random thoughts on recent events. here little over halfway in the month of May, my roll is down to 4400, eating up last months profit as well as 600 of the iniital buy-in. oh well this is the variance of the game. i have raised the stakes a little in my tournaments, the FTOPS was just too good to miss out on. you get used to higher stakes MTT's though, soon any tourney that doesnt hold atleast 50K to number 1 feels boring, this is where you need to take a deep breath before you go in over your head. Differeneces in skill level is more difficult to spot in MTT's than in cashgames. for 1, many different styles can be justified and as the M of the players drop, and more cards become playable, raising any 2 cards on the button in an uncontested pot is a good move. but its there. the skill difference is there. i have had a solid ROI of over 200% in tourneys with buyins up to 50%. i have had a ROI of 7% over same period but only looking at BI 50+. looking at 100+ my ROI is a negative 22%.

This brings me to the latest FTOPS on FTP, a series of high stakes MTT's featuring large guaranteeds pool, lots of pro's, good structure, and the covert possibility of getting your custom FTOPS avatar if you win (something only slightly exceeded in desirability by the 100K+ 1st price you would take down to get the avatar!) i played in 5 FTOPS events, two 6-max tourneys, 2 FR NLHE and one Rebuy tournament. all bith BI of 100-300 USD. THe rebuy was a 100 USD rebuy, something above my roll, but i qualified via a satelite. i qualified for 3 of the events through satelites and bought into two. blew 300 last night in satelites into the 500 USD Main event without making it some sick turbo shootouts, until time ran out and the event started. had promised myself i would not buyin directly. i only cashed in one of the events, ironically the 100R where i played very tight since i rebought once immy, then left 100 for an add-on but if i busted in the 1st hour i wouldnt rebuy back in. at the break i was on M of 30 compared with average stack M of 65. i cashed though, giving me 700 and i was happy with how i played, especially at and just after the bubble. rest of the FTOPS i didnt cash in. two events i got bad beats two i simply got outplayed. You are always on the luck of the table drav in high stakes MTT's typically a field will have 20-40% Satelite qualifies, and if you get at a starting table like that you have good changes of getting headway to begin with. you could also draw a starting table of the pro's + high stakes regs against whom it will be more difficult.

my Vegas trip is almost fully prepated, accomodation and tickets are in the house. evaluating which tournaments to play as Vegas is loaded with series contesting the WSOP. i will play in WSOP mixed holdem event probably the 2k NLHE. still debating over the Binions Classics VS the venetian deep stacks for the other days. I like the Binions doing 1 day events following the game of the WSOP 2 days after but with BI of 10% of that. gives you a chance to win your entry and get a training match so to speak before the larger WSOP. Will keep you updated, my next post will probably be at the end of may recapping May profitability. i doubt i will make month a profitable one, but hope i can catch in on the red numbers!

So April has ended and im little over a month in with my play after i deposited my Tax return as initial investment in the world of online poker.  Herewith status on the sites i play and thoughts on performance in general

Party: 6248 (+5748)

Stars: 1165 (-835)

FTP: 760 (-750)

CDpoker 322 (-678)

Total Roll: 8495 (+3495)

MTT's

As mentioned i am predominantly tourney oriented, i have played a little over 200 Tourneys so far with above roll and my winnings predominantly come from here. On party in particular i have had good results and are ranked as 237 out of around 50.000 players on officialpokerrankings with a ROI of 186%. I have played mainly on Stars and Party. i have mixed feelings about stars tourneys. most mtt's are high field donkaments, both with small and high stakes as they run a number of Sats for their sunday majors. Variance is obviously higher as you play fields of 2000+. My best results come from their low buy-in Rebuy tournaments (5.50, 3.30 and 8.80 usd) where i feel my edge is bigger as i typically will hold a stack of about 100-200 BB's after rebuy period is over with average stack sizes of about 50 BB'es. As those tourneys are deeper most of the low skill tourney players have lessor luck with their all-in equity and push/fold decisions and they often play very badly when they are 50-7+ BB deep

Cashgame

I have played about 15.000 hands in cash game. my net result is -122 taken from PokerTracker (unsure if that is before or after rake?) Played a mixture of NL25-NL200 FR and sixmax but mainly i have played NL100 6 max. i was doing very well over 8000 hands and was overbankrolled for this level so i decieded to move up to NL200 (6max) i lost 10 buyins over 5000 hands and moved back down... for moving up/down in levels im using a rule of 30 buyins to move up and if 10 buyins are lost than i move back down until i again have 30 buyins for the next level. i dont take shots at anything more than one level higher than my standard. im confident in NL100 skills for 6 max games i posses and also feel i ran below expectations in all-in equity in my short run at NL200. but stick to BR rules and move down after loosing 10 BI's- 10 BI downswing is also so uncommon that im fully aware that though running badly i have leaks which i will do better mending at NL100 before i can move up. Players are more predictable by far at NL100.

