Poker is a swingy game!

Yesterday I did a monster session and at first I was losing a bunch but then in the end of a 6h session I ended up with a nice win! (click on the image for a zoom)




There was a semi-high fixed limit table going that was just TOO fishy and I reminded myself just to not be a showdownmonkey like before and played just that one table. I was down €300 on that table just pounding and pounding on a guy that binked a lot, we got 8 bets in on the flop K65 with him having 74o and me having Kx something. I kinda slowed down during the hand after that flop but it was standard for him doing that. Good thing I turned it around and went +353€ on that table.

The day before was pretty damn terrible with running insanely bad on 8game mix, a bit unnecessary for me. I find it fun to play so I wouldn't mind sticking to almost nano-stakes but instead I decided to go 4/8$ and I got massacred. Ohh right, I already posted that video.

So I lost big, then won big yesterday and today I just got massacred again today running just insanely bad. There is this tight reg that got it in very very bad vs me in 3 huge pots with less than 30% on the flop and sucked out every time so that was like 300€ right there. Then it just continued and continued so today I played 892 hands and lost 938$ and -163 BB/100 which is always fun....

Anyways, most of that cash I dont mind the play really. I thought Id check on the stats for PLO again. So im playing on several sites, two which does not support all in EV so im gonna do 2 graphs.

I think I have ran pretty terrible at the swedish svenska spel losing 7,6 BB/100 and losing so many flips (it doesnt support all in EV) so overall im tempted continuing the grind but tonight and perhaps tomorrow I will take a poker break.

Downdipping + a mixed games video!!!

Hi!
Good news first; I made a 8game mix + triple draw video. Basically in this video I get in a lot of bad spots and lose a bunch but I still wasnt sure what to do in the spots so I thought it would be educational. Not sure if it is true but I believe people are posting videos where they play good to maintain a sort of pride or whatever. I have no pride and prefer to do the opposite as in my player tendency as a fixed limit player I believe my biggest overall leaks tend to border on the paying off too much in different spots. Im also started another video in PLO where I started with hands, big hands that I lost a lot in that I will probably finish soon too, kinda with the same logic. Obviously there are more to ones game than that but I think its a big part of my "leakage".

So here is that one! Please post comments, I was playing really uncomfortably so I bet it doesnt look that good.




Anyways, so I guess I posted the bad news already. I kinda went from winning 2k€ in august to now today im down for the month. I do believe I have run pretty horribly at PLO on one site id play the most and yet im up 970$ on plo for the month with 350$ ev on top of that. I feel motivated to play PLO so I think I will do that exclusively starting now. I dont really mind at all playing 8game or fixed but dont think its good for me to "dillute" my play when 8game is so new for me and fixed doesnt feel too exciting. I ran sick the other day in PLO zoom btw and won a BUNCH but thats just not a profitable game given the rake and the tight nature of the tables. That was kinda just to kill some time.

Ill play only 2h tomorrow then continue with the full grind on sat + sun doing at least 6h per day. Might go to our summerhouse tomorrow which takes 1,5h, perfect time for some run it once-PLO-videos!!


PS: I am thankful for pokerstars for honoring a deal we had somewhat loosely regarding vip-levels that was given to me today. I still do feel that people play on pokerstars unwisely (people playing up to 1/2$ plo/NL) given the insane rake online poker players pay but at least pokerstars are honest and upfront about it and also is relieable. This is a huge contrast to Partypoker that should die in hell. Also some regards 888 but to a lesser extent.

Some stats for the month:
PLOhands with sites that support a correct all in BB/100= 3325 hands. Ev bb/100= 34,5, ev adjusted= +1214$
PLOhands total (mostly on a site that muck opponents cards)= 11524, net won= 970$, actual bb/100 = 5,18.

Obviously thats the stats that I choose to motivate myself that grinding is fun :).

