50nl sucked for me, so I started to play some 1/2 tables:



It's not much, but I'll take it. I think I'm going to top up my account again so I can play 1/2 and get some volumen in.

Thanks for reading.

lambo

Well, at my last post, I had dropped some redic number of buyins. I turned to plo on Thurs for a change (Used to play) and broke evenish but cleared lots of hands mainly $.15/.25 6max. I played none FRiday evening till SAturday night as I'm Jewish so there are restrictions on what I can do. Sat night I came back refreshed and ran my account playing plo from c£270 to c£520, back where I was midweek. TOday I played a bunch more, including some $.25/.5 and now have £692, with a £35 bonus almost cleared and a tonne of ******** to come. So in summary, I <3 PLO for now

BareBase

I have been playing poker professionally (from my 300$ deposit to OnGame for SnG playing) for one year. I played not so much and my average winrate was 20$/h. So I have made 10k.
Now my BR is 4300$.

Poker gave me opportunity to make some trips. I shouldn't spend time in office and I could play when I wanted(that is why I didn't play so much)). So I didn't make any great jump but I always wanted easy money from poker, so I didn't learn game a lot.

Sometimes I felt that I can more. Like with HU or 100$ DoNs, but it didn't give a result.
Now I know that I can make some money for living from poker. It's still interesting to play. That is why I'll continue with this.
But what I change now is my attitude to game.
Now I want to play "thinking" game. If it's not possible for me I will make poker my stable work for money(2h per day for example) and find another main occupation.

Thank you fishes for money.

Ant_On

I have been super busy with school, I actually do my best to get good grades. I'm a junior at the University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign and I was away from school for two years due to some personal things I needed to work out. Last semester I got a 3.64 (out of 4.0) after those two years away and it felt great to not suck at school. Anyways, school is the major focus and I try to play as much as I can in the meantime. I would say most of my volume comes from the weekends, which kinda sucks because I'm missing out on some good partying, but I think the weekends are the best time to put in volume because of the amount of mouth droolers out there.

Here are a couple of interesting hands I have played over the last couple of days.

Button is 65/13/1.6 over 89 hands total fish. I thought about raising on the river, but I believe a flush draw is a good portion of his range.

Poker Stars, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $99.10
BB: $81.75
UTG: $51.35
Hero (MP): $51.90
CO: $54.45
BTN: $156.65

Pre-Flop: A T dealt to Hero (MP)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $2, CO folds, BTN calls $2, 2 folds

Flop: ($4.75) A Q 2 (2 Players)
Hero bets $3.75, BTN calls $3.75

Turn: ($12.25) A (2 Players)
Hero bets $8.50, BTN calls $8.50

River: ($29.25) 7 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $19, Hero calls $19

Results: $67.25 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed A T and WON $64.25 (+$31 NET)
BTN showed K T and LOST (-$33.25 NET)

This is the same Villain as hand #1. 98o isn't exactly the best hand to be iso'ing with, but I had a pretty tight image and figured I could get away with it. He 3 barrels me while I'm getting sweat by LetMeLive and we decide to call three streets because it didn't really make sense from him.

Poker Stars, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

UTG: $50
MP: $23.20
CO: $54.40
Hero (BTN): $54.05
SB: $74.85
BB: $193.70

Pre-Flop: 9 8 dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG folds, MP calls $0.50, CO folds, Hero raises to $1.75, SB folds, BB calls $1.25, MP calls $1.25

Flop: ($5.50) 3 9 7 (3 Players)
BB bets $2, MP folds, Hero calls $2

Turn: ($9.50) A (2 Players)
BB bets $7, Hero calls $7

River: ($23.50) J (2 Players)
BB bets $10, Hero calls $10

Results: $43.50 Pot ($2.10 Rake)
Hero showed 9 8 and WON $41.40 (+$20.65 NET)
BB showed 8 6and LOST (-$20.75 NET)

And I sucked out pretty hard against this fish running 91/6/2.0 over 130 hands. I was really surprised to see him flip over Aces, but meh.

