SilverStar

So I was sitting here grinding away at the tables again (surprise surprise) when the following popup appeared on my desktop:

Interesting; this isn’t exactly a big deal, but it does allow me to play in some tournaments for free.

I’ve decided that I’m going to publish some stats here about my play, both to keep me honest, but also to talk a little about poker on this blog.  The challenge to myself is to build up a big enough bankroll to fully fund my entry into one or more events at WSOP 2009.  I know, I’m dreaming.  But what a dream!

So generally speaking, I’ve been told, and have read that you should expect to earn about 1-2 big bets per hour playing limit poker if you’re better than your opponents.  This means that at a $5-$10 table, I can expect to make $10-$20 per hour IF I’m better than my opponents.  That’s a big IF.  Having started with a measly $200, I’m now up to $687.18 after almost 1000 hands, at 10 hours, 46 minutes.  Now the data is skewed simply because there isn’t enough of it; 1000 hands isn’t even close to enough to come to any kind of conclusions about my play.  Still, $487.18, at about $45/hr isn’t a bad start.

Here’s my profit graph:

Generally speaking, you don’t expect to win every time you play, so your graph is going to be up and down, but hopefully, generally climbing up and to the right.  During my first couple of hours of play I went way up, and then became discouraged with a couple of hands that, well, I had a great chance to win; I remember one time starting with pocket aces, and flopping a set (3 of a kind), ony to be beat by somebody who hung out to make their flush.  So that first climb, followed by a dip was frustrating, but certainly expected.  Overall I continued playing strong hands and ended up making money.

So I’m wondering if I should put a value on my goal?  I believe the women’s event at the WSOP is $1500 buy-in.  I don’t see myself playing in the main event; it’s such a huge gamble with so many people playing in it.  I like the smaller, less popular events where skill makes a bigger difference.  If I wanted to play in 2 or 3 events, I would probably need about $5000.  So that’s my goal, to make that amount before next summer.

Wish me luck!

Oh – since I’m being open, I should point out what I learned today.  :)  According to the software I’m using to rate my play, I’m probably playing a little too loose – it shows that I’m playing 23% of my hands pre-flop.  That should be around 15-20%.  I believe I’m not being selective enough about playing suited connectors and Ace-X suited (e.g. Ace-5 suited, or Ace-7 suited – basically any ace with another card of the same suit).  Both suited connectors and Ace-X suited hands lose more than they win, so it’s good to be more selective.  Playing around here at the card rooms, you can more or less get away with playing those hands more frequently because it’s easy to dump post-flop when your hand doesn’t hit, but you also tend to play better on average to make up for it.  Still, it’s a mistake and I need to correct it.  I think that in order to play those hands, I need to look for opportunites where the pot is large enough to make up for the losses; in other words, only play those hands when, say you’re in late position and 4-5 people have limped in ahead of you.  Then there’s enough money in the pot that if you actually DO hit your hand you stand to make a lot more money, and make up for the times when you miss – which of course, you’re smart enough to dump the hand in those situations.

Let’s see, I’m not dumping my hand early enough when it’s a losing hand.  Basically, I should be winning 60% or more of my showdowns, and I’m right at 54%.  This means I’m going to the river more often than I should be.

I’m not aggressive enough pre-flop according to the software.  I’m not sure I believe this one, but as I said, these stats aren’t really as accurate as I would like; I need thousands and thousands of hands in order to build a more accurate picture.  I’m pretty sure that on average I’m a lot more aggressive than many of the players I’m up against, but I’m certainly open to being corrected on this.  This is actually one of the difficulties in playing online.  At the cash games, I can watch people who are going to act after me, so if I have a raising hand, but I can see out of the corner of my eye that somebody looks anxious to raise, usually this is indicated by them preparing chips – I can just limp in (call the minimum bet) in order to trap them – let them raise for me, so that I can come from behind with a check/raise.  That’s a lot easier to do in a live game than it is online.

My stats also show that I’m too aggressive post-flop.  Again, I’m not sure I believe this, but the more hands I play the more accurate this will become.  It might be that I’m overplaying pairs by raising and/or check/raising on the flop.  I’ll keep watching this behavior.

