Short report

I tried grinding some über micro low stakes for a while on sunday, but that just got me mad. There's no point in it and I will never ever do it again. Yesterday I played some on Poker Heaven, I have 15% of the bonus cleared now and I ended up over a buy-in. So basically I'm up on Poker Heaven now as well since my initial deposit. Not that much, but it's better than being down.

A few observations on Boss Media games... The games seem fairly weaktight with a few übercalling stations in there. I feel a bit uncomfy because of the client, but it's not that bad of a place to play. Also, perhaps it was just luck, but people seem to be very very passive tight. While I like pushing them around, it's just a slow grind. Some people did dubious moves like checkraised all-in with KK on A87 board when I held A8 and stuff like that, but mostly it goes "Preflop: Raise, call call call, Flop: c-bet, fold fold fold" kind of hands. Also one note - many players didn't reraise KK preflop. I think of the shown hands I was up against 3 KK yesterday, two I outdrew (well it's not like it's my fault they're just calling with them) and one outdrew my AJ on Axx board. Here's the hand. Basically I did the rivercall based on my initial read. Anything that I had beat on the flop that he'd call the bet with, I would also beat on the river. Well except that KK of course.

One hand I felt a bit uncertain of my line was this one. Basically, limped pot, he could have variety of hands. I got really bad feeling when he raised me on turn when the flush card came. Apparently many people play overaggro on limped pots when there's really no need. I figured to go on calldown mode since I probably wouldn't make too much money from a non-flush hand and I don't wanna go broke in a limped pot when there's no certainty I'm the best hand. I guess it's pretty close desicion between pushing turn or calling down. River I obviously can't raise, the pairing of the board also worried me some more.

General level of the players is quite low which is good of course. They're just bad in different ways that I'm used to by playing stars. Many players overplay their marginal hands or call down with hopeless holdings, some are just extremely weak tight. The level of play is lower than on stars but then again this might have something to do with table selection as well. Many of the European players in the 5-max games seem to be set farmers and they're quite easy to read.

So after I get the rest 85% of my bonus done, I'll wait out the rakeback to come and then move to UB. The client is ought to be good and I will spend quite some time clearing out the bonuses & the rakeback there and then it's time for FTP. I might change the order in the days to come, but this is my initial plan. There's also some super sweet promotion at Mansion Poker where you basically bet $1.1k on some sports team and if you lose, Mansion Poker will refund your $1.1k - it's quite sick. But I'm too lazy and too marginally rolled to pull that money together without investing too big portion of my roll for the duration of the bet + I'm lazy. So I probably won't do it. ^^

Oh and if you're interested in ~30% RB + $200 any deposit bonus, mail me to muhweli@gmail.com. Not much else goin' on at the moment... School starting and rectal bleeding is yet to come.

Cheers!

"When I bet...

I either have nuts or balls." -Some wise man

Either way. It went bad again. I lost the winnings from the day before with some extra, now totaling my Poker Heaven "winnings" at -$50 or so. So almost three buy-in drop yesterday, total. I did get the first $10 of my bonus claimed though and another $10 will be coming in RB. I think I got pretty close to the second one actually.

Anyway, as an observation, I realized (actually friend kinda pointed it out) that my so called "downswing" begun once the Stars introduced H.O.R.S.E games into their repertoire. I realized that after that, I haven't had a single pure Hold'em session. If nothing else, I've played a couple of hours of Razz before starting Hold'em sessions. Call me crazy, but I think these might actually correlate. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had indeed concentrated mostly on the other games and the NL Hold'em tables were just fluidly streaming on their own.

I started out the session yesterday strong though, but that's not always good enough. I also played 5-card stud, Omaha Hi. Omaha Hi ended up a bit down as did Hold'em, 5-card stud I was up 25 BB at best, but quit at +10 BB or so, players there were so horrible and I don't consider to be good at it (was playin' $0.5/$1 fixed). Anyways, here are few of the treats from my Hold'em session. It was artsy fartsy and the beginning is from the table once it had dried out of some players. Basically it's me HU vs some huuuge fish I already knew was retarded. He loved his pairs über alles and had already doubled once from someone by going all-in with less than stellar holdings and sucking out. So here goes the hands and my reasoning to them:

Midpair no kicker = nutz. Myea, this hand was quite bizarre. I already knew he was a light caller, also he made a huge overbet, I don't think he would've done it if he wanted a call -> I don't think he held that much. Granted, I wasn't waiting for a call for my push either, $15 extra from him would've been very nice at this point, but well... "He had outs".

