Something Like Poker

The trials an tribulations of an aspiring poker professional.

I just 4-tabled $0.5/1 LHE on Full Tilt for a little over 2 hours with some good results, and I’m about to take a short break before getting back to the action.

My session started off well, and I was quickly up 40 big bets. However, things started to turn around a bit, and I had a distraction at home that took my focus away from the games for a bit, which certainly didn’t help. As a result, I ended up being down 10 BB’s for a little while.

I continued to grind it out though, and my hands started holding up more frequently, and I was pairing more cards than I had been during my very short downswing for the day. This helped me to get back up more than 47 BB’s for the day, for a total profit of $47.55 over 757 hands (6.28 BB/100 hands). Below is a graph of today’s progress thus far.

As it stands, my stats for the day are 32% VPIP, 50% attempt to steal blinds, 54% won at showdown, and a total aggression factor of 2.42. Between yesterday and today, my stats stand at 32% VPIP, 47% attempt to steal blinds, 54% won at showdown, and a total aggression factor of 2.27. If nothing else, I’m pretty consistent so far. However, that’s not necessarily a good thing.

I no doubt need to work on my hand selection and cool down with how many hands I’m raising pre-flop. There are too many times when I see a middle suited connector (JT, 98, etc.) in early position, and I raise it thinking “okay, just this once”. The problem is that I do it the next time I get that hand too, and I’m more inclined to do it if I haven’t seen a playable hand recently. Fortunately multitabling helps to prevent this, but I know I’m still raising too many hands. (I’m also raising hands like T8o when it’s folded to me on the button, and I probably should not be doing this as often as I am, if at all.)

I plan on refreshing myself on hand selection to help instill those concepts in me. The problem is, though, that while I still have a generally good grasp on what I should be raising and folding, I have a tendency to not follow this after awhile when playing. This is especially true when I’m facing crazy opponents who I know raise almost every hand, betting every street whether they have the nuts or 4-high. That kind of play encourages me to stay in pots with them when I have a weak holding (middle pair for example, sometimes A-high), which can sometimes be detrimental. I need to focus on bettering my play in such scenarios.

Update: I logged about another 2.5 hours at the tables tonight. I started with trying two successive $3+0.30 90-player SNG’s; however, I busted out of both relatively quickly. As such, I ended up 4-tabling some more .5/1 LHE. After another 724 hands, I won another $52.35, which brings my daily earnings up to $99.90. At a rate of 7.23 BB/100 hands, this brings daily average up to 6.75, which is about a 7.5% increase from earlier. Below is an updated graph for the day.

Since depositing $400 onto Full Tilt two days ago, my account balance is just a few pennies short of $570. Once I reach $600, I’ll be comfortably bankrolled for $1/2 LHE. However, I may try to work my balance up to $700 first just to give myself a little extra cushion — I haven’t decided for sure yet.