february results

cash games
nlh25
4290 hands for +$70.55
3.29bb / 100


pokerstars bonii +$50
full tilt bonii +$20

total february +$140.55

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2008 to date +207.62

crazy month again, i wasn't in profit until the last week of february and then finally my patient aggressive play was rewarded with some of my bigger hands getting called and holding up. with things finally coming together i've actually managed to post my best month profit wise so far in my short poker career. add in a few bonii and i'm pretty chuffed with it.

reviewing my hands i see that i probably could have performed even better then i have if it wasn't for some truly horrible suck outs. thats variance i guess and i was rewarded in the end by continuing to make the right decisions. i did however have one suck out of my own when i ran my jacks into kings, bad thing was i new he had me beaten but i pushed over the top anyway and managed to hit a third jack on the river :) i thought i was never going to suck out on anyone but i finally did. woop woop

i'm seriously considering getting a subscription to cardrunners at the moment. i watched an introduction video and i have to say i remembered so much more from that one video then i do reading chapter after chapter of dry poker books! anyone else out there have a subscription and think its worth it?

think thats about everything for feb, thanks for reading and commenting this month. hope march is good to everyone, unless your playing me!

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babe of the month : february

not been in the news recently but has always been a firm favourite of mine with some great music videos like dip it low, and a movie where she's a cheerleader, man of the house!

february's babe of the month is none other then christina milian


enjoy her loveliness

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can you spell?

...well if you can then alpha-bet may be for you, especially if you like to play with words.

grub smith, regular poker columnist for poker player magazine, and of fhm fame has only gone and given up his day job to take the world by storm with a new kind of gamble!

thats right, it seems that grub has taken one of the bizarre ideas he presented in his column and has made it a reality! imagine crossing poker with scrabble and basically you have alpha-bet.

does it have a future, who knows, will it take the world by storm, maybe not but if you are just plain curious check it out - alpha-bet

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profit...at last

finally i'm in profit for the month, its been a rollercoaster thus far but just rounded out a session leaving me one fith of a buy-in up for the month!

would have been a lot more if my qq didn't get done over by 5/8o, i mean i'm sure the guy new that my pre-flop raise, and re-raise of his flop bet meant his pair of fives were good...and he was half right when he hit an 8 on the river!

anyhoo, in prof, thats all that matters!

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thanks fish-er-roo's

have been moving some money about between poker accounts and thought that even though i play at the micro stakes there is no reason why i shouldn't enjoy my winnings. i know i won't be splurging any time soon on a house, a fast car, a trip to vegas or even a picture of dogs playing poker, but there is one thing that my winnings will let me enjoy...


...thats right fish-er-roo's, tonight i have $6 of poker winnings burning a hole in my pocket and i'm gonna enjoy one on the donkeys. so here's to mr 7/8o all in on a 9/q/a board, or miss i can't lay my 2nd pair down regardless of the bet to me. you may suck out on me more often then i like, but tonight, one beer at least is on you!

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oh aces, i love/hate you

thought i'd log on for a quick sess tonight to try and recoup some of my losses from my spew fest the other night. i found myself a few decent tables and sat down ready for action.

i few hands in i'm dealt the loathsome pocket aces, i'm sitting one off the hijack so min raise to try and get a little action from a blind at least and draw 2 callers, one little scamp being a short stack. flop comes down dry and my pot bet is swiftly raised all in by shorty. no hesitation on my part, call and...

aarrrggghhh! ...or so i thought, but then i remembered the words of short-stacked shamus and ryverrat who commented on my last aces nightmare. with that in mind and a few woo saa's i was back to normal within seconds. just glad the scamp was a shorty so i had a shot at a speedy recovery.

a few hands later and i picked up the dreaded aces again. straight away i feel petrified i'm going to experience more of the same, or converesly no action at all. either way i was ready to laugh it off. much to my surprise i got the action i wanted on almost exactly the flop i dreamed of. all the money went in and the only thing i'm scared of is some poc 8's.


no poc 8's (i don't think i would have been able to hold it together if he did have 8's though) and my aces are good and i felt my poor little opponent, woo hoo! some semi faith in aces has been restored, there is still a long way to go but job done for now!

