Remember the name

Black friday.

2011-04-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

As I sit here, with 300 euros to my name in real money and a high 5 digit cashout pending on Full Tilt Poker for 32 hours now, I find myself looking back at all the nagging from my parents to "empty your poker account, keep only the minimum you need because those companies aren't stable!" and thinking... "maybe I should have listened to them for once".

Alas I didn't, and so here I stand before uncertainty, of whether I am still a baller or one more busto 22 year old trying to find some purpose on what to do with his life.

Although I am perfectly aware it's the worst weekend in online poker history and the 3 big sites are getting absolutely raped with cashout requests and emails like "WHERE'S MY MONEY" or "WHY DOES MY PENIS LOOK BRIGHT RED", I can't help but feel very insecure about my financial future. I know these sites are very big, secure and trustworthy, but theres only so many posts I can read of people in the same spot I am right now before I actually start having some doubts.

For those of you interested in my stupidity, I have a couple of (not excusable) reasons of why I have kept the entirety of my bankroll on FTP:

- I have been waiting for years for the exchange rate USD/EUR to get better. It has not, so I have been delaying large cashouts.

- I want to open a bank account on a reliable bank with a lot of perks, so it's a pretty extensive search.

I delayed it so much that I'm now paying a price I shouldn't be paying. Like being double charged at a bar because I didn't pay attention, or being ripped off by that stripper because I'm drunk off my ass.

Now all theres left for me to do is wait and pray. I tried playing earlier today but I just spewed stacks off because I began thinking of that particular table as a play money table and not real money, which is obviously bad for your game.

I had already decided earlier in the year to re-join college in August, unless I shipped like a $1M donkament (which is impossible because I never play them) because I had realized a backup plan was required in case this poker thing got fucked up the ass. Well, Nostradamus JR. here saw that one coming, but didn't take adequate measures. Bravo.

No matter what happens, whether I am buying Dom Perignon next time I get drunk just because it comes in a nice bottle or whether I am grinding 12 freerolls for a top prize of $10, I don't give a shit.

Poker has been extremely good to me. It has taken me places I never thought I'd go. It has introduced me to some of the most intelligent, funny and honest people around. It has given me liberty to wake up when I want, to go to sleep when I want, to help out friends, family and unknowns, to grow and mature as a human being. And no one will ever take that away from me. Not the FBI, not the KGB, not the SS. These experiences will forever hang on to me until the day I die, and I will cherish them dearly and look back and think to myself "I am truly lucky and blessed".

I have done it before, I will do it again. If I am broke by this week, I will grind freerolls on Euro networks again and work my way up to 2/4 in a matter of weeks.

I am back.

2011-04-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

As I look back on this blog, I realize how much I have grown as a player and person over the last year.

My results and progress haven't exactly been impressive, but they have been consistent. I pretty much played 0 poker throughout june and july because I was too busy in Vegas getting super hammered like 6 days out of every week, so I obviously was in no mood or condition to blog about my experiences. Vegas would have required a handwritten journal in my case, because so much crazy stuff happened in those 2 months that it's almost kind of an haze in my mind. Dunno if I should just accept it or feel disgusted by that, I'm leaning towards the latter. Cliff notes include lots of drinking and degening. I was lucky enough to land some very very cool roommates with whom I'm still close to up to this day (well ok maybe not in a couple of cases) so I pretty much had a blast.

August I came back home and just felt like getting better at the game by studying and playing, and so I did. Played some 1/2 rush for like a month or so 'till 2/4 rush came out and since then I've just been 4 tabling 2/4 rush for 6 months now with decent results (2.5-3ptbb if I had to guess, never graphed it)

For the duration of a couple of weeks of January, entire February and couple of weeks in March I lived in Lake Tahoe with notontilt09, blaabar and ryanmack. It was a weird experience because I live in a very warm place all year around and moving into very low temperatures was just not for me. I tried skiing but epic failed and didn't really like it much, but absolutely loved snowboarding after giving it a try. Unfortunately didn't get to do it much because I was much more interested in grinding and getting drunk for some reason, so I was either playing or hungover during the mornings and early afternoons. My main regret is not getting into snowboarding earlier, would have had much better times if I did. Still was pretty epic and it is an experience I will cherish for the rest of my life... except maybe the money wasted when super drunk lol. Obviously loved the roommates, they were all awesome and pretty good at this stupid ass game.

I feel like I should be posting some graphs but I am still undecided on that right now, I have tried it before and I still dont know if I want to go down that path again. By the end of the month I will definitely post at least one graph.

Going into the present, today was my best day ever. I made 20 buyins at 2/4 rush in 3.5k hands.

Some people tell me this was impressive but I don't agree at all with it. I was on the right side of variance, flopping joints all over the place and coolering people preflop. However, in no way does this victory taste less sweet just because I am aware I was just running hot. This was long overdue.

I have been on the wrong side of variance before. In the space of 40 days I have had two days where I have lost 20 buyins. This is due to my style being very prone to massive swings. I am not scared to play for stacks, ever... and I LOVE putting people to tough decisions. Putting people to tough decisions for entire stacks gets old pretty fast when people catch on what you are doing and you don't re-adjust to it. So if you keep 5 bet jamming 55 or AJ BTN/CO vs that one reg whose strategy against you is to only 4 bet hands he's playing for stacks with (which will include AQ and 99 pretty fast) I'm obviously going to get whats coming to me. Especially when I start tilting and just stop folding. Hence, 20 buyin losing days.

I am, however, very strong minded. I just won't allow myself to give up or doubt myself and my abilities. Every time a bad string of cards or mistakes comes at me I just keep reminding myself "Better players than you have had worse times, don't give up."

Long ago have I given up on the mentality of blaming the sites or the cards when I am losing. Bad stretches happen to everyone, the way each person deals with it defines the strength of their character and how far they will go. Most players just blame it on the site, disregarding the need to re-evaluate their games. They will break even forever. Some players will just blame it on their luck, not caring about thinking about alternative lines for the mistakes they keep making over and over. They will lose forever. Some players, however, will recognize something is not right and has to be improved, be it by trial and error or by study. These players will rise to the top sooner or later. I am a firm believer in this.

