Being a Lolpro for dummies.

[Evilpengwinz]

Just want to weigh in momentarily. I don't want to de-rail your diary, but if you forgive my trespass I hope that it'll provide some insight for you.

Most Poker Rooms in the UK don't cater, on a daily basis, to 100+ runners. I run a busy Card Room and to be honest, I probably average out at around 60 runners a night. If I am hitting 100, that's a busy evening and they tend to strain resources because you're not typically prepared for it - you man your business to what you usually get, as opposed to always expecting more than you get.

When you're hosting something like the SPT, APAT etc, it requires you to find another 10/12 dealers to ensure that you can start at the beginning with 20 members of staff, plus all the extra staff needed to work a night shift. This is usually a challenge in and of itself. I'm still waiting for the day where every dealer turns in, and on time at that. By virtue of this increase in capacity you're going to use dealers that, for example, haven't dealt poker for years or they are newly trained.

While I am sure as a player at such an event you expect a certain level of quality, I do think it's worth appreciating that these businesses are doing their utmost to accommodate you and they're usually venues where these events are a far greater level of business, in attendance terms, compared to the norm.

So, yes, you inevitably get new dealers, some very rusty dealers and some gems in the rough. I think the important thing, though, is that in my experience both staff and customers alike get in to the spirit of the event and enjoy it for what it is - a social gathering, a bit of fun and theatre.

As for 'Pot Limit', I can deal the game and not stack the pot. The numbers can go into 5 digits and I'll still fire you the answer before you've finished pronouncing the word pot. That doesn't mean I don't have the odd moments where I go blank. It happens. Pot limit is very taxing on concentration and it's tough on dealers in these events where they are working all day, not getting many breaks and they're trying to keep it all fun and enjoyable for the benefit of everyone playing.

I've never played at the Broadway, but in my experience of SPT and APAT they're a wonderful group of people and they're generally forgiving and understanding of the extra effort these venues go to try and make their experience fun. I am sure the Broadway did their very best to make the event a success.

Regards,

George
G Casino Luton

Thanks for the insight - Off to bed so will re-read and may respond again tomorrow, but no problems with the thread being derailed at all. Derailments are usually more interesting than most of what I write anyway

[Evilpengwinz]

14th June
Couldn't sleep last night because my sleep pattern is awful. There's hardly ever anyone playing on Sky at night, so I ended up loading PT4 and playing on 'Stars instead. It's very rare for me to play on there, and I don't really keep much money on 'Stars either, only a couple of hundred dollars for splashing about in homegames and to play something on my phone, so I was only playing a couple of tables of $10NL 6-max, more to alleviate boredom than anything else. I won 2.5 buy-ins, and my profit line has moved slightly closer to my EV line by virtue of miraculously winning a flip on 'Stars. The VPP earned also meant I also binked $10 from stellar rewards too, a reward for the endless hours of 1 tabling HU hypers and Zoom while bored to death at various family members' houses over the last few months. Boom.

Should really transfer a decent % of my roll over there so that I can play at a decent level whenever there isn't much traffic on Sky, or better still, keep my roll in a bank account separate to non-poker money, gain interest on it, and leave maybe 50 BIs on Sky. But that would be me using common sense, so it'll probably never happen :')

Woke up this morning evening, and went back to grinding on Sky Poker again. Played for a couple of hours, and there were a few spots where I could've maybe saved a few quid, but was happy with how I played overall. I didn't run great either, but still finished a buy-in up. Felt like I was maybe raise/folding slightly too often in some spots, so that's something to look at when I review my hand histories in the next couple of days.

Results 14th June
Online since last update: +£22.60, +$36.45
This month online: -£194.15, +$37.55
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£579.15, +$37.55
Sky Poker Points: 2,182/7,000 (= £21.82 rakeback)

Hand Counter
20NL hands played: 4,782 (+£248.77)
30NL hands played: 4,401 (-£181.27)

[simonnatur]

Hi, can you tell me how you get a count of hands played on Sky?  - thanks

[Evilpengwinz]

Hi, can you tell me how you get a count of hands played on Sky?  - thanks

Yeah, sure.

Firstly, you need to record the start and finish times of your session. Go into your hand history, and below "Hands from last X hours", click "More search options", and it'll replace the "Last X hours" with "Hands from X until Y". Put in the start and end times of your session, and it will tell you how many hands you played in that time period.

