Reading other people's blogs about their graphs and PT3 results, I always find them a bore. But I'm proud of what I have achieved after overcoming my own stupidity when it comes to computers and so I am posting a peice about my own PT3 stats because I never once thought I would get to this stage due to almost giving up on online poker altogether.
It has taken me almost a day's worth of playing two tables for a month to reach the mighty figure of 2k worth of hands. While lots of poker players are easily able to play 1k of hands in a single session, nonetheless I am kind of relieved and in some ways proud that I have been able to get my head around PokerTracker after frustrating myself with my illeratcy when it comes to computers and the like. I'm still in the learning process of using PT3, I've tried to use the tools available to the best of my ability. I'm enjoying it as I feel it is improving my cash game quite somewhat, after having to endure a long time having to play without any stats and getting beat at 20nl when I knew much to my frustration I was better than that. I felt trapped by my own inability to understand how to set up PT3 stats until I installed Holdem indicator and based the set-up of my PT3 stats on theirs. Once I got used to PT3, I added more stats and have never used Holdem Indicator since.
I didn't have a great month in August as I mentioned I had only just started using PT3 and it took some time to get used to. I know the profits shown is nothing special but it's not what I'm most pleased about. I'm more pleased with myself for getting used to PT3 more than anything. I don't really have any case for complaint anymore, gone are the days I complain that I'm on perma-tilt cos the players have edge over me simply cos they have stats and I don't. So if I'm losing, I no longer have anyone to look at but myself.
After the first 1k of hands played, I decided to import 250k worth of i-poker hand history 100nl full ring which I bought for $13. Althought they took like forever to import, they were invaluable! I had a lot more information on my opponents and was able to make decisions better based on their stats. After that, I enjoyed a wee upturn in my results in the second half of the 2k of hands played.
Like a mother showing off photos of her newborn baby, I've posted screen shots of my PT3 results.
I would have thought AA would be a winning hand, but out of every single hand I've been dealt, it's the biggest loser on my database. A few times I've gotten dogged and the other times I'm guilty of overplaying it and refusing to let go, so just looking at it now I'm gonna start playing it hard and aggro pre and post flop.
It's bizarre looking at the player vs player summary and to see I've lost $2,608.81.
In euros thats €1,828.90 that I have played with and lost. It's a bit frightening to think I've played with so much money within a month. (It's a lot of money to me anyway) That's another good thing about PT3, if I was a losing player I wouldn't be so conscious of how much I have had put on the line and would probably carry on playing, depositing money here and there until I woke up one day and realised I had no money left in my bank account. The only thing is that it's offset by a profit of $3,205 (€2,249), so for now I'm not just yet on the poverty line.
I still haven't played live poker since Cool Hand Lukes closed down. (Actually I've played IDP tournaments but they're totally different) I miss it terribly. The people and the feel of the building made it a special place. I don't like the other places. Admittedly I no longer find any appeal in playing live cash as it's too slow and the rake is too high. But I miss playing the tournaments of which CHL had a great schedule that suited me right down to a Tee. I just hope Dublin city centre will be blessed with a place like CHL again in the near future.
That said, I've registered for the Boylesport International Poker Open which will take place 17-19 October. It should be good with 1,200 players expected to play. But funnily enough I'm more looking forward to the following weekend, when we shall be having our Deepstack tournament in the Fitzwilliam card club on the Saturday. This will easily get 80 runners, maybe 90 if we can get 10 more, I am very proud of this tournament for the numbers have exceeded our expectations and going by other deaf tournaments in Europe, I like to think that we are setting a bench-mark in terms of value, starting stack and registration fee.
