2008 recap : falling short

Well 2008 has come and passed, it had it's big ups and down both in poker and in life and now is the time to take a good hard look at the year and think about the future.

At the beginning of 2008 I set a few goals for myself.

Move to NL25 before this summer and to NL50 before the end of 2008

Well I did manage to move up to NL25 around May, but as the clock hit midnight and 2008 was a thing of the past, I am still an NL20/NL25 player, my bankroll being a few buy ins short of moving up. Part of me is telling me that I should cut myself some slack. My father's sickness, moving to a new condo and having my laptop stolen sure took their toll on my playing time and who knows if I would have made it if not for these events.

I still managed to take a few shots at NL50, and bonus whoring combined with the renewed motivation I have should put me back there pretty soon.

Play live games on a more regular basis

That one I just let go. Went to the casino a few times and quickly grew tired of the electronic tables the Montreal and Gatineau casino spread (yeah, I know, the Gatineau casino is now spreading real tables and the Montreal one should be doing so soon too). I frequented a few poker rooms in Montreal and had fun, but it's my feeling that "poker rooms" attract poker players, while casinos attract, well, anybody. Hence I don't feel that playing in poker room is as +EV as playing at the casino.

So with all this I just decided to let that one go.

Develop a game studying routine

Did I manage to do that? Yes and no. For quite a while I was participating in frequent session reviews, posting hands on forums, reviewing my own play and the play of the regulars I meet often. Then I just stopped. Right now I'm trying to get back into it all but I have to list that one as a fail.

Put more serious time in another game than NL Hold'Em

Again that's a mixed one. I spent some time on the Pot Limit Omaha tables and read a great book on that game. I still love that game and I'm pretty sure I'll keep going back to it from time to time. That said, if I want to be honest with myself, I did not play as much as I intended when I stated that goal. I guess that's one of the good things about setting goals, with hindsight it helps reassess your priorities and where you're really at.

So, what to make of all that? 2008 was mostly a good year for me poker-wise. Reading back my archives I see how far I've come (and how far I still have to go!). Sure I fell short a bit, but one year ago I was barely playing NL10, now I'm on the verge of playing NL50 and that is despite everything that life threw at me.

I am proud of what I've achieved, thrilled about what's to come and ready to face the challenges of 2009.

December 2008 online results

Happy Holidays!

Just want to wish everyone happy holidays!

Enjoy the time with your family & friends.

I'll be back to you in 2009!

A quick overdue update

Since the start of December I've been focused on playing as much as possible and that has taken a toll on how often that blog is updated. So since I wouldn't want to let you down so close to Christmas, here I am!

Other than the last few days, I've been playing with the same routine since the start of December. Log on in the morning and play for about an hour before going to work, then play a few more hours in the evening when I get back home. The results have been less than stelar as I'm currently down about 2 buy ins, but I've been putting up a lot of hands which was one of my goals.

After not playing for so long, I felt that getting back into it was important and I felt that playing a lot (for me anyway... pretty sure some readers play my monthly amount of hands every day!) would help me shake the rust faster and get my mind back to think about poker a lot.

The good thing about shaking the rust off now is that bonus clearing is keeping me in the green. I most likely won't reach my goal of playing NL50 before the end of the year, but I should end up relatively close. Especially if I can start winning friggin coinflips!

I'm back!

At last! Got my new laptop last friday so what do you guys think I did this week end?
To use SplitSuit's expression, this week end it was back to grindcore!

Played quite a bit and managed to fight through a day filled with coolers AND a major leak I have right now (just due to me not playing much in so long... easily fixable) and still managed to stay about breakeven.

So, how does that forced hiatus influences my yearly goals and expectations? Well, it doesn't. Sure, it will be harder to reach all the goals I had set to myself, but it is still possible. And as long as it's possible, I will push hard to reach these goals.

So here they are, my goals for December :
- Play 15K hands of online NLHE
- Get my BR to a point where I can take another shot at NL50

That's it. Only 2 goals for December.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Being a french Canadian, Thanksgiving has never been big for me and my family. That said, I know how huge it is in the US, so I wish a happy Thanksgiving to any US reader I might have.

Enjoy the time off with family and friends. Remember everything that happened this year that you are thankful for, eat lots of good food in good company, drink (but don't drive!) and most definitly do NOT... I repeat do NOT bet on the Lions to beat the Titans!

The return of the home game!

After 6 months of absence, last night saw the return of our homegame! Nothing like playing micro-stakes poker live with a bunch of people who don't really care about anything except than trying to have a good time while playing cards.

That game has always been -EV money wise (lol at spending 15$ in beer and winning 10$ at poker) but so much +EV fun wise!

I guess if anything, my poker goal when it comes to the home game is to spread the love of poker. I want people to have a good time (and of course, I'd rather they have a good time while sending their chips my way!) and discover the subtelties that make poker such a great game. I am by no means an expert, but I definitly know tons more than our average homegame player so I offered to make small "strategy segments" in our home game where I will share what knowledge I can. (starting by teaching Alex not to go all-in vs me... like... ever).

Anybody has an idea of what aspect of the game I should bring up to a mostly noobish crowd, just leave a suggestion in the comments section please.

On a sad note though, a nice streak was broken last night. As far as I can remember, it's the first time the Montreal Canadiens lost a game while we were playing poker at my place... must be the new condo!

Free beer!

Ok now that I have your attention... I know the reach of this blog is probably limited... but still.

If you are an American, online poker player you NEED to read this.

Basically, the Bush administration is trying hard to finalize the UIGEA before their reign is over effectively banning any US citizen from depositting or withdrawing money from online gambling sites.

It takes only a minute or two of your time to send an email and make a phone call and voice your opinion. Will it change things? Who knows, but it's such a little effort that even if these emails and calls are a 1000 to 1 shot to change anything you HAVE to do it.

Stepping back down

NL50 has been brutal to me. I feel like I'm playing well enough, but man the beats have been coming!

The losses I've had are not even that impressive really, but when you just stepped up to a new stake, losing a few buy-ins hurts a lot. So I decided to step back down for a while, lick my wounds, regroup and grind some more before I take another shot at NL50.

No computer, no recap, no goals...

Normally this would be the time where I reflect on last month's goals and set new goals for myself for the coming month. Well still being without a computer at home, no goals for me right now other than try to squeeze as much poker as I can.

In the last month I've started clearing a bonus on CD poker and took my first shot at NL50. Things went OK at NL50 and as soon as I get a computer at home this is where I will still try to play. I lost a bit of money but nothing worth panicking yet. I think the little I played at NL50, I played pretty well. Hopefully as soon as I can start playing again things will settle. Worst case I'll step back down for a while at NL20.

In the meantime I might go take a look at Montreal's various poker rooms and maybe even go back to the casino... We'll see I guess...

Tilt inducing co-worker

I get to work this morning, sporting a head ache and a serious coffee withdrawal. As soon as I open the office door, a wall of noise hits me like a ton of bricks.

A co-worker that I shall leave nameless, is screaming over his cell phone, arguing with god knows who about some money he apperently paid for no good reasons. The way our office is designed, it's a large open space. So when someone makes noise, it bothers everyone.

I sit at my desk, waiting for my PC to boot up so I can at least try to listen to some music to counter this barage of noise when I suddendly realise that all of this is over 35$! Pretty sure a bunch of my co-workers would have chipped in 5$ each to give him his 35$ just so he would shut up.

Guess I should at least tell him how annoying that little tantrum of his was and that the next time he should find a private space to scream through his cell phone.

After my coffee... maybe...

I can smell it...

Well since my laptop was stolen I have not been playing anything near my usual volume. That said, playing HUD-less has forced me to play more focused and while I suffered a bit from fancy play syndrome at first (I often do following a hiatus), my results overall have been pretty good. Add to that the fact that I'm currently clearing a bonus on CD Poker and I've quietly made it very close to my year goal of reaching NL50 by the end of 2008.

It's strange, in the past whenever I was getting close to move up I would get edgy, impatient and kinda nervous about it. Not this time. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm not playing like I'm used to (currently playing HUD less and on less tables), or the fact that I'm not playing as much or that I'm clearing a bonus... Anyway, I don't feel the jitters I had when closing in on NL25.

On another note, I have been talking poker strategy a lot with a good friend of mine who is struggling a bit right now playing on his first online money. I love this! Talking about lots of stuff forces me to think about it all and ask myself why I do certain things. I also tried to come up with a basic strategy that could make him an instant winner from NL2 to NL10 (and most likely even higher). My goal was to come up with an easy to teach playbook that would keep it simple and still be efficient. This has been a recurring theme for me lately. I was discussing a prop bet idea with Alex. The bet was that in 4 hours of coaching I could make someone with just basic poker knowledge (like a flush beats a straight type of knowledge) a winner at NL2. We have not come up with a candidate or the particular details of how this bet would work out but I thought it would be an interesting idea. So if you know someone who would be a nice candidate let me know!

