Good Day

I made $125 at the 2/4 cash tables today and 3 buy ins heads up on .50/1.
My plan was to play some HU on UB, but I couldn't find any NL games only PL, so I had to withdraw and depost on Prima, which is where I played my HU for today. It's actually a good place for me to play HU, because the rake is high HU on NL 100 and I get a lot of rakeback on Prima.
Tomorrow I'll be playing some more 6max 2/4 and then hopefully some HU hands aswell later on. Once I reach +10 BIs on .50/1 I'll move up to 1/2 HU and repeat that there.

Time to play

I've finished the first half of my exams now and I'll be trying to play a lot of poker in the upcoming week. I'll still be working on my HU game and grinding it out on the 6 max tables 2/4.

I run g00t.........

...NAT!

Ok just finished a 400 hand session of NL 100 HU. I think I played pretty well and I definetly had weak opposition. What I've noticed so far is that a lot of the fish slow play a lot (atleast @ NL 100) and are generally loose passive, which is the easiest opponent to beat in NLHE.

He just sat down

And open shoved his first hand. Easy call, standard cooler.

Mixing it up

My flopped flush didn't hold up, not much I can do here. I won't be reraising this type of player too light, but hu has a different dynamics as to 6max or 9max to the degree where you can not just sit back and wait for big hands all the time. I basically considered this a play to balance my image and to get more value from when I do reraise for value.

Valuebetting a station

Stations hu can be a bit frustrating to play against, because it's difficult to make hands hu. You need to adjust by valuebetting hard when you have a good hand, but also when you have a mediocre hand that is likely best. I don't think this is too thin here as a lot of players can have hands here that I am ahead of, but checking would've been too weak in this spot.

Shoving bottom pair for value

I think my hand fairs pretty well against his leading range here. He'll have a lot of draws that I'm ahead of and likely fold a second or third pair hand.

As you can see most of these guys play 50-100bb stacks, they just buy in for whatever, but they are weak enough to make up for this even with the high rake.
I'm not entirely sure yet if I'll move up after these 5k hands, because I would like to end NL100 as a winner :/, I guess I'll decide that when I reach the 5k mark and I'm also positive I am a winner at these stakes, so I can still turn it around.

Learning...

Hi guys! I just played another session of HU. Ended down 1.5 buy-ins, but I feel I learnt something whilst playing. I was actually down 270bb to one guy, but I crushed all the other fish I played so it evened out to -150bb.
The guy who I was playing whom I dropped 270bb to seemed fairly competent and aggressive and I think I way overadjusted to him. I still need to get fully calibrated for HU, but in retrospect I don't think he was playing as aggro as it seemed. He easily could have been just making a lot of hands. I basically ran top pair into top two and TT into QQ pf, which I think was a bit spewy, because I don't think he was 4betting light. I think I still have about 2.5k hands on my HU nl 100 challenge and I'll definetly enjoy them, despite HU being high variance. I think I'm down about 3 stacks so far. With adjusted EV I'd guestimate I'm about break evenish.
I'll try and post some more hands when I get back to playing some more.
Right now I'm gonna go and have a bday meal at a local chinese restaurant (I like chinese food :D).
L8r.

21

Hi there. It was my 21st birthday yesterday. Quite a big number, but I haven't been able to make any celebrations yet.
I wrote a final examen for Spanish on my birthday and it didn't go well. I don't have any results yet, I just hope it's not too bad. That kinda spoilt my birthday for me cause it bugged me the whole day, but I kinda semi-recovered.
As far as poker, I haven't really been playing. Just the couple of hu sessions that I posted.
For the immediate future however I'll be really trying to focus on my studies, but I will be playing some smaller session in the evenings.
I got a lot of new stuff this january, including my new poker setup, which I already posted about, but here is a picture of my setup.
I haven't played poker on it yet, but I'm pretty satisfied. I've never really had a computer that I was completely satisfied with, so this is kinda like a milestone for me in my career.
I picked up NFSCarbon and Call of Duty 4 to test the system and it hasn't dissapointed me.
I doubt PT+PAHUD+Multitabling will be a problem, but I'll update when I have some info on that.

short hu session

Just played a 300 hand HU session on nl100 on Absolute and was able to book a reasonable win of +124$. I had an ok reg on one table and a fish on the other. I think I took more off of the reg when my KT held up vs his QT 200bb deep in a reraised pot on TsJsJc4sKc. He fired three streets and I am not sure if it was for value, very awkward hand, but the kid was scandinavian and they are super aggro so I figure he's definetly able of firing the river as a bluff here.

