Joined: May '11
Location: Canada
Age: 34 (M)
Posts: 979
So I decided last night just to make a fun little deposit of 20 bucks on stars, unfortunately which also exchanged to like 18 American $$'s but after I played a little 50 cent MTT for the pokerstars challenge I had decided hey its late right now but what if tomorrow I figure out how to set up my PT4 for Zoom (which was surprisingly simple...) and then I proceeded to try my hand on some zoom poker... its been a bit of a rough start today because I'm a little clueless to the several oddities of playing such a high speed game, although I think I am efficient catching on. Now, it is time to give myself some goals.
Goals: - Play a minimum of 1k hands a day - Achieve a win-rate of at least 25bb/100 on 2nl - Turn this 20$ deposit into 100$ - Share a updated graph after every session - Post my favorite hand of the day
Stretch Goals: - Acquire enough VPP's for the Goldstar VIP next month - Possibly be playing 5nl before January is over
I will now start with my first hand of the day. I chose this one not because its a cooler or a AA pre-flop shove but instead I had thought it to be a really weird hand that definitely stuck out to me. (I also didn't want to start out my blog with coolers either, positivity brings the positive)
PokerStars Zoom Hand #110580318642: Hold'em No Limit ($0.01/$0.02) - 2014/01/22 18:29:12 ET Table 'Halley' 6-max Seat #1 is the button Seat 1: hoobiwan ($1.20 in chips) Seat 2: HERO ($2.76 in chips) Seat 3: kabestan ($1 in chips) Seat 4: tony gizer ($2.41 in chips) Seat 5: DubSheets ($1 in chips) Seat 6: 1um3n ($2 in chips) HERO: posts small blind $0.01 kabestan: posts big blind $0.02 *** HOLE CARDS *** Dealt to HERO [Td Jd] tony gizer: folds DubSheets: folds 1um3n: folds hoobiwan: folds HERO: raises $0.02 to $0.04 kabestan: calls $0.02 *** FLOP *** [5s 6h 2d] HERO: bets $0.04 kabestan: calls $0.04 *** TURN *** [5s 6h 2d] HERO: bets $0.06 kabestan: raises $0.12 to $0.18 HERO: calls $0.12 *** RIVER *** [5s 6h 2d Tc] HERO: checks kabestan: bets $0.50 HERO: calls $0.50 *** SHOW DOWN *** kabestan: shows [7c Kc] (a pair of Fives) HERO: shows [Td Jd] (two pair, Tens and Fives) HERO collected $1.47 from pot *** SUMMARY *** Total pot $1.52 | Rake $0.05 Board [5s 6h 2d Tc 5c] Seat 1: hoobiwan (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet) Seat 2: HERO (small blind) showed [Td Jd] and won ($1.47) with two pair, Tens and Fives Seat 3: kabestan (big blind) showed [7c Kc] and lost with a pair of Fives Seat 4: tony gizer folded before Flop (didn't bet) Seat 5: DubSheets folded before Flop (didn't bet) Seat 6: 1um3n folded before Flop (didn't bet)
I also replaced my actual screen name for Pokerstars with hero because I'm sure I will discuss my strategies and styles in this blog and I happen to know that I might be playing with a couple of you other mobsters.
On a side note, I will also post todays graph so all of you can see how well I have started.
Current Bankroll : $20.50 USD Hands Played : 1151 VPIP : 30.16 PFR : 16.86 Total AFq : 47.84 WTSD % : 24.83 WSD : 56.34
Joined: Mar '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 7371
I wish you well in this venture and i look forward to reading regular updates on this. The trick is to just try and play your normal game and with a little bit of luck not too much damage will be done. Good luck to you again and keep us updated
Joined: Aug '09
Location: Chile
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 1353
Nice blog man!
I will be following you for sure, because I'm also grinding at NL2 this week but in normal tables. I would recommend that you try to play a little bit more. I think 1K hands per day is not so much (like 1 hour if you play 4 zoom tables).
Also, I think your goal of 20-25 bb/100 is pretty high. It would be nice if you can reach it, But I think anything higher than 10 bb/100 is excellent.
Joined: Jun '12
Location: Greece
Age: 43 (M)
Posts: 488
Excellent work done my friend. Amazing writing. Read it earlier in the morning but hadn't time to respond first. Would definitely follow you around. Think plexo is wright .U should downgrade your expectations a little bit to become easier to achieve. Nevertheless good luck to whatever your goal is and perhaps if u afford time u could share ur tips for zoom. Truing currently to acquire 100 VPP for chrome status without loosing much.
Joined: May '11
Location: Canada
Age: 34 (M)
Posts: 979
Evaluation of Day 2
All in all, adjusting from playing PLO into Zoom NLHE is quite a change and at times seems to be more frustrating, so I feel like I need to be playing a bit tighter then usual due to the fact its 500x harder to get a read on a player, let alone a decent sample size of there stats. Therefore it is causing me to take a bit of a downswing today, just couldn't get paid by my premiums and ran into a couple coolers, but on top of that I think I may have played a few hands badly which is probably the main cause as to why I didn't turn a profit. Hey, its not such a bad thing though I would assume, gives me reason to review and make sure I won't make those mistakes again!