Party Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BB: $102.45
UTG: $23.20
Hero (CO): $53.70
BTN: $50
SB: $80.90

Pre-Flop: 9 9 dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $2, 2 folds, BB raises to $10.50, Hero calls $8.50

Flop: ($21.25) 6 Q 7 (2 Players)
BB bets $11, Hero raises to $43.20 and is All-In, BB calls $32.20

Turn: ($107.65) 5 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($107.65) 8 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $107.65 Pot ($2 Rake)
BB showed A Aand LOST (-$53.70 NET)
Hero showed 9 9 and WON $105.65 (+$51.95 NET)

February Goals
-35k hands

So far I have 4029, so at this rate I'll only end up with 17k hands or so. I need to ramp up the volume.

-Maximum of 6 tables at once

I have had 7 up at once, but only while transitioning from sitting out on table and bring the other one up. It can be a little confusing but usually its not a big problem having all those tables because I am using a program that is in beta call TableNinja. It is similar to all the other AHK scripts out there for stars like StarsAssistant, BetPot, etc. Except it is all one program and doesn't use AHK so it is faster, it also uses a graphical GUI that is more user friendly. I would this to anyone else if you are looking for something to help making multitabling a little bit easier.

-Gold Star (if I get close to Platinum, the end of the month will turn into a **** show)

I currently have 1,021 vpps this month, Gold should be easy, Platinum probably unattainable considering my inability to put in volume.

-3 Sweat sessions

1/3 down, just need to find 2 more people that want to sweat me. Leave me a comment or pm or something if you are interested.

-50 strategy posts total on the forums at Leggo

I have the big goose-egg here, zero posts at all on the forums here. This is probably the easiest of my goals if I would actually respond instead of just reading them.

-Watch 10 videos

2/10, I need to figure out a new series to watch as I just finished a series that was produced for beginners and the content wasn't exactly riveting.


I will be updating this again tomorrow with my weekly graph, so come back and increase my views!

Currently listening to: Smashing Pumpkings - 1979

fredd-bird

is very hard. I have been playing like this...




when I should be playing like this given my opponents are stupid...

LT22

So I sat down today and didn't want to play a long session because I have to write a paper. I decided I felt like playing some tougher opponents today because I read magic ninja's post and I felt like playing street poker.

Early on I got stacked on ace high board in a 3bet pot with A6 vs AJ and lost so I was kinda annoyed.
Than a reg on stars sat at two of my tables, he wasn't a particularly good reg so I decided to play him.
Early we had tow hands where he indicated to me in chat how clueless he was.
First hand He raised AA and I defended Jh8h.

Flop 9T7ss
I check he checks behind which is pretty awful against most people.

Turn is a J
I 3/4 pot he calls. River is a blank I 3/4 pot he insta calls and than proceeds to whine in chat about his misfortune. (O NOES MY AA IS ON GOOD ON 9T7Jx in a small pot)

The next hand occured when I noticed he started flatting my 4bets oop and just c/f. He 3bet a lot so I 4bet 89o and he flatted. The flop was J23 pot is 500 and effective stacks are 750. I don't feel like betting big but I figured he was dumb so I bet 100 and he snap folded. Because of this I started 4betting a lot.

He than stacked me on two straight hands.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (2 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($1368.50)
Hero (Button) ($1080)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, A
Hero raises to $30, SB raises to $100, Hero calls $70

Flop: ($200) 6, 2, 7 (2 players)
SB bets $110, Hero calls $110

Turn: ($420) Q (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $300, SB raises to $1130, Hero calls $570 (All-In)

River: ($2160) 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $2160 | Rake: $0.50

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (2 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) ($1763.50)
Button ($990)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 8, 10
Button raises to $30, Hero raises to $100, Button calls $70

Flop: ($200) K, 4, 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $100, Button calls $100

Turn: ($400) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $200, Button calls $200

River: ($800) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $1363.50 (All-In), Button calls $590 (All-In)

Total pot: $1980 | Rake: $0.50


Hand 1 he had AJcc. Hand 2 he had J6ss which is a huge abortion of every street except river. I thought he would be more aggro with a fd on previous streets and thought his range had more middle pair/ace high hands w/e.

