Ramblings

Writing updates on a poker blog is hard, especially when one has not played poker for a week or so. I think I have played something like 3000 hands this month, mostly 100nl FR, with some 6-max and HU thrown in there.

I am finding it hard to get motivated for poker right now. I am very busy with university, and having a girlfriend (whilst awesome) is time consuming. With that said I have been reading alot recently, and have also upped the number of video’s I have been watching.

Hopefully I will run good for 2khands and make my $2k goal this month.

Gogogogo

Played some Full Ring today. I thought it went well for the most part, but towards the end I was tired and playing a little too aggro.

Still, I am pleased with the progress. I am targeting a $2000 month, so this is a decent start. One thing I have noticed is that players dont seem to 3-bet very much at all so I started 3-betting v. light pre flop as a bluff and getting a ton of respect. The problem with this as an overall strategy is that there is normally a minefield of short stackers between you (the 3-bettor) and the original opener which means truly great light 3-betting opportunities come up less. I might be wrong about this, since shorties may not like shoving cold in 3-bet pots, so maybe some experimentation is needed. Maybe there isn’t much of a place for light 3-betting in full ring, but since there is hardly any 3-betting at all I would imagine it could be profitable to 3-bet a wide, highly polarised range.

I was speaking to one of my good friends about poker, and he was saying that he played a fair ammount of full ring these days and felt that it was alot easier not to tilt at that game. Having big toilt problems myself, I saw the sense in this and am going to dedicate the next couple of months to playing some full ring.

I have been playing a bit of live poker recently. One of my mates is really really into poker right now and was asking me loads of questions about it. I told him some musts, like getting HEM, studying loads and exercising decent bankroll management. I think he has managed to luck his way up to a a 2k roll on stars and will now going to focus entirely on sng’s. I linked him a bunch of twoplustwo stuff which I thought he should read. Even tho I dont play many sng’s I did say that he needs to learn more about all in equity which seems hugely important.

Live poker in Scotland is a joke. But its still fun. I played in a tournament the other day. Pretty standard format. I shove AK in the cut-off. The SB fold. The BB goes into the tank:

BB: “I just know you have Ace King”

Me: Shit I hope he doesn’t call me with 33

BB: “Ok – lets analyse this hand… you would definitely go all in with Ace King!”

Me: Fuck me…. this guy can hand read

BB: “I mean I KNOW you have Ace King…. I call”

Me: “I have Ace-King”

BB flips 76s. UTG player looks up from his massive plate of free curry, which he has spent the last 10 minutes queuing for, and says in sage tones:

“You have to call there. You have two live cards”

Brilliant.

I hope everyone reading this had a good break. For my part, I was a mixture of 2 parts stress to 1 part apathy.

I went down to see my dad on the 22nd. He lives in Lincoln. Jenny (gf) and I drove down together. She did very well, but she hates driving and the conditions didnt help. We had to pull into a service station because the wipers were broke. I got out, had a a look under the bonnet, analysed the wipers themselves, even a wee look under the car. Apprantly there isnt a “fix wipers now” button, so in the end I just jancked at the wipers untill one of them snapped off. Oops. We wait like an hour for break down people to come, and when he comes he tells us the fuse had gone. He also said that the wiper probablly snapped off because of the cold. Ermmmmm…. naw.

So that was a stressfull 2 days in Lincoln. Then to London for christmas. My Uncle had rented an appartment which was awesome, if you happened to get a room there. I didn’t, so it was the travel lodge for me. Honestly, the whole period was just weird. I dont really know that side of my family too well and other than my dad I would thinkt they are mostly all mad!

On the 26th Dad Drives me up to Cambridge to meet up with Jenny, and meet her folks. This was a pleasant affair. I would say they are a “proper” family. On the 27th we drive back up to Scotland, where apparantly it has to be 10 0c colder.

Hogmany was a tame affair, but my mum put on a great meal and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I was in bed for 2!

Last couple of days have been spent utterly addicted to playing CoD4. It is SICK. Literraly best fps since counterstrike.

Oh and I managed to play poker. 2010 started poorly, but I just had a nice 5buyin session to get me back on track. Will try and update this more often.

Take Care.
Stu.

My graph looks like a big valley right now, which is good I suppose, but means I am still about break-even for the month. Yesterday I was playing what I thought was some great poker but within two hands I was down 3-buyins, just to coolers really, but still sucked. I have to say I was very impressed with my levels of concentration before and after those hands, and I didnt feel tilty at all.

Book Review:

Ok, so a while ago I posted about getting the chance to review SlowHabits new e-book “exploiting the regulars”. I have to make a confession, I have only managed to read the 1st 7 chapters. The truth is that I have been really really busy recently with Uni. This week is the culmination, with an exam tomorrow and and two assignments due wednesday and thursday… and then another exam on monday. I think I will do ok for these exams, but it hasnt left me much time to read his book really. Tri, for this I appologise. With that said the parts I have thus far read have been awesome, but I will have my full report up by by a week on friday so I will wait untill then.

