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Gary - will reply after I've tapped up this.
pts sat at 1,670 after the weekend... surprised I'm so far behind a couple of players on the micro leaderboard, but I guess they must have just been on for a large amount of the time I was offline. Ho hum.
cash at £2,087.03 mostly thanks to run-good I should imagine... I guess it's just overdue to be my turn to benefit, but there were several double ups thanks to maniacs getting it in with utter junk just as I picked up a premium hand... which was nice.
I'd love it if Sky could get some sort of self-tracking software on here to see your own results... not HUD or tracking other oppos, just to review your own game. I mean, for instance, it would be such a benefit to have an unarguable view as to whether you are running + or - EV for any given period and get a better context as to how well you are playing.
It may also help some of the 'fix!' players who, I'm guessing, are just playing a small enough volume that they could easily be running badly -EV... but know that they need XXX more hands for that to even out... or worse, 'fix' players that are running +EV and really need to look at themselves.
I am just a data nerd. I guess that sort of analysis would bore the moobs of most other Sky players.
Ha I dunno, I guess Connery as the first 'well known' Bond portrayal will always give him an edge over the others... but I think the greater cheesy/comedic undertones of the Moore films made them more enjoyable for me - which in turn skews who I personally see as the best Bond.
Plus, the Japanese disguise of You Only Live Twice... some of that was just terrible (although still very watchable lol)
What do I know though, I ended up getting invited to a poker game at a mates' future (now current) father-in-laws about a year ago and the ridic amount of Bond memorabilia that adorned his home helped to back up his claim that he was one of Bond's biggest fans.
And he told us (from the mix of Connery/Moore/Craig answers that came from around the table), that we were all entirely incorrect and it was in fact George Lazenby that was the best. And it's a crying shame that they weren't able to make more than the one film with him.
Anyway, I suppose it's all irrelevant really. The better question is has been the best of the Bond girls. I'm not sure it'd be approved if I started adding images though.
I blame work, way too much working through data at pace these last few days and being mentally shot. I gave up early on Monday as I couldn't concentrate at all and was stationing off like a proper fish.
Yesterday wasn't much better, albeit the losses (I think?) were a bit more standard. Not helped by running all my good hands at NL4 and all my coolers at an NL10 mastercash table.
I'll post the bigger losses in the clinic to see whether I'm kidding myself to think I had to lose so much... I still mis-play 200BB on a regular basis.
Back to NL20 after the somewhat chaotic end to the Punta Cana cash race bumped me up by £117.50, not bad for a couple of weeks and had me challenging myself against NL20+ or higher players anyway lol. First session last night was up about £15... bit surprised how few points I earned despite playing at a higher level, but I guess that is due to lower rake %?
I have to say that the rake race was well timed - trying (again) to quit other gambling I needed something to be a bit obsessive about and poker helped fill that need.
At a conservative estimate, I must have shot away plenty upwards of £20k through house-edge gambling in life. I think that's why I get so an-al about tracking the pennies in poker, as a way of getting some sort of control over an addiction. It's kind of ridiculous that I can get caught in a haze that blows through hundreds in a matter of minutes, yet am reticent about even stepping up from NL10 to NL20 lol.
But hopefully small controlled steps at poker will ween me off the (previously) uncontrolled bankroll rollercoaster in the bookies!
Or to paraphrase the underrated Stallone film 'Cobra' - gambling is the disease, poker is the cure.
Anyway, need to hunt down videos to improve my c-betting... I think I've probably regressed due to having played so much NL4 as part of the my mix of tables. Need to reassess which 20% (ish) of flops I don't bet, which I bet smaller and when / against whom I should be barrelling turn (and river) as opposed to taking a 1-and-done route. I felt like most oppos at NL20 were shoving me about last night... although that may be a factor of having been making way more 'curiosity calls' at NL4 / making more solid folds at NL20...
A lot of the stuff has been from Matthew Janda from CardRunners, who seems to articulate stuff in a way that my brain 'gets', even though it's no doubt stretching my brain-power/poker skills beyond what they're capable of!
After getting through all those and a bunch of 2+2 articles, I also ended up ordering his book for a bit of further reading. It only cost £16 and I've arguably already got that much value from the free articles so look forward to that.