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full tilt poker

so i've been playing at full tilt for a couple of weeks now and i thought i'd write a review of my experience thus far.

i joined full tilt after being a regular stars player but finding that at my micro limits there was little to no chance that i'd ever clear any kind of bonus as a reward for my play. with this in mind i thought a little trip to full tilt with the chance of recouping up to $600 sign up bonus plus the 27% rakeback was worth my while.

software
i like it and i don't. having plied my trade at the super smooth pokerstars you come to expect absolute finesse. full tilt software is good, don't get me wrong but there are things like, the sound effects not matching up to the animations, or the inability to get hand histories emailed to you instantly that seem like bigger problems then they are after playing at stars.

i know people talk about online sites being rigged, and i don't subscribe to this, but i have to say the random number generator at full tilt does seem to produce some crazy action! i mean i've had some serious bad beats since playing there, but i also seem to get dealt a lot more premium hands, or at least high hard hands. i used to enjoy massive barren spells at stars with not even a k/jo. at full tilt i seem to get a couple of face cards every few hands.

overall though, the software is good, its not stars good, but its easily second best. my pokeroffice client works perfectly with it and have had no problems, just small irritations.

traffic
full tilt is the second largest site behind pokerstars, recently overtaking party poker to take the title of number one challenger to stars dominance. i only play micro limits at the moment and traffic down the bottom is strong and steady. i must admit its rare that i find an open seat at any of the full ring tables but after jumping on few waiting lists i'm usually playing within 5 minutes.

play
i thought full tilt had fairly decent players, that was my understanding after reading the reviews, but after playing the micro limit tables i have to say its not true. i mean, its great, there are fish-er-roos everywhere, swimming around with not much clue. players down the bottom seem quite happy to call an all in with a/10h on a 3c 6s 9h board vs my qq, there is obviously nothing you can do when they hit a runner runner heart flush but apparently if you keep putting the money in ahead you'll be a long term winner! given players fishee tendencies it means play can be quite erratic with swings up and down in every session through odd calls and bizarre suck outs. it makes bluffing or reading opponents fairly hard but of you can adapt your game to the fish-er-roos play you'll be laughing.

support
only needed support once and that was to get some hand histories sent, they were emailed fairly promptly which was great. i did notice that the format of emailed hand histories is different to live hand histories giving me some database issues but all got fixed fairly swiftly.

usp
unique selling point that is. it has to be the pro's, full tilt has millions of them and its dead easy to watch them play. only the other night i railed durrr vs. ivey on the $500/1000 nlhe table of death. crazy sums of money were changing hands and durrr was enjoying most of it. i love this feature on full tilt and often surf around looking for some pro's after a session just to enjoy some high stakes action.

overall
i have to say that so far i'm enjoying myself on full tilt. its very different to stars and i sometimes jump back over to enjoy the finesse of the stars client but full tilt feels more like what poker should be. if stars feels like sitting in a monte carlo casino then full tilt is like your in a saloon throwing chips about, sipping whiskey while packing a 6 shooter! if i can handle the random beats and crazy action i'm sure full tilt will become my new permanent home and i recommend you give it a try.

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wow!

thats pretty much all i can say. i've just experienced my worst losing session i've ever had and going over the beats i'm not sure what to say. i just couldn't buy a break, nothing went my way and i mean nothing. every hand i made got cracked. my aces full of eights got beat by aces full of nines, my aces high flush was busted by a straight flush, the list goes on and on.

then this happened and it sent me on tilt. i've never really been on tilt, maybe for a hand or so while i gained my composure back but i lost it with this and started hurling chips all over the place. i mean i couldn't throw them at people fast enough. i'm sure the full tilt servers had problems keeping up with the chips flying out my account. what a disgrace.

i think i need a little break. i may log back on later to try and recoup some winnings but i'm hurting pretty bad at the mo. god dam 9's!

