Chemical Imbalance

NOTE: this is the second, and last repost of this offer.
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Hey guys, I have achieved certain goals that I have set for myself as far as poker profitability, skill, and game understanding are concerned. I have been playing poker as my sole source of income since I was laid off at my job in finance two summers ago. At that time, I was playing NL50, which made it a less than ideal time to start, to say the least. Since then, I have played significant amounts at up to NL600 online and up to 5/10 NL live and have gotten to the point where my poker income and my confidence in my ability to improve are such that I do not intend on seeking another job. I use the extra time and freedom I have thanks to playing poker to pursue my two main hobbies, which are competitive swimming and writing. As a mandatory part, here is my graph over the past 150k hands:




As of right now, I will be offering lessons to players up to NL200 6-max. I will focus on correctly using opponents' tendencies and detailed stats to identify ways to exploit them. In the process, I will also take a look at what stats the student uses and make suggestions as to how optimize their HUD and which stats to pay attention to. This will apply to making plays that many players, especially struggling ones, at NL200 and below have trouble with, such as floating, 3betting, responding to 3bets, multiple barrel bluffs and value bets, as well as making correct folds.

At this time, I will be doing only individual lessons and lesson packages, though that may change later. I will set my hourly rate in subsequent posts. For now, since this is my first coaching offer on this site, I will offer a first-time special. I am offering one two-hour session for $100. We will start off with a short discussion of the student's game and areas that he or she wants to focus on during the lesson. After that, we will do an hour-long play session where I will observe the student play. We will conclude with a final analysis of the session with specific attention given to the areas the student wanted to focus on at the outset. If we run over the allotted time, I will obviously not expect any additional payment. Finally, if the student wishes, I will offer another one-hour session for another $50, either right then or at a later date, where the student can sweat me 4-tabling their stakes and commenting on my play.

Since this is a good offer as far as poker lessons go, I will not pick the student on first come first serve basis. Instead, I will pick one person from those who respond to this as well as those who have already responded to my previous post.

If you are interested, send me a PM and include the following:
-What stakes you play (up to NL200) and a brief summary of your poker history.
-Your own honest assessment of how you are doing.
-Your poker goals for the next few months.
-What you hope to gain from the lesson.

Finally a few administrative details:
-The lesson will take part, preferably, early in February.
-Payment is due immediately before the start of the lesson. I will accept Stars or Full Tilt transfer.
-We will use Skype to talk and screen-sharing software so that I can see what you are doing, so make sure you have a microphone (duh).

PM me if you are interested.

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Comments (3)

Hey guys, I have achieved certain goals that I have set for myself as far as poker profitability, skill, and game understanding are concerned. I have been playing poker as my sole source of income since I was laid off at my job in finance two summers ago. At that time, I was playing NL50, which made it a less than ideal time to start, to say the least. Since then, I have played significant amounts at up to NL600 online and up to 5/10 NL live and have gotten to the point where my poker income and my confidence in my ability to improve are such that I do not intend on seeking another job. I use the extra time and freedom I have thanks to playing poker to pursue my two main hobbies, which are competitive swimming and writing. As a mandatory part, here is my graph over the past 150k hands:




As of right now, I will be offering lessons to players up to NL200 6-max. I will focus on correctly using opponents' tendencies and detailed stats to identify ways to exploit them. In the process, I will also take a look at what stats the student uses and make suggestions as to how optimize their HUD and which stats to pay attention to. This will apply to making plays that many players, especially struggling ones, at NL200 and below have trouble with, such as floating, 3betting, responding to 3bets, multiple barrel bluffs and value bets, as well as making correct folds.

At this time, I will be doing only individual lessons and lesson packages, though that may change later. I will set my hourly rate in subsequent posts. For now, since this is my first coaching offer on this site, I will offer a first-time special. I am offering one two-hour session for $100. We will start off with a short discussion of the student's game and areas that he or she wants to focus on during the lesson. After that, we will do an hour-long play session where I will observe the student play. We will conclude with a final analysis of the session with specific attention given to the areas the student wanted to focus on at the outset. If we run over the allotted time, I will obviously not expect any additional payment. Finally, if the student wishes, I will offer another one-hour session for another $50, either right then or at a later date, where the student can sweat me 4-tabling their stakes and commenting on my play.

