Trials and Tribulations of an Internet Grinder

Well the past 3 days ahve been good to me, I played 70 $33's and I was up a cool $1,017 from Sunday thru Tuesday. Today i have played 20 $33's and am down $50 but I didn't expect to keep up that level of winning. After that little heater my bankroll is back up to $3,000 but let's hope it stays up there. Hell, a week ago i thought my October 1st bankroll goal of $3,500 was a lost cause, and now I think I can get pretty damn close if I keep up the good run. The thing about my recent heater is that I actually got some pretty bad luck ITM and should of had a few more 1sts in place of 3rds, but oh well. It looks like a will amek just over $1,000 this month plus another $400 from rakeback and considering I only played about 550 SnG's these results aren;t that bad. I really hope next month I am able to get in at least 900 SnG's as I really NEED to get my second monitor and 6-8 Tabling started. looks like it'll be 600 $33's and 300 $55's next month and my goal will be to make $3,200 plus rakeback.

Also for all you Hip Hop listener's out there, I highly reccomend picking up the new Atmosphere album, they are a DJ/Emcee Duo out of Minnosota and are the truth. Holla.

Well at first I had intended for this to be a week by week account of life as a professional internet poker player. I wanted to start out 8-Tabling the $55 SnG's and over the year work my way up to the $215 SnG's and Beyond. Currently I am still 4-Tabling the $33 SnG's, there are many reasons for this but it has taught me a great lesson about playing poker for a living. that lesson is no matter how much planning you do. variance and fate will always throw some jabs to derail progress temporarily. It is during these times that the "True" winning players seperate themselves for the weak-minded fish. So all that being said I have decided to delay the start of my official online poker career until the start of the new year. So for the year of 2006 I hope to make at least $60,000 ($70,000 if rakeback is still around). My bankroll should be about $10,000 on Jan. 1, 2006 and thus I will start out 8-Tabling the $55 and $109 SnG's. I think that my goal is reasonable and will require me to play about 30 hours/week, which is very doable especially with that salary.

So what am I doing until then? Well I will still be updating this blog regularly as I hope to gain a few readers before the start of my "Career". I'm gonna keep grinding away at the $33 SnG's, eventually move to the $55 SnG's and hopefully pad wmy bankroll with another $7,000 before the end of the year. So therin lies another mini challenge, in the next 3 months I must make at least $7,000. Wish me luck.

As you ahve already see, the month of September has not been good to me. I am also dissapointed in myself because I ahevn;t been putting in as many hours as I had vowed to do. But with the downswing this month I have had to quit ealr ymany session because I know I am prone to tilt when things get really bad. Here are my stats fort he past 15 Days. Not Good. Let's hope October goes better as i plan on getting 800 SnG;s done if I ever get another monitor (I am waiting till my bankroll gets to $4,000, which was supposed to be this month :( ).

15 days of Stats
SnG's Played Won/Loss$
16 -$181
24 +$60
23 +$432
19 -$292
12 +$183
16 -$242
12 +$84
16 -$48
16 -$168
25 +$18
18 -$62
17 -$141
16 -$54
16 +$12
16 +$222
Totals:
262 -$177

So as you can see things have not been going too good.

Next month = (400 33's @ 12%ROI = $1,600) + (400 55's @ 10%ROI = $2,200) + $800 Rakeback =
*$4,600*
Let's Hope So...

The title of this post should give you a good idea of my curernt mood and progres in my poker career. So far this month I have played 400 SnG's mostly $33's, I am up only $150. I am VERY dissapointed although i knew when I started down this path, things would not always be good, so I feel that I am better prepared for this than I could be. So at this point I am just hoping to finish the month with a profit of any kind. Luckily I have rakeback so that will give me an extra $450 to add to my totals. As far as my game I feel I am playing solid, I mostly just laugh in a disgusted way during all my bouts of getting sucked out on. I am really hoping to get in 1,000 SnG's next month and still have a good chance to hit my Haloween bankroll goal of $5,000. So today i leave you with another great article/post from 2+2. This is from Irieguy and talks about dealing with downswings properly.

