Raisydaisy

zomg, a blog post!

Wow, I hadn't had time to play a session for myself (i.e, not counting coachings) in a looong time =) The long weekend (Monday off) is a nice break from my sleep-deprived, over-worked routine. I'm gonna have to work quite a lot in the next 4 weeks or so, so I'm not sure I'll have time for much poker, so I might as well post about today before falling back into inactivity Read on for a short post with a couple amusing hands and purrty pictures of my fish-funded purchases.

So, I played NL200, started off with 1 or 2 tables while I joined the waiting list of every soft table with GLH, and I soon had 12 tables. I had forgotten how fun poker was - I didn't exactly miss it while I couldn't play (although the lack of income was getting irritating), but when I got back to it, well I'm not sure how to put it in words, but the feeling was great: the challenge of the game - you can great at it, but it'll always require constant attention - the feeling when you make a perfect read,... anyhoo, I thought I'd share a few fun hands.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (5 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

saw flop|saw showdown

UTG ($306)
Hero ($352.58)
Button ($189.40)
SB ($200)
BB ($231) -- 18/16 or so, I'm not exactly sure. Somewhat tricky player

Preflop: Hero is MP with Qd, Ad.
1 fold, Hero raises to $7, Button calls $7, 1 fold, BB raises to $32, Hero calls $25, Button calls $25.
-- AQs is too strong to fold vs a squeeze, but I don't like turning it into a bluff by 4bet/folding, plus taking a flop in position against a very wide range isn't too bad

Flop: ($97) 6c, Ah, 4d (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $61, Button folds, BB calls $199 (All-In), Hero calls $138.
-- Having no timebank made thing kinda tricky, but even when I look at it now, the call looks good. I can't have AK here since I would've 4bet preflop, and so (he thinks) I can't call with much here, apart from a set. So, assuming that's what he thinks, I'm ahead very often here. Even counting the times I'm wrong and he can have AK here, it's a profitable move.

Turn: ($495) Jd (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($495) Ac (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $495

Results in white below:
BB has As Js (full house, aces full of jacks).
Hero has Qd Ad (three of a kind, aces).
Outcome: BB wins $495.

Oh, snap. Never mind, I'm quite happy with the read I made, at least I was on the spot. Next hand:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

saw flop|saw showdown

SB ($204) -- rather aggro reg
Hero ($309.43)
UTG ($203.89)
MP ($143.67)
CO ($200)
Button ($17.13)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Th, Kd.
4 folds, SB raises to $7, Hero calls $5.

Flop: ($14) Jh, Qc, 3d (2 players)
SB bets $9, Hero calls $9.

Turn: ($32) 5h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $20, SB calls $20.

River: ($72) 2h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero calls $273.43 (All-In), SB folds.

Final Pot: $345.43

Results in white below:
Hero has Th Kd (high card, king).
Outcome: Hero wins $345.43.

Obvious shove on the river since his line is almost exclusively top pair hands and draws - the latter missed and he can't call with anything but sets and maybe 2 pair here.

The chat following the hand just cracked me up: "Fishing_Lure: expert fishline"

I finished down ~100$ (+650 in EV), but I played very well imo, so I don't care about the result.

Oh and I said I wouldn't brag about my wins and losses, but I never said anything about things bought with poker money, so, allow me to display my latest purchases:

balla setup, and (kinda) balla watch:

A big thank-you to all the fish out there

Anyway, I don't really have much else to talk about, so I guess I'll see you in a month ;)

Another update

Since we want to bring this blog back to life here comes another update about what I've done in the last days. Last Sunday I played the birthday million on Partypoker, which began promising. I was able to take down a couple of nice pots. Later on I was unfortunately pretty card dead. I can't really remember how I busted but after all I didn't manage to get in the money anyway. The 100k guaranteed on Stars went bad as well, I lost with AK 2 times against KQ. Domination is obviously not as bad as you'd think. At the same time the Sunday Million on Stars started and I played it as I did in the last weeks. As I recognized that there was no coach in the FL coaching I decided to take this one over and make a special MTT coaching. I told the listeners that I would continue as long as the tourney takes. Some hours later the Dutch admin Sharp80 joined the coaching as we where on the money bubble. We both where pretty short stacked. We both managed it to get in the money. Just a few hands Sharp busted unluckily. I however was able to double up twice and was therefore back in the game. Some time later we where down to 400 players as I got 99 on the button. An aggressive Tag raised and I shoved with my small chip-stack all-in. I knew that he had a strong hand and that I was probably flipping due to the fact that he raised the 2 hands before as well and got re-raised, whereupon he folded, in the hand before. He turned over AQs. Everybody in the channel, including me of course, crossed their finger but I was unlucky as on the river appeared an Ace. I busted as 363th worth $820, which was not a bad result. Thanks again to anybody who supported me till the end.

