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I finished off NL2 right at the start, steamed thru NL5 and started NL10 slowly with some bad beats for stacks which really slowed my winrate.

Didn't play nearly as much as I could have due to work commitments but I'm fairly pleased with the results:

http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/9109/aprille3.jpg

I'm expecting to get very few hands in over the course of May due to all my coursework deadlines coming within the next 2-3 weeks so I doubt I'll be at NL25 by the end of the month, but it's a target!

GL


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i want to transfer 100 from ftp to stars. not much i know but i feel like grinding nit ring again. anyways, AIM - mikefrom707 or send me a PM. i'll send first to reputable LPers. i got work but i'll get back at 9 pm PST


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April sucked, May is off to a better start
http://www.liquidpoker.net/user_pictures/419a501821831128aa2285b593e9b8a3.jpg

Gonna go see if I can pull a Neilly, brb


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...(or April in English) has been a really good month. Most likely it was my best month ever. Managed to play a lot of hands 8-tabling 6-max games at Stars with a good winrate. At the end of the month I got pretty fed up with SH games so I decided to play a little HU, cause it's alway sick fun. Unfortunately it's also really tilt-inducing, so I set myself a 2BI stop loss. Thank god, it has never happened (only 3 days of playing tho).

http://www.liquidpoker.net/user_pictures/b2e5da6f30793a7a76febce0d05b9c2e.jpg


Regarding May, I am going to continue playing 1-on-1 games for some time (probably till I reach a $13k roll; then, FWIW, I'll play 6-max until I win a grand and after reaching $14k I'll finally move up to NL200 :D).
My bankroll is $11,100 ATM. It increases slowly and I cash-out a few hundred bucks from time to time, whenever I need money. Looks like I'll reach my goal in a few weeks.

BTW, I finally started going to the gym regularly. Hopefully I'll be as beautiful as Floofy in 5-6 months.


/entry


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It's been so long since I've played, (excluding my trip to France). I play Mondays / Wednesdays for free at a local bar for a social event. But I have no motivation at all anymore.

Today I ran 2 tables for 70 hands and called it quits while playing very well running 70BB/100 at NL10. I have no motivation for anything actually.

No motivation for poker, no motivation for school, no motivation to get outside and do something. I need something to strive for... FUCK



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Well, although I'm definitely not proud of my blow-up at 200NL + a few weeks ago, I think in the end it will turn out to be a good thing.

The biggest lesson is not to play 200NL until well over 5k. I think I am good enough to beat it; however, I believe I still lack the discipline.

Writing out the long blog post I did (you should check it out) before this one helped my game tremendously. I did something I haven't done before.. I sat down and really truly analyzed everything about my game and my life regarding poker, and was able to get a clearer view than previously and make some changes that were very good.

I cashed out down to 1k$, and when it hits my bank account I'm going to treat myself to a 360 for GTAIV, GH3, and Soul Calibur IV, as well as paying off some debt. This feels good. Often it seems like my online BR is just points in a video game, and when I cash out and realize that despite the blow-up, I made a LOT of money playing a game for fun, it's a good feeling.

Poker-wise I think my HU game has improved even more. I don't feel like I'm -EV against anybody at 100NL or 200NL HU (although I can't really play 200NL HU anymore, I've played probably 30k hands on it and very comfortable with my game at that level). Lately I've just been crushing the HU games.


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Entry #5 - Perceived Ranges

This article is going to be a bit long, but I think worthwhile if you stick with it to the end because the insight I gained might help you to understand the inner workings of the game a little bit better, just as it has me.

Okay so, I've never been big on the mathematical side of poker, I mean, I can do the rudimentary calculations, but I've always relied on my psychological skills in order to beat the game. I think this is a big reason why I'm capable of high winrates versus thinking/adjusting players, yet tend to have so much trouble killing fish. So as an addendum to my recent post about my entire run up to 1knl being pure luck, I'm going to add that I ran very well over that period in time, but I've recently discovered a lot of the reason behind my success. That's what I am going to share in this article.

Anybody who frequents this blog knows that I play a crazy lag style, always trying to play big pots and always attempting to push my opponents off hands when mine is second best, or induce a bluff or calldown when I have the goods. That's basically what I did, and when you play a lot of big pots over a relatively short sample size (100k hands) your variance is going to be huge which is going to account for high (or low) winrates.

