January 2008: Round up

The first month of the year is passed. Many of us will be looking back to see if January was according to expectations, are the challenges still possible to fulfil, etc… And so will I.

First thing first, I made a profit so that’s fine but it should have been a bigger profit. It didn’t turn out this way due to a big downswing between the 20th and the 27th. Also went Tilt once, which is never good.

Titan:
I made a profit and cashed $25. The banking was inspired by my Tilt. It thought and still think that it was better to bank some money, so that I couldn’t loose it. And for me $25 is a lot, it increase my online bank account with more than 10%. So everything is relative.
I did win 5 SNGs and my ITM% was good, very good (40%). The problem was/is that I’m ending to much in 3rd place. Resulting in a miserable ROI. I will have to work on this.
The biggest downer is that at peak moment my BR at Titan was above $130, ending at $60 (after banking $25). On the positive side, after my tilt the BR was below $25.

Littlwoods:
A complete different story on LW. I made a profit but this is mainly cause I cashed twice in a RTR premier league. But most of this profit was lost on the cash tables. No I was not playing above my roll, I played the cheapest cash tables at LW, which are the $0.03/0.06. I just suck at them. Stijn from PokerInfo.be did point me on some leaks in my game. It appears that I’m playing more hand from UTG than from on the button. How fishy is that. Also ashamed that I didn’t look at that myself. Stijn, thx for the eye opener(s).
At the moment, the “Double your money” SNGs appears to be a small cash cow for me. Probably this has ended now cause I wrote it down. Murphy’s law.
Which is also a downer is that more than 50% of my profit at LW is the rakeback gathered in December of last year. But this proofs that Rakeback also can be the way to go, for microlimit players. At least if you have a good RB deal.

The bloglisting:
I removed some blogs from the bloglisting cause those blogs didn’t exist anymore or it appeared to be a webpage. At this moment there are 94 blogs listed and the list is still growing. So, if you are not on there move your ass and list your blog at the “Best amateur Poker Bloglisting”. Thx!

February 2008:
For once I’m not going to set profit targets for next months. Or let me rephrase this, I’m not going to write them down and I will not try focus on it. In stead of concentrating on a profit target I should focus in trying to decrease the leaks in my game.
I will try to play much more cash hands and focus in stead of the profit or the loss on stats like VPIP and stuff like that.
I’m also thinking to first try to build a bigger BR cushion with the Double your money SNGs and play the cash tables with the profit I hopefully make in these.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Review: MagicHoldem Poker Odds calculator

Normally I don’t use any poker tools when I’m playing poker but I decided to give MagicHoldem Poker Odds Calculator a try.

After installing the tool, I simply opened a few poker tables and MagicHoldem automatically detected these tables and attached itself to them.

MagicHoldem uses a special PVA (Pixel Video Analyzer) program to calculate all the odds and cause of this they are compliant with 93% of all poker rooms.
The MagicHoldem calculator engine immediately reads all the table parameters, calculates the data and displays all the real-time odds, game statistics and information you need to know. Besides the odds it gives you visual information about your outs, gives you the odds that you have the best hands, etc…

MagicHoldem Poker Odds Calculator helped me avoiding simple mistakes, analyzed my game and strategize it with ease. For example, it warns me every time there is a possible flush or straight.
One of the biggest advantages is their lay-out. It looks pretty smooth and you have the freedom the place the information wherever you want.

Their support organization can be easily contacted by email and have a very decent response time.

You can download here a trial version of MagicHoldem, which allows you to play 100 free hands.
On the webpage you also can enter for a drawing. They are giving away 4 lifetime licenses per month.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Where did it go wrong?

Long time ago that I tilted so heavily. So time to take a look why I tilted. Luckily I recovered 50% of my tilt losses.

So why did I go into Tilt mode:
- During the past week I lost around 50% of my Titan BR. This without making wrong decisions. the cards were just against me!
- I focus to much on short time results.
- My expected profits are too high. (I know many of you have told me this before)

If you combine this with the following:
- Making my stupidest move of the week during the RTR league game
- playing a GBP5 headhunter waiting on AA or KK. To see that your aces are cracked by a one card flush, pre-flop all-in.

The result of all this is to see Dremeber go into one of his rare tilt modes.