FLSH is swiiiiiingy

Yoyo! Just finished a 2-3h session playing mostly mixed games and flsh and I lost shitloads in FLSH, like 800€ at 2/4€ and 3/6€ which is pretty sick but looking at my stats then I was a freaking showdown monkey and could probably have cut back on that loss. I was stupid enough to install a piece of software that was kinda fishy and a first warning light blinked in my head as it tried to install like 4 spyware shit and then when I tried to cancel it was already too late. I then thought I might do a system restore or something and when I did that it said that some vutek remote access + something else was installed and I thought Id just format the computer and reinstall all the shizzle. Thats what I did today!

I have some few things left to fix but 95% is done and I am to rethink how I should approach my play. So basically I have won like 600€ on flsh and plo separetly in a short time + a little in mixed games but im not sure what to play. The FLSH is not the most exciting thing for me and perhaps today was a testimen to me putting my energy on mixed games while fucking clicking buttons on FLSH and perhaps I dont have any edge when I am like that. Can I refocus or should I just do PLO and mixed for now? Perhaps! Or perhaps just limit the amount of tables I play and the hours.

I think I decided to NEVER do more than 4 tables and just accepted being somewhat board a bunch of the session and just get in like 5-6 hours per day. Because sessions like these make me want to play a lot less, so much money in so short time.

Anyways, im re-importing hhs into this newly formatted computer as we speak, hope it will cover 100% of the hands from before so the graph could be correct for the month.

So basically I am only up 500€ in august after 38h played so thats like 12€/h. Thats not too sexy but whatever, im totally fine with that. I always say I will post more hhs etc but lets see if that happens. Got some other deals now with RB so I hope I will continue winning but add 6-7 BB/100 extra in rakeback.

PS: It looks like it tracked the right hands so here is the graph for PLO in BBs and in euro

Here is FLSH

Started the real grind - Decent start!

Yo bloggeruuuu! Now im in pokergrind mode! As I played like 50k hands during the last 2 years, there is great uncertainty regarding my ability to win etc. I kinda assumed there would be some fixed limit games I could grind out with a bankroll boost meaning I could play perhaps up to 10/20$ which helps with table selection but na ah, games are pretty dead even if they sprout up here and there. I guess I could grind those and try improving my PLO during. Preferably I dont want to mix games too much but I guess I kinda have to.

Run it once = the nuts atm

I signed up for runitonce again, I am really happy with it so far, so many pros, a lot of videos. I have tried iveypoker which was pretty horrible, then cardrunners were good but this year has been so horrible, almost no PLO-videos in a year and no new mixed games. Wtf!?  Anyways, I try to watch a 1-3 videos a day as a sort of break and take notes. So far so good!

Running good! -Then dipping a little

August started really well with 5 winning days straight with pretty decent profit of 1600 at the peak, I was happy! I was winning in PLO, fixed and 8game. Then now today I just lost 700€ in 2h losing 41 bb/100 which sucked. Most was FLHE losing every hand (maybe too showdowny) but also like 200€ on PLO but I am very happy with that since I got it in very very good and kinda assumed I lost 500-600€. I then mustered up another 2h and reduced the loss to like 450€ which is pretty much what I won the day before. I am not counting earnings with any vip-bonuses since pokerstars vip system is basically shit but I guess I made like 100$ in cashback.

Anyways, its nice with a reality check and decide what the f to do. I have been playing on sites without rakeback which is kinda retarded but not sure if my old deals at other sites still apply. Played 11k hands and raked away 1002$, getting 500$ would have been a nice addition. So im fixing that this week. I have also been playing a bunch of different stakes etc and I should stick to one, its fun to go up when u are winning but then you remind yourself how much it hurts when you have a bad day.

All games in august..

Today when I am finishing this blogpost I lost further 400€ mostly at running insanely bad at FLSH even though I sense my rustyness. I am trying to decide on if I should permanently switch to HM1 instead of HM2 because the freaking hud is SO much smoother in HM1, I find the 1-2 sec extra loading time and flakyness frustrating but not sure if it motivates a change.

