Just a quick comment on the hand i posted last time. I talked it over with some very good players and the one who's opinion i consider highest (i wont say who cause he likes anonymity) told me he shoves here cause of stacksizes and folding with that little less on a paired board seems really hard. But if we were a bit deeper he thinks flat calling he could be a very very smart play. I agree with him (assuming we werent too too deep, in which case it would become very hard to get any value out of sets on a flush board).
Ok, so my first full month at 25/50 is over (I got back from pca on the 11th and started playing on the 13th). here are my stats for the month for PLO and NL respectively:
Things went pretty well for my first month at higher stakes, I dont think I ran particularly well or bad, so I hope this is sustainable. Ran pretty bad in omaha at the end there but I still feel I have a pretty significant edge in the games on stars.
ok, so i basically made 150k the past month. Now for the ballerism:
So I called my credit card company earlier because the limit on my card was $1900 a month and I needed it raised a bit for hotels and flying to tournaments and stuff. I'm on the phone with some lady when the following mini-convo comes up:
After that, she asked me if I wanted my credit card limits raised up to 35k, the highest I offer. My mom (also on the phone, it was a 3way call) yelled at me for telling her I made that much and I decided to just raise them up to 6k, enough for hotels/flights/creditcard roulette degeneracy at restaurants.
Oh yeah, one little tiny rant. Pokerstars wont sponsor me for the monte carlo tournament, WTF.
Hello Ryan,
My name is xxxxxxx, I work in marketing at PokerStars. I recently
received an email from Tamar regarding a sponsorship for you to our Monte Carlo event. Unfortunately we are choosing not to sponsor any additional players to Monte Carlo at this time. This decision has been made in part because of the ever-changing state of online gaming in the U.S right now. We are scaling back much of our U.S marketing and sponsoring players located in the U.S falls under this part of the budget.
Please feel free to reply with any questions, and I'll be sure to be in
touch if our U.S marketing strategy changes in the near future.
Best regards, and congratulations on your PCA win!
Talk soon,
xxxxxxx
That sort of sucks considering last year's champion is on team stars. I hope the US online stuff clears up. I really wanted to be a part of team stars and bring a young face to some of the tournaments. Oh well, its just donkaments.
My new goal for the year is to have my cash game winnings for the year surpass my PCA win total. I think it's attainable, ill be playing a lot of poker this year, and I basically have to avg 130k a month or so, which is hard but doable if i put him like 40k hands a month.
I played a lot during the last 2 days, won almost nothing .
I didn't play my A poker all the time, made some serious mistakes. After 2k hands I had been down about 3BI, but then I started to play really well and I managed to win more than I lost. The last session was terrible, no good hands, bad beats, just no way I could make a profit there. I lost about 50 bucks, but that's OK.
A few hands: http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145851
I had played it definitely to slow on the first two streets and I was punished on the river for my bad play. http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145852
Suckout. http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145854
I guess too slow again . http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145855
Standard. http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145856
Ppl get lucky against me, but why can't I be the one hitting his 2 outer? http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145857
Implied odds were absolutely good enough to call on the flop. Luckily he had an 8 . http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145862
I think I wouldn't call that against a good, solid player, but he was a total fish. http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145864
I think I made the best possible move here, my all-in wasn't even a pot raise and he could have so many drawing hands that an all-in was necessary here.
Hands: 4,290
Balance: +$59.45
Total hands: 5,808
Total balance: +$300.20
It's been a few weeks since I last posted. Not too much has really been going on. Basketball just got over with and I'll soon be able to get in a lot more hands. Oh yeah, I actually played a pretty short session today. Finished down 1.5 buyins after losing a few spots where I got unlucky and making a bad call. Besides that, I've just been hanging out with friends and watching a lot of college basketball games. Tennessee is playing Kentucky in about 5 minutes so I'm going to go watch that.
Current BR is around $1100 with rakeback. I've decided to be MORE aggressive with my bankroll rather than being a bankroll nit. I would like to get to NL100 ASAP for the increased hourly, but especially for increased rakeback/bonus.
So yesterday after work (most probably it was my last day ) I had a few drinks with a new Brazilian guy that's going to work instead of me. He's a nice guy but he's getting married next month Then we ate a massive kebab and I was back at home about 3:30, so at the time when the new episode of Prison Break is usually uploaded. So I checked my torrent site but I couldn't find it. After browsing some forums I found out that there's a one week break in Prison Break and the next episode will air on Monday, 19th. I was soooo pissed off. But instead I downloaded new episodes of Heroes and HSP. Finally aba20 was on the show and played pretty good poker. Wtf with young brunson cold calling 20k with an OESD?! The other good thing is that Farha is back, maybe the game will get more interesting, no pots with 6 limpers etc. It was getting really boring.
