One Hundred And Eighty

 

Poker is fun, fascinating and frustrating, usually all at the same time! I have been back playing for a couple for months now and generally I am loving it. I certainly look forward to every session. However, performance and profit wise I am not consistently achieving my goals and this very fact is probably impacting on my performance and profit at times. Welcome back to poker Kartajana, 2022 style!

The experience of playing in 2022 is somewhat different from when I played the game between 2005 and 2015. There is very little in the way of friendly conversation or respectful acknowledgements. I have had a total of one such interaction, so long gone are the days of nh (nice hand) and gg (good game). Instead the Pokerstars software allows us to virtually attack/wind up our opponents by the use of throwable virtual objects. At the age of fifty one I am past launching a virtual rocket or fried egg at one of my rivals. Also it is clear that in this ironically mature phase of poker that many of its players, usually the worst ones, are convinced the game is rigged. Despite this, they play. Indeed it would seem a good 20% of the players don’t trust the software. The other 90% think statistics are subject to both error and manipulation! In truth, variance can be very tough at times, but I genuinely do trust the software, in the sense that over infinite time we would all get our fair share of the good and bad luck that inevitably is out there. I have, in addition, researched the performance of a lot of the regulars I now play. Some are good, some are not but I have concluded, especially at this level, none of them are to be avoided at all costs. It is they that should avoid me, he writes confidently!

In terms of my challenge to play $2 sit n gos in April things started well. Then things stagnated to leave me with only small progress. By the end of April I had played 180 of the $2 nine man sit n gos so far this year allowing me to neatly examine my performance from a finishing position point of view. If the game was purely random a player should finish in each place 20 times. I am thus using my skill and managing my luck the best I can to secure the top three spots, paying out 50%, 30% and 20% of the entry fees. The chart makes interesting reading.

My highest finishing positions are the top five spots which is encouraging but I definitely need more first places. I showed my son the chart and he asked an interesting question. Do you not get frustrated when you come ninth, knowing that you are one of the better players? My answer was no, unless I had made a mistake in my decision that saw me exit the game. I explained not being frustrated at losing was a key to my success playing poker. I made maybe a modest $40 playing these games which is way below where I feel I should be. I should maybe play another 180 to prove it, to both myself and anyone else that cares! How to make progress in future is certainly a key thought. How do I turn lower positions into cashes and thirds into wins. Probably I need to be more cautious early and more aggressive late on. Being more patient in my heads up matches could also help.  

My return to poker so far has been very encouraging though. Every session I see players making obvious mistakes. I am making the odd one or two but am hopefully learning from them. I am having fun making an average of $2 per session. So it looks like I am saying good bye to Fortnite for now – Taxi please to the nearest poker game! I ended April with a nice win of $25, first in a forty-five player $2 sit n go. I still enjoy the thrill of a final table so mixing in some of these games helps keep me balanced when I am playing lots of single table games. One familiar poker nemesis has returned though. Internet connection problems still exist all these years later. My connection seems to occasionally reboot at 11pm which has cost me on a couple of occasions now. I have now withdrawn my initial deposit so I am playing with other players money. My profit balance moving into May is $115 and the new month has started well. I am back reading my old poker books which hopefully remain extremely relevant in 2022. If this return to poker is to be worthwhile I need to move my bankroll up much further. I intend to stick at the $2 level for now though, build my confidence and funds to get ready to move up a level or two.  Watch this space.

Cheers

Jason (Kartajana)

 

Challenging Times - Kartajana Poker Is Back For 2022

 

The first challenge was to jump through various Pokerstars hoops, at least twice, to be even allowed to play. It too me six weeks, off and on, just to prove I was me! Even allowing for the significant time gap, the fact that I was using a new laptop and growing security concerns online, this was far from ideal. I nearly lost patience and fell at the first hurdle.

So why am I back playing poker? The main reason is a practical one. My son has moved rooms in our house and as a consequence I cannot play Fortnite on his X-Box when he has gone to bed. I need an alternative diversion. In truth I have been planning to return to poker for a while. The time was right, my initial ID challenge has been completed and I am ready to play. I deposited $25 with the aim of quickly turning that into more. I was fascinated to see if, after many years, I could still play. The answer was yes, it all quickly came back to me and in a good way. It was like meeting an old friend. It was great remembering to be disciplined, both patient and aggressive in the right moments, trying to embrace the devil that is variance but most of all to enjoy playing whilst zig-zagging your way to profit.

