poker traffic day

A day off to play internet poker and my internet connection is dead until 11 am. I decided to record stats on player numbers throughout the day on various sites and didn't actually play a hand. Spent most of the day working.

collected 5 poker books from the post office (on second attempt - somehow they couldn't find the package until I found proof of delivery from the USPS tracking service). these books came courtesy of 2+2's bonus program and join the ever growing ranks of unread, pristine poker books on my bookshelf.

Bad beat turned good

Sunday night I played in two tournaments. The first was at CDPoker and I ran in to a bunch of super aggressive players. I was pretty much card dead and not in the mood to gamble with my 6p stake and so waited for cards that just didn't come.

As my stack started to dwindle (red mzone), I hit on KK to triple up. The very next hand I got AQo on the button and pushed all in hoping perhaps to steal the blinds. I got two callers (chip leader + another all in).



Plugging the cards into PokerAcademy showdown calculator put me as a distinct favourite but I wonder now if I played this hand too eargerly.

Anyway, *that* wasn't the bad beat story. Oh no!

The next tournament was on Titan Poker. A more reasonable crowd that seemed to be thinking about the game a little.

So, the hand in question came when we were 7 handed. I had slightly more than average chips ($1960) and got K7o, blinds were $30-$60 and decided to at least see the flop.

A guy I had down for a calling station who had recently given me some chips raised 1BB in cut off position. I decided to stay with it, as did the button and utg. I flopped bottom set.

I figured at $.10+$.2 level, a set was a fairly good hand so I decided to try a large value bet (I have no idea what the right strategy is) - expecting the calling station to follow me anyway.

Just as I was adjusting my slider, my internet connection died. I was gutted. I stormed off convinced I would have won the hand and gone on to do well in the tournament.

My internet connection didn't return until the morning. I quickly logged back in and updated my hand-history to find out what happened on my last hand and surprise surprise... I had finished 2nd in the tourney!

what's more, on the K7 hand, two guys went all in and my "calling station" friend flopped a straight on the river having started out with A6s (a better hand than mine :). So, I'd have probably gone out of the tourney right there had my internet connection stayed up.

One of a Kind

I promised myself a few games this weekend but other priorities won out. I did, however, get a chance to read a few chapters of "One of a Kind" - the biography of Stuey Unger.

I'm determined to read the book even though I don't usually go near biographies. Seems reasonable so far.

So, no exploits from the virtual felt this weekend. Under different circumstances I'd probably consider playing now: it's only 11:30pm after all. As it happens, there are a few important meetings tomorrow and I can't justify losing sleep to Poker. Instead I'll hope to reward myself with a game tomorrow night.

First win at CDPoker! 20p up on the day

I almost didn't play tonight but coaxed myself to the tables to chip away at the 884 hands required to unlock Tourney Indicator.

Opted for the more sensible $0.10+$0.02 tourney this time (down from $1.00+$0.20). First hand I went all in after the flop, overcommitting a pair of Aces and completely missing the likely hood of a flush draw. Flop has come A 3 5 and of course, someone was playing with 24s :P

I couldn't let that be my only learning experience tonight so after taking a few deep breaths, I registered for another $0.10+$0.02 tourney.

This time I tried to play more hands conservatively and was more careful on the flop. The table was pretty tight from the get go which seems to be a good omen for me. Managed to build up a chip lead on the back of a few hands where I caught the flop.

A few people went out and then there was a period of drawn out play until strangely, a number of players seem to lose their interest and start shoving. We were down to 4 players in next to no time. A bad beat later and we're down to 3. Not long after, I get all of player 3's chips and arrive at heads up with the advantage!

It was my first experience of heads up and I was pretty nervous. Neither of us wanted to gamble so it took a long time. I lost the chip lead only once for the whole match.

I think the turning point came when I slow played a flopped straight. It was the perfect opportunity to coax him into pushing me off the hand - and he bought it. After this move, I was 3:1 favourite and was starting to see opportunities to push him off hands whereas early on he had been the clear aggressor.

The final hand I gambled K6 on a flush draw (+ K, 6 outs) as I didn't put my opponent on a strong hand. turned out he had 42, had paired the 4 on the flop and shoved all in. K 6 came on turn+river (flush didn't materialize) so I took the pot and ended the game.

I know a single win doesn't count for much but it's still good to finally cash! woohoo!

Take a seat, I might be here a while

Yesterday it occurred to me to check for mentions of Calculatem on 2+2 and - as well as learning that I should avoid Calculatem - I found out about Tournament Indicator.

Now this is a nice piece of software for tournament play. It shows you the win odds against the pot odds, outs and a few advanced statistics like M zones and the Sklansky card score. I don't know how to use most of this information yet but just the win odds vs pot odds is a real life saver playing online because I'm just too green under the gills to calculate this stuff in the time available for decision making.

I also really like the player analysis based on hands played in the tournament. Gives me a better idea of who is taking risks and who is playing tight.

The easiest way to get the software is to join a poker site. The software is then locked to the chosen site - on the relevant machine - until you've seen the flop in 900 tournament hands. After this you can use the software wherever you like.

No worries I thought. Easy... joined CDPoker (as iDrinkTea), played a tourney last night - tight game 11 hands finished 4th. So tonight I played looser to start with - in an attempt to see more flops - only for my 10-10 to be driven out by 45s (see stats above from Poker Academy showdown calculator) after 5 flopped hands.

So, $1.50 spent so far, 16 hands recorded. The software will cost me $84 at this rate. still, I'd rather get the experience than buy the software outright.

thing is, I've installed the software on my laptop too... that's another 900 flops required!

I'm considering trying a multi-table tournament as that might help increase the hand count but it's probably best to concentrate on trying to win single table sitngos for the time being.

