Two Winning Micro Table Poker Strategies

Well I had a first last night while playing at the Party Poker $10 NLHE cash game tables. I was dealt pocket AA in 3 consecutive hands. I was astounded when I caught the hand for a second time, so you can imagine my disbelief when they came up for the third time. Each time I played them for a raise, although nothing too aggressive but the 2nd and 3rd times, the table folded to my raise which was a bit of a bummer.

* * * * * *

I have been neglecting this blog somewhat, but have continued on grinding away at the micro stakes tables with just as much enthusiasm as always. I have developed a couple of new strategies lately that I have found have accelerated my profits. I thought I’d talk about them here.

Small Stakes Poker Strategy – Starting Short Stacked

Many will strongly disagree with this tactic on numerous levels, but when dealing with the psychological profile of many micro stakes poker players it works very well. As a matter of fact, I would suggest that this sort of strategy will only work at the online micro-stakes poker tables.

I am presently playing on the $10 NLHE cash ring tables, which as the name suggests, allows you to start with a maximum stake of $10. There is also a minimum stake at these tables of $2 and this is what I sit down with, deliberately short stacking myself. To some players at the table this seems to send an automatic message of weakness, to others when involved in a hand, their confidence to call and bet seems to grow disproportionately to their hands.

To elaborate on this thought, what I’ve noticed is that there is more of a tendency for people to call a 3 x BB raise with a marginal hand if they see that they’ve got the original raiser well and truly covered. If I have only $1.70 left and bet 0.30, a player with the full $10 stack is invariably going to call me with a hand that they probably shouldn’t be playing. After all, if I push, the most they can lose (heads up) is a further $1.40. It seems to be a common weakness among a greater majority of small-stakes players and I’ve been exploiting it time and again over the last month. By the way, I have a tendency to only play premium hands and play them pretty aggressively. While they’re kicking the short stack, they usually have to kick him with a strong starting hand.

Multi-Tabling To Ensure Patience

When I play single table poker I find that the pace is slow enough to make me impatient while I’m waiting for a strong starting hand. My tendency is to loosen up way too much and I start playing hands that I should be folding. By multi-tabling a second table, I have found that it keeps me adequately occupied and I have no trouble overcoming the temptation to call what I should fold.

It has been all about discipline and understanding the nature of my opponents but in the past month I have taken my bankroll well over the $300 mark. I feel as though I am on track to move up to the next micro-stakes level sometime in the second quarter of next year.

Poker in August - Good Times Are Rolling

The poker has been fast and furious at the Party Poker NLHE $10 cash games and ever since I replaced the pumpkin that was sitting on my shoulders with my head again my bankroll has been in steady recovery mode. Things have been going so well in fact that I have almost reached the point where I was at the start of May. The new plan of building my stake at the table has been working with some nice profitable sessions coming my way.

Naturally enough the odd loss has been sprinkled among the wins but I’ve managed to keep those to a minimum and the poker gods have been looking down favourably on me.

I’ve also been blessed to make my way onto some tables with a few players who simply had to play every hand that was dealt to them. The opponent who puts money into the pot 80% of the time and never raises can sometimes catch you out but in the long run they’re going to lose and I’ve benefited on quite a few occasions.

This particular post is really just a note to myself to remind me of my progress over the last 2 weeks of poker play. Effectively I’m marking the fact that I have reached another short-term milestone by passing $230.00 (again).

At the risk of sounding like a broken record I am going to once again reiterate how important it is to stay patient. It has been my willingness to fold and keep on folding until I’ve actually got a hand that has put me on my latest run. That and the fact that your average micro stakes poker player who plays virtually every hand doesn’t recognise that the guy who has been regularly folding has suddenly raised before the flop.

Current bankroll - $231.05

Poker Strategy Change - When To Leave A Table

I’m constantly trying to improve my approach to playing poker online and have been fortunate enough to have received some instructive and insightful comments here on a few of my posts. One of my strategies that I’ve mentioned in the past is leaving the table whenever I make a profit. I’m aware of the downside of doing this but it came down to a money management decision to arrest a long losing streak.

A recent comment by Epoh began a process of questioning this tactic and then I came across another piece on the subject using an example that has struck home with great force.

