You need to be logged in to your Sky Poker account above to post discussions and comments.
You might need to refresh your page afterwards.
You need to be logged in to your Sky Poker account above to post discussions and comments.
You might need to refresh your page afterwards.
Comments
Have a good one mate.
Thanks guys, I had a good birthday, had lovely weather for it so was very lucky.
Feel like I can still play more so when its days I have nothing planned im going to try and put in as much volume as I can. Played for about 5 hours today, after 3 hours I had enough, was playing bad, felt tilted for some reason and was down on session I think. Also it was so humid and my chair is leather.....not a good mix im afaird.
Anyway I knew I had to keep going as today was a free day, and put my music on and suddenly I felt motivated again. Started to play some good poker imo, hit some nice cards, was playing players from 20nl I think aswell and I feel like I held my own against them, would like to know what they think. I was also involved in a massive 3 way pot where I lost 150bb, I had KK , I felt opponent had Aces but I once read in Harrington book, for everytime you fold KK because you think opponent AA, there be twice as many times you fold it and he shows QQ. So im fine with how the hand went. Ended up 2.5 buy ins up which again isn't amazing. I think my winrate is still low, what do you think??
But like I said I was struggling and down, so if I can make those days winning days then I have to be happy. Plus its sunny out !! so it makes it hard to be motivated.
Br: £635
Day: + 2.5 buy ins (£25)
2 biggest losing hands
As im writing this at 2 35pm im sure you don't need telling how the session went. Started off very well, was a few buyins up, then within a 15 minute spell I was around even again, and I really didn't deserve any. I got beat by 5 9 when I had aces, I hit a set of QQ only for my opponent to call a pot sized bet and hit his gutshot on the turn, I value betted flop and turn and shvoed river when I had KK as overpair....opponent had set of 88.
Then I was stupid and started tilting, was so annoyed at how bad I run that I was just playing awful. Its so annoying, I cant just do stupid things cause iv run bad, just shows yet again were going round in circles, as my mental game has obv gone backwards. I really thought I could hit the £700 mark, id been playing well and only winning a few buy ins every session.
Just feels like you can never make a good profit as bad beats are always going to ruin it. The fact is I hate my mental game is only good or bad based upon how im running.
I cbb to post any hands it takes ages and no one comments anyway.
I lost 4 buyins, so yesterday I payed 4 1/2 hours and won 2 1/2 when I desserved to win more and today I lose 4 even though I played well for most the session. Just so fed up with disappointing sessions. My Br was £595, I withdraw £195 as I wanted an achievement for the day. The achievement is iv paided back 1/2 my initial deposit. It will make no difference to me at all as I don't play tourneys that often, and im happy to try and comfortable multitable 5, then 6, then 7 up until 8 tables.....I want to do that at 10nl and no higher.
BR: £400
Day: -4 buy ins (-£40)
So after my withdrawal of £195 my balance sat at £400 at the start of the session, which is 40 buy ins for the level I play which im fine with. I didn't play yesterday as I have to go Gillingham every 3 weeks as part of my recovery so I took the little time I had to watch some vids on deucescracked and read the mental game of poker abit more, as im still struggling abit mentally when things arnt going to plan.
I played 4 hours today, most 5 tables but 3/4 at different stages due to low traffic. Played well, nothing much happened for first half of the session , won a few pots, lost a few, set of 7's to a 6 9 straight, and heads up against liamboi I lost AK vs AA, all in pre. So pretty standard. The 2nd half as I started to win I started to get more confident and there was a good range of different type of players on my table. I was tempted to add a 6th table but I think ill leave that to another day. 6 is the most as that will cover 2 halfs of my tables so I have no room for a 7th.
Won 5 buy ins, happy with that. Might play later, maybe even an mtt as I havnt played once since the super roller.
Duecescracked memebership runs out today, its $129 for 6 months, or $30 a month. It works out at like £5 a week so 1/2 a buy in. Im worried if I go for 6 months that I might stop playing and it will be wasted, iv stayed commited a long time now but im just unsure. Anyone else have a long memebership to a training site like that??
