Update

i have moved into my new flat, but still awaiting internet, thank god University has free wireless around campus.

VB

No I Haven't Fallen Off A Cliff

My laptop broke, which new hard drive which means goodbye PT database, goodbye 6 seasons of Sopranos (only watched first few episodes) goodbye months of customization, site bookmarks, etc.

Luckily I was able to save my music. Thank you iPodCopy. Thanks to this awesome piece of software, I was able to rip all 1900 songs off my iPod, but thats only the half of it. The meta-data was also transferable, so every song/artist/album name etc... was also there, along with the play counts, star rating, lyrics, additionl notes, etc... i.e. it was exactly as I had it before my laptop broke.

I love my MacBook, so vowed I would never put XP back on it again, it has corrupted 2 MacBooks now. I decided to invest in a Dell desktop, a Vostro 200, its a business desktop but

it will do the job for me;

Specs: 2ghz Intel Core 2 Duo

2 GB RAM

128mb Intel Graphics Card

250GB (7200rpm) HD

Wireless pci card (had to buy/fit myself)

The only thing I may do to it is but a better graphics card; I was looking at the nVidia GeForce 8600 GT - only costs approx 60 pounds and has dual DVi so I can run 2 monitors off it, which I think I definately will want to do in the next 6 months.

When I 4 table (i.e. work on improving my game, something ive been doing regularly) I like to have PT open so I can browse all players stats and look over how they have played certain hands, I find this really good for working on ones game, hoever its a little difficult with 1 screen, even 4 tabling.

All this computer hassel means today was the first day I have played poker in over a week. Im not that upset though, I have enjoyed spending time with my friends as summer draws out and everyone returns to university.

Today I only played 300 hands, as I was feeling tired and was worried I may spew after experiencing a nasty suck out.

Its not that I was a huge fav, and he won, its more the circumstances. I can accept losing AA vs KK but losing with 80% equity all in on turn, against some numpty with 3rd pair and 7 high flush draw really ticks me off:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1518534

I was impressed by one hand I played today:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1519565

- I felt he was looking to float me after he called flop. His call was fast and I had been fairly agressive. I called turn pretty confident I had the best hand and felt he would fire again so decided to check/call river.

I like that I felt in control throughout the whole hand, despite it being a non-standard line.

I promise Ill blog more, I move into my flat this week, should be good.

VB

p.s. September goal is never going to happen now, i'll play a bit but my flat wont have internet till Oct probably. Along with the fact I havent been able to play for 8 days I would be happy with a 4k BR by the end of September.

Rinse and Repeat

I took the day off today, saw some friends, and generally did not think about poker at all.  Feels nice to have the control to completely switch off from poker for a whole day. 

I will making much more effort over the coming weeks to spend more time improving my game, personally that involved 6 things:

-Watching CR vids

-Browsing forums

-Reviewing PT stats

-Play heads up (much lower limit)

-Playing 2 tables at current limit and playing super focused/intense sessions for only 45 mins at a time, watching every hand that is played (awesome for improving hand reading).

-Dropping down limits to work on leaks, and figure different ways of playing hands.

I have never really exercised the final point, but I definitely give it stock. I will be soon hoping to spend some time in the lower limit games, finding out how different high variance plays and see how opponents react, etc.

Heads up poker as far as I am concerned is the ultimate test. I give a 2/4NL HU player substantially more credit than a 2/4 6-max NL player. This is true for all limits however; any winning HU player must have a greater level of discipline than 6-max players as HU variance is so huge.

FR players struggle to transition to 6-max. Many 6-max players struggle a HU. Bu a HU player will be VERY successful at 6-max, and somewhat successful at FR.

Playing  HU is excellent for improving hand reading, as well as learning to make decisions of much more marginal Ev outcomes.

Im nackered after not getting to sleep until 5am, and still getting up at 9am (well got out of bed at 9:40).

I enjoyed a lovely lunch with a good friend of mine on a roof garden, above a pretty trendy cocktail bar. This was an absolutely lovely experience. Especially since all my uni friends will be off in 1-2 weeks. 

I greatly enjoy seeing my 'college friends', and hope to able to do it more before we all part ways for the next academic year. Preparations for a large gathering round my new flat (in Southampton), on the 22nd, and then out to town afterwards which should be awesome.

