meh

*tilt*

i experience 35 thousand hands of swing and tilt. i run around 3k$ under expectation, thus my game is heavily affected - my bluff frequency, especially of pure bluffs rose, and i call down way to light without a special read.
my last session was way better, mostly because i could win some big pots right at the beginning. i played solidly and not as spewy as in the last days. hopefully i can find back to my game, see you at the tables.
gl,
bernd

dear titan

gimme my fucking money!!

nuff said

nl 200 :)

yesterday i put in some hands on nl 200, just to get back the feeling for the bigger games. i have more then 30 stacks for nl 200 and i will occasionally play 2 to 4 tables until i have got 50 stacks. in the past i would have played nl 200 with 25 stacks but my swings got bigger lately and i think it's not good for my game (and not healthy for me) to lose half of my bankroll.

the session went well and i won 2 stacks in 300 hands playing 2 tables of nl200 and 4 of nl 100.
i had no problems with the cash ammount and got pretty good tables.
right now i think about playing 6 tables of nl 100 but i am still drunk :P
well, i don't care.
i'm allin.

june

i cannot give true numbers this month, because handgrabber for pacific poker doesn't work too well on my system and crashes at times. i played approximately 30k hands and went up around 10 stacks. for those hands that are saved in my database, i'm running 10 stacks under expectation (www.pokerevsoftware.com).
wasn't a great month but i stopped playing at pacific and turned to titan poker, which has a waaayyy better software and a great support. the only negative aspect is that i really need to table select more active because there a lot more good regulars.

goal for next month:
putting in min 20k hands.
don't tilt when they 3bet me like all the ***** time
don't tilt (too much) in general
watch at least 5 cardrunners(.com) vids
play more omaha
play some heads up

HU - is it love?

played 1k hands of headsup nl100 and won around 6 stacks. i think i am getting better in hu with every new opponent i play. it's all about adjusting and the game changes completely whenever a new opponent enters the table. the dynamic and the flow of the match are so important that i think it's nearly impossible to get usefull feedback on a certain hand. at least i don't always remember exactly at what stage a game was afterwards.

so far i played 10k hands this month with a winrate of approximately 6.5 ptbb/100. that's because i don't have the hands of some sessions and i think i played most hands on nl100. this adds up to 1.2k $, which is around 4 euros and 30 eurocents, so i earned a beer at the "fanmeile" and tip for 50cents. :P



today austria lost very unlucky 0:1 to croatia. they were the better team but failed to score. i guess the dream of reaching the quarter finals is over but maybe we can show the world that we do have a good team. good luck guys.

hu - i like :)

played around 400 hands of hu holdem today. i had really good cards but nedless to say that most opponents were pretty bad. unfortunately handgrabber didn't work once more. it's very frustrating to play on pacific software wise and i'm going to look for a site with better software. that bs fucking tilts me so much..

however, i am up around 9 stack and i will play nl 200 again. i changed my bankrollmanagement a bit towards a more conservative style. i have got 30 buyins for nl 200 without my battlefield money. without 25 buyins or more i will not play nl200 because i want to keep myself from tilting too much.

wish me luck,
bernd

june session

i'm around 5k hands for this month which is quite a bit for my means.

coolers:

#1
i didn't 3bet the pfa too often because fizzby limped like every hand and i expected that he would overcall alot of 3bets, which would give the pfa good odds to overcall w suited connectors and stuff. actually 8844whatever was playing something like 30/25ish and i reeeally wonder why 1time18 didn't play a single pot against him or reraised him because it was quite obvious he was isolating fizzby all the time. however, 88 overcalls my 3bet w q8o, which is quite fishy imo and i get sucked out on the turn.

#2

i have 65% on the flop, which is sick for holdem without hitting something.

#3


i played some hu and although im down a bit i feel like this is very profitable. there are so many fishes in the pacific..

biggest pot -> hu is the nuts

..and the nuts..

and the nuts!