So, it is good to know why you are tilting, preventing this is another.

Maybe I'm playing to much SNGs. The downside of SNGs is that around the bubble almost everybody is into push/fold mode which takes away the fun in poker if you get eliminated before the bubble has popped. Add to that the fact that tight is right in the
beginning of SNGs. So SNGs are kinda boring.
In cash games there is much more freedom and the pre-flop all-in are less frequent.

Which brings me to the conclusion that I have to decrease the number of SNGs per week and increase the cash table hours. Also, I will not set a profit target for once. I will just start fresh with a tight is right principle. Later on, I can still decide to play some more starting hands, but first I need to get back to the golden rule: tight is right.
I also need to make sure that the others are not getting the correct odds, meaning that I have to bet more pre- and post flop if I think that my hand at that time is the best.

Only 4 more days before my deposit bonus period ends at Titan. If I play 3 more $5 SNGs, I will clear another $5. Does not seem a lot, but currently this is 10% of my current BR.

I will give myself considerably more time to complete my 250 5$ challenge. There is no reason to put pressure on this.
Also I should keep a minimal BR at Titan, cause I noticed that if my BR is above $100 my gambling increases. Better to bank more often to keep my BR under pressure which forces me to play wisely. If I think that I'm ready for the $10 I can still refund.

Also I should forget the fact that I have a rakeback deal on Littlewoods. Rakeback should be a bonus and with the stakes I’m playing I really should see it as a bonus. Nothing more nothing less.

And last but not least I may not forget that I’m still making a profit, so why I’am I whining? There are a lot more poker player who are only losing money than there are players who are making a (small) profit.

One question to the world: What is a good ITM% for SNGs. Currently my stats say (over 150 SNGs) that I’m 40% ITM.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

This fish needs a break

How much can a pokerroom hate you?

I finished my first 50 SNGs on Titan.

So time for a recap. Yep, I made a profit of a fucking $5. That's a ROI of 1.82%.
As good as my start was, so bad was my run of my last 15 SNGs.
In total I won 5 SNGs, came in second in 3 others and just got ITM 11 times. Good for a ITM% of 38%.

Lets take a look at my last 15 SNGs where I won once, did not ended up in second place and ended 3 times in third place. Thats only 25% ITM.

So I came up with this explanation. Titan does not love me when my BR is above $100.
There isn't much difference between the play in the first 25 SNGs and the last. So the difference has to be somewhere else. I evaluated my last SNGs to look for leaks and in 3 or 4 SNGs I made stupid mistakes. But to give an example of today. I get into the bubble as chip leader and I tried 4 times to eliminate shorty. 2 times with better starting hands, 2 times with minor hands but got beaten 4 times and got eliminated in fourth place.

So Titan, fuck off!

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Weekend overview: running bad

Since my win of the RTR premier league matchday 5 my luck has turned. Only one thing pops out as positive and that my third place at matchday 6. This was an amazing comeback. After hand 5 I had only 60 chips left.

But for the rest my results really sucks. My BR at Titan took a steep fall from $150 to $90. It seems that I lost all my poker knowledge and because was so small already it is difficult to find.

In stead of donking away some more money I did something I almost never do. I replayed my last 15 SNGs in PO. The strange thing is that I don’t see any leaks. 90% of the time I’m ahead and the villain are getting rewarded by their foolish calls with runner runner straights, flushes or 2 outers. I know that this is a variance which is kicking in but o man it is such an assault on my confidence. It does not only wipes out my confidence, which was really high, but it also decreases the fun in playing poker, which is my main raison of playing poker.

I know that I will never win a big MTT or making a quadzillions $ of profit. But it would be really nice to see that the board has hit you once in a while. So the same problem at the cash tables. If a see KK or AA in my hole cards and even try to minraise, everybody runs away from the pot, if I do the opposite the same result. Lower pairs will results in to much action at the table. If the board hits me, it is so obvious that somebody has hit the straight of flush.

Luckily I can’t play much poker in the next days. Some days of probably will do my good. I have the feeling that I have to re-invent my game, which I will do in the next days. Still I’m making a profit this month, which is nice and for the first time my BR at littlewoods is bigger than my BR at Titan which I never expected. And if so I was hoping that I won some big pots at Littlewoods but I did not see it coming that this situation is the result of a whooping loss on Titan.

