hollahollaholla

I'd like to trade my $200 on Stars for $200 on FTP.

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Hey guys, it's been a while since I've blogged. I'll probably make a big update in a week or two when I've got nothing else to do sitting on a plane or in the airport, but for now I have a question.

I'm gonna be studying in Sydney at UNSW this next semester, and I couldn't help but wonder what the live games were like. Are the best games found at casinos? Which are the best ones? I'm 19 so I can't play in casinos in the States, but I'm pretty sure you can gamble at 18 in Australia, no?

Basically I just wanna have somewhere fun to cooldown/unwind on a weekend or two and maybe play some low stakes soft games and pay for the next week's drinking while I'm at it.

Also if anyone wants to hang out or something I'll be arriving July 5th and I'm not gonna be doing much for the first few days except checking out the city. I'll be staying in Coogee Beach.

Uh I guess this is how blogs work:
NWS
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Post here if you can help me out, thanks.

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Started off the month with my bankroll at a new high, I decided that when I got to 30BI I'd make a move to NL100. I ran really well at NL50, both 6max and HU, and quickly hit my goal. I moved up after two or three days and played and ran really well at NL100 and in the first 10 days and 1000 hands (sick volume) I was up 10BI for the month. I then ran into some standard variance, but ran well again. I broke even for the next 1.5 or 2k hands and got very confident and decided to try some HU NL100, but that went pretty poorly even though I was pretty happy with most of my play. I definitely made some mistakes but I definitely plan on trying again. I didn't play for ~2 weeks in the middle of the month, and when I came back the downswing continued, I went all the way down to almost even for the month when I realized that something had changed. At the beginning of the month as in October and September I felt I'd really been playing excellent poker, but I got too confident in my play and just started playing roboticly and not thinking anything through. This definitely precipitated my downswing. I ended up running well for the last thousand hands and got back into thinking everything through. I even had one guy chew me out for taking so long on my decisions, I made sure to time out my last hand at the table. So here's the graph.
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As is pretty obvious I didn't put in any volume at all, 5k hands means almost nothing because it's just too small, but the feeling of confidence I gained during those hands felt awesome because I was a little nervous when I moved up to NL 100. The biggest reason for the weak volume was being out of town for two ultimate frisbee tournaments. I had a great time at both, my underarmor tights performed amazingly, they are the warmest things ever. This weekend I'm going to be running a 5k for the first time, I've never done one before so hopefully I can run an okay time. Indoor practices Tu/Th from 9:30pm till midnight also start this week, so I'm going to be sleeping in on Wednesdays and Fridays for a while.

With any luck I'll be able to stay focused whenever I play poker and put in some volume to speak of this month. Shoutout to my boys at IPC, my floormates, and my homie across the pond.

p.s. adding "aments" to every word is not clever or funny

p.p.s you won't be seeing me posting in the medium stakes forum because i was banned for telling an NL100 player that playing 100 hands at a certain stake doesn't grant you poker skills that someone playing below them doesn't have and apparently he had some pull with a mod. To be fair baal said that he would unban me when I played medium stakes, but when I PMd him he demanded proof as if I would make that up
i know baal doesn't read my blog, but rofl good work mate

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It's been a while since I've posted an update. After breaking even at NL50 for the better part of 2 months I've finally started to see some really serious improvement (aka heater), and I feel like I'm crushing the games pretty hard. I still make mistakes, but they are pretty few and far between now, especially compared to before. Unfortunately my coach who has been helping me all this time has to deal with RL issues so we had to end our deal. I feel I've learned a lot though, and the terms for early closure to the deal were definitely favorable for the student, so I didn't take too much of a hit.

Once my bankroll hits 30 buyins I'm going to start playing NL100, hopefully I can make a quick transition. I'd like to withdraw some money at some point while I'm playing NL100, probably before Christmas time, it would be my first realized gains from poker. I tend to look to far into the future with things, but long term my goal is to be at NL200 by next summer.

I've been looking forward to the poker club edzwoo started here at school for a while, I guess the first meeting is coming up next week. I'm going to be at practice right before it starts so I'll probably come in sweaty and covered in grass, but that's poker.

In the FML tilt department some stupid bitch crashed into me while we were on our bikes at an intersection. Here's a picture + Show Spoiler +

I have no idea where the fucking cunt was going, but she ruined my back tire so I'm gonna have to get a new one shipped out one of these days. Luckily only she got thrown off her bicycle, so there was some justice.

Here's the month so far.

Not bad for such pathetic volume.