Essentially, the example asks you to imagine that you are multi-tabling 2 tables. At 1 table you are playing against complete poker novices and at the other one you are playing at the best poker players in the world. Now, using my strategy, I am more likely to play against the novices for a short time while I would be resigned to playing against the professionals for considerably longer (as long as it takes for me to lose my money, I’d suggest). The obvious question follows, why on earth would I choose to play against people I am more likely to win against for only a short time and against people I am more likely to lose against for a long time?

When I read this it made such perfect sense. Of course I would rather play my poker against the weaker players. The smart thing to do is remain at a table until the dynamics of the table changes.

Add this to Epoh’s advice where he cautions against leaving potential goldmines behind and building the small stack into a large stack and I am more determined than ever to turn those short, modest sessions into larger, more lucrative sessions that take advantage of the weaker poker players at the table.

And so this brings me to another related aspect to all of this. I have to identify and acknowledge the stronger poker players at a given table. Being able to recognise those players who are playing good poker should be easy to do, but often I let pride and frustration cloud my opinion of the play of others. Being able to recognise the really good players – and then trying to avoid them – will greatly enhance my chances of being profitable.

Adopting a strategy of chasing the big winning session leads me to muse over what point I decide to take my winnings and leave the table. It comes down to 2 factors: time and quality of opponents.

Time: These days I have less time available to devote to playing poker online with my average nightly session (on those nights I CAN play) only around an hour or so. So the first factor that will rule when I take my profit is giving myself a cut-off time and when the time is reached, I close down my session for the day.

Opponent: If I have identified a particularly weak player or a particularly soft table I need to remain at the table as long as they are still playing. If a table is playing soft I will remain at the table until the dynamic changes as others stand up and sit down.

I wouldn’t mind hearing how others decide that it’s time to move from a table. Do you set yourself a profit target? A time limit? A feel for the quality of your opponents? Something else?

Patient Poker = Winning Poker

Okay, like a reformed smoker or a recently converted Christian I'm going to sound a bit like a broken record by repeating the importance of patience when playing at the Micro Stakes cash poker tables. I’ve just completed my 5th straight winning day and it was the kind of grind that I was prepared to put in 6 months ago. Back then I won, a month ago I was impatient and lost – not a lot of math required there.

The only disclosure I should make here is that I had the Tour de France on in the background to watch how Cadel Evans went in defending his yellow on stage 15 up to Prato Nevoso.

It took me over 130 hands before I ground my way into a profitable position after coming close to losing the lot when my pocket aces were cracked. But rather than talk about me, I want to make an observation about another guy who was playing a couple of seats to my left.

I was at the $10 NLHE table and when I sat down this guy was sitting on around $16 so he had a winning night going. It didn’t take too many hands to work out that this guy liked to play a lot of hands and when he hit anything from bottom pair on up he would play it aggressively or call all bets. It seemed to be going sweetly for him as he proceeded to push others off their hands and moved smoothly up to around $18.

But as the game wore on, the inevitable happened and his stack was whittled away. It took over 100 hands and a roller coaster of a ride, but he eventually went broke as the same players who folded earlier in the session began calling and playing back to him. His problem, apart from his playing style which was the classic short-term winner, long-term loser style, was that he sat at the same table for way too long. Everyone at the table had him figured out after only a few rotations.

One of my strategies in playing at the micro-stakes poker tables is to change tables fairly frequently. Sometimes the playing style of others doesn’t suit my style, sometimes I just don’t feel comfortable at a particular table or, most importantly, I may feel that the other players are reading me too easily. I’m a fairly tight player and if I’ve been sitting at a table and folding often, the moment I call or raise may send my opponents running. I’m not a big bluffer on-line so I prefer to just get up and move to another table. Why not? There are plenty to choose from.

When I’m new to a table I’m an unknown quantity and I find that my opponents will be a little more wary in the first 10-15 hands I play. A new table often means a quick win and I can move on again.

My bankroll is up to $207.91.

Starting Over - Pulling My Head In

After a bad run in May and June, not to mention a petulant rant here about it all, I have taken a couple of weeks to take a deep breath, reassess my play and generally decided to pull my head in. I'm going back to basics, in other words, back to a winning style of poker.

As was so rightly pointed out in the comments of my last post, I was letting my emotions affect the way I was playing and consequently was losing the plot as well as my money. In football parlance, I was playing the man and not the ball and this can be fatal.