Balance : £450
Day + 5 buy ins (£50)
Great to see you've withdrawn £195 and still have £450 left, that means your £250 up and you've only had this running for what like 2 months? I know it's not life changing but it's pretty good considering you're only playing 10NL and are still in the process of learning.
Keep on like that and you'll easily be able to withdraw the other £200 and then you're freerolling
Yeah no worries it was a standard hand WP mate. Exactly that's what im worried about, i might see if someone on here wants to go halfs or something, id prefer that. If your interested PM, if not im sure someone wants to use the site but cant afford it.
Might take the morning off and play in the evening as iv played mostly all day today and feel shattered. Played a £1.90? sat for the new tourney tonight but didn't make it into the places. Made 2 buy ins in the evening....every little helps.
Wanted to post a hand but i cant get history to come up, this site isn't working properly lately.
Balance: £469
Day: + 6.9 buy ins (£69)
Update
Had my usual downfall after a good day, lost 4.3 buy ins so im only 2.6 up for yesterday and todays hard work. Im more embarrassed tbh then anything, I got a lot of bad luck as usual today but my play was worse so I don't care, like I say every player on here gets bad luck at some point, but the way im dealing with it atm is making me a losing player when I run bad. I just get so frustrated, it come a cold deck about 3/4 times and my opponents still sucked out. Just makes me think that I lose my stack when that happens, so why don't u? it just doesn't seem fair and I need to find a way that it can happen and I can deal with it.
Like I said I played bad anyway, I literally had tables of calling stations and fish, and I like being aggressive and it wasn't working because they was calling so much, I was also playing too wide a range. Im not convinced sit tight and play fit or fold is the ultimate way to exploit this player type.....but then I don't no what is another method. SOOOOO frustrating after yesterday I have an awful day like today. really wanted to get to the £500 mark today
Don't no if ill play later I feel tired of poker, not sure why I cant play a lot of poker continuously day after day, maybe I need to fine a way to refresh myself when imnot playing.
Balance : £426
Day: -£4.3 (£43)
1) What do you think of shoving on the turn to his min raise, is a flat better? I think this is the best move as a lot of his drawing hands will call.
Update
Had my usual downfall after a good day, lost 4.3 buy ins so im only 2.6 up for yesterday and todays hard work. Im more embarrassed tbh then anything, I got a lot of bad luck as usual today but my play was worse so I don't care, like I say every player on here gets bad luck at some point, but the way im dealing with it atm is making me a losing player when I run bad. I just get so frustrated, it come a cold deck about 3/4 times and my opponents still sucked out. Just makes me think that I lose my stack when that happens, so why don't u? it just doesn't seem fair and I need to find a way that it can happen and I can deal with it.
Like I said I played bad anyway, I literally had tables of calling stations and fish, and I like being aggressive and it wasn't working because they was calling so much, I was also playing too wide a range. Im not convinced sit tight and play fit or fold is the ultimate way to exploit this player type.....but then I don't no what is another method. SOOOOO frustrating after yesterday I have an awful day like today. really wanted to get to the £500 mark today
Don't no if ill play later I feel tired of poker, not sure why I cant play a lot of poker continuously day after day, maybe I need to fine a way to refresh myself when imnot playing.
Balance : £426
Day: -£4.3 (£43)
1)
Update
Had my usual downfall after a good day, lost 4.3 buy ins so im only 2.6 up for yesterday and todays hard work. Im more embarrassed tbh then anything, I got a lot of bad luck as usual today but my play was worse so I don't care, like I say every player on here gets bad luck at some point, but the way im dealing with it atm is making me a losing player when I run bad. I just get so frustrated, it come a cold deck about 3/4 times and my opponents still sucked out. Just makes me think that I lose my stack when that happens, so why don't u? it just doesn't seem fair and I need to find a way that it can happen and I can deal with it.
