MX's NL Journey

NL Journey at an end???

2009-10-15T16:48:00.002-04:00

Well, I hate to admit when I feel beat but that is where I got to with NL cash games. I took a break for a while and I'm just now starting to get back into playing but I'm primarily playing 9 person sng's for now. Currently playing the $24's on FT and after the first 100, things are going better than they should honestly. I'd like to grind through about 50 or so per day with a 10% roi, which will net me about $110/day plus rakeback. I'm currently running at better than 22% roi which is great but know it's not sustainable long term. I won't be posting as much as I used to but will pop in every once in a while.

Rough weekend

2009-09-14T09:12:00.002-04:00

After a few good days, I moved up to 200nl for a bit on Friday and came crashing down with some bad beats and some bad play as well. Spent the weekend trying to recover but was unsuccessful overall. Got a lot of work to do this week now, which is good for my mindset. I'm needing to cash out a bit more this week for my wife's trip to NYC but unsure how much I'm willing to take at this point. Will depend on overall play. Off to the races!

FT: $2718.36
Stars: $433.17

Total: $3,151.53

Another up day???

2009-09-10T16:58:00.002-04:00

What is this world coming to!

I haven't been getting the volume of hands in that I would like to overall but it's ok. I need to keep the mind straight first and foremost. When I grind to just grind, I don't play well and it costs me. Played just under 1k hands today for a +$361 so a great day (helps to suck out a couple times too)

FT: $3,501.39
Stars: $433.17

Total: $3,934.56

Will he crack $4k tomorrow???? Who knows! Tune back in to find out!

I Feel Dirty....but I don't care :)

2009-09-09T19:08:00.002-04:00

After booking the decent win yesterday, I was following Yankees in his trny last night and ended up dropping it all back and finished out the day ~even. I was helping out a friend that wanted me to review a couple sessions for him this morning so I wasn't able to start up any tables until about 12:30 this afternoon. My very first hand of the day was one that made me want to just shut the tables down and go home with my tail between my legs. Here's the hand:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (5 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($100)

Hero (BB) ($100)

UTG ($100)

MP ($102.85)

Button ($183.75)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 10, 10

2 folds, Button bets $3, 1 fold, Hero calls $2

Flop: ($6.50) 7, 10, Q (2 players)

Hero checks, Button bets $4, Hero raises to $15, Button raises to $43, Hero raises to $97 (All-In), Button calls $54

Turn: ($200.50) K (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($200.50) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $200.50 Rake: $3

Results:

Button had 7, 7 (four of a kind, sevens).

Hero had 10, 10 (full house, tens over sevens).

Outcome: Button won $197.50

After that hand, I was just sitting there shaking my head. I couldn't really feel bad as I played the hand perfectly and got super unlucky. I went on to play through a good session and pick up 2.2bi overall. Then later on, I was sitting and watching some 1k nl and a friend said to me...

"You are due to do something stupid, jump in!" Told him he was FOS and did think about playing higher than my normal stakes. I ended up shortstacking ( I know, I know) 400nl and was amazed at how poorly people adjusted to me. I managed to take $660 out of that (buying in for $80) and made 2 bad calls the whole time I played which cost me another $140 or so. Anyhow, today ended up being a great day and +$889.45

Until tomorrow....or whenver I update this again.

FT: $3,139.94
Stars: $433.17

Total: $3,573.11

Cashout complete

2009-09-08T19:18:00.002-04:00

After a long day of playing, I managed to scrape out $270 in winnings after being down almost $500 about 1k hands into the session. Was quite nice to finish out on top. Processed my weekly cashout at the end of the session and leave myself with the following:

FT: $2,534.04
Stars: $433.17

Total: $2,967.21

Yankees is playing the $1k NLHE WCOOP tonight so hope to have some great news from that as well. Stay tuned...same MX time...same MX channel!

Holiday Weekend takes it's toll

2009-09-08T07:45:00.002-04:00

Well, the holiday has now passed and it has put a bit of a damper on my play. I haven't gotten in the hands the past week that I normally would and this is causing my rakeback to drop fairly significantly so I'll have to really cram the rest of the week. Friday's rakeback is going to be in the neighborhood of $130 so I need to get an extra buyin this week to put me over my $500 mark. Still doable, but puts a bit more pressure on me. I was able to play a tiny bit over the weekend and pick up 1 buyin and a tiny bit playing 25nl on Stars. Here's to a good week!

FT: $2,763.79
Stars: $433.17

Total: $3,196.96

Let's go Terps!

