Blogs to read in 2008

Date: Sat, Jan 19, 2008

In no particular order...

Amatay goes pro
One of my fav blogs, Amatay has just gone professional poker fish. Looking forward to reading about his rise to the top, with added SNGays. He's even posting hands now, wtf. Stop browsing the internet and get your ass at the tarbles Jones!

Dodgyken is sick at poker
This blog was real inspiration to me and others in the study group when Ken bagged a huge $$ month in December. Working his way up from the low stakes (now playing $1000nl) and using study groups and loads of analysis Ken's blog is always a great read for motivation. Check out some of his free videos, they're great. Loads of awesome hand analysis too, will need to post more replies to hands.

F-Badger goes to the EPT (again)
Professional SNG/Omaha/NL/MTT/horseys player from Edinburgh, qualified for EPT Dortmund, GL sir! Loads of MTT trip reports, omaha/nl hands, and interesting sports betting action.

Ryan Daut mspaints goot
Probably the funniest poker blog around, Daut's humor rocks. Loads of MSPaints, big MTT trip reports, and now doing NL videos for Cardrunners. Currently 20-tabling :o $200nl.

Verneer goes pro
Probably the best poker blog around. Verneer (of CR) puts an incredible amount analysis and thinking into poker. Loads of legendary posts giving different angles to the game. Prediction: Utter crushing of mid-stakes this year, crushing of high stakes next year. Verneer has also done some fantastic free videos, the $100nl 4 and 6-tabling ones in particular are better than most of the low limit videos on CR.

CTS's old archived blog
This is the blog CTS started when he was building his roll in $100nl. It's pretty amazing to read his rise from small stakes to nosebleed stakes. His hand and opponent range analysis is pretty amazing, one of the best blogs I've ever read for sure and it's currently changing the way I think about ranges/hands.

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Sneaky update

Date: Tue, Jan 15, 2008

Been pretty busy so not had any big updates, lots of stuff I've got planned to post though.

Coming up...

• Posts on Motivation, C-bet sizing, and blogs to watch in 2008.
• Offering a sweet new loyalty deal I've been working on for the past couple of weeks, at my new poker site of choice.
• Introducing the new group members, and some thoughts on sweat sessions.
• The hunt for coach continues.
• Maybe I'll post some fk'in hands?

Life (or excuses for not playing enough hands)
It's a pretty cruical time in the office at the moment. My highest priority is to make sure my work is polished up and looking good, this means I'm currently spending quite a lot of time in work. This should slacken up a lot in a few weeks though. Been playing a bunch of 5-a-side footy and squash, this combined with 12 hour working days usually means I'm too tired when to play in the evenings. Not really finding much time at the weekends to play either as I've been out a lot, playing a lot live though!

Friday night game
Speaking of live, played in Andy's weekly home game on Friday night. Think we got about 10 for the STT, which I bust out of pretty early. Then played some low limit NL cash while the tourney finished up, and built up a decent stack of £££s... which I promptly donated to Ed at Omaha Hi/Lo. Fairly standard!


Played a bunch of mixed games inc Razz, 7 card stud Hi, 2-7 triple draw, etc. It's fun to losing $$$ at/learning new games. After this was probably the loosest most mental NL cash game I've ever played in, with at one point the blinds being straddled/re-straddled right the way around to the button lol. Which begs the question, can you straddle from the small blind?!


Officepoker
Gonna try to play in as many OfficePoker tourneys as possible this year, they're great live practise as the play is pretty good. Got sat next to Jas on the first table which was fun, until he got 3 outered, doh! Anyways, I wondered if I've be able to play my A game after the previous higher buy-in tourney. But as Jas pointed out it's not about the buy-ins, it's about improving, and sure enough I think I played my absolute A game on Saturday. I found myself reading players exact hole cards in a few spots, and really felt like I had great reads on all of the tables I was at.

Anyways, I FT'd (55ish runners I think). Had an average stack on the FT, but because the bubble went on so long my stack was only 12BBs. MP opens for standard raise, I ship JJ from the BTN, she calls with AQ, flops an A and I bust in 10th. Weh. Great tourney as usual, people there are always really nice, much better play and atmosphere than regular casino tourneys. Cheers again Neil.

Cash update
Played an 600 hand session shortly after my downswing post, and absolutely crushed playing 25/22 and finishing up a buy-in. 2,500 hands played this month so far. Need to get a lot in, I'm sure the opportunities will come up to blitz some soon.

Traffic
My blog traffic seems to be increasing, which is cool as it means more people are interested in whatever I'm posting (or are waiting to see me go busto?) ;). Thanks to everyone reading and especially leaving comments, it's great to get advice/feedback/ideas/whatever. Cheers dudes.

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Looking for a 200nl coach

Date: Fri, Jan 11, 2008

I’m moving up next month and I’d like to hire a coach to speed up my development. I’m looking for someone currently playing 400nl or above. Ideally you’d have played a lot of hands at 200nl and crushed it hard.

My preflop game is there, I play about 22/18/3.5, it’s postflop I need to work on. You’d need to be available for sessions at some point during the week between 9pm and 1am GMT (4-8pm eastern or 1-5pm pacific).

If you’re interested please drop me an email (bazclef@gmail.com) with the following:
* Stats on your play at 200nl, and your current play. Large samples please.
* Previous coaching experience.
* Hourly rate.
* A bit about yourself, or a blog link.

