Rye and Poker

Phil Ivey Poker Training

2011-03-25T19:57:00.003-04:00

I hope the rumors are true about Phil Ivey starting his own poker training site. Phil Ivey Poker Training would crush the competition due to him being the undisputed #1 player in the entire world. He would be able to recruit all his friends which would be the best training lineup that any site could ever put together.

According to Phil Ivey's site and some of his latest tweets it could become a reality sooner rather than later. I am assuming Phil Ivey Poker Training won't happen over night but good things come to those that wait. I am sure all my readers would love to learn from Phil so let's hold our collective breath until this becomes a reality!

I should state that I am the one spreading the rumors at this point but it seems very likely that FTP and Phil Ivey would want to make this happen. It could mean Cardrunners is on the way out? You heard it here first!

PocketFives Training

2011-03-11T10:59:00.003-05:00

The community that brought online tournament poker player rankings pocketfives is now starting PocketFives Training.

I am connected with the management team behind P5s and I am involved in the poker training game so I say the following with great authority:

This is a huge game changer for the PocketFives community and the training arean in general.

P5's Training is taking over the hugely successful PokerPwnage brand and will put their own upgrades on the site, such as better community functions, better search functionality, and the most important part new pros. PocketFives has access to a ton of top pros and making good content to keep players coming back will be easy.

The new training site will still not go head to head with the likes of Cardrunners but it will solidify their position at the top of the MTT poker training market by a VERY large margin going forward. I am looking forward to seeing the integration fully implemented and doing a thorough review for Poker Training Guide. I just hope they managed to sign Isuldur to a poker training contract!

On Demand Tournaments

2010-12-06T12:14:00.004-05:00

Full Tilt on demand tournaments just came out and although it's not going to be as huge as Rush poker it shows how FTP is willing to innovate on not allowing players to wait to play their favourite SNG's.

Full Tilt On Demand Tournaments give SNG players the ability to register late for SNG poker tournaments up to the specified time frame. Usually 3 levels. This will lead to bigger prize pools so I think its a great way to add value to SNG players.

I just also noticed that their are Rush Poker on Demand tournaments in the lobby. These will truly be the poker players drug of choice. Instant rush SNG's with out having to wait for the Tournament to fill up and not have to wait for hands to appear. Instant 24/7 on demand crack! Full Tilt Poker is starting to dominate the innovation game. Other poker sites should keep an eye on what they are brewing up!

What a Rush!

2010-01-20T10:37:00.002-05:00

Full Tilt Rush poker is a game changing version of online poker! Full Tilt launched it last night and wow was it fun. It basically acts as a multi-table experience but you only play one table.

You play 300 hands per hour by switching tables every time you fold a hand. The only caveat is that you play against a random set of opponents that you have no reads on or time to even look at a HUD to make a decision.

The good thing is you can play as tight as you want and no one will notice. I used the opportunity to 3 bet a lot as no one can really pick up on it because you don't even have time to make notes.

The games are juicy so jump on in before its a complete nit fest and a bunch of short stacks. I was able to play 3 tables at a time so in theory get in about 900 hands per hour. I was not able to type on MSN or even look away from the tables while I played. What I love about this is I can jump into cash games and play some meaningful hands in the 20 odd mins I have free in a night.

Full Tilt Rush poker was a good enough experience to get me out of retirement for a while!

Let me know your thoughts.

Update

2009-12-16T13:59:00.002-05:00

I just wanted to make a fresh post on this blog to keep away the cobwebs.

Not too much new is going on in the poker world for me. I have started to fit in some SNGs into my schedule when I have time to play in between taking care of my baby, working full time, part time website work (PokerTrainingGuide + many others) and sleeping/eating. Life has been very busy but in a good way.

I have been getting the itch to play super turbo SNGs, they are like crack and I love the quick rush. I have been crushing the busto stakes which feels kinda funny. My hourly rate is terrible even when I crush but I guess I enjoy playing them for the love of the game. It's not really about the money anymore when I fire up some tables.

For my 10 readers out there if anyone has a neglected poker blog please let me know as I need to build some links to sites I own. I can buy them off you for a fair price. Or if you would like to help me out I can tell you a link to put on your blogroll.

I will try to play more poker so I have something to write about but it probably won't be anytime soon. Maybe I should just start posting on the business of poker as it's a lot more interesting than playing these days.

200th Post

2009-07-31T08:29:00.002-04:00

It's been since February since I last posted and this is mainly due to me not playing poker anymore. So I thought I would use my 200th post to update and let everyone know that my wife and I just had a healthy baby girl!! I figured I may as well save a milestone post for good news versus a bad beat of some sort or another.

On the poker front I have mainly just been working on the website business end of things. I have a couple of new exciting projects that will be coming online over the next couple months. It's amazing how long it takes to get a new website idea that hasn't been done before to launch. I know with Poker Training Guide that it took 2-3 months to get 90% of the content finished. I am in month 2 right now and the expected complete date is Sept.1 before we can even test and get the kinks out.

In closing, I know it's late but congrats to Actyper for making a nice score at the WSOP main event. Drinks on him if we ever meet!

Thank God for Rakeback

2009-02-13T08:15:00.003-05:00

Where do I start? I had my ass handed to me in January at the poker tables and in life. At the poker tables I experienced my worst downswing in over four years of playing poker. In life it was one random bad luck thing happening after another. We had a pipe burst since it was so damn cold over a stretch of a few days that a pipe froze and burst by the time we warmed it back up. lol plumberbillaments.

I am just getting back into poker since I just received my last rakeback payment which made up for some of my losses at the table. I really can't say enough about playing with rakeback, it definitely makes up for your downswings when you add rakeback + bonuses together at the end of the month.

Pokertrainingguide.com is still going strong, we are in need of updating some of the reviews so that we stay current but that shouldn't be an issue over the coming months. We are also going to add a free poker training promotion that includes more poker training sites other than Cardrunners through Full Tilt poker that we currently offer. So check back soon!

F 2009

2009-01-04T14:10:00.005-05:00

I will post my goals when I am less tilted. I am starting off 2009 just as I did 2008 with a huge downswong. I just need one hand to hold up to get my confidence back but it has yet to happen. I am down 10 BI's and this is officially the biggest BI downswing I have taken. I'm on pace to wipe out Decembers gains very quickly if I do not turn this around quick. I think I am going to drop down to regain some of my confidence and bankroll. Of the 10 BI's I am down my EV should only make me 4 BIs down...variance is a bitch. The big dive near the end is getting AA 2 of 3 hands at the same table and getting crushed by a Flush Draw then a set.

EDIT: my tracker is missing another $100 lost...so make that 7/12 BIs below expectation. weeeeeee

NYE Live Poker

2009-01-01T12:19:00.003-05:00

Now that I am married New Years Eve has definitely lost its luster to go to the bars, fight the crowds and pay a ridiculous amount on a normally just "ok" time out at the bar. So this year my wife and I decided to order Chinese food in and head to the local casino with her parents. I immediately put my name on the list for 1/2 NL and it took about an hour for my name to get called which was good considering how busy it seemed.

I was at a fresh table that just formed out of the waiting list and it was filled with mostly older people and me and a crazy asian were the only two younger player which I always like. The guy on my left was talking startegy to his buddy and it was pretty lol at some points. I think he mentioned twice folding mid pocket pairs to a single raise preflop after limping because 77 doesn't connect with many flops (I think he limped for $2 and folded for $10 more with 4 callers). As always at live tables there are a lot of raised multiway pots. I knew I had a great table when the third hand in went (3 players in the action) limp, raise, reraise, call, reraise AI, Call, Call. I love that the limper was willing to get it all in and the original reraiser hit his set of aces and the other 2 mucked, one of them being the crazy asian, I wish I could of seen there cards.

To the hands I played:

A7s - Limped in and saw a flop of 8s7x4s...I bet flop and got 2 callers, 2x turn, bet and only one caller and Ax River and I bet and didn't get called by the guys FD. I wish we hit the flush as I would of taken his stack for sure.

ATs - I raised in MP got a couple callers and a flop of Td8d2d and I bet out getting one caller, Ad on the turn putting 4 diamonds out on the board and I get lead into for $20 ($40ish pot) and I call. I was really worried obviously about losing to a diamond but I wanted to stack him if I happened to hit my boat. I think my call is wrong but not too worried about it at this table. River is a blank and he checks to me and I tank for a bit not having the balls in the end to fire and represent a high Diamond thinking he has a medium diamond like the J/T that he would snap me off with and we end up splitting the pot.

J8s - OTB - 4 Limpers by the time it gets to me and I pop it to $12 and get 3 callers. The all insta check the 7 3 4 rainbow flop to me so I fire $25 and they all fold. The guy next to me asks if I had JJ+ so I showed him just to mess with his mind which did work.

JTs - LP - EP raise by the crazy asian with 2 callers by the time it gets to me so I call in position and its 5 to the flop. Flop is JsJx9s with a potential flush and straight draw. BB Checks, Crazy Asian bets $25, fold, call, and I jack it to $117 total AI. I was scared of the call, I knew the only hand that could call the CB of the Crazy Asian on that board was a Draw of some sort and I didn't want to risk playing it fancy and seeing a terrible turn. I knew the Crazy asian who was into his 3rd bullet could make the call with his OP if he had one which I think he did. He tanked for a long time before folding and the caller folded even though he only had $40 behind or so. If the caller isn't there I think I stack the Crazy Asian by making a smaller bet and milking him in but I was happy to take the large pot without a showdown in the end.

J9s - MP - Limped in - Made a terrible call down after checking a J52 flop and it getting check around to see another 5 and a $10 bet from the button. I called the turn bet and then called his river value bet for $20 and he flipped A5. I thought he tried to steal on the turn when it got checked to him twice since he was on the button so I don't mind my call on the turn but I should of folded the river because I don't beat much. Next time I will fire the flop and see how it goes from there.

I only got to play for 1:15 so I was happy with my results of +$109. The game was 1/2 NL with a $100 max buy in and $100 CAP on betting. If I raised $100 and got reraised to $200 I could still reraise to $300 but the game would have to be very deep since the BI is only $100. It was a weird set up.

Happy New Year! I'll be back with a post on my 2009 Goals shortly.

2008 Year in Review

2008-12-24T11:29:00.003-05:00

2008 Goals - Lets see how many I fulfilled?

1. Take more notes + PT + PAHUD = pass. I have recently bought Holdem Manager and have been taking better notes all year when I was playing.

2. Increase number of hands played = pass. The months that I played I played quite a few hands. This last 1.5 months has been great and I really think going to SH tables will make it easier in the New Year to continue the trend.

3. Move up to NL200 = fail. I always fail these types of goals because I end up taking too much time off or withdrawing for personal reasons.

4. Take time off = pass. I think I might of taken this to the extreme but I took off from May to September again this past year for the second year in a row. I think I will just make poker a 6 month sport that is played only in the winter. I had reasons to take the time off and they were very profitable reasons. I started a website. Poker Training Guide. I enjoyed summer and worked hard at my real job and started a huge networking group for young professionals in my area that now meets monthly.

3/4 is great and I look forward to setting some unique goals for 2009 that will include everything from work, poker, websites, and beyond. Balance is definitely the key to a long successful poker career as well as life in general.

Once again, Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!!

2008-12-23T18:28:00.003-05:00

Riverrun 1 - bwin 0

I just finished my PSO promo with bwin poker on the ongame network. I ended up playing 19,000 hands of 5 max in order to get the $150 in PSO points, and the $250 deposit bonus. For the most part I was able to 6 table and I learned a few lessons of short handed play a long the way.

1. A very profitable play is to check the river with the hands you would normally thinly bet for value with on the river if you are oop. 9/10 the guy will fire a decent sized bet with their missed draws, bottom pairs, etc and you can pick these off when they normally wouldn't call your value bet.

2. It is impossible for me to keep my redline (won $ without SD) at break even when playing more than 4 tables. I can only play showdown poker with 6 tables up and I guess I'll have to learn to live with it.

3. Eurodonks are the best kind of donks to play with and never believe you have a hand. It can be frustrating when you don't have a hand but they pay off in full wehn you hit.

4. 5 max is a more profitable game for me in terms of winrate over my last 20k hands.

Here is my final graph of my time at bwin. I am currently looking to set up shop with a ongame skin with rakeback so I can get even more value from these eurodonks as I learn to go from 6 - 9 tables over the next couple months. The blue line includes the bonuses I worked off while grinding.

I wish all my 3 readers a safe and happy holiday and I will report back in the New Year with hopefully more of the same good news. I will also make a quick goals post at some point in the near future.

NL 50 - Continued

2008-12-19T09:48:00.003-05:00

My challenge continues onward and upward over the past week or so. I have had less time to play with Christmas parties and work related functions taking up a few more evenings than usual. Since I am stuck in my house for a while during a severe snowstorm watch I figured I would update my progress.

I just bought Hold'em Manager (HEM) to track my play. I used to use PT2 but it has become obsolete and HEM has a lot better stat tracking and HUD options than PT3. HEM uses PostgreSQL and its an absolute bitch to get going. I am still having problems every time I restart my computer but I think I have it figured out on how to get it working after a restart. It's a royal pain in the ass but a necessary evil.

I have added 2 tables to bring my total to 6 now for NL50 5max and I have identified a couple glaring leaks that I have worked on over the past few thousand hands.

Redline (Won $ Without Showdown) - This is the new stat that everyone is talking about. I have always maintained a good win rate without worrying about or measuring this stat. I am now making a conscious effort to get my redline to a break even state by firing at more orphaned pots and trying to take down 3 bet pots more often on the flop. I will post a graph at the bottom and compare my last 5,500 hands to my first 10,000 hands so you can see the difference it can make. I think this has saved me at least 1 - 2 BB/100 over the last 5k hands.

My other leak is that I am not 3 betting enough either in position or oop. I find that it doesn't make a big difference at NL50 but it will as opponents get tougher and will have the ability to narrow my range when I do 3 bet and I will not get paid off. I am going to experiment with 3 betting more over the next 5,000 hands and see if it suits my style. I think with proper implementation this will add 1 BB/100 to my winrate.

Here is the graph of my last 5,500 hands since the move to NL50:

Here is the graph of my first 10,00 hands at NL20:

NL50 5 Max Update

2008-12-10T20:31:00.003-05:00

I have now completed about 3,500 hands of NL50 since my last update and I am running in absolute god mode. I started off by dropping 4 Buy Ins in my first 500 hands of making the switch to NL50. I almost dropped back down to NL20, I was one (1) buy in away from my stop loss number to move back down.