Im never really sure what ratio of poker : life i should write in this blog, I think as time goes on I will write more about my life 'outside of poker'. I will hope to show people how important it is to be doing other things beside poker; i.e. university work, socialising, going gym. 

As I have said before, my long-run life goal is to become a successful person, being successful will require discipline from all aspects of my life, these I will discuss in the blog.

Im super tired, so this blog prob made no sense,

VB

Toughest $10 I'll Ever Earn

Well that was fun. The poker gods really didn't want me to make a profit today, well, guess what; ha.

A lot of hands so I wont bore you too much, just a few.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482637
- Misplayed IMO, I should have just called his turn raise. His line looks so strong, I have no fold equity here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482642
- This hand just sucked. I really don't know how bad my turn line is. TBH I put him on AsKx or AsAx so had to go with it imo, but i'm prob wrong.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482651
- Shitty river, I hate these spots. But its my fault, I didn't think about how hand would play on river and bet an awkward amount. Flop re-raise should have been 30; turn should have been 65.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482659
- Yey, lets give the worst possible flop for me! Donkfish once again.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482664
- Im not sure what to do here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482672
- I thought he was all in on turn, didn't realise he had a bit left, doesn't make much difference tho.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482676
- "Thou shalt not be making a profit on this day"

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482681
- No fold-equity against fish, duh.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482688
- Nice

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482696
- Another setup from the gods, damn you.

And how exactly did I defy the gods. Here's how;

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482701
- By sucking out big time, yey!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482706
- By value shoving donks.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482708
- By shouting out their exact hand while I value bet the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482712
- By taking advantage of favorable implied odds, and the fish's tenancy to overplay big pairs.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482718
- By getting them to put all their money in drawing dead.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482721
- By taking them to 'Value Town'.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1482727
- By playing people even worse than me, ha (why the hell did I check this flop).

My backs pretty tired after 8hrs of poker, wish I had one of those Aeron chairs, but with a £700 price tag, think I may just get a nice leather one (around £100).

I feel pretty happy I was able to break even today, at one point I was down 3.5 BIs so it was nice to bring it back.

If I was playing my best, I think I would have made at least $100, maybe $150-$200, my reads were off and I messed up some pretty big hands, K9 one for example.

Well BR is back to where it was a few days ago. Its days like today that remind me how deep a BR I need to feel comfortable, at my low point my BR was down to $2850, thats close to having to drop down to 50nl. Hopefully I can string some nice sessions together and move BR along, its been stuck around here for a while.

Well i'm nackered; later.

VB

Discipline

I just finished a 250 hand session, I played really bad, and was lucky to recover early losses and ensure I only lost 1 BI, could have been much more.

I am happy that I was able to walk away. I was playing awfully and was able to calmly observe this. I did not tilt, and get pissed off that I was throwing money away, I accepted that today was not my day and walked.

I had an awesome day yesterday, winning about 3 BIs; I sucked out a few times and generally played mediocre but ran awesome. I think its super important to recognise when you run well/suck out huge, as that way you're more accepting when things don't go your way, you realise that you got super lucky and so will someone else, and if you play well, people will suckout on you alot more than you on them (as you will be getting your money as a fav more often).

My BR is down to $3200 after this mornings session. I'm nearly at a bankroll level where I will feel very comfortable (~35 BIs).

VB

Down a Bit

Managed to lose 2 BIs today, first was KK vs QQ, villain flopped a Q. Tough to get away from, I generally put villain on AA/KK/QQ/AK when he calls my large 3-bet pf. Flop: Q63, I bet 2/3 pot and he min raises, I don't know if I should be getting away from these, I mean his line looks like AA/QQ but is folding here -Ev, im not sure.

Other hand was a horrible river line by me, I flopped top 2 on a JT3 flop, led flop and turn (both blanks), got called twice. River brings 7, I bet 2/3 pot and he shoves for about 3.5x. I think I should be folding this, he either has a set or rivered straight, I of course call and he had 98.

BR down to 2900, kinda sucks but I stopped playing straight after JT hand, was super unhappy with my call. I was feeling pretty tired so didn't play anymore for the rest of the day.

Ive realized lately that 'winning money' at poker is not about having winning sessions. Money saved is money earnt. So when I walk away from the table cos i'm playing bad, essentially I have saved money that I probably would have tilted away. By quitting when i'm tilting/playing bad I have in an indirect way increased my LR winnings.

Hopefully I will play better tomorrow and have the discipline to walk away if I don't.

