Wave of Mutilation

Minimizing Luck in Poker (tl:dr imo)

FenderJaguar — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:04:35 +0000

First of all, it's gotta be the shoes. What shoes you may ask? Well, not 2k sneaks like Dani rolls with, but more along the lines of grinding shoes. I have (I think) finally found my grind ethic. After all these years it has been lost, either in my swampy skull or wonka's factory. I have tried everything from flint and tinder to the necronomicon and STILL have not been able to summon my grind ethic to this point. So what changed? A lot of things really. Everything kinda swirling around me always pointed to YO PLAY MORE POKER. I never did it. Lazy, complacent, procrastinating, hypocritical, lazy nerf herder. Actually I couldn't be a nerf herder they do stuff. I just really enjoy poker and for a while I wasn't really enjoying playing because I was subconsciously focused on the money. That's part of my theory anyway. I mean sure I'm maniacal and 3 barrel bluff in squeezed deep pots when I need to but you know, the swings have always bothered the hell out of me more than they should. There's a difference between money won and money earned. I've always known it but I've never really put that process into motion. So I'd be A gaming and super happy to be up 5 BI one day, then the next day I'd beat myself up for losing 3-4 BI, when really, I'm up 1 BI in prob not many hands, prob running fine, and prob should stfu and quit complaining and just play. I've always been able to coach and help others but I've never practiced what I preach. That shit is over. I'd like to think anyway.

Getting that happy happy joy joy self realization out of the way I wanted to ramble a bit about minimizing luck. I'm sure someone has talked about this sometime in poker but I can't remember who or when so I'll just run it. It's actually part of Magic: The Gathering theory. Winning players want to minimize luck as much as possible so that their skill edge yields the highest return in the highest number of matches. Against a total scrub you can make tons of mistakes and still crush them because unless they drew those 3 burn spells they don't take advantage of board situations, they don't think about the cards in your hand or deck, and they don't consider future plays and how things can manifest over the course of a game (or even sideboarding after game 1). There's actually more Magic theory I would like to try and apply to poker, but we'll save that for another day (like there's "Who's the beatdown?" which basically asks you to ask the question, who is the beatdown in this matchup? which we may be able to apply in poker situations like, is my opp in call down mode or play back mode? should I be the control deck or the beatdown? etc. etc.).

Ways to minimize luck in poker:

1. Play more hands. Obviously the more hands you play the more likely you are to realize your skill edge over the variance from session to session. I think this one is pretty self explanatory.

Sidenote: For all you bitches out there whining about EV and winrate and running bad bla bla bla how about you stfu and focus on what you can control. For the record you're going to have a different winrate at each table you choose to play at. Different table set ups, strength of opponents (especially how well they read or try to exploit you specifically), position of opponents, your mental state, quality of your decisions THAT session, all of these factors and more are going to determine your "winrate" so it's constantly in a state of flux. Assuming you're getting better at poker (or worse) this will have a big impact as well. Moral of the story? It doesn't get happy, it doesn't get sad, it just runs programs.

2. Base your decisions on solid fundamental play and adjustments based on solid observation and reads. Everyone has some sort of thought script, some sort of basic thought process skeleton that they follow (before things get out of hand :D) One of the ways you can improve your game is to improve this script. If you're constantly thinking about better information, RELEVANT information, you'll obviously make better decisions, and so the dominos fall. If you get into the habit of flying off the handle or making spewy plays that lack a fundamentally sound thought process, you're going to be leaking tons of money, experiencing tons of variance, and probably grinding yourself into a ditch. I would say be willing to give your opponents some credit for a while, be willing to see more than 1 instance of someone doing something you consider poor before you adjust or make some big change in the way you play vs. them, because you may be overadjusting and making more mistakes than you think. This leads to chalking things up to coolers. Build reads, not shaky reads, solid reads. Don't be afraid to fold the best hand some of the time or not value bet thinly enough in a suspect spot b/c villain is a TERRIBLE FISH. Don't start 4b jamming or 4b bluffing immediately after someone 3b's you like 2x. Stay solid, stay fundamental, build reads, make adjustments that exploit, rinse/repeat. Minimize luck.

3. Respect your opponents. Whether you think they're the worst possible or the nut low or the best EVAR!!!!!!!!!. If you respect your opponents it is going to reduce your tilt and spew factors, and likewise minimize luck. If someone owns you in a hand don't get pissed off. Figure out why you got owned and think about what you can do to not get owned in the future. Even if they run some crazy play that's only supposed to work on a blue moon and only if buck rogers is shagging 3 whack a moles wearing edible snozzberry flavored lingerie, that's fine. I've said it myself in the past, "His play is not that good unless I do exactly what I did, which 99% of other people would not have done here so his play sucks." I mean, maybe that's right? Maybe he got lucky? Maybe he KNEW you would own yourself. Let it go. This is also something to remember when you're in a sticky spot and you have a hand that's worth showing down facing a bet on the river vs. a guy you don't have tons of reads on, and like, you have top top but he donked 3x and you have no idea what to do. Think realistically about hand combinations and any sort of info you can gleam on the player. How many tables are they on etc. etc. If you decide the call is worth it, don't be surprised if you're beat. Don't let the result tilt you because you already know that's part of the possible outcomes, so just move on to the next hand with new and perhaps relevant information. Beating a dead horse here so on we go....

4. Give your opponents the fewest opportunities you can to make a correct play. This is a bit different than manipulating them into playing badly but it's along the same lines. It's also likely to be more relevant against weaker opponents. This kinda goes back to some of the fundamental/read based play and not spew stuff as well, since when you present your opponent with a comfortable situation that they understand well how to maneuver and see every day, you're not really giving them few chances to make a correct play, you're giving them plenty of shots at playing well. We'd like to avoid this. Against fish though, you can play very exploitably, especially in regards to bet sizing. VS. fit or fold fish you can cbet like 1/3 pot because they don't care that they're getting a price, they missed the flop and they're done. Against station fish you can pot every single street or overbet and they'll call anyway, because they're just playing their piece of the board or gutshot or w/e. Here's not the greatest example of this but it's a hand I played today and I would consider it an example.

I squeeze with JJ, and on the flop I just shove instead of going for a 2 street installment plan. The reason why is that I don't think this guy is ever going to fold a pair. Instead of betting small and letting him see a scary turn card or overcard he may fold his hand correctly to, I give him 1 chance to fuck it up. He gets one chance to click call or fold, and usually, as fish tend to do, he'll make the wrong decision. I also like to bet kinda quickly in rhythm when I'm value towning stationy fish, because you are giving them the least amount of time to think about doing something other than calling.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 909157
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $281.00
SB: $388.00
Hero (BB): $406.00
UTG: $483.20
MP: $240.00
CO: $427.40

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BB with J J
2 folds, CO raises to $12, BTN calls $12, SB calls $10, Hero raises to $68, 1 fold, BTN calls $56, 1 fold

Flop: ($160.00) T 2 7(2 players)
Hero bets $338 all in, BTN calls $213 all in

Turn: ($586.00) 6(2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($586.00) K(2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $586.00
BTN shows 8 8 (a pair of Eights)
Hero shows J J (a pair of Jacks)
Hero wins $583.00
(Rake: $3.00)

There are probably more ways to minimize luck in poker but this is what I have off the top of my head. If anyone else has anything to add feel free to post a comment and get some discussion going.

So there I was at a 2/4 HU table....

FenderJaguar — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:15:53 +0000

Sure sure I was playing a table of 2/4, a table of 3/6, and a table of 5/10 as well, but I was mostly focused on my empty 2/4 HU table just HOPING I could bumhunt me a fish. Pra(e)ying someone would drop by a dump some dollars all over me. Then he showed up. He had the shark avatar and less than $200 clams, bones, smackerinos, loot, gold coins, HIS ROD OR HIS JOHNSON "He fixed the cable?"

I quickly devise a plan to induce a bluffraise on the river in hand 2 of our match....

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 2 players - View hand 894224

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $411.50
BTN/SB: $149.50

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BB with 5 A
BTN/SB raises to $16, Hero calls $12

Flop: ($32.00) 3 2 6(2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets $12, Hero calls $12

Turn: ($56.00) 3(2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

River: ($56.00) T(2 players)
Hero bets $4, BTN/SB raises to $28, Hero calls $24

Final Pot: $112.00
Hero shows 5 A (a pair of Threes)
BTN/SB shows 8 7 (a pair of Threes)
Hero wins $111.50
(Rake: $0.50)

(btw his avatar induced me to induce this bluff. if he was the sly asian kid I would NEVER try something like this because I would assume that he'd be capable of thinly value betting with a better ace high or bottom pair. I'd be in trouble. If he had a black avatar I'd just assume he was running hotter than flaming balls of liquid equity and that I'd be setting myself up to fall into his slowplay supernut tarp.)

Or maybe that was hand 3, because this was the very next hand, and this was hand 4. He decided to take a ride on the reading....

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 2 players - View hand 894226

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN/SB): $467.00
BB: $93.50

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN/SB with J J
Hero raises to $12, BB raises to $93.50 all in, Hero calls $81.50

Flop: ($187.00) 3 2 T

Turn: ($187.00) 9

River: ($187.00) K

Final Pot: $187.00
Hero shows J J (a pair of Jacks)
BB shows 2 8 (a pair of Twos)
Hero wins $186.50
(Rake: $0.50)

If the average bumhunter sees this stuff all day long and just coasts the internet on the side, I can see why they'd be content lol. Not saying that's the groove for me, but hey, 82o folks. Easy monies.

You guys wanna see something hilarious? I played this hand in 2k6. 50NL FR lolol. Let me tell you, THIS was an eye opening hand haha. A total A-HA!!!!!!! moment for me to leave you with :D

Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 894234
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $23.75
UTG: $16.10
UTG+1: $20.65
Hero (UTG+2): $54.45
MP1: $49.25
MP2: $64.20
CO: $48.50
BTN: $32.75
SB: $85.40

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is UTG+2 with Q A
2 folds, Hero raises to $2, 4 folds, SB calls $1.75, 1 fold

Flop: ($4.50) 8 2 6(2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($4.50) 2(2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($4.50) A(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $52.45 all in, SB calls $52.45

Final Pot: $109.40
Hero shows Q A (two pair, Aces and Twos)
SB shows 8 8 (a full house, Eights full of Twos)
SB wins $106.40
(Rake: $3.00)

Guess I'm on ze Twitter now

FenderJaguar — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:38:16 +0000

http://twitter.com/Waincat

BALL WIRED FOR DEATH

FenderJaguar — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:03:20 +0000

that is all.

OMG TURN BACK! THERE ARE POKER HANDS IN THIS BLOG!!!!!

FenderJaguar — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 01:16:53 +0000

What's up. I'm still making a few smallish mistakes at 5/10 but I feel really good about my game and I'm recognizing and fixing those mistakes before I even need to have Krantz or someone else shed the light. Just have a couple of hands I wanted to share and yip yap run my mouth about. I was going to do it like the old days and go with biggest pot, lolololest hand, sickest Bilo retardation etc. but I don't have enough interesting hands yet. I may do that in the future but for now, this is what we got :D

Concept #1: Slow the fuck down when your opponent is obviously exploitably check/folding if you want ANY action with your good hands.

There are going to be a lot of times when you want to just bet and take the pot down because they c/f too much as the preflop raiser, you should definitely keep doing that. There are going to be a lot of times when you have a marginal hand or a draw and you likewise want to take it down. Keep doing that. If you have a very strong hand, like in the example I'm going to show you, or if you have a hand that's almost always best AND not that likely to be outdrawn, (think KJs on K28r or something where the best air they can have is AQ w/3 outs). you should consider slowplaying instead of betting like Old fuckin' Yeller. You know that foaming at the mouth dog that had rabies and couldn't wait to sink his teeth in? What happened to him? Shit didn't end well, he died and got no value from his hand. So....

So yeah, villain here is a loose player, very likely recreational. He's going to be c/folding this flop a lot, he's just got so many combinations of total air here that he can't continue with, that unless you know he's a total check/call station when he has initiative, it'd be a crime to bet here. On the turn he leads and though he can be pure bluffing, there's a lot of draws he can have in this spot as well, and we DO want to build the pot w/our quadzies just in case. On the river I overbet jam because that T fits so nicely with his range for calling on the turn, he can have any 6 any J and I doubt he's folding them (he may even call w/worse than that, if he's really bad) because he's a recreational player in the dimension of looking at his straight and thinking, "damn it feels good to be a gangsta, CALL!" rather than "I R REG BOT, NO BLUFF IN RANGE, HAND BLUFFCATCH % CaLCuLaTI0N -.... 2l349080@!!*%)#89K = FINAL ANALYSIS = FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD" (They process this shit must faster in real time)

Full Tilt Poker $5/$10 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 866623
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $1000.00
BB: $1314.00
UTG: $1303.00
MP: $1297.00
CO: $985.50
Hero (BTN): $1025.00

Pre Flop: ($15.00) Hero is BTN with 7 7
2 folds, CO raises to $35, Hero calls $35, 2 folds

Flop: ($85.00) 8 7 7 (2 players)
CO checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($85.00) 9 (2 players)
CO bets $50, Hero raises to $160, CO calls $110

River: ($405.00) T (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $830 all in, CO calls $790.50 all in

Final Pot: $1986.00
CO mucks 6 A
Hero shows 7 7 (four of a kind, Sevens)
Hero wins $1983.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Concept #2: When showdown value doesn't get the job done vs. a face up hand, BLUFF! Put pressure on your opponents and make them make a difficult decision. Even if they make the correct one this time, they'll probably fuck it up somewhere down the line if you set it up well.

Basically when you know your opponent has a weak hand, and you have some sort of pair or A high, if it's not going to show down profitably vs. their showdown hand range, you should put a lot of pressure on them and bluff the hell out of them. You can do this other times, when you have semi-bluffs and such, and I think people do a much better job of bluffing then, than when they don't have a hand that can show down well and try to anyway.

Be like this dude here....

I want you to throw barrels.

Here's the HH, basically I float the flop because my opp cbets too frequently in situations like this, and on the turn when they c/c I'm damn sure this player is never slowplaying on this type of board texture, the only question is do I bluff the river or not. There may be some cards I decide to give up on, like a card that pairs the board and doesn't complete the flush, I may just give up there, basically if I think the card increases my fold equity I'm going to bluff, and if I think he's going to think his hand is still good or that I have enough bluffs in my range enough of the time for him to call, I'm going to give up. This is going to vary from player to player and situation to situation so you MUST weather the storm ACTIVELY and pay attention.

Full Tilt Poker $5/$10 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 866635

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $1954.00
UTG: $891.00
CO: $1000.00
BTN: $1392.00
SB: $1691.00

Pre Flop: ($15.00) Hero is BB with 4 8
3 folds, SB raises to $30, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($60.00) 5 4 T(2 players)
SB bets $45, Hero calls $45

Turn: ($150.00) 6(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $110, SB calls $110

River: ($370.00) K(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $315, SB folds

Final Pot: $370.00
Hero wins $367.00
(Rake: $3.00)

That's it. No crazy shit to yabber on about, just wanted to post some poker content. I love this game :)

*Props to Ring King and Donkey Kong for chillin' with me.

Sifl & Olly's most amazing episode....

FenderJaguar — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:06:26 +0000

IT'S JUST SO FUCKING AMAZING!

David Lynch is one suave....

FenderJaguar — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:18:30 +0000

I played my first session back at midstakes a bit ago. I broke even but I feel good about it. I was tighter than I could have been but I didn't want to run out there all willy nilly. I had planned on playing some 5/10 and recording it but the games have been super dead the last few days at least. Seems like every time I check out the lobby the only thing running are these cocksucker shortstack tables. FUCK THAT.

So Billy Corgan is crazy. I mean I knew he was insane already, but this shit takes the cake. When he was trying to find a drummer for the current incarnation of his Smashing Pumpkins he had the chance to recruit System of a Down's drummer. He denied him for a 16 year old kid. That's just ludicrous. I mean, I'll bet the kid can play but come the fuck on, when I think about the beauty that could be heavy old school pumpkins + system of a down's drummer wailin' away where Heroin Chamberlain used to, ohhhhhh man. If a keyboardist died in that line-up it would be because his ear drums got exploded by machine gunning drums. If the dude from SOAD came to me and was all, "Hey I'd like to try out for your band" My response would be....

Get it? Simple. Don't fuck it up next time Corgan. Or pizza's going to send out.... FOR YOU!

Someone asked me the other day how I write such awesome blog posts. I thanked them for their compliment and told them that I just write when I'm feeling inspired or passionate about something. If you don't have any passion behind your creativity then you're a fucking robot. A god damn grade A Milliken. A scarecrow. Now that doesn't entirely translate to poker since you can find games easy enough to play like a retard and still make out like the hamburgler but I do feel like you need passion to play your best and achieve tough goals. My problem has always been that passion is fleeting. I love poker, don't get me wrong, I'll be on my death bed tryin' to stack some priest reading me my rights, errrr my death prayer thingies or whatever they do, walkin' through the river in the shadow of my equities death etc. etc. but my desire to play a lot washes in and out like the ocean tide. I used to want to force myself to play a ton but I don't really want to anymore. I'd be a miserable fuck. I'm happy being a jovial miserable fuck thank you very much.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, just like everything else in life you need to flesh out what you want for yourself, what your priorities are, what matters to you. You need to go through all kinds of experiences to figure it out. That's why I think people that get married and have kids and jump into this cookie cutter life at like 18-20 are dumb. No offense if that's you and you're reading this but come on dude seriously. It's time to wake up and don't you wish you were smelling something other than the diaper buffet? Oh yeah, I thought so.

I don't even know where I'm going with this honestly, just kinda inspired to yammer on about it for some reason. Do what you want to do in your life. It's YOUR life. Don't let your parents hold you back, don't let randoms influence you and hold you back, don't let your fucking friends hold you back because they wouldn't do what you want to do, and most of all don't think you're stuck with this cookie cutter existence and have to be a cog in the governments wheel of shit because that's "what you're supposed to do." FUCK that. I would jump out of this screen if I could right now and put a giant red bingo hall inked stamp that said FUCK THAT on each and every one of your faces, so you could think about this a lot in the future :D Or just get laughed at in public I guess.

My childhood had it's ups and downs for sure, and I could go on with infinite crazy stories that would amuse you, make you want to cry, and plain old shock the hell out of you, and through all the heartache and the madness I've refused to give up, and stop believing that I could accomplish whatever goals or desires I had. I've gone through all the periods of blaming others and myself, but the reality is the past is the past, it built you the way you are today for a reason, you are the organic machine constructed by the experiences in your life, and that's what makes us all so special.

I guess I'm done for now, can't promise I won't follow this up tonight or tomorrow or even in an hour, I guess that's what blogs are for though no?

Oh and David Lynch is one suave fucker....

I can't believe they raised the price of Juggs and Milk magazine :(

FenderJaguar — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:18:59 +0000

"You karate do yes, you karate do no. You karate do, guess so?.... SQUIIIIISH! Just like grape."

That's right, Mr. Miyagi had it right. It works for poker as well. Quit being a limp dick and get on one side or the other. Oh and dude's I'd also like to point out that the fact that they got Jackie Chan to play the shadow of Mr. Miyagi doesn't save the new "Karate Kid" from sucking a giant donkey's blubbering balls. There's no way in hell you can take a pop culture masterpiece, a piece of my happy fucking childhood, and remake it like that. You just don't do that stuff :( You can name it some other movie, or like, The New Karate Kid, or some other retarded name that elude's to the series but has literally nothing to do with Daniel Larusso or Miyagi. OK, I guess I'm done ranting. I don't mind however, that The Last Dragon is getting remade. I feel like the new one will never be as good as the original because you just can't beat SHO NUFF. The characters in that movie are beastly and amazing. BRB BLOG POST I has breakfast to eat....

Alright I'm back. So yeah I just really want to see Samuel L. Jackson as SHO NUFF. Am I the meanest? SHO NUFF! Am I the prettiest? SHO NUFF! Am I the baddest mofo lo DOWN around this town? SHO NUFF! Well who am I? SHO NUFF! WHO AM I? SHO NUFF! I can't hear you.... SHO NUFF!!!!!!!!!!!! The Sho Gun of Harlem. :D

So I have this student, he plays midstakes and his results are generally very good but he sometimes slips and loses focus and his game really suffers. We were talking about the causes of it, and what he can do to stay on top of his mental A game, and these are a few of the things we talked about that I thought would be cool to share here, I know a ton of people have probably talked about this stuff, but mize well run it anyway.

Feeling your best - When do you feel your best? When do you think you play your best poker? Is it in the morning, afternoon, or evening? Is it before or after a short workout, or hot shower, or after you've lubed up a stack of asian chicks if you're Barry G. It's going to be slightly different for everyone, so ask yourself what creates the most positive environment for you to play poker. I'll tell you a few things that mine does NOT include.

1. Pets - I love my cats but let's face the facts. When I'm trying to stack a donk and they're runnin' all over the keyboard or trying to ram their balls in my face in that loving way they do, it's a big distraction. I may even end up sneezing. Then I have to wash my screen, TOO MUCH BULLSHIT. Sorry cats, away you go for the grind.

2. Instant Messaging - Wow I know how to spell messaging but wow that word just looks really fucked up right now for some reason. What kind of alien trickery is this??? So yeah, put this shit away. Close skype, close aim, close yahoo, close msn, close whatever else you're using, I guess I could put phone as the next thing but so many people text these days I'll just include it here, put your phone under foam, or like, a giant cotton blanket. I guess turning it off would be ok as well. I'm old fashioned. Do this before you start to play, and if you find yourself yapping with friends and can't get away, think of how much money it's costing you while the donkey's ship it to other grinders :( nooooooooo.