I played two regular session yesterday and today on FTP. I ran pretty mediocre, lost quite a bit in reraised pots (esp. with AK or AQ when I 3-bet preflop, c-bet flop and villain would either push or call and push turn to my check). I need to analyze this situations more deeply. Is it possible to filter hands in Poker Tracker so that it would show only pots where I 3-bet preflop?
Now I'm going to eat sth, meet my friend and then I'm going to play some live cash games again. I'll write sth new tommorow.
Here are my stats from last 2 sessions and some hand histories from today (I'm too lazy to look for the ones from yesterday).
1. http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145657
Not an easy call on the river and I'm still not sure if a correct one (anyone just calls after his $11 bet?). He was an uknown though so I assumed that he's a donk that can be pushing not only a lower flush but also a str8, set, 2 pairs. I didn't expect him to do it with the lowest overpair though. What do you guys say? Ship it? Yup, that's it. Holla
2. http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145660
Wasn't sure what to do on turn since we were almost 200bb deep and his stats were around 29/17/2.5. What is your play on turn in such spot? Obv I'm not folding but do you raise or just call? In this case I probably should've bet more on the river as well.
3. http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145662
I've noticed him 3-betting a couple of times in a short period so I figured that there's a good chance that he's sqeezing so I my AKs was ahead of his range.
4. http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145664
Villain was a huuuge fish with stats like 70/0 after 150 hands (yes, he hasn't raised a single pot preflop for 150 hands). Ship it holla!
7. http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145669
That's what I'm talking about. The whole table ws playing back at me and I had a pretty bad image so I figured that against him range I have solid chances (and fold equity). When he pushed I had to call. Nice runner runner for me
You think I'm joking? I can keep putting these up!
On another note, aba20 aka sbrugby plays like a monster in yesterday's episode of High Stakes Poker. It's really something that you guys shouldn't miss.
i have cashed out most of my poker earning's
left it with 10 bucks
its balance is 110 as of now
i'm pretty happy with my plays
a "thinking hand" http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145635
this hand im either way behind or way ahead
i put him on pair 8's obviously the k was a scare card
so i decided to thin bet this so i would get some value. i checked the river so he would bluff. (don't think he would call if i betted)
Ok, after my little "coke" incident, my keyboard is so fucked up. Its a pain to type so Ill just make this a short update. Been running semi bad at 200nl but im recovering. Got flush over flush:ed 4(!) times last session. Pretty sick huh? Guess I deserv it after luckboxing for so long.
I compensated my loss by tearing up one table of 400nl.
5/10NL soon - Trust yourself.by THE RISE, February 13
So the last three weeks or so I've made almost 100 buy ins at the Pokerstars 2/4NL short handed games and either tomorrow or the day after I will have more than enough money to play 510. I immagine the fish will still be trash but the regulars will be slightly better so I look forward to the game and hopefully my first session there is a good one.
POKERSTARS GAME #8421854283: HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($2/$4) - 2007/02/13 - 13:26:27 (ET)
Table 'Phyleus IV' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: xxSAMMYxx ($688.60 in chips)
Seat 3: TH£ RISE ($434.40 in chips)
Seat 4: Melormen ($85.50 in chips)
Seat 5: AaronBeen ($402 in chips)
AaronBeen: posts small blind $2
andurill: is sitting out
xxSAMMYxx: posts big blind $4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to TH£ RISE [Qs Qc]
TH£ RISE: raises $8 to $12
andurill leaves the table
Melormen: folds
AaronBeen: folds
xxSAMMYxx: raises $24 to $36
TH£ RISE: calls $24
*** FLOP *** [7s 4d 6s]
xxSAMMYxx: bets $44
TH£ RISE: calls $44
*** TURN *** [7s 4d 6s]
xxSAMMYxx: checks
TH£ RISE: checks
*** RIVER *** [7s 4d 6s 2d]
Matryx has returned
xxSAMMYxx: bets $74
TH£ RISE said, "plz dont show jjj"
TH£ RISE: calls $74
*** SHOW DOWN ***
xxSAMMYxx: shows [Jh Jd] (three of a kind, Jacks)
TH£ RISE: mucks hand
xxSAMMYxx collected $308 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $310 | Rake $2
Board [7s 4d 6s 2d Jc]
Seat 1: xxSAMMYxx (big blind) showed [Jh Jd] and won ($308) with three of a kind, Jacks
Seat 3: TH£ RISE mucked [Qs Qc]
Seat 4: Melormen (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: AaronBeen (small blind) folded before Flop
I normally trust my reads 100%, I put people on a hand (more often than a range) and I play accordinly. Here's one hand today I thought I should have folded I felt there's no hand he can have that I beat which he bets.
