common people

During the last 5 years of my career I've been kicked out of sites around 5 times and I had to deal with thousands of connection and banking problems. Although it earns you lot more than the avarage salary you can make in any other job, you're far away than realizing your full potential when playing poker from Turkey.

I'm saying these cause I've just been banned from the site I was recently playing because I reside in Turkey. Now I think I have to go manage my playing time between Full Tilt and Microgaming but I feel I really lost my energy to focus playing. I no longer wish to train myself as I was doing before and I'm playing a careless, mechanized poker most of the time. I find myself complaining how tough today's games are and how unlucky I am all the time.

There is truth in when I say I'm unlucky and it is true in the world's current economic situation the games are tough but I've just seen the video interview of Patrick Antonius which seems he made it as an answer to my doubts about online poker. When times are hard you just need to train more and focus more, otherwise you will be one of the money suppliers to the poker economy.

I always said I never complained about dropping my stakes, although it hurts me now to admit that I feel uncomfortable at stakes like 2-4, I think I will drop my self down until nl 200 to grind full time until I gain my full confidence on Full Tilt and Micro. Then I believe I can make it up untill nl 2000 in a short period of time if the games allow.

http://www.pokertube.com/ChannelFilms.aspx?movie=13857&freetext=antonius is the link to the video which helped me to regain my lost belief in poker.

Good luck all,

Vamos el Mambo!

It's been a long time since I posted my last entry here. Well things didn't go better, but I've been stubborn enough not to quit poker, instead I decided to take coaching for my HU which I've lost the biggest amount during the past few months.

Well I can say that the coaching helped a lot and I put myself on the road again. I had to quit Boss Media and I'm now playing on Microgaming and Entraction which I'm not very happy about because of the amount of fishes around and the willingness to play of other regulars. I always hated these bumhunters, now I hate them even more and I will hate them for the rest of my life. They don't let you grind regularly all the tables broke and a new one appears all the time with a new fish there.

Because of bankroll issues I had to drop to 5/10 but unfortunately because of banking issues I'm stuck at 2/4 at microgaming and I can't find any 6-max games on Entraction. I have to grind fast to have a reasonable amount of roll at Micro.

I'm more and more into my game theory study at the university. Being a semi-pro is decreasing the amount that can be won at poker dramatically but also we have only one life so we have to do things that satisfies us and makes us happy as well as earning money.

I now can better understand the feelings of old-school regulars that can't win anymore online. As the competition get tougher more and more regulars will find themselves in the same place. And unfortunately knowing a lot about poker doesn't help you much in other careers in life. If I would be a dictator I would penalize gambling for the sake of cumulative happiness of the people probably, but no I'm afraid not, I'm a liberal I just can't do that, I even don't think I would penalize any kind of drug.

Well gl guys if anyone still reads this blog.

let's run the improbability drive

I made a mistake and I played against the same guy I played yesterday. I lost 13k , here are the hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172914 I don't know what can I put him on, in this one I called and I lost. I'm not folding second pair with draw on 1/4 pot to stack ratio and he check raises turns with draws as well.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172930

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172931

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172934

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172939

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172942

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172946

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172949

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172956

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172959




This was not the only HU I played today, there is another HU game and also some 6 max

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172973

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172985

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172994

I know his calling range in this one, so I thought I had the best hand 90% of the time. I hit my pair on turn unfortunately
http://www.pokerhand.org/?5172996

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5173006



I played a short 6 max table, there was an action giving guy so I was lucky I had two big hands against him:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5173009
http://www.pokerhand.org/?5173016

Besides facing the top range of everyone, I am 30 k down in equity this month so far, I don't know why I am playing poker or if I will continue to do so...

worst possible run

it's been around 6 months that poker is going really really bad.

I'm more than 65k euro down in equity during the last 6 months (at least 65 k cause I calculated the mucked cards on boss as if the villain has the hand with the biggest equity possible and still I'm 65k down in equity). Only this month I'm 25 k below equity.

