Small Stakes Grinder

I’ve been a bit busy the past couple days sorting things out, both from an academic perspective and a life perspective. What I have decided to do is try to run all these projects like a business, combining my poker playing with my other side projects under a single umbrella. A new business? Maybe, that part I haven’t finished figuring out yet. But at the same time I have a healthy dose of things to work on:

• Podcast: OK, I might not have many (if any) subscribers yet because for some stupid reason iTunes’ “Submit a Podcast” link is eternally broken, but I had a lot of fun working on the first one and plan on making at least a couple more to see if continuity can’t garner some more hits. I have to host it off-site at the moment (which is lame but necessary because the bandwidth charges with my server provider can be insane), but you can subscribe to iTunes directly if you click this link. It will open up iTunes and download the latest episode. Again, you should check it out, I didn’t really proof it because the thought of hearing my own voice on the internet is still a little new to me, but any input would be awesome. On that note I do have a couple more topics to cover before hopefully I can get some user input:
  • Feburary 8th: How to not zone-out at the tables, both online and live
  • Feburary 15th: Table and Site Selection
  • Feburary 22nd: (In honor of the LAPC) How to get into a major tournament without killing your bankroll.
  • Beyond: Maybe get a second host, maybe be a little more funny, maybe learn to not have a bunch of pauses while I speak, etc.
• Live Hand Converter: Some of the folks on the pokerroad forums asked about this, and it honestly is a good point. Whenever anyone tries to discuss a live hand, all hell breaks loose because you just get a description of the hand without the neater online hand history version. I’m hoping to write something that emulates the 2+2 hand conversions by letting a live player input their information into a form and have it come out just like it does when you convert a hand history.
• iPhone/iPod Application: I’ve been fairly nebulous about this so far, because I am limited by the fact that while I know the language, I haven’t actually programmed anything for the iPhone. I’m hoping to combine the types of things that more seasoned pros take for granted (basic tips and strats, counting outs and odds, etc) and placing them in an app. You aren’t likely to be having your phone out and figuring this stuff out while you play (I hope), but it can come in handy when you are trying to evaluate your live play. So much of the poker applications that exist for the online poker player can definitely be ported for live play as well, you just have to make it compact, easy to understand, and cheap. The target price: Under $2, with the hope that I can partner with a site and they could stand to get up to 50% of the proceeds if it gets off the ground.

• I’m hoping the following features can get added.
  • Poker outs for Hold’em and Omaha
  • Poker odds for Hold’em
  • “Rulebook” for the 8-game games + Chinese
  • Preflop starting hand guidelines for loose & tight tables in FL and NL Hold’em (based largely on the work of 2+2 forum members, or anyone that would be willing to help me work on this, you would certainly be credited for your efforts)
  • Future: Pokerstove-like functionality (that would probably be a seperate app, maybe)
  • Easy Session Note Taking
  • Easy Live Hand History setup (the hope would be if you had access to the internet you could upload the hand to a database, otherwise you are just saving it for later)
  • Finally, a simple ICM calculator if you want to not just split a prize pool (because of chip disparity of whatever)

As you can see, I’ll be really busy. This on top of the project I volunteer for (which I am slowly but surely getting out of because even without this new work I’ve created for myself my days are too busy) and school work (which, yea, I’m staying in school like everyone else should), I’ll probably fry myself at some point.

Just not yet.

I tossed this around for a long time and I have decided that on top of the poker-related projects I have already in place (live-hand converter and iPhone poker app), I’m going to release a podcast based around the beginning players as we slog around the micros and small-stakes of poker. I might lump all this multimedia stuff under a single banner, I haven’t decided yet. Its something I’m really excited about, and I’m hoping after the rust has shaken off this can be a great podcast. I’m hoping to get a lot of help from poker communities I’m associated with, as well as feedback and thoughts I can use in future shows. My hope is to be more “influenced” by listeners in the sense I want to crowd-source my topics (outside of the first couple I already have planned out), and, well, just play it by ear from there.

Right now the email address with thoughts, suggestions, critiques is movingonup01@gmail.com. Hope to have the podcast out in the next couple hours after I finish recording the last segment.

Update: Podcast is up! Not yet on iTunes but at least you can check out the feed. http://spartanfox.podbean.com/feed/

Information for the two songs I played in the episode:

• Amoeba and their album Watchful: “Inside” Amoeba / CC BY-NC-SA 1.0
• Brad Sucks and their album Out of It: “Dropping out of School”    Brad Sucks / CC BY-NC-SA 1.0

So obviously I play live just as much as I play online. Online I’m struggling to get the urge to play, but live I’m doing fairly well. I have reached a point of my bankroll that I’m willing to take a stab at a “cheap-ish” LAPC tournament and if I lose, meh it happens, but if I win, that would be…well…awesome.