I think if he has any pair under J he is more than happy to show it down cheaply, in which case had he checked the river I would have punished him. I felt he had either JJ-TT or AK here given my currecnt history. I know he wouldnt bet TT or AK so I figured the only logical hand for him to have here is JJ ;/ Also he can't have AA-KK here because he would not check the turn with this he would protect his hand, esp on this draw heavy board.
As for the flop play sometimes I jam sometimes I call. Since I had position I like peeling cards off and seeing where thigns go from there - Also by not repoping I disguise the strength of my hand. The last few weeks I have been trusting my reads on an absolute level, a slip-up like this may appear small but if I stop trusting myself and just play the strength of my hands my winrate will decrease substancially.
I also bought a new closet - but apparently you have to assemble it yourself... so it has been sitting in the box for ~5-6 days
Well had another fantastic session, took some REALLY bad suckouts, straight vs 2pair that boats up, set vs backdoor flush hitting etc, that kind of shit. But oh well, ended up WAYYYY up for the session.
Played about 5-6 hours or something total, up $400 on NL25 so that aint bad at all!!
Heres a screenshot showing my stack sizes for my tables at one point near the end of the session:D:D
Also i had another table open just b4 i took this screenshot where i was at around $70 or so
Alright, so after reading some comments from my last entry I definitely gave some serious thought to my game. I probably do focus on beats too much, when I should just forget about them. Anyways, I decided to start over fresh. After a terrible Saturday, my BR was down to about $2.5k. I considered switching to tourneys and/or limit for a while, played a couple tourneys and one limit session, and decided to stick with NL.
So, I created a new challenge for myself, to try to get out of the rut I've been in lately. I usually don't set money goals, just hand goals, but I've decided I need something to motivate myself. The new challenge is to get my bankroll over $10k in the next 60 days, playing an average of at least 1000 hands per day. This should be doable, as I should be able to move back to NL $100 soon, and I'm including all bonuses and RB. Updates so far:
Day 1 (2/11):
I ran very well, played a pretty good game and had two nice sessions. Won an almost 150 BB pot with AA vs. QQ, hit a big combo draw with KhQh on a JhThx flop, Ad on the turn, and got paid off with quad jacks with AJ on an AJJJx board against AK.
Final totals:
+$225.45 over 1,271 hands.
Current BR: $2,752
Day 2 (2/12):
Off. Didn't get any hands in due to work and other shit. Oh well, will probably play plenty of hands today.
Ok, in part 3 or something of monday's Poker after dark there was some really stupid hand. A bunch of people limps in, Lederer with TT limps in late pos and some ugly dude raises a lot with KQs to try to steal the pot, everyone folds to Lederer who reraises.
Did I miss something or is that really stupid? First of all, no one is stupid enough to limp with like QQ+ in a multiway pot, that's just wrong, and there's also a good chance that the last dude was trying to steal. Thus it's logical for Lederer to try to see where he's at, but let's look at it from the ugly dude with KQs's point of view.
1. He can't have QQ+ or a good A cause he'd raise that.
2. He reraised me.
3. Thus I'm probably at a coinflip here.
Now there's only one resonable thing to do, go allin, which was just what the ugly dude did and Lederer had to fold since he knew that he wasn't ahead but could be dominated.
So, started back at uni yesterday, it kinda sucks. Seeing all my friends is good, but learning 2347230984723 different facts of the human body wears thin very quickly.
I decided I'd cash out the vast majority of my bankroll, just under 2k worth...it'll convert to 2.5k my local currency. $500 I will use to start a live bank roll, 1k I will splurge, the other 1k will just sit in my bank and I'll use it how ever and when ever I please.
How ever, I have left $100 with which to rebuild a bankroll, my aim is to be at $1k by the end of Feb. I returned to 10nl where the fish are ripe and the pickings are easy. In 2.5k hands I'm now at $228, I'll move to $25nl when I hit br of $500.
Kantoiki strongly advises against cashing my br out, karma is kind of indifferent to it. Truth is, I've never been able to show any proof for what I've achieved with poker: for all the hours I've logged, I don't actually have any money to spend. This kind of made it disgusting for me whenever I went on even the smallest of bad runs at 50nl...losing $200 in 1k hands just sucks for me and puts me in a bad mood, because to me that $200 (which is $250 where I live) is valuable cash that I could have gone and spent on a nice set of clothes or something. Any way, I figure that once I have taken out 2k and been able to spend some of the money, I will not feel as if I'm just bleeding away everything that I win, hence making taking bad runs at 50nl far more bearable.