Outlook for May 

I will continue grinding NL 100 even though i am now bankrolled for NL200. since that roll is coming from MTT winnings i want to make sure i am good enough before i move up again. loosing 10 buyins so quickly at NL200 was definetely a shocking experience and it rocked my confidence for a little while. i will only move up after having atleast a 30K sample of hands at NL100 and running at 4ptBB / 100 over those hands. this means that all of may and potentially all of june will be 100% NL100 6max on the cash side. for tourneys i will continue much like i do now. i will tighten up my tournament selection a bit in weekends where i can be more flexible with the time. I will also tighten up on my entry stakes. My good results made me attempt a couple of high stakes tourneys (BI's of 250-500) and feel i did good but i need to stick with my rule of 2% max in a MTT ( and most often my BI's are less than 1%)

I am going to Las vegas in late June and hopefully i will follow the trend in April so  can have a higher roll for that. I will post more on my upcoming Las vegas trip at a later stage.

MTT's have really been the way forward these days. my day (holiday in denmark, so off work) started with traditional NL100 cash game on party. lots of LAGTARDS at that moment and after loosing 2.5 buyin in a 3 hour 5 table session i felt i wasnt playing my A-game, so i loaded the rather poor stats (eating up my NL100 profit over 7000 hands) into Pokertracker an looked over my stats and took a break. Had an appointment with my brother in the afternoon and we wather a really cool movie called "stardust" produced and written by Neil gaiman. it received a lot of poor critic when it came out, anyhow i thought it was a really nice movie with good humour, great for chilling out on a bank holliday!

came home in time to play the friday night special 50K guaranteed on party for 215 USD buy-in. again, on the high side but  the structure is good and i have been doing good lately. i made it into the early money after being close on the bubble, so nothing too exiting got my buyin back + 85 $ profit. hadnt played on FT for a while and getting really tired of party software (sucks bigtime, especially for multi tabling!) so opened up to see whats there. for the 2nd time i tried to qualify for a PL ftop event, and for the 2nd time i finished on the bubble getting my buyin back but just short of winning the 220 $ buyin. Played the 15K guarantee for 75 $ with around 300 entrants. field was pretty soft, or atleast i had some good tables so with solid play i made the final table. came in 7th for 475 $ in price money after loosing most my stack on a double draw against KK, and then with 99 against 1010. finally got busted with a stortstacked UTG push with KQs and ran into AK.

So im still in some tourneys, right now im doing good in FT's 35K guarantee, so lets see if i can nail down another final table and perhaps take it all the way this time!

/JB

Party is really proving to be quite profitable for me these days. I played in the super thursday MTT today (150 entrants - 162 $ buy-in) and hit the final table. When we were 8 left i had second largest stack after getting lucky with a running flush with AJs cs AKo Allin preflop. i am in late position and hold pocket kings. utg +2 has raised a standard raise and i three bet him. he thinks for along time and then 4-bets me... i kindda had a bad feeling about that. but what to do? it was quite a juicy final table, and although i dont think he would 4bet with AK (he would rather shove) he could also do it with QQ. but i did smell rockets coming.. and i was obviously right, but on a final table you cannot pass out on KK when you allready 3 bet, there is just no way. i then fought my way back as i had checked the stats on my opponents left and with one exception they all had negative ROI, so i exploited. i exited number 4 after on the button moving all-in with j10s and was up against K7s (same suit unfortunately) and it held up. i had lost most of my stack i3 hands before with a7s against k9 that we played to the river (i flopped the nut draw) but didnt materialise and a K hit the river, whereafter i checked behind him. So 4th place which after reaching the final table which was fairly soft and with a good structure (the super tournaments have 20 minute blinds) was a little bit disappointing, but still took down another 1650 $ in price money so cannot be too down with that.

Played ring games simultaneously and that was a rather boring run with not many cards. the same player who set-mined 99's against my rockets two days ago set-mined 22's against my hooks this time which pissed me off. both times costing me a BI. a missed bluff attempt on turn was the most exciting thing happening and was down 2,5 BI's on todays ring games, which first time ever i had a losing session on NL100 on party. i closed down ring games when we were 12 players left in the super thursday as i needed to pay more attention to betting patterns etc. All-in-all im very happy with my party performance these days. 500 $ has been turned into 4800 $ on that site alone over 2 weeks, i wish that was fully sustainable in the long run!

/JB

i devoted tonight to studying my new poker books until a couple of tourneys would start on party. i got pretty deep into the 10K guaranteed 22$ rebuy tourney and was twice the average chips middle in the game. i make an awfull mistake though which cost me most of my stack which will haunt me for days. This is the kind of mistake i would have made 2 years ago, and it really makes me sick that i can still be prone to that. if it only happens once every second year though i will survive. Cannot really dig the HH up cause Pokertracker sucks at recording tourneys, but im chipleader at my table two positions from the button and UTS clickraises. UTG+1 calls. i look down into AKo and i 3-bet 5X the initial bet. Everybody would probably agree that i have allready shoved a lot of strenght there. the UTG (whom i know is a fairly solid player and is also well above average in chips instantly shoves all-in. a play he didnt need to make, and after i have 3-betted 5x the bet which basically signals that he shouldnt expect a lot of folding equity here. the initial caller folds. in a state of mental illnes i call!!! one split second and before he showes up i know he has aces, and i am obviously right. a solid player would in 8/10 times at that time in the tourney only make that play with AA-KK, and definetely not with anuthing below JJ, not even on party! so i have about 20% chance of getting a coinflip, and 80 % chance of being atleast 70_30 dog. how i called that is beyond me and it makes me sick! later i busted out with AQ vs KJ but guess beggers cant be choosers....