2009-09-05T09:01:00.002-04:00

That's right everyone, College football is back! I had a special request for a bit of a twist on the journey and wanted to comply. I'll be spending the evening drinking and partying with some friends and then watching some of the game tonight. It doesn't start till 10pm since it's playing in California. They are a fairly large underdog but hope to overcome that.

Now, onto Poker. I had an opportunity to back Yankees31 again. He is the guy that I backed in the wsop which gave quite a nice return. He is playing a bunch of events in the WCOOP for total buyin of $10,700 so I have 1% again. First trny is tomorrow. He played in an event on Thursday which was a $215 buyin 6max event. ~8500 people and he finished ~350 for a $700 cash or so. Unfortunatley, I didn't have a piece of that one.

Rakeback hit yesterday for a total of $209 and play this week has been pretty good (once Monday is taken out :) ) Tuesday was a +5 bi, Wed -4bi, Thurs +2 and yesterday +3.5 so total of +6.5 since my cashout.

FT: $2657.14
Stars: $414.22

Total: $3,071.36

Finally....

2009-09-02T07:35:00.002-04:00

After starting the day out with a $500 cashout, I left myself with $2307.93 as a bankroll. I made a promise to myself that this will be a weekly thing and look at it as I have to play xxx to win my cashout back. With ~200 coming Friday in rakeback, I know I need to earn 3 buyins to get back to my starting point. I was able to grind through a couple thousand hands yesterday and things finally got back to a winning day. After two weeks of struggling, it was really nice to see an uptick in my graph. I found myself being very focused in my play which was very comforting. I was able to pick my bankroll from $1786.71 on FT to $2344.81 so about 5.5 buyins. Also helped stacking AQs 180bb deep with AA on A242x board when it was 4bet pre, then checked to the river where he pot bet it and I shoved and he called. Also had a couple of quite laggy guys that I had position on and 3bet them mercilessly and when called (rarely) they would play fit/fold poker so I was able to take a lot of pots on the flop with a cbet. Today is my long day so I should be able to get a lot of hands in and hopefully push that bankroll up some more.

FT: $2344.81
Stars: $521.22

Total: $2866.03

September Already??

2009-09-01T08:14:00.003-04:00

My how time flies. It seems like I was just posting about the August new month and here we are again looking into September. The month was a relative success in terms of cashouts but play was not great. Thank goodness for rakeback! The month started off fabulous and then went downhill from there. I was getting sucked out on quite a bit and played poorly as well leading to a loss of much of the profit I started the month with. Goals for this month and moving forward is to cashout $500 per week. This should easily be doable with the rakeback as it only needs 3 buyins per week to accomplish this as I'm averaging close to $200 per week in rakeback. So, off we go!

FT: $2,286.71
Stars: $521.22

Total: $2,807.93

Month end coming

2009-08-29T15:13:00.002-04:00

Can't believe this month is almost over and I have to say it has been quite a ride. Lots of new high's and low's. Doubt I'll be able to get much in the rest of the weekend so I wanted to give a quick update but nothing really to comment on other than how badly I ran for about 15k hands. AK was a huge loser this month with winning way less than it should :(

Ft: $2882.23
Stars: $521.22

Total: $3403.48

Have a great weekend!

Down week

2009-08-25T07:31:00.002-04:00

Sorry for not posting lately, but I really haven't felt like posting. I've been in quite a rut the last week and it has me second guessing my play. My biggest nemesis has been AK as I don't think that I have won with it in the last week when AIPF. Approximately 8 times I found myself all in pre and lost every single one of them where I either didn't hit or when I did, my opponent hit sets. It's been quite depressing. I'm continuing to play through it and know that it will rebound soon enough but it's difficult right now. Thankfully, rakeback has helped keep things from being really bad. Just have to keep plugging along.

FT: $2,391.27
Stars: $789.22

Total: $3,180.49

Refreshed

2009-08-17T09:32:00.002-04:00

My play lately has really not been going too well, so I took a few days off to do other stuff besides think about poker. I spent the day Friday fishing for Marlin and Dolphin and didn't get a thing. I also just signed up for the Philadelphia Half Marathon and started running again yesterday. I put in 2.75mi which was once an easy run that has turned into a workout. I should rebound pretty quickly however and look forward to the challenge. Not sure how much poker I will play today as I found myself playing just to get hands in and my mind was not focussed. If I start to feel that way again, I'll shut down. Going into the week, I'll be focussing on 100nl and rebuilding.

