In the last 35 days, I've played under 5k hands. Since I play a pretty significant amount of tables, you can tell I'm really not putting in the hours.
It's not that I feel like I've hit a wall, in fact I'm really confident in my game. I just don't really have the desire to grind out the hands. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE talking about poker. I'm constantly on LP throwing in my two cents on every thread that opens up, and the UIUC poker club is starting at the end of this month. I've even bought the domain and hosting for www.illinipokerclub.com. It's up and running, but it's just got an open source template up right now.
Lately I've been researching e-commerce and starting up a business. I believe this is something I can be really successful in, so I'm definitely going to give this a shot. I think it's pretty clear that if I could either go down a path of poker or business, the latter has much more opportunity.
I'm not leaving though! Sorry, but you guys are going to have to deal with me until I get on the wrong side of a mod .
Played 5.5 hours today, not a ton but not bad either. Made like 260 or so too so tomorrow should be less stressful. Had a bit of a scary start though insta losing two stacks v some idiot who can't fold Q9h and JT all-in pre v my AK. Always nice to get the loose action, just a lot nicer to win
Still NO improvements...=(by MasterofLaw, August 05
SO since I redeposited on 22 July I have been playing, for me, a shitloads of hands on NL10 6max. This level is really tilting me and right now I'm a huge loser...
I have been playing about 15k hands of NL10 6max and over first 5k hands I was up 16bi:s but now I have dropped to DOWN 19bi:s!!! It's sooo sick. I run about 4-5bi:s below EV but anyway. Don't know what I should to, have no confidence left on this level, maybe I still play a to highvariance game for this level. I often shove TPTK or nice combodraws to get loosely called by 2nd pairs and TP:s vs combodraws, problem right now, I don't hit or hold up.
However, I have doubled my roll since 22 July. Thank you God for giving me HU-games. I have been playing NL10-NL100 hu games in which I am a winner in all of them.
But I wanna learn 6max...Have no problem with 6max live but when it comes to online I just don't seem to be able to win in the long run. Any tips anyone how I can improve my game on lower limits?
+ Still up a ton this month.
+ Gotten a lot of experience with NL2k and such vs really good players and been able to hold my own somewhat decently.
- Lost a decent chunk of money today
- Losing a flip at 25/50 makes me slightly tilted in a "ohh well life is unfair could I please find a legitimate reason to be angry this is fucking annoying"-kind of way.
However, I feel that the game I sat in was probably softer then most 2/4 games, at least when the only good reg I recognized left to sleep (after stacking me) so I'm ok with my decision to sit, I feel that considering how good I've been running lately, the softness of the game and how much I've been winning the risk/reward both from a monetary and psychological point of view was better then I could reasonably expect to find within a resonable time frame as far as HS shots goes.
New plan: Grind 5/10 and lower for the next two weeks or so. No 10/20 unless the games are really good. I mentally put aside a bit of money that I'm ok with losing during my high stakes shots and there are still like 3k left of that, but I won't play with it unless the game look really good. No fucking 25/50 at all unless someone is openshoving each and every hand or something like that, then I might take a 2bi shot .
Need to get a fair bit of hands in anyway, so might as well get my grind face on. I also feel that I should dabble more with HU. I feel that it matches my skill sets pretty well.
Now I'll go read some Discworld stuff lesbo girl borrowed me. it's funny as hell.
Happiness rating: 7.2/10. - Overall really solid, but no longer in that rush I felt earlier this week. Actually, think it raised like at least 0.6 points just while I wrote this and got my thoughts together.
Half rant about PLO being the devil's game.by JonnyCosMo, August 04
Before I go off on my very long and very rage-filled rant about how Pot Limit Omaha is the most rigged game ever, I'd just like to say that the drama between Evan and I (which really wasn't all that serious since it was just over 5k) has been cleared up, just a big misunderstanding that kind of went the wrong way. To recap a little bit since my last blog post, WSOP was a blast. Basically ran really good in almost everything I did. Got pretty lazy about playing the tournaments halfway through the series since I was destroying cash games pretty hard for a long stretch, so I only ended up playing 10 tournaments total all summer when I was planned on going on the super grind and play 22. The only thing that bugged me was that I thought I played a less-than stellar main event. My starting table was filled with nits with the exception of Faraz Jaka who sat two to my left. Had no clue who he was until he busted out at the end of day 1, but he made sure to make my life pretty miserable. Was pretty disappointed to how I adjusted to the situation overall. Made day 2 but was real short, and only lasted 2 hours before my KK got cracked by a flopped set of 9's
Ever since then I've been back in San Diego chilling. I have played less than 5 hours of online poker in the last month. It's been super relaxing actually. Went back to Palomar and my god run continued for a +15k first week back at mostly 5/10 and a little 10/20. My boy Clayton (The donkament player who makes vids for Leggopoker) has been living with us since Vegas, and so I've been learning PLO from him since he's been playing PLO for the majority of the past year and has been recently taking shots at 25/50 online. Most of my learning has just come from watching his sessions, and not really trying it out for myself.
