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Small Fish in a Big Pond. A Diary.
Small fish in a Big Pond. A Diary.
Introduction.
I have been playing poker for a while now, Starting just with a few friends in some home games and expanding to online and recently live. I have mostly been a recreational player however and have been playing 95% of my poker here on sky. My biggest month C4P wise was 7000, but averaging around 500-1000 most months. I mainly stick to cash, as not only do I find 100BB poker more challenging and entertaining, I like the fact you can play when you want for however long you want.
Why the Diary?
As mentioned I have been playing poker mostly recreationally, and this is what I would like to change. I feel my game is currently at the level whereby I would like to take it further, however I still realise there are a lot of leaks and weaknesses I would like to work on. I feel posting regularly here and in the poker clinic will keep me focused and motivated. I also hope it will provide an entertaining read to all those interested.
History.
I have never been able to maintain a steady bankroll. Normally I will deposit £50+, play NL4-NL20 4 tabling, and win big (usually at least double up) to start with as my love for the game and concentration is at a peak. I then will start to think I am Phil Ivey, try to win every pot, move up and play levels I am not rolled for and worst of all play when I am not at my most focused. Playing for the money rather than the love of the game, and this is when every bad beat and bad play by me that costs me money starts to feel painful.
Let’s take my last diary I did on Sky Poker as an example. I started with £200, mainly playing 6max and HU cash (NL10). I started poorly losing about £50, but as it was a fresh deposit and I was feeling focused I managed to win it back to a £40 profit. I felt great! But I then got carried away and played a NL20 HU and got crushed. Again feeling like I was Ivey and could take on the world. It had also been about 10 days and poker was starting to feel more of a ‘job’ than a game. So rather than playing 100% optimally I was playing to win. As I said it felt like a job so winning any less than £5 in an hour would feel like a loss. This at NL10 4 tables is hard to keep this win rate. Especially when slightly tilted buy a £20 loss at NL20 HU. I ended up losing another £30 to take my total to £190 before withdrawing. Frustrating!
This is basically what it has been mostly. Sometimes I withdraw sensibly in profit, sometimes not. On the before mentioned paragraph I made 7000 points, this was a month I ran hot and ended up playing NL100 with about a £700 roll. It’s fair to say I got beat in the end. But I had built this up from a £100 deposit, so still withdrew comfortably in profit!
The Plan.
As can be seen from the previous two paragraphs I feel I have the skill to win at poker. What I lack is discipline, focus and motivation.
I aim to solely play MTTs, at least to begin with. This is for 6 main reasons:
1. I can ask myself; do I really want to play? As I will have to be sat there for a couple of hours, win or lose.
2. I also feel it will get rid of the idea of seeing poker as a ‘job’ as it’s almost impossible to work out a consistent profit from MTTs per hour.
3. MTTs can generally be more fun than Cash over long periods of time.
4. I won’t be tempted to ‘squeeze’ in 20 minutes poker here or there, I will play when I want, at the times I am 100% focused.
5. I want to try and build a bankroll quickly, I can’t be bothered ‘grinding’ NL10 for hours on end and moving up slowly and steadily. Although I have huge respect for people that do. (Lambert180)
6. Less tilt. As I know what I am risking before the game begins.
I will be starting with a £200 Bankroll. And mainly playing £1.10 - £3.30 games to begin with, to try and start on a positive and find green early on. I will then take more risks with my roll if I win and try to build quickly. The dream would be to replicate what Wacko90 did a while back whereby he turned £100 into £3000+ in a ridiculously short period of time.
The only cash I will be playing will be higher stakes NL30+, and this will only be on rare occasions, probably if I win a big tournament I will try spinning a proportion of it up on the cash tables.
I will only play when I want to play, so this may only be a few times a week. I will try and keep this thread updated with other things even on days I don’t play. I also intend to play live regularly, as I feel this makes poker seem more real and also re-focuses me on the game.
I would like to try to read, watch and post on the forum more to try and improve my game as well as jumping on the tables. I also hope to try a few sats into SPT Dublin and other SPT’s.
The Dream.
I guess most poker players dreams are to become a millionaire from the game, and live off the winnings. So I guess this is my ultimate dream.
However my dream isn’t particularly to make a living from poker. I never see myself grinding the cash tables day in day out, as I feel I lack the discipline to play so often and so many tables. But again I have a huge respect for players that can.
