Got my act together and made a chart for tracking my bankroll while also tracking it to my goal of hitting $1K by Labor Day. The straight blue line is the pace I'd need to meet or beat to take my roll from $388.72 that I closed at yesterday to the $1000 that I hope to reach by September 6. I am adding in the real time accrual of my mid-year bonus since that money is already earned even though it isn't yet released into my account. The $25/$50 bonus for Rush week I am omitting since that has not technically been earned yet though I see no issues to doing so. The red line is my current progress. I had things go well for me today at the super turbo SnGs and I busted through the $400 mark today. It is still seriously hard for me to cope with the fact that I was staring at $14 in my cashier window less than a month ago.
It's nice to be ahead of pace of course but I also am cognizant that I am getting an extra $10/day boost from my mid-year bonus currently and I have about ten more days where I will be getting that tacked on to my roll. After I play through enough to clear my entire bonus I'll get a gigantic $250 added to my cashier but I will also stop getting a head start on each day. The pace I need to track to is $11.32 per day. I usually get six bucks and change from rakeback per day which means I'm going to need to actually play well enough to snag a few more bucks per day to make it on time. The chart will tell how things are going.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Playing Rush hands
Adam said he was thinking about straying back into Rush poker and was looking for advice so I figured I'd just go ahead and publish my hand standards.
I basically fold everything except:
AK raise or call a single raise then play if I hit A or K. Possibly cbet a miss in position but usually not, but that's just my style. I know I'm giving up some equity here but it is just easier and faster for me to bail on the hand and move on to another.
AA raise, re-raise, or shove pre. I don't try to play these tricky because anyone who will go broke with their hand post-flop will usually do so pre. If there is already isolation I might flat instead of four bet so I don't scare off JJ or QQ but that's rare. Usually I just shove when I find someone that interested because some many donks shove AK trying to look strong and other players know it so a shove can induce a call from even small pairs even though, if they'd think about it, they are a flip *at best* but once you make a big pot people get greedy.
KK, actually more likely to shove pre here than with AA because I don't like getting bluffed out by an A on the flop.
22-QQ raise if first to pot and in MP or later. TT-QQ raise if first to pot in any position. Small or mid pairs limp if previous limper(s) and set mine. If there is a raise in front of me I'm pretty much dumping 22-QQ and moving on. They end up playing much the same since anyone who is getting frisky has AA, KK, or AK and there is no substantial difference between ducks and queens at that point. Every so often you'll catch someone with JJ or TT but not enough (in my book) to justify stacking off in coin flips or with an underpair. I used to get real defensive about getting re-raised with QQ and get stubborn with them then stack off to AA or lose a coin flip with AK. It's taken a lot of lost hands and money to finally just condition myself to ask "would I put money in here with 22?" because that is basically the same hand.
Steals. I used to steal a lot more in the hi-jack, cutoff, or button when it was folded to me. A min-raise is not going to cut it. Yes, some people will have the auto-fold button on but a min just ends up getting called and you'll have to play poker. If you're going to steal then just pot it. However, steals are so common from there that re-steals from the button or blind makes stealing a hassle sometimes. Nowadays I pretty much don't bother because of the playback and the fact that you need to wait for everyone to fold to you all around the table (I play full ring Rush) until you can try to steal.
I also buy in for minimum and cash out after doubling up as long as I double up to more thank 150% or so of my stack. You have to close your window but once you do you can buy in for min again. Rush is a rat holers paradise. As such their min buy is larger than at the normal ring tables, 40bb instead of 20bb. As the saying goes, I'm not here to make friends.
I know that this is suboptimal play but those are the guidelines I use because my goal is merely to break even and plow through as many hands as possible in the shortest amount of times. Playing four tables in the Rush format also means that I do not bother trying to get reads on players. I focus on my cards and my cards only. When I'm making origami and folding everything due to either nitting up or being card dead I'll clear 2000 hands/hour (500 hands/hour/table). Average though is closer to 1600 and on a slow day because I'm having to play hands out it can dip down to even less than that.
Other tidbits:
For whatever reason, re-raising the very deep stacked players pot sized bets very often gets them to fold. I don't know why.
I have found that the stereotype of aggro Europeans, especially eastern, is true enough that I will knock my standards down half a notch for them. i.e. stacking off with QQ or AK.
