rising fighting spirit

"Wisdom, skill and becoming part of the spirit just go on developing and unfolding throughout all of life. There is no bottom line, no bottom of the well that can be reached. The true master is never finished, he is ever becoming."

We are continuing to stress out the parallelism between ninjutsu and playing poker, the first paragraph was said for ninjutsu and it's also true for poker. Let's see how ninjutsu masters analyses their opponents:

The Five Weaknesses

The five weaknesses are based upon the manifestations above and link to the basic traits that an individual may exhibit. The Ninja was expert in observing these traits and exploiting them for his/her own ends.

• Laziness
• Anger
• Fear
• Sympathy
• Vanity

Laziness is basicly not enough studying in poker, you can notice it in most of the players, they don't know that their range is really weak against some lines etc. You can easily exploit that.

When it comes to anger its tranlation to poker is "tilt". It's very exploitable and one of the biggest weaknesses a player may have.

"Fear". When the ace hits the board on the river and our opponent is already in a spot where he shouldn't have been, there comes the snap check and it's our turn. Who doesn't like to bash the 3rd barrel when we don't have anything actually.

"Symphaty". I recognize it once in a while, when you're playing a session below equity (sucked out in big pots) one of the players in the table may miss some of the value bets that he wouldn't miss normally. He knows that you're going to call and puts himself instead of you and feel bad about making that bet.

"Vanity" the thing I like to exploit the most! "Ego Players" that rather die instead of folding to a min raise. Just min raise them and they will ship it with no pair no draw.

The Five Needs

The Ninja was also able to exploit the needs of an adversary. In doing so it was possible to manipulate events and have debts repaid. The Ninja could then be at the centre of activity yet remain hidden.

• Security
• Sex
• Wealth
• Pride
• Pleasure

We all know the players that doesn't like high variation game and fold to 3-bets more than they should. They like to play a secure poker with no big pots and bluffs.

I don't know how to exploit the sex need in poker, if anyone knows this, please tell me about it. But I know people falling in love with their big pocket pair and not folding it even if a lightning hits them.

Ok, wealth. We expect that a good rolled player would choose high-variance lines rather than safe ones. You can adjust according to that and always you can invite them to HU to a bigger tables when the game heats up and you think you have an edge against them.

Pride. Ever noticed the urge in some players of making hero calls on the river with their 4th pair? That's it. They want to show how smart they are and if they can't win the hand, they will muck their cards and say they had a bigger something.

Pleasure. Ever seen a guy playing poker for fun folding a flush draw on the flop? I haven't.

My advice for you is to learn ninjutsu then start learning poker. The roots of poker lies in the mystical philosophy of the martial arts. I can beat you with my hands bound. Watch some karate kid instead of high stakes poker. Now go!

somewhere far beyond your reality

TOSHITSUGU TAKAMATSU (1889 - 1972) is the latest combat ninja who killed many other fighters in combat. His words for martial arts are also applicable to poker in some way.

"Always be ready for when your attacker drops his guard, then counter attack, without giving any warning or opportunity for a second chance. This is the way I handle this type of situation. I wait for my opponent to attack me then I just wait for him to drop his guard or make him relax. This is an important point. The Sakki or intent to kill is felt through a system comparable to radar the one who is not able to receive these emissions will not be able to reach a high quality state of a martial artist."

The Sakki for poker is stacking your opponent. Players have many ways to defend theirselves, like folding, pot controlling or making feeler bets. When your opponent is strong it's not easy to find a weak spot in their game. They usually understand that you have a big hand and lay off their hand. The important thing is to make them drop their guard. They might 3-bet you a lot but they might fold to a 4-bet instantly when you do. They might make cbets on every flop but they can fold to raises easily when you do. When you notice such a guard you have to attack that spot with weak holdings. Once, twice or maybe a lot more times but there's a tipping point where they decide you can not have that many hands on that particular spot. You got to foresee before they drop that guard and you have to attack that spot with a real hand once and for all.

I forgot the author but I remember someone saying that your opponent should think that he might take you all-in for you to be able to take him all-in.

I will share one hand I played today:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4480071

I have two reads to make this call. First of all he wasn't folding any pairs on the flop, secondly, he did a very fast call on the flop (he didn't think about raising it even for a second) A 7 was possible but I took that risk and made the call.

Untill next time.

big bang burger bar

Barcelona trip is over. I couldn't cash from any events and my cash games were only enough to cover my tournament fees. I think I'll never play a bad structured tournament or mid-stake live cash game again. People know how to play poker, they have huge leaks in their games but they don't make big big mistakes. To exploit the leaks you have to play lots of hands against them and you can play at most 4 hands on a 8 hours live session with one villain.

I stopped playing full-ring online because I wasn't able to focus on players, I had to play tighter and it's less likely I'm playing against that guy when I'm in the hand. When it comes to live full-ring it's a live shorthanded grinder's hell. I play 6 tables online, around 120 hands per hour in each of the tables and I'm playing it quite loose as they are shorthanded tables and people know when to fold usually. When it comes to live games I'm dealt one card every 2 minutes and I'm playing much tighter because it's full-ring and people are less like to fold. Then I think I play 50 times more hands/hour online than live.

After being card dead for 4 hours loosing a coinflip with an overpair to flush + gutshot draw feels quite bad. I think live games are for people who can't win online. At the casino whenever I saw a guy, scandinavian looking, carrying and ipod and playing with cool manners I asked them which sites they were playing. They all confessed that they don't play online cash games because it became very though lately.

I ended this month with 12 bb/100 on a reasonable amount of hands online. I made some adjustments in my game and my game for the first time in history become kind of unorthodox. I'm not willing to tell here what I changed but it sure helped a lot to increase my aggression.

I'm delaying my live games until I start playing nl 5k (except Cyprus ;) )

good luck every one.