May results

may was an ok month and i learned alot about not tilting. i had a alot of sick swings both up and down and ended up w a winrate of around 4 ptbb/100 which isn't great but definitely a solid winrate. i will try to post more often than i did in the past. actually i freshed up my mind about poker. this is gonna be my job for the next few months and i take the game more seriously than ever before. i reached every goal i set last month. (still praying for my money)

April, wtf?

last month was the worst so far in my poker career. i don't have correct stats because i wasn't the only one tilting.. (i experienced problems with the software that reads hands played at pacific)
i am approximately down around 2k $ at NL Holdem 200 and 100 @ approx 6k hands. i didn't play a lot because i felt that i was far away from my A game, the weather was great and i started to play football more regularly again. love this game.
yesterday i had a good feeling about playing poker again and won about 5 stacks @ NL100 (1k hands) and today i put in a small session and went up a little bit more than a stack. i think i played good but i got lucky in some battles with quite good regulars.

Goals for march:
-put in 12k+ hands -> shouldn't be a big problem because now i can 6 table at pacific
-read elements of poker
-pray to get my money back from TUSK
-work seriously on my game and try to see poker as a way to not take up a "real" job

running better

i put in some hands on nl100 and things are running ok. i got back 6 stacks and lost 4 today again so i am a little bit up @ nl100 right now. i had some crazy hands against a 80/60/5 guy today. first i lost AA against his flushdraw which he instapushed on the flop and the very next hand i had JJ on a 668 flop in a 4 betpot (he always minraised my openraises) and he showed up with 69o (needless to say that he instapushed on the flop). but i got some money back..

villain makes hero calls..

i feel confident again and that's what makes me feel good about putting in more hands. unfortunately there are two exams next week and i won't have too much time left for poker.

another 3 stacks down...

im down 3 stacks in 800 hands @ NL100. dont wanna talk about it...

back to NL100...

i have just played 2 tables of nl200 losing around 300 dollars. i will step back to nl100 to get back some money and win back confidence. it seems like i cannot win a single pot and i think i'm tilting a little bit. i am not throwing around my headset (like i did in the past) or things like that but i'm playing suboptimal in some spots.

biggest pots

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2398645

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2398650
given bbs timing i think i should have folded. i raised titiss minraises quite often but bb shows a lot of strength, given the fact that he nearly insta 4bets me..

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2398659
villain 26/17/2
he has been folding to my rr quite often and i thought that his minraise was a bluff and called in order to bluff on later streets. i picked up a flushdraw and decided to get it in after he checked to me on the turn. i could have checked behind but i wanted to bluff and i thought it's better to get it in with some equity if he really has a good hand. i feel like my play is spewy without any better read. my assumption was purely based on table dynamics and i am not sure if villain has a checkminraisebluff in his arsenal. however, i like the rr preflop since he started calling very light even out of position.


http://www.pokerhand.org/?2398670

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2398715

12 buyins

seems like i am losing in every part of my life right now...
i know it's just variance but it hurts nevertheless. actually i will take some time off from poker now to get a fresh mindset. if things run well the next few sessions i can stay at 200 but i fear i have to step back to 100 because my bankroll isn't sufficient for my current limit without the 2.5k battlefield owes me...

7 buyins

i am around 7 buyins down in my last two sessions. i don't have all handhistories in my database because handgrabber for pacific is bs... software tilted me and right now i am not sure if i just played bad or if things just didn't go my way. i couldn't win a single big pot, so i am not too concerned about me playing too bad. i don't really know if i should go back to NL100 because i don't know if i will ever get my money back from battlefield (2.5k). i think i will put in some more hands tomorrow because i think i can concentrate on the game right now and after some weeks of confusion i now know what i want - and what i don't.

looking forward to playing wii at danniel's next week :)

db08

i could split the files into two databases for 07 and 08, so here are the overall stats for march 08:

march stats

i used two databases this month that's why you will find an extra picture this month :P
made around 2k, playing 5700 hands. that amount of hands is just so ridiculous but i still cannot concentrate on the game as much as i want to. my life is messed up right now and i don't want to put in many hands if my head isn't clear. it's a pity but what can you do. i hope the new month turns things around and gets me back on the road.
cuz i am young and i need the $$$ :)