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check this out

one for the boys, totally what i think the power of the web should be about, don't worry its work friendly direct daniella

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does villains line make sense

just played this hand and wanted your thoughts on villains (bb) line here and if you feel a call is justified. villain was playing 15/8 over a fairly small sample

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players

MP2: $7.05
CO: $13.70
BTN: $34.10
SB: $9.55
BB: $27
UTG: $5.15
UTG+1: $26.10
Hero (UTG+2): $26.60
MP1: $8.80

Pre-Flop: 5 5 dealt to Hero (UTG+2)
2 folds, Hero calls $0.25, MP1 folds, MP2 calls $0.25, 2 folds, SB calls $0.15, BB checks

Flop: ($1) 5 T 6 (4 Players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $1, MP2 folds, SB calls $1, BB calls $1

Turn: ($3) K (3 Players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $2.50, SB folds, BB calls $2.50

River: ($8) A (2 Players)
BB bets $8

runner runner flush?

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oh the irony

so just after i posted about getting unstuck i thought i'd hit the tables for a quick session, nothing too intense just a speedy hit and run. so there i was, about even when this happened


i'm thinking great, set over 2 pair, only four outs can ruin this, i'll take it down and off i go...then

awesome, i'm stuck again! anyhoo, i hung around and managed to get myself back in the green but i was so close to freaking out, i guess it was a good lesson in tilt control which i managed to pass but oh so annoying none the less!

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whats more satisfying?

i haven't been running or playing that well so far in feb. i've had moments of genius followed by bigger moments of stupidity leaving me behind rather then significantly ahead. the times i've been ahead its business as usual but when i'm behind there seems to be something strangely satisfying about it!

little crazy sounding but when i'm winning, i'm just winning. i don't impose any stop win system, i just play till i start to feel like i'm losing concentration and then i'll log off and chill out a bit. however when i'm stuck everything seems to become clear. if i'm far behind then i'll usually write the session off and focus on one single goal, and thats to get unstuck. as soon as i hit the green, whether it be as little as 10 cents i'll usually log off and feel extremely satisfied with myself. i feel like i've achieved something that having a winning session doesn't really give me. i feel like i've climbed out of a hole and played good solid poker to do so, as usually its loose wayward play that has got me in that situation in the first place.

i don't think its just me that feels this way, i think its universal. i think getting unstuck is a poker players mount everest, its never easy and requires real concentration, effort and self restraint, its a grind if you will. but when achieved it really is like conquering a nemesis.

so to me, getting unstuck is actually more satisfying then booking a straight forward winning session. i feel like i've saved myself and what ever the win is, no matter how small, feels like a resounding victory.

so here's to getting yourself stuck just to have the pleasure of unsticking yourself!

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stress

stress is something that everyone experiences throughout their lives. whether the stress comes from work, home or other its never a pleasant experience.


i'm currently hugely stressed at work due to problems caused by colleagues which i'm having to sort out. its the usual backroom staff screwing things up with absolutely no regard to what happens in the front office. the problem with workplace stress is that its constantly changing, one day it can be due to x the next day y. the following week it can be z, q and s, who knows! its therefore very hard to work out a way to deal with that stress because no two situations are the same.

professional poker players as a rule are subject to high levels of stress as well. this can stem from, amongst other things, wagering huge amounts of money on a single hand, being down to their last buy in or having their tournament lives on the line. however the advantage a poker player has is that there is really only a limited scenarios that can cause you stress. yea, sure you can argue that no two hands or tournaments are the same, but essentially the stress causing principles are the same. a bad beat is a bad beat, getting knocked out a tornie is the same regardless, so once a poker player has experienced these situations 10, 20, 100 times their stress reaction to them is diluted or reduced. Over time a great poker player experiences almost zero stress to any situation because they have been their before, and any sign of stress or an adverse reaction could be construde as a tell, obvioulsy not recommended.

you may wonder where i'm going with this, well my point is, that although a professional poker player may experience a higher level of stress then a regular 9 to 5'er in the earlier part of their career, i would say that the longer they play the less stress they experience, whereas poor old 9 to 5'er still has the same ever evolving stress quotient!

so my conclusion is that basically the more stressed i get on the 9 to 5'er side of the fence, the greener it looks on the other side. the only way to tell is experience both, which is out of reach for most but as it stands now, i'd rather be taking a bad beat on the cyber felt which i know how to handle then dealer with the muppets in the backroom!

