Micro Stakes Baller Limp Caller

This is gonna be a very short blog post as i am taking off poker this week. Mainly for the fact that i am gonna be reworking my game into a more tighter (18/16ish). Reason for the change is that even if you factor in the $EV that i have being crushing in i am still only beating the stake for 5bb/100, which i am not happy with. Would like to beat 10NL for at least 7bb/100 and ideally 10bb/100. This style adjustment will just be for 10NL. Will start experimenting again with a more laggy style at 25NL.

Also being put under quite a bit of pressure at work this week with my manager putting me in charge of moving a very important legacy system (Fortran) over to a new Web based one. The first step in this is building a limited fucntioning version for one of our customers, with the intention of eventually moving over all the fucntionality of the legacy system over as well. The ultimate goal will to remove the entire legacy system from all customers. Technical specs are due this friday for the initial limited functioning version. Yikes ! :/

Well hope you guys are crushing the tables out there in DC world!

Have a good week.

Evilpopcorn.

I wonder if my landlord accepts $EV cheques….. :D

On my 2nd last poker day for the week i was sitting at about 2BI up and feeling pretty good in general. Then in quick session it was obliterated when i shipped AA on a K6x flop and lost to A6, and then a few hands later got it in preflop with JJ vs AQ and lost. Felt a little frustrated, but i know i played those hands perfectly.

Didnt really put in great volumes this week. Notice how i do not say bad. Out of my short working experince, and the fact that i like to drink and have friends this is how i rate my volumes per week :

< 2000 : Bad
2000-3000 : Acceptable
3001-4000 : Good
4000+ : Great

I have also the past two week turned off any stats that indicated how much i am up, and only checking it after my last session of each week. This in the spirit of forcing myself not to be result orientated and concentrate on making the best decision in each situation. Kind of ironic that ever sinced i made this change to my HEM is when i began shipping the $EV! Turn off $won and bb/100 = insta run bad ? lol

An aspect of my game that has me concerned is my red line. Yes its micros and they do not fold much so its tough to get a a good red line. Thing is like Verneer said in his epic thread (re previous post) that if you are winning at 8bb/100 and have a declining red line that you should not concern yourself with it, but if you a breakeven small winner and you got a declining red line then some investigation is needed. I mention this now, with the intentions of doing some investigation into my game in the next few weeks to determine whether i am folding too much, not barreling enough, c/r, betting rivers for thin value etc.

Ramblings

If i was a non drinking, non excercising, unemployed hermit i would be able to grind 40k+ hands a week 4 tabling. As i enjoying partying with my friends, participate in gym/swimming/cricket, and work full time i barely manage 10% of what the “optimal” poker personality would be. Imagine if i had a wife and kids ?!?! 400 hands a week ? LOL

Once again this sunday the weather was trying its best to cancel our cricket game, but thanks to there being covers on the pitch and that it never came down pouring completely we ended up having a full game. Our opponenet batted first and were in a lot of trouble when our captain ripped into their first few batsmen. They however did manage a recovery in the 2nd half of their innings and post a score for around 110. Unfortuantely like the Proteas we manged to lose our “last” 8 wickets for around 80 runs. Even though we lost again it was an overall much more impressive performance by the team. We actually almost looked like a cricket team ! Ofcourse there were celebrations afterwards which included the traditional fines meeting, which was followed by a braai at one of the player’s houses. The braai ended up with me and three team mated playing coinage at around 6pm (on a sunday!?).

Really hating the fact that we do not have DSTV. Missing out on the cricket and rugby. Pay day is this saturday and depending on finances may solve this little issue then.

Also congrats to SirCharles for getting his wife knocked up! Some of us just run good ;)

Have a good week on the tables,

Evilpopcorn

Now if only i could pay the rent, and buy beer with $EV! The poker gods decided this week that no matter how good and how often i got my money in good that i was not allowed to win.

Week 3

Overall

Thanks to rakeback overall i am just under 3BI up after this weeks run super bad. Hence the title of my blog this week. Last week it was rakeback FTW, not its more like rake back FTS (For The Save).

