Pokerzion.com- Russ

http://pokerzion.com/Forums/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1064&PN=1

bunch of free videos me (loosefer) and John Anhalt (nagarjuna) recorded. check em' out, give feedback, and most importantly- enjoy

Russell Blattberg

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Ever since I was young, I’ve had a talent for strategy games. I would routinely beat my parents at Chess, Monopoly, and Mancala. When I was 8, a friend’s older brother introduced me to Magic: The Gathering. I spent countless hours and dollars building up a collection and playing. At age 12, I started playing magic competitively at a local card shop with a lot of success. I won a Junior Super Series tournament the following year netting me three boxes, an $1000 college scholarship, and an entry to the Junior Super Series Championship. I was introduced to poker through friends at the card shop. One day an older friend gave me a ride to Mike’s house (the owner of Savage Games) where I made $26 playing $.25/.5 no-limit and $.5/1 limit hold’em. I was excited that I could beat these guys and I had just started playing.

During summer I went to an all boys sports camp. The camp was filled with rich kids who loved to gamble. Over the course of camp I made $200 playing poker. The following summer I came back having read Mike Caro’s Book of Tells, and Super System. I had a tougher time getting action, but still was able to make $500. Clearly, there was a lot more money to be made in poker than Magic.

When I got back from camp, Mike told to me about online poker and I decided I’d give it a try. I gave him $50 to deposit on Party Poker for me. I started by playing the $5+1 sngs. I fluctuated between $30-70 dollars. I moved up to the $10+1 sngs because it was the same rake for higher play. A bad run in those left my account empty. Ever confident, I had Mike deposit another $50. This time it took about two weeks before I went bust. I deposited another $100, and this time, I won. I quickly made back my lost $100, and more. Over the next two months I ran my bankroll up to $700. I entered Marblehead High as a freshman. My mom was concerned about me gambling at such a young age, but she figured that I would probably lose interest. I moved up to the $20+2 sngs My bankroll peaked at $1000 and I had my first real downswing. When I ran bad, Mike ran good. He won a tournament for $14,000. I was intrigued by how much potential profit you could make in MTTs. I played a few without much success. One night against my better judgement I entered a $100+9 MTT with Mike. I have no recollection of the tournament but I guess I ran well finishing first out of 98 players for $2700.

I told my mom how much I won that night and she got really scared. She decided that I could keep the money, but she didn’t want me to play anymore. I wasn’t really that concerned, and had no real intention of stopping. It just made playing a little tougher.

I started playing in the $.25/.50 6 max nl games with decent success. It took me awhile to adapt to cash game play but I incorporated my tournament strategy with prior experience in live games. Over the next couple months, I got my roll up to $6000 grinding cash games and sngs of all different levels. My bankroll peaked at $8000 but I began to experience higher variance due to bad luck. My edge was not as big compared to the small stakes I had been dominating.

Something clicked the summer before junior year. I went to Brown University to take a finance class for three weeks. During my time there I was able to play a ton of poker. I went from $4,000 to $7,000 after 4th place in a $30+3 rebuy during my second day at Brown. I ran really hot in $100+9 sngs. I played 4 at a time and had a ridiculous in the money rate. Some of it was luck, but I really was a strong sng player. Most players didn’t understand how important it was to not bust early on, and how important it was to stay aggressive on the money bubble. If I was the shortstack, I was always looking to take blinds. If I was a bigger stack (which I often was because I was good at accumulating chips in the early levels) I would push around the shorter stacks who were afraid of bubbling. That and really strong heads up results left my bankroll with a huge boost. The sng wins brought me to $9,000. I tried the $200+15's. I lost the first four I played. Determined, I entered another four, winning two and cashing third in one. At the end of my three weeks at Brown my bankroll was up to $14,000.

