Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal

PokerNoon

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal : In the early Levels, these hands are an absolute nightmare to play, as you get some really weird calls, & it's so hard to define their holding. Only one stage of a DYM matters to me - 4 handed. I'm totally disintereted in going to war any sooner, except in VERY rare spots. I need to preserve my stack for when it matters. If I can get my Aces Heads Up, fine, if not, I'll bin them no prob. J-J in Level 1 is the nightmare scenario, unless we have position. The lags will shout at me, but I'm not persevering with them in Level One, I want to preserve my stack until there are 4 players left & the Blinds are big, because I can push folks around then, & I only need to steal the Blinds once or twice & I'm home & hosed.   Think I might even just limp with J-J here, & set-mine, if I miss, fine, in the bin, & it's cost me 20 chips, which is only 1% of my stack.      
Posted by Tikay10

Thanks Tikay - but this scenario was the first hand in the turbo last night (the the reason I went out so early)...so I'm trying to accumulate chips as fast as I can. How would you have played this if you were in that situation, first hand of a MTT? On the one hand you know JJ is a vulnerable hand, but on the other you have a nice opportunity to rake in a fair few chips.

Also in this scenario I sort of feel it's the same as if I had AA, given that no overcards appeared on the board, and everyone limped in preflop. I think it's a fair assumption that it's only a flush that can beat me here. Would you agree?

Tikay10

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal : Thanks Tikay - but this scenario was the first hand in the turbo last night (the the reason I went out so early)...so I'm trying to accumulate chips as fast as I can. How would you have played this if you were in that situation, first hand of a MTT? On the one hand you know JJ is a vulnerable hand, but on the other you have a nice opportunity to rake in a fair few chips. Also in this scenario I sort of feel it's the same as if I had AA, given that no overcards appeared on the board, and everyone limped in preflop. I think it's a fair assumption that it's only a flush that can beat me here. Would you agree?
Posted by PokerNoon

Ahh, sorry, my bad, I thought it was a DYM.

In a Turbo, yeah, get it in.

The logic that we have an overpair to a 9 high board so only a flush beats us is very wrong though. He can just as easily have a set with a small to medium pocket pair, "as played" it seems to fit, or even he limped in with suited connectors (not spades) such as 5-6, 6-7, that sort of thing, & hit 2 pair.

Horrible spot really.
 
PS - I'm hopeless at NLH, so ignore my views.   

DoubleAAA

Hi Richard - With that JJ hand, you should be wanting flush draws to call, not for them to fold.  Reason being, you want all hands that you beat to call.  Don't bet so much, on that flop bet just over half pot, and when the spade comes on the turn, you can check back and re-evaluate the river.  Remember you only have 1 pair, keep pots small with 1 pair type hands and pots big with big hands.

Congrats on the dyms. If you wanna ask my anything regarding that, I'm around on skype

cgoldie

Ok this is going to probably sound a bit bitc*y but it's intended to be constructive.

If you are serious about making a wage from poker for January you need to start putting in some volume for something specific instead of bouncing about through different formats and stakes. 

A good upswing in DYM's is great but be careful as this will need to balance out to your ROI on bad days. If your hitting a good ROI of 10% and playing around ten £22 DYM's a day you will balance out as £20 per day. You really should be at this point trying to get in some volume and aiming for 30-50 dym's a day to get to a decent volume for january so you can assess your ROI and what you need to do from January to hit your £50 target on a regular basis whether that be playing x DYM's a day at x level or switching to cash.

PokerNoon

Cgoldie - Not b*tchy at all. I recognise the difference between useful, helpful constructive advice vs blatant insults. Right now I'm happy to have anyone more knowledgable than me here (which is most people) giving their time to help advise me. You and Tikay have both pretty much said the same thing today, which is 'knuckle down and focus on one thing', which is exactly what I'm going to do - DYMs for the time being, then review at the start of January.

DoubleAAA - Cheers for the bet sizing advice, that's useful. If the optimum bet size to get someone with a better hand to fold is less than I'm betting now, then I'll certainly lower my bets a bit. Right now I'm obviously giving chips away to anyone who is willing to call.