Tilt: $2595.17
Stars: $943.33

Total: $3538.50

Humbling day

2009-08-13T09:14:00.002-04:00

Well, I guess I can't always post wins and yesterday hurt quite a lot. I put in a LOT of hands overall and variance crushed me. I ran 10.5BI -EV which put a dent of about $2k into my bankroll yesterday. I've moved back down to 100nl and will try and rebuild. This also goes into my reasoning for withdrawing a portion. Had I not done that yesterday, I would likely still be playing 200nl and not have those funds to be able to cashout. I have no problems playing 100nl as I still think I can grind a decent side income from it with rakeback. Variance can be a bitch, but geeeeze!

FT: $2787.85
Stars: $943.33

Total: $3,731.18

Even with that horrendous day yesterday, I still find myself with a $3.3k profit for the month so I can't complain too much.

Cash for Clunkers???

2009-08-12T08:12:00.002-04:00

Not quite, but profits for bills is nice. As I've gone along this journey, my goal was to get to 200nl and play profitably to bring in a decent side income. I got to that point this month (at least profitable so far) and was thinking how high do I want to go??? I was rolled for 400nl and was contemplating moving up but then got back to reality and looking at my bigger priorities and decided to pull out some funds which will make my life easier in the short and long run. It was a smart financial move for me as it will allow me to get some money put into the bank for savings as well as paying down some debt. I figured that if I'm not planning on moving up from 200nl for a while, there wasn't a need to keep the roll online when I can use it for other things. So this morning I cashed out another $2500. I have 3 kids to get school supplies for in the next two weeks which is always frustrating for my wife and I when we are scrimping by. I'll still be playing 200nl and using a 20/17 BI for now. This extra money in my account is going to bring me some peace of mind overall and is a +EV in life for me.

FT: $4809.10
Stars: $943.33

Total: $5752.33

Really good Monday

2009-08-11T06:49:00.003-04:00

Clearing out the cobwebs from Saturday and becoming a card rack made yesterday my largest winning day to date in terms of $$$ outside of a couple of tournament wins I have had. I hit numerous sets that got paid, flopping nut flush vs K high flush on flop, just stuff like that all day long. At ~1k hands in, I was up 7 buyins. Having such a great run, it was difficult to want to keep playing and have the proper mindset. I had to fight that and continue through. I peaked at just under 10 buyins and then dropped a little bit before finishing at 8.5 buyins for the day in about 1800 hands. I'm going to post a graph of the day later on even though it will probably doomswitch me :)

FT: $7,241.90
Stars: $943.33

Total: $8,185.23

Saturday Stupidity

2009-08-10T07:48:00.003-04:00

Well, I was able to squeeze in a few hands on Saturday morning and played really poorly. I played too agressively postflop vs fish that aren't going to fold and it cost a bit. I ended up losing about 1.5 buyins overall and didn't need to. Will start this week fresh and spend a bit more time thinking about what reactions my bets will most likely get as I just wasn't doing that.

FT: $5540.80
Stars: $943.33

Total: $6484.13

This week in review

2009-08-08T10:17:00.002-04:00

What a wild week this has been. I've pulled out some money, playing 200nl consistently, having huge swings which I don't like and won my biggest pot to date where I was 215bb deep and flopped set over set on him. Ended up being an $872 pot! Thankfully, that put me even for the session however as I played 3800 hands yesterday to finish up a total of a whopping $65. I was able to rack up about $115 in rakeback however and almost finished clearing my bonus. My rakeback yesterday was nice as well for ~$250. So this week has netted me almost $3k. Not too shabby for a hobby :)

FT: $5838.70
Stars: $943.33

Total: $6782.03

Done for today

2009-08-06T16:56:00.002-04:00

I didn't get a lot of playing in today but still finished well. I broke a rule yesterday and ventured into some 400nl for a brief period after I went on a great run at 200nl. I ended up dropping ~1 buyin overall but still managed to finish up almost 4 buyins from 200nl after that. I spent a lot of time yesterday and today watching some videos on CR by Citizenwind and his current series "99 mistakes" is really good and I highly recommend it. So until tomorrow....

FT: $5272.66
Stars: $943.33

Total: $6215.99

Taking some profits

2009-08-05T06:58:00.002-04:00

After thinking about my long term goals, I decided to cashout some more funds here as it is in my long term interest to do so. I'm still leaving myself with a greater than $5k bankroll and will implement a 25/20 bankroll guideline so I'll still be playing 200nl for a while. I dropped 1.5 buyins yesterday and spent a lot of time watching some videos on both Pokertrikz and CR and have a series by Citizenwind to watch. Looking forward to that. I'm also liking the fact that I'm using some of this earned money to help me towards purchasing a house in the future. I'm going to watch this series today and then get back to playing. I still have $220 in bonus to clear and the rakeback is helping greatly :) I have a long day in my office today so I should be able to get in quite a few hands after watching the vids. Until later!

