FeARFaCTs Poker Blog

I had some big aspirations going into the month, and I don't think everything played out as I had planned. For one I know I didn't play nearly as much as I should have. Most of this I attribute to just falling into a hole healthwise, and being generally unproductive. I did invest some of my time into learning Day Trading, but clearly did not play enough with only 66hrs under my belt. My winrate and hourly rate did drastically improve from December and January though. Although my December data is incomplete, my hourly rate was roughly 14.6 BB. January ended up being only a minor improvement at about 15 BB/hr. February was a decent improvement with 18.5 BB/hr. This is also interesting to note because December consisted of primarily 20+ tabling, while February was mostly 8 tabling. Even though I significantly cut my tables down I was able to improve my hourly rate.

There is a break even patch at the start of my graph, but this stretch included a few 16+ table sessions. I think I would have had a much nicer looking graph overall had I just stuck to 8 tabling from the get go. On a positive note, I did achieve a minor goal with my non showdown winnings being far less negative in comparrison to my January graph. This was primarily due to the fact that I dropped tables and started playing better poker at each table. My winrate ended up being only 4 buyins under EV, which is better than 15 under last month.

All in all I would say I greatly improved my skill levels this month and learned a lot. I think this is evident in my drastic increase in winrate. For March I plan on rededicating myself to the game again and getting more hours in while still maintaining a strong winrate. I also do plan on finally playing more 200nl which has been long overdue.

The month is almost over so I decided to take a peak at how this month is stacking up to January. I'll save most of the details for a later post, but one thing that stuck out was that I've played less than 70 hours this month, as opposed to 130 hours last month. This is really unacceptable and I feel like I didn't fully utilize this month to increase my overall abilities. While I did invest some time on the stock market, I think a lot of that time wasn't all too productive and ended up being an overall waste. I also know I wasted a good week updating code and content on my blog, which is something I will avoid doing next month.

That being said, I'm also finding it much harder to play 8 boards than to play 20 boards. This sounds ridiculous at first, but I think it's much easier to robotically play 20 boards than it is to really focus on making strong reads/decisions on 8 boards. I'm finding myself worn out sooner and playing less hours a day than I used to pull. Some of this may be related to how completely unhealthy I've been this month, which is another thing I'm going to focus on in March.

My lack of health seemed to be a common theme among my posts this month. As I've realized this, I ended up spending most of the day yesterday reading about sleep/energy theories and planning out some routines to begin. A goal I've had for the longest time is to be able to sleep for 5 to 5.5 hours a night and be 100% functional the next day. As of last week, I've been sleeping around 10 hours a night and have been around 50% functionality during the day. This has also been detrimental to my ability to play poker, and probably a big reason my motivation has been so low this month.

As of today I'm going to start working towards getting 5.5 hours of sleep a night; ideally sleeping from 2am to 730am every day. To achieve this goal, I've started to work out 2-3 times a day, every day. Mostly just quick workouts, which includes a 10 minute jog right when I wake up. There's a lot to it, so I'll probably post more later depending on how well everything goes.

Poker today went fairly well today, minus the potential spew I had in one of my last hands of the day. Although a few of my hands from today look awful, I still feel I'm beating 100nl at a great rate and plan on hitting 200nl hard on Monday.

Just wanted to make a quick update because I'm getting hammered tonight and I'm not sure how much I plan on playing tomorrow. Was planning on doing a 4+ hour session today, but got off shortly after 1 b/c I was running pretty bad and wanted to take a break (first hand in Other Hands annoyed me so much). My VPIP/PFR were also much lower than usual so I figured I wasn't too focused either. At the end I was down a buyin, but ended up stacking some retard in my last hand and basically broke even. Ran another buyin under EV tho so fml! :)

This past weekend turned out to be another total disaster for me. I was waking up at 3pm every day and had no clue what was going on. I even forgot about a $50 poker tournament on Saturday that I had already bought into, so great.

I was up at 9am today and checked out the market until noon. I found some decent spots to make a few %, but was waiting on a good one where I could make 6%+, finding nothing. I should have 25k in by Friday, but if I can make 6% in 1-2 trades I'll be all set before then.

Later on poker I started off feeling completely exhausted. Wasn't sure if I was going to last too long, until I turned on the angry music. After that I woke right up and played a fairly solid game. I ran about 13BB/100 over 2k+ hands so I'm happy with that result. I did have a decent amount of hands posted from this session since I seemed to be getting into a bunch of odd spots.

Barely played any poker this past week. Fell off the grid for a while due to a terrible sleep schedule and lack of eating regular meals. Ended up getting a few hands in today but really lacking the focus and motivation to play hard. Might just 20 table 50nl and make some easy money while I'm struggling to get back into the groove. I did start to get back into things yesterday by forcing myself up at 9am on weekdays. I also did this cool thing today where you move you legs forward one after another, kinda like walking but at a faster pace. If you do it for like 10-20 minutes your body actually starts to sweat which is pretty wild. Who knew you could make water by just moving your legs back and forth a bunch of times? It seems painfull and unrewarding at first but I would recommend that everyone try it at least once, I had fun.