Random Thoughts: Apparantly the Irish FA are thinking about suing France/The French FA/Thierry Henry. I think its embarrassing the way they have handled this situation. Firstly, yeah i sucks that there was a hand-ball involved. Secondly, the score was 1-1 at the time. Since when did drawiong games give you the right to go to the world-cup. Thirdly, really its all up to FIFA, so sue them! Sue Sepp Blatter in my opinion, the guy is basically the nuttttt low.

Law: The new sexual offences (scotland) act is out. Don’t let yourself get caught having a tug in your own bedroom guys, cos you might get registered. Mutants! Parliament is ran by mutants.

Goodluck, and Goodnight!

My last two sessions have been tilted wrecks! I keep doing retarded stuff. The sessions start ok, then I take a beat… then I calm down and start grinding, then I take a beat. A guy timed down before calling my turned trips with his turned boat.

F@$%&!!!

Anyways, im down like $650 this month which is annoying, because this month was meant to be a break through what with coaching and just a generally more calm approach to life/poker. Hasnt worked tho! Hopefully things will turn around towards the end of the year, and if they dont there is always rental-bois work.

Havent played much poker at all recently.

Last saturday I had my second lesson with my coaching group. I got to make the video, and I played for about an hour before hand to make it. I played pretty well in that session and made 3 buyins. I was particularly proud of this hand:

• Betfair Poker Hand History for Game 608433613 *
  NL $0.50/$1 Texas Hold’em – Saturday, November 21, 14:35:47 GMT 2009
  Table Fluorine 66 6-max (Real Money)
  Seat 1 is the button
  Total number of active players : 5
  Seat 1: microsoft ( $133.55 )
  Seat 2: eddieB4by ( $93.25 )
  Seat 3: Flippers2 ( $32.95 )
  Seat 4: urpapaxxx ( $87 )
  Seat 5: luukos ( $221.50 )
  Seat 6: RAuthority ( $233.20 )
  eddieB4by posts small blind [$0.50]
  Flippers2 posts big blind [$1]

Last Saturday me and a couple of mates went to the casino to play in a £30 double chance tourney. We all had 20% of each others action, and one of my friends cashed for £200 so I made my money back and then some. I buested out with 7 left when it folded round to me in the small and I shipped and was auto called by QQ. Annoyingly I had watched the big look at his hand and then pay attention to the action. My thought process was something like “If I was of a mind to apply a live tell, I would fold here, but I might be wrong and cant give up the chance to steal this pot”. I was relatively short, with an M of about 7.

I had booked 50% of my other friends action who was playing in the the cash game (he had already crashed out). He ended up making me £150, so I was pleased with that. I played some cash myself, but played a couple of hands really poorly and lost maybe £80. I was annoyed with myself because the standard is very low. I think there is plenty of gravy to
be made in that game, but you just need to have a little patience

I remember one of my frinds giving me some really sound advice. He said to just imagine the table as an online table, and play exactly as you would. I know what I am *meant to do, but sometimes I dont pull the trigger. With that said and done that game deffinately merits a tight, tight approach. You can make it 10xbb and still get called, even if the last hand you played was sometime BC.

I did get chatting to a younger guy to my left (we exchanged msn details)who took the game seriously. I really want as many poker friends to just chat about the game with at a “highish” level.

Oh! The best bit. I cashed out something like a total of £282 from the cash game and put the £2 on black 28 on the roulette which came up! So we all went to a bar and I bought us some Moet. Balla!

Getting up for uni sucks! But I was pleased to see the following message in my DC inbox:

“My name is Tri Nguyen. I am SlowHabit from 2p2. This is not a sales letter.

I was reading your blog and noticed you are trying to take shots at 200nl. I think our books (the one written with CTS and my upcoming NL book) will help your game and your confidence.

Since you are a respected member of the DC community, I can offer you the book in exchange for a book review on your blog. You can write whatever you like. People seem to think we have so many positive reviews on our work because we force people to write them. This is not the case.

If you want to accept my offer, email DailyVarianceBook@gmail.com and we will send you a copy.

All the best,
- Tri"

Well aside from the fact that people might not know who I am, I must say I am highly committed right now to improving and this came at a great time. As I type, the book is printing off and from what I have seen it looks really good.

I am busy with uni just now, so I explained to Tri that i would not be able to write my review for about a week, he said no problem and asked if I could link people to the website. links deleted by admin

Well I am super excited about this and all I can say is cheers Tri!

Peace

Stu.

I am super tired, but thought I would write up a bit about the 1st session I had with SootedPower and the group. It was was really good. I didnt have any problems getting TeamViewer or Skype etc set up, and there didnt seem to be any lag.

He wants all the members to write up a report, so I will do this when I am more refreshed. I took notes, so will type them up. Have not played in 6 days since I tilted badly last tuesday, so looking forward to getting some hands in tomorrow. Tommy Angelo book arrived today so pleased all round

Peace

Stu.