Cheers

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Poor discipline, bad session, lots to learn from

Date: Tue, Jan 8, 2008

I read Verneer's thread on CR today titled "Why can't most people beat $200NL and under?". The biggest reasons discussed were bankroll management, moving up, money, and discipline. I have the first few nailed, but discipline is tough. It covers such a wide area, but I can definately say that the biggest killer to my winrate is bad sessions. Sessions where I'm playing my B, C or even Z game for whatever reason. Tonight I think I played my B/C game, anyways here's the story.

Before playing tonight I'd put in 1.5k hands for the month at a high winrate, which is standard when I start 10k bursts. Tonight I played a pretty sick 600 hands, here's what happened...

A quick commentary, I ran pretty bad for the first 400 hands think I was playing ok. Then I stacked a loose swede with a set turned quads at the hand 410 mark and started running better up to hand 500. Was pretty happy I managed to pull it back from a tough session and about to logout but decided to make it 600 hands lol...

So the interesting this is, I'm 6-7 tabling and all 3 of those big loss hands were against 1 player on 1 table! Here's how it went down...

He's only been at the table for 12 hands, I've got him as 50/15/0

Pretty big AQ laydown
Flop I don't mind seeing him call, as he'll often have some PPs/weaker aces. On the turn he minraises me, this is such a standard flopped set line at $100nl, AK is possible too but it feels like a set. There's no way he has a middle pair now, and weaker aces are really unlikely. So I think I read his pattern well here and folded to the better hand. HOWEVER, I didn't notice I had a NFD, so getting $55 to call into would would be a $225ish pot I probably have odds against his range to ship it here. But it's not a huge mistake, not too worried about that hand...

Re-shoving 99 on a 4-high board
I think this is a borderline 3-bet, but I don't hate it. I'm trying to 3-bet 99/TT more now and this seems like a good spot. By now I'm only got 20 hands on the guy and he's still running 50/15/0.5 so maybe I should just flat call here. Meh, don't hate the 3-bet, might be a small mistake, nothing huge.

UTG is a loose passive fish. I decide to lead, and fold to a raise from UTG, and see what villain does. I made my bet size a good amount to be able to comfortably get away from the hand. UTG folds as expected, and villain minraises me. Without the previous hand this is a standard fold for me every time. However I start thinking that he might be putting a play on me, and maybe he didn't have it in the last hand either. I convinced myself that I should stand up at this point based on only the previous AQ hand! I shove, he has the OP as expected, I lose a stack.

At this point I uncheck auto post on all tables, lol...

Another huge AQ hand
Preflop is standard, I get called in 3 spots because my image is really loose. At this point I love my hand, I've got TPTK and the NFD, huge hand. Villain UTG (now about 60/15/0.4) just donk-shoves the flop! LOL, here's me with the top pair and the NFD champin' to call. :) I run through his range in my head and at the time I put him on most likely a set or a pair and flush draw (AxTc/KxJc, etc). I think I was blinded by just wanting to call with the strength of my hand and my desire to stack him here, I just didn't assess the situation correctly.

If I had looked at it correctly I'd have seen that the only set he could have is with 55, and he probably wouldn't ship with the combo draws. Actually like 80% of his range was a little flush, so my hand was a pretty easy fold. If I'd looked at his analysed his PT stats correctly too I'd have noticed that his post-flop aggression is TINY, and the times he did put money in he most likely had it. My AQ doesn't look so good now... :S


Naturally I close all tables at this point. I feel pretty bad for a couple of mins, this is the worst cash session I've had in around a year.


Possible Mistake #1: Playing after a long tiring day.
I worked a 12 hour day at work which was pretty tough and mentally draining, then 5-a-side footyafterwards... So I didn't start the session 'til 11pm. I knew I'd be better off watching a CR video, or reading. But when I'm in a motivated mood (sport in the evening usually does that) I just feel like hitting the tables. However just because I'm motivated doesn't mean I'm going to play well, I was probably a little too tired to be at the tables. I find this really hard to judge, but I think I need to be more careful playing sessions after long days in future, and really make sure I'm going to be playing my A game.

Possible Mistake #2: Playing my B game.
I'd been running well at the start of the month and I was in a confident mood, I didn't really feel at any point in the session that I wasn't concentrating well enough... but looking over my PT positional stats I wasn't playing my A game. My UTG/MP VPIPs were at 17/18 (previously 10/13), and my CO/BTN vpips were 23/24 (previously 29/39). So despite the small sample it makes it quite clear that I was slacking back to my B game, despite it being difficult for me to see - or accept - this at the time.

Possible Mistake #3: Playing to "clock hands"
I've set myself the target of 10k hands this month, which is a tough target for me, as I work a lot, I'm out a lot and also I'm going on holiday near the end of the month. So I've been pushing myself pretty hard to get hands in over the last few days. This means I probably won't be playing my A game all of the time, and won't be making the best decisions possible.

Also, because I'm playing to clock hands I was playing 7 tables which is a little ahead of me just now. I can easily handle 4, comfortable with 5, a little stretched with 6, but I was finding 7 pretty tough. They weren't that great tables either, there were a a lot of regs about, so I really shouldn't have been playing that many. Until the end of this 10k hands I'll play 5 tables max now, then at the end I can decide whether I'll up it to 6.
Playing to clock hands, rather than make good decisions.
B game instead of A game, playing to clock hands, rather than to make amazing decisions

Possible Mistake #4: Thinking a player is out of line, over a tiny sample
I noticed myself doing this a couple of weeks back, but tonight was a great example of it. I thought villain in the last few hands was out of line LAG when in fact he hadn't shown down a bad hand. He could have just been catching a rush of cards. I decided to play back at him - ignoring his betting pattern tells - because I thought he could be making plays against me.