But reading the other blogs of the RTR, I’m not the only one suffering from this. I’m not glad to read those stories but it eases the pain.

Good luck,
Dremeber

My biggest comeback so far!

Yesterday I played the RTR premier league (16 runners) and what a thrill it was.

In the 5th hand I got dealt 99. Don't know why but I did go all-in when it was my turn to act. One insta call and the villan presented me a big pocket pair. Leaving me behind with only a stack of 60 chips. (the starting stack was 1500)

It took some time but I did come back and ended the tournament in third place.
Even with the smallest stack I kept my cool and awaited my moments.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Staying on Titan and the 250 SNG challenge

I will not withdraw my complete BR from Titan. Why not? well, it has several reasons.

There are several reason not do this. Maybe the most important reason is cause I feel comfortable with playing on Titan, which is priceless.
I will still continue to play on Littlewoods but I will restrict my game there to the headhunters, RTR premier league games and cash tables. If I will start playing my SNGs there I will probably run into the pitfall that I will be playing to collect rakeback and probably start playing above my comfort zone and BR.

Why a new SNG challenge? Well this is simple. I’m playing now the $5 SNGs for around half a year. So it is time to create a challenge which will hopefully bring my BR to a level which allows me to play the next level ($10).
I tried some 10$ SNGs in the past with promising results. 4 attempt, 3 times ITM, 2 second places and one third. But my BR management does not allow me to step up yet. I need to
have at least 35 buy-in ($385) and should drop back to the 5$ SNGs when my BR drops down below 30 buy-ins ($330). Stepping back up again if my BR reaches 35 buy-ins again.

My banking plan for Titan makes the challenge even more challenging. My Titan banking plan has the following rules: I should withdraw at the end of each month a minimum
of $25 and a maximum of $50 if my BR is above $100. Can’t exactly explain why I’m setting myself this restriction but It was there since the first of January and I will stick to it. It is to soon to break a new year’s resolution.

This means that I need to make a profit of at least $443 during this challenge. So my initial targets have to be changed.

The original plan:
Expected results:
250 SNGs
25 wins (10%)
38 second places (15,2%)
50 third places (20%)
Profit: $320

The altered plan:
Expected results:
250 SNGs
30 wins (12%)
40 second places (16%)
50 third places (20%)
Profit: $445

Here are the rules I going to stick to:
- The deadline to finish this challenge is set at the end of April, cause in May the tennis season starts.
- Each session will start with multitabling 4 SNGs.
- I will not register for a new SNG after all 4 of them are finished and at least a 20 minutes break. This will result in maximum 8 SNGs during weekdays.
- I will not start a session when I have the feeling that I don't have enough time.
- Each week I will review my stats and decide if I have to decrease the number of SNGs I play simultaneously.

The challenge is finished when one of the following criteria is reached: (in random order)
- I have played 250 SNGs.
- The month May has started.
- My BR is above 400$.

Wish me luck!
Dremeber

Looking back

I took time to read some of the earliest blog posts of this blog.
To be honest I like my blog now more than back in the dark days. One of the reason of existence of this blog was to ventilate frustrations but I did not expect that 80% of my posts back then where negative. Apparently I almost abandoned the ship twice but I'm still here.
Also I did make me realize that my poker level improved (a lot). My style is completely different. I can compare this with how I'm now playing at the cash tables, like a complete fish, not knowing what to do.

I even had the idea in the dark days that playing tight in the beginning of SNGs and MTTs was not the way to go.

Yesterday I tried to withdraw almost my complete BR from Titan. For once it has nothing to do with bad beats or negativism. But it feels stupid to play my SNGs on a site where I don't have a rakeback deal and even the deposit bonuses suck for low limit players. So I did intend to play only on Littlewoods. Be playing the same amount of SNGs there, I would easily gather $10 more on rakeback. But Titan did not allow me to clear the money I intended cause I'm still in the deposit bonus mode. Which means that at least my initial deposit has to remain there until the deposit bonus period is over or I clear another 500 FPPs.

