Ragz 2014

[Ragz]

Another massively frustrating day today, again probably 3rd most games ever played in my history. Exactly the same as yesterday starting out on the up then crashing back down to zero and below, then swing it back some. Was totally card frozen the entire day, my usual 28/22 must have been something closer to 2/1 it felt like as the laptop continued to relentlessly burn my hands with frost bite. Haven't got my HEM with me either so looking forward to seeing how many thousands of % below EV I've ran for 500 games over two day. yada

[Ragz]

cheeky mascot didn't do much for me today

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[Ragz]

I got back to peak again the day after last post and then cashed out back to standard roll. Literally since that SECOND I've been on  a massive nose dive beyond the realms of possibility, as is always the case with my account. You can literally feel the switch flick and boshhhhhhh, card frozen for days, every situation is set up for u to be coolered, yada yada.

See if you can spot the bit where I cashed out.

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After a day of total hell today, this was the final game I had going, a possible day saver. A $3r 180, FT bubble 11 left. http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/18561906_D130578D10

That would've seen me on 200k. I then MIRACULOUSLY win this http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/18561911_55AC042650

But with me on 200k he'd still have jammed and I'd now be on 350k pre FT.

http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/18561919_5744067D55

Now I should be nearly 500k pre FT, probably a world record. Although that would've made it FT time I think (and you can obv argue cards would've been different had previous hands busted). Get nothing the entire FT then this http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/18561936_9B7EC35879

All after a 200 game day of rig. Be warned this is the majority of how my account runs so...trying to stay positive somehow though.

[Ragz]

Went to Genting in Southend last night, mainly cuz a couple mates have recently started loving the blackjack and roulette, sadly they're not very into poker. Time the 3 of us went a few months ago we all bought into a tourney but one hasn't a clue what he's doing and the other has a reasonable clue on starting hands and raising instead of limping but other than that isn't too comfortable with it. big shame really if they were into poker as much as me our lives would be completely different I'm sure. The latter of the two I mentioned is, however, fecking lucky in the gamble side of casinos. In blackjack in the side betting bet where u can bet on pairs, flushes etc he hit them THREE TIMES IN A ROW!! And turned 3 £5 bets into £1500!!
Hilariously the staff then wanted to know his name address etc which to me is a downright insult! No he isn't an alien who became the first being ever to crack a casino, back the hell up already 

I could barely even concentrate on roulette or BJ myself for the amount of absolute stunners walking about the place!!    I spent most of the night with me jaw somewhere between me knees, really need to get out more!! It's funny there's often quite a few pairs, trios or groups of girls who seem to just aimlessly walk around as iif they're just waiting for a rich guy to pick them up, seems kinda fishy lol.

Anyways I wandered into the poker area where the Saturday tourney looked as though it had a good turnout,  but I couldn't play as I wouldn't be able to be there at silly o'clock were I able to last that long, so I considered sitting in the cash table for a bit. It was £1/£2 with £40 min buy-in which I thought might be an idea to just buy-in min and short stack (something pokerstars abolished the possibilty of doing some time ago) but the table was full. At least I thought it was full until someone else sat down on a seat I'd barely noticed due to how crammed it looked on the table. Looked as though they were straddling to £4 aswell, it would have just been a case of waiting for anything decent and lob it all in knowing that there's probably well over £10 already in most posts before the flop's even gotten there. I do tend to recognise the same faces even if I only go there 2-3x a year so it seems most of them are regs but yet splash the chips around as if they're all mostly 70/50 vpip/pfr or something. Maybe they just like to spunk all their wages at the weekend, it MUST be lucrative surely! Didn't end up playing but tempted to go back down tonight on me tod for the £60, I really need to break this live playing duck and get back into it to start feeling comfortable. You've got 21yr old brats like Charlie Carrel going round the world hammering every high roller going and moving his gf and best mate out to Vegas just for the lulz and there's me in my late 30's barely even sat down to a live 10/20p game !! bit of a joke really 