So last night I decide to give PLO a little spin. I 4 tabled $.50/$1.00 for a good 4 hours, and ended up down like 6 buy-ins wtf... Not a good start. Woke up this morning and dropped another 2 buy-ins over an hour. That ain't good, but Clayton said it's just standard PLO variance. So I head to Palomar this afternoon and see that the wait for $5/10 is going to be a while. That's when the $25/50 PLO that was running caught my eye. Obv I take a shot, since the game looked pretty good to me considering I have smashed half the table in NL Hold'em. The game got a little bigger when two fish took a seat an hour or so after I sat, as they straddled every pot. I kept trying to get the game half PLO half NL Hold'em but there were some wet vaginas that kept refusing. My final hand went as follows:
http://www.liquidpoker.net/staff/JonnyCosMo/HappyFU.png
Aggro fish straddles $100, weak/passive fish calls $100 in middle position. I am dealt in the CO. I pot it to $500 (they round up for pot amounts). Super mega fish who had not folded a hand in the past hour calls in the big blind. Straddler calls, and limper calls. Flop comes . All 3 players check to me, and I pot it for $2k. Mega fish in the big blind calls. And everyone else folds. Turn comes . Fish checks, and calls my last $3k shove, then rolls over for the epic wtf are you doing preflop / holy shit u are a moron / how the fuck did you pick up more outs / please god hold one time / don't let this retard fish ruin my first full day of PLO.
but at the same time, month sucks already again. even despite my nice score i feel like ragetilting again cuz i cant win a SHIT in the fucking cashgame.... sigh probably will have blown away all winnings withing a few days on nl 25. http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/483/28625167.png
i play absolutely the same, i feel at least like that. I have no idea why i always get these huge fuckign swings !? i always lose like 128129831289 buyins in a few days and then win them back in a few days later. something is fucking wrong i guess maybe my playing style just fucking sucks
total nl25 graph for some months. pretty marginal ~3bb/100 winner, most of that is 15 tabling though, just made the transition into 4 tabling since a few thousand hands, but still doesnt help. feel like the worst player ever.
would you put this guy on kings?by biabiaflexer, August 04
Submitted by : biabiaflexer
can u believe i almost folded this???
40 hands in, this guys got his supernova stars showing, and he hasnt played a single hand yet...straight folding or check/folding to any bet from bb. I tanked on the river when he pushed for a nice 30 seconds or so, i was literally putting him on kings ....would anyone else put the guy on kings???
PokerStars Game #31253897749: Tournament #183606424, $100+$9 USD Holdem No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2009/08/04 19:28:28 ET
Table 183606424 31 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: biabiaflexer (3600 in chips)
Seat 2: Athanasios 9 (2070 in chips)
Seat 3: tazlaham (3000 in chips)
Seat 4: leguito (3070 in chips)
Seat 5: Ocho4950 (6470 in chips)
Seat 6: daaaaaaang16 (2530 in chips)
Seat 7: MHiggy32 (2710 in chips)
Seat 8: clayton0719 (3680 in chips)
Seat 9: vcwhr666 (2900 in chips)
biabiaflexer: posts small blind 15
Athanasios 9: posts big blind 30
biabiaflexer: bets 210
vcwhr666: raises 470 to 680
biabiaflexer: raises 640 to 1320
vcwhr666: raises 1370 to 2690 and is all-in
biabiaflexer: calls 1370
Showdown vcwhr666: shows (a full house, Eights full of Queens)
biabiaflexer: shows (a full house, Queens full of Kings)
biabiaflexer collected 5830 from pot
biabiaflexer said, "phew"
Summary Total pot 5830 | Rake 0
Board
Seat 1: biabiaflexer (small blind) showed and won (5830) with a full house, Queens full of Kings
Seat 2: Athanasios 9 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: tazlaham folded before Flop (didnt bet)
Seat 4: leguito folded before Flop (didnt bet)
Seat 5: Ocho4950 folded before Flop (didnt bet)
Seat 6: daaaaaaang16 folded before Flop (didnt bet)
Seat 7: MHiggy32 folded before Flop (didnt bet)
Seat 8: clayton0719 folded before Flop (didnt bet)
Seat 9: vcwhr666 (button) showed and lost with a full house, Eights full of Queens
July went pretty well, I started out playing 2.25 Sit N Go's on FTP and got up to about $130 pretty quickly and then went back to NL5, got bored and used aggressive br management and jumped to NL 10 and my month went pretty well.