My bankroll peaked at $16800 before I hit another downswing. I lost at sngs. I switched to cash playing 2-4 no limit. I kept losing. I moved back to $1/2 NL and $100+9 sngs. I kept losing. I tried playing all different mtts with no real success. I’d heard about people getting coaching and decided that what I needed to improve was a coach. I read about Seal, David Eisenstein on pocketfives.com He had written several articles, and made great posts in the forums. I took several lessons with him focusing on MTTs and cash games. Even though I pretty much lost every session we played, I learned so much about the process- how to think about poker. After receiving coaching, I started doing well again. I got my bankroll back from $10,000 to $12,000 over the next few months. I moved up to $2/4 NL and in two weeks, I was up to $18,000. I felt so confident about my play and my success was amazing. I tried playing $3/6 NL and didn’t notice much of a difference in the level of play. Two weeks later, I was up to $25,000. I decided to take a shot at a soft $10/20 NL full ring game. If I lost 1 buy-in I would drop back down to $3/6 NL. I lost $800 that session. I switched to 10/20 NL shorthanded, and made $1800. I took those profits and put them on two tables of full ring where I went on to make another $2500. I played another shorthanded game the next day and over the course of a 2 hour session made $7000.

My success continued. Over the next month and a half I ran my account up to $90,000. $10/20 NL on Partypoker was interesting. It tended to be very aggressive with a lot of loose play. People would make extremely large 3 bets very often. I used my own style adapting to the loose players by playing an unpredictable TAG game. There were many good regulars but just as many donators. Party added the $25/50 NL games. I observed the tables a few times and saw that there was some fishy play. I decided to take a buy-in to the game. My first session I made $3000. $25/50 NL was a rollercoaster ride for me. I played $10/20 and $25/50 when the games were soft. $25/50 NL tended to play pretty tight. So I adapted once again with a very LAG style. When I ran well I made lots of money, and initially I did. My 18 vpip/13 pfr game worked... I made some insane reads, had good fortune, and saw my bankroll double. Then everything started going the other way. I had a my biggest loss ever, $38,000 in one day. Bad beat, after bad beat, after cooler. It was a bit demoralizing but I’d had big downswings before. I was playing good poker but these were sessions I was bound to lose. In 4 months I’d run my roll up from $10,000 to $180,000 and variance finally caught up with me.

When Party Poker shut down to U.S. players everyone panicked. Because I was underage I just wanted to get my money out. I paid 74% on the dollar and got the money in cash leaving myself a $16,500 roll to play with.

I entered senior year of High School. I had my friend deposit $5,000 for me on Pokerstars. In 3 weeks I ran it up to $28,000 playing $2/4 NL, $3/6 NL, a little $5/10 NL, and winning a $50+5 MTT for $6000. I still had my high stakes itch. I decided to give $25/50 on Stars a try. The results were bad. I lost $8000 before moving down. The play was a lot stronger than party $25/50 NL. I dropped back to $3/6 NL where in the next couple weeks I got the account back up to $30,000. I took a shot at $10/20 NL where I lost another $4000. I dropped to $5/10 NL had an upswing followed by a big downswing. I moved down to $3/6 NL and kept losing. I got so frustrated with cash games at this point that I decided to switch back to my old moneymaker sngs. I figured that I could make some consistent money in sngs even if it wasn’t as much as I could from cash games. I stupidly played an $1000 hu sng, a $1000 sng, and several $500 sngs. Lets just say they went poorly. I decided to multi-table $100-$300 sngs. I played up to 16 sngs at a time. I lost and lost and lost. My good sessions were tiny wins, and my bad sessions lost me several thousand dollars at a time. I wanted to see if I could make the pace for supernova elite, but realized that sngs were no longer profitable. Over 1100 sngs I had a -6% roi and lost a little over $25,000. I had to re-deposit cash that I had pulled as profit and exchanged my fpps for cash. I made a little money back in cash games, and I vowed that I would never again abuse my bankroll. I would not try to make the big time faster than my bankroll allowed. If I was going to take a shot I would be strict about it. During this time I looked for ways to increase the bankroll, and one of those was poker coaching. I started small but over time got some rep and a few students. Since switching to Stars I had played 130,000 hands of cash netting $5000. This period was one of the most frustrating and toughest times for me. During this time though, I met John Anhalt who asked me to come in as a coach for the website PokerZion. I had thought of making my own coaching site I was perplexed. It sounded like an exciting business opportunity.