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July Goal Check

[ ] 40k Hands WHIFF [x] +$750 net [x] Plug up loads of leaks [/] Stop being a monkey

2.5/4, not bad, but nothing to write home about (LP on the other hand...)

July I wanted to aim for some huge volume, but being so new to poker I don't really think I handle running poorly as well as some so I just quit for 5 hours when I have a bad session and I stop for a day or two if I have 4-5 in a row. This really hurt my volume, but I think it helped my bankroll. I only got in a pathetic 17k hands this month, less than half of what I was shooting for. Only time will tell if this was standard variance or if I actually ran as poorly as I perceived. Before this turns into a whine blog, which it shouldn't be..

I ended up .84BB/100 for the month. I did well in rakeback and bonuses though, and I earned 1.5BI in the ironman tournament, so I did okay for my bankroll which grew over $500 this month. I had a coach this month, we've probably spent 12 hours together this month, I feel it has really improved my game. I've felt I was a decent hand reader since I started learning (who doesn't though, LOL), but now I know what to do with that information.

I've got a lot on my plate this month, that's usually when I do best though, so I'm looking to get everything in order so I can crush life.

I know not many people will read this, and even less will care, but I hope everyone who does will run great!

August goals:
[ ] 4BB/100
[ ] 30k hands
[ ] Clear deposit bonus
[ ] Plug more leaks
[ ] Have 5 3+ hour 3+ BI sessions
[ ] Run for 30 minutes every day I'm in town

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Been a few weeks since I've posted an update, thought I would do it sooner, but I always feel weird posting a blog after a heater or a bunch of coolers because it'll either come off so braggy or whiny that there is no point, so I prefer to post after variance has taken me a little both ways. Thus, I bring you my NL50 graph.

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Not too many hands yet, but that should change this month. I really felt like I was crushing it and then I had that downswing where I was doing everything the same, but getting crushed over and over. I'm fairly certain that it was 9/10 bad luck and 1/10 bad play, but I still want to eliminate that bad play so my good runs can be that much better. I've been doing pretty well since then, everything going fairly standardly.

I'm starting to flat a lot less pf (opting to fold instead) and opening some more marginal holdings that before I would have folded, I'm also 3betting a little bit more often in order to prepare my game for the higher levels. I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter down here, but I hope to move up fairly quickly and I think the best way to facilitate that is to gear my game toward the level a couple higher than I'm at, I may be able to crush these stakes playing extremely straightforwardly, but when I move up I don't want to be the dumb nit reg who everyone can read perfectly, I want to be the guy that the other regs actively avoid sitting with, or at least to my right.

In nonpoker news I was up at my lakehouse in Wisconsin for the fourth, water skiing successfully for the first time was definitely the highlight. Had a great time, my aunt and uncle always have a party and there was plenty of beer, brats and burgers to go around, I think like 40 other people showed up plus my cousins and brother who were there. It was really crowded with 3 cousins and one of their friends, all 4 of them brought their SO, I didn't because I don't have one anymore, not quite as sad as it sounds. My brother was there with me though, so we were the fifth couple, and easily would have won chicken fights.

I've been working out most of the summer so far but really slacked off the last few weeks, so I'm going to hit July even harder than the second half of may/first half of June and try to hit new highs on the maxes and new lows on the scales. I've got a pretty rigorous routine planned, but I'll be doing most of it with my brother and working out is so much easier with a partner.

I also plan on playing 40k hands this month, I have been thinking about the idea of adding 2 tables to make it 6, but I only really think about it when I go for a while without any cards to play or I'm getting coolered KKvAA and I want to do that to someone else sooner, so it's probably unnecessary. I don't think I'll add tables until I either become a regular grinder at some limit because I'm cashing out somewhat often or I buy myself a setup with a nice big monitor which would have to include a desktop since I currently play on a laptop and my old desktop is pretty worthless for everything, that and I gave my monitor to my brother when I got a laptop. I don't think that will be anytime soon (eyes on this Christmas maybe).

Anyway, had a really fun fourth, I'm really looking forward to pushing myself both in and out of poker this July, may your cards be many and your reads be mighty.

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I'm experiencing some sweet variance at NL25 and am getting a little tired of people peeling two streets for their gutshots. I'm properly rolled at 20 BI for NL50 so I figure I can take a shot at it. I'm going to go back down to NL25 if I drop 4 buyins, I don't mind grinding it, but I'd like to move up as I feel I have acquired the necessary skills.