The day before, on Saturday, I was playing cash-game (NL and Omaha) with some other admins from the other communities. I lost about 4 stacks, which is no wonder since I always play maniac style in these games. Later at home I thought: " No, I can't end the day like that". I opened PartyPoker and started to play NL200 and 400. After an hour I was 1.2k up and went satisfied to bed.

That's it for today. Till the next update

oh hey, I wrote an inspirational post

k, so since I said I'd update more often, here's a short post about the last few days. I don't remember everything, but I'll try to write a little something anyway. //edit: not so short finally,but go ahead and read on anyway ;)

- Coaching

So I started coaching NL100sh for the frenchies. First session: 11 viewers (yay). Although I didn't get many interesting hands and quite a lot of blanks (didn't know what to say, except for a couple discussions on opening ranges etc), but overall it was ok I think. I'm thinking of doing a special coaching one of these days, most likely a public private coaching - so if you happen to speak french, keep a lookout on the forums in the next few days.

We also played a 6-max 6-coaches game last Thursday, and.. well, it was the best session imaginable really. It was a typical nl200/400 kind of table, with one player really adapting to my LAG (45/39, roughly) play, the others being average to good NLSH players - the kind I play every day. On top of playing them on one table with 120 viewers (meaning I concentrated a lot), the video should be out soon, and I'll know exactly how my opponents think when they're faced with a good LAG. This is an invaluable learning tool, much better than private coaching or whatever else...basically a huge boost for my game, I can't wait to see it :) I did make some dumb plays because I was bored or stuck - like a stupid river bluff that worked out. Hand went roughly like this:

I raise 98o UTG, folds around to Myrddin84 in the BB - NL100sh player (I think) who was playing roughly 22/18 and trying to adjust to my play, although I knew he had trouble trusting his reads in marginal spots (he laid down AQ to a 4bet after squeezing me at the beginning of the session). Anyway, he 3-bets and I call (-EV call most likely, but I wanted to create action as we were about to stop). Flop Jc Tc x. He c-bets and I call. He fires again turn Kx, and I actually called, not realising the odds were awful (other mistake, due to tiredness, lol). Anyway, river comes Jx, so I miss my draw, same for a potential club draw. He times down, checks and there I decide to shove my 1/2 PSB stack, mostly because of him timing down (If he had an easy decision, such as Jx or AK, I think he would've acted quickly), so I thought he could have a marginal hand, or even a missed draw - but also because it was the end of the coaching and I even said "well, this is a -ev bluff, but hey, at worst it'll entertain you". Anyway, he ended up folding his 99 (which he was planning to c/c with, but didn't have the balls to follow through :P).

That's just one of the stupid hands I played just for fun, but overall I think I'll still get a very good impression of how typical NL200+ regs react to very loose/aggro players. So basically, I'm going to be working more on that in the next few weeks, and hopefully I can master lag play soon enough - in any case it's very interesting and fun to learn.

