AppleSeed's Poker Blog

Live Players Love to Payoff and Chase

2011-08-13T11:33:00.014-05:00

I've played over 6 sessions now and even took a shot at a 5-60 spread limit game. I was waiting to get into a 2-60 spread limit game when I saw that 5-60 was running. I went to watch and saw this older lady tilting her head off. She was open raising to 30 and 50 when the blinds were 2-5. Bet Bet and c/open fold junk on the river. I immediately put my roll that I brought to play 2-60 and sat down with $400. I played tight and waited for a hand because I knew it could easily go all in vs this tilting lady. She losses her stack and rebuys for another $500. Sweet, she might be loaded. It's 7 handed and it is folded to me on the Button. I open to 15 and SB (Tight) calls and tilting lady in BB folds. Flop is 99A r, I c bet to $30 and try to get a fold because I have air and I'm repping the Ax. SB c/c. Turn is a J. I bet $60 and SB c/c. River is a J and then SB donks $60. I tank/fold trying to fake that I got an Ace. SB shows 9To for the flop trips slow play. Tilting lady eventually get's up but the game was still good. There were a few calling stations that I could take advantage of if I picked up a hand. I played for another 30 minutes and won about $140 in this game. If would of stayed if I could stomach the swings but I don't think I'm ready yet. If the games play that soft, I will def take more shots.

Over the 6 sessions, I'm up over 7 bi. Running hot but playing great too. I've folded KK pre to AA preflop and QQ to KK preflop. Individual with AA had been playing super tight/passive pre. He had over limp AKo SB 5 ways. Individual with KK had previously limp/call with Q3dd vs my iso r and c/c flop J3x r and ck atw ftw vs my AKo high. This time he had open r $12, got a call to his left and I picked up QQ MP and made it $36 because I wanted him to call. LP cold calls $36 and folded back to him who made it $96. I tank folded and LP calls. Funny thing was flop was Qxx. I would of flopped top set. Money got in somehow and he showed KK FTW vs LP.

I've been listening to Bart Hanson's Podcast on Deuces Cracked and he's def got a lock on live players. He recs, don't iso 3 bet so much and just try to keep the pot as small as possible preflop. Make a big hand and value bet the hell out of em. That's the only strategy you need to beat 2-60 spread limit because all the rec/regs come here to gamble and not fold.

I've played 2 crazy hands.

Hand 1) I picked up a read that LP was tilting because he had been losing/bluffing his chips away. LP open r $8 and folds to me in the SB. I see KT hh and make it $40. Folded back to LP who calls.

Flop: 789 r (pot is around $80)

I c bet $60 and LP calls

Turn: blank turn and I bet $19 because that's all that LP had left and LP calls

River: is a Q

I tell LP he probably wins and LP flips over QJo for the river top pair FTW. Lol, I could of won with KThh high!

Hand 2) Vs Same Villain in LP and about 10 minutes later from Hand 1.

I'm utg with JJ. I open raise to $8 and utg + 1 calls. LP (tilting) raises to $24 and it folds to me on the BB. I max raise max to $84. UTG + 1 (Tight) raises all in for $160 and LP reraises all in for about $168 total. I think about it for a sec and call because I overhear utg + 1 talk to his neighbor about how crazy I was and LP.

Board Runs JQx r, 2d for the backdoor Flush draw and river T.

Old man utg + 1 smiles and flips over AKd FTW (Main pot = $480). I flip over JJ for the small $16 side pot. I later ask LP what he had and he told me he had pock T. So Sick!

Like I said, lesson learned. I don't mind that I played aggressive preflop vs LP who was tilting. However, I think it's best to keep the pot's small preflop and own them postflop. I'm not a great player, but I def got an edge vs most of my live opponents postflop. They just play so so bad you won't believe it.

Live Poker at Running Aces

2011-07-27T09:46:00.007-05:00

I just played a session this past Saturday between 6:30pm-midnight at Running Aces in Columbus, MN. It's a spread limit game $2-$60, blinds 1-2, min buy in $50 and max buy in of $200. Basically, you can bet between $2 and $60.

My table consisted of very tight passive and loose passive players who love to get to showdown. I found out quick that c bet's don't work but turn bets do. So I stopped bluffing on the flop and started betting for thin value. If I had nothing I would check/fold flops multi way, delay c bet IP or donk low flops and scare cards on the turn. This strategy worked and I ended up winning $168.

This was my biggest hand that I won.

(9 handed) I started with about $135. I was on the SB with KK. UTG and BB were both over 200bb deep. They were both splashing and playing alot of big pots and winning.

UTG (loose passive) straddle to $4. UTG + 1 (Loose Passive) limps, MP limps (Tight ABC), and CO limps (Nit). I look down and see KK on the SB. I raise to $24. BB cold calls and UTG calls and it is folded around.

The pot is around $88. 3 handed heading into the flop.

Flop is J84 2 hearts. I c-bet max $60. BB calls and UTG raises the max to $120 total. I call the rest of my chips and BB calls too. There is a very small side pot.

Turn is a 7. It goes check check.

River is a 5 and it goes check check. No flush card hits.

Board is J84 7 5

We all flip our cards over. BB has TJo for flop top pair. UTG has AJo for a flop TPTK. I flip over KKo FTW. Main pot was around $420 after the rake/tip.

I plan on going atleast once a week on either Fri or Sat evening. If every weekend is like this, I'm hoping to win some extra spending cash. They have a 5-60 spread limit game but that sounds horrible because you can only bet 60 max. You'll probably end up betting 1/2 pot or even less on the turn or river in multi way pots. I might give if a try is the table looks soft though. For now, 2-60 spread limit will be my game.

I miss Poker

2011-05-22T07:26:00.004-05:00

Got my money out already by PokerStars. I'm def lucky that I switched from FTP to PS because FTP was a great site. I switched sites because they changed their rakeback system from dealt to rake contributed. IMO, FTP software is way better than PS but there is no comparison when it comes to customer support. PS wins on that front. Hopefully, all their USA players at FTP and UB/AP get their money back and USA regulates online poker.

I really miss poker. Still going to study this game and watch poker videos. I might even get some coaching because there seems to be big discounts now since the whole Black Friday situation. Demand is def less now for coaching, which is good for players who want coaching.

Poker Player's Alliance Action Alert

2011-04-19T21:24:00.005-05:00

Wow, I can't believe what is going on. I took a couple of days to post this because I wanted to gather my thoughts and not panic. I got over 4 figures stuck online and have no idea when I'll be seeing it again. I took a month off then started playing again only to see this happen. I was in a groove and was looking to grind.

Click the link. There is a prewritten letter that you can email to President OBama, the Attorney General and your local/state congressman.

PPA Action Alert

Jan 2011 Review and Current Poker Plans

2011-02-16T16:14:00.009-06:00

I ran really bad and played bad. I have no excuses. I did take one shot at $200 NLHE FR Rush when I was confident with my game and I'm proud that I did that and didn't go up there just to chase losses. I lost about 1 and 1/2 buyin with that shot and had the discipline to drop back down to $100 NLHE FR Rush.

Overall, I basically ran even if you include my black card $1k bonus, $500 end of year bonus and $100 Holiday bonus. Def not happy with my results but I gotta accept that I need to reevaluate my poker game.

I withdrawal all of my FTP money and have about a $5k bankroll at PokerStars. I plan to play less tables to learn the software and pick up better reads. I just played a 8 tabling session of $50 NLHE FR at PS and I felt comfortable. I'll keep grinding $50 NLHE FR until I feel I'm mentally ready for $100 NLHE FR. It'll probably take over 10k hands or so because I took a beating last month. Feels good to be playing regular tables too, it's nice to build history with players and keep your same position at all times.

Going to reevaluate my game and make a strong run for $200 NLHE FR this year. I feel I'm on the brink of beating $100 NLHE and taking another shot at $200 NLHE FR. I'm currently participating in Citizenwind's private forum on CardRunners. I've been trying to be active with posting and responding to hands. It should take my A game to another level if I keep it up.

I'm also going to be watching Nanonoko's poker strategy videos at PokerNews. I gotta see what he is doing because his results are ridiculous.

Also checkout NuteDawg's podcast interview at CR and Nan Ying's podcast at DeucesCracked. If def inspired me to be a better player.

Here are the links for NuteDawg's Podcast and Nan Ying's.

1)CR Podcast NuteDawg

2)Episode 107 Nan Ying

It's all about isolating the fish, playing with logic, and the good old bet/fold, check/fold, and bet bet bet for value. I find that it's very hard to play logically when I'm losing stacks. It's def one of my biggest weakness that I need to work on right now.

Goals for January 2011:

1)Clear my $1k black card bonus, $500 end of year bonus and $100 Holiday Bonus (Completed)
2)Stop Being a Calling Station (Not completed, still not bet/folding in right spots or check/folding)
3)Transition over to Poker Stars (Completed)

Goals for February 2011:

1) Play solid ABC Poker or quit session
2) Learn to bet/fold, check/fold and bet bet bet for value. In other words, stop being a calling station and pot controlling too much.
3) Stop open r/calling preflop trying to hit sets vs unknowns or nits unless very deep, a fish and/or you got solid reads of how they play postflop.
4) Play tighter OOP and looser IP. Take advantage of position more and isolate the fish IP.
5) Be more active in forums by posting/responding to hand history/theory discussion.

December Review and Transition to PokerStars

2011-01-13T14:48:00.005-06:00

Played a little over 26k hands at FTP $100 NLHE FR Rush Poker in December. I basically broke even and won a little with rakeback/bonuses. I bought the $1k bonus in the black card store and I'm in the process of clearing it in January along with my $500 end of the year bonus. It's nice that they both clear at the same time too.

Goals for December 2010:

1) Complete Rush week and earn $250 bonus.
2) Play A game 100% of time or just quit for day/session
3) Earn at least Gold for the Iron Man so that I can collect my end of year bonus.
4) Stop being a calling station without solid reads.

1)Completed
2)Probably played my best about 80% of the time. I'm still making terrible preflop calls and stupid hero calls without solid reads.
3)Earned Gold
4)Failed

Goals for January 2011:

1)Clear my $1k black card bonus, $500 end of year bonus and $100 Holiday Bonus
2)Stop Being a Calling Station
3)Transition over to Poker Stars

As for goal 3, I'm in the process of taking the majority of my play to Poker Stars. Since FTP changed how they calculated rakeback, it's better value for me to play at Poker Stars. I figure I can get atleast 100k vpp and earn SuperNova. If I go on a heater and improve my poker game, I can go for 200k and slowly move up to $200 NLHE FR.

Help Regulate Online Poker: Send Pre written letter to your Senators

2010-12-06T17:13:00.003-06:00

Here is a prewritten letter by PPA. Follow link and send to your senators. Very quick and easy to do.

http://www.mmsend25.com/link.cfm?r=6...597536&type=CO

Summary of what we know so far on 2plus2

Summary of Bill.

November 2010 Review

2010-12-02T01:47:00.003-06:00

I'm going to give credit to Citizenwind (Alvin), Mpethybridge (Matt), and the Tilt Breaker Software for my result's this month and a lot of run good. I have finally put it all together and created my own style of play that I am comfortable with. I won't get complacent and will always be looking to tweak my game. For example, The Poker Theorist on CR posted on his blog that he was going to give a couple of free sessions. I pm him and already got 1 free session completed. I'm looking to see if I can get a second lesson this coming week if he is not busy.

I got coaching from Alvin back in July. He has improved my game tremendously. I'm more confident in my pre flop game and post flop game. He gave me so much new information that it took awhile for me to realize why it worked and how to use it in real time at the tables. Matt looked at my HEM Database and was able to spot alot of leaks and offer ways to plug them. I got a copy of Tilt Breaker Software around late October. It has allowed me to play with a peace of mind that I won't light 10 buy ins on fire because I set it at 2.5 bi stop loss. Once it hits my pre set values, the software kicks me off the tables.

I probably played my A game about 90% of the time. I would like to get this even higher so that I can move up stakes and accomplish my long term goal of beating 1/2 NLHE FR. I'm just mediocre at poker so beating that level would be a dream come true.

Goals for December 2010:

1) Complete Rush week and earn $250 bonus.
2) Play A game 100% of time or just quit for day/session
3) Earn at least Gold for the Iron Man so that I can collect my end of year bonus.
4) Stop being a calling station without solid reads.

October and Tilt Breaker Software Review

2010-11-07T02:24:00.011-06:00

Swinging down and then back up. I probably played my B game overall because I made too many hero calls for no reason and made alot of little mistakes that hurt my results at $100 NLHE FR Rush.

I've been talking with Winthrop on Skype. I met him a few years back on CR and we have kept in touch. It's def good for my game to talk to someone like Winthrop who has very interesting views on how to play hands. He use to play higher but is currently playing $25 nlhe SH at Poker Stars.

We also made a prop bet where we have to ship each other $1/hand that we play bad. I need to add them all up. I probably owe Winthrop about $10 or so and maybe even more after I critically review all my hands again.

It's so sick, I know what I need to do but I still can't do it while playing. It's like I'm not in control when I'm playing poker. It's ridiculous and I need to fix this ASAP because the cycle of losing and breaking even will continue forever.

I've been testing out this new software called Tilt Breaker. There is also a post by SuicideKing who is looking for feed back in the software program at 2plus2 Software Forum.

It was easy to install and set up. I basically downloaded it and typed in my screen name so that the software would recognize me. It automatically picked up where my hand history were stored. It works with HEM or PT3 but you don't need either as it is a standalone software. You can try it out for free for 15 days before you decide to buy it.

There are currently 4 different ways of controlling your tilt. You can preset stop loss, stop win, stop time played and/or stop hands played and lock down time for each category. Whatever you hit first, it will activate Tilt Breaker and kick you off your cash tables. I don't play tournaments or sit n goes so I"m not really sure how it works. From what I read, Tilt Breaker will let you finish your session but won't let you enter into new tournaments or rematches.

For example, you can preset Tilt Breaker to kick you off your poker tables by presetting it for $300 stop loss from start of session or session peak. Peak session means that if you win $200 within your first couple of hundred of hands and then proceed to lose $300 to be at negative $100 for the session. Tilt Breaker will kick you off the tables. You can also preset how long you want Tilt Breaker to keep you on lock down. I would recommend 30 minutes to two hours depending on how badly you tilt.

There is also a Rage Quit Button that you can manually activate to kick you off the tables. There are 3 levels of tilt that you can preset it at. For example, level 1 will lock you down for 30 minutes, level 2 for 1 hour and level 3 for 3 hours.

I highly recommend this software if you got tilt issues. I know I do, and it has helped tremendously so far in November. I personally set it up at negative $250 (lock down for 30 minutes), positive $250 (lock down for 5 minutes), 1200 hands (lock down for 30 minutes), and 1 hour per session (lock down for 30 minutes). I notice that these numbers were optimal for me because I'm never playing my best when I'm down 2 1/2 bi or up 2 1/2 bi. After 1 hour, I'm playing bad and probably chasing my losses too.

I'm looking forward to seeing how my results will be this month with Tilt Breaker because in October I had sessions where I couldn't get up off the tables and ended dropping around 4 buy ins or more in a session when I should of stopped down 2 or 3 buy ins.

September Review

2010-10-01T16:51:00.006-05:00

Went on a little downswing in the beginning of the month and dropped back down to $50 NLHE FR Rush Poker. I got my confidence back and jumped back up to $100 NLHE FR Rush Poker. Feels good to be winning again but I know I can get better results.

I got so many leaks, it's ridiculous. I'm really happy that I can spot my leaks because that allows me to be a better player.

I'm a Black Card Member but it seems like it's not too much of a boost. I earned it by averaging 500 FTP points in the past 100 days. FTP released a new update on 9/30/10. They basically got rid of Iron Man Plus and changed their rakeback system from dealt to weighted contributed. So instead everyone getting an even share of the rake, they will now split it up evenly to the players who contributed. For Example, if sb and bb got it all in preflop for $100 each. FTP would rake $3. SB and BB would get $1.5 worth of mgr. I'm no math wizard but it looks like it might be hurting us in the short term. I'm just going to wait for HEM to release the new rake update for FTP so I can see how it affects me.

My Goals this month is to just keep playing my A game. I'm still trying to stick to my 1 hour session game plan. I went over a little when i was tilted and down a couple of buy ins. It's still very hard for me to quit when I"m stuck. I need to stick to this plan unless I'm playing ridiculously well or the tables are awesome. It's just a way to stay discipline and not tilt off 10 bi in one session because I've done it in the past.

August Review

2010-09-02T17:45:00.009-05:00

I think I played alot better this month than last month but my results don't show it. I was up close to 8 bi over 30k hands then I went crashing the next 20k hands down 1 bi. With rakeback, I'm a very very small winner at $100 NLHE Rush Poker. I also tried experimenting with 5 and 6 tabling by adding a couple of $50 NLHE FR Rush Poker toward the middle. Once I started going downward, I dropped back down to 4 tabling.

In the beginning of the month, I was using Citizenwind's concepts but I sort of got away from it because I was frustrated that I kept getting sucked out on the turn or river. It was either a suckout or action killer card. Overall, I just need to think with a clearer head and not be so result oriented. I gotta think through their range and figure if I can get their whole stack, 1, 2 or 3 streets of value. Use logic and reap the rewards.

I'm going to limit myself to 1 hour sessions no matter what for awhile and see how that works with my new style. I got a pretty bad leak where if I'm losing I start to play too many 3 bets pots OOP. I should just fold and get into a better spot IP or as the preflop aggressor. I also gotta stop being a calling station because that is probably my biggest leak. If I can fix those leaks, I should win atleast 10bi's this month for sure because donks just love giving away their money.

Shoutout to SkinnyBrown at CR. We're in the same boat and aspire to be poker pros. He plays $50 and $100 NLHE FR Rush Poker too and we're going to be sweating/talking poker strategy this month.

10k bankroll (Milestone)

2010-08-19T16:36:00.004-05:00

I've been thinking about making this milestone for awhile now. My bankroll will fluctuate but it's nice to see 10k in the bankroll. I always withdraw so it never got this high ever until now. Def feels good.

July 2010 Summary

2010-08-01T14:51:00.005-05:00

I finally decided to hire Citizenwind (Alvin Lau) to coach me in $100 NLHE FR Rush Poker. I always liked his CR videos and his style of play. I've gotten 3 of 4 lessons already and will get the last one sometime in August. If your thinking about hiring Alvin, you have to throw your ego out the window because he isn't going to hold back if he thinks you play bad. I read his review on CR so I didn't take any of it personally but it did sting a little :)

I was down 14 bi in early July and then i hired Alvin to coach me. I then went on a 14 bi upswing over about 40k hands or so. So I broke even for the month over 68k hands which is not so bad because I made money from rakeback/bonuses.

I'm really looking forward to August and seeing how this new style will work for me. The sick thing is I think I ran bad on turn and rivers for the past 40k hands. I would easily be up about 10 bi or more. I can remember about 4-6 sets that gut suck out on the turn or river or very scary cards hitting and killing my action.

Good Luck

All Hands Since Oct 2009 to end of June 2010

2010-07-01T17:21:00.008-05:00

That graph represents all my hands since Oct 30 2009 to the end of June 2010 in big blinds. Overall, I'm okay with it because I tilted so much during that time. With rake back and bonuses it's not too terrible.

The last 80k hands on that graph is all $100 nlhe FR Rush and I didn't even look at my results all month. If I would had looked when I was down over 20 bi I would had tilted. I made a nice recovery and almost go back to even for June but ended down about 6 bi.

I'm going to stick with not looking at my results again. I notice that I play very long for my losing sessions and about 1-2 hours for my winning sessions.

I'm going to try to stick with 1 hour and if I feel good go another hour or so. Funny thing is I just played a 4 hour session. I'm such a degen and set rules that I break. If only the tilt demon software would work for me on my computer. I got Morny, tilt demon support to do a teamviewer session with me but he couldn't get it to work. I'm hoping he can find the problem soon because I def need that piece of software.

