PWN3D!!!

[16:24] beset: well dude. i have good/bad news
[16:24] therempel: yeah, what's that
[16:24] beset: i played some LHE last night
[16:25] beset: at the casino
[16:25] beset: :(
[16:25] therempel: w00t
[16:25] beset: only had 8k hands left too

Weak 1: Anal Fissures

And so the first week of the bet has finished. I started with $250 last week and promptly lost $100 on the first day. I've been playing $25 PLO and $25 and $50 NLHE on Party for the last week but due to some health issues related to my recent decision to quit smoking I have had some issues with long term concentration. Basically I play for a few hours and everything starts to run together. It's getting better over the last few days and I should be more alert by this weekend.

I've played 2500 hands of $25 PLO and netted a big fat $150, or about 12 PT BB/100. Not shabby, less than normal. For whatever reason the PLO games on party have been nutty as hell lately while the same games on pokerstars seem to be cracking off. I never bothered to get poker tracker for hold'em (I will soon), but I've made roughly $160 over 1500 hands at the $25 and $50 levels, both full ring and 6 max. There is some goddamn attrocious play in those games.

Can't get the converter working, but here's an example:

Seat 1: Hero (Small Blind) ( $86.90 )
Seat 3: UTG ( $11.30 )
Seat 4: UTG+1 ( $22.50 )
Seat 7: MP3 ( $6.30 )
Seat 9: CO ( $34.55 )
Seat 10: BUTTON ( $24.50 )

Hero posts small blind [$0.10].
UTG posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 9c Jd ]
UTG+1 calls [$0.25].
MP3 calls [$0.25].
CO raises [$0.75].
BUTTON calls [$0.75].
Hero calls [$0.65].

Pretty loose call OOP here on my part. Sometimes you just have to take a flier and if you never showdown a mediocre hand you'll have difficulty getting paid off when you're strong. At any rate, I was getting 4:1 on my money for the $0.65 call so I don't think it's terrible. I'm looking for two pair minimum in terms of a showdown hand.

UTG folds.
UTG+1 calls [$0.50].
MP3 calls [$0.50].

** Dealing Flop ** [ 9h, Jc, 2d ]
POT = $4 - rake

Hero bets [$2.50].

Banzai! Top two pair, a decent sized pot, and opponents that will call with underpairs. I bet out because I want to play this pot to the river against my calling station opponents. I bet out relatively strong because they tend to equate a strong bet with a weak hand. I would make the same bet here much of the time with a draw as well.

UTG+1 folds.
MP3 folds.
CO folds.
BUTTON raises [$11.30].

Boom! What does this mean?

On a previous hand, I had raised his flop bet into a T84 board with my AT. He reraised me and checked the rest of the way with his JT. I had a niggling feeling that he would have put his entire stack in if I 4 bet him on that flop.

Hero raises [$32.60].
BUTTON is all-In [$12.45]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 7c ]
** Dealing River ** [ 4h ]
Hero shows [ 9c, Jd ] two pairs, jacks and nines.
BUTTON doesn't show [ Qh, Qc ] a pair of queens.
Hero wins $11.35 from side pot #1 with two pairs, jacks and nines.
Hero wins $48.95 from the main pot with two pairs, jacks and nines.

Man I hate his play here. Beset likes to defend fairly loose calls some donks make in these games by saying "that call is usually correct at that level". Sure, if you aren't paying any attention to you're opponents. This guy made the fundamental mistake of no limit play... he went broke because he tried to get tricky preflop and outplayed himself. I can't imagine what he thought I could have that he was beating when I 3 bet him on the flop.

So with hands like these and as much PLO as I can play on stars as soon as I get some money transferred over, my BR should grow signifigantly over the next few weeks.

Current Bankroll:

Original Stake : $250
PLO: $152.33
NLHE: $161.98

Total BR: $564.31

Unfortunately, as lame as this is, it is the holiday season and I find myself having to decide between buying gifts or filling my stomach, so I have cashed out $200 out of my bankroll. I will not be making any more cashouts barring rent difficulties until mid January.

So the real Total BR: $364.31

DAY 1: AND SO IT BEGINS!!!

I can't deposit until tomorrow, but Beset transferred me some money on party to get started. -$100 playing $25 PLO in 90 minutes of play. W00000000000000000000t!!!

Give him money to eat, then next week he's broke

Beset and I like to make prop bets to motivate each other. As he posted, I made a bet that he can't play 30,000 hands of 100 NL Full Ring without playing any other game at any other limit, including MTT's and SNG's. This is harder than it sounds.

As turnaround, we've made a bet that I can't deposit and make $50,000 in by June 30th. I have a rakeback payment of roughly $400 coming in mid to late december, and will be depositing roughly $300 next week. If I make $50K by April 1st, Beset owes me $1000. If I make the $50K by June 30th, it's $500. Alternatively, if I make less than $50,000 but more than $25,000 I owe him $500, and if I make less than $25,000, it's the full $1000.

Is it possible?

Here's the plan:

6 Table $25 PLO on Party for 2-3 Weeks, approximately 40 hours a week, hopefully ending up with roughly $2500, which is the minimum BR I require to play $50 PLO. I will then play up to 6 tables of $50 PLO (Full Ring, my 6 max BR needs to be roughly $5500, no joke.) until I have the $10,000 I need to play my style in $100 games on both Stars and Party. If I can get to this point it should be smooth sailing. The real issue is whether I can play $25 and $50 PLO for nearly two months. It's an aggravating grind. There are very few decent players at these levels and not much room for outplaying your opponents after the flop. Once I hit $100 PLO I should be able to make $2000-$3000 per week running at 10BB/100. This is a conservative estimate but given how I've been running as of late it may be overly optimistic. After that I merely have to play until I have $20,000 or so and move up to the $200 games. Playing four tables forty hours a week (160 table hours) I could run fairly bad (4-6 PT BB/HR) and still just squeak in.

We've been fucking around with bankroll requirements lately, using the formula:

ROR = exp(-2*BR*WR/VAR)

Ideally you want your ROR to be as low as possible. I am willing to accept a 1% ROR but I have built in an additional factor to allow me to drop down if necessary. At any given time, my bankroll will be the total amount required for me to have a 1% ROR at my current level, plus the amounts necessary to have the same ROR at all lower levels.

For instance, if I want to play $100 PLO I know I need about $8000. My variance is uber-high in this game. To play $50 PLO however with the same risk of ruin, I only need about $1500. That's a huge difference. 30 Buyins vs 80! My $25 PLO stats tell me I need only about $500 to have the same one percent chance of going broke so the total bankroll I need according to my plan for $100 PLO is $500 + $1500 + $8000 = $10,000. Seems like a lot, but I like to push very small edges and get a lot of money in whenever I percieve that tiny little marginal value.

The time off has been going well. I haven't been doing much but it's given me a lot of time to get away from the game and just relax in a normal (well, close to normal, probably 3 sigma's out) life for a while.

I will be posting my results on a weekly basis. Wish me luck, you fucking assholes.