Stack: $464.20
The uptick in the stack does not tell the story. The win-rate plunged, so much that I haven't had the heart to calculate the percentage. The past day has exposed huge gaps in my understanding of HUSNGs. Several players just ran over me repeatedly, using techniques of bet patterns and bet sizing that are way beyond me. The result was that, in addition to being often outplayed, I tilted off several games. In sum, I am not proud of myself.
Stack: some place below where it was last time, I'd rather not say.
The usual battleground. The 2-euro regular HUSNGs on I-poker. I go all-in at high blinds with pocket fives. I am called. The other guy also has fives. I gaze upon them with horror, for I KNOW what is about to happen. One of his fives is a diamond. Four more diamonds drop on the board and I am finished.
A period of tilt ensued.
Stack: $455.64
I don't know how to write about the things I have seen, but I have to, because I am gunning for a prize in the site's blogfest. I have had some peculiarly scarring experiences in the 2-euro HUSNGs on i-poker. I went all-in pre-flop at low blinds against several players, who had been betting everything like coked-up spewtards. Each time I was sitting behind high pairs or AK. Each time, I faced hands of the mighty quality of 36o. No I am not joking. And each time I lost. This is right up there with the Gospel of Luke, chapter 11, verse 11.
I put one seriously bad beat on some poor chappie while engaged in this exercise. Having started with KK, I was tolerably confident as the flop board consisted of rags with one pair. One of the rags tripped on the turn and I was surprised when this sparked some serious betting. I called a huge bet, as otherwise anyone could bluff you off anything all the time. The river produced ..... another jolly old K! My opponent shat himself getting all the chips in the middle - I swear I could smell it coming through the computer. I called and the boat I had made on the river was better than the boat my opponent had made after calling my 3x openraise with his mighty holding of 57o.
I pondered where I was going with all this. I had been making a little progress on the 2 euro games, but had hit a brick wall. I have therefore moved up to the 5 euro games. Why does this make sense? The answers are these. I have the bankroll. The higher limit may make me more careful with my decisions. I can recover gold status more quickly. There may be fewer spewtards who can put me on tilt by winning after calling my all-in at low blinds with 36o preflop.There is a heavy reg on the 5-euro limit, who I think may be a house player ['shill'] for whichever i-poker skin he/she resides on, and who I think is exploitable, even with my limited skills. We shall see. Having won 7/12 at this higher level, obviously a huge and relevant sample size, I am clearly on the right track.
[Late edit: now 8/13 at 5 euros, last at server time 2016 - 01-12 / 01:21 start.]
Stack: $441.23 
The thing about HUSNGs is that there is no respite, no way to hide except by not starting another game. You are in every hand, and the sort of hand you would fold UTG in a ring game is the sort you have to play, or at least make a serious decision on, in HU. The other night, my brains fried when I was playing aces. The blinds were pretty high, the opponent put in a fat raise, all the chips went in preflop, and he turned over A10o.
The worst part of seeing those cards was the foreknowledge. I knew I was going to lose, and I knew exactly how. Yes, in advance; yes, seriously. Give me some more practice at this and I will be able to call not just the bloody cards, but the bloody suits as well. The three cards necessary to complete a Broadway straight duly appeared on the board, and I was on tilt and getting flamed in the chatbox for crappy play the rest of the session. The cards, the cards, they moooock me .....
At the end, I accidentally registered for the 2-euro games [I have been playing the fives] and won two of those, and called it a night. Today, I sneaked back to the fives and deliberately put myself up against the multitabling reg at this level. I took three out of five, and may now have my head centred again.
Stack: $486.65. ♠_thumbsup:
The 5-euro HUSNGs again. I don't know whether I have actually been playing better [i.e. more carefully] or whether I have just had a good run, but here is the stack, somewhat fatter. It helped my mood that, tonight, nobody cracked my pocket aces although, to be fair, nobody tried. It may have helped my poker that, earlier tonight, my individual win helped my team win a significant local match in my beloved 'other game'.
Updated count.
2-euro games: 5/8. 5-euro games: 25 wins out of 43. Counted until 2016-01-16; Server time 03.24. Total at 5 euro buy-in: 33 wins out of 56.
Stack: $490.58.
Engaged with the 'real world' for much of today, so hardly any poker. Played three more 5-euro games, won two. I think when you fall asleep HU and only the warning tone on the table timer's 10-second mark wakes you up, it's time to stop playing for real money tonight. Total HUSNGs at 5 euros: 35/59; server time: 2016-01-17 - 00:35.
I have opened up a play-money 7-stud-hi table, just to keep my hand in 
Stack: $504.65
Too much real life this past day, therefore almost no poker. Three 5-euro HUSNGs, but I won them all. Wins to date - 38/62, at server time 2016-01-18 - 01.14.
