Spore's BR

Okay, now.. I've seen a couple ppl posting threads keeping track of their BR. So I decided to jump in on the trend. But, if anyone objects.. I can take it somewhere else. Anyway, this will serve as a log for me to reflect on, as well as an opportunity to receive advice. So anyway.. on with it.

I got a free $20 with my first deposit (not bonus money). I deposited $25 so, I started with $45. I started off playing too high of limits and quickly found myself down to about $25. I read up on BR management and decided to start grinding it out and made my way back up to $35. At this point I got some software to keep track of my BR, so that's where the graph starts.. up to present.

[click link to view profit chart]
http://69.10.140.50/~nscance/poker/profitchart51306.jpg

You'll notice a big downward trend and then a big spike back up to even? I got drawn out (Top 2 Pair vs Flush Draw) all-in, and (Trips vs Straight Draw). for 5 bucks each.. I went to a short-handed .25/.50 table, and won it all back. Most on one hand, AQ, hit trips on flop and suckered the guy all-in. Won like 9 bucks on the hand.

Bankroll: $46.01

Well I am now officially at the highest my BR has been. Pretty decent day today. I drew to a nut-flush (i had the odds!) and doubled up through a player with Q high flush.

And then this hand:
I was slightly leary of the straight to be honest. I figured there might be a straight-draw, but at these micros.. i wouldn't put it past someone to have been in with T7 or something.

Bankroll: $54.48 (+8.47)

nice job spore kepe up the good work man

for future HH postings, try using pokerhand.org (i'm not sure what site you are playing at, but most work with it)
it makes it easier to read and understand.

nice hand btw

Well the day started off pretty dull playing, I was down about 50cents after playing this afternoon at .01/.02 PL and .02/.04 NL. So tonight I decided to play a .05/.10 NL game (brought $5 to table.. 10% of my BR). Early on I had this hand. I had no idea where I was at, no read on this guy.. I thought I was ahead in the hand, then all of a sudden all my chips are in jeopardy. At the table I watched this guy go from up $15 to losing it all, so.. I this probably was a steal.. i dunno.



Anyway there went half of my buyin. I fought back and ended up profiting on the table

Bankroll: $60.55 (+6.07)

Well, today was pretty slow. I played over lunch.. up like $0.10, played earlier this evening and decided to try a multi-table PL Hold'Em tournament.. $3+$0.30 buyin. And it couldn't have gone worse. I was getting good starting hands.. KQ, AK, JQ, KJ... and nothing was hitting. I was faced with really aggressive play on the flop, and.. my cards kept hitting RIGHT after I folded. Like clockwork, when I'd fold.. my card was next up. I was down about half my stack and I pulled JQ. Pot was pretty big, so I limped in. I hit a Jack on the flop, I led out and bet.. I got re-raised.. and then re-raised all in.. then called so there were 3 ppl all-in before it got back to me.. I folded, and the Queen came on the turn!

GRR, oh well. I was up like $0.50 cents on the ring games, lol. Anyway, I took a break and watched a movie.. Came back to play for a little bit. Sat down at a $0.01/$0.02 PL Hold'Em table, and a $0.02/$0.04 NL Hold'Em table. Within about 10 minutes I'd doubled up on both tables ($2.50 buy-in). <<- Styrofoam can attest to this! Well, at least on one of the tables.

So, final count for the day..

Bankroll: $64.60 (+4.05)

Oh, and I have a new profit chart! (please note, this does not contain the loss from the tournament buyin.)

nice job spore - it looks like it's growin quite nicely and steadily
ps what do you use to make that chart? just curious

I use PokerOffice to track my stats. Also, because it allows me to go back and look at every hand I ever played.. so I can go back and really analyze my play in certain situations.. see what has worked, what hasn't.

So yeah, it's from PokerOffice, I just took a screenshot and cropped in The GIMP.