3. Women - Whether it's a wife or a girlfriend, make sure that she respects your time to play poker if you take it seriously. If you're just looking to hit a gutter and hit the gutter I guess you have nothing to worry about, but if you want to win, resolve this asap. Tell that bitch not to nag the fuck out of you, and hassle you about irrelevant shit before you play, tell her to make sure you're at peace with the world and she hasn't added any new stress. A clear mind is VERY important and women are one of the most mind unclearing things possible. For so many reasons. If she still wants to nag and hassle, just let her know that all the cool stuff you do with her comes from your time playing poker, and she needs to respect that and let it go.

4. Christmas Child Syndrome - WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!? I know I know I keep rambling about ridiculous stuff just listen because I make it up as I go. Christmas Child Syndrome means that you're not thinking about poker, you're thinking about something sweet that you just can't wait for, a concert, banging some skeezy ho, a game of buttcraft with your friends, so many things that you're super excited for and it's making you want to shit yourself and like, you're getting piss cramps and stuff. PEE CRAMPS, dandelions and daffodonks dancin' in your mullet. Sugar cane and peppermuck, coal in the stacking. Make sure you're entirely focused on the poker and not the poke her, got me?

5. Eh, fuck number five. You get my point. The bottom line is that you need to consistently create a positive environment that enables you to play your best poker. Think about the best sessions you've played, not just where you ran aces into kings all day you dingleberry, I mean the sessions where your reads were all spot on, you were totally focused and you crushed the player, player vs. player interaction, not card vs. card interaction. AUTOBOTS ROLLLLLL OUT. Write down a list of all the variables that surround that positive playing environment and recreate it.

Just want to touch on this topic here real fast ----> ATTENTION. If you're not paying attention at the poker table, you're paying someone else. Everything starts with fundamentally solid play, everything starts in a vac, and slowly (or even quickly) spins out of control, a maelstrom of insanity. You HAVE to observe your opponents, you HAVE to learn about their ranges, you HAVE to meticulously crunch every detail that may or may not change the way you play a hand (or the way they play theirs). Your best opponents are doing this. The players moving up to where you want to be are doing this. The GROCERY STORE SCANNER IS DOING THIS. Seriously check it out....

So yeah, again. IF YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION, YOU ARE PAYING SOMEONE ELSE.

My back is much better. I've purchased the heinously necessary Tableninja on FTP and I'm about to hit the tables soon. I'm basically sore in the morning because when I get out of bed (my brand new king size dreamy sleeptone bed) my back is cracklin' like bacon. But it's generally ok after that. It's been a long hard road out of this injured hell but I'm unlikely to give up, you can't get rid of me unless I'd like to be gotten rid of. I'm out for blood, just like Jason Voorhees I may not say much, but when your stack turns around my machete will be cleaving it my way. Actually I'm more likely to say too much, ok so like Freddy Krueger then.

Fender

Jaguar

Out

Up and around, in pain though healing.

FenderJaguar — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:26:44 +0000

Man this blows. I bought a new bed because the one I have is like infinite years old and worn out. I've been feeling OK after being up for a while, and I'm def healing and getting better, but the bed is twisting my spine and it's realllllllllllly painful for the first few hours of being up. I miss poker. Low volume and be damned I still played god damn it. I want to play now but I'm afraid my brain is frazzled so I'm going to wait a few more days. Try to let this finish healing. This time of not being able to play or do anything else I want to do has been eye opening. What if something happened in the future and I couldn't play poker whenever I wanted to anymore? What if I couldn't play at all? I'd probably regret slackin' off and taking it as easy and casually as I have. I'd probably be pretty pissed off at myself. I guess you can transfer that to anything in life, not just poker. That's kind of the point though. I guess it's human nature to want what we can't have, but if we could have had it and didn't take advantage, when it gets to the point that we can't have it anymore we have nobody to blame but ourselves. I don't know where I'm even going with this post, just kinda rambling stuff that's been on my mind lately.

One of the obvious changes that I've made in this period of time is eating better. I mean the whole nine yards. I even went as far as getting an $8 bottle of organic cranberry juice with nothing added. Let me fucking tell you this stuff is as strong as alcohol lol. I have to drink it in tiny 1/3 cups because it's seriously potent. I don't think I'll be paying 8 bones in the future for the stuff but I'll def enjoy it while it lasts. However, I can't tell you how delicious steamed broccoli and carrots are with some sea salt and natural butter. It's amazing how much better the food tastes when it's fresh and chemical free.

It's kinda depressing thinking back to 2008. I sat around staring at walls thinking about death for basically the entire year. I just sat there drenched in depression thinking about how short life is and how miserable I was. Then I'd think about actual death, hoping it was peaceful and not painful. Wondering what happens then, trying to envision what it will feel like when your body goes cold and lifeless, and what your soul might do after (or not do). I don't really want to get into all the gory details but let's just say I was in a bad bad bad place. I eventually woke up from that endless nightmare. I'm not sure how or what sparked it, but I'm glad I did.

I still feel pretty lost at times but I know one thing for sure. I don't want a standard existence. I don't really care about getting married or having kids (though I definitely want a relationship), and I don't give a rats ass about a picket fence or a 2 car garage. I basically just want to be happy and peaceful, enjoying the rest of my life doing whatever it is I want to do. I like the ocean. I think if Vegas wasn't a desert I'd have moved out there already. I'm really happy near water and I love the smell and feel of ocean air. I have an insane sleep schedule that rotates non-stop. Sometimes you'll catch me going to sleep at 5am, sometimes you'll catch me waking up at 5am. I do like that Vegas is a 24/7 city, and that's definitely attractive but meh. I don't know. I guess I'm pretty indecisive when it comes to moving or living somewhere. I've lived all over the place and growing up we never stayed in the same place more than a few months, or I'd be living with a different relative every few months. I never really settled in to one specific place and I don't require much. I guess that's why I JUST replaced a 6 year old bed, and it was out of necessity. If I didn't injure my back who knows how long I'd have kept that bed.

Through suffering we gain enlightenment. Through loss we learn appreciation.

Stuck in bed :(

FenderJaguar — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:36:33 +0000

I threw out my back the other day and I've been stuck in bed ever since. No I wasn't carrying dead bodies around or anything like that. I stood up. Yep, that's all I did. So if you haven't seen me around lately that's why. I've been Netflixing to get me through the days. I re-watched the entirety of Chappelle's Show, the good Karate Kid movies, and even some Kids in the Hall for good measure. I'm in a lot of pain, drinking icyhot milkshakes and overdosin' on alcohol & painkiller cocktails (not really obv). I'll be back before you know it with a radically hellacious vengeance to unleash on someone. I'm not exactly sure who yet but someone. In other news standing up after spending long periods of time in bed makes you DIZZY AS FUCK.

Jedi (Live) Poker Tricks for the WSOP Hopeful Part 2

FenderJaguar — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:22:17 +0000

Welcome back. If you're still with me and don't think I'm utterly insane (just yet anyway) congratulations. I think we'll cover a couple of interesting topics in this continuation of previous groove.

OK so last blog I covered some cool stuff about table talk. In this blog we're going to go over topics that somewhat intertwine with that concept.

UNDERSTANDING MOTIVE

This goes for real life as well as poker (live and online), so get your foam spongy eyes on and perhaps a pencil or text file ready.

People are driven subconsciously by what their personality seeks to accomplish. At the poker table each of your opponents has a subterranean end goal lurking in the back of their skull that influences how they decide on their poker decisions. A "good regular" is usually driven by things like playing well, making money, exploiting other regs, not being exploited by other regs etc. etc. A "serious amateur" is often driven by playing their best poker, living up to the challenge, improving their game, NOT making mistakes. A "recreational player" may have goals that run from being the best bluffer (ala Jamie Gold) or having the most fun (3b'ing 92o and showing it when he overbet jams the A high flop). It's up to you to classify and learn about each individual players persona. What are they likely to do or not do based on the subconscious end goal they've set for themselves? What drives them, why do they play poker? Aside from breaking people apart emotionally (the JENGA of their soul, not making them cry etc.) this is a good basic skeleton for what you can expect on average from an opponent you don't know too much about. So open up your mouth, talk with people at the table, absorb and create dialogue. If you're not very comfortable talking to total strangers or you're socially awkward and have a hard time not sounding like a babbling buffoon ripe with out of place comments, I suggest you spend some time on chat roulette or fire up skype and call random people. Go to a bar and stay sober the entire night but try to have meaningful conversations with the drunkards (you can get away with saying whatever you want because they're likely paying way less attention than someone sober and they won't remember it the next day half of the time anyway, GUINEA PIGS!) or just walk around the mall and try talking to random people. Go into stores and strike up conversations about whatever is on the shelf, whatever they have in their cart, whatever they're wearing, whatever you can possibly use to break into a conversation.

This sort of thinking goes hand in hand between real life and poker. Once you start constantly thinking about what drives people to make the decisions they make, you can see through to the truth. The usable core so to speak. You'll notice lies easier, you'll recognize when someone is trying to take advantage of you a lot faster/more efficiently, you'll also be able to lie and take advantage of people more efficiently (for better or worse, use it for poker and vs. corporations, not vs. family and friends lol) You'll basically be better at life because you're processing more information to make your decisions and you'll learn a better response to said processed information through experience and analysis. Hmmm sounds kinda like improving at poker no?

MANIPULATIVE TRIGGER THEORY

Understanding the psychological information that people transmit (knowingly or not) AND knowing how to take control of and transmit psychological information that people will respond to in an anticipated manner. (sounds like metagame no? THE METAGAME OF LIFE!)

After you read the examples below, stop and think for a few minutes about how it would translate in other situations. What if you were on the opposite side of the coin? What if it was poker/real life/you were buying a car/you were discussing your salary with an employer.

People will take the options given to them a high % of the time. If you don't give them any options, they don't have any outs aside from being a super strong thinker or someone who understands this kind of stuff/questions everything in a logical manner already. Weak minded or nonchalant/naive people will get obliterated by this.

Selection of words ---> How you present information greatly influences how people respond to what you say to them. I don't mean simple stuff like HEY FUCK YOU ASSHOLE! vs. YOU ROCK DUDE! or YOU SEXY VIXEN! vs. YOU SKANK ASS SLUM BUNNY! That stuff should be very obvious. I'm talking about subtle word choices that transmit or obstruct information to someone that will cultivate an anticipated response from them based on the words or options you've included or left out. Sounds ridiculous right? Follow me....

Example 1: PRESENTATION - You present a friend/date with options for where you'll eat dinner this evening.

If you say something like "Where do you want to eat tonight?" You'll get an honest response, there's no suggestive information here, there's no denial of choice or constriction of thought.

If you say something like "We're going to X tonight." Saucy individuals may say "Oh really?" before they fall into line, but they almost always fall into line anyway. This doesn't give them a choice, they don't have any options, there's no room for thought (unless they really don't like the food you're telling them you're getting, which would stop this from being as effective obv) and most of the time they'll say "that's cool" or "sure, doesn't matter to me". You get the picture.

If you say something like "Chinese or Italian, it's your choice." Is it really their choice? Sure, within the parameters that you've specifically given to them. They have options now, but only options that are OK with you, you win regardless of end result. This also blindsides them from ever thinking it's not their choice, because you've clearly stated "it's YOUR choice." You're empowering them within your own goals. Sometimes people won't feel like either choice and suggest something else, but the vast majority of the time they don't even think about it, they just choose which option impulsively sounds more attractive to them.

If you say something like "We shouldn't eat at X tonight" vs. "We shouldn't eat at X tonight, should we?" These sound super similar right? The difference between the first sentence and the second is that in the first one you're not leaving the statement open for discussion. You will NOT be eating at that place, and they don't have the option to open up debate because you haven't given it to them. In the second sentence though, the inclusion of "should we?" allows them to think freely about whether or not they want X and if it's a good idea. You're encouraging feedback and interaction, rather than submission.

Example 2: DOMINANT VS. SUBMISSIVE PERSONALITIES - When you learn more about how an individual thinks, you'll learn whether or not they're dominant or submissive on average, or what parts of life they tend to be dominant or submissive in. Perhaps someone isn't picky about food but REALLY cares about what movies they watch. Maybe someone likes to feel like part of the decision process and hates being told what to do, with that type of person you'd win more often by suggesting things in a "together" manner. If you said "We're doing X." you'd get less positive responses over the long term than if you said "Let's do X." Variations on that could be "Let's do X, WHAT DO YOU THINK?" which will allow their inner team player to respond in a positive way, or "Let's do X, THAT'S A GOOD IDEA, RIGHT?" which is slightly more aggressive in that it attempts to get them to believe they're "on the team" by including them in the process, but reduces their choice to include only what you want. If they're more agreeable and less combative to authority overall, the "that's a good idea, right?" line can be tossed in a lot of the time to get the response you want.

Example 3: APPLICATION USING INFORMATION - When I was buying magic cards at conventions I routinely noticed people saying no when I said "Do you have any cards for sale?" as they wandered by. The reason is because a lot of those people weren't expressly looking to sell cards, or the thought didn't even cross their mind, so their default response was a simple "No." The people that said yes to that question were generally a lot easier to deal with price-wise as well, because they had the intention of selling cards, and they knew "business was business." They expected you to make a profit off of them, so you had more room to work (even if they battled for the best deal they could get, the generally never tried to shut you out of a profit). I eventually cracked the code, when I started following up "Do you have any cards for sale?" with "Do you have a binder I can look through?" Almost EVERYONE had a binder of cards they brought with them. That opened up the door to soooooo many purchases I wouldn't have had the opportunity to make otherwise. To think, just a few simple words or a slightly different question and voila, Magic (no pun intended).

Example 3: KEYWORDS AND BODY LANGUAGE - Much like we can change the words we use to influence the way people interact and respond to us most people use their own keywords and body language to transmit information to the world around them (very often unknowingly and unnoticed). There are a lot of subtle hints, whispers on the breeze if you will. If you know what to look for you can pick this stuff up and get a lot of value from it. I don't pretend to be an expert so keep in mind I'm just sharing my views :)

When you're having a conversation with ANYONE about ANYTHING at all listen very specifically to the words they're using. Look closer at them and see how their body moves or how their mouth or eyes change when they speak a word or finish a thought. There's so much information available it's ridiculous. They're letting you know if they like/dislike approve/disapprove of or love/hate etc. etc. This gives you a chance to fill future conversation with the seeds of whatever your goal is. What are you trying to accomplish and what's the best way to accomplish it with this person based on the information you have about them currently. This can apply to all kinds of situations and relations.

DISCLAIMER: I said something similar earlier and I'll say it again. Being yourself is the best thing you can do when you're interacting with friends and family, future friends, or anyone you may want to date seriously. Basically interacting with anyone that you're going to end up caring about long term you don't really want to be super manipulative towards them (unless it's harmless subtle manipulation that grants you an edge in dinner choice long term, or something silly like that).

In poker, random daily life situations, esFUCKINGspecially VS. corporations, anytime there's no personal connection is a good time to abuse this ability. Obviously at the live poker table we don't want to get too wrapped up in putting value on eye twitches and scratched asses until they become really rock solid reads or we have a lot of experience with the person but in daily life this information is usually very accurate, applicable, available, and manifests itself quickly (meaning it's often useful because it's about something going on currently, something relevant).

This is getting pretty long as well so I think I'm going to stop it here, if I missed covering anything or anyone wants me to touch on something unclear, comment and I'll use that information as a pivot for my next blog post. I hope this stuff is helpful :) Even though I didn't talk about poker specifically there's a giant wealth of applicable poker knowledge in this post, like I said earlier, stop and think about how the concepts apply in different situations, different mediums, with different people etc. Feel it out, but most importantly don't leave it out. GL in Vegas folks haha.

Jedi (Live) Poker Tricks for the WSOP Hopeful Part 1

FenderJaguar — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:03:55 +0000

Nothing interesting has gone on lately. Pretty much airballs in fact. It will pleasure you to know that I'll have a replacement vid for the one taken down going up sometime soon. I'm going to start playing HU for the majority of my play. So if anyone has any nut high HU vid suggestions let me know. Otherwise I'll make my way around the usual channels of groove and try to find some gem mint stuff. I'll still be coaching 6-max and playing 6-max some % of the time.
I've been listening to this band Surfer Blood as suggested by my music/political journalist friend David King (read some of his stuff here, but be warned it's usually Upstate, NY stuff :D ---->) http://www.metroland.net/back_issues/vol31_no15/newsfront.html. It's pretty damn awesome, and if anyone reading this likes Weezer, The Pixies, My Bloody Valentine, or Pavement-ish type stuff, you need to check these dudes out.

I thought you'd like that :D

Sooooo everyone is going to be chillin' at the WSOP, playin' events, wackin' donks, hoping for that run hot to a bracelet groove. I used to play a lot of live poker, mostly cash games but the occasional donkament. I table talk like a motherfucker, and it usually tilts the shit out of people. It's very subtle though, you plant the seeds of doom and let your enemies stew and foam until finally they explode! No seriously! I have a couple of tricks that I use here and there and a few topics I'd like to discuss. Actually, fuck all that structure bullshit I just have a few random things that crossed my mind and as such I'm spewing them to you guys. Drink up me hearties yo ho!

OK firstly -----> EDGE IS EDGE IS EDGE IS EDGE IS EDGE. Online edge manifests itself differently than live. I'm not going to go into all the ways you can create an edge online because I think you guys are probably pretty well versed in this. Live though, things are completely different. Less hands means less opportunity to take advantage of technical edge. You spend more time interacting (or not) with your actual opponents via conversation, dirty looks, or spyin' that make-up caked ho's cleavage while her meathead boyfriend loses his paycheck. The visual experience of seeing them in the flesh has its advantages. Alright on we go (Q Wonka's boat ride clip here imo)

First up is table talk. What is it? It's a way to fuck up your opponents game and help them make mistakes. Why do we do it? It's a way to fuck up your opponents game and help them make mistakes. When should we do it? When it's a way to fuck up your opponents game and help them make mistakes. Who should we do it do? Anyone at the table who has chips you'd like to de-rezz. Where should we do it? At the poker table numb nuts what the hell? I do think if you read everything I'm rambling about today you can probably find some life application as well though, so keep in mind how stuff may transfer over to non-poker situations.

I like to get a feel for who's a talker at the table, and who's just iPoding away or a cold lump of air. What you talk about topic-wise can have a big effect on the way your opponents subconscious brainwaves are sputtering. Regardless of how good we are at poker, we are emotional humans who have psychological triggers and things we like too much or hate a lot. It's your job to feel them out and see what they might be into or against. What's their job? A Veterinarian probably likes animals so talking about some video you saw online with someone beating a dog would probably make them pretty uncomfortable, and it may even make them angry. (This may be a bad example, but if you present this information from a "this disgusts me" standpoint rather than "DUDE THIS WAS AWESOME" they may actually register that they like you in their head (things in common = bonding), and may softplay you unintentionally down the road, or if you did say "dude this was awesome" they may be gunning4you, you get the point though :D) This WILL have an effect on their play whether they know it or not. How many times have we said it online? STAY FOCUSED, close IM's and web pages. Those things lower our in motion level of skill (by lowering our "focus" and increasing our level of emotion). The same thing can happen live. If you let them grind quietly along they can focus, if you throw rocks at their windows and blow out their tires, they can't navigate very well anymore :(

After getting a feel for what kind of people you have at your table and what may influence their level of emotion, you move on to topic manipulation. You can attack them individually with precision, but you need broader topics when trying to influence the entire table. When I used to play at the Turning Stone Casino, I'd generally have tables with a good mix of older dudes and college kids that couldn't play anywhere else because they weren't 21 yet and they didn't have a giant beard to defend vs. ID checks. At this kind of table, my favorite topic to bring up? Think for a second.... STRIPPERS! Talking about women in general, but mainly those that taunt you in a sexual fashion is a great way to loosen up the table. It gets everyone thinking about sex and whoever they banged (or failed to bang!) the previous night or who they could be banging tonight. It will loosen up the nittiest of nits. USE THIS. It's actually amazing at how a nitty table can get loose and gambly (word?) all because emotionally they're thinking about sex, and their level of poker focus has decreased. Sex is where we let go of our inhibitions, if it's on their minds they'll do the same thing at the poker table, let go of their nitty inhibitions. Close calls become easy calls, preflop folds go the way of the dodo. I go off on tangents and make up stories about the subject, anything over the top to really grab their attention. You may think this is all ridiculous but seriously give it a shot. Post comments on how it went :D

SIDENOTE: Silly tricks used on dumb animals = If you have the nuts, or AA, you can often ask a naive opponent in the hand if HE has AA or the nuts, thus drastically reducing the chances of him thinking you have said hand, and increasing his likelihood of going broke with a hand he may not have previous. If you know a player is VERY ego driven, hates losing pots for the wrong reason, hates losing a conversational battle, you can TAUNT him into calling ALL THE TIME :D When you're value betting vs. him, top it off with comments like "You'll never call this one!" or "I'm just takin' your black chip, no worries bro." Be subtle but ---> BE CONDESCENDING <---. You will rape this guy because his emotional response will crush his focus and he'll HATE STATION you. If you want to get away with an overbet jam or a giant pot sized bet for value where you have a naive opponent with an obvious hand, suggest parity. Say something like "haha we're chopping." or "haha, we have the same hand." or call out his hand and say "You have XX too? I may as well fold out the chop LOL." or "You have XX as well? We choppin' this pot?" Keep in mind this kinda stuff won't work on good players. VS. those guys you need emotional subterfuge. Also keep in mind that a smile or a laugh is in nearly every example. VS. the naive dudes it suggests comfort and togetherness, VS. the ego driven guys it suggests that you're getting the better of him, and he will respond accordingly.