Life tilt

So we're finally getting settled in the new condo. I'm starting to get back into my routine, have a few good sessions to get me back into the game after this short hiatus and then...

Thiefs break into my place and run away with my laptop. So basically another forced hiatus for me. But what pisses me off the most is the loss of my PT database. Oh well... guess I'll start datamining again as soon as I can get my hands on a new laptop.

Russ Hamilton directly implicated in the UB scandal.

If you're sick and tired of hearing about the Ultimate Bet cheating scandal then stop reading this entry (it won't be a big one anyway).

I don't plan on repeating everything that's been said elsewhere since, well, to be honest I don't know all the little details, and that information is already available elsewhere.

Still, I don't want to let this story die so here I am posting you the latest update. Turns out Russ Hamilton was directly implicated.

I think everyone should at least take a look at this. Be aware though, this is a thread in a big forum, so there is a lot of people jumping to conclusion and shit. This is still, however, a great source of information if you can filter out the noise.

Stuck in the stone age

It's done! We're finally in the new condo! Problem is, no internet connection, no phone and no cable until next monday! I could definitly live without phone or cable TV... but no net means I'm in serious poker withdrawal...

Alex has gracefully agreed that we push back our volume bet by one month instead of using this week to take a huge lead. Thanks buddy!

Not much else to say right now so I guess I'll leave it at that for now...

Please oh please! Can September be over now?

Between driving to Quebec city and back to see my father at the hospital (he's doing better everyday btw), packing up my stuff to move to my new condo and organising the 30th birthday of my girlfriend I can't say I've had much time to play poker. Just to make matter worse, I might be without an internet connection for a few days after I moved. Hopefully one of my neighboors has an unsecured WiFi connection I can hijack!

The bit that I did play at the beginning of the month was not very focused and did not bring the best results. Thankfully though, I've been able to play a bit the last few days and things went well. I won back almost everything I had lost in the first few days of September. Hurray!

I am still grinding NL20 on iPoker playing 8 tables at a time. Play there is definitly nittier than it is on stars or party, that said most people are bad nits so it's pretty easy to make decent gains there. Once I go back to having a stable schedule I think it will be relatively easy to get to NL50. Especially considering I will most likely start bonus whoring the various ipoker skins!

I am also looking forward to another coaching session with SplitSuit. Seems like the last one was ages ago!

For October and November, Alex and me are starting another "volume bet". Whoever plays more hands in these 2 months wins. Playing more hands is one of my focus right now so this should help keep me motivated.

August 2008 online results

A bit late due to some family matter... but here it is! The august monthly graph!

Quick update

Well it's been a while since my last post and some of you might have noticed I still have not posted my monthly recap.

Well in an unexpected turn of events, poker has taken a backseat in my life right now. Turns out my dad is currently in the intensive card unit at an hospital fighting for his life. At this point we are still not sure what the future will bring us, but it's not looking too good.

Me and my family are trying to stay strong and positive through all this, but I can't say it's an easy thing to go through.

Hopefully the next few days bring us better news...

Hang in there dad. I love you...

100K hands

Now up to 100,000 hands since I lost my PT database last summer. Thought it was a somewhat cool milestone, so here's my "lifetime" graph!

2nd coaching session

Got my second coaching session yesterday. It's crazy how sometimes being told something you already know just helps you grasp it. And by that I don't mean that SplitSuit didn't tell me anything I did no know! We went over some stuff that I had read about, but somehow failed to really integrate in my game. Just hearing him talk about it and asking him a few questions made everything so much clearer! Don't get me wrong, I still need to work a lot on those things, but after that session I feel like I have the tools to do so.

August is going pretty well so far although I'm behind pace for my 15K hands (I blame the Olympics). A good sprint at the end of the month might bring me close though. At least the hands I am actually playing, I feel I play pretty well. My results have been really good so far and while that is partly due to what I call the "SplitSuit trainee karma", I think it is encouraging.

My bankroll growth has been slowed a bit lately due to me actually spending a bit of it on coaching and some datamining/table selection software. Still, I feel pretty confident about my year goal of reaching NL50 before 2009. A few easily clearable bonuses and rakeback should make this relatively easy. Feels good to finally get closer to what seems like meaningful stakes. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy about all the time I've invested in playing and beating NL10 and then NL25. But for some reasons, I always kinda felt that it all really started at NL50.

As for the rest of my life, I guess things are pretty good. Been coming back to my guitar more and more lately. Guitar has been a weird mistress for me over the year. I get super hyper motivated for a while and play a lot, and for some reasons then I stop and don't even touch it for months. The weird thing is that it's pretty easy for me to play music. I'm by no mean a pro, but I seem to learn faster than most and don't struggle as much. Guess it would be a waste not to use that and to let my guitar gather dust!

Taking the next step

Well it's done. I've hired a poker coach. It's something I had been thinking about a lot for a while, so when I stumbled upon SplitSuit's website and watched his videos, I decided to hire him. I've had my first session last sunday and while I have to admit that I probably did not get as much out of it as I could have (my fault, not his! my head was just spinning trying to integrate all the small things he told me), it got me to question my approach to the game, how I play some hands and react to some situations and in general why I do some things. The main things he got me working on was bet sizing. It's a part of the game I had never really paid enough attention to. He gave me some rough guidelines that got me to think back about it and change my approach. It's still early, but I feel like it's all starting to click and I feel much more solid about my game already.

I can't wait for our next session.

As much as coaching helps, it ain't free. So how does that affect my overall yearly goal of moving up to NL50 by the end of the year? Well, I actually think it's going to help me. I definitly feel more comfortable with my game and even though I've only played a few thousdand hands since our first session, I have a feeling my winrate will be better than it was. (I know, I know... not tough to have a better winrate than the breakeven stretch I was in!). Also, I got a nice rakeback deal and a few bonuses that I'm looking to clear in the next few months. So I'm pretty confident that I'll be playing NL50 in 2009 and hopefully even before that!

Back from vacations : July recap and August goals

Well I have not been updating this blog nearly enough recently. I just came back from vacations and I guess it's time to go back to work and focus on poker once again.

Goals for July were :
- Play 10,000 hands of NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Start reviewing sessions at least once a week.
- Start getting a healthier lifestyle.

I definitly played enough hands. More than I expected. As for a winning month... well... I can't put my finger on what's wrong, but I am in this long breakeven stretch that's annoying the shit out of me. Anyway, there are a few things I will do pretty soon that should help with that. I won't say more about these for now but rest assured, I will in a few weeks. I did review my own play a bit more this month... but again, not nearly enough. As for the big "healthier lifestyle" thingy well I started riding a bike to work, started eating better at home... next step is to eat better at work.

So overall mixed results for July... I'm not entirely unhappy with it though. On the positive side I moved a big chunk of my bankroll to an iPoker skin where I got a nice deal. So this should help.

Now the goals for August :
- Play 15,000 hands of online NLHE. Back with an vengance!
- Start dabbling a bit in PLO again.
- Post a winning month. (ldo)
- Come back to post here more regularly
- Start the thingy that I don't want to tell you guys more about... yet
- Go on with more exercise & healthier food.

July 2008 online results

Ultimate bet info

Guess with the recent developements I feel like I should link again to the whole Ultimate Bet cheating scandal.

Here is pretty much all the info you could want to have about it.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=251207

June recap and July goals

Well here we are, it's that time of the month.

June goals were
- Play 12,000 hands of online NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Deposit on CD Poker and start clearing the 200$ 1st time deposit bonus there
- Keep updating this blog.

I am definitly satisfied with the amount of hands I played (even though I'm a bit short). Month ended up in the red... this is only the second time it happens to me since September so no big deal.

About starting to clear bonuses... I fail on this one. That said, I'll get to it soon. I hope to get to it before the end of July, but July is pretty busy for me so I am not sure it's the right time to start the grind of bonus clearing.

Now on for July. Well as I said, July will be pretty busy for me, so I will set smaller goals for myself.

- Play 10,000 hands of NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Start reviewing sessions at least once a week.
- Start getting a healthier lifestyle.

Now about the lifestyle thingy... feel I've been letting myself go a lot lately. I eat crap, don't sleep quite enough and don't exercice near as much as I should. So there it is, I want to start improving on at least 2 of these 3 points.
1) I want to start bringing healthier lunches to work.
2) I want to take some time everyday for a bit of exercice.

Sleep? Well.... sleep will come later I guess ;)

June 2008 online results

You know you visit too many gambling sites when...

Last week I'm in the middle of a session on Party when the phone rings. For some reason I still don't know, I decided to pick it up for once. Conversation went something like :

Me : Hello?
Him : (thick accent I can't identify) Hello may I speak with Nicolas please?
Me : That's me.
Him : Hello, my name is Whatever and I work for SomeOBscurBookie from Costa Rica. We are a sports book and are about to offer lots of Euro cup bets as well as new stuff for the NFL and NHL next season. Would you be interested?
Me : . . .

