Working on Leaks

I've lost over 200BB ($100) this month and at least a few times I've wondered if I was really cut out to make money on the virtual felt.



However, when push comes to shove, the last thing I want to do is give up on this. I have a history of quitting dreams (mainly to focus on work) and it's time to make a stand!

The silver lining is that I've discovered some major leaks early on and I'm playing at a limit where I can afford the learning curve.

So what are the leaks?

First off, I've been showdown bound too often.

I dropped down to $.05/$.10 to work on WTSD and after 500 hands figured I'd improved my ratio and this limit was just too easy to beat. Staying at this level would not help me play $.25/$.50, would not build my bankroll fast enough and might even be detrimental to my overall game.



I moved straight back to $.25/$.50 and, after a couple of days adding small amounts to my bankroll, had another big losing streak!

Went back to the drawing board and realized a few more things:

• still trying too hard to win every pot. WTSD was still bad. W$SD abysmal.
  


• playing too many hands


• there was a $.15/$.3 limit below $.25/$.5
  

So I dropped back to $0.15/$.30 to work on my loose showdown habits.



My losing streak continued for a while even though the players were marginally worse and/or looser than the players at $.25/$.50. I found a few more things wrong!

• chasing draws (just completely ignoring pot odds for the most part)
• ignorant to the dangers of playing weak/junk offsuit hands
• playing hands too aggressively
  
• underestimating the advantage of position
• placing too many bets out of position
• playing too many hands from the blinds in multiway pots
• regularly playing super-shorthanded (2 or 3 players)
• bluffing too much! especially out of position
  

The list is in no particular order.

the main thing is, over the last few days I've made some progress. Still more work to do.

I'll stick at $.15/$.30 until I've built at least one buy in at $.25/$.50 (i.e. $25) as the players are sufficiently clued up at this level to mean you can't get to the river in a multiway pot with a poor hand and expect it to hold up too often.

PFR better than limping even when confidence is knocked

I started limping into pots over the last day or so because I've been having a hard time of it. However, running the stats through excel shows this was a bad move.



apart from revealing the clear benefits of raise vs limp (43% hands won raising vs 15% limping and a huge edge in won without showdown) this chart also may hint that I'm not folding enough on scary boards. For instance, apart from the Full House anomaly, I've been beaten more often than not at show down with everything from Two Pair upwards.

Rehab

Well, having said I'd stick to 6-max this month, I switched to full ring briefly on Saturday to reduce risk whilst completing the FullTilt Take 2 promotion. Played more cautiously and won a little back.

Went back to 6-max yesterday for the final day of the promotion and just about broke even.

Could have been up quite a bit but got rivered: dealt TT flopped a set on Txx board. Capped flop. Villian hit one outer on the river to make JJJ. There was also a chance of going out to a flush but I didn't put him on a heart-draw. turns out he didn't have any hearts.

Thanks to rakeback ($7) and the Take 2 promotion ($25), my bankroll is down $15, not $47.

Hope I learnt something. I reviewed some of the hands the day after and realised I was playing very badly. Chasing weak draws, folding when I had good odds. Playing badly on 3 tables at once is obviously going to to hit your bankroll!

Probably the stupidest thing I did was mis-classify a really good player as a fish. That slip alone cost me at least $10 and probably more because the thought of being lucked out on by a fish was creating additional tilt.

I'm certainly going to pay a lot more attention to the style of play of my opponents now. I think there's probably value in sticking at a level until you've identified all the regulars and know how they play.

Progressing to $.50/$1.00

I usually buy in for $15 at $.25/$.50 and as my bankroll improved, it became increasingly tempting to try my hand at $.50/$1.0. The biggest benefit of doing so was faster point collection towards the Everest bonus. However, I was pretty scared to try incase I lost everything.

So, I set a limit X and told myself that if my account reached that value, I would try buying in for $30 at $.50/$1.0 on the basis that I would stop if I lost $10.

Yesterday my balance reached the required amount so I had no excuse.

I was so scared! However, I realised that if I was scared of losing and played passively, I'd be an easy target for the aggressive regulars.

I opened one table, playing as aggressively as my nerves would allow but lost $5.00 quite quickly. Decided to open another table anyway to balance the odds of getting bad cards a little.

I was a nervous wreck after an hour and ended the session - just about even.

Have played a few more times since and got my first big payoff (i.e. someone paid me off with a poor hand) today. Feeling more comfortable at this limit now but the play is definitely more tricky than $.25/$.50.

These sessions taught me a few things:

• it can be difficult adjusting to loses at the higher level because they look bigger (i.e. 3 big bets at $.50/$1.0 still looks like 6 big bets to me)
• play at $.50/$1.0 is much tighter and more aggressive in general. I'd say 80% of the time, everyone folds to a pre-flop raise from early or mid position so blind steals and isolation plays are more common.
• points go up more than twice as fast as at $.25/$.50 given similar playing conditions. Unfortunately, if the table is reduced to "nits", the majority of hands don't see the flop.
• when the table is ultra-tight, raising with big hands in early position is unlikely to get any action so its probably better to open-limp and hope to re-raise a mid/late play.
• also when the table is ultra-tight, you can raise a wider range of hands in mid/late cos of the fold equity. However, you don't want to do this too often because you see some observant players getting suspicious (taking longer to fold the blinds).
  

There's probably more but that'll do for now!