2010 Review: Enjoying the Benefits

2010 ended up being a fairly eventful year. I went into the year coming off a short break after reaching SNE through the heavy grind that was 2009. I felt like I probably wasn't going to chase SNE again during 2010, but didn't commit myself to a lower volume year until the beginning of February. I'm definitely very happy with my decision to not attempt to repeat.

When looking at the year as a whole, I'd say the biggest theme is that I was able to enjoy the benefits of my SNE grind of 2009. I had two great vacations: the Bahamas for the PCA, and Europe for EPT Monte Carlo. I was able to realize ~18k of tournament package equity by mincashing in the latter event. I broke my WCOOP ME entry down into several smaller tickets in September, and managed to turn a small profit converting equity to actual currency in that regard. Finally, the 5x FPP multiplier during the first 9 months of the year was fantastic, and you really do notice once it is gone.

In terms of volume, I put in a hair under 1.5 million hands in 2010 - right around 1 million less than I did last year. Despite the reduction in volume, I ended up only taking a little less money off the tables. This is because my winrate for the year was higher than it was in 2009 (which should be no surprise given the volume reduction), and that proportionally more of my volume was played at 200NL as well as midstakes. My total profit of the year exceeded that of 2009 by a decent amount, though to be fair a great deal of the equity I realized this year was "earned" through the 2009 grind (tournament package cashes, WCOOP cashes, extra FPP value from 5x multiplier etc).

The last significant piece to my year was that I started making videos for Cardrunners. They have been well received so far and I am looking forward to continuing my series heading into the new year.

A yearly graph and table are below, followed by a monthly breakdown of profit:



The Bottom Line:
January - $22,315.18
February - $20,125.64
March - $20,801.86
April and May - $39,987.80
June - $13,787.12
July - $14,821.25
August - $10,025.67
September - $19,597.69
October - $5513.99
November - $8225.48
December - $7893.67
-------------------------
$183,091.35 USD total profit.

Interestingly, over half my yearly profit came outside of pure table winnings. This is mostly due to the SNE equity I spoke of earlier combined with typical FPP value, though I also picked up some money through my video series, a couple of prop bets, and of course other bonuses.

Overall, I definitely feel that my winrate for the year was satisfactory and the results at midstakes were definitely nice. I ran well during the first couple months of the year, but ran into the opposite end of variance for much of the latter 9 months - you'll notice one ~150k break even stretch in the graph. Heading into 2011 I do not have much in the way of specific plans. If the game structure at Stars remains the same (as I would guess it will at this point), it is likely I'll split my volume between Stars and FTP, and perhaps even other sites. I also plan on playing some WSOP events in 2011 as well, so maybe I'll luckbox something. I definitely don't expect to have as profitable a year in 2011 as I did in 2010 - simply because I don't have the SNE equity waiting to turn into cash in my pocket. That being said, I do still think I've got a few more very profitable years as a pro left me, and it is exciting to see where poker is going to take me.

December Review - Paid Vacation

Quite a bit like last year I intentionally played very little poker in December. I needed to put in a hair over 15k VPPs worth of volume on Stars to reach my 600k milestone, and I knocked out the last bit tonight. I don't plan to play another hand until the new year.

It was kind of a swingy month, though that is likely mostly a function of the sample size being only 35k hands. I definitely could have run worse, so no complaints there. Given the game quality on Stars in December, a > 2ptBB winrate is respectable for sure.

Graph below:


The bottom line:
$2560.65 table winnings
+$866.49 FPP value (15473 VPPs * 3.5FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$3600 milestone bonus ($4400 - $800 FPP value to purchase)
+$21.53 FTP rakeback
+$845 coaching
--------------------------------------------------------------
$7893.67 USD total profit. Absolutely satisfactory for my vacation month.

I'll be sure to sum up the entirety of 2010 in a review post shortly.

Make Sense Damn It!

Not much to report from the poker front as I'm barely playing during my "time off" month, though I did have a modestly successful 5k hand session on Friday. The games have definitely reached typical December level awfulness. Another 6k VPPs to go until my milestone hits and I'm done for 2010.

Regarding the title, I had a couple "wtf?" moments this week where I encountered things that just didn't make a whole lot of sense. The type of things that leave you wondering why the people responsible for the decision making at hand would possibly have thought it was a good idea. The first had to do with the Flames/Leafs game on Thursday, where the Flames played their best game of the year and utterly dominated Toronto. The game was great, but what I couldn't figure out was why it was being on aired on Sportsnet One, which is a new local specific sports channel which launched this year. This is the team with the largest fanbase in the league (Leafs) playing a fellow Canadian team they rarely see. To make matters more mind boggling, Hockey Night in Canada has recently taken a page from the NFL playbook and added Thursday games to their schedule for the latter half of the season. How CBC decided to show a different game I'll never know. To clarify, there isn't anything wrong at all with the SN1 broadcast, I'm actually quite partial to their commentators - but from a business standpoint it is burning money all around.

The second "wtf" moment came as I was playing through the Severnaya snow base level of the Goldeneye 007 remake for the Wii. At the very end of the level you come upon some bunker doors, and you need to jam two buttons quickly to successfully open them. My button jamming skills are formidable to say the least - I managed to drink the maximum number of soda cans back in Chrono Trigger after all. But the damn door just wouldn't open. I confirmed there was no specific sequence necessary (ie. alternating), it was a pure jam. I switched controllers with no luck. Finally, by mashing a classic controller against the ground I was able to get the doors open. Who playtested this thing and thought it was tuned properly?

Finally, some fairly discouraging news on the hockey front. It seems very likely that Flames center Daymond Langkow has played his last game in the NHL. Late last season he went down to a neck injury after taking a fluke slapshot his spinal cord, and it appears that almost a year later that the injury will turn out to be career ending. A very underrated player who was as tough as he was skilled, it's really sad to see a career end this way.

Deja Vu

Another week, another dominating Patriots win over a highly regarded team. Good stuff. I barely put in any volume on the weekend, but made some cash when I did play. A few of my hands were on FTP, as I was recruited to play a bit and join Cardrunners chat as part of the CR 5 year anniversary celebration. I had a 100NL table bearing my screen name on FTP for the duration, which was fun. Last week I finished work on a video talking about chasing SNE which should be coming out before the new year for Cardrunners members. There should be some beneficial content for anyone looking to improve their mass multitabling as well. Cataclysm has been neat thus far, and the reintroduction of moderately challenging 5 man content in WoW is nice.

Unfortunately it seems like I'm coming down with a cold, which isn't much fun. Maybe my immune system will run hot and pull off a miraculous comeback tomorrow, but outlook doesn't look good. Also, the US poker legislation that appeared to have a legit shot is now close to being dead in the water. This is extremely unfortunate, though we won't really know how bad it is for some time - and by then it'll probably be too late.

Patriots, How I Love Thee

I put in an unfortunately absymal 6k hands or so between Saturday and Sunday, leaving me barely better than breakeven over 11k hands so far this month. Not like an 11k BE stretch is anything to write home about, but it's a tad discouraging when after being so psyched about running a couple BIs above EV for a change the next session is double figures below AIEV. Another 20-25k or so hands on Stars this month to clear my milestone and I'll be done for the year though, which is a definite positive. I'll be putting in a little FTP volume this weekend as part of an FTP promotion.

Just minutes ago I finished the Lufia remake for the DS, and I'll sum it up as "it could have been worse". They could have easily spent less effort simply prettying up the original and had a better product, which also would have provided 30+ hours of entertainment, compared to the remake only being in the 15 hour range for an initial playthrough. But that said they easily could have butchered the intellectual property far worse so I'll take what I can get. I'll be going out to pick up my copy of Catacylsm tomorrow, so most of my gaming time will be of the MMO variety in the near future.

A few hours ago the Patriots finished up an absolute thumping of what a lot of people thought could be the best team in the NFL, the New York Jets. Man that was satisfying. With their stockpile of draftpicks and extremely young defense that should get much better with a little maturity, they should be damn scary in a couple years time - even if they don't win it all this year.