I finally started running good again. On April 15th I had two nice scores. I finished 2nd in a $24+2 for $1900. Later that day, I took 4th in the Sunday Mulligan $200+15 for $10,700. On April 22nd I won a WSOP package in a $200+15 double shootout for $12,000. This was a huge boost to the bankroll. Two days later I got 11th in the Full Tilt 1K Monday for $2800. I was pretty disappointed because I made an aggressive play with a big stack that ended up busting me. I shrugged it off and won $2000 in a $200+15 Bracelet Race. Though I was doing well in MTTs cash continued to go poorly. I saw my MTT profits shrink. On April 30th I won my second WSOP package in a $200+16 double shootout. I had a bankroll again

The same pattern continued... Cash still sucked. I had some good sessions, but mostly losing ones. I had several multi buy-in downswings. Luckily the same pattern of MTT success continued as well. I played the $200+15 rebuy on May 7th finishing 5th for $10,200. I was literally having a $10,000 + score a week. Over the next month I didn’t get to play too much. I worked with some students, hung out a lot with friends, and developed content for PokerZion. Cash still went bad. I would play and lose, I had moved up to $5/10 NL where several buy-in downswings really hurt my profit. I qualified for the Jun 17th $500+35 Main Event qualifier on FTP. I ended up winning a seat outlasting over 3000 people (top 138 paid) taking it down to win my 3rd 12K package. On Jun 29th I took down Fifty-Fifty on FTP for $9700. This brings us up to present day. I am looking forward to making a boatload of cash at Turningstone where I am playing the Empire series including the $5000 main event.

Russell "Loosefer" Blattberg

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Comments (7)

Okay... so it’s been awhile since I updated. Sorry about that. I finished my internship at the finance firm. Didn’t get a job out of it which is kind of good because it would have meant a hell of a lot of busy work and a bitch of a commute. Also means more time to play poker/ work on the site... so these are pluses. I haven’t gotten to play too too much recently. I made 13,000 vpps in 1 day though during the stars 10 billion hand promo, 12 tabled 2/4 and 3/6 for way more hours than was healthy. I took some shots; played the 10/20 NL game on stars (which can run easier than 5/10 for whatever reason), ran pretty bad, ended up losing like 5K but I had a couple big sessions before it (+4500 the 13K vpp session etc.) so it evens out I guess.

What else.. Well I graduated, so that’s pretty sweet. Had a great prom, great after party... Can’t complain really. Now its summer, got a week to chill out. Our actual graduation is next week and my grandparents are coming up for it so that should be cool. Then I’m going out to Vegas with Andrew. If any of you guys are going to be out there we’ll be there from June 4th- June 9th. Hit me up and we can exchange numbers, meet up.

Good luck at the tables yo’. - Russell

1 votes

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Hey guys, I've been pretty busy and haven't really felt like blogging recently.
Poker has been going awesome. I got 5th in the 215 rebuy the other day for $10,200. I thought the hand that I busted on was pretty interesting.

Blinds 6K/12K with antes pot is 20K.

I have 100K in chips, apestyles has 90K, br savage has 280K, tourney c/l donk has 760K, and tightwad in the bb has 90K.

I have been pretty tight at the table, made a couple plays and a couple steals but for the most part been holding onto my stack, letting smaller stacks bust. Now the payscale is such that 5th gets around 10,200 4th 13,400, 3rd 19,800, 2nd 28,000, 1st 47,000. So the pay jumps pretty significantly in top 3 vs 4th/5th. So I'm in third place, but I'm essentially tied for last with the blinds coming around.

One thing that had been preventing me from playing more aggressively was this tightwad kept folding sb vs. bb to me, or he'd call from the sb and fold to a push. So he'd basically been giving me free chips to that point, but now the blinds are so big that I think even he would understand that pushing/ folding was the way to go.

I pick up 53 utg and shove. Here's my logic: Apestyles can't call me without a real hand, br savage is really tight and I don't think he'd view my push as desperation because I still have enough to steal with after blinds run through me. The donkey in the sb was a bit worrisome, but he wasn't totally braindead and I'm pretty sure he would realize how tight I'd be playing, and the big blind... well he was tightwad . So I was shoving 100K chips to win 20K.