Only took me a couple of mins to get over the beats, then I was feeling pretty good and happy to analyse the session and my psychological state lol. I'm really psyced to improve my game at the moment, and every mistake like the ones I made tonight I will fix. I'm happy I had a session like this so that I can analyse one of the biggest leaks in my game and work on plugging it.

I've never been in such a strong position with my poker game as I am at the moment. The amount of support I have from strong players, thanks to CR and my study group, is just immense. I've never been in such an great position before. I have such a HUGE amount of motivation to CRUSH NL and despite these blips I know I'll get there.

3am with work + squash tomorrow says goodnight!

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2008 Goals

Date: Sat, Jan 5, 2008

I feel like I've came a long way in the last couple of months and if I continue to accelerate my poker growth throughout the year I'll get to where I want to be. So I'm going to look at ways to improve the use of my time working on poker to get me there faster.

Cash games
My main goal for the year is to improve my play as much as possible at NL cash. I'd like to attain a $100/hour winrate including rakeback, which I think should be achieveable 6-tabling $200NL at 5BB/100. I'd like to get to 5BB/100 at $200NL at quickly as possible. Hopefully by June/July. To get there I've set myself a bunch of mini goals/todos...

* Play 10,000 hands per month
* Setup pt/huds/scripts/datamining on Prima and ship $2k in from Stars
* Use iPoker/Prima simultaneously when playing sessions so I'm always playing juicy tables
* Only play when fully focussed and in the correct state of mind
* If I'm not making progress as quickly as I'd like, get a coach

Hand analysis
Going to post all post-session hands on the CR forum, rather than this blog. I've got into quite a good schedule for this now, after I complete a session I do a quick PT review and fire the hands into the WeakTight with stats for the villains. Then over the following couple of days I analyse them further using CR forums to get feedback.

Live events
The main goal of the year is to get my hourly rate up by playing cash, however I also really enjoy playing live tourneys. I'm going to try to play almost all of the OfficePoker events and really work on my people reading and other live skills. They're great events and Neil does a fantastic job of running them and the OP website.

I'd also like to play in 3-4 bigger buy-in events (£100-£500). F-Badger kindly offered to take a % of me in some of these which I think I'll take him up on, I may well sell a % of myself on this blog too. I'll definately play any big events that are on at Circus, a couple of the Scottish Poker Championship prelim events in June, and maybe a couple of prelims at other festivals. I'll see what comes up.

Study
I've got loads to get on with study wise. Hand analysis, watching videos, group participation, railing, reading, etc. My goal here is to always do what I think will be most beneficial for me. I'd also like to get a good balance, so despite the bulk of my study coming from hand analysis and watching CR videos I'll also be doing some reading.

Here's a rough reading list for the year:
* Elements of Poker
* Theory of Poker
* NLH: Theory and Practice
* Professional NLH
* The Poker Mindset
* Read em and Reap

Bankroll
My bankroll for the start of the year is $5196. I'll distribute this as $2.5k on iPoker and $2k on Prima both for cash, and keep $700 on Stars for online/live MTTs.

January Goals
* 10k hands at $100NL
~ focussing on opening up more from the CO pre, postflop play in general, making less moves postflop and value betting more frequently.
* Post a ton of hands on CR
* Start datamining $200NL at iPoker and Prima
* Finish reading Miller/Sklansky's NLH: Theory and Practice
* Finish reviewing all of Fabian's CR videos

Hopefully at the end of January I'll have increased my winrate at $100NL again, and have the $6,000 bankroll required to move up to $200NL. If so I'll likely move up to $200NL at the end of the month.

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Not being short term results-oriented

Date: Sat, Jan 5, 2008

Willie recently asked in the 2007 review post: "I have one question how di you get into your head not to be results oriented i find myself looking at my stats after every session iam good if i win and fell shitty when i lose, how did you distance yourself from it?"

There are a few things I do to help distance myself from the session to session short-term results of the game...

Being properly bankrolled, at least 30 buy-ins. So that finishing a session 2-3 buyins down doesn't cause a lot of stress to my bankroll.

Understanding that downswings do happen, to even the best players. Watching Brian Townsends first few videos caught this for me. He lost a lot on each of his first few videos for CR and didn't care in the slightest, he was totally adverse to the fact he finished down. The short term results at the end of each session really just don't matter so they're not worth getting annoyed about. So long as I'm playing within my bankroll and playing well I shouldn't have a reason to be annoyed.

By not looking at my results during play. Only focussing on the information I have at the tables. This helps stop me trying to "win back money" or playing tighter at the end of sessions to prevent losing money I've won.

At the end of each session I look at my winrate, but more importantly I look over my stats and hands. Looking over your hands and stats after each session is absolutely critical to developing, as your winrate doesn't represent how well you've played. You could have won a couple of buy-ins but played like shit, or have broke even but played the best poker of your life. I feel that it's better to be affected by how well you've played rather than the results of the session. If I've played well then I can see there's nothing to be pissed about, it's just variance. If I've played badly then I'll look over the hands I played bad, post the tough ones on CR to get feedback, and I'll use PT to figure out the adjustments I need to make in the following session. Doing all of this after a bad session makes me feel a lot better.

What I've focussed on looking at instead is making sure that I'm in the correct state of mind to play each session. This has helped my winrate a lot, as I virtually never play when tired, on tilt, etc.

