Ah, I see.
Well I started keeping Excell stats from the beginning and then I had Elephant and lost my DB and then got HEM and so on...so I just figured it was more stable to maintain the Excell in the background.
But recording every session is like -EV.
Its really frustrated how much hate there is in these 2 lines.Variance is a bitch and we all know it . You start playing good , u start winning then variance comes u have big looses and u re start doubting your skills . I think thats the circle of a normal sng player . All you have to do is to be patient not to loose confidence for yourself play more and improve as much as u can. We all have been there and we will be there again and again so the only thing we can do is to help each other when someone has difficult times .
When u feel u need someone to talk u know where to find me .
sick run bad tim. take comfort in the fact that your EV trend is nice and steady and where it should be for your limit. if you can ride through the waves you can come out with a nice profit , im sure of it.
i would be much more worried if the lines were opposite 
Swear session - awesome! ♦
Speaking of swearing...another graph for you. I'm pretty proud of this one. I have now opened up a rather impressive $1400 negative gap between my EV ROI and my real ROI. (In case anyone was wondering, now wouldn't be a good time to assert that the Red line and EV ROI in SnGs is meaningless. It happens to be the only thing between me and the noose I've erected next to the monitor.)
Shitty computer that crashes on me all the time making it even worse... Investment need in:
1. new desk with room for me to move my legs so I don't get DVT after 1 set;
2. new computer with more than 448mb of RAM (steam powered would be more efficient)
3. second monitor to enable twice as many suckouts/hour
4. Sng Wizz (no point getting it at the moment since one more program on the pc will cause it to explode instantly into flames.)
Funds for investment? Please refer to green line in above graph.
If there's one thing to be stoked about it's that my EV ROI has momentarily pipped the 5% mark. Which means that, If I weren't the unlukiest sombitch alive, (just joking - I know it's just chance) I would be making over a $1.80/tourney. With rakeback added and assuming 8 tourneys/hour that would be pretty close to $20/hour which would be quite nice if any of the said $ actually decided to wander into my account...
Laters.
p.s. Thanks Lennonac for your patience this am - sorry about the frequent crashings. At least they only cost me EV and not you as well...(Or rather, I did cost you EV but that was because you listened to me and shipped those Kings).
Today and yesterday have been somewhat better, I'm pleased to report. Managed 11BI+ over this period and brought the overall EV chasm down to only -$600, which, though not great, is something I can live with for now.
Fortunately there are enough fish at this limit to make money from...eventually... ♠_confused:
"Yadda yadda yadda...Green line this, red line that...yadda yadda...EV RoI...Real RoI...yadda yadda yadda..."
If you're thinking that every time you click this blog I'm going on about the green line and the red line, then well, you'd be right.
But there is a reason for that. You see, I've been waiting for them to meet up. Waiting for months, in fact.
All of November and half of December I was getting lucky; the second half of December and all of January, I was getting unlucky. And actually, what I really wanted was to just get 'non-lucky'. Just to run somewhere near where I should be for my given ablilty. FAT chance.
Well, just to prove that, eventually, you get what you deserve, I present a graph of 1,731 tounrnaments for your delight. At the end of that, my red and green lines are within $3.24 of each other. But the really great news is that this $3.24 of EV difference is in my favour. That's right, folks: the green line is above the red and that means...I'm...running...HOT ♦
*Tim64 thinks of ways to spend his undeserved $3.24* 
In other news, this shunts my BR over $3000 at long last. A new chrome and glass desk is on order. A new Dell desktop is on order. And £50 birthday money from mamma (god, I'm so old) will be spent on SNG Wizard as soon as the new kit arrives.
GRAPH
haha tim you luck box 
that run from game 1600 looks pretty sick!
whats your EV ROI now over the sample?
ps. put graphs in BIs pls. much more relevant
and HAPPY BIRTHDAY! ♠_cool:
hmmm - all very well concentrating on the run from 1600 onwards... What about the run down after 1500? 
