Backed up

I'm going to be losing the PC I have always played from soon. As a result I'll be losing my environment I've set up.

My setup consists of the PokerStars client, an Access database that I use to record cash game session results and tournament results, and an Excel spreadsheet for calculating stuff like win rates and ROI. The Access DB has the tables and data itself, as well as some simple forms and some queries. The queries from the Access DB populate the Excel spreadsheet.

I don't know when I'll be set up with a new PC. Pretty soon hopefully. Getting back in the poker game is definitely a motivator to get myself back online quickly. There's some stuff I have to work through that's not applicable to this blog.

Doing the backup is pretty easy. I just e-mailed the spreadsheet .xls file, the DB .mdb as well as my PokerStars Notes.txt to my Gmail account as attachments. When I'm ready to restore I can get the files back intact to my hard drive pretty easily.

I won't know until I get it what the software will be on my new (to me) PC. The Stars client is of course a free download so that will be easy. I can just overwrite the Notes.txt from the backup to restore my old notes.

Moving your PokerStars notes from one computer to another is pretty easy. Just save the file C:\Program Files\PokerStars\Notes.txt from the original computer and restore it into the new computer, replacing the Notes.txt on the new computer. You can save the Notes.txt by e-mailing it to yourself as an attachment using Gmail or other e-mail program.

My new PC might or might not have Microsoft Office. If it doesn't have it I'd prefer to avoid having to purchase it. I expect the spreadsheet will be easily replaceable. Google spreadsheets is Excel compatible and I'm not doing anything funky in my spreadsheet so I figure I can use that as an alternative.

The Access replacement looks a bit trickier. For the DB part I'm comfortable enough with Oracle or MySQL which are free for personal use. But for the forms I don't really want to write an application myself although I could. Oracle DB/Oracle Forms would probably get by as I've worked with Oracle Forms enough in the past. It looks like OpenOffice has a database component which has forms capability and can work with the Access (Jet) database file. So OpenOffice may well be good enough for my purposes. I'll probably try OpenOffice first.

As a precaution, I've exported the data from the Access DB into an Excel spreadsheet and sent that to myself in Gmail as an attachment. Also I've saved the SQL text of the queries and screen shots of the forms to a Word document so I'll be able to read them back later if I can't open the Access file.

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Onto the last hands on my original Internet poker PC. I finished up on a positive note, winning a seat in a $2.20 4 table turbo satellite sng to the big Sunday Hundred tournament. I then unregistered to get the $11 tournament dollars. I managed to win a hand in a short $0.50/$1.00 limit hold'em session to post a session profit.

In the tournament I get off to a good start in the early going. A bad player passes up three clear opportunities to correctly fold and instead puts all of his money in as a big underdog and goes bust.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t20 (9 handed)

UTG (t1480)
UTG+1 (t1430)
MP1 (t1340)
MP2 (t1520)
MP3 (t1430)
CO (t1520)
Button (t1860)
SB (t1420)
Hero (t1500)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Kd, As.
3 folds, MP2 [Ad Qc] raises to t60, 4 folds, Hero raises to t180, MP2 calls t120.

Flop: (t370) 9d, Kc, 9c (2 players)
Hero bets t220, MP2 calls t220.

Turn: (t810) Ts (2 players)
Hero bets t1100 (All-In), MP2 calls t1100.

River: (t3010) Qs (2 players, 1 all-in)
Final Pot: t3010

Showdown:
Hero has Kd As (two pair, kings and nines).
MP2 has Ad Qc (two pair, queens and nines).
Outcome: Hero wins t3010.


A bit later another bad player misplays a hand on multiple streets and gets stacked.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (9 handed)

MP3 (t1235)
CO (t3055)
Button (t1505)
SB (t3230)
BB (t995)
UTG (t1570)
UTG+1 (t1815)
MP1 (t1260)
Hero (t3110)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with Jh, Ac.
3 folds, Hero raises to t150, 4 folds, BB [8s Ks] calls t100.

-- With his short stack cold calling the raise with such a weak hand is a big mistake. The best play here is to fold and try to open push with first in vigorish. Otherwise he should have moved all in preflop with some fold equity and to ensure he could see all 5 cards. There's not a single hand in my preflop raising range he is ahead of.

Flop: (t325) Js, 2h, Kd (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t220, BB calls t220.

-- He flops top pair then strangely check/calls. This pot commits him for the rest of his stack while allowing me to still get away from the hand if I don't improve on the turn, which gives me great implied odds. Better plays on the flop would be to just push to protect his hand or checkraise all in.

Turn: (t765) As (2 players)
BB bets t625 (All-In), Hero calls t625.

