From time to time I try to capture this awe and the romanticism I had with wanting to be like those sports heroes, the best to ever play the game. I thought of Michael Jordan as a God in a way whenever I'd watch him play or even think about him there was like this rush inside my head of energy building up. The hair would stand on my arms and give me chills which would cement this idea of greatness even more, I could feel the magic. I wanted to be just like him that gave me motivation, someone to try to emulate to try to bathe in their greatness. Over time I've questioned it more and more, what is the point to becoming the best ever? In the end it just seems like stroking your own ego. In the process of questioning these things they lose a lot of their power. Ignorance is bliss right? When you really understand or analyze things their magic dissipates such is the dark cruel relationship between awareness and ignorance. Awareness can get you closer to the truth, but it can take you further away from happiness quite often. And or meaning. Even if your meaning is false often it can fulfill you. So how do you gain back lost meaning that you no longer believe in?

My attempt to try to re-kindle this feeling or maybe it's too late now I simply travel back in time and try to remember how it was. Even if it's lose though, the memory sometimes is enough momentarily to bring back a slight spark within, to feel the magic once again. This I think is why I love the movie The Natural so much, well as well as Robert Redford's terrific acting. He can say so much with his eyes and or facial expressions and body language, I just can't help but get into the flow and just enjoy it. It's such a relaxing movie too. Hey i'm not even a baseball fan but I can remember watching it when I was like 10 yrs old and imagining myself as like the best baseball player ever, writing down my career stats ofc I broke all the records haha. However it was reasonable it was like barely broke the records, so it felt fairly realistic to me at the time. It's kind of weird in a way though watching the movie today, I still am moved when he talks about how he could've been the best ever, despite the fact inside I question the value of being the best ever, the passion and belief he says it with and the meaning he says it with transfers into my being. However sadly I wonder if that's as close as I can get to that. Without some type of rehauling of my beliefs can I capture this motivation and fuel for myself? Here's a conversation between the main character Roy Hobbs and a woman Harriet he meets in the train. This kind of sums up a lot of how I feel. I feel like Harriet, but I want to get back more of Roy here. I must get it back if I want to become the poker player that I know I can be. Otherwise I'll probably wonder like Roy in a clip later on in the movie that I'll link at the bottom.

Roy: You know what? Someday...
Roy:...l'll break every record in the book.
Roy: I know I got it in me.
Harriet: What will you hope to accomplish?
Roy: When I walk down the street, people
will say, "There goes Roy Hobbs...
...the best there ever was."
Harriet: Is that all?
Roy: Well, what else is there?
Harriet: Don't you know?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j0C6pG5I8w

Hey guys I've been really ramping up the volume pushing myself lately. I've really enjoyed playing and just focusing on improving, really playing the game for fun. I now don't check my results until the very end of the day just to further place emphasis on how the hands play out, not the end results. I'm really motivated right now to keep progressing as a player and also moving up in stakes. Here's a few hands I was just looking through in my HEM and a little analysis.

Hand one the villain who bet flop was playing 37/29 over 119 hands he appeared to be a regular, in reality he probably plays like 30-23 or so just had a hot sample. However when he iso's the fish pre I think his range is very wide and I think he'll cbet this board with 100% of his hands. I think flatting reps Jx by far the best, I planned on betting the turn however fate dealt us a whore, the Q. Now I don't like betting the turn because he likely would expect me to check back a lot of Jx, so he could c/r or c/c the turn light, also another added benefit of checking is if he checks river it's even more likely he's folding when he checks both turn and river. Even worse now though on the river we got the K. Or is it worse? From his perspective we're probably calling flop with AJ, QJ, KJ, KQ, 88, 77 type hands. It's just hard for him to put us on a bluff, more importantly though than this is I feel he's bluffing this river 100%, as our range looks a lot like Jx, AJ or JT, there's one problem with bluff catching however. He can easily have 22-TT trying to bluff us off Jx, but also he could be vbetting a weak K or even a weak Qx that for some reason checked turn. I feel by bluff raising this river we'll rep enough Kx spades, AT type hands, 9Ts, possibly KJ etc in conjuction with the fact it's hard to put us on a bluff that he'll probably fold nearly his whole range that didn't river a straight or KQ. I like the small raise size as well since it's so cheap it doesn't have to work much. Also against his range which is like maybe Kx type hands we don't need to go huge, a tiny raise should get him off those hands.
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HAND #1
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Merge, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BB: $56
UTG: $280.75
CO: $310.85
Hero (BTN): $455.61
SB: $229

Pre-Flop: 2 2 dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG calls $2, CO raises to $9, Hero calls $9, 2 folds, UTG calls $7

Flop: ($30) J 6 6 (3 Players)
UTG checks, CO bets $15, Hero calls $15, UTG folds

Turn: ($60) Q (2 Players)
CO checks, Hero checks

River: ($60) K (2 Players)
CO bets $30, Hero raises to $80, CO folds

Results: $120 Pot
Hero showed 2 2 and WON $168 (+$114 NET)