So, what have I done to repair the damage. Well firstly I've taken a break. I needed to reassess what I was doing and go over how I won for so long before my losing streak. Once I had reconciled myself to the way I ought to be playing I have rejoined the Party Poker NLHE cash ring games, re-entering the $10 tables.

My bankroll had dipped to $192.90 so I was keen to turn things around and get myself back above $200 as soon as possible.

Since restarting I have played for 3 nights and have resolved to once again leave the table as soon as I have made a profit. So far so good, 3 nights of playing for 3 winning nights and I have built the bankroll up to $196.60. I am determined to do this slow and steady because it may seem as though the profits are small, they build up a damn sight more quickly than if you string together a bunch of losing sessions.

So in order to force some accountability upon myself I will be stating my progress once again (something else I was doing when I went on a winning run).

Short term goal is to reach $200.

Party Poker | April Cash Game Results

Playing poker can take you up and drag you down. Playing poker at the micro level can speed up the process. And playing poker at Party Poker at the micro level can make the journey a maddening ride of wildly swinging fortunes with no real way to stop it.

April began smoothly enough with the Party Poker micro stakes faithful behaving themselves and predictably handing over their cash. Then I hit a black patch for about a week there and slipped into the red for the first time since January. Five days of suffering had me readjusting my poker strategy as I was going over old hands to find out where I could have improved.

As it turned out my poker play has been pretty solid. Apart from a couple of times where I called when I was 95% sure I was beat, I had played pretty good poker. It was just that there were an inordinately high number of poor calls by opponents who then got very lucky. I just happened to run into a lot of people who would be short term winners, long term losers right at the very moment that they were short term winners...at my expense. You get this fairly frequently at the micro stakes level, after all, the place is littered with rank beginners who have no idea what they’re doing. It’s just unusual that I came up against suck-out after suck-out.

So the Party Poker $5 NLHE cash game tables have once again been kind to me with a double digit profit rewarding my persistence. Now that the bankroll is beginning to grow to a reasonable size, double digit profit for 1 month's work is proving to be a worthwhile return.

I've scaled back significantly on the number of hands I play each night. With time available to play poker very much restricted these days, I can really only afford an hour or two at the most. As an hourly rate, I guess, my return is looking even more impressive given the stakes games I'm playing.

Raw numbers for the month have ended up looking fairly solid thanks to a much improved last week and a half. The turnaround has been due to a couple of important factors. Patience, I seem to say this every post, as I’ve been diligent in waiting for a good starting hand and then I’ve played it aggressively when I’ve hit the flop. During my little bad beat period it occurred to me how many times people were calling and betting with 2nd or 3rd pair and I’ve exploited that fact to great advantage. The odds of playing quality hands swung in my favour (as they statistically should) and I’ve made hay.

So, anyway, my return for the month of April turned out to be a smidge over 14% and I played just under 1,500 hands which isn’t terribly many. My Poker Tracker stats reveal that I made 18 BB per 100 hands and it seems that I am slowly becoming more aggressive, raising pre-flop 9% of the time which is higher than previous months.

My plan going forward is to continue what has been successful for the last 6 months. Hit the Party Poker micro stakes cash games. Take the profits when they present themselves, practice sensible bankroll management and aim for another double digit month.

End-March Bad Beat Madness

It’s probably inevitable when constantly playing poker against people who have no idea what they’re doing that even though the odds are stacked overwhelmingly in your favour it can count for nothing. This was the case for me about a week ago.

After congratulating myself for finding a nice loose table at Party Poker’s $5 NLHE cash games, I settled down as usual to wait for the callers to hand over their money. But this night was not destined to run to plan. My first major hit came when my AQo was rolled by someone with J 6. It turns out my 4 x BB pre-flop raise and continuation bet when I hit my Q wasn’t enough to get the guy to fold because he hit his 6 on the flop. As we all know, a pair of 6s with Jack kicker is an absolute monster – particularly when you hang on to hit your J on the turn.

That hand set the trend for the night and I made the mistake of deluding myself into believing that at some point getting my money in as an 80% favourite was going to begin paying off. I rebought twice during the session, fell into the trap of playing a little more loosely than I usually do and, by the time I had closed down my Party Poker session, had severely eaten away at my hard-won March profits.

Fortunately I’ve clawed back a few dollars to finish March with a bankroll profit of 7.74%.

