Another Powerful, Smart, and Revolutionary

...Leader has been lost.

I am not a periodical editor, so I am not weighing in with my own opinion on this tragedy; but, I urge everyone who has little knowledge of what is going in the Middle East, to open your eyes and your mind and observe the turmoil that civilians must go through daily in this "power-struggle" in one of the most influential regions of the world.

There is no need to link you to a article, unless you have been living under a rock, you have heard about this heart-wrenching assassination. Bhutto, the former-prime-minister of Pakistan, was loved by her people and other throughout the reason. He blend of secularism, while maintaining religious ethics, and restoring political democracy to a country with a rich heritage is more than amicable.

This is going to be a very difficult period of time for the people of Pakistan and, as someone from a country that is under constant duress, I feel nothing but compassion for all the innocent people of this country and the anguish about the fate of a very powerful, nuclear-power.

Getting Close

...For More Resolutions.


Yes, again, it is that time of the year. Almost. The four, maybe five days, everyone tries to quick smoking, eat less, be nicer to people, exercise, or whatever goals that one may. To many Americans, I think we over idealize the whole notion of a clean-slate for the start of a new year.

For most whom set out to better themselves, these goals are easily attainable. Sometimes they are as simple as cutting down calories in your diet or adding some cardiovascular exercise to the weekly regiment. But for the most part, I believe that these new year's resolutions become over burdening and, in themselves, are inherently flawed and are bound to fail.

I believe that many will set goals, jumping on the yearly bandwagon to self fulfilment or stability, and oversee what is the most important part of achieving goals. Structured planning.

No, this is not a Finance term, even though it may as well be, but it is a term I am going to use to describe a manner of methodically approaching goals that will result in many of those aspirations being completed successful, instead of just laying on the floor next to all the "Lose Weight Now" or "How to get Rich, in Two Minutes" books that have accumulated throughout the years.

We can use gambling as a example here. How many of us have had the desire to move up in stakes? I do not think there is a professional poker player that reads my blog who has not asked themselves, "When am I taking my shot? I want to be at the next level already!"

While maintaining a positive mindset for achieving a goal, many forget that most of these goals need to be achieved over the long term. All too well, the feeling is known by players whom choose to take a four-buy-in shot to a particular level and bitterly return when the plan did not succeed.

On my next update, I will briefly go over a mock-strategy for one trying to build a bankroll and move up in stakes, as well as address the rest of my "Resolutions" rant.

Variance

..and why I love it.

Well, I started my 50NL career with a nice upswing. Not a heater; but, it felt good to win double what I am used too. As I mentioned in my previous post, I really do not think that 50NL is any harder that 25NL, yet at the same time, I have encountered problems and situations at this level that I have never ran across before.

The first thing I noticed immediately, was the Check/Raising. On my second and third day playing this week, I was encountered players who were constantly check/raising me on the flop in my pot and their own. I usually do not fret a c/r but I felt that many of these players are doing as a feeble attempt to bluff. I have yet come up with my standard reaction to these light c/r but it is something I need to focus on.

Secondly, playing straight forward poker at these levels seems so much more beneficially than I have thought before. I am not being as fancy as a used to be and it works better. I cut my hand range down a bit and found when I am playing ~21/15 is better than when I was playing upwards 25% VPIP.

These players seemed to better when it came to just calling my raises in position. (Or they just do it more and are still bad at it.) Unfortunately, since I am still novice at these stakes, I cut down my range from UTG-MP. I am not as-readily opening up suited-connectors and other garbage hands just for my table image.

Third, the aggressiveness of these players is incredible. Checking to them, is like checking to me on a flop, in your pot. They will always bet it. No matter how strong my flop and preflop lines are, when I check the turn, I seem to get hit with pot-size bets constantly and I love it. The c/r on the turn has become a huge play in my book and I am doing it with a pretty wide range of hands, which include AK for TPTK, suited connectors on complete bluffs, combo-draws I picked up and etc. Yea, I have gotten called by the top part of peoples ranges but usually I have good equity going in.

Finally, my rakeback is incredible. I love the fact that playing 3-4K hands a day is guaranteeing me between $50-60. With the addition of any Iron man bonuses I am going to be receiving, playing poker has never been so sweet.

So, in summation, I have been doing good. Not to say that I have not made any crucial mistakes: I made more than my fair share for 900 drunk hands last night. This will be the last time I am waking up in the morning beating my self up for how terribly I played after coming back from the bar with some of the Dynastiers. Never doing the drunk cash-game thing again.

Also, Christmas is coming up. So, make sure you guys recognize who is important in your life and take care of them. Remember, for many people, especially family, there is nothing material that can replace the love and affection that one can provide.

.....there are a pair of Maui Jims I am praying for tho. LOL. I have seen Denis Leary wearing these for two seasons on his FX series, "Rescue Me" and I have wanted them since. Well I found 'em!

Wanna Make Noise...

..Make Noise.

So, who am I? What's my mother fuckin name? For a while the answer to this question was simple. I dunno. Since I graduated high school, I have worked as a pizza delivery driver, a insurance agent, worked at a car shop, and managed a deli in a supermarket.

All the meanwhile, I have my parents constantly hounding me to finish school, I have my own personal desire for success, and I am still juggling the responsibilities that come with being a home owner and a student. It will be very hard for me to go to school full-time and keep the lights on at the house.

If only there was a way for me to make $20 a hour and enjoy my job....