Here's my favorite hand from Saturday. It's not like I want to ever win a flip or 80/20, but maybe every third time someone decides they don't want to fold no pair no draw and stack off the bare gutter they pick up on the turn I could hold? I'd be fine with being drawing dead if his back door flush draw was live, but I even have that dead with bigger hearts. Oh, also note this was a Euro table so I actually lost around 1.4x the currency implied in the HH, but the FTR hand convertor won't take Euro hands.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (6 handed)
Hero (BB) ($200)
UTG ($203)
MP ($207.15)
CO ($200)
Button ($217.55)
SB ($201)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J♥, Q♥
4 folds, SB bets $4, Hero calls $2

Flop: ($8) J♣, 6♥, Q♦ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $6, SB calls $6

Turn: ($20) 2♠ (2 players)
SB bets $42, Hero raises to $190 (All-In), SB calls $148

River: ($400) 3♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $400 | Rake: $2

Results:
SB had 4♥, 5♥ (straight, six high).
Hero had J♥, Q♥ (two pair, Queens and Jacks).
Outcome: $400 returned to SB

Impending Fun

Through November, I was a little surprised the overall game quality on Pokerstars hadn't deteriorated as much as I expected due to regulars grinding hard to clear their last milestone bonus/SNE etc. Today is the first Friday in December, and the games are terrible for a Friday. It was bound to happen eventually I guess. On the positive side, even though I haven't played much today so far I've run exceptionally well and am up a little over a dime in 3k hands or so. It's always nice for both the games to be great and run well, but I'd certainly prefer to run well playing in less than stellar games than run like ass with great tables! It didn't hurt that a very solid reg who steals a ton 4b/called QTo vs me in a CO vs BTN war. My JJ held.

As for the title, I have a ton of entertainment available to me over the next couple of months. Currently, I'm playing through a Lufia 2 remake for the DS, which despite horrible reviews is actually a moderately enjoyable game with some nostalgia bonuses. It is true they would have been far better off simply updating the original rather than changing next to everything, but what can you do. I have copies of FF1 for the PSP as well as Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep in my gaming backlog ready to go when I'm through with Lufia. WoW: Cataclysm also launches on Tuesday with the new expansion only content. The old world revamp has been great, and I expect the new stuff will be as well.

A couple days ago I dropped by EB and picked up a copy of the Goldeneye "re-envisioning" for the Wii. I haven't touched it, but plan to give it a go with a friend on Monday. Should be good times and I'm loving the golden gun colored controller that came with it. I also preordered three games at that time: Radiant Historia for the DS, Ys 1&2 Chronicles for the PSP, and the Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together remake for the PSP. All three of those games will be released in the next two and a half months, so I had better get playing or I'll have one hell of a backlog.

In addition to gaming, I have a lot of sports to watch coming up as well. The Patriots are looking good and should be making the playoffs. The Flames are well... trying their best - they won a spirited one tonight in a shootout against Minny (I'm loving Henrik Karlsson and his fist pumps). Perhaps even better, on new years one of the best hockey traditions begins - the World Junior Hockey Championships. Canada is going to have a fairly low profile team this year with respect to star power, but we're always something of a favorite.

November Review - Somewhat Satisfactory

For a low work, low volume month I'm not disappointed with my November results. They aren't terribly flashy, partly due to running awful at midstakes. Thankfully I ran OK at small stakes, and thus the combined variance results in a modest winnings total but nice winrate. Obviously, running better at midstakes but less so at small stakes would flip things into more net winnings over a lower winrate, something I saw a bit of in previous months this year. Either way, for ~85k hands of effort I can't complain.

The graph:


The bottom line:
$5077.38 table winnings
+$2099.55 FPP value (37,492 VPPs * 3.5 FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$995 coaching
+$53.55 FTP rakeback
-----------------------------------------------
$8225.48 USD total profit.

December shall be even more slack than the two months that preceded it. I intend to knock off the 600k milestone on Stars which is 15k or so VPPs away. After that, if I play at all it'll be on FTP. To start 2011 I will most definitely return to playing more respectable volume, I hope in the 150-175k hands/month range.

Follow Up

To follow up my last post, I did put in a brief additional 1000 hand session Saturday night. It turned out to be a good idea as I added a quick $500 to my profit for the day, the vast majority of which was due to a good reg 4b overshoving AQo 3 handed (with the third player being a whale) into my AA 100bbs deep at 400NL. Yay for me being able to fade the second queen!

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (3 handed)

Button ($484)
SB ($158.70)
Hero (BB) ($406)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A♣, A♥
Button bets $12, SB calls $10, Hero raises to $54, Button raises to $484 (All-In), 1 fold, Hero calls $352 (All-In)

Flop: ($824) 8♦, Q♠, 7♣ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: ($824) 7♦ (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($824) 4♦ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $824 | Rake: $1

Results:
Button had A♦, Q♣ (two pair, Queens and sevens).
Hero had A♣, A♥ (two pair, Aces and sevens).
Outcome: $824 returned to Hero


He's a very good player, but no idea why he'd overshove with AQ there. You'd think either four betting to a normal size and then calling a shove if you think I'm shipping/spewing wide enough or folding to a shove if not would be significantly better, as the jam allows me to play pretty much perfectly. Though thinking about it a bit more, I suppose he could believe that because I should be three betting a depolarized range due to the presence of the whale, overshipping gives him the most fold equity against 77-TT type hands. I don't think that's the case though. He probably has the same FE with either size, with a typical 24-25bb sizing either allowing me to spew (and induce value) or allowing him to get away from the hand if he thinks I'm shipping tight.

Sir, It Appears You Have Dealt Me Four Cards

I had a somewhat interesting if not financially significant occurrence today. After a whale left a table (which in this case was of the $600NL 50bb variety), I quickly performed a player search on his screen name and found he had sat seconds ago at a 6-max $600 50bb table. After I sat in and was dealt into a hand however, I noticed that I was dealt four cards, as it wasn't 6-max NLH but instead PLO. My PLO game isn't awful, but with a few of what I can only assume were regulars joining I elected to only play a single orbit. In the only hand of interest, the fish opened and was called by myself and what I can only assume was a regular in the blinds. Given the preflop and flop action I'm 99% confident my turned set is the nuts, and I definitely think I should have full potted the turn. Fortunately for me the presumed regular bricked his draw, though unfortunately for me he didn't turn it into a bluff when checked to on the river.

Anyway, here's the hand:
PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha, $6.00 BB (4 handed)
UTG ($300)
Button ($399.50)
Hero (SB) ($300)
BB ($300)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 8♣, A♦, J♥, 8♦
1 fold, Button bets $21, Hero calls $18, BB calls $15

Flop: ($63) A♣, 4♠, 9♠ (3 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, Button checks

Turn: ($63) 8♥ (3 players)
Hero bets $48, BB calls $48, 1 fold

River: ($159) 3♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks

Total pot: $159 | Rake: $2

Results:
Hero had 8♣, A♦, J♥, 8♦ (three of a kind, eights).
BB didn't show
Outcome: $159 returned to Hero

I haven't put in much volume at all today, which is definite fail on my part. Sitting at 2.9k hands played on a Saturday doesn't happen often. Perhaps I'll play a late night session shortly, though it's not the end of the world if I slack off as I only need another ~17k VPPs or so to hit my 600k VPP milestone which will mark the end of my grinding year on Stars.

Downgrading Classics

Poker today thus far has been passable thanks to one fish at a 600NL 50bb table who was kind enough to put his money in drawing dead, along with fading a one outer or two against regulars. Couldn't fade a one card flush draw with only the river to come at 400NL or hold with AK vs AQo on AK6r though unfortunately. I'll most likely put another session shortly.

The Flames won in a shootout in Philly today, after the Flyers had an overtime winner waved off because Pronger put his hand up in front of Kiprusoff's face a moment before the puck was fired. I like the spirit of the call in that they don't want people to pull crap like Avery tried with Brodeur last season, but they may have taken it a little too far in this instance. That being said, after the way the zebras have treated the Flames over the last five games I don't feel bad about a call in the good guys' favor. The Patriots woke up and murdered the Lions in the second half yesterday which was enjoyable.

On the gaming front, I finished the Ys 3 remake and have moved on to the DS "re-envisioning" of Lufia 2. The original Lufia 2 holds a special place in my heart, and at the very best, the remake is shaping up to be significantly inferior. Why they decided to mess so much with what worked in the first place I'll never know. At least the upgraded soundtrack is very nice. I also ordered preowned copies of Ys 6 and FF1 for the PSP from Gamestop.com (yes, .com not .ca, as the Canadian version did not have Ys 6). Although the shipping wasn't cheap it wasn't ridiculously expensive either - and once being shipped from Texas the games arrived in less than 24 hours. Apparently, UPS Express doesn't mess around. WoW had the Cataclysm strike last week, and the new pre-expansion content available to everyone in the old world is fantastic. Kudos to Blizzard.

How Familiar

Another weekend day, another 550bbs below AIEV. Really frustrating how the one of the hottest 6.5k hand runs of my life is +250bbs AIEV, and a standard bad run is 550bbs below. A really bad run is 1000bbs+ below.