On a related note, we had an online freeroll satellite last monday on our sponsors site, Betway. With $100 in the prizepool courtesy of Betway and two tickets to the deepstack event for the top 2 up for grabs, this tournament was password protected. However somewhere along the line, it was leaked to a large number of Latvians who registered. There were a 70 players in total registered for the freeroll, and at a guess I would say 50 of them were not eligible for the tickets which was really disappointing because the point of the whole tournament was to promote the Deepstack tournament. Anyways, it was crazy at the start cos players kept going All-In with trash, but these lunatics committed suicide anyway and got busted. I still had to contend with a vast majority of Lativans as I was determined earn a ticket outright to protect the intergity of Deaf poker. However it was not to be, as the odds were stacked against the three deaf players that reached the final table. Cathy (Forever Late) got blinded out and when she did finally log in, she didn't have enough chips to do anything meaningful. It was left to myself and Christer Markevell (chrism1974) from Sweden to represent the Deaf against the pesky Latvians. I was short stacked than him going into the final table, but had to play aggressively cos that's the best way to play really. Christer got knocked out in 7th place, I tried to finish in the top 2 but it wasn't to be when my JJ was no good against KK and I was out in third place. However, I emailed our Betway representative to complain about the Lativans and he said that the 2 tickets could be awarded to the highest place eligible finishers which meant myself and Christer earned ourselves a ticket. I was glad to give the good news to Christer because he was unhappy just like all of us.
Even though I knew I had nothing to feel guilty about, I still felt a bit bad so being the good samaritan I am, I decided to run my own private freeroll and give away my ticket to the winner. The tournament took place tonight and I exited early when I ran my jacks into Susan's Aces which was bitter sweet revenge after I had busted her the previous week. Henry McDougall (PocketAces81) later went on to take it down. This time the feedback from the players was positive as there were no gate-crashers so that was the most pleasing thing I took from the tournament as I like that everybody enjoyed themselves.
Right I've waffled on far too long so I'm just going to stop here. Best of luck at the tables and be good! ;-)
Yesterday I was lurking about on the boards.ie poker forum as you do, and the WSOP 2008 PLO champ, Marty Smyth, was down the well. It's been a really interesting read so far, lots of good questions but for me this simple yet thought probing answer stands out for my own personal reasons.
Question: Did you find that reading books and forums on poker helped your game. Or was it all down to your sheer experience of sitting down playing at a casino learning from your own mistakes?
Marty Smyth: I didn't read any books although i wish i had as it might have saved a bit of time. i learned from watching other good players and trying to work out what they were doing better than me and try to understand why those things made sense and understand what i was doing wrong and what i had to change. if i bluffed and someone called me with bottom pair i wouldn't just think - 'what a clown'... i'd think - what did i do in the way that i played the hand that made him think bottom pair was winning, then the next time a similar situation occurs i'd be better at navigating my way through the hand.
The reason why I like that answer is because I'm the guy that thinks "what a clown" when a bluff doesn't come off againt bottom pair. I never stop to think the way that Marty analyses his mistakes and learns from them.
Anyway after reading Marty's well, I found myself loading up the GJP client and sitting down at 2 tables. I hadn't been sat down for more than 5 mins when I clashed with a LAG, whose nut flush draw was no good against my full house. About half an hour later, I get dealt AKo. I lack confidence playing it because AKo is a big loser on my PT3 database . I basically get nervous at the sight of it, its potentially a big hand but that's all it is. Potentially a big hand. The thing is I'm guilty of over-playing it.
In this hand, the villian was really passive during the 47 hands he played: 44/14/5.3
So I decided to take the aggressive line with AKo and play it hard into such a passive player (on further analysis, my min-raise 3bet on the turn is not aggressive enough)
The following pot is the biggest pot I've won ever since I downloaded PT3 (admittedly I haven't played that much, only got 839 hands in),but instead of being happy, I can't help but think I played this hand badly. As Marty says, I must have been doing something to make him think his pair of queens with a weak kicker was winning. And it was! All the way until the river when one of my 12 outs came to my rescue. So the question has been bugging me all day when I think about this hand.
