Break...

This isn't working while we're having the extension done. I've only managed to play 625 hands this month. Therefore this challenge is on hold until I can actually live at home again and start playing some poker.

2nd Month Complete

My plan was to play a lot more this month but that hasn't happened. We are having an extension done and so I've had to move out to my girlfriends house and pokering doesn't go down too well over there! So overall I've played a pathetic 2.5k hands but have managed to win $278 so still on track. This month will probably be similar - the extension is going to take ages - but I'll try and sneak in the odd session.

Current Winnings = £423
Next Target = $450 by end Nov

1st Month complete

So, September is over, and with it the first month of the new challenge...

It all started well, I was winning a bit and it looked like this month's target of $100 would be easily surpassed. However, then things started going a bit wrong, and I had to start studying for an exam and so I have not played at all in the last 2 weeks. In the end I won a pretty unimpressive $145. Yes it hits the target but in early September I was about $300 up. Anyway, onwards and upwards!

Current Winnings = £145
Next Target = $250 by end Oct

New Challenge

So, it's been almost exactly a year since my last post, and poker-wise it has been a very poor year. I have been very unfocused, didn't play very much and probably broke pretty even. I'm very happy not to play very much, but if I am going to play at all then I may as well try and win some money, so I've come up with a new challenge.

For unspecified reasons I am probably going to have bills to pay of about $5k over the next month or two, and so the aim is to win back that amount over the next year. So, I have about $1k online and plan to turn that into $6k by next year. Here are monthly targets:

Sep 1100
Oct 1250
Nov 1450
Dec 1700
Jan 2000
Feb 2350
Mar 2750
Apr 3250
May 3800
Jun 4400
Jul 5100
Aug 6000

I will probably play mainly cash but we'll see how it goes. Fingers crossed...

Busy month

Wow it's been about 6 weeks since I last updated, and I should have a lot to talk about...

... but I've barely played. I was away on holiday for 2 weeks in August. I went to Greece for a week with the girlfriend and ate thousands of kebabs, and then I had a week in France with family and played lots of table-tennis. This obviously meant I had little time for poker.

Since coming back I've been studying pretty hard as I have an exam on Monday. Actually a lot of the material I've been trying to learn is to do with calculating the variance of cashflows - that could come in handy... I'm actually on a study day today, trying to do some last-week cramming but I keep finding distractions (I've watched the video of Annette 15 taking down a 180-manner without looking at her cards and scoured iPlayer for anything good to watch already today).

When I have played I have not done well. I tried to continue my 4-tabling plan that I started a few months ago but kept getting up to $500, moving up to $100nl and getting crushed. I did this 2 or 3 times and then went through a bad spell at $50nl and gave up that crappy idea. For the last week or so I've been back on PKR - you just can't beat it! Over the very small amount of hands I've played I've been crushing it, so hopefully after Monday that will continue and I can finally get this Vegas bankroll up and running before the big trip. So overall over the last 6 weeks I think I've won about $200 or so but I also had to withdraw a few hundred because PartyPoker starting charging me for me having money in my account - pretty cheeky! So overall the bankroll ~ $5,360

Barely played...

I barely played in July what with holidays and studying, and when I did I only played on PKR so there is no graph to show. I was down about $300 most of the month but managed to pick it up a bit at the end to show a $165 profit. Maybe PKR isn't as easy as I first thought...

Bankroll ~ $5,420

Pretty good month

So the month started like this...





But about halfway through the I changed to PKR and cannot graph that bit but it went well. I would guess that I've played about 6k hands and won about $840, which is well over 50 BB/100, this month which is obviously pretty nice but unsustainable, even at PKR.

So no hand of the month, and no nothing expect a good month.

On the challenge I am now on about $895 and need to get to $1,000 before I can move up to $200NL. I am away quite a lot this month so not if that will happen but lets hope so.

Bankroll ~ $5250

Level 3 Complete!

That was pretty fun. On PKR I can't keep track of anything but I would guess I played about 1k hands and won about $235. So now I'm on about $511 and It's time to move up!

Level 2 complete

I haven't played much, only 751 hands, but I ran very well and won $123. With rakeback etc I am now on $275 and it's time for level 3!

Key hands:

Hand 1

Hand 2

Hand 3

Hand 4

Hand 5

Also just booked a holiday to Vegas! MGM baby!

Little challenge

To get over last month and to have some fun (and hopefully win) again I've set myself a little challenge. I start with $50, play 4 tables of $10NL and move up every time I get 5 buy-ins for the level above.

I just completed the first level. I played 2,323 hands and won $79.09, so I'm now on $129.09. Time for the next level...

Key hands:

Hand 1

Hand 2

Hand 3

Worst month ever

Well that was shit:






Obviously didn't play great but again got fairly unlucky. Altogether I lost $668. Sick.

