Playing online for a living week 41

[davidross]

This week was a return to the big swings I’ve come to expect from the shorthanded games. There were over 35,000 players at Party/Empire every night this week. These games continue to draw new players. I’m not sure if all the sites are experiencing the same thing, but of course there are certainly some bad players included in the new players. I saw some of the worst poker I’ve ever seen this week, and plenty of people willing to tell them how bad they were. I still can’t believe how many people are willing to insult and bad mouth the truly horrible players. I can’t help but wonder how many of them never come back after being verbally abused by the self proclaimed experts.

After my big night to finish last week, I continued to run well this week with nice wins on Sunday and Monday, $509 and $657. Monday hasn’t been so terrible for me since Christmas, although I did have a huge Monday loss two weeks ago. Tuesday was a bad day for me this week, with a small afternoon loss followed by a real bad evening leaving me down $752. Two more good days on Wednesday and Thursday with wins of $611 and $599 put me back on track for another good week. Then came Friday. Friday has become my new, least favorite day. There is no explicable reason for tough Fridays, all the maniacs seem to come out on Friday, and as near as I can tell they’ve been drinking. Some truly horrible poker getting lucky, as well as a heavy dose of cold deckitis saw me drop $1,144. For the last 3 Fridays, all losses I’m down over $2K. Doubly frustrating because of all the loose players present on Friday nights. But if Friday has become my least favorite day, Saturday must be my new favorite. For the 2nd week in a row I pulled out a big win on Saturday, up $1,187, to finish the week up $1,667.

The Saturday games and the Friday night games seem to belong in a class by themselves. They resemble the 3/6 games much more than a normal weeknight, and certainly very different from the weekday games. People cold calling raises with J9o or Q5s. 3 betting legitimate raises with A5o. I guess this is the main explanation for the big swings I have in these games. It just seems so odd to me that playing 4 tables, I either win on all of them or lose on all of them. On Friday I didn’t have a single win on any of 7 different tables, rebuying 5 or 6 times, and on Saturday I won on every table, never rebuying at all. I don’t see many of the regulars in these weekend games either, I guess there are just so many games running that there is less chance of playing at the same time with them.

My Pokertracker database is now over 30,000 hands. I’m winning at a rate of just over 1 BB per 100 hands. Since these last 3 weeks have been fairly typical I think that is probably an accurate win rate for me. Translate that to a live game where you see 33 hands an hour, and I’m winning at an unspectacular 1/3 BB per hour. Thank god for volume. I have already made some adjustments to my game based on the data. My biggest losers dollar wise are A8o and under, hands I played in LP and the blinds if there is no raise. I have pretty much dropped them except when I’m first in. And although every pocket pair has shown a profit, even 22, 77 and 88 were losing money first in (3 off the button shorthanded) and 2 off the button. For now I’ll play them like 66 and under, limping from the cut off or later if there is a limper already in, or open raise with them first in. I intend to make a post specifically for Pokertracker in the next couple of days. I have a ton of questions.

We now enter the worst time of the year for me as a sportsfan. Now that football is over, there are no meaningful hockey or basketball games for a couple of months. Fortunately for us Canadians, curling will be on TV every night for the next couple of months. As far the Superbowl, all I can say is Wow. What a way to finish the best playoff season I can ever remember, with probably the best Superbowl ever. Although I had no real favorite team, I got real caught up in the game. I missed the whole halftime fiasco because I was putting my daughter to bed, I only read about it the next morning. I can’t help getting on my soapbox for a minute here though in the aftermath of all the criticism of the show. First of all, I think it was totally inappropriate for that performance to be part of the halftime show. But I’m appalled that the media seems so fixated on the exposure of a breast. As a father of 4 children, I couldn’t care less if the show included topless showgirls, seeing a few nipples isn’t going to scar my children or offend me in any way. But to show a supposed role model (Timberlake) violently ripping open the top of a female companion sickens me. How many other young men are going to think that’s pretty cool and emulate that. I’m even more disgusted that all the major complaints don’t seem to be talking about that at all, they just want to protect us from seeing a breast. Maybe this can be the sidetrack topic of the week.