I was one outed twice today, once by 77 on A7x vs my AA. The other time was with the nut flush vs a gutshot to the straight flush at midstakes. This hand also made me laugh - after the flop one of them has 2% equity, the other 1%. Obviously it's a nothing pot at a 100NL 50bb table, but you'd think I could maybe at least win the side pot once in a while when someone isn't quite drawing dead?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (7 handed)
SB ($43.70)
BB ($47)
UTG ($17)
MP1 ($21.80)
MP2 ($14.40)
Hero (CO) ($62.90)
Button ($18.50)

Preflop: Hero is CO with A♥, Q♥
1 fold, MP1 bets $21.80 (All-In), MP2 calls $14.40 (All-In), Hero calls $21.80, 1 fold, SB calls $21.30, 1 fold

Flop: ($80.80) 9♥, 10♥, J♥ (4 players, 2 all-in)
SB checks, Hero bets $41.10 (All-In), 1 fold

Turn: ($80.80) 9♣ (3 players, 3 all-in)

River: ($80.80) 10♣ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Total pot: $80.80 | Rake: $3
Main pot: $58.60 between MP1, MP2 and Hero, won by MP1
Side pot 1: $22.20 between MP1 and Hero, won by MP1

Results:
MP1 had 10♦, 2♦ (full house, tens over nines).
MP2 had A♣, 9♦ (full house, nines over tens).
Hero had A♥, Q♥ (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: MP1 won $77.80

Condensed Weekday Rungood

November shall be, by intent, a low volume month. This means I tend to take off many weekdays, and put in a proportionally large amounts of volume on Fridays and Saturdays. After the fairly epic runbad to end October and at midstakes during the first half of November, my poker exploits this week feel like quite a heater. The results are especially remarkable as they have come over a very small amount of hands I decided to chip in on weekdays. I had a hugely successful 3.25k hand session on Monday, and followed that up with a $450 250 hand hit and run on Wednesday, and then a solid 2k hand mini session on Thursday.

The combination of those three days is what I would imagine is my sexiest 5.5k hand stretch ever, as you can see below:


It's not like this mini-heater is all from midstakes or 200NL success either - half the profit comes from the 3.75k hands that were played at 100NL. To put things in perspective, I've never had a single day as profitable as the stretch above, even though on high volume weekend days I have put 8-15k hands regularly. Definitely a very refreshing time, short as it may be.

Upgrading

Today I had two new kitchen appliances delivered. A new stove to replace one which I'm told by my girlfriend didn't work well and was obviously getting on in years, and a new dishwasher to replace one that most definitely didn't work well anymore. Something is wrong when you are doing whatever it takes to avoid using drinking glasses because they just don't come out clean.

Going from a black to stainless steel theme in the kitchen certainly classes the place up a bit as well.



On the poker front, I experienced a nice little upswing over around 2.5k hands on Monday. You can be certain you ran well when of the 22 hands you played in which you won or lost over 25bbs, 20 were wins and 2 were losses. While my results for the month so far overall are still crippled by being a huge amount under AIEV (much of which unfortunately came at mid stakes, see recent post for graph), my winrate thus far at small stakes has been more than satisfactory. Hopefully the latter continues for the rest of the month.

Going to see the Flames take on the Coyotes tomorrow. They have to stop sucking at some point, right? Maybe they should try to recruit Michael Vick, I'm sure he could pick up hockey easily enough.

I Could Really Use...

... one day where I'm only 500bbs below AIEV.

To illustrate, here's my last 50k hands:


Yeah, that's 4k AIEV. It comes to around $6.5k Sklansky bucks if I run SECT. That's after being out slightly more AIEV in ~30k hands to close out October.

For clarity, I'm not expecting to win 1 out of 10 flips. But it would be nice if I could win every 10th pair over pair AIPF, or every 5th top set versus back door draw. I just shouldn't have to bring my AIEV line above $1k each weekend day I want to break even in real dollars.

The Ys 3 remake for the PSP is good. It's not in the same ballpark as Ys 7, but definitely enjoyable. Looking forward to the Ys 1+2 remake that is coming out in early 2011. Unfortunately, near the end of Blazing Souls the gaping flaws I had somehow managed to ignore for much of the game drastically reduced the enjoyability, and coupled with a crash bug that should absolutely never have made it through QA (as a software developer myself, NO EXCUSE FOR THIS), made the remainder of the game no fun at all.

One more thought - spurred by Ys III using one of the more cliche RPG plot devices known to man. When there is an immeasurably powerful evil sealed away by four ancient objects which some big bad is trying to gather, and you already have two of them: DO NOT GATHER THE REMAINING OBJECTS. Instead, take the two you have half way around the globe, lock them in a boxes and drop them to the bottom of the ocean in different locations. Of course, that wouldn't make for a very exciting game; but my God, in how many games do the well meaning but obviously functionally retarded heroes need do all the work for the resurrection of the ancient evil?

Whoops

I probably shouldn't have mentioned in my last post the Patriots being the only bright spot of my sports world, especially the night before what should have been a relatively easy test against Cleveland. Whoops.

On the plus, while I only played ~850 hands on Sunday I profited a tad over $1/hand so it was a very refreshing heater. I'm hoping to put in slightly higher volume over the final three Friday/Saturday combos this month so I can roll into December sitting around ~585k VPPs. A super slack 15k VPPs in December to knock off the 600k VPP milestone and $4k free equity that comes with it should wrap up the year nicely.

Typical

After 17k hands thus far in November I'm only a hair over 1000bbs below AIEV, so a pretty average run for me thus far. The Supernova quarterly million dollar freeroll was today, and it looked like I was going to double up reasonably early on but forgot that one out is not zero outs and therefore I am drawing dead just like in cash games:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 0 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds (9 handed)
BB (t17544)
UTG (t8900)
UTG+1 (t10450)
Hero (MP1) (t10848)
MP2 (t5976)
MP3 (t7950)
CO (t7729)
Button (t25112)
SB (t8406)

Hero's M: 36.16

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with K♠, K♦
2 folds, Hero bets t450, 5 folds, BB calls t250

Flop: (t1000) 5♠, A♣, K♣ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t600, BB raises to t1620, Hero raises to t3600, BB raises to t17094 (All-In), Hero calls t6798 (All-In)

Turn: (t21796) 9♥ (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (t21796) 5♥ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t21796

Results:
BB had 5♣, 5♦ (four of a kind, fives).
Hero had K♠, K♦ (full house, Kings over fives).
Outcome: t21796 returned to BB

How do I ever manage to win money when any non-zero equity cannot lose once the money goes in against me you ask? Fortunately there are people willing to get it in drawing dead, as below:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (6 handed)
Hero (BB) ($300)
UTG ($111)
MP ($658.15)
CO ($300)
Button ($300)
SB ($279)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6♣, 6♠
4 folds, SB bets $18, Hero calls $12

Flop: ($36) 2♥, 10♠, 6♦ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $18, SB raises to $54, Hero calls $36

Turn: ($144) A♥ (2 players)
SB bets $207 (All-In), Hero calls $207

River: ($558) 4♦ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $558 | Rake: $3

Results:
SB had 8♦, Q♥ (high card, Ace).
Hero had 6♣, 6♠ (three of a kind, sixes).
Outcome: Hero won $555

There's also people willing to spazz massively overbet/fold to help my red line. The hand below sure looks like a chip dump, but as the money is going to me I can be certain it wasn't. Misclick maybe? The villain was a huge fish.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)
Button ($100)
SB ($100)
BB ($120.50)
UTG ($36.90)
UTG+1 ($103)
MP1 ($72)
MP2 ($45.85)
MP3 ($48.85)
Hero (CO) ($100)

Preflop: Hero is CO with J♥, J♣
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $1, 3 folds, Hero bets $4, 3 folds, UTG+1 calls $3

Flop: ($9.50) 3♠, 2♣, 3♦ (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $61, Hero raises to $96 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: $131.50 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero didn't show J♥, J♣.
Outcome: Hero won $128.50

To be fair, the second hand was on FTP so I wasn't actually drawing dead against ATC, but you get my point.

Outside of poker, the Flames make me sad while the Patriots make me happy. Despite Blazing Souls being flawed in many ways I'm having a lot of fun with it. I just can't seem to put my finger on why, especially considering it has no coherent plot or character development to speak of. Looking forward to the collector's addition of the Ys remake being in my mailbox this week. The PSP just keeps on adding RPGs to its library.

Finally, the third video of my Cardrunners series goes live on Monday. Hope those of you who are CR members enjoy it.

October Review - Worst. Month. Ever.

To put things in perspective, I've had at least two 100k+ hand break even stretches before. I only put in 83k hands this month. I was intending to be coasting to close out the year so I don't have a problem with my volume. However, I do have a problem with the fact that I run so egregiously bad on Stars I'm really regretting putting in the extra 100k VPPs for the 600k milestone this year. I also lost SNE status this month, so my effective rakeback from FPPs decreased significantly compared to the previous 9 months.