Oh wait, I forgot that I am the uber-sickness when it comes to cash games. Yea, I still make some mistakes and my game is still ever evolving but I have still been successful when it comes to maintaining a bankroll. I analyzed my game until I was able to go from just being a slight winner to being able to move up in stakes and make more money than I ever have.

So this is my situation right now, I have over two-grand on Full Tilt Poker and have been grinding 50NL daily. These games are incredible and the differences between 25NL is insurmountable. These players seem to "play" more poker but are worse at it than they would like to believe. I am running across more aggressive players, who are not necessarily better than the fish. They like to bluff and play back at me in spots that I have found to be very profitable for me.

The density of fish at this level also seems adequate with one main difference: They seem to like felting more. I do not know if this is just something that variance is throwing at me but I notice these idiots like to get in preflop and post flop much more readily than the nits at 25nl.

Of course, we all now that 'shit does stink'. When you gamble for a living, you go trudging through feces on a regular basis, yet there are steps that one can take to make sure they stay smelling Rosy. These can range from maintaining a proper mind state, playing fully rolled, and making sure that every players maintains the desire to analyze holes in his/her game.

Among these precautions, the most important one is often over looked and never talked out. Offline savings and money spending habits. I have more than enough online at this point, but after a enlightening conversation with Mr.Flamm, I realized why I am not comfortable yet quiting all my day jobs. I have a 1/4 of the offline savings that I need (based on having 3 months of living expenses saved) and that is not sufficient when it comes to a professional poker player. I will not always be able to withdraw from my roll whenever I would like.

All in all, life is great. I am making money now. I have a great outlook on life and am ready to finish school. I am still working 3 days a week at Dominos, just to save up money offline. For another three-four weeks, I am going to be grinding professionally and driving for 'insurance'. I am going to continue feed my input into Poker Dynasty and as soon as time allows it, I will regularly be making videos and reaching out to members of Dynasty and readers of my blog and supporting them with my knowledge.

Fly by it-

The Short Boring Explanation...


Things That I Know:

-I don't want to work while I am in school.

-I need to save up money and get better at saving it.

-I can do anything.
Most of the people in this world are not mentally, intellectually, or physically on the same level as I am.

I wanna be a Billionaire.

Things I am doing now:

-Working 7 days-a-week.
-Keeping a good mental mindset and outlook on life.
-Saving up mad dough.


All this is to "artificially inflate" my bankroll. I wanna fly by 50NL and say "fuck it, I am just going right to 100NL." This way, by the next school semester, I can play professionally and focus on the schooling that needs to be done.

That is what I am doing right now. Obviously, I am tired and, sometimes, the last thing I wanna do is stare at my computer after working all day.

A King and A Jack

...walk into a bar.

Eh, it is never any fun when it is just two guys at the bar. Still have to wait in line for drinks. If it is crowded, you are lucky if you don't lose your friend. And if the King happens to find a Queen- the Jack get screwed. (eh, maybe the other way around).

Wait, what am I talking about...

I am talking about playing dominated hands. When I use the term dominated, I am referring to the situation in which you are playing a hand that can easily make the second best 1 or 2 pair hand.

Hands like QJ, KQ, QT, AT, AJ, an etc. are all dominated by there counterparts.

Now, in a game as positional as NLHE, we can use position to extract profit from dominated hands while trying to keep the hands that have us dominated at bay.

Regardless, playing any of the dominated hands out-of-position is not easy. What happens when we flop top-pair with JT? In our raised pot, we continuation bet most of the time. If get played back at, we cannot move on without a dead read. It even becomes worse when they just call and we are forced to check/evaluate one or two more streets, in general. (We should be making out decisions on the turn, imo)

I think situations similar to the one above are huge leaks in many players games because the player with the weaker hand will generally be inclined to call value bets by better hands.

Well, what if we have position? Then everything changes and we can do almost whatever we want. When we have QJ on the button and someone raises in early or middle position, we have the advantage of calling and evaluating our opponents hand strengths. When we have an idea on how broad of a range any particular player can have, we can start to playback at them appropriately.

Granted, I had a good read on this opponent, this is a example of how this can be applied.

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 6 Players - (LegoPoker Hand History Converter)

SB: $40.15
BB: $8.50
UTG: $25.90
MP: $75.90
CO: $25.00
Mo D (BTN): $24.55
Preflop: Mo D is dealt (6 Players)
UTG raises to $0.85, 2 folds, Mo D calls $0.85, 2 folds

Flop: ($2.05) (2 Players)

UTG bets $1.70, Mo D raises to $6.00, UTG folds

Uncalled bet of $4.30 returned to Mo D

Pot Size: $5.45 ($0.25 Rake)


Now, had we decided to 3bet this UTG raiser and he cold-calls. When the flop comes and he leads, we probably can't do this because his range raising UTG should be pretty tight and if he is calling 3bets OOP we can definitely subtract most of the hands from his range.

So, long in short, when you have position, it is often better to call instead of 3bet with dominated hands, even if they are suited. This is not to say, you should not mix up your game and confuse your opponents but learning to play your position will open up more lanes for you to expand your game. It will help you improve your hand reading skills because you will be able to showdown more often and you can take pots away at the proper times.

Random News

Gotta post something today...

This makes me not want to leave my house, especially since I live next to USF.

http://www.dogflu.ca/09242007/19/usf_student_dies_from_bacterial_meningitis