Like I said I played bad anyway, I literally had tables of calling stations and fish, and I like being aggressive and it wasn't working because they was calling so much, I was also playing too wide a range. Im not convinced sit tight and play fit or fold is the ultimate way to exploit this player type.....but then I don't no what is another method. SOOOOO frustrating after yesterday I have an awful day like today. really wanted to get to the £500 mark today
Don't no if ill play later I feel tired of poker, not sure why I cant play a lot of poker continuously day after day, maybe I need to fine a way to refresh myself when imnot playing.
Have 5 hands below I would like some opinions on, thanks.
Balance : £426
Day: -£4.3 (£43)
1)
2 )
3)
4)
5)
1) I really hate the shove. When we get clicked back on the turn it's usually a sign of real strength and even if they are bluffing, shoving will just make them fold when we could let them bluff again on the river. You're really lucky to get called by a worse hand here imo. Unlucky that he hit, but yeah you're lucky you weren't behind anyway when you shoved and got a call.
2) I'd probably raise his donkbet on the flop, but once you've taken the flatting line I think you just have to play it exactly as you did and call down on this run out.
3) Played perfect imo, unlucky.
4) If I'm gonna bet into this many people I'd bet bigger. Calling the turn isn't great, sounds a bit nitty but it's probably a fold. If we do call then shoving the river is such a horrible option. We definitely have to just check/fold that river.
5) Again, multiway, wet flop, bet bigger, I'd go to about £1.95 on the flop. Barrel the turn, they aint gonna have many 4x hands in their range, but they're still gonna have tons of draws and 2 big overcards that we wanna get value from/charge them to draw. As played, think we have to fold river to a pot sized bet. It's just SOO rare you'll ever get an opponent going full pot at this level with a bluff and we can't really beat a single value hand.
It's 246dd so we're gonna get called by 77-TT whether we bet £1.40 or £1.95 so get the max, likewise we'll get called by FDs whichever size we choose so get max out of them. We'll also probably get called by A2-A6, AK, AQ maybe AJ/KQ (maybe worse) because they just think it's so unlikely we've hit that flop and they either have 2 big overs which might be good, a pair which might be good or a GS.
If we barrel turn and get shoved on I'd call cos we can easily get shoved on by draws and 77-TT, there are alot more hands we beat than we're losing to. We're basically losing to 22, 44, 66, A4 and QQ+ in terms of hands they're likely to have postflop.
We are under-repped but most opponents won't be thinking 'he looks weak so I'll take him off this with a bluff' so I'd want notes on the opponent to know they're capable of doing this as a bluff cos people very very rarely full pot the river as a bluff at 10NL. Pot sized river bets at low stakes are nearly always value, and we have to be right more than 1in3 times to make this a +EV call, I very much doubt he's bluffing here more than 1in3 times. And it does have to be literally a bluff cos I reckon he's checking (either to call or fold) with 77-JJ, he's not value betting a 6, so it's something that beats us or air imo. Even a lot of FD combos that have missed will be Qx and have just gone ahead.
For a graph, keep all your results in an excel spreadsheet, I can send you the one I use for my records if you want, then you can use Excel's Chart Wizard to create a graph.
But I suggested we bet the turn anyway
I replied in your other thread about the spreadsheet.
Day complete, lost 2 more buy ins, so I worked really hard these last two day really wanted to do well put in a lot of volumne.....and one £6, abosultly pathetic im embarrassed to be writing this, yesterday was my best day and todays my worst. That's not good enough.
The mental stuff isn't going well, im sick of how I run, I could never get that luck back because I would never play the **** that most these guys play at 10nl. played the mini while playing 3 cash games, waste of time. Couldn't focus on that table and wouldn't even have a clue who was on it...couldn't name you one name, I wont be doing that again.
2nd session beats
fold round to me KK, rasiing war with sb and he has AA, what are the actual odds of that?
button raises, I 3 bet in bb AKs, he had QQ all in pre, didn't get there.