2 outs are enough :P

2 outs
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2327512
ok, i posted this one at cardrunners and i got a lot of feedback. i also had a discussion with cntgetmedown and he agreed with what most people said at the cardrunners forum.

both villain are solid and co is cr member and knows that i am. i had no real history with sb (floated once, 3 bet once ooblinds), around 55 hands @ this table so far. co: around 27/24/6 at this table, sb: 22/19/1.5

what i thought was, first: wtf?!. than i had like 5 sec left and all i was thinking of was like "can i really narrow sb's range down to just AA or KK?". i didn't fully analyze the situation. problem is, there is no time bank at pacific and i am just not good at folding...
sb cold 5bets into two opponents which signals alot of strength. co may 4bet a wider range than just KK,AA,AK in this spot but given the action of both, sb and co, i think i should have folded. i guess i like sb's play and the hand went perfectly well for him - but i am a luckbox :)


http://www.pokerhand.org/?2327535

don't know what to think about this hand. my preflop plan was to get it in if i flop an overpair because i just couldn't imagine what villain could be limpraising with..

i just dont get any credit..

mr random

database works again

it took a night session to understand the basics of postgresql but i somehow got my database running and converted it to the newest version of postgre. basically you have to create a backupfile and create a new postgre 8.3 database and restore the backup into the new database.

the next session i will start with a new database already containing my last session's hands. i hope i can use this as a motivation to play more solid poker than i did.

back on the prowl

i did play my first poker session for this month yesterday. There are quite a bit reasons why it took me so long to get back on the tables and one of them is that my database crashed and i don't have a clue about postgre sql (somehow i cannot connect to the postgre servers..) right now i use a new access database and played around 500 hands holdem and i guess 150 hands Pot Limit Omaha (PLO 50).

i played some hu against someone who tilted on me . he called every single 3bet with hands like J9, T8 and called down whenever he hit just something. i adapted by reraising very light..

biggest pot

i thought that he would call an allin with any pair because i knew he would think that this is a bluff given our history but i wanted him to fold those holdings, thus i made a bet around pot and committed myself.
as i saw his hand i knew i was deadly wrong and that he would never fold anything (maybe 2x) to me in this spot, regardless if i shoved or just bet pot..

i like big tilts

PJ was tilting all his money away after he donked into me several times, got raised and outdrawn or bluffed out in every single spot. he lost a lot of money to a friend of mine 2 orbits ago and he was on hypertilt - i was already cheering as i saw the flop and him donking again. there is something interesting, looking at the outcome of this hand: i seldomly see people like him shoving air. they shove bottom pair or small pockets and even if you know he's got little or nothing you cannot call with ace high most of the times.
i think 99 is good enough against him and even though it's a dry board i just cannot fold here. he will sometimes show up with Kx, maybe TT or random twopairs but i think given our history and his megatilt it was the correct play to call.


i don't have a database that supports omaha but i think i will change this and support my blog with some omaha hands. i really like this game and it's good to have an alternative to holdem if tables aren't juicy.

btw: still no message from prima network or battlefield. i think that's very unprofessional and i feel like i won't see my money again..

battlefield down

as far as i understood it, they somehow lost their license and the company that is responsible for support and bank transfers will be liquidated. it's yet not sure if i will ever get my money back (1/2 of my br..). that really sucks..

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=141341

februar stats

what's your edge?

i do think a lot about poker stuff and everytime i think about what i can do better than other players that are not total fishes, i feel like if there is an edge, it's pretty thin. i also think that if i am playing my A game, i am an ok player, but not playing my A game turns me into those standard regs that are grinding on my limits too. I don't fully analyze situations and just play standard plays and don't reflect my own game at all. what i want to say is that your edge in poker usually is very small and not playing my A game is a luxury that i can not afford.




That's why i do have to force myself to get better and study the game continously.

