It is time.

For me to make a massive update. I haven't been updating in a while cause I have been majorly busy. What have I been doing? I have been moving. That's right bitches, I'm out of the major iceberg that they chose to call Norway, IM IN MALTA!
I can't explain what level of awesomeness it is to live here compared to Norway.

Pokerwise things are abit tougher though. I grinded my 2.5k roll up to 4k before I decided to take the plunge and move down here. I decided that proffesional poker life wasn't for me though, I admit I was underrolled but I was doing more then ok. But it isn't really about the money at all. You sit on your fucking ass all day playing a game that's not really fun after you've seen it all, you don't see any new people during that time and it's the most boring thing ever. Poker might be alot of money, but I'll be keeping it as a separate source of income and just enjoy the extra money it gives me. Not play too much but play whenever I have the chance and don't really have anything else to do.

So anyways I was up at 4k when I decided to make the move down here. I didn't have a job as I went, cashed out some of my roll to get down here, got this really awesome place with some other random Norwegian guy that I knew through some pokerfriends down here. We pay about €1200 and it's pretty ballin. So I was pretty much just waiting for my computer to arrive so I could play some poker, LO AND BEHOLD when the computer arrived it was completely smashed. Motherboard dead and everything, I was terrified cause now I had to cash out even more to get a frikin laptop, and the electronics down here are incredibly expensive.

Luckily though I got a job at betsson as support where I make about €2000 a month, which is very decent for maltese standards. Our apartment has 3 bedrooms, 2 balconies, 2 bathrooms(one with jacuzi), dining room, kitchen, living room with a bigass TV and surround system etc etc. We have the sickest view ever, and most important of all, walking distance to Paceville or "Drunkenville" as it is more commonly known as.
It's kind of like the center for partying in Malta. Every day is a fucking party down here, the parties are sick because all the poker people know eachother, and affiliates who has their asses full of cash putting several bottles of champagne and vodka on the table, drinking half of it then moves on to the next club/bar without a care in the world. So yeah, it's pretty crazy down here and I have met some awesome people in the few weeks I have been here.

One was this crazy 25yr old tunisian karate champ that I fucked for a while, and also a russian chick(will poast pic at bottom of this installment imo), and lots of other crazy party people. And some balla pokerplayers.

Back to the pokers, I decided that since I now only have a $2k roll I would apply for a stake. I was thinking about it for a long time but thought "nah it's prolly not worth the risk ending up with someone who might not coach that well" cause I'm doing it alot for the coaching aswell.
But when i saw WCGrider from twoplustwo looking for stakees I had to apply cause I knew there would be some quality coaching involved. And obviously he knew brandysbich(my last coach) IRL so he took me on right away.

I'm running so well at life right now it's completely sick.

Anyways there is really way too much to write about these last few weeks but I think I'll cut it here cause if I continue any longer I'll end up writing a 10k word essay.

I will upload more pics later as I get my computer setup, right now I need some sleep cause I'm going to work again in like 8 hours.

Pic of russian girl imo:


(the one on the left ldo)

Xmas

Sighhh, where do i start.

5 years ago i loved Christmas. No better feeling than waking up at 7am to see a huge pile of presents under a tree in the living room. Knowing that you'll get your playstation complete with 10 games which should just about keep you occupied throughout the holidays. Knowing that you don't have to spend anything and get everything you could possibly want without having to ask twice.

How i wish i was a kid again :\

Now it's just a case of forking out wads of money and expecting pairs of socks, and possibly a shirt in return (if your lucky). Now it's a case of trailing around in women's sections of clothes shops to buy presents for women you don't even know the correct size for. Now it's a case of going out into town drinking and listening to mindless repeats of depressing Christmas songs while complaining that hot girls are expecting you to dance to them?!?.

Plus i'm stuck 2500 this session.

You know what?, Fuck the credit crunch Christmas. Long live the Grinch.

wtf am i doing

I don't want to be an accountant, there's too much written and excel work and i enjoy going out 4 nights a week too much to have to stop that just so i can be awake at 7am. It just seems like a waste of time putting so much effort into something i dislike, so i can get a job that i dislike even more...

Ideally i'd love to deal poker 3 nights a week for fixed income then just grind out 2-4 for $60-80 an hour. Bit stuck what to do really, i'm too much of a pussy to quit uni and join the professional poker playing bandwagon that several of my friends have chosen.

On the bright side though, driving is going well, had an awesome night out yesterday, and still running well at poker.

Here's a fun hand ill talk you guys through.

Blinds $3/$6 NL Hold'em - 2008/11/25 - 16:35:49
Table Avalon
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players: 5

Built up my stack a bit obv and am slightly deeper vs opp which i am obv happy about

Seat 1: UTG ( $ 844 USD )
Seat 2: Gill ( $ 900 USD )
Seat 3: BTN ( $ 591 USD )
Seat 5: SB ( $ 300 USD )
Seat 6: BB ( $ 725.30 USD )
SB: posts small blind [$ 3 USD]
BB: posts big blind [$ 6 USD]

57os is obv a raising hand from the CO, seems super standard

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Gill [ 5d, 7s ]
UTG folds
Gill raises [$ 18 USD]
BTN folds
SB folds
BB calls [$ 12 USD]

BB calls, no big deal ill just c-bet most boards and take it down, opp is fairly taggy ABC player and basically bets his hands face-up.

** Dealing Flop ** [ 2d, Jd, 9c ]
BB checks
Gill: bets [$ 32 USD]
BB calls [$ 32 USD]

Standard C bet and i get snap called which made me insta think TJ/QJ. I can have any pair here with my CO open range as well as overpairs/draws etc but i think his call isn't terrible because i love to double barrell and he can check raise a lot of safe turns.

** Dealing Turn ** [ 9h ]
BB checks
Gill: bets [$ 70 USD]
BB calls [$ 70 USD]

I fire again repping that i have trips/boat and am trying to get value from TJ+, Also this is a very bad turn for him to CR as i fold anything he beats and call/shove everything he doesn't, although the call isn't horrible vs me.

** Dealing River ** [ 2s ]
BB: bets [$ 106 USD]
Gill raises [$ 780 USD]
BB folds
Gill does not show cards
Gill wins $ 452 USD from main pot

River is the most interesting street obv as basically when he bets so small, he's announcing he has JQ or something here and is hoping i had a draw or a worse J and flat call/fold, so obv i shove because i know he can't call with QJ and iv'e hardly ever shown down hands in these types of spots so i still get a ton of respect.

Any comments appreciated, in regards to the hand.. and life in general :)

Brum Brum...

Been out driving a few times and really getting the hang of mirror, signal, wait, turn.

Bankroll hit the milestone of $25k, so very pleased about that obv, but still hardly play.

Uni work is really piling up and the combination of coursework, exam revision and just general uni time is killing me.. waking up at 7 doesn't get any easier for sure.

But saying that, life is ok at the moment, although i'm spending too much time doing work and dealing and not enough time drinking and looking nervous around women.

Hopefully ill have some poker content next time!

An update! (Finally)

Nothing really new though. Spent a while searching for a job in canada, but to no avail so naturally i'm giving up and searching for one within walking distance from my house.
Got car insurance sorted a week ago, still not practiced once. Took my driving theory test. Failed. Played some poker. Won. Got drunk lots. All is good.

Wore a suit the other night for the first time ever, and drank wine to add a bit of class to my life. Felt kinda good, so at least that's one part of working a 9-5 i don't have to worry about hating :)

Deffo have to update more often, i think fitz could be dead/incapacitated. I dunno.

I'll leave it to others to complain about poker imo

So i can complain about how bad I've been running at physical health since i came here to Newcastle :(

Got a cold the first week, alreet no biggie. Then the fuckin flu that knocked me out for a couple days and now the sorest throat i've ever had which is making it very hard to eat and drink. All within a month! My immune system must be destroyed or summit, this can't be normal and i don't even usually get sick..

This is interfering with drinking/social events/school and i feel handicapped aorn. Yes i'm a hudge baby when i'm sick, just f'in hate it

/rant

Lol donkaments

Cashed for $1900 in some silly $50 tourney i randomly played bringing my BR to like 19.1k. This is the only brag of this week.

Uni started again and seems impossible which got me thinking "Why do i wanna spend the next 3 years working my ass off so i can then struggle through the whole job process, and sit at a desk from 9-5 that pays £15 an hour tops when i can wake up when i want, play poker when i want and earn £25 an hour min. Also, my C.V. sucks because i have never worked a day in my life, i have very few extra-curricular activities and the only skills i possess are hand reading and 4 bet shoving light.

Anyway, i'm looking for a work placement in canada for next year, so holla if you know any accounting intern jobs there. Preferably ones that don't mind their recruits being lazy, unmotivated and lacking any experience of the working world.

But at least my bankroll is almost 20k?

The stake is ovah!

My 50k hands which was our initial deal are now finished and it left me with a nice little roll at $2.5k but most of all it has made me into a much better poker player overall.

I probably also have some rakeback coming soon. From now on I'm going for the highest level of Ironman at fulltilt, that means I'll beforced to put in about 2000-3000 hands 2 tabling HUNL a day. Which is a good thing really, it's just a sweet motivation factor to keep playing.

At the end of this month I'll probably have a roll closer to $8k or something if I can keep up this winrate, and will already be taking shots at 200NL. I also think I have found a way to escape the Norwegian army which is "mandatory" for all guys in Norway. The thing is it's not really mandatory anymore. So if things go according to plan this month I might be moving to Malta already at the end of November or so.

xBTLx

so yeah online poker is blocked at my campus

so i figured lol live poker was the answer. Here's the trip report, x-poasted from poker.com forum:

just got back from Aspers casino, didn't really like itthere were like no games going so me and this Irish guy i went with had to wait for like an hour and a half before it got started.

It was 1-2£ PL which i didn't realise until the first hand when i was gonna raise TT to 10£ after this old lady limped utg and could only make it 9 to go got three callers so i checked an Axx flop and it was checked all around and i took it down when a raggedy turn card fell. Game seemed really soft and everybody was limping all over the place and not folding preflop imo and the old lady called off her 30bb stack with KJ high, no draw and i was trying hard not to laugh but im sure i gave off some cheeky smile after the hand was over. But obv nobody was buying in full, so i had just bought in for 100 like they all did =/

A couple hands later I get AK, raise it up, get two callers and stack off like a jackass on a KT2r flop vs some guy who limped a lot but fastplayed his big hands so i prolly shoulda just folded to his flop raise. Rebought and played a couple more orbits with no interesting hands and then just left and got some chinese food before heading back.

