Cain is Abel

VPP COUNT: 100126

I put in a total of 10 hours between yesterday and today, and the results were extremely great. Depending on how you calculate the value of the VPPs I accumulated, this could be a record month for me. In terms of pure cash, though, it is just my 2nd best month.

I spent the last hour of my session tonight with a full stack at 8 of the 12 shorthanded 400NL tables I was playing. There were just so many poor players sitting that I could not help myself. 6max is not even my regular game, and I was confident enough to put a full stack in 75% of my tables. I ran pretty well, and it really boosted my 6max stats for this past week.

So my shortstacking experiment ended with 45k hands. I ended up with 1.4bb/100, which is higher than I expected to be able to earn. According to PokerEV, I also ran above expectation (especially during this past day) and if my all-in luck had run even, I’d be at about 1ptbb/100, which is still quite solid.

Not counting this last day (because about 60% of the profits were from fullstacking) I figured that while shortstacking I earn about 75% of my normal hourly rate. This is not bad at all, considering I could practically play this style in my sleep. I never really even optimized my game either, just pounded in as many hands as I could.

I may write some kind of reflection on this first month, with updated goals and ideas. I think I will be playing more 6max regularly, as the fishy tables are WAY more profitable than a fishy full ring table.

10% of the way to my goal! Yeah!

VPP COUNT: 94193

Well, I knew it wouldn’t be long before I was just plain tired of shortstacking. This time is quickly approaching. I’ve put in about 35k hands at various levels of 6max, and while my results are positive, I was much more satisfied when I was playing full-ring.

My graph in PokerEV makes it pretty clear that I can gradually win playing this cheap strategy. Not bad for only taking it half-way seriously and playing an average of 10+ tables at a time.

I plan on continuing my shortstack play tomorrow and Thursday, and going back to my normal game in Febuary.

VPP COUNT: 90027

Yesterday was my first full day off of poker this year, and it was probably not all that helpful. It was nice having a break, but I eventually just felt sluggish and lazy.

I started today off just terribly. I had a bit of a headache, and did not have a great feeling about the day, but I forced through it and decided to put in some time. I made a big dumbass move after about 30 minutes of starting. Check out this brilliant hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2013974

My play on the turn was just awful.
1) Even though it was a blind battle, even AA doesn’t fight this hard for this kind of board.
2) The only way he calls my push on the turn is if I’m beat, so I’m just burning money
3) Even a call would be incorrect, as I’ve still got 1 card to fall, and I don’t like most of them.
Though I do support my flop bet/call. That was fine. The turn should have been a clear fold.

Ah well, 400$ torched.

Despite the awful first session, I followed it up with 6 solid hours of cheapass shortstacking. I ended the day in the positive, and passed the 90k vpp mark that I had set for myself. Things are going pretty well.

VPP COUNT: 86803

This day was extremely boring. I’m sure shortstacking will make the swings much less swingy.

I just finished my 9th hour of play today, and I still have 1 400NL 6max table open, so I can hopefully stack one of the 2 massive fish who are sitting there. So far it has lost me a bit though.

The shortstacking is still going well. I’m probably around 18k hands logged, and doing pretty well. I had a bit of a downswing today, and pokerEV confirmed for me that my all-ins ran well below expectation. My “Sklansky Bucks” have just been a nice steady upwards line.

I am still a bit concerned that I am 1) Not stealing enough, and 2)not fighting hard enough for small pots.

Another issue is that I am getting close to my limit in terms of decisions/minute. I still average about 1200 hands per hour, and it is pretty clear that my play will decrease quite a bit if I try to push that any harder.

Ah well, I’ll continue to piss away my money at this 400NL table until the fish either bust, or I decide to sleep.

Oh, and in other news, I placed for 70$ in the 50k VIP tourney on Stars. I shared action with a friend, so it turned out to be 35$…goodie

VPP COUNT: 81548

So this morning, after studying up on the bit of shortstacking information, I decided I wanted to get a decent sample of SS poker. This will ultimately serve a few good purposes.

1) I’ll learn the shortstacking strategy myself, giving me another (easier) option to pull in a decent income.
2) I will know how to better defend against shortstacks, even though most of them have their heads up their asses anyway.
3) I’ll have a means of earning more VPPs/hr than I currently am, which will be great for a double vpp promo, or if I happen to fall behind at some point.

I also add my own little spin to the shortstacking strategy. If one of my tables happens to be extremely soft, I just buy in for the full stack and play it accordingly. My results today were amazing, and much of it was due to the fact that I was willing to full-stack against the weaker players.

I’ll be putting in pretty long hours tomorrow and Sunday, so I should hopefully be over 90k vpps by Monday.