-- On the turn he makes the worst mistake in poker. He puts his money in as an underdog. Drawing slim he goes bust on the river.

River: (t2015) 8d (2 players, 1 all-in)
Final Pot: t2015

Showdown:
BB has 8s Ks (two pair, kings and eights).
Hero has Jh Ac (two pair, aces and jacks).
Outcome: Hero wins t2015.


Hands like these two where bad players can be so easily stacked postflop make me want to start playing in some slower structure tournaments such as the $4.40 180 player tournaments.

Like any tournament I've won or gone deep in, I had to get lucky along the way. Here the blinds are threatening my stack so I have to make a move but unluckily run into two much better hands. Thanks to a miracle flop I stay alive.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t400 (7 handed)

MP2 (t4205)
Hero (t2585)
Button (t430)
SB (t1653)
BB (t3377)
UTG (t4555)
MP1 (t7035)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 9c, Jc.
3 folds, Hero raises to t2560, Button [Kd Ks] calls t405 (All-In), 1 fold, BB [Qd Ac] calls t2160.

Flop: (t5275) As, 9s, Js (3 players, 1 all-in)
Turn: (t5275) 3c (3 players, 1 all-in)
River: (t5275) 6c (3 players, 1 all-in)
Final Pot: t5275

Showdown:
BB has Qd Ac (one pair, aces).
Hero has 9c Jc (two pair, jacks and nines).
Button has Kd Ks (one pair, kings).
Outcome: Hero wins t5275.

I don't feel too bad about button's bad beat. He's a fish for letting his stack get that low.

And finally I get a great hand at a key time with the blinds going up blazing fast. Luckily my better hand held up.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t600 (5 handed)

Button (t9285)
Hero (t5422)
BB (t2481)
UTG (t5372)
MP (t1280)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Kh, Ac.
UTG [As Td] raises to t5322, 2 folds, Hero raises to t5372, 1 fold.

Flop: (t10844) 7h, Qc, 5d (2 players)
Turn: (t10844) 6d (2 players)
River: (t10844) 3h (2 players)
Final Pot: t10794

Showdown:
Hero has Kh Ac (high card, ace).
UTG has As Td (high card, ace).
Outcome: Hero wins t10794.


And that was it. The table condensed into the final table where I was the chip leader. Since I didn't have to play another hand to qualify I just folded everything and easily coasted to a seat.


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My last winning limit hold'em hand on the good old poker PC which will be missed.


PokerStars 0.50/1.00 Hold'em (9 handed)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 8s, 6s.
UTG raises, 2 folds, MP2 calls, 1 fold, CO calls, Button calls, SB calls, Hero calls.

-- with a truckload of cold callers and closing the action with 11:1 pot odds and good relative position on the preflop raiser I think this is a correct call with a medium suited one gapper.

Flop: (12 SB) 4s, Kh, Jh (6 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, MP2 checks, CO checks, Button checks.

-- I miss the flop and have to check fold. Miraculously it gets checked through 6 way.

Turn: (6 BB) Ts (6 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, MP2 checks, CO bets, Button folds, SB folds, Hero calls, UTG folds, MP2 folds.

-- On the turn I pick up a flush draw. Thanks to all the cold callers preflop bloating the pot I have pot odds to call.

River: (8 BB) Ks (2 players)
Hero bets, CO folds.

Final Pot: 8 BB

Results:
Hero has 8s 6s (flush, king high).
Outcome: Hero wins 8 BB.


On the river my line is bet/crying call. Villian could raise trip kings but I'm usually beat if raised. The reason I didn't checkraise is hands I beat will just check behind and not bet, but they may call. Hands that beat me will always bet and getting a checkraise 3bet here would be a tough spot for me to be in.

A Winning Month

Well July is in the books and I was up for the month. July was my first winning month after three consecutive down months. I was lifted by hitting on both the limit hold'em and sng cylinders.

My bankroll is close to the previous high before the slide. I don't think I'd had a losing month before this slide in the short time I've played online. During April-June I lost 19% of my bankroll.

Downswings and break even happens and as long as you're playing better than your opponents then over time you should gain. For me I don't get to play too much and I don't multi table so it takes longer in terms of calendar time for downswings to play out. I felt I was playing mostly OK, well enough to win. Hopefully I'll get back up over the previous high water mark and put together a nice string of plus months.

In poker it's like the tide coming in or out. When waves come in you go up, then when they recede you go back down. However overall if the tide is rising then the up waves are greater than the receding waves and you're getting ahead. But if the tide is going out then the waves going out are greater than the waves coming in and you're slowly going down.