Live poker was very boring tbh and i seriously doubt im gonna go there on a regular basis, can't wait to be 8-tabling online again

FUCK YEAH 10BI DAY!

Just finished a 10BI day at 100NLHU, bankroll is sitting at a comfortable $5300.
Shame I have to split the money with my coach in a few k hands, but in that time I'll still be rolled for 100NL and I'll probably earn about $6k a month atleast from now on.

Pretty sick to think that I have kinda paid $2650 so far for coaching, but it was definitely worth it.

xBTLx is back in business.

aye aye

yeah like gill said, i arrived in newcastle last week but didn't get any internets until like two days ago but watever

living here feels kinda strange and foreign (ldo) but hopefully i'll adapt quick and get used to this way of life and not get run over in this fuckin left hand traffic or summit. Online pokers is kinda a dum beat here cause it appears that online poker sites (and pr0n!!) is blocked from the uni connections =/ so idk, prolly hit some casinos later

been drinkin a lot since i've got to the toon but idk if i can keep it up, it's getting kinda expensive and i'll prolly be an alcoholic by the end of this year but meh watever. Also, people at my campus all smoke the green it seems like, so let the good times roll iyam.

Classes start on Monday, so i'll prolly update when i've been to some of that shit

Sick Life

I finally made it. The stake is going better then I could ever imagine.
I like HU more then I ever liked playing 6-max. It's just so much easier to get a read on the opponent you're playing, table select and exploit the shit out of the guy.

So far this month I have made $3k since the stake started. The transition into 100NL was rough the first few days, ran really really bad. Grinded it back up within two days, took a new shot and so far it's going great. I'm finally up to 100NL and the $2k barrier where I kept getting doomswitched over and over and over again is gone. I just passed $3k as I said and I feel better about poker then I have done in a long time.

I have played 37k hands so far so there's still 13k hands left of the stake, I'm getting very good coaching from this guy and is still improving vastly on a daily basis.

After the stake we've agreed to keep up the coaching a little, I'll send him a vid twice a month or so, pay him some bucks for it and we'll go through hands etc to keep my game sharp.

Then I'll be grinding 100NL on my own and making the big monies, when the time comes to venture into 200NL we'll pick up the coaching again, probably not staking though but some kind of deal atleast.

That's it for now, xBTLx is happy and blotkis is not concerned.

xBTLx

Switching Brains.

I'm pretty much break-even since returning from the Dominican, and every time i take shots in sick soft 3-6 and 5-10 games i run horrible and lose a Buy-in. I shouldn't care really- I don't even need the money yet but i hate losing to idiots, full stop.

Bankroll is like 14k. Should be 20.

But anyway, i start my 2nd year of uni tomorrow so probably time to switch from the poker brain back to the accounting brain if i ever had one.. fun times.

Audun just arrived in newcastle this week so no doubt ill go drinking up there one night.

Until next time..

Changes

Sooo, after once again dropping from $2000 to $800 I got enough of it.
Even though I felt like I am way above average as a poker player I still coulden't break through. Only making the minimum at 6-max, hardly making any at all. Having a major downswing and lots of breakevenaments I reevaluated what I had to do.
I just coulden't just keep on grinding wondering if I was actually running bad or if there was something wrong with my game.

I coulden't really afford a good coach, so I decided to try going for a stake. This obviously means I would have to share 50% of my profits but at this point I didn't do it for the money, I needed the coaching.

I was at the right place at the right time when I got hooked up with a 1000NLHU player.
The only problem is, he didn't know anything about 6-max and HU was his game.
The deal was obviously to good to pass up, he obviously wanted 50% of the profits, but he didn't do this for the money. He wanted to give something back to the community as he was in the same spot as me last year. He wanted to take me up to the top like he got taken to the top 1 year ago.

So now I have been coached by this guy for about a week, every day at 8pm(11am for him, American d00d).
Learning HU from scratch isn't that bad, I'm making the transition very well and he tells me he's seeing ALOT of improvements in a short ammount of time. We do sweat sessions and also I make videos that we go through(best way of learning imo)

played 12k hands so far, up about $1k and running at 20BB/100.
I'm starting to love HU alot more then the 6-max games.
If you want to play good read dependant poker you can't 9-table cause you simply can't keep an accurate read on the 40 opponents you're playing. HU is another game.

2 tabling HU should be just as rewarding as 9tabling 6-max atleast imo.
I'm getting better at handreading and standard HU dynamic, I'm learning to exploit players alot more and I can feel that I am improving different from when I was stuck at 6-max and had reached that unbreachable wall where I can't learn anything from leggopoker videos or fix my own leaks.

It's also alot more fun and challenging, the variance is obviously bigger but in a different way.
I mean, I can run horrible a session, drop down 5BI's, put in some more hands and then end the session up 1BI again. And when you run hot, well, lets just say the money comes in fast.

I have cashed out my roll at iPoker + my rakeback which turned into about $2k, gonna try living on that for a while. It's only a matter of weeks before I'm taking shots at 100NL and then who knows where this will carry me.

The staking deal lasts for 50k hands at first, I'm not sure wether I will continue after that but the coaching I'm getting from this guy is top notch and definitely very, very valuable and very +EV in the longrun. So I'll definitely keep getting coached by this guy some way or another.

Thats it for now.

xBTLx

lol gillaments

amirite

gogogo lose 1/2 your roll at 3-6 so i can win this bet and not have to worry about being too lazy :popcorn:

I am now officially permabanned from 2+2 :pa: I think it's a +ev life decision i made, now i'll stop wasting hour after hour reading all the crap in bbv4l and play some internet pokers instead

Horse pr0n 4 life, naggers!!

i'll write another, longer update soon

3-6

Took my first shot today, lost a $3200 pot. Moved back down. Oops?

I hate my life

dameopfmnsigneoghndighsdngsdnigdng
FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK

Yeah so basically after passing the infamous $2000 mark I as anticipated got doomswitched again so now 4 days later I'm on the verge of killing someone staring at a measly $800.

I mean how many times to I have to do this? It's somewhere around the 10th time now I have passed $2000 only to be fucking doomswitched back to fU=FCVK?EÅgmiopfdhmnyg diohn sd

I FUCKING HATE MY LIFE

So yeah, playing some HU, flush over flush flush over flush set over 3high flush draw he shoves and wins, full house to quads and what the fuck other possible beats in this world.

I'm back!

Got back yesterday from 2 great weeks in the dominican republic, and after eating mcdonalds and drinking fosters to get used to being back in England, i'm ready to start grinding again.. sort of.

From what i hear, Audun is a few hundro in front of me in the race for $6.66, so i plan on running extremely well at 1-2 and 2-4 for a month.

Easy, no?

(L)PLO(L)

So as you know I pretty much ran worse, and worse, and worse, and then worse.
I decided to take a one week break from poker again, cash out my roll from B2B and move it over to iPoker.

Then I played 4k more hands and pretty much continued to run bad, but atleast I earned SOME money. I bought myself Hold'em Manager which was a major upgrade from PokerTracker2, it was simply amazing. Here's my last 4k NL hands:

http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/2771/graphmn8.jpg

See I am actually legitimately running bad(lol samplesize), can't import B2B hands into HEM.
I actually run better those 4k hands then I did all of last month though.

So anyways 1 day after getting HEM this guy from 2p2 told me that he had switched to PLO and that it was the softest field he has ever played. I obviously got curious but was reluctant to try it because I felt I would lose some of my edge on players when I have spent soooo much time trying to perfect my NLHE and then jumping in as a fish in a totally new game.

But I decided to try it anyways, and let me tell ya, I'm converted.
Jesus christ, the first few hands I didn't really know what the fuck I was doing but still the money rolled in. I have now played my second day of PLO and today I had a 10BI upswing, yesterday 4BI's.

That's a bigger upswing in one day then I have ever had in HE. It was so soft it's rediculous, it's really a breeze to play the game. So PLO is my new game, I'm about to order some books to start actually learning the game for real. But the transition wasn't that hard, I think I am playing fairly well, but there's no doubt about me making a few mistakes here and there.

Anyways the games are so soft that even my granny could win.

I bought PT2 Omaha today so I can track my PLO progress aswell, tomorrow I'll post some graphs and shit for the first 2 days of PLO aswell.

Hai guys!

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile but i've sort of been put off by online poker. Haven't played in over a month TBH. There are a few reasons for this with the two mainly being that I was getting sick and bored of the grind and that I don't really feel my funds are all that safe online anymore (doesn't look like i'll be getting my money back that was frozen onthe MG site that I was playing on. Its been like 6 months now and no new news since may). I'm not saying that I won't be playing again online regularly, but that I just dont feel like it ATM. I did hit the casino the other night and did quite well in the 1/2 NL there, as the game was pretty soft and I didn't run shittily. So I might be going back there more frequently.

Anyways i've been having a pretty chill summer thats included a lot of partying and minimal work. I'll be out of town for a couple of days here as I have a camping trip planned before the start of school, which starts next week. Just thought I'd pop in and say hi, as blue and gill have been telling me to post something for quite some time now.

14k

hi 5, even with gill now afaik :)

reached gold star earlier than i thought on stars, might be going for platinum this month for the lulz and deffo playing the sunday mill this sunday

38s are ez game imo

GG poker, you put me on lifetilt

wayI'm steaming so hard right now, I can't take it.
I wonder how fucking long I can run bad, it's been about 120-130k hands right now, it just doesen't stop.
Last night I had a good session and finally managed to grind my way up to 1650€ again before another doomswitch occured. Then a few busted sets and straights later we're suddenly down at 1200€ and im going rampage throwing stuff around my room and hitting the wall. There's only so much a man can take.

Such fucking bullshit, it's been like this everytime I approach 2k, be it in $ or €, I can't even count the times I have grinded my way up to $2500 only to be doomswitched back into fucking middle age. I have been running bad ever since I started taking this game more seriously, only cashing out small ammounts.

I remember when I was still a fish and actually ran good, was probably around november last year. So basically it's over half a year of running bad right now.

I study the game so hard, I find myself watching leggopoker videos and going "ldo" cause I would play all the hands the exact same way. I can't encounter any new knowledge. And then I have people sweat me for hours on end telling me "you're doing fine you should be making money".

It's just wearing me out.

yeah Gill

you're not winning this bet imo! roll=13.5k and Gill's going on a two week holiday so I have time to catch up.

Started experimenting with finding the optimal amount of tables and whether to play in sets or continuous, loading up sngs everytime i bust out of one. TBH I much prefer playing in sets as they allow more freedom to take quick breaks and they take like 45 minutes so you pretty much know how long you're playing for and don't get as restless as you might do when you play sngs for 2-3 hours in a row.