Pair + FD and ofc... I'm not sure what's the general way to play these hands, but I figured pushing isn't bad. The fact that this guy was a habitual light caller might've meant that playing it slower would've been better and cheaper way to go, but there aren't situations where I'm badly behind and if I have even a couple of % FE, it's already nicely +EV for me instead of just being coinflip. Ofc, he ended up "consuming" some of my outs here, so I wasn't in as good of a shape as I thought.

Same guy hitting... I called the turn, because I didn't feel he had a pair. Of course he hit the turn. River I figured it's most likely a split - wrong again.

Guy making monster reads. Heh, I think this hand is one of those that played itself. The funny thing is, I would've pushed with QQ+ here the same way as well, figuring he's probably quite strong after calling my preflop raise. After the hand he said "I knew what you had, because you overbet so easy call." Okay so he put me on two overcards and a flushdraw (on a sidenote, for this sir, it was the first overbet I made in the table). Sir, may I remind you that even if you're correct 100% of the time, it's still coinflip to the deepest extent. 1-2% margin in error and he's behind. But I guess he's a God of poker - so well played by him.

Amongst the last hands of the session. The raise is big, yes. Reason for that is the small stack earlier pushed me off 97s (shame on him!) when I made a normal raise. Also I did this slight overbet a couple of times with crap. This time I even added 1 BB to induce a poosh. Luckily he was the short stack and that 44 kinda came as a little surprise.

So bathing in Sklansky bucks, but those don't buy me food. Anyway, I did win one all-in when it was pushed on turn with me holding a flush against one pair - he was drawing dead. Yay. At least I could win that. Also the client has some silly glitches, I was going to pot top set, but instead it went as minbet since the scroller sucks hardcore. I got like gazillion calls and had to lay it down next street when all possible draws got there and there was mad action.

Anyway, I shall now take a day off, perhaps continue tomorrow from NL25 to get more confidence and to also get myself in the NL Hold'em zone again (or perhaps Omaha Hi/Lo zone). Either way, I won't be mixing them up anymore since I think that has played more than a minor part in the unsuccess of the recent sessions.

Cheers.

Poker Heaven!

Yea that's just the name of the Boss network site I recently signed on to. I played a short session, generating around $3.5 of my $200 bonus - wow, that's so much! Besides, that'll get DOUBLED cuz of the rakeback - how sweet is that! I just two-tabled to get a feeling for the client and it has some sillyish things that make betting a bit harder than on stars - for example, you can't paint the bet sum with your mouse, you need to use backspace to erase the numbers to insert it. After a few tries, I ended up betting the minimum and giving my opponents nearly freecards and they ofc outdrew me - luckily enough, the level of play didn't amaze on the site...

So basically I played one PLO8 $50 table and one NLHE $50 table and ended up $85 or so, mostly from PLO8, people there were ridiculously bad. I mean really really really bad. I made some calls with two pair and no low on dubious boards like A234J. To my delightment, my A4 was good as my opponent showed JT88 that he called preflop pot with. Funny thing about the site is that short-handed tables are 5-handed. I like it and there's lots of play. But I don't think I'll stick around for much longer than claiming the bonus - after that UB and FTP await!! Not much else to tell at this point, I might go for a bit more solid session today.

Cheers!

I'm just amazing

I managed to play and lose like 5 buy-ins again. Doing okay in Razz helped with it a slight bit (like +$32 or so). My money just slipped away bit by bit. I flop top two against bottom set etc. A lot of variance in the play. In the end of the session, I probably blew off something along the lines of $30-$50 and then quit when I realized I had gotten frustrated. I think I did some great plays though that saved me some money and were highly EV in the long run. I'll go through some of the unorthodox hands here. Maybe they appear as pure lunacy but I believe I did the right thing with these.