As for fitness, got a lot of family members visiting for graduation parties and July 4th so I haven't been too good with diet/exercise. Going to get back in a better routine this month for sure. At least I didn't gain any pounds and my stamina is way better. I'm able to run over 1 mile on the treadmill without killing myself so that a positive. I did end up losing that ten pounds and hope to lose another 5 pounds this month.

Happy 4 of July!

Oh yeah, Please Donate if you Can. The PPA is trying to raise funds to help get online poker regulated in America. I copy and pasted a post that "TheEngineer" posted on 2plus2......

On July 1st, PPA will mark the one month anniversary of full implementation of the UIGEA banking regulations with the Poker Money Bomb! The money bomb will allow us to fight back and to stand up for ourselves proactively via donations to PPA and the PokerPAC (paid members are eligible to donate to the PAC). We'll let our opponents know that we're not lying down and we're not giving up.

I recorded a spot promoting the Poker Money Bomb, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFjeUo3KnQI.
DIGG: http://digg.com/world_news/Poker_Pla...mb_on_July_1st

Main site: www.pokermoneybomb.com
PPA Donations: http://theppa.org/donate
PokerPAC Donations: http://theppa.org/about/pokerpac/donations/

New Poker Mindset

2010-06-04T20:56:00.009-05:00

I played about 80k hands last month. I played a mix of $50 and $100 NLHE FR Regular and Rush Poker. I"m probably up around $1500 with rakeback but I'm not exactly sure because I haven't looked at my HEM results or FTP cashier. I got the idea after I read Bazclef's blog about resetting your poker bankroll mentally and accepting for what it is. Tommy Angelo also talks about it in his Deuces Crack video about not getting attach to your peak bankroll. I'm starting to realize that it leads to me tilting and chasing losses because I want to get even all the time.

I chased losts twice last month at $1-2 NLHE FR Rush. It could of led to disaster but I was lucky that I ran well up there.

I haven't looked at my HEM results or FTP cashier for over 1 week now. I'm probably up a little but I'm not exactly sure. I like this approach and don't plan to look at my results until the end of the month. We'll see how long I can last because I might accidentally see it.

Once I look, I'll post a graph of my last 100k plus hands.

I'm also trying to get Tilt Demon Software to work. It's a neat program that will shut down your poker client if you reach your stop loss, stop win, hand or time limit. You set it before hand and it will keep track for you with HEM. I haven't got it to work yet but I emailed support. I'm hoping to get it running so I can test it out. If I like it, I will buy it. There is a 14 day free trial. Check it out and let me know what you think. Here's the link.

Tilt Demon Software

He also has a Tilt Demon Savings Calculator. It will calculate how much you won/lost after a hand min, cash won or lost min or time min. For example, if you put in 1 hour. The savings calculator will calculate your win rate after one hour. So if your session lasted 1 hour and 30 minutes. The software will show you how much you won/lost for the last 30 minutes over your whole or range of data in HEM. It's pretty neat. and it's free too!

As for this month, I'm focusing on playing 4 tables of $100 nlhe FR Rush. I never thought I would get hook but I'm starting to like Rush Poker. I'll try to limit my sessions for 1-2 hours. After 2 hours, I notice I'm not playing my A game anymore because I'm probably chasing losses.

Good luck

April Summary and Goals

2010-05-05T13:20:00.008-05:00

I played about 22k hands of $50 nlhe FR, 2k hands of $50 nlhe FR Rush Poker, and 600 hands of $100 nlhe HU. I know I said I wasn't going to play $100 nlhe but I think that was before I made my last post. It's strange, I have a little degen in me that always wants to play higher and chase losses. I gotta fix this leak or I will never reach my poker goals.

Overall, I won about $500 plus $200 in rakeback so it was a successful month in my book. I read Vizer's blog and he wrote about eventually playing 4 tables of Rush Poker and 12 regular tables. I tried 2 tables of Rush and 14 regular but it was too fast pace for me. I dropped it down to 1 table of Rush and 15 regular tables and it was perfect. I use Table Ninja and Hotkeys so I don't have to click as much so I can play about 1200 hands/hour.

I use to hate Rush Poker but I've accepted it for what it is. A total nit fest with some players who love to spew off stacks. I don't think I could ever just focus on Rush but I'll play one table of it.

As for the fitness goals, I only lost about 5 pounds so I'm halfway there. If I stick to my diet and gym plan, I should lose another 5 pounds this month and start to play $100 nlhe FR again.

I'm at around 70k hands since my last graph. I will post the 100k hand graph when I get there.

March Summary and Goals

2010-04-11T13:47:00.002-05:00

I've been playing alot more $50 nlhe FR because I went on a 8 bi downswing at $100 nlhe FR and lost some confidence. It feels good to play a little lower because the competition is softer. I played a little over 20k hands losing about $100. With rake back, I must of won around $200 for the month of March. I'll take it, much nicer than losing.

I cashed out some money and I plan to play $50 nlhe FR to regain some confidence. My plan is to keep playing $50 nlhe FR until I lose about 10 pounds. I want to feel better mentally and physically before I jump back up to $100 nlhe FR. It'll be a win win situation. I'll be healthier physically and get to challenge myself at a higher level. I think it'll take me a little over a month to do this if I watch my diet and go to the gym.

Good Luck

February Summary and $100 NLHE FR

2010-03-01T12:46:00.007-06:00

I started off playing 1k hands of $50 nlhe FR and won 1 bi. I then jumped up to $100 nlhe FR and played about 19k hands and won 8 bi. At first, I was def scared money but I quickly adjusted to the bigger pots and started winning.

I seriously need to learn how to bet/fold at this level. I have not caught too many unknowns who are capable of bluffing in beginning of sessions or when I have no reads. The only time I can make a hero call/or be happy about it is when I actually have a read that they don't bet thin for value or their tilting after getting bad beated. I guess my thought process is, "I'm about breakeven or down for this session. If I catch him bluffing, I'll be up for this session. I call." I need to get that out of my system because I'll never be able to beat $100 nlhe FR over a significant sample if I keep doing that.

Overall, I'm happy that I played relatively well enough to win at $100 nlhe FR this month. I'm hoping to plug my leaks and win at a higher clip.

I'll post another graph at 100 k hands.

Graph of 101k Hands of $50 nlhe FR at FTP since Nov 2009

2010-01-26T14:55:00.007-06:00

I basically fought the urge to play higher and stuck with this stake since November. It kinda of feels good that I have the discipline to stick with a plan. I give credit to my online alarm clock system and the willingness to just quit when I don't feel like playing my A game. It's still tough to get up when stuck but it's best for my long term edge.

Toward the end of my 100k hand run, I tried Rush Poker and dropped 2 bi at $50 and 2 bi at $100 nlhe FR over 5k hands. Kinda of sucks to drop that cash when I hate Rush Poker. I hate that game, no read and history. I def plan to never play it again for anything significant. I might play it if I feel like messing around but nothing serious.

I also love the fact that FTP increased the min buyin for the regular tables from 20bb to 35bb. It has made a tremendous difference in table selection and dynamics. I'm hoping this will actually increase my win rate because it was tough to extract value from donkeys when short stackers kept shoving over my open raises. The donkey would limp, i iso r and sstacker shoves. They def ruined the game and made everyone's win rate go down.

I probably tilted around 3-5 times during this 100k hand stretch. I notice that I tend to call alot when I'm on tilt and push draws. It's kinda of weird way to tilt because villain's range is already tight and they tend to hero call with medium strength hands or better. If I can turn it down a notch and pick the right spots to semibluff or bet thin for value, it would def increase my win rate.

To tell you the truth, I don't know what I want to do right now. I didn't crush $50 nlhe FR like I wanted to. I played and ran terrible in the beginning but made a nice comeback toward the end. I'll probably just continue to play $50 nlhe FR during the week and play $100 nlhe FR toward the weekends. Once I feel very confident, I'll step it up and play alot of $100 nlhe FR.

Good luck at the Tables

80k hands of $50 nlhe FR and counting

2010-01-09T13:07:00.009-06:00

I finally had the urge to move up to play $100 nlhe FR yesterday but I fought that urge when I saw that I had around 80k of $50 nlhe FR hands since November 1st, 2009. I'll stick out the 100k hands at $50 nlhe FR and I'll post my graph when I complete that challenge. Overall, I didn't run so good but I probably only tilted about 2-3 times. Nothing major because I set my online alarm for 1 hour and then check my mental status when it beeps. I've gotten strong enough mentally to go 2-3 hours without tilt now, which is nice.

I've also been watching alot of CR, Leggo, and Bluefire Poker Videos. My favorites are Niman Kenkre, Aejones, Leatherass, Brian Towsend, and Boywonder's videos. Boywonder is a new instructor at Leggopoker and his first video was amazing. I particular like his mental approach to the game. He has a cool thread at 2plus2 where he answers lots of questions about his approach to the game of poker. Check it out if you haven't , u won't be dissapointed.

I've also been analyzing my hand histories. I've been in contact with Damnringer, Peterpjames, and Jason (LuckySOB). I Aimed Jason but somehow he wasn't able to view weaktight. I'll have to resend him those hand history in text form because he's played millions of FR hands. I've also been talking with QQ-Q u a d s-QQ who plays $100 nlhe FR at FTP. He's been crushing it for over a year now and I was able to get in contact with him at 2plus2. He's agreed to coach me even though he has no experience coaching. I've sweated him a few times and I like his game. He does alot of things well and is very confident about his poker game.

As for 2010 goals. I just want to play my A game at all times and eventually just beat $100 nlhe FR. I'm just going to set my goals low and realistic because I want to reach my goal this year. My real longterm goal is to beat $200 nlhe FR. Who knows when that will take place because of my tilt issues.

Good luck

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

2009-12-24T17:39:00.002-06:00

I just wanted to wish everyone who reads my blog a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I've got many things to be happy about and I'm looking forward to 2010.

AlwaysLimp Q/A at CR FR Forum

2009-12-16T15:22:00.003-06:00

I wanted to copy/past so i can read at work because CR is blocked.

Alwayslimp,

100bb deep for all situations

1) How do you combat light 3 betters OOP and IP? What variables do you factor in when you decide to call or 4 bet light?

I'm going to give you a short, unsatisfying answer for this one right now since I think it's a tough subject and I want more time to think about it. Basically, if I'm up against a player who 3bets a ton (whether I'm in position or out of position) I just increase my 4bet bluffing frequencies and/or widen my value range for getting all in preflop. When you 4bet bluff you would like to create a good leverage situation for yourself, make sure you don't size it too big. For example say you open to 3bb and your opponent makes it 11bb. You only need to make it 25bb here. You've created a situation where you risk only 25bb but you've force your opponent into a decision for his whole stack. In theory he really can't call here (sometimes they do though which is bad for them) so you lay yourself a nice price since he can only fold or shove. If you make it any more than 25bb in this spot you are just creating more dead money for him to capitalize on if he 5bets.

Some of the variables I consider are my position, my opponents position, the hand I'm holding, what I think their tendencies are, and any dynamic we have. I'll explain all of these in more detail.

Position: I will 4bet bluff more often if I'm opening the button and get 3bet by one of the blinds. I will 4bet bluff slightly less often if I open in the CO and get 3bet by one of the blinds. And the trend continues.

Player tendencies: This is related to position. There are players that like to 3bet a lot in position but do it very rarely oop, and vice versa. You need to determine which type of player you are up against. Some players have a really high 3bet from the button but relatively low from the blinds. Against these guys I would 4bet more as a bluff if they 3bet from the button, but would proceed with more caution if they 3bet oop. If you have HEM you can look at someones 3bet by position to make some assumptions and then look to solidify them as you gain more knowledge.

Hand Selection: I am more likely to 4bet bluff with a hand like Ax or Kx. The reason is card removal. If I assume my opponent is 5betting for value with QQ+,AK, I considerably decrease the number of combinations he has of those hands if I hold one of the A or K.

Dynamic: A lot of players will 3bet with junk hands to create a dynamic with you. Then they tighten up their range when they sense you are ready to play back at them. Then all of a sudden you find yourself getting all in preflop with 88 against their QQ+,AK. This gets easier with some practice and experience but simply put, if it looks like you are ready to play back, don't bluff, wait for a good hand. If it doesn't seem like an obvious spot to play back then your bluffs will gain more credibility. Find out which players fold to a lot of 4bets. Find out which players are capable of 5bet bluffing. This kinda stuff is really hard for me to explain in a paragraph and maybe I'll revisit it later.

One last thing that I'll add is if you are playing 100nl and below, chances are people aren't getting too out of line with 3betting as a bluff. If it seems like you are getting 3bet a ton then it's probably just a variance thing. Some sessions it happens where everytime you raise someone behind you picks up a hand worth 3betting. I would take this rule to heart, generally people are 3betting with tighter ranges than you think. Make sure you don't over adjust as soon as a guy 3bets you a couple times. Trust me I've lost more money in the past two years over adjusting to people 3betting than I have from just folding to a lot of their 3bets, getting it in with a tight range, and occassionally 4bet bluffing.

2) What boards do you like to attack with 2 barrels or 3 barrels IP and OOP?

There are two times where you want to 2barrel. The first is when the board changes in a way that greatly increases your fold equity. The second is when the board changes on the turn to give you more equity. If you get both, well then you have a dream two barrel spot. Examples to follow:

1.) The board changes to give you more fold equity.

These are the obvious spots where you cbet a 725 board and the turn is an A or K (the best) or something like a Q (good). A lot of times your opponent will have a weak peeling range on this flop and you can easily rep the A or K on the turn. They will be put into a tough spot when you fire another bet into them.

2.) The board changes to give you more equity. Think anytime you turn a flush draw, some sort of combo draw, or even as little as a gutshot depending on board texture.

Say you have As5s on a Js4h6d board and the turn is the 3s. This is a great spot for a two barrel. Your pot equity is so high vs. almost any hand that you only need to generate a fold a small percentage of the time to show a profit. Even vs. hand as strong as QQ you have 18 outs.

3.) A combo of 1 and 2

Think something like As2s on 5s8h2dKs board.

You really want to avoid two barreling anytime a turn card comes that coordinates the board more. An example of a board like this might be 8h9h2sJd. The J brings an overcard to the board but it greatly improves your opponents range and gives him more equity he can continue with (lots of pair +draw stuff) or it already got him there (QT).

Against people who peel the flop lightly, like your 60 vpip fish, you might have license to 2barrel the turn relentlessly. There flop calling range is so weak they often don't have enough strength to continue on the turn. Say the board is 42Q. Well it might not seem obvious but against really loose players you may want to 2barrel a J turn. There flop calling range will contain A2-A5, 56, 64, 53, 55-TT, hands like A9,AT,AK, etc. You can get your opponent to fold a lot of these hans on the turn even though the J might not seem like an obvious "scare card". All the better if you have a hand like AT which just picked up more equity.

Good 3barrels are tough. I'll be honest it something I'm still working on myself. I have lost a lot of money in the past running bad 3barrel bluffs. I'll give one example that I think is a good one to 3barrel.

In general, you want to 3barrel boards where your opponents are slightly loose and can have hands that have enough equity two call two streets but can't stand the 3rd barrel. Consider this board. Jh8d7hKc. You have AhQs. Your two barrel in this spot is probably only good if you are commited to betting the river as well. Your opponent is going to have a ton of hands like J9,T8,T7, 69, JT,Q9, weak flush draws, and the list goes on and on. He's going to peel the flop and turn with these hands since they have good enough equity. However, none of them can really call the river (unless he's a very poor player and won't fold a pair). And you can rule out that he has strong hands on this board if he calls twice. The drawy nature of the board would force him to raise sets, two pairs, and straights earlier in the hand. So you see what I'm getting at here? Look for spots where people are going to have a lot of weak pair+draw stuff in their range. If all teh draws brick on the river they are going to be left with a weak pair that can decide to fold or hero call. My guess is that they fold most of the time.

There are definitely a lot more spots you can pull off 3barrels but I'll leave those to someone else out of fear of giving bad information.

3) What's the biggest leak that you find $100 nlhe FR and below make?

I'll focus on mistakes that weak regs tend to make. It's obvious what the fish are doing that is really bad.

You are going to get a lot of players at 100nl that are either doing too little or too much of something. It's your job to find out which side they are on. Some guys fold to 3bets too much, some guys don't fold to 3bets enough. Too much cbetting or too little cbetting. Certain things like that.

Another big one is that people pot control way too much on the turn. They miss out on a ton of value that is there for the taking. I'll give two examples. Say you have KJ on a J65r board and the turn is a Q. This is a bet. Too many people check behind here. It's important for value and for balance. Ideally we'd like to fire this Q as a bluff (as I outlined earlier in this post). So if we check back here when we have KJ but bet it as a bluff we become extremely unbalanced. I can just c/r you everytime you barrel a scare card on the turn and you will always fold. A lot of people would prefer to check this on the turn and bet the river for value. That is wrong. Most weakish villains are still going to peel turn with a lot of hands we beat. By betting the turn we still get value, protect our hand, and balance our range more with bluffs and value hands. The only reason I could see for checking back is if the villain will blindly stab at a lot of rivers and is really prone to bluffing.

A second example is QQ on a T73K board. We need to be betting this again on the turn for the same reasons stated above.

One last leak I'll give is that people often dont' know why they are betting. There are two main reaons you bet; for value and as a bluff. Sometimes I see people make bets that don't fall into either category and it puzzles me. Say I cbet in position against a reg on KT2. They c/c and it goes ck/ck on a 4 turn. The river is a 5 and they lead with T9. What does this bet accomplish? I'm almost never call with worse and I don't fold any better hands here. This is an extreme example and I'm not saying it happens a lot. But, just start thinking about why you are betting. If it's not for value and not for a bluff, then you shouldn't be betting.

There are others. For example, people in general play too straight forward and their ranges are so defined by the time they get to the river. Typing all this out wore me down though so I'll take a break and maybe describe more later

Originally Posted By: never win 05

[quote=AppleSeed]Alwayslimp,

I play around 12/10 -- 14/12 style 3bet is very dependent on my opponents some people i 3bet all day others i can only 3bet them with KK+. Do I have to play more laggy like 20/17 in order to have a 4-6ptbb win rate at 50nl and 100nl or is it mostly just post flop leaks you think?

Well, first I should say that a 2ptbb winrate is not bad. I think more is achieveable at 100nl and below but showing that kind of winrate is still commendable.

I would imagine that most of your leaks are coming post flop. You certainly don't need to have a laggy game to be a big winner. One of the most steady winners at 200nl over the past two years plays a 12/10 style preflop. Sure, you could maybe increase your winrate by playing more pots in position vs. fish and limpers (more isolating) but you want to make sure you don't over do it. It is easy to over adjust and play too many hands. All of a sudden you are playing a ton of hands and getting in marginal spots without the postflop experience to navigate those spots and play them profitably. You could open up a little bit by finding some more spots to play in position vs. bad players but don't go too far. You could probably relax your opening standards a little bit from the CO and button too. Stealing a ton in late position is either going to win you the blinds or get you in a "bread and butter" type situation (where you make the most money playing poker). That is playing raised pots in position vs. bad players with weak ranges.

Keep in mind that small leaks add up post flop. At 100nl the difference between a 2ptbb winner and someone who is crushing (6ptbb) is only 8 dollars every 100 hands. Thats 40 bucks a session if you play 500 hands. Go back and look at your latest session. I'm sure you can find tons of spots where you made a tilty river call or tried to bluff a fish that was never going to fold a pair. Maybe you could have bet sized a little bit better to squeeze out a few extra dollars on the flop, which leads to bigger turn bet sizes, which leads to even bigger river bet sizes. There are so many spots where we all aren't playing optimal. The guys that crush are the ones that are most aware of that and are achieving it the most often. Focus harder when you play, review your sessions afterwards, and you will find that there are a lot of spots where you are giving up a few dollars (or chunks). Cut those out of your game and you will see the WR start to rise.

Also, it is so important to never tilt. Tilting off a 100bb stack is about the most detrimental thing you can do to achieving a high winrate. I can bet that the guys who crush are also the ones that tilt the least amount. Their dollars lost to tilt are lower than the averge reg. That all affects the bottom line.

