Weak (short-term) Results but Continued Improvement

I can tell that I continue to get better.  Not because of results, but because of the things that I'm thinking about.  My results for this month, which I will post tomorrow, were positive but not great, but it's kind of silly to worry about a month anyway.  I have to have some way to note my progress and a month is as good a benchmark as any.  No one is going to read this if I post my results once a year.

I let myself get discouraged at the number of things that I don't know about poker (see previous post) but just the fact that I'm thinking about all of these new things puts me way ahead of where I was at the beginning of this year.

I think that the process is in many ways the same in most professions or pursuits.  My oldest granddaughter (age 10) just started playing the flute.  She can make a pretty good sound and play the right notes of a very simple song.  She's happy with that, as she should be.  If she continues to play, she will learn about scales, then she will learn that scales are played in different keys.  Then she will learn about major and minor scales, then about harmonic minor and melodic minor.  If she keeps playing for several years, at some point she might learn about pentatonic and modal scales.

There is always more to learn in poker, in music, and in life.  I can't allow myself to get frustrated by the process.

Now I have one more problem.  I would like to tell my granddaughter that I mentioned her in my blog, but that would probably be a mistake.  She would want to read the post and I don't want to fry her brain when I try to explain what modal scales are.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome (see box below.)

Getting Sloppy

I've been going through the usual ups and downs of poker.  I failed to cash in 8 of 9 tournaments, then I played two last night and cashed both of them.  I think I wound up down a dollar or two during the last week. I know it was something close to breaking even.


I get frustrated with all of the things that I don't know.  I just finished watching a couple of Jonathan Little's coaching videos where he was talking about how often, in certain spots, you expect your opponent to fold, and also about how much equity you have.  It seems that your equity plus how likely villain is to fold are added together in some kind of formula.  I've been watching coaching videos for several years and I've been playing for something like ten years and I never heard of those things being combined in that way.

It's a neverending struggle to keep up with all of the things that I should know, and after that, incorporating that new information into my play.  Somewhere down the road I'll deal with that idea from Jonathan Little.

The last week or so I got sloppy.  I've been working on something that I already knew how to do, or at least I thought that I did.  I need to keep my VPIP (money Voluntarily Put In Pot) and PFR (Pre- Flop Raise) percentages fairly close together. On one of her videos, Katie Dozier (aka Hot Jenny) mentioned and showed those percentages enough times in one of her videos that I finally woke up and realized what I was doing.

Her percentages in the online tournament shown on the video were 16/11.  My PFR, like hers, is usually pretty close to 11, but my VPIP has been sneaking well up into the 20s quite often.  A spread of 10 or more is way too much.  My numbers need to look more like hers, so I've been working on that in the last week or so. It's a bad habit and I need to check myself every few hands to make sure that I'm not going off the reservation.  Maybe I should put a piece of paper on the wall in front of me and write, in big letters, WATCH YOUR VPIP.

It's just one of the many, many areas where I need to improve.  The difference is that this time, I knew better but I did it anyway. "With this hand I might hit something good" isn't much of a strategy.

What I'm Doing Right, What I'm Doing Wrong, and What I Can't Control

As it gets close to the end of the year, I've been thinking about how I've done in my quest to set myself up for a profitable 2018.  I'm going to put up a series of posts on the good, the bad and the ugly of what I've accomplished, or not accomplished, this year.

I'm doing this for two reasons:

1.  I need to analyze what worked and why it worked.  I also need to analyze what didn't work and figure out what to do differently  There is always something in the process that can be improved.

I watched a Jonathan Little coaching video yesterday.  Little is one of the top players in the world, but in the video he ticked off a list of several facets of his play that he needs to improve.  The process for being a great poker player is probably not all that different than the process for becoming a great musician, or doctor, or athlete or parent.  In each case, the best are always work on improving their skills.

2. I need to post more often. I would love to post every day, but when I play poker online in my home office, there usually is nothing exciting happening.

I have learned to be more aggressive and open a lot more pots, especially from early position.  Even so, in many of my tournaments I only play about 20% of my hands.  I once played a live tournament where I was so card dead that I folded every hand for the first hour.  It's hard to come up with an interesting post when things like that happen.

While examining the process and outcomes, I'll be posting on that topic often, but it's won't be the only topic.  There will be other things to talk about and I will mix process posts in from time to time.  I like lists and milestones and I hope to very soon post that my bankroll on Juicy Stakes Poker is over $300.  The current balance is $276.92.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome. The comment box is directly below this post.  If you don't understand my use of poker terminology you can ask, or go here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_poker_terms

Every year a lot of new poker terms or acronyms are coined.  Don't be discouraged if what you want to know is not in Wikipedia.  Just post your question.

Fighting My Way Up the Tournament Ladder

I played a tournament last night that had a lot of ups and downs.  Early in the tournament I was in first place, but there were a lot of big hands where I went way up or way down.  I wound up fighting just to get a cashing spot, as seems to happen in a lot of my tournaments.

