Sits Scenario

There is a strong possibility that I will start grinding SNG's next month. If I choose this way I will put cash games on hold (again) and give another try on sits. I have purchased some new material to study the game, so I will put an effort to get better and improve my game. I will talk about this next month, when I post my 2012 results.
Good luck at the tables!

Welcome Back

Hi, sorry for the missing update post during this time. Overall been more busy outside of the tables due to family happy stuff and also been more involved in group activities on the gym. Anyway, I am playing poker on my free time and taking serious steps to become a business in the long term. My main concern has been the kind of games that I should play (cash games over sits, type os sits, ...).

Back To Basics
Well, after reviewing some sessions I figured out that I should better play cash games, I feel that my edge here (at the micros for now) is higher and I can manage better my sessions. I have more flexibility to sit out and leave a session during a cash game session. On sits I have to play them until I am finished. This is why I haven't played any MTT (Big Tournaments) lately.

Very soon I will post 2012 cash games results and some goals for the 1st trimester of 2013, see you soon!

Graphical Post

I like graphs and I think most people like, so here it is a graph filtered with following conditions: it's after 17th of August and it's regarding 45-person sits. The last session was yesterday with my first games at the $1,50 buy-in.

August Update

August it's done, was a great month to me in terms of improving as a player. In terms of volume was good at sits but not so good at cash games. In fact, I was thinking if I should post anything about cash games, I only played about 6k hands at NL2 and lost 4 buy-ins, so nothing important in terms of volume and winnings at cash games.

Like I write before I do like cash games very much, I like to play with 100 big blinds and play my full ring game strategy, but I also like to play tournaments. This leads to an uncomfortable dilemma: where should I focus more? I kind solved some part of that question. First it is very important to focus on one thing first so you can be a better player at that type of game and also to build a large sample so you can figure out if you are a winning player.

During the cash games grind I discovered some leaks, you can argue if playing at microstakes (NL2 and NL5) cash games will be the most effective to fix leaks, but you have to start somewhere according to your bankroll and skill. This was exactly what I did since November 2011, grind and grind at cash games. 

A losing month like April made me take a break so I played less hands, during May and June. On July I played almost 30K hands and I ended up winning with a 7.24 bb/100 win rate.

I admit that the initial cash games downswing motivated me to play many kind of sits until 19th of August.

I played 711 sits in August of many types, the top 3 types of sits that I played more was: 264 games of Fifty50 sits, 263 games of 45-Person sits and 72 games of 18-person sits. I ended up losing about $20 in all sits for the all month of the 711 sits played but I found what I should play. So I made an inflexion point on my grind on 19th of August.

Sits played until 19th of August:

Sits played after 19th of August (I only played 45-person sits after 19th august):


On 19th of August I decided to grind the 45-person sits only and starting at lowest possible buy-ins to have a feel for the game. I withdraw almost my entire bankroll and restarted with only $100. After that I have played only 45-player sits and never look back, I am not saying that the 45-player will be exclusive but they are a good starting point to play multitable tournaments and build a bankroll with a winning strategy.

I haven't left cash games, I will play more cash games in the future, because I believe that to be a complete poker player it's fundamental to master preflop and postflop game. I just think that right now I am more inclined to take this 45-person sit experience a try.

So good luck and skill at the tables!

Heads Up Hand

This is a hand from a final table at 45 man sit, to decided the 1st place.
We both have the same stack size, about 11 big blinds.

Last hands I was shoving wide on the button and villain was folding much of his hands. When I was out of position, villain min raises but often villain folds when I reraised his minraises.

However, on this hand villain did not min raised his button, he limps and I check. On the flop I have a gutshot to make the straight. Any ace and any six will make my straight, so I have 8 outs on the flop.

According to the 2/4 rule, I have 16% to hit my straight on the next two streets (turn and river). According to pokerstove my equity against a random hand on the flop is 48%. My equity against a big pair like Kings is 33%, against his hand is 41,8%.

You can argue if I should shove this flop but I decided to give him initiative so I check. He bets one big blind of t3000, half pot size and I call.

The turn brings me the nuts, I hit the straight and instead of shoving (I thought that he could fold), I decided to offer him again the initiative and he bets only one big blind again, 1/4 of the pot.
With the nuts (I have the best hand unless he has 63 to a better straight), with t12300 on the pot (almost half of my stack) I shoved here, he calls.

Another reason to shove is that if he was on a flush draw, he probably would call my shove on the turn. Here is the hand:

BOP Final Result

I ended up in 32th place in the BOP Mercury - Low Orbit division last week:

SNG Leaderboard - 2º BOP Mercury

I have been playing 9 man turbo sits and studying cash games, (what a mix!).
I am right now 2nd place on the BOP at Pokerstars.