November Review

2009-12-04T19:05:00.005-06:00

I basically broke even after getting rake back and bonuses at $50 nlhe FR. I played a little over 30k hands. I've been experimenting with a wider 3 betting range preflop and expanding my c/r range on the flop and turn. I probably don't double and triple barrel enough when I suspect my opponents are floating or calling down light.

I also bought Tri Nguyen's NLHE Workbook. I read it and I have tried out a few things that worked. It was def interesting to be able to recognize some great bluffing spots on the turn and river. Awesome book, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to think outside the box.

As for this month, same thing as last month. Just grind a ton of $50 nlhe FR and regain my confidence. I want to beat $100 nlhe FR and go up from there.

Back on the Grind

2009-11-02T13:26:00.005-06:00

I'm back on the grind. I plan to play 1 hour per session. I'm using an online alarm clock and setting it at 1 hour. When it beeps, I play until the BB and start sitting out. It will be a great way for me to not tilt and lose 10 bi per session.

I plan to 16 table $50 nlhe FR. I need to refocus and start playing my A game at all times. So far I've played 4 sessions and it has been fun. I haven't said that about poker in a long time. It's actually fun to play poker again. I had to look deep down and figure out why I'm playing this game. I def want this to be a big part of my income so I have to take this game more seriously.

I plan to play 100k hands of $50 nlhe FR and then reevaluate wether to move up to $100 nlhe FR. This will be a test of tilt and discipline. If I can't stick to that plan, I guess I just suck at that part of my game.

Self Ban until Nov 1st

2009-10-09T16:43:00.005-05:00

I tilted like a monkey on Oct first after dropping about 13 buyins to the sickest coolers/beats that I could remember. I'm not proud of it and lost close to 2k playing high stakes limit hold em. It's so embarrassing writing about it. I'm just going to think long term and regroup on Nov 1st. I still got close to a 5k roll and I'm going to drop down in November.

I just looked at my long term results and it makes me feel better. I know I'm a small winner overall since I started playing online poker in summer 2005. I'm up a little over 10k (over 400k hands with bonuses/rakeback) but it's nothing to brag about.

I really do think tilt is the biggest edge in this game. I know it too, I love playing against people who are on tilt. Strange thing is, I go on tilt too.

When I come back, I'll probably just play 100 k hands of $50 nlhe FR and get my confidence back and just go from there. I really do think I'll be stuck grinding out low stakes forever until I get my tilt under control.

As for life, I've been working out alot at the local YMCA. Fifteen minutes of cardio and then stretching. Playing pick up basketball and the touch football league. We're getting killed in the football league but it's still fun to compete. I feel alot better physically and mentally. Hopefully, it'll transfer over to my poker game.

August results and thoughts

2009-09-04T12:58:00.006-05:00

I played a little over 12k hands. 6 k hands of $50 nlhe FR. 6k hands of $50 and $100 nlhe HU. I worked on my red line and won more pots that I would usually give up on. My W$WF was around 45%. It is usually around high 30 or low 40. My FR game is solid right now and I will probably play alot of that this month.

As for HU, this game has some sick variance. I played a guy at $50 and won about 6 bi off of him. A few days later, I played another guy at $100 nlhe for over 6 hours str8. It was a pretty epic match. I was down close 9 bi vs him at one point.

I knew I was running terrible and he was running me over. I bolted down and starting to really focus on what he was trying to do. I readjusted my turn and river play. I made an epic comeback over 1k hands to be up 1 bi. This match really tested my tilt control. I realized I'm not ready for $100 nlhe HU unless they are completely terrible. This villain actually played pretty good and I would def avoid him in the future.

This month, I plan to only play $50 nlhe HU/FR. If I decide to play higher, it will be $100 nlhe FR. I really enjoy HU because I can really get a read on their style. It's especially satisfying when you can soul read them and follow through with the plan. I guess the only thing I hate about HU is the variance. I need to build my tolerance to that because I am def prone to tilting when I'm done 5 plus bi.

First 6k hands is $50 nlhe FR and last 6k hands or so is $50 and $100 nlhe HU.

As for life, my co workers and I formed a touch football team. There will be 6 games over 6 weeks. This will def motivate me to get in better shape. I got a YMCA membership and if I go workout atleast 12 times a month, my insurance will reimburse me for $20. I def think feeling good physically about yourself will def improve my poker game. I am def putting my physical/mental health first now. I love poker but my physical/mental health needs to be a priority right now because I got more control over that.

Also, I read that Alex (DWarrior) is going to be going to school at the U of M Twin Cities. I went there and got my BA in Psy back in Fall 2005. Alex emailed me his cell and I'm looking forward to showing him around here. I'm not sure how much poker Alex plans to play while in school. Hopefully, we can motivate each other to play better poker.

56k plus hands in July & Massive Tilt

2009-08-03T12:26:00.007-05:00

I played 56k plus hands in July and won about $300 plus $600 in rake back/$325 bonuses. I tried to stick to my plan of playing $50 nlhe FR during the week and playing 6 tables of $100 nlhe FR during the weekend. I ended up eventually just playing 16 tables of $100 for the rest of the month. I ended up tilting after dropping 9 buyins. I quitted and then came back to the tables to get my $ back. I ended up playing my A game at 1/2 nlhe HU and winning about 3 buyins. It's pretty stupid of me because the variance is pretty sick at hu. I ended up getting good spots and getting my money in good.

My br stands at around 5950 and I'm going to be getting over $600 in rakeback. I'm pretty disgusted with myself even though I won 3 buyins at 1/2 nlhe hu. I'm going to be playing 16 tables of $50 nlhe FR and get my confidence back.

My redline sucks and I'm going to be working at it this month. My showdown pots go straight up and my redline goes straight down. I'm going to try to pick up pots where no one has a hand. I'm hoping that will lower my variance.

Here's my sick graph for July.

June Results and Last 100k Hands

2009-07-01T13:54:00.006-05:00

After taking a 2 month break, I started this month playing 16 tables of $50 nlhe FR. I played about 28k hands then moved up to $100 nlhe FR. I played about 5k hands there and posted a solid month.

Here's my June Graph.

Here's my last 100k hand Graph. It's pretty sick.

My last 200k hands or so, I'm up around $200 bucks. Luckily for rake back/bonuses, I'm probably up around $3,000. I keep telling myself I should play less tables and focus more but I just don't have the discipline to do it right now.

I hope to make a change this month because my results are terrible. I plan to play 6 tables of $100 nlhe FR on the weekends and 16 table $50 nlhe FR during the week. I can honestly say I probably go on auto pilot too much and tilt. So it looks like the results are indicative of my play.

Freedom Watch Live today at 2pm EST

2009-06-17T08:37:00.005-05:00

Good job guys, we got Freedom Watch to talk about regulating online poker. Watch it live today at 2pm EST here.

I'm really looking forward to watching this. If you missed it, you can watch it here on youtube.

Vote for Online Poker on Freedom Watch

2009-06-12T21:59:00.006-05:00

Copy and pasted this from the 2plus2 Forum. Schwallie stickied this and we need to vote to get on this show. Never heard of it but any type of publicity is another step forward to get online poker regulated.

Vote for Online Poker on Freedom Watch
Hey guys,

I feel like us getting voted onto this show would be a great help for us poker players and would really bring some more publicity onto the subject

You can vote by logging in with a facebook/twitter/etc account, or register an account at the site.

It only takes a couple minutes, and we need some votes!

Vote for Online Poker on Freedom Watch

Haseeb Qureshi aka InternetPokers Blog (Beauty in Poker)

2009-06-03T14:39:00.002-05:00

I copy and pasted this on my blog for my own benefit. His real name is Haseeb Qureshi aka Internet Pokers...

Beauty in Poker

Picasso once said, “Beauty?... To me it is a word without sense because I do not know where its meaning comes from nor where it leads to.” Beauty is a difficult word to define, and it has no single definitive characteristic. It can manifest itself in various forms. There can be beauty in a flower, beauty in a waterfall, beauty in a woman, beauty in a newborn baby. But there are other forms of beauty that are less basic to our perception. We can imagine finding beauty in the movement of dance, beauty in the richness of music, beauty in the rhythm of poetry.And yet we can go further, to beauty that departs from this placid sense of the word. We can find beauty in the construction of mathematical proofs, beauty in the handling of a basketball, beauty in a chess strategem, and indeed, beauty in a hand of poker.

In what sense can a hand of poker be beautiful? It certainly isn’t beautiful in any purely aesthetic sense (that is, in its appeal to our senses): a hand of poker will never be sensually stimulating, and in that way it is more like the beauty in a mathematical derivation than in visual beauty. In order to understand what makes a hand of poker beautiful, I think we must first decide how we ought to appropriate the concept. If there is beauty in poker, then it seems to me that there must be some experience in common between observing a beautiful hand of poker and anything else that is beautiful. The first step then is to probe the experience itself. What’s it like to experience a beautiful hand of poker?

Looking to the Source

To discover if beauty existed in poker, I looked to the source, poker players. I picked a few poker players I knew and interviewed them. Of course, I only wanted to choose poker players who I thought were particularly reflective and intelligent, and I wanted to be sure that I phrased my questions carefully to try to extract as much of their own thoughts as possible, without biasing them toward my own opinions. Although I won't name the poker players I interviewed, they were very established high stakes regulars (and for what it’s worth, these interviews took place several months prior to my writing this).

What I found was that there was a surprising unanimity among them as to the existence of beauty in poker, and what constituted that beauty. For all three players I interviewed, I began in the same way - "can you name some hand or event in the context of poker that you would describe as beautiful?" All three of them provided one hand that they felt fit this criterion. After that, I probed their reasoning about why they thought the particular hand was beautiful, what made it beautiful, and what it shared in common with other hands they thought were beautiful.

The first person told me, "I think anytime I make a 'perfect bet,' as in one with a certain timing or amount to make my opponent do exactly what I want, that's beautiful." The second person described a beautiful poker hand as "manipulating [one's] opponents in an artistic way." The third person described beauty in poker as "finding an eloquent, unexpected solution." The sentiment seemed slightly different among the three poker players, but when I questioned them further, I found that they actually could be distilled to the same essential component – mastery.

Mastery is beautiful. It’s making perfect bets, making your opponent do exactly what you want. It’s manipulating your opponent in an artistic way. It’s finding that eloquent, unexpected solution. Mastery is beautiful, and so we must explore what mastery is to explore what is beautiful about poker.

What is Mastery?

If you imagine the world from an undifferentiated, “objective” perspective, there is no such thing as mastery. There are various ways of making sense of this statement, such as saying “everything is just particles mashing about chaotically” or “if an alien came to earth and watched humans playing a game of basketball, they would see nothing but animals romping around with a ball,” and of course you could invent infinitely many variations on this theme. Essentially, all you have to do to deny the existence of mastery is to deconstruct some element of the cultural frame that we share. Mastery does not exist objectively; it exists once you set parameters on what experiences are meaningful, and what goals can be set for human endeavors.

The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre aptly separates the human sphere thus: the widest sphere, which we can just call the human community, recognizes a limited number of forms of mastery. These are generally limited to the basic virtues that everyone acknowledges as worthwhile: moral goodness, industriousness, courage, et cetera. It is only when we narrow our scope to looking within what he calls a practice, that more variegated and interesting goals of human effort can become meaningful (he calls these “internal goods” – goods or goals that are meaningful within a certain practice, but not outside it). A practice is any subsection of the human experience in which people are pursuing a more specific set of goals than those which are pursued by the larger human community. Practices can be simply understood as crafts or arts, like carpentry or basketball or cardplaying.

So in order to understand mastery in poker, we have to understand that outside of the practice of poker, there is no meaning or intrinsic value in the mastery of poker, and hence it could not possibly translate into beauty. You must first acknowledge poker as a worthwhile practice, and you must then understand poker to enough of an extent that you can recognize mastery. If there is beauty in poker, it is entrenched behind these two layers which are difficult to cut through for the undifferentiated person. In the same way, I may be told that a mathematical proof is beautiful, but even though I have some rudimentary understanding of mathematics and I respect mathematics as a practice, I don’t have anywhere near the understanding of the practice to recognize mastery, and hence beauty. Show me two potential proofs of the Poincaré conjecture, and setting aside which proof is beautiful and which isn’t, I wouldn’t even be able to tell which one were a proof and which was garbled nonsense.

So if there is beauty in poker, then this beauty can only exist within the practice, and can only be recognized among those who have sufficient understanding of the practice. You might even go so far as to say that within every practice that is sufficiently complex and understood, there exists some form of beauty (hence, it shouldn’t puzzle you to hear a CEO talk about a beautiful deal, or a boxer talk about a beautiful round, or even a scammer talk about a beautiful scam). So we should have no apprehensions with talking about beauty in poker so long as we understand how we are constraining the possibility of acknowledging this beauty.

So, that being said, what constitutes mastery? The dictionary will tell you that mastery is “the possession of consummate skill.” This is easy enough to understand, but it falls short of providing the clear picture of what we’re trying to resolve. If you think about mastery in terms of poker, it seems as though mastery can be defined as the ability to make the most +EV set of actions over the widest possible window of time (assuming, of course, imperfect information). So to recognize mastery, we must be able to recognize what is the most +EV action to take at any point in time, or in other words, we must know what “the right play” is. If you have no idea what the right play is while looking at all possible options, then you will not be able to perceive mastery, and hence aren’t qualified to make an aesthetic judgment about a hand.

Now, this definition actually gets a little tricky here, because defining mastery as simply “making the right play,” seems to be overly inclusive. For example, folding 39o preflop UTG in a full ring game is absolutely the right play each and every time. And yet, if we had the hole card cam on Phil Ivey folding 39o UTG, we would not be impressed. This would not strike us beautiful. The notion of mastery would not even enter our thoughts. Why is this? Think of this analogy – in a game of basketball, when there is a turnover, the opposing team has to inbound the ball from out of bounds. There is a 5 second window for the player to pass the ball, and if he doesn’t inbound the ball in time, then there is an automatic turnover and his team loses possession. Well clearly, it is always going to be bad for the team if the passer waits longer than 5 seconds. 100% of times in 100% of games, waiting longer than 5 seconds is the wrong play. Since it’s always the right play to pass the ball before 5 seconds pass, then this must be a demonstration of mastery, and hence it must be beautiful. And yet this is absurd, because this is the most trivial and unimpressive part of any ball possession, calling this beautiful is silly. We should infer then that there are some things which are optimal (“the right play”), but which are not beautiful.

How is this line drawn? How are some things which are optimal beautiful, and others trivial? I think the first reaction is to look for the purely aesthetic element – i.e., a dunk is more visually impressive than inbounding a ball, so that’s why a great dunk will be more beautiful than a great inbound pass. But I don’t think that this is enough. I think a better way to understand this problem is to think about the difference between structure and “gameplay.” I choose the word gameplay because the analogies that I’m using here are games like chess, basketball, and poker, but this all still applies to a practice which is not a game, such as mathematics or carpentry or whatever.

Structure and Gameplay

In all of human experience, there is an essential duality that defines our interaction with the world. This duality is the opposition between the conscious and the unconscious; foreground and background; substructure and superstructure. All of experience is predicated upon this fundamental, yet in a sense invisible distinction. In any experience of the external world, the unconscious filters out what is unimportant, otherwise it would be impossible for your brain to extract patterns from such enormous quantities of information (all of the visual, aural, and tactile stimulation that your nerves are transmitting at every moment of your life). If you are exposed to any stimulus long enough, it congeals into a simplified entity, subsumed into the background of your mind, and ceases to be an object of direct perception. This is obvious with things like putting on pants or wearing sunglasses– at first, it is an object of experience, but as it the experience is repeated (the feeling of having your leg press against denim or seeing an object shaded darker than it usually is) it becomes filtered out and you no longer notice it. In a way, this is what happens in games like poker as well.

The initial way in which this manifests itself is in understanding the most basic structure of the game. When two hands get to showdown and the players turn up their cards, if you had no idea how poker was played, looking at their hands would be completely meaningless to you. You don’t know the structure of the game – you don’t know the rules. How do you decide who wins? Well, it turns out that poker has a complicated set of rules about how to combine certain cards of certain suits together in order to create different types of hands, some of which beat others. This is the structure of the game on the simplest level. Once you understand how to evaluate showdowns, then this becomes subsumed into your understanding of the structure of the game. At that point, you understand the rules. You can’t break these rules. You can’t take the pot if you have a straight and your opponent has a flush; the structure of the game determines that the person who has the flush will win no matter what.

Well, we can actually go further than that. The structure of the game is simply what is constant to your perception – there’s no reason why it has to be limited to the most explicit rules of the game. Once you understand the rules of poker, you don’t have to consult a hand chart every time you get to showdown to figure out who wins. The way showdowns work becomes incorporated into your perception of the game. Now, once you go further than that and have learned basic preflop hand requirements, then you know that raising 39o UTG is definitely a bad play, so you fold it every time. In fact, everybody else folds 39o UTG as well. When you fold 39o UTG, you no longer have to mentally consult a preflop raising chart to see whether that falls into the range of hands you can play around with, it is simply a fold. Folding 39o preflop becomes a mental constant, you stop perceiving it or thinking about it as a decision in your poker game. Folding 39o becomes a rule of the game. You effectively can’t break this rule, in the same way that you can’t take the pot if you have a straight against a flush. It becomes subsumed into the structure of the game.

So structure becomes more and more developed as one moves closer to mastery of any practice. In poker, many things start to become relegated to structure, such as continuation betting, raising the river with the nuts, 3-betting AK preflop, etc. If anything is obviously the correct play and is constantly repeated, it eventually becomes incorporated into structure, because it ceases to be a point of gameplay. Gameplay, then, can be defined as that which is not constant – gameplay is whatever we need to think about, it’s what’s dynamic in any instance of the game that we play. In a 10/20 6-max round, nobody is ever going to raise 39o UTG; that is simply not a part of gameplay, which is effectively the same as saying that it’s not allowed or that it’s an illegal move. However, 3-betting an UTG raiser with 67s IS a legal move. People know that this is a viable play, but they also know that it’s not a mandatory play. Hence, 3-betting an UTG raiser with 67s counts as gameplay.

The conclusion of this short detour is that mastery will only be appreciated by somebody within a practice if it occurs within the gameplay, not within the structure. Anybody who follows the structure of a game has, in a sense, some basic level of mastery. Neither an amateur nor a professional basketball player will try to travel to the other side of the court without dribbling the ball, and so they both are obeying the structure of the game, but we don’t find this to be indicative of mastery. It simply means that if they don’t do this, then they haven’t outright broken the rules yet. It takes gameplay to demonstrate how close one is to mastery.

Delineating Structure

To properly separate structure from gameplay, one must first understand structure on the level similar to that of a master. If an amateur were to watch a professional chess match, he might marvel at the thoughtfulness displayed in the first four or five opening moves. But for masters of chess, gameplay doesn’t begin until their respective “opening lines” begin to interact. The first few opening moves are all structure, because they are determined by each player before the match began and are not particularly dynamic.

Thinking about structure in high level poker is quite similar. When amateur poker players observe a high level match, very often what they tend to do is ascribe elements of gameplay to what is actually structure. When railbirds see a preflop 3-bet or a flop check/raise, they tend to say things like “Oh, he’s fighting back!” Or if they see somebody call a jam with a hand like 99, they might say something like “He’s taking a stand, he won’t be pushed around!” In reality, the gameplay in a high level match is occurring on the battlefield of ranges – the individual hands usually are of minimal importance. Individual flop checkraises and preflop 3-bets create the structure of the match, and the adjustments and frequencies that each player adopts are what constitute the actual gameplay. This is difficult to see for those not privy to how high stakes matches are played, which is again what makes it impossible for amateurs to evaluate what’s actually going on in these matches.

In spite of the fact that little gameplay occurs within individual hands, there seem to be some hands which can be described as genuinely beautiful. If most gameplay is actually taking place within the interplay of ranges and large scale adjustments, then it seems to be impossible for there to be such a thing as a hand that demonstrates extraordinary gameplay, but the fact is that hands like this do occasionally come about, although they are rare.

