August 18, 2008 at 11:37 am
· Filed under Tournaments
For a very, very long time I’ve completely avoided tournaments - Quite an oddity since my first year Poker was spent playing 3-4 live tournaments a night followed by 7-8 online tournaments once I got home.
However! I’ve started playing them again! I’ve played the daily $80k quite regularly and using my FPP’s to enter the Sunday Million and Sunday Warmup each week (something I hope to continue doing).
Best of all I just made my first big placing in a tournament (11th out of 1935 players). Results shown below!
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August 18, 2008 at 8:38 am
· Filed under Hand Histories, Tournaments
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August 18, 2008 at 3:27 am
· Filed under Progress Report
Hoo-rah!
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August 14, 2008 at 3:00 pm
· Filed under PokerTracker
Right! To open this i’d like to stick it to spell check for trying to tell me to title this ‘coloring’ - Not going to happen!
Now, onto the juicy stuff!
Read the rest of this entry »
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August 14, 2008 at 2:10 pm
· Filed under Progress Report
Ack! August… This month is truly making poker feel like a grind. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to focus on poker this month (particularly the last couple of days with the new StoxPoker backend being launched) and every time I’ve sat down to play a session I’ve either broken even or lost a few buyins. However! Things are pulling up over the last couple of sessions and hopefully I can turn August into a profitable month!
See below for a graph of winnings:hands from PokerTracker for August:
For comparison here is the final graph from July for No Limit Hold’em (I’m not including my Limit results in this graph since I’ve only played $1/$2 NL Hold’em in August so far):
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August 11, 2008 at 12:32 pm
· Filed under Misc Stuff
Anytime before you bet or raise there are always two things that I feel should always go through your head (before you start considering outs / pot odds):
Number 1. What hands am I going to get value from which I am beating?
Number 2. What hands am I folding out which are beating me?
If you are betting without being able to answer at least one of these questions then you are betting without purpose. Bluffing is one thing but don’t become another “cold bluffer” (a bluffer who bluffs without knowing why they are bluffing).
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August 2, 2008 at 2:43 am
· Filed under Progress Report
Well No Limit went incredibly awesome for July and I’m over the moon about it. Below are my last two weeks in July (click the images for a larger view):
FullTilt:
PokerStars:
All in all I think my No Limit game has improved dramatically. I think the two biggest reasons for this is hitting the tables and of course the number of poker videos I watch each day by working for StoxPoker. Without StoxPoker I can easily say that I wouldn’t have made half of the money I did and definitely wouldn’t feel as good about my No Limit game as I currently am.
Added to this I also booked a good lot of hands at fixed limit and as soon as I get my Hold’em Manager database working again I’ll post those also (I personally find PokerTracker to be by far the best HUD for No Limit and Hold’em Manager to have statistics which I refer to more in Fixed Limit - I hope to elaborate on this more in a future post).
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June 17, 2008 at 11:29 pm
· Filed under Psychology
I’ve noticed that a lot of new and upcoming players tend to be far too short term results orientated (myself included in the past).
To help overcome this concatenate all of the poker sessions you have played, are playing and will play in your mind into one big session. In this session you are no longer short term results orientated - you are still early into the session (since it’s lifelong) and are focusing on playing a solid, winning game. Don’t have odds to peel the flop? Fold - The situation will come up many more times this session. Don’t have a good enough hand to raise the lag blinds? Fold - you will get a hand later on in this session and their play style will pay you off.
Case in point - It is far better to be long term then short term results orientated and in doing so you will play better and can avoid being so focused on your bankroll figure but instead on your quality of play.
I think you need to think of this but additionally also think of yourself as consistently profiting as you play the game. You may have only made $50.00 in one session but on the flip side made $180 worth of good decisions.
Poker isn’t just a game against your opponents it’s also a game against yourself - take control of the you factor by forgetting short term results and instead focusing on the decisions put in front of you at the table.
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June 12, 2008 at 11:23 pm
· Filed under Progress Report
Well my first week truly focusing on No Limit is over - so how did I do? Overall I’ve had a pretty odd week, I started on the deepstack $1/$2 (400bb’s deep) No Limit tables and made almost $1500 in just under 150 hands with one incredible heater (I doubled up early and then doubled up through another big stack with a set of Aces verses a set of Ten’s on a dry board). Unfortunately this pretty much closed the books on my No Limit action for the week since I spent the rest of the week mostly doing StoxPoker work and playing a few hands of Limit Hold’em here and there.
Overall I’m quite surprised at how easily a lot of the 200NL players are willing to stack off for 100 big blinds or more. I can’t understand how so many players are happy going broke with top pair / top kicker on dry boards. If a player is willing to stack off with you on a relatively dry board then he is either way ahead or way behind you, so why are these players happy putting the money in so easily? I am seeing so many players finding creative ways to call with the most ridiculous of hands. I love it - but it’s hard to understand what’s going on in these players minds.
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June 10, 2008 at 2:16 am
· Filed under Misc Stuff
For almost eight years now, I have been playing and studying this wonderful game called poker. I’ve played Limit Hold’em professionally, coached numerous players, written many a forum post, and currently work as the production manager for StoxPoker.com – the best job and people to work for in the world.
Although I’ve played and studied many different variants of poker – from 2-7 triple draw, to Razz, to No Limit Hold’em – I’ve never really taken the time to get my No Limit Hold’em cash game to the same level as my Limit Hold’em cash game (I usually play up to $20/$40 Limit Hold’em a few hours each week when I’m not busy doing StoxPoker work).
The aim of this blog is to document my progress from being a profitable player at .50c/$1 No Limit Hold’em (currently 7.2BB/100 after 48,600 hands), towards being a profitable player at $5/$10 No Limit Hold’em. I hope to make this jump over the next 18 months (gradually moving up limits), and want to prove to myself that I can beat, as well as document, the different limits along the way.
Points to remember and take with me on my journey:
- In Limit Hold’em, protecting your hand is more prevalent than it is in No Limit Hold’em. In No Limit Hold’em, you should be focusing on controlling the size of the pot, as well as protecting your implied odds and the money sitting in front of you.
- Your goal is to finish the hand with a particular sized pot; not to get money in as quickly as possible.
- Control the pot in position - even if this sometimes means checking a street.
- Protect your implied odds on non-draw heavy boards.
My aim is to fit in some poker study where possible each day – fortunately this is already included in my daily work routine (reviewing StoxPoker videos before release). Added to this I have pretty much every book in the TwoPlusTwo library, have pulled out “Harrington on Cash Games” Volumes I and II to study, and intend to follow that up with Ed Miller’s “No Limit Hold’em - Theory and Practice”.
Hopefully over time I can post meaningful content (and hand histories), which might help others who begin the same transition.
Enjoy!
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(a full house Kings full of Nines)