Very often I will be just out of a cashing spot and having to fight my way up.  In this tournament, 12 players got in the money and I spent most of the tournament's third hour fighting to get up to one of the top 12 spots.  I would be 15th of 21, then 14th of 17, then make it up to 12th place only to get knocked into a lower place after the next hand.

For about half an hour I watched other players get knocked out, which was good, but  I wasn't moving up, which was bad.  Near the end of the third hour I was 12th of 14 and I managed to hang on to that spot while two more players were knocked out.

Once I was in the money at 12th place it got really interesting.  Playing "in the money" requires a different kind of skill then trying to get there, as does then getting to the final table, as does finally getting the win.  They are all different animals with different mathematical and tactical considerations.  I seem to have very different strengths and weaknesses at different stages of a tournament.  My strongest area is playing the final table and I'm definitely not playing "by the book."

I wound up taking second place out of 66 players for a very nice cash.  I do what works for me and I keep getting good cashes.  If I at least break even for the next nine days, November will be my most profitable month so far.  I play a lot more hands and in general I am a much "looser" player than I was just a few months ago.  Still, there are spots where I'm going way off the reservation.

When poker players talk about slowly but surely grinding their way up to once of the biggest stacks at the final table, it's called "laddering up."  I would rather it be called "climbing the ladder," because I don't like turning nouns (like ladder) into verbs, but I'm not in charge of naming poker situations.

The conventional, widely accepted and probably mathematically correct wisdom is that you should follow the math and take big risks to make big money.  From a math standpoint it's much better to take a lot or risks to get just a few big cashes, rather than trying to cash often.

That said, there are times when it's correct to put risk-taking on hold.  For example, if I am in 10th place, nine players cash and two very small stacks are going to have put all of their chips in the pot in the next two minutes, it makes sense to play a little more carefully and see if anyone gets knocked out.

The dilemma is that I'm not careful just in such obvious situations.  I'm very good at "laddering up" but I play much tighter much more often that the math says that I should.  Once I make it to the final table, I just keep going.  Very often I will have the smallest stack at the final table but I move up several spots while waiting for other players to get knocked out.

When I was around 15th place last night I would sometimes fold two or three orbits while I waited to be dealt a top 5% hand.  If I won the hand (which I did most of the time.) I would wait for another big hand and keep moving up.  I kept doing that until we were down to fifth place and I was the big stack.  Then I opened up and started pushing the smaller stacks around.  I was in first place for quite a while but I couldn't hang on. The final hand I had 12 outs, I called villain's all-in, I didn't hit and I took second place.

As I have said many times before, I should be getting bigger cashes, not more cashes.  This month I have done both.  In November so far I have cashed in 12 of 41 tournaments (29%.) That percentage seems way too high, but enough of my cashes have been deep runs that it's been a good month so far.

If I asked Jonathan Little or any of the other top players about this, it would be as if  I was in the 2+2 poker forums as a beginner all over again, with everyone answering with a favorite 2+2 saying: "You're doing it wrong."

There are different ways to think about this:

1. Even if my play is nonstandard, I should do what works.
2. What I'm doing against weak competition (mostly $1 and $2 tournaments) won't work when I move up.
3, Both 1 and 2 are correct.

The bottom line is that what I'm doing is working.  I never planned or expected to make a lot of money this year.  I didn't have a number in mind. The goal was to simply to grind some bankrolls that are big enough to put me in a good position in 2018.  I haven't yet done that with Americas Cardroom, but when I take take my first cashout from Juicy Stakes poker I'll move some of that money over to get a second bankroll going.  Then I will be in great shape.

Keep in mind that what I accomplished on Juicy Stakes Poker didn't cost me anything.  I worked with what I had online. I have no doubt that I can accomplish a lot when I have some actual money to put into my business.  More about that in a future post.

Juicy Stakes Poker Withdrawal Rules.

The following is cross-posted from my 11/17 post in the Juicy Stakes Poker thread in the twoplustwo.com poker forums.  The correspondence says it all.  When I mention "FPPs" I am talking about Frequent Player Points:


I'm glad that there is a rep in this forum. I play on another site and I'll be playing in some live tournaments next year. I'm grinding a bankroll on this site to give myself multiple options for where and when I can play.

My problem with withdrawal rules isn't whether they are fair or not. My issue is that they are so hard to understand.

I started grinding with about $40 on the site which I hadn't touched for two years. When I hit the $250 minimum withdrawal requirement, I wrote to support to find out how everything worked, even though I probably won't withdraw until my balance is over $600--I have to leave money behind to build my bankroll. 

To make it simple, after communicating with support, I have no idea how to gauge how close I am to satisfying the standards to make a withdrawal.

I was told that when I got my balance up to $600 that would almost certainly be enough grinding to qualify for a withdrawal. I asked if I could have the formula about progress toward making a withdrawal, and how things like FPPs fit into that formula. I was told that I could call support from time to time to get an update on my progress.

Why is this so mysterious and complicated? I want to know exactly what I have to do to qualify for withdrawal when I hit a balance of $600. How many FPPs do I need? How much "net rake" (first time I've heard that term) do I need? I didn't get an answer to that, but I found out that some of things that I've done could could force me to wait longer. Playing a freeroll is one of those things. Getting a bonus is another. I have done both.