VB

Some Cool Web-Sites

Just been browsing my favourites and figured i'd share some with you.

www.pandora.com - this site is awesome, basically you enter music you like and it uses advanced algorithm to find other songs which you may also like. 

www.wefeelfine.org - a very cool idea; basically this site runs off a piece of software which constantly scans the net for recent blog entries. Using the collected data, the software can determine how people are feeling. The look of this site is second to none, all the flying coloured dots are different blog entries just click on one to read. Check out the different analysis in bottom left, personally I like looking at mounds and metrics.

www.howstuffworks.com - a great site if you were ever curious how most things work.

Every Simpsons Episode - (aka url is too long to type) as of today this site has pretty much every Simpsons episode available for download through Rapidshare.

VB

Something Interesting Has Happened - When It Rains It Pours

Well that was a nice session. I will allow a screen shot to explain:



As you can see I managed to win over 4 BIs a 100NL and a BI at 50NL. I accidentally clicked on a 50NL table hence I only played a few hands, but luckily the last had I played I managed to win a nice pot:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1463854
- I'm not sure how correct my push was tbh. I think he's calling the shove with enough hands that I beat to make this +Ev, most Kx and flush hands are paying me off.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1463864
- The aspect of this hand I dislike is how it was not planned or thought through, it was very much on instinct, especially the river calls. In retrospect I think villain could def be playing a set like this. My thought process was that I didn't want to inflate the pot on the flop, and when he bet 20 on turn I figured a raise to say 50-60 is either going to fold out all the hands I beat and get a shove from all the hands that have me crushed (giving me a horrible decision for $20 more).

My thought process was as follows;

Pre-flop is standard, 1 limper and I raise it up in position.
Flop: I flop pretty good, but villain seems to be a weak player, and plays alot of hands. I elect to control the pot by just calling.
Turn: Villain fires another bet, at this point I figured I was beat like 60% of the time. I put villain on T9/T7 (although I doubt T7 bets 15 on flop)/QQ/JJ/TT/99/55/77/air (effectively). My call was based on the fact that jamming would fold out most hands I beat, and I still wasn't sure where I was.
River: I failed to improve, I was hoping for a K or 5, either would have put me ahead of anything but a set/straight. Villain fires 50 into an 85 pot. A set is definitely doing this but so is air and QQ/JJ, I considered how my line may look to him, and decided that as I have played this hand so weak, I have induced greater bluff equity and therefore I called.

I was fairly new to the table so didn't have many reads on player but he did seem to be mixing it up alot. I think my line was ok, but not as +Ev as raising flop.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1463908
- I dont like the way I played this. I put villain on a flush as soon as he potted turn, hes always calling a turn raise, and my line is super strong when I just call like this, plus the shorty is always getting it in, even w/ TP. I should have made it 30 to go on turn, maybe he shoves if not, jam river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1463951
- Again im not liking this call, but when you play these Euro sites, you see just how bad these players are. In the session I think this is fine, villain is pushing alot of hands here, they are just so bad.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1463960
- I checked turn to make my hand seem weaker, I think 2nd best hands will pay off more if you take this line.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1463980
- Got a bit unlucky here, 65% equity edge for a 250BB pot.

To sum up how well im running, my biggest losing pot of the day was this one:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1463989
- A pretty horrible river, but I still only lost $21.


It feels good to win nearly $500 in a day, but I don't really think of it as money, its still just 5 buy-ins.

20 more BIs will take me to 5k, along with rake back and my bonus I would make my September goal. Im still not comfortable at 100nl, bank-roll wise, I think I will need at least 35 BIs to feel comfortable.

Hopefully I can carry todays momentum on tomorrow and rack up a few more buy-ins and properly establish myself as a 100NL player.

VB

(BTW I have added Episode 2 of HSP, I will be adding Episode 3 probably Tuesday)

Improvements

I have managed to improve my life choices and have been waking up much earlier, usually between 9-10am, not bad so far. I definitely want to get this down to pre-9am, and I think I will be able to over the next week or so.

I'm still rebuilding the losses from the downfall, My BR is currently ~$2.5k, I played a little 100nl yesterday and it seemed to go ok.

Ill blog soon, when something interesting happens.

VB

Sort Life Tilt = Sort Poker Tilt

So I dropped down to 50NL on Tuesday after a frustrating day on monday. Well in many ways it was good i dropped down; I was still annoyed at mondays session, and proceeded to lose 8 BIs (at 50NL) in a 3k session (4 tabling).