Because I was utg they probably assume my pushing range is like any pair/ a8+/ KJ+, thats what I'd assume anyways

Their calling ranges would be pretty tight, I'd assume AQ/77+ so I think I'm definitely taking this pot down enough pre-flop to merit the push. Besides I can always suck out...

Ape insta calls AK and breaks my head. Oh wells.

I've been playing a lot of 5/10 recently with good success. I really like the 4/8 deepstacked game on ftp... it seems like a lot of the people that play it don't play well deep stacked. There are some good regulars but as long as you can outplay em you're golden. We have some exciting guest videos on the way Seal and Straate are both making videos for us- I'm excited .

2 votes

Comments (4)

So I'm deep in this bracelet race (9 left pays two 2K packages), pretty deep in a main event qualifier- 34 left pays to 2, deepish in a 20r and earlyish in a 10r, and my mom wanted me to stop playing. She sent down her enforcer so I had to find a sub for me. Andrew said he was going to be around but had tons of homework and couldn't do it. So I ask my friend Mike to hop on.

I check the account in the morning, fuck... he busted all four. Ah well- I head to work. I call Andrew after work and he's like "oh sucks that he busted but someone IM'ed me and said congrats on the seat" so he checks his e-mail and bam! congrats on winning your 3rd bracelet race. Why thank you FTP.

So I sign onto aim and Mike's on.. "hey man, nice win" "don't you mean wins?" "wait.... you won a wsop seat? <3<3<3"

4 votes

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Lately a pattern has been repeating itself, run bad, big score, run bad. So after the 14K day in our next couple sessions Andrew and I were down a combined 6K. I played a hu session for a half hour and dropped 1750... it was bad man. In 10 hands against this guy I played a reraised pot with QQ where we got it in on the flop and he turned his T, and a reraised pot with A8 flop 885, obviously he gets it in with 65 and runners his straight. Sick.



I throw up my hands in frustration, leave come back a little later that night make 800 back pretty quick, end the session. Fast forward- play another session at one point I'm up like 1000, and then 15 minutes later I'm down 1000, the hell? Play another session, lose 750. I decide to stop playing cash and load up some tournies. They were better to me, I won a 1K seat for event 4 of FTOPS, and a 12K WSOP package for Andrew. Holla.

3 votes

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Well I said I wouldn't be playing this week but I felt like crap today and stayed home from school. Played a couple hours of the hu tables (mostly 2/4 some 3/6) on FTP played really well and had some fishy opponents ended up 2100.



Here are some interesting hands from the session:



only 17 hands on the guy but he was playing 70.6/58.8/2.5 The question is not "can I fold here?" because the answer is clearly no, but is it better to check to try to induce the bet that will likely come and then shove over him or lead out. If I lead and the turn comes as a blank, what's my plan? I guess I probably have to shove since if I check and he pushes I'd be inclined to call anyways.

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/172848



39.8/33.6/3.9 The guy played pretty solid... I ended up leaving pretty soon after this hand, he tended to call my 3-bets with a pretty standard frequency, saw him call with 89 like 15 hands before and called the flop when he hit his top pair and checked through the hand. I felt really lost in this hand... flop is standard, turn I improve and there is a possibility I have the best hand. If I bet the turn he's probably not calling me with worse but he could definitely fold better, if I check and he bets it puts me in a really tough spot, I think I would fold and be really frustrated... How would you guys play it?

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/172843



61.9/49.5/2.5 villain is pretty fishy, tends to overcall. Question is not "should I bet earlier in this hand?" because against him the answer is no. I wanted to give him an opportunity to bluff/ improve. The real question is, how much value can I get on the river? Is this a shove?

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/172844



55.5/39.3/1.9 I thought I played this hand pretty well, got him in with the K high flush. Obviously it worked in this scenario but is there a better line I could take in this hand?

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/172841



68.1/34.5/.9 not so sure on this one I didn't have stats on him at this point (less than 30 hands) His line was so weak after the reraise I didn't think he had more than the T, and thought I'd see a MP a fair amount of the time.

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/172842



Alright, would love to get some comments/ create some discussion.

