Unreal

This was unreal! Two different sites, same results. Can't hit anything and when I do, there's always at least 1 idiot that will catch his gutshot, 2 outer or runner runner. I guess there are worse things in life that can happen to someone than losing a couple bucks. Oh well.

Flopped sets:
In 6.4k hands this month, I'm flopping a set every 13th hand when I have a pocket pair instead of every 8.5 hand.

Money won, errrr... lost:

The blue line represents money won at showdown. For good players, this line is usually above zero even when they're losing in the session. As you can see, from first hand I've played today, I wasn't even close to 0. Sick!

Best players:


My stats in 701 hand:

How heads-up improved my game

As requested by my friend Perisa, I'll post my stats and at the same time, make a comparison from the time before and after switching to limit heads-up.

Before HU:

This sample is from august '07 but it's not everything I've played. It's from Stars and iPoker only, since I had these hand histories stored on my computer. Hands from Microgaming, FullTilt, Ongame etc., are not included but VPIP/PFR and other important stats were more or less same no matter where I played.

I've posted stats similar to these on 2+2 last year and few respected posters were surprised I'm actually winning with these stats. They basically called me a weak tight fish or something like that :) I knew I had to play more hands, steal and defend blinds more but I just wasn't confident enough, or to be honest, I didn't know how to achieve that.

After HU:


This is from March this year. Hands are played on Stars, Ongame and iPoker. It's a small sample but I'm sure I can continue to play like this. Of course, win rate is too high and I'm sure it will drop sooner or later. I've checked the flopped set ratio and it has dropped to 1 set in every 11.4 pocket pairs I have. So you can't say I'm running hot.

My VPIP/PFR went down after my first session this month. It was 30/21 in my first 6max session and now its 24/16 on entire sample. I don't like this, it means I'm going back to the way I played before but I'm working on fixing this. I really don't want to be a weak TAG again.

Shorthanded limit

It's been a while since my last update. I switched back to shorthanded limit after recording a loss in 7 out of last 9 days I played HU. It was time for a break and since Poker Savvy had a few new kickback bonuses, I decided I'll clear them. First I cleared Reefer poker in 2h and then I went to Betsafe. If you want to know what a kickback bonus is, check this link. I've also made a deposit on Stars for their last reload bonus so that's where I play now, on Betsafe and Stars.

I went back to shorthanded limit 10 days ago and the first thing I've noticed is that my stats are much better than before. I was a nitty TAG with VPIP/PFR of 18/12 and my win rate was around 0.5 BB/100. Now I'm playing much looser than before with VPIP/PFR of 27/18 on Stars and 31/20 on Ongame. After almost 4k hands on both Ongame and Stars, I have a win rate of +7.15 BB/100. The best part is the fact that when I play, I usually have a feeling that I'm running bad but when I check the PT stats, I'm winning :)

According to PT3 I'm actually running bad when it comes to flopping a set.

Odds of flopping a set is 7.5 to 1 (or 1 every 8.5 hands when holding a pocket pair) and I'm flopping a set every 10th time I have a pocket pair.

And here is my graph from the last 10d. I can't remember if I ever had such a nice looking graph, even for such a small sample size.


The results are not everything, what's most important is that I'm a better player than 3 months ago. My confidence is on an all time high and now it's just a question of time when I'll definitely move up.

Monthly update

1/2 HU:
-
0.5/1 HU:
5797h, +$113, +1.95 BB/100
Total hands HU:
5797h

Not a great month for me but I made a small profit, so it wasn't a complete waste of my time. There's nothing worse for mental health than having a 180 BB downswing in first two days of a new month. After a 7 days break (didn't have time to play), I went back to the tables and crushed them. I had a +250 BB upswing in next 2.2k hands (+11.5 BB/100) so I guess I was both playing good and running good. As it usually happens, it was to good to continue so I went on another downswing in last week of february, for 120 BB. I was losing money against everyone I've played and I felt like I wasn't allowed to win a hand.

Total: +$110
Bonus: $30
Rakeback: $184

Current bankroll: $4110 (+$324)
Last month bankroll: $3786

20k hands sample

Nice graph, don't you think :) I guess I'm ready to move up.

Win rate of +3.43 BB/100 is great, especially considering really high rake of 7.95 BB/100. However, most of my profits came from 1 really awful player. I've played with him more than 5k hands and took ~550 BBs from him. That's almost 3/4 of my entire profit. Without hands played against him, my win rate is exactly +1 BB/100, which is still good.

February update

1/2 HU:
-
0.5/1 HU:
1913h, -$46, -2.43 BB/100
Total hands HU:
1913h

It's mid february already and I have nothing special to report. I've played only 8 hours of poker so far this month because of handball. Our competition starts next weekend and we had 5 friendly matches in 10 days which prevented me from playing poker. Since we don't have our sports hall (it's being built and should open in a month or two), we had to play all matches away from home. It takes the whole afternoon and evening and when we return home, we usually have a drink or two after the game. That's why I've played only 8 hours so far this month, I never play poker under the influence of alcohol :)

The start of the month was great, I was up ~45 BBs after 200h and after that, a disaster. I went on probably the worst downswing of my HU career so far, -185 BBs in less than 1000 hands. Downswing itself is not a problem, I can handle downswings. The most frustrating thing was the fact I've been playing against some of the worst HU players I've seen and still couldn't win. I haven't played a single hand against at least a competent HU player. By playing, I'm still in the red but I'm recovering and should be in the green again at the end of the month. I just need to spend more time at the tables.

Total: -$49
Bonus: $10
Rakeback: $69

Current bankroll: $3816 (+$30)
Last month bankroll: $3786

February - goals

January:
1) play at least 12000 hands
2) crush $0.5/$1 flhu and move up to $1/$2 by the end of January

Failed! Only 9.1k hands instead of 12k and I failed to move up. But I'm not disappointed, I'm playing worse than last month when I switched to HU. I have to work on my game before moving up.

2a) increase my win rate to at least +3 BB/100 without rakeback

Success! My total win rate is ~3.4 BB/100, without bonus & rakeback.

3) $1000 profit

Failed! But I'm satisfied with $813 after 9k hands. I'm sure I would have made more than $1k if I've played 12k hands.

4) work on my game, watch videos, study,...
5) make a video or two

Success! I'm constantly working on my game. This month I have made, I think 5 videos and 1 video was analyzed by a pro HU player (my friend's coach). In that video, I didn't play my A game but he was satisfied and said I'm obviously a good player who can read the game well and should move up as soon as possible.

February goals
1) play at least 10000 hands
2) move up to $1/$2
2a) achieve a positive win rate at $1/$2, without rakeback
3) $1000 profit
4) work on my game, watch videos, study,...
5) make a video or two