I don't mind that I run awfully against fish. I have for months and months and months, in addition to a huge chunk of 2009. I don't even mind that much if I run awfully against everyone. The key is the degree of awful. I played poker 22 days this month. I had one day where I was at or above AIEV (I posted about it, it was a big deal). On Friday, I was out just under 2000bbs AIEV. On Saturday, I was out just over 2000bbs AIEV. Yes, that's 20 BIs per session - and they weren't even terribly long sessions. Here's a peek at Saturday's runbad:


Given my style it's pretty tough to run this bad. On Friday I lost 14 consecutive (yes, 14) pair over pair AIPFs. The odds of such a streak is astronomical to say the least. Obviously, some were only for 20bbs against SSers, but the odds defying aspect doesn't care if it's for 1bb or 1000. It's just really tough playing poker when unless a player is drawing stone dead, I'm bluffing with 0 equity. It's especially tough when my game selection is good enough that I'm getting 100bb stacks in on the flop with QQ on 653 vs J2o (I'm drawing dead in this case, unfortunately). They just won't fold, which a long long time ago was a very good and very profitable thing. Not so much anymore.

At any rate, despite the low volume and my runbad going so far beyond ridiculous I don't really think I can describe it, I did actually not lose money this month. Here's the paltry total:


The bottom line
$3273.90 winnings
+$2197.19 FPP value (39.235.55 VPPs * 3.5 FPP/VPP * 1.6c/FPP - oh how I miss you 5x multiplier!)
+$42.90 FTP rakeback
---------------------------------------------------
$5513.99 USD total profit. Outside of December 2009 which I took almost entirely off, my lowest profit month since the summer of 2008 before I was even playing professionally. Obviously I didn't play a whole lot this month, but that still says something.

I intend to play a similar amount of volume (perhaps a tad more) in November, and reach the 600k milestone right around December 6th. Some of you will know why. I'll be basically done with poker for the year at that point, though I may put in some FTP volume afterwards. Oddly enough, while I haven't played much on FTP lately in the hands I have played I continually do NOT run in the bottom millionth percentile of AIEV and Sklansky variance there. How strange.

RIP Mouse

After running poorly over the past week or so, I ended up with a broken mouse. For many online grinders this is a common occurrence, as tilt frequently sends mice into walls or worse. About a month back there was a great picture on 2p2 of the aftermath of a player's punch through his 30" monitor. My mouse however was not smashed in a fit of tilt, and in fact looks and feels perfectly fine. Unfortunately though, the hardware seems to be broken just enough to turn many of my single clicks into double clicks. I first noticed this while gaming, but assumed it was a recently introduced bug in the game I was playing. I finally realized this wasn't the case once single clicks on desktop items would occasionally result in an open command, and after uninstalling/reinstalling drivers the symptoms persisted.

My first Logitech G9 gaming mouse gave me a little over two solid years of service, providing millions of clicks. Rest in peace old friend. After looking over a few flashy alternatives, I decided to stick with the model that had been very good to me, and picked up a Logitech G9x replacement which is just about exactly the same as the G9 (both the older G9s and G9x were actually more expensive now than they were two years ago as a brand new product, strange).

I was lucky enough to be in attendance last night as the Flames hammered the Sharks 4-0 at the Dome. It was a very entertaining first period for sure and the Flames have now put in back to back dominating performances. This team might have something, though it's too early to say much.

Well I'll Be Damned

I enjoyed my Saturday.

The Flames only really played for one period against the Oilers, but it was a dominant and thoroughly entertaining period. More importantly, it was all they needed to get a win.

Like Friday, I put in a pathetic amount of volume but won a lot of money playing the pokers. I joked in yesterday's post about one day actually being above AIEV in a session, and today it happened. No fooling. Not a trivial amount either, 300bbs!

Graph of Friday and Saturday:


One HH from today to illustrate my run good:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)

MP2 ($102.95)
Hero (MP3) ($131.50)
CO ($77.90)
Button ($56.85)
SB ($112.35)
BB ($96.50)
UTG ($90.65)
UTG+1 ($100)
MP1 ($100)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with A♥, K♥
UTG bets $5, 3 folds, Hero calls $5, CO calls $5, Button raises to $56.85 (All-In), 2 folds, UTG calls $51.85, Hero raises to $131.50 (All-In), 1 fold, UTG calls $33.80 (All-In)

Flop: ($244.65) 5♣, Q♦, A♦ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Turn: ($244.65) 2♣ (3 players, 3 all-in)

River: ($244.65) A♣ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Total pot: $244.65 | Rake: $3

Results:
Button had J♥, Q♥ (two pair, Aces and Queens).
UTG had 10♥, J♣ (one pair, Aces).
Hero had A♥, K♥ (three of a kind, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $241.65

It's Late and I Can't Think Of A Title

Since my previous blog entry I started to run downright terrible, eating a downswing of just under ~$2k, probably in the 12-15BI range. Thankfully I put together a pretty solid Friday session profiting just over $1.4k in 5.5k hands, while coming oh-so-close to being at AIEV for the day. Been quite some time since that happened, close but no cigar I guess. Somewhat disturbing that I only managed 5.5k hands today and it didn't feel like I was slacking that terribly. I used to crank out 10-12k hands on Fridays like clockwork, and while I am intending to be taking it easy this month (along with the remainder of the year), at least a little more volume wouldn't hurt. I suppose the low volume is partially because it was tough getting 24 tables open so much of my session was 12-18 tabling. Perhaps I should make a better effort to split volume to maximize hands per hour, I haven't been playing much on FTP at all recently. On the plus side, as my volume proportionally has been at higher stakes over the past months my VPPs/hand is quite a bit higher comparatively to when I was putting in 12k hand sessions in the past, so it'd perhaps only take 9k hands or so to end up with the same number of VPPs, which as every Stars player knows are what makes the world go round!

I have two hands from Friday to post. The first is simply an instance of a regular spazzing out. He's a pretty spewy reg who has been break even at best for the past year or more. I think his turn jam is pretty interesting because he obviously thinks I'm going to be folding AK along with KK+, which against a guy who spazzes postflop as much as he does probably isn't the case. Note that we're 5 handed, and the villain basically never ever has AK, he'd be 4b/calling preflop. He's repping JJ/TT/QJ/QT. I actually think his shove would be pretty good if he had a better image. Were I to jam in a similar spot against a good thinking regular I'd imagine everything but boats folds a lot, which come to think of it is awfully exploitable.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (5 handed)
UTG ($107.05)
MP ($58.50)
Button ($100)
Hero (SB) ($120)
BB ($101)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q♥, Q♣
UTG bets $3, 2 folds, Hero raises to $12, 1 fold, UTG calls $9

Flop: ($25) Q♠, 10♦, Q♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks

Turn: ($25) J♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $12.50, UTG raises to $95.05 (All-In), Hero calls $82.55

River: ($215.10) 9♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $215.10 | Rake: $2

Results:
Hero had Q♥, Q♣ (four of a kind, Queens).
UTG mucked 5♠, 5♥ (two pair, Queens and fives).
Outcome: Hero won $213.10


The second hand was my largest pot of the day by far. The preflop opener was a maniac whale type, while the caller and eventual villain in the hand was a fish who while not being completely ridiculous preflop (I believe I had him running around 28/12 or so), absolutely loved to 3b and would spew stacks like crazy postflop. He also would never, ever, ever, fold to a 3b. Because the fish loved to 3b so much and was facing an open from the whale, it's next to certain that he can't have TT+ in his range as he would have 3b pre. Thus, I'm only worried about 8x and 7x on the turn, in addition to T9 and 66 on the river. As there's tons of combos of overcards/gutters/FDs/22-55 left in his range that I beat, it's actually not that heroic of a call, but I do still only have AK high so that has to count for something!

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (8 handed)
BB ($200)
UTG ($304)
UTG+1 ($337.45)
MP1 ($788)
MP2 ($182.60)
CO ($442)
Button ($400)
Hero (SB) ($400)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K♠, A♦
1 fold, UTG+1 bets $12, 2 folds, CO calls $12, 1 fold, Hero raises to $56, 2 folds, CO calls $44

Flop: ($128) 8♦, 7♦, 7♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $64, CO calls $64

Turn: ($256) 8♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $72, Hero calls $72

River: ($400) 6♠ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $250 (All-In), Hero calls $208 (All-In)

Total pot: $816 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero had K♠, A♦ (two pair, eights and sevens).
CO had K♦, 10♦ (two pair, eights and sevens).
Outcome: Hero won $813

On the gaming front, I've started up a second playthrough of Persona 4. I recall it being a straight up great game that simply wasn't quite as good as Persona 3, and unfortunately also didn't finish terribly strong. Thus far it's been a whole lot of fun, which is refreshing about being let down a little by Valkyria and moreso by Atelier: Rorona. WoW also released the framework for Cataclysm recently, and I like the changes. As a tank you can definitely tell that after aiming to make content far more "easily accessible" in WotLK, the goal for Cataclysm is to put the challenge back some. Sure, it means you might not be able to use the dungeon finder and roll through content with randoms and zero coordination, but is that really so bad?

