Come Clarity!

Two bad sessions later I learned that I had been playing like CRAP. I took one day off and got back into the felt today, refreshed and feeling good. Results also came as within first three hands I had lost 1.2bi, in other words $60. That wasn't going to be the trend though since little after I pooshed with AJs on Kxxfd board (had NFD and over) and got called by KQs (no fd), I started running hawt. Here are the couple of draw hands I did I played fairly well:

The session starter. I talked about this in 2+2 and I really have to just call the flop. People who checkraise don't often just smile and go away. Lost a stack in the same setup a couple of days back. Board was paired, but the hands were exactly the same and I got called by just top pair second kicker.

This one, I called because I wanted the other short stack to get it in and I didn't want to scare him since him off (I'm drawing to nearly nuts so I want all the munies I can get in the pot.

I had this huge donative guy in my table, here are the three hands that I played against him (the big pots that is). Here they are.

The first one. In this one I had to think my decision through. Even though he was giving me reasonable odds, he also could've been valuebetting an actual good hand. I used my timebank, looking through the earlier big pots he played and found out that he was prepered to fire out quite light - say for example a Jack. So AJ was really my only concern here.

The second one. This one I could've raised river probably, but again, I thought he might've learned from the last hand. Instead I learned that he doesn't learn.

Last and probably the least, the third one. And voi'la, he was broke. And I had neat stack.

Also I made one very pro-move, here. Basically I had KK in another table and thought "hey, let's reraise" and did it on wrong table. Talk about not concentrating totally. Noticed when the cards were coming down that I was in a $40 pot with Q4o that went in preflop. Yay, me.

There were a few semi-funky hands today also, that I won or lost, but I think that were at least marginally interesting.

Here's one silly AK where I though isolation push wasn't necessary - it just ended getting me big bunch of value.

Symphathetic donator #2 decided that it was good time to bluff on the river.

Then there was this two hand serie where I could've won the pot, but I think I played it correctly either way since the bad position, ugly flop and amount of players.

KK getting mucho callers, woot is goin' on? Afterwards they were talking in the table and said that the other guy (UTG) had TT - he was 60/30/3 or something, so I wonder why he didn't raise TT up. Perhaps he was lying. The pusher said he had 99. No idea of the last person, but that's really ugly spot to be in and I would've rather had it HU or even 3-way so I could've C-bet.

The very next hand to that was this. The pusher was the same guy who folded the river in the last one so I figured it to be probable frustration bet or smaller pair perhaps, but turned out I was horribly wrong. Still think it's often times the correct play against such opponents.

And last but not least, perhaps weak play by me. Generally weak lead means next to nothing hand, such as overcards and you don't need a big raise to take it down and people aren't apt to 3-bet it unless they really have the gewds. I have the position so I can control the potsize pretty well. In retrospect, making it like $7 or $8 would've probably scared him off better and kept him from drawing. I had a "small pp" vibe from him and river (being so weak) was almost automatic call for me. I'm not sure if it's good or bad, but I could imagine this being TT- or AK/AQ a lot of the time. After my comment, ("Wow :D") he said that "you have to take risks". I guess it's good mentality for such players to have. *gigglefart*

Anyway, I seem to have gotten a grip again and got my game back on track. I will keep it up as well as I can and tomorrow I actually plan on going to a lecture. Wow. That'll be "fun". I don't have many courses this period but the ones I have, I really think I have to study for. Mostly because it's this economy blibber blabber. Fancy names for simple things, just gotta know them and with zero motivation, it's... well... challenging.

Immortality! Take it... It's yours!

"Without the Dark, there can be no Light
Without the Lie, there can be no Truth
Without the War, there can be no Victory
Without the Hope, there can be no Future"

Life's good.