Anyways, I will take 1-2 days off now and start again on monday with some study of the game, I basicalyl just been playing. Even though there was a dip last 2 days im still kinda excited that I won 800€ in a week being so rusty. That hourly translates to about 25€/h without any rakeback (32,8h played) , not too impressive but ok for me atm. It was fun that all 3 gamestypes played (plo, flhe and mixed games) were winning ones even though its not a large samplesize. I guess the only question one should ask themselves is whether or not they play better than their opponents and I believe I do since I tend to play mostly in good games and avoid regs.

I have an excel where I try to write the amount of hours + daily results and doing that just now kinda reminds me on how little I want to play when I am losing and also how big the swings are so I just mentally decided to step down at even smaller stakes so I dont loose a mental negative threshold and just decided that I do not feel like playing anymore. Todays 400€ isnt much too much money but losing that in 90 min was enough to make me feel a little tired of poker and not wanting to grind 5h more for the day, which is not good!

One thing I recommend btw is having a piece of paper beside you with some mental notes. I added MAX STAKES for each game the other day, I might even revise that now.

Hope for online poker and moving again!

Okay so last time I talked about that I divided into some new games and the last 2 weeks I got in some hands and poker really became fun again with learning some new stuff from scratch. It also went well! I started out suffering a lot in triple draw though but now I did some reading and just by a couple of hours I feel I got some very good guidelines. It is very true that having a good basic understanding of general poker theory allows you to do well in all games, it is amazing to me that so many specialists make so many shitty plays in other games. I mean, when someone obviously just have high potential in stud8 and you show a low board with very likely highpotential as well such as like 3457.

I have also been playing in some specialist games and letting people play in their best game seems just to be a pretty bad idea right now. Like even if I have a huge winning sample at FLHE then the spots feels just extra marginal when you see someone draw 3+3+2 in tripledraw off the blinds..

Anyways with my FPPs i grinded up to a $215 ticket recently and placed pretty high in a mixed game tournament. It was a nice addition.



So now I moved back to Spain again and played some recently. Of course I get 439€ behind EV the first session in PLO on 10c25c while FLSH went ok. 439€, thats fucking insane, almost 20 buyins in one day? Lost 2 of 2 run it twice all ins with AA67ds vs another AAshit and a all in turn with 79% vs a flushdraw twice and some other freaking shit. Oh well, I should play even lower with these results really so if I play next I will go embarrassingly low 5c/10c.

I am kinda tempted playing some FLSH and perhaps even to try to get some action at any of the mixed games since I must be crushing any spaniard. The problem is obviously action but also the fact that a lot of the games change so much if you are shorthanded. FLHE, NLHE and PLO does too of course but its still the same game. Stud8 though changes just by insane measures. I guess my basic understanding of triple draw would also be kinda fucked up headsup but it might be fun to try it out. Razz and stud hi works fine.'

We will see, school starts soon and even though I intend to play some, its gonna be somewhat like last years o study with just 3-5k hands per month I think and the next few weeks are gonna be busy. I kinda want to go from "OK" to "Excellent" this year in Spanish and that means I really have to step it up. Parts of me are somewhat tempted to go to Casino Gran Madrid but naah, this year of just struggle kinda makes me pretty risk-shy.

Return to poker :D?

Tssup readers? This summer I have went through some ups and downs in poker in terms of psychology. I started out just loosing shitloads in PLO and was disgusted with the results of like -33 bb/100 for 20k hands even though I been on the upside of variance as early as this christmas with same stats but +30 bb/100. Decided that since I only can play 3ish months per year I need something more stable. I then switched back to FLSH which I have a proven trackrecord of 1m+ hands with profit. The doomswitch continued and I lost a large part of my remainding roll. I was fed up.

