SwingSwingSwing's Poker Journey

I'm not much of a goal-setter. Never have been, probably never will be. For my poker playing I have two targets; to get better and to be in profit. Both very woolly and in the case of the former, quite hard to measure. Occassionally I may set a more specific target and at the start of the year I set myself two. 

1. To get my Sharkscope graph back into positive territory.
2. Be profitable at all my regular limits in limit 5 Card Draw.

Target 2 was achieved last night. When I started playing 5 Card Draw on Poker Stars, the lowest limit available was 50c/$1 and as such that was where players new to the game would be. With so many bad players there, making money was easy. Easy, that is, when the games ran. 5 Card Draw isn't the most popular game around. My win rate at 50c/$1 is 3BB/hr (i.e. $3) single tabling.

For a bit of excitement, I would take shots at $1/$2. On the face of it, it didn't seem like a tougher game. There were more solid regulars than at 50c/$1 but still a fair amount of fish. But I was getting a hammering. Now I was only taking shots, so after losing I went back to my regular level to recoup losses.

For even more excitement, I would take the very occasional shot at $2/$4. $2/$4 is very different, far fewer fish and more aggressive regulars. When playing at $2/$4 I was there purely to hit and run. If things were going bad I'd leave pronto. If things were going well, I'd leave pronto too just to "lock in" the profit. 

So I was making money at 50c/$1 and $2/$4 but taking a beating at $1/$2. Then PokerStars introduced micro limit 5 Card Draw and all the entry level fish dropped down leaving 50c/$1 pretty barren. I didn't really want to go down with them so decided to concentrate on $1/$2.

 And last night, thanks to hitting trip Aces when drawing 4 to a solitary Ace in the Big Blind I managed to get back in profit at $1/$2. Woo Hoo! 

 So now it's time to focus on my Sharkscope stats.

 Apart from the playing 5 Card Draw, I haven't been playing much poker. I had a few days off work which meant that I missed the announcement and the start of the Full Tilt Bloggerment tournies. Oh well. I suppose it gives me a break for a bit! 

I think everyone who plays poker will agree that it is a frustrating game. You can play poorly and be rewarded. You can play perfectly and yet have little to show for it.

The last few days have been frustrating for me. I've played 12 SNGs or small field MTTs this month. My ROI for these is -64%. Now it's only a $39 loss but the frustrating thing was the way the games played out. of the 12, I bubbled in 5 of them and cashed twice, both of them second places. Of the second place cashes,  the first I went out when my opponent pushed all in preflop with Q4s into my Aces and he hit his flush and the second catching the idiot end of a straight was my undoing as my opponent had the non-idiot end.

Bubbling 5 out of 12 shows that I really need to relearn bubble strategy and so I've created a little timetable of PXF videos to watch which I'll be working on this week.  For some of the 5 I think I played correctly but there were a couple that I know I butchered. The worst one was a $3.40 I played last night. There are five players left with the blinds at 75/150. My stack is 2785 which is comfortably in second place. Two to my left is a player who plays nearly every hand, something like 60% VPIP. She's taken a big hit (though she still has 2000 chips) and she's been pushing a fair bit the last orbit. Acting after her is the other villian in the hand, the chip leader with 5850 chips.

I'm in the BB and check after Loosey-Goosey and ChipLeader limp in. I've got A7o and flop two pair on an As7s5d board. My first reaction was "yeehaw - time to get some money off of Loosey-Goosey". I bet out 600 and Loosey-Goosey, as I'd hoped, reraises all in. What I didn't pay much attention to was that ChipLeader called her all in. The action came to me and I reraised all in with my two pair without even thinking about ChipLeader's action meant. The cards get turned over. Loosey-Goosey had T7o for a pair of sevens which was exactly what I was hoping for. Unfortunately ChipLeader turned over a pair of 5s for bottom set and I'm toast. ChipLeader knocks us both out and the other two players who had about 10BB each suddenly find themselves in the money.

Absolutely horrible, horrible, horrible  play by me. I was so consumed with getting money from Loosey-Goosey that I had not even stopped to think what ChipLeader was doing. And he was the only player who could bust me. And he did. Oh well, lesson learned I hope.

That's the PokerStars Battle of The Planets bonus cleared. I had to earn about 34 FPPs per day before July 9th to make it in time so I've finished way ahead of schedule. But I've lost money overall. Some of this was being unlucky, some was me making stupid calls.

Early last week it was the stupid calls that were my undoing. Paying off large river bets from tight players is just not a good play, especially with Ace high :-) I learned my lesson though and played considerably better (well as much as Short Stack Strategy allows) and I managed to recoup the earlier losses by the middle of the week. Then over the weekend, in the final push to clear the bonus, I hit some bad luck. In the space of 4 hours, I had Kings cracked by threes, Jacks and sevens losing $70 along the way. Switching to limit didn't help as my Aces fell to AKs for another $20. So I lost more than the bonus was worth in the process of clearing the bonus.

Now, I've got a dilemma. I only need 300FPPs to reach Silver Star and 4 days to do it. I might give it a go.

I missed the BritBloggerment last week as I was at my cousins' wedding but managed to make it along last night. I cashed in third place which was OK considering that I was completely card dead once the bubble burst. I was folding so much junk that Amatay thought I had disconnected. My final hand was a shortstacked push with K3s. Amatay called with QJs and when the flop gave him an gutshot royal flush draw, I knew that my goose was cooked. A non-flush straight card came on the turn and I hit the rail.

No BritBlogger for me next week as I'll be in south Germany hopefully catching some nice summer weather.

Until next time.