Hu is definetly fun to play and I still have a lot of adjusting to make, because the dynamics can be very different to a ring game. I think it will pay off in the long run to have a good hu game though, there's nothing better than playing high stakes hu vs a fish.
If I am up over these 5000 hands of HU, I'll definetly move up to nl200 due to the rake. I don't really think the competition is much tougher. I assume the regs will be better, but I'm not trying to play regs HU so it doesn't really matter much.

I recently purchased a digital-cam Kodak EasyShare M883, because I wanted a camera that I could take snap shots with when doing stuff with friends etc.. So the camera cost me 200
€, but is definetly not worth the money. The picture quality is average at best and it is not quick at taking pictures either. These are all things I told the salesman that were important to me and he somehow still managed to sell me a poor product, I checked this with online reviews.
I usually don't buy in shops, unless I know what I want exactly and I thought this time I might get someone to help me out, but I was dissapointed once again. I'm giving back the camera and I've already ordered the Canon Ixus 70 (Powershot SD1000 in US) which is cheaper and has far far better reviews. I hope it gets here soon.

frustrating hu session

Just played this fish HU for a pretty long time and lost 3.5 stacks to him (we paid 50bb rake wtf).
I'm pretty sure I had an edge on him.

First stack

I lost to this kid, I think you get my drift on why I think he was bad. Basically I'm never folding that turn when I pick up 15 outs and he leads weakly like that.

Cooler

On that flop there is not really much I can do tbh. He has weaker As and draws here that I'm ahead of plus he calls reraises very lightly.

Coinflip

Meh was a coinflip and I guess a beat if he calls my 4bets with t6s.

I basically kept on grinding up my stack and then losing some medium sized pot. I also value owned myself twice, I need to beware of that, I could be betting too thinly versus some of these guys.

Hu is a lot of variance so I basically need to put in some more hands to let the big numbers kick in. It is also very player dependant and requires a lot of adjusting to situations, which I like, because this is where you can really gain an edge vs a weaker player.

Busy

Hi y'all. Haven't posted in a while, but I haven't really been playing at all. I'm trying to focus on my final exams right now. I probably won't be playing NL 400 cash to the end of the month, but I've decided to continue with my NL 100 5k hands HU challenge. Put in about 450 hands yesterday and managed to end up +77$. I played 4 different people. First opponent was whitewash, we played a bit then got into a coinflip w/ak v 99 which I lost. I ended up valueowning myself with a thin valuebet and then he hit and run me ;) so I ended up down about 140 to him. Next opponent was a 5 tabling reg. Even though I knew he was a reg, I thought it'd be + EV to play a guy 5 tabling HU at these stakes, which I think is pretty difficult, so I turned up the aggression factor against him and managed to take 50bb off of him before he quit me. Next was a guy who was probably somewhat reasonable. I ended up losing a big pot with top two vs his straight and soon after he said he had to leave so that cost me a stack aswell. My final opponent was a guy who I'd classify as a fish, but whom I was also running well against. I was winning a lot of pots off of him, even my Q high always seemed to be good when we checked it down. I was definetly running well, but this guy was also definetly weak. He'd checkraise bottom pair and shove the turn inimproved and at the same time he'd check if he had a hand which is naturally very exploitable. After this guy was down about 3.5 stacks he declared the table was rigged and left. It's a shame cause I feel I had the moment, plus he was likely tilting so I could have taken him for even more, good for him if he can set himself a stop loss though.

I went to the cinemas the other day to watch the film I am Legend. After the film I immedeately thought it was good, but it took me about a day to actually truely process the film and now I like it even more. It's definetly worth checking out. I've found most of Smith's recent films have been good, so they're always a solid tip.

My computer will be arriving at the beginning of next week so it won't be long and I'll have my entire setup ready. My plan is to go into marathon mode for the last two days of the month to balance out the fact that I haven't been able to play.

Gotta go and continue with Spanish, talk to you later.

Still going steady

Put in some more hands today. Just 750, but I need to focus on my exams right now, so when I play I'll try and keep it at the 750 hand range.
In this post I'll post some of my hands just to let you in on some of the action.