My options are few (only NL or Limit Hold’em) and my bankroll realistically can only take a $335 or below hit. Which leaves me with really only one tournament (assuming I can only play on Friday-Monday given my commitments Tuesday through Thursday):

• Event #18: $220 NL $250,000 Guarantee (Either 2/05/10 or 2/06/10)

Yea…nothing like realizing there is only one realistic event while I’m writing. I’ve got a week and a half to decide. Might take a crack at a smaller tournament at a closer casino to see if I can justify this move. Thoughts would be appreciated, I shall ponder this.

Here are the updates for when I was in the tournament of the WBCOOP Event #1. I think I played well until the last 10 minutes, were it just seemed like I flamed out for some reason. The last hand was a big cooler…but what can you do. Next event for me will be Event #3…where I’m going to be an hour late (oof) though I might be able to get out earlier if the meeting is short enough. Gonna need a break to cool off, then back to the cash games for me.

If you want to see prior updates, check out this link to take a look.

3:30 PM – NOOO! I’m out. Had on a board. Now What Yo raises to 800, i shove for my last 4.1k. He calls with and the board is as cruel as it can be. Turn is , but the river is a giving a full house to him. Out in 612th place. Need to rethink some of my plays at the end there, although that was getting all in for sure on the turn so I was definitely going broke 100% of the time on that hand.

3:26 PM – OK, time to refocus, ran into an overpair and now down to 4.6k.

3:25 PM - Bad time to run a bluff, right when someone hits a set. Down to 7.8k.

3:21 PM - There are 3 people with 10k+, myself, Brann6, and sprocket66 (I swear we are going to end up at the final table together somehow). Everyone else is much lower, it kind of shows.

3:15 PM – bannon7 is hanging by a thread on my table, I think 10 BB isnt enough to do the stealing we are doing. Finally lost our first sit-out king.

3:10 PM – The short stacked sitting out folk are getting into 4-7 BB territory. They will be out soon enough, in the meantime the three of us with actual stacks are gorging on the absence.

3:06 PM – OK, there is now only 4 players at this table that arent sitting out. As fun as this is, it makes deciphering people’s pre-flop raises that much harder.

3:04 PM - sprocket66 is getting some big hands. Mega raises the last few hands and showing down big ones.

3: 00 PM – Level 6 starts with 1026 players left out of the 1740 that started the event. Given that, its likely we’ll get down to roughly 500 players going into the second break. I’ve got $8235 at the beginning of the level, the most out of anyone at the table.

Hi all! Gonna be live-blogging it for this tournament. I might not be as good as the guys over at Pokernews or Pocketfives but I’m gonna give it my best shot. Blog entries will divide things up by hour and I’m sure I’ll write a better intro when we get to the break. (All times are PST)

2:55 PM – Hour 2 updates are here.

2:53 PM – Spazzed a few chips away with pocket 6s. Down to $8200 heading into break in a couple minutes.

2:50 PM – Victim of the earlier lucky double up shoved his remaining 600 with and got called by ONREIT with . ONREIT wins and is up to $7900.

2:46 PM – Well that was bound to happen. sprocket66 min-raises in middle position to 120. With the blinds both sitting out I figure I can call with on the button. Flop is , he bets 60, I just call. Turn is , min bet 60, I call. River is , he insta shoves, I need to find a paper towel and quickly call. I’m up to $8615. Sprocket got lucky on bottom pair all in and went from $800 back to $3600.

2:43 PM – Seem to be idling and trading blows with now for certain table-nemesis sprocket66. Our stacks aren’t really changing, he showed a bluff, but not much has happened other than that.

2:36 PM – Two people sitting out at my table. This is almost guaranteed an easy way to gauge your bad luck/bad play. If you are lower than the people getting blinded out…whoops?

2:32 PM – About to hit antes (didn’t realize this structure switched to antes so fast). 1294 players left with 1740 starting. My place is a bit irrelevant at this stage, but 153 get paid.

2:28 PM - YES! Got tired of getting 3-bet shoved by sprocket66, thought he was light and called with . Ran into but a board of sealed his fate and I doubled up. sprocket down to $5200 and I’m up to $4300.

2:25 PM – Lots of 3-betting starting to form. ONREIT three bets a tight player and takes it down with , getting a jack on the turn.

2:20 PM – diverjoules and sprocket66 get it in again on a flop of . diverjoules turned over but it couldnt beat sprocket66’s and sprocket’s stack gets even bigger. He’s up to $6400 now.