UPDATED STATISTICS
Current Bankroll : $18.90 USD (won off a daily challenge for +0.30c) Overall Profit : $1.18 USD VPP Earned : 35.61 BB/100 : 2.27 (completely horrendous) Hands Played : 2604 VPIP : 27.87 PFR : 16.36 Total AFq : 47.97 WTSD % : 26.64 WSD : 52.67
Summary : Although it is a some what waste of money to chase these cards the majority of the time I felt like I played this hand very well, the CO was a rather tight player I recognized from earlier and felt like if my hand hit big then there would be plenty value in it and if it had whiffed the flop then its a rather easy fold. Couldn't really be any happier with how this hand turned out for me!
Summary : Somehow I felt that this hand was played correctly, but I'm not to sure if I had missed a large amount of value by trying to look weak on the turn when I could've instead increased the pot size right then immediately, but it may have paid off later on the river with being able to get opponent to call the river raise.
Turn : ($1.31, 2 players) 2c Hero bets $0.70, BTN raises to $1.59 and is all-in, fold
BTN wins $2.62
Summary : This was one of my last hands for the day because I shortly after decided I needed to get off before I pull another stunt like this. This hand actually was the final decider on whether I would break even for the day or not and I couldn't have played it worse. The 3-bet pre-flop was good but after that... I just don't know, guess I blew up. I'm very glad I kept it to a minimum, even if I probably still should've called the river raise.
End of Day 2 Analysis : Although I came up for a short in todays earnings, I think I have learned a few valuable lessons about Zoom poker. In a way it's almost similar to PLO because next to nobody ever bets the river without the nuts, I will just have to find a way to adjust my game to deal with 3-bets vs steals and why everyone donk bets or c-bets on the flop. I might look into furthering my trap style of play but then again I may need to do the opposite and quite possibly hit the variance head on and not be afraid to make more calls post flop.
Any advice or imformation any of you are willing to share with me would of course be most appreciated. Let your opinions fly free, I'm glad to listen to anything that could help get me through my struggle right now.
And of course, I almost forgot, I will post an updated chart if any of you care to check it.
------------ wanted to get an early jump on tomorrows play so i could hopefully get maybe 5k hands in for some real game but after this im feeling a bit sick
Hand 1
PokerStars - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.p**************m
Joined: May '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 2219
Great blog.
I was reading up a Zoom thread on 2+2 and it's profitable to grind just Zoom from what I read, although some of the hands seemed lucky or just calling down with middle pair and winning or spiking a second pair on the river. Then again some of the great online poker players post there so they obviously know more than me and how to play.
Joined: May '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 2219
Indeed. I find it is worse for suckouts, beats and of course variance. That is probably due to not having a table presence etc. Seen some things that would never really happen on normal tables, or not as much in any case.
Perhaps changing between Zoom and normal tables might benefit you?
Joined: Sep '13
Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 1564
i tried it for the past few days and while im not going down (well i am but its in swings, up and down up and down up and down.. for like 4 days already) im not going up either :/
i had a few downers but now im back to my 5days ago br, but it does give decent vpp and rake for higher levels (im playing newbie lvl ) i suppose
but there were just ... 10 too many times my trips/straight was not good enough so it comes with lots of coolers attached to it, and i dont think im able to live through that.
basically id be able to still be in plus even with a few bad beats, if it wasnt for my tilt-inspired calls,yesterday i minraise with Q9s , someone 3bets me and ofc i go all in lol and run into AA. and stuff like that i would never have done if i was tiltfree
and i dont remember when was the last time i felt that tilty while playing tourney games, i guess its because tourneys are much slower paced and u cant get like 3 bad beats in a row so im much less tilt-prone there
Joined: Nov '09
Location: Canada
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 2387
Nice to read your blog Jibberish, and good luck with your goals. I found Zoom poker to be hard to get a read on players, as there are a lot of players and not too many regs. The chasers and the gamblers make it hard to turn a profit IMO. Keep the posts coming!
Joined: May '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 2219
I would stopped playing Zoom mate it's rigged to hell. Been losing to suckouts and beats all night long, it's not normal. Stick to normal tables if you are cash playing.
Joined: Apr '11
Location: Romania
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 6669
I will definately make sure to subscribe to your thread, the learning curve of this game can have some crazy swings but once mastered you could make some steady profits.
The bad part is that even on an advanced level variance can hit hard on these games.
Posted by mahdrof: The chasers and the gamblers make it hard to turn a profit IMO.
Chasers and gamblers are your main source of money... If you are losing money against these kinds of players, you are doing something wrong, like really wrong.
Joined: May '11
Location: Canada
Age: 34 (M)
Posts: 979
sorry just decided to take a break yesterday, will post later on, im either going to put in a crazy amount of hands and turn a profit or go busto and turn my thread into a fail
Joined: Aug '09
Location: Chile
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 1353
Posted by Jibberish: sorry just decided to take a break yesterday, will post later on, im either going to put in a crazy amount of hands and turn a profit or go busto and turn my thread into a fail
Wow it seems that you are going to give up pretty early. I really hope your session goes well so you can recover your motivation to keep grinding at Zoom NL2 tables.