Brag : Bookies in Costa Rica know me...
Beat : ...and are spamming me by phone...
Variance : ...even though I've never made a single sports bet online.

Breaking even...

Well June is almost over and I still have some hope of making it an at least breakeven month. I'm down about 2.5 buy ins and have been for what seems like ages. Made me realize how draining long break even stretches can be. And I don't mean gut-wrenching frustrating downswings where you question everything. Just a slow, draining weariness. Gain a bit, lose it back... lose a bit, gain it back...

I guess in a game that tend to be as result oriented as poker, the status quo is pretty rough. Poker is a game where we expect to either win or lose money. That's probably why breaking even can give you (well me anyway) a sense of futility. I guess it would be like walking for a few hours expecting to get somewhere only to find yourself standing right where you started.

On a good note though, I will be VERY close to my 12K hands goal for June, so my volume of play is good considering it's summer and well... summers are traditionally pretty busy for me. Like this week end, another touch football tourney.

I guess I'll be back here for my June recap.

RIP George Carlin (1937-2008)

Mid-June update

Well other than the fact that I'm getting destroyed in our WSOP pool things are going good so far in June.

The month is in the green so far, even though I've had a pretty roug hevening last night. You know, the kind of evening where nothing hits, your borderline hands get re-raised all the time etc etc etc. The kind of night where you're dealt Kings 5 times and win only once with them... Anyway, not complaining, I've had my shares of insane heaters so it's all good. Anyway I managed to lose only about 60 Big Blinds in the whole evening so that was good.

The last few days, as a change of pace, I've started playing 0.25/0.50 HORSE on FullTilt. Strangely, Hold'Em is my worst game when playing HORSE. I just can't figure out Limit Hold'Em. Still, having lots of fun dabbling in these other games and I think I can hold my own. I roughly broke even last night. I find that patience is even more important at mixed games than when playing NL. I tend to want to play all the games, so if I spend a Razz rotation getting dealt a bunch of bananas for example, I tend to grow impatient.

Anyway, playing a bit of HORSE and doing my session review for 2+2 has eaten a bit in my NLHE time so I'm still behind pace for my goal. Not nervous though, I still think I'll hit it. All I need is a few big nights of play and a free week end.

WSOP prop bet update

Well it's not going well for Team Nic.

So far the only cash I have is a small cash by Cunningham while Seidel and Negreanu both raked in bigger cashes. The finish by Negreanu in the 10K Stud event is particularly rough. Just to make it worse, today is the 2-7 event which is one of Negreanu's good games.

Anyway, the WSOP are a long thing and it's still to early to call this thing off.

Quick start of June post.

Well my playing pace to begin June is already much better than it was in May. Yesterday was the first day of June I could play and I logged a thousand hands. Obviously it's still early in the month, and June is usually a pretty busy month. That said, I'm pretty confident I'll reach my 12K goal.

Alex and I made a prop bet about this year's World Series. We both picked 2 players, and whoever's team cashes more wins. I have Hellmuth and Cunningham and he has Seidel and Negreanu. So far none of our guys cashed, but this makes following the WSOP a bit more interesting.

Over & out.

May thoughts and June goals... or how Nic failed

I guess I should be happy about having the best monthly results I've ever had. But I fell so short of my goals that I can't spin this in a way to make me feel good.

My May goals were :
- Play 15,000 hands of online NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Take a shot at NL25
- Keep updating this blog.

Now I definitly managed to achieve 3 of these goals. But 8885 hands in a month?!? This is nowhere near what I need to put out. The last time I played less than 9K hands was in december!

On the good side, I managed to move up to NL25. Actually most of my month was played at that level. One of my yearly goal was to move up to NL25 by this summer and doing so at the beginning of May is definitly satisfying. I also feel that I kept that blog updated pretty well. But I definitly have to play more hands than this. This is especially true since I want to make bonus whoring one of my focus for the next few months.

Now where does that leave me for June. Well, here are my June goals :
- Play 12,000 hands of online NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Deposit on CD Poker and start clearing the 200$ 1st time deposit bonus there
- Keep updating this blog.

Now about bonuses. Browsing through the bonus whores site I managed to find a few bonuses that are definitly clearable at NL25. This should help me take shots at NL50 earlier than anticipated. The first one I will attack will be the 200$ bonus on CD poker. Seems relatively easy to clear at NL25. Then I might take a shot at the 600$ deposit on FullTilt. Seems clearable at NL25, would also finally release the money I have on FullTilt and won in a freeroll a while ago! Clearing the FullTilt Bonus might be a bit of a stretch at NL25... but I'll evaluate things once I clear the bonus at CD Poker. By then my roll might be enough to take shots at NL50, so who knows...

Anyway, if you're a poker player and haven't checked bonus whores I think you owe it to yourself to take a look at it... unless you hate money

May 2008 online results

A spanking new PT3 graph!

PokerStars China quake relief fund

PokerStars is organizing a fund raiser to help the victims of the China earthquake (if you've been living under a rock for the last few weeks, a big earthquake hit China and millions of people are now homeless).

I urge all of my readers to donate through this mean. Pokerstars will match any donation made by pokerstars players. You can find special "events" listed in the "Special" tourney tab. These events are not really tourneys, they are just a way to donate from $1 to $100 to the quake relief fund. Please donate whatever you can afford. This is a good cause, these millions of quake refugees need any help they can get.

Ultimate Bet (must read)

Well I know I don't have that many readers, but still. This story needs to get out so there it is. In short, there is a new superuser account scandal in online poker. This time it's at Ultimate Bet, which is strangely owned by the same company as Absolute Poker. Anyway, follow the link for a much better explanation of the issue than I could myself give.

http://www.ultimatebetcheats.com/

Week end recap

This week end was our first touch football tourney of the year. Our team has been through a lot of changes in the past year and the lineup is quite different. Actually there were a few players that were playing with us for the first time.

Anyway, things got off to a pretty bad start, we lost our 2 first "qualifier" games. The way these tourneys are done is the first 2 games you play are used to rate the teams and then the real tourney begins. We lost both qualifying games although they were both pretty closely fought. It all started kinda bad for me as in the first game I had a hard collision with another player that left me gasping for breath and with VERY sore ribs (not sure sore is the right word... they're hurting like hell is more like it.). That's the problem with being tall, in the event of a collision, other people's shoulders come straight in your ribs.

Anyway, on sunday we opened up and won all our games... except the finals. Oh well, it was fun seeing the progress we made as a team over the whole week end and I definitly see good things ahead for the Marauders this year! Now if only these ribs could heal...

What? Poker?? Oh yeah... I played a bit and won some money.

Mid month update

Well all it took was a few unexpected family matters to put me way behind on my May goals. I'm actually not doing too badly considering that I have been playing NL25 for the last few days, but on the volume side of things well I'm not even close.

With touch football tournaments right around the corner, family events popping up and good weather trying to bring my ass outside, it will be very tough to hit the 15K hands mark. But I'll still give it my best shot.

Results-wise, May is going very well so far. Yesterday I've had a sick day and managed to make about as much playing NL25 as I did working my day job as a software developer!

Outside of poker things have been going pretty good. As I've mentionned, touch football tournaments season is about to begin and I think we'll field a pretty competitive team this year. Anyway we should be good enough to make it interesting. For the first time in years, the QB position seems to be settled and has some stability. This should be huge. I see big things this year for the Marauders!

I've also been planning on brewing beer again. Not sure what we'll do yet, but a good buddy of mine named Charles and I will try to come up with something good towards the end of the month. Sadly, probably won't be ready to drink until the end of summer.

I've also started planning a trip for next year. I am still undecided on the destination. Finally watching "An Inconvenient truth" (if you haven't seen it go watch it! Like right NOW!) last week made me want to visit some northern place. Guess the great north needs to be seen before it's gone. Anybody knows of good tours in Greenland or Alaska??

April thoughts and May goals.

A quick recap on april and then I'll move on to my May goals. The goals I had stated for myself for april were :

- Play 12K hands of NLHE online
- Play at least 3 times at the casino
- Post a winning month online
- Keep updating this blog as frequently as I did in March.

Now other than the casino play I reached all 3 of my goals. I played over 12K hands and definitly feel like I could have played more. While I had a pretty big downswing (more on that later on) I still finished the month up which is always good. Means that in the last 6 months I've only had one losing month which I'm pretty proud of. Now the casino play took a backseat after that bad evening I had there at the beginning of april. This was a conscious decision and I'm glad I let that goal go.

Now what's next for May? Well I want to play even more than in April. I want to again post a positive month and, of course, I want to keep that blog updated. So here are my goals for the month of May :

- Play 15,000 hands of online NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Take a shot at NL25
- Keep updating this blog.

The most interesting thing that happened though in the last few days is that I had sort of an epiphany. I just realised why my game is pretty swingy. I play my drawing hands VERY aggressively. If I have an open ended straight draw or a flush draw out there I'll go out and fire bets. This means that when I hit my draws I will win bigger pots on average, but it also means that when I don't hit, I kinda "spew".