I hope to be able to make a nice 2nd income from poker, which I can use to travel to big tournaments across the globe. I want to enjoy my poker whilst making these profits, even when on a losing run. I also think the idea of becoming a poker analyst/blogger would be cool, and maybe making an appearance on Sky Poker TV one day!
Obviously this is all in the very distant future, however I thought it would be a good idea to outline this to let people know what I want to gain from poker and this diary.
Questions.
I have a few questions before I start that I would like to ask the community. I would be grateful for anyone that would take the time to answer.
1) How often, say out of 10000, would you expect to:
- Win
- Final Table
- Cash
- Bust
In an MTT? I know it depends, but a rough idea would be good!
2) Would you recommend playing standard ABC poker? Or trying to play some hands to gather chips early on to set you in good stead for the future levels.
3) What is a good ROI for an MTT Player?
Thanks all.
SighCall
Comments
Hey Sighcall,
Really nice post! It will be interesting to see how you get on with this.
Looking forward to the updates. Good luck
should be a good read.
(* *)
^
dev
Thanks for the support!
New Manager Syndrome
It would be assumed that when a new manager joins a struggling club, their first game in charge should be tough. It is difficult to change a team’s mentality in such a short space of time. But often the opposite is the case whereby a team performs above expectations because of a so called ‘new manager syndrome.’
With the recent appointments of Di Canio and Adkins it would be interesting to analyse whether this ‘new manager syndrome’ is fact or fallacy. The bookies are currently offering 3.5 for a Reading win at home against Southampton, who has looked in good form recently beating Chelsea, Liverpool and Man City.
Sunderland stands a whopping 12.1 to beat Chelsea away from home, with Sunderland or Draw standing at 3.6. With the recent appointment of Di Canio, could this ‘new manager syndrome’ pose some value in betting on Sunderland as an upset is inevitable?
When Harry Redknapp’s took over at a struggling QPR side his team drew 0-0 with Sunderland. Not a bad start but not exactly a positive one either. Southampton also achieved a 0-0 draw against Everton when Mauricio Pochettino took over in January. Again not exactly inspiring however a point against Everton is never something to be sniffed at. When Benitez took over at Chelsea they were against Man City, again another 0-0 draw.
Although these three results haven’t been bad ones, they certainly haven’t been particularly inspiring ones, with the new manager failing to get his team to score in the opening game of his campaign.
However moving down the league to the Championship when Billy Davies took over as Nottingham Forest manager they won 1-0. However when Mark Robins took over at Huddersfield they got thrashed 4-1 by Wigan and then 6-1 by Nottingham Forest the following game.
The overriding facts state that ‘new manager syndrome’ is merely a product of the imagination. Sometimes teams may be able to grab a point where they are not expected, but overall it doesn’t have a dominating effect on a team’s performance.
This is why I have backed Southampton @2.3 with PaddyPower.
Thanks for reading. Love to hear your opinion.
SighCall
In answer to you questions...
1) Long term, you should probably be busting out without a cash maybe as high as 80% of the time. Because we should never be aiming to min-cash, the bubble shouldn't bother us and that's when we should be accumulating chips so sometimes we'll bust round the bubble, but the times we don't we should have a good stack to go deep. So you probably cash 20% of the time ish, or should be if you're playing correctly, wins are gonna be fairly rare but FTs shouldn't be too uncommon if you're getting through the bubble with a good stack.
2) It's a personal preference imo and there's an argument for both playing tight, not playing many pots but when you do playing big pots with big hands OR playing lots more small pots, seeing lots of flops cheaply. I lean towards seeing alot of flops cheaply with good concealed hands like 67s, 8Ts etc but again it's personal preference and also depends on your postflop ability
3) I think the best in the world are like 30-40% ROI but that is over thousands and thousands of games. Plenty of good players will/can/do achieve better ROIs than that in the short term.