Tikay - Enough of the false modesty already. I don't believe a word about your lack of ability

Tikay10

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

Cgoldie - Not b*tchy at all. I recognise the difference between useful, helpful constructive advice vs blatant insults. Right now I'm happy to have anyone more knowledgable than me here (which is most people) giving their time to help advise me. You and Tikay have both pretty much said the same thing today, which is 'knuckle down and focus on one thing', which is exactly what I'm going to do - DYMs for the time being, then review at the start of January. DoubleAAA - Cheers for the bet sizing advice, that's useful. If the optimum bet size to get someone with a better hand to fold is less than I'm betting now, then I'll certainly lower my bets a bit. Right now I'm obviously giving chips away to anyone who is willing to call. Tikay - Enough of the false modesty already. I don't believe a word about your lack of ability
Posted by PokerNoon

At NLH? Pretty sure my game has been left wayyy behind these days, & my results support that. At PLO, & PLO8, not so much, but that is a whole different game.

I DO still feel I can give good NLH advice to relative newbies, though, my problem with playing it is I've no longer got the gamble in me.
 
This Sunday, I'll be playing the Super Roller, which is NLH. I can tell you know EXACTLY how it will pan out. I'll hang around for several hours with an average or sub-average stack, then get to the point where I have to take a flip. Lose it, I'm gone, win that flip & I'll hang around another hour & have to do another flip. And so on.

There are NLH players that scare me. MattBates & TommyD are animals, I tell you, animals, though Matt is a very small animal indeed. 

In the 4 card game, nobody, at any level, scares me.
 
We need to face our weaknesses, & accept them, & I've had to do that. Was a bit painful at first, but I've adapted to other formats now, & that means I can continue to play our lovely game for a while longer yet.
 
I still remember being at your level of experience, ooh, the excitement before every game was incredible. Nearly 20 years on, I still get that tingle, that buzz, before every session of PLO8 I play, I get so excited I nearly wet myself. There have been some close calls, I can tell you.

Lambert180

PokerNoon, regarding that hand from the Turbo, the iso (raising limpers) is good and a good size. Postflop I bet flop and turn and give up on river like you did but I'd bet smaller on flop and turn. A few things about bet sizing and your thought process...

1) We never do know if they have a FD but if we KNEW they had a FD then we want them to call. When they call on the flop the chances of them making a flush on the next card is about 1in5 and unless we bet stupidly small, they'll always be calling with the incorrect odds to hit their hand. That's a big part of how we make money/chips long term, by people calling in situations where they shouldn't.

2) Generally the bigger our bet, the less willing people are to call, so often going smaller gets calls from a wider range of hands (which again is good for us). For instance if you bet 80% pot with JJ and it was 269ss (ss = 2 spades) then someone with 56 might just snap fold and why would we want that when we're a massive favourite. A smaller bet will probably get them to call at least 1 street when they only have like 10% chance of catching up with us by the turn.

3) When we're bluffing, we don't want to be risking such big amounts when we don't need to cos again our big bet means we're getting called by a narrower range of hands so we're not always good when we get called/raised and when they have nothing, we probably could have got the job done a lot cheaper. I generally wouldn't bet less than 50% pot (until very late stages of an MTT where I think it's fine to), and most of my bets would be like 50-65% of the pot in MTTs unless I have reason to do otherwise.

PokerNoon

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal : At NLH? Pretty sure my game has been left wayyy behind these days, & my results support that. At PLO, & PLO8, not so much, but that is a whole different game. I DO still feel I can give good NLH advice to relative newbies, though, my problem with playing it is I've no longer got the gamble in me.   This Sunday, I'll be playing the Super Roller, which is NLH. I can tell you know EXACTLY how it will pan out. I'll hang around for several hours with an average or sub-average stack, then get to the point where I have to take a flip. Lose it, I'm gone, win that flip & I'll hang around another hour & have to do another flip. And so on. There are NLH players that scare me. MattBates & TommyD are animals, I tell you, animals, though Matt is a very small animal indeed.  In the 4 card game, nobody, at any level, scares me.   We need to face our weaknesses, & accept them, & I've had to do that. Was a bit painful at first, but I've adapted to other formats now, & that means I can continue to play our lovely game for a while longer yet.   I still remember being at your level of experience, ooh, the excitement before every game was incredible. Nearly 20 years on, I still get that tingle, that buzz, before every session of PLO8 I play, I get so excited I nearly wet myself. There have been some close calls, I can tell you.
Posted by Tikay10

Haha...thank you for the vivid mental image of you trying not to wet yourself. At your age I imagine that happens a lot

So what are MattBates and TommyD doing that scares you? What is it about their play that you find difficult to cope with vs the rest of the field?