Ace on the river

This hand just illustrates the power of AK. I'm only a 65% favourite pf. Hand is a standard cooler.

This guy likes t3h gamb00l, but he has the goods this time. Pokerhand just crashed so you'll have to endure the low graphic version of the HHs, I'll convert to plain text so they'll still be pretty readable.:

Absolute Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (2 handed) Absolute Poker Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

BB ($225.30)
Hero ($690.50)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Tc, Th.
Hero raises to $12, BB raises to $225.3, Hero calls $213.30.

Flop: ($450.60) As, 4h, 5h (2 players)

Turn: ($450.60) 9s (2 players)

River: ($450.60) Kc (2 players)

Final Pot: $450.60

Results below:
BB has Qd Qc (one pair, queens).
Hero has Tc Th (one pair, tens).
Outcome: BB wins $450.60.

I guess I got outplayed here. Was going for 3 streets of value, but the river came down pretty ugly. Tbh I felt pretty beat here given villains timing, fishiness and bet sizing. Also the river card was pretty bad, because he'd play a flush and possibly a boat the same way. It's interesting that he peels the flop w/a gutshot though, improves to 1 pair on the turn and turns his hand into a bluff on the river. The lines these guys take...:

Absolute Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (6 handed) Absolute Poker Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

MP ($861)
CO ($494)
Hero ($400.50)
SB ($1045.70)
BB ($578.40)
UTG ($465.60)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9h, 7d.
3 folds, Hero raises to $16, SB calls $14, 1 fold.

Flop: ($36) Ts, 3c, 8c (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $28, SB calls $28.

Turn: ($92) Jc (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $64, SB calls $64.

River: ($220) Tc (2 players)
SB bets $110, Hero folds.

Final Pot: $220

Results below:
SB has Jh Qs (two pair, jacks and tens).
Outcome: SB wins $220.

All I can say about the next hand is that I am happy to play with guys like this:

Absolute Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (4 handed) Absolute Poker Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

Button ($454.20)
Hero ($487.50)
BB ($611.50)
UTG ($784.65)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Qs, Qc.
UTG raises to $8, 1 fold, Hero raises to $38, 1 fold, UTG calls $30.

Flop: ($80) 7h, 6s, 2s (2 players)
Hero bets $64, UTG calls $64.

Turn: ($208) 3c (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $136, Hero raises to $385.5, UTG calls $249.50.

River: ($979) 4d (2 players)

Final Pot: $979

Results below:
UTG has 7c 8c (one pair, sevens).
Hero has Qs Qc (one pair, queens).
Outcome: Hero wins $979.

The next hand is my sickest pot for today. This is against the same guy whom I lost my TT to his QQ to for 50bb. This was a pretty close decision and villain was going through phases of shoving a lot and then slowing down. Given his timing (he didn't think long before putting his money in the middle, I figure if he'd have AA,KK,QQ he'd stop to think about how he can make the most money off of me) and the fact that he showed down QQ to me last hand (I know he's shoving light, but he may think I'm scared money against him, because he showed me a decent hand the last time plus I had been folding to his all-in raises. This is a very minor thing, because I could be levelling myself by giving villain to much credit, but it's the small things that added up for me in this hand). I was talking to whitewash as this hand was happening and he figured it was close. I felt I needed to call given his range, but that I should be prepaired to be behind here some percentage of the time:

Absolute Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (5 handed) Absolute Poker Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

BB ($156)
UTG ($322.80)
MP ($388.40)
Button ($414)
Hero ($537.80)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9h, 9s.
1 fold, MP raises to $12, 1 fold, Hero raises to $44, 1 fold, MP raises to $388.4, Hero calls $344.40.

Flop: ($780.80) 6c, 7h, Ks (2 players)

Turn: ($780.80) Tc (2 players)

River: ($780.80) 2d (2 players)

Final Pot: $780.80

Results below:
Hero has 9h 9s (one pair, nines).
MP has 8c 8h (one pair, eights).
Outcome: Hero wins $780.80.

Here villain is a fish and it's pretty obvious my hand is good here. Given that these guys never fold this is a standard value raise, I could have even made it slightly bigger, but it worked out well:

Absolute Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (4 handed) Absolute Poker Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

BB ($937.35)
Hero ($449)
Button ($306)
SB ($994.30)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Ks, Kc.
Hero raises to $16, 2 folds, BB calls $12.