Anyways a few hands later I "suckout". Suckout is in quotes because when you play a 4bet pot 100bbs deep in position with a dominating hand pf it doesn't really matter that he flops two pair.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (2 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (Button) ($1164.50)
SB ($1829.50)

Preflop: Hero is Button with J, A
Hero raises to $30, SB raises to $90, Hero raises to $250, SB calls $160

Flop: ($500) 10, A, 9 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $200, SB calls $200

Turn: ($900) 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $714.50 (All-In), SB calls $714.50

River: ($2329) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $2329 | Rake: $0.50

Results:
Hero had J, A (straight, Queen high).
SB had 9, A (two pair, Aces and nines).
Outcome: Hero won $2328.50


He is on tilt now and starts berating me for being lucky. I explained to him in chat he has no idea what determines luck in poker(hint: more than who is ahead when the cards get flipped over). He counters with a proposition to play higher or more tables. I didn't feel like playing 10/20 so I decided to just play 4 tables of 5/10 and we eventually bumped it up to 6, which fit my plan to play street poker perfectly.

He was 3betting quite a wide range 19%, although he started off slower and amped it up towards the end. Given this and his tendency to flat 4bets oop I started 4betting about 1/4 of his 3bets and flatting a decent range as well. I managed to grind back the 1k I was stuck and had him -500 and than I started running good crushing.
He 3bet and I 4bet stacked off 55. He was 3betting so wide and I can't really call so I just 4bet and called he had ATo and held. At the same time I 4bet KQs, something I would almost never do but given that he was flatting 4bets oop I think its fine, he shoved and I was stuffed and beat his ATo again.
Winning these flips but the main reason I was crushing was because he was so loose and kept calling 4bets and c/f. I won about 4k without showdown so even though I won good in flips it didn't really matter because the money would eventually all gravitate to me.
He slowly started getting tilted and quitting tables until eventually.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (2 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) ($3338.25)
Button ($1269.25)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, J
Button raises to $30, Hero raises to $100, Button calls $70

Flop: ($200) 10, 3, 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $100, Button calls $100

Turn: ($400) Q (2 players)
Hero bets $200, Button calls $200

River: ($800) A (2 players)
Hero bets $2938.25 (All-In), Button calls $869.25 (All-In)

Total pot: $2538.50 | Rake: $0.50

Results:
Button mucked 5, A (one pair, Aces).
Hero had A, J (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $2538

Than he quit and I was up 5k after running the streets.

Eagles

I love Jeopardy. I watch it every single day assuming I am not on vacation or incredibly busy. I feel Jeopardy is superior to all other game shows for several reasons, firstly there are a lot more questions in a given episode of Jeopardy than any other game show. Watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire and seeing 6 questions an episode and 3 minutes over someone hemming and hawing over whether to pick A or C is really boring. Secondly Jeopardy manages to test both knowledge and intelligence because of clues in the question or the category you are able to think quickly and make smart educated guesses without knowing the answer. This puts Jeopardy a level above trivia contests. Finally as a poker player, I love all the strategic elements of Jeopardy. There are a lot of obvious strategic adjustments in other game shows, for example in Who Wants to be a Millionaire there are a lot of spots where you are essentially flipping with 32k in overlay, so if you are risk neutral you should be guessing a lot if you have a 50/50 or can eliminate options. What makes the strategic adjustments so much tougher in Jeopardy is that stack sizes are a lot more variable than in other game shows. There are very few possible permutations in WWTBM, but in Jeopardy there are millions of different situations that can appear either on Final Jeopardy or Daily Doubles.

