So I look down at a beautiful pair of aces (spades and diamonds) and raise (playing 8/16 6max limit). Only the big blind calls. Flop comes down JdTc6c, bet, call. Turn 9c - an ugly card, but I bet, and he calls. River Qc. Check, check.
He turns over 8h5c for the runner-runner 6th nut flush, which is why poker is clearly a game of skill. Or limit is, at least.
For his next trick, he runs down my KK with the mighty T6 suited.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Table selection shmabel selection
This month I am chasing a $450 rake chase bonus on Red Star, and as a result have played nearly all my sessions on there (Cake). Apart from choosing first the tables with the high % of players to flop, I have virtually stopped table selecting - I just hop on as many tables from 3/6 to about 6/12 as I feel comfortable playing. I am pretty confident that I can beat any table at these stakes (on this site at least), and with rakeback, rake chases and a deposit bonus I am way into green territory. And I am still constantly surprised at the number of poor players who hover around the higher stakes.
Case in point was a nice little half hour heater at 6/12 which netted 25BB or so. The player on my right was an awful, awful loose passive player who would play way too many hands preflop, call too many bets and then fold the river if he didn't have a pretty strong hand. Earlier, I played with a mouthy guy at 4/8 who is a dreadful weak tight player - he plays way too tight preflop and then completely fails to get value from his monsters (his set of kings went check-check on the turn and river because someone raised him on the flop).
It's probably obvious from reading the above that I am running well - up nearly $2500 since the last cooler just over a week ago. I am planning to take a bit of a break once I hit this month's $2500 rake target, since I have been playing way too much and have a lot of other stuff going on in my life.
Case in point was a nice little half hour heater at 6/12 which netted 25BB or so. The player on my right was an awful, awful loose passive player who would play way too many hands preflop, call too many bets and then fold the river if he didn't have a pretty strong hand. Earlier, I played with a mouthy guy at 4/8 who is a dreadful weak tight player - he plays way too tight preflop and then completely fails to get value from his monsters (his set of kings went check-check on the turn and river because someone raised him on the flop).
It's probably obvious from reading the above that I am running well - up nearly $2500 since the last cooler just over a week ago. I am planning to take a bit of a break once I hit this month's $2500 rake target, since I have been playing way too much and have a lot of other stuff going on in my life.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Insane swings
I had a $1000 cooler yesterday in the space of a couple of hours, mainly at $3/6. 150BB is the very definition of severe. It was pretty painful stuff - one of those days when your monsters get coolered or just win the blinds, and your steals and marginal hands get threebet mercilessly. I tilted a bit by refusing to quit when I probably should have, even though I don't think I was making bad decisions.
Today was a completely different story, winning almost all of it back again mainly at 3/6. It makes such a difference to hit a few flops and the occasional runner-runner. Not to mention idiots who will call four bets cold with pocket deuces.
The swings are a little bit insane, and are a little bit hard to take. To give you some context, in real life I still have a crappy five year old $200 CRT telly because I'm too tight to spend $700 on a new one. So $1k in 2 hours is kindof a big deal. Though I must say $1000 down followed by $1000 up is much easier to deal with than the reverse.
Today was a completely different story, winning almost all of it back again mainly at 3/6. It makes such a difference to hit a few flops and the occasional runner-runner. Not to mention idiots who will call four bets cold with pocket deuces.
The swings are a little bit insane, and are a little bit hard to take. To give you some context, in real life I still have a crappy five year old $200 CRT telly because I'm too tight to spend $700 on a new one. So $1k in 2 hours is kindof a big deal. Though I must say $1000 down followed by $1000 up is much easier to deal with than the reverse.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
On rake, rakeback and going pro
I had a little look at some more stats from the last year. In particular, I wanted to look at the rake I'm paying to play fixed limit at my main sites: Red Star on the Cake network, and Purple Lounge on Microgaming. I have 33% rakeback on Red Star, and a VIP deal which is superficially considerably more than that on Purple Lounge. I play mainly 2/4 to 5/10 Euro on Purple lounge, and 3/6 and 5/10 USD on Red Star.
On Cake, both 3/6 and 5/10 are costing me roughly 3 big bets per 100 hands in rake. I get 33% of that back automatically, and probably another 15% through races and bonuses.