[Ragz]

Since last post:

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All week has been simply gross. That massive mountina slope was 4-5 cashes in nearly 100 hypers  I honestly don't think one could cash so few if you were to jam every single hand of every single game. Today was sick becuz it's the the last day of the second 30 day period of my contract and had to complete the last few games to make the 2.5k game quota. So what happens? My pc crashes while 20 tabling and deep in all the highest stakes games, reboot only to find all my Stars settings and preferences (which is a fucking lot to set up manually) have been completely wiped. I've opened up the mess of a lobby and to a  horribly standard everthing, table themes, no hotkeys, sounds going off like mad, timing out all over the place, just a complete nightmare!!! Get that sorted then it crashes AGAIN next time around!! Fortunately no wipeage of user ini this time. Been googling like hell to find the problem. cba going into the details unless someone reading is a pc techie.

So I'm not happy at all with the month obv, had to play mostly hypers as not had time or internet to play 2.5k turbos, which means a lower win rate before even mentioning the vile patternised number generating downswings of a virtual vertical nature. Despite a poor month overall my 18-mans alone still came to $2.62/game, keeping me to >$2 a game in them since the start of contract. Common sense says I should just stick with those but sod's law says if I do that I'll have a giant downswing in them, which is mostly why I play a wide range of formats at the same time, just to keep the variance monster guessing and unable to pin me down to one spot all the time. Keep the patternised algorithms confused by darting between formats.

For the next 30 day period I desperately need to get $2/game and get in more like 160hrs instead of 95, but for that I'lll need reliable computer and internet   

[Ragz]

Things are going pretty terribly at the moment. Reached 100 abi downswing and busted entire roll, have had to ask for a reload. Dunno how long that's gonna take. Today was epic once again in terms of obliterating all world records on the chip-leader-to-bubbling front with mahoosif stacks in nearly every $30 and $60 18man I played today. In fact today's "pattern" was quite the common one it uses. That in which it absolutely refuses to allow any bubble to burst under any circumstance, it's incredible the amount of blind levels passing at every bubble situation it really is. Often Ill make it to 10k chips have everyone dead by around bb300, then 500 shorty double ups later and at bb40,000, I bust.

Today's EV:

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And $60's on the year:


Past 5 days has been spent trying to sort my never ending crashing pc out, so haven't been brave enough to play much until today. And that's becuase I finally gave in and did a fresh install on one of my drives. It's fine so far. So then I knuckle down get the work attitude on to be smashed in the teeth by that horrific rig. U won't win motherfuckers I'm telling u that much

[mondatoo]

I've been reading the diary since you brought it back to life but wasn't sure whether to post as I didn't want to seem like I was having a dig when you seem to be struggling a little, can assure you I'm not but when I read your thread I always think this seems a really tough grind to try and make a living, no ?

Who's the biggest winner in each variant of SNG's that you are playing and what's there profit this year and from the last 12 months in those games ? I have a rough idea especially with 180s but maybe I'm a bit off.
I have no idea what ability level you are at but what do you think your profit for 2016 should be if you ran to expectation and what would that equate to $ p/hr when you include study time etc ?

It just seems like a really tough way to make a living when you are giving up 50% of your profits so I wondered what numbers you project to want to be doing it.

Nps if you don't want to answer the questions as maybe it's a bit personal, glgl with the grind.

[Ragz]

Well I think we all agree on the whole that the poker grind is way tougher than it used to be. I don't put it solely down to opponents being better, I have my beliefs about online poker, beliefs that very few other people share so I don't usually like to harp on about them too much. That said there are plenty of regs making a living from SnG's, Brits included. Most of them are blocked on SS.

