Langerz Grinds

Well I'm not rolled for it, but I've been playing pretty good poker lately and running well so I decided to take a very limited 25NL shot today.  I told myself I would play 2 tables really focus on A game and play for just 30 min.  Mostly I wanted to get a feel for 25NL on Merge.

After about 15 hands this happened...

Merge Network $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 1362863
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

SB: $19.87
BB: $33.98
UTG: $25.00
Hero (CO): $26.11
BTN: $32.07

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is CO with 5 5
UTG raises to $0.65, Hero calls $0.65, 1 fold, SB raises to $1.80, 2 folds, Hero calls $1.15

Flop: ($4.50) A 5 7(2 players)
SB bets $1.50, Hero raises to $7.12, SB raises to $12.74, Hero raises to $24.31 all in, SB calls $5.33 all in

Turn: ($40.64) Q(2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($40.64) 8(2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $40.64
SB shows 7 7 (Three of a Kind Sevens)
Hero shows 5 5 (Three of a Kind Fives)
Hero wins $6.24
SB wins $38.64
(Rake: $-4.24)

Bummer guess I'm not ready yet.  (Villain was a big fish too)

In other news still running near 10bb/100 after 15k at 10NL so I'm sure it won't be long before my next shot.

My last post was 10NL Kind Of since I was mixing in some 10NL but not really rolled for it - so I thought I'd make a quick update since I've run incredibly well during my shots and I'm definitely rolled for it.  The graph below is a little weird but I'll take it (12.5bb/100 so far).  After the first bit of run good I had some autopilot set in, but eventually got out of that and then ran crazy good for a few sessions.  So between that and the kick ass rakeback on Merge I'm well rolled for 10NL and looking forward to getting back to 25NL (even though I've played higher 25NL is the first level where it feels like I'm making decent money).  

Besides the update I'll make a couple quick comments about Lock.  First I've heard some comments about their support.  At least for me their support is outstanding.  I had a recent issue and had responses to all of my e-mails within an hour.  They not only resolved the issue that gave me more than I asked for.  Second the 10NL games are crazy beatable.  My biggest challenge is keeping focused and not autopiloting while people just handing over money.  I'm hoping I can keep the focus long enough to move up and not get any bad habits started.

Not much new to add this month.  Still running terrible at 4NL, but still beating it.  I'm now 16 BI below EV after 16k after moving to lock, but managed to win a little and with the nice Merge RB I've been taking a few shots at 10NL.  I've mostly been adding a single table when I see a good one, but tonight I played a full 10NL session. 

So far after 500 hands I'm running at 95 bb/100 which is clearly sustainable lol.  So I guess my plan for enduring the run bad at 4NL while saving the run good for higher stakes is clearly working great.

Anyway not a big update, but I'm hoping for more exciting things to say now that I'm mixing in some 10NL.  I will say I'm enjoying poker more that I have for a while.  I actually think having to start over after Black Friday was a good thing for me.  Hopefully I can keep the momentum going.

I also have a couple trips coming up where I should be able to work in some live poker.  I'm looking forward to that and want to start hitting the local casino at least once a month.

Another brief update.  Still running like crap but crushing Lock.  I'm just under 5 bb/100 after 12K hands, but 11 BI below EV.  Some day I'm going to catch up that EV line which should be a lot of fun.  I'm ok with waiting until I move up though. 

Anyway I've almost (within 1/2 a BI) doubled my roll on Lock after exactly a month. Hopefully the next $50 will go quicker and I'll start playing 10NL around 15BI I think.  It's short I know, but the games are soft enough I think it's worth taking some early shots

For now I'll include the latest lock graph and move on for now.  I'm hoping to make these a little more interesting when I get to 10NL.  My game is pretty ABC and boring at the moment so not a ton to say.  I've also failed miserably at a couple of my goals.  I haven't been posting many hands at all.  I've been reviewing sessions pretty well, but just don't find that many interesting spots to be honest, just terrible players handing me money.  I've made a couple video attempts but had some technical difficulties, but just got a new laptop so hopefully can get back to that.  

Oh and check that impressive red line :).

Haven't been here to blog in a while.  Really not a lot to report.  4NL at merge is pretty much play super ABC and then wait for people to hand you money.  As long as you don't run like my first 100 hands it's pretty easy.  So not a lot of real exciting stuff to talk about.  I thought I'd at least post an update to keep documenting how things are going on Lock.

It was a busy week so I'm behind on blogging, but thought I'd give a quick update about my first week at Lock Poker.

The first week was pretty brutal.  I'm something like 9 BI below EV over 3000 hands.  I've at least leveled out or the small deposit I made on lock would be gone.  My biggest losing hands so far during my stay at lock are AKs and AA which has to be a sign of running bad especially since I've gotten dealt AA more than I should have on average.  But the good news is I'm playing poker.  Variance will come back around.