Unfortunately, there are two drawbacks with this method, although both are easily solved.

1) Sky's hand history will only show a maximum of 500 hands in one search, and if you try to search for more hands than that, it'll display "More than 500 hands found". For example, if you play between 8pm and midnight on multiple tables, you'll almost certainly play more than 500 hands. So you'll need to search the first hour of your session, note down how many hands you played, do the same for the 2nd hour, 3rd hour, etc, until you get to the end of your session. Then when you know how many hands you've played in each hour, simply add them together for a session total.

If breaking your session into 1 hour chunks is still giving you "More than 500 hands found", then you can always break your session into smaller intervals, and do the same as above.


2) Playing across multiple limits - There's nothing to filter down to one specific level. If you're playing two levels at the same time, you'll need to order your hand histories by limit - Simply click the limit column on your hand history.

If you're playing 50NL and 100NL, for example, this will show the 50NL hands first, then the 100NL hands. Click through the pages until you find the one where it changes from 50NL to 100NL. You have the total hands played already displayed at the bottom, and each page has 10 hands on it. This means you simply look at how many full pages of 50NL hands you have, multiply it by 10, and add the number of 50NL hands on the page where it changes from 50NL to 100NL, and you'll get the number of 50NL hands played in that session.

To work out the number of 100NL hands in that session, subtract the 50NL hands from the total hands.

Usually, you will get both of these things combined, as if you're playing multiple levels of cash then you're probably playing quite a lot of tables. It can take a little while to work out hands played at each level using this method, but the lack of HUDs on Sky means it's the only way, and once you get the hang of it, it only takes a few minutes at the end of a session.

[Evilpengwinz]

15th June
Another day of really crap results. I guess the downswing was inevitable at some point, there was absolutely no way that 24bb/100 at 20NL over the last couple of months and ~25k hands was going to be sustainable or make moving up to 30NL easy. The move up to 30NL started not too badly, but has nosedived since the beginning of this month. Today, I played well at the start of the session, but got tilted by AK chopping with KQ when I got the money in on KK96 and the river double paired the board, and getting JJ in against 97 on T92, river 7. Played my C-game for the rest of that session and suffered the consequences.

On the subject of tilt, I'm finding myself getting tilted far more easily than I used to recently. Think this comes down to my Dad constantly reminding me that he wants me to move out so he can move in with his girlfriend, and the pressure of needing to get that money from somewhere. When I got kicked out of College, he was annoyed that I wouldn't be going to University in September, and therefore, may not be moving out this summer. I rather stupidly said although I wasn't going to Uni, I could "easily earn more money in a month than you earn at work, have a £10k bankroll by September and move out".

Overconfidence. Sigh. Will learn to keep my mouth shut one day 

My Dad ask for my results every day, as if they're actually relevant because he doesn't understand variance. Trying to explain things like this to a non-Poker player who believes that "Gambling is for morons" but still buys a lottery ticket every week is never going to work, as I'm sure anyone who has tried will know. Being a pessimist too, he likes to constantly remind me every time I don't win the main event on Sky have a losing session that there's no way I'll have enough money to move out any time soon. Definitely adds a lot of unwelcome pressure, especially when I'm going through a downswing.

I'm expecting to have to withdraw a few of hundred quid to pay the credit card bill for this month before I get slapped with interest on it, too. Air miles ftw even though I don't have a passport. Nits gonna nit. It's getting quite depressing watching my bankroll going down continuously atm - Well over 1k less than at the start of the month because of withdrawals and the downswing - but it justifies being a massive bankroll nit. Going to cut out 30NL tables from my grind for a while, rebuild and regain confidence at 20NL and SnGs unless I see one of my two "favourite players" at 30NL. Although even one of them stacked me twice last night...

Sky have decided it's a good idea to put on a rake race for the 3rd time in as many weeks. I'm not sure if they're deliberately trying to scare off depositors or something, but I don't see what the point of it is. Good short term, bad long term, and if this was the plan they might as well have one big rake race instead of 3 tiny ones. Anyway, it means that there'll be a ton of regs around atm, and that's the last thing I want when I'm lacking confidence in my game. Might switch back to SnGs and leave cash alone for a while as a result, depends if there's enough worse regs than me atm for it to be worthwhile playing cash tables against 5 other regs.

