Goodbye Micro Stakes...Or is it Au Revoir?

November has gone excellently so far. For the first week I ran shockingly in cash to be down about $100, but getting better at 180 mans has helped me so much...final tabled several $2.20 ones and came 2nd in the $3.30+R for a very nice $350, which bumped my account up to $1400. Today cash has turned around and I've got my account up to over $1500...so armed with 30 buyins I'm going to go forth into the unchartered territory of 50nl.

I've decided to set aside $100 to experiment here...I've never played at this level before, so it could go terribly wrong...and infact it's likely to, so once I've lost $100 I'll move back down again and get better at 25nl before moving up. I'm not good enough at 25nl for my liking at the moment, but a lot of my problems were caused by calling stations...and I assume there'll be less of those at 50nl and more raisers etc...but it'll be interesting to find out! I'm going to have to cut back on volume a lot...I was 16 tabling 10nl a month and a half ago...then 5 tabling 25nl...now I'm going to cut down to 1 or 2 while I get the hang of it. Hopefully it'll all go well...I'll know soon enough!

November Report

I've decided to start a new database monthly on Tracker...considering the number of hands I've played this month, I think it wise, otherwise the sample size just makes the data nonsense eventually. So tomorrow...or technically today I'll start a new, shiny exciting one!

Overall a very good month. Up just under $400. $320 from cash and the rest from various 180 man micro tourneys. I've been pottering along at 25nl reasonably, but not making money as fast as I'd like to. My red line carried on dipping, getting as low as -$400, so I read a few things on 2+2 about being more aggressive...which I wouldn't have thought I needed...and a couple of days ago I changed my game dramatically to reflect this....As the graph below shows (you'll know which bit!) I went a little overboard...The last 1500 hands are today's hands, where I took what I'd learnt and applied it, but without being a nutcase. The results seem to be good.

The first 9000 or so hands are at 10nl...the big dip is where I started being hyper agressive...This is from Nov 1 to 30th....yes I've played a lot of poker.




I've been running like supreme African death aids for the past few days which hasn't helped and I imagine over half my losses are from that, but a substantial part are from me being a dick...so hopefully I've cut that part out now. I was up to $1200, but the last few days have knocked me down under $1000. Not to worrk! I shall return! I'm aiming to beat 25nl at over 6bb/100 (PT) soon, so that I can make a decent constant profit...but the sample size is making it hard for me to measure what I'm actually doing now...another good reason for a new database.

I should probably start posting interesting hands here...had a few nice hands where I've triple barrelled and won big pots with good reads, but I always forget to save them....and a few others where I have doubts about how I played...but again I've forgotten to save them, so hopefully next time I'll have some actual hands here!

1 good thing comes of a large sample size though...I have 7k hands to know that Kes runs at 12/8...so must play only AA or better...So a raise from him in any position is a fold from KK downwards...

Not posted for ages, but this warrants a blogpost! After my last one I'm fairly sure I ran like aids and lost most of that...I've never played well at 25nl before.

As anyone who reads this will know, I'm currently in France...which is a shit country and where I am there's NOTHING to do at all, so I'm playing a lot of poker. I cashed in at the end of October for $200 and started playing 10nl...I've done this loads. Cashed in for $200, made $100-$300, then cashed out because I needed the money. Hopefully I won't have to do that this time...

Anyway I made $100 fairly quickly...I can utterly crush 10nl now...running consistently at about 15 PT BB/100. I've only played 25nl a couple of times before...because I'm a fish, so I thought I'd have another go. Cashed in $200 more to put my roll up to $500 I started playing. I was a bit sporadic at first, but I think I've got it now. I was playing various $2.20 180 mans too...and lost about 900 in a row, which slowed down my profit. As soon as I changed to the $4.40 non-turbo I cashed for $144 (2nd) which was nice! Made a bit more money at cash and yesterday came 3rd in the $3.30 rebuy 180 man for $200. This put me up to about $960. The highest I've ever been! Today I finally broke the 1k mark for the first time in my poker career! :-D Very happy.

Because everyone knows I'm a fish I'm going to post a picture to prove it! Haha! According to PT I've made $378 from cash...so that makes $122 from tournaments (I spent a lot in the crappy turbo one!). Anyway - here's a pretty picture of a 4 figure roll! Woooooooooooooo! 50nl here I come!