The players at NL50 are just a bit better than NL20 with a one less complete donk per table. There are more regulars that you can just beat up on in position but out of position its best to stay away. I am trying to hammer on the mid stacks as much as possible and by doing so making their lives miserable so they do something stupid and play back at me when I have a hand. I now realize why short handed is so profitable, you really can force your opponents to make huge mistakes if you keep the pressure on long enough,

I'm still due for a gigantic doomswitch very soon but its fun riding the wave of good fortune while it lasts.

Adjustments that I have made moving up:

1.) Tightened up from the SB.
2.) Stealing slightly more from the button.
3.) Stabbing at slightly more orphaned pots to get my W$WSF % up.
4.) I am folding my SB / BB to a steal slightly more so I am not defending out of position. This is will be more key as I move up. I only want to play pots in position.
5.) Only playing 4 tables so that I can better adjust and react to my tables.

My turn aggression factor is up quite a bit but I think that is due to the cards I am getting and all the made hands I'm value betting.

Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet, Value Bet is the name of the game at these small stakes.

I will continue playing another 6,500 hands and then hopefully take a shot at NL100 if all goes well. Ill try to update on my pending doomswitch shortly.

Hands since I started Short Handed, I moved up around hand 10k:

NLHE Shorthanded 5 Max

2008-12-03T18:30:00.003-05:00

It been a while since I have actually played poker so I figure why not update the old blog. I have given myself a challenge of learning short handed NLHE. I almost exclusively played Full Ring over the last 4 years and I always wanted to play SH but wasn't able to open up my game enough while I was learning.

So my challenge was to play 10k hands at bwin's 5 max tables before moving up. I deposited $400 for this and I said I will only move up to NL50 if I show a profit and have a decent understanding of the short handed game. I also cleared a PSO promo for $150 and am almost 35% done a 8x Ongame bonus of $250.

Here is a graph of my last 10k hands. I was 6-7 tabling for the most part and the downswing at the end was in about 1 hour of playing just before I typed this.

Things have gone relatively well, the play is pretty atrocious at these limits so its not saying much that I actually beat the games. I ran at 6.25 PTBB/100 and they say anything over 5 is good enough to move on so I think I will.

I will play another 10k hands at NL50 before the end of December and then reevaluate in the new year. If I go on anymore than a 5-6 BI down swing I will probably move back down and reevaluate. I made about five NL50 BI's in profit so I will let it ride so to speak.

I will also invest in Poker Tracker 3 or Holdem Manager as soon as they are more stable with Ongame's software. I haven't been using a HUD but I think I will need one since I plan on playing 6 tables at a time. I have been using a Bet Pot script as well over the past 10k hands and it makes things a lot easier to multi-table as it saves me 1 sec every action almost.

200th Post / Vegas Trip Report

2008-08-03T13:30:00.002-04:00

Google helped me celebrate my 200th post by taking my Page Rank away!! Fun times. I can now officially join the Google bashing. They didn't take my search engine rankings away yet so all is good in my books and my new venture gained a couple PageRank points to even things out.

I just got back from Vegas and I am still recovering. I only got 2.5 sessions of poker in for a total of 8-9 hours of live 1/2 NL play. This was the first time to Vegas with my wife, the last three trips were all boys weekends and boy was Vegas different when you are more sober and asleep early.

My first session started at 9am when my wife went out shopping. I was at the South Point Hotel and jumped into the only game running at the time. There were 5 players when I sat so I knew there would be some action playing 6 max. I found out quickly I was playing against 4 locals and one other tourist like myself. Thirty minutes in the two players on my left almost got into a fight over someone stealing someone elses small blind by mistake and posting it as their big blind, thus making the SB post another $1. The dealer had to give back $1 in tips to the SB and the BB guy berated the SB for having no class. This enraged the SB to the point of having to be restrained and getting asked to leave. He was the other tourist in the game and the game broke shortly after.

Hands of note:

44 in LP I limp call a raise from the SB who has been very active. Flop gives me a gutshot and I raise the $15 CB to $45 and get a call. He checks the blank turn and I check behind thinking I am probably behind to a bigger medium pair. Blank river and he checks and I check behind to see his KTs for overs and a missed FD and rake one of the bigger pots of the morning at that table (it was tight).

Table breaks within an hour and I ask if anyone wants to go tot he strip for a game and catch a ride with the BB from the fight above.

We end up at the MGM and they have 4 full tables going so we are in luck. I played this game for 6 hours and a few tourists cycled in and out but again mainly regulars during the daytime. I ended the session +$3 and made some good plays and some marginal ones as I'll talk about below.

Folded to me in the CO with KK and I open to $10 and get a call and a speech by the old nitty regular who hasn't really done much either but commented on me only playing a few hands, and the BB comes along. Effective stacks are $200.

FLOP: JJ9 rainbow and the BB checks to me and I CB $20 into $30 and the button calls and the BB folds.

TURN: Blank Deuce. I check here hoping to control the pot and call a medium sized bet. He insta-shoves his stack in of around $170 into a $70 pot. I was pissed at myself for not betting $50 on the turn and reconstructing the hand after words I realized I made him do this by acting weak and he would of value bet his Jack if he had one and his most likely holdings were a semi-bluff. I tank and fold my Kings and he throws his bluff with ATc at me. I was 50/50 calling/folding in this spot and I couldn't see the bluff as the table was so quiet and he was quiet. No big pots were being played and I threw away the best hand. He outplayed me and I gave him credit to the guys around me and the one guy who I drove over with even said he never saw that coming with the way he was playing. It was a weird spot.

What do you guys think?

Free Poker Training

2008-07-18T10:45:00.002-04:00

PokerTrainingGuide is proud to present its first of many monthly contests to give away free poker training memberships. This months giveaway is a 3 month membership worth over $200 to Daniel Negreanu's PokerVT.com! All you have to do is sign up to PokerTrainingGuide's newsletter and you are entered to win. Only confirmed email addresses are eligible.

Once the contest closes everyone who signed up will have another chance to win if you open the first newsletter. Click the picture below to enter!

PSO WSOP freeroll

2008-06-23T15:11:00.002-04:00

Congrats to Windbreaker a.k.a. Inheritance on Absolute for taking down the main event seat. He battled back from T165 or 2 BBs to win the tournament which is a huge achievement. I will out him also as the biggest luck box in the tournament because he had the uncanny ability to suck out on everyone!

Gold999 also deserves a shout out for getting 2nd and taking down $1,000 in the chop.

I bombed out 18/35 when I tried to out think a terrible calling station and ended up out thinking myself into a terrible position where I had to call for pot odds after I got to short. Chalk up the mistake to rust and I'll get over it. I still have a ticket to the $75k guaranteed on Cake that I will use one of these Sundays. Last Sunday had about 10k in overlay but I just wasn't feeling it as I got home 8 mins before the kickoff and didn't want to force it.

I know this wasn't much of an update as my new website venture is taking up most of my spare time.

Online Poker Bonuses

2008-06-17T20:22:00.003-04:00

Here are now millions of players around the world that have made online poker one of their favorite forms of entertainment. The number of poker rooms available to players has also continued to grow by leaps and bounds. The players are reaping the benefits of this increased competition as the poker rooms are now giving more and more back to the players. The poker sites are offering bigger and better online poker bonuses, better promotions for current players, and an expanded selection of games. In this article we will explore the sign up bonuses offered by some of the top online poker rooms. The card rooms that we will discuss are PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Party Poker, and Cake Poker.

Poker Stars has always been on the cutting edge of online poker technology, dating back to their beta testing period. Unlike some of the other poker sites, PokerStars did not rush their software to market. They had an extended beta testing period in which the Pokerstars.com team was able to work out many of the kinks before the real money tables were opened for business. All of this patience and hard work has helped Poker Stars to become the largest poker room in the world. With the Poker Stars marketing code PAWSUB443 new players can get both a cash bonus plus entry into special freerolls. The amount of the cash bonus is $50, and the freerolls can have prize pools that will sometimes top $12,000. These freerolls are put on by Poker News, and players using our marketing code will be eligible for these freerolls.

Full Tilt Poker is now the second largest poker site, trailing only Poker Stars. One of the main reasons for the success of Full Tilt is their large sign up-bonus. New players can enter the Full Tilt referral code ZZBONUS in order to get up to a $600 bonus on their first deposit. The bonus is 100% match, meaning fulltiltpoker.com will match your first deposit dollar for dollar. Another big reason for the success of Full tilt is their impressive team of poker pros who help to promote the site. The name of the top of that list is Phil Ivey, considered by most to the best poker player in the world today. Some of the other Full Tilt pros are Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Mike Matusow, Allen Cunningham, and Gus Hansen.

Party Poker was once the biggest card room on the planet, but they have now slipped to third due to the fact that they no longer allow US players to sit at the real money tables. Party Poker is still the favorite of non-US players, and for good reason. They have a huge selection of tables, tournaments running around the clock, and great promotions for new and existing players. New players to the site can use the PartyPoker bonus code CARDBONUS to claim a 120% up to $200 bonus. Partpoker.com is also known to offer frequent reload bonuses for their existing players.

Cake Poker is one of the newest brands to surface on online poker’s Top 10 list. Cake Poker has aggressively promoted their brand to new players, and they have also gone out of their way to take care of their existing players. The Cake Poker sign up code EZBONUS will get new players the best bonus. This code is good for a 100% match bonus on your first deposit, up to a maximum of $500. This bonus can be used at any of the real money tables, and is gradually released into your account as you continue to play more hands on cakepoker.com.

WSOP Bracelets

2008-06-13T10:02:00.002-04:00

I was looking for a reason to post today and I woke up and saw that Daniel Negreanu won his 4th WSOP bracelet this morning. A good ol' Canadian Boy! I also read that DN made more money in prop bets than the actual 1st place prize money of $200,000. Phil Ivey and Daniel bet on who would win their next WSOP bracelet first and DN took it down.

Another interesting fact is that the last three WSOP winners are associated and instruct at poker training sites. Mike Matusow, Vanessa Selbst, and Daniel Negreanu.
This make me think that there is a lot to learn from these players and training sites.

We shouldn't think we know it all about anything in life and especially poker. We could all use some extra help fine tuning our games.

Pokernews Strategy Review

2008-05-19T09:47:00.006-04:00

It looks like the big guns at Pokernews strategy are developing a new poker training site that will feature Patrik Antonius, Tony G, Genius28, RasZi, and MIG.com. Pokernews Strategy will be another big gun with a huge list of online and live poker stars and should compete for a top 3 spot in the poker training wars. Please go check out Poker Training Guide for all your up to date information on Pokernews Strategy, PokerVT, Cardrunners, and all other training site news.

Pokernews Strategy Videos will be available after the 2010 WSOP is over. Poker news has delayed the release of their training site by over a year and have changed their line up of pros as well. Pokernews strategy reviews will be online shortly at Poker Training Guide.

Doomswitch

2008-05-15T20:05:00.002-04:00

I knew my heater would come to an end and boy did it ever hit hard. In a matter of 5 - 10 mins I was stacked 3.5 times. KK v KK v AA, set vs rivered 2 outter over set, JJ v AA, JJ v A3. It was a cold deck from hell tonight. -$428 in 45 minutes. Variance is a cruel cold hearted bitch. I needed to vent a bit so I apologize for the rant and bad beat story. At least I have a new personal worst!

How to Life Tilt someone

2008-05-13T21:15:00.002-04:00

The Villian in question starts the session with a $370 stack. He lost another BI to someone else in between one of these hands. I think a suicide watch might be in order. These all happened within an hour.

His SN is Ecarov just in case he ever googles his name I want him to find this.

Hand 1 with Ecarov
Hand 2 with Ecarov
Hand 3 with Ecarov

I'm on a major heater for May, I will post more when it stops.

Poker Training Sites

2008-05-02T14:30:00.006-04:00

I bet most of my readers have at least checked into joining a poker training site to see what kind of videos are out there to learn from the top online pros. I have been a proud member of Cardrunners.com for over a year and a half and have really felt the benefit. There is a lot of mystery surrounding the different training sites and most players are reluctant to fork over their hard earned poker money without a firm understanding of the value you receive in return for your investment.

This is why Actyper and I have developed a website that gives detailed reviews of all the major and minor players in the poker training arena. We answer the question that most players have...Is it worth it? The answer depends site by site and by game type. We have ranked all the sites in the major categories; 6max, Full Ring, MTT, SNGs and other games.

I am proud to unveil the go to site for Poker Training Selection, Poker Training Guide. PTG features user reviews, in depth reviews for Cardrunners.com, PokerVT.com, PokerStox.com, DeucesCracked.com, PokerSavvy Plus, and Leggo Poker.

Poker Training Guide is hoping for a huge launch for Daniel Negreanu's PokerVT.com now that Annette "Annette_15" Obrestad has joined them. They will be open for beta testing in about two weeks time.

I would love the support of the blogging community by linking our page from your blogrolls or putting up our side bar ad that you can copy and paste from below. We will be showing our love to the blogging community with our first promotion that will be announced once final details are hammered down.

Side bar ad:

<table style="width:125px; border:1px solid #ffffff; font:10px verdana; background-color:#000000;" bgcolor="#FFFF66"> <tr> <td bgcolor="#FFFF99" align="center"><a href="http://www.pokertrainingguide.com"> </a>Poker Training Guide The source for <a href="http://www.pokertrainingguide.com">poker training reviews</a>, and learn which of the great online training programs benefit you! Reviews for poker training at <a href="http://www.pokertrainingguide.com/poker-training-reviews/cardrunners-review/cardrunners.com-review">Cardrunners.com</a>, <a href="http://www.pokertrainingguide.com/poker-training-reviews/poker-vt-reviews/pokervt.com-review/">PokerVT.com</a> , <a href="http://www.pokertrainingguide.com/poker-training-reviews/deucescracked-reviews/deucescracked.com-review/">DeucesCracked.com</a> , <a href="http://www.pokertrainingguide.com/poker-training-reviews/poker-x-factor-reviews/pokerxfactor.com-review/">PokerXFactor.com</a> , <a href="http://www.pokertrainingguide.com/poker-training-reviews/stoxpoker-reviews/stoxpoker.com-review/">StoxPoker.com</a> , <a href="http://www.pokertrainingguide.com/poker-training-reviews/poker-savvy-plus-reviews/pokersavvyplus.com-review/">PokerSavvyPlus.com</a> , <a href="http://www.pokertrainingguide.com/poker-training-reviews/poker-zion-reviews/pokerzion.com-review/">PokerZion.com</a> , <a href="http://www.pokertrainingguide.com/poker-training-reviews/leggo-poker-reviews/leggopoker.com-review/">LeggoPoker.com</a> </td> </tr></table>

Thanks to the following blogs for placing our banner:

Poker Gold

Lee Jones joins Cardrunners.com

2008-04-21T15:09:00.003-04:00

Lee Jones formally of Pokerstars and the EPT joins CardRunners.com as their Chief Operating Officer. What this announcement really means is that Cardrunners plans to crush their competition and solidify there reign of dominance in the online poker training sites.