In regards to Lock overall I like the site.  I'm enjoying the smaller player pool since I've been getting better reads.  The 4NL games are super soft, but I haven't played that low in a long time so who knows if that is different from FTP and PS.  I am running into the occasional TAG (many from DC), but mostly terrible players and then a bunch of nits.

The software is pretty nice.  I don't like the cashier etc and the all in button is super dangerous (I misclicked shoved some random horrible hand the other day and BB tanked and luckily folded).  Getting RB right on the site is awesome and well they allow US players.  For more comments find the Merge thread I've been following it pretty close.

Overall I've been sticking to my plan pretty well.  I've been trying to play overall tighter because there isn't much fold equity, but my stats aren't much different.  I think mostly because steal spots are getting replaced by isolation spots.  I have found myself stacking off a few times in spots that I don't think are good.  For example something like TPTK when a fishy player raises you on the flop even if its a drawy board is almost always 2 pair +.  

Not a lot more to say.  If you haven't contacted your congressmen you suck.  Get involved and fight.

Also thank you DC for the undo button on the blog editor.  I somehow misclick deleted this whole post and would have been crazy tilted if it wasn't for that button.

Well as you all know the sky fell on Friday.  Ironically I didn't have a lot going on a work so I took a half day of vacation with the sole intent of grinding all afternoon.  About an hour into the session a couple tables got really nitty and I joined some waiting lists.  When the waiting list window popped up I was told I couldn't play cash games.  Of course the first thing I did was check DC and found maglame's now epic thread.  Also ironically I played out the 4 tables I was on for as long as I could and went on one of the sickest heaters of my poker career.  

I'm feeling the need to blog so I thought I'd right my own what's next thread but more from the perspective of a micro part time grinder.  I don't really bowl, so I had to change the words of the dude a little for the title of this post, but here's my plan going forward.

Although to start with I'm going to digress and hit a couple other topics.  First please get involved politically and not just because of this.  I've been somewhat of a political junkie my whole life and the direction in Washington continues to get worse.  It's time we do something about it.  There are far better blogs/articles telling you specifics of what to do, but get off your ass and make sure your congressman knows you aren't happy.  If you don't and you lose poker forever then you only have yourself to blame.

Second my heart, thoughts, and prayers go out to all the full time higher stakes grinders on DC.  I'm writing this from the perspective of a micro stakes hobby poker player and I fully understand my situation is completely different.  I cringe hearing people like WoT talk about the amount of money they have tied up on the sites.  Having that level of uncertainty while raising a family is something no one deserves.  The higher stakes guys created one heck of a great environment that we've all enjoyed over the years.  They are all highly talented individuals and if poker is truly gone I'm sure each of you will find success elsewhere.  

Ok not to the topic at hand, what do I do next.  Over the week I kind of muddle along wondering what to do.  I actually downloaded some stupid game called Governor of Poker and grinded that for several hours.  Finally I decided that hell with it I'm going to play some real poker and made a deposit on the Merge network.  I have no idea how long it will last, but I'm going to go out playing.  I'm not terribly confident that it will last long so I was a chicken and only put $50 on the site.  So I'm going to start over from $50 (for now the 3rd or 4th time in my career) and grind it up to a 50NL or higher roll.

As I've been thinking about it I'm excited about the opportunity.  Poker has always been more about the mental exercise than the money anyway.  I also have a confession I haven't been beating the game in a long time.  I haven't been losing, but certainly not winning.  I've had trouble focusing on the game lately and rarely playing my A game (or B for that matter).  I'm looking at this as my last shot and I have not idea how long it will last so I'm going to do things "right" this time.

I'm going to follow roughly the same schedule I did in my original blog post.  That worked very well while I stuck to it.  

The general schedule is:

• Monday - Grind
• Tuesday - Study (videos, database review, session review etc)
• Wednesday - Grind
• Thursday - Study (videos, database review, session etc)
• Friday - Grind
• Weekend - lots of Grinding, but at least review each session

I'm adding a few rules...

Regular blogs are a must - I started good the last time but then got away from it.  I'm not sure if I have anything that exciting to say, but I think at least talking about my progress will keep me accountable.  It's probably been 18 months since I was really playing my A game.  I knew it, but never really admitted it.  Coming on here to post my progress will keep me accountable to how I'm playing.

Stay active in the forums - This shouldn't be a problem I love talking poker on the forums

Record one session a week - Each weekend I'm going to record a session and post it in the members video section.  With this weekend being Easter I may wait a week to kick this one off, but I definitely could benefit from people looking over my hands.

