lol so I'm up $3 + $20 in bonus so far. 3BigBets/100 at nl20 over this tiny sample, I'd be stoked if I could keep this up for 20k hands. (and then further improve obviously ;P).
Its taking some adjustment to play without HUD again. If I manage to keep winning at nl20 I really would like to up my tables from 4 to 6-- not sure how being hudless will effect multitabling. I've really noticed a LOT of reg-seeming guys at cakepoker though. I sit at 4 tables and I have John, Sammy, and Buttface on atleast two of my tables each!?!?!?!??!!?!?!?!! I dunno how to feel about this, since a certain one of these regs runs sick good vs me so far
Anyway, I hope I can just stay at nl20 and finally move up permanently.
If anyone wants to donate rail time (or swap, I'm down for that sometime) I'd love that.
Heh, yeah so this year ended in the best possible way pokerwise. I guess ill just do a quick summary of the year and after that ill talk a bit about the sunday mill.
2008 started out crappy, I had battled a pretty epic downswing and with a combination of tons of cashouts and poor bankroll management I had managed to put myself into a spot where I had to get staked. Being staked was for me a horrible experience. My backer was supercool in every way and was always very supportive but I just felt really uncomfortable playing with someone elses money, I do think it affected my play to a certain extent and this in combination with the quality loss that my play always experience during a bad run just made me play pretty bad. At this time I was still in school and it tilted me that I had to sit through meaningless lectures all day not being able to focus all my energy on battling the downswong.
A few things helped me climb out of this hole of shit that I had dug myself. First, I sattelited into the ftops main event with ftp points, pinball and I swapped 10% and being the hero that he is pinball obv binked 6th? or was it 8th place? For 80k giving me a nice 8k boost to my roll. Second, and I guess most importantly I found heads up. I had played HU alot back in the day but hadnt touched it in a while and sick of all the negative emotions I had associated with 6-max I started dabbling around in the heads up games on ipoker. I pretty quickly discovered two things:
1. HU really suits me, you can play very crazy and agressive and do tons of fun stuff.
2. People fucking suck at HU.
This golden combination made me crush the games for several months, I destroyed 2/4 and 3/6 for good winrates and consistently made between 15-25k a month not putting in a sick amount of hands. I do think I ran pretty well aswell throughout my first 100k hands or so. Unfortunately there are also downsides to playing almost only HU. As most of you know I dropped out of school in september and even though I dont regret that one bit I was by the end of this year pretty sick of being just a professional HU player. Its hard to get a good structured grind when you sometimes have to sit and wait for action for 30 min and sometimes feel that you really cant leave the tables cause you finally managed to get a huge fish to 2-table against you. Poker doesnt provide alot of structure to begin with, and HU poker really provides none. It takes its toll and by the end of the year I was sick of the whole thing, I didnt feel like playing at all cause I was tired of not getting action and having shorties hit and run me all the time. I didnt put in alot of hours at all and just played dota and waited for the next opertunity to get drunk with my friends.
Due to this I have been trying to get back into playing 6-max again. Grinding out the 2/4 games on stars made me realize how much I have improved this year. I can for the first time with confidence say that I am better or even way way better than all the 2/4 regs on stars. Its just overwhelming how these guys wear their leaks on their sleeves and just have bad fundamentals overall.
I dont have any exact numbers for my results cause all my hands are split over several computers and several diffrent programs but I think I landed somewhere around 100-120k profit in cashgames this year.
I could ramble on forever about the things I have learned this year but that will be way to long so ill just wrap this cashgame summary up with one word of advice:
Manage your bankroll. Dont be dumb like me and put yourself in a spot where you have to get staked and hate life. Poker is so much easier when you are comfortable and enjoy playing the game with little or no stress.
This got alot longer than I had planned so yeah, props if you made it this far.
Ill just finish up talking a bit about my sunday million win.
First of all I just want to say, and I think most of you guys who read my blog regularily knows this. I hate donkaments so so much. Theres nothing in this world I have cursed so much over as donkaments. Its the most frustrating form of poker there is. I insist on playing them though cause the sundays are soft and I have always wanted one big score. I got close in September when I busted 11th in the mill on a huge coinflip with JJ vs AQ. I was discouraged and life tilted for days after that.(I dont want to sound like an ungreatful little bitch here cause I did win 7,5k, but everyone who has gotten close but not quite all the way in a big donkament knows what im talking about)
But I kept playing. I think one of my best qualities as a poker player(and I think i share this with alot of you ex-scgamers) is that Im so god damn fucking stubborn. If I have set my mind one something I never give up Im not saying I deserve this win in any way because I dont. Im a huge luckbox and saying anything else would be a lie, but I have also worked hard and I am a firm believer in that hard work always pays off in the end. I think this vide symbolizes my struggle with donkaments pretty well:
I ran good in so many ways this sunday. I wasnt running superhot in making premium hands and stuff like that but I was never really "forced" to make moves i managed to hold or suck out in key hands all the time. I also drew some really good tables, at the table from the bubble down to like 300 players left I played 32/28 and everyone was just letting me run them over completely. From the final 100 down to my win I did suck out like a champ, most of you guys who railed knows what im talking about. I think atleast 95% of my plays where correct but I still managed to get it in bad a ton, thats just the nature of 20bb poker I guess. What seperates champions from the rest is that the champs suck out everytime they get it in bad and hold everyime they get it in good. I think thats pretty much what it takes to win one of these unless you are mig.com or elky and just a crazy sick good donkament player.
I also ran good in that the quality of the players was very poor. Its just insane how some of these guys made the final table. The bad players also managed to suck out on and bust the few really solid players left leaving me with a very soft final table. I guess I shouldnt be so harsh when talking about the quality of the players though, I do think a couple of those guys probably are pretty good and solid but I think the fact that we where at a final table affected them more than I let it affect me and they sort of let me run them over. This was also the deciding factor regarding refusing the chop and I just wanna say a couple of things about that. Now, I dont think that I am a perticularily good donkament player and I dont really suffer from any allusions of grandeur in that department. I would gladly chop in alot of situations securing a nice payout with a good chopdeal. At this final table though, everyone in the last 6 or so played really weak/tight. One exception being the guy who busted third who seemed to to mix up being weak/tight with playing like a crazy monkey klicking buttons. I felt I had a pretty good edge in terms of skill and I had a good stack, but what gave me the biggest edge with 6 or so left was that I was playing fearless and everyone else was trying to make sure they werent the next one to bust. If I had chopped then I might have gotten a good deal but it would have killed sooo much of my edge since with a nice payout already secured alot of these guys would have started playing more optimal. Not chopping allowed me to blindsteal my way to a win.