So I was just approached by a past student of mine who is struggling to beat the mid stakes games, he came to me with something along the lines of: I have taken the entire month of May off from work and want to focus purely on my poker game, what do you think I should do and is there any kind of deal you can offer me?

I thought about this for a little bit, and of course since I've coached him before, I already knew what some of his specific weaknesses were. But I also knew that he had been through the standard 'sweat and ask questions' style of coaching many times by many other players. This obviously hasn't gotten him to the point he wants to be. So what I ended up suggesting was a month long course, in this course, the majority of focus would be on discussion and application of the specific concepts necessary to beat the games he plays in. What I told him I'd do is come up with a syllabus (yep, homework assignments included) that covered the most pertinent topics, and we'd spend roughly 20 hours over the course of the month discussing these concepts, as well as reviewing the sessions he plays during this time to make sure he is understanding and applying these concepts correctly.

Obviously since I have never done anything like this before, I had to first figure out exactly how to structure this so that we would be covering the basics first and gradually progress to more advanced concepts. I've spent about six hours already preparing this, and I'll list here the topics we will be discussing in the structure that I came up with (so if anybody actually takes a look at it and thinks there might be something important I'm missing or that I've possibly structured it incorrectly please feel free to lend me your advice:

Hand ranges and game theory: Focusing on G-bucks, as well as comparing that mathematical approach to poker with Pooruser's article on Singularity, which takes the focus off the math and into a psychological approach.

Hand Reading;
A. Importance of position
B. Reading board texture
C. Knowing your opponent
D. Evaluating villains hand range
(I decided to leave out 3rd and 4th level range evaluations since I thought that aspect might be better covered at a later point)

Psychological fundamentals:
A. Balancing your range
B. Metagame
C. Bet Sizing/Bet Timing (tells)
D. Multi-level thinking/Leveling

For the last week he said he wanted to talk somewhat about Live play since he plays in live deepstacked games regularly, so I thought a good way to finish it off would be to cover...

Live play; and
Deepstacked play

So from here I had to start scouring the internet, I've probably read close to 80 articles trying to pick out the best ones that illustrate these concepts. Most of what I found was garbage, generally a lot of what was posted on 2p2..... ironically (I'm hilarious aren't I?). But by wading through a lot of this muck, I actually came across quite a few VERY good articles that helped me personally to understand my own game and why I have struggled so much this year.

So anyways, late in 2007 during my huge upswing, I was constantly labeled by the better players in the game as a lag/station. I always knew I was a calling station, but my reasoning at the time seemed to be "Well, I've come this far, how can I let it go now, besides -- I'm not about to be bullied or pushed over by anyone." Now, based on my image, being a calling station was actually good, but not for the reasons I elicited above.

What I have learned by going through all of these articles about the way I approached the game has everything to do with perceived hand ranges. So here's how you have to think about it... The wider your perceived range preflop, necessarily, the worse your range will be by the time you get to the river. Conversely, the stronger (tighter) your perceived hand range is, it will necessarily have to be considered stronger by the time you get to the river. You can even take this a step further (or deeper if you wish) and presume that your perceived range is going to begin being assessed by your preflop action, but more importantly the position from which you acted, meaning position ends up being the most important thing in evaluating a hand range (Of course we are able to gather more information on later streets but that's a different and longer discussion).

So, getting to the point (finally I know), any thinking opponent is going to realize what I'm doing, and by betting and inflating the pot attempting to constantly push them out, they are forced to adjust in one of three ways, one to get run over, two to tighten up preflop and hope I don't notice him waiting for a hand, or three being to call me down and play back at me with a looser range, which would necessitate that his perceived range will also be weaker by the river THUS making my light call downs in the end generally positive expected value. ---Assuming I'm playing well and reading villain well, AND villain isn't TalentedTom or JonnyCosmo who own me and read my soul.

Anyways, hope this was insightful, because it was for me, GL,

Marshall



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April sucked. Played bad and lost $2950 throughout the whole month. Could have been worse I guess. $1550 of the loses were during cash games in different levels. The rest ($1400) in tourneys. Which is standard considering the tourney stakes I usually play.

