Almost Best Day Ever + my 1st $4,000 Bonus

Its amazing how the fortunes of poker players can differ so greatly. From the micro grinders to the nosebleed celebs, we are all at different levels. One players best day is simply another's blind or straddle.

Yesterday as black Wednesday sadly killed the action of many Full Tilt players I was busy going for my best day ever on Pokerstars. Unfortunately I didn't make it and my best day ever still stands at $888 but briefly I surpassed that number.

If u look at the graph below u can see that at around 4,000 hands in I was just under $1,000 winnings for the day. Maybe I should have just stopped then.

Also, if I had run at EV then I would have beat my record.

I recall one hand vs a loosey goosey player where UTG opened for a raise and got 3bet big by the loose MP player. I found myself sitting to his right with AA and decided to just call. UTG folded and we were heads up. The flop came 3 hearts, all low and I didn't have the Ace of hearts. He cbet big and I just shoved. The turn was the Jack of hearts and I was drawing dead to his QQh. If I won that hand I would have also beaten the record. Forgetting all the ifs n butts I still made a decent day.

Today is also a historic day as I have done the unimaginable and managed to save up 250,000 FPPs and am able to purchase the $4,000 bonus from the store. I hope this is the 1st of many..!!

These are however all small consolations for a bad bad month...!!

CU soon......

Full Tilt Poker’s Operating Licence Suspended by Alderney

This is the message being seen by FTP customers as they try to withdraw their cash

The Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) has suspended Full Tilt’s licences. The poker room seems to have suspended all operations with immediate effect. Its Black Wednesday for the non-US players.

The AGCC's statement this morning was:

"The decision to suspend these licenses follows a special investigation prompted by the indictments unsealed by US Attorney General’s Office in the Southern District of New York on 15th April 2011, during which grounds were found to indicate that these licensees and their business associates were operating contrary to Alderney legislation."

Not sure how this will affect Pokerstars as yet but I will be watching developments closely.

UK Cigarette Prices and Taxes go through the roof

In a couple of days it will be 14 years since I gave up smoking. 

I thought it would be interesting to see the price of 20 cigarettes today. I was shocked to see the current cost.

If I had smoked like 5-10 a day over the last 14 years I would have spent around $14k. A pretty nice saving made.

Here is a breakdown of movement in prices:

Source: TMA

Year	RRP for 20pk	Tax Element	Tax %
1990	1.65	1.20	73
1991	1.80	1.31	73
1992	2.08	1.55	75
1993	2.27	1.70	75
1994	2.52	1.93	77
1995	2.70	2.09	77
1996	2.89	2.26	78
1997	3.08	2.42	79
1998	3.36	2.65	79
1999	3.64	2.88	79
2000	3.88	3.08	79
2001	4.22	3.37	80
2002	4.39	3.46	79
2003	4.51	3.55	79
2004	4.65	3.65	78
2005	4.82	3.77	78
2006	5.05	3.91	77
2007	5.33	4.07	76
2008	5.44	4.18	77
2009	5.67	4.34	77
2010	6.29	4.83	77
2011	6.63	5.08	77

What ever happened to the cast of Friends?

How do they look now?

Click to enlarge

Never Assume a Split Pot

There are many occasions when you know that you and the villain both have the same hand and its a split pot before the hands are turned over. For example often there is a one card straight out there and you both hold an ace for the nut ace high straight.

I have seen this situation so many times when the rake/ pot gets built up for no reason when both have the same hand. The only winner is the poker site in these hands.

About 2 weeks ago this exact situation occurred when the board was TxAKJ and I held KQ for the nuts. The pot was very small and on the river the villain lead out for a tiny bet, like 15% pot or so. I raised and then he re-raised. The pot was small enough to not be enough for max rake and I just assumed a split as he was a reg and called the 3bet instead of 4betting.  I was shocked to see him show 2pair and mad that I potentially missed out on value with the nuts.

In future I will feed the rake just in case they don't hold the nuts even though they are 3betting the river and playing like they have the nuts in a ridonkulous spot.

