Video

Part 1a is finally uploaded

http://sharebee.com/74933546

3 more parts to come.

Interesting Session & Video on its way

I played for a couple of hours today and I recorded it with the intention of commentating live but after a while a couple of friends came over and wanted to watch. Inevitably the amount of poker talk went down and the amount of football related banter went up for a bit until they decided to watch tv until I was done -so I will probably end up commentating over it again. Either way it was a pretty interesting session with both good and bad moves which should make for an interesting video anyway. I'll hopefully have it up tomorrow so check back!

Small session

I played a couple of tables after lunch today for just over an hour - one HU and one 6 max. Things went pretty well and I ended up with just under a couple of buyins profit, one thing I was particularly pleased about (aside from running well) was that I quit at a good time and I didn't let my ego dictate my length of stay at the tables. Since I haven't posted any hands here for a while I'm going to go over these in a little more detail - or atleast I'll try to. :)

HU Table
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855167
This hand is fairly standard from both players POV. Sometimes I would fold the A9o from the BB early on in the match since it can often get you into trouble OOP without a decent read. As played my opponent didn't really have a choice on either street. If I hadn't hit the gutshot on the turn I would have just checked it down because I try not to do anything other than standard in the first few hands until I get an idea about my opponent. This is one thing I'm trying to work on a bit in my HU game - just taking things slowly to start with and establishing a "decent" image and then making moves. I find this easier to play than starting out like a maniac because then you have to hit cards to do anything since you get no respect if your opponent is even paying the slightest bit of attention.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855186
Another pretty standard hand. Although by now I believe that my opponent isn't very aggressive and isn't likely to be bluffing that often I still think calling the river is a good play. Firstly because he could easily be value betting worse, secondly it is possible that he is bluffing (although unlikely) and thirdly for information. The last point is pretty crucial because it is really useful to find out what sort of range this guy is calling the flop then leading out on the river with. For instance if you find out that your opponent is value betting very thinly then you can start to raise his river bets, if he shows up with a set then you can see that he slow plays, in this instance I got some pretty useful information about this guy's checkraising range since he didn't c/r his draw and this enabled me to reraise bluff one of his subsequent checkraises.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855199
I made a small mistake here by calling the river, given the information I have on my opponent I think I have to fold despite the awesome pot odds I am getting.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855201
This is a pretty reasonable 3bet given that there are very few legitimate hands he can checkraise with there. The only real hands my opponent can have are AA/JJ/AJ/22 and possibly AK. Previous to this hand I saw my opponent flat call QQ PF so both AA and JJ are possible but of course this set of hands is tiny compared to his preflop calling range so the most likely hand is a bluff or a lower ace which can't stand a 3bet anyway.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855210
Betting the river here is a little dodgey but I don't mind it against this specific opponent because he could easily have any sort of straight or flush draw which obviously can't handle a river bet.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855214
This hand is pretty interesting I think. If my opponent had shoved the flop or the river I would have folded as well if any of the draws had hit and he had bet (since he very rarely, if ever, bluffs). However once he checks the river I have an easy value bet because it is obvious that my opponent doesn't have a made hand but I can still get value from many pair+draw type hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855218 Pretty standard really.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855220
Also standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855226
This one too. Although this hand and every subdequent hand in a reraised pot ended up with my 3betting, my opponent calling every 3bet and then shoving over my cbets (on reasonable boards to cbet). This wasn't very fun because I kept missing the flop and had to fold every time.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855230
One of said hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855233
And another. The reraise with 58s PF is a little silly against this guy given that he has been pwning me in reraised pots however this was after a period of him winning quite a few small pots plus I thought there was almost no chance of him bluffing me because he would expect me to call with almost anything post flop. I'm not sure what to think here aside from he either pwnd me or the just kept hitting.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855241
He had been beating me down a bit but had generally shut down on the turn after c/ring the flop so I chose to float and take the pot away on the turn or river. Obviously 2 checkraises means a monster hand.

After this hand I played for a tiny bit more and stopped. The flow of the match had gone in his favour and I was feeling a little tired so I just quit even though I still felt I had an edge over him. HU is very much like swimming, if the momentum is against you then its pretty hard to reach your goal and you can easily get swept away - its much better to get out of the water and come back when the current is in your favour.

Thats all for now, good luck at the tables guys.

$10k reached, PT sucks.