Last Semestre and July Update

Hi, today I will show my performance on a quarterly (year) measure. Last year I have on my database the 2011 QIV, witch means, the last 3 months of 2011. Last year I only played NL2.

Global Perfomance
This year I played NL2 in January and started NL5 on February continued on March, and ended in April where I have a downswing and I did some cash outs during that month. Those two factors combined result in my downward and return to NL2. This month I played mostly NL2 but also some NL5 hands.

Volume
As a poker player, I know this is a game with a high variance and only in the long run, the math will even it’self out, so the skill will be predominant in the long run. Poker is all about making better decisions than your opponent. Volume is the key, when you have a hand that will win 70% of the time, you know that only with volume you can win more times than lose because the odds are in your side.

The 2012 QI (January-March) was fantastic, I crushed the games with a win rate of 7bb/100 at NL2 and NL5 most hands in this time were from NL5. I also put the most volume during this time period, playing over 124K hands.

2012 QII (April-June) was poor in terms of volume and win rate. Played about 55K hands during the 3 months with a negative win rate of  -0,64bb/100. I also decided to voluntary take a break during this time, and had some personal issues in my life to take care.

Current time, QIII (July-August), I consider a coming back on the righ path. Restarted my play at NL2 again and mixed some NL5 during the last days. August will be NL2 with some shoots at NL5.
I want to end September at NL5 games, at least. My goal is to end the yeat at NL10 cash games tables.

I am thinking in dedicating more posts to the mathematical aspects of the game and statistics of the game, like the ones you have on holdem manager for analysing spots, what you think? Leave some comments if you are interested besides my results, I will give some thoughts about it.

Time-Quarterly (Year) Since 2011 until today:

Overall Performance This Month By Stakes:

Today I am analysing some spots in my game and checking some leaks that need to be fixed. This is something that I will start to do more often. 

This month I played some MTT's, made ITM In two of the big fields but nothing big. I played a $1.10 MTT Cap with 1000 players, ended at 46th place. On another of 2135 players finished at 112th position. Played the Micro Millions Main Event but did not made ITM.
I will continue to play some MTT's, they are going to be part of my game plan too. That's it for now, August is one of my favourites months, not so much because of the weather (I enjoy more the cold days) but because it's a more relaxed month and it's my birthday month!

Good luck and skill at the tables!

Month Feedback

What I have been doing? How is the month going?
I have been playing cash games and sits. On the sits side I have been mixing some single table tournaments, short handed, full ring and fifty50. Overall the Fifty50 sits are kind of sits that has the most traffic (I am excluding hyperturbos sits). The fifty's sits are great to generate vpps, they are easy to play and more fun than the old version of DoN's.

Cash games, I love them, sometimes I get frustrated with some hands, but it's where I have better results. I noticed that I can play easily 20 tables of full ring cash games, this is an improvement. Still playing at NL2. I started the month very strong in terms of volume but then I stoped playing cash games for a few days and restarted today.

Overall Cash Games Month Performance:

Played 21435 hands in 10 days during July, is very low volume if I grab the motivation I will try to go for 50k hands this month! I those 10 days sessions I had only one losing day and I am making 6,90 bb/100.

May and June Overall

I have been playing some sits this month, decided to take a break from cash games, I guess is lasting more than I expected. I have been playing a bunch of 9 man, 6 man and head's up sits at micro stakes. Most of them are Turbos and HyperTurbos speeds.

Anyway, last month I did not played 60k hands but I will post the results, nothing really impressive, in fact was a little more than break even at cash games but I played just a few hands.

Besides that, did you ever read that hyperturbos are full of variance? Well it's true but i played some heads up hypers and they are going ok for now, leave here the sharkscope results from last session. By the way I was influenced by spacegravy to play HU Hypers. Anyway, I am playing because I am enjoying them to take a break from cash games.