Anyhoo, aside from ma new coach status, I've been playing a bit more NL200-600, and well...it was a disaster. I lost about $6k in the last 3-4 days, so my roll is down to $12k (I just cashed out 1.6k). And actually, I'm ok with it. Yesterday, I had my worst session at -3.2k or so, and I felt good. I got this far, and I know I'm capable of beating the games for a decent winrate, so it's just a matter of time, and of course constant work on my game, before I get back to my high point of 18k, and further. Money takes on a completely different value when you know you can have swings of several thousands of dollars in just minutes. To some people, it's a month's worth of hard work, I guess to a poker player, it's just numbers. All they mean is what level one can afford to play. I'm thinking about all this as I type so I might say a couple dumb things, but I think I'm going to make a few changes in my poker habits. I won't brag about my wins or whine about my losses, I'll just post updates every now and then, dunno whether I'll post my current BR or not, we'll see about that. Anyway, I'm going to focus more on my game, and judge my success much more on how I play, and not on how much money I win or lose. I'll probably be making more self-review videos to make sure I spot any leaks I might be developing. Also, I think making regular cashouts every month might be a good idea. For starters, something like 1000€ at the end of every month (unless I have very long losing stretches, but I'll try to avoid that) - I don't need that much money, I'm still studying and living at my mom's for the moment, but I guess I feel a bit too detached from the money, actually having it in my bank account or in cash will be very different from just seeing those 5 numbers in the partypoker window. From the tone of that last paragraph you probably guessed it's getting late - it's 5 am and I should be getting some rest and stop writing dumb blog posts that only 2 or 3 people read. G'night, thanks for reading my too-long post, and I'll try to update more regularly.

by the way, I'll post videos here as well whenever I upload a new one, so hang around =)

Craig

Cashgame update

As I didn't post here since a while it's time for an update. I finally had time to play a little bit cash game again. I played mainly Nl 200 SH and NL400 SH on PartyPoker. Furthermore I made a shot NL 600 SH. It where quite successful days. I made like 1.7k in 3 days with a nice win-rate. The limits I played where pretty aggressive, at least that's what I experienced. I haven't played cash games seriously a long time, so it was nice to be back at the tables. I recognized that even regulars have very high WTSD values like 33 and higher. That makes it easy to get value on the river. Anyway...I had a lot of fun playing again. One night I met a huge fish on a NL400 table sitting there with 3 stacks. This guy played like 80/30 and raised nearly any flop. I was wondering why the other tags didn't adjust at his play. Just one TAG did so, he started to min-raise on the BU when the fish was on the SB. Pretty interesting how he tried to adjust at the fish. Whatsoever I missed some value-bets against him, because it was difficult to put him on a range. After 1 hour the fish was broke and I had 300 Dollars more on my account. I don't think this guy will read this blog - but if he does - Thank you!

Ok, enough for now, I'll update this blog as soon as I can.

Yours,

TribunCaesar

July update, and more

Hey,

Long time since I've posted, so I guess I'll write about how July went and my future goals. I played about 130k hands last month, running decently at NL100 and awfully at NL200, tournies and PLO, but overall it went pretty well - read on for details.

I don't remember all the details, but I'll try to sum up July and this 20k partypoints goal: I started off on the 27th of June with about 6000$ bankroll. I played a mix of NL100 and 200, starting off at a quick +1k$, but then running very bad. I was actually winning steadily at NL100, with around 3.5ptbb/100, mostly 12-tabling - of course running slightly above expectation, but 2.5-3ptbb would be attainable imo. Anyway, I got all my bad luck at nl200, pretty much. I was also losing a lot at tournaments (the occasional SNG's and MTT's) and lost about 800$ at PLO (100 and 200) over 2.5k hands or so.

Anyway, after about 2 weeks I decided to stop tournaments and PLO because I didn't want to take the variance, and just focus on NL100, then 200. Eventually I stopped running bad and recovered, and after a while finally hit a small upswing. It was quickly followed by a downswing, but then I hit a bigger up, in one night - I played all night at nl200, and won around 3000$ thanks to my canadian friends. Same thing at nl400 1 or 2 days later (by this time the promotion had ended if i remember correctly), where I found an entire table with 50+ vpip players - much value :P. I actually missed the 20k partypoints by only a couple hundred points, earning 300$ less than if I had played 2 or 3 thousand more hands -.- Not a huge deal, but it was kind of annoying to fall short so close.