Lee Jones is now in charge of making the user experience better and to give the members a better way to view videos and to bring the content experience to a new level. Lee Jones said he will be getting his hands dirty and this is not just some consulting gig on the side. Cardrunners is very smart to bring Lee Jones onto their team as he has the contacts and the expertise to bring in new talent, grow the companies operations, and add value to the existing and future Cardrunners members. Lee Jones also commented that he will not be doing videos at this time but will concentrate on the day to day operations.

This is another giant leap forward for the Cardrunners brand and furthers their dominance in the online poker training arena. Lee Joins will add a touch of class and will make the user experience that much better. I feel bad for the other training sites because this might just cause a mass consolidation as Cardrunners buys out their competition just like Microsoft. Well you heard it here first!

If your not a Cardrunners.com member and want to see what they are all about please follow this link to Cardrunners.com and become a registered guest for free!

30k Hands - 6 months

2008-04-09T08:04:00.004-04:00

My Pokertracker just passed the 30,000 hand mark this past week since my return to online poker in September. I doubt the next 6 months will hold that many hands for me but I sure hope so. As you can see from my nitty stats (14.5/7/2.7) it doesn't take a LAG style to beat the games at a fairly solid clip. I play only Full Ring games and never 6 max, my bread and butter is still NL100 and the only reason I have NL50 hands in my database was from September when I was starting back up or if I need to fill my screen with more tables and there are no more good NL100 tables.

Looking at the graph it looks like my biggest downswing was 5 BI's which is a very substantial downswing for my style. If any one knows how to run standard deviation I would love to compare my variance with other styles.

I still need to grow the balls to jump to 1/2 NL full time. I am used to the game but I just can't make the permanent jump. The games are so good at NL100 and I can auto pilot 6 tables and hammer out a consistent profit. When I play 1/2 I usually only play 1 or 2 tables which doesn't allow me to get enough hands in. Anyone have any ideas to keep me at NL200?

Also, go join Card Runners if you really want to take your game seriously or your struggling to breakeven. I now think about hands a lot differently than a year a go and I think its has helped my game immensely.

March Break Recap

2008-04-04T09:54:00.002-04:00

This month was one giant break. I started off playing a few hours a week but then got sick for about a week and a half and had no motivation to play any hands even though I was home from work. I only ended up playing about 2,000 hands the entire month. I'm pretty disappointed but I guess I deserved a break for playing a lot of hands the previous couple months.

I ended up the month in the positive after starting in the negative after the first few days which is always great. I started off April the same way by dropping a 1.3 buy ins last night so I hope I can dig my way out again. I should be heading back to the Cake network once I hit the next milestone at Eurolinx. They changed their bonus terms on me so I am getting the hell out of there.

I've been putting my poker hours into another project over the past couple weeks and have about another month left of losing poker hours. My goal for this month is to get at least 5,000 hands in even with all the distractions.

If you are running bad and need to feel better go check out Kugr84's Blog it will cheer you up!

Midget Month Recap

2008-02-27T10:28:00.002-05:00

It looks like I am going to fall short of my goal for February and only get 7,000 hands in. February has been a more active month socially with the Super Bowl, Bachelor Party, Hockey, and Pool taking about 5-6 good poker days away from me. If I throw in the 2 days I was sick I have a great excuse for why I missed the last 3k hands.

I think I ran above expectation this month as my hands seemed to hold up for the most part compared to last month where no matter how good I got it in I would end up with the worst of it. I know a couple other guys that are running below expectation so I know this isn't going to last long and to brace myself again for coming back closer to earth.

I did say that I will move up to 1/2 NL this month and I hope I have the balls to go through with it. I now have over 30 Buy ins for 1/2 but not sure if I will go through with the permanent jump. I played a bit of 1/2 this month and it went REAL well but I am so comfortable at .5/1 that it will be hard to make the jump. I feel like I am leaving the comfort of my home for the first time and won't have the luxury of knowing that dinner is on the table every night at 5pm. I won't know if I'll eat like a king at fancy restaurants or be ordering happy meals at McDonald's. I think this feeling is a normal one to have so I'll work on breaking out of my comfort zone and taking a 5 Buy in "shot". I'm not sure why I'm so worked up about this because at this time last year I was playing 4 tables of 1/2 and doing well. I think I just need to be slapped and told to man up!

My primary goal for March will be to play 5,000 hands of 1/2 NL. I will still strive for my 10k hands and they can be at .5/1 if I choose but I really want to focus on playing 1/2. I will probably only play 4 tables of each at the beginning and not jump to 6-8 tables of 1/2 unless things go real well.

I just reread my post and am I ever a NIT. That's all.

Almost....

2008-02-09T19:17:00.001-05:00

I went in to the Final Table 10/10 in Chips. It's easy to run over a table when you aren't concerned if you make the money or not! The 8 minute blind levels rewarded push botting and most of the players didn't adjust.

Week in Review

2008-02-08T10:49:00.000-05:00

It took a full week of play for me to have anything semi interesting to talk about. The only problem is that Redstar took away the shareable hand histories so I can either try to recreate the hand by talking about the play or not post at all. I haven't decided what I am going to do quite yet.

I am a little behind pace on the number of hands I would of like to play by now but only because I missed an hour of play because of the Super Bowl. I'll do my best this weekend to get caught back up. I'm still on pace of 9,000 hands but I really want to strive for 10k hands by the end of this short month.

It also looks like I will be forcing myself to move up to 1/2 NL next month if this month continues the way it has been going. I will probably play a maximum of 4 1/2 NL tables with a few .5/1 mixed in for the first while. I would hate to hit a bad spell and wipe away last months grinding in one session.

I have decided that I will post the RAW hand histories of a couple interesting pots from last nights session tomorrow/tonight when I get home. One concept I wanted to talk about was the 50-60bb semi-short stackers and how I play against them. I really want feedback on how others play them but please hold off till I post a hand and some commentary.

January Review + New Set Up!

2008-01-29T09:39:00.000-05:00

I am very happy to report that I have stuck with all my resolutions this month! It's always good to get your year started out on a good note. I have played good poker not great and my results have been decent considering the amount of beats and set ups I have taken and not dished out. I expect my equity to sort itself out over the year but January was something gross! I even played a donkament last night, the first in months, and finished 35/763 in the 13.5k Guaranteed on Full Tilt. I lost a crucial flip and couldn't build a stack to reach the final table as it always goes in tournaments, one flip a way from greatness.

I have to get used to taking more beats because I'm playing more hands and they come in greater succession but its still an adjustment period when you run under expectation for a whole month. I did implement a 2 buy in stop loss a couple times over the month and its been good to regroup and come back the next day firing.

Below is the main reason I am now able to get more hands in! I can now 8 table with no overlap. The most running at any one time on Cake is normally only 7 so thats the most I've done but I am thinking about trying out party and seeing if I can run better than the Cake network without the bonus and RB. I think if I can run at 4PTBB/100 at Party it will work out to more money at the end of the month. Ill try the experiment and see if it works out. If this month runs well I should be at NL200 by April and probably just take a 5 buy in shot and see if I get to stick with the big boys.

Worst one yet

2008-01-15T18:20:00.000-05:00

Grinding away

2008-01-13T19:38:00.001-05:00

I have a few funny hands to share from the Cake network.

Villain plays JJ like a true spewtard.

85o vs JJ

A rare 5 way all in preflop. It's hard to follow the action but this shows the games are far from dead!

AA v KK v 22 v A10s v 89s

I had a decent weekend at the tables, booked some solid wins with some solid loses scattered in there but came out on top in the end. I started 6-7 tabling which is really going to help me to achieve my number of hands goal for the year. I can't wait to get my real 2nd monitor but I'm guessing it will be 2 weeks before I get it exchanged.

If anybody wants a cake network skin for rakeback let me know and we can split the referral fee. That way you can still do the juicy PSO bonus at the main skin Cake.

That is all...

Another Week

2008-01-11T08:06:00.000-05:00

After a frustrating start to 2008 things are finally start to come together. In my first 3000 hands I played slightly worse than break even poker and it was the most frustrating 7 days of my poker career. I'm now playing on the Cake poker network with their juicy bonus + Rakeback. The play at Cake is definitely exploitable at the .50/1.00 and 1/2 FR NL levels and it seems these donks just want to give you their money.

My first week brought a case of the 2-6 outters on the river blues when time after time villains would hit their 10-30% shot on the river. This happens in poker but this was the first time it would happen so many times in a row in short period of time. I normally don't play this many hands in a week and it really got to me when I didn't have a cooling off period in between. I managed to play through it and just keep getting hands in because I knew it would turn around eventually. I took solice in the fact that I was still even after all these beat downs!

In my last 1000 hands my hands have starting to hold up and I'm creeping back to the win rate that I expect from a site like Cake. I really wish they had Poker Tracker support so I could look at my all in equity because I know they owe me a few buy ins by now.

I will be receiving my new monitor's today via UPS and Puralator (don't ask me why they shipped each one with a different company) and should have my first 6 table session sometime this weekend. I will probably add two NL50 tables for now until I get fully up to speed on multi-monitoring. I'm pretty excited to increase my hourly rate/hands played per session so I can hit my 2008 goal for hands played. I will post a picture of my new set up next week.

Hope all is well in the New Year! Keep on grinding!

2008

2008-01-04T11:04:00.000-05:00

After going 1/3 on my goals last year I really want to make them as attainable as possible without making them too easy this year.

1. Take more detailed notes at the table and not rely on PT + PA HUD for all my info. This is a must if I want to win at cake poker because it's not PT compatible. I find myself taking more and more notes and I know it's making me more aware of the players at the table.

2. Increase the number of hands I play. This one always comes down to whats going on in my life and how poker fits in. I have started my wife playing on the .05/.10 limit tables so that she has something to do while I play and so far she is really enjoying it. She is slowly losing money but tightening up more every time she loses. I think by next month she will be a winning player at that level. My goal will be to play 7 hours of poker a week which should correlate into about 1750 hands a week. I'm not going to set a financial goal but if I stick to playing more hands I expect the results to follow. I will report back on the number of hands I play every month to keep me on track.

3. Move up to NL200 by the second half of the year full time. I already put a short one hour session in last night at this level so I know it shouldn't be an issue to get back to this level I once was at before withdrawing and taking a break. I am currently under rolled and thats the main reason I won't be moving up full time. I would want 25 buy ins before making it my full time limit. After withdrawing yesterday I'm only at 17. Ill grind 8 more out in the next few months!

4. To take a break at any time I see fit. This is totally contradictory to my first 3 goals but I think it's important to be able to take a step back and walk away if there are personal things you need to pay more attention to. I think a balanced life is a healthy life and its only fair to the most important people in our lives(friends/family/wife).

Good luck to all those who posted goals and I hope we all meet them by August!

Year in Review

2007-12-31T11:37:00.000-05:00

1. I got Married!! This is the highlight of the year and the reason I did not play as much as I have in the past.

2. Results

January: -1300
February: +900
March - August: Off (I withdrew most of my bankroll and took a break from poker to focus on other things in my life; spending time with family, house stuff, wedding, etc.) This was really needed after playing straight for 2.5 years.
September: I rejoined the game with a fresh outlook and made a lot of tweaks. I only had $2,000 left in my accounts after paying for my wedding so I started back at Nl50 till I got comfortable again. +200sih
October: -200ish
November: +1045
December: +1300

Current bankroll: 4.3k - I might be taking some out in the near future for a TV and my new dual 20" monitor set up!.

As you can see I hit a couple rough spots but was able to play through it and get it back the next month. I am very happy with my play at NL100 and I feel like I shouldn't move up anytime soon. I loved playing NL200 and I was very profitable but I just don't feel like I have anything to prove and I want to continually withdraw for fun stuff that my wife and I can enjoy and leave my bankroll at $2,000 +.

3. Tournaments

Never really focused on them all year and probably never will. They just take up too big of a block of time to play and I don't like staying up past midnight during the week.

4. What did I accomplish that I said I would last year at this time

I didn't take any shots or play nearly enough hands to get to NL400. Taking 6 months off doesn't help. This year my goal will probably be to get back to Nl200 by fall next year.

I didn't play 1000 hands a week. Once again taking 6 months off doesn't help but I think I have been averaging that since I started playing again in September. This will be the main driver of my success next year.

I don't think I read any books, but browsing forums and joining cardrunners I really think that I nailed this goal. My game is much more stable and profitable then I was previously and I thank Cardrunners for that.

1/3 - I guess I failed at keeping my resolutions/goals

My next post will be my goals for 2008.

I've created a Monster

2007-12-22T18:14:00.001-05:00

Calling with Ace high

My wife decided she wanted to play poker while I do. She is running at 4.87 PTBB/100 @ .25/.50 limit and she is already berating players in chat that suck. She said that this guy was playing too many hands and therefore called him down with ace high. She doesn't actually know how to play, she is a calling station but I think holding her own at the micro stakes!

I'm proud!

Twas the day a few nights before christmas

2007-12-21T11:17:00.000-05:00

I'm scared again to write that I have been playing/running extremely well again. Carbon Poker was the easiest PSO promo I have done in a long time. I started it and finished it in about one week. The requirement is to get 4500 Carbon points and if you play 4 tables you can probably get it done within 7-8 hours. It's not a poker tracker compatible site so I can't post any of the great hands I witnessed but let me tell you that the play is softer than Party Poker because it has a lot less short stacking rocks.

A couple of examples strictly from memory:

Button open raises $4, I'm in the SB with KK, I 3 bet him to 3x to $12, he makes it $40ish, I push, he calls the last $60 he has and we have a 200bb pot. He flips AQo.

Another guy called off his stack when I had KK with 89o on a board of JQx.

Short stacks push with 40bb all the time with junk, I think I got called when I hit a set/over pairs with Ace high more than once with no draws.

I took another stack on a flop of 467 rainbow when I hit a set and got it all in with 2 others, one flipped JJ for 60bb, the other flipped 68o for middle pair and a gut shot. The gutshot guy berated me because he hit his gutterball on the turn after we where all in and I rivered quads!