For the first time ever I'm going to try to get 1on1 coaching and see how it goes. Hopefully will improve my game and be able to pack in some money.

My expectations for May are to do well at my final exams and go crazy the rest of my vacations. Play long sessions and focus completely on poker again. And obviously go out in the nights.

3 months off school will be great.

glglgl every1


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I decided to add a Spanish flare to make my title unique amongst the flood of April results posts. This is gonna be short, just a graph and general stats... cause what I really want to do is bump a short story I posted yesterday and was quickly knocked off the front page. So please scroll down and check the story out in the below blog post =)

April results:
+ Show Spoiler +

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so i graduate university in a few weeks, still hasn't really set in though.

i just finally finished what was a week-long moving process to a new apartment in a more rural part of New England. I'm pretty excited about it. I have to take a summer class to complete my graduation (but I still walk/get diploma etc., its sort of on the honor system), and I decided in an effort to make my life and the world better that I would bike to campus. Where I now live is about 16mi. away and it's going to be tough at first but I'm fairly good about routines and I presume that after the first month the "route" to class will become easy on me physically.

I have a good friend who's into cycling so on his tip I picked up this bike a couple weeks ago:
http://www.evanscycles.com/large_images/Z0253_BIG.jpg

A Cannondale Synage. It's the only company left that hand-makes bikes inside the USA, which I appreciate, and it has a sick good warranty program (unlimited lifetime work at the place of purchase), so basically I should never have to buy another bike unless somehow this one gets mega outdated or the bike shop I bought it from closes down, which is unlikely in New Hampshire (healthiest state in the Union!)

Whoops, guess not. (http://www.startribune.com/local/17051421.html)

I've been doing some 10 mile rides around town getting more familiarized with my surroundings to get used to it, and it's been pretty fun. The weather has been great which has of course helped. The bike ran me $1,400 including a pump, locks, and riding shorts. I hope that with the gas money I save by riding the bike should "pay for itself" by the time next winter rolls around. I also must admit that I'm not 100% on when to switch my gears for the front and back but I'm hoping with experience I'll figure it out.

Pokerwise I didn't put in too many hands this month and experimented with a lot of different game types. I'm mega bombed with school given finals are comping up and I just want to do it right and get out of here so I can start my life. My results were (as per usual lately?) lackluster, but to be honest I think I probably did better than I should of given my mindstate and approach to the hands I played this month. Here's a graph:

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/3352/mehcz6.jpg

This summer I'm hoping to hit up Vegas, Toronto, San Antonio and Nantucket for some vacationing/family visits. If anyone is into cycling in the area and wants to go for a ride I'll probably rent a bike in a few of the locations, and am definitely brining my bike with me to Nantucket.

Hope all is well out in the interwebs,

-Nolan.


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ya so i ran $75 into $10600 before losing it in 48 hrs, im a retard.

so heres what happened, w/ a 5k roll i sat at nl1k with 1k on two different tables. on one table i get stacked over and over by a good tag reg, and on the other a player named raiden030340934 sat in.

i crushed raiden for roughly 10k in that hour, and since he was making such marginal plays and seemed to be on tilt i asked if he wanted to go to 25/50, hoping to get a huge score on this day.

Well, when we got to 25/50 he hits a set of two's vs my TPTK, a set vs my FD which i had alot of FE vs his reraising range...

all in all i would say that my hu game has become 20x stronger than ever.

Ill rebuild and be back soon

Better than ever

Funny thing is i dont feel bad at all about losing that money, I grasped alot of new concepts in the past couple days that will make me alot of money in the long run.

Well, GL everyone,

Ryan (DReaaaaaaaeMe)


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I don't feel like writing a long post so I'll just post some stats etc. Well, April is so far my best month ever and my first +$10k month I promised myself to play at least 20k hands so I did:
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/4944/aprilik7.jpg

I think it's maybe even a 1k or more hands that were not imported. Something is fucked up but I don't know what. At least I managed to make it 20k in my PT database My entire winnings after all bonuses, tourneys and withdraws are $10,333.50 .

And here's the graph. Poker Grapher doesn't work for me so I used the graph from PT. It looks shitty but whatever:
http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/6315/aprilgraphqx9.jpg

I'm really happy about the progress I've made so far. Now I'm capable of making some nice calls, bluffs and big folds. My BR and this progress let me take a shot at 3/6NL today. It went well, although, I played only 200 hands. I'm going to watch some 3/6 videos now and later tonight I'll play some more and I'll post a few hands.

gl to everyone !