Well this is not the biggest of the problems. The biggest problem is that I'm always against the top of the range of people when I make a hand. I just ended a HU match against a huge fish who doesn't fold anything at all and I lost him 10 k. He raises 80% and folds 20% to 3-bets, he 3-bets 24% and folds 18% to 4-bets. He cbets %70 and folds %22 to raises on flop. and when vs a cbet he folds 36% on 3 bet pots. I played 6,7 k hands vs him and here are the big pots..

I made a 2 pair on a 3 bet pot against him:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170861


if you think he is capable of folding KQ in a similar spot: a bluff attempt
http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170849


I called his 3 bets on deep tables 35 times with pp's, I made set two times, first of them was check folded by him (one of the 2-3 times he did) the other one was below:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170867


here is how my KK is crushed:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170870


if you think he is able to fold any pair, don't:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170872

I couldn't fold this one, maybe I should have but couldn't put him to anything reasonable

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170877

here comes another hero call attempt by me, maybe you won't agree but I would call this against this guy if we play the hand 100 times more, I know that any pp pushes pf and any pair is pushing on the flop, this is full or trips only:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170883

here you can see an example of the usual line of the guy:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170892


yes he calls 4 bets and flops something nice:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170898

it's not possible to beat him

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170907

I thought I was finally lucky in this one:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170908

going all in with AK pf is a bit speewy against him

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170912

AA doesn't hold neither, a weird line by me, I maybe a bit on tilt on this one:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170918

did I say he doesn't fold to 4-bets?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170922

hey look I have an overpair, how would you like I lose this one?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5170927


well, this goes on a bit more with smaller pots and I didn't post the coinflips I lost, I won some hands as well but they weren't enough to cover my losses. The HU against this guy was almost a resumé of what is happening to me in general. This was just a little bit more intense.

My patience is at its end

Sors salutis et virtutis michi nunc contraria, est affectus et defectus semper in angaria

I don't want to talk about this but I wanna keep a record of it. This month I met the wrath of variance. I really don't want to tell badbeat stories and if I start I'll have to write hundreds of hands. Every day after beeing sucked out in big pots and lost every coinflip I told my self that the next day would be a better day, but in fact it turned out that the next day was even worse. I'm grateful such a downswing hit me in my 4th year of playing poker because if I would have experienced it earlier I'd go broke or quit playing poker because it would seem like total nonsense.

Again I see that poker is not a game for everyone, people lack the temper to handle this variance.

O Fortuna, velut luna statu variabilis, semper crescis aut decrescis

I ended september with a very small amount of winnings but it's ok for a downswingy month. I try to play HU with regs around but a few of them is interested. Luckily the guy "ki$$e" from Sweden played a long session with me. Although he crashed me in the beginning I managed to cath up a little bit in the following days. He thinks I run better than Hussain Bolt, I think he runs better than Flash. We'll see who is right when we'll have the oppurtunity to play enough hands to minimize the luck factor.

That game with the guy made me realize that I'm still an underdog against a good HU player. I started to play nl100 and nl200 HU's in Full Tilt and it surprised me how good the players in these little stakes are at Full Tilt. They have weaknesses but not that obvious fundemental ones. It seems that they all have a very solid structured game and playing 500 hands with each of the regs I found around was a perfect exercice for my HU during the end of the month.

