Aussie musings

This time, its serious

Early in this I make a post wondering if we all rise to the level of our incompetency.

It's very true in the business world, of course. Most middle managers are struggling along at the maximum ceiling of their incompetence.

I've been playing again and I'm back beating NL25 again, but buffeting somewhat on breaking through my shift up to NL50. I've been here before. I even played an Omaha8 tournament (cashed, but not well) a few days ago. Strange, how patterns can repeat themselves.

For the first time in my poker journey the money has a meaning to me now, having been made redundant from my career that I held until 2013 and choosing not to relocate to continue it. Unfortunately that redundancy and decision not to force the household to move back to a major city (my wife was against it) left me struggling financially and too depressed to consider playing poker. I withdrew the 2013 roll and eventually it went towards bills.

Half an accounting degree (currently unfinished as I cant afford to go) and a weird little hospitality career later (I got promoted from bar staff to general manager of a pub within 3 months, of a pub that was "at the wall", and eventually went bust about 10 months later) I'm working as admin in a small accounting firm. And playing poker again, because I have time, and I'm no longer depressed.

I picked up 700 bucks in November easily pounding through NL10 and into NL25, but have struggled to turn over anything so far in December. Well, I'm up 30 bucks with a little more in -AIEV, but that's with some big volume - and struggling when I could really use a heater to burn into 50. 5 hours tonight to lose 35 bucks. The variation is punishing.

I have a new job lined up that I start on 18 April. Finally, after being made redundant - and dropping into a depression that made me not even consider playing poker, much less for money, as I looked for alternate work that didn't mean travelling 3 hours a day and never seeing my young daughter - I'll be moving into a job which, hopefully, will provide a long term career.

I would sorely, sorely love to be able to quit my current workplace immediately - I've never worked with such a toxic group of scum, ever, anywhere, period. I've never been treated as an idiot in a workplace before. I've been professionally tested and landed in the 99th percentile. There is only one person in the office that I would say is even in my IQ ballpark. Perhaps I currently hold an idiots job, but I made more money than any of these morons save the two principles at the age of 27.

Yet to listen to any of them you'd think they were all geniuses, customers are all suckers, and admin staff surely cant tell when an accountant makes a basic fuckup, like preparing a summary of financials that overstates a client's wages as a percentage of turnover BY DOUBLE (oh, a lazy ONE MILLION FUCKING DOLLARS). Jesus. H. Fucking. Christ. I should have fair dinkum just slapped her when she said "how dare you question my work". Instead I went over her head - and got told the abuse I got was my fault, for how I approached her with her error, after having taken it to her and said "I don't think this is right, the numbers don't add up".

Every grand US is another fortnight earlier I can resign. Unfortunately the wife - despite me having logs of winning around four thousand US dollars from poker over the years - is not keen on any plan that relies on poker money that hasn't been won yet. So its got to be won in advance of resigning.

This time it means something. This time I want it to happen more than ever before. I need to crack this and get into NL50. It's time. The accounting scumbags close up shop 23 December and don't reopen until 11 January. I'll be playing 80,000 hands in that period, and if I can make up a roll of three grand (I can sell World of Warcraft gold to make up another thousand), I can hand in my notice the day we get back.

I have one. I need two more.

Game on.

Red Line Repairs

December was a breakeven month, ish. Or close enough too.

The reason was my red line game needed fixing. The Red Line Rampage series of videos could have been about my play - super strong blue line play with a constant, depressing red line sucking down my winrate.

So most of December was spent adjusting my game and trying to find a profitable style that includes a stronger red line game. This has been somewhat successful and I am confident that my late December / early January play has been stronger than my old game used to be.

Early January has been profitable and the bankroll now stands at $1,588.86. This is well short of my January 11 goal of $3000, and it looks like I'm busted when it comes to avoiding returning to work for the scumbags, but its still progress.

I've joined the bankroll challenge! The rules require a 5x bankroll goal. That'll play. The date I'll choose to have this by is by my new job's commencement date - 18 April, 2016.

Crown felt is softer than butter - redux

So we went to Melbourne as a family last weekend. I had a ticket to Wierd Al, and my wife just wanted to come along and stay in a hotel for a night - so we did, and took our 3 year old to the Aquarium.

After Wierd Al of course I hit the felt (what else!). $1/3NL turbo.

God the games are SO SOFT. If we lived close enough and I had the roll for it I reckon I'd go 5 nights a week. Anyway - this pot develops.