Hand of the month - I think I play it OK.

Plan - try to win.

This is getting a bit annoying...

Only played a little bit this month and already I've had all this:

Hand 1

Hand 2

Hand 3

Hand 4

Hand 5

Hand 6

Good fun...

I shouldn't have said anything...

So another 'unlucky' month for me. The graph shows what I should've 'won' this month if my all-in luck was neutral compared to what I did 'win'. Pretty annoying. Overall I played about 14k hands, of which only about 2.5k were at $100nl. In these $100nl hands I lost nearly $800, which has really pissed me off and made me feel like dropping back down to $50nl. Overall I played at 22/17 which is pretty good, but the results are not. So overall I lost $545 on the imported hands but won nearly $90 on hands that didn't import and got about $190 in rakeback to make a -$270 month, which isn't too awful but I feel I've played ok, maybe not my best but good enough to have a winning month.



Since I wrote 2 months ago about how I have never been that unlucky, this is how the graph has gone. That's about 15 buy-ins down. Pretty sucky.






Hand of the month - Standard for this month. I gave him the option of a free turn but he was pretty agressive so I thought I could check-raise. That bit worked out...



So, the aim of this month is to keep playing well and hope the luck changes (not looking good at the moment, I'm already over $200 down for the month, half bad luck (KK < QQ) and half bad situation (KK v AA).



Bankroll - $4970

Well it finally happened!

After saying last month that I am never very unlucky it was bound to happen, but it only half did. Overall I was nearly 600 BBs down in All-in luck, but because I'm lucky, most of this happened when I was playing lower limits and I was only down about $300 because of this in the end. Still annoying though.

Overall I played about 10k hands but only about 3k of these at 100NL, but I did manage to hit my target of a VP$IP over 20 and in these 3k hands I played 20.4/16 and won nearly 19 BB/100. I got screwed at lower levels though! Altogether I won about $315, got about $110 in rakeback and lost about $75 playing tourneys/Omaha for a +$350 month.

This month I expect a pretty low number of $100NL hands as well as I have exams, but straight after that I hope to be racking up some hands/money to pay for the summer!

Hand of the month - I'm not sure about my play, I make my hand pretty obvious and maybe I should just call again and try and get some more out of kris on the turn. Oh well.

Another lucky month...

I've always hated it when poker players complain about their luck, seeming to believe that they are the unluckiest player in the world. I've always thought that there were just unable to deal with a bad beat and didn't really understand the mental aspect of the game. However, I'm starting to think that the reason I have no sympathy for this is because I have never really been unlucky at poker. Infact, I think I am very lucky.

For about a year I have been checking out my All-in EV every now and again and I don't think that in that period I have had a month where I have been over $100 down in luck. However, quite often I have been $300-$500 up. I don't really notice when I'm playing, as it's not that I suck-out on people a lot, it's more that no-one seems to suck out on me. I can play a session and think that there was no real luck one way or another, but I check the stats and I should've lost $100 more.

This month was no exception. The way I played meant that I should've lost $327 this month. However, I won $103. Standard.

So overall I lost $55 at $100NL over 8.5k hands and won $158 at $25NL over 1.5k hands. Very poor. Rakeback and tournies took me to a total for the month of about $260 though. However, I do think I played well at $100NL (despite my VP$IP not breaking the 20 target) and it felt like just one of those months. Obviously All-in EV only measures one kind of luck, and makes no allowances for how many times you run KK into AA, and I'd like to think I lost out a bit on situational luck this month. No idea though.

Hand of the month - pretty standard and just an ideal turn.

So next month I want to keep playing the same, no real changes to make, and I just hope the luck doesn't catch up with me or it could be a very nasty month!

Close to a target...

Not a bad month. I played like a bit of a dweeb and got fairly lucky (about $200 up in luck) but I ended the month up $725 and made another $155 through rakeback. At one point I was on $990 total and I really wanted a $1000+ month but it wasn't to be. That's my target for the next few months though!

This month I've been very busy with work and studying and so when I did play poker I often didn't have much time and wasn't feeling my A game. Because of this I played quite a few sessions at lower levels this month. Overall I played about 6k hands at $100nl, running at 9.7 BB/100, and I'm particularly pleased because I loosened up even further, playing 20/16.5 this month. I think it was in May last year when I said I would try and play with a VP$IP of over 20 and it's taken me 8 months but I'm finally there! The other 7k hands were mostly dossing around at $25nl where I ran at 27/22.

I'm still going to be very busy this month but I will try to play more $100nl as I'm still not completely comfortable with this level yet and that only come from playing thousands of hands.

Hand of the month - I think I played it very standard and just got the perfect turn - any comments?

