2 Small Sessions

Well the first graph below was from a late night (early morning) session from Wednesday. Just a small one, so I didn't bother even posting for it until now. And the next was from tonight (this morning). Nothing too exciting, basically grinded out a small profit of $2.48 (total for both sessions).

Double Session Night

So I guess I was about due for a downswing after my last few great sessions, about time variance caught up. Basically the standard stuff, people peeling second and bottom pair on both the flop and the turn, then hitting their trips on the river. Quite a few BDFDs and a few FHs over FHs (I'd flop a set, they would turn two pair and river a higher boat). Needless to say I got up and took a break from it for a little bit. Graph below.

Return to sender: $2.20.

After a break for a few hours, I hit the tables again and ran a little better. Made $5.27, netting me $3.07 for the night.A thought from my LIMIT poker sessions:
I find it kind of funny the way some people must think. I mean if you're calling a preflop raise with A6o (especially OOP, like in the blinds) then what are you hoping the flop looks like? Especially in a 2 or 3-way situation you are either badly dominated or going to win no money.

Basically even if you consider the full ring raising raise of 'some' person to be AA down to 88 and AKo down to A9o you can't really call with a hand like A6. If you hit your A, you won't get paid by any hand that you beat (hopefully). You can only lose a large pot to a higher-kicker Ace or win a small pot from a pocket pair. That's why in full ring at least (I don't claim to be knowledgeable in short-handed LHE), this is such an easy fold.

Now even if they are thinking "Well, I'm going to try and hit my ace cause he has a PP and I want to defend my BB!", then when a flop of 10 10 6 comes, why are these people seeing this to the river? "Oh look 2 pair, top kicker", and instantly they are putting their opponent on the opposite (and the only) range they beat, namely AK, AQ, ... (which means they shouln't have called with A6 in the first place!)

Of course I'm playing the micro-stakes and probably very few opponents are even thinking at all about what the other guy has. But I see this happening so frequently I had to share my thoughts. I guess this kind of stuff is what makes these stakes so easy.

Most Profitable Session Yet

So I was 17-tabling tonight. Definitely not recommended. I found it very hard to concentrate and most of my decisions were not based on anything except what I was holding and my position. Luckily I ran very well and ended up netting my most profitable session yet. Also ran at just over 20bb/100! No sample size of course, but still nice. Made $10.19, Graph below.Ship.

And for those that are into hand histories; here's the largest pot of the session:

PokerStars Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (10 handed) - PokerStars

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, 10

UTG calls, 2 folds, MP1 calls, MP2 calls, 3 folds, SB calls, Hero checks

Flop: (5 SB) 8, 10, 10 (5 players)

SB checks, Hero bets, UTG calls, 1 fold, MP2 raises, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets, UTG calls, MP2 caps, Hero calls, UTG calls

Turn: (8.5 BB) K (3 players)

Hero bets, UTG calls, MP2 raises, Hero 3-bets, UTG calls, MP2 caps, Hero calls, UTG calls

River: (20.5 BB) 6 (3 players)

Hero bets, 1 fold, MP2 raises, Hero 3-bets, MP2 caps, Hero calls

Total pot: $2.85 (28.5 BB) | Rake: $0.10

Results in white below:

Hero had K, 10 (full house, tens over Kings).

MP2 had 9, Q (one pair, tens).

Outcome: Hero won $2.75

lol microstakesaments

Sunday Sessions

Did a few sessions today, taking a break in between each, ended up +$9.12 for the day. Graph for the day is below.This brings my total profit to $31.19, and starting balance up to $70.42.

First November Session

So after posting the October Summary I decided to play a small session. Good start to this month so far! +$2.64
(Note to self: Don't blog and play at the same time (the first half of this I was writing the October summary))

As per a request in the comments:

PokerStars Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (9 handed) - PokerStars

Preflop: Hero is BB with 9, J

UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, 1 fold, MP2 calls, MP3 calls, 2 folds, SB raises, Hero calls, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, MP2 calls, MP3 calls

Flop: (12 SB) 6, J, 3 (6 players)

SB bets, Hero calls, UTG calls, UTG+1 raises, 2 folds, SB 3-bets, Hero calls, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls

Turn: (12 BB) 9 (4 players)

SB bets, Hero calls, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls

River: (16 BB) 9 (4 players)

SB bets, Hero raises, UTG calls, 1 fold, SB calls

Total pot: $2.20 (22 BB) | Rake: $0.10

Results in white below:

SB mucked K, K (two pair, Kings and nines).