Basically, my last week was a fiaskoish. I played total of around 7.5k hands during the week. Only played 5 days so I played more than 5k hands I was going to. In the end, I ended up around breakeven for the week, slightly up. That was sad. But I know I made some mistakes, and had baddish run too. Only in the beginning of one session I did HUGE mistakes, such as bluffing against a set. I haven't done big bluffs the whole month (well at least not failing ones) and I had no reason to go on doing them now. I did them in the beginning of some sessions, probably costing me around 2bi total.

Yesterday I realized that I play badly against LAGs. Good or bad. I get too anxious to get my stack in the middle and conveniently enough, I managed to lose around $175 yesterday to this kind of crap. Mostly stuff like 99 against TT, QQ against KK etc. One pot was for $80 or so - my faults anyway. I ended around break even for the day, slightly up. Today I ended up around $120 so that totals ~+$200 for the week this far. That's bit less than my schedule, but that's only my fault.

Overall, I've been doing good, my goal is to make it to NL100 this month and basically I need 11 buy-ins more for that. Averaging around one buy-in per day should do it. It's so great to know you're playing good and notice when you're not! To realize your mistakes and advance to the next level. I'm learning more and more every day, playing much and playing when I'm awake and concentrated. In my "poker career", I've probably learned more during October than I have the whole early year.

One thing that has improved most is my mentality towards the game. I don't care so much for the results of the hands, but rather the ways they're played. This is of course what should be done and what I've thought I understand, but until this month, I don't think I had really gotten it earlier. This is probably the biggest improvement on my game. And I have had losing days, some of them considerable - that would've set me on tilt before this month. I used to take breaks after those days - now I haven't and I'm doing good. Why? Because I don't care about it anymore. Ignorance is bliss.

I think that's probably the most important thing for a player to learn. Everything else probably comes to you, but the mentality is the hardest to master.

All good. This week will bring great things in the coming days and I trust that I can make my run at NL100 by the end of the next month.

A friend of mine suggested that I will make a video when I first move to NL100. I MIGHT make one earlier (probably not), but it's really a good idea. When you analyze the hands as you play them, it's a lot harder to make big mistakes and hasty plays. Perhaps someone will get a laugh of it too. I will probably try to do it in english, but dunno how easy it will be to get over the fact that "you're doin' it to yourself".

Reaching for the heavens above!

Cheers!

It's so pretteeeehh

My bankroll is growing. Although this week I've only played 3k hands this far with only a moderate winrate, it's going swell. Monday was a slight minusday (2.7bi or so), but yesterday's +4bi in 400 hands pretty much compensated for it. Today, I took up an up of around 1bi and I'm currently playing the 3+R for fun. The $100 bonus cleared and my roll is showing $13xx again so I'm ahead of "schedule". As for this week, i'm only up around 2 full buy-ins so it's nothing special thusfar.

Today could've been better, I lost a few keypots to some ridiculousness, but the biggest was against a crazy lagtard newbie. Basically I ended up saying "a bad word" after the hand - which ofc wasn't a bright thing to do in general, but it spawned a pretty funny conversation. So here's the hand. Basically this hand was very very read-dependant. The guy was ~50/40, but quite passive postflop. As for his previous reraises, he had reraised with A3o, A6s and 66 (these are the ones that went to SD). Obviously his range was very wide and I had less than 100 hands of him.

So I did call him something silly in the temporary frustration and here's a funny piece of the conversation:
DonnyT76: "implied pot odds JO and It's 50/50 not 90%"
Muhweli: "you have 0 implied odds in preflop AI sir"
DonnyT76: "you're wrong"
Muhweli: "Okay :)"
DonnyT76: "you must have me mistaken with others, I can actually play cards friend"

Weeeeell, whatever. It found it quite hilarious! ;D And I don't want to hear that "Don't educate the fish" thing, it's not my standard procedure, went back to breakeven after this and it felt silly. Momentary insanity.

In the unlikely event of 3+R deep money finish, I will make another post here about it. Currently I have to maintain reasonable winrate through-out the rest of the month, but it looks like I don't even have to go into mad lengths to get to NL100 unless I tilt (which I won't) or run horrible (which I might).

