The best time to play poker

Long time no see...

When is the best time to play poker? Many of us, recreational poker players have asked ourselves this questions but never done any in-depth analysis.

So i looked in my database of 270k hands, which might be considered as a reasonable sample size. The outcome of my analysis was quite interesting as i got both expected and surprising results.

P.s. my time zone is (UTC+02:00) Helsinki, Kyiv, Riga, Sofia, Tallinn, Vilnius

The results:

• I haven't played a single hand of poker from 3 till 8 AM.
• My most profitable hour results-wise is 3-4 PM
• My highest winrate (14,74bb/100) is when I am playing 7-8PM ( I excluded highest winrate of 43bb/100 since I only played 86 hands on that hour)
• My worst hour results-wise is 9-10PM, which was very shocking to me, as i expected some of the best results on that hour.
• My lowest winrate is on 9-10PM ( Again, i excluded other lower winrates because of the sample size)
• I played most hands on 4-5PM, 3-4PM and 11-12PM , 32,7k, 29,4k and 22,4k respectively.

My winrate based on time of the day

Hands played based on time of the day

In conclusion, i will keep in mind theese results and adjust as there's no point in playing on those hours when i am loosing.

I hope it was interesting to read this post. For those who wish to analyse their databases and use PT4 do this (more filters-->add filter-->game details-->dates-->time of day)

16nl deep tables

I don't know whether I can't play deepstack tables or I'm running bad. I am still waiting to make profit at this stake but as soon as I'm breakeven there I lose a stack. So yesterday theese two hands happened.



I can't find a fold here since both opponents are fish 100/33 and 70/21



This is just cooler, I was like "wtf, he has KJo in his 4betting range?!"

So up to this date my nl16 deep tables graph looks like this.

Good luck to all!

What?

Biggest pots

So since i've imported all my hand histories, I went through my biggest pots.

Biggest pot, that i was involved in and lost



Biggest pot that i was in and won



And one pot that i really enjoy remembering

Should i play or should i quit online poker?

May 31st, 2010, my first year of university is almost done and looking for more activities i decide to deposit 30$ on pokerstars. Looking back to that day i don't regret doing it as poker gave me a lot of good emotions while also getting me some little cash. However, today more that four years have passed and i am trying to reevaluate everything. I am facing last year of my masters, I have no job and am 99,99% sure I'm not poker pro material :) .

So my option is to play poker recreationaly, but i don't want to be a loosing player as that would be a waste of money.

Therefore yesterday i contacted the PS support and requested my all time hand histories. Now i have them all on my database and hopefully at the end of this post i will be able to make some conclusions and decide what is my plan.

Lifetime graph and stakes breakdown

So the obvious thing is that i am overall a slightly winning player but can't beat 25nl stakes and above. Also the last ~600k hands i am breakeven which looks very bad.

Yearly results

2010

So the first half year went ok, as i moved up from 2nl to 5nl and was winning some there. Volume was kind of low ~10k/month.

2011

2011 was certainly my best year pokerwise. I moved up to 10nl then to 25nl where i had some difficulties and had to move down for a while. Then at the end of the year i had a great run at 25nl and moved up to 50nl which is the reason of the big uptick in the graph. At that time my bankroll management was absurdly aggresive (20 buy ins). No wonder i wouldn't stay at the 50nl for a long time. Volume went up to ~17k/month. While i was up in the 50nl it was the first time i withdrew some money from PS which was nice as poker started giving me money.

2012

This is the year where the graphs begin to go all over the place. That is because my run at 50nl ends and i move down to 25nl where i wasn't a consistent winner. Therefore there are some hands at 10nl. I believe this is the year when PS released the 16nl tables where i started winning some money again. Volume that year went down a bit to 15k/month.

2013

Another swingy year. The first year where i have a slightly negative winrate. Played more zoom games after the  zoom and boom promotion. Volume went up to nearly 20k/month.

2014

Very good start of the year which happened at 16nl, then shot taking at 25nl did not work so for the most part of this year i stayed at 16nl. However started swinging there also. Volume is about 17,5k/month.

Current limit

So currently i am playing 16nl which was going quite nice for the first ~90k hands, but now i am still on a ~100k breakeven strech.

So now i have to look through all these graphs and numbers and decide weather i think it is worth continuing. Any suggestions or insights are wellcome :)

1k views!

Recently my blog has hit a milestone ( very small but whatever ) of 1k views.

I think this blog got more views theese days as someone started actually reading it :) . This will help me to continue writing as i never actually got hooked up on blogging and this will give me some motivation.

Poker:

I am experiencing a downswing not only results-wise but also mentally. I need to get stuff figured out ASAP. I never really continued learning poker after geting to know the basics. So i see only two possibilities: a) either just quit b) or put in some effort and try to improve.

It is easy to guess that i will go with b :)

Here's the plan:

* do some of-table work that i have been pushing away for a long time

* keep a poker log by my hands while playing so i could take some notes and analyse how my emotions affect my results

* take my two hour coaching that i won in a poker pros blog

*really get into the math side of poker as i actually like math and all the calculations

So lets take action and not just talk about it!

