100k in 100 days - Day 42

soda · #1 11-26-2003, 07:57 PM

Wow! It's day 42 already. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I have a lot to be thankful for.

It's been a week since my last post, so ala Davidross, I'll recap the week. Last Thursday, I played a lot of 10/20 short tables. I was playing four tables and finished down $1,224. This was my fifth consecutive loss, not counting last Wednesday which I took off. Feeling that I needed to make some sort of change, I tightened up considerably (even more) and dropped down to 3 tables on Friday. This is a great strategy against the weekend games. Lots of wackos out there on Friday night. It worked and I won $1593. Same strategy, same results on Saturday - $1573 for another 8 hour session. I broke my sessions into 4 2 hour sessions per day. I can cut them short, but I do not extend them unless the game is rediculously good. I have not encountered this yet. After 2 hours I am so happy to stop playing for an hour and do some laundry or wash some dishes.

Sunday, I started noticing that my raises were sometimes getting respected. How odd. Especially UTG. So, I started raising UTG with trash hands once in a while (particularly if I hadn't seen a hand in a while). Usually I picked up the blinds or the BB called and check folded the flop. Then, I got into a big confrontation with someone doing this and my trash hand got exposed - it was a Q9s that I raised UTG. The very next hand was AA and I flopped an A. I got so much action. And I knew I would too. Then, I remembered, I used to know how to play poker - I mean PLAY poker. I have forgotten this since I started running poorly. I fell into a tight shell. Not a weak tight shell, but a tight aggressive shell. It was easy for my opponents to counter this. Just fold all but the best hands. So, Sunday was a bit of a revelation to me and I started becoming a "player" once again. I made $1010 on Sunday in just 5 hours. Monday was a tough day and I eeked out $778 after a monstrous $1000 loss in my second session of the day which saw me down $1500 at one point. Visions of last week started creeping into my head. Maybe too much "player"?

Tuesday was better, I only played three hours and made $1341. Late at night, I was bored, but too tired to really concentrate well, so I played two $30 SNGs. One was NL Hold'em and one was Omaha/8. I won the Omaha, but placed 4th in the NL Hold'em after leading the entire way. I think that the end of these tourneys may be a crapshoot and that's why I wasn't able to do so well before. I was all in twice preflop with the best hand and took beats both times, the first time, I called an all in with ace high because the guy was short stacked. The second time, I pushed over the top of a K high hand with A high and he called. I lost and was out in 4th. I do not regret my play, but think that I might try the limit SNGs to see if it reduces this high luck factor at the end. Anyway, it's a new thought for me and I'm not sure if I'm rationalizing poor play on my part or if there is any truth to it.

Wednesday I played about two hours and I'm up $1093. Good time to quit, tonight is volleyball and tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I don't know if I'll be able to play at all tomorrow. The day is looking pretty busy.

For the week, I'm up over 6k. I'm finding that I'm not even playing 40 hours a week. In order to make this goal of mine, I'll need to average closer to 50 - 55 hours each week until the end. Unless, I can move my "just over 3BB per table per hour" to 3.5 or I can go back to playing 4 tables. Then, I can "only" work 40 hours per week. But, at my current earn 50 hours per week should catch me up and squeak me by.

The facts are laid out, the plan is set, but the question still remains, can I actually do it?

soda

Schneids · #2 11-26-2003, 08:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I do not regret my play, but think that I might try the limit SNGs to see if it reduces this high luck factor at the end.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you'll quickly discover that not only are the limit ones just as much of a crapshoot at the end, but they are also a total crapshoot the whole entire way. You are basically riding on the fate of the cards and hoping to catch some good ones at the right moments.

Good post, congrats on what sounds like a stellar week for you.

BottlesOf · #3 11-26-2003, 11:23 PM

Hi Soda--great reading your posts as always, could you let us know where you are now? How much ahead/behind pace. I've lost track...

Anadrol 50 · #4 11-27-2003, 01:26 AM

Glad to see you are kicking ass again....

soda · #5 11-27-2003, 02:27 AM

I'm still behind a lot - 11k as of right now. Probably 12k tomorrow as I'm very unlikely to play at all.

I'm at almost 31k for 42 days. Maybe I should take 11 of the 31 and put it on black? And if that fails, take the rest and put that on black?

[img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

soda

NotReady · #6 11-27-2003, 02:06 PM

I'm wondering if you have kept detailed enough records to know how much you are winning per table hour? I believe DR is doing about 1 BB per table hour at the 510 max, but this is just a guess.

Also, do you know how many total hours?

What book(s) or online articles can you recommend to learn short handed strategy? I have HPFAP, is that enough to start with?

Thanks

soda · #7 11-27-2003, 11:13 PM

Yes, I keep very detailed records. Pokertracker has me at slightly over 3BB pertablehour at the 10/20 for 55k hands. I'm sure you can safely bring this down to 2.25 - 2.75 BBs pertablehour in real world time. Starting up tables, losing time when a table breaks, taking a break, etc.

Total hours? Lemme see... 554 table hours played. But, real world time is less than half that.

Poker Pages and Jason Pohl's articles are the only thing I know about shorthanded literature. Mostly, I just made up my own strategy. I wrote it down on a piece of paper one day and have pretty much stuck with it.

Someone has my copy of HPFAP at the moment, so I'm not sure what their advice is on short games.

[img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

soda

Gamblor · #8 11-28-2003, 11:22 AM

HPFAP's short table strategy section is for 2, max-3 opponents.

Not very helpful against 5 opponents.

Try Abdul's www.posev.com for shorthanded strategy.

NotReady · #9 11-28-2003, 01:10 PM

Thanks for the reply. Does PT show you are making about 2.5 BB per 100 hands? I should have asked this in the first place, but I get so time oriented I try to work with hours instead of hands.

The reason I'm asking is I'm trying to get a fix on what good to expert players actually make online. We get such incredible numbers floating around, but they are almost always either short term results, or they reflect multi-tables, sometimes as many as 6 at a time.

If the 2.5 - 3.0 BB per 100 hands is correct, this would translate to 1.25 - 1.5 BB per 50 hands which is about a table hour in a full game. Very, very solid results and very believable, probably sustainable over the long run. Of course, doing this playing 4 tough games simultaneously is quite a feat in itself.

I think what I'm tending to believe is there is a max win rate per hand, no matter how good someone is, say in the 1.5 - 2.0 BB per 50 hands range. Then, if you have the right skills, your win rate per table will drop only a small amount as you add tables.

Anyway, thanks for the input, I think you and DR both tend to prove this theory, and my results are similar, albeit only playing 2-3 tables in much softer games.

NotReady · #10 11-28-2003, 01:15 PM

Thanks for posting this. I have acutually been to this site, but had only read the pre-flop strategy, some time ago, and forgot there was stuff on short-handed. Thanks for reminding me.

I just went to posev, and all the shorthanded links appear to be broken. Do you or anyone else have a copy of the texts? Thanks.