Mike


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Submitted by : TT1

Holecards

so since i won that MTT, i was more or less rolled for nl25. but! i lost like 5 BIs and was like "man fuck this..i'm not gonna win anything". so instead i started playing SnGs instead (plus you don't get raped by rake, this is on ftp). anyways, i played 12 games tonight and i'm up $68 (i lost 2 $6 HUs on flips)

cliffnotes: i suck at cash games, i luckbox SnGs


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http://www.liquidpoker.net/user_pictures/bfae9ce2bbf7e35e0c52cd0d066c555b.png

-BR nearly doubled in april
-playing NL50
-hope to keep winning, as u do
-ultimate dream is to move up to NL100 thats when u are truly "rich" from poker imo lol
-actually ran to expectation, or even slightly good in luck graphs... hasnt happened in so long so i'm pretty stoked. AND ran to expected sets... woooooo

Luck Graph (true EV, this shit is 100% correct)
http://www.liquidpoker.net/user_pictures/1e44e88fb524a4ae944926c9b8dff90b.png

Game Analysis Tab (not as correct but posting it so i can say i ran bad )
http://www.liquidpoker.net/user_pictures/2320d14bdb2b2f7255ffa3e1e0f6e59c.png

Luck-O-Meter (i like this program)
http://www.liquidpoker.net/user_pictures/4e79fcb8dfbf6317b85d1d752d8e7220.png

lol at my smaller number of KK vs AA, and overpairs vs sets. thats what making hero folds does good old full ring

alrite, thanks for checking my blog. and i'll leave u with this quote

"Engineering Student: 'How will this work?' Science Student:'Why will this work?' Business Management Student: 'When will this work?' Arts Student: 'Do you want fries with that?'" --Unknown

Edit: also any FR'ers NL50-NL50,000 (peachy, that means u)... plz read the following. + Show Spoiler +

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i need to know more people that play poker on msn pm me


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haven't updated in a while....anyway I've been grinding for a while and was up and down from 200 to 300 and reverse. Last week was springbreak so me and my friends went to turning stone casino to ball it up. I lost about 125 bucks playing 2 sessions of 100buyin 1/2 games, mostly on calling stations or stupid bluffs. While there I learned new style to abuse position and isolate donks. Since then I've been up alot, up from 260 to 580 in about 3-4 days. Since then school had to start and yesterday I had a bad session where I lost until my br went to 400. I got pretty pissed of all the suckouts and entered donkaments for some reason. When I'm on huge downswings I always enter donkaments and coin flip. After numerous busts at 3.5/6.5 buy in donkaments, I made my way to the final table of 11 buy in 180 seat donkament. There I was doing pretty well until the chipleader was being aggressive and raised 20k with J 2. I had 99 so I insta called, and after a dry flop, got sucked out on the river with a J. Still up 150 from being 4th place so I guess thats not bad, and I'm back at 550. Now I just need to play more hands cause I dont think I even played 100k hands yet and only a silverstar now, while my friend has way more hands and already platinum star. With summer coming up i'm looking forward to improve my game and bankroll multiple times.


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Best month ever =) So pissed at today though, dropped 2.5k unnecessarily trying to get hands in.

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/9160/aprildq8.png

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/3006/monthptwr5.png

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/1029/millionuy9.png

Ends up around +$21k overall


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After playing next to no hands in Feb + March I decided to buckle down and play a lot of hands this month. I played a decent amount and improved quite a bit. I'm happy with the results this month and that I moved up from nl50 to 200. I'm going to stay at nl200 for a while probably till I have at least 50 buyins for nl400.

As for today I had quite a swingy session. I lost quite a few stacks with overpair vs tp ai on the flop. I did get the money in good everytime except for once, maybe twice. Overall I'm pretty happy with the way I played today.

Today's graph
http://www.liquidpoker.net/user_pictures/eefcd2d3b0f50e1c84bd0eb6dc7ae39e.jpg

April graph
http://www.liquidpoker.net/user_pictures/b68ef7187a40fa0aa8465a29eddf5f7c.jpg


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