Finally, Progess!

After my last post and deciding that I was not playing as aggressively as I should be in the late stages of my events, I decided to get back onto the tables and start pounding pots with raises when it got shorthanded. Immediately I started seeing better results. If I have ten big blinds or less I will often raise all in with hands like 68s. I will often steal the blinds (which will add 10% or more to my stack and if I do get called it's frequently very close to a coinflip). I am really attacking the more passive players and it appears to really be paying off for me.

Here are my results since last time :


Monday/December 17th

$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 10th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 3rd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 2nd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 6th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 1st place


Tuesday/December 18th


$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 4th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 6th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 1st place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 2nd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 5th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 1st place

Wednesday/December 19th

$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 7th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 5th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 1st place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 2nd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 1st place

Thursday/December 20th

$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 3rd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 2nd place

Again, I would like to breakdown my finishes over the course of these 18 events.

1st place - 5
2nd place - 4
3rd place - 2
4th place - 1
5th place - 2
6th place - 2
7th place - 1
8th place - 0
9th place - 0
10th place - 1

I cashed in 50% of my tournaments and finished in 1st place more than any other position. I won 5x more tournaments in my most recent 18 events than I had in my previous 30. Not only that but I have regained my confidence, and although the $2.00 turbos are getting quite boring I am also building up a lot of ambition. The deeper I go into this the more I realize my goal is achievable. Maybe not as soon as I have been hoping, but I can definitely get my bankroll to $8,000.

I'm not a superstitious person, but I have been listening to a lot more Lupe Fiasco lately than ever before. Awesome hip hop artist that everyone should get into. Check out the track Fast Money, it's been constantly playing in my iTunes the past week or so. I'm not sure what most people listen to when they play online poker, I know I've heard tell of people watching movies while they play. It can be a lonely lifestyle sitting in a dark room drinking chocolate milk and playing poker for hours, but you have to do what you have to do.

Naturally my sharkscope stats have been improving drastically over the past couple of days as well. I love this website, I check my stats daily and keep up to date on a lot of my friends who play poker through it as well. If only there was a way for it to track cash games, that would be glorious. Ah well, I will leave you with my updated graph and stats like always.


Games Played : 62
Average Profit : $1
Average Stage : $2
Average Return On Investment : 40%
Total Profit : $50

Current Bankroll : $51.15

I'll update again soon!

-Kyle

29 Tournaments No Wins, Reflecting On Results

So everything appeared to be going great. I was up almost $12 and this level of poker seemed easy to me. I was eager to play and excited to build my bankroll. What I didn't realize is that I was about to take a gigantic downswing, that my roll was almost unable to sustain.

Sunday/December 16th

$2.00 +$0.20 fish tank $100 added 45/174
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 5th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 6th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 6th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 6th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 6th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 3rd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 10th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 10th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 6th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 7th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 5th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 9th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 7th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 2nd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 6th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 2nd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 2nd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 3rd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 10th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 2nd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 3rd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 5th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 2nd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 9th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 5th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 6th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 6th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 7th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 1st place



I started the day off playing the Fish Tank $100 added tournament. Although I believe I played well, the tournament only pays to top 10 and I finished far out of the money, but I am not going to focus on that in this post. My results look bad, but in reality they are not all that horrible. I am going to break down my results based on place finished over 30 tournaments.


1st place - 1
2nd place - 5
3rd place - 3
4th place - 0
5th place - 4
6th place - 8
7th place - 3
8th place - 0
9th place - 2
10th place - 3
47th in fish tank

This tells me a lot about the way I have been approaching these events. The sit and gos pay to top 2, $14 for first and $6 for second. There is quite a difference there. My five 2nd place and three bubbles tell me that I am too focused on only making the money and not focused enough on winning the event. I feel I need to get more aggressive on the bubble and try to steal the blinds more often, but I am deterred by the nasty feeling of getting caught and ending up outside of the pay structure.

Since this bad run, I have played in 5 more events and finished up like this:

$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 10th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 3rd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 2nd place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 6th place
$2.00 +$0.20 turbo - 1st place

In the past 6 events I have finished 1st twice and 2nd once. Things could be turning around, but only time will tell. My friend Chris gave me the advice that I should focus on making the best decisions possible and not focus on the results so that is exactly what I am going to go do.

See you on the tables!