So that was the awful story which leads up to tonights big play. after that tourney and a boring run in the 18K guaranteed where i dont make the money neither i play some ring games NL100 with solid results. i then sign up for the 10K guatanteed speed freezeout at 120 USD. this is about twice the amount i would normally buy-in with directly as my rule says only 1% of bankroll in buyin mtt's... but i made an exception and it went pretty well. speed tourneys are really about sitting tight and having lady luck on your side in the cases where you need it, or rather what you need is to NOT become unlucky as one major pot lost will cost you the tourney. i run pretty good and people make some awful plays which allows me to be 3rd chipleader on the bubble and im able to exploit that quite heavily. I end up taking 2nd place after one hand of HU where i get KQ and villain has A7 which holds up. blinds are 10k/20K, ante 500 and total chips in play is 300K , so not a lot of room for making elaborate post-flop play here. I took down USD 2665 in price money so im all thrilled about that, and can easier forget about my terrible play in the earlier tourney. This is actually a bankroll boost of 25% so quite nice.

Yeehaa

ohh on a foot note. This also means that i will now be within the 2% highest ranked tourney players on party on official pokerrankings.com  based on last 120 days play where my roi is through the roof!! nuff said!

/JB 

so i started thinking about qualification to the FTOPS event on FTP which will be held may 7th - 18th , the opening event is a 216 $ doublestack 6max NL holdem session and a 24$ MTT satelite was held today on FTP. we were 35 players in the field and without too much trouble i won the event and secured my access, quite a nice start to the FTOP quest! Simultaneously i played a satelite to the PLH 216 $ event also for 24 USD but went out as number 5 (only winner got entry) when my QQ ran into AA. just one of those things that happen, fortunately i will have other chances to qualify for the PLH event in a later satelite.

I also played the 24K guarantee which sported a field of 1000 players for 24$ entry, i finished in the early money after tight solid play and unfortunately after my AQ lost to KJs in an all-in preflop move from middle position with the button presenting the K on the flop. Played about 500 hands of NL100 ring game, also on FTP and had quite a good run and from my PT stats i was in average about 80 BB / 100 hands and an hourly rate of average 65BB, so indeed a nice run. my KK held against AQ, setmined 77 and 44 against AK and JJ respectively, and my double draw hit. Love it when this happens!!

On a seperate note i received the latest additions to my poker library today so i have some interestingt stuff to dig into over the coming days which i look much forward to.

Thats all for now

/JB

Hi guys, just felt an urge to give you a status on a pretty sweet MTT i just played on Party. I like the MTT's on party as the blinds and starting stacks for regular tourneys are pretty decent (12-minute blinds and 3K in chips) and the field sized are usually also more my style. i prefer sized from 100-400 and those fields are almost impossible to find on Pstars unless u play a 100$ rebuy or something. So played 4 MTT's on Party this afternoon, a 22 $ regular, a 2K guaranteed speed for 6 $ , a 4K guaranteed regular for 11 $ and a 44 $ regular. two of them i left mid-early, the 2K guaranteed speed i finished in the early money (8 bucks, wooohoo) but the 44 $ i finished in a nice 2nd place netting 890 USD. i think i played real solid especially on the final table. i was the highest ranked tourney player on the site on the final table and was able to build a small chiplead when we were 8 players left off those 2-3 players which clearly didnt know what to do with themselves on a final table. when we were three left we were all three all-in with me and the shortstack with Top-pair and the tourney winner with an overpair (all-in on Flop) so when we went heads up i had 45K against my villan with 360K so a slight dog. I lost the final hand with k9o against 22 which held up. The final hand looked like this

Total number of players : 2
Seat 2: Joe (53606)
Seat 8: squashball (366394)
Joe  posts ante (100)
squashball  posts ante (100)
squashball  posts small blind (3000)
Joe  posts big blind (6000)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Joe [ 9c, Ks ]
squashball raises (45000) to 48000
Joe (47506) to 53506
Joe is all-In.
squashball calls (5506)
** Dealing Flop ** :  [ Js, 7s, Td ]
** Dealing Turn ** :  [ 5c ]
** Dealing River ** :  [ As ]
Creating Main Pot with $107212 with Joe** Summary **
Main Pot: 107212
Board: [ Js 7s Td 5c As  ]
Joe balance 0, lost 53606 [ 9c Ks ] [ high card Ace -- As,Ks,Js,Td,9c ]
squashball balance 420000, bet 53606, collected 107212, net +53606 [ 2d 2c ] [ a pair of Twos -- As,Js,Td,2d,2c ]

Still pretty happy with my decision and had i known he held 22's i would have called even faster. coinflips look good when ur heads-up and a 6:1 chip dog !!

