This month has been tough so far, I've played a decent amount and it's been a real mixed bag.





I withdrew some money and decided to move down in stakes and play some 50nl.

As my positional stats show, I am not making any money from utg - co and it's basically because I am a station and ppl aren't bluffing or vbetting thin enough at 50nl to check call profitably as much as I do.

The adjustment took a bit longer than I thought and I ended up going on a pretty big down swing which, thankfully, I am just about out of.

Toocrispy has been really good during this period and has helped with some HH and I'm looking forward to getting my next session with him.

I especially appreciate this as I know he is in the process of moving and has the whole AP/UB thing on his mind.

My results as of now aren't where I'd want them to be and I almost feel bad for Crispy as it's no reflection on his coaching.

The next 25k hands will turn that graph around for sure.

GL

I'd like to start this blog with a big thank you to TooCrispy for picking me for his free coaching. We had out first session tonight and he is a very cool guy and already said a few things that I think will improve my game starting from now.

I got very lucky in as much as all my competition for the spot can no longer play but I am determined to make the most of the opportunity.

I've been playing mostly 100nl the last while and have been running pretty bad in general. Confidence is low and I know I am leaking money in certain spots by not being aggressive enough.

I am going to post a graph of my last 50k hands and my positional stats for the same period for a record of my progress with Austin.





I am obviously running a fair bit under EV in this sample but EV isn't everything and I know that I have leaks and I am very hopeful that we will be able to sort some of these out in the coming weeks.

I'm going to keep this updated more often and will graph my progress which I hope will be fast!

Last month was pretty brutal for me. I played bad and ran worse. I never thought I could run 35 buy ins below EV in 55k hands but it did happen.

It sucked pretty hard but it made me look at my game and I hope that I have improved. I feel like I have and I'm ready to tackle December and the New Year with a greater determination and work ethic than ever before.

I am going to try and play more hands from now on and really grind. I have a really good RB deal at a Euro site so it's free money and if I can win as well then I am laughing.

I experimented with 9 tabling last month and it went OK. I am going to mix it in again this month but slow down on my decision making. For some reason when playing more tables I feel the need to act fast. There really is no need and just in the hands I have played this month my results have been better.

I want to play around 80k hands this month and if possible more. I need to get this grind on and get around $12k in savings as I am moving in June and need a deposit to place down.

This should not be a problem at 100nl with 65% RB but I am still a little worried as I've had a couple of break-even months which has dented my confidence.

I'm not going to put last months results in as they are in the past and are not relevant. I'm a new player now and am looking forward to crushing

I know people run bad and I know people generally hate hearing about people who do run bad, so please feel free to ignore this post if that's the case. I just feel the need to write this purely as a cathartic release.

(And I know that the all in EV is not the full picture, but it's an indicator and all we have. So i'm using it.)

I have had some big problems in my game that have crept in ever so slowly and lead to me having a multitude of small leaks that were hard to spot but nevertheless cost me money.

One of these was being far too loose OOP as the PFR. This is just a recipe for disaster and is really easy to fix. I have done this and immediately benefited from it. The other was playing too passively and too wide OOP as PFC. This is harder to fix but something I am doing with some relative success this month.

The other main leak and something that I really have to force myself to think about in every single session is my station like tendencies. I have a post it on my monitor simply saying, 'DON'T BE A STATION'. I think it's working.

With regards to the run bad, here is my last 100k hands or so



As you can see, the last 100k hands are pretty much break-even according to EV. There is however a hell of a lot of spew in here and generally bad play. I'm sure there are a lot of stacks I could have saved in this stretch.

Here is this months play, 20k sample, where I have begun to implement some of the adjustments mentioned above.





As you can see, I am slightly tighter and I am sure this will drop further as 1/4 of these hands I was still playing a bit too loose. I am really happy with my play in general and must say that I have more confidence in my play than I have done in a long while.

I'm looking to play around 50k this month so fingers crossed my results will start to reflect the improvements I have made to my game.

As the title suggests, I haven't kept to the promises set out in my previous blogs. No excuse really.

Poker wise it's been a bit rough. Basically I am playing OK but my winrate is small so I seem to swing a great deal. I lose way too much from the blinds so am tightening up my range from there quite a lot and seems to be better.

I also get abused by certain regs when i'm stealing otb so I really need to tighten up there too. It basically turns out that I have lots of small leaks that add up to a diminishing win rate so I've been working hard on them and hope to see a big improvement this month in terms of results. The fact that I've been running brutal for 100k hands now doesn't help either but whatever, the thing is to improve to a point where I am happy with my game.

Fingers crossed that'll be this month

here I am just going to post a ramble and I'd love it if someone better than me at poker, which is pretty much everyone, would post and say what they think.

This is as the pre flop caller.

ok, I'll expand a bit - poker is a game of ranges and when we have a strong hand we can't always rely on the other player having a strong hand at the same time.

So by raising the turn, and I'm talking about mainly in position but I think it applies oop too, we are folding out all his air and probably one pair hands and hoping that he has a strong enough hand to continue with. This however doesn't really matter as by calling and raising the river instead we get an extra bet from his TPTK, potential bluffs and strong hands as well.

So we gain very little from our big hands when we raise the turn and gain much much more by calling and keeping his range wider. We also get his commitment level higher on the river and he may bet/call due to pot odds a one pair hand on the river that he may not have on the turn.