As you can see the play was sub-party and I was lucky that my hands did hold up as much as they did. I only remembered one guy hitting a flush on the river, and not too many other suck outs. I love winning the hands that I'm favoured in even though I know it will turn the other way soon.

So here's to a great end of the year! Congrats to all the bloggers who tried their luck in the BBT2 tournaments! I just hope I can keep this up so I can go down south for March Break when my wife's off from teaching. If anybody has any advice on Texas along the gulf coast I would appreciated it.

Wingows Poker Review

2007-12-16T09:39:00.000-05:00

I played the Wingows Poker Freeroll at PSO last night and I was very happy with my results finishing 9th out of 51 for $120. I was card dead almost the entire tournament, I lost QQ v AA (AIPF), AK vs KQ (Turned a Flush that I checked behind with a K high flop), Straight vs Higher Straight. I was able to survive all those and still have T1600 when we started with T5000. I think I only won 2-3 hands at showdown the entire tournament, which definitely doesn't win tournaments. My bust out hand I open pushed in the SB with A6 and got called by A8.

The reason I was able to survive was that Wingows had the slowest structure I have ever played in an online tournament. The 15 minute levels started at 1/25, then 1/25, 1/50,25/100?, and when they where higher 100/400. It gave you a ton of time to wait around and pick your spots. I will also add that it took 6 days to cash out through Moneybookers so be careful!

I have to give a shout out to the tournament winner dominatorz2003 who played great big stack bully poker and killed the bubble to amass a huge chip lead on everyone. It was quite the display to watch. That being said I do have to tell you how he got all those chips. He won QQ v KK AIPF, 77 v TT AIPF, and Q3h v 44 AIPF for 15-20 BBs. It was quite the display and these hands happened very close together and he single handily knocked players out to end the bubble from about 5 players away.

Here is my graph since my last post:

I almost have 10k hands in since September to post my poker tracker stats to see what others think of my nitty FR style! I am still playing at 16/8 and working on raising more hands so far my results have been great with these stats so I don't expect to tweak too much all at once. For those of you keeping track I'm still running at 11 PTBB/100 since November 1st, the down swing should be coming just in time for Christmas!

Back to normal hotness

2007-11-20T16:44:00.001-05:00

Since Last Post:

November 1 - Today:

November is definitely evening out for me now that I play a few more hands. I'm probably at my normal pace for hands played which is very low compared to almost all of my readers. It's too bad life gets in the way but I guess I could always fall back on poker if I need to. At most I play about 20 hours a month.

I played a perfect session last night where I didn't really hit any cards but played really good poker and finished down $30. It sucks when you have to play great just to lose money but I was adjusting to tighter tables by raising a bit more than normal and I felt good. I'm really happy with where my game is now and it's nice being a little bit less than a nit. I will probably post my poker tracker stats once I get to 5k hands just to get some feed back and keep my fundamentals in check.

That's Hot!

2007-11-13T09:47:00.001-05:00

I'm running crazy hot for the month of November so far at 20 PTBB/100 and its kinda nice. I even joined a Party Poker "Surprise" freeroll last night as I was playing my cash games and decided to push every hand and announce my really bad ones. I became the chip leader after about 25 straight pushes and people were still limping in ahead of me and folding to my raise. I crushed the dreams of about 15 players until I decided to sit out and see how far my dead stack would go. I left after 30 mins and they were still playing the final table when I returned 3.5 hours later. For 2000 runners I think I did pretty well. I wish I could put the HH through a replayer to see how funny it was busting two players with 83o and winning every 40/60 that I got into.

In other news DQB's actually got paid off!

I will post the inevitable downswing from me typing this post in a week or so.

Standard

2007-11-05T08:57:00.000-05:00

Since my last post I got destroyed for 5 buy ins by the sharks at Empire poker. I don't think I tilted too much but I just wasn't hitting any flops, had a ton of set up hands and just couldn't get anything going. That was my second worst short term down streak of my short poker career, I'm very lucky in that regard! I just don't play enough to have these massive 20 BI downswings I hear about everywhere.

Since the Empire debacle I have grinded my way back to even because of those same party donks.

A few standard hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1664873 - Presto is silver! Fuel55 seems bullish on silver.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1664876 - This is the line I use 50% with a set OOP.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1666607 - A set up hand where I lose the minimum with KK vs AA - the river card helped.

Since I was running good yesterday afternoon I decided to play the Manison 150k with 70k in overlay and 788 runners. I was card dead almost the entire tournament, Dekar can vouch for that. I stayed at around 10 BB from the start to when I was knocked out 119th with AJ against A7 when the button raised my BB and I pushed and he had to call because he was a similar stack then me. The top 90 paid so I was pretty close, if I win that hand I have a top 40 stack and some time to wait for a hand.

I can Dodge Bullets Baby!

2007-10-12T21:22:00.000-04:00

Presto was not gold!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1581343

I have been playing at Party long enough to know that the min raise is AA. I had a note on this guy that weak meant strong so when he fired out 1/3 pot bet I knew he had an overpair. He then insta checked when the Ace came and my guy knew he just hit his 2 outer on me. I called his value bet on the river and was actually proud to see his AA and me only lose $20 when I normally would of gone broke.

Presto was gold a few minutes earlier so don't fret!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1581395

Finally got Back to the Fishy water of Party Poker

2007-10-10T20:50:00.000-04:00

It's probably been a year since I last played at Party Poker. I did have the foresight when the gambling legislation past and Neteller was no longer to leave a $1000 on Party for a later date. The later date has come and boy were things interesting. I am still having connection issues so I only played two tables and not my usual four. I decided to fire up 2 - NL100 full ring tables and let the good times roll.

I have never had this many hands to post after a short 200 hand session since I have be playing at Full Tilt. These were only the hands that I was evolved in, let me tell you that the play was atrocious at best and it bit me in the ass a couple times. I was stuck 1.5 buy ins early by geniuses like these:

He read my soul and snap called. I guess he had a read on me after 18 hands!?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1573763

This guy was playing around 58/28 or there abouts. A total fish that I was lucky to have postion on the whole time. He costs me a big pot by reraising me when he has hardly any fold equity.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1573774

I was pretty pissed at this point. I was down and was seeing the bad play all around me. I just stayed patient and tightened up a bit.

I take a guy to value town by over betting the turn for value. I had no respect at this table so why not?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1573802

I was hoping he would make a river bluff at me after I hit my hand on the turn. I think I missed some value on the turn but I extracted a bit on the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1573868

This was agaisnt another 58/18 fish. I was worried about my river bet but I went with it and made him fold a middle pair 66,88,99,TT? I don't do this very often and I think I got lucky here, score one for the good guys!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1573961

I don't think Full Tilt will see me back for awhile after this.

Variance is a Bitch

2007-10-07T19:19:00.000-04:00

I just finished a mentally tough session that I almost didn't make it out of alive. I have forgotten how cruel the deck can be to you in the short run. Mother variance is a cruel cold harded bitch sometimes. I just had to keep reminding myself that it happens and try to play through it. Since I haven't played any amount of poker in a long time it does take some getting used to and getting my heart/mind used to dropping buy ins again. I have to relearn to separate the money from my mind.

Session summary: First 20 hands lose QQ vs AA, JJ vs AA, QQ vc KK and lose with my AA in a small pot, the first 3 were for buyins. So a quick 2.5 buyin swing and were off to the races.

I chipped back up playing good poker, really paying attention to position and my opponents actions. I was raising with junk, 3 betting in position and mixing up my play enough that it was hard to put me on a hand. I managed to win a 220 BB pot as I was closing down and had post big blind button unchecked to bring the session loss to a cool $8. The session was a great success, I beat mother variance and I was able to 4 table again with no visible issues and keep my stats where I want them. VP$IP of 18-19%ish and Preflop raise of 11-12% in a Full Ring game. I used to play like a nit, 14% VP$IP and PR of 5% so I really have come a long way and its starting to show in variance as well as my win rate. I want to play another 3-4k hands until I move back up to NL100, I'll keep you posted.

P.S. the 220BB was a Presto is Gold moment...I obv getting good mojo from my recent post below!

Bloggers Freeroll!

2007-10-03T08:36:00.002-04:00

Deleted by Owner.

Presto is Gold

2007-09-30T19:10:00.000-04:00

In honour of Fuel55 wanting to live in my town to save himself $600,000 on a house I thought I would do my first and last installment of Presto is Gold. I even went to his blog to grab the screen shot as I raised Presto like the monster it is...

Thanks for the inspiration!

The same session I had the funniest time to hit a monster. If you can beat the MSN conversation at the time of I hit the straight flush I will quit playing poker. I think this should be posted on 2p2 BBV forum.

[x] thread delivers

I had a interesting AA hand as well. I think its a standard fold but one players do not make enough. I insta mucked as well, 2-3 secs tops. What are your thoughts?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1534538

I pulled my Inner Yang

2007-07-21T11:18:00.000-04:00

I was bored yesterday and decided to play Actyper in $5 flips on Titan sinc eI had worked my free $5 up to $25 playing BJ/Roulette and a bit of NL20. With the rake at .50 per hand we were losing fast so we decided to play for rollz! We only had $20 each or so in front of us but it was still funny.

Heres a screen shot of me calling for my gut shot and it hitting before we played for rollz.

The last hand I got dealt A10o and ended up spiking a needless 10 on the river to double my Titan roll to $42 and break actyper! Im such a luck box!

I'm Alive

2007-06-22T13:44:00.000-04:00

I actually played some poker last night. I was bored around 9pm and decided to jump into a $3 rebuy, $8000 GP. It filled up in the last minute to 800ish runners and I was off into tiltdom once again. Since I knew I was rusty I decided not to take the add on at the beginning but looking back it probably was a mistake. I managed to double up on my first hand with KJs flopping a flush and stacking AsA. Life was good in the world!

I played pretty tight for a rebuy but I kept winning small pots with marginal hands, normally just check calling bets from my opponents who were betting too little to make me fold. I was stuck at an average stack for the next 2 hours which is ok in the rebuy format because your M factor is hihger with more chips in play. With blinds of 400/800 A50 I had a MP raise picked off by a guy shoving on me and I had to fold 88. I was beloew average for the first time all tourney now. I ended up seeing some cheap flops but just couldn't get back to my 20k stack. I ended up getting all in versus a big stack with 2 pair vs set that he bet into me. There was no way I could of put him on it so I happily left for bed going out 176th.

I felt I played a bit tight but it worked out well for the first time playing in a tourney since the PSO league. Its alot different playing against 700 donkeys then 100 good players at PSO. I was giving players WAY too much credit. It makes me think of the pros at the WSOP, it must be tough to gear their game towards the mine field of donkeys.

I don't plan on playing too often so post will be few and far between. Good luck!

PSO League #5

2007-04-30T20:39:00.000-04:00

My Sunday night started out with a beat, the PSO league was delayed an hour because Absolute poker are a bunch of lazy fucktards. The 10pm start is way to late for me especially when I got no sleep the entire weekend due to buying a Nintendo Wii. I pretty much knew I was going to do well because the poker gods love to keep me up later then I need to.

On to the action...in the first couple levels I found KK in on the button and reraised a MP raiser and a LP caller by making it about 4x his raise. I do not fuck around in the early stages by slowplaying. If your going to draw out on me so be it but I'm going to make you pay. They both call and the flop is a beautiful KJ9, they check to me and I bet 300 into a 600 pot and MP insta pushes and I make an easy call and he flips 99 for bottom set and I am the chip leader. I maintained a top 3 chip position for most of the tournament and don't remember too many hands till I got heads up as a 60/40 favourite.

The guy who I made it heads up with was an absolute card rack. He knocked out person after person at the final table and had a huge 60k, 20k, 20k lead in the final 3. I punished him during the final 3 to have the lead going into heads up. He turned a gutshot after calling a potsized bet on me to take a meaningful pot, he won with QQ vs my AJ, he won JJ vs my 99, and hit pot after pot to take a 95k to 5k lead. I battled back to almost even and then get him to commit his stack KQ vs K8 and we fucking chopped, he would of been crippled but the poker god's wanted to tease me, I guess its better than a complete suck out. Next hand I hit TP on the flop and shove over his raise and he has AA to finish me off.

I'll take a 2nd place finish as I had to play perfect poker to make it that far and heads up lasted over 60 hands easily. A 70 person tournament lasted 3:40. That just shows the caliber of play in these things is very high. I guess ill add my name to the choking list along with Actyper and MathP. :(

Sarnia Live Poker Tournament

2007-04-24T09:47:00.000-04:00

Here is the info on the Poker Tournament which is Part of my Stag and Doe in June. The Stag and Doe will be the night before June 8th and the Tournament June 9th. As you will see on the site you will get your $10 back when they sign up for a Free Poker Source Online Account. Register Early to make sure you reserve your spot!

ALL BLOGGERS WELCOME!!

http://www.sarniapoker.info/

DATE: Saturday June 9th, 12pm start
COST: $50 plus $10 donation

PLAYERS: 100 Maximum

Location: TBA - will be announce closer to - Sarnia, ON

Sponsor: Poker Source Online will be adding chip sets and other prizes.

PSO League 2 and 3

2007-04-23T10:48:00.000-04:00

Another PSO League night has come and gone. I managed to finish in the top 20 in the last two events but its not going to be enough at this point to mount a serious challenge in the standings. I played a very solid game last night and made one HUGE mistake that cost me. I was top 3 with about 30 left and playing the bigger stack OK. I was raising in position and stealing enough blinds to keep the machine running. Then I decided to get fancy and float the player to my right after he minraised my BB. I ended up spewing chips and become short stacked and proceed to get my money in as a 40/60 and failed to improve.

These events are the only poker I'm playing right now and it shows in my results. Once I hit the 2 hour mark I make a stupid play and get knocked out. If I get down there again, i'm going to take my time making decisions and not rush anything. I am not able to play on cruise control with all this rust on me. I want to make at least one final table this season and go from there. A solid top 15 in the overall league is my goal from here on out. If the standings were up I would know how possible that feat will be but KUGR84 is too lazy!!

PSO league #1

2007-04-16T10:04:00.001-04:00

It's that time of year again...The PSO league is back and better than ever. I was running late last night so I missed the first 2 levels but it didn't really effect me unless I missed some great cards. I always find it had to find a rhythm after starting any event late. I only got to see one flop and that was when I got knocked out. I raised a couple big aces and got everyone to fold to hover around even, then I made a mistake against a limper. There was an EP limper and I noted that last time he limped he pushed after a LP raise and I was in the BB with AQ. The small blind completed and I didn't want to see a flop and get in a tricky situation so I decided to raise a bit more than pot. The EP limper almost on cue insta pushed and I made an easy lay down but making my stack dwindle to sub 1000.

