November summary

The month began with a bankroll of $7565. Closing balance is $10664, for a massive monthly profit of $3109. This just eclipses my previous best monthly result of $3090 achieved in May this year. The most remarkable thing about this result, is that it was achieved in a month which included my worst ever one day downswing of -$1500.

I put in a lot of volume at Purple Lounge and Red Star, and I would estimate that at least $1300 of the net result comes from rakeback, bonuses, and a little rake chase on Red Star. Those 3/6 and 5/10 tables certainly generate a hell of a lot of rake.

December's goals? I'm not quite sure. Obviously I'd like to to well on Friday at the APPT, but I'd also like to take a couple of shots at qualifying for the Aussie Millions. I'd also like to stay profitable, and keep that bankroll well above the $10k mark.

BR target achieved

At the risk of offending the poker Gods and triggering another 100BB downer, I am going to post about hitting targets again!!

At the beginning of 2009, with my bankroll sitting on $2k, I set a target to build the bankroll to $10k by the end of the year. I have now officially achieved that goal (as distinct from getting my total profit above $10k).

Today, my bankroll is sitting on $10200, with perhaps another $300 or so due in rakeback payments. It is interesting to note that the bankroll build has come almost entirely in three 'heater' month - April, May and November.

My reason for wanting a $10k bankroll, apart from the obvious, was to be able to play tournaments more freely (especially live). To this end, I will be celebrating hitting my target by joining a fellow Blogger in the Teams Holdem event this Friday at the APPT in Sydney. With a $1100 buyin and hopefully a field of around 100, this should be a good opportunity to test our mettle against some good players. It comes at the end of the penultimate day of the Main Event, so there should be a good atmosphere and some top class players around aiming to avenge their elimination.

After this, chances are the bankroll will dip back below the $10k mark, but this is an investment in good experience as much as anything. And once you hit the felt, anything can happen!

Head back above water

The recovery is complete, with another very nice session on RedStar last night: +60BB or so.

At this point, I thought I would reflect on my graph (total profit), going back to about the beginning of the year:

As you can see, I am a very swingy player. The two red lines show some nice upward trends (well the first was really a two month heater), but there are also some very long flat spots. I wonder how other players seem to manage a much more consistent and less volatile trend (yes, I'm looking at you Bonus Chasing Grinder)? I think I am probably now playing slightly higher stakes on average, but I also suspect that I am a much LAGgier player and am undecided as to whether that's a good thing or not. It certainly makes for some excitement!

And to finish up, here is the funniest hand I have played in a long time (on the crazienst table I have played in a long time). TT is not a hand I expect to hold up in a six way capped pot preflop. Even less so when a king and queen appear on the board.

Apologies for the crappy formatting - anyone know of a hand converter which works for Cake histories?

Hand#2059012067000707 - Lillehammer (Turbo, 6-max) 12067 -- $2/$4 FL Hold'em -- 2009/11/24 - 17:57:41
Seat 1: Rabi***1 ($108 in chips)
Seat 2: sick***2 ($99.50 in chips)
Seat 3: 2iti***3 ($13.25 in chips)
Seat 8: Hero ($60 in chips)
Seat 9: PUTA***9 ($112 in chips) DEALER
Seat 10: flir***10 ($65 in chips)
flir***10: posts small blind $1
Rabi***1: posts big blind $2
Dealt to Hero [Ts,Th]
sick***2: raises to $4
2iti***3: raises to $6
Hero: raises to $8
PUTA***9: calls $8
flir***10: calls $7
Rabi***1: calls $6
sick***2: calls $4
2iti***3: calls $2
*** FLOP *** [3h,Kc,7s]
flir***10: checks
Rabi***1: checks
sick***2: bets $2
2iti***3: raises to $4
Hero: calls $4
PUTA***9: calls $4
flir***10: folds
Rabi***1: folds
sick***2: calls $2
*** TURN *** [Qs]
sick***2: checks
2iti***3: is all in 1.2500
Hero: calls $1.25
PUTA***9: folds
sick***2: calls $1.25
*** RIVER *** [ Ks ]
sick***2: checks
Hero: checks
***SHOW DOWN***
2iti***3: shows [4s 4c] (Two Pairs, Kings and Fours )
Hero: shows [Ts Th] (Two Pairs, Kings and Tens )
sick***2: mucks
Hero: wins $64.75 with Two Pairs, Kings and Tens
sick***2: mucks [ 7c, Ad ] (TwoPair)

And a little bit more

Another +50BB on RedStar 3/6 tonight and I am back above the $10k profit line for the third time. Cue the next massive cooler?