Hero holds KJs, raises to $15 preflop, two callers - MP short stack ($80 ish preflop), BB large stack ($250 ish). Hero has both covered easily - $600+ crushing the game.

Flop Ks Js 5h

Hero bets, MP shoves, blind calls, hero shoves over, blind calls. Pot not far shy of $600.

MP turns over 55 - because drawing at a set for a fifth of your stack is great. blind turns over ace high flush draw - because "his ace might have been good".

Turn is a 5 giving MP quads. River is an ace giving the idiot blind a better two pair. Hero flops top two pair - in a juice game where TPTK is amazing - and comes last

The good news is hero also had his radar tuned in amazing. Hero was dealt AJs in the big blind and raised to $15 after 4 players limped. Two limpers called.

Flop A K J. Hero bets, one fold, a limper shoves over. The shove is huge relative to the pot.

Think to yourself - what hands can players who tend to play a hand range like 40/10/1 (VPIP - PFR - 3B) have in this spot? He limped, then called the raise. AA KK JJ AK AJ he is absolutely raising preflop (this hand is a couple of hours in to play with this villain, and he opens enough pots to be sure he opens at least that range).

Best case hero is beating KJ. But why the overshove? And villain would surely open preflop with any Ax hand like AQ AT.

Hero buys time twice (its a turbo game - you get 10 seconds, but can buy 30 more for a dollar) then folds. Villain grumbles about the fold and actually shows QT for a flopped broadway.

Best laydown I've ever made.

He Jaissica,
welcome to our challenge! We're all looking forward to see your progress, both in game and IRL with your stories from the tables & everywhere else.
When it comes to the poker updates, we have the weekly update thread for you: https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=326222&goto=firstnew
Pls be so kind to give us a weekly update, so we have an overview over all challengers participating here!

CU,SvenBe!

Hi Jaissica, I haven't read your full blog but where do you work? I very much find myself in that kind of situation as well (surrounded by total idiots).

I work in an accounting firm as their front-of-house reception / admin / general shit kicker.

They aren't idiots so much as heads stuck right up own bums. Their shit is pure white and has no odour. If you can get past that some of them are OK, but its hard to get past it for long, because there are constant reminders.

And the treatment of customers at times just plain horrifies me. I spent a year managing a bar. I can't imagine doing what they do to customers (making them wait for no legitimate reason, overcharging them for fun, treating them like dirt, being condescending, etc).

Blowups, and my new Concept 2 Model E Rowing Machine

So I had a couple of bad days there in early Jan trying to escalate. My BR dropped from a peak of $1,580 to $1331 in a couple of days and I was NOT happy. A lot of tilty events... AA cracked in a three way deep shove pre (AA QQ TT) was probably the defining moment as a masssssssive pot went to the Queens.

So I ragequit, withdrew $1200 US and bought the rowing machine I had been thinking about buying with poker winnings anyway. It's a thing of beauty and will hopefully be very helpful in reigning in my bulging waist.

I took a couple of weeks off after the withdrawal, and am now "starting over" on NL10. It's a shame as I'll lose this wonderful status - I'll be binge-watching content for the rest of the month and taking advantage of Diamond until it fades into the sunset - but my play at 50 had become too streaky and too swingy for me to sustain. Unfortunately $200 USD does have too much value attached to it at the moment for me to lose four buyins in a cooler and shrug it off easily, so the fact is I shouldn't be playing at that limit, because I'll be far too easily tilted.

I doubt I'll play anything but NL10 for the foreseeable future as it is the highest limit that I don't tilt on. When my wife goes back to work (our second child was born on 18 Jan 2016) our ongoing finances will be in better shape, and I won't look at a $200 downswing and think "that's half our goddamned power bill". For now poker is again relegated to playing for fun and supplying "play money", rather than trying to develop it as a serious income stream.

Hey dude,

I'm also living in Melbourne and played the 1/2 Turbo. It's really insane how bad the people are playing!

Gratz for the second baby! Some long walks will also do their work, not only the rowing machine...

CU,SvenBe

Originally posted by derStud1986
Hey dude,

I'm also living in Melbourne and played the 1/2 Turbo. It's really insane how bad the people are playing!

Oh its incredible and softer than a nice pillow isn't it? The rake is horrific though. At one stage Crown's 1/2 Turbo was running FIFTEEN PERCENT but they dropped it back down to ten and added a $5 seating charge.