By the way I made one of my worst ever run in terms of bb/100 during this exercice period. Luckily I haven't suffered this in the usual stakes I'm playing (or maybe I did and I can't count them cause it's impossible to calculate EV adjusted in Boss) Here are the results of my small stakes HU games:

Ok I uploaded the pic in a weird manner but it seems ok. Well, yes I suggest you all to give it a try to play small stakes HU at Full Tilt to exercice. I will do it a little bit more in the future and try to increase my stakes (playing with 20 bi right now, I'll increase it when I reach at 5-10 probably)


My PhD starts this week therefore I'm not sure if I'll be able to play as much as before, but I am very dedicated about playing poker and doing the PhD and sacrifice my social life except my girlfriend this year.

gl all.

ride of the valkryies or the anschluss of austria

I am here to discuss why people are playing poker. From bottom to top people have many different drives to play poker. I read an article at cardrunners.com about 2 years ago, the title was "poker economy" and the author was trying to categorize where the money comes from and where it goes in a poker network (in terms of winning and losing players, exluding the network fees). We have blue collars, white collars and whales for losing players and we have different stakes pros as winning players.

Blue collars are the ones playing very small mtt's once or twice a week and micro stakes cash. They can afford losing 5-25 dollars a week and when they hit the prize in a tourney they usually withdraw their money. Poker is a kind of entertainment for them when they come from work to home and they like to tell the stories of how they won a prize in tourney when they do. I believe this segment is the most important of all as it keeps the big machine working.

White collars have a higher status in real life than the blue collars. They are managers or small entrepreneurs with a huge ego that comes with it. They like poker because they like to compete, they like to proove that they are smarter than other people. They can afford losing up to 1000 dollars a month and satisfy themselves about being smarter than others while blaming their luck for the amount they've lost. When they hit a big prize in a tourney they usually tend to sit at a high stakes cash game. They are important because they move the money from bottom to top.

Whales are very rare to find in online poker but there are more of them in casinos. They are rich people who see poker as a way of interacting with common people and realize how rich they are. They enjoy watching other people winning or losing and seeing how important that amount of money for them. They don't care much about winning or losing, they like that ambiance where everything is related with the money in the middle. That's why they don't care which stake they are playing but they enjoy playing higher stakes more.

There's not much to talk about the winning players. Most of them are playing to earn their lives and when you're playing online you're confronted with them 80-90% of the time. But there are people who have different drives amongst them as well. When I asked Mr.Aki why he still plays poker and how he didn't lose his ambition, he replied "respect". I said I'm sure he's getting enough respect, one must be fool not to show him respect, then he said "there are different levels of respect". Well, that I believe shows the difference between being a winning player and a top player.

GL all.

another one bites the dust

"Let my existence be bestowed to turkish existence". We shouted this (and some other bullshit)
the whole school, altogether, every day in the morning. We didn't have the choice of not attending this morning ritual. Think about one country and its citizens that shout this bullshit during their whole childhood. And this is just the beginning, think about the history books, the religious books, the TV, newspapers that pumps non-stop national propaganda.

But now we got democracy, we have the option to choose national or religious propaganda.

When I play poker, people often ask me where I am from, and when I say Turkey as an answer, they don't tend to believe. When this happens I feel kind of happy, as if I'm a supreme being of my kind. But when I think over about it, I feel bad actually. This nation is the victim of a super-wrong totalitarian system. Their vision is downsized and they are left out of option about what to believe. I was saved because I was lucky, because I was super inner-oriented and because I've grown up in a closed community with other smart people (my highschool dormitory).

I'm not discussing here of course, why there are not so many turkish poker pros, what I'm trying to discuss here is what our education system took from us. What happens when logic is damaged in one child's brain? How he tends to see probabilistic events after having an education which gives a subjective justification for all those we've done wrong? Quoting our school history book, we even didn't lost the World War I, The Germans lost it thus they declared us looser as well!?!?

I'm posting this great song which words fit perfectly for the situation and dedidate the song to turkish people for how they feel after the fall of Ottoman Empire.

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.

smells like teen spirit

At last I managed to get a grip in an upswing after a long downswing. The sad part of this is that I'm currently playing nl 400 and exprecienced my downswing in nl 2000.