Swing swong

This is getting a little bit insane.

I redeposited on RedStar the other day to take up a reload bonus, and managed to win nearly 70BB in the space of about 150 hands of $3/6 yesterday. It's not quite the same as E5/10, but it was a welcome recovery after my horror session on PL.

I am now looking forward to a work trip to Sydney and the opportunity to play in one of the APPT lead up events.

Do the poker gods read my blog?

God know few others do.

I need to stop posting my wins. Seriously. I just took a massive reaming on some seriously fishy 5/10 Euro tables on Purple. $1200, or about 80BB in the space of about 90 minutes. Standard stuff, but just hand after hand - my AJ < AK on A high board. My AJ < AQ on A high board . My tptk crushed by turned 2 pair. My flopped set crushed by the paired turn(bigger boat) . Second pairs losing to top pairs. Huge draws (str8flush+overs) not getting there.

Just Ugh.

Variance insanity

I have had an upswing of $3k in the last week, nearly all of it at the fish tank which is Purple Lounge. That's just crazy stuff - the equivalent of at least 300BB at the stakes I usually play. It follows a nearly $1k downswing over the week previous to that, so it's not entirely plain sailing.

Of course all of this is raindrops compared to the utter insanity of the high stakes action at Full Tilt of the last week or so. Unknown newcomer 'Isidur1' has been wreaking absolute havoc - yesterday he was playing eight simultaneous tables ($500/$1000 blinds NLH) against the three best players in the world: Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and Tom 'durrrr' Dwan. The new guy is up overall to the tune of about 4 million, mainly thanks to crushing durrrr in some insane six table matches, but all these guys have seen million dollar swings over the last few days.

Shot taking WIN

Fishy table, 10/20 Euro, 4-5 handed. Insanity right?

I decided to have a shot based on running good the last few days (great strategy amirite?) and I have to say this: Winning a humungous pot with AA on the second hand does great things for your ability to play poker properly (and not like some nitty shot taker).

End result: back over the $10k profit mark at last (only took two months)

A very belated update

Ok, so I haven't posted now for nearly six weeks. To be honest, I've been running so badly that I didn't want to bore everybody with a litany of bad beats, coolers and tilt.

My worst day (ever) was just last week, when I somehow managed to dump 200 big bets (over $1000) in a couple of hours playing 2/4 and 3/6. This pretty well puts paid to the notion that 300BB is a big enough bankroll for limit.

As for the missing months: September was a net -$300, and October was a net -$500.

You would think that November was going the same way after that $1000 turdball, but you would be wrong. Somehow I managed to turn it around with a $1000 winner yesterday on Purple Lounge. That was around 100 big bets playing between 2/4 and 5/10 Euro.

It started with a pretty long heads up session against a loose/weak fish. I must have been running good, but this guy was so bad I don't think I could have lost even with bad cards. He was seeing about 70% of flops, but with only 25% WTSD. He was folding about 40% of the time to Cbets, and frequently limped his button letting me see free flops with rags. He also failed to Cbet when he missed on scary boards, letting me take down lots of pots with nothing. This stuff is suicide heads up, and I took him to the cleaners (even though HU is not my best game). I felt that I couldn't lose even if I ran bad. There is something very primal about playing heads up until one of you goes busto. This wasn't durrrr vs Isildur1, but it felt like it to me with my tiny little roll.

Shortly after that, I ran into my old friend johnoda, a 75/10 fish who took me to the cleaners at a HU 10/20 Euro game some time ago (which I then recovered from him the next day at 5/10 6max). Found the Jesus seat on a 5/10 table, with a couple of nits on my left - just how I like it. I continued to run good there, and on a couple of other tables (again, well placed with nits on the left and fish on the right). I even managed to survive a huge cooler, when I ran my AK into QQ on a flop of QKK. That wasn't very pretty, but about three hands later I ran my A7cc into the same guy's KQcd on a flop of JT6ccc with the fourth club on the turn.

The win is my biggest ever one day total on cash tables. And boy did I need it after the worst day only last week. As an added bonus, I should have a huge bonus coming in as a result of my VIP deal with Purple Lounge.