Loosen My Starting Hand At the Micro Stakes Level

I’m typically a very tight player, particularly for a member of the Party Poker micro stakes tables. But I’ve been schooling myself to open up a little bit and widen my starting hand range in order to maximise my opportunities of taking down a big pot.

My usual starting hands consist largely of AK – AJ, KQs, pocket pairs down to 66 and that’s about it. Not very adventurous and the action that comes my way is few and far between at times, but it has worked so far in moving my bankroll from $30 to over $200 in 5 months. I’m looking to loosen up a little so that I can make my game a little more unpredictable.

My new range of starting hands will include A anything suited, as well as any suited connector down to 8-7 and all pocket pairs. I figure I can get more creative with my play as well as the unpredictable aspect it will cause. The way I would be looking to play these hands would be to call small (3xBB) raises or, if no-one has raised yet, make the raise myself. A continuation bet will more often than not be the post-flop play but this will depend on any action before me.

When you play the same stakes limit cash games ($5 NLHE) at the same online venue (Party Poker) every night, you run the risk of becoming known to your opponents. Hell, with the help of Poker Tracker I know my opponents and the type of game they’re likely to play so there’s no reason to think that others don’t have the same read on me.

So I want to change things up, loosen my game and see how it works out. With any luck I won’t be woefully reporting that my bankroll has fallen below $200 the next time I update my progress.

Plus A Word of Advice

I have a small piece of advice that some of you may find useful, particularly new poker players who are trying to build up a bankroll. Playing winning poker is difficult enough with all sorts of pressure placed on you by other players at the table so the last thing you want to do is put added pressure on yourself .

Worrying about your bankroll while you’re playing is a big mistake. It’s distracting, will influence the decisions you make whilst in a hand – usually adversely – and generally make it harder to reach the goals you’ve set yourself. Play each hand on its merits and take your profits when they come and your bankroll should look after itself.

Adjusting My Poker Goal

Reality has settled in to my ambitious plans and I simply don’t have time to spend 4 hours aevery night grinding away at the Party Poker micro tables. I’ve got other projects demanding my time and, as much as I’d like to neglect them all to concentrate on poker, it can’t happen. As a result I have made a few necessary adjustments to my goals beginning with my short term goal which will then flow on to my longer term goals.

Firstly, I am still allowing myself the luxury of playing every day, I’m not going stark raving mad over the whole “haven’t got time” thing. I’m no longer focussing on making a pre-determined profit every day, instead I’m prepared to quit playing for the day once “a profit” is reached. This has the effect of removing a further pressure which I had placed upon myself that was proving to be rather inhibitive. I was trying to commit to playing at least 100 hands per day. I felt that too often after I had made a profit that I was happy with for the day I was beginning to play a lot of junk hands just to reach the daily quota. It was doing nothing for my game and I was actually resenting the extra hands rather than maintaining a necessary focus and concentration.

I’ve found that unshackling myself from self imposed constraints has given my poker play a new sense of freedom and I am coming away with more winning sessions as a result. It’s all about compromise and whatever strategy most suits your state of mind. For the time being, my state of mind craves the short sessions with smaller profits.

Incidentally, my bankroll has grown too. My starting measly $30 bankroll is now looking a tad more impressive, sitting at $214.90. A paltry sum, to be sure, but when you consider that I’ve mainly been playing the $5 NLHE tables at Party Poker, it represents a helluva lot of patience, quite a few bad beats and a great number of seemingly insignificant profits. Remember, a $0.50 profit is a much better outcome than losing your $5.00 starting stack any day.

I’m still deriving most pleasure from standing up from a table with a profit rather than worrying about the size of the profit itself.

Developing a Successful Micro Table Strategy

The good news is that it’s possible to develop a strategy for playing online poker at the micro stakes level. In fact, I’ve been doing it night after night at Party Poker, consistently finishing the night profitably and have been relentlessly increasing my bankroll.

Now for the news that won’t thrill you so much. We’re not talking outlandishly huge profits, in fact, they’re quite small on a daily basis. Progress is extremely slow and a lot of patience is required if you’re going to be a long-term winner. I concentrate on the smallest of the micro stakes games which are the $5 NLHE cash games at Party Poker. At these tables the blinds are .02/.04 so you can see that you’re not going to win huge chunks of cash no matter how well you play or how lucky you get.

