Poker Blogs

Here are a couple of small extracts from a couple of poker blogs, to give you a little flavour/history:

1. Froggy

Below is graph for year so far - pretty insane but hit a $33k score in the warmup and obv been on a bit of a heater

Anyway now I am taking a break from poker for a while and going travelling again , maybe on a round-the-world trip ! I will take my laptop so I can hopefully earn some money on the way once I get round to it . Maybe will put up a few shortterm bas's for a few days - one week when I feel like it , wherever I am in the world , to avoid risking too much of my travel money . Got about $50k saved and ready to be spent so that will keep me going for some time or until I get bored / blow it all in Vegas

Going to Southern Italy first of all , visiting Naples , Pompeii and climbing Mount Vesuvius like a proper tourist. And chill out on some beaches on the Amalfi coast After that I have no specific plans yet but prob asia and pacific islands like Fiji and after that Australia/NZ and Hawaii and over to America , maybe south America and work my way up to North America , lose all my money in Vegas and fly home should be an experience anyway . I know I could stay here and prob get rich but tbh I have nothing to spend money on anyway as I'm not rly interested in buying stuff like cars or gold watches or w/e . Just got to pay about $1000 a month on bills for house here while I'm away but maybe we can rent out the house to cover that . My friend will still be living here for a while but before he leaves to go live in Canada hopefully he can sort that out and rent it to some students or something. Who knows I might make loads of money while I'm abroad if I can find the time/motivation to grind some mtts occasionally and if I don't well fk it I'll be refreshed enough to put in some long hours online once I get back

Should be leaving within the next week as long as I can get everything sorted . Just going to buy a one way ticket to Naples and take it from there which is prob the expensive way of doing things but if I got a round-the-world ticket you have a set route and I'm no good at planning like that - it's not how I roll

Well gl to all surfers , especially goldenboy Johnny4f . And Jamblance silvergirl (not rly gold status yet tho she's working on it ... )

Now I'm in Spain (again) . So far my round the world trip hasn't got out of europe.... and next week I'm moving in to live with a spanish chick I know from last time I was here so idk how long I'll be staying <3 spanish girls tho

Didn't play any poker for ages and then started again a week or two ago but meh running bad so far . Feel like I'm playing rly good tho . A break can rly help you think fresh about the game

Well that's it . It's insanely hot here like 32°c every day so I've got a good tan . Getting fat again tho form all the cokes I keep drinking , might have to switch to coke zero OBB styleee

Oh well that's it . GL to everyone in scoop and ftops . And extra gl to the horse of the year johnny4f

The reason is that I find the long hours of mtt sessions tough these days . I've been doing that for a long time and cashgames are obv completely flexible timewise. I will still play mtt sessions sometimes , particularly on sundays which I enjoy because of the big prizepools.

So far I'm losing but I feel like it won't take long for me to start winning regularly . Then it's move up stakes quickly and get lots of rb I'd happily be a small winner and rb grinder at 1/2 because that's good money already . If I can play 150k hands/month (about 120 hrs of 12 tabling ? ) and make 1bb/100 thats $3k plus 38500 vpps/month x 3.5 supernova = 135k fpps which is another T$2500 if I use the fpps to play sunday storm sats (i crush those )
Plus milestones etc and could be looking at $6k/month

Ha we'll see . Not exactly crushing the games yet but I'm moving up to 100nl today . If I drop $1k I'll move back down but I might as well get good at the sort of limit I want to play rather than getting good at 25nl and then having to readjust when I move up

Lolgraph to follow

Shout out to DrJ in Vegas ! Sounds like you're having a great time but I'm still waiting on news of you going for the bracelet I'm still considering going out there , but I know myself and I'll prob just blow too much money on stupid gambling stuff which is why I'm hesitant. Plus I'm not exactly good at live poker either

And thanks to DQS for one of his comments made me decide to give cashgames a proper try . Well maybe i should thank him after I've actually stopped losing all my money but yeh sometimes one comment from one person can really kind of make you think "yeh why not?" . Just need to be realistic that it will take effort and I am prepared to lose money learning

I don't have the desire to play long mtt sessions anymore . I really struggle with the hours and the variance . Yes in the shortterm I can make a lot more money at mtts but if I put in the time and effort at cashgames I'm sure I can make the same and probably more at cashgames with much more time flexibility and hopefully less annoying variance . At least if I'm running bad allin at cashgames I can see my ev line going up which helps to deal with it.