Since this is a good offer as far as poker lessons go, I will not pick the student on first come first serve basis. Instead, I will wait a few days, while reposting this a couple of times, to see who applies and then pick one person.

If you are interested, send me a PM and include the following:
-What stakes you play (up to NL200) and a brief summary of your poker history.
-Your own honest assessment of how you are doing.
-Your poker goals for the next few months.
-What you hope to gain from the lesson.

Finally a few administrative details:
-The lesson will take part, preferably, early in February.
-Payment is due immediately before the start of the lesson. I will accept Stars or Full Tilt transfer.
-We will use Skype to talk and screen-sharing software so that I can see what you are doing, so make sure you have a microphone (duh).

PM me if you are interested.

0 votes

Comments (7)

With all the traveling I had to do, I definitely did not put in enough hands, but that's to be expected during holiday season. Despite that, my month went well. $9.2k online plus rakeback and a bit of live play came out to $11.5k in the end. Most satisfyingly, I am running good on FTP. Hope that keeps up.

For 2010, I am going to work on increasing the amount I play. While I always stress quality over quantity, I think I can add a decent amount to my monthly hands played without sacrificing quality of play or quality of life and other activities I am engaged in. For now, here's December graph:



Good luck to everyone in the new year.

0 votes

Comments (2)

Thanks to the Alias function in PT3 and HEM, I don't often get to see my FTP and PS graphs separately. This is probably a good thing since graph comparison like this tilts the fuck out of me. This is mostly NL200 over the same time period. And the thing is FTP is SO MUCH SOFTER!!!!

Ok, for your viewing pleasure:



AND



WTF!!!

EDIT: I now know how nanonoko does it. He doesn't play FTP!!!

0 votes

Comments (16)

This months started out well, even though I have been busy and have not been able to play as much as I should. The main thing that helped was I stopped running bad on FTP, and am running actually $300 above EV on that site (fuck yeah! I'm a lucksack!). Def need to get the volume up, but with all the holiday travel coming up, that may not be possible. Played live a few times. Took down a tourney at my GF's school poker club for $750 and went once to the local casino for another $700. Graph below.

EDIT: NL200 mostly with some NL400 added in.

0 votes

Comments (1)

So here's my graph over past 100k hands. This is mostly 8-tabling NL200. Not pictured is about 5k hands at NL400 and NL600 for about 2k as well as the fact that I am 25BI under EV on FTP while exactly on EV on Stars (rigged?). You can see the evidence of FTP fun in the recurring 2k-3k downswings. Some extra cash from live play and rakeback make the past 100k hands rather nice. Goal for December is to play at least 4 hours on the days that I do play. My winrate has been a steady 3BB-6BB/100 on month to month basis so, in theory, playing more hands should yield more profits, but you never know.

One way I have found for putting in more hands is playing live. For some reason, my subconscious puts live play and online play into 2 different categories, so when I am done with live play for the day and feel that I really don't want to play any more, I can go to the local casino and have a fresh start. Live play itself is also far less tiring than online. As such, I have found it a nice way to increase my monthly winnings without wearing myself out.

0 votes

Comments (15)

Halloween in a poker room tends to be less festive than in the rest of the casino, where a good chunk of people show up dressed up. Poker players, being the most serious of gamblers, generally don't dress up. Neither do most dealers. The waitresses do, though their outfits tend to lean in the PG-13 direction, with Batman, Bugs Bunny, and Al Capone, transforming into sexy Batman, sexy Bugs Bunny, and sexy Al Capone.