Hope the Flames don't let me down tomorrow against the Oilers after such a piss poor effort against Florida. I really want to get behind this team and have high hopes for the season, but they're making it tough!

Steady As She Goes

Poker so far this month has been solid, though uneventful in terms of super interesting hands or other things that I feel the need to post. It is nice to not be running completely awful for a change however! I finished work on the third episode of my Cardrunners video series yesterday, so that should be added to the CR schedule soon.

The Flames opened their season in Edmonton, and it was painful to watch. Hopefully it doesn't set a tone for the season. You could pretty sum up the game with the fight that happened in the last five minutes where Ivanans was utterly KO'd and had to be helped off the ice after regaining a shred of consciousness. Oh, and the Patriots traded Randy Moss for a 3rd round pick. Given that the deal happened he must be a cancer in the room, but you'd think you could at least get more for him.

The two games I had been playing through lately, Valkyria Chronicles 2 and more recently Atelier Rorona both failed me in different ways. Valkyria had solid gameplay but a less than compelling presentation of the story and got so repetitive it doesn't look like I'll be making it through. Atelier on the other hand wasn't at all what I was expecting and when it ended I was sure it was one of the half way point "fake" endings so many RPGs have used in the past as a plot device. Nope, it was over. Really? Yup, over.

Here's a hand from today just 'cause:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (5 handed)
BB ($231)
UTG ($600)
MP ($618)
Hero (Button) ($600)
SB ($629)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 7♣, 6♣
1 fold, MP bets $18, Hero calls $18, SB raises to $84, 1 fold, MP calls $66, Hero calls $66

Flop: ($258) 7♠, 5♦, 4♥ (3 players)
SB checks, MP bets $124, Hero raises to $266, 2 folds

Total pot: $506 | Rake: $2

September Review - Hard To Describe

My results for September are sort of difficult to qualify. Despite it being my final month with SNE status on Stars I put in extremely low volume (~111k total hands, ~40k of which were on FTP). I ran like complete ass at the Stars cash games, and close to straight up average in every easily quantifiable variance metric on FTP, which isn't surprising at all of course. In terms of cash game results, the month started like August ended - with the latter half of what had to have been my largest downswing ever. Fortunately I was able to recover somewhat in the last two weeks of the month.

I reached 500k VPPs on Stars, the milestone bonus for which rewarded me with $3200 in free money, $4k cash minus $800 in FPP value to purchase it. My final SNE perk also occurred this month: as an SNE I was given a $5200 ticket into the WCOOP ME, along with the option to split the ticket up into small events if I so desired. I decided to split the ticket and played in ten smaller WCOOP events, cashing in four. I very nearly reached the final table of the shootout event I entered, but busted when KK couldn't hold against AK AIPF with three remaining in the second round. Overall however, I feel like I ran pretty well in the events and was able to extract a little bit more cash out of the ticket than the $5200 theoretical equity I started with. I'm definitely happy with the decision to split the ticket.

I imagine my final few months this year will continue to be very low volume "semi-vacation" type affairs. It's mind boggling to think early last year I was putting in 280k hand months - not that the hard work wasn't worth it. I do need to start thinking about what the plan should be for next year.

Anyway, here's the graph from cash games and the numbers following it:



The bottom line:
$6,480.56 cash game table winnings
+$2,957.42 FPP value (36,967.81 VPPs * 5 FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$2,176.20 WCOOP #9 cash
+$1,925.00 WCOOP #30 cash
+$1,012.50 WCOOP #44 cash
+$477.92 WCOOP #45 cash
+$100 2x $50 knockout bounties from WCOOP #45
+$100 Stars deposit bonus
+$517.50 coaching
+$680.59 FTP rakeback
-$30 WCOOP ticket(s) difference (the buyin for my 10 events was $5230, my ME ticket worth only $5200)
+$3200 500k VPP milestone bonus ($4k - $800 FPP value to purchase)
------------------------------------------------
$19,597.69 USD total profit.

A Good Day

On Friday I had what is my best day at the cash tables in a long, long time. Given the first half of my month was just awful outside of WCOOP cashes, it was a much needed boost. I actually didn't even put in much volume for a Friday, stopping just short of 6k hands.

Here's the graph:


Additionally, I reached the 500k VPP milestone bonus today, so ship another $3200 free money! Quite an encouraging day indeed.

My Wednesday however was not as pleasant. While I didn't play much if any cash, I busted my second to last WCOOP event to a runner runner back door flush draw well before the money (also failed to cash in my final event which was a turbo on Thursday, very happy overall with how my WCOOP freeroll equity panned out though). Far worse however, during the event my secondary hard drive died. After a few reboots running CHKDSK to confirm its death (yup, it's dead Jim), the boot sector on my main drive mysteriously disappeared! Windows repair tool was no help at all (note: I love Windows 7, but a missing boot sector is a problem the Windows repair tool should most definitely be able to handle, epic fail that it didn't get the job done). Thankfully a little advice from strangers on the internet and I was able to repair the damage manually from the command prompt after booting from DVD. Fortunately, there wasn't much in the way of essential data on the disk that died. The biggest loss was my iTunes library, which I was able to restore from my iPod. The other stuff will have to stay lost, as I'm not shelling out $1k for a disk recovery service.

Finally, FTP announced recently that their high volume rewards program, referred to as "black card status" is kicking off at the end of the month. It'll be interesting to see just what kind of additional equity this provides for members who reach that status, if it is good FTP could steal a lot of regulars away from Pokerstars.

Two For Two

Following up on my earlier blog post from today, I did manage to make it into the money in WCOOP #44. At no point during the tourney did I really ever get much going, but when it got down to crunch time I was able to pick up enough dead money jamming a short stack that I snuck into the cash at 252 and survived my way through 9 very minor pay increases from the $675 min cash, busting 131st out of 1989 for $1012.50.

Given how the event felt, I'm really pleased with the result. It's also a nice boost that I cashed in both the events I played today, and am now 4/8 in WCOOP events in general. I've also now generated more real cash value than the $5200 "equity" of my WCOOP ME ticket (which as I outlined in the previous post, could only be taken in the form of the tourney ticket itself or several smaller tickets, I went with the latter) with two events yet to go. The decision to split the ticket is definitely looking like a decent one, and I think my tourney game has improved a lot too.

I should also mention that Episode 2 of my Cardrunners video series comes out tomorrow.

Knockout Turbo, Time To Gamble

As part of my ten WCOOP freerolls, I registered for two events today. The $320 2x Chance NLH event (WCOOP #44) and the $265 turbo knockout NLH event (WCOOP #45). If you've never played a turbo before, the blind levels come and go so quickly it is basically a crapshoot, but as I've been fairly bored grinding out many of the longer events previous, it is a welcome change.

As of this writing, I'm still alive in WCOOP 44 (with a traditional slower structure) with a slightly below average stack. There are 421 players remaining out of the 2k that started. Hopefully I can pick up some pots and reach the money at 252.

I busted the turbo in 263rd place out of 3k entries for $477.92 + $100 in bounties for knocking out two players. I would have had a pretty monstrous stack given the structure had I won the pot where I busted, getting TT in pre vs A5 (for my full stack of around ~15bb) and vs a super shorty with T8 for his ~5bb or so. Unfortunately an ace flopped and it was good game.

I played a little cash during the middle stages of the events today and ran passably, though had I been able to fade a couple big suckouts it could have been a quick $1k in 1000 hand session. During some of these events rather than trying to play cash to make the time investment worthwhile, I've instead been playing games and multitasking that way, mixing leisure and work. It definitely makes the tourney experience far more bearable.

Two more events to go after I'm done with WCOOP 44. With my cashes thus far I've almost generated the cash value of my main event ticket, hopefully I can luckbox a little more value and get there. Either way, given my options were only to either play the ME or break the ticket up into smaller events (you can't take the ticket value in T$ or straight cash), I'm pretty happy with how things have gone thus far. Sure would have been nice to have made the final table in the shootout event though, so close...

How Could I Forget

On Monday I blogged mostly about my cash session, and provided a hand history where a reg spazzed out. Somehow, I forgot to mention the most epic hand from that session, in which I ended up misclick folding postflop in a just awful spot, but in doing so ended up saving myself a stack and what would have most definitely been MEGA-TILT. On the down side, I also cost myself a PTR bad beat badge!