So now I'm in dubio. What shall I do. Still keep playing on Titan, which is more or less my cash cow or go ahead with the plan and play solely on Littlewoods?

Time will tell I guess. First I will try some SNGs @ Littlewoods and if the ROI is almost the same, the choice will be easy.

If you can understand dutch it is worth to bring the blog of Claudius a visit. He describe my blog as the following (translated): Dremeber plays on microlimits but takes the game very serious and has lots of nice stats on his blog.
He couldn't be more spot on. Good luck mate.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

What is wrong with this picture (besides my stack)?

First RTR premier league victory

Don't know how but I did it. While there were only 17 contenders I really did not expect playing the bubble let alone that I would win it. Really proud on this cause there are some really good players at RTR.

I did read in the chatbox @ RTR that this would almost have doubled my BR and they could not be more wrong. It was only an increase of 33%.
It was really a strange FT. Everybody was adjusting their play to Kenn aggressive play style. And that it comes down to pure luck. The biggest example of this is sitting in the BB HUs, looking at your hole cards and discovering Pocket Aces and more important seeing that you opponent went all-in.

Besides this I lost a stupid 6$ on the cash tables cause I was not concentrating.

On the Titan site, everything is going fine. As you can see in a widget in the right frame I have set myself a challenge to control my eager to step up to soon to the next level. I hope that my BR after this 250 SNGs at the $5 level is big enough to make the step. But we will see.

Cheers,
Dremeber

4 SNGs at the same time: For the first time

Because I recovered all my losses on the $0.03/$0.06 from this and last year it was time for some real excitement. I granted myself to play 4 SNGs simultaneously. So I registered for the first 4 10 seater 5$ SNGs on Titan after 7 p.m..
The idea came during lunch today, probably cause I watched a training vid yesterday where one of the Pros did the same. Needless to say that the stakes there were at a complete different level. I was confident cause normally my ITM% is around 50%. Meaning that if I could achieve this figure, my maximum loss would be $2. But

The first one started @ 19:07, the second @ 19:10, the third on 19:13 and the fourth @ 16:16.
I promised myself that I would play very tight in the beginning of the SNG and get more and more aggressive near the bubble and it PAID OF big time.

First I got eliminated from the second SNG(33 hands), ending in 7th place. Where did it go wrong? Lost a first big pot, when my double pairs ran into a 3-of-a-kind leaving my behind with only 590 chips. I managed to build up my BR again to 1200 when I lost a race against 77. Had to push here, was getting the right odds and the blinds were starting to hurt my stack.

Than I made one of the most stupid mistake at SNG 1. Mainly cause I was multitabling. During hand 32 I doubled up with pocket pair of Aces. So I for sure wasn't under any pressure. But my good feeling was over when I thought that I had pocket 8s in late position but after my push it appeared to be only 68 off suited. Was furious on myself when the BB called with KQ. No rescue on the board and out in sixth place.

In the mean while everything was running smoothly in SNG 4 (86 hands). Just like in SNG 1, I doubled up way before the blinds would force me into decisions I didn't like (hand 21). My A9 allin-post flop was no competitor for the QQ the vilan was holding (strange call from him, cause it was the only the first pot I contested). Got lucky in hand 37, where I did hit on of my 17 outs on the river. After the flop I called an all-in with A9 of spades and 2 spades on the flop. The result a massive chip lead. After that I started to play very aggressive, bullying the tables as much as I could. The HU started at hand 74. Had a 5k chip lead. I lost my chip lead when I was forced to fold on a nice raise of the villan. But I link to think that it was a good lay down. After the lay down the chip be equally divided while If I pushed I was way behind. In hand 82 I crippled him with Q7 vs QK. Second time lucky in this SNG (Just a reminder for myself. I sometimes do get lucky in SNGs!!!!). I finished it off in style with JJ.