Today a guy lead out on the river and I assumed it was a chop but I got it all in and guess what, he showed 2pair. He was an unknown though. Here is the hand


Poker Stars $100.00 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players

UTG+1: $52.45
MP1: $56.35
MP2: $173.25
CO: $69.10
BTN: $105.20
SB: $83.70
Hero (BB): $129.45
UTG: $104.50

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with J K
6 folds, SB raises to $2.50, Hero calls $1.50

Flop: ($5.00) Q 7 T (2 players)
SB bets $4.00, Hero calls $4

Turn: ($13.00) A (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $9.50, SB calls $9.50

River: ($32.00) K (2 players)
SB bets $18.00, Hero raises to $113.45, SB calls $49.70 all in

Final Pot: $167.40

SB shows Q K
Hero shows J K

Hero wins $164.40
(Rake: $3.00)

Setting a Monetary Poker Goal is bad for Business.....

Due to the nature of the beast that is poker it is very hard to predict what you can achieve in monetary goals.

Even if you are quite confident in your win rate if you run bad or go on some kind of tilt this can dramatically affect your results, especially in the short term.

If you set a money goal this can also determine how you play if u are chasing an amount each day. This will negatively impact your moves on the felt.

After 2 good months on the felt taking over $3k in winnings alone each month I thought it would be feasible to do it again. Instead I have run bad and spewed and am now down $3k for the month.

So I will never set monetary goals again. I learnt the hard way..!! What was forecast to be potentially a $10k month will now be break even as I have given up chasing the 200k VPP bonus this month and will pick it up 1st week in July.

Raaaaaaaaaaaaar.... Poker...........!!

I will now have one goal in poker... to play as good as I can in every single hand that I play...!! Volume goals are okay but again... set with caution

GL

How to calculate your bb/100 or PTBB/100?

If you don't know how to calculate your bb/100 or PTBB/100 then this post will help you.

bb/100 is a measure of win rate and is the big blinds per hundred hands played.

PTBB (or BB) is Poker Tracker Big Bets and is also a measure of win rate and equals 2x the bb figure or half the bb/100 figure.

If I create an example we can see how to calculate the figure.

The following numbers are to be used:

8000 Hands
$0.50 - NL50 limit bb as a decimal
$265 - Winnings for the day

First calculate the number of big blinds won:
265/0.5 = 530 bb

Secondly calculate the sets of 100 hands:
8000/100 = 80

Finally calculate the bb/100:
530/80 = 6.62 bb/100

To calculate the PTBB/100
6.62/2 = 3.31 PTBB/100


A quicker method to work out either the bb/100 or PTBB/100 is:

(Winnings / # of hands) * 100 / bb or
(Winnings / # of hands) * 100 / BB

I hope this helps.

Later

Just sit back and let them hang themselves with 4-high

Poker Stars $100.00 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players

BB: $87.70
UTG: $102.15
UTG+1: $115.05
MP: $139.70
CO: $101.60
BTN: $115.90
Hero (SB): $123.00

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is SB with J J
UTG calls $1, 3 folds, BTN calls $1, Hero raises to $6.50, 1 fold, UTG calls $5.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($15.00) J J 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $6.00, Hero calls $6

Turn: ($27.00) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $13.00, Hero calls $13

River: ($53.00) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $29.25, UTG raises to $76.65, Hero calls $47.40

Final Pot: $206.30

UTG shows 4 3 (4 high)
Hero shows J J (Quad Jacks)

Hero wins $203.30
(Rake: $3.00)

x_ROSH125_x, Destroyed, Annihilated and Torn to Shreads

My challenge to make $10k in a month is truly over. Yesterday I got ripped apart on the felt and I will now be lucky to get $5k this month. See below:

Are you Tough Enough?..... June Challenge Update....

I'm gonna have to dig deep this month

I knew if I mentioned what I wanted to achieve in June it would probably doomswitch me. I little bit of me thought just keep it to yourself then if you fail know one needs to know. But then I thought, F it that's no fun... put your head on the line and see if you can make it.

Monetary challenges are always harder than volume challenges as variance and bad play enter the equation.

In June I am aiming to complete 2 challenges: To make $10k in a month and also in the process to have my biggest month ever.

I need to earn 52k VPPs to get one $4k cash bonus and one $2.6k milestone bonus. I am also aiming to make $3.4k on the felt, which is line with what I made in the last 2 months. These amounts will take me to a 5-digit month.

Day 1 started so well, up $300. Day 2 and I lost all Day 1s profit... back to evens. Then 2 days of doom and I am down $900 for the month. I have made 9k VPPs so far which is good and means I am on pace for the 52k.

My biggest month ever was in Jan 2010 where I took $5,745. As it stands with both bonuses I would make $5,700 which is $45 less than my best. Got some work to do. I would be pretty happy to make $7k in a month but I will push for the 5 figure month.... lets go..