The hand is below. The CO in the hand is a 100/80 maniac whale, while the BTN is a mediocre at best reg who on the flop is definitely going be raising a wide range to try to isolate and get overpairs/draws etc. in against the whale. I unfortunately mislick fold, bink theoretical quads, then whale one outs the straight flush.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (8 handed)
Hero (UTG+1) ($100)
MP1 ($100)
MP2 ($50)
CO ($86)
Button ($100)
SB ($100)
BB ($100)
UTG ($100.50)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with 2♦, 2♠
1 fold, Hero bets $3, 2 folds, CO calls $3, Button calls $3, 2 folds

Flop: ($10.50) 6♦, 4♣, 2♣ (3 players)
Hero bets $7.50, CO calls $7.50, Button raises to $28, Hero folds, CO raises to $83 (All-In), Button calls $55

Turn: ($184) 2♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($184) 5♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $184 | Rake: $3

Results:
Button had 8♣, 8♠ (two pair, eights and twos).
CO had 3♣, A♣ (straight flush, five high).
Outcome: CO won $181

It's worth mentioning that this is my first major postflop misclick in ages, (on Stars, I had a couple on FTP when getting used to table ninja, including calling a river with 9 high and winning in a limped BvB pot) and something that isn't typically a problem for me.

Almost...

Today I played WCOOP-30, my first ever shootout style tournament. I ended up winning my first table, but busted three handed in Round 2 of 3 when I could start to taste the final table appearance and potential big score. I did still take home $1,925 for my trouble.

In round one I had a few eventful hands. I bluff caught a river shove with two pair against a busted straight draw on what was a pretty awful board. I'm not certain at all that it was a good call, but I'm glad he had air! I doubled through the very good pro who I would eventually play HU in a 3b pot when I flopped a set against his aces, giving me a very sexy chip lead over the table. Finally, when I reached heads up against "Iftaari" a young HU SNG specialist with a solid list of tourney success to his name, I won a flip with AQ against his 66 to take down the table. I was pretty happy at the time to bink the $1.925k for taking down the table, especially given these events are all freerolls to me and this is my second cash.

Round two was rather disappointing. I actually ran decently and won some flips, making it to three handed play (starting at 10 handed). I then got KK in against AK for my stack and the board ran out JT7Q9. Busto. It was a large kick in the pants simply because over half the chips at the table were in the hands of a completely awful fish, a guy you'd consider a borderline whale at the cash tables. Had my KK held up, I would have been in excellent shape to take down the table, meaning I would reach the final table and take down somewhere between $7k for 10th and $91.25k for 1st! Unfortunately it was not to be, and while the beat hurts I definitely feel like I ran very well overall during the event.

I played a thousand hands of cash during the early stages of the tourney, booking a modest $250 win. The tables weren't great though so I shut down the cash session fairly quickly and decided to relax instead while one tabling the tourney. An eventful day and a profitable day, but tough to feel good about, which is one of many reasons why tourney poker is the suck! Five more WCOOP events to go. Even if I don't cash again, I won't be too upset with extracting a little over $4k cash out of my WCOOP ME ticket.

Oh, I should also mention Episode 2 of my Cardrunners video series, "Full Ring Theory and Practice" has been officially dated and will be released on Tuesday, September 21st. Episode 2 focuses mainly on abstract postflop theory and how to apply it in the heat of battle.

Was There A Full Moon Tonight?

The cash tables have been a little kinder to me lately, though I still can't run average for a session to save my life. Oddly enough, Monday the games on Stars were far better than they have been in ages, better than on both Friday and Saturday of the past week! I had to double check that it wasn't a US holiday or something (it wasn't) because it didn't make a whole lot of sense, especially since it was the first night of Monday Night Football which surely would pull some casual poker players away from the tables during US prime time. The Full Tilt games were far more of what I expect to see on a Monday. Just as weird, a handful of Stars regulars did some completely ridiculous stuff against me on Monday, the kind of things you'd normally see only a couple times a month at most. Naturally, most of the ones which weren't drawing dead were rewarded for their awful spew, but it still helped me ship a decent 3 hour session. I think the following was my favorite of the instances of regulars going nuts from Monday:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (7 handed)
CO ($630.55)
Hero (Button) ($200)
SB ($478.40)
BB ($368.30)
UTG ($280.05)
MP1 ($223.75)
MP2 ($247.75)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 4♣, 4♦
UTG calls $2, MP1 bets $9, 2 folds, Hero calls $9, 1 fold, BB calls $7, 1 fold

Flop: ($32.80) 10♦, 4♥, 4♠ (3 players)
BB checks, MP1 bets $22, Hero calls $22, BB raises to $358.90 (All-In), 1 fold, Hero calls $168.60 (All-In)

Turn: ($436) 9♥ (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($436) 7♣ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $436 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero had 4♣, 4♦ (four of a kind, fours).
BB had J♣, 10♣ (two pair, tens and fours).
Outcome: Hero won $433

The villain who overshoved the flop is perhaps more of a regfish than a true regular (doesn't beat the rake, likely loses even with FPPs), but he's logged over 100k hands and isn't completely insane.

I'll be back playing my fourth of ten WCOOP events tomorrow evening, the $1050 NLH at 8:00 EST. It would be excellent if things went well and I could squeeze further value out of my freerolls, in addition to the $2.2k from my third event.

On a football related note, I hate Matt Forte. That is all.

After finishing Ys 7 for the PSP which was a down right excellent game, I moved on to Valkyria Chronicles 2 which I'd guess I'm about half way through. It is the sequel to what was a very enjoyable and unique PS3 title. It sacrifices the beautiful novel style storytelling of the original for deeper gameplay - which makes sense given they moved it from a console to a handheld. Unfortunately for those of us who prefer console games to handheld counterparts this seems to be a trend lately, as handhelds have equal or larger user bases and significantly lower development costs. Anyway, the game is definitely fun so I'm happy.

Silver Linings

My start to September at the cash tables hasn't been any better than the end of August. Hopefully things turn around soon. I've taken some steps to try and be better prepared focus wise heading into and during each session, and I think my play has improved some as a result.

I ended up splitting my SNE freroll of the WCOOP $5200 Main Event into ten smaller WCOOP events. I like that this reduces my variance, and it means many chances to work on my tournament game. Unfortunately, it also means I have to play ten tournaments!

I busted fairly early in WCOOP #1 ($215, 6-max NLH), outlasting maybe a third of the field. In WCOOP #3 ($215 NLH) I outlasted 70% of the field but couldn't make it to the money. Tonight, I spent 8 hours playing WCOOP #9 ($1050 NLH, 2-day) and got off to a good start. Unfortunately, my situation turned similarly to EPT MC, as after building up a well above average stack after the first six levels or so, I became completely card dead. Things got worse when I lost a flip with AK AIPF for ~22 bbs or so against 99, leaving me with 7bbs. At this point in the event, there were around 210 remaining and 180 cashed. Fortunately, I was able to win one flip and then pick up a lot of dead money jamming, and managed to somehow squirm my way into the money. Technically, I actually made it into the second pay bracket for $2,176.20. Given the freeroll nature of the event for me, that's $2k I didn't have yesterday so I'm pretty happy, especially given I was down to 7bbs at one point closing in on the bubble. I was actually quite surprised at how reckless many players (including a couple PS pros who I believe only play tournaments) with 30-40bb stacks were being very close the bubble - I guess maybe they were in a go big or go home mindset and didn't much case for cashing small.

Anyway, I'll be taking tomorrow off and hitting the cash tables again Thursday. My next WCOOP event isn't until Monday, so it'll be some time until the next tourney grind begins. 7 more to go!

Oh, I should also mention that during the first couple hours of WCOOP #9 tonight I was also busy drafting the 2010 edition of the Nit City Nutpeddlers in Chicago Joey's SSFR Fantasy Football league. I'm pretty happy with my team - notables include: Ray Rice, Pierre Thomas, Brandon Marshall, Hines Ward, Joseph Addai, Kevin Kolb/Eli Manning splitting time at QB, Jeremy Maclin, Zach Miller and the Vikings defense. It would be great to improve on my second place finish from last year!

A Tale Of Two Sites

My start to September at the tables has been as disastrous as the last week August. Had I not put in twenty thousand hands at FTP, I would most certainly be in the midst of the largest downswing of my poker career.

Over the last 25,500 played at Pokerstars, I'm a hair over 1600bbs below AIEV. Here's a Sklansky evaluation graph of said period:


Some of that is obviously caused by the previously mentioned AIEV struggle. To put things in perspective, it isn't like I'm used to running normally or anything. It is complete standard for me to have strings of 25+ consecutive sessions where I'm below AIEV. Getting top set in against backdoor draws five times a session and losing five out of five is completely normal. I'm not expecting miracles. I would however, like to maybe win one AIPF holding aces every couple days. Maybe get to occasionally chop when I get AA in vs AA, or AK in vs AK (yeah, I lost AA vs AA and AK vs AK today, along with AA vs KK twice).

