Running for the red line

“When did you find out you were no longer a fish? Did you just wake up one morning with no gills?”
Tommy Angelo – EPTPE Episode 8

I’ve been reading “Playing to Win” on Sirlin.net, after it was linked from a post on the microstakes forum. Fascinating stuff.

I particularly enjoyed this discourse on the nature of a “Scrub” (go ahead and read the article, but a scrub is this video gamers slang for what we would call a fish, or a mark.)

Note the page title of this chapter is “Intermediates Guide” The Scrub mindset this chapter relates to is a critique on what we would recognise as fancy play syndrome. It’s easy to read about squeeze plays, back raising and checking to induce. and it sure does feel sexy when you pull it off.

It’s also interesting to try and explain why they should be applied, and how to respond when they are being used against you.

Nobody really wants to hear “The correct counter to someone who is 3 betting you a lot is to find a better table” Truth is though, at my limits – that’s the optimal line.

Resistance can be countered, but at the expense of some potential hourly. At my limits it can be conveniently avoided,

At some stage in my career I will have to begin responding to skilled players, but Dave Sirlin’s article has made it apparent to me that for as long as avoding confrontation is the optimal line, this is the line I shall take.

With regards to No peek February – I was reviewing some hands this month in HEM and left the total column visible on the unfiltered monthly report, so I now know my total for the month to date. It was an accident and I still haven’t looked at the BB/100 total, my graph, or the cashier, so I’m hoping that looking at that will still be a surprise in March.

I’ve had a few sessions where my big hands aren’t getting as much action as I would like, which is annoying because it feels like my marginal hands are getting picked off like crazy.

It’s probably a bit paranoid to start thinking I’m being exploited at 5NL, but maybe I AM harking back to the good old days at 2NL when three pot sized bets was the norm.

I’ll have to get a few hands together and look at what’s happening.

Meanwhile it’s 1 week into “No Peek February” and I am fighting hard against the temptation to look at my balance. I’m pretty sure I’m down a buy in or two, if I thought I was crushing the game, it would be so much worse!

I think it might be like giving up smoking. The first 10 days are the hardest!

“Bet until they raise then fold – Easy Game!” Baluga Whale

This piece of advice, along with “whatever you would normally bet on the river – double it” really turned my results round. Red blue and green lines on my graph all started a beutiful uptrend and I was loving life.

This last week though, I seem to have forgotton it. I think I was on winners tilt and trying to force it. FPS crept in as a substitute for proper hand reading. I got over attached to the pre-flop ranking of my hands and pushed them too far in bad spots.

So often I’d remind myself “Bet till they raise” and still I’d persuade myself that a clever check raise with KK on an ace high broadway flop was going to work.

It’s worse when the deck turns cold on me. Small pockets miss, every draw misses, premiiums all come under the gun and get no action. Finally flopped top two gets check-called, and villain Donk shoves a flush card on the turn.

I know he has it,
he knows he has it,
my silver haired mother sat knitting in her rocking chair 100 miles away knows he has it.

And still I pay him off.

No more. This I vow! No more checking into a station, no more bluffing in the face of resistance, no more FPS spew!

I give it about an hour… ;)

Niklius made an excelent post recently regarding his motivations for 2010 which struck a chord with me.

I’ve been far too results oriented in January and I think it was bad for me. This weekend I had another bad run and I made the mistake of looking at my graph which was disheartening.

There was no need to cause that suffering to myself, it changed nothing and offered nothing positive in return.

I already know the hands I lost money on +EV or not, the hands I was uncomfortable with, the hands I missed value with. The graph doesn’t show me that, it teaches me nothing but it can drain confidence drive and motivation.

So this month is No Peeking February. I shall play my typical volume, 2 or 4 tables depending on my mindset and review sessions using HEM set to a daily filter.

Unfortunately as far as I can see HEM has no mechanism to prevent the total $$$ amount for the session from being displayed so I will still know whether I was up or down for the day, but hopefully It will have less of an emotional impact as the graph view.

I am playing 5NL and I have withdrawn $80, so if “variance” smacks me in the face I will know about it and be able to abandon 5NL and move back down to 2NL without naeively playing under-rolled.

If I cheat and peek ( as my wife says I am sure to ) I will post a confession in my blog!

Just putting it out there – I played a bad session just now – forced weak hands into way ahead/way behind spots; missed value; the whole nine yards of fishy play. I cut it short after 40 minutes, and I wont play again today, and maybe not tomorrow. If I get an urge to “do some poker” I’ll make it a study day.

I just had to write it down.

If you’re taking the time to read this I thank you. I enjoy reading blog posts, getting a little insight into the ambitions hopes and frustration of my peers. I approach my own posts with a view to putting a bit of my “ego” (I use that word in the psycological sense) out into the world. It’s a semi-private thing made public.

I always try to make sure I post something well written, meaningful and well thought out.

But right here right now I think “I just played badly” is all there is to be said.

After reading the Honestly Micro Videos- thread and looking at all the gorgeous graphs with flat redlines and 45 degree greenlines hugging the blue line, I posted a thread in the Microstakes forum in November asking for advice on how to emulate this style and winrate.

That’s why this blog is called running for the red line!

I’m pleased to say that with more attention to value betting and a bit of selective and judicious three betting my last 10k hand graph looks like this:

Hope I can keep it up!