MP33

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal : Whereabouts in Preston are you? Ashton here. Guessing you haven't seen this story from last week then. Interesting news if it goes anywhere:  http://www.lep.co.uk/news/licence-bid-for-first-preston-casino-1-6316112

Hi Noonie

Just been catching up with your diary. I,m not far off Ashton. Just near the corner of Aqueduct street and Brook Street.

That was quite a coincidence when i mentioned Preston not having a casino as about an hour after that i was in the cafe on Plungington Rd and i saw the Evening Post from Saturday. I got talking to the cafe owner and it turns out he knows the guy who,s put in for the license and was asking my views on it. I think its a great idea and sounds like its going ahead early next year under the Genting brand/company. As goldenballz said its a pain having to go Blackpool or Bolton and whenever i go to Blackpool i always see the same faces from Preston

I was going to post about it but didn,t want to derail your thread. I wasn,t aware you were from Preston

Theres plenty of pub games and leaugues in our area. I used to play at Lane Ends pub in Ashton but normally just stick to the Variety now ( behind the Adelphi). They have a game on a Wednesday and Friday night (7.30pm).  Its not a serious game. Its just a bit of fun really . Fiver a game with 10 minute blinds and 3k starting stack. They get 2 games a night in and its pretty qiuet at the moment as the students have gone home. We also play for points and have a final every few months. The Landlady who also plays puts on abit of spread and is always a good laugh

I,ve not been to Hendrys for a while on Brook St (just round the corner from me)  but they have a game there as well on a Friday night - 8pm start. Think its 10K chips with 20 or 25 minute blinds (normally about 3 tables). £10 freezout

Let me know if you fancy it sometime and i,ll buy you a pint or whatever you tipple is

GL with the rest of diary

I,ll take a look at those trading blogs. Find it all quite fascinating

EDIT : I,m going away in a cpl of days for xmas but let me know if you fancy a game in the New Year. Ps Don,t worry if you,ve never played live before. These places are very welcoming and someone will always help you out if your not sure of any rulings. Best places to start playing live imo

PokerNoon

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

PokerNoon, regarding that hand from the Turbo, the iso (raising limpers) is good and a good size. Postflop I bet flop and turn and give up on river like you did but I'd bet smaller on flop and turn. A few things about bet sizing and your thought process... 1) We never do know if they have a FD but if we KNEW they had a FD then we want them to call. When they call on the flop the chances of them making a flush on the next card is about 1in5 and unless we bet stupidly small, they'll always be calling with the incorrect odds to hit their hand. That's a big part of how we make money/chips long term, by people calling in situations where they shouldn't. 2) Generally the bigger our bet, the less willing people are to call, so often going smaller gets calls from a wider range of hands (which again is good for us). For instance if you bet 80% pot with JJ and it was 269ss (ss = 2 spades) then someone with 56 might just snap fold and why would we want that when we're a massive favourite. A smaller bet will probably get them to call at least 1 street when they only have like 10% chance of catching up with us by the turn. 3) When we're bluffing, we don't want to be risking such big amounts when we don't need to cos again our big bet means we're getting called by a narrower range of hands so we're not always good when we get called/raised and when they have nothing, we probably could have got the job done a lot cheaper. I generally wouldn't bet less than 50% pot (until very late stages of an MTT where I think it's fine to), and most of my bets would be like 50-65% of the pot in MTTs unless I have reason to do otherwise.
Posted by Lambert180

Thanks Lambo, much appreciated. Solid advice as usual.

I'm pleased that I played it roughly in the right way. The bet sizing I can easily tweak for the future (which I obviously will). 

Another question...

Suppose the 4th spade hadn't come down on the river? Obviously by this point I'm thinking 'if he didn't have a flush before, there's a pretty fine chance he does now'. But if that card was just a brick, would you fire another bullet, or would you still check here?

