ThePokerhaus.com

Yesterday I had a pretty sick day in sngs. I played 32 and profited in every single session but the last one. I made $541 and had an ROI of 47%. Through 204 $36 turbo stts I’ve profited $1,536, have an ROI of 21%, and most importantly, have a shark swimming next to my name.

So am I just on a heater or are these numbers sustainable? I’m not sure. The more I play, the more I learn. For example, I think in these lower limit sngs, theres a lot more variance than I expected. I think when you have people that are going to call your all in shoves with a really wide range, you’re going to have a ton of variance. I’m also learning that 90% of these players are just flat out aweful. People are stacking off the first hand with 2^nd or 3^rd pair. I think that’s a huge part of why I’ve been doing so well. I mean my numbers aren’t ridiculously good but I’d be more than happy with a 21% ROI and pulling in $50 an hour.

Doing this well has me thinking about moving up but I’m not convinced. First off, yes my bankroll is ridiculously too big for $36 9 mans but I have too many reasons not to move up. For starters I only have a sample size of 200 sngs when I need another 800 or so to see where I really stand. Second of all, I’m comfortable in the routine I have of playing 4 consecutive sngs at a time. Also, these players are extremely weak, I don’t know that the competition at the $60 level is going to be as weak. Lastly, I’m making $50 an hour, why not see if I can sustain that?

I hate to admit it, but I really haven’t put that much work into getting better at sngs. That’s what happens when you’re winning, you neglect to think that you could be playing really poorly. I haven’t gone through one hh or started trying to figure how to exploit people making loose calls of my shoves. I will say that I’ve watched some more videos and made some adjustments to my game but definitely not enough. I know I said before that I wanted to put a ton of work in and I didn’t but I really plan to this upcoming week. I just think it’s a necessary part of being successful in these sngs.

Don

I’m so pumped right now. The Boston Red Sox just clinched the American League East. They basically went wire to wire. The Sox were in first from mid April all the way till they clinched. I’m just so proud of this team because in September things began to go downhill but they stayed focused and faded the Yankees many attempts to catch them. When the Yankees would win the division every year I never really thought it to be a big deal but the way the sox won it with the win tonight and then Mariano giving up 3 runs in the bottom of the 9^th and the eventual walk off squeeze in the 10^th, its special. Not to mention this is the first time they’ve won the division since 1995.

Looking towards the playoffs the Red Sox will end the season with the best record in baseball and will have home field advantage in the first round against the Angels and also in the World Series if they can get there. This year I’ve followed the team a lot more than I have in previous years. I watched almost every single game and checked redsox.com at least once a day. I’m really excited for the playoffs to start to see what this team can do. The past 2 years since the Championship have been disappointing so hopefully the sox can make something  happen.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SOX

Don

Stts right now are a learning process for me. I think thats whats making them exciting. Granted they require little to no creativity but thats just fine with me. Figuring out a way to beat them has become a challenge which is making poker fun. I actually want to play poker occassionaly while a couple weeks ago I would because friends would ask to play with me or because I kept getting “Don how come you havn’t been playin lately?” Then again when I brick all 4 or cash in 1 of 4 for a loss of 90 bucks I go mental. I have zero clue why but sngs tilt me so much. I could actually turn a profit and I’m still disgusted. For example, I just finished up a “session” (4 sngs) and I had two 2nd place finishes for a profit of $35. Not too bad for an hourly rate, 40 minutes profit 35 bucks but I’m disgusted. Why? Well HU at 200/400 I shoved 9500 in the sb with JT and got snap called by the 4k bb with Q8o. I really need to work on my heads up game in that I need to figure out ppl’s calling ranges. Its really tough tho because I’m supposed to shove the JT so if I keep giving up that equity its gonna hurt me in the long run. But will it hurt me more than folding and not giving him a chance to snap call with Q8 and double up? I’m not sure. Its happened in the earlier levels too. Like with 1200 at 60/120 I shoveled with AQ and got snap called by QJ and again 10bb stack at 80/160 MP shoved KQ and got called by KJ. So I think I need to figure out a way that I can tighten up my shoving requirements while not giving up too much equity. Its a game of give and take.