According to HEM and my (admittedly not huge sample size) numbers, stacking off with AK pre-flop is EV-. I forget the exact numbers but QQ was either EV- or only slightly EV+ that I also have stopped doing that in favor of finding spots where I am a substantial favorite. The only winner when playing tons of coin flips is Full Tilt.
.02/.05 is, not surprisingly, softer than .05/.10 which I normally play since players will stack off lighter. If I am looking to do a little bankroll repair I might move down to playing nickels but usually I stick to dimes because it takes so long to accrue points at .02/.05.
Well, that's all I can think of for now. Comment or email if you have any questions.
I basically fold everything except:
AK raise or call a single raise then play if I hit A or K. Possibly cbet a miss in position but usually not, but that's just my style. I know I'm giving up some equity here but it is just easier and faster for me to bail on the hand and move on to another.
AA raise, re-raise, or shove pre. I don't try to play these tricky because anyone who will go broke with their hand post-flop will usually do so pre. If there is already isolation I might flat instead of four bet so I don't scare off JJ or QQ but that's rare. Usually I just shove when I find someone that interested because some many donks shove AK trying to look strong and other players know it so a shove can induce a call from even small pairs even though, if they'd think about it, they are a flip *at best* but once you make a big pot people get greedy.
KK, actually more likely to shove pre here than with AA because I don't like getting bluffed out by an A on the flop.
22-QQ raise if first to pot and in MP or later. TT-QQ raise if first to pot in any position. Small or mid pairs limp if previous limper(s) and set mine. If there is a raise in front of me I'm pretty much dumping 22-QQ and moving on. They end up playing much the same since anyone who is getting frisky has AA, KK, or AK and there is no substantial difference between ducks and queens at that point. Every so often you'll catch someone with JJ or TT but not enough (in my book) to justify stacking off in coin flips or with an underpair. I used to get real defensive about getting re-raised with QQ and get stubborn with them then stack off to AA or lose a coin flip with AK. It's taken a lot of lost hands and money to finally just condition myself to ask "would I put money in here with 22?" because that is basically the same hand.
Steals. I used to steal a lot more in the hi-jack, cutoff, or button when it was folded to me. A min-raise is not going to cut it. Yes, some people will have the auto-fold button on but a min just ends up getting called and you'll have to play poker. If you're going to steal then just pot it. However, steals are so common from there that re-steals from the button or blind makes stealing a hassle sometimes. Nowadays I pretty much don't bother because of the playback and the fact that you need to wait for everyone to fold to you all around the table (I play full ring Rush) until you can try to steal.
I also buy in for minimum and cash out after doubling up as long as I double up to more thank 150% or so of my stack. You have to close your window but once you do you can buy in for min again. Rush is a rat holers paradise. As such their min buy is larger than at the normal ring tables, 40bb instead of 20bb. As the saying goes, I'm not here to make friends.
I know that this is suboptimal play but those are the guidelines I use because my goal is merely to break even and plow through as many hands as possible in the shortest amount of times. Playing four tables in the Rush format also means that I do not bother trying to get reads on players. I focus on my cards and my cards only. When I'm making origami and folding everything due to either nitting up or being card dead I'll clear 2000 hands/hour (500 hands/hour/table). Average though is closer to 1600 and on a slow day because I'm having to play hands out it can dip down to even less than that.
Other tidbits:
For whatever reason, re-raising the very deep stacked players pot sized bets very often gets them to fold. I don't know why.
I have found that the stereotype of aggro Europeans, especially eastern, is true enough that I will knock my standards down half a notch for them. i.e. stacking off with QQ or AK.
According to HEM and my (admittedly not huge sample size) numbers, stacking off with AK pre-flop is EV-. I forget the exact numbers but QQ was either EV- or only slightly EV+ that I also have stopped doing that in favor of finding spots where I am a substantial favorite. The only winner when playing tons of coin flips is Full Tilt.
.02/.05 is, not surprisingly, softer than .05/.10 which I normally play since players will stack off lighter. If I am looking to do a little bankroll repair I might move down to playing nickels but usually I stick to dimes because it takes so long to accrue points at .02/.05.
Well, that's all I can think of for now. Comment or email if you have any questions.