PokerNoon

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal : Whereabouts in Preston are you? Ashton here. Guessing you haven't seen this story from last week then. Interesting news if it goes anywhere:  http://www.lep.co.uk/news/licence-bid-for-first-preston-casino-1-6316112 Hi Noonie Just been catching up with your diary. I,m not far off Ashton. Just near the corner of Aqueduct street and Brook Street. That was quite a coincidence when i mentioned Preston not having a casino as about an hour after that i was in the cafe on Plungington Rd and i saw the Evening Post from Saturday. I got talking to the cafe owner and it turns out he knows the guy who,s put in for the license and was asking my views on it. I think its a great idea and sounds like its going ahead early next year under the Genting brand/company. As goldenballz said its a pain having to go Blackpool or Bolton and whenever i go to Blackpool i always see the same faces from Preston I was going to post about it but didn,t want to derail your thread. I wasn,t aware you were from Preston Theres plenty of pub games and leaugues in our area. I used to play at Lane Ends pub in Ashton but normally just stick to the Variety now ( behind the Adelphi). They have a game on a Wednesday and Friday night (7.30pm).  Its not a serious game. Its just a bit of fun really . Fiver a game with 10 minute blinds and 3k starting stack. They get 2 games a night in and its pretty qiuet at the moment as the students have gone home. We also play for points and have a final every few months. The Landlady who also plays puts on abit of spread and is always a good laugh I,ve not been to Hendrys for a while on Brook St (just round the corner from me)  but they have a game there as well on a Friday night - 8pm start. Think its 10K chips with 20 or 25 minute blinds (normally about 3 tables). £10 freezout Let me know if you fancy it sometime and i,ll buy you a pint or whatever you tipple is GL with the rest of diary I,ll take a look at those trading blogs. Find it all quite fascinating EDIT : I,m going away in a cpl of days for xmas but let me know if you fancy a game in the New Year. Ps Don,t worry if you,ve never played live before. These places are very welcoming and someone will always help you out if your not sure of any rulings. Best places to start playing live imo
Posted by MP33

Very interested. Played once in a Freezout at a casino and once at home...so it's fair to say my live experience is limited. How long does the game normally go on for?

Anyway I'll send you a PM. Sounds great.

DoubleAAA

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

1) We never do know if they have a FD but if we KNEW they had a FD then we want them to call. When they call on the flop the chances of them making a flush on the next card is about 1in5 and unless we bet stupidly small, they'll always be calling with the incorrect odds to hit their hand. That's a big part of how we make money/chips long term, by people calling in situations where they shouldn't.
Posted by Lambert180

Pokernoon - What Lambert says here is correct and reiterates what I was saying about betting less for worse hands to call.  However, when you bet say 60% and the person with the flush draw calls, although technically they have incorrect odds to call as the chance to hit that card is 20% (17% if you're holding a spade) they may still have 'implied odds' to call.  So for example, you're both deep and villain knows that if he/she hits her draw, that you will pay them off on future streets, they can factor this into the original bet that you made on the flop and see whether or not they now have implied odds to call.

cgoldie

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal : Haha...thank you for the vivid mental image of you trying not to wet yourself. At your age I imagine that happens a lot So what are MattBates and TommyD doing that scares you? What is it about their play that you find difficult to cope with vs the rest of the field?
Posted by PokerNoon

You have to play them in an mtt and see haha. They are both incredibly good players and really aggressive. To put it into perspective i remember a hand from a couple days ago when matt was on my right giving me constant grief. We were both big stacked in a 3b pot and ended up stacking off the river on a dodgy 79ja7 board him with 63s (nothing) and me with QK. 

As for the jj hand it's somewhat opponent dependent.  If it was a blank a bet-fold or check-call is fine depending on how aggressive they are. If there less aggressive go for a bet(40-50pct) and then fold if raised. 

PokerNoon

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal : You have to play them in an mtt and see haha. They are both incredibly good players and really aggressive. To put it into perspective i remember a hand from a couple days ago when matt was on my right giving me constant grief. We were both big stacked in a 3b pot and ended up stacking off the river on a dodgy 79ja7 board him with 63s (nothing) and me with QK.  As for the jj hand it's somewhat opponent dependent.  If it was a blank a bet-fold or check-call is fine depending on how aggressive they are. If there less aggressive go for a bet(40-50pct) and then fold if raised. 
Posted by cgoldie

I'd love to, given the chance. If I can play better players then great. I'll only improve more quickly. Although I'd like to spend as little as possible to do it

As for the JJ..it was the very first hand, so I had zero reads. But I like getting in these tight spots. Everytime I come away and think about what happened, and usually come up with some idea to try next time. It's a really exciting time for me in terms of poker...every day I wake up and genuinely feel like a better player than the day before. The early stages of learning anything are the most exciting - if you're learning right you see so much progress and it's really rewarding.

Anyway...

Today's Update

Didn't play as much today due to a combination of the software being all screwy and me being out for most of the day. Quite a few people suffered from the software bugs today, so not just me.