Solid play all through the tourney even though there are some decent players on party when you hit MTT's at 40+ USD buy-in

So i will take a small rest now and watch some Seinfeld (just got season 9 on DVD) and hit back on the tables in a couple of hours

/JB

Shortly after i wrote below these hands occured in NL 100 on party. interested in any comments on if you would have played them differently as always?

Hand no 1)

Now this one could definetely have been played diffently, as i could have gotten out on the flop or the turn when the vilain showed some real strength. Since he re-popped me preflop im pretty sure his hand doesnt include any 7's or 6's, he would 3bet me with 6's or 7's im confident. So i put his range on PP of 10+ and AQ,AK suited or off (think Aj is unrealistic as he isnt likely to repop with that either, pretty std TAG player here) so.. on the turn i allready have a chunk in the pot and he makes a sizable bet. If he has AK,AQ then im good for minimum a split pot and Pairs at TT-QQ i have 6 outs of beating on the card to come. I dont evaluate that i could get out of this hand so judged it would be better to put him all-in at 1,5 X his bet since it still make it possible for him to fold TT,JJ or AQ-AK if he thinks i hold KK or AA? as it turns out he holds AA so i loose my buy-in plus the profit made so far at the table, but would you seriously have played this hand more passively? im leaning towards writing this one of as stuff that happens with AK vs AA and hoping it wont happen too often, but eager to learn if i have a leak here which i need totidy up? any comments appreciated

0.50/1 Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL)  -  Fri Apr 11 19:13:47 EDT 2008
Table Table  130516 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: JOE ( $126.04)
Seat 2: Dikael74 (villain ( $124.11)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Joe [ As, Kh ] 

Joe raises (3) to 3
Dikael74 raises (10) to 10
Joe calls (7)
** Dealing Flop ** :  [ 6s, 7h, 6d ] 
Joe  checks
Dikael74 bets (20) (pot sized bet, here i could have gotten out, but really, would you?)
Joe calls (20)
** Dealing Turn ** :  [ 6h ] 
Joe checks
Dikael74 bets (40)
Joe raises (96) to 96 (as mentioned above, put him all-in to turm my so far passive play in tis hand into agression)
Dikael74 calls (54.11)
Dikael74 is all-In.
** Dealing River ** :  [ Th ]
Creating Main Pot with $246.72 with Dikael74
** Summary **
Main Pot: $246.72 | Rake: $3
Board: [ 6s 7h 6d 6h Th  ]
Joe balance $1.93, bet $126, collected $1.89, lost -$124.11 [ As Kh ] [ three of a kind, Sixes -- As,Kh,6s,6d,6h ]
Dikael74 balance $246.72, bet $124.11, collected $246.72, net +$122.61 [ Ac Ah ] [ a full house, Sixes full of Aces -- Ac,Ah,6s,6d,6h ]
DER_BRECHER balance $61.23, didn't bet (folded)

Hand no 2)

Ironically and annoyingly enough this is against same player at another table at about 20 minutes after the above hand occurs. Here i hold the rockets and get them set-mined against me with 9's. I can see im a little passive here, but looking to trap him and build a pot and hopes that he interprets my timidness as fear after he "gloriously" beats me on the other table

0.50/1 Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL)  -  Fri Apr 11 19:34:19 EDT 2008
Table Table  131212 (Real Money) -- Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: Dikael74 ( $121.59)
Seat 10: MattiasH123 ( $180.50)
Joe posts small blind (0.50)
Dikael74  posts big blind (1)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to MattiasH123 [ As, Ah ]
MattiasH123 raises (2.50) to 3
Dikael74 raises (7) to 8
MattiasH123 calls (5) (should have re-raised again? i never do that as it really looks like ur holding a monster, and if i call he will think he is ahead with the best hand)
** Dealing Flop ** :  [ 2s, 2h, Td ] 
Joe checks
Dikael74 bets (10)
Joe calls (10) (here i could have re-reraised instead of called, but since it was a pretty dry board and i didnt have position i decided to call and bet the turn hoping for a raie.
** Dealing Turn ** :  [ 9h ] 
Joe bets (21)
Dikael74 raises (61) to 61 (he raises but im still comfortable that i hold the best hand)
Joe calls (40)
** Dealing River ** :  [ 6d ] 
Joe checks
Dikael74 bets (42.59)
Dikael74 is all-In.
Joe (42.59)
Creating Main Pot with $240.18 with Dikael74
** Summary **
Main Pot: $240.18 | Rake: $3
Board: [ 2s 2h Td 9h 6d  ]
Dikael74 balance $240.18, bet $121.59, collected $240.18, net +$118.59 [ 9s 9c ] [ a full house, Nines full of Twos -- 9s,9c,9h,2s,2h ]
Joe balance $58.91, lost $121.59 [ As Ah ] [ two pairs, Aces and Twos -- As,Ah,Td,2s,2h ]

---------------------------

Hey guys, so after a quiet week compared to my first one herewith an update on the play this week.

