Well, its all over

I don't really know what to say. I never really thought that this day would come, but my weakness and competitive attitude got the best of me.

I had an afternoon free and decided to play some poker: try to get back in the swing of things, get my head back on straight. I played some HU 100nl, it went ok, lost a little more than a buy in or so.

I was still kinda itching for a game, still wanting to make my money back from the last few days. I was scrolling through the tables at HU 100nl and noticed my nemesis sitting at a table, the same guy that took my money on thursday and friday. I was determined to beat the guy. I did not, far from it. He absolutely destroyed me. The guy ran better than anyone I have ever seen, it was absolutely unbelievable. Every 3-4 bet pot, I would have the better hand preflop and he would hit a pair on the flop. I'd raise with AQs, he'd 3bet with K5, I 4bet and he'd. Flop K84. He checked, I cbet and he'd call. He'd check the blank turn and a Q came on the river (it was unbelievable how many times the river gave me a good but not great hand and at the same time he'd either have a better hand or the river would improve his hand more) he'd check, I'd bet and he'd call taking down a very large pot. This happened countless times. Here are some gems from the night:












So basically, this guy took his boomswitch and raped me with it. Raped me hard. After running really good the guy challenged me to 1/2HU and I was certain I could beat him plus extremely tilted so I accepted. Here are a couple of hands that exemplify my experience.





Here is my biggest hand of the night, it is undeniably the stupidest thing I have ever done in my poker life. I was so tilted, so focused on beating this guy that I misread my hand and thought I had flopped a straight. I end up calling the guy down with 9 high to his rivered straight (I was very close to folding the river, while I still was under the impression I had a straight, I just KNEW he hit the straight but couldnt fold). Just another example of how this guy runs so well, if he doesnt hit the straight, he folds the river and I take down the big pot, regardless of whether I read my hand correctly. This is so embarrassing.....



And 20 hands later, here's the last hand of the session. I think it sums up my night entirely.


So where am I now?
I am at a point I havent been at in over a year. I am in the red. It feels really weird to say that but it's reality. I started this all with a 1500 dollar stake and I am now at 1300. I am not rolled for 100NL or even 50NL. All of the work of the last year is pretty much erased. Poker-wise I am at the lowest point mentally that I have ever been.

What's the future for me and poker?
I have self-excluded myself for the next week, but I am 100% certain that I will continue playing poker and will try to grind my way back up to where I was before. Although my work of the last year has been erased in the sense that my money is gone, I still have learned immense amount of information from the thousands of hands that I have played. Hopefully, this information will help along the way by making my rise through the stakes much quicker. I have put in almost thirty thousand hands at 50NL 6max and once I become sufficiently rolled, my familiarity with the game will definitely help me build up my roll at that stake.

I currently have 500 dollars on a 2+2 prop bet, which if I win will pay back 700. Currently, the bettor is on pace to win the bet, so it looks like I wont be seeing that money, but I'll be continuously checking the progress of the bet and hoping that I can get a now very significant amount of money in victory.

Once my self exclusion ends, I will begin grinding up 25NL 6max or 50NL 6max depending on the result of the bet. It will be a tough and probably long road but I will keep pushing forward and will update this blog at every step along the way.

Good luck everyone!

Where I'm at now

So I'm sure many of my loyal readers (Ok, like two of you; you two rock!) are wondering what exactly happened on friday that caused me to blow up like that. The story is actually a pretty simple one. It started on thursday night when I looked on my PTR buddy list and found a bad player sitting at a couple tables of .5/1 HU. I happily sat down and played him for a while. To say this guy had a weird strategy is an understatement. He would have very streaky trends as to his opening amounts on the button: for 10 hands he might min-raise, then 10 hands he'd open to $5, then 10 hands of limping, then 10 hands of opening to 7. It was truly one of the weirdest things I had ever seen. He was pretty aggro when he had it and would cbet/fold turn when he didnt. This would be easily exploitable but his definition of "having it" was much looser than mine, meaning he's go with his hands alot looser than most. This made playing against him difficult because I wasnt sure of the threshold at which my marginal hands became strong again. I also seemed to have terrible luck and only pick up medium to good hands when he had the top of his range. Thursday night I lost almost 8 buy ins. I was pretty bummed but still had over 5k in my account.

Friday afternoon I was thrilled to see the very same guy at multiple tables. I was determined to beat him and was sure that if I picked up some cards occasionally, that I could beat him. Well, I didnt. A combination of tilt, bad cards and an overwhelming need to beat the guy caused me to spew horrendously and lose over 10 buy ins. Needless to say, I was extremely frustrated and disappointed. Only a week prior I had over 7k in my account and now i am stuck with under 4k.

I have no idea what to do now, move down to 50HU, or go back to 6max where I havent been in a while but am confident in my ability to win at.

Thursday and friday were very sobering days and I wouldnt wish them on anyone. I just gotta keep pushing on and grind back what I have worked so hard to accumulate.

Good luck everyone!

I am beyond tilted right now

Long story short, I play a verified donk. He sucks horrendously, he runs hotter than the sun. SO FUCKING FRUSTRATED. Lost 2k to him at 100NL HU. INSANE. THIS IS RIDICULOUS.

