their bonus system is working. I’m talking about that iron man thing. It’s not a huge amount when you are playing higher levels but it could be a lot of money if you are a micro stakes beginner. Actually I’m in the 9th month in a row. In this half year (July-September) every month is gold, which means $75 bonus after each in the next January. Why am I writing this? Because this is how I’m playing 25 days every month and 700-800 hands daily. The problem is, if I do this, I don’t have more freetime to learning, reviewing etc…

To do list for the next couple of weeks

1. review the 2 coaching video (Steve) which I have

2. review my last 20-25 sessions or so

3. try to find my leaks

If I cannot change my game I’ll go broke. I have 2 more month to crashing this level and be a solid winner on NL50. Without this I need to close the door and forget this whole poker world. I know that my whole problem sounds ridiculous and foolish for you guys, who are playing on higher levels. But it’s really not the funny here…

Oh and I take a day off from poker today. Tomorrow is coaching day. Please, cheer me on!

See you next time

Honestly I’m playing badly

No, I’m not just weak or something like that. I’m as bad as a poker player can be.

Forget that f*n EV, it’s about -10 buy in now in October. But who the f* cares about it? I’m playing like a robot, I mean my mind is empty. Sometimes I’m a calling station, sometimes a bet/folding guy. I’m losing session after session. There is no different. I’m the fish at the tables.

Today was a joke too. I played 16.76/12.88!!! Gee man, I was 18/14 or so before the coaching. The first couple of lessons were: be more aggressive! The main goal: TAG style. And now I’m playing 16/12. That’s LOL. Hurts me a lot but that’s LOL.

Yes, I started like a God after the 3rd coaching, then had some incredible bad luck in a row. But everybody has it sometimes. And this little unlucky streak was enough to broken my whole self-confidence, my style, my game. I think this means that I really didn’t have those, I just thought for a moment that I found them, but I never had.

I lost about 30% of my BR and my fear is that I have just a one way ticket at this time.

I started to use this Poker Table Ratings (PTR) site. Found a lot of weak players (funny when I’m saying this about others) and I’m using this when I’m looking for tables. It sounds like a real help, but I don’t feel that…

So the conclusion is as simple as short: I’m playing my worst poker ever. I said it before too I know but that was nothing compared to this.

Let me show you something



And there was no unlucky hands today. This is the pure bad play. And've I got what I deserved for it.

I think here are a little self-pity, anger and some emptiness. Nice mix…

Still breakeven with some faults and unlucky hands

Originally I wanted to go up to NL50 in this month. When I started to play after the 3rd coaching session everything went well and I thought I’m ready for the next step. Honestly I’m still feeling that, but my BR is so thin and I need to pay for the HEM and for the next coaching session, so this step recedes away.

After a few thousand hands I was up and I had huge self-confidence, I felt that the world is mine. Then I made some mistakes plus I’ve paid off same luckfest guys too - you can see that in my EV graph.



My river play - which was the main question in the 3rd coaching session - is still not as good as it needs to be, so I need to find the way to fix it and build it up. Sounds very easy, but trust me, it’s not that.


Oh, about the next level and the next step! I don’t want to go in the deep sea without any help and any background. When I’ll move up I’ll have a huge DB on that level, and I think the first few sessions I’ll open up just one or two NL50 tables and 3 or 4 NL25 just for the safety’s sake…

We’ll see. I need to talk about it with my coach before.

Interesting changes in my style

As I wrote it in July the pokertableratings is tracking low limits too! They found me on Full Tilt at this April, so they don’t have my whole DB but they’ve got enough hands to see what kind of player I am. I know sometimes they miss the essential hands of our sessions (I remember, my best day was 4 bi+, but PTR show -$3 in the end) but on a long term their stats are showing you the truth.

Before we started this whole coaching with Steve I checked what PTR wrote about me.

They have this Grader which is very interesting. Now I show you what it said about me before the coaching and how it looks like now, after 3 sessions with Steve. Don’t forget that the new report card includes my old hands to. This means about 48k old and 54k new hands?

Here is my old report card



And my new one



There are still a lot to do, especially with my river and showdown play, but this one is a very good feedback for me too…

So when Steve is telling me that I’m on the right direction and I already made some huge steps he is not just talking but he is right.

"Welcome to Valuetown!"

We had the 3rd coaching session with Steve and he found two huge and coherent leaks in my game - again.

The first one: my betsize is usually too small and because of this the pot couldn’t be enough big to stack my opponents off on the river when I’ve got the best hand.

The other one: I miss a ton of value on the river with good hands. For example I have an overpair, I (raised pre flop, then) bet the flop and the turn. After my opponent called me all of these streets I have no idea where I am. I think if I bet he will call me just with better hands, so I check – in position too… Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? And a lot of times (especially because of my shy betsizes) they’re calling me with TPTK or weaker hands.

We reviewed my hands where I made these mistakes. Man, those mean minimum a buyin in every session that I played. And that’s the minimum.