I think what it is that defines beauty in poker is not just gameplay within structure, but gameplay that challenges structure. Structure, as I defined it, is anything that fails to be perceived as within the field of gameplay. But there are times when inspiration strikes a player to see beyond structure, and to harness some tool or technique that seems to be structurally disallowed. These are the moments that we see as beautiful—the beauty is in the breaking of the rules that we then see were never really rules. It’s the eloquent, unexpected solution.

An Eloquent Unexpected Solution

When I conducted those interviews with the high stakes players, it was around the time that the QT hand that Durrrr played on High Stakes Poker had just aired. It caused quite a stir among poker aficionados, and two of the players I interviewed actually mentioned it as an example of a beautiful hand of poker. Here it is:

Eastgate and Durrrr are 500k deep, and Barry is 200k deep. The blinds are 400/800 with a 200 ante, and Barry Greenstein opens under the gun for 2500 with AA. Durrrr who is immediately to his left calls with QTs, six other players behind him call, including Peter Eastgate in the small blind with 42s. The flop comes down 22T. Peter checks, and Barry leads out the flop for 10k. Durrrr makes it 37k, Peter overcalls, and Barry calls as well. The turn comes down an 8 and they both check to Durrrr, who bets 104k. Peter Eastgate folds quickly, and Barry folds after some thinking.

The vast majority of people who commentated on this hand had a poor understanding of what was actually going on in this hand. When Barry’s bet comes around to Durrrr, the standard play is going to be to fold (Barry is betting here into 8 players, so he almost certainly has something after raising UTG). The way that full ring players are conditioned to react to a spot where there are 8 players in the pot and UTG bets into them is to realize that a lot of strength is being represented here by this action, and so they fold all but the strongest of hands. The structure of the action (the positions, board texture, and amount of players in the pot) are supposed to create a situation where Durrrr has to play straightforwardly. But instead of obeying this schema, he goes the other way – he exploits the structure of the action and the fact that he has a ten, which blocks the most likely nuts (TT), and he decides to strong-arm the structure of the hand and use it to his advantage. When UTG+1 raises the UTG player with 7 players left to act in a pot with 9 players on a board where UTG obviously has something, it represents enormous strength and an indifference as to what action occurs behind.

When he makes the raise, Peter Eastgate overcalls from the small blind, and Barry calls as well, and the turn comes down a blank. Durrrr bets the turn a big size – one that seems to tell Eastgate that he’s looking to get all-in, and one that has Barry completely covered. Once Peter Eastgate overcalls the flop, it’s very obvious that his range includes some 2’s, TT, and 22. The structure has become again intensified because all players in the hand know that every other player acknowledges this structure, and so when Durrrr bets the turn big even when he knows what is meant by Eastgate’s overcall, Eastgate’s decision must reflect this fact. He knows that Durrrr is not stupid, and so he’s going to play his hand value relative to what is dictated by the structure of the hand and everybody’s perceived ranges. Now, of course if Eastgate had had 22, Durrrr would have not looked so spectacular, but it was a risk that he took and I’m sure he was not going to beat himself up for it if Eastgate turned out to have had quads. It wasn’t just the fearlessness that Durrrr demonstrated or the fact that he bluffed for such an enormous pot, or even that he bluffed Eastgate off of trips and Barry off of aces up. What’s beautiful about the hand is how Durrrr managed to find an eloquent solution that challenges the basic structure of the hand.

Ascending the Ladder

Now, I won’t get carried away here. I won’t say that this bluff that Durrrr made was a sudden spark of creativity or some kind of eureka moment that broke full ring poker wide open. The bluff itself is actually fairly basic, and I’m sure Durrrr makes these kinds of bluffs with some regularity when the opportunity presents itself. If you wanted to, you could just call it something as simple as balance (i.e., since Durrrr is bluffing here so rarely, he has to include the occasional bluff, and if you look at the situation holistically QT is the best hand to do it with). High caliber full ring players make this kind of bluff all the time I’m sure – if they didn’t, then it’d be far too easy to play in these situations, and they’d be missing out on too much bluffing EV since they usually get credit for having hands. The hand is beautiful because it demonstrates mastery, as Durrrr certainly understood everything that was going on (he basically called both of their hands when the hand was over), and its defiance of structure. But in spite of that, there are many other hands like it that could be summoned, which moves it closer and closer to being structurally sound (something like “standard”).

Ultimately, the higher and higher you go on the ladder of poker prowess, the more difficult it is to find hands that an expert player will consider beautiful. If a hand is demonstrative of mastery, then the highest caliber poker players understand the inherent concepts and employ them whenever they can in their games. If you asked somebody like Durrrr or LarsLuzak for an example of a beautiful hand, they’d have much more difficulty producing an example than a mid to low level player would. This is because of all of the possibilities that are available in poker, players like Durrrr and Lars have explored so many of them and can see every inch of gameplay that is possible (that is, they are not obstructed by false structure), and so there is very little that appears to them as genuinely novel or beautiful. The situation would either have to be very rare for it to seem beautiful (because it would come about so rarely, they could appreciate that moment of discovering a solution), or it would have to manifest itself not in a hand but in the higher level gameplay of adjustments and counteradjustments.

Poker is all about possibilities, and I think it is the moment of discovering a new possibility that is the sweetest moment for a poker player. For a lower level player you might imagine that they’d find the most mundane of poker dogma, such as deciding to fold offsuit ace rags from out of position, as a beautiful solution to a difficult problem. And as we move up the ladder, we start to see players appreciating more fine and creative solutions to different problems, slowly uncovering more and more of the field of gameplay. Experienced players often speak of “aha” moments, at which point their understanding of poker suddenly jumps up to another level, or some concept which they once didn’t really grasp is suddenly elucidated. I think these are the moments in poker we all are looking for. The moment when we emerge out of the cave of ignorance, and the light that we never knew was there shines upon our eyes… it is then that the field of possibilities unfurls itself upon our vision. And it’s true. It is a thing of beauty.

Minnesota Legislation

2009-05-12T11:11:00.002-05:00

I copy and pasted this off of Jason Senti's Blog on Bluefire Poker. He's a pro who resides in Minnesota. I happen to live in St. Paul, MN myself so that would really suck if they didn't allow me to play online poker. I just called and emailed Governor Tim Pawlenty. I even called the director of AGED and left him a message. Thanks for reading and helping the cause.

See below........

To anyone that hasn't heard, the state of Minnesota recently announced that they are requiring all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to any online gambling sites for residents of MN. This is absolutely ridiculous and blatent censorship of the internet (not to even mention that poker is a skill game, the wire act doesn't apply to the internet, etc)!

Please take action! I have posted some info below that should make it somewhat easy. FYI - I took the letter from a post on 2p2 by the poster "CrazyEyez."

You can copy and paste the following email. Below that is a notification with phone numbers from the PPA.

Email to send to : tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us

"Mr. Governor,

I am prompted to write to you because of the recent action taken by the Department of Public Safety to have ISPs block Minnesotan's access to online gambling sites. I will attempt to be brief as I convey some of the reasons I am outraged by this attack on my liberty.

Once again, members of the government and media have falsely characterized the legality of online gambling. We are frequently told that all online gambling is a violation of federal law. This is simply not true. Director of the Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division John Willems implies as much in the DPS' own press release. “In broader context, the long-running debate on online gambling continues to raise significant issues, including absence of policy and regulation." Are we to believe that the government has by default the authority to limit all of our actions unless there are laws specifically allowing those actions? I was under the impression that the exact opposite was true. Surely you would not be proud to have your office set limits on the liberties of citizens at it's own discretion.

You, I believe, have taken great pride in calling yourself a conservative. Unfortunately it seems that conservative Republicans are becoming rarer by the month, and therefore your actions as governor have been welcome and refreshing. Minnesota, like many other states, is facing a challenge of historic proportions with regard to it's budget. Now, more than ever, is a time to prioritize needs and look for ways to cut spending in all but the most critical areas. You have presided over significant budget deficits in the past and I applaud the manner in which you resolved them. As a citizen of Minnesota, am I to believe that we have conquered so many other issues facing us that it is prudent to allocate human and monetary resources toward combating internet gambling? Again, Director Willems admits that he has little information on which to base this battle as he has no idea how much online gambling even takes place in the state. "It's hard to know that. I can't tell you if it's one [Minnesotan gambling online] or 500,000." He is clearly incapable of quantifying any sort of detriment to the State which might justify expenditures.

Surely you're aware of Kentucky's unsuccessful attempt to have ISPs block access to online gambling sites. You also must know that expenses to the taxpayers are going to skyrocket once interested parties begin battling this action in court. Internet censorship is something that citizens and businesses take very seriously. This is not merely a gambling issue.

The hypocrisy of this battle is astounding. It is undeniable that Minnesotans enjoy gambling. We have many casinos, a state-run lottery, an interstate lottery, and a proud horse racing history. Less than a year ago a new track and poker room was opened. Is there public demand for the government to "save" us from gambling? Is the State serving the people in this fight?

I implore you to act now. Put a stop to this egregious violation of personal liberty. I take pride in my conservative ideals, and I have been proud to give you my vote in the past. But you will have lost any future votes from me if you allow this to continue, because you will have betrayed the fundamental conservative belief - that individual freedom, not government interference, is valued above all else.

Thank you."

PPA Announcement:

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) has just learned that Minnesota's Department of Public Safety (DPS) Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division (AGED) served written notice to all Internet service providers (ISPs) forcing them to shut down and block their customers access to online poker sites in the State.

The AGED also announced that they will be prohibitingMinnesota poker players from accessing their online poker monetary accounts. This is an outrageous attack on Internet freedom, personal liberty and the First Amendment.

Please take a moment right now and call,

John Willems, Director of AGED (651) 201-7529

AND

Governor Tim Pawlenty (651) 296-3391

Tell them:

* You are a poker player and you vote
* You strongly oppose their efforts to force ISPs to block your access to poker sites
* They do not have the right to dictate what you do in the privacy of your own home
* They do not have the right to withhold your money from you
* Poker is a game of skill and NOT ILLEGAL in the USA or Minnesota
* Please abandon this misguided effort to censor the Internet and nullify personal freedoms

Your opinion matters. Your calls matter.

The rights of Minnesota poker players are under attack. Join the Minnesota PPA Facebook page to get the latest news and start discussing the issue with your fellow players.

Our opponents go to government to take our rights from us. We need to do the same to keep them. Please call now. (To leave feedback about your call, click here)

Proud to play,

Matt Werden
PPA State Director
MN@pokerplayersalliance.org

Go get em!

-Jaxx

Best Man @ my cousin's wedding

2009-04-14T13:45:00.012-05:00

My cousin just got married and I was his best man. The wedding celebration lasted two days and I'm still sore since Sunday morning. It is Hmong Tradition to bow down twice for each of your relatives past and present. I lost count but it was close to 100 bow down. I was sweating when it was all over. My cousin told me right before we bowed down that he had been working out for it, lol.

Here's an example of it that I found on youtube.

Hmong Wedding Bow Down Video

As for poker, I haven't been playing much. Taking a little break but going to play soon. The group study is going well. It now consist of Tyler, Matt, Marissa, Ravi, Steve and I. Alot of the guys never got back to me so I think their no longer interested. However, I'm always open to talk/sweat poker with anyone.

Full Ring Study Group 2

2009-03-03T01:23:00.005-06:00

There was alot of interest in people wanting to get into Group 1. They got shut out so I decided to organize another group. I'll get an opportunity to talk to alot of great poker players.

Group 2 will consist of
1) AppleSeed (John aka me)
2) JahDoos (Rob)
3) lefty2432 (Steve)
4) fuppnasty (Pat)
5) xtacy2004 (Hai)
6) VogelB (Billy)
7) Milhouse7 (Ravi)

I'll be participating in both groups.

good luck at the tables.

Full Ring Study Group

2009-02-27T23:12:00.004-06:00

Sawdruhteez (Tyler) organized a FR Study Group at CR and I decided to join. The individuals consist of Schulucky, Dustydwn, WordHappy, Pataxxe, Sawdruhteez and I. We plan to meet this coming Thursday at 7pm Central Time through Skype/Mikogo. I'm pretty sure we are going to bring 1-3 hand histories for review and then go from there.

Looking forward to this coming Thursday because it's another step to being a better poker player.

Please send PPA letter to the President, your Senator and local Rep

2009-02-06T17:27:00.004-06:00

Got the links from Btimm and LuckySOB. Please take the time and send the PPA letter to President Obama, your Senators and local Rep. It takes one minute and it will make a big difference. Poker is a skill game and it needs to be regulated in USA.

PPA letter to our Prez.... http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersalliance/issues/alert/?alertid=12601836&type=PR

PPA letter to your Senators and Local Rep...... http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersalliance/issues/alert/?alertid=11248186

35k Hand Breakeven Stretch

2009-02-02T14:28:00.007-06:00

I mixed up my play this month 16 and 6 tabling, thus the lower volume. When I play 6 tables, I'm able to pick up player tendencies that I wouldn't be able to pick up 16 tabling. I"m able to see how fast they act, how many big pots they've been involved in etc. However, it's more mentally challenging playing 6 tables than it is 16 tabling. I don't want that sort of mental drain so I also play 16 tables. I think it's a nice mix to keep the game fresh.

I'm basically breakeven this month with rakeback over 35k hands. I played a mix of $50 and $100 nlhe FR. Eric (Damn Ringer) has been awesome. We've had 3 sessions so far, and he has been able to plug a few looks. I knew what my leaks were but he was able to give me practical advice to plug them. I was probably too loose on the CO/BTN and didn't double barrel enough in certain spots. I was able to tighten up in Late Position when I knew the blinds would 3 bet me. I'm also double barreling more on scare cards on the turn and river when I suspect villain can find the fold button. My total aggro factor was around 2.5, but it is now it's around 3 or higher. I also had some betsizing issues where I was either betting too small or too big. I need to really think what I want villain to do and fire the correct betsize out with player tendency, position, board texture, and history in mind etc. Basically making my postflop decisions easier where I don't have to guess as much if I'm getting bluffed or not because I love to hero call.

My review of my last 127k hands is taking longer than I thought. I'm about 1/2 way done and I'm noticing alot of leaks in my game. I hope to finish reviewing the other half within a week or so. I do find reviewing hand histories boring, so it's taking me longer than it should.

I'll post a graph when I reach another 100k hands.

Regulate Online Poker. Please Vote

2009-01-14T12:54:00.002-06:00

Let's Regulate Online Poker. Please vote and be heard. This is very important because it's so hard to get cash online to play poker. It only takes one minute of your time to register and vote. Please do it right now, don't wait to do it later.

http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewI...

Bad Beat Jackpot?

2009-01-13T11:59:00.005-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
8 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG	Herbstwald	($48.25)
UTG+1	tripsntraps	($17.70)
MP1	pfletch49	($40.20)
MP2	Superdave1974	($28.60)
CO	Hakimakli	($56.30)
BTN	call in 33	($6.95)
SB	Hero	($50.00)
BB	lany89	($38.85)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 8 players) Hero is SB

4 folds, Hakimakli raises to $1.75, call in 33 goes all-in $6.95, Hero calls $6.70, 1 fold, Hakimakli calls $5.20

Flop: ($21.35, 3 players)
Hero checks, Hakimakli checks

Turn: ($21.35, 3 players)
Hero checks, Hakimakli bets $6.50, Hero raises to $13, Hakimakli calls $6.50

River: ($47.35, 3 players)
Hero goes all-in $30.05, Hakimakli calls $30.05, Hakimakli says "wow"

Final Pot: $107.45
Hero shows:
Hakimakli shows:
call in 33 shows:

Hakimakli wins $104.45 ( won +$54.45 )
Hero lost -$50
call in 33 lost -$6.95

Double bad beat. There is no bad beat jackpot at FTP. This hand would of qualified if there was one.

So far this month, I'm a small loser over 27k hands. I'm running terrible but it's nothing new. I just gotta keep on grinding and my hands will eventually hold up. Half the hands were at $100 nlhe FR and the other half is at $50 nlhe FR. I dropped back down to $50 nlhe FR to regain confidence. I also hired a FR coach. His name is Eric (Damn Ringer) and is a FR Pro playing at Cake and FTP $200 and $400 nlhe FR. I found him off of the CR Coaching Forum. My first coaching session will be this coming Thursday. I'm really looking forward to it.

I plan to take this month slow and really analyze my poker game. I'm in the process of reviewing my last 127k hands and will probably make a post about it. I think it's a good time to do that because I'm not running so well and don't want to put in too many hours when my confidence is low.

My poker goal this year is to be able to beat $200 nlhe FR. Mark that down, no more silly shots at higher stakes. Just a slow grind up to that level because with rakeback/bonuses, it's dame hard to lose at this game when playing your A game.

Good Luck

December 2008 100k Hand Graph and Stats

2008-12-31T13:14:00.016-06:00

I switched to Full Ring and started to mass table 16 plus tables. The first 25k hands were at Poker Stars where I pretty much broke even after earning my $500 bonus. I then switched over to FTP playing mainly $50 nlhe FR for the next 75k hands. I didn't know what to expect and adjusted my game accordingly. I basically didn't pay off nits and laid down TPTK/Over Pairs when faced with aggression. Laying down those hands was so tough because I'm a calling station by nature. I had to talk myself out of making a lot of hero calls. I played a 15/10/2.5 TAG game over 100 k hands and was able to mix it up with some of the regulars.

$1704 + $500 bonuses + $600 rake back = $2804 in profits over 100k hands. Wow, it feels great to be a winner again. Haven't felt like this in a very very long time. Probably since Dec 2006. Basically small loser since the begginning of 2007.

Mass tabling has been very good to me so far. I probably need to mix in a little HU and 6max so that I don't get burnt out. I did play a few k hands of $50 and $100 nlhe hu this month because I was kinda of sick of Full Ring. It def made me appreciate the lower variance of Full Ring.

I also want to thank Jason (LuckySOB) for letting me sweat him mass table $100 nlhe FR and hooking me up with AHK. Without him, I probably wouldn't of had this awesome month. It's a real confidence booster, I can't express how much I'm grateful for his help this month.

Good Luck at the tables and a Happy New Year.

Going for 100k hands this month

2008-12-24T15:13:00.003-06:00

I got 80k hands completed so far. I need to complete another 20k hands and it'll be 100k hands this month. I never thought I could do it but it looks like I'm going to get there. I'll post up a graph once I finish 100k hands.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Quick Update

2008-12-16T15:39:00.004-06:00

I added alot of new full ring blogs and strategy posts/articles that I found on 2plus2 on my blog. I also can't wait for Belok's 40 table CR video this coming Saturday. That is going to be a very sick video and I can learn alot from it.

My plan is going great so far this month. I'm mainly playing my A game by keeping my sessions between 2-3 hours. I asses if I'm playing well at the 2 hour mark and continue for another hour if I am. I'm getting around 2-3k hands per session. I've played about 45k hands so far this month, which is a record for me. At $50nlhe FR, I'm getting around $8-9/hour in rakeback over about 800-1k hands/hour. Pretty nice if u asked me.

Oh yeah, I finally got 1 outer when I flop set over set and villain turned quads. Luckily villain only had 1/2 a stack. I just stared at the hand history and slowly started to just shut down all my tables. Wow, I showed alot of discipline just quitting the session because the tables were good. I wasn't in full blown tilt but I knew I was never going to fold in marginal spots after that hand.

Good luck.

30 k hand update and AHK

2008-12-11T21:40:00.003-06:00

I just finished about 25k hands total at PS over 25 hours. I went on a sick downswing over 9 buyins to breakeven at $25nlhe FR but made $500 in bonuses. I've got about 5k hands at FTP $25nlhe FR and I'm a 6 buyin winner. So overall, I'm up about 6 buyins over 30k hands. My last 5k hands at PS was pretty sick. I think I tilted off 4 buyins just trying to earn that last bonus.

I think I'm going to limit myself to a 2 hour session and play 1 more hour if I'm playing my A game. I see my game drop significantly after 2 hours of mass tabling.