Hopefully I'll bink the Sunday Storm and write something more cheerful tomorrow

Results 15th June
Online since last update: -£130.75
This month online: -£324.90, +$37.55
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£709.90, +$37.55
Sky Poker Points: 2,276/7,000 (= £22.76 rakeback)

Hand Counter
20NL hands played: 5,066 (+£218.39)
30NL hands played: 4,790 (-£281.64)

[simonnatur]

Many thanks for taking time re: Sky hand histories - very helpful

[simonnatur]

A good way to think about sessions is that you played x hours so you have earned x times your hourly rate (actual result is just variance right ? ) This might be good for your mindset and as an answer when your Dad asks.

Do you get much chance to play live? I know it's basically shot taking if you're not comfortably rolled , but on the other hand I'ld expect anyone doing ok at 20/30 nl to have a big edge in a lot of the 0.50/1.00 to 1.00/2.00 live gasino cash games I play in. Might be a good way to bolster the bankroll. 

[byronkincaid]

hard to build up a bankroll when you have to pay living expenses out of it all the time, can feel like you're running on a treadmill not getting anywhere. moving out will most likely dramatically increase them as well. maybe think about getting a job for 6 months or so to pay the exes and keep everything you win in the BR until it's fat enough to pay the rent and withstand the downswings.

GL

[Evilpengwinz]

16th June

I DIDN'T LOSE MONEY!!!!!

That is all.

Results 16th June
Online since last update: +£19.56, -$12.00
This month online: -£305.34, +$25.55
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£690.34, +$25.55
Sky Poker Points: 2,510/7,000 (= £25.10 rakeback)

Hand Counter
20NL hands played: 5,233 (+£247.85)
30NL hands played: 4,790 (-£281.64)

[Evilpengwinz]

Apologies for no updates - I haven't played since Sunday, but I'm going to start grinding again today.

In the meantime, I've created a FrogStars account and received the verification code in the post, so I can now play on there, too.

[Evilpengwinz]

A good way to think about sessions is that you played x hours so you have earned x times your hourly rate (actual result is just variance right ? ) This might be good for your mindset and as an answer when your Dad asks.

Do you get much chance to play live? I know it's basically shot taking if you're not comfortably rolled , but on the other hand I'ld expect anyone doing ok at 20/30 nl to have a big edge in a lot of the 0.50/1.00 to 1.00/2.00 live gasino cash games I play in. Might be a good way to bolster the bankroll. 

Hand History - No problem

I don't play live cash much at all, as I'd only be comfortable playing 1/1 with my current bankroll. Because I don't have a car, I have to pay for public transport everywhere, and it's probably going to be more profitable for me to grind online instead, probably even before taking into account transport costs. Could definitely do with getting out and playing a little bit more live cash though, even if it's not the most profitable thing for me to play atm, just to get more experience playing live.

Someone mentioned KC Club earlier in this thread, and really that's the only place to play in Swindon that I am aware of, pub games aside. Playing anywhere else involves getting on the train to Bristol or Reading.

[Evilpengwinz]

hard to build up a bankroll when you have to pay living expenses out of it all the time, can feel like you're running on a treadmill not getting anywhere. moving out will most likely dramatically increase them as well. maybe think about getting a job for 6 months or so to pay the exes and keep everything you win in the BR until it's fat enough to pay the rent and withstand the downswings.

GL

Definitely considered this over the last few days - Going to see how the rest of the month goes, then go from there.

[Evilpengwinz]

Friday 21st June

Haven't played for the last 4 days - Due to my recent downswing, I really couldn't be bothered to play.

Got back on the tables (Well, sort of, didn't play that much) today, including my first few games on Pokerstars.fr, having received my AVC code in the post. Knowing that I'd have to deposit Euros, which means having to buy euros from the bank when using my debit card to make my first deposit, I decided against depositing a significant amount of money, and instead, hoped to bink in my first few tournaments. If anyone knows how to get a better exchange rate when depositing on/withdrawing from Pokerstars.fr, it would be much appreciated

I managed a final table in a €20 turbo, but could only manage 7th for €175. Need to improve my ability to get there from behind on final tables, as it's a huge leak in my game Any cash is welcome the way this month has been going, but at the same time, it was still disappointing to get so close to a sizeable bink and miss out.

I will more than likely be up all night tomorrow watching the Le Mans 24 Hours. No specific plan of what to play yet, will probably be a load of 'Stars and 'Stars.fr tournaments with a couple of Sky cash tables thrown in if there's any juicy games running.