On Microgaming, I was somewhat surprised to discover that 2/4 and 3/6 are costing me almost 5 big bets per 100 hands. At that rate, I need 60% VIP in order to make the equivalent of what I get on Cake (not including the Cake races and bonuses). My deal is good, but it's not that good. 5/10 is a little better, costing around 3.8BB/100 in rake but I find that the variance at that level is a bit steep, even when the play seems terrible.
In play, I actually made a small loss of around 0.5BB/100 on Microgaming in the last 12 months (easily covered by the VIP bonus but still not great), while on Cake I made a profit of 1.7BB/100. It felt to me like I was just running bad on Micro and good on Cake, but looking at the numbers it seems like the difference can be entirely explained by the 1-2BB/100 difference in rake between the two. I am going to have to have a think about where I am going to play over the next year.
Considering the above, I had a think about hourly rates. If I were to play 4 tables and a mix of limits of 3/6 and 5/10, I could probably make around $30 an hour or more from rakeback alone. Races and bonuses would probably add another $10-$15. Then if I actually managed to turn a profit on the tables, that would add a further $30 or maybe more based on a winrate of 1BB/100. That's over $70 an hour based on a pretty modest winrate.
It's certainly food for thought. I don't think I would ever consider doing this full time, because I like my job, and because playing 40 hours of poker a week could be just soul destroying. But it is interesting to see that I could probably make a pretty decent income from it if I really needed to. For now it's a handy extra bit of money from time to time, and an ability to cover some decent tournament buyins.
And it is of course always interesting to note that the poker rooms and affiliate mafia make at least as much money out of me as I do.
On Cake, both 3/6 and 5/10 are costing me roughly 3 big bets per 100 hands in rake. I get 33% of that back automatically, and probably another 15% through races and bonuses.
On Microgaming, I was somewhat surprised to discover that 2/4 and 3/6 are costing me almost 5 big bets per 100 hands. At that rate, I need 60% VIP in order to make the equivalent of what I get on Cake (not including the Cake races and bonuses). My deal is good, but it's not that good. 5/10 is a little better, costing around 3.8BB/100 in rake but I find that the variance at that level is a bit steep, even when the play seems terrible.
In play, I actually made a small loss of around 0.5BB/100 on Microgaming in the last 12 months (easily covered by the VIP bonus but still not great), while on Cake I made a profit of 1.7BB/100. It felt to me like I was just running bad on Micro and good on Cake, but looking at the numbers it seems like the difference can be entirely explained by the 1-2BB/100 difference in rake between the two. I am going to have to have a think about where I am going to play over the next year.
Considering the above, I had a think about hourly rates. If I were to play 4 tables and a mix of limits of 3/6 and 5/10, I could probably make around $30 an hour or more from rakeback alone. Races and bonuses would probably add another $10-$15. Then if I actually managed to turn a profit on the tables, that would add a further $30 or maybe more based on a winrate of 1BB/100. That's over $70 an hour based on a pretty modest winrate.
It's certainly food for thought. I don't think I would ever consider doing this full time, because I like my job, and because playing 40 hours of poker a week could be just soul destroying. But it is interesting to see that I could probably make a pretty decent income from it if I really needed to. For now it's a handy extra bit of money from time to time, and an ability to cover some decent tournament buyins.
And it is of course always interesting to note that the poker rooms and affiliate mafia make at least as much money out of me as I do.
Monday, February 1, 2010
January summary
January turned out to be a pretty tidy month, despite a week's holiday and a couple of really nasty cooler sessions.
The net result was $2216 profit, including about $670 from rakeback and the RedStar rake chase (turning into a nice extra bankroll boost). It was actually pure coincidence that I just made the $1000 rake target to get the $150 rake chase prize (otherwise would have been just $50).
Of note is that I busted out on Purple Lounge and had to rebuy, and am continuing to take shots at the fishy 5/10EUR game but without stellar results. My first choice limits now are probably 3/6 and 6/12 in dollars and 2/4 to 5/10 in Euro. Also I played some PLO100 with pretty good results over a few sessions. PLO is definitely something I will be adding to my regular mix - time to fork out on the Holdem Manager Omaha plugin.
The net result was $2216 profit, including about $670 from rakeback and the RedStar rake chase (turning into a nice extra bankroll boost). It was actually pure coincidence that I just made the $1000 rake target to get the $150 rake chase prize (otherwise would have been just $50).