May Overall Results at Cash games:

Last heads-up session:

Sessions Hands

Two hand played in an past session. On the first hand I have the preflop nuts, opponent is a calling station, the kind of player who will call expensive bets with a draw. In the long run he loses money but this time he did catch his flush on the river: I suspected he had the flush but I called his big bet because I saw him bluffing in as old hand, I thought he was bluffing again. On the flop I have 91% of equity to win this hand, on the turn my equity decreases to 84%, still a big favourite.
Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 1769256
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

MP1: $2.08
MP2: $4.93
CO: $7.70
Hero (BTN): $5.92
SB: $5.09
BB: $5.41
UTG: $3.00
UTG+1: $2.68
UTG+2: $8.18

Pre Flop: ($0.07) Hero is BTN with A A
6 folds, Hero raises to $0.15, SB calls $0.13, 1 fold

Flop: ($0.35) 3 9 5 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.25, SB calls $0.25

Turn: ($0.85) A (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.80, SB calls $0.80

River: ($2.45) 8 (2 players)
SB bets $3.89 all in, Hero calls $3.89

Final Pot: $10.23
Hero shows A A (three of a kind, Aces)
SB shows Q J (a flush, Ace high)
SB wins $9.81
(Rake: $0.42)


This second hand, opponent has a big draw on the flop, an open ended straight and a flush draw. His hand as a 52% equity against mine on the flop. On the turn his equity decreases to 32%.
Preflop I am 78% favourite to win the hand against him. He raises in early position and I decided to 3 bet him with my strong hand. He didn't 4 bet, so I thought he probably doesn't have aces.

With a board texture like that with so many draws, I decided for an agressive line and to put my all stack.

Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players - View hand 1769253
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (MP): $8.08
CO: $4.93
BTN: $2.48
SB: $4.70
BB: $5.00
UTG: $7.50
UTG+1: $3.76

Pre Flop: ($0.07) Hero is MP with K K
UTG raises to $0.15, 1 fold, Hero raises to $0.45, 1 fold, BTN calls $0.45, 2 folds, UTG calls $0.30

Flop: ($1.42) 5 Q 4 (3 players)
UTG bets $1.20, Hero raises to $5.33, BTN folds, UTG raises to $7.05 all in, Hero calls $1.72

Turn: ($15.52) 9 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($15.52) 2 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $15.52
Hero shows K K (a pair of Kings)
UTG shows 6 7 (high card Queen)
Hero wins $14.88
(Rake: $0.64)

April Results

Lack Of Volume
April was a negative month, nothing to worry about, in part I know what factors contributed to that end result. The main factor was lack of volume, I only played about 28k hands and this is too low. Another factor was zoom cash games, I played more hands of zoom poker than regular cash games at NL5, I got some bad variance and even some bad playing of my own.

New Approach
I am going to evaluate my cash games results in a different way, instead of a monthly check, I will start to make a final evaluation after 60k hands. Only after that volume I will post the overall results. In this way I can evaluate better my play and put the positive/negative variance to minimum. 60k hands is not that much, but due to my present availability for the game it will be used this metric.

Leave the usual overall results, this time divided by stakes, and the overall graph.

Zoom Cash Games

Zoom Cash Games and Moving down to NL2

Hi, that picture is my current month performance, I am recovering from my initial downswing. I had a major downswing when I started playing zoom cash games, but instead of quitting those games, I decided to move down in limits, so I went from NL5 to NL2.

I do really enjoy much more this kind of format, they are more faster, I can play more hands in less time, I also make more VPP's in my sessions, witch will be a long term beneficial thing. Daleroxxu pro poker player made a great analysis about them, check it out here. 

Right now, I just want to mantain my Silverstar status, learning to play the right strategy to beat the game is my number one priority for now, building my bankroll is the second critical goal. VIP status is a medium goal, important one but not for now.

I played so far about 20k hands of cash games, will continue with zoom poker and play some tournaments once in a while this month, I will evaluate this slightly strategy game change, in playing this type of cash games.
  

The Worst Start Of The Year

This is being my worst month in terms of net won results at no limit holdem, I am 10 buy-ins down for the month. In terms of quality decisions made, I think 85% of my decisions were the correct ones, I lost many hands on the turn and river. I had some big hands at preflop and flop but they did not hold until the showdown. I also made some mistakes on some hands.

 I hope I can even out this and at least make a break even month, it's very though to play when you are on a downswing, but you just have to push yourself out of the downswing and keep the pace. Here is the current graph for this month, not the sexiest but it's the reality of April.

March & Trimester Performance

March Review
I started running very bad last month, but I am getting used to this. After 10k hands I was 8 buy-ins up. 12k hands latter I was negative, what a feeling! Anyway, hard work and dedication pays off and ended up March a better month than February.  I made almost the same net amount of February but in less hands.

Until 13th of March, I was playing almost everyday, then I had some personal things to take care on 14 and 15 day of March. After that I did not put the volume I was expecting to make, again, some personal stuff happened and my focus was not at the tables. Here are the overall performance for March:

 This is my vpp status on Pokerstars, I made more than 800 vpps last month:

Trimester Review
This is being my best year in terms of net amount won at the poker tables, the last trimester was very good, after grinding NL2 for almost 3 months (November, December and January), I jumped to the next level, NL5 on February and it was the correct decision.

