February feels like a waste of time

[frob23]

If I have a goal for March it will be to not spew so much and play shorter sessions. I played a couple 5+ hour sessions here which ended up being mostly spew. You can see them pretty clearly on the graph. This is mostly 4nl but there is some 2nl, 5nl, 10nl, and 25nl mixed in there... I played a little of everything.



The month started out great but then I ran into some brutal beats... tilted a bit... spewed a lot... my redline suffered a lot the later part of this month. I was playing with a lot of stations at the 4nl tables and was just working on taking them to value town and not stealing a lot of pots. But there were a couple regulars that I should have been working on stealing from more often. There are some players, most that I have notes on, who are pretty easy to hand read and take pots from post-flop. But I lost some of my confidence because of the run-bad and just stopped trying in those spots and waited for big hands. That probably extended my plateau and hurt my monthly winnings.

This is why that "The Mircos" line where he talks about playing massive numbers of hands but not getting anywhere hit home for me. Sure, I'm up 15 and a half buy-ins for the month... but that's over 26k hands... it feels "blah".

[travz21]

Sure, I'm up 15 and a half buy-ins for the month... but that's over 26k hands... it feels "blah".

That's a better winrate than like 99.9% of people that play the micros. ~2.5BB/100 is good stuff. Just play more hands for the month if you want to win more haha.

[frob23]

Thanks for the encouragement.

I think the real trick is to stop after hand 7,700 and take the rest of the month off. Then again, thanks to rakeback, the rest of the mostly "break-even" month wasn't actually break-even at all and pulled in a nice chunk of change. If I add everything together I increased the bankroll by about $220ish... I'm not going to sit down now and add it all up but it's close to that.

The really sick thing is when I looked at my summary page (in PT3) for the month... the average ptBB/100 for all players was -7.4 -- this would be the effect of the rake itself. It's hard to grasp... the idea that you have to beat that kind of hurdle (a +7.4ptBB/100 win-rate) just to break even. So I made myself feel a little better by pretending I had a 10.4ptBB/100 winrate [before rake]. LOL

[grimReaper]

I want to play more hands this month too. I'm creating a side bet:

http://www.rakeback.com/poker-forum/...2385#post62385

[frob23]

Wow... 100k hands in a month? The sad thing is that I believe you can do it. I know you have that kind of dedication.

[grimReaper]

I'll try anyway, regardless if no one accepts the bet. I only got in 32,000 hands in February.

[DannyG13]

I'll try anyway, regardless if no one accepts the bet. I only got in 32,000 hands in February.

That's because it's a shorter month. If there was 30/31 days, you would have definitely hit the 100k.

[Squawk]

A waste... you don't know you're born

27k hands played, total profit, $1.11, 0.68BB/100

$60 paid in rake. OMG!!!

I lost $50 in a 4000 hand section, other than that I have a constant upslope graph. Unfortunately it seems I tilt faster than I make profit. 4k hands at 5nl, most of my profit earned back at 2nl, back to 5nl for the last 4k hands and I'm winning again

[frob23]

That's ok, I started this month out dropping 7.5 buy-ins over 3k hands... just insanity... oh well, early in the month. And I am getting 1.1 buy-ins back just from the rakeback. But it still hurts.

[Squawk]

That's ok, I started this month out dropping 7.5 buy-ins over 3k hands... just insanity... oh well, early in the month. And I am getting 1.1 buy-ins back just from the rakeback. But it still hurts.

Bonkers init. I'm $35, 7 BI's up over my last 2k hands at 5nl, 14.82 BB/100 , and during the same period I'm 5 BI's up over 10k hands at 2nlm 2.65 BB/100

Wish I could sustain the 5nl winrate for the next 10k hands, I could move up to 10nl

[Squawk]

So how's your March been so far Frob? 1/3 of the way through the month, lets see ya graph

[frob23]

LOL... you don't want to see my graph right now. 19k hands... and running 0.3ptBB/100.

The sick part is my swings this month are insane. Sadly, my current swing is huge and downwards. LOL... but two days ago I had a +11 buy-in afternoon. Then the last two days... I've lost like 16 buy-ins. It is a lot of sick stuff. Sure, some of them are marginal spots but I win those are often as I lose them. The bad hands are things like flopping the nut straight against someone with top pair and a back-door flush draw... and the flush coming in. Flopping the nut flush against a set... getting 80% of the stacks in by the turn... river pairing the board -- have to pay it off anyway, since it could be other hands.

Or three times today, I have a player with 3k+ hands in my database... he 3-bets from the blinds 19-20% of the time (20% SB, 19% BB) and has an overall 3-bet of 16%. So... absolutely crazy player. Get it in pre-flop... me on the BTN with QQ.... him in SB with AA. Get it in pre-flop... me in the SB, him in the BB... me AKs... him KK. Later... it was me with JJ and him with AQ... he hit the Q. All those were pre-flop. Granted, 4-bet shoving JJ might seem crazy at these stakes but not when someone is 3-betting that lightly.

Anyway... the last couple sessions have pretty much demolished my profits for the month. But it will come back. And thanks to rakeback, I am well in the black. I think I am nearing the 10-11 buy-in mark for rakeback this month. So that's nice.