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commitment threshold

i've been reading an interesting article on pot commitment and a players commitment threshold and have to say i think its probably one of my biggest leaks.

i often find that i'm dropping between 10-15% of my stack to see a turn card, which in nl25 is only a dollar raise pre flop and a pot size bet on the flop. so as you can see a very easy place to find yourself.

the article goes on to explain that whenever you commit or know you will have to commit more than 10% of your stack, that you have a plan in place before you do so. this plan should basically be the way you want to play the hand.

for example, say you call a raise from the cut off with k/jo and hit a jack high flop (js/10h/6s). this is great for you, your opponent checks and you bet the pot and your opponent calls. the turn is 7h and your opponent checks again. what do you do here?

the commitment threshold states that you have put in over 10% of your stack so you need to decide whether you are willing to go all in here. is top pair, second kicker a hand you are willing to go all in with?

you're probably thinking, why on earth would i consider going all in, well imagine you bet the pot again and your opponent check raises you. now you are in an extremely tough position, you could be facing either of two flush draws, a straight draw, a combo draw, set or even an overpair and you have committed over a third of your stack ($1 dollar preflop to call the raise, c. $2 pot bet on the flop then c. $6 pot bet on the turn with $25 effective stack)

folding after investing over a third of your effective stack here is a mistake, and getting yourself into this position is also a mistake and a leak.

an effective plan to deal with this situation could be keeping the pot as small as possible. the bet on the flop is fine but the bet on the turn can lead you into trouble, a check behind gives you a chance to avoid running into a flush or a straight depending on what falls on the river and should both draws miss you hopefully entice your opponent to bluff off chips which you can safely call at a reduced risk to your total stack.

what do you guys think? i've never looked at planning a hand in this way but running through the examples in the article it makes perfect sense.

any comments welcome

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seymour cards has diversified

not due to any demand, and probably not due to any sane reasoning but because i had some time on saturday i decided to set myself up on facebook!

thats right, seymour cards has gone facebook stylee. i now have a rather fetching profile and a bit of bla about me and my hobbies, don't know why i bothered but i wanted you all to know i have!

so far i have one friend, i don't know who they are, they asked me and because i didn't have any friends i decided to say yes...god thats sad and pathetic.

so if you wanna be my second friend then click here to see my profile. you can even take my wall virginity if you want, i'm easy!

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january results

cash games
nlh25
3018 hands for +$37.07
2.46bb / 100

party poker bonii +$30.00
poker office software bonus valued $79 (not included)

total january +$67.07

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2008 to date +$67.07

so a bit of an erratic month in january. i can't say i played any better then average. i feel i ran well in spots and i played a patient game giving me opportunity to maximise some big hands, however there were stupid mistake in there that really dented the overall result in places.

i do feel that i'm slowly absorbing some of the more complicated concepts as i keep getting these eureka moments in strange places. i'll be in the gym or something and all of a sudden out of nowhere i'll suddenly be like, wow, now i get that hand, why didn't i see the implied odds there. or of course that play meant uber strength why am i calling when i should be folding! strange how these things must be working away in your subconscious and then pop to the from when they are done...like a microwave cooking a curry...ping!!

i need to sort out some serious hands in feb as due to my holiday i didn't get to play the amount i wanted. i also think i'm going to move my play over to full tilt so i can take advantage of the rake back, unless anyone can convince me another site is way better. i also want to post some simple strat stuff as well. nothing major but will get me thinking about poker properly.

thats all from me, me thinks. hopefully will kick off feb in style shortly

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