FT: $4,234.26
Stars: $943.33

Total: 5,177.59

So far so good!

2009-08-04T10:09:00.002-04:00

After a long day of grinding yesterday at 200nl, I found myself going through peaks and valleys which i really don't like too much as I'd rather have a steady flow. I found myself down about 1.5 buyins early on then ran up to almost +3 buyins then down almost 1 buyin then finished up almost 4 buyins so overall a nice profitable day at 7.5bb/100. A few monster hands really helped with that where I flopped a set of Kings vs set of Queens, flopped a boat vs an overpair who couldn't get away. I had a few bad spots along the way as well where I flopped a set of Tens on a QT9 board and opponent open raised with KJo and I didn't fill up. Had AK lose to AA and AK lose to QQ AIPF both times. I also called a shove from an aggressive BB on the button with 88 (not my best moment). I cleared $260 of the bonus and it doesn't appear to be effecting my MGR on my rakeback either which is really nice :) Rakeback this week should tally to around $280. I moved $150 for a friend also so my Stars money has increased there a bit. Definitely have hit an all time high here with my bankroll as well.

FT: $6,543.61
Stars: $943.33

Total: $7,486.94

Moving up???

2009-08-02T21:13:00.002-04:00

After having a great day on Saturday, I decided to start testing out 200nl again and see what we can gain from our last experience of dropping huge amounts tooo quickly. I found myself playing a bit cautious as the pot sizes still seem shocking to me. Having $200 at risk at any point is playing with my head a bit and only playing will take that away over time. Was able to put in almost 500 hands today and having a good run of cards found me up almost 3.5 buyins. Flopping 3 sets and turning a 4th with 2 of those turning into quads helps quite a bit especially when my opponents had a hand. Once my opponent flopped a flush and I quadded up on the river. I'm hoping to be able to stay at 200nl.

FT: $5,810.76
Stars: $793.53

Total: $6,604.29

July in review

2009-08-01T11:20:00.003-04:00

As we begin another month, I look back over the last year or so and realize how far I've come and how much I have yet to learn. July has been my best month ever allowing me to cashout $1500, put another $630 in the bank from the WSOP stake and start August with a very respectable bankroll with more than double what I started July with. Goals for this month include playing at least 50k hands and $4k profit. With that kind of volume, it should be doable when you factor in rakeback. I put in 40k hands at 100nl last month with another 10k hands at other levels. The 40k at 100nl netted me ~$800 in rakeback. I still have some leaks to plug and increase my winrate so I will be focussing on that a lot. I managed a meager 2.5bb/100 for the bulk of my play and I know I can better that with some work. So, here is where we begin August:

FT: $4130.76
Stars: $793.53

Total: $4924.29

I also received a bonus offer from Tilt this month for $500 in which I still have 27 days to clear and I've cleared $100 in the last 3 days so just an added perk :)

Edited after my 2 hr session today:
FT: $5080.76
Stars: $793.53
Total: $5,847.29

Lotta hands today

2009-07-29T21:03:00.003-04:00

Well, now that the bar job is gone, I'll be spending a lot more time playing in my office. Was able to grind out over 4k hands today with a great winrate. This week has been a bit frustrating overall and today really helped my sanity. Finished up today just under 12 buyins! So here are our totals:

FT: $4267.56
Stars: $792.53

Total: $5,060.09

Day off today

2009-07-24T09:16:00.002-04:00

Taking today to go to the concert and looking forward to spending some time with my wife and some friends partying. I was able to get off work early last night and get a few hands in and ran had a great run of cards and had them against uber fish. Finished up a few buyins which was nice. I have to bartend Sunday morning so I'm likely not going to be able to play until Monday. Have a great weekend!

FT: $3094.65
Stars: $792.53
Rakeback: $217.26

Total: $4,104.44

The ol Cashout Curse...

2009-07-23T14:14:00.003-04:00

Well, it's been a couple of days since my last update and primarily because I didn't want to post. This week has been pretty rough overall and the last 1.5 days I'm running about 6 buyins below ev. Just trying to grind through it at this point. Im heading up to Hershey Park tomorrow for a Dave Matthews concert so looking forward to a bit of a break from everything. Rakeback coming tomorrow should be ~$225 or so. Now to the numbers:

FT: $2837.45
Stars: $792.53

Total: $3629.98

Back to the grind!