More NL100, and thoughts at month's end

All told, I haven't really played much for the past couple weeks, as I've been more concerned with spending time with my family, and because of the fact that I've been ill and not sleeping very well. Every time I sit down at the computer to play, I find myself a little drained after an hour or so, and my play is suffering.

That said, the time was right to take a shot at NL100 and so far it's gone very well. I'm up about 4 buyins after 1,000ish hands. My PTBB/100 is 19.97 so far :)

I'm certainly glad that there are still people like this idiot at the NL100 level, lol.

And for that matter, even though it's a beat, I'm glad there are people like this guy, too. What a dumbass. Yeah, that preflop call makes a lot of sense :)

All in all the month has been much more successful than even I'd imagined it would be, having moved up two levels despite spending the first half of the month in the doldrums of breakeven at NL25. Combining tournament and cash game wins, I broke $2000 on the month, and while that's not exactly balla status, it's enough to pay my bills.

I think that might be it for the month and year for me, as I hit my iron man status (woot woot, $100 bonus) last night.

I have no plans whatsoever of stopping at NL100, either, and by this time next month I hope very much to be rolled for, playing, and beating NL200. I think, if that level proves beatable for any substantial BB/100, I might stay there for a while and work on making next year a 6-figure year.

Specific goals for January:

1) Crush NL100 for 5+ PTBB/100 for as long as it takes to move up to NL200 (roughly $4k bankroll on Full Tilt).

2) Begin playing and beating NL200.

3) At least $1k in withdrawals while maintaining a Full Tilt bankroll of $5k+.

4) $4k net profits for the month.

5) Minimum of 70k hands played.

6) Net positive in tournaments.

I'm as convinced as ever that this is something I can do. Despite the numbers not being that large overall (yet), I'm absolutely certain that this is what I want to be doing for the time being.

NL100 Shot

Whee!

Enjoying NL100 for the first 300 hands :)

Biggest pot was the cracking of AA with JTs. I open raise to $4 from the HJ with Tc Jc, the SB min-reraises to 8, I call. The flop comes 3d Td Th. Woot :) SB cbets pot, I raise to $40, push, instacall. I had to sweat a diamond on the river, but it didn't hit. Woot :)

Now I'm actually properly rolled for the level, and should be in good shape for January. I'm now approaching $2k for the month.

Something tells me the 49.59 PTBB/100 won't quite be sustainable, though.

Early morning session

Cranked out about a buy-in this morning, in just under 500 hands. Play wasn't impeccable but it didn't have to be. The tables were really pretty nice. Sleep has been tricky this past week at my brother's, and I didn't sleep at all last night. Gonna try to squeeze out some winks before noon and hit Friday night hard, perhaps taking a shot at 100NL.

Bu-yah

Total stats for the day, overall, was +$312.20 over 1,620 hands, all at NL50, for 19.27PTBB/100 and an hourly rate of $78.71 over just under 4 hours. Of my 14 sessions today, 13 of them were winning (and my one lost session was for -$3.10, oh nos!) I'm finally (although just barely) out of the red for the trip to my brother's, and hoping to continue the rocket ship ride upward :)

I felt my play was pretty impeccable in my late session today, and overall play at the tables was pretty terrible, lots of 80%+VPIP's. Running 14/11 as i've opened my game up just a tad in late position. I'm pretty sure it's helping.

Post-Christmas rush

Play on the tables has been uniformly pretty bad over the holidays, and I'm finally catching an upswing on the variance. My favorite went as follows:

Here was the big upswing hand:

Dumbass stacks off with TP on a scary flop.

I got lucky that hand when I rivered the set, but villain made an atrocious call preflop, in my opinion, and a river call that was even worse. My shove was because I was 90%+ sure he didn't have the made flush, as he has to know I'm checking behind on most boards.

Bleah

Weak evening session tonight, leaving a ton of money on the table mostly through two asinine mistakes. At least one superfish at 4/6 of my tables at all times, including an 86/6/1.4 that rebought several times.

The big mistake was a hand where I 3bet a weaktight raiser with J9s from the button (standard), he called, and I bet out on a 25J flop. He called, the turn was a 5, check check, and the river paired my 9. Up against this guy I was about 90% sure I was up against an overpair, but with 2pair bet for value, failing to notice that the 5 was paired below me on the board. Whoops. The weaktighty had KK, which sadly didn't surprise me at all. Poof to almost one full buyin.

The other big mistake was a hand where the SB raised 2 limpers from the SB, and I popped him with Ad Ks. Everyone folded to him and he called. The flop came Qs 9s 9d, he checks, I PSB a cbet, he calls. Turn 5s, check check, river 7s, he fires out $25 and I call with the 2nd nut flush. He had As Js. I should have known.

The only other play I question was one where a known weaktighty open-raised the button, the SB defended, and I defended in the BB with 9h 7h. The flop came 3c 8h Th giving me a straight draw. Check, check, and the BB bet out $3 into the $6 pot. The SB raised to $9, and I pushed all-in. The button folded, and the SB instacalled with As Ts, a $38 call into a $72 pot. The turn and river bricked and he dragged the pot with TPTK.

Villain's call of the shove was horrible in my opinion, and not just because I was bluffing. I think most players at NL50 fold to this shove even with TPTK, and some will fold most overpairs as well. Additionally, I think that most players in the SB's position will CR any flop that made any contact with that flop, hoping to catch the button in a weak cbet, so I may have pair outs in addition to my straight outs. I wouldn't even think about calling with AT in this situation.

I'm sure my shove there is +EV against a random villain, but still debating whether it's more +EV than a call. I put villain on some kind of pair hand most of the time here, and flat-calling allows me to rep a ton of scare cards that can come on the turn (essentially any overcard, club, or straight finisher. The only problem there is if the button decides to shove the flop instead of fold, the percentage of time that he's folding an overpair. Getting the button to potentially fold an overpair there (I would fold AA in the button's shoes there, probably 100% of the time) is very valuable, since the SB is going to imo be c/r-ing light in this spot light very often. And even when he shows up with a set, I do still have outs :)

After the hand the button wouldn't stop giving me shit about my "donk play". I told him "play a few 100k hands at this level and maybe you'll understand it." What's fun is the fact that so many of the self-styled experts at the level have a playbook so impossibly weak-tight. I had the bad luck of running into an unknown that was a complete donkey, but hey, I'll know better next time - he certainly got a note.

Interesting Hand

Played a very short session tonight but it went very well.



A couple of fun hands:

Whereupon our hero successfully induces a stupid desperation river bluff, using a flop donk bet to flip his opponent's retard switch.

Whereupon KK finds its way into the hands of a blithering idiot.

Whereupon AK high seems a perfectly reasonable hand to stack off with (after misplaing preflop).