The good think is that even though I had over 25 buy-ins for 100NL I still was able to move down (that is the only positive to come out of Tuesdays session). I did so more for confidence reasons and maybe a little for BR reasons. I felt another bad day at 100NL may mean my roll drops down to say $2000, and that would really hurt.

My play on Tuesday was awful, I decided to jump into three 50NL HU games to start off, quickly became frustrated and threw away 3 BI. I then moved to 6 max where I proceeded to lose 5 more BI over the course of a (split) 6 hour session. Yesterday I took a day off as I normally do, after a heavy loss.

My life needs sorting out to be honest. I have not been going to sleep until 4am and waking at 2 pm every day, and with uni re-commencing in 4 weeks, its time to sort out my life. My goal is to become a 'successful person', and a successful person is a productive person. I cannot be productive with my current sleep pattern. Yesterday and today I have forced myself to get up at 9am, and I this is a trend I will be continuing, even if I cant sleep, I will be awaking at 9am (I am lazy, but my insomnia is partly genetic or whatever you want to call it, I just have trouble switching off at night, yes i'm a teenager and a student so it's to be expected a bit, but I definitely feel I have more problems sleeping than most).

To be good at poker/economics or any field, you must spend time improving, but time isn't enough, it must be PRODUCTIVE time. You must feel awake and be alert; having enough energy to complete productive tasks is a vital aspect of a successful person.

I was/am hoping September to be a productive month, I am still capable of completing my September poker goal of moving upto 1/2NL although this setback has dented the possibility slightly. But my long term poker goal is not as defined, it is to improve and obtain a greater understanding of the game, to become a 'solid winning player', and moreover become in full control of my 'poker lifestyle', controlling tilt/setting a stop-loss/not playing when i'm tired/getting my rest/eating properly/ etc... Many of the things that a good poker player exhumes are simply good life choices, and sound life choices will reflect in my university results just as much as poker. As ive already said, excelling in anything, poker or otherwise required discipline and sound life management, you can bet the CEO's of the wealthiest 500 companies arise at 8am everyday, before reading the paper and promptly arriving at work for a productive day.

Successful people succeed in making sound life choices; this is why I will be doing my best to control my life choices and give myself the best possible change to be a successful person, in poker,employment and life.

End of rant.

My bankroll fell to $2200 after Tuesday, I received $100 bonus yesterday and made $80 this morning. Therefore i'm around $2400. It will take some good luck and sound play to reach my September goal, not to mention lots of hand. I think my bonus and rake-back will play a huge part. If i play 40k hands total in September I should amass $1k of rake back and about $500 of bonus for the month. im basically going to have to win 20 BIs at 100NL once I move up, which ill be doing 'when I feel I should' I think 24 buy-ins is enough (to take a shot with) but I will need to regain my confidence along with my winning game before I will be moving back up.

VB

I Should Have Stayed In Bed

Felt a bit lousy today but decided to play a little; at first I decided to set a stop-loss as I wasn't feeling 100%, maybe -2 BI or +2 BI, but I couldn't decide so I just said I would quit when I feel I should. Well the session started awesome, I won a big hand with KK and a few other nice pot to take an early +2 BIs. But they I misplayed (IMO) a hand for a 260BB pot, and then decided to keep playing, eventually ending the session down 3 BIs (from beginning of day). Although I must not look at it like this, im pretty fucked off, I was up to over 3k roll early on, and ended around $2500, it feels like ive had a -5 BI session.

2 of the buyins I lost were completely avoidable;

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1441253
- I had this player pegged as a 'NIT', I just hate how I stacked off here, I just called turn which says I don't think my 2pr is good enough to win, and then decide to call a shove when I don't improve, bye bye BI.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1441260
- NH DONK. No explanations, I was pissed and hoped he was bluffing, when he shoved, I somehow felt committed and called.


I did not get paid off with any hands I hit today, I definitely ran badly in terms of getting paid off, but even so, I think I should not have lost any more than 1 BI today.

In a game of such marginal situations, losing 2 buy-ins from pure poor play, will seriously damage my win rate.

After today I am back to $0 at 100NL, hopefully I can learn from these shitty experience, and not make stupid mistakes in the future, although I know I will.

Atm, all im hoping is that I don't have a losing day tomorrow, I don't wish to dwell on it, but losing a few BI tomorrow may mean me dropping down which I seriously don't want to do.