I spent an insane amount of time making a hand history displayer for my blog, and ended up going way overboard which was just a really stupid waste of time. It's basically finished though, I just need to set up a comment system and I'll start posting hands on my site instead of on LP.

I checked out this new poker tool today by www.spadeit.com. It basically scans all availible tables on PokerStars against your PT/HEM database and returns filterable results. This basically lets you see which tables have the highest VPIP, and it lets you weed out tables with too many short stacks. I thought this was the greatest thing ever at first, but after using it for about an hour just realized that it was completely impractical. It takes about 3 minutes to run a scan on all availible tables, which is annoying if you want to open a new table immediately. The results also get outdated within 10-15 minutes as tables are constantly changing, requiring you to run another scan. Also on that note, as tables can change dramatically over the course of 15 minutes anyways, it's almost pointless to constantly be switching tables around.

I ended up cashing out a huge chunk of my bankroll so I can get $25k+ on E*Trade and start day trading. I took a hit the other day due to the fact that I can't openly trade yet and it just irritated the hell out of me. Since I currently have less than $25k equity, I am only allowed 3 day trades a week without getting shut off from trading. Because of this I am trying to get the most value of each of those trades. I found a good spot on Thursday and was up $400, but ended up losing all of it and another $1k because I held the stock for too long. I know I would have just gotten out when I figured I should have if I was allowed to make infinite trades, but I got greedy with it since I am only allowed 3 a week. There's also been other spots where I would have made a purchase and made a decent amount of money, yet I didn't want to jump in since again I'm only allowed 3 trades a week and didn't want to waste any.

As for poker, I guess I was doing pretty decent today but ended up taking several beats at the end, getting off soon after. At least I am getting better about bouncing after taking a hit, because I know I would have started making terrible tilty plays after losing a few stupid hands. Either way just wasn't focused on winning.

As some may know, I've been starting to get more and more into day trading. Everything about it is very similar to poker, which is probably why I'm finding it so interesting. Anyways, I was up early this morning and decided to do some quick research to possibly find some good spots for the day. I ended up finding a few interesting prospects, the main one being Sirus Satellite Radio. I don't claim to know a ton about day trading, but anytime I've ever seen a stock surge in the pre market it almost always tanks hard when the market opens. After the plunge levels out, the stock shoots back up to where it was at open, making for huge potential gains over a short period of time. As for Sirus, it was up roughly 30% in the premarket, which is an enormously large amount. As I predicted, the stock opened at +30% and quickly dropped to being up only +10% since yesterdays close. I put my buy order in as soon as the dip leveled out, and so began my journey epic wonders.

My first mistake was great. Sirus' price was so in low that E*Trade requires you to type in the amount you want to buy it at, rather than just clicking buy and getting the market price. The current price at the dip was .081, so I entered in .082 thinking this would be suitable. My order was denied, because you can only go back two decimal places when typing in a price. I had no idea what was going on, and couldn't figure out how to buy the stock. I didn't want to just put in the next highest number of .09, since I wasn't sure if it would just buy at that price, or buy at the next available price below that range. I eventually just ended up typing in .09 after 2 more rejections, and finally got a buy order to go through. Unfortunately, the stock had started rebounding so fast that by the time I got my shares, the price was already back up to .088. That's a 7% price difference all within a timespan of a minute, AWESOME!

I was a little irritated, but at least I got an order in when I did, as the stock shot up to almost .099 over the next few minutes. I bailed ship once it started leveling out, and sold at .0985 making a quick 11% gain. It good money on the $20,000 I dumped into it, so I guess I couldn't complain too much. Although, I noticed my balance page was showing that I had only made $200 and not $2000. At this point I was like, 'WHAT THE @#$! ARE YOU SERIOUS???'. I couldn't understand how I was only up $200 when I bought 22k shares at .088. That's when it hit me, and I realized I was much dumber than anyone could have ever imagined. When I initially figured out how many shares I could buy for $20,000, I had thought the price was .82 and not .082. Amazing.

This was incredible, because not only did I buy in late, but I also bought in for only 10% of what I initially intended using. I was a juggernaut of success with no stoppage in sight. At this point, I decided I should check my final gains after commissions and fees, just to make sure everything else went through smoothly. Oh yes, it gets even better from here. My final profits ended up being only $85, because I had been charged roughly $130 in fees. Usually it's $20 to buy and sell a stock, so I was just charged $110 more than what was expected. Naturally, I was elated.

