[Closed] Low roller's diary

Plodding along, plodding along. BR now still slightly below 200, and that's including my first-ever SNG win! Yesterday after a not-so-good Cash session, I played one $3 NL SNG and managed to win it. Tight in the beginning, and all-out in the end. When it came to HU I was chip leader, and it was a Turbo SNG so the blinds were huge, so it was push-or-fold. He folded a lot, so I pushed like 80% of my hands preflop. He didn't push pre-flop at all, but completed his SBs, so half the hands I didn't push I got to see the flop for free.
Still, I find going all-in exhilirating!

I'm posting my hands at the Dutch forum now, but will be keeping this diary here for a while.

Hi Classical!

Well done! Maybe you should switch to SNGs?

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

Not much time to play. Had a few =sessions and one nice +session (40BB in 200 hands, but not that well played turned out afterwards). BR now at 216. Yesterday I have been playing with the new ICM-trainer. Really interesting! It connects well with the chapter about "push-or-fold HU" in Mathematics of Poker.
In P/F HU you can push *way* more hands than you'd think, but you can call your opponent's push with fewer hands than you'd think. This is of great practical value for the later stages of an SNG.
I will continue playing FL, but also SNGs a bit more frequently.

The Dutch forum is picking up some speed, it's a nice place to be.

i don't think there is ever a need for a purely p/f HU strategy unless stacks: blinds gets to <8BB.

Simple reason is on the button/SB if you raise small or complete, you have position and can easily outplay the opponent post-flop. Ofc if opponent is not going to ever let you complete, you can do push/fold, but I find lots of opponents will check their BB to you.

A bit more time to play lately, BR at 244, so I'm crawling out of the hole
Lucky session today giving some suck-outs in large pots. And I played a 3$ SNG that turned out to be FL! Only found out when it had already started. And I won it!
I do enjoy the SNGs, but I'm waiting for the new SNG content on this site to (finally!) arrive, before I will play more than the occasional one. Because too many times I just don't know what I'm doing.

2chenny: I agree with you, but at a speed or turbo SNG you get in that phase rather quickly.

ahh OK. that's fair enough then...

i'm still very happy about my play during a ~25 minute heads up showdown against another player at a 10+1 doublestack tournament. sure, he got lucky once or twice but i'm very happy about my play during there! :P.

pretty decent player i was against, when he suspected i was doing too many steals in position, he'd check/raise me... eventually i'd make some check/raises of my own as well as re-re-steals... i suspect a lot of the time we both had air

Hi classical,

Good to hear your BR is going up again and that you have some luck yourself this time ♦

Good luck!

I was able to play a lot of hands today. Didn't play that well, but hit the flop more often than usual and took some money off some *very* loose players. BR now at 263, slowly edging towards the 300 again...

Two nice hands:

0,25/0,50 Fixed-Limit Hold'em (8 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: Texas Grabem 1.9 by www.pokerstrategy.com.

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with K♥, K♠
UTG+2 raises, MP1 folds, MP2 calls, Hero 3-bets, 2 folds, SB calls, BB folds, UTG+2 caps, MP2 calls, Hero calls, SB calls.

Flop: (17,00 SB) 8♣, 4♣, T♠ (4 players)
SB checks, UTG+2 bets, MP2 calls, Hero raises, SB calls, UTG+2 calls, MP2 calls.

Turn: (12,50 BB) 2♥ (4 players)
SB checks, UTG+2 checks, MP2 checks, Hero bets, SB folds, UTG+2 raises, MP2 calls, Hero 3-bets, UTG+2 calls, MP2 calls.

River: (21,50 BB) 9♠ (3 players)
UTG+2 checks, MP2 checks, Hero bets, UTG+2 calls, MP2 calls.

Final Pot: 24,50 BB

Results follow (highlight to see):
MP2 shows [ Th, Ac ] a pair of Tens
UTG+2 shows [ Jc, Js ] a pair of Jacks
Hero shows [ Kh, Ks ] a pair of Kings
Hero wins $11.65 USD with a pair of Kings.

Turn looks overplayed, but given villains' recent behavior, I thought it well likely that they were going to pay me off with lower pairs.

And then this:

0,25/0,50 Fixed-Limit Hold'em (8 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: Texas Grabem 1.9 by www.pokerstrategy.com.

Preflop: Hero is UTG+2 with J♠, T♠
Hero calls, 5 folds, SB calls, BB checks.

Flop: (3,00 SB) A♣, 7♠, 9♠ (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets, SB calls, BB calls.

Turn: (3,00 BB) J♦ (3 players)
SB bets, BB calls, Hero calls.

River: (6,00 BB) 8♠ (3 players)
SB bets, BB folds, Hero raises, SB calls.

Final Pot: 10,00 BB

Results follow (highlight to see):
SB shows [ Jh, Jc ] three of a kind, Jacks
Hero shows [ Js, Ts ] a straight flush, Jack high
Hero wins $4.75 USD with a straight flush, Jack high.

preflop call from Early is questionable, but I just felt like it

Upswingggg! 40BB+ in a 200 hand session. BR now at 280, only 40 BB to go. I'm not going to take any shots at jackpot tables or whatever until I genuinely passed $300, but then I'm going to stay on 0,50/1,00 unless I drop below $150 (God forbid, but it could happen as I went >150BB down on this limit only a few weeks ago).