In the past week, I've been playing NL400 whenever I find good tables, and yesterday started taking shots at NL600 (with 14k or so bankroll) and daaamn I run hot. Since July 1st: NL400: 4920 hands, $4274 profit. NL600: 271 hands, $2281 profit. In total, that's $10,149 in cash games since July 1st till today, August 4th, which is about equal to my total profit. My bankroll is at almost $17k (edit:make that 18.5k$ =P) , so I'm inching towards $25k total profit with poker =)

Bragging aside, there are couple other things I'll talk about. First of all, I'm going to start coaching NL100 SH on the French site - my first session will be on Thursday, where we'll play a NL25 SH private table, 6 coaches, all commenting on their play =) Should be great fun, I'm training my LAG play at nl100 and 200 to try and make some damage ;). //edit: my first coaching will actually be tomorrow (Tuesday 5th August) at 20:00CET, and every week at that time and day. I've made one video (NL100 sh session review), and there'll be more to come, at least in French, maybe in English too if they're good enough. I'll also occasionally post videos on my video blog, where xylere should soon post some HU videos too, so it should be quite interesting - make sure to keep it bookmarked. I'm also building my measly 80$ on stars to a bankroll, and once I reach 1.5k or so I'll start learning HU.

I think that's pretty much it... I'll try to update more regularly, every week or so, so make sure to come by ;) And feel free to leave comments, so I know I'm not writing to myself =P

btw, here's the graph of "july" - June 27th to August 4th

Week 1 of sadomasochism

sorry, this isn't a post about Timor's Vegas adventures, but just an update on my progress towards 20k partypoints this month.

For those who didn't read my previous post or forum thread, this translates to at least $1666 and hopefully a high place in the top250, although the current promotions at Titan mean a lot of germans are doing the same thing as me, so I'll probably end up a few places below my first expectations. The temporary rankings should be displayed soon, so I'll have a pretty good idea of how many points I really need.

Anyhoo, I played about 30k hands since the 27th and ran like shit, over $2000 below expectation in all-ins alone, to end up at ~400$ profit.I didn't play quite asmany hands as I was aiming for (5k+ per day) partly due to demotivation, partly because partypoker software is so badly coded that it lags even with an AM2 5000+ as soon as there's more than 12 tables running (new processor is on the way, but 250$ because of some incompetent software engineers is a bit much imo). Nevertheless, I fixed a huge leak in my game and am now breakeven (or winning slightly) in non-showdown pots, whereas I used to lose heaps of money to loose/passive fish, so that's a big improvement :)

So far I'm playing a bit more loose and aggressive on NL200, although I've adjusted to a more passive style (compared to my old NL200 style) because of the very aggressive players at NL200...so many squeezes and 4-bet bluffs I'm really starting to get the impression these players have all heard of these fancy plays, but not a single one has understood how and when to use them -_-'. Aside from that I played a bit of PLO100 and 200 FR, although I did follow a regular NL fish to a PLO200 6-max table, correctly assuming he wouldn't have half a clue about omaha either. Anyway, after getting my stack to ~300$, a "fun" hand came up:

Hero $321.60 || seat 4 $91.40 || Fish $696.50

Hero is MP with AhQh Ks9s

Fish calls, hero raises 9$, seat 4 calls, fish calls.

Flop (28.5$) Jh Tc 7s

Fish checks, Hero bets pot 28.5$, seat 4 shoves $82.40, fish coldcalls, hero shoves $284.10, fish calls

Turn, river: Th, Ac; pot ~745$

seat 4 shows 77T4r, fish shows JTQ4r

So I find a fish that's willing to shove top 2 pair for a 750$ 3-way pot, and miss my million outs :( (16 nut-outs wrap with 2 backdoor flush draws). Nothing exceptional I guess, but 1k$ difference in my account balance hurt a little =/ No more PLO200sh until I reach $10k. FR is ok as long as I keep to 30BI and a small stop-loss.

Anyway, I'm back to playing. As I write this, my AK 3-bet on the flop got outdrawn on the turn 5 by K5, and the guy just hit'n'run. //edit: and my TT on KT4 vs AK, turn 4, river K... Fun times ahead. Graph junkies, see below, this is this week's "progress".

Update

Time for another update. At the moment I'm having a bit of a hangover from a party at Tryst yesterday so nevermind the potential lack of quality from this post ;)

So far the cash tables have been fun, it seems that level of play has gotten a bit up in comparison with the first few days, but I'm still profitable, made about 600$ (which isn't an awful lot, but better than nothing). Straddling is really comon and combined with the fact that some players buyin for 200BB's+ at the MGM, I'm sometimes effectively playing 5/10 instead of 2/5.