So what has changed on Pokerstars since I have been away? Not a lot really, some of the sit n go games are structured differently and there are less players overall but I can still get quick action at my chosen levels. Significantly, there are Brazilians everywhere on Pokerstars. Poker has taken off there in a big way and that is great news as it means new players. New players learning the game at my chosen lower levels means only one thing – poker profits potential. Now at the age of fifty, can I turn this new poker adventure into ongoing profit, making a steady profit each month on my chosen games whilst having fun? Generally I plan to play a regular game say ninety percent of the time but also mix in a few higher level sit n gos plus a few MTTs. In April I am challenging myself to play 100 $2 sit n gos and see what I can achieve. Then, if successful, I will perhaps move up to the $5 level and test the difference.

I have been playing again for a few weeks now prior to my April challenge and am enjoying the action and have made a modest $50 profit playing some low stakes games. The only negative so far has been an upsurge in back pain as I spend extra time now hunched over a laptop. I will report again in early May about my progress.

Take care and be lucky

Jason (Kartajana)

One More Year?

When I first started playing poker in 2005 the initial experience was nothing short of awesome. In my first tentative game with play money I was completely out of my depth and shocked at how quickly hands progressed and decisions had to be made. Soon though I got to grips with this new on-line experience and began to learn about the game of no limit holdem via books, magazines, on TV and on-line. Quite quickly it became apparent that there was money to be made here whilst having fun. Ten years on I have amassed around $27000 based on doing something I enjoy.

In truth over the last five years the games have got tougher, new players are in less abundance and profit potential has been reduced. Since I moved to my current house five years ago I have made $10,000 but I had made that amount in the two years before. Over the last few years I have recorded my progress in this blog, this being my one hundred and forty ninth entry. I intend only to write one more, should the situation arise, entitled "Jackpot". It is a great disappointment that I have not won a sit n go Jackpot and despite the money I have earned through poker I certainly feel I have left some winnings at the table, so to speak. Not that I am giving up hope. No way. In fact the poker I do play next year will be entirely Jackpot focused which can’t do my chances any harm.

By the end of 2016 I plan wind down my poker activity focusing instead on my horse racing blog and the historical material that relates to it. If horse racing is of interest to you please follow the link and take a look. Meanwhile, thanks to everyone who has taken an interest in my blog over the last five years and good luck at the tables for 2016 and beyond. For now my Jackpot quest continues.

Cheers

Jason (Kartajana)



A week or so later I received big news from Betfred Poker:

We are sorry to inform you that iPoker will be fading out the jackpot tournaments from the Poker Lobby as each jackpot is won.

All four Jackpot games:

•  Dirty Dozen
•  Maui
•  Rio
•  Fort Knox

…Can only be won one more time!


In some ways I am fine with this. A natural conclusion to my ten years in Poker. Certainly I am not totally surprised by this news. If anything it will spur me on to try even harder now the clock is ticking. Good luck to all during this final Jackpot period, especially to me. Based on the last ten years I will need it!

Countdown To Christmas

Following a family holiday in Portugal at the end of August I am largely re-focused on poker and my Jackpot goals. I am playing both the Maui (Currently 58000 Euro Jackpot for 5 consecutive wins) and Dirty Dozen (Always 2000 Euros for 4 consecutive wins) versions. This mix helps me fit more games into my busy schedule and gives me a more realistic Jackpot possibility. From September until Christmas I aim to maximise my win percentage in these two games to provide a very special Tomlinson Christmas. In both games I will challenge myself to hit a 15% win rate - tough but attainable. My long terms average rates are 13% and 12%. As a minimum I hope to earn enough to buy a new laptop over the holiday season. I will update my progress as I go along:

MAUI WIN RATE: 14%    (Including sequences of 1-7-1-3-1 and 1-5-1-1-5)

DIRTY DOZEN WIN RATE: 11%    (Including a sequence of 1-8-1-1)

Good Luck

Fantastic Four

I have started the month on a high having managed to bag my fourth Maui Jackpot sit n go consolation prize of the year. Five consecutive games finished in the first two positions wins the prize. At 150 Euros a pop this really is a Fantastic Four. Indeed, this 600 Euros represents around 25% of my year to date profit so these opportunities are not to be taken lightly. It also massively helps cover the additional rake paid for these type of games. I am fighting back from a recent slump and in the main playing well and running good too. Even my consolation claim went well and I was paid out in less than 48 hours,  a new record. All in all this is a confidence boost and an indicator that the main Jackpot for five wins in a row, now standing at 47000 Euros, is genuinely within reach. A realistic dream at least.