Flop: ($34) 5h, Ts, 8h (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $28, BB calls $28.

Turn: ($90) 5s (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $64, BB calls $64.

River: ($218) 4c (2 players)
BB bets $55, Hero raises to $200, BB calls $145.

Final Pot: $618

Results below:
BB has Ac 8s (two pair, eights and fives).
Hero has Ks Kc (two pair, kings and fives).
Outcome: Hero wins $618.



My Computer hasn't arrived yet and I can't wait for it to get here. I don't really have any lag on ipoker with HUD running, but my computer doesn't like ABS+Hud or FTP+Hud.

Tomorrow I'll be back to uni and I am kinda happy to do that and get my exams over with, I just hope I can balance everything well, but I'm slowly getting back a decent sleeping rhythm.

l8rs

Nice short session

I had a pretty nice "short" (in comparison to sessions I have played in the past) session today.
They're weren't really many tough spots and I was able to dodge suckouts from the fish.
I've also modded ipoker now and I am alot more pleased with the way it looks. I purchased a program called ibolide, which is basically a program that is capable of modding ipoker skins (for some reason you can just edit the exisiting files). The software was 22$, and I think it's slightly overpriced, but if I can have a stress free session it is worth the extra couple dollars I guess.
I'll probably be getting eyepoker (spadeit's ipoker scan+mining tool) soon too.
Right now I'm gonna go and checkout GP's latest high stakes vid and then probably wait for my VIP freeroll on Absolute to begin and play that. I'll be playing some 2/4 on the side too.
I'll post some more interesting hands when they come up.

iPoker

I've been grinding it out a bit on 2/4 on iPoker. Ipoker is a EU site that is pretty big. You can check it out here www.pokerscout.com, it's the fith biggest and not far behind Party Poker. Games look pretty soft and they definetly are aswell. Most of the regs are weak/tight from what I've seen so no real competition there.
I made 1.1k the other day on Absolute 1/2+2/4, but managed to lose back 900 today on iPoker 2/4. I'm actually satsified with that result as at one point I was done 2.6k and I was close to moving down to 1/2 again, but then I managed to win some pots and recover.
I definetly think I am playing well though and the confidence I gained from moving down to 1/2 definetly helped.
I'll try and log some more hands tomorrow.

2008 is here!

2008 has arrived and I hope we all had a smooth transition ;).

For starters I went out w/some friends to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, after that we proceeded to watch the fireworks in the center of town. Innsbruck has some pretty good fireworks that they spend a lot of money on and have advertisement for in the north of Italy. Anyways when we got there they had locked the utter most center of the town from where you could actually see the fireworks properly, so we ended up seeing just about 1/3 of it all, which sucked a bit, but what can you do.
When the fireworks were over we went to some private parties. The first one sucked big time, but we quickly proceeded to the next where there were a lot of cool people my age group so that was fun.

I'll be upgrading my PC this month infact I have already purchased the core upgrades. I ordered xdsl internet which I don't know how long will take for them to get everything setup. It's 35€ a month, flatrate and pretty fast (I think 1024kbit dload and 768kbit upload).
I've also ordered a second Samsung 204b 20" screen and a desktop PC (AMD X2 6000+, 2gb RAM, Nvidia 8800 GT 512 RAM). This should erase any lag I had whilst playing.

Ofcourse I have a new years resolution. In 08 I have a financial goal of 200k or more, I believe I can do that. I'd also like to further improve my Spanish so I feel at ease speaking to any native.
I'd like to complete any uni course I start and work out on a regular basis. I started out well w/working out, but I lacked the discipline/motivation at times. I'd also like to maintain a healthy sleeping pattern over the most of 08.
I'll write down my goals for myself later on so that I don't forget them over the year and I may add one or two more.

Looking at 07 I can't really complain. A lot happend for me in 07 and it definetly changed me, I'm glad to say mostly for the better. I hope 08 will be even better though! One big appointment I have already made will be me staying in Vegas for 3-4weeks w/poker friends (jwayks, shadybreakfast, jethro87 and I think Haupt will show up there some time). That should get interesting, otherwise I will definetly be visiting Spain again (maybe even as soon as March).

Got to go and get some food now. Talk to y'all later.