And thanks for the kind words Chuck. Once I decided to quit playing too high of limits for my BR (see the lowest point on the graph.. and the big green spike?) I got back to even playing a .25/.50 table and decided to go with the 5%, and well.. It's been steadily uphill since then. Hopefully I can keep this rolling and maybe end up playin the 1/2 tables with you

very nice, spore. its always good to see someone getting thier roll up. keep grinding it out at those micros and you'll be competing with chuck at the 1/2's soon. . .
i really like these threads - very informative and inspirational.

gah, well I was down a couple bucks last night... I was up a bit and then I went donkey-style for a bit lost it. Today I played pretty solid.. made a couple bad folds (better than bad calls!) that kinda ticked me off. One hand I folded KK to QQ on the river

But, eventually my patient style payed off and I won a few bucks, and I'm close to eclipsing the $70 mark, woohoo!

Bankroll: $68.32 (+3.72)

Well, I didn't play friday/sat because I was out of town. I heard there were some major server problems at Titan on friday or saturday.. so I kinda lucked out

I played some heads-up Dealer's Choice with my cousin Friday night... err Saturday morning. We were mainly playing Omaha Hi/Lo but, threw some Hold'Em and Omaha Hi in there too. Nothing was hitting for me the first game, and eventually i got beat. Second game I played real well. I flopped the wheel playing Omaha Hi/Lo, and suckered him in.. he had like 25 for the low hand... he was just playing for the split.. bad idea. Eventually evened up the series 1-1.

The second game I got down early, and fought back to even-money. We're playing Omaha Hi/Lo and I hit TP (queens), with a draw to the nut low-hand. I check it, he bets.. i call, next card is a blank. I check, he goes all-in, I call him. He's got a pair of 5's!!! I'm thinkin sweet! Turn is a 4, and he hits a set of 4's! he had like J544 or something. Oh well, at least i know i lost on a suckout.

Anyway my BR is still steadily growing. I just had a couple successful sessions, and figured I'd update my BR thread.

Bankroll: $82.37 (+14.05) .... $100 here I come!

hmm....i'm not sure i see a negative day here, spore
great job on the BR progress, brother and gl with the $100 mark

Since I started this thread I had one day I was down about $1.. i didn't post that day but, mentioned it in the next post.

But uhmm, yeah.. I'm pleasantly suprised at how well I've been doing. I owe a lot to the advice and discussions here at CC.

And thanks for the encouragement man, i appreciate it!

nice work spore!

Ah well, yesterday was not so good. I dropped $11

I had pocket Kings 3 times... went bust all 3 times. Once I was all-in preflop against pocket Aces (okay, I can understand that one). The 2nd time there was some decent preflop action, board flopped a bunch of undercards. I raised a guy, and he goes all in.. I call. He has A4s, no flush draw.. and he's got a pair of 4's. Guess what the turn is? Another 4 I don't remember what the other hand was, but it involved the river being not so nice.

I also lost 2 times with AK, 2 times with QQ, 1 time with JJ. 3 times with KQ.

My biggest win of the day was with A7s when I limped in (pretty much on-tilt) and flopped two pair.

Oh, I also flopped a nut-straight which got busted on the river by a flush as well (who btw, was calling very much AGAINST the pot-odds).

So uhmm, I decided to give 'er a break for a little bit. I cashed out $70, so I have a $1 and change left in there. My initial deposit was $25, so I figured.. hey, not a bad idea.

So maybe this weekend I'll see what I can do with that $1, lol. Actually, I'm sure I'll re-deposit next week knowing me. And we'll try this again :P

go blow the $70 on something frivolous and have fun!

hehe, yeah.. going towards paying off my guitar amp, lol.

too bad you felt you had to withdraw, spore.
Still, nearly tripling up your $25 deposit in a matter of a week or two is great
Good luck on your next BR buildup, spore - i'm sure you could hit $100 in a few weeks with no trouble.

Yeah, it was more of a precaution so that I didn't go tilt and lose it all, lmao. I heard myself thinking.. "hey, I should just go to the .50/1 table and make it back, haha. So, I decided I needed a little break.