I guess from now on I am never ever entitled to ever whine about anything pokerrelated again so yaye for that! Also, to Lady Donkament and all the other poker gods: I am sorry I have been so harsh and ungreatful to you sometimes. We have had a troubled past but thats all forgotten and forgiven.
This donkament win makes 2008 my by far best year ever with around 450k in profits, a result I in all likelyhood never will be able to top, but I have to say Im ok with that.
Also I once again want to thank everyone for railing and supporting me, you guys are awesome and I love you all <3<3<3 Special shoutout to ket for being a great friend and doing his best to keep my ego from making me do something wreckless and peachy for making a reversed jinx rail thread.
Happy new year everbody and may you all run great in 2009!
December was ok except todayby Oddeye, December 29
Seriously I hate variance in every possible way it. It prevent me from being happy a large portion of the time. I put in a lot of hours with focus and it keeps coming back to losing flips every god damn time. It's a good thing I made like 14k in december before today cause now theres 4k thats to some fucking horrible idiotic bad crappy and stupid fish who pulled 10/90 or worst more than once. I thought id finally post a fucking happy blog but I guess thats just me not being able to not care. Today I believe variance is pretty much the whole factor in my downswing. I particularly hate flips but it's quite obvious you have to do them all the time vs people and they always run better than me. I was thinking about getting coached to move up in stakes but everything is just once again destroyed by the stupid fucking dumbass luckboxes I hate so much that keep running good but never give back just because they luckbox anyway if they are about to give back.
unfortunately i have to do 1 month poker break now
pretty important university stuff comming up in the next 30 days and i think my recent poker succes of the 2,5K month
will greatly distract me from preparing for tests ...
Liek i will always think in my head while learning >-< -> damn i could make 200$ right now while i do this stupid university stuff
making good money from poker + learning boring university stuff doesnt compute well for me
so i cash out + delete pokerstars from the HD untill 2nd of February 2009 when i will return to ship $$$
+ I am in the worst physical shape of my life and that has to change ...
After my MMA fight i got pretty sick (got a skin infection and wasnt allowed to make any sports)and therefore couldnt train for 1 whole month ... when i was healty again i got a bad cold and was sick another 2 weeks ....
after that i just played pokerz for 1 week ( which was this week)
So i havent done any sports at all for 7 weeks !!!
All i did was watching TV , drinking beers or playing poker all day ...
I was pretty sure that i got in bad shape but i didnt know it was that bad WTF
2days ago a friend of mine who i consider a medicore athletic totally owned the shit out of me in almost every discipline when we did some cardio and strength training together ...
I always used to be real machine concerning sports in the last years and i was always way better than him.
But 2 days ago i had not the slightest chance at all.
This made me realize i am probably in the worst shape of my life currently ^^
some stats :
I used to run 4KM in ~ 15 Minutes 40seconds ( which is pretty good if ure not a runner but a fighter in teh first place)
recently i could not even finish the 4KM >-< i had to stop at 3KM being 12.30 in time and after that i could only walk.
My feet + my lungs both just could not go any faster than walking speed at all anymore.
before that we did pushups ( real ones where u are close to touch the ground with your chest and lower stomach each repetition)
Before i had my MMA fight i did 3 series of ech 40 Push ups in a 15 minute time span ( 3minute break between each).
At that day i allready heavily slowed down in the 1st series after 17 Push ups ... at the 25th repetition i was done >-<
I managed to do a lousy 25 - 17 - 17 set in 20 minutes instead of my usual 40-40-40 in 15minutes >_<
After that Pullups -> normally i do 3 series of 12 fast pullups from totally stretched arms and feet up till the bar is at my chest. this time i did only manage to do 7-7-7 >-<
What greatly decreased was my overall arm and upper body strength
I also noticed this at the bench press ...
I used to do 5-6 explosive repetitions with 110% of my body weight ( I weigt 67KG and bench pressed 74KG 5 times)
This time i even had problems to push my body weight 3 times at all >-<
Well i am probably still in a bit better shape than teh average poker player on this forum
But still it hit me hard when i realized that i am only a shadow of what i was 2 month before atm.
this is a 1,5 year old picture of me that i actually took for my EX GF when we still were kinda semi together at that time
Yeha pretty poser i know ( I made like 40 pictures of my body and sent her )
well 67KG might sound liek nothing ^^ but i am only 173cm and have liek 10% body fat.
so its quite a bunch of muscles
need to post a few pics on here to show them to someone later -- they are funny so I might as well share here
Poker-wise, still grinding out 5/150 at CA, have been super busy with finals + work + holidays, so I haven't had much time to play. Tuition and christmas dented my roll quite a bit, too. Going to play some tonight - the edge is so sick at that game. If I can stay patient, that is..
Hero shows
Joinas shows
Joinas wins $5.77 USD from main pot
Joinas wins $0.37 USD from main pot
Overly agressive donk player that goes allin with 22+ except that he tends to slowplay strong pairs. + Show Spoiler +
Submitted by : RaiZ
PokerStars Game #23371897451: Holdem No Limit ($0.01/$0.02) - 2008/12/29 14:33:33 ET
Table Katanga 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 3: RedZitteraal ($5.05 in chips)
Seat 4: michllll ($1.26 in chips)
Seat 6: hdaza ($4.77 in chips)
Seat 8: CLARION45 ($9.62 in chips)
Seat 9: Hero ($6.86 in chips)
michllll: posts small blind $0.01
hdaza: posts big blind $0.02
IMBATMAN60 joins the table at seat #1
svenBRB: sits out
Holecards(Odds) Dealt to Hero
CLARION45: raises $9.60 to $9.62 and is all-in
media_gad joins the table at seat #2
Hero: calls $6.86 and is all-in
RedZitteraal: folds
michllll: folds
hdaza: calls $4.75 and is all-in
Uncalled bet ($2.76) returned to CLARION45
Showdown CLARION45: shows (three of a kind, Deuces)
Hero: mucks hand
CLARION45 collected $3.98 from side pot
hdaza: mucks hand
CLARION45 collected $13.62 from main pot
Summary Total pot $18.50 Main pot $13.62. Side pot $3.98. | Rake $0.90
Board
Seat 3: RedZitteraal (button) folded before Flop (didnt bet)
Seat 4: michllll (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: hdaza (big blind) mucked
Seat 8: CLARION45 showed and won ($17.60) with three of a kind, Deuces
Seat 9: Hero mucked
Another big pot losing to a donkey i knew he was tilting with any 2 cards excpect maybe QQ+
Thanks pokerstars .