Again I didn't play that well. Checked a flop because I overlooked I had trips , and once flopped a straight as BB in a 4-way pot, but couldn't remember who was the pre-flop raiser, so I didn't whether to donk or to c/r... :rolleyes: But fortunately lots of luck to compensate for this!

Dutch forum has a FL hand judge now. Really nice, good discussions there too.

Hi Classical!

Congratulations to your upswinggggg! Go go go for the 300! ♦

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

Come on Classical, almost ready to move up again!
Very nice and good to see you can post some hands in the dutch forum as well now = more opinions = more discussion = becoming a better player

Good luck

Yes!! BR at $301! Tomorrow I'll start playing 0,50/1,00.

Some *very* loose tables this evening. But the loosest of them all only cost me money. One guy there was practically giving his money away. He had to rebuy every 8 hands or so. I get AK, hit the A on the flop, raise a donker, and the guy goes berserk. There was a straight possible but given his behavior in the previous hands I judged it +EV to go for value, so I raised his raise on the turn, and donked the river as well, where against unkown I'd gone for call-down at some point. Sure enough he had the straight...

But on other tables there were some crazy things going on as well. Many many multiway pots, so you only have to hit once or twice to end up in the plus again.

Very different from this morning, when the tables were tight, but where I won a large number of small pots by keeping up the pressure (and some luck as well).
I'm finally starting to deploy b/f on the river in certain situations (thanks to FL coach Makomar), but sofar noone has raised it yet! many folds though, and I'm sure there were some better hands that folded. So it's definitely been +EV sofar.

Anyway, I've achieved my goal of getting to 0,50/1,00 before the year's end, but I had to overcome a 170BB down in the process. I guess that sort of thing will happen again, and worse ones too. Let's hope this will have added to my tilt resistance.

My original goal at this stage was to get to 0,50/1,00 SH in another 8 Months. That means getting to $500 on 0,50/1,00 or 200BB...
Because I just experienced an upswing I'm more optimistic than that atm, but let's stick to this goal for now. That means: playing SH before the summer holiday. I'm posting hands and discussing others' hands at the Dutch forum quite lot these days, so that helps as well. See you all around.

Hi Classical,

Nice to hear you're ready to move up and that the coachings have helped you improving your game (that's what they're meant for after all ♦). Keep going and I'm sure you will reach the next level as well.

Good luck

More upswing in my first 0,50/1,00 session. I played on the only four FR tables available (two normal, two jackpot), and went up 48BB in 220 hands! Largest single-session gain sofar, both in BB and in $. Three more of these sessions and I'm playing SH!

Just kidding of course, I'm not expecting this to be structural
I won't have much time to play the coming days anyway, but will go over today's hands. I may have overplayed some big hands, but because of luck - or very loose villains - gotten away with it. Will review and post.

Hi Classical!

Nice to hear that. I hope that your upswing continues. But prepare yourself for the downswing: It will come sooner or later.

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

BR now hovering around 350.

I had the funniest coincidence yesterday. On one table I get AA against a guy's KK. Board is all low cards and I win a big pot. Three hands later on the very same table: I get KK against his AA! Board all low again, but he times out, and I only lose a small pot. Lucky me.

Then ten minutes later on another table we split a pot with both 76s in the hole and two sixes on the board...

What I've seen sofar on this limit is not much skill difference compared to 0,25/0,50. But my sample size is yet very small. A few times I noticed people limping big pocket pairs preflop, and also limp-raises, more than on the previous limit, but again, not statistically significant yet.

There are many more SH tables than FR, so I'm looking forward to getting to 500! Will take some time, no hurries.

Don't you think that 350$ is not enought to play NL100? Your BR allow you to loose only 3 buy'ins, but shoud as many as 20!

He's a FL player...

lol, indeed I am. Played some NL SNGs, but 99% is cash-game FL, and I'm strctly sticking to the PS BRM. But thanks for the concern

Yesterday on one table with a very loose player from Australia. When I joined the table he had $50, some 20 minutes later he was over $100... (that's 50BB+)
Meanwhile I was dutifully folding my rags, had entered two large multiway pots, both of which I lost to the Australian, and was a bit over $10 down.

Now I know, nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary, but I noticed the thought coming up in my head: Jeez, why is this guy taking all my money, I want to get it back, surely he's bluffing now, he can't have a hand *again*!?

Fortunately I was able to resist these thoughts, and continue with more or less my normal play. But here's the amusing part: another player on the table had seen quite a few nice made hands busted by the Australian, and commented on that in the chat, and I added something like "you've passed $100 now, nice going". Australian answers: I'm getting my ass handed to me on a platter tonight. We go "huh !!??". Turns out he's $150 down combined on all his tables, and had rebought for $200 already... so very loose play with no matching postflop skills is still -EV, just not at that particular table that evening!

Apart from my goal of playing SH in the summer (need a BR of $500 for that), I have a new short-term goal: make Gold status over the next 4 weeks. This limit gives thrice the number of strategy points, so if I play a bit above my average volume for 4 weeks, it should be doable. I'm looking forward to reading the Gold articles on FL. There's 19 of them, and I've heard there are some good ones among them