Now that I realise session to session results aren't important, I look forward to completing sets of 10k hands where I can look at results that will be much more likely to represent how well I'm playing. Variance and good session/bad session swings will have evened out a lot more over 10k hands, than the 500-800 hand sessions I normally put in.


So to recap I...
... am properly bankrolled.
... don't look at results/winrates during sessions.
... focus on if I've played well, rather than if I've ran well. I use PT to do this, always analysing each session afterwards.
... understand that I will run badly at times, even the top players do.

If you do these things it'll really help minimise your emotional swings at the end of each session.

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2007 Review

Date: Wed, Jan 2, 2008

I spent most of 2006 chasing the juiciest bonuses, but in 2007 I really started to study the game... and from that started making money from poker rather than bonii.





Turbos
Throughout the first half of 2007 my primary play was Turbo SNGs. They're are a lot of fun and teach you a lot about endgame poker. I played a lot of 45 and 18 man $27s on Stars, maintaining an ROI of about 30%, and some $55s too ROI'ing about 17%.

6max NL
Watching training videos (I 'yarred from pokerbay) and reading blogs made me start to appreciate NL cash, and the complexities of more deepstacked poker. I started focussing on 6max, lol looking back at my PT stats I was playing like 26/8. I got rakeback account and started focussing on getting a lot of hands in.

CardRunners
In October I signed up to CardRunners and it was by far the best decision I've made in poker. What I like most about the site is that it surrounds you with really good players, and players that want to improve fast. Looking at the progress of top players gives me a huge amount of motivation to play and improve, and all of the tools needed for this are right there at the site. I could pimp CR all day, if you're serious about improving then poker training sites will improve your game much MUCH faster than just reading poker books/browsing forums. The service provided by CR hugely outweighs the monthly/signup fees.

Study Group
At the start of November I joined my current Small Stakes NL study group. Just reading the blogs of Marc, Chris, etc, I was really impressed with their level of enthusiasm for the game and it gave me a lot of motivation to study and play. I'd really recommend a study group to anyone wanting to improve their game... It's a great source of motivation, support, and help analysing hands and videos. It's great to have people around with similar goals that are available to rail or to talk over hands with. I'd like to thank all of the guys from my study group for their help in the development of my game.

Becoming less results oriented
Including this because I think this was a huge step in improving my tilt control. I had a great session followed by a horrible session in November, which made me realise that I need to be less results oriented. So from November most of my blog posts got a lot more goal/strategy based rather than $$$ won/lost rave/rants. I think this was a really important step and something I've got to always remember to do, it really helps disconnect me and my mood/happiness from my results at the poker tables and stops (most of) my tilt. ;)

Random 2007 Achievements

• Sat'ing into and playing in GBPT Edinburgh.
• Winning an OfficePoker event.
• Winning 2 article of the month competitions on ITH.
• FT'ing an 850-runner $8 rebuy on Stars.
• Being +EV (over 20k hands) 6-tabling $100NL on iPoker.
  
• Making a $100NL video.
  
• Running good at $200NL ;)

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100nl 10k review #2

Date: Tue, Jan 1, 2008

Completed the current 10k hands at $100NL tonight. Here's the stats, etc in the same structure as the last 10k review. I'll do a seperate new year, new goals, etc post over the next couple of days.

Results
So, I ran at 4.76BB/100 making $952. First up, that's a great achievement for me and a fantastic improvement on the last 10k (2.5BB/100). Although I want to be running close to 8BB/100 I'm really happy that I managed to achieve 4.7. :)

I'll receive around $200 rakeback from iPoker, which takes me to roughly $1152 profit over the 10,000 hands. It took 130 table hours to log the hands at 6-max, but this time I was 6-tabling meaning I played 22 hours total. If I divide my total profit by my hours played I make my rough hourly rate to be around $40/hr without RB, or around $50/hr with RB (6-tabling).


Stats
Now on to the stats showing how I've been playing. I've successfully managed to adapt my preflop game close to the guidelines I set out before starting the hands. Here's how I've done pre...

VPIP/PF Raise
Previously = 22/13
Now = 21/17
I've been in 21% of pots, which isn't really tight or loose, it's inbetween, a comfortable place for me to be at the moment. More importantly I'm now raising preflop 17% of the time, meaning that I'm playing more aggressively preflop and not limping into as many pots.

The gap between my VPIP and PFR is now about 4.5 which is much more solid. Although I'd like to be more aggressive preflop and see this gap drop to below 4.

Flop/Turn/River Aggression
Previously = 4.3/2.5/2.8
Now = 5.6/2.7/1.45
My flop aggression factor has actually increased quite a bit. This wasn't really meant to happen but I think I'm happy with it, I had a look at DodgyKen's flop aggression and he's just over 6. I know that I cbet more now, and I'm sure it's profitable. I use my PAHUD cbet success stats a lot more to help determine if cbets will be profitable and I think this has helped me gain more $.

Turn aggression factor is a bit high, this was meant to decrease a little to get closer to 2.1-2.3, but for some reason has increased. This correlates with my suspicions that I've been double-barrelling too much recently. I think I've tried to follow through on the turn too much without a hand, and I don't think it's been that profitable. I need to bet the turn more for value, and less as a double-barrell cbet bluff.

River aggression has went down a whole lot, to a much more sensible number, 1.45 is about right. Shweeet.