-Kyle



Games Played : 50
Average Profit : $0
Average Stage : $2
Average Return On Investment : 12%
Total Profit : $8

Current Bankroll : $8.00

The Magnificent Steve Simpson And A One Outer

I have begun my journey! My friend and co-worker Steve Simpson (gooche22 on pokerroom) was kind enough to stake me enough money to start playing on pokerroom last night. I am only going to list my bankroll as profit made, and will not include the money lent to me by Steve as I will quickly be paying that back.

Naturally I was excited last night so I signed in and loaded up my first tournament. I decided to start building my bankroll by playing $2.00 + $0.20 No Limit Hold'Em Turbo Sit N' Gos. I don't have much to say about this event, other than the fact that I ABSOLUTELY crushed it. I won this tournament hands down in about 20 minutes. These events only pay out to the top two, so I collected $14.00 (a smooth $11.80 profit). This was pretty much the best thing that could happen to me. Not only does it give me a lot more room to go on a bit of a bad run, but it definitely boosted my confidence.

Things are going great! 1 tournament 1 win. I boot up another $2.00 turbo NLH event. At the 50/100 level I am dealt 2d 2s in the small blind , there are 3 limpers and I complete. Big blind checks and the flop comes 2c 4h 9s. It goes all in 3 ways on the flop. My 22, a player with Ah9h, and the other with a set of 9s. The 9 of spades and the 9 of clubs. The turn comes a the case 2 and I collect my pot. It's been a long time since I have hit a one outer and it felt great. I felt invincible, for about five hands until I lost with AK and AQs consecutively and finished the tournament in 6th place.

I played two more tournaments on the night, finishing in 9th place. ( I flopped a flush with 3 players to the flop and a player behind me flopped a higher one.) And in 2nd place losing heads up to JJ with my KT on a T25 flop.

So I finished up for the night and took a look at my hard earned bankroll. $11.90 ! Not bad. Only another 800 nights until I reach my goal at this rate. Let's hope I get to move up in limits in the next couple of weeks, I would like to wait three years to get to Toronto.

As I promised in my introduction post I am going to keep you up to date with my stats. After the four events I played last night my sharkscope stats read as follows.

Games Played : 4
Average Profit : $3
Average Stage : $2
Average Return On Investment : 127%
Total Profit : $11



After looking at the pokerroom freeroll policies I decided it would probably be a good idea for me to try and win a couple of those. They run several free tournaments with $100 or bigger prize pools every day. The catch is that you have to collect 4 player points to unlock every dollar you win in a free roll. However when playing in tournaments you gain 5 player points for every dollar in fees you pay. Essentially what it comes down to is if you win a freeroll it will be a long time before you ever pay administration fees on a tournament at the $2+$0.20 level again and every $4 you pay in fees you actually get $1 extra back. You would be making money simply breaking even in these events.

Anyway those are all the updates I have for now, thanks again to Steve Simpson for getting me started, and good luck to all of you fellow poker players at the tables!

-Kyle

Current Bankroll : $11.90

Introducing : Pokermove

Please allow me to quickly explain what this blog is, why it is here and what I am trying to accomplish by writing it.

I am a 20 year old Texas Hold'Em dealer living in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. I recently went on a trip to the city of Toronto. This trip made me realize that I absolutely do not want to live in Charlottetown for any longer. The city absolutely sucked me in, unfortunately it is one of the most expensive places(sixth I believe) to call your home in all of North America.

My goal is to make enough money through playing online poker to be able to afford the far move. I told myself I would need $6,000 plus a proper bankroll for whatever level of poker I am playing to be able to sustain life in Toronto. The $6,000 will be used to cover rent and all deposits required, as well as buy some new furniture and groceries etc.

I am using this blog for ambition to do this. I want my journey from Charlottetown to Toronto documented, so that I can remember how hard it was for me to be where I am when I get there.

Each post I will keep you updated with my current bankroll which is currently set to zero. I am in the middle of liquidating some of my assets to get me started. I will be doing all of my playing on pokerroom and will be sticking to tournaments and not cash games. This allows me to track my results (and post them for you to see) using the tools at sharkscope . I will frequently post the graphs generated from that site so I can discuss my progress. When it comes up, I will post hands I feel I could have played better for my readers to discuss what I could of done in the situation. Although my main goal is to make it to Toronto, this is also a great opportunity for me to better myself as a card player.

The username I will be using on pokerroom is poker_move if you want to watch me play or track my progress through sharkscope . Play will begin as soon as I have $20.00 or more to get me started.

Wish me luck!

-Kyle

Current Bankroll : $0.00