Yes, I took some bad beats.. but I wasn't playing all that great aside from that.. so I'm gonna chill for a bit on the playin.

Well, I deposited $25 to PokerStars last night and have been trying to adjust to the play there.. took a bit of a loss last night and decided to move up to a .05/.10 shorthanded game over lunch today. Well I'm about back to even now

POKERSTARS GAME #5191874433: HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($0.05/$0.10) - 2006/06/08 - 15:49:53 (ET)
Table 'Ophelia' 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: b4ndit0 ($6.75 in chips)
Seat 4: kala5583 ($9.55 in chips)
Seat 5: XkisstheskyX ($28.05 in chips)
Seat 6: MindSpore ($6.25 in chips)
MindSpore : posts small blind $0.05
b4ndit0: posts big blind $0.10

Holecards:
Dealt to MindSpore


coy2 has returned
FOLD kala5583
FOLD XkisstheskyX
RAISE MindSpore $0.40 to $0.50
CALL b4ndit0 $0.40

Flop : (Pot: $1)

BET MindSpore , $0.50
CALL b4ndit0, $0.50

Turn: (Pot: $2)

CHECK MindSpore :
BET b4ndit0, $0.50
RAISE MindSpore , $2 to $2.50
CALL b4ndit0, $2

River: (Pot: $7)

BET MindSpore , $2.75 and is all-in
FOLD b4ndit0
MindSpore collected $6.70 from pot
MindSpore : doesn't show hand

SUMMARY:
Total pot $7 | Rake $0.30

Board:

Seat 1: b4ndit0 (big blind) folded on the River
Seat 4: kala5583 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: XkisstheskyX (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: MindSpore (small blind) collected ($6.70)


Started: $25.00
Ended: $24.75

-$0.25

Settling back into my groove. Only had one hand that irked me today. Would've been fine except for the freaking rake, I absolutely LOVE losing money when I win a hand! Would have been up a bit more had it not been for a lousy turn.

Holecards:
Dealt to MindSpore

FOLD maselfo
FOLD hin10
CALL mlim123, $0.02
CALL herkum, $0.02
FOLD rgwalk10
CALL MindSpore , $0.02
CALL kev 456, $0.01
foggle joins the table at seat #8
CHECK loopie lopez:

Flop: (Pot: $0.1)

CHECK kev 456:
BET loopie lopez, $0.06
FOLD mlim123
FOLD herkum
RAISE MindSpore , $0.12 to $0.18
FOLD kev 456
RAISE loopie lopez, $0.12 to $0.30
RAISE MindSpore , $0.70 to $1
CALL loopie lopez, $0.70

Turn: (Pot: $2.1)

BET loopie lopez, $1.10
CALL MindSpore , $1.10 and is all-in

River: (Pot: $4.3)


Showdown:
loopie lopez: shows
(a full house Tens full of Sevens)

MindSpore : shows
(a full house Tens full of Sevens)

loopie lopez collected $2.05 from pot
MindSpore collected $2.05 from pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot $4.30 | Rake $0.20

Board:


Anyway... on to the stats

Daily Change: +0.36
Overall Change: +0.11

Well I haven't played online much.. did play a little last night was up to about $30 then took lost a little back to abour $27 or so.. then I decided to play one of the $3+.30 SnG's on PokerStars.

Things were going well, and we were 4 handed with all 4 of us exchanging the chip lead pretty much hand-to-hand. This guy gets on a bit of a roll and he's up to about 5k in chips, i'm somewhere over 3k. I pull KTo with the button, blinds at 200/400, I raise to 1200. Get called, flop comes KK5. I bet 1500 (have about ~1k left).

Now yes, i probably should have gone all-in on this. However, I wanted action.. so I wanted it to look like i was trying to steal the pot. Anyway, to my suprise I get re-raised all-in. Uhmm.. ok? I of course call, and he flips over A8 of hearts. He's got a nut-flush draw. And of course, he hits it on the turn and i don't fill up.. and I'm gone.