I Did a Bad Thing

It was bound to happen soon, but that’s no excuse. I told myself that I would only be playing the donks at 100NL HU, but last night (after having a great afternoon in which I won over 4 buy-ins) I got greedy. I opened my PTR buddy list and saw that there was a donk playing at a 3/6 CAP (180 max bet) table. I figured that I could just focus on the donk and try not to get into bad spots with marginal hands. Well, I got on the waitlist and was looking for other games on the side when I got a notice that a seat was open for me in the game. I looked around at the other seats and noticed that I was in fact taking the seat of the donk. That was when the little devil on my shoulder said, “Hey, here’s a chance to make a couple quick bucks”

Wrong-O.

I ended up losing a couple hundred bucks, which led to me trying to chase those losses with any semi-good action I could find. I turned a 400-dollar win day into a 300-dollar loss day. I’m actually pretty lucky that it didn’t go worse. I was down 800 on the day at one point and ran pretty hot towards the end.

It’s pretty clear that my PTR buddy list is both a blessing and a curse. It allows me to find out whether the players I want to play against are available to play, but it also shows me when some bad players are online in games I really shouldn’t be playing in. It’s really tempting to see a big losing player sitting with a full stack at 2/4 deep, but I really cannot afford to be in that game. Not only will a loss kill my bankroll, the stakes of the game will cause me to not play my A-game, so I’m getting hurt on two levels. I need to leave the bigger games alone and stick to what I am solid and comfortable playing. Hopefully I can do so. And to keep me in line, if any of my loyal readers see me at any game with 2/4 blinds or above (I’m pretty comfortable at $1/$2, not enough to make it my regular game but if I want to take a shot against a donk I think that fine) , scream at me in the chat/IM/text/whatever, to up the stakes if you see me at a 2/4 game or above and point it out to me at the time or with a HH, you will win yourself a cool 26 bucks, just enough for anyone to enter a 24+2 tourney and luckbox a win in a giant donkament.

Good luck everyone!

Poker Copilot and Some Interesting Observations

Many of my loyal readers have seen some of the charts I have been putting up, for those who don't know, this all is possible through a program known as Poker Copilot. I have a mac and all of the well known poker tracking programs (Poker Tracker, HEM) are not directly available on macs. Luckily, a great man known as Steve Mcleod took up the task to create a quality tracking program for macs. He has been working on the program for months now and I have seen it grow since some of its earliest stages. The progress he has made is absolutely astounding and the product is incredibly polished and unbelievably helpful. If you are playing poker on a mac and not using Copilot, you are doing yourself a disservice. Poker Copilot helps every player on their opponents, which are like a user's manual for how to dismantle their play. Not only that, but looking at one's own statistics can also be very beneficial: you can see where you are losing money, against who and why. Plugging leaks is one of the most important aspects of poker and this program allows you to do exactly that.

What inspired this blog post was me doing exactly that: looking for leaks. Poker Copilot allows you to see your stats from every position at every stake, so naturally I wanted to see where I was winning and losing my money.

Since starting my HU journey, I always assumed that a majority of my losses came when I was out of position. When I am out of position, I am out of power. I am first to act so I don't have the advantage of knowing what my opponent does on every street. I checked my Copilot and found something extremely surprising. I am winning when OOP and losing when in position.

When I'm on the button:


When I'm in the BB:


I have to sit down and analyze why I am losing much more in position. This can be done through stats reviews and session reviews which will happen during the coming weeks.

Havent played much recently, been watching football all day (Pats win! barely.....)

Good luck everyone!

Screw Psych and Poli Sci, at WashU I'm studying Bumhunting

In my last post I declared that I will only be playing against opponents that I have labeled as donks. Not just donks, but super donks. Well, I sat down this evening with the intention of only finding the worst players and taking off a couple stacks.

I did exactly that.

I found 3 different players who I had labeled green on my Full Tilt notes and player them across 4 tables. I had played some of them before so I had already developed some very useful reads that I used to exploit my opponents. I ran very well, hitting alot of my draws but a lot of my money didnt come from hands where my draws hit. I did however miss a lot of value in this session, which is definitely a leak I need to plug. I had at least 8-10 hands where I was OOP, and I check called the flop and turn with a strong hand. I then hoped my opponent would shove the river but realistically he isnt doing so without a premium hand. I should be putting out some bets to get value from hands that will call but not necessarily shove.

All in all, I finished my session this evening up a little over 4 buy ins. I am also proud to say that including my tournament dollars, I am now back to 7k. Wow, that was fast; I guess variance works in strange ways.

Good luck everyone!

Don't Call It a Comeback

So, after what can only be described as a disaster of a week. I came back to FTP determined to play well, game select well and make back alot of the money I had lost. Over the last couple of weeks, in order to help my game selection, I have been PTR-ing as many players in the 100NL HU games as I can. I look at their stats and give them a colored note which denotes their skill (not an exact measure of skill but I can usually assume a big winner is good and a big loser is bad).

I really only like to play those that are marked green, which equates to a big loser, but occasionally I get restless and play some people who are unmarked (dont have enough info to say) or yellow (either a winner at 100NL and loser at 200NL OR a slight winner at 100NL). Over the past two days I have only been playing green marked foes, and it has helped ALOT. I even trusted some of my notes enough to follow some of them to 200NL (probably a bad move, but I knew I could beat the guy). I used to feel bad about employing bum hunting as a legitimate strategy, but I realized that I am trying to make money in this game not prove I am the best, so bumhunting it is! Im back up to 6.3k and looking up. I really have to make sure I dont get too cocky, but if I dont, and I run fairly well, Ill be back to where I once was.

Here's a graph of my last 2 days (WARNING: May induce boner)



Good luck everyone!