DeucesCracked Blog Entries

From FR to SH

burnside — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:34:40 +0000

After several years of playing full ring up to NL100 I decided in December to switch to 6-max, because it became boring to play the tight style on 9-12 tables. And for this restart I went back to NL10. I started this limit on december 11th, and now I have 13k hands.

My winrate at this point is round about 12 PTBB/100, and of course I love my red line :)

The first 8K hands I played 4 tables at a time, and from 8-13K hands I played 6 tables. That brought my winrate a bit down, but it didn't change my hourly-rate.

These are my position stats:

Maybe I should loosen up in the CO in relation to the BU.

What about my steal percentages ?

I would love to hear some comments to my stats.

I didn't expect that it's that easy to beat this limit, so I guess I have to move up soon to NL25.

Sharkscope!

mitch — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:28:49 +0000

So I got a sharkscope account, mainly because HEM/PT3 does such a terrible job at tracking tournies for me, and finally worked out how to do one of those funny colour graph things. Around two weeks in and I'm:

Doing ok imo. I need to get in more volume but that shouldn't be a problem now that I'm more used to 9-12 tabling and playing the long hours. It's definitely an interesting ride, I still play pretty poorly in places as I have no idea what to do so either play far too nitty/passive or just spew off chips. I think moving forward I'm going to avoid stars and grind the euro sites. Unsynced breaks totally suck but with smaller fields (mostly <200) and really bad players I think that'll create a winning combination of relatively low variance + high ROI = happy Mitch.

The DC tourney videos have been super solid to learn from, especially jjyykk and IWEARGOGGLES, but I watched a few SEABEAST videos today and it totally blew my mind about how deep you can go into things; betsizing, metagame, ranges etc, etc. Obviously these things won't be very applicable to the stakes I'm playing but now I understand how people can get so hooked on tourneys. Plan moving forward is grind hard (500 games/week), keep on studying and move up to the midstakes which tbh from what I've seen it doesn't seem like that big of a stretch, compared to say moving from small stakes to midstakes in cash.

Oh btw the 70BI downswing is me trying to 30 table the 180s... lulz. Lesson learnt.

Nothing Epic, move along !

Squishee — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:59:46 +0000

Time for a little recovery !

Well, its not recovery from sickness or hangover, its just I decided to take 1 week of no alcohol-no going out in bar.

Its only one week, but I assume it would be good for mind, body and my bankroll. Putting more time in poker while keep training muay thai and starting some gym too. After that, I might add an other week, who know.

I just heard of a reggae festival for this w-e ... good timing with my supposed cure...

So unless something unexpected happen, dont hope for an other story with @ random ending or stupid thing , since I wont go out ! But anyway, I never mean to have stuff like that to happen, it just happen ! Sorry for those who are reading only to laugh their ass of my runbad, maybe you will be lucky later.

To end : Here Epic Picture, I like this dude !

Decent is the run

kerwinty — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:49:00 +0000

Hey all,

If you read my earlier post, you'll know I was bonus whoring to pay for current expenses, but that dried up a bit in that the "kickbacks (which differ from straight bonus)" take alot more time to clear so figured I'd just grind like an ordinary human being and see how it goes without rb. The reason I made this decision, at least will hold to it for the time being, is the site I am playing on really is that juicy, that even without rb, I am probably still making more than I would on a tougher site/network where the nits nit it up and the fish don't splash in deep waters the way they do here. Wish I had put a little more volume in the past two or three weeks, but a 3 day weekend at the beach, a few crazy nights outs, and one or two days bumming because of the run bad limited my hours at the tables. Still at 10nl but my roll is now at $425 so will be moving to $20nl asap. Had my roll up to $1200 from scratch but had to pay rent, food, dates etc so was comfortable grinding out the 3-5 bi's a day (maybe 5 days a week) and withdrawing weekly. I do have to mention my idiotic "fear" of moving up. It is idiotic for a few reasons 1.) Was grinding $25 and $50 for over a year and was able to handle the bigger swings, 2) Wouldn't think twice about loosing $300 playing $1-$2 in AC when I had a job because I always made so much more than I lost on those trips, 3) I am comfortably beating 10nl and have played a few thousand hands at 20nl on current site with same winrate.

So this fear may be unfounded, but regardless, it's there. I am sure 2 to 3 days in all will be fine and dandy mentally even if I am not winning at the rate I am winning at 10nl. At least I hope so. I do have to mention, as all of us bloggers do, the state of our most recent stretch of "run." Things have been decent over the last week, however, the week prior was a different story. Besides the 8-10 bi loses when I got the money in as a 98% favorite or better (it really was this many over 8k hands or so), the coolers were non stop. Not at all complaining, it was actual comical at times and I've come to expect it, but it definitely took its toll. Anyway, below is a recent graph. Will be hopefully moving on up from here and hoping the winning continues. Have also just become part of two study groups with some legit DC members, which is something I am very much looking forward to. I am sure it will benefit all of our games. Off to see a beautiful Ecuadorian amiga so hasta luego...