I'm taking all my cash out of PS and going to grind FTP. It'll be nice to earn atleast $200-$500 in rakeback this month depending on how much I play. I'm contemplating whether to step up to $50nlhe FR now or wait awhile. I am confident in my mass tabling abilities right now and think I'm ready for $50nlhe FR. We'll see, I'll grind out another 5k hands at $25nlhe FR and see if I'm ready to move up or not.

Oh yeah, I sweated Jason this past Sunday. I learned alot while watching Jason mass table PS $100nlhe FR. He's def more aggressive than me IP and is able to find the fold button more too. It's so hard for me to fold, I'm a calling station in nature.

Jason also helped me set up AHK, which will make my mass tabling life easier. My right click mouse is for betting pot Preflop, 3/4 pot on flop, turn and river. My wheel on my mouse increase/decrease by 1 sb by scrolling it up or down. I stack 18-24 tables and move tables over to 1-4 designated spots on my monitor by simpling hitting my designated AHK's when the table needs more focus attention. Usually tables where I'm playing for stacks or interesting hands where I can pick up reads.

Timing Out with Pock A twice and Pock K preflop

2008-12-05T18:05:00.004-06:00

Wow, I timed out with pock A twice and pock K once. I also folded pock A by accident postflop. Pretty sick if you asked me. Jason said in a reply that he would help me set up my AHK. I'm sure that will help because I want to get a 1/2 pot, 2/3 pot, 3/4pot, and pot AHK. There's also a trick where I can AHK a table to the side so that I can focus in on it.

As of right now, I just manually move the tables over and type/click in my bet sizes. Luckily, I didn't go on tilt when I folded those big pairs. The table popped up with pock A and I was clicking as fast as I can to 3 bet and PS just folded me. I didn't get to dwell on it because there were 23 other tables I needed to focus on.

I just finished a 3 hour 3.5k hand session at PS. It's going well, my first bonus for $150 just got release.

Going to clear my Poker Stars Bonus

2008-12-04T14:14:00.003-06:00

I have $510 worth of bonuses to clear at Poker Stars. I've deposited way back in late 2005 but I just never cleared the bonuses because there were so many of them. I would deposit and then withdraw just to get the bonus because it never expired. I would rinse and repeat at different sites making around $300-500 worth of bonuses/month. Yeah, the good old days. I see this happening again once the UIEGA get's reverse.

It will take 2790 FPP to clear all 4 bonuses. I tried to play as many tables as I can at $25 nlhe Full Ring. I'm not use to the PS software but I like it so far. I averaged about 800 hands/hour. I probably averaged 14-18 tables or so because there was no way for me to know how many tables I was on. My session lasted 3 hours and I earned 268 FPP. Does anyone know where the average number of table stat is in Holdem Manager? I remember seeing that stat in PT but I can't seem to find it in HEM.

I did a little math and I think it will take me about 25k hands to clear all 4 bonuses at Poker Stars. I also have close to $3k worth of bonuses at UB and 30% rakeback there. I think I might be able to clear $200 worth of bonuses/10k hands at $50 nlhe Full Ring at UB. I would probably play at UB but they don't have $25 nlhe FR.

My plan is to clear the PS bonus and then go back to FTP. Grind a 2k roll and probably move to UB to clear that 3k bonus. Hopefully, I'll be a master mass tabler by Janaury and move up to $50 nlhe FR at UB.

16 Tabling is Easy, Need more tables

2008-11-26T23:31:00.005-06:00

I played my 3rd session this afternoon. I won about 4 buyins over 1500 hands even though I got suck out on and got bluffed off TPTK.

16 tables is easy to play, I wished FTP allowed me to play more tables. Hopefully, this is a new beginning for me because Full Ring reminds me of the good old days back when I was playing in 2005. Where villains would stack off light and play TPWK for stacks.

16 Tabling $25 nlhe Full Ring

2008-11-23T00:42:00.004-06:00

I completed a 2 hour (1600 hands) 16 tabling session of $25 nlhe FR today and won over 5 buy ins. I did time out on a few tables because I'm not use to mass tabling yet. I averaged about 800 hands/hour which is great. I'll get better at this and average 1khands/ hour. It's actually quite fun nitting it up and seeing donks stack off light vs me when I'm only playing top hands. I haven't faced too many tough spots because the play is very passive.

There were a few players that impressed me. I will go back and look at their hand histories and see if I can learn a thing or two from their play. Honestly, I was shocked at what these players flipped over. Villains would show up with pock A or Full Boats out of nowhere. I guess they like to play the trapping game vs me.

I'm Back and playing Full Ring now

2008-11-21T19:28:00.005-06:00

Okay, it was a nice break. I redeposited $1k and I'm going to grind $25nlhe Full Ring at FTP for awhile. I played a 4 hour session where I 8 tabled. I wanted to add more tables but I had to email FTP to increase it. I just got their response and they increased it to 16 tables.

I was inspired by Ryan Daut's mass tabling videos on CR and Jason (LuckySOB) taking up Full Ring for the past few months. I figure I give this a shot because SH has been very frustrating. I just want to grind and play as much hands as possible. I don't even want to think results, I just wanna rebuild my bankroll and poker confidence. If I can get anywhere between 2ptbb/100 or higher I'll be very very happy. I think I forgot how it feels to be a winner at poker.

I dropped 4 buyins over 1600 hands today but I didn't tilt. Amazing when the $ amount doesn't hurt. I think I'm only psychologically ready to lose at $25 nlhe and nothing above. We'll see what happens when I start to grind 16 plus tables. I've never done it before so I'm not sure if I can handle it. 8 tabling was easy and I didn't feel rushed playing TAG ABC. I'll keep adjusting and see how many tables I can comfortably play.

I basically center all my tables on the center of my 24inch HP Flat Panel and if a tricky/big hand pops up I manually move it to the side so that I can pay closer attention to that hand. It works very well for 8 tables, I'm not so sure how it'll work with 16 tables (Got the idea from Jason). I know Jason has a hotkey that allows him to move the tables around on his screen. Pretty sick if I can have a similar setup as Jason.

Signed up for Stox Poker

2008-10-27T13:45:00.002-06:00

I signed up through CR and got 1 year for $150. A pretty sweet deal if you asked me. I'm really interested in watching LeatherAss play. I want to see how he thinks about the game because I was really impress with his two sample videos that CR put up. I"m also interested in Jared Tendler's Tilt Control Videos.

Ultimately, I think I"m on the right path to playing great poker again. I look at crazy 100k or million hand graphs and I see crazy breakeven stretches. I don't put in a ton of hands, I probably average about 10k hands per month. The most I've ever played was around 28k hands or so and that was when I was on a heater and didn't want to stop playing.

To tell you the truth, I do have the urge to play but I know I won't be playing my A game. There's no point in playing if I don't want to play my best. I'll be the happiest man alive once I breakout of the crazy 100k plus hand downswing since Jan 2007. Yah, it will put you on life tilt.

When I come back and play again. I'm probably going to be a nit grinder and just try to get alot of hands in. I've never done that before and I would like to see how I play with that style. It would be a fun experiment and will help me regain my poker confidence.

Poker Break

2008-10-23T15:52:00.004-05:00

I went on a rough downswing ( 5 plus) and I just don't have the stomach for it. I took my whole bankroll of 3.4k off Cake Poker/FTP and I'm just going to take a break from playing. This game makes me way too sick. I just don't think I should be torturing myself like this.

I'm going to just watch poker videos and read Elements of Poker. Enjoy life, get ready to apply to grad school and get back in shape. Ultimately, I think poker is way too hard to beat. Just the psychological part really kills me. I'm really going to focus in on my grad school applications and make sure I go this Fall 2009. I'm def a big time procrastinator and I hate that about myself. Plus, I'm a tilt monkey.

Good luck guys. I will be back grinding 50nl or 100nl within the next few months. I always come back, not giving up for life yet.

Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo

2008-10-19T09:29:00.003-05:00

I just got it in the mail. I've read alot of positive reviews of this book by great poker players. Tommy Angelo is supposed to be one of the best when it comes to playing your A game and being positive about poker.

Tough Spot with TPGK 3 way on the BTN

2008-10-18T11:35:00.006-05:00

UTG mini raises and I iso 3 bet on the BTN. SB CC and UTG calls. SB is a solid TAG who doesn't get out of line much preflop and postflop. UTG is a Loose Passive Donk who will call with almost any two preflop. This is at Cake Poker, no stats.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($110.75)
CO		($51.65)
Hero		($99.50)
SB		($182.50)
BB		($243.23)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 5 players) Hero is BTN

UTG raises to $2, 1 fold, Hero raises to $6.50, SB calls $6, 1 fold, UTG calls $4.50

Flop: ($20.50, 3 players)
SB bets $12, UTG calls $12 BTN (Hero ?)

What do I do? Usually a lead is not very strong but I suspect that SB (Solid TAG) lead because he thought that it might get checked around when there is a 2 flush on the flop. UTG (Donkey) calls and it comes to me on the BTN.

Very tough spot. What do I do? Do I just flat this call and see what happens on the turn or do I reraise and just go with it. I'm willing to gamble with UTG (Donkey) but I don't like getting this in vs SB (Solid TAG).

I will post this hand on Leggo and CR.

As for grinding, I'm trying to hit 20k hands this month. I think I will get there because I'm running great right now. I'm really motivated to play and I'm finally out of the breakeven stretch. I'm up about 3 buyins overall now without rakeback/bonuses, which feels great.

I Play Very Very Bad

2008-10-10T13:36:00.010-05:00

Wow, I was tilting so bad on this hand. It was also the last hand I played because I was waiting for the BB to hit me and was getting ready to go to work.

Villain was unknown but had seen me make hero calls post flop.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

Hero		($166.60)
UTG+1		($155.20)
CO		($103.55)
BTN		($125.45)
SB		($209.45)
BB		($100.00)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is UTG

Hero raises to $3.50, 3 folds, SB raises to $11.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $8

Preflop: Pure spew.

Flop: ($24, 2 players)
SB bets $24, Hero calls $24

I call hoping that villain is bluffing and will shut down on the turn and river.

Turn: ($72, 2 players)
SB goes all-in $173.95, Hero goes all-in $131.10

I call because there's no way that he shoves a big hand on the turn like that. Wouldn't he want a calling station to stay in the hand with a weak pair?

River: ($377.05, 2 players)

Wow, I got lucky. Villain had pock A

Final Pot: $334.20
Hero shows:

Hero wins $331.20 ( won +$164.60 )
SB lost -$209.45

Note to self: Don't play right before work because you will be playing too loose and make stupid hero calls.

Poker Update

2008-10-06T14:07:00.005-05:00

I've been playing alot of poker. I've been breaking even for over 20k hands now at Cake Poker. Luckily for bonuses and rake back (close to $1k). Running terrible but in control with my emotions. I guess the hardest thing to do right now is to quit when I'm down 3 buyins or so. It's usually because I get bad beated or coolered and I want to stay and get it back from the donk. I've just got to discipline myself to quit for the day and do something else because the donk will be playing tighter/better postflop after sucking out.

I'm working very hard putting people on hand ranges preflop and postflop in order to extract max value. Check this hand out. This player probably played about 10 hands or so and he had been squeezing and 3 betting about 4/10 hands. Taking pots without showdown. I looked at his city and it said "Netherlands." I guess he's a aggro Euoropean so I was going to let him hang himself postflop. It's feels great to soul read him and followed through with my plan.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($94.45)
UTG+1		($37.00)
CO		($167.25)
BTN		($100.20)
Hero		($102.90)
BB		($108.50)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is SB

3 folds, BTN raises to $3.50, Hero calls $3, BB raises to $15, BTN folds, Hero calls $11.50

Flop: ($33.50, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $18.75, Hero calls $18.75

Turn: ($71, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks

River: ($71, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB goes all-in $74.75, Hero goes all-in $69.15

Final Pot: $209.30
Hero shows:
BB shows:

Hero wins $206.30 ( won +$103.40 )
BB lost -$108.50
BTN lost -$3.50

Here's another one. Another soul read. This player had been pushing all in preflop and postflop. I really think he was tilting for some reason so I was going to c/c atw.

Soul Read 2

I plan to just keep grinding and hopefully start running better. All I can really do is keep studying and improving my own play. I'll let the luck even out and my bankroll will increase so I can start taking shots at $200 nlhesh.

Oh yeah, the coaching with Matt didn't go through. He posted on 2plus2 saying that he's booked and won't be hosting a group session until he has more free time. I'll just keep looking for a coach for a reasonable price.

Possibly Hiring a Poker Coach and a interesting hand

2008-09-19T17:38:00.004-05:00

I saw a post by Matt "Probability" Young and he was offering a 6 hour ($150 total) group lesson for 4 poker players. I pm Matt and he's currently trying to set up a group within 2 weeks.

I feel my game is very solid right now but I feel I can open it up a little and be more creative in extracting value postflop. So in order to do that, I need to develop hand reading and put villain on hand ranges.

Take this hand for example at Cake Poker.

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($22.35)
UTG+1		($92.80)
CO		($49.25)
Hero		($129.40)
SB		($26.10)
BB		($37.15)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is BTN

3 folds, Hero raises to $1.75, 1 fold, BB calls $1.25

I open the BTN looking to steal from the tight blinds. Once he calls, I'm going to be firing almost any flop because villain will be c/f alot.

Flop: ($3.75, 2 players)
BB bets $3, Hero raises to $9, BB calls $6

Villain leads into me and I have gut shot str8 and a flush draw with one over. I have no idea what villain leads with but I was willing to raise/shove on this flop for stacks. Against a tight villain range, I'm probably going to be 50/50 and he might fold some of his hands that he leads with. So I guess that's +EV for me and I'll show a profit by raising his lead on this low flop.

Once Villain lead/calls, Villain def has a flush draw/made hand. Possibly slow playing a flop set but unlikely because he should want to get it in on this flop. Maybe even a overpair pock 7-9 and he's looking for a safe turn card to get it in on. I don't expect him to show up with pock 10+ because most sstacks would 3 bet preflop.

Turn: ($21.75, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Once villain checks and I hit a pair, I check it down for pot control. I don't think villain would c/c anything I beat right now.

River: ($21.75, 2 players)
BB bets $8

I tried putting villain on a hand range when he lead into me. Villain could have 45,56,57,68, pock 2-9 and a higher flush. Rarely showing up with pock 10-A because most sstackers would 3 bet preflop.

What do you guys think? Shove for value on river or just call? Play any streets different?

Playing Much Better

2008-09-05T13:58:00.002-05:00

I've been trying to follow my plan. I've been trying to get atleast 1 sweat a week and reviewing my sessions ASAP. I'm playing solid abc poker and my postflop decisions are way easier. I might be leaning on the weak tight side but it's okay for now because it's mainly against villains who are unknown. Once I have a read on them, I will go atw with tptk.

I have played over 10k hands since I made my last post. I'm probably down about 6 buyins (close to breakeven with bonus/rakeback) but I feel fine. I haven't felt this great about my game in a long time. My tptk, set, twopair are bound to hold up in the long run vs 2-9 outers.

Goal List

2008-08-11T14:08:00.015-05:00

1) Play Solid abc poker
A)c bet Axx and Kxx flops vs loose passive, tight passive, tags.
a)c bet/fold if shown resistance

B)Do not slowplay flop monsters unless I have a sick read where I can induce a light call or bluff from Villain on the turn.

C)Play Tight OOP and play Looser IP.
a)Fold dominated hands OOP, make my post flop decisions easier.

D)Be the aggressor IP and stop being a calling station.

E)No Hero Calls without a very sick read. Let them have the pot and just fold.

2) Double Barrel only when a scare card hits the turn
A)double barrel/fold to villain check raises (90% this is a monster hand)

B)Do not triple barrel, villain will not fold 2nd or top pair.

C)Check behind marginal draws and marginal hands (tpwk, 2nd pair, A high etc.) onturn

3) 3 buyin stop loss for one day
A)No if or buts. Even if there is a megafish at the table. I need to leave because I will no longer be playing my A game and villain will be.

4)Review PT hands ASAP.
A)Review all big pots to see if I played it correctly

B)Tricky/tough hands needs to sent to peers or posted on forums for discussion

5)Watch atlast 2-3 videos/week and take note of concepts I can add to my game.

6)Discuss hand history/poker theory with peers.
A)Winthrop, Purple, Ian, Brian, Jason, Kevin, Alex, and anyone else that is free to talk.

B)Participate in at least 1 poker sweat/week.

I plan to read this list everyday for motivation. I feel that if I can follow everything I just wrote down, I should be winning again. This list is def a work in progress. I plan to add things and maybe even take things out.

Emo Self Talk and Reality Check

2008-08-04T14:04:00.011-05:00

I've been thinking alot about my game. I've had the pleasure to talk to Purple (former CR member who posted alot), Screenw (Winthrop), Alex (DWarrior), Brian (Btimm), Kevin (Moniker), Jason (LuckySOB) and Ian (Ladymuck) about poker. Purple and Brian help me review my big PT hand losers. I just never reviewed it on my own because it made me want to vomit when I lost a big pot playing very very bad.

After the PT review, I found a lot of bad leaks. I think I tilt too much without realizing it. When I tilt, I play very loose aggressive and call down a lot with dominated hands. Which is a bad combination because I lose the max on 2nd best hands and win the min with my big hands.

Sadly, I will admit that I did chase losses and played higher than I should back in early June. I played a session of $200 nlhe hu and $400 nlhe hu and lost 100bb stacks in one long session. So there goes $600 bucks right there. I got bad beated and cooler but it doesn't matter. I shouldn't have been moving up to chase my losses. It's so embarrassing writing this but I will make it publicly because I bet a lot of players do this. I rationalize it by saying, "I'm only doing this for fun. If I lose it's no big deal." In reality, I play to win money and it's a big deal. I've been playing poker since summer of 2005 and I've been eye balling $200 since Dec 2006. That was when I realistically had a shot at winning there with a 6.5k bankroll. I had the bankroll but my skills weren't good enough to win there. Over the next 100k hands over a 1 year and a half. I slowly bled money away and here I am today. Still playing $50 and $100 nlhe sh. I'm probably 2ptbb/100 over 200k hands because I ran very hot my first 100k hands (probably 6ptbb/100).

I just have to admit to myself that I just don't work hard enough. I'm fortunate to know alot of good players like Purple, Brian, Ian and Jason. I've been trying to talk to another player I met on CR when I first joined back in 2006. His name at CR is screenw (Winthrop) and he's struggling just like me at low stakes. We've been setting up weekly poker sweat sessions and emailing each other hand histories. It's benefited me alot and I think I know what my biggest leak is. I go on autopilot too much. I don't put villains on hand ranges on every street. I go on tilt and play too aggressive and never fold draws/marginal hands.

I need to learn the art of the bed/fold and learn to let go of marginal hands like tpgk vs villains who never bluff. Especially when they c/c the flop and c/r the turn. That line right there is usually always two pairs or better. I've got the hand histories to prove it too because I never believed it til now.

The fact is, you get what you put into poker. Overall, I'm still a winning player over 200k hands. That gives me a little satisfaction but I haven't reached my goal that I set out for myself back when I took my shot at $200. It's been a year and a half now and I still haven't gotten back there.

I like to talk big but will I do it? In my mind, the answer is yes. However, I have to ask myself. Am I willing to do the hard work? As of right now, I say yes. I've been playing so bad now for over a year and a half, I'm kind of numb to the swings now. I've got to stick to fundamental poker. Play tight OOP and looser IP. Play aggressive and learn to fold marginal hands when shown resistance.

The difference between my blogs and others is that they actually do what they say. It makes sense why I'm still stuck at $50 and $100 nlhe sh and they are not.

I've gotta look in the mirror and tell myself that I have to give it 100% or else I'll be doom to lose forever in poker. As of right now, I don't even care when I get there. As long as I get there and beat it for a nice clip.

If you read it all, thanks for reading. Now I got to prove to myself that I seriously want to get better and start winning. I need to start making small goals for myself that I can actually reach and build momentum toward my biggest goal of winning at $200 nlhe sh.