The following I wrote on 2p2 about a month ago, but I cleaned it up and added some more stuff to it.. Note that all of the wagering strategies are assuming individuals are risk neutral, there are people who are correctly risk averse and should attempt to reduce variance even if it means reducing expectation. If you have 20k in debt and can lock up 20k or flip for 20k when you have a 60% chance of getting a question right, you would probably be correct to wager 0 even if you are passing up a little bet in ev.

If you control the board randomly switch categories, since you will adjust a lot better than your opponents especially in categories like Before & After, Alliterative Authors, "T"ea Time etc. I do concede the producers might dissuade you from doing this since it makes it much harder to watch on TV, but it's not like they can kick you off the show or anything.

This one I am not as confident about, but if there are certain categories you are very good at you should wait to try and build up as much money as possible in case one you get the DD. A counter argument to that is you should go to straight to that category once you control the board, so you increase the probability you get the DD. I am not sure which strategy is right, but I ultimately think it is opponent/score dependent, but most people instantly go to those categories.

On Daily doubles people should be betting max or 0 in a lot of spots, but they will never actually bet 0 and they aren't ballsy enough to bet it all. A classic place where people don't bet it all is near the end of the game, where going busto means they don't get to be on TV for final. This is very similar to fish overvaluing their tournament life. They are probably gaining utility from being on final, just like fish do when they get to play a tournament for longer, but optimally they should be attempting to maximize expectation, instead of attempting to reach an arbitrary goal.

Another common mistake by contestants is over or underrating their knowledge in a specific categories. They often overrate their knowledge and categories they know nothing about, people will wage 1500 or so on Native American Holidays just so they don't have to deal with the embarrassment of betting 5. They think, well I don't know much about this category, lets bet 1500 that is smallish, when in reality they should realize they get the question wrong more than 50% of the time and barring odd stack size implications they are just burning money by betting 1495 more than they needed to . They underrate their knowledge in things they are knowledgeable about because they don't realize how broad most of the questions are. Recently there was a guy who bet 2000 in Double Jeopardy on a category about D ickens. Just from watching him run the category I knew it was a terrible wager, if you know more than 7 books written by D ickens or have read over 2 of his books you probably should be shoving. I could be wrong about this, but I don't think contestants pay enough attention to previous clues in the category. For instance lets say in the D ickens category the first four clues are about Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickelby, A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist. There is a very good chance the last clue will be about a Tale of Two Cities, so if you know a lot about a Tale of Two Cities you should shove.


People should also bet a lot on daily doubles where they can intuit the answer, categories like Before & After test quick thinking more than knowledge, so if you have no competition you should be able to figure out the answer a high percentage of the time, unless you are a complete spaz.


Also there are certain times where people should realize they are clearly inferior to certain contestants so they should just try and gamboooool on daily doubles and hope to run good, but they refuse to do this. I was watching Teen Jeopardy and there was one kid who was clearly the best, the other kids occasionally had chances to catch him, but made really nitty wagers on Daily Doubles, so they weren't even in a position where they could run good and win.

People don't take enough random guesses on the last questions of a round. If you have 8800k other guy has 20k you have to guess on last clue if it is > 1200 even if you have no idea what the correct answer is. Conversely if you have 11k you need to be really cautious guessing, but the big stack should be really aggro guessing.Obviously this should apply in general as the round is winding down if you have a decent educated guess, but you shouldn't just guess "What is the Magna Carta?" if the category is American History and there are five questions left on the board.

I saw a really terrible wager a couple weeks ago. A guy gets DD as the last question in double jeopardy.
He has 21k, other guy has 16k, other guy has 7k.
21k guy wagers 6k, which is the worst possible wager. If he bet 11001-12999 that would be fine, even making it a true DD would be okay if he was very confident in the category, if he bet between 0-5k that would be fine, although anything greater than 0 would be suboptimal, but 6k is so unbelievably terrible.

I will write another blog about Final Jeopardy wagering strategies, but I want to think through some more stuff. It will be really comprehensive, but it will require some work.

Pudge714

So earlier today i was bumming around playing 200nl and 400nl again. Broke even lost QQ vs 66 all in on 752 flop . I Q.Q with QQ. =D.