On the bright side, it seems that I've finally learned to concentrate on the essentials of the hand. Whenever I lose a bigger pot in a hand to whatever, I make notes on the players and I generally have preeeetty detailed notes on each player in the table. This far, although it might be just temporary fluctuations in the luck space continuum, it has shown magnificent results. Of the last 9 days, I've only had 2 losing ones (both around 3bi).

This just came in:
Dealer: Game #6597266037: Muhweli wins main pot (11650) with a pair of Aces

Blinds 15/30. First hand I played. I guess this might be a tournie afterall.

I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control and I think I like it!

Cheers!

Sweet October!

I haven't made any posts for a while and I've been running like a cheetah on fire for the last few days. Actually for the whole month. The days have varied between +1bi and +6bi. I recently moved back to NL50 and I've gotten to four figures quite smoothly this week. If I played perfect poker, I'd probably be up more. I'm getting there. I feel that as each session passes, I make less and less mistakes. I did a few funky calls recently, like calling an overbet AI from some guy on river with unimproved AKo etc. But I've failed to get rid of AA on two occasions - on one of them I actually gave away more than I would've by just calling. These guys have both been like 70/10/1 calling stations who have minraised on turn on paired boards after calling preflop raises with funky hands. Besides that, there aren't too many funky mistakes. I've been hitting good hands and getting paid of better than I thought was possible.

For the longest time I felt my monsters never get paid off, I've improved my game in huge leaps for the past few days, reading and posting hands to 2+2 and playing more than I usually have. I've averaged over 1k hands a day and I wish to do that for the rest of the month. Yesterday I played a bit shorter sessions as it seemed like I was hitting every hand. Then it started feeling a bit chilling, I got bad beat and beat in a few hands and I felt I might be going into this winner's tilt-mode a bit so I decided to quit it a session. Today, fresh and refreshed I came back to the felt and after a bit rough beginning, I was soon up a couple of buy-ins again, 2.5 to be exact. Then I got outplayed in a few pots and decided that I wouldn't need to continue for today, I got in over 1k hands anyway, so it's all good.

One great thing I've come to realize, besides running hot, is that I'm playing so much better when I'm not in the post-work coma. My environment is complitely stressfree and I sleep good nights and play when I'm at my best. Not after 8 hours of "work". I'm a bit ahead of schedule for the month as I was counting on 5 PTBB/100 winrate to take me to my goal and for the last 5.5k hands, I've been doin' 12 PTBB/100, even higher in the 1700 hands of NL50. I don't know exactly how much I will be able to play this weekend though, I will be heading home. But I think I can get some hands in, playing from my laptop. I might take it a bit easier and concentrate on grinding next week. I've been mainly 4-tabling instead of my normal 3-tabling system and it has been working out pretty nicely. I dunno if I'm yet ready to add tables.

If this pace would keep up to even close of what it's currently going with, I would be in NL100 in a next week's weekend. Which is nice. All good things will come to an end though, I just hope this won't be coming to an end before NL400. Ship it! Mentalitywise, I feel I've gotten a lot better grip at the game. My first session last saturday (not this month yet) was longish and losing (ended down 2bi in NL25). But I felt I played good and didn't feel disappointed at all. The next day I ended up only around $9. After that, "heaven broke loose".

I still have 1/3 of the bonus to clear which will add a neat $100 to my BR. I still have some of the Poker "Heaven" bonus to be claimed, but I expect that I won't claim it any day soon, the client just pissed me off. The players are bad though, so maybe I will deposit there some day. At the moment my plan is to grind on Stars for quite a while (since no point moving to Party anymore...).

So with brink of hope in my eye, I look to break through and finally make it. The time of reckoning is now! Repent sinners! October brings great promises of the riches to come - I just hope the anti-legistation in the US won't shatter these dreams.