I am still not sure if it's something I want to change in my game. I think I'll just start by trying to pick my spots better for my semi-bluffs. Anyway, you can call me stupid for just realising this... I'm just glad I did!

April 2008 online results

Well... not as pretty as I was hoping for (especially when I was at that mid-point) but hey... a winning month is a winning month! Will write a month recap tomorrow.

Lesson of the day

When everybody gives you a particular advice, maybe you should follow it.

Last night I finally decided to deposit on PartyPoker, mostly to clear the 5 free books bonus from 2+2. Wow... just wow. First of all, if you have not cleared that bonus yet you owe it to yourself to do it. It's stupid easy. Took me about 350 hands to get a 25$ + 5 free books bonus. And that's playing NL10. Add to that the fact that the games last night were super soft and that makes for a pretty fun evening.

I guess the next few days will tell how much last night I was just running hot (didn't really feel like it) or how much the night games really are soft on party.

Right now I've moved about half of my roll on PartyPoker and I will most likely play a bit on stars AND party for a while. The plan is still to move up to NL25 asap and the way things look, it might be pretty quick doing that on party.

I am currently a bit behind on the pace for 12K hands in april, but I have a few days off scheduled before the end of the month so I'm pretty confident about it. That said, my goal of going 3 times to the casino will probably fall short.

Taking a leap

Alright. This blog has been my secret garden for quite a while now. I think I have one and a half regular readers (if you count my cat who's sitting on my lap when I write most of these entries.).

I've been playing with the idea of going "public" for a while and I finally came to the decision of doing it. To be honest I have absolutely no clue how many readers posting that blog on 2+2 will bring (and to be honest I don't care all that much) and I also wonder what is the value of yet another micro stakes donkey spewtard poker player blog is. But it doesn't matter, I'll make this thing public and if anybody enjoys reading it then good. If not well... I won't lose any sleep over it.

So there it goes, if you're a new reader I guess a bit of an introduction is due. I'm a 30 years old software programmer who happens to have fallen in love with poker about a year and a half ago. I've been taking it particularly seriously for the past 6 months. I am currently grinding the microstakes (NL10 to be precise) and am hoping to climb up the ladder and (dare I say it?) maybe make poker my main source of income at some point.

This blog is a little more than a year old and I'm not sure how much value there is to read it all, but if you feel like it it's all archived.

Hope you enjoy... or not.

A taste of felt

Had a rough, rough night at the casino yesterday. Went there to play 1$/2$ NLHE and came back home with empty pockets. With hindsight I should have left the table after about an hour of play. I was already a loser by then, but the fact that I was not comfortable at the table should have sent me signals that this was not a good time to play there and I could have salvaged something at least. Guess that's part of the learning process, know when to leave a dry game.

The whole evening I had borderline hands. Like I raise from early position with pocket Jacks and get 4 callers (already a bad sign). Flop comes A-K-Q... what am I to do here? There's no way none of the pre-flop callers has hit that flop. So I check and then fold to a bet from a late pos player. A bit later I open raise from early position with pocket fives to get a call from a shortstacking rock. Flop comes 8-8-3 and I figure that if he has a hand like two overcards I could get him to fold by making a continuation bet. I fire for about two thirds of the pot and he re-raises me. After that raise he was basically commited to throw the rest in on the turn. I muck my fives and keep on bleeding my chips away.

Oh well... life goes on. Time to lick my wounds before I go back to that battle.

April goals

Here is a quick bullet list of my april goals

- Play 12K hands of NLHE online
- Play at least 3 times at the casino
- Post a winning month online
- Keep updating this blog as frequently as I did in March.

March 2008 online results

Well March was kinda rough (isn't that some understatement?). First time in a while that I post a losing month. For a while there it was a downward spiral but it helped me identify a big leak I can have at times. Next step is to find how to prevent it.

Good thing is, I broke the 10K hands and the end of the month was not so bad. I managed to stop the bleeding and win some of my losses back.

On a side note, March was also the month where I kept that blog updated the most frequently with 13 posts.

Quick update

Well not much to say here right now but still thougt an small update was due.

The last few days have been pretty good. I don't think it's going to be possible to turn march into a winning month but whatever. At least I'm back on the right track and the poker gods seem to have forgotten whatever I had done to piss them off so bad.

Barring anythin unexpected I should definitly hit the 10K hands played this month which is basically my monthly goal right now.

I've been thinking about posting a link to this blog on the uNL forums at 2+2. Still not sure what to do about this. Kinda scary to expose this to the public eye... but at the same time if I wanted to keep this thing all to myself I guess I should not have put it online.

Anyway that's it for now. I will post more in the next few days with my end of month thoughts & results.

Over & out.

I'm back! I'm fscking back!

GOD that feels good! Played about 1,000 hands today and managed to win close to 3 buy ins. Even better, I felt really comfortable and confident the whole time. I think I broke out of my funk and I'm back on track.

Stopped the bleeding... I think

Woke up early this morning (knew I wouldn't sleep too well) so I decided to log a few hands before coming to work. Well I had a pretty good session. I made a few bonehead plays again, but much less than the last few days (weeks?). Finally managed to have a session where I felt good about my game and managed to stay relatively focused.

I also started posting on 2+2 again. I think the 2 hands I posted from this week end are quite interesting.

Hopefully I can now move on and get back on track.

Week end recap : it sucked!

What a horrible, horrible week end.

On the cash game side I played horribly and whenever I found a good play in me I would end up paying the best hand with the 2nd best hand. My roll is now in pretty rough shape and I have to reassess what I will do and do a lot of session reviewing to get out of that funk.

I am also finally out of the WSOP step thingies. After busting 4th, 2nd and then 5th on the step 3, I finally busted out in 9th, being kicked out of the loop.

Somehow I doubt I'll sleep well tonight.

Surprise surprise!

Woke up this morning and, still half in my sleep induced fog, stumbled upon this :

Ottawa targets gaming

WTF?!?!?

Are you kidding me? I guess this had to be expected from the Harper administration. It's not, after all, the first thing that they try to copy from the "oh so purrty Land of the Free/home of the brave". I have to say that I'm quite pissed right now (isn't anger the second stage of grief? I guess my "denial" phase was pretty short uh?).

Ok first, if this comes to pass it will be ugly. I don't think it will prevent people from playing poker online, after all there's still lots of americans playing on pokerstars and FullTilt. It will just make it harder and complicated to deposit and withdraw money from these sites (I don't buy that the ISPs will block traffic to gambling sites). This in turns, will make the pond dryer.

The idea that they are doing this to "protect people from bad fraudulous offshore and indian companies" is ridiculous. Making online gambling illegal will not stop degenerates from throwing money around. Actually I would even argue that online gamgling sites and the micro-stakes they allow you to play are a good thing for degenerates! You can get your "fix" while risking quite less than in traditional Brick & Mortar establishments. Anyway I disgress.

I will definitly follow this quite closely and hope for the best. Right now, my main hope lies in the fact that a lot of the targeted sites are administered on Amerindians reserves. Since the Oka crisis (quite a while ago... I feel old suddendly), the Canadian govt has always been reluctant to mess with the natives. I hope this helps tips the scale in our favor....

See, I guess I'm already at stage 3 of grief : bargaining

On to step 3!

Just managed to win a step 2 WSOP thingy on stars. Again in step 3 I have to finish 5th to stay in step 3, or 2nd to move on to step 4.

Will most likely tackle that tomorrow.

Got through Step 1

Not much to say about tonight. Played a bit of NL10, winning sessions to finally break my break even stretch. Then played a bit of Omaha8 with pretty mediocre results.

Finally decided to give the WSOP step 1 another and managed to get through. Guess I might attack step 2 tomorrow.

Challenge is off...

Well I'm sitting at about 1800 hands with about 2 hours to go. Would have been possible to do it but I have a few unexpected things to take care of.

Conclusions? Well, since I have to call this off it's hard to come to any conclusions but I'll still try. I think spending a lot of time playing online poker (like maybe 5/6 hours a day) would definitely be possible. That said, this little experiment helped me identify things about myself that I would need to take care of. Mostly, I need to schedule breaks for myself. I tend to push it a bit too far before realizing I need even a short break.

This was by no mean a "huge extraordinary" challenge, but still fun. I definitely will try something similar at some point. Maybe even tomorrow?

Friday night tally

Well I finish the night with 967 hands. A little short of the 1000 goal but still, getting to 2500 tomorrow is definitly still possible. I have overestimated the pace of the week end game a bit though, so it's not going as fast as planned.

Tonight ended up pretty well. It started ugly when I came back from work, but then I took a break and when I came back to the tables it went really well. If not for fatigue I would have pulled a few more hours, but right now my focus is starting to falter and I'm not playing my best. Figured it'd be better to get some rest and attack the week end fishies tomorrow.

2500

Somewhat inspired by the law school dropout blog, I decided to give myself some sort of challenge.