I'm too tired to do a proper blog entry so here is the gist of things: 7 tabled betfair 200nl on my laptop and won a couple of buyins after an hour. However PT isn't picking up my hands properly for some gay unknown reason so apparently I'm break even at betfair even though my account says I'm definately up. At the moment I have about $10,100 in my poker accounts which is pretty nice. The big question is do I try and clear a $200 bonus at crypto which runs out at the end of December? Its currently 75% done and needs roughly 240MPPs. I'm guessing that I will try to clear it because 7 tabling on a laptop screen using their horrible software makes my eyes bleed so I could use a change.
Will do my best to post hands next time... really! Good luck at the tables guys.

Wireless and Saturday Night Fever

The router I ordered for my parents house on Thursday suprisingly arrived today. So I was able to finally get wireless internet and have the freedom of the house instead of using a network cable to leech the internet from my parents computer - playing in my own room without the distraction of someone else using the computer next to me is pretty nice. Currently I'm watching MOTD while lying on my bed with the laptop - just awesome.

The other major thing which happened today that I signed up to betfair. Boomer and ssta recommended it to me and I am soooooo pleased that they did. The software is absolutely horrible but the players are probably worse. The new site treated me well and I ended up around $600 so my BR is back at $9500 and hopefully we can break the $10k mark before Christmas. :)

I'll post some hands next time since I can't now because my laptop is about to die from lack of battery power and I'm too lazy to get the power cable. Good luck at the tables guys.

The key to winning poker is absolute concentration

Unfortunately I struggle with this at the moment. Whenever I go into autopilot I seem to take the one way street to spewville, that is unless I'm playing enough tables to prevent myself from having time to think about spewing - which can't be done on this laptop. I played 4 tables - 2 HU and 2 6max and ended the session down $470 after again performing badly in the 6max games. In the HU games I started quite badly against one regular at 200nl and was down 2 buyins at one point but I wont a key flip and was able to bring things back to roughly up 1 buyin. However against another guy I started well then lost concentration for a bit while focusing on the other game and eventually spewed away all my profits on the table and ended the session with a 1 buyin loss. I lost roughly 2 buyins overall in 6max due to general overaggressiveness and a lack of positional awareness. I think I really need to work on being selectively aggressive as opposed to the ricky-hatton-bull-in-a-china-shop approach.

Overally I pleased with the way my HU game is improving although I still have a lot of work to do to sort out my concentration and avoid distractions like MSN etc. My 6 max game is pretty terrible right now though and its fairly shocking that I can't beat 200nl... yet! As for the "challenge" part of things, my current BR is roughly $8700, obviously I'm not very happy about this but as long as I keep improving then I know the money will take care of itself.

HU Good... 6 Max Bad

I left London this afternoon along with my sister who had come down to visit me for a couple of days so for the next couple of weeks I can only play up to 4 tables on my laptop. This is both a good and a bad thing for me I think. The good is that I can concentrate more on each table and really try to work on my game at a fundamental level, the bad is that I won't have the option to just autopilot 8 tables and try to play solid poker. I think it is a lot easier to tilt and/or get out of line when you are just playing a few tables and since that is one of my biggest problems at the moment I will have to be careful.

Anyway I played 4 tables for about an hour; 1 HU and 3 6max and then I just played abc tag on 1 table for another 20mins since I had position on a guy with 70% vpip. Unfortuntely I got completely crushed in the 6max games but I felt I played really well HU. Somehow I'm actually down around $95 though which is very annoying considering I was up around $300-$400 before I got owned on the "soft" table for the last 20 mins. Anyway here are some hands...

HU Match
My opponent was very aggressive PF and 3bet from the blinds a lot but had obvious leaks post flop.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830601
A loose call, he had 3bet me twice in the first 6 hands of the match so I wanted to make a stand and obviously called with the intention of making moves on a lot of flops.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830607
I didn't really give him much credit for a hand here unless it was QJ or KT, I had won the last 5 pots in a row from either raising his blind or him folding his button so I thought he felt like it was a good time to C/R. Plus I had a gutshot and a backdoor FD. :D

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830615
2nd time I called his 3bet, I think I am slightly ahead of his very wide 3betting range plus QT plays quite well in position and I don't want to risk getting blown off my hand by 4betting. I hit a pair and would have played for stacks.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830634 Pretty standard all around really.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830638
Gotta love the turn card. The guy said that he folded AQ but I kinda doubt it.