Play, study, improve. That's what I have been doing and will keep on doing until I am among the best. I have a feeling it won't take long now.

Welcome back and hope you guys stick around, will try to reward you for your loyalty.

Reviving this.

2010-05-30T12:48:00.001-07:00

Hi,

Leaving for Vegas in 2 days for 2 months, can't think of a better reason to bring this back to life. I'll update in a bit, too hangover atm haha

January results and February so far.

2010-02-04T20:41:00.001-08:00

Hi,

January was an epic fail. Hardly played at all because my morale was down.

Finished the month with 20k VPPs total, far away from the 90k VPPs required to be on pace. That's ok, I plan to play a bunch in February.

This is my graph for the month of January:

Anyway, February WILL be an epic month.

First off, a new SICK gym will open near me and I plan on getting out of my ass and working out at least 4 days/week till the end of the month in order to lose 10kg.

Second of all, I'm midway through my $4k bonus so that's basically guaranteed profit this month, I have this sick feeling February will be the best month since I've played poker, both money wise and life wise. Stay tuned.

Last but not least, my drivers license exam is this month (FINALLY). Still got a few classes to go but I feel like I already have a good grasp on how cars work, now I just gotta keep practicing and stop exceeding every speed limit known to mankind so I can own the exam.

Stay tuned, I plan to be very involved in poker this month and to even discuss some strat so you readers will def enjoy reading this.

Cya later.

Close enough.

2010-01-29T23:34:00.000-08:00

Pretty sure could have hit the 20 buyin mark today, games were sick soft but I got really tired and felt like I wasn't playing my best poker after spewing 2 stacks vs 2 regs who never fold to 3 bets in or out of position and don't miss flops vs me, hard to counter-attack that strategy.

This song played nonstop during this session.

Cool title.

2010-01-28T21:52:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

Sorry for the lack of updates, the last few weeks have been excruciating when it comes to poker.

Well, I bought a $4k bonus at the start of the year. I was pretty excited to grind and get this bonus over with, but what happened has absolutely shocked and demotivated me.

I've never ran this bad before. Those of you who know me well, know how I don't really like to complain about bad runs but this what has transpired is absolutely surreal. Every session I'm getting coolered and losing stacks where I get people to spazz out and still they get there. I'm aware it's a part of poker and I accept it, I'm just so frustrated atm that I have to vent, sorry about that ;-)

Anyway, here's a graph of the month up to this point... it's almost done anyway but I think I'm gonna grind hard tomorrow and who knows, I might ship 20 buyins or something :-D

That's actually 40 buyins below EV for the month, which is unparalleled for me, biggest EV difference was probably 15 or something (below EV too, but have been above EV before)

That's ok though, it's just a very rough stretch and I'm reviewing hands again after each session to make sure I make no mistakes and my game isn't being affected (only have like 1-2 major mistakes per session and most times they are like misclicks or situations where I don't remember the action in the street before LOL :-P)

Also, I'm only at 21k VPPs for the year which is laughable, I guess I should be at like 85k or so at this point.... no problem, I'll just pick up later, this month didn't start out exactly how I planned so I'll try to re-start the year properly in February.

Bye.

Already behind pace :(

2010-01-11T22:12:00.000-08:00

Hi,

Haven't played much this year so far, I've torn a lot of my play between my desktop and laptop so I can't post a graph or HHs so far but will def have all that stuff ready when I make a new post, probably tomorrow or in a couple of days, there's grind on my mind now :)

This is the first screenshot of something I hope to be epic some months from now, my VPP counter thus far in the year:

I was supposed to have 30k by now if I'm at pace to SNE but I'm not worried, I'll make it up with some PLO multitabling once I polish my game a bit more, 1/2 6 max PLO offers like 0.9vpp/hand so...

See ya!

Recap.

2010-01-02T21:50:00.000-08:00

Hey, so here I am. This post is going to be kinda long because I'm in the mood to write so if you're interested you're definitely going to enjoy.

Last year was quite tilting when it comes to poker... (life in general was pretty good I guess, apart from gaining ~35lbs/15kg and destroying my liver =P) I made monies, but not as much as I planned to nor as smoothly as I wanted to.

First of, I started the year playing HU NLHE, that part is well documented in some of my posts in this blog. However, I stopped playing NLHE HU shortly after the end of May (not much happened between that time and my last March post here).

This is my graph of my HU NLHE career up to May/June (I don't have a good style for variance free HU, my stats are usually 76/72):

Then, my HU PLO adventure began. It started off pretty well! I was running good and, on retrospect after watching some videos and reading some books, playing pretty well (for someone who took off in the most swingy poker variant totally uneducated). I never seemed to be able to have a losing day, and when I did, I only lost a couple of buyins. I had 2 consecutive best days ever ($4.5k and $5k at 2/4 and 3/6) I was unbeatable, nobody could touch me and I surely would be ruling the highstakes FTP games by the end of the year. I was going to make a name for myself.

And then, June came along. Everything looked great, going to a couple of different places (Vilamoura and Figueira da Foz) to play a couple of live tourneys and just have a blast and making some money online. The first week in Vilamoura is pretty hazy, not much poker went on over there since I devoted most of my time to be partying with friends, but what happened next in Figueira would forever change the way I deal with variance and, above all, poker.

First couple of days I didn't play. Then I had another $4k day, pretty good. And then, I started losing. A LOT. Didn't matter what I did, I just lost session after session. Whether I got my money in ahead (didn't happen too often, I was quick to blame variance but time would prove me wrong) or in behind, I was due to lose. Every single day, for week and a half. I swear, every time I woke up, all I thought about was getting even for when the streak began (I still remember the day my downswing began, June 13th). Coming from a FR/HU bumhunting-ish background I didn't have to deal much with downswings, and when I did, few hours/days would go by before I got back to even with a lot of grind.