At the micro stakes tables you come across a wide range of poker ability and yes, there are a few players out there who are quite good at detecting and exploiting the weaknesses of the inexperienced players. Naturally though, the number of these inexperienced players far outweigh the better players, that’s exactly why they’re playing on the micro stakes tables in the first place. Consequently there’s plenty of money available for the taking.

Money Management

Firstly a word on money management because the poker player who is savvy when it comes to protecting his bankroll is going to be more likely to come out ahead. Different strategies work for different people so I’m going to tell you the strategy that works for me.

Although the maximum buy-in is $5 I rarely, if ever, start with this amount. Instead I will buy-in with only $2. Now some people will be screaming at me here saying that I’m limiting my upside potential with such a small stack and that’s true. But I’m also achieving two goals by implementing a small buy-in strategy. First, I am limiting losses to only $2 – and when you’ve encountered some of the wild micro stakes play that I have you’ll appreciate my motives here – and second, I am sending a message to other players that I am a little on the passive side and may be prone to being pushed around. That’s exactly what I want them to think.

Table Presence

I rarely simply open up a table and immediately sit down and play the next hand dealt. Before starting to play I like to watch at least a couple of orbits to get an idea of the playing styles of my opponents. With products such as PokerTracker this process can be sped up by checking out your opponents past play but it’s unlikely that you’ve played against everyone at the table before so it’s still best to sit and watch. Pick out the guy who likes to push other players around and the guy who regularly calls his way to the river only to fold when his draw didn’t materialise. This knowledge could prove invaluable as you aim to make your profit from the table.

Now, what I’m about to say may seem a little counter-productive, but again there is some method to my madness. Within the first few hands I’m dealt I like to enter a pot with a small bet (limp or min raise). I’ll play the hand passively and, assuming I’m not sitting on the nuts, if I’m raised I will fold my hand. Gnerally, I’m trying to send the message that I can be pushed around by someone prepared to raise aggressively. This will serve me well later when I call or raise a bet.

What Works For Me

Every time I take an online seat at a micro stakes table my aim is to leave the table with a profit – I don’t care what the size of that profit is as long asI’m in positive territory. Consequently I have devised my own personal rule that the moment my stack climbs into profit, I leave the table. It doesn’t matter if it takes 2 hands or 200, or if the size of the profit is 0.10 or $2, I still consider it a profitable night. With enough time left I can always move on to another table and start the process over again. My aim is to keep the bankroll trending north and I’ve found that this is the most effective strategy, at least for me, to make that happen on the micro tables.

Freerolling At Full Tilt

I’ve been easing back from Party Poker’s cash tables over the last few days for a variety of reasons, one of which was that I wasn’t particularly happy with my style of play and felt it could do with a brush up. So rather than take a break from poker altogether I’ve been sitting down at the nightly Freerolls in a bid to nurture a more aggressive game and to try it out under ‘match conditions’.

My preference is to play in the Full Tilt Freeroll even though the payout at Party extends all the way down to 80th and the field is a lot smaller. At Full Tilt there are regularly over 1500 starters in the Australian Freeroll and they only pay down to 27th place, however the blind structure is a lot slower giving you a realistic chance to recover from a beat without being blinded out.

Last night was the first time I made to the money in a Full Tilt Freeroll and, not only that, I went deep finishing in 5th place.

The most satisfying part of the tournament was a comeback from dead last place when there were 57 remaining. I was in a comfortable position with around 55,000 chips until I basically threw away all but 4,500 of them. With the blinds at 3,000 / 1,500 and the ante at 100, I wasn’t going to last very long and it certainly didn’t look as though I was going to cash. So, when I was UTG I chucked my last 4,000 chips in with J 8c and resigned myself to closing up shop. Three callers were all over me, but when I flopped trip 8s I was pretty sure I was saved.

I picked up QQ the very next hand, threw it all-in again and my tournament was alive and kicking once again. But then, I not only get back in the game, I proceeded to race through the field until I was chip leader heading towards the final table.

So what did I win for over 5 hours of hard work, good play and good luck? $6!!!

Read it an weep suckers

A Second Grinding Challenge

So, I have managed to add a lucrative $6 in freeroll earnings to the sick and sorry Full Tilt account to bring it up to the grand total of…um…$10.

I’ve been bleeding cash badly at Full Tilt and the situation’s dire. The main problem is that I haven’t been preserving my profits when I’ve been ahead at a table. It’s the same story as before, I’d be sitting on a handy profit for a session only to eventually bust out due to bad play or bad beat.