ROI over entire sample 4.4%; 3.4% over the $33s (EV only)
$ graph shows $ per tourney, which I finds somewhat helpful...
Thanks!
A Year in Poker
I played my first hand of online real money poker 1 year ago yesterday. I don't know what I expected from the game (no more than I knew what to expect from Chess when I began, in my late teens, to get obsessed by that game too).
I'm pretty sure I thought it would be little more than a hobby; another way of wasting time in an effort to put off the much more difficult - much more taxing - exercise of writing my novel. Jon Vorhaus, author of Killer Poker Online - Crushing the Internet Game, came up with a beautifully succinct phrase which, had I listened to it, would have kept me out of all this madness. It's this: "procrastinate later". Procrastinate later. Get it?
If I had procrastinated later, I would have finished my book earlier. I would not have Googled 'free poker'. I would not have started messing around on The Free Poker Room. I would not have felt the need to improve my ability in a silly fledgling hobby and would not have subsequently Googled 'poker strategy'. I would not have signed up to this site. Would not have frowned my way through that blessed quiz. Would not have anxiously scanned and emailed my I.D. (expecting - in all honesty - to discover my bank account emptied by a scam company known as Pokerstrategy.com). Would not have downloaded PartyPoker (again worrying that the software would infect my PC with countless viruses). Would not have deposited $25 of last year's birthday money. Would not have received that all important $50 'Free Money'. (And really, isn't it that exact phrase that's got all of us into such a state in the first place - the possibility of free money. Or, as Vorhaus, puts it: the possibility of "sucking money from the internet"?). And I would not have wagered $2 of that $50 - buying in, as I had been instructed by the tutorials, with a short stack - and playing that first, life changing hand of real-money online poker.
But I was never one for procrastinating later. Procrastinating, if it's to be done at all, needs to be done now. Otherwise it doesn't work. Doesn't get you off the hook from doing the thing you were meant to be doing in the first place.
So, here I am. Blogging (with all my usual self-indulgent wordiness) about the last year in poker; the first year in poker. Without further reflection, then, here it is:
February
NL10 SSS on Party Poker
Trying to play enough hands to clear the bonuses so that the free money would be my free money. 4 weeks in, the $50 had become $130, and things were looking good.
March
$3 SnGs on Party Poker
Having cleared the $50 and additional $100 starting bonus, I made only a modest gains in this second month, rising to $160, and began to sense what a long road this would be. I had stopped playing SSS due to the slow progress and switched to SnGs. But after an initial upswing things flatlined there, too.
April
NL25 SSS on Full Tilt
After a late rally on Party I had built a roll of nearly $200 and it was time to switch sites for a first deposit bonus. I started on NL25 and, with luck on my side, was soon at $300 and ready for NL50. Or so I thought.
May
NL50 and NL100 SSS on Full Tilt
I hit my first real poker upswing during the first week of this month. After moving quickly up to NL50 with minimal experience I hit $500 and didn't slow down. At NL100, I allowed variance and the bonus-clearing to lift me from $500 to $850 and then back down to $350 in the space of a week. I remember, distinctly, feeling invincible for a two or three day period within that week. It seemed as though I only had to turn on the PC and play for an hour and I'd be $100 better off. I already had thoughts of going pro. I had no idea that this was just dumb luck… Once my luck had turned and the first deposit bonus was cleared, I moved back to Party for some crummy buy-a-bonus or other, even though I preferred the set-up and traffic at FT. Ahhh, those early bonus-whoring days…
June
NL50 SSS at Titan
After an up and down time at Party where it seemed I couldn't get ahead and stay ahead – the bonuses I was clearing just seeming to keep me afloat – I eventually got $475 together and moved it to Titan for their maximum $600 first deposit bonus.
June, July & August
NL50-NL100 SSS at Titan
I lump these 3 months together as I basically spent them mindlessly grinding between NL50 and NL100. Moving up one week and down the next. I won't ever know how much of my losses were because I ran horribly and how much of it was just that I played exploitable 'abc' poker against thinking regs and lucky fish, but basically I used up all my $600 bonus in just staying in the game and only the prospect of an $800 instant buy-a-bonus for 80k Titan points stopped me from just giving up entirely. It was a thoroughly depressing time. I was so far from the 2BB/100 winrate I had been told I could expect that I basically gave up on the idea of making a living playing poker.