The good news, is that for some mysterious reason when I get top set in against a back door draw at FTP, I apparently have greater than 0% equity. In my first 20k hands at FTP, I'm actually almost a buyin ABOVE AIEV. You heard that right, I said ABOVE. I'm also marginally above expectation in Sklansky evaluation as you can see below:

August Review - +Life EV, -Poker EV

My original title for this post was going to be "(Second) Worst. Month. Ever." When considering only poker results, said title would have been entirely accurate. Whenever I have an awful month, I inevitably have to think back and and decide if it was worse than February 2009, which set a standard pretty tough to beat. During Feb '09 my results were I believe as much dictated by bad play while adjusting to painfully high volume as brutal variance. This month however, I ran as poorly as I ever have in terms of just about every aspect of variance that is close to measurable or even roughly estimable (meaning stuff like AIEV, set% in the first category, or set over set coolers, KK vs AA coolers and such in the second). It's been a real downward slope for me variance wise this year, as I ran pretty well from the start of January (especially the first three days) through the end of March, and haven't managed a month out less than 2000bbs AIEV since.

Anyway, it all boiled down to be a downright terrible month at the tables. It didn't help that I had two major downswings (/salute Major Downswing: if you don't watch How I Met Your Mother, you won't get this), the latter of which has got to be one of my three worst ever. Fortunately, I had a lot of other positive stuff going on which I'll talk about after I get the numbers out of the way.



The bottom line:
$4662.60 table winnings
+$4239.28 FPP value (52,991 VPPs * 5 FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$400 quarterly freeroll cash
+$348.79 credit from Stars busting the shortstack bot ring
+$375 coaching
------------------------------------------------------
$10,025.67 USD total profit.

Some of you may be interested to note that of my hands played this month, ~5.5k were on FTP. During the last few days I set up everything necessary for me to play cross site, and I've had some decent results messing around with it. The 35-100bb 100NL games on FTP seem much better quality wise than Stars, but the FTP software really is something of a turnoff. I'll likely split my volume a little bit next month, and perhaps significantly more after my SNE status lapses at the end of September.

While it was a disgusting month poker wise, I did have a lot of other good things happen in August. The first episode of my Cardrunners video series launched and has been well received - look for Episode 2 in the fairly near future. My best friend who had been renting my basement for the past year and a half moved out and into his own place close by, so I now have another 800 square feet of house, which is likely going to be turned into a poker room/bar. My girlfriend and I (particularly the former) have put some effort recently into redecorating/organizing, and I'm really thrilled with how the house is looking. I picked up Ys 7 for the PSP midway through the month, and it's a damn good game, I'll talk more about it in a future post. All in all, lots of positives to take from August, and it is actually something of a reassurance that I can have a borderline disastrous month where I don't even put in much in the way of volume and still ship five figures, not needing a milestone bonus to so.

On that note, I expect much greater things from September. I'm hoping to increase my volume a bit compared to both July and August, and I will be clearing a milestone worth just over three grand which should help out. I imagine being able to put in a good 20-30k hands on FTP when I'm having difficulty getting 24 tables open on Stars is going to help things too. It's even possible my variance freefall will hit bottom soon and I'll bounce, you never do know! September will also contain my final SNE perk: I'll be freerolling the $5.2k WCOOP main event. This will be my last SNE 2009 sponsored chance to seriously luckbox (granted, I did cash at EPT MC but I'm talking final table quality luckboxaments or better)! Lets do this thing September!

Cardrunners Video Series + Bot Credit from Stars

The first episode of my video series for Cardrunners entitled "Full Ring: Theory and Practice" was released today. The video itself is here, though you'll have to be a subscriber to watch the whole thing! Initial reviews appear to be positive which is reassuring as I've never produced a video before.

Cardrunners also posted a short interview with me, which you can find here. If you read this blog frequently, it won't contain much you don't already know however!

A few moments ago I received an email from Pokerstars informing me of an account credit because I had been involved in hands with players who had been breaking the terms of service and had their accounts frozen/funds seized. I've had this happen once before for a fairly trivial amount and had no idea who the players were. This time, I'm fairly certain I know exactly who the offenders were - the bot ring that was the subject of this post. Anyway, my credit was in the amount of $348.79. I'm all for free money and happy to see anything recouped. Pokerstars also mentioned in the email that: "In addition, in this particular case, PokerStars decided to make a substantial contribution to the compensation pool", which should significantly remedy the PR hit they took over the issue.

Outside of poker, I picked up Ys 7 today for the PSP, which is an action RPG that has been very well reviewed. I'm right around two hours in, and it's been solid so far. Quality visuals and music along with a very responsive and enjoyable combat system which is crucial to any action RPG.

There Are No Words

Instead of a rant trying to describe my insane continuing runbad, I'll leave you today with something truly special. Occasionally people will put something together that is insanely awesome. This video falls into that category. The poem was originally written by a 2p2er based on the Bling Blang Blaow fad. So. Much. Awesome.

Just One

It'd be nice if of my many all-ins with 85%+ equity, I could win just one per day. Just one. Get AA in 10 times AIPF? Winning one would be a huge upgrade. Get top set in five times versus backdoor draws? Winning one out of five would be a massive heater for me. Instead, I get hand after hand after hand like this:

PokerStars Game #48489337770: Hold'em No Limit (€1/€2 EUR) - 2010/08/21 19:55:31 MT [2010/08/21 21:55:31 ET]
Table 'Lepus III' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 2: Ronfar3 (€281.90 in chips)
Seat 4: DuckinF0nk (€292.65 in chips)
Ronfar3: posts small blind €1
DuckinF0nk: posts big blind €2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ronfar3 [Ah Ad]
Ronfar3: raises €4 to €6
DuckinF0nk: raises €16 to €22
Ronfar3: calls €16
*** FLOP *** [6h Ac 3s]
DuckinF0nk: bets €26
Ronfar3: calls €26
*** TURN *** [6h Ac 3s] [4h]
DuckinF0nk: bets €244.65 and is all-in
Ronfar3: calls €233.90 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (€10.75) returned to DuckinF0nk
*** RIVER *** [6h Ac 3s 4h] [5d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DuckinF0nk: shows [7d 8d] (a straight, Four to Eight)
Ronfar3: shows [Ah Ad] (three of a kind, aces)
DuckinF0nk collected €563.30 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot €563.80 | Rake €0.50
Board [6h Ac 3s 4h 5d]
Seat 2: Ronfar3 (button) (small blind) showed [Ah Ad] and lost with three of a kind, aces
Seat 4: DuckinF0nk (big blind) showed [7d 8d] and won (€563.30) with a straight, Four to Eight

Sorry for the unconverted text, the FTR converter doesn't support Euro tables. Villain is a retardedly aggro regfish on a heater obviously, or I'd 4b pre.

In all seriously though, I got AA in three times today AIPF, twice vs AK once vs Q9o, lost all 3. Top set in vs an overpair where you could tell the regular was intending to bet/fold the turn, but instead time down spew called most likely because he remembered it was me and as 5% equity is more than 0% equity, he cannot possibly lose. Lots of other standard nut hands drawing dead vs backdoor draws etc. Would be so nice if Stars would just take $100 out of my account for every 1000 hands I play, but allow me to run like everyone else not named TwoSmeets or Coordi.

I'd just like to win one where they aren't drawing dead when the money goes in, but that's far too much to ask I guess. Luckily there's always FPPs and fish that'll stack underpairs vs my quads drawing dead, so I can still beat the rake.

That's Right, I Said "Rapping Tomato"

There once was a rapping tomato. That's right I said rapping tomato. He rapped all day, from April to May...

Anyway, the grind has been nothing short of utterly disappointing lately. So much for the steady mediocrity of the first half of August, now I can no longer win a single 95/5, 90/10, 85/15 etc per session.

In other news, my first Cardrunners video is scheduled to be released this Monday! It is planned to be the first in a series directed at microstakes full ring players looking to develop good fundamentals. Episode one deals entirely with preflop play and is mostly abstract theory with a short commentated session at the end. I'm hoping people like it. Cardrunners has made a clear targeted effort to beef up their full ring content over the last few months (the one real area in which they were previously lacking) and by getting full ringers like Damn Ringer, d_smith77 (aka cb4mvp) and myself putting videos together will hopefully help them in this regard.

I finished Grandia 2 the other day, after calling it "the best console RPG that I've never replayed, outside of Persona 4" a few blog posts ago. Yeah... I went way too far on that one, nostalgia can do funny things I guess. I remember when the PS2 port of the game was released it took a lot of flack from reviewers for technical issues that didn't bug me my first time through, mainly video slowdown. While they didn't really make me angry or hurt my enjoy of the game this time, they certainly were VERY noticeable. The plot/characters also weren't the quality I remembered, especially breaking down near the end, though it could of been worse. At least the Grandia battle system is guaranteed win. The game was entertaining enough for me to make it all the way a second a time and enjoy myself, but there are definitely better games that I have never replayed.

Mismatched

My poker sessions on Saturday were particularly brutal, but I managed to pick up a few hundred playing an hour on Sunday.

More interestingly, the Stampeders hosted the straight up not very good Edmonton Eskimos, and slaughtered them in a gong show of a game that ended with a ton of penalties/ejections for unnecessary roughness and unsportsmanlike conduct. Watching Edmonton fail epically is good therapy for any Calgarian.