I got interviewed this week. Randy Burgess, who has a new book out called ‘Stepping Up’, geared towards recreational and new Poker players, had contacted me a while ago about coming to visit me. He is hoping to write a magazine piece about the phenomena of Internet poker and had been directed to me by a friend who had read the posts. He lives in Woodstock New York, about 6 hours away and he drove up on Wednesday morning. He set up 2 tape recorders and watched me play for about 90 minutes. We talked while I played, then sat with my wife for another hour afterwards. It was an interesting and totally painless process. At least until I read the article. He had been here for all of 30 seconds when my dog threw up on his shoes, so I hope he doesn’t hold that against me. I’m the first person he interviewed so I don’t expect it will be anytime soon that I see it in print. He did leave me a copy of his book that I’ve started reading. Seems like solid advice for players new to the casino/internet scene.

I limp first in with Aces and Kings almost all the time. Most of the time you get a chance to 3-bet pre-flop, and if not you have a well disguised hand post-flop. Some times it backfires and you put in a number of bets and get beat by someone who would have folded to a pre-flop raise. I can accept that. And nothing makes someone happier than cracking slowplayed Aces. So it is with great glee that I present the following hand to you in what might be the worst timed slowplay ever.

I’m in the BB with 42 offsuit. Folded all the way around to the SB who limps, giving me the free play. Flop is J 6 3 rainbow. SB checks and I check too. To be honest I just wanted to fold and get back to my other tables, but he wouldn’t bet. Now the turn brings a 5. DING!! And now the SB bets out. I raise and he 3 bets. I cap it. River is another 5. He bets again. Now I’m worried that he flopped a set and I just call. He turns over AA, and I’m good. I know just how he feels.

Finally we have a Canadian Network pick up the World Poker tour, so here in Toronto we are getting the WPT every Sunday at 4:00 PM. In addition to that one of our National Sports Networks is now running the Showdown at the Sands so I’m getting poker on TV all over the place. This can’t help but help keep the internet games good. And hopefully they will all keep pushing 97 like they saw Daniel Negreanu do on tv.

I got a package in the mail this week that had a Partypoker.com golf shirt in it. My wife is horrified, she’s afraid I might wear it in public, so I’ll hold that over her head for a while. It seems like a nice gesture, then I realized that shirt cost me about $30,000 in rake, and maybe it’s not as generous as it seems.

Hope you all have a good week.

[JTrout]

Nice post, as always, David.

p.s. Don't dry the shirt, unless you wanna give it to your littlest!

[Sixth_Rule]

[ QUOTE ]
As a father of 4 children, I couldn’t care less if the show included topless showgirls, seeing a few nipples isn’t going to scar my children or offend me in any way.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is how most canadians feel i think. We just don't care that much.

[Gamblor]

...People cold calling raises with J9o or Q5s.

You're right, they should be reraising with Qs5s.

[Oilcan]

David

I'm curious as to what your largest $ drawdown has been to date. Also your avg. weekly $ drawdown since playing mainly 5-10 short.

I enjoy your posts...great work.

btw. Sorry to hear your wife is embarrassed about your wearing a PP t-shirt. I'll bet she's not embarrassed about spending the money you provide for your family from it.

cheers

Oilcan

[ZeeJustin]

If you are winning at only 1 BB / hour, I think it would be very valuable for you to spend more time analyzing your play. It shouldn't be all that hard for you to double that winrate, and tripling it is certainly possible as well. I don't know if playing 4 tables is part of the problem or not, but there's certainly something missing from your game. You must play well over 1000 hands every day, so I would suggest doing something like posting 2 hands a day in the short handed section. It's always best to post hands that you think you've misplayed, but aren't sure exactly what the best play would have been.

Thank you yet again for sharing David, I hope you are able to find even more success in the future.

[gonores]

I'm guessing he's closer to 4BB/hr. He make 1BB per 100 hands. That being said, I wonder why David never talks about any studying/re-reading any texts in his diary.

[ZeeJustin]

Even so, 4bb / hr is not that much. I'm sure David is capable of doing far better if he's willing to continue working on his game.

[NLfool]

just a lurker but I don't think david intends to do this for an extremely extended amount of time. Some don't even care to move up limits or improve much. I for one would like to but I don't mind trolling around the little NL tables pulling in a couple thousand a month in spending money. And to top it off I play auto pilot ABC NL poker no stress and my swings are really small so I don't stress out. So for the ABC poker types your game just doesn't improve that much you just make table selection your priority.

[ZeeJustin]

[ QUOTE ]
just a lurker but I don't think david intends to do this for an extremely extended amount of time

[/ QUOTE ]

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