LOL... I really should have made a video today. It would have blown your mind. The sick thing is, 80% of the stacks I lost... I had a big hand worthy of playing for stacks. The other 20% was me pushing a marginal edge or the rare bluff that didn't pan out because I kept running into the top of everyone's range. Stuff like firing 3 streets on a scary board -- and with outs up until the river -- and finding the person had called all the way down with an under pair to the board and hit their set on the river... to make their hand strong enough for them to find the call button. Granted, I never expect to fold someone when that happens but damn, it happened left and right today.

Still... another day another dollar. I'll get it back. I've had downswings before.

Edit: OK... PT3 is officially starting to piss me off. This is the second time in the last 30 days that it's randomly decided to stop tracking in the middle of an extended session. I don't know how many hands that I played before I noticed and ended the session... but the numbers in there are missing $10.01 (which is a buy-in) that I managed to pick up between the time it stopped reporting when I noticed. Oh well.

[Squawk]

Oh dear, blasted variance. I know what you mean about that call button, I had a guy get a buy in from me yesterday, calling me down two streets at pot size (after a 3bet pre from me) with a gutshot, which naturally he hit on the river. Had to call his raise all in, pot committed after the turn (which I hadn't shoved cos I was hoping to take him to value town). Oh yeah, just remembered, I hit a flush on the flop in one hand and slow played. Board paired up on the turn, then paired up again on the river... Fold

Then again I hit a perfect card on the river to get 2 buy ins off others yesterday, so I can hardly moan. Nice upward curve going this month, 13BI's off 14K hands.

Is it possible to track rakeback in poker tracker? Would be quite useful if so, I tend to guess it as 22-23% of the rake I've paid (27% on full tilt using that weighted system of theirs), but it would be nice to know it accurately. PT tells me I've paid $48 in rake up to yesterday. Not including yesterday I've had just over $7 rakeback, though I put in 4.5k hands yesterday so probably another $3 or so for a total of $10. Couple of nice free buy ins, wub rakeback.

[frob23]

I don't know of any way to calculate RB directly in PT3. I don't even know of a way to show rake by the contribution method; although, I swear I saw it once but I may have been hallucinating.

I am at an advantage, when it comes to calculating rake paid and rakeback after each session though. I have been putting in the majority of my hands on Nordica (Merge network) because they have a raked hands race and I am working towards placing in it again this month. Well, their point system is directly tied to rake paid. You get 10 points for every $1 in rake paid... 6.5 points for every $1 in rake if you have rakeback (since they give you 35% back). The points are directly tied to the amount of rake they keep from you. They also have a "points ledger" which you can look at, on their webpage, after you close the client, which will tell you how many points you earned that day. So I can just do [ (points / 6.5) * 0.35 ] and I will have a good idea of what to expect. Then, to reduce my margin of error even more, they pay it nightly. So the rakeback I earned playing yesterday hit my account around 1am this morning.

So far this month, I have $96.18 in rakeback. So right under 10 buy-ins. I also cleared the $10 bonus I got from being in the 11-20th spots in raked hands last month... and I am slightly up in money actually earned by playing (even though PT3 is missing a buy-in). So it's not great... but it's not horrible either. I know for some people here, who play 50nl+... these numbers are pitiful. But I enjoy playing the stakes I do. And when I play this low, every penny counts.

When it comes to the contribution method, I find my contributed rake falls somewhere between my "rake" (as reported by PT3) and my MGR. But you might not see the same thing since MGR depends on how tight/loose you are playing compared to the average other people at the tables.

Yeah man, a couple free buy-ins can be a world of difference at times. 13bi over 14k hands? That's a nice solid winrate... still a small sample but nice. Keep it up.

[travz21]

Go to this if you want your contributed rakeback stat from FTP...https://www.pokertracker.com/forums/...p?f=18&t=31145

[Squawk]

Yargh, been a good month thus far. Two suckouts went in my favour, KK vs AA which I won when K hit on turn, and one the other day where on the turn I had a set of aces and a draw at the nut flush when I got it all in, turned out the other guy had a slow played flush from the flop (having called my opening 3bet with 57s...). I hit quads on the river (and I bet he hit the roof). Nearly rolled for 10nl now.

Downswings are probably inevitable at some point or other, but I can be proud while it lasts.



Clearly our numbers aren't going to impress serious players Frob, too small a stakes, but keep winning and we move up eventually. I saw in the full tilt rakeback challenge that someone managed 25k for Feb. Blows my mind. If I was rolled to generate that much rakeback I'd quit poker and go live in malibu (where I'd probably start playing poker again...)

[frob23]

Go to this if you want your contributed rakeback stat from FTP...https://www.pokertracker.com/forums/...p?f=18&t=31145

Woohoo!!! While I don't strictly "need" this, I want it. I'm going to try and set it up when I get home.

[Squawk]

Go to this if you want your contributed rakeback stat from FTP...https://www.pokertracker.com/forums/...p?f=18&t=31145

Oooh, a shiney. I want

Thanks for that, gonna have a good read through in a bit

[frob23]

My cache is currently updating... that will take like an hour, if I know from experience. But I'll know soon enough. I'm very excited about it. Travz... you're the man. I've wanted that for a while but never thought to go look for it. Just assumed it didn't exist.

[travz21]

Yeah, you can find quite a bit of stats on pt3's site.

In fact, I saw an author of one of the stats was Max Weiss. Didn't he just join our writing staff here? Or just the same name, different person lol.