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)
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+$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....