   

235FPP HT satellites update

Hi,

As i've writen before here, here and here about sunday storm satellites as a best use of fpps here comes another update.

Firs of all, here is the graph

So i played 106 tourneys ( few are lost in my database) and won 25 of them. Lets compare the value with 75$ goldstar bonuses for 6250 fpps.

Satellites:

Most of the time i sell them for $ at a 99,5% rate, therefore:

25*11*0,995=273,63$

Now if i have bought 75$ bonuses, although it is rare for me to achieve goldstar:

((106*235)/6250)*75=298.92$

We see that for me satellites are not the best use (for now), however i will continue playing them because:

1) they are fun
2) it is hard to achieve goldstar for me at the moment
3) i think i ran quite bad in them also made few mistakes which prevented me from wining few more $.

That is it for now, good luck to all!

...

First session after withdrawal. I didn't believe that there was a thing like doomswich...

This blog won't die!

I haven't blogged for a long time. This week i was in Warsaw for one afternoon. I liked the city although i would have enjoyed more time there and that i would have searched more info about the sights.

Here are the pictures

NitRing

Games are getting nitier everyday...



Pretty strange how money did not go in at any street.

What a day!

Got two best hands in poker in a span of 5 minutes or less :)

Money went in preflop. 

In this hand, i shoved over him and he called with T5o. It is nice to make a royal flush, and much better when you get paid off the maximum.

GL to all.

2013 Year review

Hi everyone, happy new year! I will now review my 2013 results. Looking at the yearly graph is very motivating me to improve. Here is the yearly graph:

I can't maintain a consistent upward going graph, nor is my graph going straight down. I think a lot of my swings are directly connected to my tilt and other psychological problems. Next year i should try to improve it and i think i've done a good job lately as now i already have a habit of checking my results only after a session.

Most of my volume was on three stakes: NL25frZ , NL25fr and NL16fr respectively. 

NL25fr zoom:

NL25fr:

NL16fr:

I will do some thinking about my plans regarding poker and make another post about 2014 and January goals.

And one more time, happy new year! Here is a gif of a 3D projection on Vilnius cathedral.

Christmas cheer

Some holiday rungood

vs 35/25 fish





going for the sidepot

Run it twice

For the win!!!

That is what i need while being at the bottom of my downswing. Moving down to 16 nl.

November results and December goals

Results:

Hi everyone! So november was pretty good for me pokerwise. I've managed to win at both cash and tournament tables.

Cash games were rough on me mentally. My play is still wery swingy. But all in all i finished in green.

So hopefully that big upswing will continue in december.

Tournaments went very good for me ( as  i am not a wining player at tourneys ). Here is the graph.

So the main profit came from two tournaments. Firstly, I won a regional tournament. The prize is not very big, however it is always nice to climb to the top.

Secondly, i've decided to enter the micromillions main event. That was a good decision. I played for about 7 and a half hours and finished in 1390th place for 117$.

Goals:

1) Finish my exams

2) Find motivation to play more

3) Reach Goldstar

4) Collect stellar reward (~2,9k vpps left)

"Do not bluff fish" is a misconception!

Meh

I do too much talking and little work....

Here is the graph for october

I like this redline.











Blogging didn't hook me up nor i got any response/feedback, therefore i will pause this activity for now.

Good luck to everyone

Setting up some ground rules

It seems to me that a big part of my bad results are caused by not following some rules that i have made up. So i think a better way of obbeying to those rules is if i write them down. Here it goes...

Rules:

#1: Do not play if you are not focused (ie. don't be working on anything else, skyping, browsing)

#2: Ban myself from zoom games ( this one can be changed if my bankroll grows)

#3: All bonuses go straight to cashout

#4: Do hand history reviews, post HH on 2p2

#5: Make notes

#6: Do not look at results until the end of the session

Ok, i think that will do for now. If i come up with any more rules i will update it.

To make this post more visual lets post the monthly graph :)

I can only see one possitive thing here. REDLINE

GL to all

FPP use update

FPPS

I wrote earlier about the best use of pokerstars fpps. Time has passed, fpps were generated and spent. Now more and more I'm regreting those fpps which i spent not on hyper-turbo satellites. Here is the reason:

As you can see i've already played 41 tourneys and cashed 14 of them. So now lets do the counting.

The highest possible vip level for me is Goldstar. So i can get 75$ bonus for 6250 fpps. Lets assume that i would purchase two bonuses: That is 150$ for 12500 fpps. For the same amount i could play 12500/235=53,19 tourneys. In order to be breakeven i need to win 15 tourneys: 15*11*0,95=156,75$ ( I am multiplying by 0.95 because this is an exchange rate for which i sell my T$ on twoplustwo.

So basically now i am almost freerolling for 53-41=12 tourneys, as if i win at least one more i'd be up by almost 7 bucks.

CASH UPDATE

I played cash only for three days now. All things are going quite well. I am a bit scared for being above EV and hope it wont even out. I'll need to pace myself in order to maintain Goldstar. The good thing is that i am back at 25nl.