Maybe should've avoided it ? Dunno really he had like 78/50 in stats... + Show Spoiler +
Submitted by : RaiZ
***** Hand History for Game 23378274875 *****
$2.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, December 29, 05:46:11 ET 2008
Table Deipylos II Real Money
Seat 5 is the button
Seat 1: komakapitain $0.98 USD
Seat 2: ElrondWo $6.29 USD
Seat 3: jupa02 $2.95 USD
Seat 4: newfie_boy91 $3.08 USD
Seat 5: Hero $2.87 USD
Seat 6: SHANE001111 $2.05 USD
Seat 7: rickywicky $2.96 USD
Seat 8: thimmii $4.68 USD
Seat 9: fortune55555 $3.09 USD
SHANE001111 posts small blind [$0.01 USD].
rickywicky posts big blind [$0.02 USD].
thimmii shows
thimmii wins $5.63 USD from main pot
Hero doesn't show
I'm SOOOOO dumb on this one... I don't know what did go through my head when i played this hand... I didn't raise on the flop cauz i was ALWAYS getting no actions at all when flopping sets. So i tried to slowplay this only one just to see how juicy it could have gotten. Lesson learnt i guess... + Show Spoiler +
Submitted by : RaiZ
***** Hand History for Game 23366480955 *****
$2.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, December 29, 11:14:47 ET 2008
Table Schalen Real Money
Seat 5 is the button
Seat 1: MANU4L $6.70 USD
Seat 2: homeplate123 $2.15 USD
Seat 3: Funny_Kodo $8.03 USD
Seat 4: Hero $5.18 USD
Seat 5: capn_mike $5.59 USD
Seat 6: Alex SaSh $0.86 USD
Seat 7: Ulitca $2.78 USD
Seat 8: pwnguin9r $2.00 USD
Seat 9: EliTe4c3 $2.00 USD
Alex SaSh posts small blind [$0.01 USD].
Ulitca posts big blind [$0.02 USD].
HELLO YOUTUBES! It's been a while. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, you obv have not witness the musical genius of Ronald Jenkees so go youtube his ass asap! One of my New Years Resolutions was going to be to start updating my blog again, but since I'm super bored right now and my sister's house has the worst internet in the history of internets (can't even 1 table without getting disc every other hand) I thought that I might as well start updating my blog today. I've had a pretty rough last couple months in my life. A couple days after I came back from Mexico, I got a call from my dad that my mom had a stroke. At the time I was stuck in the middle of the 2k at WSOP going into Day 2, so I couldn't head back but my dad assured me that it was minor and she was going to be fine. Then a few days later my mom had another stroke, this one much worse. I'm not really good with the medical terminology and shit but my understanding of the situation was that the 2nd stroke was causing pressure to build up in her head so they had to do some brain surgery to remove the pressure and fix the swelling. After the Main Event (which was a disaster on it's own, that ended on the 2nd day for me) I immediately headed back home. My mom was in a coma for 3 weeks, and it was just really tough for me to see her like that. My mom eventually woke up at the end of August and was stable and coherent of her surroundings. The stroke had taken a toll thou, as she is bed ridden for a while, and is in the process of learning how to talk again. I stayed in the Bay Area for most of August, before heading back down to San Diego to move in with my new roommates: FrinkX and [vital]Myth.
Back in San Diego, things are chill as always. I spent most of September, October, and November surfing and playing poker. Raidan909 constantly told me over the summer that I was the laziest poker player he'd ever seen, since I would only log in 30-40k hands a month, and compared to my roommates over the summer, yea I was lazy caz they are all the sickest grinders of life. But I play WAAAAAAY more than both FrinkX and Myth combined lol. I swear if FrinkX replaced Diablo 2 / Call of Duty with just poker grinding he'd be such a monster. And if Myth takes a 1/10 of the time he spends trolling LP and turned that into serious grinding times, he'd be at nose bleed stakes by now.
In October we met up with a bunch of 2p2ers that lived in San Diego, along with Clayton and the ever so infamous carrotsnake. Meeting carrotsnake was pretty awesome actually since he was my arch nemesis back in the NL100-NL200 grinding days on stars. We found out that there was an entire house of 2p2ers that lived 3 mins from us, of which included: Tommyhawkers (aka ONEFINEAZN on cereus), TJorTeeJay (aka: RunHotBaby on cereus), Jfish (aka: SmartLAG on FTP), Sponger, and ktrieu (aka Mr_Tea). Had some fun nights chillin with those guys. In November, Rekrul decided to move his ass to downtown San Diego, and got a place in the same ballin' building that Markus (LURPED) lives in. It's pretty sweet having so many poker players in San Diego, esp to hang out with caz they really understand what you do. Like, I can't be complaining that I just played 5 hours only to make $500 after being up $3k to my college friends who have some $15/hr job caz then I sound like a douche bag. But the other poker players get it!
