I'm now at 20,295 or more than 20x my initial roll. I've been updating my 10 bagger post with progress but wanted to make a new post to highlight some of the high points since last time.
There is nothing to convince me otherwise that 7cs hi/lo is the softest game to hit. It is basic strategy to play for a low and try to scoop but there are plenty of players that don't do that. Enough at this level that it is a very beatable game. Yes it is play money but at these stakes the standard buy in is 2000. What I mean by that is that players coming into this game have to be at least semi-serious about winning because you can only reload your play money account for 1000 which really isn't enough to be comfortable at these stakes. You see some players come in for 1000 but they are just d0nks looking to double up and generally doing a crappy job at it. They are better off playing Oma-lotto because they can at least get ten way action on their money and have a better chance of 10xing up.
The structure of 7cs allows me to just sit and pay ante/bring-in tax while I wait for good starting hands then pour in money into hands with high probability of success. I don't play many hands and I continue even fewer of them but when I score it more than makes up for all of the antes and bring-ins I need to post along the way. I think fixed limit games are ideal for bankroll management because it helps to keep variance low and even let's me play a bigger game than I would otherwise be able to so I can build my roll faster. Kinda like a high leverage financial instrument.
Limit play in conjunction with multi-tabling is the way to go. There really are no hard/expensive decisions to make and with all of the upcards available you can make a decent assessment of where you are even without having watched the action the whole way through. Multi-tabling really helps me to avoid tilting off money too because I don't get too tilty from a great starting hand bricking or a bad suckout. It's just one of the many anonymous hands that go into the "didn't work out" column that are more than offset by the "took down a big pot" column.
I want to start tracking numbers more. I look at them but don't really track or do much analysis from them. For instance, here are some combined numbers from my last few sessions:
Statistics for 316 Hands
Street Saw Saw/Total
Fourth 79 25%
Fifth 53 17%
Sixth 35 11%
Seventh 27 9%
Showdown 25 8%
Street Won Won/Saw Won/Total
Third 0 0% 0%
Fourth 0 0% 0%
Fifth 1 2% 0%
Sixth 0 0% 0%
Seventh 1 4% 0%
Showdown
- Split 11 44% 3%
- Scoop 7 28% 2%
25% of my hands get to 4th street. I am mucking at LEAST 75% of my hands since that number also shows the times that I post the bring-in and don't get raised off of my hand going to 4th. It is rare to go past 4th without paying but it happens sometimes and can even get to the river with no extra money so my selectivity is even tighter than these numbers show.
I only won two hands out of 316 by betting and having people fold. This is because a) hope springs eternal for players and you will be called with chasers and b) I don't bluff so I'm not trying to take down a pot with scare cards showing. Razz is much more a bluffing game IMO.
I am only showing down 8% of my hands. No d0nking off chips to look players up. Not at 100/200 at least. I try to either bail early or hammer the pots when I'm strong. Not much middle ground.
Of the hands that do see showdown, I'm raking chips in 72% of them. 44% of my showdowns I take half and 28% of the time I'm scooping the whole thing. The math is clear. Muck hands for cheap, invest in hands with good upside potential, pour money into hands when you are ahead and try to win both ways if possible. Recipe for building the roll.
Other notes:
I had my first career 7cs roll up with 55/5. Case 5 was unknowingly dead and boating up would have lost to a bigger boat anyway. Neat to see but I'm not going to get too excited about these hands unless they are high trips that boat quickly or I quad up.
Scooped a giant 4.8K (24% of my roll and nearly 5x my initial roll) pot when I make an Ace high flush and wheeled for the low. Got multiway calls all the way despite showing all Hearts as my upcards and capped the river with a guy that thought he could get low. I was actually a 2h away from a wheel straight flush. I rivered the 2d instead.
Seat 7: TheSushiCowboy showed [Th 5h 4h 3h 8h Ah 2d] and won (4,890) with HI: a flush, Ace high; LO: 5,4,3,2,A
Once again, just solid fundamentals. I only got involved with hands that are strong lows and scoop as much as the cards allow.
Anyway, there are some lessons learned from my bankroll building exercise. I hope that they are helpful for you Cakers.
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Sat down for a session, 2K x four tables of my favorite, 7cs hi/lo.
Saw 4th street with an all Club hand, two lows, bricked on 4th street yet paid anyway. Bricked on 5th and I realize that 4th should have been either low or a club to continue, perferably both. I had neither. Mistake, but I recognized it immediately and now am sharpening my ruleset for continuing with hands.
I have a three to a low qualifying starting hand 7h4d/2c and I can tell everyone else is going high. Dupe my Four on 4th street but catch a Five for four to the low. I know I can take half if I can just catch one of the many live cards lefft in the deck. Five on 6th street, boo! Five on Seventh street...hmmm. I'm wary of a low house but I definitely am going to call 200 on the end. I trump a guy with KK99 who found a nut flush on the river instead of his boat and a d0nk with a pair of Jacks, no low possible, and a gutter to a straight that missed but he paid the end anyway. 2760 pot.
Different table and I find a 3h7h/Th starter and I call a complete bet. With my new ruleset I want something either low or suited and the deck obliges by giving me both, a 5h and I call a small bet. Next street gives me the 8h but I see some a pair in the up cards so I play it safe and risk introducing a raising war. Big bet all around. Jc on 6th, clank. I like my chances still of course and call 200. 2d on the river and now I'll bet that I have at least a low. Me and another guy cap it with one guy getting middled for two big bets before folding. Ten high flush is good for high and 87532 is good for low. Scoop 3320 from each side for a total of a 6640 pot.