Before supper time tomorrow, I want to play 2500 hands of online poker. Figuring that's approximatly 10 hours of play on 4 tables. If I add more tables or realise that I'm crushing the required pace for the 2500 hands I might up that figure (and add it to this blog).

So there, you have it. Dear imaginary friends, I plan on playing 2500 hands of online poker before supper time tomorrow.

Trent, you fscking made my day!

nuff said

Casinos! (finally)

Finally I got some casino experience under my belt! About a week ago I went to the Montreal casino on a friday night. Despite finishing the night stuck about 100$, I had a great time and I definitly feel that the week end night games are beatable there. I played 1/2 NLHE and even though I was a bit short and felt a bit pressured by having only 1 bullet and the bigger stakes, I ended up being pretty comfortable. The 2 biggest pots I lost in the night are a suck out I ended up being on the wrong side of and a play I attempted at the wrong time.

First I limp in a pot that has a few limpers before me with pocket 8s. Flop comes and 8 and 2 heart rages. I bet and an asian dude who seems to be a decent player flat calls. Turn is a rag, I bet again and get called again. River was a heart and I made a smallish bet and got called. He flipped over 10-5 of hearts for a rivered flush. He was fully aware that he was playing a trash hand but I guess he was in a gambling mood. Oh well... not much that can be done about this.

Then later on in the evening I pick up pocket 10s in the big blind. A guy who was playing somewhat tight and mostly playing fit or fold on the flop raises from mid position. It's folded to me and I decide that he's the perfect type of players to 3 bet light so I re-raise it. A crazy spew gambler to my left calls my 3 bet and the initial raiser calls. Flop comes Q-Q-5. I figure there's a pretty big chance he was on a hand like A-K or a medium pocket pair. I decide to fire a continuation bet. Crazy-spew-gambler folds and the pre-flop raiser min-raises me. So far I'm completely good with the way I played the hand, but here I should have folded. The guy played strong before the flop and is not scared by my close to pot sized bet here. So I have to give him credit for something like AQ. Instead I ended up calling the min-raise and check fold on the turn when an A came.

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful, but I can't wait to go back on a friday night and play with these spewtards again! Makes for a high variance game but in the long run I think I can be a big winner in there.

Then last saturday being in Gatineau I went to the casino there. Ended up with a bit of profit again playing 1/2. Not really any interesting hands that comes to my mind though. The one big thing for me though about this sessions is that I was focusing a lot on trying to spot tells on a few players and I ended up having really good reads on 3 players at my table and ended up exploiting these. One guy in particular I always knew when I would be able to push him out of a pot and I managed to win quite a few small pots against him thanks to that.

All in all I loved my casino experiences and definitly feel like I can make good profits there. So you can be sure I will be going back asoften as possible.

February 2008 online results

Well I finally took a shot at NL25. Sadly, this afflicted me with a severe case of Fancy play syndrome combined with a getting cold cards for quite a while. As you can see from the graph, results were pretty bad. Stepped down at NL10, returned to basics, and I am almost ready to move up to NL25 again.

Missed the 10,000 hands mark again, goal in march is to hit it. Also as a goal in march I want to move up to NL25 but for good this time.

Mid-month thoughts

February is going very well so far. I will need to up the pace a bit if I want to reach the 10,000 hands goal that I set myself though.

I've finally settled at NL25 and I don't foresee any reasons to move back down to NL10. My learning of Pot Limit Omaha is also going pretty well. I have decent, if a bit irregular, results.

Next week I plan to make my first field trip to the Montreal casino to try out their electronic tables. Can't wait to see how that will go!

The ongoing heads up match

Alex and me finally got to go on with our ongoing heads up match we had started about 6 months ago. We upped the stakes a bit (we both added 5$ to our stack and kept going from where we were) and changed the formula a bit. Instead of playing pure No Limit Hold'Em we now play a rotation of games. Basically it's HORS... kinda like HORSE but without the E and the H and O are different lol.

- H : No Limit Hold'Em 0.02/0.05
- O : Pot Limit Omaha 0.02/0.05
- R : Fixed Limit Razz 0.05/0.10
- S : Fixed Limit Stud 0.05/0.10

I started out playing a pretty loose aggressive style with the intent of tightening up later on and it worked pretty well. I was mostly spewy in stud games and made most of my profit in PLO. I ended up ahead for the night, but still behind overall. Next time I'll close that gap! You hear that Alex? :p

On the online side of things, I have finally moved up to NL25 and PLO10. Things are going pretty well so far and I've been winning over my first 1500 hands at NL25. I definitly notice a small change in the strength of the field, but it's nothing too big. It will only force me to keep progressing and learning as a player.

The elusive NL25 and a goal recap.

Turns out NL25 is a tough bird to catch for me. Everytime I get close to my goal, I hit a small downswing that delays the inevitable. That said I have to be pretty happy about it because I'm almost there, 4 months ahead of my goal.

As for my other goals, well I've started playing quite a bit of Pot Limit Omaha. I really enjoy learning the subtleties of this game (the fact that the fields are so soft at micro-stakes probably helps making it fun for me.). Playing more Omaha makes even more obvious to me how simple No Limit Hold'Em is.

I wanted to play more live games in 2008 and I have to say I am pretty disappointed in myself so far. The casino opened it's poker room a month ago and I still have not set foot there. I am dealing a few tourneys soon though so that should help finance my first visit to the casino. I also have a day planned at the Gatineau casino the first week end of March.

Overall January was pretty decent. It was really swingy but the overall results were fine. February started even better so far, so I hope to keep it on the right track... and finally move up to that darn elusive NL25!

January 2008 online results

Feeling good about a bad session.

I've been on a brutal downswing lately. Pretty sure part of it is the way I play, but also I've been running bad. Anyway, because of that swing it had been quite a while since I felt good about my play. Well that all changed last night.

I played on an off all night long and overall I lost money. That said, I finally feel like I've settled back into my game and that I am back to where I was at the beginning of January. I think the slow pace to which I've switched after my prop bet with Alex made me play with less focus. I was getting used to playing A LOT, and playing less made me impatient and wanting results NOW. Well last night I think I played really well. Minimizing errors and maximizing return on my good hands. Actually, if not for 2 brutal bad beats (will post more about them when I get back home tonight) it would have been an awesome session.

On a side note, I've decided to dip back in Pot Limit Omaha a bit. Well that is not going so well. Think I'll wait a bit for that. There is a really good PLO book out I want to buy, I'll wait to read it before I step back at an Omaha table.

Note to self

Next time you make a prop bet with Alex, add an humiliation bet to it... ESPECIALLY if you offer him to buy out of the bet :)

Patching leaks...

Nothing like sleep to give perspective to your problems.

I woke up with an epiphany : I overplay overpairs.

That has to be the biggest factor in my downswing. I think I was playing them fine until a few days ago, but being so close to my goal of NL25, I got greedy and tried too hard to get lots of value when I get a big hand (like AA, KK and QQ).

Glad I figured that out and now I can't wait to play, armed with that realization.

Cooler

After the insane results I was having lately I guess a downswing was predictable at some point. Anyway, here's the biggest cooler of the night.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (9 handed)

BB ($18.15)
UTG ($9.35)
Nic ($10.45)
MP1 ($8.40)
MP2 ($2.25)
MP3 ($9.55)
CO ($5.75)
Button ($4.95)
SB ($9.10)

Preflop: Nic is UTG+1 with Qh, Qc.
1 fold, Nic raises to $0.4, 3 folds, CO calls $0.40, 2 folds, BB raises to $1, Nic calls $0.60, CO calls $0.60.

Flop: ($3.05) Ad, Qs, Th (3 players)
BB bets $1.5, Nic calls $1.50, CO folds.

Turn: ($6.05) 6c (2 players)
BB bets $2, Nic raises to $7.95, BB calls $5.95.

River: ($21.95) Ks (2 players)

Final Pot: $21.95

BB has Ah As (three of a kind, aces).
Nic has Qh Qc (three of a kind, queens).
Outcome: BB wins $21.95.

Week End recap

I played quite a bit this week end and ended up with a nice gain breaking for the first time $200 in my bankroll. At some point on sunday I was on a sick tear and was up to about $230, but then I got distracted by the NFL playoffs and lost quite a few pots to bad plays and a pretty nasty misclick. Still, the week end as a whole is really positive. I have not heard from Alex in a few days, but I'm pretty sure I've pulled ahead by some bit in our bet this week end.

I've been playing at a madman's pace so far in January. At that pace I should easily break the 10,000 hands in the month which would be by far my biggest month. Being back to 4 tabling helps a lot on that side of things. I feel pretty comfortable on 4 tables at NL10 right now. I don't know if I'll manage to get to $250 in January and move up to NL25 though, and when I'll move up in stakes I will most likely reduce the number of tables I play on for a while.

That's about it for today, going back to work now. God this week will be a long one. First full week after the holidays is always rough.