I guess when you use E*Trade Pro you have the option to either automatically route your orders for free, or have them manually routed for a small fee. I decided to open up my order status window so I could see how my orders were routed. My sell order was processed as AUTO like it normally is, but my buy order read as ARCA. Coincidently, the ARCA button is RIGHT NEXT to the AUTO button, so I couldn't figure out for the life of me what had happened. My amazing ability to maneuver a mouse ended up costing me a cool .005 cents per share. Not a big deal when buying a higher priced stock, but Sirus' price was almost completely bottomed out. My total profits from earlier ended up being .0105 per share, so this third debacle cost me about half of my earnings.

Even though it was only 1030am, I was completely fed up and wrote off the rest of the day. I did manage to play some poker in the evening and ran as incredible as I always do. I had one great hand where an opponent called a 100bb preflop shove and won with T5s, which is new to even me. My focus just wasn't there for the rest of the session and I got off before any real damage was done. Tomorrow should be a good day so hopefully I get some more hands posted. Long story short though, I hope E*Trade gets AIDS.

Was a little bit lazier this week on the poker than I wanted to be, but I did get a decent amount of playing in so far. Lost track of time one of the days and ended up working 8+ hours updating this site. I think it looks a bit nicer now but not I'm sure if it was worth an entire days worth of work (lol). I've been having some good sessions so far this month and continue to play around 18/14 on 8 tables. My post flop play and 3betting theory is improving, but I still have a lot of work to do on those areas. Hopefully I'll be able to play all day tomorrow, because I would like to rack up some more playing time.

As for law of attraction, it's an interesting theory that has been around for a long time but recently became more well known from the book/movie, The Secret. I like these weird kind of theories and do believe there is a good amount of varacity to this one. Basically it says that everything in your life has either been conciously or subconciously attracted to you by your own actions. In terms of poker, I'm starting to wonder if I'm law of attractioning -EV to myself! Really though, I run 1+ buyins under EV every day, without fail, and would be rather pleased if I just ran even for a while.

It's moreso at the point where I just laugh at it, but I still have a very negative outlook on the entire situation which probably needs to change. I'm considering putting a few posters up in my room that say phrases like, 'YOU RUN LIKE A GOD IN POKER!'. It may sound funny, but hey it might just work too and I'm willing to try just about anything at this point. Also, my bedroom would obviously be ten times more badass than it already is now after hanging a few sweet posters up.. so it's pretty much a win win situation.

Ended up having a good day today overall. I really only had one hand that I felt was worth posting in my main hands section. I went back over my big hands from the day and the few bigger pots I lost were just coolers.

Earlier I had a realization that I'm not focusing on my tables nearly as closely as I need to be. I spent most of today really paying attention to all the little details and staying away from AIM/random web browsing for the most part. Overall I think I played very well, much better than I have in the past. I'm still working on my post flop play but I think it's coming along.

Unfortunately I have to work in the Guard again this weekend so I'll be off of poker until Monday. I ended up putting in 32 hours this week, which isn't that bad considering I lose this weekend and last Sunday was the Superbowl. I've also been bouncing back and forth between 100nl and 200nl, depending on how I feel. I'll probalby make a full switch to 200nl by the end of the month, but I'd like to cash out another $10k or so beforehand.

Near the end of my session I got into a war with this total psycho who ran like a God vs me. I posted most of these hands, which is why I have way more posted today than I usually do. I ended up down $60 against him, but he ran something like 2 buyins above ev on me in the 6 major hands we had.

I relaxed a lot from yesterday. I think I was just on massive life tilt and probably shouldn't have played. Put in a decent sized session today and did a little better, but I'm still noticing a lot of leaks I have.

Yet another day of running absolutely terrible. Really not possible to consistantly run under ev every single day. 200nl went ok, but I'm thinking I might grind one more month at 100nl before moving up. I'm really getting too stressed out to be focusing on only a few tables. I'm also considering playing 6max after this month. Full ring on few tables seems so uninteresting and nitty to me.. but maybe I just need to loosen up myself. Either way I'm probably going to grind 100nl for a bit longer and make a decision after that.

Made a move to 200nl yesterday. Having decent results so far yet I don't like how I'm playing at all. Overall I am probably playing 16/12 here and I would like to get back to 18/14. I might just need a few more days to get used to the limit again until I start settling down more. I've also had some completely terrible plays, so I need to focus a bit more on my game.

Yesterday I ran a few buyins above ev, and today a few below.. so it evened out for the most part. Overall I am up a few buyins now, but I should be up a bunch more had I been playing better. Table selection is also much harder at 200nl. There seem to be far less tables availible with higher waiting lists than at 100nl. I'm also seem to be having trouble avoiding short stacks more. I'll probably bounce between 100nl and 200nl a bit when I don't think the 200nl tables are as playable as I would like them to be. Overall the play is a bit more aggressive, and I'm having a few more problems getting 3b. I'm staying focused and making decent plays.. but I think I could be playing more optimally rather than giving up to 3b's so much.

As for the hands I'll post.. some are absolutely terrible. I've had a few moments where I had no idea what was going on and just made an eratic move. Other hands are a bit better. In general I think I continue to run slightly bad.. but we'll see what happens over the next week or two.