As usual, my dedication to updating this blog is pretty well synced up with my desire for cleaning the house. Both are useful and similar, as I can organize my things and thoughts; but the motivation to do either is often out of my grasp. Ah, procrastination, you made up word that makes me feel less guilty about my laziness...
On to the content. Since my last update, I have dabbled in sports betting a bit with no success at first. Then with stricter guidelines on bet-sizing and more research I've upswung and wiped out all of my losses. I've made 235 bets so for a total profit of 3 units. Nothing to be proud of really, but considering I was down about 50 units and recovered I'm pretty happy with how things have progressed.
In poker, I've recovered from the downswing I blogged about in August, and have been taking occasional shots at 10/20 in good games. Sunday was such a day.
I played 13 hours at 10/20 in a great game. Unfortunately, being in a great game never guarantees victory, and I was taking the worst of it. I was in for 10k after a few 3k buyins and had worked my stack up to 7500 and was grinding away. I took a short break and was chatting up a friend when I returned to the table and posted in the cutoff. The whale at the table limps in under the gun, and it folds to me. I look down at two red kings and raise it up to 120. A button-clicking regular makes it 380 in the big blind and the whale cold calls. Both players have me covered, and I can't afford to take a flop 3 handed. Also, with the whale calling, my hand will look much weaker if I put in a raise, potentially attempting to get HU with the whale or just take down the dead money.
"1300" I announce as I slide 12 more black chips into the pot. Button clicker sizes up my stack and nonchalantly tosses two yellow chips and a purple chip into the pot.
"$2,880" the dealer says as the whale pretends to go all-in; his three of hearts flashes as he throws his cards toward the muck. I announce all-in despite that fear in the back of my mind that he has me dead to rights. But....
We agree to run it twice. The first board comes down Qd 3c Qh Js As. I can't imagine winning on that board unless he has the other two kings...The next board comes down Qs 8h Ac Ad 4d and I reluctantly flip my hand over as my mind races to think of some combination of a hand he could have that involves me getting at least half the pot. I hear a quiet chuckle from my opponent as he flips over the Ks, and what seemed like five minutes later, the Ah.
Steam.
And with that, I left, and sent myself back to the coal mines to grind out that 10k loss at 5/10 the rest of this month.
Results:
Year to Date
Net
$80,710.54
Days Played
227
Hours played-Cash
1714:44:00
Hourly (total)
$47.07
Hourly (cash only)
$77.02
MTTs played
43
% win rate for cash 54.19%
ITM rate for MTTs 16.28%
Cash Net Winnings 124,393
MTT Net Winnings (64,547.70) (this is the total, including money given to me for selling pieces)
Looking forward to finishing this year off strong with a lot of hours before the baby comes. I'll try to post an end-of-year update in early January.
Optimism,Realisim,Cynisismby GoldRush, December 03
I say lets all be optimistic, stop being cynical about everything because things that have attached to our ego's over time, let it all go, be real, keep workin our asses off 24/7, never forget you are a student of the game, you choose this game cuz you love it (at least deep down, you did at one time!) and keep ur fckin nose to the grindstone!
btw im doing tons of SNG's now - cg sometimes but rarely, MTT's make me a lil sick recently, 5, 2 hour, 6 tabling 6max SNG sessions, or a stackmixture of 45mans and 180 mans.
Been working on finding the best hourly for my game with the lowest variance and obviously highest net worth per month
idk if i'll make more hourly doing the 6max sngs (can do about 88 every 4 hours, so yeah over 100 a day in some soft fields maybe vv gud hourly)
I'll be doing this til mid month (rent) - spend most the time doing 6max sng's (turbos) - and sometimes stacking all the sng's etc
oh, ya, i lost alot, i won some back thankfully cuz im a fish and fish get lucky, but i got a long way to go. hobbit road!
ne ways, time to remember why we play,
have fun with the game again!
Stop Stressin shit you can't control
Have fun
#rant
Ryan
anyone in Peru or have advice?by bigredhoss, December 02
hi guys, i am in Sucre, Bolivia right now but plan on going to Cusco in a couple days. My question is, with roughly 12-14 days in Peru, are there any other places i should visit (besides Machhu Pichu obviously) or should I just stick with Cusco. i'm going by bus so that time includes travel times. i am going through Arequipa on the way back to Argentina but don't know much about it or have plans to spend much time there as of now.
also does anyone have opinions on which option in Bolivia is better between Yungas Road or Lake Titicaca if i only have time to do 1?
shouldnt my ev line match my win line at that point?
100k+ hands... i'm terrible at math but it seems like it defies statistic laws.
to poker veterans: is it something quite common? http://i.imgur.com/avNo63j.png
The last few months I've been missing poker a lot. I tried playing chess pretty hardcore but it really wasn't doing it for me. I decided to put some money on a site that has good reviews on 2+2. Here are my November results. I managed to play 40k hands and it went pretty well. The plan is to keep grinding 100nl for another week or two and then try out 200nl. I'll post an update when I hit 100k hands.
I had ups and downs. But since Im starting to play poker again I want to find the perfect balance. I have problems concentrating after doing some sport or physical activity (including sex). Is there any routine or training method that allows you to stay sharp for a poker session later? Even Im not in my 100% for the next day sometimes.
Also, I notice that some activities are not compatible for poker.