So anyway that's my plan going forward.  If anyone's with me I'll see you at the 4NL Merge tables.  

Long time no blog.  It's been a crazy busy summer and haven't had time or the focus for this and other important poker related items.  Back when I was moving back up through the micros I was updating this regularly and keeping to my original schedule/plan.  Once I got back to 50NL I stalled.  Mostly in my opinion due to a lack of focus and rarely seeing my A game.  I posted a few graphs from 10 and 25 NL and then once I hit 50 NL.  Pretty big difference.

10NL

 

25NL

And 50NL

 

So I made my goal of building my roll back up to 50NL on FTP but it's been a wild ride since then.  So I need to go back to what worked in the past. Here's my plan I originally posted in a January blog.  

Daily – At breakfast do a session review of night before.
– On commute back and forth from work listen to 2-3 podcasts or theory videos
– Lunch/after work spend time on forums – make at least 50 quality posts per month and posts at least 5 of my own hands
Evenings:
Sunday – 1) Exercise 2) Blog 3) grind 
Monday – Grind
Tuesday – 1) Excercise 2) Watch video (mostly sweat videos) 3)finish Sunday/Monday session review
Wednesday – Grind 
Thursday – 1) Excercise 2) Watch video (mostly sweat videos) 3)finish Wednesday session review
Friday – Grind
Saturday – Fun day grind as I have time

Fall is here.  Hopefully things are less busy and I can get off this crazy 50NL roller coaster.

See ya at 100NL.

I’ve decided (at least for now) that I really don’t have that much exciting to say in a blog so I’ll likely just update this on a monthly basis as kind of a month in review. Mostly I’ll review them in regards to the goals I set out at the beginning of the year.

If I had to sum up February in one word I’d use variance. I’ve been running really good since my move to FTP so I was probably due for a roller coaster of a month. The cool thing was I still had a positive month which I think is a good indication of having better focus at the tables. I know we always feel like we get bad beat constantly, but this month seemed like it had more than normal and I still managed to turn a profit. I’m not a believer in looking at the All-In equity graph, but I don’t know another way to see if my gut feel is correct here. In Jan I ended up within $1 of my All-In equity. In Feb I was 10 buyins below it.

I managed to still be up about 5 buyins over 21,000 hands and ran at 2.33 bb/100 at 25NL. I’d obviously like that number to be higher, but I’m pretty confident it will be in the future. In other good news other than a bad stretch in the middle (I was sick for a while and probably shouldn’t have been playing but certainly didn’t have my A game) my red line was basically flat.

In regards to goals:

Session Reviews – I didn’t do a great job here and need to review this plan. I’ve got a few people in India that work for me now on a couple projects which has led to some early morning meetings. It’s hard to do a review when you are getting up early.

Podcasts/Theory Videos during commute – I relistened to Tommy Angelo’s 8 Fold Path to Poker Enlightenment. If you haven’t checked out this series you should. Even if you are like me and don’t really buy fully into the “mystical” world there is great stuff to take away from this series. I just started listening to the DC podcasts with Improva and they are of course great. Probably have to listen to each a few times to really sink in.

Forum Activity – I made about 100 posts this month. I had a stretch where I wasn’t very active, but also been spending some time on Skype with the micro baller group. Both activities are great for keeping your mind thinking about the game.

Exercise – This has been pretty crappy this month, but mostly due to being sick for a good portion of it.

Watch Videos – This was so-so. During the time I was sick I was bad, but recently started rewatching The Coaching Tree. I really like Baluga’s thoughts on beating the micros and have been really trying to increasing the spots where I am going for value. (Biggest contributor to my red line flattening out IMO – thin value is thin so there ends up being quite a few folds).

See you on the forums and on the tables (hopefully more so on the forums than the tables or we aren’t table selecting that well).

Been an up and down week, but still excited to say all week was at 25NL. Started up a couple buy ins. Then a -4 BI swing. Then up 4BI, then down 6. Had a nice +8BI swing today though to finish up 4BI for the week.

I’m also excited to say that my red line has been slightly positive for the 8000+ hands I have in at 25NL. Not that I am obsessing with my redline, but I mentioned in a previous blog that it appears that my red line is a very good indicator of when I am focused and not autopiloting. I’ve been feeling pretty dialed in lately so hopefully that is the case. I can say previously when I was playing 25NL my red line was no where near positive. At this level I think the biggest key is value betting well. If you are value betting thinly people are going to fold quite often and your red line grows.

Hopefully I can straighten on my blue line and get off this roller coaster during the next week. Either way I’m over 20BI for 25NL and feeling good. If I finish the month well I think I’ll be able to officially say my Stars to FTP transition is official.