March 2013 Recap

I got back on the grind after my my worst month ever and managed to have a winning month although i ran another 120 buyins under all in EV. There were real soft 10/20 Euro games running in the beginning of the month on Microgaming that were build around one guy who played 90% of all hands preflop where I made a couple bucks to get the month in the green.

As Domce already blogged Phil Galfonds new training site run it once is producing by far the highest quality coaching videos in the market at the moment. They recently added Odd-Oddsens to their roster which made me pay the $100/month and I have not regretted it yet. They also have content from the Dang brother and Brian Rast who I played with in Macao quite a bit. There is a free 200/400 PLO video available for those who don't want to spend the dough.

Most of the higher quality hand discussion has moved from twoplustwo to the run it once forums.

Pokerstars made a couple changes to their lobby recently. They added PLO heads up tables with a cap of 20bb which is a useless game and a raketrap below 10/20. After heavy protest from the 2p2 community Stars announced to remove those tables again. 

They introduced high stakes zoom and added the option to play short handed. When they launched it one fishy guy was sitting at 10/20 zoom and the game ran four handed till that player left. This could be a solution for the bumhunting and sitting out problems at high stakes but did not really run much yet.

Stars also put the zoom tables into the regular lobby which increases the liquidity for zoom 200 so much that it is running around the clock now while it was running only sporadically before that change. The player pool is probably even a bit softer than an average 200 game when you do no game selection.

It is much easier to log volume now especially at the beginning of the session. I get around 0.8 VPP/hand at 200 and average 800-1k hands per hour. With higher stakes in the mix that adds up to about 800 VPP per hour which means I'd need to grind a bit more than 100 hours per month on there to get SNE for 120k rakeback which is something I have considered many times before and I might consider again next year.

I will head to Macao for a week or two during Songkran and grind lots of NLH 100/200 over there which should net me about 200 Euro EV per hour with rather low variance.

I finish this with the latest giraffes including the 200 buyin under EV one since December for the pukes. 

Good luck at the tables everybody!

March in bb

March in dollars

Since December

February 2013 Review

Although I played heaps of PLO200 last month I just did not seem to be able to grind out any EV and I was running tons under to make things worse. I have never experienced a worse run over almost 2 million hands lifetime at PLO. At some point I just could not take it anymore and break even sessions started to feel like a success. 

I took a couple of days off and went to Macau towards the end of Chinese new year. They were playing 2k/5k HKD with Cyrill the French con artist before I got there. That game at some point turned into a 10k/20k game and rumors are that the French action player won about 30m(~US$3.85m).

When I got there a 2k/5k PLO game was running with a couple big names in there. I recognized Rui Cao, Sam Tricket. "The Liar", "Socustiesf" and a couple other familiar faces that I have seen in smaller games in Macao before.

I am obviously way too busto for those stakes and played the 200/500 instead which was a 200/500/1k with a mandatory straddle almost every time it ran. I was buying in for 50k which was the minimum and blew six bullets over one week. I never had more than 100k in chips. My last hand I got it in for a 250k pot with AA62sscc against QQTTr and an unknown hand that might have been KK or Ax. 

There were no huge whales in that game and it was pretty low value for a live game especially in Macao. Most regs however were pretty mediocre. Some where potting aces pre but limping Kings and 2.5x rundowns and almost everybody had sever bet sizing leaks that were very exploitable if you play with the same people every day and are aware of what is going on. The game was extremely deep with average stacks probably about 300k-400k. You can only run it once in Macao so if you have the right players in the game you can flip for a million HKD which I doubt many people are rolled for.

I played that 200/500 many times before with people who were getting stacked once per orbit on average. I remember one hand were and old Chinese guy who apparently had just started learning the game called a pot sized turn bet that almost put him all in with bare t2 on a qjt2 board.

I was doing Okish in the NLH games which is pretty funny as I am a much better PLO player. My last night in Macao I ran my roll over there down to 70k so I decided that I just play some ten handed 100/200 NLH. That's a must move game which runs around the clock in the Wynn and has almost been very juicy when I played it over the last couple of years and is definitely high value and easily grindable. I won 70k that session so I was stuck only about 200k for the trip.