For example I noticed that Table tennis puts you in the mood of reacting fast without thinking too deep and I translate that to the table, which is like tilting. If I do something like bouldering I work a lot of small painfull fibers but dont drain all my energy becouse my forearm gets tired first. Also the moves are more controlled, so I can sustaing a poker session with that mindset.
Im overthinking too much and just have to give up the games and rest?
What do you think? What's the best sport/activity to combine in a poker lifestyle and why?
It's Bovada "zone poker" which is their version of "zoom poker". This is all NL50 and it only runs maybe three times per week so I cant get much volume in. I deposited $100 to get my feet wet with the intention of depositing more to play higher stakes, but said fuck it I might as well see if I can run up my $100 a little. My bankroll is actually $646 but some hands havent been importing. Bovada lets you download everyones holecards 24 hours later so there was lots of valuable information to gather about how your average fish plays. In a nutshell, it's just very very weak. I dont really know how to describe it, just stupid random play. They'll minraise UTG with like A3s, or min3bet you with 22 from the BB, limp QQ and check/call 3 streets, overjam 88 after limping from EP, open ship a AJ5 flop with KJo, etc. I'm sorta able to piece together their likely thought process after analyzing the hand, but they're all just so very very bad there's almost no point.
I sorta developed my own "system" that basically involved playing the button as much as humanly possible and then using standard telltale signs of weakness to take the pot. If they dont cbet, I'll steal. If they bet something retarded, I'll raise. I probably cost myself a good 100 pots or so trying to pick off bluffs because I feel compelled to call river shoves when the hands play out completely randomly. I'd say 10% of the time I was right, 50% of the time I was "sorta right" because they were turning their hands into bluffs but probably didnt look at it that way, and the other % I was just owned by the nuts. Many of these spots were easily foldable but I'd call anyway just to prove how bad I run.
Anyway NL50 has been dead for almost 2 weeks now so I think I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and do what I originally intended to which was move up limits where they respect my raises. I'm gonna give NL100 a shot and maybe mix in some shortstack NL200 to see if I'm comfortable there or not.
First proper fulltime month in years.
Just poker, floorball and gym besides that went clubbing 3x and met family peoples like 8 times and went running with sis a couple times.
I think with the competitive sports/gym and poker dual goals my life seems pretty balanced. Lost 12kg since I got here too 4mo ago and overall feel happy. Even to the tune of pissing my 30+y old team mates off with my positivism even when our team loses 9:3 - people with normal jobs tend to be rly negative I find
next step: nutrition Im at about 2/10 right now so biggest room for improvement.
And of course the Christmas and new year's! I am expecting lots of presents. To me. From fathers of families spewing their holiday money.
Been chilling this past week playing poker on my time off. <3 I forgot how my I enjoyed winning. Made a depo on FTP to play NL2. Found comfort on 12 tables and basically made a point to experiment with strategies.
I started off hot. Winning something like 80bb @ the 2k mark. Major regression soon after. At 4k I swooped down to 18bb and leveled out at 30 at 10k hands.
Moved up to nl5. This time tightening my opening range a little bit, but widening my flatting range, and also opening up my 3/4 betting ranges. I guess I didn't tighten up my opening range cause my stats for the session are 60-40-18.
I wasn't getting folds from light 3bettors when I 4bet. And they always had A rag
Thinking about bet sizing a lot. I know my vbets are bad ott and otr. Im going to try shoving more rivers and see what happens. My 4bets are 2.5x.
NL2 was a lot of stealing ip. Low redline. Lost value betting too much in some places.
My big pots were mostly against spazzes but there weren't many. Winnings were mostly from people c/c c/c c/f'ing.
One more year learning in my path to the 8 gamesby Forrest Gump, November 27
So, as an update of my games. I've learnt some 2-7 TD, Badugi and Razz, enough to beat fish and survive vs regs. But that's not enough for grinding next year. Playing vs regs at 3/6+ is boring and life consuming, and probabbly Im doing worst than break even. So, im going to keep studying in my career and other games next year, while playing some 2-7, Badugi, Razz and Stud8 from tournament series (no more than $500 probabbly) and play with fish no more than 10/20 depending fishyness
So, right now Im going back to my origins and learning NLHE again and waiting for a seven card stud book to arrive. So far I played like 3K hands of NL50 6max lately and it looks easy to beat. I see them somewhat passive with slow adaptation, but its ok for me to experiment some lines. Also, gonna see if I can watch some videos to get more present ideas of the game
I already been posting some at 2+2 as well since this forum is not as active as before, but I just got tired of seeing so much fishy post. Like asking ambiguous questions like how to play a $300 tournament in UK in the -Poker theory- section. Jeez, I just want to see a subfoum where ppl at least did a course in game theory or read a book. Same happens in the -draw poker- section. All hands discussed are from 1/2 and below and sometimes the answer can be found with pen and paper.
Year didnt end, but Im like -2K down. I think is like
-1.5K tournaments (22 - 500)
-500 Stud8 (2/4 - 10/20)
-1K 2-7 (2/4 - 30/60)
+500 Badugi (2/4 - 20/40)
+1K Razz (2/4 - 30/60)
lol at sample size, but I dont see myself grinding next year. Games became tougher at Razz and Stud8, games I tought I was going to grind.
Lets keep learning and enjoying life. Peace
Arteezy now my new favorite player, hes so sick beyond words. I got to see most of the matches, including the semi-final with navi and dk which was quite sick too (4+ rapiers i think were bought on game 2).
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