KK, bet flop and turn and cheked river to see my op hit his jack on river for a set.
Today was the most unenjoyable day to play, I really wanted a good day and im not even going to lie im disgusted at how today went, never been this disappointed in ages! feel shattered and got FA to show for it, aARGH!!!!!!!!!!
Balance: £406
Day: - 6.3 buy ins , cannot believe iv lost this much after yesterday
Few mental things you need to work on as you already know.
Variance comes in tons of different ways, loads of ways people don't even realise. Every time you play AK and bet 3 streets on a K-high board and get called down by KQ, people don't think anything of it, they just think 'yeah that's standard, played that fine', they don't think, 'god wasn't I lucky to have him dominated pre and then he hits his dream flop so that he's happy to pay me off'.
Or variance can be flopping a set when they flop a nut flush draw and it's perfectly acceptable for them to get it in on the flop and lose. When that happens people are just like 'well I had a set, I did the right thing' and you did, but it's still good luck in your favour.
You won't get the luck 'they' have like getting it in with T4o pre and beating AK yeah cos you aint bad but that's a losing play and no matter how much luck they get, they won't win more than they lose. But you will get it in with standard spots like KK v AA and you'll win some of them, just like sometimes you'll have AA v KK and lose some of them.
Yeah mental game goes on a lot about "spotting good varience" and about how that can help, so instead of going over bad beats and feeling sorry for myself I might just look at spots where im fortunate. Just so frustrating because I woke up and was really optimistic and ready to put in a lot of work yesterday. I would have been disappointed to break even but to lose all the previous days winnings hurt lol I did play in tourney and a small sat aswell so maybe that was part of it. oh well, the BR goes on and todays a new day, the quicker I start adding to the br the quicker I will forget what happened yesterday.
lOST again (didn't mean that in caps but laptop doesn't want to write it small case) im not going to say anything as it make my diary boring. I cbb moaning and im sure you cant be bothered reading. Felt fed up again at the table, isn't really fun playing when your running bad. Think im going to withdraw all my BR and take my profit and try start a BR on 888 as I hate sky, the software is shocking and it keeps lagging. I love the forum and ill be gutted my diary has ended before I made a proper roll, but I was playing today and thought 2 days ago it was easy and you was beating every table you played on. Now I don't even no what im supposed to do, and I felt a feeling like I was in a rush and had no time to be patient.
Again too loose today, played well I think, but just too spewy and once again I couldn't adapt to having loose aggro players on my table. Does anyone fancy a Skype chat about stragety for those players anytime? if so PM me id be interested to discuss it.
What are the pros and cons for going to a different site? I don't think its possiable to stay on sky but theres a lot I will miss and im gutted my diary will end.
Im also going to post the hands I think were unlucky or whatever, im running bad and not dealing with it well so I don't no if im just saying "ahh unlucky bad beat" when actually its bad play, so ill let u judge. thanks.
BR: £371
Day: - 3.5 buy ins
The site isn't loading my hands, ill post them later instead. Any words of advice from others who had downswings will be much appreciated !!!
A few points all imho
1) Sky has the weakest playerbase around, long term you will win most here as long as you are playing players worse than you and have good brm & mental stability
2) Use a cable rather than wireless, will reduce lag
3) Do not use your laptop for anything else while playing music/surfing web etc. All uses up memory and adds to lag
3) If your using a laptop make sure it keeps cool, elevate it by the corners so the battery has a continous airflow
4) No player wins every session, if the bets players never lost and the bad players never won, your action would dry up fast - as all the bad players would get fed up of constantly losing and stop playing.
5) Winners never quit and quitters never win
6) All players have downswings - ALL
7) If you cant adapt to aggros find another table. This is all about poker ego and realising its -ve. If you cant beat somebody then quit them. Dont focus on them specifically and get into a personal vendetta.
