I'll show you mine if you show me urs

An oldie but goodie...i remember this pic from way back when i started playing on bodog

Starting over at a level of nlhe i havent played since like 2007 has been relatively easy once i remembered and implemented the same old strat that has been beating micro limits for years now. It's a strategy i have ever so creatively titled "I'll show you mine if you show me yours". When i started playing poker i was talking it over with everybody i could find that i felt like was a winning player. One buddy of mine sarcastically said "the secret to poker is flipping over the best hand."

 I mean obviously that is easier said than done most times and there are millions of intricacies a player must learn and recognize before this becomes feasible even 50% of the time. And then there is cbetting flops, misrepresenting your draws and big made hands, evaluating board textures and opponent tendacies, and determining the best course of action once you have unscientifically evaluated all of these variables in ohhhhhhhhhhh about 5 seconds or less. 

But really on a basic level (and 50nl and below can be played on a very basic level) it is that easy....just flip over the best hand. A huge part of success in cash games especially is realizing the level your opponents are on and only trying to play one level ahead of them. If you go farther than that youre doomed to fail or at the least take on some serious and unnecessary variance. So why not just use ur skills to flip over the best hand? 

When i started back on this journey via the stake for 25nl, i started out a little more timid than i used to be. This will happen after layoff where im just not sure about things and dont want to risk marginal spots. I was playing about 13/10.5 vpip/pfr and showing down 30% winning 53% of the time i went to showdown over my first 10k hands. I literally used to make fun of guys who were this tight but getting situated and at a showdown driven game i was still winning at 2.55PTBB/100. Not too shabby tbh but not maximizing profits at this level either.

Then i went a bit wild and really opened up thinking i could "outplay all these fish" ldo. Well that combined with some run bad went HORRIBLE and i dropped 8buy ins in about 2000 hands. I reminded myself what this level was all about and its not flaunting my understanding of advanced plays or picking off bluffs, or calling light'ish to balance my/their range. Its about.....showing down the best hand! 

So i tightened up a bit but more around a less nitty range and over my last 10k'ish hands i am running 15.7/11.6 vpip/pfr and showing down only 27% of the time winning 62% of showdown pots. Im situationally running hot in that im not getting coolered at all and doing a bit of coolering, but im actually running below all in ev and maintaining (i know its a small sample but its all i got for now) a staggering 9.15PTBB/100. 

I know these numbers are lol in the sample size department but they are at least a foundation of proof that at the  lower limits its not what you know, but what you show

Gl all

Oh yeah...about that

the whole poker being easy thing.....what i meant was poker is as easy as you make it. Ok so i started out crushing sngs mostly out of luck on this stake. Then i moved to my cash cow that is fr nlhe and made a few mistakes just overestimating my opponents and over thinking simple abc pitch and catch 25nl. Then i buckled down and played good/ran good for a few k hands and thennnnnnn my head got inflated and i started trying to create spots, and in the matter of 2-3k hands this happened

Ok yeah whatever i ran a little below ev....and yeahhhhhhhh there were some obv coolers in there i can remember two set over set and two top 2 vs bottom sets bla bla bla. But when i looked at my vpip and pfr i noticed they had jumped drastically. I was running about where i would run at 100nl and 200nl and honestly thats just not profitable in this showdown driven stack off light game that is 25nl. And the worst part is, thats 100% on me.

As you can see towards the end of my fun times i started to tighten back up and let the spots come to me. Even at 100nl and 200nl i can say that if you try to push the spots ur variance will increase, but your winrate will too. At 25nl and 50nl its better to just let the spots come to you and remember "if you play it, the spots will come" (omg what a horrible lame field of dreams reference but im leaving it so i can move into these inspiring baseball pics)

as always gl at the tables

Mr. Sht

So far so good

I am back on the stake and this time have lifted off the expectations. With time constraints and well ill be honest i dropped 1.75 stacks at nlhe fr cash and cried like a little baby i was so i focused on sngs. I ran like god and played like death and the variance started to catch up with me at about the same time my backer said "whoa bro slowdown we have to talk about some spots"

So i guess he was right =) and now im waiting to talk over those spots but with the winning bug infecting me again i said f this im going to murder the 25nl games. Ive been playing tighter than i used to at 50 and 100 because it just doesnt matter, the regs suck, the fish suck, and id rather pick up easy spots than build and profit off an image. With that said cash graph looks like so....

A lil swingy for my liking but its a small sample and im still a loser with kings, AKo, and AKs so that should come around soon. Ive played 3 mtts and went deepish in both but took two sick beats over pair vs two unders and then i forget the third which proly means i got it in bad.

Full tilt is still lol @ customer service. First they reject my 600 dollar deposit, let me only do 100 so i email them they say yeah sure just let us know when you can do the 500 and we will manually input that bonus bla bla. So i emailed them 3 days ago and no reply or further bonus so far. But with the new way they do rakeback and bonus stuff i think its about a wash but im still going to push for the remainder of the bonus just in case its a bit more +ev.

I dont feel creative today so i will just finish this up with a scantily dressed asian and call it a blog entry

Gl at the tables

Dr. Sht

Take two!!!

I am giving it another go. I know you all are so so happy. This blog had been on hiatus too long and you were just lost looking for a replacement. Amirite?

Well fear not after about what 6 weeks i have changed my mind again. I am back on a stake. This one is a little different in a few ways. 1) its a little smaller. Ill be playing $10 mtts for awhile, 25nlfr, and learning 9man sngs. Its a pretty padded br, with very low risk, and medium to high reward in my opinion. If you recall on my last stake attempt that i flamed out on in like 2 weeks, i set some pretty lofty goals. I believe it was supernova and 8% roi in the 45mans, while having wife, baby, and full time job. In retrospect LOL_me! This time i came in very modest with my expectations and was very upfront with my staker. I cant guarantee volume, but i can guarantee im plus ev in every aspect of this stake. And i can also guarantee that winning brings back the fire to play.

So far learning the sngs has been humbling to say the least. I played 9 games and my coach found 18spots that he felt were bad. When we talked them over a bit it was basically me leaking in every stage of the sng. Then i played another set and saw myself falling into the same patterns, it was very discouraging. The funny part is variance is smiling on me and im up a bit with them. Cash on the other hand i feel i have leaked a couple spots. More i have applied some 100nl and 200nl strat to the 25nl and it will take a few times of kicking myself to shake that but thats on me to adjust to my opponents. But even with that if a hand or two had went my way id be up on that part of the stake too and overall the stake is up a small amount over 200ish hands of cash and 20ish sngs. I havent played any mtts but here is where this stake is very +ev in my mind.

Once ive booked some profit and gotten back into the groove of poker and mixed it into my life, i will play some mtts where i have never had lower than a 60% roi on any site at any limit. The potential for a big score combined with the steadiness of sngs and cash sounds like a good combination.

So why did i come back? With all this on my plate, why would i come back to something it appears ive fallen out of love with? Well tbh i dont really know. But i know i need to make some money, i know id rather play than search for job #2 and be away from my wife and unborn kid, and i know deep down poker will always be a part of me now.

This time ive set the bar low enough to get over it, and with a lil help in the sng arena this should be a bit of fun. So watch out sng grinders im focused on taking some ev out of those games and i like my chances!