However I did get a few DYMs in.

Played 3 @ £22 level, won 2 = £14 profit.

Played 1 @ £33 level, won = £27 profit.

Total = £41 profit

So not quite the £50 for the day, but I'm happy enough with that. 

That said I got really lucky in the first £22 game. We're on the bubble, one big stack, 3 equivalent shortish to midstacks. 

UTG smallish stack calls and the other 2 fold to me in the BB. I think 'he's got nothing so I'll shove'. I only had 93, but I thought there's no way he can call with a hand he wasn't willing to raise with.

He called with 10 9. So I'm in pretty bad shape here...but somehow hit a 3 on river to bust him out and cash. 

Part of me felt he didn't deserve to win if he's willing to call with that kind of hand. Perhaps next time I shouldn't just shove with ATC like this assuming a fold. 

Curt360x27

Just a quick point I'd like to make.

IMO your main goal here is completely wrong. The target of wanting to make £50 a day from poker has so many flaws to it. Am I right in thinking you reach your daily target and then stop playing? I read on another page you were playing cash and had something like £26 and would stand when you hit £30. If you plan on taking this seriously you have to move away from this mindset completely. There are several reasons to stop your sessions, however hitting an certain amount should not be one of them. 

My advice would be to change your goal. Make it volume based, set a target of the amount of games you would like to play per week. Make yourself play x amount of hours improving your skills at cash or MTT's and keep DYM's your main game for now. Then over a decent sample size if you keep track of your results you will begin to get an accurate winrate over hands/hours/days rather than having a random figure made up which may or may not be achievable long-term. 

Just move away from 'my goal is purely to make £50 per day' as soon as possible or your setting yourself up for disappointment because poker simply doesn't work like that. 

GL with your challenge. 

MH45706

Good bluff a min ago pal

PokerNoon

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

Just a quick point I'd like to make. IMO your main goal here is completely wrong. The target of wanting to make £50 a day from poker has so many flaws to it. Am I right in thinking you reach your daily target and then stop playing? I read on another page you were playing cash and had something like £26 and would stand when you hit £30. If you plan on taking this seriously you have to move away from this mindset completely. There are several reasons to stop your sessions, however hitting an certain amount should not be one of them.  My advice would be to change your goal. Make it volume based, set a target of the amount of games you would like to play per week. Make yourself play x amount of hours improving your skills at cash or MTT's and keep DYM's your main game for now. Then over a decent sample size if you keep track of your results you will begin to get an accurate winrate over hands/hours/days rather than having a random figure made up which may or may not be achievable long-term.  Just move away from 'my goal is purely to make £50 per day' as soon as possible or your setting yourself up for disappointment because poker simply doesn't work like that.  GL with your challenge. 
Posted by Curt360x27

Thanks for the well wishes Curt and points taken on board.

The £50 is a minimum goal. I just set that as I reckon that's about the minimum I could live off per day without having to eat rice and beans like they do on 'I'm a celeb' when they lose their challenges.

The idea really is to play as many DYMs as I can squeeze into one day without compromising my quality of play (I wouldn't want it to go from poor to very poor, that would be a disaster). Then I look and check my P/L stats and see where I am. 

The £50 is more of a benchmark to see if I've hit my target of 'making a living from poker' - I felt it was important to define in terms of a number what exactly a 'living' is.

I agree with you on the cash side of things though. I was sat with a stack of £26 and was a bit tired and bored...should have just packed up and gone to bed there and then.

Lambert180

FWIW, you need to be having some +£100 days at least because you WILL have -£50 days @ £11 games... you'll probably have them pretty regular even if you were crushing the level.

Not saying set the target at £100 lol, just Curt's point in that we can't lock up a £50 win and call it a day because the very next day maybe be -£50 and then when we 'should' be +£100 for 2 days, we're actually break even and £100 behind target. We need to sit down for our grind and just try to win as much as possible every time we sit down. Some days it won't go your way and you need to really focus and just lose as little as possible.