However, in PLO all of this changes. I still remember the first thought I heard about PLO when I saw my first PLO video: "PLO is a game of exploiting equity edges". What I interpreted this to mean at the time (and still do, although to a lesser extent), is basically: "this aint holdem, bitch... variance here will eat you up, long run has a much bigger role". I lost count to the amount of times I got it in flipping or in slim edge situations. They rarely went my way. Finally, by the end of July, I realized I needed to take a break from the game I learned so much to love and hate at the same time. The downswing (starting on the highpoint) now totalled a whopping $16k at this time, more than 35 buyins. I had to stop and regroup, but above all, I needed to recover the money I had lost.

This is my HU PLO graph, starting May and ending June:

To get back even, my plan consisted in grinding massive amounts of hands at 1/2 FR. It sorta worked, being FR the game I'm best at I made like $11k (including rakeback, one cannot be a FR grinder to the core if he doesn't include rakeback in his totals :D) in the space of a month just printing stress free money.

Having partially recovered the money and some confidence, I felt ready to again tackle PLO, so I started watching some videos and read SlowHabit's book. Ready to go, gonna start making some cash. It didn't turn out to be that simple. Now something felt different in my game (I was playing better, trying to avoid spots where variance would just chew me up) but still, I kept losing. By this time, mid-September had arrived (didn't play much in August or September) and, after travelling to Barcelona and Prague with poker buddies, I decided I wouldn't play PLO again until I had seen every video and read every book I could get my hands back on the subject.

However, I chose to play poker to make money because I'm lazy by nature. "It's a tough way to make easy money" sounds like a good maxim to me. I felt more comfortable grinding the games I had learned so well to beat (up to the tune of 4ptbb 24 tabling, which means I'm pretty damn good in the games I play at) and making stress free money, even though I had more than the skillsets required to beat larger games, with more variance.

This is my graph for the remainder of the year, starting October and ending now:

So, all told, I made approximately $65k total profit. A total of $50k came from cash tables, around $4k came from donkaments and $11k came from rakeback. I broke even in live poker.

This is my 2009 graph (it's very crudely done, I didn't get the timeframes right but I only made the distinctions so you can get a general idea of where each period was located)

Now, onto 2010 goals:

- $250k total profit
- Move up to midstakes/highstakes FR and start beating them like I have done to smallstakes.
- Improve my PLO game, putting in some volume and making some money.
- Become the first portuguese SNE who plays mainly cash games.
- Make a decent sized score at some tournament.
- Play more live donkaments, I can't win money if I don't have sample size.
- Drink less and enjoy life more.
- Never give up on the blog.

Ok, so this is it! 52 weeks of poker ahead of me, let's tear this sh*t up. I don't want to make promises I can't keep so I'll try to blog at least twice a week with updates.

I leave you guys with this awesome clip:

Peace!

I'm back.

2009-12-23T12:42:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

Been a long time since I've posted. The year is coming to an end and a lot of stuff has happened since I last posted.

I plan on making another post to update on the years results and to tell you whats going to happen next year.

Will probably post later tonight, if not, in a couple of days or so (christmas time is here so I wont be around the PC much)

Cya later.

Sick :(

2009-03-02T20:54:00.000-08:00

Jesus, bad start to the month.

A lot of tilt and some bad play mixed in there but I'm running fairly bad, everyone hits pairs, backdoors etc in situations where I'm almost forced to look them up which sucks for me :D

Interesting hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3931831 - This hand was interesting.

Opponent was very peculiar, he mixed it up a lot between limping and minraising, although when he limped he generally had a weaker range. A6o is a somewhat weak hand but at this point in the match I felt I knew his tendencies postflop well enough for it to warrant a raise (he folded probably twice to a raise and never 3 bet after limping so I was positive I was going to a flop)

Flop middle pair top kicker in a very coordinated flop so I bet, for value. Not really worried about getting blown off my hand by weaker hands because he rarely raised draws in position.

He calls and the turn pairs the board, which is fantastic for me. I bet once again for value and he calls. When he calls turn he pretty much always has flush draws (this was what I was putting my money on at the time) and 78/34 and the other times he has something like 77-99. I don't think he'd flat a T again after flatting top pair on the flop, although not impossible.

Betting the Kbrick river is horrendous because I'm virtually never getting called by worse and I have the best hand a lot so all I need to do is bluffcatch by check/calling. I kinda hesitated before calling because I always hesitate before bluffcatching passive players on the river but nevertheless I called and my hand was good. He ended up having total air with J high so that was good.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3931865 - This hand tilted me beyond belief.

Guy was steaming a bit, 3 betting most hands so I called with A9s. Flop TPTK with a BDFD on a coordinated flop so before he even bets I'm already figuring out a plan to get my stack in. He saves me the trouble by open shoving... I think that sometimes I'm getting owned by something like KK-TT here but it's heads up poker, I can't really fold.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3931872 - Extremely weird hand.

"Wtf was this guy thinking.."

Villain in this hand is a guy who usually sits at my tables with 20 big blinds and is a known douchebag (he hit and runs, table blocks, does all sorts of weird crap) in the headsup community.

Today he sat at some of my tables and I refused to play him, like usual, because I don't play professional shortstackers headsup. Well, shortly after, he sits at a table fullstacked and shoves over my raise. People did this to me 3 times in my short HU career... those 3 times I folded and they insta sat out and left the table so that was I was thinking would happen in this case.

Now, at the time I was steaming from a session before where I tilted off $1k to some guy and for some reason I remembered Q7o is called the computer hand because (I'm not sure on this) it has something like 51% equity against a random hand range. Tilt, the prospect of me getting closer to even on the day in an apparent situation where it could be close to neutral EV and the fact that I assumed he was shoving any two cards in this spot made me click my mouse extremely fast. I didn't suckout.

This is a hand I'm not particularly proud of and it's a secure fold on retrospect but it's probably going to be the only time I stack off with Q7o preflop with some reasoning to back it up :D

I'm done for today because I'm tired, tilted and angry and also cause I have to wake up in 6 hours for school so that's that.