Also had a few talks about vegas and then heard a bit about whos getting coaching and it got me thinking. A 6 bedroom like the house we got if we got 2-3 students who paid like 2x or 3x rent as us it would make it super super cheap and we would live in a sick house. So like 3 coaches, 3 students in a house 1-1 ratio each day the person switches coaches. Obviously the coaches need to talk out what they are doing so they don't all teach opposite things. But i mean everyone from "pokerpals vent" usually thinks about hands in a very similar way so wouldn't be a problem. I would have so much fun teaching FR, my FR game is super good and i am pretty proud of it. i know for a fact that i have the highest win rate of anyone on ftp 200nl fr with a 200k hand sample at 4.5ptbb all on 12-16 tables.(/brag) At 500$-1000$ a week per student that would cover 6k rent! Not only that they would prob get like 2 hours+ of coaching a day. From what I've heard though I'm worth about $50-$150 a hour since i can beat 200 9max and 400nl 6max? so per week thats like a $1.4k value and a room in a nice house(worth prob $1000) a month. And i mean we could even schedule the houses in different places like go to Australia 2 months on the beach. Then fly to vegas 2 months, then move to newyork 2 months and thailand 2 months?(i plan on going all those places anyways) And basically the whole year i can just fly around and explore and meet people from different places and at the same time be surrounded by friends and have a nice home rented to relax in. I mean jdell had the idea before have 3 ppl in a house and just keep each other in check make sure your buddies aren't on tilt and keep them in check on hours. And that would probably save each other a lot over the long run. And just having ppl to talk about hands 24/7 we would become so good very fast. And why not meet new ppl each month move around coach and make friends for life. So i dunno haha just a idea not actually seriously thinking about it yet cuz i don't really think I'm good enough to coach ppl to at 400nl until i beat 1000nl for like 100,000 hands. I def feel like i could coach 200nl fr and 6max. But even though i am +EV at 400nl i am by no means the best there anymore and i think that ppl underestimate the amount of leaks needed to be fixed between the limits i definitely did before. I thought i was ****ing sick cuz i owned 200nl like 6 months ago, i thought i was ****ing wonder bread on steriods. Then 400nl ****ing owned my soul 5-8 times and still i def have not come close to fixing all my leaks for maximizing 400nl but i am confident in my game there now.

On a side tangent about limits....What i have noticed recently just in the last 2 months a lot of 5/10 guys have dropped to 2/4 and the games got harder. Also a lot of 2/4 regs I've seen at 1/2. Like why is jordan morgan at 1/2... when i played 3/6 i played vs him and he was very solid and good imo. And i know he played that for a while like 8 months. its really weird. I dunno over the last 2 days i feel like I'm almost back to my A game and 400nl is harder now than say just October last year. Everyone is playing the exact same stats and 3 betting super light on the button. And basically u can't do **** about it lol. Don't get me wrong i'm not saying its not beatable just **** why did ppl have to tell everyone how to 3bet more correctly. I loved those ***s who just 3bet every sc oop, lol not many of them left. o well.

But ya back to my idea, i really like it cuz at this point in time just grinding alone by myself all day can get... i guess ... not balanced socially. And in a lot of ways lonely and boring. I mean most of my friends are off in college, but visiting them i will obv do that but its like throwing away 2 weeks cuz I'm not going to play poker at their place at all. I actually think a poker house would optimize the speed i can get better and be socially good for me, if its with the right people and for my rent to be paid even better! Anyways so i was reading blogs today and i ran over zaits blog, he is doing something similar to my idea. =) he stole my idea! Although its not that complicated an idea... so I'm sure many many ppl have done it before. But hey if i beat 1knl and have a great time in the poker house and think it something i want to do all year I'm going to strongly consider this as an option when i move out.

Timoshi

Hi guys! Just when I thought my worries were over I realized that I still actually have a lot of papers to go through for one more exam I have on thursday, thus my low level of activity on the site.