NL 200

so far i played around 4k hands @ nl200 and i think i'm doing fine. table selection is important but there are still enough bad players i can easily exploit. overall people are more aggressive and most regulars search for competition which let me go on FPS from time to time. I'm not used to play against people that are somewhat solid so i think i have to adjust to that a little bit. yesterday i had a really good session, was up about 6 stacks and lost all of it only to be up about 40$ in the end.

some hands:

biggest pot
i really hate my betsizing here. i was thinking about 10 sec about what to do and had 5 sec left and typed in just something i thought was around 2.5x his 3bet. villain was solid and 3bet me light. i hit my dream flop and i have to call a shove getting around 2:1 to call. against a range of AA,AK,JJ i have 40% equity so this is a no brainer. he gets lucky on the turn but what can you do. i still don't know what my best play on the flop would be. either reraise more or just muck it. i don't think that he gives my 4bets a lot of credit so i have to go with my hand if i hit a decent flop. being 350$ deep, i am not sure if this is a good plan. i don't like calling but it might have been an option. any thoughts?

same opponent 10min later..

i overshove the turn to look a bit bluffy and get a call by AJ,AQ maybe QQ. i didn't see that we were a bit deep and i should have raised more preflop. he gets lucky again and i am more or less drawing dead on the flop.

lol

i win coinflips
after losing KK 3 times on the very same table against big fishes making running trips, flopping two pair w/ J9 or flopping trips w/ J8 i finally won a big hand...



i am a little frustrated of how the session went. i wanted to go to bed early but couldn't stop playing a table with 3 vpips over 50 and a 70/45 guy splashing chips away. i lost around 500$ at this table and one of the fishes left the table with 1200$. i haven't been as frustrated for a long while as the last fish left the table, stacking me with a set after sending money in all directions with middle pair no kicker, ace high and stuff like that..

anyway, i am looking forward to playing more on this limit. i hope i don't have to go back to NL100. what i need now is a great session to be on the safe side but i won't force it and will go back if my bankroll isn't sufficient anymore.

good luck,
bernd

i had a nice session

today and went up about 5 buyins in 500 hands. it seemed like won every single pot and after 7 tabling the last days i found it way easier to follow table dynamics only playing 3 to 4 tables. i made some good calls because people really played back at me and i could build up a very laggy image by stealing and two barreling, although i wasn't too out of line at all. what i realized was that there are some players that once you have a bad image, they label you and never give you credit for anything. others see that you're cooling down a bit and react accordingly and you also have to look out for that and readjust to it.

There was one regular that tilted a bit on me because i had position and knew how to exploit his 50% cbet rate. actually that is not too hard to do..
after checkfolding a lot of flops he was checking on a dream flop for a cbet in a blindwar. it was k82 rainbow and he checkraised me after thinking a bit. i felt like he suddenly realized that i was punishing him for not cbetting more and i called in position. he didn't bluff on multiple streets at all so my plan was to either fold to a turn lead or check behind and bet the river to get him off small pockets or some ace high kind of hand. i turned a pair and checked behind. on the river i wasn't quite sure wheter to bet or just checkbehind because i thought my hand could be best. i decided to bet an amount i would bet to get value out of a queen or an eight, hoping he realizes this and folds that hands. i really thought that i got into this players way of thinking and i was really surprised as he called the river (maybe with ace high?). maybe he was way more on tilt as i first thought..

right now i am thinking about taking a shot on nl200. i don't know wheter i should go on with my bankroll rule of 25 buyins or extend that amount since swings gonna be bigger the higher i get. anyway i will take some days off from poker, start mining nl200 and maybe play some two table nl200 in 3 to 4 days.

reaching 4 the stars :P

a lot happened since my last entry. i was down about 10 stacks in 1k hands and managed to get it back in about 2 days. i guess it was a bit of a downswing plus my play really sucked. than i played nearly even in about 10k hands. i think i learned a lot in this time because i identified one of my biggest leaks. it's some sort of not trusting my reads but i won't go into details because i want to play cntgetmedown hu on nl400 next month and i know that he reads my blog sometimes because i force him to do so :P.