I don't care that the flush-draw beat me. I just think the all-in re-raise was a bit weird, I know he had me on chips, but come on.. he was getting the pot odds to just call, but instead he decides to give himself bad odds and a decent chance of crippling his stack.. on the bubble? Weird.

Anyway so I'm down a couple bucks now.. and I'm starting to wonder if it's even worth playing the micros anymore. Yeah, I know I can beat the micros by grinding it out, but.. it's a heck of a lot of playing for a very slow increase. Maybe I should just wait until i can deposit a few hundred and make it worth my time? Dunno.

On the live game front, I've been doing pretty well. Last Sunday night I went to Isle of Capri - Bettendorf (Quad Cities, Iowa), waited like an hour and a half to finally get a seat.. maybe 2 hours at a $3/$6 game. Played a little blackjack while I waited and was up $20. Bought in to the poker game for $100, cashed out a couple hours later with $290. I played tight-aggressive but limped in and played passive ever once in a while with some good drawing hands Axs, suited-connectors, etc.

Then on Saturday night I played a home game at a friends house.. dealers choice $0.10/$0.20 NL Dealer's Choice. I hit quads twice that night. Once was an Omaha Hi hand. Had A9QQ double-suited. Flop came A99. Guy bets $2 into me, I raise all-in, he calls with 2pair, 9's and Tens. WTF! Anyway, only thing that could beat me was a Ten, well Turn brought a 9, so I hit the nuts.

Next I had JTs and raised preflop to $1. Got a call. Flop came out like 3JJ. Guy goes all-in, I call.. he had pocket K's. Guess what the turn was?? Another Jack!

So, in short.. my live game has improved a lot since March.. and the micro limits online are getting borrrringg. Anyway, there's the update.

Spore. Keep your head up. You are a good player, and you know it. There is no reason to get down on your luck right now.

I used to say that the micro tables were worthless as well, because if you play nothing but micro's it will take you forever to build your BR. Here is what I have been doing lately, and it has proved to be quite profitable for me.

I deposited $20 on Titan the other day, because they have the $1 SnG's that are easily beatable. So are their micros. Sit at a micro until you earn your $1.20 buy in for the SnG (usually takes only 1 winning hand to achieve). Once you earn your buy in for the SnG, go play. If you lose, you lost other peoples money. If you win, then you have nothing but profit. Either way, go back to the micro table, earn another entry fee, and hit another SnG. I have been doing this for the past 2 days. I've yet to not hit a buy in at the micro, and i've placed in 5 out of the 6 SnG's i've played in. It's building my BR a lot quicker than sitting there and grinding it out on the micro.

Hey that sounds like a good idea. I'm gonna give that a shot. Going to withdraw from PokerStars and re-deposit at Titan. I wonder, is there any reload bonus at Titan?

But anyway, I'm gonna try this strategy out for a while and see what happens. Thanks.

Well I've tried out this method for a bit, and I must say... I'm lovin it! Deposited $23.00 (leftover from pokerstars) into Titan.

Put $3 in to a .02/.04 NL table. Cashed out with $5.36 (almost enough for two $1+$1.0 SnG's). Played a SnG, placed 2nd. So profit 60 cents.

So I still have $2.36 to play SnG's. Played another SnG and got third. KJs v. A7o lost while i was a shortstack.. oh well. So now I have $1.16 (4 cents shy of buying into another SnG)... keeping myself strict to adhering to the rules of this method... I sat down at a .02/.04 table with $5. Left with $7.04. So now I have $3.20 to play at SnG's. Very cool.

=====================================
SnG Profit............... +$0.60 <-- only counts winnings.. no losses
Overall Profit/Loss.... +$3.80
SnG Buy-in Balance.... $3.20
Overall Balance:....... $26.80
=====================================

The micros have been loose today. I'm up $11 just playing the micros. I played a couple of SnG's too, so i'm up to about $14 for the day. Not too bad.