Progress Update

Razz Progress

I managed to load up a couple of tables of Razz on Sunday, and finished nicely up (for the little time spent). I’m fairly certain there are a couple of Russians in my stakes that do not even understand the basic premise of lowball poker… no glass-tapping from me though, just plenty of leering greedily in!

These days, I spend more time [at work lol] analysing my results, than I ever do playing… I have an Excel spreadsheet for everything, and get to enjoy re-agonising over Razz-beats that defy belief. A-2-3-4 on fourth street making Queen-high on the River was painful enough when I was actually playing the hand… knowing that I was over 70% to make an Eight-high or better, and that an Eight-Four would have won just rubs the salt in!

At least I haven’t gotten distracted playing other games with my embryonic Pokerstars BR this week. Progress has been slow, but steady, and if I can keep my current daily win rate up, I should be moving up to the next level ($0.10 / $0.20 lol!) before the end of November. I’ve played on those tables a couple of times since I re-started (chasing losses, obviously), and the standard doesn’t seem to be any higher.

It seems like a good point to discuss my Bankroll Management for this exercise. I’m buying in for 20 Big Bets, and am looking to have 10 buy-ins available for a level before I move up. I’m playing fairly steady Razz at the moment, so my variance is pretty low and that seems more than reasonable. If I was losing, I’d continue playing at the new level until I reached 10 buy-ins for the previous level, and then switch back (obviously that’s something I’m hoping I won’t need to do)!

Stakes	Buy-in	BR to Start Level	BR to Drop Level
$0.04 / $0.08	$1.60	$16	N/A!!
$0.10 / $0.20	$4.00	$40	$16
$0.25 / $0.50	$10	$100	$40
$0.50 / $1.00	$20	$200	$100
$1 / $2	$40	$400	$200

That’s clearly thinking a long time ahead – especially coming from someone with as little long-term discipline as myself… but a plan is a plan – ideally I’ll be playing $1 / $2 before this time next year… and I’ll happily eat my own sofa if that ever happens!

Progress to date is as show below – I’m now tracking only Razz games, and this graph shows overall daily progress:-

Pub Poker

I’ve just started to play a poker game every Monday in one of the local pubs (not my local I can assure you!). I’m not saying this pub has sawdust on the floor, but I do have a suspicion that’s a money-saving exercise. It’s a £5 buy-in, with one £5 rebuy available before ten o’clock and you get 1,000 extra chips if you buy 3 pints. It’s a lively game, that’s for sure - on my first evening there, I quickly got a feel for the ‘friendly banter’ so after getting it all in with top two pair and filling-up on the river, I unwittingly levelled a cutting “you were behind when you called anyway” at what turned out to be the Landlord… bit of an ‘American Werewolf’ moment, I can tell you!

There are a myriad of slightly embarrassing house rules (I particularly detest the 200 chips from all players if you show 72o as the winning hand), but all-in-all it was a good fun game, and I’m looking forward to playing again tonight.

THMF League VIII

Then tomorrow is the next Hendon Mob Forum League game – we’re playing 6-Max No Limit Hold ‘em this week. I’d like to think that I’d laid down the standard for my performance last week (4^th place), but lets face it – I tend to play horrendously over-aggressively when I play 6-Max Hold ‘em tournaments – it can work fine, until I try to push someone off the nuts! I can’t just nit-up to compensate (it is 6-Max after all) so I’m going to try a different strategy – picking my spots for frivolous manoeuvres (they are going to happen), and choosing playing hands carefully. That is the plan , but Tuesday night is drinking night! Maybe the plan will survive the first shuffle, but I’ll eat my own sofa [again] if it does!

Derby Tournament

Finally, I’ve got something to really look forward to in November. Genting Casinos are opening a new club in Derby, and there’s a £100 + £10 poker tournament with £5,000 added as part of the launch. Because of the Mob’s recent affiliation with Genting poker, there were 25 seats put aside for members of the forum, and Joe Beevers and Barny Boatman are playing with £250 bounties on their heads.

I was offered the chance to play this tournament, with backing from one of the forum regulars (Bogus), and I certainly didn’t need asking twice! Bogus last featured in this blog after relieving me of a doubled-up buy-in at Pot Limit Omaha!! This is the first time I’ve ever played with this type of backing, but it can only be a good factor in my tournament play. As I frequently mention, I’m terrible for getting bored and making ridiculous moves at the poker table… some of them go way over the edge into retarded territory!

BUT. THIS. WILL. NOT. BE. HAPPENING. IN. DERBY!

It would be fantastic to return a healthy profit to my backer and, at the very least, I want to ensure that I play good, tight-aggressive, poker that I can recount without fear of reproach. It’s going to be a bloody refreshing experience, I can tell you!

My brother is coming along as my rail, and there looks to be a good crew attending from the forum. All-in-all it looks set to be a fantastic evening!