I would probably stick to nl 400 if I wasn't sure that I can't crush the same way higher tables.
Other good news is that I as well crushed live cash games in Cyprus (which is a paradise for good rolled semi-pro players)

I played my longest session sitting in the same chair during 22,5 hours. I seriosly think that I can easily win in nl 2k whenever I go to cyprus with the same players in the tables. The problem is that any 0,25-0,50 $ player is able to crush the tables the same way I do. Therefore, in the long run, the place will be full of this kind of players and it will be more difficult to win (considering the small amount of hands played and the high rakes)

Actually I promised my self to play nl 400 for 10 days only in the beginning of the month. But after Cyprus, I was afraid of playing a game of nl 1 or 2k online as there would be a huge difference in the skills of the players. Then I continued to grind on nl 400 again and this Sunday the 21th I'm leaving for Barcelona wpt. So I didn't want to risk playing nl 2k and loose all the month's earnings in two really bad day (after my last two months especially)

I'm not going to play the main event in the wpt but the first freezout with 2k entrance fee, gensuru is coming with me so I will have fun watching him play the main event. I hope there will be nice cash games as in Cyprus but we'll see..

Wish me luck, I will report again after the wpt.

bizarre cosmic industries

It's beeing a very bad month. I'm going bad in every possible way. Those who know about my preflop play, I'm playing a quite tight game, I raise less than other players, reraise less and go all-in way too less. But when we look at the hands I went all-in with, I'm losing money. people are pushing my 4-bets with 67s, 44, QK or every other stupid hand but I am still losing money with the hands I went all-in preflop even though I don't reraise with AK's or JJ's if I don't want to go all-in. The point is, I'm losing a real big amount by folding these aggro pre-flop reraises and when I show some strenght with premium hands, I'm losing with them...

The problem is not only with pre-flop all-ins. My overpairs held only %75 of the time (which means I lost a big pot with the rest) , my sets only held %85 of the time, my two pairs held only %77 of the time.

I suppose I'm having a big downswing since last month and when luck evens out during next months I'll be in a good shape. I'm happy I didn't loose anything this two months.

I'll share you the hands I lost since yesterday. (last 48 hours)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275575
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275583
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275585
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275587
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275590
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275597
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275604
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275609 (I had a read on this one, but it didn't work)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275612 (would you bet the river here?)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275623 (yippee I got the nuts)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275637 (classic)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275647 (this one is a bit strange, I thought he would fold I was wrong)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275670
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275694
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4275699 (at least I didn't loose this one)


the number of badbeats may seem a bit too much for untrained eyes, but you should know that the essential damage was done by the coinflips I lost and other pre flop set ups...

patience is the key

Life," said Marvin dolefully, "loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it"

It's been around 2 months that I'm running quite bad. I have been always proud about how stable my game was. So it still may be like that. I still haven't got any losing month since the April of 2008. But the last part of March I lost, I couldn't win anything (ended with 0) during April and I'm losing this month. So I should better name it a downswing.

When I'm losing what tilts me is not the amount I loose but the impossibility of playing another 100 k hands in a very short time. The longer that time is the more I become on tilt. This is because I have a huge confidence in my game and I know for sure that in the long term I will win . But as it has been during these past 2 months I've always had some other business to keep me away from playing 10 hours a day. Going out with girlfriend is standard 2 evenings in a week, visiting parents once a week, birthday of a friend, party at a friends' house, the visit of a friend living abroad, the farewell of a friend going abroad etc. etc..

What I need really is to sit down for 3-4 days and thinking only about poker, polishing some flaws in my game, studying opponents and win some bucks for god's sake...

This is giving me a lot of stress and the cure is simple but I can't do anything about it

I hope next time I'll write something in a better mood.

a midsummer night's nightmare

If you have enough monkeys banging randomly on typewriters, they will eventually type all the works of William Shakespeare.