Hero had 9, J (full house, nines over Jacks).

UTG mucked 2, 4 (flush, nine high).

Outcome: Hero won $2.10

October Summary

With October having ended now, I've decided to post a summary of the month. Now I only started on the 24th of October so I don't have many days played for October, but here is the graph anyway:Not very impressive, especially the big swings at the beginning, but its hardly a large enough sample size anyway. I definitely think I can do better in November. As for the stats:Again, not really a large enough sample size to make this relevant, but I wanted to show it anyway, for completeness. As you can see I netted $19.43 for the month. This brings my starting balance to $59.67. Still a little bit to go before I can move up to 0.10-0.20 LIMIT!

A Good Night II

Tonight's session was equally good as last nights. Again, I only 8-tabled (roughly) and had some exceptional results. Netted $7.93 for just over an hour of play.I definitely have had great results (and more consistent) when I 8-table or less. I may stick to this for the time being if the results keep up the way they are.

A Good Night

So I started off tonight with a 30 minute 13-tabling session and ran horrible. I basically got sick of it and ended up cutting the session short with a net loss of $2.38.I took a break for a while, but decided to come back later in the evening. This time I only 8-tabled and was using my laptop monitor 10.5" (as opposed to my 21" LCD). I put in about 1 hour and 20 minutes of this and started to feel tired, so I stopped for the night. I did very well this session and made $8.22. Just a note about the graphs: The scales are adjusted automatically based on the max/min values of the graph. So while the loss above and the gain below look somewhat similar, the gain below is about 4x as high as the loss recorded above.A good night indeed.

Downswing + Breakeven

Started off with a downswing this session and couldn't get in the green for the life of me. Ended up grinding breakeven for the rest of the session, and ended down $3.10.

I've uploaded the graphs a little smaller, hopefully they are loaded a little better for smaller resolutions now.

Solid Session II

Another nice session. Just a short one (1hr). But I managed to build up $5.86 this time. For those keeping track, that brings my profit to $8.76 since I've started.
This was a 15-tabling session BTW. So I think I finally got the hang of it (just took some getting used to).

Solid Session

This was actually the only session from today. (I was a little late posting those last two sessions). Anyway, I felt really focused today and it showed in my results. I was able to 13-table running just over 7 BB/100 for a nice $6.31.
This session puts me back in the green, but I'm still behind from that horrible session a couple days ago. Still grinding away...

Feel Good Session

I decided to calm myself down almost immediately after that last devistating session by 10-tabling. Only about 40 minutes though. Add $1.73.

More Tables = More Profit?

So I attempted to see how many tables I could successfully play at these stakes (0.05-0.10 LIMIT Holdem). I ended up trying to 15-table for about an hour with no success:

I'm a little rusty I'll admit, but this seemed pathetic to me. I could tell that there were times when I couldn't properly make a decision due to time constraints. I definitely won't try this many again until I get some more practice. This session cost me $8.55. Yikes!

First Session

My first session's graph is posted below. It was a short session, I only played about 600 hands, but I was multi-tabling with a MT Ratio of 9.24, so an hour and a bit of play.

It was all 0.05-0.10 LIMIT holdem, full ring games.

I made $3.41 this session. I felt like I played ok, but its late and I'm tired so I probably made a few mistakes this session. I didn't really table select or wait to post blinds or any of that, at these limits I just open up every table PokerStars has available and play.

I'm currently running at 5.46 BB/100 but I think that I may be over expectation, I'll have to play more hands to find out. Also, my plan is to stick with 0.05-0.10 LIMIT holdem until my bankroll reaches $100. However I may decide to mix in some 0.10-0.20 LIMIT tables when I reach the $75 mark.

Just a note on Bankroll Management: When playing these micro-stakes limit games, I plan on playing limits where I have no less than 375 Big Bets in my bankroll, and will tend to stop playing a limit once I reach 1000 Big Bets for that limit. Obviously since I started with $50, I'll probably only go half-way with this goal for the first blind levels (+50 --> $100) before I move up.

First Post

This is hopefully my first post of many. I'd just like to start out by saying this is also my first blog so it'll probably take some time to get used to posting pictures, etc properly.

So the purpose of this blog will be to document my online poker playing. I'm going to start out with a bankroll of $50 CAD and see where I can take it. I will be using PokerTracker to track all of my online play and I'll be playing exclusively on PokerStars.

I deposited my $50 onto Pokerstars in CAD$. Because of the exchange rate I'll have a starting bankroll of $40.24 USD.