Them Kings are the Shit. I want to start with the single greatest call I think I might've ever made (except the one I did with jack high last december in full blown tilt). This guy was an epiphany of a second level thinker and a loose aggressive opponent who didn't care much for what he had as long as he had an idea what his opponent had. Being 70/40/3 (Flop aggression being 6 and river being 4, turn was passivish), he was indeed a loonie. But he wasn't entirely out of line still. He didn't go to showdown with shitty hands etc. and because of this hand, he ended up quite a bit.

So after realizing what he was doing in the table, picking small pot after and other, I started repopping him. In fairly high percentage of times, around 3 or 4 times before this hand in the span of maybe 10 to 20 hands, I reraised him and he folded. This time I actually had a hand, I made the reraise $1 bigger than the earlier times, to make it seem a bit movish and also stray from the pattern. I did have good AJ+ hands the other times as well, but he didn't know it. This time, he elected to call. I could sense his frustration over me constantly repopping him. The game had been 3-handed a while before this one and he had shown me one checkminraise bluff before, basically where I raised him and he called, flop came down A74 and he checkminraised me with 45, I didn't have the ace so I lied of having KK and folded - and he showed it (This is a great tip for you there, works like charm - figure out a hand you think he could've outdrawn and state it. I don't know if they show their made hands, but they often show their bluffs).

Well, having that said, he called my big reraise. What range of hands would he call with? Earlier he had betfolded hands preflop and tossed them. I doubt he'd call with a weak ace - in fact, that's least likely of his holdings. And again, he checked to me. I bet $12 into pot of $18 and he almost instantaneously moves all-in. Clearly this was a prethought move and I was quite sure he had thought this even earlier. Would he assume that I couldn't have AK for example or given his raising range, other strong A? Yea, he very well might. His preflop call is also rather typical for hands such as pairs or maybe in this guy's case two high cards. He was clearly getting frustrated. Knowing this and feeling he quite likely didn't have the ace, I decided to make the call and get slapped in the face by the river. But I still think it was one of the best calls I've ever made, if not the best. The guy just had written "FOS" all over him. This would've been an instafold against a normal opponent.

Top pair mediocre kicker = nutz. This was another great play (in my opinion) by me. I figured that the most likely holding for the guy would be something like AT with the ace of spades. People like to slowplay, so I didn't think a flush was too likely in this case either. This guy was also in short so I didn't give him much respect for that either. His instacall had me worried and that rivercard had the eerie feeling all over it. Again, did it great.

And it's not like I'm in calling station mode. I recognice when I'm beat. In here though, I might've called if there wasn't a player to act behind me, but I think this hand was well played. I got a lot of money in when being a huge favourite and not a penny in when I got outdrawn. Also notice that the riverbettor is the LAG guy from the first hand (Although this was earlier in the session so I hadn't developed too good of a read on him yet).

Top two against bottom set, ain't that a classic. Nothing really special in this hand, but I just think it always goes like this. Sometimes you get lucky. But it's ridiculous how often it feels like it happens. I mean anyone know what's the mathematical probability of top 2 against bottom set showing up? It can't be too big, now can it.

This one I probably misplayed. I had concersations about this hand and also posted it to 2+2 forums. Basically I felt the initial raiser would be continuation betting with air here. Small blind worried me a bit after his call but he hadn't sit on the table for long (or perhaps it was me who entered the table just recently) so I didn't know what this meant. I decided to make it around $10 to drive out the UTG with JJ- or AK/AJ and SB who might've been floating light. But the anal leakage was there to follow for the SB turned out to be a habitual slowplayer. Whenever he front-bet, he folded to a raise and generally when he checked, he either called or raised. He did checkfold a few times too, but Checkraise and checkminraise were his eventual repertoire. I kept missing my hands, but I did manage to get some of this guy by reraising his flop bets. Kek. As for the results of this hand, he showed 77 and took down the pot with a set.

Anyway, horrible session and today I won't touch poker with a 10-feet stick. I will be back though and I'm not feeling as bad as I should be right now. I've been quite active on writing articles to 2+2, some with much, some with less success and if you wish to see my collected works from the last few days, go check out Finding the Perfect Stray of Thought. Bottom of that article, I've linked all my longer posts. Apparently someone had made a similar post in the recent days in the forum, but the intention was not to plagiate as I had never ever read such.