OK back to our regularly scheduled program. Eh nevermind this is getting kinda long but I don't feeling like shutting the hell up just yet, so I'm going to continue this in a part 2 coming up ASAP.

The Devilish Grin of Dillinger: A Bad Beat Story. (You were warned!)

FenderJaguar — Mon, 17 May 2010 03:28:36 +0000

So there I was, walking down the street in the SCOOP low ME on stars. I’m super card dead in the first couple of hours, barely getting by. I bust some dude with a set vs. his 99 on 678r, things are looking up. I go card dead again and we start to get close to the money. Then something ridiculous happens. Not just any individual variable, but every variable lined up to create this gigantic mass atomic head exploding flesh splattering bomb of retardation. So how did this wryly spun classic go? Lets take a look eh?

One of my opponents, who we’ll call Dillinger (this is nothing near his actual name, this is a sweet ass pop culture reference designed to amuse probably just me, but if anyone else gets it that’s cool too :D) decided to STALL THE LIVING FUCK out of his time bank. THE ENTIRE 3 MINUTES WORTH. We were still like 100+ people or so out of the money, and maybe that’s totally standard as I’m not really an MTT guy, but it seemed ridiculous. HE DID NOT tank once, he tanked twice!!!! SAM I AM GREEN EGGS AND SLOWPLAYING DILLINGER THAT SHOULD HAVE JAMMED.

MP opens, Dillinger SMOOTH CALLS w/15 bb. (nobody uses smooth call anymore, where’s the love?). Let us be perfectly honest. Nice and sparkling clear, NOBODY THINKS YOU HAVE AIR MR. DILLINGER. anyone with half of a brain in their head KNOWS you’re obv snapcalling any sort of jam, you don’t just tank forever and flat with 15bb ready to dump napkins you saucy tart! :D

So I miraculously have aces. That’s right, American FUCKING Airlines. ROCKETS baby. BULLETS that Dillinger CAN NOT DODGE! So I squeeze-jam for about 17bb. I’m pretty happy because I know he’s never folding. I know he’s got a snapcall waiting in the weeds like that vampire kid in Salem’s Lot that shimmied up to his friends window in the misty fog light and was like YO DUDE IT’S COOL IT’S ME YOUR OLD FRIEND OPIE (I still can’t believe that kid opened the window, I mean come on dude, he’s FLOATING in mist, if my friends show up floating in mist I RARELY let them in because I KNOW some shady shit is going down, THINK MCFLY THINK).

Anyway, I JAM with AA, and he goes into the tank for his remaining 2 minutes. During that 2 minutes of time, enough people bust out that we’re literally down to the bubble, 3150 out of 20k people get paid, and we’re at 3159 or so when his timer hits 1. HITS 1! He obv calls.

He turns over AK of spades, NO SURPRISES HERE!

Now we can go into that slow motion gut wrenching emotionally charged part of the story where we’re on the edge of our seats as the flop slowly descends upon us like an alien invasion and we can only watch frozen in terror, too cold and confused to run for our lives, as all of the KINGS come storming out of the deck like agents of obivion to crush our aces. That’s right. K K 3 or was it K K 6. I didn’t see the 3rd card on the flop because I was too busy picking bloodstained glass out of the skin on my fist and wondering if I hit someone with my AC unit as I punched it out the window (I’m overplaying this blog post in case you were wondering, this part never happened).

I was crippled. Crushed. I had like 2bb left. I had 99 next hand. I called it all off vs. JJ and bricked out.

That was that. I was gone on the bubble. I slowly faded away, a breath on the stacks of those who witnessed this tragedy, a smile on the devilish grin of Dillinger.

We're in this thing together.

FenderJaguar — Mon, 10 May 2010 23:55:48 +0000

From the up up sky herb flyin’ highest stakes to the micro-est micro mini teensy weensy itsy bitsy yellow polk-a lot bikini stakes. We’re in this thing together. We may have different goals, or sub-goals that are all an extension of the main goal. You may say “that’s improving our games right?” HA HA! no. that’s a SUB-POP sub-goal of the main goal as well. THE MAIN GOAL is to enjoy your time with poker. It’s very often overlooked or taken for granted. We focus on the bad, the very bad, the out of our control, we downright whine like retarded fucking bitches!!!!!!! sometimes. We’re all guilty of it. Everyone has someone they splatter bad beats all over. It might be your pimpin’ ass cat, your upscale ho, or your fists as the flesh is ripped off in ribbons and blood pours like a fine wine, from slamming them against windows and walls and laptops and desks, and lions and tigers and balls, OH MY!!!!

I was checking out the blogs I normally read on various sites the other day, and I randomly started to read blog titles instead. That’s right, I didn’t read any blogs, just the titles. THE VAST MAJORITY were negative in some way. Now maybe that’s pretty standard because we don’t brag as much as we bitch, because psychologically we feel like we deserve a lot of what we’d brag about but in turn do NOT deserve what we bitch about, but that’s all a heap of flaming fire red dog shit. Splattered on a barn wall.

What the hell am I rambling about? I think it’s very important to enjoy what you’re doing. Yes you should take your poker and your poker education seriously, yes you should fervently question why things are the way they are and soak up knowledge like johnny 5 on crack cocaine. YES YES YES. BUT! You should also enjoy it. Don’t be such a miserable hump all the time. EVERYONE goes through the same beats, if not now then later. If a hand doesn’t have educational or hilarious value, it probably doesn’t need to be talked about within your group of dudes or dudettes. Unless of course, you’re specifically a bad beat support group. If that’s the case I highly suggest you keep the beat talk short and get to the secondary activities fast.

What’s all this sparked from? Well I just got done coaching a group of SSNL players and I was feeling kinda inspired from the pep talk that I gave them and our discussion, and last night I had a student/friend ship me a hand where they got it in good on the turn and got sucked out on. I didn’t even respond to them, all I could think of at the time was STFU WHO CARES YOU WANT MORE I GOT A MILLI OF EM BABY A FUCKING PLETHORA.

A positive mindset creates a positive energy. Whether it’s poker or real life. If you constructively use what’s in front of you to improve, the positive and the negative things, you will see greater results than if you wishy washily focused on some good and harped like a bitch on the bad stuff.

I’ve always approached poker in a problem/solution format. What problem does my individual opponent represent, and what solution can I employee to counter him. Even when I was a total retarded nit-fish I STILL thought about poker in this manner. You can apply that TO ANYTHING and do well with it if you think logically. Relationships, buying a car, choosing lunch, the fire in your kitchen, yes you can counter that too, GO GO GADGET FIREHOSE!!!!!! STANLEY SPADOWSKI FTW!. I’m not trying to sound all Sklansky DUCY or anything because anyone who knows me know I’m one of the most ridiculous negative curmudgeon type dudes they know. I STILL find a way to stay objective with poker, I still enjoy playing poker, I still laugh when I’m playing a session and something crazy good OR crazy bad happens. How often do you crack a smile in a sesh about something that didn’t directly benefit you? EH? ROBOCOP? EH? Anyway, if you realistically think about the outcomes before you open the door, you will have made a better decision based on information that is available to you that you’d be making a mistake not to use.

SAYYYYYY for a second that you get kidnapped by that fucked up clown dude, I think it’s a clown anyway, the guy from the SAW movies, I didn’t SAW too many of them though, new school horror doesn’t have the same charm for me that old horror does, but that’s another story for another day. SOOOOO this dude kidnaps you and he’s all like OK, here are 3 doors. ONE leads to certain death, ONE leads to a pile of naked bitches (or dudes for the ladies), and ONE leads to a room full of jello that you may or may not live to get out of. When choosing a door YOU HAVE NO INFORMATION. They’re all the same color, no markings, no smell, you have literally no way to make a better decision than to straight up guess or like, try to level some freaky clown dude that kidnapped you, GL with that. IT’S NOT LIKE THAT IN POKER OR IN LIFE. You can think ahead! You can think about the next street, you can think about past hands and what they did before, you can think about how their 3b range is constructed or how they play marginal hands when they know they aren’t good. YOU CAN PROCESS ALL OF THIS and make a better decision. You can think about what that penis smell on her jeans means, because you know you haven’t had your penis on her jeans in a while! You can think about…. well you get the idea.

I have no idea what I’m talking about at this point so I’ll sum up this insanity with something that you should always have in your back pocket. Whenever you’re feeling low, whenever the variance train has you down, whenever you feel like life is a black corridor, an empty hallway filled with echoes of people you don’t know anymore and people you’ll never see again and beats and coolers and aces vs. aces. and no comps at the bar IT’S A CASH BAR no sunshine just rain no GOOD MOVIES ARE ON and I HAVE A HEADACHE and the PAINT IS NOT DRY, SMELLS FUNNY, SODA IS FLAT and and and and and…. alright enough just watch this clip and remember, we’re all in this together….

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE REVEALED

I WON! Sorta/Kinda/Maybe

FenderJaguar — Sat, 01 May 2010 09:41:48 +0000

I did finish the month with over 25k hands played. It was a struggle. I lost a lot of time early and had to scramble at the end. But it I did it. I ran like absolute rotten vagina over that course of time, and while I know my A game probably suffered some from playing so many tables, I definitely don’t feel like I was playing unprofitably. I’m not one to complain about beats and EV wah wah wah so I’ll just sum it up and say that I don’t remember winning with AK all-in preflop, and I don’t remember flopping a set and winning when all the money went in. End of story morning glory. I am glad for the experience and while I’m taking a couple of days off because my eyes are bleeding Red Bull and my mouth is parched and feels like sandpaper, I am getting used to putting more volume in. I’ll figure out who had the best comment on the original blog and announce/pm who gets the free hour of coaching soon!

I’m a DC coach now! Thanks to everyone at DC and big thanks to Krantz. I really enjoy teaching poker, I may even enjoy it more than playing, and I’m glad to be a part of the team.

I changed my avatar to Crispin Glover as the Wizard of Gore because well, it fits me nicely :D

Harvest Rain, the musical project I’m sometimes involved in has a new CD coming out sometime soon. Check it out here: Harvest Rain Jason Thompkins is the musical genius behind the project and a dear friend.

Thumbs down to the New Jersey Devils for getting ousted in round 1. I guess I still have the Bruins to root for. Hopefully they don’t fuck it up.

Grats to my cash game student/IRL friend/SNG Pro James Whittet for mizing 3rd in the Venetian Deep Stack main event. Keep crushing it sir.

SCARECROW: Someone who shall remain nameless (a reg, a 2p2 cat) called me down in a single raised pot with A high when I bet bet overbet shoved with a flush. Then they said “Oops thought I had a flush” Don’t be that kind of a hero guys. It’s rarely going to work out. We all know you didn’t think you had a flush, you thought you were super cool style guy calling jaggy down with A high to be right and gloat. The same dude 3b me with 72o previous and showed it down. Just thought I’d toss this scarecrow out there, don’t let your ego get the best of you. Respect your opponents no matter how bad or good you think they are. You HAVE to give them some respect or you’re going to end up making emotionally driven mistakes. We often feel that when someone is worse than we are, we are entitled to beating them or just scooping their money up, or when we have something to prove to someone, how good we are and how we’re on their level etc. etc. You get what I’m sprayin’ folks, just stay cool headed and keep yourself in check.

Alright I guess I’m done rambling about a million subjects. 200NL was fun, 9-12 tabling was fun, glad it’s over. HELLO MID/HIGH STAKES I HAVE MISSED YOU SO MUCH!

Grindstation & The Home Stretch

FenderJaguar — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:25:19 +0000

Grindstation:

Got everything you need here.

X – ridiculous lazboy roland recliner
X – razer diamondback mouse and vespula mousepad
X – laptop table on the recliner arm (key to the captain chair)
X – sennheiser headset for coaching/making vids and some HD-595’s for drowning in sound
X – 30" & 24" monitors w/obligatory random sawed in half hot bitch
X – darth vader lookin’ computer
X – awkward aunt motherfuckin’ jemima looking water canteen contraption

As far as the prop bet is concerned, I have a lot of ground to make up since I’ve lost so much time getting this new computer (over a week). I tried 12 tabling 200NL to catch up, but I suck ass at over 6 tables, as previously mentioned in my blog and in vids. I micromanage too much, and it doesn’t work on tons of tables.

I’ve got about 15k hands to get in before the hand of the month. I’m going to probably chill at 1/2 and 2/4 trying to kick up the volume. I’ll still play 5/10 if the games are good, so I guess we’ll see. I’d say you guys are probably the favorite right now in this bet lol. I’ll post graphs and such at the end of the month when everything is completed.

It’s funny I’m going to have to email FTP support and let them know I’m going to indeed be sending out 20’s like santa claus so they don’t think he hi-jacked my account and decided to spread the jolly christmas cheer and such.

Not much else is going on right now, drinking a grape kombucha tea and listening to the meat puppets as I finish this blog up and get ready to grind. I may just put a few epic movies on in the background and try to run a mini-LOCKDOWN. Pink Floyd: The Wall, Heavy Metal, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, After Hours, those all sound great right about now. Anyway, gl out there folks.

Pseudo-Clown-Monkey-Ape-Shit-Rape-Shit-Tilt

FenderJaguar — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:47:34 +0000

Where to start where to start. I haven’t had a working pokerable computer for over a week. That’s doing really well for my 25k hand prop bet this month. I just got my “overnight” shipped computer that took 3 days to get after processing a CC took 2 days. IBUYPOWER.com should be called ISUCKDONKEYCOCK.BUST because though the computer is def high quality (aside from the nut low ass end components they tried to jack me with even though I specified that I wanted better IE: I get a video card that runs 2x dual DVI, they ship me the nut low manufacturer and it only has 1x dual DVI. FUCK YOU.) THEY SUCK lol. I’m going to call them with a giant list of complaints and be like RIDDLE ME THIS BITCH because I want my edge back. Everything in life offers an edge. If someone cuts you off on the highway they’ve slowed down the REST OF YOUR LIFE and sped theirs up. THAT is so significant for something so small. The customer service sucked. I called twice and talked to some random dude that barely spoke english and tried to give me the run around like I was going to call him down with bottom pair. He’s obviously danced this dance before. I’ll win in the end though, I always do. Bottom line is they are shady, have terrible customer service, but a reasonable price and good quality stuff (when you force their hand). Make sure if you get a comp from these fucking donks you’re the god damn juggernaut and not strawberry shortcock. Got me good buddy? I know what you’re thinking. “Uh….” WELL I DIDN’T ORDER UHHHH. PIE, FRIES, and LARGE COFFEE! GOT ME GOOD BUDDY!!!!!!!?

END RANT

Hi! :D So yeah I’m going to go through with the prop bet even though I probably have grounds to cancel it this month. Fuck that. I’m going to start tomorrow and soldier through Warriors style (gotta coach a LOT today).

I’ll prob take some pics of the set-up and everything and put them up next update. It’s pretty sick looking aside from my shitty desk.

So yeah, I have until the 1st of May to finish my 25k hands. I have this many in so far this month….

At least I’m running good at 5/10.

POKER IS A LOT LIKE ORDERING A PIZZA! “What the fuck are you talking about NOW leather, jesus christ :/”

No seriously, listen. OK so you order a pizza. You’re flyin’ solo so you rock a medium pepperoni with NO sauce. It’s not that you don’t like sauce and won’t partake in it in the future, it’s that you don’t feel particularly saucy today. When you get your order it’s 20 minutes late. It’s lukewarm. IT HAS SAUCE ON IT! Are you the type of person who….

A) Calls back immediately and complains

B) Says fuck it and eats/forgets about it

C) Tries to scrape the sauce off like a retard (this is a joke, I seriously seriously hope)

D) Is pissed off, does nothing about it, rolls eyes/shakes head/goes on about business

E) Doesn’t even fucking notice that it has sauce

If you chose A. When you call back they offer you 1. Credit for next time 2. They can remake it and resend it BUT IT WILL TAKE ANOTHER HOUR (fuck you you dumb pizza ho don’t try to manipulate me) Which do you take? What are the variables that influence your decision? When you told them about their mistake, did you use the leverage information of lukewarm/late pizza? What if you weren’t getting credit for a whole pizza and you were instead only getting credit for a side of garlic butter that they forgot, but you paid 2 bucks for and were really looking forward to? Does that change your decision? Should it change your decision? What’s the best play giving all variables!?

If you chose anything other than A, think about what I wrote about A, think about how it pertains to poker. Think again. One more time. WHAT AM I TRYING TO SAY HERE!??? Think about how you can apply your answer to your poker game. Do you have any of the same poker traits as you do life traits? I mean, poker is life right? Personality comes through at the poker table.

I feel like if I keep going in my current state of mind it could get insane so I’m going to pause and call it a blog. I do think there’s a lot of interesting stuff in here though, so please, discuss :D

Set backs! NOOOOOO!

FenderJaguar — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 04:26:41 +0000

My computer is on the fried. Like gigantic 3 armed mutated chemical KFC chicken. All the slime and all the steroids. I thought it was the heatsink fan but I replaced that today with and it’s still no good. It won’t boot past the boot screen, and I can’t get it to boot from a disk b/c it’s not staying on long enough lol. I may or may not find out what’s actually wrong with it in the future but for the time being I said FUCK IT and bought a new computer. I guess that’s just more motivation to grind.

After everything gets here and is all set up I’ll take a few grind station pics. The comp. is on 2 day rush so I should be back up on coaching/grinding in a couple of days. I’m on an old shitty computer right now that barely opens web pages. Had to dig this out of a closet. Going to hunt it for old poker hands haha. I also need to install Teamviewer and hope it’s good or I’ll have to cancel more coaching sessions until this comp. gets here. That’s anus.

As for coaching, I’ve had some interest lately. Again, I have a lot of coaching credentials, don’t feel like I need to expound on it here and ramble but the gist of it is: 4x 1.5 hour lessons for 1k. I cover everything and focus on helping the student create an improved working thought process model so that they understand how to approach situations in a flexible and thorough manner. I make monsters not robots.

It totally figures the month I freeroll prop peeps and really want to grind I get bonetracked and have to buy a new comp. So fucking obvious hahah.

Just wanted to give you guys a rambling update and let you know that you’re on your way to making $20 because at this point I think I only have like 2k hands in or something lol. I think Krantz snuck into the top 40 on that as well. Damn it. I guess he’s getting paid for coaching me after all! LOL.

Update soon, pics/stories/insanity to come. Until then I’m going to go skydive into a lagoon, set up shop, and chill in the murky swamps of gloom. GL AT THE TABLES!

New biggest pot of my online career! :D

FenderJaguar — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 06:13:47 +0000

LOLOLOLOL.

Full Tilt Poker $5/$10 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $2813.00
Hero (BB): $2631.00
UTG: $3736.25
CO: $1106.00
BTN: $1000.00

Pre Flop: ($15.00) Hero is BB with T J
UTG raises to $30, 2 folds, SB calls $25, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($90.00) 9 8 Q (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $80, UTG folds, SB raises to $190, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $675, SB raises to $2783 all in, Hero calls $1926 all in

Turn: ($5292.00) 7 (2 players – 2 are all in)

River: ($5292.00) K (2 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $5292.00
SB shows A Q (a pair of Queens)
Hero shows T J (a straight, King high)
Hero wins $5289.00
(Rake: $3.00)

FREE MONIES for ya'll as I prop bet myself in April :D

FenderJaguar — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:19:34 +0000

OK so we know that I’m lazy and don’t play many hands. I’m trying to change that, I really am. In an effort to motivate myself I’m going to give $20 to the first 40 people that post a comment on this blog and leave me a word of encouragement (can be anything at all you’d like to say that you think would motivate me to grind, can be “FUCKING GRIND YOU RETARD” or just plain “GOOGOGOGOGOGOOGOOOGO”) if I don’t reach 25k hands this month. Rush doesn’t count. I’ll update some along the way. Hands can be played from 1/2 to 5/10. You can’t beat that deal. If I fuck it up and don’t hit my goal, BOOM dinner is on me, $20 ball to the face. I would like to point out that this is NOT an April Fool’s Day prank. I know a lot of you are thinking “wtf is this 25k hands is the stone easies” but I just don’t grind that much (and I only 4 table keep in mind). There you have it, a shot at free monies. What say you?

Ohhhh and a little incentive for ya’ll just in case you think I’m going to slam dunk it….

If I reach my goal, I will give the person who had the most encouraging/awesome message a free coaching session.

TELLLLLLLL THEM WHAT THEY’VE WON ALEX!!!! “OK BOB, IT’S A ONE LEGGED NUN WALKING A GOAT!”

Game shows around here ;)

Some current grinding music....

FenderJaguar — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:26:02 +0000

I listen to music when I’m playing poker. It helps me focus and get in the zone. I listen to a lot of crazy oddball stuff though. I mean, I can run everything from classical to death metal and pop songs on the side. I’m going to ship some of my current favorite grind music in this blog. If you’re not open minded and you listen to ONLY rock or ONLY hip hop/rap (you know who you are because there’s a lot of you out there, gangsta bling bling hip hop delusional ballainyerownheadbutnotinreallife donks swinging from the golden nuthairs of Jay-Z and Lil Wayne or whoever else is the nut nut these days and it’s not even that I don’t enjoy some of that stuff because I do but daaaaaaaaamn dude you ain’t hood) then you need to GTFO of my blog right now. In this blog we’re straight butterin’ with an open mind. So in the immortal words of that big rooster lookin’ dude that could never get any…. “Link us man, link us….” :)

7 Seconds – Clenched Fists, Black Eyes

Purcell – Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary (this was also remade and is the theme of A Clockwork Orange, both versions are awesome)

Megadeth – Take No Prisoners

Art Brut – DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake

At the Drive-In – Star Slight

Between the Buried and Me – Selkies: The Endless Obsession

Dax Riggs – Ghost Movement

Eluvium – Perfect Neglect in a Field of Statues

Gary Numan – Down in the Park

Gravediggaz – 1-800 Suicide

Hadouken – That Boy That Girl

Jesu – Don’t Dream It

Mogwai – Take Me Somewhere Nice

Murder City Devils – Rum to Whiskey

My Bloody Valentine – When You Sleep

Red Sparowes – This Fear is Excruciating, but Therein Lies the Answer

Strung Out – Her Name in Blood

Sublime – Seed

The Advantage – Contra

Rad Soundtrack – Break the Ice

That’s one zany stack of songs. A lil’ somethin’ for everyone. There’s obv way more good stuff I can’t think of and I don’t want to overload the jam so, if you like something/want more/similar bands lmk. If you hate it and the hip hop stuff I said above offends you, sounds like you’re GUILTY AS CHARGED!

j/k j/k (but seriously….)