I am a person who doesnt tilt very easily, and suffer more often from playing my B game than going on full blown tilt. Eventually the week did break me and i shipped in a stack that i would never do versus this type of villain. Sure he had limped called 92s and got a flop of 22x versus my KK, but i can get away from this to save me prob half the stack. Was a little angry with myself that i finally let all the beats gets to me, but took a deep breath and carried on pretty much focused. Sunday i intended to put in 3 sessions, but early during the first session i took another beat where i kinda played bad again. Villian min 4bet me, and i just flatted with KK (i am such a calling station lolz) and he flopped a set Jacks and scooped my stack. He was playing something like 45/5 and if i was playing my A game i would realise here that he is raising very tight and when he makes the 4bet he is calling off that entire range preflop. I immediately quit the session and took the rest of the sunday off as i could feel the monkey tilt approaching. So a very humbling week when it comes to tilt control, even though i only lost about 1.5bi to tilt, for a person that considers a strength of his game to not tilt this left me a little dissapointed in myself.

Sheesh i sound like such a depressed person looking at the above ! Its not true tho i am happy very happy in my sea of $EV…. ;)

For those who read this blog (and specifically the comments) you will see the great Verneer wished me well. Now i am not a suspicious person, but if i was then i would say that this has to score me a lot of poker mojo points ! For those of you who do not know of (gasp) or doubt this mans teaching ability check out this link Moving Up Through uNL 2010

My volumes this past week was much better, booking around 3.6k hands. I would have cleared the 4k mark if i didnt self impose the table ban for myself on sunday.

Realised this week that the type of mouse that you play poker with is actually very important. I think this is especially true when you are multi tabling. With my new poker pc i bought a logitech wirless desktop. I am still using the wireless keyboard, but have reverted back to my old wireless mouse. The logitech mouse has a ton of extra buttons which would be great for key scripts, BUT it is so gawd dem heavy. Well relatively heavy to my super light Microsoft mouse.

Ramblings

Well this week i am proposing a new work schedule for myself which theoretically should allow me to play poker with higher energy/focus levels and also enjoy a lot less traffic on the roads. I am fortunated that at my workplace that we have somewhat flexible work hours. Meaning i am can come in at the earliest 7am and the the latest 9am. I have being working the 7am-4pm shift up to now, but am gonna try the 9am-6pm shift. Overall i expect a lot less traffic on the roads, AND means i can gym and put in a session of poker before work without waking up at some insane time in the morning. Not playing poker after works but before means i will be playing with top energy levels and i expect a little higher average focus with that. If my boss ask i do it because of traffic, unofficially its all about the pokerz :)

Work overall is pretty good (well for work) in the sense that i have learnt ALOT the past 6 weeks and am feeling quite comfortable with my colleagues. My two bosses seem pleased with me which is great as their oponions really effect my Oct increase and bonus. One of the more ironic aspect of work that i have come to realise is that the more busy i am at work the less tired i feel after. I had one day where i sat for 8hours doing absolutely nothing. I think a small part of my soul died that day from mind numbing boredom. It was the most exhausted i had ever felt after work, which is really funny seeing that i did NOTHING.

Last Sunday we finally got to play our cricket game (Last Man Standing T20 ). Like last week i think most of us expected the weather to postpone this game as well, but we got really lucky with the huge storm clouds passing us by. The game was great fun even though we got absolutely murdered. Our opponents batted first scoring 149 in their 20 overs. We managed to only last around 15 overs and put up a score of 79 if i remember correctly. For any of you that know ‘bluebull15’ ask him how much he scored while batting and how he went out :D. I manged to prove that bull’s bat does in fact work by hitting one of the two sixes that our team managed.

The “shag pad” optomistically named by my poker friend Nutty has come to a stand still at the moment when it comes to pimping it out. Me and my flatmate are pretty broke at the moment and are both looking out to payday. I am fortunate that i get paid on the 20th which is earlier that most pepople. Our intention for after our pay days is two try get most of these items :

1) ADSL (Being waiting now 6 weeks for them to come install)
2) HD PVR decoder for DSTV (Super 14 rugby and some good cricket on)
3) Some art/mirrors/etc for the walls.
4) Bar stools for around the kitchen table.

Well i think that is enough for this post. Good luck on and off the tables this week!