I got an unexpected tax refund in the door this week, so that was definetely the financial highligt of the week! my play has been varying, early in the week i ran badly in some S&G's on Pstars and Party which forced my roll down to a point where i had to play NL50 ring games and only play the cheapest Party MTT's. I seriously cannot grind those limits and the style of play there is just pissing me off! I stabilised at about 150 USD but realised that if i kept my rules i was gonna spend some serious time nitting away on those nickle tables! But... i wasnt gonna break my rules about bankroll management, what to do?? since i got unexpected cash in the door i decided to start up a real bankroll, but not before i did some further study on a number of leaks i thoughti had spotted in my cash game. A part of my study was to sign up for cardrunners.com and i can greatly recommed the stuff those young guns are putting out there! their videos added a lot of value not to mention being darn interesting to watch.!

So with a proper bankroll in place of about 4K i split it out over a couple of sites, PSTARS, Party, FTP and CD poker. CD was added sincei plan to qualify for the ECOOP II which is being conducted in late May. FTP is also hosting FTOPS in early may where i plan to participate in some events provided that i can qualify through their satelite challenge. i have been running fairly bad in MTT's this week, but sticking with the rule that max 1% per buyin so im down about 150 bucks on that account playing about 7 smaller MTT's and only making it ITM in two of them, both only yielding 3 X the  buyin. I have put S&G's on hold for now until i can read my new highly acclaimed S&G book in more detail which will be mandatory before trying to qualify for FTOPS or ECOOP. The really good news is that i have been able to play fairly well on the NL 100 games on CD poker and especially on Party. havent really any real stats yet worth to analyse on, but with about 14 hrs kicked in and about 500 USD in profits that leaves me with a decent hourly rate. I expect this run to be over what i can produce in the long run for the next 3-4 months though, until i get these limits firmly under my skin. but that profit made up for the loss i had on the initial Pstars roll so im pretty positive about that. Ignore the numbers in th bankroll window above, it is apparently mandatory to put in a bankroll if i want to post a blog, which is pretty annoying. I plan instead to post full monthly stats at the end of april to give a better statistical basis for evaluation, and focus my weekly blogs on more random game related stuff that pops into my mind. An annoying feature about the NL games on most sites are that about 50% of the table seem to be buying in at mimum and nitting away until they hit a hand and then showing. Remarkably enough they all seem to have the same range for doing the shove, PP's at 10 or above, AQ-AK, or if they are tilting AJs! i cannot imagine how this kind of play is profitable in the long run, they are the easiest people in the world to read and they tupically blind out 4 orbits before playing a hand. if you try to break down this type of extreme nitting it looks something like this (based on a very small sample of my experience over the last week)

buyin 20 USD at NL100 game. Raise or reraise with a 3 bet in average in every 4th orbit. the stack they have then is 16 dollars (they dont automatically rebuy for whatever reason) as mentioned they are an open book so they only get called about 1/3 of those times where they shove. Occasionally there is a donkey that tries to get lucky with a hand like QJ or A9s, but 8/10 times they are called it is with the same range as they shove with. so over time they will win 50 % of those puts. now the times they dont get called doesnt give them enough blinds to cover the blinds they have spewed themselves, and taking into consideration that their 20 bucks is reduced t an average of 15 bucks when they shove i simply cannot fathom how they can earn profits doing this in the long run???????

I mean most players are cash game at NL100 and NL200 seem to be folding too much, so when i play those games i float, C-bet, 2nd barrels, 3bets early position leads into the pot, turns missed draw into bluffs etc. when i pick up a pattern that says my opponent is weak and tend to have very low VPIP and only feel comfortable if they have or are drawing to a flush. it is remarkable how insecure fish gets when they hold top pair medium kicker, or two pairs when there is a 3 cards to a flush on the board , yet they have no problem calling a pot sized bet in a situation with little implied odds to chase a 3:1 or 4:1 draw. They also seem to be incabable of playing the turn and the river and seem to believe that just calling it down is the way forward in poker!! just some random observations over the week which reallly makes me wonder

Anyhow, will probably spend most of my weekend play on Party developing my NL100 game further and playing smaller MTT's, in fact i have to get to one right now....

/JB

i dont know if anybody is reading this blog, but if they are i would love some qualified comments on if i could have played this hand better? the question is really if i should gave re-raised the flop, and if you think it would have had a different outcome if i did? hand as follows

We are on Party poker, cash game .5/1 limits on the jackpot table as that tends to attract some loose casino type players. I am obviously Joe in the below transcript

**** Hand History for Game 6952399262 *****$100 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, April 07, 17:54:51 ET 2008Table Jackpot #1308787 (Real Money) Seat 3 is the button

Total number of players : 8

Seat 2: becq666 ( $0 USD )

Seat 10: Joe ( $120.69 USD )

Seat 9: Gebiss ( $18 USD )

Seat 3: MONTREAL13 ( $105.01 USD )

Seat 5: Ruetzge1111 ( $59.71 USD )

Seat 6: X123meinsX ( $42.50 USD )

Seat 1: Scriven11 ( $99.93 USD )

Seat 7: elcapitan300 ( $100 USD )

Ruetzge1111 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].

X123meinsX posts big blind [$1 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Joe [ Ks Jc ]

Gebiss folds

Joe raises [$3 USD]

Scriven11 calls [$3 USD]

MONTREAL13 folds

Ruetzge1111 calls [$2.50 USD]

X123meinsX folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ Th, 9d, Qh ]  we are 3 players im in the middle and it is checked to me. i bet and when ruetzge checkraises i just call. since he is check-raising i dont put him on a draw but on a strong hand and im thinking pay day. Should i have re-reraised?