Villain was playing 18-13 with a 5 3bet, notice we're 159bb's deep. This is crucial because I think given he's pretty tight and we're deep he'll often flat TT, JJ type hands, I don't think he's on the level to expect me to think that, therefore he expands his value range to induce bluffs. So with the A blocker this is a great spot to 4 bet bluff. Once he calls the 4 bet I think his range is AA, QQ, KK, AK, AQ, AJ, KQ type of hands. Sometimes he'll flat AA but I think he'll usually 4 bet AA and KK. So given a lot of his range is overcards I plan on firing a small flop/turn bet, however he then c/r me. Now I really love this situation haha. He's basically just told me he has a very weak hand, either he has AA that slowplayed pre, possibly JJ even though I think he flats it pre a lot so that isn't a huge concern, or he is running a bluff. He could have AJ if he's trying to level us i.e. he's repping very little so he expands his value range to get us to play back, but given we have no history I think this is unlikely so we have 2 options. Either float or CIB. I definitely like floating because I thinkikely flat our whole range here. once we call he basically flips his hand over and ch/f with air and also CIB doesn't rep as much. So on the turn here's another crucial thing, this is really what makes our float+bluff magical, we bet small enough to not give him odds to peel if he has something like AK and we threaten his whole stack with a river bet.

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HAND #2
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Merge, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $271.80
BB: $317.90
UTG: $82.40
MP: $421
CO: $200
Hero (BTN): $425.68

Pre-Flop: 5 A dealt to Hero (BTN)
3 folds, Hero raises to $6, SB folds, BB raises to $19, Hero raises to $40, BB calls $21

Flop: ($81) J 3 8 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $30, BB raises to $75, Hero calls $45

Turn: ($231) 3 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $60, BB folds

Results: $231 Pot
Hero showed 5 A and WON $288 (+$173 NET)

Villain was playing 22/18 with 42 AS and 87 fold to 3 bet over 377 hands. Now this hand is fairly standard, with the backdoor diamonds and bd str8 draws cbetting is definitely correct, even though I do think he has Ax a lot he also has some med pairs or things like KJs, KQ, QJs that we can get to fold at some point in the hand. Now on this turn we're in a perfect situation to c/r, the stack depth makes it so he can bet/fold some Ax, but also we want to get money out of his floats, betting would be pretty bad as we dont' allow him to bluff, but also he can peel again with some Ax type hands so we can't put him to a decision now, also if he checks turn that isn't so bad, we get a free card to hit our flush and then can just bluff on the river anyway if we choose to do so. ALthough I probably wouldn't because I see him betting his air and hands like TT on the turn, so I think i'd just ch/f if the turn checked through.

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HAND #3
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Merge, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 3 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BTN: $400
Hero (SB): $751
BB: $400

Pre-Flop: 8 Q...

Hi all I made my first Leggo video that should be up soon and I'm very excited for your thoughts on it. I'd like to blog maybe 3-4 times a week if you have any suggestions about what you'd like me to post about let me know. Otherwise I guess I'll just post as the spirit arises within me. I also am available for coaching, I'd like to do a lot of that in the near future, I've always enjoyed teaching and helping others, naturally I'm making videos for Leggo so that's apparent =p. If you want to see my results last year you can watch my first vid I did a 3 min intro showing some results in my HEM.

This month has been a bit of a roller coaster month results wise. Haha the first day of the month I was down 5k in about 2 hours hands at 1-2 through 3-6 NLHE and PLO. I managed to grind it down to like 4k at the end of the day in 8.5 hrs. However for the first time in a long time I wasn't playing my A game or at least VERY close to it. Being stuck so much did motivate me to play but I played too long. The first session I played like 2.5 hrs, 2nd session 6 hours, and for me personally I can play up to 3-3.5 hrs before I get fatigued or mentally tired, so that was a leak. Strangely for me being stuck is good for me in a lot of ways and I've realized because it lits a fire in me. I want to play more and work harder away from the tables, whereas when things are coming easily I can get a little bored. Clearly this is something I need to fix, ideally it'd be optimal if i'm motivated all the time no matter the results, identifying a leak is the first step to fixing it, so i'm going to make a concerted effort to do so. Since everyone likes graphs here's my month so far, i'm up 11 buyins, but unfortunately they're at the lower stakes mostly, nevertheless I'm glad I've dug myself out of the early hole.

Also since I love you guys I'll go as far as to show the EV line on the graph clearly you guys have a hold over me. Haha, jk but I actually prefer not to look at all in EV, or even results that often. I do look at my results after the session moreso for bankroll reasons to see if I can take shots higher or have to move down etc. However the reason I don't like looking at EV lines is if you're above EV often it makes you feel maybe you didn't play as good as you actually did, and if you're below ev you feel like you have got screwed. Clearly those are false feelings, but I mean the way I look at results is they are meaningless short-term, I try to focus entirely on my play, so all in ev is just another distractor. If I had it my way I'd never look at results, my goal is always just think about the game of poker not what i'm winning or losing.

I play about 7-9 tables of NLHE and PLO 6 max these days, I get less hands per hour in PLO, I've played 15 hours this month so it translates to what looks like about 575 hands/hr with on average 8 tables I believe. I also do play some HU starting games etc.