As a final note - I'm accruing quite a few FPPs...can anyone suggest what I should spend these on? As I want to get hte best value for money from them and the bonuses don't seem that brilliant...I'm SilverStar atm and can get Gold by end of the month...What does anyone who plays on Stars spend them on?

The Poker Lords Rain Down Bountiful Gifts Upon Us

Wow....what a night. I started playing 25NL two nights ago and was a bit up and downy to start with - was just getting my bearings, even though the change isn't that big.

Today I started playing again along with a few MTTs that I usually play...and well - I'll let pictures show what happened.






Most ridiculous upswing I've ever encountered....I could do no wrong. Over that period I was running at 50BB/100....making my 25nl BB/100 23 over 2,7k hands. Interestingly, my 10nl (full ring) is 11....so also very high. I'm clearly too pro! Haha!

I'm expecting a cataclysmic downswing in the near future...but I can always invest in play money for a while! :-P

A very nice start to 25nl by any means!!! :-)

Swimming upwards

Not a long post this time, just a note that I'm moving up to 10c25c, a limit that I've NEVER played before, so this should be exciting. So depending on how it goes I may be posting here soon laughing of crying.

Being anal about my roll is how I got here I think. My roll now stands at $525 after I cashed in the rest of the money I originally had in Party, 21 buy-ins...not a massive amount, but a start!

From starting on Party at the end of January I've played around 30,000 hands of cash and a number of MTTs and all my roll is profit....I've said his a lot, but I'm incredibly proud of it! :-P From starting at 2c4c I never thought I'd get up here so fast....or at all. It amazes me that I'm actually aproaching being a passable player now!

Just for fun - my first hand at 10 25...let's hope in continues!

PokerStars Game #28115364582: Hold'em No Limit ($0.10/$0.25) - 2009/05/12 19:33:01 WET [2009/05/12 14:33:01 ET]
Table 'Cepheus IV' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: BigLawMonies ($33.95 in chips)
Seat 2: donni666 ($4.65 in chips)
Seat 3: Spiro_Sxx ($25.60 in chips)
Seat 4: chaoslordtom ($25 in chips)
Seat 6: omen023 ($7.40 in chips)
Seat 7: Maromann ($43.05 in chips)
Seat 8: Tuwei168 ($24.65 in chips)
Seat 9: ItsmeMayo ($25.25 in chips)
Spiro_Sxx: posts small blind $0.10
chaoslordtom: posts big blind $0.25
sergyprie: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to chaoslordtom [Js Td]
omen023: folds
Maromann: calls $0.25
Tuwei168: folds
ItsmeMayo: folds
BigLawMonies: folds
donni666: folds
Spiro_Sxx: calls $0.15
chaoslordtom: checks
*** FLOP *** [5h Tc Jd]
Spiro_Sxx: checks
chaoslordtom: checks
Maromann: bets $0.25
Spiro_Sxx: folds
chaoslordtom: calls $0.25
*** TURN *** [5h Tc Jd] [2s]
chaoslordtom: checks
Maromann: checks
*** RIVER *** [5h Tc Jd 2s] [4c]
chaoslordtom: bets $1
Maromann: folds
Uncalled bet ($1) returned to chaoslordtom
chaoslordtom collected $1.20 from pot
chaoslordtom: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $1.25 | Rake $0.05
Board [5h Tc Jd 2s 4c]
Seat 1: BigLawMonies folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: donni666 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: Spiro_Sxx (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 4: chaoslordtom (big blind) collected ($1.20)
Seat 6: omen023 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: Maromann folded on the River
Seat 8: Tuwei168 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: ItsmeMayo folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Continuing to play well?!

As the title says, the unbelievable seems to have happened. It's taken me a year, but I seem to be profitable now! A while ago I posted about getting a free party roll ($50) from some random site, which I managed to get up to about $350 over a month or two. I then ran out of money and had to cash out to eat.

