LETS GO MARCH LETS GO

Quite right Jon, quite right, let's go indeedy!

So having sat around for 10 lightyears waiting for an opportunity and dropping 1/2 a BI the other day, yesterday was just a tad busier. What a difference a day makes!
Started 2-tabling and dropped 2.5BI. My usual ploy is drop to nl lolaments and go crush for the rest of my stoploss to make me feel better, but I was playing so well I stuck with it this time. Ended up crushing for +1BI and 2.5K hands on 9 tables, but I am wondering when my sets will hold on a drawy board! Oh what might have been, eh?
Had to sit out in the end, table top up went on the blink and the popups totally spoiled my mindgame. Five minutes of that and I was outta there.

Anyway, all's well that ends well in Malworld again and the month is off to a positive start - for a change - so I can stfu now!

Play-wise I've added in a few 3bets v late pos stealers and loosey-goosey openers and that seems to be working out ok, so shoutout to the guys in the staking group for kicking my, er, I mean pointing me in the right direction there. I allow myself a 4bet bluff sbvbb now and again to v certain player types who defend just a tad too loud, but only now and again!


Actually, sometimes they just have to have the ace yet again, but this time my friend...this time...


$0.05/$0.10 No Limit Holdem Prima
6 Players

Blinds 0.5BB/1BB6
UTG $109.5BB
UTG+1Hero $121.9BB
CO $174.6BB
D $170.3BB
SB $104.9BB
BB $125.5BB
[/divbox]





It would be nice to stick at nl10 and get some reasonable stats going to so I can see where I'm at. I think I'm doing fine now after a rocky start to the year(sample size obv).

Overall this year I'm at 6bb/100 but that's skewed by me crushing nl4 to death for 15 bigs.
At nl10 it's -1.4 bigs overall, which is fine by me and a loooong way up from the -19bb I started last month with!
This month I'm +5bb for a small profit so far, but not exactly running like Usain so much more to come methiks.

Oh joy, the sun has got his hat on and I just know the mrs will 'suggest' I 'help' with the gardening. Sigh, fkn hate gardening, it sucks; bloody flowers ffs, wtf am I supposed to do with fkn flowers! Ooooooo, they're so pretty! Well they should be I 'helped' grow them for a bloody year, jeeze I hate flowers!

Yes babes, I'll do the digging, planting, weeding and pruning and you sweep the path, good girl, yes. Nice one babes, thanks; watch you don't get too dirty now wont you?


...


/rant

Wow that hand is pretty f'in sick. One hell of a turn card!

Enjoy the gardening buddy!

Whenever I read that was such a sick hand, I hear it in my minds ear as Helmuth. But this time the other guy was Helmuth! Whoop whoop.

Getting paid on a straight flush. Golden moments.

Helping with the gardening I can't empathise with as I like gardening, growing food and herbs though not flowers. Flowers are pointless and they die too easily. I get frustrated with them and some veg as they die at the drop of a hat. Like the ground is too dry or too wet or its too hot or shady, or the pH is too high or I didn't have the right food. Seriously flowers, stop being whiny little pricks. Look at that weed over there. I've poisoned him, dug him up, trod him down and he only has a scoop of sand in a crack in the pavement and he is kicking on like theres no tomorrow.

Zen master say, be like the weed, not the flower.

And by weed I mean like Dandelion not pot. Pot is even more of a pussy, needs a fucking heated house to even have a go.

If I get asked to help do shit jobs like cleaning the house I'll agree as long as she is wearing her work out gear. Love those yoga pants.

@Jon-PokerVIP Ye just so nice to turn the tables and on-outer a villain. Gogogo me! Going ok so far bud, let's do this.


@thetallpaul I like veggies and have grown them, but definitely with you on those bloody waste of space flower things, jeeze how pointless are they for the effort they demand.

Nice job zen master, where do I sign up!

As to the weed, well, yes it is wimpish but can get expensive to. The customs people found our house full of the stuff and evicted us, confiscated the plants, the money and the house, then bulldozed the house to the ground and covered it all up with a car park. It wasn't mine it was my mate's, I just lived there but still, chill out guys I'm not Fred West ffs!.