Deuce Tabling the Five and Dime....

FenderJaguar — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:29:17 +0000

I know this is a small sample….

I’m happy to be doing well and getting comfortable with the limit. Most of it is 2 tabling keep in mind. The redline surprises me. I have a bunch of videos recorded and I THINK we may make some episodes of Never Tell Me the Odds out of them. Not entirely sure though ;). At first I was a bit timid, and honestly I made some mistakes because I was out-thinking myself. I think that has settled down now.

I’m sick of grinding in an old computer chair. I just spent 1k on a Lazboy ROLAND. I’m gonna fuckin’ MAX out the comfort and put in and APE ton of hands (for me that’s like anything over 25k in a month). MO’ MONEY, MO’ MONEY, MO’ MONEY. (man In Living Colour was such a gin shot TV show, that and Kids in the Hall, they don’t make them like they used to :/).

I’ve been thinking about stuff to make my grind area more comfortable and awesome for longer sessions. I have a razor diamondback mouse, generic computer desk, 30" NEC monitor + 24" samsung on the side, Lazboy ROLAND on the way, etc. etc. What do ya’ll have for comfort? What am I missing? There’s prob a ton of information on this stuff on 2p2, I’ll prob have to check that out.

Check ya’ll later :D

I took a shot once lol

FenderJaguar — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:15:59 +0000

So I was donking around with some hands I played and ran through the CR hand history replay infinite ago. I came across this lil gem where I was like, YEAH 5/10, YEAH WHUTEVA. Takin’ shots and not rebuying max oooooh yeah. Ahh 2007.

Seat 1: SadLittleDoggy ($1,075)
Seat 2: tiltskuja ($1,844)
Seat 3: BlueOceans ($1,129)
Seat 4: FenderJaguar ($736.70)
Seat 5: jimmy eat world ($1,000) –
Seat 6: nofx34 ($1,221) –
Seat 7: digitalbj ($1,142.25) –
Seat 8: fats39 ($3,281.55)
Seat 9: heinz59 ($1,000)

PRE-FLOP:

nofx34 posts small blind $5
digitalbj posts BIG blind $10
Dealt To: FenderJaguar

FOLD fats39
FOLD heinz59
FOLD SadLittleDoggy
CALL tiltskuja ($10)
FOLD BlueOceans
RAISE FenderJaguar ($40)
FOLD jimmy eat world
FOLD nofx34
FOLD digitalbj
CALL tiltskuja ($30)

FLOP:

Pot: $95


CHECK tiltskuja
BET FenderJaguar ($32)
RAISE tiltskuja ($92)
CALL FenderJaguar ($60)

TURN:

Pot: $279


BET tiltskuja ($142)
CALL FenderJaguar ($142)

RIVER:

Pot: $563


BET tiltskuja ($270)
RAISE FenderJaguar ($462.70)
CALL tiltskuja ($192.70)

SHOWDOWN:
FenderJaguar:

MUCK tiltskuja

FenderJaguar collected $1485.4 from main pot with four of a kind, Jacks

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $1 Rake: $3

Final Board:


Seat 1: SadLittleDoggy didnt bet folded – Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: tiltskuja mucked [4h 4c] – a full house, Fours full of Jacks – Net Gain/Loss: ($-736.7)
Seat 3: BlueOceans didnt bet folded – Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: FenderJaguar showed [Js Jc] and won 1,485.40 with four of a kind, Jacks – Net Gain/Loss: ($748.7)
Seat 5: jimmy eat world button didnt bet folded – Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 6: nofx34 small blind folded before the Flop – Net Gain/Loss: ($-5)
Seat 7: digitalbj big blind folded before the Flop – Net Gain/Loss: ($-10)
Seat 8: fats39 didnt bet folded – Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 9: heinz59 didnt bet folded – Net Gain/Loss: ($0)

Spaceballs - The Poker Hands

FenderJaguar — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:04:21 +0000

Not running so hot at the moment. Playing well though :D Just wanted to share some interesting hands real fast. Obv reads were involved.

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 4 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $186.15
Hero (BTN): $653.50
SB: $1445.10
BB: $722.10

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is BTN with T Q
1 fold, Hero raises to $18, SB raises to $66, 1 fold, Hero calls $48

Flop: ($138.00) A 4 4 (2 players)
SB bets $76, Hero calls $76

Turn: ($290.00) 7 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($290.00) Q (2 players)
SB checks, Hero requests TIME, Hero bets $39, SB folds

Final Pot: $290.00
Hero wins $288.00
(Rake: $2.00)

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $696.15
UTG: $1056.70
Hero (CO): $600.00
BTN: $2440.50
SB: $615.15

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is CO with A K
1 fold, Hero raises to $18, 1 fold, SB raises to $30, 1 fold, Hero raises to $96, SB calls $66

Flop: ($198.00) 9 7 4 (2 players)
SB bets $198, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $504 all in, SB folds

Final Pot: $594.00
Hero wins $591.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Full Tilt Poker $5/$10 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $1384.00
Hero (BTN): $1326.00
SB: $554.15
BB: $1005.00
UTG: $1149.00

Pre Flop: ($15.00) Hero is BTN with 5 8
2 folds, Hero raises to $30, 1 fold, BB calls $20

Flop: ($65.00) 8 8 T (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $50, BB raises to $150, Hero calls $100

Turn: ($365.00) K (2 players)
BB bets $225, Hero calls $225

River: ($815.00) J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero requests TIME, Hero bets $155, BB requests TIME, BB folds

Final Pot: $815.00
Hero wins $812.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Full Tilt Poker $5/$10 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN): $1252.50
SB: $1167.00
BB: $1000.00
UTG: $1780.00
CO: $995.00

Pre Flop: ($15.00) Hero is BTN with Q J
2 folds, Hero raises to $20, SB calls $15, BB raises to $110, Hero calls $90, 1 fold

Flop: ($240.00) J A T (2 players)
BB bets $120, Hero calls $120

Turn: ($480.00) K (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $220, BB calls $220

River: ($920.00) 3 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $220, BB folds

Final Pot: $920.00
Hero wins $917.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Biggest pot of my online career :D

FenderJaguar — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:08:49 +0000

It’s not super gigantic or anything, but it’s certainly the biggest pot I’ve ever won. Things appear to be going well at 5/10 so far. Just 2 tabling, prob stick with that for a bit. I feel very comfortable and I’m confident. Hope to run good and shoot for the stars. More to come….

Full Tilt Poker $5/$10 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $1229.00
UTG: $3596.25
MP: $1000.00
Hero (CO): $1543.50
BTN: $1260.00
SB: $1004.00

Pre Flop: ($15.00) Hero is CO with T T
UTG raises to $40, MP calls $40, Hero calls $40, 3 folds

Flop: ($135.00) 2 5 T (3 players)
UTG bets $100, MP calls $100, Hero raises to $335, UTG raises to $3556.25 all in, MP folds, Hero calls $1168.50 all in

Turn: ($3242.00) 8 (2 players – 2 are all in)

River: ($3242.00) 8 (2 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $3242.00
UTG shows K K (two pair, Kings and Eights)
Hero shows T T (a full house, Tens full of Eights)
Hero wins $3239.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Haven't been around in a bit :D

FenderJaguar — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:36:07 +0000

Sorry about the lack of updates folks. I’ve been on kind of a small poker vacation, and I’ve had some IRL stuff going on. Nothing too juicy, mostly boring and mundane so I won’t waste your time rambling about it. Just wanted to check in, say hello, and say that I’ll resume blogging soon, when I have some 5/10 under my belt and some hands to yap about. I know I know, I’m a lazy fucker. There’s a reason I have friends that are willing to prop bet me that I can’t play 30k hands in a month.

RIP Corey Haim. I wasn’t a teenage girl but I am a fan of The Lost Boys.

Almost ready to dip my balls in at 5/10, fingers crossed....

FenderJaguar — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:21:32 +0000

The next 3 episodes of Never Tell Me the Odds should be pretty good. I think the 3 part session I played at deep 2/4 & 3/6 made for a lot of interesting situations. I felt kinda green in a lot of spots because I don’t usually play deep. That being said I think overall I played pretty well but we’ll see what Krantz has to say about that. I definitely fucked up a few hands and a couple of spots are just laughable so it will be pretty sweet to see me bone it up so hard on video lolol. It’s cool though it’s a learning process.

I’m happy to say that I have a personal goal of $3k more to make at 2/4 before I move up to 5/10. I’m hoping to clear that up this week and start running 5/10 for about an 8 BI shot after my birthday, which is conveniently March 4th. I’ll be 31.

I don’t really have a direction to take the blog for the next few episodes beyond incessant rambling and random hand histories. Did ya’ll enjoy the previous format with the different hand categories? Was it too much? Too little? Let me know if I should keep that format or just ramble on so I can accommodate.

Did any of ya’ll actually get that bell I talked about in a blog a while ago? One of the things Krantz and I have been focusing on lately is slowing down my decisions at the table so I’m really thinking them through, and it’s been very helpful. I’m fully supportive of a desktop bell no matter how insane it sounded :D. Lately it sounds like an even better idea.

I’m watching Ansky roll the Sunday Million on stars while I write this. Looks like he’s running good at the right time. Take that damn thing down dude. That’s a sick ass payout.

See you with an update Wednesday or so. GL at the tables folks.

Naked on a hammock drinking NY Seltzer in the Bahamas

FenderJaguar — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:12:06 +0000

You’d think a blog of this title would be a pretty sweet blog no? I don’t know if I have anything awesome to run at you at the moment. I just woke up a bit ago. I’m eating a banana and drinking ice cold water. I WISH I had a NY Seltzer. Those were so good way back in the day. Specifically the cream soda.

Poker-wise I’m playing well/runnin’ good and I’m $4k away from taking a shot at 5/10 so I’m pumped for that. I’ll be formally updating my blog once the next 3 episodes of Never Tell Me the Odds surface. I’ll probably be running my lockdown session sometime in the next couple of days. Hopefully enough deep/ante tables will be running or I’ll have to start them ;)

Snowy weather and frozen balls make fender a dull jaguar.

Here’s a pretty cool hand from a session the other day….

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $418.00
SB: $203.80
BB: $432.00
Hero (UTG): $415.30
MP: $483.70
CO: $400.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is UTG with K J
Hero raises to $16, MP calls $16, 4 folds

Flop: ($38.00) 9 J Q (2 players)
Hero requests TIME, Hero checks, MP bets $28, Hero calls $28

Turn: ($94.00) K (2 players)
Hero checks, MP checks

River: ($94.00) K (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $60, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $371.30 all in, MP requests TIME, MP calls $311.30

Final Pot: $836.60
Hero shows K J (a full house, Kings full of Jacks)
MP mucks A A
Hero wins $833.60
(Rake: $3.00)

Aces? ACES?????? A C E S ? ? ? ? ? ? ? I was thoroughly surprised. I think that’s about the 1000000th time that someone has flat’d my UTG raise UTG+1 with AA. I def got lucky but I def got paid too lol.

I don’t have much to say today for some reason. Maybe I’ll do another update later or something. Still have 3 spots open in the group coaching starting in March. Finished my banana, time to do something else :)

Group Coaching FENDER's JAGUARS!

FenderJaguar — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:19:18 +0000

I would like to get this set up for March, first come first served. If this group is a success (which it obviously will be ;D), I may try and run 2 groups in April. We’ll be meeting on Monday’s or Tuesday’s and usually between 2pm and 8pm EST depending on when everyone in the group can meet.

Who: 50NL-200NL 6-Max players who want to improve their game and move up, but more importantly learn how to think about poker at a higher level.

What: Group coaching, once a week for 2 hours, for a month (and there’s a good chance the sessions run long). That’s 8 hours of coaching.

When: As soon as I have 4 students, the first group will run in March.

Where: Skype and Mikogo/Teamviewer

Why: I haven’t been coaching a lot this year, and though I am dedicated in my pursuit of high stakes with my mentor Krantz, I would like to continue coaching and helping others (and make some monies too of course) and this is the best way to accomplish that. It’s time efficient and having a group to bounce hands and ideas off of will be great for the students as well. Pr1nnyraid has his clowns and penguins and stuff, I’m going to have my Jaguars.

Cost: $750 per person

Itinerary: We’ll be using video and hand history review, along with live sweats to construct a successful poker thought process for each Jaguar. We’re going to cover everything, most importantly three bet pots and hand reading.

Credentials: I’ve coached infinite students, for infinite hours. I’ve been coached by Fees, Insyder, and now Krantz. If you want to know more about me check out the Never Tell Me the Odds series :D

Guarantee: I’m not tryin’ to scam anybody here man (<——- LEBOWSKI REFERENCE FTW) I’ve never had an unhappy or unsatisfied student, and if you honestly think I’m a terrible coach and that you didn’t learn anything and that you’ve put in the work outside of the coaching and seen no improvements, I’ll refund you $749, I’m keeping a bone for a soda. Deal with it.

Message me here on DC or on 2p2 (FenderJaguar) if you’re interested.

Never Tell Me the Odds: Lockdown Edition WEEK 4

FenderJaguar — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:38:37 +0000

So, this past week has been bittersweet-ish. I’m heatering at 2/4, but running like a slippery wet dog anus at 3/6. I mixed in some 1/2 ROOOSH for fun and that obv goes swimmingly.

I think I’m cursed by Voo-Doo magic at 3/6 or something. Honestly, the hands I’ve lost there are gross. Not green slime you can’t do that on television double dare gross, more like vomiting up a buffet’s worth of chinese food and making a milkshake out of it. DOWN THE HATCH! yeah that’s pretty fuckin’ gross. On the other hand I’m happy with my play, but I’ve found a leak. Whenever I get frustrated/tilty/things go poorly, I become a calling station on the river. I found like $200+ in bad calls in just a few thousand hands. I don’t mean close calls, just, bad/tilted calls. So going to work on that. Not much else to say about what’s up lately, it’s been a relatively quiet grinding week. I do think we have some interesting hands though :) Try pie, try….

Biggest Pot – Nothing too interesting here, just a lost flip at 3/6 vs. a dude I have a pretty aggressive dynamic against. I think he hates me because I double barreled one time and he made this lolarious gigantic turn c/r which would basically be poor with his entire range in the situation, and I was like LOLOLOLOLOL in chat, and folded. Shame your opponents into tilt!

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $657.30
CO: $988.90
Hero (BTN): $760.15
SB: $750.00
BB: $824.95

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is BTN with K A
2 folds, Hero raises to $18, SB raises to $66, 1 fold, Hero raises to $138, SB raises to $750 all in, Hero calls $612

Flop: ($1506.00) 8 J Q

Turn: ($1506.00) 4

River: ($1506.00) 2

Final Pot: $1506.00
Hero shows K A (Ace King high)
SB shows T T (a pair of Tens)
SB wins $1503.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Dumbest Play? – Villain is some sort of a reg, I’ve seen him around various stakes over the years. 1/2 RUSH, we’re deep, I’m leading the flop in a 5 way pot, barreling the turn when he calls, and jamming the river. Now maybe I’m just bitter b/c he tank/called my river bluff, but I think KQ is a fold here in his shoes nearly always. Especially considering that the hands he’s bluffcatching against (flush draws essentially) are wayyyyyyy less existent given that he has blockers! DUH. AND I’m UTG at ROOOOOSH so I don’t have THAT wide of a range deep. Meh I think this call sucks. Am I bitter? Or is this a super awesome profitable snap call? Tell Fender plz.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $214.00
BB: $200.00
Hero (UTG): $906.65
MP: $233.00
CO: $205.45
BTN: $342.70

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is UTG with A T
Hero raises to $7, 1 fold, CO calls $7, BTN calls $7, SB calls $6, BB calls $5

Flop: ($35.00) 3 8 5 (5 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $27, CO folds, BTN calls $27, SB folds, BB folds

Turn: ($89.00) K (2 players)
Hero bets $72, BTN requests TIME, BTN calls $72

River: ($233.00) 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $800.65 all in, BTN requests TIME, BTN calls $236.70 all in

Final Pot: $706.40
Hero shows A T (Ace King high)
BTN shows K Q (a pair of Kings)
BTN wins $703.40
(Rake: $3.00)

Avant-Garde – Villain in this hand is a super popular poster on 2p2 and he plays higher up, higher than me etc. I am pretty sure. This is a great spot to let people level themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if he floated here a lot wider than he did. Also this kinda forces him to play bigger pots with his marginal top pair hands and draws that he’d usually want to pot control. Not something to do all the time, but mixing it in is nice. This was at a ROOOOSH table so it HAS to be good :D.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $183.25
BB: $215.25
UTG: $193.00
MP: $428.15
Hero (CO): $220.20
BTN: $251.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is CO with K A
2 folds, Hero raises to $6, BTN calls $6, 2 folds

Flop: ($15.00) 2 K 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $12, Hero raises to $37, BTN requests TIME, BTN calls $25

Turn: ($89.00) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $59, BTN requests TIME, BTN raises to $208 all in, Hero calls $118.20 all in

River: ($443.40) A (2 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $443.40
Hero shows K A (two pair, Aces and Kings)
BTN shows K J (a pair of Kings)
Hero wins $440.40
(Rake: $3.00)

LOLOLOLOLest Hand – Um, I flat the 3b because I has no history with villain and they’re 3b’ing my MP raise. We flop the pizza joint, 555, Domino’s style. Standard flop call. Turn he POTS it, and I’m a bit worried I’m getting destroyed by AA here, but if he does have a smaller pair I don’t want to let an overcard roll off and lose his dough (monies), so I bag the sauce (jam) and he snap makes a cardboard box (folds). I honestly thought to myself “what? did that just happen?” AWKWARD.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (CO): $422.40
BTN: $850.40
SB: $402.00
BB: $388.10
UTG: $513.70

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is CO with Q Q
1 fold, Hero raises to $12, 2 folds, BB raises to $32, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($66.00) 5 5 5 (2 players)
BB bets $54, Hero calls $54

Turn: ($174.00) 3 (2 players)
BB bets $172, Hero raises to $336.40 all in, BB folds

Final Pot: $518.00
Hero wins $515.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Sickest Cooler – Continuing my neverending story of running bad at 3/6 in all directions, we have this retarded pot vs. a fishy dude. I’m pretty sure I’m stacking like everything in his range that isn’t 44 or 3×. Yes indeed he has like every pair up to 99 (he was aggro enough to be 3b’ing big pairs etc.) and yes indeed he’s never folding them. The river is like the best card to jam here b/c poor players never fold, nobody folds a boat obv. OOPS QUADS!!!!!!! YOU LOSE!!!!! GOOD DAY SIR!

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $616.90
SB: $1449.00
BB: $606.00
UTG: $1536.00
MP: $619.20
Hero (CO): $600.00

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is CO with T T
2 folds, Hero raises to $18, BTN calls $18, 1 fold, BB calls $12

Flop: ($57.00) 3 4 3 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $42, BTN calls $42, BB folds

Turn: ($141.00) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $111, BTN calls $111

River: ($363.00) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $429 all in, BTN calls $429

Final Pot: $1221.00
BTN shows 3 A (four of a kind, Threes)
Hero shows T T (a full house, Threes full of Tens)
BTN wins $1218.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Good luck out there ladies and gentlemen, into the night like a shadow I slide, but you’ll see me again, and next time I’ll bring my Riddler costume.

Never Tell Me the Odds: Lockdown Edition WEEK 3

FenderJaguar — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:25:20 +0000

So here I sit, sipping Spanish Absinthe (which is not as good as French Absinthe but Absinthe none-the-less) singing Johnny Cash songs and sloppily playing my acoustic guitar. I’m happy.

It’s awkward being a coach and reading about this Jason Ho stuff. When I see how much some people paid for coaching I was honestly astounded, like my eyebrows shot through the ceiling like rockets, and my mouth gaped like a desert canyon. I was fucking surprised. I think it’s kind of eye-opening though. You really need to research your potential coach. If something sounds ridiculous it probably is. I don’t think I’ve ever played on a students account, or asked them to do anything retarded or insane. In fact I think the most involvement I’ve had beyond coaching is the occasional transfer of funds from Stars to FTP or vice versa, when it was mutually beneficial. I take pride in my coaching and I think that shows, as I’ve never had an unhappy student and every single student I have had that put the work in, has moved up, sometimes more than a couple of limits, in shortish order. You didn’t come here for random ramblings (or maybe you did :D) though so that’s all I’m going to say about this, but damn that’s fucked up.

I only played a few thousand hands of 2/4 this week (and a dabble of 3/6) as I took a few days off based on the suggestion of those around me. I have been stuck in a poker funk and needed some rebooting time. I won’t bore you with a graph, it’s not that interesting. So expect a big update next week, and I swear to the gods, goddesses, the moon, the burger king commercial guy, alex delarge, and anyone else who is listening that I AM GOING TO WIN THIS WEEK.

I do have enough hands to post the standard array of awards, so I’m going to continue with that tradition.