Yet even with that rake I'd imagine if you had the roll you could make a living grinding there.

Thanks Sven! It's actually kind of good. I can sit up with bubs "giving mum a break" and play poker at the same time, and funnily having her around means I am playing lullaby music. Nothing soothes a bad beat quite like it.

BR already back up to $400 in spite of an allinEV deficit of $90 since bubs was born on the 18th. 31,503 hands of NL10 zoom for a +177.31 gain.

06.12.2015

This time, its serious

Yesterday

For now poker is again relegated to playing for fun and supplying "play money", rather than trying to develop it as a serious income stream.

sorry to read that

Taking it too seriously leads to anger; anger leads to rage, and rage leads to tilt

My BR is growing faster than ever patiently playing NL10 zoom (I am only a recent zoom convert). Maybe ill poke NL25 zoom again soon.

Pokey pokey, 25 heatery

So the effective BR (incl SC) touched 500 Wednesday night. Now I have not always played to my BRM - traditionally I have poked at 10 stacks - but this time I was resolved to never move up. Seriously. When I pulled the $1200 and left myself with $131 I wasn't going to play again in the short term - possibly months.

However - and I don't know why still - I got a random bump up to Diamond status. I was plat but I've never been to Dia, even when I fought and survived briefly at NL50 most recently I wasn't even close. I got the email a few days after I essentially rage quit and it bought me back to look at the content which has been very, very... inspiring.

So that prompted my restart.

Today with the BR slightly under 500 but feeling in the zone... I got the stab urge back. Since I was so close to my normal 20BI BRM I thought stuff it. Lets zoom25 again!

2 hours 19 minutes
2,865 hands
+$164.14

Well if that doesn't give the old BR a shot in the arm nothing will. Heater heater big stack eater.

PokerStars - $0.25 NL FAST - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 252.68 BB (VPIP: 11.97, PFR: 9.57, 3Bet Preflop: 2.69, Hands: 1,260)
SB: 319.16 BB (VPIP: 14.29, PFR: 10.20, 3Bet Preflop: 6.82, Hands: 101)
BB: 186.2 BB (VPIP: 20.34, PFR: 10.17, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 61)
UTG: 84.28 BB (VPIP: 29.79, PFR: 25.53, 3Bet Preflop: 17.39, Hands: 143)
UTG+1: 280.12 BB (VPIP: 17.81, PFR: 12.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 73)
MP: 124.92 BB (VPIP: 9.82, PFR: 3.47, 3Bet Preflop: 2.21, Hands: 670)
MP+1: 200.52 BB (VPIP: 7.82, PFR: 5.18, 3Bet Preflop: 4.11, Hands: 959)
Hero (MP+2): 369 BB
CO: 68.12 BB (VPIP: 23.47, PFR: 3.06, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 100)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 8♠ 7♠

fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB raises to 9.4 BB, Hero calls 6.4 BB

Flop: (19.2 BB, 2 players) 6♥ 7♣ 5♣
BB checks, Hero bets 12 BB, BB raises to 24 BB, Hero calls 12 BB

Turn: (67.2 BB, 2 players) 9♠
BB bets 32.08 BB, Hero raises to 148 BB, BB raises to 152.8 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 4.8 BB

River: (372.8 BB, 2 players) 4♠

Fist pump + shout moment

Some graphing. I appear to have surrendered my red line again, but that's OK, as profitable play is more important at this point.

Graph of the leadup to ragequitting in early January. You can see the slide at the end that was the death blow. I'd actually been "running well" despite losing as you can see - well above all in EV for a large part of the graph.

You can see at about 35,000 hands where I watch and try to execute the red line rampage series. The red line does improve and for a time my play standard picks up. This is a combination of NL25 and NL50.

A break and access to Diamond content appears to have helped, though I am rolling out some of the gains made in red line play here. Most of this graph is at NL10. I believe a blue line game suits NL10 better anyway as I find it very very difficult to actually push most players off an obvious overpair or top pair combo.

Scared of tilt = scared money at 25+

BR past 700 again tonight (counting banked stars coins at their face trade value). Since restart at NL10 on the 18th, direct cash game profit is at $434.94, with rakeback making up the difference (+6.75BB/100 over just under 50,000). I'm winning more than I'm paying in rake again! Hoorah!