As for the yoga pants house cleaning, well, you are fortunate. Not only do I do the cleaning most of the time and cooking all the time (don't even get me stated on cooking!) but I don't wear yoga pants luckily for the neighbours; and my mrs has a figure like a burst sausage, so the only thing she can turn on dressed like that is the fkn telly.

Burst sausage made me fully lol. I'm in a coffee shop at the moment as well. It was one of those single barks of laughter. Just PAAAAAA! Now people think I'm a loon.

That's pretty nuts on the customs peoples part. I assume the house was pretty fucked then? Surely they don't just knock a house down because a crime happened in it? Good job on getting away without any charges. There was one of those down my road a few years back. They got spotted when it snowed. They were doing it in the loft and it melted all the snow on their roof and a their house stood out a bit. I mean it stood out anyway because it smelled like a music studio but that gave the police an excuse to knock and say hi.

Also you never one outered nobody. You had the best hand pre, flop, turn and river. Good game well played. On this occasion he just didn't manage to draw out on you. It is maybe a reflection of how you are running right now that you think you were lucky here by comparison.

My apologies, I didn't mean to spill you coffee!
I'd post a photo but I can't, it's bolted on the gate to scare the kids and burglars away.

Ye I'm just a pessimistic optimist, I really think it might go well but I just know it'll go tits up soon. Sigh.

So I've started using my 300 hands or 30 minutes tactic then take a break and so far so good. It's not rigid, sometimes I have more tables going than other so then it would be a time constraint rather than a hands one - and vice versa ofc.
I played four sessions yesterday and found in the last one I played some plainly bad hands, no need to post them I was a fish. So, maybe I'll play just the three sessions if that happens again and extend the time limit to 45 minutes instead. We'll see.


Now, there're three things I want to study more;

#1 Calling down on a flush draw board as a bluff and betting the flush when it hits and villain chks. This has to be very very opponent specific but Ithink I know my enemy enough by now. Weaker more passive regs hate it when a flush hits the river and invariably chk/tank/fold when it does. There's more to it than that I know and position and villain reads are paramount, but I'll try a couple versus specific opps and see how it goes anyway.

#2 Regs like to donk out a lot versus missed cbets, it seems fairly standard and understandable of course, so, I'm starting to use that against them and it's working out since many of them are 'One and Done' moves and seem like desperation rather than planned out, hence the one and done.

#3
Lots of regs barrel flop and turn and chk river, my plan is to find out who is chk/calling and who is chk/folding. This needs more study as I don't get so many hands on villains, but it looks like I can win more chips by bluffing some rivers if I get it right.
Let's face it, if they have the nuts they 3-barrel like chips are going out of fashion init, so find out who can fold and who is a station is the quest.

Take notes about it, see how it goes. yet again, specific opps boards and position again. Oh position, that old chestnut, there's a surprise.


These look basic and simple to many I have no doubt, but i play even simpler and basic so these are more add-ons for me.


Anyway, enough waffle, have a great weekend everybody, I'm off to increase my winrate.

Go smash it. On #2 if you are on PT4 thats a turn probe bet so you can get good stats on it. Filter for probe and then view their stats on river to get a solid understanding on who is doing what.

Oh, thank you very much for that, I'd forgotten what that was called. It's tricky on anon tables to get good info, for example I rarely use my lovely popups at all, just too small a sample. I'll run somefilters today though and see if I can get a rough idea.

The weekend went sort of ok, there was a dearth of good games yesterday so I added a few nl4 in just to have some fun and make a few euro.

I would normally raise at some stage obviously, but this guy has been full of it for a while now, so why not let him have his fun while I have mine eh? Win win imo!




I'm not sure about this but I did hear PKR are merging with Microgaming so maybe that will swell the pool a bit at quiet times, I hope so, I need the money.

So it's still going well at the poker tables but my dog is very stressed out and wont eat or sleep. I have a feeling she doesn't like that beep beep noise and the rattling coming from the road works machines working outside our house, it's usually very quiet here apart fromthe odd kid on a skateboard and you can get rid of them quick enough if you throw stones at them.

Additionally the influx of PKR players has swelled the pool a fair bit, unfortunately there are a lot more aggro regs about and taggy short stackers, but lots of games going and good seats if I select a bit more thoroughly.