This made me a bit more desperate and I was blinded down to around 800 at the 50/100 blind level. I knew this was my make or break point and found a great spot to stick it in. Tieguy a PSO regular that I have played quite a bit with made a 3x raise and only left himself 4x left behind. It looked like a scared raise to me and I looked down at AJs in LP. I jam, he tanks then calls, i'm sure knowing he is behind but has to call considering the odds he's getting and flips A7s. Flop comes KQx with one of his suit, but that doesn't phase him as he runner runner's my ass with running diamonds. I have that sinking feeling this league might go as well as the last one now. I'm still waiting for my mojo from the first league to come back.

See yah guys on Wednesday where I'll be playing nothing but the beats!

Kim Kardashian Pics

2007-04-10T16:28:00.002-04:00

Sponsored Post:

Have you guys seen Paris Hilton's new best friend? Her name is Kim Kardashian, daughter of the OJ Simpson Lawyer. She is the newest LA socialite to make a sex video and she is trying to stop it from coming out, good luck with that. Kim Kardashian Pics is full of pictures and photos of Kim out and about in LA. The sex video is actually being released by Kim Kardashian Superstar and is very high quality. The website is totally free and will be updated with news and bio very soon.

My guess is she will be the next one to flash her twat on camera...maybe we should start a celebrity flashing pool? She has huge tits so its worthwhile taking a quick visit. Sorry to get so off topic.

PSO small game

2007-04-10T10:49:00.000-04:00

Okay, Okay, I still haven't played much. I played last week with the PSO Forum regulars in the monthly Small Game but that was about it. I am going to follow curatio and actyper by opening up two different ewallets to transfer money back in fourth. I plan on doing that this week and once I get that set up i'll start a new PSO promo and sign up for rakeback through my sponsor. This will force me to get more hands in.

The PSO Small Game went amazingly well, I have been complaining the last two months that I was card dead. This months made up for it in a major way. I had KK back to back along with Aces two other occasionsand Jacks on one . I ran hot! The KK hands were the most memorable. I was in LP both times but the first one scottwire raised it to 4x and by the time it got to me I raised it up 12x. He made a fairly quick call and checked a 57J ish flop to me. I bet out pot with my overpair and he pushed his remaining chips into the pot over top of my raise. It was $50 or so for me to call into a $120ish pot and I made the call hoping he tried to get fancy but knowing how tight he plays that he had something. He flipped bottom 2 pair 57s I think. I could not put him on that hand the way he plays so he played it very well. I hit my set of Kings on the river and raked a big pot! Im a luck box after all what did you expect.

The very next I get KK again. EP raises to $4 and gets 2 callers by the time it gets to Actyper who is on my right, he makes it $16 on top and I push leaving $50 more for him to call. Its folded back to him and he makes the call. He had AQ and my hand holds up. That's not the interesting part. There was a lot of meta game thinking going on during this hand from both of us. After having a huge hand and playing it fast the hand before I get a monster. Actyper raises a bunch of callers and is capable of making a squeeze play and this looks like one to me. He knows that I know that he is capable of making this play with any two...especially since we replay the event after on a video with cards exposed. So since he knows that I know he also knows I could be making a play as well. If I call and and slow play I might get a bunch of calls behind me and lose. If I call and actyper and I see a flop and I bet out and he doesn't hit I lose EV. So I make a big raise and he calls with AQ because he knows I "could" be making a play and using my image to do so after I just showed down a huge hand. There were a lot of factors that make us each play the hand the way we did. The result could of been a lot different if either of us were not known to each other and we weren't thinking things through on this level.

Sorry for puking on you but the hand was interesting in the way we both thought out the best move to make.

Pokerstars @ PSO

2007-04-04T11:04:00.000-04:00

Hi my name is Ryan and my Neteller account is officially ZERO and I haven't played poker for atleast a month. (Insert "Hi Ryan!) I'm pretty sure ill get back into it shortly but this break is kind of refreshing. I am able to reap some rewards of my hard work over the last year by spending some money and generally spending my time doing more productive tasks. I will need to look for a new way to make some extra money in the mean time, I'm not sure if I will or not but if you have any suggestions let me know!

If you haven't been to the new PSO site you better get over there as they just announced the addition of Pokerstars They are offering $120 in PSO points which is best in class. So if your looking to pad you bankrolls you will not do any better than that. I will be playing in the PSO small game tonight on Full Tilt @9 so if you can catch me in the PSO chat. If you want to play come by and visit as I think we are hurting for players this time around.

State of the Union

2007-03-29T09:25:00.000-04:00

I am not enjoying the thought of playing poker with out Neteller at my side as a free way to transfer money between sites. Our U.S. counterparts just went through this and it seems even the number of blog posts are down, which to me correlates into less hands being played. I have decided to make a substantial cash out in the tune of around 60% of my bankroll. This will force me to play NL50 - NL100 and nothing higher for the time being. I can still take a one table shot at NL200 but no more multi-tabling it for me. I am hedging my bets by throwing money onto 2 sites for cash games and one site for the PSO Leagues that should be starting soon with the launch of the new PSO site.

I'm also toying with the idea of starting another blog up. I was thinking about a business related blog in my field and see what kind of exposure it could bring me. I'm not liking the idea of actually having to edit and reread my posts before I post them but since it will be professional it's the right thing to do. You'll actually get to see that I have a university education and not some shmuck I represent from my writing here. The topic will be in some form related to investing in Real Estate, and more specifically rental properties in Ontario/Canada.

Neteller Down to Canadians!

2007-03-26T13:35:00.000-04:00

Prosperity is behind us, prepare for the another Great Depression.

That is all.

Withdraw!

2007-03-22T15:48:00.000-04:00

Neteller just announced that they are able to process US$ cheques from NT accounts. The fee is $2.00 for regular mail and $11.00 for Priotirty Post. This saves a lot of our hard earned cash because it saves on the less than market exhange rate when they convert EFT's from USD to CAD. I normally try to withdraw via Party because there exchange rate is usually better but this gives us a second option so we can get a preferred rate at our banks. As a head up, the last time I withdrew via cheque from Party my bank put a 3 day hold on it even when I had the funds to cover it available and have perfect credit ( I worked at a bank).

So go out and make a bunch of money and withdraw in US$ and then fly to Vegas and blow it on hookers and blow!

6 max

2007-03-21T14:21:00.001-04:00

I managed to get some time on the virtual felt last night and it felt great! I deciding to play 6max for the first time since watching all the card runners videos. It was fun 3 betting with AJ+, raising in position with SC's and anything remotely playable. Full Tilt seems very aggressive but it may of been that I'm not used to seeing the normal aggression of a 6max table. I was play two NL50 Table's and there seemed to be a lot of dead money, short stacks with 40BB just spewing chips and folding to CB's way too often. This gives me hope to reevaluate my move to 6max a la Guin and make a permanent switch to this highly profitable game.

Unfortunately I sat down at a table with Guin last night not even realizing it till I posted my BB. I'm sure he knows that I am very new to the game and he took the opportunity to raise it up 4x from MP on my first BB. It's folded around to me and I pick up AA and think about how much of a luck box I am to get this hand on the first hand at the table. It took me 3 secs for me to decide I was 3 betting, I knew he knew that I am watching card runners vid's all the time. I used this as a way to 3 bet and hopefully think I am making an aggressive play because that's what I am taught to do. I make it $6 to go raising his bet 3x and he pushes over the top with QQ and I make a quick call. The flop was an Ugly TJQ and he hits top set, the turn bricks and the river gives me justice when a beautiful King squashes any hope his bitches had! I rake the pot and he catches his train home.

I'm sure I'll donate it back to the game but it was fun starting off 6max at a winning clip. I might even decide to cash out $4k and play with a $1k bankroll to ensure I take NL50 seriously and work my way up from that level.

Balance

2007-03-19T14:59:00.001-04:00

Since my last post of neglect I have not played more than once or twice in total. I have not logged any hours in the last 2 weeks and I don't feel badly about it. I plan on getting a few more hours in this month but I don't see myself playing as much as I used to in the near future. I have been renovating my basement, going to hockey games, bars, and generally spending more time with my fiance. Its been a great couple
weeks and I have accomplishedalot over that time period.

I am going to fire up a single table tonight and take Guin's advice of playing like the maniac I detest. Ill drop down in limits and play where the money doesn't mean to much to me. I will post my stats and a graph of the 100 or so hands I play and see if I can get my VP$IP / PFR %'s as high as I can with out spewing too many chips.

I am hitting a wall similar to September when I took 4+ weeks off and didn't even notice. I still love poker but I am finding a greater balance now between life and poker. I'm sure ill be back to 25 hours of poker a month soon enough but until I ramp up to that I will enjoy this downtime and get some things done around the house. For what its worth I am still up money this month but Ive only played a few hours so its nothingsignificant . I think I might only be up a few hundred on the year after my horrific January so I need to start playing soon to hit even 50% of my goal I stated at the beginning of the year.
--------
Feel the rush of the ultimate wheel of chance with online roulette at 888.com

Neglect

2007-03-01T15:53:00.000-05:00

I really need to get into a better posting routine. I have been busy with work and not at my home computer often enough to get into a regular schedule again. I have been playing more hands so I have some things to talk about in regards to poker but I have my hand histories on another computer so I can't dissect the hands. The quasi Cardrunner inspired tweaks to my game are working out very well. I think Guin is making more of a effort than I am but I'm not willing to play 6max at this point, or drop down significantly.

I have increased my raise percentage 2% from 5% to 7% but my VP$IP has stayed the same at 14%. This just means i'm raising more with position and it is good for my bottom line but I'm giving up some EV by not playing more hands. My goal for March will be 7.5% raise and 15% VP$IP. I think baby steps is the way to go about this and it will eventually become second nature as I play more hands. I will post my hand that I would of never played before Cardrunners when I get home to my computer and show you the difference a more aggressive style can help your winrate.

February

2007-02-24T15:28:00.000-05:00

EDIT: Added one more session!

Big hand is from NL100 table. Click Here

Solid Poker

2007-02-20T22:37:00.000-05:00

I feel like I really have command of my game right now. I have been a student of the game since I started but with all the advanced tools out there (books, videos, blogs, Cardrunners) it's really starting to come together. I've always had a good grasp on the fundamentals but with a few tweaks here and there I have a totally different perspective on the game.

Watching Cardrunners videos and hearing the players thought process on a hand is an invaluable tool to making good sound poker decisions. I used to make decent decisions before on auto pilot and not really think things through. I am now more active in my thinking and trying to look and pick spots more often which translates into a higher winrate in the long run. I really echo what Guin is saying and I totally understand his new mindset when I read his posts regarding his new style and thought process that goes along with it.

Cardrunenrs preaches a LAG style but its not the style so much as the thinking part of the game LAG brings to the table. You have to be constantly thinking and looking for spots even if its ABC poker 80% of the time. The 20% where you make a thinking play really takes you to the next level.

So for next time don't just make a bet because you always make a bet in that situation, make a bet because you actually thought about what you were trying to accomplish and protray. This is the thinking part that most of us are capable of but don't do out of laziness and the fact that "if its not broke why fix it." Fix it because you can increase your profits at the table!

Critical Thinking

2007-02-13T09:55:00.001-05:00

Its been a while since I have last updated my progress and how I responded to my terrible January run. I took a proactive step and reinstated my membership wih Cardrunners a day before they announced that Brian Townsend is joing them and charging an extra $5. Score! I get to keep my membership at the current $20 level for the next 6 - 12 months.

After watching about 4-5 hours of videos over the last week or so I have realized how far off of ABC poker I was in January. I lost sight of all the things I did to kill the micro limits on my way up. I had gotten sloppy and complacent in January and Cardrunners helped me get back to basics. Cardrunners teaches a Loose Aggressive game and although its not my style I need to open my game up and take control of more pots if I want to keep moving up and turn my slump around.

I am now opening more pots for the Button, CO, and CO + 1 that I may of limped/folded in January. I am actually thinking through my decisions at the table and not going on auto pilot as I did in January. It was an eye opening experience looking at the videos and thinking to myself how bad I was playing and that I didn't realize it until now. I was running bad yes, but I shouldn't of tanked as bad as I did and this month I will prove that I can turn things around and build my bankroll back to pre-january numbers.

I am up around $250 for Febuary so far and I've only played about 1500 hands. It feels good to be back on track! I am trying to clear a bonus at Red Kings Poker right now which is on the OnGame network and I'm half way there with 2 weeks left to go. If I get that $310 while breaking even or even sustaining my normal winrate I should be back to pre january levels by mid march.

Morale of the Story: If you find yourself in a slump and running bad you have to think critically about your play. Think about each decision that you make and take an extra 2 seconds to make your clicks to make sure you have a plan of attack every hand you are in.

Goal: Currently my VP$IP is 14% and Preflop raise is 4.5% I want to get these numbers to:
VP$IP = 18%
Preflop raise = 9%

January - Enough Said!

2007-01-28T23:13:00.001-05:00

Click for full Size

State of the Union

2007-01-24T10:45:00.000-05:00

I have come to the conclusion that I am getting bored with Full Ring NLHE and I need to get out of the funk I'm in. I have had 9 out of my last 10 sessions in the negative and I am not sure its all the cards. I am running bad do not get me wrong but I feel I am compounding errors by being timid, not playing ABC poker and trying to make too many moves. I have decided to take a week off to clear my head and get back to ABC which allowed me to beat the came on a regular basis and have confidence in my ability.

I don't think I will be able to take a week off because I need to get back on the horse and try to right so many of my wrongs. I have lost close to $1,000 in Ring games ranging from NL50 to NL200 this month. I NEED to correct this and the first step is to recognize WHY? I think winning players do get complacent and go through the motions and take for granted that we are going to win sometimes. It happens to the best sports teams in the world, and that is why season is 82 games in the regular season and not 7 games as it is in the playoffs. Variance happens and its the great teams that deal with adversity and bounce back.

I am stepping back limits and putting my bankroll and pride aside and playing no higher than NL50 till I make a few hundred. If I don't make this money I will continue to grind it out until I do even if it takes all year. I was disciplined to build my roll and I will stick to this. The only exception to this is if there is another PSO cash game table. I'm toying with the idea of starting at NL25 6max and working my way up with a limited bankroll so I respect the limits I am playing and I feel a loss. I have lost $1,000 over 3 weeks and it pisses me off but it doesn't affect my bankroll and I think that's the problem, I have lost all attachment to money, its just chips now which is good and bad.