Evilpopcorn

I am talking about the guys who work 9 hours a day, and still manage to put in 20k+ hands a month. This past week i find myself being absolutely exhausted and battling to put in the volumes i would like to. Even more respect to those guys who work AND have a family, and/or some sort of hobby (gym, cricket etc). I am hoping that this working thing is like training for a marathon and i am just lacking some stamina. Guess i got the rest of my life (FML) to train and acquire this much needed skilled for a serious working poker player.

Poker Progress

2k hands for the week for a 2bi loss. Lost two big pots running KK into AA, and also getting it on a flop with a monster draw as a favorite for stacks and losing. So maybe a little run bad, althought with such a small sample mega variance is to be expected !

Overall i am now running at 7bb/100 which i am still satisfied with, but i wouldnt want it to drop much lower. Do not wana be grinding 10NL for 10 years ! lol

With rake i am up an additional 3.5bi which bumps up my win rate to 9.5bb/100. Rakeback FTW ! :D

So compared to the last time i grinded 10NL (re first post) i am playing like a ninja ! I feel like my flop cbet might be a little on the low side and my fold too 3bet to high. Concerning the flop cbet i think playing 10NL there a lot more multiway flops and villains who do not wana fold, so perhaps not a cause for alarm. Similary i think at 10NL very few villains are 3betting light, especially that i never with hardly any exception sit with a “good” aggro player directly on my left. I do not think even a lot of the aggro regs at 10NL 3bet BTN’s vs CO and MP opens as much as they should also.

Concerning volumes for the poker week ahead i am gonna try aim a little lower and try put in 3k hands.

Anywayz do not feel like rambling on about non poker related stuff this week.

Have a great poker week !

Evilpopcorn

This past week my company sent me for a weeks advanced c programming course, and as it was an attendance course i decided to use this oppurtunity to to put in some good hours of poker. Being half asleep in the lectures didnt mean i get paid less ;). I will say though the lecturer who gave the course is the Grandmaster of programming. He is scary good. Even in my semi comotosed state i did pick up a few things.

So slow start being almost breakeven over 4.5k hands. Then went on a heater the last 1k hands scooping up close 6BI.

(All numbers rounded off)

Hands : 7237
Hours Played : 21

$ Won : 78
Rakeback : 27
bb/100 (no Rakeback) : 11
bb/100 (Rakeback) : 15
Hourly Rate (no Rakeback) : 4
Hourly Rate (Rakeback) : 5

Will not go into deep detail today with my statistics as i will do a full analysis at the 10k hands mark. Currently playing a 24/22/4.7 with a 3bet% of 6.

Thoughts

If i could maintain an overall win rate of 15bb/100 i will be done with 10NL at the 30k hand mark. However i wonder if this sort of win rate is maintainable. If i still have this win rate after 20k hands then i guess it would be.

Looking at the longterm goal of earning more money at poker than my current job, it seems this will not be achieved at 10NL :D.

Playing one hour sessions has being great when it comes to maintaing my focus and thus my game. Especially where my natural style is more of a 18/16 type player, the shorter sessions have allowed me to open up and focus on playing the more trickier 24/22 style.

Have started watching WiltOnTilt’s Mathematics Of NL Hodlem. Intend to use this series to practice using stove and just getting mcuh better overall at poker math. Two series that i downloaded that i have yet to watch are also Haj Dojo and Hand Readers. As you can i am looking at working at my game from other angles than watching a DC coach 4 tabling. This other side of my game is where i believe the majority of the works lies for me at the moment.

This week is gonna me a much slower poker week for me and i will be happy if i manage to get in 4k hands, but wouldnt be suprised if i only got in 3k. Being back at work i need to have my full quota of sleep, well at least untill my probabtion is over. ;)

Ah i must mention my good poker bud Kevin “OMGHannaMontana” Stanley for going deep in one of our big local online sunday tournaments. As i assisted in winning the seat for him i was given 10% shares. Yay for swaps!

My flatmate moved in on Sunday and the pimpn’ of the flat has begun. Yesterday after work we picked up our 46" Samsung LCD Series 8 tv, and my new poker pc (Quad core, 4GB RAM, 1.5TB HDD). The tv is unfreaken believably awsomely sick! Last night we watched the blue ray of the new Star Trek movie and it was STUNNING. With the two couches i bought a few weeks a go the place is really coming together. Still needs some items for the walls, a plant, some bar stools for the kitchen table, HD satelite tv and home entertainment system. Oh yeah to further take advantage of our new LCD we already have a XBOX and PS3. Once we are properly setup will post some pics of our pad.