As for me and my poker, summer was a disaster over all. I was up 18k in the first 3 days of playing cash games at Wynn 10/20, and then spent the next 2 months bleeding it away. I ended -24k live, and -12k online (FUCK U FTP DOOMSWITCHING!) along with -40k in WSOP tournaments (Sorry peachy ) After summer thou has been pretty solid. I put in the grind, been playing upwards of 60k hands a month online, and have had constant 15-20k months in August, September, and October, before hitting a looooong break even stretch in November, ending in -2k for that month. December was one of the better months of the year for me. I moved a lot of my roll to CEREUS and other euro sites to grind (thanks Tommyhawkers for the advice), and been doing some sick heads-up grinding of 2/4 - 5/10. Live poker went awesome for me at Bellagio, as I ended up 12k at 5/10 and 3k at 10/20 along with being up 5k online all before the 15th of the month which was real nice. Only played 4 tournaments during the Bellagio series, of which 2 I bubbled then I cashed in the last one which was 13th in the 5k for basically nothing. Went back home only to see myself come back a week later when Evan made his WPT final table. Ship the life-shippin' shit hollaaaaaaa~~ Ended the year up somewhere between 175-180k which is some lol since I only made 63k online while spending most of the year online grinding. I need to play more live imo
Some more random pics of my friends from SD visiting Vegas during Bellagio series:
So right now I'm just back in the Bay Area chilling. I'm stay at my sister's place playing with my lil nephew whos closing in on 11 months old. I'm trying to get the lazy ass to walk, but he has the thunder thighs which makes holding himself up difficult. I was walking at 10 months so this kid better get walking before I leave to SD. He can stand on his own, but now he needs to start moving in one direction. Visited my mom in the rehabilitation center and she is doing better. She is still in the process of learning how to talk, but is awake, very coherent, and is very emotional. The doctors are really optimistic, saying that it will be a slow recovery but she is making big leaps in rehab and will be able to come back home in 6 months.
1. 2500+ hands a day. 6 days a week. MINIMUM! I don't see why this can't be done. Poker is my job now, and the time it takes to play 2500 (~3-4 hours) is like nothing.
2. Work out more. Going to lay off the surfing for Jan and Feb caz the water is pretty fuckin cold, but recently in replacement of that I've been going to swim work outs at UCSD 2-3 times a week. I'm going to try and make that atleast 4 times a week and make better use of my 24 Hour Fitness membership during the nights when I don't go out. I really feel like I play better / more poker when I'm active with my life.
3. Update my blog. This is just the begining bitches...
4. Stop tilting my roommates. Somehow I find ways to keep them on infinite amounts of tilt.
5. Get more New Years resolutions.
One last pic, finally got the bigger size pic from Blair's WSOP Bracelet win from the summer, here you go LP:
New start and offcourse, the story!by Rocks2BeGood, December 29
Hi Guys,
My name is Ron van den Enden and i am 25 years old. I live in Valenswaard in The Netherlands (this is near Eindhoven). I work as a Team Manager for Sitel in Eindhoven. I am leading 2 teams which handle big support contracts for HP. I really like what i am doing now and am investing a lot of time in it. We are giving printer support for the BeneLux. Basically i am responsible for their actions and achievements and i am handling the contact with the customer. Hewlett Packard in this case.
Originally i was a starcraft player, i was not good at it but because i invested a lot of time i got the chance to be an admin in the iD Team. There i learned a lot from discussing, observing and playing with great players like; Twisted, Midian, Anon, Rocklee, Nuros etc. They also got me inspired to play poker.
Some of you guys might have seen some of my hands which i have posted. Originally i am a fullring player. A really nitty fullring player i have to add because that really was one of my big leaks at the Fullring games. A few weeks ago i thought poker over for a long time and came to the conclusion that i am not improving my game enough. I am basically just playing the same style over and over again and this is not profitable enough.
That is why i have decided to make a new start at the micro stakes 6 max games and grind it up from there. I also will make a blog post to discuss my hands pretty much every session. I think this is a really good thing to think your hands over and get extra feedback from a possible discussion. I really need to be honest at myself and realise that i am a marginal poker player at the moment. I am dedicated to improve myself the coming period, but one thing i needed to do is be honest about it. I really need more experience in the 6 max games. Because i started in fullring and grinded the micro stakes to 1/2 NL there i never got that education on the 6 max tables. And apparantly i need this to improve and adapt my game to this new style. I want to be a player who can deal with every situation and adapt where needed.
I have watched a lot of video's the past few months on cardrunner just to try to improve my 6 max game before starting this and i think it has worked. Now i really need experience and just get the hands in, making a solid winrate and move up if i am really ready for it. I need to detach myself from the emotional side of playing poker, i need to dont care about the money. That is also why i have set myself the following goals:
- Make a blog post after every session (also the bad ones)
- Post 3-5 winners and 3-5 losers (more if more situations are there)
- Play 20 - 25k hands a month
- Discuss poker a lot
- Improving is more important than a decent winrate
I chose to call the flop raise to see if the turn cards hit and go from there. Is it better to just re-raise flop and get it in because of the fold equity? No stats avaiable.
AC Live Donkament Help by NewBornBaby, December 29
Hey all--
I'm heading to AC once again Jan 2nd- 4th with some friends and also meeting up with BJL and Nutshot while I'm there for some grindaments. We are looking to grind some live donkaments and was looking for some input on what MTTs in AC gain a good volume of players on the weekend. Here is a list of the Daily Schedule of the donkaments that run:
If anyone can provide input as to good casinos to hit up for some MTT fun leave some input! AORN Borgata $340 is the only one I can see that seems juicy.
or many of you this is going to be a tl;dr (too long, didnt read). i dont care, read what you want, just gotta get all the random thoughts in my head out.....
-i liked how wandy looked at points during the fight. he still has that insane focus and drive to murder his opponent. he is a bit slower nowadays and his wildness doesnt work out as much anymore because of his decreased speed. this will hurt him in title contention fights but hes still a very exciting guy who people should love to watch and he could definitely put out good fights still, just not top 5 205 ones. i think a move to 185 could be fun, as well as some good fights vs some other 205s that arent rampage/shogun/rashad/machidaanderson if he moves up and a couple others
-rampage looked soooo nervous coming into the fight. im a huge huge wandy fan but coming into this fight i felt like rampage had every advantage. better technical boxer, better cage suited style, has improved, wandy has gotten slower, etc. but as they were doing their cage entrances, something looked really really off in quinton. he was scared to death of wandy, you could tell. in that walk my confidence in wandy was reborn and i was pretty sure wandy would finish off the threepeat and tko him. it took a minute or two but he calmed down, settled into his own and looked good.
this win will give rampage a huge amount of confidence and to me its clear that right now hes the best 205 on the planet (unless shogun comes back 100% and says otherwise). he says he wants to rematch forrest and i still think hes a huge favorite against forrest. he will KILL rashad. this isnt a "forrest has a better reach than rashad so he should be able to pepper and have an advantage", this is a "god poor rashad is going to die if he fights rampage". the only people who have what i think is a decent shot (>30% of winning) vs rampage are shogun (who at 100% is still a favorite) and machida (who gives anyone fits).