Position
The changes here are really important, I really wanted play a much more position oriented game... tightening up from UTG/MP and opening up a lot from CO/BTN. I'm going to use PT a little more this time to look at which hands I am opening from positions to try to nail my position stats even more. Here's my last previous 10k hands position stats, followed by the new ones.


UTG (3)
Previous VPIP = 17%
New VPIP = 14%
Ideal VPIP ~ 12%
Recommended range [KQs/AJ+/22+]
In PT I seem pretty solid from UTG, although I've noticed that I do have >0 VPIPs with a few hands I'm not meant to be opening with. Occassionally I've raise a little lighter if someone's posted the BB after joining the table, etc, this is ok... just need to make sure I have a reason for opening light.

Hands I have opened with that are out of the recommended range are: ATo, KJs, KQo and suited connectors. Looking at them in the small sample size in PT it doesn't look like they're playing profitably from UTG so I'll try to cut them out further and drop my UTG VPIP down a bit more.

MP (2)
Previous VPIP = 18.5%
New VPIP = 16%
Ideal VPIP ~ 14%
Recommended range [KQ/AT+/22+]
This has dropped too, which is great. But I'm still playing too loosely from MP. Suited connectors again are the main culprit, I'm opening pots with even 1 gappers from MP which is just too loose. I need to cut these out, and my VPIP should drop to around 14.

CO (1)
Previous VPIP = 24.5%
New VPIP = 23%
Ideal VPIP ~ 30%
Recommended range [2 face cards, decent suited aces, pairs, lots of suited connectors and 1 gappers]
Wtf I've actually managed to get tigher from the CO. Looking at my PT stats for CO I'm just not opening loose enough. I need to start opening up a lot more from the CO. I'm going to look at this closely after each session in future to make sure that I'm opening my range up enough.

BTN
Previous VPIP = 27%
New VPIP = 32%
Ideal VPIP ~ 34%
Recommended range [2 face cards, any suited aces, pairs, lots of suited connectors and 1 gappers]
Much better, I've loosened up a lot more from the button. But I can get looser. I'll try to open up even more from the BTN.

SB
Previous VPIP = 32%
New VPIP = 25%
Ideal VPIP ~ 25%
Boom, SB is perfect now. I'm only completing in multiway pots with hands like QTo, K9s, etc, nothing less. When folded to the SB I'm either 4x raising total or folding, never completing.

BB
Previous VPIP = 11%
New VPIP = 12%
Ideal VPIP ~ 11%
Still tight on the BB, this is fine.

So overall my play from the blinds is perfect now. UTG/MP I need to stop opening with suited connectors. CO is my focus, I need to loosen up a LOT from the CO. BTN is pretty good, just loosen this up a little more.


Conclusion
It's great to look back over my stats for the last set of hands and see that they're progressing in the right direction. Preflop hand ranges just need a bit of tweaking which I'll hopefully nail for the next 10k hands.

My primary focus for the next 10k will be on my post-flop game. I want to do a lot of hand analysis and work with my study group to improve my post-flop game. I'm going to try to put a lot of focus on value betting post flop, rather than running double-barrell bluffs, etc. As I think I'm missing a lot of value bets, and bluffing a bit too much.

My play will continue at $100NL for the next 10k hands, bankroll isn't quite at a $200NL level yet, and I'm not confident enough with my play either. I feel like there are a lot of fundementals in post-flop play I'm still missing at $100NL so I'd like to try to tighten these up before moving up.

I will however continue to take shots at $200NL, this went really well last month when I made around $500 from it.

If I can achieve these goals in the next 20k hands then I'll have a great base to develop my game from. Back to the grind for me. :)

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Circus £165 trip report

Date: Sun, Dec 30, 2007

It's 4am, just got in, I finished 12/140 for £160. The tourney had it all, yoyo swings, busting out 3 players in 1 hand, great reads, moments of table domination, and the inevitable brutal dick in ass ending. Walked back from the casino and wrote this report in my head so mayaswell type it up. I like long walks through the city after big tourneys, usually find that by the time I get home I've cleared any bad beats from my head and analysed most of my play.

They got the capped 140 runners, which was pretty amazing, generating a huge £20k ($40k) prizepool, with £7,500 to first place. Really top heavy structure, with 11-20 being paid basically their buy-in back. Tourney structure was really good, 40min blinds the whole way and antes in the later levels, I love antes.

First Table
God damn, I have a good table. Is everyone's table this good? I mean seriously there are like 3 players who I'd class as "good at poker". In the first few levels a few people stack off in ridiculous ways. My favourite was a guy who shoved all-in 6k into a 2.5k pot with A4 on a JJ6 flop, to get called by AQ because she thought she had AJ. lol are you serious? Who's play was worse, I can't decide.

So anyway like fuck all happens in the first few levels, I go to the break with my starting stack. Played really TAG and only been involved in relatively small pots. I'd got a tight image as I literally can't bluff because my table is full of stations, and I've not picked up many hands to value bet.

**BUFFET REPORT**
GG on the buffet Circus. Rake well spent on cold meat sandwiches, salad, and even chilli with rice. Overall buffet rating: delicious/10

Ok some hands. We're 300/600-50a, I've got about 6500 (from my starting 7500) and pick up TT in UTG. Pretty standard insta-ship. MP player reraises, LP shortie calls all-in for 4k, BTN calls all-in for about 5k. Err, shit. I'm hoping they all have AK/AQ ;) They table AK, KK and AQ. T88 flop, and I hold. Puts me up to about 22k. Thankyou poker gods!