8) You said you played well but also spewed, then you didnt play well. Playing well is about the complete article. Anybody can bet monsters and say they played well. Playing well comprises of so much more than making +ve decisions with the cards you hold. Playing well includes paying attention when you are not in the hand, retaining emotional control when you have had a bad beat, knowing then to move tables, knowing when to end a session etc etc
I just wrote a long post and my internet refresh and I hadn't copied it yet so ill give you the brief version of what that was.
I lost again, -2.5. Played decent pre flop, bad post flop. Im so easy to exploit im getting floated, raised etc and never have a hand to raise back, and I don't want to be bluffing at 10 nl so im folding. I try to cb less and stuff, but I end up raising with AK hit a 2 8 j flop, and c/f and it makes me feel so weak. I don't no what else to do. I tried shoving on the flop when I got raised with flush draw against aggro player, but he called with tp and won and I didn't even want to shove tbh, just felt I need to show that I realise what your doing. My betting pattern is -ev but I don't really no how to change it.
The past few days have been awful, im not going to say I don't care and its poker because I do care, a lot. I care about the money, the competition , the self satisfaction , the respect from fellow players etc. So when I have a downswing it feels awful. A lot of it is running bad and a lot of it is -ev play. Cant believe im the same player whos made profit every week for about 6 weeks and had best day of the day just 3 days ago.
The positive of today is I don't hate poker. The other days I really did, but now I just want to get working and improving. Im not one of these players you see once saying how his soo unlucky and poker is a bad game, and then never works on his game. I do a lot of work of the table and a lot of work these last few days and I still just feel clueless when im playing sometimes. My confidence is shattered and the worst thing is this is only 10nl:(
I really believed I could play full time. It wasn't a silly idea, it was a difficult idea but you have to start somhwere. Poker was perfect for the current situation I was in, and I would play full time and say this is how I will make my living, but only if I can prove to myself first that im good enough, like 12 months of consistency. These last 3 days shows me that idea was a myth, ill keep going but normal job normal life, seems the reality.
Im thinking of taking ym BR out taking my profit, as motivation. Starting a new BR on 888, play this week and then deposit £400 for next week and start fresh. Fresh br, fresh player, fresh confidence? just an idea.
I must also say that I didn't get on with lambert when I first started posting on the forum. We sorted things out and I can almost gtd that he will post on my diary everytime, which I am thankful for. The fact his had a downswing aswell lately means his prob the one who will help the most,
Where do I go from here tho, how do I improve?
Im thinking of asking someone if they want to do work on there game about 3 times a week and talk strategy a few times on Skype, but literally everyweek, if anyones up for it pm me.
BR: £345
Day: -2.5 buy ins (£25)
Cant post HH, the software is a pile of ****
It simply doesn't matter how good you are, you're gonna lose pretty regular. Think about the game on a smaller scale, the best aren't the people who win the most pots, they're the ones that win the biggest pots! In a session, we don't try to win every pot, we try to make sure when a big pot is going off then we're likely to win it.
Likewise we don't sit and think we can win in 100% of sessions cos it's physically impossible, we just want our winning sessions to be bigger than our losing sessions.
This isn't having a dig at you but just to show an example, I know cash players who are FAR better than you and yet have lost 20+ BIs in 1 week. Sometimes you just can't avoid it. 3 days is a meaningless sample size.
You do get a lot players who still live at home with their parents, CBA to get a job and play poker and claim to be "pros" but in the real world they are far from that.
I would have loved to have been a pro football player but there comes a time when you realise that it aint gonna happen. Just keep playing the game you love and don't even think about playing full time.....you are playing 10nl ffs. If you get to 100nl+ and are crushing, then there may be a case.
Don't run before you can walk and all that! Just play, learn, enjoy playing and what will be will be. Do not put pressure on yourself because that can only have a bad effect on your game.
Love your diary and I have always been routing for you........just enjoy the game for now mate.
Today annoyed me because I think my post flop strategy was poor and I didn't balance my range, just need help fixing it, because I don't know the answers.