I also watched a bit of the high stakes stuff on Sky for 15-20 mins (didn't seem worth starting tables up for that time, given I normally lose during the first 15 mins of any session!).
a) I think one of the tables must have seen a big name on monkey tilt... notwithstanding those players think on several levels higher than I do, the lines taken just seemed bonkers.
b) There's no waiting for the blinds to come round, when the obvious fish leaves, everyone leaves. Perhaps I need to adopt this rather than playing on with a table of regs...
c) There were so few flops seen compared to lower levels. I don't know if this was the impact of people only wanting to play if the fish saw a flop, but maybe reinforces that I should be tightening up my opening / calling ranges pre-flop (which until now I've been steadily widening lol). But yeah, raise and everyone folds, unless someone 3-bets and then everyone including the initial raiser folds.
I suppose c) means I also understand better how the high-stakes Punta Cana leaderboard was won with such a small number of raked hands lol
Tech-tilt in force last night. Was flying until the internet went down, got the measure of where I was on a mix of NL20/NL30 tables, then just didn't really get back into a rhythmn after getting kicked off for 15mins and having to join different tables.
Hopefully the little win gives me a buffer for when I get back from a beer festival tonight and don't necessarily play my best.
A few hands to chuck up... comments welcome:
Oppo is good aggro multi-tabler and was constantly pouncing on any hand I took a 1-and-done approach. That's the reason for my turn check... gutted, the one time he doesn't bet... then raised the river, but I didn't figure there to be that many 5s in his range and figured there could be bluffs (both flushes missing) or Ax that thought I may call with QQ/JJ sort of hands or at worst split with AQ/AJ/AT etc
Sigh.
Then the one time I have a truly legit hand pre-flop... BERZERKER!
I should never be calling here, right? It totally felt like a panicky response and fingers-crossed-Shakin-doesn't-have-an-ace sort of shove... but then I couldn't completely rule out 55/99/Q9/Q5s.
Hopefully even a lazy idiot like me can rack up 55pts a day this week and scramble over the meagre 3k points target now.
Helped along that there were some 'frisky' NL20 tables in play yesterday. I think that must be the first time I've ever picked up more than £100 from cash in a day. I did (obviously) run very golden in between the constant disconnections, kinda helped by getting some very good seats to play from.
Once again makes me wish I was better at tournaments though, +£100 days must be standard for anyone that plays £5 BH or greater on a regular basis lol... And I definitely am green with envy at Robbo67 picking up a £3,500 holiday from the tourni yesterday (although equally pleased that a Sky reg player was the one that binked it).
I haven't really seen any hands of note... although conscious that I probably didn't get max value from my big hands. Still a bit reticent to increase the variance via more marginal river bets... may dig a few of those out later to seek some feedback.
lol was due a few grim spots... going back through hand histories I lost over £100 with KK in the space of about an hour yesterday... no more wishing for being dealt premium hands more frequently
It went nuts on one table, I was getting dealt a premium hand every other hand, never had anything like it before, on that table alone I had KK 9 times within an hour! I think that became the problem though, as I must have seemed like an utter maniac to the others at the table by betting/3-betting/4-betting with such a high frequency... which must have made it the right response for them to defend with an increasingly wide range...
I'm sure it was purely fate that before I started playing I was reading an article about implementing a stop-loss point and thinking 'nah that strategy is for fools'
http://www.nottinghampost.com/Nottingham-Forest-manager-Stuart-Pearce-learns/story-23651952-detail/story.html
I wish we'd had poker studies at University when I was a student... anyway pretty depressing all round on the football front in October. Am sure that Psycho will turn things around in Forest pretty shortly, less sure I'll be playing much more, ever, as I hobble around on an increasingly dodgy hamstring.
S'pose that means a fair bit more time for poker, mind, until finding a less active replacement hobby
Hmm.. feels a bit fradulent updating this during the UKOPS times, but logging for my own records.
Managed to bink £55 from the Sidey freeroll, one of the rare times I win for a tournament that I'd have been up for playing, but 10pm on a Sunday evening is way too late to start a tourni... hopefully I can get lucky in another game over the course of this week... I'm too cack at tournaments to think about those sort of buy-ins myself.