Upped my tables from 6 to 8 and it's going goot and im starting to feel comfortable about it. I suppose i could play a few more but gg monitor, no room for them all as i dont cascade the tables iirc. Like I said earlier, i <3 Stars too much to not play there, so im getting in some volume there. On cruise control for Gold status aorn but i dont think i'll make platinum this month. That shall however be my goal for the next month i play there so i can be an FPP balla like the rest of em.
SNE next year imo :p

playing 5-6 sets a day, so im getting in a lot more volume than i used to. Now all that remains is permantly moving up again to the 60s!

bluelips

omfg bad beat

banned from 2+2 again, wat to do now =/

lol drunkaments i suppose

Free sootedgapper!

sup

Hai guys, it's been a while since i updated anything up in hurr.

Since last time, i've dabbled in the super turbos on ftp where you start with 10bbs and have hudge shovefests. I thought this would be a good thing since people push/fold pretty badly and i could get in good volume and at least get some rakeback for my efforts. However the game was very swongy and after a break even stretch i quit 'em and came back to normal turbos and i'm glad i did.

I was going to play mainly on ftp, but one day ftp servers were being ghey so I fired up a session on stars and fell back in love with the site, so now I play both. Mainly 24s through  38s but also some 60s when i feel like it cause i've raun blueish lately (but prolly jinxing it now) and it feels so good to finally win showdowns. SNGs can be the most frustrating thing ever when every showdown leaves you futtbucked and you feel like you're going insane, so hi 5 for the good variance!

Bankroll is at 12k aorn, even after withdrawing a lot more than Gill has this year (afaik), and it looks like my downswing might finally be over. At least i hope so...

Im getting my student loan pretty soon, so hopefully i won't have to withdraw so much before new year so i can beat gill and win this 6.66$ prop bet!

I guess that's all for now. Wat wat

Ridin the rollercoaster.

After my last entry about being frustrated cause of running bad and having continously 10-20BI downswings I got back into the grind. Grinded and grinded and grinded, put in alot of hands and eventually managed to get to 1800€ again before the neverending doomswitch decided it was time to give me another 10BI+ downswing. So here I am 12BI's down later, sitting in Gill's room about to fire up another session after 40k hands of breakeveness again after the break.

Cheers.

HU

Started playing quite a bit of HU NLHE to try improve my hand reading skills as well as trying to base my decisions on gameflow rather than pure stats.

Frode (borntolose) is coming to visit for 2 weeks tomorrow, so ill end up spending too much time drunk to put in a lot of hands, but it's my birthday friday so i have an excuse :)

Got some RB so bankroll is around 13.7 atm, which cheers me up every time i look it at, but with me going out 4 times a week, it won't be long before i have to cash out $500 a week.

Until next time..

O hai

Running breakeven, up slightly, still running sickly bad but somehow manage to run breakeven.
Rakeback pro itt?

It's like, I play decent and run ok, then BOOOM it's like a bomb drops and I drop 6BI's in 100 hands, rince and repeat.

But there is rakeback.

Can someone say Epic Fail?

Yeah, I'm back in the game allright.
I'm back to wondering wether I'm actually running bad or if I'm just a terrible poker player.
I fucking hate myself for today.

Drop so far: 18BI's and continuing.

I seriously don't know what to do, the previous 20BI downswing I had was the reason I quit poker, and that was over 70k hands, this one was over 2 days and probably like 5-7k.

I'm so fucking frustrated right now and I don't really know what the fuck to do.

Moving up! (sort of)

Starting taking shots at soft 2-4 games, found some super fish and ran pretty well.

Results= $1700

Bankroll hits 13.5k, new record.. shipith0lla :)

Poor liver

I went out 4 nights last week, and fully expect to do the same this week.

Also, it's my birthday the 8th of august, so i plan on being drunk all weekend.

Send me $1.25 on stars please, so when my liver fails i can buy a new one.

Running goot

Hey guys,
Just thought I'd let you know how my bankroll is doing, as I said earlier I started fresh with 1000€ at this fish site with RB.

Now, 12k hands later, I'm running better then I have in over 6 months.
Looks like my 2 month break from the game paid off.
I had a solid 9BB/100 winrate until I fired up 7 tables today.

Today I had a staggering 8BI session playing 1400 hands at 30BB/100.

My 1000€ has now, in less then a week, turned into 2200€.

Hand of the day:
Game # 869976122 - Texas Hold'em No Limit EUR 0.25/0.50 - Table "Husum"

Players(max 6):
Bazzzta (EUR 49.37 in seat 1)
shlomix123 (EUR 91.55 in seat 2)
GordonX (EUR 50.85 in seat 3)
niback (EUR 79.15 in seat 4)
romankr7 (EUR 155.80 in seat 5)
xBTLx (EUR 72.45 in seat 6)

Dealer: GordonX
Small Blind: niback (0.25)
Big Blind: romankr7 (0.50)

xBTLx was dealt: Kc - Ah

xBTLx Raise (2.00)
Bazzzta Call (2.00)
shlomix123 Call (2.00)
GordonX Fold
niback Call (1.75)
romankr7 Call (1.50)

Obvious 4BB raise pre flop.

Flop Qc - Js - Ts

niback Check
romankr7 Bet (5.00)
xBTLx Call (5.00)
Bazzzta Fold
shlomix123 Raise (18.00)
niback Fold
romankr7 Call (13.00)
xBTLx Call (13.00)

This call might seem bad, but I was 75% sure someone would raise behind me if I just called.
Then I would, depending on the size of the bet, 3-bet or just smooth call do get more money in the pot on the turn and river.

I chose to call the 18€ re-raise instead of 3-betting cause obviously I had the nuts, I was abit scared of a spade cause some of them is very likely to be drawing to a flush, but I figured it would be worth the risk to get more money in there on later streets.

Turn Qc - Js - Ts - 6d

romankr7 Bet (60.00)
xBTLx All-In (52.45)
shlomix123 All-In (71.55)
romankr7 Call (11.55)

Now this site is very very fishy as I told you, and I think I came a little when I saw this guy insta shove the turn, I obviously snap called holding the stone cold nuts, then another guy shoves on top of that again, unbelievable.

River Qc - Js - Ts - 6d - 8c

romankr7 shows: 6s - 8s (two pairs, eights and sixes)
shlomix123 shows: 9h - 3c (a straight, queen high)

Bingo, no spade and all your moniez are belong to me.
But I mean, look at how these guys played that hand, what the hell are they doing?
I obviously don't mind cause these guys make me rich.

shlomix123 wins: EUR 38.20 side pot (with a straight, queen high)

xBTLx shows: Kc - Ah (a straight, ace high)

xBTLx wins: EUR 218.35 main pot (with a straight, ace high)
Rake: EUR 3.00

Ship it.

Game ended 2008-07-25 19:18:32 GMT+01:00

The King of Kings is back in the game!
xBornToLosex

Introducing xBornToLosex

Hey guys, I was given the honor of becoming a poster in the famous KingJackAments. Hehe.
So how do I know you guys? Well obviously through poker, I know ChrisGill the most of you guys, obviously since we went to Prague together.

You guys should feel bad about not coming, it was an amazing trip.
Anyways I know some of you others aswell, slightly, the next person I know the best after ChrisGill would have to be Gaper, Bluelips or Audun if you wish. :)

I'm here to post a littlebit of poker-related material obviously, I'm still grinding my way up again after the horrible downer I had which totally killed my lust for poker and made me cash out half of my roll. I took a 2 month break and decided that after the Prague trip it was about time to pick up the virtual cards on teh interwebs again.

And so I did, put €1000 on a new fishy site with rakeback and 5000 hands later I find myself at a solid 9BB/100 and up €450. Solid.
So it seems like I'm finally running abit better again, honestly I can't remember running this good since before christmas, cause the downer I had was so sick it almost gave me nightmares.

Well anyways, maybe I should tell you abit about myself.
My name is Frode, I come from Norway and ChrisGill likes to call me the crazy scandi guy, I suppose he's right. If you read the TR you would probably know why.
I'm 19 years old(soon to be 20 afaik) and I love booze and wimminz.

Reason I play poker, well at first it was for fun, but the thing that kept me playing is that I knew that poker wasn't just some ordinary gamble with a set -EV where you can not turn out positive in the long run. I knew that some day, if I kept playing and learning I might eventually end up making money, and that thought turned me on so badly.
I played and I played and started to make a profit eventually, I haven't made a deposit in like 7 months or so now, and apart from the sick badrun I think I could call myself a winning player.
Poker isn't really fun anymore, I'm sure you all can relate, once poker becomes a job where all you do is pressing the right buttons and making the right decissions, and the gamble element is taken out of the game, it's not that fun anymore.

But the moniez, we're all doing it for the moniez. I have heard that ChrisGill's friends can be abit lame sometimes, some of you don't like to party, is this correct? If so I suggest you spend some of that well earnt money, get some fucking booze, go out there and tear that fucking dancefloor apart, and maybe, just maybe you'll even end up with a girl in your bed. But if you're doin it right you wont be able to get a boner anyway so it's all just a waste, alcohol is funny that way.

That's it for this entry, you'll probably see more of me in the future.

The King of Kings
xBornToLosex

A poker update

I'm finally back grinding 1-2, where i belong :D

Bankroll hit a sexy 11,700 or something.. not far off my record of 12k.

Been running pretty good at poker and life recently, so hopefully it will continue!

Prague Trip Report

Can be found here:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=254044


Enjoy, :)

'24 hour' session

Hey guys my comp was messed so I tried to reformat it which resulted in an epic fail. Got the internet working despite the fact that I now have 3 versions of windows on my computer, none of which are licensed :P. Anywho gonna try and get the sound working so im not bored out of my mind. I'm already sorta tired here so if this 24 hr session turns into a 12 or 16 hour session for me, so be it, but I got my energy drinks ready, so we'll see.

I'm gonna go grab a midnight snack, hopefully the other guys are up by then, if not i'll probably start without them.

24 hours.

Tuesday to Wednesday 7am-7am GMT.

Will probs make a thread about it on the poker.com forum or 2+2, wish us bloggers luck! :)

And it's not too late to join in if you fancy the challenge!

Holiday's.

Spending a week in Prague from the 10th of july, then probably Amsterdam with a few mates for a long weekend and then 2 weeks in the Dominican Republic with the family. Just when i was starting to get bored of the summer holidays.