-ill take the first tangent and talk about how good rashad looked. hes so quick, so accurate with his punches and extremely composed. forrest was doing a really really good job round 2 but rashad never faltered, stayed really confident and eventually found a spot. now, as stated above i think rampage will obliterate him. but it appears as if his first title defense will be against machida. that should be a pretty fun to mma fans (but might be kinda boring to casual fans). rashad is real fast but doesnt have the reach machida does, and should have some problems hitting machida cause of lyoto's own speed. i suspect it will go to a decision and either machida will win because he peppered a lot more, or rashad will win because machida didnt pepper that much more and rashad controlled the octagon.
besides machida/rampage i think he matches up really well vs a lot of other guys in the division. extremely well vs jardine (who leaves his face open for rashads quick striking), well vs wandy (same thing as jardine), not THAT well vs chuck: lets face it, chuck is a passive outboxer with good reach, good takedown defense and really pinpoint striking. if chuck could come back 100% i think rashad vs chuck is a tossup. in either case though, rashad has earned his #2 spot in the 205 division and has most certainly earned his belt so congrats to him. of course he will be ranked #1, but we know the true #1 is rampage.
-machida is fighting thiago silva next. i dont have much faith in thiago silva's proclamations that he knows how to beat machida and i see machida winning a UD. then he will fight rashad and we get to see an interesting chess match that people will sadly boo. im really excited to see machida vs top competition. he matchs up really well vs wandy/chuck/all wrestlers/all bjj guys/most of the division. i do think machida can beat rampage because rampage still hasnt shown he is going to deal with leg kicks and machida wont get hit very often, but rampage can cut off angles and control the fight. i think machida can beat forrest, but again thats not an easy fight for him. same with shogun. same with rashad. only the fights happening will really tell us what will happen.
-i talked a lot about a 100% shogun in the previous paragraphs and yes its all speculation and praying, but i think shogun will come back very strong. if he doesnt, well, just delete his name from all those paragraphs and hes not who he used to be. if he does come back well.....he is a nightmare to fight against. really aggressive striker like wandy, but also has better wrestling, faster, is still young, and has better reach and slightly more technical punching. every fight fan should pray he comes back 100% because then it adds another element to the 205 division and will make things a lot of fun to watch. if he doesnt....lets just remember him for what he was and how much potential he had.
-i think forrest looked excellent the first two rounds. his lack of a spectacular area in fighting is really going to hurt him vs a lot of guys. hes kinda good in every area, but lacks the power, athleticism, speed, and doesnt have amazing wrestling or bjj so its going to be hard for him to beat really really tough guys. however, he is a smart guy who has learned to use his size/reach very well, will outwork anyone, and never gives up so he will continue to compete at a high level in this division for a long time.
-i think nog just looked awful. he looked old, slow, depressed, worn, everything that we knew would eventually happen but didnt think would happen when he was only 32. i hope (and dont hope cause its a morbid thought to want him to have depression so he has a brighter future than we think) that he had some depression or something going on mentally that prevented the old nog from coming out and fighting because he looked really really bad. it made me want to immediately drop him from the top 10 hws because it looks like he just cant cut it anymore, sometimes youre only as good as your last fight. it wasnt like wandy who was still ferocious and focused but a little slower, or chuck who got flash ko'ed by an extremely quick handed fighter in september, he just looked really bad. this is what made me the most sad of anything from ufc 92.
people get old, their bodies break down and they arent the same anymore. its a sad thing that happens in heavy contact sports and fighting sports. it was only a matter of time till the massive amounts of abuse took its toll and i hope this isnt the last we have to see of nog. thankfully a guy like fedor hasnt taken much punishment (because hes just that much better than everyone) and will continue to fight at an extremely high level for a long time to come, allowing us as fans to see some of the fights we've always wanted to see without having to wonder how it would have went 5 years back.
-mir looked really good. not "OMG HE WOULD DESTROY AA, BARNETT AND FEDOR", but very good. crisp boxing, decent kicks, obviously improved cardio, very relaxed and composed. i think hes definitely the #4 heavyweight in the world right now and should be a favorite on brock given his size, newfound cardio, good boxing, and his obvious submission advantage over brock. i think mir will give trouble to anyone in the ufc, and hes similar to a gonzaga right now, but a little better mentally and with much better cardio. will be fun to see how the ufc hw division unfolds with gonzaga/kongo hopefully starting to step up to a higher level so we can see some fun fights and matchups.
-i tried to rank the heavyweight division after saturday night and couldnt get past #4. it was so hard for me to rank. my top 4 is fedor, AA, barnett, frank mir. after that it became a blur. lesnar and sylvia have to be in the top 10 in my opinion, and preferably #5 and #6. after that, having to choose 4 fighters out of werdum, gonzaga, kongo, sergei, overeem, crocop, nog, randy, aleksander, and ben rothwell. (imo cain, carwin and junior are not ready). i guess ill just type rankings and not be a copout, but imo theres a top 6 then a pack of guys who are either over the hill, unknown potential, and solid fighters.
my top 20 in order: fedor, AA, barnett, mir, lesnar, sylvia, sergei, overeem, gonzaga, kongo, randy, ben rothwell, crocop, nog, werdum, aleks, junior, carwin, cain. for #20, bleh who even cares, gilbert yvel? i moved nog so low because of my above arguments about how it looked nog was done and not just a fluke fight. if i thought it was just an off fight id have put him #8 and waited to see how he turns out, but i just dont have any faith in his standup/reflexes/speed anymore.