Bye.

Long time...

2009-03-01T13:20:00.000-08:00

... no see.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I haven't really been interested in writing in the past couple of months but due to repeated requests I decided not to let a few people down and start writing again.

March is the month that marks a fresh start. New semester starts so now I'll have more responsibilities outside of poker (college, mainly) so I can't be fooling around anymore and will have to start working hard.

As such, my goals for this month are:

- 100k hands of midstakes.
- $20k total profit.
- Attend all my classes, both college and drivers license.
- Gym 2 times a week.
- Start waking up earlier.
- Play the Betfair Portuguese Poker Tour, which will be my live tourney debut.
- Update this blog AT LEAST 4 times a week.

That's it basically. I think I'm gonna put in a 6k hand session later so I'm planning on updating the blog again with results and some hands.

Cya.

Back.

2008-11-27T11:22:00.001-08:00

Hey,

Sorry for the lack of updates in the past month, but I wasn't in the adequate mental state to write about poker.

Haven't played much this month, mainly moved to FTP to play 1/2 FR because I felt like trying something new. Games are more aggro but overall pretty much like Stars (7 regs per table and 2 fish)

Since Saturday I've been trying out heads-up on Stars and it's been going really great. Combining game selection with smart positional play I'm pretty sure I can really grind out a nice profit when the FR tables suck (basically all the time lolol)

I'm at 259k VPPs for the year at Jokerstars so I'm going to play there in December to grind the $3k milestone bonus and the $4k bonus so I can have $7k in bonuses only.

Heads up is soooo much more fun than FR that its not even close. Every single match I play is guaranteed to be exciting (albeit non-boring like the mindless FR grind) and I always have at least 1 or 2 hands per game which really make me think about the game.

This is just a "blog ain't dead" post, I'll make another tonight, hopefully after another $1k day at the HU tables ;)

Peace.

Done.

2008-10-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

ALEFUCKINGLUIA, CLEARED THE BONUS IN A MAGNIFICENT WAY!

Best 100nl session ever (after transferring 2 cents to KidPoker, obv)

Kinda tired atm so I'll post some hands tomorrow.

"Dear speedle,

Congratulations! You have fully earned your Deposit Bonus.

Your PokerStars account has been credited in the amount of $4,000.00.

Thanks for participating in the PokerStars VIP Award Bonus, and we'll see you at the tables.

The PokerStars Cashier
cashier@pokerstars.com"

Peace.

Not giving up on this.

2008-10-11T21:09:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates (again)

Played a 7k hand session just now and am 2k VPPs away from clearing the bonus (I'm playing 100nl so it's taking a shitload of time)

I'll have the bonus cleared by tomorrow so I'll be playing the limits I'm supposed to starting on Monday. Starting then I'll try to update the blog on basically a daily basis.

Update.

2008-09-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

Hey,

Sorry I took so long to update. I've slacked a ton in the past 2 weeks so there hasn't been much to write about, and when there was it was probably me whining so I preferred not to do so.

September has come to an end and I failed miserably at every objective I had for this month. They were:

50k hands of 400NL -> No. Barely played 50k hands of poker at all.
Total profit of $16k -> I wish, but not even $6k.
Cut down the number of tables to 12-16 to focus on improving. -> No, auto pilot all the way.
Be mentally prepared to make $400 my regular game in October and take shots at 600 and 1000NL. -> Doubt it.
Blog once every 3 days, the minimum. -> Failed.
Decide once and for all what I'm going to do about college. -> Yeah I decided not to take the year off.

About the graph, I bought the $4k milestone bonus around hand 30k and the huge dip was my first session following the purchase. Last 10k hands of poker have been absolutely infernal, it's cooler after cooler and beat after beat so it's been really tough (-$1k in 10k hands at 100NL which is a limit I was crushing for 25k hands or so this month)

Overall I'm very ashamed with these results. Some people say "ARE YOU STUPID?!??! YOU WON MONEY THAT'S VERY GOOD" and those people are weak. I am NOT happy with these results. These results are garbage. Failing at every poker goal for the month is something I can't take (given the importance I attribute to this game and the impact it has on my lifestyle) so something will have to be done because I don't settle for mediocrity.

October goals:

- $16k total profit.
- Clear the $4k bonus. Keep collecting FPPs for another $4k bonus (or buy a $1.5k bonus if I can clear that one before the month is over)
- Reach the 300k VPPs milestone and buy the $3k bonus.
- Lose 5 kg (11 lbs)
- Study 20 hours per week, college related and drivers license related.

I hope October isn't as huge of a failure as September was. I'll also be 20 in the 26th of October so I hope that I have accomplished all of them by then so it can be my birthday present to myself.

Fail.

BBV

2008-09-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

Brag: 3rd +$800 session in a row (2 at 100nl and 1 at 200nl)
Beat: Only now am I'm even from the $3.2k downswing.
Variance: Still far away from my $16k goal.

Played a 5.xk hand session at 100NL just now. I'm completely shattering that limit (5.4ptbb this month over a smallish sample of 22k hands) and it's way, WAY more profitable than playing 200NL for a 2ptbb winrate so I'll keep playing 100NL until my winrate here justifies no longer playing lower than 200NL.

Don't think I ran insanely hot or anything. Positive around 2 buyins in AIE and had 4 KK vs AA (won one of them where the guy flats my 4 bet and the flop comes K high and he gets stacked obv)

I really love playing 100NL though... regs here even though a little nitty have a wider stacking off range and I had 2 fullstacked fish stacking off with top pair vs me just today whereas I can count by my fingers the number of times I recall a 200NL fish doing that in 130k hands or so.

Didn't play any interesting hand today so I wont post any.

6.9k VPPs cleared out of 28k VPPs

Classic Scarface scene $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

we are the seed of the new breed

2008-09-14T21:48:00.000-07:00

Hey,

Played a short 200nl session today. 3k hands for a profit of $800.

Played ok and ran decent.