Biggest Pot – Nothing too interesting here, just winning a flip vs. a guy I have agggroooo history with DEEP DEEP

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $804.80
UTG: $789.00
MP: $2338.20
CO: $131.40
Hero (BTN): $828.60
SB: $467.30

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with Q Q
1 fold, MP raises to $14, 1 fold, Hero raises to $44, 2 folds, MP raises to $138, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $316, MP raises to $2338.20 all in, Hero calls $512.60 all in

Flop: ($1663.20) 6 3 9

Turn: ($1663.20) 6

River: ($1663.20) 4

Final Pot: $1663.20
MP shows K A (a pair of Sixes)
Hero shows Q Q (two pair, Queens and Sixes)
Hero wins $1660.20
(Rake: $3.00)

Dumbest Play – This isn’t really a play rather a situation. HOW THE FUCK DO I NOT GET ANY ACTION ON THIS FLOP BAZILLION HANDED!!! MOTHERFUCK. lol. This was like, WHAT? SERIOUSLY? laksdjf;alksdjf;askdj

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $1043.05
SB: $282.00
BB: $600.00
UTG: $552.10
MP: $757.75
Hero (CO): $846.90

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is CO with Q Q
UTG calls $6, MP raises to $27, Hero calls $27, BTN calls $27, SB calls $24, 1 fold, UTG calls $21

Flop: ($141.00) A 4 Q (5 players)
SB checks, UTG checks, MP checks, Hero bets $99, BTN folds, SB folds, UTG folds, MP folds

Final Pot: $141.00
Hero wins $138.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Avant-Garde – Villain turns his hand face up, I usually have him crushed, in his mind the draws all missed he knows he has a 1 pair hand and the 4 kills my credit, what he doesn’t think about (or realize) is that I know all of this and would never be bluffing here without some sort of leveling dynamic. Yum overbet for value :D

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $1037.65
MP: $306.00
CO: $624.00
BTN: $663.20
SB: $600.00
Hero (BB): $699.90

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is BB with 9 9
2 folds, CO raises to $18, 2 folds, Hero calls $12

Flop: ($39.00) 4 7 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($39.00) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $24, CO calls $24

River: ($87.00) 4 (2 players)
Hero requests TIME, Hero bets $117, CO calls $117

Final Pot: $321.00
CO mucks 6 8
Hero shows 9 9 (two pair, Nines and Fours)
Hero wins $318.00
(Rake: $3.00)

LOLOLOLOLest Hand – I guess this is a stretch but I jam a gutshot and backdoor draw over the cbet of a dude opening a lot and cbetting an A high board, he has the goods but I dial 55 to take it down lol. It’s sad that this is the funniest hand I have this week :(

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $443.00
UTG: $760.45
MP: $444.10
CO: $223.20
BTN: $400.00
SB: $101.10

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BB with 5 3
4 folds, SB raises to $8, Hero calls $4

Flop: ($16.00) A 4 J (2 players)
SB bets $10, Hero raises to $435 all in, SB calls $83.10 all in

Turn: ($202.20) 5 (2 players – 2 are all in)

River: ($202.20) 5 (2 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $202.20
Hero shows 5 3 (three of a kind, Fives)
SB shows 7 A (two pair, Aces and Fives)
Hero wins $199.20
(Rake: $3.00)

Sickest Cooler – Pretty standard, flop the straight draw/flush draw/overs vs. a super fishy dude, turn top pair and he made the nuts :(

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $277.30
CO: $515.40
BTN: $969.15
SB: $626.80
BB: $1258.50
Hero (UTG): $1000.05

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is UTG with J Q
Hero raises to $24, 3 folds, SB calls $21, BB calls $18

Flop: ($72.00) 5 9 T (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $57, SB calls $57, BB folds

Turn: ($186.00) Q (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $162, SB raises to $545.80 all in, Hero calls $383.80

River: ($1277.60) A (2 players – 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $1277.60
SB shows K J (a straight, Ace high)
Hero shows J Q (a pair of Queens)
SB wins $1274.60
(Rake: $3.00)

Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you. Tune-in next week to see if our hero can escape the mires of mediocrity and achieve like a little lebowski, same bat time, same bat channel.

Never Tell Me the Odds: Lockdown Edition WEEK 2

FenderJaguar — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:39:54 +0000

I have to say that my heart wasn’t really in poker this week. Every single time I sat down to play I was definitely focused and ready to A game the night away, and I immediately started down like 3 BI in every session. I decided to experiment some with RUSH POKER and regroup. I didn’t reach any of my hourly goals (and as such owe a bunch of people money in props) but I’m fine with that. It’s more reason to step up to the plate in coming weeks.

It’s kinda weird because I feel like I’m playing some of the best poker of my life, but my results are dick all month long. Just going to hang in there and tough it out. I think having a couple of days break and a light week will help me get back to focus. I don’t want to constantly be thinking about how bad things have been because like I’ve said myself a ton in the past, it only breeds negativity.

So for this week my rules are – 4 Tables only, not 6, not 7, strictly 4 or less. NO RUSH POKER. Only regular/deep games at 2/4 and 3/6.

All in all I played less than 2k hands at 2/4+ and played about 5k hands of RUSH POKER. I’m just going to post a graph of the 2k 2/4 hands, because the rush graph isn’t very interesting at all.

Also, there’s a site my friend made called POKERLIFESUCKS.COM It’s a forum he made for his friends, and I have a thread on there that I’m updating slightly more frequently than this blog, for anyone interested. We have guys that play from 10NL to 600NL some full ring cats and some 6 max cats. Feel free to check it out and maybe even sign up if you want. (obv free no solicitation here). We’ve got some cool inspirational stuff on there, good people etc.

Biggest Pot – Villain in this hand is very capable of floating in a spot like this and bluffing the turn (previous history etc.). I think his turn range is bluffs/semi-bluffs the occasional 2x, 33, 22, maybe AK too, KK? unlikely, probably never AA, maybe worse for value sometimes depending on how he perceives my range in general. Moral of the story is that the turn is a pretty shitty spot but given the way I’ve played my hand, previous history, and what I know about my opponent, my play is to jam. Not going to show results so you can’t be results oriented :) I may have won, and may have lost this hand :D

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $856.50
Hero (SB): $725.50
BB: $528.90
UTG: $783.80
MP: $418.00
CO: $557.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is SB with A K
3 folds, BTN raises to $12, Hero calls $10, 1 fold

Flop: ($28.00) 2 K 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $20, Hero raises to $62, BTN requests TIME, BTN calls $42

Turn: ($152.00) 2 (2 players)
Hero requests TIME, Hero bets $118, BTN raises to $260, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $651.50 all in

Final Pot: $672.00

Dumbest Play – Dumbest play goes to someone other than myself this week, so that’s good. My only thought when he was pot jamming into me was “what the fucK?, OHHHHHHHHHHH that! hahahaha”. I’m still confused.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $406.00
MP: $406.00
CO: $481.80
Hero (BTN): $688.60
SB: $630.00
BB: $371.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with A K
1 fold, MP raises to $16, CO calls $16, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $64, 3 folds, CO calls $48

Flop: ($150.00) K 7 2 (2 players)
CO bets $150, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $150

Turn: ($450.00) K (2 players)
CO bets $267.80 all in, Hero calls $267.80

River: ($985.60) Q (2 players – 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $985.60
CO shows 7 A (two pair, Kings and Sevens)
Hero shows A K (three of a kind, Kings)
Hero wins $982.60
(Rake: $3.00)

Avant-Garde – So here I check the flop to induce bluffs and rep QQ KK, since I’m going to usually check QQ and KK here, I’m going to want some Ax hands or some occasional Jx hands in my range as well, so my opponent makes mistakes for assuming. On the turn I gin the nuts, but if I bet I’m rarely going to get paid, so I decide to checkraise because I think it looks bluffy as hell (timing is a key factor here in convincing your opponent you’re thinking about bluffing). On the river I consider an overbet jam but I think when he calls the turn he either has a J and hates life or he has a bluffcatcher of some sort. I decide to bet a reasonable amount, and he pays the fiddler.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $550.50
Hero (UTG): $507.00
MP: $775.60
CO: $986.20
BTN: $439.00
SB: $510.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is UTG with A 4
Hero raises to $16, 1 fold, CO calls $16, 3 folds

Flop: ($38.00) A J J (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($38.00) A (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $28, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $84, CO calls $56

River: ($206.00) Q (2 players)
Hero requests TIME, Hero bets $118, CO calls $118

Final Pot: $442.00
Hero shows A 4 (a full house, Aces full of Jacks)
CO mucks Q Q
Hero wins $439.00
(Rake: $3.00)

LOLOLOLOLest Hand – I had a great chat dynamic going with this guy lol. He just picked off a bluff when I c/c QK on TJJ and led a blank river when the turn went check/check. He tanked forever and called w/66 and said something like “JUST HAD TO MAKE SURE YOU HAD THE KQ!”. So here I’m setting him up with the chit chat, and run the line “YOU CAN’T STOP THE HUSTLE” before I jam the river, and he made the nuts :( lololol.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $549.00
Hero (CO): $400.00
BTN: $241.20
SB: $1239.70
BB: $419.30

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is CO with Q Q
1 fold, Hero raises to $12, 1 fold, SB calls $10, 1 fold

Flop: ($28.00) 6 Q 9 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $28, SB calls $28

Turn: ($84.00) A (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $84, SB requests TIME, SB calls $84

River: ($252.00) T (2 players)
SB requests TIME, SB checks, Hero bets $276 all in, SB calls $276

Final Pot: $804.00
Hero shows Q Q (three of a kind, Queens)
SB shows J K (a straight, Ace high)
SB wins $801.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Sickest Cooler – I flat vs. UTG b/c he’s loose and I want to let the big fish into the hand. Flop is good for me in that I should have the best hand nearly 99% of the time :D So when the fish leads for 4 and the villie raises to 44, I’m thinking his range is big draws and overpairs, as there aren’t too many 2 pair combo’s he should have and if he had a set, he would probably flat call and let me into the pot. There are TONS of combo’s of overpairs. So I decide to raise and get it in. The fish flats (which he would with any pair or draw b/c he’s a huge drooler and his minbet is prob exactly that, pair or a draw) And UTG jams. Obv this is a no brainer and I get it in, and low and behold, somehow, THEY BOTH HAVE 64s FOR BOTTOM 2. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK hahaha. How do they both have 64s?????? I mean, that’s simply retarded.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $400.00
Hero (BTN): $800.70
SB: $1032.20
BB: $519.30
UTG: $502.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with A A
1 fold, CO raises to $12, Hero calls $12, 1 fold, BB calls $8

Flop: ($38.00) 4 T 6 (3 players)
BB bets $4, CO raises to $44, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $106, BB calls $102, CO raises to $388 all in, Hero raises to $788.70 all in, BB calls $401.30 all in

Turn: ($1440.60) 9 (3 players – 3 are all in)

River: ($1440.60) 4 (3 players – 3 are all in)

Final Pot: $1440.60
CO shows 4 6 (a full house, Fours full of Sixes)
Hero shows A A (two pair, Aces and Fours)
BB shows 4 6 (a full house, Fours full of Sixes)
BB wins $238.60
BB wins $0.00
CO wins $0.00
(Rake: $1202.00)

That about does it for this week. Catch ya’ll on the flipside (IE me starting to win again at poker).

Never Tell Me the Odds Lockdown Edition WEEK 1

FenderJaguar — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:42:15 +0000

Here’s a graph of the past grinding week give or take a day or two:

I think I ran pretty poorly overall, but I feel like my game is improving every time I play a session. I’m really hammering out leaks and more importantly my mental balance/flow is coming around for longer sessions. I suspect it will only get better in the coming weeks. Super excited about today because the first of the 4 Never Tell Me the Odds Lockdown Edition videos is coming out. I’m a humble man, but I really think the next few episodes are amazing. :) If they end up sucking balls I’ll eat a hat.

I’ve still been in kind of a downswing overall, so I ran a session with my previous coach Insyder (Hi Insyder!) to see if he could get any insyght (yeah dude, I know you’re reading this Krantz and thinking, INSYGHT is a SICK vid series name for Insyder :D) into what was going on. We saw a lot of spots where I was 5b bluffing vs. players that theoretically it should be a good idea against, but it seems like nobody is 4b’ing that light these days due to the better 5b bluffing range of other players. So that is one thing I’m going to work on. There were a couple of other smaller things, but they aren’t worth mentioning because they specifically pertain to me and my tendencies (If I told you I’d have to kill you or become a nit, not currently interested in doing either).

I’m going to post a few hands each week to coincide with the video, with a few fun categories to make it interesting.

Biggest Pot – Villain is a former student of mine, up from 100NL all the way to 400NL. He makes a huge mistake in checking back the turn, and though I would never check this turn back in his shoes, I have checked back in similar spots 100bb deep with a hand I should nearly always be betting for value/balance. His mistake costs him and instead of putting me in a really tough turn spot, he gets himself into a really tough river spot. This is a really interesting hand from both sides.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em $0.75 Ante – 6 players – View hand 486992
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (MP): $898.85
CO: $1829.60
BTN: $1332.75
SB: $1047.10
BB: $444.25
UTG: $1030.40

Pre Flop: ($10.50) Hero is MP with K K
UTG raises to $12, Hero calls $12, 1 fold, BTN calls $12, 2 folds

Flop: ($46.50) 6 T 8 (3 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $40, BTN raises to $118, UTG folds, Hero calls $78

Turn: ($282.50) T (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($282.50) K (2 players)
Hero requests TIME, Hero checks, BTN bets $228, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $768.10 all in, BTN requests TIME, BTN calls $540.10

Final Pot: $1818.70
Hero shows K K (a full house, Kings full of Tens)
BTN mucks 9 7
Hero wins $1815.70
(Rake: $3.00)

Dumbest Play – This is definitely the dumbest play I made in this sample of hands. At the time I couldn’t think of a hand that villain should/could be c/raising for value like this, so I level myself into a jam. Ohhhhh me oh my if I could go back and fold that 92s lol. Villain definitely was not trying to level me, in fact my note on them is that they have very poor bet sizing (previous to this hand) so I thought they could still be bluffing a lot, rather than just having the nuts and not knowing how to play it. He played it better than I did though! hahaha.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 486993
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $400.00
Hero (BTN): $508.60
SB: $270.80
BB: $516.70
UTG: $549.00
MP: $344.80

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with 9 2
UTG raises to $12, 2 folds, Hero raises to $38, 2 folds, UTG calls $26

Flop: ($82.00) K 8 7 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $40, UTG raises to $176, Hero raises to $470.60 all in, UTG calls $294.60

Turn: ($1023.20) T (2 players – 1 is all in)

River: ($1023.20) 5 (2 players – 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $1023.20
Hero shows 9 2 (King Ten high)
UTG shows A K (a pair of Kings)
UTG wins $1020.20
(Rake: $3.00)

Avant-Garde – Not a ton to talk about here, just that it’s good to have some value hands/deceptive hands in your flop raising range. I raise a lot of cbets in position because it puts my opponent in pretty tough spots where they have to call and play a guessing game OOP, or invest a lot of money to rebluff or reveal the strength of their hand. They are going to make a lot of mistakes.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 486994
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (MP): $406.00
CO: $886.20
BTN: $2264.45
SB: $2087.20
BB: $632.85
UTG: $802.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is MP with Q Q
UTG raises to $12, Hero calls $12, 4 folds

Flop: ($30.00) 9 J 4 (2 players)
UTG bets $24, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $76, UTG raises to $258, Hero raises to $394 all in, UTG calls $136

Turn: ($818.00) 3 (2 players – 1 is all in)

River: ($818.00) 6 (2 players – 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $818.00
Hero shows Q Q (a pair of Queens)
UTG shows K J (a pair of Jacks)
Hero wins $815.00
(Rake: $3.00)

LOLOLOLOLest Hand – I guess he thought he had aces?

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 479183
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $374.95
SB: $930.70
BB: $88.80
Hero (UTG): $406.00
MP: $990.25
CO: $606.50

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is UTG with 9 9
Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $12, 2 folds, BTN raises to $20, 2 folds, Hero calls $8

Flop: ($46.00) 4 7 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $40, Hero raises to $108, BTN calls $68

Turn: ($262.00) 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $88, BTN calls $88

River: ($438.00) J (2 players)
Hero bets $190 all in, BTN calls $158.95 all in

Final Pot: $755.90
BTN mucks 3 3
Hero shows 9 9 (a full house, Nines full of Fours)
Hero wins $752.90
(Rake: $3.00)

Sickest Cooler – I’m still bitter about this one, and if you’re out there reading villain, you know who you are, I hate you :D

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 486995
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $417.90
SB: $400.00
BB: $296.30
UTG: $558.50
Hero (MP): $454.30
CO: $251.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is MP with 4 4
UTG requests TIME, 1 fold, Hero raises to $16, 1 fold, BTN calls $16, SB calls $14, BB calls $12

Flop: ($64.00) Q 8 6 (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($64.00) 6 (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($64.00) 4 (4 players)
SB bets $44, BB calls $44, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $144, BTN folds, SB requests TIME, SB raises to $384 all in, BB folds, Hero calls $240

Final Pot: $876.00
SB shows 8 8 (a full house, Eights full of Sixes)
Hero mucks 4 4
SB wins $873.00
(Rake: $3.00)

That’s all for this week folks. Next week is a wide open world, that is, if I can stop playing RUSH FUCKING POKER long enough to breathe. FUCK YOUUUUUUUUU FTP. (but seriously, thanks for the 35bb on reg tables) Good luck at the tables everybody :)

Big Lebowski & Shakespeare????

FenderJaguar — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:05:17 +0000

I can’t believe this exists :D hahahahaha. See ya’ll with a nice update this week sometime :)

http://www.runleiarun.com/lebowski/

For Whom the Bell Tolls

FenderJaguar — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 07:03:35 +0000

Sooooooo a student was asking me the other day how can he stop from making snap decisions at the table that lead to spew. I gave it some thought, and came up with something that may be the best thing since sliced pee bottles. Errr wait no….

Anyway, a big part of the reason you (we actually, the royal we, the editorial….) make a snap decision (or similar spewy mistake) is that you’re not completely focused. You’re either folding hands on other tables, stuck in the middle of the stack you lost a few minutes ago, or have a half naked chick next to you and you’re meat hooking on the titties while you play. Whatever the reason, it would be very helpful if we had a way to clear our mind, to get back to balance, like Mr. Miyagi says. I gave this some thought as well and here’s what I’ve got….

Wait for it…. Ready? You don’t seem ready, sure you want to know but you’re not like actually wanting to know, you just want to be entertained :) OK OK now you’re like JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND TELL US ALREADY! Got it. Two words my fellow conscripts, Desktop, Bell.

DESKTOP BELL DESKTOP BELL DESKTOP BELL

Read it again, and think about how awesome this is :) So there you are multitabling, you’re in a big pot, the heat is on, the pressure is wild, you’re sweating, almost SALIVATING, you don’t know what to do, your mind runs in every direction, the timer is chasing you like some maniacal murderer, what do you do????? DING DING DING. You ring the bell obv. This will separate you from the pressure of the situation, and allow you to clear your mind long enough to make sure you’re making the best decision.

Bottom line: Buy a Desktop Bell like you see them use in hotels when they ring a ding ding the front desk people, and force yourself to ring it before you make decisions in big pots. It’s just a wild-eyed theory of mine but I really think it’s a good idea. I know I used to try and keep my hand away from the mouse, but that doesn’t work too well in this day and age when you’re multitabling and most likely using tableninja (even if not).

Most of you are probably thinking “FENDER FENDER FENDER you sure are a Zaaaany guy, where the hell do you come up with this stuff???” Well, I’ll tell you :)

I used to play live poker, and sometimes when I spew a stack off online I’ll be like, fuck me dude I’d NEVER make that play in a live game because I’d have to move all the chips in, and I would have more time to think it through rather than just feel pressure/click button. The road to ruin is an easy one even for the most seasoned grinder. So I came up with a psychological way to “physically move all the chips in” so to speak. The ringing of the bell will separate you from the situation long enough to let cooler heads prevail :)

Even if you think this is retarded one of those bells costs like $15 bucks shipped or something so give it a shot, I think it’s certainly +EV. If you have no tilt problems whatsoever and you never make a decision that you didn’t think through, or you never make mistakes or fuck it up, you’re a liar and should probably buy 3-4 bells and station them all over your desk, and while you’re at it order a dose of reality. :D

Dedicated to making your grinding life an easier one,

FenderJaguar

Being a better professional (graph of my last 100k+ hands inc.)

FenderJaguar — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:40:38 +0000

I am a lazy lazy lazy motherfucker. Let me get that out of the way. I’ve traditionally been a very low volume player, with more emphasis spent on coaching/theorizing/studying the game. This year I’ve decided to coach much less, so that I can flesh out my ability to be a better playing professional (and really get to know my true inner grinder). That’s not to say I won’t coach at all, but I don’t plan on paying for a thread on 2p2 because I don’t want that much action so to speak. That being said if you play 100NL-200NL (or 400NL on euro sites but not FTP :D) and you’re interested/super serious about improving your game, feel free to shoot me a PM because I’ll still take a couple of students a month or something.

I have set some loose guidelines for myself, mainly focusing on hours played. I feel like that metric (yes I’m using a Leatherass word from his book, and no I’m not ashamed to say I bought it because it’s got a lot of good info and I don’t give a rats ass about mindless automatons and their thoughts and opinions, it directly relates to something I have trouble with, so I’m directly finding no trouble using it, haters can hate my balls in their mouth) will let me accomplish everything else along with it.