2008 goals

I'm a firm believer that you will go further if you identify your goals clearly and keep them in mind. I had set myself the goal to make poker some sort of "sideline" job in 2007. Well I've made about 40$ in December, so even though I'm not quite there yet I feel I can say that this goal has more or less been reached.

Now what's the next step for 2008? A few things. Here's the list :

Move to NL25 before this summer and to NL50 before the end of 2008

Things are going good at NL10 and I am very confident about moving up to NL25 before this summer. That said, the aggressive bankroll management guidelines I gave myself tend to put myself in an uncomfortable spot when I move up. For that reason I think I will change them to move to real "proper" bankroll management starting with moving up to NL50. Not 100% sure and I will post more about this pretty soon.

Play live games on a more regular basis

And I'm not talking about just out homegame (even though I still enjoy it very much). I want to start to go to the various Montreal poker rooms (and maybe even the casino depending on their rake/structure) regularly. Live play is a big leak for me and I feel like I lack the observational skills/habits that helps so much in live play. Oh and I'm a fscking tellbox too... need to work on that.

Develop a game studying routine

So far I've been putting a lot of time into playing the game. I feel to speed up my progress I also need to start studying more my game and the game in general. I've already started doing stuff like posting hands for reviews on 2+2 and signing up for session reviews. All this kind of stuff will help me improve my game at a faster pace and I need to seriously get into it.

Put more serious time in another game than NL Hold'Em

Not sure which game it will be yet. The more I read about Limit Hold'Em the more it intrigues me, although I am not sure Fixed Limit play is a good match for me. Might be Pot Limit Omaha, seven card stud... who knows. I have not decided yet and most likely won't really bother with this until I have the bankroll for NL25. While in the learning process I will most likely play this (or these?) other games one stake lower than I play NL Hold'Em.


Now that these goals have been listed and stated, time for me to go work on them. Hopefully at the same date next year I will be as happy about the past year as I am now, and as focused on the next.

December 2007 online results

Well here is my monthly graph for December 2007. As you can probably see, I've switched stakes (around hand # 1600) and with that bigger swings came. Still I'm an overall winner which is always good.

On a bad note though, I'm now lagging quite a bit in the prop bet with Alex. I will have to work pretty hard to catch up to him. That said, last night I finished the year playing poker with a few friends in Gatineau. And what a session to finish the year! I more than doubled up what I bought in for, and I am pretty sure I was the last person to win a poker hand in Gatineau in 2007! I started raking the pot while the clock started to ring midnight :)

The biggest hand of the night though came when I flopped quads 7 and managed to double up by just slow playing against a guy who was playing super aggressive and had been bluffing at a lot of pots. I also managed to pull out a few plays at him once I figured he was just trying to bully people out of pots with his then biggest stack.

Anyway, 2007 was a lot of ups and down for poker, but finally I managed to be a constant winner and that is huge for me. Hopefully 2008 is even better!

Lesson of the day...

Know when to stop playing.

Bingo, Sunday Hundred Grand & NL10

What a busy week end! From me pushing to close the small gap to NL10, to my first experience in a "big" online tourney to a friendly session of bingo poker. So much stuff about this week end that I'm not too sure where to start. I won't go in chronological order since the load of online cash games I've played this week end is just a big blur and, anyway, I'm not a big fan of order.

Saturday night, Mel and I had a small casual poker night with a few friends we had not seen in a long time. With 60,000 chips, blinds at 1000/2000 and doubling every 15 minutes, this was pretty much a crapshoot. Add the fact that half the people there did not care about cards and were there just to hang out, and that we were playing for ridiculously small stakes (2$) and this was pretty much a crapshoot. I still managed to do well and finished 2nd.

Even though that saturday night bingo session was entertaining, this week end was all about 2 things : my push to get my bankroll big enough to take a shot at NL10, and the sunday hundred grand. I played cash games like a mad man the whole week end and finally, late sunday night after the tourney (more on that later), I made it. Having taken my monday off, I immediatly jumped on 4 NL10 tables and went on a close to 20$ downswing. If you recall my post about my bankroll management guidelines, this was close to throwing me back to the fscking penny games. I closed all 4 tables, took a short break and decided to take things a bit more slowly. Started playing on 2 tables and managed to win back most of that downswing before going to bed. Then on monday I went on a sick tear. I just couldn't do anything wrong, and when I made a bad call the poker gods would help me by giving me a nice suckout. When I went to bed last night, my roll was up to around 137$, giving me some breathing room at NL10.

A few realisations from my quick dip in NL10.
- My bankroll management guidelines for microstakes are VERY aggressive. And I do mean VERY aggressive. I have to admit that at first, with barely 10 buy-ins I was not quite comfortable there, especially starting with a nice 2 buy-ins downswing. I've now settled into it and playing fewer tables at once helps. Will see if I change my guidelines to move up to NL25.
- I have to get used to playing shorter stacks.
- NL10 is WAY more tight and players have a better grasp of how and when to be aggressive. Don't get me wrong, this level still seems relatively easy to beat with basic ABC poker, but that and the shorter stacks mean I had to make a few small adjustments.

Now about that sunday hundred grand... Well my @#$(*&! piece of 5H17 PC decided to die on me in the middle of it. Not only that, it died on the river, when I had top 2 pairs, a lot invested in the pot and about to call a bet from someone. I managed to come back and play on Mel's laptop (she generously put aside her work to allow me to finish my tourney! thx!!!). Anyway, I came back short stacked and SEVERLY tilted from the whole thing. Needless to say it didn't go really well. I am still happy to have tried it though and it gave me precious hindsight for my next try. Even with 3000 starting chips, I thought the whole thing moved pretty fast... way faster than I expected. Next time I will play more aggressively right off the bat.

So there it is, my whole week end. I have to say that it was a very good week end. I had set myself the goal to be at NL10 before the end of the year and here I am. When I first deposited to pokerstars last January, I wanted to make poker some sort of sideline income before the end of 2007. I am not quite there yet (how little did I know back then!) but I am definitly on the right track.

So now what's next? NL25. I want to be there before next summer, then up to NL50 by the end of 2008. When does that make me move to being a professional poker player? I don't know yet, but I'll make sure to keep my eyes on the prize.

Surely, step by step, I am going through with my poker plan...

Downswing and a nice comeback

It seems like an habit for me to start a month with a downswing. I don't know if it's just a random trend or if I'm on to something. But anyway, last night I decided to start playing and grind the few $ I needed to finally move up stakes. Well turns out it was one of those nights where I just couldn't hit anything and people would keep hiting against me. I ended up with a 350 BB downswing and a steaming a bit.

I decided to take a short break and when I came back I thought "what the heck. I want to play but feel like it's one of these nights where I need to do some damage control". That's how I decided to invest a small amount to enter a satellite for the Sunday Hundred Grand on stars.

It took me some time to get this thing rolling and I did not really pick up a hand until the first break. Then after the break I had to take some chances and I doubled up twice to put me back to the average stack. Then I turned on the aggression and managed to steal a few pots and I was finally in good shape. Then I just hit the zone. I don't know how else to describe it... When I play tournaments I sometimes end up feeling like everything just clicks. I instinctivly know when to steal, when to tone down aggression and when to go all out.

Anyway, when we got 6 handed I had a stack I had managed to build up to about 16K (about 10K behind the chip leader) and I picked up pocket Kings in mid pos with blinds of 300/600 and a 50 ante. UTG calls the BB and I make it 2400 to go. The shortest stack pushes his last 1818 chips in the middle and another relatively short stack pushes half his remaining chips in the middle for a call. Dlop comes J-J-5 rainbow.

The guy in the small blind then checks with only 2587 chips left, so I bet 2600 putting him all in figuring that there's a good chance I have the best hand and even if I lose the main pot AND the sidepot I will still be left with plenty of chips to play. He thinks for a while and calls.

The small blind flips 9-9, the shortest stack flips A-K. Turn comes a deuce and the river brings a harmless ten and that's all she wrote. I now have a seat in next sunday's hundred grand!

November 2007 online results

Quick update

I can't wait to post my November graph. It might not be the best graph as far as constant results go, but it sure as hell would make an entertaining roller coster plan! I'm still managing to put up gains though and around 50% of my sessions are winning ones (which I consider pretty good). So far November is bringing more profits than September or October... that said the month is still not over so who knows where that roller coaster will bring me!

Alex and me have made a nice prop bets. Whoever logs more ring game hands until January 17th. So far I am about 400 hands ahead and I feel pretty comfortable about this bet even though my holidays should be busier than his. I think it will be a race to the finish, but still, being ahead early is always fun as it puts the pressure on him.

I have been dealing in another tourney last week. Went pretty well, not much to say about this except that bad poker players seems to like to throw their cash away in rebuy tourneys.

I'm doing OK in both my fantasy football leagues. Could be doing better but I am still in a good spot to make the playoffs, and once in I'm pretty confident my team will get me money.

Rebuy maniacs!