"That which we shall not speak of..." by Irieguy

Well, after finally beginning to pull myself out of a bad run the likes of which I had heretofore thought to be impossible; I feel I am as ready as ever to draft my definitive "bad run" post.My profits are back to an acceptable level for 2005, but I must say that I had quite a bad start this year. I learned so much from 2+2 posters as I began playing SNGs regularly last year that I feel like I should "pay it forward" and share what I've learned about running badly.To begin with, most players (especially new players) have a great deal of difficulty discriminating between common variance and a bonafide bad spell. The best way to differentiate between the two would probably be to pick some statistical thresholds and declare that anything above or below those thresholds are unlikely enough to warrant consideration for being particularly "lucky" or "unlucky" events. But running badly really has nothing to do with statistics... it's an emotional event. The fragile, twisted, neurotic mind of a SNG player cannot truly comprehend the implications of the metrics we discuss on this forum. Statistical perspective is a necessary component to a sound psyche, but it is not enough. Hopefully I can offer another type of perspective.
Running Bad
If you play SNGs regularly (at least 400 a month), there are certain things that will happen so frequently that you really will get used to them. A 100 SNG negative ROI run, for example. A 12 SNG OOTM streak. A 20 buy-in drop. These things happen so frequently that if you are able go 30-60 days without seeing at least one of them, you are lucky. So unless you are running worse than that, you really aren't running badly... you're just playing SNGs. If you exceed one of those markers, though, I think it's OK to accept the fact that you are running badly. Go ahead and post something. Cry. Break something. Yell at a loved one for no good reason. We are all human beings, so some indulgence must be taken in the name of misery. Do not torture yourself with the belief that such irrational behavior is not Zen. In fact, it is the third tenet of IrieZen philosophy (the obscure spritual fusion of rastafarianism and zen buddhism to which I subscribe):"Let if flow. Then let it go."But until your losing extends beyond 100 SNGs... until your losing streak surpasses 12 OOTM in a row... or until your bankroll hemorrhage exceeds 20 buy-ins, you aren't running bad. You're just playing SNGs. Just living, man. Grab a heineken, put your feet up, twist a fat one, look at your pathetic spreadsheet and laugh. Then log onto 2+2 and ruthlessly berate the newbie who authored the post "How can I lose 2 days in a row when my ROI was 47% over the past 72 SNGs?"IT happensOnce you've truly entered the depths of a bad run, things actually ease up a bit. You've let it flow, and let it go, and you can comfortably settle into the rhythm of losing every 60-40 race for a week or so, and starting every session with a 10th place finish by getting aces or kings cracked. Then IT happens.IT is that peculiar new level of running badly where you actually begin to develop paranormal powers. If your opponent needs precisely the 7 of clubs on the river to beat you, you will KNOW that the 7 of clubs is coming on the river. It's not pessimism, or selective memory, or anything like that. A luminous thread extending from your soul and enveloping the universe will resonate with the 7 of clubs. It's coming, and you know it. PartyPoker will pause an extra blink, as if to acknowledge the event. It's the electronic equivalent of Amarillo Slim winking at you before he slow rolls you in a low limit side game on day 27 of the WSOP.When IT is happening, I sometimes revel in my new found psychic powers. If my wife is in the room, and my pocket kings are exposed against my opponents pocket 4's I will get her attention and say "watch, honey... a 4 will appear on this board." While my wife is pleased with the financial perks of my poker hobbie, she is much more impressed with my ability to declare the cards that will appear with 100% accuracy than she is with any ability I may have to play the right way. She doesn't beleive me when I tell her that the universe bestows upon us all brief periods of clairvoyance... she thinks it must be some form of legerdemain.I don't know what IT is, or what causes IT, but
IT happens.
You no longer lose to overpairs. Your opponents will make a set at the minimum. They sometimes river quads when they don't even need it to win. You become particularly vulnerble to any hand with 2 gaps or less, because they are always live to a runner-runner straight. IT is what causes people to quit.Which brings us to the second tenet of IrieZen philosophy:"The universe will unfold as it should."I'm not exactly sure what that means yet, but I think it has something to do with how you are supposed to handle IT.
That Which We Shall Not Speak Of
Then there is something so egregious, so horrifying, so odious that it shall not be given a name. I will mention it here, but I will never speak of it again.It's origin is a simple statistical fact. If something is possible, it is possible for it to happen twice in a row.Can a winning player have a 200-SNG stretch with a negative ROI? Anyone who's played more than a few thousand SNGs knows that this is possible. What if you had 2, 200-SNG losing stretches in a row? It gives me the chills just writing about it. This is the type of spell that can lead even the best player, with the soundest disposition into a psychological squalor from which he may never recover.Anyways, it happens. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. The only thing that can save you is to adhere to the first and foremost tenet of IrieZen philosophy:

"Make yourself comfortable, and ride it out."This means something different to everybody, but I will offer my own interpretation for what it's worth:
2 Dell 2001fps.A papasan chairA refrigerator full of HeinekenReady access to Las Vegas lap artistry
Play the right way,
Irieguy

Over the past week I am break even, well I'm up $22 which is less thanh one buy-in at my current level. Like I mentioned in a previous post, there have been winning players who ahve gone 1,000 SnG's at a breakeven win rate. So that being said I am not too worried about this although I am pretty unpotomistic about making $2,000+ this month as I had hoped to. It looks like I need to have an Incredible run over the next 11 days to finish off the month of Spetember. I have also decided that until I hit $3,500 I will play strictly $33 SnGs, because for some reason my stats in these so far are the best I have, right now with 300 played I'm at 18% ROI which is over $5/SnG. If I haven't already said so, this game is VERY crazy, and the people like me who try and play it for a living, are even crazier.

I'm gonna try and find a good article to post tommorow so expect a little startegy gem in the morning. :)

So, it is the halfway point of the month and I'm a little dissapointed. Since I had decided not to start the 55's full time and I have yet to add a second monitor I guess a good goal for this month would be $2200 before rakeback. I currently am up only $729, which leaves me $371 dollars off pace. So in the next 15 days I must profit a little under $1500. I think that this goal is very reasonable and should be attianed as long as I get 300 SnG's done at the least. I am kinda assuming that the cards will fall for me in the coming weeks, i guess this could be a curse but this game feels like one big cycle. Soemtimes all is good and sometimes all is bad and as long as you are playing optimal during both of these times you will come out ahead. There are times when I'm running so poorly that I think I have lost the ability to be a winning poker player. Then after I cool down I realize I have played a little over 100,000 Hands of winning ring game poker and about 1800 SNG Tournaments as a winner, plus a few random tounrnament cashes. I am 99% certain that I ahve made about $8,000 dollars playing small stakes poker online over the last 15 months. This does not seem like much to me at this point as I hope to make at least $60,000 in the next 15 months, but in the grand scheme of things it really is incredible.

Well over the past few days i had been on a pretty horrendous downstreak that topped out around $1,050, but today I made $500 of that back and I feel like the rest is soon to come. So at this point for the month of September I have made about $825 which is a little below estimates. I still hope to make a little over $2,500 for this month and start October with a $4,000 bankroll so that I can play strictly 55's without having to drop down for small downstreaks. That along with me starting to 8 Table should enable me to have my first $5,000 month including rakeback. I think I will jump back into the 55's this weekend and give it another shot. My first attempt saw my going 8 in a row out of the money, which isn't so bad but it was 1/6 of my bankroll.