Peace homies,

Russell

1 votes

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I qualified for the Full Tilt 750K guaranteed on Saturday night. I hadn’t planned on committing my day to poker but I woke up and lo and behold I wake up and we’re in the middle of a Noreaster. Oh well I guess I have to play poker all day. In the morning I had a few goals, load up a decent number of tables and qualify for the $650 WSOP qualifier. I entered tons of satellites for it and every $20+ mtt that looked good. Pretty soon I had up about 18 tables, a bit more than I had bargained for. I went deep in a bunch of the qualifiers without a score losing $80 sngs over and over again can get expensive. The $24 6 max double shootouts offer great value- and I eventually luck it up and win one.



I had a weird hand in the Sunday warm-up that I’m really not sure about. Probably bad.... you decide. I have 9600 (10K starting stacks) we’re relatively early in the tournament. Blinds 75/150 there are 3 limpers including the sb, I check. Pot 600. Flop is 256 off suit, it checks around. Turn is a 3 giving me the straight putting a spade draw on the board. I lead out for the pot and get min-raised. OK, first hard decision... The stacks are such that a push is a pretty big overbet- I’m not getting a 4 to fold... ever, and I get all worse hands to fold. But... it protects my hand and likely takes down the pot/ chops against the straight. A problem with this though is that the straight could also be drawing to a flush draw as well or have outs to a larger straight. If I reraise I have to call if he gets it in against me but it gives me value against a set/flush draw. Decisions, decisions. I decide to flat call and evaluate on the river. Ok, here comes the fun part. River is a 2. I check, and he bets 3100 into the 3000 pot. My thoughts- he probably would not bet a 4 like this. I think he likely has 74/ missed draw/ or a boat. If I shove he should be folding 74, like he has to... Opponent is an unknown so I think here is where the logic goes wrong, but in a $200 tourney most players are capable of making this fold. Also if he was betting the 4 he has to fold. I think raising all in/ folding here are both preferable to calling. I shoved, he calls 55... Doh



No big deal... I end up getting 2nd in a $24 tournament on Full Tilt for $1900. I was heads up against this absolute donkey. He asked for a deal at the start and I laughed. I came in with like 450,000 chips versus his 300,000. He was a passi-fish. I’m whittling him away and after like 6 minutes of play he shoves for 270K into my big blind I insta-call AJ, his K7 hits 2 pair. I battle back for a long time, I get chiplead again. He shoves into my big blind which 30,000 I call AK he shows A8, spikes the 8 obviously. Battle back eventually I shove over a limp of his where he had QQ I don’t suckout. Oh well.



Now its time for the majors. I enter the Sunday Million, Sunday Second Chance, Sunday Mulligan (all $200+15's), the $500+35 750K Guaranteed, and the $615+35 WSOP qualifier. I Bust out of the Sunday Million pretty early, bust in the 750K, cash in the Second chance but not for much... And I end up very deep in the WSOP qualifier and the Sunday Mulligan. I made some huge comebacks. In the mulligan I had a really nice stack of around 15K, lost an all in and was down to like 2500 I get back up to like 12K, lose an all in again, down to 1500. I again comeback and catapult my stack up. In the WSOP tourney I got very few cards the whole tourney but the structure is amazing, blinds change every 30 minutes. I was short the whole time. From 36-47 got their entry back, and top 35 got 12K packages. So I’m in 2nd place out of 16 in the Sunday mulligan (30K for first) and like 43/44 in the WSOP tourney, and there is blackness all around me. Fucking power.... The storm knocked it out. I call up Andrew who was very deep in the 750K guaranteed and explain the situation to him. He takes over the $650, and gets a buddy to hop in the mulligan. I get power back an hour and 15 minutes later. I run downstairs, turn on my computer and call Andrew. The bad news... Andrew busted 37th in the WSOP satellite. Fuck... But, Paul - Andrew’s buddy got 4th in the Mulligan for $10,500.