As with what I’ve been doing at Party Poker for the past 2 and a half months, I propose to devote some time at Full Tilt to build up my bankroll using a similar bankroll strategy. I’ll be playing the $10 NLHE tables and will leave a table AS SOON AS I make a profit, regardless of the size of the profit. I’ll then move over to another table and (hopefully) repeat the process.

Starting bankroll is $10.

Is the Air A Bit Thinner?

I haven't exactly been choking but I've definitely noticed a difference.

It's been around a week since I moved from the $5 NLHE tables at Party Poker to the $10 NLHE tables and have had mixed results with a couple of winning nights and a couple of losing nights. I've got no problem with experiencing losses...I accept them as part of the ups and downs of playing poker. But it's the way that I've been losing that has been a concern.

I've noticed one important difference between the two levels I've now played and if I am going to succeed at this and higher levels, I'm going to have to make a mental adjustment PDQ. The level of aggressive play is higher at the $10 tables. I'm sure it only gets more and more aggressive as the stakes rise, too. Too many times I am finding myself folding my hand to a raise when I should have stayed with it.

I know that some part of this is due to the perception that the bet sizes are larger so it feels as though I am risking a great deal more. In dollar terms, this is true but in percentage terms it is around the same or even less risk.

I've been up and I've been down and I've had a few days rest to reassess my playing strategy and my progress in $$$ is virtually nil. Hopefully, though, my education has benefitted and I will be a stronger player when I next hit the tables. I just have to put it into practice.

Graduation Day

It may be the last day of 2007 for everyone else, but for me it's Graduation Day. I have reached my initial goal of playing 10,000 hands at the $5 NLHE tables at Party Poker and finishing with a profit. Not only that, I have beaten my expectations beyond any measure that I could have hoped when I started out.

If you'll recall, I allowed myself a miniscule bankroll of only $30.00 and was determined that, unlike the last bankroll, I would not lose the lot. I would have been happy with doubling my money to $60.00, in fact.

Last night when the 10,000th hand had been played and I closed my session, my overall bankroll stood at $142.27, and I was prepared to step up to the $10 NLHE tables. Once again I'll be setting a new list of goals, plus the requisite milestones to keep my focus along the way. After all, it worked so well the first time, I reckon I must be doing something right.

I'll be reporting back when I have completed my initial set of $10 NLHE goals.

Mission Accomplished - Almost

After taking the day off yesterday to celebrate the Christmas season with all manner of cold beer and hot food, I was back again tonight to polish off the last few dollars needed to reach my goal of $140.00. It seems that the micro-limit Euro-fish are still in the giving mood with every table I visited bestowing untold riches upon me, vaulting me over my target in no uncertain terms.

The hand that took me there was the sweetest of them all when I limped into a short-handed pot with Ks Th on the button. I hit Broadway with a flop of Qd As Jh and, with only one other player in the pot, called his minimum bet after the flop. The turn of 5c held no concerns so when my brave opponent doubled his bet, I was happy to go along and call again. A 2c on the river and I've got the nuts in front of me. A cagey check from the enemy prompted me to bet one-third of the pot, making it look like I was attempting to steal it. Sure enough, my soon to be very disappointed adversary raised me to double the pot, so I re-raised All-in and got the call I was after. The poor bugger had hit a set of 2s on the River and thought he had trapped me but good. So long, sucker as he doubles me up and puts me across the finish line.

But that's only part of my target reached. According to my original goals, I still have another 650 hands to play at this level to reach the stated 10,000 hands. That means I have around 4 more days, playing at the rate I usually take before reaching the "experience" goal.

So Merry Christmas to you all and watch your backs. I'm one step closer to playing for some serious money.

Milestones, Milestones

It's inevitable, of course, that the milestones are becoming easier to achieve, what with my growing experience and the resultant growth in confidence. And so, after only a week since I reached the $100 bankroll mark I have moved it beyond $120 and am beginning to prepare myself (with a healthy looking bankroll) for the next level.

The $5 cash ring tables remain a complete minefield with any number of desperados will to call pre-flop all-in bets holding A-rag. Watching someone's AKs get knocked off by the caller's A4o makes you both cringe and rub your hands together all at the same time.