September
Back at Full Tilt
I was pretty happy to take Titan's bonus and then wave them goodbye, showing them two specific fingers on my way out. Every so often a weird Trans-Atlantic voice would call me up and try to seduce me back. No fear. Having returned to Full Tilt, I was at last enjoying poker again and, with my $800 roll, finally making some money too.
October
SH and SnGs at Full Tilt
After a good start on SH NL10-25, I decided to concentrate on SnGs. By the end of the month I'd nearly doubled my BR and was once again allowing 'poker dreams' to infiltrate to steady mindset I'd created.
November
NL25 SH and Turbo SnGs $11-$22
November was one crazy month. With the birth of our daughter came bad luck at the SH tables and some of my gains disappeared (I'm currently a scary 400$ below EV (16BI) at NL25). But by the end of the month some kind of normality had returned and the SnGs pushed me positive with the BR finally hitting the magical $2k.
December
Turbo SnGs $22-$33
December started well and by 10.12.09 I had got 75BI for the $33+3s. The move up coincided with a sharp downturn in my luck and, having run way above par, I was now running way below. My BR fell as low as $1800 – from a high point of over $3k – and things seemed suddenly much less like fun and more like hard work. Unlike the bad old days, however, I was able to keep more or less on an even keel with the help of HEM which told me I was playing well but just getting the worst of it.
January
$33 Turbo SnGs
This month has seen more of the same, with constant swings seeing daily BR changes of $300-400 become a regular thing. But somehow I seem to take it more in my stride than the $50-100 swings I encountered at Titan. I like to think this is the beginning of an attitude that could be described as 'professional'. When the suckouts were coming thick and fast, I even tried a helpful thought experiment: when an opponent sucked out on me, cracking my AA with 87o, I congratulated them. "NH," I would say to the screen. And when I got lucky, I would apologise: "Sorry about that – lucky suckout." Somehow it helped to remove the negative feelings of anger towards my opponents and keep me focused on just playing the best I could. You could try it too – if you find yourself tilting.
Summary
This round up might have been more even more introspective had the bad run continued. Literally one week ago my BR was down at $2300 ($400 less than at the second week of November, a month and a half earlier). But things finally picked up in the last few days of this month and a huge heater has seen all the lost EV $ recovered, and then some.
Below is my BR graph on Excell for the last 52 weeks. I'm not quite sure where I go from here. I want to make it to the $60 Turbo SnGs on FT and see what kind of hourly rate I can achieve. If it's enough, I may seriously consider going pro – whatever that means. But one thing is certain: while poker may have started 2009 as a just a dream-fuelled hobby for me (a way of procrastinating now), it's begun 2010 as something much more. It's hard to imagine my life without poker. In a way, that's a scary thought. But right now, it just makes me smile.
Well, I'm not too surprised I had no responses to my last post. I expect a few of you were thinking, after the first page or two, of letting me know that I should maybe get over myself. But then you died of old age before you reached the end of the post...
Anyway, I just wanted to record the fact that I've reached 100 BI for my chosen limit and that means I'm also over half way to the 'magic' $6K BR that I have decided is sufficient for me to take a pop at the $55+5 Turbos tournaments.
It's much easier to play well when luck is going with you of course, but I do feel that I'm a better player than when the downswing started a month and a half ago. I've played around with SNGEGT a bit (in advance of getting Wizz) and am abusing the bubble more ruthlessly than before.
This is a key point, in fact: when you push a few marginal hands in the late stages and run into monsters, you find yourself tightening up involuntarily. Next time, you might give that all important push a miss because you've convinced yourself that someone with a better hand is bound to call you. And becuase none of your good hands are holding up either (in a full-on downswing) you forget that you can suckout too.