I've been putting in a few games of Starcraft daily mostly of the 3v3 and 4v4 variety, and while I'm decently competent I'm haven't really attempted to take my game to a high level yet. On Sunday I played a 4v4 match in which I basically destroyed all four of my teams opponents, which little help from my largely incompetent teammates - though thankfully for me the opposition was equally bad. A screenshot from the post-match score screen (score actually is a decent representation in SC/SC2, though doesn't measure micromanagement skills terribly well):

Tough To Follow

Poker in August thus far has been very similar to June - a lot of pretty middle of the road results. This is ok with me, as while I do love the occasional big upswing, I've played 9 days on the month so far and have been positive off the tables for each.

Here's the closest thing I could find to an interesting hand from Thursday's session:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)
MP1 ($100)
MP2 ($115.90)
MP3 ($94.75)
CO ($100)
Button ($100)
SB ($100)
Hero (BB) ($100.10)
UTG ($111.15)
UTG+1 ($138.80)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A♣, A♥
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $1, 4 folds, Button bets $3.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $13.50, 1 fold, Button calls $10

Flop: ($28.50) 7♠, 10♣, 5♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $15, Button calls $15

Turn: ($58.50) 3♦ (2 players)
Hero bets $22.50, Button raises to $71.50 (All-In), Hero calls $49

River: ($201.50) K♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $201.50 | Rake: $3

Results:
Button had 6♥, 7♥ (one pair, sevens).
Hero had A♣, A♥ (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $198.50

Villain is an FPP pro who can't quite beat the rake at 100NL FR, and doesn't like folding to 3bets. The UTG limper is a loose/passive fish running 31/4. I really hate his iso raise pre, as 76s plays great both multiway and with a high SPR, so overlimping is likely far superior. I 3b because the FPP pro reg only folds 45% of the time over a huge sample. Postflop, I don't mind his flop call and he picks up a gutter on the turn. Shoving the turn is awful though, as all he accomplishes is making A high that might bluff shove the river fold, getting snapped off by my entire value range.

After having so much fun my second time through Persona 3 (this time the recent portable incarnation) I had a hankering to start up another console RPG right away. My initial desire was to give Persona 4 a second go, but I decided against it for two reasons. First, it's only been a year and a half or so since I finished it in the first place, and second, as 3 is definitely the better game I fear following with 4 would be something of a let down, despite 4 being a great game in its own right.

So, instead of Persona 4 which I'll let sit for at least another couple months, I chose what I figure is the best game I've only ever played through a single time to have the dubious honor of trying to follow P3P - that game being Grandia 2. I remember my first time through the game being pleasantly surprised as reviewers had been very critical, suggesting it didn't come close to living up to the original (a game which I hold in very high regard and HAVE played through more than once). I however thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it at the very least gave the original Grandia a run for its money. Too bad there hasn't been a quality Grandia game since. Anyway, I'm three or four hours into Grandia 2 and remembering very quickly all the things I liked about the game - though there definitely is some downside I could see bugging people, which probably explains the harsh reviews.

Memento Mori

After playing an incredibly brief 340 hand session in which I profited a little more than $1/hand, I set out to finish Persona 3 Portable tonight. I had completed almost all the optional content so the last battles were trivial. Despite knowing exactly what would happen and the portable version lacking anime cutscenes which definitely add some storytelling punch, the ending still hits like a truck. Truly, the game does an incredible job with the characters having to come to terms with their own mortality. It most definitely is deserving of being hailed as the best game of the past decade. If you even remotely enjoy any sort of role playing game or just a great story and haven't played some version of Persona 3, you owe it to yourself to remedy this! My one real complaint about the PS2 version was that the game felt a little too long, but the PSP version was just the right length even with my exploration of optional content. It is too bad the cutscenes had to be removed though.

Tomorrow I'll be stopping by Electronics Boutique to pick up a PSP3000 system which with a cable accessory will allow me to play PSP games on my TV. I'm also planning on grabbing Madden 11 and jumping right in to football fanaticism a little early this year. Looking forward to the start of the NFL season and my fantasy football endeavors!

Quarterly Freerollaments and River Overshoves

Last night I set my alarm clock to wake up at 11:45AM because the good folks in the Stars Regulars Thread of the SSFR forum at 2p2 reminded me that the quarterly million dollar freeroll for Supernova+ VIPs was on Saturday. Waking up at 11:45 was painful, as I really like my sleep and typically do so from around 5AM to 2PM. It did prove to be a fruitful endeavor however as I managed to cash for a quick $400.

Unfortunately, the cash games were super dead while the tourney was being played because so many regulars were online, so it was difficult to have more than 6-8 additional tables going until folks started to bust and head out to do whatever they do on their Saturdays. I did play a later session when the games were decent, but definitely wish I could have put in a little more volume. Slacking off to watch the Stampeders game on TV didn't help the cause either.

During the late session, I was in a spot against a fish at a pot limit holdem table where I really wanted to overshove the river but couldn't because it was pot limit! When dealing with fish, it is not at all uncommon to find spots where overbet shoving the river (even if it's an obscene overbet - see second HH below) is by far the option with the highest expected value, simply because they're not folding hands of a certain strength or above period - but they also aren't going to raise without the nuts or close to it. Shortly after the hand in question, I found myself in a similar situation overbet shoving 125.5bbs into a 5.5bb pot at a 100NL table against a fish, in which I was hoping to be called by an A high one card flush (on a paired board versus my boat, obviously). He thought about it and called it off with the K high flush. The HHs in question are below:

PokerStars Pot-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (8 handed)
MP2 ($105.50)
CO ($107.15)
Button ($100)
SB ($144.25)
BB ($102.75)
Hero (UTG) ($100)
UTG+1 ($83.30)
MP1 ($100)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 7♠, 7♣
Hero bets $3.50, 5 folds, SB calls $3, 1 fold

Flop: ($8) 3♥, 4♣, A♣ (2 players)
SB bets $1, Hero calls $1

Turn: ($10) 7♥ (2 players)
SB bets $2, Hero raises to $15.50, SB calls $13.50

River: ($41) A♥ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $39, SB calls $39

Here is where I desperately wanted to overshove, as I'm confident he's almost never folding trips and most definitely not a small flush, but is also never raising with them. Damn you pot limit!

Total pot: $119 | Rake: $3

Results:
SB mucked A♠, J♠ (three of a kind, Aces).
Hero had 7♠, 7♣ (full house, sevens over Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $116


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (8 handed)
UTG+1 ($107.55)
MP1 ($110.30)
MP2 ($79.55)
CO ($105.65)
Button ($100)
SB ($100)
Hero (BB) ($128.10)
UTG ($206)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 2♥, J♥
UTG calls $1, 6 folds, Hero checks

Flop: ($2.50) 3♣, J♣, J♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks

Turn: ($2.50) 2♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $1.50, UTG calls $1.50

River: ($5.50) 6♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $125.60 (All-In), UTG calls $125.60

Total pot: $256.70 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero had 2♥, J♥ (full house, Jacks over twos).
UTG had K♣, 7♠ (flush, King high).
Outcome: Hero won $253.70

Session Saving/Record Breaking

Near the end of a typical Thursday session of running several hundred big blinds below AIEV I played what is now my largest pot to date at a 600NL table against a big donk. Truly the definition of a session saver. HH below followed by short commentary:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (6 handed)
SB ($774)
BB ($766.60)
UTG ($982.90)
Hero (MP) ($728.90)
CO ($600)
Button ($825)

Preflop: Hero is MP with K♠, 10♠
UTG calls $6, Hero bets $24, 4 folds, UTG calls $18

Flop: ($57) Q♦, 8♦, 3♠ (2 players)
UTG bets $24, Hero raises to $66, UTG calls $42

Turn: ($189) K♥ (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $114, UTG raises to $892.90 (All-In), Hero calls $524.90 (All-In)

River: ($1466.80) A♠ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $1466.80 | Rake: $3

Results:
UTG had Q♠, 7♠ (one pair, Queens).
Hero had K♠, 10♠ (one pair, Kings).
Outcome: Hero won $1463.80

I had played with the villain previously, and over 12 opportunities he had donkbet the flop each and every time which explains my flop raise. After I bink the turn, he was running around 50/20 preflop, so there are very few hands I'm concerned about as I'm fairly certain he's raising KQ preflop (and definitely AK). Since he didn't 3bet the flop, it's very doubtful he has a hand like 33 or Q8. Thus, if I'm behind the only hands that really makes much sense are K8 or KJdd, and he's a complete spaz so he can definitely be playing any type of draw as well as Qx this way.

Moving on, my girlfriend is out of town for eleven days starting tonight. As a result I really have no excuse for not putting in solid volume the next two weekends. During the weekdays I should also have lots of time to enjoy P3P and SC2.