Any insight,opinions or anything you want to say will be appreciated.
Villain was playing super loose and aggressive during the session. Is this river an easy fold when the K hits?
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I wasn't too sure about villain's hand here. I thought either a straight/flush draw but the flush draw was played a little different than i was used to seeing. After the check do you think my check is good or would another bet been good?
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Do you like the bet sizing and calls? The hand worked out, just want to make sure I don't butcher these hands.
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Do you like another bet on the river or just check it down? I didn't think he hit the flush on the turn but wasn't too sure about the river.
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I thought about reraising the flop but for some reason I didn't( first problem) Do you like the size of my river bet and ignore the fact that I called, it was pretty dumb looking back.
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Just a set up or could I have gotten away from this hand?
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LOL misclick. Villain was supper aggressive and bet nearly everything but folded to most bets. My plan worked except for my sweet fold.
Submitted by :
omg, i finally understand how to play this game a bit deeper.
what ended up happening was i used to play a solid redline game, but over my 2 month break i forgot how to play it.
Well, ok, honesty and stuff. Well I'm writing this a day late because I was embarassed. I ended up smoking weed both days and not doing crap.
I was really nervous about playing yesterday because right now a loss would really suck psychologically and financially. I also just played bad two days ago, although I felt I could play a solid game yesterday, but there is always the worry that because I'm under pressure I can make bad decisions. I also had thoughts running through my mind like I need to make money in about 2 weeks because by then the food will be running out, and thats just basic shit, I need to play A LOT to get myself out of this financial hole. Not to mention my bb/100 at 50 NL is not very solid and I could easily go on a break-even run for 2 weeks. I just put myself into a very bad frame of mind with my thoughts. That shit started to freak me out and I started procrastinating.
After procrastination wasn't helping me calm down, I decided to smoke weed. I told myself I needed it, and one more day off would be ok, BUT NO MORE! I seriously made myself promise to be sure and play today. I was so positive too. I was sure I was going to do it. But low and behold next morning rolls around, and I'm just frozen by fear about playing while at the same time feeling itensely guilty for breaking the promise to myself. Also somehow just extremely unmotivated (probably from the weed). Again, I couldn't confront playing, so I decided to smoke again.
Well, it's probably good I have a public blog now, because I really didn't want to type that shit out. I am ashamed of myself. Today though I'm making a public promise that I won't smoke weed again until I am back at the 100$ games and more stable financially. Hopefully by then I will have no desire to smoke anymore too, because I'll be happier. I also promise I will be honest about it if I fuck up and write about it here. That's mostly a promise to myself though just to further motivate me. I don't want to look like a total jack ass, or at least more of one than I already have.
Hopefully tomorrow I have something better to write
Poker's going ok, lifes ok, I staked Shad which was on awesome investment got my stake back plus the arranged agreement in 4 days. Finished the month running bad and playing worse so I took the last 5 days off and just chilled with the girlfriend. Got back into it today and had a good day, I've also started playing around with the 8-game tables. From what I've seen these could be very profitable but who knows maybe I'm running good. Anyway hopefully this month I recover from my poor showing in July, I'm also considering moving from stars to FTP for rakeback. If anyone could tell me if it's worth it currently at 50nl logging about 50k hands a month. I may make SN in a month or two, but I'd have to mass grind and I'm not sure if it's worth it. Anyway good luck at the tables and Brett sMi poker night lets go!