Let me get this straight. When I found something wrong with information on a tournament lobby a few weeks ago, support looked into it and said that I was correct. I got a $5 bonus for reporting the mistake. But in my most recent correspondence I was told that getting a bonus could make me wait longer before I could withdraw.

Somewhere there is a formula for how this all works. Someone wrote the code so that a computer could crunch the numbers. FPPs, bonuses, freerolls, net rake--is there anything else factored in that I don't know about? I have found other tournament page mistakes that I could report, but why would I do that if I get a bonus that is actually a penalty of some sort?

Below is most my recent (10/29) correspondence from support, with some of my specific issues in bold:


Dear Clifton,

Thank you for contacting Juicy Stakes Poker support! We are always happy to assist.

Thank you so much for your e-mail it made understanding your query allot easier.

Normally you can safely assume that after grinding your bankroll up from $250 to $600, you should have made any requirements that your account may have had, however this depends on what those requirements are.

Withdrawing from Poker is very easy, once a Net Rake (rake minus bonuses) of 10% of the deposited amount has been made, and you have not received and free bonuses or free roll winnings you should not have any requirements.

Also before you make a withdrawal, you have to have your account verified with documents. This is for your security and to ensure the accuracy of the withdrawal. I will send you another e-mail with a list of the things you will need.

Finally before you make a withdrawal all you have to do is contact us, ask if your account has any requirements before you make your withdrawal request , and we will send you an e-mail with any requirements you may have, so that you do not have to worry about figuring it out your self.
We do not have a page at the moment that would explain all of this, however we appreciate this feed back and we will pass it on to the relevant department to see if we can have something like this set up, and please, do not hesitate to give us your feed back on what you think of the site. We are currently taking note of all things we can improve upon and e-mails like this help us to get an Idea of what our player could really use.

Thank you so much again, Should you need any further assistance feel free to contact us at any time; we will be more than happy to assist you.

Best regards,

Peter
Juicy Stakes Support

October results

Juicy Stakes Poker, October 2017
35 tournaments played:
11 net win tournaments:   +$61.11
24 net loss tournaments:   -$50.00
                                                ---------
                                                +$11.11


Americas Cardroom, October 2017
6 tournaments played:
2 net win tournaments:   +$0.44
6 net loss tournaments:   -$0.66
                                              ---------
                                          +-$0.22



Combined results for October 2017:  +$10.89


You already know that October was a mess until I got two big cashes near the end of the month.  I was happy just to break even.  Now it's November and the big cashes haven't stopped.

I had two nice cashes already this month:  $25.90 (second of 39) on 11/6 and $33.30 (first of 31)  on 11/8.  Poker players should always be leery of small sample sizes, but it sure seems like all of the studying that I've done this year is starting to pay off.

I'm going to keep grinding the tournaments, but only on Juicy Stakes Poker.  It's going too well for me to waste some of my playing time with 11 cent tournaments on Americas Cardroom.  I hope to cash out some of my winnings on Juicy Stakes Poker sometime in the first quarter of 2018.  I'll use some of that money to restart a bankroll on Americas Cardroom.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome.

In Poker, More Risk Means More Reward

This was going to be my October results post.  I will post that tomorrow.  November so far has been a perfect example of what variance in poker looks like, and I wanted to show it to you.

I made a profit in October but I wasn't happy with how I played.  I was worrying too much about cashing, and not taking enough risks to get the few (sometimes vary few) large cashes that will make me profitable in the long run.  My wife always likes to know when I cash.  When I do, Juicy Stakes Poker sends me a congratulatory E-mail, which I forward to my wife.  I was putting too much pressure on myself to get those E-mails on a regular basis.

In October, I cashed way too often, more than 25% of the time.  That's never a good thing in the long term.  I know better than to play like that.  Sooner or later there will be long stretches of a month or more when I don't cash.  That's just how it works.  No matter how well I play, I'm not going to regularly play tournaments of 50-100 player players and finish in the top 3, where most of the money is.

November has been very different so far.  As you can see from the numbers below, copied and pasted  from my financial spreadsheet, I took a lot of risks and it paid off.  I was all-in early and often, and for a while if didn't produce anything--but I knew that I was getting better, doing it the right way and there would be a pay-off. I'm getting much better at being more aggressive and unpredictable without being a complete maniac.

I had a losing streak from November 1 to my first tournament on November 6.  I wasn't winning anything and in less than a week I was down over $30.  My second and third tournaments on 11/6 turned that around.  It's similar to the big turnaround that I had at the end of September, but this time it happened early in the month, giving me time to see if I can get one or two more cashes like that and, I hope, make it one of my best months.

Starting on 11/1 and ending on 11/6, this is what those numbers looked like (tournament cashes in black.)  The cash of $25.90 was for second place out of 38 players, followed immediately by $12.95 for finishing 4th of 84 players.

3.15
-3.10
-1.20
-1.10
-3.10
-0.83
-1.10
-3.00
-1.10
-2.20
-3.10
-2.20
-3.30
-2.10
-0.85
-5.50
$25.90
$12.95 --------- + $3.12