ROBUSTO

PT stats:
17864 hands
Won: $590.65
2.84 PTBB/100
33.35 hrs played
$17.71/hr

Rakeback: $346.85

Net won from Wingows Poker: $297

Total profit: $1234.50


Wow I'm totally thrilled by my play and progress. In the last 10k hands I've made about $1900 (from downswing to current profit level), which is $19/100 hands or ~9.5PTBB/100 at 100nl. Its a decent winrate, just a matter of playing well and running good, getting donks and regulars to pay me off due to my laggy image.

I've been playing a semi-lag image, 3betting whenever I feel someone is open raising light. Guess this frustrates alot of regulars as well as donks and often my top pair hands are good enough to play for stacks. Another improvement I've made is to play much more selectively aggresive, basing on reads. Definitely having an edge over regular players who do not adjust well. After a dismal start, things are really looking good. My 2 hours investment to clear a 1 year subscription to stoxpoker has really paid good dividends.

I'm hitting my goals for this month, 20000 hands and a close to 3 PTBB/100 winrate. This would have been much higher if I hadn't played so badly at the beginning of this month.

I'll be off to langkawi for a short holiday and won't be updating much in the next few weeks. So good luck and have fun at the tables!

Recovery from Downswing...Lessons

PT stats:
13441 hands
Won: -$268.30
0.95 PTBB/100 (+ve PTBB/100 won, most probably due to the lower stakes and headsup winrate boost)
25.67 hrs played
-$10.45/hr

Rakeback: $262.62

Net won from Wingows Poker: $297

Total profit: $291.32


Finally in the black after much grinding. It's a great result after a series of bad runs and bad play in the beginning of the month. Well after this downswing (which is my 2nd major one so far), there are a couple of takeaway lessons.

1) Take a complete break from poker when you are running really bad. 2-3 days minimum. Spend the time reviewing your play, watching instructional videos, re-energize your love for poker. Then start logging in hands once you feel the great itch and desire to play.

2) Poker is a long-term enterprise. You will win if you consistently sit with weaker players and stay away from tough regulars. Extreme table selection is key to winning in the long term. You should be happy about getting outdrawn from weaker players because they are the one supplying your major winrate when they play badly.

3) To win in the long-run, 90% of which requires you to play good solid poker. What is good solid poker? Its about the things you can control. Its about playing your cards, your position, taking the best/optimal line, drawing with good odds, betting to protect or for value and offer bad odds, minimal bluffing (yes you dont need to bluff much to win), planning for hands. The 10% is reserved for short-term luck as well as making plays aganist decent thinking players e.g. regulars.

4) Review past achievements to motivate you to start logging in hands. Logging in hands is extremely important because you can't win when you don't play.

5) Take a step down to lower limits and play solid ABC poker again. This is to build your confidence for your step back up. Besides, the lower limits have a bigger pool of weaker players, thus your true win-rate will converge faster (assuming you are a winning player in the first place) and this psychologically gives you an edge when you play back at your normal level.

6) Variance is a bitch, playing badly is even worst. Keep yourself honest as to why you have been losing and take responsibility for it. When you suffer a downswing, you can either 1) accord it entirely to variance and whine about it, 2)Analyse the truth into your downswing and take action against it. You will come out to be a better poker player in the latter choice.



Thats all folks...

Things are looking betta!

PT stats:
10936 hands
Won: -$596.90
-0.86 PTBB/100
21.18 hrs played
-$28.18/hr

Rakeback: $209.43

Net won from Wingows Poker: $297

Total profit: -$90.47


Things are looking up. After much review of stoxpoker videos, my style of play has somewhat changed to a semi-lag 25/22 style, depending on table dynamics and players. I feel I now have a greater edge over regular players at 100nl who do not adjust well to 3bets, PFR of 20+ etc.

For the past 300 hands of so, I've been playing heads-up 100nl with great table selection involved. I see a 20-50bb stack sitting, I'll assume they are weak players, sit in and play patiently till I stack them off. Good players do not sit in with short stacks, and rarely there are good shortstackers who make a decent profit. Most of the time the short-stackers prove me right. I guess I just found another avenue to boost my winrate.

This month ain't pretty

PT stats:
3468 hands
Won: -$964.50
-7.5 PTBB/100
5.95 hrs played
-$162.10/hr

Rakeback: $74.14

Net won from Wingows Poker: $297

Total profit: -$539.36


Well apparently its a horrid start to the new month. Dropped a near 8 full buyins at 100nl, couple of stacks due to coolers and bleeding alot of chips due to bad play in general. Lost 2 buyins at 200nl 4 tabling, getting some nasty beats. Near the end I decided to step back down to 50nl for a few thousand hands to play solid ABC poker again to get my frame of mind right.

Well a near 1k downswing due to coolers and the followup badplay/tilt is not new to me. Its hard to play good solid poker after stretches of nasty beats. I just watched a video posted on 2+2 and one thing the instructor said was to "really enjoy playing poker". I was not really enjoying it when I'm pounded left right center in everypot, big draws not hitting, villian rivering and etc. Guess variance is catching up from me after running so well in the last month.

Well one thing I can take solace from is that I always recover from such swings, and then play much better after that. A few k hands at 50nl should set things right. The last ~600 hands in the graph is at 50nl and it's pleasing to see the graph sloping up, despite playing at the same stats across 100nl. Well, I'm gonna grind my way back into the black because I know I can do it.

Another great thing is that I've completed a short PSO promotion at Wingows poker and earned myself a 1 full year of Stoxpoker membership. There are many great instructional videos in there and I'm gonna take some time to study them. Deposited $300 and made $297 in less than 500 hands (less than a day's play) mostly due to the soft competition.

Well thats it, till next week.

End of Aug Results

PT stats:
27740 hands
Won: $2870.40
5.29 PTBB/100
49.28 hrs played
$58.24/hr

Rakeback: $570.67

Total profit: $3441.07



August been great so far. I'm doing about 6.6 PTBB /100 = 13.2 BB/100 hands for 100nl over 26k hands. Took a shot at 200nl for about 600 hands and dropped 2 buyins. Guess I need to datamine more before taking a dip and table select better.


September is here and school work is catching up. I do hope I can clear my work fast so I can have more time for poker. Yet I'll try to hit my monthly goals for September.