the last 2 days went really great because i concentrated more on the game. i planned hands in early stages and observed my opponents carefully. yesterday was my first big winning session this month. it was a great fish day and i went up around 8 stacks. right now i need 3 stacks to reach 25 buyins for nl200 and i hope i can reach this goal until the end of the month. actually my main goal right now is to become a better player. i want to balance my game a bit more, try to mix it up more often. i also want to establish some strategies to win more against regulars because there will be a tougher competition on nl200 or higher. i also want to experiment with donking, cc ip w/ sc, floating and bluffraising certain flops etc.

gl at the tables,
bernd

500 hands and 4 stacks down

today i had the session i have been waiting for. i had no bad swings in the last two months so i don't mind loosing that much in one session. i thought i was prepared but i kind of tilted a bit because i seemed to get outdrawn every single hand. i tried to bluff callingstations and called down way too light..
biggest pot

i really did not play my A game but in most cases there was nothing i could do, pacific is rigged :P. actually i am really glad that i had this kind of a session, just to get back on the floor and work harder on my game. i kind of feel like federer now ;-).

1k @ prima

put in 1000 hands today and started with a 3 buyins down. all reraised pots and people made some -EV preflop calls but got lucky on the flop.

i could establish an aggressive image and people adjusted to that..

"ace high might be good against this freak"

valuebetting the fish

in the end i was up 135$.
hope i can show you more interesting spots next time.

small pacific session

played 200 hands on pacific today. got some very soft games and made around 1.5 stacks which is ok.
That guy obviously tilted just because i raised every single hand in this orbit (aj,qq,ak,kk). i folded a squeeze with ak after an utg nit 4 bettet and i think he thought i am tilting or something, although i never showed bad hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1944782
I called because i had a good read on him. He always slowplayed his hands no matter what the board texture was so i figured that his checkraises on the flop are bluffs most of the time. he instacheckfolded the turn..

i think i will go snowboarding tomorrow because the weather is nice and i don't have courses on wednesday :)

gl,
bernd

did some math

i did some math on the qq hand. if his range includes:

(66,55,44,33,JJ,AhQh,56,34,46,Ah5h)
i have 38% and i need something close to 38% so it's close.

if i narrow it down to (66,44,33,ahqh,Ah5h) i have 16 percent.

there is just one case where i can't fold here namely if villain would also raise here with 88,99,TT,JJ and that's what i assumed. yet i am not sure if he would do that but given the action on the flop he may not raise 88 or 99.

BUT: if he holds (33,44,66,ahqh,ah5h,88,99,TT,JJ,34,46) i am 52% favourite. if i narrow it down to (33,44,66,TT,JJ,34,46,Ah5h) i have 41% equit and it's close again.

i have seen him coldcalling KK but 3betting QQ so i am not sure what he does with
(TT,JJ,QQ,KK,AA ) in this spot.

i think with a better read that villain would go broke here with 88 and 99 and 3bet kk,aa preflop i could shove here but it's gonna be a marginal spot everytime. there is also a small chance that the coldcaller may slowplay a big hand.


i think it's close but this is a fold.

first 4 tabling session

wow now that was weired. i was down about 4 stacks and one tilty guy gave it all back to me. i ended up a bit about break even after 1K. i was playing looser than i did at nl50, running at 21/18/3.
some hands:
loosers:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1940679
think i can't get away here given the stack to pot ratio..

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1940685
i like my play here and i think i cannot get away when he raises on the turn. i was very aggressive so people seemed to call me down pretty light..

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1940701

i am not sure about this one. i think his range here is pretty much a set or an overpair. maybe a flushdraw with overs or a straightdraw. i do have to think a bit more about this one..