Well, I played in the Party Super Thursday last night. This tourney icarries $150+$12 entry fee and usually has around 1,000 people, making for a good prizepool. Last night first prize was $30,000, and there were 971 entrants. I got no cards for the first two hours but made a VERY nice play at a pot at the start of the 3rd hour. Iw as basically representing a flush on the river putting all my chips in with J high. My opponent folded and very well could have been beat after seeing some of the hands played out last ngiht. :) I had about 4,000 chips and blinds were 100/200. A couple orbits later I picked up KK got it all in against AQ for a 6,200 pot. The flop was terrible as it brought an A, the turn just rubbed it in, bringing a Q, but the magical river brought the beatiful K. (last one in the deck as somebody att the table said they folded a K.) So I am now looking to cruise into the money, but alas I get involved in a couple blind stealiong debacles and am down to 4,000 with 130 left int he tourney and the top 100 spots paying I still had a good chance to sneak into the money. down to 120 players, blinds at 400/800 it gets folded to me on the button I have AT, both blinds have me barely covered. I decide to minraise thinking i'll get away if the push and that it looks scarier because they have to assume im calling a push. My plan is busted when the BB flat calls. Flop brings 3 5 5 and i think im ahead, BB checks I push he calls and shows J5., and im done. Finsihed 119th out of 971. Oh well back to the SnG grind.

Well I wrapped up the first week of my official online poker career and I couldn't be happier with my stats. In the first seven days I was able to get in 142 SnG's, mostly 33's and 55's. My profit was about $1,039 which is great. Once I am playing solely 55's and have a second monitor for 6-8 tabling I hope to clear an average of $1,500/week. So the grind continues, and it is kinda tough to keep playing and playing without withdrawing money and rewarding yourself. I am not going to make a withdraw until the end of this month and anything over $4,000 that I ahve is going towards a little weekend vegas trip with some freinds, Oct. 8-11.

Also, due to some extra money in my rakeback account I am going to try my luck at the Party Super Thursday tournament tonight. The last time I played in one of these was in May and I made a great run finishing 27th out of 831 and collecting $900, not bad for 27th place! So wish me luck as a final table woulod result in a much better Vegas Vacation. : )

Day 5 Update:

So I am 5 days into my official online poker career, and I couldn't be happier about my results. I have played about 100 SnG's mostly 22's and 33's with a couple 55's tossed into the mix. I am up $850 so far, but I am not expecting to keep up this good of a win rate. My goal for this month is to get in at least 800 SnG's (I am starting to 6-8 table on the 20th) and have a profit of at least$2500. My bankroll will get $2000 so my bankroll goal is $4000 by October 1st. I feel like these goals are both reasonable but at the same time will take some variance in my favor. I am not quick to forget the horror stories I have heard from winning players, of going on 1,000 SnG breakeven streaks. this may sound weird but I feel like the higher buyins are slightly more profitable for me and my style of play. I say this because a large part of my success comes from my ability to get players to make bad folds around the bubble. In the higher buyins I seem to notice tighter players on the bubble, which indicates tighter/better players who play the bubble incorrectly. Hope that made sense, anyways wish me luck at the tables. and until next time. Holla

So I am starting my 3rd day of the online poker career today. The first two days only saw me palyign 20 SnG's per day and my goal is 30. I did however manage to turn a $300 profit so far, so things are going good in that regard. In my original plan I was supposed to be playing the 55's right now but I am still grinding away at the 33's because my bankroll is still a little too low for the 55's. I should ahve the roll up to $3,000 before or around the 15th of this month.

I have another great article for all you SnG players out there, this one was written by Gigabet and deals with stack sizes and how they relate to the way you should be playing at any given time. Enjoy!