At some point I'm going to have to consider cutting back to perm NL25. I was playing 10 again today - got into a $60 hole with set under set and top two vs a 60/60 moron who drew two huge streets to a gutter, among other hands. SO with that in mind I'm not sure if or when it will actually be safe to shift to NL10 again.

See now If that had been NL25 - 6 stacks at $150 - I couldn't handle that variance like I did today and turn it into a 5 stack win with two one hour sessions later in the same day. Psychologically I'm just not a strong enough player to eat $150 in mostly what I would call unavoidable losses and play well - be it playing on, or waiting 8 hours, or waiting 3 days. It just eats me up at the moment. Years ago it wasn't the same, but years ago I earned twice as much PA as today and had no family to support Being married with two children and a wife on unpaid maternity leave really makes you look at money a little different.

So. I need to find a pool of money point bank roll terms that will let me get past the present value of the cash itself. I think its predominantly about our home fiscal position - which might not be resolved fully until late 2016! So I could be at 10 for a while

Good news is averaging more than $10 USD per hour invested. It's not quite my hourly rate for the garbage job I hold now, but it's not negligible for a fun hobby. Imagine holding the same winrate at predominantly 25 (I've never maintained my NL10 winrate at 25)... 25 US bucks an hour... yummo.

Great graph! Have you read The Mental Game of Poker before? If yes, what are your thoughts about this? I just started reading and I can identify some of your struggles at the beginning of the book where they talk about.

No - it's not in my library of poker books. I don't buy as many anymore (I went on a big shopping spree in 2009).

I'll have a look into it though as it is a massive problem in my game at the moment.

Hehe I also had that moment that I just bought a book right away when I saw it. However, later I was just going to set my goals a bit more specific and took the books where they talk about the most.

I will let you know (also in my blog) how it was and to what degree I would recommend this book

Good luck at the tables!

Someone sent me twenty cents on pokerstars.

I have no idea who they are or why they did it.

Odd.

TMGOP is an interesting read Thanks for the tip Hesticus!

SH making me angryface

Back in one of my prior runs at poker I played SH exclusively. I found it more interesting (especially since this is before zoom, meaning you could 8 table SH without getting bored). I did quite well at it. It was one of the times I've built roll that is NL50 BRM, crashed my head against NL50 breakeven for a month or two and cashed out in anger at not being good enough for NL50.

Ultimately if you want to play above NL25 zoom though, you have to play 6max. There is no action ever on the 10max NL50, and everything above that is 6ers. So the last two nights I have put in 12,000 hands at NL10 SH to try and get back into short play.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

These guys are insane to a man. Just when you think it is safe to bluff a JT gutter on an OBBBBBBBBBBBBVIOUS scare board for overpairs - 789 suited connected flop - called down flop, called down all in turn all-in by AQo (no BD draw).

Just when you get over that call and think - surely it's just a random - 3 7 9 dry-ish rainbow board generates a double gutter + BDFD for 56s. Turn is a brick to the straight but honors the BDFD. River is an ace (irrelevant really). x-r flop huge, shove turn - called down by A3. When he called AI he had bottom pair top kicker no draw.

These are the best worst calls I have ever seen. No doubt it's because these tables are full of morons are flat out shoving middle pairs or gutshots.

I'm down $26 over the 12000 hands. Mostly to what I would call automatic semi bluff spots called down by complete trash. I was down $68 before I basically just stopped cbetting / semi bluffing and just went straight up. I've got most of it back but fit or fold poker isn't going to ever crack 50+.

Honestly if you played like the hand forum posters keep telling people "Baluga theorum! fold!" you couldn't be profitable. No way no how. Payoff wise it's basically a time warp to 2009 - TPTK is an AI hand vs most and overpairs are the nuts (seriously, I've seen people x-r shove TT as an overpair flop)

In any case I am down but leaktracker is happy to tell me all my key indicators are "unlucky" (straights sets flushes) and since it's fit or fold "make hands, get paid" play, I'd be up if they were normalised. So I'm happy with the play. Kind of. But what the hell. Honestly. There is nothing fun about bluffing your disguised double gutter + BDFD and getting called AI by bottom pair. Total vomit moment.

Though it was funny to see my 5 or 6 pairing could be good. It took me a long moment to figure out how the hell I was holding 48% AIEV vs a hand that could call on that turn. Ironically the EV is the same as if he had called with drawless, not blocking Ax air. A6 would be better for him. WTF.