Joes poker blog

Last few days things didnt go exactly as expected. After the big losing day, I played quite a lot the very next day. Swinging it up and down several times, being +$400 at one moment only to find myself being -$300 an hour later.
In the end of the day my score stopped at +$67 after almost 7 hours of play. Could have been flipping burgers instead. I also played 1 table of PLO10 for about an hour and made about $25. So PLO10 >>> NL200

Things didnt go well even outside poker that day. I went to my training (i play handball and soccer competitively) and after about 10 minutes I got an ankle injury. Its nothing really serious, but i cant do sports for about a week now which kinda suxx since I have like 3+ trainings in my usual week. And I also planned to go snowboarding on Saturday, because the winter and snow finally came to my country (the weather is strange this winter), but with my injured ankle i was not able to go.

Saturday
So since my plans for Saturday were gone, I decided to use this extra time to play some more poker. But again, things didnt exactly go my way, so after about 5 hours of swinging it up and down i was down $5. I had a break for a few hours and then i played some more in the evening. "Not a wise decision", I thought after a while when I was down to -$650. But finally things started to go my way a bit and soon I was back to zero. Feels kinda good after u were down $650

Then when I was just about to call it a session, this hand came: http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/138157. For those who are lazy to look, I hit the nut flush on the turn after a lot of flop action and got paid by a slowplayed overpair of Queens. Since villain had almost 200bb stack and i had him covered, the pot was huge - $784. It was probably the biggest pot I ever won. So after this hand I was about +$400 for the day. I played a few more hands and ended the day +$340. No big score but I was very satisfied after such a sick swingy day.

Tourneys
Besides cash games, I also entered a few tournaments. Worth mentioning is one of them - the $10+$1 rebuy tournament on Stars, 35K GTD. The actual prizepool was about 68K or so, with the first prize of more than 12K. About 1480 entrants. Since I didnt have a lot of money in my Stars account, I wasnt able to play the rebuy period the maniac way, so I took a tight approach and tried to take advantage of those villing to gamble their way up. I managed to double up soon, but only to lose it all back when my AA got cracked by T4s allin preflop. I double rebought for the last money I had on Stars and kept waiting for decent hands. I got almost none in the rest of rebuy period though, so I my stack after at the first break was about 5,500. I didnt take addon (no money + really short stack).

But things went good in the next hour and I somehow managed to get up to above average stack before the 2nd break. I took advantage of the luxury of being able to wait for good hands and was playing basically no hands in the next hour other than a few uncalled raises in late position. The first bubble (180 ppl ITM) was coming and I still had slightly above avg stack. I didnt try to abuse the bubble cuz I had some pretty big stacks behind me and I also didnt think people care about this bubble at all. I wasnt getting any playable hands at that time and didnt feel like going aggro, so I basically kept paying blinds and waiting.

Soon the field was down to 100 players and my stack was slightly below average. Then I picked up KJs in early position and decided to try and steal some - I had a pretty tight image so i thought it was unlikely anyone would call. I pushed allin (my M was about 7). But to my surprise 2 people called - one of them loose bigstack and one shortie. To even bigger surprise, I had them both dominated - the big stack turned over KT and the shortie T7, so I only had to avoid 2 tens and 3 sevens. I managed to avoid those 5 cards and suddenly my stack was really big - 160k, while avg was about 100k. There was like 85 people left at the moment.

The very next hand i picked up AQ and raised it to 3bb. The big stack who just lost to me pushed allin (he was now rather short) and I decided to call. He had 33 and I lost the flip. I was down to about average stack. Few hands later, I picked up AJs in middle position. A loose player before me minraised it and I pushed (my M at that time was againt just about 7, or maybe even less, blinds were huge already). The initial raiser folded, as did everyone else, but a big stack in the small blind, who happened to have QQ. The flop came AKx and I was there going to double up! But, after a moment of joy, the turn came and brought a Queen. River didnt bring a Ten, so I was out.

Ended 75th for a prize of $132. Was feeling pretty bad. Not sure if the AJs hand was a mistake. Anyway I made a net profit of 132-41 = $91. Not bad but it didnt help me feel any better.

Here is the graph of my Saturdays roller coaster session:

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today lady variance came to visit me and i lost some pretty sick hands in the beginning of the session. needless to say, it affected my game and i made some bad plays, together resulting in a -$1000 session. i guess i would have be about even (or maybe slightly down) if i won the hands where i was a big favorite.

also i noticed that the overall agression at my tables today was significantly higher than what i was used to. i had to play quite a lot big pots with very marginal hands (and i made 2 costly mistakes). dunno if it was just coincidence or not, but people kept 3betting me preflop all the time and also raising my cbets very often.

although only 5 buyins, the sum is actually quite big to me, so i hope i will be able to overcome this and play unaffected tommorow.