Targets - obviously I want to break that $1000 mark but I would be happy with a month where I play well, run at over 20 VP$IP again and then the winning should follow.

End of the year...

Well, my target was to not lose at $100NL, and I made it! Infact I managed to win $46 in over 11,000 hands! Now obviously that is a rubbish winning rate, and pretty much a waste of a month, but as I was down $727 at one point it feels pretty good. I also played a few thousand hands at lower stakes when I didn't feel as though I was playing my A-game and managed to win about $90. As well as this, I moved back to FTP and so got rakeback, about $200 in total. So from being over $700 down to making $300 this month isn't too bad.

I think my main problem is that I need to focus. When I was at the bottom of my losing swing I really focused, played pretty good and got all the way back to even. However, when I got back to even I played as though my mission was complete and I played pretty shit, stacked off easily a few times and ended up breaking even over the last few thousand hands. This is something I need to work on - I need to play well at all times!

Hand of the month - I was a little tricky and it worked out - although that turn almost killed me! J9 bloke is a good player...

The bankroll has changed a bit. I cashed out about $1,150 to pay for Christmas etc and just because I wanted some money to show for all my pokering. I also won $100 in bonuses and got back $200.75 on that stake I wrote about in an earlier post, a massive profit of $0.75 (the player was up nearly a thousand but then went on a downswing and didn't have much time to play so we've ended the stake for the time being). As well as this I spent $80 on Hold'em Manager. I did have PT2 but it was getting too slow and I'd heard some bad things about PT3. I gave HEM a go and it's pretty brilliant, well worth $80. So, after all that...

Bankroll ~ $5.2k

I've decided that as I want something to show for my pokering and I'm not really planning on moving up another level for a few months, I will cash out any bankroll over $5k.

Plan for next month - Play well, focus at all times and hopefully the winning will follow.

That was close...

I played a bit this weekend and it started badly. I whitled away a buy-in and at one point was $15 away from having to move down to $50NL, but then I hit some nice hands and ended up about $450, so at the moment I'm on about $4.6k and hoping that I won't have to move down.

When I was $450 up, I got KK dealt on my last orbit before I went to sleep. I was very happy with my $450 and didn't really want to risk any, but I didn't want to play like a dweeb either. I raised to $3.50 UTG and a tight player in the cut-off made it $11. Then, an extremely tight player on the button (playing 8/5 over 250 hands) re-re-raised to $28. I laid down my KK, the cut-off folded, the button didn't show and I went to bet not knowing - pathetic play?

Ouch...

So, at the end of last month I started at $100NL, quickly lost $500 and then won it back.

This month has been going exactly the similar. I lost another $600 on Party, moved to FTP and won $500 of it back. Then I lost another $500 on FTP, leaving me at -$600 for the month.

I do actually think I'm playing pretty well, and have had some nasty hands (Losing 99 v AA on a Q-9-2 flop, Losing AK v QQ on a A-7-4 flop and having 7-4 v 9-7 on a KJ5-8-6 board) but really it's standard variance. I often went on 6 buy-in downswing at $50NL. However, earlier this month I withdrew about $1200 to pay for Christmas, and the bankroll is now getting dangerously close to $4k.

So basically the plan is to keep playing $100NL and hope to win. If I don't win, and I drop below $4k, I will have to move back down to $50NL until the bankroll is back to $4.5k.

Wish me luck!

And I made it...

So here it is! After a very slow and frustrating start to the month, I managed to hit my target of making $400 at $50nl. So that meant it was time to move up! Things at $100nl have not gone as smoothly, I lost $500 in one day which was a bit of a shocker, but overall I am slightly up at $100nl so at least it's a start. Usually when I move up a level I play like a complete idiot at first, thinking everyone is trying to out-smart me etc and not playing my A game (see hand of the month). But the more I play the more confortable I should get and hopefully the winning will start.

The main thing is that when I last moved up to this level I played something like 12/9 which was way too tight. So far this time I have been playing 18/14, and although it's very early days (only 3k hands at $100nl) it feels a lot better.

Overall for the month I made about $400. I earnt $100 in bonus but also staked a friend in a long-term plan for $200 (hopefully I will see some returns on this soon). At $50nl I ran at 4.21 bb/100 but at $100nl only 0.24 bb/100, but it's very early days and I'm happy with any profit after a $500 downswing.

Hand of the month - I'm not really sure the best way to play this. I have to re-raise initially I think but when I'm min-re-re-raised can I let it go? Unless he was a complete idiot (which I had no reason to believe that he was) he has to have QQ+ here. Any views?

So the plan for this month is to get comfortable at $100nl and to not lose money. Obviously I would like to win some, but it's a learning curve. Also I probably won't be playing much this month anyway due to christmas, studying and I may have to go to Bristol with work for a few weeks.

Bankroll ~ $5.8k