Looking forward to coming week. As I've already made account on another site, looking forward into making my first deposits early into the week.

Cheers.

Heh, fart.

Bad session, I don't know if I played worse just because I ended up slightly down (like 10 BB) from my H.O.R.S.E/Razz session or was it just the overall shit that kept raining on me. Maybe it was the bad table selection or just sloppy mood. I ended up down total about 4 buy-ins for the day. It's nothing major, it destroyed my winrate complitely! ^^ But I dunno. Luckily enough, I will take 3 days off poker for now as semi-forced vacation. It was mostly variance anyway, flush over flushes, turned oversets, rivered flushes etc. Life's good! d=]

On the positive side, I only ended down around $100 because I got my PokerStars bonus cleared. So I will do some money-moving in the weekend probably, next target is Boss network and I will return to the game on sunday or next monday. My week is still neatly positive because of livegames so it's all positiveness.

At least this proves, I'm not complitely ascended to the next level yet! ^^

Cheers!

Tired Session

I had a little tired session yesterday. I started off with healthy +2.5 buy-ins very quickly, but I didn't have much luck after that, flopping nuts and getting outdrawn. Anyway, as it turns out, I did also a couple of bad reads that lead into a couple of bad plays and I quit while down around $70, less than 1.5 buy-ins. Needles in a haystack, I have no trouble with that. No more tired sessions, lol. It was quite fun for the while though...

Stars introduced H.O.R.S.E, H.O.S.E and Razz cashgames (dunno about sngs) into their repertoire today and although it seems like there's only $1/$2 Fixed at the moment, I'm thinking of trying it out, the tables are probably überfishy now that it's new and people wanna try it out - also easier to get games. Same probably goes for Razz, I'd imagine people not even knowing the rules at this stage so it should be a cakewalk in all of those games. Kekekekek.

Nothing much to report, this week I've only played that one session online and rest has been liveplay. Luckily latter is up around 300€ so it's not like this would be a negative week, pretty much no matter what happened. I will probably have a solid hold'em/H.O.R.S.E session today and see how it picks up. I'm feeling good about pretty much everything right now and that's always a good sign.

Miller on poker goals

I came across this while speaking with someone at 2+2. I figured I'd post this, I think it's good to remind yourself on the basic things in poker. It helped me at the time and I just remember how much I've developed as player since that post about it was made to Liquid Poker. So here goes.

My goal is to make money. It is not
... to impress my opponents.
... to survive the hand.
... to make sure my opponents don't bluff.
... to decrease my variance.

My goal is to make money. It is not
... to find out "where I'm at" during the hand.
... to accumulate a big stack or cover the table.
... to play in higher stakes games.
... to finish the session ahead.

My goal is to make money. It is not
... to deceive my opponents.
... to improve my PokerTracker statistics.
... to say at showdown that I started with a better hand.
... to create a table image I like.

My goal is to make money. It is not
... to cause my opponents to make mistakes.
... to win pots.
... to increase the chance of getting paid off
... to improve my ITM percentage.

My goal is to make money. It is not
... to end my downswing.
... to punish players who irritate me.
... to generate less rake than I receive from bonuses.
... to educate my opponents.

(Ed Miller, 2+2 magazine)

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Other than that, I didn't play online at all yesterday, but I did finish second in 10€+R two table tournament. I might write about it in Pathological Case. I'll see whether I will. I also wrote an article on the artistic view on poker, some people enjoyed it, some didn't. This depended a lot on the forum as many nubtards in LP.net felt it was the worst analogy ever while people 2+2 thought it was inspiring and interesting. Whether it's liked, true, or inspiring, here it is:
Life of an Artist

I think that's about it for now. Cheers!

Days like these...

... MAKE ME WANNA SQUIRM IN JOY!! Yeah, I had a solid session of a bit less than 1000 hands, giving me the net of around $200 at NL50. Pretty sweet. That means around 30 PTBB/100. I had to quit for food though. That's one thing that can decrease the winrate towards the end of the session, keeping good nutrition rates is as important as being awake. I decided to call it a session for today - yesterday was somewhat suckier since although I was up $120 or so at best, I ended up misplaying a hand horribly for two buy-ins, had some bad luck besides that, but eventually grinded to +$9. Actually the line between being -$50 and +$9 was only like 100 hands so I didn't go on a roaring rampage to "win it back" unlike I would've in the ages past. Either ways, I was going to quit soon after that and it's neat to make a profit, even if it's close to break even.