Kinda like pre-race sports betting actually... in that if the changes you expected to happen pre-race dont, then you wanna take it on the chin and take a small loss rather than just punt and try to win w/ our original bet.

cgoldie

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

We're on the bubble, one big stack, 3 equivalent shortish to midstacks.  UTG smallish stack calls and the other 2 fold to me in the BB. I think 'he's got nothing so I'll shove'. I only had 93, but I thought there's no way he can call with a hand he wasn't willing to raise with. He called with 10 9. So I'm in pretty bad shape here...but somehow hit a 3 on river to bust him out and cash.  Part of me felt he didn't deserve to win if he's willing to call with that kind of hand. Perhaps next time I shouldn't just shove with ATC like this assuming a fold. 
Posted by PokerNoon

You should prob post the full hand for this one. Overall it looks like a really bad spot to shove. You've no blockers and your hand is an underdog to any range. The shorter stack he has the wider he has to call after investing chips and his limp he's probably going to call more than if it was a shove against his bb.

Remember DYM's are about surviving not winning so your looking to avoid risk as much as possible. 

PokerNoon

As usual, thanks for the help guys. And Tikay, thanks for referring to me all night on TV. Even if you did show my worst hand of the evening...trying to bluff AA off a hand with Q2. I was doing alright on the cash tables until then.

It wouldn't have been so expensive if it hadn't been for the final river attempt to win the pot. Oh well...I took a few lessons from that.

As for DYMs...not sure if it's because of the recent software troubles but I couldn't get a game at £22 or higher today. So I played 2 £11 games and 1 £5.50 game. Didn't cash in a single one.

Went over to another site because of the lack of traffic and played in a $53 DYM with 4 people. I cashed but it was a bit frantic for my liking. It was a super turbo and all over in about 10 minutes. Nice to make some quick cash but I think the variance would be too high with these games for long term success.

I didn't like using the other site though. After all the help I've received here I feel a duty to keep playing here. Plus I prefer the interface anyway. I felt like I was cheating on my girlfriend with her less attractive friend.

Anyway I'm roughly breakeven for the day. Hopefully the site traffic will be back to normal tomorrow.

PokerNoon

There's more than one way of making £50 a day. 

You could win 12 £5.50 DYMs in a row. Or 6 £11 ones. Or 3 £22 ones. Or...erm...a lot of 60p ones.

Or you could win 1 and a bit £55 DYMs.

And that's what I did today. But...my god it was tough. I felt I played it really well actually. Played well to accumulate an extra 1000 chips, so I'm sat as the big stack on 3000 with everyone else under 2000 fighting it out.

At this point I'm happy to let them scrap each other unless I have a great hand. Unfortunately what happens is one person gets eliminated then it's a real dogfight to get rid of the final 2. I play it tight for a while but then I inevitably get drawn into the cat and mouse of the 'all in' fest that comes when the blinds get big. 

Also played 2 £22 DYMs. First was straightforward. Second seemed straightforward until I made a really silly error and lost 800 chips. That ended up costing me the game because the guy who got 3rd spot was the guy I passed 800 chips too. I was trying just a bit too hard to eliminate him with a marginal hand. Oh well.

Played a couple of $33 DYMs on another site because the traffic wasn't great here this afternoon. Cashed in both. I decided to reinvest some of this money in some of the 18 seater SNGs on that site (3 x 6 seater tables). In both games I made the final table but didn't cash. I'll definitely try those again at some point, but will knock them on the head for now.

So a pretty decent day.

Today's Results

DYMs 

£55: 1 cash: £45

£22: 1 cash, 1 loss - -£4

$33: 2 cash: £34 (roughly, after USD to GBP conversion)

18 seater SNGs 

$11: 2 loss: - £13.50

Total: £61.50

Not a bad day at all. Also spent the morning watching some poker training videos, coming up with a few new plays and strategies and testing them out on Advanced Poker Training. Bit of tweaking needed, but what I was doing seemed to work well. I feel I'm putting opponents in tight spots constantly, which is exactly what I want.

PokerNoon

Just to add to that...

...today was the first day where I was sat there assessing the type of opponent I was up against in each pot, where they were at, and what they were thinking, both about their hand and what I was holding, and the bets that I was making.

What was most pleasing is that there were so many occasions where I was able to think 'he's done a, if I reply with b then I think he will do c and then if I do d I will win the pot off him'...and the pot played out exactly as I planned it.

That's probably the biggest buzz I've gotten since I started playing, the feeling that I'm starting to get it, to understand what's going on (to a point, obviously).

It's one thing to throw all your chips into the middle, cross everything and hope the cards are nice to you...it's another to make a strategic plan for each hand you play and for it to actually work. 

Anyway...time for bed. Enough bigging myself up.

DoubleAAA

Brilliant mate!  Seems you've come on leaps and bounds in such a short space of time.  Just the fact that you're thinking about every move and what you will do if they do a certain thing, shows that you're improving.