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Comments (4)

yea i have been really running hot in the last few days, basically since i moved to NL200. i havent been playing much, but my winrate got skyhigh.

here is the graph:


of course i am well aware i wont be able to keep such winrate or not even close to it. in fact i would be satisfied if i could attain something like 4.5-5.0ptbb/100 playing 4 tables.

i know i am getting quite lucky (like their draws are not hitting often vs me and my sets are vs big pairs quite often), but still it seems to me that i am quite crushing these games. usually i am the most aggressive player at my tables (unless there is a hallingol-wannabe-maniac, but they are usually pretty easy money). both my VPIP and PFR got up a lot recently. i have been running on like 20-21/17-18 for the past few days, which may not be that much for some of u, but its definately alot more than what i was used to play before (like 17/13-14). i hope i will be able to own these games even in times when i will be running bad, but i am afraid it wont be that easy, since my game gets alot worse when i run bad.

thats it for now, gotta go to my soccer training soon.

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Comments (9)

today i played only a little because i had to learn to school some and also to play some starcraft games.

a friend of mine wanted to come and watch me play poker so that he can possibly learn something. so he came and i opened up (only) 3 tables of NL200. i was explaining him most of my moves and i think i played pretty solid. and i also run pretty nice, so although the session was very short, less than an hour, i managed to make $319 (over 33ptbb/100 yay). most of it was actually won in small-to-medium hands in which i either stole the pot or value-bet my marginal hands.

then i had to play some starcraft games (wgtcl, ...) and after that i started to learn some. but it was boring of course so after a while i got this idea to play 1 table of another poker game while learning. so i opened up 1 table of pot limit omaha 5c/10c 6max on stars and started playing. i dont know if i was so lucky, but it seemed like almost every hand i got dealt preflop was very playable. so i kept raising like 40% of hands preflop all the time and i also kept flopping something very often. after about 45 minutes i was up almost $40 (4 buyins). then i lost 2 sick allins (well not that sick probably but i thought they were sick) and decided to finish to resume my learning. i ended like $19, which is still pretty decent imo

i also made a screenshot that proves how many pot i was winning all the time during the session.

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ok yesterday i finally reached the BR i wanted to have to move up to NL200 (for the 2nd time) and so i played some NL200 today.

the session started off bad when i lost vs some sick maniac crazy tardo guy who minreraised my pf raise with T2o, i had AKo. i flopped a pair of Aces and he flopped a pair of deuces. i called his flop bet and raised his turn bet, but he called unimproved anyway and spiked another deuce on the river to stack me. i managed to steal some money back and then i also won a buyin with top two pair vs pure bluff.

it was kinda short session, only like 1 and half an hour of playing 4 tables and i ended slightly up, like $80 (3.8 ptbb/100). anyway i am quite satisfied with my play so i hope i will keep doing ok.

as for the difference between NL100 and NL200 - it seems to be pretty simmilar, but i noticed the games were slightly more aggressive on average than NL100 games.

Live tourney
i also played a small live tourney today in a poker club. the buyin was only $15+$3 and there were only 19 players, so really just a small tourney for fun. i played pretty solid imo, i managed to keep gathering chips without showdowns continously. i was the biggest stack at the table for quite some time, but then this hand came: i was dealt AQ in bb. two guys limped and i raised 6bb. i had quite a lag image at that time so one of those guys decided to move in probably hoping i was just trying to steal it. i snap called and he showed ATo. i am sure u guessed it, the river spiked a Ten, crippling me to only like 900 in chips (2nd shortest at the table). i then managed to gather up some more, to like 1700, but the blinds kept increasing and it was now 100/200. then came my final hand: a guy (fishy) minraised preflop and was called behind. i was there on the big blind with ATo and instapushed. the original raiser snap called and showed KQo. of course, the turn was a Queen and i was out. omg donkaments.


thats it for today. i dont know if i will find some time to play tommorow since i have (school) exams on monday and i havent learned for it yet (pretty standard for me).

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Comments (11)

ok so after finishing my poker session today i found that my bankroll was at $6,666 (i mean, my party-bankroll, i got some more on other sites). i think its a sign that Devil will probably help me run good in nearby future. looking forward to tommorows session

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ok so here is how i was running for the past 4 months. so sick...