Given the above, I've altered my ranges a lot and am finding it a bit embarrassing to play in so many pots! Ye ye, I know, nit alert! I hope this wont impact to heavily on my winrate while I eperiment with this stuff, it's taken me ages to get it to positive. I'm around 6bb/100 now so don't want to ruin it and my 10 day challenge is progressing along quietly to.

Holy brown trousers Batman, this is insane at what, about 140 mph? Jeeze, kids these days, I dunno!

As I said, this merger with PKR has done the pool no end of good, the games run all the time and plenty of them. There are also a few 25/30bb BI multitabling guys who sit there playing 10/10 and I think they detract from the general fun dynamic as do nits in general. The fish, oh sorry, 'Players we want to be in a pot with' seem to get a bit bored or frustrated and ldon't stay long if there're more than one of these nits, oops I did it again, 'Players who tend more towards risk aversion ' about. That's a shame, but the games have definitely improved a lot for the influx overall, so table selection is easier although seat selection is still problematic; seems I keep getting plonked down between the shorty and the aggro reg, but it is what it is.

Things at the tables are atill goin gok I suppose, although I'm pretty sure I'm leaving value out there as befits my status in the poker hierarchy. I'm fixing that as I go along and adjusting to thenew dynamic with added tactics, I like the green ones...

Yesterday my big hands went down quicker than a drunk slapper at a stag party versus a bunch of 85/55 droolers, erm, I mean, 'casuals' (hey I'm old, bite me), but it's all good and I'm still ahead a bit this month and trying to get to 150 euro or more by the end of it. I think 200 is entirely possible on here - with a little help of course!



March Goals:
So I get one more attempt to win 10 in a row as per goals, it does help keep me from getting too spewy and I don't think it restricts my play anymore either so I'll try again. It's also a focus point for when I start atuo-piloting enabling me to reboot my brain cell earlier.

Hand count is not great but then two stoplosses in a week won't help, I can fix that, just don't lose anymore, it's boring anyway.

Posted a few hands but not really replied to enough. It gets tough to know what to say ro ask whent eh big gus have swept the place clean; I do try though.

Overall, I think I'm on the way to improving, especially when I look back and see what has ahppened since last month adn not just rungood either, although I am under no illusion I can only go so far without the rng's help.

I'll post my noooo improved all singing all dancing ranges next time and you can laugh if you like, then you can come get some.

Meanwhile, play well, run good, or infiltrate the rng. Easy game.

Yesterday had more swings than a kids playground, just insane games. Played 6 tabs and had to cut to 4 to keep up with the action and out of the 4 tables there was one player with sort of taggy stats on each, me! The rest were well, er, looser, a lot looser!

Managed to get that latest little drop in the graph repaired to; it always feels good to get it done straight away. Nice for the ego to get +2.7BI (ye I know tut tut, so bite me)

Got the mrs in bed not very well so trying not to let that interfere with play but it's obviously harder to focus and takes a special kind of selfish bugger to do it - enter moi.
The big problem is I'm getting tired doing all the stuff round the house etc., so not getting volume in like wot was my plan, init. Concerted effort coming up last days of the month and I'll be right.

Oh, I did say, new and improved range thingies didn't I; ok, here's UTG for starters:










The yellow ones in the OR range are for extending my OR on suitable tables, e.g., weak/tight/passive meh games. Truth is I usually sit out of those afer a while anyway unless that's all there is.

They're not set in stone obviously and the numbers may vary due to me occasioanlly flatting instead of 3betting or whatever, but near enough for now versus the weak villains I play.

They seem to be working so far...

Seen a fair bit of titly stuff lately and that's a shame but what can you do, carry on crushing and hope things settle down is all. Oh and a former stakee has rejoined so that's nice, let's hope he sticks around this time and gets crushing.
I really think people 'think' they know about variance etc because they read up on it, or saw a vid, or chatted about it to a coach, or...whatever, the fact is they don't understand it at all or all this tilty stuff wouldn't be happening would it.

Don't know if I mentioned this in an earlier post, but I remember having a bloody good whinge about losing ( I should know better) and the coach told me to stfu, grow a pair and get the fk on with the job, so I did and he was right of course.