Even more inclined to make an effort to learn tournis after seeing the many fantastic forum regs' scores last night. I think that will be a challenge to take on in January.
Made it well past 3k pts in the end last month. Enough so to bin off most of Friday night and go to the cinema to see 'Fury'. Good film, can definitely recommend, not a truly classic war movie but a good story all the same.
It's sad, but watching war films always makes me appreciate how easy life is by comparison to my grandparents lives (and relatives older than that). Hard to really moan too much about suffering a bad beat while sat in my nice warm house, using the internet with relatively secure power supply keeping my laptop ticking over, occasionally checking my smartphone to keep up to speed with my wider friend and family circles... eating whatever I want, when I want... well yeah, we have it pretty good these days lol
Anyway, double points week is a bonus. Nearly 1k in two days and didn't even play that much lol I could beat last months' target by the end of the week... were it not for the likelihood that my birthday on Friday will mean limited poker.
Part-regretting that my birthday 'thing' this year is heading off to watch Forest v Norwich on Saturday. Think LOTS of booze will be required......
Really looking forward to my birthday weekend this year.
Tomorrow I get to spend my actual birthday lugging my sister's contents to their new home...
Saturday, now even less enthused than after the Brentford shambles, I'll be biting my nails off and driving myself to drink hoping Forest can stop the rot against a decent Norwich side... can't be letting Derby get too much of a lead on us!
Sunday to mix it up I get to head to London and move all my Grandma's stuff out of her house and try and find homes for it all. After another stroke and the now need for 24hr care we've had to concede defeat as a family and help her move to a care home.
I don't think I want to get old. Hope work (or poker!) can provide me with a fund to book a trip to Switzerland as I reach into retirement, because all my grandparents and other elderly relatives just seem to be in permanent discomfort for most of the latter years.
Meh.
Good news that UKOPS is doing so well, especially as that'll mean no risk of any hands I play this evening getting pulled apart on the telly
I was utterly ko'd from a stinking migraine that had me puking my guts up and therefore missed the equaliser, before just about getting back to see the winner. Ultimate pleasure and pain to be among 20k+ screaming fans and doing your best to join in while it feels like someone has jammed a dagger in your eye socket and kneed you in the stomach lol. I celebrated by almost immediately going and puking some more. Rock and roll.
Pretty humbling day yesterday seeing my Grandma at the home she's been moved into. Not entirely sure she even recognised who I was to be honest. And some of the few coherent words being asked to help her die.
I'm 100% making sure I die young.
Not really any poker to write about to be honest. What little I have played has mostly been filled with brainless fishy calls and it's almost certainly only run good that means I'm a little bit up. May stick to drinking this week instead and leave the poker alone for a few days.
In between and after the unpaid Sunday overtime (booo) I ventured back on to the cash tables.
There didn't seem to be much in way of open seats and no-one wanted to sit with me when I tried to get NL20 tables started (dunno why, it's well documented that I'm easy money while playing HU!).
As a result I ended up spread through NL8, NL10MC, NL20MC and NL30.
Weirdly, all the run good/play good (what little there was) was confined to the NL30 table. That still wasn't enough to stop a drop of £50. I'll post the good bad and ugly of the hands responsible for that to follow this.
I've probably been reading too much stuff from the advanced play book and caused myself too much confusion in hands when it really needn't be that complicated.
I also signed up to get a free 1/2 hour coaching vid, so will look to ping that together at NL20 some time this week. Not sure how easy it will be to share once the comments have been added to rip my play apart, but will throw up a link if I can. Free advertising for people that want to know how easiest to take my cash!
One of the videos by the person doing this included a hand vs me where I yet again butchered (but won) with AKo. Starting to think that may be one of the good basics that needs the most work :0
And hopefully tonight I can find some flukes to avoid the DTD wooden spoon. To reiterate my comments from elsewhere, I'd have done better last week if I'd just sat out the entire time. Sigh.
I only really sat at NL8 because there was a whale with a big stack that I thought I could go after, especially as they played every hand in the orbit I watched before taking a seat.
Then I hit bingo on like my 4th hand, easy money... one of the few times I actually got my money in ahead last night.... hang on a minute..