Today really kicked off well. I hit a lot of hands, played sehr gut, made few good calls and few good laydowns. I also played $4.4 MTT, where I did one stupid stupid laydown, laying down TT on QQ9 board to CR. I thought about it for a while and somehow came to the conclusion that he might have the Q. After folding, he ofc showed A9s. Anyway, I managed to cash in that one, eventually dying to runner runner straight, and taking home $8.64 or so. Yay. I plan on playing the LiquidPoker.net tournament and then calling it a day. I'm also soon done with the Stars $100 bonus from playing the sunday $1M guaranteed. Then tharr be bonuswhoring.

I can already taste the NL100 in my grasp! Soooon... Real soooon...

Here are a few neat hands from today:
Guy making moves. And I was quite certain he was making one here. When he called, I obviously thought this was a misstep, but by seeing what he held on the river made me feel very comfortable about my play.
Shipping it! On the river I quite quickly got the impression that it's either split or a lower straight. Although I didn't notice he did in fact flop it and not river it. Well slowplayed by him. Nice pot! ^^
One of the best feelings in poker! The board did come down ugly and I was quite happy for it to be a split since there aren't many hands I beat on that board! :D
Prestopush, holla! I actually expected to see AA here, tried to be tricky on the turn, but he didn't bite. So river I figured he has either AA, AK, maybe a T, KT at best (TT would be unfortunate). Most of these hands he'd probably call a push with, especially played like that. I think my pattern represents hand such as QQ pretty well and river looks like a bluff.

That's it for today folks! Should I make a good cash in LP.net, I might write another post about it. But knowing my average luck in those (not including the back to back wins ;D), I will be out quite early.

Cheers! <3

Some NL50 hands

I played a bit NL50, it begun well, then it all went to hell. Well I figure to have played fine and I decided it was time to stop when I was down a bit less than two buy-ins. I was up 1.5 buy-ins at best so I kinda dove a bit, but well, what can you do. ^^

PokerHand.org is acting up a bit so I post the hands in HTML/2+2 format and link the images to the suits from PhotoBucket. So here goes:

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PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed)

Button ($12.60)
SB ($121.40)
BB ($25.50)
UTG ($31.65)
MP ($19.75)
Hero ($67)

Preflop: Hero is CO with T, T.
1 fold, MP raises to $3, CO raises to $10, 3 folds, MP calls $7.

Okay so here his opening raise is uncharasterictically big and he's quite short stack as well. I'm putting him on JJ at BEST, probably smaller pair, just wanting to get the hand over with.

Flop: ($20.75) T, 6, 7 (2 players)
MP bets $9.75 (All-In), Hero calls $9.75.

There are no bigger no-brainer decisions than this.

Turn: ($40.25) J (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($40.25) A (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $40.25

Villain shows KQo for ZÖ NUTZ

---

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (5 handed)

MP ($121.35)
Button ($25.10)
SB ($49.50)
BB ($20.95)
Hero ($50)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with J, Q.
UTG raises to $2, 1 fold, Button calls $2, 1 fold, BB raises to $3.5, Hero calls $1.50, Button calls $1.50.

Granted this was loose raise and I generally don't do it. The minraise was small and I figured to have the odds to flop big and stack something like an overpair.

Flop: ($10.75) J, 9, 9 (3 players)
BB bets $3, Hero calls $3, Button calls $3.

Not exactly the flop I was looking for, but his bet is awfully weak and I have no real information on the player behind me. So I figure to make the call for $3 and see what happens on turn. The button also just calls so I think I am probably good here.

Turn: ($19.75) 7 (3 players)
BB bets $2, UTGA raises to $12, Button folds, BB raises to $14.45, Hero calls $2.45.

Weaker bet than on flop, it's clear blocker, maybe a draw or two missed overs. Time to carpe diem and raisy daisy. He pushes for $2.45 more and although I might be screwed, I have to call.

River: ($48.65) 8 (2 players)

Final Pot: $48.65

Villain shows ATs (clubs) for zö STRAIGHT! Not quite what I excepted, but a well...