What a busy week end! On friday night I had my first night as a professional poker dealer. It went pretty well even though my services were only required for the first hour. I had lots of fun. It was a big 200$ + rebuys fundraiser. Judging by the amount of maniacs rebuying like crazy at my table, I'd say the event was a success. Then on sunday we had a smaller fundraiser to help finance a good friend's new company. Also went really well. It's funny because in these two events I was facing very different crowds with very different budgets. Yet in both cases, lots of rebuys/addons were sold. There seems to be something in these types of tournaments that unleashes the degenerate gambler in everyone.

In between these two event in which I was a dealer, I snuck a long online session on saturday. Well, as good as September and October have been, November sure starts rocky! So far it's a catastrophic month but hey, it's still early to throw the towel on November!

I've read a football piece today on ESPN in which the writer was saying how much Running Backs are usually more successful when they keep their eyes on the goal line instead of looking around trying to avoid being tackled. It might sound silly but it made me realise that the last few days I have been trying to avoid mistakes instead of trying to win. Time to turn this around and go back to the proper mindset! And it all starts tonight at the homegame!!

I am almost done reading Sklansky's Theory of Poker. Great, great book. I know it's a book I will take time to digest, and then come back for a second serving. Next in line for my poker readings will be "The Poker Mindset" by Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger.

Well I just learned as I'm writing this that we might have another new player tonight so it should again be a fun homegame!

New beginning

Tonight will be my first night as a poker dealer. While it's not a new career for me, it has the potential of being a friggin nice side job.

I'm pretty nervous about it... it's going to be a long day with a full normal day of work and then a night dealing cards.

Wish me luck, oh dear imaginary reader.

October 2007 online results

The poker Gods hate me...

First hand at a new table online I get pocket aces... against a player who flops quads against me. Ugh...

Gut shots and sick calls

Well tonight's home game was pretty quiet, played only 3 handed. It was all going really well until the following hand happened (2 hands before the end of the night too!)

I am on the button and look at KJ offsuit, so I raise it to 3BB and the SB calls. Flop comes 9 J 3 rainbow. SB bets and I call. Turn comes a J. SB checks, I bet and SB pushes all in. I go in the tank for a while and end up calling. SB flips 33... and I lose a huge pot.

What pisses me off in this story is that I thought about it for a while and got stuck on 2 hands I was thinking that could beat me (AJ and J9). Figuring that either needs the case Jack, I call. I never even considered pocket 9s or pocket 3s!!! I guess I had a few too many beers/baileys/ports... I don't mind losing a hand and I can't even say with absolute certainty that I would have folded this hand if I had thought about it. I just hate the fact that, like a fscking noob, I called without seeing the obvious hands that could beat me!!! Oh well... let the steam go away and learn from it I guess...

On a good note... tonight was a gut shot fest for me. I seriously got at least 6 gut shots the whole night. This caused in me an epiphany : the way I play gut shot is a big leak in my game. I guess that's the good that came out of the evening... I lost a few bucks but discovered a pretty blatant leak. Now time to analyze hand histories and go back to the drawing board! Let's fix that!!

Hello my name is Nic and I'm a skate-aholic

Well I've made a big mistake last week which really took its toll on my poker playing. I fell victim to a new addiction. I bought EA's skate for the Xbox 360. That game is friggin addiction, I find myself playing for hours telling myself "just this one challenge and then I stop!". Of course after that challenge I forget to stop and move on to another challenge... and so on and on and on...

Anyway, last night I managed to put down the Xbox controller for a while and went to play a bit of poker. I have to admit that I was a bit scared having not played in almost a week. If you've read my old posts you know that most of the time after a short break my first few sessions are... not optimal to say the least. So I went and sat down at my usual stake pretty much expecting a rocky session. My goal was to minimize my downtime "tilt" and try to bring in a short profit or at the very least break even. I did not play very long but to my surprise I managed to get in the proper mindset right away and I picked up where I had left about a week ago. Once again everything seemed to click and my decision making was as good as I remember it being for quite some time. I ended up playing about 115 hands and raking in about $2 of profit, finally putting my bankroll above $70. My goal is still to just bring it up to $100 to climb up in stakes.

As I've said in my last post, I have decided to adhere to a strict bankroll management formula to climb up in stakes. I just figured that posting it here would help me keep it in mind and at the same time kinda make me accountable for it? I know it sounds silly since pretty much no one reads this blog but hey! If it works for me! ;)

So here it is :

Micro-stakes : Go up at 10 buy in, go back down at 8
Low Stakes : Go up at 15 Buy ins, go back down at 12
Med stakes and above : Go up at 20 buy ins, go back down at 17

Nothing earthshaking, but it's the first time I set myself guidelines like these and I think they help me a lot to stay disciplined and at the same time have my next goal always in mind.

If any of you (my imaginary readers) have been interested in the Absolute Poker scandal then I've stumbled upon a reading that might interest you. Some high stakes online player (whose name I always forget) made a pretty thourough investigation that he detailed on his blog. The evidence is pretty damning, and despite AP's effort to drown the story I find it hard to ignore. Anyway, you can read that and reach your own conclusions... In the meantime I have to go grind 60ft and land in a manual...

Focus

Well it's been a while since I made a blog entry. I've decided to drop railbirds for my real "blogging" so far, so good old blogspot will be the only place where you (my imaginary readers) will be able to check how things are going with my poker "career".

September was good for me on the poker side of things. Not only did I have a REALLY good month online after a slow start (finally coming back to playing seriously), but my live game in our friendly home game has brought constant gains. If the first few days of October are any indications, that hot streak seems to be still going on. Funny how sometimes some time away from an activity can bring you insight into it. I really feel that it all clicks now and I've been posting pretty much constant gains in micro-stakes. After putting some money back in my online bankroll and setting up my playing environment properly I have had very good results.

I have set goals for myself and I think this is one of the reasons everything is going so well lately. I stepped down in stakes, going back to 0.01/0.02 and I now follow a more rigorous bankroll management system. I'm not stepping up in stakes until I get 10 buy ins for the next stake and will step back down once if I'm ever down to 8 buy ins. At first, reloading and going down in stakes was a bit hard on my moral (and let's face it, my ego). So that's where my focus is right now. Getting my bankroll to $100 so I can move up to 0.05/0.10 again. Then up to $250 and so on.

I have been mostly focusing on No Limit Hold'Em cash games. I've stopped playing the daily railbirds freerolls, have not really done any Sit & Gos, have not played other games much either. I definitly feel that cash games is where you can get a more constant income. Tournaments involved too much variance for it to be really profitable although the payout when you win a big one is hard to beat. As for other games well I still love them, but it's all about focus right now so I try not to divide my energies on too many different things.

Sit & Gos are a place where I've traditionnaly performed pretty well, and they provide a pretty interesting return on investment when you can do well in them. I will most likely start playing a few sit & gos again (always with the same bankroll guidelines), even though lately I'm enjoying the cash games so much that I have to say I don't miss them all that much.

Last week we had a record home game, sitting an awesome 9 people! People were in a gaming mood too and multiple times people added more money on the table. As usually (and as you can see from my homegame ROI% posted in the results sidebar) I've performed very well there. The action we had last week was just awesome and makes me think that we might be able to up the stakes a bit pretty soon. This is something I've been wanting to do for a while and as a first step towards that I will try to introduce more and more straddles. Having quite a few new people last week it was definitly not the right time for it though.

I have been asked by a few people on railbirds to post a guide to using pokertracker and although I still haven't had the time to sit down and write this (ok that's a bit of a lie... I would have had the time I just decided to play instead) but I think it's an interesting project and should get down to it pretty soon.

I've been working on organizing a fundraiser tourney for a friend. This should be held on November 4th and we still have quite a few things to settle but it should be fun. I won't play in it, I will either be dealing or doing floor. Still not sure which one. Will keep you posted. That's it for now! As part of my "focus" moto I will try to keep this blog updated more regularly.

September 2007 online results

Starting now I will post my monthly results graph. These will include only my NLHE cash games results for now.

Testing my hand at H.O.R.S.E.

Played quite a few freerolls again. Started off by finishing in the top 30% in Pot Limit Omaha on saturday. Then on monday, being at home all day, I decided to participate in both HORSE freerolls, not too sure what to expect.

The first one went ok (except for the fact that it took me about 5 Omaha hands to remember that this was Hi/Lo and not simple Pot Limit Omaha Hi like I've been playing quite a bit lately). I ended up busting about 420th out of 870 players, so a little under the 50% mark. Not bad but not quite as good as I expected from myself.

Then I registered for the 21h00 one. It went pretty well and although I started off slow (don't I always?) well after the first game rotation I had about twice the average stack. From there I kept building up my stack, mostly from the stud games. For quite some time I was pretty close to the chip leader. In the end, I made a few bad calls that busted me in 77th position. Other than a few hands I'm really happy with the way I played in this tourney.

