Pipelayin' October 07

Flatland Grinder: Something else is broken now and I don't kn...
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Monday, October 8, 2007 at 8:08pm | Delete
I've had a pretty lousy run, to the tune of losing about 14bb/100 over several sessions. I've stopped now, with just enough of my free money left to hopefully rebuild. Might not be enough unfortunately, but it was free money anyway and I had earmarked it for swimming with sharks in unfamiliar waters. Now I'm at the stage where I'm analyzing my game, and I'm taking a lot of the same steps I took when I worked the bugs out of my nl game. I thought it might be interesting for others going through the same process if I detailed my methods here. My losing run was at 6max limit, which as you might know is a completely new game to me. I've been following the strategy guide at http://www.flopturnriver.com/6-Max-Limit-Guide.html and it seemed to work for me during the week. Weekends have always been known to be a variance hell in no limit, and part of me is thinking that the massive plummet I took today is due entirely to that same weekend variance in 6max. That's an easy cop out though, so I've been spending a few hours seeing where I'm going wrong. I reviewed my hands and some of my pokertracker stats and compared them to the stats at http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=micro&Number=2913856&fpart=1&PHPSESSID= and everything seems to be in order statistically. This is neither here nor there as good stats do not a winning player make, however if there were any anomalies in the stats it would have been much easier to find the leak. I also ran my win rates and standard deviation through some pretty complicated calculations (as seen on the second page linked to) to determine if I have any promise as a 6 max player. After 5000 hands I'm sitting at a 55% chance of continuing as a winning player. That's not quite encouraging enough to warrant any belief that I'll be able to make the switch to playing 6maxlimit permanently, but it's definitely encouraging enough to want to keep trying for a while anyway. So all of the easy places to look for the leak have been checked, and now I'm at the point where I'm going to have to do a full out hand by hand review. As stated earlier however, this game is new to me, and I could be staring a blatant mistake right in the face and not know it. So I've done some digging on the net and found a few more guides and articles on 6max that will hopefully give me a little more info to work with. I hit the jackpot with an online .pdf loaded with 6max resources here http://www.ccs00.com/stuff/shorthanded.pdf I'm only a few articles in and have found some nuggets that would probably have saved me a lot of anguish today. The first few articles deal with what Jason Pohl from Pokerpages refers to as the overcard quandary. I haven't gone to my hand histories yet, but I'm almost positive that this is where I'm going to find my leak. Anyway, more later.
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Doing my part for the economy.
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Sunday, October 7, 2007 at 9:57pm | Edit Note | Delete
In an attempt to curb the danger posed to Canadian exporters by the soaring value of the loonie I've decided to take some drastic measures. I intend to be out of work in the next 3 weeks and collecting EI which should increase at least by 1 the number of jobless adults in Canada. If we all pitch in and stop this heinous trend of working, we can all bring the dollar back down to Earth. In lieu of all your heartfelt thanks and appreciation, I would be most grateful if you all encouraged your friends to leave their jobs and do their part for the exporters of this great nation. Thank you for your support.
This picture is completely unrelated to this note and here for no good reason.
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Updated about 11 months ago


