Pud's Poker Progress / Matthew Pitt / 24 August 2009 /

Those of you who have followed my progress, or lack of, will know that when I write my blogs I do not prepare them as such, instead I just sit down and write as it comes to me. However, this entry was almost going to be one I had written previously, this entry was going to be me telling you I was hanging up my boots.

Last week I planned to play a shed load of poker and managed to fit in 150 turbo SNG in just two days which is decent grinding by anyone's standards. Unfortunately, playing this many in such a short period of time led to me playing like a donkey and basically breaking even after rakeback and bonuses and I started to get disillusions with poker and No-limit Hold'em in particular.

I sent a text to my mate Cadmunkey telling him I was pissed off with NLHE and that since I made the switch to it from fixed limit, I had hardly moved forward at all. If it wasn't for a couple for decent scores in tournaments I'd be essentially break even for about 18 months.

We often rant at each other and have probably stopped each other quitting poker a dozen times and he said something that made me realise I need to grind and grind like crazy to succeed in this game. He told me that I probably haven't played enough hands in cash games to be able to see my true win rate, which is true as I struggle to play a ton of hands because I hit a losing spell, doubt my ability and change to something else.

With that in mind I decided to hit the tables again, with my whopping roll of $116.68 and play some 6-max NLHE. I promised myself that I would stick to it even if I started losing and that I would make some alterations to my game so that I would be playing a much more aggressive style and taking advantage of the loose-passive nature of the players at the micro-stakes.

The Poker Gods (amen) must want to mess with my head because within 100 hands I was not only down by two full stacks but was down this much after getting my money in as a 98.1% favourite, quickly followed by being all-in as a 95.5% favourite! Usually I would log off and have a moan about how bad I run but I know I am much better than most players at my stakes and a few levels above so decided to keep grinding away as my skill would show through eventually.

Show through it did in my next four sessions, all four were winning ones which really boosted my confidence. I've literally been owning the tables, even if I do say so myself, and I'm feeling really good about my game and the new found aggression I am showing. My positional stats look strange as I'm going crazy on the button and also attacking the BB when I am the SB but it is working.

From 1,950 hands I have a VP$IP of 23.1%, PFR of 20.4%, and am winning to the tune of 11.21bb/100 which is always nice. I've even managed to have a positive red line in Holdem Manager (non-showdown winnings) which is almost impossible at the micros so my new style must be working. You can see my graph by clicking here.

So Pud is full of confidence once again and on target to hit 10k hands by the end of the week all being well. If my current win rate stays the same I will be back playing $0.05/$0.10 by the start of September and from there, who knows, the way I feel at the minute the sky is the limit!

As always, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

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