If Boku87 can do it, does that mean anyone can do it?

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems to me with the amount of hours and tables this guy is putting in, which is clearly the largest I've ever come across, overall he is always going to be profitable no matter what. He can have 100+BI downswings and still make money in a long run

I assume the following about his gameplay:
Never Bluffs?
Doesn't reference any form of stats or history?
Plays with bankroll guidelines?
Plays the purest form of ABC Poker? IE. Tight nit @ start, then push/fold mode once x amount of bb's left
^^^^^^^Once again, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Am I missing something or is his approach/strategy that straight forward?

If it is that straight forward, wouldn't that mean that anybody can do the same, if they were able to match that form of volume?

Your thoughts/feedback?

8 out of 8, twice in the month!

Running good and I put it down to one thing, consistency!

For the first time ever I have stuck to the one thing and haven't deviated. Since September 1 I have been 8 tabling DoN SnGs at Titan. I started to do this for 2 main reason. 1 was to test the waters with 8 tabling and see how comfortable I am with it. The other was to test myself playing exactly the same game every day for a month straight and see if I can stop myself from going insane.

Volume wise I'm proud of what I've done so far. Over 600 games and hanging around a 7% ROI. What's quite odd is that I tried 2 sessions of 10 tabling and felt super uncomfortable, yet I now seem to be able to 8 table with my eyes closed. I can understand doing from 2 tables to 4 tables would be a massive jump, but I didn't expect going from 8 - 10 would make me so uncomfortable. So I'm sticking to 8 for the time being.

I'd love a higher ROI, not sure what professional DoN players can sustain with that volume and at that level, but I've noticed my sharkscope ability go from 61 upto 65 this month, so I figure I must be doing something right.

My proudest achievement this month I've managed to do twice. First time about a week ago and the second last night. I've managed to win 8 out of 8 games at the same time. Sitting just over 600 games I've played around 80 sessions and to have 2 sessions where I'm 8 for 8, I think is freaking awesome. I've had several 7 out of 8s and my lowest has been 2 out of 8 (only 2 of them)

Better back this brag up with some evidence so check out below.


and



^^^^ Here I was mucking around with the $1 games to see what happens to my ROI/ITM, nevertheless 8 wins is hot at any stake.

The other thing I'm loving with 8 tabling is that, I remember specifically during a session I took 2 horrendous beats at the same time on different tables causing me to bubble. 1 hand was my AA vs AKs, opponent hit runner runner for nut flush. Second had was I had QQ vs 99 AIPF and board came Q93 K 9. WTF. But at the time I simply shrugged it off and focused on my remaining 6, of which I won them all. So it's actually teaching me better tilt control. Bad beats are always going to happen to me, it's how I act after that is important. I laughed at those 2 eliminations and still managed to keep a positive result.

So that's it for me so far. I haven't gone insane, and am learning to 8 table very well. Later down the track I'll switch back to regular SnGs to hopefully increase the ROI but for the time being I'm happy to make some guaranteed money.

August 2009 – the month that almost ended my career!

Looking back at August, it almost felt like an out of body experience.

Hindsight opinion: I could have done things so much different.

So what happened?

First real month of deciding to play SnGs exclusively and I got hit with my first BIG taste of negative variance.
I’ve had 10BI downswings before.
I’ve had 12 games ootm in a row.
But I’d never tasted what negative variance can really be like until last month.

I can’t recall the exact figures, which is beside the point to be honest. But I suffered from a 30+BI downswing which shock my world. I was over-rolled for my games which was fine but damn, 30 buy-ins down in the game I love SUCKED.

From there I started single tabling 100NL on Stars and 4 tabling 50NL on Ipoker, trying to convince myself “If I play really really really tight, I shouldn’t run into that much trouble and make back my losses asap, WRONG.

No need to give dollars and cents, but I had a negative 4 figure loss in August.

I really questioned, for the first time in my life, can I do this? Also, do I want to do this? The answer came back to what it always has been, YES!

Looking back I lost the main chunk of money due to not following my own rules and letting my emotions take control of my actions.

In a really weird kind of way, I'm actually happy I lost so much last month. It really taught me that there will be big downswings and there is nothing that can be done about it. Importantly, they will happen again, so be prepared for it. The most shocking part is that there still may be bigger downswings to come!

September 2009.
Having recently gone gold star on Titan I’ve decided to test the waters volume wise and see what I can do. I’m starting to get used to the fact that I need to put in the games and time so I’d like to see how many games I can actually get through in a month.

Since the start of the month I’ve played 160 SnGs for a +9% ROI. A little shocked at that but happy as I’ve never played so many games 8 days into the month.

I’ve moved from 4 tabling to 8 tabling which is working out very nicely. I’m was hoping to play 300 SnGs by the end of the month for at least a 5% ROI, so far the volume is tracking good, hopefully I can attain the good return.

August was a learning curve, yes another one. I lost big then played out of my depths to make it back quickly. Doesn’t work, looks like this will be a slow grind, but one things for sure…..

I will never ever give up and I will become stronger with this!

I had a lot of support following my last post and want to thank everyone on my blog and forums for their help and advice, if no-one wrote back or helped, my results would have been a lot worse, so THANK YOU ALL.