So all the pressure was gone now, I was assured of at least a profit of $3. So I could finish without any pressure my third SNG (95 hands). I won a first small pot in hand 44 where the SB went all-in and I only had to call $20. My A4 was good enough, lifting my stack to 2000 chips. In hand 48 I got QQ in late position. So I pushed and got called by the BB with 99. No help for him. And again a nice stack. In hand 80 I saw pocket Js. So again a push. Only 3 players left so already ITM. The BB called with A7s but again no rescue for him. After this one played major short stacked and 2 players with almost the same stack. I eliminated him in the next hand when he went all-in in the SB and I called the $630 raise with 45s. And again I was lucky (Reminder number 2, please refer me to this post again when I start moaning again about no luck in the SNGs this month (45s against KQo)). The 5 on the flop meant game over for him. So the HU started in hand 82. And my luck wasn't over yet. In hand 89 I took almost all chips when I called his allin with A4s. Still no luck at the turn, but I did hit my 3 outer on the River. And the luck was not all over yet. In the last hand I went all-in trying to put him under pressure with K7s. With the reminder that I could win the pot or that he would fold but he called with QQ. The flop was A47, the turn gave an 8 and the RIVER gave a fucking beautiful K.

So a back to back victory and a profit of $28, lifting my BR again above $100. Woohoo.
My SNG stats this year at Titan are looking great. 16 played, a profit of $48, ROI: 53% and 50% ITM. 3 victories, 2 times silver and 2 times bronze.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

First SNG win of the month

No time for a major post cause I have to go out with my classmates from my Spanish Class. But just wanted to let you know that the first SNG victory is within the pocket. Played 3 SNG yesterday. In two of them i played very very bad but in the other one the victory was sweet.

Have to admit that I got the right cards at the correct moments but also I had the gut the call an all-in to see that my flush was one card higher than his. This happened twice in 10 hands time and two times against the same opponent.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Weekend update

Did not play so much this weekend. I'm trying to keep the flu away which is sitting around the corner waiting on one of my weakest moments.

On Littlewoods I made a small profit of something around $0.60. This due to the 2 MTT I played in. In one I just took a gamble and went out and in the other I did not believe that my AQ was beaten by an AK.
So all my profit came from cash games, what is that for a surprise.
Overall I played 1077 cash hands this weekend, good for a profit of $8.11. All on the $0.03/0.06 tables. My biggest profit was when I had 4 10s. Felt really nice.

I almost cleared my December loss on this kind of table. Still $0.42 to go. In total I still have a loss of $99 on littlewoods. So lots of work has to been done there.

Also played some SNGs on Titan. 9 played. No victories but I'm confident that they will come this week. 2 second places and 3 third places. So more than 50% ITM, which is not so bad.

To good thing is that I'm sticking to my BR management plan. Some adjustments have to be made. At the moment according to my plan I could move up when my BR will hit 100$ but I'm going to increase this to around 40 times the buy-in of the next level. Cause the next level will be the 0.03/0.06GBP, my BR has to be at least 60GBP or around $120.

I also downloaded a new poker calculator MagicHoldem, when my trial period has ended I will write a review about it.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

First Rakeback Received!!

Today Littlewoods deposit my first rakeback ever. It feels great. Besides this the amount was also higher than I expected. A stunning $15.92, which gave my Littlewood BR the boost it deserves.

On the tables itself it is a real struggle. These 0.03/0.06 six handed tables are a real minefield. Raises of 6 times the BB with 38 are no exceptions. So it is waiting to have a monster but that takes patience. Within 2 days my profit stands on 3.88$ and I have to play at this level until my BR hits 100$ and than I will move to the 0.03/0.06GBP tables.

Still 9GBP to go, thats around $18. Let's hope that I can clear this soon. But I may not forget that Poker is more like a marathon than like the 100m sprint.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

2008: A new start but a false one!

New years eve was great maybe to good. At least that was what my stomach was telling me. Long time ago since I drank so much. False start number 1.

When I wanted to check my email false start number 2 quickly came around the corner. My ISP probably didn't pay a license or something like that cause the complete state was without internet connection. Luckily I had to work today, so I didn't notice much of it.

False start number 3 was my poker related. In theory my BR management for the cash looked great but I underestimated the aggression at the lowest limit tables. O man, they are going crazy. A raise of 4 times the BB can be 27, 38 or AA. I really have to adjust my play style to this, which will be a good learning curve. For the moment my year result is a loss of a $. Luckily I can recover some of these losses via RakeBack.

But there is also some good news. For the first time I sold advertising space on my poker bloglisting. Check it out.

Cheers,
Dremeber