So options:

1. 6max NL25 Bankroll $500
2. 6max NL50 Bankroll $1000
3. FR NL50 Bankroll $1000
4. FR NL100 Bankroll $2000
5. FR NL200 Bankroll $4000 - Get back on the horse!

Please vote early and often and remember I've only played a couple hundred hands of 6max and I do want to learn the game. If you have a better plan please let me know.

Update

2007-01-19T09:21:00.000-05:00

I have been MIA for the last week or so and I just can't seem to find the time or anything worthwhile to Blog about. I've been on my worst downswing in my career and its hard to see things to either add value or teach people in my writing.

I finished the stars reload in under 2 weeks, but did it ever kick me in the junk. It's the first time I have played at Stars and I don't know if I need to adjust to the slightly better players or what but I was stuck for $500 over 3500 hands or so. This isn't a huge downswing to most but its my biggest cash game down turn and I hope to not let it effect my play. My month total after I include the stars bonuses and Party Bonus is -$300 for the month. This number includes my 2 attempts at the 100k Mansion Tournament at $100 each try.

This is exactly why we have bankrolls and use bonuses to supplement our bad runs. My goal will be to get back to even by the end of the month and put this all behind me. I am way to competitive and hate to lose so even though the dollar amount is small it kills me to lose money at my "hobby".

On a much cheerier note I got to play with 9 other PSO'rs last night at the Hand Analysis Home Game on Full Tilt. We played .5/1 NL and it was a blast! We played for 2 hours and sent out hand histories in to Murf from PSO to compile the hands that everyone played in order to discuss the good the bad and the ugly. I was VERY card dead but managed to eek out some profit from the game. My highest PP was 88 I think and I had AK once out of 125 Hands. I guess I'm used to playing 4 tables over 2 hours and seeing a lot more playable cards. It will be very interesting to see the different strategies in place and dissect a cash game table hand by hand in PT.

If you want to view the thread on the discussion. GO HERE

Mansion 100k

2007-01-10T21:51:00.000-05:00

I tried my hand at the Mansion 100k on Monday night and I went out about half way through. This $100 buy in tournament had aabout 50k in overlay which make up for my lack of skill or experience in big buy in tournaments. This type of tourney also brings out the best online players because its +++EV for them to come to a small site and destroy it.

They finally changed the structure for tonights tourney which should lead to more play in the middle stages enstead of the push and pray that was on Monday night. This tourney may be a leak in my bankroll at this point but I figure its worth a shot. I plan on playing atleast one more if tonight doesn't go well and I will reevaluate from there.

I have a piece of MathP and Actyper which should decrease variance a little bit. Its starts in 5 mins so I better get focused and take this puppy down. I might even Live blog if I hit any hands early.

10pm - Cards in the Air

10:10 Limp with 66 call 4x BB raise...miss flop fold to pot size CB

AA in the BB...folded to me :(

JJ MP Called a raise, should have reraised here. Called for set value in a 4 way pot.

AA in the SB...make it 4x raise with one limper, he hits set, not enough ships left to fold...and i'm done 35 mins in. Boo!

2007

2007-01-07T21:03:00.000-05:00

Since everybody else is doing it...I may as well write down some goals for 2007.

1. I have a hard time getting a lot of hands in because of my schedule and the fact that poker is not the first thing in my life. My fiance, my work, my family, my house even sometimes comes before this addiction I call Poker. Because of this my goal will be to play 1000 hands a week and NL100 and above. This will work out to about 5 hours of 4 tabling the limit of my choosing and hopefully making $200 a week including bonuses.

2. Make the transition from NL200 to NL400 by the end of 2007 and atleast play a few thousand hands at the NL400 level even if it means taking a shot once and a while.

3. Continue to read books and poker forums and try to be more active in the Hand Analysis forum at PSO.

My goals are simple and easy to track. I will start another Goal Tracker on the right sidebar as soon as I get the time. Goal #1 works out to $10,400 in cash game winnings and bonuses. I will use that number for my tracking purposes even though my goal is to make $15,000 next year. The extra money will be from one off bonuses and backing players in tournaments, etc.

I hope everyone has a great 2007 and I look forward to charting my progress this year.

Year in Review

2007-01-02T22:14:00.000-05:00

2006 was a breakout year in my short stint at the game called poker. I started the year off with a goal to make a certain amount of money before September and I ended up tripling or quadrupling that amount by the time September rolled around. The money wasn't the only thing that was working well, my game stepped up to a higher level and my confidence level rose dramatically in cash games and tournaments.

On the tournament front I won the winter 2006 PSO League which gave me a great WSOP experience. I did far better in the cash games in Vegas but I learnt a lot about tournament poker along the way which will carry forward for years to come. . I also won my first tournament with more than 100 players in it during the League which took a large monkey of my back! I bombed out of the Fall PSO league which was disappointing but I just couldn't get things going. I will take the next one much more serious to ensure I am competitive again. I placed 4th in the Booya Poker Night in Canada League and scored some nice cash but I felt my play was sub par in all the events.

Cash games in 2006 were a cash cow for me, something just clicked and it seemed easy to grind away a steady profit at the tables. This is my biggest accomplishment during the year and it’s the reason I have the bankroll I do today. I made the jump from NL100 to NL200 which is arguably the toughest jump to make in online poker. I'm really looking forward to getting to NL400 by the end of 2007 and beyond. This will be my main goal that will only be accomplished if I play well and sustain a decent win rate at all levels I play at over 2007.

My 2007 started off well tonight at the cash game tables and I hope to carry the winning ways on for the duration of 2007. I made $100 + $50 bonus in about 25 minutes 4-tabling NL100 when all my hands held up. I had to be somewhere after that so I left happily with my profits in tact and a solid start to 2007.

Good luck to everyone in 2007! And Thanks to everyone who comments on here and to the great poker discussion it leads to. My next post will be a more detailed look at my 2007 goals and how I plan to reach them and track them.

What a Rush - 5/10 NL

2006-12-28T11:28:00.000-05:00

I just sat down at a 5/10 NL table at Party Poker with $600 and all I can say is what a rush. I am a true degenerate gambler now and I am proud of it. I was being aggressive, stupidly at some points but I was not scared of slinging $90 continuation bets or stealing the odd blinds here and there. I didn't play scared at all, which kinda scares me a bit. My bankroll could of handled a loss or a win but I do not see myself going back there any time soon.

Here are some hands:

Hand 1 - TT (guy said he had QQ and I beleive him, I saw him smooth call with Kings to win a huge pot earlier) - this was the 4th hand at the table.

Hand 2 - 33 (thought I only had the guy on my left in the hand with me and missed the other guy in the 4 or 5 seat that had the set. I put the guy on my left on a flush draw and thought I could get him to lay it down which he did but then I didn't see the chips come my way?? I said shit as the 3rd guy called with a set of 9s.

Hand 3 - KK Standard

Hand 4 - AA I smooth called preflop to hide the strength of my hand. I think I got pretty close to maximum value on this hand. If I bet the turn I might get a call by the A10, but I dont think he pays me off on the river for a big bet.

The table broke after just an hour and about 65 hands into this journey. I definitely think the stakes blurred my vision on the one particular hand but other than that I felt pretty confident.

I ended up $71 after I found myself stuck around $350 at my low point. I was happy when the table broke as my heart can only take so much.

Another Fold

2006-12-18T20:27:00.000-05:00

Well after the last discussion on folding went 13 comments deep I need to get back on this topic. Murf and Curatio battled the merits of folding a slightly positive EV hand in order to decrease variance. I don't have time for a long boring, well thought out post so I will just post another hand for discussion.

Hand History

I fold KK, the same hand that I folded last time but this time I folded on the river to save me some money when I knew I was beat. I hate my flop reraise, it was not enough I know, but I made him pay max value on the turn to see the river card. I pegged him on the flush draw the momeent he led out for a min bet on the turn.

I still don't think many people can lay this hand down to a $15 bet into a $30 pot. I just knew my set of kings was cracked and laid it down and saved some cash to fight another day. This guy rivered me again 10 hands later and got the rest of my money but the is besides the point. ;)

FULL TILT CROOKS

2006-12-14T14:39:00.000-05:00

This is a public service announcement from the poker blogger community. While this may be an isolated incident, it gives a red flag warning about the potential dangers of your bankroll on Full Tilt Poker. Dugglebogey from Go Be Rude just posted an entry entitled Your Money is NOT SAFE at Full Tilt Poker. Please go read it. Apparently his account was cleaned out from Full Tilt Poker from someone using a foreign IP address and Full Tilt is NOT going to do anything about it. Please show your support for Dugglebogey and spread the word about Full Tilt. We cannot stand for this kind of response from Full Tilt. So be warned and take appropriate action if you feel so inclined. This is NOT the kind of thing that the online poker industry needs right now.

EDIT:

This is an automated message sent from Full Tilt Poker.

Your Player ID: Rye and Poker
Date and Time: 2006-12-15 07:14:30
Transfer Number: xxxxxxxx
Payment Method: NETeller
Amount: $900.00

Status: APPROVED

Your withdrawal has been approved. Funds transferred electronically
should be available in your account immediately. Funds sent by check
should be received within 21 business days.

Thank you for playing at Full Tilt Poker

Booya Poker - Poker Night in Canada

2006-12-13T14:26:00.000-05:00

The Booya Poker Poker Night in Canada came to an end last night and did I ever get lucky I was playing with donk's. I didn't get any cards all night and I had to fend off one player below me and beat another player if I wanted to move into 3rd spot. Things were looking good to move into a higher spot when the luckbox "costalstak" hit his perfect river card in a 3 way pot and avoid elimination. I had a failed steal attempt shortly after that and I was very short stack and went out first out of all the players that mattered. I was pretty pissed because I thought I was going to lose $250 in EV by moving down a spot. I obviously under estimated the stupidity of the player that was behind me though, all the guy had to do was fold until one more player got knocked out and he would make an extra $250 but he couldn't do it and decided to push A rag and got busted by the chip leaders AQ. I shipped the guy who busted him $10 and called it a night!

Final Standings: (This is all Overlay)

MathP - $2000
Actyper - $1250
CoastalStak - $1000
Riverrun (Me) - $500
Pkrfce (Donkey) - $250

Honourable Mention: Curatio

Now get ready for the new and improved league in January! Go sign up at Booya and remember I can get you an extra $10 if you leave a comment saying you signed up through me.

Snow Day

2006-12-08T09:36:00.000-05:00

I tried my hand at the Booya Hockey Night in Canada tournament last night. It had 18 runners with normal payouts but with two tickets to an NHL game of your choice for the winner so a slightly different strategy was needed to try for first at any cost. I managed to double up early and ride that to the final table and steal enough blinds to keep above average until we got down to the final 6. I ended up going out 4th when I pushed with QJ and got a call from KJ. Ohh well I'll have to wait to see the Maple Leafs lose another day.

I also managed a couple hundred hands 3 tabling NL 200 at Full Tilt last night before the tournament. I was down a few bucks when this hand happened. I was at a very aggressive table and thought I would try to isolate if someone raised behind me but everything failed and I gave up rather quickly with the hand. I like to post hands where I make mistakes just to keep myself honest in the areas I need to improve on. I think this was an isolated instance so I am not too worried yet. I will make sure it doesn't happen again.

The hand that made my session into a winning one is this hand. I raise my standard amount, get one caller, CB my standard amount but maybe a bit lower than normal. The second he called I put him on the flush draw. I saw him show down some hands and I'm not sure but I was 90% sure, and since he checked to me on the turn that completed the flush I just knew he hit. I check behind and hit a miracle card on the river to stack the guy. He asked me after if I would of called a bet on the turn and I said I would of called a half pot sized bet but not a full pot bet on the turn. It was a cooler for him but I'm not convinced he should of called my raise with a2s in the BB.

I'm off work today, the whole city I work in is shut down since we got over 2 feet of snow over night. I'm not looking forward to shoveling my car out when it's time to leave to go anywhere but at least its a day off!

Get R Done

Poker Tables

2006-12-08T08:55:00.000-05:00

This is a sponsored post:

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I know some of you are thinking that my wife would never let me get a poker table anywhere in my house, this is my situation anyway. They offer poker tables that convert to dining room tables and you can't tell that they are even supposed to be used for poker. The WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) is much higher because you don't look like as much of a degenerate gambler when her friends come over and see a poker table set up in the basement.

Cardroom Supply also adds the finishing touches to your room by selling poker chips, racks, tournament timers, buttons, cards, and drop boxes for all that money that is changing hands. It really is a one stop shop for all your home game needs.

Santa Claus

2006-12-05T20:36:00.000-05:00

Since Santa came early for me on the 5 things I wanted for Christmas, (see below)I thought I would make my readers dreams come true!

Booyaman wanted more players at his site.

Go Sign up!!

Dcamper wanted Party Poker and all sites that banned players from the U.S. back I give him.

(PICTURE GOT DELETED)

I wanted to change Bush to Frist but I'm not photoshop certified.

Merry Christmas

Have you been Naughy or Nice?

2006-12-04T16:08:00.000-05:00

I didn't get a chance to play at all since my last post. I had a great night out on Friday night and got a little bit more drunk than I probably needed to but ohh well. My poker week ahead looks like Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday this week with blog reading everyday. My goal is to get in 600-700 hands in at NL200 at Full Tilt poker to make sure I finish off as much of their reload as I can.

I also want to play in one blogger event this week, and I will let JL pick the one I will play since he is bitching about me not playing in his most recent post. There are two weeks left in the Booya Poker League and I am looking good to make some cash just in time for Christmas.

My Christmas Wish List:

1. Pocket Aces in the BB in a reraised pot. Early Gift!
2. Hitting a set and stacking an overpair
3. Winning one of the next two Booya League events
4. Raising a small Suited Connector and actually hitting a flop Early Gift
5. Making $1,000 before Christmas from Poker

If you want something for Christmas you better post it in in my comments or Riverrun won't know what to get you.

A New Game

2006-12-01T10:11:00.001-05:00

I was able to take some time last night and try Limit Omaha H/L and boy do I ever suck. I had no idea what was going on, I thought I had a decent hand a few times but was dominated pretty badly. I had a very difficult time reading the board and my hand, I wasn't even worried about counting outs because I really didn't know any better. Needless to say I lost my stack ($.80) and did not rebuy. I read a bit before I started but I will continue to read more and let Murph from PSO help me once I get to the stage where I understand the game.