Meanwhile I am recording the different ways I am able to double up early in the Maui games. By assessing my success in each category I intend to adapt/improve my early style based on the findings. It really does make a big difference to your winning chance sitting with a double stack from early, but only when the risk associated with getting it is manageable. More on this in a future post if my analysis proves fruitful.

Perspective

One of the hardest things to do in poker is stop a losing run. Bad luck can lead to bad play. Bad play can lead to frustration which itself leads to worse play. Then, even good luck can't help! Okay, so things have not got quite so bad for me of late but I am on a losing run. Good luck has deserted me in my Maui Jackpot games and I am not playing my best poker. It is a while since I have won on consecutive nights and I am getting a little frustrated. The graph below shows good progress over the first eight hundred games this year followed by a shocking run over the next two hundred. Is this really the same player and what the hell is he doing?

More importantly what can I do to turn the tide back in my favour? 

Lots of things for sure:

• Firstly writing this blog should help get some of the frustration out of my system. 
• I also need to get some perspective about how big a problem this really is and why I really play. I am so lucky in many ways even before I log on to play poker and I need to remember what is truly important. For example my kids (pictured above) have started their summer holidays this week with a big focus on fun. 
• Despite this bad run I am still having a winning month anyway in July based on some good form and good fortune on Pokerstars and Full Tilt.
• I play these Jackpot games to give myself a chance at the Jackpot itself, currently running at 45000 Euros. Over the next one thousand games I will get myself in a position to do just that whether I win a $100 or $1000 along the way.
• I mainly need to focus on my game, the way I am playing and a little less on the influence of luck. I will analyse my end game push fold actions a bit more often to promote further understanding and confidence.
• When I am playing well I plan to extend my session. When I am too tired I will not play at all.
• Another way forward is to look at my results in a more positive way (see below). Am I really playing that badly? When you remove the rake from my results during my 'poor' run I am still holding my own against my opponents which is reassuring to some extent.

Time to turn a corner. Signalling left. 

Good luck.

Being Patient Like Alex Fitzgerald

Quite often in poker you come across a tricky situation where you are unsure how to act but perhaps feel obliged to act in a certain way. This regularly occurs in my usual jackpot sit n go games. For example when you are dealt a good pocket pair during the mid to late stages of a sit n go you are ready to get involved. But what happens when there is significant action before you. That pair of nines doesn't look quite so attractive, but it might still be the best hand. I recently read a good related article in the final WPT Poker magazine published last December. In it Poker Pro Alex Fitzgerald responded to a question about such a scenario during a multi table tournament. The player asking the question had felt obligated to get involved in a hand based on his chip position and the cards he held even though he did not feel comfortable doing so. 

The thing that interested me here was that Alex encouraged the player to avoid the obvious and mathematically optimum strategy in this situation. Instead he was encouraged to follow his instinct and wait for a better spot. Based on my related experiences in the world of sit n gos I agree with this advice for two important reasons. You may be giving up a small amount of equity by following this path. However you are avoiding sacrificing all future potentially clear cut opportunities. As Alex concluded "Making a slightly tight fold is much better than putting in all of your chips without a clear idea as to what's going on." There is possibly a more important second reason, for me at least. Being in control and being mistake free is key to my focused A-game. If I make a mistake or take a path I doubted in this kind of scenario and my actions backfire it can affect my play across all the games I am playing. Suddenly my A game becomes my C game and I take on every opportunity to gamble and flip for chips. Patience is still key especially in the middle stages of a sit and go. So dump the pair of nines, follow instinct not obligation, stay in control and wait for a better spot. See you there.

Thanks Alex