Thursday, February 19, 2009

Bad connection means no poker

Tried to play a quick session today before the Man Utd - Fulham game but for some reason I kept getting disconnected from FTP, once at an inopportune time when i was in the SB with JQo and it was blinds vs blind. Got disconnected before i could limp in, then got disconnected again soon after and couldn't even see the flop. Because I used up my disconnect time bank on the first dc, i assume villain minbet causing me to auto-fold. Grrr.

Tried again few minutes later at another table. Odd disconnections but not in hands i was involved in. Then got dealt ATo in MP (or EP can't remember), wanted to limp but got disconnected so they folded the hand. Now can't even connect to FTP at all. Damn. Down $0.08 but only because of the connection problems, I only sat at the table for 7 minutes!

Summary:

Starting bankroll: $3.47
Ending bankroll: $3.39
Gain: -$0.08

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Bankroll: $3.47

First proper session at the limit I plan on grinding it out on till I get to about $50 (my target at this limit for now). Played about 2 hours seeing 117 hands and managed to win a buyin. Graph for the session is below


Pretty good first session. Interesting findings:
  • Need to work on cash game, since I am more of a tournament player need to loosen up a bit
  • Not sure if it was just the people at my table (prob not) but many people like to limp with any 2 suited cards
  • Standard 3BB or 4BB raises aren't respected... well, at least mine weren't
  • Players aren't as bad as people say they are at this limit. Managed to pull off a few bluffs (not too many) at times.
Couple of interesting hands:



The raiser was raising a lot preflop (I think stat was 20% PFR) and had done so the whole time I was there. Since I was in position decided to call. Flop wasn't terrible, but kind of scared of AJ or AQ so just a call. Turn brought my two pair, and he put me all-in. Thought about it for a sec, hoped he didn't have AK and made the call for him to show down 9Ts. Have to admit I was a bit surprised as all the raises he showed were pocket pairs or premiums but was a good first double up.



Standard limp preflop I think. Not sure why I just call on the flop, maybe I should have raised. I think the reason I called was because I thought he was trying to steal the pot and I had outs with the gutshot and just wanted to see the next card really. Did not like the turn card at all. Interesting that the turn was checked round despite me not showing much strength, and he called my bet. Would he have risked a diamond landing on the river if I checked it? The bet on the river here just seems so suspicious, it's so small ($0.24 into $0.68). I thought about it for a second, and put him maybe on 89 or 9T and folded. Not sure if the bet on the river was for value or whether it was defensive. I would think the strength I showed on the turn would make him bet at least half pot



The story here is on the flop. I was happy I was in position and it was a decent flop (AK was bad for me the whole session). I thought the raise here would win it and was surprised when he went all in. He couldn't have pocket Aces here, I thought maybe pocket 8s or pocket 10s (8s maybe more likely since no preflop raise) or a lucky ass AT. At the time it took me a while to fold but looking back at it now i think it was a good fold. I showed strength preflop, practically told everyone I hit the A on the flop and still got reraised. Was probably beat here.

Summary:
  • Starting bankroll: 2.46
  • Ending Bankroll: 3.47
  • Gain: +1.01

First Post

Ok, first post. See if I can make this happen. Starting with a measly $2 and something can't remember. Tried to do the super tight shortstack strategy at 0.05/0.10 since those were the lowest tables offered. If I remember right, managed to double up twice and got the roll up to $5. Feeling good.

Next day, there was an update to FTP and now with micro limit tables. Cool, but decided to continue with the 0.05/0.10 game and was card dead the whole session and when i did get cards, people folded to my raise (huge flaw in shortstack strategy). So decided to move down, accidentally played in a 0.01/0.02 PL game instead of NL and ended up donking off 2 buyins (I buyin with $1 at this level). Lost a bit more and ended up with $2.46.

(This all happened over the past 2 days so can't really give specifics)