The stats that I’m generating are so interesting!  By hand type, it shows that I’ve lost $127 with high card; what this means is that I’m overplaying Ace-King, probably by raising preflop and then raising again on the flop, even if I don’t hit my ace or king.  I can probably slow down a little bit with those.  With a single pair, whether pocket pairs or pairing the board, I’ve lost $14.

Now here’s where it gets interesting.  With two pair, I’ve earned $117.  With sets, or three-of-a-kind, I’ve earned $550!  With straights, I’ve earned $243.50.  With flushes I’ve earned $110, and with full houses I’ve earned $146.

So by and far my biggest winner is three-of-a-kind hands.  It’s interesting because 3 of a kind is the most frequent earner – you don’t get straights and flushes or full houses enough.  It will be interesting to see how these stats change over time.  It was a surprise to me to see that pairs have been a losing hand for me.  It’s also telling that I’ve lost $127 with nothing more than overcards (usually Ace-King).  I can tighten that up a bit, I think.

In all, it’s been a great start!  I think the investment in the software I’m using for play analysis is great.  Even though I know that these stats are a little inaccurate due to the small data set, it still feels good to have made a few bucks.  :)

A new (old) home for the Ringleader

So I’ve pretty much maintained that I enjoy playing live poker more than playing online.  I think I’ve changed my mind.  Finally.  Here’s the thing:  I feel like I have a better opportunity to read people, to interact with them and get more information for decisions when I’m playing live.  I admit that I like the social interaction; although, as a wise friend once told me, the people I play poker with are much more interested in my money than my friendship.  :)

I’ve been out sick for the past 4 days, and naturally I turned to my old favorite online poker site, PokerStars.  Funny, after I first signed up on PokerStars, I decided that I wanted to play just enough to get the FPP (Frequent Player Points) to purchase a jacket.  After that I went back to brick & mortar casinos.  This weekend I’ve generated enough FPP to buy another jacket.  Except this time I’m going to save up for the leather jacket.  It’s really cool.  :)

But as I sat there in my bed with my laptop, tearing up the PokerStars tables, suffering from a cold I probably caught from somebody who had their grimy hands on my chips before I did, I realized that this is where I should be spending my time.

There are several advantages to playing online:

• You don’t have to tip a dealer.
• You get more hands per hour to play (more hours equals more practice, and hopefully more money).
• You don’t have to expose yourself to the dirty, disgusting chips that everybody has touched
• You have a wider variety of games to choose from ($5-$10, $10-$20 limit for instance).  Around here, I’m lucky to get $4-$8 – usually I only get to play $3-$6.
• You don’t have to listen to donkeys telling you that pot odds don’t matter in limit games, or why they think you played the hand wrong.
• You can watch a movie or distract yourself with a book or something while folding your bad hands.
• There is software available to help you track the habits of your opponents, and let you know what your exact pot odds are, etc.
• You don’t have to fear stopping by the ATM after leaving the casino to deposit money.

Really there are so many reasons I could probably go on.  Now I’m not in any way advocating playing for real money.  Except I think that the law is stupid, and being a responsible citizen who is concerned about how much control the Government has, I have the responsibility to stand up against such laws.  But that’s another story.

Another really nice thing about playing online is that I can run analysis software to watch my play, and give me statistics I can look at, in order to find problems in my game and work on them.  I went ahead and purchased two programs this weekend:

Poker Academy

This software is really great.  It let’s you practice against a variety of players, ranging from really good to really bad.  You can even create your own “bots” to play against, so if you happen to live in an area where the players are really unpredictable and are likely to raise with just about anything, you can create that scenario and practice against it.  You can also import your hand histories and run analysis to find weaknesses.  It’s really great software.

Poker Office

I was a little ambivalent about this software when I first heard about it.  It runs side-by-side with your poker software of choice, and watches you and your opponents.  It keeps track of the amount of money in the pot and the bet amounts.  It shows you instantly the rank of your hand, and tells you whether you have pot odds to draw to something that (hopefully) will beat your opponent.  You really have to know what you’re doing in order to use the software.  I find that I use it to make difficult decisions – so for instance, do I have pot odds, and if so – who am I playing against?  It ranks my opponents from poor to really good, and maintains histories of your opponents – so it really gives some great information that helps with those tough decisions.

So I’ve found a new (old) home.  If you see me at the tables, say hi!

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