Got my exam results the other day, a solid A for quantatative analysis, and a decent B for financial accounting, with similar results for my in-class tests.. shame i couldn't do it first time round :D

Oh, poker has been going pretty well too, upto around 6000 euro's + starting taking shots at the oh-so familiar game of 1-2. Should be back there full time soon enough.

And us bloggers are trying to organise another 24 hour session in the near future, so look out for that, and get hold of one of us if you fancy the challenge! :)

I'm drunk.

Pretty much all I had to say.

Guess my roommate is bringing some female wimmin back from the bar for me. See how that goes.

But ya, I got a good couple of blogs coming up her. Mexico pt 2 is put on hold ATM, but it will be coming eventually, got a better trip report for the next blog when I'm sober to write it.

Played a minimal amount of poker over the last month, made maybe a grand. Been busy, gonna try to log more hours over the summer.

Peace,

Kyle.

Heater?

Iv'e been running well recently. But my game has changed too. Iv'e gone from being a super-light 3 betting spewtard to a passive, hero calling, station.

You decide which is better.

Could this be the end of Gill the rakeback pro? :O

Tireddd

Stay up until 5am Friday morning. Get 3 hours sleep. Stay awake until 6am saturday morning. Get 4 hours sleep. Party hard and drink lots and stay awake until 5am. Get 4 hours sleep. Come home and sleep for 15 hours.

Standard?

I was going to write up a whole trip report but my weekend was shortened, and i'm exhausted so ill just write up a few cliff notes.

- Had fosters for breakfast and lunch, while listning to rage against the machine and watching south park.
- Had my first ever shot of tequila, which according to the blonde girl next to me at the bar, wouldn't kill me. How disappointing.
- Ended up dancing around on my own because mates were drunk and wandered off
- Have just finished sleeping for 15 hours sleep, and i'm not sure what day it is.
- I'm still tired. :)

G'night.

Busy weekend (for me anyway)

Well, after dealing @ the casino last night and getting 4 hours sleep, i'm a bit tired naturally. But the weekend is just beginning!

The original plan was to meet the FTR boys down at nottingham, but that seems to have fallen through, so plan B is back to huddersfield for more dealing until 5am.

Fully expect 3 hours sleep before waking up, having a few cans and meeting some of the boys and heading over to liverpool for a day+night of drink and party. Defo ballin outta control.

So to sum my whole weekend up.

Brag: Will get 5 hours sleep, and drink huge amounts of alcohol.
Beat: Will no doubt do 101 embarresing things while drunk
Variance: It will make a good trip report ;-)

Cya monday! :)

Stagnation

Oh hai guys, it's been a while

So poker has been pretty bad lately and i've dropped a couple K. When my bankroll was at its highest (16k ++) I felt on top of the world but i've had to withdraw over 3k and proceeded to run/play bad in the turbos and it dipped below 11k and at this rate it won't be too long till i drop under 10k =/ Just feel like i've been booking a lot more losing days than winning days and spewing all over the place, getting paranoid about getting spitecalled and not making optimal decisions. Also some life tilt issues have put my in a negative attitude when playing and this is deffo -ev.
I also feel my style has become far too robotic and i've not been progressing in skill level at all, maybe just became a worse player than I used to be.

I think I need a change this summer. Play the summer champs on poker.com and maybe join gill and fitz' new fav donk site, and lag it up like the good old days.

In other news, I had my 2nd last exam today. It went decent, not top notch but whatever, and i'll be glad to finish off this year next Friday and going home for the summer. I also plan on starting excersising again, should be a +ev move afaik

Some pics to go with the last post.

Hey, I just finished a poker session, and unfortunately I was even on the day. Meh. Anyways don't really feel like writing tonight so I'm just gonna post a few pics to go along with the last blog.

3:00 am Calgary airport
(Left to Right: Kogan, Dre, Jason)

Obv Rigged

G00t deal IMO

What a shitty plane!

Oh HAI !

Hey guys, no I'm not dead. Sorry about the lack of blogging, but I haven't really been thinking about poker.

Okay, so for starters I won't be talking any poker in this post...so if that's what you're looking for, don't bother reading this. I won't be talking about poker because I haven't played in nearly two months. This has been for several reasons, one being that I was upset with a few things going on with online poker, but really the main reason was that I simply had no desire to play. But on the plus side of things I do plan on getting back into the swing of things very soon and I will be updating with poker content as soon as I have something to talk about.

So everything went well with school, I had a 2.8 GPA last semester, which was better than my last couple of semesters. Also we received a grade of A- on our 4th year project, so we were all pretty happy about that. I now have 3 courses left to complete in order to get my degree, and none of which are all that hard. I am planning on splitting this up into one course during the summer and two in the fall. I have been putting in a lot of hours at work and am working on paying off some of my student loan and all the money I spent in Mexico.

Speaking of Mexico, for those of you who don't know I went to an all-inclusive resort there for 8 days and the start of may and from what I can remember it was good times :). That's the problem when you go somewhere with free drinks, you can't remember half of the things you did. For those of you who are interested there's a bunch of pics floating around my facebook from the trip. I don't feel like writing a novel, so I will just recount the 1st day of my trip to Mexico as I remember it.


Mexico Trip - Part 1

The date was may 3rd, and the time was 4 am. It was at this time when I was contemplating whether or not it had really been a good idea to go drinking at the bar and not sleep before our 6am flight. By this time my friends had all passed out in the airport and I was forcing myself to stay awake in fear of missing our flight if I did fall asleep.

...

Finally 4:30 came around and the check-in line for the airport opened. We must have been one of the first flights out of the airport, as there was barely anyone in the line-up for customs. As my friend Kogan, who will be referred to as 'Sake-Bomb' from here on, out went through customs, the lady asked him what the purpose of his trip was. "To get drunk" he responded. This provoked a game of 20 questions between him and the custom's lady, as she was not impressed. Saki-bomb is not of Caucasian decent in the first place and was probably already a prime pick for a 'random search' at the airport. Thus answering in a smart ass fashion as he did may not have been in his best interests. Alas, finally he made his way through customs and we were on the plane....I was asleep before we took off.

...

When I awoke we had already landed in Las Vegas. We had a 4 hour delay before our next flight...so what else to do in Vegas except gamble? After losing all my money at the slot machines we made our way over to the sky box. They weren't serving food yet because it was too early, but drinks were available, so I ordered a beer. The waitress informed me that I could upsize my drink to a liter of beer for just 2$ more... WHAT A DEAL!!!

...

3:30 came around and I stumbled my way onto the plane. We noticed that we had all received window and aisle seats on this plane...how peculiar. On boarding the plane, we realized why this was. It was the TINIEST plane that I have ever been on, it was 2 seats on the left side and one seat on the right. I had to duck as I walked to the back of the plane so that I wouldn't hit my head. Ah no matter, as long as we get to mexico smoothly then this thing was fine.

It was at this point that the airline stewardess informed us that the plane was overweight and that the last 7 people to enter the aircraft would have to get off the plane. This caused great concern to sake-bomb as he had boarded after us and he thought he was one of the last ones on the plane. Luckily he was not, and after about 45 minutes of commotion our plane took off.

After take-off me and sake-bomb were bored so we broke out some cards for a game of blackjack. While this was taking place my other two friends began chit-chatting with the stewardess. After a few minutes of small-talk my friend Jason informed me and sake-bomb that she had offered to bring us a drink 'on the house'...SCORE! In drinking our free beers we began to razz our one friend, 'Dre' because he is general considered a light weight to drinking and already appeared drunk after only 2 beers. Dre took offense to this and claimed to be able to drink as much as he wanted and had never once pucked nor blacked-out as a result of alcohol consumption. Famous last words....


Part 2 coming soon :)

Hey guys!

The Gill you all know and love is back! :)


Live poker? What was i thinking..?!?!

Seriously, there's just something about sitting at a live poker table playing 3 hands an hour while listning to people discuss how rigged online poker is that i dislike. So yeah, i'm back!

Found a sick site to play on, with no PT support and a max of 8 tables= hardly any regs :) So naturally iv'e been making some beer moneyz.

I finished both my exams, hopefully ill actually progress to year 2 second time round :\ so now i gotta start revising theorey stuff to pass my driving test.

But apart from that, i have until september to play poker and get drunk! sick life :D


O, and ill holla @ the other boys to start updating again :)

Sorry for lack of updates..

Iv'e been doing tons of revision and learning to drive recently, and played pretty much 0 hands of poker because my computer decided to commit suicide. I promise that once i can regularly get to different casino's/card rooms around the UK, there will be lots of trip reports, and hopefully blue+fitz( when he's not at school ) will update random stuff too..


Stick with us, we're just taking a break! :)

Brag: Solid day imo

Wake up around 3.30 pm, eat breakfast and go play football with the lads, eat chinese food for dinner and be up 1050$ in turbos afterwards felt good enough to make a low content entry imo.

Pls to let boomswitch be back.

Motivate me.

Please?

Seriously, ill be lucky to play 50k hands this month at the rate im going.. grinding 50NL is driving me crazy, i took a shot @ 100NL with just a $1400 bankroll.. needless to say i dropped a buyin.

I don't think i'm going to withdraw my rakeback this month so i can move upto 1-2 ASAP.

Micro Stakes Ballin

Racked up around 18,000 hands of 50NL so far this month for a not so impressive $470 profit (2.6BB/100) but i feel the Tag elements of my game have improved a lot recently, plus i'm running shitty as always so no doubt my winrate will treble soon.

Plan on playing 75k hands this month and hoping for a winrate of at least 4BB/100, which will net me around $3500 or something, enough for 100NL next month then hopefully 200NL the next.

Oh, but cashing out my rakeback to pay for driving lessons :)

gg life imo

argh, on lifetilt, dunno how to cure it

hopefully wake up tomorrow with a hudge hangover tomorrow, but if not, you know the reason....

aye aye sir

Sup guys

Hey guys, i took the 3 weeks off, but now i'm back. I'm gonna start playing with the RB money i'm due soon (probs $500)

That means 20NL/maybe 50NL for a while.

I was thinking about not returning, but realised.. YOU GUYS NEED ME.

Because if i wasn't here, you wouldn't be able to say "well, at least i'm not running like gill"

My expectations from the game have changed a lot, i'm not trying to get better anymore and work upto nosebleed stakes. I'm playing to make money, so if i run 8BB/100 playing 100NL, but only 3BB/100 @ 200NL. Ill play 100NL.

Good to be back :)

winning session!