1st goal, is to make a list of things I can realistically do to beat $50 nlhe sh. I'll think long and hard about that. Once the list is complete, I'll make a post on my blog and look at it everyday to remind myself what I need to do to get better.

Back on the Poker Grind

2008-06-27T14:11:00.002-05:00

I've been in the mood to grind poker again. So Far I've gotten about 5k hands at $50 NLHE SH @ FTP. I'm 6 tabling and playing my TAG with tricks game. Over those 5k hands, I think I've been playing my A game most of the time. I did make one bad call when I c/r mini an A77 2 flush flop with 67o vs a mega fish. Turn brought an A and I checked to him. Mega fish insta shove for about $30 more and I called. Villain showed AJo for a better Full House. Normally, I can find a fold but this villain played such a wide range that I thought he could be doing this as a bluff. In retrospect, I think it was a bad call because villain never got caught bluffing. I think I just wanted to play sheriff on that hand and try to catch one.

Still need to review my PT hands. I know I'm going to throw up looking at it though (Thus the reason I haven't done the review). I'm sure I made alot of tilt calls and plays. However, it will improve my game so I need to do that ASAP.

Last thing, I don't even know if I'm up or not. I think I might be a small winner or loser over those 5k hands. I've taken so many beats though but feel that I'm still playing my A game overall. I'll probably check how I'm doing once I get a feel for how $50 NLHE plays (over 10-20k hands).

Poker and my current life situation

2008-05-13T00:27:00.007-05:00

It's been over a month since I've blogged. I've taken a long break from poker. Strangely, I have no urge to play poker but I still aspire to beat $200 nlhe sh. It's still a very distant dream of mine.

I have signed up for a 6 month subscription at Lego Poker. I haven't watched a full video because the videos I downloaded got corrupted. It cuts me off about 15 minutes into each video, some I can't even watch. I need to delete them and download them again. I also need to review about 20k PT hands and make a post about it. I don't know when that will happen because I'm really busy right now.

I think I'm at a crossroad with my life. I don't want to get into too many personal details but my brother and I just bought a house! It's a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom house. There's a den that can easily be made into a 4th bedroom. My younger brother is graduating college on May 25th. He plans to move back in with us. We'll probably make a 5th bedroom downstairs because the basement is huge.

I've been procrastinating with getting into grad school. Hopefully, if I blog about it. It will get my butt started. Fill out the graduate school application. I would need 3 letters of recommendation. Fill out the financial aid application and see if I can get any free $ or low interest loans. Luckily, this school doesn't require me to take the GRE, which makes my life easier. I hope to get into St Mary's in Minneapolis in Fall, 2008. Earn a Masters in Counseling Psychology and become a therapist. It's a huge commitment for me but it will pay off in the long run.

I can really see myself being a therapist. I could listen to people's sob stories all day and not go nuts. I find the whole human experience interesting, the good and the bad.

What a heart breaking loss for Memphis

2008-04-07T23:49:00.007-05:00

The championship game between Memphis & Kansas was heart breaking Everything had to go perfect for Kansas and everything had to go wrong for Memphis in order for Kansas to send it to overtime and win. Such a bad beat, I feel so bad for Memphis. They should had won that game.

Memphis Coach John Calipari said that he's still numb from that game and it will hit him like a ton of bricks tomorrow. He'll probably have nightmares about this game for a very long time until he wins one.

NCAA Championship Game tonight Memphis vs Kansas & Samoleus podcast

2008-04-07T12:32:00.006-05:00

I joined my brother's NCAA Mens Basketball bracket pool (buy in = $10) with his co-workers. First pays 70%, 2nd pays 20% and 3rd pays 10%. There were a total of 19 people, so if I win I will get $133.

I'm currently in 1st place and have a lock for at least 2nd place because my brother has Kansas winning. If Kansas wins, my brother gets 1st and I get 2nd place. I really do believe Memphis will win because of superior athletic ability (Derek Rose & Chris Douglas-Roberts etc.).

I'm going to post up my March totals soon. It's so ugly that I don't even want to add up the numbers. I want to review it before I post it up. Just not in the mood yet.

Oh yeah, check out this podcast of Samoleus (High stakes cash game player 10/20-25/50 NLHE @ PSTARS). This guy use to post alot at 2plus2 but I think he stopped posting. He plays under punkety at PStars and is a great poker player. I need to listen to this podcast again because he discusses interesting/complex poker topics. Check it out at Pokerroad

Haven't been playing much

2008-03-25T21:59:00.003-06:00

I've been studying more than playing because of a sick downswing. I've been reading Professional No Limit HE and The Poker Mindset. I plan to finish both books this month and write a post about it. Maybe we can discuss a few things from both books because I doubt I will understand everything in it.

I've also been watching alot of CR and deuces crack videos. I'm thinking about joining Lego Poker because Ian, Jason, and Dodgy highly recommended it. I already canceled deuces and CR and will probably join Lego in April. I probably need a new perspective and by joining Lego, it will allow me to see how other great players think about poker.

I think I'm keeping a good balance with life and poker. I def think it's healthy to not play so much when running/playing bad. This will be good long term move because I doubt I'll be playing my A game.

I also need to review March again and see what I did wrong. I know I ran bad but I bet there were alot of spots where I could had lost less or won more.

Crazy 2/4 HU NLHE Match

2008-03-13T12:40:00.017-06:00

Hand 1)
I bought in for $200 and took a shot. This is the first hand. I knew this guy liked to call preflop and bluff when check to because of data mine/hands I observed.

Hand 2)
Typical style that he would play. He would lead pot and shut down on turn and river with air. I limped BTN because this villain was aggro pre and never really folded.

Hand 3)
Villain leads pot on flop. I call and don't want to play a big pot. All I have is a bluff catcher. Turn is check check. Villain pots river and I call hoping to catch a bluff.

Hand 4)
I limp/call BTN because this guy is so aggro. I'm trying to play small pots. Villain lead pots and I shove. Villain calls and I lose with TPWK vs his overpair 99. I reload and take one final shot. I have a solid read on him but he's just holding the deck over me.

Hand 5)
I defend with 98o. I c/r mini and take a stand with a gutshot str8 and two overs. Villain bet/min 3 bet and I call. I hit my tpgk on the turn and intend to c/r shove but he checks. I check again hoping to induce a river bluff but he checks behind with 2nd pair.

Hand 6)
Hero Call on the River. I'm giving this guy no credit when he checks the flop and turn.

Hand 7)
Another Hero Call. I didn't want to play a big pot when the K high 2 flush flop. K hits turn and it goes check check. I don't think he does this with trips. He pots river and I make the call thinking he's betting the miss flush draw or Jack.

Hand 8)
I limp BTN to keep pot small IP. I 3x raise his flop lead with trips and call his 3 bet. I think I'm ahead when he checks the turn and calls. Ugly river card and I just check because the flush really hit's his flop leading range.

Hand 9)
I open raise BTN pock 6. I call villain pot lead on a AA5 2 flush flop. I don't think he does this with trip Aces. Possibly a flush draw, pair of 5 or random air. Villain checks and I make a reverse blocker bet. River goes check check and Villain wins with his turn pair. Pretty brutal.

Hand 10)
Limp pot. I'm on the BB. I c/r my flop top and bottom two pair. I don't think this guy ever folds his flush draw. Turn bet for value. River bet my FB for value and villain mini r and I shove. Villain had total air and could not call. I'm pretty sure he calls with a turn King.

Hand 11)
I try to stack him with pock 2 on a 998 flop. Dame, he has a Q8o.

Hand 12)
Flop the nuts but lose to the back door flush. This one def put me on tilt because I thought I was going to stack him.

Hand 13)
Preflop:
I open r 910o BTN and call his 3 bet. We're deep so I defend hoping to flop two pair or better and stack him.

Flop:
Villain lead pots on the A76 2 flush flop. I call and hope to catch the 8 or take it away if check to on the turn. Villain could be leading with anything.

Turn:
Once villain checks, I don't think he has an Ace, K or flush because he would bet it. I decide to bluff at it and take it away with a 3/4 pot bet. Villain calls and I'm praying to god he doesn't shove the river.

River:
Once he checks the river, I have no choice but to shove because 10 high is no good. I vowed that if he folded, I would quit this session. My prayers were answered and he folded without hitting time request. Villain said he had pock Q. Thank god he gave me credit for a hand because I hadn't been caught bluffing too much in this session.

This guy was crazy and I couldn't really put him on a hand. Once he started giving me credit toward the end of the session I opened up my game. I would never try to bluff this guy in the beginning in med/big pots because he never folded post flop. I would make standard c bets but wouldn't really double or triple barrel this guy. He couldn't fold draws or a pair. If I had a bigger bankroll, I would play this guy all day.

We played for about 1 hour and 20 minutes. I won $243.40 over 227 hands. This was a very high variance match. I could of easily lost 1-2 bi and hurt my BR. I don't mind my shot but I have to wonder if it is worth the risk? It could put me on perma tilt and make me play my B-C game for the next few thousand hands.

Smart Buddy = Great Table Selection = Easier $

2008-03-13T03:38:00.004-06:00

I found a crazy donkey who was sitting at a 2/4 NLHE HU Table. I had him on Smart Buddy and knew he played terribly at the $50 NLHE SH tables. I watched him a bit at the 2/4 NLHE HU table and also looked at all his hand history.

I found that he liked to bet pot on the flop and shut down on the turn and river unless he had a hand. I also knew he liked to bluff the river once in awhile. With that read and railing about 50 hands of his HU match, I took a shot at his table. I was up about $500 on him but dropped about $250 of it back and called it quits. I def think I got an edge on him but I just didn't want to lose my profits. I'll post some of the crazy hands when I wake up. Really tired right now but excited that Smart Buddy has already turned me a profit.

Smart Buddy is Awesome

2008-03-12T10:58:00.003-06:00

I just bought Smart Buddy because Kevin (Moniker) recommended it. It's a sick program where it let's you add buddies from various poker sites that you want to play against. This is totally going to make my life easier because I won't have to go searching for them. Smart Buddy will let me know who is online and where they are sitting. All I have to do is click on their tables and get on the waiting list. I went through my PT database and cherry picked tight/loose passive players who I want to play against. I've gotten over 312 players and there is usually around 10-20 buddies on. This is going to be sweet.

I also converted my PT database to PostgreSQL. I had two databases over 500k hands and it took over 6 hours to convert. From what I understand, I'll be able to store way more hands than the Access version. Now I just have to run and play better.

Booked a winning session

2008-03-08T13:18:00.004-06:00

Very big confidence booster. Up 2 bi over 500 hands at $50 NLHE SH. I immediately sat out when the tilting player left. I would be quite devastated if I gave it back when I'm currently on a 12 bi downswing.

Another 4500 hands to go and I will reassess if I go back to $100 or not. I'm trying to develop a very solid TAG ABC game where my variance won't be so high and my decisions become easier. I also need to quickly identify who I'm playing against so I can play accordingly pre and post flop. Data mining, playing tight early, and really focusing will help me get a solid read before I start opening up my game and making a few moves pre and post flop.

Running very bad and moving back down to $50 NLHE SH

2008-03-07T13:53:00.003-06:00

So far this month I've played 2 sessions over 1852 hands. I'm down over 6 bi and if I include last month, it will be a total of 12 bi str8. I think the 3 bi stop loss is great because I don't get to play while on tilt.

I'm running so bad right now. I've flopped 3 sets and lost them to 2-5 outers on the turn or river. I'm not even slow playing but their floating in position and catching. I've been coolered about 2 times when the table was playing aggro and had to get pock J in twice only to see pock K and pock Q. My TPTK ran into flop quads etc.

I'm going to move back down to $50 NLHE SH for about 5k hands and reassess my game and rebuild confidence. I'm only down about 3 bi over about 10k hands at $100 so I know I can win there if I just run better at showdown.

Group Sweat last night

2008-03-04T15:54:00.003-06:00

Ian played 4 tables of $50 PLHE SH at FTP. Brian, Kevin and I sweated and a few interesting hands came up that was discussed afterwards. Ian just stepped up the the $50 level and played a TAG ABC game. Ian picked his spots well and only c betted on great flops. It gave me the opportunity to understand what made a good/bad flop to c bet. I will try to incorporate that into my own game.

Check out our new group blog titled Millennium Poker Group

CR friend "Screenw" and March Goals

2008-03-02T20:52:00.005-06:00

I met "Screenw" (Winthrop) by chance while chatting at CR about a year ago. He's finally realized that he wants to be successful at poker after reading Ezmogee's (Ezra) blog post at CR. Ezra basically said that anyone could be successful at poker through hard work because there are so many resources available to help you improve. There are poker books, poker training sites, and friends who like to discuss poker strategy over the internet.

Winthrop has played all the way up to $100 NLHE SH but has dropped down to $10 and $25 NLHE SH for personal reasons. He plans to rebuild at the micro stakes and eventually be back at his regular $100 game. Through hard work, Winthrop will accomplish that goal within 2-3 months.

While sweating Winthrop 2 table $10 NLHE SH @ UB. I realized that I've been playing way too fancy. I've been making plays and hero calls with very few reads. I want to reach a point where I play near perfect and make the correct decisions on every street with the information I currently have. I want to have a well balance game where my bet's get respect from the better players/donks and I'm loose enough where I will get called down lightly.

I saw a lot of things that Winthrop does well that I need to start doing consistently. Give unknowns respect and learn to fold med/strong hands when facing heat post flop. Just explaining why I do the things I do to him made me realize that I don't always play my A game. It would be totally sick if I brought my A game all the time. I would be up an additional 30-50 buy ins lifetime. I guess I'm trying to chase perfection.

March Goals.

1) Play 20k hands

2)Play A game or quit immediately

3)No Hero calls without reads

4)3 buy in stop loss for one day

5)Read Professional No Limit Holdem & The Poker Mindset

6)Attend weekly group sweats

7)Post at least one tricky/tough hand per session at CR

8)Respond to 2 hand history post per day at CR

9)Update Poker blog 2-3 times a week

10)Respond to all relevant blog posts involving strategy/hands

11)Watch 2-4 CR , Trikkur, or Deucescracked videos/week

If I accomplish all these goals, the results will take care of itself and I should be moving up to 1/2 NLHE SH within 2-3 months.

Feb Results

2008-03-01T10:29:00.005-06:00

Btimm ptbb/100 Challenge Results:

2.08ptbb/100 over 7377 hands winning $307.

I thought I was going to win this challenge but ran and play very bad between hands 3500-7377. I was up over 9 bi at 3500 hands. I need to readjust my game and pick my spots better. I think I need a stop loss of 3 buy ins because I will tilt off another 2-3 bi easily if I keep playing.

Overall, I"m very satisfied with my results. I'm playing a more loose aggressive game which makes my daily swings higher. I think I will tighten up and try to play a 21/18/3 game. I'm getting into too many marginal spots where I have to make hero calls or bet/fold playing 25/20/2.7 because I"m getting no respect when I bet or check behind flops.

Here are my Feb results.

$50 NLHE SH over 4,517 hands
$269.40 5.96ptbb/100
Running at 25/19/2.83
Flop AF = 3.62 Turn AF = 2.14 River AF=2.42
ATS$=44.61

$100 NLHE SH over 8,234 hands.
$312.40 1.9ptbb/100
Running at 25/20/2.7
Flop AF = 2.42 Turn AF=1.75 River AF = 1.75
ATS$=44.90

Overall Profit = $581.80 over 12,751 hands.

A quick edit.
My PT stats were missing about 1087 hands at $50 NLHE so I'm actually up another $100 bucks. Sweet.

New Overall Profit = $681.80 over 13, 838 hands.

Group Sweat Summary

2008-02-26T13:17:00.017-06:00

I played 4 tables of $100 nl he sh @ FTP last night while Brian, Kevin, and Ian sweated. All 3 guys gave me new ideas that I will try to implement into my game. Ian and Kevin highly recommended Professional No Limit Holdem and The Poker Mindset for all of us to read. I already ordered The Poker Mindset at FTP and will go buy Professional No Limit HE at Borders.

Here are 5 interesting hands that came up and was discussed afterwards.

Hand 1.
$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($117.95)
UTG+1		($217.05)
CO		($89.75)
BTN		($99.60)
SB		($30.20)
Hero		($100.00)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 6 players) Hero is BB

1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $3.5, CO calls $3.5, 2 folds, Hero raises to $17, UTG+1 folds, CO calls $13.5

This was my first hand and I had data mined stats on UTG +1 (23/20/5 over 800 hands) and CO (47/7/0.7 over 75 hands). I just sat down at the table and I squeezed to $17 guessing that UTG +1 was a solid player who would give a unknown respect.

UTG+1 looked very weak CC behind on the CO. I also wanted to get a loose aggressive image early on so that I can get paid off when I picked up a hand.

UTG+1 folds and CO Calls. I don't know what CO has but it's seems pretty wide and weak.

Flop: ($38, 2 players)
Hero bets $24, 1 fold

I c bet about 2/3 pot and hope to take it down. I plan to bet/fold or if called. Possibly double barrel a high card J,K,A, spade on the turn or shut down if the turn is a blank.

Final Pot: $38

Hero wins $60.1 ( won +$19.1 )
UTG+1 lost -$3.50
CO lost -$17.00

Hand 1 Discussion.
The Group didn't like this play because the original raiser could be very strong because his opening range UTG+1 is small. My hand could easily be dominated by AQ or AK. If a A or J high flop hits and I get played back it, I could be drawing to 3 outs or worst OOP.

They feel that it is better to just call or fold and play it safely. They would prefer if the original raiser was on the Co/BTN in order for me to 3 bet out of the BB.

In hindsight, 3 betting the CO/BTN is much better because Villain's range will be much wider there than UTG+1.

Hand 2.
$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($156.55)
UTG+1		($102.70)
CO		($238.35)
BTN		($101.15)
Hero		($99.00)
BB		($49.05)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 6 players) Hero is SB

3 folds, BTN raises to $3.5, Hero calls $3, 1 fold

BTN (22/17/4.4 over 500 hands) open raises to $3.5 and I decide to set mine. BB folds and we're heads up. I was playing str8 forward OOP at this table, probably running 19/16/7 over 45 hands or so.

Flop: ($8, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $5, Hero raises to $13.5, BTN folds

I check and he insta $5 bet. My instinct told me he was weak because if he had a hand he would of thought about his bet. I decided to c/r to $13.5 and villain folded.

Final Pot: $18

Hero wins $25.6 ( won +$8.6 )
BTN lost -$8.50

Hand 2 Discussion.
The group thought that I should had 3 bet the BTN and take it down preflop. BTN would not have a hand enough of the time for me to get paid off if I hit my set. BTN attempt to steal was around 30%.

In hindsight, I should def 3 bet this and continue with a c bet if called. They also thought the c/r was bad because that hit's his range better than mine. I can only rep 910, pock 2, and JQ. BTN could have Pock J, Pock Q, AQ, AJ, overpair or a random bluff. BTN could also float and see what I do on the turn and take it if I showed weakness by checking.

Hand 3.
$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

Hero		($104.00)
UTG+1		($170.20)
CO		($100.00)
BTN		($77.20)
SB		($100.00)
BB		($18.30)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 6 players) Hero is UTG

Hero raises to $3.5, 3 folds, SB calls $3, 1 fold

Standard open r with AKd UTG. Folded around to SB (22/17/4.4 over 500 hands) who calls and BB folds. Pot is HU.

SB is the same villain in hand 2, however this was on a different table. This hand occured 8 minutes after I had c/r with pock 8 vs him to take down the pot. I did not factor that in into this hand though. In his eyes, I'm a little on the loose aggressive side running around 22/20/17 over about 45 hands or so.

Flop: ($8, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

I was 50/50 on whether I should bet this. I decided to make a delayed c bet and see what he would do on the turn.

Turn: ($8, 2 players)
SB bets $8, Hero calls $8

SB leads pot and I call because I look very weak when I check the flop. I also hit tptk and have showdown value.

River: ($24, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Ugly card because the 4 flush hit the river. I thought about turning my hand into a bluff because I didn't want to see him luck sack into a small flush and felt I could get him off of it.