This session is pure hit and run. Played ten minutes seeing 25 hands over four tables. Went to 4th street only 5 times (20%). Saw 5th street only four times and one of those was an acknowledged mistake that I saw right away. Of the 25 hands I only went to showdown twice and scoooped both of them. From my 2K buy-ins at four tables I got taxed down to 1560 (bad call on 4th) and 1790 (just posting) but made up for it with the table where I made a house with no qualifying low on the table for 3795 and the huge hi/lo scoop table for 7055. Buy in for 8000, cash out for 14200. I've passed the quarter century mark and am sitting pretty at 26,495 with an eye on the 500/1000 tables...not yet but eventually.
Another quick hit and run session for me. I like the multi-tabling, I can play for just a few minutes at a time and feel like I got a lot of poker in. At time if there are enough interesting hands with four tables open, it feels like a video game where you need to be tracking multiple threats at once while taking care of housekeeping like doing bring-ins and folding bad hands.
Nothing much this session, I had one hand that kept giving me odds to call extra streets because I got just enough on each street to give me more things to go for. In the end I looked up the field with Aces up but lost to trip Kings. A marginal situation but I'm OK with seeing those every so often. I had another one where I got strung along and ended up backing into a winner. I'm going to watch the marginal hands more often to see if they are worth pursuing.
Had one table with aggro-idiots jamming the pot when they had air. One I can take as a betting station to value later but two just makes it impossible to play my game. Had to bail on a couple decent starting hands on that table because I'm not going to cap a street just to see the next card unless I'm A23 suited or something like that.
I also ended up all in a couple of times. I won but not keeping my tanks topped off cost me extra value money on the end. I think I'll buy in for a larger amount and since it's limit the extra won't matter. Keeps accounting easier too.
Stats say I saw 4th street 32% of the time. I played 93 hands and went to showdown nine times, won eight of those times including two that were scoops.
Bought in 4x2K plus a reload. Cashed out 16141 for a net of 6141. Now 32,636 so I'm now a tick below being 1/3 of the way to six figures.
Another short sit down at the tables. I put myself on a pitch count of 100 hands. I was a little card dead and caught some great starters that strung me along and I chased a little. Part of me was looking for a big score hand like I've had lately but nothing came.
Despite not dragging a huge pot, I was able to basically just get by on relatively small pots maybe 1K-2K. I figure if a "bad" session means only making a grand or two then that's OK. A bad run of cards and I'm still EV+? I'll take it.
I avoided maniac tables. Stood up when the tables got too short. Lessons learned earlier that I have incorporate into my play.
Buying in for 5K helped. Didn't have to reload ever. Yes I had more than half my roll on the tables but limit means only a small portion was at risk at any one time.
Weakest part of this session was chasing instead of sticking to my ruleset. Have to avoid being ROTty because I was still up.
103 hands. 24% to 4th street (more evidence of chasing). Folded on 7th twice which is a bad sign, means I chased that far and didn't get there. Saw 11 showdowns and won seven of them including 3 scoops.
Decent work but could have been less chip leakage.
Bought in for 5K x 4 tables and switched tables once. Cashed out up about 5K. Now 37,696. Over the 1/3 mark and knocking on the forty bagger door.
Once again, a rather middling session. Late at night there's not as good a selection of tables. I can only get three 7cs hi/lo tables going and one dries up after a while. I even dip back down to a 10/20 hi/lo table and open up a Razz 100/200 table to try to keep action going.
The Razz was at the end and I only saw was dealt four hands. I only played one of them but I bet a guy off of his hand on 6th and took down one pot.
In Stud h/l I was dealt 75 hands. Went to 4th street in 23% of them. Got to 7th street 5 times. Bricked once and didn't even call. Lost one. Bet someone on 7th and got no call. Split one. Scooped one. I think those are the five different possible outcomes of getting to 7th street and I did all of them once tonight.
Despite bad cards and a lost showdown I eeked out 404 of profit. Now 38,100. Should be better tomorrow when more tables are running.
I played some of the worst poker of the challenge this morning. My stats bore it out too. I saw fourth street about a third of the time which is about ten points higher than I'd like. I had a crummy win ratio of going to showdown seven times and losing three or something like that. (I am still in the session so I don't have numbers for just that portion. I chased way too much and paid the price.
I did have somewhat of a cooler hand where I was pushing action on the end with a 34567 straight and no obvious low seeker around so I figured I'd cap it. My straight was no good because I was notched by a 76542 low. That one stung a little. Normally that hand would be good for a scoop or at least half and I picked up neither.
I press on and tighten up my game. I get out of marginal situations for the most part. I did pay off trip Nines with my Aces up. Light orange belt there. It could well have been Nines up that I was beating but I did think he could well have trips too. Only cost me 200 to find out so I'm OK with that one. Could have gone either way on that.
I do end up getting my session stats more in line. By the end I've played 217 hands. Got my 4th street ratio down to 26%. Went to the river 29 times (too high) and saw showdowns 24 of those times. Won 18 of the 24 including 4 scoops.
I d0nked at the beginning and was probably down around 3K or so but by solidifying my play I got all of that back and then some. Good to know that the algorithm is strong enough to counter a quarter session of bad play. Now 40,743 and I've reached the 40 bagger milestone. I would like to hit 50x this week sometime and think that is totally doable.
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