Then I realised in the easter holidays that food was for losers, so I cashed into stars for $200. My stars account broke $400 about a week ago after about 10,000 hands of 5c 10c cash and a few of those $2.20 turbo 180 mans (I recommend these to anyone with no money....the field halves in roughly 20 mins, so basically half the pot is free money!) I've tended to play one of these with 3 cash tables. 5c 10c is ridiculously easy, I'm running at over 4bb/100 over 11,000 hands.

Once I get to $500ish I'm going to cash in about $90 more, which is the rest of what I cashed out from Party and start playing 10c 25c....which will be the highest I've ever played. Go me! I know this is nothing compared to the gays who have 10k rolls or more, but from starting last year in the Aidan's JCR and donking off buy-in after buy in both there and online, it's really gratifying to finally be making profit. Especially since my online roll (counting the $90) is now $500 - all of which is pure profit.

In other news, I've started playing well live too...In the DUPS tournaments this year I've managed to be the 2nd highest exec member in the rankings, despite only cashing 3 times. I tended to go out between 14 and 7....infuriatingly. Last Saturday I managed to cling on until 4th place and take home £21 - oooh aaah! - despite having my KK ravaged by Chris May's A10 and my AQs beaten by another AQs, which took it upon itself to hit running diamonds -_-

2 cash games ago at Pauls I managed to leave even - for the 1st time since EVER - no mean feat...I generally treated this game as a quick and easy way to show Paul/Isaac how much I like them in monetary form (about £20 worth of liking generally). But after cashing in for £35 (or £40, because I'm a donk and kept cashing in half buy-ins) I finished on a, perhaps less than impressive, £37.

After the DUPS tourney on Saturday though, I managed to somehow salmon my way to a £50 profit, cashing out for around £90 altogether after I'd urinated away my first buy-in (assumedly to Paul, who was playing like a combination of Allah, Buddah and Chuck Norris). Paul also took away a nice £90, making us the only 2 profitable players of the night....a category in which I have rarely resided.

Loool on a more annoying note - in one of those 180 mans, just had these 2 hands:

PokerStars Game #27803779836: Tournament #160885904, $2.00+$0.20 Hold'em No Limit - Level XVI (1500/3000) - 2009/05/04 11:38:58 WET [2009/05/04 6:38:58 ET]
Table '160885904 19' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: Neippl85 (35423 in chips)
Seat 3: mr alli (20998 in chips)
Seat 4: chaoslordtom (43829 in chips)
Seat 5: choppers396 (54875 in chips)
Seat 6: tcefreP (55311 in chips)
Seat 7: baculaat (40000 in chips)
Seat 9: Jo Ass 50 (19564 in chips)
Neippl85: posts the ante 300
mr alli: posts the ante 300
chaoslordtom: posts the ante 300
choppers396: posts the ante 300
tcefreP: posts the ante 300
baculaat: posts the ante 300
Jo Ass 50: posts the ante 300
baculaat: posts small blind 1500
Jo Ass 50: posts big blind 3000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to chaoslordtom [Qs Ad]
Neippl85: calls 3000
mr alli: folds
chaoslordtom: raises 12000 to 15000
choppers396: folds
tcefreP: folds
baculaat: folds
Jo Ass 50: raises 4264 to 19264 and is all-in
Neippl85: folds
chaoslordtom: calls 4264
*** FLOP *** [5c Qc 6c]
*** TURN *** [5c Qc 6c] [Ks]
*** RIVER *** [5c Qc 6c Ks] [8s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Jo Ass 50: shows [9h Kc] (a pair of Kings)
chaoslordtom: shows [Qs Ad] (a pair of Queens)
Jo Ass 50 collected 45128 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 45128 | Rake 0
Board [5c Qc 6c Ks 8s]
Seat 1: Neippl85 folded before Flop
Seat 3: mr alli folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: chaoslordtom showed [Qs Ad] and lost with a pair of Queens
Seat 5: choppers396 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: tcefreP (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: baculaat (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: Jo Ass 50 (big blind) showed [9h Kc] and won (45128) with a pair of Kings

Followed immediatly (next hand) by this vs. same villain:

PokerStars Game #27803787261: Tournament #160885904, $2.00+$0.20 Hold'em No Limit - Level XVI (1500/3000) - 2009/05/04 11:39:27 WET [2009/05/04 6:39:27 ET]
Table '160885904 19' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: Neippl85 (32123 in chips)
Seat 3: mr alli (20698 in chips)
Seat 4: chaoslordtom (24265 in chips)
Seat 5: choppers396 (54575 in chips)
Seat 6: tcefreP (55011 in chips)
Seat 7: baculaat (38200 in chips)
Seat 9: Jo Ass 50 (45128 in chips)
Neippl85: posts the ante 300
mr alli: posts the ante 300
chaoslordtom: posts the ante 300
choppers396: posts the ante 300
tcefreP: posts the ante 300
baculaat: posts the ante 300
Jo Ass 50: posts the ante 300
Jo Ass 50: posts small blind 1500
Neippl85: posts big blind 3000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to chaoslordtom [9h 9d]
mr alli: folds
chaoslordtom: raises 20965 to 23965 and is all-in
choppers396: folds
tcefreP: folds
baculaat: folds
Jo Ass 50: calls 22465
Neippl85: folds
*** FLOP *** [7c Ad Qc]
*** TURN *** [7c Ad Qc] [6c]
*** RIVER *** [7c Ad Qc 6c] [8h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Jo Ass 50: shows [Ah Qs] (two pair, Aces and Queens)
chaoslordtom: shows [9h 9d] (a pair of Nines)
Jo Ass 50 collected 53030 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 53030 | Rake 0
Board [7c Ad Qc 6c 8h]
Seat 1: Neippl85 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: mr alli folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: chaoslordtom showed [9h 9d] and lost with a pair of Nines
Seat 5: choppers396 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: tcefreP folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: baculaat (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: Jo Ass 50 (small blind) showed [Ah Qs] and won (53030) with two pair, Aces and Queens

Nothing I can do about that...just annoying! :-D

Leaving the aquarium

Well, I've enjoyed my time swimming around, checking out the nice subaquatic flora and fauna and whatnot, but I think I may finally have developed primitive lungs and flopped out of the pond of loss into the garden of profit. Before now, any profit I made, I swiftly donked away through tilt, drunkeness, idiocy, or just general bad play.

Anyway - here's now it happened. At the end of last term, I got a $50 free bankroll from some random site or other. Quite a good idea for the salmon amongst us, who've managed to urinate every other bankroll away. I didn't play until the start of this term, when I started off playing 2c 4c cash on Party, where I made slight profit up to $60 or something (due to my unending stupidity, my account displays my balance in £, so I may switch between the 2 in the course of this diatribe). Then, through what was in all likelihood, my playing badly, I managed to piss that away and leave myself with £20....Annoyed at my idiocy I moved up a limit to 5c 10c (yes, I hear you cry silently, I am stupid enough to play with 3 buy-ins). This was about 3 weeks ago.

With this move I decided to start playing properly, actually properly, properly. No more raising J4 (except in position of course!), no more crying calls, no more tilting. Through this (and more than a little luck) I managed to get back up to my starting roll of $50 (woo!), from which I continued to rise up to £70, so about $100 at the exchange rate of the time. This seemed too good to be true and I was constantly wondering when my luck was going to run out, as it had so many times before. I hovered around this spot for a while, then a couple of noobstations donated their stacks to me and I managed to break £100, which combined with a bonus installment put me to around £120 ($170). Almost rolled for the stakes I'm playing!

More playing really well (for me at least) got me up to £180, where I've been for the past week until tonight when I broke the £200 and $300 mark simultaneously. So I'm now on around $310, with the most profit I've ever had.

I've been putting off posting a new blog update for weeks now, worried that I'll somehow curse myself. A year of playing badly and mainly losing online means I'm not used to winning and I expect it to all come crashing down around me! I suppose there's still time for that!

Here are my 2 graphs - I have 2 because I play on 2 computers and I'm too inept to combine them into 1 almighty-graph-of-imba-glory, so here they are in their upwards pointing awesomeness. I think it's amusing to contrast them with Isaac et al. and see how tiny my profit is, but at least I'm on the up... LOL - just click the wankers to see them in full....I dunno what I've done to the stupid thing. I can't work these bloody bloggers....it's like facebook.

I'm going to try and keep this updated more often now and next time actually post some hands, so people don't have to read vacant verbose verbiage (lolcanoes).

Until then....much salmon to you all!