As I said before, your blog looks pretty interesting, so try to dont bust and keep focus on your A game to make profit.
Are you still playing??????? Let us now how all ended!
Joined: May '11
Location: Canada
Age: 34 (M)
Posts: 979
Evaluation of Days 3-5?:
After trying the normal 6 max Zoom and even some regular tables its been a really rough ride for the past few days, I barely played at all yesterday but the day before I put in a lot of work and just couldn't get anything going, only time I could get my money in it would be sick to say the least, but fortunately I think I have figured out something that will help me quite a bit... I have just played only like 200 hands today but instead I joined on a full ring table and let me tell you now that it seems to be a lot less stressful. Much easier to make those close folds and now my big hands can actually get action!!! On the 6 max almost every time I would get a big pair I never got action for just even a standard 3x bet, it was so frustrating I was even beginning to think people might be able to see my hole cards. Sounds a bit ridiculous but it was beginning to become a serious problem, I couldn't get action on my QQ+ almost 9/10 times. I know my 200 hand sample on 9 max is much to small to actually consider to be a real read but I'm aware from prior experience being a 9max player at the beginning of me playing poker that it really is like this. Starting off this thread on a much brighter note today. My bankroll has taken a considerable hit but I feel this is all about to change. My play has been spectacular the majority of the time I'd like to think and now I feel like it's about to pay off because I'm in the right hold'em game for me and if this doesn't work out then... the hell with hold'em I'll go back to PLO and make a new go at it. My hands of the day will be very limited due to the fact I don't want to go through like 2k hands or so to find all my older marked ones, plus I don't want to drag some extremely negative hands into a feeling of a fresh start.
Play here was pretty standard, one could argue my flop raise was a bit to much but I felt like I had to extract some large value for them(any JJ+, A10+) to continue or at least eliminate someone from the hand and re-evaluate my hand on the turn. Got reraised which made me tank for a little then I came to the conclusion that I'm beating more hands then I'm losing to and had to stick my money in which fortunately for me was the correct decision. This was actually one of the hands that helped me grind my way back up after being down an extraordinary amount to the point of barely being over 10$ USD.
Not to much to say about this hand, I felt I did lose a minimum on it because I didn't blow up on the river. I feel like I should explain my reasoning on this play so I guess I might as well then. Starting from the pre-flop call, I enjoy playing my speculative hands for as little before the flop thus giving me the decision to just call the UTG 2cent bet, also well aware that doing this gives me the ability to call a possible smallish raise without being to stressed either and it gives the option for more people to hop in on the hand. Then the flop happened QQ5 with 2 hearts, I wasn't very pleased because it is extremely likely that someone has a queen, so its most definitely a check/fold situation. Everybody checked it down so we made a right on the turn (lol) and I spiked a jack which did give me some showdown value and I had to call the 2bb/half pot bet from the small blind, he could very well have had just about anything from small flush draws, pairs, trips and even straight draws. I felt like I had a fair amount of outs even if I was behind so I decided to make the call because hell he could even be bluffing, donk bets/steals are extremely popular if the flop gets checked down. After a very short sailing expedition I rivered the 9 of hearts, I was thinking 'Wow, this is my magic card!' Several possible straights made it while I hit my flush, I'm in glee but still a little cautious, I don't want to get to far ahead of myself because I still don't have the nuts and as the SB makes his turn it takes a little while, which is unusual to how he played the rest of the hand. Boom came the pot sized bet which also made me a little hesitant. Right here is where my re-evaluation started, where I focused and actually put him on pocket jacks or 5's but it was also very possible he could've had the nut flush. I came to the conclusion that if I were to re-raise what could I do if I got 3bet... nothing I would have to fold or donate my chips to a better hand, thus giving me reason to just call down the river. + we all know micro-stakes players never go all in on the river without the nuts.
So far its been a hard start, not really what I would've wanted. I think I'm going to continue on the Zoom tables, but I will be switching to full ring. Having to tighten up my range and get a little bit more passive (pre-flop with speculative hands) then I'd like is something that must be continued to reduce variance and outplay this downswing. On another note, this has most definitely been a very valuable past couple of days for learning. I find it rare that anyone will put there money in on the river without the best hand (or maybe the only action I get is from grinders.. lol) and a general rule of thumb is if anyone plays the hand fairly weird or awkward is it safe to assume they are usually weak or have the nuts but neither should be called down to lightly. (ex. flop check turn re-raise shove on dry board) With my final conclusion, I still feel Zoom poker is fairly similar to micro-stakes Omaha, its really a hit or miss, bet or fold, nuts or nothing. There is 2 types of players, the ones who won't continue without the nuts and the stealers. It just harder to discriminate in between the 2 due to the large playing field.
Joined: May '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 2219
Is there anymore difference to full ring Zoom then 6 max Zoom? I have always preferred 6 max tables myself but being only six people you probably see the premium cards more. I never thought of trying fullring before instead of 6 so maybe I could test it out and see if you are right, especially as I also get a lot of folds with QQ+ in 6 man.
) i suppose 
Bloody zoom.