---

And then one nice play, even though I say it myself -.-v

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed)

CO ($40.25)
Hero ($52.75)
SB ($54.90)
BB ($69.55)
UTG ($55.25)
MP ($10.70)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 7, 9.
2 folds, CO raises to $2, Hero calls $2, SB calls $1.75, 1 fold.

This hand can make plenty of neat things to happen postflop, also the raiser is very (bad) laggish player so I don't give him credit for a stellar hand, but definitely expect to get paid if I hit.

Flop: ($6.50) T, 2, 9 (3 players)
SB checks, CO bets $4, Hero calls $4, SB folds.

This looks awful lot like standard continuation bet and I actually caught a part of the flop, the only hand that I could imagine him having that beats me here is AT. He could easily have AK/AQ/AJ/KQ etc.. And those are assuming much, he could have A+rag etc. (Raising range around 25%).

Turn: ($14.50) 6 (2 players)
CO bets $10, Hero calls $10.

Good card for me, doesn't really improve his range, but it gives me some extra outs - I still figure to be quite likely good and if not, I have outs.

River: ($34.50) K (2 players)
CO bets $24.25 (All-In), Hero calls $24.25.

Final Pot: $83

Now this was a horrible card for me. It fills many of the hand ranges I put him on - then again, I've been keeping him in the dark about my hand the whole time. Calling all the way is a bluff inducer against such opponent so if I decide not to raise my hand, I figure to having to call this bet as well.

Villain shows Q7s of hearts for NOTHIGN! Tyvm.


So to sum it up, I'm down around $60 at the moment, and I intend to keep it that way for today. Still have bit of a flu and this is just plain gay. I'm feeling a bit frustrated, but unlike before, I'm not going to spend 3k hands trying to break even ^^

Fold Equity

Well I came across some high stakes player today as he was instructing a low limit player on fold equity. The amateur asked how to calculate the probability to win, should the fold equity be 50% and the equity to win the pot at showdown be 25%. The pro said that you get it from 50%+50%*25%. Now this seemed outrageous to me! Generally when you see a '+' in the probability calculations, you can be quite certain to be wrong. Now I pointed this out and studied it a bit further, only to find that it is correct - but for a bit different reasons than I thought at the first glance.

The formula is actually win% = FE + (100%-FE) * EQ. So the fact that it happened to be 50% and 50% confused me at first, but should FE be 60%, the numbers would be 60% and 40% which would make more sense.

So I started to think how you properly calculate and came to the conclusion that it's done by substracting the probability of losing from 100% (reasonable assumption) and with the formula:
W% = 1-(1-FE)*(1-EQ)

Okay so, to prove whether he's right or wrong, I went right on to get that equation open and well surprise surprise, it eventually does go to the pro's (who apparently didn't come up with that himself) formula - liek this:

F1. W% = FE+(1-FE)*EQ
F2. W% = 1-(1-FE)*(1-EQ)

F1. W% = FE+(1-FE)*EQ
=> W% = FE + EQ - FE*EQ
=> W% = FE + (1-FE)*EQ

F2. W% = 1-(1-FE)*(1-EQ)
= 1-(1-EQ-FE+FE*EQ)
= 1-1 + EQ + FE - FE*EQ
= FE + EQ - FE*EQ
= FE + (1-FE)*EQ

Proof positive! \o/

So they go into the same format, effectively making my bitchin' to be in vain, but at least I managed to spend some time at work, thinking it out. So now you know easyish way to approximate your W% with a given fold equity that should help you with your analysis. You probably knew all this beforehand, but if you didn't, well I hope that taught you something!

---

And well I did play a bit, not much, but just enough to get my confidence even higher. I played around 400 to 500 hands total of full and short-handed Omaha Hi (PLO50@PokerStars) and won around 4 buy-ins. People just felt like going broke with overpair or top pair and who am I to stop them. Here are a few gems from the session:
Better than average flop for 99xx
I wonder what they were expecting to see
Perhaps the safest board for AAxx in a while... Oh wait!
It wasn't all uphill though... quite bitter.