Cleared about 5k VPPs of the 28k VPPs to clear the $4k bonus. Thats about 70k hands of 100nl if the 200nl tables keep sucking (my lifetime winrate at 200nl is about 2ptbb and lately my 100nl ptbb is around 4.5 so I might play some 100nl to clear this bonus)

Played one interesting hand vs a 2p2er today:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3192550 -> I was playing HUDless this session but I had the vague idea this guy was somewhat weak tight. Flop TPTK on a highly drawy board and I get raised by a small amount. First of all, I opened in EP so my range is fairly tight right there so his flatting range will be stuff like pocket pairs, suited connectors (like 78s or stuff like that) and ocasionally high cards (AK/KQ/AQ/AJs/KJs). When he raises my flop cbet his range is obviously made up by sets, KJs (on ocasion) and the suited connectors I was talking about (although at the time I was rather unsure whether he'd raise them or not cause I lacked the hud numbers) I call even OOP because I want to see a relatively safe turn so I can decide what to do with this hand. Turn is the 3s so the flush gets there but now I have the nutflush draw I check and he checks behind (which pretty much means he has a set and is afraid of the flush card) River bricks and given that he checked the turn which indicates most likely weakness and a propensity to give up on the hand (he cant be slowplaying the nutflush in this hand) I think I make him fold out sets often enough to make this work. I overbet jam the river all the time as both bluffs and the nuts btw and I rarely throw bets like $80 into those pots.

Felt pretty retarded afterwards for trying to bluff someone out of a set but I was so confident about his hand and was also sure that he was looking for a reason to fold so I tried it out.

:) :) :) :)

update.

2008-09-12T22:43:00.000-07:00

Hey,

Sorry I took so long to update, the last few days have been really hard poker wise... I just can't seem to get my hands to hold and that seriously takes a huge dent in my profits.

I have some of the hands of the last few days in my laptop so I'll update the post tomorrow with some hands and graphs.

Meanwhile, I played a "10k" hand session today at 100NL (200NL tables seemed absolutely horrendous plus I'm clearing the bonus so this crap can only get worse) Went ok I guess, won SOME of the hands I was supposed to win but got a bunch of cooler hands (4 KK vs AA preflop and stuff like that) so there isn't much for me to do. Also down approx 3 buyins in AIE.

Todays graph:

Favorite hands from today:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3184355 -> Guy here was a total idiot (I was playing HUDless but I was pretty sure he was a donk) He seemed extremely aggro and had a bunch of stacks IIRC so I took a flop with this hand even OOP because I plan on taking the pot away from him postflop. Flop an OESD and given the board texture and the kind of opponent I'm dealing with I chose to just call. Turn a pair so my hand is definitely shaping up... if I raise here I accomplish nothing but folding out worse and keeping in better and most times he's bluffing here anyway so I just call again. River pairs the board with is pretty much the nuts for me because now he has to have an overpair or a better 9 here a bunch of times (he will sometimes but not as often to justify a fold getting these odds) My hand is good.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3184365 -> I guess I must piss people off.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3184374 -> Guy here felt loose typical friday night guy. Flop a gutshot and an overpair so bet obviously. He check/raises which can mean a wide range of hands, from flush draws to better overpairs to stuff like 45 A4 55 etc I just call because I have position and the best hand often times. Turn is an 8 and he leads for a little over half pot which I think feels fishy so I shove here because I think I'll get called by worse often... there are the flushdraws with overs and stuff like that that will gladly stack off there so.. I turned out to be right. "Someone" commented on ICQ that I'm a retard for making this play... he's probably right but I still like it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3184391 -> Favorite over a set AND a made str8... but I brick lololol.

That's it for now.

Let'em bet the flop, let'em bet the turn and then BAM, POP'EM ON THE RIVAH

Also, here's an hand a friend of mine who got deep in the HU WCOOP $320 event played: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3184403

Congrats on getting that far mekkas. You have potential KID.

september 8th

2008-09-08T20:40:00.001-07:00

Hey,

Played a short 6k hand session today.

Proud to say that I earned that money today. Played fine (except for a spot vs the same guy where I almost spewed an entire stack) so I'm happy with it. About 1 buyin down in AIE but no biggie.

Didn't have any interesting hands today, just standard spots. This one was fun though:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3165340 -> yes.

Also on nonpoker related news, watched a couple of films yesterday, The Dark Knight and Requiem for a Dream. TDK actually didn't impress me as a whole but The Joker obviously did. Requiem for a Dream is simply amazing, I highly recommend it in case you haven't seen it yet.

Over & out

Im a balla, i got a swatch yeah

2008-09-06T20:45:00.001-07:00

Played a 5.7k hand session today.

Played nittier than usual (at about 14/12) but I decided that I was tired of spewing so I tried to play solid instead of just splashing around. Fairly happy with how I played but still there's much to improve. Ran hot as the sun, flopped a bunch of sets and had some AA vs fullstacked guys.

Some hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3155926 - I vote this as the stupidest hand I ever played. Chose not to raise preflop cause the open limper was a fish and didn't fold to cbets so I just limped in. When the flop comes down I'm like "SWEET, NUT STR8 FLOPPED SHIP SHIP" Guy was short and leads so this most likely means some sort of pair + draw (like AT, AQ, KQ, QT) and the other guy calls (which means a lot of things, flush draws included) so I stick my stack in because "I have the nut str8" and that will probably induce calls from hero top pairs and obviously flush draws. I turned out NOT to have the nut str8 but bottom pair and a gutshot. Sucks for me.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3155951 - Guy here is a regular who hates my guts so when he just calls the flop it's pretty obvious what he has and all I have to hope is that he gives me no credit by betting the turn as strong as possible so it looks like I'm pushing him around. Standard hand considering our history, I think.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3155958 - Another reg with whom I have some occasional battles so I'm guessing he hates me too (didn't 3 bet light much tonight, tho)

That's it for today.

Peace.

Quick update.

2008-09-04T19:42:00.001-07:00

Not much to say.

I've been playing some HU and i'm really enjoying it. I might ponder switching to it if FR continues to wear down on me like it has been.

lolololol

First 2/4 session.