Not sure why I didn't 3-bet pre.
Or why I didn't think about raising the flop.
Then totally convinced myself oppo had a QQ55x and talked myself into an ill advised (anti-)hero call
Sigh.
don't let the conspiracy theorists know.
"how come the player with the big stack gets it all-in and always hits?"
At first review last night, I wasn't a massive fan of my 3bet. In retrospect, vs an UTG min-raise and call I'm happy with the move, albeit I probably should have been somewhere closer to £2.20.
I'm still thinking my cbet is ill advised, there was always going to be lots of small pocket pairs in the oppo range and even if they hadn't hit a set, things like 8s, 6s maybe even 4s could come along for the ride (esp the UTG player, less so MP). Equally suited connectors could easily have picked up some equity here, either pairs or gutshots.
So all in all, being so deep and with the nut draw I think this should have been a spot where I didn't fire the flop.
Then the really ugly after I was re-raised... I couldn't bring myself to fold... I imagine most will say that I should have called... I did originally size a more sensible raise but then figured I was as good as all in after bumping it up to somewhere around £20, so just jammed.
Muppet.
For some reason my browser will only let me change the hand history after I've posted it, the images don't even show up while I'm typing the initial post?
I wasn't complaining that you left name in - not against rules - only abusing named players is.
Just thought it a bit ironic that play could look fixed
Not a complete bust in DTD this week, making it to 8th in DTD3 before me and another c.12bb stack got in with my AJ < A6 and gg me
DTD2 was going pretty well before I did half my stack with AA on a Qxx x Q run out vs Q9 (for a change, I realised not to bet the river) and then just when I thought I was going to double back up...
I once again doff my cap to the MTT regs, at cash you can just keep on rolling, if people are calling me down with A-high (at the stakes I play) then I'm confident that I can reload and have a good shot of getting my money back...
Add to that the fact that you can't just take five from your games (as you can from sitting out at cash) and it's fair to assume you need a stronger stomach to keep your head through an MTT session.
It was good fun overall though, plus I picked up a few quid from the mini last night which must be a first.
Only downer was an utter moaner just berating the weaker players during DTD1, but meh, whatever floats people's boat. Can't believe why so many 'good' players want the perceived weaker players to cut out limping / stationing, I'd never make any money at cash if those sort of oppos didn't exist
Misadventures at the NL20 and an action NL10 table.
Bad beats in both directions, bad play leading to a £28 loss.
A hand vs Larson utterly confused me and I leveled myself into thinking he was playing on my nitty image again to get a fold... only for me to call an all in on the turn and bink one of my two outs. Apologies (your stories of 4 betting me with air a couple of weeks back would have worked were I not a luckbox!)
This is one of the hands that I misplayed (I think). Oppo is unknown to me.
Felt like squeeze was almost always the best play here, rather than be oop to 3 players. Plus BB is a solid reg who may have acted to squeeze with worse and left me possibly playing a 3b pot oop and without intiative.
Not sure about post-flop though. I mean, I think a c bet is fair here, but with no likely draws (unless they called with 56, which seems unlikely) I'm only getting called by an A or big pairs that think I'll be cbetting any A high flop?
But the J is always a bad card in this spot... I think? So in retrospect should I be taking a c/c or even a c/f line more often here (if oppo shoves)?
Feels like yet another case of getting overly tied to a one pair hand and playing for stacks where I really probably shouldn't.
It was a way stronger holding than that Craig...
Fun though - an easy 'green circle' addition and look forward to playing as many hands in position vs him as possible!!
Thought I may be heading back down against last night, after I lost a couple of 80/20s early on.
Unlike earlier this week though I felt like I my brain was switched on and I was (largely) avoiding uneccessary puke spots and nicking lots of little pots without showdown, which is always nice.
Chuck in a couple of oddly sweet spots and I scrape back into the black for the month. Good times.
And it's the weekend, even better times!
Caught an article about the upcoming final Derek episode and am very much looking forward to that this Christmas... hoping that they can find a spin-off show for Kev when its done. I somehow missed his Christmas Cracker series on youtube last year and am saving those for viewing through December now I've been made aware of them.
Maybe one day I'll grow up and be humoured by slightly more mature comedic characters....