Headed to Hong Kong for a couple days of rest and recreation and shopping before going back to BKK. Back home I quickly dropped another $15k to make this a $70k loosing month which is by far my worst month ever and approximately the same amount that I won in my best month so far. Total I dropped about $100k since my career peak in December. 

I am still comfortably rolled for 10/20 online by any standards but I have a lot of dough in the stock and bond market and I don't really wanna touch that so I hope I'll grind it back with what I have left liquid.

It's pretty sick how much that variance messes with your mind. You can run like good for hundreds of thousands of hands and reverse. The guys who have all the money at the end are those that kept going and did not become insane on the way. I am still somewhat confident that I am playing winning poker and eventually will be one of them.

February 2013 bb

February 2013 Dollars

January Review

Had to take first week off in January to recover from some good mdma and booze on new years and switch continents. Ran good this month in real life especially with the chics and in the gym but the pokerz were a month to forget. 

Took a couple shots at 25/50. One table I was sitting with Sam Tricket and Brian Townsend and had the direct position on a fish but I stopped playing when I dropped 10k. Overall the EV bb chart is always the one that I look at most to determine whether I am crushing or not although there is still a ton of variance to that line but imo it's the best we have besides breaking down the Galfond bucks for every hand you played.

I never experience a bb/100 chart where the ev line stays close to break even over so many hands. Sample size is still a little too small to get worried but I spend a little moar time than usual looking for leaks lately.

Overall games have been very good and I probably averaged my B+ game over the month. At the moment Stars games are by far the toughest on the net.

I won 9k last couple of hours to bring that winnings line with rakeback above zero and keep my string of having had only one loosing month in the 3 years since PLO became my main income.

January 2013 bbs

January 2013 Dollars

2012 recap and 2013 poker goals

Recap 2012 Online:

I was probably the biggest winner on Prima in 2011 making close to 10bb/100 at 1/2 and above. On top of that I got 60% rakeback. There was not a hell lot of action above 2/4 but some tables ran every day and when it ran it was some of the softest on the internet and I was sitting in every single one of them during my grindhours.

Prima removed the waiting list function early 2012. You'd now have to constantly monitor all tables trying to click the open seat before someone else does. After that change I was logging 30% less hands per hour. The whole grinding experience turned into a pain. After being a regular in their PLO games for more than 2 years I decided that I had to move on.

I moved 90% of my action to Stars and played some Party on the side first half of the year and went on some serious heater before leaving for WSOP and travel around the world after 300k hands.

Came back in September, was rusty, played bad and run worse which resulted in the worst stretch of variance I have ever experienced. That included my first >100 buyin downswing. Fortunately I played a lot 1/2 and no 10/20 and ran OK at the top of my buyin range which made it bearable moneywise. Lost over 20k only at 1/2 in five weeks. Took a three weeks vacation to Laos/Vietnam after 450k hands in October and came back with a little more passive style and focussed my volume more back on the euro sites instead of stars. Also played early in the morning which I never did before and only 9 tables instead of 12 which resulted in a pretty strong finish for the year.

2012 Graph in bb

2012 # of players

2012 Graph in Dollars

Recap 2013 live

Macau

I made one trip to Macau for a week in April. I had about 600k HKD sitting in my Wynn account from previous trips. The first couple of days there was not much PLO action. The 200/500 would get going and break fast because it was only regulars playing in it. While waiting for PLO action I played a bunch of 100/200 NLH waiting which runs around the clock and is almost always soft although I am mediocre at best at Holdem.

There was 30k/60k(US$4k/8k) NLH running in the Starworld in public but it was only old asian dudes playing and apparently they would not have let everybody in that game.

I somehow managed to get stuck in the PLO that ran anyway. There was one session at 200/500 where one young asian kid went on drunkatilt and after loosing a couple of stacks put 500k on the table and started 3b and open 4b the whale at the table who was deep too. One hand he 3b the whale who 4b. Board comes like qq3rb and whale cb half pot, young kid calls in position. Turn is a brick and the whale bets the full pot which was like 100k. The kid folds and the whale shows j666rb. I lost a big one where I 5b aa75ss pre and get two callers to shove a gutter with overpair  on some j84 kind of board to loose a 400k pot.