Ugh, so the last couple of weeks have been fairly terrible and my bankroll took a hit after dropping plenty of buyins at the 60's and withdrawing 1.3k, so i've been feeling farily shitty about my game lately. Obv solution: drop down to the 22's =/

Atleast I finally had a winning day, ended up 250 and calling it a day. The play at the 22s on ftp was awful compared to the 60s and it looks like im gonna play em or a while to rebuild and regain some confidence.

In other news, on saturday I turned down secksytime! I think this is more of a brag than a beat, cause she was seriously one of the ugliest wimmin I ever saw (she had no teeth afaik). Obv a good sign i'm not that desperate imo

will try to update this blog more frequently, been slackin too much lately imo. Also, lol @ fitz

DRimk = Good TY-MES?

Alright,



...



so as i am writning this I may be a tad bit INTOOXISCated. I playued someone heads up 1/20 NL latst night. ANd it was good timeS!~~ !!

rOLL 8:50 woooooooooooooo

Quantity over quality = not g00t

Roll: $700. +7.5BB/100 through 8k hands of 25NL.

Just tried 12 tabling 25NL for the first time, really unhappy about my play in the session. Just played 2000 hands in the last couple of hours, I was up 1BI but I made so many mistakes.

8 Tables might be ideal for me at 25NL, cause I rarely make big mistakes when 8 tabling. I'll probably give 12 tables another go, as I might just need some time to adapt to how quickly I have to go. I made a lot of really crucial errors today. Didn't seem like I ran too great either.

I might try to push for $1000 by the end of march, as I have nothing to do this weekend. There's also been a bit of hope of getting my other money back in the last couple of days, so that would be nice.

Off to school now,

Later,

Kyle

hay guis

aye  is a bit drunk today

syup? wat wat? gill is a donk imo, but he's coming back next month to play 20nl or summat wiv us so aitæ's all goot !! hi 5

Another 1k hands tonight.

Current Roll: 630$
I Just noticed the rake I pay is 6BB/100, so I'm not too happy about that. The rake at micro stakes is brutal :(. To put that in perspective, I've paid 150$ in rake over the 5000 hands I've played at 25NL. Or since Saturday. This represents 1/4 of my current roll.

But onto the poker:
The Tricky LAG (TL) player I mentioned previously was there for the start of my session tonight. Which sucked, as he 3 bets every single time I raise. Tonight he got the better of me. However, we only had 2 AI hands vs each other (one I had an overpair and he had a set...I thought I was trapping him and he was shooting off air. The other I flopped gin with AJs vs AA :D). So he ended up leaving after about 30 minutes, which was nice.

Pocketfours' little test run with playing 25NL at 56/44 has inspired me. (He ran +40BB/100 over 1000 hands and after seeing him post some hand histories I actually think this is pretty close to optimal at 25NL for a good mid stakes player, if you're keeping really close attention. Ie: playing one table).

Seeing as I am 8 or 9 tabling, I really don't think playing 56% of my hands and raising 44% of them would be good for me. Plus P4's is better than me :P. With that being said, after TL left I really opened up with my raising. I played pretty tight while he was there, because he had position on me on almost every table and playing loose when I'm going to be 3 bet a ton probably isn't smart. Overall for the session I ran about 26/24 (apparently I don't ever call? My Hand History converter may not be entirely accurate, as I think I called PF more than this.)

Probably butchered 2 hands pretty badly tonight. One I over-bet shoved on the river with complete air after 2 barrelling vs a super nit who I knew had to have a really good hand. But I thought I might be able to fold out a really good hand and can't resist the opportunity to 3 barrel queen high LOL. At least that did wonders for my image and I caught a hot streak on that table shortly after.

Then there was this hand:

So I guess my thinking on the river is:
Let's just bet the river just because its fun to do so and because I'm angry he called!!!
Well played Kyle. Well played.

At least I got it back 5 hands later when he bet/3bet/called AI with TPWK... I had a set.

STAGE #35863133203: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $0.25 - 2008-03-20 01:38:18 (ET)
Table: Tijuana -10435863 (Real Money) Seat #5 is the dealer
Seat 4 - PDC-fengyun ($8.10 in chips)
Seat 6 - PDC-geefers2 ($33.27 in chips)
Seat 3 - PDC-pokerfiend101 ($36.56 in chips)
Seat 1 - PDC-highlowhoney1 ($23.37 in chips)
Seat 5 - PDC-yijingpk ($9.74 in chips)
Seat 2 - PDC-MBPats80 ($25.00 in chips)
PDC-geefers2 - Posts small blind $0.10
PDC-highlowhoney1 - Posts big blind $0.25
PDC-MBPats80 - Posts $0.25
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to PDC-pokerfiend101 [Ad Kc]
PDC-MBPats80 - Raises $0.50 to $0.75
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Raises $2.75 to $2.75
PDC-fengyun - Folds
PDC-yijingpk - Folds
PDC-geefers2 - Folds
PDC-highlowhoney1 - Folds
PDC-MBPats80 - Calls $2.00
*** FLOP *** [9d 4s 3d]
PDC-MBPats80 - Bets $2.00
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Calls $2.00
*** TURN *** [9d 4s 3d] [Td]
PDC-MBPats80 - Bets $4.00
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Raises $12.00 to $12
PDC-MBPats80 - Calls $8.00
*** RIVER *** [9d 4s 3d Td] [9c]
PDC-MBPats80 - Checks
PDC-pokerfiend101 - All-In $19.81
PDC-MBPats80 - All-In $8.25
*** SHOW DOWN ***
PDC-pokerfiend101 - shows [Ad Kc] ( )
PDC-MBPats80 - shows [7h 7c] ( )
PDC-pokerfiend101 Collects $11.56 from side pot-1
PDC-MBPats80 Collects $47.84 from main pot

Good session, and an exception to the B/F > C/C Rule.

2 posts in one day? ZOMG. I just hit 500$ after playing for 2 more hours and running good in another 25NL session. My +9BB/100 over 4k hands is looking way sexier than yesterdays -3BB/100 over 1.4k.

Tonight was another heavy multi-tabler there, who was quite good. Best player I've seen at 25 NL anyways. We got heavily involved in a lot of pots with each other, and each made 4 bet bluffs pre-flop and played some tricky hands post flop. I definitely got the better of him, but that was mostly was because I hit more cards. I will probably be reviewing his play and looking for leaks sometime soon. He plays quite a bit looser than me at 30/22 (I play more TAG at about 21/17), but from what I saw was definitely solid post-flop and not a LAGtard. Not sure why he's playing 25NL lol, maybe he's like me :P.

Anyways, going with what we were talking about before where I had mentioned that bet/fold is better than Check/call the majority of the time. I think this hand is a good exception to that rule. I'm pretty much c-betting here with anything I raised with, so I think he floats flop a bunch. His range here is probably a slow-played boat or any pocket pair. Him floating air on the flop is also somewhat plausible, but i think he bets turn if that was his plan, even if he paired his J. So really I don't think I get called by worse here and if he did have a pocket pair I think he might feel obliged to bluff it, since I could very well be playing the board. Also I think his range is more tilted towards pocket pairs than it is Ax.

Also note, my hand has about the same strength of like a T,Q or K high here, so i likely make this same move on the river if i had something like T9s, KQ ect. I'm not too sure where my cutoff point would be, but I think I'm always check/calling with at least T, Q, K-high in this river spot and I'm pretty sure that thats probably correct in this pot vs this villain.

STAGE #40449775: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $0.25 - 2008-03-18 23:21:24 (ET)
Table: Tijuana -12040449 (Real Money) Seat #3 is the dealer
Seat 3 - PDC-foxboro11 ($22.60 in chips)
Seat 1 - PDC-bumnbutt ($9.19 in chips)
Seat 2 - PDC-pokerfiend101 ($34.27 in chips)
PDC-bumnbutt - Posts small blind $0.10
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Posts big blind $0.25
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to PDC-pokerfiend101 [Kh Kd]
PDC-foxboro11 - Calls $0.25
PDC-bumnbutt - Folds
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Raises $1.10 to $1.35
PDC-foxboro11 - Calls $1.10
*** FLOP *** [Ad 3c As]
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Bets $2.30
PDC-foxboro11 - Calls $2.30
*** TURN *** [Ad 3c As] [Js]
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Checks
PDC-foxboro11 - Checks
*** RIVER *** [Ad 3c As Js] [Jc]
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Checks
PDC-foxboro11 - Bets $4.00
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Calls $4.00
*** SHOW DOWN ***
PDC-foxboro11 - shows [8d 8h] ( )
PDC-pokerfiend101 - shows [Kh Kd] ( )
PDC-pokerfiend101 Collects $14.63 from main pot


Might take a homework day tomorrow, not sure if I'm going to play or not.

Thin value.

So Im somewhat caught up in school now so i logged about 2.5k hands over the past couple of days. Roll is now 375$. I've moved up to 25NL. (moved up at 250), which sorta sucks cause my roll runs out of money sometimes and I can't reload. (Im usually 8-10 tabling). Not great BR management, I know, but I feel I have a pretty good edge at this game, although I have been making a lot of non-poker multi-tabling mistakes, which sucks. About half are because of the software and half are from me taking too long on hands. (although thats sorta software related too as you get like 5 seconds to act.) Planning on playing a fair amount the rest of the month to build the roll back. Haven't heard from microgaming yet. They released another statement, but it didn't say too much.

So the cut off point for me is 200$, if I dip below that it's back to 10NL. Will move up to 50 NL somewhere around just over 1k$ I think.

I know I promised a video, but well... I seemed to have broken my headphones, so thats probably not going to happen anytime soon.

The largest error by far I see at this level from the regulars is a lack of aggressiveness. Especially on later streets. I've like never seen anyone value bet a hand that they weren't like 99% sure was ahead :P. Maybe thats a bit of exaggeration, but really very few players go for thin value at this level. In general if you are going to call it bet, it is better to bet/fold. The reason for this is that your opponent is going to be calling far more hands than what he's betting, for the most part.

Also for the love of god, do not 3 bet min raise your big pocket pairs, ESPECIALLY OOP! unless you want to get stacked by an asshole like myself.

Don't really feel like sifting through my hand histories, but there's a couple of hands I can post that are off the top of my head. These aren't the greatest examples, but I think a lot of people at this level wrongly check through the river, As I think both pushes are +eV, but that could be partially because of my image as well. I showed down a lot of shit in this last session.