Table 2
Tougher table this time, people seem to know how to play here. I get cold decked and barely any good steal situations and fold for an hour and a half solid, getting chipped down to about 14k. I did have one situation where I should have made a resteal, an all-in player got in my way but I still should have done it as I knew the original raiser was weak. Didn't have the balls though and I should have taken down a 10k pot.

Anyways, we're about 600/1200-100, a really strong player (Gerry) has just joined a couple of orbits ago, so he doesn't know how stupidly tight my image is. He makes it 4000 more from the CO, I've got 13k (he has me covered) after paying the blinds and look down at QQ. Now obviously I'm shipping it here, but I want called. I know his steal range from the CO/BTN is wide, so I try my best to look pained by the decision for 2 or 3 mins, including even at one point turning round to analyse the tourney timer/blinds on the plasma lol. I move in, trying to look pretty stressed/frustrated and he snap calls with A9o. I hollywood good. He's getting close to 2/1 but it is for about half of his stack, he said after that he only called because he really didn't think I had a hand. My ladies hold and I'm up to 25k.

Table 3
Now down to 30 players, my stack is a little below average. Here I just continue to keep it pretty tight 'til we're down to 23 players and the blinds have ramped up a lot. Now I'm stealing and restealing trying to pick up as many chips as possible on the bubble. I run up to about 40k, bubble breaks and we're down to the last 2 tables. I'm guaranteed my buy-in back (yawn). I stick pretty tight as people like to gamble after the bubble and more bust out down to 12 players.

I'm up to about 50k now with some well timed steals. Folds round to the SB who's a good solid player, we're 2000/4000-400a. He makes it 12k total and this is a beautiful spot for me to ship it with 98s in the BB. He folds and I'm chipped up to 64k now, just around the average. Life is good.

** WARNING: BUSTOUT HAND... WEHHH **
The very following hand it's folded round to me in the SB and I look down at AQo. BB is a good solid player, I've got a lot of respect for his game, and he's got about 80k in chips. Interesting thing here is that he called out my hand in the previous hand where I picked up the pot with a resteal. He said I had 67s, which made me aware that a) he knows how to resteal, and b) he has noticed that my image is very LAG.

So arguments could be made for shipping it here due to the antes and being OOP with AQ, but I think I've still got room and raise to 13,500 total. He thinks for about 30 secs while playing with his chips then announces all-in. At this point I know I can't lay AQ down, but take a few minutes to think the hand over. With my loose image he could put me on a wide range, too much of his range consists of resteal hands. I call all-in for 50k more, making a 120k total pot. He raps the table and flips ATo.

Dealer draws in the monster pot and deals the flop. My eyes immediately catch a Q in the window then she rolls out a J and K behind it making him a flopped straight. Utter brutality. An A on the turn gives me a few outs, but river is a blanko. Congrats/condolences from the table and railers for making the call, but I'm really too gutted to care. I've got so much adrenaline that I somehow manage to get paid out and leave the casino without remembering to steal a copy of Bluff magazine lol.

Walking out I'm obv just feeling like smashing things. That pot would have put me 3rd in chips with 12 players left, the final table paying £7.5k, £4.5k, £3k, etc. It's just not easy to take a beat like that, but after the walk home I feel great about the tourney now. I had a lot of fun, got lucky and had my hands hold in situations... and ultimately lost a 75/25 in the late stages. Such is the nature of the tournament poker beast.

I think I made 2 mistakes the whole tourney (6-7 hours) other than that I played awesome poker, made great decisions, and had a lot of fun. I'm really happy with the way I played. I didn't go in expecting a whole lot, I was really just taking a shot and having some fun, to break even is fine with me, what's most important is that I played my AAAAAA game. (ta for the reminder Neil) ;)

When I left another OP player, Adam, was still left playing hand for hand on the final table bubble. Apologies for not wishing GL on exit, I pretty much forgot in the heat of the bustout. Hope you're taking it down right now sir!


Pretty late now, 5am-ish. Gonna head to bed, will try to put in the last 500 cash hands tomorrow before I head out for Hogmonay. Ta to the Circus staff for putting on such an ace tourney.

Have a great new year all!

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Happy Holidays to all!

Date: Sat, Dec 29, 2007

I've had a great Christmas, been super chilled out and doing absolutely nothing productive over the last few days... which has been great. Super relaxed, loads of nice food, beer, family and friends. Christmas rules. Looking forward to new year too. I don't go back to work 'til the 7th... ahhhhh. :) Have a great new year.


Business
With 2.5k hands to go to make the 10k target for the end of the year I decided to remove myself from Mario Galaxy and put a monster session in. I 4-8 tabled $100NL for 3 hours, then another 2 hours later. Got a record 1891 hands in for the day. This leaves me with about 600 hands left to complete today/tomorrow.

Would probably have went the whole way if it wasn't for getting BRUTALLY river 4-outered in a $240 pot prompting me to insta-quit all tables. Despite most of my session profit going that donk who though bottom 2pr (23o) was good for 120BBs on a 3flush board I'm pretty happy with the session.

Looking forward to doing the 10k writeup. $100NL has went ok. Preflop i'm playing 21/17 now which is great. But postflop I've still got a lot to work on. Looking forward to posting a lot more hands, and figuring out a study plan for the new year to get my postflop play up to scratch.

Took shots at fishy $200NL tables this month, this has went ridiculously well lol. Check this out, selecting tables with ACTUAL RETARDS playing = $$$cash money.