Of note is that I busted out on Purple Lounge and had to rebuy, and am continuing to take shots at the fishy 5/10EUR game but without stellar results. My first choice limits now are probably 3/6 and 6/12 in dollars and 2/4 to 5/10 in Euro. Also I played some PLO100 with pretty good results over a few sessions. PLO is definitely something I will be adding to my regular mix - time to fork out on the Holdem Manager Omaha plugin.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
ANZPT qualifier fail
but all is not lost
Cliff notes on last night's action:
Beat: rebought five times in the ANZPT satellite and still finished second last
Brag: won $800 playing 10/20 limit before and after the tourney
Variance: should have stuck with Limit
For some of the time, that was the worst limit table ever (and by worst I mean best). Much of the play was short handed (4 or 5), including when I sat down, and a couple of the players were going "friendly table here, no bluffing or raising." I didn't buy into that, because I have to play my game - there's too much money on the table to deliberately play bad. I just quietly ignored them and they didn't actually complain about my (mostly) open raising preflop. Iso raising the guy on my right who limped every hand was fun, except that I was very frequently cold called on my left and sometimes in several places. I kept it friendly by chatting a lot, showing some winning hands (see, I don't bluff you), and occasionally checking down multiple streets.
The classiest bit was a four way capped hand preflop, where 63o UTG sadly found his 6 high flush was no good against Q7o in the CO (my AK had to go in the bin on the turn).
The win also came despite losing a $250 pot in a massive cooler with eights full of tens to quad tens. The guy with quads slow rolled me unintentionally I think, having genuinely thought that full house beat quads.
The tourney was not fun. I shoved JT on a flop of J98, guy has QT. I flop trip tens with my AT, and get run down by a flush. I flop top, top and get run down by not one but two flushes. I make one or two bluffy moves and get cut down each time. Just wasn't my day. Or it was my day, just not my table.
But yeah, winning 40BB in four hours of fixed limit despite a huge cooler hand is pretty good going. Shame about the tourney.
Cliff notes on last night's action:
Beat: rebought five times in the ANZPT satellite and still finished second last
Brag: won $800 playing 10/20 limit before and after the tourney
Variance: should have stuck with Limit
For some of the time, that was the worst limit table ever (and by worst I mean best). Much of the play was short handed (4 or 5), including when I sat down, and a couple of the players were going "friendly table here, no bluffing or raising." I didn't buy into that, because I have to play my game - there's too much money on the table to deliberately play bad. I just quietly ignored them and they didn't actually complain about my (mostly) open raising preflop. Iso raising the guy on my right who limped every hand was fun, except that I was very frequently cold called on my left and sometimes in several places. I kept it friendly by chatting a lot, showing some winning hands (see, I don't bluff you), and occasionally checking down multiple streets.
The classiest bit was a four way capped hand preflop, where 63o UTG sadly found his 6 high flush was no good against Q7o in the CO (my AK had to go in the bin on the turn).
The win also came despite losing a $250 pot in a massive cooler with eights full of tens to quad tens. The guy with quads slow rolled me unintentionally I think, having genuinely thought that full house beat quads.
The tourney was not fun. I shoved JT on a flop of J98, guy has QT. I flop trip tens with my AT, and get run down by a flush. I flop top, top and get run down by not one but two flushes. I make one or two bluffy moves and get cut down each time. Just wasn't my day. Or it was my day, just not my table.
But yeah, winning 40BB in four hours of fixed limit despite a huge cooler hand is pretty good going. Shame about the tourney.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
A cursory glance at a yerar's statistics
A few observations on my limit holdem stats over the last 12 months.
Hands played: 65k
BB/100 actually -0.2. Not marvellous, but certainly more than covered by rakeback.
It's actually better than that though, because I have 1.4BB/100 over 30k hands at 3/6 and 5/10 and 13BB/100 over 1k at 4/8. I lost at 0.5/1, 1/2 and 2/4, and also made statistically insignificant losses at 6/12 and 8/16 plus a big heater win at 10/20.
I wonder whether the lower stakes are causing me to play suboptimally due to a lack of sting?
Hands played: 65k
BB/100 actually -0.2. Not marvellous, but certainly more than covered by rakeback.
It's actually better than that though, because I have 1.4BB/100 over 30k hands at 3/6 and 5/10 and 13BB/100 over 1k at 4/8. I lost at 0.5/1, 1/2 and 2/4, and also made statistically insignificant losses at 6/12 and 8/16 plus a big heater win at 10/20.
I wonder whether the lower stakes are causing me to play suboptimally due to a lack of sting?
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