-im really excited for k1 dynamite and you guys should be too. here are some of my breakdowns on fights (who gives a fuck what i think!):
aoki vs alvarez - really cool fight. at first thought eddie would handle aoki because of great striking, good sub defense, good wrestling, but seriously, i thought the same thing about jz vs aoki back in may. what makes this different? really hard to call but im gonna say eddie UD or TKO but would not be surprised if aoki subbed him, or got control of his back or something.
hansen vs JZ - i think JZ wins pretty easily, either by TKO or UD. hes stronger, great wrestling, great bjj, really good sub defense, i just dont see hansen having an edge here. i was surprised to see joachim is 5'10 because he always looked really small to me and i always thought he should fight at 145, but i guess he has a reach advantage? i dunno, i think JZ wins this. lets not forget he was widely considered a top 3 155 before the aoki fights, and his skillset is very diverse and hes great everywhere.
crocop vs hmc - wow, hmc is so indestrucible (only ko or tko was broken rib vs badr), and this is an mma fight. i dont know if crocop can ninja an armbar like fedor did but who knows, he seems pretty confident in his grappling skills; didnt he agree to a sub grappling fight in one of the dreams vs a gracie??? really weird fight, im going out on a limb and say crocop by armbar (hahahaha sick pun amiright)
badr hari vs overeem - k1 rules. sorry alistair, badr is the man. his combos are so incredibly fast and i dont think his chin is THAT bad. does anyone know if there is a weight limit to this? theyre both big guys, badr is about 6'5-6'6 225-230, overeem 6'5 235-240. i just see badr winning by tko or in a decision, hes just too good.
sakuraba vs kiyoshi - i honestly dont know lol. i dont know much about kiyoshi so ill avoid this one! my rant/thoughts, my dodge!
jerome lebanner vs mark hunt - weird fight as well. both have been fairly inactive lately. jerome has had knee problems. who knows how his knees will be this fight and if it needs to be stopped because of it. i assume jerome would win by UD if both were 100%.....but that seems impossible. mark hunt by either ko or ud.
and NOW its time for a small rant about this card. while k1 dynamite does have really great fights and cool matchups to see, it bothers me that the fights dont really mean anything. the only implication to anything on the card is that if alvarez wins he should auto win fighter of the year. besides that....if aoki wins what does it mean? he gets to fight another cool fight in a couple months? ok....if he loses? same shit. i really love that the ufc fights mean something in terms of stepping stones for title shots. everyone's goal is to win the belt and to get there they have to put together a series of wins. when people are fighting over in japan in 2 or 3 different promotions, its just a bunch of fun fights that fans want to see without much meaning besides overall ranking in the division and possible awards for fight of the year, fighter of the year, etc. how to fix this? i dont know. have dream get bigger and have fighters defend belts, have obvious depth charts with who gets next title shot etc.
hmm anything else i can rant about?
-diego at 155.....really excited to see diego vs sherk, diego vs kenny. i think sherk beats diego because of better standup, close ground games. diego vs kenny......kenny might just outfight him on the feet and keep it close enough on the ground to not lose. not easy fights for diego but definitely head asploding ones that icant wait to watch.
-my first thought after the thiago vs kos fight was that thiago matched up perfectly vs gsp and had a good chance to win. well im back to reality and i think gsp will set up his takedowns much better than kos did, and also will come up with a good gameplan to fight him. i still think thiago matches up well....just not as well as i originally thought. i say gsp -160 to win this.
before we get there though, gsp has to get through bj. gsp should win with good legkicks, avoiding boxing, using his wrestling smartly. obviously bj can win if he controls the ground, gains top position, is allowed to box for extended periods of time. really cool fight and should be a really really good one. but i would much rather see gsp win just because of the future matchups in each division (and possible moveups to 185 to fight anderson) are better if bj is at 155 and gsp is champ at 170.
-and finally the 185 division is a wreck. why is leites getting a shot over okami/maia? i understand okami is kinda boring but he beat anderson and has definitely earned his shot. he had a shot and had to pull out because of a hand injury give it to him again . anderson by murder over thales.
and why are rich/hendo fighting to be TUF9 coach for middleweights. rich moves up to 205, fights hendo at 205, then winner comes and coaches tuf and a 185 fight vs....bisping? can we please have maia tuf9 coach, that would be so much better.......
-TITO FIGHT IN AFFLICTION VS BABALU OR LITTLE NOG. TY
-and finally, some awards for the year, mostly stolen from mma live's categories
fight of the year: 1. carlos condit vs miura 2. hansen vs alvarez 3. torres vs maeda
fighter of the year: depends on k1 dynamite..... if alvarez wins hes #1. if alvarez loses, thiago alves is #1.
breakout star: gegard mousasi. nobody knew who he was last year. went 6-0 this year, won dream mw gp, and beat a sick striker and sick bjj guy in same night.
ko of the year: 1. rashad vs chuck 2. kos vs yoshida so many other great ones i cant pick after that
sub of the year: 1. palhares armbar vs salaverry 2. miguel torres vs chase beebe (torres was jockeying for a sub for like 2 or 3 minutes and there was some sick technical shit going on, highly recommend you go back and watch this) 3. asilva vs hendo honorable mention: dustin hazelett reverse armbar, nate diaz triangle, frank mir leglock brock, cb peruvian necktie, the aoki top position gogoplata was cool as well
upset of the year: forrest vs rampage was huge and also had great meaning. mir vs nog i was so sure nog would win but i dont know if it can be considered an upset with how bad nog looked. if i knew how each fighter would look in the fight i dont think this was an upset at all. and huge underdogs winning like junior dos santos, and the guy who beat gomi should also be considered. overall i give it to forrest for 2nd year in a row lol
Every poker players would give anything to know the recipe of success and figuring out yourself is pretty much your own interior graal quest. Some say it's only luck, others say it's only hard work and skill, the fact is nobody knows 100% what this game is about, you can come with all the charts and stats in the world but you'll never be able to prove your point.
Why talented players bust ? Why donkeys hit huge scores ? Call it variance or luck, karma or destiny. Ket wrote a nice article about your mind set when you play the game, how to handle swings, what should be your attitude towards the game. But before your quest begin you have to accept losing, over and over and over.
I'm a very competitive character and i'm stuborn to no end, but does it make you a winner ? Perseverance is not always the answer it's just the beginning, a must have that probably the top players share in common. I realised i hate to lose, and poker is about losing, learning from your mistakes and improve, but if you hate losing too much then you'll probably quit the game early. So far i've been spending almost 2 years playing it on a daily basis, whenever i can and as much as possible, im a winner long term but if you take this to $/hour, my hourly rate must suck donkey balls. So i just wanted to make it official: Fuck you poker, you keep slapping me in the face but i'll NEVER give up you mother fucking bitch i'll figure you out.
Hey guys. I hope everyone had a great christmas. Mine was pretty borign actually. I dont have a lot of family in the area I live in so christmas is pretty quite at my place. I did however eat way to much as always lol.