I find it kinda funny the number of people I see in the HORSE freerolls who say things like "I love HORSE but I hate Razz". If you don't like one of the 5 games involved in HORSE then you do not like HORSE! HORSE is by definition a rotation of these 5 games! It also amazes me how many people participate in it even though they don't like it just because "it's a freeroll". Guess these people have time to waste, if I don't like a particular event, I just won't participate in it even if it's free! I don't find myself participating in every Hold'Em freeroll I see even though I enjoy Hold'Em!

Guess I just don't understand why people do, by choice, something they don't like.

I've been having good tourney results lately. I'll keep trying to build up on that and then go back a bit to cash games, which I've neglected lately. This reminds me, last night was our weekly homegame and boy is that game a lot of fun! We play for ridiculously small stakes but I think overall, everyone is really enjoying it. We had a new player last night, showed good instinct overall and I think he'll be one to watch out in the future. As for me, well I ended up the night with a small profit, which is pretty much the norm for me lately in that homegame.

Dead tired but happy about it.

Well last night I came back home completly soaked from torential rain exactly 4 minutes before the start of the Railbirds freeroll on FullTilt. So I rushed, started my PC, grabed a towel to dry myself a bit and changed in dry clothes. I managed to sign up to the tourney with less than a minute to go before the start!

It all started out pretty slow for me and ended up shortstacked after a while, but I stuck to my gun and kept playing my game. I managed to get back to my starting stack just before the first break by winning small pots left and right. Then it all started to click. After the first break everything was seemingly falling into place. I was stealing just enough blinds to build up my stack slowly, my hands were holding up when I was at a showdown and I was pretty much in controle and I felt I was dictating the action at my table. I grew up my stack a little above the average stack size before the second break and it would stay above the average until I busted out.

It's still all a bit blurry to me so I can't post specifics right now (specific hands are slowly coming back to me but I want to sort it out a bit by browsing through the massive hand history files) but overall I felt good the whole way. Managed to build up my stack and stay one step ahead of the average, even grabbing the chip lead a few times. When we got to 2 tables left I was chip leader and I stayed in the top 2~3 in chips for the rest of the game.

In the end, at 2h30 in the morning, I busted out on a bad play from my part. I was pretty tired at that point so my focus was down. We were now heads up and had about same stack size. He was covering me but barely. I don't remember exactly how the action went, but basically I went all in with my straight and as he called I just realised that my tired brain had not seen the possible flush there. We bot flipped our cards and he had the nut flush and I was drawing dead.

So even though I went out on a bonehead play I'm still really happy about my result here. 2nd out of 1500+ people is what I'd call pretty good! Hopefully this is just a start! Particularly happy that it just started my bankroll on FullTilt!

First time doing a Fixed Limit tourney

Well doing a Fixed Limit Hold'Em freeroll tourney tonight so I will post my thoughts here. I am really a Fixed Limit noob so we'll see if I get a clue how to play this ;)

Ok 3rd hand I pick up KcQd in the Big Blind. It's folded around and the small blind calls and I raise it. He calls.

Flop comes A-5-9 with 2 spades. He check I bet he calls. Turn is 9d he bets I call. River is the 6c, he bets and I figure there's no way a raise will make him fold and I'm most liekly beat. I fold realising how much I am clueless at fixed limit lol. This might not last too long after all ;)

Ok now about 10~12 hands into the tourney, I've already lost about a third of my stack. Need to tighten up and change my style A LOT. Trying to adjust and change gears now.

Ok started adjusting now. Won a few pots and doing ok so far. Just had some problems picking my spots at first since the pot odds in limit make it so enticing to play most of the hands. Really weird feeling for me so far. Can't put as much pressure so it's tougher to bluff your way in hands too. Still I like it so far.

Wow! What a hand. I pick up Ac 8h UTG and decide to call and get one caller and the big blind in the pot. Flop comes Ad As 9h. Big blind and me both check and the player in late pos bets. BB folds and I raise and get called. Turn comes Ac !! I bet and he calls. River is a blank since I have the nuts. I bet again and he calls.

The very next hand I pick up 9d 8c in the Big Blind. There's one call and then a raise. The small blind, me and the original caller all call. Flop comes Qs Js 2d. Wel all check to the raiser who bets. The small blind and me both call. Flop comes Td and I figure it's time to see if someone has a flush. Small blind checks, I bet, late pos raises. Small blind and me both call. Turn comes Jc. Small Blind checks, I bet and everyone call and I rake in a nice pot with my straight.

Now sitting on more than 2500 chips and doing great.

Now up to 2800 chips. Posting hands while playing is a bit tough so I'll slow down. Plus I don't want that post to be 300 pages long. Guess I might edit it at the end before publishing it.

21h45Wow... spent some time with only me and another guy not sitting out at our table. Now we're 3. Been like that for almost 30 minutes.

21h50 Funny how my limit noobness gives me bigger stack swings in fixed limit than I usually have in no limit. Now down to about 1000 chips.

21h56 Just managed to triple up from my miserable 800 chips with pocket 8s who helpd up. Back in business! Gotta play more carefully now.

22h00 First break. Sitting on about 1600 chips, so not in great shape but not in critical condition either. I'm finally getting into the FL groove and have to admit I really enjoy it.

Well busted out a short while after the first break. Was a pretty fun tourney, definitly took me a while to get used to limit play though. Next time I'll do better!

Freerolls galore and a change of scenery

Ok first thing's first. No my PC is not fixed yet. I ended up bringing back my 6 years old piece of shit former PC to life just to allow me to play poker until I find replacement parts or just decide to buy a new one.

This week end I played in two railbirds freerolls. I don't have my notes with me right now so I can't post specific hands right now but I'll do so later on when I get home. The first freeroll was a Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo. Now I'm nowhere near an expert at Omaha Hi/Lo, that said I still feel that I had a better understanding of the game that the majority of the field there. That's not to say that I didn't make some newbie mistakes because I sure did. Stuff like betting strong for the low in a three way pot while I had absolutly no shot at the Hi. The particular hand I'm thinking about I ended up splitting the low pot with another player, which means that even though I had a good low hand, I actually ended up with only 25% of the pot after having contributed roughly 33% of the money in it. Silly me, I should have realised that this contested pot would most likely end up like that. Guess that's part of the learning process! That said I had a ton of fun and I will most definitly participate in these Omaha Hi/Lo freerolls whenever they come up.

On Sunday I signed up for a NL Hold'Em freeroll on FullTilt poker. I had never really tried seriously FullTilt. It might sound silly, but I think that actually playing on a site helped me focus a bit more. It had been a while since I last felt that good while playing poker. I was really focused and everything seemed to click. I was getting good reads and acting accordingly. Stealing from opponents I felt weak, getting out of the way when I sensed strength etc. In the end I didn't make the money but I still finished in about the top 30% which I am definitly happy about. After the first break I was in the top 10% and stayed that way until a few hands ate a huge part of my stack. (I will post more about these hands later on). This good session put me back in the state of mind I was in when I had constant winning sessions, before the cold streak I was in hit me.

Watch out people! I'm back!

Ego check...

Lately I've had a few really bad sessions. Reasons are mostly playing by short burst and not as regularly and mostly, experimenting with small pot poker a lot. (with mixed results)

Anyway, bottom line is, that afer quite a few bad sessions I managed to blow most of my bankroll. Now what to do.

There's no way I can play comfortably at my usual stakes with the bankroll I now have. So I'n left with either :
a) Go down stakes and grind it out.
b) Reload.

I'm still not 100% sure what I will do. On the one hand I think reloading makes sense since poker is important to me and it's an investment. It would also allow me to play at my usual stakes comfortably. On the other hand, going down in stakes for a while and use proper bankroll management habits would be great for me I think. Would teach me a good lessons I guess lol.

Anyway, just thinking out loud. Think I'll try option A.

Still no PC :(

Well, still have not got to getting my PC fixed. Which mean SEVERE online poker withdrawal. Online poker withdrawal, in turn, means that I play like a fucking donkey whenever I use Mel's computer. I really need to get to buy that new motherboard, it just seems that I always end up having something better to do with my money and time and with my touch football season just around the corner I don't expect to have much more free time. Anyway, will try to do that stuff asap, most likely after my vacations.

On the plus side I've been twice to the CPR in the last two weeks. Results have been so-so (3rd to bust out once and finished about 25th the other time). The good thing though is that I am getting more and more comfortable playing live (hear that Alex?? you should be coming too! :P ).

Tonight everything started very well. I actually managed to play the style that I want to and it worked well for a while. Then for some reason I need to find out I just started playing poorly. I'm always pretty loose, but I turned into loose passive which ate away my stack. Then I got a streak of cards colder than Alaska and ended up being blinded away.

I have problems remembering particular hands I played, I really need to bring a notebook to take notes during breaks for further analysis. My game is a real roller coaster and I definitly need to find my leaks and work on fixing them. I'm really determined on being a winning player and moving up the stakes.

That's all for now, hopefully I'll post again from my own PC pretty soon!