On a happier note, just like to shout out to all the LPers who played with Verbloten on 10nl last night: It was hilariously good fun. Feel free to accuse me of playing nitty, but I did throw some cash in there with total junk and got lucky (and owned) too.
I have been really lazy with this blogging thing but maybe it's time to ramble again...
As some of you may know I had a huge downswing in December and then took a break of around three weeks to recover from it. Now it's been 20 days after I started playing again and I have played just under 20k hands of NL50 during that time. I have been very happy with the way I've played most of the time, I have been much more tilt resistant and just haven't done so many hero calls or stupid stuff like that which I believe caused my huge ds in December. I'm man enough to admit it wasn't variance
But now I'm back on track and excluding a couple of sessions really happy about my game. After a few bumpy sessions last week, I finally got to $2.5k on monday which I set as a target to reach before moving to NL100
Here's a small summary of my second (and hopefully last) time on NL50:
Hands: 19,344
Winnings: $1,146.75
PTBB/100: 5.93
I have a few funny hands that demonstrate just how soft party games really are:
http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145452
What the hell is the T9 guy thinking? I don't mind though getting a guy all-in when he has two outs. The short stack is just a normal short stack, obv can't fold a pair
http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145457
I guess I should have raised the flop here but I wanted to get a better feel on the turn. After the ridiculous minbet on turn I put him on a fd, which was luckily wrong this time
Minbettin when OOP with fd is really standard for these partydonks. It's so easy to abuse too. You can usually bet in a way that they'll fold if you've missed completely, and call when you have a hand but without getting odds to draw to their flush. Gotta love party
http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145459
Here's another example of just how brilliant these guys are.
I think the guy that folded river might have had a set with how he played but at least he had sense enough to fold it after not boating up. But the QQ guy... No reraise pf, no reraise on the flop with the fd out there... Ty for letting me draw to my flush sir
http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/145463
This one was the hand that took me over $2.5k after which I immediately quit my session. Got to love the thin value bets and the crap people pay you off with
There was one interesting hand on which I'd like some comments. Looking back at it his play doesn't make any sense. He was reraising me a lot, but I hadn't noticed him raising anyone else so I guess he must have had half a brain and noticed I was raising more than most pf. Here it is:
Ok so the guys reraising range might be a bit more than TT+ and AK but on that flop should I push over his reraise (which is really small). In my thinking a small reraise like that, almost a minraise is often a huge hand in these games, but with the odds he was giving to me I couldn't fold. Does anyone push there cause I think that's a bit suicidal as it will only get called by AK, KK and AA. Even though he might raise me lighter than that I don't think he's going to put all his chips in with AQ/AJ or an underpair.
What about the turn? It gives me outs to a gutshot but I have a chance to draw for free so I think a check is good?
I can't call river, or can I? Check/raise flop and check turn with AA/KK/AK/QQ with a fd out there? It's possible but I gave this guy a little respect so I don't think he would have done it. I'm splitting with AQ/AJ and a bluff is possible. An argument can be made for calling but without better reads couldn't do it. Some insight on how I should have played it better would be greatly appreciated. Tyvm.
Aight, I'm off to new challenges @ NL100, I hope it's as soft as NL50 I hope I can sustain about 5 PTBB/100 there too but we'll see. I'll keep you guys informed on how it's going.
PS. awesome song:
and check out the drummers face after he comes to view at around 0:30 :D
Well todays session is currnetly about break even..
I keep playing solid poker, slowly and steadily increasing and then get dealt KK and think, nice, here we go, go into a reraise preflop war and lose a buyin against AA. Happened 3 times in 3 hours.
Oh well, least im not down massively like last session.
I do think its rigged though. Only played on poker.com for like 3-4 days and ive had KK vs AA literally 10 times...
Contact Users: 1041 Active, 2 Logged in - Time: 23:58
.
.
.
) I had a few drinks with a new Brazilian guy that's going to work instead of me. He's a nice guy but he's getting married next month 
Then we ate a massive kebab and I was back at home about 3:30, so at the time when the new episode of Prison Break is usually uploaded. So I checked my torrent site but I couldn't find it. After browsing some forums I found out that there's a one week break in Prison Break and the next episode will air on Monday, 19th. I was soooo pissed off. But instead I downloaded new episodes of Heroes and HSP. Finally aba20 was on the show and played pretty good poker. Wtf with young brunson cold calling 20k with an OESD?! The other good thing is that Farha is back, maybe the game will get more interesting, no pots with 6 limpers etc. It was getting really boring. 
I hope I can sustain about 5 PTBB/100 there too but we'll see. I'll keep you guys informed on how it's going.
,
,
,
,