Green Joker Poker Boron 0.50/1, hand converted by the iPoker Converter at Talking-Poker
saw flop | saw showdown
Button NoRiskNoReward ($135.50)
SB xliy341 ($106.90)
BB Red Al ($15.50)
UTG ChiliHotDog ($115.97)
UTG+1 johnie5tits ($214)
MP rokmptl ($101.70)
CO-1 Hero ($188.90)
CO roro1982 ($217.10)
Preflop: Hero is in the CO-1 with A
K
3 folds, Hero raises to 3.50, roro1982 calls 3.50, 3 folds.
Flop (8.50) 6
Q
2
Hero bets 4.75, roro1982 calls 4.75.
Turn (18.00) J
Hero bets 14.30, roro1982 raises to 28.60, Hero raises to 60, roro1982 calls 31.40.
River (152.30) A
Hero checks, roro1982 bets 148.85, Hero moves all-in for 120.65
Hero shows A K
roro1982 shows 4 Q
Hero wins 421.80 with One pair, Aces
Was just reading the updates for the Macau Irish Poker Classic ME and came across across this hand between Annette Obrestad and this Irish poker player, Thomas "Bomber" Nolan, an apparently notorious LAG player...
"The battle between The Bomber Nolan and Annette has been decided. Annette raised to 400 with AK and Bomber called, flop came K 10 4 and Annette bet 1350 which was called, the turn came a 5 and Annette moved all-in for 10K, Bomber called and turned over 54, blank on the river and Annette is out."
I couldn't help but admire the balls of this guy, playing against one of the top players in the world. I really really like this hand simply because this guy clearly thinks in a way that is unorthodox to many players... Bomber Nolan (he even has a cool nickname) I salute you!
I wrote a long post. Then I realised how fucking boring I sounded so I just deleted it and opted for the short but no-nonsense post.
Online poker: Blah blah blah. For a thick shit like me, after a year I've finally figured out how to set up PT3! Still didn’t stop me from losing $500! :) But I’ve clawed it back to $350. Still in black though, yay go me I’m like sooooooooooo great at this game!
Live poker: Pfft. None. Well unless you count the IDP game as a credible game of poker in which case I steamrolled the table and then donked away my chips to a big donkey, Julianne who went on to take it down with an even BIGGER donkey, David Bowers, taking 2nd place. Literally everybody at that table was a donkey. It’s just that I was the most talented donkey, with my elaborate bluffs, floats and hero calls. Go me for being so great! Y’all got nothing on me, d’ya hear me?! I recieved a very funny email at work yesterday. It made me guffaw so loudly my desk neighbour gave me a funny look so I called him over to look and then we started guffawing in harmony. We shared a special moment. It touched me deep inside my soul…
Quality! Non league footie fans at their finest! The goalie had just let in a soft goal
Wellington Utd v Maidstone
Anyway whatever. I’m bored. Send me some comments cos I’m just craving attention. I’m even thinking of buying my own domain for this blog just to highlight my own self-importance. Reckon I oughta call it sexy-as-fuck.org…. Oh god, its 12.30pm, 5 more hours to go... Time. Drags. On. Very. Slowly.
Gonna summarise everything cos if I were to go into detail, it’d be way too long.
Live poker the last few weeks: Horrible. Went to CHL closing night. Played the 100e FO. Got busted on a bluff. The silver lining in a grey cloud? At least I went out early. Better than bubbling in my eyes. That’s the way I always see it. Played cash in the Fitz afterwards. Lost a big pot vs. a crazy and stupid Chinese gambler. Dropped around 800e that night. Felt burnt out. Suffered depression for a few days.. Tried to quit poker. Found it impossible. (online poker too much of a demon) But have quit live poker since. The appeal of the live poker scene will just never be the same without CHL.