Be back soon with mid monthly updates.

Good luck to all.

Custo.

20 Buy-in downswing in 8 hours, how to deal with it?

What really sucks was I played optimal poker for the first 5 hours, and then tilt took control for the next 3 hours.

How can I play optimal poker and lose 20 BUY-INS IN A SINGLE DAY?

Good question.

I’m not going to entertain you with video replays of the BS hands I went through but here’s an idea, all hands are allin hands…

AK vs AQ – He flops the Q
JJ vs 77 – He flops a 7
AA vs AKs – He runner runners flush
A9 vs A2 – He rivers a 2
Heres one of my favourites for the night……
3 way pot, my AK vs QQ vs A5…..
Board….. A J 2 5 5

You can see where this is going.

I know what your already thinking, took some bad beats, get over it and get on with it. I’m not denying that for 1 second. But 8 hours of this repetitive garbage, seriously wtf?

I’m to seasoned to know PokerStars doesn’t “have it in for me” nor am I going to say that’s it’s all rigged.

What I’m pleading for at this stage is just advice, how the hell do you deal with poker when the cards treat you like that over and over and over again?

I know the swings and variance associated with SnGs and accepted that a long time ago. I’ve just never seen a consistently harsh set of outcomes dealt to me

What to do???????

FYI - this is all on $16 9man turbos at PokerStars

Adding 1 more table and plans for August.

For years I’ve played 4 tables simultaneously. I’ve been watching heaps of videos from Sit N Go Grinders, mainly videos from ‘glitlr’. With 2 monitors it’s a little easier to do so basically I’ve stared 4 tabling on my primary monitor and having 1 extra game on my second monitor. This was if I bust out early I just bring the 5th game over and continue to 4 table.

I’ve done this for a few days now and my last 3 sessions I can do nothing but laugh.

Stats are:
3 sessions of 5 tabling.
Cost = $16x5 = $80
Results:
Session 1: 3 3rds Return of $81, profit of $1
Session 2: 3 3rds Return of $81, profit of $1
Session 3: 3 3rds Return of $81, profit of $1
can you friggin believe it?

So basically I’m a little unsure of what to make of these results. Is this some strange random luck or lack thereof? Or have I somehow conditioned my brain to just expect the minimum.

Certainly won’t stop me, in fact I’m so comfortable with 5 now I’ll be adding another in my next session. I’ll only stop once I either become uncomfortable or start showing a consistent negative roi. I was going to make a dramatic jump from 4 tables to between 10-12, but a lot of successful players I know online all say the same thing, just add one at a time. I think I’ll heed that advice.


August
As far as August is concerned I’m planning on doing something I’ve never done before.

I’m really going to make a go of the $16 9man turbo on stars. Month after month I’ve been switching between game types and sites and all for what, either a minuscule profit or even a loss. I’ve never spent a full month of just grinding away at the same type of game.

From watching pro sng grinders I’ve noticed a distinct and obvious pattern between them all, they all have a routine. Every day at every time I’ll find them playing the same amount of tables at the same time of day. “Clock in, Clock out” seems to be their way.

Me, I just sit down, logon and play whatever the fuck I feel like. Bad idea.

I’m actually really excited about this and keen to watch the graph after a few weeks of consistent playing.

The only slight variation to this routine will be I plan to play a few 180 non turbo games. Only problem being is as they are around 4 hours per game I’ll probably only be able to play these on the weekend, or in the middle of the night.

So that’s it for now. July was a little all over the shop only cause I was a little all over the shop.

Let’s see if I play consistently good, can I get consistently good results?

Go Ivey Go!

I can not explain how excited I am the Phil Ivey has made the November Nine. I was watching the updates on worldseriesofpoker.com all day yesterday from the final 27 down. Every year it seems that 1 pro makes the final table yet an amateur takes it down.

2003 - Sammy Farha – Busted 2nd
2004 – Dan Harrington – Busted 4th
2005 – Mike Matusow – Busted 9th
2006 – Allan Cunningham – Busted 4th
2007 – Tuan Lam & Lee Watkinson – Busted 2nd & 8th
2008 – David ‘Chino’ Reem – Busted 7th

Every year at least 1 pro seems to make it through this monstrous fields and every year they fall short.

When I first go into poker I loved the fact that amateurs where winning the main event. Now, after playing semi-seriously for several years, I’m praying for a pro to take the title down, and I could not think of one more deserving then Phil Ivey.

Along with the rest of the poker community, I’ll be watching you Phil, good luck and take it down!

No more data entry – YAY.

As some may or may not know, I’ve been keying results and statistics for all game types for some time now. In a failed attempt to get away from this I purchased PT3 late last year. Unbeknownst to me, it is practically a useless piece of software for tournament tracking. Finally last weekend I just took the plunge and got my self Holdem Manager.

Like a blessing from the gods this piece of software is. It has been a right pain to start a SnG, log the start time, enter the final place, and calculate the time played (4 games at a time) all in my head. Now with nothing more than a single mouse click, it’s all taken care of. Just need to make a few small personalisations and I’ll be happy

It’s also helped my avoid looking at my actual BR so hopefully there will be a nice surprise at the end of the month. I know as of right now I’m down, so any positive figure, I’ll be happy with.