When you can’t win enough with your huge hands, but lose a lot when you are behind that could be very frustrating. I didn’t find the reason on my own. Now I know what the key is.

Here is a very good example – I’ve played this after the coaching



Without Steve’s advices I bet smaller on the turn then check that river (or bet a 2/3 pot, maybe…if I brave enough) and win a medium pot.

So the difference is huge: you win 30-40 BB or you win 100. It’s not the same!

I’m still too result oriented but honestly my stats are much better then ever before. My aggression has grown up, my cbets are much higher so I can say that I’m on the right way and everything depends on time. If I’ll be patient the result will come too.

Steve is giving me the basics session after session, so the ball is on my side. We can build something big on these if I’m growing up for my dreams.

Since the 2nd coaching session

The main goal is still to improve my aggression, especially my cbetF! But you can see the growth already.

Just to remember: my cbetF was under 50% before the coaching intro session with Steve. Right now it is 76% and there is still some room to make it better - I had session where it was 94!!!

My WSF was under 38% all the time, right now (last 10k hands) it’s about 42%, which is my best I think. There are a lot of details but I don’t have too much time to talk about it right now (I’m working actually).

Instead of my clever, useful and blessed words here are some data of my play :-)







The only thing that I couldn’t change is this roller coaster. But I know sooner or later the result is coming too…

CBetF – there you go!

Just a few stats from today

- I played 21.08/17.45
- steal: 26.10
- wsf: 43.36
- w$sd: 63.34
- afq: 49.72, af: 5.50, 3bet: 4.67

- cbetF: 87.93! - hi Steve! :-)

After the 2nd coaching session

Yesterday was The Day when Steve tried to make the next step in his impossible mission: teach me how to play some good poker :-)

My biggest problem is still the aggression: I don’t have enough. My AFq is a little bit better then before, but not enough, just as my cbets.

AFq

PT3’s AFq is not equal with HEM’s Agg so I don’t know where I am in that, but it must to be better too.

Before the first coaching AFq was 41.10, between the two sessions this number was 47.15, and yesterday - after the coaching - it was 51.37!

CBetF

Before Steve: 49.65
Between: 65.01
Yesterday: 81.25!

CBetT: 42.40 - 47,81 – 50.00

WSF

And thanks for the level of my aggression the W$WSF can be better too: 36.93 – 38.80 – 43.86


Here are my stats from yesterday – I know it is incredible short term, but look at these numbers (not the result!) - actually my steal wasn't enough...



I’m hopping that I can play like this ‘till the next coaching session, not just right after this one. I need to learn the way how to not loose that - after a few days - what I already build in my game

Oh, and finally I was very lucky in one hand!

I had some outs but I really don’t like my play here – this hand is going to the group to discuss

Conclusions

My downswing has finally ended with that horrific day. Since then I played some okay sessions with small winnings (actually I lost another KK pre flop ai – 3rd in a row – this time vs AQs, and I lost with my set vs an overset which is okay – more then 2 buy ins again).

I reviewed that 3,5k hands long “streak”, the table selections, the stats of my opponents etc. I can tell you that I already found some leaks and made some conclusions.

Let’s talk about them a little bit!

If you can show some big hands and win with them then your opponents will respect you, so your cbets, 3bets, 4bets can works and makes you a very good money. Poker can be so easy... But when you have nothing, or you have big hands but loosing with them, your opponents see that and nobody will give you credit anymore. In this case you need to change your table or your style. If you don’t do it you are dead.

Maybe 3.5k hands are not that much but it seems to me incredible long to have nothing. Of course I had some monster PPs, sets, fulls, straights, flushes, but there were no action on them. I won all of them pre flop or on the flop. Everybody saw that I couldn’t win whatever what I had so they didn’t respect me. They reraised me all the time and I folded, or I’ve got 2-4 callers and my cbets were already dead.

My biggest fault was that I didn’t change anything just played like a robot. And of course after a few loosing session like these I lost my ‘A’ game too and I did not cbet (3bet, 4bet) where it would have been needed (just because the voice in my head said: why do you put more money in it when you have nothing and you are sure they will reraised or call you…).

The funny thing is: when I had that unlucky day and lost that much with my showdown hands my boring downswing has ended. I got the control back and it feels much better.

Maybe I didn’t play as bad as I thought so, but I never had a streak like this before and I couldn’t handle it.

Cheers,
rotyi

ps: sorry for my bad English but I’m too tired to correct this post now…

Ups and downs and downs and downs...

Hi guys!

My last update was a long time ago… Since then I played my best day ever, had a beautiful streak then something happened and now I’m sitting in the middle of my worst downswing ever.

Here it is









Looks like I just couldn’t win a hand, whatever what do I have. I’ve already learn that how to fold my TPTK or monster PPs against good opponents. But I still double up maniacs day after day with these type of hands. In this “streak” I’m in red with straights, sets, pairs etc.

