June 05, 2011
NL5-100: NL10 still doesn´t like us
Hey guys,
sorry again for the delay between the posts. Reason for that, besides me being overly busy at the moment was a lack of interesting stuff to talk about. The most interesting (albeit not pleasant) fact is that my girlfriend somehow doesn´t succeed on NL10 so far. She took several shots at NL10 once she got $400, at one point she was even up to $550 but somehow she had some big losing sessions in between which regularly hit her back in the higher 300´s.
Once she dropped below 400 she stepped back and grinded some days on NL5 (where she does pretty well still) and then took another shot at NL10. So far it didn´t show the results we hoped for.
What are the reasons?
First and foremost I think it´s due to mental problems. NL10 develops to a kind of mental hurdle for her (and I think many of you know what I´m talking about). Remember, it´s not the first time she played on NL10 and in her "former life", the one where she played the way she thought it was right to do, she lost a huge amount of money on NL10, an experience that she obviously can´t simply shrug off.
So, I guess there´s some kind of mental blocker which she has to overcome. Unfortunately this is sth. where I´m probably the worst to help her with. :(
The second thing is actually some running bad. I saw a bunch of hands (way more than on NL5) where she played perfectly, still got sucked out on by incredible holdings. Nothing you can do about it - other than shrug your shoulders, sigh and continue. Although (you can imagine) that´s nothing that is easy for her. Which regularly results in even worse decisions for the rest of the session. And before I even notice or can pull her off the tables, 2-3 buy-ins are flushed down the toilet.
But it doesn´t help - we´ll keep working and I´m still confident that I can eliminate the habits of "non-believing the fish", so she´d stop bet, bet-call, check-call with TP, no kicker against the 75% VPIP. :)
No hands for today, as there wasn´t really much stuff that was different from what I already told you. If there´s stuff you´re particularly interested in, let me know - as always, otherwise I´ll keep you updated about the progress.
- Tack -
PS: I had an idea today: I placed a little bag aside from her (so she can see it when she plays) and for any hand she makes one of her incredible river-calls again, she has to put in 1 EUR. I plan on taking a trip to Ireland next eastern to play the Irish Open with her from the money we "earned" until then. :)
6 Comments:
velvia posted on June 06, 2011 at 07:40 AM
NL10 was the toughest limit where i struggled a lot and it took a lot of time to learn what's important and what's not. I think she should live these suckouts until learning the lesson. But she had an excellent coach to help:)
mm posted on June 09, 2011 at 10:25 AM
Hello there!
I just found your blog and find it highly interesting. Actually I hit the point of giving NL10 Shorthanded a shot yesterday evening - and lost 3BIs within an hour. That hurts, but happened multiple times before.
I'm not sure yet whether and how I want to adjust my game. There was some bad luck, and noone told me these "CR - " named tables at Full Tilt are tables for coached Cardrunner-Members. (Evil! At first glance they looked way too loose, but I guess I just was TAGfish for some good players trying out LAG, having a coach helping postflop.) That would mean business as usual, but I recognised my 3BB standard raise is plain ignored. Average pot size was around $1.5 - $3, and I got at least 2 callers with raising to $0.30, so I thought about increasing my standard raise at tables with high avg pots, but leave the rest of my play unchanged.
Here's a hand of mine, I wonder how you'd have played it?
SB ($11.74)
BB Hero [As Ac] ($10)
UTG ($11.84)
MP ($10)
CO ($9.18)
BTN ($6.94)
First hand on the table, just started these limits. Thus no reads.
UTG raises to $0.40
MP calls $0.40
CO calls $0.40
BTN and SB fold
Hero raises to $2
UTG and MP fold
CO has requested TIME
CO calls $1.60
*** FLOP *** [3d 5h 8d] $4.85
Hero bets $2.80
CO raises to $5.60
Hero raises to $8, and is all in
CO calls $1.58, and is all in
Hero shows [As Ac]
CO shows [3s 3h]
*** TURN *** [3d 5h 8d] [Kh]
*** RIVER *** [3d 5h 8d Kh] [Th]
CO wins the pot ($17.93) with three of a kind, Threes
Total pot $19.21 | Rake $1.28
Tackleberry posted on June 09, 2011 at 16:48 PM
Hi mm, nice to meet you - and glad that you find it interesting. :)
Regarding your hand, the only issue that I have is that I think you should´ve made it slightly bigger pre. You have to compensate for the positional disadvantage and you have a hand that likes to get as much money into the middle preflop as possible. Imagine the preflop-aggressor (UTG) decides to flat your raise - in this case everybody else behind him is almost priced in with whatever speculative hand they called the initial raise. And you really don´t want to get to the flop 5-way with a bunch of hands like small pockets or suited connectors. ;)
As played, there´s nothing you could´ve done differently. You have roughly 1.5x pot left, so the money goes in no matter what happens. The only question is how to do it best. But there´s no way not to stack off - if that was a question at all. :)
Classic cooler - and Villain made a big mistake by calling preflop by the way.
mm posted on June 11, 2011 at 00:00 AM
Just a quick note:
I'm back to NL5, have to rebuild my bankroll. Doing everything right came out pretty expensive - I've never lost that many AK hands in a row. AJ, A7, K5, 83 just that evening. I know that these players will pay me off in the long run, but still.. I wouldn't have minded to get out of NL5, hell of nonsense.
I'm excited to get HEM to analyze my game though, maybe you could be so kind as to have a look at it? There are leaks for sure, and I'd love to improve :)
Tackleberry posted on June 11, 2011 at 06:59 AM
Not sure what you mean? Please PM me ...
TBZAZ posted on June 25, 2011 at 07:02 AM
Just read you're blog for the first time, very interesting stuff Tackleberry! I played 10NL also but forgot the drop (BRM!!) down and tilted my bankroll away now rebuilding from scratch. I'm a member since 2 weeks here at DC and meet allready very nice pokerfriends to discuss my game with. Where you from in Germany? I live near Antwerp, Belgium. If you're interested to join my skype send me small pm. And keep updating this great blog enjoy it very much.
Log in or sign up to leave a comment!