One thing I would say is that MTTs can be really brutal at the best of times. I wrote a little summary at the end of March and during March, I think I FT'd 6-7 MTTs out of only playing about 30 odd which is pretty crazy and yet I probably only made a very small profit from them all because I was like 1st or 2nd to bust out on the FT everytime. I don't think I did much wrong and I can remember at least 3 of them times I got it in pre on the FT dominating with things like AK v AT and lost all of them. My only point being that losing AK v AT at cash is pretty meh but doing it on a FT after getting through a few hundred runners can be pretty painful when it's the difference between like £40 for 6th and £500 for 1st. You just gotta keep plugging away at it, and the wins will come, but it can sometimes take a long time with MTTs.
Thanks for taking the time to write this. I will keep these targets in mind when playing. Gues ill just have to hope I get lucky to begin with!
Also brilliant to read you diary! Hope you keep it up.
On postive news my southampton bet won! YES!
Day 1
Starting Bankroll: £200
Current Bankroll: £194.50
Today Profit/Loss: -£5.50
Total Profit/Loss: -£5.50
ROI: -100%
C4P: 57pts
Started my campaign by playing a £5.50, £200 Guaranteed tournament. I personally feel that there is less variance in a standard tournament compared to a Bounty Hunter meaning I have a higher edge.
Not much action to begin with, as I didn’t play a hand in the first ten minutes. Still managed to pick up a couple of notes as one hand that reached a pot of 1000 chips one player limped with AA and another with K2o. Both equally bad plays I feel.
My first hand I played was an awkward one. I had Qd5c in the BB, as two players limped in and we saw a flop 3-way. The Flop came Qs10d9d, with a pot of 105, I check and player 1 bets 30, 2nd player calls 30 and I call 30. Turn: 10c. Again I check and player 1 bets 30, player 2 calls and I call behind. River: 3c. I check, player 1 bets 180 into 285 and player 2 folds, I also fold. Was this the correct play? Should I bet that flop? Sigh, I really hate limped pots.
I pick up Qh10h in UTG +1. I think for a while before raising 3x. I have literally not played a hand in 25 minutes apart from that Q5 hand. I still get 3 callers. Either 3 people picked up decent hands or literally no one has been watching my play. I miss the flop and first player to act bets pot, I fold. At least I gained a little info on some of my fellow players.
Picked up 8s4s, was folded round to the small blind and he 3x me. I decided to 3-Bet him as I had a very tight image as I hadn’t played a hand in forever. He then just shoved and I sigh folded. My chip count was now at 1105. Need a few double ups now!
Literally not picking up the hands today! Still 20BB deep, plenty of blinds and time...
Yes! The much needed double up. Found J10o on the button and with 2 limpers behind I raise, 1 caller, Flop 1053. I shove about 800 into 700 and get a call by JQ. I hit a 10 on the turn to leave him dead! Chip count: 2250.
So many limpers... I’m going to have to get used to this if I want to be a winning player! Hit the break with 2450 chips. 15th/20th with 6 Paid. Happy!
NO! Butchered a hand. Got lucky. Someone rises to 320 with 800 behind. I call in SB with AsJs. Flop 1093 and I shove (800 as I am playing his stack) into a pot of 720. He folds. That’s a close one. What should I do in that situation though?
Picked up KsQs on the button with 2000 chips. Blinds 75/150. I shove and get called by 77. He wins. I’m out. Sigh. Correct Shove? I feel if I min raise he maybe folds 77? No?
Overall I am happy with my play. I just know it’s going to take a lot of patience to see my first win. Also not bad going to say I got it in 5050 and I didn’t pick up a playable hand for the first half an hour.
Also I would appreciate your feedback. Do you prefer longer posts like this or would you rather shorter ones more to the point? Guess ill mix it up and see what people prefer.
Thanks
SighCall
If he's raised to 320 and only left 800 behind, assuming we're not in a horrible position (lots of big stacks behind us that are likely to call, and we are deep), then I'd just stick him all in pre-flop, saves situations like the one you had. I might consider calling a shove, but when you shove yourself you are literally onyl ever gonna get called by hands that beat you and potentially hands that you're in a lot of trouble with like hands where he has a pair AND one of your cards.
Perfect shove, you can't minraise from a stack this small. Even if you did min-raise he probably just shoves over the top and you have to call even though it feels horrible calling the shove with KQ.
Good idea to do a little summary of your tournament and highlighting any points in the tournaent where you are unsure, but I imagine if you're gonna be building a BR from MTTs, then you're gonna be grinding alot of them, so can't post a summary that long for every tourney.
GL
Paul