HH didn't go into pokerhand...
Seat 1: scelus ($509.40 in chips)
Seat 2: VonTibia2 ($313.98 in chips)
scelus: posts small blind $1
VonTibia2: posts big blind $2
dealt to scelus [Td Ah]
scelus: raises to $6
VonTibia2: raises to $22
scelus: raises to $66
VonTibia2: folds

First 4bet "bluff" of the night. ATo is ahead of his range but I dont really want to call because it plays pretty shity PF as it has no draws and the pair can often be dominated. Plus I had only been calling 3bets up until now so mixing things up and 4betting a bit light now is a good idea.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830660
Another 4bet bluff a few hands later. This guy played horribly post flop so I could get away with it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830669
Hand caught in the cookie jar. But valuable information was gained ie LOLWTF 85s.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830677
Obviously then I tightened up until I had a good hand to 4bet with.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830681
Didn't make a move here because I felt my opponent was getting a little tilted plus K high could easily be good.

Another one PH.org didnt't like...
Seat 1: scelus ($664.40 in chips)
Seat 2: VonTibia2 ($216.20 in chips)
scelus: posts small blind $1
VonTibia2: posts big blind $2
dealt to scelus [Qh 7h]
scelus: raises to $6
VonTibia2: raises to $22
scelus: raises to $66
VonTibia2: folds

After giving up on the last reraised pot when I called and then subsequently folding to his next two 3bets I felt that it was a good time for another 4bet.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830701
A few hands later... Note this guy was letting me get away with this so there was no reason to stop. A strong player would have adapted by tightening up his 3betting range and opening up his 5betting range but this guy was pretty awful.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830710
When he finally adapts... I have a monster. Pretty harsh but pretty funny.

6max games
I did pretty crappy here. My losses are due to playing a little too loose I think - probably a side effect of playing lagtarded in my HU game, but I also played some hands well and just got unlucky.

Big loss hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830726
This guy was a solid slightly loose aggressive player who had been 3betting me a fair bit from the button so PF and flop play are fine imo. The turn is tough because it is the absolute perfect card to semi bluff, however after calling a checkraise on such an unco-ordinated board my opponent atleast has a pair. So if he has a range of random 8's, 99-AA and the odd Q then the push very much depends on if he folds JJ-99 and his 8's. Since this is the first big hand we have played so he is more likely to give me credit and I think this play is just +EV.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830761
Hand against loose passive guy with 70%vpip, pretty standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830764
TPTK against half stack. Standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830769
I think all the play is fine until the river, the ace is a horrible card to bluff because he is much less likely to fold a Q or J.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830772
Standard, against some players I would call or bluff the river but not this guy.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830773
Obviously this is a bad flop to cbet but it was the first time I had 3bet this guy and my hand has no showdown value so I think I have to bet.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830780
Standard against a guy with 70%vpip.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830785
The call is just about justified I think against a loose short stack who just lost a decent sized pot.

Big win hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830790
Std.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830793
Std again.

Thats all I have the time for I'm afraid. After looking back on the big losing hands I don't think I really made any really bad mistakes but perhaps just too many small & medium ones. In some places I was a bit unlucky but that was probably made up for in my HU game. Still it feels terrible to be down after playing so well HU and winning 4 buyins. Ach well, I'll do better next time.

Down by the elevator and up by the stairs

After the carnage of my last session I just wanted to put in a solid showing and go back to basics. Thankfully that's what happened. I only played 3 tables for about an hour; 1 HU and 2 6max and I just concentrated on playing good solid poker and not doing anything too fancy (read spewy!). I ended the session up about $470 which is exactly what I was looking for and hopefully I can build on this next time.

Hand time!

HU Table
My encounter was pretty boring really; I was up against a tight passive opponent so 90% of the hands was just me winning lots of small pots then occasionally him winning a medium one when he called my cbet with top pair. The match finally ended with the following hand...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818094
This hand is obviously a bit of a cooler but I think I played it pretty well by checking the turn against this opponent who could easily have been leading the flop with J9 or 22 and hoping to c/r the turn. K high v A high flush sucks though.

Next I played against a completely different player who was much more LAG and actually played quite well aside from a few leaks.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818131
This was the 3rd so I didn't want to raise the flop and be open to a 3bet without knowing anything about this player so calling is best I think. The turn is a pretty standard call given how weakly I played flop. However a bet on the river would have made an interesting decision and would depend on betsizing I think since the guy could easily have been value betting a worse jack but there is also a good chance I would have been beat. I think I would have called a half pot bet because I could easily be ahead plus also because information about someones flop donking and 3barrelling ranges are very valuable. On thinking about it though I think that I should have made a half pot bet on the river to get max value but checking isn't a terrible mistake.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818165
Pretty standard I guess, you've gotta love C/R the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818172
Standard up to the river I think, if the board didn't double pair I would have had a crappy spot.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818174
I had to fight back my urge to 4bet shove here. I really think had air but I was determined to be a good boy. Next time...