Online poker: Shit. Just restricted myself to HU SnG during the dark days following the night mentioned above. Ran ok I guess. Lol. Almost successfully refrained from playing MTT, but I suffered a relapse and played an IPO rebuy sat for $5. 24 runners, only 1 prize (an IPO ticket). Didn’t bother purchasing an add on. Picked my spots, completely ran riot on the FT. Had a 3:1 chip lead HU. I choked. Hated myself so much afterwards. Again, tried to give up poker. Impossible. Suddenly woke up one day and thought if I’m going to spend my evenings playing poker, I might as well make an effort to improve and actually profit as opposed to dicking about just to kill time as I always do. So downloaded Holdem indicator cos its more basic and easy to understand than PT or Holdem Manager (still cant get my head around it). Deposited $100 and dived straight into the 100nl game, despite having been a losing player at 20nl loll! Spent a total of about 9/10 hours playing over three days. (not 9/10 hours per day!) Got $900 in my account now. The stats are invaluable whilst playing. But the cynic in me is just waiting for variance to come around and bite me in the arse. Will stick to playing cash games for now.
IDP: Fitzwilliam made a brilliant offer. We’ve organised a deep stack tournament for Oct. €63 + €7 reg freeze out. 10k stack with 30min blinds. Free food. Simply excellent value for money. Limited to 80 players but only 18 registered so far. Deaf ppl don’t realise how good they have it. If this was a normal tournament, it’ll be sold out by now.
Work: Supervisor signed the probationary review of my work the past year and recommend that I be offered a permanent position in the civil services. As soon as I receive official notification that I am going to get a permanent position, I’m gonna stick in a request for a year’s career break and go travelling after xmas. Sick of Ireland, sick of my job (already) and I’m 24 for christ sake, I’ve got all my life to go to waste in that shit job of mine so I might as well sample the world while I’m in the prime of my youth.
Footie: Got roped in into returning to footie with DCU last week. Went along to see how I feel. Have gone training three times so far. Still need more time to decide if I wanna change my mind about quitting.
Social life: God it sucks. Every weekend I try to get a few lads to go out for a session. I always get the same answer- Money problems. Ah I give up.
That’s it.. Cannot be bothered to ramble on and just as well cos I usually ramble on about nothing vaguely interesting.
Laters.
On Monday night, I downloaded Full Tilt through an affilate that gives you the full version of PT3 once you reach 250 FT points. Plus Full Tilt were doing happy hours where they were doubling the points at cash tables so I figured I would be able to maximise my points if I multi-tabled at 50nl.BAADDDD idea for two reasons:1-Even playing one table, I still suck, so to even think of playing 4 tables was obscene!2-I moved up to 50nl. Why I moved up when I cannot even beat 20nl playing one table- I cannot give any reasoning other than I am just plain f**king stupid.Anyways I deposited $200 on Monday night and ended up with a $50 profit. Even though that's nothing, I thought it was great and was well chuffed I didn't lose money for once. Just as I was starting to think that maybe I'm not as bad as I think I am, the very next day, I multi-tabled 4 tables again and duly blew the lot.. Well done Ciarán, great thinking(!!!) Only plus was I managed to tally 200 FT points in that duration so I'm 50 points off gettin a free PT3. I was always going to lose money online anyway, so I might as well get free stuff for doing it! lol!! The only positive note of the night was that I took down the boardsie tournament on stars. Not too sure how much I won. It wasn't much but at least I won something online and gave me back some dignity after the FT farce.Downloaded the ladbrokes poker client last night just to specifically satellite my way into the Killarney poker festival as I'm not paying €550 to play in the Main Event! Will play a satellite sometime this week, there's no real urgency anyways. I hope to see some deafies there so you guys better start trying to qualify as well! :)Laters!
- Buy into a €20 satellite tournament at Cool Hand Lukes at 6.30pm
- Win a ticket for the €115 Freezeout later that evening
- Agree a 5-way deal in above tournament, taking €750 because you were the chip-leader
- Bring winnings to Fitz and sit down with a little bit of it, €160
- Cash out at 6.30am with €1,200 in your wallet
€100 per hour, hmmm.... I run good :)
I would have thought AA would be a winning hand, but out of every single hand I've been dealt, it's the biggest loser on my database. A few times I've gotten dogged and the other times I'm guilty of overplaying it and refusing to let go, so just looking at it now I'm gonna start playing it hard and aggro pre and post flop.