Ok so tonight i played some HU. I took a few buy-ins off of a reg and he left the tables. So i quit the tables i was on and joined new ones. The same reg joined my tables and sat out. So I was like w/e, and left those tables and joined new ones. Well, long story short, this same reg kept joining my tables and sitting out (aka I couldnt fucking play). Has this ever happened to anybody else?
so i only played about 20 hours last month mainly due to exams and studying for finals, but this month i plan to put in a lot more hours.
i went through a little crisis because i thought i was thinking well and playing well, but it didn't seem very high level of thinking. anyway after really re accessing my game, i feel like i do in fact play well, and that i shouldn't have been so quick to doubt my play. that being said i'm sure i have plenty of leaks and that i should look to increase my winrate.
i have 500 on stars and now 500 on ftp. most of my time went to ftp, as i had to build up my bankroll there from about 250. therefore my goals for this month...
just 1K rolls on both sites, i think this should be an ok task, and i do feel confident in my ability to reach these goals. these are pretty much my only goals. i prob won't check back at these forums (which i <3) until my goal is accomplished.
a friend asked me to help him out on poker, as he took up the game so i decided to just copy/paste the advice that i game him.
1) don't bluff
2) seriously, why are you bluffing? when your 2 main opponents are either nits who play AA KK and calling stations who call with any piece of the board why are you bluffing? keeping your triple-barrel bluffing frequency low is probably an easy fix to easily one of the biggest spews/leaks in your game.
3) by the same logic, bet pot or close to pot for value. there is no need to ever ever ever make some high level multi street slow play at these stakes (unless you flop the nuts and crush the deck). For a while the only thing TT posted was "bet flop, bet bigger on turn, and shove river." when calling stations are calling try and bet 3 streets for value. checking the flop is retarded, they probably love to call with draws on the flop, and they only like to call draws on the turn.
4) you don't need a fancy program at these limits. if you can not tell who is a calling station and who is a nit within 2 orbits, you probably should play fewer tables.
5) try and stay within your limits as your bankroll is extremely vulnerable to swings. when you start out with 50 measly dollars, i think decent players will be able to play .02/.05 easy even though that's only 10 buy ins. in my opinion, playing tournaments is the fastest way to grow your bank roll, but only if you are a competent player (which you probably are not yet). Which leaves you .01/.02 where you will painfully grind out a miserable hourly rate.
6) poker will suck, try and shoot for a daily profit of 5 dollars with a 2 hour cap. if it takes you 15 minutes, just go ahead and call it a day. if it takes you 2 hours likewise call it a day. aftter 2 hours of playing in general, your game will start to delcine. so just get up and go. also in general, if you get sucked out you should probably just call it a day :/
7) if you play one month this way you will have 200 dollars. you can now move to .05/.1 and double your win-rate. try and have around 20 buy ins for the stakes you are playing. at 30 buy ins i think taking a shot at a higher limit is almost mandatory at these limits. if you lose a buy in, then just go bak and play your normal limits and wait for 30 buy ins and proceed to take another shot.
8) Try and always think and see the grand scheme of things, instead of memorizing stupid ass/complicated lines. Memorizing lines is analogous to memorizing a build order from a sc replay past the 10 minute mark. obviously the bo is a good starting point, but there is going to be diverging strategies to counter/adapt the opponent. likewise use different lines that you think will be most unsettling to your opponent.
9) be careful what advice you read. lots of advice is probably way above you, and although it is a good thing to always seek and process new information, some concepts are quite frankly way above you. concepts such as "meta game" and "balancing ranges" should not even be considered (imo) until you reach 2/4.
10) i believe ftp emailed me a bit of phil ivey's advice (who is probably the only ftp pro worth listening too, especially after they started a retarded ftp academy) which plainly states, "When it comes to advice about poker, my attitude is very simple: seek it out, absorb it, but while you're at the table, forget it." which you can read more at http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/pro-tip/PhilIvey/125
and finally read these
http://www.liquidpoker.net/pokerarticles/
where it says "beginners,"
NOT the "experienced" and definitely NOT the articles with the words "advanced fundamentals," "blocking bet," "min-raise"
and then even more finally google "phil galfond articles" and reread those every time you successfuly move up a limit.
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) so I'm ok with my decision to sit, I feel that considering how good I've been running lately, the softness of the game and how much I've been winning the risk/reward both from a monetary and psychological point of view was better then I could reasonably expect to find within a resonable time frame as far as HS shots goes. 
in the CO. I pot it to $500 (they round up for pot amounts). Super mega fish who had not folded a hand in the past hour calls in the big blind. Straddler calls, and limper calls. Flop comes 
. All 3 players check to me, and I pot it for $2k. Mega fish in the big blind calls. And everyone else folds. Turn comes 
. Fish checks, and calls my last $3k shove, then rolls over 
for the epic wtf are you doing preflop / holy shit u are a moron / how the fuck did you pick up more outs / please god hold one time / don't let this retard fish ruin my first full day of PLO.
.... 
(a full house, Eights full of Queens)
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