I would seriously like to become more disciplined, I know hindsight is 20/20, but If I had stuck to my decision to quit after winning/losing 2 BIs, I would have a 3k roll right now, not be worrying about moving down, had a fairly enjoyable day reading or watching TV and not boring you with how much I can suck sometimes. But hey..............................thats poker.

VB

One Month Move Up - Day 2

Played 1000 hands today, and managed to win nearly 2 buy-ins. Here are some hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1437588
- I think this is a fairly standard stack off, I felt he was pretty darn strong when he calls my pre-flop 3-bet; I think I could possible have led and maybe gotten away from it, if he shoved, but im stacking off here 90+% of the time.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1437594
- Tough spot on river, but I think I have to call, the trouble is I cant really think of a hand that I beat that he would do this with. To be honest my thought at the time was 'I have a full house, call'. This is wrong, I need to forget my hand (in isolation) and consider if I feel villains range is ahead of my hand, here I think it is; his range is, JJ/44/66/22 or very weirdly played AA/KK/QQ, now unless he made a very unusual line with an over-pair, im beat.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1437607
- I don't mind my play too much here, I think he has a T/weaker K/missed flush draw alot of the time, the only real hands that beat me are 22/KT.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1437615
- Couldn't have gotten it in any worse, I think this play is fine though; villain is folding a T and often a Q here.

Out of the red and into the green......

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1437620
- Very tricky line from villain, his river shove sort of looks like 98; IMO he butchered his hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1437625
- I liked just calling turn here, I figured id get a Q to call if I took this line, never figured I'd get a call from 99.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1437629
- Pretty standard.


I had a super tough decision here; http://www.pokerhand.org/?1437637, villain was very talkative in chat, and kept saying he was bluffing, this was my first hand I played with him, so I felt I had to give him credit. I find most players who appear 'annoying' generally overbet their big hands to make them look weak. I have to give this guy credit here I feel, however I was probably going with it the next time.

VB

Poker Setup

I will soon be moving into my new flat (for Uni/College), and will have to once again setup my monitor/laptop etc... I would like to invest in some things to make playing poker easier and more comfortable, in time I would like to invest in a Mac Pro (desktop-top) and 2 large Dell or Apple monitors; however this will set me back a fair few $$. For now I will be looking to purchase a new mouse and possibly a nice new ergonomic chair.

Poker Setup Ergonomics and Functionality

This link has some good info on poker setups, I really like the chair, however they cost around £400 so I dont think I'll be able to get one of those in the foreseeable future, I may just get a nice comfy office chair.

As for the mouse, I am looking into the Razor Deathadder, it looks pretty sweet.

Anywhoo, just thought id share this info; check out the 'pokeronamac' site (first link), got some good stuff on it.

VB

100NL Time!

Just played my first (proper) session of 100NL. I played terribly to start off with; I was a bit intimidated by the 'absolute size' of the raises, and was being run over. I managed to win a nice pot with a FH and a few other nice sized pots, once I settled down, I felt my play was good, I was able to turn two early lost buyins into nearly a +1 BI session.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1433678
- Really dislike how I played this, his range is crushing me, if I am going to play this TPTK to the river, I HAVE TO raise pre-flop. I think I should be folding turn IMO, no reason to lose a big pot here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1433682
- Standard vs short-stack.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1433683
- Im still unsure about this hand, villain was playing 35/7/0.5, he has such low agression factor I think this fold but atm I think its the best play. Ill be talking about this hand with some superior beings and see what they think.

Now for the hands I actually won; YEY!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1433693
- Im not sure if I should be raising turn here, I wanted 'jobbik88' to put in his last ~$15, so I think flat calling ok. I dislike my river line, my hand is so well defined when I basically min raise here, I think by shoving i'm getting him to call a much larger percentage of the time; I put him on an over pair but I may very well have let 87 (flopped straight) get away from their hand here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1433699
- Lunacy from villain.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1433702
- Big suckout, this was early in the session.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1433704
- I put villain on Jx or Ax after turn call, I figured most Ax and all Jx hands are going to have to call this river bet.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1433712
- Nice!


With all this hands I won, it seems as though I should have had a better winning session, but there were loads of small pots early on in the session I lost just from playing scared.

I think ill take the rest of the day off from poker. Pretty tired from going out alot lately.

VB