2:18 PM – for the 3rd time in an orbit. Turbo fold! Not much going on at the moment, things seem to have quieted down a bit.

2:14 PM – Of all the things I could be listening to, listening to old episodes of Pokerroad Radio. Listening to them is somehow calming listening to Joe Sebok lose to pocket eights for the xth time.

2:12 PM – D’oh! Let sprocket66 squeak by with bottom pair on a 4-flush board. Got it all back and then some next hand though.

2:09 PM – If I report on every all in pot I’m going to get writer’s cramp, but another one. This time on the river with diverjoules and sprocket66. Sprocket66 hit trips on the river to take it down then won another all in immediately afterward with pocket aces. Sprocket66 has $5780, I have $2140.

2:07 PM – aramos030 3-bet shoves $1300+ with and is insta-called by diverjoules who is holding . aramos030 sent packing after no jack hits the board

2:05 PM – Got our first all in on a :10c board with two callers.skillet went all in with and was called by ONREIT with . Board gave an ace to sweet the deal for ONREIT but not 3 for the 2 outer. ONREIT early table leader

2:02 PM – Take down the first hand I get in. Standard raise to 60 and cbet of 80. Turn bet of 180 takes it down on board.

2:01 PM – First hand in, and someone is already all-in. Everyone else folds. Seems like a standard freeroll to me.

So I did indeed get into the WBCOOP on Pokerstars, which means I get to compete for a bunch of SCOOP entries that I would love to get, if only because I can’t exactly afford a $1k buyin right this moment. There are 7 events, the ones I plan on playing are in bold:

NLHE – Monday, 1/25/10, 2PM PST
PLO – Tuesday, 1/26/10, 2PM PST
NLHE – Wednesday, 1/27/10, 3PM PST
NLHE – Thursday, 1/28/10, 3PM PST
8-Game – Friday, 1/29/10, 4PM PST
NLHE – Saturday, 1/30/10, 12PM PST
NLHE (Main Event) – Sunday, 1/31/10, 12PM PST

I can’t play the PLO or the Thursday NL event anyway because I have class, though in theory I could blind off in both events on my way to class…I again haven’t reached the stage I can just ditch classes (in other words, I haven’t found the lecture notes yet). Saturday’s event, while do-able, I won’t play because I need at least one day in the weekend where I can relax…at least during the day. If the tourney was later in the day (like 4-5 instead of 12), I’d be all over it, but 12 is just too early to be able to do anything else because I want to run deep.

I don’t know what the pace or the number of people there were in the last one Stars ran two years ago, but I hope to come away with at least 1 score, hopefully 2. I realize that means I cash in 50% of events, but I’m hoping the freeroll aspect of these tournaments allow some to call with really weak holdings and…well…they don’t cooler.

What I am excited for is the 8-game tournament. Lets be clear, the only game I have bothered to play up until this point is hold’em, so that’s only 2 of the games. But I think I can do relatively well in the stud games (that and I seem to do better in limit games, given my win rate in limit vs. no limit), and 2-7 triple draw is just badugi minus the need to have different suits. Which leaves…Omaha. Ah, the game that frustrated the non-gambler in me. With 5 minute levels for the 8-game, I only need to suffer through PLO and Omaha 8/b for 10 minutes every 40…but I didnt ever bother to learn Omaha. And…well let’s face it, the play money tables are an absolutely terrible way to try to learn how to play. I might try some 0.04/0.08 stud tables later this week just to try stud out, but omaha I might let be the game I just wing. Not gonna just fold every omaha hand, but I’m gonna be careful through it. (When my view count goes up significantly the day before the tournament and I seemingly always get raised in Omaha pots in the tournament, I will know why.)

Pokerstars has a World Blogger Championship that bloggers of all walks of life can take part in. While I’ve had my blog up since July, due to my own stupidity and an effort to refresh things for my (now defunct) $5-$1000 challenge, I purged all my blogs up ’til December. D’oh! Hopefully the Pokerstars gods can overlook my oops and let me in anyway, cause I dont think my site is important enough to have had a cache that far back…*starts crawling through the internet*

Hit a couple bumps in the road transitioning to actual full-time play (yay for school starting) but hopefully I will have better progress up ahead. I did come 8th in a FT $2 tourney…which while on pokerstars would have gotten me $100+, only got $28 on Full Tilt. Oh well, at least its something. I also qualified for the Meet Joe Cada weekly freeroll but as in all freeroll you have to have at least one “all in with 87o? why not!” player per table that I kept giving chips too, and never really got very far in that one. Still, tourneys seem to be treating me better than cash, but I can’t rely on tournaments for my bread and butter, and since I will likely need more than the occasional score to keep my livelihood going. (Unless I won a Sunday Million…which I would need either serious backing or about a $20k bankroll, neither of which are happening anytime soon.)