I mentally retired from poker, instead of these swings I would so much prefer to get a job, having people to talk to at work and learn something new and right now until I finish my current degree in 3 years, I dont mind getting 3-4k$/month (without any swings :D), thats enough for me. I started the withdrawalprocess and registered on a few sites/companies that lets you work 2weeks there, 2 weeks there for people generally without education. I do however have education but after reading ads etc and job descriptions I just felt a bit grim and unattractive. I sent out 3-4 online applications and its just been 2-3 days but I dunno, it kinda dawned upon me that the job world is a lot more difficult. So it made me rethink on poker again.

I left a small sum online and I switched to a new game and so far it has gone well! I am up 700$ atm after losing 400$ yesterday but I wasnt playing that great. I hope that will work well and poker is almost fun again, changing games is cool!

Mentally switch perspective from a job to a slightly profitable recreation.

But I move to Spain soon and what happens to poker then? This game is not played, I can only play NLHE, FLHE and PLO in Spain. I did some calculations and it is not realistic that I will sustain a decent hourly at any game without tapping into saving to refund the BR, and I think I am not prepared to do that. What I think I will do is that I will leave 500e online, play 5c/10c on a 50 buyin-br around 6h per week. If I loose that then its game over. That would prob give me an hourly of laaame 10$/h which is just terrible and like 8 out of the 9 years ive played I had the mindset that I wouldnt play a hand of poker if I didnt win anything from $100 down to $30 depending on my success level. I guess what changed my mind was the fact that I find it quite relaxing (and stressful at the same time!) firing up a few table. Also, if I just put the 6h/week at these low stakes the loosing days would not be mentally straining, I dont have to break the mental barrier of reaching into previous years winnings, poker wouldnt take over my life, I wouldnt have to take long breaks because loosing thousands of dollars set me in a bad mood= better more consistent volume but also it would mean that I can very realistically play 10c/25c within one year and then the hourly would be pretty good actually. So I think I am not quitting, at least not until I lose my 500. If I lose that then a break would probably be good, I really do think putting this much time into poker have deterred me from investing time and energy into other cool things and who knows, if I had this kind of shitty streak 2-3 years a bit back and more actively pursued other things, I could have made a lot more than I did these 2-3 years in poker. Okay, I am getting a bit longwinded. Ciao

PS: Btw, I would like to say that I truly believe I could sell some stocks, put a couple of thousand dollars into FLHE 2/4 to 5/10 and grind away for a pretty good hourly but after playing very little this year and having the first loosing year ever, I have become much much much more riskaverse. Another factor obviously is that I can only do that 3 months per year, if I was in Sweden or which ever country I could grind with good rakeback on, I might think differently.

Laaaast chance of hope!

As I was withdrawing all the cash, I started thinking about if there were not another type of poker I could focus on that would be profitable too but perhaps less swings and like, something new and exciting. I decided to check out some Cardrunners and just grind away with only 250$ with and if I lose it, then it is truly over. The good thing is that I have won 5 of 5 days so far, its up to 850$ Im gonna continue to take this slow, keeping in mind that if I bust poker is out and we will see, it is extremly possible I am just running good.

The reason I am not mentioning the game is that it has a small pool and I dont want to get any more grinders if it turns out I am crushing it early on. I bet there is a lot of goldmines out there that people are not aware of. I would imagine like headsup flhe sit and gos would be great since recreational players seems to like SNGs and they might mistakenly register for FLHE instead of NLHE or whatever. The problem with that one though is the time-consuming-part, I guess it has to be $100-sngs or something like that for it to be worth the time.

Also played some MTTs for my free tokens on different sites and yesterday I was doing well. Of 850 people I was 4th with 17 to go. Looked down at AA on the big blind, utg chipleader raised 3x and sb calls, I do like 15x and chippy ships it. It shows KK and obviously flop goes KQ2 and J on turn to give me a little hope but something raggy comes on river and I am out :(. If that is not a tell that the pokergods want me to quit then I dont know what is!