1K by Labor day?
So I brought up the 1K race idea at poker last night and after giving our target dates Marshall quipped that it was more like a walk than a race so I'm going to set a much more aggressive end date now. Instead of mid-February I'm looking at Labor Day (2010 that is) as my new target date for hitting $1000.
Here's the basic components of how I hope to get there:
$200.48 Current cashier balance
$250.00 Mid year bonus which will clear before the end of July at current pace
$50.00 Rush poker bonus which will clear next week
$405.00 in rakeback at approximately 45/week for nine weeks (including the previous Tue-Mon period which hasn't been paid out yet)
All that totals up to $905.48 assuming that I do nothing more than break even on the tables. I'm looking to make up the difference in EV+ play and freerolls. Reviewing the numbers makes this seem reasonable enough on paper. Profiting $10/week between now and Labor Day seems plenty doable but the challenge is going to be, as it always is, to not tilt off huge chunks of bankroll and to do that will require a lot of discipline. Fortunately, having a set goal and a set date will help me keep things on track I think/hope. Even Cake Challenge II didn't provide as much guidance since it only provided an end date without a target dollar value. Having both will provide a roadmap to the target so I can easily detect if I am straying off course and put in corrective measures quickly.
We'll see how this goes...
Here's the basic components of how I hope to get there:
$200.48 Current cashier balance
$250.00 Mid year bonus which will clear before the end of July at current pace
$50.00 Rush poker bonus which will clear next week
$405.00 in rakeback at approximately 45/week for nine weeks (including the previous Tue-Mon period which hasn't been paid out yet)
All that totals up to $905.48 assuming that I do nothing more than break even on the tables. I'm looking to make up the difference in EV+ play and freerolls. Reviewing the numbers makes this seem reasonable enough on paper. Profiting $10/week between now and Labor Day seems plenty doable but the challenge is going to be, as it always is, to not tilt off huge chunks of bankroll and to do that will require a lot of discipline. Fortunately, having a set goal and a set date will help me keep things on track I think/hope. Even Cake Challenge II didn't provide as much guidance since it only provided an end date without a target dollar value. Having both will provide a roadmap to the target so I can easily detect if I am straying off course and put in corrective measures quickly.
We'll see how this goes...
Monday, July 12, 2010
MMM: $14?
Mr. Cowboy,
Could you explain your bankroll management standards while playing $2+.15 tourneys when you only had $14 in your account?
Jesus F.
Pacific Palisades, CA
Jesus, it's good to hear from you.
Well to be honest I did have have rakeback coming to me as well so I knew that worst case scenario would be that I would have to wait until that got credited to my account. Still, a $2 tourney is not proper BRM even with the rakeback accounted for. I realized at the time that I was violating my BRM rules but there were a couple things going on. First of all, I felt that I was EV+ against those SnG tourneys and that I had just had an extended stretch of run bad. If you're going to give me 2:1 on heads or tails I am going to take it because there is an edge. If I lose a bunch in a row I'm still going to take it because I know the numbers will even out eventually. Secondly, after winning the April 1 deadline prop bet I really had just been aimlessly wandering and decided that I'd be better off bumping up the stakes so that I pay more serious attention. When losing a microstakes buy in is so insignificant to overall bankroll it is easy to play poorly because any one buy in does not impact your roll very much. But like death from a thousand cuts it will eventually ruin you. So I increased the amount at stake and it shook me out of my funk. Yes, I took a serious nose dive but I have come back with a vengeance and am surging like a banshee. As I've noted before, the biggest challenge is all mental game management. Though poker skill is part of it of course, the biggest risk is going on tilt or other mental lapses. We'll see how my head holds together on the way to $1000.
Sushi Cowboy.
Could you explain your bankroll management standards while playing $2+.15 tourneys when you only had $14 in your account?
Jesus F.
Pacific Palisades, CA
Jesus, it's good to hear from you.