Since xmas I have been putting some proper effort into winning steadily at nl 6max . I have a deuces cracked sub and I'm putting more effort into using HEM effectively . Also I'm being very careful not to start tilting because that has always been my main problem. If I'm feeling tilted I just take a break.

What I have learned adjusting from tourneys to cash

Preflop ranges are generally tighter . If I get 3bet I'm usually folding without a big hand or good odds to see a flop . Ofc sometimes I'll 4bet light (and by light I mean even a hand as strong as TT) depending on opponent which leads me to my next point

Adjust to opponent tendencies much more . In tourneys I generally just play a std game regardless of opponent at least until deep . In cash every hand is isolated and it's much more important to adjust how you play hands depending on opponent's playing style . KQ on Qxx flop is cbet and play cautiously on turn v some players (nitty regs) . The same hand is bet/bet/allin v a loose passive fish.

Taking notes and paying attention is more important . 6 or 7 tabling seems optimal so far for being able to really focus on who's doing what whilst maximising no. of hands played and hopefully $/hr . I guess I could learn to play a TAG game and 16-20 table but I'm more interested in learning to crush and moving up stakes rather than grinding out a living at low limits.

Respect position more . In tourneys I can get away with raising any playable hand from any position depending on stacksize and table dynamics . In cash it's generally just not profitable to be raising light from ep because noone is worried about their tourney life . Players are much more willing to see a flop and ofc I end up playing oop with a weak starting hand . I'm not quite sure what the difference is between tourneys and cash in this regard but maybe it's because it's really difficult to pressurise opponents in cashgames because there's way less fear factor Anyway that's a leak I've plugged because I noticed on HEM that I was losing money from utg and obv that's because I was playing too many hands.

I think of cashgames as something like the 15/30 level in a 1500 chip mtt . You don't have to wait for AA or KK to get it allin pre but equally there's no need to 3bet suited connectors from the btn unless you have good reason/reads to do so. There's no rush to amass chips either although obv you don't want to miss +ev spots when they arise but generally folding when unsure is the better option and waiting for more profitable spots . Nitty folds cost less than spewy calls and bluffs

So far (since xmas) I'm up around $870 incl rb after 16k hands .That's a mix of 10nl-100nl . The majority of hands have been at 50nl which is where I feel most comfortable atm . So I'll post my 50nl graph which I'm quite pleased with . The sample is still way too small to get any real indication if I'm beating the games or not but that's all I got so far

FYI The bottom redline is non-showdown winnings , the blue line is showdown winnings . Then the other redline is my expected winnings and the green line is actual winnings . So far at least everything is looking as it should

Here is a snapshot that shows my BI breakdown this year so far....A couple of days ago I cracked the Sharkscope 2012 profit leaderboard for $5-$15 any 2-3 table game, but since then I've lost a bit and slipped off the list.




Obviously had a fantastic month - I couldn't expect it to keep going like that forever. I experienced a month's worth of bad luck in my last 500 games, not that I'm complaining though!
In June I hope to match my May volume of 2000 games. This means approximately 70 games/day on average will be necessary.

December Update and 2012 Summary

SNGs Played: 680
Table Profits: -$489.03
Including RB and Bonuses: -$247.27
ROI: -4.5%

2012 (SNGs Only):
Games Played: 16,702
Table Profits: $10,031.12
Including RB and Bonuses: $16,761.14
ROI: 3.6%

2012 (MTTs Only):
Games Played: 521
Table Profits: $2,816
Including RB and Bonuses: $2,902
ROI: 62.3%
*Includes one of those VIP freerolls where I cashed for $400.