Andrew ended up busting 23rd in the 750K guaranteed for 3500. I paid Paul a tip for coming through in the clutch, and played some heads up cash before going to bed. All in all, ended up 14K on the night. Holla

1 votes

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I'm grounded... had a party at my house and my parents found out. So I'm grounded for a week - no poker, and I lost the trip to Utah I was going to take over vacation. Really bummed. No Action Jeff comments "You're a baller you don't have to be grounded just move out." SO in my poker absence I'll try do get more videos up. Peace


edit: my apologies on posting all 4 entries at the same time. I didn't realize it would spam up the main page!

1 votes

Comments (9)

My buddy was like "hey Russ, want to trade action in the wednesday 300?" I look at the clock and see there are nine minutes left to enter. Thoughts go through my head... it's a school night, you have tennis tomorrow. "Sure. Hey enter the 22 rebuy as well... you pussy" (my friend had said no more tourneys, ever...) "Fine... I hate you." "And the 22 heads up tourney... oh and the WSOP 160 DS" "Entered the 22, I'm not 21 remember?" "Yeah... whatever you say."



Long story short, I get fucked in the 300, Bust 22r AK to AQ on an A high flop for a big stack.



I propose a question and I'm pretty sure this is standard. 2nd round of 22 hu, hand 1 I get 26 on the bb sb limps for 20 stacks 1500/1500. I check. Flop 236, against an unknown you go bust here? Well I did... he had 36. Anyways.. I stop sucking it up and win my first round of the double shootout.



My final table is absolutely ridiculous: Sheets, Horry Clutch, Bill Ivey, Rich Fish, and Stackin kids. I do really well early on, go on a nice card rush and pretty much take down pots with little to no play back at me.



I had one hand that still has been bothering me. I have AQ in the sb. Horry opens it to 300 from utg+1 I was planning to muck it since the blinds were 50/100; the stacks were bad for a push/rr but a short-stack all-ins for 5 chips more. I elect to call and Horry has a forced call. The flop is A54 with 2 hearts I check. In retrospect I like a lead-out better because if he calls me we likely check through the hand, and if he shoves I can fold. Horry quickly bets 500 into the 965 pot. Fold, call, all-in all viable options. He's a smart player and he knows better than to bluff into a dry sidepot, I'd imagine he checks behind with a mid-sized hand and bets the turn if I check... if he has a strong hand he probably bets to isolate but I'm not sure. I ended up folding because I thought he was on a range of AJ/AQ/AK or something close to that. He might lead out a set but he probably checks behind to try to get me to play with worse (I would at least). So he shows QJ and I want to cry. I was so totally wrong on his range ah well. The blinds start to get bigger and I go card-dead eventually I make some steals and get back to 2000.



Blinds 100/200 I pick up AT on the sb and we're 4 handed. Stackin kids makes it 600 on the button and I shove he calls A9 sucks out and wins. I get my entry back and he goes on to win $2000 and a wsop seat. OHHH wells.



A funny story: I'm chilling with my friend it's 11 I've gotta be home at 12 so we call up my brothers friend who we like and he tells us he's at Jake's house (aka Sailboat, another of my brother's friends who is gone for the weekend.) This sounds illegal... so we go to the house and there are like 4 drunnnk bitches Joe, and these two other assholes. These kids are all sophmores and younger. So this drunk girl is all over me but Joe comes over and is like we need to get these kids out of here. "I'm going to tell you my life story... so I have no mom, she died a month ago and now I drink my feelings away!" Holy shit... So Joe tells me I can have the rest of the beer probably like 14 left and I'm told its asshole #1's. So I go up to him, "hey man, if you've got to get rid of the beer I'll take it from you" "LOL thanks... but I don't think we need that favor from you." 3 minutes later... the word cops has been mentioned Joe: "take the beer", Asshole #1 "yeah you can have it". So we get the kids out take Joe and drive him home. As we're turning off this kid's street we see a cruiser turn onto it. Scary shit. I figure the call was made when the kids left the house but close call.



I saw Grindhouse yesterday. Sweet fucking movie. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez so sick. I actually liked the zombie movie better than Deathproof. There was this oldschool intermission where they made fake previews, there was this absolutely hilarious one about Nazi werewolf chicks...



I've been recording and will get that WSOP final table video out, and some HU nl and 6 max vids coming soon.

1 votes

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