Well to be honest I did have have rakeback coming to me as well so I knew that worst case scenario would be that I would have to wait until that got credited to my account. Still, a $2 tourney is not proper BRM even with the rakeback accounted for. I realized at the time that I was violating my BRM rules but there were a couple things going on. First of all, I felt that I was EV+ against those SnG tourneys and that I had just had an extended stretch of run bad. If you're going to give me 2:1 on heads or tails I am going to take it because there is an edge. If I lose a bunch in a row I'm still going to take it because I know the numbers will even out eventually. Secondly, after winning the April 1 deadline prop bet I really had just been aimlessly wandering and decided that I'd be better off bumping up the stakes so that I pay more serious attention. When losing a microstakes buy in is so insignificant to overall bankroll it is easy to play poorly because any one buy in does not impact your roll very much. But like death from a thousand cuts it will eventually ruin you. So I increased the amount at stake and it shook me out of my funk. Yes, I took a serious nose dive but I have come back with a vengeance and am surging like a banshee. As I've noted before, the biggest challenge is all mental game management. Though poker skill is part of it of course, the biggest risk is going on tilt or other mental lapses. We'll see how my head holds together on the way to $1000.
Sushi Cowboy.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Rush Week
Yet another bonus available to me this week. Playing Rush poker is worth anywhere from $5 to $250 depending on how many points you earn and how many days you earn them. Entry level is 10 points/day, mid-tier is 100, and the big bucks go out to those who churn 1000 points/day. I'm targeting 100/day for all seven days of Rush week which will be worth $50. A nice chunk of change for clearing points that I am already cranking out.
Nice day at Rush today. Played nitty and raked in KK over QQ four times today. Also got KK vs QQ and AA vs KK but lost when they hit their sets. Still, solid progress.
Cashier is at $225.58 and I've passed the halfway point of my mid-year bonus which is now at $126.88. Throw in an esimated $24 in rakeback and I'm sitting $376.46 and should tick past $400 sometime this week. Really feel like I should be able to get halfway to 1K by the end of July. Sorry I don't have pretty charts currently. Part of the problem is that my SnG stats don't roll up on the same chart as my cash game play so I'll need to cobble something together but I'll throw something up on the blog before too long.
Nice day at Rush today. Played nitty and raked in KK over QQ four times today. Also got KK vs QQ and AA vs KK but lost when they hit their sets. Still, solid progress.
Cashier is at $225.58 and I've passed the halfway point of my mid-year bonus which is now at $126.88. Throw in an esimated $24 in rakeback and I'm sitting $376.46 and should tick past $400 sometime this week. Really feel like I should be able to get halfway to 1K by the end of July. Sorry I don't have pretty charts currently. Part of the problem is that my SnG stats don't roll up on the same chart as my cash game play so I'll need to cobble something together but I'll throw something up on the blog before too long.
This...is...POKER!
OK, I had that one all saved up for when I break the $300 mark. 300. Get it? Like "This is Sparta!"
Have to say that it has been a rough ride and I didn't really think that the road from $240 at the end of Q1 to $300 would go through the $14 neighborhood. Not by a longshot. But now that I'm back on track, in the right bankroll zone, and headed in the right direction, I'm really locked in on the $1000 barrier and want to reel it in.
Have to say that it has been a rough ride and I didn't really think that the road from $240 at the end of Q1 to $300 would go through the $14 neighborhood. Not by a longshot. But now that I'm back on track, in the right bankroll zone, and headed in the right direction, I'm really locked in on the $1000 barrier and want to reel it in.
What's been happening?
Yes, I know that the blog has been on a rather extended hiatus. A few things have transpired since last post so here's the update on the past couple months.
* Still playing every day. In order to qualify for the One-a-Day freeroll I need at least one Full Tilt Point per day and I have been clearing that by a comfortable margin. On an "off" day I may only get 30-40 but usually I have 50 minimum and more often 100 or more. Beginning in July I have been targeting 200 points/day which qualifies me for "Iron" status, their highest rung in the Iron Man ladder. So far in July I've nailed it every day.
* I've added in playing $2 + .15 Super Turbo Sit and Go tourneys. T300 starting stacks, 15/30 starting blinds, 3 minutes per level. Feel quite comfortable with these. I play them four at a time and need 1 win or two seconds to basically break even. Anything above that is sugar.
* I absolutely torched massive chunks of my bankroll. I certainly will own up to donking off plenty of it but I will also give credit to epic run bad. You know, two outers, three outers, runner-runners, etc. The suckouts we all know and love but just in such historic proportions that it was ridiculous. At one point my cashier total was $14 and change though I had some rakeback in my back pocket. Still buying into $2 tourneys with $14 in the bank is questionable BRM.