I know what ROI's all regs are achieving in different formats of course, I probably sharkscope more than your average player by some considerable distance. Watching ROI's gradually drop across the board doesn't necessarily convince me that higher isn't attainable. For 18man I believe the $15 ceiling is 14-15%. I'm around 12% since 2015. Not huge volume but EV figures line up over that distance of course. I believe double figures are more than attainable in the higher buyin 18's too, and infact across those and STT's you'll generally find ROI's go up the higher the stakes because nowadays soooooo many regs are at the lower/micros limits being taught by the stables responsible for it all. Fortunately most stables seem to (in my opinion) teach quite a lot of bollox which at least leaves room for the better players to still profit. I'm never going to go into too much detail on strat in a public forum, however.

Story short, $2/game is more than achievable at $15 abi it's just a matter of having to put more hours in to get less games than you could a few years ago because they run so much less off peak than ever before. That's something I've always struggled with and despite being motivated to improve that massively this year I've still been hampered of late with computer crashes, internet failures, house moves and so on.

At least $40/$50/hr is doable, £30/hr tax free isn't to be sniffed at. We will see what happens when I can settle into a proper routine, have no tech issues and so forth.

[Ragz]

Today is already hilarious so far. Still no word on a reload after hours and hours, with $200 left I played $15 6m hypers again and this happened

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So for the afternoon went back to what is meant to be my bread n butter.

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[Ragz]

So my backer shipped me $1k over at 1am that night. He did apologise for his partner seemingly doing nothing about my messages to him, and I still had no courtesy response from him days later.

Similarly to when they first shipped me a roll, I insta binked some the following day (Weds) which sees me all back to BE again.

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Not sure how the MU thing would work with this stable, like if you were to get a bit stuck if you would be allowed to take any kind of wage while paying bits off at a time. Well with SnG's I certainly don't intend to ever have to find out! 

[Ragz]

Things are slow as shit once again. Almost 2000 games break even again now. Today saw set up after set up in all my $30-$60 18m games that I ran deep in, but before that I managed to go 12 without even reaching the last 9 lol. That's not a stat I've ever looked into. I always remember my longest cashless streaks, which is around 70, with multiple 40-45 streaks too. But never considered lack of FT streaks. Well you wouldn't in a two table tournament! 12 sounds pretty hilarious. A bit like 30-40 cashless in 6max hypers sounding hilarious too. Oh but I've managed that on many an occasion.

Sattied into a $109 bounty builder plus the big $109, the hot 82, got completely coolered in those. Got 17th from 4600 players in the only games I ever win races in , yep the $2 ones, the Elite allow u to win those I was 1/40 with 800k chips, $1300 up top, it soon went. $50 for the place LOL.

I wonder when the next 0.75 day spell of reasonably close to EVness will happen so I can get more 100 steps forward from the 99 back.  My highest stakes games are massively furstrating. With every single bubble situation (especially $60's) ending with constant gruesome set ups. if I could switch the outcome of just one hand per $30 and up game this year I'd be up another $5k I'm quite confident of that. But then I've said this my whole poker life. There's this constant waiting for when something good is going to happen, or rather when is something not good going to not happen. Players keep using the phrase "never lucky" these days. I couldn't care for that, it's not luck required in a game of skill that sees you in countless 80-20% situations that were they all bets in a bookies would've netted  you millions by now. No, my phrase is: "never not unlucky". Try again tomorrow I guess.

Gonna watch a few eps of Boardwalk Empire that I recently started watching. Yank gangster stuff from the 20's era, spanning 5 series since 2010. Huge fan of gangster related TV, obv did the Sopranos back to back in about a week  but havne't watched anything series wise in about 3 years. Well I recently got talking to 18man rival ratataboom1 on skype and his avatar is Charlie Lucky Luciano. That got me into researching him which got me into Boardwalk. So some old poker rival who I used to berate endlessly in chat ends up being the cause of what I do to relax for the next few months of my life. Funny old world. Loads of reasonably graphic sex scenes in the first series  second one's calmed it a bit tho. Destress time

[Ragz]

A grand spunked today in 6 hours, 60 abi's. It takes all my power to not go mental in this blog, which is what I've used a blog for in the past, to vent when running bad. So hence there would be daily posts, as I run bad daily, for years, decades. I feel like going off on a tirade of describing the precise patterns that the Patternised Number Generator produces every day and which massively non subtle changes occur each day as it goes round in a circle repeating itself, but I'll refrain.