Back to Poker

karmabobby — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:12:54 +0000

I took a break from poker when I started my MSc. I wanted to get the first semester done with minimal distractions. I sat my exams and they all went pretty well overall, bit concerned about the last one but I still think I passed it. Anyway, back to poker. I have been spending far too much time playing xbox so I am starting to play poker again. Starting with So Fresh So Clean and performing the training drills daily which were posted in a video by Krantz and other videos as well.

I realised when I was studying for my exams that I do actually quite enjoy it, sure it can be boring at times but currently during my week off...while not revising for exams is nice, I have been bored....very very bored. So I am starting a new structure for 2012. Im picking up guitar again and going to learn music theory, something I have been putting off for a long time. Study poker daily and get to my target weight using kettlebell training. When my next semester starts I will be on campus, either studying poker or studying for my courses. I can play poker on the university internet so I will probably mix that in as well.

Poker goals: Get to 100NL to begin with

Fitness goals: Get to 13st and be training with a 32kg bell

Music: Start writing some songs

Damn, a day should have 48 hours

SnappieVouz — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:02:20 +0000

There was a time where I really believed I would like to have my days packed. I was sitting at home, depressed, smoking my weed and doing nothing. Doing nothing and using drugs makes me go into my head even more and I always came to the conclusion: I really want to get busy!

On the other side, I am a big hippy. Flower power. I am 29 years old and still in school, have partied a lot, had fun with a lot of women, and have the craziest moments with my friends. I am still in school, because I never did much at all living a crazy, insane life. I should have worked harder back then, but oh well. Its all good. No biggie.

I guess I got my wish. I work from 8 till 5 at the moment with a traineeship I have to do for school and when I get home, I have to make assignments and getting busy with building websites. I train way less then before, and had to change my goals from keeping a rock solid body into a 'just doing sports for the health benefits'. I eat well to stay fit, and train whenever I can.

The money I had witdraw from my poker account after black friday is still in my bank account and I really miss poker. I miss the days where I grinded my whole evening away and studied poker obsessively. So obsessively that even my coach said I really need to chill a bit more to make poker work for me.

I never lost money with poker, but I never got higher then 100nl. I would dive into sick work ethic, just to get burned out and not play at all. Witdraw, deposit, rinse, repeat.

I find it amazing that I can be so sucked into something, completely lost in it just to find out, a year later, that my life has flipped completely in a way i would never anticipated without the thing I was so completely obsessed about. It happened with music, It happened with poker. Goal setting is great, but it seems to me life partly happens, and is completely unpredictable. I have the power of choice, and choices seem to be the most important thing on the big journey. I set goals to aim, but in the end, its about the journey.

Still, I really miss poker. There has been several times the past month where I wanted to put my money back into my poker account and start grinding again only to realise I really dont have the time to get to the grind again. Its 21.57 now and I did not have a moment for myself until I started to write this blog.

Its not to whine, because i love making progress. Its grinding, but on a different level. Its grinding, because I am working harder then ever. Getting to it, eventho I really want to chill out. Reading another page, while I really would like to play some xbox. Getting of the threadmill, because I know I still have to read or work some more. Then going to bed, only to repeat the process at 7 o clock in the morning. There was a time where I wished that I was busy for +/- 16 hours a day and I finally got to that point.

Its nothing compared to mineworkers. Its nothing compared to parents of newborn babys so fuck it. I get to it, and do it. I just really miss poker. But I can't. If I play poker, I want to grind it, hard. Playing a sick amount and really getting at it, and doing it. Impossible. But damn, I miss it.

Go grind, you low life, and enjoy it.

2012 - January Goals

thelastfedor — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:13:57 +0000

Haven't posted in a while, standard. Let's move on shall we. 2012. Bam, that came quick.

January Goals:

Play 5k hands.
Read 2 poker books.

2012 Goals:

Make $15K in poker, part time.

December 2011

burnside — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:04:48 +0000

December was a great month. In the "10th Anniversary Class of 2006 Freeroll" I finished 4th place out of 9719 players for $783,57, last 4 players made a deal.

In the sunday million on december 25th, I finished 429th place out of 6982 players for $474.77. But I only had 60% for me, I sold 40% shares.