Disconnected at the showdown

My first game on FullTilt. Over-committed with a set of 6s on the flop - came up against a set of tens. Pretty much out of it - $15 left (one SB). Got a lucky run to claw my way back to $400.. blinded back to $240.

Get AKo, go to push all in. Disconnect! Oh oh... please don't auto fold... connected again. Phew. Shove.

disconnect! ARGH! By the time I'm back, the hand has finished and I'm out. No idea what happened and no way to request the hand history?!?

Bummer... still, I went from 9th to 5th on a very short stack. At least that helped me to see I shouldn't give up just 'cos the odds are against me. hmmm... with this in mind, was i right to shove with AKo?

Oh yeah, and TexasCalculatem worked perfectly with the HUD this time. I would like to blame this software for my over-enthusiastic push with the set of 6s but the advice it gave was to raise - not to push as many chips as I could into the middle. I was lucky I had the guy covered else I'd have been out there and then.

Give em credit

Out of another tournament in 6th place out of 9 starters - this time on PokerStars.

First I lost a pile of chips by not crediting someone for a hand when I only had a paired Ace. Later I shoved all in pre-flop perhaps too early. Ad 9s in small blind, no raises before me, I had 13 BB . Only one caller thankfully. They had Kh 4h.

with hindsight, according to PokerAcademy's Showdown calculator I was about 3-2 favourite on the shove. So perhaps the call wasn't so bad. Cards came 5c Jc Jc 3c Kc.

I doubt it's the only leak but not crediting players for hands has to be one of my biggest problems. I'm too cynical.

The blind structure at PokerStars was the slowest I've experienced so far. Levels go up pretty slowly.

I tried using Texas Calculatem to help with the odds calculations but it had real trouble reading the board. Might be because I had the PokerTracker HUD running so I'll give it another shot.

Not sure I like losing all the time. Must make some progress. Have probably lost £5 so far since I played my first Sit And Go back on 8th of June 2008.

Much though I like Poker on TV, I'm going to stop watching so much of it and focus on playing. I think watching pros making sophisticated plays and gamble with each other is not helping me to progress. Very tempted to get back to PokerAcademy and do more practise matches before trying a real money game again.

Texas Calculatem

Didn't get an opportunity to play today but the second lot of ceramic chips arrived. I am going to replace the cheaper chips I already had with these ceramic ones but it will cost £250 (approx) so I'll do it bit by bit.

Bought a copy of Texas Calculatem out of curiousity more than anything. Hope it interoperates with PokerTracker/HoldemManager.

Scanned in the copag cards for personal use - I've written a small poker hand tester app and I think the copag cards will look better in it that the Grimaud ones I scanned before.

Copag cards, ceramic chips and Titan poker

Today I received a sample pack of ceramic poker chips plus a few packs of Copag poker cards that had been advertised in InsidePoker magazine (August 2008 issue, page 18 if you must know).

The website was Poker Shop Europe (the American Billiard Company). The service was prompt.

I don't have any friends that play poker so the chances of me hosting a home game are pretty remote but I don't need an excuse to collect things like this. I like the cards and the idea is to use them to practise recognising hands and outs... eventually.

The ceramic chips felt good and they are colourful so I ordered another sample pack for shuffling at work and some $5/$25 dollar chips for the imaginary future home game.

Apart from that, I squeezed in one $.20 tournament at Titan. Shoved AQs when I still had 10 BB hoping only to collect the blinds or meet an idiot. Unfortunately (? maybe using this term only highlights my donkishness) came up against a fellow fish who had JJ and, although I paired my queen on the flop, they made a set on the flop. No doubt shouldn't have gambled my tournament life on that hand.

I watched the rest of the tournament and fired up Sharkscope. It turns out that two of the winning 3 players are consistent winners at this stake - rarely playing above it.

Sharkscope and my first cash game

Yesterday I found my stats on SharkScope.

First off, I've limited myself to <$1 buy in SnGs in general so no high stakes games here. I'd be broke otherwise!

Sit and gos are a disaster so far.

I am classified as "tilt" on SharkScope for my Pacific screenname. I just blew about $5 on that site one day as I didn't want to play there any more (bad case of blaming the site for my own bad play). SharkScope is undecided about my other screenname (Titan) - probably because I've not played many hands.

These episodes convinced me to go with a new screenname featuring the term "donke" at any other sites I subscribe to. I like to have lots of poker clients. I flitter about from one day to the next. So, I picked "obadonke" for Everest Poker and PKR.

Cashed for the first time on bodog yesterday - mainly because connection problems prevented me from playing too many hands in the early rounds. I actually went up 3 places during the 5 minutes I was off the table!

I then sucked out on someone - really bad play having shoved because I'd had enough of the connection problems, I hit a full house on the river and doubled up. I went out in 5th and got my buy in back - but was still down $.20 because of the house fee.

I played a micro stake cash game on Everest last night - my first cash game - and at least ended my 30 minute stint with about the same money I started with. In the first half of the session I was winning. I think the players were tight weak then a few aggressive players joined to my left and I started losing.

The aggressive players didn't seem that good, more like calling stations... but I kept playing through to the river with them.

At least I've started to fold a few on the turn and river. In my first few online games, I'd play right through to the showdown regardless.

Too many really stupid mistakes in my game as yet. Having trouble with the basics - find it difficult to read the board and I'm not calculating outs, comparing pot odds, trying to put people on hands etc. Perhaps playing a little positional play now.

I've read maybe two books completely. I've got a reasonably large poker book library (18 books? + 3 magazine subscriptions). I watch a lot of poker on TV and listen avidly to 2+2's pokercast. However, I've played maybe 50-100 hands so far? Never played live.

anyway, that's the nub of it. time to go earn some money.