Ok, boys and girls, this here may be the most -ev post I have ever written. The Q3 push thread received quite a few responses from players who were confused about the validity of it, while I thought that it was a fairly standard play for most of us here(read independent.) Even if the players do not know why they do it, I thought that at least they would understand intuitively the value from plays such as these. Before I get into the actual dynamics of that individual hand, let me see if I can explain the "Gigabet Dilemma." For those that do not know, there was a very long and controversial thread(in the MTT forum) about another hand that I had played. Basically, I had made a -ev call because I had felt that the positive ev I would gain later in the game, if I win the hand, outweighs the negative ev of the specific hand. Because you cannot mathematically prove the positive equity of future happenings with any certainty, this is all theory. The controversy surrounding the argument of whether or not to take the immediate negative expected value or make the "correct" play has been coined the Gigabet Dilemma. If you are on my side, and agree with my reasoning, then you have to take these negative situations and use them to your advantage. But the real question is, how do you recognize when you can get on the negative side of the situation and know that if you lose that individual hand, your stack will still be able to contend with the fields? Understanding that every situation is one long stream of events, and the results of any single hand mean nothing in the long run isn't enough. Because of Gamblers Ruin(cannot recover from zero) you are forced to recognize that each situation is independent, and have to be results oriented for that hand. It is counter-intuitive to make a move based on one situation, rather than 100s of thousands similar situations, but because you cannot recover from zero, there has to be a plateau in each situation that you can recover from. Since each situation will involve different stacks, you have to depend on your results from the texture of that individual setting to decide whether to make that -ev move. You cannot create hard and fast guidelines to make that decision, rather, you have to go by your feel for the situation at hand.Here is where it gets interesting. Although you cannot make guidelines, you can create one "model" that you can look at, and decide what the best decision would be in that model. If you decide that your model calls for avoiding the -ev situation, then adjust the sizes of the stacks until you find a model that calls for embracing the negative situation. If you think you would have troubles actually finding a correct model, here are some things that may help you. Put everyone at near the same stack size, except for one player, who has around 1/3 the rest of the field, and gradually increase the blinds, if you still cannot get it, gradually increase your stack, while leaving everyones the same, including the small stack. Once you get your model, use it as a relative comparison to some past stts you have played, and see if you cannot see actual game situations that are relatively close to that situation that is represented by your model. Read through enough hand histories, and you will start to intuitively see the situations as they arise. In my mind, I see each stack as a "block" that fits into a complete mold that encompasses all of the chips in play. I cannot comprehend what "one" chip is, because that is too small of a unit for my mold. Here is a very loose description of what I mean. At the beginning of a tourney, everyone has a block that is the same size, imagine 10 blocks sitting next to each other, with a bold face line running across the top of all of the blocks. I actually envision a pie type mold, with the blocks pieced in the pie evenly, however that is too difficult to put into words, so I will try and analagize it. Ok, so your bold face line is just a guideline that represents the saturation point of the chips in play, basically, the average stack, but the line could go above or below avg, if one of the stack gets excessively larger or smaller than the fields. As the tourney goes on for a time, and the blinds get to a certain point, your line will get very erratic, and there will be times, when the size of the blinds will equal, or nearly equal the size of a "block" that is near the level of your line. When situations like these occur, and your stack hovers above the line, then any part of your stack over the line is essentially meaningless. However, because the line is erratic at that level of play, using those meaningless chips to capture a "block" will make your stack a real force that controls the level of that line. Basically, capturing a block is nearly equivalent to doubling up. Here is a kicker, if your stack is flush with the line, and the size of the pot is nearly flush with the line, then you have an ideal situation to take alot of negative ev to call an all in from another player. If you can understand that statement, then you will understand alot more than just what I have written so far.There will be situations where math tells you to push with any two cards to pick up the pot(preflop, of course), however, if you are using my model, you will see that because the "line" is relatively stable, and your stack hovers above the line, than taking down that pot is very nearly always wrong. This is working on the opposite side of the coin, and recognizing when +ev situations should actually be avoided, because it would be more positive to wait until either the line moves, or your stack moves closer to the line. Now that you have read this, go back and look at the hand history, and see if you can see why I pushed all in with Q3, knowing I was going to take the worst of it in a showdown. If need be, I will go through and explain that hand in detail, and try and put together a more easily identifiable model that represents the stacks at that table.I have never put this theory into words before, however, I have put them in use enough times to know that there is no doubt in my mind that they are true. I hope that this isn't too disjointed to read, and while I know that understanding it may be difficult, please read through it a few times before asking questions that may have an obvious answer. Obviously newer players will benefit from this more, since they have less "preconceived" notions of how to play. More experienced players may actually intuitively understand it more, but find it hard to believe that this is any kind of poker, and never really incorporate it into their game.

~Gigabet