Yea well that's all for now, I might play a bit today and I'll keep posting stuff here in the coming days. Also my plan now is to get the Stars $100 promotion done, then move to Boss network for some bonii, then go to UB and/or Full Tilt and after I'm done with those, it should be lookin' pretty good for even as high as NL200, so I'll see if I'll stick to it. I have yet to get my schmuck out of MansionPoker as well since they have quite secure system with the cashouts - which of course is good, but a bit of a pain in the ass.

I feel very confident and I really think it's very hard for me to get into the bad play/tilt mode with the current session system I have. I hope it stays that way, but I believe I can control myself pretty well and not have that bi-weekly blow up. Above and Beyond! _o/

Since I'm not playing...

... I decided that it would be good to share some very nice articles that'll be sure to improve your game! Well at least if you're still a relatively new or not-yet-so-savant player (I think that means something along the lines of playing below NL400). I recommended that you go these through, they're short and show a lot of insight into these matters. Some people critisize 2+2 for various reasons, one of them being the "boringness" of the forums. This is so false and even if it was true, it's a GREAT learning tool to help improve your game on any level. There are many players there that really know what they're talking about. But before I get too carried away, let's get down to the felt.

Fimbulwinter's "My 25NL Adventure/Pilgrimage"
This article describes common mistakes, leaks and tips on how to adjust to the überloose nubfests. It's true that moving up gives you more maneuverability, but people start understanding the game better as well. If you can't beat the smallest stakes, you can't beat the higher stakes at all and this post helps you understand the very consepts of gettin' the fishes in your plate without having to go to the store.

Fimbulwinter's reply to "When to move up from NL25"
Another great post from Fimbulwinter (You might think he's a friggin' pro poster!) describing the skillsets that are required on different levels of play. Although this is not anything to be written in stone, it gives good direction on which level of play is required on different low-to-mid stake games. Just another phenomenal post.

Fimbulwinter's "mmm mmm, bitch (moving beyond set farming)"
Fimbulwinter continues his great run. This post/article describes a couple of advanced moves. Note that these aren't meant to be used against calling stations. Again, picking the right spots is crucial. Still nice post.

Pokey's "Switching from Limit to No Limit"
Oh, no Fimbulwinter! Woo! If you're planning on doing the transition, you can find a list of books and a big bunch of posts and articles about it from here. Well done, Pokey.

Dbitel's "C/R vs. b/3b"
Dbitel goes into describing important concepts on both checkraising and frontbet/3-betting. Very enlightening post and I think it's a must-read for everyone, even the normal set-farmers (I know you're out there!).

Alrighty, there were a few great threads about different aspects of Small Stakes play, all important and interesting. There'd be tons of threads in 2+2, so I recommend you check them out. A big collection can be found (including the ones mentioned above) at SSNL Master Sticky- thread at 2+2.

I hope these improve you're game, I'm certain they helped mine.

Sometimes I scare myself

I've been doin' quite good lately, since my renewal of "don't play when..." and "play long sessions only when winning..." policies. I've played good and quit when I feel I'm not on the top of my game. It's been runnin' smoothly and I've averaged around 10 PTBB/100 winrate over 10k hands now at NL25 (aka. "the special olympics"). I've played some NL50 too, actually with better results but the samplesize is so ridiculously small thus far, there's no point in advertizing it. I've played a lot of SNGs too, since a small staking deal, but since I had a couple of dry days, I've been off to mainly play tournies in live games and concentrated on cashes on few day now.

I hope I can keep this up in the future as well, not playing when I don't feel like it and quitting if I'm having a bad session. I'm one tabling $0.5/$1 Fixed as I'm writing this... Ahhh, brings back memories! Just something easy since I don't feel like really concentrating and this way I lose less, plus the people here are a joke, so I might even end up ahead. Time will tell. As far as my plans go, tomorrow will probably be a livegaming day again and after that, couple of days of online and weekend long holiday with no poker whatsoever... Well maybe some Harrington Vol.3, but nothing more serious than that.

I think I'll be writing an article some time in the future on an  Undecided ?  subject. It might be a bit more game-related than the past ones, hoping to help out people and also to clarify my own views on the related subjects as "THAT'S WRONG!!!"-comments will be more than welcome - obviously only if called for.

Anyway, I guess that's it for then, cheers!