Ruetzge1111 checks

Joe bets [$5 USD]

Scriven11 calls [$5 USD]

Ruetzge1111 raises [$15 USD]

Joe calls [$10 USD]

Scriven11 calls [$10 USD]

** Dealing Turn ** [ Kd ] this poses a risk that there is AJ in there for a higher str8t and increases risks of a split pot. but with the action on the flop i didnt see AJ as a real threat and im feeling comfortable i got the best hand. i bet the pot and figure that only another J will call, as you can see both the straight called and the flush draw re-raised all-in. obviously i call that last move

Ruetzge1111 checks

Joe bets [$59 USD]

Scriven11 is all-In [$81.93 USD]

Ruetzge1111 is all-In [$41.71 USD]

Joe calls [$22.93 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ Kh ]

Joe shows [ Ks, Jc ]a straight Nine to King.

Scriven11 shows [ Qs, Jh ]a straight Nine to King.

Ruetzge1111 shows [ 4h, Ah ]a flush, Ace high.

The time at which hand ended:Apr 07 2008 17:56 ET

Scriven11 wins $40.22 USD from the side pot 1 with a straight, Nine to King.

Joe wins $40.22 USD from the side pot 1 with a straight, Nine to King.

Ruetzge1111 wins $176.63 USD from the main pot with a flush, Ace high.

The only thing that i could have done differently in my opinon was to re-raise the flop, but given that the flush draw reraises all-in on the on the turn with no pot odds nor implied odds as he is all-in, im thinking he is just yr basic fish and it wouldnt have mattered anyhow? what do you think and what would you have done?

Update on this weekends play.

Following a return a to profitability i hit a dry spot with the turbo S&G's on Pstars. after finishing 0/5 (5 4th place finishes!) i logged onto to FTP to play a free-roll restricted to danish players. 62 players 5K in the pot. Finished in 9th place which gave a cool 125 USD. Now what was i gonna do with my unexpected Roll at FTP? since Pstars were giving me laughable situations at the moment i decided to hang around FTP and just wath the games for a while. Jennifer Harman were playing PLO which was quite interesting to watch, atleast i always like watching poker games with frequent pots that are close to my annual salary! i decided that since the money i got from the freeroll had been "free" i gave blow to Bankroll management and decided to try and qualify for the two big sunday tournaments there, the 750K guarantee and the Sunday Mulligan (150K) i suceeded in both, thought it cleaned by account out. Still OK, as i got 450 dollar tourney entries for 150! i was then in for an intersting night! would ove to tell you how i wont the 140K first prize, unfortunately i finished in the bubble both times which really sucked! nobody likes to be the bubble boy!

I couldnt get back to PStars now as i had developed quite a grudge against my normal staked S&G's so decided to start a second roll at party poker as that is the site i have the best stats at! i just dont like their software and their tournaments so had abandoned them for 4 months. i deposited 400 USD so now have a second Bankroll which i will manage the same way as my Pstars and which can give me some variety. will also rebuy inte FTP as the FTOPS starts as i wanna be a part of that, but that will come later.

Will change the way i blog i think, this first week has been a trial and i will instead post qualititive statemements 3-4 times weekly and then post one weekly Profitability Stat posting. Posting my Bankroll daily is making me focus too much on teh variance which is enivitable while building your bankroll,

return to profitability. played 9 turbo S&G's on Stars and went ITM in 6 of them. 2 wins and 4 times placed, so overall quite happy with it. lot of maniacs with high adrenalin seem to be playing those tables, and it seems to be perfectly normal to commit entire stacks with PP's below 77 and hands like k-10s, and Aj before the blinds has reached 3rd level! and as expected most of the table tightens up like a clam when 4-5 players are left and those that doesnt ticks off the auto-all-in function that i expect is available somewhere on PSTARS!!

Offcause you also gets sucked out a couple of times, my 1 3rd place i got 2nd stack and had a shortstack who went all-in on 11 hands in a row- the last 3 times i called and was favorite 60-40, 90-10 and 70-30 but got sucked out all three times and my exit were then unavoidable.... still a pretty good night overall (and a short one! )

hours of play: 3

profit: 138

profit pr hour: 46

short update. continued playing s&g's but limited myself to 2 s&g's at a time. I also postponed the time where i would punish limbers and play the push, which i didnt do until blinds were 200/400 which usually had 4-5 players left at the time, if i was medium-bigstack and if shortstack i would push on hands like KQ, AJ, K10s, Axs when i was down to 4 BB's. I managed to improve my game overall, and had a much better feeling about my performance than yesterday. Bank-roll didnt dramatically improve as i made a mistake in one tourney (30 USD S&G regular) and got too committed medium positioned with Aj early on when blinds were 20/40 and consequently lost 3/4th my stack against AK. not the right time to do that with a hand like AJ so i had the walk of shame out in 7th place. got incredible beats in two tourneys where i placed 3rd after making all the right plays, got sucked out tremendously and had to settle for a 3rd place. won 2 tourneys and placed 2nd in two tourneys. went ITM on 50 % of the fames which still far from the 80% target but my win ratio (20%) i figure i just need to improve to about 33-40% in order to increase the marginal earnings.