2008-09-01T20:34:00.000-07:00

Went pretty well. Played about 14 tables for a total of 1.1k hands. Ran decently floppig a couple of sets and winning one AK vs KK (was vs a LAG)

My biggest pot ever is a suckout :( http://www.pokerhand.org/?3133116

August results and september goals.

2008-08-31T21:12:00.000-07:00

Hey,

My August goals were:

- 120k hands of 200NL
- $16k total profit
- 200k VPP milestone bonus.
- Be ready to move to 400NL by the end of the month.

Played about 127k hands total, with 7k being 100nl and the other 120k being 200NL. Had a total profit of $12020 (8400 from cash, 1600 from the freeroll and 2000 from the bonus). Bought and cleared the milestone bonus.

Now, I have the BR but I dont feel very confident about moving up. Will take my first 2/4 session tomorrow and we'll see how it goes.

Graph:

Really disappointed with myself. Feel like overall I played way below my A game, thus displaying a shitty graph and shitty 2ptbb winrate (the average 24 tabler winrate) Something will have to change.

September goals:

50k hands of 400NL
Total profit of $16k
Cut down the number of tables to 12-16 to focus on improving.
Be mentally prepared to make $400 my regular game in October and take shots at 600 and 1000NL.
Blog once every 3 days, the minimum.
Decide once and for all what I'm going to do about college.

Will also start using HEM because I tried it today and instantly fell in love with it. I don't like PT3 and HEM seems to do a pretty good job of keeping up with the evolving trend of poker.

That is all.

lol

2008-08-29T20:32:00.001-07:00

Worst day ever.

Lost $1.3k playing 200NL and $400 playing 100NL.

Not much to do, just beat after beat, cooler after cooler and me playing bad in easy spots because of some tilt.

I kinda expected this, though... I'm clearing a bonus so the doomswitch has to appear sometime... maybe I'll just play 100NL the remainder of the month so I don't risk as much since I'm doomswitched while I'm clearing it.

Clearing the $4k bonus is out of the question and since I lost $1.7k today I will not meet my $16k goal for the month.

I refuse to believe it's due to my play btw, even though I'm spewing in some spots where my style of play does not allow me to do otherwise (idk, I feel like if I change these little aspects I have to change my entire style and my current style sounds profitable enough at these limits) The moment I start having doubts about my game it will only get worst so... screw that, I'm not going down.

I also decided that I will most likely quit 24 tabling once I move up to midstakes (probably will 12-16 table) so I might think about switching to a more profitable site given that Stars's midstakes FR games have a couple of months left before they become total wastelands. Maybe one of the european networks, idk yet.

blargh

2008-08-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

Played about 6k hands today. All 100NL cause the 200NL tables seemed horrible beyond belief.

Some hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3115638 -> Unknown at the time. We were 200BBs deep so I was kinda reluctant to 3bet a UTG raiser. Flop TPTK with a BDFD and he cbets. I raise because he's a 100NL unknown so probably bad and he min 3 bets... when he does this I think he either has exactly AA or something he totally spazzed out with so I just call and let him do the betting for me. Turn a backdoor flush draw and he bets around half pot... I don't like a shove here because i'm only folding out worst that will probably shove river. I river awesome and he spazzed out with middle pair. Nice to win a 400BB pot for a change.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3115644 -> Hand plays itself out but it was nice because this is my 4th str8 flush in my career lol

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3115649 -> This guy was a multitabling reg. I just destroyed him this session, can't remember of the last time I pounded on a reg the way that I did and how badly he reacted. Always nice to have people calling your 3 bets with A9o OOP

That's it for today. Hopefully I'll play a ton tomorrow (if the 200nl tables don't suck)

Short session.

2008-08-27T20:48:00.000-07:00

Played a short session today, ran hot (mostly PF stuff like AA vs JJ and 77 when 2 overaggro regs who give me no credit called my 5bet shove)

Quit the session relatively early because people were check/minraising me on every flop (no exception, every single flop I cbet was getting minraised) and it was starting to induce tilt so I opted to just quit since the effect of marijuana the RNG had been on was probably wearing off.

Favorite hand of the session:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3110819 -> Guy here is a very aggro reg who doesn't give me any credit. Not a very tough hand for me to play, he c/raises when I flop the 2nd nuts so I opt to just call the flop because I will have position and that's the best way to maximize value out of his whole range. Bad spot to bluff son :(

The $2k bonus has been credited into my account today (it's 10k VPPs to clear it) and I've cleared 1.3k of those with this session today.

gl

asodasdasoodas

2008-08-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

Played 10k hands today to finish in the red.

Played horribly in some big pots and ran like crap the whole time (6 KK vs AA and 4 set over sets lol.....)

Im really getting tired of this nitty environment so if 400NL plays like 200NL does I'll probably switch to 6 max. Tired of worrying about set over set when I flop one or worrying if I'm going to get coolered with KK PF instead of looking for the best way to get stacks in. No more of this from these fcking nits.

Some hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3106159 -> Biggest pot I ever lost. Was playing HUDless and I had no reads at the time and he was at a couple of tables so I assumed he was the standard 200NL reg (aka nitty) so I wanted to see a flop seeing as we're deep and his raise came from UTG, sounding very strong. Flop huge with an OESD + FD so the price of poker has got to go up.. turn is a K. I think the K won't be a scare card to most of his range (I doubt i'm folding stuff im behind of by betting here) so I just check behind. River a flush and he bets close to pot... he's strong here ALWAYS but I just hoped he had KKK or AA and shoved (made a huge blunder here, acted by instinct when I shoved and failed to realize I was shoving more than a buyin into the pot) He snapped off with the nuts (obv, why would people stack off with anything other than that?) so I lost my biggest pot ever.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3106192 -> Had been battling with this guy and he seemed prone to tilt given the frequency I was 3 and 4 betting him. Standard preflop 3 bet (this is actually for value because he calls me with worst often) Cbet the flop because he misses most times and I want to take it down right there and he just calls... when he calls I doubt he has draws here because most draws will have overs and he'll shove that vs me because he hates my guts, so I think his range here is often 1 pair hands. Turn is the A which pretty much means that I have the best hand here ALWAYS so I c/c because by checking I allow him to turn some of his hands into a bluff. River puts trips on the board so I rather shove because my line looks rather weak and people never fold full houses (especially with our history) He snapped me off btw.