I sat down across from the dealer with $500 planning to just play standard TAG splashing around in late position, when possible. To my right was an old Greek guy who limp-called every single hand. Everyone at the table called him the "Greek guy." To my left a crazy middle-aged asian who just did random things at random times and kept getting dealt QQ. Across the table, to the right of the dealer was another asian guy. This one wore sunglasses and disagreed with the principle of Halloween because "what if they really trick you if you don't treat them!!!" He played super tight to the point where even stations became sheepish when he entered the pot. To the dealer's left sat an old guy who basically fell into the category of 5th-year senior. He's the type that's been playing poker all his life but somehow still manages to not be much good at it. He will also keep dropping little comments about old-school times and pre-historic forms of poker to show how old-school he is. All together though, not a bad person to chat up since he can have some good stories (from the old-school days, of course). To the right of the Greek guy, was a manly-looking unshaven stationy man who always sat at a 45-degree angle to the table and kept an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He was dressed in all-black. To his right, a younger-looking unshaven man that played tight and stayed very focused on his chip stack. To his right, sat a rotund young man who wore very large and very dark sunglasses, listened to his iPod, and put his chips in the pot with a careless hand-flicking gesture as if spreading the seeds on a freshly-plowed field. On my left, past the Crazy Asian sat a gentleman of stereotypical lumberjack look. He played poorly but was good-natured and probably enjoyed long walks on the beach.

The evening started out slow with me folding a bunch of trash and missing completely a couple of times when I did play. My stack dwindled slightly, but nothing significant. My only source of profit during the first couple of rounds were people who did not know what to do if you did not split the blinds with them. Basically, everyone else at the table would just throw away their cards and take back their blinds if no one from non-blind positions entered the pot. The first few times I had looked up from checking out my cards only to find the other person tossing away their cards without having looked at them and thereby forfeiting their blind. Once people caught on that I intended to play my blinds, they started looking at their cards before folding to my raises. Additionally, whenever a new person joined the table, the person next to him would lean over in a confidential fashion, point at me and inform the newcomer in an undertone, "He does not split blinds." It seemed that my abnormality was categorized somewhere between the Flat Earth Society and people who talk at the theater.

A few orbits later, the anti-Halloween asian picked up his chips and left to be replaced by a non-descript, though clean-shaven, individual who believed that any hand folded is a hand lost and, therefore, never folded pre-flop. He bought in for 400 (80% of max buyin) and was the first person to give me a big pot. I raised in middle position with AhTs after a few limpers, and he called on the button. All limpers folded. Flop came J82, all hearts. I continuation bet $50 (about 2/3 pot). He gave me a look and announced a raise to 150. I was done saying "all-in" before he reached his chips. He went into the tank. After some time talking to the ceiling, to me, and asking me to show, he folded. I showed him my cards, prompting a "good hand" and a paternal look at the pile of chips in the center that promised his prodigal wealth a swift return home. He also spared a less kindly look for me. There was a person who was never folding to me again.
Two hands later, I picked up AQ of hearts in early middle position and raised. I picked up 4 callers despite a sizeable raise. Flop came KQJ rainbow. I checked, and so did everyone else. Turn came a T of spades, completing my straight and putting a spades draw on the board. I bet 80% pot and everyone except for the Monster Sunglasses folded. Rived came 7s, completing the spade flush draw. He checked to me and I quickly shoved for about pot size to get off a split or to, perhaps, get hero-called by a two-pair or a 9. Sunglasses thought for a bit and folded. My stack was starting to look decent, and I was up around 300.

After the blinds passed, I was in late position, and few people limped, and I looked down on Aces. This was perfect timing for this hand, as I had just shown a semi-bluff and then shoved river on a scary board and never showed. My credibility had to be suffering. Joyous, I raised, and two people called, including the lumberjack. Flop came a rather unpleasant A62 rainbow, giving me a set of Aces while ensuring that no one else had a anything. Great. When it was folded to me, I still figured it was better to bet since I had been being aggressive, and maybe someone would spazz out. And they did. I bet about 1/2 pot, and the lumberjack immediately announced a min-raise. I called after thinking for a bit, hoping he would continue with his bluff, but he went no further after the flop. The hand still netted me nearly $200, but not nearly as much as it had potential to on flops that gave my opponents a piece of the action.

At this point we got a new dealer, a guy. He was wearing a puffy bright purple shirt with ruffles, a small white tie, tuxedo pants, and a doctor Dolittle hat. "Hah!" said the tight unshaven young man, "what are you supposed to be?"
The dealer's eyes widened a bit. "This is my normal outfit..." he said.