6 Max Table 1
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818185
I think I should have bet just a little more on the flop here to make it so I had under $100 on the river so my guy couldn't fold his ace.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818201
Man I love 200nl, I forgot that these people existed.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818206
The river is pretty interesting IMO. I think that you can make arguments for turning my hand into a bluff and looking for a showdown. Given the way the flop was played and the subsequent tiny bet on the turn and check on the river I think we can say that its unlikely that my opponent will have a flush unless its a poorly played AxTc etc. Without our history I think the river is a pretty easy pot sized bluff but because he folded to my shove when I had a flush I'm inclined to think he might want to look me up more than usual. Overall I still think it should be a bet but seeing a showdown with AK here certainly isn't a huge mistake.

Table 2
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818241
One the joys of playing 200nl is that you can make river bets like these without fearing a C/R allin.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818252
This guy 3bets fairly light so calling with the intention of making moves occasionally is ok I think.

So thats it, a pretty good sesson overall but obviously I still have plenty of areas of improvement. :)

Relearning old lessons

I'm going to try to get back into poker again over Christmas and get my skills back to a level where I can comfortably beat 400 or 500nl. Unfortunately it seems I am a long way off in some departments. After not playing consitently for a while I think it is quite normal to have lost a bit of sharpness in some areas but at the moment I seem to have one huge problem: my mental discipline. A major part of my previous success was that I wouldn't play when I wasn't properly focused and I would be quick to realise when I wasn't thinking straight and take a break - it seems that I have to work hard on this again.

I played a bit after getting completely crushed in the ptips tourney by constant 3betting and then in a reraised pot my semi bluff shove on a paired flop was called by A high - gg me. So I went back to the cash games and played some 200nl HU and 6max for a bit, things went horribly and I tilted pretty badly and lost 1.6k.... at 200nl.... thats 8 buyins. I have a mountain to climb.

So as embarassing as it is, here are the major hands.

First HU Game
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814487
A bit of a loose 3bet but I wanted to establish an image early on in the match so I think you can justify PF. Post flot I think is pretty standard; a good spot to 2 barrel and even 3 barrel with a gutshot given that the guy doesnt appear to have a strong hand and he should give me credit early on.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814497
This hand was pretty horrible. PF and flop is pretty standard early on but the river play is absolutely sickening. Only when I look back on it now do I see how utterly terrible it is. 1stly, dont lead out, check and hope for a free showdown or c/c if you believe the guy is bluffing (this would be a decent spot to bluff for him). Secondly, given that I donked and he raised I should just throw the hand away at this point and move up, this move is unfounded at this point in time. However even if I insist on reraising I should make it much less, say $150 because it should do the same job - get bluffs, Qs and Ks to fold without risking as much. However clearly the best move is checking the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814509
Pretty funny hand, obviously I have a (deservedly) horrific image at this point. I think betting the river in this spot would be pretty borderline and I think I probably got max value here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814523
I did think of checking the flop here but I think that there are many worse hands he will call with given my image plus I have a gutshot so betting is good. I think his C/R on the flop is either QJ,KT, T9, a flush draw (inc QcXc) or complete air since I expect a reraise PF with a big A and I dont expect him to C/R a small ace here (instead I think he would c/c 3 streets). Given that I have 2 kings KT is very unlikely so I'm obviously ahead against his c/r range but 3betting would be horrible so calling is best. When he then checks on the turn it makes me think that he does have a draw since you would expect QJ to bet again. So at this point I can either bet and hope to get a call or check and hope to induce some bluffs on the river. Against this opponent who doesnt seem to bluff that much I like the bet because he seems to want to call me down light as opposed to push me off air. Now the double checkraise is a very scary move and here is a tough spot. Even though the majority of the evidence suggests that my opponent is holding a draw I just can't see him making a dual C/R with a draw like this very often unless he picked up a monster draw on the turn e.g. T9h or 6Xc. So given the new info of the C/R I think I have to narrow down his hand range considerably to monster hand, monster draw or insane bluff. Of which A monster hand is more likely and even against a monster draw I wont be a big favourite so I think I should have folded.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814610
We are entering Tilt Town, its only resident: me. PF is horrible, flop isnt too bad but timing is also poor given previous hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814617
Pretty standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814627
Just plain horrible. PF is ok and I think flop should be a raise rather than a float but a float is ok every so often. The turn is a bad card for me though (both because he could have hit it and because I can't bet to effectively represent a pp) so I should have just given up. As played river is just horrrrrrrrrible.