And this is the cashgame-graph:

#58 - Movie #26 - Moneyball

paguirre82 — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:21:25 +0000

Must watch movie for everyone interested in sports. Maybe those who don't won't like it that much. But it's indeed great. Because it's raw at most part. There are a few romanticized parts, but it's pretty much raw and real sports. It's not a Oscar Winning, I guess. Can't compete with a made-for-win-the-oscar War Horse, but again it's a must see.

Of course some concepts of the movie can be brought to poker, and to my poker goals. The first, and what the movie is about, is the mathematical approach of the game. I definetly need to put more emphasis in that, regarding to studies. But that has been discussed here before and most people are aware of that.

Second and most important is assessing a problem and solving it. Things haven't gone well in January. Not a tragedy but I'm not winning money. I have to realize what went wrong and fix it. I love cash games but history has proved I have more skill for MTTs. So I won't say I'll prioritize MTTs, but I will pay attention to them as much as I do to cash games, because that's where I'll probably make more money on short-term. And making money is what will keep me motivated to keep trying to beat cash games.

The biggest and more important difference I see between cash games and MTTs is the sense of rewardness (don't know if such word exists). I mean, you struggle a lot at cash games, as the games are tougher to beat, and 10 minutes of coolers, plus bad beats, plus tilt, it's all gone. At MTTs when you win, it's done, no one can take it. And the winnings can be so high in a short period of time that it just keeps the drive.

To support that little change of course, there's the fact that my quality of life is just worse since I restarted cash games. I'm tied up to my computer trying to beat volume goals and I have to be 100% focused all the time.. MTTs are just lighter in that aspect. Anyway, future might prove me wrong, but let's see what happens.

----

I had no time to get near the schedule I made for today, so I'll think about a new schedule and post it later.

Pictures of Food and Being a Warrior

jaimestaples — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:06:08 +0000

Hey guys

I didn't achieve all i wanted to this week goal wise however i do have some exciting things that i would like to share as well as some pictures of food! Now your hooked.

I guess we should start off with my weight loss which ended up alright. I ended up with a loss of 2 pounds this week, down to 300. Normally id be happy with that result but I do admit I had one slip up that cost me. I got invited to a home game that is notorious for ordering way to much pizza so i knew i needed to plan accordingly. I ate a big dinner before i left and bought some gin and tonic which isn't calorie free but i felt like i could afford the 500 or so calories of sugar since G&T is my favourite and it was Saturday after all. Well, alcohol and self control don't exactly go together and sure enough 6 pieces of pizza and a mickey later i felt pretty shitty about myself. It really is just a small set back in terms of weight but i know this feeling oh to well from past experiences. It was actually the day after the slip up that i feel was a true test to my dedication towards getting healthier. Normally that first slip up is an open invitation to let my guard down and revert back to the norm but i stuck to it and am right back at it working hard to be that fit, healthy guy I want to be. The thing that i have really adapted to for the first time is eating the right foods. I know it sounds ridiculous to most of you but i used to just eat shit. If i tried to lose weight I would eat tiny amounts of shit and be starving all the time which is obviously not the way your suppose to live. Instead i am eating the same amount of food as before, but eating all good things for me. The meals are big and lunch and dinner are often around 1000 calories but i am full, and feel full until my next scheduled meal. Below are some of my recent creations. The homemade pizza was a treat.

A little Olive oil on some 120 calorie Pitas.

Salsa Base 50 calories per half cup

Leftover chicken breast sliced

On the Pizza

With barbecue sauce. I would have gone a tad lighter on this but in my defence it was hard to spread properly.

While its cooking in the oven cutting up some baby tomatoes.

Fresh Out of the Oven

Final product

And a bigger then normal but pretty standard breakfast as of late.

Im going to take suggestions of what to cook next week so let me know below! Throw anything at me! Ill figure out how to make it healthy and photo friendly.

So getting down to the poker, things didn't go so hot agains this week. I played 4 days and didn't have a winning day but i feel like I'm playing well. Im sort of over the emotional downswing and have accepted my situation. Im more just looking forward to winning again. Playing those exciting tournaments like the big 109 or Sunday mill that can get a tournament grinder excited. It is more clear to me then ever before that if you wanna make it playing tournaments without a backer you gotta be soooo mentally tough. In a weird way it almost feels gratifying going through the swing. I feel like some kind of warrior that just survived an army trying to kill me. I'm not going to give in regardless of what the poker gods throw at me, i am more determined then ever to get through this and be twice as good as I was before. Onwards and Upwards!