2012 (SNGs and MTTs Combined):
Games Played: 17,224
Table Profits: $12,847.12
Including RB and Bonuses: $19,663.14

So 2012 is coming to an end today and it really does feel once again like it came and went very quickly. I don't have an elaborate blog summary planned, but I'll include all the necessary information about my grind in 2012 and the game plan for 2013. Unfortunately my HEM stats and PS audit did not match (PS audit somehow missed around 2,000 of my games) so the numbers you see above are the most accurate that I could gather. The numbers below however are completely accurate as I kept track of these things on a monthly basis (this is all SNG information):

December Stats and 2013 Recap December 2013
Games Played: 2011
Table Profits: $1,566
Including RB and Bonuses: $2,785
ROI: 3.8%

2013 (SNGs Only):
Games Played: 25,284
Table Profits: $21,201
Including RB and Bonuses: $35,305
ROI: 5.6%

2013 (MTTs Only):
Games Played: 843
Table Profits: $12,843
Including RB and Bonuses: $13,032
ROI: 245%

Time flies when you're having fun.

2013 is officially coming to an end now and my first year of playing professionally has been a blast. I have exceeded my goals and expectations in a variety of ways, which will allow me to give it another shot in the coming year. So now its time to summarize some of the most important events of 2013 and I'm not even sure where to start. I wish I gave myself more time to prepare this entry but I'm heading out for the night in a bit and want to get it posted beforehand. So where to begin? How about some of my 2013 goal accomplishments and how they'll be altered for next year.

Goal #1: Financial profitability. Net $20k+ from poker related revenue
Going into year 1, I wanted to set a goal in which was both reasonably obtainable but yet financially justifiable. If I weren't to hit my decided target then I'd have to seriously consider a more lucrative career path in the "real life" work force. Without getting too specific, I accomplished this goal through an array of poker related revenues. Primarily its SNGs and rakeback/bonuses that account for a majority of my income but also streams like MTTs, staking, coaching, cash games, and live poker were contributors as well. Next year I'm setting the goal at netting $30k+ from poker related revenue. While I believe there is quite a bit of potential to exceed this goal, once again it's being set somewhat conservatively so that I can hopefully continue my path as a pro player going into 2015.

Goal #2: Volume. Play 25k 18mans, reach 200k VPPs, and hit 1k MTTs
I succeeded to reach both 25k 18mans and 200k VPPs, both of which were accomplished with approximately a week to spare. My SNG ABI this year was slightly south of $20 and I'll be looking to increase it by about 25-50% in the upcoming year. I'm falling a bit short of 1k MTTs but that's not really a concern to me as I smashed my MTT profit projections anyways (more on that later). I ended up grinding SNGs for 1366 hours and logged 108.5 separate hours of studying with various peers and colleagues. Next year I'm aiming for 30k 18mans, 300k VPPs, and more like 2k MTTs.

Goal #3: Be profitable at staking
In 2012 I ended up taking a $1k loss from investing in fellow players - it was the first time that a full year of staking ended in a loss. So this year the goal was to simply take a step in the right direction and profit from this side-activity. Fortunately that goal ended up successful as I'm gonna make somewhere in the ballpark of $1k-$1.5k this year pending on the remaining investments. Special thanks to OBB who managed to turn a $10 punt into $1.2k earlier in the year during SCOOP time. Obviously that was a huge help in completing this goal - its also the best ROI I've ever achieved from a single stake. Because it's not extremely important to bottom line, I'm going to set my 2014 staking goal a bit more aggressively and aim for $2.5k profit which would narrowly beat out my previous best of $2.4k profit in 2011.

Some of my other 2013 poker accomplishments include:

• Summertime trip to Vegas
• Playing >1.2 Million hands throughout the year
• Ending the year as #1 on the 2-3 table $7-$15 Sharkscope Leaderboard
• Played >3k SNGs in a month (did it twice)
• Hit my first 5 figure MTT score by chopping the $1r $60k GTD for $12k
• Shipped my first $100 18man
• >$2k profit from 1 day of SNGs as well as my first time having back-to-back >$1k SNG days