Monthly Report - August 2009

August was a humbling month. Humbling in the sense that I was paddled in the ass several times despite playing really great poker all month. I'm running $12 below expected-value this month with the beats from my previous post. Hell, tonight alone I had my KK end up against AA preflop twice for my whole stack. The top graph is what the math says I should have won, the bottom graph is what actually happened this month.





But still, I stormed back tonight to make another last second save of the month. I went from being down $10 at the beginning of the month to winning enough money to buy a gumball from the crusty old machines outside Walmart. SUCK ON THAT POKER GODS.

Anyways, here's my results and new goals.

August Goals

1. 3k all the way.
2. Activate my recently acquired bonus from FullTilt and get back on that horse. NL5 can't be THAT different from what it was on Cake....right?
3. Put more effort into playing hands.

Results
1. Faaaaail only 2.2k or so. Disheartened by a 98% all-in that I lost on day one. Took a week off after that and wept softly in my closet.
2. Yep. Activated. Still runs through Sep 12th so I can clear some more of it. Did ok so far considered how little I played.
3. This one I am proud of. After taking those few horrible sessions right up the ass I got back on the horse towards the end of the month and playing solid as all hell and made it all back. Good confidence boost to salvage a shitty start to a month.


September Goals
1. Play 15 days 2-tabling this month to get a new $25 bonus Full Tilt is running. If things look up halfway through the month, try to hit the full $50.
2. I need to get continuation betting back up to where it should be. It's slipped the past two months when I get scared after taking a few beats. Stay aggressive!
3. Make up for the last two months of ass by putting in some serious volume. Hopefully goal 1 will help with that.

All in all, I'm still happy with how this month went. I've righted the ship on my lifetime graph and weathered a few beats pretty well. Hopefully this month I'll run hotter than Richard from Lost and skyrocket my graph to the promised land.

Bad Karma?

or "How I learned to stop worrying and love the river"

Well, hasn't this month just been shit-tastic so far! I've been playing better than I normally do and have been totally focused and making great plays....I SHOULD be up about $10-$15 this month already which would be a stellar start. But I've had some horrible luck. The following have all happened within the past 1500 hands.

AK vs AJ - Flop A92, all-in on the flop - Chance to win = 88.2%
Pot was $4.60 and he hit his jack on the river.

QQ vs A6 - Flop 6J2, all-in on the flop - Chance to win = 79.8%
Pot was $4.30 and he hit his ace on the turn.

67 vs 99 - Flop 568, turn 4 = straight for me - Chance to win on turn = 93%
Pot was $4.00 when I had the best hand. He catches a 7 on the river making a higher straight for him. Luckily like an idiot he only bet another .25 when he hit so I didn't lose much on the river.

Then the worst beat I've ever taken. I have to laugh at this one.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4588059

Click the "Show results" link at the bottom.

Runner-runner for a higher full house. At the time the money went all-in I had a 98.1% chance to win the hand. That's the biggest lead I've ever had where I end up losing. When the T hit on the turn I figured "Wow, nice try asshole" since that gave me a full house but was scary. Then the Ace hit. Ouch!

So I guess I'm happy that I'm playing awesome this month (my average pot equity when I get all-in is 83% this month, including an AK vs AK draw) but it sucks that I'm not winning the hands that I should. If I even win half of those hands I'm up for the month. Proof that poker still contains an element of luck. I know that over time I will beat these people by putting them in that same situation over and over but it stings when you lose big pots as big favorites that many times in a row.

Oh well. Time to look at funny pictures and stop venting.



Back to the grind!

Monthly Report - July 2009

July Goals

1. Tough with a few vacations this month but try to hit 3k hands again.
2. Try to get back to basics. I think I FPS'd* myself a bit this month.
3. Find out what the hell I'm doing wrong with suited connectors. I
   think I fear higher flushes WAY too much.

Results
1. Failed, but I was close. Lot's of vacation this month made it tough to play enough but I had about 2.5k hands.
2. I did get back to basics, but the tough thing is that when you play at levels where people will call you with ANYTHING, your winnings are highly dependent on your cards. I didn't hit very many big hands this month so I didn't get paid off.
3. I looked into this a bit more and I haven't hit many flushes or straights the last couple months. I'll have an open ended straight draw with a flush draw, get the right odds to chase and then completely whiff. So it's tough to win money with suited connectors when you don't hit any hands. :) Hopefully that will change next month but I'm not as worried about it anymore.

Summary - Quite the swingy graph

As you can see, frustrating for most of the month ending with the best session I've ever had. So I can't complain, but it was nerve racking for a bit there. And as I mentioned in my last post, my few big hands for the first half of the month seemed to be second best a lot. Still, I can't complain with a hobby that pays, no matter how little, and I knew going into this it would be slow going. This brings me up to five months straight with a small profit. That's the exact thing I wanted to see and I hope to keep grinding it up. Nothing much else to say about this month!

July Goals
August
1. 3k all the way.
2. Activate my recently acquired bonus from FullTilt and get back on that horse. NL5 can't be THAT different from what it was on Cake....right?
3. Put more effort into playing hands.

This month is dedicated to just getting back to playing a solid amount and shrugging off the craziness of last month. I think I was plotting out how much I had to play at a minimum to hit my goal for number of hands last month and it felt like a job instead of a game. It's supposed to be fun and I should be wanting to play more instead of fearfully holding on to winnings. I've more than shown I can beat these tiny levels so I need to just keep at it.

Here's to a better start to this month!