Teaser for the next couple weeks! I have been thinking about opportunity costs and what i can do now to continue to grow capital. I have been brain storming some ideas and i hope to be able to talk about it in the weeks to come. Shout out to EvHero for the great new radio show on QuadJacks "Poker Eh!" and also for grinding through the downswing, Whiterabbito for continuing to bink everything and to all the new guys in the DC tournament Skype group. Look forward to talking hands with all of you. Thanks for taking interest guys and don't forget, suggest a meal for next week.

Cheers

Jaime

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/174/poker-goals-challenges/jaime-staples-mtt-journey-1112736/

BR: $3452

Fast Food Eaten: 0/10

Pounds Lost: 10/100

Money Won Staking: 0/1,000

Tournaments Played: 515/10,000

Cash Hands Played: 2702/100,000

And Still Running Really Bad

BaseMetal — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:51:50 +0000

This bad run has been going on for about 9 or 10 months now and shows no sign of stopping. Lately I have been tracking whether I am on the +ev side of all-in ev or the neg. and using these results just about sums up the state of play. Although it is possible to bias this I have not been trying to do this (daily they should be perfect flips) - I just play blocks of 45man SnGs usually 12 to 15 per session. Since I started tracking these I have had 37 unlucky days and 15 lucky ones. The chances of this score happening is 1 in 628, doh! quite painful. In general when I go all in pre-river I seem on average to hand over 130 chips of extra equity.

Here is the binomial distribution of 52 flips.

PLO: 2012 swingy year

miro347 — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:52:48 +0000

Until now 2012 has been a VERY swingy year.

Started out depositing 500 dollars on pokerstars. Had some good days until I met this big tour player. He was bragging about his recen't win in the chat, and PTR had him down -40k at different stakes - he was loosing at them all. He was playing some pretty leaky ABC poker against me on two tables, but ended up crushing me at every showdown. Big setups in 3b and 4b pots, so before I knew it, I had deposit 500 dollars more.

Busted that aswell

That's some 6 max aswell, and also HU against other players. But quess where I was playing him :)

GOGO EURO SITES!
I then went to some euro sites to grind my month back in green. I quess that was accomplished:

And I also made my biggest tour cash so far, when I finished second in a 22 tour on ongame:

So month so far is 3.7k usd with live games aswell. Best month by far - so i'm really happy about that :)

Shots at 100plo:
Today I took shots at 100plo. I have tried to break through earlier, but ended up loosing 3 buyins in 100 hands. So hoped for a better run this time:

Entraction $100.00 Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 2 players - View hand 1605483
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN/SB: $358.10 - VPIP: 57, PFR: 44, 3B: 10, AF: 2.1, Hands: 138
Hero (BB): $201.00 - VPIP: 60, PFR: 53, 3B: 14, AF: 3.4, Hands: 12362

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with A 7 9 A
BTN/SB raises to $3, Hero raises to $9, BTN/SB calls $6

Flop: ($18.00) Q 5 2(2 players)
Hero bets $12.00, BTN/SB raises to $48, Hero raises to $162, BTN/SB raises to $349.10, Hero calls $30 all in

Turn: ($402.00) 9(2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($402.00) K(2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $402.00
BTN/SB shows 8 3 Q 2
Hero shows A 7 9 A
BTN/SB wins $244.15
(Rake: $0.75)

Entraction $100.00 Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 2 players - View hand 1605484
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN/SB: $499.55 - VPIP: 57, PFR: 44, 3B: 10, AF: 2.1, Hands: 138
Hero (BB): $264.90 - VPIP: 60, PFR: 53, 3B: 14, AF: 3.4, Hands: 12362

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with 7 T 9 Q
BTN/SB raises to $3, Hero calls $2

Flop: ($6.00) J K 8(2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets $6.00, Hero raises to $19.50, BTN/SB raises to $64.50, Hero raises to $199.50, BTN/SB raises to $496.55, Hero calls $62.40 all in

Turn: ($529.80) 6(2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($529.80) K(2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $529.80
BTN/SB shows T 3 K J
Hero shows 7 T 9 Q
BTN/SB wins $294.40
(Rake: $0.75)

I quess not :P

I'm close to getting a staking deal for the next couple of months, which includes coaching. So I'm really hoping for that to go through. If not i'm just sticking to 50plo, and hopefully playing a good volume, and playing good :)

I'm also planning to play a WPT national PLO event in denmark in about a month aswell as some cheap NLHE tours.

- Rasmus

#57 - Gotta get serious

paguirre82 — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:56:31 +0000

I started to run better at NL 6-max, and then started to play PLO10 again after a few months, and I'm down about 11 BI. I'm kind of a nitfish, cuz I play too few hands and stack off in very stupid situations. So I gotta go back to study PLO again if I want to succeed. January sucked so far. I'm down in NL, PLO, and MTTs. The only exception is the volume of play. My stamina is getting better as I can play for more hours focused. But that's not a great thing when you play bad.