I also played an hour two-tabling NL200 and managed to squeak out a small $50 profit with out going to the river or showdown once. This is tight aggressive poker at its finest. I would raise get a caller, CB 3/4 pot or $13 because that is my scary bet amount that I use to make players fold, and I would get them to fold. When you do this 5-6 times it becomes pretty comical because I didn't hit many flops last night, most were positional raises after one limper entered the pot. I need to remember this night when all my CB's get raised when I have nothing because I know things even out in the long run.

I finished my month up $730 which worked out to $34/hour. I am extremely pleased with my transition to NL200, it just shows that a winning NL100 player has nothing to be scared about making the jump up if you are properly bankrolled. I wish Full Tilt had resizable tables because I really want to add the 3rd and 4th table with no over lap. I sometimes play three but two works better on my 17" monitor at home. Its almost that time of year to set our goals for next year so start thinking about what you want to accomplish in poker. You should also more importantly think about HOW you are going to accomplish by using BB/100 x hours played and break it down on a monthly/weekly basis so you have both long and short term goals to accomplish over the next year. I think i'll use the generic goal of making $10,000 next year from bonuses and poker play (I will set up a monthly tracker). If anyone wants to challenge me on a month/yearly basis and make a side bet out of it I would love the challenge/motivation to play more hands.

Get R' Done

State of the Nation

2006-11-29T15:20:00.000-05:00

I finally got to play a couple hours of poker last night and all in all it was a resounding BLAH! I played a total of 4 Table Hours of NL200 which netted me a loss of $30 after being stuck close to $150 by making second best hands. I also sat at a .02/.04 LHE table on Ladbrokes with $800. It was quite funny seeing the reactions to that and then them noticing I didn't care about calling there .04 value bet on the river with 9 high. I actually made a buck at that table which I think was good considering my VP$IP was 80%.

I haven't had the motivation I once had to play poker on a more regular basis. The Booya Poker Night in Canada League is keeping me busy on Tuesday nights but that's the only appointment poker I play right now. I'm sitting in 4th with MathP, and Actyper ahead of me. I have 10% of both their action so I am in line for a $500 - $800 pay day in a few weeks once that league ends. I promised myself if I make $1000 from the Booya League that I will sit down with $1000 at a NL1000 table and take a shot. I'm sure ill P*ssy out but I want to try and I am considering this free money because I haven't really played well to deserve it so far.

My bankroll is climbing slow and steadily since my last cash out two months ago. I'm playing about 20 hours a month and making around $600 from poker and bonuses. This is a decent side income and will eventually pay for my honeymoon or other expenses that come up along the way. Its nothing too exciting but until I bear down and focus on getting the hours in ill be stuck at NL200 for the bulk of 2007, which isn't a bad thing but I just don't see myself moving up until I get to 10k, which at this rate will be July 2007 at the earliest.

If any of you readers out there have ideas on how I can make sure I play more than 20 hours a month I would love to hear about it. I probably have 40 hours a month worth of time but I decide to chat in the PSO chat room, read blogs, and generally waste time instead of playing. Its kind of like university again where I would clean my room, chat with the guys and play video games in order not to study for my exams. I need to get out of this funk.

Get R' Done

Folding

2006-11-28T14:14:00.000-05:00

Fold is a four Letter Word. Murph72 decided to take the time to post a folding article. I don't think its talked about enough so go check it out!

Folding

2006-11-21T10:29:00.000-05:00

Folding is something rarely talked about in the blogosphere. I'm not sure if people don't want to talk about showing weakness and making weak plays but I think it deserves some attention. In many situations folding is the only option, I'm not going to talk about these situations but rather the marginal situation we find ourselves in on a nightly basis as we go about our business. And yes, I do look at my nightly poker as a business where I'm looking to increase my ROI and keep my shareholders (read: fiancé) happy. In business the buzzword has been to cut costs to improve the bottom line, in poker I fold to improve my bottom line and it increases my profits in return.

The next example is a one off case and doesn't lend any actual meat to my argument but does prove a small point. I pick up 1010 at a FR NL100 game on Party last night and there is a 4x raise then a minraise to 8x total. I know I am behind and make a marginal fold. I could play for set value but if I call I do not want it repopped by the original raiser. Flop comes 1044, and they both get all in ( I would of flopped the boat ). Turn X, River Q, Winner flips QQ and I save my stack. I'm glad I folded as I knew I was behind and saved getting two outted on the river. Not a big deal, lets move on.

The situations I'm talking about are when you flop a "good hand" and you bet and get resistance. So it's a small pot and we have top pair middle kicker in an unraised pot, with a potential flush out. We bet out and get called. We check and the person over bets the pot with a blank turn. If we call we might be up against a better kicker/better hand. And we won't know where we are at. We could be up against a flush draw that is playing his hand fast. No matter what this pot is escalating quickly and at best it would be a marginal call, and the river could really scare us if it completes the flush or a card comes that is higher than our kicker. It's an easy fold situation even though I put our odds at 50/50 to win. I'm always looking for a reason to fold a hand that "could" be beat. Don't get me wrong I also look to pounce on weakness with any two, but I save more money by folding in these situations then I make by calling.

NOTE: The above hand was just one at the top of my head, there are many better situations but I wanted to get the concept across not the specific situation.

The moral of my post is that there will always be better situations when you know you are ahead and since we are playing 200 hands an hour they will be there sooner rather than later. I have maintained a 5PTBB/100 win rate at any level I have played with this concept in mind. It's not as exciting as LAG poker but you need to look at the long run in these situations because you know that you will be getting someone all in as a 60/40 favourite soon enough. I was told by MathP that I play a zero variance brand of poker, and he's right because I am always looking to make sure my money goes in ahead. Is it exciting? No, but it builds the bankroll. My VP$IP is also dropping so I will look at that and how it has affected my game soon enough, I'm at 15% VP$IP at FR NL200.

Could the other bloggers that read this make a post on folding...I would love to read more about saving bets/picking better spots in NL. I only say this because I believe I am the worst writer on the web and would love to hear someone else write about this that drives the point home even more.

See you all at the Booya League tonight!

Full Moon Last Night?

2006-11-16T10:42:00.000-05:00

I started my day of yesterday by sending a email to Party complainging about the reload bonus they gave me this month, $5!! I said if they wanted my business back from Full Tilt Poker that thye better do better than that. So they quickly responded with 20% up to $100, 5x RH. Can you say free money?? Now with this new reload I decided to play 30 minutes at NL100, I didnt want to play higher because I didn't have more time.

Here is where the full moon comes in. I pick 4 random tables and fire up poker tracker with GT+. One table has a VP$IP of over 50%, one other about 45% with 3 players over 70%. What normally happens when this situation comes up is that you hope to get cards, never do and they bust you with K7o. I had the perfect storm happen at one table within 15 minutes.

Hand 1: Donkey 1 VP$IP of 80% after 15 hands. I have 2 pair after flop reraise him, he folds. Never slowplay donkey's because they will think your a bully and play back at you eventually.

Hand 2: Donkey 1, 3 hands later. I have AK raise 3 limpers, just donkey calls. Flop K high. He bets 20% of pot into me, I raise up to pot. He calls. Turn is a blank, He check raises me all in, I insta call and his KJ is no good. Too bad he only had half a stack.

Hand 3: Donkey 2 VP$IP of 70% after 20 hands (180BB Stack vs My 150BB Stack). 3 Limpers, I limp behind with 88, he raises 5x, I call OOP. Flop 810Q. I check raise him, he calls. Turn is a blank. I bet out $25ish into a $35 pot he pushes, I insta call, even with the potential straight out there. He flips Q9 for top pair and a gut shot, river Ace, ship the $300+ pot. It always makes me wonder how he got a near double stack in the first place.

I lost a bit on the other tables so I only booked a $140 win in 30 minutes at NL100. I'm actually getting scared because I know a downstreak is coming, hopefully I can minimize its impact once it starts be recognizing it early...I think that might be flawed logic though.

Booya Bonus $10 - New Accounts - Overlay

2006-11-15T10:25:00.001-05:00

BooyaPoker.com special offer to Rye and Poker blog readers!

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Review

2006-11-15T10:12:00.001-05:00

The following is a Sponsored Post:

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Motivation, I need some

2006-11-14T16:45:00.000-05:00

I'm looking forward to getting in some hands tonight, I haven't played in a week and i'm going into withdraw from not being one card away from hitting my draw. I plan on playing an hour or two of NL200 at Full Tilt aloung with the Booya Poker Night in Canada League where I currently sit in 4th place. If you haven't signed up for Booya yet, use the link below (3 posts down) and I'll get them to ship $10 over to you, which is enough to play in the first tournament.

My Goal of making $2000 before Christmas is not going so hot, I'm only up $400 or so after only 2000 hands but I'm just not getting in enough hands to take a real run at it. I'm running at a solid 5PTBB/100 at my new limit which I believe is sustainable with the way I'm playing and adapting to the higher limit. The most tables I have played is 3, so adding a fourth will be imperative to hitting the 2k before Christmas, not including bonuses, etc.

I have also added a new sponsor on the right side on this here blog, I will post a review of what they offer in the coming days but until them check them out for any new sites you haven't played at or didn't know the bonus code to.

Work

2006-11-10T19:08:00.000-05:00

I have been working like a dog over the past week and have neglected this blog. I have been playing the odd cash game and a select few donkaments at Booya Poker but nothing major. I don't have too much else to say, my life isn't too exciting right now. :( I'm drywalling my basement this weekend so my house will be a diaster therefore no poker for me. I dropped to fourth in the Booya League when a luckbox knocked me and everyone else out going in as the underdog. I will try to make a more meaningful post sunday, until then try not to get rivered.

Booya

2006-11-03T10:03:00.000-05:00

All my Canadian Readers have to support these guys. They are part of the Tribeca
Network and have amazing exclusive tournaments for their own players. Just check out the league standings below and the corresponding Prize pool...can you say +EV. If you are Canadian and play poker you have to support these guys. They also have $5 CPT satellites for a $1000 entry, and only 13 players signed up!

PNIC League 1 - Started October 24th but it's not too late to join, Round 3 goes November 7th. The more players the more points you can win!
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Chance to play with Celebrity guests

For the latest Pokernight In Canada standings click here.

First Place
$2000

Second Place
$1250

Third Place
$1000

Fourth Place
$500

Fifth Place
$250

Booya!!

Analysis

2006-10-30T12:45:00.001-05:00

Thanks to all those that posted with their ideas on this hand. My thoughts on the pre flop betting is pretty standard, I make a 4x BB raise after one limper, if there was 2 limpers I would of raised it up to $10-12. I get called by a player on my left and the original limper. This puts the pot at $27 and I make a standard 1/2 pot size continuation bet (one that has taken down most flops at this table) and get raised by the limper. At this point I don't really know where I'm at. I would make this (his) play against a preflop raiser with TPTK, even 99 if I thought he had a missed AK to see if I could take the pot down. My decision to reraise him was to find out if he was making a play or had a hand. I'm still getting used to Full Tilt so my raise wasn't high enough to give me perfect information, but when he flat called my raise I instantly put him on a monster, if he reraised me at this point I was done with the hand as well. My read on this guy was a fairly solid player who was comfortable at these limits because he was rebuying up to $200 whenever he dropped below his buy in. That alone made me think he is a solid player even if I didn't see any hands showdown by him.

He checks to be on the turn, its an easy check for him since I have been an aggressor and obviously like my hand enough to reraise him on the flop. This also looks like he is strong and wants me to bet at him so he can check raise. Its an easy check behind for me to see if I can catch my Queen on the river. He fires out a $100 on the river into a $139 pot. After reconstructing the hand I just couldn't put him on a hand that I could beat. I was behind 33, 77, 1010, 10J, 89, 910, and other less likely hands of JJ or 88. I would play many of those hands for a limp and call a raise especially after someone already called my raise by the time it got back to him. The $100 bet screamed "I am trying to make it look like I'm bluffing, call me with TPTK or your obvious over pair!!". I hope I didn't get bluffed out of a pot, I think he would make that play as a bluff 20% of the time, which is not a big enough percentage to make that call profitable in the longrun.

Was I wrong in my reasoning, and to make the reraise on the flop to see if I was ahead? Did my bet actually help with my read or would I of found out where I was at even If I just called his check raise on the flop and waited to see the turn action?

KUGR, yes you are a Donkey!

Discuss

2006-10-26T19:40:00.000-04:00

http://www.pokerhand.org/?576074

Was it a good lay down? My early indications from player say it it, but I want to open it up for discussion and I will try to defend my play the best I can.

Discuss!

Booya!

2006-10-25T11:00:00.000-04:00

I still suck...I still suck...I still suck. That about sums up my PSO League so far this year. I have failed to adapt to the players, and it has cost be dearly each week. I have two more kicks at the can but I am not holding my breathe. I started another League at Booya Poker compliments on Actyper and the first night was last night. It has a crazy amount of overlay, only 13 players showed up and the total prize at the end of the league is $5,000 split among the top 5 point getters. I managed to squeak into the cash in 4th, MathP finished 3rd and Actyper went out a few spots before me.

The structure of these events is terrible, it becomes a push fest after level 3 so there is not much play after the flop. I have a feeling there will be a few bad finishes thrown into the mix over the next 8 weeks. I'm going to try my hardest to get into the top 4 when the eight weeks are up so I can have a nice bonus for my time at this little site with stupid software.

On the bankroll front...I am moving up steadily and I feel fine playing NL200 and see it as my future home. I have surpassed $15,000 in cash winnings in online poker, I'll have to look back and see when I crossed the 5k and 10k marks to see the accelerated growth you get with proper bankroll management. My usable roll is only 5.3k but it is more than enough to play NL200 Full Ring as a TAG.

If I don't go to the bar tonight I should be able to get a few hands in as well as a CPT qualifier satellite at Booya Poker.

The EV of Blogging

2006-10-19T14:29:00.001-04:00

I believe that bloggers have a distinct advantage over non blogging poker players. I could be way off by saying this but I am going to try to quantify my reasoning and showing that blogging is +EV.

Firstly, blogging leads to typing out your thoughts on a session, therefore you are reviewing your play as you type hands in your blog and ask for advice. This leads to other bloggers who comment on the way you played the hands and most of the time leads to even more discussion on particular trouble hands. Most players would think about a hand and not have a sounding board to talk to, and would just assume there is no other way to play a hand. Blogging makes us see the light and try new things. I think reviewing hands with other bloggers and typing them out adds .3 BB/100 to our overall win rate.