Sorta what I'm talking about with thin value:

OBV I lost this hand,he has 33-99, A5, a lot and calls and Im only losing to AJ, JJ, 55, 22, A2. I think as played his range is tilted to 66-99. Really don't think he's gonna bet a missed draw on river if I check, so pushing is probably way better than check-call, which is probably a little better than check-fold. So in summary: (bet>>>C/C>C/F)

STAGE #25432563: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $0.25 - 2008-03-17 19:05:13 (ET)
Table: Tijuana -12025432 (Real Money) Seat #6 is the dealer
Seat 6 - PDC-mistermaniac2 ($24.90 in chips)
Seat 3 - PDC-pokerfiend101 ($29.66 in chips)
Seat 1 - PDC-nikki85 ($6.64 in chips)
Seat 5 - PDC-Bullitt86 ($19.23 in chips)
Seat 2 - PDC-duelist1 ($33.89 in chips)
PDC-nikki85 - Posts small blind $0.10
PDC-duelist1 - Posts big blind $0.25
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to PDC-pokerfiend101 [Tc Ts]
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Raises $1.00 to $1
PDC-Bullitt86 - Folds
PDC-mistermaniac2 - Calls $1.00
PDC-nikki85 - Folds
PDC-duelist1 - Folds
*** FLOP *** [5s 2d 2s]
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Bets $2.00
PDC-mistermaniac2 - Calls $2.00
*** TURN *** [5s 2d 2s] [Jc]
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Bets $4.50
PDC-mistermaniac2 - Calls $4.50
*** RIVER *** [5s 2d 2s Jc] [Jd]
PDC-pokerfiend101 - All-In $22.16
PDC-mistermaniac2 - All-In $17.40
*** SHOW DOWN ***
PDC-pokerfiend101 - shows [Tc Ts] ( )
PDC-mistermaniac2 - shows [Js Ac] ( )
PDC-pokerfiend101 Collects $4.76 from side pot-1
PDC-mistermaniac2 Collects $48.15 from main pot


Guy is a bit of a station. A scared 8x is definitely in his range, although if he has that I assume this guy probably raises turn/makes some sort of mini bet on river. Flush is pretty unlikely considering he checked the river. (TBH- Had he shoved river I probably fold vs this guy). I think he most likely has 2 pair here and there's a good chance he's calling, A lot of 1 pair hands in his range too, he probably folds them a lot though. AA-QQ is definitely possible as well. Obv he called with TPTK, which was nice.

STAGE #254321056: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $0.25 - 2008-03-18 15:43:45 (ET)
Table: Tijuana -12025432 (Real Money) Seat #2 is the dealer
Seat 4 - PDC-bumnbutt ($8.00 in chips)
Seat 6 - PDC-xxDUHxx ($24.48 in chips)
Seat 3 - PDC-fraggtus ($20.94 in chips)
Seat 1 - PDC-pokerfiend101 ($35.37 in chips)
Seat 5 - PDC-Froliche1 ($5.43 in chips)
Seat 2 - PDC-napatyq01 ($44.64 in chips)
PDC-fraggtus - Posts small blind $0.10
PDC-bumnbutt - Posts big blind $0.25
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to PDC-pokerfiend101 [7d 7c]
PDC-Froliche1 - Folds
PDC-xxDUHxx - Calls $0.25
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Raises $1.25 to $1.25
PDC-napatyq01 - Folds
PDC-fraggtus - Folds
PDC-bumnbutt - Folds
PDC-xxDUHxx - Calls $1.00
*** FLOP *** [7h Tc 9h]
PDC-xxDUHxx - Checks
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Bets $2.40
PDC-xxDUHxx - Calls $2.40
*** TURN *** [7h Tc 9h] [Jd]
PDC-xxDUHxx - Checks
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Bets $6.50
PDC-xxDUHxx - Calls $6.50
*** RIVER *** [7h Tc 9h Jd] [4h]
PDC-xxDUHxx - Checks
PDC-pokerfiend101 - All-In $25.22
PDC-xxDUHxx - All-In $14.33
*** SHOW DOWN ***
PDC-pokerfiend101 - shows [7d 7c] ( )
PDC-xxDUHxx - shows [Ac Js] ( )
PDC-pokerfiend101 Collects $10.89 from side pot-1
PDC-pokerfiend101 Collects $46.85 from main pot


Fun hands from session:

(can't find history)
raise preflop in position with A8o.
flop came 573 , 2 hearts
he checks, I cbet, he calls.
turn is Tx. check, check.
river is 7. He bets 3/4 pot. I go into tank for a bit, I call, he shows 9h4h.

He starts dealing out death threats to me. Pretty sure I have at least pot odds to call him there, I might even be ahead of his range, as he's betting a very polarized range. (air or trip 7s+). Only had of (air) I dont think I beat is Ah9h.



YEA FOR SPITE CALLS! (he called with ace high here), Ah9x I think.
I was almost positive he had Kh or Ah here, and he definitely value bets and calls my raise if he has Kh. And tries to make a lol bluff with Ah. Thus the reason for the river check. I think it was slightly better than B/B/B in this spot vs this opponent.

STAGE #40380281: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $0.25 - 2008-03-18 15:05:59 (ET)
Table: Tijuana -12040380 (Real Money) Seat #6 is the dealer
Seat 4 - PDC-paule02 ($40.74 in chips)
Seat 6 - PDC-napatyq01 ($23.29 in chips)
Seat 3 - PDC-djoleB ($66.91 in chips)
Seat 1 - PDC-bengaas ($8.01 in chips)
Seat 5 - PDC-KingOfTheJuice ($30.65 in chips)
Seat 2 - PDC-pokerfiend101 ($25.35 in chips)
PDC-bengaas - Posts small blind $0.10
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Posts big blind $0.25
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to PDC-pokerfiend101 [Qh Th]
PDC-djoleB - Calls $0.25
PDC-paule02 - Folds
PDC-KingOfTheJuice - Folds
PDC-napatyq01 - Folds
PDC-bengaas - Calls $0.15
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Checks
*** FLOP *** [8h 2h 6h]
PDC-bengaas - Bets $0.25
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Raises $1.00 to $1
PDC-djoleB - Calls $1.00
PDC-bengaas - Folds
*** TURN *** [8h 2h 6h] [Ts]
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Bets $2.50
PDC-djoleB - Calls $2.50
*** RIVER *** [8h 2h 6h Ts] [Ks]
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Checks
PDC-djoleB - Bets $2.00
PDC-pokerfiend101 - Raises $7.50 to $7.5
PDC-djoleB - Calls $5.50
*** SHOW DOWN ***
PDC-pokerfiend101 - shows [Qh Th] ( )
PDC-djoleB - Mucks
PDC-pokerfiend101 Collects $21.85 from main pot

100 posts!

Now i just wish i had something interesting to say :D

Well, i had my hair cut after growing it for nearly 3 years. Short n spiky, like the good ol days.

Probs won't update much for a while unless something interesting happens i feel like writing down, because i'm taking a much needed break from poker after tonight, and will start playing live when my mate passes his driving test, and can take me to various live donkaments :)

Oh, i earned enough fpp's on stars while playing 100NL to play the sunday million for free, so playing that atm.. hopefully ill cash decent and get a nicer starting live bankroll.

Probably packing it in.

Instead of getting better at controlling my emotions while playing online poker, iv'e actually gotten worse. It's gotten to the stage where now im thinking to myself "f**king hell let me have the AA instead of the KK one time"

I have started tilting.

It started with my $5k downswing, then i started playing bad and now It's because i'm extremely sick of grinding increasingly difficult games, i can't play for more than 30 minutes without bordom kicking in. I'm probably cashing out my bankroll and playing a lot more live.

Also, probably getting my hair cut off soon before job hunting to make myself look a bit more presentable :D

I guess ill just have to donate that $6.66 :\

But don't worry folks, if i play more live.. that means more trip reports and live donkament stories! Plus i think it will be a nice variety with blue blogging about donkaments, fitz about online cash and me about live.

Later..

Swongs imo

Yes, I know. I'll probably never top Gill's epic 1/2 roll swongs, but a 2k downswong really annoys me and it's probably my own fault for playing under suboptimal conditions (and getting spitecalled on the bubble a lot. TY, you fuckin morans!!). Stayed up 24 hours straight, went to school, came back, played some bad poker, went to sleep, more bad poker etc...

Roll has dipped below 14k again, after I withdrew some and been running/playing bad the last couple of weeks, maybe I need a little break.

Rakeback's coming on friday, hopefully a nice surprise as I've been putting in more volume lately.

That's it for now. I could write a long entry about some of my drunken escapades since my last poast, but i'll save that for some other time

Cruising.

Got in a couple of hours of poker here and there. Have built the 100 deposit into 250+ at 10NL over the last week. No word on my microgaming BR yet :(. Been running at over +30BB/100 at 10NL. Not sustainable, I'm running good.
Really at these limits I just gotta refrain from outplaying myself. There are a ton of places where I want to bet, but probably shouldn't as they won't recognize my possible holdings or even the strength or their own hands. For the most part I did well in dumbing down my game and got 3 streets of value in a bunch of places with like 2nd pair vs stations.

Here's sort of an interesting one I played. With some previous reads I was positive this was weak. But I obviously forgot that any pair is unfoldable in 10 NL. Still I like the play I made here vs. this guy. Im not too big of a dog here, and I think he really wanted to hit the fold button, but his 10NL donking skillz took over I guess. (note: I turned a king and won the hand):

http://weaktight.com/129004

Hopefully i get a few more hours in this week and move up to 25NL.

Kyle.

My eyes are bleeding

Because i'm now 16-18 tabling stars 100NL :D

Iv'e tightened up a lotttt and instead of trying to outplay people im just getting aces and value betting vs fish.

Ill never get any better doing this but hey, the question is, skill or money?

Ill take the money thanks.

Ok, Enough Complaining..

Well, i somehow managed to drop my roll to $7200 playing with the friday night donks, and realised that the rest of the time.. the Ipoker games are just infested with 17/15 Nittags, so i'm moving across to pokerstars to play 100NL there until i hit 10k again.

I made a video yesterday of a 1-2 session after trying numerous times to get my headset to work correctly. It went ok, but im not happy with the quality of the video, so i plan on making a 100NL one on stars either later today, or tomorrow to upload.

Also, i look forward to the $2400 that sklansky owes me, kthx.

And more

Chalk off another 1k, roll = 8k.

Moved down to play 100NL for a while, played 2500 hands.. lost $100, ran bad. Great stuff.