So the main thing right now is to keep disciplined about studying and not to abandon NL10, where results are starting to show up. To get this done I'll try to propose a schedule every day. It might be boring to those who are reading, but it kind of forces me to do it. When it's not necessary anymore I'll stop posting.

So the goal for this Monday is:

- 2k NL10 hands, in 500 hands sessions, reviewing them in between.

- 1k PLO hands, idem

- To read EVERY hand posted on SSPLO at 2p2 today.

- 2 videos, 1 PLO, 1 Texas.

- 2 MTTs, at least.

Haven't watched movies since last post, but I'll take a look at "Moneyball", in a few minutes. Seems pretty interesting.

So, there's a lot to do, see you later.

Another "i cant win" blog

cheapskate8 — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:28:52 +0000

We'll i ran we'll to get here but now i am experiencing a true and prolonged downswing. I think ive lost the last 9 sessions.. Stopped shots at 200nl, and now (because im a way to ditrusting of poker sites) am thinking of playing 50 to build it back up.

We'll see.

Also if you play 200nl + pm me im interested in coaching

Use the force, Luke

pavman — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:01:01 +0000

I have been playing at PKR this week. All its fancy graphics means that HEM Hud doesn't work there, so I have had to use the force instead :)

Several coaches here have recommended trying to play without a HUD and I agree. Before I would categorize all 20/18 Tag's the same but now I treat each player differently. I now pay attention to villains postflop tendencies and how I should adjust to exploit. I also think I was using stats too much when sample size was low.

Since I am not a Jedi I will return to using a HUD but when I do I won't let it blind me to other stuff going on at the table.

Goal 1 Done

huntse — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 07:45:41 +0000

Preparation for Goal 2 starts today. This one should be about 1/4 as hard as the first one. I'm not taking anything for granted though- I'm going to do my best not to screw this up. Goal 3 is epic (even more so than goal 1) so it's nice to have something a little more attainable to aim at first.

Just to recap, the actual goals and lots of stuff about the progress towards them will be revealed a bit after the completion of goal 3. I've added a subgoal between what I originally called goal 3 and goal 4 when I can post it all. All going well that will be some time in late March or so.

1000th Post Well on the DC Forums

goldseraph — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 07:35:21 +0000

Hi guys, check out my well in the Full Ring forum on DC!

http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/26-Full-Ring-No-Limit/topics/483851-1000th-Post-Ask-me-Anythi?#post_4214961

Limit Hold'em Low Content

DosXX — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 07:14:58 +0000

Limit hold'em games dead.

Bad fishy/loose player opens utg 7 handedish, next in cc, I call on the button with Q9s (weak and loose players in the pot already and worse players in the blinds likely to come along), sb calls and bb folds.

Flop: Ts 8d 2s (I have flush draw).

UTG bets, 1 call, I raise, sb calls, and everyone else calls.

Turn: Qd (2nd flush draw)

Check, check, I bet, sb calls, utg calls, next guy c/r. Now, I knew this particular player has a ton of bluffs, but just didn't think he could crazy spew in a huge 4 way pot (you'll see I was quite wrong) where no one will ever fold anything, so I just called, everyone else calls.

River: 9x

Check, bet, I call here cuz this guy is spazzy and can still be pure bluffing or have a worse 2 pair, sb calls (now I hate my life).

Spazz rolls Jd4d for the picked up flush draw/gutterball. Sb has 67 spades for the bottom end of the straight (had flush draw on the flop that was dead to me and on the turn had literally 0 outs). UTG said she had Kd9d, so spazz literally has 2 outs to win the pot and c/r the field on the turn.

Them's the breaks.

lolwtf

TtheAntlers — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:56:57 +0000

Shocking revelation c/o Skrillex's twitter machine:http://twitter.com/#!/Skrillex/status/160880255035387904

I thought this ish wasn't going to happen?

Then again, when has the government ever cared about playing by the rules?

new level of tilt has arived

I3betyoutillyoudie — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:59:19 +0000

Seriously fuck banks, first citi bank loses my 55k i have to wait three weeks to see it again it then disapears for another two weeks. I transfer 300k into my usd account after having a meeting with a personal banker and discusing my needs i discused with him i play online poker and i would be getting wires from them and putting money on. I go to deposit again today and after having five phone calls with their steller call center they reveal to me that they ''cannot morrally allow gambling transactions'' what the actual fuck are you smoking you dickheads... no online poker for me until my wire goes through to get my money out of citi bank

has anyone else used a citi bank to put money on a site?

sigh