VickiPKR

So no one is thinking this guy know's exactly how to play poker and seems to be doing very very well, whilst sucking you all in with his "oh what am I doing" posts?

PokerNoon

DoubleAAA - thanks mate, much appreciated. You know I'm grateful for all the time you've put in to help me out so far.

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

So no one is thinking this guy know's exactly how to play poker and seems to be doing very very well, whilst sucking you all in with his "oh what am I doing" posts?
Posted by VickiPKR

Ha, do you also believe the twin towers was an inside job? And that JFK was a conspiracy too? (which it may well have been)

I wouldn't say I'm doing very very well, just 'reasonably' well, but thanks anyway. Genuinely I had never played holdem before the start of November. But I'm not playing after work for an hour or two a night like most people. I'm playing all day, every day and trying really hard after every session (especially every time I make a mistake and lose) to figure out what to do next time.

Plus everyone here has been super helpful, possibly to their own detriment if I end up taking money off them.

If you're suggesting this thread is an elaborate hustle, a way of making the regs think I'm a total fish...it's a bit elaborate isn't it? A lot of effort put in for not that much reward. If I was that good (which I really wish I was) I'd just go and play and take everyone's money without creating long forum posts, surely?

If you want to add credence to my claims that I really am new to poker, look me up on Sharkscope. I'm PokerNoon on both here and iPoker. You'll see a small profit on iPoker and a small loss on here (although that includes about £100 of tournaments that I managed to satellite into for free). 

If you look at both graphs you'll see a consistent losing pattern followed by a consistent winning pattern when I started to 'get it'. Not saying I've got it nailed now of course, that would be ridiculous. On both networks I've played about 100 games, which also stands up to the amount of time I claim to have been playing.

But thanks, I take your comment as a compliment

VickiPKR

Ignore me, I suck at poker lol..

I'm losing, check my sharkscope I'm almost £30 in the brown stuff since June, I expected to have taken down the WSOP by now. As you can imagine being £26 down instead of £8million up has come as quite a shock and something I did not prepare for.

I see you play a lot of the higher value DYM's, I should try them, but they stink of collusion whenever I watch them on any site. To much Skyping envolved.

PokerNoon

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

Ignore me, I suck at poker lol.. I'm losing, check my sharkscope I'm almost £30 in the brown stuff since June, I expected to have taken down the WSOP by now. As you can imagine being £26 down instead of £8million up has come as quite a shock and something I did not prepare for. I see play a lot of the higher value DYM's, I should try them, but they stink of collusion whenever I watch them on any site. To much Skyping envolved.
Posted by VickiPKR

Ha, I can see how that would sting a little.

That said, being almost breakeven seems to mean you're ahead of most of the players I look up. Although having SS categorise you as a 'fish' must be somewhat upsetting

That said, I'm dubious about how they define players on there. Good players seem to get a star next to their name. I looked up a guy yesterday on the iPoker network. Some Russian dude...£115k negative. A HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN GRAND!!!!

Yet he still had a star next to his name..what's all that about!!?

VespaPX

How's the Advanced Poker training going?
How much time per day does it take up?
Is it worth doing?

PokerNoon

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

I see you play a lot of the higher value DYM's, I should try them, but they stink of collusion whenever I watch them on any site. To much Skyping envolved.
Posted by VickiPKR

Even if there was collusion, it doesn't mean you can't beat them. Besides, if you want to take down the WSOP you have to up your stakes at some point!

I like to try these games as a 'float'. If I win a few games at one level, I try the next level up. If I win, I stay there. If I lose I go back down and rebuild the bankroll. Seems to be (for me at least) a good way of testing out your level without having to break the bank.

Worth a shot?

Jac35

In Response to Re: Making a Full Time Wage From Poker - PokerNoon's Journal:

Ignore me, I suck at poker lol.. I'm losing, check my sharkscope I'm almost £30 in the brown stuff since June, I expected to have taken down the WSOP by now. As you can imagine being £26 down instead of £8million up has come as quite a shock and something I did not prepare for. I see you play a lot of the higher value DYM's, I should try them, but they stink of collusion whenever I watch them on any site. To much Skyping envolved.
Posted by VickiPKR

I know you try to wind people up with each and every post you make.

However,  these bits, on Sky, is simply not true. 

"They stink of collusion"

"To much skyping envolved"