I've been figuring out a ton of stuff about shaving lately, just when you thought you had heard everything you find out there is so much more to know. Kind of like poker in a way.
Today I ordered a Merkur 38c razor. I've found safety razors to be a lot more comfortable to shave with, the multi-blade razors were seriously killing me.

Right now I'm waiting for my friends to bring me some copies they made for me, because my current printer's ink is empty and they have a laser printer. Cartridge printers are ridiculously expensive (because of having to by cartridges all the time) and slow. So I kind of served myself by getting one, but it's cool, I usually don't print out a ton anyways.

I've decided not to play poker untill my exam is over as I'm a little bit behind time wise. I think I'm slowly figuring out how to balance uni and poker, note that I barely studied the first year I started playing poker seriously, but I'm now back in the groove and motivated to get uni work done, but it takes getting used to.
From the thursday onwards I'll try and put in the hours in poker. I'm very motivated lately and also determined, but I still feel at times that focus takes it's toll.
If I put in the hours that I want I am required to go to bed at a normal time which leads to me not socializing a lot in the evenings, so I guess it's kind of a situation where you just have to make time sometimes to do things, but on the other hand also discipline your self to stay at home when you had planned to get something done.

I'm gonna go and get some work done now, hope to talk to you guys soon.

Daniell

cntgetmedown

I ended yesterday's blog post with "I hope it turns around soon, karmic god whatever I did I am sorry."

Today I won just over $50,000 USD.

Last night I went to bed early after watching a couple of episodes of the new season of LOST (so good), and set my alarm for 1:30am so as to get up for the Saturday donkaments.

Seeing as I'm trapped in my hotel under doctor's orders not to do anything physical, what else am I supposed to do but play tourneys?

Talk about an enabler!

Anyway I love the Saturday tourneys, especially because the best ones are on during Euro peak times, so they are ridiculously soft.

I think Saturdays are probably about as +ev as Sundays all things considered, and they are probably the two best days of the week to play (Wednesdays have a slightly better lineup of tournaments than Saturdays, but are WAY tougher fields).

This next bit is probably going to sound a little made up in hindsight, but is honestly true - I decided not to play the $530 PLO FTOPS because I'm not really rolled for it at the moment and despite having put a lot of time into PLO the last few months, I haven't really been seeing any results.

All things considered, it seemed like the wrong decision to play the tournament.

But then literally in the last minute of registration I looked again and saw the prize pool was over $400K and I couldn't help myself - I clicked the button and registered in shame, thinking "god I am a degenerate".

Long story short I wound up coming in 3rd for $44, 800.

I think I played great overall, and I don't remember having my money in behind really (closest was maybe calling off a threebet for half my stack preflop with T987 doublesuited vs AA, and openshoving a KT5 rainbow flop and getting there... but he had no extra outs and I couldn't have done anything differently).

I wasn't disappointed with 3rd at all, I was by no means the 3rd best PLO player in the tournament and I ran really good obviously.

I also came 3rd in the 100+R+A on FT for $5800 (which on any other day would have tilted me severely, as I really owned the final table and had many "instantly win the tournament" races with 3 left and lost all of them), 5th in the 100+R for $3800, 9th in some 33R and 10th in some turbo thing for about $1K each...

All things considered I cashed for about 56-58K and spent about 6K on entry fees I think (I only played tourneys on FT and Stars).

I can't remember if 50K is my biggest ever day but there's a good chance it is - either way I'm robusto again, feeling better about PLO and less stressed about my immediate future.

I'm also on seven different types of medication so I hope I get well soon... painkillers are awesome.

This score was a long time coming - I had countless 10-25th place finishes in majors the past few months, and PLO has come harder to me than any other form of poker.

While I was in the US I carried around a notebook with me and wrote down ideas/concepts for beating PLO, and I think it made me a lot better.

Also watching Grizy's first video helped a ton too.

And then yeah, being able to understand the stack size dynamics of the tournament intimately, trying to avoid high variance spots, and running hot in races... all added up to a nice reward.

Phew.

SEABEAST