Did well in satties again getting into the Hot 82, 55 and a few others. Don't even recall them, was violently raped faster than it took to qualify. Another torrent of bricked 180's and 18man giant CL to bubble occurances and I was left with one possible day saver, a $15 180. Led the entire game and had 60k with 12 left. And then the usual pattern got under way. Every shortie doubling a million times, FT bubble lasting 35 levels, and eventually went out in 8th. An earlier $15 180 aswell saw me finish 10th when JJ obvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv ran into QQ bvb.

Ran into ratataboom1 in some 18's again and he demonstrated some horrendous play. This again proves how unlucky I'm am constantly as he has pretty much the highest consitent ROi in higest buy=in 18's and 50-50's, a really consistent $2+ a game if not more. And yet this is how he plays

PokerStars Hand #152247388353: Tournament #1545304818, $27.78+$2.22 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2016/04/21 20:25:56 WET [2016/04/21 15:25:56 ET]
Table '1545304818 2' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: MaStR0_N1cK (1213 in chips)
Seat 2: Sooo Tilted (1474 in chips)
Seat 3: steveo412 (1424 in chips)
Seat 4: ratataboom1 (1648 in chips)
Seat 5: StarFromHell (1454 in chips)
Seat 6: Holod282 (2914 in chips)
Seat 7: RagztoRiches (1164 in chips)
Seat 9: fleischerjun (2209 in chips)
MaStR0_N1cK: posts the ante 4
Sooo Tilted: posts the ante 4
steveo412: posts the ante 4
ratataboom1: posts the ante 4
StarFromHell: posts the ante 4
Holod282: posts the ante 4
RagztoRiches: posts the ante 4
fleischerjun: posts the ante 4
RagztoRiches: posts small blind 15
fleischerjun: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RagztoRiches [ ]
MaStR0_N1cK: folds
Sooo Tilted: folds
steveo412: folds
ratataboom1: raises 45 to 75
StarFromHell: folds
Holod282: folds
RagztoRiches: raises 105 to 180
fleischerjun: calls 150
ratataboom1: calls 105
*** FLOP *** [ ]
RagztoRiches: bets 185
fleischerjun: raises 445 to 630
ratataboom1: raises 834 to 1464 and is all-in
RagztoRiches: calls 795 and is all-in
fleischerjun: calls 834
*** TURN *** [ ] []
*** RIVER *** [ ]  
*** SHOW DOWN ***
fleischerjun: shows [ ] (a flush, Ace high)
ratataboom1: shows [ ] (a pair of Tens)
fleischerjun collected 968 from side pot
RagztoRiches: shows [ ] (a flush, Ace high - lower cards)
fleischerjun collected 3512 from main pot
ratataboom1 finished the tournament in 16th place
RagztoRiches finished the tournament in 17th place




Look at that action and he thinks tp is good?   He's good like never here basically. Never. IT would be a smidgeon more plausible if he had the . Then later on he shoved A8o for a ridic amount which probably wasn't exactly -ev but still absolutely no way in relation to the ROI he gets while geniuses like me get incessantly killed day after day after day.



Pretty much 12 losing days from 15. fuck off already

Oh and just to add some EV proofs. 140% below over that period.

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[Marky147]

Glad that when I had downswings like that, there was no such thing as HEM to track it.

Hope it turns around for you soon, Ragz.

[arbboy]

Glad there are no HEM trackers on bf either.  I had a similar month.  Literally lost 80% of days this month.  Every day 50% of dog favs seem to be winning and shitting up.  Just got to swing with it or get a job.    Some months you are supposed to lose otherwise you are not doing it properly to win long term.  Don't tell the results orientated TFT boys that though!  It's all about the results on there on small sample sizes.

[Ragz]

Thanks. For sure losing months are totally unavoidable these days.