Am I learning anything? I have learned caution when facing giant bets, especially at the river. I am relaxed about occasionally being bluffed off top pair when the board can support a story for a straight, a flush or raggy trips. This game format produces such hands often enough.
Stack: $512.51.
Again, too much real life today, so hardly any poker. Six 5-euro HUSNGs, of which I won four. One loss was essentially over a flip, but the other was more frustrating - I just couldn't work out what the opponent was up to. Next time ....
The last game was satisfying. In the early stages, I don't mind spewing off a few chips on speculations. To be honest, sometimes more than a few -:badteeth: . Here, I showed down one huge nothing in the low blinds, which I had bet as a huge something, and the opponent perhaps developed a low view of me. So he didn't believe me when, at a point when the stakes were higher, I flopped the top two pairs. Better still, he didn't believe me when I made the straight flush in diamonds, to the Jack.
My rematch offer was declined.
Statistics on the 5-euro games to date: 42/68. Server time 2016-01-19: 00:26.
Stack: $500.99. 
I am trying to make sense of what happened and more important, why. The stack plunged to about $478, and I only feel up to writing about the situation because I have fought it back up over the 500 mark. A family member went into hospital, which doesn't help. Perhaps more to the point, I played a match where the opponent flopped two flushes about three hands apart, and I went on tilt as a direct result. Some bright spark among you probably has a grip on the odds against being dealt two of the same suit and then seeing three of the same suit appear on the flop, and then on having the phenomenon recur in short order. Anywhere, that's where a big chunk of the stack went.
Win stats: HUSNGs, 5-euro buy-in: 15/30; total at this level: 57/98. Server time: 2016-01-21: 03:48.
I should have stopped.
When I have a good moment, I will give full stack and win-rate details. I am still ahead, but not by much, on the 5-euro HUSNGs.
I should preface the rest of this post by explaining that, as far as I can work out, I am something like two-and-a-half to three times as old as the average PS member. That means the burdens of 'real life' - family troubles, work, household management - can sometimes weigh very heavily. The average PS member seems to be in college, university, or in the immediate post-higher-education stage in life. At those stages, your schedule and your spirit are largely uncluttered.
A few days ago, I seemed to smash into a wall and the results plummeted. Looking back, I had become very angry and frustrated over life events completely unconnected with the tables. I brought those negative emotions to the tables, and they poisoned my judgment. That works two ways. First, you make stupid decisions. Second, you lose awareness that you are making stupid decisions, so you carry on playing instead of shutting down.
I finally caught up with myself and made the decision to take a break until I can get centred once again. I have been messing around with freeroll MTTS, just to take the pressure off, and to stay in touch with the cards.
Fried, totally fried.
I haven't blogged for a while. I have been putting in what, for me, is serious volume in the 5-euro HUSNGs on I-poker, and the experience has left my brains too fried to do the stats or to articulate with clarity the things I have seen, and the lessons I have drawn from them. One of the points contributing to the pressure is that, by definition, you are involved in every single hand. Another is that experiences like what follows are 'meant to be normal', and for me they still aren't.
The small blind open-raises. I re-raise, for I have a good hand. The SB 4-bets all-in and I call. He has AQo, I have KK. As soon as the J and 10 appeared on the flop, I knew what would happen. Yes, a K appeared on the river. Three kings for me. A straight for him. It's not the BB that sickens. It's the foreknowledge.
Stack: $436.57
I have been continuing to play the 5-euro HUSNGs on I-poker, plus I accidentally registered for a few 10-euro games. Oops. I have put in a lot of volume, so that I have achieved platinum status on the Netbet VIP system, the benefit of which seems pretty questionable. There have been numerous sharp fluctuations in the stack, for no overall clear reason - save the following point. I can't cope with the bad beats, and I haven't trained myself to just stop and take a break when one of these happens. I think also that we come to a stage when volume becomes the clear enemy of quality, so that playing less becomes a sensible way of growing the stack.
I swear this really happened:
I was in the BB, with aces. It was the start of a game: 1500 chips each; blinds 10/20. The SB opens at 150 - yes, a 7.5BB openraise. I reraise to 450; the SB shoves. I call. He turns over Q6o. Two more sixes and another Q came on the flop.
That one fried my brains for days afterwards and poisoned my mindset over probably several dozen more games.
On a happier note, and with an eye to the 'goals' section of a PS blogging comp I have gone in for, I have won the first game in the final of the area championship of my beloved 'other game', which is MUCH NICER THAN POKER. I only have to draw the second game to take the title.