Well i could definitaly say a lot more about poker, life and what not, but i gotta get work.

Have a great week !

Evilpopcorn

Alright so firstly an introduction to my poker background: Old Blog

10NL :

25NL :

So yeah pretty much was crushing and on track to some form of poker glory. Went on a 8BI downswing, pressure of finishing up my undergraduate degree at University, and i pretty much lost motivation/interest. I tend to do this a lot with poker the last few years. Grind super hard and then lose motivation when things go just a little pear shaped. My mental toughness is something that i need to work on.

Ok so since i stopped updating that blog i pretty much have not taken poker seriously at all. Got my degree end of Nov and then took what was left of my poker moneyz and bust it on an AWSOME overseas holiday to the United Kingdom and Europe.

Started my new job as a C programmer at a great company on the 4th of Jan. Moved from Pretoria to Johannesburg cutting my commute by around two thirds. Sharing a 2 bedroom one bathroom place with an ex-flatmate in a great area. Great thing is that my flatmate is also someone who really enjoys poker and also made his fair share of “beer” money at varsity. Got my poker table with me, so will definitely be having some private cash games.

Alright so my longterm goal is to make more money than my day job. Currently i am earning R192 000 (+-$25 600) annually before tax. Factor in my 13th cheque/bonus and you looking at around $28 000 before tax. Not sure at what stakes i could achieve that assuming at the moment while working i expect to only be able to play about 6-8 hours 4 tabling a week. Could do the math, but as that is the LONG TERM goal not overly concerned about that quite yet. Any of you wanna do the math please do not hesitate :D.

If all goes well tomorrow night i will be starting with $300 on Full Tilt with rakeback. 4 Tabling 10NL.

• Move up to 25NL when bankroll hits $750.
• Play a maximum of 1 hour sessions.
• STUDY STUDY STUDY (posting hands, vids and HEM analysis)
• Work on strengthening my poker head. (Tommy Angelo?)
• Blog to stay focused and motivated.

I would optimistically say that i will be able to beat 10NL for 7bb/100. This means i will need to play 31 500 hands. If i average 7 hours a week saying conservatively i get 60 hands per table. That comes to about 19 weeks of play. BLEH work really getting in the way of pker me thinks ! Perhaps i can grind a little harder. Will have too see what works allows. I am also quite an active person who gyms and swims regularly, and this does “steal” some of my poker time. Need balance though !

I remember when i use to grind hard at varsity i found that i started to lose focus after about 90min. So in an attempt to remain super focused i am gonna start out playing 60min sessions. This will also allow me to fit in a session before supper at night and after with out it causing me to fall asleep at my desk at work.

The last week that i have not had internet i have gone through “Road to Robusto”, “Real Life Micro Grinder”, watched a few episodes of "Unconventiaonal wisdom and also read a superbly over prices imo poker book. The unconventional wisdom and book was more for me to think a little outside the box and help me in playing 3bet pots better. I will be trawling the vids on DC for other series. Any recommendations?

Really enjoyed in “Road to Robusto” where TubaSteve plays around with his HEM filters to find leaks. My intentions is for every 10k hands i play i will be doing an extensive breakdown of my game. Focusing on such things as 3bet pots, cbetting, double barreling, triple barreling etc.

Now in an attempt to force me to maintain this blog and in the process stay motivated i would like to issue a little challenge to my fellow DC member Bluebull, who recently started a blog of his own 2010 – The Year of the SNG . We both must chose a weekly date that we update our blogs. For me i will choose a Monday (after some good grinding on the weekend). If our blog update is more than two days late. In my case if by Thursday morning there is no update there will be a penalty paid of $20. We can also have a buyout of $50 for the blog challenge for anyone who “feels like being a girl”. What you think Mr Bull ?

Okay well this is getting very tl;dr and i actually got plenty more to say and ramble on about, but until next Monday good luck on the tables !

Evilpopcorn