I will continue with NL5 because I am very conservative with my bankroll and also because I cashed out more than 15% of my bankroll last month. When to move on to NL10? Well if I continue with this performance I think I can move on to the next level on June.

This is the trimester graphic, I played 124141 hands with a 7,20 bb/100 and a net won of $318. This is also a good indicator that I am a better cash game player than a SNG player.

What to expect from this month?  Well I will work hard to play 50k hands and make more profit than last month ($150? Why not?). I will try to make 1k vpps this month, it's not easy but it's not impossible.

February Performance: 50k Hands

February was the month where I started to play on the new level, at NL5, where the big blind is 0.05c (cents) and one buy-in is $5. It was the month that I reach 50k hands for the first time in one month.

I started the month running terrible bad, I was break even for at least the first 15k hands. I was losing many big pots with big hands, but I was making the best effort to make the best decisions at the tables during this period. I started to run better and in the overall after that though start, I guess I had two major downswings for the all month.

I remember during a session, I was always losing for a set of the opponent, I had the best preflop hand (like KK vs 44) and on the flop or in other street my opponent catch the third card to make the set (444). Okay, that happens sometimes but 5 or more times straight! I think this was the only time I tilted a bit (I tilted for myself).

Anyway, here are the pictures that show how February was at the tables. The first is the net amount won in dollars, the second is the overall performance and playing stats.
Some month highlights: first time that I made 50k hands in one calendar month, first time that I made more than $100 exclusively from the tables.

Month Graph:

Overall statistics:

I started March with a 2 buy-in downswing yesterday, anyway it's part of the game.

Mobile Pokerstars

Pokerstars is now available to mobile devices, check it out here.

Bigger Prize Pools on Pokerstars

Just to tell you that there are more reasons to play tournament poker on Pokerstars.

Do You See The Light?

The month has turned around and this weekend I was on fire at the tables. I have my best cash games sessions this weekend. I played more than 6k hands this weekend. I played about 27k hands for a 6bb/100 rate this month.
I am very motivated, I love this game, I must handle the swings, I like the pressure, I really enjoy poker, specially when you are playing and winning like now. But I know what it's like to be down, taking every correct decision and still lose that big pot when you were 80/20 or even 90/10 favourite.

My advise to everyone who is going for a downswing is to review the session and identify if it was variance or bad decision and move on. You must see the light at the end of the tunnel, don't give up.

Here is the current month graph, I just made more than last month in terms of profit. But at the beginning of the month I was 16k hands break even.

Just for fun:

Month Of Swings

I just played about 16k hands this month at NL5, that is almost half of the hands that I played last month. This shows that I am playing a lot! I am multitabling 24 tables sometimes but my average is about 20 tables per session. Unfortunately the volume is not linear with the profit, at least for now.

I have been getting some sort of negative variance lately witch is clear visible on the graph. I don't blame, poker is a high variance game, and you must have a strong mind to keep going. Besides that, there could have been some spots were I made the wrong decision. But most of the time I am a big favourite preflop and loose the hand on the river. Check it out the graph on my current performance at NL5 this month:

January In The Books

Overall, it was an exceptional month, if I count with the milestone prize it was my best month in terms of profit. Disregarding the prize, it was a good month, I played about 32k hands. I started grinding the NL2 with all my effort. After a positive start, I get a reasonable downswing of about 5/6 buy-ins. My confidence went a little down but I realize that I should keep playing, this is part of the game.

The downswing did not last very long and I was on an upward path during the all month until...today! Yes, today I went to play NL5 and i experience a downswing of almost 4 buy-ins. Hey NL5, is this the way to treat the new customers? :-)

Anyway, I lost big pots with big hands like AA, KK, and I also lost with a straight and a two pair hand (you can check out the hands on the graph below). This is all part of the game, I will keep playing at NL5, if at some point I feel uncomfortable I just leave NL5 and return to NL2. 

Enough talking let´s go to the numbers and graph. By the way I made about 300 vpps.

Overall Cash Graph:

Results by stakes:

Overall Performance:

You can see on the last image the hands were I lost most $ on NL5. Preflop I am a huge favorite with those hands, so at long term I will make $, they are +EV hands. By the way, my kings were broken for a 3333 hand (yeah, quads right on the flop!).

I will work to have better results at NL5 next month.

Milestone Hand

I received the milestone hand nr. #74.709.000.00 on Pokerstars:

But the best of all is that I WON this milestone, so my prize was doubled!!

Thank you to the one and only Pokerstars.