Report From the Felt Vol. 1, Issue 1

I don't plan on doing this very often, but I am going to do this as much for myself as I am for anyone else. However, before I present what it is I'm going to present, I have to say this: This blog is not a place where you're going to hear a daily recap of my winnings or losses. This blog will not be a place where you'll hear me complain about my bad beats or gloat about how I'm dominating micro stakes. That's not the type of person I am, and that's not the type of blog I want to own. However, I will not hesitate to provide some commentary on hands I played or show you a graph or two every now and again. After all, although poker is a fun hobby, I also push and strive for results. So today, I present to you, in both graph and word form, what it looks like to be running good playing No Limit Texas Hold 'Em.

I played many hands using Short Stack Strategy to help build up some experience and a bankroll. After a few months of doing this, and also trying out Sit and Gos, I made the determination that I had read up on enough strategy and that I was ready to play using full buy-ins. It was a risky proposition for someone who really had very little Hold 'Em experience (~2000 hands), and I really wasn't sure what to expect as far as results go. I played 1,000 hands of full ring games, and at the end, I felt mostly lost, but I managed to break even over that stretch and simultaneously cure my "all-in fever," that is, my tendency to underestimate my opponent's holdings and call or reraise with inferior hands.

After talking a bit to some people on the web, including Paul Nobles over at bluff.com, I decided to try something else out: Six-handed cash games. The idea of taking these on seemed really daunting, since I knew that in some regards, shorthanded Texas Hold 'Em is a completely different game. However, I hit the books, scoured the internet, and tried to bolster my knowledge on the concepts behind shorthanded Hold 'Em, and then I jumped right in without thinking twice. The benefit in playing shorthanded is that it is much easier to isolate weak players and see flops heads up. No more seeing three- and four-way flops with aces! I ran pretty good during this, and my confidence in my playing ability soared.

$2 No Limit 6-Max Graph:



I quit playing 2NL because at the site I was playing at, I didn't have rakeback, and so I decided to move up in limits (which my bankroll could support), and play 4NL at another site where I had rakeback. In the process, I made some adjustments after a long review session of my play, and decided that I was playing pretty good, except I was bluffing too often. So, I made one major adjustment: I was going to bluff much less against all players and likely not at all against players who will not fold (the so-called "calling stations"). With the next four hundred or so hands, which I know is a very small sample, I continued running well but this time without running bluffs that had only a small chance of succeeding.

4NL 6-Max Graph:



In conclusion, this is indeed a very small sample, and I know that I can in no way extract what my "true" win rate at this level is. What I do know is that the adjustments I made to my game helped me ride this streak even higher. I posted this to exhibit some pride, since everyday I play poker online, I still feel like it's a dream. Hold 'Em for many years seemed impossible to me. In addition, when I'm running bad, this will serve as a reminder of what it looks like to be running good. Now, it's back to the tables! :D