An orbit later, I was on the button and was dealt 93o. People have not been defending their blinds at all, so when the action got to me, I raised as if I was the first opener. Unfortunately, I had missed the ninja-style under the gun limp from the old-schooler. The lumberjack in the big blind called, and so did the ninja. Luckily for me, flop came 932 rainbow, giving me 2 pair. I bet 3/4 pot when it was checked to me, and both opponents called. Great! Turn came 4th suit 8, and the old-schooler confidently bet out $100 into just under $200 pot. My mind started screaming alarms at me that he has 98 here every single time. But he only had 150 behind, giving him only slightly more than half stack pre-flop, and I don't know how to fold 2-pair against short stacks. Plus, often he could just be playing something retarded that way. We got it in, he had 98s and I did not re-suck on the river. My stack went almost all the way back to its original size. Still, I don't see a fold there ever given my hand, stack sizes, and general tendency of players to make plays that do not make sense.

Another orbit later I was offered a chance at redemption. The mainly cigarette guy raised, the Greek guy called, and I looked down on Kings. I re-raised. Manly folded, and the Greek called for about 1/3 his stack, which had dwindled down to about $200 after his bleeding chips for a while. Flop came 3 Aces. I cheerily went ahead with planning how to trap my opponent on a flop where, once again, no one could have anything. My trap worked perfectly. After I checked behind on the flop, the Greek guy bet his stack off into me on turn and river. The plan faltered thereafter, as he showed A9 for quad Aces and dragged the pot. For some reason, losing chips in live play feels more substantial than online. The beat did not end there. Horseshoe has Bad Beat Jackpot but, unlike some other brick and mortar poker rooms, Aces full of Kings full house does not qualify. Go figure.

Around this time, crazy Asian guy decided to leave our table. He picked up his chips and moved to a table next to ours. Moving tables without floor approval is a no-no in most poker rooms. Several floor personnel immediately descended on him and tried to explain to him that he could not move tables. Crazy Asian guy proceeded to completely ignore them, waving his hands and engaging people at his new tables in random conversations. Faced with their target's back, floor people got confused. They mulled around for a bit longer looking helpless and then left.

The crazy Asian's place at our table was soon taken by a Hot Polish Chick (henceforth referred to as HPC). Her appearance caused most guys at the table to become very concentrated, as they furiously thought of something cool to say. Even manly broke his brooding posture and changed his position so as to be sitting at a 60% angle to the table, facing the HCP squarely like a compass. Old-school immediately started talking about his days of playing Stud. Lumberjack leaned over to the HCP, pointed at me, and informed her in an undertone, "He does not split blinds." I knew I had to do something cool and manly to salvage my ruined reputation, so I ordered hot chocolate because my hands were getting cold.

I did not play any major pots from that point on, though I kept winning some small to average ones by raising pre-flop and either picking up the blinds and limps or taking the pot down on the flop with a continuation bet. M stack grew steadily, and I was soon in the green again. HPC, in the meantime, played tight and bled chips in small pots that she seemed unwilling to attack. After a while, she was in the big blind and down to less than $100. I was dealt K7 of clubs in small blind. When everyone else folded, I just shoved all-in. She gave me an angry look and declared, "I call only because it's you, and you don't split blinds!" and called me with A9 off-suit. Any good poker player knows that winning close races is a key skill, without which one cannot hope to ever achieve anything. Luckily, it was a skill that I had, apparently, mastered. Flop came 77A. Nothing changed by the river, and I took down the pot. HPC reloaded, looking dejected and told me that I can only win by getting lucky and she hoped I would lose. I promised to try and raised on the button. Everyone folded.

Around that time, the old-schooler had finished talking about stud and started on limit holdem. I joined in. Eventually, we got to discussing a situation where, because in limit you cannot control how much you bet, there are situations where one person is correct to value bet his hand, while the other is correct to call with a draw because of existing pot odds. The resulting situation is one where both players are playing correctly because of the existing pot size, a situation which rarely occurs in no limit. At that point HPC, who apparently had been playing poker for a while and dated people who also played poker, interjected, "That is only true at low stakes with bad players."

The old-schooler clamped up, and we both turned to her. "Bad players," she gave me a significant look, "always think they have the odds. That's why they are bad players. Good players know better."