Here is an example of the hand i busted out with in the last tourney. Notice how this wasnt just preflop action, it was actually flopped and my successor make an opportunistic Call! ( I am seat 6 - Joe)

PokerStars Game #16464973809: Tournament #83366018, $30+$3 Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII (200/400) - 2008/04/03 - 18:46:43 (ET)
Table '83366018 1' 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 3: RayzorKing (3800 in chips)
Seat 6: joe (3830 in chips)
Seat 9: wichi18 (5870 in chips)
RayzorKing: posts the ante 25
Joe: posts the ante 25
wichi18: posts the ante 25
RayzorKing: posts small blind 200
Joe: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Joe [4c As]
wichi18: folds
RayzorKing: calls 200
Joe: checks
*** FLOP *** [Js 5s Ah]
RayzorKing: bets 400
Joe: raises 3005 to 3405 and is all-in
RayzorKing: calls 2975 and is all-in
*** TURN *** [Js 5s Ah] [Ks]
*** RIVER *** [Js 5s Ah Ks] [Jh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
RayzorKing: shows [Ts Qc] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
Joe: shows [4c As] (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
RayzorKing collected 7625 from pot

He calls an all-in on just a gutshot draw probably in anger that i raise his probe bet, and offcause he immediately hits the turn making me draw dead! oh, and before that hand i lost 3-3 against A5o and lost 10-10 to A-7o 

i know this is how S&G's work, so i didnt tilt (rarely do these days) didnt get upset (ok thats a lie! ) as there is no point in me getting all self-rightious or angry, gotta roll with the blows, and in a couple of months we will see if i can actually win steadily over time as i would like to think i can! 

Hours of play: 5

profits: 15

profits pr hour : 3 USD

Still better off working at McD!!!

/JB

Short update on tonights play. It was S&G madness, played 20 S&G's, 20 and 30 USD regular and 27 turbo on Pstars. Studied up on this and changed my play strategically and went more crazy when blinds reached 150/300 and tried to punish those limbers who aim to fold their way into a 3rd spot. In short, i played to win the tourneys, not place. consequently i busted out in 4th place in 5 of the tourneys, busted out earlier in 8 others and only went to the money in 7 S&G's. My play to win didnt pay off much as only won 2, placed 2 twice and 3rd three times.

5 hours play (20 S&G's)

profits: -182 USD

profit pr hour: -37 USD

Has to remember though that huge variations will occur when applying this set of tactics, embracing the strategy of playing the players rather than the cards in the end stages of S&G's. I will tweak my strategy a bit and study up more on this (have a couple of interesting books on their way in the mail, cant wait to read em!) but will probably continue along these lines for now, with minor alterations and hopefully increase profitability on this shortly!!

/JB

update on todays play:

Sat down at .25/.50 NLHE on pokerstars. played three hours with three tables simultaneously. tables 1 and 2 had flop % around 30 and table 3 had it going several periods at close to 50%. Books will tell you this is a perfect scenario, and i adjusted my play accordingly. however got into a couple of bad hands where my trips got beaten by a set, in one case a house using board pair loosing to a higher house powered by a set. that was all at the table with 50% flop percentages. a raise to 4 x BB usually saw three-four calllers each hand. the maximum buy-in of 50 bucks were then easily committed in one pot!! profitability stats were as follows.

time: 3 hours

profit:   -105 USD

profit pr hour: -35

so the conclusion had to be that that was a pretty bad experience at the nickle tables! had a fouth table going which was a MTT, 15K guaranteed with buyin of 11 USD. this is actually 2 % of my bankroll where i promised myself to only commit 1% in MTT's, but nothing interesting goes on with the tourneys for less than 10 bucks. 2688 players, finished placed 129 which gave 35 USD and 92 MTT leaderboard points, wuhuuuu!!! i got kicked out in a 4 way pot with AJ, sounds terrible but all three others called behind me and had pairs smaller than J.what kind of brain damage occured for the BB going in as 4th with 44 i will never know!! an ace flops and im about to make my 17K shortstack into 75K with average at 40K so with that i would have been able to play myself into the last 20 at the minimum. unfortunately the river shows a 9 giving a set to the highest pp, tough luck!! Finished playing S&G's, three 10 buck tables finished 2nd in one and out of money in the two others. last games of tonight were two 20 dollar S&G's where i won the first one, and came in 2nd in the other, and even got a royal flush!! no jackpot for that unfortunately, but this is only the third time i experience that so it was pretty sweet!

All in all made 19 dollars tonight on 6 hours play, im pretty sure 7eleven offers better salary than that. However im confortable that with some more S&G's until i can bank a .5/1.00 table i will steadily increase.

/JB

ok herewith an update on todays play before im off to bed,

Live satelite to Danish championship NLHE.