This is the idea behind the following hands, check them out, or don't. it's up to you.


http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019261 (don't forget the name of this guy, we will see him again)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019287 believe me, you can't fold this to him
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019294 the first but not the last of this genre
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019300 the fish strikes back
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019307 lovely
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019319 tiny but sweet isn't it
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019350 I love this one, only 3 outs to split the pot on the turn, 125 bb
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019375 well yeah, I never expected to win that one..
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019378 I gotta learn to fold these
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019391 I'm gambling here any rational player would fold this one
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019419 this one's a good observer, he noticed I can't win all ins
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019577 great I didn't lose this one.. I feel lucky!
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4019626 phew, that J almost hit the board



so yeah, I had an interesting day

achille's agony and ecstasy

Today I'm not going to bother you with my downswings and badbeats nor I'm going to tell how ingeniously I played a given hand. I'm going to discuss what should be the ideal time spent for poker.

Our class today is "labor economics". We define the economic rent as:

The economic rent = total compensation - the opportunity cost

The total compensation includes the money earned, the pleasure received or some other benefits of the given activity.

The oppurtunity cost is "the value of the next best alternative foregone as the result of making a decision"

We can deduct that we have to do something if its economic rent is positive and not do if the economic rent is negative.

The economic rent of playing poker for a given time is the expected amount we would earn - our oppurtunity cost. So going out for a movie which would take 4 hours of our working time has an economic rent of "the utility we would recieve from going out for a movie - the cost of the movie - 4 x our hourly winrate"

If the marginal utility of the money (for our total wealth) is bigger than the utility recieved from the alternative action we would choose playing poker.

I assume that I will start playing less as my bankroll grows and I will be spending more time doing other things because of the decreasing economic rent of playing poker which will increase the quality of my life.

I told you all of these because currently I'm suffering of being an associal playing 8 hours of poker a day and spending the rest of the day thinking about how can I improve my game. Adding this to having an inverted day time (sleeping at 4-5 am and working when everyone gets out of their jobs) and the general disrespect against preofessional players, playing a lot of poker makes you feel like an alien.

I may add something related to this issue in the future.

Homework: make an effort to improve your time management.

Good Luck!

something worth talking about

It feels really bad to see all month's effort melting away in 24 hours. I just received my worst run in 24 hours = -18k since my last bankroll peak last night. I admit I couldn't play my A game all the time but I really can't see any tiltplay when I check the hands I played. Just some desperate reactions against poor opponents taking weird lines all the time (every time it turns out that they catched their gutshot or set on the turn or river)

Below are the hands that tilted me a bit and of course I lost many other coinflips or tough beats like overpair vs overpair type. Reading the hands below is just a waste of time but if you are running bad and you are in need of seeing that some other guy is running bad as well just check them out

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3902256
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3902261
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3902275
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3902280
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3902287
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3902289
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3902296
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3902315
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3902320
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3902331
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3902349
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3902353


I will play a lot until Saturday to earn something at least. As I'm kind of a tilt-free guy I play more during losing streaks and less during winning ones.

yours is no disgrace

The title is what I said to myself after todays session. I was up 4k and suddenly I started to recieve very standard set ups and lost 8k. But I'm not whinning about it cause this has been my first losing session since my last entry and I was the benefactor of these standard set ups during that time.

Nevertheless, I know that my game improved a lot lately. I'm doing less big mistakes but still I'm doing some small ones. On top of that my awareness on player styles has improved. I change gears a lot during the game to push my opponents into deception and when I notice they make adjustments I change gears again. I don't mean becoming lag or tag by changing gears I mean I can change my preflop raise range, my calling range, I can increase or decrease my aggression, I choose between playing solid like a rock or playing like a maniac/making -EV calls or raises for deception and to push them on tilt.

I also think that during that change in my game my image in the tables changed as well. I've been known as a solid tag for the past months but now people are not so sure about how to react against me. I feel that they usually don't know if I'm going to make that call or not or they can't make a clear guess about what am I holding. Bluffing me becomes more and more difficult consequently.

