Poker has been weird lately: September I logged the least hands ever for a single month (lack of motivation due to WCOOP failure - fuck donkaments, etc), but had possibly the best winrate ($/hr) I have ever realized for a single month.

October has been sort of shitty: I still haven't moved up to 2/4 properly yet, basically I'm just game selecting the best I can across 1/2 and 2/4. Strange as it may seem, the thing that's holding me back is 1/2 - I've taken reasonable amount of money off 2/4 this month, but donated all of it plus a decent amount more to the 1/2 games. I feel I've been playing pretty well, and don't think I've been running that badly.

Sigh: So it looks like October is going to be my first losing month for the year, and it has set me back to the extent where it now looks like I'm on a 140k hand break even stretch in cash games.

The timing is impeccable: The house I just bought settles in 5 weeks so I'm soon to be in massive fucking debt. I make enough from my job to cover my ass, but shipping some $$ sometime soon would be nice to say the least. My roll is still hurting from pulling money out for the house deposit... maybe the 140k breakeven stretch is some form of cashout curse (or cashout tilt...?)

Reassuring self reflection: The decision to remain employed while pursuing poker in a semi-professional manner is one of the best I have ever made. For anyone that's not making balla amounts of money from poker, the benefits crush the drawbacks. Its not even close.

Running good in cash. Not gonna say how good or post graph/results because I don't wanna entice a doomswitch. But I can't remember a combination of playing this good and running this good at the same time, pretty much ever.

Now I don't want to be greedy, but if there is a poker god that grants one time's in tournaments, I would be more than happy for mine to be in the 6-max opening event of the WCOOP. It's gonna be a reasonably solid field, so my one time would have to consist of great seating draws and obv running hot and playing well. Not too much to ask really.

On a more realistic note, I wish all the leggo pros and the wider leggo community best of luck in the WCOOP. I hope to play events 1, 6, 9, 11, 12, 26, 43 and maybe the ME if I can ship a satellite tic.

Go me, and failing that, go leggo

As of this week I started doing some more hours at my "day job" so I can borrow more money for a house. The good thing is I don't think it will eat into my poker time at all, as my volume has been pretty low recently due to a combination of laziness and lack of focus/mindset. If anything it will add some more structure to my lifestyle, which may in turn cause me to play even more poker. Potentially a win/win situation.

I've been playing squash on a weekly basis for the last couple of weeks, since the end of the indoor cricket season. It's a fun game, very high impact as far as non-contact sports go, and its one of the only racquet sports where you can hit the ball essentially as hard as you want with little regard for placement (although this isn't the winning strategy, its lotsa fun imo).

Poker wise, its been a bit of a mixed up month. Up about 2.5k. I've had moments of brilliance and clarity, and others of confusion, dumbfoundedness and bewilderment. I've been trying to evolve and adapt my game, exploring new lines, thinking a lot about ranges, aggression, and balance, etc. I haven't had any huge breakthroughs though, it seems every time I try an unorthodox line I run into the absolute pinnacle of my opponents range and end up value stacking myself. Between now and the end of the month I'm gonna do some thorough hand analysis, and really try to crunch my opponents ranges and thought processes in the non-standard spots I've been coming across, and try to figure in when, if ever, I should be deviating from what is the widely accepted best play.

My old friend "A-Game" has shown up this week. It seems she's been away for quite a while, and I have missed her dearly.

For the first time in a couple of months I feel really confident that I'm making all the right decisions, thinking about the right concepts, and generally taking the right approach to the game. I'm up about 7 buyins over the last couple of days, despite running 5-6 buyings below allinEV. I have been running fairly good range vs range however. I'm going to start playing some more 2/4 again, overall I've had decent results at that limit and am looking forward to it becoming my regular game for a while.