I'll do a big update and 10k review over the next few days after I've completed the $100NL hands. Bankroll is looking good. On track to be rolled to move up to $200NL after another 10k $100NL hands. It's allllll good.

Circus £165 tonight

Playing the £150+15 Christmas tourney at the Circus tonight. It's a freezeout with 40min blind levels, dealer dealt, expecting 100+ runners for a £15,000 prizepool. Should be around $10k to the winner. 40 seats are already gone to sat winners so there should be loads of value.


The buy-in represents less than 10% of my bankroll so i'm classing it as "taking a shot". AAAAA game time. I've saved used up all of my running bad at the Circus so I can run good in this one. Come on!!

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Sammy's endless money

Date: Sat, Dec 22, 2007

Apparently there's a $2k/$4k PLO game on in Bobby's Room just now. Which sparked an awesome thread on 2+2 about where Sammy gets his money from... amazing cartoon strips!

Check it out, cartoons start at post #280. :) http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=76524



Session tonight
Played 1000 hands of $100NL yesterday/today so I'm now on track to finish the 10k hands for the end of the year. It's going alright I guess. Preflop I feel set now, really like my preflop game, but postflop I just suck ass lol... gonna try to play better postflop for the last 2,500 hands.

Burning money #1
One of the big leaks in my game I noticed a lot tonight is calling all-ins despite my opponents lines being really strong. The SB is 40/7. His line is just so strong. Check call preflop on a pretty dry board, flop misses the FD, he check-raises me... what can he have here? His line just screams set, or at least 2pr+. Called on a dry flop, then check-minraised, I guess I figured he could have been doing this with JQ/KQ, but it's not that likely. I think I can call on the flop... but when he shoves the river I just have to fold. These calls are hammering my BB/100 because they're worth so many BB by the river in a big pot!

Burning money #2
Played this one badly too... villain is another 40/7'er. On the flop I can flat call his minraise, or reraise/fold. I decided for the latter option and raised for information, he shoves, and I start thinking, "but he'd play 88-TT this way" and "there can't be too many hands he calls with pre that contain a 7?". If I raise to see where I'm at I need to be able to fold after getting told I'm behind.

Shipping monster $200nl pots
Been taking some shots at weak $200NL games too, which has been going well. Typically playing 3-4 $100NL games and 1 $200NL table. Took down a pretty sick $483 pot tonight after flopping a set of aces against 2 pair.


Played OP today
Played pretty good, sucked out KQ > AK when we got to the final 2 tables, then chipped up a lot short-handed pre final table. Then. the hand that killed me... It's been ages since I've been so angry busting from a tourney. I played this hand so fucking bad I just felt like smashing things for half an hour. Fucking donkaments.

11 players remain, top 6 paid. Blinds are 800/1600 with a 150 ante (3300 in pot pre), we're 6 handed. Standard player minraises 3200 preflop from the CO, from what I've seen his game is standard, plays his cards. We both have 23k behind and are 2 of the bigger stacks at the table.

Now... I don't remember any instances where's he's minraised pre, but he may have Not seen him minraise before, but I've only see him play 10-12 hands. I look down at 88. Thought for a while, decided I wanted to raise and a raise would commit me, so shoved. He snap calls with KK. Goodnight.

Such a donk shove. I thought he only had 14-15k in his stack, but even then I just can't overplay 88 here. I think a random's minraise range here is like 22+/QJ+/KT+/Ax, but weighted towards the strong hands. I'm like 4th in chips in the tourney I can't just jizz my chips off here. Despite my hand *maybe* being ahead of his range I can't raise. I don't want to get committed with a marginal hand in this spot, instead I should want to play a small pot against someone that can damage me. Should have called, lead most flops and shut down if called I think.

I'm was wanting to play the £150 freezeout that's on at Circus next week, but I'm not sure I should. The last few tourneys I've played I have made critical mistakes to bust out or cripple myself. Problem is I'm just not taking in all of the information and considering things quickly and calmly enough at the time... I can be prone to missing things (blind going up, etc).

Circus is a joke I just can't win any money there! I've literally done £500 of buy-ins there without cashing now... maybe not surprising if I donk all my chips off with mid pairs though. Eeeughhh.

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DTD trip

Date: Wed, Dec 19, 2007

Dusk Till Dawn poker club finally opened in Nottingham a couple of weeks ago, and looks fantastic. I'm fancying taking a trip down there just after new year to check it out. Looking to head down around Thurs or Fri (4th/5th) of January, either stay a night down there and play for a couple of days or head down for opening at 6pm and play tourneys/cash 'til close at 6am and head back. :)

Give me a shout if anyone's up for meeting up there, or fancies heading down from Edinburgh/Glasgow and we could maybe share travel costs.


They've got £50/£100/£500 MTTs, lots of STTs and cash games from £0.50/£1. I'm planning on playing in a £100 MTT, maybe the £50 too, and some £1/£2 cash. More details at the DTD site.

Update
Been ill for the last couple of days, had got a shitty cold bug thing so I've stayed away from the tables. Played an interesting session a few days back though where I opened my game up a bit and played 26/22/3.5. Considerably more aggressive than usual. Playing this aggressively gave me a lot of action from players and put me in a lot of tough spots postflop with marginal hands. In short it was great fun, so many tough decisions postflop, which is really where I need to work. It's definately my aim to play a more 26/22 game when I get to $200NL, so no harm in experimenting in it now.