The group strongly recommended I not bluff this because I had showdown value, so I went against my instinct and checked it down.
Final Pot: $24
SB shows:
Hero shows:

SB wins $22.8 ( won +$11.3 )
Hero lost -$11.50

Hand 3 Discussion.
The group thought I should had c bet the flop and turn my hand into a bluff. It's more credible because I will be betting a naked Ac all day there. Once I check, my hand looks very weak. I had to call the turn pot lead because I had induce a bet by checking the flop. Once the 4 flush hit, the group thought that he could be intending to c/c with a weaker flush or be on a total bluff.

The group didn't see any real value in turning my hand into a bluff because nothing I beat would ever call and I had showdown value.

In hindsight, I misplayed the hand on the flop. I need to bet this and rep the Ac and shutdown if called or fold if raised. I also went against my instinct but oh well. I'm experimenting with new lines and mistakes are to be expected.

Hand 4.
$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($48.95)
Hero		($163.15)
CO		($121.60)
BTN		($124.70)
SB		($135.05)
BB		($38.70)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1

1 fold, Hero raises to $3.5, 3 folds, BB raises to $8, Hero calls $4.5

Standard open raise with pock 9 UTG+1. Folded to BB (41/11/0.7 over 150 hands) who raises very small to $8 with a $38.70 stack. The small raise screamed monster. However, I'm calling such a small raise and want to see a flop. I intend to fold if he bets 2/3 or 3/4 pot or so on a high card flop.

Flop: ($16.5, 2 players)
BB goes all-in $30.7, Hero calls $30.7

BB shoves and my instinct tells me he doesn't have a big hand. Why would he shove with a hand? I had a little history with BB.

Just 10 minutes ago at this table he limp/call my BTN raise to $5.50. SB called and he called. 3 way. I'm holding AQo.

Flop: 2h 3s Jd (pot = $18.50) I was going to bet $13.5 but timed out by accident.

Turn: Ah (pot = $18.50) It is check back to me and I bet $13.50. SB folds and he calls.

River: As (pot = $45.50) He checks and I value bet $29.50 and expect to get called by a Jack or mid pair. He c/c and shows up with A8d for river trips. wow, no raise? I win with trip Aces with the Q kicker.

Basically, this guy is very loose passive. He doesn't bet his big hands. Therefore, when he shoved the flop. I thought, no way this guy has a hand. He doesn't bet them so I called. I was wrong but I rivered my set on the river.

Turn: ($77.9, 2 players)

River: ($77.9, 2 players)

Final Pot: $77.90
BB shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $74.9 ( won +$36.2 )
BB lost -$38.70

Hand 4 Discussion.
The group thought that I should had shoved or folded pre flop. The flop could bring too many overs and scare me into a fold if he c bets.

In hindsight, a call is very bad here because he's betting any flop. I should def fold or shove pre flop.

Hand 5.
$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($230.85)
CO		($40.00)
Hero		($100.00)
SB		($105.50)
BB		($100.00)

[CO posted $1]
Pre-flop: ($2.5, 5 players) Hero is BTN

1 fold, CO checks, Hero raises to $4.5, SB raises to $17.5, 1 fold, CO folds, Hero goes all-in $100, SB folds

CO posts and I raise it up to $4.5 with pock A on the BTN. SB (17/14/3.4 over 1k hands) 3 bets to $17.50 and I shove. SB tanks it and folds.

I wasn't thinking str8 on this hand. The Last Hand affected my play on this hand. I thought SB might of thought I was tilted and call my shove much lighter than usual. SB was very TAG so I thought he was 3 betting me with a big hand and would never fold to my shove. I was wrong and he folded to my shove.

I was running 22/20/17 over 100 hands at this table.

Final Pot: $37

Hero wins $119.5 ( won +$19.5 )
CO lost -$1.00
SB lost -$17.50

Hand 5 Discussion.
The group didn't like my BTN shove when a TAG 3 betted me on the SB. They felt that a call would be better and allow him to hang himself on the flop if he was 3 betting me light because my attempt to steal was around 50% on the CO/BTN.

In hindsight, a call is better than a shove. The pot would had been around $36 and SB would had c betted $25 or more. I could shove and he would basically call with most of his SB c betting range when he only had $50-60 left in his stack.

Conclusion:
Overall, I played alright and made a bi over 381 hands. I made a few mistakes by not getting max value on pock A hand and making one bad read with pock 9. Please leave a comment/question if you happen to read my analysis. My poker group and I would appreciate it. Gl at the tables.

To Brian, Kevin, and Ian. If I misinterpreted what you said in discussion, please clear it up with a comment or two. tks.

Group Sweat tonight at 6:30pm EST

2008-02-25T12:06:00.003-06:00

I'm up and plan to play 4 tables of $100 nl he sh at FTP. Brian, Kevin, and Ian will be railing and helping me patch my leaks.

Variance is crazy

2008-02-23T14:17:00.028-06:00

I'm table selecting very well and my opponents are getting it in very light against me. They are also making bold bluffs OOP which gives me the opportunity to make a few Hero Calls.

Hand 1)
Preflop:
I raise his weak limp on the BTN to $4 with pock 7. BTN is playing very loose and passive. Running at 60/13/0.6. I"m running Loose aggressive.

Flop:
I bet 2/3 pot with my flop set on 7s As 8h. I expect to be called down light.

Turn:
I bet a scare turn card Jh. A oe str8 just hit and he possibly could have it. Even if he raised, i'm getting it in because he easily could be doing this with a flush, two pair, or just top pair.

River:
I bet 4/5 pot and get called. If he raised, would you call?

Hand 2)
Preflop:
I iso the weak limp with K10d. BB calls and UTG calls. BB is unknown but I have him at 21/15/2.2 over 900 hands. UTG is a loose passive running at 45/9/0.7 over 500 hands. I'm running loose aggressive in position.

Flop:
I check flop intending to see what they would do on the turn and make a delayed c bet.

Turn:
the board pairs and gives me the 2nd nut flush draw. Check to me and I bet. BB calls and UTG folds.

River:
BB leads 1/3 pot and it really looked like a blocking bet to me. I raise for value with the 2nd nut flush. I make it $40 and BB shoves. Can I really fold this vs a solid TAG who is unknown? I can't really beat anything but trip 3's and a lower flush.

Hand 3)
Preflop:
Standard raise when the table is letting me run them over. CO calls and everyone else folds. CO is running at 23/11/1.3 over 1k hands. CO also has a little history with me. I think he has me on his fish list because he sat directly to my left. Yesterday, he made a play with pock 5 on a Q44 2 flush flop and called me down lightly when I slow played AQo IP. Here is the hand.History

Hero Call 1)

Hero Call 2)

Hero Call 3)
Stacks:

UTG		($105.50)
UTG+1		($32.00)
Hero		($204.45)
BTN		($180.00)
SB		($165.75)
BB		($350.15)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 6 players) Hero is CO

UTG calls $1, 1 fold, Hero calls $1, 1 fold, SB calls $0.5, BB checks

I limp along trying to flop huge because everyone was playing back at me on this table. I was running loose aggressive and SB just bet showed a bluff with Q10o on a AAx flop against me OOP. I knew SB was capable of big bluffs. There was also little chance of someone squeezing because most of these villains were very passive except SB who was 3 betting light OOP.
SB was running at 28/17/1.9 over 174 hands.

Flop: ($4, 4 players)
SB bets $3, 2 folds, Hero raises to $7, SB calls $4
I had a nice read on SB that he lead weak hands, draws and c/r big hands OOP. I raise it small to see if he likes his hand. SB calls. I now think he's on a draw or is floating OOP. I don't think he does this with big hands because he would put in another raise on such a draw heavy flop.

Turn: ($18, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $10, SB raises to $34, Hero calls $24

I bet and get c/r to $34. I now think he has a big hand but I got stubborn and want to see what he will do on the river. I think he has a 7 or air. I don't think he has an overpair because he would had played it stronger preflop or on the flop.

River: ($86, 2 players)
SB bets $40, Hero calls $40

His 1/2 pot bet is designed to make it look like he wants me to call. I've seen this guy bet his big hands 3/4 pot or higher for value. I don't think he bet's this small with a monster. He either has trip 7 or air. I make the call and I'm right.

Final Pot: $166
Hero shows:
SB shows:

Hero wins $163 ( won +$81 )
BB lost -$1.00
UTG lost -$1.00
SB lost -$82.00

Update on 5k hand challenge.
5.5 ptbb/100 over 1500 hands.

On Massive Tilt and Quitted Immediately

2008-02-20T23:41:00.029-06:00

Wow, I'm on massive tilt after this session. Jason sweated this session about a 1/4th into it and no one at my 4 tables were giving me respect. I was running very loose and aggressive.

While I had a bad image, I still applied the pressure in position and on dry flops. I picked up big hands preflop and flopped big but the results weren't there.

Warning, 3 bad beats, 1 bad hero call, and a cooler.

Bad Beat 1) Pock K vs 78o sstack

Bad Beat 2) Pock A vs AKh

Bad Beat 3) Pock Q vs Pock 10 vs 78s on a Qs 9d 10s flop

On Bad Beat 3, Jason was sweating at the time and suggested I shove it on the flop 4 way because BB lead looks strong and I want to get it HU vs him on such a draw heavy flop because my image was so bad that BTN and SB might just tag along with a draw. At the time, I wanted BTN and SB to tag along so I made it 3x raise and BTN shoved. I think even if I shoved, BTN would probably still call. There's a small chance he folds but unlikely because of my loose image. Sucks to lose this pot.

Bad Hero call with pock 10 on a As 8c 5c flop

(Just added) Oh yeah, on the bad hero call. Jason suggested that I fold and find a better spot. I got stubborn and decided to make the hero call. My reasoning was that since he called BTN's raise and called my 3 bet preflop. I thought, no way this guy has a big ace here and made the hero call.

I put the guy on low-med pair or a flush draw like KQc, JQc 10Jc. My table image was terrible too and alot of guys were playing back at me and I folded every c/r or r when i betted on the flop. Given the table dynamics, I thought this guy was making a play on me. I only take delight in going with my read because I would had hated myself for folding here. Jason and I looked at his stat afterward and he was running at 20/5/.5 over 300 hands. Basically, this guy never raised anything even a big Ace.

Note to self: Tight Passive players who finally show aggression postflop usually have the goods.

Cooler) K9s vs A4s

The K9s suited hand was my last hand. I told Jason, if that guys has the nut flush, I'm quitting this session. He hollywood it and shoved the river nut flush. I insta called and immediately quitted.

Just taking my lumps. This session easily could have been a 4-5 bi session win over 379 hands but it was not meant to be. On the bright side, I'm still up $5.40 over 857 hands at $100 nl he sh. I just gotta think long run and try getting it in good because guys are going to get lucky. I just gotta keep grinding and try to make less mistakes than my opponents. Stay positive....

Not playing tonight and will get a session in tomorrow and get at least 5k more hands this month because I just signed up for Brian's best ptbb/100 hand challenge. I think there are 6 of us (Me, Brian, Jason, Dodgyken, Malfaire and Dice) who threw in $25 into the pot. You win the $150 pot if you have the best ptbb/100 hand over a min of 5k hands between Feb 21-29th, 2008.

Luckily, this session doesn't count toward that challenge.

Group Sweat & Back at $100 nl he sh @ FTP

2008-02-18T23:48:00.019-06:00

Just finished a group sweat where Kevin (Moniker) played 4 tables of $100 nl he sh at Absolute Poker. I learned a lot of new lines that I will try to incorporate into my game. Please check out Kevin's blog for a summary of today's group sweat. There were a lot of interesting spots that came up and great discussion afterwards.

As for me, I'm finally backed at $100 nl he sh. I played about 500 hands after the group sweat and ran great. I actually was data mining 16 tables while I was in the group sweat. After we were done, I fired up 4 tables and played for about 1 1/2 hours. I picked tables where there were loose passive players with decent size stacks. I didn't want to sit in with sstacks.

Check out my PT stats. I played very loose aggressive on the CO/BTN preflop because the blinds kept folding. When they played back, I would just fold to their 3 bet unless I had a big hand.

I wasn't too aggressive on the flop, turn or river because villains kept donk leading into me and I called for pot control with big/med strength hands. I flopped a few top sets and slow played them for value. I also made a nice call and shove on the river. Overall, I played very well and wouldn't do anything different based on the info I had at the time.

Check out these crazy hands.

Hand 1) Nice Call Donkey

Hand 2) Which gave me a real aggro image which I used in this 300 bb plus pot. UTG+1 is the same villain who bet/call my turn shove with a gut shot str8 with A2o in Hand 1

Hand 3) Slowplaying flop Top Set when I had a LAG image. Same table as hand 1 & 2

Hand 4) Taking advantage of my loose image. Pock A get's paid off preflop

Hand 5) Slowplaying turn str8 and shoving river for value on scary board vs 7/10 stack donk who limped on SB preflop

Hand 6) Delayed C bet and mini raise river for value on scary low board vs tricky loose passive

Hand 7.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($98.00)
CO		($112.80)
BTN		($252.10)
SB		($9.00)
Hero		($105.15)

Pre-flop: ($1.5, 5 players) Hero is BB

UTG raises to $3.5, 1 fold, BTN calls $3.5, 1 fold, Hero calls $2.5

I defend BB with 78o vs UTG Tag and BTN Lag. I hope to flop big and win a nice size pot.

Flop: ($11, 3 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, BTN bets $11, Hero calls $11, UTG folds

I c/c for pot control I think BTN bet's all his flush draws, str8 draws, overs, and big hands. I don't want to play a big pot OOP.

Turn: ($33, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

I check and Villain checks. If villain bets on the turn, I probably have to fold or shove all in. I lean toward a fold and will look for a better spot.

River: ($33, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $25, Hero calls $25

I check and BTN bets $25 into a $33 pot. A 4 str8 hits on the river. Any Ace or 6 makes a str8. I don't think villain bet's this big with a str8 because I look very weak when I c/c flop, c turn, and c river. I don't think villain has an overpair or top pair because he would had bet on the turn to protect his hand. Once he bets, $25 into a $33 pot I have to put him on air or a str8. I doubt this guy value bet's thin on the river.

Final Pot: $83
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $80 ( won +$40.5 )
BTN lost -$39.50
UTG lost -$3.50

Hand 8) I flop top set vs the same villain who I caught bluffing on Hand 9. I intend to trap him for a big pot but he folds to my turn mini raise

Group Sweat @ 6:30pm EST

2008-02-18T12:38:00.009-06:00

Group Sweat @ 6:30pm EST. Kevin will be playing and I'm really looking forward to it. I recently deposited an extra $1k (br = $3400) and plan to head back to $100 nl he sh soon. I have gotten my confidence back since joining this poker group and being mentor by Jason. I was originally playing $100 nl he sh as my regular game before taking an indefinite break (turn out to be only 2 months) back in August, 2007.

I redposited and played @ $25 and $50 nl he to regain my confidence. After playing 15k hands at each level, I feel I am ready for $100 again. I had beaten $100 nl he sh over about 40-50k hands but I'm sure it has change a little since I've played it. I haven't played that level since August and I'm sure it's more aggressive. I plan to table select well and mainly just 4 table to pick up better reads.

I hope to make $100 nl he sh my regular game and pad the bankroll for my next shot at $200 nl he sh. I don't know how long it will take me, hopefully within 2-3 months because I don't play too many hands. I want to have at least a 30-40 buyin bankroll so that I can at least withstand a 10 buyin downswing and still have a nice bankroll for $100 nl he sh to rebuild.

Thinking alot about my game

2008-02-15T14:02:00.006-06:00

I've been thinking a lot about my game and not playing as much. I've put in about 5.5k hands this month and I'm up 7 1/2 bi at $50 nl he sh at FTP. I'm running at 25/19/2.8 over 5.5k hands. I mainly play 4 tables now instead of 6. I still have the urge to 6 table because you get so much more hands.

I read a post at 2plus2 about betting/raising/calling/checking/folding (I think the post focused in on betting, however it applies to any decisions preflop/postflop). The responder basically said, when you bet/raise/call/check/fold you should know why you are doing it. I really thought about that fundamental concept and I still struggle with it because auto piloting is so much easier.

Scenario 1:
When I have a hand I want a call/raise when I bet. I can also call/check/raise to induce bluffs, for pot control, or let Villain catch a 2nd best hand.

Scenario 2:
When I don't have a hand I want a fold when I bet or I can just check/fold.

Scenario 3:
When I have an oe str8 or flush draw I can bet to win the pot/draw cheaply. It also makes the pot bigger so that if the draw hits, I can get more value for the hand. I can also check/call to draw cheaply and allow multiple opponents to tag along. I can fold if the draw costs too much and i'm not drawing to the nuts.

Here is an example.

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($31.30)
UTG+1		($54.75)
CO		($56.50)
BTN		($74.50)
SB		($38.25)
Hero		($52.60)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is BB

4 folds, SB calls $0.25, Hero raises to $2, SB calls $1.5

Folded around to SB who limps. I raise 4x to take down the weak limp preflop. ( I want a fold)
SB is running at 40/14/1 over 233 hands. I hope to take it down with a c bet on the flop.

Flop: ($4, 2 players)
SB bets $4, Hero calls $4

SB leads pot and I call. (By raising, I'm only going to get call or raised if i'm beat. By calling, I keep the pot small and can possibly induce a bluff on the turn.)

Turn: ($12, 2 players)
SB bets $7, Hero calls $7

SB leads again for about 1/2 pot and I call. (Same idea as on the flop.)

River: ($26, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $14, SB folds

Once SB checks, I now want a call when I river Top two pairs. I bet a little over 1/2 pot and hope to get called by Kx or a mid pair. I don't think villain checks river with trips 2 or a Full Boat because he would just shove his last $23 into the pot of $26. Villain folds and was probably just bluffing the flop and turn. I get an extra $7 bucks by just calling the flop.

Final Pot: $26

Hero wins $38.7 ( won +$11.7 )
SB lost -$13.00

I'm just rambling, lol. Let me know what you think of my logic. This concept is very fundamental but very complicated at the same time. This is just my attempt at explaining why I bet/check/fold/raise. I know that there are a infinite amount of variables and scenarios. I just focused on a few of them.

Pock K vs LAG (32/29/6 over 75 hands)

2008-02-09T14:25:00.000-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($91.40)
Hero		($80.15)
CO		($44.95)
BTN		($57.10)
SB		($26.90)
BB		($14.10)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1

UTG raises to $1.75, Hero raises to $6, 4 folds, UTG calls $4.25

Standard raise vs Lag who I think can hand read. UTG was running at 32/29/6 over 75 hands. (I wasn't focus on his stats at the time. A leak of mine)

Flop: ($12.75, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

I check behind trying to be tricky and for pot control because we were over 150 deep. I didn't want to play for stacks with just an over pair. He could had done this with 22-10, AQo, KQo, JQo or just caled preflopl and try to outplay me post flop with nothing. He could also be on a flush draw and check raise me off my hand.
Turn: ($12.75, 2 players)
UTG bets $8, Hero calls $8

I call for pot control. I could raise but he would just fold all hands he would be doing this with.

River: ($28.75, 2 players)
UTG checks

Should I bet thinly (how much?) or check behind? We are both over 150bb deep

TPTK IP vs Tag on draw heavy flop

2008-02-09T14:05:00.000-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($49.25)
Hero		($54.00)
BTN		($85.60)
SB		($47.35)
BB		($36.00)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 5 players) Hero is CO

1 fold, Hero raises to $1.75, 1 fold, SB raises to $5.75, 1 fold, Hero calls $4

Standard raise UTG+1 with AKs. SB 3 bets to $5.75 and I call. SB was pretty TAG. He wasn't doing much pre flop and post flop.

Flop: ($12, 2 players)
SB bets $12, Hero calls $12

I call for pot control and to evaluate what he would do on the turn. I didn't want to play a big pot with tptk with this guy. I could reraise and get it all in but I felt he would fold everything I beat. I call and hope for a safe turn card to shove on.