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Comments (6)

ok i first started playing poker in december 2005 with the lp.net partypoker promotion ($75). in december i was basically trying the game, but serious playing began in January 2006. I made my starting $75 into about 300 back in december and i though it was enough to start playing NL25. back then partypoker NL25 was uber easy (well it is still very easy, but before it was way easier), so i guess it really was enough and my bankroll kept going up fast. i cleared NL25 in about 3 weeks and i jumped it NL50 in the end of January 2006 with about $1250. There was quite a difference between NL25 and NL50 from my point of view - i was basically set farming with a lot of leaks obviously and people on NL50 were just much less willing to pay me off. still i managed to keep moving up, though much slower buyin wise than on NL25.

i managed to make my roll to about $2300 in about mid february 06 and i was considering whether or not to move up to NL100. i decided that i should keep playing NL50 for at least a little while, especially since my friend who introduced poker to me was still playing NL25 (he was prolly doing more on NL25 than me on NL50 though, or at least the same). So, i made a cashout of about $600 and kept playing NL50. But, my first big downswing struck me about that time. i kept losing and i was kinda lost. i actually dropped down to about $450 and i felt like shit. i decided to try and learn SNGs to have a break from no limit. so i learned basic stuff and i actually started making some money off them. I made my roll back to about $850 playing SNGs only + i cleared some reload bonuses which made my roll about $1050 total.

It was about end of march, when i decided that i could start playing NL50 again. So with my regained confidence, better state of mind and maybe some better luck i started winning again in NL. it felt good after about 6 weeks of losing.

April was an ok month, i kept winning on NL50, although my winrate was rather small, i was at least winning consistently. i made my roll to about $2000.

I continued playing NL50 in may and i also started giving MTT and especially rebuys a try. i actually had some shortterm swings in may, but i made about another $1000 (and part of it in MTTs). but i also made a cashout so my roll stayed at about $2300 or so.

i planned on finally moving up to NL100 in the beginning of June, but i wasnt doing really great and i basically moved nowhere in the first half of june. my br was about $2400 when i finally managed to have a "major" success in MTTs - i won a $5+$1 rebuy tourney and cashed $2880, which was more than my actual bankroll back then. i cashed out part of it, but left most of it in my account. so, with my bankroll at $3800 i finally jumped up to NL100. i run decent in the beginning, it actually seemed to be very similar to NL50. i managed to make my roll to about $5000 by the begining of July.

Then July began and i of course didnt have that much time to play poker since i travelled some etc. but when i played i wasnt really doing any good, so i was about break even for the month (maybe up like $300 or so).

I had a little more time to play in August, but i kept running bad, well i probably wasnt improving much at that time, so my game stagnated. the results were corresponding, i only made like $500. again, i cashed out some, so my bankroll remained somewhere around $4800.

In September i set myself the goal not to cash out any more before i move to NL200. i planned on moving to NL200 with about 6k. but things werent going as planned and i made no more than about $1000 in september.

So i was still playing NL100 in the beginning of October. I actually decided to cut off my number of table from 8 to 4-6 and try and improve certain parts of my game. this actually paid off itself + i hit a very nice run and my bankroll was going up fast. when it was at about $7500 i finally decided to move up to NL200. and i continued to run good. overall i made more than $5000 in october which was very very good, i almost doubled my BR. i cashed out some and had my Bankroll somewhere around $9000.

But then November came. In the first two days of november i managed to lose about $1800 and i decided to move back down to NL100, although my Bankroll was still ok for NL200. yet, i kept running like shit and this time i really thing i had some extremely bad luck at least in the first two weaks of november. my game definately suffered a lot by this. i kept doing bad for the rest of november and basically broke even for the second half of the month, though i think it was no longer due to bad run but due to my bad play for the most part. so down $2000 for the month.

I hoped it would get better in the next month, December. yet, it became even worse and again i lost a lot in short time. i wont go to more details but basically i run bad and played even worse and i lost another $3500 in december. i was really getting desperate and i asked some people for advice. TalentedTom and Donald were kind enough to discuss hands live with me while i was playing few times. some people on the forum also gave me some good advice, so i managed to find several big leaks in my game.

I think i changed my play quite a lot in the end of December 2006 and beginning of January 2007. My results started to get better since the New Year. I dont think my luck changed that much, yet i started winning again and so far i have been winning constantly, didnt have a losing session for 2 weaks at least. actually i hit a heater today and made about 10 buyins on NL100 my BR now is almost $8000 and i think i will be moving back to NL200 soon.

Uh, it got little too long omg...

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