6-max Micro NL exploration on DevilFish

Have been back at work for a week now. Trying a new regime to allow poker time in the evening. Played poker 3 nights during the week. Spent most of yesterday reading and finally sat down for a session today.

Decided to try my hand at micro NLHE - and picked Devilfish.com (Entraction Network) mainly because

• it's a network I hadn't tried yet
• it seems to be growing (slowly)
• I could sign up for a rakeback account there
• I had money sitting in MoneyBookers waiting to be used somewhere.

The fact that PokerTracker and HoldemManager don't support the site yet also seemed like a benefit because I could "hide" my losses. However, after playing for an hour or two and just about getting back to even (thanks to some hyperagressive people who decided to throw their money onto our table), I wished I had some stats to help analyze what had gone down.

Shout out to rambo7479 (from Malmo Sweden) : thanks for adding a bit of chat to the session.

Now, why did I even try No Limit Hold'em when I'm not even a break even player at Limit yet? Well, its because there is sooo much more action (i.e. people playing) No Limit cash games. Its very easy to find games so you can play it on any network.

I wasn't going to bother because you have to put a lot of money at risk in each hand but at $0.02/$0.04 its okay (though when you go all in and lose your 80bb stack, it still no fun :P). Over time I'll hopefully build up tolerance to playing at higher stakes (i.e. by saving so much bankroll that $50 (say) is nothing).

I might have a go at FullTilt since the money I have there has been sitting around for a long time. I think min stake there is $0.05/$0.10 though.. or you can play CAPped NL (max commitment in a hand = 30bb). I dunno.

Mustn't let the limit poker drop though, just starting to get somewhere with it I think.

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.