During evenings I play and during the day I usually analyze my game and my regular opponent's. I will suggest you a very helpfull study. Try to find new bluff lines against your regular opponents. Don't raise too big to commit yourself into the pot for example, raise smaller and let them know that this can be a bluff regardless of you are actually bluffing or not. Don't let any of your moves mean something. Try to eliminate from your game moves that shout "I got a big hand". If you are in need of slowplaying some big hands that usually means that you are not pushing your opponents enough with bluffs.

Get better or quit.

Untill next time.

divine intervention

What superpower you would like to have? running with the speed of light? flying? invulnerability? mine would be to pull out the luck factor out of the equation and leaving people naked with their equity, how does it sound? My name would be "The Neutralizer" with a big "N" on my chest and I would dedicate my life to victims of bad luck.

I started this month 7k down in 6k hands. I played good, I was going to own the tables, but something was wrong. My two pre-flop all-ins with AK vanished against two mighty AQ, one in the hands of a donk the other in the hands of Stewie the spewy. Later cortstr hit his bottom set to my top two pairs when he was 10 tabling. Seconds later I made the same to rexmundi and we went all in on the flop but I forgot that he doesn't lose a hand if he has outs so he made full with his top two, my bad..

Apart from recieving some tough beats like JJ vs AA, QQ vs KK, I lost every coinflip I was involved. The donks tought this was not enough so they decided to give some badbeats to my AA with 99, to my KK with 67, and to my AQ with KQ... my charity foundation aims turning shortstacks into fullstacks. I will always support them.

Adding the number of 3 outers found on the river against my top pairs and overpairs I earned the right of whinning all night.

It seems like I will spend the rest of the month for recovery, well at least I am not on a tilt..

The end of January I played some live poker in Cyprus. I saw the biggest donks/regular ratio on 5-10 and 10-20 tables in my life and the regulars were from 0.5/0.10 cent tables from the Internet (at least it seemed like that) Whereas it was boring like hell to wait for a hand during hours, chatting with people and feeling like a poker god amongst insects eased my burden a little.

When I go there again, I would be more than happy to take one serious player with me as a company, so think about that guys.

Oh there is he! The Neutralizer! our saver!

Be good untill next time

break on trough

I spent a lot of time studying the games of my regular opponents after the games and since then I didn't even have a losing session for two weeks, which is way too out of the ordinary. This is not the best months I've had so far but the most stable one.

I think when you are sitting in a table full of regulars it is not enough to play a solid game. Because all of the regulars have more or less solid games as well. Finding good bluff spots, making thin value bets and making hero calls against thin value betters are essential if you want to be the hunter and not the hunted.

Here are some hands to discuss for today:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3756532

this is played with a standard regular at 5-10

Altough I usually check my 2nd pair type of hands from position, I do make a cbet for mixing it up. When I get called here on the flop his range is any K, any T, any flush draw, QJ, 89 and he would raise me hands with better value.
The turn is an A without a flush draw but completing a straight draw. Now I decide to make a turn cbet as my hand is not beating his range anymore with the intension of a semi- bluff with my pair and gutshot. (if he has a T or a flush draw here I assume that he would fold them as well). The turn is a 7 bringing the flush and the perfect oppurtunity to make a 3-barrel bluff against his K. I am almost pretty sure that he hasn't QJ a flush draw (except maybe an A high flush draw that I think he would lead with it as the board is very scary to make a value bet with a worse hand.) The only hand I'm afraid here is a AT that he was afraid of AK or a QJ on turn and decides to check call with it. But I don't think he would play that weak his AT.

So it's a perfect example of turning a hand into a bluff.

here is antoher hand I played with the same player. I'm making somewhat of a hero call on the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3756633

I'm putting him on a very wide range of hands when he calls my flop bet. I check the turn with the intension of calling but he checks behind on a double flush draw board which made me eliminate almost every Q except maybe a Q9. When the river brings a T and he bets. I'm afraid of a Q9 but for the most of the time I'm expecting a flush draw or a A high type of hand. Actually 43 surprised me for a guy with a tight image.

Good luck all!