TTFN
Tim64
grats on building your way back up in the 36s Tim. hope you run decent this month.
it was interesting reading your progression post. definitely come a long way in a year.
Originally posted by Tim64
This is a key point, in fact: when you push a few marginal hands in the late stages and run into monsters, you find yourself tightening up involuntarily. Next time, you might give that all important push a miss because you've convinced yourself that someone with a better hand is bound to call you. And becuase none of your good hands are holding up either (in a full-on downswing) you forget that you can suckout too.TTFN
Tim64
I just saw this in a video on STOX, I have been getting as many as I can since it gave me my week or 2,
Anyhow, on the contrary to tightening up when we see monsters,
according to this video we should be pushing even more.....
If you feel like you are only seeing monsters calling you, that is a good thing because your
opponents are calling too tight which means they are making mistakes by folding the weaker
hands you are not seeing.
I just thought that was a very interesting tidbit of info.
And as per suckouts, according to Moshman even when you are the one getting it in behind,
your only often no worse than a 2 to 1 dog.
So every 3rd time on average you suck out or get sucked out on.
Food for thought when we are grinding piles of games a day.
Easy to say though, not so easy to stop yourself from grumbling after the millionth loss in a row.
while poker may have started 2009 as a just a dream-fuelled hobby for me (a way of procrastinating now), it's begun 2010 as something much more. It's hard to imagine my life without poker. In a way, that's a scary thought. But right now, it just makes me smile..
I have the same trip man:D
I will read and wish GL ofk ♠_thumbsup:
Thanks for the good wishes, guys! Enjoying a purple patch right now and enjoying the poker, too.
Interesting thoughts about loosening up if you're only running into monsters.
T64
First to look at the goals I set myself for Jan and see how I did:
Some goals for this month:
1. Play at least 500 $33+3 Turbo SnGs;
2. Maintain or do better than 6% ROI over this limit;
3. Watch the remaining 8 $33 SnG videos available for my rank and below (i.e. 2 per week) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]complete;
4. Post at least 5 hands per week with post flop play. While I'm reasonably happy with my push/fold game (or at least I think I have the tools to improve that element), I think I'm often too passive and cautious post flop, particularly in HU freeplays, and need to see what additional plays are available; and
5. Improve my steal range and postflop play in steal situations.
Well, I played 425 games so (1) is strictly a fail. However, as the last three or four days of this month have been spent dismantling the old pc and waiting for the new desk and pc, I think it's a close fail. (2) is also a fail. I'm running at 4.4% (EV RoI) after 748gms. I think 6% is actually too optimistic and I'm in fact pretty happy with how things are going, but it's good to have something to aim at. (3) is a pass. (4) is a fail, but I have posted a few hands each week so I'm not too unhappy. I need to schedule a specific part of each day/week for posting to get this consistent. (5) is difficult to measure but I'll give a pass. I'm being a little less nitty on the button and have watched a few NL HE videos from Stox on the subject so things are looking promising.
On to the practical matters of finances, and I'm pleased to say that - after a breakeven December - January has been pretty decent. I've made over $1,000 this month, for the first time ever. In fact, my poker earnings for this month narrowly exceeded those from my part time day job. This, I think, is real ammunition to use in persuading the wife and bemused (and ever-so-slightly-disapproving) family members that poker is not just a fantasy...
But the most promising thing is my attitude. Today is a case in point. 21 SnGs and instead of being a few $ up for b/e roi of 0.8%, I'm $200 down. I was aware, while playing, that I was losing many flips and generally getting unlucky, but it really didn't seem to phase me. I just went to the lobby and opened another table. I begin to see that looking at results of a session in terms of $ won or $ lost is virtually pointless and basically harmful. Of the 748gms at $33+3 I've played, the first 625 games were played at b/e. The last 125 games on the other hand have netted $800 (over $6/gm). And all this shows is that variance is so massive at these games, that, if you're not willing to commit to the long term or can't find a way to be careless when you have a bad run, you may as well stay home.
BR $3974.13