May 2011 Review

The month could not have started much worse with a live cash game casino session that I lost.

I only lost one buy-in, but when the buy-in is £400 ($668) or close to 7 of your usual online buy-ins then it hurts..!!

I continued with my assault on the NL100 regs with a small addition of the odd 250bb table and on occasion a NL200 table or two.

The 250bb tables are extremely interesting and pose a different dynamic to the normal tables. With the antes there is more money in the pot pre and therefore more incentive for late position steals and late position 3bettting. There is also more scope to play more hands and widen your VPIP as you have greater implied odds with the bigger stacks. There seem to be a few regs that frequent these tables exclusively. Also there are lots of recreational players that only sit at these tables. I still need to develop a good strategy to play these but I am enjoying sitting at 1 or 2 each session.

I also played around 15,000 hands of omaha at PLO5. I have now seen enough hands of omaha to understand how tilting this games is. Time and time my nut hands got cracked by re-draws, some lucky, some played well. The value of re-draws in this game is greater than that of a made hands in many situations. This is usually the opposite in holdem.

I have made a small loss at omaha and have no database of hands to review. I can honestly say that is was fun but it is not a game I want to pursue. So, wrt omaha, I am done with it..!!

I had fun playing the VIP Supernova+ Quarterly $1m tourni and I was lucky enough to cash one of the smaller prizes

So, the cash games are going quite well. I have not got the volume that I wanted to but my win rate is good and my graph is pointing in the right direction. I have run way above EV too which is quite interesting and worrying at the same time, lol. Here are a couple of visuals that show May's story...

The final numbers for May are as follows:

95,000 Hands Played
26,245 VPPs

+$3,696 (Cash Game Winnings)
+$250 (Tournament Winnings)
-$668 (Live Cash Game Losses)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
+$3,278 (Total Month)


The Ytd numbers as at the end of May are as follows:

554,000 Hands Played
148,584 VPPs

-$1,214 - Jan
+$1,075 - Feb
+$722 - Mar
+$4,766 - Apr
+$3,278 - May
--------------------------------------------------------------------
+$8,627 (Total YTD)


June is going to be my toughest month ever in poker as I attempt to make 52k VPPs at NL100.

I have made more VPPs than this in a single month before when I did it in Jan but that was done at the 50bb/CAP tables at NL200. The VPPs attainable at that level are much higher and can be done easily in 5-6hrs a day. At Nl100 I am looking at around 7hrs a day which is going to be a challenge.

Getting 52k VPPs will mean I hit the 200k VPP milestone which is worth $2,600 and I will also get my first $4,000 cash bonus in the process which will be nice. If I make the same cash winnings as I did this month I will have my biggest month ever and also make 5-digits in a month which will be awesome. Bring on the $10,000 month...!!

Today was an awesome day to end the month as I made around $650 and also had my biggest winning pot of the year. This was only a day after I posted my biggest loss hand of the year, lol. I had KK and got it in pre vs QQ and held for a pot win of $640.


The Fun Hand of the day was this one:

Poker Stars $100.00 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players

BB: $35.50
UTG: $100.00
UTG+1: $100.00
MP1: $120.40
MP2: $126.80
CO: $103.15
BTN: $106.20
Hero (SB): $111.35

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is SB with 5 4
2 folds, MP1 calls $1, 1 fold, CO calls $1, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.50, BB checks

Flop: ($4.00) 8 7 A (4 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, MP1 checks, CO bets $2.00, Hero calls $2, BB folds, MP1 calls $2

Turn: ($10.00) 6 (3 players)
Hero checks, MP1 checks, CO checks

Boooom, I hit my straight flush and only lose the 9T clubs for a higher straight flush.

River: ($10.00) 4 (3 players)
Hero bets $5.90, MP1 raises to $14, CO folds, Hero raises to $108.35, MP1 calls $94.35

When I get raised here I decide to just shove hoping to get calls from any flushes and hopefully A-high flushes. The shove looks so spewy that some 5Xs or 9T hands may call putting me on a pure bluff. The villain here was a casual player and not a reg which is quite important too as I think the call chances are greater vs this kind of opponent. He was not a fish and tanked to the very last second before showing the straight.

The funniest part was how he then proceeded to tell me how bad my play was even though he made the call and payed me off, lol. I duly apologised for being such a tard.

Final Pot: $226.70

MP1 shows T 9
Hero shows 5 4

Hero wins $223.70
(Rake: $3.00)


GL in June peoples....