So this was a horrible match, far too much tilt and also some basic errors.

6max table
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814639
This hand was pretty standard I think for a 3 handed game, I've played this guy before and I know he is a very loose and aggressive player so I think the call of his shove is just +EV. His range is almost entirely FD's, pairs and air. Given that I have 7 outs against most pairs and I'm ahead of FD's and air with 2-1 odds then its a decent call i think.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814665
Pretty standard. I would have done the same if I was him so no complaints here.

2nd HU Match
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814674
Pretty standard I think.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814687
Hand was played fine until the river, should have been a fold but I got curious. :(

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814677
Tough decision but given the information I got from last hand I think I should have folded. At the time I was struggling to find a hand I could beat because I expected him to bet an ace on the turn or river so a strong 2pair seemed unlikely and I didn't think he would shove a weak two pair like 95. So that leaves a slow played set or 87, and as hard as it is to say I think I should have folded a set HU.

2nd 6max game
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814699
Only played one meaningful hand at this table. PF is interesting because even if he has AA I think I'm getting good odds to see a flop but the pot size it creates and the resulting stack sizes makes it bad to play post flop - I made a slightly -EV move here and I should have folded the flop but I was on tilt at this point so it didnt happen.

Thats all I have time for right now since its 2am. Overall I am pretty appalled at what the hands I've just gone over. It makes me sad to see the sort of poker I am playing now and I am determined to turn things around. The new age of discipline begins....

Poker and Interviews

Yesturday was the last day of term so today I found myself in the unfamiliar situation of having nothing pressing to do - awesome! So I took the time to start my new 10k to 50k "challenge" and things went reasonably well and I ended up $370 for a 45min session. Firstly, to those of you who are thinking "10->50 is just boring, why not be a real man and aim for 100?" I would love to aim for 100 but I just wont have the time and its stupid to embark on something which you know you won't finish. So my current BR is at $10,500 since I started with a little over 10k but its great to get off to a winning start. Suprisingly I also enjoyed 8 tabling 200nl for a bit, I can't concentrate for as long as I can when I'm 4 tabling but I enjoyed just making lots of quick little decisions and not overthinking things. I played just over 600 hands and ran at 25/22/4.5 which is exactly the type of style I'm aiming for when multitabling. The big thing which I am working on at the moment is 4bet and 5bet bluffing since everyone seems to 3bet light these days. Its very suprising how significantly the style of play has changed from the summer and it leaves me with a lot of thinking and catching up to do.

The big thing in my life at the moment is interviewing for jobs. Last year I was far too slow to apply as well as being pretty clueless and having a terrible CV so I didn't get any interviews (well one which I couldn't make lol). This was actually quite good in a way because I applied to some pretty random positions which I probably wouldn't have enjoyed if I was successful. Now thanks to the LSE, I know exactly what I want to do - trading, what recruiters are looking for, and how to sell my skills effectively. Anyway poker has been a big focus in all the interviews I've had so far and its quite amazing how the skillsets required for trading and poker are very similar. Its great to be able to put something down on your CV which will really set you apart from other candidates (although sometimes its regarded as a negative thing). Also it will undoubtedly be brought up in any interview and you can easily prepare for the sort of questions that will get asked. I actually enjoy investment banking interviews because you have to think fast and be on your toes - very much like poker!

Anyway thats enough for now, next time I'll try to include some actual strategy talk. Tonight I'm going to try to play the PokerTips POY Main Event amongst other things so I'll post again later. Good luck at the tables guys.

A New Challenge

I'm going to start a new challenge, currently I have a $10k bankroll and I'm looking to get it to $50k. I'm not going to set myself a time limit because poker is at the bottom of my priorities right now so I won't be able to stick to a schedule or anything. Needless to say though, I'm going to try to play as much as I can whenever I get the chance so hopefully this won't take years. I'm going to start off playing $200nl and then move up to $400nl & $500nl when I hit $12k and $15k respectively. Basically whenever I have 30 buyins for the level above I will move up, although this will be my minimum requirement and I may decide to wait a bit longer before changing limits for whatever reason. Additionally, whenever I hit 20 buyins for my current level I will move down limits. I think this is a good number because it allows for a natural downswing if I had just moved up but it also provides a nice cushion for when I move down - this is quite important from a mental point of view because the last thing you want in a downswing is the pressure of a fragile bankroll.

More to follow...