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1940713
his donk doesn't look very strong here and i did not want to scare him off a weak king. the turn is a good card for me giving him twopair a lot of the time.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1940737

think i am not the only one who lost a coinflip to gus...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1941009

i don't like my play here. his cbet does look so weak and i gave him no credit for an ace. on the turn i call my oesd to the small bet and as he checks on the river i figured that he might not have an ace but something stronger than my pocket that he might fold to a bluff. think that was a very bad hand and the best would have been to just check/fold the flop.

winners:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1940785
policano was 83/32/2.5 and i have been raising his minraises a ton. he min4bettet me 2 times before, once with TT a few hands before and i thought he was capable of 4betminraisebluff me to get more respect for a cbet. i thought his range is pretty wide and he would never fold any two face cards to my shove here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1940800
50/30/something..... he could have minraised his flushdraw or maybe a straight draw but i wanted him to get it in to get value from bluffs. i think he might have folded his hand if i shoved the turn but not sure..



balto4 was my customer. he was tilting all his money away to me. in the end he lost 4 stacks to me.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1940845
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1941001
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1940852
i think i should have shoved the last hand because he called me so light and he could not get away from his good hands..


one interesting hand at the end:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1940867
he bet the ace so quickly that i was sure it did not help him. i think many weak player do bluff this ace here a lot of the time. i figured that he would not bet that turn if he really had a jack. he would have raised AJ so his range was pretty much a (semi)bluff,a weired jack and maybe 56 or a set. i think he would have thought a bit about betting if he would have had a flushdraw. given the timing and his betsizing i was pretty sure he had no flush and called the river. he frequently limped and pushed me off my hands post flop and i thought it was time to look him up. given the fact that his play is polarized towards monsters (56, set) or a bluff i think it's profitable to call down here.


thanks for reading and i am looking forward to getting some comments on my hands.
bernd

2 tabling

i played some small session on just two tables to get used to the new limit. things went good and it feels like there are still enough bad players at this limit but also more regs which makes things interesting.
some hands:


donks are the same..
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1934426


and some donks have new weapons like 3betting light..
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1934438
he has been 3betting me a ton and i felt like it's time to fire back.

standard:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1934442

given the stack sizes i had to call, expecting to see a fldrw with overs, maybe overpair to the flop or a set..
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1934459

the 3better was pretty straightforward player and i figured he would not check in this spot with KK or AA and i did not expect the halfstack posting oop would show up with something better then queens here too often.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1934467

so far i played 500 hands on nl100 and i am not sure if i can add a lot to this because i have too many exams in the following weeks to concentrate on poker. looking forward to play a bit more afterwards.

have a nice day,
bernd

roger federer

i just read through roger federer's website and i was amazed how his mindset works. he thinks about the long run, not about one or two points.. i didn't realize how often in life it's important to let small throwbacks happen in order to achieve a bigger goal in the long run.

new blog, new limit

my real name is bernd and because i am going to play nl100 in the next time, i decided to start a poker blog in order to force myself to play my A game. although i am from austria, i decided to write in english for two reasons. firstly, because i want everybody to understand what i have to say and secondly, i want to improve my english because foreign languages are a big leak in my game. :P

i started to play poker about a year ago because a friend of mine told my about pokerstrategy.de and so we started to build our bankroll in microstake limit holdem games. i started to play no limit holdem fullring tables and felt very confortable playing nl10 with a way better winrate as at the limit games. i went up to 6max nl25 at absolute and decided to clear the fulltilt bonus at nl25. i had a 50k breakeven time at fulltilt because i could not deal with the aggression. party and absolute where i played before where much softer and i stopped playing for a while and tried to get help from a friend of mine (cntgetmedown), who told me to subscribe at cardrunners. i didn't because of the high subscribtion fee. i took my money from ftp and transfered it to a primanetwork skin. things started to get better but i was still not satisfied with my game. after having a good session i decided to subscribe at cardrunners and my suddenly my winrate increased.

i subscribed at around 100k hands and i am still very grateful that Danniel told me to do so.
Thx buddy ;)

i went through nl25, started to play nl50 in december and now i have the bankroll to play nl100.
right now i am mining nl100 tables, watching videos and try to read some theory articles. i want to be well prepared.

here is my first and only session for this year. can't play right now because i a have to study for university...

thx for reading and good luck at the tables!

greetz, bernd