Bad Faith's blog

Ok: I have played like a complete pillock since my previous cheery posting, and despite many hours playing online am $2 DOWN. I serve up to you examples of my sad poker world. Failing at micro-stakes..... Here are the GOOD, the BAD and the VERY UGLY:-

The GOOD

***** Betfair Poker Hand History for Game 623359186 *****
NL Texas Hold'em $5 Buy-in + $0.50 Entry Fee, Level:6 Blinds(100/200-(no ante)) - Monday, December 21, 22:36:14 GMT 2009
$5+$0.50 NL Hold'em #3643042
Table 1 9-max (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of active players : 2

Well 316 seems quite close to 500 tonight. Played 4 $5 STTs and 1 $1 MTT and cashed in all 5 today.....which gives me reason to believe I cant be a complete donkey. Been making a lot of post bubble and heads up errors which has cost me, but all the same I am building up a head of steam. Will be shifting to a mixture of $5 and $10 tables now.

Modest progress. BF STTs are still causing terrible frustration, nitty play (practically everyone is tight aggressive) results in long games and eventually massive blinds create a lottery. There is a limit to the edge you can get shifting gear to laggy play earlier than the rest of the players in an STT! The traffic is low....and playing the same players over and over gets a bit claustrophobic. I admit to cracking a few times and making very bad plays. On the other hand I am still building my bankroll, very slowly.

A reader of this blog has suggested STTs might be a 'solved game'. Here is why low stakes STTs are still a challenge for me - I have a mental handicap. Usually I post here when I reach a benchmark, this time, despite still having a feeble bankroll, I have reached a my nadir.

Just for the record. Currently £120 / $187. The next downswing will probably feel like being in an elevator with a snapped cable.

Issues

Sharkscope doesnt track all your winnings - some of my results are not shown on the graph although the gist is correct.

I was NOT bankrolled for $5 games despite the optimistic comment on the previous post and nearly went bust, reduced to about $35 at one stage.

At last, bankrolled for the $5 games. The terrible terrible bad beats have been very well balanced against some staggering good luck, but overall I am making progress and feeling strong. Expect I will be crucified at the new level

New learning outcomes: I have been calling raises with some dodgy hands and ending up in silly coinflips (eg pushing all in against a raise with AT with 10 BBs and ending up in a coinflip against 33)....I have been lucky but this bad play will have to stop!

Table selection is really important, being patient and avoiding the robots and really skilled players helps

But the most important thing is NEVER to relax after the bubble - it is essential to play with maximum concentration and will to win to ensure these 1st and 2nd places, 3rds will not cut it.

On paper it seems to be going well. I have made the decision (for the time being) not to move up to $5 games until I have 20 buyins, $100. My ROI for the $2.75 games is a healthy 22% at the moment and I am fearful of unsettling the steady progress.

Things I have learned at $2.75 level:

Stay out of the chat whenever possible - there is NO mileage in responding to the sulky infants that abuse you when you are making statistically decent plays. High blind play (400), with moderate to weak stack (about 4000 I think) I raised from sb on a standard steal against a similarly stacked opponent on the bb and ended up all-in after he raised, I had 10 4 he had 9 6 and my ten paired on the flop. I would do the same again (actually I should probably have pushed rather than ending up committed and calling?), but the key thing is to ignore the abuse in the chat and focus on the next hand. I won that game but had to get lucky again (insta called an all-in from a short stack with A2, he showed AQ, a deuce came on the flop and I shot into the HU with the big stack - nb the blinds were big, 600 or 800).

Do not be troubled by the robots - The 5leepwalkers of the world clogging up the already terrible traffic on betfair may be an irritation for those of us playing for fun, and they are spoiling small stakes games by timing out, slow play and shoving all-in tediously predictably, but ultimately they are probably grinding out little more than they could make flipping burgers in McDonalds, or waiting at tables for tips; they are multi-tabling at $2 stakes because they can't cut it in $20 games. The people that really should be feared are the creative players with 45% ROI such as TRM 08! Even if you are a very weak player like me, the robots are not making much from you, they can have the 3p in every £1, as long as they arent putting you in the red overall. Just play your normal game against them - win or lose you are bound to be having more fun than they are because you probably dont use beating microstakes hobby poker players as a support for a fragile ego!

Taking the Beats and Minimising Losses - You can play well and still lose lose lose, 10 games in a row easily. Getting this into my head and laughing off bad beats is very very important for me and is something I must work on. I need to leave the tables as soon as I am unsettled or angry! But minimising losses is also very important. Example of terrible play by me - 3rd hand in an STT last night I limped with AJ...flop came KJJ. Second to play, with a lot of people in the pot I checked in the hope of reraising...no bets...same stupid strategy on the turn, same result....on the river I reraised the utg player and got called by a bloke slow playing QT who made his straight. I played like a fool, but I didnt go bust on my set of Js and went on to win. There is a place for small-ball even at this level (and even with ultra tight-aggressive robots at the tables!).

Conclusion - play your own game at all times, play for FUN at micro-stakes, take the bad beats on the chin, stay out of slanging matches and dont try to teach the insulting abusers how to play better in the chat or even justify your play (we are allowed to make mistakes anyway). There are few players to fear at this level and how bad would it be to return to the 10c tables anyway.........well actually......tbh....terrible

Found a little calm and steadiness which was long overdue. Some discipline to my game now and taking the bad beats with better grace as they appear to be balanced by some great good luck (three sets of bullets in a single STT the other day). Even a K high straight against a set of jacks getting busted by a J on the river did not unduly unsettle me and I switched the pc off and went to sleep instead of chasing.

Now back to the challenge: 10c, my starting position, is about 1/5000 on the way to completing the challenge.....and I am probably now about 1/60th of the way there so it sounds like progress BUT...I am still not really bankrolled for the £2.50 games with only £35 in my roll, and assuming I dont hit a run of bad luck and get busted back to 10c games, the next tough decision will be whether to step up to the $5 games at the $50 mark or do the right thing and aim for $100 before stepping up. I need a new electric guitar and I need it soon.

It's a long way to $500 - three months later and I have 'spun' my 10c into $8.50. Whoopee doo.

10c players are marginally, but only marginally worse than $2 players. The problem is the lottery mentality - it is just impossible to know when they are playing tight and steady or when they have cracked and are ludicrously punting their entire stack on 2 6 suited - it is impossible to bluff donkeys and it is often just as impossible to read them as they are bipolar by nature.

I may be the donkey but I am fairly happy with the current 14% ROI (you can figure how many tedious 10c games I had to play!). What scares me is that three $2.75 busts on and i will be back at the bloody 10c games and it could happen easily. Another 3 months in the lottery..... Nooooooooo

Next bulletin when I am at the $5 dollar level - lets just hope it doesnt take 3 months!