Yesterday we went to the Rio again to watch the featured table play in front of our eyes. Scotty Nguyen was right in front of us. Odd enough, we didn't hear the word "baby" more then 5 times. You can't count on anything these days.

We went to the PartyPoker viplounge as well, where we had a PS3 and DVD player to our disposal, along with some free food and beverage. I also got a bag with tshirts, a longsleeve and a hoodie in it.

...Meh, I'm gonna stop writing for today. I'll do more when I feel better. :p

P.S. If you see how big the average portion of food here is, it's no wonder America is the country with the most obesity in the world.

My first post in this blog

Finally the time has come for me to write my first post, it took me long enough.

Most of you know me already, so there is no need to introduce myself in detail. I'll just tell you something about myself. I am a former coach and handjudge of the German community (which I still like to do, when I have time). For 2 months I have been the admin of the English community, working together with SoyCD. In the past, I mostly played NL SH up to NL $400. In the last few weeks I've started to play FL SH up to $5/$10, which is a lot of fun due to the very bad opponents. When I find time, I also like to play tournaments.

Last Sunday, I played the Sunday million on Poker Stars and finished 40th, worth $2,2k. After the Battle of the Donkeys came to an end I concentrated completely on this tourney. I opened up a thread in the forum and updated it whenever something interesting happened. Swiss, Cannel, Cardbender and VinoKom posted in this thread to support me. Swiss and Cannel stayed with me all night long till the end. Special thanks to both. I had a lot of very important hands in the tourney. But the hand I would call the key hand was the following: I had Ak in UTG and raised to 100k (I had 800K). A mid stack with 400k moved all-in and I called. He had 77, I didn't improve and lost the hand. I was down to 400k instead of being up to 1.3 million. But that happens, of course. Before that hand, I won every coin flip and never got sucked out. The hand I finally busted with was ATs in the SB. I pushed for 9 BB and got called by AA. Unfortunately I didn't suck out. To win a tourney your really need a lot of luck.

Aside from poker, things are going pretty well. I like my job a lot and have a nice place to live. I've started playing golf. I really enjoy this sport. But it's pretty hard to learn. I am still working on my drive.

That's it for today.

Yours,

TribunCaesar

How my event went

My day started pretty hectic: We had to check out from the Luxor and go to the MGM, where we would stay the rest of our visit. Packing for that, I came to realize that I had forgotten my contact lenses for my right eye (luckily my "good" eye). Searching for some place in Vegas where they sell contacts, we got stuck in traffic pretty bad. Finally we arrived at the Fashion Show Mall where they were supposed to have 'em, but American legislation stated that I had to go through a medical examination first. Didn't have time for that, so back to the Rio and playing with one eye was basically what I was destined to do.

So, we went to the Rio. It started off pretty strange: I had received a card from the registration desk which said that I would start in "poker room", "table 1, seat 1". Thinking that this was a mistake, I went to ask for more information, but as it turned out, I really had to be where the card specified. Some Americans suggested that I could sell this card on ebay, getting a good price for it. Lol.

My plan was to start off tight preflop and aggressive postflop, pretty standard. I didn't get dealt a lot of hands, but those I played I mostly took down the pot or at least I splitted, sometimes with good hands, sometimes with bluffs. Blinds were rising fast compared to the blinds, as expected, and so I had to become more aggressive in late position to take down some pots preflop. One time I got caught: I raised with Ad6d from the hijack and CO pushed all in for half my stack. I knew he had me beat, but I was getting such a good price that I had to call. He shows AJ and I double him up. After 2,5 hours I got moved to another table where my first hand was KK and immediately doubled up against an UTG raiser with 77 who made a pretty loose call with 77 after I reraised all in preflop. Everyone said that it was a nice way to start off on this table. Couldn't agree more. Overall, the majority of the players didn't seem to be all that skilled, so I should have an edge. One guy even went all-in blind UTG with 10BB. Clearly he was not getting enough hands to play ;)