10 NL SOULREADER

LOL I just called a river shove with 55 and 3 overcards on board at 10NL. My play probably wasn't optimal in that hand :P

So, Just deposited 100$ on pdc, so im playing again, weeeee. Except i closed tonight and I got school early so I probably won't be playing until the weekend. But I did play tonight for like 20 min just for shits and giggles. So in 70 hands of 10NL I won 3 BIs, which puts me at +220BB/100 or something... which is probably sustainable at this level. Kidding of course, but these players are really really really REALLY bad. This was my first ever 10NL session (other than the ones where me and blue sit down and AI everyhand of course) and my preliminary assessment is that i could probably sustain at least +15-20BB/100 here. So hopefully I don't run bad and will only be at this level for a couple of days before moving to 25NL.

I will try and explain to you guys how to beat this level, since i think some of our readers play at these stakes. Just bet every street for value with anything remotely good...cause no one folds :). I'll post some Hand histories as soon as I get my converter working.

Dangggg

Another downswing. Roll= $9k.

Owed 1k in sklansky and generally just running really, really shitty. But at least i'm not tilting, and am playing well :)

Oops

I got my RB for feb for $1700, bringing my roll to $12,200.

Then i played a session, played fairly poor, ran awful.

And now my roll is 10,900 again. lol :(

My Input on Chris' hand

Me and Chris thoroughly discussed hand 1 of his last post. Its really the only hand that is worth discussion out of the 4 hands posted because hands 3 and 4 are lol and hand 2 is SHIP IT HOLLA QUADS!!!

Anyways, although I think Chris' line here is good. I thought that a turn push would be better.
Reasons are:
A) We are way ahead of villains range here.
B) Although we are ahead of his range he has a lot of outs with pretty much his whole range except for 99-QQ.
C) The pot is already huge and shoving would be less than a pot sized bet.
I think the only realistic hands he has that can beat us here are: Ac7c, Ad7d and possibly crappier Ahxh hands, such as Ah2h.

Chris agreed with the shove being good but liked the original line vs aggro player because of the maximization of value from bluffs on missed cards. But, in general we both had about the same line of thinking here.

Also Ive been getting pumped to play again and will be depositing again once this week is over. Given that the Microgaming issues don't magically resolve by then and I get my roll back, which seems highly unlikely.

10k holla!

Well, 10,500 actually :)

Just booked a super heatterrrrr 1400 win to boost my BR up. Gonna post a few hands i played and talk through them.

Hand 1:

http://weaktight.com/123494

Opp is Taggy, but pretty bad.. so when he calls my 3 bet i put him on a pretty wide range, including all pp's, and random SCs n stuff. Pretty sick flop, but after he calls i'm 90% sure he doesn't have a set, 2 pair or a big combo draw, as i think he'd raise and get it in ASAP. Turn is a crappy card as he pairs his Ax hearts, so i check and expect him to check behind with an OESD/FD that the A didn't help, but think he'd shove Ax hearts once i check. Anyway, he checks behind so im very confident he has some sort of draw. River kinda sucks because the OE got there, but i think a FD is much much more likely with his line, so i check and he instaaa jams which makes me feel a bit sick. I think about folding but realise that i'm far too much of a station and say something in the chat like DONTBLUFFME, and call. He rolls over 78, shipitholla.

EDIT: lol, the T was irrelevent as the OE already got there, i know, i know.. :\
The 1 card OE and the FD missed is what i was getting at (or trying to)


Hand 2:

http://weaktight.com/123495

This hand was very sexy, as we're pretty deep. Opp is very aggro postflop. Std raise and set hunt call for me preflop. Once the flop hits i immediatly decide to CR, because i love to CR air on these kind of boards, especially deep because it puts villians in tough spots with big pairs vs my 3 bet calling range. He checks behind which is kind of unusual for this opp, and it really got me thinking. Once the turn comes and i quad up, i lead out to see where he's at in the hand and now he raises. At the time i actually thought it was a bluff as his line makes very little sense for TT+, so elect to call and check/jam any river. River comes, i check.. and he shoves the rest into me. Kinda suprised to see AA here, as it's the first time he's played a big pair like that. Guess he wanted some pot control and decided i'd call off with worse on the river. Either that or a misclick :p


Hands 3+4.

Just a few "lol wtf" hands for you to enjoy. Probably not as much as i did though :D

http://weaktight.com/123496 K HIGH ISN'T GOOD HERE EVER, EVEN AGAINST ME.

http://weaktight.com/123497 lol stackoffwith2ndpaironabadboardinalimpedpotaments


Anyway, iv'e played 7700 hands so far @ a decent winrate of 7BB/100 (unsustainable for me), and hopefully should have closer to 75k hands played this month rather than the original 50k. With a winrate of 4BB/100, 75k hands should net me $12k profit, plus RB obv. So anyways, time for sleep and a silly day @ uni before the everlasting grind continue's! :)

Bad Beat :(

Well looks like my bankroll is frozen.

Tusk, which was the casino funding a bunch of the microgaming skins just pulled out. Which happens to be where I currently have my monies. Good times. Apparently microgaming has been good in the past with this sort of thing, so im optimistic that I will eventually be able to cash out what I have on there, but no one really knows whats going on at the moment. It's not so bad for me, as I recently cashed some money out and only had a little over a grand in there, but a lot of players just got severely fucked over. Guess nothings ever really safe online...its not like microgaming was a small site or anything either, they're like the 6th most popular or something.

Looks like I might be starting a "how to start a bankroll from scratch" blog :(.

Feb review+ March goals

After playing 100k hands in january, i only managed a rather lame 27k hands this month. But i can't complain @ beating 200NL for 5BB/100, i just hope its sustainable because $100 an hour is nice afaik.

Roll is at like 8400 atm, which is mostly due to my lack of effort to play.

But anyway, after i get RB, roll should be between 9500 and 10k.. so anyway, goals for March:

1. 50k hands (V important, can't win if i don't play!)
2. $6k profit from poker ( if i keep my winrate up, easily do-able)

Short and simple, so lets get crackin :D

Also, expect more random hands and thought processes soon, i need to remember to think during hands instead of my usual mindless agression.

Sry no poker.

There will be no poker content in this post, so go read chris' last post if you want to read about poker instead of my boring post. I thought the one with his examples of hands he played was a good one.

I've been slacking at school the past week or 2 and its come back to bite me in the ass, so I'll be spending almost all my time at school this week and next it looks like. (Got a big presentation next friday for my year long project on designing a biodiesel plant). I'm really bad at procrastinating with these types of things and with school in general to be honest. Ive gotten better throughout my academic career, and am not nearly as bad as I used to be, but it still feels like I'm a couple of steps behind most of the time. I keep telling myself only 2 more months and im done school forever :D

Also I've decided that I'm going to start working out again since I really haven't done anything since the summer. I just set up a light 4 day/week routine, so I guess we'll see how that goes. Hard to put in the time right now, but I'm going to do my best to stick to it. Also I am tentatively planning a trip to Mexico when school is finished in 2 months, so it would be nice to get into shape by then, but w/e.

Anyways no poker until after next friday (well maybe an hour or 2 here and there but nothing serious). I'll try to update with interesting hands when I do get a proper session in.

Later,

Kyle

I Wish

that i could run good forever.

played another 10k hands and dropped 1k, bringing my winrate down from 8.5BB/100, to a much less impressive.. although a lot more realistic winrate of 5.3/100.

But yeah, more on winrates and moneys when i play 100k hands for a goot sample size.


Also, i'm gonna sign upto cardrunners in the hopes of finding leaks in my game that i can plug before moving upto 400+600NL


Sorry for the quick update..

More 200NL

Cutting down to 4-6 tables, posting hands on FTR and constantly analysing and trying to improve my game has really been producing results. running @ like 8BB/100 over 15k hands for just short of $5k- Holla!

Gonna post a few hands i played today and just talk through them... whether i'm right or wrong in the way i played them is a different matter obv.

Hand 1: http://weaktight.com/111758

Standard raise for me and a call from a Taggy reg that loves to try and outplay me in small-medium pots. Flop is a nice one for me and i'm pretty sure i have the best hand, and if he has a hand like 55-99 (he obv repops anything higher PF) then i can easily fire a lot of scare cards on the turn. Anyway, he checks to me, i fire my routine C-bet and he makes a small raise. While this on it's own could mean a wide range of things, i figured this was a K 10% of the time, a FD around a third of the time, and air the rest. The turn completes the flush and he checks. Now i'm 99% sure with this opponent he doesn't have a flush and probably not a K and am putting him on a hand like 99-TT, so i obv have to fire because i can easily have a flush here ( he knows i'd 3 bet a K on this flop ) and is OOP so chooses the safe play and folds. If he calls there and a J, Q or A hits the river, i'm probably firing a 3rd barrell and it's very difficult for him to call with a hand like 99 on such a scary board as if i'm bluffing with A high/Q high or w/e, it's one card that's probably hit me.

Hand 2: http://weaktight.com/111759

This is an interesting one, because it's not a play i usually make. Again, std raise for me in the CO and a Tagfish calls in the SB. My reads are that he plays draws aggro and often turns his hands face up with his betting patterns. I'm playing around 35/30 on this table and have been stealing and bluffing, winning small pot after small pot, so naturally i'm waiting for people to start playing back at me. So anyway, the flop comes and while normally i dislike C-betting these drawy kind of boards ( get looked up wayyy too often ) i probably have the best hand and gotta bet for value and protect vs the draws, plus with my image- i get called with all sorts here. Once he flat calls my bet, i'm almost certain he doesn't have a FD or a 2 pair+ hand and probably has a hand like 78, 67 or something of the likes. Once he fires the turn into me, i instantly put him on 67 or 78, and call- planning to bluff any scare cards on the river. The river turns out to be a great card as it bricks any straight draw and nullifies his 2 pair, and while it looks like i'm trying to bluff this river.. i'm actually shoving for value because i get looked up here by a lot worse with my crazy image. But he folds, which is cool with me too :)

Hand 3: http://weaktight.com/111760

This one is fairly standard.. a non tricky, Taggy player opens on the button, and i elect to flat call my 9's in the BB (even vs a nit, i'd probs 3 bet this 80% of the time). My only read is that i'd seen this player overbet the river with the nuts before.
I fire the flop because CR'ing inflates the pot and really overreps my hand so i'm not getting much value from worse. When he calls i'm putting him on a weak one pair hand, 9T, or a 6 (anything bigger would raise me on this board). The turn is a complete blank and i decide to slow down a little and let him bluff a few streets vs me, which he does and i think for a few seconds and call then turn. The river is a J, which is kind of a bad card for me as 9T got there, but i check to let him bluff his one pair hands or missed 6 and have "nh" ready in the chat if he rolls over 9T. He bets a little over half pot, which with my read means it's much more likely to be some crazy thin value bet with a 1 pair hand or a busted open-ender with X6. I snap call and he rolls over A6s, shippp.