Keeping this update short for now, I'll definitely have a post in a couple days about how I'm doing.

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Welp, here we are ten days into June. I'm having a grand old time on FTP playing NL25. I'm finding lots of places where I don't know what the best thing to do is, and also discovering lots of leaks I can fix. I'm really feeling like I'm progressing quickly and learning a lot while I play. I have been playing four tables now this whole time and I don't plan on changing that. I think that four is really the best number, any more than that and I can't manage to keep my finger on the pulse of the table, any less and it gets pretty boring and I feel like I'm wasting some EV for my poker time.

I'm headed out to my family's summer home up in Wisconsin in a few days, probably stay there four 4-5 days and see if I can't get a nice tan. That will really cut short my month, I'm going to try for silver iron man status anyway though. My basic play is now at a place I'm really happy with (if you'll notice before I was at 14/11 then 17/13 stuff like that). I'll post my stats for this month so far right below.

I'm always looking for people to talk about poker hands with, whether they play similar stakes or higher. Feel free to send me a message on AIM, I'm SpeedyJack123. My graph is looking kind of weird so far, at first the red line was going up, then it was even, now it's going down. Each stage represents a conscious decision to change my game play and I'm still trying to figure out what type of play is optimal to crush the stake I'm at. I find it really easy to manipulate my red/blue line ratio, so I'm having a bit of fun with it right now. I'm barely 1/10 of the way done clearing my bonus so I'm still enjoying randomly gaining nearly a buyin every now and then. The sessions I'm doing are also getting longer, before I had trouble playing a solid hour, now an hour feels like a breeze and two hours is getting to be easier and easier, I've had some 3+ hour sessions. I feel like I'm getting better at grinding.

I hope everyone is having good luck and a great summer, here are some pictures that I would appreciate any feedback on:

Graph
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Stats
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Well, I decided it was time. I moved most of my roll to FullTilt and received the $600 bonus, time to grind it out I suppose. I also signed up for rakeback through TL . All of this has got me very excited to work on honing my game.

I only played 4,000 hands over the past week, but I was feeling good enough (and running good enough ) that I felt comfortable moving up to NL10. I started off on NL2 playing way too tight (think 12/11), but I gradually regained stats very similar to the ones I had last winter when I played. Currently over those 4,000 hands I'm at 15/13/4, ignoring my NL2 hands, because I moved up to NL5 after about 1,000 hands, I'm 18/14.5/4 and over the last couple of days I'm at about 21/17/3.5, we'll see if those number stick, I guess only time will tell. I'm pretty aggressive and have a decent opening range (maybe average for 6-max), although I'm not afraid to grab my passive hat and let some of the maniacs bet into me for a street or two before reraising.

Here's the graph for the last week (i.e. all of my hands since I started playing again)
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I suppose those numbers aren't to be expected, but I didn't feel like I was above expectation. Most of my sessions (about an hour long each 4 tabling) ended up with me taking down two or three big pots, losing between zero and two big pots, and then having quite a few 20-30BB pots won with a similar amount of 10-15BB pots lost (generally folded but occasionally checked down).

Now it's on to bigger and better things! Hopefully I can continue my fun at FullTilt. Like I said, I signed up for it just this morning and played a couple of hands. I took a while to set it up and get the preferences how I thought I would like them but after playing for about 15 minutes I realize they still need tweaking. I made the mistake of trying to 4 table right off the bat, I figured I should reproduce what I'm used to, but it proved a bit hectic trying to keep up with all the things to do with a format I'm not used to. I'm going to 1-table later until I feel comfortable then I'll 2-table, then perhaps I'll feel ready to go to 4 tonight or tomorrow.

I ran pretty nicely in my little 15 minute mini-session, I completed with K10s and proceeded to flop 10 10 2, and as luck had it there was a flush draw on the board. I can't remember if I tried to slow play or lead out, the action was three handed at this point. By the time the turn came it was only me and one other fellow in the pot which was now a nice size, the turn was a complete brick at least as far as I was concerned (might have been a Q or something) and then I lead out 3/4 pot, got called, and the river came down perfectly, pairing the 2 and completing the flush if anyone had it. Knowing that there was a good chance the flush just hit (or possibly even an underboat) I lead out pretty strong (maybe .8/.9 the pot) and got instareraised, after thinking for a second (not that it took any thought) I shoved and got snapcalled by a Jh3h that hit his flush on the river.

I think I had plans to write about more things on this blog, but I think I wrote quite a bit already and I can't really remember what any of the things were.

Get money, crush fishes boys.

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