If this is not something that people agree on please let me know as it's just my thoughts and have been coming across situations where I have been raised on the turn and thought ' well that was stupid, I was probably 3 barrel bluffing there, you cost yourself a bet'

Against fish then of course a raise on the turn is fine.

This leads me to only want to raise flops and rivers vs regs and when I raise the turn it is almost with the exclusive intention of wanting to someone to fold.

That can't be good/right can it?

I can't embed!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVmmYMwFj1I

(ps if anyone could tell me how I can I'd be grateful. I copy and paste the embed link but no joy)

Well, August was not the best month ever but it was a winning one.



As you can see the first and last part of the month went well and the middle, not so good. I have an indication of why this is and will not make the same mistake this month.

Volume wise I'm pretty happy I suppose. I'm never going to be a mad crazy grinder but maybe I can start to hit 50k if I put my mind to it.

I'm going to continue going to the gym and posting hands etc ad really work on my game, as next month I want to be playing 200nl with a comfortable roll. I can sort play it now but I prefer a large roll and I don't want to be playing it without at least 50 buyins and I'm a bit away from that now.

Hopefully I can get off well and keep up the momentum from now until the end of the year. If I'm not a 200nl reg by Christmas I'll be a broken man

I'm trying to get off to a good start so am going to make another blog post. It's nice to know some people are reading so I'll try and keep it interesting if I can.

I've played about 1k hands since the last blog, so haven't kept up with the volume goal but I've been playing fairly well and hitting the gym so I'm going to cut myself some slack with that.

When I'm not playing I don't switch off and have been thinking about my leaks and I came across this thread on 2+2

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/39...inrate-860491/

It basically talks about saving bets to increase your win rate. Not barreling that bad turn card, not calling the river when all you beat is a bluff as they are rarely bluffing etc. It really struck a cord with me as I feel that personally, calling for 'pot odds' when they are really just not bluffing very often is a bad leak of mine.

Two hands came up earlier in my session which I feel sort of exemplify my point

IPoker, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BB: $114.15
Hero (UTG): $100
MP: $109.70
CO: $108.80
BTN: $37.70
SB: $46.65

Pre-Flop: K T dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $3, 2 folds, BTN calls $3, 2 folds

Flop: ($7.50) T Q Q (2 Players)
Hero bets $4, BTN calls $4

Turn: ($15.50) 6 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($15.50) 2 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $15.50, Hero calls $15.50

Results: $46.50 Pot ($2.30 Rake)
Hero showed K T and LOST (-$22.50 NET)
BTN showed K 5 and WON $44.20 (+$21.70 NET)

This is more than likely a fold vs this guy. His stats were 51/20 over 100 hands and folded the flop 38% of time. My plan was to c/c turn but I'm really not sure if that is even good. When he pots the river I wanted to fold but couldn't, I'm really not sure if I should be folding here but I honestly feel that I get showed better hands almost always.

IPoker, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

MP: $151.22
Hero (CO): $101.50
BTN: $108
SB: $32
BB: $222.70
UTG: $134.50

Pre-Flop: J J dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG folds, MP raises to $3, Hero raises to $9, 3 folds, MP calls $6

Flop: ($19.50) A 4 K (2 Players)
MP checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($19.50) 5 (2 Players)
MP checks, Hero checks

River: ($19.50) 2 (2 Players)
MP bets $19.50, Hero folds

Results: $19.50 Pot
MP showed and WON $38.05 (+$29.05 NET)

Now here is another hand vs a 45/34 who folds to 3bets 33% of the time. I'm not sure if I should be cbetting here, prob not (?). It goes c/c c/c and then he pots the river. I folded in this case but again, I'm not sure if I should be as his range is very wide.

It feels like I am calling and folding in the wrong spots but I may be wrong, not even sure how much spots like this effect the win rate to be honest but mine isn't great so I'm thinking it must!

Gl guys

Well, this is my first blog post on Leggo and recent history does not bode well for regular updates. I've been a member of DC and Cardrunners and had blogs on each of those but I am hopeful that this site will buck the trend.

I'm a 26 year old full time player from the UK. I am currently only playing 100nl after a rough stretch but have a comfortable roll and a great RB deal on iPoker so am hopefully going to be able to move up in September.

Results have not been great of late and they have led me to seek help and re tool my game. I have had a couple of coaching sessions from Harangutang which have been really useful and changed my preflop tendencies somewhat and I really feel that I can begin to beat the games again.

I was winning for a decent clip previously but began to grind too many tables and stopped doing what was winning me money. I have since cut back to 6 tables and am really finding it fun, winning and learning.

As this is an initial blog, I am going to outline a few goals:


go to the gym every day. Monday/Weds/Friday for strength training. Tuesday and Thursday for pure cardio.

Play 2k hands a day, 5 days a week. I am not a really big grinder and setting a larger hands total is just not realistic so this is my bare minimum. 6 tabling I work this out to be about 4-5 hours a day which I can do. I have never played more than 45k hands in a month.

Get better! Sounds simple but a lot of people I know play poker and say stuff like 'I am not playing well today' or 'I don't feel like playing good today'. Why are you playing then? Stop and break or play better. Identify WHY you are playing bad, or if you even are playing bad. Maybe you are just bad. I think being self critical is very important if you want to win at any level in poker.

Update the blog twice a week. Self explanatory and one I will try my best to keep. I'll do general progress and hope to post some hands that I think I played well.

Thanks for reading and you'll here from me again soon, at least once this week!