Looking forward to March, I have picked up a good few tournament tokens due to the insane volume I have been putting in, and hope to start converting them to real cash.
Yoo-hoo, my public, I am back.
I jacked in poker from frustration and from an overdose of 'real life', except for a short losing episode a few months back. I restarted playing the micro-HUSNGs on I-poker, just to get used to the software and displays, and moved back up to the 5-euro regular speed competitions. The stack has crept forward to about $476. The I-poker software is still crap, even after the improvements, and the scene seems to be as before, albeit with reduced player benefits. I suppose I shouldn't complain, as I never deposited a penny of my own cash to get to this stage.
Familiar elements:
66 is an abnormally strong hand on I-poker: it either holds up to the river on its own, or one, and sometimes, two more sixes will join the original sixes, for the sake of good fellowship.
AA is still an abnormally weak hand. You are dealt it for the exclusive purpose of having some muthajumpah re-raise you A-I preflop with OFFSUIT rags and crush you with random agglomerations of two-pairs and trips.
I-poker goes through runs of repeatedly dealing you the same offsuit rags. The 'dish of the day' last night was 85o.
The cards, the cards, they mock me so baaad.
Targets: I once had a stack of about $512. If I don't decide to jack it all in again, I should try for $550 and move to the 10-euro games.
I am currently with Netbet. If anyone out there thinks there is better value playing reg-speed HUSNGs on another I-poker site, or in moving off the plantation entirely, I will listen to suggestions.
Update - just lost about 5 in a row, stack down to about $450-odd, after every last inconceivable thing happened in every game.
You sound a little fed-up with poker in general and with ipoker in particular. I have to say I feel the same way about ipoker whose player traffic has nose dived presumably due to the high rake, and messed up MTT offering. Like you, I have never deposited there and have built up some working capital.
Do you have ambitions of making poker a viable career option in the future? If not, just treat poker purely as a hobby, and forget about the bad beats and variance. There's no point making yourself unhappy if you don't plan to make poker a career. But I suspect, like me, you are a perfectionist, and it is not the money per se, but the winning that you enjoy.
If you played cash games I would recommend the MPN network due to their low rake. They also have HU SNGs but I have no idea how popular they are but it seems the jackpot Fish Party SNGs have taken a lot of players away from them.
Back and in need of advice!
I have returned to poker, on an i-poker site no longer affiliated to PS. Ran my stack from $250+ USD all the way up to $113. ♦ . By that point, I started remembering some of the turbo HUSNG skills that I had forgotten. The stack is now $130, so I am not a total dick. Where's the money? What PS-affiliate site is it recommended I play on? What games are good for returners?
Originally posted by Glopslart
Back and in need of advice!I have returned to poker, on an i-poker site no longer affiliated to PS. Ran my stack from $250+ USD all the way up to $113. ♦ . By that point, I started remembering some of the turbo HUSNG skills that I had forgotten. The stack is now $130, so I am not a total dick. Where's the money? What PS-affiliate site is it recommended I play on? What games are good for returners?
Hi Glopslart,
If I was going to sign up to a new room, I would sign up to GGPoker.
Unfortunately, I can't since I was signed up there before they were affiliated w/ PokerStrategy.com
They have loads of activity -- currently they are reporting 143K players online -- more than double PokerStars
Sadly, though, they don't have PLO8, draw games or stud games.
They do though, have their version of zoom, and they have their own version spin&go tournaments.
They have no sit-and-go tournaments at all, but they do have very frequent MTTs
Of the list of rooms available to me on the poker rooms page I also like 888 and play there frequently.
Because they have so many non-flop games I like PokerStars above all.
Cheers,
VS
Originally posted by Glopslart
Back and in need of advice!I have returned to poker, on an i-poker site no longer affiliated to PS. Ran my stack from $250+ USD all the way up to $113. ♦ . By that point, I started remembering some of the turbo HUSNG skills that I had forgotten. The stack is now $130, so I am not a total dick. Where's the money? What PS-affiliate site is it recommended I play on? What games are good for returners?
As you asked about Pokerstrategy affiliated sites only, and knowing what games you like, I would suggest Pokerstars. They have HU four player tournaments, played in two rounds. The rake of 6.66% for the turbo games is effectively halved (3.33%) when compared to normal HU games. The variance may increase a little due to having to win both rounds but your ROI will improve significantly due to the effective rake. The games start at $1.50 and fill-up quickly during peak hours. Off peak they take about10/15 mins to fill. The Spin and Go games have impacted on the SNG games somewhat.
Party also have turbo HU sngs and charge 6% rake for $1 games. 5% rake for $2. 4% for $5, with 25% rakeback if you rake $25 in a week.