My bankroll is now $200

Thanks to Rakeback a Stars bonus and a fair few fish along the way I find myself in the interesting situation where I have 20 buy ins fo 10NL but only 8000 breakeven hands at 5NL

I’m actually 4BB/100 for 5000 hands at Stars despite a 5 buy in cooler middle of this month, I feel comfortable at the level, more so than when I started out at 5NL. My Full tilt stats are not so good though. I’m 300bb down over there.

• Could be the rake
• Could be me
• Could be the opposition
• could be variance
• could be all of the above

Or none of the above – I might just be running hot on Stars. I feel good about my game, plenty of spots where I play an exploitable line, even more where I feel sure my hand is face up. Yet still they pay me, so I shall continue with my strategy.

I consider moving up because I think the rake is at its worst at this level. But I think I’ll grind another 50 or 100 dollars before I take a shot at 10NL. I’ve been 2 tabling 5NL this month so I’ll look into adding a few more tables now that I have found my feet a bit.

Aiming for 10NL in March, and I’ll make it for 50 buyins to get on up to 25NL.

There’s a quote at the end of Rounders. “I’ve often seen these people, these squares at the table, short stack and long odds against them. All their outs gone. One last card in the deck that can help them. I used to wonder how they could let themselves get into such bad shape, and how the hell they thought they could turn it around.”

I found myself in that happy situation last night. I had A4h in the small blind.

MP limped and I completed, big blind checks. Flop came 5h5c3h. I quickly evaluated the situation and liked the 9 outs to the flush and 4 outs to the straight, as well as perhaps an Ace to beat medium pocket pairs.

I love this sort of equity hand. I’m playing this hard and fast betting until they crumble or the river bricks off.

I check and small blind Jams 50bb. The paired board doesn’t register to me, not even a nagging doubt. Not even when MP flats behind.

I’ve already decided it’s going in. I was totally blinded. Even if one of them had typed “I have the nut full house 4real!” in the chat window I dont think it would have registered.

So the cards flip over, my A4h vs 52o for trip 5’s vs pocket 3’s for the second full house.

I’m drawing dead to the two of hearts.

I paid 5 dollars for that lesson, and I’m so grateful that the lesson came so cheaply.

I still believe a good equity hand like that should be played hard and fast, especially oop. But I promise I’ll be mindful of the paired board next time!

Bankroll $165, 52k hands, 2.42 BB/100 16/12/2.94

A lot of debate still going on about Rush Poker, what it means for the fish, what it means for the Regs.

Twitter is pretty quiet about it surprisingly. A few bricks and mortar players celbrating what they perceive to be a death knell for the cyberpunk Hud addicts.

I wonder particularly though how this can be leveraged to bring new recreational players onto the site. FT could get it on with Zynga poker and get themselves on Facebook. Rush poker would go down a storm on there, and if Zynga poker can create a market for facebook chips, FT can bring some fish into the fold.

Meanwhile for the grinders? Maybe it’s now time to embrace hudless poker. It does feel as though the sites are reacting to the impact it has on supressing recreational players. I commented on this in an earlier post.

I’m still not sure if passive players give rake value for a poker site, or what other value they provide. I’m also not sure if supressing HUD’s will handicap a thinking player enough to let fish prosper.

Rush poker should be an interesting proving ground

I noticed today how Holdem Manager have re-branded. Spruced up their site design and started cross selling their other offerings more effectively.

As a marketing professional I have to congratulate them. In a changing market where open source software is beginning to dominate small and medium sized software houses and hobby coders, HEM are consistently turning out a reliable, user friendly and now well presented product. I wish them every success.

Room for an open source alternative though!

Got my stats at 23/21 over 250 hands today and by god it felt FANTASTIC, I felt totally in control of the tables and myself. Only one hand where it got away from me and that was just because some silly billy got in the way:

Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $9.76
CO: $2.00
BTN: $2.73
SB: $5.00
BB: $10.48
Hero (UTG): $11.18

CO posts a big blind ($0.05)

Pre Flop: ($0.12) Hero is UTG with T T
Hero raises to $0.22, MP calls $0.22, 1 fold, BTN calls $0.22, 2 folds

Flop: ($0.78) 9 2 4 (3 players)
Hero bets $0.40, MP calls $0.40, BTN calls $0.40

Turn: ($1.98) 3 (3 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $1.15, BTN raises to $2.11 all in, Hero folds, MP calls $0.96

River: ($6.20) Q (2 players – 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $6.20
MP shows 8 8 (a pair of Eights)
BTN shows K 9 (a pair of Nines)
BTN wins $5.90
(Rake: $0.30)

Both villains were, I believe, steaming a bit at this point, they’d both loosened up a lot and made some weak attempts to resist my agression and I’d been able to outmaneuvre them.

I really felt I was ahead of button, going back over this I was quite surprised to see that I checked the turn, I distinctly remember sizing up the buttons stack and recognizing the value of the shove if he had a flush draw or AK, AQ. Analysing carefully I think it was a hand that has great showdown equity but vulnerable, and just trash against those hands that are better.

I’ll post the turn card on the forums and see what the community think.

When both villains started arguing over this pot I asessed the dangers of a set, JJ or maybe even A5 or slowplayed KK+ and bailed. I bit my hand when they flipped those cards but smiled a little bit to myself too, recognizing the blunder MP had made turning his hand into a bluff.