I tried to play my positions, cBets when it’s possible (maybe a little bit less then before), double barrels too. Just didn’t worked, they always 3 or 4beted me, so I folded a lot without SD, I think that’s why my wsf is so ridiculous.

And a little extra: my best starting hands

AA: 11 times, win: 100%, amount won: $10.93
KK: 11, 73%, -$24.08
QQ: 20, 75%, -$2.93
JJ: 14, 64%, $0.30
TT: 22, 45%, -$28.75
99: 28, 46%, -$9.41
88: 20, 45%, -$6.66
...
AKs: 11 times, win: 55%, amount won: -$18.67
AKo: 36, 64%, $8.24
KQs: 12, 75%, $17.28
KQo: 34, 56%, -$9.75
QJs: 9, 44%, -$28.27
QJo: 53, 26%, -$37.61
JTs: 15, 60%, $2.75
...
AQs: 11, 55%, $0.18
AQo: 34, 59%, -$1.18


Four hands from today (I played 656 hands) – these are typical in this downswing

1st: QJs two pairs vs a regular's KK



2nd: KK vs maniac's AA



3rd: another KK vs maniac's AA (two in one day - little bit unreal)



4th: after this you will understand how do I feel myself

Another session – same way :-)

I played a session today too. The start was “brilliant”: in the 20th hand I went all in pre flop with my Aces and last my whole stack against Queens. But the EV was beautiful... LOL

Anyway I felt that I can come back if I’m playing my A game (I mean what I call "A") and I was right. I didn’t care too much about the result, just looked for fishy opponents and tried to win their money.





I know, it’s just another short term, but I’m happy with my play and that feels really good.

Maybe I started to play the way I need to...

After my horrific day I reviewed my game again and tried to learn from my faults and more about TAG style. Actually (at this time) I don’t worry too much about results ‘cause dollars should be secondary ‘till I can’t play the correct way.





I had only one huge (buy in) SD loss which was a KK vs AA pre flop ai (about the 2500th hand).

I started to play less from oop and more from late positions. I fold more KQ, AQ etc type of hand when somebody re-raises me from position. I realized that this one is saving me a lot.

If I can play this way in the next couple of weeks then I’ll be ready for the next coaching session I think and (if Steve says yes) maybe for the next level (NL50) too. We’ll see...

I still have a lot of leaks so need to working on them.

What a day!

EV is +$2, result is -$95! All in luck: expected +$38, actual: -$65

I try to be not so result oriented :-)

I know I need to learn and learn and learn much much more…

Now I’m angry

Today is different. I played 415 hands and lost 2,5 bi. I played okay except one hand I think.

First of all I lost a huge pot pre flop ai with my Aces vs Queens. Then (20 minutes later) I made a very big (130 BB) mistake.

Two pair vs …



After the BB just called pre flop in a 3way pot then called again on the flop I thought that he has just a pair or a draw – worst case a str with Q9s and I didn’t care too much about the short SB because we played for the side pot at least. But I was wrong and after he 4bet shoved me I should fold my bottom two pair – especially because we were both deep. I have no ideai why did I call him. There is no excuse :-(


And here is another beauty from the end of this session



I was ready to go all in on the flop but I didn’t want to scare him off. That’s why I just minraised him and waited for his shove to call. Actually he surprised me with that bet/call move...

What do you think about this hand? I was almost 80-20 favorite on the turn...


I will play another (half) session tonight and I hope that that one will be better

Cheers

Donkey’s day

I’m sure you all know how is the day when nothing goes your way and fishes hits their few outs hands after hands or calls your double barreled draws with bottom pair (trash kicker) all the way down…

Today was THE day for me. I didn’t play bad at all I think just couldn’t beat these guys. I played aggressively my hands (especially my draws) then saw how fish can call me with 2nd or 3rd pair (with 64o for example) on a draw heavy - high cards board. I’m not angry or anything like that. I know this is good for me on a long term. These guys will pay my bills, my cars, my new home and my children’s school so I still love them.

Here are the graph and the stats of this day





I think I need to win some showdown hands in the future :-) My wsf and w$sd are too low but have the reason

I forgot to upload hands expect this one. I’m working now so I have no chance to show you more…

KK vs A3o




I wasn’t happy with that ace on the flop so I tried to control the pot with my half pot bets and it worked, but he had that ace of course. He is one of those guys (86/39/1.3) who call you with almost everything if have a pair at least. This time he had me. That’s all.


“Stop being so focused on short term results”

Here I am!

“Losing a session should not make you feel so bad because you will lose almost half of your sessions as standard!”

Yeah man, that’s what I’m talking about. I feel fine at this time, really! And I’m going to play some ice hockey tonight. So if I have any hidden frustration then there will be some hard shots. Did you ever imagine that the hockey puck can be a face of a fish? Just kidding :-) I’m happy with my plays and don’t care the results too much.