Next, bloggers need something to talk/write about to stay "in" with the poker blogging community. If they stop playing they will not fit in and have zero material for there blog, leading to extinction. Peer pressure allows bloggers to be motivated to play more hands to keep up with other bloggers . An average player has no one to vent to, no one to pick them up while they are down, no one yelling at them when they don't post. Peer pressure enables all of us to play more and subsequently win more in the long run. I know without this blog I would play even less because poker wouldn't be top of mind. Peer pressure adds 200 more hands per week on average for myself.

All this blogging and chatting does take many players off their game, and takes us away from the tables to actually type a post or read the 20 blogs that are in our blogroll. This has both positive and negative aspects to our hands played and our win rate. It causes our hands played to go down, but win rate to go up. Our win rate goes up because we are reading the thoughts of other solid poker players and its easier for us to learn strategy, put villain's on hands. I for one absorb every blog I read and it helps when there is a tough decision, I can sometimes get into the mind of the villain and figure out what they are thinking because of reading blogs. This increase's our win rate by .4 BB/100 but decreases our hands per week by 50.

So what's all this mean. To a part time player playing a 1000 hands per week on average, we would add 150 hands and .7 BB/100 on all hands played. This gives us a theoretical value of $418.60. Who says that we don't get paid to blog!!

Is there anything I missed that would increase/decrease our EV of blogging??

A couple hands

2006-10-18T11:48:00.000-04:00

Can you take a look at the first hand and tell me what I could of done differently? I think it was just a cooler because I have been running well lately. I needed the second hand to actually pull a profit out of the tables for the night.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?564077

http://www.pokerhand.org/?563963 Worst play I have ever witnessed. But it made me laugh!

I deposited to Party for their reload bonus last night, and has it ever changed. The fish have dried up for the most part, other than the one guy above who was screwing around. Four of my tables broke within 20 minutes of sitting down, that never happened at the old Party that we knew and loved. I also hate the jackpot tables, its the reason why I played NL100 and not NL200, where all the available full ring tables are Jackpot tables so Party can milk us for all we are worth.

I have a good idea for my next post, it should make all the bloggers feel good about what they do.

Strategy Post

2006-10-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

Well it's been a while since I have posted anything of substance on this here blog. I am still running well at NL200, and think I can keep up with the big boys. I did notice last night was a little bit crazier than other nights on party, the players to the flop were higher, more betting, more desperation. It seemed everyone
was trying to make there last buck and forcing the issue, especially
the Americans. I played my patient game, made some resteals, lots of CB's, and some reraises with junk to keep them honest and everything was working.

The following is a play I use quite regularly in Cash games at NL50 and above, the higher the better. I'm sure many people use it but I am still going to write about the advantages of making this play and if you haven't thought about it, it will add
another arrow to your sling.

You get dealt QQ in MP at a full ring game and you bump it up to $4 at a .50/1.00 NL table. You get one caller who has position on you and just the two of you see the flop. This is a very common scenario that we see almost on a daily basis, out of position with a strong hand. The flop comes Q102 rainbow, so we hit top set and the action is on us. (this could easily be 1010 and middle set)

Our options:

Check: - we have a great hand with top set and we cannot be scared of anything at this point so we know we are ahead. KJs is a possible holding which would mean we could be venerable to draws but also not that likely and I wouldn't worry to much. Checking after a raise looks way too suspicious on a flop like this, it is pretty clear most preflop raisers would get a piece of this, and if not still take a chance at continuation betting anyway, and even if your opponent did as well they will most likely check behind and take a free card. This does not build a pot and we will not maximize value by checking.

Betting full pot: This doesn't make much sense to bet strongly when we have the
best of it. We want to build a pot but we don't want to scare the villain off who may of hit 2nd pair and put us on AK, this bet will look like AQ or better and we will give him no opportunity to float us.

Betting 1/2 Pot: - Since we have a lock hand at this point we want to price the AQ's, KQs, KJs, A10s, Q10s in the best we can and make them think they are ahead and being tricky when they call our bet that does look like weakness. This bet size makes it easy for them to float us as well, we want to look like a missed AK and that we are scared to lose anymore money so we make a small CB. At the higher levels this bet will often get raised right here but at the very least they will call with any piece of the flop putting us on AK and they will hopefully try to take us off the hand later. This seems the optimum bet to build a pot and give our villain options with a wider range of hands.

We bet 1/2 pot $5 and our continuation bet gets called. The turn is a 7 completing our rainbow. Q,10,2,7.

This is the part were things get interesting, we again have some options.

Bet: This will confirm to our opponent that we still like our hand and if they are drawing they would be folding, if they had 2nd pair they would fold, and if they were floating, we just confirmed we have a hand and their folding. Top pair would still probably call in this situation but that is only one of the many possible holdings that we want to extract money out of.

Check: You still have the best possible hand, and conventional wisdom says value bet, value bet, but at the higher levels you will fold out a lot of hands if you bet here
and you don't give the villain a chance to confirm his read of a missed AK, thus instilling confidence in them and causing them to make a "play" and fire back at your sensed weakness. They usually fire a 3/4 pot sized bet that we can decide what to do with later, or if they check behind you weren't going to get them to call a big bet anyway most of the times, so chalk it up to experience and take the small pot down on the river. If they fire a decent size bet we now have a pot worth playing for and you can either call and bet out on the river, or raise this bet usually getting them to fold unless they have a very strong hand in their eyes such as two pair. If they
have two pair they might even push and you can stack them. If they fold you won a few more BBs then if you bet into them.

The river doesn't mean much because you either stacked them, got them to fold on the reraise, or they checked behind and your gonna win a small pot. This isn't a play for those of you that want to protect your winning hands and enjoy value betting which works for the most part. This is a play when you want to stack someone or trying to extract maximum value for a hand. It works very well and I use it whenever the situation comes up. It can be used with many preflop hands/flops but you have to have the board nearly dominated and have only one opponent who like to pounce on weakness.

Good luck and when you get drawn out on do not blame me! :)

AT>AT

2006-10-12T13:07:00.001-04:00

Another League event done, another disappointing finish. I played a great tournament last night, making steals, making some nice lay downs, and playing tight solid poker. I had an above average stack with 35 players left when I tried to steal the BB for the SB when it was folded to me and raised with A10, the BB reraised, and I pushed thinking he was just trying to play back at me since I was chipping up by raising lots of pots previously. He called my push and had me covered and flipped over A10 and he hit a four flush and I was gone. He went to instant chip leader and had a few more suck outs before getting eliminated around the FT bubble I think. I was too mad about the result as I was happy with the way I played and the reads I made throughout the entire tournament. I should get some average luck soon and make a run at a final table.

I made my sidebar include the links to my Google spreadsheet of my results so all you can see my donkiness. Make sure you click on the bottom of the spreadsheet to visit the other "sheets" to see my bankroll, month-by-month stats, NL200 Challenge, and tournament results. I prematurely started my NL200 challenge last night, I had some extra time before the tournament started so I fired up one table of NL200 full ring. I find the players a mix between good and bad, and a little more aggressive than NL100. I was still able to punish callers who were drawing by firing 3 barrels at them, after I would miss the flop. I had someone call me down with K2 when we both hit trip Kings (I had a limped AKo from the SB) on the turn, for a $300 Pot. I find that players at this level play a bit trickier on average which force me to make a few plays I wouldn't at NL100 but with success so far after only one hour :) I plan to add a second table tonight and hopefully reach my goal of $5000 that I set to start the challenge, either way I will continue to solely play NL200 from here on out. I made my goal $2,000 before the end of the year. This will keep me playing as much as possible and keep me from slacking off and finding other things to do with my time.

I have had no comments on the spreadsheets so far, I know I only get a couple readers a day but come on!! Do you like or should I take it down??

Results

2006-10-11T09:56:00.000-04:00

I'm not looking to start a revolution but I just might have an idea that brings reporting wins/losses and updates on goals into the 21st century. I have created a spreadsheet that tracks my sessions from August 1st, 2006 on. It shows my cash game results with bonuses accounted for separately starting in October. I did not add the bonuses I received to my results from August and I do not plan to at this point. I have been keeping track of my hours played for my own use but I don't mind other bloggers keeping tabs on me to keep me focused and motivated. I will eventually expand my sheets to accommodate my goals, bankroll, casino whoring, tournaments, and any other ways I make money online going forward. I wish I started keeping track much earlier so that less experienced players could see where to bonus whore and the variance in online poker.

Please leave me suggestions on a better layout, what you would like to see more detail of or less of. I will do my best to update it as often as I can, but as you can see I don't play as much as I used to. I took about 40 days off if Sept/Oct. so that is the reason why September is missing off the bottom row of sheets available to view. Click on October to see how this month is going, I'm only 2 days in to October (yesterday and the day before) but I plan on playing more this month.

Note: You will need a google account to sign in to view the spreadsheet, if your a blogger you should be good to go!

CLICK HERE

Wake Up!!

2006-10-10T11:58:00.000-04:00

I'm sure most of my Canadian readers are still asleep from eating turkey non stop this weekend but I should post for my American readers and my one reader from across the pond. I finally got to my Party relaod bonus which forced me to play 5 hours of poker this weekend to finish it off before they took it away last night at midnight. I played some mindless four tabling of NL50 and managed to grind a decent profit of $125 not including the $100 bonus. I had quite a bit of variance along the way but managed to play solid poker through out the entire time. So after taking a month off, I STILL GOT IT! I'm going to restart my hourly commitment per week to poker. I think I set it at 5 hours last time so I will stick with that since its the most I see myself playing over the foreseeable future.

After my recent cashout of 7.5k, my bankroll sits around $4,700 and is more than manageble for 4 tabling NL100. I will challenge myself this time, when I hit $5,000 I am going to make the jump to NL200 permanatly. I know i've said it before but I am actually going to stick with this unless I lose more than 5 buy ins. The way I am going to set this up for my tracking purposes is to place the $1,000 bankroll on Party and keep it separate for the purposes of playing NL200. I will use a separate site/account to play any other limits if I am not feeling up to it or feel like bonus whoring. I am not going to track my hours played but will use PokerTracker to keep track of my winrate and total number of hands played periodically.

Birthday Boy

2006-10-06T11:52:00.000-04:00

Well I got back on the horse last night and played a few hands while I was sorting out my trip to go see Michigan vs. Michigan State play college football. I only fired up two tables of NL100 since I wasn't really concentrating too much. I was able to make a quick profit of $45 in about 25 mins or 45 hands and then had to get some sleep for work. I feel old just typing that and it doesn't help that today is my birthday, the big 26! I have a night out on the town planned for today then the football game Saturday, turkey Sunday with the fiancé, and plans with my family on Monday. I will also have to fit in about 750 hands of poker in at some point to finish off the Party reload bonus.

With all the affiliates located in the states getting shut down it makes me believe that this law is actually going to stick. It makes me feel bad for all those students that quit university to go to poker college, or the few lawyers that quit to pursue poker full time. I'm sure plan B will come into effect soon for these players but I hope going forward even if this law doesn't prevent the U.S. from playing poker that students learned their lesson about how important education is. The clichés actually apply here; We should never put all our eggs in one basket or bet the farm on one hand.

The first installment of the PSO league didn't go so hot, I was the 4th one out I think.

My bust hand:

Blinds 10/20

Hero: 22 (T1600)

Limped 4 way pot

Flop: 2s7sKx

EP bets 80

MP raises to 160

Hero Raises to 360

EP folds

MP calls

Turn: 9s

MP checks

Hero bets 500 into a 800ish pot

MP pushes (made his flush draw!!!)

It costs me 600 to call a pot of 2400 not including my 600, I type I have outs and click call and gamble to build a stack. I had about a 20% chance on the river.

River Blank = not good!

Well have a drink tonight for my birthday!!

U.S. of fucking A

2006-10-02T10:32:00.000-04:00

http://www.partygaming.com/images/docs/061001_USLegislation2.pdf

As I am sure most of you heard that the U.S. of fucking A has passed a bill that essentially prohibits online gambling by U.S. based players. This has a ridiculous amounts of repercussions to all poker players and not just U.S. players. Foreign players lose party rakeback, the throngs numbers of players that keep the games going, and the fish that makes my part time playing worthwhile. I have a few friends, and one or two readers from the U.S. and I feel for them right now. PSO also thrives on the business of Americans and they will be hurt by this, it was fun while it lasted though.

I, as a trusting Canadian, have a Plan!!! I have access to a few Canadian based Party accounts and if I know you I will make arrangements to give you access to them so you can continue your degenerate habits.
Also, if you know any pro's that need accounts let me know ;) I'm sure I could work something out.

It's still early so I'm sure we will have more direction in the next few weeks on how this will affect the poker world

Rye and Poker

Phil Ivey Poker Training

PocketFives Training

On Demand Tournaments

What a Rush!

Update

200th Post

Thank God for Rakeback

F 2009

NYE Live Poker

2008 Year in Review

Happy Holidays!!

NL 50 - Continued

NL50 5 Max Update

NLHE Shorthanded 5 Max

200th Post / Vegas Trip Report

Free Poker Training

Sponsored Post - OnlineCasinoReports.com

PSO WSOP freeroll

Online Poker Bonuses

WSOP Bracelets

Pokernews Strategy Review

Doomswitch

How to Life Tilt someone

Poker Training Sites

Lee Jones joins Cardrunners.com

30k Hands - 6 months

March Break Recap

Midget Month Recap

Almost....

Week in Review

January Review + New Set Up!

Worst one yet

Grinding away

Another Week

2008

Year in Review

I've created a Monster

Twas the day a few nights before christmas

Wingows Poker Review

Back to normal hotness

That's Hot!

Standard

I can Dodge Bullets Baby!

Finally got Back to the Fishy water of Party Poker

Variance is a Bitch

Bloggers Freeroll!

Presto is Gold

I pulled my Inner Yang

I'm Alive

PSO League #5

Sarnia Live Poker Tournament

PSO League 2 and 3

PSO league #1

Kim Kardashian Pics

PSO small game

Pokerstars @ PSO

State of the Union

Neteller Down to Canadians!

Withdraw!

6 max

Balance

Neglect

February

Solid Poker

Critical Thinking

January - Enough Said!

State of the Union

Update

Mansion 100k

2007

Year in Review

What a Rush - 5/10 NL

Another Fold

FULL TILT CROOKS

Booya Poker - Poker Night in Canada

Snow Day

Poker Tables

Santa Claus

Have you been Naughy or Nice?