* Cashed in 7th in a freeroll, good for $45.
However, Adam has lit a fire under me since he started talking about going $1000 or bust so I've jumped on his bandwagon and have the same target in sight. From my nadir of <$15 I am now well above that thanks to shedding my run-bad, more focused play, and having a carrot to after. In the past few weeks my cashier window has been run up to $205.23.
The big news though is that I am currently clearing my mid-year bonus. Since I had two months of silver and two months of gold I have $250 worth of bonus available to me that I clear at the rate of one nickel per FT point. Since I've been churning 200 points per day that is about $10 per day and I'm halfway done and will have no problem clearing the full amount by August 14, the deadline. Combine the bonus with roughly $6/day in rakeback and all I have to do is break even at the tables to net out about $16/day while still clearing my bonus.
My total assets at this point are $205.23 (cashier) + $21.64 (rakeback) + $118 (bonus) = $344.87.
I have another $132 coming from my bonus which I have not cleared yet so my projected total in a couple weeks should be about $475. ASSUMING that I don't decimate my roll and can stay on the current pace I will qualify for a $600 year end bonus which I can start clearing in January. I would need to push 267 points/day in order to clear the full amount but if I did then that would put me well above $1000 so I see mid February as the latest I should hit one grand. If things go well and I can pull in some more freeroll cashes then so much the better. Heck, if I start playing poker well then I might even get get there much sooner.
To my loyal reader(s), sorry for the extended absence. Now that I have a goal to shoot for I will be updating the blog regularly again with news.
* Still playing every day. In order to qualify for the One-a-Day freeroll I need at least one Full Tilt Point per day and I have been clearing that by a comfortable margin. On an "off" day I may only get 30-40 but usually I have 50 minimum and more often 100 or more. Beginning in July I have been targeting 200 points/day which qualifies me for "Iron" status, their highest rung in the Iron Man ladder. So far in July I've nailed it every day.
* I've added in playing $2 + .15 Super Turbo Sit and Go tourneys. T300 starting stacks, 15/30 starting blinds, 3 minutes per level. Feel quite comfortable with these. I play them four at a time and need 1 win or two seconds to basically break even. Anything above that is sugar.
* I absolutely torched massive chunks of my bankroll. I certainly will own up to donking off plenty of it but I will also give credit to epic run bad. You know, two outers, three outers, runner-runners, etc. The suckouts we all know and love but just in such historic proportions that it was ridiculous. At one point my cashier total was $14 and change though I had some rakeback in my back pocket. Still buying into $2 tourneys with $14 in the bank is questionable BRM.
* Cashed in 7th in a freeroll, good for $45.
However, Adam has lit a fire under me since he started talking about going $1000 or bust so I've jumped on his bandwagon and have the same target in sight. From my nadir of <$15 I am now well above that thanks to shedding my run-bad, more focused play, and having a carrot to after. In the past few weeks my cashier window has been run up to $205.23.
The big news though is that I am currently clearing my mid-year bonus. Since I had two months of silver and two months of gold I have $250 worth of bonus available to me that I clear at the rate of one nickel per FT point. Since I've been churning 200 points per day that is about $10 per day and I'm halfway done and will have no problem clearing the full amount by August 14, the deadline. Combine the bonus with roughly $6/day in rakeback and all I have to do is break even at the tables to net out about $16/day while still clearing my bonus.
My total assets at this point are $205.23 (cashier) + $21.64 (rakeback) + $118 (bonus) = $344.87.
I have another $132 coming from my bonus which I have not cleared yet so my projected total in a couple weeks should be about $475. ASSUMING that I don't decimate my roll and can stay on the current pace I will qualify for a $600 year end bonus which I can start clearing in January. I would need to push 267 points/day in order to clear the full amount but if I did then that would put me well above $1000 so I see mid February as the latest I should hit one grand. If things go well and I can pull in some more freeroll cashes then so much the better. Heck, if I start playing poker well then I might even get get there much sooner.
To my loyal reader(s), sorry for the extended absence. Now that I have a goal to shoot for I will be updating the blog regularly again with news.
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