So cash it is. 10NL until I can get the rest of my roll on Stars, then 25NL.

EDIT: Ha! Proof that I at least had a post in September (no I am not desperate to get into 7 freerolls for SCOOP events): here

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 510177

I’ve done a lot of stagnating in the past couple days, partially because of other things to do, and also because I started thinking about my future a little bit. My poker bankroll is larger than the amount I have on Pokerstars, but most of it is cash for live games. Since I don’t seem to go to casinos nearly enough for it to matter, and while this challenge is a good way to practice bankroll management and solid play throughout the micros, I have decided to put it on hold in favor of building a bankroll/lifestyle out of the money I have. As such, I’m throwing a little more than half my bankroll into Stars, leaving a token amount to play on FT tournaments (my bank makes it not worth requesting a cashout due to the fees I would have to incur), and some still around for a few buy-ins to tournaments and ring games at the casinos around San Diego.

My goal was Supernova status and that certainly hasn’t changed, even if the BR challenge has. I may reset it in the future knowing that in less than a week’s worth of played hours (I think it came up to a total of 30 tourney hours (not including over laps) and 20 cash hours), I was able to go from $5 to $50, and I probably could have done better knowing what I know now about limit hold-em and having more time now that the holidays are over.

My goals now are a little more robust though (I expect to complete all of these by mid-2011, but if I can get it all done in 2010 that would be amazing):

• Get Supernova status 2010, maybe try for SNE in 2011 if my bankroll is solid enough to warrant it
• Qualify for the WSOP ME via satellite
• Either play in the WSOP Circuit event at Harrah’s Rincon (not the ME, one of the side events) or one of the $1k “stimulus” events in Vegas
• Post a win in an online tournament when the buy in is $20+
• Get my game up to a solid win rate in 10, 25, 50, 100 and finally 200 NL, having 50 buy-ins by the end of the year for 200 NL, ideally more, but factoring in for my own cost of living.
• Maybe if I’m bored…erase that 5NL deficit on PTR, but only after the rest of this is set.
• And…just in case that wasn’t enough…possibly get a poker internship for the WSOP if money is not an issue (meaning I don’t need to get a summer job because I’ve made enough money to make myself comfortable…and I mean very comfortable)

This is obviously a lot to go for, but honestly I’ve found when I’m in the zone I can post some mean wins, and most of the time when I lose I could call exactly what my opponent has before I (rather stupidly) call the shove, and well, that’s a huge leak that I call anyway, but hopefully some poker training can alleviate some of that.

I’ll be grinding some 10NL on Stars for the time being to try to get my bankroll up to a more bulletproof number than the 20 buy-ins most aggressive BR builders suggest. I’m trying to be in it for the long haul. See you at the tables.

-Mark “Spartanfox” Gahagan

Day 25 was a wash because my girlfriend came home and I had a lot of errands to run as a result.

So I’m rolled for 2NL finally, and took a dumb luck beating in the first 100 hands. Realizing that this wasn’t working out, I decided to take a chance and start playing 20FL because, lets be fair, the pots are just gonna be bigger in 20FL than 2NL and I’m almost at the level to play that anyway. Well…here’s how it went:

Day 26 Complete
Win/Loss: +$7.96
Cash: $51.11
Stakes
SnG: $1.20  (6 tables)
Cash NL: 0.01/0.02 (8 tables)
Cash FL: 0.10/0.20 (4 tables)
Tourneys: None

I’m feeling a LOT more confident about playing more tables now. I 8-tabled on Friday and didn’t have any trouble at all keeping up (I think I did time out a couple times when I was focusing on a big hand, but I’m sure that happens.) My fear with multi-tabling wasn’t necessarily that I was going to get owned, just that I wouldn’t be able to keep up. I feel like I solidly debunked that so for the near future I’m changing my table formula to this:

(Current Buyins – Starting # of Buyins) + 2, with a current max of 8 for cash, 6 for SnGs, 4 for Tourneys.

Tomorrow I start my much longer sessions, and hopefully while I do not expect to post the 40 BB/100 blitz I did today, that I can be consistent and possibly post a $15-20 profit minimum at the end of the 5 hours. Figure $3 hour and 200 hands per hour comes down to 7.5 BB/100 which is, while high, not outside the realm of possibility given how I’ve run in limit thus far.

Day 24 Complete
Win/Loss: +$6.31
Cash: $43.15
Stakes
SnG: $1.20  (2 tables)
Cash NL: 0.01/0.02 (3 tables)
Cash FL: 0.05/0.10 (8 tables)
Tourneys: None