I've been looking at properties in earnest over the last couple of weeks, and can say with surety that the real estate market in Australia is still incredibly strong, despite the financial downturns that have effected the world recently. The fact that we can't find a decent house in outer suburbia for $400k AUD is actually quite depressing. Unfortunately we are looking to buy in a very high demand price bracket. What we have noticed, however, is a glut of properties in the over $500k bracket, with low clearance rates and potentially some heavy discounting by vendors. The difference in value for an extra 25-30% spend is incredible. So back to the bank we go, hoping we can convince them to stretch our credit a bit.

Went out for dinner last night to celebrate a mates birthday at Jacques Reymond, one of Melbournes premier culinary destinations. We had the 8 course degustation with matched wines. The whole experience can only be described as outstanding. My highlight was def the Wyagu beef with horseradish sorbet and freshly sliced truffle, washed down with '03 Dalwhinnie Pyrenees Cabernet - it was the stone cold nuts.


Up about 5 BI for August (incl rakeback ). Have probably been playing too many tables and not enough hours. Had a gross session the other day losing 8 BI in about 1200 hands, pretty much all losing flips and getting coolered in fistpump spots.

Here's a hand from that session. I was playing pretty well, villain is semi-decent TAG. I don't think he had any reason to be getting out of line or to suspect I was getting out of line. Regarding my betsizing, this is pretty standard for me for value and as a bluff/semibluff on a board this dry that hits my range so hard.

CO: $237.90
BTN: $295.65
SB: $200.00
Hero (BB): $210.05
UTG: $154.60
MP: $226.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with A A
UTG calls $2, 1 fold, CO raises to $8, 2 folds, Hero raises to $29, 1 fold, CO calls $21

Flop: ($61.00) K 6 Q (2 players)
Hero bets $26, CO calls $26

Turn: ($113.00) 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $52, CO calls $52

River: ($217.00) K (2 players)

I'm really torn between valueshove and c/f this river. Basically I think his range after peeling flop and turn is QQ and KK (that didn't 4bet or raise flop or raise turn), 66, AQ, KQ, KJ, QJss and some rando backdoor stuff like JTss, AJss. I think he peels flop but folds turn with stuff like TT, JJ and weak queens. Hands like AJ, KQo, KJ, QJ may not even be in his range that calls pre.

So on the river we really only beat AQ that isn't AQss. He doesn't jam AQ thats just a pair, does jam a K or better, and doesn't have any air left in his range. The gross bit is that we have less than 1/2 pot left. Obviously the plan from the flop was to go the 3 street installment plan, but do we follow through now that one of the worst cards in the deck falls?


And lastly a hand from today. I've been playing less tables, trying to take some non standard lines and really focus on exploiting opponents that aren't going to counter-exploit.


Hero (BB): $211.65
UTG: $40.00
CO: $262.40
BTN: $200.00
SB: $38.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with Q A
1 fold, CO raises to $6, 2 folds, Hero calls $4

Flop: ($13.00) 2 T A (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $8, Hero raises to $29, CO calls $21

Turn: ($71.00) K (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: ($71.00) 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $45, Hero calls $45


Flop c/r isn't all that standard for me, but I'm starting to feel that it should be given that I didn't 3bet pre. There is sooooo much value - given the texture of this board I don't expect to get much credit, and probably get peeled by all aces and even some weaker made hands. C/cing down is ok against someone who's gonna fire 2 or 3 with a ton of their range, but against less aggro opponents I think I prefer taking the lead and pushing for value myself. Come the river I expect him to only bet the Ad, Jd and Qd for value, and turn some marginal stuff into bluffs since i'm repping something decent that isn't a flush. It's a gross spot and it may not be a correct call, but I was pretty happy about making it.

Played a short session today that felt really good. Only 500 hands, but IMHO played as well as I'm capable of. Owned fish, read regs souls, etc etc. +2BI

Got a promising response from my mortgage broker today. This put a bit of a spring in my step because I've really been quite anxious about keeping the ball rolling. Time to search for the dream home now, quite exciting.