I tried to explain that betting $200 into $1200 pot creates the same pot odds as betting $2 into $12, which are perfectly sufficient to draw to, say, a flush. HPC gave me a look of pity, "I really don't think so. It works different at high stakes." I looked at the old-schooler. He shrugged.

We were rescued by the return of Manly, who had popped out for a smoke. HPC turned her attention to him.

"I can't believe smoker will put up with going outside in the cold and rain just so they can keep smoking."

Manly spotted his opening, "Would you ever kiss a smoker?"

HPC made a face, "Duno...maybe with a lot of gum."

Manly pursued, "What if I quit smoking?"

HPC looked surprised, 'You would do that for me?"

Manly pounced, "For you, I would walk on water."

Silence stretched. After a while, the lumberjack shifted and wondered aloud about the logistics of water-walking: "Maybe with a good running start." I mentioned guys water skiing on bare feet. Conversation gradually resumed its course.

I was getting tired, so a couple of orbits later I took off. Net profit for the night was about $400 and some priceless math lessons.

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Comments (12)

So I have focused on playing cash games recently and dropped down to play NL200. Since I live off my winnings, I increased bankroll requirements to reflect that, even if I have a big losing week, I still might need to withdraw money. So from now on, I want at least 70 buyins for a given limit (so $28k for NL400 say). Said cash games have been going quite well. Over the past few months, a lot things just came together in my game, and my winrate has been steadily growing. I also got rakeback at FTP after having an account with them for years and not playing on it ever since clearing my initial deposit bonus. Having rakeback there lets me table select between Stars and FTP. While neither is all that hard, FTP does seems to be softer with more tables with fish.

Here is my April graph so far. I also broke my dry streak in MTTs, cashing in the Supernova 75k for $90 (fuck yeah!).



Goal for the rest of the months is to put in more hands per day. I need to get to 250k FPPs so that I can start working on that $4,000 bonus...

EDIT: /brag

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Comments (11)

So April is a polarized month for me. Cash has been going great, while tournaments outright sucked.

So while cash has been great, tournament gods have been laughing their asses off at my expense. I haven't cashed in almost 30 tourneys now. Normally, I cash about one time in 4.5... Bubbled out of $530 SCOOP 14 short of money when I shoved OTB and ran into AA. Bubbled out of the $1050 Main Event with respectable stack running KK into AA. Those are the highlights. Here is my bubble hand from today's daiy 80k, busting 10 short of the money:

Submitted by : phexac

PokerStars Game #27057905694: Tournament #155233626, $50+$5 Holdem No Limit - Level XI (400/800) - 2009/04/13 17:48:42 ET
Table 155233626 16 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: bente45 (9610 in chips)
Seat 2: RUFreeknKidn (17973 in chips)
Seat 4: Faderen (4447 in chips)
Seat 5: knipser44 (42420 in chips)
Seat 6: Hero (21157 in chips)
Seat 7: ezman898 (27167 in chips)
Seat 8: alfreak (7010 in chips)
Seat 9: steppy117 (39884 in chips)
bente45: posts the ante 75
RUFreeknKidn: posts the ante 75
Faderen: posts the ante 75
knipser44: posts the ante 75
Hero: posts the ante 75
ezman898: posts the ante 75
alfreak: posts the ante 75
steppy117: posts the ante 75
Faderen: posts small blind 400
knipser44: posts big blind 800

Holecards
Dealt to Hero
Hero: raises 1166 to 1966
ezman898: folds
alfreak: folds
steppy117: folds
bente45: folds
RUFreeknKidn: calls 1966
Faderen: folds
knipser44: calls 1166

Flop (Pot : $6,898.00)

   
knipser44: checks
Hero: bets 4200
RUFreeknKidn: folds
knipser44: calls 4200

Turn (Pot : $15,298.00)

   
knipser44: checks
Hero: bets 14916 and is all-in
knipser44: calls 14916

River (Pot : $45,130.00)

   

Showdown
knipser44: shows (a pair of Aces)
Hero: shows (a pair of Tens)
knipser44 collected 45130 from pot

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Reputable site members only please. Will send first. PM or respond here.

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Comments (2)