Everyone does it!

Yeah, worst day in my history yet. This all pushypushy draw thing sucks ass, not going to do it again. Did it twice, aka -$120. Also pushing with ace high flush turned out to be a bad idea as river brought boats, straightflushes and quads to my opponents. Omaha didn't go that well either, just shit in my mouth. So I took a hit of roughly $400 I think. This means I'm back roughly at where I was 1st of March. My NL50 after 16k hands is breaking even - well +$30. My NL25 after 3k hands is down like $300, but that I admit into being partially tilt. PLO has been the carrying force keeping me afloat and has compensated for the losses at NL25 and SnGs. Otherwise I'd be down a lot. I will take a break of few days - I'll have a lot of school stuff to do so it shouldn't be too hard either - in fact, it'll be relieving and useful!

I might try the rakefree site when I come back. Having paid $800+ of rake in this breakeven session, I just can't help wondering how it would be if I played there all along. Anyway, I think my play has some glitches - it has to... I've been going down so badly at times and although most of the big pots I lose are due to suckout or some semi-inescapable flush over flush/set over set situations, I think the smaller pots have to add up... Something about my continuation bets might suck, maybe those are a losing play, maybe I don't think enough on how to use those, what to represent etc. I have been paying more attention to position though which should be a good thing.

I hope the refreshing break will do miracles. When I come back, I will probably either grind out NL25, trying to really make a difference there or play PLO which has been very good for me in the past. I should also get Omaha Tracker, but I might get it when I hit $2k (which might actually be never).

It's not all negativeness though, I've sold over $150 of my Stars money to friends in need and also purchased something for $55 or so, so it hasn't been complitely in vain in the past months. Live games also earned me a pretty penny - I hope I can keep it up on those. I assume my next session will be after I finish the web programming coursework, which shouldn't be in a few days, so this might be quiet place reportwise.

Cheers. \o/

[Update] After extensive conversations with more and less successful players, I concluded that my postflop play is too loose. That means the problem is not the draw-pushing, but rather overplaying more marginal hands. I have to work on this when I come back from my "vacation". I will play NL25 as practice until like $1000 again, that should be a few days if it goes nicely and a bit more if it doesn't. But I have to be able to beat NL25, no matter how frustrating it feels to play there again.

Also spent 5 minutes on making a "logo" for the blog. ^^

Good stuff, bad sessions

After a slight recovery of my last bad day, entitled Horrible day. I had another bad one today. Omaha saved it a bit and towards the end of the session, I was fighting back. I ended up down less than 2 buy-ins, but it's far from important. I think today was one of those educational days I will be putting into practice in the coming days.

After a long talk with my friend, Tomson, I realized that all I need to do is to be more critical about my mentality and myself in the game. I feel I have (ever so deepening) knowledge of the game, but yet, I let results affect my gameplay. Durandal also mentions this kinda things in his latest post to his blog. I think he speaks words of wisdom in most parts of his writing and I agree, especially with the long paragraph. When you play long, don't progress, you get (or might get) a bit frustrated with results not coming - knowing this is wrong to think this way and actually realizing it are far away from each other. The gameplay, when frustrated, becomes more readable and more static and even the opponents at NL50 level pick some of this up - some don't, some will, but you'll end up screwed if you're playing a non-thinking game. This is the main issue I will have to work on for sure, to complitely ignore result oriented thinking and concentrate on playing a good game.

All this sounds so intuitively clear, but it isn't. Everyone who wants to really get into poker realizes and knows these things, but understanding and actually having it in you needs a lot of work. Maybe there are some natural talents out there, but let's face it - most people achieve what they have by hard work and I know that hard work can prevail in these matters too. What Tomson said about thinking what separates you from other players (I take it as he meant successful ones), it's the mindset. Of course this isn't the only part, but at the moments, I feel it's the greatest obstacle to overcome. Many beginning players don't realize this before they hit their first bunch of variance which'll nail them down and make them go broke.

The importance of position, the importance of reraising and the importance of firing the second barrel all come into the game when the limits start going up. The higher you get, the more important each one of these will gain. While talking to other players, looking at other players play and by playing, I think my understanding of these concepts is growing better and bigger at all times. The problem with learning quickly usually is that you'll try to forcefully apply everything you learn, which is why, I think that you should study after you've played and play more the next day when subconciousness has gotten the stuff well digested.

Going with your reads will be more important and although I terribly terribly misread this person, I still post this hand, because I really had him going with a missed draw. These are the kind of tilty plays, you might be making when frustrated, but I think I might play this the same in some occasions still. To be honest, I felt a bit ackward on the river, but the best thing besides a missed draw I could put him on was AT and I thought he would fold it to the reraise. Obviously he had a bit better hand than that.

Also, there was this short introduction in moving up limits. I found it to be quite interesting, very valuable if you're wondering on whether to move up limits.

Anyway, I guess that's my update for my revelations for know, I'll probably continue really playing on thursday, as I have some assignments and other studies to make anyway. Who knows, maybe I'll throw in a short session.

Weekly report

Alrighty, so I had a little up after the last down and since it's monday - it's time for the weekly report. This week wasn't magnificent, infact it was a bad one, but I feel like my game has improved hell lot during that time. I will continue playing tomorrow and see if I could finally make a reasonable profit out of the week, preferably not play like crap. So after today's not so long, but fun session - I ended up somewhere along the lines of $100. I played 2 tables PLO, one table NL50 Hold'em. Omaha was breakeven or slight down, but I won big in the Hold'em table. The biggest reason to it was This Particular Hand. Biggest NL50 pot I've ever won, quite delightful. He had gotten his stack from me in an earlier inconvenient hand though. This one is from few days back I think, but it was cute so I decided to post it. So yea, I have been getting some luck too, the horrible day just turned to suck all the bad luck out of a short period, hopefully the up will keep up for few more days before the next down, so all ups will then be bigger. I will try not to screw up too.

But here goes the weekly report:

Current date: 2006-05-01
Last report: 2006-04-24
Current bankroll: $1205
Current stakes: NL50/24.0 buy-ins
Result: -$165
Moving up at: $2000/20 buy-ins