Flatland Grinder: the fix fixed it
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Saturday, October 6, 2007 at 10:59pm | Delete
It seems like I found the right leaks when I analyzed my game. I have recovered my losses for the day and I'm up a little more than I started the day at. 3350 hands in and I'm still plus ev, bb/100 of 3. something which is probably a little skewed from where it will be at 20000 hands due to my flawed play earlier, but even if that's as good as it gets I'll be quite content. That's all for now. The internet cafe I'm in is closing.
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I joined the group It's Called a Bunnyhug and Always Will Be"
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Saturday, October 6, 2007 at 1:49pm | Edit Note | Delete
and they have a lot of posts about weird words and speech patterns exclusive to Saskatchewan. One that was mentioned has me laughing, because my Alberta farmer boss does it so much that we can't keep a straight face when he does it. Here's the post from the group's discussion board
"One of my least favourite phrases of all time from my past jobs is "What a guy could do is..." followed by something ridiculously complicated and a pain in the ass. What I hated about it is that usually "the guy" my bosses speak of is me because they don't want to do it..."
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Flatland Grinder Episode VI: The Fish on Empire Strike Back
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Saturday, October 6, 2007 at 1:27pm | Delete
A couple of things to report. First, it's just occurred to me that I've been posting play results and bb/100 rates while telling you nothing of the strategy I'm using. Now I could type out this strategy for you here, but that wouldn't be fair to the author of it. I have to give credit where credit is due. So if you follow this link http://www.flopturnriver.com/6-Max-Limit-Guide.html you'll find the strategy I've been having so much success with. That being said, I'm not having so much success today. Variance is always going to be a bitch in a shorthanded game, but I think my performance drop today has more to do with my play than with any natural swings. First it has to be said that a drop was coming, because the bb/100 rate I was enjoying did seem a little inflated. But a drop of the magnitude that I've taken in 2 of my last 3 sessions is the result of flawed play, pure and simple. I realized to late that I've been wandering off from basic strategy. This just goes to illustrate the importance of post session analysis, particularly when you're learning a new game. Hypermegachi states repeatedly in his strategy guide that cold calling is probably the biggest leak in most players' games. And what have I been doing? I've been cold calling with holdings that aren't quite strong enough. For instance I've been calling 2 bets cold with hands like ajo, or kqo, and really, I shouldn't be getting involved with anything less than a premium pair or aq. I've also been calling and even raising with small pairs out of position. Small pairs do have value, but not so much in early position. After the flop I've let my play slide a bit too. I've been pushing my overcards when they miss the flop and not slowing down when it's obvious I've got a donkey taking it to the river. I mentioned I took a big drop in 2 of my last 3 sessions. The 3rd session I played after doing a little analysis on my previous sessions and isolated some of my leaks. I managed to recover a portion of what I lost splashing around too much by correcting my play. I think it's crucial that I revisit the strategy guide prior to every session until I've internalized this strategy so that it's intuitive. Still not going to give up and go back to no limit just yet, but it's certainly an option.
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On the Ode to Lloydminster
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Friday, October 5, 2007 at 7:42pm | Edit Note | Delete
It's going to have something to do with the upgrader as a constellation on horizon, and i"m going to give it some kind of fiery name like Icarus or something. It will also talk about the air being made of hydrogen sulfide, brimstone and sulphur.
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I'm having a bad week.
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Friday, October 5, 2007 at 7:26pm | Edit Note | Delete
I feel like I'm complaining all the time this week, but it has been a seriously rough week. Last night I got on board the Greyhound for Saskatoon from Edmonton. It was so packed that they had to bring on a second bus. They filled the first one with people going as far as Saskatoon, and half filled the other one with people going beyond Toontown. I had some time to kill before getting on the bus, both in Leduc and Edmonton. By the time I got on the bus I'd had 2 big pint glasses of Coke, a large chocolate milk, and an A&W Root Beer. Some woman on the bus was wearing a HUGE amount of perfume, and the guy beside me was in a similar line of work so he kept talking about it all night. The perfume was getting to me, making me cough, hurting my throat, giving me a headache, so 2 hours later when we got to Lloydminster for a half hour stopover, (I'm going to be writing an ode to Lloydminster in the near future), I went looking for an all night drugstore. I couldn't find one, but I bought a Lemon Iced Tea to get rid of the frogs in my throat at the bus stop. I downed it quickly, then noticed they sold Tylenol right there, so I bought a Tylenol and an Orange Crush to wash it down with. Soon we were off again, on the somewhat winding highway outside of Lloyd. I started to fall asleep but then my stomach started to rumble, and I started feeling nauseous. It occurred to me that I'd had 2 pints of coke, a root beer, a chocolate milk, an iced tea and an orange crush on a pretty much empty stomach in a pretty short time span. Every time the bus went left my stomach contents went right in a heavy sugary tide of carbonated artificial colorings. Left right, left right, bus slowing and accelerating to navigate the turns. Long story short I spent until Radisson in the bus toilet throwing up orange crush flavored puke. Been sleeping most of today. I'm never ever ever ever taking a bus again. The guy behind me had fetid breath, it was about 28 degrees on the bus and everyone had their shoes off so the air was feeted too. (Catch that 'feeted', 'fetid'). When the bus finally pulled into Saskatoon I decided to walk home. All day long I've had the smell of that guy's breath stuck in my olfactories. Disgusting. I just hope he had the smell of my pukey breath stuck in his nose all day. How can people not notice that their breath is so bad people several seats away from them can smell it?
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Updated about 11 months ago


In perfect shape to travel.
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Thursday, October 4, 2007 at 11:24pm | Edit Note | Delete
I caught a pipe upside my head at work today and now I have a big nasty shiner (another first in at least 15 years). I remember when I was younger I used to feel like I looked pretty tough whenever I had a black eye. But this one is weird. It caught me right in the socket, so for the most part you can't see the bruise unless I close my eye. The rest of the time it looks like I'm wearing make up. I was asked if I was wearing mascara about half a dozen times today. Combine that with the hair I have from wearing a hard hat for 14 hours, and I look like a transvestite that just took off his wig and didn't quite get all his makeup off. My hope is that it keeps people away from me on the bus. My fear is that it will attract undesirables. Anyway, I"m on my way back home, between connections, no time to respond to threads at this juncture, but will tomorrow. Peace out yo!
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Updated about 11 months ago


Nothing good can come from this.
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Wednesday, October 3, 2007 at 6:16am | Edit Note | Delete
Because nothing good ever comes from any journey that involves a Greyhound. Greyhounds are the preferred method of travel for the lost, the doomed, the wild, the hunted and the haunted. Where do I fit in? Well for the next couple of days doomed I suppose, forsaken to work.
Half the people on my bus were drunk. Most of them were malodorous and unwashed. There was a feeling as we boarded much as one might expect from a group of new inmates being escorted to their cells. We knew that there was no hope. For the next 8 hours we were to be cooped up together in the most uncomfortable seats ever designed for travel (excluding of course the seating in an 89 Chevy Sprint or 84 Chevette).
This freaking station is worse than the bus was. It's like Mos Eisley spaceport. There's no more venomous hive of scum and villainy in the entire galaxy. I lived here for a few years and I never realized just how many junkies this city has. This is going to be a grrrrrrreat fucking day.
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Updated about 11 months ago