Started out pretty well in this 30 S&G, got rockets twice within the first hour and got payment both times. from we were 25 down to 15 i was pretty much double average stack all the time. lots of cold cards followed and i tightened up to make it to the final table. a couple of missed draws and stolen blinds later, we are down to 8 man. im down to 22K chips with average of 24. lots of action as 3 players are severely short stacked and their chips are up for graps for anybody with a decent hand, unfortunately im folding three blinds level as im not getting anything better than 97 s!! so im bleeding chips with blinds at 1500/3000 and ante 150, down to 16K in chips with blinds increasing to 2k/4K with me under the gun. im now shortest stack at the table. i look down into A3o and move all-in. get a quick call behind me and i know im in trouble. guy shows up 77 and i hit a 3 on the flop but then follows two blancks so im out in 6th place which doesnt leave me with anything. im pretty happy with my play, i only have one questinable hand where i fold A10o in BB with a guy moving me all-in (he was pretty loose) when i have 25K and game is 1500/3K. in hindsight that proved to have been my best option for double-up, but at the time figured that in the next 16 hands i could be in a better position then calling all-in with A10o. perhaps i should have called, but nah, i would probably fold it again if i had the chance. anyways, im in for another satelite in a month hoping to qualify.

PSTARS.

Coming home i bought in with my 400 USD bankroll. as im pretty tired i decided to play S&G's. i set some rules up for myself, as mentioned i will only play limits where im banking 15 X max buy-in at the tables. i will only play S&G's with buy-in max 5% of my bankroll and MTT's only with buy-in max 1% of my bankroll at all times. So i sit down in 3 simultaneous 20 USD 9 man S&G's (normal blinds - No turbo for me!!) I win one, finish 3rd in one (in the money) and finish 6th in the last. my 6th place was a pretty bad beat with top two pairs on flop sucked out by runner-runner straight, so im pretty comfortable that if i follow my rules i can make it to the money in those S&G's 85% of the time. That leaves me with 60 USD 60 in profits for tonight on PSTARS so my bankroll increased 15% to 460 USD. nothing exciting, but not bad either. Will update tomorrow or wednesday when i hit the low stakes ring-games on PSTARS

/JB 

Oh, just to let you know, i will be in a 30 man S&G live game today at a casino in Copenhagen DK where i live, buy-in is 250 USD and that will be outside the 400 USD im buyin into PSTARS with. 4 places are paid. it is actually a satelitte round 1 to the Danish championship in NLHE, so im very keen on performing well . Blinds are steep at 20 minutes increments starting 25/50 and Ante kicking in at 200-400 but atleast with 7500 stacks so there should be a decent chance og getting ITM.  I bought into this tourney before i decided on the aforementioned strategy, in the future my live games will also come out of the same bankroll, so today will be the first and last exception to my bankroll management strategy

/JB

So i have decided to start a pokerblog writing about my endeavours at the tables at various online sites and occasially at live games. Why am i doing this? let me give you a short summary of my past poker performance/experience:

I started playing online poker about 5 years ago, after getting into the game through a couple of friends who were quite hooked at it. i was in college then so had plenty of spare time on my hands. i started depositing 25 $ at Expect.com poker, played a few low buy-in S&G's , lost the 25 bucks. i rebyed 25$, lost it again. Rebyed - lost it. clearly there was something about the game i had missed. i bought a ton of poker books on amazon, including super-system, Theory of Poker, hold'em for advanced players, Harrington on hold'em, - i.e the basic kit. i rebuyed again 25 $ and it got a whole lot better! one week after, i played a 50K tournament on Expekt, finished 2nd and landed 13.000 USD. now, clearly that took a great portion of luck as i was still a rookie, but i was now familiar with the concepts, and i was hooked! since then it has gone up and down, and what tends to happen is i buyin low, around 100 USD, i spend a weekend building it up to 2-3K, moves too fast to the higher stakes, and blows the bankroll. that has happened atleast 50 times!

So status on my last 5 years of play is that im about ZERO, havent won, havent lost, im not entirely sure either since i didnt bother keeping books on this suff the first 3years i was playing. So.... I have decided i need some  discipline, i need proper bank roll management, keeping myself steady, being patient and building my game, beating the limits, getting so familiar with a table that i can play it in my sleep.! to help myself do that i have created this blog. by having to confess my bad decisions online for the world to see, i hope i can drive a more disciplined play on my side! maybe its a battle allready lost, but i will give it a shot....

So i will buy-in 400 USD on Pokerstars, starting out only doing ring game .25/.50 (NLHE) until i can afford to move to higher limits. i will use the assumption that i need 15 X max buyin in order to master a limit, until i have that on my bankroll i wont move on. i will occasionally play MTT's, S&G's but the money will come out of my regular bankroll, so if i dont win the tourneys, i will have to invest  more time on the low limit tables. This will be quite a change for me as im used to play 3-6 USD stakes or even 5-10 with a bankroll of less than 2K! (bad decision - i know!)

One year from now i plan to have turned the original 400 USD into 50.000 USD. not too ambitious, i know, but i might need to add that im playing part time, i have a job, and will be playing around 15 hours weekly, mostly in the weekends.

This should be an interesting endeavour and i look forward to keeping you all posted 2-3 times pr week on my progress

/JB