One of the friends of the whale, some 60 year old cinese guy was seated at the table too but played much more solid. I saw him playing the 30k/60k game the day before. There was one incident with that gentleman where I call pre and then some guy queezes and I call behind callers but the dealer understands "pot" instead of "call" and the guy behind me folds. It gets ruled that my action is a call and now the guy from the 30k/60k game who folded because the dealer announced a 4b goes nuts because his hand is dead. I try to explain to him that I am innocent but he does not really forgive me here.

Later that night at about 5 AM a 50/100 PLO is running and full with weak players. I am stuck a lot for the trip by now.  The guy from the 30k/60k walks into the room and wants to play but there is no seat. We talk a little about what happened the session before and apparently he notices my German accent and starts talking in solid German to me... pretty rare sight in Macau where most people don't speak a word English.

He wants to start a new game with me but they don't have anymore PLO dealers so he offers that we go to the Starworld to play some HU. Apparently he also really enjoyed practicing his German which might have been a good part of why he wanted to play with me. I walk to the cashier in the poker room and take out 300k in bricks of money and the remaining regulars look kinda jealous that I am getting this action.

We play 200/500 PLO at that VIP table where the 30k/60k ran the night before. I run real good in the beginning and stack him a couple of times. He asks to raise blinds and would only rebuy if we play higher. I agree and we play 500/1k. He tells me a bunch of stories like that his phone costs 80k HKD and I ask him why and responds that he does not care, it's just for fun. He says 20 years ago he was making 300 hkd a month and now he makes 3m in a bad one. I ask him what he does and he just reponds "mafia" jokingly.

When I win another stack he asks for 1k/2k and I agree because otherwise he would leave. This is by far the highest I have ever played but I have a huge edge in this game and there is no better spot to take a shot like this. He pretty much pots every button but does not 3b much and plays rather straightforward postflop but bluffs in spots where he does not have a value range etc. 

Now he starts running better though and wins back a lot of what I was up. Final hand of the night we get it in on 752rb when I have j876 with two backdoor flush draws and he has bare top two. I am 60% favourite. The pot is like 500k, I cover him but I would be down for the session if I loose this. I try to talk him into running it twice but they don't allow that in Macau. I am shitting myself a little. After debating for like 15 minutes we just run it... 8 ott, 2 otr. I win. I walk back to the Wynn with a paper bag full of bricks of money... feels nice.

Next day a 100/200 PLO starts in the evening that turn into a 100/200/400 pretty soon and gets real deep with lots of weak players. One guy limp reraises AQ65rb and gets it in for 200bb. I am up like 200k in that session when I quit 10 AM. I make sure I can access my Wynn funds from Vegas wih the cashier who confirms that it is no problem and after picking up my bags from the hotel I take the cab to the airport and buy a flight home to BKK that same afternoon.

>200k stack in a 100/200/400 PLO game my last night at the Wynn. Half the tables had me covered.

WSOP Vegas

After travelling China and Japan for three weeks I arrived in Vegas in mid June right before the two big PLO tournaments started. I shared a solid condo directly on the strip with a friend and old school grinder from the US.

Apparently the Wynn changed the rules regarding the transfers from Macau two weeks before I got there and they would only let you cash out chips into money that you won at their place and transfer the original sums back to Macau.

I had $150k at the Wynn and not too many options to get similar sums to Vegas fast.

It was not as bad as it sounded first as we were able to play for an hour or two at th Wynn and break a flag(5k chip) each when we started playing and cash out the smaller chips that are not registered. We then headed to the Rio where 10/25/50 and 25/50/100 ran every night. The games were outrageous. I was buying short because of the short sums of cash I had on hand and also because it is an easy way to print money in deep loose aggressive live games with a mississippi straddle.

I ran real hot and was up 70k after a couple of days which solved my Wynn problems for now. I then won another 20k in a session but lost back 40k that same day.

I bricked the 5k 6m PLO and the 10k full ring PLO tournaments on day one each. I liked the structure where they give you 30k in chips but you only have to put 10k on the table and can use the other for rebuys up to level x or any time you want.

After about a week or two the action moved to the Bellagio which is a much nicer environment to play in. There were up to four 50/100 PLO must move games running. The main game pretty much never broke. There was not a single regular NLH games in Vegas above 10/20/40 this summer.

The 50/100 also fills a lot with high profile players. I played some HU with Phil Laak one night when we were waiting to get into the main game but I lost a bunch in that session.

I decided not to play the main event because the PLO games were so sick soft around that time.