Turn: ($36, 2 players)
SB checks

What do I do on the turn? Do you play the flop differently? I feel that this guy would be c betting any flop and shutdown if he was called on the flop.

Pock Q In Position Vs Tight Passive SB

2008-02-09T13:31:00.001-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($70.20)
Hero		($74.40)
CO		($60.90)
BTN		($25.50)
SB		($53.40)
BB		($66.55)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1

UTG raises to $1.5, Hero raises to $5.25, 2 folds, SB raises to $16, 1 fold, UTG folds, Hero calls
$10.75

Standard 3 bet UTG+1 with Pock Q. SB 4 bets to $16 and it is folded back to me. I could shove but I think this guy is so tight passive. I haven't seen this guy do much preflop or postflop. I call and will shove a none K or A high flop if he c bet's into me.

Flop: ($34, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Not a bad flop but it is very draw heavy. I think SB does this with 10-AA and possibly AKo. I think he would bet if he had a flush draw. I've been playing aggro in position and he probably thinks I will bet if he checks it to me. I decide to check behind my pock Q oe str8 draw and see what he does on the turn.

Turn: ($34, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $15, SB calls $15

Sb checks and I bet about 1/2 pot. He quickly calls. Now I think he's on a flush draw or has AKo. He's scared of the flush card and doesn't want to get it all in yet. I hope to hit an A or 9 on the river. I intend to fold to an shove or check behind on the river.

River: ($64, 2 players)
SB goes all-in $22.4, Hero folds

4 flush hits and this is an easy fold. How do you guys play it? I think I really butchered this hand.

Final Pot: $64

SB wins $83.4 ( won +$30 )
UTG lost -$1.50
Hero lost -$31.00

Extracting Max Value

2008-02-09T12:57:00.001-06:00

Try to guess their hands then click "show results" at weaktight.com. I think it's a fun exercise and it will help improve your hand reading ability. It'll be tough because people play so crazy at low stakes. Most of villains are unknown to me. I also give sstacks no credit for a hand most of the time.

1) 4x raise Blind on Blind

2) Blocking Bet

3) Overshove on the river

4) Slowplaying/Pot Control to catch bluffs IP

5) C/R all in vs sstack

6) Reraising donk leads on draw heavy flops/turns and shoving for value on river

Playing LAG on BTN get's paid off

7) Easy call with pock A on BTN when sstack BB 3 bet shoves preflop

8) Pock A get's 5 bet shoved on preflop

Hero is on BB (20/18/3) vs LAG on BTN (25/20/5.6 over 38 hands, attempt to steal 40%)

9) BTN Insta 4 bet shove and I insta call preflop on BB

Mindset after forming poker group and 2 sweat/theory sessions with Jason

2008-02-07T14:09:00.000-06:00

I find that I am thinking very clearly right now. I usually 6 tbl $50 nl he sh and now I have dropped back down to 4 tables. I like getting 500 hands/hour but 300 hands/hour is ok too. By playing 4 tables, I get better reads and play way better. I'll still play 6 tbl though when I'm in the mood for it. I feel that my Tag ABC game is solid. When I play 4 tables my stats are 23/18/3 and when I play 6 tables my stats are 19/15/3.

I have to work in about 2 hours. I'm going to head on over to the local YMCA and get a workout in. Take a shower and head on to work. Later tonight, I'll post up some interesting hands and a few concepts Jason has taught me.

I'm running really hot right now since Tuesday. I've won about 4 buyins over 2300 hands at FTP. Feels very good and I plan on grinding at least 20k hands this month.

Session Overview and Thoughts

2008-02-04T22:30:00.000-06:00

It was a very swingy day. I ran alright and won two buy ins over 1k hands at FTP. I posted all the interesting hands. I will put my thoughts in red later because I need to reformat my computer because my older brother is giving me his old computer. His old computer is way faster than mine, which will make playing poker more enjoyable with all the software I'm running (PT & PA Hud).

I'll try to find a better way to post hand history with graphics. I will hide villain's hand next time because I would like feedback on my lines. You can see I like to play an aggressive game with pot control thrown in here and there.

Pot Control and suckout on the river

2008-02-04T22:28:00.000-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

Hero		($129.90)
CO		($55.00)
BTN		($86.55)
SB		($24.50)
BB		($49.20)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 5 players) Hero is UTG

Hero raises to $1.75, 1 fold, BTN calls $1.75, 2 folds

Standard raise UTG and BTN calls. No real reads on villain. He seemed to be a solid player but I wasn't sure.

Flop: ($4.25, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $4, Hero calls $4

Such a bad flop for my hand. I check and intend to keep this pot small. I don't want to play a big pot on this flop vs a unknown.

Turn: ($12.25, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $6, Hero calls $6

I check and intend to fold if he bets 3/4 pot or higher. Once he bets 1/2 pot, it seemed weak so I call hoping to spike a K or a diamond on the river. He could have the Ace of diamond but we'll see how much he bets if the 4 flush hits on the river.

River: ($24.25, 2 players)
Hero bets $24.25, BTN goes all-in $74.8, Hero calls $50.55

I lead pot on my river FB. I didn't think BTN would bluff if I checked it to him or bet thinly. I felt he would call me thinly though because my line looks like I missed a flush draw. BTN shoved and I insta called. I suckout but the money got in good.

Final Pot: $173.85
Hero shows:
BTN shows:

Hero wins $170.85 ( won +$84.3 )
BTN lost -$86.55

Slowplaying a Flop Set in Position

2008-02-04T22:25:00.000-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($74.70)
UTG+1		($29.40)
CO		($68.25)
Hero		($69.70)
BB		($50.00)

Pre-flop: ($0.5, 5 players) Hero is BTN

UTG raises to $1.5, 2 folds, Hero calls $1.5, BB calls $1

UTG raises and I call on the BTN for set value. BB calls too and we are 3 way. No real reads on UTG or BB.

Flop: ($4.5, 3 players)
BB checks, UTG bets $4.5, Hero calls $4.5, BB folds

I flop the nuts. I call hoping to string along BB. Unfortunately, he folds and we are heads up.

Turn: ($13.5, 2 players)
UTG bets $13.5, Hero raises to $32, UTG goes all-in $68.7, Hero calls $31.7

Once UTG bets pot, I know he likes his hand. I reraise about 2.5x and give him room to shove me off my hand. He shoves and I call with 2nd set.

River: ($145.9, 2 players)

Final Pot: $140.90
Hero shows:
UTG shows:

Hero wins $137.9 ( won +$68.2 )
UTG wins $5 ( lost -$69.7 )
BB lost -$1.50

Easy Call, Villain was on Tilt vs me

2008-02-04T22:24:00.001-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($48.00)
CO		($57.20)
BTN		($19.25)
Hero		($125.90)
BB		($36.70)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 5 players) Hero is SB

2 folds, BTN calls $0.5, Hero raises to $2, BB raises to $3.5, BTN folds, Hero calls $1.5

BTN limps and I 3 bet to $2 on SB. BB makes a very small 4 bet and folded to me. I call looking to hit a set or play a small pot OOP. BB was on tilt, we had been tangling in alot of pots. I felt I could get his whole stack if I flopped a set. I didn't want to 5 bet because it would reveal the true strength of my hand.

Flop: ($7.5, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB goes all-in $33.2, Hero calls $33.2

I check my flop set on a draw heavy flop. BB shoves and easy call vs mad tilter.

Turn: ($73.9, 2 players)

River: ($73.9, 2 players)

Final Pot: $73.90
Hero shows:
BB shows:

Hero wins $70.9 ( won +$34.2 )
BTN lost -$0.50
BB lost -$36.70

Strong Check Raise on the flop vs floater

2008-02-04T22:19:00.000-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($43.25)
UTG+1		($73.85)
Hero		($150.55)
BTN		($31.00)
SB		($50.00)
BB		($29.75)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is CO

2 folds, Hero raises to $1.75, BTN calls $1.75, 2 folds

Standard raise preflop on CO. BTN calls and both blinds fold. BTN seemed very loose passive preflop. I felt he was floating alot on me in position and would try to outplay me post flop with his 1/2 stack.

Flop: ($4.25, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $4.25, Hero goes all-in $148.8, BTN calls $25

I check intending to raise all in. I sometimes check/fold on draw heavy flops so I try to balance it out by check/raising with big hands/draws. I just check/shoved because he only had $25 left and felt he had to fold a lot of his hands he would do this with (overs, bottom pairs, mid pairs, flush draws, and bluffs) He called and we were basically flipping for $60.

Turn: ($182.3, 2 players)

River: ($182.3, 2 players)

Final Pot: $62.75
Hero shows:
BTN shows:

Hero wins $119.55 ( lost -$31 )
BTN wins $59.75 ( won +$28.75 )

Very Sick Cooler

2008-02-04T22:16:00.000-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($51.10)
UTG+1		($23.70)
CO		($166.35)
BTN		($34.05)
Hero		($63.40)
BB		($48.25)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is SB

UTG raises to $1.5, 2 folds, BTN raises to $5, Hero calls $4.75, 1 fold, UTG calls $3.5

UTG raises and BTN 3 bets to $5. I call on SB with pock Q and intend to check raises a none AKx flop. No real reads on UTG or BTN.

Flop: ($15.5, 3 players)
Hero bets $9, UTG calls $9, BTN raises to $20, Hero goes all-in $58.4, UTG calls $37.1, BTN calls $9.05

Lead with a flop set on a A high flush draw flop. I want to make my hand look like a flush draw by leading out. I also don't want to get this flop check around and see a flush scare card kill my action. UTG calls and BTN mini raises. I shove and get called by both. Very sick cooler.

Turn: ($149.05, 3 players)

River: ($149.05, 3 players)

Final Pot: $136.75
BTN shows:
Hero shows:
UTG shows:

Hero wins $12.3 ( lost -$51.1 )
UTG wins $133.75 ( won +$82.65 )
BTN lost -$34.05

Pot Control on a draw heavy flop

2008-02-04T22:12:00.000-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

Hero		($59.55)
UTG+1		($89.00)
CO		($127.25)
BTN		($52.75)
SB		($93.15)
BB		($32.25)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is UTG

Hero raises to $1.75, 1 fold, CO calls $1.75, BTN calls $1.75, 1 fold, BB calls $1.25

Standard raise UTG. I get CO, BTN, and BB to call. No real reads on CO. BTN seems very tight passive preflop. I think he CC on the BTN with midpairs, suited connectors, and high cards. No real reads on BB.

Flop: ($7.25, 4 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $4.5, CO raises to $15.5, 1 fold, BB folds, Hero calls $11

I bet about a little over 1/2 pot 4 way. CO reraises and it is folded back to me. I thought about reraising but BTN was so tight passive. I thought he might have a set, tptk, or flush draw. I elect to call and evaluate what the turn brings.

Turn: ($38.25, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

Ugly turn. I check intending to fold to a big bet because it completed alot of str8 and two pair type hands. I felt that if he betted, he would have one pair beat. Luckily he checks behind the turn.

River: ($38.25, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $12, Hero calls $12

I check intending to fold to a big bet again. He betted so small that I call hoping to catch a missed flush draw or a thin value bet.

CO shows:

Flop Play on a dry low flop In Position

2008-02-04T22:10:00.000-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($50.00)
UTG+1		($23.20)
CO		($51.30)
Hero		($55.70)
SB		($38.25)
BB		($19.70)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is BTN

2 folds, CO raises to $2, Hero calls $2, 2 folds

I usually 3 bet this on the BTN but I decided to just CC and outplay him post flop. He seemed quite Laggy and I felt that he would 4 bet me preflop.

Flop: ($4.75, 2 players)
CO bets $3.5, Hero raises to $10, CO goes all-in $49.3, Hero folds

I knock his c bet up to $10 and hope to take it down on a low dry flop. I would play a set this way vs an Lag in position. However, he must of had an overpair and shoved. I think this play works alot against tags/lags who can read hands.

Final Pot: $24.75

CO wins $62.85 ( won +$11.55 )
Hero lost -$12.00

Giving rope to SStack to hang himself

2008-02-04T22:08:00.000-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
4 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

CO		($69.30)
BTN		($52.30)
Hero		($51.60)
BB		($23.20)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 4 players) Hero is SB

2 folds, Hero raises to $2, BB calls $1.5

I make it 4x vs the 1/2 stack BB. BB seemed to be loose passive and weak post flop.

Flop: ($4, 2 players)
Hero bets $2.5, BB raises to $5, Hero calls $2.5

I c bet 2/3 pot and get mini raised. I'm never folding to a half stack so I just call and give him rope to hang himself with a bluff or smaller ace. I don't think he has AK because he would usually 3 bet it preflop. He could have a set but I'll just pay him off if he has it.

Turn: ($14, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $5, Hero goes all-in $44.6, BB calls $11.2

A decent turn, and I check to induce a bluff and raise all in.

River: ($74.8, 2 players)

Final Pot: $46.40
Hero shows:
BB shows:

Hero wins $28.4 ( lost -$23.2 )
BB wins $44.4 ( won +$21.2 )

Check Raising big on a draw heavy flop 3 way

2008-02-04T22:05:00.000-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($103.10)
UTG+1		($50.00)
CO		($32.75)
BTN		($52.80)
Hero		($67.40)
BB		($44.90)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is SB

3 folds, BTN raises to $2, Hero calls $1.75, BB calls $1.5

No Real reads on Villain. I call on the SB for set value. BB tags along too.

Flop: ($6, 3 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, BTN bets $3, Hero raises to $16, BB folds, BTN goes all-in $50.8, Hero calls $34.8

I check intending to raise it up big on this draw heavy flop. I want to make my hand look like a str8 or flush draw that doesn't want action. BB checks to BTN and he bets/shoves. Easy call with no reads.
Turn: ($107.6, 2 players)

River: ($107.6, 2 players)

Final Pot: $107.60
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $104.6 ( won +$51.8 )
BTN lost -$52.80
BB lost -$2.00

Leading with the Nuts on the Turn

2008-02-04T22:04:00.001-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($147.35)
UTG+1		($17.55)
CO		($19.70)
BTN		($42.60)
SB		($34.45)
Hero		($50.00)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is BB

1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $1, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.5

Easy call preflop to UTG+1 mini raise on the BB. Villain was a sstack and I just wanted to see a flop with him cheaply. No real reads on villain.

Flop: ($2.25, 2 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 bets $1, Hero calls $1

Nice flop for me. I don't like the two flush out there because it takes away some of my str8 outs if he is on a flush draw. It could also kill my action if the 6 or J of hearts hits the turn. I c/c a 1/2 pot bet by Villain.

Turn: ($4.25, 2 players)
Hero bets $2, UTG+1 raises to $5.5, Hero raises to $20.75, UTG+1 calls $10.05

I lead about 1/2 pot with the turn nut str8 looking to get called or raised. I find that sstacks don't like to fold on draw heavy flops when they are the aggressor. Villain reraises and I shove with the nuts.

River: ($40.55, 2 players)

Final Pot: $35.35
Hero shows:
UTG+1 shows:

Hero wins $38.8 ( won +$16.05 )
UTG+1 lost -$17.55

Good spot to check raise

2008-02-04T22:00:00.000-06:00

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

UTG		($194.55)
UTG+1		($28.55)
CO		($50.35)
BTN		($47.75)
SB		($68.25)
Hero		($60.70)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is BB

3 folds, BTN calls $0.5, SB calls $0.25, Hero raises to $3, BTN calls $2.5, SB folds

Standard 3 bet when BTN and SB limps. Trying to get this HU and get value for my hand. BTN and SB are loose passive. They haven't been too active and I have been raising it up preflop and taking down pots with c bets on the flop. (No real reads)

Flop: ($6.5, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $6.5, Hero raises to $18, BTN calls $11.5

I felt this was a good spot to check raise because I sometimes check/fold when the flop misses me vs floaters. I check and look to raise it big vs BTN. I think villain limp/calls a lot of suited connectors, mid pairs, and small Aces. I want him to pay the max in position to continue with the hand. He might check behind but i'm willing to take that risk.

Turn: ($42.5, 2 players)
Hero goes all-in $39.7, BTN calls $26.75

Great turn, I push looking to get called by a worst Ace or flush draw. Villain probably will fold all mid pairs and floats. I might get a hero call by midpairs if he thinks i'm shoving a flush draw myself. I like the shove.

River: ($108.95, 2 players)

Final Pot: $96
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

BTN wins $93 ( won +$45.25 )
Hero wins $12.95 ( lost -$47.75 )
SB lost -$0.50

Great News!

2008-02-04T10:50:00.001-06:00

LuckySOB (Jason) posted on PokerTrikz forum and said that he would like to mentor a low stakes player. I applied and got picked.

My first session with him will be on Feb 5th, @ 5pm EST. I feel very fortunate and plan to pay it forward after Jason is done with me.

Jason introduced me to Btimm (Brian) and Luckbox (Ian). Jason suggested we form a poker group so that we would improve at a faster rate. I talked to Brian and Ian yesterday and our first session will be on Monday Feb 11th, @ 8pm EST. Brian will be playing while Ian and I sweat his session. Our goal right now is to understand each other's game. After the session, we will discuss alternative ways to play trouble or interesting hands.

Excited and nervous at the same time because the pressure is on to step it up. This is a good thing because when there is potential growth, you often feel nervous. I expect big things for me this year in poker.

Wish me luck

Check out PokerTrikz.com for free poker training videos

2008-01-16T01:11:00.000-06:00

Check this site out. He is a fellow CR member and just recently opened up PokerTrikz.com where he posts up free poker training videos.

He currently has 12 videos posted up. I have watched a few and they are all top notch. He is also going to be giving away one hour of free poker lessons if you sign up for the forums and make 10 quality posts.

I've added him to the my Other Poker Blog under "PokerTrikz: What's up your sleeve?"

I added CTS's old Blog

2008-01-06T03:28:00.001-06:00

You guys should def check it out. I'm going to read it from beginning to the end because I think it's one of the best poker blogs out there even though it is about 2 years old. He talks about concepts that I have only begun to understand or don't even think about.

Created a New Blog for Misplayed/Tough Hands

2007-12-24T16:03:00.000-06:00

I created a new blog titled "My Misplayed/Tough Hands." You can find it on the right hand side of this blog. I got this idea from Dodgyken and hopefully it will help me improve at a faster rate.

Check it out and comment when you can. I added my own thoughts into each hand in red.

As for poker, haven't been playing much. I'm taking a little break until 2008 and hoping to put in 10-20k hands or more in January. I am able to deposit with Instant E Check now on FTP, so it's much easier for me to deposit/withdraw when I need to.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

AppleSeed

10k plus hands at $50 nl he sh

2007-12-04T01:58:00.000-06:00

I've run so bad at $50 nl he sh at FTP. I reviewed all my hands at this level and I am running terrible. Most of the stacks that I lost involves me being suck out on the turn/river or coolered. I did play terrible on some spots due to tilt but overall ran very bad. Out of the 10 buy ins I lost, I would contribute 6 buy ins to suck outs and about 4 buy ins to tilt.

I'm going to move back down to $25 nl he sh and regain my confidence. I'll play another 10k hands at 25 and see where I stand. I want to move up slowly and really evaluate my play. I really hope to be able to beat $200 nl he sh by the end of 2008. That is only a dream though because it seems so far away.

Here are 5 leaks that I need to improve upon.

1)Making too many hero calls with no reads
2)Overplaying TPTK with no reads
3)Learn to fold over pairs on draw heavy flops when villain shows aggression.
4)Need to quit when tilting because I will never fold draws/TPTK/Over Pairs on scary flops.
5)3 bet more out of the blinds vs lags

I'm going to post hand histories where I find big leaks, so I can remind myself not to make it again.

I need to work on my game and reevaluate it. I need to be more aggressive when draws are out and if villain shows resistance, I need to slow down/fold TPTK and over pairs. I see that there are not too many bluffers at 25 and 50 nl he sh. I rarely ran into bluffs when I called down. I couldn't believe the hands I was being shown down on the river.

Here are my stats. If you see any leaks, let me know.

Thanks for any input.