Andy's Christmas home game tomorrow night, which I'm looking forward to. Booked Friday off of work in anticipation of a mixed cash game running through to the morning. Should be interesting as I can basically only play NLHE...

Actually ship it. Tomorrow's my last day at work 'til the 8th of January. Sweeeet. Looking forward to spending time with the family at Christmas... and getting Super Mario Galaxy. :>

Reviewed Willie's first video for my SSNL group tonight, which was really well put together. Took an age to get through it as there were so many interesting hands to comment on. One of the tables had a guy playing 50/48 which was pretty sick.

As for getting my 10k hands in by the end of the month... it's gonna be tight. I've done 6500 so far, not far away, but I've got a lot of plans over Christmas so hopefully I can fit them in somewhere.

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Checkin' in

Date: Sun, Dec 16, 2007

Been chilling out for the past few days. Played some home game poker, but none online, not really felt like it... which is cool, not going to force play when I'm not in the mood.

Pokerroad
Enjoying the pokerroad radio podcasts. All 3 (pokerroad radio, 2 jacks in the hole, big poker sundays) are really good and feature different presenters. They're all really funny and have some great content. Get them added in iTunes, or you can stream them straight from the pokerroad site.

High Stakes Poker
Been following High Stakes Poker too. Last couple of episodes have been slightly less eventful. Guy Laliberte has kind of got annoying, his constant charity to others at the tables just isn't poker. Don't get me wrong the show is still fantastic, but it seems that every big pot so far has kind of been a cop out due to either Guy's charity or running it 2/3/4 times. Still a couple of eps left this season on what is without a doubt the best poker show ever broadcast.

Some reading
Been studying a bit, almost finished a re-read of Zen and the Art of Poker, which is considerably less useful the 2nd time round. I'll need pick up Hilger/Pie's poker Psychology book at some point. Also nearly finished Sklansky/Miller's NLHE book, which is fantastic. Finding a lot of concepts that I can apply.

Training Day
This is definately one of the most underrated action films of recent time. If you've not seen it, waatch it! I'm pretty lucky as I have the amazing ability of not being able to recall anything that happens in films like a week after I've watched them, I seem to just forget everything. So I was able to watch it again without being able to remember most of the plot. The last 30 mins just build and build in tension, it's amazing. I won't give any of the story away, just watch it!

3-Betting spots
Focussing on hands where I've 3-bet, got called, then not been sure whether I should follow up on the flop. As usual, cross-posted on CR forums.

Hand 1: Mid-sized flop, AJo
Is following up here profitable against a LAG player? It just feels like I'm going to get played back at or floated a lot here.

Hand 2: Lead mid-sized flop, AKs
Similar situation, this time villain is TAG. Is it profitable leading here?

Hand 3: QQ, 2 overs on flop, checked to
This one's a little different, that flop is about as bad as it gets for QQ. Villain is a standard 20/13 player, follow up here to rep a big ace? Check and bet the turn if he checks again? Try to check it down?

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Workin' away to 10k

Date: Tue, Dec 11, 2007

Playing more tables means that I'm getting more hands in, gone from playing 400-500 in an evening session to 600-800 per session. Over halfway through the new 10k hands, I'll easily get done for the end of the year.

Tempted to post an update, but I'll save it for when I hit my 10k target. Gives me more drive to put more hands in and get there. :)

Put 650 hands in last night, then reviewed my last 1500 hands. Extracted 18(!!!) hands to weaktight for further analysis. It's going to take me a while to get through posting them on CR and analysing them... don't want to post more than 3 at a time on here as it makes it easier for people to comment on them... and 3 at a time on CR too so it doesn't look like i'm whoring the boards. :> Going back over hands is bringing up so many tough situations I'm unsure about, analysing these is improving my game so much.

So as usual, any comments welcome, I'll start out with an easy one.


Hand 1: Raise QJo from the BB?
I’d happily isolate this in position, but do we want to isolate OOP against a poor/loose player?

Hand 2: Value bet a weak straight on 3-flush board?
It doesn't look much like either of these fish made the flush... can I value raise here?

Hand 3: Not sure how to play this royal flush draw.
Preflop, I’m OOP and unlikely to make them fold, they’re cold-calling a lot. I decide to take a flop instead of 3-betting. I flop FD/SD and overs. What’s my line against 2 LAG players? Am I looking to try to get it in on the flop? If I bet out and get raised do I shove? Or should I check-raise here and try to take it down? Do I want action?


... and finally, showing off some moves...

Hand 4: A well timed check-raise
Villain is 30/9/5 over 100 hands. I've been beating on him and he's just started playing back to my cbets. He pushed me off of a previous hand on the turn after I cbet the flop. Instead of tightening up I’m looking to mix up the ways I push him around, to keep him confused. CTS talks about this a bit in his 2nd video.

Preflop and flop are standard, despite my loose image, I think betting both of them is definitely still the most +EV move. I’d often go for a delayed cbet to mix it up here, but I think he’s gagging to take pots away from me so I don’t want to check/fold.

Turn card pairs the board, aggro $100NL players just love to bluff here… and if they’ve made trips they’ll usually check. I check and as expected he puts out a strong bet to try to take it down. When I check-raise him here I rep trip 9s extremely strongly, there’s just no way he can call without a really big hand which it’s really unlikely he has. He’s gonna have to muck here a huge amount of the time.

I’m not sure about my bet size on the end. I decided to go small as that best reps the trip 9s, but it does give him odds to call with flush or straight draws. It’s possible that a bigger raise could be better.

Cheers

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