Ok after posting them and having to do all that thinking, i want to post some of my wins for you to enjoy :)

Hand 4: Normally i'd fold pre, but it's a really weak 3 bet vs a fish so i can't resist :D- lol @ AK. http://weaktight.com/111761

Hand 5: This is just a bad call by me preflop, but thanks for slowplaying :D
http://weaktight.com/111762

Hand 6: Big pot! I was really sure he had the flush on the turn too, i actually shouted ONE TIME FILL ME UP to my computer :D http://weaktight.com/111763

Anyway, after putting in a few hands these past few days, iv'e built my roll upto $9200 or so, plus iv'e cleared my $700 deposit bonus which im expecting anytime soon..nearly a 10k roll :D

THAT $6.66 WILL BE MINE BLUELIPS

bluelips

is spelted bluelips, all lowercase imo

Poker Fiend

Is correct in his assesment of bluelips drunk statement.

Blue Lips

Is drunk.

But correct in his statement IMO.

Chris Gill

is a donk

imo

One trick pony.

Yeah, so earlier i tried to play some donkaments again, and gawddd i suck @ them. Im way too aggro, im not deep enough to play weaker hands and i try bluff stations.

So add that to the list of things i can't beat.

Sng's
Mixed Games
Omaha
Full Ring NLHE
Donkaments
Life


Oh well, at least now im crushing 6 max 200NL :)

Also, went to newcastle friday night for the forum game, i was first out which is super standard. I need to stop bullying really tight players who have really strong hands. They arn't folding! Srsly!

Guy opens UTG, i call OTB with KTs, flop air.. and raise his flop bet??? Shortly after i shove AKos to an EP 5BB open from a super tight player, why do i do this to myself? I know i'm behind but i shove anyway.

I sat @ 1-2 for a while and lost 2 50BB buyins with 77 vs T8 on 679 and then shoving an OE vs a donk lead. GG

But at least i got a nice breakfast for only 2.50 :D

Implied Odds

Guess I mis-interpreted the last question as he was asking more about stack sizes vs. implied odds.

Question:
I'm more interested in when i hear people say they fold a certain hand in a cash game because "their isn't set value" or they fold because the guy only has xx big blinds.

Okay, so this is a question that relates to implied odds and when it is favorable to play a hand for them. The bigger your opponents stack compared to his raise the better your implied odds will be.

For example:
You're playing against player A. You have played many hands against player A before and you know that when he opens for a 6xBB raise that he always has a big pocket pair. You also know that he will not fold an overpair on the flop.

Situation 1:
You are playing a 0.50/1 game and his starting stack is 36$ he opens in the small blind for 6$ and you look down in the BB and see pocket 2s, what do you do?

Answer: Fold. You have to make a 5$ call here and you are only 8:1 to flop the set you need. This means for your call to be a profitable call you need him to commit 40$ or more to the pot and seeing as he does not have that much money it makes calling an unprofitable proposition. You also have to account for the times that your set gets cracked (set over set) and the times where you doesn't go all in when you hit the set. (ie: he has KK and A23 flops, he probably will get scared by the ace and not commit his entire stack). Accounting for all this makes it a really easy fold.

Situation 2:
Same situation but now you both have 100$ stacks, what do you do?

Answer: Call. You are calling off 5$ in the hopes of flopping your set. You will hit your set approxiamately 1 in 9 times and from your knowledge of player A you know that you will win the rest of his 94$ the majority of the time you hit your set. This is clearly a profitable play. As your implied odds on your 5$ call are roughly 20:1. (IE: his stack size is 20 times what you commited when you made the call.)

Hope that clears that up.

ceV vs $eV

Just gonna take a shot at answer a question posted in the comments.

The question was:
"i also read or hear a lot about people laying down hands because stack sizes don't make it worth it, what is meant by that?"

I think this question is refering to laying down a hand that is likely ahead because of the stack sizes. There are situations in poker where it is indeed profitable to do this. They do occur more in SnGs, but can also happen in MTTs.

Firstly to answer this question you must understand the difference between ceV and $eV. ceV refers to your chip equity (expected return) whereas $eV refers to your expected return in dollars. In tournaments everyone knows (or should know) that chips do not convert linearly into dollars. Ie: just because you doubled up in chips it does not mean that you have doubled your expected profit from the tournament. In fact sometimes even if you are expected to make chips by making a move it may still be the wrong move to make. To illustrate this i'll set up an extreme example.

Blinds: 5/10
Payout structure:
1st: 50$
2nd: 30$
3rd: 20$
4th: 0$

Stacks:
player A: 1 chip
player B: 4800 chips
player C: 4800 chips
you: 400 chips

you are dealt AcAs in the BB, player A folds, players B moves all in and player C folds, what do you do???

Fold of course!

Now although this is a completely exaggerated unrealistic example you should be able to see that you have +ceV (I mean you do have the best hand in poker) but calling this would be severely -$eV due to the payout structure and current chip stacks.

Reason: You're almost guarenteed to cash here if you fold because player A only has 1 chip left. Although you're obviously a massive favorite with AA here, you gotta fold because you simply cannot risk your tournament life here with any holding. Finishing out of the money here would be a complete catastrophe. I'd also like to mention that doubling up barely increases your $equity because you're still a massive short stack compared to 1st and 2nd.

Again this is an extremely exaggerated example and you will rarely, if ever, find a place where folding AA is the correct move. It is just something to keep in your mind that +ceV does not always = +money. Also these situations are more prevalent in sit n' gos than multi-table tourneys just because of the payout structure. I'm no pro at these sorts of things by any means (blue's probably the one to ask about sngs) but recognizing these sorts of situations are extremely important for anyone looking to become a high-stakes SnG player in particular. I recommend searching 'ICM poker' or 'Independent chip model' on google if anyone really wants to learn more about this sort of thing, as I am sure there has been a lot of discussion posted on this topic.

I hope thats what you were asking about and that it at least gave some insight about what people are talking about when they talk about folding because of stack sizes.

Getting back into things.

Alright so Im getting back into the grind here, I made a new excel template before I played today so I'll be able to show off some new cool graphs and such when I play enough hands :).

I only played 500 hands or so tonight at 50NL, as I obv have no stamina and got bored really quickly :P. Also played the 2.5k and the 1.5k, and as usual did not cash in those. Cash tables went well though. I really felt like I was playing one of my best games, especially early in the session, as I was super focused. But I did lose some concentration after about 60-90 min.

So I was thinking of writing something useful, so to the three people who read this blog give me a shout and let me know what you want me to write about. A couple topics I have in my head that I might write my take on are:

LAG vs TAG and why both are better than passive play.
Exploiting Weakness.
Mid-Late game tournament strategy.
Poker Basics (ie: positional play, different styles, hand ranges ect...).
Stack sizes in relation to hand value.

If there's something not on the list that you want me to talk about email me the topic. If no one emails me im probably not gonna write anything :P. Also dunno when I'll get around to actually writing this, but if there is interest you have my promise that I will write something eventually and possibly get input from blue or gill if they feel like talking while they are 8-tabling.

Cheers,

Kyle
(pokerfiend)

Time for a proper update

Seeing as I was a bit, eh, not entirely sober last time I wrote a blog entry it's time for a proper one.

Sngs were down on stars on sunday, so I didn't play much there and i'm behind on my schedule to get platinum this month =/ Pretty much bubbled the 11r there, that had over 7,000 runners for some reason and a sick prizepool (270k in a 45k guaranteed), so it kinda sucked that I didn't win that one :D

Tournament Sunday basically sucked until I went deep in the 20k on poker.com. Pre-FT i pushed 77 with 6 bbs into AA and rivered a 7 to get a semi-decent stack (basically blinds get so high in this tourney, 12-13 bbs is above average at this stage) and made a hudge play with 95o against the chipleader. 3bet him pre and made him fold on a K high flop. Fancy play syndrome maybe, but he was raising every hand, so obv have to play back at him. Anyways, short after that the FT bubble burst and it was final table time, baby!

Some shortie got knocked out early, but it stayed 9 handed for quite a while. I was semi-active at this time, but not overaggro and kept building my stack to become the 2nd chipleader. After some shorty went in with 5bbs or so in fairly early position, I iso'd with AQs and it was goot vs his A8 and became first in chips. As people got knocked out, I turned up the heat and stole a lot with 2.5bb raises and made some resteals with decent hands.

As we got down to four people, some french guy pushed utg and I woke up with AQs again and it held vs AT. Yay for not running like Gill! 3 handed I seriously pondered an ace high call on the turn on a 23JJ board, but decided against it and wait for a better spot. Think I had another AQ hand, but this time it came short to the mighty KJ on the river and all me and another guy was fairly even in chips again, with the last person having about half what we had. Button raised a couple hands later and I went for a resteal with KTo and BB obv had QQ and crippled me. A couple hands later SB pushed on my BB and I instacalled with ATs. His K3 was good and I went out 3rd for 1800$. First was 5400$ and I felt disappointed that I didn't win, but atleast i'm 1800$ richer than I was before amirite?

HOLLLLA!

Long time no post,

I had been having some problems with my internet for a bit, but I got that fixed (hopefully) a couple weeks ago. Main reason why I haven't been posting/playing is that i've been crazy busy. Been working a whole bunch of hours and also fell behind a bit at school so I had to focus on that for awhile, as this is my last semester and all...and I would like to get my diploma :). As for poker I played maybe 2 or 3 sessions over the last 5 weeks? Really not much at all, Im sure blue and Gill play more hands in a day than what I played over january. Also went to casino a couple times in january and made close to a grand there playing 200NL.

Disclaimer: *Plz don't follow my example*
I did have sort of an interesting session 2 weekends ago where i was up about $400 in an hour and a bit so i decided to take a shot at 2000$NL and min buy in there for $400 weeeee! Felt I was rolled for it since i had like 1900$ or something, lol. Anyways I ran that 400 up to 1400 or so and then busted on some coin flippish type hand. Gill ended up ridiculing me, but poker's not my main source of income so w/e Chris :).

Played a 6 hour session tonight, but it was fairly uneventful as I ended up even. Played 2 tournaments, bubbled one (11/60) when I pushed 78 or something into AQ and I bubbled+1 in the other (2500$ teed). Was in 2nd or 3rd at the time, but those are the breaks. Guy who busted me ended up winning it, and it was well deserved. Only guy on table I would've busted against with the hand that came up.

Not too much else to say, other than I plan on playing a lot more for the next bit here and hopefully building up the roll.

P.S. I'll try and post something useful next post, since this one sucks.