So far it’s gone well in that I’m actually getting the time in, but I’m definitely feeling a bit of pressure adjusting to longer sessions, particularly after 3-4 hands go the wrong way, even more particularly after I bluff off a stack and wonder for a couple of minutes if my play was good, let that subside for a later review, then endure the losing end of a few standard flips/coolers. For those of you that put in a lot of volume, how the hell do you deal? Sit out for a few min? I need suggestions (there’s no roll pressure etc, I’m just competitive and hate losing :D).

Overall I feel like I’ve improved a ton working with Krantz (I keep saying this because I’m hoping it will rub off on my results in the coming weeks!), and I feel like my A-game is really going to shine this year, the question is, how can I personally, with my surroundings and daily non-routine routine, apply it more frequently and for longer periods of time at the tables? Good question. If anyone has any ideas other than healthy food/beverage/exercise/rest and the standard slew of healthy stuff let me know. I’m on that train already for sure.

I may come back to this topic another time, but for now I’m going to post a graph for motivation. This is my last 117k hands, from 25NL to 600NL, I would say 90% 6 max, 5% FR 5% HU.

It’s time to get the tortoise some FUCKING ROCKET SHOES! (I mean, he CAN still win the race no? Or will it not count because technically he’s not slow and steady anymore? How about if we just give him rocket shoes to use at the last minute like a damn NITROOOOO BOOOST haha I think that satisfies all requirements).

Member vid posted :D

FenderJaguar — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:05:44 +0000

http://membervideos.deucescracked.com/FenderJaguar/1442/FenderLAG2-4.wmv

enjoy/leave feedback/I spewed a stack off in a hand :D lolz.

The zone, to use the parlance of our times....

FenderJaguar — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:55:54 +0000

I’ve been mulling over how to explain the changes that are happening within my poker game. You could say moth/cocoon, you could say JENGA BITCH! (but then that shit would all fall down and we’d have a hell of a fucking mess to clean up), you could say apples and oranges in a high speed blender ?!%# and that wouldn’t be bad, or you could liken it to how fast I could solve a Rubik’s Cube (de-scrambling its labyrinth of code like lightning rather than grandmotherly molasses).

At this point I’ve spent quite a bit of time picking Krantz’ brain and assimilating/organizing/executing the information both in my brain and at the table. Let me tell you, at first it was a spew fest :D.

Things are clearing up though, and I feel like there’s a bright horizon in the distance. Things are nice and sparkling clear, like an unmuddied lake. Like an azure sky in deepest summer, you can rely on me Krantz :D.

The best way to describe (and this really is the best way I can possibly describe this to make any sense) how I’ve felt about my latest sessions, even the ones where I lost some buy-ins (for those that may cry results oriented thinking) is as such: I feel as if all of my sessions previous to these were an autopilot version of my non-autopilot self/game. Let me say that again so it sinks in.

After spending a lot of time being mentored by Krantz and putting in hands, I feel as if every session I’ve played previous was by an autopilot version of my non-autopilot self.

What does this mean? At the very basic and simplest breakdown of what this means to me, that can apply to all of us in some way, I have been adjusting to either stats or player types too frequently, and adjusting to unique thinking and breathing individual players too infrequently (especially in the case of “good regs”). It sounds pretty simple, but it’s a fucking galaxy.

I hope this is somewhat coherent as it’s admittedly a sludgefeast of incessant rambling, but I feel like it’s OK and I am more motivated than I ever have been. Just wanted to get this out while I was thinking about it.

On the horizon

FenderJaguar — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:24:25 +0000

I know I owe you guys some member vids of poker and magic. Just wanted to let you know that after replacing my PSU, the comp started crashing again! Fucking thing. I hit up the 2p2 computer tech heads and we’ve narrowed it down to the CPU grease/heatsink fan (thanks again 2p2 tech heads).

I’m taking care of that problem asap and after that’s cleared up, more vids will sling your way. I also may have a treat on the magic side of things, I know a LOT of pro players current and old :) I may have a special guest or two for a draft or two, someone more in touch w/current magic.

Also….

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $422.00
UTG: $80.00
MP: $609.30
CO: $400.00
BTN: $161.30
Hero (SB): $410.20

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is SB with A K
1 fold, MP raises to $12, 2 folds, Hero calls $10, 1 fold

Flop: ($28.00) 4 4 A (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $16, Hero raises to $48, MP calls $32

Turn: ($124.00) T (2 players)
Hero bets $96, MP raises to $549.30 all in, Hero calls $254.20 all in

River: ($824.40) 4 (2 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $824.40
MP shows 7 8 (three of a kind, Fours)
Hero shows A K (a full house, Fours full of Aces)
Hero wins $821.40
(Rake: $3.00)

It really does work! :D

I flat in the SB mainly to trap the BB who I know as a high stakes reg (off and on anyway) and a complete maniac. I was about to leave the table b/c he was 3betting every other hand and I couldn’t really play my game, and no fish is worth that (here anyway).

Crazy how some people spaz out when you rep thin. I should know because I have been one of them in the past (and still sometimes am, though way less often and rarely like this dude).

1st sesh of the new year

FenderJaguar — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:39:23 +0000

Didn’t go so hot :) -3 BI but the bright side is that I think I earned the hands I won, and most of the hands I lost are pretty standard (IE fish has a flush vs. my flopped set, I lose 2 100bb+ flips) derf. Here’s a couple of interesting hands :D

this is an interesting spot. I can take a standard check/raise or bet/3bet line, which wouldn’t be bad, but I know how this villain is going to react to donk bets (IE go batshit insane) and we have A LOT of history together, so he’s even more likely to spaz out vs. me than your average donk bettor in this spot. If I check/raise he may float a street but he’ll end up folding all but his value hands before too long (which I’ll stack w/my line as well), and if I bet his raising range is going to be so wide that 3b’ing would be a mistake given the history I think. So I elect to bet/call the flop and make my hand look a lot weaker than it is, giving him the lead and the chance to barrel wildly. Whether my process is good or not remains to be seen as the hand he shows up with gives us no other information than he’s value betting slightly thin on the river :)

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players – View hand 454598
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $421.90
UTG: $914.85
CO: $400.00
BTN: $62.00
SB: $362.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BB with 4 4
1 fold, CO raises to $12, 2 folds, Hero calls $8

Flop: ($26.00) K 4 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $20, CO raises to $68, Hero calls $48

Turn: ($162.00) A (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $76, Hero calls $76

River: ($314.00) 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $244 all in, Hero calls $244

Final Pot: $802.00
Hero shows 4 4 (three of a kind, Fours)
CO shows A 8 (a pair of Aces)
Hero wins $799.00
(Rake: $3.00)

This is more for comic relief than strategy. Thanks I guess :D

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 454621
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $501.30
BB: $400.00
UTG: $534.95
MP: $372.05
Hero (CO): $400.00
BTN: $427.70

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is CO with Q A
1 fold, MP raises to $14, Hero calls $14, 3 folds

Flop: ($34.00) A K 8 (2 players)
MP checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($34.00) T (2 players)
MP bets $34, Hero calls $34

River: ($102.00) 7 (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $44, MP calls $44

Final Pot: $190.00
MP shows A A (three of a kind, Aces)
Hero shows Q A (a pair of Aces)
MP wins $187.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Then I have 3 hands vs. the same villain. I’d like to say in advance that Swedish Fish is my favorite candy.

H1: I make a big-ish fold because I highly doubt this player is bluffing in this spot.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 454622
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $239.00
UTG: $576.00
MP: $400.00
CO: $422.95
Hero (BTN): $665.00
SB: $753.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with 8 J
3 folds, Hero raises to $12, 1 fold, BB calls $8

Flop: ($26.00) J T J (2 players)
BB bets $12, Hero calls $12

Turn: ($50.00) 2 (2 players)
BB bets $40, Hero calls $40

River: ($130.00) 7 (2 players)
BB bets $175 all in, Hero requests TIME, Hero folds

Final Pot: $130.00
BB wins $127.00
(Rake: $3.00)

H2: I hero call in a spot where he doesn’t rep much and is way more likely to be bluffing than in the previous hand, I had a bit of a timing tell on him here as well. (although it’s possible he was bluffing in that hand too and I made a bad fold)

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 454624
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $195.00
BTN: $642.00
SB: $421.70
BB: $466.95
Hero (UTG): $400.00
MP: $737.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is UTG with Q Q
Hero raises to $16, 1 fold, CO calls $16, BTN requests TIME, 3 folds

Flop: ($38.00) 5 T K (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($38.00) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $24, CO calls $24

River: ($86.00) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $56, CO raises to $155 all in, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $99

Final Pot: $396.00
CO shows 5 A (a pair of Fives)
Hero shows Q Q (a pair of Queens)
Hero wins $393.00
(Rake: $3.00)

But in the end the money comes home when I show you living proof that you can actually double the pot for value vs. fish that don’t fold, and get paid off. For my next trick….

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players – View hand 454631
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $396.05
CO: $416.00
BTN: $462.50
Hero (SB): $665.00
BB: $670.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is SB with J 9
UTG calls $4, 2 folds, Hero calls $2, BB checks

Flop: ($12.00) 6 8 T (3 players)
Hero bets $12, BB folds, UTG calls $12

Turn: ($36.00) Q (2 players)
Hero bets $68, UTG calls $68

River: ($172.00) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $581 all in, UTG calls $312.05 all in

Final Pot: $796.10
UTG mucks Q J
Hero shows J 9 (a straight, Queen high)
Hero wins $793.10
(Rake: $3.00)

Going to take a break and chill, maybe play some NHL 10 on Xbox live, I know when FTP doesn’t want me to win :D.

We are born with a chance, and I am gonna have my chance.

FenderJaguar — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:58:53 +0000

Do you feel that? The quiet electricity of the calm before the storm. We stand apart, yet in unison, like soldiers sharpening bloodstained blades ready to confront the murderous faces of our enemies.

2010 is about to get its ass kicked.

It’s kind of fascinating that mental checkpoints like the year changing bestow upon us the confidence and drive needed to accomplish the goals we set for ourselves (when really we could all pick a random day and like Nike JUST DO IT).

Poker sometimes feels like we’re kicking dust and rocks down a lonely dirt road, our soul on the table should the devil brand his charmingly thin-lipped grin and glance in our direction. To succeed we must keep walking, past that grin, past the crossroads, and past ourselves.

Happy New Year to everyone and best of luck accomplishing your goals in 2010.

Black Flag – Rise Above

The end is the beginning is the end....

FenderJaguar — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 07:53:49 +0000

2008 was probably the worst year of my life. I stopped playing poker, had a lot of stressful “situations” that wouldn’t let me play my A game, and let my roll dwindle to dust through bills and degeneracy. I swore 2009 was going to be awesome.
2009 was awesome, I came all the way from starting fresh on borrowed money at microstakes to being a 2/4 & 3/6 reg, not to mention making vids with our poker savior the clowngod himself :)
I swear that 2010 is going to be the best year of my life.

Taking a break from blog/poker until after Christmas. Not that it’s a big break, but it will be nice to just chill out drinking hot cocoa watching all the snow terrorize people other than myself.

I spent a good amount of time trying to find presents for my sisters kids, the ones that would annoy her the most haha. I got them walkie talkies and hulk smash hands lol.

It’s weird that having nothing for so many years hasn’t made me want lots of stuff, rather it’s made me want to stop other people from having the nothing that I once had.

Anyway not going to run a mushy ramble, happy holidays and such to everyone, catch ya’ll on the flipside.

Evidence of the old glazzies. Nothing up our sleeves. No magic (well maybe), little Alex.

FenderJaguar — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:16:34 +0000

So a while ago I got a 30" Samsung 305t. It was definitely awesome, but it started to go busto (refurbished) really soon after I got it. The whole right side was flickering weirdly. Don’t get me wrong I’m all about candlelight, but I’d prefer it with a romantic dinner rather than a grind session. Anyway the place I got it from doesn’t carry many 30" monitors. So I had to wait for them to stumble across another one. Luckily for me they got a brand new NEC Multisync 3090waskldfjals;djfsfd. Retail on this gem mint monster is 2k. I had to pay to upgrade, but it’s better than letting the Samsung go bust and having to purchase one anyway. The NEC got here today and maaaaaan it’s nice. But it better be for a 2k monitor. I mean, this thing better sing, dance, tell jokes, and cup my balls while I piss. I guess that’d be way more convenient if I used a pee bottle while grinding :0

One of the main things I’m taking away from making episode 4 is that we often play against our opponents as if they are someone else that we’ve played against in the past. In some situations it’s not bad to apply, though it can be very costly when you’re essentially guesstimating for stacks, or in stack threatening situations. I think it’s important to build a read and get some history. You hear Krantz say it all the time in like every other video he’s ever made “We don’t get any new information”. There’s a reason he keeps saying that.

Another good point is that though raising the flop IP almost always works vs. weak players, because they will either fold too much or go on insane monkey tilt too fast, as I’m playing against players who can reads hands better, even though they’ll fold some, I’m giving them a bit too much information too quickly. It will be much harder for them to read my hand if I don’t let them know what I don’t have, if that makes sense (not to mention I won’t get blown off of hands w/good equity and in the case of A high stuff, showdown value). I still think there is clearly a time and dynamic for all the flop raising I like to do, but I’ll probably work more calling into my game in spots where I’m just pedal to the metal.

I’m pretty motivated, and should be over my sickness in a day or two. The grinding shall then begin. If anyone is interested in me making a magic vid or something chime in here :) If there’s enough interest I’ll record a vid of a draft or some constructed on magic online.

Booooooom goes the dynamite

FenderJaguar — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:19:18 +0000

So I’m feeling slightly better. I think the worst of it is over. Really happy with the NTMTO ep. that’s going to hit the streets Friday, hope ya’ll are too.

I finished watching Shootaa’s 4 part 400NL series on Leggo today. I really like the way he explains himself. He’s a bit monotone and boring, but it’s not that bad really and I can appreciate his attention to stuff like combinatorics and pointing out variables that people may be missing. I’d suggest checking that series out. It’s good stuff.

Since Krantz is coaching/mentoring me and I’ve gotten to chill with him some (as chillin’ as you can hundreds of miles away) I’ve started watching tons of his old videos as well. I feel like the better you get at poker, the more you’ll get out of videos you watched a long time ago. You’ll recognize more and take more away from them. That’s what I’m doing now, feasting on clown vids and taking notes.

I’d yap some more but I’m still under the weather, hope grinding is going well for everyone. Also, I’m going to occasionally post a short video in the member contributions section between episodes of NTMTO, would ya’ll rather see vids with audio or without? 2 or 4 tables? What would we all benefit the most from?

Downer+ Sick = Fail

FenderJaguar — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:52:16 +0000

What a terrible few days. On a 10 BI downer between 3 sessions, I def played a couple of hands poorly but the vast majority was stuff like, I have AJ on J99KJ and they have KJ, or I have K9 vs. a halfstacker’s Q9 on 97J and he runs a flush. Or I have KJ vs. a loose players AJ on J84J w/a fd. bleh.

I had planned on getting up the next morning, getting a fresh start grinding, focused, and A gaming it up. To my dismay I awoke sick. I don’t think my downswing made me physically ill, but something did :( So now I’m groovin’ on soup and resting up, playing some Xbox like back in the day when I’d stay home from school playing Intellivision, Colecovision, Atari and NES all day. Some things never change.

I’m not in the right state of mind to really analyze hands at the moment so I will post some when I’m feeling better. I will say that my image has very clearly been paying off lately and leave you with a couple of those gems :D

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players – View hand 426856
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $534.30
Hero (CO): $445.00
BTN: $640.80
SB: $840.30
BB: $870.20

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is CO with Q Q
UTG raises to $12, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $40, 3 folds, UTG raises to $105, Hero raises to $445 all in, UTG calls $340

Flop: ($896.00) 4 2 4

Turn: ($896.00) 5

River: ($896.00) 7

Final Pot: $896.00
UTG shows 9 A (a flush, Ace high)
Hero shows Q Q (two pair, Queens and Fours)
UTG wins $893.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players – View hand 426860
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $781.90
SB: $414.00
BB: $449.00
UTG: $405.00
Hero (CO): $402.60

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is CO with A A
1 fold, Hero raises to $12, BTN raises to $40, 2 folds, Hero raises to $92, BTN raises to $781.90 all in, Hero calls $310.60 all in

Flop: ($811.20) 3 5 9

Turn: ($811.20) K

River: ($811.20) 6

Final Pot: $811.20
BTN shows 3 3 (three of a kind, Threes)
Hero shows A A (a pair of Aces)
BTN wins $808.20
(Rake: $3.00)

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 426861
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $230.30
CO: $400.00
Hero (BTN): $468.00
SB: $430.00
BB: $792.85
UTG: $564.20

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with A K
2 folds, CO raises to $14, Hero calls $14, SB raises to $48.85, 2 folds, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $112, SB requests TIME, SB raises to $430 all in, Hero calls $318

Flop: ($878.00) 6 8 Q

Turn: ($878.00) 7

River: ($878.00) 2

Final Pot: $878.00
Hero shows A K (Ace King high)
SB shows A J (Ace Queen high)
Hero wins $875.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 4 players – View hand 426864
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN): $400.00
SB: $139.00
BB: $103.90
CO: $1088.65

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with K A
CO raises to $12, Hero raises to $36, 2 folds, CO raises to $92, Hero raises to $400 all in, CO calls $308

Flop: ($806.00) T A 2

Turn: ($806.00) 5

River: ($806.00) 2

Final Pot: $806.00
Hero shows K A (two pair, Aces and Twos)
CO shows Q K (a pair of Twos)
Hero wins $804.00
(Rake: $2.00)

The Adventures of Ballin' Von Stackchausen :D

FenderJaguar — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:35:09 +0000

Had a lot of eye opening realizations this week. When we were going over the hands in ep. 2 I had a lot of things churning in my head. What made the most sense, is that I was very often readless, and just using combinatorics and the fact that my opp was a reg, as an excuse to make a very specific play that would hinge on him being where I need him to be mentally. Combinatorics is a great aid to hand reading and I suggest that anyone who doesn’t know this stuff to learn it asap. That being said I have been using it a bit TOO much like a weapon, rather than say, a nitro boost in one of those fancy fandangled cars from the Fast/Furious movies. You get what I’m sprayin’? Weapon = No, Nitro Boost = Yes.

Cliffnotes here = reads are your weapons, hand combos is your nitro boost jamdance.

This week I’m getting back to basics. Like Mr. Miyagi says, when you lose your focus, you must return to balance. That doesn’t mean I’ll be playing straightforward 19/16 ABC TAG poker, but it does mean that I’m going to use my weapons rather than my nitro’s. I’m putting “DO YOU HAVE A READ?” on my 2nd monitor (the one with a visible background while I’m playing). I think this will keep it fresh in my mind, that I need to be thinking clearly, not only about what I’m up to and my image is up to, but what my opponents are ACTUALLY doing, and what hands they ACTUALLY have, what adjustments they are ACTUALLY making.

Things have gone pretty well since we made the vids, and when I briefly watched them today, I got even more out of them then when we were making them. Probably a product of thinking about a lot of things at once, and not 100% focusing on what Krantz was saying. I’ll be taking notes and watching them more thoroughly tonight sometime as I think they offer a ton of great information.

I laugh kinda like a hyena so if you guys think it’s annoying let me know and I’ll try to contain myself in the future :D

One other thing that stuck out to me, is the fact that I should actually be depolarizing my range in a lot of situations where I would default polarize it. I’m going to work on this as well, it’s going to be fresh in my mind.

OK on to some hands.

This is a pretty sweet spot, a lot of the time I would have considered checking the turn to get more value out of his weak range and induce bluffs from peels, but instead I bet again, and induce total spew :)

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players – View hand 421090
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $80.00
UTG: $616.80
CO: $550.70
BTN: $80.00
Hero (SB): $588.80

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is SB with A A
UTG raises to $12, 2 folds, Hero raises to $40, 1 fold, UTG calls $28

Flop: ($84.00) 5 A T (2 players)
Hero bets $44, UTG calls $44

Turn: ($172.00) 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $92, UTG raises to $204, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $112

River: ($580.00) J (2 players)
Hero requests TIME, Hero checks, UTG bets $328.80 all in, Hero calls $300.80 all in

Final Pot: $1181.60
UTG shows J Q (a pair of Jacks)
Hero shows A A (three of a kind, Aces)
Hero wins $1178.60
(Rake: $3.00)

Villain in this hand is Steve Yea, and I’ve basically been running him over, I picked up a few good hands as well but he doesn’t know that, so he probably feels like I’m way out of line. Weeee!

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 421091
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $400.00
SB: $882.10
Hero (BB): $400.00
UTG: $419.90
MP: $190.00
CO: $500.40

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BB with J J
3 folds, BTN raises to $12, 1 fold, Hero raises to $38, BTN calls $26

Flop: ($78.00) 8 3 4 (2 players)
Hero requests TIME, Hero bets $52, BTN calls $52

Turn: ($182.00) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $108, BTN raises to $310 all in, Hero calls $202 all in

River: ($802.00) K (2 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $802.00
BTN shows A 5 (Ace King high)
Hero shows J J (a pair of Jacks)
Hero wins $799.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Not too soon after that hand….

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 421093
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $816.95
UTG: $472.50
MP: $86.00
CO: $449.60
Hero (BTN): $462.80
SB: $488.70

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with 5 5
2 folds, CO raises to $12, Hero calls $12, 2 folds

Flop: ($30.00) 5 5 6 (2 players)
CO bets $20, Hero calls $20

Turn: ($70.00) 8 (2 players)
CO bets $40, Hero calls $40

River: ($150.00) 7 (2 players)
CO bets $112, Hero raises to $390.80 all in, CO calls $265.60 all in

Final Pot: $905.20
CO mucks A 9
Hero shows 5 5 (four of a kind, Fives)
Hero wins $902.20
(Rake: $3.00)

I’m pretty sure in the above hand that his river call is thin, but I don’t think he was in the folding mood at all. Maybe that’s just him though, I’ve heard he’s pretty insane.