Naturally I have my own annoyances, today's version went something like this:

***** Hand History for Game 6593842277 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, December 15, 04:51:00 ET 2007
Table Table 126658 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 3: Seat 3 ( $5.02 USD )
Seat 5: Seat 5 ( $3.04 USD )
Seat 6: Seat 6 ( $3.82 USD )
Seat 8: Seat 8 ( $3.97 USD )
Seat 9: Seat 9 ( $4.87 USD )
Seat 10: Villain ( $2.66 USD )
Seat 4: pizerule ( $0.69 USD )
Seat 1: Seat 1 ( $4.92 USD )
Seat 7: Seat 7 ( $4.96 USD )
Seat 2: Seat 2 ( $1.96 USD )
Villain posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
Seat 1 is sitting out
Seat 2 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to pizerule [ Kh Tc ]
Seat 3 calls [$0.04 USD]
pizerule raises [$0.12 USD]
Seat 5 calls [$0.12 USD]
Seat 6 calls [$0.12 USD]
Seat 7 folds.
Seat 8 folds.
Seat 9 folds.
Villain calls [$0.10 USD]
Seat 2 folds.
Seat 3 calls [$0.08 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9d, Kc, 5d ]
Villain checks.
Seat 3 checks.
pizerule is all-In.
Seat 5 folds.
Seat 6 calls [$0.57 USD]
Villain calls [$0.57 USD]
Seat 3 calls [$0.57 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Jc ]
Villain bets [$0.64 USD]
Seat 3 folds.
Seat 6 folds.
** Dealing River ** [ 2c ]
Villain shows [ 2d, Jd ]two pairs, Jacks and Twos.
pizerule doesn't show [ Kh, Tc ]a pair of Kings.
Villain wins $0.64 USD from side pot #1 with two pairs, Jacks and Twos.
Villain wins $2.78 USD from the main pot with two pairs, Jacks and Twos.

Now this joker called my pre-flop raise with J 2 and then called with the fishy's favourite - the allure of the flush draw - and proceeded to hit runner runner. Needless to say, the bloke did a runner from the table after that hand, obviously embarrassed at having it shown down. He'll keep.

In order to ensure that I continue to challenge myself, I think I will have to adjust the milestones so that I have to aim to reach them over a shorter period of time.

Current Bankroll Position : +292.77%

A Winning Night and a Question

I had my most successful night at the Party Poker $5 cash tables since beginning to keep track of my daily returns. This has helped give me a giant boost towards the next milestone target in record time, which is probably just as well considering the Christmas-based interruptions that I’m expecting in the back half of the month. It seemed that no matter what I did last night I couldn’t help but take down the pot – certainly makes a pleasant change to sitting on the other end of a notorious Party Poker suck out.

Compared to the vast majority of microtable denizens I am a particularly tight player, sticking to premium starting hands for the vast majority of the time. A significant number of players I play against have a VP$IP of over 50 which is really quite ridiculous, but it also provides plenty of opportunities. Sometimes I get myself into a fold-rut where I will automatically fold whenever some crazy makes what I consider an indecently large raise before the flop, even when I’ve got a decent starting hand.

So that’s why it was really out of character the way I played my A Qs.

I was UTG and whacked in a 6xBB raise trying to limit the commonplace multi-way pots that scuttle many a strong starting hand. My raise was immediately called by the guy next to me, only to be raised All-In by the next bloke. Everyone else folded around to me. My usual reaction in this situation is to fold, fearing I’ve come up against AA. But last night I allowed myself to break free from my usual passivity and chucked it all in. As an added bonus, the guy who called my original raise also called the All-In move.

A Queen in the door saw my hand prevail and tripled me up. Unfortunately the Party Poker software doesn’t show each player’s hole cards when All-In in cash ring games so I have no idea what the other guys made their move with. And here’s my point… other than to crow about a handy win…surely, if I have risked all of my money by calling someone’s All-In move I have bought the right to see the hole cards of my opponents. Party Poker displays the hole cards when players are All-In during tournament play, why not at the cash ring tables?

I shall be asking the Party Poker powers the same question.

Current Bankroll Position : +272.66%

The $100 Milestone

I'm currently playing the .02/.04 NLHE Tables at Party Poker. The goal is to increase my bankroll sufficiently to move up to the next cash game level.

A couple of days ahead of schedule and the latest milestone ($100) is mine – not without the odd self-doubt in the midst of a few mind-boggling beats – with the last few days proving to be very profitable indeed.