I just got a new laptop because my other one went to the shits. Its a pretty nice Toshiba and it came with Windowns vista which I am still sort of getting used to. I heard Vista is pretty buggy but so far I cant really complain about anything. I also finally have sound back! YAY.
On boxing day I took my little bro and his friend out. They wanted to go to a bunch of snowboard places to look for clothes etc. I ended up buying a nice Famous shirt at one of the stores for only $15. Nice. Then I took them to a shoe store which happened to be across from one of the best bong stores around. I went over hoping they had a boxing day sale going on and they did. They had up to 50% off on a lot of stuff. I really had my eye on an unreal GEAR bong but it was a bit to much for me right now so Instead I ended up buying a pretty decent sized bong for $50. This will fit perfectly in my room when I move away and that way I dont have to waste all this weed rolling joints all the time.
The other day I watched the UFC fights too. They were all great fights and Im glad there was so many knock outs. I was glad Rampage won because hes had a rough ride ever since he lost the belt to Griffin. I was a little bit surprised that Frank Mir dominated his fight like he did. I thought for sure it was going to be pretty close but man it was pretty ugly. As for the Griffin Evans fight I didnt really have one person I wanted to win more then the other. Rashad put up a great fight and ended up winning it by KO. Forst Griffin despite the loss was all class afterwords. What a great sport he is. He will be back thats for sure. Who has the next shot at Rashad Evans? Is it Rampage?
Other then that I havent been up too much. Last night I played a hockey game in Port Dover and forgot my fucking gold chain whcih used to belong to my grandpa at the arena. I just called them to see if it turned up but nope... that fucking tilted the shit outta me. They said to call back tomorrow but Im not getting my hopes up
New years is coming up pretty quick and I cant wait. My buddies are throwing a huge party at there place in St. Catharines. They got 7 Texas mickeys and 4 Kegs! Going to be an absolute shit show. Im going up with my buddy Braedon and 2 girls. The one I ve been trying to wheel for a while now and things have been going alright but we've both been so busy lately that we havent had any time to hang out or anything. This is the same girl that wanted me to come out to the bar one night and my buddy just completely embarassed me that night. (Shes over it lol) Shes bringing a friend who is damn cute too so hopefully my buddy has some success lol. Hopefully I do too lol. Its going to be nice to see everyone again at this party because a lot of people are home right now that I havent seen in a long time.
As for poker, I hadnt played at all online since chirstmas day until today. I did play a few $5 winner take all tourneys with my friends. We played 4 games and I ended up winning 3/4 That helped me pay my awful phone bill lol so that was a nice win. I had to download HEM again on my new comp and get all that shit setup so Im having a "new start" with a brand new database. Im to lazy to get all the shit from my old comp onto here. I played ab it this morning and made about 60BB's which was a nice start lol. I watched a few training videos by some great LHE players and it helped me out a bit. I think Im taking better lines in hands now and getting a lot more value out of them. Not sure if Im going to play anymore today because I have a lot of shit to do but if the tables are really juicy I might not be able to resist lol.
Congrats to SakiSaki too. That is so sick that he took down the biggest Sunday Million ever. Thats some life changing money to win there. Enjoy it man. Let us know what your first baller purchase is lol. I wish I could hit a big score like that too.
Anyways Im going to try and watch a few episodes of Californication. I heard its a pretty good show. My one buddy said it might be better then Entourage but I find that hard to believe lol. Hope everyone has a great new years. PZZZ
i opened my account and had a private msg and i reallyyyyy wanna reply. here's the message.
From: lastas
Subject: cd key trade
Date: 6/5/04 18:30
i would trade my d2 and d2xp cd-keys (woking on bnet) for the starcraft and w3/w3xp ones. message me if youre interested
i can't make a reply cos i get this: "Sorry, banned users are not allowed to use this feature."
and oh... the asshole 'HELLO^_^!!!' who kept picking on mensrea??? remember him?? he's whamm! rofl!
Already posted results since it seemed so fitting. This, however, will be a long ass post containing some goals, a decent bit of poker discussion and a couple of hands. Some of the hands are mostly brags
First of all I'd like to say that I'm really, really happy about how this year has gone pokerwise. I've had 4 months when I've made more then 20k€ and overall I should be up about 100k€, probably a bit more. Can't look it up since I suck at pokertracker and have like 5 different datebases. I've lost like 15k in the stock market but my spending habits has been somewhat within reason. Next year I'll first do a semester of law school and then take the following two semesters off to study something else, probably like philosophy or something, and grind a shitload. For the first 5 months of the year, while in law school, my goal is to make 10k€/month and during the rest of they year I'll try to go for 20k€/month. I think these are pretty high goals, but they're doable and I want to get a lot of money out of poker during the next few years so I feel they're reasonable as far as goals goes.
I'll also make sure to work out a lot and eat good. I'll try to lose some fat and overall be really fit during mid summer at the latest. Right now I'm focusing on getting stronger and lose fat, but when I've gotten into shape I'll start running and try to build a lot of muscle. I don't need to be huge, but I'm really tired of not being in shape so we'll just fix that.
As far as poker goes I'm decently happy with my game right now, but it could obviously be a lot better. I don't 3barrel enough, I make a few to many bad calls vs people who just aren't creative enough to make complicated bluffs and I've got a hard time making big folds. Notice that it's a differens between big folds and stupid folds though. I'll work on that and I'll also need to either stop calling stuff out of the blinds or learn to play oop. I'm horribad at that. Right now I'm just trying to be raptor and just be a supernit in early pos and a spewtard 3-betmonkey in late pos. I'm also minraising the button now, which works really well since people really aren't used to it.