Anyway, here’s some pwnage imo. I flat AA b/c I’d like to make more money than what the retarded shortdonk has. Magic happens.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 421094
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $86.00
MP: $76.80
CO: $465.00
BTN: $399.40
Hero (SB): $751.40
BB: $406.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is SB with A A
1 fold, MP raises to $9, 2 folds, Hero calls $7, BB raises to $40, 1 fold, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $104, BB raises to $406 all in, Hero calls $302

Flop: ($821.00) T 5 8

Turn: ($821.00) J

River: ($821.00) 5

Flop: ($821.00) J 7 4

Turn: ($821.00) 6

River: ($821.00) 6

Final Pot: $821.00
Hero shows A A (two pair, Aces and Sixes)
BB shows 9 9 (two pair, Nines and Sixes)
Hero wins $408.50
Hero wins $408.50
(Rake: $4.00)

Winning a flip postflop, was a bit surprised to see him flat my 3b w/A8s. I guess I get no credits :/ I blame the CLOWN AVATAR!

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 421096
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $505.60
SB: $402.00
Hero (BB): $440.90
UTG: $1051.80
MP: $366.00
CO: $368.70

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BB with K K
UTG raises to $16, 4 folds, Hero raises to $50, UTG calls $34

Flop: ($102.00) T 8 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $60, UTG raises to $1001.80 all in, Hero calls $330.90 all in

Turn: ($883.80) 9 (2 players – 2 are all in)

River: ($883.80) T (2 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $883.80
Hero shows K K (two pair, Kings and Tens)
UTG shows A 8 (two pair, Tens and Eights)
Hero wins $880.80
(Rake: $3.00)

OK now for a couple of strat hands and we’ll call it a blog.

I double barrel b/c I may get some folds, have a gutshot, and will have flexibility on the river! I kinda get there but not really, I think I would bluff this all the time, and villain was a reg/I feel like he could hero call here w/top pair, and I think I’m clearly ahead of his bluffcatching range. Obv I get pwned by a diamond. Is this too thin? I think the variables were lined up well.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 421097
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $400.00
CO: $406.00
BTN: $134.50
Hero (SB): $415.00
BB: $1284.60
UTG: $92.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is SB with K 9
4 folds, Hero raises to $12, BB requests TIME, BB calls $8

Flop: ($24.00) J Q 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $20, BB requests TIME, BB calls $20

Turn: ($64.00) 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $48, BB requests TIME, BB calls $48

River: ($160.00) T (2 players)
Hero requests TIME, Hero bets $112, BB requests TIME….

So here I squeeze a loose and fishy guy, he doesn’t like to fold much. On the flop obv an easy value bet, on the turn I think the T is going to fold out a lot of the hands I get value from, so I decide to check back and try to value bet the river. When he leads the river, I don’t think he’s ever leading 77 type hands, the hands I’m trying to get paid off by. I also don’t think he’s ever really bluffing, or value betting worse. I know he can’t rep much value range wise, but I really felt like I was beat here, one of those spots where I want to call given the way the hand played out, but I don’t really see too much I’m ahead of other than the straight draws that click with 23 that didn’t get there. What to do, what to do. Thoughts?

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players – View hand 421098
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $82.00
BB: $486.90
UTG: $510.20
CO: $400.00
Hero (BTN): $543.10

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with J K
UTG raises to $12, CO calls $12, Hero raises to $48, 2 folds, UTG calls $36, 1 fold

Flop: ($114.00) 3 K 2 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $68, UTG calls $68

Turn: ($250.00) T (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

River: ($250.00) 3 (2 players)
UTG bets $185 and Hero finds a shoe to vomit in, then clicks!?

That’s all for tonights blog folks. I’m going to put on my New Jersey Devils hat, and go play some NHL 10 on Xbox 360. I finally got the correct HD cable set up so I can FINALLY nut over a sick slick pic on the technicolor. Farewell and good night.

blah, bah humbug

FenderJaguar — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:19:03 +0000

I had a pretty gigantic blog post I was working on, reviewing vids and yapping about all kinds of cool stuff, and my browser crashed and I lost it all. Fail.

The bottom line was that Bttech’s first few Leggo vids are insane and worth watching multiple times. I really like the name of his new series Regulators as well, being a fan of both the Young Guns movies and the Warren G song (even if you don’t like rap, how can you not like that song?).

It’s been a long ass day between grinding and making vids. I’m going to call it a night. Good luck on the game grid, programs.

Nobody calls me Lebowski, I'm the dude!

FenderJaguar — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:32:15 +0000

All I can think about is exploiting my image at a poker table whenever I hear that line. That’s pretty sick.

I have various flavors of hands and situations to look at today, some will have played out one way, but I want to know what would happen if they played out another. So Krantz, going to need you on this one.

Lets see….

So in this hand, villain is a 6 tabling 19/16 type of a guy that I have no real history with, but seems pretty straightforward. My plan was to fold on the turn if he bet, but once he checks back, I was going to check and raise the river. When I see him NOT bluff the river w/QJ and give up so weakly, should I be more or less likely to checkraise bluff the river in the future. Is your average multitabling guy going to be more likely to bluff me, or more likely to keep playing his standard game? I guess I should build a history with each player and go from there, but what about the initial thought to checkraise this time? Good? Thought process being that he rarely has a flush, I can, he usually has pot controlling Ax hands that will bet/fold the river.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 412916
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $183.95
UTG: $305.80
MP: $414.80
CO: $400.00
BTN: $410.00
Hero (SB): $529.80

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is SB with T T
2 folds, CO raises to $14, 1 fold, Hero calls $12, 1 fold

Flop: ($32.00) 9 5 A (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $20, Hero calls $20

Turn: ($72.00) K (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: ($72.00) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

Final Pot: $72.00
CO shows J Q (Ace King high)
Hero shows T T (a pair of Tens)
Hero wins $69.00
(Rake: $3.00)

In this next hand, I think I misplayed it (it’s subtle) and I have a crazy idea and I want to know if I should put down the cocaine or keep sniffin’ it. We’re playing 4 handed on one of the 5 handed tables, there’s a fish w/150 bucks or so and then 2 regs and I. I’m sitting here because I want to get in some tougher spots w/regs for educational purposes. I’ve been playing pretty aggressively and winning most of the pots (like 47/40 or something) and villain is also pretty loose, and he’s started to stop folding.

Anyway, in reality I check the flop, check and call the turn, and go for a checkraise on the river. I think it’s OK but what I immediately thought after was, checkraise the turn, and checkraise the river! Thought process being that he isn’t betting A high on the turn, he’s either pot controlling Kx because I’ve been so aggro, slowplaying a J, or turned AQ or a FD. So I think the majority of his turn range is calling a checkraise, and if he is frustrated and picked up a flush draw, he may even jam drawing dead? Too optimistic? Probably, he’s still going to call though. Which brings me to the reason for the river checkraise. He’s probably going to value bet if he hits a flush, he’s prob going to value bet if he has AQ or a K, if he has a J, all that jazz. and if he misses a flush, he has the chance to bluff. Is that good? Or is he going to be checking back thinking there’s no value if I checkraise the turn and check the river b/c I have nuts/air. I’m not entirely sure if I’m on to something or gettin’ fancier than a stelladoro breadstick on a gold plated doiley (which may not even exist but I’ll tell you what, it sounds pretty fucking fancy no?)

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players – View hand 412933
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $136.05
Hero (BB): $446.10
UTG: $423.00
CO: $0.00
BTN: $497.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BB with T J
UTG raises to $12, 2 folds, Hero calls $8

Flop: ($26.00) K J J (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks

Turn: ($26.00) T (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $16, Hero calls $16

River: ($58.00) 5 (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks

OK, I wasn’t entirely sure about barreling on this turn, but here’s what I’m thinking (villain is 30/16 a bit random, not super aggro, not much history)….

I’m ahead of a lot of the draws he’ll peel with again, rarely be checkraised, I may get a fold from a 7 or a T, and I have the 4h (not high value b/c he can def have a bigger heart some but w/e it’s still notable) and A high, and can check down the river.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 412962
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $206.55
BB: $302.10
UTG: $811.00
MP: $424.10
CO: $400.00
Hero (BTN): $599.50

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with 4 A
3 folds, Hero raises to $12, SB calls $10, 1 fold

Flop: ($28.00) Q 7 T (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $22, SB calls $22

Turn: ($72.00) 2 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $44…

I feel like I’m doing well and improving my hand volume, which has been traditionally very poor and a big leak of mine. I’m starting to play more sessions more often, even though the past week has been pretty trying. Like, I had a lot of coaching to do, and that was fine, I love it, butttttt there was one day that I woke up in the middle of the night with terrible indigestion and my throat and chest were swollen and I was weezing and couldn’t breathe. It was terrible and I felt pretty sick for 2 days straight. Food poisoning? Must be. It was pretty nasty. I’m OK now though :)

That’s all I got for today I think. There were some other interesting hands but I don’t want to overload it. Also, speak up folks. I know a lot of you are reading this, ship me some comments. It makes me sad when I don’t get any feedback. We’re all supposed to be improving from this :) Don’t be shy, say hi!

The Jag abides (but not always because I definitely don’t dabble in pacifism, not at the poker table anyway)

Rollercoasters imo

FenderJaguar — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:26:29 +0000

This week has been a rollercoaster at the tables. I think it’s partly because I’m trying some new stuff, and partly because I’m playing poker :D. It’s all for the best though as learning is my #1 priority. Soaking up as much as I can from the Clown God that is my mentor.

Apologies again about the mess up with episode 2 guys. That was my bad, I didn’t think it was going to be an issue because it hadn’t been an issue. I’m replacing my PSU immediately. I do think however, that there’s a ton of good discussion and that even though the audio is a bit fast for the first 37 minutes, the content is what’s most important and there’s so much that you can take from that video. There’s so much that I’m taking from that video as well.

One of the things that Krantz has said a few times that’s sticking as what I would call active knowledge instead of passive knowledge, is that you want to “neutralize your opponents hand reading and create mistakes that you anticipate”. This is something I’ve always passively known, but maybe didn’t actively note. I think it’s really important not only for an overall game plan but to get better and beat better players. I’ll probably be sitting in some tough games this week just to monkey around with this stuff. This may make for some fun hands :)

I noticed as well that I’m a bit too “loose” with my bet sizing. The KQ hand in the video where I bet turn and shove river is a great example where I KNOW my bet is too big on the turn but I don’t take time to fix it. Krantz is right, can’t be lazy about that stuff. It’s too important. He also said “you wouldn’t give a guy a dollar would you?” and clearly the answer is no unless he was like, some homeless dude that wanted a chicken sandwich because, who can deny a homeless guy a chicken sandwich? This is also something I’m going to try and expunge from my game, laaaaaazinessss.

If you’re at the tables and you play in the same games I do, be prepared to be bloodied and bludgeoned with the button. Blame Krantz for that too :)

Alright, I’ve got an interesting hand that can’t wait I need feedbacks. History is, opp. is a loose kind of a guy that has peeled a lot of 3b’s, and checkraised a couple of times with a speech. I’m guessing that means they had the nuts but I could be wrong.

Anyway, in the hand, I think it’s completely standard up to the river, where I decide to polarize my range and jam instead of just vb’ing, I think his range is capped to showdown bound hands most of the time. He would c/r his good/value hands on the flop, and once I check back the turn probably value bet AQ and AJ type of stuff on the river, and he wasn’t tricky, just loose. It’d be hard to give him credit for trying to c/r me on the river w/2 pair or something. I tanked a bit as well to sell the idea that I was thinking about bluffing.

Cliffnotes = loose/aggro guy doesn’t like to fold a ton, but likes to play his good hands fast, I jam river w/a hand ahead of his bluffcatching range and hope he calls w/a hand he shouldn’t.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players – View hand 405482
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $723.20
UTG: $239.10
CO: $405.60
Hero (BTN): $527.50
SB: $336.30

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with 9 A
1 fold, CO raises to $14, Hero raises to $40, 2 folds, CO calls $26

Flop: ($86.00) A 5 6 (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $40, CO calls $40

Turn: ($166.00) 2 (2 players)
CO checks, Hero checks

River: ($166.00) J (2 players)
CO checks, Hero requests TIME, Hero bets $447.50….

Anyway, going to drink some Kombucha, eat some dinner, and then grind some more perhaps. What’s Kombucha you say? It’s this awesome stuff that makes you feel like a million dollars. It’s an ancient chinese tea, elixir of life style. Synergydrinks.com CHECK IT OUT. I guarantee if you’re open minded and you drink 1 bottle a day for a week or two you will reaaally feel a difference. BOOM don’t say I never gave you nothing :)

Video Reviews 2

FenderJaguar — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:45:42 +0000

Today I watched a couple of Brian Townsend’s videos from the midstakes portion of his “I like to move it, move it” series.

Oh, and I don’t know if this is a good thing or not but I’m currently eating shrimp wrapped in bacon and brown sugar. I hope it’s a good thing.

Anyway, these videos teach an aggressive bankroll management scheme. I think it’s reasonable if you can stay disciplined and move up or down when you’re supposed to. It’s funny that I picked those specifically to watch because one of the villains in those vids also appears in the next episode of Never Tell Me the Odds. Hope that’s not too much of a spoiler.

Also, the bacon wrapped shrimp wasn’t a great idea. I may experience nausea and have to finish this blog post later.

I’m not sure which episode it is but I remember one of the original Unconventional Wisdom’s providing me with a spicy lil aha moment. It’s the one where Vanessa is talking about playing against passive players and against them a lot of the time you aren’t checking to check and call on the river, like say some draws missed and you have top pair, vs. a lot of passive players you’re going to be checking to FOLD. That hit me in the head pretty hard and I was like OH DUHHHHH omg! Because I was always like “and now all the draws missed, so I will check and call!” Well, you live and you learn. There’s so much great information in that series anyway, it should definitely open your mind. Since I can’t remember which episode I’m talking about exactly, I guess you’ll have to watch them all :)

I’ve changed my avatar on Full Tilt to the clown, so I can hear Krantz over my shoulder when I’m about to do something boneheaded or get in a tough spot. I can just ask myself, what would Krantz do? JB1-Kranobi. Use the force obv.

It’s December and it’s cold. That means it’s time to run hotter than the sun to keep electric costs down. I figure if I can warm my bedroom with the flame dripping off of my cards on Full Tilt then I will definitely have increased my winrate.

So I got a new video card (EVGA GTS 250) to run my 30" and a 24", but my power supply (generic 500w) is now bogus, and whenever I’m trying to produce a video in camtasia it snap shuts down. Sure it starts up again and doesn’t really do it any other time, but still annoying and if I plan on making any videos in the future (and I do) I’m going to need to replace it. So, any suggestions?

It’s a Red House Painters kind of an evening. I bid you all farewell.

An old blog post from CR

FenderJaguar — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:27:15 +0000

I was on CR today to whip up a fast blog about Never Tell Me the Odds and I found a nice entry I posted earlier in the year. It’s a bit on the passionate ranting side, but I think it’s inspiring (for me at least, hopefully for some of you as well). Here goes….

Why you suck at poker

You can’t think for yourself. Your understanding of poker comes from what you’ve been taught, like a cookie-cutter. You don’t have the ability to come to your own logical conclusions, and you have no idea what to do in new situations that you haven’t been cookie-trained in (no fear though, you can in some cases be taught how to be logical lol). That’s why you lump in with the rest of the grinders, spending seasons in the abyss trading coolers with other people too stupid to realize "hey, there’s 5 regs at this table and myself, I could probably find a better spot. Like maybe a table with an actual fish :).

You play too many tables. You rely on rakeback. You “chalk it up to a cooler” too much. You don’t do enough homework. You don’t think about your game enough. You think you know it all, when really you don’t know jack fucking shit. You spew in spots where you’re crushed like a retard asking out a prom queen. You assign qualities to your opponents that they just don’t have. You overthink, you underthink, you estimate terribly. You don’t value bet well. You fail to stack people where you can, leaving tons and tons and tons of ptbb’s laying all over the felt. You don’t have a plan for the rest of the hand. You fire too many barrels. You fire too few barrels. You don’t even know what you’re going to do when you face a raise a lot of the time, let alone what turn and river cards are awesome/terrible.

You’re complete shit when it comes to reading hands. You let whimsy control your game. You play too many tables. I know I already said that one but you know what, it seems like a good time to reiterate it. You play too many FUCKING TABLES. You can’t make good decisions 8 tabling if you don’t already have a good internal idea of what those decisions should be. If you haven’t been there through a ton of 2-4 tabling repetition, you won’t “get it” while 8 tabling. So stop. You don’t know how to count card combinations (an excellent way to increase your hand reading ability). You let your emotions influence you and you tilt too much, even if you “aren’t the type to tilt too much”. You don’t work hard enough. You don’t put enough hands in and you quit winning sessions too soon, hanging around while you’re losing and on tilt (IE your winning sessions are your shortest, and your losing sessions are your longest). You’re not honest with yourself. You self-soothe and do whatever you can to justify your plays or lack of motivation to yourself. You find others to be miserable with, you may even have a network of dreamsowers lamenting their every lost flip and overpair vs. a set. You may even sit around and talk about how good you all are or will be, and how you crush the game, and are just unlucky. Jacking off each others ego so you can feel good about how great you play just to spite how shitty you’re running. Most of all, YOU KNOW A LOT OF THIS ALREADY.

I could go on and on here, but I think you get the idea. Am I talking about you? Am I talking about me? To some extent. I’m talking about all of us in some way or another. We’re all guilty. Anyone who takes this game seriously and wants to make a living, an income, a business out of poker. I tell my students all the time, It’s there if you want it. Do you? When are you going to be honest with yourself and change? How many years are going to go by before you realize you haven’t improved and you’re still where you were? It’s true that poker isn’t for everyone. Some people can absolutely not stomach the swings. Some people can’t weather the storm of mental beatings and abuse that you go through in this game. Some people aren’t mentally tough enough. Above all you need to be honest with yourself. If you’re happy being an SSNL grinder, making a better-than-average income, hats off to you. But for those of us with something else burning inside, there’s a whole world we haven’t discovered yet in this beautiful game.

Week 1: Interesting hands and stuff

FenderJaguar — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:25:45 +0000

All I can think of when I think of interesting hands is the Foo Fighters video for I think it was the song Everlong, where the gigantic rubber hand just pimp slaps this fool. Anyway, week 1 isn’t technically done b/c I have tomorrow to grind (my week is different from yours ldo). With Thanksgiving and being sick yesterday I didn’t get as many hands in as I’d like, but I’m okay with that. Runnin’ at just over 6ptbb/100 in this sample. I’m not really a winrate/EV guy b/c I think it promotes a lot of self-degradation and results oriented thinking that holds you back and fucks you up, but for those interested I’ll probably be providing some of that information.

I have some interesting hands, a couple of nice hand reading situations, and some entertainment for those of us looking for clown shoes, all that kind of thing.

First up, entertainment!

I was thinking, hmm, how much can I bet to get this dude to spaz out or peel light…. I started with 24, then 18, then 12, and settled on the stone minbet. He SNAP folded :D IMO that’s some nice bluff metagame in the future when I tangle with this chap.

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 397376
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (CO): $702.00
BTN: $221.45
SB: $625.05
BB: $991.65
UTG: $108.35
MP: $213.30

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is CO with A T
UTG calls $6, 1 fold, Hero raises to $24, 3 folds, UTG calls $18

Flop: ($57.00) 7 7 A (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $6, UTG folds

Final Pot: $57.00
Hero wins $54.15
(Rake: $2.85)

This hand is actually entertainment AND cool hand reading. Guy is very aggressive, high 3b and squeeze % etc. and I’m pretty sure that he’s flatting most of his medium strength hands here, also pretty sure that AQ (if he has it) and AK are getting jammed preflop. This was not the type of guy to get coy and flat w/those hands here. So that leaves his range imo at air/slowplayed nuts. What does that mean on this flop? Well, he has a ton of air, and the A is actually a great card for me to see, because I’m prob going to be able to get him off of QQ and KK if he has them, and AA is only 3 combos. He may show up with AQ/AK here some but I really think this guy would just jam those preflop, that’s my read anyway. So I bet less than half pot here thinking that 1. his air can do something dumb 2. I can get peeled by his bluffcatching range (QQ/KK is what I perceive as a big part if he has them) and then shove the turn and hopefully get them to fold, while in the process getting stacked by AA, which I’m fine with. He shoves the flop, which is like 100% air. I’m pretty sure he’d always flat call w/his value and bluffcathing range (this may change in the future, but at this point we have no history in this kind of situation) so I call pretty happily. Voila. Batman.

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 397378
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (MP): $1356.75
CO: $262.80
BTN: $615.00
SB: $1215.65
BB: $600.00
UTG: $134.30

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is MP with J J
1 fold, Hero raises to $18, CO calls $18, BTN raises to $66, 2 folds, Hero raises to $142, 1 fold, BTN calls $76

Flop: ($311.00) 2 A 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $128, BTN raises to $473 all in, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $345

Turn: ($1257.00) J (2 players – 1 is all in)

River: ($1257.00) 9 (2 players – 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $1257.00
Hero shows J J (three of a kind, Jacks)
BTN shows 8 4 (Ace Jack high)
Hero wins $1254.00
(Rake: $3.00)

I hero-call here against a fish who I thought could be bluffing here with a ton of missed draws. I don’t think he’d play top pair this way, and his 9x combo’s are cut some by the river, though he could have trips, I was just hoping he didn’t have a 7. Is there any merit to raising in this situation to clean the hand up?