One thing that I am rather uncomfortable about is that I feel as though I am playing way too tight, allowing myself to get pushed off my hands too easily. (My PT Total Aggression factor is 1.16). It’s an aspect of my play that I must overcome if I am going to be successful at the higher stakes tables. Part of my problem is that I’m very bankroll-conscious at the moment and am often unwilling to risk losing in order to win. I know this goes directly against the essential ingredient in becoming a successful NLHE player, so it’s a part of my game I will have to address sooner rather than later.

Be that as it may, I’m celebrating the power of goal-setting today and am basking in the satisfying glow of success.

So now I have to focus on the next milestone target of $120 which I will be trying to reach by December 21. I have been playing a lot more hands per day over the last couple of weeks so the expected date for reaching 10,000 hands has moved forward to early January which will coincide nicely with the beginning of the new year.

Current Bankroll Position : 225.98%

The Irony of Poker

Hugely ironical or a timely reminder of how tough the game of poker can be, I don’t know, but a day after posting that quote about the value of failure I suffered my first losing day for 2 weeks. The reality is I was due for a loss, I can’t expect to win every time I throw money on the table, it’s just the timing that strikes me as rather poignant.

The difficult part about it was the fact that it felt as though I was being used as a punching bag at times last night. If I hit top pair on the flop and bet, someone would come over the top with a re-raise. When I bet on the river with a reasonably strong hand, the inevitable re-raise all-in would materialise. It seemed that every time someone chased their unrealistic draw to the river they were hitting against me (that wasn’t actually the case of course, it just seemed like it).

My mood wasn’t helped when I picked up AA UTG, threw in a standard 3 x BB raise and was popped all-in by a guy in MP. He then showed A 2o and proceeded to hit a 2 on the flop and another 2 on the turn to take me down. It’s cold comfort to know that although he might be a short-term winner, making plays like that will ensure that he is bound to be a long-term loser. I’ve just got to make sure I’m there when the ledger is balanced.

Current Bankroll Position : +176.22%

Another Week, Another Milestone

Another successful weekend has rolled by, the $80 milestone has been achieved and I’m now pointing my focus on the next milestone target of $100. While the numbers appear small, the progress feels enormous and my confidence is growing accordingly.

The full milestone target that I’m looking to achieve next is a bankroll of $100 by December 10. As things stand today, that’s a profit of $13.13 in 15 days or an average daily profit of $0.88 playing on the .02/.04 NLHE Cash tables. Given that my average daily profit for November is currently $1.45, the goal is more than realistic.

I’m still on track to build my bankroll up to a level that will give me a solid financial background to play on the $10 NLHE cash tables.

Having a look around at the various blogs out there, I can see that I am an insignificant speck playing tiny stakes games and earning a decidedly unimpressive profit. However, I have also noticed that, apart from a very minor percentage of the blogging populace, I seem to be one of very few people who have given much thought to devising a plan that will lead them to profitability. (Or maybe I’m just one of the few who constantly talks about it in my blog…)

There’s lots of moaning and bitching about the donks out there who beat their KK with an inferior hand (perhaps unwilling to admit to themselves or us that maybe their earlier style of play may have prompted the seemingly loose call, hmmmm?). I also seem to be reading about people who “had a spare hour so decided to jump onto the $100 table”. Certainly there’s little mention of anyone reaching a certain predetermined playing level and are now moving up to try their game at the next level.

Just out of curiosity, how many of you out there actually have a plan or a goal in which you hope to move up the various stakes games, be they MTT, SNG or Cash games? On the flip side, how many are just as comfortable to play for the entertainment factor and are willing to deposit more funds when the bankroll is fully depleted?

Australian Federal Election & Milestone Day

The Australian Federal Election is in full swing today as the nation votes to elect a (new) Prime Minister into office. The writing has been on the wall for Little Johnny Howard for quite some time and the expectation is that Kevin Rudd will take over as the Prime Minister of Australia. George Dubya will have to get someone else to kiss his arse for him in future.

Milestone Day

Today is also the day that I had nominated to have increased my bankroll to $80, as a minor milestone on the road to my longer term goal. After playing a few hours last night I finished with my account sitting at a little over $79.50, so a profitable session tonight should see me realising my goal on time.

Doing so means that I'm still on track with my attempt at averaging a daily profit of $1.25 on the .02/.04 NLHE Cash tables.