One thing that I think I do really, really well is valuebetting. I have a somewhat spewy image so people doesn't really like to fold against me and the last few months I've gotten really good at abusing that. An good example, vs a fish but still, might be this hand from last night: + Show Spoiler +
Submitted by : DustySwedeDude
** Hand # 2337180487 starting - 2008-12-29 04:06:46
** Shady Sky 2 [Hold 'em] (3.00|6.00 NL - Cash Game) Real Money
2_ROCKETS sitting in seat 4 with €600.00[Dealer]
WhyU_DoDat sitting in seat 5 with €774.05
halassimehdi sitting in seat 6 with €922.55
Dustylove sitting in seat 7 with €794.10
dave777_ sitting in seat 8 with €738.00
WhyU_DoDat posted the small blind - €3.00
halassimehdi posted the big blind - €6.00
Holecards(Odds) Dustylove raised to €21.00
dave777_ folded
2_ROCKETS called - €21.00
WhyU_DoDat folded
halassimehdi called - €21.00
halassimehdi checked
Dustylove bet - €114.00
halassimehdi called - €114.00
River (Pot : $390.00)
halassimehdi checked
Dustylove bet - €258.00
halassimehdi called - €258.00
Showdown Dustylove shows:,
halassimehdi mucks:,
Dustylove wins €903.00 from the main pot
I know he hates to fold, and he seemed to donk things into me when he hit so I discountet a flush draw from his range on the river and an A on the turn, which left him with lower pairs and top pair from the flop. My riverbet is a bit small, but I think it might be better for him to pay that off. Vs an competent opponent that is probably suicide, but if people really, really likes to call you'll have to valuebet thinner.
** Hand # 2337169499 starting - 2008-12-29 03:51:12
** Arnoid 2 [Hold 'em] (3.00|6.00 NL - Cash Game) Real Money
Koj-Gysto sitting in seat 2 with €580.40
88keyz sitting in seat 3 with €591.00[Dealer]
Dustylove sitting in seat 4 with €662.55
folla333 sitting in seat 5 with €1017.50
_Waimea_ sitting in seat 6 with €1837.70
Dustylove posted the small blind - €3.00
_Waimea_ posted the big blind - €6.00
Holecards(Odds) Koj-Gysto raised to €24.00
88keyz folded
Dustylove called - €24.00
_Waimea_ called - €24.00
** Hand # 2335271618 starting - 2008-12-28 00:10:27
** Close Your Eyes 2 [Hold 'em] (5.00|10.00 NL - Cash Game) Real Money
Perseverer sitting in seat 3 with €3237.09[Dealer]
Dustylove sitting in seat 4 with €3900.18
Perseverer posted the small blind - €5.00
Dustylove posted the big blind - €10.00
Holecards Perseverer called - €10.00
Dustylove checked
Flop (Pot : $20.00)
Dustylove checked
Perseverer bet - €20.00
Dustylove raised to €80.00
Perseverer called - €80.00
Turn (Pot : $180.00)
Dustylove bet - €150.00
Perseverer raised to €300.00
Dustylove raised to €750.00
Perseverer folded
Dustylove mucks:
Dustylove wins €1229.00 from the main pot
Just how nasty am I?
** Hand # 2335190182 starting - 2008-12-27 23:21:51
** Close Your Eyes 2 [Hold 'em] (5.00|10.00 NL - Cash Game) Real Money
nabrus sitting in seat 1 with €504.10
dinkel sitting in seat 2 with €1331.50[Dealer]
Perseverer sitting in seat 3 with €3455.09
Dustylove sitting in seat 4 with €1413.00
GIFMEPOT sitting in seat 5 with €1565.92
_BadaBing_ sitting in seat 6 with €1698.00
Perseverer posted the small blind - €5.00
Dustylove posted the big blind - €10.00
Holecards(Odds) GIFMEPOT raised to €40.00
_BadaBing_ folded
nabrus called - €40.00
dinkel called - €40.00
Perseverer called - €40.00
Dustylove raised to €190.00
GIFMEPOT folded
nabrus folded
dinkel went all-in - €1291.50
Perseverer folded
Dustylove called - €1331.50
** Hand # 2329687027 starting - 2008-12-24 04:05:47
** Heaven Sent 2 [Hold 'em] (3.00|6.00 NL - Cash Game) Real Money
lesha44 sitting in seat 1 with €681.00
CKOne__ sitting in seat 2 with €396.06
isterlasse sitting in seat 3 with €282.00
Sacre sitting in seat 4 with €1459.18
TRY_HRDR_FIS sitting in seat 5 with €1721.77[Dealer]
Dustylove sitting in seat 6 with €1073.82
Dustylove posted the small blind - €3.00
lesha44 posted the big blind - €6.00
Holecards(Odds) CKOne__ folded
isterlasse folded
Sacre folded
TRY_HRDR_FIS raised to €19.00
Dustylove raised to €61.00
lesha44 folded
TRY_HRDR_FIS called - €61.00
Dustylove checked
TRY_HRDR_FIS bet - €178.00
Dustylove called - €178.00
River (Pot : $628.00)
Dustylove checked
TRY_HRDR_FIS bet - €444.00
Dustylove called - €444.00
Showdown TRY_HRDR_FIS shows:,
Dustylove shows:,
Dustylove wins €1513.00 from the main pot
- I tried to explain for a friend why I called river and it basically comes down to me being a station and him repping really thin.
I also feel that I've gotten much better at figureing out peoples leaks and abusing them. Poker is still in a phase where most regs doesn't give a damn about being unexploidable but rather wants to play optimal in each hand. It probably gives the highest value, but unless you adjust you'll get owned by other good regs and random retards like me.
I'm thinking of buying a sweet new computer with 2 big screens and everything. Mmmm, rakeback. If/when I do this I'll probably see if I can 12 or 16-table 1/2 6-max just for fun. I might try to record it, or play a session 4/6-tabling later and record just for fun. It was a while ago I actually gave something back to the community.
I'd like to end this post by mentioning a few people from LP. Non-LP people who reads this can just ask me and I'll tell them how much I love them etc.
First of all I'm really happy Saki won that big donkament, he helped me out a bit in the beginning and said some things about tilt and shit that helped. I don't speak to him much but he seems like a really good person, get your ass to Uppsala man!
Gawuss will probably hit a heater soon and be the next polish mid/high stakes reg from LP. He's far too smart to be breakeven at 1/2 for long. Also really cool, for some reason I tend to either really like or really hate polish people. Weird.
Pinball - I promise to actually get my ass south of sthlm some time within the next few years so that I can hang out with you more, lol. I'm lazy though
Joe thx for letting me steal ur blinds all the time .
And for everyone who is currently in a downswing, or just feels like listening to a sweet song:
Contact Users: 432 Active, 1 Logged in - Time: 02:52
Also, to Lady Donkament and all the other poker gods: I am sorry I have been so harsh and ungreatful to you sometimes. We have had a troubled past but thats all forgotten and forgiven.
WTF
(three of a kind, Deuces)
,
,
,
,
,