Slightly less exciting is the fact that I cashed out over half of my roll to further this end, but on the whole am pretty happy now. Rebuilding it seems like a minor task if I can keep a positive mindset.

I'm super super stoked to be able to say that I made a profit in July, despite a 7.5k downswing early in the month. I worked pretty hard to get it back, and got a 4th place in a 100+9 for 3k which helped a lot. Overall with rakeback/bonuses I suppose I finished about 2.5k up for the month, so pretty happy about that.

August is going ok, but I still haven't found my A-game for what feels like months. I think i'm gonna look into some professional coaching to iron out a few of my bad habits and reinforce the things i'm doing well.

In other news, I think last months poker tilt has reincarnated itself as a moderate to strong dose of lifetilt. It's not making me spew at the tables or anything, but it probably is preventing me from playing at my very best. It's definitely stopping me from putting in anything resembling decent volume.

The worst thing is I know exactly what's causing it, but am unsure of how to fix it. It's restlessness, I feel like i'm stagnant, just going through the motions and not really progressing through the game of life at the rate I should be.

Yet this is a somewhat unfounded train of thought, because I'm about to buy a house (currently liaising with financial institutions to work out a budget). Met a cool lass recently but it didn't work out, blah blah standard. Also I really wanna give up cigarettes, but can't even visualize this happening anytime soon. Hopefully when the property thing picks up momentum I'll grab the rope and haul myself out of the rut.

Basically I should be happier than ever and feeling like I could conquer the world but it's quite the contrary... F M L

I haven't posted anything here for a bit, thought I'd better come up with something to keep my paltry excuse for a blog from dying completely.

May was marginally decent iirc. Maybe around 4k with rakeback.

June was solid. Made some good $$, had pretty solid winrate at 400nl. Had some good shots at 600nl. Broke even over a ton of hands at 200nl. I think I played my B+ game mostly so looking to step things up into July.

July started very strong. Found a lot of great spots and had a little mini-heater.

Then kaboom....

DOOMSWITCH

I decided to donate over 7k to my fellow poker players, spewed fairly evenly between 200nl, 400nl and 600nl (I think I counted about 17 buyins). I ran absolutely disgustingly terrible. I tilted. I like to think I don't do it very often, but I tilted severely. At least 2k can be partially credited to tilt. I was put in several tough spots with strong holdings, particularly river spots with deep stacks, and managed to avoid making what is clearly the correct play in nearly all of them.

Around hand 13,600 I took a couple of days off to get my head together.

This is my first MSNL downswing, and I think it was inevitable. I had been running pretty hot and perhaps became a tad overconfident. For the moment I'm back grinding 200nl and sitting in any really good 400nl games I come across.

April started badly but finished pretty well. I turned 2k down into over 2k up in the last two weeks, + a small cash in the Sunday Millions. Due to downswing at start of month and taking a 9 day break, as well as other committments, I didn't achieve any of the poker goals I had set. I'm cool with that though, the month turned out reasonably well all things considered.

May has been pretty awesome already. +$1200 at 2/4 over 400 hands and +$1000 at 1/2 over 1200 hands. I'm not chasing any set goals this month, just gonna grind a ton and concentrate on playing well, crush 1/2, settle in at 2/4 and perhaps look for some soft bigger games.

In other news, I ****ing hate winter. We're not even there yet and its already freezing cold. The only good thing about it is the rich hearty cold weather food and serious full bodied red wine. The cold weather and short daylight hours can diagf.

April started with -12bi at 200nl. Got some back but i'm still stuck probably $1600 for the month.

Social events, work and other commitments prevented me from playing in all but Event 1 of SCOOP.

I was really looking forward to SCOOP, when I was unable to compete in them I didn't really feel like playing any poker at all (also feeling pretty flat because of downswing). So took a short break to regain some motivation. I had 8 or 9 days off, and during the break I spent a chunk of money on stuff like toys and luxury items.

I'm just starting my first session back as I write this, I'm feeling pretty fresh and clear-minded so hoping for the best.