After the 2nd break we got moved again, this time we got to sit in the same room where the featured table was. From time to time we heard some applause in the background, I think it was the HORSE event (final table) playing but I'm not sure. The blinds had skimmed off my stack and I was down to 2800 chips when 100/200 with -25 antes kicked in. Entering push or fold mode, I shoved with QdQs UTG and got a call from a tight player who showed AA. Given my and his table image I immediately suspected a big hand when he called, but luckily a beautiful Qc came on the flop to save me from busting. I doubled up and the AA-guy lost the rest of his stack 5 minutes later when the chipleader raises As4s, he pushes with AK and the board goes A2424. Poker can be a cruel bitch, having the best hand 2 times preflop and busting is clearly frustrating. He took it with grace, so hats off to him.

After that, I doubled up with AK vs AJ where I flopped the nut straight with TJQ. Turn brought another Q so it gave me a little stress because he had 4 outs now, but luckily my hand held up. Unfortunately I couldn't steal a lot of blinds because there was a German shortstack to the right of me who kept pushing. Love thy neighbour ;). Another big addition to my stack, with 200/400 blinds and -50 antes, came when I raised AK UTG and SB shortstack pushes for about 2 times more with 44. I spike an A on the turn and for the first time in a couple of hours my stack is more than 20BB.

I didn't enjoy it very long though, as you can read in the blogpost under this one. I agree it was probably a break-even call (needed ~30% equity to call and Pokerstoving gives me 29~31%, depending on chipleaders range) so I might as well just have folded, but my reasoning was:

- Chipleader/BB is laggy (see A4 hand) and is bullying a lot.

- If I fold, I only have 8BB left and I have to double up again soon anyway

- If BB has unpaired overcards, there's a decent chance the shortie has some cards that the BB needs to spike.

- If I win this hand, I have 17k chips and I'm in very good shape to survive this aggressive blind structure for the remaining of the day. I read in a 2+2 post that this tournament actually gets better in blind structure starting from day 2, so my aim was to reach day 2 with a good stack or bust out in the process.

Ah well, better luck next year. Overall, I was happy with the way I played and I think I did pretty well, so I wasn't really disapointed for busting. To make my day a profitable one nonetheless, I went to the MGM cash tables (2/5) later that evening. First 90 minutes were pretty boring because I literally received 4 playable hands that didn't hit. After that, things went fast when I doubled up (unfortunately with only 75BB) with a set of 9's vs a flushdraw and TPTK on a 3flush board, both against the same player. People here at the table are jovial but usually bad (at best breakeven players online imo), and I think if I win some more the coming days I'm gonna use a little bit more aggressive BRM and take a shot at the 5/10 tables. Net profit: +355$ after 3 hours of playing.

Some pics:

Busted in Event 52

The tournament actually went pretty well for me, winning some preflop all in-clashes and making some aggressive plays, until I got sucked into a pot (blinds 200/400, -50 ante, stack 7600) where a shortie pushes 2800, I have TT and flatcall, leaving 4800 behind. The BB, chipleader and a loose and aggressive player, puts me all in. After thinking for a while I decide to call, but I guess it's a pretty marginal one which I might as well could fold reasonably. Shortie shows KJ, BB shows JJ and I'm in pretty bad shape, which results in busting out right before lunch time of the first day as something like 680th out of 2600+ players. Pretty good result for my first live tournament despite not getting into the money.

Played some cash game at the Rio as well yesterday, and the level of play is really low: limp/folding, buying in for half a stack and check/calling full houses on the river and the like. Nevertheles my evening was breakeven, mainly due to a straight getting rivered all-in 3way for a full house.

I'm going to post a more extended update + pics when I have more time. Now I'm going to eat a late dinner and perhaps hit the cash tables at the MGM, where I arrived today. And after that, I'm probably going to sleep for a long time as I haven't been able to catch more than 7 hours of sleep the last week or so. And yes, for a lazy ass like me who needs 9 hours a night, that's too little.

Greetings from Vegas.

P.S. Horror> I didn't use the 20$ trick, the woman at the Luxor desk actually proposed herself that I could upgrade for 20$. So I guess they're already so used to it that they ask for it themselves ;)