Variance; studying variance, a really important part of the mindgames stuff, really important, as many tilty and broke players can verify.
The other main thing to learn is to be brutally honest about your play. Convincing yourself oyou play your A game when actually you're playing your C game is death to the bankroll guys and gals, seriously. Take a step back, take a really really close look at you database and then tellme you played great with the best dicisions possible allthe time. If you can do that and be right, I'd say you should move up peeps.

So, number one to study before you start 4bet bluffing at nl10 with a merged upside down combined reverse thrust range to to try to induce a spazzy inverse snap-fold from a maniac (but only the red combos mind!), ffs learn bankroll management and variance and what they mean to not only your roll but your mindset.

I actually think bankroll management is the number one thing to learn before you even start playing nl2. Ye but it's so theoretical and so bloody dry, I want to play! Sigh, another one bites the dust.

There's a reason some roads are short, they lead to dead ends.

Testify brothers and sisters, testify.


/rant

You impress me more month on month!

Glad the PKR merger has done some good...obv a huge win bringing their pool into the MPN games and it seems to be doing the trick. The whole team is winning so good times!

Studying ranges, being able to take a step back and just constantly analysing yourself and your play is what is making you do so well. I left you a message on Skype this morning - Looking forward to seeing your reaction!

.

@Jon-PokerVIP Hi bossman! Reaction: ... ... ... ...

Seems from reading the forums my strategy isn't for everybody because it isn't 'standard', maybe I can find another lost soul playing anon with a bit more experience to light my way, or someone who knows what I should actually be doing!

Thanks a lot, today has been a good day.

Talking of bossmen:

Well my first foray into the world of nl20 has been a bit strange. I let the size of the pots and the 3betting agro regs bother me to start so virtually playing on tilt for the first couple of sessions with scared money and very small bollox. I'm beginning to settle in now, that first ever double up and seeing 45euros in front of me may just have had something to do with it! Lol, wot a muppet.

Anyway, just adding in one or two at most nl20 and playing out the nl10 until the end of the month, I should be all gogogo after that as long as lady variance is kind to me meanwhile.

Games seem very passive. Aggro preflop then all wimpy and won't bet without the hand post, just odd compared to the loonytoons at nl10.
Had to get jiggy wid it in this one to get some chips:



Seriously guys, how face up TT or JJ is this guy! I expected more from the regs here, hopefully I've given them too much credit and be shown to be wrong.

Compare that to nl10, same session, first hand in:



It's a different world!


Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy! Sigh, al get ma coat...

Anyhooo, have fun and don' tilt or you'll be nl10 forever and ever and ever and...

So I'm getting my bearings at nl20 anon now and all I can say is, when things get going there it's going to be a fun ride.
These games are like a nitregfest for such a large proportion of the time and then suddenly all hell breaks loose and it's hold on to your bollox time!
Last night was insane, the first time the games opened up since I started there and they got just the same as nl4 or nl10, just the same. Thanks nl20 guys, you made me feel right at home.

Damn, I could have used just a teeny bit more rungood and the session would have been a real crusher but can't complain, even though there were more swings than a kids playground. I really thought I might be heading for +100e but not to be, not to be.





So close, yet so far...

See if I can iron it out a bit for next month, then it'll be rub money titties time!

Laters peeps.

Me monkeying around with an obvious fish:





Closest I got all session to doubling, bloody dealers!
These regs, seriously guys; ask yourself what you're trying to achieve v an unknown with the nonstop 3/4bet/f bluffing crap preflop, chk/r paired flops then chk/f turn, just ridiculous. Seriously?
So I dropped a couple of BI last sess and sat out, but was fairly happy with my play although a bit passive, but also new to these aggro games and couldn't catch a cold. Bit of a shame that my graph is slip-sliding away but plenty time yet to fix it before the standard breakeven month kicks in.

Something else I noticed to, I'm becoming just a little more confident replying in the HH forum, so maybe the mighty JonVIP has managed to get something to stick after all! I still wait for the big guns to answer first too often if I'm unsure, which I shouldn't do because then my reply is biased, but also I have disagreed with a few which always goes down well :P, so finding my feet a bit and not before time I might add.

Goals for the month are struggling due to circumstances, but it's all good otherwise - apart from the misbehaving rng that is!

I'll post a graph and results at end of month.

Run good and before you 4bet/f chk the hand count ffs. Jeeze.

LOL that hand!

Keep feeling positive buddy this is what the game is all about - just one big test