Overall I settled for a three week breakeven stretch after my initial heater. I won like 85k for the trip in a month in the cash games. I dropped 15k on tournaments and spend only about 5k.

Running it 3 times and making two straight flushes vs QQ86dd and nutflushdraw at  10/25/50 in the RIO for $15k pot.

My first Cranberry

I was not too impressed by the Vegas action outside the cardrooms. The stripclubs are not really exciting when you live in BKK and I did not invest a lot of effort into checking out the nightclubs... spend two weeks in Miami and NYC before heading to Berlin in August.



Poker Goals 2013

I am going to continue what I started in November. 9 tabling multiple sites and sacrificing volume for seat selection. I am setup on the six largest networks(stars, ftp, party, prima, ipoker, 888) now. The average game is significantly softer this way than playing only stars which I did during my downswing in the fall.

- $250/h including rakeback at mid-stakes
- 1k hours, 600k hands
- log more hands in soft 10/20 to 50/100 games
- make at least one trip to Macau, maybe Vegas again in summer

Sick turn spot at 5/10

One of the bigger pots I lost at 5/10. The sickest part is that I think I can call here profitably given reads on villain. I was up about 4k before the hand towards the end of a 5 hour midstakes session and got send back to even.

Party Poker $1000.00 Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 6 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

young Holmes (UTG): $1465.75
Pherz222 (MP): $4315.33
silentmike13 (CO): $1586.00
Hero (BTN): $4203.04
Stroynowski (SB): $1000.00
TimexFan (BB): $1728.13

Pre Flop: ($15.00) Hero is BTN with T J 7 A
1 fold, Pherz222 raises to $26.25, 1 fold, Hero raises to $93.75, Stroynowski calls $88.75, 1 fold, Pherz222 calls $67.50

Flop: ($291.25) 5 J 7 (3 players)
Stroynowski bets $230.00, Pherz222 calls $230, Hero raises to $1208.25, Stroynowski calls $676.25 all in, Pherz222 calls $978.25

Turn: ($3614.00) 3 (3 players - 1 is all in)
Pherz222 bets $3013.33, Hero calls $2901.04 all in

River: ($9416.08) K (3 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $9416.08
Pherz222 shows 5 5 6 4
Hero mucks T J 7 A
Stroynowski mucks 9 7 8 5
Pherz222 wins $6406.08
Pherz222 wins $3007.00
(Rake: $3.00)

10/20: Gimme dat Ace

Found a couple soft spots seated in the Stars 10/20 games. 10/20 has been a rigged limit for me and I am down quite a bit lifetime at that level. Was about time to spike some gin cards.

TheCleaner11 (BB): $5130.09
Brandon-Tino (UTG): $6433.55
L0ve2playU (CO): $800.00
Hero (BTN): $2701.60
tjbentham (SB): $7352.43

Pre Flop: ($30.00) Hero is BTN with T K A A
Brandon-Tino raises to $54, 1 fold, Hero raises to $192, 2 folds, Brandon-Tino calls $138

Flop: ($414.00) 6 7 6 (2 players)
Brandon-Tino checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($414.00) J (2 players)
Brandon-Tino bets $300.00, Hero calls $300

River: ($1014.00) A (2 players)
Brandon-Tino bets $580.00, Hero raises to $2209.60, Brandon-Tino calls $1629.60

Final Pot: $5433.20
Brandon-Tino shows J A 8 4
Hero shows T K A A
Hero wins $5430.20
(Rake: $3.00)

------

TheCleaner11 (CO): $4041.15
masoren (BTN): $1277.00
Hero (SB): $4590.14
tjbentham (BB): $7558.03
albagino321 (UTG): $1244.40

Pre Flop: ($30.00) Hero is SB with A 4 A T
3 folds, Hero raises to $50, tjbentham raises to $150, Hero raises to $450, tjbentham calls $300

Flop: ($900.00) 5 5 K (2 players)
Hero bets $550.00, tjbentham calls $550

Turn: ($2000.00) A (2 players)
Hero bets $1000.00, tjbentham calls $1000

River: ($4000.00) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $2590.14, tjbentham calls $2590.14

Final Pot: $9180.28
Hero shows A 4 A T
tjbentham shows K 4 3 K
Hero wins $9177.28
(Rake: $3.00)