On a sports note, my beloved Penn State Nittany Lions lost yesterday to Michigan. So gross. Dear Penn State, how onto the football. Kthnx

Also, do the Yankees know the definition of losing? Like wtf, yesterday once again another miracle comeback. Thank God the Red Sox made a nice little 9th inning comeback of their own to keep it at 2.5 games while they clinched their spot in the post season. I really wanna win the division though. I think it was either here or on FCP that I said that I would not count the Yankees out until we officially clinched the division and I still dont. Yankees are on fire right now and the Sox are falling apart, definitely not lookin good but hopefully we close out these last couple games and go into the post season ready to do some damage.

Go Cowboys

Don

I almost forgot what Mtts are because I’ve been playing just sngs lately. I’ve fallen into a routine; between the time I get home and 3:30pm I’ll get into 4 consecutive $36 turbo 9 man sngs on FTP. Sometimes I’ll play another set of them after 5pm but I usually dont. The total time it takes me from start to finish is 40 minutes. Through 100 stts, here are my numbers:

Average Profit $8.16

ROI 21%

Total Profit $792

I ran the numbers and I’m making $48 an hour right now. I’ve been doing a ton of research on sngs and have read every article I could although surprisingly there really is very little info out there on sngs and I’ve also watched 70% of the PXF and CR vids. From what I know, 1000 sngs is the point when you can accurately judge your results so maybe I’m just going through a period of good variance but I just found it kinda sick that I’m makin $48 an hour in 9 person $30 sngs.

I will say that if I bubble like 2 of the 4 sngs and only cash in 1 or dont cash in any of them I tilt pretty bad. At times I’m like damn this could be a really easy way to make a consistent income and other times I’m like wow I gotta be running like Kenyan to be puttin these numbers up. I’ve put a lot of work into learning how to play these stts but I’m just a beginner. I mean sure I’ve played stts before but I never realized how complex yet simple they are. I havn’t learned all the ICM bubble play or got SNG Wizard or any of those programs. I may do that in the future but I just wanna see how this goes first. I wanna sort of learn on my own some of the keys to the game. For example, peoples calling ranges in $36s are extremely wider than they should be. Now this hurts me just as much as it hurts them so I wanna start to figure out peoples calling/pushing ranges and see how I can exploit that. Of course my bankroll is way more than big enough to play the $60s but I feel comfortable in the 36s so I’ll see where I’m at in a couple hundred sngs and go from there.

Later

Don

In my last entry I wanted to mention some things that have happened since school started but I forgot. On the first day of school I got to talk to some people who I didn’t see over the summer. I got asked a zillion times how poker went for me over the summer.

I was put into a tricky spot because the truth is that over the summer I profited a little over 6 grand. Now if I tell everyone this they’re gonna think that I’m bragging and/or be pissed that they worked their ass off all summer just to make 1/3 of what this lazy bum playing cards in his pajamas made. On the other hand I dont wanna lie to them or tell them I lost money because I dont want them to think that I play poker because I’m addicted or w/e or to think that I’m horrible at it. Nevertheless I did go ahead and tell everyone who asked me about poker the truth and about the 5 grand I won one night.

Its interesting because everyone who asked was someone who doesn’t understand how online poker works. They dont understand the stress you go through when you’re stuck thousands and can’t seem to win or that I put in hundreds of hours working on my game before I won a tournament for 5k.

It was nice though because all my friends were really shocked and had a little more respect for the fact that I play poker and make money at it.

Couple funny quotes I got:

“Can you teach me how to play poker so I dont have to get up at 7am?”

“Is 32 a good hand?”

“Ok Don lets say you have QJ and the flop comes T98, is that good?”

“You had to play for 7 hours to win $5000?”

“What do you make? $250k a year?”

“Fuck school, play poker”

lololol

Peace

Double

No, not studying for school. Last couple days I’ve been studying sngs and everything about them. I’ve known for a long time now that the variance in Mtts is too big to have a somewhat consistent income where you know about how much you’ll win/lose in a given amount of time. Theres just too many factors that go into it that I dont really wanna get into.

Sngs however seem like they have the lowest variance of any form of poker. I’m still working on figuring out what a good ROI, ITM rate, and profit from them are but from the people I’ve talked to and the research I’ve done, it seems to me like they can be beaten for a consistent profit. I dont wanna get into too many specifics right now but I’m gonna fully dedicate myself in the upcoming week or so to learn as much as I can about sngs and play a lot of them.

Details to come

Double