I'm at 195k VPPs and I've ordered the $2k bonus, will try to clear it tomorrow. 104k hands for the month so I think tomorrow I'll reach my hand # goal.

;) ;) ;)

;)

2008-08-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

Haven't played much the last few days.... tables are awful all the time so I have the lack of will to play. Maybe tomorrow I'll play some 10k hands because its saturday and donks are out lolollo

Played around 2k hands of 100NL today (200NL tables REALLY sucked and I wanted to get my fix lololol) It was a different session because LearningCurve from 2p2 railed me and it was a fine experience to learn and teach at the same time while I was playing. Also played 2k hands of 200NL on Thursday but quickly was disencouraged because of how quickly the tables switched from decent to bad.

Here's a graph of the last 3 days (includes 100 and 200NL)

Hopefully tomorrow I have a huge, HUGE session so I can brag instead of whine :D

Represent homies.

Nice little session.

2008-08-19T21:49:00.000-07:00

Hey,

Played 8k hands today for a nice profit of $1.9k. Played OK, I guess but I'm still not happy with some spots I got myself into (vs the same guy actually, I think he has me under control... I will have to examine his play on PT) Finished up around 2 buyins in AIE which is nice (mostly against ratholers which is even nicer). Only 18 or something to go to recover from last week lololol

Some hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3072213 -> This one is proof of how retarded I am. Tried to get cute by betting $17.9 (please note the point) but forgot about actually typing it and when i noticed it was too late lolololol Anyway I can't fold for 7 bucks more pal, SPIKE ME A K DEALER ONE TIME... yeah right

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3072222 -> Guy here was getting pissed with me, I'd regularly raise his SB limp and he always called and c/f the flop. When he limp/min3bets I think his hand is face up as KK+ so I opted to call such a weak hand like T2o (prob mediocre at best but I felt so confident as to what his hand was that I chose to grab the opportunity in position) Flop comes J high with a BD str8 draw which is still mediocre. He checks it to me and this has c/mr written all over it and since I have T high just check it back and try to spike a BD. I spike the 8 so now I'm openended with 8 outs and he bets $20. Raising here is bad because I have no fold equity but I feel so confident that I will stack his hand on a river that improves me (I will ABSOLUTELY need to accomplish that to make this play acceptable at best) River makes my str8 he bets $20 again which at the time felt like KK asking to go to showdown cheap but.. no can do sir, stick it in. He obliged and mucked. Questionable preflop call but postflop I think it's standard (taking into account I'll stack him 100% of the times I hit, which I think I will vs this guy) Not sure about the math here but you can comment it if I'm making a huge blunder. Thanks.

I'm at about 190k VPPs after this sess so I'm really close to the milestone. Also at 200k FPPs so also close to the $4k bonus. Will try to put in 10k hands tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

lol

2008-08-16T16:57:00.000-07:00

Final tabled the 100FPP saturday donkament today, took 2nd place for $1.6k I think.

I'm not a very good heads up player (especially with 15BB stacks) but I had the chiplead and got it in a couple of times, once he sucks out on the turn with bottom pair vs my mid pair, another time I get it in with KQ vs his KJ and the board pairs, and the final hand was my K5s vs his A7o... flop came A high with my flush draw but the turn and river bricked, so not much to do.

Kinda happy with my performance in this donkament (I have to thank Chargers for railing me the middle stages) because I really didn't think I'd make this far given that the last donkament (not counting SNGs) I played was like 3 or 4 months ago. This was also my first final table in a donkament since like 1 year back when I used to play freerolls (well this is a freeroll too, but it pays better)

Doubt I'll be playing any ring games tonight, took 5 hours to play this so I'm already tired.

Bye.

No comments.

2008-08-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

Skill will only take you so far in this game, your luck has to define the rest.... and when my luck is based on the premise that 2 outers are the best hand, not much for me to do...

This past week:

It hurts my game, it hurts my results, it hurts my will to play, idk wtf to do anymore... I refuse to believe that I'm a breakeven player. Just isn't possible, I know what I see day in and day out and each passing day I become more and more aware how bad people truly are.

Whatever, sorry to bitch but I had to let it out.

Peace.

Siiiiiiiiiiiigh....

2008-08-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

Played about 8.2k hands today.

Very disappointed with the way I played today, acted like a total spewmonkey preflop, my 3bet% this session must have been like 20 and I failed to notice that same fact so I think people exploited me easily today :(

Very frustrating. First of all, I'm only winning at 2ptbb and I want to win at 3, the very minimum. There's still much work to be done.

Only had one hand that's worth discussing:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3043960 - Villain here is unknown, seems bad. Good flop for my hand, flop a good hand with a good chance that I'll get action. I cbet and he flats... now, when he just calls I think most times he's gonna have either a weakish K (like KT/KJ), a strong Q like AQ/QJ, draws (FDs and str8s) and a small percentage of the times he's gonna be slowplaying a big hand, like top 2 or a set of 8s.

Turn is a perfect card because it bricks completely BUT adds a backdoor FD to my hand which basically means I have a boner by this time. I bet fairly close to the pot because I'd expect his hand to be defined after his reaction to the bet. He just calls again which basically means that he wasn't slowplaying on the flop (most times people act on the turn in case they slowplay the flop) so he's either on a draw (my money is on this at the time), a strong K and a very small percentage of the times AQ. River is a very good card for me because it pairs the board and every possible thing missed. I don't think I'm going to get 3 streets of value out of 1 pair hands that he has (even though he looks very showdown bound) and the best way to extract value from the rest of his range (i.e. missed draws) is by checking it to him here.