Later, when I’m back at my computer, I’ll post up some of the ridiculous hands I participated in.

VPP COUNT: 77708

The first 6 hours I played today were just normal full-ring, full-stack poker. It all went pretty well, and I ended with a solid profit. I decided to shortstack 6max tables for the last 2 hours today, just to see what it’s like and start to develop a strategy. I definitely ran bad, but also need to learn to play better shortstack.

I only ran at about 14/13, which probably isn’t too bad, but could definitely do to improve. I am not used to being a shortstack postflop AT ALL. This is a major drawback right now, considering the shortstack is nearly unbluffable.

So I’ll occasionally put in a session or two of shortstacking, and just keep working on my game there. It will be more of an extra-curricular activity than anything.

VPP COUNT: 73256

Finally back up into “uncharted territory” as my overall winnings are above any point they’ve been before. As exciting as this is, I’m still a little disappointed with the hours (or lack thereof) that I’ve put in lately. Only 2 hours yesterday, and 7 the day before. Sure, life has been busy. Life will always be busy. I’ve got to start doing a better job of working around it.

I’ll be going out to dinner tonight (24th), so ideally I will have in 6 hours before dinner, and another 2 hours after. Today will be a little bit of a catch-up day.

VPP COUNT: 72022
Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were all pretty rough. According to PokerEV, I’m quite a few buyins below expectation. This is obviously giving me a big hit to my overall winnings. Fortunately, I am gradually working my way back up, and above that stupid break-even line that I’ve been below for the past couple weeks. It sure is a good thing my first week of SNE pursuit went so incredibly well.

I am now above 130 hours for the month, which is nearly a (monthly) record by itself. There are 9 days left in the month, and I should be well over my goal of 160. I expect to hit about 180 by the time all is said and done.

At the very minimum, I will need about 15k more VPPs to stay on pace for Supernova. My goal is to reach 100k by the end of Jan, and give myself a decent little cushion. 100k VPPs per month would be a perfect pace. This would leave me enough padding for my upcoming vacation/honeymoon, and give me the option of reaching 1.25m vpps by the end of the year for an extra bonus.

Mary has been back in school for a week now, and we’ve been adjusting decently. It is pretty much impossible for me to play poker while I’m babysitting though, because Sophy’s naps are rarely more than 2 hours. Mary is also in need of some kind of job, which would cause even more disruption in my SNE schedule. So many adjustments to be made… Ah well, we’ll work through it.

This hand is actually from this mornings session (Wednesday, 23rd) but I wanted to post it now, because it was pretty cool.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1983347
The other player in this hand lost a 1200+ pot during the previous hand, and I decided he was tilt-pushing. This is a very tricky situation, though. If I am in his situation, I like to fake a tilt-push if I happen to get a monster after losing a big pot. So it is difficult to tell if his play is real tilt, or faked tilt. Fortunately, my read was correct and I took down a major pot.

Rahr!

VPP COUNT: 67946

I didn’t update yesterday because I only put in 3 hours, and they weren’t all that exciting. I ended the day down a bit.

Today started absolutely horribly. I dropped quite a bit of money within a short period of time when I began my session. The rest of the day was just grinding it back. Still ended the day down, but in much better shape than I was before. The VPPs toward elite are nice too.

So far this year, I’ve averaged about 3.4k vpps per day including weekends. If I continue at this rate, I’ll be around 105k by the end of January. 100k/month was my target rate, and I’m happy with the way things have been going so far.

I have been putting in a very solid amount of time, balancing the household/family, and really not stressing out too much about getting in the hours. I started my SNE training on Dec. 19th, so I’ve been keeping up this lifestyle for a full month now – even through the holidays – I’m feeling pretty good!

In other news, I checked my year-long graph, and it looks like I’m in about a 80k hand breakeven streak. Oddly enough, I haven’t really been too effected by it. I had 2 massive downswing days last week, resulting in my biggest extended downswing ever. That downswing lasted until the 10th or so, and it has just been a gradual increase since then.

I’m going to my Dad’s for dinner tomorrow, so I’ll probably only be able to get about 6 hours in.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1970783
This is my biggest losing hand of the night. RobHunt1 was the table mark, running at about 60/20 over a short period of time. We both built up a decent stack, and this hand was the result.

The only really debatable move is the river. His play pretty much indicated that he had spades, or QT, or some other hand that got there. I could not make myself fold though. I figure he shows up with A7/AJ/A9, maybe even KJ/K9 a decent % of the time, and I’m getting 5:1 on my call. Just unfortunate that he hit his backdoor.

Ah well, that’s it for tonight.