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 4 players – View hand 397381
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $697.00
SB: $1216.00
BB: $1426.10
Hero (CO): $600.00

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is CO with K J
Hero raises to $21, 2 folds, BB calls $15

Flop: ($45.00) A 7 9 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $35, BB calls $35

Turn: ($115.00) 3 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $80, BB calls $80

River: ($275.00) 9 (2 players)
BB bets $120, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $120

I check back this board which is terrible in that I’m prob going to get played back at frequently, even though he has a tighter sb flatting range, still a terrible board. On the turn I raise for value b/c I think he’ll bet/call with a lot of draws and pairs and it gives me flexibility for the river, and he may think I’m just bluffing the K. I feel very comfortable folding to a 3b. On the river he leads out and my first thought is that this guy wouldn’t be leading a strong hand here, it’s always some sort of showdown hand, maybe a bigger king, maybe a Tx hand, instinct said to SHOVE. Thoughts? (no insane history but player was a reg on the tighter side, still think him being tight doesn’t mean he has a monster here but he def has a better hand a lot, can it stand a ship?)

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 397382
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $457.75
MP: $188.50
CO: $400.00
Hero (BTN): $406.00
SB: $421.30
BB: $430.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with K 7
3 folds, Hero raises to $8, SB calls $6, 1 fold

Flop: ($20.00) 6 8 T (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($20.00) K (2 players)
SB bets $10, Hero raises to $36, SB calls $26

River: ($92.00) 5 (2 players)
SB bets $29…. HERO????

So in this spicy lil’ burrito I decide to check back the flop, induce bluffs, get value later, POT CONTROL. Not something I do a ton of the time but this is a perfectly good spot for it. On the turn fishy villain leads for minballs, and I raise for value. There’s a ton of draws he can call with here, lots of worse hands. He SNAP clicks it back. This I read as a bluff like 100% of the time. He didn’t think about anything, he’s just clicking buttons. As such I am prepared to call it off on a lot of blank rivers. We peel a brick and he thinks for a bit and jams. I think this is a good example of a very obvious fish bluff. NO thought snap action on the turn, then think think think bluff jam the river. Sweet :D

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players – View hand 397390

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $410.00
UTG: $337.30
CO: $435.80
BTN: $160.20
SB: $152.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BB with T 8
3 folds, SB calls $2, Hero raises to $16, SB calls $12

Flop: ($32.00) 8 K 2 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($32.00) 5 (2 players)
SB bets $4, Hero raises to $20, SB raises to $36, Hero calls $16

River: ($104.00) 2 (2 players)
SB bets $100 all in, Hero calls $100

Final Pot: $304.00
Hero shows T 8 (two pair, Eights and Twos)
SB shows 4 A (a pair of Twos)
Hero wins $301.00
(Rake: $3.00)

That’s it for now folks. I think this weeks video will be pretty interesting. I know we had mixed reviews about the talking in the first 20 min of episode one and I can see both sides of it. Ya’ll don’t wanna know me, ya’ll just want the GOLD. FUCK THAT JAGUAR GUY KRANTZ, WHERE DA GOLD AT!!!! :D haha I can understand that. I figure this coming week we’re going to talk about the latest movies and music we’re into, how to clean a bathtub with a go-kart, and the Isle of Misfit toys and what it means to me.

I’m just kidding :) Unless….

never tell me the blog

FenderJaguar — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:34:35 +0000

I didn’t even realize that the first episode of “never tell me the odds” was going to be up so soon but WHAM, there it is. I know we rambled on about balloon stores and mysteries but I really did get a lot out of the 3 hands we talked about. I realized afterwards that all of the hands are misplayed on the turn. This points to realizing a quite subtle (at least for me) leak, something not super obvious. Being on the right track hand reading wise, and making the wrong play in lieu of, and every decision of this type focusing on or around turn play. I’ve already started to see some of these spots differently and it will be interesting to see how I apply and evaluate similar situations in the near future. On we go!

Interesting video reviews 1

FenderJaguar — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:36:13 +0000

From time to time I’m going to be reviewing interesting good or bad videos that I’ve seen lately, for educational and entertainment purposes.

Grogheadflow’s 400NL deep vid on Leggo

I hadn’t played much with Groggy but I had him labeled as a fish which is no surprise based on what I did know and what I had seen. It’s different now that I know he’s a Leggo guy and in fact not a fish (and I’ve talked with him some, cool down to earth guy) :D.

His 400NL deep video is good and has a ton of information to extract that’s very relevant, even if you play 100NL 100bb.

One of the things he says that makes so much sense that a lot of people may know intuitively and even more don’t necessarily have at the forefront of their thought process, is that he wants to have one of 3 things in the hands he’s playing: Position, Initiative, A Good Hand. Think about that for a minute. Let it sink in. It’s simple yet profound. It’s extremely solid framework.

I don’t agree with all of the plays Groggy makes in this vid, like peeling OOP w/trash suited gappers (even deep) but it works for him in his game, in his overall game plan, and that’s important.

I think that’s something some people don’t consider nearly enough when they’re thinking about how they would play a hand that someone else has shared. There are going to be a number of very obvious good or bad plays, and then there’s the close spots people disagree frequently on, and a lot of them can go both ways, it becomes then, more of how your decision will fit into your overall gameplan, how it works into your table image and how others will react and how you want them to be reacting, or conversely how everything has gone up until this point, and how the variables you have point you in one direction or another vs. this specific opponent for these specific reasons.

I’m blabbering but I think it’s pretty interesting. I guess I’m big on poker theory conversations, and even though I don’t agree with everything Groggy does, I am open to learning why it works for him, and taking something away from his game that may help me improve my own game.

SSCCRREEEEEEEEECHHHHHH! KRASH KATHUNK KABOOOOOOM and a very Batman KA-THWAK!!!!

That was the sound of the next vid I’m going to talk about flying out my window screaming as it crashed to the glass strewn jagged pavement below.

If you’re looking for a train wreck video to watch (or try to anyway!) check out Smizmiatch’s latest CR vid, from a couple of weeks ago. It’s by far the worst video I’ve seen in quite some time. He misplays every hand for 20 minutes AFTER a 20 minute discussion about a topic 25NL players need to know, not midstakes players or players looking to move up from say 200NL to 400NL. Sometimes I think they aren’t even watching the stuff they post. I wish one of them would so I don’t have to. I’m sure Smizzy is a nice guy and no offense to him, but meh.

Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating it, I know I’ll be moving all-in on some pumpkin pie :D

Oh good he's drawing dead.... Oh no.... L:SDJjfsldkjfDf

FenderJaguar — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:13:05 +0000

It was a dark and stormy night. I was awake and playing online poker in a cold dim room, the only source of light being the soft pale glow of a black wax candle stuck in rusted tin. Alright I’m kidding, this ain’t Medieval Times (though I have eaten a whole chicken with my bare hands before, GRARAOOOWWWL). I was going to start this blog out like a horror movie and it ended up colonial, my bad.

Played a short session this evening and had some pretty interesting hands, so I thought I’d post them and give/get some thoughts.

First hand I flat a 4b w/AA b/c I think my opponent is 4b bluffing a high % of the time (I had been very active in the last few orbits trying to smash the fish. I XRAI on this flop, which I was planning on doing on a ton of flops, I thought about leading this board really small to get him to spaz shove but most of the stuff he’s spaz shoving with he’s probably cbetting anyway, so I opt to just XR instead of lead raptor. Just posting this for entertainment more than anything else basically. I was like, SWEET! He’s drawing dead…. Oh no…. SLKjflsdjfSK!!!!! hehe. NO NO noNOnoNONoO.

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 4 players – View hand 389293
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $706.00
CO: $600.00
BTN: $1435.10
Hero (SB): $603.00

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is SB with A A
CO raises to $18, BTN calls $18, Hero raises to $68, 1 fold, CO requests TIME, CO raises to $162, 1 fold, Hero calls $94

Flop: ($348.00) J K A (2 players)
Hero checks, CO requests TIME, CO bets $186, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $441 all in, CO calls $252 all in

Turn: ($1224.00) 5 (2 players – 2 are all in)

River: ($1224.00) 4 (2 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $1224.00
CO shows J K (a flush, Ace high)
Hero shows A A (three of a kind, Aces)
CO wins $1222.00
(Rake: $2.00)

Now that the fun is out of the way, what else do I have floating around?

Villain in this hand is 23/10, 1 tabling, not much history but he appears to be a live player based on what I have seen so far. I bet the flop even though I feel like I don’t have a lot of fold equity I definitely have great actual equity, and I think he’s going to peel with a lot of stuff. I could check the turn or triple barrel, I think a lot of live players are going to end up folding to 3 barrels here, so I bet the turn planning on folding to a raise, value betting thinly w/a 9 or a J, barreling any good overcards, and obv value betting a diamond. I get a terrible river b/c he’s never folding any pair at this point, so I check and fold. Thoughts?

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players – View hand 389347
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $126.00
BTN: $1030.00
Hero (SB): $603.00
BB: $610.50
UTG: $144.00

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is SB with 9 J
3 folds, Hero raises to $18, BB calls $12

Flop: ($36.00) 4 7 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $24, BB calls $24

Turn: ($84.00) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $60, BB calls $60

River: ($204.00) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $508.50 all in, Hero folds

Final Pot: $204.00
BB wins $201.00
(Rake: $3.00)

The last hand I want to talk about is a fairly interesting situation that doesn’t come up all that often. I flat X X in the bb, raise the K34r flop, and villain (note he’s the same villain in the AA hand from earlier, this hand was after and on a different table) 3b’s. I don’t think we have the kind of history it would take for him to 3b the flop for value, it seems like he’d be looking to flat value hands and let me bluff the turn or river, something along those lines. So riddle me this…. What does my hand/villain’s hand look like? What’s my range/villain’s range in this spot in your opinion? What’s going on here? Fwiw if you want stats I was playing like 33/28, fairly aggressive overall, villain is 24/22 and very aggressive/capable of plays etc. Only real history between us is the hand earlier, where he 4b KJ and I flat’d AA and he gin’d my face lol.

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 389351
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $592.50
SB: $1012.00
Hero (BB): $604.50
UTG: $663.45
MP: $998.90
CO: $165.00

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is BB with X X
4 folds, SB raises to $18, Hero calls $12

Flop: ($36.00) 3 K 4 (2 players)
SB bets $25, Hero raises to $80, SB requests TIME, SB raises to $186, Hero calls $106

Turn: ($408.00) 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $400.50 all in, SB requests TIME, SB folds

Final Pot: $408.00
Hero wins $405.00
(Rake: $3.00)

I think that’s it for this dark and stormy evening friends. I’ll post more info if I get some responses :D

Decisions decisions decisions....

FenderJaguar — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:37:35 +0000

I’m gearing up to move in January. First it was going to be Vegas, but for now it’s probably going to be upstate NY to be closer to family for a while. I have a few things that could use settling before I truck out to the desert.

I’m up listening to Johnny Cash right now, trying to decide what Xbox and games to get. I haven’t had a 360 in a couple of years because I was deathly afraid of the RROD but meh, I’m going to have to get over it. I need a couple of lazy outlets outside of poker. Drafting on modo (Magic The Gathering Online) is fun but honestly it can tilt you more than poker. I can lose flip after flip after flip and it doesn’t bother me one bit. I can 3 barrel total air into the nuts time after time (hopefully not!) and it doesn’t bother me one bit. If I get mana screwed in round 2 of an 8-4 I want to tear my hair out haha. I guess it’s not that bad but it’s pretty funny how good my poker tilt control and mental management is, and it totally goes out the window when I’m not pokering.

Speaking of 3 barreling air :/ I played this hand a while ago at 3/6 deep. Villain was definitely bad but hadn’t shown himself to be any sort of a calling station. I had him pegged on weak 1 pair hands and even though draws missed I really didn’t think he’d be able to look me up. He tanked, oh how he tanked, and finally called. He left soon after which really sucked :(

Full Tilt Poker $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em $1 Ante – 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $582.00
CO: $1178.30
BTN: $1260.00
Hero (SB): $1538.00
BB: $2689.40

Pre Flop: ($14.00) Hero is SB with K A
1 fold, CO raises to $26, 1 fold, Hero raises to $82, 1 fold, CO calls $56

Flop: ($175.00) 3 8 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $110, CO calls $110

Turn: ($395.00) J (2 players)
Hero bets $260, CO calls $260

River: ($915.00) 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $1085 all in, CO calls $725.30 all in

Final Pot: $2365.60
CO shows 6 3 (a pair of Threes)
Hero shows K A (Ace King high)
CO wins $2362.60
(Rake: $3.00)

I gave the deep tables a break for a bit after this, just to let the plague of thinking about that hand non-stop dissolve a bit. I just wanted to share it because it’s pretty sick lol.

So yeah if anyone has any good suggestions for Xbox 360 games that’d be sweet. I was considering Mortal Kombat vs. DC, GTA 4 obv, Prince of Persia because I’ve been playing that game since it was on the SNES, Tenchu Z?, Pure, some other stuff looks cool. Fight Night Round 4 seems awesome, I was always a fan of the original Xbox game. What’s the best NHL/NBA/NFL game?

For all you SSNL cats – Lately I’ve been reinforcing the amount of attention my students pay to detail. One of the most common things we’ve been talking about is positional tells. Players at SSNL have very obvious positional tells, and they never balance (most often rightfully so). For example, if someone 3b’s a UTG raiser, they probably have QQ+ AK like 99% of the time. Obviously there are people that 3b light there, but they are more the exception rather than the rule. Think about it like this…. Do they 3b hands like 77-JJ or AQ-AJs? Unless it’s a very specific circumstance/opponent heeeeellll no. So that means they’re polarized to air/QQ+ AK. How many times in your session do you 3b a UTG raise with 73s, 85s, T6s, or something similar. Probably not that many. There are tons of multitabling players out there that never 3b med. strength hands, and have like zero bluffing frequency. Sooooo face up. Another position they have huge tells in is the sb. First of all, they aren’t peeling with a lot of suited connectors in the blinds (multiway action increases likelihood etc.) and almost NEVER in the sb itself. So when a tighter player you see on 6+ tables flats your raise in the sb they have med. strength hands like all day long. They know enough to not flat small pairs most of the time, maybe sometimes if you’re UTG for some of them, but generally they don’t flat small pairs or suited connectors, and they don’t slowplay monsters like QQ+ (sometimes they flat AK but mostly they 3b) so what does that leave them? Generally they’re going to have like 77 or 88 to JJ, AJs KQs and AQ. Some have a slightly wider range, but not generally. This turns their hand pretty damned face up. Here’s an example from 2/4 vs. a CR instructor, where he’s representing hands that he just never has in his range….

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $293.30
Hero (CO): $414.00
BTN: $872.60
SB: $452.00
BB: $505.10

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is CO with 8 A
1 fold, Hero raises to $12, 1 fold, SB calls $10, 1 fold

Flop: ($28.00) 3 Q 2 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $20, SB calls $20

Turn: ($68.00) 6 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $40, SB raises to $110, Hero raises to $382 all in, SB folds

Final Pot: $288.00
Hero wins $285.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Basically he’s telling me he called preflop with 56s, 22, 33, or turned 66. He never plays a Q like that, and rarely has those small pairs because they aren’t profitable to flat there, they make good 3b bluffs though. So basically he’s telling me his value range is all hands that he’d never have, save for 3 combo’s of 66 and that’s super slim so I jam on him. Next time someone raises you, ask yourself if the story makes sense. Figure out whether or not they can actually have the hands their play claims they do, and use any other variables you have to make a better decision. Don’t just give someone credit for the nuts or a very unlikely hand for THIS player in THIS position based on what you know about them.

Anyway rambling at this point. Going to drink some warm cider & cinnamon and take a nap.

It's yours if you want it, seriously.

FenderJaguar — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:11:52 +0000

I’ve coached about 140 students or so at this point at various stakes and forms of poker. One thing that holds true across the board, more than anything else in regards to holding people back, is results oriented thinking. I have worked very hard to expunge this from my game (thank you Jared Tendler) and you should as well. Personal management is just as important as technical skill in poker, and to succeed you need to get better at both of these things. Countless times a student will come to me with a totally standard hand, or just whining about a bad beat, and it’s a waste of your poker energy. I’m always very tough love in those scenario’s with “so what” or “who cares” and a hefty explanation after of why it doesn’t matter as long as you played the hand well, and if you didn’t, you can learn from it and play well in the future. It seems rather intuitive but still it’s something people mess up all the time. I myself am guilty of it on occasion as well, I’m pretty sure we all are. We all want to lament our bad luck but the reality of it is, nothing will avenge your bad beat like getting it in good again. It also creates a negative atmosphere around your poker game when you’re constantly focused on this stuff. You can’t be afraid to make mistakes, because it’s those mistakes that will create the building blocks that allow you to climb higher and higher, bringing your game to it’s greatest potential so you can repeat the process. Every time I’ve noticed a significant improvement in my poker game I thought the sky was the limit, and I thought I knew it all. I learned again in a few weeks or months, or had some a-ha moment and was blown away all over again. I still make mistakes all the time, and still learn from them.

I’m kind of rambling here but my point is that, your results don’t matter. Your entire goal is to make the best decision possible with the information and variables that you have to make that decision. whether it’s metagame, opponent tendencies, stack size, whatever the variables are, it’s up to you to recognize and process them before you click a button. If you had sound reasoning when you made a play, don’t be ashamed of it even if you lost the hand. If you review it later and you think you made a good play still, you may have. Ask someone better than you. If you played it well, forget it. It’s all you need to do.

So again worrying about results and lamenting bad beats is bad because:

It creates a negative poker environment where you’re likely to be in a losing mindset while you are playing.
It wastes mental (and poker) energy that could be better spent making good decisions at the table or learning something away from it.
It doesn’t improve your game, it backpedals it and creates inbred game states where you do something based on a past result that your brain registers as a mistake, thus creating more mistakes in the future.
It causes you to tilt, and tilt stops you from being able to play your A game, so it inherently costs you additional money when you aren’t playing because you theoretically could be at the tables with fish, instead of lamenting a hand you played well and lost.

There’s a lot more I’m sure but that’s basically the gist of it. Results oriented thinking is the golden goose of counter-productivity.

Good decisions = Good results

Remember that, the game never ends, you just sit out for a while. Are you in it for the short term, trying to get lucky, or in it for the long term, trying to reach your maximum potential?

Besides being too results oriented, SSNL folks tend to play too many tables. I’ve always told every single one of my students, that I want you on 4 tables for the duration of our sessions (less is OK), and if you get bored playing 4 tables, you’re not paying enough attention. One argument for more tables is an increased hourly rate, but I would challenge that with the counterpoint that your play has the potential to decrease drastically as you increase the number of tables, so theoretically you believe you are increasing your hourly rate, but in reality you’re increasing your variance and lack of attention to the games, and may even end up spewing stacks where you definitely shouldn’t or wouldn’t, had you paid more attention to what was going on around you. Multitabling isn’t for everyone and it IS an acquired skill. I think you’d do better to try getting very good at 4 tabling, or as far as you can moving up in limits 4 tabling first (or period).

Do everything you can to increase your hand reading skills. I can’t stress this enough. Learn combinatorics. It’s not hard. It’s quite easy in fact. It’s the pot odds of tomorrow. When you’re taking notes on opponents, don’t just extract what the individual piece of information tells you, think about what else it tells you. Someone that doesn’t value bet thinly and always pot controls second pair type hands or underpairs w/1 overcard on the board are going to have none of those hands in their range when they cbet. That means they’ll be on air, draws, or top pair or better. If there aren’t many draws, then they have a pretty polarized range, and are probably fairly attackable in that situation. I’ll probably ramble on about this more in the future but it’s easily one of the most important things you need to improve to get better and move up.

Be honest with yourself. Brian Townsend has been saying it forever, take responsibility for your decisions at the table. If you’re tilted over a hand, or you made a mistake and it’s weighing on your mind, sit out for a bit. Walk it off. Take a nap. Go scream into a pillow or something. Whatever you need to do to let the tilt slip away into darkness and refresh yourself so that your A game is loaded up and ready to go again. NES style, hit reset.

:) I can’t wait for today’s 2m2mm vid :) :)

Just got done watching Drag Me to Hell and I’d say it was pretty good. Classic Sam Raimi. I was kinda hoping that Bruce Campbell would show up at some point in the movie but maybe Sammy feels the same way I do about Bubba Ho-Tep :( Ohhhhh geez I wish I’d never watched that. Lol.

Done rambling for now, bottom line is, you can accomplish your goals in poker and in life if you want to, you’re the only person holding you back. It’s been said a lot before but it’s absolutely true. Quit daydreaming about it and take the steps necessary to achieve what you want in this world. It’s yours if you want it, seriously.

Leather out :D

Going to be blogging here!

FenderJaguar — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:04:58 +0000

I have always had my blog at Cardrunners and I’ve blogged sporadically over the last few years. Needed a change, and this is it.

So what’s up with FenderJaguar? Not a ton that hasn’t been up for a while. Coaching SSNL and driving my way towards 5/10. Currently playing 2/4 and 3/6. Being coached by Insyder19 and super happy with him, he rocks. A very cool dude. I’ll probably get around to posting hands and some results from time to time, and rambling about anything that comes to mind.

I don’t have a ton to say right now, I just wanted to get this out of the way.

OK I do have one rant. AFI, just stop making music. You realize Davey Havok, that you can’t go from looking like a depressed emo Glenn Danzig to looking like Vanilla Ice right? And like, I don’t really like you calling your own bands early music rudimentary punk. It was so much more than that, and sorely missed. I do understand you need to get your profit on and appeal to the crowd that you think will buy your CD’s but god damn if I had to go through what you’re going through I just wouldn’t. You look like a fucking gay model with a gigantic heaping dose of Vanilla Ice on the side. ICE ICE DAVEY!