Digital Thinkbox

I completed upgrading Wordpress and my themes today. Fixes several bugs in both Wordpress and the theme I was using. Unfortunately the upgrade process hosed the data in my goals module that was on the right bar. Good thing it is the end of the month so I can just make a new one for January.

December wrap-up
I didn’t make my goal of 2000 total hands played in December, but I came close with 1,874. This is total hands played since I started learning No-Limit cash, and while it isn’t a lot my game has improved quite a bit. I was able to maintain a positive win rate and make a modest amount of money. The money isn’t really the point right now, learning how to play well is. I play one table for 50-100 hands per day, concentrating on play and reading hands. Clearly this isn’t the road to riches only playing 50 hands per day at $10NL, but I felt multi-tabling wouldn’t allow me to learn the game as effectively.

I may start adding tables slowly as I gain more confidence and comfort at the limit I play. I will have to be careful here to make sure the extra table(s) don’t negatively impact my play.

I also started playing multi-table tournaments (MTTs). I’m still really terrible at MTTs as I haven’t played too many of them. I’d like to improve my MTT game along with my NL cash game since I feel the are complementary to some extent.

I won’t bother posting graphs this month, since I don’t really have enough hands to provide any sort of statical significance. ~2,000 is nothing, once I have about 50,000 hands I might be able to draw some conclusions on my play from my stats.

PokerStars

$10NL – Played 44 hands in one session, -$.40

Not an exciting day for poker. Lots of small hands and small pots. Didn’t play in any tournaments either.

PokerStars

$10NL – Played 57 hands in one session, $1.70

Tournaments:

• $2.20; 2126 entries; Finish: 1308th; -$2.20

My $10NL session was more exciting that it appears. On the 5th or 6th hand of the session I got stacked in the following hand:

I was really shocked to see the WHOLE table call my pre-flop raise. Fortunately I got a decent flop. Flush draw out there, but at the moment I thought I had a good hand. The button called my potish sized bet, its a marginal call. He just barely had pot odds to call that. In reviewing this hand I should have bet more on the flop, although I have a feeling he would have been along for the ride regardless of my bet size. On the turn he hits his flush, but he donk bets into me for one dollar. I’m getting over 6 to 1 odds to call this bet. Lets see one dollar to potentially win $6 if I hit my queen or another 3 comes down, or I get another diamond card making my flush. I make what I felt was a marginal call.

River comes a diamond making my flush, and making his for sure if it hadn’t been made already. I fire off a pot sized bet, and it looks like I’m going to have to examine my bet pot button script since the bet size is wrong. This was a crying call in some respects since I knew an ace or king of diamonds beat me. He could have had a jack or lesser two suited cards, but he didn’t. Oh well. Reload and move on.

Not surprisingly the guy cooked off his entire stack several hands later to another player at the table, but I’d get my monies back with this hand against another player:

Great hand, awesome flop, even better when the button raised me. I’m not sure what he thought I had, but I suspect he thought I had missed and was making a continuation bet. 3/4 of the pot is my standard c-bet size, but it is also frequently my standard value bet size. I wanted him to call, and was thrilled when I got raised. Shove all those chips in middle. I’m not quite sure what he thought I had after my pre-flop raise, my flop bet, AND my call of his raise, but he didn’t hesitate to call my all-in. Yay me!

I won’t bother commenting on my tournament play other than to say: it sucks.

I have actually been playing daily, just being lazy about updating the blog so here we go.

PokerStars

$10NL – Played 51 hands in one session, $10.65

Tournaments:

• $1.10; 1,852 entries; Finish: 558th; -$1.10
• $2.20; 958 entries; Finish: 99th; $3.64

The last week has been kind of variable, but we wiped out all our losses from some marginal NL play and recovered my entry fees for some MTTs I’ve been playing. I’ve recently added MTTs to my play mix since it seemed like a nice way to vary my play and utilize the skills I’m gaining in no-limit cash. MTT play is different than NL cash, but not significantly so. IF anything MTTs require patience and self control. Especially at these micro buy-ins where you have to navigate a veritable minefield of crazy play early on. I’m having to bunker down and be very selective in my application of aggression.

I’m fairly happy with how $10NL is going. My move up in limits started decent, and then tapered off with not major advances in my bankroll. I had a brief setback followed by today’s play where I stacked a player. I was pretty happy about that. Play at 10NL is only slightly different than $5NL. There seem to be fewer maniacs, and a few more “good” players. Its more common to see pre-flop raises of the proper amount, but this still get pretty passive post flop and an aggressive player can do fairly well.

No play today. Spent my time watching poker videos and fighting video Codecs to get some .WMV files to play under VLC, unsuccessfully.

I’ve also been reading the No-Limit section of Doyle Brunson’s Super System: A Course in Power Poker. There is some good stuff in here. I may have to pick up the second one as well. I have so many poker books I need to work through, not to mention the ones I need to re-read; last thing I need is another one!