His river bet is hilarious because it makes me think he decided to turn something like KJ/AQ into a bluff here (most times I think missed draws just bet like $80 or something into that pot) so I shove the extra 11 bucks into the pot. He calls and mucks quickly. I was kinda surprised to see QJo but whatever, people are tools and I collect my biggest pot ever.

Broke the 60k hand mark for the month today so there's that. I'm at 177k VPPs atm.

Overall it was a shitty session. I also ran about 3 buyins below AIE so that's good because it shows that people need to suckout on me in order to win stacks (had my first AA < AK in 2 months)

Just to close this post, here's one of the most hilarious vids I've seen in a while (20 minutes or so lolol)

Word.

Damn

2008-08-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

Played 10k hands today.

Overall I'm very happy with how I've been playing lately but the RNG simply does not give me a break. It happens though, everyone's supposed to go through this crap otherwise the fish would be playing chess or something by now lololol

Don't really want to share any hands today because most of the big hands I lost were just coolers/suckouts spots, and since I dont really want this blog to be a bad beat central I'll just spare you of that... ;)

Found a way to get around some of my preflop leaks so I'm happy about that too, been playing solid all around lately so I'm really proud of the way my game's evolving.

Might put in another 10k hand session tomorrow, not really sure yet but it's almost the mid of the month and I need to have 60k hands put in by the 15th to be on pace for my 120k hand goal.

I'm at 175k VPPs after this session, so I'm guessing I'll reach the 200k VPP milestone sometime around the 28th or something so that's cool because I'm pretty sure I'll put in $6k in bonuses this month ($4k from the 250k FPP bonus and $2k from the milestone)

Just to close this post, here's a song from a group I'm really into:

Peace.

:(

2008-08-11T18:36:00.001-07:00

Haven't played much at all the last few days, with the exception of some random HU sng's (prob up about 1 buy aka 20 bucks) because I don't really have the will because of how the games constantly look... every table has at least 5 regs during week time so that kinda drains a bit of my willingness to play.

Kinda far from my goal for this month (120k hands with $16k total profit)... here's how the month looks so far:

Not very sexy but not horrific either taking into account that it's my first "serious" month playing at this limit. Hopefully it will keep going up as I keep playing and, subsequently, improving.

I think I need to work mainly on my preflop game because I feel so comfortable postflop given how people play their holdings that there's no immediate need to rectify anything. My main preflop flaw is that I give people no credit whatsoever in obvious steal/resteal spots when these guy's ranges (except for a couple of players) are always a lot tighter than I give them credit for, so that gets me into some shitty spots all the time and costs me a bunch of money.

On life related news, I'm going to sign myself up for the drivers license course tomorrow (in my country you have to be at least 18 years old and you have to pay something around 600 euros for it lol) so I can stop being one of the few people of my age that can't drive around here. I'm only just now going for it because I chose to pay for this myself (instead of having my parents pay for it like it's standard around here) because both my parents paid their drivers license for themselves and I actually like to be able to say that I worked hard to have something I enjoy (not sure if that makes much sense but whatever)

On a more hilarious note:

Peace out homies.

August 9th

2008-08-09T19:59:00.000-07:00

This limit pisses me off.

It's like, one day I have a fantastic session and the next day I lose basically everything I worked for.

Played about 2k hands today, quit the session because I didn't feel like I was playing good poker anymore and might as well quit and prevent any more damage.

Dont think I played bad or anything, just lost a couple of stacks in cooler/suckout spots.

3 big hands from today:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3023276 -> guy here was LAG, not very good... I had 3 bet him earlier in the session and I noticed he was starting getting frustrated with me.

Standard PF raise to get this HU if possible and I get his call. Flop comes like that, VERY drawy and I have TPTK with the nut BDFD (and efectively a blocker to the FD). I make my standard cbet and he just insta shoves... when he insta shoves I don't think he ever shows up with hands like 88 77 (QQ is unlikely) so the hands I'm going to see here more often are going to be something like KcQx or a flush draw so I pretty much snap called his shove. He happened to have a better hand than I assumed (gutter + FD) but I was a favorite nevertheless... I lost so that's no big of a deal.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3023292 -> guy here is a sLAG, decent reg... I have a peculiar history with this guy, which involves some light 3 and 4 betting (he rarely calls my 3 bets, only folds or 4 bets) so I chose to just call here given that I have position and I think I will be able to profitably play this hand like this.

Flop comes a monotone which is kinda scary but nevertheless, I have top 2 pair. He cbets and I raise because, you know, I have top 2 on a drawy board and I want to get this in. He pretty much snap shoves which instantly lead me to believe he has EXACTLY a set of 3's here (AAA or QQQ is unlikely) but his range is made up by so many stuff like AxKs, KsJx that I pretty much felt like I was obligated to call. My instinct was correct and more and more I feel like I have to trust it at this limit because regulars always have what they rep (even moreso than at micro stakes, as dumb as that sounds)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3023318 -> guy here is unknown.

Standard PF raise and the flop comes rather drawy but I have an overpair so I want to bet and get the money in ASAP. I make a cbet and he calls... now, when he calls he pretty much always has top pairs, flush draws, big hands like sets slowplaying and weaker overpairs "kinda" slowplaying... turn is a trojan horse in this particular spot because it improves my hand but it completes the flush. Nevertheless I'm still happy to get it in against his range because he can still have hands like AsTx, slowplaying sets and even if he has a flush I still have a bunch of outs to improve on the river. He happened to have a flush in this spot but I think I still like my bet/call line on the turn.

That's it for today.

Let's do this.

2008-08-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

Hey what's up everyone,

My name is Mário, I'm 19 and I'm from Portugal.

I've been playing poker for about a year and a half now. Played freerolls for about 6 months gathering any cash I could make (never deposited) and started playing cash games around September of last year.

My main game is 200NL full ring and I play mainly on Pokerstars. My nickname is speedle.

This blog's goal is to map with detail my progress both as a player and person as I move throughout the stakes. It will also be the place where I share all my brags, beats and variances, not only poker related but also life related.

Let's make some history.