Results 21st June
Online since last update: +£21.06, +€143.00
This month online: -£284.28, +$25.55, +€143.00
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£669.28, +$25.55, +€143.00
Sky Poker Points: 2,517/7,000 (= £25.17 rakeback)

Hand Counter
20NL hands played: 5,282 (+£268.91)
30NL hands played: 4,790 (-£281.64)

[Evilpengwinz]

Monday 24th June

It seems that my run bad this month has finally ended Well, sort of.

The Le Mans 24 hours grind never materialised, so I didn't play at all on Saturday. The Sunday grind consisted of a variety of 'Stars.fr MTTs. I've never really grinded MTTs before, and having to get used to the blinds/antes/structures being completely different on every table takes some getting used to, so I've only been playing 6 tables at once, although the plan is to increase that gradually. I managed my 2nd final table in as many sessions, this time in a 6max tournament with around 250 runners, and a couple of smaller cashes too. It shouldn't be long before I take down a couple of tournaments down on there, and the standard is pretty awful, which makes my life easier.

I had a deep run in both the main and mini events on Sky Poker tonight as well, and for a while it looked as though I had a decent chance of final tabling both and winning some extra money from the final table jackpot promotion. For those who don't play on Sky and don't know how this works, there is a "main" event at 8pm and a "mini" event which starts 15 minutes later. If you final table both of these (The main usually gets around 300 runners on a Monday, the mini usually gets closer to 500), you win some extra money, with the jackpot being an additional £5k for first in each event.

We get into the money of both of these tournaments without too much trouble, only had to win a couple of 70/30s in each to get there. Anyway, we're sat something like 13th out of 17 remaining in the main, and 5 out of 14 in the mini. Not ideal, but we've got a decent shot at winning a decent chunk of cash for final tabling both, in addition to the prize pool in each tournament.

At this point, I shove with in the mini. We've been 4 handed and there's been 14 left for about quarter of an hour, and people in the chat box were talking about how they hate playing 4 handed because it's too fast and they're getting blinded down too much blah blah blah (You're screwed when you get short handed at the final table then, or if Sky ever bring antes into their tournaments, aren't you?). The big blind had me covered, and decided to snap call with K2o because he was bored of playing 4 handed and nobody was being knocked out. The 2 comes on the turn, gg my chances of winning the jackpot. Most frustrating tournament exit that I can remember, as I'd played so well to get into that position for it to be undone by someone calling for such a stupid reason, and because of the circumstances.

"Look at what you could've won!"  

But I'd take AQ vs K2 AIPF all day long, so I can't complain too much, and I'd love him for making such a bad call if I'd held, so meh, whatever, that's Poker I suppose. Still tilted though.



Wish I had one of those. Smashing watermelons with a baseball bat looks fun :')

I was still deep in the main though, and with about £1.3k for the winner and only 13 left in that too, there was still some significant money left to play for. Unfortunately, this mini tournament exit hand tilted me enough to stop my playing my A-game, and I check/shoved a flopped nut flush draw in not a great spot - The opponent c-bet pot, and he wasn't that great either, so this was basically him holding up a sign saying "I have an overpair to the 887 board", but I still shoved when I had no fold equity, as I have 11 outs = GAMBOOOOL. He actually had 98, but my read of "Super strong range" was spot on. With my reads, I should've probably folded, and found a better spot, rather than taking a spot which if it was actually +EV then it's so super marginal, especially as I felt I had an edge on the remainder of the field. Of course, I didn't bink, so what was looking like being a very lucrative evening actually ended pretty badly, considering the position I had got myself into.

Really regretting opening a can of Relentless about 2 minutes before busting, expecting to final table both tournaments and still be grinding now. Gg sleep pattern.  


Results 24th June
Online since last update: +£72.03 , +€96.87
This month online: -£212.25, +$25.55, +€239.87
This month live: -£385.00
This month total: -£597.25, +$25.55, +€239.87
Sky Poker Points: 2,552 (= £25.52 rakeback)

Hand Counter
20NL hands played: 5,282 (+£268.91)
30NL hands played: 4,790 (-£281.64)

[Young_gun]

Sigh UL mate, saw on fb you were close today have been there myself im sure you will get another chance still sucks shame you couldn't bink ME to make up for it

right direction now so onwards and upwards GL